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.
The Pirate Bay has been portrayed by Hollywood as the enemy of everything that’s creative. They say the site is the death knell of the entertainment industry, causing hundreds and thousands of people to lose their jobs. Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay is helping out yet another indie artist to promote her work.
Every single day millions of ‘pirates’ all around the world gather on BitTorrent, but one day in September is extra special. Avast mateys, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day so wear your eye patches and Arrr like you’ve never Arrred before.
In the past weeks the Pirate Bay has been ripped, copied and rebuilt by avid file-sharers, guaranteeing that the site’s legacy will be preserved no matter what. The people behind the Kiosk of Piracy take this trend to a whole new level as they have created an offline copy of the site which is open to the public.
Back in June, TorrentFreak reported that major online music release group DV8 had been severely disrupted after a police and music industry investigation led to arrests. Aside from an IFPI press release a few days later confirming our reports, little news has surfaced. Today we can report that there have been further arrests.
Henrik Pontén, lawyer for Sweden’s Anti-Piracy Bureau (Antipiratbyrån), is celebrating following the seizure of a server containing around 10,000 movies. He is describing the haul as the biggest ever in Sweden’s history, probably the largest in Europe, and set to disrupt supplies to The Pirate Bay.
The end of the Pirate Bay is nearing. Even if the deal with GGF doesn’t go through the current owners are likely to sell to one of the other interested parties. For many BitTorrent fans this means that they have to find an alternative. Luckily there are plenty of good ones out there.
In just a few days The Pirate Bay will be passed onto its new owners, marking the end of an era but not the end of BitTorrent. The nostalgic torrenters among us might want to download a copy of the site for archival purposes. It never hurts to have a backup of important data in place, especially when it’s free.
Tim Kuik, head of Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN, had a brief encounter with Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm (Anakata) on Friday. The two met at Hacking at Random, an outdoor hacker conference that currently takes place in The Netherlands, where Kuik took part in one of the panel discussions.
