TorrentFreak

A partnership between the RIAA, MPAA and the major ISPs, which would see the latter taking action against infringing customers, has been confirmed. If final agreement is reached – a point believed to be as close as next month – ISPs including AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon will begin taking increasingly severe measures against pirating customers.

A few interesting headlines have been floating around the Internet during the past few days. They all refer to the RIAA’s latest legal “target,” Box.net. “RIAA Starts Going After Cloud Storage Sites?” was the Time headline today. The answer is no. The RIAA isn’t going after the Box.net site, but one of its users who [...]

In the midst of their jury trial, the company behind the defunct LimeWire client and the RIAA settled their dispute out of court. Limewire will pay $105 million to compensate the major music labels for damages suffered. A moment of justice for the music industry, but not necessarily for the artists. The recouped money is destined for reinvestment in new anti-piracy efforts and will not be used to compensate any artists.

Having been destroyed by the world’s largest recording labels, the LimeWire file-sharing service is little more than a corpse at this stage. Nevertheless, its destruction and burial is not quite over. This week LimeWire has been facing off with the record labels before a jury in New York to decide how much in damages it [...]

Last month, Grooveshark’s music app was removed from the Android Marketplace by Google at the request of the RIAA. Following claim and counterclaim about Grooveshark’s legality or otherwise, the company has announced that if necessary they will take their fight to court and to Congress. “Let’s set the record straight,” they insist. “There is nothing illegal about what Grooveshark offers to consumers.”

In the ongoing mass-BitTorrent lawsuits, last month U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell laid down a landmark verdict in favor of copyright holders. The verdict was widely publicized, but put in doubt after it was uncovered that the Judge was a former RIAA lobbyist. This critique appears to have had an effect. In two new orders in the same cases, Howell has now backpedaled on her earlier stance.

Here’s a must read article from the Harvard Business Review. It reiterates many of the things we’ve illustrated over the years on TorrentFreak, mainly that the abuse of copyright and repression of every technological advancement is actually killing innovation. Excerpt below: “Innovation has emerged as a key means by which the US can pull itself [...]