Underground Media: Reloaded

In this corner, the challenger, weighing in at 105lbs and standing 5'2" in his Cuban heels, the front-man for The Family, The New Power Generation, and The Revolution, the only man to take an unpronouceable symbol as his stage name, the man who only wants your extra time and your uh uh uh uh uh kiss, PRINCE Rogers Nelson! And in this corner, wielding multiple high-capacity servers with more internet bandwidth than they know what to do with, the Swedish torrent-website that publicly flipped the bird to the collective American entertainment industry, with a litigation record of 5-0, the reigning heavyweight champion of filesharing, THE PIRATE BAY! DING! DING! "Continuing an aggressive campaign to defend his copyrights, pop star Prince is preparing to file lawsuits in three countries--including the United States--against The Pirate Bay, CNET News.com has learned." I love both Prince AND The Pirate Bay, so this is particularly fascinating for me to watch. My first impu...

As an avid TV-show broadcatcher who doesn't own a single actual television, I'm always looking to tighten up the process. I use an old PC as my server ($20 from SWAP for a 600Mhz Compaq with 384MB of RAM) and a light version of Linux to keep things snappy and responsive. Therein lies my problem. The most popular broadcatching software is not exactly made for old hardware. Azureus is an awesome swiss army knife of a program, but on my old server it's a HOG! After about 4 or 5 weeks of continuous use, RAM and swap memory run out and Azureus actually comes close to crashing the whole system. So, this evening I began my hunt for a low-resource alternative. I ended up with a two-program solution. The first is TED, the torrent episode downloader . Unlike most RSS readers, it is specifically designed for broadcatching TV shows. Written in Java, it's cross-platform, easy to use, and feature-rich. TED grabs the torrents as they become available, and then hands them of...

At this point, I'm ready to tell Joost what I really think of them. Linux is in the midst of a renaissance amongst geeks, and a revolution within the mainstream of computer users. But Joost thinks it's okay to ignore us. (For those of you just tuning in, Joost allows you to watch full-screen TV shows on your computer. As long as you run Windows XP or Vista.) So, until I see a linux client, I'm done blogging about them. On to the alternatives: Vuze is the most promising. This is the Azureus bittorrent client with a makeover. Well, it's really a tightly integrated Firefox web browser grafted onto the bittorrent client. Or at least that's what it looks like to me. I'm running version 3.0.2.0 for linux. All the Java and Flash slows the program down, even on my desktop (AMD dual-core 4400+ X2 64 with 2 GB RAM). But it's still usable, just a bit sluggish. The interface is slick and easy to use. The innards are still accessible for geeks. And it se...

Those crazy Swedes are trying to get themselves locked up at Guantanamo! Although it's the Entertainment establishment that wants their heads, and I'm not sure where Hollywood locks people up. Skywalker Ranch? Dr. Phil's house? Anyway, the history of The Pirate Bay is really fascinating. To understand them, you've got to place them within their historical context. In the world of movies and music, there are pirates and there are pirates. Type-A pirates are those who copy a movie or a CD, and then sell the copy for a profit. This type of operation is a VAST industry, with huge markets in southeast Asia and Latin America. I'm not sure about the figures, but I'm sure the profits are in the hundreds of millions annually. Type-B pirates distribute (share) such content freely to anyone with a high-speed internet connection. No money is made from such distribution, unless you count ad revenue from clicks into the hosting website, although this probably only c...

I'm baaaaaaack!!! After a week of vacation, and another week of traveling with the company, I'm back in the schizophrenic Wisconsin weather. Grrrrr. Anyway, some hot topics being talk about out there. First up, somebody gave my favorite wannabe "TV over the internet" startup an assload of money. Yes, Joost is the newest recipient of $45 Million in tasty green venture capital cash. Did I mention that they suck ? Wish somebody would give ME cash like that to overpromise and underdeliver... A moment of silence for the venerable audio-tape. I remember when a high school buddy lent me his tape of Public Enemy 's It Take A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (classic rap, by the way). I copied it with a Philip's high-speed dual-cassette "dubbing" tape-deck and listened to nothing else but Chuck D and Flava Flav for a MONTH! Now you copy some music on your PC and run the risk of the RIAA slapping a lawsuit on you... Read on over at P2Pnet . And fin...

And it makes sense! I can't believe this is the first we've heard of this effect. P2P is a juggernaut...

DRM is reportedly killing the newly launched Bittorrent video store . For those just tuning in, bittorrent is the newest flavor of peer-to-peer filesharing. And DRM is the stuff that keeps you from sharing. Or stealing, in the words of the MPAA or RIAA. But what happens when you purchase something from the new legit Bittorrent storefront, but you can't play it because the embedded DRM isn't compatible with your video card, or operating system, or version of Windows? I guess it's back to the illegal stuff... Guys, take a lesson from Steve Jobs. (Yes, I still believe he is Satan, the lord of evil. But that's beside the point.) Make DRM easy and transparent. Until you do that, the beatings will continue.

Nice write-up over at TorrentFreak about a piracy documentary done by a Canadian. The actual documentary DVD is freely downloadable , so give it a watch and let me know what you think. I've got some very strong opinions on this topic, if I can rant for a minute. I LOVE movies. No, really. I LOVE them. I watch at least three a week. Sometimes more. But I RARELY go to the theater anymore. Why? Because after I drive all the way the freak to the theater, pay $16 for my wife and I just to walk in the doors, pay $10 more for dry popcorn and over-sweet sodas, sit my ass in the uncomfortable seats, and start watching the tiny (this is the midwest, and I'm from L.A.) screen all while telling the moronic teenagers in front of us to "shut the f*ck up, I'm trying to watch the movie! This is NOT your flippin' living room!", I realize that the studios have not jerked me hard enough yet. Why? Because as the lights go down and the screen starts, a F*CKING PEPSI ...

TV Wars: BitTorrent to the Rescue Written by enigmax on March 01, 2007 Millions of UK viewers who have already paid for access to shows such as Lost, 24 and Battlestar Galactica are now facing blank television screens because of a dispute between Virgin Media and BSkyB. They now face a stark choice: miss the shows they love so much, or download them via BitTorrent. article ***I know what I would do. In fact I do it every day...