Future of filesharing May 8, 2009
The likes of Gnutella, eDonkey2000, KaZaA, BearShare, Shareaza, WinMX and Napster quickly dominated the filesharing scene. Intellectual property piracy flourished beyond control but ran into problems just as fast due to legal suits from intellectual property owners. (The Star Online, Malaysia -- Technology)
5 years for child porn May 16, 2007
He was among 27 people charged internationally in March 2006 -- the result of a 10-month investigation announced by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- for distributing child pornography through a computer program, WinMx, that allowed file sharing on the Internet. While the sentence was under the sentencing guideline range of 97 to 120 months, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright noted, "The picture is clear he has an extremely deviant interest in minor males.". (Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
RIAA ups enforcement locally, on campuses Mar 16, 2007
Over the last six years, it's won the majority of court battles it's brought, bringing down file-sharing services like Kazaa, WinMX, Grokster (a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court), Bearshare, eDonkey, Morpheus and others. It has also filed a lawsuit against one of the lone P2P outposts that still remains hugely popular, LimeWire. (Missoulian, MT)
Record industry cracks down on illegal file-swapping at colleges Mar 8, 2007
In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of music companies and movie studios in their lawsuit against the popular Grokster file-swapping service, which led to its shutdown and the closing of other swapping sites like WinMX and eDonkey. Between the Grokster ruling and the thousands of suits against individuals, Lamy said the music industry has educated millions who once saw nothing wrong with downloading songs without paying for them. (Boston Globe)
Two Springfield Men Sentenced for Trading Child Porn Mar 6, 2007
The charges were the result of an international investigation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the FBI into Internet-based child pornography using a chat room known as "Kiddypics vids." The chat room was hosted on the Internet through the WinMX software program that also allowed users to engage in "peer-to-peer" file sharing. "Trading or collecting images of child pornography is not a victimless crime," stated U.S. Attorney Heaton. (PR Newswire)
