Digital World News

'PIX squeezes The Tube into its digital format
A new music video channel hits the digital airwaves today.

The network, called The Tube, is being launched locally on WPIX/Ch. 11's digital signal, which is free to people with digital televisions capable of getting Ch. 11.2.

Digital technology allows local stations to broadcast a second signal, thus the 11.2 designation.

Eventually, the 24-hour network will be rolled out to cable systems throughout the New York area.

Billed as the only 24-hour all-music channel, The Tube is being headed up by Les Garland, one of the original staffers at the start of MTV and VH1.

"The Tube distinguishes itself by offering top music programming, and our partnership affirms our commitment to providing the highest quality entertainment and enhanced content for our audience," Ch. 11 general manager Betty Ellen Berlamino said in a statement.

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The Pirate Bay (often abbreviated TPB) bills itself as the world's "largest BitTorrent tracker", and also acts as an index for .torrent files that it tracks. It was started by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån in early 2004, but since October 2004 has been a separate organization.

The server which runs Hypercube Tracking Software is located in Stockholm, Sweden. On June 1, 2005, The Pirate Bay updated its website in an effort to reduce bandwidth usage, which was reported to be at 2000 HTTP requests per second on each of the four servers, as well as create a more user friendly interface for the frontend of the website. On May 31, 2006, the site's servers were raided by Swedish police, taking it offline indefinitely. However, the replacement site up as of June 1 stated that The Pirate Bay would "BE UP AND FULLY FUNCTIONAL WITHIN A DAY OR TWO", and a Pirate Bay spokesperson claimed that the Pirate Bay would move to another country if necessary to continue service.

Legal threats
The Pirate Bay is known in the online file sharing community as one of the more prominent websites which distributes torrents that point to copyrighted material. In much of the world, offering such torrents would be illegal, but due to the nature of Swedish law, this is not the case. In July 2005, new anti-piracy legislation was enacted in Sweden; however, this did not affect The Pirate Bay which only offers .torrent files, which in and of themselves do not contain copyrighted material. The Pirate Bay is well known for the "legal" page it hosts featuring mockery of organizations sending copyright infringement notices and cease and desist letters to them.

A hardcopy of a reply from The Pirate Bay to Web Sheriff, in response to faxed legal threats, was sold on eBay June 8, 2005, for US $255.

May 2006 police raid
At around 11 a.m. [1] on May 31, 2006, a major raid against The Pirate Bay and people involved with the site took place, prompted by allegations of copyright violations.


"Site Down" message on 31 May, 2006.The raid, in which some 50 police officers participated, shut down the site and its servers were confiscated, as well as all other servers hosted at The Pirate Bay's Internet service provider, PRQ Inet.

Three people, aged 22, 24, and 28, were held by the police for questioning, but were released later in the evening.

Special attention has been brought to the fact that even though only the servers running The Pirate Bay were eligible for possible copyright violations, all servers in the server room were seized, even those running Piratbyrån, an independent organization fighting for file-sharing rights, as well as servers that are unrelated to The Pirate Bay or other filesharing activities.


"Site Down Hoax" message on 1 June, 2005.It is not clear why the raid was carried out at this particular time. The Swedish public broadcast network Sveriges Television cited unnamed sources claiming that the raid was prompted by political pressure from the United States.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wrote in a press release: "Since filing a criminal complaint in Sweden in November 2004, the film industry has worked vigorously with Swedish and U.S. government officials in Sweden to shut this illegal site down". Dan Glickman, CEO of MPAA, also stated that "Intellectual property theft is a problem for film industries all over the world and we are glad that the local government in Sweden has helped stop The Pirate Bay from continuing to enable rampant copyright theft on the Internet".

The closure message initially caused some minor confusion, because on June 1, 2005 The Pirate Bay had posted a remarkably similar message stating that they were permanently down since they had been raided by the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau and IFPI, which was later admitted as a prank. The BitTorrent community, once assured of the story's truth, quickly spread the announcement across online news sites, blogs, and discussion forums.


Picture from one of PRQ's "emptied" data centers. PRQ is the hosting company that hosts the Piratebay.org website.The Pirate Bay was brought back online on a temporary server, and now displays a "SITE DOWN" message, in which they confirm that the police were in possession of valid search warrants alleging either breach of copyright law or assisting such a breach. The Pirate Bay recently posted pictures of the alleged empty servers raided by the police.

Source From Digital World News Blog at http://digitalworldnews.blogspirit.com/

The “new” channel will occupy Prime’s dial position when it debuts in 5.6 million Canadian homes on June 1.

“(Prime) has been in its original incarnation for almost 10 years, and with a focus on the total stable of products (including the recent revamp of the Global Television Network), there’s a huge opportunity for specialty in Canada,” says Tim Kist, Winnipeg-based director of marketing for Global Television Specialty Networks.

Up to 70% of Prime’s schedule–long heavy on such ’70s and ’80s shows as MASH and The Golden Girls–will be refreshed with “iconic” shows including Seinfeld, Frasier and Beverly Hills 90210.

“It’s that era of show that has had a long run on TV, is now in syndication on one or two other channels, but nobody has gone back and taken a look at a lot broader range of those shows and put them all together back-to-back-to-back,” says Kist. “That carves us out as something distinct.”

TVtropolis will also feature the Canadian premieres of celebrity reality shows including Hogan Knows Best (chronicling wrestler Hulk Hogan’s life away from the ring), My Fair Brady (the life of Christopher “Peter Brady” Knight) and Celebrity Fit Club.

Some background information on TVtropolis:

TVTropolis is a Canadian cable television specialty channel, formerly known as Prime, which launched on June 1, 2006. It is currently owned by CanWest Global Communications (66.7%) and Rogers Communications (33.3%).

Programming
TVtropolis operates two feeds, East and West, using Eastern and Pacific time respectively. TVtropolis showcases hit series from the ‘80s and ‘90s such as Seinfeld, Frasier, Married... with Children, Due South and more as well as reality series featuring TV icons such as Hogan Knows Best, Celebrity Fit Club, My Fair Brady and Breaking Bonaduce.

History
Licensed in 1996, the network was originally launched as Prime on October 17, 1997. While the station did not explicitly market itself as a television channel for the "baby boomer" generation, programming was directed mainly towards men and women 50 years of age or older. Prime's schedule reflected a mix of general interest television, including home improvement and design series, along with classic television series such as M*A*S*H, All In The Family, Seinfeld and Frasier. It would also host repeat showings of Global and CH series, including The Apprentice, The Restaurant, The Price Is Right, Entertainment Tonight Canada, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Prime's slogan was "Canada's Entertainment Network".


Programs
Beverly Hills 90210
Breaking Bonaduce
Canadian Case Files
Celebrity Fit Club
Counterstrike
Due South
Ellen
ET Canada
Frasier
From The Ground Up with Debbie Travis
Grace Under Fire
Hogan Knows Best
House and Home
Inside Hollywood
Lonesome Dove
Married... with Children
M*A*S*H
My Fair Brady
Ned and Stacey
Neon Rider
NewsRadio
Night Heat
Northern Mysteries
Seinfeld
Sirens
The Nanny
Urban Angel
Vanity Insanity
War Of The Wheels

Visit TVtropolis at http://www.tvtropolis.com/

Source From Digital World News Blog at http://digitalworldnews.blogspirit.com/