bittorrent

Radiohead is now notorious for innovative distribution after their "pay what you want" initial sale of their last LP, In Rainbows, breaking from the traditional label system. In many ways, they are leading the fight against major music labels. All this adds up to some interesting speculation on the leak of a new Radiohead song, entitled "These Are My Twisted Words."

Last night, the song leaked on a torrent site and was quickly picked up by Radiohead fan forum ateaseweb. While it's not 100% confirmed to be Radiohead, there seems to be a consensus that … Read more

We're all still in shock about receiving a tweet from one @LesMoonves, but we get through it to bring you an awesome Monday show. Today's stories cover Twitter getting hacked and why it does (and doesn't) matter; a guy who got a Palm Pre tattoo; and Kazaa making a (paid) comeback!

Per usual, there's a lot of Twitter news today, including a story about employee data getting hacked. According to TechCrunch, which broke the story, a hacker calling himself "Hacker Croll" managed to steal a Twitter employee's e-mail password and access to users' personal information and even some documents that exposed Twitter's inside business practices. Within this story, though, are two hidden stories. First of all, why is TechCrunch even posting about this? Instead of just reporting the information, they actually posted some of the stolen information...is that a smart thing to do?

My other question is, even after gaining access to Twitter's business notes, has anyone figured out how that site is going to make money, if at all? I'm sure Biz Stone is living comfortably, but what about the admin assistant that got his or her e-mail account jacked by the hacker? What about the little people!?

In other ridiculous Twitter news, check out this video of a guy getting a Palm Pre tattooed on his arm for PreCentral.net's "What would you do for a Palm Pre?" contest. I know we've seen this before with the guy who got a Microsoft Zune tattoo, but this is getting ridiculous. A lifetime of permanent artwork for a device with a two-year relevance, at most! It might be even shorter if people can't figure out a way to sync a Palm Pre with iTunes. Wilson actually found two ways to sync your Pre to iTunes, but neither of them are free or work with Windows, so PC users should still stick with the previous version.

Also, get ready for the resurgence of Kazaa, but this time it's a paid service. Is anyone paying attention to what happened to BitTorrent and Napster?

The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing site entangled in a court case over pirated music, will be bought by a Swedish software company.

Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) announced the deal Tuesday. The company, which provides digital distribution tools for Internet cafes, will buy The Pirate Bay for cash and shares amounting to $7.76 million. The acquisition is expected to be completed in August.

The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent tracking site, is involved in a legal battle with major copyright holders, including Warner Brothers, MGM, and Columbia Pictures. In April, the Web site's founders were convicted by a Swedish … Read more

Tonight the land rush begins for Facebook usernames and URLs. We'll tell you all about that. Also, Microsoft gets petulant and removes all browsers from its European versions of Windows, which makes Opera mad. And Macs get more worms and trojans.

Today is end of analog TV in U.S. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10262022-94.html

Microsoft to sell Windows 7 without IE in Europe: Odd and unnecessary http://mashable.com/2009/06/12/microsoft-windows-7-internt-explorer-europe/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10262630-56.html… Read more

Software that claims to boost the speed of your downloads invariably seems to disappoint, and Download Direct is no exception. The interface is straightforward and the program offers a number of customizable settings, but in our download tests, the application did not meet expectations.

When targeting the manufacturer's Web site, Download Direct performed admirably, pulling down a 3MB file in 22 seconds. But when we tried to download a 41MB MP3, the application slowed to a painful 2.2 KBps, even using the application's fastest setting. We were able to download the same file using Firefox's built-in … Read more

In the aftermath of the Pirate Bay trial, many Swedish law experts say they consider Friday's high-profile guilty verdict severe but fair. Very few had predicted the verdict before it was handed out.

Complicating the case in many observers' eyes was the fact that no copyright-protected files were stored or distributed on the Pirate Bay Web site. But reading the 107-page sentence from Stockholm's Tingsratt district court offers a clearer picture of the grounds on which the court found all four defendants guilty of having assisted in making 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via Piratebay.org. … Read more

Days after four defendants in the high-profile Pirate Bay case were found guilty of violating copyright law, the Web site implored fans to stay calm, not to send donations, and to stay united.

In a blog posted to Thepiratebay.org, the controversial BitTorrent tracker said the "verdict has already been appealed by us and will be taken to the next level of court."

Administrators of the court in Sweden did not immediately respond to requests to confirm the filing of the appeal. On Friday, the court convicted Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundströ… Read more

This story has been updated. See below for details.

A Swedish court on Friday found the four defendants in the high-profile Pirate Bay case guilty, sentencing each to a year in jail. The defendants were also ordered to pay a total of 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.6 million) in damages to copyright holders, among them a number of American media giants.

The four men--Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström--were found guilty of having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site.

"The crime has been … Read more