Kazaa & Canada
- Thread starter Cobster
- Start date
it's in the globe and mail. they are after about 15 or so subscribers , 8 from Shaw and 9 form Sympatico, they want their ID, IP addresses, etc from the internet companies.
I think there are two actions one in Calgary the other in Toronto
my guess is there will consolidate the actions to Ontario or limit it to Ontario and Alberta.
Shaw, Bell are resisiting the motions as there is new federal privacy legislation that does not permit the revealing of the information and it trumps the copyright law.
I think there are two actions one in Calgary the other in Toronto
my guess is there will consolidate the actions to Ontario or limit it to Ontario and Alberta.
Shaw, Bell are resisiting the motions as there is new federal privacy legislation that does not permit the revealing of the information and it trumps the copyright law.
Music industry hunting Canadian 'pirates'
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...geid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1076627414442
Toronto Star
Feb. 13, 2004. 06:18 AM
Music industry hunting Canadian 'pirates'
Ready to launch dozens of lawsuits
Internet providers await court orders
TYLER HAMILTON
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
Canada's recording industry is poised to launch dozens of lawsuits against Internet users who share copyrighted music through "music swapping" networks such as Kazaa.
The lawsuits will target high-volume music traders — people who store several thousand MP3 song files on their computers and make them available through the Internet for others to download.
Bell Canada, Rogers Cable, Telus Corp. and Shaw Communications Inc. are among major Internet service providers being told to expect federal court orders early next week that would require them to identify Internet subscribers who are allegedly pirating this music.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) represents major record labels such as Universal Music Canada and EMI Music Canada. It sent a "notice of motion" to high-speed Internet providers Wednesday afternoon to warn the orders will be requested Monday in Federal Court.
The Star has learned that at least 20 individuals are being pursued, though the recording industry has previously said it would go after 30 to 40 individuals.
Nine customers of Rogers Cable have been targeted.
Seven customers at Bell Sympatico are affected, as well as three at Telus, which is based in Burnaby, B.C.
High-speed cable subscribers with Calgary-based Shaw Communications Inc. have also been targeted. Shaw did not say how many of its customers were affected, but was the only company yesterday to declare it would go to Federal Court to fight for customer privacy.
"We believe this application amounts to a civil search warrant, and we do not think that the music companies' application should override our responsibility in law to protect the rights of our customers to maintain their privacy," chief executive Jim Shaw said in a statement.
"We intend to ask the court to preserve the privacy of our customers."
David Bennett, director of marketing for Rogers Hi-Speed Internet, said his company has "some concerns" about the terms of the motion.
Telus said it would be seeking an adjournment so its customers have more time to respond.
Bell Canada was less committal. "We're not going to share our strategy at this time," spokesperson Don Blair said. "We're still evaluating our options."
All four companies said they were making every effort to inform the subscribers involved.
The recording association would not comment yesterday on the coming lawsuits. It began warning people last fall, and again in December, that legal action against hundreds of Internet music swappers in the United States would be followed by similar action in Canada.
Since September, the Recording Industry Association of America has sued nearly 400 alleged music-swappers and threatened thousands more. A grandfather who rarely used his computer and a 12-year-old girl were among those caught in the U.S. organization's dragnet.
Brian Robertson, president of the recording industry association, said this week that his organization has spent the past three months gathering evidence on individuals who have more than 3,000 copyrighted songs in their computers. "These are not casual users," said Robertson, adding that the industry is focusing on "egregious" uploaders. "Litigation appears to be the only option now. ... This is the first of what we think will be more than one wave."
Using sophisticated Internet surveillance technology, the association has tracked computers — identified online through their Internet protocol or "IP" addresses — that are actively trading copyrighted songs. The next step is to match those IP addresses with subscriber information so the alleged pirates can be identified
CRIA needs a court order because Internet service providers generally don't hand over this data freely.
Critics of the music industry say record labels will not gain sympathy by suing their own customers. "Real live kids and their families should not become collateral damage in test cases where the law is uncertain and the industry is desperately seeking scapegoats," said Howard Knopf, an intellectual property lawyer in Ottawa.
Additional articles by Tyler Hamilton
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...geid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1076627414442
Toronto Star
Feb. 13, 2004. 06:18 AM
Music industry hunting Canadian 'pirates'
Ready to launch dozens of lawsuits
Internet providers await court orders
TYLER HAMILTON
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
Canada's recording industry is poised to launch dozens of lawsuits against Internet users who share copyrighted music through "music swapping" networks such as Kazaa.
The lawsuits will target high-volume music traders — people who store several thousand MP3 song files on their computers and make them available through the Internet for others to download.
Bell Canada, Rogers Cable, Telus Corp. and Shaw Communications Inc. are among major Internet service providers being told to expect federal court orders early next week that would require them to identify Internet subscribers who are allegedly pirating this music.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) represents major record labels such as Universal Music Canada and EMI Music Canada. It sent a "notice of motion" to high-speed Internet providers Wednesday afternoon to warn the orders will be requested Monday in Federal Court.
The Star has learned that at least 20 individuals are being pursued, though the recording industry has previously said it would go after 30 to 40 individuals.
Nine customers of Rogers Cable have been targeted.
Seven customers at Bell Sympatico are affected, as well as three at Telus, which is based in Burnaby, B.C.
High-speed cable subscribers with Calgary-based Shaw Communications Inc. have also been targeted. Shaw did not say how many of its customers were affected, but was the only company yesterday to declare it would go to Federal Court to fight for customer privacy.
"We believe this application amounts to a civil search warrant, and we do not think that the music companies' application should override our responsibility in law to protect the rights of our customers to maintain their privacy," chief executive Jim Shaw said in a statement.
"We intend to ask the court to preserve the privacy of our customers."
David Bennett, director of marketing for Rogers Hi-Speed Internet, said his company has "some concerns" about the terms of the motion.
Telus said it would be seeking an adjournment so its customers have more time to respond.
Bell Canada was less committal. "We're not going to share our strategy at this time," spokesperson Don Blair said. "We're still evaluating our options."
All four companies said they were making every effort to inform the subscribers involved.
The recording association would not comment yesterday on the coming lawsuits. It began warning people last fall, and again in December, that legal action against hundreds of Internet music swappers in the United States would be followed by similar action in Canada.
Since September, the Recording Industry Association of America has sued nearly 400 alleged music-swappers and threatened thousands more. A grandfather who rarely used his computer and a 12-year-old girl were among those caught in the U.S. organization's dragnet.
Brian Robertson, president of the recording industry association, said this week that his organization has spent the past three months gathering evidence on individuals who have more than 3,000 copyrighted songs in their computers. "These are not casual users," said Robertson, adding that the industry is focusing on "egregious" uploaders. "Litigation appears to be the only option now. ... This is the first of what we think will be more than one wave."
Using sophisticated Internet surveillance technology, the association has tracked computers — identified online through their Internet protocol or "IP" addresses — that are actively trading copyrighted songs. The next step is to match those IP addresses with subscriber information so the alleged pirates can be identified
CRIA needs a court order because Internet service providers generally don't hand over this data freely.
Critics of the music industry say record labels will not gain sympathy by suing their own customers. "Real live kids and their families should not become collateral damage in test cases where the law is uncertain and the industry is desperately seeking scapegoats," said Howard Knopf, an intellectual property lawyer in Ottawa.
Additional articles by Tyler Hamilton
Canadian recording industry hopes to inspire fear over file swapping
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040213.winmus14/BNStory/Business/
Canadian recording industry hopes to inspire fear over file swapping
By KEITH DAMSELL
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
POSTED AT 11:25 PM EST Friday, Feb. 13, 2004
Toronto — Jeremy Brzozowski is spooked.
The 22-year-old Ottawa student stopped grabbing music off the Internet last fall after he heard the big music companies were taking file swappers to court in the United States.
"I was a pretty big user of Kazaa and Napster," said the Carleton University criminology student. His music collection swelled to 5,000 songs — before he stopped downloading. Fears of the long arm of the law have now got him looking for cheap CDs at the local mall.
"Anything more than $10 for a CD is pushing it," he said.
Mr. Brzozowski's decision to curtail downloading is music to the ears of the Canadian recording industry, which has decided to follow the American example in pursuing file swappers in court.
On Monday, the country's biggest music producers will ask the Federal Court of Canada to order Internet service providers, which include Canada's largest communications companies, to hand over the identities of customers that share music over the Internet. The dispute promises to be a tense showdown pitting the fate of Canada's music industry against the privacy rights of Internet surfers.
"There was no other option," said Brian Robertson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.
A $1-million public awareness campaign against the evils of downloading, and e-mails sent directly to song swappers, have not curtailed rampant downloading, Mr. Robertson said.
CRIA estimates illegal downloading has cost Canadian retailers about $425-million in sales since 1999.
"We felt we had to go to the next step which is litigation. We've gone through education, communication and litigation [is] aimed at uploaders, the most flagrant exploiters of it," he said.
CRIA wants a who's who of high-speed Internet access providers — BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., Vidéotron Ltée and Telus Corp. — to identify 29 prolific music "uploaders," Internet users that post songs illegally on the Web for others to copy.
Five thick brown binders filed with the Federal Court in Toronto are filled with long lists of illegally swapped songs by Canadian artists, from youthful rockers Sum 41 to the country star Shania Twain.
"Infringements of copyright have taken place via the Internet," the motion claims. The so-called "infringers" were posting songs illegally on peer-to-peer file copying services and networks, including Kazaa and Morpheus, CRIA alleges in its Feb. 10 notice of motion.
CRIA's manoeuvre follows a string of industry lawsuits against illegal song swappers in the United States. Downloading rates there are down by about 50 per cent since the legal battle was launched.
In Canada, legal action is "an extension of an education program," Mr. Robertson said. "If litigation is the only way we can get their attention to let people know it is illegal and the damage it is doing, it is obviously a worthwhile endeavour," he said.
The ISPs, which sell Internet access to computer users, plan to respect the court's ruling and hand over customer data if so ordered. But each company argues its first obligation is protecting the rights of its customers.
"It's essentially serving a civil search warrant," said Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw Cablesystems. The Calgary-based TV and Internet service provider claims the privacy of its close to one million high-speed Internet customers is at stake.
Shaw will hand over customer details if ordered, but warns that it may be very difficult to find illegal downloaders because account information changes frequently on illegal song swapping services.
While Rogers is keeping its legal tactics under wraps, BCE and Telus will ask the court on Monday for an adjournment so they can try to contact alleged uploaders before deciding how to proceed.
"We want more time to give our customers an opportunity to respond," said Jay Thomson, Telus's assistant vice-president of broadband policy.
ISP customers are obligated to follow a code of conduct that prohibits illegal activity, including copyright infringement. While providers monitor broadband use to thwart unwanted servers and networks, content is rarely examined.
"It is very difficult for us to monitor each customer's behaviour and we don't do that," said Ian Hembery, interim president of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers.
Several ISPs added that they have co-operated with CRIA in the past when notified about heavy song downloading by customers. MediaSentry Inc., a New York research firm that tracks on-line piracy, monitors illegal song distribution sites on behalf of CRIA.
With files from Richard Bloom
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040213.winmus14/BNStory/Business/
Canadian recording industry hopes to inspire fear over file swapping
By KEITH DAMSELL
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
POSTED AT 11:25 PM EST Friday, Feb. 13, 2004
Toronto — Jeremy Brzozowski is spooked.
The 22-year-old Ottawa student stopped grabbing music off the Internet last fall after he heard the big music companies were taking file swappers to court in the United States.
"I was a pretty big user of Kazaa and Napster," said the Carleton University criminology student. His music collection swelled to 5,000 songs — before he stopped downloading. Fears of the long arm of the law have now got him looking for cheap CDs at the local mall.
"Anything more than $10 for a CD is pushing it," he said.
Mr. Brzozowski's decision to curtail downloading is music to the ears of the Canadian recording industry, which has decided to follow the American example in pursuing file swappers in court.
On Monday, the country's biggest music producers will ask the Federal Court of Canada to order Internet service providers, which include Canada's largest communications companies, to hand over the identities of customers that share music over the Internet. The dispute promises to be a tense showdown pitting the fate of Canada's music industry against the privacy rights of Internet surfers.
"There was no other option," said Brian Robertson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.
A $1-million public awareness campaign against the evils of downloading, and e-mails sent directly to song swappers, have not curtailed rampant downloading, Mr. Robertson said.
CRIA estimates illegal downloading has cost Canadian retailers about $425-million in sales since 1999.
"We felt we had to go to the next step which is litigation. We've gone through education, communication and litigation [is] aimed at uploaders, the most flagrant exploiters of it," he said.
CRIA wants a who's who of high-speed Internet access providers — BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., Vidéotron Ltée and Telus Corp. — to identify 29 prolific music "uploaders," Internet users that post songs illegally on the Web for others to copy.
Five thick brown binders filed with the Federal Court in Toronto are filled with long lists of illegally swapped songs by Canadian artists, from youthful rockers Sum 41 to the country star Shania Twain.
"Infringements of copyright have taken place via the Internet," the motion claims. The so-called "infringers" were posting songs illegally on peer-to-peer file copying services and networks, including Kazaa and Morpheus, CRIA alleges in its Feb. 10 notice of motion.
CRIA's manoeuvre follows a string of industry lawsuits against illegal song swappers in the United States. Downloading rates there are down by about 50 per cent since the legal battle was launched.
In Canada, legal action is "an extension of an education program," Mr. Robertson said. "If litigation is the only way we can get their attention to let people know it is illegal and the damage it is doing, it is obviously a worthwhile endeavour," he said.
The ISPs, which sell Internet access to computer users, plan to respect the court's ruling and hand over customer data if so ordered. But each company argues its first obligation is protecting the rights of its customers.
"It's essentially serving a civil search warrant," said Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw Cablesystems. The Calgary-based TV and Internet service provider claims the privacy of its close to one million high-speed Internet customers is at stake.
Shaw will hand over customer details if ordered, but warns that it may be very difficult to find illegal downloaders because account information changes frequently on illegal song swapping services.
While Rogers is keeping its legal tactics under wraps, BCE and Telus will ask the court on Monday for an adjournment so they can try to contact alleged uploaders before deciding how to proceed.
"We want more time to give our customers an opportunity to respond," said Jay Thomson, Telus's assistant vice-president of broadband policy.
ISP customers are obligated to follow a code of conduct that prohibits illegal activity, including copyright infringement. While providers monitor broadband use to thwart unwanted servers and networks, content is rarely examined.
"It is very difficult for us to monitor each customer's behaviour and we don't do that," said Ian Hembery, interim president of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers.
Several ISPs added that they have co-operated with CRIA in the past when notified about heavy song downloading by customers. MediaSentry Inc., a New York research firm that tracks on-line piracy, monitors illegal song distribution sites on behalf of CRIA.
With files from Richard Bloom
Hmm... while I doubt that this will totally curtail downloading, it will probably prompt a shift to different services, at least until the legal aspects are sorted out. (The two stories give different impressions- one implies that the ISPs will fight, the other implies that they'll go along with the CRIA.)
Anyway, this may mark a fullscale shift to Bittorrent, as a web-based solution that doesn't involve permanent connections to sharing services or any sort of IDs. Tracking people on Kazaa would be difficult- Bittorrent would be damned near impossible.
(Also, I wouldn't be surprised if an encrypted solution pops up. Maybe this is the kick in the ass that Freenet needs to become user-friendly?)
Anyway, this may mark a fullscale shift to Bittorrent, as a web-based solution that doesn't involve permanent connections to sharing services or any sort of IDs. Tracking people on Kazaa would be difficult- Bittorrent would be damned near impossible.
(Also, I wouldn't be surprised if an encrypted solution pops up. Maybe this is the kick in the ass that Freenet needs to become user-friendly?)
File Sharing's New Face
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/technology/circuits/12shar.html
February 12, 2004
File Sharing's New Face
NEW YORK TIMES
By SETH SCHIESEL
SEATTLE
AFTER working for a parade of doomed dot-com startups, a young programmer named Bram Cohen finally got tired of failure.
"I decided I finally wanted to work on a project that people would actually use, would actually work and would actually be fun," he recalled.
Three years later, Mr. Cohen, 28, has emerged as the face of the next wave of Internet file sharing. If Napster started the first generation of file-sharing, and services like Kazaa represented the second, then the system developed by Mr. Cohen, known as BitTorrent, may well be leading the third. Firm numbers are difficult to come by, but it appears that the BitTorrent software has been downloaded more than 10 million times.
And just as earlier forms of file-sharing seem to be waning in popularity under legal pressure from the music industry, new technologies like BitTorrent are making it easier than ever to share and distribute the huge files used for video. One site alone,
suprnova.org, routinely offers hundreds of television programs, recent movies and copyrighted software programs. The movie industry, among others, has taken notice.
What Mr. Cohen has created, however, seems beyond his control. And when he was developing the system, he said, widespread copyright infringement was not what he had in mind.
Rather, he was intrigued by a problem familiar to many Internet users and felt acutely by friends who were trading music online legally: the excruciating wait while files were being downloaded.
"Obviously their problem was not enough bandwidth to meet demand," Mr. Cohen said in an interview at a Mexican restaurant near his home in Seattle. "It seemed pretty clear to me that there is a lot of bandwidth out there, but it's not being used properly. There's all of this upload capacity that people aren't using."
That was the essential insight behind BitTorrent. Under older file-sharing systems like Napster and Kazaa, only a small subset of users actually share files with the world. Most users simply download, or leech, in cyberspace parlance.
BitTorrent, however, uses what could be called a Golden Rule principle: the faster you upload, the faster you are allowed to download. BitTorrent cuts up files into many little pieces, and as soon as a user has a piece, they immediately start uploading that piece to other users. So almost all of the people who are sharing a given file are simultaneously uploading and downloading pieces of the same file (unless their downloading is complete).
The practical implication is that the BitTorrent system makes it easy to distribute very large files to large numbers of people while placing minimal bandwidth requirements on the original "seeder." That is because everyone who wants the file is sharing with one another, rather than downloading from a central source. A separate file-sharing network known as eDonkey uses a similar system.
For Mr. Cohen, BitTorrent was always about exercising his brain rather than trying to fatten his wallet. Unlike many other file-sharing programs, BitTorrent is both free and open-source, which means that those with enough technical know-how can incorporate Mr. Cohen's code into their own programs.
While writing the software, "I lived on savings for a while and then I lived off credit cards, you know, using those zero percent introductory rates to use one credit card to pay off the previous card," Mr. Cohen said.
The first usable version of BitTorrent appeared in October 2002, but the system needed a lot of fine-tuning. Luckily for Mr. Cohen, he was living in the Bay Area at the time and his project had attracted the attention of John Gilmore, the free-software entrepreneur, who had also been one of the first employees at Sun Microsystems. Mr. Gilmore ended up helping Mr. Cohen with some of his living expenses while he finished the system.
"Part of what matters to me about this is that it makes it possible for people with limited bandwidth to supply very popular files," Mr. Gilmore said in a telephone interview. "It means that if you are a small software developer you can put up a package, and if it turns out that millions of people want it, they can get it from each other in an automated way."
BitTorrent really started to take off in early 2003 when it was used to distribute a new version of Linux and fans of Japanese anime started relying on it to share cartoons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/technology/circuits/12shar.html
February 12, 2004
File Sharing's New Face
NEW YORK TIMES
By SETH SCHIESEL
SEATTLE
AFTER working for a parade of doomed dot-com startups, a young programmer named Bram Cohen finally got tired of failure.
"I decided I finally wanted to work on a project that people would actually use, would actually work and would actually be fun," he recalled.
Three years later, Mr. Cohen, 28, has emerged as the face of the next wave of Internet file sharing. If Napster started the first generation of file-sharing, and services like Kazaa represented the second, then the system developed by Mr. Cohen, known as BitTorrent, may well be leading the third. Firm numbers are difficult to come by, but it appears that the BitTorrent software has been downloaded more than 10 million times.
And just as earlier forms of file-sharing seem to be waning in popularity under legal pressure from the music industry, new technologies like BitTorrent are making it easier than ever to share and distribute the huge files used for video. One site alone,
suprnova.org, routinely offers hundreds of television programs, recent movies and copyrighted software programs. The movie industry, among others, has taken notice.
What Mr. Cohen has created, however, seems beyond his control. And when he was developing the system, he said, widespread copyright infringement was not what he had in mind.
Rather, he was intrigued by a problem familiar to many Internet users and felt acutely by friends who were trading music online legally: the excruciating wait while files were being downloaded.
"Obviously their problem was not enough bandwidth to meet demand," Mr. Cohen said in an interview at a Mexican restaurant near his home in Seattle. "It seemed pretty clear to me that there is a lot of bandwidth out there, but it's not being used properly. There's all of this upload capacity that people aren't using."
That was the essential insight behind BitTorrent. Under older file-sharing systems like Napster and Kazaa, only a small subset of users actually share files with the world. Most users simply download, or leech, in cyberspace parlance.
BitTorrent, however, uses what could be called a Golden Rule principle: the faster you upload, the faster you are allowed to download. BitTorrent cuts up files into many little pieces, and as soon as a user has a piece, they immediately start uploading that piece to other users. So almost all of the people who are sharing a given file are simultaneously uploading and downloading pieces of the same file (unless their downloading is complete).
The practical implication is that the BitTorrent system makes it easy to distribute very large files to large numbers of people while placing minimal bandwidth requirements on the original "seeder." That is because everyone who wants the file is sharing with one another, rather than downloading from a central source. A separate file-sharing network known as eDonkey uses a similar system.
For Mr. Cohen, BitTorrent was always about exercising his brain rather than trying to fatten his wallet. Unlike many other file-sharing programs, BitTorrent is both free and open-source, which means that those with enough technical know-how can incorporate Mr. Cohen's code into their own programs.
While writing the software, "I lived on savings for a while and then I lived off credit cards, you know, using those zero percent introductory rates to use one credit card to pay off the previous card," Mr. Cohen said.
The first usable version of BitTorrent appeared in October 2002, but the system needed a lot of fine-tuning. Luckily for Mr. Cohen, he was living in the Bay Area at the time and his project had attracted the attention of John Gilmore, the free-software entrepreneur, who had also been one of the first employees at Sun Microsystems. Mr. Gilmore ended up helping Mr. Cohen with some of his living expenses while he finished the system.
"Part of what matters to me about this is that it makes it possible for people with limited bandwidth to supply very popular files," Mr. Gilmore said in a telephone interview. "It means that if you are a small software developer you can put up a package, and if it turns out that millions of people want it, they can get it from each other in an automated way."
BitTorrent really started to take off in early 2003 when it was used to distribute a new version of Linux and fans of Japanese anime started relying on it to share cartoons.
File Sharing part II
It is difficult to measure BitTorrent's overall use. But Steven C. Corbato, director of backbone network infrastructure for Internet2, the high-speed network consortium, said he took notice in May. "We started seeing BitTorrent traffic increase right around May 15, 2003, and by October it was above 10 percent of the traffic," he said.
Data for the week of Jan. 26, which Mr. Corbato said was the latest reliable information, showed that BitTorrent generated 9.3 percent of the total data traffic on Internet2's so-called Abilene backbone, which connects more than 200 of the nation's biggest research universities, in addition to laboratories and state education networks. By contrast, no other file sharing system registered more than 1 percent of the traffic, though Mr. Corbato said his network might be underreporting the use of those other services.
Just a few months ago, however, that success still had not translated into dollars for Mr. Cohen.
"This past September I had, like, no money," he recalled. "I was just scraping along and doing the credit card thing again."
But unknown to Mr. Cohen, BitTorrent was serving as a job application. Out of the blue, he heard from Gabe Newell, the managing director of Valve Software, based in nearby Bellevue, Wash. Valve is developing what gaming experts anticipate will be a blockbuster video game, Half-Life 2, but it is also creating an online distribution network that it calls Steam. Because of Mr. Cohen's expertise in just that area, Valve offered him a job. He moved to Seattle and started work in October.
"When we looked around to see who was doing the most interesting work in this space, Bram's progress on BitTorrent really stood out," Mr. Newell said. "The distributed publishing model embedded in BitTorrent is exactly the kind of thing media companies need to build on for their own systems."
All along, Mr. Cohen had accepted donations from BitTorrent users at his Web site, bitconjurer.org, but the sum had been minimal. In October, however, Mr. Cohen's father prevailed on him to ask a bit more directly. Now, Mr. Cohen said, he is receiving a few hundred dollars a day.
"It's been a pretty dramatic turnaround in lifestyle in just a few months, with the job and the donations coming in," Mr. Cohen said. "It's nice."
According to survey data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, file sharing is on the wane, apparently as a result of the music industry's legal offensive. Last May, 29 percent of adult Internet users in the United States reported that they had engaged in file sharing; that figure dropped to 14 percent in a survey conducted in November and December. Nonetheless, the ranks of the BitTorrent faithful - whether anime fanatics, Linux users, Deadheads or movie pirates - appear to be growing. And some are quite thankful to Mr. Cohen.
"I think Bram is going to be like Shawn Fanning in terms of the impact this is going to have," said Steve Hormell, a co-founder of etree.org, a music-trading site that predates the file-sharing phenomenon, referring to the inventor of the original Napster service. "It is a bit of paradigm shift and I can't stress the community aspect of it enough. You have to give back in order to get. Going back 15 years, that's what the Internet was all about until the suits came along."
Not surprisingly, the movie industry is not amused. "BitTorrent is definitely on our radar screen," Tom Temple, the director for Internet enforcement for the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a telephone interview. While the association first became aware of the technology about a year ago, BitTorrent's surging popularity prompted the group to start sending infringement notices to BitTorrent site operators in November.
"We do have investigations open into various BitTorrent link sites that could lead to either civil or criminal prosecution in the near future," Mr. Temple said.
For his part, Mr. Cohen pointed out that BitTorrent users are not anonymous and that their numeric Internet addresses are easily viewable by anyone who cares. "It amazes me that sites like Suprnova continue to stay up, because it would be so easy to sue them," he said. Using BitTorrent for illegal trading, he added, is "patently stupid because it's not anonymous, and it can't be made anonymous because it's fundamentally antithetical to the architecture."
That said, Mr. Cohen is not in the nanny business.
"I'm not going to get up on my high horse and tell others not to do it because it's not my place to berate people," he said. "I just sort of watch it with some amusement."
It is difficult to measure BitTorrent's overall use. But Steven C. Corbato, director of backbone network infrastructure for Internet2, the high-speed network consortium, said he took notice in May. "We started seeing BitTorrent traffic increase right around May 15, 2003, and by October it was above 10 percent of the traffic," he said.
Data for the week of Jan. 26, which Mr. Corbato said was the latest reliable information, showed that BitTorrent generated 9.3 percent of the total data traffic on Internet2's so-called Abilene backbone, which connects more than 200 of the nation's biggest research universities, in addition to laboratories and state education networks. By contrast, no other file sharing system registered more than 1 percent of the traffic, though Mr. Corbato said his network might be underreporting the use of those other services.
Just a few months ago, however, that success still had not translated into dollars for Mr. Cohen.
"This past September I had, like, no money," he recalled. "I was just scraping along and doing the credit card thing again."
But unknown to Mr. Cohen, BitTorrent was serving as a job application. Out of the blue, he heard from Gabe Newell, the managing director of Valve Software, based in nearby Bellevue, Wash. Valve is developing what gaming experts anticipate will be a blockbuster video game, Half-Life 2, but it is also creating an online distribution network that it calls Steam. Because of Mr. Cohen's expertise in just that area, Valve offered him a job. He moved to Seattle and started work in October.
"When we looked around to see who was doing the most interesting work in this space, Bram's progress on BitTorrent really stood out," Mr. Newell said. "The distributed publishing model embedded in BitTorrent is exactly the kind of thing media companies need to build on for their own systems."
All along, Mr. Cohen had accepted donations from BitTorrent users at his Web site, bitconjurer.org, but the sum had been minimal. In October, however, Mr. Cohen's father prevailed on him to ask a bit more directly. Now, Mr. Cohen said, he is receiving a few hundred dollars a day.
"It's been a pretty dramatic turnaround in lifestyle in just a few months, with the job and the donations coming in," Mr. Cohen said. "It's nice."
According to survey data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, file sharing is on the wane, apparently as a result of the music industry's legal offensive. Last May, 29 percent of adult Internet users in the United States reported that they had engaged in file sharing; that figure dropped to 14 percent in a survey conducted in November and December. Nonetheless, the ranks of the BitTorrent faithful - whether anime fanatics, Linux users, Deadheads or movie pirates - appear to be growing. And some are quite thankful to Mr. Cohen.
"I think Bram is going to be like Shawn Fanning in terms of the impact this is going to have," said Steve Hormell, a co-founder of etree.org, a music-trading site that predates the file-sharing phenomenon, referring to the inventor of the original Napster service. "It is a bit of paradigm shift and I can't stress the community aspect of it enough. You have to give back in order to get. Going back 15 years, that's what the Internet was all about until the suits came along."
Not surprisingly, the movie industry is not amused. "BitTorrent is definitely on our radar screen," Tom Temple, the director for Internet enforcement for the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a telephone interview. While the association first became aware of the technology about a year ago, BitTorrent's surging popularity prompted the group to start sending infringement notices to BitTorrent site operators in November.
"We do have investigations open into various BitTorrent link sites that could lead to either civil or criminal prosecution in the near future," Mr. Temple said.
For his part, Mr. Cohen pointed out that BitTorrent users are not anonymous and that their numeric Internet addresses are easily viewable by anyone who cares. "It amazes me that sites like Suprnova continue to stay up, because it would be so easy to sue them," he said. Using BitTorrent for illegal trading, he added, is "patently stupid because it's not anonymous, and it can't be made anonymous because it's fundamentally antithetical to the architecture."
That said, Mr. Cohen is not in the nanny business.
"I'm not going to get up on my high horse and tell others not to do it because it's not my place to berate people," he said. "I just sort of watch it with some amusement."
Canadian record companies seek names in piracy battle
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040213.gtshawm13/BNStory/Technology/
Canadian record companies seek names in piracy battle
Shaw to fight legal action that would force disclosure of information about customers
By PATRICK BRETHOUR
With a report from John Saunders
POSTED AT 7:58 AM EST Friday, Feb. 13, 2004
CALGARY — Canada's recording industry has launched a legal hunt for at least 29 consumers it says illicitly share music files over the Web, but it must first win an opening skirmish against Internet service providers who are refusing to hand over customer information.
The case pits the Canadian Recording Industry Association against at least one major ISP, Shaw Communications Inc., which provides high-speed cable Internet service to 900,000 Canadians. Telus Corp., Rogers Cable Inc., Bell Canada's Sympatico unit and Quebecor Inc.'s Vidéotron Télécom Ltée will also be in court.
Shaw said it is among a number of ISPs that have been asked to disgorge names, phone numbers and other information related to Internet protocol addresses used to share files. The Calgary-based company will argue Monday that obligations to its consumers under the federal privacy law, which came into effect last month, trump the rights of the recording industry under copyright law. "We're absolutely compelled under the privacy act not to provide that information," Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette said.
The recording industry contends that people who share music files over the Internet are violating copyright laws and are hurting the sales of albums and singles. There are some, however, who argue that on-line music swapping stimulates demand for music and that the industry is to blame for falling sales.
Telus Corp. and Rogers Cable Inc. each confirmed that they have received requests from CRIA to hand over information about three and nine customers, respectively. Shaw said it has been asked for information on eight addresses and Sympatico, seven. Vidéotron said it was asked for information on a number of customers, but gave no figures. Other major ISPs could not be reached for comment.
Telus spokesman Nick Culo said the suit targets individuals who have uploaded files. The company has not supplied any information to CRIA, but it has dispatched registered letters to its three customers, informing them of the situation.
CRIA would not confirm it has launched an action against the ISPs, but the group vowed in December that it would eventually do so, following the lead of the Recording Industry Association of America, which has sued hundreds of individuals in the United States, chiefly for uploading files rather than simply downloading a copy.
That same month, a U.S. appeals court dealt the recording industry association a setback in its campaign against music piracy, ruling that the recording industry could not force ISPs to identify customers unless it launched a formal lawsuit and obtained a subpoena. That ruling might be considered by a Canadian judge, but it would not be a binding precedent.
The Canadian case goes to court in Toronto on Monday, with Shaw actively opposing CRIA. Telus said it will ask for an adjournment, while Rogers has not yet decided whether to join Shaw in arguing against the application.
Shaw's Mr. Bissonnette said his firm will comply with any court order, but he questioned the practicality of obtaining accurate information. His company uses dynamic Internet Protocol addresses, meaning that a single address is reassigned to different customers continually. That means that an IP address used to upload music files in the past may now be assigned to a different customer who may not have engaged in any copyright infringement, Mr. Bissonnette said, adding that he is quite worried that Shaw could be compelled to provide information that wrongly identifies someone.
Giving a hint of Shaw's legal strategy, he said he does not believe that the recording industry can defend its copyrights only by forcing his company to give out customer information. "Is this really the only way the recording industry has to go in terms of finding information about what's happening in peer-to-peer relationships?" he asked.
In Toronto, a Rogers Cable Inc. official said his company has been notified of demands for information on nine subscribers and has not decided whether it will comply. David Bennett, marketing director of the company's high-speed Internet division, said Rogers does not yet know where the nine live.
He said the company has misgivings about aspects of the CRIA application and will decide what legal stand to take as the court hearing proceeds. Mr. Bennett said it was not clear how the new federal privacy law might affect the case.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040213.gtshawm13/BNStory/Technology/
Canadian record companies seek names in piracy battle
Shaw to fight legal action that would force disclosure of information about customers
By PATRICK BRETHOUR
With a report from John Saunders
POSTED AT 7:58 AM EST Friday, Feb. 13, 2004
CALGARY — Canada's recording industry has launched a legal hunt for at least 29 consumers it says illicitly share music files over the Web, but it must first win an opening skirmish against Internet service providers who are refusing to hand over customer information.
The case pits the Canadian Recording Industry Association against at least one major ISP, Shaw Communications Inc., which provides high-speed cable Internet service to 900,000 Canadians. Telus Corp., Rogers Cable Inc., Bell Canada's Sympatico unit and Quebecor Inc.'s Vidéotron Télécom Ltée will also be in court.
Shaw said it is among a number of ISPs that have been asked to disgorge names, phone numbers and other information related to Internet protocol addresses used to share files. The Calgary-based company will argue Monday that obligations to its consumers under the federal privacy law, which came into effect last month, trump the rights of the recording industry under copyright law. "We're absolutely compelled under the privacy act not to provide that information," Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette said.
The recording industry contends that people who share music files over the Internet are violating copyright laws and are hurting the sales of albums and singles. There are some, however, who argue that on-line music swapping stimulates demand for music and that the industry is to blame for falling sales.
Telus Corp. and Rogers Cable Inc. each confirmed that they have received requests from CRIA to hand over information about three and nine customers, respectively. Shaw said it has been asked for information on eight addresses and Sympatico, seven. Vidéotron said it was asked for information on a number of customers, but gave no figures. Other major ISPs could not be reached for comment.
Telus spokesman Nick Culo said the suit targets individuals who have uploaded files. The company has not supplied any information to CRIA, but it has dispatched registered letters to its three customers, informing them of the situation.
CRIA would not confirm it has launched an action against the ISPs, but the group vowed in December that it would eventually do so, following the lead of the Recording Industry Association of America, which has sued hundreds of individuals in the United States, chiefly for uploading files rather than simply downloading a copy.
That same month, a U.S. appeals court dealt the recording industry association a setback in its campaign against music piracy, ruling that the recording industry could not force ISPs to identify customers unless it launched a formal lawsuit and obtained a subpoena. That ruling might be considered by a Canadian judge, but it would not be a binding precedent.
The Canadian case goes to court in Toronto on Monday, with Shaw actively opposing CRIA. Telus said it will ask for an adjournment, while Rogers has not yet decided whether to join Shaw in arguing against the application.
Shaw's Mr. Bissonnette said his firm will comply with any court order, but he questioned the practicality of obtaining accurate information. His company uses dynamic Internet Protocol addresses, meaning that a single address is reassigned to different customers continually. That means that an IP address used to upload music files in the past may now be assigned to a different customer who may not have engaged in any copyright infringement, Mr. Bissonnette said, adding that he is quite worried that Shaw could be compelled to provide information that wrongly identifies someone.
Giving a hint of Shaw's legal strategy, he said he does not believe that the recording industry can defend its copyrights only by forcing his company to give out customer information. "Is this really the only way the recording industry has to go in terms of finding information about what's happening in peer-to-peer relationships?" he asked.
In Toronto, a Rogers Cable Inc. official said his company has been notified of demands for information on nine subscribers and has not decided whether it will comply. David Bennett, marketing director of the company's high-speed Internet division, said Rogers does not yet know where the nine live.
He said the company has misgivings about aspects of the CRIA application and will decide what legal stand to take as the court hearing proceeds. Mr. Bennett said it was not clear how the new federal privacy law might affect the case.
Part II: Canadian record companies seek names in piracy battle
Vidéotron said it would enthusiastically comply with any court order, adding that Quebecor is concerned about safeguarding copyright in other parts of its business.
Montreal-based Quebecor Inc., whose interests include newspapers, television, Internet services and CDs, said its Vidéotron unit will be happy to hand over information on subscribers if it receives a court order.
"Our position is that we will obey," Quebecor executive vice-president Luc Lavoie said, acknowledging the company's financial stake in the dispute.
"We're involved in everything from the production to the distribution to the retailing to the broadcasting [of music]," he said, "so we're everywhere in this. . . . We've been saying publicly there's no difference in our mind between stealing a pair of shoes in a shoe store and stealing music on-line. A theft is a theft is a theft. In terms of protecting the identity of our subscribers, we're doing everything we can, but if there's a court order we certainly won't fight it and we're actually delighted that the CRIA is doing what it's doing."
Vidéotron said it would enthusiastically comply with any court order, adding that Quebecor is concerned about safeguarding copyright in other parts of its business.
Montreal-based Quebecor Inc., whose interests include newspapers, television, Internet services and CDs, said its Vidéotron unit will be happy to hand over information on subscribers if it receives a court order.
"Our position is that we will obey," Quebecor executive vice-president Luc Lavoie said, acknowledging the company's financial stake in the dispute.
"We're involved in everything from the production to the distribution to the retailing to the broadcasting [of music]," he said, "so we're everywhere in this. . . . We've been saying publicly there's no difference in our mind between stealing a pair of shoes in a shoe store and stealing music on-line. A theft is a theft is a theft. In terms of protecting the identity of our subscribers, we're doing everything we can, but if there's a court order we certainly won't fight it and we're actually delighted that the CRIA is doing what it's doing."
Canadian file-swapping case on hold
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040216.wfileswap0216/BNStory/Technology/
Canadian file-swapping case on hold
Globe and Mail Update
POSTED AT 2:32 PM EST Monday, Feb. 16, 2004
The Canadian Recording Industry Association's bid to force Internet producers to reveal some of the identities of their customers who share music over the Internet is on hold.
Justice Konrad von Finckenstein has adjourned the proceedings in the Federal Court of Canada until March 12, to study the technical requirements of the motion and how it would affect existing privacy legislation.
Under Canadian law, it is legal to download music files from the Internet, but illegal to make them broadly available.
The CRIA wants Canada's five largest Internet access providers — BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., Vidéotron Ltée and Telus Corp. — to identify 29 prolific music "uploaders," Internet users who post songs illegally on the Web for others to copy.
Each of the Internet providers has said it will respect the court's ruling and hand over customer data if so ordered, but they argue that the first obligation is protecting the rights of its customers.
“We have the opportunity to give the customers that were targeted by this motion notice so that they can come forward and participate in this court proceeding and protect their own interests,” said Wendy Matheson, a lawyer representing Rogers.
Customers are obligated to follow a code of conduct that prohibits illegal activity, including copyright infringement. While providers monitor broadband use to thwart unwanted servers and networks, content is rarely examined.
The CRIA estimates illegal downloading has cost Canadian retailers about $425-million in sales since 1999.
“We've had layoffs of up to 20 per cent of people who work in this industry,” Richard Pfohl , general counsel for the CRIA, told reporters Monday. “We're letting people know that, frankly, when you break the law there are consequences that you have to pay.”
The CRIA's manoeuvre follows a string of industry lawsuits against illegal song swappers in the United States.
Downloading rates there are down by about 50 per cent since the legal battle was launched.
With files from Keith Damsell
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040216.wfileswap0216/BNStory/Technology/
Canadian file-swapping case on hold
Globe and Mail Update
POSTED AT 2:32 PM EST Monday, Feb. 16, 2004
The Canadian Recording Industry Association's bid to force Internet producers to reveal some of the identities of their customers who share music over the Internet is on hold.
Justice Konrad von Finckenstein has adjourned the proceedings in the Federal Court of Canada until March 12, to study the technical requirements of the motion and how it would affect existing privacy legislation.
Under Canadian law, it is legal to download music files from the Internet, but illegal to make them broadly available.
The CRIA wants Canada's five largest Internet access providers — BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., Vidéotron Ltée and Telus Corp. — to identify 29 prolific music "uploaders," Internet users who post songs illegally on the Web for others to copy.
Each of the Internet providers has said it will respect the court's ruling and hand over customer data if so ordered, but they argue that the first obligation is protecting the rights of its customers.
“We have the opportunity to give the customers that were targeted by this motion notice so that they can come forward and participate in this court proceeding and protect their own interests,” said Wendy Matheson, a lawyer representing Rogers.
Customers are obligated to follow a code of conduct that prohibits illegal activity, including copyright infringement. While providers monitor broadband use to thwart unwanted servers and networks, content is rarely examined.
The CRIA estimates illegal downloading has cost Canadian retailers about $425-million in sales since 1999.
“We've had layoffs of up to 20 per cent of people who work in this industry,” Richard Pfohl , general counsel for the CRIA, told reporters Monday. “We're letting people know that, frankly, when you break the law there are consequences that you have to pay.”
The CRIA's manoeuvre follows a string of industry lawsuits against illegal song swappers in the United States.
Downloading rates there are down by about 50 per cent since the legal battle was launched.
With files from Keith Damsell
