Pete's New Adventures in i-Fi

Oliver!

2011-07-05T21:38:00.001+01:00

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DRM

2010-10-27T13:21:00.001+01:00

An oldie from XKCD http://xkcd.com/546/

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Book burning in the modern age

2010-08-23T09:03:00.001+01:00

From the ever funny xkcd.com.

On a similar topic, it’s nice to see the new Kindle getting some good reviews – Wired ran this yesterday. I know what I want for Christmas!

Amazon.co.uk Ltd. registered office: Patriot Court, 1-9 The Grove, Slough, Berkshire SL1 1QP. Registered in the United Kingdom. Registration number 3223028.

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Beware... Security Tool

2010-08-20T22:32:00.001+01:00

Yes, I've had another little break from posting... I think if you're still following this blog then you probably realise by now that I'm far from a regular blogger so I'm not going to feel guilty about it!

It's entirely due to my job at Amazon - not only is it incredibly busy throughout the day but my commute is also twice as long now so my chances to post anything are reduced. I should say that this is a good thing since it's far preferable to being sat at work bored.

The thing that prompted me to come out of online seclusion is a malicious bit of code called Security Tool which may initially appear to be a virus checker is in fact a dodgy bit of malware which hides it's processes under numbered id's and is rather persistant when you try to remove it. It also blocks you from running any of the usual tools you might want to open to aid you with this task. Nice work guys, cheers.

Anyway, there's obviously plenty of others who have been hit by this so there are some good guides to removing it - after a bit of delving into the registry and some detective work to identify the problem files and I'm cured but I was definitely worried for a few hours. Thanks to these guys for their help.

And before you say it I do run anti-virus software. McAfee apparantly didn't help in this case - I've recently moved to Avast! which seems a pretty good, free alternative which has marginally more protection than the widely known AVG.

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My MythBox so far

2010-04-12T22:01:00.001+01:00

So the MythTV project continues; I've been gathering the bits and building it when I've got some spare time. Things got a little delayed by me buying the wrong memory for my motherboard... they used to be generic I'm sure!

Anyway; the setup is:

Antec VERIS Fusion case
CIT 550W Silent ATX Power Supply
Asus AM3 M4A785TD-M Evo motherboard
AMD Athlon II X2 3GHz 2MB Dual Core Processor
Kingston 1333Mz DDR3 memory
Sony DVD writer
DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital 4

The case is pretty funky; it's nicely styled and will fit into my hifi stack very well - it's a solid piece of kit too with the front panel made from brushed metal.
It's well laid out inside too which has made installing everything pretty easy although for a microATX case it's pretty bulky; the width of my hifi kit but a bit deeper and taller. The built in IR receiver, VFC display and bundled remote control are all pretty promising too.

The DViCO card had twin Freeview-HD tuners onboard so I can record two programmes at once - my TV's got another normal freeview tuner so I can also watch that while recording.

Everything else is fairly standard - I made sure that the motherboard had decent onboard graphics with an HDMI output and that things were as silent as I could make them without spending a fortune. It needs to be a fairly meaty system to playback HD recordings otherwise a MythBox can be far simpler and cheaper.

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Go wide!

2010-04-08T12:18:00.001+01:00

I saw this a couple of months ago but it's just been sent around again so I thought I'd share it - it's a very impressive image capturing over 170 people on a railway bridge in Germany. the impressive bit isn't that it's got some many people but that the print is 100m wide!

http://www.simonhoegsberg.com/we_are_all_gonna_die/slider.html

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Great work from www.stop43.org.uk #DEbill

2010-03-31T21:26:00.001+01:00

You've got to love this image - pass this around to raise some awareness about the risks of the Digital Economy Bill that's about to come before parliament.

I wouldn't be a supporter of this if I didn't credit the image to stop43.org.uk! Follow the link to find out how to contact your MP.

It's more important than ever to do this since there's an Early Day Motion to allow the bill to actually be debated properly but they need to raise support which means you need to contact your MP now.

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Digital Economy Bill - act now!

2010-03-09T11:19:00.001Z

I’ve not posted about the Digital Economy Bill before but I’ve been meaning too; it’s a huge issue and I wanted to make sure I knew as much as possible about both sides of the argument before I jumped in with my two pence. Now, time’s running out to voice our opinions so here’s my post.

For those that don’t know, the Bill is being introduced in part to protect against copyright infringement but the measures and power which it grants are pretty scary as are the potential effects on content producers such as photographers, which is where I first started hearing about it.

Orphan Works

One element which has attracted a lot of concern is over Orphan Works. This is content where the copyright owner cannot be identified and the Bill gives new rights over the free non-commercial use of them, while at the same time granting licensing fees for their commercial use to the Government.

I can see where this idea started; there’s a lot of old documents and footage, etc who’s authors cannot be identified and it would be nice if the country had some formal way of using and licensing them. However the problem comes when you start to put it into practice with modern media, particularly with content produced by amateur and smaller professionals.

Image this scenario; we have a professional photographer who has invested time, effort and money into their equipment, their experience, their research and travel. This photographer creates an image which they intend to sell, as they are the sole copyright owner, in order to pay the bills, put food on the table... all the things you and I need that salary to do too.

Under current copyright law they have the right to sell their work as they see fit however they retain their copyright and it’s use is limited to those who have paid for a licence. Say they post their image to their website or to something like Flickr and someone likes it, downloads it and uses it; commercial or non-commercial use, this is still copyright infringement and the photographer has the right to pursue lost earnings and demand that it’s taken down.

I’m probably grossly over-simplifying things here but the scare story here is that all someone has to do is remove the metadata from the image (and some photo sharing sites do this automatically) and suddenly the photo is a ‘orphan’ and can be used freely for non-commercial use and licensed by the Government for commercial use. Not only does this deprive the photographer of their income but it also leaves open the possibility that the image is used to advertise or demonstrate something which the photographer or subject would not want to be associated with.

This particular discussion is raging over the photography forums and I’m sure it’s on the radar for other types of digital content producers.

Web Blocking

The Bill also proposes powers to cut off connections to persistent illegal filesharers using a ‘three-strikes’ system and puts the onus on ISPs to monitor and police this.

Now, the Lib Dems and Conservatives have pushed through further changes which would give the high court rights to block an entire site if it’s alleged to be hosting copyright infringing material. The worry is that this now puts the balance of power in the hands of the big companies who could shutdown small sites and businesses with just the threat of action as many hosts will simply remove material without checking if the copyright case is legitimate.

@Documetally highlighted this latest amendment on his Posterous stream but there’s lots more info out there from the excellent Open Rights Group and other concerned bloggers such as SoloBassSteve have published their open letters to the Lords in an effort to encourage more people to do the same.

Personally I’m in an odd position on this; I’ve had a couple of abortive attempts at running a small business and would argue that there needs to be a check in place to stop the big boys throwing their weight around but on the other side I can understand that an ISP or other form of hosting or marketplace site (eBay or YouTube for example) needs to protect themselves from being sued over the infringements of their site users.

Like everything in the Bill, both the Orphan Works and Web Blocking clauses seem to have been written with media such as old written works in mind or music and film files being shared, without thinking through the potential impact on the huge raft of other content producers out there – for a Bill which is supposed to support the growth of the online economy it’s amazing how restrictive it really is.

The Fight Back

The Bill is being debated in the House of Lords at the moment before it goes to the Commons to be turned into law – the best thing we can do at this point is support the various online petitions (there are more if you search for them), join the facebook groups (again, there are more but let’s try to keep this coordinated!) and write to your local MP and to the Lords who are currently amending the Bill to voice your opinion!

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My cat!

2010-01-20T21:52:00.001Z

I just thought I'd share this shot of my cat... I quite like it, hope you do too!

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The Oak

2010-01-17T19:29:00.001Z

This year I'm attempting a 52 project - to take and publish at least one photograph every week.

Actually I'm trying to do two different shots every week, one following a theme set by members of the Talk Photography forum and one of my own choosing.

This week's theme has been Poems so my shot is inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem The Oak, in particular the final stanza.

Live the Life,
Young and old,
Like you oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;

Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed,
Soberer-hued
Gold again.

All his leaves
Fall'n at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough,
Naked strength

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Snow!

2010-01-07T11:41:00.001Z

Since no photographer can resist taking pictures of the snow I thought I'd better post some of mine!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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New Year's sunsets

2010-01-07T11:35:00.001Z

A couple of shots from an impromtu trip to the top of a local hill at sunset on New Year's day.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Please stay calm, this is a test

2010-01-03T17:41:00.001Z

Just a quick note to check out how Posterous does at cross-posting to multiple sites.

Move along now, there's nothing to see here....

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Posterous

2010-01-03T15:55:00.001Z

I realised recently that one of the reasons that I don't blog as much as I intended to is actually the faff involved in posting to Blogger.
I've said before that I've been using Twitter to micro-blog far more than posting to my main blog since I prefer it's immediacy and interaction but it's also far quicker and easier to actually get your posts/tweets online so it's become my go-to service.

Hopefully that's going to change this year as I've migrated the blog over to Posterous, a relative newcomer to the blogging scene but one which natively (and crucially, intuitively) supports a number of features which integrate blogging, email and of course the full range of social networking services.

All of which hopefully means you'll be treated to more regular blog posts and not just 140 character tweets this year (although whether you think that's a good thing is a different story!).

For anyone subscribed to the Blogger/Blogspot site, that will still be updated automatically by Posterous when I post (told you it was clever) but if you'd rather follow me at the new site then it's at http://newadventures.posterous.com/

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Bonfire night and firework photos

2009-11-09T19:18:00.004Z

I love bonfire night and the fireworks so this year I made sure I took my camera with me and much to the chagrin of my wife I also snuck my tripod in too.

Much like my moon photos, I've been waiting to try my hand at photographing fireworks for some time however unlike the moon shots I didn't just need to wait for a clear night!

The local bonfire night rolled around so I made sure I was ready for it - it turns out that there is a basic setup and settings that essentially guarantee some nice shots. The rest is lucky timing and (in my case) waiting for the smoke to clear!

Aperture
A tripod is a must since we're going to be using pretty long exposures and a cable release is useful if you've got one. Other than that, use manual focus nearly at infinity, set the aperture nice and small to allow a huge depth-of-field whilst keeping everything in focus.
I did make one mistake though, I've since been reminded that f/22 is a bit too small to use since it can cause diffraction problems resulting in less-than-sharp images. Knock it down to f/11 or f/16 to be on the safe side.

Exposure
I used exposures of between 4 and 8 seconds to capture the movement of the fireworks but if you've got a locking button on your shutter release then you can set the camera to Bulb and just expose as long as you like.

Don't worry about opening the shutter earlier than you need to since the sky should be nice and black - you can wait for a firework to go off then let go of the shutter.
One technique, which I decided not to use, is to have a very long exposure (20-30 seconds plus) and to cover the front of the lens with something dark between fireworks so that you can capture multiple explosions.

The rest of my shots from the night are on flickr here.

Podcasting

2009-10-22T16:38:00.008+01:00

I'll skip the usual apologies for the lack of posts... take it as read from now on that I'd love to be posting more often but both work and my personal life are pretty busy these days so unfortunately this site gets left behind. My hope is that I'll upload more frequent, short posts rather than the rambling ones from earlier this year.

Podcasting

As some of you might know, I produce a podcast called PhotoLegal which neatly combines my interest in photography, technology, audio work and legal/civil liberties. It's hosted by the fantastic team of Darren Hector (professional wildlife photographer), James Barisic (our resident lawyer), Kate Day (Communities Editor at the Telegraph) and Phill Price (amateur photographer and IT guru).

The show managed to rack up 10,000 downloads over it's first series and we're now halfway through our second - this time around we're broadcasting live while we record so it's a bit more fraught for the hosts and my recording setups but it gives us a level of interactivity that other podcasts don't have.

The Early Days

I got involved early in the first series after hearing Phill sound like he was recording from a cave - since then we've had our fair share of problems ranging from noisy recordings, poor mic placement, uneven levels and more recently some bad audio dropout over Skype which actually caused us to abandon the recording, although we continued for the benefit of our live listeners.

Darren and Phill took inspiration from the audio setup posted by PhotoNetcast when they originally started recording the show - it basically consists of a Skype conference call routed through a mixer and an additional USB line-in to allow the recording to capture both the local vocals and the remote guests. It actually works very well, especially at the start when we were able to have Darren and Phill in the same room with just James and perhaps a guest coming in via Skype.

I streamlined this a little by removing the unnecessary digital-analog conversions that using the mixer required - my trick is to use something called a Virtual Audio Cable which is a small driver which mimics an output on your computer and allows you to route it where-ever you like. Using the VAC and it's accompanying Audio Repeater software I'm able to output our Skype call along with any local vocals to a recording package, to our live streaming software and back to my speakers/headphones as well!

It's a trick I used to be able to do with one of my previous soundcards (M-Audio Delta66) but since my desktop computer broke I've not been able to use it's features and have been reliant on a laptop instead. I've got a sneaking suspicion that Mac users might be able to do this natively but I'm a lifelong PC user so I have to resort to hacks like this.

If you're interested, I record using Cubase but this is overkill for a simple live recording - it was very useful when I had multiple local vocals to mix into the call on the early setup but once it was all being done using the virtual cables this was so much of a problem. Something like Audacity is a good, free, alternative. I know Darren favours Soundbooth on his Mac.

Our live broadcast is handled by LiveStream which is designed for video streaming - we block off the camera inputs but use it's video abilities to put up graphics and notes.

The problems came when we tried to avoid us all driving around to physically be together during the recordings - Darren, Phill, James and a guest would dial into a call hosted by me with my recording gear ready to go. Add another guest and the recruitment of Kate as co-host and suddenly we had 7 people on the call and discovered that Skype struggles a little!

General interference, noise, pops, varying volume levels, random audio dropout and finally completely dropping users from the call meant that our chosen method of communication was starting to look problematic.

The Solution

Our solution came from Rob Wright who suggested an alternative VoIP system called Ventrilo - it requires a host server to be running somewhere but when we trialled it for our latest recording the results were spectacular.

Call quality is a huge improvement over Skype which I suspect is because we have a handful of people using a single server rather than Skype's thousands of users. It's also got some nice features such as Push-To-Talk which avoids unwanted background noise and can be set to an automatic trigger or a keyboard button. Each user also has more control over the level of their audio input and output.

The big benefit for me is it's ability to record a call itself - I can set it running and not worry about it, plus it even records the local user unlike Skype's output. It records in a proprietary format but this isn't the problem it might seem since it actually logs and records each user's individual audio, allowing me to export each on separately into .wav files and then back into Cubase for some proper multi-track editing. I tend to apply noise reduction as required, EQ each channel and normalise the levels, then it's run through compressor and gate VST plugins before mixing down to a single .wav file again and another export to MP3.

It's really great to have a noise-free VoIP service since it makes the editing job much easier and the recording and export abilities mean mixing the final track is a dream compared to our earlier attempts.

Hopefully this has been useful to some of you - I do realise it's quite a narrow field of interest but there's not a lot of comprehensive information about this sort of setup as a lot of podcasts only have one host and possibly a guest; we're a bit unusual with our 6 or 7-way discussions!

The image at the start of this post is from Colleen AF Venable's Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Share Alike licence.

iPhone 3GI

2009-07-31T11:50:00.003+01:00

Within weeks of the new iPhone 3GS hitting the stores there's already rumours of the next update, dubbed the iPhone 3GI...
Before you get too excited I should let you know that the report featured on the excellent site The Onion and goes into details such as:

"Not only is this our lightest and slimmest model ever, but as any truly savvy Apple customer can clearly see, it's also the most handsome product we've ever designed."

And describes "a multi-touch interface that provides those who are "cool enough" with a rich user experience."

If you've not guessed by now (or aren't familiar with The Onion's style of satire), it's a spoof, with the 'I' standing for 'invisible' but for a couple of days there was a growing number of tweets around it as people got a bit caught up in the next big thing from Apple.

US patent granted on podcasting

2009-07-31T11:35:00.005+01:00

Photographer and podcaster @WildlifePhotog tweeted a link on Friday to a Softpedia article detailing a patent that's apparently been granted to US company VoloMedia.

Q) So what's their big new invention?

A) Podcasting.

That's right, VoloMedia are claiming that they invented podcasting. The patent was filed in 2008 but is a continuance to a previous one in 2003 and covers the concept of "episodic media content" which could include not just podcasts but potentially also things like RSS feeds in general. As Ars Technica points out it's hard to work out what's actually been invented here since they aren't claiming to have actually created the ability to download a media file or an RSS feed itself.

VoloMedia are currently claiming not to be interested in licensing deals however this is an obvious threat to anyone producing podcasts, in particular large companies who now face the prospect of a retrospective claim being made for licensing monies.

Personally I feel sure that podcasting was already around in 2003 and if someone can demonstrate prior art over this then the patent can be invalidated. Wikipedia has a statement that they emerged in 2004 and this has apparently been enough to overturn an application to trademark the term the following year.

EDIT - There is a suggestion that the first podcast may have been in July 2003 from Boston radio broadcaster Christopher Lydon following his attendance at BloggerCon in Harvard. At around the same time ex-MTV host Adam Curry apparently wrote some software to extend RSS feeds to include audio content and automatically download archived shows to his iPod.

It looks like it's going to come down to a matter of timing between the podcasts and the aggregation software at the time and the specific dates detailed in VoloMedia's patent claim.

Kudos to the regular blogger

2009-07-31T10:51:00.002+01:00

I'm realising that this blogger malarkey needs a fair bit of time
devoted to it, you've got to have something interesting to say (whether
your readers agree or not is another question), do enough prep or
research to ensure that it's factually correct, spend some time writing
the damn thing and then revise/edit so that it makes sense.
So kudos to the bloggers out there who have other jobs or time pressures
and yet still manage to post frequent, interesting content. Of course,
you could always just throw some words together and hit send but I think
that the best amateur bloggers probably spend as much time getting the
post up scratch as professional bloggers and journalists do.

With that in mind and with a unusual lack of hubris on my part I've
realised that while I am still working for a living and wanting to spend
my spare time doing things like scuba diving, mountain biking,
photography, growing veg on the allotment, DIY around the flat.... oh,
and spending some time with my long-suffering wife as well, I'm not
going to be able to update this blog with anything like the regularity I
had originally intended.

It's probably not going to affect many people in the scheme of things
since there's still not that many of you reading this on a regular basis
(the Google Analytics show that most of you are one-off or sporadic
readers). I'm not going to compete with people like Mashable or The
Register for speed and volume but I'll still post about major things
that catch my eye.

Podcasts

2009-06-09T17:16:00.004+01:00

I've been listening to podcasts on-and-off since I first got a 4th gen iPod (the black&white screen and click wheel) and now regularly put one on in the car on my drive home from work.

I use a Kensington LiquidAUX to charge and connect the iPhone to my stereo's line-in socket. The main draw for me on this product is that the charger's also got a handy wireless remote control that fixes to the steering wheel allowing me to skip tracks safely without fumbling with the iPhone's touchscreen which doesn't have the tactile feedback of previous iPods.

Most of the podcasts I listen to fall into three categories - comedy, photography or technology and there's a special fourth category reserved for anything by Stephen Fry who's recently released a new book, The Dongle of Donald Trefusis, only by podcast.

Some of the other podcasts that I've been listening to are:

Tips from the Top Floor - photography tips from Chris Marquardt.

Stephen Fry's Podgrams - a series of audio essays (sadly not updated for a while now).

Guardian Tech Weekly - audio updates from the tech writers at the Guardian newspaper.

I'm also very keen on one podcast in particular - it's a new one called PhotoLegal which is a great listen for anyone interested in the legalities and rights surrounding photography. You'll see in a future blog post why this one is close to my heart...

Strobist Boot Camp II

2009-06-09T15:38:00.005+01:00

One of the blogs I read religiously is Strobist, the photography and
lighting site from David Hobby (@strobist on Twitter). David's a
photographer and photojournalist from America who for a long time has
been running a very popular website dedicated to sharing his techniques
for off-camera flash photography.

In case you're wondering, the American call their flashes a strobe so"Strobist" just refers to flash photography - I guess the English equivalent site might be called "Flasher" but that might get a different audience!
Where David really excels is in explaining through simple steps how to achieve some pretty amazing lighting in your photos - specifically, the power and flexibility that comes when you a) stop using the little popup flash on your camera, and b) take that flashgun and move it away from the hotshoe.

Over the years the Strobist blog has covered a huge range of basic and more complicated flash techniques through his Lighting 101 and Lighting 102 series. They're definitely worth a look if you're even slightly interested in improving your flash photography.

This summer sees the start of Strobist Boot Camp II, a repeat of last year's series of practical challenges since there's only so many technique lessons you can post to a blog. David will be setting a number of assignments that the readers of his site will each attempt in their own way - the winner at the end wins a prize.
If you're reading this at some point after the Boot Camp has finished then there's nothing to stop you completing the assignments however the real interest for me is going to be comparing my entries to all the others as we submit them via the Strobist Flickr pool.

I'm going to be following the assignments and hope to post on here and my Flickr stream about my equipment, techniques and results. If you're entering too or just want to have your say then I'd love to hear from you via the comments on this site or my Twitter feed.

UPDATE: The first assignment is here!

PhotoCalc iPhone app

2009-06-03T22:23:00.003+01:00

Recently I've been listening to the photo podcast Tips From The Top Floor from German photographer Chris Marquardt.

One of their recommendations was a handy little app called PhotoCalc which won't appeal to the non-photogs out there but for the technical togger it's a nice reference tool to calculate the Depth of Field of a particular focal length/aperture combination.
It'll also guide you on Flash Exposure settings, reciprocal exposures and plenty of other useful, but not all vital, camera related information.

You can find it on the iTunes App Store.

The other reason for this post was to test out the ShoZu app which allows you to update a number of different blogging, photo sharing and social media sites from within a single interface.
So far so good if you're reading this... there's also a rumour on Twitter at the moment that the app might move to being paid-for so I wanted to download it while it's still free.

Seems good so far but you can't post text and images as one post - hence the screenshot in the previous post.

PhotoCalc on the iPhone

2009-06-03T22:01:00.001+01:00

iPhone remote trigger for Canon DSLRs

2009-05-26T11:18:00.006+01:00

Canon already gives users of it's DSLRs the EOS Utility which allows them to shoot tethered, controlling everything except zoom from a computer. This is useful for timelapse photography or in a studio environment where you're not needing too much camera movement but want to take advantage of the ability to review shots on a larger high-res screen and save them straight onto a hard drive, especially useful if you're lucky enough to use one of the new 21megapixel Canon 5D mk2.

Photoshop and Lightroom plugin experts onOne have now extended this functionality with a new iPhone and iPod Touch app called DSLR Remote which lets you wirelessly control the computer/camera combination from the phone itself. You do still need the camera to be tethered to the PC, it's not a standalone remote but I'd be surprised if we didn't start to see wifi enabled DSLRs in the future that cut out the need to use USB cables for control or file transfer and this in turn would allow something like the onOne software to communicate directly to the camera. Of course you can always use the £600 wireless transmitter and grip but for most of us this isn't a feasible option.
An added bonus is that for LiveView enabled cameras the app allows live streaming, allowing you to see whatever the camera sees and almost turning it into a remote security camera while future versions of the app will also allow remote control of the video functions of the newer DSLRs.

It'll be interesting to see how useful the app actually is - there's already been comments suggesting that it's a case of "hey, this is cool" rather than fulfilling a particularly pressing need but I can see a number of uses where the app will come into it's own - plus there's no denying that it's rather cool functionality that I'm determined to make work somewhere!
For studio shooters who are already tethered then this probably will be useful, I can imagine the tog walking around with more freedom and being able to show the images to their model for more easily. It'll certainly be handy for self-portraits since you could recompose the shot and adjust aperture etc without walking back to the camera and the intervalometer will make it popular for timelapse photography.

It's not on the AppStore yet but when it comes out I'll be getting a copy to review on here. The Professional version is expected to cost $19.99 (UK pricing not confirmed yet) for full functionality but will be offered at a discount $9.99 initially, while a cut-down Lite version will give you remote shutter triggering only for $1.99.

onOne will be notifying us when the app is approved via their RSS feed and on twitter from @therealmikewong.

Nikon, Sony, Pentax and the others aren't supported yet but plans are to extend the app to include these brands in the future - see the onOne Q&A for a full list of supported models. Users of these brands shouldn't take this as a snub that they've gone for Canon first, I'd imagine that's due to the availability of the Canon SDK for developers.

Pirate Bay walks the plank

2009-04-17T17:09:00.010+01:00

After the end of the Pirate Bay trial nearly a month ago it seemed likely that the four defendants were going to escape serious criminal charges. Within days of the start of the trial their lawyers had successfully argued that most of the serious charges were dropped and their now legendary King Kong defence looked set to save them from the remaining ones too; however the Swedish court has now passed a guilty verdict, along with a year's prison sentence for each of them and a hefty $3.6m fine.

If you're new to this story then it's worth reading some of my previous posts for a catchup.

In a fitting twist, the verdict was leaked from the court and published online a Torrent hours before the official announcement.

The original charges of "complicity in the production of copyrighted material" and their multimillion dollar damages were dropped within two days of the trial when it became apparent that the prosecution didn't really understand what The Pirate Bay actually does. The defendants have been found guilty of the revised charges of "complicity to make (copyrighted material) available" which has brought much lower sentences and fines.

If this sounds a little odd then it's because not many countries have copyright legislation as tight as Sweden's which is both the reason that The Pirate Bay started there and the reason the prosecution wanted to pursue it in that country.
Ars Technica spoke to music industry legal consultant Peter Danowsky who explained that in Sweden "A work is made available as soon as it is for sale or for hire or given away, this does not have to involve any actual transfer of the work. And the right to control availability is protected by the Act, so making available can be in violation of copyright even though no actual distribution has taken place."

Plain sailing?
So what's going to happen next? There are mirror servers for The Pirate Bay in other countries so they've not been shut down and in any case there are a lot of other torrent indexes around.
Social Media guide Mashable have reported that one funny side effect of their King Kong defense and comparisons to Google as a search site is that someone has created a torrent search using Google's Custom Search function.

The Pirate Bay defendants plan to appeal and have stated that they can't and won't pay the fines - see @JemimaKiss's recent article in the Guardian. Recently their supporter have started hacking the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's website and sending black faxes in protest.

While I'm not in favour of mass copyright infringement, we've certainly not seen the end of BitTorrents or illegal file sharing and just like the shutdown of the original illegal Napster site lead to the peer-to-peer networks like KaZaA or Limewire, and then on to torrents, the technology will keep adapting ahead of the industry attempts to shut it down.

It's just a shame that the recording industry didn't embrace new technology a little quicker so they could have been the ones setting the pace with something innovative but legal. Tools such as Spotify and Last.fm come close but it's taken a long time for them to come on the scene.