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New statistics by British internet service provider PlusNet shows that peer-to-peer traffic on the internet is dropping.

While P2P traffic takes up 25.9 per cent of all internet traffic whizzing through ISP PlusNet, this is down from last year.

PlusNet has revealed that while last year the total amount of P2P info was 13.4TB a day last year it has been lowered to 12.2TB a day this year.

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 Posted by: Lite on September 7th, 2008 | 2 Comments made | Post a Comment

The CRIA is known for taking on BitTorrent sites. In the past year they have threatened Demonoid and other BitTorrent sites, and taken legal action against QuebecTorrent. Now, they have set their sights on isoHunt, one of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, but this might just backfire.

In May 2008, isoHunt received a Cease and Desist letter from the CRIA, in which they demanded that isoHunt founder Gary Fung should take the site offline. If Fung didn’t comply, the CRIA said it would pursue legal action, and demand $20,000 for each sound recording the site has infringed.

A similar tactic worked against Demonoid, but the isoHunt founder didn’t back down so easily. “We have since tried to come to an understanding, but just as with the MPAA in the US, they ignored our offers of cooperation by the take down of .torrent links to their content files, so long as they provide sufficient identification,” Gary Fung told TorrentFreak.

Fung has pointed out that, like most other BitTorrent sites, isoHunt has a Copyright Policy, and takes down .torrent files when they receive an appropriate request. The CRIA simply ignored this, even though they have sent correct takedown notices to isoHunt before (and isoHunt complied), and continued to threaten with legal action.

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 Posted by: Lite on September 7th, 2008 | 0 Comments made | Post a Comment

Two major UK ISPs have been ordered by the High Court to hand over the identities of several thousand alleged file-sharers. BT has confirmed it is involved while Virgin Media was less direct in admitting that lawyers Davenport Lyons, working with Topwear Inc., are about to start threatening thousands more people.

US game developer Topware Interactive, the people behind the now infamous ‘Dream Pinball‘ affair, are about to turn up the heat. Operating through London lawyers Davenport Lyons, they have managed to convince the High Court to send out an order demanding that ISPs in the UK start to hand over the details of “several thousand” alleged pirates.

According to Samknows, BT, one of the UK’s largest ISPs and like many, currently caught up in the middle of a Davenport Lyons versus P2P battle, confirmed it had been ordered to hand over details of alleged copyright infringing file-sharers. It could not confirm whether they had already handed over the details or not. However, BT was surprised at the “strong arm” tactics being employed by the games industry, in contrast to the fairly civilized warnings currently touted by the BPI, which were toned-down under duress.

“It does seem a much more strong arm approach compared to the music industry,” said the BT spokesman. “However, it is only one company pursuing a limited number of miscreants at the moment. I doubt the music industry will follow suit as the potential numbers are too great, but who knows.”

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 Posted by: Lite on September 7th, 2008 | 0 Comments made | Post a Comment

How much does sharing "Waiting For A Girl Like You," "Money For Nothing," and "Sweet Child O' Mine" on P2P networks cost defendants if they end up in court? Arizona resident Jeffrey Howell has just found out the hard way. While Jammie Thomas came in for more than $200,000 of statutory damages in her Minnesota trial last year, Howell escaped with a (mere) $40,850 fine. Perhaps he should be grateful, though we doubt that's the emotion he's feeling today.

Few of the RIAA's thousands of cases against individual file-swappers ever make it to trial; fewer still reach a judgment, making these awards quite unusual. Howell, who served as his own counsel throughout the trial, did himself no favors by intentionally destroying evidence of his computer activity after being ordered by a judge to preserve it. According to the RIAA, Howell uninstalled KaZaA and deleted everything in the shared folder, reformatted his hard drive, downloaded and used a file-wiping program, and then nuked all the KaZaA logs on his PC. Anyone who has seen even a single episode of Perry Mason knows that this is a huge no-no.

Ruling last week that Howell had acted in bad faith, the judge was forced to call the case to a premature close and issue judgment against Howell. Howell's punishment was to come at a later date, and the judge has now issued his ruling.

Howell is ordered to pay $350 in court costs—an incredible bargain when set against a whopping $40,500 in statutory damages. In addition, he will pay 2.12 percent interest on the unpaid balance until the entire amount is paid off; in essence, Howell has just taken out a pricey new car loan, except that instead of a car, he gets a big pile of nothing to park in his driveway.

The judge also ordered him to stop infringing copyrights, "including without limitation by using the Internet or any online media distribution system to reproduce (i.e., download) any of Plaintiffs' Recordings, or to distribute (i.e., upload) any of Plaintiffs' Recordings."

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 Posted by: Lite on September 7th, 2008 | 1 Comment made | Post a Comment

Ever since the FCC handed down its 3-2 decision against cable operator Comcast's network management techniques, Comcast has been expected to sue the FCC. Today, the cable giant made good on those predictions, filing an appeal of the FCC ruling in the DC Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over FCC decisions.

The appeal itself is brief: a two-page document, a cover letter, and a $450 check. But the fight that it spawns will no doubt drag on for quite some time, centering on one major question: can the FCC rule against Comcast based on a policy statement that the FCC said was not enforceable at the time?

In a statement today, however, Comcast did admit that the FCC does have the authority to regulate ISPs "in appropriate circumstances and in accordance with appropriate procedures."

As the legal process plays itself out, Comcast has pledged to abide by the order and continue its work to move towards a protocol-agnostic throttling system that could slow "heavy users" down to DSL levels for 20 minutes at a time (another piece of the bandwidth management puzzle, hard bandwidth caps, were also announced last month).

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 Posted by: Lite on September 7th, 2008 | 1 Comment made | Post a Comment