Crave

I'll ruin the surprise for you right now: the worst movie of the summer (only four days in so far) is "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen." On today's show, we rip apart this atrocity even more, spoiler-free! Wilson also gives us his first impressions of his brand new Apple iPhone 3GS and discovers the weirdest camera issue ever. I love you, Wilson, but that came out of NOWHERE!

Controversial characters Skids and Mudflap

(Credit: Complex.com)

So I finally broke down and saw "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" last night, and although I can't give away too many plot details, suffice it to say that I'm throwing in my vote for it being the WORST movie of the summer. Sure, summer blockbusters are supposed to be silly and entertaining, but a truckload of physical humor and irritating little side-stories ruined what could have been an awesome action movie. Where are the Transformers fanboys on this one? This betrayal feels like that "Spiderman 3" abomination all over again! Apart from the movie being about an hour too long (2.5 hours total, say whaaatt?), the only parts worth watching are the epic fight scenes and Megan Fox jumping/running/screaming/rolling through explosions. We also address that whole racist robot plot point yet again--now that I've actually seen the movie, I wouldn't say that characters are straight-up racist, but the gold tooth and excessive slang are definitely in poor taste and an unnecessarily stereotypical slight at hip-hop. Listen in for more details.

The next story is about gaming company Global Gaming Factory X resurrecting The Pirate Bay as a legal file-distro site. After a bit of confusion about how exactly that whole case ended, we're still left wondering why companies keep trying to cannibalize on the success of dead P2P sites, relying on the name alone to tread water and maybe even gain a few new subscribers. The problem is that it never works! Napster, anyone? Who's idea was that, anyway? "Hey guys, let's buy this dead service that still exists only to bait people into RIAA lawsuits and relaunch the site with legit, paid content. It's all about brand confidence, right?" Good luck with that, doods.

Finally, we're announcing BIG changes on the show tomorrow including the triumphant debut of our new logo (based on Blake Stevenson's winning design) and a few surprises to go along with it! We're also excited to have Brendt Barbur of the Bicycle Film Festival as our guest on tomorrow's show. Check it out LIVE tomorrow @ 11AM ET at CNET Live.

EPISODE 373

Episode 28 of the Digital City, where we discuss the back-and-forth on bandwidth caps from ISPs, make our Palm Pre predictions (I predict joey's gonna buy one), and look at how movie studios plan to fight high-profile leaks of summer blockbuster films.

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There's been a lot of tension between Buzz Out Loud and The 404 for the last couple of months, but today, it's all on! We're sick and tired of the "Bore Out Loud" stealing our women (*ahem* Natali Del Conte) and our joke show titles. We've never been as crass as to have "urine" in one of our show titles. We got pretty bad, though, with having "tickling the Bonch." But we really did tickle CNET editor Bonnie Cha that day.

Don't make Wilson open a can of whoop-@$$ on you, Merritt. Tong is the only one stopping us at this point.

(Credit: Jeff Bakalar and Justin Yu/CNET)

It's official! We. Are. The. Four. Oh. Four: High-tech, low-brow. That's right. That's the winner to our tagline contest. Also, here are the winners to our Justin Yu photo caption contest (in order) for a copy of Wheelman for the Xbox 360:

1. What, the Hubble Telescope is down?! Don't worry, just tell me what you wanna look at.
2. The 404's Justin Yu was taken into custody shortly after molesting a lumberjack, a 90-year-old woman, and robbing a Radioshack in Chinatown last evening. Luckily, there was no evidence of d*cktopping at any of these crime scenes.
3. All the single printers, all the single printers!

In today's episode, we've got proof that gamers who play action-oriented video games have better vision than non-gamers. A man dies after trying to get healthier with the Wii Fit. Chinese people are spying on your pr0n collection and the NSA. Let's hope the Conflicker doesn't end the Interweb before they find too much dirt. The Pirate Bay joins Facebook. And finally, Encarta dies a slow, painful death after being stabbed by Wikipedia.

The Pirate Bay continues to come under siege.

The latest blow came on Monday when a Danish court ordered one of that country's Internet service providers to block access to the BitTorrent search engine, according to Danish IT magazine Computerworld.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry brought a civil case against Tele2 Denmark after the ISP refused to filter the Web sites its customers visited.

The Pirate Bay, based in Sweden, is one of the world's most popular piracy tools. The company, founded by three Scandinavians, doesn't host any copyright films or music. Instead, visitors use the site to find pirated material available on torrent files.

Hollywood studios have long considered The Pirate Bay an outlaw organization. The site's founders say they operate in accordance with Swedish law.

Last week, a Swedish prosecutor charged four men connected to The Pirate Bay with conspiracy to violate copyright law.

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.

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, a BitTorrent file tracking site based in Sweden, hinted in a blog post on Friday that it has begun navigating the high seas of streaming video. The site had been hyping up a "surprise" in recent weeks, and still won't give much detail, but it has confirmed that it is indeed a video project. "As a treat I can tell you--YES--we're going to do a video streaming site," the blog post wrote. "It's true. It's in the works being done right now and as usual we put a bit of Pirate Bay mentality behind every project we do." Yo-ho-ho and a series of tubes, indeed.

The news was then reported on Mashable.

The Pirate Bay made headlines in February when it announced plans to purchase its own sovereign state as a way to flee its legal problems. (It was a plan so wacky and convoluted, you'd think Captain Jack Sparrow were at the helm.) However, that endeavor has since been buried, walked the plank, been sent to Davy Jones' locker, or some other sickeningly corny reference to pirates that means "scrapped."