However, many of the complaints, according to legal experts, would be much like the “John Doe” lawsuits of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has sent out hundreds of thousands of letters to Internet Service Providers for them to identify the alleged file-sharers on such websites.

USCG, according to reports, has now taken the case to the court, asking the legal body to order the ISPs to identify the said John Does.

The reports also told that it would take the court at least two weeks before it can release a subpoena on the ISPs.

The Copyright Groups is also moving forward with more vigor and is now asking the court to identify not only those responsible for sharing “Hurt Locker” but also those who upload movies like “Far Cry,” “Steam Experiment,” and “Uncross the Stars.”

According to the anti-piracy group producers of “Hurt Locker” lost potential millions of dollars due to piracy acts of individuals on the Internet.

Hurt Locker is one of the biggest winners in the last Oscars Awards night, even winning the Best Picture Award. However, the movie has turned to be a box office flop with only $16 million in tickets sold.

But the owners, through the US Copyright Group, wanted to open up revenue streams by taking legal action for those who are responsible for the upload.

“We want to make up with the lost revenue by creating a revenue stream and monetizing the equivalent of an alternative distribution channel,” said US Rights Group lawyer Jeffrey Weaver.

In a letter sent by the RIAA on February 28 and March 21, some 805 file-sharers and 35 universities and colleges were asked to pay settlement amounting to the number of copyrighted materials and music files they have downloaded or shared using P2P file-sharing networks.
 
RIAA, which has been quiet for the past 15 months or so, said that the move was part of the campaign strategy to discourage university and college students from doing illegal activities on the Internet.

“This is a new process that we have put in place whereby students have the opportunity to settle the claims against them at substantially discounted sums before a lawsuit is ever filed,” RIAA spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen said in a statement over the agency’s website.

Based on a obtained copy of the letter, RIAA is informing the users that they must settle the amount immediately with the record labels they have neglected or they will be sued for copyright infringement. The letter also said that the amount being charged against the users were at “a substantial discount” and “timely fashion”.
 
She also said that some 116 out of the first 400 letter receivers have already settled the amount.

Meanwhile, Engebretsen refused to further comment on how much it will cost the students if they settle online.  But reports earlier told that the settlement amount could reach $3, 500 to $5, 000.

With the FCC Broadband Plan now in publication, Verizon executive vice president for public affairs Tom Tauke said that the publication of the Broadband Policy has sparked a new debate on whether the government agency should dictate how the Internet is being offered to the users.

He also questioned whether companies should be allowed to control the Internet, citing several privacy issues of the users.

“We thank the FCC for the National Broadband Plan, which they said that would lay out all the important vision of the government for a vibrant Internet marketplace. But in my own view, it is badly outdated and it is now time for us to focus on upgrading the law that affects all concerned stakeholders online,” Tuake said.

During his talk with Washington think tank New Democrat Network, he also highlighted the fact that the full potential of the broadband Internet could only be achieved if the Congress would take a look into new perspective in the communications policy of the country.

Verizon is now carefully and slowly connecting to audiences to make their efforts for a free Internet realized. Now, they are sending messages to their customers about their opposition for the bill.

Last week, Tauke has discussed the issue with several supporters of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, saying that if they rewrite the new telecoms law, the FCC would be taken out of the picture.

“We don’t want that to happen. What we want is for all the major players and other Internet stakeholders to have common ground on the issues of Internet neutrality in cases of behavioral advertising, privacy protection and policies that concerns millions of users,” he added.

With less than two months before the May 2010 general elections, the House of Lords is now expected to approve the version of the bill that would govern internet security, digital property, and files being shared over the World Wide Web.

After the expected approval, the bill will go over the House of Commons were it is expected to go to a final amendment under a six-stage process.

The bill aims to put tighter control over files being shared by online users through peer-to-peer networks. One of the provisions of the new legislation is to immediately cut Internet access of people identified as copyright infringers.

One of the lords, in an interview, said that they are expecting a debate over the said bill, saying that it was always been considered by many as a “bad bill.”

“It is a bad bill. It is bad for the rights holder as well as other people working in the industry for their rights to be press this way. There are always alternatives and it is a bad move for the government to risk alienation of a very significant part of the population by enforcing these measures,” the lord said.

He also cited that more than 75 percent of the UK population does not understand what is lawful and unlawful when it comes to file-sharing and copyright. He added that when they were told that these laws exist, most of the people immediately express opposition against the legislation.

It will be recalled that various human-rights organizations openly expressed disagreement over the new law, saying that it will also violate the rights of innocent people who were just using the Internet.

They said that hackers can easily use other people’s Internet access point to put the blame into unwitting victims. They also said that the Law does not identify whether it is the person or the entire family who will be cut off from the web if someone was found guilty of the violation.

According to the report, at least 17 percent of adult users were not aware of the violations they are committing every time they copy CD contents into their computers or music players.

“The so-called format shifting or changing of CD music contents into MP3, MP4, or other music formats is illegal under the British copyright law. When a person has upload the music files from the CDs to their computers, the shift in the content format can already be considered illegal, even if they listen to just one file,” said Consumer Focus International Director Jill Johnstone.

The government-backed organization’s survey was conducted to more than 2, 000 adult users.

Meanwhile, in a separate survey, research firm Ofcom said that more than 41 percent or rough 18 million adults in UK own MP3 digital music player or iPod devices. The study also showed that there are at least five million Brits who own mobile phones and other devices that can play music files downloaded from their PCs.

Consumer Focus said that since the law was approved by the legislative body, not a single person has been charged or prosecuted with regards to format shifting.

The company also said that the music industry has to seriously consider in pushing for the law to be changed if it want to address the growing problem of piracy not only in the Internet but also in the personal level.

Consumer Focus said that the legislation should be enacted together with the Digital Economy Bill, which is still subjected to debate in the parliament, for the government to be able to be true to its crackdown against illegal file-sharers.

“The credibility of the UK government in the fight against illegal file-sharers and other copyright infringers will fall underneath the floor if they will not be able to address this problem,” Johnstone said.

In a letter to FCC Chairperson Julius Genchowski, ISPs said that the move to classify Internet access as Title II service (making Internet service subject to common carrier regulations) would hurt the consumers more than it would do them good.

Comcast was not included in the letter.

It will be recalled that the FCC announced that it will put ISPs under Title II of the Communications Act to establish a clearer and more organized control in upholding the Internet neutrality of all the providers.

Putting the ISPs under telecommunications regulations would help the agency to control the content being offered by the companies rather than putting it under the lighter terms of information services, which was earlier being implemented by the commission.

But the ISPs strongly opposed the new proposal, saying there is already an on-going consensus on how to achieve the best possible terms in achieving the open Internet policy of President Barack Obama.

“The on-going efforts are really productive and there is no need in putting ISP companies under Title II,” a spokesperson of the organizations said.

Among those who have signed the letter were Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, National Cable & Telecommunications Association and other major wireless and phone firms in the US.

The companies warned the FCC that the move to put them under Title II of the Communications Act would “plunge” the industry into dark ages, adding that it would add “years of litigation and regulatory chaos”.

The companies also cited that the new regulations would hamper the government’s goal to achieve the 100 Mbps broadband speed to more than 100 million households in the US by 2020.

Despite strong showing of file-sharing websites in Sweden, Cisco, in a statement, said that online video streaming is actually much more popular to online users.

The company said that the case hurled against The Pirate Bay has played a huge role to the drop in the number of people using peer-to-peer file-sharing websites because of fears that they might also held liable to the “illegal” activities.

Earlier, a Swedish court has convicted the founders of the P2P file-sharing website.

Also, Cisco said that the broadband Internet connection is becoming faster and more reliable making users tune in more to live or recorded video streaming more often. The faster broadband speed also eliminates the need for users to download copyrighted materials such as movies and music and reduce the risk of them being prosecuted.

“Even though the actual number of people doing file-sharing activities continued to increase, we have calculated that it will become less important in the coming months,” Cisco Sweden technical manager Henrick Bergqvist said.

Sweden’s most popular file-sharing advocate, also the founders of The Pirate Bay, will be launching the new online streaming service called Video Bay in the coming months.

The people behind the said program said that they were inspired by the growing success of music streaming service Spotify and video streaming website Voddler.

Based on the Swedish Law, video and music streaming is not illegal but it is, however, unlawful to upload.

Meanwhile, Cisco expects file-sharing on the Internet to continue growing in the coming years as more countries are not yet that well-protected by the online laws. The firm also eyes an 80 percent yearly increase for the platform.

But Cisco insisted that online streaming will be more popular in the coming years with a predicted 130 percent yearly growth rate.

In a statement, the committee, which is composed of influential ministers of parliament, said that the government’s Digital Economy Bill needed more clarification, saying that technical measures were not clearly specified in the legislation.

The group also said that the new bill could possible create unwanted over-board powers, which includes the three-strike policy imposed against a persistent illegal downloader.

“We know that the problem on the Internet is constantly creating new sets of challenges to our policy makers. But these problems can’t justify an legislation that is ill-defined or sweep legislative responses, especially those with a threat to the freedom of expression and privacy of the users,” MP and committee chairperson Andrew Dismore said.

But a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees the Digital Economy Bill, was quick to say that the British government has always been clear about the new bill, saying that it would help the authorities address the growing problem of illegal file-sharing over peer-to-peer networks.

Meanwhile, Dismore said that their concern over the bull is the lack of details, saying that their examination on parts of the said legislation focused on the plans of the government to tackle illegal file-sharing.

“It’s been difficult, even in the narrow area we have focused on, to get a clear picture of the scope and impact of the provisions,” he said.

Under the new Digital Economy Bill, government regulator Ofcom will be given new powers that would enable them to disconnect users from the Internet if they were identified as a persistent illegal file-sharer.

“They have not specified in the provisions whether the entire household or just the family member would be cut off,” Dismore pointed out.

The decision came after calls from Australian consumers for the ISPs to remove the capping of the download bandwidth, which has been implemented several years ago. To date, Australia is the only place in the world where Internet consumers were slugged with download limits on their online access plans.

However, everything may change in the coming months after New Zealand’s Telecom and  its local arm AAPT announced that it will start offering unlimited broadband plans to Australian consumers. The company has challenged the status quo being implemented by the ISP companies, saying that they should follow suit if they want to stay in business.

With the introduction of the new broadband plan, Internet users can now run full-speed connection 24 hours a day. User will just need to sign up for the two-year deal.

Earlier, AAPT Chief Paul Broad challenged all of the ISPs in Australia to end the practice of imposing quotas to all users, saying that they should match what their company has to offer.

“Imposing quotas on the amount of download speed and bandwidth to consumers is seen as a joke in other country. If we compare our service with those of the United States, there is no such thing as a cap on the bandwidth,” he added.

The unlimited broadband connection of the AAPT will cost $99.95/month and users will be connected via an ADSL2+broadband. It also comes with a voice service and music downloading package.

Meanwhile, iiNet said that they have no immediate plans to match the AAPT offer, saying that they would “watch with interest”.

The company also said that they do not need to offer their consumers with unlimited broadband connection since most of the consumers in their area do not even meet or exceed the monthly download caps.

UK Treasury Minister Stephen Timms said that since copyright holders will be the major beneficiaries of the campaign, they should contribute some 75 percent of the expenses used in tracking down illegal file-sharers.

Meanwhile, the remaining 25 percent of the expense should be shouldered by the Internet Service Providers. The total cost of the 10-year campaign was pegged at over £500m.

At the same time, Timms has called on recoding and movie companies to provide cheap and legal alternatives to the online users to help curb the effect of Internet piracy to their business. The official cited that the progress in the fight against the illegal file-sharers has been “much too slow.”

It will be recalled that the music industry pushed for stronger government action against the issue, citing the 12 percent drop in its sales last year. The recording industry has also pushed for the equal split in the cost of the campaign among the copyright holders and ISPs.

The BPI, composed of all the major recording labels in the UK, stressed that a 75:25 split ratio is not fair and is not a proportionate allocation for the people who own the rights.

Based on records, the music industry posted more than 30 percent drop in the sales market since 2004.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said that Internet piracy has been a huge barrier to the market growth, calling for the ISPs to immediately disconnect people who were found violating copyright laws.

The organisation claims piracy is a huge barrier to market growth and has called on ISPs to disconnect persistent offenders.

The UK government is now implementing the three-strike policy which could lead to users’ disconnection if they were labeled as “persistent offenders.” An issue that human-rights activist quickly brushed off.