Apple iPad™ Australia 2011

Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated who are the music publisher and copyright manager for rap giant Eminem have filed another lawsuit against Apple for accused copyright infringement.  This is not the first time that Eminem has sued Apple over copyright issues leading to the statement "Apple rotten to the core."  In this suit they are stating that Apple did not have permission to sell Eminem's music through their website.  The dispute centers around the wording of a publishing contract that was drawn up at a time that digital distribution of music was not common and therefore no provisions were made at that time for using that vehicle for song sales.  The outcome of this case could effect thousands of other artists who also distribute through Apple Itunes.

France Tracking File Sharers

One of the problems that has haunted websites using the peer to peer file sharing system to allow users to download files is the issue of copyright infringement.  The more popular sites have millions of users sharing files across it's network and it becomes increasingly difficult to track and remove files that are breaking copyright laws.  This is one of the reasons it was announced "France tracking file sharing users".  In a heavily disputed decision it was allowed for French record companies to track those users sharing more than 50 files a day over a peer to peer network.  This may impact some downloading of files in France but is unlikely to have a major affect on those sharing the files who are responding in protest.

France Protecting Copyright

The headlines "France tracking file sharing users" comes as no surprise to those who are aware of the copyright issues surrounding sites that allow users to download music and movies over a peer to peer network.  These types of sites are themselves legal and allow users to share files from their computer to other users of the network who can then download these files to keep for themselves.  The problem comes when some users attempt to share files that are copyrighted across the network and other users download them.  For this reason France is putting a legal way in place for record companies to try and catch those who are breaching copyright in this way.