porn

A 23-year-old California man is in jail accused of breaking into more than 170 e-mail accounts of women and stealing explicit photos of them, as well as sending the photos to their e-mail contacts and posting them on their Facebook pages.

George Samuel Bronk, an unemployed 23-year-old from Citrus Heights, Calif., is believed to have targeted the victims by cruising women's Facebook pages and using information gleaned off the social network to trick different Web-based e-mail accounts into allowing him to change passwords linked to the women's accounts, Sergeant Kelly Dixon of the California Highway Patrol's Computer … Read more

In a move sure to outrage both file-traders on BitTorrent networks and legal watchdogs, a well-known pornographer has filed a federal copyright suit against 7,098 individuals.

Axel Braun Productions filed the complaint Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, alleging that the defendants illegally shared the adult film "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody." The film was written and directed by Axel Braun and distributed by Vivid Entertainment, one of the country's best known porn studios.

In an interview about the suit with Xbiz Newswire, a publication that follows the adult-film … Read more

First it was the lawyers. Then it was the politicians. Now debt collectors may be coming after people accused of film piracy, even before they have their day in court.

A group calling itself the Copyright Enforcement Group (CEG), which according to its Web site specializes in media rights enforcement, appears to advocate the use of debt collectors even before the courts have rendered a judgment against accused copyright violators. CNET has obtained a copy of CEG's "service contract," which specifies the terms the group offers to client copyright owners.

"In the event that the opposing … Read more

An unmistakable strain of compassion runs through Cindy Cohn's voice when she talks about the plight of Internet users she says are wrongly accused of copyright violations or tech companies she believes are being abused by large entertainment conglomerates.

She sounds like a nurse or an understanding second-grade teacher. But that's just one of her gears. Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, likely the most recognized technology advocacy group, can throw it into high and become a skilled courtroom brawler.

To protect the privacy of Internet users, she faced off with the Bush administration over the … Read more

Few film companies are assailing piracy with the vigor of Third World Media.

Third World Media (TMW), a porn studio headquartered north of Los Angeles, filed a lawsuit two weeks ago against 1,568 unnamed individuals, accusing them of using peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully share copies of "Miss Big Ass Brazil #4," records show.

"Each of the defendant's acts of infringement have been willful, intentional, and in disregard of...the rights of plaintiff," TWM's attorneys wrote in their filing of October 4.

The suit came just two weeks after TWM filed a similar complaint against an additional 1,243 … Read more

Suing file sharers for copyright violations is becoming popular.

Add X-rated film studios to the list of indie movie makers and large music labels that try litigation as an antipiracy measure. Kenneth Ford, a West Virginia attorney, and his company, Adult Copyright Co., have begun to file copyright complaints on behalf of X-rated film studios.

Ford has filed seven suits on behalf of four studios so far and named more than 5,000 defendants. He appears to be following the lead of Thomas Dunlap, co-founder of Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, a law firm that has undertaken copyright litigation for about … Read more

The latest wave of copyright litigation against illegal file sharing was ignited by indie filmmakers, including the producers of "The Hurt Locker."

Getting into the action now are creators of such titles as "Tokyo Teens" and "Pornstar Superheroes." Three adult-film producers will soon begin sending subpoenas to Internet service providers, or ISPs, across the United States in an effort to learn the identities of people they claim shared their movies without permission over the Internet, Kenneth Ford, the attorney representing the filmmakers, said today.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of … Read more

Jeff's back to complete a week of episodes, and although we don't normally condone eating on the air (because it's gross), we'll make an exception for Wilson's favorite treat--Lotte Koala chocolate cookies! Anyone else see the resemblance? On today's episode of The 404 Podcast, we're delving into the bizarre world of Kindlerotica, aka e-reader pR0n; Groupon is offering $60,000 scholarships to any baby parented by a couple that used a Groupon on their first date; Google's new URL shortener Goo.gl; and a blacklist of words that Google considers too nasty to include in its Instant search feature.

Online coupon distributor Groupon just debuted the most ridiculous PR campaign we've seen in awhile--it's offering $60,000 college scholarships to Groupon babies, and here's how it works. To participate, two people must meet through Groupon's dating Web site Grouspawn, agree to go on a date at a restaurant that accepts Groupon coupons, and see what happens from there.

A Groupon baby is only eligible for the $60,000 scholarship prize if it was conceived on the first date, and proof must be obtained in the form of photographic evidence, credit card receipts, or waiter testimonials. Make sense? There are already 166 members on the Grouspawn Date Assistant, so get on it!

As of Wednesday of this week, the most downloaded novel on the Amazon Kindle Webstore was "Compromising Positions" by Jenna Bayley Burke. As you might not have guessed from the subtle wit in its name, "Compromising Positions" is an adult-rated novel that represents the latest trend in Kindlerotica, or e-porn.

Whereas classic romance novels are traditionally targeted at women, this latest genre is definitely written for men and most of the titles read like text out of Penhouse Forum letters. It's disturbing to think that people are actually reading these stories in public, but the problem may be that Amazon is distributing these stories for free, which explains why they keep popping up on the best-seller list.

None of us really get the appeal, and Jeff puts it best when he describes his visual affinity toward the subject matter. In either case, if you want to check it out, another novel called "Office Slave" seems to be a good place to start....but do everyone a favor and stay out of the subway when you read it, OK?

Speaking of dirty birdies, the 2600 just published the Google Blacklist--Words that Google Instant Doesn't Like, and there are a ton of submissions. Google Instant is a new search feature that shows results in real time as you type. It also relies on predictive results that could potentially save you two to five seconds per search, but that opens up the floodgates on certain words that Google deems universally offensive.

So alongside the standard four-letter cusswords and NSFW terms, there's also a heap of ambiguously dirty words like "golden," "lemon," "teen," and an entire section dedicated to variations on the word "dog." Use your imagination, or just check out the entire list, at your own discretion--this is your official NSFW warning!

Oh, Google also unveiled its own URL shortener called Goo.gl. FYI, we spend less time talking about that than it took for you to read the previous sentence.

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Web probably looks a lot less anonymous and private to the thousands of people whose identities were posted to the Internet this weekend alongside the names of the pornographic films they are accused of downloading.

ACS: Law, a law firm based in Great Britain that tracks down alleged illegal file sharers for the porn industry, saw its database compromised over the weekend caused by members of the Internet forum 4chan. In addition to private e-mails and financial data belonging to the law firm, the names of people whom ACS: Law has accused of downloading unauthorized copies of porn movies … Read more