A Good Day for EU File Sharers

Melissa Lee votes for strict file-sharing law, tweets about listening to mixtape

(NEWSER) - This week's installment of "lawmakers ignoring their own laws" comes to you from New Zealand, which recently passed one of the world's strictest file-sharing laws. Melissa Lee voted for the "three-strikes" law, which says people can be fined up to $15,000 and lose Internet access if they are merely suspected of having illegally shared files. Opponents of the law were quick to point out that less than 24 hours before Lee made a speech supporting it, she tweeted about listening to a music compilation a friend had made for her, Gamma Squad notes. More»

File-sharing site ordered to permanently disable software

(NEWSER) - File-sharing site LimeWire has been effectively killed off by a court order. A federal judge has issued an injunction ordering the service to permanently disable its software and to end the sharing of unauthorized music files, the Wall Street Journal reports. The popular site was found liable for copyright infringement on a "massive scale" six months ago. More»

Company vows to find out their real names

(NEWSER) - If you illegally downloaded The Hurt Locker, now might be the time to delete. The Oscar-winning film's production company Monday filed suit against 5,000 John Does who illegally shared the movie, and is now trying to get the sharers' Internet service providers to reveal their names, CNN reports. More»

Guilty verdict given in do-over of country's first file-sharing trial

(NEWSER) - A Minnesota woman has been fined $80,000 per song for each of 24 music files she illegally downloaded, CNN reports. The court ordered Jammie Thomas to pay $1.92 million to the Recording Industry of America. Her original trial—America's first for music file-sharing—granted the RIAA just $220,000, but a retrial was ordered after a mistake in jury instructions came to light. She plans to appeal. More»

(NEWSER) - France’s constitutional council today shot down the country’s newly minted “three strikes” law against Internet piracy, Ars Technica reports. The council said the law, which set up an administrative body to punish pirates, violated basic principles of French law, assigning essentially judicial duties to a non-judicial body, and putting the burden of proof on the accused, not the accusers. More»