Instead, the RIAA is lashing out at Google, whose search engine is the gateway to the Web for hundreds of millions of people. Over the last year or so, Google has been making it a bigger priority to discourage copyright infringement among people who use its various Web services. Those measures, the RIAA has argued, are not enough.

The RIAA isn't satisfied. In a rather scathing "report card" on Google's anti-piracy efforts, the music industry group gave the company an overall grade of "incomplete" and went on to harshly criticize their efforts as being inadequate.

For one thing, the RIAA thinks Google could be investing more time and energy into stopping piracy. The search giant spent $60 million on these efforts, which the RIAA points out is a very tiny percentage of their total revenue. The group argues that other Internet players, such as payment processors and ISPs have done more to combat piracy and that Google has a "special responsibility" to do more.

Tightening the Reins on Android Apps and Users' Takedown Appeals

The organization takes issue with Google's slow removal times for taking down copyright-infringing Android apps. The Android Marketplace, which is less tightly regulated than Apple's mobile app store, leaves more leeway for thing like malware and apps that violate copyright. The RIAA spends a paragraph lashing Google for not being more timely about app takedown requests, but does briefly concede "that Google has improved its takedown speeds for links to infringing files in search results and on hosted blogs to less than 24 hours."

Still, the organization complains that Google makes it too easy for uploaders to appeal takedown notices. If the recent YouTube spat between Universal Music Group and Megaupload is any indication, it would appear that major labels still have the upper hand in that process.

RIAA: Please Censor This, Even Though It's Not Illegal

The RIAA acknowledges where Google has made progress in the last year, but in each case, argues that it could be doing a lot more. For every piracy-related term that has been filtered out of autocomplete, there are a half a dozen that the RIAA thinks should also be tossed out.

For example, their report takes issue with the fact that typing "lady gaga mp3" leads to the autocomplete result "lady gaga mp3 download", which can lead users to sources of illegal downloads. This may be the case, but downloading MP3 files is not an inherently illegal act, so we can understand why Google wouldn't want to censor those terms.

This part of the report is particularly unconvincing. The Lady Gaga example they provide is flimsy and no additional evidence is offered that Google has done a shoddy job of blocking piracy-related terms from autocomplete. We have to imagine this is an ongoing process within Google and one that must carefully balance the interests of rights holders with the sensitivities of Google's users, many of whom will balk at any sign of perceived censorship.

The Devil in the Details: SOPA

Many of the RIAA's demands are not unreasonable. Blatant piracy should be harder to conduct in the Android Marketplace. There are a few of its own policies that Google could do a better job of enforcing.

Still, the report underplays the progress Google has made and has a certain angry, zealous ring to it. When you reach the end of the document, you get a better sense of where some of the frustration is coming from.

"While professing to agree that copyright infringement is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, Google raises alarmist, self-serving criticism to any legislative proposal to deter or thwart rampant copyright infringement."

This is an obvious reference to the Stop Online Piracy Act and legislation like it, which is indeed opposed by Google and most major Web companies, not to mention a growing contingent of the Web's most active and passionate users.

Of course, the opposition to SOPA has little to do with simply not wanting to "stop online privacy" but rather focuses on the broad freedom it gives authorities to shut down websites and the threat it poses to the kind of innovation and creativity that has built the Web we know and love today.

And now both the RIAA and LimeWire are the trail of "MetaPirate," the person responsible for the Pirate Edition.

The court has now shut down the Pirate Edition site, something that "MetaPirate" will not be able to contest without revealing his identity. And the court has also ordered LimeWire to turn over a variety of documents by the end of today that might point to the person responsible. These include:

(i) a list of all current and former employees of the Defendant who, to Defendants' knowledge, have had possession or knowledge of the private key used to sign the LimeWire SIMPP file in the past year, and (ii) a list of all known LimeWire software developers, programmers, or other employees who, to Defendants' knowledge, would have been capable of excising the features that were removed from LimeWire 5.6 beta before it was redistributed as the LimeWire Pirate Edition.

When the Pirate Edition was released, LimeWire adjusted the announcement on the homepage of its now shuttered site to read that "all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyright works in any manner cease and desist from doing so." And while LimeWire feels the need to appear to be proactive in tracking down the pirated version, MetaPirate said in an interview with Ars Technica that his ability to recreate LimeWire is simply due to the filesharing software being open-source. When asked if MetaPirate was a former LimeWire employee, he responded, "I am an agent provocateur for the RIAA, and you can quote me on that."

It's easy, perhaps, to dismiss this back-and-forth of bored and disgruntled teenagers. And because one of the call-to-arms on 4chan said "We are Anonymous" and involved a denial-of-service tactic, it may be easy to confuse 4chan v Tumblr with the more recent DDoS attacks undertaken by Anonymous.

The blog TorrentFreak has a "behind the scenes look at Anonymous' Operation Payback," examining some of the history and motivations behind the recent series of direct actions that Anonymous has coordinated against pro-copyright groups. And as the TorrentFreak story makes clear, the anarchic nature of the group makes it difficult to generalize too much about who they are or what they want.

"We can safely conclude that this Anonymous group doesn't have a broad shared set of ideals," writes TorrentFreak's Ernesto. "Instead, it is bound together by anger, frustration and the desire to be heard. Their actions are a direct response to the anti-piracy efforts of pro-copyright groups." According to interviews with TorrentFreak, some of Anonymous' members are also frustrated that their actions have not driven media attention to their demands. These have been posted online for over a week and include short, medium and long range goals for revising copyright law.

Rethink Copyright Law... Or Else

While the demands call for an immediate end to piracy lawsuits, Anonymous's call to wean the world away from its current copyright laws seems more measured. In fact, the group does not demand an end to copyright altogether. Within the next 2 or 3 years, Anonymous says copyright lifetime should be reduced to around 25 years. Within the next 10 years, it should be reduced to about 5 years. And in the long term, it should be reduced to between 0 and 1 year.

The list of demands makes no mention of file-sharing, even though many of the group's targets have been those associated with the criminalization - or at least demonization - of file-sharing, groups like the RIAA and the MPAA.

"What we are now trying to do, is to straighten out ideals, and trying to make them both heard and accepted. Nobody would listen to us if we said piracy should be legal, but when we ask for copyright lifespan to be reduced to 'fair' lengths, that would sound a lot more reasonable," a spokesman for Anonymous told TorrentFreak.

Shutting Down Websites, Opening Up Dialogue

It's debatable whether or not DDoS attacks get you heard, let alone accepted. And while the FBI investigations into Anonymous's DDoS attacks may have put a damper on the group's actions, it may be that other forces - those very anarchic forces that gave the group its origins - also serve to undermine and fragment the message that Anonymous is trying to communicate about the problems with contemporary copyright law. And although spats with Gene Simmons make for great headlines, the DDoS attacks so far haven't really made for great political dialogue or legal change.

For the past month, Operation Payback, spearheaded by Anonymous, has targeted organizations like the RIAA, the MPAA, the UK Copyright Office, as well as KISS bassist Gene Simmons with DDoS attacks - either crashing their sites completely, grinding them to an unbearable halt, or in some cases, putting redirects in place so that visitors end up instead at the popular BitTorrent Pirate Bay website.

Anonymous sees itself as the defenders of the Internet, using the denial-of-service techniques as a sort of 21st century form of non-violent civil disobedience. Not a formal political group or organization, Anonymous is rather a loose coalition of individuals who see the crackdowns against file-sharing, done in the name of copyright protection, as contrary to the very freedom of the Internet.

TorrentFreak, reporting on today's attack against the U.S. Copyright Office, points to offline demonstrations being planned for November 5, Guy Fawkes Day. But it's not the sixteenth century Catholic rebel that tried to blow up Parliament that's being honored here. Rather it's a nod to the Alan Moore comic V for Vendetta, in which the revolutionary V (not just a munitions expert, but a hacker) takes on the totalitarian government.

The frequency with which Anonymous is staging its online protests seems to show no signs of abating, and so look for fireworks on Friday, the 5th of November.

A New York district judge last Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order, demanding that LimeWire immediately close its doors. And while LimeWire has said it has plans to institute a redesigned service, based on legal and licensed music subscriptions, it seems like many of the site's users may have gone elsewhere for their torrents, rather than waiting for a revised version of what was once the most popular file-sharing app.

The exception is BearShare. Much like LimeWire, BearShare was once a Gnutella-based application. But in May 2006, BearShare was ordered to pay $30 million in settlement with the RIAA. Following that decision, BearShare altered its offerings via the Gnutella framework, limiting file-sharing. And its current iteration is, as the site proclaims "100% legal."

Despite these restrictions, BearShare has seen a 780% increase in US downloads since Tuesday. And it reports its daily US downloads went up from 8000 to 62,400. The company does not say, however, whether or not these new sers are actually paying for their downloads. (That is, I believe, what the RIAA believes will save all those poor suffering record labels.)

Even though the LimeWire alternatives have seen an influx of traffic over the past week, the fallout from last week's decision - and the still-to-come decision regarding the dollar figure attached to the judgement - remains to be seen as to how it will impact file-sharing services and users.

Judge Wood found earlier this year that Limewire had knowingly participated in copyright infringement "on a massive scale" after the RIAA, along with several major record labels, brought suit against the company. And while the RIAA wanted the site shut down then, Limewire was given a reprieve to build a new copyright-friendly technology.

The courts will next decide how much LimeWire will be assessed for the damages it has caused the record industry.

While shutting down LimeWire may be a blow to file-sharers, it seems likely that many LimeWire members will move to a new client rather than ceasing sharing altogether.

"Part of our work involves monitoring the internet and taking action against persons that use, facilitate, enable and/or authorise the use of material in a manner that infringes the rights of the members of BPI and [Phonographic Performance Limited]. We have identified the following links that are available via Google's search engine, and request the following links be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members," the notice says.

The BPI identified 38 links to 17 songs that they found from Google links to various file sharing services, including works from Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, Michael Bublee, Usher, Ke$ha and the cast of Glee to name a few. They even went as far as to identify the 38 various search terms that could lead one to find these files, including phrases like "lady gaga alejandro zippyshare," and "the pretty reckless make me wanna die free download."

Google has been quick to remove copyrighted material from services like YouTube where it hosts the content, but it has not been so quick to remove infringing sites entirely from its search index. Google has, however, removed the 38 requested links at the behest of BPI, but many other file sharing site links remain among the results. In the image above, the third page of results for "dizzee rascal dirtee disco" shows Google's notice that the requested results have been removed. This, of course, is displayed directly below results where the song can be found at other sites.

In section 4 of the DMCA notice, BPI lists 9 different sites that contain these copyrighted files. BPI should have sent 9 different DMCA notices to these sites, not to Google. For better or for worse, Google has become a launch pad from which many people surf the Web. We learned this the hard (and amusing) way earlier this year when a story of ours displaced the typical top result for "Facebook login" on Google, sending wayward Web surfers to our article.

When Googling something is the equivalent of entering the URL in an address bar for many people, you can't place the blame for illegal content on Google. If BPI wants to sue someone over illegal access to music, it should be the sites providing that service, not those simply linking to it.

It seems the WTO ruled with Antigua after a long series of battles over the fact that US restrictions on online gambling were found to violate free trade agreements. Despite the decision, no new forms of offshore online betting were allowed in the US. In retaliation, Antigua received permission from the WTO to suspend US copyright obligations up to a value of $21 million dollars annually.

Zookz founder Hugh Marshall launched the site in the belief that the Antigua-based company is not subject to US copyright law until those within the space reach a profit of $21 million dollars. Nevertheless, it's unlikely that this is the case as it would mean that the WTO would allow Antigua-based websites to simply give away files or sell them at rock bottom prices in order to stay below the limit. While the actual terms of the WTO's sanction is blurry, John Healey of the LA Times suggests that the annual value limit is likely to represent the loss to US industries rather than the profit yielded. As well, the fact that the site is accessible by global audiences outside of Antigua makes this a particularly suspicious venture.

While the site's 1,500 movies and 50,000 songs represent a relatively small catalogue, it appears that for now, for the price of a Netflix monthly account, Zookz users can access unlimited downloads. Obviously this is tempting. Dubious legality aside, and regardless of how you perceive the RIAA and MPAA, please remember that in this case neither starving musicians nor billionaire record labels receive payment for the downloaded works. If you're still curious about the service, you can register at Zookz.com.

After the verdict, Thomas-Rasset told the Associated Press that the penalty was "kind of ridiculous," but also pointed out that she simply can't pay $2 million, so she is "not going to worry about it now."

As we pointed out in our earlier stories about this trial, the evidence clearly incriminated Thomas-Rasset, and the jury found that her conduct was willful. According to the Copyright Act, the jury could have awarded the music companies between $750 and $150,000 per song, but the jury, which clearly wasn't convinced by Thomas-Rasset's defense, came down in the middle at $80,000.

Could They Still Settle?

Ars Technica's Nate Anderson points out that RIAA spokesperson, Cara Duckworth, told reporters that the recording industry would still be willing to settle with Thomas-Rasset.

It seems like the RIAA is mostly interested in setting a precedent here, and if the two parties do eventually settle on a much smaller number (typically these cases ended in $5000 settlements), it surely wouldn't get the attention this current verdict received, leaving most of the public under the impression that a $80,000 fine per shared song is a real possibility.

Hard Drives, Best Buy, Kazaa, Terrastar, and Soft Drinks

There are considerable holes in Thomas' story, however. Among other things, she took her computer to Best Buy to get her hard drive replaced under warranty, exactly two weeks after MediaSentry informed her that she had been caught sharing these files. She then went ahead and brought this new drive in as evidence and swore under oath that the hard drive had been in the computer since 2004. According to a witness from Best Buy at today's trial, the drive must have been dead when Thomas took it in for repair, but it would be impossible to tell if she broke it accidentally (as she claims), or if this was done on purpose (breaking a hard drive is pretty easy, after all).

During the first day of her retrial, however, an expert witness who examined Thomas's computer also noted that an external hard drive had been hooked up to the computer, a fact that was new to the defense attorney.

Thomas' defense lawyers also produced a list of Thomas' purchases at Best Buy, but, as our friends at Ars Technica point out, if this was meant to show that Thomas was still buying a lot of music, this plan backfired, as she had bought a lot of soft drinks (seriously?), DVDs, and video games at Best Buy, but only one CD.

Thomas also generally used 'terrastar' as her handle, and the files on Kazaa were shared under that name. Given that Thomas' computer was password protected, what's the chance of somebody else using her login? In addition, Thomas also claims that she had never heard of Kazaa before this whole affair began.

It will be for the jury to decide if she is really guilty of these charges (judging from what we have seen, our best guess is that she will be found guilty), but the real problem isn't even really about her guilt or innocence. The real question here is if she really inflicted over $200,000 in damages by sharing 24 songs, as the music industry claims (or any damage at all). When the previous judge, Judge Michael Davis, Chief Justice of the Minnesota District Court, granted Thomas this retrial, he argued that the actual cost of the songs would be under $54 and implored Congress to address these damages, which he considered disproportionate, especially because Thomas didn't try to profit from her act.

BayTSP, a Los Gatos, CA-based company, is best known for putting the cease-and-desist smackdown on peer-to-peer copyright violators. The site serves infringement information forms to offending parties on behalf of the copyright holders. Think of them as the online debt collectors of the BitTorrent universe, with all the information security risk that implies.

If the information were secure, this might be fine. However, in some monumental lapse of judgement, the entire site was left open to search spiders and accordingly indexed by Google, allowing anyone with hackerish leanings ample opportunity to create all kinds of mischief.

A Google search for "'infringement information' site:baytsp.com" yields distressing results. Some of the pages have been removed, but you can still have a look at the cached versions:

Whoops!

Not only have the forms been online for Google and the waiting world to view; the forms could also be completed and submitted online by just about anyone.

More technically savvy tricksters could send infringement notices of their own. "And, on top of that," the TechDirt blogger writes, "some have discovered that BayTSP's site has some scripting vulnerabilities such that you could create a fake complaint and get people to, say, download malware or enter credit card data."

Although this recent debacle is simply one more PR disaster for the media industries themselves, my first thoughts were echoed by TechDirt commenter Mechwarrior: "Once this hits 4chan, it's over."

This appointment of Verrilli rounds out a Department of Justice that is now stocked with pro-copyright, RIAA/MPAA lawyers. Neil MacBride, for example, another new associate deputy attorney general, once led the BSA's nopiracy.com efforts, a program that tried to get employees to blow the whistle about the use of illegal software in their businesses.

DSLReports notes that Obama's own ethics rules would prohibit these appointees from directly working on copyright issues, as they previously represented the entertainment industry in these cases, but it is somewhat disconcerting that the Obama administration would pick so many industry insiders for these positions. We would have hoped that the administration had chosen a set of appointees with a more progressive attitude towards copyright.

CC-licensed images courtesy of flickr users MikeBlogs and jemsweb.

Today, the Harvard legal team representing Tenenbaum commented on the appeal pointing out that if the RIAA truly wants to educate people it should be embracing the narrowcast. The appeal really does beg the question: does the RIAA really want its voice heard by the masses?

Joel Tenenbaum, a 25-year old graduate student at Boston University received a notice in 2003 accusing him of downloading seven songs via a P2P service. The notice asked for a settlement of $3,500, Tenenbaum offered $500; the offer was declined.

Four years later, Tenenbaum received a complaint to appear in court. He filed an answer with a counterclaim asserting abuse of federal power and that the excessive damages were unconstitutional. This time around, Tenenbaum offered to settle for $5,000 and again the offer was declined; opposing council was asking for $10,500.

Now the RIAA wants over one million dollars.

The Joel Fights Back Dream Team

Enter Professor Charles Nesson and his team of Harvard Law students, who last month filed a motion asking the judge to allow audio-visual coverage of the trial proceedings over the Internet. Last week, Judge Gertner granted the motion (PDF) stating:

"In many ways, this case is about the so-called Internet Generation -- the generation that has grown up with computer technology in general, and the internet in particular, as commonplace." Additionally, Judge Gertner points out "It is reportedly a generation that does not read newspapers or watch the evening news, but gets its information largely, if not almost exclusively, over the internet."

Yesterday, Torrent Freak pointed out that the RIAA is appealing (PDF) the motion, pointing to a statement by RIAA's Cara Duckworth: "While this might be an interesting academic exercise for the professor and his class, there's been real world consequences for those who create music."

The point Ms. Duckworth seems to be missing is that there is a real world consequence for those who want to listen to music as well. We can only hope the appeal will be denied and the Harvard Dream Team gets the opportunity to bring this significant trial to the Web.

Why This is Important

The fines are hugely inappropriate. The Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 sets damages of $750 to $30,000 for each infringement, and as much as $150,000 for a willful violation. The Act is old. Particularly when you look at it from the fast paced lane of the Web; change is clearly needed.

The RIAA managed to score some points last month when it announced it would no longer target individuals and instead work more closely with ISPs to identify alleged copyright infringers. Unfortunately they also mentioned they would continue with cases already underway, and the Tenenbaum case falls into that category.

If the Internet feed goes ahead, it will be provided by the Courtroom View Network and streamed on the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School where it is scheduled to go live on Thursday Jan. 22 at 2 pm ET.

At the end of the day, it appears the RIAA has confused itself. If it is serious in wanting to educate the public on the business and legal issues facing the music industry - and copyright in general - it must get in front of the public and speak up; it cannot hide behind bureaucracy any longer. Living in the Internet age we know it's time that organizations with such antiquated ideologies catch up; problem is - when will they work it out?

This arrangement was brokered by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and, at its core, resembles the RIAA's deal with a number of colleges.

It's Not that Easy

We are happy to see the flood of lawsuits against file sharers come to an end, but we also think that there are some problems with this plan, which, of course, is mostly geared towards allowing the RIAA to save on legal fees while being able to reach far more people by simply sending an email to an ISP.

More importantly, however, we agree with Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who argues that this will mean that people won't be able to access the Internet "based on allegations of breaking a law that have not been evaluated in a court of law."

It is still a bit hard to flully evaluate this deal without knowing the exact details and which ISPs actually agreed to this, but, as most people could have told them a long time ago, the RIAA has clearly decided that its current approach wasn't working, as overall music sales have continued to decline, while file sharing has only increased.

In the original trial, the jury was instructed by U.S. District Judge Michael Davis that evidence for the fact that the music on Thomas' computer was actual distributed to anybody was not necessary. Instead, for the jury to find Thomas guilty, all it needed was evidence that she was "making copyrighted sound recordings available." The judge has now decided that this instruction was wrong and has granted Thomas a new trial.

This new trial will most likely put a stronger burden on the RIAA to prove that Thomas not only made files accessible, but that those files were actually downloaded from her computer. The judge also makes it clear that downloads by the RIAA or MediaSentry (the investigative arm of the RIAA) can constitute infringement. However, because it is impossible to know if the jury used the erroneous instruction as the basis for its verdict instead of the fact that the RIAA provided evidence for possible distribution, the judge has granted Thomas a new trial.

Still Guilty?

During Thomas' original trial, her lawyer argued that she never actually shared any songs. Her hard drive, which was presented as evidence, was clean because Best Buy replaced it two weeks after she received her first notice from the RIAA (though she originally told her lawyer that it was replaced one or two months before she received the notice). It is also noteworthy that Thomas' Kazaa login, which was linked to her IP address by the RIAA, was the same as the username she used for her email and MySpace accounts.

Based on this, and the fact that the RIAA can use its own downloads as evidence, we still assume that a new jury will find Thomas guilty of copyright infringement. Hopefully, though, this new jury will take a closer look at the ridiculously high fines per song the first jury awarded to the RIAA.