A Hong Kong man pleaded innocent in court for allegedly violating copyright laws by sharing movies on the Internet, a judicial spokeswoman said.

The 38-year-old unemployed man, Chan Nai-ming, was arrested in January and faces charges of allegedly uploading three Hollywood movies onto the Internet without authorisation by using the popular BitTorrent (BT) peer-to-peer file-sharing software.

A pair of Scripps newspaper chain editors is calling for a "Napsterization" of the news business, criticizing the Associated Press for being too inflexible for today’s digital realities.

Spurring their dissatisfaction with the old wire service approach is recent news that the AP plans to charge its member newspapers (most newspapers are members of the AP, which is technically a cooperative) for the right to post AP content online. Typically, members have used this content online the same way they’ve used it in print, while online-only publications have paid AP for that right.

Netscape founders Mike Homer and Marc Andreessen have launched an online network for the distribution and viewing of public television, radio and grassroots media. 

Dubbed the Open Media Network, the free service focuses on giving traditional public broadcasters and independent filmmakers a way to distribute their work online. However, the technology will also enable the average computer user to publish their files as well.

Depending on the analysis methodology, P2P networking accounts for 60% to 89% of all Internet traffic.

Peer-to-peer networking has caused a dramatic increase in Internet traffic. Today the major P2P user is the consumer, and the major application is media file sharing. Music, movies and the like now are available to consumers using P2P technology Depending on the analysis methodology, P2P networking accounts for 60% to 89% of all Internet traffic.

Hackers are targeting music lovers by creating a virus that deletes MP3 files on infected computers.

The worm, dubbed Nopir.B and believed to originate from France, lurks on peer-to-peer file-sharing sites. Aimed at people looking for ways to get around copyright restriction technology on paid for music sites, the worm masquerades as a DVD-cracking program in order to fool people into downloading it.

Spammers are mining peer-to-peer (P2P) networks for addresses, and finding it lucrative work, a security expert said Tuesday. 

According to Eran Reshef, the chief executive and co-founder of Blue Security, sophisticated and smart spammers are harvesting e-mail addresses from systems linked to P2P networks via such software as eDonkey 2000 and Gnutella.

As the music industry has stepped up efforts to charge MP3 users, research shows that more than half of Korea’s Internet users are still downloading MP3 files for free from peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing sites.
 
In a survey conducted by the digital camera website “dcinside.com� on its visitors, 51.4 percent of 4,000 users said they download free MP3 music files from P2P services such as Pruna.

A FINNISH COMPANY, Viralg Oy, says it can wipe out file-sharing in an instant. 

The company says it has developed digital rights protection software that can be incorporated into digital movie, music or software releases and set to play havoc with P2P networks on which releases may appear.

P2Plife has been running the P2PUnite banner for almost 3 months now. There are 7 days left till the P2P community starts its world wide boycott of the RIAA and MPAA. Do not forget, go to http://www.p2punite.net/ NOW!



"The last week in April 2005 - 24th up until and including 30th - show them how much money we are spending on their products by denying them our hard earned income. Do not go to the movies; do not buy any entertainment products during that week. Show them we mean business! "

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against 405 students accused of sharing digital content across a high-speed university computer network known as Internet2.

The RIAA said that it was acting on behalf of the world's major record companies in bringing the action against the students at 18 colleges across the US.