[H]ardNews 2nd Edition - P2P Edition

Juris Backlash

Seems that imposing the stiff sentences, fines and damages designed to punish large piracy rings onto the general populace, who are typically just loading up an ipod, has started to rub a few judges and courts the wrong way.

"The powerful president of the French magistrates union has begun to openly advocate decriminalizing online trading in copyrighted works for personal use. "The resources of the police and judges are exhausted by these small cases, and do not take care of the large international (counterfeiting) rings."

Cold War Piracy

Strangely the same point about large scale piracy is made by none other than Orin Hatch. ArsTechnica has a brief writeup. While Slyck covers the two new crimes he managed to get signed into law Wednesday.

"The USTR estimates that piracy losses of approximately US$3 billion a year can be attributed to China alone. Industry estimates place Russia's copyright infringement at 80 percent for movies, 66 percent for music, and 87 percent for software."

Piracy At The Speed Of Sound

Slyck also offers up coverage of why the RIAA is so hot and bothered over Internet2 P2P downloading.

The RIAA is particularly concerned about the growing threat of piracy existing on Internet2. Unlike the Internet most are familiar with, Internet2 is an extremely fast network allowing for speeds averaging at 655 megabits/sec. Recently, researchers on Internet2 successfully sent data from Switzerland to Tokyo at 7.21 gigabits per second - fast enough to download full length DVD in seconds.