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Whatever remains of “Napster” has been sold off for the umpteenth time to a media company that you’ve never heard of for $207 million, continuing the legacy of a filesharing service bringing the music industry to its knees before imploding. Launched originally in 1999 as the most successful of the peer-to-peer file sharing services, Napster was crushed by lawsuits and shut down in 2001, and filed for bankruptcy a year later. Still, assets remained, and a corpse with a known name can have juice in Silicon Valley. So in 2003, its branding and logos were snapped up by Roxio at...

Is anyone on FR using a smart phone VOIP app that touts their end-to-end security? Are you happy with it? I understand we are taking a lot of companies word on what they say they do, and I know that at least one (Wire) says all their software is open source and is reviewed (on the Apple App store the top rated commment for Wire implies its not that secure. And Apple's FaceTime is supposedly very secure and it is built in to the Iphone and Mac, but (a) I don't trust anything coming out of Tim Cook's mouth and...

ISPs begrudgingly accept their conscriptmentCopyright enforcement is a big headache. It's a big headache for the media industry as it's a money-losing proposition. It's a big headache for the U.S. Senate who had nearly 10 percent of their collective campaign expenses paid by media lobbyists. It seems neither the federal government or big media wants to pay themselves for the massive cost of copyright enforcement, so they've cooked up a clever plan -- force internet service providers to become copyright cops and police the internet. > The plan was inspired by similar plans proposed in other nations (most of which...

The domain seizures by the United States authorities in recent days and upcoming legislation that could make similar takeovers even easier in the future, have inspired a group of enthusiasts to come up with a new, decentralized and BitTorrent-powered DNS system. This system will exchange DNS information through peer-to-peer transfers and will work with a new .p2p domain extension.

Torrent Finder was seized by the Feds today. If you go to the page, you see a full page warning... it starts like this: This domain has been seized by ICE - Homeland Security Investigations pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court under the authority of 18 USC §§ 981 and 2323.

A federal jury found Wednesday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, of Brainerd, must pay $62,500 per song — for a total of $1.5 million — for illegally violating copyrights on 24 songs. This was the third jury to consider damages in her case, and each has found that she must pay — though different amounts. And after each time, the single mother of four has said she can't pay. "I can't afford to pay any amount. It's not a matter of won't, it's a matter of 'I can't,'" Thomas-Rasset said Thursday. "Any amount that I pay to them is money that I...

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman who has been fighting the recording industry over 24 songs she illegally downloaded and shared online four years ago, has lost another round in court. A jury in Minneapolis decided today that she was liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages to Capitol Records, or $62,500 for each song she illegally shared in April 2006. The Recording Industry Association of America--the trade group that represents the four major music labels--applauded the verdict. "We are again thankful to the jury for its service in this matter and that they recognized the severity of the defendant's...

Lime Group, whose LimeWire software has allowed people to share songs and other files over the Internet, received a federal injunction Tuesday to disable key parts of its service.(Snip)The injunction, issued by U.S. District Court in New York, compels Lime Group to disable LimeWire's searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and distribution features, effective immediately.

Such lapses have led to major data leaks on P2P networks over the past few years. Some of the more high-profile examples include the leaking of sensitive details on the President Obama's Marine One helicopter last year and another incident where documents detailing Secret Service safe houses for the first family were found on a P2P network.

'Copyright Criminals' film on hip-hop sampling airs in Iowa Jan. 20, 21, 24 The practice of remixing existing bits and pieces of sound to create new music is a central component of hip-hop and other contemporary forms of music making. The problem is, recycling even two seconds of someone else's song without permission is a copyright infringement. franzenmcleod"Copyright Criminals," a documentary by University of Iowa professor Kembrew McLeod (left) and UI alumnus Benjamin Franzen (right), examines the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, including the ongoing debates about artistic expression, copyright law and, of course, money. The film will...

Here's an odd twist that might give new life to the dying horse of music digital-right management. Microsoft has just been awarded a U.S. patent for a distributed DRM system -- it works over peer-to-peer networks -- which uses encrypted public and private keys as the licensing mechanism. This is significant because, while centralized music stores like Apple's iTunes have forsaken DRM, the Microsoft patent would enable peer-to-peer networks to reemerge as viable, albeit protected, content sources. The patent, number 7,594,275, is entitled simply, "Digital rights management system." Granted today (Sept. 22), it was filed in October, 2003, which undercuts...

Its ISP faced a $70,000 fine if file-sharing site was allowed to continue File-sharing site The Pirate Bay went down today after its Internet service provider, Black Internet, cut its connection to avoid being fined by the Stockholm district court. A 500,000 Swedish kronor (US$70,000) fine would be the result if Black Internet did not comply with the decision in the district court. "The decision was made by the district court on Friday, but reached us today and we have decided to comply. ... We are a small operator and we haven't got the financial resources to pursue such a...

Jury Awards $675,000 in Music Downloading Case BOSTON – A federal jury on Friday ordered a Boston University graduate student who admitted illegally downloading and sharing music online to pay $675,000 to four record labels. Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels. Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful....

* Obama evacuation plan leaked online * Lawmaker slams file-sharing software * More: Technology news and reviews SENSITIVE documents including plans for the emergency evacuation of US President Barack Obama and motorcade routes have been leaked on a file-sharing network, authorities say. Chairman of the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Edolphus Towns said the documents had been discovered with file-sharing program LimeWire. Other sensitive documents found with the peer-to-peer program included FBI files, medical records and social security numbers. Mr Town used evidence of the leaks to argue for the regulation of file-sharing programs. "As far as I...

Details about a U.S. Secret Service safe house for the First Family -- to be used in a national emergency -- were found to have leaked out on a LimeWire file-sharing network recently, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were told this morning.Also unearthed on LimeWire networks in recent days were presidential motorcade routes and a sensitive but unclassified document listing details on every nuclear facility in the country, Robert Boback, CEO of Tiversa Inc. told committee members. The disclosures prompted the chairman of the committee, Rep. Edolphus Towns, (D-N.Y.), to call for a ban on the...

A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each — a total of $1.9 million — for 24 songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said. Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents...

A bunch of states have been pushing forward with plans to add taxes on digital downloads. The state of Washington apparently passed just such a law, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 26th. Nate sent in a note, pointing out that under a strict reading of the details of the bill you could see how the state could go after unauthorized downloaders as "tax evaders." Now, that may not be the case (and it would be great if we could get someone from the state to clarify), but it seems that what Nate is likely referring to...

File-sharing sites help make popular acts more popular, finds a study. The research, by industry body PRS for Music, showed the most pirated pop songs tend to be those at the top of the music charts. There was little evidence that file-sharing sites helped unsigned and new bands find an audience, it found. It suggests file-sharing sites are becoming an alternative broadcast network comparable to radio stations as a way of hearing music. Long tail The study, carried out by Will Page, chief economist at the PRS, and Eric Garland, head of media tracking firm Big Champagne, looked at patterns...

Pirate Bay lawyer demands retrial, saying judge was biased in file-sharing case STOCKHOLM (AP) -- A defense lawyer in the Pirate Bay file-sharing case said Thursday he will demand a retrial after the judge admitted he was a member of copyright protection organizations. A Stockholm court last week convicted four men behind the notorious Web site of helping others commit copyright violations and gave them one-year prison sentences. They also were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to entertainment companies, including Warner Bros., Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures. Peter Althin, who represented Pirate Bay...

A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world's most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case.Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail. They were also ordered to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages. Record companies welcomed the verdict but the men are to appeal and Sunde said they would refuse to pay the fine. Speaking at an online press conference, he described the verdict as "bizarre". "It's serious to actually be found guilty and get jail...