Due To Recent Boycott GoDaddy Drops Its Support for SOPA

December 31, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues

An Internet boycott that started Thursday on reddit quickly gained success and spread across the web. Due to this event, domain registrar GoDaddy had decided to drop its support for SOPA, ArsTechnica reports.

“Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” currently working its way through U.S. Congress.
Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation—but we can clearly do better,” Warren Adelman, Go Daddy’s newly appointed CEO, said.

“It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it,” they announced in a statement sent to ArsTechnica.
Since the boycott took life on Thursday, GoDaddy’s competitors had started offering special deals with promo codes like “SopaSuck” to lure GoDaddy switchers. On the same day GoDaddy sent an email to ArsTechnica saying:

“Go Daddy has received some emails that appear to stem from the boycott prompt, but we have not seen any impact to our business.”

As such, their customers were not pleased with the response, and the impact on GoDaddy’s business proved to be significant.
According to GoDaddy’s claims during the negotiations over SOPA, the company “fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill” by pushing to make the bill’s provisions less aggressive.

However, they reconsidered the whole situation and stated:

“In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet.”

Tags: copyright, file-sharing, legal, SOPA, US

Skrillex’s Encouragement to Fans to Pirate His Music Pays Off

December 29, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games

Skrillex - in center of the image

Having a total of six Grammy nominations Sonny John Moore, commonly known as Skrillex, addressed a simple and honest message to his fans through his FaceBook page while launching his newest album Bangarang.

“Happy holidays just like I promised,”

“Just like I always say, go pirate it if you don’t have the money, I just want you to have it.”

“You can buy it here, either way i’ll love you,” he concludes.

In 2010 he released his debut EP “My Name is Skrillex”, and made it available for download. Currently nominated for six Grammy awards, including Best New Artist, Best Dance Recording and Best Dance/Electronica Album, Skrillex has become hugely popular for both his skills to create music and his attitude towards file-sharing.

The artist is currently working with Big Beat Records – an Atlantic Record subsidiary which is owned by Warner Music. Let’s hope that the record labels will mind their own business and leave Sonny do what he does best: make money and keep his fans happy.

And they should since modern electronic music could not have existed without piracy; sampling, cut-and-paste, mixtape and recently file-sharing communities are the stepping stones of artists such as Skrillex who, fortunately, are able to have a huge fanbase, get nominated, give stuff for free and make money out of their work.

We wish him happy holidays as well and good luck with the new album!

Tags: BitTorrent, digital music, file-sharing, free downloads, free music downloads

Sky – The Second ISP after BT To Block Newzbin

December 28, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues

It’s been a while since we haven’t heard of Newzbin and the industry’s struggle to block access to this portal. Of course, we remember how the Kingdom’s ISP BT was forced by court order to block access to the file-sharing portal “thanks” to the MPA’s decision to file suit – representing giants like Warner Bros, Fox, Disney and Paramount Pictures.

After winning the case against BT, the MPA’s goal was for other ISPs to follow suit. And so it looks that their dream may come true as the second ISP – Sky Broadband – is now court ordered to also block access to Newzbin.

“Sky is working with the rest of the industry to implement a sustainable framework for tackling piracy. When presented with clear and robust evidence of copyright theft, we will take the appropriate action in respect to site blocking, as we have with Newzbin 2,” a spokesperson said.

Other ISPs such as Virgin Media and TalkTalk are also considering MPA’s solution in the near future. A TalkTalk’s representative said:

“We have received a letter from the MPA asking whether we would object (in court) to an order for TalkTalk to block access to Newzbin. We are considering our position since there are some objectionable elements to the proposed injunction. We will only block access to a website if ordered to do so by a court.”

As for Virgin Media, they’ve stated:

“As a responsible ISP, we will comply with any court order addressed to us but strongly believe such deterrents need to be accompanied by compelling legal alternatives such as our agreement with Spotify, which gives consumers access to content at the right price.”

Tags: anti-piracy, file sharing sites, file-sharing, ISPs, legal, UK

Top 10 Most Downloaded P2P File Sharing Clients

December 28, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Tops

top-ten-most-downloaded-p2p-file-sharing-clients1 To get a better view on how the peer-to-peer scene is evolving with respect to what file sharing software people are using, we keep you posted weekly with the latest numbers. So here’s a list with last week’s top ten most downloaded p2p file sharing programs – the chart is based on figures published by Download.cnet.com and it refers to the number of times a p2p client was downloaded from their site (to download programs click on the titles – between brackets are displayed the current versions of the apps).

Week ended December 25

P2P Filesharing Client	Number of downloads (last week)	Number of downloads (total)
1. uTorrent (3.0)	100,083	15,502,424
2. BitTorrent (7.2)	52,117	20,211,735
3. StealthNet (0.8.7.9)	29,524	29,626
4. Frostwire (5.2.9)	26,542	33,727,818
5. BitComet (1.30)	22,876	83,826,282
6. Movie Torrent (3.7)	10,951	889,254
7. Vuze (4.6)	8,936	8,344,854
8. Ares Galaxy (2.1.7)	5,848	1,547,982
9. iMesh (10.01)	4,723	115,728,373
10. BearShare (9.01)	3,344	29,128,480

(http://download.cnet.com)

Tags: BitTorrent, file sharing applications, file-sharing, p2p, p2p clients, top downloads

Top 10 Most Downloaded Movies on BitTorrent

December 26, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games, Tops

TorrentFreak has published the data they collected with the top 10 most shared movies on BitTorrent for the week ended December 25. All the films included in this chart are DVDrips (unless mentioned otherwise).

Another week as # 1 for ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ seconded this time by newcomer ‘The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption’. Another sequel follows on the third place – ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’.

This week’s list features three new entries.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	Rating / Trailer
1	(1)	The Inbetweeners Movie	7.9/trailer
2	(…)	The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption	- /trailer
3	(…)	Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (CAM)	7.9/trailer
4	(2)	Cowboys and Aliens	6.4/trailer
5	(3)	Moneyball	8.0/trailer
6	(4)	Warrior	8.3/trailer
7	(5)	Rise of the Planet of the Apes	7.8/trailer
8	(…)	What’s Your Number	5.6/trailer
9	(6)	Contagion	7.0/trailer
10	(8)	The Hangover Part II	6.8/trailer