Torrent Freak reported yesterday that the SPFF -- think of it as the French RIAA -- filed lawsuits against the developers of P2P clients Vuze, Limewire, and Morpheus. There is also a fourth target, and I'll get to that particular bit of insanity later.

The SPFF's beef is with the fact that these programs don't provide a system to block copyright protected materials from being shared. Because the programs don't prevent files from being shared, the SPFF argues that the programs are complicit in the act itself.

It's the same flawed P2P argument that agencies have been making for the last decade. This "making available" argument has failed to hold up in US court cases against individual users.

To claim that the developers of these programs are responsible for what their users decide to do with it is pure idiocy. If someone were to author a subversive plot to overthrow the French government using OpenOffice Writer, would there be a lawsuit filed against Sun? OK, don't answer that...

The kicker: Rather than actually going after those who develop the fourth app (Shareaza), the SPFF decided to sue SourceForge - who merely provide hosting for Shareaza's project files. SourceForge has absolutely nothing to do with the actual development of the program.

When I read this, I started having visions of the SPFF headquarters looking like something out of Bizarro World from the old Superfriends cartoon. Clearly the only people that could hatch a scheme like this would be badly animated super villains.

I'm sure there's no possible way this fiasco could backfire on the French music industry. After all, I think we can all agree that the P2P community is usually very good about knuckling under to threats from coporate interests.

In an unrelated note, I have to check uTorrent to see if my downloads are finished.

Back in October of 2007, a federal jury ruled in favor of the RIAA and fined the defendant, Jammie Thomas, an outrageous $220,000.00 US for sharing 24 songs on a P2P network. Not surprisingly, Ms. Thomas filed an appeal. Her case was indirectly strengthened when a New York federal judge ruled that the RIAA could not strictly sue individuals under the "making available" claim -- the argument that merely making a file available to download constitutes subjects the user to copyright infringement and punitive penalties -- they would have to prove the person actually downloaded said files. Yesterday, a Minnesota federal judge declared a mistrial in the Jammie Thomas case, effectively setting the RIAA's court victory record back to zero.

The basis of the mistrial were the jury instructions. Initially Judge Michael Davis instructed jurors that could find Thomas guilty of copyright infringement if copyrighted MP3s were made available via a peer-to-peer network, "regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown."

In August, Judge Davis had a change of heart and called both sides back to court, requesting arguments over the "make available" claim. With yesterday's decision, Jude Davis ruled that the jury instructions were "erroneous, and that error substantially prejudiced Thomas' rights."

Although a mistrial was declared, the case was not dismissed with prejudice, meaning the RIAA can sue Thomas on the same grounds, assuming they can make the argument that actual distribution, and that Thomas was responsible for infringing downloads.

On page 41 of the 44 page ruling, Judge Davis also commented on the extraordinary punitive damages in this case:
"The Court would be remiss if it did not take this opportunity to implore Congress to amend the Copyright Act to
address liability and damages in peer‐ to‐peer network cases such as the one currently before this Court." We can only hope Congress listens.

The complete ruling can be downloaded here.



[via Tech Dirt]

In the spirit of Download Like a Pirate Day, If you want to take to the airwaves and be your own radio broadcaster, Pirate Radio, a PC based internet broadcasting app can help you get your own radio station launched with minimum equipment and no technical skills required. All you need is a PC with a sound card, some audio and a constant connection to the internet.

You can broadcast live with a microphone and live input compatible sound card or a playlist of digital audio files. Your station will put you back only $40 for the software. As for whether or not permission is needed to broadcast music, Pirate Radio recommends you check out RIAA's stance on the issues as well as Save internet radio's opposing view. In any event, Pirate Radio puts the onus on you to be in compliance with the laws of your broadcast area.

Yah, sure there are other ways (some free) to get your pirate station on, but Pirate Radio is turnkey and it has an awesome name.

The age-old battle of copyright and artist freedom keeps clanging away in the distance, and are we any better off than we were when DAT machines were castrated in the 80's? I read a report this morning about a UK band called "Show of Hands" who claims they are dependent upon so-called pirates who download their music and share it with friends. This isn't much different than Trent Reznor making his music freely available online (and my wife reports the show here in town didn't look any smaller than the ones in the 90's -- possibly even bigger since Reznor has a new legion of fans younger than us). But the music industry sticks by the mantra "a download is a lost sale, and that is theft." Or, as TorrentFreak puts it, "there is no such animal as 'piracy as promotion.'"

Oh really? This sad, antiquated logic continues to do one thing and one thing only: bolster sales of the top-paid performers while creating a chilling effect on artists who would love innovative promotion but fear free samples will incur the wrath of the mighty RIAA, or worse. It's one thing to send the FBI after some poor schlub who leaks some Guns N' Roses tracks, or sue the bejeebes out of hundreds of college kids, but it's quite another to threaten fair trade when artists (who own their own content, thank you) decide to market in ways they see fit.

The only ray of sunshine could be recent rulings regarding Creative Commons which might allow savvy artists to provide music in the manner they see fit, without the RIAA calling fans of the artists a bunch of pirates. Arrr, matey. At the end of the day there has to be some middle ground, but it's a pity the RIAA and other enforcement agencies see the world in black and white and tend to pull their concepts of ownership from the days when TV's were also monochromatic.

A few years ago you could purchase practically any song you wanted from the Russian music site AllofMP3. And the songs were dirt cheap. While you had to pay Apple roughly a buck for every song you purchased legally in the US, AllofMP3 charged just a few cents per song. If that all sounds too good to be true, the RIAA thought so too. The US recording industry trade group took legal action against AllofMP3 in late 2006, and Russian authorities shut down the service in 2007.

Last week the RIAA dropped its complaint against AllofMP3. An RIAA spokesperson told Bloomberg that there wasn't much reason to continue with the suit, since the site had been shut down.

But as TorrentFreak points out, the same people who created AllofMP3 now have another site that's nearly identical. The only difference we can find is that it has a new name - Mp3Sparks. Like its predecesser, the site sells music at ridiculously low prices, and doesn't appear to pass any of the proceeds along to artists in the US. So we're pretty sure that the RIAA will be filing another suit soon. Or claiming victory and pretending the new site doesn't exist. Definitely one or the other. Possibly both.

Several companies that broadcast internet radio streams, including RealNetworks, Yahoo!, and this blog's parent company, AOL owe ASCAP millions of dollars. That's according to a federal court in New York. While the court did not determine the exact amount of money owed, ASCAP estimates that the fees could climb as high as $100 million.

ASCAP stands for the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and the group represents over 300,000 songwriters who are currently receiving no compensation when their music is streamed by the three media companies. This despite the fact that the radio streams are supported by advertising, which means AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo! are making at least some money through their streaming music operations.

This whole issue is separate from the dispute between the RIAA and online radio stations last year. The RIAA represents recording artists, while ASCAP covers songwriters.

[via CNet]

A federal judge in New york has ruled that the RIAA cannot sue people for simply making copyrighted music available for download. Rather, the recording industry needs to demonstrate that someone has actually downloaded the file. Otherwise, it's not clear that a crime actually took place.

It's much trickier to demonstrate that someone actually downloaded the files you made available. And when we say you, we mean the figurative you. We're quite confident that no Download Squad readers are actually violating the law. This particular case isn't over yet, since the RIAA feels it can demonstrate that the defendent actually distributed copyrighted files, and didn't just make them available.

The judge in the case also found that while making files available might not be enough to justify a lawsuit, an "offer to distribute" copyrighted works is. What's the difference? If you don't password protect your WiFi router, your neighbors might be able to download files from your computer, which you've "made available." But if you designate a folder on your PC that has files you're willing to share with other Limewire users, that might be construed as an "offer to distribute."

In its ever-continuing quest to prevent piracy, the RIAA announced in a State of the Net conference on January 30th, that it likes the idea of filters on the end user's platform that will detect if a user is doing anything illegal with copyrighted material.

Why would anyone want to install such a filter? In a video excerpt from the conference over at Public Knowledge, an RIAA representative points out that users will install filters that benefit them such as antivirus software - therefore, copyright filters could be bundled with anti-virus software, integrated into modems, or put together with some sort of package from an ISP, to help detect copyright violations. The purpose, of such filters, would be primarily to create a workaround that prevents users from using encryption to avoid detection.

The question of the day then: how much money would the music industry have to pay anti-virus/spyware/malware companies to cover the cost of customers switching to alternatives that come without the copyright filter?

[via Techdirt]

Yesterday a Reddit user posted a link that supposedly runs a time-consuming SQL query on the RIAA'a website. Of course the Reddit community began trying to stick it to the RIAA, and eventually someone may have deleted all of the site's content by exploiting a poorly configured web/database server with an SQL injection attack.

The site appears to be operating fine now, but we noticed it certainly wasn't fine yesterday (and TorrentFreak has screenshots of the site, sans content). Is it ironic that the RIAA uses free open-source software (OSS) such as PHP to run their website while hunting down people who allegedly don't pay for music? You'd expect something more sinister, like Karl Rove hand typing HTML pages in a dimly lit sarcophagus or, at least MS SQL/IIS.

If only they spent more time working to save themselves from cross-site scripting attacks and SQL injection instead of going after college students for downloading "My Humps."

[Via TorrentFreak]

Attention UK Pandora users: as of January 15, 2008, Pandora will stop streaming its Internet radio content. This comes more than six months after Pandora was forced to shut-down service to most non-US users and is the latest in the continually messy battle over licensing Internet radio.

A reader just forwarded us an e-mail from Pandora, explaining the situation. Here are the pertinent bits:

...As you probably know, in July of 2007 we had to block usage of Pandora outside the U.S. because of the lack of a viable license structure for Internet radio streaming in other countries. It was a terrible day. We did however hold out some hope that a solution might exist for the UK, so we left it unblocked as we worked diligently with the rights organizations to negotiate an economically workable license fee...

The message goes on to describe some of the problems Pandora has had trying to work out licensing agreements with UK licensing agencies that were financial suicide. Suffice to say, nothing could be worked out:

...Pandora will stop streaming to the UK as of January 15th, 2008.

Just when we think the music industry might finally be taking steps - small as they may be - to stop fighting against technology, and instead work with technology, something like this happens, and we are reminded once again that this is an industry doing anything and everything in its power not to evolve. Although the RIAA has been the most vocal in its lobbying efforts against the removal of DRM and against fair Internet radio rates, this incident proves that it is not just American record executives; it is the industry as a whole.

Never mind that forcing unfair licensing terms on Internet radio stations and riddling files with DRM hasn't worked (US album sales, even with digital sales tallied, declined by nearly 10 percent in 2007), let's just continue to refuse to face reality while the market and business model quickly disappear and change irrevocably.

Thanks Gordon

Three little letters, about a year ago, had a death-grip on the music industry: DRM. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? DRM limits the unauthorized copying and sharing of music. We can see that argument. It also limits what music can be played on certain devices. Should you get a new computer or device and need to transfer your licenses, all we can say is -- good luck with that. We speak from experience.

Recently record labels and at least a few online music sellers have moved away from offering DRM-laden music. And today, Napster announced it was making the move to DRM-free downloads. (The company's subscription service still includes DRM) Napster, the service that once offered DRM-free songs (illegally), and then legally sold DRM'd songs, has been reborn into the service it should have been all along -- legal music, DRM-free.

Moving to the MP3 format opens up Napster to a wider array of devices, including the ubiquitous iPod. We're not financial gurus, but we sense this can only mean good things for Napster, and for the music industry as a whole. Music that we can play on any device we might have, on any computer we might have? We might break our music boycott. We might even have the heart to upgrade the circa 2004 Zen Touch to something new. You know, now that we can actually own our music, and not just rent it for the life of the device.

[via Reuters]

This week, as we do every week, we spent most of our waking moments following all those tiny hamsters which keep the Internet humming along.

Here's the best of what we saw this week.



Twine: a social network built on the semantic web

The semantic web is one way we might give search engines a little more intelligence about the things for which we're searching. Our own Brad Linder caught up with Nova Spivack, the CEO and Founder of Radar Networks, one of the companies pioneering the Semantic Web.

Adobe: In 10 years, all our apps will be online

It's no surprise that simple, everyday applications have picked themselves up and moved from our hard drives to the Internet. While word-processing, editing spreadsheets, and some minor image editing makes sense in a browser based world, we were shocked to hear Adobe say that in ten years, all their apps will be online. Photoshop, maybe. Premiere? We'd like to see that.

Dr. Shutleworth or; How I learned to stop worrying and love Open Source

We're openly predicting that Ubuntu 7.10, released Thursday, will be the tipping point for Linux on the desktop. Could it be true?

Mark Shuttleworth talks Ubuntu 7.10

Speaking of Mark Shuttleworth, Download Squad attended a virtual press conference with none other than the space traveling, Linux advocate himself. Find out what Shuttleworth had to say about the launch of Ubuntu 7.10

Dept of obvious research: Girls with photos online get more messages

We were less than shocked to learn; Girls who post photos online are more likely to be contacted by interested strangers than boys, or girls who don't post pictures. The Pew Internet & American Life studies group spent actual money to settle this long debated question once and for all. We'd have never guessed.

Other popular articles this week:

A Tiny peek at Windows 7
RIAA sues Usenet. Wait, you can do that?
Office 2008 for Mac; The first screenshots

The RIAA certainly knows how to keep on top of the latest trends in piracy. Wired is reporting that the Recording Industry Association of America is suing Usenet.com, claiming that the internet platform that predates the web is the next big thing in illegal file sharing.

Never mind the fact that people have been sharing files on Usenet for decades. And never mind the fact that Usenet.com is just one company that provides access to Usenet feeds.

In other words, RIAA could sue Usenet.com into oblivion with absolutely no impact on the number of illegal music, movie, and other files you could download from Usenet. This is sort of like suing internet service providers because subscribers used their internet access to fire up web browser, BitTorrent clients, and Gnutella-style file sharing applications to download copyrighted music.

Oh yeah, and in case you've forgotten how to access Usenet feeds (you know, for the engaging conversations, not the file downloads), Wired has written up a nice little tutorial to get you (re)started.

When we first heard about the RIAA's recent filesharing suit victory and the 220k dollar judgment against the user in question -- we thought, "You'd have to be mad to share enough songs to rack up a judgment that large."

Not so fast, jack. The offending copyright infringements totaled just 24--that's right, twenty-four copyright protected files on the user's drive. Breaking down to nearly 10 large per infringement; the defendant Jammie Thomas was hit square in the face with the book the court threw, wiping out her finances and sending her out of the courthouse literally in tears.

As an aside, we're left to wonder if the artists infringed upon could have generated the kind of revenue which would make such an enormous judgment possible if it weren't for the enthusiasm demonstrated by fans like Jammie. After all, a business needs its customers and, like it or not, rabid filesharers are also some of music's biggest fans, and the recording industry's bread and butter.

Nevertheless, Jammie, a MySpace user, has apparently raised nearly a thousand bucks to fund her appeal of the case, courtesy of her MySpace friends. She's also receiving funds from her Native American tribe, but not nearly enough to match the might of the RIAA, whose pockets have grown deep through record sales and insanely lopsided settlement agreements.

Declan McCullough of CNET wrote that the jury instructions given before deliberation may have been slanted in favor of a heavy statutory damage claim, as high as a hundred grand per incident. Is it just us, or does this kind of onesie-twosie infringement seem like it should be covered by a different set of fines? You can get a DUI with children in the car and still get off cheaper than Jammie Thomas did.

RIAA defendant number THX1139 Jammie Thomas has been handed a verdict in a federal jury trial which could see her coughing up $220,000 in cash for sharing a grand total of 24 songs.

The verdict rests on the RIAA claim that "making available", the simple-to-prove act of creating search-able filenames on a filesharing network, is in itself proof of piracy. So, does this mean that the RIAA's longstanding battle to solidify its "making available" claims is valid, and other cases with similar arguments are a done deal? Not necessarily says attorney Ray Beckerman, "There is no basis in the law for the theory; sooner or later -- when appeals finally start filtering through the system -- the courts will put the kabash on it."

Ms. Thomas' case isn't a unique one. In recent years the RIAA has sued over 20,000 people in the United States, one of the few places in the world which allows recording industry lawyers to pierce the veil of privacy without the substantial burden of evidence proving wrongdoing.

The court awarded the RIAA over $9000 per song shared in compensation for losses, a stiff penalty by any measure, but far below the statutory maximum of $150,000 per song. "A verdict of $222,000.00, for infringement of 24 song files worth a total of $23.76?" says Beckerman, adding, "All the business people who make a living from the vibrancy, democracy, and freedom of expression which is the internet, need to get behind the RIAA's victims; if they do not, the world in which they hope to thrive and prosper will disappear rapidly."