This is an excellent read from TorrentFreak. They interview a real pirate, one of those people who makes physical copies of copyright content and sells it in marketplaces, car-boots or pubs. Tony, a physical pirate, complains that P2P has stolen their sales, and they have had to close down some Read more
This is yet another well-informed technology article from The Guardian on P2P, IP and downloads. I often complain about journalistic inaccuracies, but praise where it’s due, sometimes they get it right.
One of the problems of moving house is getting new providers for all kinds of services. Choosing a new broadband provider is a worry, particularly if you were happy with your old ISP. Telewest (now Virgin Media) were pretty good in general, even despite the fact that they were too Read more
(Via Howard Knopf) Those involved in the P2P debate might remember the 2004 Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf paper on the effect of music downloads on sales. The paper has now been published in the Journal of Political Economy with updates. The abstract reads: “For industries ranging from software to pharmaceuticals and Read more
I’ve just read a rather naive article in the BBC Technology website on the rise of BitTorrent TV-show sharing. According to the report this is the next stage in the fight against piracy, as the top shared material online now is made up of TV shows. I’m sure that TV Read more
In a move that reminds me of the plot in Neal Stephenson’s novel Cryptonomicon, the popular torrent search engine The PirateBay has started asking for donations to purchase the independent micro-nation of Sealand. The people behind PirateBay have created a website to ask for donations to amass the £65 million Read more
(via Techdirt) USA Today reports that online movie rental service Netflix is ready to begin offering a truly Internet rental service to its subscribers. Perhaps downloading is not the precise word, as the movies will be streamed into the computer, and therefore “in theory” will not be subject to being Read more
Several recording companies have sued Russian site AllofMP3.com for copyright infringement. The site is not precisely a P2P sharing network, it is more analogous to “legal” download sites where users purchase individual songs and albums at amazingly low prizes. The problem is that the site does not pay royalties to Read more
According to an article from Oz, the Australian Institute of Criminology will soon publish research that warns that piracy figures quoted by software, movie and music industries are absurd, inflated, and what they call “self-serving hyperbole”. Really? Colour me surprised! A quote from the yet unpublished report says: “It is Read more
The Institute for Public Policy Research has published a report asking for a reform of UK copyright law to accommodate the digital age and the MP3 generation. The problem pointed out in the research is that the UK does not have any private copying provision in its legislation, and there Read more