A children’s charity in the UK has decided to take on the issue of filesharing and spread the word about the evils of illegal music downloads, which are both against the law and “unsafe”, apparently.

One converted child said, “I used to use Limewire, but didn’t realise it was wrong and my parents didn’t know what I was doing.”

Oh dear.

Childnet admirably campaigns to improve Internet safety for children. There’s nothing wrong with that. The charity is sending a leaflet to schools to persuade kids to take care while surfing the net and using their mobile phones.

The clear message is that filesharing is an adults’ games. While America’s college students haven’t been so lucky, UK children will be “educated” about the errors of their filesharing ways. How noble.

However, for the million of non-children who still use filesharing programs like Limewire, there is no hope of salvation.

More campus activity this week. This time, the University of Arkansas has been targeted by the RIAA for filesharing students.

The RIAA has formally requested that UA complies with its dealing with filesharing activities, which means that the university must supply the names that match up to IPs that show illegal filesharing activity.

This has caused much uproar, as some at the university have slammed the request, saying that the RIAA does not have the right to do such a thing.

One senior compared this filesharing monitoring to phone tapping. The RIAA has basically requested that UA keep records of all Internet filesharing activity that occurs on campus.

What this means is that the UA’s IT department finds filesharing culprits who are getting free music downloads and passes on their names to the RIAA, who in turn send a letter to the students demanding damages or a court case.

UA responded by issuing a statement saying that students’ details will not be passed on unless a there is a subpoena.

While America’s students are being terrorized by the RIAA for filesharing, it looks like one special group of students is immune to filesharing rules and regulations. Step up the class of 2008 from Harvard.

The RIAA has delivered thousands of letters to universities to try and curb filesharing habits. This action often results in students who are accused of filesharing being given an ultimatum with the threat of court action if they don’t cough up several thousand bucks.

Perhaps Harvard’s students are simply a law-abiding bunch of students, but they are students, right? For whatever reason, Harvard has not received any pre-litigation letters from the RIAA.

What’s most bizarre in this case is that the RIAA admits that Harvard students are engaged in filesharing activities, but the “levels are not sufficient enough to warrant legal action”. Hold on a minute. When did it become about levels?

Is the RIAA too scared to go after Harvard’s hardened team of lawyers?

The US Federal Communications Commission chairman was before senators this week testifying about the network management techniques employed by Comcast. He said that Comcast definitely blocked access to P2P filesharing networks. Not only that, but it did it on a regular basis.

Comcast used several techniques to block its own users’ access to filesharing programs like Limewire and Ares. He added that this was not used only sometimes with the intention of delaying traffic, but rather, it was a full onslaught against filesharing.

Several consumer groups have filed complaints against Comcast, stating that the ISP blocked and tampered with access to filesharing network without good reason. Comcast has since defended its actions, although it’s clear that the company is in a spot of bother now.

Many of Comcast’s user were not able to access filesharing services in the past.

A study by the Ponemon Institute has said that people are unaware of the dangers associated with using P2P filesharing programs like Limewire and Ares. IT security organizations are, apparently, ignorant of the risks that filesharing networks pose to their businesses.

Several large financial firms suffered data breaches in 2007 because of P2P filesharing networks. Client data was exposed. Sensitive files are readily available over filesharing network to those with the technical know-how to find them.

Companies make thousands of documents available over filesharing networks daily. Anyone can gain access to these documents. 26% of those surveyed were unaware of any policies at their place of work addressing the issue of filesharing.

More disturbingly, 35% of those surveyed were convinced that sensitive documents cannot be mistakenly transferred over filesharing networks. Only 25% thought that their company would be able to prevent such a filesharing disaster from occurring.

Note to self: stop using Limewire at work.

Filesharing in Europe received a major boost this week with the announcement that the European Parliament has stated that filesharing should not be a criminal offense. More specifically, downloading copyrighted music and movies should not be punishable by law.

This is fantastic news. The key is here: “Criminalising consumers who are not seeking to make a profit is not the right solution to combat digital piracy.”

Most people who use filesharing to find free music downloads are not doing so for profit; they are doing it because they want to listen to music. It’s not the same as a thief who goes into a shop and steals a CD because he needs money.

This announcement could indicate a shift in opinion as the worldwide filesharing debacle rages on. This report is not binding, but it serves the purpose of putting forward new ideas to the European Commission.