Free Republic

Japan to strip Internet for illegal downloaders: report  TOKYO (AFP) — Japanese companies plan to cut off the Internet connection of anyone who illegally downloads files in one of the world's toughest measures against online piracy, a report said Saturday.Faced with mounting complaints from the music, movie and video-game industries, four associations representing Japan's Internet service providers have agreed to take drastic action, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.The newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, said service providers would send e-mails to people who repeatedly made illegal copies and terminate their connections if they did not stop.The Internet companies will set up a...

EU court: downloaders can stay private By AOIFE WHITE, AP Business Writer 50 minutes ago   BRUSSELS, Belgium - Record labels and film studios cannot demand that telecom companies hand over the names and addresses of people suspected of breaking European copyright rules by swapping illegal downloads, the EU's top court ruled Tuesday. But European Union nations could — if they want to — introduce rules to oblige companies to hand over personal data in similar cases, the European Court of Justice said.The court upheld Spanish telecom company Telefonica SA's right to refuse to hand over information that would...

The top-of-the-line iPod music player from Apple Computer can hold four solid weeks of music. But what if you just want a little peace and quiet? As it turns out, Apple sells that too - sounds of silence for 99 cents. Steve Halberstadt of Raleigh, N.C., made such a purchase last week after discovering that Apple's iTunes store, the Web's leading downloadable music outlet, had added "The Whitey Album," a 1995 release by Ciccone Youth, a jokey side project of the rock band Sonic Youth. The album's second track album, "Silence," consists of 63 seconds of exactly that. (The band...

The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) (RIAA) today said it filed lawsuits against 261 people accused of trading copyrighted songs on the Internet. The group also said that it would not sue file sharers who promise in writing not to do it again.The lawsuits, which were filed in federal courts across the country, are the RIAA's latest tactics in its war against the illegal file sharing that record companies blame for plummeting CD sales. In June, the RIAA promised to sue hundreds of Internet users suspected of illegally trading music using file-swapping services like Kazaa and...

The Recording Industry Association of America has told Sen. Norm Coleman that it is not going after small violators in its campaign against online music swappers. The RIAA's written assurance was made in response to questions Coleman sent to the group over its tactics, which he has labeled "excessive." Coleman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, plans to hold hearings on the RIAA's campaign. "RIAA is in no way targeting 'de minimis' users," wrote Cary Sherman, the group's president, in a letter the subcommittee released Monday. "RIAA is gathering evidence and preparing lawsuits only against individual...