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CHICAGO, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The Wild West ethos that animated the Internet during its first decade of commercial popularity is being tamed through litigation, experts tell United Press International's The Web. This week the controversial peer-to-peer file-sharing service Grokster Inc. announced a settlement with the music industry, and its Korean counterpart, Seoul-based Soribada, completely shuttered its service.

Grokster, the free music-swapping website that prompted a legal battle ending in the US Supreme Court, agreed to shut down its service under a settlement with the US music industry, industry officials said. Grokster will shut down its peer-to-peer (P2P) network that had been accused of massive copyright violations, prompting a lawsuit that ended with the highest US court ruling that it contributed to piracy, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "This settlement brings to a close an incredibly significant chapter in the story of digital music," said Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the RIAA....

Grokster Ltd., facing a copyright-infringement lawsuit for developing software that can be used to swap pirated music and movies, is in talks to be acquired by a company that wants to build a legal file-sharing service, a newspaper reported Monday. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed people with knowledge of the talks, said Mashboxx probably would work out a revenue-sharing arrangement with Grokster because Grokster itself likely would have little or no value. Before any deal could go through, though, the record labels would have to drop or settle the pending lawsuits against Grokster, the people familiar with the matter...

The Supreme Court may have dealt file-swapping companies a blow on Monday, but its decision is unlikely to put a damper on the illegal sharing of music and other media online anytime soon, industry experts say. In its ruling, the nation's top court found that file-swapping companies Grokster and StreamCast Networks should be held liable for the widespread copyright infringement their technologies enable. The decision casts uncertainty on the fate of Grokster and other file-swapping companies, but not on the viability of file-swapping itself, an activity that has only flourished under legal attacks, observers said. That's because the software that...

...In van Orden v. Perry, the Court allowed a six-foot granite monument to the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas capitol. But in McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, it decided that a display of framed copies of the Ten Commandments inside two Kentucky courthouses was going too far. ...Reading through the majority opinions, it seems that the difference boils down to such "context" dependent issues as the fact that the granite monument was old -- it had been there since 1961 -- while the Kentucky commandments were of newer vintage and therefore possibly a product of the...

Grokster and StreamCast Networks can be held liable for copyright infringements committed by users of their peer-to-peer file-sharing software, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The decision in the case Grokster v. MGM is a major win for the motion picture and recording industries, which took the case to the nation's highest court after losing in lower courts over the past two years or so. Lawyers for the plaintiffs--Motion Picture Association of America, the National Music Publisher's Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America--asked the court to recognize that the Grokster and StreamCast's Morpheus P-to-P (peer-to-peer)...

Company claims ability to wipe out file-sharing Music, movie sharing doomed, say Finns By : Monday 18 April 2005, 12:13 A FINNISH COMPANY, Viralg Oy, says it can wipe out file-sharing in an instant. The company says it has developed digital rights protection software that can be incorporated into digital movie, music or software releases and set to play havoc with P2P networks on which releases may appear. Viralg says it has a "virtual algorithm" which is capable of, "mixing together files in P2P networks in a way that the illegal downloader will end up downloading useless garbage instead of...

As the berobed Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court sat pestering the suits who came before them days ago to contest Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster... Conundrum #1: Has the Internet, the most powerful information pump the world has ever known, drowned the incentive to create in words or images? Conundrum #2: Has the Internet effectively displaced the antique notion of the profit-motive with a newer, unstoppable reality that everything on the Internet is, if it wants to be, "free"? Conundrum #3: How is it that millions of Americans who wouldn't cross the street against a red light will sleep like lambs...

WASHINGTON - When the Supreme Court justices were growing up, swapping music meant exchanging vinyl records. And sharing a movie involved walking someone to the cinema. Today many of the latest hit songs and movies are a few mouse clicks away on the Internet, and those same justices are being asked to settle a multibillion-dollar dispute about how such items are shared. Entertainment companies want the court to let them sue the manufacturers of file-sharing software that allows computer users to download music and movies from each other's computers. The companies say such downloads violate copyright protections and amount to...

Technology entrepreneur, Dallas Mavericks owner, billionaire, blogger and often blowhard Mark Cuban has pledged to finance P2P software maker Grokster's legal war with the major record labels and movie studios. The Supreme Court tomorrow will hear arguments surrounding Grokster and StreamCast's dispute with the media companies. Hollywood is hoping the high court will overturn two lower court decisions that said makers of decentralized P2P software cannot be held liable for users who trade copyrighted files. Cuban, who owns movie theaters and the rights to numerous TV shows and movies, has gone against his peers by saying P2P software should have...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court is faced with the challenge of threading a very thorny needle now that the initial round of briefs in what has become known as the Grokster case has been submitted. At issue is a U.S. 9th Circuit Court decision that failed to halt the distribution of peer-to-peer file-sharing programs that, according to some estimates, have been used to circulate millions of copies of pirated movies, songs and computer software. The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether the companies that develop or provide peer-to-peer file-sharing programs should be held responsible...

Jan. 19, 2005 Justice Dept. gains first P2P piracy convictions By Brooks BoliekWASHINGTON -- The Justice Department on Tuesday notched its first-ever convictions for copyright piracy perpetrated on P2P networks as two suspects nabbed by the G-men in the department's "Operation Digital Gridlock" pleaded guilty to felony intellectual property crimes. William Trowbridge, 50, of Johnson City, N.Y., and Michael Chicoine, 47, of San Antonio each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony criminal copyright infringement before Judge Paul Friedman in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The men made available millions of dollars worth...

Nervous music file-swappers who worry they may be on the list of 871 people targeted by recording industry subpoenas now have a Web site where their fears can be allayed -- or confirmed. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group that fights for personal and privacy rights in cyberspace, has set up a Web site that lets users of file-sharing services check to see if their screen names have been targeted for legal action by the Recording Industry Association of America. According to information on the site, the data is gathered from electronic court records and may not be complete....

Music Labels Step Up Internet Piracy Hunt TED BRIDIS Associated PressWASHINGTON - The embattled music industry disclosed plans Wednesday for an unprecedented escalation in its fight against Internet piracy, threatening to sue hundreds of individual computer users who illegally share music files online. The Recording Industry Association of America, citing significant sales declines, said it will begin Thursday to search Internet file-sharing networks to identify music fans who offer "substantial" collections of MP3 song files for downloading. It expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages within eight to 10 weeks. Executives for the RIAA, the Washington-based...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet. The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads. During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal court in Los Angeles rejected the recording industry's case against online song-swapping services Grokster and Morpheus on Friday, Grokster President Wayne Rosso said. "The case filed against us by the RIAA and the MPAA has been thrown out of court," said Rosso, referring to the trade groups for the recording and motion-picture industries that had asked the court to shut down the two services.The two services allow users to trade songs, movies and other material freely over the Internet. The Recording Industry Association of America has aggressively sought to knock such services offline, saying they...

A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie studios' lawsuit against the two companies. In an almost complete reversal of previous victories for the record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast--parent of the Morpheus software--and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software. The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software distributed by Sharman Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment industry. "Defendants distribute and support software, the...