A trade agreement such as ACTA can only be enforced by a larger economy against a smaller, for two reasons. First, the preferred means of enforcement is trade embargoes or penalizing tariffs – ...
Although they’ve been around for a decade or more, Russian music download sites still come as a surprise to those encountering them for the first time. Apart from having some of the most extens...
Every year hundreds of new torrent sites are launched, but only a few manage to rise to the top. Movies.io is one of these newcomers, and since it has something unique to offer it is likely to stick ...
Poor Google can’t do anything right in the RIAA’s eyes. The Mountain View search engine is being lambasted by the Washington DC lobby group for not being proactive enough with the tools they have pro...
BitTorrent users are increasingly looking for more anonymity but right now their options are limited. For a monthly fee they can sign up with a VPN or proxy to hide their IP-address. Free options wit...
During May, TorrentFreak gathered statistics on who is downloading the massive hit series Game of Thrones. We found that more people are downloading the show compared to last year and that the number...
Those who download and share copyrighted files through BitTorrent risk being monitored for various reasons. In the United States, those can also include legal action. In recent years more than a quar...
Two weeks ago The Pirate Bay was offline for more than a day due to a DDoS attack. A rare event for a site that prides itself on being the “most resilient” torrent site on the Internet. H...
In addition to filing a general motion to dismiss the criminal case on the basis that the company was never properly served, Megaupload and defendants Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann, Bram Van Der Kolk a...
In January, the U.S. Government announced that it had initiated one of “the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States.” That case was brought against Megaupload and its...
Hundreds of ISPs all over the world limit and restrict BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer traffic on their networks, and Europe is no exception. A new EU report sheds light on how common these practic...
As widely reported, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and the rest of the “Mega Conspiracy” stand accused by the US Government of running a criminal operation. Charges in the indictment include engaging ...
The publication last week of Google’s Transparency Report gave us a clearer idea of the pressures the search engine is under from copyright holders. The report revealed that in a single month G...
This week and next there will be several key votes in European Parliament Committees on ACTA, the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. In advance of these votes, European digital rights...
The Pirate Bay is arguably the most censored website on the Internet. Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site, and the end is still ...
This week there are four newcomers in our chart. Safe House is the most downloaded movie this week. The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and e...
YouHaveDownloaded is a treasure trove of incriminating data on alleged BitTorrent pirates all across the world. The site, launched late last year, exposes what people behind an IP-address have downlo...
In 2005 and along with many others, then 22-year-old Matthew Thompson of Lubbock, Texas, was raided by the FBI as part of Operation Sitedown. This international initiative spanning 10 countries was a...
When it comes to censorship, few countries in the world are as restrictive or repressive as North Korea. Citizens of the DPRK are routinely deprived access to any and all information, unless of cours...
In the wake of the January shutdown of Megaupload, many of the site’s legitimate users complained that their personal files had been lost. Behind the scenes Megaupload negotiated with the Department ...
During the last 24 hours Google published an extremely enlightening database listing DMCA takedown notices the company receives from rightsholders. Google calls it their ‘Transparency Report...
Under the DMCA copyright holders have the right to demand that websites disable access to infringing content. One of the top recipients of these notices is without a doubt Google. To give the public ...
Over the years we have been following various reports on Internet traffic changes, specifically in relation to BitTorrent. One of the emerging trends is BitTorrent and P2P traffic as a whole losing i...
Early this year TorrentFreak published a shortlist of the world’s most popular torrent sites. Leading the pack was of course The Pirate Bay, but in third place came a site that over its relativ...
Following an earlier court ruling that ordered Ziggo and XS4ALL, two of the Netherlands’ largest ISPs, to start blocking access to the The Pirate Bay, two weeks ago Dutch anti-piracy group BREI...
Anyone who has spent much time online, especially on Internet message boards of any kind, will be aware of Rickrolling. It’s an incredibly simple concept. The meme is based on a bait and switch...
Megaupload continues its legal battle, both in the US and New Zealand. This week Dotcom and his legal team were at Auckland’s High Court to request a judicial review of the legality of the sear...
Within a few days, five of the largest UK Internet providers will all have to censor The Pirate Bay. Virgin and Orange have already implemented the block and the rest must follow before the end of Ma...
Most probably due to Sweden’s historic connections with The Pirate Bay, many Swedes consider file-sharing to be an activity deeply embedded in popular culture. Determined to break the plunderin...
For years the US movie industry has tried to bring streaming links site SurfTheChannel.com to its knees. After a chain of events that reads like a Hollywood blockbuster script, the case is now on tri...
You are no longer following . Undo?