Digital Media

Cable giant Comcast announced that it's working with media conglomerate Time Warner to deliver cable TV shows via the Internet for cable TV subscribers.

The companies announced on Wednesday that they will be testing a new service this summer offered by Comcast called On Demand Online. About 5,000 Comcast customers will be involved in the test. And they will get access to some of Time Warner's most popular TV shows from its TNT and TBS networks at no additional charge.

The companies plan to continue to work together to get more of Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting content on the Web for on-demand viewing, Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner, said during a press conference in New York on Wednesday.

The On Demand Online trial will test a new authentication technology that will allow secured access to the content.

Comcast's CEO Brian Roberts said he expects other networks to participate as the trial expands. Bewkes also said that Time Warner will work with other TV distributors, such as telephone companies and satellite companies, to distribute its video content in similar trials.

Comcast's plan is designed to provide TV networks and movie studios a secure way to distribute their movies and TV shows to a wider audience via the Internet. The way the service works is that people will only be able to access content if they have a cable TV subscription. But the service will work over any Internet provider, so that a Comcast TV subscriber could access video-on-demand services available through his paid TV package using Verizon's DSL service, for example.

Subscribers will only have access to content that is included in their cable package. For example, this means that viewers who pay for HBO could be allowed to get HBO shows and movies on demand via a broadband connection. But if a subscriber doesn't pay for HBO, that content won't be accessible via the service.

Comcast has already been experimenting with putting cable TV shows that haven't been available online on its Fancast Web site. And Time Warner Cable has also offered some HBO shows over the Internet in certain markets for a trial it's been testing.

Bewkes and Roberts emphasized during the press conference that the new service was about giving consumers free access to content via the Web. But journalists at the event and on the conference call pointed out that the service isn't really free since users must already subscribe to a paid TV service to get access to the content.

This is different from services such as Hulu.com, which is owned by NBC Universal and News Corp, and CBS' TV.com. (CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.) These Web sites offer broadcast TV shows via the Web for free after the shows have aired. Hulu even offers some cable TV shows.

But what Comcast and Time Warner are talking about is putting premium cable programming on the Web. Networks and movie studios have been reluctant to offer their content online because they fear piracy. They also have been uncertain about how to monetize their most valuable content.

But Roberts said that the authentication technology Comcast will use in its trial helps alleviate these fears because it not only authenticates using a username and password, but it goes one step further to ensure that the user accessing the content is really permitted to access that piece of content. And Bewkes said that new advertising models will be developed to help ensure that content owners get top dollar for their movies and TV shows.

Some critics view this move as a defensive one as cable operators and cable networks fear that as more content makes its way online--legally and otherwise--that many viewers will cut the cable cord and watch TV via the Internet. But Bewkes downplayed this concern saying that paid TV subscribership has increased every year for the last 30 years and that he doesn't see this trend slowing anytime soon.

Instead he said that this new initiative is really a way to give consumers more choice to watch what they want, when they want it and where they want regardless of device. While he concedes that most TV viewing is done today on an actual TV, he also said that viewers may want to watch TV shows on mobile phones. And this new model will allow for that as well.

France's controversial attempt to crack down on Internet piracy was dealt a setback Wednesday when that country's highest legal authority struck down a provision that would have denied Internet access to those who repeatedly download copyrighted material illegally.

The French Constitutional Council rejected a key provision that would have given a newly created government agency the authority to cut off Internet access to those deemed to be copyright scofflaws after two warnings. The council said "free access to public communication services on line" was a human right that only a judge should have the power to disconnect.

The "three strikes" measure, which was approved in May by the French National Assembly with the support of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, would have punished digital pirates by suspending Internet service if they were caught illegally sharing copyrighted material. The legislation would have created a new government agency known as HADOPI (the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet), which would have been tasked with sending notices to illegal file sharers.

Suspected offenders would have received two warnings about their illegal activities and on the third suspected offense, their Internet access would have been disconnected for anywhere from two months to a year. Users would also have been put on a blacklist preventing them from subscribing to another ISP.

Consumer and free speech advocates opposed the legislation, arguing that it would deny accused Internet pirates the right to challenge the government's charges in court. Opponents of the legislation also feared that it would pave the way for governments to violate its citizens' personal privacy rights.

The legislation, considered one of the most aggressive digital antipiracy regulations, proved to be quite controversial in France and throughout the world. As a pre-emptive measure, the European Parliament passed a measure prohibiting EU governments from terminating a user's Internet access without a court order.

The entertainment industry has for years lobbied for more active policing of the Internet, but France is one of the only countries to put together such stringent legislation. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, instead are encouraging partnerships between ISPs and the entertainment industry to fight piracy.

At least one major ISP in the U.S., AT&T, has already agreed to work with the music industry by sending notices to consumers suspected of illegally distributing copyrighted content. And in the U.K., ISPs have agreed to help the entertainment industry fight piracy in lieu of new legislation.

It looks like music-playing software, such as iTunes, but it's also a kind of digital recorder.

Just press record and Chilirec grabs music from up to 100 Internet radio stations simultaneously, based on your music preferences, for free and legally.

Chilirec CEO Carina Dreifeldt

(Credit: Chilirec)

"We have had our law firm verify in detail that this is a recorder which is legally ok," Chilirec CEO and co-founder Carina Dreifeldt told CNET News.

Chilirec is yet another digital music venture from Sweden, where a debate on piracy and copyright issues seems to have inspired alternatives such as Spotify and Tunerec, all offering listening for free.

Tapping into lots of Internet radio stations, Chilirec software records dozens of songs every minute, adding up to thousands of songs on your hard drive in a single day. The legality of this and other similar software such as Ripcast and StationRipper is based on the right to record music and make a few copies for personal use.

"The hitch is that the individual must perform the actual recording," explained Dreifeldt.

This is the reason why Chilirec now launches a software that runs on users' PCs. In October 2007, an earlier test version was launched in a cloud-based model, with a patent filed for the technology.

In the cloud-based model, each user had his or her own disk space on Chilirec's servers and managed the recordings via the Internet with the PC serving as a kind of remote control. The service soon became very popular.

But record companies considered this a service in which Chilirec was making the recordings and thus Chilirec was making copyright-protected material available illegally, since licenses weren't paid.

A similar case regards the U.S. cable provider Cablevision's network-based DVR.

"We could either fight and go to court, or transform the product from a cloud-based model to a personal recorder," Dreifeldt said.

As Chilirec didn't want to go up against the recording industry, the cloud-based model was abandoned at the end of 2008, at least for now. Dreifeldt expressed some disappointment over the industry's standpoint.

"We wanted to cooperate with the record industry. The basic idea was to have a place where you could listen to the world's music, and (then) if you wanted to download a song with better quality and without radio jingles," you could, she said. That would give the record industry more music-selling opportunities.

The new software, a second beta version, was initially released only in Swedish, and the full Web site at Chilirec.com can currently only be reached from Sweden. The software is free to use until the end of August. But eventually, Chilirec plans to offer both a free advertising-based version and a premium version that would cost about one euro a month.

CNET News gave the software a try and loaded our hard drive with a couple thousand songs in a few hours, even after narrowing the genre down to jazz.

Recorded songs are stored as MP3s and quality varies with different radio stations. Sometimes a song starts off with a radio jingle or with the end of another song.

Users can choose from a long list of radio stations and, in addition to genres, can narrow recordings to categories like "most played on radio in the U.K."

It's also possible to copy various top lists on the Internet as playlists, and to explore music already stored on the hard drive.

Chilirec is Java based and runs in the browser. Initially only Windows is supported, but Dreifeldt told Cnet News that versions for Mac and Linux will be coming later.

Last December, the music industry's message to song writers, publishers, and musicians was that antipiracy help was on the way. Hopes soared after the major labels announced that they had convinced a group of telecoms to work with them.

Filing lawsuits against individuals accused of illegal file sharing was, for the most part, a thing of the past, said the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group representing the top music companies. The new strategy was to enlist Internet service providers, the gatekeepers of the Web, to issue a series of warnings meant to increase pressure on alleged pirates in what the RIAA called a "graduated response." Under the plan, those subscribers who refused to heed warnings could eventually see their Web connection suspended.

Six months later, the music industry is still waiting to hear from the RIAA which ISPs have explicitly agreed to work with the association. When the RIAA first announced its new antipiracy project, it didn't name partners. Behind the scenes, industry insiders assured the media that the group would disclose the names of partner ISPs "within weeks." Six months later, however, not one ISP has publicly acknowledged working with the RIAA on a "graduated response."

RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol

(Credit: Declan McCullagh)

That there are still no announced deals--and there's no guarantee the RIAA can sign any of the major broadband companies--indicates that at best the big recording companies may have spoken too soon when they said broadband providers would help, says one ISP executive. Ironically, at a time when many figured the RIAA had finally hit upon a compelling way to go after music piracy, the association's copyright protection efforts may be more toothless than ever.

"(The RIAA) has tried various ways to turn ISPs and other intermediaries into their own Internet cops," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Internet users. "What the ISPs appear to be saying is that this isn't our job."

To be sure, the RIAA continues to pitch its plan to ISPs, numerous sources have told CNET News. AT&T has launched tests of a graduated response--everything, that is, but service interruption. The telecom said it would never shut off a customer's service without a court order. The recording companies may soon announce some kind of agreement with one of the ISP trade groups. But this won't bind the group's members and the RIAA will still need to strike deals with individual companies.

"We have been working slowly but surely, directly and through the offices of (New York Attorney General Andrew) Cuomo, with virtually every major ISP on common approaches," said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman in an e-mail. "During the past six months, a number of different ISPs have forwarded nearly half a million RIAA notices to P2P infringers. They had not done that before last winter. A number of individual ISPs now argue that notices alone are proving to have a sufficient deterrent impact."

What the RIAA seems to be suggesting here is that it doesn't need a threat of service termination for a graduated response to be effective. This, however, conflicts with what music executives say in private. They want a carrot and stick approach. They know they have to offer the public inexpensive and easy-to-use alternatives to illegal peer-to-peer sites. They also believe chronic abusers won't stop without the threat of a serious punitive consequence.

So, why did the RIAA announce the ISP-based program without any ISPs on board so many months ago?

Some RIAA critics have speculated that the December announcement was a smokescreen to cover the music industry's retreat from the 5-year-old and highly controversial strategy of filing copyright lawsuits against individuals accused of copyright violations. The theory goes something like this: the RIAA needed a face-saving way to walk away from the litigation, which resulted in more than 30,000 people being sued, a fortune in legal fees, a huge public relations black eye, and didn't do all that much to stop piracy.

Ernesto, founder of the blog TorrentFreak, which focuses on file sharing, was always skeptical of the RIAA's announcement. He noted that some telecoms have voluntarily sent warning notices to subscribers accused of illegally downloading songs for years, while other companies refused. He says he sees nothing new.

"Yes, the RIAA, MPAA and other outfits do plan to send copyright infringement warnings to ISPs," Ernesto wrote in March, "but they've been doing so for at least half a decade. Every other month these Hollywood lobbyists pitch their antipiracy efforts to the public...this doesn't mean, however, that something is about to change."

According to the ISP executive who asked for anonymity because he's involved in negotiations with the music sector, the RIAA's tactics in dealing with the ISPs have been too heavy handed.

The executive complained that the RIAA has tried to use Andrew Cuomo to push the ISPs into helping. But Cuomo doesn't have the kind of political muscle to sway the major ISPs when they are acting well within the law, the executive said. There's nothing in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that requires ISPs to send their own warning letters to subscribers.

And some ISPs say the DMCA is unclear about when they must terminate service of repeat offenders. AT&T executives say they won't cut off someone's Web access based solely on evidence supplied by the recording industry and will only do so after receiving a court order.

"We keeping hearing about how (Cuomo) is supposed to make this happen," said the executive. "You don't see much changing, do you?

So if Cuomo isn't enough, why don't the music labels appeal to Congress to legislate the ISPs into submission? That's easy. The ISPs have much more influence in Washington than the music sector. There's also little public sympathy for recording stars, who are often perceived to be rolling in money--even if this is a reality for a tiny fraction of working musicians.

In an interview with CNET last week, Paul McGuinness, manager of the rock band U2, says that ISPs have for a long time profited from selling broadband to file sharers and have little interest in taking action without seeing financial reward. But he sees some progress around the globe.

"Perhaps broadband subscription sales are saturated in many territories and the ISPs are belatedly but realistically now turning to building revenue collection businesses with the content owners," McGuinness said. "I just hope it's not too late."

Cohn, from EFF, sees it differently. To her, cutting off someone's Internet connection for file sharing is like refusing to sell shoes to someone accused of jaywalking.

"Every day that passes we realize how important Internet connectivity is to people's lives," Cohn said. "The RIAA looks so out of step with what most people think is a reasonable response to (copyright) infringing behavior. Even to the people that believe we're locked into this 19th century view of copyright law, the RIAA looks hysterical."

U2's manager continues to push ISPs and technologists to take responsibility for protecting digital content.

(Credit: U2.com)

Paul McGuinness, manager of the iconic band U2, sees stronger copyright laws in France, the Pirate Bay on trial, U.S.-based Internet service providers doing more to protect music, and still he isn't satisfied.

In January 2008, McGuinness delivered a speech that would become a call to arms on both sides of the free-content debate. During his address to attendees of the Midem music conference, the largest recording industry trade show, McGuinness lashed out at the "hippy values" of technologists, accused ISPs of profiting "on the back" of music creators, called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act a "thieves charter" and criticized the big record companies for a "lack of foresight."

Last year, McGuinness, stuck one of the world's most popular and beloved rock bands almost dead into the center of the debate over piracy, copyright, and the role of Internet service providers in protecting music and movies from illegal file sharing. The fallout and criticism, much of which came from technologists and proponents of free content, hasn't shaken McGuinness from his views. In an interview with CNET News, McGuinness once again was critical of ISPs, calling some of their recent piracy-prevention efforts insincere and "illusory."

A year after McGuinness' speech, France this month adopted a "three strikes law," which calls for ISPs to suspend a subscriber's service if they are accused three times of pirating copyright material. Here in the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America promised in December that a group of ISPs had agreed to help the music industry protect content. Some ISPs already had adopted strict enforcement procedures and others have started testing "graduated responses." Still, six months later, no major broadband provider has publicly acknowledged working with the RIAA.

Paul McGuinness

(Credit: U2.com)

Question: What kind of impact did your Midem speech have?
McGuinness: Well, I suppose I had become over the years alarmed by the decline in the traditional music industry and I suppose to some extent that is typical of me or a characteristic of mine that I will freely confess is very much part of my own business thinking that the giant music corporations were there to be infiltrated and worked with rather than against.

Our own record deal with Island Records, which was eventually acquired by Polygram, and then acquired by Universal, gave us the opportunity to break U2 worldwide. Island in the early days had 19 different licensees around the world and we were still able to take the Joshua Tree album in 1987 to No. 1 in many countries, as many as 30. So the record company was not the enemy. It was there to be worked with. These extraordinary marketing and distribution machines were there to be utilized--if they would let you get your hands on their controls. That I suppose is what you try to ensure when you make your deal and improve it over the years. That is certainly what we did with U2. So, we never felt victimized by the industry. I know there have been many casualties along the way and there have been people who made bad deals.

But we never really saw ourselves as victims. We improved our commercial terms with our publishers and record company over the years and we've ended up in a situation where there is no sense of unfairness. In fact, there is a strong sense of partnership, which I know is unusual. U2 owns the masters of every song they ever recorded and copyright of every song they ever wrote. I know U2 is an unusual situation, but it's not impossible to get yourself into that sort of a situation. So, the industry has my support if you like--not in all its manifestations. I think it has made several massive strategic mistakes over the years, certainly with regard to the Internet, but I don't hate them.

Give us an update of where in your view the ISPs have changed?
McGuinness: Some of the progress has been illusory. The ISPs as a group make the noises that they are required to make when it comes to what is politically necessary or when there is a scare, say for instance, something about security or pornography or pedophilia on the Internet. That is when you will see a rapid reaction from the ISPs to defend themselves against any kind of legislation or intervention or monitoring. I'm not sure it's a sincere reaction very often because I think the ISPs, if you take them as a group, have for many years been much more interested in selling broadband subscriptions around the world than they have in doing what is right.

What I think is right for them and indeed the content makers, and that would include newspapers, book authors, movie makers, music makers, sports teams, the people who make the free content that ISPs are pumping through their pipes, deserve to be recompensed. Realistically the only way they are going to be recompensed is in partnership with ISPs, who after all, are collecting revenues from their subscribers.

And I think the tipping point is occurring round about now. Perhaps broadband subscription sales are saturated in many territories and the ISPs are belatedly but realistically now turning to building revenue collection businesses with the content owners. I just hope it's not too late.

Sometimes when we were discussing these matters, we would talk of who in the world could make the greatest change to this environment and the way people think about this. We frequently came back to Rupert Murdoch. He's is, of course, in the sports business. He is in the movie business. He is in the print content business. He's a content maker and distributor of enormous significance. I thought that it was very interesting that he recently predicted that print content would have to be paid for in the future and the advertising-supported model could now be described as a failure. That was a big tipping point as well. I think that speech of his or declaration was of enormous significance.

I suppose I hope it was a warning, a red light for the ISPs because I do not think they've been sincere in their attempts to work with governments or content owners to date. I think they could have done an awful lot more. All they have to do currently is make the right noises and things go on as before. But will it be too late? I know there are legislative events taking place in France and signs of them in other countries.

The Pirate Bay case is of enormous significance, because there you had some very murky individuals hiding behind these sort of hippy types who front Pirate Bay. But the businessmen behind them have a very sort of shady commercial and political background. So, I think I'd love to see it made coherent, but of course the Internet is International.

It's possible to locate a Pirate Bay-type operation in any part of the world. I think if copyright is to continue and to provide one of the basic building blocks of civilization, and I don't think that's putting it too strongly, there will have to be some sort of willing International support for creative people. And I use a very wide description of what creativity is. I include a football team, which used to fund part of their activities by selling their rights in Southeast Asia. The European football leagues are now available on the Internet when they used to sell those rights on TV.

People would tell me stuff over the last couple of years about the level of cynicism that perhaps exists with the ISPs industry. I'm sure you know what (Deep Packet Inspection) is. When it sometimes is said that it's impossible to get under the hood of the Internet, that is not true. It's taking place on a massive scale anyway for other purposes and for it to take place in order to reward creative people I think would be perfectly possible. But will it happen?

Are we doomed to a future of bad demos and reality TV shows? That's the way the graph is descending.

Do you think ISPs are the last hope of copyright protection?
McGuinness: I think so, yes. Well, the ISPs and indeed, their airborne, their satellite equivalents. I think they bear a huge responsibility to put things right. They ought to want content and they ought to be taking responsibility for making sure that it occurs and it is remunerated.

Do you appreciate what Radiohead and Trent Reznor are doing, trying to find a new paradigm?
I admire what Radiohead have done tremendously in seeking a new model. They would take the view, and I would share it, that perhaps price has been a big problem for the music business. The music business has tried to hold onto a price that was unrealistic for a long time now. I think wider distribution of lower priced things is probably the future.

The feeling in the free-music community is that musicians have profited for a long time. What do you say to the person who says U2 has made plenty of money so why are you complaining?
McGuinness: That's true of U2. It's always very difficult for me to make the case for what's right and wrong because people just say: 'Well, U2 don't need any more money.' That's true, but I am talking about the right and wrong of it here because even though we have the biggest touring attraction in the world, that's not true for everyone.

One of the reasons we have a worldwide audience is that we were able, we usually have, the biggest touring attraction, but that's not true for everyone. It's important to remember the traditional worldwide star-making functions of the big record companies. There's nothing on the horizon to replace that.

That was what I was always interested in personally as a businessman and manager. We as a band, U2, were excited about the idea of being big all over the world. We freely admit that. I don't know how people will do that in the future. I think the universality of pop music that we've become used to in the last few decades that's in danger. There is, of course, local repertoires, music in every part of the world. I'm not a mad imperialist.

I'm not trying to get everyone to listen to the same kind of music, but the Beatles caught the imagination of nearly everyone in the world. So did Elvis. There have been a few other examples, like U2. I'd hate to see that stop happening.

What do you see as the role of technology? What would you say to technologists who are interested in digital music?
I would really like them to willingly go to the movie studios and the music companies and say this is how we can collect money from the people who are listening to your stuff and watching your movies. We acknowledge that it's the fair thing to do and we have some responsibility for doing it. Let's do it together and let's make some money. I've heard the estimates that half of traffic across the Internet is technically illegal non-paid-for content. That can't go on. It's such a waste. Future generations of artists will face a vacuum where payment used to be. Artists are entitled to get paid, whatever kind of art they do, the same way technologists are entitled to get paid.

But if the technology you develop prevents artists from being remunerated then there's something wrong with it. I'd like to get a moral tone into the discussion. I think there is a big moral question for civilization. It's not good enough to say that the Internet is free to all and there should be no restrictions on its use. I had the experience last year of making a speech to a group of (Members of European Parliament) in Brussels and they were very hostile to the idea of any kind of monitoring or regulation of the Internet, which they regarded as the precursor to a form of taxation. And of course, as politicians, they were against any kind of increased taxation. But it's not taxation. It's paying for something that people are consuming.

One official in Brussels, a senior Brussels civil servant, came up to me after I made the speech. I was there with a small group of lobbyists and he said to me 'In Brussels there are probably five or six lobbyists representing the content worldwide. There are thousands representing the ISPs, telcos and the technology industries.' He said it's really overwhelming the forces you have against you.

I started to glimpse the politics of it at that stage. I hope that our politicians, our journalists our media gain a sense of how much we stand to lose if free prevails. Ultimately free is the enemy of good.

Australian film and music studios have claimed a victory in their war against copyright offenses, with a Sydney man convicted for selling pirated content last week.

Yong Hong Lin, owner of a music and movie store in Eastwood, Sydney, was found guilty of 15 copyright offenses in Sydney's District Court last week, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) announced in a statement distributed Monday. Lin is scheduled to be sentenced on August 21.

The jury acquitted Lin of 16 of the 31 offenses he was initially charged with.

Police had raided Lin's facility on February 27, the copyright organizations said, finding more than 16,000 pirated music and movie discs offered for sale. Some were allegedly imported from China, and some burned locally.

AFACT and MIPI said the charges were the "first copyright matters to proceed on indictment and be heard before a jury" in Australia. "Mr Lin has been judged by 12 of his fellow Australians and they have found his conduct to be criminal; now he must accept the consequences," said MIPI investigations manager Dean Mitchell.

Neil Gane, AFACT director of operations, said pirates should be in "no doubt" that what he called their criminal actions would be thoroughly investigated, shut down by police, and judged in court.

The copyright duo said criminal penalties for copyright infringement were up to $60,500 and five years imprisonment per offense for individuals, and up to $302,500 for corporations.

Renai LeMai of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

Updated at 11:20 p.m. PDT with comment from target of attack.

Correction at 9:30 a.m. PDT, May 13: This post initially mischaracterized Radiotjanst, which is a state-owned company responsible for collecting licensing fees for Swedish public service television. And it misnamed a team leader at the enforcement authority Kronofogdemyndigheten. His name is Fredrik Eriksson.

High bank fees and a considerable amount of extra bookkeeping work. That's the potential burden facing Peter Danowsky, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers in the landmark Pirate Bay case, due to a scheme to deplete his law firm's bank account.

Danowsky represented the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and several record companies in the trial, and he now seems to be the target of some kind of revenge plan.

The plan surfaced on the Web site internetavgift.se recently and has already been dubbed "DDo$" for Distributed Denial of Dollars. That's a reference to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which deluge a Web server with simultaneous requests from multiple computers.

In this case, Danowsky's law firm's account at the Nordea bank is being targeted. The site internetavgift.se--it's unclear who runs it--is challenging people to send 1 Swedish krona (about 13 cents) to the account. The site instructs participants to cite "purchase of media" as a payment reference, and the plan is making its way around Twitter and blogs.

The scheme may turn out to be expensive for Danowsky's firm--or at least that's what the tricksters hope. According to the bank's rules (PDF in Swedish) companies can receive up to 1,000 payments a year for free. Further incoming payments will be charged 1.70 kronor (about 21 cents) each.

However, according to the law, each transaction, free or not, has to be entered in the law firm's books, which implies a lot of manpower.

In addition, Danowsky theoretically might end up having to refund every single payment. According to internetavgift.se, Swedish law requires the immediate refund of payments that have been made inaccurately, which each person having sent money can later claim. The site suggests that participants go that route, presumably to create even more work for Danowsky's firm.

Danowsky told CNET News he thinks harassment is the likely intention.

"A number of small amounts have been deposited in our account and the names of those who have made the deposits appear on the payment notice. We still haven't taken any action, but a police report...is possible," Danowsky said.

Peter Danowsky

The Web site points out that the money has nothing to do with the $3.8 million in damages the four defendants have been sentenced to pay. It says instead that it's a new fee to be paid by anyone who uses the Internet--"internetavgift" means Internet fee, though no such fee exists.

Probably not coincidentally, the design of the internetavgift.se Web site copies that of Radiotjanst, a state-owned company responsible for collecting licensing fees for Swedish public service television. Radiotjanst was not a party in the Pirate Bay litigation.

Though it is unknown who is behind the so-called DDo$, the domain name internetavgift.se is registered by "svarth3024-00001" suggesting that one of the four defendants sentenced, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, might be responsible.

It's not clear how many people, if any, have followed the instructions and sent money to the firm.

Meanwhile, Swedish authorities are now moving to collect the damages from the four defendants. The sentence has been appealed by all four defendants but until the Swedish High Court of Justice has made its decision, the damages are to be paid.

"We will start to look for assets on Wednesday if no money has been paid by then. Money in a bank account is an asset, and if we find it we will seize it," Fredrik Eriksson, a team leader at the enforcement authority Kronofogdemyndigheten, told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

According to the newspaper, defendant Peter Sunde, spokesman for The Pirate Bay, has already put his payment form for damages in the shredder, saying "I don't have this money."

The only defendant who seems to have any considerable assets is Carl Lundström, who has offered technical services and infrastructure to The Pirate Bay. According to Per E. Samuelsson, Lundström's defense lawyer, he might end up having to pay the whole amount as the damages are to be paid in "solidarity."

The French National Assembly ignored a vote last week by the European Parliament and approved its "Création et Internet" three-strikes bill on Tuesday.

The measure supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy punishes digital pirates by suspending Internet service if they are caught illegally sharing copyrighted material. The vote comes a little more than a month after the same government body rejected the proposal.

It seems the vote by the French Assembly is in direct opposition to the European Parliament, which last week passed a measure prohibiting EU governments from terminating a user's Internet access without a court order. The European Parliament also adopted an amendment that said, "Internet access is a fundamental right such as the freedom of expression and the freedom to access information."

The bill passed in France's National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, by a narrow margin of 296 to 233. The legislation essentially creates a new government agency known as HADOPI (the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet), which will be tasked with sending notices to illegal file sharers.

The way it would work is that suspected offenders would receive two warnings about their illegal activities and on the third suspected offense, their Internet access would be cut off for anywhere from two months to a year. Users will also be put on a "three-strikes" blacklist so that they can't sign up for service from another ISP.

The legislation has proven to be quite controversial in France and throughout the world. It is considered one of the most aggressive digital antipiracy regulations out there, which has helped it win the support of the music and movie industries.

But consumer and free speech advocates have opposed the passage of such legislation, arguing that it denies accused Internet pirates the right to challenge the government's charges in court. Opponents of the legislation also fear that it will pave the way for governments to violate its citizens' personal privacy rights.

The bill had been expected to pass the General Assembly in France in early April, but Socialists, who opposed the measure, rallied at the last moment, and surprisingly defeated the measure.

It was reintroduced to the assembly in late April and was debated and discussed until the vote Tuesday.

Even though the entertainment industry for years has lobbied for more active policing of the Internet, France is one of the only countries to put together such stringent legislation. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, have not introduced strict legislation yet, but instead are encouraging partnerships between ISPs and the entertainment industry to fight piracy.

At least one major ISP in the U.S., AT&T, has already agreed to work with the music industry by sending notices to consumers suspected of illegally distributing copyrighted content. And in the U.K., ISPs have agreed to help the entertainment industry fight piracy in lieu of new legislation.

But other countries, such as Sweden are also taking a heavy handed approach to fighting digital piracy. France's strict piracy legislation comes less than a month after a Swedish court found the founders of the peer-to-peer site The Pirate Bay guilty of infringing copyright. The four defendants were each sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.6 million) in damages to copyright holders. The Pirate Bay has already been mentioned as one of the sites that could be easily taken out under the new French law.

The judge had a conflict of interest--that's one argument that will be used in appealing the Pirate Bay verdict, an attorney of one of the defendants told CNET News on Friday.

Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström were all found guilty last month of having assisted in making 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site.The four were sentenced to one year in jail and ordered to pay $3.6 million in damages to copyright holders.

Now all four are appealing the decision in separate cases, according to Swedish technology weekly Ny Teknik (in Swedish).

"The first thing the high court of justice Svea Hovrätt must decide is if the judge has had a conflict of interest, Peter Althin, Peter Sunde's defense attorney, said in an phone interview from Sweden.

Peter Sunde, one of four defendants appealing the decision in The Pirate Bay case.

(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)

As CNET has reported, Judge Tomas Norström, who ruled against the Pirate Bay defendants, is a member of two copyright organizations. Some allege his membership is a conflict of interest.

CNET was unable to reach Norström on Friday to comment for this story. In a previous interview with Swedish daily Dagens nyheter (in Swedish), he said the accusations were wrong and that he was only sharing his competence.

"To spread knowledge about a legal area is one thing, to promote is something different," Norström said.

But Althin said he does not accept this argument. "If you are a member of an organization whose purpose is to strengthen the copyright holders' interest together with the accusing companies in the trial, then the trust is broken, considering impartiality," Althin said.

Peter Althin is Sunde's defense attorney.

In Sunde's appeal, Althin is asking the high court of justice to grant a retrial in the district court of Stockholm. In addition to the alleged conflict of interest, Sunde's appeal objects to the verdict's conclusion that his company helped develop The Pirate Bay. Rather, he has only admitted being a spokesman for the site. Sunde also says the damages to copyright holders were too high and calculated in an unreasonable way, according to Althin.

Also, Althin says that even if his client's company was found to have had a development role, Pirate Bay is not responsible for the crime of assisting copyright violation.

"Pirate Bay does not encourage anybody to commit a crime. Cars can be used for speeding and drunk driving, but no car manufacturer is held responsible for that," Althin said.

The appeals are now to be evaluated by the high court of justice, Svea Hovrätt.