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Whenever somebody needs an application, song, tv show, movie or anything else they would turn to a torrent indexing website like Piratebay.org. The Pirate Bay is known in the online file sharing community as one of the more prominent websites which distributes torrents that point to copyrighted material. In much of the world, offering such torrents would be illegal, but due to the nature of Swedish law, this is not the case. Because of their slight “immunity�? the operators of the website would mock the legal threats sent to them. Here is an example:

Subject: Re: Illegal Dissemination of Apple Intellectual PropertyFrom: anakataTo: IRamage@OMM.com> April 21, 2005 > > VIA EMAIL > > NOT FOR POSTING > > Fredrik Neij > Registrant of www.piratebay.org > > Re: Apple Intellectual Property Disseminated by > www.piratebay.org > > Dear Mr. Neij: > > We represent Apple Computer, Inc. On or before April 21, 2005, the > site www.piratebay.org was in the process of distributing and/or > facilitating the distribution of a misappropriated copy of an > unreleased version of Apple’s operating system software, Tiger 10.4, > Build 8A428. The software constitutes an Apple trade secret and is > copyrighted. Awh, come on, I’ve heard the expression “a few bad apples”, but this is just ridiculous. > Apple has a well-known, longstanding policy of closely guarding > information about its unreleased products as trade secrets. I’ve heard that before somewhere. I just can’t remember where… > We demand that you immediately disable the torrent and/or tracker and > prevent further distribution of Apple’s trade secret and copyrighted > material. We demand that you provide us with entertainment by sending more legal threats. Please? > Apple further demands that you provide us with all information > relating to the posting of torrents enabling the distribution of Mac > OS X Tiger, Build 8A428, including all log files and tracker files > associated with such torrents. Apple also demands all information > related to the identity of the persons who created such torrent files > and/or who uploaded the software referenced by those torrent files, as > well as the identities of all individuals who participated in the > uploading and downloading of Apple’s software. If you fail to > maintain the evidence of this illegal activity, you will be subject to > severe sanctions. In particular, if you destroy or hide any evidence, > you will be subject to civil and criminal penalties. Please produce > all requested information by the end of the day, Friday, April 22, > 2005. Even if we had that information, which we don’t, do you really think we would provide it to you? > Builds of unreleased Apple software are distributed under strict > confidentiality agreements. Your torrent site appears to be engaged > in a practice of soliciting and disseminating Apple trade secrets. > This practice is grounds for both civil and criminal liability. To > avoid further liability, you must refrain from inducing the breach of > any Apple confidentiality agreements, soliciting Apple trade secrets, > and distributing Apple trade secrets on your site. …Or what? You and Hans Brix will send us angry letters? Fortunately for you, we don’t keep sharks as pets. > Apple is prepared to take further actions to stop the sites illegal > activities, and Apple expressly reserves its rights. I am available > to discuss this matter at any time. If you are represented by counsel > in this matter, please provide me with the identity of that counsel. Instead of simply recommending that you sodomize yourself with a retractable baton, let me recommend a specific model - the ASP 21″. The previous lawyers tried to use a cheaper brand, but it broke during the action. > > Sincerely, > > Ian Ramage > OMelveny & Myers LLP > Embarcadero Center West > 275 Battery Street, Suite 2600 > (415) 984-8783 (direct) > (415) 984-8701 (fax) > iramage@omm.com > > This message and any attached documents contain information from the > law firm of OMelveny & Myers LLP that may be confidential and/or > privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not read, > copy, distribute, or use this information. If you have received this > transmission in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply > e-mail and then delete this message.

REPLY

It’s OK with you that we post this message on http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/ ? Because I just did, and I’m so afraid of you and your nice titles and shiny offices :-(.

As you can see the site operators did not care about copyrights or anything to do with laws, but it caught up with them.The following was on their website today:

On the morning of 2006-05-31 the Swedish National Criminal Police showed a search warrant to Rix|Port80 personnell. The warrant was valid for all datacentres of Rix|Port80 and was directed at The Pirate Bay. The allegation was breach of copy-right law, alternatively assisting breach of copy-right law.The police officers were allowed access to the racks where the TPB servers and other servers are hosted. All servers in the racks were clearly marked as to which sites run on each. The police took down all servers in the racks, including the non-commercial site Piratbay, the mission of which is to defend the rights of TPB via public debate.According to police officers simultaneously questioning the president of Rix|Port80, the purpose of the search warrant is to take down TPB in order to secure evidence of the allegations mentioned above.The necessity for securing technical evidence for the existance of a web-service which is fully official, the legality of which has been under public debate for years and whose principals are public persons giving regular press interviews, could not be explained. Asked for other reasoning behind the choice to take down a site, without knowing wether it is illegal or not, the officers explained that this is normal.The TPB can receive compensation from the Swedish state in case that the upcoming legal processes show that TPB is indeed legal.

I am very sad that TPB is gone but I am sure it will come back soon!Here are some links for the latest and more information:http://82.99.25.142/http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1203http://slashdot.org/articles/06/05/31/1226224.shtmlhttp://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/200605/31/20060531144327_PFA/20060531144327_PFA.dbp.asphttp://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/200605/31/20060531151613_IDG.se226/20060531151613_IDG.se226.dbp.asphttp://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/200605/31/20060531155526_PFA/20060531155526_PFA.dbp.asphttp://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/200605/31/20060531154325_PFA/20060531154325_PFA.dbp.asphttp://tv4.se/nyheter/467680.htmlhttp://www.programbar.se/namninsamling/index.php?sida=2&nid=141http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=147&a=549153&previousRenderType=6http://piratkriget.omfg.se Tags: piratebay, torrent, pirate, bay, piratebay.org, police, servers

Heading into the final games of the National Hockey League regular season the Edmonton Oilers were on the brink of not making the 2006 playoffs. With some amazing late season wins the Oilers secured the 8^th and final spot in the western conference. Although the Oilers finally made the playoffs they couldn’t sit back and celebrate their accomplishment. Being 8^th place the Oilers were forced to play the 1^st place Detroit Red Wings. This past season the Red Wings clinched first in the entire league and were heavy favorites to win the Stanley Cup. To win 1 round of the playoffs you must win 4 games, to win the Stanley Cup you need 16. Going into their first game against Detroit everybody thought that Detroit was going to walk all over them, but Edmonton proved everybody wrong. Going into the 3^rd period of that first game the Oilers were in the lead 2-1, but a late goal by Kirk Maltby sent the game to overtime. In the second period of OT, the Red Wings scored. Although the Red Wings won the game, it was very close. The Oilers came back to win the next two game. Edmonton finished the series in game 6, beating Detroit 4 games to 2. At this point the city of Edmonton knew that they had something special happening. Excited fans took to a historical street called Whyte Avenue to party. These early playoff parties were crazy but that was only the beginning.Last Stanley Cup Playoffs the Calgary Flames, Alberta other team made it all the way to the finals, like the Oilers. Calgary had a street named “The Red Mile�?, which was a party place for fans. Edmonton fans that year jumped on the bandwagon and cheered on their rivals, but you could see that the Oiler fans were somewhat jealous of their rival’s accomplishments. Now that the Oilers are winning, their fans have something to cheer about, and rightfully so.After beating the 1^st place Detroit, Edmonton had the San Jose Sharks to worry about. San Jose was also heavily favored and would have been higher in the standings, but they traded for one of the best player in the league late in the year, Joe Thornton. With that addition the Sharks were deadly, but Sharks do die in Oil. After two impressive wins by the Sharks, the Oilers battled back to win four straight and take the series. The Whyte Avenue parties escalated. There were stabbing and people were wrecking private properties.Next up was Anaheim, who not only had a red hot goalie, but some snipers in Teemu Selanne and Joffrey Lupul. Edmonton sneaked three straight wins, but could not pull the sweep in the fourth game at home. It took one more game, and in the 5^th game of the series, the Oilers beat the Ducks to advance to the Stanley Cup finals. The last time the Oilers had been to the finals was in 1990. The party got so out of hand on Whyte Avenue that night that the riot patrol was called in, with no success. People were climbing power line, store signs, and just about anything else somewhat climbable. They lit fires on the road, broke windows. This party was going just a little too far for a hockey celebration. We still have one more series left. What will happen?Tags: edmonton, oilers, hockey, playoffs, sanjose, sharks, ducks, anaheim, nhl, stanley, cup

I have always been a fan of AWstats statistics software for websites. Stats are very important to know if you run a website, no matter what size. If you have a very small website you can find out where your visitors are coming from and therefore use that information to gain more visitors. If you have a larger website you can determine your popular files, pages and also find out where you visitors live. These stats can help you get valuable advertisers or help you sell your website or domain name. What stats software should you use, you ask? Well there are so many to choose from and each performs a core function but each has different strong points. Today I will look at two, one paid and one free/open source.Mint is a great for several reasons. It has an amazingly slick CSS design with some very cool AJAX features. People are free to create add-ons, which are called “Peppers?. These peppers serve many purposes including mapping where each visitor is from and RSS feed information. I have yet to purchase a license, because I am too cheap. If somebody is willing purchase a license for me I would greatly appreciate it. Although I have not used it on my own website I have played around with several demonstrations.I am going to start with the design aspect of Mint. Mint is without a doubt the most visually pleasing stat software available today. Not only does Mint use pure CSS but it has AJAX features which scroll and automatically update data. Since it uses CSS and is very clean you can view your stats faster and on more devices such as cell phones, blackberries, and of course your computer.The second I will look at is AWstat’s. You can turn on an option to have a button to update your stats. This is different from the automatically updating Mint. It has a very simple design and even uses CSS. There are very few images so it loads lightning fast. Besides the simplicity it is awfully ugly. It looks like a 1990’s website. The only upside is that it is open source so you could create a theme. Because it is open source you could essentially change the makeup and add some AJAX and it would surpass Mint in functionality.The overall function of Mint is very good but the default version is lacking compared to AWstats. Mint shows the visits, referrals, pages, and searches by default. You can of course download some pepper to add functionality but for a basic user that could become a pain. In the long run the default data displayed by Awstats surpasses Mint, but with Peppers you could have better functionality.How much do these cost? Mint costs $30 for a one time license fee, and Awstats is completely free. Installation is a lot easier for Mint than Awstats. Awstats is very complicated to install. Once of the easiest ways to install it involved using SSH to connect to the server. This is far beyond the ability of a regular computer user.I suggest Mint for anybody with a website. Check them out at www.haveamint.com. If you want to sponsor this website you could purchase a Mint license for 5tags.com.Tags: mint, awstats, haveamint, aw, stats, statistics

During Christmas break I was talking to a friend who was writing a book to receive his Ph.D. He had a very good book written, which was going to be sold to schools to teach a religious course. He told me that he was going to get his local printer to print his book in a plastic coil form. I began to think about another solution and remembered that Cafepress had a book service. After some investigation I found out that they get their books done by Lulu.com. After going to the Lulu website I was quickly hooked on their service. Lulu offers book, DVD, and CD publishing for anybody. There are no minimums and you get discount if you order more. If you wanted a book that was 6×9 with 100 pages it would cost you only $6.53. The service looked amazing so I created a cover, formatted it, uploaded it, and ordered 1 sample. The sample was shipped to the author’s house so I was unable to see it for about two months. As soon as it arrived at his house he was amazed. I really wanted to see it but just didn’t have time to drive to his house. Without even talking to me, he ordered 250 more! When I finally saw the product I was totally amazed. The book looks just like one that you would get from a store like Chapter or Barnes and Nobel. I recommend Lulu to anybody that wanted to either publish or sell their book, write a book for fun, or make a photo book that looks totally professional. After this whole experience I really wanted my own book. I don’t necessarily want to make money on it; I just want my own book. It is cool to have your own book. What should my book me about? I just went to Japan so should I could make a full color photo book or maybe I could write my own non-fiction book. I really need suggestions. Please comment on this post with suggestions for my first book. I promise that current readers of this blog will get the book dirt cheap.When I was in Japan we went to some very expensive places like Ginza. When we were on Ginza Street we passed a Louis Vuitton store. I had heard of Louis Vuitton before but was unsure of what all they sold. I knew that they sold women’s handbags but I didn’t know they had men’s things. When I got home from Japan I tried to find a Louis Vuitton wallet on eBay. About two weeks ago I found the perfect LV wallet and bought it. I just got it on Thursday and wasn’t that happy with it. It cost a lot of money, the quality is good, but it is not worth the cost.I want to write a book and here are some possible subjects:

• installing web server software on linux
• learning php or javascript
• or anything computers/internet