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The verdict could be a step toward helping music and film companies seeking to recoup millions of dollars in lost revenues from filesharers, though analysts said they doubted it would stem the tide of illegal downloading.

"The Stockholm district court has today found guilty the four individuals that were charged with accessory to breaching copyright laws," the court said in a statement. "The court has sentenced each of them to one year in prison." Companies including Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI were also asking for damages of more than 100 million crowns ($12 million) to cover lost revenues.

The court also ordered the defendants to pay over 30 million Swedish crowns ($3.58 million).

The men linked to The Pirate Bay Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom were charged early last year by a Swedish prosecutor with conspiracy to break copyright law and related offences. Lundstrom's attorney Per Samuelson told journalists he was shocked by the guilty verdict and the severity of the sentence.

"That's outrageous, in my point of view Of course we will appeal," he said.

"This is the first word, not the last. The last word will be ours." The group that controls The Pirate Bay launched in 2003, has maintained that since no copyrighted material is stored on its servers and no exchange of files actually takes place there, they cannot be held responsible for what material is being exchanged.

Industry specialists were not convinced the verdict would have a lasting effect. "Every time you get rid of one, another bigger one pops up. Napster went, and then up came a whole host of others ... The problem of file-sharing just keeps growing year on yeal and it's increasingly difficult for the industry to do anything about it," said music analyst Mark Mulligan of research firm Forrester "Pirate Bay was brilliant at self-publicity, but the reality is there are lots of other torrent-tracker sites," said Dan Cryan, senior analyst at media research firm Screen Digest. "The closing of the one that shouts the loudest won't make any difference."

Last year, Swedish prosecutors filed criminal charges against four men they say violate the country's copyright law by operating the Pirate Bay. The file-sharing site has long been one of the top Web destinations for people seeking access to pirated movies, games, books and business software. The site, which says it has 22 million users, is based in Sweden, where the government has taken few steps to curtail piracy until recently.

The four men--Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom--have denied the charges, arguing that they merely provided an index of content and didn't control what other people did with it.

Arguments have finished, and a ruling is due Friday.

The men face up to two years in jail, although the prosecution has asked for sentences of one year. Entertainment companies, including Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., EMI Group Ltd. and Sony Corp.'s Columbia Pictures, are also seeking a total of 117 million Swedish kronor ($14.2 million) compensation for lost revenue.

Source: Live Mint Court Nears Decision On File­sharing Site

The Congress candidate for the Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat, Krishna Byre Gowda, was on his way there. And soon enough, Gowda, a two-time Karnataka state lawmaker, arrived on the scene, straining under the weight of garlands.

Almost at the same time, real-time social messaging website Twitter registered an update that read: "Krishna is on his way over to the Gavi Gangadhara temple." "Methods of campaigning are constantly involving and cannot be static," says Gowda, 36, who has a masters degree in international affairs from American University, Washington, DC. "I have two kinds of voter categories to cater to--those with access to the Internet and those without.

The strategy just has to be twopronged." Gowda's team of 15 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 25 years update his Facebook, Orkut and Twitter profiles every couple of hours.

But while the Congress party's presence on the Internet and mobile airwaves seems restricted to Net-savvy politicians such as Gowda and south Mumbai contestant Milind Deora, the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has gone all out in a countrywide mobile and Internet campaign to promote its prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani, other contestants and the party's ideology.

The party sends four text messages to mobile users across the country every day and has stepped up the onslaught in tech-savvy states. In Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa, mobile users receive auto-dialler calls that play recorded voice messages from candidates when a call is answered.

Bluetooth pushers If you walk into a shopping mall in Mumbai or Bangalore with your Bluetooth reception turned on, don't be surprised if you receive a request to download a message from the BJP.

Source: Live Mint Campaigning in Indian elections comes of e­-age

Yes, the election is for real. But the way virtual space is being used to reach the masses makes forthcoming general elections in India the most 'tech-savvy' one in the political and democratic history of the country.

From political parties to candidates, everyone is embracing the Net with great vigour. While some have redesigned their existing websites, others have launched new ones with the elections in mind.

Apart from its official site, www.congress.org.in, Congress party has launched a special site for the general elections - www.voteforcongress.in. It has also launched a site, www.soniagandhi.org, for their leader, Sonia Gandhi.

And, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has www.bjp.org apart from L K Advani's special website, www.lkadvani.in, that is being publicised on almost all websites. PLus Advani has a personal blog too. Then there is www.cpim.org, the website launched by the CPI(M).

Even smaller and regional parties have followed this new trend. Shiv Sena's www.shivsena.org, Trinamool Congress' www.trinamoolcongress.com, Telugu Desam Party's www.telugudesam.org, to mention a few.

Keeping the regional ideology, most of these sites have full-content in local language that restricts its exposure to users from other regions, however.

This apart, parties are aggressively using SMS, online advertisements and promotions, as also the conventional methods to influence voters. Is it that the Obama syndrome spreading to the Indian electoral landscape?

Not exactly, feels JuxtConsult's co-founder, Mrutyunjay Misra.

"We will be wrong, if we compare their (parties) effort to the 'Obama effect', because Internet penetration in India is very low compared to USA or UK, where it is a major channel of communication, mass engagement and influences decisions."

Talking about parties' portals, Misra says most of them haven't followed any set standards of user experience, usability, visual appearance, interactivity and content updates. Some websites lack the proper navigation system that causes long page-scrolling for reading content. And in many, there is no provision for users' comments and suggestions.

Interestingly, Misra points out that political parties' websites still need to go a long way if we compare them against the best practices of web development.

"Parties' websites lack the efforts to engage the youth audience and appears more of plain vanilla brochure websites," he quips.

According to Tonic Media's business director Sudish Balan, there's little doubt at the moment that of all the parties, BJP website is the one with more depth and it is also the frequently updated one.

"Since BJP has a dedicated team of individuals spread across multiple states (the IT cell), the results are showing. Off the rest, Congress has only recently started paying attention to the online property while CPI(M) website seems more like a blog and not a professional website. And the others are mere laggards," Balan says.

Coming to the personal sites and blogs of leaders, there are many more including that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, (www.manmohansingh.org), Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi (www.narendramodi.in) and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy (www.ysrportal.com).

Will it benefit the parties in election?

Of course, all the political parties want to reach the targeted audience with their websites but multiple websites may not always serve the purpose.

Balan points out that BJP with L K Advani's site, is trying to project a larger-than-life image of its Prime Minister candidate.

"From the perspective of reach, indeed multiple websites do segment the market at different levels, and also can be separately linked to other channels of communication," he explains.

About Congress, Balan reckons that the party discourages personal websites of its leaders to keep the party's leadership intact.

However, the party's young brigades, like Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora and Jyotiraditya Scindia, have created online platforms with personal websites - like www.sachinpilot.com, www.milinddeora.com, www.jyotiraditya.com to connect to their electorate.

Still, Internet being a relatively new platform for campaigning, it may take a few more terms, before they can further use the platform's power for engaging audience, feels Misra.

What do you think? Can Internet campaign make a decisive difference among the electorate, especially the rural mass who are more concerned about bijli, sadak aur pani?
"You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want."

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, will not only have a dedicated election website, but have one that actually has a provision for mobilizing contributions.

The website, Vote.cpim.org, according to two party officials, is to be launched on Wednesday but was already live on Tuesday and is seen by analysts as the party's counter to the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani's website launched in November last year and the digital marketing plans of the Congress. Still, it will be a first for the party.

Advani's website Lkadvani.in is his own--aimed at bettering his chances of prime ministership--and his party has preferred to use the regular party website Bjp.org for its digital campaign. The Con- gress, too, plans to use its party website aicc.org.in for this purpose.

The digital efforts of political parties come in the run-up to an election where around 70% of India's estimated 1.3 billion population is less than 35 years of age, many of them first-time voters. They also come at a time when urban India's representation in the Lok Sabha has gone up following an effort to redraw constituencies on the basis of population density.

"The point is that the number of Internet users is still a very small proportion of our electorate. However, there is still a specific proportion that is net savvy and we should reach out to them. A campaign website is our way of expanding our propoganda," said Sitaram Yechury, politburo member, CPM.

Source: Live Mint Reds go online for votes, cash in on run-up to `young' polls

Today many politicians are embracing the internet (blogs, websites, social networking and other social media forums) to reach out to voters. But so far they have not been very successful in engaging the Indian population in a dialogue with them about their own party's platform or their personal stands on issues of public importance.

One of the major reasons is that the efforts so far by politicians have been only marketing campaigns rather than efforts to organize the community, or to translate the population at-large into reliable vote banks. A party having or not having a website cannot be the major reason for people to choose party affiliations, but having a good and interactive website it can cause people with a certain party preference to articulate their support for that party more strongly. And articulation of the support in public can motivate them to stick with that stand till election time, and also cause more people to speak up in support and identify themselves with the political party.

Many current initiatives by the political parties, and BJP seems to be the more determined to use the Internet in a big and systematic way, are bound to fail as they are just copying Western ideas of running political campaigns into an Indian environment. And the difference in the Indian environment from the Western environment is not only in digital penetration or techno-saviness of the masses, but the difference lies in the very nature of how power flows in the Indian Society and the inefficiencies in its flow compared to the Western societies. For example, the funds for a politicians campaign in the United States are collected from the citizen and there upper limits to the amount that can be contributed by a citizen/corporate, and all of this must be publicly disclosed. So, to raise more money politicians have to reach out to more and more people, and like Obama/Hillary/McCain  get people to contribute  $5, $50, etc. Thus, their approach in the US elections was a marketing and fundraising campaign. This does not hold true for India, and the reason for an Indian Politician to make a website cannot be his/her intention to collect contributions from the public.  

Another example of the difference in the US and Indian milieu is the notion of access to the politician or his office. Access to a politician in India is almost impenetrably guarded by a circle of people around the politician and his/her office in contrast to the politicians in the US. So, having "discussion forums", or "feed back" links are misleading on an Indian politician's website as they signal that a website visitor can just by tapping the keyboards get the attention of the politician - which due to the layer of people around the politician is not true. And if you can't get access to the politician, or can't find out a reasonable path by which to access the politician from the website, then what good is this electronic outpost for most citizens?    Hence, to succeed websites of Indian politicians must be grounded in Indian realities and not mere copies of websites of Western politicians.

Despite the growing number internet users today, many Indian politicians and political parties are reluctant to tap the growing number of Indian Internet users. One clear hinderance to the adoption of the net by the Indian politican is that most cannot figure out the basic tradeoff that they face - what do I want from my website for the citizens, and what am I willing to give in return to the citizens for getting what I want. Without addressing this basic issue of access, aggressive marketing campaigns like that being down by one of the major political parties may be shooting at the wrong target in the Indian context. There is a plethora of direct mail and there is a huge amount of graphic ads of the party's Prime Ministerial candidate's portal on thousands of websites across the web - there is a very intense online marketing campaign going on. Surely almost every one knows about the PM candidate, and to expect people to go and read about his bio, daily adventures, etc is not rational. And hoping that as more people know the PM candidate has his own website they will vote for him is also not realistic. So, what is it that the visitor should be provided when he visits the website? The visitor shoulf be provided access to the candiate or access to people in his circle and influence. The question that becomes most important for the candiate to decide, and infact for every Indian politician aspiring to create a website is - "in this new electronic channel and platform that is created, what do I want to flow to the people, what do I want to flow from the people, and what is that can flow amongst people on the platform that I create?"

The problem is complex not only in Indian context but in US also. Of interest is as to how Mr. Obama will transform his website meant for campaign to a website meant to govern. The way in which his free-flow conversations on websites as  a candidate are tempered to match the staid conversations of  the POTUS office, the way in which he will get his administration to respond to concerns raised by citizens, etc will help guide Indian politicians. Indian politicians should learn lessons not from Obama the candidate's website, but from Obama the President's website. The restrictions and realities of Obama the president's websites are more akin to the need of the Indian politician.

A lot of Indian politics plays out in the shadows. The relationships are not clear, the stands are ambigious, and their positions can change based on political realities. As long as a website is considered by politicians as a place where they have to declare information, and then be held acountable to it, they will hesitate. All they will be willing to provide is general banalities, which is not enough to make a successful website.

There is a lot of criticism about the current internet initiatives by politicians as many feel it won't work in India because the penetration of technology is restricted to urban India. But, this is wrong. Penetration of technology is only a restriction if you consider a website as a marketing effort. Otherwise even a basic mobile phone has sufficient technology to connect to the electronic presence (or website) of the Indian Politician. Further, the material on the website can be picked up by the mainstream press, and mass media, and that can reach the rural areas. The real question for the Indian politician is not really as to who all can you reach via your website, but the question is what will you do when someone does reach your website. Once citizens know the value proposition that the Indian politician offers on his/her website, they will find a way to connect with him/her - even if only briefly.

All social media forums from social networking site like Facebook, Orkut to websites to blogs to twitter have a role in the Indian Politicians website, but the politican will have to identify and create a space in it for each of these communication technologies. And it is important to note that these social media forums involve a give and take, i.e. that is what makes it social. So, the politician has to decide that what he/she wants to take, and what he/she or other people in his social network are willing to give on his/her behalf. All the social media sites are used to find people who have a preference for a party or politician, and this is a form of targeted marketing. And twitter, blogs, etc are just a form of communicating effectively. Twitter technology just means sending sms to a huge group of people - just like group sms messaging. But the twitter marketing means that only people who have expressed a need to hear from you get the sms - that is how it is different from group/bulk sms messaging. Further facebook, orkut, etc are important because of the marketing that happens amongst people with certain declared preferences, and the possibility that your message will be heard mostly by people willing to listen to you in the first place ...

Despite websites or blogs or social networking sites, online supporters and voters seemed pretty disappointed by the weak response of leaders to their requests, pleas and comments.  They are disappointed, because the access that seems possible when you visit the website turns out to be illusionary when tried in practice, and hence is a big disappointment. What sort of bonding needs to be done is the toughest of the questions that has to be decided by the individual politicians, as it is according to their needs that they must cultivate their website and bonding. At the least the politican must spell out clearly on the website the clear and fair path according to which they citizen can gain access to the politician, even if it involves layers of heirarchy.

There are many challenges to adapting the internet and communication technologies in the 2009 general elections. Two to 3 months is too short a period in which something dramatic can happen.  It is true that each day is an eternity in a political campaign, but the Indian politican has not yet gotten a solution to the tradeoff - "what do I want from my website for the citizens, and what am I willing to give in return to the citizens for getting what I want." The more there is in the website for the citizen, the more will it give back to the Indian Politician. The more the website empowers citizen, the more the website will empower the Indian Politician.

One of the ways to empower citizens is to help them peek into the corridors of power, and then provide them tools to be able to make those in power more transparent and accountable. The RTI Act of 2005 is the most powerful tool that the Govt has given to the citizen, and will someday be used by many politicans to help people seek administation transparency and accountability, and knowing that their actions are also open to RTI will make them more proactive about the use/abuse of power. The judicious use and spread of information obtained by RTI Act will make the websites of Indian politicians more meaningful and eventually lead to websites being important tools in the fight between political parties.

To be a really effective tool, there must be something that is being leveraged. A website that uses the leverage of information (transparency) and access (accountability) is going to be effective and powerful tool in the political battles ....

And so, after spending Rs24 lakh, which can buy someone a little less than three-quarters an entry-level Mercedes, India's biggest auto maker by revenue has been deluged by enquiries by the thousands from far and wide.

Through an eponymous portal, www.tatanano.com, which has been up since January last year, Tata Motors has been spreading the message of the Nano, and extended this to online, high-traffic properties such as Facebook and Orkut.

To be sure, this is not the first time that an Indian firm has used online techniques to market wares and ideas. Indeed, the likes of Microsoft India Pvt. Ltd, organizers of the Indian Premier League cricket tourney and, even, political parties such as the Congress party have done so, some beginning as early as 2006. And, even auto makers such as General Motors India Ltd (GM) or Yamaha Motors Ltd took to social networking in their marketing overdrive.

But the scale and scope of expectations worldwide is different this time. At the Nano page on Facebook, the response is gushy, almost. And so you have Darlene who says: "Please bring this car to Toronto, Canada!!!" Then, there is some gratuitous advice for the future in case the Tata company planned a manufacturing beachhead in Americas. "You guys should make the Nano in Colombia since it would be a good place to produce them; we are in the middle of the American continent so it can be easily transported anywhere from Canada to Argentina at a lower cost; we have ports in the two oceans and many international cargo airports; we also happen to already have auto maker plants in Colombia too," says Luis.

Source: Live Mint Selling Nano in the time of Facebook, Orkut