Google, Amazon, Dropbox and VMWare are on the receiving end of a law suit brought by former P2Ptards who claim that cloud products from the big companies infringe their peer-sharing patents. Kazaa founder Kevin Bermeister and StreamCast and Morpheus founder Michael Weiss - two pioneers of file-sharing in the early 2000s - have …

The Swiss government has ruled that downloading pirated copies of films, music and videogames for personal use will remain legal because it is of not detrimental to copyright owners. Last year, the Swiss Senate ordered an investigation into the impact downloading may have on society, in case further legislation was required on …

The original Napster was the greatest digital music service we’ve ever seen – and, into the bargain, was the first global social network. Choosing to close it, rather than financially exploit it, is something many people in the music business have regretted ever since. They had a new world of consumers in the palm of their hand …

The world's largest P2P legal imbroglio has been downgraded, with 90 per cent of the alleged file sharers caught up in the Hurt Locker downloading case dismissed. The Oscar-winning war film’s producers Voltage Pictures instigated legal action last year against 14,583 netizens for allegedly illegally downloading the movie. The …

Vodafone’s woes in Australia continue, with the mobile carrier notifying customers that it will be implementing a “correction” to its billing system. While users won’t get stung with retrospective charges, the change will see more usage counted against customers’ data caps. The changes apply to P2P apps, VoIP traffic, and “ …

ISPs and media industries have agreed on a range of countermeasures to tackle copyright infringement, according to a CNET report. The deal has been brokered by the National Cable and Telecommunications Industry trade group, the report suggests. Infringers would receive a series of notices, and if they persist, a range of " …

The Murdochs are taking another stab at the Chinese media market, confirming a US$29.4 million stake in Chinese P2P video site Xunlei, which has filed for a US$200 million Nasdaq IPO. Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi made the investment via one of their private investment, vehicles RW Investments (yes, it stands for Rupert …

Two US senators have called on American authorities to crack down on the Bitcoin peer-to-peer online virtual “currency” after discovering it’s being used, rather like greenbacks in personal transactions, to buy drugs anonymously. Bitcoin gold coin logo Bitcoin uses a decentralized model: users exchange Bitcoins directly …

Once upon a time there was POP3, and it was all so simple... This week's news that Apple is introducing its own proprietary messaging protocol was buried in yesterday's iCloud announcements. Maybe it's too geeky for the Twitter-besotted press corps, and too mundane for many analysts. But it's very, very significant. If RIM's …

Is solving the copyright "wars" really so difficult? New traffic research shows that Netflix has overtaken Bittorrent as America's favourite internet application, knocking http into third place. "P2P is here to stay," note the authors in Sandvine's Global Internet Report, Spring 2011 edition, which shows that demand for legal, …

The French government has temporarily suspended its reliance on the company designated to monitor file-sharing networks for copyright scofflaws following reports that a hack on its servers may have leaked sensitive information. Eric Walter, France's secretary general of internet piracy, made the announcement over Twitter on …

Analysis It's about 10 years since I rigged up dynamic DNS in my apartment in San Francisco so I could play my music library remotely. I suspect many of you have tried something similar, and many more have subsequently used Orb or a Slingbox to achieve the same goal. This was before the iPod, and it seemed like a good idea at the time …

Defunct P2P file-sharing network LimeWire settled out of court with major record companies yesterday in a $105m agreement. The settlement follows a May 2010 ruling by US District Judge Kimba Woods, who found Lime Group and Lime Wire LLC – the parent companies behind LimeWire – had wrongfully assisted users in making pirate …

Spotify has denied claims it has inked deals with the major Hollywood studios ahead of an expansion into video on demand. Daniel Ek rubbished the report, by Michael Arrington of rumour site TechCrunch, that Spotify had deals in place with four studios. Not that getting deals signed is any guarantee of progress; Google had them …

The New Zealand government has outraged internet users by rushing through a new anti-P2P copyright bill under cover of an emergency session of Parliament. Parliament had been called to deal with the country's Christchurch earthquake. During the session, it also pushed through its file-sharing bill under an "urgency" motion. …

Pornography is the most popular genre of internet traffic, a new survey shows. The research also suggests that music business may have overestimated the exchange of P2P trackers and underestimated other forms of unlicensed music acquisition. Researchers examined every share at the PublicBT tracker over a 24 hour period on a …

Here's a puzzling thing that gets lost in the copyright wars. Why don't we demand more from music services? Today's P2P services are embarrassingly crappy – but is this the best we're ever going to get? The very proposition is an insult to our intelligence. Since Napster closed, they've always been a dispiriting experience. …

P2P file-sharing enabler LimeWire finally lost its long-running battle against music-industry heavy hitters on Tuesday. "As of today, we are required to stop distribution and support of LimeWire’s P2P file-sharing service as a result of a court-ordered injunction," reads a statement by Lime Company CEO George Searle on the …