The French government has taken one step further towards enacting a controversial piece of Internet piracy legislation, says the Associated Press. A bill today passed through the National Assembly, having already gained approval from the Senate in July. Only one step remains before it becomes law, that being a third approval by a committee bridging both houses of parliament.
Lawyers are now challenging some of the basic tactics of the RIAA's campaign against filesharing, reports note. The most powerful allegations have been put forth in the defense of college student Brittany English, whose pro bono lawyer, K.A.D. Camara, has asked courts to declare RIAA damage requests unconstitutional. The group has asked for unreasonable statutory damages in a ratio as high as 150,000:1, according to Camara, and moreover used the potential judgments to bully individuals into settlements. The RIAA should be made to return the $100 million or more it has accrued through illicit methods, Camara insists.
Apple has removed a common security measure from its iWork '09 office suite, according to an official support document. Mirroring a decision taken with iLife, which is bundled with new Macs as well as sold separately, Apple has eliminated the need to enter a serial number when installing a retail copy of iWork '09. A number is still needed to unlock trial versions of iWork, unless users install a retail copy over top.
A beta version of the Microsoft's next operating system, Windows 7, has been leaked online and is available for download, according to a Tuesday report. Labeled "Build 7000," a 32-bit version of Windows 7 is currently being distributed via BitTorrent networks, with available copies numbering in the thousands. Those who have downloaded the illegal software are said to believe the build is the genuine article.
Members of the RIAA may be violating court orders in one of the latest lawsuits directed against filesharers, reports say. Motown, Universal and BMG are involved in a case dubbed Motown Records vs. John Doe, targeting a number of anonymous students at the University of Southern California. The university has been ordered to provide the names of a variety of students in the case, making it possible to extract compensation should blame be assigned.
The creation and sale of modchips is legal, the UK government has stated. The region's Court of Appeal has ruled in favor Neil Higgs, a vendor who had been selling thousands of modification kits for consoles like the Xbox, which in turn let gamers play pirated titles. Some 26 charges were filed against Higgs in late 2007, but as a result of today's ruling, they have all been invalidated. Higgs will also receive full compensation for his legal costs.
The Canadian government's Industry Minister, Jim Prentice, has today officially tabled Bill C-61, a set of proposed amendments to the country's Copyright Act. Early versions of the changes have been criticized by thousands of citizens -- and a number of businesses and other organizations -- as overly harsh, and too close in nature to the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Prentice has defended amendments as necessary for bringing compliance with the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty Canada signed in 1996.
Recent interference with Vista Media Center recording was accidental, NBC says. TV viewers last week reported being unable to record episodes of American Gladiators and Medium, and instead receiving messages saying that DRM restrictions had been enabled. This triggered a number of of online complaints, including concerns that NBC was attempting to deter the use of DVRs, which allow people to skip unwanted advertising and other distractions.
Apple is resisting a blank media levy imposed by the Swiss government, according to local newspaper Basler Zeitung. The levy is managed by SUISA, the Swiss Society for the Rights of Authors of Musical Works, and is intended to compensate labels and musicians for the effect of piracy. It applies to all media players sold in the country, but Apple is said to be arguing for exemption, on the basis that Swiss iPods sold online are actually shipped out of Ireland.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) will have to pay $107,834 in legal fees as a result of a failed lawsuit, a US federal judge has ruled. For two years, running until June 2007, the RIAA pursued a case against Tanya Andersen, accusing her of illegal file sharing; that case was dismissed with prejudice however, and Andersen and one of her lawyers were allowed to seek compensation for their defense. At points in the case, as many as six attorneys for Andersen were present in court.
Movie studios are the latest group to launch a legal assault on Swedish BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay, filings indicate. The Motion Picture Association, an international extension of the MPAA, has filed a 93kr million ($15.4 million) lawsuit against Pirate Bay, which it accuses of hosting illegal torrent trackers for movies such as The Pink Panther and Syriana, as well as 13 episodes of the TV show Prison Break. Damages are said to amount to between 222 and 261kr ($37 and $43) per movie, and 415kr ($68) for each Prison Break episode.
The British government should tax the sale of media players, a body of the UK music industry is advocating. The Music Business Group is said to have rejected a recent government proposal, which would see people legally able to transfer music from CDs to media players for free; while the practice is widespread and taken for granted by the public and companies like Apple, in the UK it is technically a violation of copyright. The MBG is said to have taken the same position as America's RIAA however, and called for a levy on sale of devices such as iPods.
Cable and Internet provider Comcast, in tandem with peer-to-peer tech company Pando Networks, says it is launching a new industry initiative in order to address conflicts relating to P2P file sharing. Dubbed the "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities," it would see the creation of a document addressing "best practices" for both ISPs and filesharers themselves. The companies hope to gradually involve other parties, such as experts, media producers and other ISP or P2P companies; controversially, they have no present intentions of involving public interest groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The latest effort at blocking unofficial copying of Blu-ray movies has been undone, the developers of a cracking utility claim. AnyDVD 6.4.0.0 adds the ability to bypass BD+ encoding, used on a number of discs to prevent either direct copying, or ripping to a hard drive. This change is said to particularly affect releases from 20th Century Fox, who have led the adoption of BD+, while other companies continue with variants of AACS. AnyDVD is now also better compatible with regular DVDs using Arccos protection.
A recent Danish court decision against an ISP violates EU law, a Swedish judge has declared. Cecilia Renfors, a government investigator being asked to propose new file-sharing legislation, says that Denmark was in error when it told Tele2 to prevent customers from reaching The Pirate Bay, a site well-known for aiding piracy through hosting BitTorrent trackers. The site's owners are in fact facing copyright infringement accusations from a group including Fox, EMI, Sony BMG and Universal.
The most popular search engine in China may be facing legal sanctions over music piracy, says Agence France-Presse. Three of the four major labels -- Warner, Universal and Sony BMG -- have filed a request in a Beijing court, asking that Baidu pull down links to illegal music. Specifically, the labels allege that Baidu is indexing illegal hosting sites, while simultaneously profiting from advertising. Music trade group IFPI claims that piracy in China has dramatically hurt its own profits, with over 99 percent of tracks in the country said to be distributed illegally.
Internet service providers should be the focus of blame for continuing music piracy, says the manager for the internationally famous rock band U2. Paul McGuinness, speaking at the current MIDEM conference in Cannes, France, has argued that ISPs should be disconnecting those who download tracks illegally. ISPs have "been at our trough for too long," McGuinness says, and a part of the "shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way" in which artists have been treated in the era of digital music.
As a pan-European policy, telecom companies have no obligation to hand over the personal information of those accused of illegal downloading, the European Court of Justice has ruled. The decision is a response to a Spanish court, which requested guidance in a case involving Telefonica SA and Promusicae, a trade organization for film and music producers. The Associated Press writes that Promusicae had asked for the names and addresses of suspected file sharers, but as the ECJ is now arguing, there is no EU law requiring this information to be handed over for civil cases.
A 2005 study grossly distorted the role of colleges in movie piracy, the Motion Picture Association of America now admits. Commissioned by the trade group, the study blamed a massive 44 percent of all domestic piracy on college students, who frequently have access not only to broadband Internet connections but high-speed local networks. The MPAA is currently telling educational groups that the figure was a result of "human error," and is in fact closer to just 15 percent, the Associated Press writes.
Major label EMI may be leaving the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), reports say. Its executives are further said to be engaged in talks with Warner, Universal and Sony BMG, in an attempt to alter the priorities and structure are several trade groups, including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). EMI sent a letter to IFPI officials for that very reason, claiming that it would abandon its membership unless the organization conformed to EMI's interests. Funding to the IFPI could be cut off by March 31st.
A US District Judge has terminated a case against TorrentSpy.com in view of evidence tampering, reports say. Representatives from the MPAA sued TorrentSpy in 2006, claiming that the BitTorrent tracker provided illegal access to copyrighted video. Although TorrentSpy countersued, arguing that the MPAA hacked into its computers and e-mail accounts, the company was later ordered to record its data traffic, which could have been used as evidence. Lawyers protested, calling the request "unprecedented and damaging to online free speech and privacy and to free market values that support technological development."
A new, formal complaint has been filed with the European Commission, directed against an anti-piracy levy present on the continent, Reuters reports. The complaint was made to Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, but neither he nor Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy could say who made the complaint, except that the party objected to "obstacles to the free movement of goods."
Like Canada, all but two countries of the European Union -- Britain and Ireland -- collect varying amounts on items such as blank CDs and MP3 players, the money from which is used to compensate for illegal copying. In France and Finland for instance, the levy helps pay for cultural activities.
Converting music CDs to audio files on a computer is unapproved and therefore illegal, the Recording Industry Association of America has said (PDF) in a brief ahead of a crucial Arizona lawsuit. Hoping to support the arguments from group member Atlantic Records in its complaint against the Howell family, the RIAA contends that ripping CDs leads to "viral" copyright infringement; a single disc can result in millions of copies if shared through a peer-to-peer service, the brief claims.
The Department of Justice has come out in support of damages awarded to the RIAA, a brief from the government body suggests. Jammie Thomas, a single mother who was successfully sued by the RIAA for sharing music on Kazaa, and was initially fined $9,250 per song for a total of $220,000. As a part of her appeal though, she challenged the constitutionality of the judgment, noting that the Copyright Act only allows statutory damages between $750 and $150,000. This, Thomas claimed, meant her punishment violated the Due Process clause of the Constitution, particularly since record labels only earn an average of 70¢ on the dollar for each track.
A lawsuit filed by the owners of the LimeWire file-sharing service has been thrown out of a New York court, writes the Associated Press. The Lime Group had earlier entered a case against a group of major record labels, charging that they were harming Lime through unfair business practices. Specifically, said Lime's lawyers, the labels were refusing to license out music, which Lime had hoped to implement into an above-board pay service. Instead the labels would only deal with Lime if it used an approved filtering system, or if it struck an agreement with the industry-sanctioned iMesh service.
