News » Search

A lot has been written about the UK’s controversial Digital Economy Act, which passed in April in the last days of Gordon Brown’s government. What there has been a lack of, however, is facts and guides about the Act, an omission which the UK Pirate Party has attempted to solve.


When the Digital Economy Bill was going through stages, it was rushed through the House of Commons – the elected half of the UK’s Parliament – in a period known as washup, with the only debate session being poorly attended and full of completely inaccurate pro-Bill statements.

It eventually passed with most MP’s not voting, despite a 3-line whip on the topic for the then-ruling Labour Party MPs.

The Bill passed to become the Digital Economy Act with a narrower margin than many expected given the voting instructions from the party – some had stood up for their conscience and for the facts, risking sanctions from

This Wednesday a security blog reported that several rogue sites are in operation which aim to pull in people who were aiming to reach The Pirate Bay, but accidentally entered the URL with typos. While this kind of activity is nothing new, there is a more interesting detail being overlooked. One of the companies behind the scheme is trying to register the Pirate Bay trademark in the United States.


For as long as illicit file-sharing has been around there have been entrepreneurs targeting those out for a free lunch – or a free movie or song. Since many thousands of people new to the downloading game are aware that what they are doing could land them in a little hot water, these individuals are perfect targets for scammers.

Rogue file-sharing sites have been flourishing for years and keeping up with them all is an impossible task. What most of them have in common though is that generally users don’t get what they expected from their visit. In some cases they do get what they want but end up paying, often quite high prices too through shady small print or confusing terms and conditions.

These days more often than not they get what they were looking for but also get something unexpected on top – such as

Earlier this year The Pirate Bay’s co-founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij were banned from operating the site by a Swedish court. Today, The Pirate Bay’s former spokesperson Peter Sunde was added to this list, and now faces a fine of nearly $70,000 if he does not comply with the decision.


Directly or indirectly, The Pirate Bay and its ‘founders’ have been involved in a dozen court cases in the past years, most notably the trial in which four people associated with the site were sentenced to one year in jail and hefty fines.

Despite this unfavorable verdict, which will be appealed later this year, the site itself remains online aside from some incidental hosting issues. To change this course, Hollywood movie studios have been going after the alleged operators of the site in court, and not without success.

In May this year, the Swedish Court of Appeals confirmed an earlier judgement by the District Court, prohibiting two of the site’s founding members – Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij – from operating the site. Failure to comply with the court’s decision will

The Swedish Pirate Party, who are at the forefront of anti-copyright lobbying in Sweden, are planning to shake up the country’s ISP market. After taking over the supply of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet will now partner in the launch of Pirate ISP, a new broadband service that will offer anonymity to customers and provide financial support to the Party.


To defend the rights of BitTorrent users worldwide, the Swedish Pirate Party volunteered to provide bandwidth to The Pirate Bay after previous hosts got into legal trouble in May. At the beginning of July, the Pirate Party surprised again. Not only would they be The Pirate Bay’s new host, but they would use Parliamentary immunity to run the site from inside the Swedish Parliament.

Now the Party have made another interesting announcement. Together with technology partners, they will enter the broadband market with Pirate ISP, a new service designed to deliver consumer Internet in line with