TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Domain Registrar Confirms New Pirate Bay Investigation
- “Pirating” UK Student to be Extradited to the US
- Hollywood Lawyers Threaten ‘Hobbit’ Pub
| Domain Registrar Confirms New Pirate Bay Investigation Posted: 14 Mar 2012 03:22 AM PDT
The assumed goal of the new effort is to shut the site down, something the authorities failed to accomplish during the first investigation more than half a decade ago. Initially, the only source for the new investigation was The Pirate Bay team itself. Today the plans were confirmed by the Swedish hosting company Binero where two of The Pirate Bay’s .se domain names are registered. “We can confirm that an investigation is underway against the Pirate Bay. We received a letter with questions,” Binero’s marketing manager Erik Arnberg said. In addition, the hosting company also made it clear that they won’t be complying with the requests unless a proper warrant is served. According to Arnberg this hasn’t happened thus far. “We will not share any information about our customers until there is a court order, or when a prosecutor can refer to an applicable law. In this case, we have answered the questions with information that’s already available through Whois services.” The Whois data for the Pirate Bay’s new .se domain lists the name of Fredrik Neij, one of the defendants in the original trial who was sentenced to 10 months in prison. The exact goals of the new investigation are unclear. The prosecution, led by piracy investigator Frederick Ingblad, confirmed that they “are interested in torrent sites” but refused to comment further. It is expected that the Swedish authorities want to finish what they failed to do in 2006, shut down The Pirate Bay website for good. However, considering the current state of the site that’s pretty much an impossible task. In recent years The Pirate Bay has implemented a variety of changes to guarantee that can remains online, whatever happens. It added several backup domains, placed servers all over the world, while removing resource intensive components such as the tracker and .torrent files. The determination to keep the site online was once again confirmed by the Pirate Bay team last week, who noted: "We're staying put where we are. We're going no-where. But we have a message to hollywood, the investigators and the prosecutors: LOL." Source: Domain Registrar Confirms New Pirate Bay Investigation
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| “Pirating” UK Student to be Extradited to the US Posted: 13 Mar 2012 12:07 PM PDT
Following his detention in the UK's largest prison, the site owner fought a looming extradition to the US, but without success. After a UK judge gave the green light to extradite the student two months ago, Home Secretary Theresa May officially approved the request from US authorities today. Julia O'Dwyer, Richard's mother, is severely disappointed with the decision and says that her son has been “sold” to the US. The extradition may disrupt his life for years. “Today, yet another British citizen is betrayed by the British Government,” she said. “Richard’s life – his studies, work opportunities, financial security – is being disrupted, for who knows how long, because the UK Government has not introduced the much-needed changes to the extradition law.” The extradition is controversial because under certain circumstances merely linking to copyright material isn't an offense in the UK. In 2010, linking website TV-Links was deemed to be a 'mere conduit' of information and its admins were acquitted. In the US recent court rulings are of a totally different kind. There, Richard O'Dwyer faces the same fate as several other operators of linking sites that were recently on trial. In January, Ninjavideo founder Hana Beshara was sentenced to 22 months in prison followed by 2 years of probation, 500 hours of community service and ordered to repay nearly $210,000. Fellow admin Matthew Smith received 14 months in prison, two years supervised release, and was ordered to pay back just over $172,000. Source: "Pirating" UK Student to be Extradited to the US
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| Hollywood Lawyers Threaten ‘Hobbit’ Pub Posted: 13 Mar 2012 07:04 AM PDT
But when the big rightsholders feel under threat, they’re happy to crush those very same people in pursuit of money. Cue an awful story today from the UK’s Daily Echo. For the last 20 years a little pub in Southampton, England, has been serving beer to the local community and all that time it’s had the same name – The Hobbit. But Saul Zaentz, the producer behind movies such as The English Patient and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, has sent in the lawyers to do something about that. Zaentz owns the merchandising rights to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and his lawyers have warned that if the pub doesn’t change its name and remove all references to Tolkien-related items by the end of May, its owners will be sued for infringement. Understandably its owners are upset. They can’t afford to fight the studio but their pub’s very identity is now at risk. People supporting a Facebook campaign against the studio’s threats is growing quickly. But even more worrying is that this action by Zaentz against a local pub doesn’t sit in isolation.
In a letter titled “Unauthorized Use of Hobbit” – Zaentz’s lawyers ordered the owners of the cafe to stop using the word Hobbit or face legal action, claiming that the sandwich bar’s use of the term would be detrimental to the brand and would leave people to believe that the outlet is endorsed by Zaentz.
But let’s step back for a moment to see what the origin of the word ‘Hobbit’ actually is. Was this something conjured up from the depths of Tolkien’s imagination in 1937, a product of his mind and his mind only? That’s up for debate. In 1895, folklorist Michael Aislabie Denham listed a massive collection of interesting creatures in his publication ‘The Denham Tracts Vol 2‘ which included ". . . nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants..” And, of course, ‘Hobbits’. It seems absolutely ridiculous that 125+ years after an imaginary creature was reported somehow a company can come along and turn the lives of normal people upside down over the use of its name. Trademarks may have to be protected, but being a heartless bully can’t be the answer. Source: Hollywood Lawyers Threaten ‘Hobbit’ Pub
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Last week the 
Last year Richard O'Dwyer was arrested by police for operating TVShack, a website that carried links to copyrighted TV-shows.
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