TorrentFreak

Contrary to the endless lobbying and subsequent defending of the now-dead SOPA and PIPA frameworks, a leaked report shows that earlier this year the RIAA’s Deputy General Counsel admitted that the legislation was “not likely to have been effective tool” for dealing with music piracy. All efforts are now being put behind the “six strikes” plan – but could disconnections for repeat infringers still be on the agenda?

A leaked presentation from the RIAA shows that online file-sharing isn’t the biggest source of illegal music acquisition in the U.S. The confidential data reveals that 65% of all music files are “unpaid” but the vast majority of these are obtained through offline swapping. The report further shows that cyberlockers such as Megaupload are only a marginal source of pirated music.

This morning we reported on RIAA’s suggestion that Google and other search engines should ban sites like The Pirate Bay. While The Pirate Bay is generally against censorship, they welcome this proposal. The world’s most famous BitTorrent site says that only a small percentage on their visitors come from search engines. So instead of less [...]

In a testimony before Congress on “The Future of Audio” today, RIAA CEO Cary Sherman will stress that more needs to be done to stop online piracy. In particular, search engines such as Google and Bing have to take responsibility and come up with appropriate technological solutions. The RIAA wants these search engines to censor pirate sites from their search results while giving priority to legitimate music services.

When it comes to entitlement, few private companies can match the RIAA. The latest cause of their whines is Google. After Google published their report last week on DMCA takedowns, the RIAA is determined to make out that Google is the problem, because almost 1.25 million removed links in one year wasn’t enough, and it’s all Google’s fault, despite the search giant having absolutely no hand in putting any of them online.

The case of the RIAA vs. Joel Tenenbaum – aka the case that will not die – took another turn today. Although not an entirely unexpected one. The Supreme Court has refused to hear his case. While this is not the be-all-and-end-all for the case, it’s another roadblock. At issue was the matter of excessive [...]

It took more than half a decade, but there’s finally something we can agree on with the RIAA. After suing college students, shutting down LimeWire and pushing for draconian anti-piracy laws, the RIAA now finally admits that the best answer to illegal downloading is innovation. A milestone, but unfortunately also a message that is bundled with the usual creative statistics that have to be debunked.