New On-Demand File Sharing Solution from Nomadesk

August 27, 2009 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 
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The already crowded on-demand file sharing software market has welcomed another contendent – Nomadesk.

According to Nomadesk, its version 3.0 is developed for small and medium-sized businesses that want to use a feasible cloud computing solution which promises to spare users of the high costs of managing, sharing, backing up, securing and synchronizing confidential project files.

The company says that their service offers business teams a great way of securing, syncing and sharing data whether you are online or offline, working at the office or remote.

Basically, each virtual file server behaves like a hard drive. They store confidential data in one place with local and remote access from a PC, Mac or iPhone. All you have to do is simply drag and drop your files into the Nomadesk virtual file server. They will be instantly encrypted, backed up and made available for file sharing.

It.tmcnet.com quoted Filip Tack, Nomadesk CEO saying: “Every day, millions of businesses create growing amounts of unprotected data on multiple devices which are easy to lose, hard to sync and require access from anywhere. In addition to developing the easiest and most secure way people can share data, we felt it was unfair to charge a small business every time they want to grant access to a new individual. At Nomadesk, we offer file sharing with unlimited storage for an unlimited number of team members – all for $15 per month. Our secure encryption and TheftGuard technology protects digital nomads, mobile users and remote workforces from theft or loss of data due to misplacing a mobile device. Nomadesk is a smarter, more efficient way to collaborate, increase productivity, secure data and expand server/storage capacity and it’s drag, drop, simple.”

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New Verdict against Mininova

August 27, 2009 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues 

New Verdict against Mininova This year was certainly not a happy one for file sharing websites. The number of lawsuits against the latter has increased dramatically and perhaps the most followed was the one involving The Pirate Bay. However, another extremely popular torrent tracker got into trouble and apparently found no way of out of it.

We are referring, of course to Mininova. The site has been given a three month deadline to remove all links to copyrighted files or face a $7.16 million, PcPro reports.

The court verdict followed a lawsuit filled by the Dutch anti-piracy gropu BREIN that also sued The Pirate Bay -”Mininova encourages users of its platform to make copyright material accessible via its platform, helps users find the desired file with the copyrighted work and ensures through its ‘administrators’ and ‘moderators’ for the copyrighted works that are accessible through its platform, also useful for its users,” – said the verdict.

The case was brought by Dutch copyright lobbying group Stichting Brein, which accused the file-sharing site of “contributory copyright infringement” – the same charge levelled at The Pirate Bay.

After failing in many lawsuits, copyright owners have chanced their strategy and while they no longer claim or accuse such sites of direct copyright infringement, they instead accuse them of setting an environment that encourages such illegal activity and thus they become responsible for any copyright infringement that happens in this environment.

Erik Dubbelboer, Mininova co-founder followed with a comment after the verdict: “We are obviously not satisfied with this ruling.The result of this ruling for Mininova is that we have to re-evaluate our business operations. At this time, we cannot determine what this will actually entail or imply. We will have to examine the verdict thoroughly first.”

It seems that the laws against file sharing are becoming more drastic and it remains to be seen from now on how will this affect the Internet freedom.

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The Pirate Bay: Broken but Not Dead

August 24, 2009 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues 

After being taken offline, the site promises and early resurrection in the morning

Pirate Bay - DieHard

Pirate Bay = DieHard

For some years now, the industry has been throwing everything they could at The Pirate Bay trying to shut it down and using their best lawyers to do it. However, instead of the hoped for ressult, it seemed that the more efforts they put into it, the more popular, and apparently invincible, the Swedish Bittorrent tracker became. Let’s see if that ended today.

After sentencing its founders to jail and ordering them to pay a large sum of money, the Swedish authorities have decided it was time to go radical and put some heavy pressure on the Pirate Bay’s bandwidth suppliers in order to force them to disconnect the site from the Internet.

As TorrentFreak reported earlier today, the ISP Black Internet gave in to threats and cut off the site. “The censorship of The Pirate Bay will continue pending the outcome of a civil action taken by several entertainment companies including Disney, Universal, Warner, Columbia, Sony, NBC and Paramount,” says the site.

As quoted by the aforementioned source, Rick Falkvinge, leader of The Pirate Party was prompt to come forward with a statement saying: “This is absolutely ridiculous. The Court seems to consider themselves above the Constitution,” referring to how negatively these civil actions willl affect the freedom of speech. “This clarifies how copyright law has become untenable, and how information is lacking political skills in the judiciary,” he continued.

Fortunately, the aura of invincibility we were talking about in the beginning of this post doesn’t seem to have left The Pirate Bay which has managed to get a new Internet connection and is expected to be back on tracks tomorrow morning (we’ll definitely check it out).

To wrap up, we post below the comment from the Pirate Bay crew related to this latest attempt to bring them down: “The MAFIAA has spent millions of dollars and endless amounts of time to get this ban in order. Our guess is that they also bribed a bit to get it since it violates so many laws not only in Sweden but also in the EU, not to mention violations against human rights. And what do they have to show for it? 3 hours of partial downtime.”

To end this in a dramatic note, the site has proved once more it’s really a devil to kill.

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Songwriter Explaining a New System That Would Work for Both Artists and File Sharers

August 22, 2009 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Legal P2P News & Issues 
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Bill Henderson

Bill Henderson, the vice president of the Songwriters Association of Canada has addressed the issue of file sharing in a recent post on straight.com. We welcome the opinion of a long-time singer, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer (also a member of the band Chilliwack) especially since many of those fighting the war against file sharers don’t know the first thing about the artists’ needs but just claim so to get the fat cheques themselves while protecting the monster corporations.

The Canadian federal government has been hosting public hearings, trying to bring adjustments to the copyright law that would ultimately make it more practical in the digital era.

Henderson emphasizes the pointlessness in suing illegal file sharers saying that the massive lawsuits against them are only alienating the audience, bringing no actual revenue.

“Canadian songwriters don’t want to sue file-sharers. In fact, we like file-sharing. It’s the most efficient distribution system of the largest repertoire of music ever assembled, and it’s available to virtually everyone. What’s not to love about that? We don’t want to stop it; we just want to get paid for the use of our work. We think that most music fans agree with that, and that millions of Canadians would welcome a legal way to share any and all music files.”

The Songwriters Association has recently forwarded proposals that include “voluntary for consumers, voluntary for songwriters and rights holders, and it would be administratively light.” Henderson explained that the new plan would involve a small fee that file-sharers would have to pay and which will be distributed on a pro rata basis to all the creators and owners of the music shared.

The new system would allow consumers “to share copies and streams of any song in the world’s repertoire of music, at any time and on any platform, using the most up-to-date technology and could do so with one simple payment. With that payment, the shadow of illegality and threat of penalty would be removed.”

It remains to be seen if the Canadian government will see the benefits of the new proposals and if it decides to implement them.

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The First P2P University Ready to Accept Its Open Minded Students and Professors

August 21, 2009 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology, Legal P2P News & Issues 

The P2P University is supported by a $70,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and closes its sign up period on August 26

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OK! Who would have predicted this back in 1999 when Napster was taking the world by storm? I mean, we talked about the influence of p2p (peer-to-peer) and BitTorrent technology many times before but today we shall follow its entrance in one domain authorities that have been trying to suppress the phenomenon from day one would have never guessed to welcome it – education.

An international effort from professors and graduate students working side to side has already produced its fruits – a new online university, built upon an unusual model that is more like a book group than a traditional course.

This new educational institution, entitled how else but Peer2Peer University, offers courses which are based not on the activity of pre-established traditional professor but rather on a volunteer facilitator whose role is that of a mediator of online discussions and debates. Still, the main part of the system relies on students teaching students (and themselves) – and this, indeed, does look a lot like p2p as we come to know it.

At Peer2Peer University, sessions last only one month and a half, to help nontraditional students best organize the courses according to their schedules. The P2P University grants no credit.

Here are the six courses included in the fall semester : “Behavioral Economics and Decision Making,” “Copyright for Educators,” “Introduction to Cyberpunk Literature,” “Land Restoration and Afforestation,” “Neuroethics and International Biolaw,” “Open Creative Nonfiction Writing,” and “Poker and Strategic Thinking.”

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While courses cost nothing, if you want to join them you need to fill out a brief application explaining why you want to do so – “We are not applying the typical selection criteria of course, but are just interested to see that people give good reasons why they want to join a course,” says Jan Philipp Schmidt, free-courseware project manager at the University of the Western Cape, in South Africa, and a leader of P2P University. “We want to make sure that participants are truly committed and won’t drop out after they realize that it actually takes a few hours of work every week.”

Courses start on 9 September 2009!

Good Look Peers (to peers) !

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