World famous nightclub and independent music label Ministry of Sound have been forced to suspend their planned shakedown of tens of thousands of alleged file-sharers. The company had planned to send 25,000 letters demanding hundreds of pounds in compensation to customers of Internet service provider, BT. However, BT has deleted more than 20,000 of those […]
Read More →New Zealand’s Parliament Commerce Committee has reported back on the Copyright Infringing File Sharing Bill and it will now move to parliament for its second reading. The controversial 3 strikes provision is still included, but will now only be implemented if a letter writing scheme to educate citizens fails, and people continue to share illicit […]
Read More →In an effort to reduce illicit file-sharing, draft legislation was passed in Finland last week which will require Internet service providers to send letters to customers suspected of unauthorized sharing. The warnings will be initiated by copyright owners, but at no stage will Internet subscribers’ identities be compromised. A three strikes-style regime is not on […]
Read More →In recent months thousands of US BitTorrent users have been sued for allegedly sharing movies such as The Hurt Locker. Among the victims are several people who have never even downloaded a single torrent file, but nevertheless have fallen prey to the infamous pay-up-or-else scheme. San Fransisco Law professor Robert Talbot and his students are […]
Read More →A young man, who as a teenager file-shared two music tracks, has finally discovered his fate. After rightsholders demanded damages of 600 euros ($828) the case dragged through the legal system. After nearly five years a court in Germany has just published its decision. It ruled that the damages demands of the rightsholders were excessive […]
Read More →Following a complaint from a group representing local music and movie companies, prosecutors ordered the takedown of Moldova’s biggest torrent site last week. As the authorities try to work out if any crime has been committed at the 270,000 member TorrentsMD, the entertainment industry group is setting out its terms for a truce with the […]
Read More →After nearly three weeks, The Pirate Bay appeal comes to an end today but not before the defendants’ lawyers have their final say. All lawyers called for their clients to be acquitted on various grounds, citing a recent Spanish verdict, the UK based TV-links case and referring to the E-commerce directive. The final day of […]
Read More →In the legal battle between Usenet community FTD and Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, some controversial allegations have been made. There are claims that not only did BREIN have as many as 15 undercover investigators working at FTD masquerading as regular users, but one of them – allegedly a direct BREIN employee – actually uploaded a […]
Read More →The Pirate Bay appeal is nearly coming to an end as we enter the 7th day. Today the prosecution has been giving the court its closing arguments. Håkan Roswall, Peter Danowsky, Henrik Pontén and Monique Wadsted all appeared. The prosecution called for jail time and substantial damages to cover the losses the entertainment industries claim […]
Read More →Day 6 of The Pirate Bay appeal mostly dealt with the question of whether piracy is doing any financial damage to the music industry. Ludwig Werner of the IFPI and Universal Music’s Per Sundin both claimed it is, while media professor Roger Wallis informed the court that file-sharing is actually beneficial to the artists. As […]
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