MediaDefender – an organisation purporting to assist copyright owners in protecting their identity and intellectual property rights online – has made an interesting new move into the industry of lies, corruption and entrapment.

Miivi.com – a website owned by MediaDefender – offered full movie downloads and the software to enable unwitting users to transfer them to their computers. This was nothing more than basic, probably illegal, attempted entrapment, with MediaDefender’s motives behind the scam are clearly to lure the sites’ visitors in and encourage them to do something illegal. Very naughty indeed.

The site has now been taken down.

MediaDefender is described as:

“… the acknowledged P2P industry expert, and has been called upon to testify in front of US Congress several times. MediaDefender has also partnered with law enforcement to crack down on internet child pornography rings.

We are not here to say that a crack down on such material is a bad thing – any attempt to stop it should be applauded – but using similar tactics on casual file sharers is arguably a step too far.

One cannot help to view this kind of action as double standards by those fighting the P2P file sharing community: they consistently tell us that their position is the morally righteous one, and that theirs is indisputably the moral high ground. This is clearly rubbish and the industry’s copyright ‘champions’ prove this time and time again by using every dirty trick in the book to attack and hurt P2P sharers.

sharers new to the scene, or those naïve enough to accept such trojan horses. The hardcore file sharers would have seen this coming a mile away and steered well clear. Arguably it should be those ’serious’ sharers that the industry’s ‘policing’ should be affecting; instead they’re going for the easy pray and with it political and media approval.

Sort out the industry, we say. Fight the right battles, do the right thing, then P2P will not be such a ‘problem’.

The legendary BitTorrent site – supernova.org – will be back online, back in business, and back in action, thanks to those kind folk over at Pirate Bay. Sloneck, the former owner of the site and current owner of the domain, decided to donate it in the interests of nostalgia and its loyal customer base. On his motives for the donation, Sloneck had this to say:

“The domain was doing nothing. I know that domain has some nostalgic value and some people would be more then happy to see it back online. I don’t use it, and TPB is the only team that I know will use it correctly.”

He went on to explain that the site would look the same as before and, further, that this was part of the agreement with The Pirate Bay: “They can upgrade it, but they cannot change the appearance completely”.

Supernova will be a torrent index and will not use its own tracker. There will also be a fresh new forum launched that will work with both Supernova and The Pirate Bay. This forum – ‘the community’ – will be moderated in some way by Supernova’s former owner. The forums will be sited at SuprBay.org and, by all accounts, are already up and running.

Pirate Bay administrator Brokep cited the reason for their decision to rekindle the Supernova fire as being a signal to the P2P community and to the those that would have it shut down:

“We talked it over and decided it was something people would have use for, it would help the torrent community and it would also signal that if you shut one down it will get back up again.”.

There can be no disagreement that this resurrection will be welcome news to the P2P file sharing community. It also presents something of a kick in the teeth to the Big Four music cartel – along with their supporting government and legal aides – who are trying to ensure such organisations are shut down, not relaunching like a Phoenix from the flames.

Eminem – born Marshall Mathers III – is once again suing Apple for alleged misdemeanors and ‘multi-million dollar’ transgressions. Apple, Mathers claims, has allowed unauthorized downloads of his tracks to users’ iPods.Eminem has attacked Apple in the past, when he was incensed by its ‘unauthorized use of his music’ on a TV commercial. No stranger to controversy and, arguably, to getting free publicity, Eminem and his advisors are obviously getting comfortable with the inside of the court room.

A reader on the p2pnet website expressed his doubt as to the authenticity of what might be considered a ’stunt’: “My guess is it’s another publicity stunt”. Possibly, though the thought of someone in the music industry suing someone who allows downloads of his tracks is not alien to P2P file sharers; admittedly Apple is not usually the one taking the brunt of the action, though.

A related issue, California entertainment lawyer Owen Sloane states, is “how the 60.9 cents the recording label has left after it pays the music publisher should be divided between the recording label and the artist”.

The problem, Sloane goes on to tells us, is how the labels treat the downloads:

“If downloads are treated as licensing agreements, the 60.9 cents would be split equally… But if a download is treated as a sale, which is typical, the artist only gets a royalty, or a much smaller share of the 60.9 cents.”

It’s interesting to see even big companies ‘playing the game’ with their artists when it comes to music downloads – more two faced amoral dealings on their behalf, perhaps.

It’s possible that, if done correctly, using this to lower prices for customers then it could result in more sales overall, netting the labels more cash in the long run. The labels don’t see it this way, however, since all downloads seem to be instantly packed into the ‘bad and evil’ wagon.

Neither side will likely let this go quietly. Keep your eyes peeled!

A new survey – conducted by Entertainment Media Research – concludes that more and more people are getting their music free from P2P file sharing sites.Despite apparent attempts by the ‘big 4′ music cartel sue everyone who utters the words ‘P2P’ or ‘file sharing’ (and even some who don’t, it turns out), more of us are turning to the Internet as our favored source of new listening material. While Apple’s iTunes is seemingly doing well from its customers downloading – and paying for – music from their site, its market share is miniscule: unsubstantiated claims of two billion downloaded tracks since 2003 are utterly dwarfed by the statistic that one billion tracks are shared online every single month.

The vast bulk of downloads, then, are coming from P2P networks and independent music and download sites.

The Entertainment Media Research questioned 1700 people across the UK; its summary of the results was quoted in the UK paper The Telegraph:

“Illegal music downloads have reached an all time high just as the growth of online social networking has shifted the epicenter of the music industry away from the major record labels …”

it continues: “the popularity of social networking websites such as MySpace and BeBo is helping to ‘democratize’ the music industry as more young people discover new music online instead of via the radio or music television”.

Any logical reasoning on the matter will conclude that young people are going to be attracted to free music – especially when the alternative is overpriced, can ignore your privacy rights, and is occasionally difficult to get hold of. It is also clear, though, that the music industry ignored the P2P and file sharing communities for too long: it has now missed the boat and continues its suing crusade not because it thinks it can win, but to punish those who capitalized on the obvious gap in the market. The music industry completely refuses to acknowledge P2P as the distribution vehicle of the twenty first digital century, and this is one of its major mistakes.

An online survey run by p2pnet was answered by 1100 respondents. “Have the RIAA sue ‘em all lawsuits persuaded you to stop sharing?” the survey asked. No, replied an impressive majority of 94.1%. This is the problem that the Big 4 Cartel faces in bring P2P file sharers to ‘justice’ – they’ll have to arrest the whole world for it to work.