A study conducted by KPMG has shown that while users are not very keen to pay for streaming TV shows, about 64% of U.K. users do not mind having to pay for streaming movies.

The percentage of users willing to pay is also likely to increase as more streaming services now become available, thereby increasing choice and eventually lowering prices due to competition.

The awareness of online streaming services is also growing rapidly according to the BBC. The popularity of these online streaming services, though, is growing at the cost of the popularity of other traditional media channels such as reading and watching TV.

In fact, it has been found that the reading of newspapers, magazines and even books, online is growing at a very rapid rate. The use of these online services is growing not only for desktop users but also among users of mobiles and tablets.

At the same time, however, online piracy continues to proliferate and is turning into a major issue involving international sting operations by the FBI as with the arrest of Kim Dotcom, the founder of the file sharing site Megaupload in New Zealand last week.

The U.S. Congress is also trying to pass new, more stringent legislation against online piracy in the form of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), but this is being vehemently opposed by various sections including Facebook and Google, who feel that this would amount to censorship. Wikipedia had even undertaken a total online blackout for 24 hours to protest against the proposed legislation.

Such dramatic news from the USA is also likely to influence consumers in the UK to subscribe to movie streaming services in order to avoid persecution for downloading or streaming copyrighted content illegaly.

Newzbin 2 is a members-only site, that allows its users to access illegal copies of movies and TV programmes.

The case was under Justice Arnold, who has ruled that BT must block access to this website, as he believes that BT has knowledge of persons who use this service and cause copyright infringement.

The judgement states, “In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newzbin 2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes.”

Rights holders have stated that Newzbin, the original site of Newzbin 2, which had been banned earlier, makes £1m a year from 700,000 members, but does not have any licence to do so.

While this judgement is a clear victory for the MPA, it is quite certain that BT and Newzbin 2 will appeal against it.

In the meantime, the MPA has every intention of following up, by targeting other services that also infringe on their copyright.

The judge has directed BT to use their CleanFeed technology to prevent Newzbin 2 from accessing content illegally. On the other hand, Newzbin 2 has threatened that if this is done, they will have to break the BT filters, which they do not think would be very difficult to do.

Digital Rights groups such as Open Rights Group have disapproved of the verdict. A statement issued by them says, “Website blocking is pointless and dangerous. These judgements won’t work to stop infringement or boost creative industries.”

Either way, this judgement is a landmark ruling and could open the floodgates for a number of other copyright owners to sue similar services and get them blocked or shut down in a misguided attempt at resurrecting the out-of-date recording industry.

A study conducted by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) shows that piracy affects the Australian economy to the tune of Australian $1.37 billion a year.

The direct losses due to piracy were to the extent of $A575 million including $A225 million for “secondary piracy”, where users borrow pirated products from others. The study also claims that the piracy resulted in the loss of about 6,100 jobs and reduced spending on recreation, clothing housing etc.

Other related businesses, such as cinema owners, local distributors, producers and retailers also lose income due to the piracy. The government also lost taxes to the extent of $A193 million.

It was largely felt that piracy was detrimental and damaging not only to the movie industry but also to the whole Australian economy, and hence it was believed to be imperative to start educating people about the issue immediately.

However, the Internet advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) believes that the report will not be particularly effective in discouraging piracy. They suggest, instead, that the AFACT should concentrate on providing tools through which users can easily and legally download movies, instead of having to resort to illegal means.

The study was carried out on the instance of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by observing the amount of illegal traffic on 43 file-sharing sites. Their findings do not reveal a happy picture.

It was found that these sites which sell pirated data generate over 146 million visits every day. That totals up to approximately 53 billion visits per year, which is a colossal amount.

In fact, 146 million visits per day is more than the total number of visits for counterfeit physical goods or counterfeit prescriptions in the whole year – 87 million and 51 million respectively.

Of the 43 sites studied, the top 3 are RapidShare.com, Megavideo.com and Megaupload.com. The traffic on these three sites alone is about 21 billion visits per year.

Of course, the number of visits to these sites does not give any indication of the number of unique individuals these sites, or the amount of illegal downloads.The numbers could be inflated by repeated daily visits by individuals. Even so, the number of unique users is likely to be astoundingly high.

What is clear however, is the fact that these commercial file-sharing sites are becoming as popular as other peer-to-peer technologies.

RapidShare.com has come under the scrutiny of the RIAA, the recording industry’s lobby, which wants such sites to install filters to prevent illegal downloads. However, the Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf in Germany, has recently ruled that RapidShare need not install such filters, as they feel that “reasonable measures” are already being taken to control piracy.

In contrast, Steve Tepp, Senior Director of Internet counterfeiting and piracy for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says, “Whether it is the sale of counterfeit bags and fake pharmaceuticals or illegal distribution of movies, music, and software, online IP theft is theft – plain and simple. Rogue websites have no place in a legitimate online market. If left unchecked, these sites will continue to flourish at our expense and further hinder our economic growth. The MarkMonitor report underscores the urgency of enacting proactive policies to enhance enforcement tools to shut down these rogue websites.”

The lead singer, Bono, was playing some new songs from U2′s forthcoming album, which fans speculate might be named “No Line On The Horizon”, at his Beach home in Eze-sur-Mer, in the South of France.

The music was apparently loud enough for a passerby on the beach nearby to hear and record on his mobile phone. The Dutch U2 tribute band member, Ben van Riemsdijk, later discussed this with other fans on U2 fan site, Interference.com, and eventually proceeded to post four of the songs on YouTube.

YouTube, as usual scrambled to delete the songs from their website, fearing yet another lawsuit for copyright violation. Reuters reports that the quality of the recording was extremely poor due to external disturbances. The songs, however, are still being circulated privately via emails and other file-sharing sites, according to the Irish Independent newspaper.

A few months ago, U2′s manager, Paul McGuiness, had lambasted Internet Service Providers for allowing pirated music to exchange hands and not taking on the onus to fight piracy.

This however, is not the first time, that U2′s music has been stolen. They have lost their albums several times in the past, to muggers, chambermaids and eavesdroppers. This is also the third time that fans have managed to tape new songs, while they were being played very loudly by Bono.

The band were reportedly not too bothered by the leaked recording due to its poor quality. Given the number of times such leaks have happened to the group, one would expect such complacency on their part. It can’t be denied that the same fact also might indicate a cheap publicity method that U2 fans repeatedly seem to fall for!

Over 26 versions of the leaked track made it onto YouTube. A whole lot more were uploaded to Daily Motion. File sharing sites also saw a host of uploads and downloads of the track. Most Madonna fans listed on Last.fm showed numerous instances of having listened to the track on their PCs.

Warner Music instantly issued a copyright claim getting the video removed from YouTube and DailyMotion almost as soon as users put it up. They were still not quick in enough for thousands of motivated fans of the Material Girl, who managed to download the video or song from one of the many online file sharing sites currently available.

As of the time of publishing this article, only one video of the track could still be found on DailyMotion. The track included the voice-over of the French DJ announcing the new single at the start.

Incidents such as this will undoubtedly provide the music industry ammunition in their upcoming fight against piracy – they are lobbying the UK government to pass laws that will make ISPs responsible for monitoring Internet access and banning users who repeatedly download files illegally.

Record labels, however, can’t deny the free publicity and excitement generated by such leaks, which might at times make it worthwhile to let the fans get early access to singles from their favourite artists, in the hope that the euphoria will also propel them to rush to the record stores when the CD is officially released.