There’s an interesting post on Zeropaid at the moment that outlines how the RIAA targets people suspected of illegal filesharing. The RIAA has said that it used the same programs that regular filesharing people use, such as Limewire and Kazaa. MediaSentry, the RIAA’s partner in tackling filesharing, runs one of the filesharing programs and then searches for copyrighted material to see if anybody is sharing it by making it available.
MediaSentry then browses the host to see what other copyrighted material is being made available. This way they can then see the person’s IP address. MediaSentry then notes down this IP address, as well as details of copyright material that is being made available for illegal music downloads.
The problem for the RIAA now is that this idea of making songs available is now not holding up in court. The RIAA may need to start proving that other people have downloaded the music, which would effectively outdate this method.
Canada is apparently still considering the idea of a “three strikes and your out” policy for filesharing offenders. Michael Geist, a professor from the University of Ottawa, said that he found a French government document containing information about Canada being a country negotiating the three-strikes filesharing policy with ISPs.
It’s funny because the Canadian government hasn’t acknowledged any such negotiations. Could it be that the French have made a filesharing mistake, or is the Canadian government working covertly to outlaw illegal filesharing. It’s anybody’s guess.
The Canadian government has yet to release a statement, so we’ll have to wait and see how this one pans out. It would be certainly be a point of concern if the Canadian government is working in secret to come up with ways to beat filesharing.
How do our Canadian readers feel about such a possibility?
Pownce has been around for a while. It’s not really that popular, but it does have something of a cult following. That following is likely to expand with the news that Pownce has now become a bit more useful with the addition of public filesharing and increased file sizes.
Pownce accounts can now be used for filesharing with anyone with an Internet connection, instead of just other Pownce users. Filesharing can now be done with files of up to 100MB for free users and 250MB for pro-account holders.
Pownce may not be the most or the most useful filesharing service out there, but it’s worth checking out if you’re into new things.
The Pownce service has become popular partly because of its features such as embedded photos, videos and music filesharing. Sharing of links is also a lot easier than with rival Twitter. Check Pownce out for filesharing and more.
Lifehacker asked its readers to vote for their favorite filesharing service recently. More than 200 filesharing services were nominated in the poll, which have been wittled down to five.
The top-five filesharing services on the Web are:
Box.net, a simple filesharing site that provides up to 1GB of space and can be used from your desktop.
Drop.io, another simple interface and a filesharing service that can be used without registration. You can even send and receive free faxes.
MediaFire, which offers users unlimited storage, all for free, with no sign-up.
Windows Live SkyDrive. Which gives you up to 5GB of free space to use for filesharing.
FolderShare, which is a syncing tool that makes sharing folders on your desktop a piece of cake.
The poll is still open to determine the web’s top filesharing utility. Go and have your say in the vote and let us know which service you voted for.
A broadband information website this week came out with the revelation that clamping down on illegal music downloads via filesharing might be too difficult for all involved.
Looking at Internet traffic, according to www.thinkbroadband.com, is tricky and means that enforcing any filesharing laws could be impossible.
Apparently, in order to actually crack down on filesharing, ISPs will need to actively inspect traffic, which will take enormous resources, time and money.
The real issue is the sharing of copyrighted material.
What this means is that the way that some government’s are proposing to deal with filesharing, by cutting of people’s Internet connections, would take massive investment on the part of ISPs.
Inspecting Internet traffic is really an ineffective way of dealing with the problem because it will be so hit and miss.
Surely the millions it will take to enforce these measures would be better spent elsewhere.
In a twist of events in the US, the judge in the Atlantic vs. Pamela and Jeffrey Howell filesharing case has come out and said that filesharing is OK – we think.
The judge denied the RIAA’s push for a summary judgment and said that just because MediaSentry, the RIAA’s partner in crime, was able to download songs from a Kazaa account owned by the Howell’s, doesn’t mean that they were distributing the songs. The songs were simply made available.
The RIAA must now come up with more evidence if it is to get a favourable verdict over the Howells.
Until now, the RIAA has sued the pants of anyone who moves for simply putting a song into a folder and making it available for free music download to people over filesharing networks.
The RIAA has not, until now, needed to prove that other people actually downloaded the tracks. The judge’s ruling overturned his initial verdict, which ruled that the Howells must pay $40,000 in damages.
When Radiohead released their latest album, In Rainbows, as a music download that you chose how much you paid for, the world’s media were quick to point out that this was about to revolutionize the music industry, from CD sales to filesharing networks.
Well, it looks like we might have all jumped the gun a bit. Thom Yorke has said this week that Radiohead will not be pulling another stunt like that again. Perhaps the fact that people paid, on average, just £2.87 for the album disappointed the band. Also, only 38% of people paid anything for it at all.
Radiohead’s actions were, apparently, a one-off that came in response to a particular situation.
Yorke said that he doesn’t think that doing it all again would have the same response.
It’s a shame really because it looks like this entire business model is a failure and the scores of bands who were lining up to follow suit may now change their minds.
Nokia is confident that its move to offer unlimited free mobile music downloads will make the company money. The phone giant is also certain that the record labels involved will make money from the endeavor.
The “Comes with Music” service is shaping up to be the hottest commodity in the world of mobile music downloads, but critics have said that the service would come at the expense of profits.
Not so, says Nokia. The service is causing a ripple because users will be able to keep all the music they download, even after their subscriptions have ended. Sony BMG hopped on board last week and Universal was already involved.
The world’s two biggest labels look set to instill some confidence in smaller labels to become involved and offer mobile music downloads.
Reports have circulated that Nokia will pay $35 just to Universal for each handset sold.
With CD sales already dwindling, there is some concern that the advent of free mobile music downloads might shove another nail in the coffin.
More filesharing and music download stats for you today. This time, it looks like the number of people using uTorrent has doubled this year compared to last year. The world’s most popular BitTorrent client is on 11.6% of all computers in Europe and 5.1% of all computers in the US.
The data was gathered from millions of Windows-based PCs around the world.
After uTorrent recently overtook Azureus as the most popular BitTorrent client around, it has now started gaining on Limewire. From 2007 to 2007, Limewire lost a quarter of its users, perhaps signaling that BitTorrent is becoming the preferred method of obtaining free music downloads. Limewire still remains the most installed filesharing app available, although it is losing ground in the US and Europe.
While uTorrent is on the rise, other BitTorrent clients are steadily declining. Interestingly, the study also found that one in five PCs in the workplace have at least one filesharing program installed.
iPhone filesharing is here, althought it’s not quite as exciting as it may sound. DropCopy is a new iPhone application that allows filesharing between an iPhone and a mac. Windows users can’t use DropCopy.
You’ll first need to unlock your iPhone before you use DropCopy, but once you do, filesharing is at your fingertips. You simply browse on your Mac for files you want to transfer, drag and drop.
For iPhone filesharing in the other direction, you can move files from an iPhone to your Mac without music hassle. It’s all very straightforward and it’s a handy tool for anyone with an iPhone. The transfers with this iPhone filesharing program are fast and efficient.
Because the program cannot run in the background of an iPhone, there is no security risk, as you might associate with other forms of filesharing. This isn’t exactly the iPhone filesharing revolution we’re holding out for, but it’s a start.
