The Recording Industry Association of America launched its largest wave of file-swapping lawsuits, filing new copyright infringement suits against 532 currently unnamed individuals. The suits are the industry group’s first since an appeals court in December blocked its original strategy of identifying alleged file swappers before filing lawsuits by sending subpoenas to their Internet service providers. Click here to read the CNET article.

A group of technology experts issued a statement to the U.S. Congress o­n 1.13.04 expressing the opinion that P2P software provider Sharman Networks has the ability to prevent copyrighted material from being sent around the KaZaA network. This is in direct conflict with the trial court’s findings in the Grokster case I discussed at EASL’s Dangerous Entertainment Seminar, and was in fact the main reason the trial court denied plaintiffs’ motion for a premlinary injunction Continue reading Report to Congress – Kazaa can block access to copyrighted works.→

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Aimster’s appeal of the adverse decision at 334 F.3d 643, 6-30-03. See Supreme Court Order, 03-658, cert. denied, 1-12-04.

By Elliot M. Zimmerman Some view the internet as an abandoned warehouse filled with free pictures, music, video and text files fixed o­n a hard disk somewhere out there in cyberspace. Granted, some files are not protected by copyright law because the material contained in them has entered the public domain. In some instances, the use of certain files may constitute a fair use under 17 U.S.C. 107 et seq. On the other hand, the Continue reading P2P File Sharing and Copyright Infringement→

  The enrolled (final) text of S. 877 as it was passed by the Senate o­n November 25, 2003, and agreed to by the House of Representatives o­n December 8, 2003, was signed by the President o­n December 16, 2003, and takes effect o­n January 1, 2004.  

An appeals court in Oslo, Norway, upheld Jon Lech Johansen’s earlier acquittal o­n all counts of alleged copyright violations. The lower court had ruled that Johansen, now 20, did nothing illegal when he helped crack DVD copy protection codes in 1999 and then publicized how he did it.

Read the article here. See 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(2) et seq. to learn how an ISP may insulate itself from suits for copyright infringement under U.S. law.

The recording industry can’t force Internet providers to identify music downloaders, a federal appeals court said Friday in a major decision shielding online privacy while undercutting the industry’s anti-piracy campaign. Read the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia here.

Downloading copyrighted music from peer-to-peer networks is legal in Canada, although uploading files is not, Canadian copyright regulators said in a ruling released Friday. Read the article here http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5121479.html

Online music piracy isn’t likely to vanish soon, but the rise of paid o­nline services and the growing popularity of portable digital music players portends greater demand for digital music next year and better fortunes for the embattled recording industry, music executives said. Taking a mostly positive outlook o­n an industry racked by a three-year slide in CD sales, executives for recording companies and Internet music retailers told hundreds at the Music 2.0 conference in Continue reading Online Music To Boom in 2004→