Now, just a few hours later, the popular file-hosting service is entirely unavailable for users without a premium account.

All download links go to a ” 404 Not Found” page instead (example).

For paying users the service works normally.

At this point it’s unclear whether the message is intentional or a technical glitch.

TorrentFreak contacted RapidShare and we will update this post when a response comes in.

Update: as pointed out in the comments, is appears that not all existing links are useless for free users. This one still works.

Source: RapidShare: 404 Not Found for Free Users

Instead of offering download links to books, the site suddenly redirected to Amazon.com.

A few days later the site also had its domain name revoked by domain registrar Nunames.

While this is a rather bold move, Nunames has the right to do so under their terms of service.

But there was something even more fishy going on.

As it turns out, Library.nu was still linking to Amazon, and using an affiliate code that seemingly belongs to Nunames.

e.g. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312422601/nunames/

TorrentFreak was curious to find out why the registrar decided to cash in on the revoked domain, but we’re been waiting for days to hear back from the company.

While we got no response, we did see that the Amazon redirect has since been pulled.

Perhaps they’re trying to cover it up?

Source: Domain Registrar Profits From Revoked Library.nu Domain

For BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy group that started the court case, the verdict wasn’t quite enough.

The Hollywood-backed group wasted no time issuing requests for other ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay as well. Or else.

Both T-Mobile and KPN refused to cave in voluntarily and argued that blocking websites is a threat to the open Internet.

The ISPs urged the entertainment industry focuses on new business models instead.

However, BREIN kept its promise and yesterday it was announced that UPC, KPN en T-Mobile will be taken to court as well.

Both Ziggo and XS4ALL have implemented the block but announced that they will appeal the verdict.

Source: More Dutch ISPs Sued Over Pirate Bay Blockade

After a handful of countries already backed off last week, The Netherlands and Bulgaria put their decisions of hold today.

A majority of the Parliament is against the ratification of ACTA.

They only intend to change this position if there’s irrefutable evidence that it doesn’t violate basic human rights.

Right now this is certainly not the case, as professors Douwe Korff and Ian Brown examined ACTA’s compatibility with human rights and concluded:

“Overall, ACTA tilts the balance of IPR protection manifestly unfairly towards one group of beneficiaries of the right to property, IP right holders, and unfairly against others.”

“It equally disproportionately interferes with a range of other fundamental rights, and provides or allows for the determination of such rights in procedures that fail to allow for the taking into account of the different, competing interests, but rather, stack all the weight at one end. “

“This makes the entire Agreement, in our opinion, incompatible with fundamental European human rights instruments and -standards.”

And there is more bad news for ACTA supporters.

In Bulgaria, where more than 10,000 people took the streets in Sofia last Saturday to protest the treaty, Economy Minister Traicho Traikov announced that the country will not ratify ACTA before other EU countries have made up their minds.

“Our country will not undertake any actions, including a ratification of the agreement, until the stance of the other EU member states is made clear,” the Minister said earlier today.

The caving support and doubt among governments makes is less likely that ACTA will pass, although it’s still to early to say something conclusive.

After Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States signed ACTA last October, Europe is the final hurdle to take before it goes into effect.

Source: Dutch Parliament Rejects ACTA On Human Rights Violations

“I don’t find it good in its current form,” he told ARD.

The president added that the balance between copyright protection and the rights of Internet users is “not adequately anchored in this agreement.”

Together with the individual EU members states, the European Parliament has yet to ratify the controversial anti-piracy agreement.

Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States, already signed ACTA last October.

The comments from the EU Parliament President are shared by many experts, including professors Douwe Korff and Ian Brown who examined ACTA’s compatibility with human rights.

“Overall, ACTA tilts the balance of IPR protection manifestly unfairly towards one group of beneficiaries of the right to property, IP right holders, and unfairly against others,” they concluded.

“It equally disproportionately interferes with a range of other fundamental rights . This makes the entire agreement, in our opinion, incompatible with fundamental European human rights instruments and -standards.”

Source: ACTA Anti-Piracy Treaty Criticized by EU Parliament President

After more than 6 years online, the site’s operators say they were forced to shut down due to the threat of legal action.

“Unfortunately we have to terminate our tracker services due to a ‘copyright infringements’ lawsuit,” the site said in an announcement.

“There isn’t much we can do but comply to their terms.”

No specifics of the threat were offered but assurances were given that there will be no ‘comeback’ from the FilePorn admin or moderation team.

The news comes hot on the heels of the closure of Cheggit earlier this month.

Source: FilePorn Adult Torrent Site Joins Cheggit, Shuts Down

Supported by bogus statistics and mistruths, they lobby politicians to pass draconian anti-piracy laws including SOPA and PIPA.

Until a few weeks ago the music group thought it had Congress it its pockets. But this changed when the Internet started to revolt, led by major sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit.

Responding to this backlash RIAA CEO Cary Sherman wrote a piece in the New York Times today. While I considered to respond to it in detail, pulling just one quote was more fitting.

“Misinformation may be a dirty trick, but it works,” Sherman writes.

Indeed, in a sick twist RIAA’s boss accuses the tech lobby of foul play, backing up his accusation with hundreds of clearly biased words.

But it works of course….

In my own biased opinion, the real problem is that outfits like the RIAA don’t work for the artists. They work for the giant record labels that exploit the copyrights of artists.

Those who take a good look at what’s happening in the music business will see that more money is spent than ever before. The big labels just aren’t getting as much as they want.

Jeff Price, Founder and CEO of the major music distributor Tunecore (tagline: sell your music, not your soul) sums it up nicely:

“The RIAA and its members are the voice of what the industry was, and an ever-shrinking part of what is. Stop fighting it and find a way to work with it before you are the odd man out.”

“There is no argument that the person or entity that control the copyright (be it an artist or a label), and only the person or entity that controls it, should have the right to do with it what they want.”

Price also points to a quote from Casey Rae Hunter, the Deputy Director of Future Of Music Coalition who wrote:

“Artists have every right to be wary when powerful entertainment conglomerates push for policies that could undermine free expression, all the while claiming to speak for creators.”

Indeed, the RIAA is nothing more than a spokeshole for the people who pop the champagne when an artists signs away its copyrights in a bad deal.

It’s not a coincidence that the CEO of the RIAA is a copyright lawyer, not a musician. Or is that misinformation too?

Source: RIAA: “Misinformation May Be a Dirty Trick, But It Works.”

According to the site’s administrators, the attack began on Monday night.

“On February 6, 2012 from approximately 10:00 pm this forum has been under serious DDoS-attack,” they said in a statement. “As you will have noticed it does not open, or if it does, not always successfully.”

RUTracker’s admins add that they are working hard to mitigate the attack but it is a pretty significant assault – the site is receiving around 300,000 requests for data every second.

“I must say that we do not know who attacked us or why, and we do not know when it will end,” the admins add.

“Our firewall is configured so let’s stay calm and everything will be fine,” they conclude.

Source: Russia’s Largest BitTorrent Tracker Under Huge DDoS Attack

Many experts have voiced serious concerns that should be addressed first, they say.

Among other things, the groups argue that the dubious piracy stats as reported by entertainment industry should be ignored.

Instead they ask Congress to determine the true cost of online copyright infringement from independent and unbiased sources.

“This letter shows that the opposition to SOPA and PIPA came from an extraordinarily diverse coalition of well-informed groups and companies who understood perfectly well what was in the bills. This was not an industry-led movement, it was an Internet user movement,” says Ernesto Falcon, congressional affairs director for Public Knowledge.

We attached a copy of the full letter below.

—

Dear Congress:

We the undersigned groups align ourselves with the more than 14 million Americans who joined us in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).Together we participated in the largest online protest in American history because we believe these bills would have been harmful to free speech, innovation, cyber security, and job creation. We want to thank the Members of Congress who shared our concerns and opposed these bills

Now is the time for Congress to take a breath, step back, and approach the issues from a fresh perspective. A wide variety of important concerns have been expressed – including views from technologists, law professors, international human rights groups, venture capitalists,entrepreneurs, and above all, individual Internet users.

The concerns are too fundamental and too numerous to be fully addressed through hasty revisions to these bills. Nor can they be addressed by closed door negotiations among a small set of inside the beltway stakeholders.

Furthermore, Congress must determine the true extent of online infringement and, as importantly, the economic effects of that activity, from accurate and unbiased sources, and weigh them against the economic and social costs of new copyright legislation.

Congress cannot simply accept industry estimates regarding economic and job implications of infringement given the Government Accountability Office’s clear finding in 2010 that previous statistics and
quantitative studies on the subject have been unreliable.

Finally, any future debates concerning intellectual property law in regards to the Internet must avoid taking a narrow, single-industry perspective. Too often, Congress has focused exclusively on areas where some rights holders believe existing law is too weak, without also considering the ways in which existing policies have undermined free speech and innovation. Some examples include the year-long government seizure of a lawful music blog (dajaz1.com) and the shutdown by private litigation of a lawful startup video platform (veoh.com).

The Internet’s value to the public makes it necessary that any legislative debate in this area be open, transparent, and sufficiently deliberative to allow the full range of interested parties to offer input and to evaluate specific proposals. To avoid doing so would be to repeat the mistakes of SOPA and PIPA

Source: Reddit and WordPress Urge Congress to Shelve SOPA/PIPA

After Uploaded.to, another prominent cyberlocker has decided to block all US visitors.

Turbobit.net users from the US now see the following message when they attempt to download a file.

“Our service is currently unavailable in your country. Sorry about that.”

The site does still have a partner program where uploaders can earn money based on the number of times their files are copied.

Source: Turbobit.net Blocks US Visitors After MegaUpload Shutdown

QuickSilverScreen (QSS) first appeared in 2004 but faced its first legal action 2 years later in 2006.

Twentieth Century Fox asked the site to take immediate action to stop infringements of Fox copyrights. The site’s operator approached the EFF for help but was advised that the site might indeed be breaking the law.

QSS was owned by a guy called Steve Thompson but according to a source close to the site, in the wake of these threats he gave the site away to two individuals known as “Neels and BigCheese”.

The pair ran the site up until 2010 when the site changed hands again. A year later it was transferred to yet another new owner.

According to our source, QuickSilverScreen had over 600,000 members but despite the site’s traffic health, the new owner has also had enough. Fearing prosecution he shut the site down last week.

A new site, DailyFlix.net, sprung up as a replacement and apparently grabbed 1,000 new members in the 24 hours following the closure of QSS.

How long it will last remains to be seen. For these kinds of sites the current climate is both tough and unpredictable.

Source: QuickSilverScreen Streaming Links Site Calls It Quits

While the owners were convinced that they offered a legal technology platform, recent events such as the MegaUpload raids and the Pirate Bay verdict took away much of the fun.

Not an easy choice to make, as the site’s owners spent the last 7 years working on it day and night.

The decision comes as a shock to the millions of people who visited the site every week. But, they have no other option than to find a suitable replacement.

So where do these former BTjunkie users go to now?

What are the best alternatives to BTjunkie?

The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, isoHunt, KAT and Extratorrent are the most popular torrent sites in terms of traffic, but there are plenty of others to choose from.

So what are the best alternatives? Feel free to add your suggestions below.

Source: The Best BTjunkie Alternatives

After the record companies of the RIAA settled with LimeWire last year for $105 million, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, Disney, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. now want their share of the spoils.

“The illegality of LimeWire has been fully and finally adjudicated by the Court,” the complaint as published by Courthouse News reads.

“In a related case, Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC … the court found defendants liable for engaging in and facilitating massive copyright infringement.”

The complaint lists 53 infringed works including TV shows South Park and Family Guy, and movies such as Avatar, Shrek and Harry Potter.

In exchange for the relatively small outlay of filing the case, there could be a good payout for the studios if the court agrees their rights have been infringed. Which it almost certainly will.

Kerching!

Source: MPAA Sues LimeWire Back From The Dead

The operation was planned a few days in advance of the Super Bowl to prevent “rogue” sports fans from watching the game through unofficial channels.

Tom Brady, one of the stars playing in today’s Super Bowl, is a good example of such a ruthless thief.

The NFL star admitted that he streamed the game illegally in 2011.

“Last year I was rehabbing my foot in Costa Rica, watching the game on an illegal Super Bowl website. And now I’m actually playing in the game. So, it’s pretty cool,” Brady said.

So is Brady a content thief? Should he be locked up?

If anything, the above shows that instead of complaining about these ‘rogue’ sites the NLF should focus on making the Super Bowl accesible worldwide.

Fans simply want to watch sports, so if they can’t find a legal option….

Source: Tom Brady Pirated The Super Bowl Last Year

This brings ACTA a step closer to passing, but individual EU Member States and the European Parliament still have to ratify ACTA later this year.

But this may not happen. All across Europe people are opposing the secret treaty, and in Poland alone more than 100,000 people took the streets in recent days.

Not without result, as the Polish Prime Minister now appears to change his pro-ACTA stance.

ZDNET reports:

Tusk’s backtracking could spell the end of ACTA for the entire European Union. If Poland or any other EU member state, or the European Parliament itself, fails to ratify the document, it becomes null and void across the union. As it stands, there are already five member countries that have not even signed ACTA.

“I share the opinions of those who from the beginning said that consultations were not complete,” Tusk said, according to a report in Wirtualna Polska. The 54-year-old prime minister added that a Polish rejection of ACTA is now on the table, and admitted that he had previously approached the agreement from a “20th century” perspective, due to his age.

While this is no guarantee that ACTA will be stopped, the change of tone is certainly a glimmer of hope for the position.

Source: Polish Protests Put ACTA ‘On Hold’

The police confiscated 200 servers which stored 6,000 terabytes of data, and the site’s domain was taken over as well.

Usually, such aggressive actions mean the end of a site, but not in this case. Out of nowhere Ex.ua reappeared today.

“Dear customers! Some of the information is temporarily unavailable. We are working to restore full operation of the resource,” reads a message on the site’s homepage.

It turns out that the authorities had to return the domain because it couldn’t be seized based on alleged copyright infringements.

The authorities denied that ‘Anonymous’ attacks on several government websites had anything to do with the swift return.

Source: Ex.ua Makes a Miraculous Comeback

uTorrent Control allows users to directly manage torrent in their browser.

“Just like your tiny-but-mighty desktop client, uTorrent Control makes it easy to start/stop/pause torrent downloads, add/remove torrents, check on the status of your downloads, launch uTorrent Remote and much more – all right from your browser,” BitTorrent annoncnes.

“uTorrent Control also includes a convenient search feature sponsored by our partners. It’s an additional way to easily search the Web directly in your browser, plus help support our ongoing product innovation. As always, we sincerely appreciate the support of our community.”

uTorrent remote requires uTorrent 3.0 or higher to function properly, and can be downloaded here.

Don’t fancy a toolbar? There are also quite a few unofficial add-ons available for Firefox and Chrome.

Source: uTorrent Gets a Browser Control Add-On

Recent data revealed that the ISP is throttling roughly three-quarter of all BitTorrent traffic on its network.

All this time the company has defended itself by arguing that they have to “manage” BitTorrent traffic to guarantee good connectivity for all other users, but this is about to change.

In a letter to the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) the ISP says that it will phase out all throttling efforts in 2012.

According to the company, BitTorrent throttling will soon be a thing of the past.

“We have been reviewing our traffic shaping policy for several months. New technologies and ongoing investments in network capacity will allow Rogers to begin phasing out that policy starting in March 2012.”

” These changes will be introduced to half of Rogers existing Internet customers by June 2012 and to its remaining customers by December 2012,” Rogers writes.

OpenMedia.ca, one of the groups that is advocating for an open and neutral Internet in Canada, is welcomed Rogers’ decision.

“We are extremely pleased that Rogers was forced to stop restricting access to online services,” OpenMedia.ca Executive Director Steve Anderson says.

“We commend the CRTC for moving on this, and hope that this serves as a strong reminder to all ISPs that Canadians will stand up for the open Internet when pushed.”

Source: Rogers Finally Stops BitTorrent Throttling

Speaking at D: Dive into Media, Young discusses the state of the digital music business.

While the singer is concerned about the fact that many people share low quality MP3′s, he’s not falling for the argument that piracy is killing music.

“It doesn’t affect me because I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around. [...] That’s the radio. If you really want to hear it, let’s make it available, let them hear it, let them hear the 95 percent of it.”

The comparison to the radio is interesting as that has been one of the biggest promotional tools of the music industry in recent history.

But it wasn’t that loved at the beginning of last century.

In the 1920s the music industry blamed broadcast radio for their woes, as revenue dropped during the great depression.

Times haven’t changed much.

Source: Piracy Is The New Radio, Says Neil Young

A few days ago the petition reached its goal of 25.000 votes, and the Obama administration has now issued an official response.

“We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov,” the note starts.

“However, consistent with the We the People Terms of Participation and our responses to similar petitions in the past, the White House declines comment on this petition because it requests a specific law enforcement action.”

As far as we know, no official complaints have been filed against the MPAA.

However, several citizen rights groups have put pressure on Congress to return “Hollywood’s dirty money.”

Source: White House Declines Comment on MPAA Bribery Petition

However, the Skype company says it only holds remote records of IM conversations going back 30 days and the Megaupload conversations cited in the indictment go back several years.

Furthermore, sources told CNET that Skype had not been asked to turn over information to the authorities in connection with the Megaupload case.

So, adding to the climate of fear surrounding cyberlockers and the sudden interest in them by powerful US authorities, the suggestion now is that the FBI obtained the conversations by some other means.

Since Skype holds logs of conversations locally on users’ machines, these could be obtained through the use of FBI-planted spyware.

The U.S. Department of Justice told CNET that a judge had approved a warrant to obtain the electronic evidence, which would not have been necessary had the leak come from an informant.

Details of the surveillance software that could have been used can be found here.

Scary stuff…

Source: Did The FBI Use Spyware To Get Evidence On Megaupload?

While MegaUpload’s legal team is negotiating with the US authorities find a solution, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today launched a campaign to assess the scope of the issue.

A few minutes ago the MegaRetrieval website went live. On the site MegaUpload users can contact the EFF for legal help to retrieve their personal files.

“EFF is troubled that so many lawful users of Megaupload.com had their property taken from them without warning and that the government has taken no steps to help them,” says Julie Samuels, Staff Attorney at EFF.

“We think it’s important that these users have their voices heard as this process moves forward,” she added.

The project is supported by Carpathia Hosting, one of the hosting providers that was rumored by the US Attorney to delete MegaUpload date coming Thursday.

“Carpathia does not have access to any data for Megaupload customers. We support the EFF and their efforts to help those users that stored legitimate, non-infringing files with Megaupload retrieve their data,” says Brian Winter, Chief Marketing Officer of Carpathia Hosting.

MegaUpload users who’re missing vital data can contact the EFF at megauploadmissing@eff.org.

Source: EFF and Carpathia Hosting Help MegaUpload Users To Retrieve Their Data

When a copy of its upcoming Trials Evolution title recently appeared on The Pirate Bay, fingers were immediately pointed at RedLynx themselves due to their track record.

In 2009, RedLynx CEO Tero Virtala confessed that the company had “taken advantage” of piracy by uploading their previous Trials game to the Internet.

“What we did actually, on day one, we put [the PC edition of Trials] immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves,” he he admitted at the time.

This time, however, Virtala insists that they are not to blame.

“We want to be clear that [leaking Trials Evolution] is not something we did ourselves,” he told Develop.

Describing the company’s previous leak, Virtala said “that was a different project for a different market and in a different time.”

A time, notably, before they were bought by the DRM kings at Ubisoft……..

Source: Ubisoft-Owned Studio Denies Leaking Game To Pirate Bay

The blockade is the outcome of a legal battle with the local anti-piracy group BREIN.

Ziggo is currently redirecting users to an information page explaining why the site is no longer accesible.

In a separate press release the company states that “the blockade is easy to circumvent.” Indeed, there are hundreds of proxies that still allow users to access the torrent site, including one that was setup by the local Pirate Party.

BREIN, meanwhile, has issued requests for other ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay as well. Or be dragged to court.

Both T-Mobile and KPN refused to do so, without a court order.

The ISPs argue that blocking websites is a threat to the open Internet, and suggest that the entertainment industry focuses on new business models instead.

Source: Dutch Pirate Bay Blockade Goes Live

Late Friday MegaUpload received a letter from the US Attorney stating that data of their customers could be deleted coming Thursday.

In an update a few hours ago, MegaUpload lawyer Ira Rothken told TorrentFreak that after talks with the various parties involved the data has been saved for at least two more weeks.

This gives MegaUpload and the authorities some extra time to find a solution.

The authorities have made some selective backups as evidence, but MegaUpload want to secure all data of their users.

Source: MegaUpload User Data Safe for 2 More Weeks

Following his detention in the UK’s largest prison, the admin is now at risk of being extradited to the U.S.

Many people are outraged by the move of the Department of Justice, and during a YouTube address today President Obama responded to the issue. Sort of.

The question was put as follows, and received the most votes of all questions asked.

“Why are you personally supporting the extradition UK Citizen Richard O’Dwyer for solely linking to copyright infringing works using an Extradition Treaty designed to combat terrorism and to bring terrorists to Judgement in the USA?”

While some had idle hope that the President would say something substantial, Obama simple said it was not his call.

“I’m not personally doing anything,” were his first words.

“One of the ways our system works is that the president doesn’t get involved with prosecution or extradition decisions, and this has been a decision by the Justice Department.”

The President then moved on to comment on copyright enforcement in general.

“What I can say, broadly, is that we want to make sure that intellectual property is protected. We want to make sure that the creative works of people in this country aren’t expropriated. But, we want to do it in a way that is consistent with Internet freedom.

“We’re just going to keep on working on it.”

“When SOPA came up on the Hill, we expressed some concerns about the way that the legislation had been written, told folks let’s go back to the table and figure something out that works for everybody.”

Source: Obama Responds to Looming Extradition of “Pirating” UK Student

There, he told a crew of music insiders that not all pirates are pigs.

“Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day.”

Hed was particularly critical of the methods in which the music industry has chosen to approach piracy in the past.

“We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy.”

Instead of going after all unlicensed products, Rovio only goes after those that are of inferior quality, as these hurt the brand.

“We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans,” he added

“If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow.”

Source: Angry Birds CEO: Piracy Can Be a Good Thing

In an excellent report commissioned by the CCIA, Techdirt’s Mike Masnick has has made an excellent overview of how well things go in the various entertainment industry sectors.

The report titled “The Sky is Rising” was presented at the MIDEM music business conference earlier today.

A summary of some of the key findings:

* According to MPAA, box office revenues grew 25 percent from 2006 to 2010 from $25.5 billion to $31.8 billion.

* Data from PricewaterhouseCoopers and iDATE show that from 1998-2010 the value of the worldwide entertainment industry grew from $449 billion to $745 billion.

* From 1999 to 2009 music concert sales in the US tripled from $1.5 billion to $4.6 billion

* Consumers’ choices growing as more movies are produced jumping from 5,635 films produced globally in 2005 to 7,193 in 2009.

* BLS data also show entertainment sector employment also grew 20 percent during that last decade and 43 percent for those identified as independent artists.

In addition to statistics, the report also lists many of the case studies that we’ve covered here at TorrentFreak, from Paulo Coelho to Louis CK.

In large part, the report is meant to counter the entertainment industry claims that their businesses have been ruined by piracy, and that the Internet has to be monitored and censored.

“Unfortunately, it feels like much of the debate about copyright law over the past few decades has been based on claims about the state of an industry that simply don’t match up to reality,” the report reads.

“Rather than decrying the state of the entertainment industry today and seeking new laws to protect certain aspects of the industry, we should be celebrating the growth and vitality of this vibrant part of our economy — while consumers enjoy an amazing period of creativity.”

“We hope that this report will help shift the debate away from a focus on a narrow set of interests who have yet to take advantage of the new opportunities, and towards a more positive recognition of the wide-open possibilities presented by new technologies to create, promote, distribute, connect and monetize. We’re living in a truly amazing time for the entertainment industry, and it’s time that our national debate reflects that reality.”

Let’s hope so.

Source: What Piracy? The Entertainment Industry is BOOMING!

One question raised by the professor, which may not have been entertained by many prior to the wide public opposition to SOPA, is of whether the lobbyist companies currently reaping the benefits of increasingly harsher copyright enforcement confer a strong moral cause for government interference of free market innovation. When a Harvard Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies raises these concerns, perhaps it is time we stop and consider this.

I have to say that, given the limited time he had to work with, I am very impressed with Prof. Benkler’s ability to address many important issues surrounding the MegaUpload case in such a succinct manner. Lack of due process. The legal targeting of an entire industry and the effect that has on the free market. While these topics are deserving of in depth scrutiny on their own, it was the moral issue raised at the end that caught my attention.

Now, I don’t generally like to argue morals because they tend to get a bit sticky with each party holding fast to whichever beliefs they identified themselves as before any debate even begins. How do you decide whose morals are right and whose are wrong?

Do you go by the majority rule? As Benkler stated:

“The moral authority of the networked public is on a different plane than the moral authority of lobbyist companies and that’s an enormous power to be reckoned with.”

This is clearly reflected by the 71% of recently polled Americans who feel that censorship is a far worse threat to society than piracy. The millions of people who contacted their government officials in protest of SOPA censorship was so overwhelming, I nearly took for granted that it needs mention.

Something else struck me about this moral when he gave his closing statement.

“It’s critically important that this new political force be focused on what will build a network that supports the industry in its legitimate needs, not in it’s overstated fears of piracy, for which there is no real data.”

This is something that had occurred to me only recently. If all practical reasons or perceived “bogey man” type threats surrounding the word “piracy” are discounted, then there is not much left to look at other than the moral cause for such extreme legal action. Is there even a moral basis to be found here? Is there a moral excuse for an open legal attack on a rather young industry which had found a popular niche in the marketplace?

Unfortunately, this is not something I can argue for because no matter how hard I try to play devil’s advocate for the legal authorities involved, I can not see a moral motive behind their willingness to take such extreme action on behalf of copyright lobbyists. It is really difficult for one to see anything beyond greed or ignorance as the underlying motive here. Please, I challenge you to raise some moral support for the general attack on innovation by these lobbyists. Just give me one moral argument that has not already been completely refuted. Those of us who have paid close attention to these issues just can’t spend any more time explaining why file-sharing does not equal theft.

There is no strong practical or moral argument to justify the tremendous money and resources that go into preventing innovative companies from settling their own business conflicts with the established industry in a civil (not criminal) court of law. That said, Prof. Benkler is right. It is time to focus on what is best for society as a whole. Granted, that includes even the lobbyists who insist that we drag them kicking and screaming toward progress.

It’s not that we hate you, lobbyists. It’s just that, you know, things have been kind of rough for the rest of us lately and we could really use new industries, jobs and the many benefits that the internet actually offers us in spite of you. It is a great time to take a look at the solutions and benefits that lie in wait for us all. This type of progress is inevitable and the rest of the world has a moral duty to see it meet our common needs instead of waiting around for the industry to keep up.

This is a guest post from Ryan Smith, aka Green Pirate.

Source: The Moral Battle Between Pirates and Copyright Lobbyists

Benkler criticizes the actions of the Department of Justice, which he characterizes as “aggressive.”

“What is a surprise is how aggressive the move is, how much it uses extensions of criminal law enforcement and copyright liability to go after and seize assets and people in anticipation of a full trial,” he says.

According to the Prof. the shutdown of MegaUpload is yet another example of the copyright industry hampering technological innovation.

“When a new technology comes along [...] and destabilizes the way the industries have always made money, the first gut response throughout the 20th century has been; let’s shut down this technology.”

As has been demonstrated many times in the past, these lawsuits can kill technologies and companies, the prof adds.

“What’s chilling here is that a company can be served with a one-sided indictment that lists a whole set of quasi-legitimate and legitimate technological components that lots of other companies use.”

“By the time it will be finished litigating whether that’s enough or not it is dead, because these procedures for forfeiture during the trial will kill the company”

Source: Harvard Prof: MegaUpload Shutdown is an Attempt to Kill Technology

It hereby follows in the footsteps of Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States, who already signed it last October.

While this is a step in the wrong direction, it is not the end-station for the legislation which first appeared on our radar early 2008.

Individual EU Member States and the European Parliament still have to ratify ACTA later this year.

While the opposition against ACTA had been fairly low in recent months, the Internet revolt against SOPA and PIPA once again brought it to light as a key issue.

Especially in Poland ACTA has been widely protested, online, in the streets and also in parliament where members on the left-wing Palikot’s Movement wore Guy Fawkes masks.

More protest will undoubtedly be organized in the weeks to come.

photo AP

Source: EU Signs Controversial ACTA Agreement

Should the public worry more about piracy or Internet censorship?

Through a telephone survey voters were asked the following question.

“Which is a bigger problem, that some people download movies online without paying for them or that the government will censor Internet content?”

As it turns out, the majority (71%) is more worried about censorship.

That doesn’t mean that voters believe that piracy is fine though, as two thirds of the respondents agreed to a statement that piracy is theft.

However, if politicians claim to represent the people, they might take note of the result above.

Source: US Voters: Censorship is a Bigger Problem Than Piracy

Thousands of sites, led by Reddit and Wikipedia, staged a successful blackout against SOPA and PIPA last week. But, it would be a mistake to think that the threat against the Internet existed only in the United States.

The same forces that were at work trying to push these web censorship bills through the US Congress are at work around the world.

In recent years the United States government and lobbying groups have put pressure on Sweden, Spain and many other countries to toughen their anti-piracy laws, but these are just a few examples.

An opinion piece I published on ERR, the Estonian Public Broadcaster, exposes the content industry’s lobbying activities there. The lobbying is led by the (non governmental) American Chamber of Commerce in Estonia (AmCham in short).

The piece debunks several false claims that are often made by the content industry and have been repeated by AmCham in Estonia.

For instance the claim that stronger anti-piracy laws would lead to more jobs and higher tax revenues in Estonia. While such laws, if they worked at all, would at best only shift jobs and revenue from one sector to another, the reality is that such a shift would create jobs in Hollywood at the expense of jobs in Estonia, thus causing a net loss to the Estonian economy.

The threat that stronger anti-piracy laws would pose to the open internet in Estonia, such as the ubiquitous free WiFi, is also covered.

It is not everyday that an article critical of the legacy content industry appears in the mainstream media. This is a unique chance for “our side” of the argument to be heard by a wider audience. The IP-maximalists know this, so it is no surprise that they are out in force in the comment section trying to drown out the dissent by repeating the same old pro-IP fallacies.

Source: American Chamber of Commerce Threatens Estonia’s Open Internet

I don’t want to own music.
I just want to listen to music.
I just want to feel the music.
I don’t want to buy that which I don’t need.

I don’t want to own a piece of plastic.
I don’t want to create demand for petroleum based products.
I don’t want to fuel the profits of freight companies by encouraging them to ship songs wrapped in plastic and cardboard in a semi trailer across the country.

I just want to listen to music.

Can music really be owned?
How do you own a piece of culture?
How do you own a piece of the collective consciousness of a society?

If you wrote a song that I love, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. But…

Do you own the melody I’m humming in my head (even though it came to be from your own inspiration)?
Do you own the lyrics I’m singing on the beach (even though they’re your words)?
Do you lay claim to the emotions I feel when I reflect on an unforgettable moment I shared with a lover as your song danced in the background?

If society has simply become accustomed to certain behaviours, does that mean we’re entitled to continue them ad infinitum?
And by the way, who was it that originally decided that an album was worth $9.99… or $19.99?

Is a song still worth 99 cents if I only listen to it once?
or…
Is a song still worth 99 cents if I listen to it a thousand times?

If that is indeed the value of a song, per listen, then how do we justify the micro payments a songwriter receives when their song is aired for free to millions of people on the radio?

Oh, that’s right… it’s called promotion.

And because its been given that label, you agree to accept virtually no money in exchange for it.

So if I can listen to a song on the radio for free, why can I not listen to it on the Internet for free?

And what if I have no money? Does that truly mean I’m not entitled to hear the music?
Or to word it differently, if I have no money… do you not want me to hear your song?
Should I be punished if I do so?

The expectation of compensation needs to disappear.
A “free Internet listen” does not equal a lost sale.

The business of music is full of contradictions and hypocrisies.
Our dalliance in the twentieth century of selling music should not restrict us from moving forward and advancing ourselves into a more inclusive and sharing culture.

Music is an emotion, not a loaf of bread.
Music is a feeling.
Music is life, expressed.
Music is that which no words can find.

Music is a gift, whose entire purpose is for sharing.
Sharing with friends, lovers and complete strangers alike.

A gift is the transfer of something without the expectation of receiving something in return.
A gift is meant to be free.
Does that not describe the creative process of a true artist?
Doesn’t every artist simply want their music.. to be heard?

Music is a gift.
And those who give the most, receive the most in return.

Regarding the business of music, yes… money is needed to both create and sustain careers.
Cash is needed to keep the music coming.

But to be clear, monetization of music can and should still occur.

But the words thief and stealing (of non-physical items such as a downloaded music file) do little to honour the magic, importance, and need to have music in our lives.

Yet we’re so blinded by the old business platforms of yesterday that it detracts us from seeing the potentials of a new economy today.
Despite what the captains of industry want us to think, there isn’t any one single answer.

And why should there be?

Everyone has their own preference and reason for consuming music the way they do.
In our splintered society of a million different niches and cultures, the success of music is symbiotic with the options and variations for its distribution and consumption.

Music needs to be like liquid.
Let it flow.
Let it spread and fill the gaps and crevices.
Let it go where no one thought it might!

Radio, vinyl, compact discs, Internet radio, music television, subscription streaming services, satellite radio, DVDs, YouTube, live performances, soundtracks to games, songs on movies and commercials, sheet music… and file sharing… can and DO compliment one another.

If you remove one element from the other… will music’s impact be as great?
Will it have the same reach?
Will it continue to change lives and shape the zeitgeist of a generation?

Embrace the gift of music.
Embrace the uniqueness of everyone who brings music into our lives.

I am not like you.
And you are not like me.

Let the music be heard and the songs will echo for eternity.

—Brian Thompson

Thorny Bleeder Records is an independent record label and the fruits of a partnership between Art of Dying’s Jonny Hetherington and Greg Bradley along with industry veteran Brian Thompson. They aim to offer artists new options in today’s music business.

Source: I Don’t Want To Own Music, I Want To Listen To Music

However, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people used the site to share research data, work documents, personal video collections.

As of today, these people are still unsure whether they will ever get their personal belongings back.

In a response, Pirate Parties worldwide have started to make a list of all the people affected by the raids, and they are planning to file an official complaint against the US authorities.

“The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended,” they announce.

“For this reason Pirates of Catalonia, in collaboration with Pirate Parties International and other Pirate Parties, have begun investigating these potential breaches of law and will facilitate submission of complaints against the US authorities in as many countries as possible, to ensure a positive and just result.”

“This initiative is a starting point for legitimate internet users to help defend themselves from the legal abuses promoted by those wishing to aggressively lock away cultural materials for their own financial gain.”

Legal experts and citizen rights groups have taken an interest in the issue as well, TorrentFreak learned. The Pirate Parties are the first to make an inventory of the damage, but not the last.

MegaUpload users who want to join in on the action can do so here.

Source: MegaUpload Users Plan to Sue the FBI over Lost Files

At TorrentFreak we first mentioned the controversial trade agreement early 2008, and nearly 4 years later it is coming dangerously close to passing.

Although the text of the legislation has been toned down somewhat, it still poses a threat to the Internet and the privacy of its users.

To prevent their Government from signing the treaty tens of thousands of people are protesting in Poland this week.

Large groups of people gathered in Krakow, at the European Parliament in Warsaw, and at the house of the Polish Prime Minister Tusk in Sopot.

Thus far, however, it doesn’t look like the Government is about to change its pro-ACTA position.

“We must sign ACTA and not give in to blackmail,” the prime minister said, commenting on the demands of protesters, and specifically to threats made by Anonymous.

Although most of the protests are peaceful, online activists also responded by taking down several Government websites and hacking the site of the Prime Minister.

The resistance against ACTA is not limited to Poland. In countries all over the world people have been speaking out against ACTA this recent week, and these protests are expected to intensify in the coming weeks.

Source: Poles Take anti-ACTA Protests to the Streets

Available to buy as a paperback, or a free eBook download, the book contains 20 essays and texts from 16 different authors, spread across the three core topics of the Pirate Party; Government Accountability and Transparency, Privacy, and ‘Intellectual Property’

One of the authors is our regular columnist Rick Falkvinge discussing the History of Copyright. There’s also a treatise on Fluid Democracy written by National Science Foundation member, William Sims Bainbridge, and tries to demystify the methods used by the German Pirate Party to great success recently. There’s also the EFF’s notes on the 4^th Amendment, and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the privacy section.

The book’s assistant editor, Andrew Norton said that the reason behind the book was “to help educate people on these very important topics”. An understandable sentiment given the recent outrage SOPA/PIPA caused over the past week or two.

The book is available in paperback from Amazon.com or you can download it in several eBook formats from www.nosafeharbor.com

Source: US Pirate Party Launches Book

Today the petition reached its goal of 25.000 votes, but that’s not the only pressure that Washington is facing over the issue.

Before the Obama Administration has a chance to respond to the petition, several citizen rights groups are gearing up to put pressure on Congress to return “Hollywood’s dirty money”.

“The MPAA is so brazen in its efforts to buy legislation with campaign cash that its leader, himself a former senator, sees nothing wrong with threatening legislators on national TV,” said Free Press Action Fund President Craig Aaron today.

“We think it’s time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA’s tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship.

Now that various congressmen reconsidered their positions on the controversial PIPA and SOPA bills, Free Press thinks they are ready for the next step.

“Last week’s unprecedented grassroots uprising, in which millions mobilized against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act , clearly got Washington’s attention. And we’ve since seen dozens of legislators scrambling to show they were really against these bills all along. But the real test is whether they will put their money where their mouths are by returning Hollywood’s dirty money,” Aaron concludes.

It will be interesting to see how Congress responds to this call for refunds. To be continued.

Source: Congress Asked to Return Dirty MPAA Money

Needless to say there are worries all over.

“For months we have been arguing that SOPA & PIPA would criminalize and cripple startup innovation in America — and our opponents have called our claims hysterical,” Demand Progress‘ David Moon told TorrentFreak commenting on the issue.

“But as we speak, website operators around the world are quickly discovering that the United States didn’t just shutdown Megaupload, they hopped across the globe to actually imprison the site operators, too.”

“It is worth noting that Megaupload’s technical details are substantially similar to those used by YouTube, Amazon, and Dropbox. If we don’t fight these overreactions now, we will have set a dangerously low threshold for when an entire website of 150 million users can be deleted from the Internet.”

Like many others, Demand Progress is convinced that the actions against MegaUpload will have a hampering effect on innovation.

“The fact that this was done without a real policy dialogue is disturbing — especially given the obvious surge of populist interest in these issues at the time of the shutdown. It is hard to see how this will not be a factor in chilling innovation in the cloud arena,” Moon told TorrentFreak.

While the observation above come too late for MegaUpload, it is a topic that needs to be addressed at the highest political levels.

Source: The MegaUpload Shutdown Hampers Innovation

After Wikipedia and several thousand other sites staged a blackout recently, everybody nows knows about SOPA and PIPA.

But this is not the only piece of legislation being pushed by governments that many perceive as pro-censorship.

What is ACTA?

For those new to ACTA, or the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, it is an agreement between multiple countries to establish new international standards for intellectual property rights and enforcement. The European Union is one of those parties. The scope of ACTA includes counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet.

Why should I worry?

The procedure for drafting the text of the agreement and the text of the agreement itself have received numerous complaints. The negotiations and draft texts of this agreement were kept secret until finalized. Civil rights groups and developing countries were excluded from the negotiations but the MPAA, RIAA and pharma lobby were constantly consulted on the text.

Multiple groups and organizations that defend civil liberties have come out against ACTA saying that the treaty will restrict fundamental civil and digital rights, including the freedom of expression and communication privacy.

According to an analysis by the Free Software Foundation, ACTA would require that existing ISPs no longer host free software that can access copyrighted media, and DRM protected media would not be legally playable with free software.

Nate Anderson with Ars Technica pointed out that ACTA encourages service providers to collect and provide information about suspected infringers by giving them “safe harbor from certain legal threats”.

Under ACTA, copyright infringement on a commercial scale will be criminalized, but the standard for commercial scale is set low.

ACTA also allows criminal investigations and invasive searches to be performed against individuals for whom there is no probable cause: your laptop or iphone could be searched when you cross the border.

Oxfam says that ACTA will impact access to affordable medicines in the EU by curbing generic medicine competition. Put simply, it will make it harder to compete with big pharma. As if this is what we need right now, during harsh economic times, higher prices on medicine.

European Digital Rights (EDRi) says that, with ACTA, the interests of rightsholders are put ahead of free speech, privacy, and other fundamental rights. ACTA pushes Internet providers to carry out surveillance of their networks and disclose the personal information of alleged infringers to rightsholders.

ACTA would therefore place the regulation of free speech in the hands of private companies.

Please act TODAY:

Your voice has been heard with SOPA and PIPA. Your voice can be heard with ACTA.
ACTA is being discussed by several comittess in the EU parliament. Tomorrow, the Development Comitteee discusses ACTA.

Please use the tools from the address below and call your MEP at the European Parliament. All the tools you need, via EDRi.

Here’s a White House petition.

Source: After SOPA in the US, ACTA Being Discussed By The EU

Dan, who has covered many online issues such as those involving The Pirate Bay and SOPA, is back again today with another track, this time about Megaupload.

“Back in 2009 I published my first album ‘Safe’ via Megaupload, and sent the link to numerous music bloggers and reviewers. The Megaupload URL became the de facto home of my album,” Dan told TorrentFreak when asked about his motivation to write the song.

“Now, through no fault of my own, that URL has disappeared without any warning. All the links on those music blogs? Dead, along with three years of stats which I used to track where downloads were coming from.”

“Regardless of the legal case against Megaupload, the owners of the site haven’t been convicted of anything. By taking all content down it’s a case of shoot first, ask questions later. As a result of the RIAA pushing for this action, supposedly to defend music, independent artists like myself get hurt. It’s even been suggested to me that I should pursue a legal case against the US authorities for ‘stealing’ my album,” Dan adds.

Enjoy the song

Source: Dan Bull Releases His Own Megaupload Song

The music industry has never been good at solving their problems. They seem to hate progress, at least when you look at how they dealt with MP3s, file sharing, DRM or piracy in general. Some believe they are now catching up with digital download stores and DRM-free music.

But in the wake of SOPA it’s clear that there’s still something which is bothersome to the record industry. And as always, the solution is to simply push the stop button on everything which has something to do with files.

One of the reason behind the music industry’s hunger to shut down these sites are album leaks. The music industry still uses official release dates like it was still 1970 and by pursuing this strategy they demonstrate a failure to understand their own market when it comes to release dates and promotion.

Hiring a ‘Web Sheriff’ and going around and telling music blogs to stop leaks, seemed like a solution they liked for a few years. But similar to the music torrent site OiNK, you shut down one and two more appear online.

And that’s one reason behind the success of so-called cyberlocker sites. Although album leaks and downloads never stopped, downloading became easier for people who found torrents a bit too complicated.

Then suddenly Google’s search engine became a way of searching for albums. Since that site is a bit more tricky for the entertainment industry to shut down, it made everything it linked to its target. Stupid things obviously came of this, SOPA is a great example.

Even considering the recent news about Megaupload, people will find ways to share, they always do. Album leaks aren’t going to go away. Private BitTorrent sites, blogs and the scene will continue to leak music.

But I wanted to create something completely legal, which isn’t private, only accessible by invitations or risked getting shut down.

So I created a user-generated news site, “Has it leaked?” It isn’t a download site but a place where people can openly talk about and alert others about news regarding their favorite artist album leak. And maybe, when the RIAA scratches their head trying to figure out a way to shut down a news site, they choose to do something creative and smarter on their own instead.

Source: The Internet and Music Leaks Are Here To Stay

Those who tried to reach the site got a “connection error” instead.

This is no longer the case today, but the content that’s displayed now is not welcome news to visitors.

The MegaUpload.com domain is showing a FBI warning instead of the usual homepage.

The same warning was already in place on several of the other Mega domains right after the raids, but it took two more days for the .com to be added.

Source: MegaUpload Now Displays FBI Anti-Piracy Warning

It was pretty soul destroying.

I can’t remember the exact stats when I looked back then but I just did a quick re-check and the task hasn’t gotten any easier.

I have just under 400 FFA wins – the top player currently has 4481, the result of investing a massive 702 hours on the game!

Just to put that into perspective, that’s almost 30 full days and nights, or 60 12-hour days playing constantly. That takes the phrase “I’m going to no-life this shit” to the next level.

So who is this mysterious character with no life? Well, his screen name is MEGARACER and up until Christmas he had the phrase “I LOVE MEGAUPLOAD” in his profile…..

Enjoy the video….

(Oh…if you like the music it’s Netsky’s remix of Shameboy’s ‘Strobot‘ )

Source: MegaUpload’s Kim Dotcom is Modern Warfare 3 FFA Champion

Eight people we charged with criminal copyright infringement charges, and all files hosted on the site were pulled offline.

What follows now is an unprecedented court battle, one that could possibly change the future for many file-hosting sites and cloud hosting services.

Yesterday one of the “Mega” employees informed TorrentFreak that MegaUpload has hired top attorney Robert Bennett to lead the defense.

Bennett is best known for defending President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal.

The New York attorney also represented other big names including Senator John McCain and President of the World Bank Group Paul Wolfowitz

“We intend to vigorously defend against these charges.” was Bennett’s only comment thus far, but fireworks can be expected in the weeks to come.

Source: MegaUpload Fights Shutdown With Former Bill Clinton Attorney

The move is most likely a response to the FBI crackdown on MegaUpload two days ago.

US visitors of Uploaded.to currently get the following message.

“Not Available: Our service is currently unavailable in your country. Sorry about that.”

The site has yet to release an official statement on the “block.” Whether it’s permanent, and the alleged relation to the MegaUpload raids and arrests is unknown at this point.

Uploaded.to’s decision is just one of the many changes the major cyberlockers have made during the past days. More on that later.

Source: Uploaded.to Blocks US Visitors After MegaUpload Shutdown

Last Friday SOPA was delayed until the various stakeholders reach “consensus.”

Some declared SOPA dead as a result, but just a few days later House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith announced that the SOPA markup is expected to continue next month.

That announcement was made a day before the major blackout protests on Wednesday, and as a result of this uproar SOPA has been put on hold for the second time in a week.

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Lamar Smith said.

“It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”"

SOPA will now be delayed until “there is wider agreement on a solution.”

Earlier today PIPA was postponed as well, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if both bills will be back in a few days.

Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal nevertheless declared victory.

“Today Internet users around the world have reason to celebrate. The battle over PIPA and SOPA will go down in history as a turning point in the battle to keep the Internet free from undue corporate and government control. But mark my words — this is just the beginning.”

“We can never allow dangerous legislation like PIPA and SOPA to move forward in any form: After the year of back-room deals that led to the drafting and near-passage of these bills, nothing less than complete transparency throughout any legislative process — with the input of Internet users — will be acceptable.”

Source: Internet Revolt Gets SOPA Postponed, Again….

The effort has not been without results. Within hours hours several Senators who co-sponsored SOPA and PIPA have dropped their support, and today Senate leader Harry Reid announced that next week’s vote on PIPA will be postponed.

“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act,” said Reid in a statement today.

However, behind the scenes discussions on PIPA continue, and Senator Reid encouraged stakeholders to reach a compromise..

“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs,” Reid said.

“We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.”

“I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks.”

Public Knowledge was quick to respond to the announcement, and urged Congress to involve a wider audience in the discussions.

“Everyone should be pleased that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided not to go ahead with a vote on the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) on Tuesday,” said Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge.

“At the same time, this is a wake-up call for Congress to abandon business as usual. Simply tinkering with the details of this bill, or of its House companion, is not the way to go. Neither is a ‘summit’ between the Big Media companies and tech companies.”

“At a minimum, Congress should start from scratch to determine the nature of the problem. No one has been able to figure out how the media companies calculated their supposed losses of jobs and income. If Congress goes ahead with legislation, it should hear widely from those concerned about the pending legislation – from Internet technologists, from law professors, artists, human rights activists, consumers and even public interest groups. Only then will legislation be truly accepted and truly be effective.”

Source: PIPA Postponed after Protests

Eight people we charged with criminal copyright infringement charges, and all files hosted on the site were pulled offline.

However, do the feds realize that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people used the site to share research data, work documents, personal video collections and much more?

What will happen to these personal non-infringing files?

People are outraged on Twitter and are demanding access to their files immediately.

Source: Feds, Please Return My Personal Files Stored at MegaUpload!

Tens of thousands of people are visiting these “revived” MegaUpload sites, which have nothing to do with MegaUpload.

If you see a site that looks like MegaUpload, it doesn’t mean that the popular cyberlocker is back.

There is NO official MegaUpload replacement online and it’s highly doubtful that there will be one anytime soon.

So don’t send ad impressions to these sites, or open yourself up to a phishing scam.

Sure, there are plenty of alternatives to MegaUpload, but MegaUpload itself is not back.

Source: MegaUpload Back? Don’t Be Fooled by Scammers