Jesse Alexander, the executive producer of the popular TV-shows ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’ and Matt Mason, author of ‘The Pirate’s Dilemma’, are working on a new TV-show about piracy. The show will be based on Matt’s book, and will show how important pirates are for today’s society.

att recently told us that he has been working on turning the book into a TV show with Jesse Alexander, the Executive Producer of the popular TV-shows Heroes and Lost.

“It all happened a few months back when I was in LA talking to Disney, Matt told TorrentFreak, adding “We are trying to get this made into a 13-part TV show.”

The upcoming show aims to educate people about the history of piracy, and how it shapes our future. Pirates are innovators, they signal market problems and lead the way to new business models. Nevertheless, they are often tagged as thieves.

In many cases, piracy is helping old businesses to innovate, and it helps to create new legitimate market spaces. Read more »

In the first conviction of a file-sharer in the country, Portuguese authorities have handed down a harsh sentence of 90 days imprisonment in order to “set an example”. The unnamed individual faced court after the Portuguese version of the RIAA issued a complaint about unauthorized uploading.

It seems that every country around Europe has its own ways of dealing with file-sharers. In the UK these days it’s customary to send out educational warnings, but in the past borderline extortion letters seemed in order, depending on the mood of the day.

Downloading has been tolerated in the Netherlands but France would like to disconnect persistent file-sharers from the Internet.

Another day sees another country’s interpretation of the law when it comes to dealing with file-sharers, this time from sunny Portugal. Following a complaint from the Portuguese version of the RIAA, a court in Portimão has handed down a severe sentence in the country’s first ever case involving a file-sharer.

One incredibly unlucky individual has been sentenced to 90 days in jail for uploading music on P2P networks, with the severity of punishment decided upon “to set an example”.

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If Rodney Dangerfield were to have left this world prior to BitTorrent’s debut, I suspect it might be plausible to assume the man had been reincarnated to consist of code and a mission to peer. Or something less ridiculous sounding, maybe.

BitTorrent is hardly the technical target of governments and copyright-owning corporations and ISPs. But it has played the victim of their data filtration and server disconnection exercises again and again, and to ill effect.

Just this past week a story by TorrentFreak emerged describing Malaysia’s government as playing part to suspensions of BitTorrent trackers hosted within the country’s jurisdiction. BitTorrent truly gets no respect. At least among authorities and big business groups.

You have of course heard these lines repeatedly. To exhaustive degree, I’m sure. Yes, these stories have surfaced far too often for most anybody’s liking. Even some of those doing the shafting aren’t likely to enjoy a number of their actions’ aftereffects. Read more »

Reports are coming in that the government in Malaysia has ordered the immediate suspension of all BitTorrent trackers hosted in the country. In a shock move, the government – citing the ‘Copyright Act 1987′ has ordered hosts to suspend servers that host BitTorrent sites, pending an investigation. Many sites are currently offline.

+When BitTorrent sites get into legal trouble or other pressures force a move to a new location, the speculation begins on the safest place to go.

For instance, would a site bail out of the Netherlands and move to Canada? Is Canada too dangerous now, and would a move to Sweden be more appropriate? What about moving to Ukraine-based hosting like Demonoid or further afield – China or Russia maybe? Inevitably, discussions usually involve ideas of moving sites east, to countries like Malaysia.

Fairly high-tech countries like this seem an attractive proposition, particularly given their government’s track-record in failing to do much about piracy.

Given this background, BitTorrent tracker admins with their sites hosted in Malaysia were confronted by a very unpleasant surprise today.

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Net neutrality has divided the P2P landscape in recent months. There are companies like Pando that align themselves with ISPs, favoring technical solutions over regulation.

There are others like Vuze and Miro that fight for net neutrality. And then there is Bittorrent Inc, flip-flopping in a way that makes (insert your least favorite politician here) look like a straight talker.

Bittorrent president Ashwin Navin repeatedly told the press that his comany doesn’t see any reason for the government to interfere with ISP’s business decisions on the height of the Comcast Bittorrent scandal last year. Here’s what Navin told me during an interview last December:

“Where competitive forces are alive and well, and I believe they are here in the United States, I believe the ISPs will upgrade their networks to accommodate this usage pattern” Read more »

The six individuals who are arrested for allegedly sharing music on the OiNK BitTorrent tracker, are due to report to police at the start of July. The five men and one woman, who are suspected of conspiring to defraud the music industry, will have their bail extended. Unsurprisingly, the police need more time to make their case.

On Friday 23rd May, three people were arrested by police, followed by another three on Wednesday 28th May. All six – five men aged between 19 and 33 and a 28-year-old woman – were arrested in the UK on suspicion of “Conspiracy to Defraud the Music Industry”, and other copyright offenses.

It is alleged that the individuals were users of OiNK who uploaded music to other users in advance of its commercial release date.

Suspects were taken to their local police station for questioning and required to provide DNA samples and fingerprints. Sources close to those arrested confirm that most accusations relate to the uploading of a single album by each suspect but despite the fact that uploading music is not a crime in the UK if done for no profit, somehow this civil issue had been transformed into allegations of serious crime, with police paying close attention to donations the suspects made to the site, presumably in an effort to find some financial motive.

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There have been quite a few attempts to sell Bittorrent-optimized set top boxes and media PCs, ranging from obscure vaporware cleverly marketed products from previously unknown companies to brand-name collaborations based on failed content platforms.

And now there’s the Vuzebox, which is essentially a really well-equipped Home Theater PC that runs Vuze on Linux out of the box. It features an Intel Dual Core 2 GHz processor, 1 GB of Ram, a couple hundred gigs HD space and a bunch of outputs including HDMI, but no Wifi (ouch!). The whole thing costs 600 bucks and apparently is available now.

For the record: The Vuzebox makers are not affiliated with Vuze, which makes this a pretty bad name choice that probably won’t last too long. And the price is a little steep, compared to what you can do with a hacked Apple TV. But hey, you can always try to get a deal: The Vuzebox web order form allows you to submit your “best offer” …

They are quite rare events but on occasion, artists actually encourage fans to share their music online. Singer Joss Stone has no problem doing so at all. In fact, after a recent concert in Argentina she said that piracy is “brilliant”.

Joss Stone, who won a Grammy last year, loves music, but hates the the music industry. In a recent interview she said that – unlike herself – most artists are brainwashed by the industry, and she encouraged people to share her music.

After the show a reporter asked her what she thinks of piracy, and people who download her songs off the Internet. Her response baffled the reporter, as she simply told him: “I think it’s great…”

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, the reporter probably expected to hear something else from her. “Great?,” he said.

read more | digg story

The ‘legal threats’ section of The Pirate Bay is where record labels, movie companies, software house and general anti-pirates have their complaints posted after the staff on the site have ridiculed them. A new set of complaints has appeared in the last few days – some of the most cringe-worthy ever.

When organizations and companies don’t like it that their material – be it music, movies, games or software – are indexed by a torrent site, very often they will contact the site in question and demand that the relevant .torrent files are removed. A lot of sites will remove the files but a few refuse.

Most people know that The Pirate Bay doesn’t like to remove torrents at the copyright holders request, in fact they claim they have never removed any.

Instead, when a copyright holder enters into dialogue with the staff, instead of removing the files in question the site posts the discussions up in the ‘Legal Threats’ section. Most of the discussions are entertaining to a degree, with some even extending to personal insults.

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This weeks “Most pirated TV-episodes” chart lists four shows that were leaked before the official air date: ‘Stargate Atlantis’, ‘True Blood’, ‘Life on Mars’ and ‘Do Not Disturb’. It’s PREAIR season.

This week, seven shows leaked on BitTorrent, before they actually aired on TV. Four of those made it into the top 10 of most downloaded TV-shows. Preair leaks are not uncommon, in fact, it is suggested that some shows are leaked on purpose.

The data of the weekly download chart, collected by TorrentFreak, is gathered from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

read more | digg story