Did everyone stop uploading to places like Kazaa after the riaa started suing people?

Not if your smart

WinMX, Edonkey, IRC clients

Usenet

I went to the e donkey page and there are a ton of versions do i just download one and hope for the best??

I use Kazaa and Limewire. I don't share my files but I gain tons of videos and music all the time.

Quoted: I went to the e donkey page and there are a ton of versions do i just download one and hope for the best??

I would DL one of the earliest versions, as the latest ones will most likely have spyware .

e donkey 0.52.0 sound good?

I don't think edonkey is a good idea anymore… seems the RIAA has it in it's sights…

Limewire has not been mentioned by any of the Copyright people yet and is spyware free…

ANdy

Yeah just like the downfall of Napster put a stop to internet music downloads. Good luck to them.

Quoted: Limewire has not been mentioned by any of the Copyright people yet and is spyware free… ANdy

You dont happen to have a link or a version number?

http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/10/15/416f73de4f9d4


File-sharing law could send violators to prison
By byron kho
October 15, 2004


The U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved legislation last month that could mean even more trouble for file sharers caught on peer-to-peer networks.
The Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004 calls for up to three years imprisonment for individuals caught sharing more than 1,000 copyrighted works during a six-month period, and up to five years for those sharing the files to make a profit.

Individuals caught video-recording a movie could receive up to six years in federal prison, because the bill removes all fair use protections guaranteed under former copyright law.

With the new legislation, the Recording Industry Association of America has more weaponry to aid its fight against file sharing -- a tactic it needs now that its ability to prosecute has been limited by recent court rulings.

The RIAA has already targeted Penn students on the campus network, and sued a number of students earlier this year for copyright violations.

"Piracy of intellectual property over the Internet, especially on peer-to-peer networks, has reached alarming levels. Low risk and high profit is how criminals view piracy," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who introduced the bill, in a statement last month.

The bill includes a requirement that the Justice Department establish educational programs for the public that will teach "the value of copyrighted works and the effects of the theft of such works on those who create them." Fifteen million dollars will be appropriated for this purpose.

The education program also authorizes the Justice Department to notify Internet service providers of alleged copyright infringements by their customers, but the ISP has the option of whether or not the notices are forwarded to the subscriber in question.

Gigi Sohn, president of intellectual property advocacy group Public Knowledge, applauded lawmakers "for making voluntary the program under which Internet service providers would pass on to consumers notices from the Justice Department alleging copyright infringement." However, she also voiced concern that taxpayer money was not being used wisely.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the RIAA's petition to overturn the 2003 Washington, D.C. appeals court decision in Verizon v. RIAA on Tuesday. The ruling disallowed the RIAA from sending out subpoenas to ISPs and forcing them to provide the names of customers suspected of sharing copyrighted songs.

The RIAA claimed court intervention was necessary, as more than 2.6 billion music files are illegally downloaded each month.

"The Supreme Court's action is a victory for consumers, for the Internet and its continued growth, and it marks the end of a dangerous and illegal subpoena campaign that threatened the constitutional rights of all Americans," said Sarah Deutsch, a vice president and associate general counsel at Verizon Communications.

With this decision, the justices have also implied that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is not a valid tool for finding copyright violators.

The Piracy Deterrence bill calls for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to "facilitate the sharing among law enforcement agencies, Internet service providers and copyright owners of information concerning acts of copyright infringement" -- sidestepping the Verizon v. RIAA decision.

In the meantime, the RIAA has had to settle for filing "John Doe" lawsuits against anonymous copyright violators identified only by their computer's Internet protocol address.

However, the RIAA is still optimistic. Tuesday's "decision will not deter our ongoing anti-piracy efforts. The 'John Doe' litigation process we have successfully utilized this year continues to be an effective legal tool," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, senior vice president for legal affairs at the RIAA.

Other related intellectual property bills that passed this summer will aid the RIAA as well as the Motion Picture Association of America in curbing infringements.

The acts "will provide federal prosecutors with the flexibility and discretion to bring copyright infringement cases that best correspond to the nature of the crime," said Mitch Bainwol, chief executive officer of the RIAA.

In 2003, the movie and music industries both earned more than $10 billion each in initial U.S. revenue, despite large losses due to online piracy.





------------------------------------


http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6559885?pageid=rs.News&pageregion=double1&rnd=1097941304687&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.872



Congress vs. File-Sharing

Proposed laws would ban Kazaa, send file sharers to jail



Can Washington, D.C., end file-sharing once and for all? Two new bills in Congress target file traders and peer-to-peer networks. The Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act -- which is expected to be passed by the Senate as early as next week -- could deal a deathblow to networks such as Grokster and Kazaa. And on September 28th, the House passed the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act, which would clear the way to criminally prosecute illicit file traders, with penalties of up to three years in prison.
Since September 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America has sued more than 5,000 people for sharing music online -- including 762 more announced on September 30th. But the PDEA bill, which budgets $15 million to the U.S. Justice Department for the enforcement of copyright infringement, marks the first time that Congress has directed federal authorities to target file sharers. A similar bill passed the Senate in June; President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law.

"It's unnecessarily extreme," says Jason Schultz, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group of lawyers working to protect digital rights. "The RIAA has shown they have all the legal weapons they need to sue file sharers. We don't see a need for the Justice Department to get involved." The PDEA's sponsor, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, says that illicit file-trading of songs should be as punishable as any other form of theft. "We can all agree that it is wrong to walk into a record store, put a CD in your pocket and walk out," says Smith. "It's just as wrong to illegally download a song from the Internet."

While the PDEA targets users, the Induce Act looks to shut down P2P networks. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Minority Leader Tom Daschle and Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy first sponsored the legislation in June. It addresses a provision in the 1984 Supreme Court case known as Sony-Betamax that allows the makers of copying devices to escape liability for copyright infringement as long as the machines have legitimate uses. "It's a different world today," says an aide to one of Induce's sponsoring senators. "The problem we're trying to address isn't just copying but indiscriminate distribution online." The latest version of the bill was circulated on September 24th and states that corporations should be held liable for any infringing acts "they intend to induce."

Despite RIAA lawsuits, traffic on P2P networks is almost twice what it was a year ago, according to BigChampagne, a company that tracks file-trading. "I can think of nothing finer than a competitive marketplace where P2P is a legitimate distribution model," says Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the RIAA (and Frist's former chief of staff). "But only if we stop those who rely on infringement without payment mechanisms."

Induce has found an unlikely coalition of opponents, including tech companies, universities, libraries and others that acknowledge that copyright infringement is a problem but argue that Induce is so vague as to target legitimate businesses. "Induce is insane," says Wayne Rosso, former president of Grokster, who is currently working on a new file-sharing program. "The courts have said again and again that there are legal uses for P2P applications." Sarah Deutsch, vice president and associate general counsel for Verizon Communications, says that everyone from Internet-service providers to MP3-player manufacturers to TiVo could be held liable for customers' actions. "The bill was intended to close a loophole," says Deutsch. "It's turned into a noose for the technology industry."



BILL WERDE
(Posted Oct 14, 2004)



------------------------------


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1944&u=/variety/20041010/va_ne_al/hollywood_takes_p2p_battle_to_high_court&printer=1





Hollywood takes P2P battle to high court

Sun Oct 10, 2:21 PM ET

Ben Fritz, STAFF

Hollywood's taking its battle against P2P to the top.

 

MPAA, RIAA (news - web sites), and National Music Publishers Assn. members Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) to overturn an August Appeals Court decision in favor of peer-to-peer networks Grokster and Morpheus.


The court ruled in August that unlike the outlawed Napster (news - web sites), Grokster, Morpheus and other current P2P networks can't be held responsible for copyright infringements on their networks as they don't help distribute it.


Decision infuriated movie and music industry execs, who claim P2P is costing them billions of dollars a year due to piracy.


The "writ of certiorari" asks the Supreme Court to consider overturning the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal's decision because it conflicts with a previous ruling about P2P application Aimster and alleges that it incorrectly interprets the 1984 Sony Betamax case that legalized VCRs.


"By forcing the square peg of this case into the round hole of Sony-Betamax," the writ argues, "the 9th Circuit created a completely novel test for secondary liability, unmoored from law or logic, that poses a grave threat to the very existence of intellectual property in the digital era."


Secondary liability is a legal theory that would hold P2P companies responsible for piracy conducted by users of their software.


The writ even argues that the 9th Circuit decision encourages piracy, saying it "will also encourage even more people to use" P2P, therefore, "further eroding respect for copyright on the Internet."Movie and music companies filed the writ now in hopes that the high court will decide whether to accept the case by the end of the year and, if it does, hear arguments next year.


P2P companies responded immediately with the now-common refrain that media companies are opposing technological progress and existing law.


"The plaintiff's brief is an indictment against the Supreme Court's 1984 Betamax decision itself," said Michael Weiss (news - web sites), CEO of Morpheus parent company Streamcast Networks. "The law is clear and has already been decided."


But plaintiffs responded that P2P, with its easy access to illegal free content, is inhibiting the growth of legitimate alternatives.


"Now is the time for the courts to review these businesses that depend upon violation of copyright," MPAA topper Dan Glickman said. "Unless the laws keep pace with innovation, we run the risk of imperiling the creation and development of legitimate new technologies that form the foundation of the information economy driving our country's growth."


Writ comes as the Hollywood-supported Induce Act, which would essentially outlaw P2P, appears to have died for the current congressional session.

Quoted: Usenet

+1

Walmart is supposedly the buggest retailer of music in the US, and I heard the other day that they are asking the record industry to drop prices below $10.  If they comply, I might buy more CD's.

Kazaa punishes you in download speed if you don't share your files.  I use BearShare... music, videos, applications, etc.  Makes it nice if you don't have to go out and buy Microsoft Office...

Shareaza is good stuff...sometimes. That's what I hear anyway

use DC++... thin, robust, no spyware, easy to use...

Quoted: e donkey 0.52.0 sound good?

Forget eDonkey.  Go with eMule.

www.emule-project.net/home/perl/general.cgi?l=1&rm=download

It has no spyware and is free.  It works on the same network.

4.) Posting comments or links in support of illegal activities