UK Record Industry Targets P2P
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File-swappers in Britain are to be taken to court for trading tracks over the Internet. The crackdown by the British Phonographic Industry is the first of its kind in the UK, although the
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Record labels including Universal and SonyBMG have begun selling music through a new download service.
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The international record industry escalated its fight against music piracy Thursday, announcing that it will file hundreds of lawsuits across Europe against individuals and groups it accuses of illegally sharing music through the Internet.    The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, representing record companies tired of losing millions of dollars in revenue, said its affiliates are filing 459 lawsuits in Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Austria...
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The U.K. is looking to change copyright laws that make it illegal to copy music for personal use and for libraries to archive material under copyright.
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A new agreement between a peer-to-peer network and the major music labels has created the first peer-to-peer file sharing network for licensed digital music.
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Exclusive: In a setback for the prosecution of file sharers, Capitol Records is ordered to pay most of a P2P defendant's legal fees. In Listening Post.
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Online auction giant eBay is entering the music download business with a service that will market content from major record labels.
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The UK music industry is set to launch legal action against people who download music from the internet.
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Arts & entertainment: Record industry to offer 25m tracks to download for free as big-name advertising funds new services
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The arrival of software that lets you search for and record digital music off the airwaves could raise legal issues that will make the P2P skirmishes look quaint by comparison.
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Three major record labels have inked a deal with a peer-to-peer company to bring paid song downloads to music fans, apparently supporting a technology that the industry has tried to stifle in the past.
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Major record corporations say that a licensed file-sharing system could bolster their position in their fight against piracy as well as increase digital music sales.
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It is a licensed file-sharing service with almost an unlimited selection of tracks that will give record labels a degree of control over file-sharing.
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Media & professional: File-sharing has holed the record industry below the waterline. So why does private equity guru Guy Hands want to buy EMI?
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(InfoWorld) - Peer-to-peer (p-to-p) file-sharing software developer Lime Wire has countersued the biggest record companies, charging them with anti-competitive behavior. The suit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, follows the closing of most of the popular file-sharing Web sites due to lawsuits initiated by record companies. It also comes on the heels of a suit filed by 13 record companies against Lime Wire, accusing the developer of music piracy and demanding damages that could amount to $476 million. Lime Wire now charges the record companies with colluding to create a monopoly over the digital distribution of copyrighted music. The record companies "have engaged in these unfair business practices for the specific purpose of eliminating sources of decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing and acquiring a monopoly over digital distribution of commercially valuable copyrighted music and movie content," the lawsuit reads. The alleged unfair business practices include collusion among the record companies to price their licensing rates such that independent music sellers can't afford to stay in business, Lime Wire said. Lime Wire added that a since-changed policy at the record companies of requiring licensees to negotiate only with certain companies that represent a group of record labels resulted in artificially high licensing fees. Lime Wire also charges the record companies with trying to extend their monopoly by forcing music distributors to work only with their affiliated filtering system supplier. Lime Wire says it developed a filtering application to prevent illegal downloading and encourage legal content purchasing. But the record companies refused to give the developer access to the metadata that uniquely identifies each song in order for the filtering system to work, Lime Wire claims. Instead, Lime Wire alleges the record companies encouraged Lime Wire to use their preferred supplier for a P-to-P filtering system, iMesh. While Lime Wire concedes that iMesh is not owned by the record companies, it alleges the supplier is controlled by the record companies. A top executive at iMesh is a former leader of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and iMesh is the only RIAA-sanctioned business of its kind in the U.S., according to Lime Wire. Lime Wire is asking for a jury trial. The record companies named in the suit include Arista Records, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, Capital Records, Electra Entertainment Group, Interscope Records, Laface Records, Motown Record Company, Priority Records, Sony BMG Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Virgin Records America, and Warner Bros. Records. The suit follows some high profile settlements by other leading p-to-p networks. In July,Â Kazaa agreed to payÂ at least $100 million to four record companies and an additional amount to motion picture companies to settle lawsuits. Earlier this month, eDonkeyÂ agreed to pay $30 millionÂ to settle similar suits. EDonkey's founder last year predicted that all U.S. p-to-p companies wouldÂ cease to existÂ because they wouldn't have the resources to defend themselves against the record companies after a Supreme CourtÂ ruling against Grokster. That ruling vaguely said that p-to-p software developers may be liable for illegal use of the software.
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A new online music service, Peer Impact, has signed deals with three major music labels -- Sony BMG, Universal and Warner. What sets Peer Impact apart is its use of a peer-to-peer distribution
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Simply announcing that you've got major-label music on your pretty new P2P service doesn't make it so. Listening Post looks at Qtrax's just-launched service, with a few questions about what went wrong.