Once you've seen the Sistine Chapel six or seven times, life in Vatican City can get a bit... boring (we imagine). So what else is there to do? According an analysis by TorrentFreak and Scaneye: download pirated porn.
Major media companies say online piracy is such a problem that the federal government should adopt a draconian system of blockades and blacklists to stop infringement. But maybe they should first focus on the pirates they pay and employ, who've just been exposed torrenting the hell out of competitors' movies and TV…
The country's top internet providers have reached a deal with Hollywood and the music industry that would require them to identify, then warn, and eventually punish illegal downloaders. The new process, announced Thursday, would identify customers suspected of digital copyright infringement, then issue a series of six…
Visit the Bittorrent site Torrent-finder and you're greeted with a scary notice that "this domain name has been seized by ICE-Homeland Security Investigations." It's part of an intense anti-piracy operation. But the Pirate Bay is still up, so who cares?
The porn company West Coast Productions ("Your source for ethnic adult content") is suing 9,729 BitTorrent users for illegally downloading its film Teen Anal Nightmare 2. This teen anal nightmare just became a real-life nightmare.
Lovable Hurt Locker producer Nicholas Chartier, whose trash-talk email about Avatar got him banned from the Oscars, called a recent correspondent a "moron" and a "thief" in another imprudent missive. If only there was a way to not press "send."
Bookies favor The Hurt Locker for a Best Picture win (gaining traction: an Up in the Air upset), but if BitTorrent downloads were votes, District 9 would squeak past Avatar for the win. Biggest losers: An Education, Blind Side. [TorrentFreak]
Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom have been on trial in Sweden for months. A court in Stockholm, Sweden, returned its verdict today: guilty, with a year in jail and $3.6 million in fines owed to artists whose works they helped Pirate Bay users copy.
BitTorrent, the troubled file-sharing technology startup, has laid off another 18 employees — roughly half of its remaining staff — and fired CEO Doug Walker, replacing him with CTO Eric Klinker. [Bits]
BitTorrent cofounder and president Ashwin Navin is leaving the company. He has plans for a startup incubator in San Francisco's Mission District. Good! That means he'll be screwing up far less consequential companies from here on out. Navin deserves credit for persuading Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent…
BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen, whose sideline career is in writing horrifyingly violent fiction, approached me at a charity event Tuesday to discuss Valleywag's recent posts about him. I'll give him credit: He's as unapologetic about writing lines like "I don't like fucking bitches like you so don't count on not…
BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen has Asperger's syndrome, a sort of autism lite thought to be common among geeks, BusinessWeek tells us again and again and again. But does he, really? Midway through the article, the writer admits that this fact was too good to check: "Cohen never sought a formal diagnosis." True, Cohen…
A Comcast spokesman contacted an IDG reporter whose report bubbled up to the New York Times today: "Comcast has made no final decisions on how to manage network congestion, despite news reports Wednesday that it will slow traffic for heavy users for up to 20 minutes during times of peak network use." More likely,…
Traffic to NBCOlympics.com has likely already surpassed the 229 million pageviews garnered by the entire 2004 Athens Games, according to the network. Even so, users frustrated with the lack of full-screen video have already started to figure out workarounds. So where are people turning for better-quality Olympics…
The folks who are bringing you the Olympics online don't actually want you to watch their coverage. NBC and Microsoft are delaying the most popular events by three hours so that it won't interfere with more profitable TV broadcasts. And you'll have to download Microsoft's Silverlight browser plug-in to watch in your…
BitTorrent has denied our report that the company laid off 12 out of 55 employees. That may be true: While our source told us 12 employees were on the layoff list, we've learned that, at the last minute, the jobs of two sales engineers, an HR manager, and an office manager were spared. Another tipster — "you can…
Lily Lin, BitTorrent's PR rep, wants to know who Valleywag's source is about the company's layoffs yesterday. Lily, you have this all wrong. You tell us things you're not supposed to. The company's statement, the parsing of which we welcome in the comments:
Planning to watch the Beijing games via BitTorrent instead of NBC? TorrentFreak, my new favorite pirate read, asked a BitTorrent client developer to share his tips for maximizing your download speed. Greg Hazel's client configuration tips:
When Comcast was caught blocking file sharing on its network, the Federal Communications Commission seemed to strike a blow in favor of peer-to-peer startups everywhere by fining the cable company. Observers assumed that the FCC decision would open the field for file sharing to turn into a legitimate business. But…
