Sony is FURYious

According to Variety, Sony Pictures has been hacked over the Thanksgiving weekend and movies were obtained which were then leaked onto internet peer-to-peer websites. The two main movies that were leaked include the Brad Pitt led film, "Fury". The movie which is still in theatres puts Pitt into war settings and deals with tank battles. The movie has now been successffully downloaded by over 1.2 million unique IP addresses. Seeing as how this number will only grow the studio should be very upset. This amount of pirating will result in a 14 or so million dollar loss. The second film that was released is the upcoming movie, "Annie". That's right a movie still weeks away from release has found it's way onto the internet. The group that has achieved this leak are calling themselves, "#GOP" or Guardians of Peace. They claim to have inside secrets about Sony and are threatening to release them. To be honest I don't see this as a bluff. The group already showed they mean business. The story is still ongoing so look for updates as they happen. Next we will look forward to other hacking groups that have made it big in the past.

Net Neutrality and Torrents

Yeah, so that whole big thing going around about net neutrality... It affects torrents too. So how many people out there watch movies and videos on sites such as YouTube, Netflix? How many people rely on Google to find streams of their favorite shows they missed? If people had to pay additional money to use these services and websites and pay for their internet then a good amount of them would resort to pirating to watch them. Look, people don't like when prices get raised. Imagine having your phone bill raised always to twice the price. What do you do? You switch phone carriers. So what do you do when the government raises prices on the internet? You resort to a different means and get things for free. Why does the government put themselves in these situations where they try and take control of things that they have no business in? It's very hard to say if any of this stuff will happen and while it will most likely not ever happen I will be ready to protest in case it ever does.

All Hail Pirating

Bless us, Oh Internet 

and these files which 

we are about to recieve from thy Wifi,

thought Comcast, Our Loud 

Amen

This is a prayer I came up with. I think I should sell it to the Sweden religious group who worships the act of sharing internet files. You heard me right. Kopimism has officially been acknowledged as a religion in Sweden. In a statement by the Swedish Pirate Party, they claim they have been granted, "the freedom to carry out their holy sacrament of copying information from the Internet".
Sweden is widely regarded as the king of internet pirating. With almost no laws against internet piracy it is the foreground for many pirating groups. The US has no jurisdiction there and can't bring any of these groups down. However, there have been attempts which will be revealed in the next blog post.

WAIT HOW MUCH?!

beemp3.com
thepiratebay.com
youtube to mp3

All these are methods of downloading illegal music. Prices have almost doubled for individual songs on. Record labels to buy an artists entire album when it can just be listened to online on 
Although I am an advocate for pirating I was totally surprised when I found out that close to 95 percent of all music downloads are illegal. That's a SHIT ton of money. IFPI Chief Executive John Kennedy said that it was hurting the industry severally. Despite piracy rising, the amount of services that are offered from the music industry has increased. Programs like Orange Monkey, Kudos, Pandora, Spotify and Rhapsody have emerged and help contain the amount of illegal downloads. They however, don't see that this doesn't exactly make people download legally, it just makes them listen to music legally. Some artists still get revenue when there songs are played on these services but they don't get nearly as much. If companies really want to crack down on music they need to stop being the ones who are giving so much free access to it.

Source

Expendabls 3 Lawsuit

Earlier this year one of the blockbusters that was supposed released was The Expendables 3. The series in question feautures a sta studded lineup headed by  Sylvester Stallon and featuring the likes of Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger and newcomer Mel Gibson. The unfortunate thing about it? It was leaked weeks before the worldwide preimere. Not just a crappy cam version or a low quality copy but a full HD copy. The copy was reportedly stolen and uploaded online to sites like ThePirateBay where it was downloaded over 3 million times. Going off the current price of movie tickets that's close to $32 million dollars in revenue that was lost from the studio. Lionsgate is looking to pursue several torrent sites for the early upload. 

In my humble oppinion it is Lionsgate's fault. There has never been a big budget film like this that was leaked before. Is it getting easier for things to be uploaded or are companies getting sloppy?

I'm A Pirate And So Are You

I admit it, I'm a pirate. No, I am not a swashbuckler and no I don't have a sword. However, what I do have is an undisclosed amount of pirated material. Call me what you want but at least I admit it. I have a hard drive full of stuff. We all have pirated things online. Music, movies, games are among some of them. Wait... You're not a pirate? You mean to tell me that you bought everyone of your songs from cheap-ass iTunes for 1.99 per song? If you have then bravo! I don't try to come off as offensive but it's such a hot topic right now. Why do I pirate? Because the price of everything is too damn high! The movie industry claims piracy is hurting them yet they are making more money then they ever have before. (Maybe if ticket prices weren't 12 bucks a pop I would see it in theaters). Now if it is a band or a movie I really love I will fully support it. Every other day I will be posting blog entries that discuss the history of piracy, famous people involved with it, and some laws that have come into effect from it. So sit back, grab some popcorn(not that 10 buck popcorn from the movies) and enjoy!