The prototype is able to locate the position of a digital camera, before overwhelming it with white light to render any recorded images useless.

The technology works by looking for the digital camera's image sensor known as a charge-coupled device (CCD).

These silicon sensors are retroreflective, which means that they reflect light directly back to its origin, rather than scattering it.

"The biggest problem is making sure we don't get false positives from, say, a large shiny earring," said Jay Summet, a research assistant at Georgia Tech who helped build the device.

They also believe that a real-world version would probably use a laser to "blind" the image sensor.

Nearly a year after the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling against online music file-sharing services, the CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America says unauthorized song swapping has been "contained."

Even with Grokster and WinMX shut down, their software programs still exist. Eric Garland, CEO of Internet measurement firm BigChampagne, says that more people than ever are using file-sharing networks. "Nearly 10 million people are online, swapping media, at any given time," he says. That May figure is up from 8.7 million people in 2005, he says.

Meanwhile, the RIAA is suing XM Satellite Radio, which introduced a portable $399 player (from Pioneer and Samsung) that lets subscribers record songs.

Former RIAA head Hilary Rosen now believes that the RIAA is wrong by pursuing their lawsuits of individuals for using P2P programs. In a blog post, she writes that she believes the lawsuits have 'outlived their usefulness' and states that the content providers really need to come up with their own download systems. She also is down on DRM, calling Apple's DRM 'a pain.'

The MPAA continues to reach out and send armies of lawyers to the owners of any website making use of BitTorrent and or other file-sharing systems.

The latest victim is Canadian-owned search engine website isohunt.com, which has been sued and labelled a pirate by the association.

As we noted in March, here, IsoHunt attempted to create a coalition in preparation to fight the evil empire on the grounds that the website was a mere search engine, and not a willful pirate site, and thus is doing nothing illegal.

Within the IsoHunt forums Gary Fung, the 23 year-old operator of IsoHunt, said, "the MPAA's allegation that our service is for the sole purpose of helping copyright infringement of their movies is plainly wrong."

The Swedish web operators behind raided site Piratebay.org will seek damages from the Swedish authorities if they can prove their innocence, according to a statement on the site earlier today.

The statement, which promised that the site would be functional again within a day or two, said that those behind the site "can receive compensation from the Swedish state [if] the upcoming legal processes show that [Piratebay] is indeed legal".

"[Anti piracy group] Antipiratbyran has clearly misled the police in this case," said Tobias Andersson of Piratbyran, a spin-off of Piratebay.org dedicated to promoting file-sharing. "They seem to have convinced incompetent police that the servers in question are filled with copyright protected materials." The Piratbyran statement said that there is "no illegal material on the actual server".

ThePirateBay.org's seizure was a welcomed turn of events for the entertainment industry. For three years, attempts to force ThePirateBay.org to comply with international copyright standards were met with mockery, contempt, and ridicule. With ThePirateBay.org offline, the various entertainment industries that assisted expressed their satisfaction.

During the raid, each and every server that was hosted by PRQ was seized, despite the proper labeling of each domain. Not only did the Swedish National Police succeed in removing ThePirateBay.org, but every other domain hosted by PRQ.

The seizure of these domains, which total between 200 and 300, affected a wide range of websites. While some were smaller, personal websites, many were business oriented websites that depend on advertising for the owner's personal livelihood. Either way, virtually all servers confiscated had absolutely nothing to do with piracy, ThePirateBay.org, or the online copyright wars.

"Antipiratbyran has obviously mislead the police in this case" said Tobias Andersson from PiratByran. "They seem to have told the incompetent police that the servers in question is filled with copyright protected material, this is a huge misuse of the tax payers money."

It's interesting to note the motivation behind the raid was to secure the economic interests of the entertainment industry. Yet to this day, no clear connection has been established between downloading a copyrighted work and a dollar lost.

"The tragic circumstance, (probably typical of illegal actions by legal authorities), is that the most damage is done to people and companies who have nothing whatsoever to do with the matter at hand. I am thinking of the customers of PRQ. The least damage was done to TPB. As I take it, they have bought new servers, installed back-ups and are already up and running tests in at least one foreign server centre. Perhaps their down time is shorter than any of the other PRQ customers affected."

In their native Sweden, ThePirateBay.org enjoyed a level of immunity from copyright prosecution rarely seen in the file-sharing world. Often defiant in the face of those wishing to enforce their intellectual property rights, ThePirateBay.org would go on to become one of the premier BitTorrent indexing and tracking sites.

The seizure of ThePirateBay.org's entire server farm will guarantee this BitTorrent tracker will remain offline until the police complete their investigation. Whether this will keep ThePirateBay.org offline indefinitely is another matter.

"We are not sure when it will return, but we are moving it to another country if necessary," brokep said.

According to The Pirate Party, a Swedish copyright reform organization, the raid also seized Piratbyran's (the Pirate Bureau) servers. In addition, The Pirate Party reports "...the servers where located in a protected area, to which the police had no legal right to enter..." Approximately 50 police participated in the raid, which placed into custody two PirateBay.org personnel.

Online file-sharing service BearShare, along with operators Free Peers Inc., is packing it up due to a $30 million settlement with the recording industry. The conditions of the settlement were agreed to by the P2P company to avoid further copyright infringement litigation.

BearShare was among several P2P service to receive cease-and-desist letters from the RIAA in September of last year. Others include Warez P2P, Limewire, eDonkey, and Soulseek, all of whom have not yet reached a settlement.

Software companies and their shill groups have been spreading around reports on the "cost" of piracy, which are made bogus by their assumption that every pirated copy of software equates to a lost sale, which simply isn't the case. Now, the MPAA has joined the fun, saying piracy costs it $6.1 billion a year.

The MPAA didn't want to release the study, and it's little wonder why: doing so would not only call into question its previous research, but also be a tacit admission that its "war" on piracy is failing, and failing badly.

The entertainment industry's misguided strategy, reliant on legislation and litigation, is only succeeding at one thing: turning customers into criminals. The industry is fighting a losing battle, and nothing will change until it puts a higher priority on reforming its business models than it does on locking down content and locking up pirates.

Some of Canada's best-known musicians have launched the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, which in the words of the coalition will "ensure that lobbyists for major record labels and music publishers are not the only voices heard in debates about Canada's copyright laws and other key cultural policy issues."

What do they stand for? Given that the artists take umbridge at the fact that the record labels make demands in their name, I'll let them speak for themselves:

"Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
Artists do not want to sue music fans. The labels have been suing our fans against artists' will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in artists' names

Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive
Artists do not support using digital locks to increase the labels' control over the distribution, use and enjoyment of music or laws that prohibit circumvention of such technological measures. Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice.

Cultural Policy Should Support Actual Canadian Artists
The vast majority of new Canadian music is not promoted by major labels, which focus mostly on foreign artists. The government should use other policy tools to support actual Canadian artists and a thriving musical and cultural scene."

For these artists to publicly stand up and say no to P2P lawsuits, no to statutory damages, no to the use of DRM, and no anti-circumvention legislation takes real courage.