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On Monday, US commerce secretary, Gary Lock said that online piracy such as music and movie downloads from file sharing networks, threatened America’s economic competitiveness.

Speaking at Belmont university in Nashville, he said that ISP's and copyright holders need to work together to tackle piracy. He went on to say that “We are trying to figure out how we shut out the pirates, while preserving the internet as an avenue for commerce for music and for other creative industries,”
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A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a technology that creates a secure connection over public and private networks. It is an efficient and cheap way to secure the data you send and receive over the internet and keep prying eyes out.

There are a wide variety of VPN providers, with more popping up every week for a slice of the action. Each provider offers different features at different prices. Some for example allow you to encrypt your entire internet connection e.g. email, web browsing, streaming, etc. Then others do not allow file sharing traffic, so it's best to check this out first to see what best suits your needs. Either way, there are a few we recommend later in the article, all of which welcome file sharing traffic.
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The latest ramblings of the RIAA is one that complains of copyright law having too many loop holes that prevent piracy from being stamped out.

In another bid to save itself from modernization in the digital age, the Recording Industry Association of America has hit out at US Congress saying that the DMCA 1998 law is flawed and needs tightened up. The primary target this time around are Broadband ISP's and online companies like YouTube. RIAA President, Cary Sherman told cnet that broadband providers can easliy ignore unlawful activites on their networks at will and not suffer any consequences.

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The latest installment of the highly anticipated Halo series, named Halo: Reach has found it's way to BitTorrent sites and other file sharing networks an entire month ahead of it's release by Microsoft.

The crafty work of some Halo addicts meant that they were able to download a full copy of the game from Microsoft's servers, patch it up in an ISO and share it with the masses on P2P networks. The vulnerability is due to a change in how Microsoft distribute games to reviewers. Games On Demand is a service that allows selected reviewers to download a games directly from Microsoft's servers, thus eliminating the need for hard copies to be sent via snail mail.
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MagicX, the Swedish condom maker that produced the "Harry Popper" brand is being sued for copyright infringement by Warner Bros it has emerged. The Hollywood studio is said to be furious of how the packaging and product name depicts that of the movies fictional character Harry Potter.

The packaging comprises of a cartoon condom shaped character holding a magic wand, wearing rimmed glasses similar to those the movie character wears and with it's tongue stuck out. It also has the words " Harry Popper" written across the bottom (see image). What kind of audience the condoms are aimed at is interesting as the books are a big hit with younger children.
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A hacker has been arrested in Japan for writing a virus that deletes all of it's victims files and replaces them with images of sea creatures.

The virus known as "Ika-tako" or "Squid Octopus" in english is believed to have infected an between 20,000 - 50,000 computers. The strange virus written by 27 year old Masato Nakatsuji was disguised as an mp3 file and shared on Japanese P2P File Sharing network Winny. It spreads to all files on the hard disk, then when a user clicks that file, it opens an image of an Octopus, Squid or Sea Orchid.

Nakatsuji told police that he wanted to see how much his coding had improved since he was last arrested. "I wanted to see how much my computer programming skills had improved since the last time I was arrested."
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BitTorrent Inc has announced a new app named Torrent Tweet for uTorrent that allows user to track and discuss torrents via twitter.

According to BitTorrent, users will be able to "follow" and discuss individual torrent files using this new app released a few days ago. The point of this is to centralise the discussion of torrent files by using a special Twitter Hash Tag (fingerprints for torrents). Currently the same torrents are published across hundred of different torrent sites, most/all of which have comment systems. In theory, it makes sense to have a centralised location but do we really need it and is Twitter the right platform? Simon Morris thinks so..
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Google and Verizon are on the verge or reaching a deal that would accommodate Verizon in prioritising certain types of web traffic if content creators, in this case, Google are willing to pay for the privilege.

This kind of deal would mean that Google and other big companies could pay Verizon to prioritise traffic and speed for sites like YouTube and Gmail. A move like this would end what little net neutrality remains giving the big companies much more control over how users experience content and the internet as a whole.
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Students who download copyright music from P2P file sharing networks may find they have been cut off when they return to campus this fall.

The 2008 Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) which has been effective from July 1st, requires that colleges must do all they can to block file sharing or at least attempt to prevent it. Students who do not comply or continue to use applications such as Limewire and uTorrent etc could face heavy fines ranging from $750 - $250,000 if found to be willfully sharing.
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Yesterday, Brilliant Digital Entertainment announced the launch of their new Kazaa "cloud" service which allows users unlimited access to over 1.6 million songs and around 1 million lyrics.

The new service which is in public beta has come under attack from critics, largely due to the fact that downloaded tracks can only be played if you have Kazaa's plugin for Windows Media Player. The pricing has also caused a bit of a stir, currently charging $15 per month for a "beta" product seems strangely high, especially when major, established competitors are charging around half that.
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NiouzeFire Guide Power users and novices alike would be remiss not to give NiouzeFire a try. It has already gained popularity in France and for good reason. This newsreader is free, simple to use, regularly updated, and offers automated repair and unRAR functions. ...

On Friday a Dutch court ordered owners of Swedish BitTorrent Tracker, The Pirate Bay to pay €50,000 per day for failing to shut down the site in the Netherlands.

A previous Dutch ruling in October 2009 found the Pirate Bay guilty and said it was "illegal" and facilitated copyright. The site however remained online and operated as normal.

In court on Friday, lawyers for the accused Peter Sunde, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Warg argued that the men had no control over the Pirate Bay and that they had not been involved with the site since 2006. They said the site had been sold to a Seychelles-registered company Reservella Ltd.
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Financial results for the 2008 year show the RIAA spent more than $16 million and recovered less than $400,000.

Any wonder the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has stopped going after individual file sharers and has changed it's target to ISP's and bigger fish like LimeWire. Documents released at P2Pnet show they are making substantial losses in legal fees for prosecutions.

Results for 2006 and 2007 aren't much better with expenditure in excess of $50 million for legal fees and investigations with a grim return of less than $1 million.
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The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has alleged that Mark Gorton, the founder of the largest file-sharing service LimeWire, has been hiding profit he has obtained through Lime Wire in an attempt to avoid paying damages to the industry.

The RIAA filed a complaint against Mr Gorton in 2006 for copyright and now claim that since then he has been placing LimeWire profits in a trust that he, his wife and their children control. The RIAA have appealed to the court to freeze both LimeWire and Mr Gorton’s assets. They went on to say that LimeWire had generated profits of $20 million through illegal file-sharing ...

Brazil, like many other countries, is obliged to implement rules on the use of digital rights management (DRM) technology and in doing so has developed a unique approach by allowing the ‘fair use’ of copyright material provided that it is not violating copyright laws. This approach allows for the prosecution of both those who illegally break copyright protection and those who unfairly use copyright protection.

According to the inquirer, the approach is a move towards a leniency in copyright protection so that copyright laws are not so easily broken while allowing the appropriate penalties to be ...

Internet users and file sharing gurus across Australia drew a collective sigh of relief last week when government officials announced their intentions to back off of their attempts at imposing a nationwide Internet content filter. After drawing a multitude of complaints from citizens concerned that the system would sensor far more than child pornography, Australian officials have decided to take the next year to refine the system.

Besides everyday computer users, the Department of Broadband, Communications, and Digital Media had been contacted by Google, Electronic Frontiers Australia, and even the
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You know what they say - 'If you can't beat them get someone else to try it for you' (that's right isn't it?). Anti-Piracy groups can't get rid of BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay on their own so they've decided to put pressure on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to do the job for them. Anything for a result ... unfortunately for them, they don't seem to be getting the result they would like.

The Beligian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) brought legal action against two ISPs - Belgacom and Telenet - in an attempt to get them to block the notorious BitTorrent site. The result has left them less than pleased as the Antwerp Commercial Court stated that the BAF's request was 'disproportionate'.
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The Pirate Bay, the worlds most resilient BitTorrent site has been hacked by a 23 year old known as Ch Russo. A security “hole” in the Pirate Bay's blog allowed Ch Russo to exploit 4 million user accounts, including details email and IP addresses.

According to Krebsonsecurity CH Russo gained access to the edit and delete functions along with creating user accounts including details of torrent uploads.

Since the hack, the Pirate Bay have issued a statement on their blog advised all users to change ...