More filesharing news from Sweden this week. A 31-year-old man was found guilty of filesharing copyrighted material, but he escaped jail, instead receiving a heavy fine.
The man was initially accused of uploading 23,000 tracks to filesharing network Direct Connect, but the charges were eventually reduced to just 4,500 tracks.
The man was also accused of uploading 30 movies to the same filesharing network. The prosecution sought to have the man thrown in jail, but the judge in the case decided otherwise.
The fine for the man’s filesharing antics came to about $10,000, including court fees. The court actually suggested that the music industry must start taking some of the blame for the current filesharing problems.
Sweden is home to the Pirate Bay and is a country that often hits headlines for filesharing news. Whether or not this ruling will have any impact remains to be seen.
So I was having trouble getting my old music sharing software to work on my computer. I assumed it was me. To my delight my rather more technologically advanced teenage daughter told me that it wasn’t me but Windows Vista; turns out the increased security has done for that side of things. Ho hum.
She went on to mention Ares Vista which was designed with just this kind of situation in mind. Off I went on a merry Google search and soon I was there.
Ares Vista seems to have been made with the people who have suffered the horror of their operating system, firewall or anti-virus software not allowing them to use other filesharing apps. It works with Vista without you having to compromise your security.
There isn’t a lot to dislike about Ares Vista – it’s simple enough and it works very well – but one thing we did notice was that the ‘intelligent’ optimization of bandwidth occasionally causes strange results. Files lower down on my list of priorities were downloaded before the higher ones. This is counter intuitive but not a huge problem.
Ares Vista adopts the Vista look and feel and, I have to say, there is a lot to be said for that. Say what you like about Microsoft, but their Vista operating system looks the business.
What others are saying:
Ares Vista worked for me
The rock band Nine Inch Nails has succumbed to industry pressure somewhat: it is releasing its latest album through its website for free.
Free music downloads downloads from a headline act is nothing new, and British act Radiohead tried this tactic (or at least something very much like it) last year with its album “In Rainbows”. Thom Yorke, lead singer of the band, has mixed views on free music downloads downloads: he recently told The Hollywood Reporter trade paper that his band’s pay-what-you-want offer was a one-time thing. “I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again”.
Free music downloads downloads are out there, it’s just whether the bands choose to embrace that fact or hide from it that will make the difference over the coming years.
Certainly with producers like Sony giving in and offering its back catalogue to free music downloads services like We7 there must be something that is worth taking note of.
The RIAA took a few punches this week with the news that a US federal judge has shot down the claim that simply making songs available for free music download on filesharing networks counts as distribution.
The RIAA has been steamrolling ahead with suing anyone and everyone accused of filesharing under the impression that making tracks available is enough to get a court verdict in their favor. This all seems to be changing.
Pamela and Jeffrey Howell are accused of making tracks available over the filesharing network Kazaa. They were originally ordered to pay $40,000 in damagers, but after an appeal, the case will now go before a jury after the judge overturned the initial decision.
The “making available” argument has typically been a big weapon in the RIAA’s battle against filesharing. The RIAA responded by calling the decision strange and against hundreds of other filesharing rulings in the US.
Might be a sign of things to come.
