File-sharing site The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK internet service providers, the High Court has ruled.

The Swedish website hosts links to download mostly pirated free music and video. Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must all prevent their users from accessing the site.

“Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists,” the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said.

A sixth ISP, BT, requested “a few more weeks” to consider their position on blocking the site.

BPI’s chief executive Geoff Taylor said: “The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale.

“Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them.

“This is wrong – musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else.”

See the full skinny HERE.

(Reuters) – Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd agreed that their chief executives would participate in settlement talks to try to resolve a patent lawsuit over smartphone and tablet technology, according to a court filing.

Apple sued Samsung in the United States last year, saying the South Korean company’s Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets “slavishly” copies the iPhone and iPad. Samsung then countersued Apple.

In a court filing late on Monday, both companies agreed to the settlement conference. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday then referred the companies to a San Francisco-based magistrate judge who will lead the talks.

Representatives for Apple and Samsung could not immediately be reached on Tuesday.

For the full skinny go HERE.

More than a quarter of all jobs in the U.S. are with companies that rely on patents, copyrights and trademarks to protect products from competition and promote investment, the Commerce Department said.

About 27.1 million jobs in 2010 were in industries that rely heavily on intellectual property protections, and another 12.9 million positions were indirectly affected. The 75 industries deemed “IP-intensive” accounted for $5.06 trillion, or about 35 percent of the gross domestic product in 2010, according to a study released today by the Economics and Statistics Administration and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

For the full skinny go HERE.

For years, Mac users have been told that not only are they cooler than their PC counterparts, they are safer too. Apple has always held that computer viruses and malware only dogged its competitors.

That is no longer the case.

This week, security researchers discovered a new computer virus had infected half a million Mac users — about half of them in the United States. The virus is infesting users in the most surreptitious way possible: users need not manually click on any malicious links or manually download any malware to get infected. The program simply downloads itself. Once downloaded, the malware’s creators gain a back door that gives them unauthorized access to the victim’s computer.

“This is the largest scale attack on Mac OS X to date,” said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior researcher at Kaspersky Lab, an antivirus software company who has analyzed the malware. “And much more sophisticated.”

For now, the malware’s creators appear to be using infested computers for click fraud, in which they manipulate clicks on a Web advertisement in exchange for kickbacks. But as with all malware, its creators can choose to use infected computers however they like.

For the full skinny go HERE.

The major film studios and music companies will soon unveil plans for a “copyright center,” an organization designed to oversee the implementation of the controversial graduated-response program, CNET has learned.

Last July, when some of the country’s top Internet service providers, including AT&T, Comcast Verizon and others, agreed to begin implementing a series of measures designed to discourage illegal file-sharing the ISPs said they and the entertainment companies would establish a Center for Copyright Information (CCI) to “assist in the effort to combat online infringement.”

The ISPs, major record labels and Hollywood film studios are expected to soon name the person in charge of the CCI. CNET has learned that one of the leading candidates for the job is Jill Lesser, managing director of lobbying and public policy firm The Glover Park. She is also a member of the board at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-profit group that advocates for freed speech on the Web.

For the full skinny go HERE.