Driven by increased crackdowns on BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, software pirates are fast-moving their warez to file-hosting Web sites.

Sites such as RapidShare, Megaupload, and Hotfile let anonymous users upload large files such as cracked software for free.

Hyperlinks to the software can then be distributed by pirates via Web sites, instant messages, or social media sites such as Twitter, said Vic DeMarines, vice president of products at anti-piracy software vendor V.I. Labs.

November 2007 President Sarkozy proposes a "three strikes" law for France, meaning that people illegally copying music or films over the internet will be cut off after a third offence. [...]

May 2009 France's National Assembly passes the three-strikes law, but the measure, once seen as a potential solution worldwide, is not taken up by other countries. A month later the law is struck down by the country's constitutional court, and the measure has to be reworked so that cut-offs can only be implemented by court order. [...]

The UK government has taken Internet copyright-protection out of Ofcom's hands, and is rushing through measures that could cut off everyone at an address

There’s a disturbing new development in Australia. A law proposal was disclosed to the public that would get ISPs to spy on the contents of all communications to monitor for compliance. Presumably, the amendments would get Australian ISPs to monitor their networks for p2p activity and hand all their information to copyright holders.

As New Zealand mulls its options for dealing with alleged pirates under its proposed Section 92A legislation, FACT, a division of the MPAA, says it’s not happy with the current proposals of giving those wrongly accused a chance to go to arbitration since it would be too time consuming.

The motion-picture industry has spoken out against a New Zealand proposal to allow them to disconnect entire households from the Internet if one member is accused of copyright infringement; they want to be able to disconnect your Internet connection without giving you a chance to defend yourself in front of a judge because that would be "time consuming." Instead, they would like to be lord high executioner for your network connection, with the power to shut you out of the benefits of the network (freedom of speech, assembly and the press; access to school, health, family, work and government) without having to prove it in a real court of law.

France's highest legal authority struck down a key provision of a controversial law that would have cut off Internet access to people who repeatedly download copyrighted content illegally.

The decision is a setback for President Nicolas Sarkozy, who argued that the law was crucial to protecting artistic creation in the digital era. It was a victory for activists and Socialist politicians who bitterly opposed the law as an invasion of privacy. [...]

Jérémie Zimmerman, an activist who had opposed the law, called the decision "a great victory for citizens" and said that without the provision cutting off Internet access, the law was just a "big tax-sponsored spam machine."

France's highest court has inflicted an embarrassing blow to President Sarkozy by cutting the heart out of a law that was supposed to put France in the forefront of the fight against piracy on the internet.

The Constitutional Council declared access to the internet to be a basic human right, directly opposing the key points of Mr Sarkozy's law, passed in April, which created the first internet police agency in the democratic world.

The strongly-worded decision means that Mr Sarkozy's scheme has backfired and inadvertently boosted those who defend the free-for-all culture of the web.

The French proposed "Three-Strikes" initiative (HADOPI), which would have seen illegal broadband file-sharers being disconnected from their ISP for repeat activity following a warning, has been dealt a serious blow by the highest jurisdiction in France - The Constitutionnal Council. [...]

Word came through the grapevine today that France's "three strikes" HADOPI law has been struck down by the French Constitutional Council. While this is fantastic news, it's not exactly surprising--until this point, the constitutionality of the law had remained an open question. What's more, even if the law had survived the French Constitutional Council's scrutiny, it most certainly would have attracted the attention of the European Union, who in October of last year, passed an amendment prohibiting member states from implementing three strikes regimes. Luckily, the French Constitutional Council sided with the EU Parliament, going so far as to cite the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a founding document of the French Revolution [...]

Still, as Jérémie Zimmermann from La Quadrature du Net warns, Sarkozy might only be getting started when it comes to pushing the content industry's agenda. "The next law, LOPPSI, is already on tracks and will be about filtering the content on the Internet," Zimmerman writes. "Citizens must celebrate this great victory but remain watchful..."

You are killing our creative industries. "Downloading costs billions," said the Sun. "MORE than 7 million Brits use illegal downloading sites that cost the economy billions of pounds, government advisers said today. Researchers found more than a million people using a download site in ONE day and estimated that in a year they would use £120bn worth of material." [...]

Now I am always suspicious of this industry, because they have produced a lot of dodgy figures over the years. I also doubt that every download is lost revenue since, for example, people who download more also buy more music. I'd like more details. [...]

As some wonder if France's HADOPI bill would even be enforceable, the appeals process grinds on. [...]

This week in As The HADOPI Turns: Socialists! Frenchmen suing France! An estimate of takedown numbers that'll make you glad Christine Albanel isn't doling our your online time! Plus, evidence that it really can get worse. Très worse.

THE NATION that once chopped the head off a feckless king, and whose people gallantly resisted a fascist occupation, has just seen the liberté of its people betrayed by their own corrupt, corporate-owned politicians.