This year, several companies launched advertising programs targeted at the millions of users of Limewire and other Gnutella or eD2k based filesharing applications. The boundary between advertisement and plain old spam is completely disappearing, especially with the recently launched service ‘PeerMatrix’.
Torrentz.com, the largest BitTorrent meta-search engine on the Internet, is currently dealing with a hostile attempt to take over the site’s domain name. The admin of Torrentz has posted a message to all its users to inform them about the situation, and is optimistic that the issue will be resolved soon.
Two arch rivals from the KaZaA copyright infringement case have teamed up to produce what is being touted as a formidable anti-piracy system, converting pirates into paying customers. Installed at the ISP level so that users can’t easily bypass it, ‘Copyrouter’ is defeated by BitTorrent.
Spore, love it or loathe it, Will Wright’s new game has stayed in the news in the way his previous games have never managed. The game could also bring about big changes in both DRM and copyright law, as the debate heats up over it’s DRM. While EA puts a brave face on things, as a class action suit is filed.
In a keynote speech at the Broadband World Forum, John McMahon, President of Sony Pictures Television asked ISPs to join their battle against piracy. McMahon further said that DRM is one of the major causes of piracy, but says Sony doesn’t have any plans to get rid of it.
The anti-piracy lobby has been putting pressure on ISPs to act against customers who download copyright infringing content. Thus far, most ISPs have simply forwarded the takedown requests they receive, but Cox Communications is taking it one step further, by disconnecting alleged copyright infringers.
Two brothers who made millions from an empire of scam file-sharing sites have had their identities revealed. Matt and Jake Dylewski mis-sold subscriptions to FullReleases.com and dozens of similar sites, misleading customers and motivating them to take action. Most of the sites have been taken offline.
There is a continuing battle surrounding Digital Rights Management (DRM). While most rights holders see it as a way of maximizing their profits, users see it as a way to reduce their ability to actually use the products they bought, the way they want to. Ironically, one of the books that spells out what is wrong with DRM, is now available with DRM.
If you believe the anti-piracy lobbies, Audible Magic’s CopySense system is the absolute best system you can buy, protecting Universities, and more importantly, their students, from copyright violation accusations. However, the question has to be asked, “Does it really work?”
The spokesperson of the German Pirate Party saw his house raided after the party published a leaked document which showed that the government uses a homemade “trojan” to wiretap Skype conversations. In addition, a server from another party member was seized.
A new trend is surfacing, as spammers have sent out millions of emails targeting BitTorrent users. The emails, that claim to come from MediaDefender, warn the receiver that he or she has been logged using BitTorrent and points them to an attachment supposedly containing evidence, but which is in fact infected with a virus.
