After being voted favorite male artist at the People’s Choice Awards last month, during his acceptance speech Keith Urban showed why the people love him. Speaking of his music the star said: “I don’t even care if you download it illegally, give it to your friends, I really don’t care.” Just a month later he says he didn’t mean that at all.
Install0us is an application used by iPhone users to browse, download and install millions of pirated applications. After becoming uneasy over its legal status, its creator has taken advice from a lawyer. The conclusion is that the risk is too great and development of the software will stop. Of course, others already have plans to fill the gap.
The Finnish record label Lion Music has announced that it will not sign any new musicians until politicians have managed to stop piracy. Illegal downloading is killing music, they say, and the label has rallied up its rock stars to spread the word.
A whole new and exciting year lies ahead of us, so this is an opportune time for some BitTorrent predictions for 2010. On the upside, video streaming sites will begin experimenting with BitTorrent. One of the negatives is that a major BitTorrent client will be sued by the entertainment industry for assisting copyright infringement.
The Pirate Bay is one of the longest-standing BitTorrent sites. The former BitTorrent tracker recently celebrated its 6th birthday, and this Christmas they bring back the good old days by reverting to their old layout. The frontpage now has a classic look and is Swedish only.
In 2005, Mongo56 was a household name in the BitTorrent community. Much to the disappointment of hundreds and thousands of users, the site collapsed under its own success and the DDoS attacks that accompanied it. But now, nearly 4 years later, the brand name has resurfaced.
Promoted by The Pirate Bay, isoHunt and many other file-sharing sites, the novel film distribution platform VODO presents its latest release, The Lionshare. The film centers around a fictitious BitTorrent site called The Lionshare, so distributing it through BitTorrent is only natural.
The Pirate Party’s Christian Engstrom is already making waves in the European Parliament. After his hard work on the Telecoms Package amendment he’s now working to set up an Internet Bill of Rights, attempting to codify some of the core beliefs of the Pirate Party. To achieve this he wants your help.
Zombieland co-writer Rhett Reese was shocked when he discovered more than a million people had downloaded his movie illegally on BitTorrent. The Hollywood writer has now penned yet another horror scenario, claiming that this achievement could very well prevent a sequel to the successful movie from being made.
Hollywood often complains about the billions of dollars allegedly lost due to piracy. Indie film makers, on the other hand, tend to welcome the free buzz generated when their film is pirated. The makers of Ink belong to this latter group, and are thanking the hundreds and thousands of people who downloaded their movie on BitTorrent.
The Motion Picture Association has sent one of its big shot lobbyists to New Zealand to advocate tougher anti-piracy legislation, and to promote a propagandistic comic book set be handed out to thousands of local kids. Interestingly, the comic doesn’t touch the subject of copyright. Instead it uses false threats to scare children and parents about the dangers of file-sharing.
