Piracy

According to Jeff Williams, the principal group program manager for the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, computers in countries with high rates of software piracy are more likely to be infected by malicious code because users are leery of ... applying security patches. In China , the piracy rate is nearly four times higher than that of the U.S., according to a recent Microsoft report. Oddly enough, the use of Microsoft's Windows Update service (used to patch security flaws) in these countries is significantly less than in the U.S. (Source: networkworld.com ) Brazil and France were identified ... (view more)

Four parties responsible for the widespread bootleg version of Microsoft's Windows XP in China have been found guilty and sentenced to spend as much as three and a half years in a Chinese prison. China has long been linked with international cyber ... crime and foreign malware. However, according to Xinhua -- the official news agency of the People's Republic of China -- the hundreds of thousands of other cases of online deviance pales in comparison to the bootlegged "Tomato Garden" version of Windows XP. Biggest Piracy Case in Chinese History Created in 2004, the Tomato Garden has had a ... (view more)

A Swedish court has failed to make The Pirate Bay walk the plank. A day after the Torrent site's primary ISP was ordered to stop traffic to the site, The Pirate Bay is once again up and running. Yesterday we reported ISP Black Internet's decision to ... terminate its connection with controversial download site The Pirate Bay. Facing a $70,000 USD fine had it failed to stop traffic, Black Internet pleaded poverty and complied with the order. In the hours that followed, Pirate Bay was inaccessible to global traffic. Pirate Bay Blames "Odious Apparatus of MPAA," IFPI However, by yesterday ... (view more)

Yesterday brought another major setback for The Pirate Bay, the prolific Torrent site that for years has faced accusations that it enables the piracy of movies, TV shows, video games, and other media. The Pirate Bay's Swedish Internet service ... provider (ISP) Black Internet recently severed the site's connection to the world. The Pirate Bay last made news at the end of July, when a Dutch court ordered traffic to the site be blocked. Although Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi referred to the decision as rubbish, it appears Holland was only the beginning of the site's many troubles. $ ... (view more)

Illicit torrent site The Pirate Bay continues to face a wave of opposition in Europe. Yesterday it was revealed that a Dutch court had ordered the popular site out of the Netherlands, blocking traffic between it and anyone in the country. According ... to the Associated Press (AP), the Dutch court involved in the case told Pirate Bay founders that it must put in place measures to permanently block any traffic from Holland in the next ten days, or face hefty fines of 30,000 Euros each day. The court noted that Pirate Bay must "stop and keep stopped the infringements on copyright and related ... (view more)

The owners of Pirate Bay, recently fined $3.62 million for copyright offences, have sold the site for $7.7 million. The site's new owners, Global Gaming Factory (GGF) have hinted that the site will go legit. That's got some users worried, despite ... reassurances by Pirate Bay staff that its services won't change. GGF is paying half the purchase price in cash and the rest in the form of three per cent of GGF's company stock. In a separate deal, GGF is buying out Peerialism, a Swedish tech company specializing in the logistics of peer-to-peer-file sharing. The price in that deal is $13 million, ... (view more)

According to a new study, more than 40 per cent of the world's software is pirated. The study also claims the software industry lost $53 billion to pirates last year, though that figure has a major flaw in its calculation. According to the Business ... Software Alliance (BSA), the United States has the world's lowest piracy rate, with just 20% of software being unlicensed. However, the size of its software market means the losses have the biggest financial value, totaling $9.8 million last year. Across the world, the study found that while piracy dropped in the majority of countries, the ... (view more)

The Pirate Bay scandal has brought worldwide attention to the existence of numerous illegal filesharing websites, while dividing the populace into pro- and anti-copyright camps. Although the recent one year jail sentences doled out by the Swedish ... courts would make others behind torrent tracking sites a little nervous, these people will get some added assistance in the form of a fund intended to help pay for legal defense. The three Swedes behind the fund are Maria Ferm (Green Party of Sweden Youth Branch), Lage Rahm (Green Party of Sweden and Member of the Swedish Parliament) and Peter Sunde ... (view more)

In the aftermath of the Pirate Bay verdict , many are now on the lookout for other forms of online piracy. Among the latest batch of uncovered copyright-snubbing websites is a Google-based search platform called Torrent Search. Want to watch a hot ... new theater release, but are unwilling to pay the price of admission? Type in the movie title on Torrent Search and you can be instantly directed to thousands of popular piracy websites. Google Fueling Pro-Piracy Campaigns While the search platform was probably not created by someone working for Google, seeing as how almost anyone can create a page ... (view more)

A professor specializing in copyright law says that the justice system devised for prosecuting illegal file-sharers is out of control. She argues that it "has evolved in a manner that results in too many arbitrary, inconsistent, unprincipled, and ... grossly excessive awards and that reform is needed." The comments came in a paper by Professor Pam Samuelson of the University of California, Berkeley, along with co-writer Tara Wheatland. (Source: publicknowledge.org ) The authors say the biggest problem with the system is that the range of damages which can be awarded for copyright ... (view more)