This judge was caught on tape (included at the end), beating his then-16yo Cerebral Palsy suffering daughter back in 2004. The reason for the beating? She used Kazaa to obtain some music.

Now, after a year of investigation, (all while he has been paid $146,000/year) Judge-at-Large William Adams, of Aransas County, Texas is back on the bench and issuing judgements.

In its November 6 order, the Texas Supreme Court agreed with a deal between Adams and the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct.

As part of that deal, a public warning was issued to Adams on September 5 2012, but no further punishments were levied aside from a minor pay cut to $144,000/year (€113,000)

Part of the difficulty was that since the beating happened in 2004, meaning that the statute of limitations for Criminal Child Abuse had expired when the video was published by Adams’ daughter in November 2011. The Texas Supreme Court did express reservations about his suitability for the bench, but did not feel strongly enough to remove him.

Adams is free to sit in judgement of others in his Rockport, Texas courtroom until 2014, when he is up for re-election to the post. However, physical domestic abuse cases, which comprised much of his docket a year ago, will no longer grace his court.

Let’s hope Copyright Trolls are also barred from there as well.

Warning: Some will find the video extremely upsetting.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

BDE doesn’t want to limit their service to music downloads though, and they recently introduced a groundbreaking new feature.

According to the press release issued yesterday they are about to “shake up the online media industry.” Their masterplan? They will implement new technology that will allow their users to share photos, videos and even documents with each other.

This announcement is indeed quite a shocker. However, the press release has more surprises in it, such as the following product endorsement (or warning) by a ‘web hacker’ named Jonathan James.

“Jonathan James, Web Hacker spoke of the endless possibilities the software provides to the Kazaa community. “They are going to come at you like they came at ‘tereastarr,’” the press release reads.

First of all, it is kind of strange to include an endorsement from a seemingly unknown hacker in a press release. This aside, the statement doesn’t make much sense at all to those who have never heard of ‘tereastarr,’ and even less sense to those who do.

As P2P blog points out, ‘tereastarr’ was the Kazaa username of Jammie Thomas who was slapped with a $1.92 million verdict in her case against the RIAA last month. Thomas had been found guilty of sharing 24 songs using Kazaa, and was fined $80,000 per track.

Not really the sort of person you want to refer to in a press-release to ‘promote’ a product, unless you want to imply that the people who use your legal service might face such fines as well. The strangeness doesn’t stop there though.

The quote attributed to Jonathan James is in fact a quote from Jammie Thomas’ lawyer Joe Sibley who used the one-liner in her trial.

To make things even more disturbing, the web hacker Jonathan James most likely refers to Jonathan Joseph James, a convicted NASA hacker who ended his own life last year at the age of 24. Again, not an ideal person to quote and a particularly unhelpful image to paint when promoting a product.

The sentence has now been removed from the original press release indicating that Kazaa indeed regrets publishing this fabricated and insulting quote. Nevertheless, it can still be found online on several sites that copied the original release.

So what happened here? Did Kazaa think it was funny to put the names of Thomas and James in its press release? Have they lost their minds completely? We sincerely hope that this wasn’t intentional and that they’ve been pranked by some wannabe PR-agency.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

No more slow downloads, viruses, or adware/spyware required to find the files you are looking for. The Rhever application has a built in easy-to-use search engine to find what you are looking for and does not require you to troll websites looking for .torrent files.

Unfortunately for Rhever, there is no Internet ‘buzz’ around their brand, people just aren’t taking about it, which is a bit strange for such a seemingly great product. If you do a search, 95% of the stuff you’ll find are press releases – and they only appear to be designed to worry people onto their new service.

They play an awful lot on the closure of TorrentSpy in their attempts to generate fear, uncertainty, doubt – and new business for them.

The ‘launch‘ press release lays off most of the scare tactics but is still littered with strange and misleading statements. Rhever spam is posted on dozens of forums, like this one and there are also some ‘interesting’ articles and blog posts around (tagged ‘Rhever’) proclaiming the end of BitTorrent sites. Even Digg doesn’t escape Rhever spam submitted by the company itself.

Also, Rhever use the most contentious music industry statistics to ‘prove’ that other P2P networks are dangerous, and refer to the IFPI as “respected industry analysts.”

If the fear doesn’t work, maybe the comedy angle will get them some subscribers? Rhever has produced a series of (admittedly quite funny) promotional animations showing the benefits of using Rhever over existing file sharing networks. Take a look at the ‘Rhever vs LimeWire’ video below which says that Rhever has done the impossible – and completely eradicated viruses from its network. In its own words:

Each of its [Rhever's] 60,000 servers are run by an administrative team that monitors the servers for any rogue files – viruses, fake uploads and other negative features that are removed instantly

LimeWire vs Rhever

BitTorrent vs Rhever . In this video you will find the secret of the Rhever network..

So it seems Rhever is selling access to good old Usenet and advises its subscribers to use NZB files to get their material, recommending its own (currently non-operational) site to get them – NZB.net.

Considering that Rhever’s strategy is to worry people about the legality of their chosen method of sharing files so much that they sign up, they’re quite cavalier about their own legal position. NZB sites in the US don’t have a great lifespan and offering a full package with Usenet seems very brave.

Finally, here is the KaZaA vs Rhever video:

Rhever is keen to play on the adware bundled with KaZaA, and that proves interesting when armed with WHOIS.

Rhever.com and NZB.net are both owned by a company called JMH Media. JMH Media are the current owners of the MySpaceBar.com domain, which was previously connected to the Scam.MySpaceBar malware. Unsurprisingly, McAfee doesn’t like it at all.

I’m not exactly inspired with confidence to try this Rhever but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained! Time to sign up. Unfortunately, no matter what I put in I get errors, a point not lost on the solitary poster on the Rhever forums:

No mention of prices anywhere. No contract information. No proper terms or conditions. No company information. No privacy statement. No contact information. No postal address.

There is however, a link to the Rhever client, named ‘setup.exe’…..

Maybe Rhever’s fear-marketing has got to me? Far from being scared into leaving BitTorrent, all this uncertainty means that i’m too scared to even install ‘setup.exe’ due to what might be inside it – an instinct I acquired in my days as a LimeWire/KaZaA user. I think something just backfired.

Well then, another couple of hours wasted looking for The Holy Grail, only to realize that much like the French soldiers in the movie of the same name, I already have one.

What we really need now is a talented animator to make a proper ‘BitTorrent versus Rhever’ video….

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

At the moment, the top three BitTorrent sites host are handling the majority of all BitTorrent users, and even worse, The Pirate Bay tracks well over 50% of all public torrent files. BitTorrent has welcomed many new users over the past three years, and we are now in the uncomfortable situation where the downtime of one of the larger sites may cause problem for the others, simply because they can’t handle the traffic.

This is exactly what happened last month when Mininova was offline for a day due to a hardware problem. Mininova has well over three million visitors a day, these people went to other sites while Mininova was down, and this increase in traffic got some sites in serious trouble. The question is: Is there an alternative?

The answer to this question is yes and no. A solution to the tracker problem that works pretty well is DHT, or “trackerless torrents”. With DHT you can still connect to other people who are downloading the same file, even when the tracker for that torent is not working properly. Thanks to DHT, people were able to download torrents that were tracked by Demonoid.com, up to six months after the tracker went down. The downside of DHT (the mainline version) is that not all clients support it, and that it is maintained by one company, BitTorrent Inc.

Replacing BitTorrent sites is even more complex. How do you find torrents when there are no BitTorrent search engines that store them? A possible solution to this problem comes from researchers of Cornell University, who developed an Azureus plugin named Cubit. The Cubit plugin allows you to find torrents, and doesn’t require a centralized server as BitTorrent sites do. You basically search for torrent files among other peers, similar to Kazaa and Limewire. An interesting concept, but unfortunately, this also has a lot of downsides.

Cubit opens the gates for floods of spam, because it misses one key feature: moderation. Since BitTorrent has become so popular, anti-piracy organizations like MediaDefender and BayTSP are constantly uploading fake files, and scammers are uploading malware and spyware, often wrapped in fake media players.

To most people is goes unnoticed, but sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay have a dedicated team of moderators that remove hundreds of fake and scammy torrents a day. Together these moderators remove more than a thousand torrents per site, day in and day out. In addition, most BitTorrent sites also use IP-filters to prevent known scammers and anti-piracy outfits from uploading their content again.

So, for now, Cubit is not yet going to replace BitTorrent sites, as they need to address the lack of moderation first. Tribler, another application that is developing a BitTorrent site replacement that seems to be far ahead of Cubit, already implemented such moderation features and spam filtering. Branded as the “social” BitTorrent client, is also has community features that many people appreciate.

In sum, I think it is safe to conclude that BitTorrent as it is has some weak spots that could cause problems in the future. The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt – the top three BitTorrent sites – are all involved in a court case. Depending on the outcome of these cases, the need for alternative search technologies may become more apparent. For now, however, we need BitTorrent sites, and in particular their moderators.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

When EMI, Universal Music and Warner music reached settlement agreements with the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Bolt, they collected hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation – money that was supposed to go to artists whose rights had been allegedly infringed upon when the networks were operating with unlicensed music.

Now, according to an article, the managers of some major artists are getting very impatient, as it appears the very people who were supposed to be compensated – the artists – haven’t received anything from the massive settlements. They say the cash – estimated to be as much as $400m – hasn’t filtered through to their clients and understandably they’re getting very impatient.

Lawyer John Branca, who has represented the likes of The Rolling Stones and Korn, said: “Artist managers and lawyers have been wondering for months when their artists will see money from the copyright settlements and how it will be accounted for.”

Indicating the levels of impatience with the big labels holding the money he added: “Some of them are even talking about filing lawsuits if they don’t get paid soon.”

Of course, EMI, Universal and Warner have a different take on the delay, with sources suggesting that it’s down to the difficulties in deciding who gets what money, based on the levels of copyright infringement for each individual group or artist.

A recording industry on the back foot having spent most of its time fighting the digital revolution rather than becoming part of it, is clearly trying to hang on to every penny, even when it comes to compensating the artists who they claim they were defending by taking legal action in the first place.

Irving Azoff, who manages Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Van Halen, REO Speedwagon and Seal (amongst others) says it’s hard for artists to get what they deserve from the labels: “They will play hide and seek, but eventually will be forced to pay something,” he said. “The record companies have even tried to credit unrecouped accounts. It’s never easy for an artist to get paid their fair share.”

Typically, the labels see it a different way. An EMI spokeperson said that it was “sharing proceeds from the Napster and Kazaa settlements with artists and writers whose work was infringed upon” while Warner’s said the label is “sharing the Napster settlement with its recording artists and songwriters, and at this stage nearly all settlement monies have been disbursed.”

The Universal spokesman spoke only of the label’s ‘policy’ of sharing “its portion of various settlements with its artists, regardless of whether their contracts require it” with no mention of whether it had actually done this or not.

But typically, when money is involved, things start to get murky. The same sources who suggested the reasons for the delay in making payments are also suggesting that there might not be much money to even give to the artists.

It’s being claimed that after legal bills were subtracted from the hundreds of millions in settlements, there wasn’t much left over to hand out.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The report is based on data supplied by BigChampagne and PC Pitstop. BigChampagne is a company that tracks online media, it also provides provides Billboard online music charts. PC Pitstop gathers data by “inspecting” the computers of users that try their free online virus / spyware scanners. The data used in this report are collected from Windows registry and table entries of 1.5 million PC’s through these online diagnostic tests performed by PC Pitstop.

The results. The percentages in the table indicate the install base of the P2P applications:

In the report we further read that the once almighty “Kazaa family” is now only installed on 1.3% PCs. Newcomers like FrostWire and Pando are included in the report for the fist time with a 0.2% and 0.3% install rate respectively.

As said before, the usability of these figures are doubtful. Here are a few concerns. First of all, install rates do not equal usage. The fact that someone installed a P2P client does not mean that they actually use it. So the report can’t say much about the popularity of a filesharing network or application. They do not make these claims, but the way the data is presented is a bit misleading, to say the least.

For example, uTorrent is by far the most used BitTorrent client. Over 50% of the peers in an average BitTorrent swarm use uTorrent. It could be that uTorrent and BitTorrent Mainline are installed on almost an equal number of PCs, but that the BitTorrent mainline client is hardly ever used. For instance, novices may start with the mainline client, but move on to better BitTorrent clients later on.

Another remarkable point is the uTorrent data collection for this report. uTorrent doesn’t install itself, and even the installer doesn’t use the Windows registry. So how did they come up with these statistics on uTorrent then?

It is also funny to see mIRC in the top 10 of most installed filesharing application because it is so much more than this. Most people I know use mIRC for other purposes than sharing files.

The concerns raised here show that “power” is not always in numbers. They might have collected data from millions of users, but is this really valuable if you have no idea if they actually use the application? A survey among 10.000 users where you actually ask if, and how often they use these applications is probably more useful.

And on a final note, people who want to read the report, but don’t want to pay $195 might want to try Google’s backdoor. Doubtful statistics, doubtful security.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Borg are known, “both within and beyond Star Trek fandom for their relentless pursuit of what they want to assimilate,” says Wikipedia., and increasingly, Assimilate or Die seems to be the choice facing the commercial p2p application operators, with Bearshare as the latest company to go over.

Casualties in the p2p wars so far include it, Grokster, iMesh and LimeWire, with Morpheus, Blubster and Warez as the hold-outs. Sharman Networks’ Kazaa, which recently announced a $115 settlement deal, is a case by itself.

Kazaa became the p2p application, walking in the open door when Big Music crushed the original Napster. But it almost single-handedly introduced spyware to the Net to become a pariah within the informed p2p world, also being relentlessly pursued through the Ausralian courts by the Big Four labels who accused it of being a facillitator of ‘illegal’ file sharing.

Alone, it was a lost cause and Sharman associates Altnet, a peddler of a DRM application described by Freenet creator Ian Clarke as a lame duck, and Brilliant Digital Entertainment were in equally dire straits. But Sharman and its friends both achieved their ambitions and saved the day by ‘settling’ with the cartels, reaching an accord they’d been seeking for years and indeed, Altnet is already being touted on a Big Four site, re-introducing its so-called Global File Registry.

And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a shiny new (and ‘legal’) Kazaa will appear soon, ‘legal’ in this context meaning compliant with the desires of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the Big Four record label monopolies, with the major Hollywood studios close behind.

Meanwhile iMesh was in effect the first former independent p2p company to ‘settle’ with the Big Four Organized Music cartel, reopening as an “approved” p2p “network” soon afterwards.

In July 2004, the Big Four agreed to let iMesh continue operating, “even with millions of copyrighted songs being traded online – while the new service was being developed,” said CNET at the time. “In return, iMesh agreed to pay labels $4.1 million” and, there was, “genuine excitement about the offering,” the story had the Big Four’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) boss Mitch Bainwol saying.

Now, “iMesh, Inc. subsidiary MusicLab LLC today announced the beta launch of the newly acquired BearShare software in an authorized peer-to-peer application (P2P) – BearShare 6.0,” says an iMesh press release, going on:

“Continuing its commitment to the authorized P2P marketplace, iMesh offers consumers a compelling service inclusive of the traditional benefits common to the P2P file-sharing experience, while assuring compensation to registered rightsholders through the new BearShare application.

“With the acquisition of BearShare assets in May 2006, including its expansive user base, iMesh further solidifies its position as the largest globally active authorized P2P service.”

iMesh is run by ex-Sony Music boss Robert Summer.

One wonders what’ll happen to the Bearshare database with its priceless and confidential personal information on millions of former users? Similarly, wonders what’s to happen with the Kazaa user data base?

Kazaa was by far the most-named application in the vicious sue ‘em all marketing war run by the Big Four’s RIAA in the US and other so-called ‘trade’ organizations elsewhere in the world.

Meanwhile, BearShare 6.0 will include the introduction of a ToGo portable music renal service under which users pay to borrow downloads which disappear as soon as they stop paying.

“The service offers consumers both a subscription plan and a la carte options for premium content, with the ability to download and burn music and videos,” says the statement.

It’s free for 30 days, “and will transition to a subscription plan thereafter,” it adds.

Back to The Borg, they’ve, “become a powerful symbol in popular culture for any seemingly unstoppable force against which ‘resistance is futile’,” says Wikipedia.

Is that the case in the peer-to-peer world? Certainly, with The Borg controlling the mainstream lamescream media it seems to be.

But in Star Trek The Borg always eventually come unstuck, thanks to their untrammelled greed, and in the real online world, for the first time in history ordinary people are completely by-passing the traditional corporate press, using blogs and web sites to disseminate unspun, unfettered and accurate news and information to each other.

And with this parallel universes are building with corporations which thrive on consumer control, lies and deception in one, and communities which foster openness, truth and innovation, in the other.

Stay tuned.

p2pnet

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

But not any more.

That’s because they’ve found a clever, new ‘high tech’ way of getting the music out.

It’s called Kazaa, the self-same p2p file sharing application used by many, if not most, of the 19,000 or so men, women and children the RIAA has singled out as the back-drop for its bizarre RIAA sue ‘em all marketing campaign.

“I’ve been informed by more than one source that the major labels have encouraged the use of the very p2p networks they’re villifying,” Ray Beckerman, the New York lawyer who’s representing a number of RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) victims, has told p2pnet.

“Radio DJs have said the record company people who used to drop by with CDs would instead now tell them to get Kazaa, or gnutella or something, and download the song files that way.

“We have numerous affirmative defenses which would be supported by the fact that the RIAA has encouraged the very conduct it’s suing Marie Lindor for,” Beckerman says angrily.

Lindor is the Brooklyn, New York, home health aide who’s being sued by the Big Four Organized Music cartel’s RIAA.

Although she literally doesn’t know one end of a computer from another and has never even turned one on, according to Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BMG, she’s been using an “online distribution system” to, “download, distribute, and/or make available for distribution” copyrighted music.

Now Beckerman wants to see just how common the practice of employing the likes of Kazaa as a free corporate p2p promotional vehicle is, asking interested parties to call him at 212-763-6809, or email him here.

Definitely stay tuned.

p2pnet

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

But now it seems that Sharman Networks dropped the case for some mysterious reason

Jon writes:

Two months after receiving a summons telling me I was being sued for alleged libel by Kazaa owner Sharman Networks and Kazaa ceo Nikki Hemming, I’ve at last received the detailed notice of claims.

Filed with the Supreme Court of British Columbia, it includes two intriguing new documents.

One, from Sharman, reads:

No. S-063039
Vancouver Registry

TAKE NOTICE that the Plaintiff, Sharman Networks Limited, wholly discontinues this proceeding against the Defendants John Newton, Interserver Inc., John Doe, Jane Doe, Richard Roe and Jane Roe.

The other, from Hemming, states:

No. S-063039
Vancouver Registry

TAKE NOTICE that the Plaintiff, Nikki Hemming, wholly discontinues this proceeding against the Defendants John Doe, Jane Doe, and Jane Roe.

Why has Sharman suddenly abandoned its claims against me and p2pnet, leaving Hemming by herself?

At this point, we don’t know, but we’ll find out when she tries to justify them to a Canadian jury of my peers at some date yet to be decided.

Support Jon and his Blogsuit campaign

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

It sounds absurd, but it’s true. As if Kazaa isn’t evil enough as a crappy spyware bloated virus spreading piece of software by itself….

But serious, what’s really at stake here? Where’s the so called freedom of speech? Can people start suing bloggers for quoting anonymous comments?

Is that the future of blogging?

In my opinion there is one important question:

Do you believe it could be true?

I think that whenever a blogger hears or reads something that is interesting or noteworthy, he or she is entitled to quote it, without being sued by anyone. Let there be room for debate and discussion.

Jon Newton posted a story on Nikki Hemmings “money mansion” quoting AP and a comment on a previous story.

The first quotation is from a respectable news source (which doesn’t mean that it’s the truth), the second is from a anonymous commenter. The statements could be true or false. And if you take the time to read the comment, you will see that it is obviously not in favor of Nikki Hemming, but it’s more than the regular rant.

Of course, like we all know, comments quite often nothing more than rants and raves. Like this one I found:

Nikki Hemming is getting really desperate and has pretty much lost control of her personal life. She is battling with an addiction to pain killers and with a realization that as she turns 40 and is now past her peak as a woman, her life has been more of a failure than a success. Ironically it is the wealth of Sharman Networks which she is hiding from the Australian courts, that has been for her a curse rather than a blessing. It has given her enough idle time to destroy herself and to lose perspective on reality. She lives in a world of falsehood and deceit and she has no real friends…

So will I be next now?

Read more about the case, Jon’s thoughts, and the latest updates at p2pnet

You can support Jon, and thus bloggers rights by donating.

Help Jon beat the lawsuit

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.