O2 & Be Broadband Sent out File-Sharing Notifications

Subscribers of O2 and Be Broadband, alleged of unauthorized downloading copyrighted content, have already received notifications from their Internet service providers.

Local media reported that O2 and Be Broadband have begun sending out notification letters to their customers alleged of being involved in downloading copyrighted material. The notifications have been issued to almost 2,800 subscribers.

The Promo Bay Website Banned in UK

After successfully testing out promoting platform for musicians via file-sharing, TPB officially launched The Promo Bay as a separate platform for content creators. However, in a few days, the UK’s ISPs banned the website.

The Promo Bay was started as a launching pad for new content creators and proved to be a great idea. The Promo Bay was appreciated not just by TPB’s users, but also by lots of artists who signed up in a few months. 

Newzbin2 Given up to Pressure

After Newzbin2 was banned across the United Kingdom, the website decided to go offline permanently for good. This is a significant loss for both Usenet’s networks and a few thousands of users who relied on the site’s services.

Despite the Newzbin2’s efforts to continue operation by complying with all DMCA requests and satisfying their users’ needs, the portal finally went offline. Apparently, the decision in question wasn’t easy to make, but so was the anti-piracy campaign against the website.

Social Networks Failed to Increase Shopping Frenzy

When the American conglomerates started tempting people away from spending another day with their families after Thanksgiving, thus turning this time into the shopping frenzy of Black Friday, it became quite a good metric for going over the latest consumer buying trends. IBM’s extensive data sifting recently revealed that there were a number of interesting changes.

Google to Acquire Wi-Fi Provider?

A few days ago, Google released a statement saying that the company was purchasing public Wi-Fi provider ICOA for $400 million. For the next 2 hours that story seemed to be true. The matter is that the press release in question was posted on this wire, but when hacks came to follow up the release, they suddenly discovered that the company executives denied the fact.

Facebook Profits from Cyber-Stalking Ads

It seems that the largest social network in the world can give Google a run for its money. The industry observers point out that Facebook is answering Wall Street’s demands to make more cash by introducing advertisements that cyber stalk its users. This type of behavior has been lively discussed many times by the industry observers and the concerned parties. Now the discussion continues with a new hero of the story.

Copyright Cops Arrested 9-Year-Old Girl

The entertainment industry sunk to a new PR low recently – they managed to accuse a 9-year-old girl of piracy and confiscate her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop.

CIAPC – the very company that had TPB blocked by Finnish Internet service providers, has tracked some evil file-sharer.


The media reports say that they demanded that she pay €600 or go to court. Apparently, the company had no idea that the evil pirate was only 9, which means that €600 was undoubtedly out of the range of her pocket money. They decided to use the case as an example of its extra-judiciary powers. As a result, Finnish taxpayers paid for an expensive raid on the 9-year-old suspect’s home, with the police confiscating her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop.

During the police interrogation, the girl broke and told that she had no money to buy the latest album from local multi-platinum-selling songstress Chisu. Last year the girl switched to the web, first through Google and then the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay. However, the download didn’t work and her father finally bought her music in the store.

Anyway, the copyright cops weren’t impressed with this story, claiming that the girl would lose her laptop to test the power of the entertainment industry. They also told her that it would have been easier for everyone if she had paid the compensation. According to the girl’s father, it was worse than dealing with the Mafia, because the latter doesn’t normally use police to do their dirty work today, nor it feels honorable to hit up 9-year-olds for cash.

According to Electronic Frontier Finland, this recent move clearly illustrates just how far copyright enforcement has progressed in the country. As for Chisu, the artist has said that she didn’t want to sue anyone and that no musician needs such kind of media attention.