Updates

I haven’t posted to this in forever. My apologies to anyone who was looking for more up to date information. Hopefully now that I have a little more time and am settled a little more, I can continue this blog. The aim of it was to support the P2P community in at least some small way by directing people to other resources and providing a hub for information. Hopefully more updates will come soon.

Oink Users Arrested

Torrent Freak is reporting that some OiNK users are being arrested. The only ones arrested live in the UK and uploaded pre-release albums. They are apparently being charged with “conspiracy to defraud the music industry”. Supposedly they are all going to have to report to a police station on the date that Allan Ellis must answer his bail. That’s merely speculation, however. This sounds a little absurd to me. I’m not too familiar with British law, but others are saying that this is the first time copyrights have been asserted in a criminal case. I’ll keep the updates coming as I find out more.

Update on H.R. 4279

Sorry about the lack of updates. I got really busy with college but I should be updating more and finally compiling a list of software to use for P2P on OS X. I’ll probably try to update at least once a week at the bare minimum. Most weeks should have more updates.

Now, an update on H.R. 4279, which I wrote about in my previous post. On May 8, 2008 it passed the House of Representatives. It hasn’t been introduced to the Senate or anything like that so it’s a bit stalled right now. It did, however, pass with an overwhelming majority of votes (410 to 11 with 12 abstentions). If you’re interested in reading further, here’s is the Open Congress page for it: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h4279/show

New Proposed House Bill to Strenghten Penalty for Pirates

On December 5th, 2007 Congressman John Conyers (Dem. – Michigan) introduced a bill into the House which would strengthen the already harsh punishments against copyright infringers. Currently the penalty is set at $10,000 per song. This bill wants to raise that to a virtually unlimited level. This bill is H.R. 4279, which also goes by the name of ““Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007” or PRO IP.

Titles I and II of the bill will strengthen penalties for copyright infringement. Title III of the bill would create an Executive Office of the President – the Office of United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative. Title IV allows the appointment of officers to coordinate efforts against copyright infringement with other countries. Title V of the bill would separate the current Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property section of the Department of Justice into two sections. The Intellectual Property section would assume all copyright issues, of course, and they would compile a yearly report of their activities.

Basically Conyers wants to set up new departments in the government to pursue pirates. What a terrible idea. The bill is scheduled for debate on Thursday the 13th of November at 10:00 A.M.

http://judiciary.house.gov/newscenter.aspx?A=887

Welcome

Welcome to the P2P on Mac blog. This blog will be used to describe and keep track of P2P software designed for Mac. I will also be covering important copyright issues as they arise. I encourage all readers to email me with information that you feel fits in with the blog.

If you are an application developer, who is developing software relating to P2P for Mac, please feel free to email me and let me know more about your product.