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Music

Submission + - WMG denies ' voluntary' music licensing stories (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "Warner Music Group is denying it's come up with a voluntary music licensing plan aimed at American universities. Basically, "it's not voluntary at all," said Techdirt when the story broke. "It's either join, or get saddled with significant limitations. In other words: all ISPs and universities need to agree to pay a huge tax to the very industry that hasn't been able to adapt, and then trust them to distribute the funds fairly." But, "This presentation belongs to someone outside our company and represents that individual's interpretation of issues discussed at meetings held several months ago," WMG has Griffin saying. "It was not made by me or anyone at Warner Music Group.""
Music

Submission + - RIAA faces Power Team in Joel Tenenbaum case (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "The RIAA is now facing a power team of heavy hitters in the Joel Tenenbaum case, says Recording Industry vs The People. Arraigned against it are Professor Wendy Seltzer; Professor John Palfrey; Professor Johan Pouwelse; EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow; Professor Lawrence Lessig; Professor Terry Fisher; Professor Jonathan Zittrain; Andrew Grant (former antipiracy specialist at Macrovision); and, interestingly, Matthew 'Matt the Dentist' Oppenheim, a man who's been acting as a principal Big 4 attack lawyer since day one. Acting for Joel Tenebaum, Harvard professor Charles Nesson and his team of students say: "The RIAA intimidates and steamrolls accused infringers into settling before they have their day in court and before the courts can weigh the merits of their defenses. The inherent dangers in allowing a single interest group, desperate in the face of technological change, led by a voracious, cohesive, extraordinarily well-funded and deeply experienced legal team doing battle with pro se defendants, armed with a statute written by them and lobbied and quietly passed through a compliant congress, to march defendants through the federal courts to make examples out of them should lead this Court to say 'stop'.""
Movies

Submission + - One third of all Britons are online pirates: FACT (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "Sites streaming movies will become serious anti-piracy targets next year, suggests Stopping Digital piracy: Strategy and Tactics, a pep talk for industry executives in the UK sponsored by MPAA enforcer FACT and Warner Brothers Entertainment, Europe. "Certainly, the proliferation of those sites has caused us anguish," says a FACT spokesman, stating a third of all Brits are 'pirates'. Even borrowing and lending has caught FACT's eye. That figure, "has gone up dramatically," it says. So will UK citizens who get a movie from a library for home viewing soon be at risk? And YouTube and Hulu are among the top five sites for hosting illegal content, says Warner Bros. "We don't think we are going to eradicate piracy," it admits. But, "we want to bring piracy down to a level ... to enable us to launch legal services that will enable us to meet that demand being satisfied by piracy." Meanwhile, "What we see in June of 2008 (compared to a year earlier) is that the P2P user base overall is static, neither up nor down, statistically," BigChampagne CEO Eric Garland he tells p2pnet. But, "if you look at BitTorrent separately from the rest of the P2P , you find that the BitTorrent base has grown dramatically (by 17.5% y-o-y) while the rest of the P2P applications have declined as a group by 9%," he says. This suggests the growth in P2P activity, including the huge surges in P2P traffic volumes, is "generally attributable to the increased popularity of feature film and television swapping.""
The Internet

Submission + - MPAA, IFPI anti-piracy 'hero' shot dead (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "A Thai "anti-piracy campaigner" was shot dead on Monday night, says the New Straits Times. Kasim Ratanawongse, 56, a, "leading lawyer in the Malaysian Thai community," worked for the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) and was also a director of Hollywood's MPAA (Motion Pictures Export Association of America). The Star has Lt-Col Phamong Sall saying, "We are focusing our investigations on jealousy and personal issues. We are also probing if there was any business rivalry involved since his relatives are said to be prominent traders.""
Censorship

Submission + - p2pnet wins landmark Canadian defamation case (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "p2pnet.net and founder Jon Newton are now part of precedent-setting legal decision of primary importance to online freedom of speech in Canada. British Columbia Supreme Court judge Stephen Kelleher has ruled p2pnet is the victor in a case in which Vancouver businessmen Wayne Crookes, once an important federal Green Party of Canada official, tried to claim it defamed him by linking to articles he didn't like. This amounted to publication, Crookes stated. Now, "According to Mr. Newton, he is not interested in the Green Party issues," writes Kelleher in his decision to dismiss the lawsuit, going on: "Rather, his interest is in free speech and the internet. He posted a reference to the existence of the lawsuit and its implications for free speech on the internet. There was no comment about Mr. Crookes' character or integrity." And, "Without proof that persons other than the plaintiff visited the defendant's website, clicked on the hyperlinks, and read the articles complained of, there cannot be a finding of publication.""
Music

Submission + - Big 4 record labels escalate attack on Blubster (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "Warner Music Spain, Universal Music Spain, EMI Music Spain, Sony BMG Music Entertainment SA, and Productores de Musica en Espana (PROMUSICAE), the Spanish IFPI IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) recently announced they were going after Blubster, setting the summer of next year for the trial. Now, with no explanation, Soto tells p2pnet they've had the trial moved to the week after next, to be heard by a 72-year-old judge who'll decide if music industry demands for $20 million should be met. Soto, 28, is represented by Spanish IP specialist David Bravo. Soto, who says he has no idea what's behind the escalation, is meanwhile forging ahead with his plans to introduce SoundShare, a service he says will do for music sharing what Google did for the web."
Government

Canadian NDP Leader Praises P2P Communities 169

Posted by Soulskill from the need-something-to-do-between-hockey-games dept.
newtley writes "The New Democrats' Jack Layton has become the first leader of a major Canadian political party to acknowledge the importance of the Internet during a federal election. He's using YouTube to carry his message specifically to the online community, launching it on P2Pnet. 'We don't want to see hidden fees and gouging and service slow-downs all in the interests of promoting the objectives of certain large corporations,' Layton says." Other party members have also spoken out against increased internet regulation. We've been following the Canadian net neutrality debate for quite some time.
Government

Submission + - BTsites 'fundamental to democracy': New Democrats (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: ""Three days before the Canadian elections, the party leader of the New Democrats has spoken out in favor of BitTorrent sites, calling them 'fundamental to democracy'," says TorrentFreak. "This election gives us a real opportunity to put issues like Net Neutrality and reasonable copyright on the election agenda," says New Democrat leader Jack Layton in a YouTube statement announced on p2pnet. isoHunt, the largest Canadian BitTorrent site, advises users not to vote for the Conservatives, considering their stance on copyright issues."
Government

Submission + - NDP leader Jack Layton woos P2P communities (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "The New Democrat's Jack Layton has become the first leader of a major Canadian political party to acknowledge the importance of the Internet during a federal election. He's using YouTube to carry his message specifically to the online community, launching it on p2pnet.net, the small, one-man digital media web site based on Vancouver Island, British Columba. "We don't want to see hidden fees and gouging and service slow-downs all in the interests of promoting the objectives of certain large corporations," Layton says in his YouTube video."
Music

Submission + - Jammie Thomas vs the RIAA: Round II - new trial (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "Single mother of two Jammie Thomas is once again about to face Capitol, Sony BMG, Arista, Interscope, Warner Bros and UMG in a new landmark P2P file sharing trial on a date yet to be set. She's already had to suffer through one civil trial when the corporate music labels were awarded damages of close to $250,000. Judge Michael Davis, who heard the original case, admitted he may have committed a 'manifest error of law' in his jury instructions. Now it's Round II."
Communications

Submission + - New Comcast plan has 'disconnect user' option (p2pnet.net) 1

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "Comcast's new people, not protocols scheme may mean high speed for some, but by no means all. It's also created a draconian 'disconnect' option for use against anyone who fails to toe the Comcast line. But, says Robb Topolski, the Net protocol expert who originally uncovered Comcast's blatant efforts to control its customers, the plan does offer key take-aways telling P2P users on Comcast how to do what they do without the risk of corporate interference."
Government

Submission + - Charlie Angus on digital issues and the election (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "Canada is expecting a federal election to be called this Sunday morning. What would life be like for Netizens in Canada if the New Democratic Party ousts the ruling Conservatives? The NDP is also the only one of the three major parties to have appointed someone specifically to address digital issues. NDP digital culture spokesman Charlie Angus sets it out in an exclusive p2pnet editorial saying, "this election gives us a real opportunity to put issues like Net Neutrality and reasonable copyright on the election agenda.""
The Internet

Submission + - Bell Canada traffic shaping: response to the CRTC (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ordered Bell Canada to justify its traffic-shaping practices by June 23. Yesterday was D-for-Disclosure-Day, the day Bell had to publicly reveal levels of congestion it says forced it to launch its heavily criticised bandwidth throttling practices. Here's Bell's response in full, as submitted by Mirko Mr 5% Bibic. But there seems to be something missing. There doesn't seem to be any mention of Bell's Ethernet Network segments. Just about all the information centres on ATM only. And, "They are conceding that P2P isn't the problem, they really don't know what the problem is (apart from increased growth in usage), which would be better correlated against the amount of new rich media content that has sprung up on the net, in the selected time frame, (YouTube for instance)," notes Shinda on dslreports."
Social Networks

Submission + - Canada's CIPPIC demands Facebook privacy probe (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "Canadian law students say Facebook privacy claims aren't what they're cracked up to be. Now CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic) wants privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart to investigate possible violations of Canadian privacy laws. "Facebook isn't being up-front with users about its use of their information for advertising and other commercial purposes," says CIPPIC director Philippa Lawson. "Facebook promotes itself as a social utility, but it's also involved in commercial activities like targeted advertising," states student Lisa Feinberg. "Facebook users need to know that when they're signing up to Facebook, they're signing up to share their information with advertisers.""
Censorship

Submission + - Charlie Angus Canadian Net Neutrality bill (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: ""Canadians are fighting back against Bell Canada's traffic shaping," posted Slashdot yesterday, also highlighting the Ottawa rally, "backed by a long list of organizations including Google, two major political parties, three ISPs, and two major unions". NDP digital culture spokesman Charlie Angus has now tabled a private member's Net Neutrality bill which would stop network operators from engaging in network management practices which favour, degrade or prioritise any content, application service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions."

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