Piracy

Law enforcement agencies around the world are taking steps to prevent the illegal distribution of copyright-protected materials through file-sharing sites like The Pirate Bay . However, new research from the Netherlands shows that illegal ... downloading has actually increased since that country took steps to block access to the controversial Sweden-based site. Back in 2012, Dutch courts ruled that Internet Service Providers in the Netherlands must make an attempt to block all access to The Pirate Bay. Those courts based their decision on reports indicating that over 90 per cent of the material ... (view more)

The Pirate Bay, which is arguably the world's most controversial site, has introduced its very own Internet browser. Setting this browser apart from rivals like Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox: one-click features that allow users ... to avoid censorship. Sweden-based The Pirate Bay provides users with access to torrent files and facilitates peer-to-peer file sharing. Since it was founded a decade ago, The Pirate Bay has often been accused of helping users exchange copyright-protected material -- such as music, movies, and TV shows -- illegally. The Pirate Bay has also faced a ... (view more)

One of The Pirate Bay's founders has been sentenced to two years in prison in his native Sweden. Gottfriend Svartholm Warg was convicted of multiple data intrusions, aggravated fraud, and attempted aggravated fraud. The verdict was handed down in ... Sweden's Nacka District Court late last week. It's worth noting that the two-year sentence was not related to Warg's activity as a co-founder of controversial filesharing site The Pirate Bay . Instead, the convictions are related to Warg's role in several hacking operations. IT Services Firms, Banks Targeted One of those operations involved the ... (view more)

One of the world's largest hosting providers has deleted more than 600 servers with links to controversial filesharing service Megaupload. The action has caused Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom to angrily lash out at the company responsible. LeaseWeb, ... which is based in Europe, provides a wide range of hosted infrastructure features, including dedicated server hosting and cloud storage options. LeaseWeb previously leased more than 600 servers to Megaupload, a filesharing site owned and operated by New Zealand's Kim Dotcom. Megaupload has been at the center of a legal firestorm since last year, ... (view more)

Megaupload's lawyers say that the United States Department of Justice's copyright infringement charges represent "prosecutorial overreach" and have no basis in U.S. law. The site's legal team made that argument in a white paper released to the media ... on Tuesday. According to that white paper, the Department of Justice is pursuing its case against Megaupload and site founder Kim Dotcom on a "theory" that the accused participated in criminal secondary copyright infringement. However, there's no basis for such an argument in U.S. criminal law. Secondary Copyright Infringement Not A Crime, Lawyers ... (view more)

A new study shows that, despite facing a constant barrage of legal challenges, The Pirate Bay is now the world's most popular torrent site. The traffic report comes from torrent industry tracking blog TorrentFreak. After using "several traffic ... comparison and analytic tools," including Alexa and Compete, TorrentFreak put together a list of the most popular torrent sites on the web. The Pirate Bay Withstands Legal Onslaught Sitting in first place: Sweden-based The Pirate Bay. According to TorrentFreak, the site's Alexa rank is 75. (Alexa ranks site traffic by using information gleaned from ... (view more)

A court in the United Kingdom has ordered all Internet Service Providers there to stop providing subscribers access to three well-known file-sharing (or 'torrent') sites, including Kickass Torrents, H33T, and Fenopy. Citing piracy concerns, the UK ... High Court ordered every single Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the United Kingdom to stop providing access to the aforementioned torrent sites. It's certainly a more direct approach than that taken by anti-piracy groups in the United States, which recently unveiled a 'Six Strikes' strategy. ISPs Demand, and Receive, Court Order The ruling ... (view more)

A new anti-piracy program, which gives users six warnings for suspected violations, has now taken effect. However, some experts worry that the program will have little effect on Internet piracy. The plan is the work of the Center for Copyright ... Information, a partnership of the major US industry associations in television, movies, and music. The group has reached a deal with the five largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including AT ... (view more)

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade organization which represents the interests of U.S. recording industry distributors, says that Google isn't doing enough to prevent copyright infringement and piracy. In a recent report, ... the RIAA claims that Google has done very little to prevent people from pirating music -- despite the fact that the search giant promised to focus significant attention on discouraging piracy roughly six months ago. RIAA: Promises Remain Unfulfilled And while RIAA lawyer Steven M. Marks says that the RIAA does "recognize and appreciate that Google ... (view more)

Kim Dotcom, founder of file-sharing site Megaupload and the new, allegedly legal 'Mega', has thrown down a challenge to hackers. Dotcom says he'll give any hacker who can crack Mega's code a reward of 10,000 euros. Dotcom is the embattled founder of ... Megaupload, a controversial file-sharing site accused of encouraging users to swap copyright-protected files without authorization. In recent weeks he's started a new site , Mega, which he says is completely legal and discourages the unauthorized sharing of copyright-protected materials. Mega Hype Surrounding 'Mega' Given Dotcom's global ... (view more)