p2pnet view P2P:- Under the better late than never heading, here’s a roundup of news items from March, 2009.

I’d intended to post it at the start of the month. But I forgot.  

Cheers!
Jon

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Movie pirates are behind, well, everything - Film Piracy, Organized Crime, and Terrorism! Now that’s a title! And it’s a precursor to what we can confidently expect from Hollywood as it launches a new all-out, no-holds-barred, bombardment on the Obama government. Who funded the ’study’? That’s right. Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), which has been unsuccessfully beating the ‘movie pirates are behind everything bad in the world’ dead horse for many years. But with a new administration in power, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney clearly felt it was incumbent upon them to introduce new fodder to be quoted ad nauseum by the lamescream media and at various government hearings to absolutely prove America depends absolutely on Hollywood maintaining healthy (for Hollywood)  profitability.
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2  French president Sarkozy sued by US band Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden, aka MGMT, have taken a leaf out of Jackson Browne’s book by suing a major political figure for alleged copyright violation. Browne reckons “wrinkly, white-haired guy” John McCain used his Running on Empty during the presidential campaign without paying for the privilege. But MGMT have substantially upped upped the ante not by going after a presidential wannabe, but by targeting an actual president, in this case France’s Nicolas Sarkozy.

2  Tenenbaum v RIAA case ’seriously funky’ ‘Tenenbaum file-swapping case gets seriously funky’. That’s the headline to Nate Anderson’s Ars Technica post on the now-famous trial featuring Boston student Joel Tenenbaum, sued by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA, but with a “crack team of CyberOne students” led by law professor Charles Nessonm, as Harvard’s CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion blog described it, in  his corner. We, too, thought it was getting a little, well, odoriferous and asked Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman for his views on several interesting (IOHO) aspects …

2  Bell Canada ‘Smartphone’ – arf arf. What a dog!

2  The Pirate Bay vs Them: Day Ten. Increasing layers of excreta.

3  For whom The Bell (Instinct) Tolls This is what happens and when you bite the hand that feeds you. It’s no surprise Bell Canada tried to pass a shoddy product off on its users, it holds them in such supreme contempt. What IS surprising, though, is: it thought it could get away with it. Under discussion this time around isn’t its practice of screwing customers by censoring their broadband accounts under the pretext of managing bandwidth. Instead, it’s the Not-So-Smart phone from (Not-so-Sympatico) Bell Canada, described yesterday in Ottawa Gal’s analysis of events as a dog  – arf arf. The story hasn’t yet been picked up by the mainstream media. But it will be. And in the meanwhile, it’s inspired some folk-art, always a sure sign something has caught the public eye.

3  The Pirate Bay vs Them: Final Day. Verdict due April 17.

4  MPAA joins RIAA with staff firings “Things may be far worse for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMGs universally despised RIAA than we`d hoped for (sorry, expected),” p2pnet reported recently, citing RIAA staff firings. So naturally, we were wondering how things are going over at the Big Music extortion unit’s brother organisation in La La Land … Hollywood’s MPAA is to also suffer attrition (if it hasn’t already) with The Big Question Mark hanging over the head of current boss Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman. After all, his contract does end this year.

4  Neil Young: pissed off by YouTube. ‘The new radio, but not quite’.

5  Audiomaxxx King Raj ’served with a summons’ “This is the Big Kahuna. Anytime you shut down something as big as this, it has an impact.” That was Graham Henderson, official mouthpiece for RIAA clone the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America), almost exactly a year ago. He was taking credit on behalf of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG for a raid on Audiomaxxx which according to RCMP, sent counterfeit product to “thousands of international buyers every week”. But oops! Both a  CRIA ress release and the site later admitted: “TORONTO, March 7 /CNW/ – In the CRIA media release of March 6, it was erroneously reported that RCMP had filed criminal charges against four people in connection with the RCMP investigation into Audiomaxxx.com Ltd. CRIA has received information that no one has been charged with an offence in respect of this matter. In the same media release, it was also reported that Raj Singh Ramgotra was among those arrested. CRIA cannot confirm the identities of any of those arrested and therefore retracts its statement to the effect that Mr. Ramgotra was arrested. CRIA regrets the error.”

5  Stanford and Duke, core Apple stalwarts. ‘Mobile-application arms race’.

6  Jango: the vanity press of online music “Is Jango based in Nigeria, home of 419 arteests, perhaps?” – p2pnet wondered yesterday. “Or are we being too harsh?” Jango is one of the latest efforts to milk gullible independent musicians. “Pay this radio station a bunch of money and it`ll play your tunes,” we said, going on, “Remind you of anyone or anything? And there’s even a special introductory price! $30 for 1,000 plays, $50 for  2,000 and $100 for 5,000 plays! “Wow!” Yeh. Wow. That anyone would fall for it.

6  Should everyone with a canceled A/C sue Google?. ‘Maybe they should …’

6  Jango, The Saga: IV Dan responds. Telling it like he sees it.

7  Stephen Colbert, Scientology’s new Main Man Wee Tom Cruise may soon have a rival not merely as the Cult of Scientology’s chief celebrity spokesman, but as its new Galactic Overlord, actual, as they say in military circles. His name is Stephen ‘Colbair’ Colbert.”

7  Phorm pharce: UK media ’suppressed’ survey Ad agencies, ISPs, and so on, call DPI Deep Packet Inspection, p2pnet posted on Thursday. But p2pnet calls it Deep Privacy Invasion, “and its use as a means of mining private and personal online data now comprises a major threat around the world,” we said. Now, “Which? magazine, The Telegraph, Google/UK Press Association and Channel 4 have all pulled articles over Phorm Inc. (BT/Webwise) legal threats.” says Wikileaks …

9  ‘Atrocious’ RCMP police work in taser death Four armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were apparently so afraid of Robert Dziekanski, who was brandishing a stapler at Vancouver International airport, that one of them repeatedly ‘tasered’ him. When you taser someone, you use a gun to fire a sharp barb attached by a wire carrying a powerful electric charge. It pierces the victim’s skin, allowing the electricity to surge into his or her body. Usually, being ‘tasered’ means instant incapacitation. In Dziekanski’s case, it meant death.

9  Big Music alert: darknets are going mainstream As “millions of people now find that they can easily create their own private share networks, what’s in store for content industry investigators who rely on public P2P networks to find suspected file-sharers?” – wonders Nate Anderson in Ars Technica. LimeWire 5.1.1, “has been in the news lately for a feature that makes it simple for even the newbiest newb to create a ‘darknet’,” he says.

9  Kutiman – [brilliant] Art Outlaw: II “Kutiman’s musical instruments are other people’s videos, and they have an automatic privilege of copyright, which means he either obtains permission from everyone or they get to prosecute him for infringement (if they can afford it), and can otherwise have his work taken down from YouTube under the DMCA,” says Crosbie Fitch in a comment post to the p2pnet story on an amazing, mind-boggling, absolutely incredible virtuoso video mix. “I had a great time searching for you and working with you,” says Israel’s Kutiman, the man who put it all together, figuratively and literally. Copyright, “suspends what would otherwise be a musician’s natural liberty to build upon others’ published work,” says Crosbie. “I think that is not only questionable, but highly unethical. Unfortunately, it’s the most I can do to convince people to at least question this state of affairs.”

9  As the sun sets on P2P in the West … The new P2P majority.

9  Sweden’s ‘biggest ever’ piracy bust. Source of The Pirate Bay material’.

10 French 3 strikes ‘Creation et Internet’ Today is THE day in France. March 10 marks the date of the final debate for the adoption of the country’s “Creation et Internet”. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13/projets/pl1240.asp (in French).

11 National Pirate Day: share and share alike. Honouring Brittany Kruger.

11 Apple’s teensy Recession Shuffle At the beginning of the worst economic recession the world has ever seen, Apple has decided to re-launch its shuffle music player. For $80. Its excuse? This version is smaller. Does the company figure Macolytes are dumber (sorry, wealthier) than other people?

11 New Zealand 3-strikes anti-P2P bill killed. TelstraClear deals the death blow.

11 Huge increase in Warner YouTube takedowns. Defecating on its own doorstep.

12 Try Kutiman’s Thru You: Larry Lessig Could it be Kutiman’s art is the catalyst we’ve been waiting for? He’s the Israeli musician whose Thru You video mix is taking the Net by storm. With this kind of audio/video art emerging, no one needs the kind of formulaic pap endlessly regurgitated by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and presented as music. Because Kutiman’s amazing Thru You is absolutely, 100% guaranteed to inspire artists around the world to produce art which has never been seen before, and never could have been seen without the Internet. And ironically, a hard-core commercial ‘product’ at the centre of countless copyright disputes – YouTube owned by advertising company Google – was the source. Kutiman’s Thru You may even trigger a copyright revolution because each and every component is a clip, or clips, of a video made another artist.

12 isoHunt sues the CRIA: day in court Canadian BitTorrent and P2P search engine isoHunt has become the first such site to go from defense to attack in the online file-sharing wars, p2pnet reported in September last year, going on: “In a landmark case, it’s suing Canadian RIAA clone the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America), asking a court in British Columbia to make the first ruling on whether or not BitTorrent search engines should be held liable for .torrent files that might link to copyrighted data.” “Why do they [Big Music] insist on suing their own customers?” wondered isoHunt owner Gary Fung last year. “Why do they sue search engines like us, who make the internet more useful for everyone?” He went on, “The problem lies in something fundamentally broken with the copyright system. Never a truer word was spoken and with that in mind, yesterday marked Gary’s day in court with the CRIA.

12 Pay up! Dawnell Leadbetter tells RIAA. Again. Motion for attorneys fees.

12 Google wants YOU, like it or not If you’re among those who believe huge US advertising company Google has gone well beyond merely tarnishing its early, and very brief, Do No Evil claim, stay tuned. It’s about to get a lot worse because Google is now going after you few, if any, holds barred. Surfers haven’t been flocking to its ads so the company has been forced to spend millions of dollars trying to figure out new ways to get you to go where it wants you to go, whether you want to go there or not. It hasn’t had much luck so now, “Google is to start targeting its internet advertisements according to what people look at on the web, a controversial technique that privacy groups fear will give the search engine group even greater access to personal information,” says the Financial Times, going on: “The internet company will monitor the web pages that people visit and the YouTube videos they watch to create a profile of each user. “The company will then use the information to show adverts to viewers based on those interests whenever they browse the web.” A profile of each user? Does that mean what you think it means? It does.

12 Phorm phounder tangles with Sir Tim. ‘Neo-Luddite retrenchment’.

13 Downloads aren’t illegal: UK music stars Downloads aren’t illegal, says a new and powerful lobby group of famous UK artists and performers including Blur drummer Dave Rowntree, Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B, Billy Bragg, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, Kate Nash, Marillion’s Mark Kelly and rapper Master Shortie. “The inaugural meeting of the U.K.’s Featured Artists’ Coalition (FAC) in London resulted in a unanimous vote among its members against any measures that criminalize file-sharing,” says Billboard. The 140-strong FAC was formed, “to give artists a collective voice to campaign for effective laws and regulations, as well as transparent and equitable business practices,” it says, going on: “As well as discussing the general aims and logistics of the new body, there was also a unanimous show of hands against the idea of criminalizing file-sharers, according to those present. There was concern about any legal body taking action against fans who were involved in file-sharing and preventing them getting broadband access to be informed about the activities of their favorite acts.”

13 RIAA: it was all worth it ‘Our sue ‘em all campaign against thousands of innocent Americans may have caused grief to families, financial hardship, seriously interfered with student studies and tied up scarce civil court resources. But it was all worth it. To us, anyway. And that’s what matters.’ That could be interpreted as the effect of comments from RIAA consigliere Steve Marks during a current (as of this date)  podcast interview for the Intellectual Property Colloquium project at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law.

13 ‘File sharing stealing’: Gene Simmons (KISS). ‘So are downloads’.

14 Canadian P2P file sharers buy more music Canadian file sharers are more likely to buy music and attend live performances than others, says an Angus Reid Strategies poll. We’re split on the subject of file sharing, but, “45 percent of those surveyed said that downloading music was simply people doing what they should be able to on the Internet and 27% said that they shouldn’t do it but that it is not a big deal,” states Michael Geist. Only 3% think file sharers are, “criminals who should be punished by law”. The poll found downloading still exceeds paid downloads [big surprise], but, “those downloading were also more likely to buy a CD (41 percent to 34 percent for non-downloaders),” says Geist.

14 Bell Canada: ‘It’s MY ball ! So THERE!’. Withholding network upgrades.

16 Brits say No! to ISPs as corporate copyright cops ISPs shouldn’t have to act as enforcers for the corporate entertainment industry,  say most Britons. Only 20.7% of of 472 respondents in an ISPreview survey thought providers, “should tackle repeated illegal file sharing by imposing restrictions upon P2P access”. Moreover, just 14.8%, “were in favour of restricting broadband service speed as a punishment for repeat offenders,” and only 26.9%, “supported the idea of sending even more warning letters if the first one failed,” it says.

16 Skwerl owes $2 million! RIAA Skwerl. Now that’s a hardcore name for a hardcore Internet pirate, if ever there was one! Known to his mum and girl-friend as Kevin Cogill, FBI agents, acting for the corporate music industry, arrested Skwerl in his jammies last year. His alleged crime? He uploaded nine unreleased tracks from the not eagerly awaited upcoming Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy to his blog. Oh! The Horror! Now federal US authorites want Cogill thrown into jail with six months to repent his crimes.

16 The End of the Newspaper is Nigh! Bytes, not glyphs.

16 Girl Scout leaders ban online cookie sales Eight-year-old Wild Freeborn from Asheville, North Carolina, had a great idea to sell official Girl Scout cookies. Do a YouTube video! Then, disaster! The YouTube ad program had to be cancelled.

16  Scientology’s Xenu is behind all our problems! It’s been confirmed. Mankind’s problems definitely, “stem from brainwashed alien soul remnants created millions of years ago by genocidal alien overlord Xenu”. So says The Register, in turn quoting from an enlightening KESQ interview with cult spokesman Tommy Davis. Some people may not be familiar with Xenu, “because it’s really hard to get on Scientology`s mailing list,” said Stephen ‘Colbair’ Colbert, recently, revealing he’s the cult’s new Galactic Overlord. And, “Here’s his story,” he says of Xenu, quoting from the Wikipedia, and continuing: Seventy five million years ago Xenu was an evil galactic dictator who had some problem with billions of its people. So he loaded them into spaceships which looked exactly like DC8s. Even worse, he charged them $25 if they had extra luggage. Then Xenu brought them here to Eerth where he stack their bodies around volcanoes which he then blew up with hydrogen bombs …”

17 Sony pulls a fast one with CC material. Did You Know?

17 MiniNova interview: staying alive As two of the people behind MiniNova, the Dutch BitTorrent index and search site,  Erik Dubbelboer (left) and Niek van der Maas are both automatically labelled as scurvy pirates, determined to drive the poor, hard-pressed corporate movie and music industries into the ground. That’s what the entertainment cartel PR machines would have you believe, at any rate, and with that contention in the background, the studios and labels want to see MiniNova in court. “BREIN [Dutch MPAA enforcer] hopes the court will force Mininova to filter its search results, so that all .torrent files which may point to unauthorized content are removed,” a Mininova spokesman told p2pnet last year. “We can’t elaborate on the content of the negotiations, but BREIN said they will press summons ASAP.” However, the negotiations fell through and now MiniNova will square off with the entertainment industry in about two months.

17 Is Zynga’s YoVille OK for kids? “YoVille is a world where you can buy new clothes for your player, purchase items for your apartment, go to work, and meet new friends,” says Facebook. It’s also a place where kids can pretend to get drunk and where they can be picked up by sexual predators, says Emma Newton. The application is social networking game for Facebook which, at 9:15 AM Pacific, was boasting 4,878,773 monthly active users.

17 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Net’s newest blog The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of America’s oldest newspapers, closed its doors for the last time today. Founded as the Seattle Gazette in 1863, it had no choice. The P-I lost $14 million last year and on January 9 its owner, New York-based Hearst Corp, put it up for sale, saying it’d stop printing if a buyer couldn’t be found within 60 days. No buyer was forthcoming. But it isn’t disappearing altogether. In fact, it’s become the Net’s latest news blog.

17 Catholic Church launches Pope-Net for China. www.vatican.va.

18 Cheers and jeers for George W. Bush Canadians have the dubious distinction of being the first to pay ex-US president George W. Bush big bucks to make a speech. It was at a $400-a-head private luncheon co-hosted by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. He’s said to have received $150,000 for his talk, his first since retiring in ignomy. Plus expenses, of course. Lessee: 35 minutes into $150,000 (takes socks off to help helped calculations, but gives up).

18 Charles Nesson apologises to judge in RIAA case. Ray Beckerman.

18 UK cinema ‘piracy’ bag search What do Cineworld in Stockport, Greater Manchester, in England, and Cinemas Guzzo in Montreal, Canada, have in common? They both think it’s OK to treat their customers like criminals.

18 Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan joins the RIAA. ‘Scum of the earth’

18 RIAA boss Mitch Bainwol ‘flat out lying’ RIAA spin-doctor-in-chief Mitch ‘The Don’ Bainwolis a liar. It isn’t the first time he’s been called out, and it won’t be the last. Lies, half-truths, dissemblance, mis- and disinformation and sophism are all standard tools used routinely by the RIAA, and this time, levelling the charge is well-known Nashville entertainment lawyer and p2pnet contributor Fred Wilhelms, the subject being the Performance Rights Act. Earlier, “Half of the payments will go directly to the performers, by statute, regardless of any other contracts,” p2pnet had Bainwol saying unequivocally, quoted originally in Swan Fungus. But, “Mitch Bainwol is flat out lying when he says that half the license revenue will go to artists regardless of any other contracts,” says Fred in a Reader’s Write …

18 Preaching to the Choruss. ‘Bait-And-Switch’ music license.

18 EMI boss Guy Hands quits CEO job. Stays on as chief investment officer.

19 TechDirt Choruss story ‘factually incorrect’ Warner Music has come up with a plan it’s calling Choruss. The idea is to introduce a kind of licensing scheme whereby punters pay $5 a month for their music. TechDirt’s Mike Masnick yesterday labelled the plan a “bait-and-switch” operation. Jim Griffin was hired to, “spearhead” the “controversial plan to bundle a monthly fee into consumers’ internet-service bills for unlimited access to music,” is the way Portfolio.com described it. Masnick’s report is “factually incorrect in every respect,” Griffin told p2pnet.

19 Big Music: Jump! New Zealand ISP: How high? Section 92A.

19 Wikipedia yanks ACMA censored link A link to the Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklisted web site that lasted over 24 hours in the ACMA’s Wikipedia entry has been deleted. The link was inserted into ACMA’s Wikipedia entry by a campaigner against Internet filtering to see ifAustralia’s communications regulator, “had a double-standard when it came to censoring web content,” says IT News. The link took people to a site, “containing graphic imagery of aborted foetuses,” says the story, going on the link, “inserted in a post on broadband forum Whirlpool, motivated ACMA to serve the forum’s hosting company Bulletproof Networks a ‘link deletion notice’ and the threat of an $11,000 fine”.

19 Mike Masnick to Jim Griffin on Choruss Stories about Warner Music’s licensing plan are doing the rounds again and earlier today, p2pnet ran a post carrying a rebuttal from Jim Griffin,  hired by WMG to put it together, of claims by TechDirt’s Mike Masnick (right) that the plan, dubbed Choruss, amounted to a Bait-And-Switch operation “Griffin claims that my report is ‘factually incorrect in every respect’ and then refused to name a single factual mistake,” Masnick told p2pnet …

19 UK – social-network police state Britain has come another frightening step closer to becoming more of a police state than it already is. “The U.K. government is considering the mass surveillance and retention of all user communications on social-networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo,” says ZDNet UK. UK home office security minister Vernon Coaker (right) says the EU Data Retention Directive, under which ISPs must store communications data for 12 months, doesn’t go far enough, according to the story.

19 $101 million ’stuck to SoundExchange’s fingers’ Robin Hood In Reverse is alive and well at SoundExchange — steal from the poor and give to the rich. As of the end of 2007, SoundExchange had accumulated over $101 million in ‘investments’. That’s $101 MILLION. Don’t take my word for it. That’s what the SoundExchange IRS-990 for 2007 says.

20 Spiral Frog croaks its last croak ”The SpiralFrog corporate `p2p` service, yet another corporate attempt to milk online music lovers, appears to be croaking. “It wobbled onto the scene late last summer offering, with Vivendi Universal`s support, a, ’secure environment where music lovers can satisfy their unyielding passion and thirst for music, entertainment, and information’,” said a p2pnet post from a couple of years back. But now, thankfully, Spiral Frog really has ribbited its last ribbit.

21 No censorship, say 90% of Aussies: report How many Australians are behind plans to censor the Net? Virtually none, says a new survey from ISP Whirlpool, conducted between December 31, 2008, and February 1 this year.

22 Scientologists plan ‘backward’ Ireland invasion. ‘MANY PR ACTIONS’.

23 RIAA’s DoJ horns in on Tenenbaum case. Oversized, 39-page brief.

23 Turn it off, TurnItUp. Quality ad spots?

23 CENSORED! Hillary: The Movie You haven’t seen Hillary: The Movie. That’s because when a special three-judge panel “considered the scathingly critical” documentary, they, “deemed it a campaign ad with the unmistakable message that people should vote against then-presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton because she ‘is unfit for office’,” says USA Today. Activist group Citizens United had planned on airing Hillary on cable television and on-demand video while she was seeking the Democratic Party nomination for president, says United Press International. “But the Federal Election Commission ruled it was an electioneering ad and therefore banned from being aired within 30 days of a vote,” it says.

23  Obama: marching to the RIAA band When George W. Bush cheated his way into the US presidency, the Net was kinda cool – a Geeky kind of thing used by people on the outside fringes and not to be taken too seriously and back then, its influence on events and politics was minimal. That, however was almost a decade a go and although it may have been true once, it certainly isn’t true any more. In fact,  the Internet is now the primary means of communication for hundreds of millions of people around the world. It’s how they get their news and pass it on to each other. Barack Obama recognized that critical fact and one of the reasons he’s now president of the United States of America is because he’s used the Net to talk to the people, convincing ordinary folks across the land he’s one of them and would act in their best interests. So it’s passing strange that now he’s running the country, he seems to have forgotten how he got there in the first place — at least as far as some 40,000 innocent men, women and even young children are concened. They’ve all been on the wrong end of subpoenas issued by Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music’s (US) Recording Industry Association of America. They’re criminals, says the RIAA, massive online distributors of copyrighted music. Even 10-year-olds. And dead grandmothers. And home health workers who don’t know one end of the computer from the other. They’re thieves, says the RAA. All of them. And there are millions more around the world like them, all bent on depriving the corporate music industry of their rightful earnings. The RIAA was getting away with this  fallacy under the Bush administration, but surely things would be better under Obama, was the hope, if not the expectation. Surely he’d put a stop to it. Wouldn’t he? But it doesn’t look like that’s in his plans.

23 p2pnet meets Caroline from Darfur p2pnet survives on a month by month basis, literally, and several times in the past I’ve missed out on what may have been highly remunerative opportunities because, doubter that I am, I thought they looked just a little dodgy. A number of  offers have arrived from Arab princes, Nigerian government ministers, and even a US Army captain serving in Iraq. But somehow,  they didn’t ring true. Last week, however, I had another missive, this time from Caroline Jabah in Darfur, and it plucked my heart-strings …

23 Canadian ‘Choruss’ gets a revamp Across the border, Warner Music is trying desperately to swing a music licensing scheme called Choruss, described by TechDirt’s Mike Masnick as a bait-and-switch operation. The plan is to persuade American students (initially)  to part with $5 a month for WMG music. But, “The idea is far from original,” said p2pnet, going on: “The EFF came up with  RIAA v The People – four years later a long time back, and the Songwriters` Association of Canada (SAC) and Canadian Music Creators Coalition (CMCC) had a similar idea.” However, the Canadian plan wasn’t a corporate music industry scheme, all dressed up. Now, “In November 2007, the Songwriters Association of Canada shocked the music industry and many Canadians by proposing the full legalization of music file sharing,” blogs Michael Geist …

24 Hollywood’s first billion dollar January. ‘Nice sanctuary’ for ‘tough times’.

24 Australian censor plan a ‘dead parrot’. Wikileaks back online.

24 Warner Bros launches Mouldy Oldies Warner Bros is now trying to sell copies of 150 films from the ’silent era’ to the 1980s that’ve never been released on DVD ! WOWEEEEEE! And they’ll only cost $15 !!!! (Or $20 by mail). What a DEAL!

25 Susan Crawford Obama tech adviser? There’s hope yet. “The new Obama administration is shaping up to be a disaster for Copyfighters everywhere,” said Alan Wexelblat on Corante recently. “In particular the new Department of Justice is stacked with lawyers who’ve been on the wrong side of copyright and intellectual property lawsuits for the last eight years.” Now word has leaked that Susan Crawford has been appointed a White House tech policy expert. She wouldn’t confirm or deny the rumour to p2pnet …

25 New Zealand: safe from Big Music. Or is it? The Fat Lady hasn’t sung.

26 French anti-file sharing law targets children. HADOPI for kids.

26 Comcast, AT&T say No! to RIAA 3-strikes plan Comcast, America’s second largest ISP, says it has no plans to become a dedicated Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music copyright enforcer. This is very bad news for the corporate music industry which has been using the mainstream media to pass on the spurious claims that a) it’s stopped suing people; and b) that major American ISPs have agreed to become Big 4 copyright enforcers. p2pnet said earlier today, “AT&T has joined the RIAA, believing its customers will put up with anything, including being ratted out to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA as part of the ongoing sue ‘em all campaign”, based on yesterday’s post. But, a Media Guy Reader’s Write quotes USA Today as stating: “AT&T will not suspend or terminate a customer`s Internet service merely based on piracy allegations of a third-party, the company`s top public policy guru says. “On Wednesday, some published reports said AT&T had begun pulling the plug on customers accused of engaging in illegal downloading of music by the Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry`s main lobbying group. The story got picked up across the Web, resulting in a flood of calls to AT&T.” Now, “Joe Waz, a senior vice president at Comcast, the nation’s second largest ISP, told a gathering of music industry executives that the company has issued 2 million notices on behalf of copyright owners, according to multiple people who were in attendance,” says CNET News. But, “This is the same process we’ve had in place for years — nothing has changed,” the story has him saying. “While we have always supported copyright holders in their efforts to reduce piracy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)”. However, “We have no plans to test a so-called ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ policy,” he emphasises in the story.

26 iMeem: sinking fast The likes of Google and Yahoo have been getting away with advertising murder for years, falsely representing to their clients that surfers pay attention to adverts. The only way they can get people to look at their ads is by trickery, and even then, eye-balls on doesn’t by any mean product bought. Not even nearly. Now iMeem, owner of Snocap, another failed effort to cash in on the online music scene, looks like it, too, is sinking.

26 p2pnet talks to 419 scammer Caroline. 419 = Nigerian Criminal Code.

26 German cops raid Wikileaks Seven police officers in Dresden, Germany, and four in Jena, raided the home of Theodor Reppe, holder of the domain registration for “wikileaks.de”, the German name for wikileaks.org. “According to police documentation, the reason for the search was ‘distribution of pornographic material’ and ‘discovery of evidence’,” says Wikileaks, going on Police claim the raid was initiated because  Reppe is registered as the Wikileaks.de domain owner, states.

27 Europe parliament rejects French 3 strikes law Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music have received yet another serious blow against their plans to gain  complete control of music distribution on the internet. “France is definitely alone in the world with its kafkaesque administrative machinery, an expensive mechanism for arbitrary punishment,” says La Quadrature du Net. Not quite alone. New Zealand, too, is meeting fierce resistance in its attempts to impose a virtually identical law on its citizens. And in the US, the Big 4 are trying, and failing, to use their RIAA and the corporate media to bamboozle the nation into believing major American ISPs are firmly behind the plan, which claims providers are willing to become copyright enforcers. The European Parliament has endorsed the Lambrinidis report, effectively condemning the so-called HADOPI three-strikes-and-you’re-gone policy promoted by French president Nicolas Sarkozy on behalf of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music. Sarkozy, a close friend of ex-US president George W. Bush, and Denis Olivennes, who runs France’s largest consumer electronics and media retail operation, want the Draconian legislation applied to alleged online pirates. But the European Parliament has turned its back on every proposed amendment, rejecting the corporate music inspired “graduated response” for the third time, says La Quadrature du Net.

27 McCartney, Ulrich, say No! to copyrights. Rockstars ‘R US.

27 MediaDefender Saaf, Octavio, hit the road. Enter Jibro …

27 The9 and NetEase battle for WoW China’s The9 and NetEase are apparently fighting it out for possession of WoW. Last year NetEase teamed up with Blizzard Entertainment to license and operate titles in China, says Research Oracle, going on: “The increasing number of Internet users and improving quality of games in China has provided growth potential for the online game industry and NetEase.” Blizzard’s StarCraft II is expected to be launched soon, “to be operated in China by NetEase,” says the story. Now, “We believe NTES is trying to take over operation of World of Warcraft from NCTY [The9], when the contract between NCTY and Blizzard expires in June 2009,” says Tian Hou on Pali Research. “We also believe NTES is purchasing servers worth about RMB250M [about $36,592,614] from local vendors, which may be used to run WoW.

27 419 scammer threatens p2pnet Looks like I’m going to have to close p2pnet down. :sigh: Yesterday in a p2pnet post on an email exchange I’d been having with 419 scammer ‘Caroline Jabah,’ supposedly living in a refugee camp, I quoted what I thought would be my final communication from the alleged 24-year-old daughter of “Engr.Jabna Gabi Dickson, [who] was the Chairman, RUGY & GAB Oil and Gas Company a private servicing firm in Darfur”. “Dear Jon,” it said, “Thanks for your mail. Meanwhile, how are you doing today? Nice, I know.  I may need about 280 or 300 dollars to start. I will be happy if you do it for me. I will reward you abundantly if help me.” That would have been the start of something big – for the guys behind ‘Caroline’ – and I would have ended up in the hole for thousands of dollars, I said, noting, “Millions of these scum messages go out every month, and presumably, enough people are sucked in to make it worthwhile.” I also said, “Please read the story here and get back to me. Thanks, Jon’.” And ‘Caroline’ did exactly that, threatening to do her best to shut p2pnet down unless I pull the story and pictures published with it.

28 Google misnumbers Paul McCartney’s house. Street View wrong view.

28 ‘You can’t go to the prom,’ dead girl told. Software error.

28 Bell Canada and ‘frequent tales of woe’. ‘Persistent billing errors’.

28 Hollywood wants to ‘educate’ your kids An important part of Hollywood’s MPAA (Motionless Picture Association of America) mission and responsibility is to brainwash parents, students, teachers – “consumers of all ages and walks of life” – into believing intellectual property rights are any concern of theirs, using teachers to mind-rape the kids they’re supposed to be educating. So with the studios behind him, MPAA scareman Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman created a Hollywood Education Department to more effectively develop and disseminate lies, bolstered by mis- and disinformation, and dull the awareness of people who should be paying sharp attention. Now, “Our efforts are focused on educating consumers who receive infringement notifications for illegal downloading about where to find high-quality, legitimate content on the internet and on effective ways to deal with repeat infringers,” the MPAA claims in a statement …

29 p2pnet to McAfee: Pay us what you owe! ‘Security’ company McAfee owes me a pile of money for using p2pnet in its advertising material without my permission, and without paying for the privilege. And it’s been doing it for years.

29 China GhostNet and the Snooping Dragon Claims of a massive Chinese global computer spy system called GhostNet are “exaggerated” and comprise an attempt to paint the country as a “threat,” says China Daily. China has been accused of, “using malicious software to infiltrate and take control of almost 1,300 computers in 103 countries, including those used in several foreign ministries, embassies and the private office of the exiled Tibetan politician,” says the story. But, “This is purely another political issue that the West is trying to exaggerate,” it quotes Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based strategy and military analyst as saying, going on:  “As China grows, some in the West are trying every opportunity to manufacture fears over China’s threat.” The investigation, undertaken  by Information Warfare Monitor (IWM) Canada’s Secdev Group and the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, revealed GhostNet, said to have compromised, “Nato and foreign ministries, embassies, banks and news organisations across the world, as well as computers used by the Dalai Lama and Tibetan exiles,” says Times Online …

30 UK home secretary ‘gay porn’ scandal British home secretary Jacqui Smith says she “mistakenly” used her parliamentary allowances to claim for a TV package which included two adult-rated features, and that she’ll pay the money back, according to the BBC.

30 UK MPs barred from ‘inappropriate’ content With the news that UK home secretary Jackqui Smith used taxpayer money to pay for gay porn video flicks viewed by her husband in the wings, official parliamentary censorship stops British MPs from cruising online for ‘inappropriate’ material in their commons offices, says the BBC. “A filter on the Commons IT system blocks access to websites that contain ‘offensive or illegal content or are sources of malicious software’,” it states going on: “The policy emerged after an MP was unable to access colleague Lembit Opik’s column on the Daily Sport site.”

31 Michael Geist ACTA roundup. The chronology.

31 No More Hannah Montana flicks! Say it ain’t SO !!! Miley Cyrus Hannah Montana says she won’t be making (m)any more Hannah Montana Miley Cyrus flicks !!! “If you look at me as a role model I agree with it, but if you look at me as an idol, I don’t. An idol for me is someone you want to replicate, you want to be them and I don’t wish that on anyone to lose what they have personally,” she says according to Fux News, “while promoting the upcoming Hannah Montana movie,” going on: “What I do in my personal life isn’t necessarily meant to be reported but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be.” And there you have it.

31 Will French, US 1st ladies discuss file sharing? Will US First Lady Michelle Obama raise Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s three-strikes-and-you’re out and P2P file sharing issues with French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, herself an ex-singer, during a “paparazzi-pulling visit to Strasbourg Cathedral”? Unlikely, say sources not very close to them. “They’ll probably be talking about dresses and such.”

31 School principal jammed student cellphones. ‘Classroom-management issues’.

• p2pnet 2009 January roundup
• p2pnet 2009 February roundup
  

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March, 2010

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