Performing rights group GEMA has won an injunction against newsgroup outfit, UseNeXT. A court has forbidden the Usenet company from offering around 100 musical works from the GEMA repertoire and says that in the future, Usenet operators will have to take a greater responsibility for the environments and services they offer.
In the first few months following the adoption of the three-strikes anti-piracy legislation in France, online piracy has increased significantly. Instead of stopping, file-sharers are seeking alternatives to bypass the new law. Perhaps even more striking is that new research reveals that disconnecting file-sharers will actually hurt the revenues of the music industry.
Following in the footsteps of the Swedes and Germans, the Dutch Pirate Party has decided to join the national elections being held this spring. The Pirate Party booked a surprising victory by scooping two seats in the European Parliament last year, but has yet to score its first elected seat in a national Parliament.
A new study commissioned on behalf of Universal Music reports that if ISPs got involved in the digital music market, they could make millions in the years to come. But one can’t help wondering that this is less about the music biz helping ISPs to make more profit, but more about giving them an incentive to do something about piracy.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’ tops the chart this week followed by ‘From Paris With Love’. ‘Ninja Assassin’ completes the top three.
In just a few hours the Oscar winners will be announced, including the award for the best movie of 2009. We take a look at the nominees in the Best Picture category to see which film would win if every download on BitTorrent counted as a vote.
Faced with difficulties in dealing with those who share movies and music using BitTorrent, in recent months Swedish police have targeted those using more exposed file-sharing systems. As stats are revealed showing just how problematic these prosecutions have become, an anti-piracy group is calling for a change in the law.
The South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival is one of the largest and most popular in the United States. For the sixth year in a row, SXSW has released a DRM-free, RIAA-safe collection of hundreds of songs which can all be downloaded for free in a couple of clicks, thanks to BitTorrent.
The RIAA has published a blog post where they accuse music pirates of stealing from Haitians. In a brilliant piece of propaganda they say that those illegally downloading “We Are The World” are undermining fund raising. However, they leave out the fact that the music industry itself profits big from such charity singles.
In mid-February an Italian court ruled that the country’s ISPs must censor their networks and prevent subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay. While millions of Italians are now barred from accessing the site, it seems that BiTorrent users in another country nearby have become collateral damage, since they can’t access the site either.