A law firm hoping to secure the identities of Internet users who allegedly shared copyright material without permission is likely to find itself in a sticky situation today. The firm has reportedly approached ISPs in Australia with demands that they hand over subscribers' details, but according to their own published literature the company has little faith in IP address-based evidence.

Source: IP Addresses Don’t Positively Identify Infringers, Anti-Piracy Lawfirm Says

In a new lawsuit Voltage Pictures, the company behind The Hurt Locker, say they have not only tracked down a "prolific proponent" of widespread BitTorrent piracy, but have identified him as a practicing attorney based in Portland, Oregon. The defendant, who describes himself as an expert in two martial arts, is said to have infringed copyright in at least 66 different copyright works. The lawsuit is littered with controversial claims that attempt to paint the attorney in the worst possible light.

Source: Hurt Locker Makers Sue Attorney for Being “Prolific” BitTorrent Pirate

Kim Dotcom has announced that he is the inventor of the so-called two-step authentication system and has a patent to prove it. The Megaupload founder says the security mechanism, which has just been introduced by Twitter, is being used by U.S. companies more than a billion times every week without permission. Dotcom says he doesn't want to sue, but might if the likes of Google and Facebook don't help fund his legal battle with the U.S. Government.

Source: Kim Dotcom to Google, Twitter, Facebook: I Own Security Patent, Work With Me

To mark the occasion of 20 million DMCA takedown notices sent to Google by RIAA member companies, the organization has complained that search engines still aren't doing enough to reduce the piracy problem. The RIAA says it is using a bucket to deal with "an ocean of illegal downloading", one in which content is replaced and re-indexed in a never-ending loop. Notice and takedown procedures aren't fit for today's reality and must be revised, the music group argues.

Source: RIAA: 20 Million Piracy Takedowns Sent to Google, Still No End in Sight

New tax records reveal that the RIAA has made heavy employee cuts after revenue dropped to a new low. Over the past two years the major record labels have cut back their membership dues from $33.6 to $23.6 million. RIAA staff plunged from 107 to 60 workers in the same period. The IRS filing further shows that the music industry group paid $250,000 to the six strikes anti-piracy system.

Source: RIAA Makes Drastic Employee Cuts as Revenue Plummets

The file-sharing activities of BitTorrent users have become the input mechanism powering an art installation currently underway in Canada. The Pirate Cinema, a control room featuring three large screens and viewing area, is displaying a mashup of content pulled from the top 100 torrent swarms indexed by The Pirate Bay. Its creators inform TorrentFreak that with a little help from an encrypted connection to Sweden, some intriguing images are being realized.

Source: Pirate Bay User Downloads Visualized in Real-Time Art Installation

uTorrent parent company BitTorrent Inc. reports that the new advertising option in the popular BitTorrent client generates billions of ad impressions per month. Although users initially revolted against the idea of making uTorrent ad-supported, the new stats show that not too many of them turned the feature off. The next challenge for BitTorrent Inc. is to attract premium advertisers in addition to the lower tier poker and PC performance ads that are showing up now.

Source: uTorrent Serves Over 5 Billion Ads Per Month

The "six strikes" copyright alert system has claimed its first victory today. Tipped off by a copyright alert, a father found out that his kid was secretly sharing pirated material. The deviant behavior did not go unpunished and the parent in question ordered the teen to write a "note of apology" to the copyright holder, or else.

Source: Parent Punishes Kid for Triggering a “Six Strikes” Piracy Alert

Internet service providers in the UK have today begun blocking one of the world's largest streaming movie portals. In a follow up to similar actions, the MPAA obtained a High Court order which compels all major ISPs to begin blocking Movie2K, a massive site with millions of visitors each month. However, in a ridiculously fast show of defiance, one of the largest Pirate Bay proxy operators has already deployed a brand new site to beat the censorship.

Source: UK ISPs Block Huge Movie Site Movie2K, Proxy Immediately Unblocks

A teacher received a huge shock last week after uploading a copy of a book to his website that offers free educational resources for students. The Latvian publisher behind the work, a $4.00 history book, complained to the authorities which resulted in the teacher being raided by the police. During interrogation the teacher learned that his mistake could cost him dearly - two years in jail, forced labor, or a fine.

Source: Police Raid School Teacher for Uploading History Book for Students