Tennessee anti-P2P law to cost colleges over $13 million

Big Content got an early Christmas present from the state of Tennessee. A new law will force Tennessee colleges and universities to pay in excess of $13 million over the next two years in what is likely to be a futile attempt to stamp out campus copyright infringement.

November 18, 2008 - 08:42PM CT - by Eric Bangeman

French court green lights lawsuits against P2P vendors

Limewire, Vuze, Shareaza, and Morpheus can all be sued on French soil, a court has ruled. Recent copyright law changes in France mean that creators and distributors of software "manifestly" designed to swap content illegally can be prosecuted, fined, and even tossed in jail.

November 17, 2008 - 01:06PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Pirate pride in Sweden as Pirate Bay hits 22 million peers

The Pirate Bay has seen explosive growth this year, it says, jumping from 12 million to 22 million active peers in only seven months.

November 05, 2008 - 08:55PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Comcastic P4P trial shows 80% speed boost for P2P downloads

Comcast releases data on a major trial of P4P technology that directs peer-to-peer users to local sources first. Not only does it boost download speeds, it can save ISPs cash without straining the network.

November 03, 2008 - 06:20PM CT - by Nate Anderson

P2P driftnet fishing returns to Europe, Scottish couple snagged

Atari ramps up lawsuits against UK file-swappers, and the music industry may follow suit next year. After a brief hiatus, will large-scale copyright lawsuits return to Europe once more? If so, how many innocent people will get caught in the driftnet?

October 30, 2008 - 12:07PM CT - by Nate Anderson

RIAA defendant enlists Harvard Law prof, students

Another file-sharing case is moving to trial, but the defendant has recently picked up some powerful allies: a Harvard Law prof and his class of students. Together, they argue that the entire underpinnings of the RIAA campaign are flawed and unconstitutional.

October 29, 2008 - 11:43AM CT - by Nate Anderson

Filtering failure: Belgian ISP gets reprieve from court

Belgian court waives penalties for not complying with earlier far-reaching peer-to-peer filtering court order while appeal is still a year away.

October 28, 2008 - 07:50AM CT - by Iljitsch van Beijnum

Forecast: Legal P2P uses growing 10x faster than illegal ones

As video distribution companies take to the Internet and try to keep costs down, they are discovering P2P's legal uses. However it's delivered, though, online video could force major ISPs to rethink pay-TV business models.

October 22, 2008 - 09:23PM CT - by Nate Anderson

P2P compliance: Schools see red as they shell out the green

A new study on the costs of campus P2P compliance finds that large schools can spend half a million dollars a year on personnel, equipment, and software. Think of all the Bunsen burners that money could have bought.

October 20, 2008 - 07:15PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Download services increasingly popular with universities

Legal, school-sponsored music and movie services have exploded in popularity over the last few years—well, in popularity with administrators, at least. 15 percent of all US schools and 39 percent of the big ones offer such services. It's not clear that students love them as much as admins do, however.

October 09, 2008 - 09:50PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Five years of failure: EFF says RIAA must embrace new model

A new report from the EFF says that RIAA lawsuits against file-swappers haven't worked, target the wrong people, and seek grossly disproportionate damages. Instead, voluntary collective licensing ("It's not a tax!") is needed.

October 02, 2008 - 12:47PM CT - by Nate Anderson

P2P growth slowing as infringement goes deeper undercover

P2P traffic is still growing, but it's being eclipsed by streaming video and direct download link from services like RapidShare. As content owners lean hard on P2P, Internet video is going both legit and further underground.

September 30, 2008 - 08:16PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Company to help content owners "monetize" illegal content

A company called Nexicon has partnered with YouTube to offer content owners a way to monetize videos uploaded to the site, but that's not all. It also plans to start using its patent-pending system, Get Amnesty, to monitor P2P downloads too and automatically send you a bill for your pirating ways. YARR!

September 17, 2008 - 02:30PM CT - by Jacqui Cheng

100 groups demand to see secret anticounterfeiting treaty

More than 100 public interest groups from around the globe are demanding that Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiators open up their process to scrutiny. At stake could be new ISP monitoring rules, fair use issues, and a P2P crackdown.

September 16, 2008 - 05:25AM CT - by Nate Anderson

Some band you've never heard of releases free album

Now that the buzz is wearing off of "free album download" experiments, the question is whether giving your music away is a business model or a gimmick. UK prog rock act Marillion, big in the 1980s, is giving away its new album on P2P sites, and it's not the only one doing so.

September 10, 2008 - 12:10PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Convenience leads Prison Break fans to shun streams for P2P

The season's first episode of Prison Break was downloaded through BitTorrent almost a million times in under 24 hours since its network airing, even though it was available for free from the networks online.

September 08, 2008 - 11:33AM CT - by Jacqui Cheng

eMusic: UK P2P warning letter pact "smells very funny to us"

The CEO of independent music retailer eMusic tells Ars about his worries that the new arrangement between UK ISPs and the music industry will turn ISPs into competitors. That's fine... if there's a level cricket pitch for everyone.

September 04, 2008 - 10:39AM CT - by Nate Anderson

P2P traffic drops as streaming video grows in popularity

Streaming video is growing more popular with both consumers and Big Content, and P2P traffic is dropping at the same time. The rise of Hulu, iPlayer, and other services may be pulling users away from BitTorrent.

September 02, 2008 - 09:35PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Howell verdict: RIAA wins $40,850 P2P judgment

Arizona resident Jeffrey Howell, who defended himself and apparently tampered with his own evidence, has been ordered to pay more than $40,000 in fines to the RIAA for trading music online.

September 01, 2008 - 06:13AM CT - by Nate Anderson

It's official: Comcast starts 250GB bandwidth caps October 1

Comcast has finally announced that it will introduce 250GB per month bandwidth caps for all residential customers this fall. It insists that this is the same policy it always had, but with clearer limits.

August 28, 2008 - 04:16PM CT - by Jacqui Cheng