The Digital Britain report was finally published earlier this week, laying out new tactics for the UK's approach to filesharing.

"Ofcom will work with ISPs to send written warnings to those who are illegally sharing files with their peers," writes Telegraph.co.uk's Emma Barnett. "If the piracy continues, the ISPs will work with Ofcom to collect 'anonymised information on serious repeat infringers.' This information, plus the identity of the pirate, will only then be made available to the rights holders, i.e. the owners of the content, such as a music artist, on receipt of a court order."

In response, according to BusinessWeek's David Meyer, "Nicholas Lansman, the secretary general of the ISP Association, said the group was pleased the government had ruled out introducing legislation to force internet companies to disconnect persistent users of illicit P2P file-sharing."

"Music industry bodies were disappointed that the proposals did not go further, however," notes The Register's Chris Williams. "UK Music, which represents labels, collecting societies, music managers and the Musicians' Union said it did not believe the package would reduce piracy by 70 percent in two to three years, the government's stated aim."

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The jury in Jammie Thomas-Rasset's filesharing trial this week found the defendant guilty of downloading 24 songs from Kazaa, and hit her with a $1.92 million fine — or $80,000 per song.

But The Inquirer's Egan Orion says this is just the beginning. "This trial was merely the prologue for the real battle, which we believe will be played out in the appellate courts," he writes. "Jammie Thomas-Rasset's lawyers are, we think, playing a long game, and we'll see how that all works out, over several more years."

The most amazing thing about the judgement, according to MTV.com's Kyle Anderson, is that the list of songs she downloaded includes such selections as "Guns N' Roses' 'Welcome to the Jungle,' Def Leppard's 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' and Green Day's 'Basket Case.' I took a look at this list and thought, 'Has anybody who has downloaded music not sucked down those songs?' When you consider that Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin'' — one of the most downloaded songs in the history of digital music — was also on there, it kicks the percentage up even further..."

More here from Times Online ... more here from TorrentFreak ... more here from InformationWeek ... more here from ZDNet ... and more here from Ars Technica.

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An unusually aggressive lawyer and his Harvard Law School professor have filed a class action lawsuit against the RIAA for over $100 million...

"Lawyer Kiwi Camara is joining forces with Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer," writes Ars Technica's Nate Anderson. "The goal is nothing less than to force the industry to pay back the alleged '$100+ million' it has collected over the last few years. Perhaps the RIAA had good reason not to send those settlement letters to Harvard for so long..."

"The two plan to argue that MediaSentry, a firm hired by the RIAA to collect evidence on IP addresses and song sharing, is not licensed as a private investigator," writes DMW's Mark Hefflinger. "They will also dispute the copyrights on the songs in question submitted by the RIAA, as they have not been the 'certified copies' required under federal rules of evidence. Neeson and Camara will also argue that the large sums awarded to the labels as a result of noncommercial copyright infringement are unconstitutional, and most controversially, that file-sharing should be considered a 'fair use' of copyrighted content."

More here from Neowin.net ... and more here from the Duluth News Tribune.

Ten years ago this week, college student Shawn Fanning released the first version of Napster — and the music industry has never been the same.

"Without the original Napster, we'd be far behind where we are now," writes Technologizer's Ed Oswald. "The service made the entertainment industry realize that consumers want more power, and the current state of digital entertainment - and a move back to DRM-free content - owes a lot to Mr. Fanning and that P2P software that swept the world one June day ten years ago."

"Napster still exists today, albeit in a completely different form, but it is through Napster, perhaps, that we saw the rise of the MP3," writes Mobile Mag's Michael Kwan. "Where would the iPod, iTunes, Zune, and others be if it were not for the popularity of a digital download?"

More here from Pocket-lint ... more here from Idolator ... more here from ReadWriteWeb ... more here from Drowned in Sound ... more here from Billboard ... more here from Silicon.com ... and the announcement is here.

A study by PRS for Music's Will Page and BigChampagne Media Measurement's Eric Garland, entitled The Long Tail of P2P [PDF file], finds that P2P filesharing only makes popular music more popular — it doesn't lead to the discovery of less well-known artists.

"The study shows that the most pirated songs are almost always at the top of music charts such as Billboard at the same time," writes AfterDawn's Andre Yoskowitz. "The data notes that unsigned and newer bands were neither helped nor hindered by piracy. File-sharing networks have become somewhat of an 'alternative broadcast network' which now rivals radio stations as a way of hearing music."

"The gap between bestsellers and the rest is widening, Page and Garland conclude, a pattern also seen with movie and TV consumption too," writes The Register's Andrew Orlowski. "The authors cite one knock-on effect for live music promoters, who say bands fourth of fifth on a bill are relatively worse off than they were ten years ago. So much for the internet as the great leveller: you literally got lost in the noise."

"The upshot is that all this illegal downloading might not be as bad a thing as we'd all previously thought," writes T3's Adam Bunker. "Lessons to be learned are that the record companies should stop seeing piracy as so much of a threat, and more as a form of advertising."

More here from Wired ... more here from Idolator ... more here from Music Ally ... and more here from BBC News.

Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, in his defense of accused file-swapper Joel Tenenbaum, says P2P filesharing is "fair use."

"In court filings, Nesson spelled out his defense strategy, which doesn't appear to involve claims that his client 'didn't do it,'" writes Ars Technica's Nate Anderson. "Instead, Nesson argues that it doesn't matter if Tenenbaum copied music; such noncommercial uses are presumptively 'fair' and anyone seeking to squeeze file-swappers for statutory damages is entitled to precisely zero dollars. The strategy certainly doesn't lack for boldness... Should Nesson win, he will essentially legalize the sharing of all digital goods, copyrighted or not, by noncommercial users."

"Though determining what is and isn't fair use can be complicated, the legal community relies primarily on the 'four factor test,' which is as follows: (1) the purpose and character of your use, (2) the nature of the copyrighted work, (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market," explains WebProNews' Jason Lee Miller.

"It will be fascinating to watch this case unfold this summer in Massachusetts: the entertainment industry will likely take this very seriously and bring out some big guns to squash it, but in the end, Nesson only needs to convince 12 jurors of his arguments, and file-sharing will officially be legal," writes The Feed's Stephen Johnson.

More here from OUT-LAW.COM ... more here from Geek.com ... more here from Fudzilla ... and more here from ZeroPaid.

In response to a government investigation, Lime Group chairman Mark Gorton has sent a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform stating that LimeWire 5 is "the most secure file-sharing software available."

"The main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives reopened a probe of LimeWire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing companies last week, citing data breaches blamed on the technology," writes CNET's Elinor Mills. "In February, a security firm alleged that information about President Obama's helicopter was breached via P2P. There have also been reports of inadvertent exposure of consumer financial data and medical records over peer-to-peer, according to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform."

"'LimeWire 5 has addressed not only document sharing, but sharing of all file types. For new LimeWire users, LimeWire 5 does not share any file or any type without explicit permission from the user,' Gorton wrote in response," according to eWeek's Roy Mark. "'What's more, LimeWire 5 allows the user to clearly see what is shared and with whom. Additionally, LimeWire does not display known virus file types in an effort to protect users from compromising their computer.'"

More here from E-Commerce News ... more here from Wired ... more here from BetaNews ... more here from p2pnet ... more here from ZeroPaid ... and more here from VentureBeat.

The Taiwanese government this week approved an amendment to its copyright laws, targeted specifically at P2P users.

"The amendment makes it a crime to use P2P technology to facilitate the distribution of copyrighted works online, which sounds like pretty bad news for Taiwanese torrent sites who previously operated in a legal gray area," notes enigmax at TorrentFreak.

"By requiring ISPs to pass on warnings from rights holders to P2P users, the bill is designed to encourage self-correction by users while discouraging excessively punitive lawsuits against small-time infringers," writes Billboard's Thibault Worth. "In addition, the law introduces a 'three-strikes' provision whereby ISPs can restrict the Internet access of users who download copyrighted material more than twice."

More here from Techdirt ... more here from AfterDawn ... and more here from ZeroPaid.

The BI Norwegian School of Management yesterday released a report stating that teenagers who use P2P "unpaid downloading" services actually pay for ten times as much music as those who have not used P2P services. "This confirms that, even with declining CD sales, people do understand that copyrighted music recordings cost money," says assistant professor Audun Molde.

"The study was conducted amongst 1,901 participants over the age of 15," writes Geek.com's John Brownlee. "Not only were the music pirates of the bunch ten times more likely to download to pay music, but half the participants in the range of the ages of between fifteen and twenty had bought a CD in the last six months. Conclusion: music pirates are actually the music industry's largest source of legitimate online customers."

"BI's report corroborates data that the Canadian branch of the RIAA, the Canadian Recording Industry Association, released in 2006," notes Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng. "At that time, the organization acknowledged that P2P users do indeed buy more music than the industry wants to admit, and that P2P isn't the primary reason why other people aren't buying music. 73 percent of of respondents to the CRIA's survey said that they bought music after they downloaded it illegally, while the primary reason from the non-P2P camp for not buying music was attributed to plain old apathy."

More here from CNET ... more here from CrunchGear ... more here from Electronista ... more here from the Guardian ... and the press release is here.

The founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty today, with a sentence of a year in prison and $3.6 million in damages. "Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were found guilty in the case, along with Carl Lundström, who was accused of funding the five-year-old operation," writes Wired's Oscar Swartz.

"Representatives of movie and music companies in Sweden were pleased by the verdict," writes Computerworld's Mikael Ricknäs. "It spells the beginning of the end for The Pirate Bay, according to Jonas Sjöström, chairman of the Swedish Independent Music Producers trade group. He added that sites such as The Pirate Bay typify an old operating model that is quickly losing its attraction and being replaced by legitimate services such as Spotify, a site that streams music."

"The verdict represents a step change in the law's attitude to copyright infringement as the men were found guilty of providing a conduit for others to break the law, rather than breaching copyright themselves," warns the Telegraph's Rupert Neate. "Until yesterday prosecutors had only acted against sites, such as Napster, which hosted copyrighted material."

More here from BBC News ... more here from The Register ... more here from the WSJ ... and more here from Rolling Stone.