The Swedish copyfighters at The Pirate Bay are working on a new protocol to replace BitTorrent. They feel that Bram Cohen's BitTorrent Inc. has too much influence on BitTorrent's technical direction. And then, too, there's the recent news that Comcast is intentionally slowing BitTorrent file transfers. The new protocol will be designed from the ground up to thwart spammers and antipiracy organizations from harassing users or tracking copyright violators. While the site rose to prominence thanks to BitTorrent, The Pirate Bay is the most influential organization in the file-sharing world. We suspect that other file-sharing sites will line up to support the new peer-to-peer protocol. A preliminary release is planned for next year.

Music file-sharing site Oink is rising from its recently raided grave — sort of. The ever-defiant Pirate Bay is resurrecting it as Boink.cd. [TorrentFreak]

Science fiction writer, Boing Boing editor, and copyright activist Cory Doctorow claims the blockbuster movie is doomed. It would certainly validate his worldview. In Doctorow's mind, there are two kinds of people: Greedy moguls who will exploit copyright in every conceivable way to preserve their multibillion-dollar profits from schlock movies, and noble-minded indie auteurs — all of whom surely agree with his extreme view that "art" should be copied and distributed freely. They'll make it up on popcorn sales.

Google's lawyers don't typically lean on the First Amendment to defend YouTube against copyright lawsuits like Viacom's $1 billion headliner. So far they've lined up their arguments behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But there is a chance the Sixth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling (PDF) yesterday on child pornography could change that strategy. Here's our quick analysis.

The Motion Picture Association of America claims it lost $2.3 billion worldwide to Internet piracy in 2005. So you'd think they'd be willing to spend a couple extra grand to keep some of its more unsavory antipiracy methods quiet. But you'd be wrong. According to a Wired News story, the MPAA signed a $15,000 contract with hacker Mark Anderson to obtain the names, addresses and phone numbers of the owners of P2P site Torrentspy.com.

Yes, PR flacks are typically mindless automatons programmed to spout the company line. But sometimes I feel for them. Take Viacom's Jeremy Zweig, for example. Man's got to be dizzy from all the spin. First, he tells us that Viacom general counsel Michael Fricklas is "delighted" with Google's new YouTube Video Identification tool. Then we spot him telling others the lawsuit is still on. Because Viacom sues people it's "delighted" with? Not exactly.

Did you think, after Google announced its YouTube Video Identification tool, that Viacom would drop its $1 billion lawsuit? Don't count on it. Though he told me Viacom general counsel Michael Fricklas was "delighted" with the tool, Viacom spokesperson Jeremy Zweig is saying the tool changes nothing. "It doesn't have any impact," Zweig said. "Or at least it's very premature to try and figure out the impact it could have on the litigation." (Photo by AP)

Microsoft and several large media companies — Disney, CBS, NBC Universal, Fox and MySpace, Viacom and Dailymotion — will announce plans this morning to use technology "to eliminate copyright-infringing content uploaded by users to Web sites, and block any infringing material before it is publicly accessible," according to a Wall Street Journal report. The Journal says Google, which separately announced its own automated piracy detector yesterday, isn't part of the group.

Does Google's new YouTube Video Identification tool mean it's backing down from its previous legal stance in the face of pressure from Viacom? A YouTube source told me no. He said the tool has been under development since before Google bought YouTube in 2006. It's just another effort to go above and beyond what's required by the law, he claimed. A pat recitation of the company's party line, of course. If that's true, why the sudden rollout, and why now? If Google really believed its case could stand up in court, why would it create the ID tool? How, exactly, does Google stand to profit?

While beating up ruffians, Bruce Willis doesn't have time to rip and encode his movies, nor deal with the copy-protected gunk served on iTunes. Fox has wised up and is offering a special two-for-one Live Free or Die Hard deal: The DVD will contain a DRM-free digital copy of the film meant for playback on computers and portable video players. [Techdirt]

Months ago, word was that Google had piled up a "war chest" to fund a long-term legal battle against Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit. Was that all talk? Seems so, after Google today launched YouTube Video Identification, a tool to help copyright owners identify and manage their content when it's uploaded to YouTube. With the new ID tool, content owners can block, promote or license their copyrighted content for a share of Google's ad revenue. Our analysis of Google turning tail after the jump.

Science fiction writer and Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow has made a career out of finely parsing copyright issues. He's lectured on the topic as a visiting professor at the University of Southern California. So it seems kind of weird that Doctorow would cut and paste a 600-word satire by A Wizard of Earthsea author Ursula K. Le Guin onto Boing Boing and leave off the last line: "copyright © Ursula K. Le Guin, 2007." The result: An outstandingly huffy email from a spokesman for Le Guin. But there's more to the story.

Who says todays kids aren't politically motivated? Demonstrations and protests are growing across American campuses. Today's youth feel a need to do something. And that something, of course is ... protest our involvement in Iraq? Peace for Myanmar? The environment? Don't be silly — today's college students are up in arms over their "right" to free music.

NBC had to yank a "Saturday Night Live" video off YouTube after it failed to license a sample from Aphex Twin. This happens a mere week after NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker ranted to Congress that the government needed to focus more on copyright infringement. [Techdirt]

Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo Music, told music execs it's time to quit whining, grow up, and get rid of digital rights management — the copy-protection software that's the bane of music listeners everywhere. In a deliciously ranty presentation, Rogers explains how record labels forced Yahoo Music to build an annoying music software client to ensure the industry stayed in control of the music. Yahoo, says Rogers, won't put up with DRM's inconvenience anymore. Rogers says he'd rather quit the digital-music business than keep frustrating his users. "I personally don't have any more time to give and can't bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value." Ah, there's the keyword: "value." Is this really a high-minded protest — or an artful negotiating tactic to counter labels' demands to boost prices on DRM-free music?

Jammie Thomas, the woman who file-sharers and legitimate music purchasers alike hoped would end the tirades of the Recording Industry Association of America was found guilty of copyright infringement and slapped with a $222,000 fine. Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, the first file-sharing case to actually go to trial, was a rallying point for anyone wishing to listen to music without automatically being deemed a criminal. The case revealed that the industry's lawsuits were, for the most part, a big, costly, unsubstantiated waste of time. But, alas for Thomas, not in this case. The victory will no doubt help the RIAA scare more people it accuses of file sharing into settling out of court. (Photo by Martin Belam)

"YouTube could do a much more aggressive job about taking down content that is a copyright violator... It's pretty safe to say that [Google has] the technology available... it's publicly available and I haven't yet heard a lot about Google being technologically constrained." — News Corp. president and COO Peter Chernin [FT]

All-male porn peddler Titan Media has sued to shut down an "online gay porn piracy ring." Titan is suing 22 defendants working on a half-dozen blogs. In this arena, for a change, the porn world is behind the curve, not on the cutting edge of tech. While the RIAA and MPAA have huge budgets and companies like MediaDefender and BayTSP to do their antipiracy dirty work, those companies don't "want to be known in the porn space," according to the CEO of BayTSP. As a result, sex sites must do their own dirty work.

The record industry, according to a Sony executive testifying in the court case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, is losing millions taking alleged file sharers to court for crimes whose damage it can't assess. So, let's review: The record industry can't identify who's sharing files, can't account for how much an incident of piracy costs them, and can't explain to its customers why it's suing them. Is this any way to run a business — by bluffing?(Photo by P.B. Rage)

Content creators on YouTube might as well be stuck at an empty carousel, waiting to claim their videos in order to prevent piracy. The site's Claim Your Content tool, announced last April, was promised to arrive in September. A month late, it has obviously been delayed. Or could it be intentionally missing in action? While there's been speculation that Google is holding back to delay the day when it would have to share ad revenues with video creators, other believe that there's software trouble — that Google took on a bigger task than anticipated. After all, once Google removes a video from YouTube, wouldn't it also have to remove all references to specific clips from its search engine and ad network? Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by biting off more than you can chew. (Photo by Denise Chan)