Pirate movies and pirated music

US rap was the most illegally-downloaded genre of music in 2007, with three number one hits featuring singer Akon appearing in the list of popular downloads.

The most frequently traded song on file-sharing networks was Party Like A Rockstar by Atlanta-based rap group Shop Boyz, according to the study commissioned by Wired magazine.

Other songs in the top 10 included Senegalese-American rapper Akon's collaboration with Snoop Dogg, I Wanna Luv U, Don't Matter by Akon and Bartender by T-Pain featuring Akon.

All three songs featuring Akon reached #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart during late 2006 and 2007. The Billboard charts are compiled from radio airplay and sales.

Tracks by US rap and hip-hop artists DJ Unk, Soulja Boy, Mims and Sean Kingston were also in the list. The only pop song included was Justin Timberlake's My Love.

Akon, T-Pain, Snoop Dogg and Justin Timberlake also appeared in the list of most-downloaded artists, a combination of illegal album and singles downloads.

British rock group Radiohead, who released their seventh album In Rainbows as a download in October, did not appear on either list despite appearing prominently on BitTorrent websites.

Most-traded movies

The film Resident Evil: Extinction – based on a popular videogame – was the most popular movie on file-sharing networks, according to the study.

Other movies in the list included Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End, I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry, Ratatouille and Superbad.

Surprisingly, one of the year's biggest blockbusters Transformers was only seventh-placed. Other box-office hits Spiderman 3 and Shrek The Third did not appear at all.

The most-downloaded TV show was Heroes, followed by Prison Break, the BBC's Top Gear, Smallville and Desperate Housewives.

The study was undertaken by BigChampagne Online Media Measurement and tracked consumption trends across major peer-to-peer file-trading networks including BitTorrent, Gnutella and eDonkey.

Peer-to-peer file-sharing (also known as P2P) is a method of sharing large files without a central source. Instead of files being hosted on a server and downloaded by several users, files are shared between users directly.

BitTorrent is currently the most popular form of P2P file-sharing.

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Vista SP1 kills the WGA kill switch

Microsoft's anti-piracy system known (and loathed) as Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is set to lose its bite. When Vista SP1 launches in early 2008, WGA will still identify -- ad-nauseam -- what it thinks to be non-legal copies of Vista. However, it will lose its ability to disable said systems. The change was announced in a presentation by WGA senior product manger, Alex Kochis, who said, "Based on customer feedback, we will not reduce user functionality on systems determined to be non-genuine." That should bring a swift end to WGA customer complaints related to false-positives, spyware concerns, or server glitches. Score one point for law-abiding citizens everywhere.

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Microsoft: Vista piracy rate is half that of XP

Microsoft said Monday that it's seeing piracy rates for Windows Vista that are half those of Windows XP.

Now cynical me wanted to write this up as "even pirates prefer XP two to one over Vista," but that wouldn't be fair. In reality, the decline in piracy rates is largely due to the fact that Vista is much tougher to fake than XP.

"Piracy rates are lower because it's harder," Microsoft Vice President Mike Sievert said in an interview Monday.

There are a variety of reasons for that, including the fact that businesses no longer have volume license keys that can be used to activate an unlimited number of machines. Another is the fact that Vista machines that aren't properly activated pretty quickly become basically unusable once they enter "reduced functionality mode."

For Microsoft, the gains have been significant. In its last earnings call, Microsoft said that five percentage points of Windows growth could be attributed to gains in piracy.

Interestingly, though, Microsoft makes the experience a little less harsh for those running pirated versions of Vista. With Service Pack 1, Microsoft is doing away with reduced functionality mode in favor of putting prominent notifications on systems that are not found to be genuine.

Non-genuine systems with SP1 will display a warning at start-up that the system is not properly activated. Users will have the option to "activate now" or "activate later," though the second option won't show up for a time. Users will also have their desktop background changed to white and a prominent notification placed in the lower right hand corner saying that the machine is not genuine.

Still, in a significant change, those with non-genuine or non-activated copies of Vista will still be able to use their systems. Sievert said the change is designed to minimize the impact on customers who might unwittingly have gotten an illegitimate copy of Vista while still discouraging piracy.

"People won't want this experience," he said. "At the same time it will be broadly interpreted as being more fair."

Still, I wonder if the move won't cause Vista piracy rates to trend back up. I would think there are people who will deal with a copy of Vista they don't pay for but that has a big ugly notification on it. With the current Vista, they don't even have that option.

Also with SP1, Microsoft is closing two key loopholes that pirates have used to evade Microsoft's security measures. One involves mimicking the process used by large computer makers to preactivate their Vista machines, while the other extends the grace period that customers have to activate their machine, in some cases extending it for decades. It's not the first time that Microsoft has moved to close holes in its activation process. A year ago, the company changed Vista to disable a hack known as "Frankenbuild" that merged elements of the final Vista with a prerelease version.

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