What You Need

• A Windows PC (Linux dudes, you already know how to do this, right?)
• A Mac
• A router to connect them

Before we get into sharing between computers directly, are you sure you don't just want a NAS?

Talk to Me, Girl

So, assuming that your PC and Mac are both sitting comfortably on your network, wirelessly or otherwise (if you haven't gotten that far, you need more help than I'll be providing right here), there are a couple of different ways for the various machines on your network to talk to each other and share files. Think of 'em sorta like languages.

• SMB (Server Message Block) aka CIFS (Common Internet File System) is Windows' preferred network file sharing protocol, and luckily, Macs speak it, so this how your computers will most likely be talking and sharing stuff. Vista and Windows 7 use SMB 2.0, which is mo' faster for file transfers.

• FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is one you know and love, if you've ever spent any time on the internet. It's one option for sharing stuff between your Mac and PC.

• NFS (Network File System) is the protocol Unix-based systems like to use for sharing files, which both Windows and Macs can understand. A lot of NASes use it.

• AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) is like a secret language for Macs, 'cause Windows sure as crap don't speak it. But from Mac-to-Mac, it's what makes sharing just work (when it does).

Things That Will Help

My goal here is to show you how to share files between your PC and Mac easily, and for the most part, without worrying about things like IP addresses or diddling with your router's settings. But! If you want to make troubleshooting easier—this kind of networking is more voodoo than science—there are a few things you could stand to know and do beforehand.

1. Know your router. Or really, know how to get into it. For most routers, punching the number soup 192.168.1.1 (Linksys, for instance) or 192.168.0.1 (D-Link, for example) into your web browser will take you to the router's settings, where you can fiddle with things (which you hopefully already did to protect your network).

2. Make everything static. If you take your computer on and off the network a lot, odds are, your router isn't going give it the same IP address every the computer jumps back on, because it hands those addresses out dynamically (you might recognize this as DHCP in action, if you're wondering what that acronym refers to). For consistency's sake, it's not a bad idea to assign your computers static IP addresses on the network, so they'll always have the same address—I at least give my desktop PC and Xbox static IP addresses—just in case something else is broken.

Look in the router settings for a reference to DHCP reservations or static DHCP, which is most likely under the general settings tab. Hit that up, like so, and you should see a list of computers on your network, along with their MAC addresses (an ID tied to the actual networking card in your computer) and currently assigned IP address (something like 192.168.1.102). If your computer's already connected to the network and listed here, it's real easy to give it an unwavering address on your network, a matter of a couple checkboxes.

If, for some reason, your computer's not on the network and you wanna give it a static address, like 192.168.0.104, you're gonna need to know its MAC address. On a Mac, just open the Network Utility app and select AirPort—it's the "hardware address." In Windows Vista and 7, go to Network & Sharing Center, and tap view status link next to your connection. Hit "details" in the pop up box and note the "physical address." On XP, bring your network connections, double click the one you want, flip to the "support" tab, and hit details. It's the physical address. Now that you have the MAC address for your computers, you can assign a set IP address to each one, that it'll have every single time it's on the network, which is a handy list to have.

Getting Ready

Okay, let's get our machines ready. We'll start with the Mac, 'cause it's a little easier.

Mac
1. Setup a user account for sharing, either under Accounts or Sharing -> File Sharing in System Preferences. (Unless you just wanna log in from Windows using your regular Mac login, then you can skip creating a sharing account.) Click the little plus sign under users, and then you pull can a name out of your address book to use for the account, or setup a whole new one.

2. Open system preferences, go to sharing if you haven't already, and check the box for file sharing. Click options, and enable AFP (if you've got other Macs you wanna share with) and SMB. Crucially, make sure the account you're gonna be logging in from Windows with has SMB enabled.

3. To pick the folders you wanna share with other users, click the little plus sign and browse to the folder you wanna give access to. Maybe it's your pictures, maybe it's your whole Home folder. You'll need to add each folder individually, especially if you wanna give different people access to different folders. (If you're logging in from Windows with your standard Mac account, you'll have access to your whole hard drive anyway.)

After you've picked the folder you wanna share, then you just pick the user you want to share with, and how much access you want them to have. Read-only, write-only or read and write.

4. Note your computer's name on the local network. It's sitting on top of the main file sharing setting page. And, if you've got AFP turned off, you'll get this dialog, noting the IP address Windows users can access your stuff.

5. Go back to the main system preferences page, then click on Network. Go to the main connection you'll be using, like AirPort, and click advanced. Go to WINS, and set your Workgroup to the same one as your Windows PCs (probably either WORKGROUP, on newer Windows machines or MSHOME on XP).

Windows 7 and Windows Vista
In Windows 7 and Vista, the Network and Sharing Center is where we'll be spending our time. (Here's Microsoft's own guide, if you wanna check it out.)

1. First, make sure in your little path to the internet up top, you've got a picture of a house sitting between your computer the internet globe at the top. That means you've got it set to private network, so stuff's a little more exposed to other computers on the network. If not, click customize to the right of the network name, and set it to private network.

2. In Vista, you'll notice the big ol' Sharing and Discovery section up front and center. In Windows 7, it's under advanced sharing settings. Go in there, and you'll want to enable network discovery, and make note of your Workgroup (so you can make sure your Mac is on the same one) which is listed here. Also, you have the option to turn off password-protected sharing, so that you don't need an account on the machine set up for sharing. Obviously, it's less secure, but if you prefer convenience, that's up to you.

3. Now for some voodoo that's not required, but it'll make life easier and might be something you need to come back to if stuff isn't working, because OS X and Windows shake hands like goons (really it's about tweaking the LAN Manager Authentication Level, so OS X has an easier time connecting to Windows). If you have Windows 7 or Vista Ultimate, go to the Control Panel, then Administration Tools, then local security policy. Hit local policies, then security options, and look for Network Security LAN Manager Authentication Level. There, you want to switch it to "send LM & NTLM, use NTLMv2 session if negotiated."

If you're in Windows 7 or Vista Home Premium, you don't have access to that, so you'll need to registry hack it up. Open up regedit, and look for this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA\

Double click on LmCompatibilityLevel, and set the value to 1.

For more on this, just Google "vista mac NTVLM2." (Sans period.)

4. Now, we'll need to set up an account to share with. (Again, you can skip this if you're just going to use your regular Windows login from your Mac, though you'll need to have a password on the account for it to work best in Vista.) Go to User Accounts in Control Panel, then to Manage Accounts. Create a new account.

5. If you're going to be logging in with your main administrator account, you can skip this step, since you'll have access to everything anyway. For all other accounts, go to the folder you want to share, right-click on it and hit properties. Click the sharing tab, hit "share," and then you can add users to the share list, along with their permissions. Windows will share it, and give you the network path where you can access it. Alternatively, go to Computer, right-click, and check out the system properties and note your computer's name on the network and its Workgroup (make sure the Workgroup is the same as your other computers, it makes life easier).

Windows XP
XP's interface feels pretty damn ancient when it comes to Networking. Anyways, it's mostly the same stuff, just with a slightly uglier interface. I found this guide helpful when I was trying to remember where everything was.

1. Like before, you'll need a user account and password setup. Go to control panel, user accounts and create a new one, if you need to.

2. Make sure you're on the same workgroup as everything else—XP Home defaults to MSHOME, so if you need to change it, right-click on My Computer, hit properties, then go to Computer Name, and go to "Change" if you need to switch up the Workgroup.

3. Go to the folder you wanna share, right-click, hit properties, and switch over to sharing. Allow it to be shared over the network, and allow users to change files.

Sharing Stuff

Okay, if you've done everything correctly, and the gods are pleased, what you should see on your Mac in your Finder Sidebar under the Shared tab is your Windows computer. (Make sure Shared is enabled in your Finder sidebar preferences, or you won't see it.) Then, you should be able to just click on it, enter your user account and password, and voila, you can get right at everything just like you hoped.

On your Windows 7 or Vista machine, you should be able to click Network, and see all of your connected computers, including your Macs. To login, as Ross McKillop points out, your username is the name of the Mac followed by the OS X username, like this, minus the quotes and period: "MATTBOOK-PRO/matt." In XP, you'll go to My Network Places or Workgroup, and it should be the same deal, though you can just stick to the actual Mac username and password. Life's good.

Update: BTW, if you have Apple's Bonjour—Apple's zero configuration networking dealio, which powers music sharing in iTunes—installed on your Windows machines (it comes with iTunes), the discovery part of the guide above—the parts pertaining to locating the other machines on your network, should just work. That is, your Windows machines should just show up in your Finder sidebar and your Mac in your PC's Networking page, though you still need the accounts setup properly to actually share stuff.

Sometimes, things don't work like that. PCs don't show up in the Finder automagically, you can't login easily from your PC. Network discovery just isn't always that reliable. In that case we go all manual mode. Remember earlier, when I had you note your computer's name on the network and setup a static IP? That's where this comes in handy. So, know either your computers names, or their IP addresses on your network.

On a Mac, it's pretty simple. Go to Finder, tap command+k and punch in:

smb://computername or smb://192.168.X.XXX

The latter is the PC's IP address, which should be something like 192.168.0.105—unless you have a weird setup—though the last two numbers of it will obviously vary. The computer name is easier and usually better, especially if you don't have a static IP address set up.

It'll ask you what volume to mount (what folder you want stuck on your Finder Sidebar under shared, essentially), and a login, and then you're good to go. If prefer the cmd+k approach, you can add computers you tap a lot as a favorite, so you don't have to type it in every time.

It's pretty simple in Windows too, actually. Either in the Windows Explorer address bar, or the Run command type:

\\MACNAME\Folder or \\192.168.X.XXX\Folder

And it should give you the option to login there, giving you access to all of your stuff. Using the full address of the folder you're trying to get to will help with making sure the authentication pop-up appears—otherwise you might just see automatically what's publicly shared and not the stuff you're trying to log into.

Shortcuts

Logging in every single time would be a pain in the dick, but luckily you can make shortcuts to this stuff. On a Mac, as Gina points out here, under Accounts, you can add a network share to login items, so it'll connect every time you start up your computer. In Windows, you can either create a shortcut by right-clicking on the share, or you can add your Mac's shared folder as a mapped network drive, so it'll connect to the folder every time you fire up your computer.

Your Tips and Tricks

There is more than one way to tackle this particular angry bear, so if you've got your own tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our weekend How To guides.

And if you have any topics you'd like to see covered here, please let us know. Happy sharing!

Other Helpful Networking How Tos:
• How to Remote Control Your Computer From Anywhere With VNC
• How to Back Up All Your Stuff for Free, No Hard Drive Needed
• How to Kick Your BitTorrent Addiction with Usenet

At this point, file sharing warnings via snail mail and e-mail are pretty commonplace. But this is the first time I've heard of an ISP taking the matter straight to the browser. At first I was worried, and then I was a bit annoyed, but I have to say, I give them credit for giving me the benefit of the doubt here.

The purpose of this email

and by email they mean the electronic message they forced onto my screen

is to remind you that the distribution of copyrighted material in this fashion may violate both copyright laws and Road Runner's terms of service, and to tell you a bit about peer-to-peer programs, the dangers they can pose to your computer and our network, and the steps you can take to protect yourself.

Considering all of the horror stories you hear, this was a pretty reasonable intervention. All I had to do was click, "I am aware of this issue and will take steps to resolve it," and I was on my merry way. Whether those steps should be deleting all the copyrighted material off my computer, removing my P2P software, getting my shit together and using a private tracker, or just trying a little bit harder to resist the urge to download Nic Cage's entire filmography on Mininova, they don't say. But as Road Runner didn't treat me like a criminal, I'll respect them by not being one. Or at least being a sneakier one.

For some people, one copyright violation notice from their ISP is enough to scare them straight forever. Others wear their warnings like badges of honor. What are your experiences with ISPs and copyright infringement? Weigh in in the comments.

There's a whole bunch of greedy "artists"—represented by the SGAE, the Spanish version of the RIAA, and some cinema associations—who most of the times are used by the Spanish socialist government to support their political agenda. I say greedy because, in Spain, there's an "artist tax" on everything that can be used to record something. You buy a CD to do data backup at work? Doesn't matter, the government's friends assume you are a thief copying stuff, and charge you an extra for it. Maybe you want a new camera to record your newborn baby? Well, that's more expensive too because of the "artistic" tax. Want an iPod? Pay extra. A DVD-R unit? Give them more money.

Their argument for that tax was that, since people were pirating music and movies using the internet, the artistic associations should get a cut of all media and gadgets that could be used to copy music and movies. I can argue that I don't give a rat's ass about the mostly lousy music produced in Spain, not to talk about their craptastic movies, but it's ok. Let's say that I accept that premise and gladly pay the extra, even while it destroys the presumption of innocence. P2P was legal in Spain—and still is—and everyone was happy.

Everyone but them. They wanted more, and they got it as an obvious favor, returned by the socialist government now in power. After passing the law hidden in another law, the artist associations can now close any web site they want, without a court order. They only have to argue that the site may be used to share media, and the Minister of Culture will have to the power to close the site without any judge giving the go ahead, a true "Cultural Police." Goodbye democracy, hello National Socialism. What's more, they also want to be able to close the Internet connection of any user who uses the internet for P2P sharing, also without any due process.

This leaves everyone without any defense. The artists associations and the Minister of Culture can shut down a business that can be perfectly legal, without having to answer to anyone. Just because they say so. Or they can close the internet connection of someone who wasn't doing anything wrong. All without confronting any judge with any solid evidence. This means that the business or user would have to go to court to defend themselves after the damage is done, something that requires money.

In other words, no due process, no presumption of innocence, just shutting down web sites because someone with no judicial power says so.

They want to get their money from the artist tax and destroy P2P at the same time, demolishing some Spanish Constitutional rights in the process. Needless to say, this has originated a huge response by Internet users, Human Rights activists, journalists, and bloggers, who have signed a manifesto against it. Also needless to say, nobody in the government will do anything about it, which is one of the reasons why I don't live in my home country anymore. [MuyComputer—Google Translation]

A few days ago, we found out that Apple Corps and EMI would finally release the Beatles' catalog in a digital format. It's not that we couldn't have just purchased CDs and ripped them—that's what everyone's been doing for years now—it's just that it felt like progress. In reality, it was just the near-random actions of someone who has no idea what's going on, at all. From the Guardian via Ars, Paul McCartney's view on selling the Beatles' music online:

I met [EMI's chief executive] on a plane once. I said: "What is the problem? I want to do it, we all want to do it." And he explained that in the deal that we want, they feel exposed. If [digitised Beatles music] gets out, if one employee decides to take it home and wap it on to the internet, we would have the right to say, "Now you recompense us for that. And they're scared of that."

Just to be clear, Paul McCartney says he wants to sell music online, but he—and his record company—are worried that someone could conceivably download it, upload it back to the internet, and open the floodgates to piracy. As opposed to just uploading the higher-quality digital files you're selling to people on Apple-shaped USB drives right now, or on CDs, more than a decade ago. McCartney expects an agreement by which he would be compensated if people share his music, as if it would be somehow correlated with the release of Beatles' tracks online, which EMI—no stranger to releasing music online—is scared of because it's insane.

Poor Paul! Someone should tell him, you know, about all the wapping. [Ars Technica]

UPDATE: From anonymized (not anonymous) source who researched similar subjects in the past, a possible explanation:

It's not the music for sale they're worried about but the raw remasters (this is why McCartney specifically refers to an employee potentially uploading the music). I don't know how much you've read about the making of [Beatles Rock Band] but they went to incredible lengths to protect the masters. It was only towards the end of the project that Harmonix received the (heavily encrypted) music they needed; before then, Apple Corps had been sending them "dirtied-up" copies of the music just in case it was intercepted halfway.

The real threat from McCartney and the other Beatles (and er, spouses of Beatles) is that if, somewhere in the process of turning their music into iTunes-friendly files, the MASTERS get leaked... then they will sue the pants off of EMI. And EMI allegedly said they are in such a precarious financial position that they do not want to take the risk of getting hit by a lawsuit that could take the company down.

An alternate theory, which still doesn't quite work. If masters leaked to the internet, presumably they'd be encoded in something like FLAC at best, which would be indistinguishable from the files the Beatles are OK with selling on USB drives right now. Or if this refers to the recording's component parts, like the ones used to create Rock Band, still: This seems avoidable. And in either strain of paranoia: Paul McCartney doesn't understand the internet. (And possibly other things, too!)

Aside from automatically syncing content with a Mac or PC, you can share and watch movies, listen to music, or view photos directly through the Pogoplug website and even on an iPhone. Since we looked at the original version, Pogoplug has apparently made some upgrades to add a drag-and-drop interface and sharing over social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook. But as we mentioned back then, while this is a great interface and solution, you are going to be relying on the company staying in business in order to be able to share data.

That one downside or not, the Pogoplug still remains a far quicker solution that setting up a separate Windows Server or similar, so if you're not put off by the $30 price increase since the original, you can pre-order now.

Second Generation Pogoplug™ Unveiled Today
Next-generation Hardware Design and Software Provide Enhanced Storage, Multimedia and Social Media Capabilities

San Francisco, Calif. – November 20, 2009 – Cloud Engines, Inc. unveiled the second generation of the award winning Pogoplug multimedia sharing device today giving consumers more flexibility to store personal content safely in the home and access, manage, and share it from anywhere on the Internet. The new Pogoplug hardware sports a new design boasting multiple USB ports supporting up to 4 external drives for expanded data capacity. The new Pogoplug also gives users improved sharing capabilities, an easy drag-and-drop interface to create engaging multi-media slide shows, seamless media playback, and enhanced sharing with friends on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Pogoplug acts like a gateway from your home or office through the Internet. It allows you to access, share and even stream your personal digital media directly to anybody, anywhere in the world. Your content always remains physically in your home or office, making it secure, convenient and available on your terms. Pogoplug is perfect for those individuals with increasingly mobile lifestyles and small businesses in need of simple, inexpensive mobile data access solutions.

"The reaction to the Pogoplug has been incredible. By listening to user feedback and following our own product roadmap, we are bringing a great second-generation product that gives our customers access to a host of new features that both improve the function of the Pogoplug, and add to the fun of using it as well." said Daniel Putterman, CEO of Cloud Engines, Inc. "We are committed to giving our customers the best way to access their data from anywhere in the world, pushing the envelope with both product quality and design aesthetic. The result is what you see here today."

NEW HARDWARE
The new Pogoplug design retains the simplicity and ease of use of the original while listening to consumer feedback and adding the ability to directly connect up to 4 external hard drives at once. The resulting product boasts an improved design with greatly improved functionality for users with multiple drives and an increasing need for easy synching and sharing of their digital libraries. This upgrade turns the Pogoplug into an even more prominent feature in the modern digital home or small business.

NEW FEATURES

Automatically Synchronize Photos, Videos, Music and Other Selected Content
Users can synchronize their Pogoplug with their PC or Mac to automatically import new content from popular applications such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, and iPhoto. This feature allows Pogoplug owners to "set it and forget it" and always have access to new photos, videos and music from anywhere on the Internet.

Drag-and-Drop Music and Photo Slideshows
Users can easily create and share fun and engaging slideshows using their stored photos, videos and music. Creating a slideshow with Pogoplug is as simple as drag and drop, and sharing these slideshows is just as easy as ever. Once a user's link is shared and viewed, their slideshow will immediately begin with the photos, videos and music they selected, playing seamlessly in the viewer's browser.

Easier Sharing with Pogoplug Address Book
Pogoplug Address Book greatly improves the speed and ease of use of sharing with a user's friends and family. Pogoplug automatically remembers all email addresses entered in a user's previous shares - even if that share no longer exists – and makes them available in an easy to use address book to make sharing truly one click away.

Global Search Across Multiple Drives and Pogoplugs
With support for multiple drives on a single Pogoplug (and multiple Pogoplugs on the same account) Pogoplug has added "global" search support across all of a user's Pogoplugs and drives. Search filters are now a distinct feature, allowing users to view all of their photos, videos and music in a single organized view, or to search for a specific file across all Pogoplugs and drives.

Organize Your Music, Photos and Videos
Pogoplug automatically displays music by Album, Artist and Genre, and shows cover art for quick access to a user's favorite music. Photos are now displayed by photo timeline and videos are only a click away, including the ability to watch a preview in the thumbnail itself.

Play movies directly from my.pogoplug.com, or even to the iPhone
Pogoplug now supports the playback of videos directly from a Pogoplug, with support for the most popular cameras, video cameras and mobile phones. Movies can be shared and viewed directly from the Pogoplug website – or even from an iPhone!

Pricing and Availability
We are currently taking Pre-Orders for Pogoplug at www.pogoplug.com Units will ship before the end of the year – just in time for the Holiday Season. The Pogoplug has a suggested retail price of $129, with no additional service fees.

[Pogoplug]

So says a new survey out of the U.K., anyway. [The Independent via Boing Boing]

Given their earnest public defense of filesharing and aggressive posturing, I always assumed the Pirate Bay was just a couple of fellas, who happened to start a popular website, happened to get in trouble for it, and happened to become icons for a vocal, if misguided, movement against copyright. This, it turns out, is not the case: The real Pirate Bay is a shadowy property that's been passed from mysterious shell corporation to mysterious shell corporation, and seems awfully hard to get a read on, much less buy, according to Nate Anderson at Ars:

GGF wants to buy The Pirate Bay site from a mysterious company called Reservella, based in the Seychelles islands. Reservella has no known contact information, no website, and the company that helped it register in the Seychelles refuses to provide any contact information. The Pirate Bay's current admins claim to Ars that they don't even know who's behind the company. That's odd enough, but they also tell Ars that Reservella acquired the company from another unnamed company, who took it over in 2006 after the Swedish government seized some Pirate Bay servers.

The Bay's founders have "absolutely no connection" to Reservella, a "fact" which morphs this whole fiasco from a weird situation into an incomprehensible one.

On top of it all, Google has honored a DMCA complaint filed by a porn company called Evasive Angel, which alleges the Pirate Bay is hosting links to unauthorized content including Horny Black Mothers 8 and Big Butt Latin Maids 2. (No, really, it's in the filing.) Not that delisting the site from Google will stop anyone from going there, but still. UPDATE: The listings are back, and Google says the delisting was an error.

In short, the future doesn't look so great for anyone involved, be it the company that (still) wants to buy the Bay, the founders of the site, or people who use it regularly. Actually, no, scratch that: Everyone is screwed. [Ars Technica, BoingBoing Gadgets]

Obviously, shoving the whole internet between two computers introduces the potential for lots of problems—even with the clever handshake mechanism, iTwin's gotta cut through servers, routers and firewalls—but the idea is great, especially if they can pull it off for $99 early next year, like they're planning to. [TechCrunch]

Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France...[Full version]

You can't really blame the ISP. Yesterday's rulings meant it faced $70,600 in fines if it didn't yank the cord.

And what of Swedish software outfit Global Gaming Factor? It votes this Thursday on whether or not to go ahead with its Pirate Bay buy out. But between all this, and its chairman stepping down, will it still go ahead with plans for a legal version?

If you're looking for help to get your torrent on in the meantime, check out the Pirate Bay clone, or our favorite 5 Pirate Bay BitTorrent Alternatives. [TorrentFreak]

A few days ago, amidst talk of how a new, improved, crowd-powered Pirate Bay would work should the sale go through, the trading of Global Gaming Factory shares on the Swedish Aktietorget exchange was frozen. Why? Its administrators found out that the CEO owes quite a few people quite of bit of money, including the government, for taxes. Today, the company's chairman has stepped down for no obvious reason, and the stock exchange has said that they're going to keep a freeze on stock trading until they figure out what on earth is going on. Something strange, is a good guess!

What does this mean for the Pirate Bay? Well, GGF's debt-ridden CEO has previously said that the deal to purchase the torrent site—which, remember, hasn't actually happened yet—would be "rubber stamped" by shareholders by Thursday. That date is pretty much out of the question now, and the whole plan is starting to look like it was doomed from the start. So what was the point? Was it some kind of weird share-inflating publicity stunt? An intentional distraction? An earnest bid to buy an illegal filesharing site, by idiots? As much as I like the last one, I don't think that's it. [TheLocal via Slashdot]

Gaming Factory's Chief Executive Officer Hans Pandeya describes the changes thusly:

Rosso describes the new Pirate Bay as a "resource-supported" model where royalty fees and other costs related to file sharing are subsidized by tying your PC's computing power into The Pirate Bay's network. "In short, the more computer resources the user contributes to The Pirate Bay, the more his content consumption is subsidized," Rosso wrote. The Pirate Bay will also charge a small mothly fee to its users; however, that fee can be reduced depending on how much of your own computing resources you contribute to The Pirate Bay.

As CNET notes, this would effectively turn The Pirate Bay into a direct competitor with services like Akamai and Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In other words, The Pirate Bay has effectively ceased to be The Pirate Bay—and there is no real way to know if content providers are going to be into this. At any rate, details on the pricing structure have not been announced, but the question is will you continue to us the site when these changes are implemented? [Yahoo Tech]

Global Gaming Factory X is, in their words, the "biggest network of internet cafés and gaming centers in the world," making this story even more bizarre than it appears. This is sort of like GameFrog buying Demonoid, or, I don't know, Laser Quest buying Empornium. Odd, is the point. For the supreme WTF aspect of this whole thing, here's their plan:

We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site

Yes, you read that correctly: the Pirate Bay wants to pay content providers, or in other words, cease to be the Pirate Bay. This is alarming to fans of the site, obviously, because any conceivable system by which content owners could be paid would drastically change the nature of the whole thing, from a "Pirate Bay" to an, I don't know, iTunes? Unbox? Napster? This, and the future-tense wording of the announcement (the deal is set to close in August) is enough to make you think the whole thing is a hoax, but then you see TPB's semi-defensive, semi-groveling, generally defeated statement on the matter. All this trial, retrial, grandstanding and election business seems a little silly now:

Yes, it's true.

News reached the press today in Sweden - The Pirate Bay might get aquired by Global Gaming Factory X AB.

A lot of people are worried. We're not and you shouldn't be either!

TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it's value if the money would be the interesting part. It's not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site.
As all of you know, there's not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It's the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn't evolve. We don't want that to happen.

We've been working on this project for many years. It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!

If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That's awesome and will take the heat of us.

The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets - quite the opposite. Now we're fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. It will team up with great technicians to evolve the protocols. And we, the people interested in more than just technology, will have the time to focus on that. It's win-win-win.

The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. I hope everybody will help out in that and realize that this is the best option for all. Don't worry - be happy!

I fully expect more clarifying information about this deal to come out soon, since TPB's interests are actually quite wide, the owners are still smarting from their recent court defeat and the whole thing just feels so strange. [GGFX—Thanks, everyone!]

"This will be an experimental playground and as such, subjected to both live and drunk (en)coding, so please don't bug us too much if the site ain't working properly," the site's front page currently warns.

But before you head over looking for an all you can eat smorgasbord of porn, know that you're currently limited to viewing the ogg/theora video and audio tag demos linked to from the main page.

TorrentFreak notes that users were initially able to browse through the videos, but that's been disabled now. "What is left is an announcement that the site will be launched somewhere in the future."

Beyond the piracy angle, what's interesting is this could be one of the first major deployments of HTML5, the next major revision of HTML that some believe could replace the need for plug-ins like Adobe Flash. For that reason, you'll need to use a browser that can handle HTML5's video and audio tags, such as: Firefox 3.5 beta 4, Opera 9.52 preview, Google Chrome 3, Safari 3.4/Safari 4. [The Video Bay]

While the judge overseeing the retrial case did make it clear that these affiliations should have been disclosed, he noted that Sweden has copyright laws and simply agreeing with them is not justification for a mistrial. Naturally, this verdict will result in more desperate legal posturing that will eventually border on the absurd. Speaking of that, defendant Peter Kolmisoppi Sunde responded to the decision by tweeting the following:

The Pirate Bay will now file charges against Sweden for violation for Human Rights. More info later. (The bias-judge is himself biased...)

Oh boy. [Ars Technica]

The decision has taken a ton of twists and turns—even after the jury had decided what Thomas had done was in fact illegal filesharing, the punishment wasn't at all clear. Originally she was to be fined for over 1,700 songs, which was then whittled down to 24 "representative" songs, and the per song fine has shot up from the initial $750 (the legal minimum) to the current $80,000.

Apparently Thomas "gasped" when the number was read out loud. We don't blame her, although our reaction was more fist-shaking and muttering about old white men in suits than sheer surprise.

The ordeal isn't over, of course—Thomas will appeal the decision and it'll probably be heard by a few more judicial levels before any final say is had. Jammie, we're pulling for you. Stand tall. Or sit down, it's easier to steal music that way. [Ars Technica]

Unite is somewhere between a personal web server and a file sharing application, technologically and conceptually. The interface is straightforward, divided into panels for each service that you choose to "host." All of them behave in the same stupid-simple way: you start a service, whether it be photo sharing, music streaming, web hosting, or straight file sharing, select a shared directory, set your privacy preferences and go. There are also hosted chat services, and "Fridge," which is a—you guessed it—hosted quasi-Facebook wall for other Opera users to drop notes on.

Even at this early stage you can find a lot of shared content to explore, including plenty of publicly streamable music, which will almost certainly cause Opera problems even though, strictly speaking, they're not doingthe streaming. There's no video service for now, but Unite is extensible, meaning that anyone can design a plugin to add to the program's default file-serving capabilities.

Opera is proud of the fact that Unite runs against the tide of most new web services, opting for client-side content hosting over cloud-based solutions—so proud, in fact, that they're able to repeatedly, straight-facedly describe Unite as a "Web 5.0" product, which is a bit rich considering it's essentially a collection of services that have been available for years, albeit never in such a simple or consolidated way. As a convenient tool for sharing large amounts of content, I get it. As a game-changer? I'm not so sure.

Try it out for yourself: a technical preview of Opera Unite is available for download here. [Opera]

After a decidedly entertaining trial replete with posturing, theatrics and serious cockiness, the four co-founders of the torrent site were found to have been accessories to copyright infringement, each face a year in prison, and must pay $3.5m in damages to Sony, Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures and others.

Although he could be going to jail soon, Sunde is still quick to make a joke:

Really, it's a bit LOL. It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.

Ha? However, his casualness might be warranted, as the appeals process—which could bring the case all the way to the Swedish Supreme Court—is expected to stretch out for years. As for what will happen to the site? Sunde reassures:

Stay calm - Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing what so ever. This is just a theater for the media.

This hasn't been the best week for pirates, really. [TheLocal —Thanks, Jonathan!]

For those unfamiliar, DoubleTwist promises compatibility with most personal, consumer electronic devices, including cellphones, cameras, camcorders and MP3 players, for sync and management capability. Plus, they're constantly working to not only update the database of supported devices, but also the features within the software itself. You can also add friends who are also using the app to swap and stream files freely.

Anyways, its a really promising project that you should definitely give a try, if you already havent. [DoubleTwist for Windows (and Mac)]