Earlier this month, thirteen record labels tried to claim that Limewire was liable for between $400 Billion and $75 Trillion in damages. (For some perspective, the world's GDP in 2011 is expected to be a mere ~$65 billion.) Judge Kimba Wood called the assertion 'absurd' in a 14 page opinion. (pdf) [more inside]
posted by zarq on Mar 25, 2011 - 107 comments

FileSharingFilter: With the possible exception of Sweden, Canada is today's frontier upon which the war of file-sharing legality is waged, with the greatest number of file-sharers per capita, and a steady increase in the number of persons who partake (according to the OECD). Historically, the CRIA's own piracy campaign (2004) was given birth only one year after the RIAA began suing individuals (2003) for participating in peer-to-peer file distribution. Unlike the RIAA, the CRIA was shot down by the courts, establishing a sort of precedent in favour of the end-user which has been upheld ever since, and indeed even reinforced. However, we may be seeing the beginning of the end as QuebecTorrent now fights the good fight to prevent a legal precedent outlawing Canadian BitTorrent trackers.
posted by tybeet on May 7, 2008 - 21 comments

The Mashin of The Christ "Earlier this month a hacker broke through Negativland's UMN mainframe firewall and stole the final version of Negativland's top-sacred for-internal-use-only "Mashin' of the Christ" video project. Negativland prayed that their in-house project would not make it into the hands of the unsuspecting public, but we all know how hard it can be to stop those "peer to peer" criminals from illegally sharing the property of others."
posted by bob sarabia on May 5, 2004 - 37 comments

We all knew the day would come, the time to put the "you" in P2P: Buy your own piece of Napster at their bankruptcy auction. December 11th, live and webcast, their impressive set of top o' the line (for 2001) equipment is up for grabs.
posted by mathowie on Nov 19, 2002 - 9 comments

Myster is a new cross-platform P2P file-sharing application. The project has some admirable goals and interesting assumptions: "Myster will always try to make practices that adversely affect the greater community negatively affect the user doing them." (via macintouch)
posted by jjg on Mar 1, 2002 - 8 comments

Morpheus is broken. The Netherlands-based provider of the technology used by Kazaa and Grokster upgrades their system, but leaves out Streamcast Networks' (formerly Music City) Morpheus network, and suddenly, everyone is locked out. Kinda punches a giant hole in their EFF-backed battle with the RIAA, which hinges on the assertion that their network is 'decentralized' and impossible to stop.
posted by pzarquon on Feb 28, 2002 - 12 comments

Did you hear Michael Greene's speech at the Grammys? At first it seemed like it was going to be just yet another recording industry weasel with an obligatory goatee congratulating himself on stage. But it quickly turned into a lesson on the harms of the illegal Internet downloads. "This illegal file-sharing and ripping of music files is pervasive, out of control and oh so criminal. Many of the nominees here tonight, especially the new, less-established artists, are in immediate danger of being marginalized out of our business. Ripping is stealing their livelihood one digital file at a time, leaving their musical dreams haplessly snared in this World Wide Web of theft and indifference," says Greene. Was this appeal-cum-address effective or appropriate? Were you more sympathetic to the RIAA or artists afterwards?
posted by emptyage on Feb 27, 2002 - 78 comments

What is being shared on Napster and company? Let's just say p2p isn't helping to promote your garage band like some would claim.
posted by bonzo on Jun 10, 2001 - 13 comments