If a new bill is passed through congress, then companies who’s copyright is infringed upon could have the right to hack the offending service. This would allow record companies to launch attacks on P2P services if they trade illegal files.
Howard Berman, the congressman involved - who's district includes areas such as Hollywood - has told zdnet: "While P2P (peer-to-peer) technology is free to innovate new and more efficient methods of distribution that further exacerbate the piracy problem, copyright owners are not equally free to craft technological responses,".
The bill is still at the stage of being drafted and if it is passed many other services could also potentially be hacked legally - such as usenet servers. The bill wouldn’t allow the propagation of viruses or for the companies to take any actions that could result in the damaging of the computers involved.
A move like this would be highly unpopular and there would be opposition from many - especially as some servers which are used by pirates, like usenet ones, also have legitimate uses. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) started debating a move like this last year and this is bound to re-ignite discussions. The RIAA have stated: "We are encouraged by the efforts of Congressman Berman to help develop ways to combat the growing problem of online music piracy," .
News source: ZDNet UK
Howard Berman, the congressman involved - who's district includes areas such as Hollywood - has told zdnet: "While P2P (peer-to-peer) technology is free to innovate new and more efficient methods of distribution that further exacerbate the piracy problem, copyright owners are not equally free to craft technological responses,".
The bill is still at the stage of being drafted and if it is passed many other services could also potentially be hacked legally - such as usenet servers. The bill wouldn’t allow the propagation of viruses or for the companies to take any actions that could result in the damaging of the computers involved.
A move like this would be highly unpopular and there would be opposition from many - especially as some servers which are used by pirates, like usenet ones, also have legitimate uses. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) started debating a move like this last year and this is bound to re-ignite discussions. The RIAA have stated: "We are encouraged by the efforts of Congressman Berman to help develop ways to combat the growing problem of online music piracy," .
News source: ZDNet UK
Today MSN announced it had signed up for services in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey. This gives the service a potential user base of 24 million across Europe. This figure represents the total number of total subscribers for all participating telcos.
Last December, Microsoft signed similar deals to give mobile access to its Hotmail users in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey. Although Microsoft doesn't give out the detailed figures, users for the service are thought to number in the tens of thousands.
John Delaney, principal analyst at Ovum said the deal showed Microsoft was struggling to interest the larger mobile carriers in the technology. He said: "Microsoft has a much bigger leverage with the smaller carriers, and a lot of the carriers are still focused on multi-media messaging on GPRS as the future."
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