If copyright pirates are starting to feel a little paranoid, it's because tech companies and the entertainment industry are working hard to catch them.
A group of music publishers has filed a lawsuit against Bertelsmann for at least $17 billion, alleging that the German media company's investment in Napster led to massive abuse of publishers' copyrighted works. The complaint charges that Bertelsmann's strategy to fund Napster extended the life of the file-swapping service, leading to greater numbers of copyrighted works being shared illegally.
The complaint alleges that Bertelsmann "was fully aware of the critical role its funding played in facilitating infringement by Napster users" and therefore "systematically participated in, facilitated, materially contributed to and encouraged" illegal music file swapping. The music publishers also charge that Bertelsmann had the ability to halt Napster services but instead kept it "operating in order to preserve Napster's user base for Bertelsmann's own commercial advantage."
The University of Wyoming is using the digital equivalent of a postal censor to sort through virtually all file-swapping traffic on its network, quietly noting every trade. The technology isn't yet blocking individual file trades, but it's likely to open the next front in the online piracy wars.
With the capacity to look inside every bit of data that flows over a network--whether it's part of a song being illegally traded or a personal e-mail--this new generation of antipiracy technology is sure to prove controversial. The next step for the technology is actually blocking songs and other content. In theory, songs could be blocked as the data passes the network monitor and is compared against this database of fingerprints.
In an odd twist in its fight against Hollywood studios, start-up 321 Studios is offering a $10,000 reward for information about people who use its products to illegally copy DVDs. The major studios sued 321 last December, saying the company promotes copyright infringement by offering products that allow people to copy DVDs.
321 says it merely provides a product that will allow people to make backups of DVDs they already own, a practice that has been protected under a legal doctrine known as fair use. The company said it's committed to preventing illegal copying and uses technology that prevents consumers from duplicating copies of DVDs made with its software.
--By Steven Mucil, source: news.com (CNET)
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