Maximum PC filesharing RSS Feed

The Music Industry Abandons Lawsuits and gets Ready to Boot Offenders off the Net

Justin Kerr — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:32:32 -0600

About a month ago we took a look at a disturbing new trend that was emerging in Australia involving the movie industry’s new approach to copyright enforcement. It now appears as though this heavy handed approach has indeed crossed the ocean and the RIAA is preparing to switch gears. Over the past 6 years the music industry has initiated lawsuits against over 35,000 people. Seniors, minors, or the deceased, nobody was safe from the wrath of the recording industry. This public relations nightmare was bound to end sooner or later, but their new approach could see tens of thousands of internet users booted off the web.

The Wall Street Journal has uncovered agreements made between several unnamed ISP’s and the RIAA which will make it possible for them to force internet service providers to disconnect user’s who refuse to cease and desist music sharing after being issued a written warning. Warnings will likely start with an emailed notice of violation which can then lead to restricted bandwidth, or in worst case scenarios as we mentioned before, the disconnection of internet service. Under the newly proposed system, the RIAA would forward a notice to the ISP of an offending IP address, and would leave it up to the provider to contact the individual customer. The positive change here would be that your privacy would not be compromised, and the RIAA would not require disclosure of the customer’s name.

The RIAA believes this new approach will “reach more people” and that it cannot afford to ignore piracy. The group cites NPD figures which show that the growth of illegally downloaded content has stalled in the wake of the uncertainty surrounding the lawsuits. Their new approach would be much more covert, and would likely attract less media attention.

So would you rather be sued or booted off the net? I think I’ll pay the 99 cents a track thank you very much.

RIAA Are Sore Losers, File Appeal in File-Sharing Mistrial

Alex Castle — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:05:06 -0500

Image Credit: Google

Everyone’s favorite trade group, the RIAA, is up to more of its usual, mustache-twirling antics as it appeals the decision to declare a mistrial in its case against Jammie Thomas. For the uninformed, the 30-year-old Thomas is being sued for $220,000 by the RIAA for file sharing. As the first person to take the music industry to court, rather than settle, her case will set a very significant precedent and could have a strong impact on the future of file sharing and the internet.

The suit was originally decided in the RIAA’s favor in October, however Judge Michael Davis threw out the ruling and declared a mistrial, declaring that “he originally misguided the jury by indicating that simply the act of making a copyrighted song available for sharing amounts to infringement,” CNET reports.

The RIAA is appealing the decision, hoping the original ruling will stick and they won’t have to conduct a whole new trial.

What do you think of the Thomas case? Let us know after the break.

Virgin ISP Softens Stance After Threatening to Disconnect File Sharers

Paul Lilly — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:00:21 -0500

If you thought internet metering was taking things too far, try being a Virgin ISP customer. In a joint venture with the British recording industry group BPI, roughly 800 letters have been sent out to file sharers subscribed to Virgin, with thousands more on the way. These aren't 'Thank you for being a customer' notices, and instead the envelopes read "Important: If you don't read this, your broadband could be disconnected."

Despite the ominous warning and pressure from the BPI to implement a three strikes policy - where users of file sharing networks would be given two warnings and then disconnected on a third offense - Virgin claims the wording was a "mistake," saying:

"It is important to let our customers know that their accounts have been used in a certain way but we are happy to accept it may not be the account holder that's involved. It could be someone else in the family or someone living in a shared house. it could even be someone stealing Wi-Fi. We are not making any form of accusation." - Asam Ahmad from Virgin

Virgin went on to claim that there was "absolutely no possibility" it would take legal action against its customers under the current campaign, and that it wouldn't hand over user information "under any circumstances." Normally such strong statements would be comforting, but if that's the case, why send out the letters in the first place?

Perhaps Virgin underestimated public response or maybe BPI presented a compelling case in favor of sending the letters, but no matter what the reason, recipients of the letters are understandably peeved. Some customers are reporting feeling "betrayed," and others claim they never shared any files, yet still received a notice.

Angry users aside, the music industry continues to lobby the UK government to force broadband companies into taking increasing measures to stop file sharing, and Ministers have set a deadline for next spring for both sides to come to a voluntary agreement. If not, the government might push through laws of its own.

What do you think? Can file sharing really be controlled and regulated in today's Wi-Fi landscape?

Image Credit: Virgin

RIAA's Wish List for the ACTA

Chris Moody — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:13:24 -0500

Ars Technica points out that the RIAA’s wish list for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been posted online. This is handy because the ACTA has been drafted in secret, and we aren’t allowed to see the work being done on it, but this gives us a good idea about what is going into it.

There are some pretty broad ideas being floated in there, and like floaters, they really need to be flushed. Items like mandatory ISP filtering or ISPs being required to restrict or terminate access for repeat offenders. Liability for “deeplinks” is also mentioned, which should make the search engines very happy too. The RIAA also has a wish for establishing liability against internet service providers who don’t remove or block content quickly enough. Ars Technica points our that “the RIAA's points, taken in together, seem aimed at gutting the best part of the DMCA” (if there was such a thing) which gave ISPs immunity from materials passing through their networks.

Online activities aren’t the RIAA’s only target. CDs are in its sights too, with the RIAA suggesting that countries "with high rates of production of pirated optical discs", “provide for a system of licensing”, and "maintain complete and accurate records". Imagine codes stamped onto CDs to allow for their tracking.

There is little doubt that right holders are entitled to profit from their work, but it is very concerning that the RIAA seems to have the policy maker’s ear, but that others are not going to be be heard. This is going to result in some very RIAA slanted rules with little rights left for consumers.

RIAA Defendant Threatens the Empire

Erin Simon — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:29:35 -0500

Here's one to keep a weather eye on: a new lawsuit threatens to invalidate the RIAA's basis for suing all those thousands of alleged illegal downloaders. Warner v. Cassin challenges the theory that users of P2P networks can commit copyright infringement merely by making files accessible to other people.

The RIAA targets people to sue by having its authorized investigator MediaSentry scan P2P networks looking for copyrighted material. MediaSentry downloads files from other users, takes screenshots and records their IP addresses. The RIAA then uses this information (and nothing more) to base its complaints on. The problem is: the RIAA has no actual evidence that anyone else ever downloaded the files – and MediaSentry has the RIAA's authorization to do so, so copies it makes aren't infringing. That's why in these cases, the RIAA doesn't (and can't) allege any actual acts of infringement. To have a claim, however, the Copyright Act requires them to.

Moreover, Cassin argues that the RIAA's “making available” theory of infringement stands to radically impact non-P2P networks, or the internet itself. If making something available is an infringement on its own, then even hyperlinking, which makes documents available to others, could be construed as distribution and thereby infringement. And no judge wants to be responsible for breaking the internet, now, do they?

Several other RIAA defendants have tried this line of attack, but no judge has sqarely addressed the issue. Another case, Elektra v. Barker, is still awaiting a decision.

Photo courtesy of RocketRaccoon

Microsoft Patch Tuesday Knocks Out Skype - What Can We Learn From This?

By Mark Soper — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:23:35 -0500

If you rely on Skype, the popular P2P VoIP telephone system, you discovered last week that you couldn't. As discussed by our own Nathan 'Butters' Edwards, Skype's network troubles also temporarily iced the Maximum PC podcast, delaying it until tomorrow.

P2P Network Minus Working Clients is a 'Notwork'

What happened? Skype's own Heartbeat blog tells the story. Because Skype is a P2P network, it depends upon users' PCs to relay VoIP calls to other users' PCs. If a few users are offline, it's no big deal. But if a lot of Skype users are offline, the network becomes unreliable. What took down Skype last week? It was tag-teamed to the mat by a combination of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday and a bug in Skype's VoIP software's self-healing feature.

Patch Tuesday and the Skype Outage

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month, is the date that Redmond releases critical security patches. This month's Patch Tuesday (August 14th) included six critical patches (as well as three important patches) affecting several of Microsoft's crown jewels: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Office, XML Core Services, and Internet Explorer.

It takes a couple of days for Windows Update to propagate the patches to Windows users, and by Thursday, August 16th, lots of Skype users' PCs were dutifully downloading the appropriate security patches, installing them, and rebooting - and in the process, crippling the Skype network. The network has recovered, and thanks to this event, Skype has discovered a bug in its software's self-healing feature - and is working hard to fix the problem.

Lessons for Non-Skype P2P Users

So, what's the bigger meaning for those of us who don't use Skype? if you use any type of P2P software, you should be finding out if your P2P provider is ready for the next big "Patch Tuesday" (or any other type of massive shutdown of its network). Assuming that P2P network providers are paying attention, expect to see updates designed to head off this type of problem. Apply them to help stay out of problems.

Is it Time to Kick Automatic Updating to the Curb?

What about the rest of us? Automatic rebooting after automatic patching by Windows Update can send PCs off to la-la land until you log in again. While your system's offline, you too can experience the joy of fouled-up automatic updates by applications, outages in online gameplay, halted P2P downloads, no access to your PC from remote access services like GoToMyPC and more. If you've ever been inconvenienced by Windows Update's automatic reboot after installation, consider doing what I do: change Windows Update's default behavior. Instead of automatically downloading and installing updates and rebooting , set it to automatically download updates, but not install them until you say so. That way, you decide when your system can be offline during the reboot process. As Skype demonstrated last week, millions of rebooting PCs can't get anything done - and may prevent you from getting stuff done as well.

Redundancy Is Vital for All Technology Users

As TMC.net's Rich Tehrani points out, having redundant services for voice and data, backup, and every other technology-based product and service you use is a critical requirement for business. Even if you never make a dime from your PC, there's also a lesson for home computer users like you (and me). Whether you're calling your girlfriend to set up a big date, setting up a friendly deathmatch, storing your digital photos or music, or writing the great American novel, you'd better have a "plan B." Skype's downtime demonstrates most vividly that putting all of your technology eggs in one basket is like putting them in a basket without a bottom.

Filesharing and National Security

Erin Simon — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:02:31 -0500

Filesharing may be dubiously legal (or maybe not so dubious), but until recently its only problem was IP infringement. That changed Tuesday at a hearing of the Government Reform Committee on inadvertent filesharing, where Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said he was considering new laws to solve the threat P2P posed to homeland security. The threat? That government employees may accidentally share classified documents on their computers, making them available to terrists or organized crime. The problem with filesharing is that congressional staff are inept. Waxman said he didn't want to shut down the networks, but rather to strike “a balance that protects sensitive government, personal and corporate information and copyright laws.” The Committee had conducted searches on Limewire that turned up sensitive personal, corporate, and even military documents. From this and stories like the Department of Transportation official whose daughter installed a P2P program on the family computer and accidentally shared official DOT documents, the Committee concluded that national security was at risk.

Leaking classified documents is already a crime (unless, that is, you can un-classify them before people find out). To be sure, researchers have reported that sensitive personal information shows up on filesharing networks. Not everyone is privacy-savvy; spammers get some return on Nigerian Scam emails, too, but the solution isn't to ban email.

If your staff are too inept to keep their sensitive documents out of the folders they share on Limewire (what do they do, keep their Classified folder in their iTunes Library folder for safekeeping?), the problem isn't Limewire. The problem is your staff. It doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in Congress when they say government employees aren't smart enough to keep classified information classified; nor is it a confidence boost to hear that instead of prohibiting filesharing on government computers, the best solution they can think of is to outlaw it altogether.