Internet News

Pirate Bay Team Found Guilty But still Confident

Court jails Pirate Bay founders

A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world’s most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case.

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail.

They were also ordered to pay 30m kronor (£2.4m) in damages.

In a Twitter posting, Mr Sunde said: “Nothing will happen to TPB, this is just theatre for the media.”

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ThePirateBay Team reaction/answer:

TPB FTW

So the first verdict finally came, almost 3 years after the raid. You might have heard about it in the news…

You, our beloved users, know that this little speedbump on the information super highway is nothing more than just, a little bump. Todays verdict has already been appealed by us and will be taken to the next level of court (and that will take another 2 or 3 years!)

The site will live on! We are more determined than ever that what we do is right. Millions of users are a good proof of that.

We have seen that some people that we dont know have started collecting donations for us, so we can pay those silly fines. We firmly ask you NOT to do this. Do not gather or send any money. We do not want them since we will not pay any fines!

If you really want to help out, here is a list:
* Seed those torrents a little bit more than you usually do!
* Buy a t-shirt and show the world where your sympathy is.
* If you live in Europe, vote in the election for the EU parliament in June.
* Continue to build the internets! Start more bittorrent sites, blog more, start your own lobby group, create, remix, mash up and continue to grow more heads on this amazing hydra that we know as the internets!
* Do not be afraid of using the network. Invite your friends to this and other file sharing systems. Calm people down if they’re upset. We need to stay united.

And say it loud say it proud! We are all The Pirate Bay!

PirateBay Blog

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USB 3.0 brings optical connection in 2008 : Intel

SAN FRANCISCO–Intel and others plan to release a new version of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology in the first half of 2008, a revamp the chipmaker said will make data transfer rates more than 10 times as fast by adding fiber-optic links alongside the traditional copper wires.

Intel showed off prototype USB 3.0 connectors and an add-in card at Intel Developer Forum Tuesday.
Intel showed off prototype USB 3.0 connectors and an add-in card at Intel Developer Forum Tuesday.

Intel is working fellow USB 3.0 Promoters Group members Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, NEC and NXP Semiconductors to release the USB 3.0 specification in the first half of 2008, said Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, in a speech here at the Intel Developer Forum.

In an interview after the speech, Gelsinger said there’s typically a one- to two-year lag between the release of the specification and the availability of the technology, so USB 3.0 products should likely arrive in 2009 or 2010. A prototype shown at the speech is working now, and USB 3.0 will have optical and copper connections “from day one,” he added.

The current USB 2.0 version has a top data-transfer rate of 480 megabits per second, so a tenfold increase would be 4.8 gigabits per second. Many devices don’t need that much capacity, but some can use more, including hard drives, flash card readers and optical drives such as DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD. The fastest flash card readers today use IEEE 1394 “FireWire” connections that top out at 800 megabits per second.

In addition, USB 3.0 will offer greater energy efficiency, Gelsinger said. It will be backward compatible, so current USB 2.0 devices will be able to plug into USB 3.0 ports.

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Flickr Traffic up 38%, Now #2 Photo Site

In June, Yahoo! Photos began to close, and users are being encouraged to join Flickr. Later in the month, Yahoo! began including Flickr images in Yahoo! Image Search. These efforts have resulted in an increase in Flickr’s US market share of 38% in the past four weeks (week ending 7/7/07 vs. week ending 6/9/07). Flickr is now the #2 photography website in the US, with 6.42% of category visits for the week ending 7/7/07. Photobucket still leads with a whopping 43.5% share . Here is a list of the top 5 photography sites as of last week. Back in March 2007, Flickr was at #3 with a market share of 4.57%.

You can see on the chart below how Flickr overtook Yahoo! Photos at the beginning of June (in the purple and navy lines on the left axis). You can also see just how much Yahoo! Image Search results helped increase Flickr’s traffic (in the thin lines on the right axis). As of last week, Yahoo! Image Search was the leading source of traffic to Flickr, accounting for nearly 18% of its upstream visits. Previously Google had been its largest souce of traffic.

It is worth noting that Flickr has a truly global footprint, and has greater share of the photography category in other markets. Spend a few minutes on Flickrvision and you will get a sense for Flickr’s global reach. Hitwise global data shows that Flickr is the #2 photography site (with Photobucket at #1) in both the UK and Australia, with about 10% market share in both countries. Expect it to keep growing both here and abroad.

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Millionaire Domainers

Calling all Millionaires. We are putting together a list of everyone in this industry that has made a million dollars from domain names. The list is long but we need your help to complete the list.

Please submit names of fellow domainers that have made it big in the comments below. We will alter the post and put the millionaires that people suggest directly into the post.

As new people join the list we will try and do a blog post about them. Also as we get to it we will do a post about everyone already on the list.

Adam Dicker (DNForum) More >

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