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30 Jan 2012 02:23

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Tech: Megaupload data could get deleted as soon as next week

  • 3 days until your family photos get deleted source
  • » But only if you used Megaupload to store them. Megaupload wasn’t just a place to share pirated movies; it also served as webspace for people to store their personal documents, pictures, hard drive backups, and the like. But Megaupload didn’t actually own the servers on which its data was stored–they outsourced that two other companies. Now that Megaupload’s been shut down, its assets have been frozen, and so it can’t keep paying the storage centers their fee. So, according to a letter from the US Attorney’s Office, the two data centers could start deleting the data as soon as this Thursday. That would be a shame for many, many people (although it should have been clear from the outset that Megaupload wasn’t the wisest place to back up one’s data). An attorney for Megaupload says he’s “cautiously optimistic” that they’ll be able to keep the data from being erased.
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jun 2011 14:18

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Tech: Tennessee lawmakers pass stupid anti-password-sharing law

  • Share your password on Netflix? If you live in Tennessee, you should stop. They just passed a law that makes it illegal to share your password to sites like Netflix and Rhapsody — even with permission. They’re the first state to do this. While you don’t have to worry about sharing within the same house, you might have to worry if you have a son or daughter in college, because they just might be sharing your password with everyone on their floor in their dorm. This is because the language of the law is super-vague and punishes mostly innocuous uses of password-sharing. And the punishments are steep too — up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine for $500 or less of “theft,” which the law treats as a misdemeanor. The recording industry, as you might guess, is behind this stupid law — and they hope other states will follow suit after this. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Nov 2010 11:02

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U.S.: RIAA lawsuits’ last stand: SCOTUS won’t hear downloader’s appeal

  • good The recording industry has moved away from suing the crap out of copyright infringers. About time; who did that help, anyway?
  • bad One of the people sued in such a fashion, Whitney Harper, lost her case – and the Supreme Court wouldn’t hear her appeal. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Oct 2010 23:25

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Tech: LIMEWIRE IS DEAD. IN ALL CAPS. (FOR EMPHASIS)

  • THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NOTICE THAT LIMEWIRE IS UNDER A COURT-ORDERED INJUNCTION TO STOP DISTRIBUTING AND SUPPORTING ITS FILE-SHARING SOFTWARE. DOWNLOADING OR SHARING COPYRIGHTED CONTENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS ILLEGAL.
  • A notice on LimeWire’s Web site • Informing the world that the groundbreaking file-sharing service is no more. It lost a permanent injunction, rendering the decade-old site off-limits. You’ll be missed, and not just for all of the spyware you put on our computers. The next step? The RIAA goes for the money grab. Sad.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

01 Jul 2010 21:34

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Tech: The RIAA: The Viacom/YouTube decision is “bad public policy”

  • So says the group that sues suburban mothers for stealing two dozen songs. President Cary Sherman says that the ruling “will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.” To that, we say, make it easier to exchange content legally and you won’t have an issue. Fewer lawsuits (actually, wait, no lawsuits), more cool things like Lala and Rdio. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Jan 2010 18:20

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Tech: A court knocks a few bucks off Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s piracy bill

  • $2 million the amount Jammie owed the RIAA based on the last court decision; that’s $80,000 for 24 songs each
  • $54,000 the amount Jammie now owes based on the new court decision; that’s $2,250 per song source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Aug 2009 23:03

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Biz, Music: The Justice Department: No problem with massive RIAA verdicts

  • $1.92 million? Pssh, that’s fine! The Department of Justice put their two cents into the most anti-consumer case of our time, one in which regular person Jammie Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay a huge sum to the RIAA. What did they say? Here’s what they submitted to court: “Defendant’s suggestion that the actual harm can be measured to the ‘tune of $1.29 for each of the 24 songs’ … ignores the potential multiplying effect of peer-to-peer file-sharing.” Wait, what? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 3 Comments • Permalink
 

31 Jul 2009 19:23

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Biz, Tech: The royally screwed Tenebaum: The RIAA gets a huge judgment

  • $675,000 the size of the judgment against PhD student Joel Tenenbaum, who felt it from the RIAA source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Jul 2009 12:36

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Biz, Tech: Has the RIAA finally come around to seeing DRM as bad?

  • All DRM has ever done is annoy consumers who actually paid for their music. No single piece of DRM has ever stopped anyone from pirating music, it’s quite the opposite as the music industry now realizes.
  • TorrentFreak’s Ernesto • Discussing the demise of the Recording Industry Association of America’s reliance on digital rights management to protect its content. In recent months, the music industry group has abandoned the approach: In an upcoming issue of SCMagazine, chief spokesperson Jonathan Lamy says, “DRM is dead, isn’t it?” That sounds pretty definitive to us. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jun 2009 20:45

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Tech, U.S.: We swear, this RIAA case must’ve had the dumbest jury ever

  • 24 songs Number of MP3s file-sharer Jammie Thomas-Rasset was being sued over by the RIAA source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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