Risk & Safety

For a while, in its effort to make it as easy as possible to sue music swappers, the music industry had a practice, with subpoenas, of forcing Internet service providers to reveal their customers' identities without notifying the customers. Verizon was the first ISP to refuse to comply. Last December a federal appeals court said ISPs didn't have to comply with the bulk subpoenas (for which the … [Read more...] about Supreme Court nixes RIAA case

It's up to Congress, US lawmakers apparently feel, to protect the music biz from copyright pirates. Two bills are in the works - the Induce Act in the Senate and the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act in the House of Representatives. This summer, Sen. Orrin Hatch announced that they "must pass legislation this year that would effectively drive online digital music swapping companies out of … [Read more...] about Congress: After those pirates!

A software company executive emailed me some concrete comments about the family P2P policy ideas I floated in "Legal music" last week. He wrote: "For your 'possible P2P policies,' I'd add a third (albeit, I am most certainly NOT impartial): Use a good P2P blocking application and 'override' the restrictions when your child wants to download [legal music], ensuring that you are around to … [Read more...] about Family P2P policymaking

Kids are specifically mentioned in California's new law against anonymous file-sharing. The law, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed this week, establishes fines and possible jail time for anonymous file-sharers, CNET reports. "The new law says that any California resident who sends copyrighted works without permission to at least 10 other people must include his or her email address and the … [Read more...] about CA: Tough on file-swappers

File-sharing isn't the only way the music fans at your house will be swapping tunes. If Yahoo and MSN have their way, instant-messaging will soon be kids' favorite way to share music. "While the popular IM software already lets people listen to online radio, new versions will let people share and interact with one another's digital playlists," CNET reports. Yahoo's plans are still sketchy (though … [Read more...] about Tunes the IM way