However, there is another less visible problem that cropped up in recent months. Increasingly, streaming portals with a focus on the latest pirated copies and TV-shows are using Google as a source.

A German anti-piracy outfit has identified more than 18,000 pirated videos that are featured on more than a dozen large sites. All these streaming sites use the same movie sources without charge, and the bandwidth bill goes to Google.

The list of sites includes Movie4k.to, hdmoviezone.net, viooc.co, viooz.be, viooz.cc, vioozmovies.me, watch32.com, putlocker.bz, putocker.to, putlocker.tw, megashare.info, megashare.sh, megashare.ca, afdah.com, yify.tv, watch32.com.

Together these streaming portals are good for several million daily visitors, which means that Google must be seeing a lot of traffic originating from these sites. The screenshot below shows a copy of The Wolf of Wall Street on YIFY.tv, available in several video qualities and with subtitles if needed.

It’s unclear where the videos are hosted, but the URL above shows the googlevideo.com domain. In addition, it includes a “source=picasa” string, suggesting Google’s image hosting service has something to do with it.

While the site owners are benefiting from the free storage, copyright holders are less excited. A German media outfit, which remains unnamed, reportedly sent requests to Google last month hoping to take down the files, but without success.

Since the files remain online, the lawyers of the media company have now applied for an injunction against Google at a local court.

Two weeks ago Warner Bros. also asked Google to remove several of these URLs from its search engine. These requests were denied, most likely because the videos can’t be accessed directly through the link Warner provided.

In a comment to TorrentFreak, Google stresses that users are not permitted to distribute copyrighted content without permission. The company is actively trying to stop these kinds of abuses and also responds swiftly to takedown notices.

“Use of Google platforms to host infringing materials is a violation of our terms of use, and we design features into our systems to make them unattractive for this kind of abuse,” a Google spokesperson told TF.

“We also respond quickly to disable access to any materials on our platforms identified to us by copyright owners as infringing,” Google adds.

Why the thousands of Google-hosted videos on these streaming portals remain online is unclear. It could be that Google indeed removed the files in question, but that they were re-uploaded. Another possibility is that the copyright holder didn’t correctly identify the source file, as Warner Bros’ takedown notice suggests.

One of the additional problems copyright holders face is that the URLs of the videos are harder to identify. Automated takedown tools can’t easily spot where the files are coming from, which makes it more complicated to send takedown requests.

It will be interesting to see how this issue will be dealt with in the future. It’s clear that neither Google not the copyright holders are happy with the current situation. For now, the only ones benefiting are the streaming portals and their millions of users.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Sharing giants such as The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents, isoHunt, 1337x and waves of file-hosting sites have been blocked in previous actions, with 27 targeted in a single sweep during April 2013, the largest ever of its type.

Now authorities are back with a fresh action on a previously unseen scale. The initiative, which targets 46 torrent, streaming and other file-sharing portals, was ordered by the Public Prosecutor of Rome.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Fulvio Sarzana, a lawyer with the Sarzana and Partners law firm specializing in Internet and copyright disputes, says the operation is the largest ever seen in Italy and will see dozens of sites blocked at the ISP level.

“The domains of sites linking to torrent files, in order to download illegal copies of music and movie, have been seized today as ordered by Preliminary investigation Judge of Rome, at the request of the public prosecutor,” Sarzana explains.

“Both the DNS addresses of the sites and their domain name have been made inaccessible to Italian users by all Italian ISPs, in such a way to deprive users of the possibility to access their files hosted in the sites.”

The blocking will be carried out on the orders of the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), a department under Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance tasked with dealing with financial crime, and will cover sites including mondotorrent, dopinatorrent, truepirates, filmxtutti, casacinema, watchfreemovies.ch and universfilms.

Interestingly, Sarzana adds that the case could have a novel twist, in that the police carried out the action on their own initiative.

“At present it seems that the action wasn’t carried out at the request of copyright owners associations,” the lawyer explains.

TF spoke with Enzo Mazzo of music industry group FIMI who confirmed that while there is yet no public announcement on the action, it was indeed carried out by the Fiscal Police from Rome with an order from the Public Prosecutor.

“We obviously appreciate the action carried out by the Fiscal Police following the blocking strategy,” Mazzo said.

This huge sweep is of particular interest when one considers that a controversial new process to more easily block allegedly infringing sites is not yet in force. Dubbed Italy’s ‘SOPA’, the framework – set for April introduction – will see the domains of sites blocked at the ISP level if they fail to remove infringing content in a timely fashion.

Meanwhile, across Europe in Spain, three of the country’s largest sites have bowed to rightsholder pressure and agreed to stop linking to infringing content. According to THR, SeriesYonkis, Peliculas Yonkis and VideoYonkis stopped linking over the weekend as part of negotiations in their legal dispute with Spain’s Anti-Piracy Federation (FAP).

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The general consensus of those rallying against the site was that Megaupload, a site that accounted for around 4% of all Internet traffic and dominated the online storage space, cost Hollywood around $500 million during its many years of operation.

This was the big one, the U.S. Government said, the world’s most notorious file-hosting site. But unknown to them in the depths of Europe a formidable new online piracy force was waiting to be unleashed.

According to the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), a department under Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance tasked with dealing with financial crime, the damage caused to the movie industry since the portal’s launch in 2012 has been enormous.

By offering Hollywood blockbusters and first-run movies illegally, in just over 12 months the operation netted more than 240 million visits resulting in 80 million unauthorized movie viewings. According to Italy’s leading copyright protection group SIAE, the losses were incredible.

“The damage, attributable to the non-collection for the film sector, according to estimates by the SIAE, amounted to about 330 million euros [$445m], with negative consequences on employment, huge losses for the treasury and inevitable repercussions on the country’s health,” the Guardia di Finanza said.

Yesterday, the GdF ran out of patience and raided the “operational headquarters” of the organization behind this piracy behemoth, taking their cameras along for the ride. Upon viewing the footage it doesn’t take long for the gloss to come off both the headlines and the wild claims of losses.

While the video (complete with flashing lights while the supposed pirate kingpin appears to be spirited back to GdF headquarters) is particularly poor, the claims of seizures of substantial quantities of “new generation computer equipment” aren’t backed up by the content either.

But always of most concern is when sites apparently as large as these are raided but not named by the authorities. We did some digging around and armed with the information that the site’s domains were ordered to be seized, we spoke with Marco d’Itri who runs Osservatorio Censura, a site dedicated to reporting on Italian web censorship, to try and find out some names.

“It has to be Casacinemas.com,” d’Itri told TorrentFreak.

Casacinemas is indeed a movie streaming portal and the pieces all fitted together. The operation against the site (which was indeed founded in 2012) took place in Verona and the only domain seizure order coming out of Verona is for Casacinemas. GdF revealed that the site’s admin was from Moldova, and that’s where Casacinemas was hosted.

So now to the wild claims of losses – do they hold water? Frankly – no.

Casacinemas was fairly popular in Italy, currently ranked 574th most popular site in the region by Alexa, but no way was it pulling in the claimed number of visits. Making the figures even more ridiculous is that around 86% of the site’s visitors were from Italy. This means that if the police figures are to be believed, every man, woman and child in Italy separately watched at least one movie on the site in the last 12 months.

Finally, another reason for not naming the site. Despite apparently getting their man and seizing Casacinemas.com, the site remains up at Casacinemas.in, ready to cost another half a billion dollars by this time next year.

“Investigations are continuing and, at the moment, we can not rule out further developments,” GdF conclude.

Enjoy the video.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

And there are the dozens of spin-offs, using the familiar “all white background” format. One of the companies that made an ad inspired by the Get a Mac campaign is BitTorrent Inc., and interestingly enough they targeted an Apple product.

The BitTorrent vs. iTunes ads, which were never officially released to the public, emphasize how people can get higher quality content on BitTorrent at much faster speeds. They were created in 2007, before the iTunes store offered the high-definition downloads that were already commonplace on BitTorrent.

To find out more about the origin of the campaign TorrentFreak got in touch with Alvir Navin, who wrote the scripts together with Nic Birondo. Alvir, brother of BitTorrent Inc. co-founder Ashwin Navin, was working as director of content services at BitTorrent at the time.

“Back in 2007, a lot of users were complaining that iTunes downloads weren’t that fast, especially during the holiday season when the iTunes servers were taxed by the popularity of the service. So we played on the ‘Mac vs PC’ ad campaign to highlight the difference between centralized and decentralized content delivery,” Alvir told us.

“This was really just a fun project for me and a few friends that allowed us to pay homage to a few of our favorite film genres, drive home a relevant point about new methods of content delivery, and throw in a few digs about closed ecosystems,” he added.

For reasons unknown the ad campaign was never released. We recently stumbled onto it at the portfolio page of director Lucas Abel but other than that the campaign had never received any exposure.

In total three clips were produced titled “Crowd Beatdown”, “Zombies vs. Ninjas” and “Director’s Chair”. All follow the same format as the ads from the original Get a Mac campaign. The full credits listing all the people who helped create the videos are available at Lucas Abel’s website.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

(This is why some senior citizens still refer to refrigerators as “ice boxes“.)

When households in Stockholm were electrified in the first half of the last century, these distributors of cold were made obsolete. After all, what they distributed was the ability to keep food cold, and everybody could suddenly do that themselves.

This was a fairly rapid process in the cities. With the availability of the refrigerator from circa 1920, most households had their own refrigerator by the end of the 1930s. One of the city’s largest employers — distributors of cold — had been made totally obsolete by technical development.

There were many personal tragedies in this era as the icemen lost their breadwinning capacity and needed to retrain to get new jobs in a completely new field. The iceman profession had often been tough to begin with, and seeing your industry disintegrate in real-time didn’t make it any easier.

But here are a few things that didn’t happen as the ice distribution industry became obsolete:

No refrigerator owner was sued for making their own cold and ignoring the existing corporate cold distribution chains.

No laws were proposed that would make electricity companies liable in court if the electricity they provided was used in a way that destroyed icemen’s jobs.

Nobody demanded a monthly refrigerator fee from refrigerator owners that would go to the Icemen’s Union.

No lavishly expensive expert panels were held in total consensus about how necessary icemen were for the entire economy.

Rather, the distribution monopoly became obsolete, was ignored, and the economy as a whole benefited by the resulting decentralization.

We’re now seeing a repeat of this scenario, but where the distribution industry — the copyright industry — has the audacity to stand up and demand special laws and say that the economy will collapse without their unnecessary services. But we learn from history, every time, that it is good when an industry becomes obsolete. That means we have learned something important — to do things in a more efficient way. New skills and trades always appear in its wake.

The copyright industry tells us, again and again and again, that if they can’t have their obsolete distribution monopoly enshrined into law with ever-increasing penalties for ignoring it, that no culture will be produced at all. As we have seen, equally time and again, this is hogwash.

What might be true is that the copyright industry can’t produce music to the tune of one million US dollars per track. But you can’t motivate monopoly legislation based on your costs, when others are doing the same thing for much less — practically zero. There has never been as much music available as now, just because all of us love to create. It’s not something we do because of money, it’s because of who we are. We have always created.

What about movies, then? Hundred-million productions? There are examples of garage-produced movies (and one even has beat Casablanca to become the most-seen movie of all time in its native country). But it may be true that the argument is somewhat stronger with the blockbuster-type cinema productions.

I’m going go out on a limb here and say, that even if it is true that movies can’t be made the same way with the Internet and our civil liberties both in existence, then maybe it’s just the natural progression of culture.

I spend quite a bit of time with teenagers through my work with the Pirate Party. One thing that strikes me is that they don’t watch movies, at least nowhere near the quantity I did when I was a teenager. Just like I threw out my TV set 15 years ago, maybe this is just the natural progression of culture. Nobody would be surprised if we moved from monologue-style culture to dialogue- and conversation-type culture at this point in history.

After all, we have previously had operettes, ballets, and concerts as the high points of culture in the past. Even radio theaters (and famous ones). Nobody is particularly concerned that those expressions have had their peak and that society has moved on to new expressions of culture. There is no inherent value in writing today’s forms of culture into law and preventing the changes we’ve always had.

Everywhere I look, I see that the copyright monopolies need to be cut down to allow society to move on from today’s stranglehold on culture and knowledge. Teenagers today typically don’t even see the problem — they take sharing in the connected world so totally for granted, that they discard any signals to the contrary as “old-world nonsense”.

And they certainly don’t ask for a refrigerator fee.

— — —

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at http://falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.

Follow Rick Falkvinge on Twitter as @Falkvinge and on Facebook as /rickfalkvinge.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

BREIN is now reporting that it has just forced the closure of 11 Usenet-related sites with a combined membership in excess of 900,000. As usual the Netherlands based outfit has refrained from formally naming its targets on its website in order to starve them of publicity should they choose to bounce back with new hosts. However, at least eight sites – nzbkingdom.net, Twilightnzb.com, Furiousnzb.net, Shreknzb.com, Team-Casanova.com, Crosspost.nl, Cobra-team.nl and FTAClub.net – are displaying messages which indicate interference from BREIN.

According to Webwereld, Dutch Binaries Program remains up but has ceased reporting the location of unauthorized content on Usenet. Other sites listed as affected include Movie2b and D4D.

The closures come hot on the heels of BREIN’s victory against the 500,000 member FTD Usenet portal earlier this month. Although FTD didn’t host or even link to any copyrighted material, after a prolonged legal battle a court ruled that the site was illegal because just 13 FTD members from more than half a million not only reported the location of infringing files on the worldwide Usenet system, but also uploaded them there. FTD will shut down March 1st.

However, despite the overall defeat for FTD, the court proceedings showed that the site didn’t breach copyrights, that the overwhelming percentage of its users acted legally and that the ‘spotting’ (reporting the location) of copyright material is also within the law.

So, the big question is this. When BREIN waved the FTD verdict at these sites and/or their hosts in order to force closure or compliance, had they previously gathered evidence to prove that members of these sites had been uploading content to Usenet?

TorrentFreak posed this very question to BREIN boss Tim Kuik this morning but we have yet to receive a response. However, for lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet, who has intimate knowledge of the law in this area through his connections with FTD, things aren’t so cut and dried.

“BREIN is using the FTD verdict to threaten other sites into closing. Even though the verdict clearly said downloading is legal and ‘facilitating’ downloading is legal as well, BREIN is now saying that sites that provide NZB files are facilitating illegal downloading,” he explained.

“This is a gross misrepresentation of what the verdict was actually about. Unfortunately it’s typical for BREIN to present their own view rather than the facts in order to force sites offline.”

The verdict in the FTD case clarified some points of law in The Netherlands, including the legality of downloading material even if from an illegal source. The court also concluded that facilitating downloading, even when this is done from an illegal source, cannot be unlawful.

Nevertheless, when an intimidating Hollywood proxy comes knocking on your door, shutting down is clearly an option being favored by many.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Although their activities with Hadopi will be limited to monitoring and gathering evidence against file-sharers, we saw them trying to smother a lone file-sharer with their P2P-spamming technology, for which they have submitted a patent. The screenshot below shows TMG ‘DDoSing’ the BitTorrent user in question.

Just as file-sharers make their IP addresses known when they connect to file-sharing networks and other file-sharers, anti-piracy companies do the same. As can be seen from a WHOIS on the range of IP addresses shown above (91.189.104.0 – 91.189.111.255), they belong to TMG.

Now, according to a report over at Numerama, TMG have also been busy setting up fake eDonkey servers (located on IP ranges 85.159.236.252 – 85.159.236.254 and 85.159.232.81 – 85.159.232.83). To avoid connecting to fake servers, users are advised to only use those listed here.

There does, though, appear to be an even greater threat. Fake file-sharing clients running on the IP address range 193.107.240.0 to 193.107.240.22 (again registered to TMG, this time in the UK) are connecting to users and gathering data about the files they are sharing. This is exactly the sort of data that will be used to generate warning letters which could eventually lead to Internet user disconnections.

Through some clever monitoring, Peerates were able to discover some of the files that TMG are monitoring, which include TV shows such as Heroes and music by The Black Eyed Peas.

As the IP addresses used by companies such as TMG get revealed, at some point they will have to change them for new ones. Equally, as new ones are brought into service, those will too be revealed to the public and so the cat and mouse game continues.

While the savvy file-sharer will probably be able to stay ahead of the game to minimize their chances of being monitored, the casual file-sharer may not be so lucky. But after a warning or two, rest assured, they too will change their ways. Whether that will be by using a VPN or heading back to the media stores will remain to be seen.

Update: TorrentFreak reader Marcel wrote in with the following information:

You can do reverse lookups in RIPE database and since the linked whois record points out that CB1756-RIPE (Casalta Bastien) is admin-c and tech-c for the TMG network you can do a reverse lookup for this ripe handle.

82.138.70.128 – 82.138.70.191
82.138.81.0 – 82.138.81.255
82.138.74.0 – 82.138.74.127
91.189.104.0 – 91.189.111.255
193.107.240.0 – 193.107.243.255
195.191.244.0 – 195.191.245.255
193.105.197.0 – 193.105.197.255

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Seven weeks ago, the Canadian government launched the first national copyright consultation since 2001. The consultation, which has featured town hall meetings, by-invitation-only roundtables, an online discussion forum, and an open submission process, has attracted considerable interest with over 4,000 submissions to date.

While the overwhelming majority of those submissions have called for balanced reforms that would strengthen fair dealing, create a liability safe harbour for intermediaries, and link any new anti-circumvention rules to actual copyright infringement, there is reason for concern.

There are only six days left in the consultation and the thousands that have spoken out for fair copyright – the students, teachers, Internet users, software programmers, privacy advocates, librarians, and a growing number of creators – now find themselves under attack from two sides.

On one side stand well-known copyright lobby groups such as the Canadian Recording Industry Association, the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, and the Entertainment Software Alliance. These groups largely represent foreign interests and have consistently called on the Canadian government to adopt the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act as its legislative model.

They invariably claim that Canada should be embarrassed by the current state of copyright law and propose solutions that involve a combination of DMCA-style anti-circumvention rules, a three-strikes and you’re out system that could see users cut off from the Internet, and a rejection of any new flexibilities within fair dealing.

To support those positions, the groups turned out en masse for a public town hall meeting in Toronto late last month, resulting in multiple interventions from record label executives (four from Warner Music alone). Packing the room ensured that there was virtually nothing heard from education and consumer groups, many of whom could not even attend the town hall since all the tickets were scooped up in less than five days.

Standing on the other side are copyright creator groups such as Access Copyright and the American Federation of Musicians. Access Copyright opened the consultation by ominously warning its members that “users outnumber us” and claiming that the debate is dominated by people do not believe that authors should get fair compensation for digital and other reproductions of their work (so far five out of 4038 submissions have called for the elimination of copyright).

Meanwhile, the American Federation of Musicians circulated an email to creator groups calling a leaflet distributed by an opposition Member of Parliament “disgusting” since it supported stronger fair dealing. These groups are pushing for an expanded levy system and have been quick to criticize users that don’t agree or offer up alternatives.

Faced with these vocal lobbying efforts, Canadians have just a few days left to ensure that their voices are heard. The town halls and roundtables are now over. The best way to speak out is through the online submission process that takes only a few minutes to complete. Authors such as Cory Doctorow and David Collier-Brown, technology companies such as Tucows, and groups such as Project Gutenberg Canada, the Documentary Organization of Canada, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations have all already done so.

Now is the time for Canadians concerned with copyright to add their voices. Websites such as SpeakOutOnCopyright.ca, CCER.ca, Vancouver Fair Copyright, and Digitalagenda.ca provide tools to learn more about the issues and process submissions. If you already know what you want to say, simply send an email to info@copyrightconsultation.gc.ca. Once you have spoken out, tell your friends, send the submission to your local Member of Parliament, and raise awareness that the consultation deadline is Sunday, September 13th.

Many Canadians felt anger and frustration when the government introduced DMCA-style legislation in 2008. The next six days provide a great opportunity to do more than just complain. They offer the chance to help influence the next copyright bill. Don’t wait – speak out on copyright today.

—

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

“Right now, society is developing at a fantastic pace. That is immensely wonderful and everyone involved is having fun. Let us try and make it a good development,” said Johan Allgoth of the Pirate Bureau.

The cheerful spirit was not only due to the events in the first week of the trial (where the prosecution repeatedly failed to present any evidence) but also down to a supply of free champagne for all pirates in attendance.

“The Pirate Bureau operated for many years without economic resources and that was a very good way for us to work. Lately, we’ve had some money coming into the organization and we needed to put it to good use. Buying champagne for great people is definitely a good way to channel our resources, paying the poor artist another way,” Johan Allgoth told us.

The Pirate Bureau has had a busy week in Stockholm, doing their part in the performance of the Spectrial theater. Their headquarters have been located in the S23K bus, parked outside the court. From the bus they created audio visual art, published op-eds and streamed impromptu parties with everyone welcome to participate.

Anyone with an instrument could come by the bus and add their piece to a composition called “Düsseldorf versus Bochum“, a recording which was premiered at yesterday’s party. Support for the pirate movement has never been so massive as it has this week, even coming from the Stockholm police.

“Late Wednesday night, we had some problems with the police because there had been complaints about the electrical generator outside the bus being noisy. The situation was resolved in 2 seconds and the police actually said they support us. Even the very people who are to uphold law and order love The Pirate Bay, doesn’t that tell something about the absurdity of the trial?” Allgoth said.

There was also political support for the defendants. During yesterday’s party The Pirate Bay was given the Freedom Prize by Swedish Moderate Party’s youth organization. Most importantly, however, the party offered some time to relax after hours in court, or listening to and translating the trial’s audio streams for days.

Last night, artists Ollibolli, Tobias Bernstrup and Goto80 played live. On the walls were projections of the IRC channel so party-goers could see The Pirate Bay torrents being posted real-time. There was also video art made of the movies whose supposed sharing is cause for the prosecution in the trial.

As evening turned into night, brokep entered the DJ booth to keep the pirates dancing. Whether or not an anti-pirate party from the opposing side would have been successful is doubtful.

“I do not think the anti-pirates are partying tonight, I believe they are sweating. But we’d welcome them with open arms here. I think especially Henrik Pontén and Monique Wadstedt would make great additions to the party. Some of the more aggressive copyright-coterists wouldn’t fit here.”

“There are rules on how to behave, in nightclubs as well as on the Internet, and the way some of them behave they would probably be thrown out by the bouncers from the nightclub. And from the Internet.”

All in all it has been an exciting week for all the spectrial followers, most of who also actively participated. The party (more pics) was well deserved and turned out to be a great success. On Tuesday the trial will continue, and we will make sure to keep you updated on the latest developments.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Staff members at Norbits now refute these claims in a post on the weblog they recently launched. “There have been rumors that “MORRADi” has IP information on our users. This is not true. DDoS attacks don’t compromise security, it’s only the servers that are overloaded, ” they write.

In response to these “hacker” reports, several users of the tracker took their anger out on journalists who wrote about the site. Trond Bie, who writes for IT-Avisen, and commented on the case in other news outlets as well, was one of the main targets. NorBits staff have condemned these attacks, and say they will ban any users who engage in this kind of behavior.

“We condemn attacks on anyone who criticizes or speak about NorBits. We know that many have sent e-mails to public persons and journalists and we can’t emphasize clearly enough that these only are sent from a small number of our users.”

NorBits staff may have inadvertently motivated this minority, since they briefly replaced their frontpage with a caricature of Trond Bie, which they pulled from his Picasa photo album. This was meant to be a joke though, not an attack on his person, as they explain on the NorBits weblog. “When a journalist is starting to become so obsessed with a webpage that he/she writes about every little modification that is happening on it, that person must accept an humoristic response.”

The photo was removed shortly after it was posted, and for now, the Norbits domain is redirected to the website of Urospredere, an upcoming Norwegian documentary about filesharing. This documentary by Asbjørn Engedal and journalist Simon Eriksen Valvik discusses how filesharing can be made legal, the changes that are needed, and how it will all work. A good cause to support.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.