Websites that offer MP3
files are not very populair anymore, most people have found file sharing
networks such as KaZaA to be sufficient for their music needs. But the
Australian police has shut down a large MP3 website that allowed visitors to
download MP3 and WMA files. Three students, two Australians aged 19 and 20, and
a 20-year-old Malaysian were busted.
 "It's a tremendous result and represents a turning
point," said Michael Speck, general manager of the Australian music
industry's piracy investigations unit, which played a major role in the
case. "It's a clear message to Internet pirates that they can no longer
hide behind the mythology of the Internet. It's now revealed as nothing
more than another form of theft," Speck said.
The industry estimates the value of albums downloaded by Web surfers
worldwide was between $37 million and $44 million. The site consisted of a
series of mirrors, which are replicas of original sites. One of the mirror
sites alone had 7 million hits in the past 12 months.
|
Read more about it in
this article on
Cnet.com
Source: Cnet.com
