Anti-Piracy Lawyers Lose License To Chase Pirates

Just days after Norway’s data protection department told ISPs they must delete all personal IP address-related data three weeks after collection, it’s now become safer than ever to be a file-sharer in Norway. The only law firm with a license to track pirates has just seen it expire and it won’t be renewed.

Earlier this month we reported that since Norway’s Personal Data act prohibits the storage of unnecessary data, ISPs in the country must delete all IP address-related personal information they hold on their customers which is more than three weeks old. This makes it very hard in most cases to track down illicit file-sharers.

Now according to a Norwegian report, going after domestic file-sharers has become more difficult than ever before.

Since 2006, the Simonsen law firm – home of notorious pirate-chasing lawyer Espen Tøndel – has been in possession of a license from Norway’s data protection office which enables the outfit to monitor alleged pirates and collect their IP addresses.

But unfortunately for the firm it now has to stop this Internet surveillance, since the license was only temporary, has just expired and won’t be renewed.

The reason for the renewal rejection is that there has been little political debate on the issue since the license was granted. Norway’s data protection authorities had previously requested political clarification and legislation on what licensees can and cannot do. They haven’t been forthcoming.

Simonsen lawyer Espen Tøndel told Dagbladet that he was very unhappy with developments. “We believe that the decision is politically justified,” he said, noting that there should be no reason why the license shouldn’t be extended.

Tøndel further said that his law firm will object against the non-renewal of their license but if they fail, he fears that copyright holders will be completely powerless to stop illegal file-sharing.

“One can not deny [the copyright holders] their right to protect their interests in this way,” he said.

Previous Post | Next Post

Follow @torrentfreak

DontWantToBeFirst:(

I think Norwegian music & movie companies will strangely still sell products after all this takes effect. Their consumers will just be a little more happy and safe.
Me:D

Haha, nice one!

Way to go, Norway!

And all the stupid people who say “First”, please stop it!

Danm, TF please remove the “You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down.” I can’t post :(

(This is 5 try to post)
redmarine

One small step for my childhood country, a giant leap for all file-sharers!
Zush

Another battle won.
yahoo101

can you guys give me some link to vpn that run in Norway
neostyles

TF should have a word filter that prevents people from spammng FIRST!!!!!! and other gay 5#17.
k

great news!
RafaelDK

^true^
Jeroen

Yeah! This makes Norway just that bit safer. I really hope other countrys will follow. Together we have the power to make a fist against the MAFIAA!

—quote—
“One can not deny [the copyright holders] their right to protect their interests in this way,” he said.
—endquote—

Yeah, but the artist is the copyright holder. And I think most artists wouldn`t to that far, to sue a lady like Jammie for an ass-whoping 2 million!
CWagner

Haha! :D
Use Your Brain?

Norway FTW!

Us danes are VERY envious on apparently the north’s absolutly most sensible country concerning IT!!
Anonymous

Deny income to artists no, but deny abusing copyright limits hell yah LoL
Anonymous

Go Norway!

http://antimatter.atbhost.net/2009/06/22/anti-piracy-lawyers-lose-license-to-chase-pirates/
Anonyfag

Why does it necessarily take more than 3 weeks to resolve an address to an account holder? I don’t see how it should take long at all if legal provision is in place to allow for it.
Me:D

@15 (Anonyfag): It doesn’t take long to resolve an address to an account holder, but they can’t resolve the address if the person only have shared 1 movie/music…etc

The MPAA/IFPI…etc goes after the people that shares alot of files, but I don’t think they can find a “big” pirate in 3 weeks :D
Hitler

Yeah, but the artist is the copyright holder.

Nope, if they engage in a contract with a media company that states otherwise then they effectively sign away any right to copy/distribute their own work.
Meez

Lol, fail Law firm is fail. They don’t know themself why they need such a license in the first place.
Turbis

I wanna move to norway now :D
/Swede
Stevie C

artists don’t own the copyrights to their work – their labels do. however, i think the artists SHOULD own the copyrights, not the MAFIAA fatcats.
Jeff

Now if only MediaSentry would have the same happen to them. After all, most if not all their methods of investigation are questionable at best.

If such a thing happened, all of the RIAA’s pending cases would collapse like a house of cards.
Maroan

“One can not deny [the copyright holders] their right to protect their interests in this way,” he said. oh…. case closed… ;-)
…

Now Norway only need to join the EU and spread the love!
Paladin of Truth

People often complain the copyright defenders take draconian measures to protect artists, but who complains when a law firm is bullied because of the government demagogy? That’s the high point of hypocrisy if you ask me. Now how are the copyright holders supposed to defend themselves??
AnonymousCoward79

@24 The Swedes are doing that with their pirate party =)
Gordon

@25: People are happy to support copyright holders when they are the innovators. MAFIAA is not the innovator, they’re just a lame-ass profiteering bunch of lawyers stealing from the innovators with shady contracts.
Anonymous

25 Jun 23, 2009 at 00:01 by Paladin of Truth

People often complain the copyright defenders take draconian measures to protect artists, but who complains when a law firm is bullied because of the government demagogy? That’s the high point of hypocrisy if you ask me. Now how are the copyright holders supposed to defend themselves??

Copyright holders should go after people who try to profit from their work not go after people who have no inclination in making money out of what they got.

“Usage” is the term here, what type of usage should we as a society condemn?

I am all for condemning people who try to make a buck from others work I have no problem with that, but condemning people for trying to listen and watch something is ludicrous and out off touch with reality.
Filip

All the more reason why Sweden should start a war with Norway and let Norway win…
I wan’t to have good laws. D:
diOnysus

I hope a few of my other favourite countries follow suit!
7SeVeN7

time to start hosting my torrent site from servers there…..
katrizzle

Norway is so fucking awesome.
Anonymous

with any luck they won’t be able to defend their priviledges and people in norway at least will have a little more peace of mind.

from: http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=196

There are three theories as to how intellectual work should be recognised as property (or not):

1. Privileged IP – extended by unnatural monopoly
2. No IP – material property only
3. Natural IP – no unnatural monopoly

Privileged IP is the predominant and received thesis. Moreover, to the most extreme of IP maximalists, the privileges of copyright and patent are seen as actually deficient, that the reproduction monopolies should be perpetual, and are otherwise dilutions, albeit tolerable if in the public good.

No IP is the predominant counter-thesis, that there is no such thing as intellectual property, that the only thing that can be the subject of property is matter, not information. Thus if a poem written on a sheet of paper is stolen (from someone’s private possession), only the theft of paper and ink is recognised, and if a copy of the words is stolen, no theft is recognised to have occurred at all.

Natural IP is the recognition of intellectual work as property from a natural rights perspective. It is offensive/incomprehensible to advocates of both the predominant thesis and counter-thesis, as while on the one hand it holds that the monopolies of copyright and patent are unnatural and derogate from the individual’s liberty, on the other hand it recognises that intellectual property is natural, that individuals have a natural exclusive right to their intellectual work. Thus with natural IP, poems can be stolen (theft of IP recognised with/without any material), though no monopoly over the poem is granted, e.g. purchasers of poems are free to make and sell copies or derivatives.

I personally choose Natural IP
Alexey

I don’t get it. If he says that the decision was justified, then he is happy with it. Or is it a mistranslation?
lol

haha denied
@23

The reason Norway tends to make sense is because it stays away from the European Soviet Union
Anonymous

one more victory on the long road to defeating the maffia.
Pingback: popurls.com // popular today
Johnny Woods

Cool! I guess that is the place to be! get all the free music and movies you can! LOL

Riff
http://www.anon-tools.tk
c0rr0sive

Finally, someone said f*ck the RIAA money.
sjena

Good ol’ Norway has their head on straight, I’ll move them up in the list of places I am considering moving to.
manky goes to bollywood

cool story bro :)
Anonymous

If Downloading A Song Is Just Like Stealing A CD, Why Won’t The RIAA Allow Reselling MP3s?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090622/0034405309.shtml
47

Norway, the new Sweden :D
.::neostyle::.

Copyright holders should go after people who try to profit from their work not go after people who have no inclination in making money out of what they got.

The fact that you arent making money doesn’t change the fact that copyright holders aren’t. And that’s what makes it theft. You are robbing them of profits and potential to develop themselves.
.::neostyle::.

Also, for anyone who STILL needs more proof of what piracy does
http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/index.html
Rabbit80

@neotroll

More inaccurate bullshit!

One count of unauthorised installation does NOT equal one lost sale! For example – if I did not have a pirated copy of M$ Office, I would use Open Office instead – no sale to M$ either way!
.::neostyle::.

Calling me banes defenitely makes your case much stronger..

That arguement has been used and it doesn’t work. Software companies have methods of determining how many people use their software, legal or not. In almost every case, the profits margin is vastly out of proportion with the size of the install base.

Logically, many people simple choose to install pirated software than pay for a legit version, so 99% of the time, it does work out to be the same.
Peter

Another point that many like neostyle don’t see is the massive benefit pirating software has on companies. Take Adobe for example, how many people actually can afford to buy it? If it weren’t for people pirating and using the damn stuff, it wouldn’t be half as popular. The benefit to Adobe of this is the exposure of so many people using it, then going on to learn it and use it professionally. Now if it was unpiratable (is that’s a word) then not many would use it or know about it and an alternative would take it’s place.
KKK

Young man, You were surfing along, And then, young man, You downloaded a song, And then, dumb man, Copied it to your ‘Pod, Then a phone call came to tell you:

You’ve just been sued by the R.I.A.A.! You’ve just been sued by the R.I.A.A.! Their attorneys say, you committed a crime, And there’d better not be a next time!

They’ve lost their minds at the R.I.A.A.! Justice is blind at the R.I.A.A…. “You’re depriving the bands! You are learning to steal, You can’t do whatever you feel!”

Know what? They’re a lawsuit machine. They say so what If you’re only thirteen? And you know what? They were equally mean To an 80-year-old grandma!

CD Sales have dropped every year, They’re not greedy- They’re just quaking with fear, Yes, indeedy- What if their end is near, And we download all our music?

They’d all freak out at the R.I.A.A.- No plastic discs from the R.I.A.A.! What a way to make friends! It’s a plan that can’t fail: Haul your customers off to jail!

And who’ll be next for the R.I.A.A.? What else is vexing the R.I.A.A.? Maybe whistling a tune? Maybe humming along? Maybe mocking them in a song-!
Pingback: Norwegischer IP Jäger verliert Lizenz | CyainHell.de
rainbow jeremy

We’re all made of stars, can’t stop us you aggressive RIAA .

You’re a white dwarf headed for a black hole. That’s physics. It’s inevitable.
Reasoned Mind

suck my stacia you fat slut
4nd

@the fake neostyles

The fact that you arent making money doesn’t change the fact that copyright holders aren’t. And that’s what makes it theft. You are robbing them of profits and potential to develop themselves.

Filesharing is not theft! How many times will people have to smash this into the anti-piracy zealots’ heads? Nothing is being taken from anyone because you can’t steal what someone would never have had in the first place. The “loss of a chance to make a gain” concept is bullcrap. You cannot lose a chance to make a gain. The copyright owners always have the chance if their products remain for sale; if they constantly had a zero chance, they would have zero sales. Which they don’t. Not by a longshot. Filesharing may reduce their chances to make a gain, but that is hardly justification for fighting filesharing, considering the huge benefits it brings the common man. “Oh, noes, we’re going to have fewer sales because people are free.” Flip that around and it’s “We depend on controlling human rights for our profits.” Evil, evil, evil.

People have a right to education. People have a right to access to the sum total of the knowledge of mankind. People have a right to share with each other; it’s one of the extremely fundamental concepts of our society.
4nd

@the fake neostyles…

Oops, forgot to add.

Also, for anyone who STILL needs more proof of what piracy does
http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/index.html

I look at the link and immediately know that the report is written by the Business Software Alliance. An organization with a commercial interest in fighting filesharing, just like the RIAA and MPAA. As such, you cannot trust the reports and figures they put out in order to try and justify their lobbying for anti-filesharing, just like with the RIAA and MPAA.

Find me studies from independent sources and maybe you’ll have ground to stand on.
Anonymous

@trollstyles
“The fact that you arent making money doesn’t change the fact that copyright holders aren’t. And that’s what makes it theft.”

Wrong again, as always. Or should I say, lying again. I wonder if you’re even *capable* of telling the truth?

Probably not.

No matter how many times theft is explained to you, and no matter how many times it’s explained to you that it’s factually impossible for filesharing to be theft, you continue to spin the reality-defying lie that P2P is stealing.

You can fling that bullshit around all you like, but at the end of the day, you can’t change the meaning of the word “theft” to encompass the act of sharing. How does it feel to know that every comment you make is futile?
Anonymous

Here’s an INDEPENDANT study from HARVARD for our, ever so boring, resident apologist NEOshill… the sad little sycophant that he is.

“Harvard Study Finds WEAKER COPYRIGHT PROTECTION Has BENEFITTED SOCIETY”

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4062/125/
Goon of Goons

http://www.magellanmediapartners.com/index.php/mmcp/article/the_impact_of_piracy/

Interesting piece, even if you don’t obtain the actual paper.

O’Reilly publishing did this and found that their products get a second wind when put on p2p networks.
lyecdevf

Sounds like Norway is a good place to live now. At least one place with a sound reasoning on this issue.
Alun

I still don’t understand how the rights system works.

Copyright is there to guarantee the artist the right to be the only person to profit from the work.

The artist gives up his right by signing a contract for a media company to profit from the work.

So if the artist signed his right to copyright away then why is the work still covered by copyright law?
Gur

The sad thing is that the music/film industry will soon get mad at Norway because of all this just as they’re on Sweden because they had too little power to control things like this in those countries. They will probably threaten with not export films/music to their country or bribe someone when they finally decide to look at Norway and they magically have to give the license back to the anti-piracy lawyer.
Cordelia

Well done Norway!

Is there an anonymity service there?

It would be perfect for people from Scandinavia and Northern Europe —

Norway’s got super fast broadband and isn’t even in the EU.

I’d love to use a proxy server or VPN in Norway.
Pingback: makin257 - Anti-Piracy Lawyers Lose License To Chase Pirates
Darian Knight

“One can not deny [the copyright holders] their right to protect their interests in this way,” he said

Correction.. they just did. Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.
troll2troll

‘“One can not deny [the copyright holders] their right to protect their interests in this way,” he [Espen Tøndel] said.’

Should prolly read, “One can not deny Me the right to monitor and hamster IP addresses and all the information that goes with ‘em in this way!” he said. “How on earth am I supposed to protect my right to my revenue stream now, eh, tell me that?”
Anonymous

“One can not deny [the copyright holders] their right to protect their interests in this way,”

Well I say: Denied!
rubber

Neostyles just cannot adapt to the future, plain and simple..

talk.. whine.. scream.. cry all you want Neotroll.. YOU ARE A DINOSAUR. After all your BS is said and done, your out the window.. you cannot stop it.

You still think that all this can be reversed.. like this is some people ‘getting out of hand’ that need to be ‘handled’. Im very surprised that you cannot see that this is it, this cannot be undone.. the files are shared.. we haven’t even BEGUN to go underground.. you can still find WHATEVER YOU WANT in like 0.4 seconds and download it.. any noob can do it. I have been around since napster.. ive been in more underground networks then you have even heard of..

So what if they somehow manage to rid the popular sites.. THIS WILL NEVER STOP.. just like drugs.

If you think the war on drugs failed.. just wait till you see this one.
Rabbit80

@47 neostyle

The arguement that One count of unauthorised installation does NOT equal one lost sale DOES work… around 70% of my software is now either open source or a free alternative to the paid for versions. For example – rather than spend £100′s on M$ Office I now use Open Office. Rather than Photoshop I use GIMP, rather than Windows Server software, I now install linux based servers, the list goes on and on. If there were no piracy – I can simply use alternative software or not use it at all.

I do still pay for some software though – including software that is perfectly functional without having to pay – for example Sandboxie. So long as it is not a rip-off and it is useful, I will happily pay for it!

I no longer buy games before I have downloaded and tested the full version – I have been stung too many times by buggy / crappy games that I played only once or twice due to issues. For example – I bought Test Drive Unlimited – it was 6 months before it was sufficiently patched to play. I bought NFS Prostreet – it still runs like a bag of shite on my system to this day! (And yes – my system is easily powerful enough – I can virtually max out Crysis with no issues at all!)
Rekrul

To all the people complaining about others posting “First!”; You do realize that they’re just emulating the scene groups, right? The entire scene philosophy is based around being “First!” Why is it perfectly acceptable for the scene groups, but not ok when people do it in comments?
trancefreak

gogogo norway!!! :D
Pingback: 3 Count: Obama in (cyber)Space | PlagiarismToday
Pingback: Byte Into It – 24 Jun 09 « Byte Into It – Computing and new technology
JTK

If I had a Gulfstream V like the RIAA, I’d use it to move to Norway.
Anonymous

@66 Jun 23, 2009 at 16:04 by Rekrul:

So there is the root for this funny behaviour LoL

I always thought it was because some people have attention issues LoL
Gaz

@66

are you serious?

maybe because the people posting First! all over the place look like morons, and normally turn out to be so.
Pingback: Varför inte? » Flyttlasset går till Norge?
Anonymous

I like the line

“He fears that copyright holders will be completely powerless to stop illegal file-sharing”

as opposed to completely ineffectual at stopping illegal file-sharing as they are everywhere else
PetFoodz.Info

@Neotroll..

You should take a look at the Conference Board of Canada’s report.. Since it was only released last month or so.. Not only is it plagiarized they were forced to recant it.. Not only that they named authors who had nothing to do with the final plagiarized report and were forced to issue an apology.. This is how far your sacred anti-piracy tactics will go.. Conference board of Canada still refuses to name who the companies were that funded them for this study.. Which was a waste of money anyways considering the whole opening if not more is plagiarized from a previous MPAA\RIAA study….
ODT

A HELLZ YEAH! VICTORY!
Anonymous

Dang, I wish I lived in Norway… Copyright laws suck here in the United States.
Pingback: ???????????????? ISP ??????????????????????????, ??????????????????????????????? | Longthumdoo
Rekrul

Re: 70, Gaz;

” @66

are you serious?

maybe because the people posting First! all over the place look like morons, and normally turn out to be so.”

Unlike the scene groups that rush to be first to release something, only to have it nuked 15 minutes later because they screwed something up?
Pingback: Penzioneri… – June 24, 2009 - The Chronicles of…
Entertane.com

the easist site for torrents (movies, music, software, games) is http://www.entertane.com – faster, simpler – and you can search all your favorite torrent sites.
4nd

@KKK

That is BRILLIANT.

Congratulations, you win an Internet.
Pingback: Abogados noruegos pierden licencia de persecución de piratas : Blogografia
Dan

@2 Luckily the first post was’nt an annoying “FIRST@!@11@!!!@” caller =]…And strangely none of the following posts had that call either =]

Back on topic… Good to see things heading in the right direction, hopefully as Norway will sell their products just well, then the rights holders might start to take notice that file sharing is not acctually the end of the world…
Pingback: meneame.net
Pingback: Open Rights Group Newsblog : Blog Archive » Norwegian Anti-Piracy Lawyers Lose License To Chase Pirates
Entertane.com

http://www.entertane.com – the easist site for torrents (movies, music, software, games) – faster, simpler – and you can search all your favorite torrent sites.
Pingback: Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model | dv8-designs
Pingback: Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model | Design Website
Pingback: Click World News » Blog Archive » Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model
Pingback: Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model | GetAnswers.ws
Pingback: Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model | GetAnswers.ws
Pingback: Nowinki » Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model
Pingback: Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model | Design Website Easy
Pingback: Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model | Geek News and Musings
Pingback: Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model | DodaPedia
Pingback: Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry’s Business Model | DodaPedia
Pingback: Links 26/06/2009: Palm, Android and New GNU/Linux Sub-notebooks | Boycott Novell
neuromancer360

one of the things that is completely asinine about piracy and encryption:

The fact that If im a programmer wanting to steal and modify sourcecode from other programmers, I can go get a copy of your program, simply change the name of the program and incidentals, encrypt it with my own personal encryption key and program, you have no way of knowing i just ripped off your data other than noticing icon similarities. Thier is absolutely
no federal regulation of watchdogging of this and were all expected to trust people like microsoft,etc. not to do this.
The other thing is all this infighting and encryption eventually
will entice hackers to start encrypting virus’s.

This means programers can easily use encryption to rip other programers off and simply modify programming code. Companies dont want to encrypt thier information if thier smart anyway as no one will be programming for you and stuff like adobe, autodesk, etc.
is based on building apps.

All encryption for piracy measures do is help support rich people who can afford good encryption measures, programming and technology should be for everyone and not socialy engineered to support a class of people (rich).

Another example of this is webbrowsing, where only popular companies are browsed first 9 (by popularity), making it impossible for new companies or new information
for that matter get ahead.

nice job and esp that microsoft is encrypting and developing a.i. technology with thier new xbox natal milo demo, that means as long as privatized education is supported
we could all wake up getting pwned
by a corporation or group of people.

educational information needs to be public, not privatized, otherwise we end up with the mess we have now with technology being geared towards rich people and rich companies.

TorrentFreak

The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

Anti-Piracy Lawyers Lose License To Chase Pirates

Related Posts

Previous Post | Next Post

NewsBits

The Pirate Bay Isn’t Down Completely, Just Having a Few Issues

Pirate Bay Founder Gottfrid Svartholm on Freedom of Speech

Blu-ray Anti-Piracy Tech Stops Discs and Promotes Purchases

Foxtel Breeds Pirates by Locking Up Game of Thrones

UK Student Admits Breaching Sony Copyrights With Leak of PS3 SDK

MostDiscussed

Pirate Bay Takes Over Distribution of Censored 3D Printable Gun

McAfee Patents Technology to Detect and Block Pirated Content

Pirate Bay Finds Safe Haven in Iceland, Switches to .IS Domain

Copyright Trolls Threaten to Call Neighbors of Accused Porn Pirates

Game Pirates Whine About Piracy in Game Dev Simulator

CopyQuote

PopularArticles

VPN Services That Take Your Anonymity Seriously, 2013 Edition

Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2013

Which VPN Service Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously?

What’s The Best VPN / Proxy for BitTorrent?

BTGuard Review: How Does it Work?

Optimize Your BitTorrent Download Speed