TorrentFreak

As 2009 is slowly moving toward its end, we follow up our most pirated movies chart by taking a look at the most pirated games of the year. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the absolute winner on the PC and Xbox 360, while New Super Mario Bros. scoops the title of most pirated Wii game of 2009.

The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that ISPs can be forced to block BitTorrent sites, even if they are not hosted in Italy or operated by Italian citizens. According to the decision by the Supreme Court, sites offering torrent files that link to copyrighted material are engaging in criminal activity.

Lawyers who told thousands of individuals that they held proof of their illicit file-sharing, have made a surprise announcement. ACS:Law, who help companies generate revenue from porn movie copyrights, say they are dropping many cases because litigation is neither viable nor beneficial to their clients.

uTorrent – the preferred Bittorrent client for many BitTorrent users – has been doing really well in 2009. Contrary to reports claiming that BitTorrent and P2P usage has been declining, in the last year uTorrent nearly doubled its userbase to 52 million unique users a month.

Following a 2006 complaint by several Hollywood studios, a US federal court in California has ruled that isoHunt is guilty of inducing copyright infringement. Due to the similarities between this case and earlier ones involving Napster and Grokster, the judge decided there is no need to proceed to a full trial. Summary judgment was granted.

The Pirate Bay is one of the longest-standing BitTorrent sites. The former BitTorrent tracker recently celebrated its 6th birthday, and this Christmas they bring back the good old days by reverting to their old layout. The frontpage now has a classic look and is Swedish only.

In 2005, Mongo56 was a household name in the BitTorrent community. Much to the disappointment of hundreds and thousands of users, the site collapsed under its own success and the DDoS attacks that accompanied it. But now, nearly 4 years later, the brand name has resurfaced.

English singer-songwriter Jamie Cullum has admitted that, like many of his fellow Brits, he is an avid music pirate. While noting that as many copies of his album have been downloaded illicitly as bought officially, Cullum says that punishing file-sharers is out of the question. Only cutting-edge legal services have the solution.

Comcast has decided to settle one of the lawsuits brought about over their use of the Sandvine BitTorrent throttling hardware to ‘manage’ their network. For those who were affected, there is the possibility of receiving a payment from a $16 million fund set up by the Internet service provider.

After taking legal action, IFPI has now reached a settlement with the operators of several cyberlocker hosting sites. Under the agreement, the owners of the sites will pay IFPI around $50,000 in compensation. They will also hand over their domain names to the music industry group so they cannot be used for infringement in future.

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘This Is It’ tops the chart again this week followed by ‘Avatar’. ‘2012′ completes the top three.