• He asked Congress to spend $1 billion to monitor peer-to-peer activity. (In fairness, much of this is to prevent child pornography, but the tactic is apparently a little blunt.)

• Two Biden bills have been explicitly anti-encryption, because you know, encryption makes it hard for the FBI to read people's e-mails.

• He has expressed support for internet taxes and internet filtering in schools and libraries.

• The RIAA seems to be one of his best buddies: Biden sponsored a bill that would restrict recording of songs from satellite and net radio, and another one that would make it a felony to "trick" a computer into playing back unauthorized songs or running bootlegged videogames. That latter one died when Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay and Yahoo all argued against it.

• Biden was one of just four senators invited to attend a celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA's Jack Valenti and the RIAA's Hillary Rosen, two of American file-sharer's most wanted.

• When he was asked in 2006 about proposing net-neutrality laws, he said there was no need, since any bit-filtering violations would provoke such a huge public ruckus they'd have to hold congressional hearings anyway—and they'd be standing-room only. (Wonder if Biden reads Gizmodo.) [CNet]

Update: Having problems setting it up on my iPhone 3G. I follow the instructions and the phone seems to "connect", but that's about it. No connections shown in the NetShare app, and nothing goes through.

Update 2: Now we're getting the message that it's not available in the US store. Sucks.

To get the levels back on another DS, just play it back over your computer's speakers and hold up the DS mic to it—the mic will grab the sound and the game will change it back into level code. If only Nintendo didn't make their online system so horrible to use, the developers wouldn't have to resort to archaic methods that are pretty much on par with tin cans and strings. [Kotaku]

This plan first launched into action when a co-worker of the nameless woman at the Apple Store noticed her computer online and notified the woman. She was then able to log into her computer and the rest is history. So the moral of the story is this: If you steal a MacBook, please be sure to cover the iSight with some tape. Otherwise, you could also be charged with a second degree felony. [Iohud via TUAW]

Mesh lets you set up a sort of virtual desktop, and any files in a Mesh folder will be available to any device hooked up to that virtual hub: your photos stored at home can be browsed by your PDA, or a document shared between colleagues at work. Ultimately, photos snapped by your cellphone may be able to pop up on a remote digital photo frame an instant later, shared via the Mesh.

The principle behind Live Mesh is to replace the concept of "My Computer" with an agglomeration of all of your devices. Or, as chief software architect Ray Ozzie says, with a dash of tech-philosophy: "a personal mesh of devices - a means by which all of your devices are brought together, managed through the web, as a seamless whole."

The private beta is US only, limited to about 10,000 persons, and works only with PCs running XP or Vista. Microsoft will be expanding support to Apple computers and other mobile phones through the year, and opening a public beta before 2009. [Reuters and Tech Crunch]

Though the European Parliament has plenty of power, this particular legislation seems to be more for advisory purposes. The BBC says:

The vote has no legal force and leaves national governments free to implement their own anti-piracy plans. But, said the Open Rights Group, it does "signify resistance" among European law makers to the strict measures that nations such as France are implementing.

This solution does not have all of the bells and whistles as BTMM (like encryption options and a near zero configuration set up) but the bottom line is that you will be able to have complete control over your desktop remotely when all is said and done. Hit the link for instructions. [Lifehacker]

Andrea Monti, an Italian copyright attorney, said all music sold on major music download sites is degraded. As such, exchange across P2P networks of these files, and any equivalent type of recordings, would seem to be legal under the new law. The law does restrict the sharing for "educational or scientific" use, but prosecuting offenders will nevertheless be more problematic because of it. The president of the RIAA counterpart in Italy was said to be confident in the restraints of the new ruling, but we imagine he crapped his pants as he said that. [Ars Technica]

It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings on his computer ... Virtually all of the sound recordings on Exhibit B are in the ".mp3" format. ... Defendant admitted that he converted these sound recordings from their original format to the .mp3 format for his and his wife's use.

As part of her appeal, she filed to have the damages ruled unconstitutional in their heft, given that they cost labels about 70 cents a song. The Copyright Act allows for statutory damages up to $150,000 a song, which the RIAA argued (and the DoJ agrees) don't have to be anywhere near actual damages. If you want the legalese it goes like this:

Statutory damages compensate those wronged in areas in which actual damages are hard to quantify in addition to providing deterrence to those inclined to commit a public wrong.

[G]iven the findings of copyright infringement in this case, the damages awarded under the Copyright Act's statutory damages provision did not violate the Due Process Clause; they were not 'so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense or obviously unreasonable.

The damages—again, over $9000 a song—might be not "obviously unreasonable" but that doesn't mean they're not fucking unreasonable. [Ars, Image via Flickr]

The sharing fun does not stop there; the patent further describes a service that would enable playlist sharing between yourself and your imaginary friend, for whom you purchased a Zune. Essentially, the system would allow Zune users to subscribe to one another's playlists, which would automatically update every time you hit up on a WiFi hotspot. The styling of the rumored Zune 2 did not have our attention, but if it were to incorporate these features, we just might be listening. Watch your back, Mr. iPod... that was stupid, sorry. [ZDNet]

Unfortunately, the service isn't really videocalling. The video stream only go one way, so users will need to manually switch back and forth to see each other. Furthermore, AT&T is going to be charging a pretty insane amount for the privilege of using this crippled service: $4.99 a month for 25 minutes of usage, $9.99 for 60 minutes, or 35 cents per minute. All of this is on top of whatever data plan you already have, by the way, even if it's unlimited. At a time when we'd go out of our way to avoid giving AT&T our money, this seems like something that we can certainly wait to be done right before jumping on board with.

If you disagree and happen to live in Atlanta, Dallas, or San Antonio, you can waste your hard-earned money on this starting in late July. –Adam Frucci

Product Page [AT&T Video Share]

The devices themselves will come in two versions, one with a 30-minute capacity for $119, and the other 60-minutes for $149. When tested, Flip Video really was as easy as it sounds to use. So get ready for some grandma videos, and we don't mean the good kind. – Jason Chen

YouTube for soccer Moms [CNN]

First you upload your video or photos to the One True Media site, where you can either create video montages or online slideshows with soundtracks. Then you enter the secret code of a TiVo to which you'd like to send the montage, and it shows up on that TiVo just like any other content. But wait, it gets better.

You can also create your own video channel on One True Media, and TiVo users can subscribe to your channel by using the TiVo's Season Pass feature, and then with each video or slideshow you upload an edit will end up automatically on that TiVo user's Now Playing List just like any other Season Pass recording.

Whoever's on the receiving end of these videos or pictures doesn't have to pay anything, and the Web service will be free while in its beta period, ending at the end of April. After that, the company says subscriptions are $3.99 a month, or $39.99 a year.

Hey, this is a cool idea, putting home videos and photo sequences on equal footing with every other TV show recorded on the TiVo box. Might be a great system for grandma to subscribe to videos and pictures of her young 'uns—if she has a broadband-connected TiVo Series2 or Series3 box, that is. – Charlie White

Product Page [One True Media]

It's cool in a theoretical sense, but probably won't be very useful in a practical sense. Then again, instead of sharing a track, you could broadcast it to the gal sitting next to you and you can synchronize your air guitar with her air drums. You'd be the next White Stripes, but without, you know, the incestuous overtones. – Jason Chen

Stream any music to nearby Zunes [Zunerama via Crunchgear]

It's 80 pages long and I am far too busy/lazy to read through the entire thing, but it looks like the general gist of it is that file sharing supports terrorism and corrupts our children. It claims that peer-to-peer networks increase the chances of government workers sharing sensitive data, which is kind of a stupid argument (let's ban phones, while we're at it, so they can't call people and tell them secrets).

An even more backwards argument is that by exposing kids to P2P software they are at a higher risk to pirate music, therefore be sued by copyright holders. The bad news about all this? It will make people protecting their copyrights seem antagonistic. Actually, the copyright holders that are being antagonistic are the ones making themselves seem that way, chief. If any of you out there with too much free time on your hands wants to comb through this beast for some fun quotes, pass em along and we'll post the best ones. –Adam Frucci

Shadowmonkey [via Fark]

Technically, you could sync your Zune with any PC before, but gave you a pesky "guest" mode where you couldn't do as much as you could if it were the "main" Zune for that library. By installing this hack, you trick the software into thinking that every Zune is the Zune it's married to (someone needs to get on this hack for Catherine Zeta Jones), and thus get full syncing. – Jason Chen

End of Guest Syncing [Zuneboards via Lifehacker]

What's supposedly special about this is its wireless connectivity (like the Zune), online radio station integration (presumably streamed over Wi-Fi), socialization (again, Zune, or perhaps Pandora-like services), and music recommendation.

What's also interesting is that they say "traditional" USB connections will "play a minor role in getting content to your device." We wonder which one of those three gets stuck being heart. – Jason Chen

Music Vets Prep Next-Gen Player [Wired]

The FCC Filing we saw yesterday from Microsoft looks to be actually for the Zune, allowing the music phone to use 4G WiMax to communicate. Not only communicate, but to use VoIP over the fast 4G network.

It gets better.

With the new 4G network, one of the main complaints, that there are no users to share with becomes a thing of the past. Now, under WiMax, Microsoft is going to allow you to share songs with anybody, as long as they have a Zune Phone and the same WiMax plan.

So who's going to provide WiMax for Microsoft? Or more succinctly, who's this phone going to launch under? It looks like Sprint/Nextel, who announced last year that they were going to build a WiMax network.

Other details say that there's going to be an official announcmenet before March 17, with a FCC filing and a launch in May. May? That kind of accelerated timeline seems to be a little outrageous, but that's what the word on the street is now.

However, it's still early and details could change, but things are looking up for the Zune Phone after all. – Jason Chen

Microsoft to submit wireless device for FCC testing [Marketwatch via Crunchgear]

Ever since our good friend moved to the east coast, we've had a hard time watching episodes of 24 together thanks to the time difference. But if he could record the show on EST, I could download it from him (and everyone else on the east coast who recorded it) and be ready to watch it simultaneously with him. With IM or Skype, we can even get real time "oh my god Jack did NOT just do that!"

Of course, there are other uses like downloading shows that you forgot to record from other people, but we're looking forward to the simul-viewing. – Jason Chen

NDS Announces Peer-To-Peer [Yahoo via PVRWire]

Out of 50 songs tested by Zunerama, Universal and Sony artists were the most represented on the prohibited list. That's particularly frustrating when you recall that sweetheart deal that Universal Music Group and Microsoft dreamed up for the Zune, making everybody pay through the nose for the right to share Universal's music on the Zune.

The list of prohibited and accepted songs in this 50-song sample:

Universal Music Group
• Prohibited Zune Sharing: Gwen Stefani, Snow Patrol, Eminem, Blue October, JoJo, Jay-Z
• Accepted Zune Sharing: Nickelback, Nelly Furtado and Maria Carey

Sony Music
• Prohibited Zune Sharing: Beyonce, Weird Al Yankovic (not sure if song is from Sony) and Ciara
• Accepted Zune Sharing: Shakira, Wyclef Jean, The Fray, Christina Aguilera, John Mayer and Brad Paisley

Don't steal music, but look the other way when record companies won't even let you share it, even with gobs of DRM slathered on it. Great plan, guys. – Charlie White

Universal and Sony Don't Like Zune to Zune Sharing [ClicZune]

Wireless sharing - 58% of top songs are sharable? [Zunerama]

Sounds like that Internet bubble is expanding again. There's got to be a catch. – Charlie White

divShare Site [Diversion Web Publishing, LLC]

The MultiSwitch can act as a switch to control which PC sees which device at a certain time. In future models, SMSC may develop wireless technology as well, using WUSB so there are even less cables to manage.

The point? Well, it'd be nice to have access to printers and scanners with multiple PCs if you're running a small or home office. This way, you're not encumbered with a complicated networking setup, or need to make one PC the bottleneck for all USB-related activities. – Jason Chen

MultiSwitch - First USB Sharing Hub [TFOT]

1. Make sure that your Zune is connected and the Zune Software is running.

2. Navigate to My Computer and click on your Zune's name.

3. Open "Storage"

4. Find the file that contains the name of the user who transferred songs to you in the file name, and delete all records with that title.

5. Get the other party to do the same and you can now transfer the same songs again!

Zune Hack: Share your song again! [Fadeproofonline]

Microsoft signed a patent non-assertion agreement that grants Shared Media Licensing the rights to exploit its patent and any patents related to it without fear of legal repercussions. So if Microsoft should roll out a Zune compensated sharing program based on it, Shared Media Licensing and Weedshare already are in a unique position to leverage it for their own benefit.

This is pretty great news if you work at Weedshare and Shared Media Licensing, but since you don't, it's just confirmation that you'll get Marketplace points for song sharing soon. – Jason Chen

Me? I'm between jobs until the Zune incentive program rolls out [Good Morning Silicon Valley]