Torrent.is went to court this week and the site now faces a permanent shutdown and the possibility that they will have to compensate copyright owners. Since nearly 10% of Iceland’s population were members, Torrent.is was by far the most popular BitTorrent tracker in the country.

During November last year, Torrent.is received a preliminary injunction, which led to the shutdown of the site and a 50% drop in Internet traffic in Iceland.

The public hearing of the case was held this week, and the plaintiffs asked for a permanent shutdown of the BitTorrent tracker and compensation for damages.

Snæbjörn Steingrímsson, the executive of the Icelandic equivalent of the MPAA (SMAIS) led the investigation, and wants to see his clients compensated for the losses they claim to have suffered because of the tracker. Read the rest of this entry »

Demonoid, once one of the most popular BitTorrent trackers, has reappeared again, this time hosted in Ukraine. The website is still down but the trackers are now fully operational again, perhaps a sign that Demonoid is crawling back up to speed?

In June 2007 Demonoid was pressured to leave their host in the Netherlands, mainly because of legal threats from the Dutch anti-piracy outfit, BREIN. The site then relocated to Canada, but after threats from the CRIA, it decided to shut down there as well.

A month ago we reported on the brief resurrection of the Demonoid tracker in Malaysia. At the time we hinted at the possibility that the site could perhaps be planning a comeback. Unfortunately the tracker went offline again after a few days. With no official response from the Demonoid team, it remains a mystery what the reason behind the resurrection was. Read the rest of this entry »

Following a huge increase in complaints from the music, movie and software industries, the four major Japanese ISP organizations have agreed that they will work with copyright holders to track down copyright infringing file-sharers and disconnect them from the internet.

In 2006, a Japanese ISP decided to plan measures to stop their subscribers using file-sharing software, by tracking their activities and disconnecting them from the Internet. The plan didn’t come to fruition as the government stepped in and said that such monitoring might have privacy implications. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard for large organizations that move at glacial speeds to compete with individuals taking their content and creating new distribution systems, revenue streams and business models, but the fall of the major record labels taught the rest of the corporate world a lesson. In many cases, piracy it is helping people to innovate and create new legitimate market spaces.

Last week I did a keynote speech at The Medici Summit on The Pirate’s Dilemma, focusing on when and how it’s best to compete with pirates. When I was writing the book, I thought many large corporations wouldn’t be open to the idea that they can learn from piracy, because of the way the major labels reacted to it, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find many that are trying to do exactly that.

 

The Pirate’s Dilemma: To Compete or Not To Compete