P2P News Review - This Week’s Summary

It’s very hard to think of something which has caused a greater storm in the entertainment industry in the past two decades than the file-sharing phenomenon. All the major companies have joined forces to come up with a feasible way to seal the broken money pipe.

As long as sites like The Pirate Bay exist and freely conduct their activities, these companies are losing money…big money. As the world’s largest Bit Torrent tracker and the entertainment industry square off, several other issues are developing this week which may have a lasting impact on the digital distribution landscape. Qtrax made quite a fuss in January when it announced to offer more than 25 million free MP3s, providing the end user accepted some advertisements. But the anxious customers were left on waiting. Advertised as the first legal P2P network in partnership with all four major music labels, the service failed to go online when scheduled. It seems that Qtrax didn't have all its deals in order. We can only wait and see if eventually the service will be launched.

Earlier this week U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, made a few reproaches while at the Miderm music industry convention. His discontent lies with the music industry's slow adaptability to the digital world, and also with pointed the ISPs belatedness to address piracy. The manager also addressed a few words to the American public - "The US government has sometimes been overzealous in protecting the public from cartel-like behaviour."

As Torrent Freak informed on Tuesday - the European Court of Justice ruled against Promusicae in the case with Spanish ISP Telefonica. For those who don’t know, Promusicae is the local version of the RIAA, and had claimed that Telefonica reveal the identities of those involved in swapping files via P2P file-sharing networks. Telefonica did not comply and finally, their strategy paid off as the Court pronounced that privacy does come before intellectual property. “

Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings.” It’s likely that The Pirate Bay has involuntarily launched Skynet. The notorious torrent tracker has managed to upset greatly the Swedish authorities.

The Swedish prosecutor’s office has charged the four administrators of the site, accusing them of supporting copyright infringement. Although there’s hardly the question of jail time, probably the administrators will be severely fined. The functioning of the network has ceased long time ago to depend on its creators, so if they were to be arrested that would not mean the end of it. IFPI Chairman John Kennedy criticized the torrent tracker’s policy and foundation “The operators of The Pirate Bay have always been interested in making money, not music,” “The Pirate Bay has managed to make Sweden, normally the most law abiding of EU countries, look like a piracy haven with intellectual property laws on a par with Russia.

With so much going on in the European digital backyard, a new law adds to the circus. The law in question which passed both legislative houses in Italy may end up giving users green light to sharing music on P2P networks. What caused the confusion and the current debate was actually the only requirement, namely that the music must be “degraded” and free of charge - the problem popped up because of term used - “degrade”, as the legislative branches proved unaware of the technical connotations of the word. Since the MP3 is a compressed format, degraded quality is hardly a setback on any every P2P network. As it hasn’t been granted as law just yet, both heavy downloaders and industry members will closely follow the course of this law.