Calls for BT to block Pirate Bay

4 November 2011 Last updated at 13:15 ET

UK arts lobby groups have demanded BT block access to the BitTorrent file sharing website, The Pirate Bay.

Music industry trade body, the BPI, said it would take legal action if the telecoms firm refused to co-operate.

The movie industry has already forced BT to block Newzbin 2, a members-only which aggregates illegally copied material.

BT said: "We can confirm we are now in receipt of a letter from the BPI. BT is considering its response."

The telecoms operator added that a court order would be needed before any blocking could begin.

A source told the BBC the firm was unlikely to fight a lengthy legal battle as it had in the Newzbin case.

"We would not tolerate Counterfeits 'R' Us on the High Street - if we want economic growth, we cannot accept illegal rip-off sites on the internet either," said the BPI's chief executive, Geoff Taylor.

Richard Mollet, chief executive of The Publishers Association added: "It is crucial that the creative sector keeps up the momentum of getting internet companies to do their bit in tackling illegal sites."

The Motion Picture Association, independents trade body PACT and the Creative Coalition Campaign also voiced their support.

Illegal

The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 by a group of friends from Sweden and rapidly became one of the most famous file-sharing sites on the web.

Although it hosts no files itself, it does allow users to search for and get at copyrighted content including movies, games and TV shows.

In April 2009, the Swedish courts found the four founders of the site guilty of helping people circumvent copyright controls.

They ruling was upheld after an appeal in 2010, but the site continues to function.

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Groupon share sale raises $700m

4 November 2011 Last updated at 06:01 ET

The sale of shares in Groupon has raised $700m (�437m) after the public offering was priced higher than had been expected.

Shares in the company were originally priced in a range of $16 to $18 a share, but were eventually sold at $20.

It values the business at almost $13bn.

Groupon offers coupons to its subscribers, which give them discount deals that are available that day only on anything from restaurant meals to spa treatments.

Groupon increased the number of shares it was selling to 35 million shares from 30 million shares, but that was still only about 5% of the company.

The shares will begin trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange later on Friday.

Groupon's $12.7bn valuation makes it the second biggest internet company to make a market debut, behind Google, which was valued at $23.1bn in 2004.

But some analysts have suggested that the high valuation has only been achieved because such a small proportion of the company has been sold.

"Groupon is expensive. The valuation is only achievable because of the low float," said Rob Romero, head of technology-focused hedge fund firm Connective Capital Management.

There have also been concerns that Groupon is vulnerable to competition from, for example, the soon-to-launch Google Offers.

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Russia and China 'top cyberspies'

3 November 2011 Last updated at 17:54 ET

China and Russia are the most active perpetrators of economic cyber-espionage against US companies, a US intelligence report says.

The report specifically cited Chinese "actors" and Russian intelligence as the top culprits.

Robert Bryant, US national counter-intelligence executive, told reporters that online spying was "a quiet menace to our economy".

Both China and Russia's embassies have denied the allegations.

The report, titled Foreign Spies Stealing US Economic Secrets in Cyberspace, says both private firms and cybersecurity experts have reported an "onslaught" of computer network intrusions that they say originated from China.

However, they have not been able to track the ultimate culprit of the intrusions.

Google said in 2010 that it had lost data to Chinese hackers.

'Unwarranted allegations'

According to the report, attacks from Russia are a "distant second" to those from China, but were "extensive" and "sophisticated".

The proliferation of methods used to hack into the computer systems of both research organisations and private companies also means that it is harder to identify and track who is stealing information.

The FBI alerted more than 100 US companies in the past year that their online security had been compromised.

The report is notable for its unusual candour on naming countries suspected of "collecting" material online, including trade secrets, intellectual property and technology.

Officials said while several countries were suspected of cyber-spying, the report singled out Russia and China because of the severity of the threat.

According to the report, US counterintelligence is also worried about "small-scale" actors becoming involved in espionage, effectively providing cover and expertise for foreign intelligence services.

Both Russian and Chinese officials in the US denied the report.

"We are opposed to willfully making unwarranted allegations against China as firmly as our opposition to any forms of unlawful cyberspace activities," embassy spokesman Wang Baodong told the Washington Post.

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