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PayPal sets down stricter regulations for file-sharing sites. After cutting ties with Wikileaks in 2010, and after this year’s raid against Megaupload, PayPal is now imposing increasingly stringent conditions on various online file-sharing sites. According to TorrentFreak, PayPal has recently changed its terms of service, making requirements for file-sharing and newsgroup services far tighter than before. The payment service, owned by eBay, now requires that "merchants must prohibit users from uploading files involving illegal content and indicate that users involved in such file transfers will be permanently removed from their service," and that "merchants must provide PayPal with free access to their service, so PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy department can monitor the content. " Not surprisingly, locker sites are already grumbling about the changes.

Others, like the Palo Alto-based MediaFire, say that there has been little impact their bottom line since the switchover. Neither MediaFire nor PayPal immediately responded to requests for comment. Torrentfreak. Every day copyright holders send out countless notices which order BitTorrent indexes, cyberlockers, forums, blogs and search engines to remove links to allegedly infringing content. The process is time consuming for everyone involved. So, since time is money, shouldn't those being burdened by the actions of third parties be compensated for their work? One anti-piracy company says charging for takedowns amounts to extortion. The publication last week of Google’s Transparency Report gave us a clearer idea of the pressures the search engine is under from copyright holders.

The report revealed that in a single month Google was asked to take down an astonishing 1.2m links to allegedly infringing material. As a US company Google must comply with the requests in order to maintain its DMCA Safe Harbor protection. The reports stops short of revealing the associated financial costs but considering the scale of the operation it’s safe to say that they’re significant. RapidShare Declared Legal In Court, With a Twist. A Higher Regional Court in Germany has ruled that file-hosting service RapidShare operates legally in Germany. The verdict is the result of a long-standing legal battle between the Swiss-based file-hosting service and music rights group GEMA. It's not all good for RapidShare though, as the company now has to monitor external websites for incoming links to infringing files.

In the aftermath of the Megaupload shutdown, people have been keeping a close eye on court cases involving other file-hosting services, RapidShare included. During the past several years RapidShare has made tremendous efforts to cooperate with copyright holders and limit copyright infringements. But this couldn’t prevent the company from getting involved in a handful of lawsuits against rightsholders.

Two week ago, a press release published by copyright holders claimed that RapidShare had suffered an enormous defeat in court. This is not a problem according to the cyberlocker. US signs ACTA. The United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on Saturday, an accord targeting intellectual property piracy. The European Union, Mexico and Switzerland—the only other governments participating in the accord’s creation—did not sign the deal at a ceremony in Japan but "confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the agreement as soon as practical," the parties said in a joint statement.

The United States applauded the deal. "As with many of the challenges we face in today's global economy, no government can single-handedly eliminate the problem of global counterfeiting and piracy. Signing this agreement is therefore an act of shared leadership and determination in the international fight against intellectual property theft," said Mariam Sapiro, deputy United States trade representative. Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement slouches toward signing on Saturday. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will finally be signed this Saturday, October 1, in Japan.

The agreement has been years in the making, but its final passage comes only after a vociferous campaign by civil society and digital rights groups demanding an end to the secrecy, a place at the negotiating table, and a scaled-back set of copyright and patent provisions. They did pretty well—as we previously noted, US negotiators on ACTA were pushing for some of the toughest language on DRM, Internet disconnections, and more, but had to climb down in the face of international resistance and public pressure. The secrecy was so intense—despite a blizzard of statements about transparency—that leaked diplomatic cables showed other countries objecting.

An Italian official complained that it was "impossible for member states to conduct necessary consultations with IPR stakeholders and legislatures under this level of confidentiality. " Beyond ACTA: next secret copyright agreement negotiated this week—in Hollywood. One of the worst parts of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was its ridiculous secrecy, under which it was easy for negotiators and industry reps to see draft text, but impossible for the public to do so except through leaks.

Thankfully, those leaks showed just how bad ACTA was going to be for the Internet, and public pressure helped remove the worst provisions. But the basic approach to doing deals didn't die, and it's back again this week as negotiators meet in Hollywood to discuss a new, totally secret intellectual property chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a regional trade agreement. Civil society and digital rights groups would dearly love to be part of the process; barring that, they'd like to know simply what the process is so that they can at least mount press conferences of their own.

But even that is difficult. The public interest briefing was booked last week and advertised to all delegations, including the host USTR [US Trade Representative]. New music industry plan: halt flow of money to pirate music sites. The international music trade group IFPI has found a way to shut down, it hopes, piratical iTunes-style websites operating in countries like Russia and the Ukraine—it wants to curtail their ability to accept major credit cards. Both the credit card companies and the UK police have agreed to act on the music industry complaints. IFPI has proudly announced a new copyright enforcement initiative. It boils down to this: IFPI will submit allegedly infringing websites to the London police department's Economic Crime Directorate.

Once the division has "verified the evidence," it will pass the information to MasterCard and Visa. The card providers will then "require the acquiring bank providing the retailer with payment services to produce evidence of appropriate licenses to sell music or cease providing those services to the retailer," IFPI explains. The group adds that MasterCard has promised to respond to law enforcement requests "expeditiously. " Best practices Did that make a difference?

uTorrent / BitTorrent Sued For Patent Infringement. BitTorrent Inc., the makers of uTorrent and the BitTorrent Mainline client, have been sued for infringement of a file-sharing related patent. According to the complaint, the BitTorrent clients infringe on the rights of San Francisco-based company Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network. The company demands compensation and if the court agrees, this case could have a disastrous impact on the BitTorrent landscape. By now we’ve become accustomed to copyright infringement lawsuits, where people are suspected of illegally distributing movies and music using BitTorrent.

However, according to a lawsuit filed at a U.S. District Court this week, BitTorrent is also an infringement in its own right. Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network filed a complaint at the court this week where it alleges that BitTorrent is infringing on a patent originally filed in April 1999. The company claims to have suffered significant losses and wants to be compensated for the ongoing patent infringement. The complaint. LimeWire Pays RIAA $105 Million, Artists Get Nothing. In the midst of their jury trial, the company behind the defunct LimeWire client and the RIAA settled their dispute out of court. Limewire will pay $105 million to compensate the major music labels for damages suffered.

A moment of justice for the music industry, but not necessarily for the artists. The recouped money is destined for reinvestment in new anti-piracy efforts and will not be used to compensate any artists. According to the injunction that shut down LimeWire last year, the company “intentionally encouraged infringement,” its software was used “overwhelmingly for infringement” and the company knew about the “substantial infringement being committed” by LimeWire users. The evidence further showed that LimeWire marketed its application to Napster users and that its business model depended on mass copyright infringements. Following the injunction LimeWire immediately disabled its file-sharing client, but the trouble for the company was far from over.

Major ISPs agree to "six strikes" copyright enforcement plan. American Internet users, get ready for three strikes "six strikes. " Major US Internet providers—including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable—have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won't filter or monitor their own networks for infringement.

And after the sixth "strike," you won't necessarily be "out. " Much of the scheme mirrors what ISPs do now. Copyright holders will scan the 'Net for infringement, grabbing suspect IP addresses from peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. ISPs have committed to forward such notices to subscribers—though, crucially, they won't turn over actual subscriber names or addresses without a court order. The agreement puts heavy emphasis on "education," going so far as to recast this behavior as some "right to know" on the part of parents unaware of a child's P2P activity.

Baby steps to mitigation. Shock, awe: British government agrees that copyright has gone too far. The British government today pledged (PDF) to enact significant changes to copyright law, including orphan works reforms and the introduction of new copyright exceptions. And the tone of the comments was surprising: the government agrees that "copyright currently over-regulates to the detriment of the UK. " CD (and perhaps DVD) ripping for personal use should become legal at last—and the government is even keen to see that the consumer rights granted by law can't simply be taken away by contract (such as a "EULA" sticker on a CD demanding that a disk not be ripped). Responding to an independent study done earlier this year, the government has also endorsed the creation of a digital copyright exchange to facilitate licensing.

Within limits, the government endorses the view that "the widest possible exceptions to copyright within the existing EU framework are likely to be beneficial to the UK. " The government's report is also significant for what it pledges not to do. Viacom so devastated by piracy that CEO only gets $50 million raise. For years, the Motion Picture Association of America has been pushing legislation to ratchet up copyright enforcement. In 2008, the association helped push through the PRO-IP Act, which allowed the federal government to seize domain names used for copyright infringement and created a new federal copyright czar.

This year, the MPAA is a leading force in the campaign for "rogue sites" legislation, which would give the federal government broad powers to target sites with minimal judicial oversight. Last year, Viacom, whose Paramount subsidiary is an MPAA member, told the Wall Street Journal that "a new wave of digital piracy could threaten the US media business" if it lost its copyright infringement case against YouTube. Similarly, the MPAA has argued that "when profits are reduced, the studios have fewer dollars to invest in movies, and when there is less money to invest they make fewer movies and the diversity and variety of films we love become more limited. " "Weird Al" Yankovic - Don't Download This Song.