Consumers Turn ‘White Elephants’ into Must-See DVDs on Peerflix
Online DVD Exchange Offers Post-Holiday Alternative to Stringent Return Policies by Enabling Members to Trade DVD GiftsThis post-holiday season, DVD recipients will be able to recycle their holiday gifts without going back to retailers.
Industry sources predict that consumers will spend $5.8 billion buying DVDs in the fourth quarter of 2005, up from $5 [...]
Red Santa Rescues Christmas CDs – DVDs
If Sony BMG can screw up your computer with rootkits and other dangerous tricks, so can any other trusted name in music or movies. The latest release of a CD/DVD play-or-clone package from China lets you render the latest DRM schemes harmless by stripping out the bad stuff when you copy or play CDs and [...]
Fighting the RIAA Without an Attorney
Via Slashdot:
Yahoo News is reporting that Patricia Santangelo of New York will be taking on the RIAA in court without an attorney. It seems that Ms. Santangelo has committed over $24,000 due to her case and simply cannot afford to continue with the services of an attorney.
From the article: "Her former lawyer, Ray Beckerman, [...]
N.Y. subpoenas Warner Music, rivals
New York’s attorney general is investigating whether the four record companies that dominate the industry have violated antitrust laws in the pricing of songs sold online, according to people involved in the inquiry.
Eliot Spitzer’s office recently began serving subpoenas on the major record companies, according to the people involved. The companies are Universal Music Group, [...]
Will France legalize file sharing?
For those unfamiliar with the French government, there’s a lower house called the National Assembly, just like the US Congress, the Australian House of Representatives or the British House of Commons. There’s also an upper house called the Senate, just like the US Senate, the Australian Senate or the British House of Lords.
Now, in [...]
French Parliament Votes to Allow Web File Sharing
Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) — The French Parliament voted last night to allow free sharing of music and movies on the Internet, setting up a conflict with both the French government and with media companies.
If the amendment survives, France would be the first country to legalize so called peer-to-peer downloading, said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, legal counsel to [...]
France moves to restrict digital piracy
The draft law is to be debated by the Lower House of Parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday before being sent to the Upper House under a streamlined emergency procedure invoked by the government with the aim of quickly bringing France into line with a 2001 European Union law on copyright protection.
Essentially, the measure [...]
Despite Industry Efforts P2P Use Rises
For the US this represents a 4.78% increase over October figures and a 20.6 percent jump over November 2004. Bigchampagne_5 Worldwide the numbers represents a 3.14% increase month-over-month and a 21.3% increase year-over-year.
BigChampagne tracks average simultaneous users and most P2P users grab a multiple amount tracks during each session generating billions of monthly [...]
Got a Digital Music Library? Hoarder! Pirate!
Guess what? Your digital music library is not actually a library. It’s considered "hoarding."
The entertainment cartels have already pirated the word "pirate" to replace "counterfeit" and/or "duplicate" and/or "share." It’s so much more PR-friendly — more emotive and evocative. And it works so well in a sound-bite or a headline.
Now [...]
Parents risk large fines from online music
Parents who give their offspring digital music players – such as Apple’s iPod -as Christmas presents are being warned that they risk being hit by hefty fines, amounting to thousands of pounds, if their children download pirate tracks illegally.
MP3 players will be at the top of Christmas lists across the country and [...]
