Early this month, there was market rumor that Google and Ceyuan Venture will invest in Chinese P2P software and file-sharing network Xunlei. The investment will be announced on January 5th, a report in Sina said. Google China will invest in $5M, and Ceyuan Venture will invest in $15M. Xunlei, founded in 2003, has been a [...]

In another blow to the overly aggressive, no-holds-barred tactics of the RIAA, the IFPI, and others of similar ilk, a French court has ruled that music companies and other copyright holders “…cannot conduct unrestrained internet monitoring to find pirates.” The verdict is a rare win for privacy-rights advocates who regularly monitor the extensive lengths that [...]

I have a slew of screen shots and the inside scoop on the cool new creation from the geniuses behind KaZaA and Skype. The Venice Project has begun secretly doling out BETA Tester invites, and I have been fortunate enough to be among them. Skype and KaZaA co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are at [...]

Encode360 is an application which will convert virtually any video format to high quality WMV’s which can be played by the X-Box 360 or the Microsoft Zune player. Features: Uses Windows Media Encoder as a base, so it’ll create 100% Microsoft compliant WMV’s Automatic re-scaling of video sizes to match your TV resolution or Zune [...]

AllPeers, a Firefox P2P file sharing plugin, had incredible hype when it launched in August (the rumors had been around for nearly a year at that point). People were calling it the “killer app” for Firefox, and the company is backed by early investors in Skype, Mangrove Capital Partners and Index Ventures. And since AllPeers [...]

Movie studios and TV networks that sell made-on-demand DVDs through Amazon.com’s CustomFlix subsidiary will soon be able to offer digital downloads. The downloads will be offered through Amazon’s new video download service, Unbox, and should be available in early 2007, the company said. CustomFlix Labs Inc. produces licensed DVDs only when a customer orders one, [...]

AllofMP3, already facing intense pressure from US trade negotiators and international credit card processors, is now the target of a US federal lawsuit. The major music labels filed suit Wednesday against AllofMP3 parent company Mediaservices, Inc. in a New York court. A copy of the lawsuit seen by Ars Technica claims that AllofMP3′s business “amounts [...]

Following in the ongoing trend towards more and more sites offering streaming TV programming, a site appropriately called “Pick and Watch” allows you to do just that. Similar to sites like TVlinks, watchtvonline, and others, Pick and Watch offers a variety of channels of varying content to select and stream on demand. The channel selections [...]

For the last ten days, Swedish ISP Perspektiv Bredband has been blocking Russian Website AllOfMp3.com. This conduct has led to protests from various sources. For example, The Pirate Bay, working together with the pro-piracy lobby Piratbyrån, decided to block all Perspektiv’s customers from accessing its site. perspectiv bredbandApparently this anti net-censorship campaign by The Pirate [...]

Some of rock ‘n’ roll’s biggest players, including Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead and Carlos Santana, are suing a website that offers thousands of recordings of rare audio and video music performances. The artists say Wolfgang’s Vault, owned by William Sagan, is illegally offering the recordings in order to lure consumers to buy other products [...]

After more than a year and a half of litigation, the RIAA has sought to drop the case it brought against Patti Santangelo, Elektra v. Santangelo. Its motion papers ask that the dismissal be "without prejudice", which would mean that they could sue her again for the same thing: Notice of Motion to Dismiss without [...]

According to retail research firm NPD Group, 6 million US households that “regularly” use the Internet downloaded a video file from a P2P service in the third quarter. That compares with 1.2 million homes that paid for a video download legally over the same period. The study blames a combination of increased broadband access, powerful [...]

It was the ultimate challenge for any lifelong TV watcher. Wired News asked me to cut the coax cable snaking into my HD-ready television, and for 30 days rely solely on legally available internet content to satisfy the video entertainment needs of my family of five. We posed the question: Is the internet finally ready [...]

It may be that the fears of phone and cable company IPSs that increased internet connectivity will reduce people’s need for their other services is what is holding them back from increasing uploads speeds for a truly symmetric system. As the internet becomes more and more interactive, i.e. Web 2.0, the need for users to [...]

Blame the Internet’s legacy systems if Jay Glatfelter falls asleep Thursday mornings. Co-host of an online audio show about “Lost,” Glatfelter must wait about 40 minutes to finish posting his program to the Internet in the hours after ABC’s Wednesday night broadcast. If he were downloading it as his listeners do, the same file would [...]

It looks like another BitTorrent client server is looking for file-sharing legitimacy. Today it was announced that Azureus agreed to a content partnership deal with BBC Worldwide, which is the first ever P2P distribution partnership for the network. The content will be offered via Azureus’s Zudeo video content store and file-sharing website. It will also [...]

Electronics manufacturers on Wednesday threatened legal action to force European governments to drop an extra charge on iPods and blank CDs after EU regulators backed off a plan to reform copyright levies. The threat came as the European Commission suddenly backed away from plans to reform the system. Artist rights groups in most European countries [...]

Piracy is not all that bad for musicians. In fact, research has shown that less popular artists actually profit from piracy. This can be concluded from, and is supported by several studies. Frustrated as they are, the music industry claims that they lose millions a year due to piracy, but is this really the case? [...]

Blu-ray and HD DVD players and movies can now be easily found on store shelves. As expected, sales of the players so far have been less than stellar. Could consumers be holding out for hybrid players? Taiwanese hardware makers think so, as some are once again pushing the concept of players that can play discs [...]

As P2P and file-sharing programs grow in popularity in China, American TV content is being viewed in almost real-time and is increasingly influencing the way that Chinese citizens view the United States and themselves. Hollywood continues to convey perceived American cultural norms and values, correctly or incorrectly, through the content it produces and then which [...]