Quick Version: Sometimes e-mailing files to yourself or dumping stuff onto a USB drive gets old. Kensington’s plug-and-play USB cable makes sharing files between two computers stupidly easy. If you’ve used a USB port before, you’re pretty much set.

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In the wake of the FCC versus Comcast brouhaha, wherein Comcast has been accused of illegally slowing down connections to file sharing services like BitTorrent without informing its cable internet subscribers first, the Federal Communications Commission has ruled that Comcast acted outside of the law.

According to a report in the Washington Post, the five-member panel will formally vote this Friday, although three of the five members have said that they’ll vote against Comcast. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin “is not expected to fine Comcast, according to industry insiders and members of the FCC who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the ruling is still pending.”

The ruling is expected to set precedent for future complaints. Roger Entner of IAG Research says, "This is a slap on the wrist for Comcast, but it will be a cutting off of the hand for the next provider who violates rules." It’s important to note that the throttling BitTorrent connections isn’t the issue at hand, it’s that throttling connections without making it clear to your customers is the problem. So the practice can, and likely will, continue. It’ll just need to be much more transparent in the future.

All of you with a jailbroken iPhone should check out iSlsk (it’s on Big Boss), an application that connects your little wonderdevice to the SoulSeek file-sharing network. SoulSeek, for the uninitiated, has plenty of rare music files from which to choose; all types of files can be found on there, but music is definitely its forté.

While you can’t upload files using the application yet, it can download files—to /var/mobile/Media/Downloads—just fine. Not having an iPhone, jailbroken or otherwise, I can’t try it, but the above video looks just great. Just great!

[On a completely unrelated and off-topic note, comedian Bill Burr turns 40 on June 10 and he needs our help. His podcast, he says, only has 15 listeners. If the number of listeners cracks 20, he'll be much the happier. Do him a favor and subscribe. The man isn't too bright; he moved out to Los Angeles looking to "make it" in the midst of the writers strike. The language isn't SFW, obvs, but he's pretty good, I think.]

via TorrentFreak

Verizon’s getting set to share the results of a recent study it conducted showing that “when an ISP cooperates with a file-sharing software maker they can speed downloads an average of 60 percent.” Oh, and it saves Verizon a bunch of money, too.

Verizon created the “P4P Working Group” with file-sharing company Pando Networks and developed a system which more or less favors P2P connections between geographically-close users on the Verizon network over connections to random users and networks in far-away lands.

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There are swear words in this video. Surprise.

Among other things, like running New York and making money off flavored water, 50 Cent understands what it’s like to have to steal to survive. To that end, he doesn’t fault young music fans for downloading music. In fact, in a recent interview in Oslo (a hip-hop haven), the P.I.M.P. said “a young fan may be just as devout and dedicated no matter if he bought it or stole it.”

Mr. Cent also scolded the suits in the music industry, saying “what is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists.”

Look at that, not only is Curtis “OK” with file sharing, but he, too, knows that the RIAA’s “starving artist” yarn is fake fake fake. Look at him: he get[s] money, even with rampant file sharing.

50 Cent: File-Sharing Doesn’t Hurt Artists, Industry Should Adapt [TorrentFreak]

I see you see me

Erica from TUAW got Bonjour up and running on her iPhone and iPod touch. At this point it’s really just a proof of concept—all it can do is send pictures from the iPhone to the Touch—so it’s yet another example of doing something for the sake of it.

That’s right now, at least. In the future, with a little more tinkering, Erica says it could be possible to use the iPhone-Touch tandem as a complete Bonjour solution, sending different types of files back and forth. She sees the possibilities for “social computing” are endless.

MDNS and caffeine: How I got Bonjour running on my iPhone [TUAW]

My name is Judge

Last week, Jammie Thomas was found guilty of copyright infringement and was ordered to pay $222,000 in fines for sharing MP3s. As a mother and working class citizen like most of us, she most likely cannot afford to pay such a ridiculous amount of money. So, she’s using our justice system to fight back; this time, with an appeal.

Thomas argues that the amount of damages ordered to paid is unconstitutionally excessive. In other cases, payouts as low as $1 a song have been handed down by a judge, so why not her? Hell, she could go out and buy the full CD containing each song she pirated for less than $1000. The RIAA is trying to make an example out of this lady and for the most part, it’s working. If you want to peer deeper into the rabbit hole, check out the Ars link below.

Appeal in RIAA case to focus on “unconstitutionally excessive” punishment [Ars Technica]

Recently, an article was published in a monthly newsletter at Harvard Law called “Universities to RIAA: Take a Hike.” If the title isn’t a complete giveaway, the article details how the RIAA is bullying students in college into lawsuits for file-sharing. Harvard feels that a university’s duty is to follow its own mission, not to cater as messenger for the messenger to the RIAA and I couldn’t agree more. Says the article:
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Piracy is an action sport. The ability to infringe copyright and steal valuable work induces a rush like no other. Whether you steal music, movies, books, applications, or whatever, it feels like breaking the law and it saves our wallets and purses from becoming empty. But not everyone is as fortunate as we are to know the ins and outs of the world of piracy. There’s so much to take in and only so much time for us to Google around for the answers to our questions. Luckily, you have a master pirate on deck to help you with understanding the basics that will get you downloading Spiderman 3 in no time.
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Piracy is on the rise at colleges and universities around the world, but one school in Poland must have taken it too far. On Wednesday, Police raided Koszalin University of Technology due to the massive amount of pirating going on. What they found was far beyond a kid’s homemade server. The feds seized a PC running DC++ hub software, 10 laptops, and 60 hard drives, which contained over 35,000GB (you read that correctly, sir) of media available for students to download.

Three students who had administrative access to the servers were taken into custody and will most likely have several charges brought against them. The report says students were using DirectConnect P2P software to share tons of movies, music, and software. I know plenty of people who have gotten busted on campus for file-sharing, so if you’re pirating quite a bit at your school and you’re using DirectConnect, may we suggest quitting for a while? It might just save your ass.

Please note: we went through this entire post without one Polish joke. Thank you.

Police Raid University, Dismantle P2P Network [TorrentFreak]

Since I’m not Canadian, I’m a little out of the loop on what Rogers has been up to. According to TorrentFreak, the ISP banned BitTorrent traffic due to excessive bandwidth consumption. Enter encryption and for the next year, everyone is safe. Now in an effort to curb encrypted Bit Torrent traffic, Rogers has started to throttle all encrypted transfers. That means your secure e-mail, login, and everything in between are all screwed and there’s nothing you can do about it except complaining directly to Rogers.
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I realize this might be hard to fathom, but guess what? The RIAA still sucks and is still wasting everyone’s time with file-sharing lawsuits. In fact, the RIAA apparently wasted too much time with the University of Nebraska and now the school is hitting back. U of N has sent the RIAA an invoice to the RIAA requesting that it reimburse the university for all the expenses it’s incurred from dealing with the RIAA’s outlandish requests for student information.

Way to stick it to the man! If every school had a little chutzpah and stood up to the big bully known as the RIAA, maybe we’d start seeing more P2P cases dissipate into nothing. After the jump, see the above comic in all it’s glory.

RIAA University Campaign Sputters: Group Asked To Pay Up For Wasting School’s Time [Techdirt via Boing Boing]

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We all know by now that the Zune is certainly not the hottest DAP on the market. But after dealing with Microsoft and their “points” system and the crappy music store for Zune, we’re finding out that some of the songs you may have bought can’t be shared with other Zunes—not that you’d find another one near you anyways.

The culprits? Sony and Universal. They’ve made a select choosing of certain artists they don’t want shared between Zunes. Who’s affected? Check it:

Universal Music Group
• Prohibited Zune Sharing: Gwen Stefani, Snow Patrol, Eminem, Blue October, JoJo, Jay-Z;
• Accepted Zune Sharing: Nickelback, Nelly Furtado and Maria Careh;
Sony Music
• Prohibited Zune Sharing: Beyonce, Weird Al Yankovic (not sure if song is from Sony) and Ciara;
• Accepted Zune Sharing: Shakira, Wyclef Jean, The Fray, Christina Aguilera, John Mayer and Brad Paisley;

Keep in mind, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many more artists are included and DRM restrictions are getting tighter. If you like a CD a lot, just go buy the hard copy so you can do what you want with it. Otherwise, you risk getting shafted.

Universal and Sony Don’t Like Zune to Zune Sharing [ClicZune]