The Pirate Bay Trial Begins

Sravan — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:30:10 +0000

We have all heard of the Pirate Bay, the bit torrent search engine site. It was sued by some biggies of the MPAA like MGM Pictures and Sony BMG, and the case began its trial yesterday in the Stockholm district court.\r\n\r\nA police investigation took place way back in 2006 and the current trial is considered a consequence. The trial is being closely observed by the world because its judgment has the power to determine the future of the Internet regarding copyright infringement laws and rethink where cyber law stands.\r\n\r\nThe Pirate Bay is a Swedish site that facilitates users by providing links to torrents. It is considered the world’s largest bit torrent tracker and with an Alexa Rank of 109, I can now imagine how popular the site has become.\r\n\r\nThe Pirate Bay has millions of supporters and I am not one among them. I respect, encourage and support open source, but I have no delusions that those who take part in copyright infringement are being Robin Hood-ish. Music, movie, publishing and software industries are largely impacted by piracy and I can feel the pain when someone takes my content without my consent.\r\n\r\nWithout meaning to make it a Super Bowl match, on which side are you?

Post from: EveryJoe

Microsoft Windows 7 Demo Leaked

Sravan — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:15:19 +0000

When we were busy preparing for the new year celebrations, Secret Santa was hard at work in bringing Windows 7 to the world earlier than Microsoft. How it all happened is still a mystery but a “Genuine Image” of Microsoft Windows 7 Beta 1 Build 7000 has been on the Internet since the 26th Dec of last year.

Since then there has been a great buzz and its availability has soared thanks to the BitTorrents sites. I expect this buzz to increase tremendously in the coming few days once the New Year celebrations come to an end. The last time I checked, the DVD image was at the 18th position among the Top 100 downloads on The Pirate Bay, the top most among the Applications category. The image is about 2.44GB in size, for 32-bit systems, and is not fake. The comments on the torrent page shows a healthy interest on Windows 7 after the Windows Vista catastrophe. (I won’t share the links here because we are talking about piracy here.)

However. It is not a full release of the new OS but only a demo version with minimal features. A beta copy of this was given away by Microsoft to several developers in Nov 2008 for them to review it. The beta was expected to be made public by Microsoft in the near future anyway.

While there have been rumors that, naturally, Microsoft may have been behind this leak, it was probably distributed by one of the developers that received the beta.

Post from: EveryJoe

Microsoft Windows 7 Demo Leaked

EveryJoe » BitTorrents sites

The Pirate Bay Trial Begins

Microsoft Windows 7 Demo Leaked