Free Republic

"Watch me in 2020." Seven years since U.S. authorities shut down the file-sharing platform, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is hoping to use a database of former users' emails to influence the 2020 presidential election. In a series of tweets this morning (Aug. 12), Dotcom suggested that he plans to encourage former users of the long-defunct site to oppose the presidential ambitions of former U.S. vice president Joe Biden, whom Dotcom has long blamed for instigating the site's downfall. "Still waiting to get access to your Megaupload files? I will email 30 million former US Megaupload users a video link in...

Iran is planning to charge foreign ships a toll in exchange for "protection" across the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade route and a flashpoint in the escalating dispute between the United States and the Islamic Republic. A member of the Iranian Parliament's presidium said foreign commercial entities should compensate Iran as "the true provider of security in the region and international waters," according to the state-run Tasnim News Agency. Amirhossein Qazizadeh Hashemi claimed ships enter Iranian waters on their way through the strait and should therefore pay a toll. That assertion doesn't jibe with clearly defined international agreements, former...

Genius.com, a site specialising in providing song lyrics, had suspected that Google had been scraping its site and using the lyrics to populate the 'information panels' often seen in the side of search results. This isn't that uncommon, but usually Google credits the source; in this case, Genius was getting no credit. Sure enough, Google pulled the lyric through and repeated the message, without ever knowing that's what it had done. But Genius wasn't going to take that lying down. The company wanted to prove that Google was indeed sourcing uncredited, and set about proving it by matching high tech...

Luxury yacht owners have been warned of a surge in piracy in the southern Caribbean, as Venezuela's economic collapse spurs its penniless fishermen into banditry. According to a new global survey of global maritime security, 71 piracy incidents took place in the region last year, compared to just 21 the year before.

When Spanish civil servants got wind that someone was sweeping up the priceless treasure of a 200-year-old frigate from the ocean floor, it triggered a real-life escapade full of naval pursuits and secret airlifts - like something from a comic book adventure. And that is what it has now become, after one of those suit-and-tie sleuths convinced Spain's best-known graphic novelist that together they should tell the tale of the modern-day treasure hunt. In 1804, a British fleet opened fire on the Spanish ship Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, causing the death of 250 people of the 300 on board...

Police said they were dealing with a complex situation on board the vessel. A spokesman for Grimaldi Lines, which runs the Grande Tema cargo ship, said four stowaways had threatened the ship’s staff.

Spain laid claim to the Island of Jamaica from the time Columbus landed there in 1494. In 1503, Columbus was shipwrecked there for a year. In 1655, Jamaica was captured by British Admiral William Penn, the father of Pennsylvania’s founder. Jamaica was too far from England to defend, so the inhabitants turned to privateers, freebooters, buccaneers and pirates for protection. The likes of Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Captain Henry Morgan, namesake of the rum, attacked Spanish ships and settlements, then returned to Jamaica with their booty. The skull pirate flag, called the “Jolly Roger,” was adapted from the flag of...

Trump's global trade war with China is one that aims to achieve something no other president has attempted: the protection of American technology against pirating by China The world’s second-largest economy has responded to President Donald Trump’s controversial trade tariffs, according to this morning’s blaring news headlines. “China’s commerce ministry proposed a list of 128 U.S. products as potential retaliation targets, according to a statement on its website posted Friday morning.” (CNBC, March 22, 2018) Notice the words used to describe China: “The world’s second-largest economy”.

Looks like Roku has ditched XTV due to lawsuits and "pirating" concerns. It's too bad. They had a variety of cataloged quality old-school entertainment. Now how will I satisfy my Dark Shadows addiction?

Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd announced late Monday it is abandoning its annual anti-whaling activities in Antarctic waters, citing increased use of sophisticated technology by Japanese whalers and lackluster support from the Australian government... Watson said that while anti-whaling vessels will not be going into Antarctic waters this year, the group will not be abandoning its goals. "We need to cultivate the resources, the tactics and the ability to significantly shut down the illegal whaling operations of the Japanese whaling fleet," he said.

The anti-whaling organisation Sea Shepherd will not contest the Southern Ocean against Japanese whalers this season, Captain Paul Watson has announced, accusing “hostile governments” in the US, Australia and New Zealand of acting “in league with Japan” against the protest vessel. Sea Shepherd has been obstructing Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean each year since 2005, but Watson said the cost of sending vessels south, Japan’s increased use of military technology to track them, and new anti-terrorism laws passed specifically to thwart Sea Shepherd’s activities made physically tracking the ships impossible.

Seized by violence and teetering on the edge of famine, Yemen is grappling with another danger that threatens to outpace them both: cholera. "We are now facing the worst cholera outbreak in the world," international health authorities said in a statement Saturday. Anthony Lake, executive director of UNICEF, and Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, say that "more than 1,300 people have died — one quarter of them children — and the death toll is expected to rise." They suspect that is because Yemen now has upwards of 200,000 cases to grapple with, and that number is growing...

As of this past week, the popular TVAddons website — and their large Fusion super repository — is down. Many of the addons that TVAddons had collected, including Exodus and Phoenix, also took a hit. These recent events have left many Kodi users scrambling to find some great alternatives to the popular and highly-relied-upon TVAddons. The good news is that TVAddons is not the only place to locate many great addons. Here are several TVAddons replacement repositories that will get you some (but not all) of the addons you’re looking for.

BEIJING—China’s navy says its forces rescued a freighter from attack by pirates in the Gulf of Aden over the weekend. Missing from the report was any mention of the participation of the Indian navy, which says it dispatched four ships and a helicopter to provide cover for the action. The omission was likely no accident. Deep distrust persists between the two nuclear-armed Asian giants, and in recent days, China has angrily denounced New Delhi over a visit by exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to an Indian border area that China claims as its own territory. Asked about that...

Pirates have kidnapped seven Russians and one Ukrainian after attacking the cargo ship the BBC Caribbean off the coast of Nigeria, the Russian embassy said on its official Twitter account.

LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Unknown assailants who opened fire on a gas tanker last week off the coast of Yemen were also carrying a “substantial amount of explosives,” the vessel’s owner said on Thursday, and a maritime source said it may have been an attempted suicide attack. Security experts said the new details of the Oct. 25 incident would heighten concerns for shipping in the narrow Bab al-Mandab waterway at the entrance to the Red Sea, a major choke point in the world oil trade. In an initial statement last week, shipping group Teekay said its LNG (liquefied natural...

Freepers, I am willing to pay for my music. I don't pirate. But there is a song---the theme song for a BBC series called "The Musketeers"---that I love. It is not available to buy anywhere, but there is a youtube extended video a guy edited together. How can I "rip" this into an MP3? I am told youtube has such a serice on its site, but it doesn't work for me.

Does anyone know of an overseas Website that simulcasts ESPN? I used to know of one, but I lost the link. Thank you in advance.

Kanye West’s troubled release of his latest album, “The Life of Pablo,” has already cost the hip-hop star at least $10 million in sales, a review of estimated pirated downloads on Tuesday revealed. TorrentFreak, which tracks music piracy and file-sharing, reported that West’s album was illegally downloaded more than 500,000 times in the first 24 hours of its Feb. 14 release. That made it the most ripped-off album by far on The Pirate Bay and other file-sharing sites.

Whatever you call it, it's killing the cable tv business. It’s no secret that young people like to consume entertainment they don’t necessarily pay for. But when business and tech types talk about this reality, they tend to use neutral or even flattering language: Millennials, they say, like to “swap” files and “share” subscription passwords. After all, super-earnest, bike-commuting, coffee-sipping twenty-somethings don’t look like dangerous criminals. And let’s face it, no business wants to alienate the work-force’s largest generational cohort, with billions, if not trillions, worth of spending ahead of it. But now some Wall Street analysts have decided to...