TorrentFreak

Miramax CEO Mike Lang and Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos gave a keynote talk at the MIPCOM conference. The two discussed the challenges they face in the continuously changing digital world. Both agreed that piracy is not much of an issue as long as you give consumers what they want. Digital monopolies, such as Apple’s dominance in the music industry, are a far bigger threat.

Most people are familiar with Apple’s Mac vs. PC advertising campaign that ran from 2006 to 2010. However, there’s a BitTorrent spin-off to this series of ads that, until today, hasn’t seen the light of day. Produced a few years ago for BitTorrent Inc, the BitTorrent vs. iTunes campaign shows BitTorrent’s superiority of Apple’s iTunes store.

According to an announcement by one of the leading lights in the iOS jailbreaking scene, he’s off to do some work for Apple. Via his Twitter account Nicholas Allegra, aka Comex, last night said: “So, the week after next I will be starting an internship with Apple.” Part of the iPhone Dev Team, Comex rose [...]

Apple’s iTunes is being sued by Korvel Sutton, a member of the former rap group Pretty Boy Gangsters. The lawsuit filed at the U.S. District Court in California lists ten compilation albums being sold through iTunes that include copyrighted tracks from Pretty Boy Gangsters. All tracks are being sold without Sutton’s permission and to date he has received no compensation or royalties.

A hacker working on a jailbreak for Apple’s upcoming iOS 5 says he is considering introducing a very controversial feature. Stefan Esser, known online as i0n1c, says the idea of installing his own DRM in order to block pirate apps is going “ping pong” in his head. The team behind Installous, the world’s largest cracked app repository, informs TorrentFreak this is a very bad idea.

Apple is known for its total ban of everything related to BitTorrent. According to the company torrents are associated with copyright infringement, something they want to distance themselves from. Having read the above, it is very interesting to say the least that Apple’s flagship iTunes is now being linked to piracy as well. The BBC [...]

Last year, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users were delighted to learn that VLC media player had become available for their device via the App Store. But now, thanks to a licensing and copyright dispute, that particular party has been cut short and the software pulled offline. Bizarrely, the only way people can get this free and open source software now is to pirate it. You couldn’t make it up.