Says effectiveness of lawsuits against illegal file-sharers proven by rise in legal digital downloads from $183 million in 2004 to well over $3 billion this year. RIAA Pres Cary Sherman has been busy trying to put a positive spin on the RIAA’s recent decision to quit targeting individual file-sharers. In an interview with CNET, Sharman [...]

Proves the ineffectiveness of the RIAA’s "sue-em-all" strategy and perhaps played a part in their decision to switch tactics. According to The NPD Group, a leading global market research company for the entertainment industry, consumer demand for music among US Internet users fell 2% from this time last year. It also estimates that CD purchases [...]

Form letter it plans to send to ISPs warning of suspected illegal P2P activity by individuals asks that they "remove or disable access to the unauthorized music" while still retaining their right to sue individual users it identifies. With the file-sharing community still abuzz after recent news that the RIAA has decided to quit targeting [...]

There is a growing trend to define the internet as little more than a “broadcaster”, but isn’t it a bad thing to start considering the internet little more than just another TV station? Many would argue that the internet has been one of mans greatest inventions, in part, because it gives citizens new-found freedoms and [...]

“Peace in our time” – 10 years later the music industry’s highly controversial strategy of suing individuals for illegal file-sharing has come to an end, wants ISPs to adopt a three-strikes policy. I’ve read the article in the Wall Street Journal three times already and I still can’t believe it. For 10 years, some 35,000 [...]

It seems that the French government wants to treat the internet like a broadcaster and tax it accordingly. French media website 01net is reporting (Google translation) that the French government has passed a first reading on legislation that would put a tax on the internet. The news follows France doing everything in their power to [...]

However, Virgin Media boss also says that copyright holders and ISPs should work together to create viable content platform alternatives to illegal file-sharing. Sometime during the middle of next year UK ISP Virgin Media plans to introduce application-based restrictions that will mean that BitTorrent and other P2P users will see their connection speeds throttled to [...]

Award-winning producers, directors and writers have called for action to tackle illegal downloads of films and TV shows which they say are threatening jobs. A group of more than 100 UK film and TV producers, directors and writers have published an open letter in the Times calling for ISPs in that country to assist copyright [...]

Afraid economic downturn will mean more people will be looking to save money. With practically every sector of the US economy reeling from the current economic downturn it’s maddening to learn that Hollywood is trying to to take advantage of the situation by warning “If we don’t protect IPR (intellectual property rights), our economic losses [...]

Australian digital rights organizations are applauding the high turnout in a country-wide demonstration against proposed Australian internet blacklists. The Electronic Frontiers Australia recently applauded the high turnout for protests against proposed censorship laws that would block access to websites deemed by the government as “inappropriate”. From the press release: “The forthcoming protests by the Digital [...]

The case where Hollywood is suing an Internet Service Provider for not deterring piracy is starting up tomorrow in court. We have been following the story where Hollywood is suing an ISP for allowing piracy to occur on their networks and today marks the final day before the battle in court. It’s already well known [...]

The network neutrality debate just got a little hotter recently over a story published on the Wall Street Journal. A report from The Wall Street Journal has gotten numerous people talking recently. The article says that network neutrality is losing major supporters. One of the prominent figures that the WSJ says is losing support for [...]

Ask people to join them at the hearing in Rhode Island federal court. Today at a hearing in Rhode Island federal court, Harvard Law School Professor Charles Nesson and his team of students will defend Rhode Island residents Arthur and Judie Tenenbaum from the RIAA’s infamous shakedown tactics. The Tenenbaums face legal pressure from the [...]

Last weeks announcement that Warner, one of the big four record labels, would set up a program to legalize campus file-sharing has had some technology reporters sending heated arguments to each other over whether it was a positive move or not. Last week, Warner Music announced a proposal to put a tax on college tuition [...]

The Recording Industry Association has reportedly sent 60 cease and desist letters to East Stroudsburg University. With the movement to legalize campus file-sharing with a blank tax, you’d think that the campus lawsuit campaign would be winding down. That appears to not be the case according to Pocono Record, a news site in Pennsylvania. The [...]

The administrator of OiNK, the once popular private BitTorrent website, as well as five others, have appeared before court recently. No plea has been entered by Ellis. If there’s anything that the arrest of the OiNK admin proved, it’s that making a BitTorrent website private won’t make it impenetrable to investigators. It was once thought [...]

There’s always the passing thought of getting raided for uploading copyrighted works, but over a viral video originally on YouTube? Controversy has taken hold in Australia recently over what happened to a 60 year old man now charged for child abuse. The report comes from the Sydney Morning Herald which says that Chris Illingworth liked [...]

Ever wanted to post something online anonymously for all to see? Tor2Web might be an application for you. Wired’s Threat Level has made an interesting find today – Tor2Web. The concept comes from the anonymizing concept of the Tor network (AKA the Union Router) which anonymizes web surfers and prevents information about them from being [...]

Says that it’s the economy stupid. A report today on Exclaim Magazine says that the Canadian Copyright Board has raised the levy on CDs up 40 percent. That means that the levy will be bumped up from 21 cents to 29 cents and that the price of a spindle of 100 CDs will cost an [...]

Research says that growth in file-sharing traffic to blame for increased capital and operational expenditures. Every so often we get a new study that makes new claims and predictions regarding P2P traffic. Add to the list a recent one by Multimedia Intelligence entitled “P2P Networking: Content’s “Bad Boy” Becomes Tomorrow’s Distribution Channel.” The study’s focus [...]