Law & Policy

Kids themselves have named a new comic-book hero, Garret the Ferret, who the Business Software Alliance hopes will teach them digital copyright ethics. "That software you're copying is protected by copyright laws. What you are doing is wrong," Garret tells Shawn, a comic-book kid who's installing a friend's graphics program on his home computer late one night. They're the stars of "Copyright … [Read more...] about Garret the Ferret teaches digital ethics

The discussion about file-sharing is definitely heating up - especially in the US, where the Supreme Court will soon hear arguments on this. Today a group of prominent musicians and artists broke ranks with their industry in "urging the Supreme Court not to hold online file-sharing services responsible for the acts of users who illegally trade songs, movies and software," the Washington Post … [Read more...] about P2P: Musicians weigh in

This wasn't just for file-sharing movies also available in video stores (which a lot of people are doing). This 18-year-old in Arizona stood out from the pack, apparently, because he was sharing movies that were still in theaters. Parvin Dhaliwal of Mesa "pleaded guilty to possession of unauthorized copies of intellectual property, which is a felony," the Associated Press reported. He was … [Read more...] about Teen jailed for film-sharing

That's the message in an internal document written by the chief technology officer of Sharman Networks, makers of Kazaa file-sharing software. Sharman "employees ... 'hate' installing the ... software because it has ill effects on their computers," CNET cites the document as saying. That's good for young file-sharers and their parents to know too, besides the other questionable, in some cases … [Read more...] about Kazaa slows down PCs

Hollywood has an interest in keeping kids' file-sharing under control, and now they've delivered on it. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is providing free software called "Parent File Scan" that scans your computer for P2P programs and movie and music files. Here's a review and explanation of how the software works at Freedom to Tinker, personal blog of Princeton University … [Read more...] about Free anti-P2P tool for parents