The Archives
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03.14.06Resistance is (not) futile… apparentlyWhile The Pirate Bay undoubtedly has pointers to material of less-than-legal status, BitTorrent itself is a hugely useful technology, with many legal implementations. Thanks to a combination of (sensible) Swedish law and determination on the part of the operators of The Pirate Bay, the MPAA has failed in a takedown maneuver aginst the site. Full report at Wired News.
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03.13.06How Battlestar Galactica Killed Broadcast TVNot new, but this is a great article about the shift to user-controlled television viewing (based on downloading of shows, either legally or otherwise), driven by issues such as release and broadcast schedules in different markets. The success and viewing by worldwide audiences of shows such as Battlestar Galactica (and any number of others) is used as a key example of this shift and how makers and distributors might actually make real, profitable use of this shift. There is also a follow-up article. I'm not allowed to use BitTorrent at work, so I'll have to download the video of ...
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08.29.05RIAA lawsuit blogWhile I will always defend a copyright owner's right to receive appropriate payment for access to his/her material, it's nice to see someone standing up to the bully tactics of the RIAA. This blog is a commentary by the (EFF-backed) lawyers for Patricia Santangelo, who has refused to settle with the RIAA over filesharing which took place from her computer (although there are some interesting issues around that if you read through the site). Of significant interest is the apprent attitiude of the judge on the case, who is pretty disenchanted with the RIAA lawyer and very encouraging of Ms ...
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12.21.04P2P NEEDS legality!While I don't think BitTorrent is dead by any means, the recent shutdowns (1, 2) of sites like SuprNova.org is going to put a big hole in P2P for a little while... The fact is that P2P file sharing, while legally dubious at times, puts in the hands of users the ability to hear, read, play, use and listen to media or software they might not otherwise have access to. I'm as guilty as the next guy - Australia is more than a season behind on The West Wing, having just started on Season 5, we don't get Lost at ...
