3 Count: The Server is Down

This is daily column on Plagiarism Today where the site brings you three of the days biggest, most important copyright and plagiarism news links. If you want to offer your feedback on the column, use the contact form or just follow me on Twitter at @plagiarismtoday.

1: Telenor refuses to block Pirate Bay access

Telenor, Norway’s largest ISP, has been under pressure by both the IFPI and local rights groups to block access to The Pirate Bay. However, the ISP has said that it will not take that controversial step, saying that it sees no legally compelling reason to do so, and putting itself at risk for a lawsuit that has been threatened by the IFPI.

Telenor’s Danish ISP, TELE2, was ordered previously by a court in Denmark to block bittorrent site but the company seems to feel that there is no reason in Norwegian law to take similar action there.

2: Microsoft Planning Ad-Supported Model For Office 14 (MSFT)

In an interesting bid to stave off the effects of piracy, Microsoft has tentatively announced a plan for an ad-supported version of Office 14, which is due out next year.

The idea behind the new version is to get what would be unpaid pirated copies of Office and get those installs to generate at least some revenue. Obviously, Microsoft is going to continue to sell non-ad-supported but paid versions of its office suite.

What remains to be seen is whether it will be would-be pirates that are drawn to the ad-supported version, or just paying customers tired of shelling out hundreds of dollars for every upgrade.

3: Pirate Bay Defendant Restarts Server Remotely during Trial

Finally today, in what is likely a sign of how unaffected The Pirate Bay admins are by their recent criminal trial, one of the defendants, Fredrik Neij, rebooted his server remotely even as closing arguments were taking place in the court around him.

According to Neij, “A server was down and I restarted it…. We have Internet access [in the court room] so it was no problem.”

Anyone who listens to the Copyright 2.0 Show knows well that this is not out of character for The Pirate Bay and probably will not be surprised by this at all.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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