Posted 11/18/09 at 12:00:00 PM by David Murphy

Half the internet says The Pirate Bay is dead; The other half says the first half has no idea what it's talking about. Popular BitTorrent index The Pirate Bay is never without controversy, it seems. But is the site's latest move to kill its BitTorrent tracker for good really that much of a white flag? I don't think so, because decentralized BitTorrent tracking has already been here for quite some time now. If anything, The Pirate Bay is just trying to cover its poop deck from additional legal threats.

Here's the deal. For the last many years, anyone could head on over to The Pirate Bay site, do a quick search for a piece of content, download the associated .torrent file, and connect up to The Pirate Bay's tracker. The tracker would, in turn, find you a number of peers to connect to and your BitTorrent client of choice would commence the download of bits and pieces of your file from these multiple sources. Easy.

When a tracker fails to work--or gets forcibly removed from the Internet--you can keep on transferring bits and pieces of a file to those you're already connected to. If you want to start a new download, however, you'll be unable to find any peers seeding the file for you. The same holds true in reverse: Without a tracker, others on the Internet won't be able to connect to you either.

To solve these problems, BitTorrent has embraced two technologies that, together, transform the art of downloading files into a truly peer-to-peer solution: DHT and Mirror Links.

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Posted 10/12/09 at 08:32:18 AM by Paul Lilly

According to TorrentFreak.com, copyright holders have found a way to turn the table on software piracy and profit from the practice of stealing software.

Citing a PowerPoint presentation (in German) by foreign pirate-tracking outfit DigiRights Solutions, TorrentFreak reports that alleged file sharers are sent out emails requesting them to pay about $650 per offense. For its efforts, DigiRights keeps 80 percent of the money to cover IT costs, administration costs, and attorney fees, while the remaining  20 percent is passed on to the copyright holders, TorrentFreak reports.

For copyright holders, that breaks down to $130 for every illicit download, or about 150 times more from pursuing file sharers than from selling actual music. Of course, this only applies to those who actually pay, and according to the report, 25 percent of all recipients cough up the cash, no questions asked.

Read more here, then hit the jump and sound off.

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Posted 04/02/09 at 02:30:46 PM by Paul Lilly

In what initially looked to be an April Fool's Day prank, film distributor 20th Century Fox wasn't laughing when it learned its upcoming movie "X-Men: Origins: Wolverine" was viewed by thousands of people a month before the flick is scheduled to show on the big screen. While pirated movies showing up online isn't anything new, this particular leak is rare given that it hadn't even premiered yet.

"The source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of thelaw," 20th Century Fox said. "The courts have handed down significant criminal sentences for such acts in the past."

According to 20th Century Fox, both the FBI and MPAA are investigating the leak. Some estimates peg the illicit release as having been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times in its first 24 hours on the web. However, Eric Garland, chief executive of the file-sharing monitoring firm BigChampagne, said that online viewers would only account for a small percentage of the film's total audience.

Garland did also point out that bad word of mouth could be a concern. The copy that was leaked to the internet was missing many special effects and included temporary sound and music.

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Posted 12/09/08 at 04:02:36 PM by Andy Salisbury

The Department of Optics at the University of Granada has recently revealed a new technique that provides the means to identify the difference between a bootlegged CD and one made industrially (other than checking if the top has “Workout Mix” written in Sharpie).

At a base level, they’re simply checking out the light diffraction from the surface of the CD. Ideally, it’ll be noticeably different between a CD made at home and made at the factory. In fact they’re so confident with the process, they’ve filed for a patent.

Sadly, they’re a bit late. For many of us, the CD boat has sailed and this technology is generations behind. But, there might be some of you out there that still prefer your music in disc form, and to that I say kudos.

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