By Jessica Roy 3/06 7:36am

Linkages

Do not steal form her. (Photo: Necole Betchie)

Booting Up: The $233,000 Beyonce Torrent Lawsuit

Well look who’s scroogling screwing people now. The European Union has fined Microsoft $731 million for violating its promise to offer consumers a choice of web browser. Probably because when given a choice, no one will pick Internet Explorer. [Reuters]

Facebook plans to announce better ways to filter News Feed content at tomorrow’s big press event, including being able to view just Instagram photos. Photos will also appear larger for posts and, of course, ads. [TechCrunch]

What happens when you share Beyonce files on BitTorrent? Sony smacks you with a $233,000 damages lawsuit. That’s what you get for stealing from Queen Bey, we suppose. [TorrentFreak]

The FBI is secretly spying on some Google users, though because of national security, Google can only give an estimate of how many accounts have been tapped. [Wired]

JFK employees reportedly saw a drone aircraft flying around yesterday, and now the FBI wants your help tracking it. [Motherboard]

By Kelly Faircloth 10/03/12 2:00pm

Florida!

Gross. (Photo: flickr.com/Chris Breeze)

Florida Gators Implicated as Not Just SEC Villains, but Possibly Rank Music Theives

Everyone knows that America’s youths just love pirating music. However, as in all things, there must be a winner, someone whose devotion goes above and beyond, a town that pulls together to reach number one. And so–drum roll, please!–CNET has a list of the metro areas with the most offenders per capita. Taking home the crown?

Gainesville, Florida, the home of the University of Florida. Surprise, surprise.*

As CNET notes, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who the culprit is here:  Read More

By Steve Huff 8/31/12 6:36pm

Privacy Police

User names of 10 top BitTorrent seeders. (Screengrab)

Comcast and Road Runner Customers Love Uploading Their Stuff to The Pirate Bay

There is no safe way to upload your stuff to The Pirate Bay without taking pains to conceal your IP address. Many who are addicted to torrents know this–unless, apparently, they’re Americans who get their Internet from Comcast or Road Runner.

Torrent Freak reports that researchers from multiple institutions have been logging data from BitTorrent network users for a while. On the surface, their intentions don’t seem nefarious: Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 7/24/12 11:45am

They See Me Trollin'

The Google Image results for "porn" are too vile, so here is a "lady flower." (Photo: flickr.com/danseprofane)

Accused of Illegally Downloading Porn, Man Demands Public Apology

Plenty of people have been sued for illegal downloading. But an increasing number of defendants are basically giving plaintiffs the finger, in the form of countersuits. Today TorrentFreak offers up yet another example, that of a put-upon Colorado man who’s filed a lengthy countersuit demanding millions in damages and also a public apology in a local newspaper.

Presumably he also faxed the company a handwritten note saying, “And that’s what’s up.” Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 5/03/12 8:34am

When Copyright's Wrong

Screen shot 2012-05-03 at 8.16.38 AM

Blow for BitTorrent Lawsuits: New York Judge Rules an IP Address Is Not a Person

Earlier this week, New York Magistrate Judge Gary Brown issued a landmark ruling in one of the many mass-BitTorrent lawsuits for copyright infringement, calling the lawsuit a “waste of judicial resources” for insufficient evidence to identify copyright infringers, reports TorrentFreak.

The copyright holders were launching their claims with just an IP address. The copyright holders use that IP address ask the courts for a subpoena, which they then use to ask Internet service providers to hand over personal details about alleged offenders.  Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 5/06/11 5:26pm

shameless rumormongering

rumormonger

Rumors & Acquisitions: We’re Going to Be TV Stars!

We’re getting in trouble for our un-SEO optimized rumor roundup headlines, but perhaps we can get away with just one more. It’s important because reality TV is truly descending upon start-up land! Behold:

MINI-SERIES. We heard the Makery-based start-up PR shoppe Small Girls are getting a reality show! They’re at least going to have camera people following them around! We pinged to ask. ”It’s still pretty hush-hush,” petite publicist Bianca Caampued told Betabeat by email. “We’re still in the very early stages of filming our sizzle reel and our producer shopping it to networks, so we can’t talk about it on internet land yet.” Happily, Ms. Caampued and petite pal Mallory Blair were pretty cool about our rumormongering. ”We’re also actually shooting a segment for another show on Bravo next week, in my closet,” Ms. Caampued said. Wee! What should they should call the show? The Mini-est Marketers? The Littlest Flacks? Prometheus? Read More