May 8 - 1:30pm EDT   Movie studios are the latest group to launch a legal assault on Swedish BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay, filings indicate. The Motion Picture Association, an international extension of the MPAA, has filed a 93kr million ($15.4 million) lawsuit against Pirate Bay, which it accuses of hosting illegal torrent trackers for movies such as The Pink Panther and Syriana, as well as 13 episodes of the TV show Prison Break. Damages are said to amount to between 222 and 261kr ($37 and $43) per movie, and 415kr ($68) for each Prison Break episode. [full story]

January 31 - 11:30am EST   Well-known pirated material site The Pirate Bay has been charged with its first clear copyright infringement case, according to reports. A combination of major movie labels and music studios, including EMI, Fox, Sony BMG, and Universal, accuse the Swedish-run site of profiting from linking to BitTorrents from pages with advertising; as much as $4 million US a year is generated through normal traffic, according to the Swedish prosecutor in the case, Hakan Roswall. Labels involved with the suit are demanding as much as a $188,000 fine for each of the four principal site operators and that computers they own be confiscated. [full story]