For all you BitTorrent users out there, the party's been officially raided! Yesterday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement came down hard on Elite Torrents, which was distributing the latest "Star Wars" movie before it hit movie screens. ICE agents seized the network's main server and took its Web site offline. It's encouraging to see the movie industry has adopted the same legal, heavy-handed approach as the music industry. It's based on the idea that if you can't take advantage of new technology, then you try to bash it legally into submission...Bad technology, bad technology!! It puzzles me why the movie industry hasn't been more creatives in using the Internet as a new distribution vehicle. It's had six years to look at what happened to the music industry, which had its pants between its legs as Shawn Fanning and Napster danced into the spotlight. Sure there are a few movie download sites but these efforts on baby steps rather than something bold and ambitious. With proper digital rights management technology, the movie industry could kick some serious business Torrent ass by setting up a super Web site - i.e. www.movies.com - where it could sell 10s of thousands of movies on a download or streaming basis. Of course, this model makes too much sense for the set-in-it-ways movie industry to readily adopt. In the meantime, you can expect a lot more raids and - surprise, surprise - lawsuits against downloaders.

Andy Abramson picked up on a Reuters story out of Paris in which Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom suggests the company could be cash flow positive this year. Again, this leads one to believe SkypeIn and SkypeOut are generating healthy sales, and that Skype is becoming more of a telecom carrier every day. Zennstrom said Skype has 1.4 million fee-paying clients. Andy has a good take on Skype:
"I'm rooting for Skype but the financial world is a dangerous place and people remember what you say, and forget what is unimportant. This claim is a big, bold statement, and one everyone will be watching to see if it comes true."

The question of who's going to succeed Ted Rogers as Rogers Communication Inc.'s CEO may have become a little more clear yesterday when the company's wireless domo, Nadir Mohamed, was also given responsibility for the cable division. Ted is 71-years-old and apparently plans to retire in three years, so it makes sense to give the well-respected Mohamed more responsibility. At the same time, Ted shows no signs of slowing down and, given he controls the publicly-traded firm, he'll probably never really retire. By promoting Mohamed, Ted does two things: he gives a senior executive a good reason to stick around - other than giving him more cash - and he gives himself an opportunity to back away a little more from day-to-day operations. When it comes to succession plans, my take is Ted will stick around as long as he can - the 2008 retirement plan will likely be bumped or eliminated - until his son, 36-year-old son Edward, is ready to take the helm. If you're Edward Rogers, you are probably happy to have someone like Mohamed running the big show as it will let him learn while staying somewhat out of the spotlight.