New Zealand, as we've previously reported, wants to take a hard line against people accused of copyright infringement by cutting them off without any attempt to ascertain whether they're actually guilty.

The copyright owners argue that this is necessary, because successfully prosecuting someone is a time-consuming and costly business. Of course, copyright owners have a history of falsely identifying acccused infringers.

As a result, there's been uproar in the country, with many across the world "blacking out" their social network profile pictures to draw attention to the law, due to come into force this Saturday (28th Feb 09).

Thanks to their actions, and the media spotlight placed on the country from across the world, the law has now been postponed. Although it's only postponed for a month, it's still a major victory for consumers, who'll now have a chance to input on a code of practice for the implementation of the law.

If no agreement is reached on the code of practice, then the law will be suspended further, and the government has also promised a review of the effectiveness of the law six months in, to see if it's had any effect on volumes of filesharing. My guess? It won't.

(via Stuff.co.nz)

The lols continue at the Pirate Bay "spectrial" in Sweden, with day four of the court case seeing the prosecutors make yet another mis-step. Movie industry lawyer Monique Wadsted attempted to introduce completely new, previously-unseen, evidence - something which didn't go down well with either the defence or the judge.

Most of the morning revolved around questioning defendant Fredrik Neij (TiAMO) individually, with the prosecution trying to link the four administrators to the actions of their users and to advertisers.

At one point, Fredrik was asked whether advertiser Oded Daniel was involved in the technical running of the site - Fredik's response was "No, he's not good at that. He uses Windows, so..." and there was a massive burst of laughter through the wall from bloggers next door in the listening lounge.

Fredrik also explained how Anti-p2p companies like MediaDefender manipulate statistics, with their actions making certain torrents appear far more active than in reality. Fredrik claimed that he had no ideological connection with the site - he simply wanted to play with the Bittorrent technology.

Later on, a crucial point was elaborated upon in detail - how .torrent files can be shared in many different ways - via email or FTP, for example. This is important, because the role that the Pirate Bay performs in the Bittorrent process could just as easily be done by Google. In fact, here's a how-to.

The story's still developing today, and in the latest developments the prosecutors have tried to link the Pirate Bay to child pornography - a favourite tactic of anti-p2p activists. Gottfrid said that they report the ones they spot to the police, but that it isn't up to the site to investigate: "We can't do investigations of our own. And if the police says we should remove a torrent, we will".

More tomorrow. In the meantime, hackers have been defacing sites owned by the IFPI, playing the following message on ifpi.se:

Stop lying HÅKAN ROSWALL!:

The ruthless hunt conducted by the IFPI, Anti-Piracy Office, Warner Bros., and all the other companies with a pawn in the game has now resulted in a trial in which four innocent men are accused of copyright infringement. This is a declaration of war against anti-piracy outfits and the industry players behind them, and we urge the public to boycott and lynch those responsible. IFPI is just the beginning. To be Continued.

The New Generation

The defendants in the trial, however, aren't too happy about it, with Peter Sunde (brokep) saying:

"Our case is going quite well as most of you have noticed. In the light of that it feels very bad that people are hacking web sites which actually puts us in a worse light than we need to be in. If anyone involved in the acts going on is reading this - please stop, for our sake. We don't need that kind of support."

All IFPI sites are now back online.

(via Torrentfreak 1 & 2)

As we've reported on developments in the Pirate Bay's trial for two days running now, I don't see why we shouldn't carry on, so long as there's interesting stuff to share.

Today's session was cut rather short, but the whole trial is still ahead of schedule. It began with the prosecutor presenting his amended charges (following the withdrawing of half of them) and outlining the damages sought by the content owners.

Interestingly, they're calling every download a lost sale, and multiplying any damages by 10 if they were leaked before release, or otherwise unavailable online. In one case, the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau doubled all their damages to account for a "loss of goodwill".

In the second half of the session, the defence responded, and reacting to the new charges, again asserted their innocence. Each picked holes in the case of the prosecution, but nothing we hadn't heard before until Carl Lundström's lawyer, Per E Samuelsson took the floor.

"EU directive 2000/31/EG says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer. But the admins of The Pirate Bay don't initiate transfers. It's the users that do and they are physically identifiable people. They call themselves names like King Kong,"

"According to legal procedure, the accusations must be against an individual and there must be a close tie between the perpetrators of a crime and those who are assisting. This tie has not been shown. The prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia,"

Basically, he's saying that for the defendants to be guilty, they need to have personally been involved with every interaction between sharers and downloaders - simply setting up the noticeboard isn't good enough, especially as there are plenty of people using that same noticeboard for sharing perfectly legitimate content.

Following that statement, the court adjourned the case until tomorrow. On brokep's fantastic Twitter stream, he relates that everyone then went for pizza together. He asked the prosecution to pick up the bill. They refused.

(via Torrentfreak)

In a shock development this morning at the "Spectrial" of the Pirate Bay's four administrators, half the charges against the site have been dropped. It's a massive blow for the prosecutors, who will now only be able to try the defendants for "assisting making available".

This happens on only the second day of the trial, and came about because the prosecutor has no way of proving that the .torrent files that he's using as evidence were actually tracked by The Pirate Bay at any point. In fact, many of the screenshots submitted clearly state that there's no connection to the tracker.

This is significant because, as I pointed out on Channel 4 News yesterday, the Pirate Bay only acts as a signpost for the files shared over it. It's like a matchmaking service - uniting people who have content with the people who want it. It takes no part in the actual transaction. As a result, the Pirate Bay likens the trial to a car manufacturer being prosecuted for making cars that can exceed the speed limit.

In the meantime, the site itself has seen a surge in popularity thanks to the publicity from the trial. 150,000 more torrents are currently being shared than at the same time last week. Swedish web traffic is also up 10Gbs over previous weeks - the Pirate Bay claims that upto 80% of all web traffic is bittorrent, so that also suggests a massive jump in usage.

Of course, this won't stop the prosecutors attempting to being the site to justice once more, with stronger evidence, but given that the trial's been two years in the making already, it's not going to be soon. Given the inevitable appeals the the four promise following any successful prosecution, by the time any action is taken on the site, there'll almost certainly be a new king of the hill in the filesharing world.

A couple of weeks ago, Facebook changed its terms of service so that users won't be able to delete their data if they leave the site. The blogosphere immediately erupted with criticism and it prompted a blog post from Mark Zuckerberg himself on who owns the data.

Facebook had been criticized for allowing a situation where someone could take a photo of you, upload it to the site, and then neither of you would be able to stop Facebook from using it for whatever purposes they like. You essentially waive all rights to the data.

Zuckerberg's response to concerns is basically 'chill out - we're not going to take the piss here'. He doesn't apologize, or even offer to soften the language - just asks users to trust the company. But how can users trust a company slowly eroding their rights?

Sure, odds are that Facebook isn't going to suddenly abuse millions of people's personal info, but if that's the case, then why not retain the original language? Facebook has a history of communicating changes badly, and this is just another in a long line of screwups that include the profile redesign and the "Beacon" fiasco.

(via TechCrunch)

The four operators of the Pirate Bay, the internet's premier Bittorrent tracker, began their trial today in Sweden, accused of 33 cases of copyright infringement. According to charges filed by the public prosecutor, they're "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws", a reference to the fact that the site simply links to copyrighted content - it doesn't actually host anything itself.

Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundström face a fine of £100,000 and up to two years in prison, but the real effect will be on the future of file-sharing on the internet. A victory for the Pirate Bay would set back the cause of content-owners world wide.

The Pirate Bay is calling the event a "Spectrial" - a cross between a spectacle and trial. They're trying to make the reporting of the case as open and transparent as possible, with audio and video streams available in multiple languages.

The Pirate Bay has launched a blog - http://trial.thepiratebay.org/ - though it's currently struggling under heavy traffic, and it's encouraging people to use the #spectrial hashtag when discussing it on Twitter. Blogs like ZeroPaid and TorrentFreak are also covering the trial in fine detail.

What I find most baffling about the whole affair, though, is that the authorities think that they can make a dent in file-sharing volumes by shutting down the Pirate Bay. If that was to happen, then 99.5% of its users would just move to another site and carry on as if nothing had happened.

Even if Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi and Carl Lundström go to jail for this, it's highly unlikely that the site will go down for longer than 24 hours or so. I strongly suspect that the operators have backup plans in place just for that very event.

Still, I suppose the Swedish government has to appear as if its doing something to placate the content-owners whose business is crashing all around them. I just wonder if the content owners have some sense of reality about the game of whack-a-mole that they're playing.

If you happen to inhabit the same deadly underground hacking world (forum) as the creator of the "Conficker" virus that's been wreaking havoc on PCs since last October and even left France vulnerable to aerial invasion, you might be in luck.

Microsoft has put up a $250,000 reward for information leading the the capture of the creator of the worm/virus, hoping that some of the man's internet friends might be a bit keen on grassing him up and bringing him to justice in return for more than enough money to buy a gaming rig and a Vaio P for on-the-go.

"People who write this malware have to be held accountable," George Stathakopulos from Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group said, rather worryingly, adding that "whoever wrote this caused significant pain to our customers and we are sending a message that we will do everything we can to help with your arrest."

Arrest. Then trial. Then EXECUTION by lethal injection.

Meanwhile, on the side of RIGHT and JUST and HONOURABLE, Microsoft has revealed it's planning a move into the retail world - and will be opening a worldwide chain of shops to flog PCs and software.

We cannot wait to go inside a Microsoft Store. It'll be like an Apple store, only with geekier, more dishevelled staff and much more swearing at crashed display machines.

(Via BBC)

If you missed out on the thrilling, frenzied, staff-assaulting, dignity-sapping, blatant and aggressive looting of the once-proud Woolworths brand over Christmas and the New Year, there's still time to get yourself a bit of Woolies history.

Enterprising store manager Ed Adams, of the Petts Wood branch in Orpington, London, decided to nick/liberate the last remaining scraps from his branch's Pic 'N' Mix display counter - an 800g selection of "delicious nostalgia" he's now put up for sale on eBay.

The auction has a charitable edge to it, so we can't accuse people of polishing up the truth or glamourising the sequence of events to make money - proceeds from the auction go to the Retail Trust, a group which helps out-of-work Woolies staff, among other people.

The bidding is currently at £28 and your bag of carefully refined sugar will come with a certificate of authenticity from Woolworths administrator Deloitte. If you feel guilty about all the stuff you shoplifted from your local Woolies as a child therefore slightly hastening the retail giant's demise, this is your chance to make amends.

(Via TP&J)

Then step right up! The Pirate Bay, the mega piracy portal which always goes to great lengths to point out it doesn't actually host the files it catalogues, is going to court very soon - charged with, well, you can probably guess. Letting the world watch Quantum of Solace without having to go to the cinema or HMV.

A live audio feed of the Bay's trial will be made available online, but the problem is it's all being conducted in Sweden. In Swedish. And with the best will in the world, Swedish could hardly be described as the language of the internet. We'd imagine it's only the third most popular language even in Sweden.

So the Bay has sent a "shout out" to the internet, requesting help. It wants Swedes to translate the trial, as it happens, dump the key points onto blogs and particularly Twitter, and for everyone to tag anything relevant with the tag #spectrial so it's easy for everyone to follow events as they happen via Twitter.

The Bay's trial begins on February 16 - you can follow it all pretty much live on the Bay's special trial news aggregator portal thing, if you've not yet surrendered to the media barrage and got yourself a Twitter account.

(Via Torrentfreak)

D-Link has invented a niche it's calling the "home security market" - and has released a couple of webcams to help you discover who it is that's eating all the biscuits.

The DCS-2121 Megapixel Wireless Network Camera is the hottest of the pair, coming fully loaded up with wi-fi connectivity so there's no tell-tale wiring going from your computer to the cavity you hollowed out behind the mirror.

The DCS-910 is the wired version, coming with an Ethernet socket for easily hooking it into your home network. Both come with D-ViewCam 2.0, D-Link's monitoring software that has the power to let you watch 32 simultaneous video streams from 32 separate cameras at once, should you have a PC powerful enough, a bank balance unrestricted enough, and compound eyes.

They and their little software friend can record video direct to the hard drive as EVIDENCE, plus motion detection sensors let you leave them running - and have them email you when there's something happening in the room. If you're very, very paranoid and controlling, both are out now - at £129.99 for the 910 and £174.99 for the wi-fi 2121.

(Via D-link)

Related posts: D-Link wireless N router | Some sort of media thing

It was, as everything always is, leaked on the internet a couple of weeks ago, now Amazon's finally detailed the specs of Kindle 2 - ideal if you're just starting to get in on the hot new book-reading scene.

Kindle 2 will feature a 25% longer battery life, according to Amazon, will turn the pages 20% quicker if you're an amazingly impatient person for whom TIME is MONEY and you can't waste TIME waiting for PAGES to BLOODY TURN, will be thinner and lighter, feature a higher-res screen with 16 rather than four shades of grey for sharper text displaying, plus the internal memory has been boosted to a ludicrous 2GB.

2GB is enough room to store 1500 books - ideal if you've got a long flight coming up. Like, if you're manning the first mission to Mars.

(Via BGR)

Related posts: Amazon after "casual" gamers | Kindle 2 leaked to the internet

Now, to us lot, The Woz is a true star. He started up Apple with Steve Jobs in the 1970s, designed and built the original Apple and Apple II computers, before officially leaving the company in 1987 - but remaining a popular commenter on Apple issues to this very day.

But is he really famous enough to become a reality star? Apparently so, with the bearded Wozniak signed up to appear on the US treatment of Dancing with the Stars, the latest in abysmal TV shows to feature famous people literally DANCING FOR OUR AMUSEMENT.

Lucky old Wozniak will get to rub the sequinned flesh of 80s pop star Belinda Carlisle, 90s rap dirty mouth Lil' Kim and Starship Troopers star Denise Richards, with the new series starting on March 9. Expect YouTube clips of Woz stumbling about to be so popular and unintentionally hilarious they make the proper news.

(Via BBC)

Related posts: No netbook for Apple | No DRM for Apple

EDITOR'S NOTE: Please read this update while playing the theme tune from Benny Hill in the background.

The UK government may well be pushing ahead with its scheme to start rolling out ID cards to airport staff and other key workers in the security sector, but there's one rather sizeable problem - the card readers. There aren't any.

The Government apparently failed to budget for the thousands upon thousands of card readers that will be required to make the ID cards, like, actually work, which will inevitably add a couple of extra zeros to the end of the price of the controversial scheme.

The Oxford Junior Dictionary has been slowly removing loads of boring old nature and science words from its recent editions, replacing the likes of "guinea pig" and "monastery" with modern things kids need to know about like "MP3 player" and "broadband".

This deeply shameful activity by the newly edgy and urban word-explainer has mainly seen numerous nature terms and animal names dumped, but plenty of Christian and other religious words have been removed too - to make way for the likes of "database" and "chatroom". Ideal if you're currently hot-housing your kid for a future career in IT.

A full list of all the binned and replaced words can be found here, if you're thinking of starting an angry petition on behalf of the UK's under-represented budgerigar population.

(Via Technabob)

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If you're old enough to remember the news, current events and popular culture of the year 1982, we would firstly like to enquire how your joints are holding up in this cold weather. Are your knees OK? How about that dodgy shoulder? And your neck? You might want to start taking some cod liver oil, you know. It really works.

Secondly, we'd like to alert you to this eBay auction - in which a US DJ is selling his business as a way of also getting rid of the New Jersey phone number 867-5309 - made famous by Tommy Tutone's 1982 hit.

Six days. That's all it takes for most Oscar screeners to make it onto the internet after they're sent out to Academy members. Andy Baio at Waxy.org has compiled a massive spreadsheet of the dates at which different films appear online.

This year, on nomination day, 23 out of 26 films were already available in DVD quality. Australia and Changeling leaked shortly after. Only one film - Rachel Getting Married - still remains unavailable at the time of writing. I suspect that the pirates are only going to see that as a challenge. Definitely check out the full list, because it's shocking how quickly some of these movies leak.

Waxy.org (via Crunchgear)

Related posts: Virgin's P2P music service scrapped amidst labels' anti-piracy concerns | Digital Copy arrives in the UK with hopes of ending piracy. Pah!

Project Kangaroo, the planned online telly service that would've combined BBC, ITV and Channel 4 content on one handy site for your viewing pleasure, has been binned.

The EVIL denier of free TV is the Competition Commission which has, incredibly, decided that it would be unfair of the Beeb, ITV and C4 to team up as this might damage rival commercial companies that operating in the same "space" - despite the fact that the rival commercial companies routinely allow their users to steal BBC's, ITV's and Channel 4's content, whack their own advertising over it and pass it off as their own...

For the love of GOD, won't someone stop them?

Google's roaming fleet of privacy-invading world-mapping cars caused a bit of a stir yesterday, when one of the people who spends their every waking hour combing Street View for photos of hookers, drugs deals going down, shootings and sunbathing ladies found this - the moment the Street View car flattened a deer.

You'd think the driver would've said something and told his bosses not to upload the pictures, but no. Although the photo has since been removed from the service, to avoid offending people who don't like seeing animals getting run over by cars. Which is most sane people in the world.

(Via TDW)

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Meanwhile, over the Irish Sea, the four major music labels have just come to an agreement with Eircom (Ireland's equivalent of BT) to cut off persistent downloaders after two warnings - the famous "three strikes" approach to music piracy.

Ireland joins France in being the only countries in the world to implement the system, which alienates ISP customers, especially as people get accused of things they've not done on a regular basis. The labels say that they're going to take "all necessary steps" to get other ISPs to follow suit, though I anticipate there'll be a considerable amount of resistance, especially when they see customers deserting Eircom in their droves.

(via Irish Times)

Related posts: MEPs vote in favour of new telecoms law, could lead to universal "three strikes" | Digital Britain

So, the Government has just released its Digital Britain green paper. It discusses a number of
different things that the Government wants to do for the future of Britain's digital industry, ranging from telecoms, through radio, television, broadband and, as we discussed this morning, intellectual property.

It's an interesting read. There's some positive aspects, and some negative ones. Some bits of the report are very ambitious, but others show no ambition at all. I'll go through each sector in order over the break.