Free Republic

A federal judge has dismissed Elektra v. Santangelo with prejudice, leaving the door open for defendant Patti Santangelo to recover attorneys' fees from the RIAA. Last month, Judge Colleen McMahon denied the RIAA's motion to dismiss the case without prejudice, ruling that the case should either be dismissed with prejudice or proceed to trial so that Santangelo could have a shot at being exonerated of the RIAA's accusations of file-sharing and copyright infringement. A stipulation of discontinuance with prejudice was entered yesterday by both the plaintiffs and defendants, which means that Santangelo is the prevailing party and therefore eligible to...

Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to circumvent international copyright laws. The group has set up a campaign to raise money to buy Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation', and claims to be outside the jurisdiction of the UK or any other country. The Pirate Bay says it is the world's largest 'bit torrent tracker', and is a popular way of sharing music, films, software and other copyrighted material online. It has been under the scrutiny of authorities in Sweden...

On a recent trip to New York City, Russell Crowe was asked by reporters why he had dropped out of negotiations to star in a new movie being directed by Baz Luhrmann and produced by 20th Century Fox. The Academy Award winner, never one to mince words, suggested it was, in part, the money. “I do charity work, but I don’t do charity work for major studios,” Mr. Crowe said. It seems the needy are not the only ones in Hollywood with their hands out. Movie and television studios, facing escalating budgets, rampant piracy and the uncertain future of new...

Mothers. You've got to love them. They give birth to us, feed us, clothe us, teach us to chew with our mouths closed, and go to bat for us against the RIAA. Sometimes they win (PDF). An Oklahoma mother, Debbie Foster, was accused by the RIAA of copyright infringement back in November 2004, and her daughter Amanda was added to the complaint in July 2005. According to the RIAA, the Internet account paid for by Debbie Foster was used for file sharing, with an unspecified number of songs downloaded. The music group offered to settle the case for US$5,000, but...

LONDON (Reuters) - The British music industry stepped up its campaign against illegal file-sharing on Monday by demanding that two Internet service providers suspend 59 accounts it believes are being used to swap copyrighted songs. The British Phonographic Industry trade group called on Cable & Wireless (CW.L) and Tiscali (TIS.MI) to join a crusade against consumer practices that have undermined music companies in recent years. "We have said for months that it is unacceptable for ISPs to turn a blind eye to industrial-scale copyright infringement," BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson said in a statement. "We are providing Tiscali and Cable &...

Louise: "No these are not my songs." They are however downloaded right onto her computer. Louise:"I was embarrassed when they gave me a print out of these songs." She got this printout because of lawyers. She also got this letter telling her she was being sued for copyright infringement.Parents, there are other popular file sharing programs you need to know about: Morpheus: morpheus.com Kazaa: www.kazaa.com Bearshare: www.bearshare.com Limewire: www.limewire.com Louise: "I was in shock..I was stunned." The letter is part of a music industry crackdown.Singers, songwriters and music companies tired of people downloading and burning copies of music without paying....

A Rockmart family is being sued for illegal music file sharing, despite the fact that they don’t even own a computer. Read more in source: http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?show=localnews&pnpID=728&NewsID=713614&CategoryID=11575&on=1

Neuros Technology International CEO Joe Born in his open letter to congressmen James Sensenbrenner Jr. and John Conyers on HR 4569, the Digital Transition Content Security Act (aka: Analog Hole Legislation): …we believe the proposed bill will not only do nothing to protect against piracy, it will actually reduce legitimate media sales, unnecessarily harm consumers, and have a chilling effect on innovators of new media technologies…Today, we make a next generation digital VCR of sorts that would effectively be outlawed if HR 4569 becomes law….This device is meant to make it easier for consumers to adapt content they have already...

WHITE PLAINS, New York - It was Easter Sunday, and Patricia Santangelo was in church with her kids when she says the music recording industry peeked into her computer and decided to take her to court. Santangelo says she has never downloaded a single song on her computer, but the industry didn't see it that way. The woman from Wappingers Falls, about 80 miles north of New York City, is among the more than 16,000 people who have been sued for allegedly pirating music through file-sharing computer networks. "I assumed that when I explained to them who I was and...

Grokster, the free music-swapping website that prompted a legal battle ending in the US Supreme Court, agreed to shut down its service under a settlement with the US music industry, industry officials said. Grokster will shut down its peer-to-peer (P2P) network that had been accused of massive copyright violations, prompting a lawsuit that ended with the highest US court ruling that it contributed to piracy, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "This settlement brings to a close an incredibly significant chapter in the story of digital music," said Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the RIAA....

MILWAUKEE Nov 2, 2005 — A 67-year-old man who says he doesn't even like watching movies has been sued by the film industry for copyright infringement after a grandson of his downloaded four movies on their home computer. The Motion Picture Association of America filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Fred Lawrence of Racine, seeking as much as $600,000 in damages for downloading four movies over the Internet file-sharing service iMesh. The suit was filed after Lawrence refused a March offer to settle the matter by paying $4,000. "First of all, like I say, I guess I'd have to plead...

An Oregon woman accused of illegal peer-to-peer downloading has countersued the Recording Industry Association of America, contending that the music trade group illegally invaded her privacy, searched her computer without her permission, and conspired with other companies to engage in "extreme acts of unlawful coercion, extortion, fraud, and other criminal conduct." At least one other defendant sued for downloading music online has sought to use laws typically applied to organized crime to countersue the RIAA. The lawyer who brought that case in New Jersey courts last year said Monday that his client had declared bankruptcy, and the case was no...

This is the case peer-to-peer file sharers have been waiting for. Tanya Andersen, a 41 year old disabled single mother living in Oregon, has countersued the RIAA for Oregon RICO violations, fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation, the tort of "outrage", and deceptive business practices. Ms. Andersen's counterclaims demand a trial by jury. Ms. Andersen made the following allegations, among others:

File-Sharing Doomed, Warns Exec Peer-to-peer file-sharing companies in the U.S. will cease to exist in their current forms over the next few months, the president of MetaMachine, the company responsible for the eDonkey software, predicts. Speaking at a Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Sam Yagan said that in order to avoid expensive litigation, file-sharing companies will have to change their models to become similar to iTunes or the new Napster or face expensive legal battles. MetaMachine won't be an exception. "Because we cannot afford to fight a lawsuit--even one we think we would win--we have instead prepared to convert eDonkey's...

Two-thirds of U.S. college students see nothing unethical about downloading digital copyrighted files without paying, a survey found. In addition, 52 percent think downloading music without paying is acceptable behavior in the workplace, according to the survey released by Business Software Alliance. The survey reveals 45 percent of students are using campus networks for downloading activities. Downloading music is a gateway to downloading software, the survey found. Among students who say they would always download music or movies without paying for them, 27 percent said they regularly download software from a peer-to-peer network. Generation Y has largely grown up using...

The Supreme Court may have dealt file-swapping companies a blow on Monday, but its decision is unlikely to put a damper on the illegal sharing of music and other media online anytime soon, industry experts say. In its ruling, the nation's top court found that file-swapping companies Grokster and StreamCast Networks should be held liable for the widespread copyright infringement their technologies enable. The decision casts uncertainty on the fate of Grokster and other file-swapping companies, but not on the viability of file-swapping itself, an activity that has only flourished under legal attacks, observers said. That's because the software that...

If you had a chance to listen to the content companies' press conference on the afternoon the Supreme Court's decision in MGM v. Grokster was announced, you heard nothing but crows of victory. The word "unanimous" was repeated umpteen times (the decision was 9-0 against the peer-to-peer company defendants), and much was said about how unequivocal the record companies' and movie companies' victory was. As a technical matter the content companies won MGM v. Grokster; the decision remands the case to a trial court for further factfinding as to whether defendants "induced" infringement. But it's clear that they didn't win...

DALLAS - Christian teens are stealing Christian music through Internet downloads and CD burnings at the same rate non-Christians are stealing secular music, according to a new study. Christian pollster George Barna completed a study on teens and piracy for the Gospel Music Association. The study, which has not been made public, showed only 10 percent of Christian teens considered music piracy to be morally wrong, The Dallas Morning News reported. Of those, 64 percent have engaged in downloading or CD burning. That's virtually the same percentage as non-Christians. Last year, sales of Christian albums dropped 5.2 percent, to just...

Internet file-sharing services will be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting warnings that the lawsuits will stunt growth of cool tech gadgets such as the next iPod. The unanimous decision sends the case back to lower court, which had ruled in favor of file-sharing services Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. on the grounds that the companies couldn't be sued. The justices said there was enough evidence of unlawful intent for the case to go to trial. File-sharing services shouldn't get a...

Grokster and StreamCast Networks can be held liable for copyright infringements committed by users of their peer-to-peer file-sharing software, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The decision in the case Grokster v. MGM is a major win for the motion picture and recording industries, which took the case to the nation's highest court after losing in lower courts over the past two years or so. Lawyers for the plaintiffs--Motion Picture Association of America, the National Music Publisher's Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America--asked the court to recognize that the Grokster and StreamCast's Morpheus P-to-P (peer-to-peer)...