pirating

The Pirate Bay is relocating to North Korea?

Even though North Korea is known to have extremely limited Internet service, the Web-based bittorrent tracker The Pirate Bay announced today that it relocated to this closed-off and highly censored country.

"The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Not for illegal activities but being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information. Today, a new chapter is written in the history of the movement, as well as the history of the internets," The Pirate Bay wrote in a blog post. "Today we can reveal that we have been invited by the leader of … Read more

Defend the mermaids in Fish vs Pirates for Android

It's official: tower defense games aren't just about defending towers any more. Fish vs Pirates has your cute army of good fish warding off an equally cute army of bad fish. It obviously borrows from fan-favorite Plants vs. Zombies, but doesn't quite capture the fun of that game. It's still adorable, though.

The game starts with a few levels so easy that you'll probably be annoyed playing them. These act as tutorials but are mind-numbingly boring. Fish vs Pirates often makes the crucial mistake of spawning enemies too slowly, so you're watching the game … Read more

The Pirate Bay sets sail for Norway, Spain after Sweden sinks ship

The Pirate Bay has broken its operation in two after an organization backed by the music and movie industries took aim at its backer.

According to TorrentFreak, The Pirate Bay today shifted its operational duties to Norway and Spain. Previously, the Swedish Pirate Party was providing it with the bandwidth it needed to operate its site. However, the Rights Alliance, an organization backed by the biggest music and movie companies, threatened to sue the Swedish Pirate Party over its support. That lawsuit could have cut off the Swedish Pirate Party's ability to pay for The Pirate Bay's bandwidth … Read more

'Copyright Alert System' rolls out to catch illegal downloaders

The "Copyright Alert System," aka "six strikes," kicked off today with the cooperation of five major Internet service providers. The goal of the new campaign is to curb copyright infringement by going after consumers rather than pirates.

While the CAS seems like something that would raise the hackles of privacy and civil liberty groups, the plan isn't to arrest, sue, or fine people downloading illegal movies, games, or music. Instead, the group managing the program -- the Center for Copyright Information -- says its objective is to "educate" such downloaders that they are … Read more

Pirate Bay to sue antipiracy site for pirating its design

The folks behind Pirate Bay are upset over a new Web site from antipiracy group CIAPC that looks just like their own site.

To kick off its latest antipiracy campaign, the Finland-based CIAPC (Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center) set up a new Web site urging people to find more legal means to download music, TV shows, and other digital content. To hammer home its point, the CIAPC site intentionally borrowed the exact design and style of the Pirate Bay site.

The group even duplicated the CSS stylesheet used by the Pirate Bay, ensuring that its site is a virtual duplicate, … Read more

Walk the plank: Pirate Bay documentary now online

The names Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Fredrik Neij might not mean much to the average person, but in the annals of Internet history, they will always be known as the co-founders of The Pirate Bay -- one of the most popular file-sharing hubs of all time.

Now you can view an 82-minute documentary titled "TPB AFK" (The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard), a film that chronicles the people behind the Pirate Bay attempting -- and failing -- to navigate past Swedish authorities who accused them of numerous copyright infringement charges.

The movie, released under a Creative Commons license and directed by Simon Klose, officially debuted for free today online and at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival. Here's the official synopsis from the "TPB AFK" Web site:… Read more

Pirate Bay documentary to debut next month

Fredik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and Peter Sunde, founders of popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, are about to hit the big screen.

A documentary on the notorious site, titled "TPB AFK" (The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard), will debut February 8 at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival.

The filmmakers will also release the documentary online under a Creative Commons license, allowing others to share and use the film in their own works for free. A date has yet to be announced for the online release. … Read more

BlackBerry App World said to hawk pirated Android apps

Sure, pirated apps can be found across the Web on sites like appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com, but you wouldn't expect to find them in legitimate app stores, such as BlackBerry App World. But, indeed, this is reportedly the case.

And, to make matters worse, the purportedly stolen apps found in the store and packaged as BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 apps are actually Android apps, according to a developer who posted his woes on Reddit today.

I recently had two users email me about certain compatibility problems. They did mention that they were using Playbooks, but I figured … Read more

Software pirate pleads guilty to theft of $100 million in goods

After being lured to U.S. territory and arrested in an undercover sting, Chinese national Xiang Li pled guilty in U.S. federal court to pirating, cracking, and selling software worth more than $100 million today, according to Reuters.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security took down Li in June 2011 after agents discovered that he was heading a pirating ring that sold stolen software on the Web. The software was mostly used by defense, space, and engineering companies and was made by Microsoft, Oracle, Rockwell Automation, Agilent Technologies, Siemens, and others.

"Li thought he was safe from … Read more