TorrentFreak

So, this week saw the VIP premiere of Justin Bieber’s new 3D movie, Never Say Never. Unfortunately the glittering event appears to have been overshadowed by countless teenagers who have the nerve to describe themselves as hardcore fans, but are in fact little more than federal criminals who deserve at least 3 years in jail. I blame the parents, and I’m not the only one.

Bestselling author Neil Gaiman – author of awarded science fiction and fantasy short stories, novels, comic books and more – makes a case for piracy in a recent interview with ORG Zine. Initially Gaiman got annoyed by people who put his stuff online for free, but later he realized that it’s actually the best promotion [...]

“Don’t Make Me Steal” is a digital media consumption manifesto that claims to pinpoint what drives modern consumers to download movies using BitTorrent. It demands drastic changes from the entertainment industry, offering a promise not to download movies without consent from the copyright holders ever again. What a brilliant idea, this will change things, surely? [...]

The 2011 Oscar nominees were announced earlier this week, inspiring many people to fire up their BitTorrent clients and start downloading. As we’ve done in previous years, we now take a look at the availability of the nominated films online and whether there are any new trends emrging. This year, fewer high quality copies leaked online and pirates had to wait longer than in previous years for those that did.

For years The Pirate Bay has been a thorn in the side of the music industry, but things could be about to take a turn for the worse. Over the past days rumors of a new project titled “The Music Bay” have been circling, and now a Pirate Bay insider has just confirmed to TorrentFreak that the major record labels have good reason to be afraid, very afraid.

After years of hard work we decided to go for a new look here at TorrentFreak. Today we’re presenting you TorrentFreak version 5, the first real update of our design in 4 years. There will be plenty of bugs and complaints, so please bear with us.

Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN managed to pull one of the largest warez scene topsites offline yesterday. The servers of Swan, formerly known as ATS, were unplugged by their hosting provider WorldStream. The provider acted based on evidence provided by BREIN, and also handed over the servers to this private outfit. The police were not involved in the takedown, but instead it was the result of information allegedly provided to BREIN by a rogue member.