Tag Archives: piracy

This has to be one of the strangest instances in technology for the past couple of years. Antigua, a small island nation in the Caribbean, has been given the go ahead by the World Trade Organisation to operate a completely legal pirated movie website, since it was granted the right to …

The Computer Museum in Linköping has continued to expand its exhibition on the past 50 years of file sharing by showing off the first ever Pirate Bay server. It's a pretty unremarkable looking PC base case filled with simple hardware, but what it represents to the online world is huge. …

Throughout 2012 we had a lot of attacks on piracy. There was the blocking of sites like The Pirate Bay, the confiscation of a nine year old girl's laptop, porn stars going after torrent users and loads more. However despite the number of anti-piracy stories, we've also had BitTorrent Inc. …

Hackulous, a name that should resonate with owners of jail broken iPhones for its links with cracked apps, has officially closed its doors, presumably for good, with little official word as to why. As of yesterday, Hackulous went down meaning community news and updates would never be heard from again …

This is the question being asked today by Bit Torrent inc. in a new initiative to help detractors of the file sharing medium understand the true benefits, beyond those that use it to get free copies of the latest and greatest movies. With a new site called, doesbittorrentequalpiracy.com – try …

Google receives a lot of takedown requests from companies around the world. Most of these are from large movie studios that don't want torrent links to their works appearing in the search engine's results, but sometimes these groups go way overboard, requesting links to completely legitimate content be removed. Perhaps …

We might have our own digital rights to worry about, but our northern cousins across the pond have troubles of their own too. The company behind The Hurt Locker, Voltage Pictures, is once again looking to make a dime by targeting fans of its products, as it prepares to take …

We reported back in June this year about porn actor Ben Dover and how he felt because some people had illegally downloaded some of his movies, that he was entitled to recompense. While we haven't heard much since, it turns out that Mr Dover has been working behind the scenes …

Despite the fact that we've heard from ISPs, the Pirate Party and the websites themselves, that blocking torrent search sites doesn't effect the number of illegal downloads, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has called for three more sites to be blocked by UK ISPs. The three on the digital chopping …

As part of its Digital Music Index, MusicMetric has released the “largest ever public data set showing trends in music on BitTorrent,” in the UK. Unfortunately for anti-sharing lobbyist groups, it shows that despite the blocks against sites like The Pirate Bay and Newzbin 2, it doesn't make a lick …

Gottfrid Svartholm, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, who was arrested last week in Cambodia, is now set to be deported back to Sweden where he faces jail time for his involvement in the torrent search website. The Phnom Penh Post broke the news, after speaking with the …

One of the world's most strictly regulated and ethically proud torrent websites, UKNova,  has been forced to announce its imminent closure, after FACT – the UK arm of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) – serviced it with a cease and desist order. Despite full compliance from UKNova regarding …

While organisations like the MPAA and RIAA get a lot of press for lobbying governments into taking down music and movie related file sharing sites, the US authorities have been targeting a new kind of piracy as well – app piracy. In a single swipe, the US government has taken …

The Motion Picture Association of America is continuing its campaign to get the founder of streaming site TV Shack, Richard O'Dwyer, extradited to the United States to stand trial for copyright infringement. However in a leaked memo posted by TorrentFreak, it's been revealed that one of the most “challenging” aspects …

One of Europe's proponents of the controversial three strikes anti-piracy law could be set to drop it, after an announcement by French culture minister Aurelie Filipetti described it as “too expensive to justify.” Hadopi is both the name of the anti-piracy law itself and the organisation that is in charge …

A controversial ‘SkyNet' three strikes law against internet piracy in New Zealand came into force on the 1st September 2011 which has halved online piracy according to the Record Industry Association of New Zealand. From August to September 2011 when the new law took effect, the number of times the …

Acting on behalf of pornographic film producer and actor Ben Dover, Golden Eye International is preparing to send out copyright infringement notices to just under 3,000 individuals in the UK, alleging that they illegally downloaded copies of Mr Dover's movies. The purpose of the letters is to solicit cash from …

This week sees the final vote made by Members of European Parliament (MEP) on whether the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is passed or not. It's been rejected by several smaller groups – most recently the European Parliament's International Trade committee – but this is the big one. A rejection in this final …

While BT might have held off the longest in instigating the court ordered block of torrent search site The Pirate bay, it has now become one amongst many, including: Virgin, O2, Everything Everywhere and TalkTalk. The ISP did attempt to go a step further than the others, by preventing users …

While many might not bat an eye at ripping a song or favourite audio track from Youtube using one of the many conversion sites, browser add-ons or applications, Google has spoken out about the practice, in particular targeting Youtube-mp3.org with a warning. Claiming that these sort of websites break the …

When DARPA came up with the idea of an interlinked network of computers, the whole reasoning behind it was that a Soviet attack on one part of the system should not prevent communication. Now governments are putting themselves into the Soviet commander's seats to play war games. KitGuru declares, we'll …

Using the old ‘give yourself enough rope and you can inflict a great self-hanging' wisdom, the UK government decided that 100% of households will have high speed broadband by 2015. Now, according to the LSE (London School of Economics), there will be a shortfall of around $1Bn. KitGuru calculates that …

According to news reports, USA consumers may be facing a much tougher time if they want to download illegal warez online. In the states, the leading television, music and film companies are going to be working with Internet companies to police people who are downloading illegal files and media online. …

The U.S. federal forces are coming down hard on websites that are selling counterfeit and pirated products – shutting down 70 websites last week. These websites offered many goods, such as golf clothing and equipment, scarves and even rap music. The domain names have been seized by the U.S. Immigration …

KitGuru recently reported on the closure, then quick reopening of Bittorrent tracking site Pirates Bay. Another similar situation has happened this week after a long drawn out court case against popular newsgroup search provider Newzbin. After many months battling against the authorities Newzbin finally closed their doors, linking out to …