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‘piracy’ Stories

File sharing drones are already a reality

, Mar 21st 2012 Discuss [4]

When we first heard that The Pirate Bay were planning to host the torrent magnet site in the sky via wireless drones, we were more than a little skeptical. As it turns out, the technology is certainly possible. TorrentFreak reports on Project “Electronic Countermeasures”, which has built five fully functioning drones capable of node sharing similar to what The Pirate Bay had in mind. Read The Full Story

Pirate Bay Torrent drones could soar over piracy rules

, Mar 20th 2012 Discuss [0]

High-profile torrent site The Pirate Bay has threatened to take its content to the skies, with the perhaps tongue-in-cheek suggestion of GPS-controlled wireless drones that could automatically host nodes. The site's odd suggestion is using low-power, compact computers like Raspberry Pi, guided by GPS and connected using cheap wireless systems, floated "some kilometers" so that takedowns will need to involve physical destruction by planes. Read The Full Story

Anonymous reveals Cybersecurity Act of 2012

, Feb 22nd 2012 Discuss [91]

This week it appears that the NSA has brought forth warnings of the hacker group Anonymous' ability to take down the power grid at a most opportune time, according to none other than Anonymous. While earlier this week it was warned by the NSA that Anonymous might be targeting the US power grid, the hacker group has noted that they'd do no such thing, as "there are ppl on life support/other vital services that rely on it." In addition, the group has brought attention today to a new bill that's looking to get passed in the first part of the year: the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Read The Full Story

Piracy Agreement ACTA faces EU’s highest court

, Feb 22nd 2012 Discuss [0]

This week the act known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been pushed before the European Union's highest court where it will face scrutiny by law. This move has been described by EU trade head Karel De Gucht as a question by the court that will clarify whether the treaty was able to comply with "the EU's fundamental rights and freedoms." What we know so far of the ACTA, for those of you following along, is that its a multi-nation agreement currently being signed (or protested against) after its initial negotiation excluded civil society groups, developing countries, and the general public on the whole. Read The Full Story

German police raid Skyload.net and arrest owner

, Feb 22nd 2012 Discuss [0]

This is not a good time to own a file sharing site with any ties to piracy. German police recently shut down another European file hosting site called Skyload.net. In the raid, the alleged owner of the website was arrested along with a person who is said to have provided hosting services to the site. Apparently, the arrests are tied to an ongoing effort to capture everybody associated with Kino.to and shut down any site that is related to the movie streaming portal. Read The Full Story

Megaupload founder bailed out

, Feb 22nd 2012 Discuss [0]

MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom has been finally granted bail by New Zealand courts, after a court decided the outspoken internet activist lacked sufficient funds to flee the country and avoid extradition to face US charges. Still, while District Court Judge Nevin Dawson deemed Dotcom safe enough to be released from jail, he also imposed some stringent limitations, 3 News reports, including no access to the internet, an electronic ankle bracelet and a block on helicopters onto the property where he is staying. Read The Full Story

Reddit storm imminent after UK Pirate Bay judgement

, Feb 20th 2012 Discuss [4]

This week the British High Court has ruled that The Pirate Bay website and its users have been and continue to engage in “large-scale copyright infringement”, this very possibly leading to a requirement that UK internet providers ban the site outright soon. Should your website “actively promote copyright infringement” you may be facing the same fate in the near future as so-called piracy continues to be an issue throughout the western world amid crackdowns on sites such as Megaupload for uploading and sharing media illegally.

Read The Full Story

The Pirate Bay faces UK ISP ban

, Feb 20th 2012 Discuss [4]

Filesharing hub The Pirate Bay could face an all-out ban in the UK, with a High Court judge ruling that the site is responsible for large scale copyright theft. "In my judgement, [The Pirate Bay] do authorise its users' infringing acts of copying and communication to the public" Justice Arnold summarized today, The Guardian reports. "They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting ... I conclude that both users and the operators of [The Pirate Bay] infringe the copyrights of the claimants … in the UK." Read The Full Story

Megaupload co-founder bailed, Dotcom trial date soon

, Feb 15th 2012 Discuss [0]

This week the co-founder of Megaupload, Mathias Ortmann has been freed on bail after his arrest along with the rest of the Megaupload inner circle nearly a month ago. Ortmann's trial date was supposed to have taken place on the 26th of January but his own estimates on his finances did not match up with cash earned from basic Megaupload funds between 2005 and 2011 - while he noted he's made $17.5 million from the service over the past 6 years, he'd had $3.5 million more than that completely unaccounted for. This morning it appears that they've been able to explain the discrepancy because Ortmann has been released on bail. Read The Full Story

Piracy study suggests US Box Office completely unaffected by Torrents

, Feb 10th 2012 Discuss [4]

There's a brand new study being pushed at the moment which suggests that there's no evidence that Torrent piracy affects US Box Office returns. In addition the only discernible link found in this paper published by the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College was in potential sales cut down by users downloading films in the time between their US and international release. What these two points suggest is that if BitTorrent were the only way people were able to download movies, it would essentially be solely on the shoulders of the film industry to change their ways to stopper up piracy, not any type of government-made law. Read The Full Story

MegaUpload’s takedown by the numbers

, Feb 9th 2012 Discuss [0]

Believe it or not, it was and is possible to track the traffic that MegaUpload and the rest of the piracy-laden file-sharing groups out there have compared to the rest of the web. A series of studies have been conducted by a few sources we're checking out today and the results are staggering, depending on how you look at it, with the first giant being the one hour following the January 19th raid of MegaUpload. In that one hour, the entirety of the Internet lost between 2 and 3 precent of its total volume in traffic. Read The Full Story

SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up: February 6, 2012

, Feb 6th 2012 Discuss [1]

There's been a bit of furor over the most recent of our ever-so-loved legal battles that you'll all love to hear: Motorola has demanded 2.25% of Apple's sales for use of their 3G patent. Have a heart and listen to Don Reisinger as he sees the future in the Microsoft Kinect as the Next Big Thing even though it's been out for quite a while. Meanwhile note how the US government is saying that cyber-crime will soon overtake terrorism as a top threat - you've got their attention now, folks! Read The Full Story
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