Thursday, September 24, 2009

Pirates look forward to business

Following several high-profile court cases, more and more previously illegal file-sharing services are trying to reinvent themselves as legitimate businesses.

However, it is not just the threat of legal action that has caused the change of heart, say some industry watchers."They have realised they can make money out of it," said Eddy Leviten of the UK's Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact)."They have advertising on their sites and, as those sites attract more eyeballs, they are getting more advertising income."

Popular sites include Isohunt, Mininova and The Pirate Bay. These indexing sites act as search engines for "torrents" files - links to TV, film and music files held on its users' computers.Peer-to-peer (p2p) software connects users to one another and shares files through means such as so-called bit torrent, which chops up files into manageable bits.No copyright content is hosted on the websites themselves - they simply do the indexing of the available content. more...

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