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Nintendo Pirate Fined $1.5 Million
Major distribution companies now use forensic technology in their battle against illegal file sharing, which facilitated the prosecution of James Burt from Queensland, recently mandated by the Federal Court to pay damages of $1.5 million for uploading a Nintendo game on the Internet. The state-of-the-art technology aided in identifying the man responsible for pirating and illegally sharing a new Super Mario Bros game that was still waiting to be officially released. The upload generated record-breaking activity among the community of downloaders, with 50,000 downloads in only six days.
Continue reading »etc: Colorado may become the fourth US state to force online retailers like Amazon to collect state sales tax.
Colorado may become the fourth US state to force online retailers like Amazon to collect state sales tax. Read More: AP
Continue reading »Freedom of Speech Censorship in Australia Coming to an End?
The state of South Australia has snatched politicians’ promise that the highly disputed election law enacted on January 6 will be revoked. The recently introduced law stipulates that anyone publishing politically oriented comments online during election periods must declare their identity or risk the prospect of paying a stinging fine. Applied only to bloggers and commenters, not to official online newspapers or magazines, the law has a pronounced discriminatory character, which is condemned by persons constricted by its terms.
Continue reading »Changes to the Digital Economy Bill Make No Difference, Says Music Industry
A few days ago we reported the creation of a new group, The European Audiovisual Social Dialogue Committee ‘whose purpose,’ we said ‘is to lobby the European Union to reinforce its actions against illegal file sharers.’ This happened just as the controversy of the Digital Economy Bill reached a very high point. Now changes have been made to the clause 17 of the legislation which makes possible the intervention of the Secretary of State to place the copyright law under stricter parameters to increase the efficiency in fighting online piracy. It seems that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has amended his own clause following the lobbying from major companies like Google whose concerns that they will be targeted pushed for such actions and Lib Dem Lords’ worries that the Secretary has been allowed a much too bigger liberty with too little parliamentary scrutiny.
Continue reading »UK’s Terrifying Anti-Piracy Plans Leak
Over the past months the UK government has tried to tackle the issue of online piracy. This has resulted in a proposal from Lord Mandelson, who plans to disconnect alleged file sharers without any judicial process. Tomorrow the exact text of the bill is expected to be made public, but according to early reports, the legislation will open all doors for a digital police state where alleged pirates will be crucified by private companies.
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