The R4 is a tiny Chinese-made device – costing around £14 – that for more than seven million owners of Nintendo's hand-held console, the DS, has blown wide open its capabilities. Combined with a small memory card and plugged into the back of the DS, it enables the console to play MP3s and videos, as well as store copies of games you already own.

Crucially, however, it also enables the user to play pirated games from the internet which can be downloaded for free. Add to this that it's simple to use, and available through retailers such as Amazon, and you can see why the R4 and devices similar to it are bringing video game console piracy to the mainstream.

Nick Welsh has two young children who love their computer games and own a Nintendo DS. He heard about the device from another parent while on holiday. For Welsh, buying a R4 solved both a logistical and a financial problem. The trouble with kids is you pay £20 or £30 for a game, and they could only play it once, he says. Let's say I sit down and download 10 new games, the way it ends up is they'll only really play one or two or those, and the others get replaced. I wouldn't be able to afford that number of games.

Since all the games can be stored on one memory card, which stays in the device, it also offers convenience. You can have 70 or 80 games on a 2GB card, says Welsh, and they're all on the back of the machine. There's no fiddling around with cartridges – it's all there to hand.

Jodi Daugherty, Senior Director for Anti-Piracy at Nintendo, has been tackling pirates for 14 years and believes the fight against the R4 is one of the most challenging she has faced. What is different with these devices is how they're distributed and the impact they have with regards to the internet, she says.

As well as issuing warning letters to the websites on which the games are hosted, Nintendo is also targeting both the Chinese manufacturers and the distributors who sell the devices, and have conducted several raids on factories. Last July, Nintendo – along with some 50 game producers – launched a lawsuit in Japan against distributors of the R4 and similar devices.

Daugherty also says that Nintendo are working with online retail giants Amazon to curtail the global sales/distribution of game copying devices which violate our intellectual property rights.

Region Locking to be Introduced on DSi

As a frequent traveller I find that geographical functionality sucks. I wonder who the smart arse is at Google who thinks that Blogger menus should be shown in Thai language just because I happen to be browsing in Thailand.

Based on article from slashgear.com

Nintendo’s new DSi console launch is disappointing in that DSi titles will be region-locked.

According to a Nintendo spokesperson, while normal DS titles will continue to be region-free (i.e. games you buy in Japan will work on European and US handhelds) apps and software for the DSi will be region-locked. That includes both downloads from the new DSi Store and any cartridges that are DSi-specific.

Nintendo’s justification for this is that they plan custom internet-connected software and functionality that will be unique to the different regions. Presumably that will include geographically-specific language translations. Titles will also be assigned different age recommendations, depending on region.

A federal judge in Minnesota has ordered a new trial in a copyright infringement case involving a woman who was told by a jury to pay $222,000 to various record companies for illegally copying and distributing just 24 songs.

In doing so, US District Judge Michael Davis also rejected a key argument used by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the Minnesota case and numerous others - namely, that the mere act of making music available for download in a shared computer folder constitutes illegal distribution.

Davis' ruling is being seen as a setback for the RIAA's controversial campaign against music piracy, especially since he is now the third federal judge to have flatly rejected the trade group's making available argument. What isn't clear, though, is the extent to which his ruling will actually benefit the defendant in this particular case.

The Pirate Bay has successfully appealed the decision of an Italian judge who had ordered ISPs to block access to the popular BitTorrent tracker last month. The Court of Bergamo decided that this block was unlawful, and that Italian users should regain access to the site.

This August, out of nowhere, The Pirate Bay was “censored” in Italy following a decree from a public prosecutor. The block didn’t prove to be particularly effective, as traffic from Italy only increased. Nevertheless, The Pirate Bay was determined to reverse the decision, and in that mission they have succeeded.

The Court of Bergamo has now lifted the block, and ISPs are again allowed to grant their users access to the most frequently used BitTorrent tracker on the Internet. More details on the decision, and the reason why the block was reversed, will be made public later.

Update: Pirated Legal Explanation

11th October 2008

The Court of Bergamo decided that this block was unlawful, and earlier this week they explained why. According to the court statement (Italian), no criminal court is allowed to issue an order to ISPs to block traffic to a foreign website, based on alleged copyright infringement. Italian law implements an European Directive, 2000/31 CE, which this means that this ruling should be valid in other European countries as well.

Under Italian law, this is possible only for child porn and for unauthorized gambling, but there is no such provision for copyright infringement, Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi explained to TorrentFreak.

The European Parliament has voted in favor of an amendment that will prevent member states from implementing three-stikes laws. Disconnecting alleged file-sharers based on evidence from anti-piracy lobby groups restricts the rights and freedoms of Internet users, according to the amendment.

The power of anti-piracy lobbyists has grown significantly across Europe this year. In the UK, six major ISPs are working together with the music industry to start mass warning file-sharers. France has gone even further, and proposed a law that will enable the entertainment industry to disconnect alleged pirates on their third warning.

Both the MPAA and RIAA have pushed other countries to adopt similar legislation as well, but it will be hard for them to succeed in Europe. In April, the European Parliament spoke out against these anti-piracy measures, by saying it would be conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness. This statement was backed up by an official vote.

The amendment, drafted by Guy Bono and other members of the European Parliament, was adopted by an overwhelming majority. 573 parliament members voted in favor while only 74 rejected. Satisfied with this outcome, Bono stated in a response to the vote: You do not play with individual freedoms like that, and said that the French government should review its three-strikes law.

It is scary to see how lobby groups are awarded powers that should only belong to law-enforcement agencies. Evidence should never be collectedly by parties who gather it in their own interests, and it is a relief to see that the European Parliament agrees on this.

Electronic Arts, stung by a siege of criticism from gamers who took issue with the copyright restrictions the company placed on its Spore game, this morning issued an apology and said it would loosen the electronic locks on the game.

We've received complaints from a lot of customers who we recognize and respect, said Frank Gibeau, president of EA's Games Label, the division responsible for Spore: We need to adapt our policy to accommodate our legitimate consumers.

The customer anger erupted largely on video game message boards and in user reviews on Amazon.com's Spore page. The game's ratings have been hammered by critics of the installation restriction, with nearly 2,500 of the 2,900 Amazon reviewers giving Spore only one star.

EA officials said the controversy caught them off guard.

The company said today that it would boost the limit to five computers. It also will allow players to transfer the game an unlimited number of times so long as each copy is installed on no more than five computers at the same time. EA also said it would sometimes let players go beyond that limit, depending on the circumstances.

A Spanish court has ruled that a site providing links to P2P downloads is operating legally. The Provincial Court of Madrid ruled that Sharemula.com, a site offering eDonkey links to movies, music, software and games does not break the law. The court’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.

Following a Federación Antipiratería (Anti-piracy Federation) investigation in 2006, 15 people were arrested in Spain in connection with the operation of Sharemula.com, an eDonkey (eD2k) indexing site. eD2k links are similar to URLs or .torrent files, in that they contain no copyright material themselves, but may point to such works.

Spain’s Brigade of Technological Investigations claimed that the site was illegal and should be closed. Just under a year ago the case was heard, but sadly for the entertainment industry, the court ruled that the case against Sharemula should be dismissed. It said that neither the site nor administrators had operated illegally by offering links to copyright works, since they had not done so for profit or commercial gain.

However, the entertainment industry did not accept the ruling and appealed the decision. The Provincial Court of Madrid ruled in the appeal that the entertainment industry has no case against Sharemula, and since it has broken no laws, the case should be dismissed. This dismissal is final and cannot be appealed.

Danish ISPs have rejected proposals from the music industry body, IFPI, for a 3-strikes and you’re out policy to deal with illicit file-sharers. In a joint statement, the telecoms companies said that they would not be a part of detection and monitoring activities and that the solution to piracy should come from elsewhere.

Efforts to reach a voluntary agreement between the IFPI and ISPs in Denmark on the issue of unauthorized file-sharing have failed. The telecoms companies have completely rejected the demands of the music industry.

The IFPI wanted to be able to hunt down file-sharers, report them to their ISP and have them implement a so-called 3 strikes policy. They proposed that the first time someone got caught sharing copyrighted files, they would receive a warning from the ISP, the second time they would have their Internet connection slowed down. After a third warning, or strike, the user would be disconnected from his ISP and banished from the Internet.

ISPs in the UK recently reached an agreement with the IFPI to send out warnings to alleged file-sharers, but rejected any further sanctions against their customers such as speed capping or disconnection.

Electronic Arts is going to ease up slightly on its digital rights management (DRM).

The upcoming Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3  will still use SecuROM as used in Mass Effect and Spore. But 5 installs will be allowed rather than the previous 3.

Premier Executive Producer Chris Corry responded to Spore's backlash and wrote on EA's official support forums that Red Alert 3 would ease up on its copy protection. In addition to allowing two more installs, the game will only require a one time online authentication. The EA published Mass Effect for the PC previously required users to authenticate their game online every 10 days, this requirement was later removed.

A first for the Command & Conquer series is that Red Alert 3 will no longer require users to insert a disc to play. In addition, if owners need to install the game more than five times, EA Customer Service will be on hand to supply additional authorizations on a warranted case by case basis.

Music and movie studios are attempting to develop a new type of DRM that would allow customers more flexibility in playing content on multiple devices.

The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) would establish a list of devices in your personal "domain", and minimizes or removes restrictions within that domain.

TechCrunch summarizes DECE and notes that many of the big corporations have decided to support it. The goal is to create for downloads the same kind of interoperability that's been true for physical products, such as CDs and DVDs.

Where it gets really interesting, though, is the group's stated intention to make digital files as flexible and permissive as CDs, at least within the confines of someone's personal domain.

Once you've acquired a file, you could play it on any of your devices -- if it couldn't be passed directly from one DECE-ready device to another, you'd be allowed to download additional copies. And when you're away from home, you could stream the file to any device with a DECE-compatible Web browser.

Cleveland police have charged Alan Ellis, the former administrator of the defunct BitTorrent tracker site OiNK, with conspiracy to defraud the record industry.

Ellis will face magistrates at a committal hearing on 24 September, a police spokeswoman said. Five individuals who were arrested in June for uploading music torrents to OiNK will also appear to answer charges of criminal copyright infringement.

All the alleged offences could carry prison sentences.

The charges follow a lengthy investigation code-named Operation Ark Royal. Ellis was arrested in October 2007 in a raid on his Middlesbrough home. Coordinated raids by Dutch authorities seized the servers that hosted OiNK.

Police at the time alleged that running the BitTorrent tracker had been extremely lucrative, making hundreds of thousands of pounds.

OiNK was operated on an invitation-only basis, and accepted donations from members. It was prized by members for the high quality encoding of many of the files it tracked, and for its frequent pre-release uploads.

Spore was without doubt the most anticipated game of the year. The game itself has blown away the people who have played it, but the DRM encouraged thousands to get their copy illegally. Already Spore has been downloaded more than 500,000 times on BitTorrent, and this number is increasing rapidly.

Users aren’t too happy with the absurd DRM restrictions that come with the game. EA decided that people who buy a legitimate copy of the game, are only allowed to install it three times.

The idea behind DRM is that it will stop people from pirating the game, but in reality, it often has the opposite effect. As Forbes points out, many commenters on various BitTorrent sites now legitimize downloading this game because the official copies include some heavy and intrusive DRM.

You have the power to make this the most pirated game ever, to give corporate bastards a virtual punch in the face, deathkitten writes in a comment on The Pirate Bay. He or she is spot on. Spore has been the most downloaded torrent on The Pirate Bay for over a week, which is unique for a game.

The Pirate Bay, the controversial BitTorrent tracking site in Sweden, has become ensnared in a grisly, high-profile scandal involving the online circulation of autopsy pictures of two murdered children.

The Swedish media are focusing on The Pirate Bay's refusal to remove the links to the torrents of photos uploaded to the internet by its users of photos of two dead children.

The photos are from a police case file concerning the murder of two toddlers. The father of the children has asked the operators of the site to remove the links, but they've declined to do so, based on the group's anti-censorship policies.

The Pirate Bay's co-founder Peter Sunde in a post on his personal blog asks why the Swedish media isn't focusing either on the individual who had uploaded the photo, or on the country's laws regarding the way the government classifies information and provides access to government documents. In this case, someone had accessed the police investigation file, uploaded a torrent file of the photo onto the internet, and linked to the torrent on The Pirate Bay. Under Swedish law, most documents generated by the government are made available to the public unless specifically deemed secret by the courts. In this case, the documents were not sealed by the court.

The operators of the site announced on their blog Friday that they would no longer speak with the media after an incident on a Swedish television station, which Sunde effectively characterized as an ambush.

Sunde had participated in a television interview with Sweden's TV4 Thursday night, as he recounts on his personal blog. He says that he was promised that the interview would focus on policy and the issues of censorship and what gets published on the internet.

But when he arrived at the studio, he was faced with the father of the children who was participating remotely, and asked what he had to say to him, he recounts in a long and angry blog post.

Pirate Bay has been described in Swedish media as 'publisher' of the photos, which is technically not correct, says Mikael Pawlo, an internet entrepreneur based in Stockholm who's been following the case. But Pirate Bay only provides aggregated tracking information on the torrents, which are in turn distributed peer-to-peer, without ever being relayed through Pirate Bay. But he adds: Pirate Bay is also in practice the main distributor of information on how to download the photos.

Sunde takes exception and writes on his blog that the media characterizes the operators of The Pirate Bay as terrorists, and as people totally without emotion, and as bloodthirsty devils. Shame on you Sweden. And shame on you in the media.

Frustrated Spore users are slamming Will Wright's new release with poor, 1-star reviews on Amazon.com.

Of 642 user reviews posted as I write this, 586 are of the 1-star variety, hardly what one would expect for such a hotly-anticipated game. The negative reviews invariably mention the digital rights management (DRM) system built into Spore. This one, posted by Amazon user dwemer22, is fairly typical.

I was EXTREMELY excited about this game... Then I got on Amazon and noticed that a large number of the forums devoted to Spore were complaining of something called "SecuROM." I did a little digging and discovered that SecuROM is a piece of [DRM] software that is installed along with the game to prevent you from installing the game more than three times, in an attempt to combat piracy.

I read further through the forums and the Wikipedia article and discovered that SecuROM does a number of other things too, including sending mysterious packets of data back to the company from your computer (identity theft, perhaps?), prevents you from using certain programs, such as DVD and CD burners, makes it impossible for you to modify your root drive and, worst of all, will NOT uninstall without the help of a third party application. So I cancelled my order...

The pirate version, now available without the nastiness, is therefore, ironically, a superior product.

Over a period of twelve hours, American Rights Counsel LLC sent out over 4000 DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology. Clips included footage of Australian and German news reports about Scientology, A Message to Anonymous/Scientology, and footage from a Clearwater City Commission meeting. Many accounts were suspended by YouTube in response to multiple allegations of copyright infringement.

YouTube users responded with DMCA counter-notices. At this time, many of the suspended channels have been reinstated and many of the videos are back up. Whether or not American Rights Counsel, LLC represents the notoriously litigious Church of Scientology is unclear, but this would not be the first time that the Church of Scientology has used the DMCA to silence Scientology critics. The Church of Scientology DMCA complaints shut down the YouTube channel of critic Mark Bunker in June, 2008. Bunker’s account, XenuTV, was also among the channels shut down in this latest flurry of takedown notices.

In a bid to deter people from using copy versions of Windows XP, Microsoft is now updating its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool to introduce a few uncomfortable niggles for users of pirated versions of Windows.

These include replacing the desktop wallpaper with a black screen every 60 minutes. As well as this, copies of Windows deemed to not be genuine will also have a translucent watermark above the system tray, which Microsoft calls a 'persistent desktop notification.'"

According to the blog, the scheme will be focusing on the productA edition that is most often stolen, which is apparently Windows XP Pro. Users of this OS, according to Microsoft, have the highest likelihood of having a non-genuine copy.

In a decision that will affect every video-sharing site on the Internet, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that just because a tube site encodes videos doesn't mean they control those videos.

The case involves the mainstream video-sharing site Veoh.com, which used to include an adults-only area. They got into legal trouble back in 2006 when the adult entertainment company IO Group, parent company of gay producer Titan Media, found some of their content on Veoh.

The IO Group sued, even though Veoh took down the videos when asked. The IO Group's case hinged on the claim that because the videos had gone through Veoh's encoding process, Veoh should therefore lose its right to protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Judge Howard Lloyd threw out the IO Group's case on the grounds that the encoding process, which transforms the videos into the easy-to-use Flash format during upload, happens independently of the Veoh staff.

Here, Veoh has simply established a system whereby software automatically processes user-submitted content and recasts it in a format that is readily accessible to its users. Veoh preselects the software parameters for the process from a range of default values set by the third party software. But Veoh does not itself actively participate or supervise the uploading of files. Nor does it preview or select the files before the upload is completed. Instead, video files are uploaded through an automated process which is initiated entirely at the volition of Veoh’s users.

The decision also includes language acknowledging the extreme difficulty in monitoring the vast amount of uploads that happen on sites like Veoh.

A television advert for the iPhone misled consumers, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled.

Two complaints to the watchdog noted that the advert said all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone.

But the ASA said because the iPhone did not support Flash or Java - two programs that form part of many webpages - the claim was misleading.

The iPhone employs a web browser called Safari, which is built on freely available software. Many webpages, however, employ small software programs like Flash and Java to display graphics and animations.

Those programs are proprietary software, and Apple does not allow unapproved software to run on the iPhone. The result is that pages viewed with Safari are missing the parts of the webpage generated in Flash or Java.

The ASA said the advert gave a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone. It must therefore not be aired again in its current form, it said.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden has a track record of supporting the media industry over consumers

• Biden this year proposed a $1 billion program to monitor P2P networks for “illegal activity” and a version made it through Judiciary.
• Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA bill designed to limit the recording and playback of individual songs from Satellite and Internet radio stations.
• Biden "urged the Justice Department to prosecute individuals who allowed mass-copying intentionally through P2P."

The computer games industry is launching legal action against people who illegally download games from the internet by writing to 25,000 people in Britain suspected of sharing files and asking them to pay £300 immediately to avoid any further legal action.

Five game developers will initially target 500 people who refuse to pay up, according to the Times. The five companies are Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemasters. They have appointed law firm Davenport Lyons to represent them.

The move follows a judge's ruling this week to force an unemployed mother-of-two living in Britain to pay £16,000 to manufacturer Topware.

In an official letter to the Swedish Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has asked for “assistance” from the Swedish government with preventing video clips from the Olympics in Beijing to be shared on The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay, however, does not plan to take anything down, and cheekily renamed their tracker to The Beijing Bay.

The IOC is getting used to censoring the Internet, and has asked the Swedish government to help remove Olympic torrents from The Pirate Bay - which they claimed have been downloaded more than 1 million times. The IOC also wants the government to assist in preventing clips from the Olympic closing ceremonies to be shared.

A woman has been ordered to pay more than £16,000 in a landmark ruling. Isabella Barwinska is the first offender to pay damages after being taken to court in the UK by computer game manufacturers seeking to protect their copyright.

The move comes after similar action has been taken by the music industry in a bid to stop illegal file sharing.

The decision was reached last month at the Patents County Court in London. On July 22 the court ordered that she must pay damages of £6,086.56 and costs of £10,000 to Topware Interactive which owns the computer game Dream Pinball 3D.

Former neighbours told how Barwinksa is an unemployed mother of two who has since moved to Canning Town, East London. It is understood that she did not file share for commercial profit or gain and was given 28 days to settle the judgement. She will face further legal action if she does not pay the legal bill by August 25.

In such cases those who file share are initially contacted and asked to pay a nominal amount - normally a few hundred pounds - to avoid civil proceedings after also agreeing to stop file sharing. Some 35% of people pay but others who ignore the threat of legal action or do not attempt to defend it can often find themselves in court and face ludicrously inproportionate penalties.

 

The Italian government has banned the daddy of illegal torrent sites, Pirate Bay.

However it seems as if the Italian government might have to face the file sharer's underworld, as they are not happy about this.

In a letter on the Pirate Bay website, the owners are venting their anger at the court of Italian Supremo Silvio Berlusconi; they have labeled him a fascist. They also go on to say that he is part of a corrupt dictatorship that is intent on quashing the Internet’s right to remain free of censorship.

At the end of the letter, the letter explains to wannabe Italian downloader’s how to get around this block. Pirate Bay is also asking fans of their site to complain to their ISP. They say that they should demand that the site be reinstated.

Update: Pirate Appeal

25th August 2008, based on article from torrentfreak.com

The Pirate Bay has decided to fight the decision of an Italian judge after it ordered ISPs to block access to the popular tracker. The blocks didn’t prove particularly effective as traffic from Italy only increased but nevertheless, The Pirate Bay is determined to reverse the decision.

The Pirate Bay have filed an appeal against the decree that forced Italian ISPs to block the BitTorrent tracker. Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi are convinced that they have a strong case. The decree can be defined as ‘original’ or ‘creative’ at best they told TorrentFreak.

A Tribunal of three judges will now look into the appeal, and a decision is expected in a few weeks. After that, the decision of the Tribunal can be further appealed by both parties before the Higher Court.

To reflect the commercial damage that large scale copyright infringement causes, the UK-Intellectual Property Office is consulting on increasing the level of fine handed down by a Magistrates’ Court from £5,000 to a maximum of £50,000.

This consultation takes forward Gowers Review recommendation 36, which recommended matching penalties for online and physical copyright infringement by increasing sanctions for online infringements.

Scotland does not have Magistrates’ Courts; therefore the consultation considers introducing maximum levels of fines for Scottish summary courts that deal with equivalent cases in Scotland.

Send any responses to the consultation, by 31 October 2008 to gowers36consultation@ipo.gov.uk

Or fax or post to the following address;

Gowers 36 consultation
Copyright and Enforcement Directorate
Concept House
Cardiff Road
Newport
South Wales
NP10 8QQ

Fax: +44(0) 1633 814922

Asda has come under fire from independent magazine publishers for proposed alterations to distribution arrangements that include the supermarket being given editorial space in the publications it stocks.

MediaGuardian.co.uk has seen an email memo from Asda's newspaper and magazines buyer sent to some magazine distribution companies that includes a series of demands for a new relationship with the supermarket giant.

Publishers supplying magazines to Asda branded the supermarket's demands "outrageous" and not "economically viable".

The proposals were due to be discussed at a meeting between representatives of Asda, magazine distributors and publishers. Asda's demands include a request for two pages of editorial or advertising space each month in titles of the company's choosing.

Another is that shop space given over to a distributor's titles will be subject to a "space contribution" of £10,000 paid to the supermarket. Asda is asking for a space contribution for each new Asda store opened of £2,500 per magazine title to be paid to the supermarket. The supermarket company is also demanding that any new title distributed in its stores will be subject to an "item set up" charge of £2,464.

According to the email memo, the supermarket is also requesting that a turnover bonus to the value of 2% of its magazine suppliers' total business with Asda be paid quarterly to the supermarket and backdated to January 1 2008. In addition to these charges Asda is also seeking a "hurdle rate" for new titles carried in stores, so if sales of the magazines are 20% less than forecast the supermarket will be compensated with the difference.

Asking for a contribution for each line [magazine title] in a new store is just not economically viable, a senior magazine publishing source told MediaGuardian.co.uk. The source added that it was "absurd" of Asda to expect editorial teams to give control away to the retailer.

The most annoying thing is asking for editorial space in magazines. The implications of that are huge because Tesco and Sainsbury would want it too and then all of a sudden magazines are full of advertorials, they said.

The US ISP, Embarq, eavesdropped on the web surfing habits of 26,000 customers in Kansas without notifying them personally, as part of its test of new, controversial advertising technology that profiles users, the company has told federal lawmakers.

Embarq, an offshoot from Sprint, tested the service in Gardner, Kansas, saying it was their smallest facility. The secret test ended earlier this year, though no dates were given for when it started or stopped. The letter also disclosed that 15 people from the region opted out, even though the company didn't notify the affected subscribers that the technology was being tested -- it just added a paragraph to its privacy policy.

Telecom subcommittee head Reps. Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts), watchdog groups and law professors have questioned whether the technology violates federal privacy laws, including the wiretapping statute.

The company NebuAd pays ISPs to let it monitor user's web surfing and searching in order to classify their interests. Those profiles are then used to deliver targeted ads when the users visit NebuAd partner sites. Subscribers must choose to opt-out with each browser they use, though NebuAd won't explain how the opt-out works.

Yahoo Music Store has sent a message to customers saying they will turn off their DRM servers after September. It joins MSN Music, Sony's Connect music store and other online music services in eventually cutting off customers who purchased DRM-wrapped tunes.

At least the music industry is starting to get the message that DRM doesn't really work, wrote one reader recently.

Vendors who insist on using DRM have just been shooting themselves in the foot, say readers. I used to occasionally buy a DRM tune from iTunes, but only because I knew I could copy it to CD if I wanted to, wrote another reader. I'd have never bought a song from iTunes without that capability. But still, it was infrequent. Since iTunes Plus arrived, with its DRM-free high-quality content, I've purchased whole albums from iTunes, something I'd never have done had they been DRM (and 128 bit encoding). If a song doesn't say iTunes Plus on it now, I'll continue looking for something else that does.

The real purpose of DRM is to lock the consumer into a company's product line, wrote another reader. It is meant to extinguish the consumer's property right to first sale and fair use.

The Government welcomes the industry agreement to address unlawful file-sharing of film and music online.

The agreement is signed by the six major Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the music and film rights-holders and Government.

This is a world-first solution aiming to provide consumers with content in the way they wish to use it, encouraging new uses of technology and protecting Britain's world leading creative industries.

The agreement is central to the Government's preferred industry-led approach, outlined in a consultation document released today on legislative options to address unlawful file sharing online.

The approach involves the signatories working together to:

• Engage with and educate users about unlawful file sharing
• Make material legally available online in a wide range of user-friendly formats
• Create a self-regulatory environment, with the involvement of Ofcom, including informing consumers of the illegality of file sharing and pointing to alternative legal methods available.

The Consultation on legislative options to address illicit P2P file-sharing closes for responses on 30th October 2008.

Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Andy Burnham said:

It's a great thing that new technology lets young people today explore popular culture in a way my generation simply could not. But this freedom cannot extend to allowing people to think they can access content for free. We expect Britain to produce the best bands and films in the world. But that will only happen if we find new ways of rewarding our creative talent and investing in new names.

This is why today's announcement is so significant. It holds out the hope of a sustainable future for music and our other creative industries whilst ensuring that consumers continue to get the full benefits that new technology can offer.

The approach will pilot letters to be sent to the registered user of an internet account when their account has been identified as having been used to unlawfully share copyrighted material. The letters could point consumers to other sources of material available legally and in a variety of formats.

ISPs and rights holders will produce a Code of Practice together on how they will deal with alleged repeat infringers. Government will consult to give this Code legislative underpinning.

Ofcom will facilitate discussion between the parties and approve the final Code of Practice. Ofcom will also ensure that the self-regulatory mechanism is effective, proportionate and fair to consumers.

Alternative regulatory options to be considered in the consulation:

• Option A1: Streamlining the existing process by requiring ISPs to provide personal data relating to a given IP address to rights holders on request without them needing to go to Court
   
• Option A2: Requiring ISPs to take direct action against users who are identified (by the rights holder) as infringing copyright through P2P (this is essentially the same legal obligation as in the preferred option in section 8, but without any selfregulatory element)
   
• Option A3: Allocating a third party body to consider evidence provided by rights holders and to direct ISPs to take action against individual users as required, or to take action directly against individual users
   
• Option A4: Requiring that ISPs allow the installation of filtering equipment that will block infringing content (to reduce the level of copyright infringement taking place over the internet) or requiring ISPs themselves to install filtering equipment that will block infringing content

A response can be submitted by letter, fax or email to:
Michael Klym/Adrian Brazier
Communications & Content Industries
Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform
UG28-30
7
1 Victoria Street
London SW1H 0ET
Tel: 0207 215 4165/1295
Fax: 0207 215 5442
Email: mike.klym@berr.gsi.gov.uk/adrian.brazier@berr.gsi.gov.uk

Internet users could face an annual charge of up to £30 to download music, under plans to be unveiled that aim to tackle illegal file-sharing.

Ministers are backing proposals that would enable millions of broadband users to pay an annual levy which would allow them to copy as much – previously illegal – music from the internet as they wanted. The money raised would be channelled back to the rights-holders, with artists responsible for the most popular songs receiving a bigger slice of the cash.

John Hutton, the Business Secretary, and Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, will unveil a package of proposals, beginning with thousands of prolific downloaders receiving letters warning them they are breaking the law by copying music and sending it to friends. The Government sees that move as the last chance for internet service providers (ISPs) to get a grip on the growing problem of piracy.

In the longer term, Mr Burnham is supporting calls from sections of the music industry for a yearly levy of £20 to £30 to be imposed by ISPs on customers who want to share music.

They believe it would prevent criminalising large sections of the public, while helping to compensate the music industry for lost sales. If successful it could be extended to cover films and television programmes.

Peter Jenner, a veteran music industry figure who now manages the singer Billy Bragg, who has championed the plan for an annual charge, said last night that the idea was attracting growing support.

He said the cash raised by including the top-up in the fees paid to ISPs could match the current £1.2bn turnover of the British record industry: If you get enough people paying a small enough amount of money you can turn around the wheels of the music industry.

The Government will also announce consultation on other ways of combating internet piracy, with a view to final decisions later in the year after studying the impact of the warning letters. Legislation could be in place by next spring.

As well as an annual levy set by ISPs, the Government will also float the idea of a "three strikes and you're out" policy adopted in France under which people who illicitly download or share music are disconnected after ignoring two warnings.

Other alternatives include requiring ISPs to disclose the identities of regular downloaders, a move they warn would be costly and could breach data protection controls. They could also be ordered to install filters that would prevent downloading.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed by the BPI, which represents hundreds of record companies, and the six largest internet providers. It commits them to work together to achieve a "significant reduction" in illegal file-sharing.

The six ISPs that have signed up to the agreement are BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse.

Offsite: UK “MP3 Police” Evidence Unchallenged, Not For Public Consumption

See article from torrentfreak.com

In recent comments, a Carphone Warehouse spokesman further indicated that it is expected to take action against its customers based purely on the ‘evidence' provided by the BPI: What we have agreed to do is to write to our customers and advise them there's been an alleged infringement. We're very clear that we don't know if that's the case or not, we've just been told there has been and we want to advise them of that.

So in a nutshell, the BPI provide all the ‘evidence', and the ISPs have to blindly believe it and take action against their own customers. To think that a commercial organization like the BPI is allowed to provide its own unchallenged allegations in such a completely non-transparent manner is the real outrage in all of this. If the BPI is to be trusted with such power, it has to be held accountable. If it is to remain credible in its role as the “UK MP3 Police” its systems must be opened up to public scrutiny. Once they are proved to be accurate by a panel of independent experts, then all well and good, but the fact remains that the BPI only give a vague indication of how they operate and have no intentions of elaborating.

Matt Philips, Director of Communications at the BPI refused to tell TorrentFreak how they gather their evidence, so any right-minded individual with an interest in this issue might find themselves asking: What exactly are they afraid of?

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Top consumer electronics executives and trade reps are telling the Federal Communications Commission that they're worried about a rush request from Hollywood studios for a lift on the agency's ban on Selectable Output Control.

Concern was expressed that the powers sought by this Petition as filed would likely be used to the disadvantage of consumers, technology, and competition, Michael Petricone, Consumer Electronic Asssociation (CEA).

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