The same person to bust Comcast’s blocking of BitTorrent traffic was called upon to test Cox’s system, and sure enough, he concluded with "conclusive proof" that eDonkey was getting the same treatment.

Cox issued a statement, describing it not as "discrimination" against traffic, but "management":

To ensure the best possible online experience for our customers, Cox actively manages network traffic through a variety of methods including traffic prioritization and protocol filtering. Cox does not prohibit the use of file-sharing services for uploads or downloads, or discriminate against any specific services in any way.

Nevertheless, Net Neutrality advocates will be filing the incident away in their arsenal to support the necessity of regulation of telecommunication and cable companies to prevent them from interfering with the public’s open use of the Internet. 

An investigation spurred by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) led to the filing of charges against 3,500 people who uploaded music with eDonkey.

IFPI said some of the accused had provided as many as 8,000 songs for sharing purposes. The organization claims legal physical sales of music have dropped by a third in five years while 400 million music files were illegally downloaded in 2005.

It should be noted that IFPI did not mention the legal sales of digital music in Germany. According to the MacWorld UK website, iTunes and T-Online’s Musicload sold a combined 30 million songs online in 2005. That figure likely impacted the physical sales cited by IFPI.

Authorities in Germany searched 130 locations for evidence related to the file sharing investigation. “Most people clearly know that file-sharing without permission is illegal – unfortunately it takes legal actions such as this make a real impact on behavior,” said John Kennedy, chairman and CEO of IFPI.

Accused files sharers face five years in prison under German law. In previous cases, file sharers have paid penalties averaging 2,500 euros, or $3,195, for their file sharing.

A five-year sentence would greatly exceed what a German tribunal meted out in 2005 for another computer-related crime. Sven Jaschan, who created the Sasser worm that affected millions of PCs worldwide and caused multi-million dollar disruptions to businesses, skated with a sentence of probation and a skimpy community service requirement.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Lots of panic and rhetoric have been coursing over the Internet today, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of a lower court’s decision on file-swapping.

In MGM vs. Grokster, the Supreme Court has found that file-swapping services can be liable for the actions of people who use the service to infringe on copyrighted material, but with an important condition.

As noted in the legal opinion written by Justice Souter, this decision only impacts certain services:

We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.

The Court’s opinion is that the services Grokster and StreamCast promoted their services as suited to infringe upon the lawful copyrights of intellectual property holders. Today’s decision does expose those services to what will certainly be a slew of lawsuits from the various entertainment industry associations.

For products that have billed themselves as file sharing services, such as BitTorrent and eDonkey among many others, they seem to be unaffected by this decision. These services do not bill themselves as an easy workaround for copyright issues.

That does not mean the entertainment industry won’t try to target them next. In its decision, the Court has again not directly addressed the issue of file-sharing itself. The Court’s stance on distribution of a service with intent to promote copyright infringement is repeated a couple of times in Justice Souter’s opinion on behalf of the Court, with the condition of intention to promote illegal activity clearly written.

But the Court, as many Courts have done in the past, has chosen to sidestep an uncomfortable broader issue and left file-sharing in itself without an opinion from the Justices.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.