Judges rule file-sharing software legal
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update A federal appeals court has upheld a controversial court decision that said file-sharing software programs such as Grokster or Morpheus are legal.
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A federal appeals court on Thursday delivered a stinging blow to the anti-piracy efforts of major movie studios and music companies, ruling that several major online file-sharing software companies are not liable for copyright infringement.
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Two men have pleaded guilty to copyright-infringement for distributing music, software and movies over the Internet in the first U.S. convictions for piracy over "peer to peer" networks, the Justice Department said.
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Grokster, Morpheus not liable for user's actions, appeals court says.
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The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has won a lawsuit against the operators of&#160;TorrentSpy.com, with the judge ruling in favor of the MPAA because the Web site operators tampered with evidence.In a ruling that could have implications for the privacy of Web site users, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, ruled that TorrentSpy has infringed MPAA copyrights in a default judgment against the operators of the site.Cooper, in a ruling made public Monday, agreed with the MPAA that defendants Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker and Valence Media had destroyed evidence after another judge had ordered them to keep server logs, user IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and other information. TorrentSpy billed itself as a central location to find files distributed on BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) networks.The defendants&#39; conduct was &quot;obstreperous,&quot; Cooper wrote in her decision. &quot;They have engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence and have provided false testimony under oath in a effort to hide evidence of such destruction,&quot; she wrote.TorrentSpy had located its servers in the Netherlands and argued that Dutch law protected them from having to turn over server logs and other information. In May, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian ruled that TorrentSpy must preserve server data logs held in random access memory, or RAM.That decision was widely criticized as being an unreasonable standard because information held in RAM is temporary, but Cooper, in her new ruling, said TorrentSpy destroyed or altered several types of evidence, including user IP addresses, discussion forum postings about the trading of movies and moderator identities. &quot;A substantial number of items of evidence have been destroyed,&quot; she wrote. &quot;Defendants were on notice that this information would be of importance in this case.&quot;TorrentSpy&#39;s lawyer Ira Rothken said his client had concerns about protecting users&#39; privacy. TorrentSpy will appeal Cooper&#39;s decision, he said.&quot;It&#39;s not a ruling on the merits of the case,&quot; he said. &quot;One person&#39;s willful destruction of evidence is another person&#39;s willful attempt to comply with customer privacy policies.&quot;The ruling, if it stands, could expose private information about Web site users in many civil lawsuits, Rothken added. &quot;This doesn&#39;t apply only to TorrentSpy, but to anyone who operates a Web site,&quot; he said.A ruling on damages in case will happen at a later date.The MPAA, which filed the case against TorrentSpy in February 2006, applauded Cooper&#39;s ruling. &quot;The court&#39;s decision ... sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious behavior will not be tolerated by the judicial system,&quot; John Malcolm, the MPAA&#39;s executive vice president and director of worldwide antipiracy operations, said in a statement. &quot;The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content. TorrentSpy is a one-stop shop for copyright infringement.&quot;
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Court Rules File Sharing Legal  A federal appeals court has upheld a controversial decision which ruled that file sharing software such as Kazaa, Morpheus or Grokster are indeed legal. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles ruled on Thursday that peer-to-peer software developers were not liable for any ...
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Description: A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that companies that provide software that runs two Internet-based file-sharing networks are not liable for copyright infringement by people who use the networks to share music and movies.
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Two men have pleaded guilty to  copyright-infringement for distributing music, software and  movies over the Internet in the first U.S. convictions for  piracy over "peer to peer" networks, the Justice Department  said.
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A U.S. Court of Appeals panel has ruled against a Missouri man who was seeking to overturn a guilty plea in a precedent-setting case involving his use of the Kazaa file-sharing network to download and store child pornography images.
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(InfoWorld) - In another blow to peer-to-peer file sharing, a U.S. federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Morpheus software program encouraged users to infringe upon copyrighted works. StreamCast Networks, the owner of Morpheus, "cannot seriously argue that it did not know that the popular music and movies traded on its network were copyrighted," wrote U.S. district judge Stephen V. Wilson. The ruling is another win for record and film companies, which sought an injunction against distribution of the file-sharing software in the suit, filed in 2001. StreamCast continued to fight after two other companies named in the suit, Grokster and Sharman Networks, the company behind the Kazaa file-sharing client,Â reach settlementsÂ with the entertainment industry. StreamCast said it could consider appealing, saying the software has legal uses. "We do not believe that StreamCast encouraged users to infringe on copyrighted works, and the company never intended to do so," the company said in a statement. File-sharing software companies have been battered by a string of successful legal suits by the entertainment industry. In June 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court found that both StreamCast andÂ Grokster could be held liableÂ for copyright infringements by users. Earlier this month, MetaMachine, which distributed the eDonkey client software,Â settled a copy infringement caseÂ with the record industry for $30 million. Just weeks prior, Sharman Networks agreed to pay $100 million to end outstanding lawsuits with the entertainment industry. Major record companies and movies studios have used aggressive legal tactics against illegal file sharing, suing both software companies and individual users, in an effort to halt falling revenues attributed to piracy.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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A federal judge ruled against Microsoft on Wednesday in a patent suit challenging &quot;AutoPlay&quot; technology included in recent versions of Microsoft Windows.
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A judge will decide if a company that gathers evidence for the RIAA in illegal file-sharing cases should be required to have a private investigator's license.
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A US federal appeals court ruled in favor of peer-to-peer software makers this week, stating that the companies behind the Grokster and Morpheus services are not liable for copyright infringement due to the actions of their users.
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In another blow to peer-to-peer file sharing, a U.S. federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Morpheus software program encouraged users to infringe upon copyrighted works.
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Another one bites the dust Another file-sharing software maker has been found guilty of causing copyright infringement. A US judge has said the Morpheus software produced by StreamCast breaks the law.â¦
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Open source software has now become so ubiquitous -- and mainstream -- that attorneys are getting in on the act.
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A federal court rules that the operators of TorrentSpy destroyed evidence in a copyright case against them.