The entertainment industry’s war on piracy is 
well known, but exactly how big an army it has been battling has always been something of a mystery.
MarkMonitor, which protects online brands for its clients, has done some counting, though, and it estimates that Web piracy sites distributing software, films and other products attract roughly 53 billion visits per year.
It takes extraordinary circumstances to 
unite Hollywood filmmakers, one of rock’s most outlandish stars and a porn company. But when you’re facing off against 4chan, any ally is a good one.
4chan, for the unfamiliar, is the Internet’s most infamous message and image board. And its denizens are the online equivalent of Beetlejuice. Mutter their name and they’ll appear, but you may not like the results.
Hollywood’s locked in an ongoing battle with 
online piracy – and that’s one that’s not likely to end soon. But if you’re curious about what films are the most pirated these days, TorrentFreak has the answer.
The site, which monitors and compiles the most popular Bit Torrent downloads has put together a list of the biggest cinematic downloads this week. And the most popular with pirates was only the second most popular with theatergoers – while last week’s number one film – “Jackass: 3D” – is nowhere to be found. (Whether that’s due to the film’s choice to show in 3D or some other factor is a matter ofdebate.)
Frequenters of infamous U.S.-based website 4chan.org have declared war on Hollywood.
Its users led the charge in a distributed denial of service attack on the MPAA and RIAA websites Monday — blocking their pages for hours.
The move, say the anonymous attackers, was in retaliation to action the orgs have taken to squash filesharing sites such as Pirate Bay.
If you had trouble accessing the Web sites 
for the MPAA and RIAA earlier today, you’ve got 4chan to blame.
The infamous Internet imageboard (and hangout of film piracy advocates) launched a coordinated DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack on the industry sites Monday – allegedly in a retaliatory move for the trades’ moves to squash filesharing Websites.
Hollywood’s relationship with the gamer – especially the 
PC gamer – is a tenuous one. Demographically, they’re right in the sweet spot for most big releases, but the tech savvy of those players always brings about piracy fears.
Now Steam, a popular game digital distribution retailer owned by Valve Software, is taking a look at what’s on gamer’s hard drives – well, at least in terms of installed programs.
The “Lost” finale may not have set a ratings record, 
but pirates absolutely loved it.
TorrentFreak, a news site that covers the file sharing industry, reports the May 23 finale has broken all previous download records – with nearly 1 million people downloading the concluding chapters of the show in less than one day.
Chris Morris: Journalist 