A new law in Spain 86'es P2P networks, bans ISPs from "facillitating filesharing" and imposes a blanket tax on blank media.

"The tax will go into a fund which will be shared among copyright holders to compensate for piracy."
But, the story goes on, according to a European Commission statement, "The logic of levies would also have to be applied to broadband and infrastructure service providers including telecommunications providers that carry content."

Yikes, this bill sounds like it was drafted by the record labels themselves. The scary thing is, for most crazy bits of legislation like this one, there is a bit of public outcry and at least some internet coverage of the badly formed bill as it makes its way into badly formed law. Not such in this case, as avid followers of P2P news got their first taste of this new law only this week.


[via P2Pnet]

The rapid expansion of the definition of intellectual property continues unabated, with the RIAA taking the battle for hearts and minds directly to the auditorium of your kid's school.

The RIAA has teamed with iSafe, "a nonprofit organization that teaches kids, teachers and parents how to be safe on the Internet, with topics such as awareness about predators, not to give out too much personal information, and the risks of getting on P2P networks."

Sounds fine so far. When you add in the idea of the RIAA feeding iSafe the propaganda and iSafe in turn showing up to your kids school under the guise of saving them from MySpace predators, only to tell them about how music wouldn't be made if the RIAA didn't get thier cut, it becomes something quite different.

Obviously the information presented will be biased in favor of the industry, and I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that no one will talk about the crappy record deals your kid's favorite artists are living with.

Beware, and if iSafe is coming to your kid's school, maybe you should drop in so you can drop a little science of your own.

[via Project Opus]

Such an obvious idea, but what perfect timing. According to Slashdot, a Swedish company is now offering insurance against possible P2P lawsuits.

"A new insurance company in Sweden is offering a new policy to protect you from the RIAA [Swedish]. For a mere 140 SEK ($19 USD) per year, they will pay all your fines and give you a t-shirt if you get convicted for file sharing. Interesting development in Sweden indeed."

I don't speak a word of Swedish, but I'm pretty sure the T-Shirt loosely translates to, "I got sued by the RIAA and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt"

[via Slashdot]

We've reported on the Pirate Bay raid and ensuing mess several times over recent weeks. Now it seems, according to p2pnet, that the Swedish Police have decided to keep the Pirate Bay servers confiscated during the recent raid.

"Internet hosting company PRQ had demanded the return of both paperwork and computer equipment seized by police, saying that the material had no significance for the investigation and arguing that it was vital for PRQ's work," says The Local.

Appeals are said to be in the works, but this is just another minor blow to The Pirate Bay and its ISP, PRQ of Sweden.

[via P2Pnet]

Today saw the announcement of a partnership agreement between BitTorrent and San Jose based ISP GNi. GNi will provide BitTorrent with a single connection that peers into six networks to ensure consistent access to fast connections.

"Essentially we partnered with GNi because as BitTorrent becomes a key player in the online video distribution space, it is imperative that we have reliable IP support," said Lily Lin, director of communications for BitTorrent. "With a secure,
scalable and fast network solution in place, BitTorrent can focus on delivering the best user experience."

When the Bittorrent distribution deal was announced a little over a month ago, I was sceptical about the benefits for wither company involved. But details in this PC Magazine story shed a whole different light on what may be going on here.

"It's a higher performance content delivery system," Wise said. "A lot of times when someone is downloading, it's smaller or the real time is not important because it's about the end result. Because this is a real-time streaming issue, it requires higher IP support. BitTorrent were more interested in finding a high-performance solution for bandwidth and that's what we do."

So, it's now a "real time streaming issue" which sounds much different than the internet movie delivery system were were talking about when the deal was announced. Since when is Bittorrent about real time, and just what are they cooking up here?

[via PC Mag]

Based on traffic figures for P2P networks popular in Germany, the German people aren't scared of recent enforcement efforts.

Barely a month after 3,500 file-sharing network users were placed under investigation by the public prosecutor's office in Cologne, the figures for P2P network use are back to where they were. This is a result of an analysis undertaken by the Leipzig-based company ipoque GmbH.

This seems to be the story all over the world, the RIAA / MPAA / IFPI / CIRA / et al lawsuits against individual P2P users are having little effect on filesharing. In fact, many sources sight growing numbers even in the face of mounting lawsuits.

[via Heise Online]

The raid and take-down of Bittorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay led to a veritable shower of press, and a substantial backlash from the Swedish people. During the course of Pirate Bay events, several sites and news organizations have cited pressure from the U.S. as a contributing reason for the raid.

Reports of U.S. involvement stem from a report by SVT.se, a respected Swedish news organization, who reported that the MPAA and the US government pressured the Swedish Minister of Justice to take enforcement action. Now, P2P fanboy site Slyck has details of the U.S. government and the RIAA's involvement with the raid.

It seems the U.S. government may have threatened sanctions under the WTO to force Sweden's hand in the matter. The WTO allows sanctions against member countries that fail to enforce the WPO's strict stance on copyright.

"I know that the USA has opinions on the effectiveness in our system when it comes to copyright and that if Sweden and other countries aren't following their international agreements there are sanction mechanisms in the USA, which have been pointed out from their side." said State Secretary Dan Eliasson.

This is a severe blow to public relations efforts surrounding the raid in Sweden. the public has raised serious concerns over the Justice Ministry's involvement with a specific criminal/civil case. Under the Swedish constitution, the government or ministry cannot become involved with a local police action or prosecution.

It's nice to see there is a population somewhere in the world that will figuratively stand in front of the RIAA's tanks as they try to storm through town. We reported the other day that things were heating up on the political front in Sweden, adding in these additional variables could make for an interesting Swedish election.

Former White House security advisor Howard Schmidt, turned private-sector president of R&H Security Consulting warned corporations they need to address a "new generation" of security weaknesses enabled by peer-to-peer (P2P) networks on the systems of third-party contractors and business partners.

"It's a very important and emerging issue," Schmidt said. "We [talk a lot] about intrusion detection and antivirus...but one thing we're not paying enough attention to is P2P file sharing networks and how much data we're really exposing inadvertently, which we have no control over."

Shenanigans. Yes, you heard me, shenanigans. This is an excellent example of a security "expert" using the spooky acronym P2P to sell security audits. This is the equivalent of telling you how dangerous your neighborhood is while trying to sell you an alarm system. Schmidt didn't stop there, he went on to expose exactly what this enormous P2P threat is:

"Schmidt said IT managers typically control the use of file sharing networks within their own networks but contractors or agents working for their organisation can often keep or access corporate data on their laptops or home PCs, alongside P2P clients. He added that these users may then look for music or movie downloads on P2P applications, and inadvertently expose the entire contents of the hard drive."

I'm not buying it. Sure, theoretically someone could make several mistakes in setting up eDonkey or a similar file-sharing app, and potentially expose some data. However, from a risk management point of view the threat of spyware/malware or keylogging applications is a much larger blip on the radar.

It seems villainizing P2P as a concept hasn't gone out of style. Sometimes I wonder if it ever will.

[via IT Week]

It looks like The Pirate Bay raid may have done more harm than good, at least if you're on the side of the content owners. Swedish politicians are looking towards a September election, and 5 of the 7 major political parties have agreed to look at  Swedish copyright law reform, even in the face of an EU directive that prohibits "unauthorized downloading or uploading of copyright-protected files"

"The fallout from the May 31 raid on The Pirate Bay has made clear just how widespread and deeply entrenched file-sharing has become in Sweden. On-line forums have been filled with protests against the raid, and a pro-piracy demonstration in early June drew close to 1,000 people. A poll published in early June showed that three out of four Swedes between 18 and 21 supported file-sharing, even if it was illegal."

With 1 million potential votes hanging in the balance, Swedish politicians are salivating at this huge swing vote.

"As a country at the forefront of information technology, we also have to be at the forefront of how we legislate the issue.  Above all, we have to say yes to technological development, and encourage people to use computers and to download." said justice minister, Thomas Bodstrom.

[via International Herald Tribune]

The latest fad in P2P isn't P2P at all. Some clever soul has created a simple interface that allows the layperson to search using Google for Mp3's. 

Something tells me this won't last long. "Quick and dirty website allowing you to search Google for MP3s. No need to remember all those funny codes and parameters."

Funny codes and parameters indeed. A few quick tests with the G2P interface show that it does find files containing the artist name, and with an extension of "mp3". The trick uses a default behavior of the Apache webserver to identify pages that have been indexed in Google containing the standard Apache boilerplate that is generated when a published directory has no index file.

While Google, quite obviously, passes the "substantial non-infringing uses" test layed out in U.S. court decisions, the G2P interface does not.

[via Digg]

I recently blogged about the RIAA's new public message that P2P file-sharing has been contained, and how the real truth is P2P file-sharing is still on the rise. Today, Thomas Mennecke of Slyck points out that not only is P2P use on the rise, but weekly digital sales numbers are declining as well.

"According to Neilson[sic]/Soundscan's statistics, in January '06, 17.56 million tracks were sold. This number fell to 16.68 million in April. Although this decline is modest, it's a direction few in the music industry want to see. By comparing the trend lines of digital sales in 2005 and 2006, the two appear precariously destined to collide in early 2007."

It's highly unlike Bainwol to dismiss P2P as a problem; he obviously has access to Soundscan numbers and to any research I'm able to dig up. So what's the rub? I'm still betting that the RIAA's new public stance is a method to distance itself from the continued bad press generated by individual lawsuits against 18,000 Americans.

[via Slyck]

There is little doubt that P2P will play a huge role in our non-stop-content consuming future. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, major media players such as Disney, Sony, Warner and Universal will harness peer-to-peer networks in order to lower cost and reap the benefits from millions of dollars in "free" bandwidth.

"Regular high profile coverage of disputes involving content distribution websites of uncertain legality tend to imply that P2P is inherently a "bad thing," said James Penhune, Director of Broadband Media and Communications research. "P2P will ultimately provide considerable benefits for content providers seeking to tap into the growing demand from consumers for video, music and games delivered over the Internet."

In the process these companies may change how the Internet operates. Controling the files via DRM will allow companies to freely distribute files, but still control who, how and where the media can be enjoied.

If commercial content providers are allowed to shift the burden of distribution on to the back of home-broadband connections, residential ISPs will face significant pressure. Many ISPs are already working to change laws that govern the Internet and, if their first attempt fails, don't be surprised to see them back again, only this time with more data on how P2P content distribution is forcing their hand into changing the way they charge for internet access. 

Two companies are already leading the charge into consumer-provided distribution networks. EMI, who recently announced a deal with veteran P2P name Qtrax, will use consumers broadband connections in conjunction with Qtrax client software to allow users the ability to listen to songs before buying them. At the same time, EMI plans to serve those listeners with advertisements, covering the cost of its own licensing fees. What would normally be financially impossible due to bandwidth costs, EMI is making possible by pushing those large pipe bandwidth needs down the channel, to the thousands of smaller but still effective home broadband connections.

Warner Bros, who recently announced a deal with P2P software provider Bittorrent will do much the same thing, only with the much higher bandwidth requirements of digital movies. At the time of the announcement, I didn't see the point. But the recent fight around net neutrality makes one thing abundantly clear, the real pink elephant in the room is that companies want to use your bandwidth to increase their bottom line.

Make no mistake, this is what Web 2.0 means to the content providers. Lowering the cost of delivery to nothing while holding the line on prices, or finding new ways to charge for the same content are the only avenues the content owners seem to be able to find in order to satisfy shareholders with huge growth numbers in stagnent markets.

Ten unfortunate companies who had servers in the same data-center as The Pirate Bay were caught up in the recent Pirate Bay raid.

Instead of just taking The Pirate Bay's own servers police also took servers belonging to a diverse group of unconnected companies and organizations during the recent, widely publicized raid on the file-sharing giant. The businesses plan to demand compensation from the Swedish government as a result of lost business incurred during the raid and after.

The companies say they will hand in demands for between 10,000 and 200,000 kronor each to the Chancellor of Justice in Stockholm on Wednesday, amounts that they say correspond to their losses following the raids.

Police spokespeople and prosecutor Håkan Roswall have refused to comment on what led to the confiscation of the non-Pirate Bay  servers.

[via Digg]

The Piratebay is back home in Sweden again, according to Torrentspy. Forced to move due to a clean-the-place-out  Swedish police raid on their datacenter. After a short stay in The Netherlands the torrent tracker site has now managed to return home to provider network  "PRQ" in Sweden.

"At least, that's what the ip info tells us. Another point of interest is the "reverse DNS" that sends out a clear message to the MPAA and their friends;

hey.mpaa.and.apb.bite.my.shiny.metal.a**.thepiratebay.org."

Apparently the not-so-loveable Bender-from-Futurama is managing reverse DNS for The Pirate Bay's network.  In any event, the worlds most watched Bittorrent tracker has, for the moment, returned to normal service. It remains to be seen if it really is business-as-usual at Pirate Bay but, something tells me we haven't heard the last of this.

[via Torrentspy]

According to ProjectOpus, UMG is urging a tougher stance on music used in viral videos. Someone must've sent them one to many links to an Elaine-from-Sienfeld-esque dancing video featuring an RIAA member artist's music as the soundtrack.

"Some YouTube users have reportedly received cease and desist letters from the RIAA, demanding that the posted video be taken down. YouTube, however, is confident in its copyright policy because it warns people about violation, and pulls material upon request of the copyright holder."

This has been itching under the surface for a very long time. Back in February, Weblogs, Inc. founder Jason Calacanis generated quite a stir with a blog entry flatly titled, "Youtube Is Not A Real Business". In a classic moment of say-what-everyone-in-the-room-is-thinking, Calacanis wrote, "Napster and Kazaa had a ton of traffic too--it just wasn't web-based. If you could do an Alexa graph of Kazaa, BitTorrent, Usenet, and the old Napster they would be number one through four on Alexa"

ProjectOpus goes on to explain what may be the impetus for UMG's fresh take, "Until lately, videos were always seen as a promotional tool for the song, and therefore the industry didn't see sharing of videos as any sort of threat. The viral aspect of videos was encouraged to help promote the sales of the songs themselves. Recently, though, the videos have found value, mostly proven with Apple selling digital music videos at $1.99 as part of the larger move which also includes TV shows."

Could we see Youtube as the next lawsuit-target-practice victim?