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Hollywood group claims The Pirate Bay tracker still lives

Just a day after operators of The Pirate Bay announced they had shut down the site's controversial BitTorrent tracker, a movie-industry lobbying group is accusing them of trying to pull a fast one.

On Tuesday the beleaguered website, which for the past six years had indexed torrents to facilitate often-illegal file-sharing, pulled the plug on its tracker -- something operators say is no longer needed because of advances in peer-to-peer technology.

However, Wired.com's Threat Level blog reports the Motion Picture Association, which lobbies for Hollywood overseas, claims The Pirate Bay tracker is simply operating under a new name: OpenBitTorrent, a site originally registered to Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij. (A commenter on Robot 6 pointed out the connection last month.)

For its part, OpenBitTorrent denies that it's The Pirate Bay tracker, with a message on the website chalking up the confusion, in part, to the two using the same hosting company at one point.

The MPA isn't buying that explanation, and has gone to court to force OpenBitTorrent's current Internet host to stop servicing the site.

The Pirate Bay shuts down its torrent tracker for good

Operators of The Pirate Bay have shut down the site's controversial BitTorrent tracker, saying that advances in technology have made it unnecessary.

Established in November 2003 in Sweden, The Pirate Bay tracked and indexed torrents, allowing users to search for and download comics, music, video games and movies uploaded (often illegally) by others. Within five years the site announced it had reached more than 25 million users.

But with new peer-to-peer technology like Distributed Hash Table (DHT) and Peer Exchange (PEX), users to longer need to access a central server to find the files they're looking for.

“Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down!” operators wrote Tuesday on The Pirate Bay's blog. “It’s the end of an era.”

However, it's hardly the end of The Pirate Bay story.

While the tracker is gone, the site will continue to index torrents. Then there's the matter of the four Pirate Bay founders, who still face a year in prison and a combined $4.4 million in damages to movie studios and record labels for facilitating copyright infringement.

And in a delightfully absurd aside, Wired.com's Threat Level blog reports that Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde has objected to a plan by a Swedish retailer to register the site's iconic sailing-ship logo -- it's been adrift in the public domain since its creation -- and use it to sell USB drives.

Yes, he intended to pirate the pirates. And the pirate didn't like it one bit.

After Sunde complained to Sweden’s Patent and Registration Office, the retailer withdrew his registration.

Nicolas Cage reportedly sold comics collection to stop financial bleed

Nicolas Cage in "Ghost Rider"

Remember back in 2002 when actor Nicolas Cage auctioned off his comic collection for a cool $1.6 million but never said why? Well, now we may know.

Last month the star of Ghost Rider and the upcoming Kick-Ass sued his former business manager for $20 million, blaming him for financial problems that include more than $6 million in tax liens. However, in a countersuit filed last week, Samuel J. Levin claims that by the time the actor hired him in 2001 Cage "had already squandered tens of millions of dollars he had earned as a movie star."

Levin asserts that he advised Cage he would need to earn more than $30 million to maintain his lifestyle, and persuaded him to sell a dozen automobiles and his comic-book collection, which included copies of Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #1 and All-Star Comics #3.

But by the time Ghost Rider was released in 2007, Cage reportedly had fallen back into his old habits: Levin contends that in that year alone the actor purchased three homes worth more than $33 million, 22 cars, 12 pieces of expensive jewelry and 47 pieces of artwork. Within a year, Cage's tally of homes had reached 15. He also owned an island in the Bahamas, four yachts and a Gulfstream jet.

No wonder he's so eager for another Ghost Rider movie.

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Blue Bloods: Masquerade

Publishing | Italian movie producer Domenico Procacci has purchased Bologna-based graphic novel publisher Coconino Press, adding it to his Fandango filmmaking and book-publishing company. In addition to its own titles, Coconino publishes the Italian editions of works by such artists as Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, and Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi. [Variety]

Publishing | Young-adult novelist Melissa de la Cruz has signed new contracts with Hyperion, the Disney Book Group imprint that publishes her bestselling Blue Bloods series. The deal calls for three companion books to the teen-vampire drama, including Blue Bloods: The Graphic Novel. [Variety]

The Last Unicorn

Publishing | IDW Publishing will adapt Peter Beagle's bestselling 1968 fantasy novel The Last Unicorn as a six-issue miniseries. The comic, by writer Peter B. Gillis, artist Renae De Liz and colorist Ray Dillon, will debut in April. [ICv2.com]

Publishing | Simon Jones offers commentary about declining manga sales in Japan: "Some blame was again placed at the industry’s increasing focus on niche genres (just as comics is a spandex ghetto, manga is facing a crisis of the moe slum), but I think this is being overstated as a cause, when it’s really a symptom that is self-feeding.  Manga sales have gone down … it could be lower birth rates, or competition from other media, or internet piracy (come on guys, we don’t need to couch this in flowery language), or any combination of those.  But it all comes down to fewer companies being able to produce mainstream products, because a growing segment of mainstream audiences are no longer willing to pay for them despite increasing demand." [Icarus Publishing]

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Flight Explorer, Vol. 1

Publishing | Retailer Christopher Butcher catches word that Flight Explorer, the younger-readers spinoff of the long-running Flight anthology, is without a publishing home. Although the first volume, published in March 2008 by Villard, reportedly sold through its 20,000-copy first printing, editor Kazu Kibuishi tweeted last week that "the project remains orphaned." Butcher provides commentary on his blog. [Comics212]

Legal | Google and groups representing publishers and authors on Friday filed a revised settlement they hope will resolve a dispute over the Internet giant's controversial plans to make millions of out-of-print books available online.

The original agreement, created to resolve a 2005 lawsuit, was opposed by parties ranging from DC Comics to the U.S. Justice Department to the governments of France and Germany, who argued that its terms could violate copyright law. The revisions address the handling of orphan works, restrict the Google database to books published in the United States, Britain, Canada or Australia, and allow other companies to license the digital catalog.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin is expected this week to set a date for a "fairness hearing" in which arguments about the settlements will be presented by b0th sides. [The New York Times]

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Google

Legal | Google and a group of authors and publishers have until Friday to revise a proposed settlement over the Internet giant's plans to make millions of out-of-print books available online. They originally were given a deadline of Nov. 9. DC Comics is among the parties that objected to the terms of the agreement -- -- $125 million and a registry to identify and compensate copyright holders -- arguing that it violates international copyright law. [Bloomberg News, Media Decoder]

Legal | The sentencing of Christopher Handley, the 39-year-old Iowa man who in May pleaded guilty to possessing manga depicting children in sexual situations, is scheduled for Jan. 25. He faces up to 15 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release. [ICv2.com]

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Library worker's battle with Black Dossier began a year ago

Black Dossier -- The Absolute Edition

More than a month after two Kentucky public-library employees were fired after refusing to allow a child to check out The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, details surrounding their dismissal finally are emerging.

In a lengthy article in the Lexington Herald-Leader, we learn the story didn't begin on Sept. 22, when Jessamine County Library circulation-desk attendants Beth Bovaire and Sharon Cook decided the graphic novel was inappropriate for the 11-year-old girl who had reserved it.

Instead, events date back almost a year, when the 57-year-old Cook, appalled that children had access to the Alan Moore-Kevin O'Neill book, challenged its inclusion in the graphic-novel section, which apparently is tantalizingly close to Young Adult Fiction. When that didn't work, she checked the book out of the library -- and kept renewing it, effectively removing it from circulation, until Sept. 21. That's when Cook tried to renew Black Dossier again, only to discover the computer wouldn't permit her to do so because the book had been placed on hold ... by a child, no less.

According to reporter Amy Wilson, on Sept. 22 Cook spoke to two of her colleagues about the problem, and Beth Boisvert, a part-time employee, decided to remove the hold, prohibiting the child from checking out the book. The next day, Cook and Boisvert were fired.

Cook still has the library's copy of Black Dossier, and is being charged 10 cents a day in late fees.

Wilson's article includes plenty of background on the library's policies, and Cook's efforts to challenge the book according procedure, which required her to, y'know, actually read it: "People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head."

Cook and Boisvert contend the graphic novel amounts to pornography, and that the library could be committing a felony by making it available to minors. They want the citizens of Jessamine County -- "we are a conservative community," Boisvert says -- to determine whether Black Dossier, and presumably other works, meet community standards for obscenity, and to decide what books their children have access to.

In short, they want county taxpayers to select what appears on library shelves, and where.

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The Pirate Bay

Legal | A new study claim the shutdown two months ago of file-trading site The Pirate Bay by Swedish authorities "significantly, if temporarily, disrupted" the illegal trafficking of digital files worldwide. The emphasis is on temporarily. The white paper, released by anti-piracy company DtecNet, found the closing forced traffic to flood other BitTorrent trackers, "causing temporary secondary outages" for several days.

The study finds that BitTorrent traffic is soon expected to return to levels seen before the shutdown, with relatively new website OpenBitTorrent emerging as the successor to The Pirate Bay. [The Live Feed]

Sales charts | R. Crumb's much-publicized adaptation of The Book of Genesis debuts at No. 8 on USA Today's bestseller list. Meanwhile, the 46th volume of Masashi Kishimoto's popular shonen series Naruto inches up three spaces to No. 136. [USA Today]

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Tales of the TMNT #55

Publishing | Following the purchase last week of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property by Viacom/Nickelodeon, Mirage Studios announced it will publish Tales of the TMNT at least through May 2010.

On the official website, cartoonist Dan Berger writes that co-creator Peter Laird retained an option to publish up to 18 TMNT comics a year. Elsewhere, writer Tristan Jones notes that the agreement only covers single issues "based on the current Mirage Universe stuff (eg: a continuation/conclusion to Volume 4)."

However, judging by comments made yesterday afternoon by Laird, it seems unlikely he will invoke that option in the near future: "One thing that is becoming clear to me is that, right now, I need to really step back from Turtle stuff. I am feeling strongly that I need to distance myself from the TMNT to truly grasp what has happened, and become accustomed to it. With that in mind, I have to say that it is likely that any new TMNT comics coming from me/Mirage (under the 'reserved rights' clause negotiated in the sale) are probably not going to be seen anytime soon. Although I do have the right to publish up to eighteen issues of TMNT comics per year, it is highly unlikely that I will do that right away. In all honesty, the idea of doing ANY new Turtle stuff right now leaves me cold." [NinjaTurtles.com]

Legal | A court has ordered South Korean cartoonist Choi to pay $17,000 to settle a dispute with Wonju City over a cartoon that included offensive words about President Lee Myung-bak. The city recalled about 20,000 copies of the promotional paper after readers discovered the hidden message. [The Korea Times]

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Libraries | Two library employees in Nicholasville, Kentucky, were fired last month after they refused to allow an 11-year-old girl to check out The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which they dubbed pornographic. However, the policy of the Jessamine County Library states it's the responsibility of parents to decide what's appropriate for their child to read.

The fired employees, Beth Bovaire and Sharon Cook, stand behind their decision, asserting that the award-winning comic by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill contains lewd pictures that are inappropriate for children.

"If you give children pornography, a child, a 12 year old, can not understand and process the same way a 30 year old can," Cook told a local television news station. [WTVQ, WTVQ]

Tokyo International Manga Library

Libraries | A private university in Tokyo hopes to promote the serious study of manga by opening a library stocked with 2 million comics, anime drawings, video games and other artifacts. If everything goes as planned, the Tokyo International Manga Library would open on the campus of Meiji University in 2015. [AFP]

Publishing | Even after the closing last year of Virgin Comics, upbeat profiles of the Indian comics industry continue to appear regularly. But here Gaurav Jain, head of the Mumbai-based Illusion Interactive Animation, offers a more dismal assessment of the scene in India: "While competition has arrived, the local industry continues to live in its shell, churning out visually unappealing and terribly written local content with little or no film and television possibilities. One of the most widely read labels offers sanitized, vanilla retellings of Indian mythology and historical figures with visuals inspired from the works of Raja Ravi Verma. Derivative art work and bland writing, leads to visual fatigue." [The Wall Street Journal]

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Legal

Legal | Twin brothers in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, have been sentenced to three months in jail for possessing anime- and manga-style images depicting children in sexual situations.

David Scott Hammond and James Cory Hammond, 20, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography after police discovered the images downloaded on their home computer last November. Although David Hammond's attorney said his client didn't realize it was illegal to download cartoon pornographic images of children, the prosecutor asserted that, "Every one of these images involves the victimization of children. The victimization wouldn’t happen in the first place if there weren’t people there to look at this material."

Earlier this month, lawmakers in Alaska began considering a bill that would expand the state's child-pornography laws to include cartoons. And in June a U.S. appeals court upheld the conviction of a Virginia man who was prosecuted, in part, under a 2003 federal statute outlawing possession of cartoon images depicting the sexual abuse of children. [The Chronicle Herald]

Viz Media

Publishing | The San Francisco headquarters of Viz Media was closed for two days this week after an unexpected downpour on Monday caused storm drains to overflow, flooding parts of the city. [Anime News Network]

Publishing | Just last week we were reporting that Villard had acquired the rights to Fated, a graphic novel written by Michael Jackson and Gotham Chopra. Now comes word that the Random House imprint paid $800,000 for it. Illustrated by Mukesh Singh, artist of Virgin Comics titles Gamekeeper, Devi and Jenna Jameson's Shadow Hunter, the black-and-white book is due out in June. [Crain's New York Business]

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Longbox

Digital comics | Technology columnist Andy Ihnatko spotlights LongBox Digital, the much-anticipated "iTunes for comics," and claims he's "pretty sure" the company is entering into a "formal alliance" with Apple: "Comic-industry cluelessness and their inability to unite towards a common, mutual good are the two main reasons why we haven’t seen anything like LongBox before. But they probably haven’t been as serious a roadblock as the simple lack of any portable device that’s perfectly-suited to reading digital comics. This is a form of storytelling that needs a tablet. A big, page-sized color screen with lots of resolution and a touch interface for turning pages and navigating from panel to panel. Apple is rumored to be making one of those things. And they’re also rumored to be speaking with a great many high-profile print publishers about bringing their content to this new device." LongBox CEO Rantz Hoseley wouldn't confirm Ihnatko's Apple assertion. [Chicago Sun-Times]

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Wowio

Publishing | Gary Tyrrell reports that publishers have begun receiving payments for the second quarter of 2008 from long-struggling e-book site Wowio. All publishers are expected to be paid by Nov. 15. [Fleen]

Awards | When the National Book Award nominations were announced Wednesday, some wondered why David Small's graphic novel Stitches: A Memoir was included in the young people's literature category. It turns out the publisher nominated it as a young-adult title. [GalleyCat]

Business | Former DC Comics President Jenette Kahn and ICv2.com President Milton Griepp have joined the board of advisers and directors of comiXology, which produces the Comics by comiXology digital comics application. [press release]

Conventions | Remember that ad incorrectly announcing Warren Ellis as a guest at Toronto Comic Con? It turns out they totally meant Dollhouse star Eliza Dushku. Not Warren Ellis. Eliza Dushku. [Bleeding Cool]

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Legal | Anime producer and distributor Funimation Entertainment issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice to the webhost of AnimesFree demanding that the fansub site remove more than 1,000 infringing episodes of more than 40 series. The site's administrator complied, and then complained about the company enforcing its copyrights: "AnimesFree.com will continue just as STRONGLY as it has been these past three months. Meeting everyone new on the website was great and I don’t intend for it to stop anytime soon. So we’re not going to quit just because of a few dozen series. There’s two things that you can do when a bully pushes you down. You either stay down and cower, or you stand back up and fight until you can’t walk anymore. There are just some things that the ‘Anime’ corporate giants will never understand about how people rely on online Anime communities." The commenters on the post aren't particularly sympathetic to the administrator's plight. [AnimesFree, via Deb Aoki]

Rich Hafstead

Retailing | Heidi MacDonald reports that Rich Hafstead, partner in the Jim Hanley's Universe chain in New York City, passed away Oct. 9. He had been semi-retired since suffering a heart attack in 2006. [The Beat]

Retailing | A 10-year-old girl is in a coma after she was trapped Tuesday under shelves that collapsed in a bookstore in Sapporo, Japan. The girl's 14-year-old sister also was injured. The store, Daily Books, sells secondhand manga and video games. [The Japan Times, The Mainichi Daily News]

Legal | In light of recent legal moves by the heirs of Jerry Siegel and Jack Kirby, Christopher Murray and Paul Iannicelli consider the termination provisions of the 1976 Copyright Act. [ Mondaq]

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Alaska flag

Legal | Alaska legislators are considering introducing a bill that would expand the state's child-pornography laws to include cartoons and computer-generated images (anime is mentioned specifically in the article).

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that cartoons depicting minors in sexually explicit situations are legal because real children are not involved. Congress responded the following year by expanding obscenity laws to include digital images and cartoons. In June, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of Dwight Whorley, a Virginia man sentenced to 20 years in prison in part for possessing child pornography. However, the Justice Department also prosecuted him under the PROTECT Act for receiving cartoon (manga/anime) images via email depicting the sexual abuse of children. Whorley's conviction was the first under the 2003 statute that was not based on photographs of children.

Simon Jones has commentary. [Anchorage Daily News, Icarus Publishing]

Creators | Todd Klein reports that longtime letterer Joe Rosen has passed away. He was 88. Rosen began his career at Harvey Comics, and later worked on countless titles for Marvel and DC Comics, including The Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, Fantastic Four and Power Pack. [Todd's Blog]

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