Article discusses RIAA's new approach to curbing the downloading portion of file sharing. RIAA is working with ISP's to have them slow down the internet connections of people who are downloading music illegally. Does not mention anything about doing the same for people who are sharing though. The sharers are still being sued.

Discusses what I was talking about in my discussion question for Week 13 concerning prosecuting the SHARERS/SEEDERS instead of the DOWNLOADERS/LEECHERS.

Article discusses how the RIAA is issuing letters to suspected copyright infringing music downloaders and sharers and asking them to turn themselves in and pay a reduced fine, which will still be in the thousands of dollars, or else they will sue them for all they have or might ever have. Lawyer from University of Southern California talks about how letters are actually just "cease and desist letters" and that suspected offenders might not want to turn themselves in because the RIAA might not be able to find out their identities otherwise since many schools ISP's are not keeping track of or releasing students' names, personally identifiable IP addresses, or other information.

Finland passes law that says that Finland is a LEGAL RIGHT and NOT a privilege. Grants 1 MB/sec to each and every citizen. Article states "Most of us can no longer perform our work duties, do homework or communicate with friends without having access to the Internet" and "People need broadband connections to live normal lives, as Finland is the first nation to acknowledge".

Article talks about how RIAA can have the federal government issue subpoenas by simply making allegations of infringement and requiring University administrators to turn over the IP address owners of the guilty parties. This ability conflicts with peoples' right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty. To fight this, the adminstrators are shuffling IP addresses among different individuals regularly so that they can honestly say that they have no identifying information to provide.

This article talks about providing internet access and computer training to lower income families and non-computer savvy people being included in the National Broadband stimulus plan.

Chairman for the FCC discusses plan to bring broadband high-speed internet access to every American.

Talks about Google's Plan to offer Broadband service called "Google Gigabit". Google will offer broadband service at 1 GB speed!! Google will test it out on a small population of about 50,000 and see how it does.

Talks about the $7.2 billion allotted for the broadband stimulus and how the money is to be divided between different government agencies. Also mentions debate as to whether the money should go toward updating existing urban broadband connections or extending the range at which broadband is offered to rural areas.

FCC economist talks about serving people who live in rural areas, and how broadband access is becoming a necessity in everyday society.