The latest MPAA copyright infringement suits expand on a new U.S. film industry initiative that first targeted individual file-swappers. This time, the defendants are operators of servers supporting BitTorrent, the program of choice for online sharers of large files.

Hollywood movie studios on Tuesday sued scores of operators of computer servers that help relay digital movie files across online file-sharing networks.

"Today's actions are aimed at individuals who deliberately set up and operate computer servers and Web sites that, by design, allow people to infringe copyrighted motion pictures," said John Malcolm, head of the Motion Picture Association of America's antipiracy unit.

"These people are parasites, leeching off the creativity of others," Malcolm added. "Their illegal conduct is brazen and blatant."

The suits target computer servers that index movies for BitTorrent users, but Malcolm said the MPAA is eyeing similar action against other servers as well.

"By bringing these suits, the MPAA runs the risk of pushing the tens of millions of file sharers to more decentralized technologies that will be harder to police," von Lohmann said.

More details have emerged on the arrest of a German lawyer and three businessmen who masterminded an international warez network and grossed €1m.

A spokesman for German anti-piracy organisatin GVU told Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel on Friday (17 Sept) that the crackdown may have been the biggest blow ever against internet pirates anywhere in the world.

Syndikus represents Firstway Medien GmbH, a German firm which released a hobbled version of the open source file sharing program eMule. The hacked eMule was disabled, and could only be activated once you paid for the product. Worse, the program couldn't be removed from Windows without corrupting the internet connection.

Even more remarkable is the reputation of Syndikus's partner Günther Freiherr von Gravenreuth (real name: Günter Werner Dörr) who, according to his own biography, advised the European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research and German Association for Entertainment Software. von Gravenreuth was behind the much publicised Tanja campaign against software piracy.

The anti pirating body called the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has declared a month's truce for companies using Pirated software in Pakisthana.

Otherwise the BSA will take "legal action" against the businesses and organisations using unauthorised software after the truce ends on December 30. We don't know how successful it will be in the North West Frontier. The rule of law doesn't appear to run there.

It is a moot point how affective such a carrot and stick approach would be. Not only is Pakisthana a great user of pirated software, according to the BSA, it is a key exporter. Pakistan now exports tens of millions of pirate CDs across the world. It is one of the largest sources of pirate disks in the world, reckons the BSA.

Last week, members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed 11 lawsuits against hundreds of people they accused of using file-sharing networks to share infringing copies of movies. However, the Federal Judge ruled the 'bulldozer' approach improper, ordering that the case should be put on hold for all but one of the defendants.

The MPAA sued groups of "Does" (John Doe) identified by numerical IP address and requested the discovery of names from the users' Internet Service Providers (ISPs). However, Judge William Alsup ruled that because claims against the 12 defendants were unrelated, suing them together into one big case was improper. "Such joinder may be an attempt to circumvent the filing fees by grouping defendants into arbitrarily-joined actions but it could nonetheless appear improper under Rule 20," the order states.

"Today Microsoft warned several Asian countries that using Linux could subject them to lawsuits, claiming that Linux violates '228 patents'. Apparently, Steve Ballmer believes he can enforce U.S. law in Asia." Ballmer is presumably speaking about this story. So, companies which sell insurance against lawsuits and companies which make competing products both warn of the dangers of using Linux. Maybe someone should point out that Microsoft is battling dozens of patent-infringement lawsuits itself, and any user of Microsoft software (including governments) could also be sued?

When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa — probably later this year — should he be welcomed? Or should he be charged with war crimes?

The mistreatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison is a clear contravention of the Geneva Accord. The U.S. is also deporting selected prisoners to camps outside of Iraq (another contravention). U.S. press reports also talk of shadowy prisons in Jordan run by the CIA, where suspects are routinely tortured. And the estimated civilian death toll of 100,000 may well contravene the Geneva Accords prohibition against the use of excessive force.

Then there is Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. says detainees there do not fall under the Geneva accords. That's an old argument.

In 1946, Japanese defendants explained their mistreatment of prisoners of war by noting that their country had never signed any of the Geneva Conventions. The Japanese were convicted anyway.

But a Canadian war crimes charge, too, would face many hurdles. Bush was furious last year when Belgians launched a war crimes suit in their country against him — so furious that Belgium not only backed down under U.S. threats but changed its law to prevent further recurrences.

Conservatives often accuse Hollywood of failing to pay heed to 'family values', but the Motion Picture Ass. of America's latest initiative is designed to split families right down the middle. The MPAA hopes that new software will encourage parents to turn their children over to the authorities as file-sharing felons.

The software, designed to identify potentially infringing material on the home PC, is part of the MPAA's war on file sharing and will be released for free by the MPAA at a later date. As expected, the MPAA filed its first John Doe suits against file sharers today.

But by hoping that anxious parents will install the software themselves, thus giving consent, the MPAA can get round its most pressing problem: that it doesn't really know who the infringers are. In every home, the MPAA hopes, is an informer: an anxious parent.

Everyone knows that buying and selling on eBay is precarious. Even eBay admits this and gives basic advice on its site that it believes helps eliminate most fraud.

Buyers and sellers agree not to go through the more secure PayPal system because it costs more to do so. So buyers take the risk of sending the money to the seller who either doesn't send the goods or sends shoddy or fake goods. The sellers protect themselves against prosecution by claiming loss, or disputing the buyer's version of events. The amounts involved - though not insignificant to the buyer - are too small for eBay to want to take the matter further.

There is one other common factor in all these stories. Though the buyers report the matter to eBay they are invariably frustrated at standard email responses and being steered towards a mediation system which costs the buyer £15 and even then may or may not lead to resolution. Alternatively, sellers can claim compensation through eBay and may get a maximum of £105 - if they claim between 30 and 90 days after the event and meet the criteria for payment.

An 11-year-old boy in central China took his mother to court for breaking a promise to buy him a computer if he did well at school, a news report said last Monday.

The woman told her son she would buy him a computer if he scored average marks of more than 94% for his school work, the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily reported.

However, she welshed on the deal when he achieved an average of 97%, telling him she could not afford to buy the computer, the newspaper said.

The schoolboy from Xingzheng, Henan province, then went to court asking a judge to make his mother honour the verbal agreement. At the hearing, the judge reconciled the mother and son.

According to the newspaper, the boy gained his knowledge of law after helping his parents with their small business.

The chaps at Perkins Coie law firm are unhappy that a registered member of the SuicideGirls site, a chap by the name of Runelateralus, has listed in his 'Interests' bio that he likes Metroid, Zelda and F-Zero - all Nintendo games. Nintendo is unhappy that its intellectual property is being used in conjunction with a site that is sexually explicit. Poor old Runey, it appears, simply wanted other porn viewers to know his gaming habits.

To say that Nintendo doesn't have a hope in hell of pulling this off, fnarr, would be an understatement. Americans benefit from very strong free speech laws, and since this is not a commercial use of the intellectual property by SuicideGirls, more an incidental mention, it will certainly fall within fair use guidelines - much as an academic is allowed to reference a copyrighted work for the purposes of criticism.