File Sharing

uTorrent 2.0 went gold a few days ago, and the latest stable version of the incredibly popular torrent client introduces several useful new features for those who haven't been playing around with the beta.

The first and most technical, but also most important, is the introduction of uTP. The uTorrent Protocol will natively prevent one person's connection from crowding out all the others. In a blog post, Simon Morris, the vice president of product management for uTorrent's parent company BitTorrent, predicted that uTP would result in faster average download speeds. This network congestion mitigation could result … Read more

Some of the same technological forces that have consumed large portions of the music sector appear to be eating away at the film industry.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, one of the six biggest Hollywood film studios, told employees Monday that in March the company will lay off 450 workers, the equivalent of 6.5 percent of its global workforce, according to a story in The Los Angeles Times.

"Our industry is affected by two things: It's affected by the economy, of course, and it's affected by technology," Amy Pascal, the studio's co-chairman, said in a video … Read more

Update 9:30 a.m. PT To include e-mail exchanges between Qwest employees and Cathi Paradiso.

All Cathi "Cat" Paradiso knew for sure, as she learned that her Web access was being shut off, was that she was losing her struggle to stay calm.

To Paradiso, the customer-service representative from Qwest Communications on the phone with her could have been speaking Slovenian for all the sense it made. Her Internet service was suspended... Hollywood studios accused her of copyright violations... she illegally downloaded 18 films and TV shows..."Zombieland," "Harry Potter," "South Park...&… Read more

Update 12:01 p.m. PT: To include quotes from Joe Sibley, one of Jammie Thomas-Rasset's attorneys.

The four top recording companies on Wednesday made a settlement offer to Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman who was found liable last summer of willful copyright infringement and ordered by a jury to pay $1.92 million in damages.

And wasting little time, Thomas-Rasset's attorneys rejected the settlement offer almost immediately.

Days after a federal court judge reduced the damage amount to $54,000, the Recording Industry Association of America forwarded settlement terms to her attorneys, according to a copy of … Read more

The music industry will have to make some very tough choices within the next week about file sharer Jammie Thomas-Rasset.

The Recording Industry Association of America wants to put the Thomas-Rasset affair behind it. The Brainerd, Minn., mother--who refused to settle with the RIAA for $5,000 over copyright infringement allegations, instead fighting it out in court--has been found liable of willful copyright infringement by two different juries and was ordered to pay damages of $222,000 in her first trial (a decision later thrown out) and $1.9 million last June in her retrial.

On Friday, Michael Davis, chief … Read more

Updated at 2:03 p.m. PST to include quotes from RIAA, music industry sources, and Jammie Thomas-Rasset's attorney.

A U.S. district court has dramatically slashed the amount of money a Minnesota woman must pay in damages for illegally sharing music online.

Last June, a federal jury in Minnesota found Jammie Thomas-Rasset liable for willful copyright infringement and ordered her to pay nearly $2 million. Michael Davis, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, chopped the amount to $54,000, or $2,250 per song.

"The need for deterrence cannot justify … Read more

CNET published a story Wednesday morning headlined "Verizon ends service of alleged illegal downloaders." In it, Verizon spokeswoman Bobbi Henson was quoted saying the company has "cut some people off" after they were accused multiple times of illegal file sharing.

That evening, Henson said David Carnoy, a CNET executive editor, misquoted her multiple times. "Your notes are wrong," Henson wrote in an e-mail to Carnoy. Other media outlets have since reported that Henson continues to say she was misquoted.

CNET stands behind Carnoy's story, and we thought we should tell our readers why. … Read more

Update: Friday 10:45 a.m. To include comments from Google.

It's doubtful that they would admit it, but U.S. studio chiefs and music moguls must dream that their country will one day elect a president like Nicolas Sarkozy.

Few of the world's leaders are as aggressive in protecting copyright as the president of France, and he proved it again Thursday during a speech to members of the country's creative community when he endorsed some controversial pro-copyright proposals.

If Sarkozy has his way, France will tax Google and other search engines, Web portals, and Internet service … Read more

Krist Novoselic, Nirvana co-founder and bassist, on Tuesday jumped into the white-hot online-piracy debate on the side of copyright owners and U2 frontman Bono.

"I love Twitter, and it's disappointing to see the service manifest itself as a lynch mob," Novoselic wrote in blog post titled "Why I agree with Bono" that appeared on the site of alternative newspaper Seattle Weekly. "Bono is the latest in a line of good people who get trashed in the continuing file-sharing controversy."

Novoselic is referring to an op-ed piece by Bono that appeared in The New … Read more