Which? Computing claims to have discovered 20 people who say they’ve been mistakenly targeted as illegal file-sharers by a law firm sending out threatening letters.

According to Which? Computing, ACS Law has sent out around 6,000 letters on behalf of games firms Reality Pump and Topware Interactive, claiming that people have been caught illegally file-sharing their games.

Source: PC Pro

Some 20 net users have come forward claiming they have been wrongly accused of illegally sharing video games. It follows an investigation by Which? Computing magazine into a couple who were accused of playing a game they claim they had never heard of.

Source: BBC

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, GGF’s Hans Pandeya said that the only way to beat illegal file-sharing was to make something more attractive.

“We are going to set up a system where the file-sharer actually makes money,” he said.

According to Mr Pandeya, GGF’s chief executive, the business model for The Pirate Bay would be that it continued to be a file-sharing site. The only difference - at least in terms of content - would be that the files would be hosted legally, rather than stolen from copyright holders.

Source: BBC News
via: Techdirt

The buyer, Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X, said it recognised that The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s largest file-sharing websites, must comply with international copyright laws.

Global Gaming said the website needs a new business model which “satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary.”

Hans Pandeya, chief executive, said: “We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.”

The Pirate Bay’s founders said the site was being sold for a “great bit underneath its value” but the sale is essential to secure the website’s future.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

The music industry would be in better shape now if it had engaged with Napster rather than fought it.

So says Geoff Taylor, head of music industry body BPI, in a column written for the BBC.

In the column, Mr Taylor expressed “regret” that the music industry did not move faster to work out how to use the net to promote and sell records.

Source: BBC News

A Dutch entertainment industry group has demanded Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay be shut down in the Netherlands and says Pirate Bay founders have been sent their court summons via Twitter and Facebook.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN said it used the social networking sites to deliver the court summons as it was unable to pinpoint the exact location of Pirate Bay founders Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. A lawyer for BREIN said they are expected to appear in court in Amsterdam on July 21.

Source: Billboard.biz

The “three-strikes” saga continues in France following the Constitutional Council’s recent decision canceling the sanction side of the bill (Billboard.biz, June 10), with the government attempting to find a way around the legal ruling.

While the educational part of the bill, which allows the administrative authority Hadopi to issue warnings to infringers, had been passed into law, a short new bill on the sanction side of the anti-piracy system has now been approved by government ministers to be introduced as legislation.

The French government had wanted Hadopi to be able to cut off repeat offenders after two warnings. With the Constitutional council having stressed that only a judge can rule on such terminations of Internet access, the new bill intends to simplify procedures to avoid French courts, which would slow the sanction process.

Instead, a judge would be allowed to rule through an “ordonnance pénale” (penal order), a process that avoids a hearing involving the presence of the person accused of copyright infringement. Only in the case of an appeal would a court hearing take place.

Source: Billboard.biz

In the first case tried since the passage of Sweden’s anti-file sharing law in April, an ISP has been told by a Swedish court it must hand over information about its customers to five publishers looking into copyright violations.

If the company, broadband service provider Ephone, fails to comply with the order from the Solna District Court to hand over information about the users connected to certain IP-addresses, it will face 750,000 kronor ($95,000) in fines.

Source: The Local (Sweden)
via: PogoWasRight.org

A Swedish court ruled today that the judge overseeing The Pirate Bay trial earlier this year was not biased by belonging to various pro-copyright organizations. The unanimous decision (Swedish) means that there will be no retrial; the defendants must hope for a successful appeal instead.

Source: ars technica

The Newspaper Licensing Agency has announced it is to begin regulating its customers’ use of hyperlinks to newspaper articles on the web.

The agency, which controls reproduction of newspaper clippings by news monitoring services and public relations agencies, will introduce an extension to its licences later this year.

According to a circular sent to members of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and seen by Press Gazette, the NLA will be introducing a new form of licence from 1 September to regulate “web aggregator services (such as Meltwater) that forward links to newspaper websites and for press cuttings agencies undertaking this type of activity”.

From January 2010, the licence charges will also apply to PR practitioners and “other organisations forwarding links to newspaper websites as part of their commercial activity”.

Source: Press Gazette
via: Techdirt