A South Carolina woman sued by the record labels for file-sharing is fighting the RIAA's attempt to amend its original complaint is arguing that the RIAA's proposed amended complaint contradicts the testimony of an expert witness that testified for the labels in the Jammie Thomas trial.

At issue is the boilerplate complaint used by the RIAA in its nearly 30,000 file-sharing lawsuits until last fall. The RIAA's standard language has come under fire in a handful of cases for its lack of specificity. One of those cases is Atlantic Records v. Catherine Njuguna, a case Ars last covered in September.

A new study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance says that countries around the world are leaving billions of dollars of economic growth on the table due to piracy. The study was carried out by IDC and looked the potential economic impact of tighter antipiracy controls in 42 different countries.

If the amount of software piracy in the US were to be reduced by 10 percentage points over the next four years, IDC believes the end result would be $41 billion in economic growth, $7 billion in additional tax revenues, and the creation of over 32,000 new jobs. In countries with higher rates of piracy, the impact would be even greater.

Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong.

In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.

The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so.

But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.

Imagine a world where you could legally acquire and listen to as much music as you want for a flat fee. How you got the music—iTunes, Rhapsody, Usenet—and where you listened to it wouldn't matter. Your monthly license would give you carte blanche to snarf up as much music as you like. It's an idea that's been bandied about before, and it recently resurfaced in Las Vegas.

Most observers agree that the copyright and IP laws of the US are in dire need of reform. The ways in which they should be reformed is a subject for debate. One's views on whether the reach of copyright law—to take one hot-button issue—should be extended or shortened is informed by whether one is a composer, manufacturer, or music fan. A panel convened at last week's CES took on the questions of what shape IP reform should take and what kind of business model makes the most sense in an age of digital distribution where copyright owners find it difficult to maintain a semblance of control over how their content is used.

'Did you see me smack that geezer? Class, wasn't it'

Forests of CCTV cameras in the UK's town centres have failed to have any impact on anti-social behaviour, an ACPO official told the House of Lords Constitution Committee yesterday.

Graeme Gerrard, head of CCTV at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), said cameras did a good job deterring crimes like theft, for example in car parks. Such criminals are presumably acting "rationally", he said, and will take cameras and other surveillance kit into account.

But when it comes to making town centres safe after the pubs shut, it seems you'd be better off sending in the Salvation Army.

In this special interview Rick Falkvinge, the founder and the leader of Swedish Pirate Party, gives his own views on the wildly heated political filesharing debate in Sweden, evaluates the political and technological prospects of P2P and talks about the dangers of citizen surveillance and Big Brother society.

Filesharing debate

Q: In last couple of months the copyright debate in Sweden seems to have got hotter than ever before, and especially the emergence of the reformist group within Moderate Party makes the situation look like the beginning of a 'final battle' before the legalization of filesharing. How do you read the situation? Is it possible that Reinfeldt government could actually end up assuming the reformist position and decriminalizing filesharing, or is it too otimistic to expect this to happen before your 2010 elections?

The music labels' case against Jeffrey and Pamela Howell has taken on mythic dimensions over the last few weeks after the Washington Post went a little nuts and implied that the labels were suing the couple for making personal rips of their CDs (it later corrected the story). The truth is that Howells are being sued for having those rips in a shared KaZaA folder. But lost in the controversy over the RIAA's refusal to say that personal CD ripping is legal is the fact that the Howells aren't being sued for swapping songs with thousands of people around the world; instead, they are charged with making songs "available" for download. In a new amicus brief (PDF), the EFF argues that there's no such thing as "attempted copyright infringement." Yet.

In a move designed to get major music trade organizations to reorganize, EMI has made the first step to exit the British trade group IFPI.

Top operating executives at the four major labels are in talks, seeking changes in the structure and priorities of major trade orgs, including the Recording Industry Assn. of America. The idea of merging the IFPI and RIAA has been broached as well.

Following the guidelines of the Intl. Federation of the Phonographic Industry, EMI sent a letter the last week of December to IFPI leadership stating that the company would file to leave the org if the structure and aims of the IFPI are not aligned with the interests of EMI.

With a lot of attention being paid to the European Commission settling the Apple iTunes anti-trust case, it's interesting to note what the European Commission has called for earlier this week with things like DRM and file-sharing.

In a press release, the European Commission said, "EU citizens should be able to enjoy easier and faster access to a rich variety of music, TV programmes, films or games via the Internet, mobile phones or other devices. The Commission therefore encourages the content industry, telecoms companies and Internet service providers to work closely together to make available more content online, while at the same time ensuring a robust protection of intellectual property rights. The Commission also wants to facilitate copyright licences for online content covering the territory of several or all of the EU Member States."

The Great Copyright Debate

Convincing internet users who are used to gorging themselves on free movies and music that they shouldn't do it may be like telling Pope Urban VIII the Earth goes round the Sun, but the government claims it's possible - by rejigging the copyright laws.

The Reg grabbed 20 minutes with the minister tasked with this religious conversion, Lord Triesman, on Tuesday.

How do you trigger the cultural shift you and the the creative industries are demanding?

Someone like me going along and telling a 14-year-old that downloading something for free isn't good news and that there is a downside to it is unlikely to have a huge impact. I'm not unrealistic about that. What I do know is that people who make music, and who make new films that people want to consume - where I think they can carry the message is that if they cannot earn a living then these things will not continue. They won't be available.