“According to an article at BBC News, $250 tickets for the latest Madonna tour are the fault of P2P file sharing. ‘Before the advent of illegal downloads, artists had an incentive to underprice their concerts, because bigger audiences translated into higher record sales, Professor Krueger argues. But now, he says, the link between the two products has been severed, meaning that artists and their managers need to make more money from concerts and feel less constrained in setting ticket prices.’ And it seems David Bowie agrees. Is ‘the fans always get fleeced’ the rock industry’s equivalent to Moore’s Law?”

More than one-third of college students illegally download music, claims a National CyberEducation Project survey. According to the survey, released April 4th, only 39 percent of students actually pay for downloads.Also according to the survey, one in three students who utilize peer-to-peer file sharing networks recognize that illegal downloads are unethical, but continue to do it anyway.

Read more »

You have seen email worms spreading around half the world in just a matter of a day or two. What if a worm employs other modes of proliferation too, in addition to the email way?!

Security Analysts from MicroWorld Technologies inform that ‘Worm.Win32.Feebs.db’ is a new entrant to the Feebs family that spreads via email, P2P Networks and Web /FTP Servers.

Read more »

While it was only untill recently that NZB sites and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) locked horns, NZB sites seemed to be able to keep out of the sites of legal pursuit. Now it appears that NZB sites are becoming no more immune than BitTorrent sites. NZB Zone has shut down allegedly because of MPAA action.

Read more »

While the effectiveness of lawsuits against American consumers has been long and thoroughly debated without definitive end, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has announced a continued campaign regardless. It has been reported today that the RIAA has filed 235 more lawsuits against alleged copyright infringers.

Read more »

TOKYO: A new computer virus has been spreading through the Winny file-sharing programme. The virus, which sends malicious false messages from the computers it infects, first appeared last month.

Also, a type of virus capable of striking most computers, regardless of whether they are using Winny software, has led to the contents of people’s computers being uploaded to the Internet.

Read more »

After more than four months, the first-instance district court of Hamburg has handed down its written statement on its widely reported ruling of December 02, 2005 on liability for forums. The statements refers to web forums as an “especially dangerous feature.” Those who operate such a source of trouble, the court argued, must be held especially liable.

Read more »

The technology, which allows computer users to easily share and distribute files without occupying much of their Internet connection bandwidth, is also responsible for almost one-third of the Internet’s traffic flow, according to recent estimates.

Conversely, it’s this feature that makes the technology perfect for content distribution, especially in an era when file sizes have become much larger. Video files, having become extremely popular due to increased quality and more widespread prevalence of broadband technologies, can be easily shared without bogging down a single computer, as seen in a traditional Internet server model.

Read more »

MP3.com, Inc. filed a malpractice suit for over $175 million against its legal representative, the San Francisco law firm of Cooley Godward. MP3.com contended that the law firm’s advice was responsible for MP3.com’s decision to launch its music distribution service, MYMP3.com - a decision that resulted in dozens of copyright suits being filed against the company.

At the heart of this lawsuit lies a difficult question: Where should the responsibility, and liability, fall when a business fails because of adverse developments in an unsettled and hard-to-predict area of law such as cyberlaw? Should responsibility lie with the company - which was, after all, willing to utilize a business model it knew was fraught with liability risks, and might, in a different world, have profited from taking those very risks? Or should it lie with the lawyer, who may have recommended taking the risk because he or she made an inaccurate prediction as to what future legal developments would be?

Read more »

Five people have been arrested at a computer fair in Wolverhampton accused of selling pirated games, modified chips and modified game consoles.

The five traders were held overnight following a raid by 30 local police and Trading Standards officers.

Officials also discovered fully operational piracy factories at two of the suspects’ homes, comprising four computers, nine burning towers and numerous computer and video game master copies.

Read more »

An Oregon man was fined $84,000 for scamming users with bogus security warnings that led them to a phony anti-spyware program, the Washington state attorney general said Tuesday.In January, both Microsoft Corp. and Attorney General Rob McKenna filed lawsuits against Secure Computer of White Plains, N.Y. for allegedly selling the bogus anti-spyware program Spyware Cleaner. Three men were also charged with advertising the software: Zhijian Chen, of Portland, Ore.; Seth Traub, of Portsmouth, N.H.; and Manoj Kumar, from Maharashtra, India.

Read more »

Yahoo Inc. helped Chinese police identify an Internet activist who was sentenced to four years in prison for his pro-democracy postings, according to a copy of the verdict obtained by a human rights group.
Jiang Lijun, 39, was sentenced for subversive activities on Nov. 18, 2003. He was accused of being the leader of a group of political dissidents and of seeking to use violence to impose democracy, including a plan to disrupt a Communist Party Congress by phoning in a false bomb scare to police, according to the copy, obtained and translated into English by the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco human rights group.

Read more »

It might be called Hollywood’s revenge. Angered that its fans don’t spend enough time at the movies, Hollywood is reaching into consumers’ homes to seek retribution against those allegedly peddling counterfeit movies on eBay.The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA), the movie industry’s powerful lobbying arm, has filed 14 lawsuits against eBay sellers who it says have been selling counterfeit DVDs, seeking criminal penalties that could include jail time and fines up to $250,000.

Read more »

BERLIN (Reuters) - A new mobile phone that includes a link into the Robbie Williams Web site and plays his songs is another step in a “digital revolution” that the recording industry must take advantage of, not spurn, his manager said.

Williams, one of Europe’s most successful entertainers, has angered music industry executives in the past by praising internet piracy, once even calling it a “great idea”.

In an interview ahead of the pop singer’s world tour, which starts on Monday, his manager Tim Clark said the industry should classify digital music seekers as customers, not criminals.

Read more »

P2P (peer-to-peer) is coming to your mobile phone. A company called Nareos is launching a trial version of a mobile peer to peer downloading service called PeerBox. Once you have downloaded the application, you have access to over 50 million songs available on P2P networks. As you would expect, you can search by either artist or song title. PeerBox will also recommend tunes similar to your choice that you might also enjoy.

Read more »