2 LEGIT 2 QUIT

Yar! It be quite a scurvy world out thar, and not everyone be able ta cut it out in the land of serious business, also be known as The Intarnetz.

The latest crew to become permanent landlubbers be The Pirate Bay, the Stockholm-based piracy site that formerly be a peer-to-peer server which made video games, movies and music available for “sharing” among users, but most recently, be raided by Swedish commodores and the ensuing trial against the BitTorrent site’s founder resulted in a guilty verdict. No more though! The Pirate Bay now be owned by Sweden’s Global Gaming Factory X AB for the quaint sum of 7.8 million dollars. That be a lot of wenches and grog!

In a quote from Hans Pandeya, CEO of the buyers:

“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.”

“In order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it.”

Seems that legal fees be a higher priority than privateering, eh bucko?

You Missed It: Take my kid, please edition

Not that we are watching the clock or anything, but it appears to be Friday and nearing 5 pm–that is unless you don’t live on Eastern Daylight Time, in which case, tough cookies. I am certainly itching to get out of here and I am sure I am not the only one. If you were busy contracting swine flu this week, odds are you missed it.

Bollywood has its scandals, too
This week, Indian police investigated allegations that the father of Slumdog Millionare star Rubina Ali had once tried to put her up for adoption for $400,000. The initial accusation came from the girl’s estranged mother, and took off when the press got wind of it. The police cleared Rafiq Qureshi of any wrongdoing. Qureshi said, “Of course I didn’t sell her back then, and it’s a good thing, too, because she’s worth a lot more now.”

Clearly, this is not a good time to be a pirate
One of the Swedish judges who convicted torrent site The Pirate Bay last week admitted this week that he had been part of a copyright protection group, which, as they say in Sweden, is probably an example of bias on the judge’s part and therefor the case should be retried. Well, that’s what the lawyers are saying anyway. I have a question, why are the Swedes so hard on piracy? Aren’t they known for invading the territory of others, taking whatever they want, then making a profit off of it?

‘What? Hacking? Noooooo, not us!’
Somebody hacked into park of the plans for the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter program–the most expensive military aerospace project in U.S. history. They didn’t get much, but they got something, and the U.S. Department of Defense is looking at China. China flatly denies hacking any U.S. stuff, even though their military has a corps of hackers and they are suspected of causing the Northeast Blackout of 2003. China also denied rumors that the Olympics were held in Beijing last summer.