The South by Southwest festival is one of the biggest festivals of its kind in the United States. Part of it is the Music Conference and Festival showcasing hundreds of artists over the course of several days. Many songs by those artists are offered as free downloads on the festival pages and as torrents.
Stop Piracy by Kicking P2P Users off the Internet
The glorious idea to kick file sharers off the Internet, effectively banning them from accessing the Internet, seems to be in consideration in Australia in an effort to fight Internet piracy. It does not happen very often that I’m left totally speechless but this proposal succeeded. I really don’t know how to reply to such an idiotic proposal.
Yahoo bans The Pirate Bay
If you perform a search for the major torrent website The Pirate Bay you expect it to be the number one search result for its main keyword due to its popularity. If you search for The Pirate Bay (the Piratebay, Piratebay) on Google you will witness that it is indeed number 1 but if you perform the same search at Yahoo you will not find the domain in the results list at all.
How users are being tracked on P2P networks
Have you ever asked yourself how it is possible that users are tracked over months in P2P networks although their IP address is changing regularly ? We only hear reports about session based user identifications. Session based means that shared files of this session are analyzed and recorded opposed to tracking a user over months.
ISPs don’t have to give up names in civil cases
The news that European Internet Service Providers did not have to give up names of customers to members of the Music Industry and other organizations in civil cases hit the Internet by storm. Everyone seemed to think that this was a major victory for consumer rights. It probably is in some countries but let me explain how this is easily circumvented, at least in Germany.
Court orders Rapidshare to take preemptive measures against copyright infringement
I was under the impression that courts are ruled by fact and reason but it becomes apparent that some judges are not able to cope with technology and the fast changing online world. A court order issued on January 23th by the District court of Dusseldorf, Germany ordered Rapidshare to take preemptive measures against copyright infringement. This does look nicely on paper but once you take a look at the practical implementation it is a (nearly) impossible task.
Why I wont be using Qtrax
Qtrax hype has reached a climax yesterday with reviews on many blogs and websites. The funny thing about this is that the client was not officially available yet and either all those reviewers had beta access or were simply using press material issued by Qtrax to review the service. Well, the client is available now but before I look at it I would like to describe Qtrax in a few words.
