pirates

Wayne Rosso, formerly CEO of Grokster, founder of Maxxbox, and outspoken critic of the Recording Industry Association of America, recently joined Global Gaming Factory, the soon-to-be owner of file-sharing legend The Pirate Bay.

In an interview with CNET's Digital Media blog, Rosso outlined what turns out to be an extremely innovative cloud-computing business model.

The only question is, will it work?

In the interview, Rosso outlines a plan in which The Pirate Bay customers could pay a monthly fee for music service, but could reduce that cost by contributing storage capacity to a commercially available Storage-as-a-Service offering:

For example, a person may dedicate a gig of (storage) space to the network and the fee may go from $9 to $5. (Rosso declined to discuss pricing yet so the numbers are made up just for the example).

"The more of your computer resources you contribute to the network, the less you pay down to zero," Rosso said. "The user is in control."

In other words, The Pirate Bay aims to be the first commercial peer-to-peer storage cloud that separates how capacity is acquired from how it is sold. This is extremely interesting, because it means it can sell one service to a consumer audience (music and video), and another entirely different service to business (storage services).… Read more

The music industry will attempt to seize money paid to acquire the Pirate Bay, according to a high-level music industry source and a spokesman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the trade group representing the music industry worldwide.

Global Gaming Factory, a Swedish software company, made big news two weeks ago by announcing that it would acquire the Pirate Bay, the popular outlaw file-sharing site, for $7.8 million. Since then the company has been touting a new business model and even hiring executives, such as Wayne Rosso, the former Grokster president, to legally obtain content from … Read more

As The Pirate Bay apparently goes legit, the Swedish file-sharing company has hired someone with experience in both legal and illegal file-sharing sites.

Global Gaming Factory, the Swedish software company vying to buy The Pirate Bay, has hired Wayne Rosso, the very vocal former president of Grokster and founder of Mashboxx, to help strike licensing deals with content owners. Global Gaming announced earlier this month that the company intends to pay $7.8 million for The Pirate Bay once investors okay the deal.

In an interview with CNET News on Wednesday, Rosso detailed some of what he's been up … Read more

Could the Internet be any filthier than it is right now? Today's show highlights some of the more disturbing stories that we haven't been able to get to over the past few weeks, but not before complaining about the dirty microphone screens pressing up against our mouths on a daily basis. Wilson seems to like it!

We scavenge the depths of the dirty Internet to bring you a couple interesting, albeit dirty, stories, like this one about a teen in New Zealand who stumbled upon some "artistic" photos of his mother, and instead of gouging his eyes out with the nearest sharp object, he auctioned them off on the Internet!

Ugh, the story gets even more messed up though, and you'll never guess what his Mother does when she finds out what her son's been up to at her expense. Hint: he doesn't get in trouble.

That story actually segues well into the next one, where we finally ask the question, "Is the Internet destroying porn as we know it?"

The answer is a mix of yes and no, as CNET blogger Chris Matyszczyk (how do you pronounce that?!) helps us figure out why 90-minute adult movies are quickly getting fazed out in lieu of 335-second clips on sites like YouPorn and XTube. On the other hand (no pun intended), there are plenty of examples of money getting poured into big budget pornographic films, some with a budget of over 1 million dollars. Although we have no personal opinions on the matter, since none of us have actually seen said video genre, we reference very informative articles we've read on the Internet.

Stay tuned to the second half of today's episode to see how you can instantly obtain 5,000 Twitter followers and listen to a hilarious Calls from the Public with a special appearance by none other than the much-missed Sally Henderson!

As the new owners of the Pirate Bay take over they will have to eventually change things and sell out. So Rafe has dubbed them as Cruiseship Bay. We also discuss the pyrrhic victory of RIAA over Usenet.com and Rafe and Natali hate some more on Verizon.

RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10276607-93.html

Cash for Pirate Bay file-sharers http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8128551.stm

Twitter reworks following lists, adds functionality http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10276568-26.html… Read more

China has delayed required installation of Green Dam Youth Escort, but we find out it does a better job blocking pork than porn. Whew. Protect those kids from the piggies! Also a big win for remote cable DVRs! And the Pirate Bay got sold. You can sell it?

Swedish company to buy Pirate Bay http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10275759-83.html http://thepiratebay.org/blog/164

China Delays Mandating Filtering Software http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124636491863372821.html

China also filters Jonny Depp, … Read more

I'll ruin the surprise for you right now: the worst movie of the summer (only four days in so far) is "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen." On today's show, we rip apart this atrocity even more, spoiler-free! Wilson also gives us his first impressions of his brand new Apple iPhone 3GS and discovers the weirdest camera issue ever. I love you, Wilson, but that came out of NOWHERE!

So I finally broke down and saw "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" last night, and although I can't give away too many plot details, suffice it to say that I'm throwing in my vote for it being the WORST movie of the summer. Sure, summer blockbusters are supposed to be silly and entertaining, but a truckload of physical humor and irritating little side-stories ruined what could have been an awesome action movie. Where are the Transformers fanboys on this one? This betrayal feels like that "Spiderman 3" abomination all over again! Apart from the movie being about an hour too long (2.5 hours total, say whaaatt?), the only parts worth watching are the epic fight scenes and Megan Fox jumping/running/screaming/rolling through explosions. We also address that whole racist robot plot point yet again--now that I've actually seen the movie, I wouldn't say that characters are straight-up racist, but the gold tooth and excessive slang are definitely in poor taste and an unnecessarily stereotypical slight at hip-hop. Listen in for more details.

The next story is about gaming company Global Gaming Factory X resurrecting The Pirate Bay as a legal file-distro site. After a bit of confusion about how exactly that whole case ended, we're still left wondering why companies keep trying to cannibalize on the success of dead P2P sites, relying on the name alone to tread water and maybe even gain a few new subscribers. The problem is that it never works! Napster, anyone? Who's idea was that, anyway? "Hey guys, let's buy this dead service that still exists only to bait people into RIAA lawsuits and relaunch the site with legit, paid content. It's all about brand confidence, right?" Good luck with that, doods.

Finally, we're announcing BIG changes on the show tomorrow including the triumphant debut of our new logo (based on Blake Stevenson's winning design) and a few surprises to go along with it! We're also excited to have Brendt Barbur of the Bicycle Film Festival as our guest on tomorrow's show. Check it out LIVE tomorrow @ 11AM ET at CNET Live.

The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing site entangled in a court case over pirated music, will be bought by a Swedish software company.

Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) announced the deal Tuesday. The company, which provides digital distribution tools for Internet cafes, will buy The Pirate Bay for cash and shares amounting to $7.76 million. The acquisition is expected to be completed in August.

The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent tracking site, is involved in a legal battle with major copyright holders, including Warner Brothers, MGM, and Columbia Pictures. In April, the Web site's founders were convicted by a Swedish … Read more

The judge in the Pirate Bay case, Tomas Norström, was not biased. That's the decision of the Swedish High Court of Justice, which investigated accusations made by the four defendants in the high-profile file-sharing case.

The accusations were based on Norström's membership in organizations such as the Swedish Copyright Association, which counts among its members lawyers who represented the plaintiffs during The Pirate Bay trial.

The court ascertained that such memberships do demonstrate a commitment to intellectual property issues, which could be considered by some to be in the interest of the plaintiffs. But … Read more