Ten years of the Bay

Tomorrow (Central European Summer Time), fans of The Pirate Bay file-sharing site are set to celebrate its 10th anniversary at a party in Stockholm sponsored by an energy drinks maker. The event - and the service's very survival - is an irritant to rights holders who have used the courts in the UK, Ireland, Malaysia, and elsewhere to make internet service providers (ISPs) block access to TPB's domain. They want to make it as hard as possible for the public to find lists of torrents - pointers that tell a program where to locate fragments of a file on others' computers that can be downloaded and combined to form a whole. Earlier this week the UK's Industry Trust for Intellectual Property Awareness warned such pirate websites provided a gateway for children to access adult-rated material. While that may be one of the downsides, the upside of having sites like The Pirate Bay is that you can get something for nothing. But enough about that because baseball's highest paid star, Alex Rodriguez, has said he is fighting for his life as he and 12 other players are suspended in a doping scandal. Major League Baseball banned the New York Yankees slugger for 211 games until the end of the 2014 season. The 38-year-old is one of a few players who have been linked to a closed Florida clinic which allegedly supplied banned performing-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez, who is popularly known as A-Rod, said he would appeal the penalty. He can continue playing while his challenge is being heard.