Song-Swapper

France Fines Song-Swapper $13,000 in First Criminal P2P Conviction

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on February 4, 2005 - 3:19am.

Paris -- France has convicted its first citizen of criminal copyright infringement via peer-to-peer file-swapping, French newspaper Le Monde reported. Twenty-eight year-old Alain Oddoz was initially arrested in August 2004 by French authorities, on charges he was sharing 30GB of music through a site called France Barter. On Thursday, he was convicted and fined $13,300, had his computer equipment confiscated, and was ordered to take out several ads in newspapers to publicize his deed and what the consequences were. The major record labels expanded their legal campaign against individual file-swappers to Europe late last year, when nearly 500 were sued in the U.K. and France. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the labels, has now sued over 7,000 file-swappers in the U.S. alone.

tags: P2P | France | Song-Swapper |

Canadian Judge Postpones Ruling on ISPs Revealing Song-Swapper IDs

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on February 18, 2004 - 8:28am.

Toronto -- A Canadian federal judge yesterday adjourned until March 12 a motion from the Canadian Record Industry Association (CRIA), that asks the court to compel five Internet service providers to reveal the names of 29 subscribers' identities that CRIA believes illegally uploaded songs to file-sharing services. Judge Konrad von Finckenstein ordered the ISPs to keep a record of Internet activity from the time periods in question, but granted them more time to review technical and privacy aspects of the motion. Joel Watson, a lawyer representing ISP Telus Corp., told Canada's Globe and Mail that it has reached two of the three subscribers accused of copyright infringement -- while the third did not hold an account with Telus last fall when the alleged infringement was to have occurred. Another ISP, Shaw Communications, said that it will mount a legal challenge to the motion, asking the court to respect the privacy of its subscribers.