File Sharing

A paid upgrade to the popular torrent manager uTorrent is in the works, the makers of the program announced today.

Less than a month after the release of uTorrent 3.0 (download), the program's parent company, BitTorrent Inc., revealed plans to introduce a paid upgrade called uTorrent Plus. Though it's still in development and unavailable to the public, uTorrent Plus promises to include tools that will eliminate codec problems, convert file formats, and move content between devices, according to the blog post announcing the product.

Also in that blog post, Jordy Berson, director of product management for uTorrent, promised that the free version "will receive the same level of commitment and development resources as it does now."

Around 100 million people call uTorrent their preferred torrent manager. To put that number in perspective, the security suite AVG Antivirus Free claims around 110 million active users, while Google CEO Larry Page just revealed that the Chrome browser has about 160 million users.

"uTorrent Plus is designed for people who are looking for a single solution to find, get, and play content anywhere, on any device," Berson wrote. The price point for uTorrent Plus has not been announced, The company has also created a sign-up page for people who want more information on uTorrent Plus. … Read more

As part of a plan to discourage customers from pirating films and music, some of the country's largest bandwidth providers announced last week that they will take punitive action against customers repeatedly caught in the act.

So far, most of the attention has been on the potential impacts to Internet users, but now some are asking how the major Hollywood film studios and four top record companies were able to convince the Internet service providers to take part. For years, executives from AT&T and Verizon have argued that enforcing copyright was up to the content creators and … Read more

Album sales edge up 1 percent for just the first half of the year and suddenly it seems everybody in the music industry is giddy.

That's likely due to the fact that since 2004, all the news about sales has been bad, bad, bad. Consider that the music industry hasn't seen growth since George W. Bush was preparing for a second term as president, the Boston Red Sox were breaking the curse of the Bambino, and Mark Zuckerberg was founding Facebook.

Last Wednesday, research firm Nielsen SoundScan announced that the industry recorded a 1 percent increase in overall … Read more

A partnership announced today between big entertainment companies and some of the nation's largest Internet service providers will not mean the end of online piracy. To be sure, the parties involved know this.

The most savvy tech users and dedicated file sharers will continue to pirate content and perhaps there isn't any way to stop them. But the hope of Hollywood film studios and the four largest record companies is that the participating ISPs, which include Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable, can help discourage mainstream Internet users from sharing content illegally over the Web.

The participating … Read more

Office 365, announced today, gives professionals and small businesses a subscription service that lets them work from anywhere using familiar-feeling Web-enabled applications. Combined with hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync, Office 365 is designed to enable users to share, collaborate, and communicate in the cloud. In our testing during the beta, we found that the tools worked well across the board (with some hiccups), and expect that many people who use Office on desktop Macs and PCs will appreciate the familiar look and feel, which should help them get up and running quickly.

Obviously, Office 365 is going to … Read more

Release the hounds! uTorrent 3.0 was released yesterday for seeders and leechers everywhere.

Four million users tested various alpha, beta, and release candidate versions of the anticipated v3 of the popular BitTorrent software, which is a darling of the download scene owing to its simple interface and lightweight footprint (for example, the installer is only 624KB). A slew of new features are embedded in the upgraded client, including streaming video; uTorrent remote; ratings and comments; and drag and drop sending. There's also mention of an exciting new encrypted Web-based UI, dubbed uTorrent Web, which enables access to µ… Read more

The people who are instrumental in getting technology start-ups off the ground are imploring Congress not to support a bill designed to give the government more freedom in combating Internet piracy and counterfeiting.

About 50 of some of tech's best-known venture capitalists, including Marc Andreessen, Fred Wilson, and Vinod Khosla, wrote an open letter to members of the U.S. Congress yesterday and outlined how the Protect IP Act would not only fail to achieve its goal of protecting intellectual property but would also "stifle investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt American competitiveness."

The Protect … Read more

Some of the country's largest Internet service providers are poised to leap into the antipiracy fight in a significant way.

After years of negotiations, a group of bandwidth providers that includes AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are closer than ever to striking a deal with media and entertainment companies that would call for them to establish new and tougher punishments for customers who refuse to stop using their networks to pirate films, music and other intellectual property, multiple sources told CNET.

The sources cautioned that a final agreement has yet to be signed and that the partnership could … Read more

Over the past few years, we've seen a plethora of download servers and utilities that range from the infamous torrent clients to temporary file servers like RapidShare, Megaupload, and HotFile. Torrenting in particular has seen some new improvements in the area of clients; uTorrent (which was eventually acquired by BitTorrent) became one of the most portable, system-friendly clients and Webware sites like Torrific have even eliminated the use of client software altogether.

So how do you top that?

Enter Fetch.io, a cloud-based service similar to the likes of Dropbox but with the utilitarian function of Torrific, as well … Read more