Month: November 2015

Das Ein- und Aussteigen in die enge Kabine eines Passagierflugzeugs kostet Zeit und Nerven. Airbus hat sich ein Konzept patentieren lassen, bei dem die Kabine mitsamt den Passagieren aus dem Gate gehoben und ins Flugzeug gesteckt wird. (Airbus, Technologie)

Over the past 15 years countless individuals have faced financial punishments due to online copyright infringement offenses. But what happens when a case is won by copyright holders but the alleged pirate simply cannot pay?

Answers to that question vary, but over in the Czech Republic the people at the Business Software Alliance (BSA) have come up with the most unusual solution so far to settle their case with a long-time pirate.

The case involves an individual known as Jakub F who was accused by the BSA of pirating software including Microsoft’s Windows. Over many years he uploaded links to various forums which allowed others to download content from file-hosting sites. The BSA took exception to that and tracked him down. Eventually the police ended up at Jakub’s house, confiscating his computer, DVDs and an external hard drive.

The case went to trial and in September Jakub was found guilty, with a district court handing him a three-year suspended sentence and ordering the confiscation of his equipment. But for Jakub the matter was not over yet.

Various companies involved in the lawsuit including Microsoft, HBO, Sony Music and Twentieth Century Fox estimated that Jakub had caused them around $373,000 in damages, with Microsoft alone calling for $223,000. However, it appears that the court wasn’t prepared to accept the companies’ somewhat hypothetical calculations.

Whether the companies ever intended to claw back these sums remains unclear but it now transpires that the plaintiffs and Jakub F reached agreement on what they describe as an “alternative sentence.”

Instead of paying out a small fortune to his tormentors at the BSA, Jakub F agreed to star in an anti-piracy PSA about his life as a pirate. The video, which is embedded below and titled “The Story of My Piracy”, is being promoted on mojepiratstvi.cz, a site ostensibly setup by Jakub himself, with the aim of deterring others from following in his footsteps.

“I had to start this site because for eight years I spread pirated software and then they caught me. I thought that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I thought that it didn’t hurt the big companies. I didn’t even do it for the money, I did it for fun,” Jakub begins.

“I felt in the warez community that I meant something. I was convinced that I was too small a fish for someone to get to me. But eventually, they got me. Even for me, the investigators came to work.”

The video is a professional affair starring Jakub himself. Set to a dramatic soundtrack, Jakub talks about the fun he had on warez forums, sharing content for the pleasure of others. However, it all came crashing down when he was told that copyright holders wanted hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, damages he could never pay.

But while Jakub appears to have kept up his side of the bargain so far, the BSA say that the 30-year-old’s fate lies with how popular the video becomes. Unless the video gets 200,000 views on YouTube, there’s a suggestion that a huge fine will become payable.

“If I promote my story and my video gets at least 200 thousand views, I will only serve the general part of my sentence,” Jakub explains.

“In the video I play myself and this is really my story. I shot the video with a professional firm. Sharing is how this started and sharing is how I would like my story to end up.”

At the time of writing Jakub’s video has more than 80,000 views so he needs 120,000 more to clear his debt. Needless to say, this is one propaganda film video he’ll be hoping doesn’t get pirated.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 100s is a Windows notebook with an 11.6 inch display, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and an Intel Atom Z3735F Bay Trail processor. It’s not exactly a powerhouse, but it should provide decent enough performance for basic tasks… and it’s one of the cheapest Windows notebooks available. The IdeaPad 100s has […]

Deals of the Day (11-25-2015) is a post from: Liliputing

Forscher der Ruhr-Universität Bochum haben einen schon lange bekannten Angriff auf Verschlüsselungsverfahren mit elliptischen Kurven in der Praxis umsetzen können. Verwundbar ist neben Java-Bibliotheken auch ein Hardware-Verschlüsselungsgerät von Utimaco. (Verschlüsselung, Server)

Am 25. November 1915 legte Albert Einstein bei der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften einen knapp vierseitigen Aufsatz vor, in dem er die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie darlegte. Sie machte ihn weltberühmt - den Nobelpreis bekam er dafür aber nicht. (Wissenschaft)

EliteGroup Computer Systems has been selling a line of tiny desktop computers under the Liva brand since mid-2014. Now it looks like the company is getting ready to launch a new small form-factor computers. The folks at Notebook Italia recently noticed that a device called the ECS SI mPC computer appeared on the FCC website recently. The ECS SI […]

ECS has another mini PC on the way is a post from: Liliputing

Die Einkommen von IT-Spezialisten werden laut einer aktuellen Studie 2016 weiter steigen. Parallel dazu haben sich die Tarifparteien bei IBM auf einen neuen Vertrag geeinigt - mit einem nicht ganz so großen Plus. (IT-Jobs, IBM)

Technologien des Schweizer Entwicklerstudios Faceshift wurden unter anderem beim kommenden Star-Wars-Film eingesetzt. Jetzt hat Apple bestätigt, die Firma gekauft zu haben. (Apple, Star Wars)

Fossil’s first smartwatch running Android Wear software is now available for purchase. The Fossil Q Founder is a stainless steel watch with a round display, an IP67 water-resistant case, and support for just about any 22mm band (Fossil will offers its own leather straps eventually, but right now the watch ships with a stainless steel […]

Fossil Q Founder smartwatch now available for $295 is a post from: Liliputing

Blue Byte hat seine weitere Pläne für das Aufbauspiel Anno 2205 vorgestellt: Noch im Dezember soll der erste Patch erscheinen, dann folgt erst eine große Gratis-Erweiterung und anschließend zwei kostenpflichtige Addons. (Anno 2205, Ubisoft)