So, I come back to the UK and the biggest decision in Cyberlaw in recent years has finally taken place. It was expected that the U.S. Supreme Court would produce a negative ruling against P2P manufacturers, and if one reads the press, this would seem to be the case. However, Read more…
So, the IFPI global piracy report is out. I must admit that the figures are extremely worrying, I must admit that while I have a liberal view of IP, people who sell burnt CDs are wrong. One thing is legitimately sharing, another to profit from other people’s work. Well, at Read more…
This is a very thorough report from the OECD about music downloads. It is a rather impressive document, which attempts to bring together the latest research on the subject. I haven’t finished reading it, but the section about P2P networks is very balanced and well referenced. The result is that, Read more…
Very interesting note about data protection and hunting for IP addresses of P2P file-sharing users. For a while now it has been felt that the efforts to gather data from P2P users could have adverse privacy implications and may infringe data protection. Now there is an official declaration from the Read more…
Bram Cohen, the maker of BitTorrent, must be a brave man. He has created a torrent search site in the main page of Bittorrent.com, probably setting himself as the next target for overzealous copyright bozos. The website does not filter materials subject to copyright protection, I just searched for “Episode Read more…
The FBI, U.S. Customs and the Department of Homeland Security (talk about overkill) have raided a BitTorrent network called EliteTorrents, and seized servers and computers, and arrested a group of “copyright thieves”. Now, if somebody goes to the EliteTorrent site, they will find a warning from the FBI. The FBI Read more…
Poor movie producers. Poor George Lucas. BitTorrent threatens the very existence of filmmakers when evil internet pirates download their movie. Yeah, right. Star Wars Episode III has come out (I loved it by the way), and it has made an astounding $158.4M in 4 days! This is now the weekend Read more…
So, the new report from the BSA is out with its dire warnings about how piracy is threatening the very fabric of civilisation, supports terrorism, creates unemployment and recession, and steals one sock from your sock drawer. This would be amusing if it wasn’t for the fact that the software Read more…
Data still seems to indicate that P2P networks are gathering more and more people. For example, Slyck.com has been monitoring P2P network since 2003 and the chart shows a steady increase in numbers (the data does not include torrent statistics): At least the music industry has stopped claiming that P2P Read more…
This is a call to arms to all of those who have ever downloaded content from the internet not to buy any music or movies during the last week of April (25-30 April). The intended outcome is to demonstrate that music downloaders are a powerful buying force, and that if Read more…