Only a few weeks ago, a University of Washington study showed showed how inaccurate the MPAA and RIAA’s evidence gathering techniques are. Now, instead of improving their pirate chasing tactics, the MPAA simply claims they don’t need any evidence to bankrupt “alleged” copyright infringers.
Despite public protests both online and on the streets of Stockholm, the Swedish parliament has voted in favor of a new “wiretapping” law which invades the privacy of its citizens by allowing the government to monitor web traffic and phone calls, without the need for court orders or similar authorization.
During the last couple of years, hundreds of people have received letters from lawyers demanding compensation for the alleged uploading of copyright works. Their demands state that if you don’t pay up, you will be taken to court and dealt with severely. However, when people refuse to pay - nothing happens.
Canada, one of the shining lights in the copyright and intellectual property world, has a shadow approaching that may dim that for all. The name of that shadow? Bill c-61, which was formally introduced by Industry minister Jim Prentice an hour or two ago. One of the ‘highlights’ is the abolition of court’s flexibility in statutory damages, fixing it at $500 (CAD)
A new paper from the University of Washington department of Computer Science and Engineering, has investigated a problem with current DMCA notices and the methods used in dealing with them. It puts further pressure on anti-p2p groups like BayTSP to validate their claims.
Police officer Jim Keyzer, the leader and key witness in the Pirate Bay investigation, has returned to his job at the police’s IT crime unit after being employed by Warner Bros. for several months. Warner Bros now admits Keyzer was working for them while he was leading the Pirate Bay investigation.
Following revelations on Friday that police had begun to arrest ex-OiNK users, we are now in a position to add further details. The police are arresting people allegedly involved in the pre-release uploading of music albums, accusing them of ‘Conspiracy to Defraud the Music Industry’.
TorrentFreak has received information which suggests that British police have made good on their claim that they would go after ex-users of OiNK. Last week, several officers arrested at least one individual for the seeding of a single album. It is believed police are in the process of arresting and questioning others.
Newzbin, considered by many to be the internet’s premier indexer and .nzb provider, is under legal threat from the MPAA. The site, which was the creator of Usenet’s answer to the .torrent file, will likely have to undergo significant changes in order to appease the movie studios.
