After high-level discussions on the piracy situation in 2008, the Italian government has announced the signing of an agreement which will see it collaborate with the French on the issue. Of concern to those sharing files online, Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi says Italy will follow the “French model”.
Soulseek is one the greatest music sharing communities that most of the world has never heard of. Covering all genres, Soulseek is an active network specializing in electronic music, where many of the members are musicians themselves. The music industry, however, sees the filesharing application as a threat, and will go after Soulseek in court.
French record labels have received the green light to sue four US-based companies that develop P2P applications, including the BitTorrent client Vuze, Limewire and Morpheus. Shareaza is the fourth application, for which the labels are going after the open source development platform SourceForge.
Edging ever closer to becoming law, France’s “three-strikes” proposals have received support in the French Senate which voted overwhelmingly in favor for these draconian measures to deal with piracy. Now, a new report suggests that online piracy has become something of a ‘national sport’ in France.
