News Byte
Peter Kafka in Media on March 23, 2011 at 6:19 am PT
Last October, the big music labels got the courts to shut down Limewire, one of the best-known file-sharing services on the Web. Normally, shutting down a piracy site is simply a whack-a-mole exercise, but research firm NPD says this time is different: It says peer-to-peer filesharing in the U.S. dropped from 12 percent of Web user to 9 percent between Q3 of 2010 and Q4. These numbers are from a self-reported survey, so use as much salt as you’d like.
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 November 1, 2010 at 10:22 am PT
Not a surprise: Following a court injunction that turned off its primary file-sharing service, LimeWire laid off a third of its staff last week.
A bit of a surprise: The company insists that it can keep its remaining employees working on a new music service.
Peter Kafka in Media on October 26, 2010 at 12:57 pm PT
Last spring, music file-sharing service LimeWire suffered a crushing blow in federal court. This is the net result: The company will stop distributing its core software, and will disable “hundreds of millions” of existing downloads. It’s the victory the big music labels have been seeking for some time.
John Paczkowski in News on July 9, 2010 at 3:00 am PT
Were you a Comcast subscriber between April 1, 2006, and December 31, 2008? Did the company’s network management techniques during that time screw up your Fedora downloads? Then why haven’t you filed your P2P Congestion Settlement Claim yet?
Peter Kafka in Media on May 12, 2010 at 1:17 pm PT
A big victory for Big Music: A federal court has ruled in favor of the music labels in their fight against LimeWire, one of the most prominent file-sharing services on the Web.
Peter Kafka in Media on June 18, 2009 at 4:39 am PT
When a big music label sues a scrappy Web music start-up, most people tend to sympathize reflexively with the little guy. But not everyone. Here’s the case against Grooveshark–not from EMI, which has hauled them into court, but from an indie that by all rights ought to be working with Grooveshark: “The service is just ripping off the band.”
Kara Swisher in News on September 24, 2008 at 10:15 am PT
Well, here’s a good reason not to write off Joost quite yet:
When it officially debuts its new Web-based service in mid-October, the London-based company will have some pretty hot content with its half-dozen seasons of the former NBC hit, “Friends.”
Also, there will finally be no more irksome plug-ins.
There will also be cooler social-networking elements.
While all this is not going to make up for the lost time the online video service has wasted with its annoying P2P-based desktop client download, going to a Web-based, all-Flash service with more robust content is certainly the right way to stop rival service Hulu from continuing to clean Joost’s clock.
John Paczkowski in News on June 5, 2008 at 9:01 am PT
If Bono is U2’s geopolitical pragmatist, the band’s manager, Paul McGuinness, is its neo-Luddite. At the Music Matters confab in Hong Kong, McGuinness slagged broadband Internet service providers, accusing them of aiding and abetting music piracy while CD sales and royalty payments to musicians plunge.
