In a seriously odd twist of events EU ISPs are working together on a new set of rules about how the providers are going to run their packages; and it's sort of a mixed result, the setup will make it very very easy for ISPs to become pretty much copyright police. This obviously isn't a good thing, but it does have some beneifts; also in this EU ruleset, there is guidlines to ensure net neutrality.... it really is an odd one. They are influenced by the enforcement industries, yet not by big companies who will pay for their websites to be faster than their opposition? Madness.

My ability to read Italian is non-existant but if you head to the Downrevolution site it has clearly been shutdown with a large semi-official notice on the site, as best I can tell, from the Rvenue Officer that states the site has been confined for violations.

This popular muisc file-sharing site, downrevolution.net, was shutdown by Italian police who also arrested 4 alleged operators. These four individuals now face potential prison time up to three years and fins in the amount of $23K. Plus other administrative santions into the hundreds of thousands of euros.

Will this be a trend to be seen as the UK announced their desire to make file-sharing leagal in the near future? Got to clean up the mess before laying down legislation. Don't you?

Consisting of more than 100 P2P and social networking providers, the Distributed Computing Industry Association (www.DCIA.info),will be converging on Silicon Valley for a flagship conference on Monday, August 4th, 2008. Just anouncing the first wave of speackers, this conference is bound to be provide exceptional insight into the face-paced world of P2P and other distributed computing technologies.

Look for topics such as global policy in the post MGM v. Grokster world - new Rules for P2P; technology development for file sharing and related distributed computing applications - the evolving distribution chain, business models - what's working and what's not, artists and rights holders - P2P for content creators, solutions development - creating the commercial P2P ecosystem, and the next frontier - business practices and open standards.

For more information, please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pmssv2008
To register visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pmssv2008/register.html

In the typicall British hospitatlity, the British government has stepped into the file sharing arena to mitigate the proper and hospitable way for legal P2P services. The goal is to have music right holders to work with ISP to have subscribers pay a fee to legally download and share files they want. Then royalties would be passed out accordingly. But the whole royalty distribution issue is more than likely going to put a snag in this lofty goal.

Taks a look at Anarchy in the UK: Legal P2P Sharing By Year End?

An anti p2p throttling company has today released statistics on quite how much of US internet traffic is taken by P2P; and it's a lot! Supposedly it accounts for 44%; almost HALF of all internet usage in the Northen US, and these statistics apparently come from a set of top ISPs, although there is some debate on how valid they are, as the throttling company will want high stats to get companies to buy their equipment.

Rhapsody, a child of the horrible, horrible Real Networks, has created something that is really, really rather good! A DRM-Free legal music service which offers 256kbps songs for...get this 99c each; that matches iTunes non-plus prices. This is a seriously good deal, with most albums clocking in at $10, and the first 100,000 users getting $10 of credit. They certainly have some confidence in their service being popular then don't they!

Check it out, definitely!