Pirates aren’t popular these days, but let’s give them this—they know how to put together a killer on-demand entertainment system.
Farhad Manjoo • On the sad state of affairs for legal movie downloading. All Manjoo wants is the digital equivalent of Netflix, but the restrictions on movie download services are so high – either not enough of a selection or too many limitations – that he ends up just using Bittorrent instead. • source
A lot of the vessels that had been taken have been previously released, so like any other businessman, when you’re out of stock, what do you do? You go and get more stock. The Somali pirates are businessmen.
Jim Wilson • Middle East correspondent for Fairplay International Shipping Magazine, on the recent increase in Somali pirate attacks in the last couple of weeks, after a slow period. They’ve made tens of millions of dollars this way, by the way. • source
Given the enormous profit margins, it’s no surprise that organized crime has moved into film piracy. The profits are high, and penalties for being caught are relatively low.
Greg Treverton • Lead author of a report on how organized crime and piracy go hand-in-hand. He’s also the director of RAND Corp.’s Center for Global Risk and Security. The study was sponsored by – surprise – the Motion Picture Association, the international arm of the Motion Picture Association of America. The study also linked terrorism and piracy. • source
This is a sensation. It is very rare to win half the target in just one and a half days and it is clear that the prosecutor took strong note of what we said yesterday.
Per E Samuelson • Defense lawyer in The Pirate Bay’s trial in Sweden. The Torrent tracker now only faces charges of “assisting making available copyright infringement,” as the prosecution could not prove the torrent files were specifically tied to The Pirate Bay. • source
The Spectrial site is kind of overloaded, but … … you can get updates through other sources, including Twitter. Anyway, Day One of the trial just ended, and it was a bit of a media circus in the morning, though it calmed down later in the day. Check out this site to see the latest on the trial of the century (well, it is if you’re a mad hax0r). source