A big setback Down Under for Hollywood studios: A federal judge in Australia has ruled that ISP iiNet is not liable for copyright infringements that get made by its customers. The precedent-setting decision flies in the face of the three-strikes laws being formed in other markets like neighboring New Zealand,…

It calls itself “the ultimate BitTorrent source”, but P2P tracker Mininova has now removed almost all links to copyrighted content after complying with a cease-and-desist court ruling in August from Dutch entertainment rightsholder group Brein. As the site’s staff write in a blog post, only content uploaded via the site’s…

Has the tide turned against bedroom P2P file-sharers in the music industry’s epic fight against piracy? The IFPI’s branch in Sweden—the home of illegal file-sharing—is reporting that Swedish music sales rose 18 percent in the first nine months of the year, after seven years of consecutive decline, following the introduction…

Global Gaming Factory X (GGF)‘s much-hyped and now defunct bid to buy BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay was a ship that never sailed. But more bidders could be on the horizon… Swedish games download site Gamersgate.com and, bizarrely, GGF CEO Hans Pandeya are amongst them, according to DI.se (via Thelocal.se).…

[With Staci D. Kramer] For weeks, Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have claimed in legal filings and through representatives to have evidence that former Joost CEO Michelangelo “Mike” Volpi put together an investment group to acquire the virtual phone company by promising access to a technology workaround. Now…

There seems to be as much chance of Global Gaming Factory X buying the Mary Celeste as it buying The Pirate Bay. The company’s shaky, non-specific and uncertain SEK60 million (£5.38 million) attempt to buy the Swedish P2P tracker has been well documented, but now the game may finally be…

After being kicked off the Swedish stock market for not providing evidence of the funds needed to buy giant BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay, Sweden’s Global Gaming Factory X is facing a bankruptcy filing from a former director claiming to be owed more than SEK1.3 million (£116,000).

(with David Kaplan) Just as eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) is ready to sell off the 65 percent of Skype, the founders of the virtual telephone company are suing the auction site for violating their license agreements and infringing on their copyright. According to the WSJ, Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas…

As if any more doubt could be cast on the chances of Global Gaming Factory X’s (GGF) offer to buy file-sharing site Pirate Bay going through ... Now, Swedish stock market AktieTorget has delisted GGF’s stock for violating its “transparency principle,” according to a statement from the exchange. AktieTorget had…

The new Pirate Bay is born: Global Gaming Factory X’s long-running and controversial attempt to buy the infamous and often outlawed Torrent-tracking site has been approved by the company’s shareholders. It’s against all the odds: key investors pulled out of the the SEK60 million (£5.1 million) deal in the last…

With hours to go until its deadline, would-be Pirate Bay buyer Global Gaming Factory X is having to perform a financial contortionist act to convince shareholders and market authorities its acquisition can work. Though it last week said funding for the acquisition had been secured, just hours before presenting the…

eBay insisted as recently as last week that the “separation” of Skype remains on track—and behind the scenes it’s trying to find a way around litigation that could put the deal in jeopardy. eBay has been mired in litigation with Joltid, a company started by Skype’s founders that licenses the…

Need more evidence that the sale of Pirate Bay to Global Gaming Factory X is anything but a sure deal? In court Tuesday, a lawyer for Global Gaming Factory X said it was “very much the question” whether the company’s $7.6 million sale would go through, according to an AP…

Updated: The latest peer-to-peer downloading service to try its hand at a legal music-subscription service: Kazaa. The company announced plans to go legit in some unspecified way three years ago when it settled its outstanding disputes with the music industry for more $100 million, but seems only now to be…

It doesn’t look like the Pirate Bay’s founders will be able to walk away with $7.6 million very easily if the sale of Pirate Bay to Global Gaming Factory X goes through (And that’s a big if, considering that Global Gaming Factory X hasn’t raised the money yet to buy…

If digital execs listen to Morgan Stanley’s 15-year-old intern for a teen’s take on consumer media, maybe they’ll look to Stephen Fry for what grown-ups think… ? Polymath Fry - apparently because he’s smart, media-literate and direct - is doing a nice line in tech punditry. The author/actor’s latest comments…

We think there’s plenty of water yet to pass under the bridge before the SEK 60 million (£7.4 million, $7.6 million) acquisition of The Pirate Bay’s domain actually happens. Not just because little-known Global Gaming Factory X shareholders haven’t yet approved its bid, or because its revenue projections are so…

Swedish stock exchange officials are investigating whether there may have been insider trading around Global Factory X’s deal to buy Pirate Bay for $7.8 million. “There are reasons to suspect that information was leaked,” a stock market official at the AktieTorget exchange tells Swedish business paper Dagens Industri (via Swedish…

If the stories of other file-sharing firms that sold out are any indication, Pirate Bay’s move to sell itself and go legit might not play out so well. Here’s what happened to some of its peer-to-peer predecessors that were put up for sale: Company: Scour Buyer: CenterSpan Sale Price: $9…