Webware

Back in July 2008, torrent tracker The Pirate Bay announced plans to encrypt the Internet. That hasn't happened yet, but they plan to offer a VPN tunneling service to the public starting April 1.

Dubbing the service IPREDator after the controversial Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that takes effect the same day. IPRED's main goal is to make it easier for copyright holders to acquire the personal data of suspected illegal file sharers.

By offering a VPN service that doesn't log its traffic, IPREDator is simultaneously setting itself apart from other Web-based VPN services and offering what looks like a way to legally evade IPRED. Without logs, users will be able to exchange data without worrying about a subpoena revealing to whom the data packets were going, or what their contents were.

Other details about the new VPN service are thin, except that users will be asked to pay a small premium, approximately $6.77 or 5 euros, for the service. It's also not clear if the service will be compatible with other non-file sharing uses, or if it will try to compete with other encrypted tunneling services like LogMeIn or GoToMyPC.

The current beta is free and can be signed up for at the IPREDator site, although it's taking only 500 testers. If anybody does get a chance to use the beta service, please post about it below.

The journey is over for Pirates of the Amazon, a new Firefox extension that let users illegally download movies, games, TV shows, and MP3s for free by cross referencing Amazon.com's product pages with torrent files from the Pirate Bay.

On Thursday, a day after Webware reported on the plug-in, lawyers for Amazon.com took action. They served the Internet service provider of the two students who released the extension with a take-down notice--and the students complied and removed the tool, according to The New York Times.

However, on their Web site, the students now say the plug-in was meant as an artistic parody, part of their research for a media design course at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool in Rotterdam Holland. "It was a practical experiment on interface design, information access, and currently debated issues in media culture," the students say.

And while that might seem like a convenient story concocted by the students to stay out of trouble, the NYT reports that they have backup from their teacher, Florian Cramer, who defended them on an Internet mailing list called Nettime.

Cramer said a majority of commentators failed to see the artistic nature of the experiment, and expressed concern that his students were being censored.

"With the take-down notice from Amazon.com, our students have been scared away from pursuing their art, research and learning in our institute," Cramer wrote. "We do not want a culture in which students have to preemptively censor their study because their work confronts culture with controversial and challenging issues."

While the extension was working, it showed up as a "Download 4 Free" link on the top of the Amazon product page if the content could be found on the Pirate Bay's search index. This linked directly to the hosted .torrent tracker file, letting the user avoid having to make a purchase from Amazon in place of acquiring it illegally via BitTorrent.

If you're up on your pirate lore, or perhaps have your Pirates of the Caribbean plot flow-chart handy, you'll know that sea-faring criminals are no friends of Johnny Depp-devouring monsters. As it goes on the high CGI seas, so follow the stormy waters of the Firefox add-on world. Yesterday's Pirates of the Amazon plug-in, which adds torrent links to songs and movies in the Amazon.com store, is met today by The Kraken, a plug-in that adds Amazon.com links to torrent Web sites.

The Kraken adds Amazon results to MiniNova and The Pirate Bay searches.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The Kraken is extremely simple and there's no configuration required. When you visit popular torrent Web sites The Pirate Bay or MiniNova and search, Kraken will insert its own results box at the top of the site's search engine results that links back to Amazon.com. Kraken did not work with ISOHunt, Torrentz, or TorrentReactor when I checked them.

The plug-in defaults to showing only one result during your first search. To see more hits, click on the Show Top 10 Items for a longer list, or click on the Show All link at the bottom of the list to jump to the relevant Amazon.com page. Share opens a window to quickly e-mail off your Kraken results.

The Kraken obviously isn't going to change anybody's mind about torrenting copyrighted media, but it's encouraging to see that at least somebody out there has a sense of humor instead of firing off threatening and specious letters that probably cost more in attorney's fees than in recovering theoretically lost earnings.

A new Firefox extension called Pirates of the Amazon lets users download movies, games, TV shows, and MP3s free of charge by cross referencing Amazon's product pages with torrent files from the Pirate Bay.

If the content can be found on the Pirate Bay's search index it shows up as a "Download 4 Free" link on the top of the Amazon product page. This links directly to the hosted .torrent tracker file, letting the user avoid having to make a purchase from Amazon in place of acquiring it illegally via BitTorrent.

The extension developer's site, along with the link to download the software is currently offline. The extension made the front page of Digg a few hours ago, which is likely what took the site out (not legal intervention). I've contacted Amazon to see if the company is making any efforts to block the extension but have not heard back yet. As it stands, the extension still works, albeit without the "Download 4 Free" thumbnail, which is hosted on the developer's servers.

As blog Torrentfreak notes, this is a really bad time for such an extension. Piracy continues to be a huge problem for movies, music albums, and PC games. Amazon's online MP3 store is one of the least expensive places to legally purchase DRM-free music, and this extension manages to make it that much simpler to pirate. It also coincides with a time of year when online retailers are getting an increase in traffic due to holiday sales.

That said, anyone who knows how to pirate content probably did not need this to continue their habit.

A similar add-on is available for IMDB users from Userscripts.org that cross references movie titles with torrent sites to find copies of films online. Despite its clear lean toward piracy, I'd argue that one of its more useful features it is to track down subtitle files, which can provide translations in smaller countries where the content might be legally available but not localized.

Below is a demo of how the extension works. Expect the developer's site, along with the download links to be back up later today.

Continuing an aggressive campaign to defend his copyrights, pop star Prince is preparing to file lawsuits within the next few days in three countries--including the United States--against The Pirate Bay, CNET News.com has learned.

John Giacobbi

(Credit: Web Sheriff)

One of the world's best-known BitTorrent indexing sites, The Pirate Bay has defiantly linked to pirated copies of films, TV shows, music videos, and other content while often boasting that it ignores Hollywood's requests to remove them. The Pirate Bay does not host any unauthorized content, but the service is internationally famous for being a highly effective file-sharing tool.

Prince will file similar suits against The Pirate Bay in the U.S., France, a country with laws favorable to copyright owners, and Sweden, where The Pirate Bay is based. In addition, Prince is preparing to take civil action against companies that advertise on The Pirate Bay, many of which are headquartered in Israel, according to John Giacobbi, Web Sheriff's president.

Prince has hired Giacobbi and Web Sheriff, a service that protects copyright materials from Internet piracy, to coordinate the legal challenges against The Pirate Bay and others who the singer believes has violated his copyright.

Giacobbi said Web Sheriff is also helping to launch an investigation into The Pirate Bay's off-shore connections to determine whether the company is compliant with Swedish and international income and corporation tax laws.

The Pirate Bay has already weathered several attempts by the governments of Sweden and the United States to shut down the site. Yet, this is likely the largest civil challenge the Web site has ever faced.

At the core of Prince's lawsuits are his claims that the three founders of The Pirate Bay are profiting from the work of artists without compensating them. The Pirate Bay earns $70,000 a month in advertising revenue, Giacobbi alleged. The site's founders have previously denied that the operation makes money.

None of the three founders of The Pirate Bay could be reached for comment.

The Pirate Bay Founders, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm

(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)

Prince, who Giacobbi said has the backing of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, the group that represents the recording industry worldwide, is only adding to The Pirate Bay's legal troubles. The site founders also face criminal charges, according to a story published Thursday on the blog TorrentFreak.

A prosecutor in Sweden announced that he plans to press charges against five people involved with The Pirate Bay before January 31, 2008, the blog reported. The five are being accused of infringing on intellectual property.

The copyright battle that Prince has waged the past two months has not been without its costs. He was widely criticized this week when three unauthorized fan sites accused him of trying to violate their free speech rights when his handlers demanded that they remove several photos of him.

It was widely reported this week that Prince had begun suing fans. His representatives denied this.

"Prince is not suing his fans, is not looking to penalize fans and nor is he looking to inhibiting freedom of speech in any way," said AEG, Prince's promoter.

Prince began making headlines in September after lashing out against sites he believed were violating his intellectual-property rights.

In September, the singer said he planned to take legal action against The Pirate Bay, YouTube, and eBay. As of Friday, Prince's lawsuits appeared to be solely targeted at The Pirate Bay.

By suing The Pirate Bay in three different countries, Prince is hoping to put financial pressure on the service, Giacobbi said. Copyright laws in the United States and France would also make it nearly impossible for a site like The Pirate Bay to triumph, he claimed.

"There is no way that they will have any defense because it's blatant piracy," Giacobbi said. "They'll either have to come out and fight or just try and ignore it. In that case, we're going to win a default judgment against them. This could be a ticking time bomb for them. They can't outrun this. We are very confident."

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an article about Imeem, pegged to the news that this fledgling site has signed a third major label, EMI, leaving only Universal in the "not yet" column. The service is getting credit for trying to pioneer a new business model for digital music distribution: users can select songs and stream them for free, as long as they're willing to sit through the occasional advertisement.

I registered and fired the service up, and while I'm not ready to call ad-supported music DOA, Imeem isn't about to unseat the current digital music leaders. The main problem: I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing on the site.

In case you hadn't noticed, today is "International Talk Like a Pirate Day," which means it's socially acceptable to start speaking in tongues to your friends, family, and coworkers without them being able to roll their eyes as much as they usually do. It's also a time to check out Flickr, who has managed to translate the entirety of the site to pirate-speak. To toggle this option, just go down to the bottom of the page and select "Arrr!" as the language. Flickr's logo changes, along with all the menus, greeting messages, and of course, references to your groups and contacts which are now referred to as your "crew" and "mateys."

To a quick-and-dirty version of this for any site, you can also run any old URL through the Pirate-Speak Generator, which will turn your "my's" into "me's" and generally turn all instances of proper English into the language of ship-born scallywags.


Find Flickr's secret pirate mode by picking 'Arrr!' from the language selection.
(Credit: CNET Networks)

Other pirate resources:

• The pirate name generator, which will tell you exactly what your name would be if you decided to become a pirate. And in case you were wondering, it's not your middle name and the name of your first pet put together.

• Pirate translator OS X Dashboard widget. Today might be the holiday, but there are still 364 other days to speak like a pirate. Make use of them by keeping this handy widget in your Dashboard repertoire.

• The Sea Pirates Flash game. If you've ever played Zelda, you'll know the importance of sailing a ship around while trying to avoid oceanic peril. This game involves pillaging local islands at whim. It's up to you and the wind to make your way through the ocean while staying alive. You get bonus points for boarding enemy pirate ships and digging up buried treasure, too.

  Anyone find any other fun pirate day Easter eggs on their favorite sites? Share 'em in the TalkBack.

UPDATE: In an attempt to "reclaim the Internet," Prince is preparing to file lawsuits against YouTube, eBay and The Pirate Bay, for allegedly encouraging copyright violations, according to one of his representatives.

The rock star has hired Web Sheriff, a British-based company that specializes in hunting down pirated content on the Web, to launch a legal campaign against companies that wrongfully profit from the artist's work, according to John Giacobbi, Web Sheriff's president.

Prince plans to file suit in both the United States and the U.K., and has hired a top Swedish law firm to take action against The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent tracking site, Giacobbi said on Thursday. Prince has chosen a legal course because sites like YouTube and eBay have left him no other effective way to protect his copyright on their sites, according to Giacobbi.

Prince first hired Web Sheriff to patrol the Web for illegal uses of his material, and then to send "take-down notices" to sites when they found pirated material, Giacobbi said. But he added that sending written notices had little impact.

"In the past couple of weeks, we have removed about 2,000 infringing clips from YouTube," Giacobbi said. "We get them down and the next day, there are 100 or 200 more. Their business model is built on making money off other people's creative work."

Hani Durzy, a spokesman for eBay said the company has programs in place to help rights holders protect their property.

"The bottom line for us is that counterfeit or pirated goods are illegal and have no place on eBay," Durzy said. "We would be happy to work with Prince and his representatives to show them how they can work with us to make sure any infringing items come down."

Prince may be the first major artist to come out against Google, which acquired YouTube nearly a year ago. The move may prove a risky one for Prince. Many Internet users side with Google/YouTube on the issue of copyright. They think movie, TV and music executives are trying to put the squeeze on fans.

Prince could lose support from people who think his campaign is motivated by greed.

For Google, Prince is likely the best known artist to criticize the company for it's stand on copyright. Google and YouTube already face a $1 billion lawsuit filed earlier this year by media-conglomerate Viacom and a class-action suit filed by a group that includes several professional European sports leagues.

Google has always said that it obeys copyright laws. The company maintains that a safe harbor in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects service providers from any illegal acts committed by users. YouTube also removes copyright work once notified by an owner.

UPDATE

YouTube said that it works to protect copyright owners every day.

"Most content owners understand that we respect copyrights," said Zahavah Levine, YouTube's chief counsel in a e-mail. "We work every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better. We have great partnerships with major music labels all over world that understand the benefit of using YouTube as another way to communicate with their fans."

Peter Sunde, one of the cofounders of The Pirate Bay who goes by the online handle "brokep," said that he hasn't heard anything about Prince's lawsuit. He also said that The Pirate Bay likely receives take-down notices from Web Sheriffs but that the company's "spam filters take care" of them.

The Pirate Bay Founders, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm

(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)

Partying with "cute blondes," and maintaining one of the world's most influential underground Web sites keeps The Pirate Bay team busy, according to cofounder Peter Sunde. But in their spare time, the three Scandinavians have labored to bring back SuprNova.org.

In an e-mail interview with CNET News.com, Sunde detailed some of the site's new features and launch timetable (there isn't one). He also outlined why his group wanted to bring back SuprNova, which boasted a rabid following before shutting down in 2004 as a result of legal action by the movie industry.

"We want to send a finger to the ones who try to stop sites like (SuprNova and The Pirate Bay)." Sunde wrote in his e-mail. "It's not right to close them down and this is proof that you can't. I think this is the first time in history that any closed file-sharing site has returned and that's just awesome for us to be part of."

Hollywood has accused SuprNova and The Pirate Bay, founded by Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, of encouraging copyright theft. They track BitTorrent files that are often used to download unauthorized copies of TV shows and movies. A representative for the Motion Picture Assoc. of America (MPAA), could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Sunde said SuprNova is going to be a starter site for those new to BitTorrent.

"SuprNova will be for the beginners," Sunde wrote. "It's easier to use than most sites out there and we want everybody to be able to use it. We will probably also run a new java applet client on the site for those who do not know what a torrent is--that means you can press another download link and it will open a client directly with no installation and still download."

SuprNova will differ from The Pirate Bay in significant ways. First, SuprNova will be a torrent index and according to Sunde, the site will feature over 1 million torrents at launch.

"The Pirate Bay has its own trackers," Sunde wrote. "We have more info on the torrents since people upload them to the site and describe them."

An important difference between SuprNova and other Torrent trackers is that the site won't be censored. "We will be the first indexer site where you can find stuff even though people want the stuff removed," Sunde said.

As for reports that the site will debut this week, Sunde didn't want to commit to a certain date.

"It will launch as soon as we're done with the site," he said. "As you know we're not very conventional. We party, we have girls over (blondes most of the time) and we do this in our spare time. It was supposed to launch in February really so we're a bit slow."