As you probably know by now, the entertainment industry is still busy trying to sue The Pirate Bay out of existence. If they get what they want and The Pirate Bay closes down, their big piracy problem will not suddenly melt away. It may in fact continue to flourish, with or without The Pirate Bay.
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has decided that they want to try and catch software pirates red handed. If you purchased software from on an online auction site, such as eBay, you might be eligible for a $500 reward if the software is pirated! Here's how it works:
When it comes to Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Microsoft is doing two things that almost counteract each other. First off Microsoft is easing up on the "Reduced Functionality Mode" for those users who don't pass the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) test. As of right now if you don't pass WGA Vista will disable premium features such as Aero Glass, ReadyBoost, games, and BitLocker.
Stopping piraters from downloading movies illegally is at the very top of the MPAA's task list. Given that, they have gone to some great lengths to enforce their zero tolerance policy, and an exclusive article over at Wired today points this out. The article starts out "Promises of Hollywood fame and fortune persuaded a young hacker to betray former associates in the BitTorrent scene to Tinseltown's anti-piracy lobby." This situation involving Robert Anderson is just one of many examples of what the MPAA is doing to try and stop piracy, but does it really do them any good?
MediaDefender is a popular company who's goal is to thwart illegal file, music, and movie sharing. Their 60 employees and 2,000 servers are used to post fake files (that appear to be real) on the file sharing networks, and they can load corrupt data into the files being downloaded on the Kazaa network.
Microsoft is doing all they can to stop people from pirating their software, especially students.
While Wal-Mart may have entered the digital music scene a little late and didn’t really come in with a bang, they’re proving that they can compete with the competition, namely iTunes. Their recent announcement that they will be selling DRM-free music at $0.94 per song is proof of this.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get some free music downloads with no strings attached? That’s something many of us long for, and it’s the same thing that the RIAA despises. One of the places where I can download free music is a site that one of my friends told me about, and it’s called PureVolume.
Anyone that has been using BitTorrent for several years undoubtedly knows, or used, the SuprNova.org site. It was a BitTorrent tracker much like what The Pirate Bay is today, and before shutting SuprNova down in December 2004 it was bringing in some 1.5 million visitors per day.
A Zero Tolerance policy means zero tolerance, and unfortunately for one 19 year old girl, that policy could land her in jail for a year. The story goes like this: Jhannet Sejas was out with her boyfriend to celebrate her birthday. They took a video camera along to record memories of their day at the mall, and then headed to the theater to see Transformers.
