Downloading

Coup d’eTorrent: Scammers Hijack a Major File-Sharing Site

RIP, EZTV: One of the largest TV pirating rings is dead. Torrent sites like Kickass and Pirate Bay have also added a warning to EZTV’s files reading: THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY SCAMMERS. STAY AWAY. After EZTV had its IP address suspended, it was purchased by scammers. NovaKing was told he needed a…

If piracy levels translate to actual ratings, Z Nation is poised to be a surprise hit for Syfy. 300,000 unique IP addresses downloaded the premiere within 24 hours of it airing. That puts Z Nation ahead of Orange Is the New Black, House of Cards, and a copy of Expendables 3 that leaked weeks early.…

Thanks to Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Will Sell Just One Copy of Its Secret Album

You’ve heard of rare records before, but what Wu-Tang Clan is planning for its stealthy double album, The Wu–Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, is unprecedented. The legendary rap group will sell only one copy, encased in an engraved silver and nickel box. It will be very, very expensive. It’s actually a brilliant plan. When…

Torrent Site Popcorn Time, Shut Down Yesterday, Is Alive Again

That was quick. After closing up shop yesterday among the usual copyright questions, and just a week after its first launch, Popcorn Time is back. TorrentFreak has the story of how the project, abandoned by its founders, will live on at the hands of YTS developers. In a conversation with TorrentFreak, YTS developer Jduncanator assures…

The Pirate Bay Leaves Sweden Over Legal Threats

The Pirate Bay is leaving Sweden, because pressure from a local anti-piracy group representing the entertainment industry is getting too much for it. Instead, the ‘Bay will be hosted across Norway and Spain, reports Torrent Freak. While The Pirate Bay moved to the cloud in October 2012, it continued to use web hosting services provided…

BitTorrent Wants To Be Hollywood’s New Best Friend

Torrenting, it’s the tool of thieves and pirates, right? The evil protocol no honest person should ever dare touch? Not quite, but it’s got that reputation with some, and it’s trying hard to shake it. According to BitTorrent’s executive director of marketing Matt Mason, they plan to take it all the way in the other…

Verizon Sued By Porn Industry For Protecting Pirates

Verizon is being sued by a group of adult movie companies because it has refused to hand over personal details of alleged BitTorrent pirates. Torrent Freak reports that Verizon is refusing to comply with court-ordered subpoenas—and the porn studios see it as more than simple customer protection. Instead, they believe that the provider is profiting…

How to Pirate Movies, Music, TV Shows, and Books Without Getting Caught

Last time we did this, we were talking about software. This time, let’s talk media. That is movies, music, TV shows, and everything else the copyright lawyers scream about. https://gizmodo.com/how-to-pirate-software-without-getting-caught-5905534 Before that, though, let’s talk about the ground rules here. You should not pirate things you don’t own. But ownership is a murky subject in…

Facebook Music Coming September 22nd?

File this one under rumor, but CNBC just tweeted that Facebook is preparing to launch a new music service on September 22nd, which just happens to be the date of their annual f8 developer conference. What a coinkidink. The new service is rumored to be called Facebook Vibes (yeah man, totally trippy). There’s some speculation…

Francis Ford Coppola: Maybe the Downloaders Are Right

In a new interview, acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola takes a radical stance on issues of downloading, copyright, and art: Maybe the students downloading movies and music are right, he says. Maybe we artists shouldn’t get paid. Coppola, director of Apocalypse Now, the Godfather trilogy, and many more critically and commercially successful films, now largely…

Judge Slashes “Unconstitutionally Excessive” File Sharing Fine By 90%

Last summer, a Boston University graduate student was ordered to pay $670,000 in damages for illegally downloading 30 songs. Yesterday, US District Court Judge Nancy Gertner said that was ludicrous and reduced it to $67,000. Thank God. Even that reduced number, she wrote in her decision, is “severe, even harsh.” She hopes the reduced damages…

BitTorrent Open-Sources uTP Protocol

The protocol behind uTorrent, uTP, has been made open source by BitTorrent Inc, for developers to create BitTorrent clients and programs using the format. [TorrentFreak]

The Ethics of Pirating Ebooks You Already Own

Is it ethical to pirate ebooks of texts you already bought in a bookstore? Randy Cohen, the New York Times Magazine ethicist who weekly presides over readers’ matters of morality, says yes it is. Randy Cohen is one seriously ethical fellow. If there’s some nook or cranny of an issue that seems a little off…

iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and MySpace Team Up to Guilt You Into Paying For Music

A group of online music industry giants, including Apple, Amazon and MySpace, have teamed up to form “Why Music Matters,” a group aimed at turning pirates into purchasers. While I’m certainly not going to argue with the value of paying for music, it’s tough to take an earnest plea for buying music seriously when it…

Universal to Cut All CD Prices to Below $10

Is there any doubt that the value of purchased music is plummeting? Universal, one of the big four record labels, is planning to cut the prices of almost all of its CDs to between $6 and $10. https://gizmodo.com/record-labels-change-or-die-5481545 This new test, called the Velocity program, represents a pretty serious price cut, as the average price…

Lifechanger: My Big Fat Music Collection

According to iTunes, I have 22,880 items in my music collection. That adds up to 70.9 days worth of music, taking up 145.26 GB of hard drive space. And thank God for it. When I was 12 or 13 years old, we had a family computer that everyone shared. It had a 1GB hard drive.…

Warner Music Doesn’t Much Care For This “Free Internet Music”

Warner Music, one of the four largest record labels, is upset with just how free their music is online, and they’re not talking about piracy: They’re worried about legit, ad-supported services like Last.fm, Spotify and Pandora. Uh oh. Warner execs, who were just yesterday lamenting the (shocking!) correlation between raised iTunes prices and decrease sales,…

Mininova Threatened With $1500 Fine For Each Link To an Illegal Torrent

Hugely popular torrent indexer Mininova has been slapped with a debilitating ruling, in the Netherlands: Within the next three months, the site has to remove all links to infringing torrents, after which it’ll be fined 1000 Euros for each one. Mininova’s been working on a copyright filter for a while, but with the stakes so…

Man Sent to Jail For Six Months For Pirating, Uh, The Love Guru

This is embarassing. Jack Yates has been sentenced to six months in jail for pirating the horrible Mike Meyers movie The Love Guru. It might have been worth it for Star Trek, but come on, The Love Guru? Yates was working at the Burbank distribution company hired to cut promo reels for talk shows when…

Court Orders File-Sharer to Pay $80,000 Per Song to RIAA

A delusional Minnesota court has ordered Jammie Thomas, wanton criminal Kazaa user, to pay a total of $1.92 million for sharing 24 songs. As my own little protest, I’m going to illegally download Metallica’s entire discography. And I hate Metallica. The decision has taken a ton of twists and turns—even after the jury had decided…