A 33 year old man has been handed a suspended sentence for operating a P2P hub using DirectConnect in Finland. The man received a four month suspended sentence after he was found to be the operator of a DirectConnect hub where he was also sharing a considerable amount of music.
His computers and equipment were originally seized in June 2007 and were found to contain a significant amount of “infringing music” files. He later restarted the hub with new computers, which were seized yet again in October 2007. Records showed that up to 2,000 people were using his hub to share about 80 terabytes of content.
The 33 year old must now pay €307,450 in compensation to rights’ holders in addition to the four months suspended sentence. The decision was made yesterday by a Finnish District Court.
“Imprisonment is the right penalty for this type of deliberate, planned and very harmful conduct in which the administrator facilitates widespread unauthorised file-sharing,” said Antti Kotilainen of CIAPC.
Result for: finland
U.S. market research firm Strategy Analytics (SA) is reporting that two of South Korea’s top consumer electronics manufacturers have captured almost half of the North American mobile handset market in Q2 2009. It reports that Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. had a combined market share of 47.3 percent during the quarter in North America.
Samsung sold more units than LG, with a total of 11.7 million Samsung handsets being sold in the United States and Canada during the quarter. This converts into about 24.7 percent of the market share in the region. LG manufacturers handsets sold 10.7 million units in the region during the quarter, representing about 22.6 percent of the market.
In contrast to these figures, Nokia Corp., the Finland-based handset maker that dominates the global market outright, captured just 6.8 percent of the market, down from 7.9 percent in Q1 2009. The success of the Samsung and LG phones is attributed to both companies stepping up efforts in the region to provide a diverse range of products.
Result for: finland
Microsoft has confirmed a new Xbox 360 Pro bundle for Europe today that will play to one of the system’s biggest strengths, its blockbuster Halo franchise.
Beginning on February 29th the new “Best of Halo” Xbox 360 Pro Bundle will go on sale around Europe with “Halo Wars”, “Halo 3″, and an Xbox 360 Pro video game system plus a wireless controller. The suggested retail price is €269.
The “Halo” franchise, now in its fourth installment, is a billion dollar franchise and is an Xbox exclusive. Halo 3, released last year, made over $300 million USD in sales in its first week of release and was even blamed for Hollywood’s poor showing in October.
The bundle will be available in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Slovakia, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Republic of Hungary, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
