UPC, Ireland's third largest ISP, has prevailed in a court case brought against them by the Irish Recorded Music Association. IRMA had argued that UPC should enforce a three strikes rule against alleged file-sharers on their network using details provided by IRMA without any judicial oversight. Such a system makes the assumption that everyone ( Read more... )

The story so far: The Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) have successfully persuaded Eircom, Ireland's largest broadband provider (42% of the market), to censor their service and threaten their own customers with disconnection if they are merely accused of illegal file sharing. In effect the recording industry have introduced a de facto three- ( Read more... )

This is something I'm leaving in 2009: the (very roughly) chronologically ordered contents of a bookmark folder I generously named "Research". Starting in February 2006 these links chart the rapid decline of so-called Intellectual Property from the meniscus of eccentric financial precedent to the depths of authoritarian insanity. You may also find ( Read more... )

Need to crack the security on the wireless networks of 250,000 - that's almost two-thirds! - of Eircom's broadband customers so you can share copyrighted content without falling afoul of Eircom/IRMA's private HADOPI law? There's an App for that.

Technically the Dessid app is marketed as a "password recovery tool" though the author admits it could ( Read more... )

There is very little short of murder that we would not blithely accept the recording industry as being capable of, but this sort of stupidity really just beggars belief. ASCAP and the BMI want to collect royalties on the 30 second track previews in the iTunes store. It seems as though they are determined to cripple what little business they have ( Read more... )

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Things are about to start happening in the War on Irish Internet Users.

According to The Irish Times the recording industry's favourite broadband provider, Eircom, will start blocking thepiratebay.org on September 1st. Well, actually it says "piratebay.org" which is just an alias domain, but who knows ( Read more... )

Just to catch you up. This year my ISP, Eircom.net, settled a dispute with the Irish Recorded Music Ass. (IRMA) who had taken them to court over illegal file sharing. The claim was that Eircom were complicit in the illegal activities of their users. the evidence against them included internal emails showing Eircom execs joking about copyright ( Read more... )

Just a snip from an interview with Elvis Costello over on NJ.com:

Q. A couple of years ago, in interviews, it sounded like you had kind of lost faith in the recording industry altogether.

A. Yeah, but I think I started to think too hard about the industry, and less about the music. Since I stopped caring a damn about the business, I've got a lot ( Read more... )

You may have noticed that the UK government, with the kind assistance of Andrew Burnham MP of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is bowing to Hollywood and the record labels' various enforcement groups, essentially handing them the power to control the uses that UK citizens may make of their internet connections. ISPs have been given ( Read more... )