Finds that under the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man freedom of expression and communication are “prerequisite for democracy,” and being that the Internet is vital to both the right to access it must be protected. It was almost a month ago that the French National Assembly defied the EU Parliament and passed the controversial “Creation and Internet” law that would create the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet (HADOPI), a new govt agency whose task it would be to sanction those accused of illegal file-sharing. Offenders were to receive two separate warnings about their illegal activities before losing Internet access for from 2 months up to a year, with the names of the “three-strikers” appearing on a blacklist to prevent ISP shopping. That law’s now been ruled unconstitutional by France’s Constitutional Council after having been requested by the opposition Socialist Party to rule on its legality. It concluded that under the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man only a judge should have the power to disconnect individuals from the Internet, arguing that the Internet is essential for the “free communication of thoughts” ...

Criticizes pay what you want model for making less popular musician brothers and sisters look bad for “not offering their music for whatever.” Alternative rock band Sonic Youth recently sat down with the UK’s Guardian to discuss the state of music and their band’s latest album “The Eternal.” In it they they make some observations and comments that makes one wonder if they’re having a hard time adapting to the realities of a digital music world. It recently left Geffen Records for Indie Rock label Matador Records because “[Geffen] weren’t doing much for us besides putting the records out,” says guitarist Thurston Moore.” The band contemplated going the Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” route where fans could pay as much or as little as they choose for a digital download of an album, but said it would’ve taken too much time and effort and would’ve been insulting to their less popular “musician brothers and sisters.” “I don’t really think they did it by themselves,” continues bassist Kim Gordon. “They did a marketing ploy by themselves and then got someone else to put it out. It seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn’t catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many ...

Some may not know it, but June is an interesting month for file-sharer’s. This year, June marks a major milestone for file-sharers. It was June, 1999 when Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker released the first version of Napster - an application that has since changed the face of entertainment, the internet and copyright to name a few. What would it mean if files couldn’t be freely distributed online? For one, the whole idea of sharing viral video’s on a site like YouTube would be completely gone. You couldn’t listen to music via the internet, so naturally, music sites couldn’t exist and, arguably, there wouldn’t be much evidence to suggest that taking your music to the internet and selling them would be viable. Of course, pictures ranging from personal scrapbooks all the way to the often silly lolcats couldn’t happen. Then there’s the web itself since they are little more than HTML pages, javascript pages and PHP pages to name a few distributed freely via servers. Of course, what about email? They’re little more than text files with the ability to attach files to begin with, so e-mail would be out of the question ...

File-sharing, for years, has been one of the copyright industry’s favourite scape-goat. Lately, British news sources have received a fresh dose of “studies” where the copyright industry through government officials have been saying how file-sharing costs British artists billions thanks to the millions of file-sharers in the UK. While the numbers have since been cast into doubt, one journalist from the Guardian did some research of his own and discovered that while music sales have fallen over the years in Britain, they have likely fallen thanks to growing video game and DVD sales. A few days ago, we reported on the “Copycats” report which suggests that immediate action needed to be taken to stop lost sales due to file-sharing. Of course, when the story hit the BBC, we noted that it’s very possible that the report could suffer similar problems to that of the infamous recalled IP reports from the Conference Board of Canada. Since then, others have confirmed similar policy laundering issues. While some have attempted to get confirmation on the statistics only to be told that the matter wasn’t up for public record, a Guardian journalist decided to look into the matter himself and ...

Carphone Warehouse CEO Charles Dunstone points out that people will always find a way to share content with one another despite the best efforts of copyright holders and politicians. Lord Carter’s Digital Britain Report, part of the project launched back in October 2008 to secure the UK’s place at the “front of digital and telecommunications innovation and quality,” is due out later this month and will outline what the UK govt will do to combat the problem of illegal file-sharing. Charles Dunstone, CEO of Carphone Warehouse, home of of Talk Talk, Britain’s 3rd largest ISP, recently spoke out on the matter, observing that no matter what the govt does file-sharers will always win in the end. “If you try speed humps or disconnections for P2P, people will simply either disguise their traffic or share the content another way,” he said. “It is a game of Tom and Jerry and you will never catch the mouse. The mouse always wins in this battle and we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid.” Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said last week at Music Week’s “Making Online ...