Hollywood

Top UK 40: Was It Worth It?

September 13, 2015 — Leave a comment

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It seems that the UK is going to become the toughest country for cyber pirates. The latest news has it that one “pirate” was arrested for uploading the UK 40 songs on the Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrent pirate websites. What is this supposed to mean for the pirate content industry?

Well, the first invaluable lesson is that the larger the data package is, you are uploading online, the greater the chances are, you will be eventually caught. In other words, if the “hero” of our story could have been satisfied with only a couple of songs, then he had not had some time to spend in the police station.

Europe has obviously become tremendously intolerant, when it comes to cyber piracy and copyright violations. We cannot tell for sure, who or what is more responsible for this new anti-piracy-tide in Europe, the Hollywood itself or the new approach of the EU Commission?

Either way, the busy little bees in the Pirate Bay again have quite a challenge to deal with. So far, their abilities to adapt and strike back with a vengeance have been quite remarkable. Let us see, how they will respond to the serious of damaging legal blows sent with love from both Hollywood and EU Commission.

Austria vs The Pirates

August 18, 2015 — Leave a comment

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It is official. The Austrian busy little cyber bees, who are not too much eager to pay for the digital content, can forget about the Pirate Bay, Isohunt.to, 1337x.to, and h33t.to. You do not have to ask why, do you? The Europeans are trying to make a point in an endless fight against piracy, or what?

On the other hand, we just could not help ourselves noticing an impressive list of countries, which have agreed to cancel the local hospitality for these notorious pirate websites. So, what is this supposed to mean? Are we going to eradicate cyber piracy in Europe? Somehow, we are not too optimistic about it.

Why? Well, for what is worth, the online pirates have proven themselves more than once to be one tough opponent. Their ability to change, adapt, and find new creative ways to continue with their forbidden work is quite an impressive one. They will think of something, in the meantime, that is for sure.

The only thing we are not sure about is, how long this meaningless legal game of a cat and a mouse is going to last. Until we become dead tired, or Hollywood spends all of its money for lawsuits, or pirates disappeared completely, or else? Or we stop writing about this topic?

RIAA vs BitTorrent

August 17, 2015 — Leave a comment

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Even if you are hesitating to admit it, at least a little bit, we all know everything there is to know about BitTorrent, don’t we? Yet, what is the catch with this confusing abbreviation the RIAA? Can you guess what it stands for? To tell you the truth, we had to ask Google, in order to get a proper answer.

The RIAA stands for The Recording Industry Association of America, and now our post’s title makes a perfect sense to us. The RIAA has decided to complain about the “alleged” BitTorrent’s lack of compliance with the rigorous copyrights and intellectual property laws.

Is not this a little bit too late? In addition, we got used to seeing only Hollywood complaints in this field. So, now it is the music industry’s turn to strike back. As you might have expected it, in its own defense the busy little bees in BitTorrent said that the users themselves are to be blamed.

We all know, how this one is going to end, don’t we? Either BitTorrent will comply unconditionally, or we will witness the last moment of the BitTorrent. Something huge is going on for sure. The entertainment empire has decided to strike back, like never before. Is there a next chapter in this story?

MPAA vs MovieTube

August 4, 2015 — Leave a comment

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The busy little legal bees in the MPAA (The Motion Picture Association of America) have obviously found a way to end the pirate reign of the MovieTube. This notorious piracy website, including a couple more similar sites associated with it are offline.

But, for what is worth, this is only the beginning. The MPAA is after some legal blood, including the substantial compensation claims. Yet, it is always interesting to see what is going to happen in the legal, financial and piracy aftermath of these events.

Is it possible to end the online piracy with a single lawsuit? How come we cannot find a middle ground after all of this time? The entertainment industry is merciless and unwilling to compromise, while on the other side, the pirates themselves are stubborn and innovative.

It sounds like a nice scenario for a disaster movie. The only difference is that we are talking about the real life people and events within the virtual world. There is no win-win outcome here. Does the entertainment industry earn more than enough? Can the pirates find other things to do? Questions with no answer.

Google vs Hollywood

July 6, 2015 — Leave a comment

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Hollywood or maybe it is better to say The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) does not have nice words for Google. This is definitely a huge surprise. Why? Well, Google has demonstrated more than once, its willingness to contribute the global-anti-piracy-cyber-war.

However, the MPAA has quite a few serious accusations that Google has not done enough. As a matter of facts, Google is caught in the hypocrisy trap. On the one side, it removes the search results for the piracy websites. But, on the other side, according to the MPAA shamelessly profit from these websites.

Is this true? Who is to blame here? Can Google become the “collateral” victim of the epic conflict between Hollywood and the Pirate Bay, for instance? What more Google needs to do, in order to satisfy the insatiable legal appetites of Hollywood? It comes without saying that this a tricky situation for Google.

You can hit the pirates with a hammer, either. They can complain against the unjustified censorship, as well. For Google, the most important thing is to run the business as usual. How to keep both parties truly satisfied? Well, this is a rocket science. Not even Google almighty does not know the right answer.

Pirates vs World Wide Web

July 3, 2015 — Leave a comment

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One thing is more than certain in the so-called Hollywood-Pirate-Wars, these cyber-pirates are surprisingly persistent and extremely innovative. You should not get us wrong. This is not some pro-piracy post. We are eager to see how far this stubborn game is going to go and last, including the fate of its participants.

The Pirate Bay uses six alternative domains almost on a daily basis. What is even more interesting the busy little pirate bees are discarding the www prefix, as well. It is as if they are coming from some other parallel Internet universe. Would all of these unorthodox measured help them in the long run?

The Hollywood empire will strike back eventually, this way or another. This is no longer a thing that has to do with money or copyrights. Maybe, we are imagining things, but we just cannot help ourselves noticing some unexplainable personal moments in this endless conflict.

Is it really so hard to come up with a compromising solution, which is more or less satisfactory for both parties? This is really hard to believe. If you want to end the reign of torrent sea pirates, then you have to do better than this. We have this funny feeling that this is not the last post about the cyber-piracy.

Xperia 007

December 27, 2014 — Leave a comment

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What is happening with Sony? Are they having some kind of an open door event for hackers? First, we had a controversy with the Interview movie and North Korean super-hackers. And now this one, the most recent hackers caused new model leakage. Things just could not get worse for Sony, could they?

There were some rumors that the new James Bond movie will promote the new Sony Xperia Z4. If that is true, then we have to congratulate to Sony. We can hardly think of a better way to promote a new model than this one. Hollywood style is always the most effective promotion tool, that is for sure.

Maybe, you have noticed that the Smurfs 2 also had a strong emphasis on the Sony tablet. We sure hope we are not mistaken with this one. You can do as a huge favor by checking this one for us. It is not a secret that major brands pay tons of money to the Hollywood studios for promotion purposes.

We sure hope it is going to be completely worth it for Sony. It comes without saying that Xperia concept is a perfect match for James Bond style. Black, stylish, discrete, and efficient. Just the thing our friend James Bond needs the most, while fighting the villains. My name is Xperia, Xperia Z4. Right?

No Play For The Pirate Bay

December 13, 2014 — Leave a comment

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One of the latest news in the world of torrents that the Pirate Bay is alive again online turns out to be a fake one. You should pay attention. The fake websites can be the extremely efficient phishing places rich with malware and all kinds of trojans. Yet, that is only the beginning of troubles associated with the Pirate Bay.

The long arms of the cyber blood thirsty Hollywood have found a way to hit the mobile weak points, as well. Google had no other option than to remove all mobile apps directly or indirectly associated with the Pirate Bay. Unfortunately, the developers were the collateral damage in this cyber war.

From now on you cannot download The Pirate Bay Proxy, The Pirate Bay Premium, The Pirate Bay Mirror or the PirateApp. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that the almighty entertainment industry wants to make an example out of the Pirate Bay itself, do you? With this one the entire torrent structure can collapse.

The sad thing in this story is either an unwillingness to find a compromising solution or meaningless stubbornness, which prevents us from finding a way to deal with torrents in an acceptable way. We will always strive for a free content. How to fight this basic instinct? Hollywood, you can do better than this.