You probably remember the online outrage over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) copyright enforcement proposal. Last week, the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force released a report on digital copyright policy that endorsed one piece of the controversial proposal: making the streaming of copyrighted works a felony. As it stands now, streaming a copyrighted work over the Internet is considered a violation of the public performance right. The violation is only punishable as a misdemeanor, rather than the […]

I have been taking advantage of my Tumblr account and my Pinterest account, kind of a neat little site. Also in the middle of getting my own hosting business going, Paradise Web Service. Site is not really up and running yet, I am slowly transferring current clients over to it (hope it works out well). WHMCS seems to be helping, and I am digging the new software. Also been using my new BTGuard account to try out my torrents. Had some […]

I know people who do it. You probably know people who do it. And we’re not talking about falling in love. File sharing, the euphemism for copying and sharing copyrighted material without paying, was one of the early hallmarks of the digital, anything-goes-on-the-Internet age. Names like Napster became synonymous with killing the music industry. And there were countless lawsuits against groups and individuals aimed at curbing illegal sharing — but nothing seemed to work. Now, […]

Twitter says it turns over user data to government agencies in the U.S. in 69 percent of the requests made for such information, according to a new transparency report released by the microblogging site. “It’s our continued hope that providing greater insights into this information helps in at least two ways: first, to raise public awareness about these invasive requests; second, to enable policy makers to make more informed decisions,” writes Jeremy Kessel, Twitter’s manager of […]

The clock to unlock a new mobile phone is running out. In October 2012, the Library of Congress, who determines exemptions to a strict anti-hacking law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), decided that unlocking mobile phones would no longer be allowed. But the library provided a 90-day window during which people could still buy a phone and unlock it. That window closes on Jan. 26. Unlocking a phone frees it from restrictions that keep […]

Police in Helsinki seized the laptop of a young girl during a search of her family’s home last week, according to her father. The alleged offense? Using the popular BitTorrent website The Pirate Bay to download a single album. Last year, 9-year-old Julietta came across a torrent on The Pirate Bay after searching on Google for Finnish pop star Chisu’s latest album. The download failed to work, and she and her father went and bought the album together shortly afterwards. Unbeknownst to them, Finland’s […]

Ready for your ISP’s and media outlets to know exactly what you are downloading, when, and where from? They have been doing that, but now they are not only keeping track of it, but they are going to use it against you. It is about to get a bit more difficult to download TV shows, movies or music online. A new alert system, rolling out over the next two months, will repeatedly warn and possibly […]