File-swap 'killer' grabs attention
A new political battle is brewing over Net music swapping, focusing on a company that claims to be able to automatically identify copyrighted songs on networks like Kazaa and to block illegal downloads.
The company's main demonstration for the last several weeks has been a version built into a piece of open-source Gnutella software. Similarly, it could be built into any other popular file-swapping package, company CEO Ikezoye said.
In that software-based version, the technology watches what songs are being downloaded, and when it has enough data to make a match--usually about a third to half of the file--it uses the Net connection to call Audible Magic's database. If it finds a match with a copyrighted song, it stops the download midstream.
Audible Magic's technology is far from perfect, even if it works as demonstrated. It's most critical weakness is likely to be encrypted files and encrypted networks, which its audio recognition software can't break through. Nor is it difficult to imagine hackers creating "cracked" versions of file-swapping software that have the song-recognition technology broken or stripped out, if legislators were to mandate its use.
The Answer to Piracy: Five Bucks?
Perhaps, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital-rights group recently proposed the idea of having file sharers pay a monthly surcharge in exchange for the right to share away. The charge would be voluntary and could be levied through the sharers' Internet service provider, software client or university dorm fee. And the money would go to the artists.
The idea has worked before. Broadcast radio stations paid a similar flat fee to ASCAP and BMI -- organizations representing songwriters, composers and music publishers -- to play their music as much as they wanted, he said.
David Sutphen, vice president of government relations for the RIAA, immediately pooh-poohed the idea. File sharers still would search out a way to download music for free, he said, and under the proposed system, all music would have the same value, which doesn't make sense. One-hit wonder Vanilla's Ice's "Ice Ice Baby," for example, would have the same value as The Beatles catalog.
However, Sutphen said the RIAA realizes that suing people will not solve the piracy problem completely. He admitted that "record labels will have to change the role that they play," but said there will always be the need for someone to invest in artists, promote them, make the videos and distribute the music.
RIAA's New Seal of Disapproval
Music, software, video-game and DVD packages shortly will carry the famous FBI stamp and warnings about piracy, in a move to hammer home the message that stealing copyright materials is a serious crime, industry officials said Thursday.
"It is our hope that when consumers see the new FBI warning on the music they purchase, both physically and online, they will take the time to learn the dos and don'ts of copying and uploading to the Internet," said Brad Buckles, vice president of antipiracy at the Recording Industry Association of America. "These are serious crimes with serious consequences -- including federal prosecution -- if the wrong choices are made about copying or uploading music without permission."
"Once again the recording industry is putting its effort into scare tactics rather than market solutions," said Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The last thing music fans want is another stern warning from the recording industry."
Morris mom turns tables in music lawsuit
In what legal experts described as a novel strategy, Scimeca is citing federal racketeering laws like the one that jailed mob boss John Gotti to countersue record labels that accused her in December of sharing some 1,400 copyrighted songs over the Internet.
Labels are using "scare tactics (that) amount to extortion" in efforts to extract settlements, Scimeca alleges in legal papers sent to the U.S. District Court in Newark.
"They're banding together to extort money, telling people they're guilty and they will have to pay big bucks to defend their cases if they don't pony up now. It is fundamentally not fair," Scimeca's lawyer, Bart Lombardo, said yesterday. The Cranford attorney said he occasionally downloads songs for personal use and sees nothing wrong with that.
"It strikes me as a very innovative use of the law. Very innovative," said Gregory Mark, a law professor at the Rutgers School of Law-Newark.
File-sharing issue lands in court again
Hollywood attorneys tried to persuade a three-judge panel to overturn a lower court's ruling that the Grokster and Morpheus file-sharing services are not responsible for copyright violations committed by people who use their software to illegally trade music and movies. But a skeptical 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel pressed the lawyers to defend their contention that file-sharing services should be stripped of the protections afforded technological innovation by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge Sidney R. Thomas, regarded as among the most technologically astute of the 9th Circuit judges, noted that users of the file-swapping networks could continue to trade files, even if Morpheus and Grokster were shut down immediately.
Meanwhile, Carey Ramos, a New York attorney representing songwriters, received a stern rebuke from Noonan to "curtail that use of abusive language," when he began to heatedly criticize the services as "trafficking in pirated goods."
Grokster, Morpheus face MPAA in appeals court
Are P2P companies responsible for the law-breaking actions of their users? That's the question lawyers from the content industry and file-sharing software suppliers Grokster and Morpheus went to court yesterday to argue.
In court, the content industry's advocates argued before the Tribunal that Grokster and Morpheus should be forced to incorporate technology that blocks the sharing of copyright material - essentially to turn them into copyright police.
Grokster's attorney, Michael Page, noted that if the two companies are held liable for illegal file-shares, so too would ISPs, CD and DVD burner manufacturers and other software suppliers, too.
Lindows offers software for free over P2P
Linux software seller Lindows.com announced it plans to distribute its LindowsLive operating system for free via peer-to-peer networks.
LindowsLive allows people to run a Linux-based operating system from a CD, without installing it on their computer. The product previously retailed for $29.95 and was also sold over the Internet in a form that could be burned to a CD.
Lindows has a running legal battle with Microsoft over the name of the company, which the software behemoth claimed infringes on a Microsoft trademark. The two companies also have sparred over MSFreePC.com, a Web site set up by Lindows that offered to process customer claims from the settlement of a California class-action suit against the software giant. Earlier this month, a judge ruled against the Web site, forcing it to be shuttered.
P2P companies say they can't filter
Responding to sharp criticism from legislators, a group of file-swapping companies told Congress that they have no ability to block copyrighted files or child pornography from their networks.
Graham and a quartet of other legislators sent a letter to P2P United's member companies last November, asking for assurances that the file-swapping companies would attempt to stop illegal material from being traded through their networks.
A company called Audible Magic, which installs song-recognition software inside Internet service provider networks, with the promise of identifying and blocking trades of copyrighted songs, demonstrated its software to members of Congress and the press in Washington D.C.
Crypto plan to anonymise P2P, thwart RIAA
Leading P2P activists have reacted to the prospect of the extension of a legal crackdown on file swappers in the UK with plans to build greater anonymity into their networks.
The developers of popular P2P app Blubster, which boasts an estimated four million users, plan to incorporate encryption technology and other techniques to give file-sharers greater anonymity. The scheme would mean that files were downloaded through a number of machines and only pieced together at a requesting computer.
"Each time they say that the sky is falling in. Now they want to blame file-sharing for all their problems."
"It's hurt their business - but nowhere near as much as what they claim," he added.
Report: Illegal Music Downloading Climbs
LOS ANGELES - The number of people downloading music illegally surged a month after recording companies began suing hundreds of music fans, a marketing research firm said Thursday.
The number of U.S. households downloading music from peer-to-peer networks rose 6 percent in October and 7 percent in November after a six-month decline, according to a study of computer use in 10,000 U.S. households conducted by The NPD Group.
Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Washington-based RIAA, which coordinates the industry's anti-piracy campaign, said that effort is on the right track, regardless of what the NPD studies show.
"For us, the ultimate measurement of success has been, and continues to be, creating an environment where legal online music services can flourish," Lamy said in a statement. "All indicators point in the right direction - sales of CDs, legal downloads and awareness that file sharing copyrighted music is illegal - have all increased."
A survey released earlier this month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore Media Metrix found that since May, the percentage of U.S. Internet users who download music was down by half, to 14 percent. The same report also found declines in usage of popular file-sharing programs such as Kazaa and Grokster.