Sweden claims site violates copyrights
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A Swedish prosecutor filed charges Thursday against the organizers of popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, saying it has helped millions of users worldwide violate copyrights.
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Less than a month after a Chechen separatist Web site, KavkazTsentr, was closed first in Lithuania and then in Finland, it has reappeared in Sweden.
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Scribd anti-piracy system blocks uploading of content if the text matches material in its system provided by copyright holders.
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Four administrators of the most popular BitTorrent site face criminal charges in Sweden.
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Do your job, Jobs The Norwegian Consumer Council, which complains Apple and its iTunes music store acts illegally under Norwegian law, has reacted cautiously to Steve Jobs' letter calling for an end to Digital Rights Management.â¦
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Claims business as usual The Pirate Bay said it will live on no matter what the outcome of a case brought by a Swedish prosecutor who charged four men involved with the running of the file-sharing site today.â¦
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Switzerland has warned a company that tracks file sharers for copyright violations that its tactics violate the country&#39;s telecommunication law.Logistep, which supplies information on suspected file sharers to law firms around the world for use in copyright violation cases, has until Feb. 9 to respond to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), said Marc Schaefer, the agency&#39;s legal advisor.Under Swiss law, the identity of a subscriber to an ISP (Internet service provider) can only be revealed during the course of a criminal case, not a civil one, Schaefer said.&#160;The IP (Internet Protocol) address&#160;of a computer controlled by the subscriber is considered &quot;personal&quot; information.In order to try to claim damages from people suspected of trading songs or movies, Logistep has asked Swiss prosecutors to open criminal cases, Schaefer said. As the criminal cases progresses, Logistep receives information from prosecutors that identifies the file sharer.Logistep then initiates a civil case against the file sharer while the criminal case is ongoing. Prosecutors usually drop the criminal case against the person, Schaefer said.By starting a criminal case &quot;to obtain the identity behind an IP address ... they just found a way to avoid the telecommunication law,&quot; Schaefer said. &quot;Therefore, we told Logistep to stop their work until there is a legal basis which allows such an identification.&quot;The FDPIC&#39;s recommended to Logistep to stop the practice, but is prepared to take the matter to court, Schaefer said. Logistep would be in the clear if they pursued a civil case after the criminal one is complete, he said.Logistep has issued a statement contending an IP address is not personal information. Company officials could not be reached Friday.An IP address can indicate the location of a computer but not necessarily who is using it. Several people could share the same computer, which would have one IP address. But ISPs, as well as wireless routers used in home, can also dynamically assign IP addresses, which adds further ambiguity regarding who is using the computer and who may be responsible for illegally activity conducted on the PC.That means the person paying the bill for the Internet service may end up as the target of the civil proceeding rather than the offender, adding another worrying factor into the lawsuits, Schaefer said.On its Web site, Logistep said it can compile a history of illegal files shared by someone, even if encryption or proxy servers are used to mask the sharing.The row comes amid growing concerns over how personal data is collected and retained in Europe.On Monday, a top European data protection official, Peter Schaar, said at a European Parliament hearing that an IP address should be considered personal information since it can be used to identify people.Schaar is chairman of the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, which is looking at personal data and privacy issues, such as what kind of data search engines retain. A report is scheduled for release by April.Also earlier this week, privacy activists claimed victory over music and content industry lobbyists concerning a report issued by the European Parliament&#39;s Committee on Culture and Education.Struck out of the report was a suggestion that ISPs should monitor content and ban users for suspected copyright infringement, wrote Danny O&#39;Brien, international outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which lobbied against the suggestion as well as others.The report, entitled Cultural Industries in Europe, will be used to make recommendations to European Union countries on intellectual property and other issues.&#160;
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Copyright rebels getting sussed Web designers are becoming alarmed that Getty Images is coming after them for using its copyrighted images on their websites without a licence.â¦
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Swedes earning tax-free money on Internet games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life may have to think again after Swedish authorities said they were planning a clampdown.
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A dispute between an atheist group and a creationist group over some postings on YouTube  has critics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act crying foul. They say it's a new and disturbing trend, and that false copyright claims can distort political and cultural debate.
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The men behind one of the most popular file-sharing sites in the world are charged copyright offences.
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Update Slammed for touting unavailable but unlicensed content
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The European Commission has posted a montage of sex scenes from European films on a new video-sharing Web site, drawing criticism from some lawmakers who described it as "soft porn."
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A battle over copyright infringement on the Internet heats up. No, not over music. Over the classic 'Gone With the Wind.'
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The Pirate Bay says it won't shutter, even if its operators are convicted. Its servers are scattered across the globe, out of reach of the Swedish authorities. Defendant Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi says the charges are "lame."
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A new variant of the MyDoom Internet worm contains some puzzling add-ins: a photo that bears a likeness of Sven Jaschan, whom police in Berlin last week charged with computer sabotage after he admitted to authoring the Sasser worm, and a high-level
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Russian music downloading site AllofMP3 is named as illegal in a trade pact tackling internet piracy.