11:24 | Tuesday July 29, 2008
By Ben Cardew
Colombo-BT.org, the largest BitTorrent tracker site in Italy, has been closed down.
The site was run by three Italian men, who have been charged with infringing copyright law and face potential prison terms of up to three years and heavy fines.
The operation, which helped users find and exchange the computer files they want on peer-to-peer networks, was funded by accepting online donations from users.
Italian police, who worked alongside IFPI-associated Italian anti-music piracy group FPM on the case, closed the service, seizing computers and freezing two bank accounts.
FPM president Enzo Mazza compared the site to notorious filesharing service The Pirate Bay. “Colombo-BT.org was Italy’s version of The Pirate Bay,” he says.
“Its operators deliberately facilitated availability of copyright infringing content to line their own pockets. The gang of three now face potential prison sentences and hefty fines as a result of their activities. This police action sends a strong message that Italy will not tolerate serious online music piracy so criminals looking for get rich quick schemes should consider other options.”
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2 comments:
You want to stop illegal downloading? You have to counter with legal downloading. I want to get Brighteye Brison's latest, and it's not on eMusic (where I found the previous effort Stories). It's not available as a DRM-free download elsewhere that I can find. Thus, Progress Records fails.
Listen, you can't "crack down" on file sharing without monitoring ALL internet traffic, and if you don't understand that that's an absolutely TERRIBLE trade-off, you don't understand what that means.
You have two ways to compete in the marketplace where file sharing is an unavoidable reality; convenience and goodwill. That's it.
There are ways of monetizing a band's fan base other than selling archaic plastic discs. Thousands of artists around the world are figuring this out daily. It's about a more direct route from artist to fan and back again, without intermedaries - so the profit margins are far greater and the break-even happens much, much earlier. Get to work on that, instead of "cracking down on pirates", ye damned luddites-
You've obviously read almost nothing on this site. If you want to use Brighteye Brison as an example, you can get a CD quality digital download from Mindawn for just $8.99 http://www.mindawn.com/albums/4520 so Progress Records is on top of it, you're just ignorant, and the inability of you to find a legal download or legal copy is not a justification for stealing the material.
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