Clampdown on music pirates
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London - An international music industry group said on Thursday it was launching hundreds of lawsuits across Europe accusing people of piracy for illegally sharing music on the internet.
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The US recording industry is taking legal action against 750 computer users believed to be distributing music illegally over the internet.
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LOS ANGELES -  The music industry is looking ahead to life without copy protection. Major label EMI - home of Coldplay and Norah Jones - is in discussions with online music stores about selling its music without copy protection, or digital rights management (DRM), according to two sources with direct knowledge of the talks who would not speak for attribution because discussions are ongoing.
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Internet access could be cut for people who illegally download music and videos  under government proposals.
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(InfoWorld) - Just because three major online music retailers bind their music stores to specific portable players doesn't make it acceptable, a Norwegian consumer group leading the charge against Apple's DRM (digital rights management) policy says. "ITunes Music Store and others are unfair to consumers no matter how many download services follow the proprietary approach," wrote Torgeir Waterhouse, a senior advisor at The Norwegian Consumer Council, in response to a letter written by Apple CEO Steve Jobs andÂ posted on the Apple Web siteÂ on Tuesday. Jobs examined why DRM exists and discusses alternatives to the current set-up in his open response to calls for Apple to allow users to buy songs from the iTunes store and play them on any device. Norway's consumer representative hasÂ threatened legal action against AppleÂ for violating Norwegian law by limiting iTunes customers to playing their music only on iPods. Consumer groups in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and Germany haveÂ joined Norway's complaintÂ against Apple. Jobs points out that Microsoft and Sony also sell music that can only be played on their players, supporting a model that serves customers well with choice and a continuing stream of innovative products. He also suggests that groups like Waterhouse's "redirect their energies" toward convincing the music labels to sell music without DRM, technology that aims to restrict how buyers can copy or use the music. The four biggest record labels forced Apple to employ a proprietary DRM system as a condition of the agreement that allows Apple to sell their music, he said. Ideally, he said, the labels wouldn't require DRM. "This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat," Jobs wrote. While Waterhouse agrees that the record companies carry some fault for the situation, the iTunes music store and others like it are ultimately responsible. "They're still the company that's selling music to the consumers and are responsible for offering a fair deal according to Norwegian law," he said. Still, with his letter, Jobs' appears to have stirred up some additional pressure on the record labels to change their DRM policies. EMusic.com Inc., which claims to be the second largest music download site, only sells DRM-free music from thousands of independent labels. But the site would like be able to sell music from the four biggest labels. "We are hopeful the remaining four will one day join [the independent labels] by licensing their complete catalogs and reap the benefits of consumer demand," David Pakman, president and CEO of eMusic, wrote in a response to Jobs' letter. Even though Jobs didn't hint that a solution might be impending, Waterhouse appeared to see a glimmer of hope. "If this means that Apple is willing to the kick the lock in technology from the [iTunes/iPod] combination this is really good news -- news that should be put into action as soon as possible to bring us all one important step closer to a well functioning digital society," he wrote.
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Apple CEO Steve Jobs has made a surprise call for the end of digital rights management technology, which is designed to stop copyrighted music from being shared illicitly. Jobs says Apple would sell only DRM-free music on iTunes if it could.
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Musician intends to win back control of his copyright on the Web.
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If you want to stop piracy of your programming, why would you take it off legitimate services? The peacock is in for a rude awakening.
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Microsoft Corp. plans to severely curtail the ways in which people running pirated copies of its dominant Windows operating system can receive software updates, including security fixes.
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BitTorrent is a wonderful way to download files with greater reliability than other conventional means, but of course that means that it is used greatly for piracy... apparently.
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Following music industry measures to clamp down on illegal song piracy, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) are launching civil suits seeking damages of up to $30,000 (â¬23,200) per film.
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The U.S. recording industry on  Wednesday stepped up efforts to stop college students from  downloading pirated music online and offered students a way to  settle the disputes out of court.
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The school's tool for fighting piracy on campus automatically isolates students fingered by the entertainment industry for allegedly sharing copyright files. It's another example of a university cracking down on illegal file trading. By Katie Dean.
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Amazon: "Many of our customers have already discovered that one cheap way to get DRM-free MP3s is to buy them on CD and rip them themselves." Here's a screen shot. It's common-sense advice, but still somewhat remarkable that they're addressing the issue of DRM right there on the home page. It could be that I'm seeing it and you're not (possibly because I just bought a Linux hand-held computer from Nokia). It's hard to tell.  Here's their guide to ripping CDs.
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Last week, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs called for an end to anti-piracy software on digital music as a way to let customers listen to their downloads on any device. The record labels responded with a mixture of scorn and indifference to the idea, which would disrupt their security measures.
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Customers might not like the idea of technology that allows some uses of music (like copying iTunes downloads to their iPods) but forbids others (like copying the same song to another kind of music player). But until recently, it didn't seem to bother the executives behind these anti-piracy systems.
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Microsoft is testing a new feature on its Download Centre website that can lock out pirated copies of Windows. During the test period, users of Download Centre can opt to have the Windows software installed on their PCs validated as genuine.