While the eXeem project to decentralize Bittorrent remains in open beta, the Azureus Java Bittorrent project has recently released a major update that, among other things offers 'a distributed, decentralised database that can be used to track decentralised torrents. This permits both "trackerless" torrents and the maintenance of swarms where the tracker has become unavailable or where the torrent was removed from the tracker.' It doesn't contain the search functionality of eXeem, but it's also not a beta product and is licensed under the GPL. Could this and compatible clients be the replacement to SuprNova and Lokitorrents, or does the lack of search negate its effectiveness?

A hacker has created a virus that targets music lovers by deleting MP3 files on infected computers, according to antivirus company Sophos.

Nopir.B is designed to look like a DVD-cracking program, to fool people looking for a program that will circumvent copy-restriction technology on the discs. When the worm is downloaded and run, it attempts to delete all MP3 music files and wipe some programs from the infected PC, the company said in its advisory.

"The Nopir.B worm targets people it believes may be involved in piracy, but fails to discriminate between the true criminals and those who may have legally obtained MP3 files," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said in a statement. "Whichever side of the fence you come down on in regards to Internet piracy, there's no debate about the criminal nature of this worm--it's designed to inflict malicious damage on people's Windows computers."

A Finnish based company called Viralg is predicting the end of unauthorised file sharing.

The company claims their patented "overwrite" technology can mix files on a P2P network, corrupting downloads and rendering them worthless to play.

Unlike current fake file spamming techniques used, Viralg claim their system is effective against those experienced at spotting fake files and even verified file sites.

"We make viable non-working file with a working file hash, so when someone tries to download a working file he/she will receive a random mix of working and non-working file. The final content depends on many things (bandwidth, sources etc.)"

"Simply, we can deliver corrupted content with the same hashcode," the press office informed Slyck.

The technique has not been tested with BitTorrent.

Not content with creating a continent-spanning lawsuit-sharing network using special P2P (person to perpetrator) technology, the record companies' consortium, the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) now wants your ISP to sign up to a new "code of conduct" that it has helpfully drafted with the help of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

Under the new code, ISPs would put in place filtering technology to block services and/or sites that "are substantially dedicated to illegal file sharing or download services". They would retain data beyond what law enforcement agencies require, with the aim of helping track down copyright infringement. They'd hand that data, plus your identity, over to the IFPI or MPA if there was even a complaint - not a court order - against you for, you guessed it, copyright infringement.

According to the draft, the duo want ISPs and network operators to "enforce terms of service that prohibit a subscriber from operating a server, or from consuming excessive amounts of bandwidth where such consumption is a good indicator of infringing activities."

The RIAA said it will today sue over 400 students with access to Internet2, the high speed next-generation network, for copyright infringement. The experimental network is used by universities and researchers and has been demonstrated to transmit a DVD in around 30 seconds.

The sheer speed of I2 makes file sharing much more attractive, exponentially increasing the amount of revenue lost to artists by the RIAA's failure to lobby for a scheme that reimburses them. Similar schemes have been implemented for radio and public broadcast - new technologies that initially robbed artists of their revenue while expanding the potential audience for their creative works. But rather than having the courage to lobby for the traditional reimbursement model to be applied to digital media, the RIAA instead wants the new technology outlawed.

"We cannot let this high-speed network become a zone of lawlessness where the normal rules don't apply," said Cary Sherman, RIAA president.

Quite the contrary. It's the RIAA that has refused to contemplate "the normal rules", and by shunning any prospect of a compulsory license, has denied many millions of dollars of due royalties to its members, royalties those artists rightfully deserve.

The Canadian government has been the target of intense lobbying for stronger copyright legislation in recent months. Led by the music industry, which claims that it has experienced significant financial losses due to music downloading, the campaign culminated in November 2004 with a lobby day on Parliament Hill.

Just weeks before the lobby day, CRIA General Counsel Richard Pfohl told a university audience that the figure was actually C$450 million per year since 1999, totaling roughly C$2 billion over the past five years.

Using CRIA's own numbers and 1999 as a benchmark, the cumulative decline in CD sales revenue in Canada is C$431.7 million. Given that total CD sales revenues during the period totaled C$3.7 billion, the percentage decline is a relatively modest 8.6 percent.

Although the music industry seems loath to discuss the matter publicly, according to an October 2004 Economist article, an internal music label study found that between 2/3 and 3/4 of recent sales declines had nothing to do with Internet music downloads.

The evidence suggests that Canadian artists have scarcely been harmed by the reduced sales from 1999 to 2004 since royalty losses are fully compensated through the private copying levy.

Following years of lobbying by CRIA, a new reality is only now coming to light - music downloading is not responsible for the ills of the music industry and Canadian artists have not been harmed by the sales declines that have occurred over the past five years.

Last year, Hollywood put on a push to get the government to allocate FBI and Department of Justice resources towards helping them prop up their obsolete business model. The idea was that the RIAA's own private police force didn't have enough of an ability to break down doors themselves, but those fancy FBI badges do wonders -- so why not let the FBI take on investigations in civil disputes that really shouldn't involve the government at all? Well, after declaring that the "war" (yes, they called it that) on intellectual property violations was just as serious as the (oh so successful) "wars" on drugs, terrorism and corruption, it appears the FBI is finally spending our hard earned tax dollars scanning the internet for people listening to music they didn't pay for. Is this really the best use of FBI resources at this particular time -- especially as more and more artists are looking to embrace file sharing as "the new radio?"

Concerning the bust at the Swedish ISP Bahnhof on March 10, IDG Sweden is reporting that Bahnhof has posted their findings of an internal inspection. It seems as if the Anti-Piracy Buereau of Sweden and their infiltrator "Rouge" had a good deal of involvement in supporting the busted FTP server not only with hardware but with so called "warez" as well. The blog of Lars Backlund has a translated version of the interview conducted in the report of Bahnhof. P2PNet.net has a breakdown of the relevant details as well. From the article: "As it turns out, APB (or, rather, their hired informer) supplied the servers and uploaded copyrighted materials. So that's why they were so sure to find stuff, they put it there!"

Benjamin Edelman, a PhD candidate in Economics and a Law student at Harvard, has analyzed the hidden (or not) additions to a user's machine when they install some of the major Windows P2P clients. He analyzes the length and readabilty of their licenses, what is revealed or hidden in the software's installer and includes screenshots for illustration. Clear, concise and eye-opening.

A french appeal court ruled yesterday in favour of somebody who downloaded about 500 movies, on the ground that those were private copies, and that he didn't redistributed them, and that a tax was payed on blank media. This sets the huge precedent that P2P is legal over there. For the details, apparently no distinction was made on the method used to download the movies (upload issues) and the famous EUCD directive was even used by the defending lawyer.