Our legal efforts served as an essential educational tool: Fans know far more now about copyright laws and the legal consequences of stealing music than ever before. Before initiating lawsuits in 2003, only 35 percent of people knew file-sharing on P2P was illegal; afterward, awareness grew to 70 percent.
— Liz Kennedy, communications director for the RIAA, in response to an article in the Tennessean, which stated that the Association’s legal initiatives had failed because “the suits ultimately proved ineffective in ending systematic online piracy”
Drake Martinet in Social on July 29, 2011 at 9:14 am PT
The slick little start-up that lets users share files by dragging them into their Web browser has raised some cash and is looking to some pretty nerdy Web sites for inspiration in getting social.
Walt Mossberg in Personal Technology on March 16, 2011 at 6:13 pm PT
A brief primer on how to get such documents into and out of an iPad, and how to view, edit and create them on the tablet.
Peter Kafka in Media on February 22, 2011 at 5:45 am PT
The former file-sharing service’s going out of business sale continues: The vintage foosball table is gone, but you can still get your hands on some Eames chairs and some very nice desks.
Peter Kafka in Media on January 8, 2011 at 8:52 am PT
Music start-ups have been a money incinerator for a long time, but that doesn’t stop investors from trying again. Here’s the latest example, which I first wrote about back in October.
Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on January 4, 2011 at 12:00 am PT
Hard-to-use software is behind the leakage of sensitive health data online, according to a study by Dartmouth researchers published in December.
Health documents with sensitive patient information can be found in “peer-to-peer” networks, which people typically use to share music files and the like.
Peter Kafka in Media on December 20, 2010 at 3:00 am PT
LimeWire’s slow-motion shutdown should be over by the end of this month. But at least one of the music file-sharing service’s affiliated companies has found a home: LimeWire Exchange will be swallowed up by Freelancer.com.
Peter Kafka in Media on December 2, 2010 at 10:38 am PT
LimeWire, the high-profile file-sharing company, more or less shut down in October, following a federal court ruling. But the last bits of the company seem to be going away: Its online music store will be shuttered at the end of the month, and I’m told that plans to launch a new music service have been shelved.
Ethan Smith, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on November 11, 2010 at 5:00 am PT
LimeWire LLC, potentially liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for copyright infringement, issued a cease-and-desist notice of its own Wednesday, trying to prevent anonymous computer programmers from distributing a “pirate edition” of its file-sharing software.
