Wakeboard videos do not come much better than this.

You may have read in the inimitable Alliance Magazine about a road trip taken by 11 of the worlds top wakeboarders. This trip took place around Mexico, involved a large passenger van, two watercraft and a lot of water. The gang toured the country looking for lakes, rivers and surf spots in which to ply their trade. Sounds like the holiday of a lifetime? Sure does. What I wouldn’t give to be there with them.

And I never will be able to make it, not least because I’m not a tenth of the wakeboarders that they are. But I can – and I did – go out and purchase the wakeboard video “Caguamus– The Long Road” which documents the trip (the stars were thoughtful enough to take a video camera with them). And what a journey it is, and all captured on one of the most moving wakeboard videos of late.

BitTorrent is a relatively new technology that allows sharing of files in an efficient way with limited strain on resources and with maximum redundancy. What this means to the standard computer user is less failed or corrupted downloads, less tie-up of computing power, and more opportunities for file downloads. Torrents are commonly used when huge files or groupings of files are offered for download.

Torrents are files which gives information on a download that is registered with one or more of the popular trackers. Torrents may be held in whole (a ’seed’) or in part by one or more of the other users connected to the tracker. Each user (or ‘client’) can then connect to one another and begin to download the files in the torrents. Segments of the files are taken in no particular order from no particular client. The more clients connected to the tracker with this particular torrent, the more choices there are for downloading a particular section of the file. More choices mean less resource strain on any one individual source.

Sweden’s crackdown on filesharing is becoming more of a reality as days goes by. It was initially thought (hoped) that the Swedish government would not clamp down on filesharing, but then a couple of weeks ago it was announced that courts will soon be able to force ISPs to give up the IPs of people who use filesharing programs like Limewire to obtain copyrighted material.

Previous ideas to block Internet access of filesharing users have been dropped in favor of this new response. This takes a lot of the pressure off of ISPs, who would have had to police their own networks for filesharing highway bandits.

Now, it’s up to the courts to find people who are downloading music illegally. Sweden is the original home of filesharing website the Pirate Bay. This is just the latest in a series of Europe-wide steps to be applied to ridding the Internet of filesharing.

While most people have vaguely innocent intentions when using filesharing programs, there are some who give groups like the RIAA fodders for their war against filesharing.

Shamed vicar Paul Battersby is one such person. Rather than using filesharing programs to download Christian rock music, he used the software to download illegal porn images. It’s frustrating that filesharing can be used to download pictures of children because it gives sickos like Battersby a chance to really mess things up for the rest of us.

Filesharing is already pretty close to being stamped out in the UK. What we want is for people to be able to use filesharing freely to get music. Something must be done to stop obscene content making its way onto filesharing networks, particularly as it is possible for innocent people to unwittingly download such material and then find themselves the subject of a criminal investigation.

In a landmark ruling that has sent ripples through the Asian filesharing community, Japanese ISPs have agreed to a three-strikes-and-your-out policy to rid the Internet of filesharing altogether.

Persistent filesharers keen to get free music downloads will be disconnected from the Internet after their third offense. A lot of Japanese people use filesharing program WinNY, so you can be sure there will be heaps of unhappy surfers in Japan.

ISPs will be alerted of the IPs of users who are getting dodgy music downloads. Persistent warnings will result in the plug being pulled on Internet connections.

Japan now joins Britain and France in similar moves to outlaw filesharing. Sweden looks set to impose such regulations as well.

It’s anyone’s guess which countries will be next to follow suit in the global battle against filesharing. If this trend continues, MTV will have to look elsewhere to get ideas for their programming.

A man was jailed for four years for using filesharing program Limewire to steal other people’s identities. Gregory Kopiloff had previously pleaded guilty to using filesharing software to access other people’s computers without their permission.

In the past, people have been sentenced for using filesharing networks to obtain and share copyrighted material, but this is the first time someone has been convicted of identity theft. It raises many questions for the millions of users of Limewire.

Seattle resident Kopiloff would use the filesharing software to get hold of financial documents. Many Internet users were unaware that they even had Limewire or any filesharing software on their computers.

Kopiloff got four years and three months in jail for his filesharing crime. He had apparently turned to this sophisticated method of identity theft to fund his drug and gambling habits.

It’s great news that something like this can be dealt with in a court of law, but with most filesharers breaking the law as it is, it’s a bittersweet victory.