Swedish-based Global Gaming Factory (GGF), the new owner The Pirate Bay, said on Wednesday that file-sharers will actually be paid for sharing a file in its website.

GGF chief executive officer Hans Pandeya, in an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation, said that the cash incentives for users are all part of the new scheme that the Pirate Bay management will be implementing to combat the ever persistent “illegal” downloading and sharing of files in the internet.

He said that not only it can generate profit for people who share their file in the website; it can also help optimize the Internet traffic for downloaders.

Earlier reports told that GGF, a Swedish software company, bought the file-sharing website to the tune of $7.8 million following the “guilty” verdict on three of its founders.

However, recent reports said that GGF bought the domain for only 60 million kronor or £4.7 million.

Pandeya expressed hopes for the new management of the site, saying that they do not intent to change its innovative platform.

He said that the only difference is that the files that will be shared in the website will be hosted “legally”.

In recent years, the website was being singled out by music, movie, and other industry players of “illegally” sharing copyrighted materials in its Internet domain.

But Pandeya stressed that they are now listing the names of the companies and will start to discuss the issue to make “everything legal” in the website.

“The only thing that can attract the users with the new format of the website is to give them an incentive for sharing a file.Instead of free file-sharing, we will actually pay them for that,” Pandeya said in an interview.

He added that it is the only way that content providers’ demand will be met while still keeping the number of users visiting the website.

A new management promised to change the “old ways” of The Pirate Bay website following a bargain buyout of the Internet Company. Reports told that the small Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X AB will acquire the domain for only $7.8 million.

With Global Gaming Factory in charge, changes in the Pirate Bays’ business model are expected to happen soon. The alleged “pirate ways” of the BitTorrent file-sharing website will be replaced by a new business model that will give compensation to copyrighted materials and content owners and providers.

Pirate Bay was criticized by the movie, music, and computer industry for allegedly sharing content in an “illegal” manner.

Under the deal, GGF will have full control of the company domain name, websites, and peerialism technology company, which has designed and developed Pirate Bay’s next-generation file-sharing capability. The acquisition is expected to be completed by August 2009.

Pirate Bay works by redirecting online users and downloaders to specific search contents using its BitTorrent file-sharing technology. To date, it has earned ranking in the Top 100 most visited websites and has a patronage of more than 20 million users everyday.

GGF CEO Hans Pandeya, in a statement, said that the new business model for Pirate Bay will satisfy the requirements posted by the industry as well as the needs of all the users.

However, online users expressed fears that the changes might affect their downloading habit in the website as advertisements and other charges may be incited by the new management.

Earlier, three Pirate Bay founders and another investor were found “guilty” by a Swedish court of distributing copyrighted materials in their website. The court ordered them to at least one year in jail and pay $3.9 million fine.

Meanwhile, the defendant’s motion for retrial was denied by the Swedish Court of Appeals. The three accused the judge who handled their case as anti-piracy advocate that led to the “bias” decision on their case.

The Pirate Bay’s request for a retrial was denied on Thursday by the Swedish appellate court despite growing criticism that trial the judge, who was accused of being a part of anti-piracy groups, has been biased in giving his ruling.

With their request for retrial denied, Pirate Bay founders Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundstrom will have to pay $3.8 million damages and spend a year in prison.

According to some experts, the ruling against the founders is somewhat harsh, given the fact that their site does not really distribute illegal copies of movies, music, and other copyrighted materials—it only serves as a tracker or aggregator for bittorrent sites and works much like Google and Yahoo search engines.

While the stated argument above can be considered as a loophole, Judge Tomas Norstrom still convicted the founders of copyrighted infringement with stiff penalties.  And with his admission that he is part of anti-piracy organizations, Court of Appeal Judge Anders Eka still upheld Norstrom’s decision, adding there is no conflict of interest.

In an interview with Swedish reporters, Eka said “the appellate court does not agree that there is a conflict of interest, and the conclusion to uphold the initial decision [made by Norstrom] is justified.”

The Stockholm trial court, which provided the verdict, has also been under criticism following rumors and accusation that it deliberately steered the case to Norstrom who is a staunch supporter of record labels and anti-piracy groups.

Meanwhile, with all these growing controversy, Swedish Pirate Party, a staunch supporter of the Pirate Bay, has been reported to become more popular among youths and has recently won a seat in the European Parliament.

Following a stringent warning from the Chinese government, engineers from Internet giant Google have started to implement an automated system that will remove pornographic search results in China.

The move stemmed from China’s order saying that Google’s filter for pornographic materials was too weak, which led to the temporary disabling of the site’s suggest option on Google.cn.

During a meeting in Taipei, Google Vice President for Search and User Experience Marissa Mayer said that Google deferred the site’s suggest feature to give way for the site’s “overhauling” to prevent further infiltration of pornographic materials during searches.

“We’ve done several major reengineering efforts to remove these pornographic sites in our search engines. This move is in accordance with China and Google’s contract, allowing no pornographic materials in our searches,” Mayer said in a statement.

Mayer also said that Google is now redesigning the home page of Google.cn that will eventually led to the removal of the radio buttons, which offers its users options on language and locale.

Meanwhile, the official said that the layout of the home page will remain the same.

Last week, China gave a firm order on Google to immediately suspend its Web search service following reports that people still managed to engaged in sexually explicit websites by just typing “slangs” in their search box.

An online user, who requested anonymity, said that Google.cn’s security feature has made it impossible for Chinese users to view search results with popular keywords such as porn, sex, and xxx.

But he claimed that less common words or slangs usually pass through the security feature of the website.

“BitTorrent downloading sites can also be seen through search results,” the source said.

But despite major reengineering to the Google.cn homepage, Google.com, the company’s main search page in English continues to show sexually explicit materials in its searches.

In an effort to curb online piracy, the UK government has announced it will slow down Internet service of illegal file-sharers who will download copyrighted materials including movies, TV shows, software, music, games, and other applications.

Instead of cutting off the Internet service, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said during a conference with music companies that slowing down the connection is the “preferred option” of the government, according to BBC report.

The “three strikes bill”, a proposed law to deter people from downloading illegal copies of media, is not a viable solution to the problem, according to some critics who said that this might punish even those who have not committed the crime since a single computer usually has more than one user.

This proposed bill will allow authorities to cut off the Internet connection of users who have downloaded copyrighted materials for the third time.

Meanwhile, the UK government said it will find other ways to tackle the growing problem of digital piracy aggravated by the advancement in the Internet technology including the controversial bittorrent protocol which supports faster transfer of files without choking the online traffic.

A government official also said that cutting off the Internet connection is not a good “option” since this communication media has become as important as basic necessities such as electricity and water.

In France, lawmakers are debating over the passage of “three strikes bill” which is supported by President Nicolas Sarkovsky.  According to rumors, the president’s wife, who is a former actress, is the one convincing him to support such law.

Bittorrent site Vuze, which has been accused by record companies of committing online piracy by illegally distributing copyrighted materials, said that its users are the main spenders in the entertainment industry.

In its survey, the bittorrent giant said that file-sharers, who are accused of violating copyright law by record industry, are the biggest spenders among the general population.  With these findings, the company reiterated that authorities and record companies should not punish downloaders and file-sharers who keep the entertainment industry’s finances afloat.

Here are some of the highlights in the study:
·    File-sharers are heavy movie watchers
·    They are the biggest consumers of technology devices and services
·    Bittorrent users are influential groups in the Internet media
·    They have a penchant to anything related to science (e.g. books, animation, etc)
·    Most users are heavy watchers of online or “live” television

In a statement, Vuze CEO Gilles BianRosa said the study revealed that “bittorrent users are the number one Hollywood patrons”, a fact which should be given enough consideration by the record industry which are known for charging file-sharers with lawsuit based on downloading copyrighted media including movies, television programs, music, software, games, and other digital applications.

RianRosa also said that piracy “might not be the main problem” and said that other aspects should also be considered.

Meanwhile, some experts criticized the study saying that it has been commissioned by a bittorrent site, which has its own vested interest, adding that the report did not include paid downloads on the Internet.

Legal P2P music site Rhapsody announced plans to reach out to music consumers using exclusive video footages of their favorite bands and singers in TV ads following the successful launch of the new Green Day album, “21st Century Breakdown”.

In an interview, Rhapsody label relations General Manager David Krinsky said that the company got hold of the exclusive footage of the band with its featured single “Know Your Enemy”, which they helped to promote by airing advertisements that show Green Day’s music video.

Krinsky said that the rarity of artists filming custom video footages for a certain company made it an instant hit to retailers and other partner companies, which released the song clip in their network simultaneously.

The GM also said that Green Day’s featured single is just the pioneering clip in a series of video advertisement spots that is expected to come out every other month.

Rob Thomas, one of the new artists with new album coming out, will be the next artist that will be released by Rhapsody in one of its ads.

It was learned that Rhapsody, owned by RealNetworks, has forged a $230-million agreement with MTV’s Urge music service to form what is now known as Rhapsody America, which will commit serious advertising airtime for the online music service company including ads on other networks under the MTV title.

Aside from company service advertisements, Rhapsody said that it is aim to capitalize on the deal by monopolizing the content of each artist involved. As to Green Day’s album, the company had the exclusive streaming rights for a period of one week prior to its May 15 release.

The band’s single and album also appeared constantly on partner TV programs and online sites such MTV’s the Leak. Based on records, there are now more than 150 million video viewers and 100, 000 play hits on popular social networking sites MySpace.

Buffalo LinkStation Live is a storage system device that has built in DLNA server, allowing users to share their files such as movies, music, photos, and documents to other people using a network.

One of the main highlight of this new device is the Bittorrent-enabled feature that will prevent backlogs and slow downloads and uploads which often occurs when a user is transferring or receiving huge digital files.  This feature makes this ideal for file-sharers who want to download the latest music or movie files from the Internet.

Meanwhile, this device also features Direct Copy that allows users to easily transfer any digital files such as videos, photos, and documents using USB 2.0 port.

Another notable technology is the gigabit Ethernet port for fast computer networking, allowing users to share there data easily to a network of computers.  With this feature, the Buffalo LinkStation Live is ideal for small office or home network.

Other features of this device:

·    power saving functions
·    low energy consumption
·    iPhone users access to web, allowing them to visit digital library on LinkStation
·    Apple Time Machine support
·    Providing easy access to music files on LinkStation from iTunes program
·    Compatibility with different entertainment media devices.
·    Fast and easy connectivity through USB hard drive
·    Support for Windows and Mac computers (this supports operating such as (Windows 2000/XP/Vista/ Win Server 2008/2003, Mac OS 10.3.9)
·    Expandable storage via additional USB port
·    Easy set up
·    500GB storage capacity
·    Ethernet LAN
·    Built-in bittorrent client
·    Built-in print server that will allow users to print files from any computer network

The US Congress on Wednesday included China, Spain, Mexico, Canada, and Spain in its 2009 International Piracy Watch List and said that these five countries have weak copyright enforcement which put the creative industry at risk.

The Congressional International Anti-Piracy committee said that piracy in these countries has reached at an alarming level and blamed this to the lack of its governments’ move to curb such unlawful activities which violate the rights of artists and producers.

Lawmakers also said that the proliferation of piracy in these countries cost the entertainment industry and creative talents in the US billions of dollars, adding that even ordinary Americans who are working for the industry are gravely affected by the widespread infringement of international copyright law.

Analysts said the US entertainment industry lost more than 25 billion every year due to the looming problem of piracy which is further aggravated by the advancement in technology especially from the Internet media where a huge portion of illegal distribution of copyrighted materials occurs.

One controversial Internet technology called the bittorrent protocol allows users to download huge files of music, games, software, and movies.  And because this technology has solved the problem of huge Internet traffic, some sites have used this to illegally distribute copyrighted materials.

Meanwhile, the committee criticized Spain for allowing bittorrent and peer-to-peer piracy to continue unhindered as its government has recently decriminalized unlawful file sharing and distribution of copyrighted contents.

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) also blamed the digital piracy as the major threat in the industry.

The Congress also criticized Chinese government for permitting online piracy to operate in the country and cited Baidu, which is China’s version of Google, as the main source of illegal copies of music.

A new study showed that peer-to-peer sharing companies are now earning millions of dollars from high-definition porn videos following a failed bid to acquire the support of big media companies to shift its distribution to P2P sites in order to cut bandwidth costs.

Earlier, P2P sharing companies raised some $32 million to finance the said transfer scheme. However, media companies deferred the deal, which prompted Internet companies such as BitTorrent, Vuze, and Pando to look for new business model.

The said P2P companies are now offering high-resolution porn to save business following the failed deal. One of which is Vuze that raised some $30 million in funds prior to the deferment.

Vuze offers its users $25 membership fee for one month for them to download unlimited number of HD adult videos, which can be found at the company’s StudioHD online feature.

NewTeeVee, the company in charge of the study, said that Vuze is now eyeing the mid-year launch of its premium sports, music, and movie channels at the same rate.

The survey company also said that porn has always been a “hit” among BitTorrent sites, adding that the Internet companies are now capitalizing on it.

But despite the number of hits it gets from P2P users, the research company said that porn is only second to the list of most downloaded items in BitTorrent sites. The study also showed that pirated software remains the top choice among users.

Meanwhile, experts believe that high-definition porn will not be as lucrative as the P2P sites has projected, saying that the introduction of free sites such as YouPorn and Xhamster made it more difficult for the companies to meet the revenue projection.