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Ed Vaizey, UK Culture Minister: US Internet Service Providers "rumored" to introduce piracy related site blocking - UK should follow in their footsteps.

Speaking at the Intellect Consumer Electronics conference in London, Vaizey said that US ISP's were "rumored" to be introducing a voluntary filter that would block piracy related websites. No doubt Bittorrent sites like The Pirate Bay are top of the list. He said such a filter would be a "game changer" and that the UK should consider the same approach.

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The latest addition to the hugely popular Gears of War series has leaked to Bittorrent months ahead of it's official September release.

Gears of War 3, is the latest installment in the series and is said to be the most anticipated yet. It features an overhauled graphics engine, which, E3 gameplay preview makes this the best looking of the series.
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In a UK legal first, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has applied for an injunction that would force BT (British Telecom) to block access NZB site Newzbin.

The MPA, which is is the international arm of the Motion Picture Association of America – is the industry body for a string of UK movie studios. It said BT is its first target because it is the largest internet service provider (ISP) in the UK with over 5.6 million customers. However the main reason is because BT supplies a website blocking system known as CleanFeed to most other, large ISP’s.
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BitComet packed full of exciting new features and the first to release a stable 64bit Bittorrent Client.

BitComet is a well established Bittorrent client, first released in 2003. Development was going well and its user base growing steadily until the dev team released version 0.60. This version included many new features including DHT which at the time was new. ...

LimeWire reaches an out of court settlement with music labels for $105 million.

The Lime Group, developers of the popular file-sharing client LimeWire, today agreed to pay a $105 million (£64.6 million) settlement to 13 music firms. The figure is a fraction of the billion dollar amount that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claimed it was owed.
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TalkTalk launches new service dubbed "HomeSafe" to allow users to block malicious websites.

UK Internet Service Provider (ISP) TalkTalk has launched a new website blocking service in which users can choose which sites and content to block. The company claims they are the first major ISP to offer centralised blocking at server level.
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Anonymous denies claims by Sony and reiterate that they had no involvement in the attack on Playstation Network or Sony Online Entertainment.

The now infamous attack on Sony in which 77 million people had personal information stolen is still making headlines around the globe x days after the attack was discovered by Sony.
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The Infamous Dutch DJ Tiesto believes file sharing is the reason dance music is bigger than ever and still growing.

Tiesto who is a DJ, Producer and label Figure-head showed his support for file sharing and said it has brought dance music to a whole new audience.
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Government funded watchdog, Consumer Focus has slammed existing copyright law and says it needs updated.

The watchdog says that hundreds of thousands of people do not understand the current law, especially when it cones to "format shifting".
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Custom firmware "Rebug" gave users access to free Playstation Network content and could be part of the reason the service remains offline

7 days ago Sony shut down it's Playstation Network (PSN) service. Speculation mounted that hacker group Anonymous were involved following a battle between Playstation hacker "GeoHot" and Sony. Anonymous quickly denied they were to blame and Sony remained tight lipped over the whole shebang.

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Beastie Boys Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 leaks to Bittorrent ahead of official May 3rd release date.

Every so often highly anticipated movies, music, games and software find their way to Bittorrent sites ahead of official release dates. This time around the Beastie Boys new album is making headlines across file sharing news sites everywhere.
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UK Judge rejects appeal to Digital Economy Act (DEA) by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) BT and TalkTalk.

A few months ago UK ISPs TalkTalk and BT won a judical review of the Digital Economy Act. They claimed that the Act was rushed through in the final days of the former Labour government. Both service providers were also unhappy with the expenses involved with meeting the requirements of the legislation.

As the review got underway last week the High Court sided with the government by dismissing 4 of the 5 challenges brought by the ISPs.

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Despised UK law firm could face huge legal fees following File Sharing cases.

The shambolic anti file sharing law firm, ACS:Law that sent thousands of threatening letters to alleged file sharers may face huge legal fees for wasted costs. The action was filed by those previously accused of copyright infringement by Andrew Crossley of ACS:Law in a bid to get reimbursed for the legal expenses they incurred. Crossley and MediaCAT abruptly tried to drop the cases and has since ceased all work in relation to file sharing.
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The Court of Rome holds search engine giant Yahoo! liable for assisting copyright infringement of hit Iranian movie "About Elly"

Yahoo! Italia was dealt a blow this week after the Court of Rome ruled it was liable for contributing to copyright infringement. The ruling surrounds the award winning Iranian movie "About Elly" which appeared on numerous streaming websites and P2P file sharing networks illegally.
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Holywood studios say Zediva infringes copyrights by streaming movies online straight from DVD players.

Zediva is an online service that allows users to rent and stream movies online as soon as they are available on DVD and way ahead of competing services such as Netflix and Redbox. So why are they facing a copyright infringement lawsuit? Well, Zediva founder, Venky Srinivasan pays zero royalties to the entertainment industry. Srinivasan believes there is no law that says he must pay the entertainment industry any fees in order to stream movies to his customers.

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Leaked Tender Document show UK Internet Service Provider (ISP) BT has plans to launch a new Music Download Service which it hopes will steer users away from P2P File Sharing.

The introduction of the new service is aimed at giving its customers a alternative to file sharing and is already in the works with talks ongoing between the ISP and music labels such as Universal and EMI.

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Newzbin2 plan ahead by offering TOR - a work around to web blocking planned by UK ISP's.

Following the news that UK ISPs could be forced to block P2P file sharing sites, Newzbin2 has made some changes to ensure they remain online and accessible should such a block come into practice.
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Overall drop of 7% in the use of file sharing services in the U.S. since 2007. Frostwire and uTorrent seen a boost in users following LimeWire's closure.

In October 2010, LimeWire was forced to close it's doors following a lengthy battle with the entertainment industry. A federal judge sided with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and found LimeWire liable for copyright infringement. ...