SG News: Downloads of pirated Windows 7 beta candidate soar

[news]

December 30, 2008 (Computerworld) Downloads of a new build of Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 7 operating system have soared in the past two days, with thousands of systems now pulling pirated copies from BitTorrent sites.Searches today on the Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, for example, returned multiple listings of Windows 7 Build 7000, which Microsoft identifies as a beta candidate in the file name. The torrent is a disk image of the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate; a 64-bit version is not yet ...

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[knightmare]

The prosecutor in the trial of The Pirate Bay today amended the criminal charges against the four defendants in the case. Prosecutor Hakan Roswall has removed the charges relating to copying, as opposed to making available, copyrighted works.

Peter Danowsky, legal counsel for the music companies in the case, said the change would simplify the charges against The Pirate Bay.

Danowsky said: Its a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay. In fact it simplifies the prosecutors case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works.

The trial began yesterday in Sweden and has quickly become the most watched trial on the Internet. The site is accused of helping users illegally downloaded movies, music, computer games, and more from its web site. If the site owners are convicted, they could spend two years in prison and a fine around $150,000.

BMG, EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. are among those accusing the site and its operators of copyright infringement. They are seeking more than $14 million in revenue losses.