Piracy Hot List: Disney's 'Tron: Legacy' Is Most-Downloaded Movie

9:15 AM PDT 3/14/2011 by Eriq Gardner

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In this week's review of what's happening in the piracy underground, two anticipated albums leak ahead of their official release, Tron: Legacy is the most pirated film, and a Texas man has been arrested for running a website that linked to streaming television feeds.

Last week, two albums scheduled for release later this month became hot items on torrent websites. Pirates snatched up Britney Spears' "Femme Fetale" ahead of its official March 29th debut and Chris Brown's "F.A.M.E" ahead of its official March 22nd bow. Critics are already pouncing with their reviews. New York calls the Spears' album "appealingly odd" despite a "mediocre" lead single that has landed the singer in a courtroom over allegations of piracy herself.

Last month, country duo The Bellamy Brothers sued Spears for taking lyrics for "Hold it Against Me." Spears struck back with a defamation claim.

Turning to the film world, TRON: Legacy has been one of the biggest films in torrent circles since it came out in theaters in December. The film, distributed by Disney, doesn't come out on DVD and Blu-Ray until April 5th, but it tops the most pirated film chart for the second consecutive week. According to TorrentFreak, which tracks the data, the latest installment of The Chronicles of Narnia also debuts as a big-ticket item on torrent websites, and Oscar-winning The King's Speech continues to do good non-business.

Here are the top 10 most pirated films:

TRON: Legacy
The Next Three Days
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Fighter
Season of the Witch
Drive Angry
The King's Speech
127 Hours
How Do You Know
The Mechanic

Finally, in the television world, readers may remember that in advance of this year's Super Bowl, a number of websites that linked to legally-questionable live television feeds were shut down by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Some of the sites have migrated to other platforms, but one individual hasn't been so lucky.

Brian McCarthy, the Texas man who ran ChannelSurfing.net before it was shut down in the crack-down, has been arrested and charged with criminal copyright infringement. According to prosecutors, McCarthy made $90,000 in advertisement revenue running the site. Authorities tracked him down via domain registration information. He faces up to five years in prison.