British Phonographic Industry says a strong fourth quarter and increased digital income streams offset declining physical sales, contradicting claims that the music industry is in a freefall that required immediate “3-strikes” legislation via the recently passed Digital Economy Act to stabilize. Sometimes its better to keep good news to yourself, especially if you’ve just helped [...]

Under the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill, file-sharers could face damages of up to $15,000 NZ ($10,700 USD), and suspension of Internet connections for up to six months. Now heads to the to the Commerce Select Committee, which will report back to Parliament in six months. New Zealand nears closer to implementing a “three-strikes” [...]

Will still offer the 5 most recent episodes of a number of popular TV shows for free, but subscribers will have access to a more “comprehensive selection.” Hulu, the popular ad-supported online video streaming site, has been under pressure from content providers to increase revenue for some time now. Although the site turned a profit [...]

Cites “declining newsgroup usage” as the reason it will become the latest ISP to discontinue free Usenet service, though partners with Giganews to offer customers who switch over  50% off the first two months, and a 10% lifetime discount. Cox has become the latest ISP to discontinue free Usenet access, citing reduced demand and the [...]

Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft’s executive director, Adrianne Pecotic, says that ISPs refuse to create a voluntary code to deal with copyright infringement on their networks, and that unless the govt follows the lead of countries like the UK and France where the govt forced one upon them, the country’s digital economy is at risk. [...]

BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker says that after an appeals courts ruled the FCC lacked the “ancillary” authority to enforce net neutrality rules it will be the public that serves as regulator in the interim, determining how service and application providers behave. BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker told an audience at the eComm conference in Burlingame, California [...]

High Court rules that voluntary agreement between ISP Eircom and record labels creating a graduated response system to deal with illegal file-sharers does not violate the country’s data protection laws. It was back in April of 2008 that the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) decided to sue Ireland’s largest ISP Eircom order to hold it [...]

Copy of Cross Days contains a virus that masquerades as a game installer which then uploads requested user information accompanied with a desktop screenshot to a public website where it can only be removed for a fee. There’s an interesting new P2P trojan floating around on the Japanese “Winni” file-sharing network these days. I say [...]

Chief executive Geoff Taylor says that until ISP-level technical measures take effect a year from now as part of the Digital Economy Act it will have to “bring lawsuits at some level.” The recent passage of the controversial Digital Economy Act in the UK has certainly pleased executives in the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), especially [...]

Submit brief to govt “anti-piracy czar” Victoria A. Espinel bemoaning industry losses, and outlining a plan to crackdown on online copyright infringement. Among the proposals are website filtering, search engine keyword blocking, a crackdown on domain name registrars and proxy services, monitoring of social networks for promotion of infringing websites, bandwidth throttling, and “consumer tools” [...]

Digital Right Ireland reports Freedom of Information request reveals the country’s Dept of Justice has been proposing filtering the Internet for some time now. To the amazement of all, myself included, nations of the Western world – the proverbial pillars of democracy – are practically tripping over one another trying to filter the Internet as [...]

Torrent Tracker Reports is new BitTorrent traffic monitoring system that shows what content is popular and where so that clients can better understand where the “demand is and where the opportunities are” and adjust distribution, marketing, and pricing accordingly. New York based cross media company Jumpwire Media has announced the launch of an innovative new [...]

Once launched, the malware will install itself in the WINDOWS directory where it installs a registry key to ensure that it loads on startup. Security researchers at Arbor Networks researchers have discovered a new botnet that compromises machines infected with the Heloag Trojan that is specifically designed to manage the downloading and installation of a [...]

Government Accountability Office says the “illicit nature” of piracy means there is no real way to quantify actual losses, and that some studies have in fact shown piracy to have a “potential positive economic effect.” Throughout the years the entertainment industry has trotted out ever increasing figures of enormous losses due to piracy, and the [...]

Pirate Party of Canada becomes first officially recognized Pirate Party outside Europe. As copyright holders get increasingly aggressive with pursuing anti-piracy legislation that restricts fair-use rights and online communication, critics around the globe are banding together to make sure their voices are part of the debate. Pirate Parties International was formed back in October of [...]

Office of Communications (Ofcom) begins drafting measures to tackle illegal file-sharing after the recently passed Digital Economy Act, which requires that an obligations code be made no later than 8 months from Royal Assent (the Queen’s formal approval). This may include other controversial portions of the Act like website filtering and a ban on public [...]

Reiterates position that mandatory Internet filtering is essential to protect “all that is good about the Internet,” and that critics that compare it to the type of censorship seen in authoritarian regimes are “misleading the Australian public.” Australian Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy is doing all he can to sway an skeptical public that mandatory Internet [...]

Record industry execs say consumers aren’t buying as many songs for $1.29 as they were when they were just 99 cents. Ever since Apple allowed variable iTunes pricing about this same time last year many have wondered what the effects would be. Some warned it would alienate customers, and others that it would set a [...]

Tilly, Bailey and Irvine Solicitors (TBI) says it will stop sending out warning to letters to people suspected of copyright infringement for fear the bad press will jeopardize other areas of its practice. Early last month Tilly Bailey & Irvine LLP (TBI Solicitors) became the 3rd UK law firm to try and make a go [...]

RIAA, IFPI, and the BPI line up to praise passage of the Digital Economy Bill, which includes Internet disconnection, website filtering, and a virtual ban on public access WI-Fi, hoping that it “creates momentum for the graduated response approach to tackling piracy internationally.” The ink has yet to dry on the recently passed Digital Economy [...]