“The Web site of Sweden’s national police was shut down after a hacker attack that investigators on Friday said could be a retaliation for a crackdown on […] The Pirate Bay.
Meanwhile, the government faced allegations that police had acted under pressure from U.S. authorities when they targeted the file-sharing site in raids earlier this week.”
Physorg.com via Juha
some links added
The Piratebay is Down: Raided by the Swedish Police
“The largest Bittorrent tracker on the net just got raided. The Swedish police took their servers to check whether they actually commit a crime or not. […]
Note that no crime has been proven yet, it’s still under investigation. This will probably the ultimate test to determine whether hosting a torrent tracker is illegal (in Sweden), or not.”
Fun with Sony BMG & MP3 metadata
BitTorrent Client Shootout
“In this article, we’ll examine all of the major BitTorrent clients, looking at their advantages, disadvantages and some of the coolest features.”
"Viestintävirasto linjasi VoIP-palveluja"
“Viestintäviraston linjauksen mukaan Internetin puhelinpalvelut Skype Out ja Skype In ovat luonteeltaan puhelinverkossa tarjottavia viestintäpalveluja, joihin sovelletaan Suomen viestintämarkkinalainsäädäntöä. Niiltä osin palvelujen on oltava Suomen lakien mukaisia. Sen sijaan Skype-käyttäjien väliset puhelut mahdollistavaan Skype-ohjelmaan tai loppuasiakkaalle tarjottavaan Skype Out -palveluun ei sovelleta Suomen lakeja.”
WinMX PNP Network Mysteriously Ends Operations
“On September 13, 2005, WinMX was the recipient of a letter (along with 6 other P2P firms) from the RIAA. The letter demanded the receiving developers they cease infringing operations immediately, and offered to “discuss pre-litigation resolution of these claims.” […]
Currently, the WinMX.com homepage, the FrontCode.com homepage, the WinMX PNP Network and all of its host caches are down. It is impossible to connect to the network, and those remaining online will only stay online as long as their host supernodes do. But is this the end of WinMX?”
Elokuvien ja musiikin nettijakelusta tuomio
“Tuusulan käräjäoikeus langetti 480 euron sakot miehelle, joka kopioi internetin vertaisverkon kautta elokuvia ja musiikkia koneelleen ja levitti niitä muiden käyttöön. Lisäksi 36-vuotias mies poltti kopioimiaan teoksia levyille ja jakoi niitä eteenpäin. […]
Oikeus perusteli ratkaisuaan siten, että vaikka tuomittu ei saanutkaan laittomien kopioiden jakamisesta rahaa, hänen tarkoituksenaan oli kahmia arvokkaita musiikki- ja elokuvatiedostoja itselleen ilmaiseksi. Vahvemman nimikkeen toi myös se, että mies jakoi elokuvia netin ohella fyysisesti ja että elokuvia oli runsaasti.”
UK ISP deal with Sony-BMG allows subscribers to share their music
“UK ISP Secures License to Share” by Anthony Patarini:
Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing claims (don’t worry, we believe him) that MSP, a new British ISP, “has secured a license from Sony that allows its customers to legally share any song in the Sony-BMG catalog with any other PlayLouder MSP customer, and to download these tracks from any ISP customer in the entire world.”
Apparently, PlayLouder MSP DSL costs about the same as other DSL offerings in the UK, but subscribers will gain the ability to legally download any music which Sony-BMG holds the copyright to (including “out of print” tracks), to share any of that music with other PlayLouder MSP subscribers, to do so using any file format at any bitrate and using any software. The music can originate from anywhere – P2P, CD, radio recording, etc. MSP is also in talks with several indy labels in an effort negotiate the same deal with them as well.
The system does have its drawbacks, however. As you’ve read, subscribers can only share with other subscribers, and on top of that MSP will be analyzing traffic to try to determine how many Sony-BMG songs are being shared (though this is, according to MSP, only to determine how much they must pay Sony-BMG). Using this technology, they will be actively blocking recognized songs from leaving their network, while allowing unrecognized files to flow like normal.
Although this setup isn’t perfect, it’s certainly the “best thing to happen to the copyfight” in a long time. As Cory points out, this is a lot like the Voluntary Collective Licensing system the EFF has been working towards for years. I personally don’t think that you should need a license to share music non-commercially, so I don’t think that this type of system should even be necessary, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Hopefully we’ll be seeing many more deals like this in the future.
For those interested, PlayLouder MSP is set to launch at the end of September.
Free Culture blog
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
Online librarian is 'overwhelmed'
“The My Book Your Book website does not go live until Monday evening, but has already received 750 applications. […] The website asks its members to add a list of 10 books they own to its online catalogue. The listed books can then be exchanged between members for the cost of postage and packing.”
BBC
some links added
J!NX: BitTorrent Baby-T
J!NX via Juha