The PC's biggest asset, for users, is its amazing flexibility. The modern computer is both a tool and a toy, a generalist device customizable to nearly any needs. With the barest amount of prodding, comparatively speaking, it can be, and…

In an interview with RPS, Ubisoft worldwide games director Stephanie Perotti divulged that the company is dropping its infamous always-on DRM strategy. In fact, Ubisoft already quietly euthanized the program a few months ago -- probably following the From Dust…

A number of Android-based piracy websites have reportedly been seized as part of a joint venture involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, multiple US attorneys’ offices as well as Dutch and French law enforcement officials. A…

Surfthechannel.com owner Anton Vickerman has landed himself a stiff four-year prison sentence after running a website which hosted links to unauthorized video content. That's substantially less than the maximum of 10 years he faced, but almost certainly more than he…

Fresh details emerging this week have helped answer some ongoing questions about the orchestrated takedown of Demonoid. Knocked offline by a DDoS attack on July 24, early reports suggested that the torrent tracker's downtime would be somewhat temporary, pending repairs…

Piracy is a fact of life for Microsoft. Case in point: just two days after the company began distributing the finalized version of Windows 8 to partners around the globe, the code became publicly available across various file sharing sites.…

The final version of Windows 8 has leaked onto the Internet just one day after Microsoft made the upcoming operating system available to OEM partners. The leaked copy is an “N” version of Windows 8 which means it doesn’t include…

After a lengthy legal battle, last February the founders of The Pirate Bay were ordered by the Swedish Supreme Court to pay $675,000 to music labels in order to compensate artists who lost out on royalties due to piracy. Except…

It appears Google has asked for a summary judgment regarding the legality of scanning books and posting them online via Google Books. Google defended its book-scanning project (formerly known as Google Library) on the basis of fair use, preserving those works,…

Online piracy has been drastically reduced in New Zealand since the introduction of a graduation response system last year, according to the entertainment industry. The nation passed a three-strikes law (dubbed "Skynet") last April that works similar to France's policy...

Google might be required to filter filesharing-related search terms in France, pending a decision by the nation's Court of Appeal. In early 2010, French recording industry group SNEP sought legal action in an effort to have terms like "torrent," "Rapidshare" and "Megaupload" censored from...

China has spent over 1 billion Yuan ($155.9m) on the purchasing of licensed software as part of a three-year long national anti-piracy campaign to turn the tides on the use of pirated software across its government offices, according to Chinese…

MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom has agreed to voluntarily travel to the US to face piracy charges, but only if the Justice Department agrees to unfreeze his assets to help him cover living expenses and pay for legal representation. Dotcom announced…

Despite European courts forcing ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay, the move has had little impact on the internet's most well known, longest-running torrent website. In fact, according to a blog post by one of Europe's largest ISPs, XS4ALL,…

The European Parliament has defeated the international Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement, also known as ACTA, with a decisive 478 votes against the controversial treaty versus just 39 in favor and 165 abstentions. While 22 of the 27 European member states had…

Robert Carpenter of Poughkeepsie, New York has been ordered to pay $7,000 in damages for sharing a copy of "WordPress All-in-One For Dummies" on BitTorrent. Carpenter was part of a mass filing by publisher John Wiley & Sons last October that included 27 John Does...

The British communications regulator, Ofcom, announced plans to press on with new measures under the Digital Economy Act today, warning broadband providers and their millions of customers it plans to crackdown on internet piracy as fast as possible following the…

Steve Wozniak visited New Zealand last month, stopping by MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom’s Auckland-area estate during the trip. When Dotcom was allowed back online last week, he tweeted a photo of the two during the visit and publically thanked him…

TorGuard, a VPN service provider, was recently given the cold shoulder by PayPal for providing BitTorrent-related services. Upon discovery of TorGuard's relationship with BitTorrent, PayPal abruptly froze the company's account, preventing the virtual network provider from sending or receiving payments…

Comcast may be complicating the lives of copyright holders everywhere by rejecting recent requests made to link subscriber information to IP addresses. In an ongoing legal kerfuffle with AF Holdings, adult film publisher and plaintiff, Comcast requested an Illinois district…

Former Megaupload users have now been without the files they once stored in the cloud for nearly five months after the US government shut the site down under allegations that it was an international organized crime ring responsible for a…

Germans can expect to pay a hefty premium on USB drives and memory cares as the nation raises taxes on flash storage by roughly 2,000%, according to Heise Online (translated). ZPÜ, the office tasked with setting levies against blank media, has reportedly increased the taxes...

Google has expanded its Transparency Report to include instances of copyright infringement, adding to the previously displayed information about government takedown requests. The page shows details such as who's requested search results to be pulled, how often they make such…

A Russian startup called Pirate Pay — in allusion to the notorious file-sharing site — has reportedly created a way to attack “BitTorrent swarms,” or groups of computers hosting content, making it hard for them to share files. Apparently the…

Judge Gary Brown, a federally-appointed magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York, recently ruled that an IP address is no more able to identify wrong-doers than a telephone number can be used to…