Yesterday, lawyers for Aussie ISP iiNet argued in court that the movie studios, represented in the case by AFACT, had a commercial relationship with BitTorrent.com. Now in day four of the trial, the studios have hit back, accusing iiNet of withholding information and focusing on the “legally irrelevant”.
In August, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN won its case against The Pirate Bay, and the court ordered the defendants to block access to Dutch visitors. The case was appealed today and rightly so. It appears that the evidence presented by BREIN was faked in an attempt to mislead the court.
As the court case between anti-piracy group AFACT and ISP iiNet moves into its third day, an interesting element to the ISPs defense has been revealed. iiNet claims that the studios had contractual agreements with BitTorrent Inc, and even promoted their companies on BitTorrent.com, a confusing situation for potential downloaders.
Efforts by Warner Music to prevent music piracy have gone so far that indie artist Edwyn Collins is unable to share one of his own tracks on MySpace. In a response to the copyright drama, Collins’ manager explains that file-sharers are not the problem, but the labels themselves.
Today marked the second day of court action between several film and TV studios against Aussie ISP iiNet. The studios said the ISP knew about and could have done more to halt nearly 95,000 infringements. iiNet hit back, claiming AFACT’s figures had been artificially inflated by a flawed process.
The Pirate Bay is going on a road trip through Europe, one they hope to end today in a former NATO bunker. After a move from Sweden to the Ukraine, The Pirate Bay has now arrived at CyberBunker, an ISP that can provide them with a facility that can resist a nuclear attack as well as electromagnetic pulse bombs.
Today marked the start of the civil action between several film and TV studios against Aussie ISP iiNet. The studios, under the umbrella of AFACT, asserted in court that iiNet did nothing to stop its customers sharing copyright media via BitTorrent. The ISP will essentially refute the claim, and will utilize a multi-layered defense.
One of the oldest groups at the top of the so-called piracy pyramid has been taken down by the notorious Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau. Unusually there have been no arrests and no legal action. Instead the group ‘Svenne/Redcross’ has been forced to apologize and spread FUD about the security of other groups.
A music industry consultant has changed her Linkedin profile when it was revealed that the music lessons she’s giving in schools aren’t quite as they seem. Ruth Katz, who worked in anti-piracy enforcement for EMI and still works for the company as a consultant, is lecturing kids as young as five on anti-piracy issues.
Dozens of movie theaters worldwide have equipped their employees with night vision goggles to spy on customers, hoping to spot illegal recording devices. Following complaints alleging invasion of privacy, in Germany the local authorities ruled that theaters have to warn their customers if they use such equipment, rendering their piracy trap useless.
A few hours ago Internet search mogul Google removed the Pirate Bay frontpage from its search results. According to the company this action was taken after it received a DMCA takedown request, which is odd since there are no torrents to be found on the homepage of The Pirate Bay.
