Subscribers
of O2 and Be Broadband, alleged of unauthorized downloading copyrighted
content, have already received notifications from their Internet
service providers.
Local
media reported that O2 and Be Broadband have begun sending out
notification letters to their customers alleged of being involved in
downloading copyrighted material. The notifications have been issued to
almost 2,800 subscribers.
After
successfully testing out promoting platform for musicians via
file-sharing, TPB officially launched The Promo Bay as a separate
platform for content creators. However, in a few days, the UK’s ISPs
banned the website.
The
Promo Bay was started as a launching pad for new content creators and
proved to be a great idea. The Promo Bay was appreciated not just by
TPB’s users, but also by lots of artists who signed up in a few months.
After
Newzbin2 was banned across the United Kingdom, the website decided to
go offline permanently for good. This is a significant loss for both
Usenet’s networks and a few thousands of users who relied on the site’s
services.
Despite
the Newzbin2’s efforts to continue operation by complying with all DMCA
requests and satisfying their users’ needs, the portal finally went
offline. Apparently, the decision in question wasn’t easy to make, but
so was the anti-piracy campaign against the website.
When
the American conglomerates started tempting people away from spending
another day with their families after Thanksgiving, thus turning this
time into the shopping frenzy of Black Friday, it became quite a good
metric for going over the latest consumer buying trends. IBM’s extensive
data sifting recently revealed that there were a number of interesting
changes.
A
few days ago, Google released a statement saying that the company was
purchasing public Wi-Fi provider ICOA for $400 million. For the next 2
hours that story seemed to be true. The matter is that the press release
in question was posted on this wire, but when hacks came to follow up
the release, they suddenly discovered that the company executives denied
the fact.
It
seems that the largest social network in the world can give Google a
run for its money. The industry observers point out that Facebook is
answering Wall Street’s demands to make more cash by introducing
advertisements that cyber stalk its users. This type of behavior has
been lively discussed many times by the industry observers and the
concerned parties. Now the discussion continues with a new hero of the
story.
The
entertainment industry sunk to a new PR low recently – they managed to
accuse a 9-year-old girl of piracy and confiscate her Winnie-the-Pooh
laptop.
CIAPC – the very company that had TPB blocked by Finnish Internet
service providers, has tracked some evil file-sharer.
The media reports
say that they demanded that she pay €600 or go to court. Apparently, the
company had no idea that the evil pirate was only 9, which means that
€600 was undoubtedly out of the range of her pocket money. They decided
to use the case as an example of its extra-judiciary powers. As a
result, Finnish taxpayers paid for an expensive raid on the 9-year-old
suspect’s home, with the police confiscating her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop.
During the police interrogation, the girl broke and told that she had no
money to buy the latest album from local multi-platinum-selling
songstress Chisu. Last year the girl switched to the web, first through
Google and then the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay.
However, the download didn’t work and her father finally bought her
music in the store.
Anyway, the copyright cops weren’t impressed with this story, claiming
that the girl would lose her laptop to test the power of the
entertainment industry. They also told her that it would have been
easier for everyone if she had paid the compensation. According to the
girl’s father, it was worse than dealing with the Mafia, because the
latter doesn’t normally use police to do their dirty work today, nor it
feels honorable to hit up 9-year-olds for cash.
According to Electronic Frontier Finland, this recent move clearly
illustrates just how far copyright enforcement has progressed in the
country. As for Chisu, the artist has said that she didn’t want to sue
anyone and that no musician needs such kind of media attention.
