Posts Tagged ‘p2p’

Here’s a paper I wrote for my IT Law course. Hopefully you find it useful. It deals with DRM and the impact it’s had on consumers and businesses in recent years, particularly the digital revolution.

Abstract:

Recent years have sparked worldwide debate on technologies making copyrighted material freely distributable between users of certain networks, and circumventing copyright protection technologies in almost all consumer devices and applications. The government has stepped in to attempt protecting the companies who own copyrighted material at the expense of innocent consumers, whose rights have become limited because of the new regulations proposed or passed by governments and businesses alike. One major technology backed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is Digital Rights Management. This paper will present the ethical, moral, and financial issues that this technology has had on consumers and businesses alike.

Download PDF

Yesterday the Criminal Court of Pamplona, Spain concluded that a man who downloaded over 3300 movies and undetermined amount of music did not break the law while doing it.

Although the judge acknowledged that the files were downloaded/shared, the defendant said it was for “private use or sharing with other Internet users” and since there was no financial gain, no crime has been committed.

The US movie industry, of course, is not happy (can’t remember the last time they were), and blamed the Spanish government for spreading a “misconception” that peer-to-peer file sharing is legal. Of course, there’s no misconception at all since the law clearly states that if there’s no financial gain, it’s not a crime.

Hats off to the Spanish for topping the list of copyright “infringements” with close to 25 million recorded cases.

President Obama's helicopter - Marine One

More in the world of weird and fun, highly sensitive Marine One blueprints  are apperantly exposed on a peer-to-peer network (my guess is Limewire and to see why check out this YouTube video). The IP of the uploader originated in Iran, and according to a security company that specializes on P2P networks, it’s a defense contractor who has top secret information on his computer and also happens to be running a file sharing program. In the holy words of Mother Mary, “WTF!”

“I’m sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went.”

To read the story, go to MSNBC