It’s an incredibly simple concept. The meme is based on a bait and switch, whereby someone posts a hyperlink which allegedly provides content relevant to the current discussion, but in fact leads to the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up” instead.

People who follow these links and end up viewing the song/video are said to have been “Rickrolled” and over the years millions of people have been fooled into doing so. However, those falling into the trap today are being met with something not nearly as entertaining and, if it’s even possible, something that is even more annoying.

Due to a copyright complaint, the original Rickroll video has been removed from YouTube.

Taking down a five-year-old video with tens of millions of views is strange enough, but it is far from clear why AVG Technologies – the people behind AVG Anti-Virus (?) – would want to do so at all.

Hopefully there has been some terrible mistake and everything will be sorted out soon. If not, the consequences could be unpredictable. The Rickroll meme started life on the notorious 4chan message board in 2007 and developed into a worldwide sensation from there, and as we all know that particular community is not known for its patience, nor lack of creativity when it comes to revenge tactics.

This is not the first time that the Rickroll video has been removed though. It was removed by YouTube in 2010 but reinstated shortly afterwards.

TorrentFreak contacted both AVG and Google-owned YouTube for comment and we’ll post their statements here when they arrive.

Update: After being blocked for 24 hours, the video is now back. We’re still waiting for an official explanation on what happened.

Source: Rickroll Meme Destroyed By Copyright Takedown

The Supreme Court has refused to hear his case. While this is not the be-all-and-end-all for the case, it’s another roadblock.

At issue was the matter of excessive damages, specifically the statutory damages that allow for between $750-$150,000 per infringement.

In their brief, Tenenbaum’s lawyer is reported by the Boston Globe as saying “This pernicious interpretation of the Copyright Act transforms every bit of cyberspace into a potentially exploding lawsuit and is sparking the development of a spam-litigation industry”. He is, of course, referring to the many copyright trolls we’ve covered in recent weeks and months.

Regardless, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, without comment.

Meanwhile the case is not over. The sole issue being referred to the Supreme Court was the constitutionality of the damages, not the merits of the case in any form.

The trial judge had already reduced the damages awarded to $65,000 before having it restored by the 1^st US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Nancy Gertner could still reduce the damages again, but in doing so the RIAA and it’s member studios can ask for a retrial. This has happened twice with Jammie Thomas in a similar case. It’s an option Tenenbaum has expressed support for in the past.

Who knows when this case, which started in 2004, will end, and how much more court time will be taken up .

Meanwhile, the real winners are the lawyers for the RIAA (and to a lesser extend the government), racking up fee’s despite having a poor record of getting any kind of money for artists.

Source: Supreme Court Refuses $675,000 File-Sharing Case

Two issues made this case stand out. One, this is the first time sharers of music have been sued since the RIAA ended its infamous campaign. Two, the suing of All Shall Perish’s fans is being done without the band’s permission. Indeed, the band’s label, Nuclear Blast, didn’t even tell ASP that they’d signed over the band’s copyrights to Panama-based World Digital Rights so that they could sue.

TorrentFreak has kept in touch with ASP manager Ryan Downey who has been hoping that the lawsuit would be withdrawn. However, we discovered that World Digital Rights have persisted with their lawsuit and earlier this month were granted permission from Judge Sheri Polster Chappell to obtain the identities of 80 alleged file-sharers from US ISPs.

We informed Downey of the development and he and the band’s lawyer went away to see what could be done.

“The band’s attorney made it clear to the licensing people [at Nuclear Blast Records] that the band wanted no part in lawsuits against fans. The industry is changing, illegal downloading is troublesome for bands and of course, for record labels, but whatever the solution will be – streaming, subscription, Kickstarter, new ways of looking at it entirely, whatever comes about – the band and I are in agreement (as is their lawyer) that SUING MUSIC FANS SURE ISN’T IT,” Downey told TorrentFreak.

But of course, when this story broke last month Nuclear Blast were already aware that the band didn’t support suing fans yet either couldn’t or wouldn’t stop World Digital Rights persisting with the lawsuit. Clearly the band’s protests needed underlining.

“The licensing folks at Nuclear Blast in Germany took all of this to mean we wanted them to prevent World Digital Rights from pursuing any new actions / claims. I don’t know how we could have been more clear, but, we emphasized again, after receiving your email and being made aware of these new developments, that what we were saying all along was DISMISS ANY AND ALL LAWSUITS AGAINST ALL SHALL PERISH FANS,” Downey told us.

Then this week there appeared to be a breakthrough.

“We were informed [Wednesday] by Nuclear Blast that they would tell World Digital to dismiss all of this. Furthermore, we have pressed (yet again) to ensure the copyright registration returns to the band as owners of all recordings, as nobody else had the right to register the band’s copyrights as World Digital seems to have either done or attempted at some point.”

But while Downey has answered questions and been very responsive, the same cannot be said about Nuclear Blast. Request for comment sent to several members of staff, from those in the licensing department to the label owner, were not responded to.

That said, the silence is not unexpected. While Downey has gone out of his way to be unfailingly polite when speaking to us about Nuclear Blast, using terms such as “hard working”, “passionate”, “communicative” and “supportive”, it’s impossible to overlook the fact that someone there transferred the band’s copyrights to a troll without even having the courtesy to mention it. And that troll continued with the lawsuit despite knowing the band were against it.

The best outcome now is that the whole thing goes away, but it’s still possible that World Digital Rights will persist and people will get settlement demands through the mail. If that happens, recipients will have someone to turn to.

“The band, their attorney and myself have and will continue to take any steps to protect their fans, yes, even those who file trade,” Downey told us. “The band would prefer that their fans legally purchase, stream or otherwise enjoy their music. But they definitely have not, will not and do not wish to sue their fans.”

If any reader receives a letter from World Digital Rights, write to us at the usual address.

Source: Music Pirates Will Be Unmasked, Despite Band’s Protests

Copyright holders generally sue dozens, hundreds or sometimes even thousands of people at once, hoping to extract cash settlements from the alleged downloaders. The evidence they present to the court is usually an IP-address and a timestamp marking when the alleged infringement took place.

Early 2010, when these mass-lawsuits began, copyright holders targeted IP-addresses from all across the US in single lawsuits. This led some judges to dismiss cases because their courts have no jurisdiction over people who live elsewhere.

As a result, copyright holders switched to a new tactic. Before filing a suit they ran their database of infringing IP-addresses through so-called “geolocation” services so they could argue that the defendants most likely reside in the district where they were being sued.

This worked well for a while, but a new ruling by California District Court Judge Dean Pregerson puts an end to this new approach, killing 15 lawsuits in the process.

According to Pregerson, alleged BitTorrent pirates are protected by the First Amendment as they are “engaging in the exercise of speech, albeit to a limited extent.” Therefore, the copyright holder’s request to identify anonymous internet users has to meet certain criteria.

One of the requirements is that it’s absolutely clear that the accused are residents of the region where the court has jurisdiction, but according to Judge Pregerson it is not sufficient to use the results from a “geolocation” tool to prove it.

In a previous order the copyright holder – movie company Celestial Inc. – was asked to convince the court of the accuracy of these tools. In a reply Celestial referred to a website which contained some general claims as well as a quote from the company that collected the evidence, but it wasn’t enough.

“Based on Plaintiff’s own reliability claims, there may still be a 20 to 50 percent chance that this court lacks jurisdiction,” Judge Pregerson writes in his order.

The Judge adds that even if there is a slight chance that these tools are wrong, he simply can’t sign off on the subpoena request.

“Even if the most advanced geolocation tools were simply too unreliable to adequately establish jurisdiction, the court could not set aside constitutional concerns in favor of Plaintiff’s desire to subpoena the Doe Defendants’ identifying information.”

“Again, it is the First Amendment that requires courts to ensure complaints like this one would at least survive a motion to dismiss, before the court authorizes early discovery to identify anonymous internet users.”

The IP-address lookups and additional information provided by Celestial Inc. can’t guarantee that the defendants do indeed reside in California, and Judge Pregerson therefore dismissed the 15 mass-BitTorrent lawsuits the company filed at his court.

It also means the end of mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the Californian court, as no geolocation tool is 100% accurate.

While the ruling doesn’t mean the end of all mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the US just yet, it appears that there’s a growing opposition from judges against these practices.

For example, two weeks ago we reported on a related ruling in which a Florida judge dismissed several cases because an IP-address doesn’t identify a person. In other words, even when a court has jurisdiction, the copyright holder can not prove that the account holder connected to the IP-address is the person who shared the copyrighted file.

If other judges adopt either of the rulings above, it means the end of mass-BitTorrent lawsuits as we know them.

Source: IP-Address Can’t Even Identify a State, BitTorrent Judge Rules

From simple multiple PC locations to network-enabled storage devices and games consoles, effective home networking – wireless in particular – has gradually become a basic requirement.

In recent years, wireless routers – the now-commonplace devices enabling these networks – have become a conflict ground for lawyers working in file-sharing cases. When unauthorized (or at the least unidentified) people access them in order to engage in copyright infringement online, should their owners be held responsible?

In a landmark ruling yesterday which examined existing EU law, a District Court clarified the position in Finland following a near two-year long file-sharing case.

In 2010, anti-piracy group CIAPC obtained the identity of a local woman and sued her for copyright infringement. They claimed that she had used Direct Connect to infringe the rights of their entertainment industry members. Pay us 6,000 euros to make the case go away, they told her, or things will get much worse.

But instead of caving in the woman kicked back. The offense, which allegedly took place in a 12 minute time period on July 14th 2010, coincided with an event at the woman’s home attended by 100 people. Any one of them could have fired up a laptop, accessed the open WiFi, and been tracked by CIAPC.

“The applicants were unable to provide any evidence that the connection-owner herself had been involved in the file-sharing,” explains Ville Oksanen from Turre Legal, the law firm defending the woman.

“The court thus examined whether the mere act of providing a WiFi connection not
protected with a password can be deemed to constitute a copyright-infringing act.”

Oksanen notes that CIAPC had also requested an injunction to prevent the woman from infringing their clients’ copyrights in future. Had this have been granted the implications for anyone running open WiFi – domestically or in a commercial environment – could have been far-reaching. One instance of infringement could lead to an injunction, and the only way to be absolutely certain of avoiding a future breach would be to shut the system down completely.

In the event the court looked at the Finnish interpretations of several EU directives including Directive 2000/31/EC, Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC and the Copyright Enforcement Directive 2004/48/EC.

The District Court ruled that WiFi owners can not be held liable for the copyright infringing activities of third parties, an argument that still rages, for and against, in the United States.

While this ruling will be welcomed by Internet activists and network providers alike, it is still possible for CIAPC to take their case to appeal. However, should they choose to do so, Turre Legal say that taking the case to the European Court of Justice remains an option.

The ruling will be of concern to IFPI and Teosto, the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society. They’re in the process of obtaining the identities of dozens of Pirate Bay users who allegedly shared the songs of Finland’s answer to Justin Bieber. If those alleged file-sharers are reading this story now, odds are that many of them will remember that their WiFi networks are wide open.

Source: Open WiFi Owner Not Liable For Illegal File-Sharing, Court Rules

This meant that the previously determined jail sentences and fines handed out to Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström would stand.

With Lundström’s and Svartholm’s fates settled and Sunde’s recent plea for clemency filed, only one person’s direction was left unclear – that of Fredrik Neij.

Through a statement penned by his lawyer Jonas Nilsson, today we learn that Neij intends to take his case to the European Court.

“According to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees citizens of Sweden the freedom to receive and impart information, we believe that Frederick Neij’s right to freedom of expression has been denied him,” says Nilsson.

“According to our complaint to the European Court, The Pirate Bay’s services – to transfer non-proprietary information among users through an automated process on the Internet – is protected under that article of the Convention.”

Nilsson says that The Pirate Bay never transferred or transmitted copyright information – that was the responsibility of the site’s users. The Pirate Bay’s function, he says, was “to allow the free dissemination of information via non-copyrighted torrent files.”

The lawyer also notes that since the torrent file information itself wasn’t illegal, the function should be covered by Article 10. He adds that he will also ask for further scrutiny as to whether it was indeed correct to hold Fredrik Neij responsible for what other people did when they used The Pirate Bay.

“In our opinion, it is like being held guilty in court because someone delivered a letter with illegal content. Another, and perhaps even more relevant analogy, would be if the founders of a buying and selling site were found guilty after someone sold a stolen bicycle after it was advertised on the site,” Nilsson explains.

Nilsson believes that it’s quite rightly not easy to get cases heard before Sweden’s Supreme Court, but by hearing certain pivotal cases valuable guidance can be gained for future rulings. Because a definitive ruling would provide much-need clarity in similar cases involving liability, the Supreme Court should have heard The Pirate Bay case, Nilsson says.

“In light of the Supreme Court decision [not to hear the case], we now see no alternative but to pursue this case through to the European Court. That clear legislation or legal precedent is missing in an area that affects us all – the Internet – represents a problem for the rule of law, today and tomorrow,” Nilsson concludes.

Source: Pirate Bay Founder Takes Case To European Court

By filing a mass-BitTorrent lawsuit the company became one of the many copyright holders who together have sued a quarter million people in the country since early 2010. In recent months, Wiley has continued to file yet more suits against alleged BitTorrent pirates.

Up until recently Wiley has enjoyed an easy ride in court. In several cases the New York federal court was quick to allow the book publisher to subpoena Internet providers for the personal details of account holders. With these details, Wiley can then approach the defendants and negotiate an out-of-court settlement.

But not if it’s up to Verizon.

While most Internet providers generally don’t object to a court-ordered subpoena, Verizon has refused to hand over the personal details of accused subscribers. One of the reasons given by Verizon is that Wiley is demanding the information for improper purposes, namely “to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation.”

In addition, the Internet provider doubts whether the subpoena will lead to the discovery of “relevant information.” In other words, Verizon seems to doubt that the person who pays for the account is also the infringer.

This issue was also raised by New York Judge Gary Brown in another case last week, in which he concluded that an IP-address is not a person. In his order Brown argued that in mass-BitTorrent lawsuits it is simply unknown whether the person linked to the IP-address has anything to do with the alleged copyright infringements.

Besides the two points above Verizon makes five more objections, including concerns over privacy. The company asserts that Wiley is seeking “information that is protected from disclosure by third parties’ rights of privacy and protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

For its part, Wiley is not convinced by Verizon’s protest and has asked the court to compel Verizon to respond to the subpoenas. To discuss the issue, Judge Katherine Forrest has scheduled a telephone conference for early next week.

Verizon’s objection is noteworthy because the action is not borne merely out of self-interest. Previously Time Warner also objected to mass-BitTorrent subpoenas where they had to produce the details of thousands of subscribers, arguing that this process was too time consuming.

However, in this case the burden on the ISP is relatively low, as Wiley says it only asked for the details of 10 account holders for which Verizon would receive compensation of $45 each.

Should Judge Katherine Forrest agree with Verizon’s objections it would be a serious blow to Wiley’s ongoing litigation campaign against BitTorrent users in the Southern District of New York.

Source: Verizon Refuses to Identify Alleged BitTorrent Pirates

The site has its base in Argentina, where it is the country’s 65th most-popular site. However, it is in Chile, where it is the 135th most popular site, that it generated big headlines recently.

In March, an alleged operator of Cuevana.tv was arrested by Chilean police, the culmination of a two month investigation prompted by TV show giant HBO.

Christian Alvarez, a 26-year-old student, was claimed to be one of nine alleged administrators of Cuevana.tv. The other eight, authorities claim, are stationed in Argentina.

Alvarez, a student at the University of Chile currently pursuing a Master’s degree, denied being a site admin, instead describing himself as just a user with some extra privileges. He also insists that he made no money from his activities at Cuevana.tv.

Despite his protestations Alvarez was subsequently charged with breaches of copyright law and forbidden from leaving the country while the investigation against him continued.

For their part, HBO said they were very happy with the arrest of Alvarez and congratulated the police on their action to protect intellectual property rights. But things quickly went downhill. Following his arrest, nothing could be found to link Alvarez to infringement of HBO’s copyrights. Perhaps worst still, Cuevana.tv continued to operate uninterrupted. Yesterday there was more bad news.

“Luckily everything went well for me,” said Alvarez in a statement. “A decision was made to suspend the case, because there was no evidence to support the accusations.”

While the 26-year-old will now go free, it seems that HBO didn’t leave completely empty-handed. They only agreed to dismiss their action against Alvarez after he agreed to abide by a set of fairly unusual conditions.

Firstly, Alvarez had to agree not to visit Cuevana.tv at all for the next 12 months, nor get involved in any other similar sites. Secondly and perhaps most controversially, Alvarez will have to give lectures on copyright issues to children in schools.

Commenting on the case, a spokesperson for the Argentinian Pirate Party told TorrentFreak that Cuevana.tv provides an important alternative distribution platform for local independents competing against Hollywood domination.

“Hollywood’s movies occupy all the space in theaters leaving little opportunity or decent running lengths for local films,” he told us.

To this end, Tomas Escobar, the alleged owner of Cuevana.tv, tried to reach agreements with local producers and called out to them to distribute their films through his platform. During December 2011, Cuevana.tv hosted the exclusive official release of the local movie ‘Stephanie’ directed by Maximilian Gerscovich.

Following recent events it’s unclear whether Cuevana will be able to continue this initiative. Authorities in Chile say evidence gathered in the recent case will now be sent to Argentinian authorities for their investigation.

Source: Streaming Site ‘Admin’ Freed, But Agrees 1 Year Hiatus With HBO

Among them was DaJaz1.com, a hip-hop focused site from which a Special Agent Andrew Reynolds said he’d downloaded pre-release music. Of course, Reynolds didn’t find the site on his own. He’d been directed there by the RIAA who, for their own reasons, had chosen to target Dajaz1 over the thousands of other sites online.

The rhetoric was familiar. According to the authorities, who were being spoon-fed by the labels, Dajaz1 was a criminal enterprise sucking the lifeblood from the US music business by leaking tracks before their street date. But as later became clear, behind the scenes the site was being fed music to leak by the labels in order to create buzz and generate sales.

Last December, after lying in limbo for more than a year, Dajaz1′s domain was suddenly returned, astonishingly because the Feds had come to the conclusion there was no case to answer. But for the five months since up until this week, court papers have remained sealed, thus hiding the reasons the Dajaz1 case became such a disaster.

Now, thanks to pressure from EFF, the First Amendment Coalition, and Wired, the documents were unsealed Wednesday. They reveal an embarrassment for the US Government, the RIAA and due process.

For a year, DaJaz1 lawyer Andrew P. Bridges tried and failed to have the Dajaz1 domain seizure overturned. At every step he was obstructed and delayed. When he asked for copies of the documentation requesting the extension to the forfeiture procedure and the court’s documentation granting it, each and every time he was denied and told the papers were under seal.

It now appears that all along, despite claiming to have a good enough case to label Dajaz1 a criminal enterprise, the U.S. Government had no usable evidence. The proof was supposed to be supplied by the RIAA but it failed to arrive in quality or in a timely fashion.

In July 2011, the Department of Homeland Security asked for more time to build the case against the site, noting that content from the Dajaz1 website had been sent to rightsholders for “evaluation” but had not been returned.

But in September 2011 they were back again, seeking a further extension for exactly the same reasons. The RIAA, named in the newly unsealed court papers, weren’t coming up with the goods. Eventually the Government conceded defeat and handed the domain back.

“The records confirm what was already suggested by the initial affidavit used to obtain the seizure order: that ICE, and its attorneys, are effectively acting as the hired gun of the content industry at taxpayers’ expense,” the EFF said in a statement.

“Instead of relying on rightsholders to determine whether a seizure was appropriate, the government should have been conducting its own thorough investigation. If it had acted in anything like good faith, it could have determined that the site wasn’t a proper target even before the seizure, or at least could have discovered and rectified the mistake before a year had passed.”

In the whole copyright infringement / piracy debate there is a lot of fiery rhetoric from both sides but this case is truly scary. To have Dajaz1′s domain seized and the site effectively shut down without being in receipt of the proper evidence is unforgivable. Worst still, the parties that caused this to happen remain unaccountable, free to do the same again.

Source: RIAA Behind US Government’s Failed Domain Name Seizure

One of the key speakers at the event was Gerard Lewis, Vice President of Internet provider Comcast, who informed participants about the upcoming copyright alerts system that will become active in three months.

The system will be managed by the Center for Copyright Information, and is the result of a voluntary agreement between copyright holders and all major ISPs that was signed last summer.

Under the agreement a third-party company will collect the IP-addresses of alleged infringers on BitTorrent and other public file-sharing networks. The ISPs will then notify these offenders and tell them that their behavior is unacceptable. After six warnings the ISP may then take a variety of repressive measures, which includes the option to cut off the offender’s connection temporarily.

In his talk Comcast’s Vice President explained that the “six-strikes” system is needed because the DMCA law doesn’t work well for P2P infringements. Instead, the copyright holders and ISPs needed a more flexible approach, which culminated in the copyright alerts system and a historic memorandum of understanding.

Lewis went on to emphasize that the deal safeguards the privacy of subscribers, as copyright holders don’t get the personal details of alleged pirates. The warnings are mostly educational, informative, and point people to sources where they can download content legally. Additionally, Lewis said it’s important that the repressive measures don’t disrupt vital services such as phone calls.

He further noted that while ISPs are now playing a valuable role, more anti-piracy work can be done with other parties. Payment processors and search engines could be around the table as well according to Comcast’s Vice President.

Overall, Lewis said that a flexible and voluntary agreement is a good model to follow, but that they are still learning as the system is being rolled out. The effectiveness of the copyright alerts system remains to be seen.

In France a three-strikes warning system is mandated by the Hadopi law, and at the conference Marie-Françoise Marais of the Hadopi office shared some new statistics. Since the law was implemented late 2010 a total of 970,000 warnings have been sent out. 88,600 alleged infringers received a second warning and 270 are on their third strike.

The last group risks a 1,500 euro fine and Internet disconnection of up to a month, should a judge agree.

Marais used the above statistics to argue that relatively few people continue downloading copyrighted material after being warned. But, she also noted that it doesn’t always work, as one person begged to download one more episode of the US TV-show “24.”

The impact of the US “six-strikes” version will become apparent in the months to come.

While Comcast and the other partners are confident that alerts are an effective and reasonable way to deter online piracy, others have their doubts. For one, the monitoring system is relatively easy to bypass through a proxy or VPN.

Secondly, the multi-million dollar plan only covers a few of the many sources of online piracy. The millions of U.S. Internet users who download via cyberlockers and streaming portals are not affected by this agreement at all, as these downloads are impossible for third parties to track legally.

How ‘reasonable’ the “six-strikes” system turns out to be largely depends on what punishments Internet providers intend to hand out. Needless to say, a temporary reduction in bandwidth is less severe than cutting people’s Internet access. More details on this are expected to come out in the near future.

Source: Comcast Praises Voluntary BitTorrent Crackdown Agreement

Since 2006, the Portuguese Phonographic Association filed more than two dozen cases with the Attorney General’s Office. Only two bore any fruit at all – one in 2008 and another just over a week ago having dragged on for an epic six years.

The case was brought against a then 17-year-old teenager who allegedly shared hundreds of songs online without permission. However, for “technical and procedural reasons” (read: lack of evidence), those claims were reduced massively and in the end it was decided he shared just three, a pair from local artists and ‘Right Through You’ by Alanis Morrisette.

Now, the Lisbon Criminal Court has finally delivered its ruling in the case. For violating copyright, the now 23-year-old received a two month suspended jail sentence. The Court decided that since the man was just 17 at the time of the offense and has a completely clean record, the sentence should be changed to a fine of 880 euros – 640 euros plus 4 euros in lieu of each day not served in prison.

After having made 40 similar complaints against file-sharers since 2006, the Portuguese Phonographic Association says it will now give up on the strategy.

“At the time, it was believed that, in fact, through the application of existing law we could begin to control the problem of Internet piracy,” said Association president Eduardo Simoes.

Current legal framework, Simoes added, can not cope with online file-sharing. Inevitably he is calling on the government to introduce new laws that do away with prolonged prosecution periods that reduce the deterrent effects of bringing cases to trial. What the Association wants is a “3 strikes” style arrangement whereby file-sharers are sent escalating warnings and eventually punished.

As the local branch of IFPI, the Portuguese Phonographic Association controls 95% of recorded music in Portugal but it is currently facing a crisis. The Association reports that in the last decade profits have dropped by 80%, and in 2011 sales of physical products nose-dived 34.4%.

Interestingly, in addition to blaming the piracy bogeyman and the economic crisis for these reductions in sales, Simoes also cites an undeveloped digital offering and artists’ growing tendency to self-publish as additional factors compounding the problem.

Despite the apparent lack of legal support, Portugal’s movie industry say they are working hard to reduce piracy by other means. According the MPA-backed FEVIP, they shut down 302 local sites offering pirate material during 2011.

Source: Epic 6-Year File-Sharing Case Over Just 3 Songs Comes To An End

Pirates are ruining the industry and are the direct reason for the loss of thousands of jobs, they say. Better copyright protections are the solution, they conclude.

A recent example of this reasoning was displayed by MPAA boss Chris Dodd earlier this week at the CinemaCon meeting in Las Vegas. Dodd told the audience that copyright protection has always been vital to the US movie industry, and it’s copyright that has allowed Hollywood to thrive .

The MPAA used this to emphasize that the movie industry and the tech sector have a mutual interest in strong copyright legislation. Or put in his words:

The truth is that neither the content nor the technology industries could survive without strong protections for intellectual property.

Many of you are familiar with how the name Hollywood became synonymous with the birth of the American film industry. It was in Jacob Stern’s horse barn, at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, the story goes, that Cecil B. DeMille screened the first full length feature film 100 years ago.

Well, when it comes to the tech sector, replace “Jacob Stern’s horse barn” with “Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room” at Harvard, and you have almost the same story with the birth of Facebook.

In these and countless other examples throughout our history, the ability to give birth to an idea and convert it into economic success, whether it is the content of a film or the technology of the internet, depends on copyright and patent protection

An interesting argument, but also an unfortunate one. Not only because Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of stealing the Facebook idea himself, which Hollywood turned into a movie recently. But also because it’s easy to argue that the American movie industry was built by copyright “thieves.”

In fact, Hollywood wouldn’t be what it is today if a bunch of rogue filmmakers hadn’t fled New York early last century. This “pirate” version of the movie industry history starts with one of America’s greatest innovators, Thomas Edison.

Little over a century ago Edison stood at the cradle of the filmmaking industry. He was the first to invent a device through which people could project film and obtained many movie related patents. To make money from his hard work he asked a licensing fee from those who were making movies with his technology.

This licensing requirement motivated a group of rogue filmmaking pirates to flee New York, including a man named William. They left for the then still wild West, where they recorded many films without a license until Edison’s patents expired. These pirates continue to do business there today in a place they named Hollywood. William’s last name? Fox.

So Edison got no money from these Hollywood pirates. While today’s Hollywood would be up in arms about this gross circumvention of intellectual property rights, we should mention that Edison himself wasn’t squeaky clean either.

In fact, in 1902 Thomas Edison himself copied “A Trip to the Moon,” a movie from Georges Méliès, without permission to show it in US theaters. This overt act of piracy eventually resulted in the bankruptcy of the French filmmaker.

The above shows that it’s not a stretch to argue that the movie industry was built by pirates. Or to put it in other words, if early 1900 filmmakers would have paid for their licenses, Hollywood would probably have never been built.

But you won’t hear that from the MPAA of course…

Source: MPAA Boss ‘Forgets’ Hollywood’s Pirate History

The venture, which lasted 5 long years, saw the group target some 18,000 individuals and generate some of the most controversial anti-piracy headlines of the last decade.

Recent years have seen the same strategy revived, largely by adult studios. With less of a reputation to preserve and possessing additional leverage as their victims fret over their taste in media becoming public, news of the lucrative schemes spread deeper into the porn industry and beyond.

Eventually mainstream movie companies such as The Hurt Locker’s Voltage Pictures chanced their hand, and even more recently book publisher Wiley jumped on board.

Now, after several years’ break, music lawsuits are back on the agenda.

As revealed by a lawsuit filed April 20th in the US District Court For The Middle District of Florida, American metal band All Shall Perish are seeking to identify dozens of their fans who allegedly shared their music on BitTorrent without permission.

Founded in 2002, All Shall Perish are on the Nuclear Blast label. Through their lawsuit, filed by World Digital Rights, they are seeking to convert 80 IP addresses, harvested from a BitTorrent swarm sharing their album “This Is Where It Ends”, into real-life identities.

“Upon information and belief, each defendant went to a torrent site to download a torrent file and then downloaded and uploaded the copyrighted Work within the BitTorrent network,” court papers read.

Among other things, the plaintiff demands that each defendant is held “jointly and severally liable for the direct infringement of each other defendant” and held liable for statutory damages of $150,000.

A jury trial is demanded but as everyone knows by now, no robustly defended case will ever get to court. Settlements of a few thousand dollars will be offered and paid by terrified individuals, whether or not they are guilty.

This is the second BitTorrent infringement case filed in recent days by the Dorta & Ortega law firm. Worryingly, both cases have their roots in Germany where lawsuits of this nature are running riot. If these succeed, more will surely come.

Source: US Music Pirates Face New $150,000 Damages Claims

These are the first words of a new book that two Pirate Party icons shared with all members of the European Parliament this week. In a time where copyright laws increasingly violate basic human rights, Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom and Rick Falkvinge want to break this trend.

Instead of merely pointing out what is wrong with current proposals such as ACTA, they’re going a step further by offering alternatives.

“We feel that there are many people who know that the Pirate Party is unhappy with copyright legislation as it stands today, but who are unaware that we have a constructive proposal as to how it should be reformed. We are not just complaining,” Christian Engstrom told TorrentFreak.

In the early years the Pirate Party was often jokingly characterized as a bunch of spotty nerds who simply want free stuff. While this perception has changed somewhat in recent years, especially when Christian Engstrom joined the European Parliament, there is still a need to clarify the Party’s position.

“We wanted to explain why this issue is about preserving fundamental rights on the internet, and not just about getting free films or pop music,” says Engstrom.

“The battle over ACTA has made many politicians aware of the fact that freedom on the internet is an issue that citizens (a.k.a. voters) care about, but most mainstream politicians are not very familiar with the issue.”

The book gives a broad overview of how the current copyright monopoly is starting to degrade free speech and people’s privacy. Internet censorship proposals have become commonplace and alleged pirates are punished without due process, all without any clear evidence that more stringent measures actually cause a decline in piracy.

Therefore, one of the key issues of the book is to offer alternatives. The Pirate Party doesn’t want to abolish copyright, they want to reform it. For example, the moral rights of authors would remain unchanged, but all non-commercial copying would be legalized. In addition, DRM woud be banned entirely.

“I am hoping that the book will be helpful in that respect, and that the timing is quite good right now. If we manage to stop ACTA, the natural question becomes ‘okay, so what should we do instead?’ Then we have a realistic and sensible answer,” Engstrom told us.

Those who are interested in reading the book can download it for free in several formats. A paper version is also available on the self-publishing platform Lulu.

Source: Pirate Party Presents ACTA Alternative to European Parliament

The year before IMAGiNE had launched their own private BitTorrent tracker that failed massively in its quest to stay under the radar. The site, UnleashTheNet (also known by its acronym UtN) attracted plenty of attention and it now appears it was the group’s Achilles’ heel.

As revealed by an indictment returned on April 18, 2012, and unsealed yesterday, four individuals have now been charged in the Eastern District of Virginia for their alleged roles in IMAGiNE.

Jeramiah Perkins, 39, of Portsmouth, Va., Gregory Cherwonik, 53, of New York, Willie Lambert, 57, of Pennsylvania, and Sean Lovelady, 27, of California, are all charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and two counts of criminal copyright infringement.

Perkins, Cherwonik and Lambert are charged with two additional counts of criminal copyright infringement, and Perkins and Cherwonik are charged with a sixth count of criminal copyright infringement of a work being prepared for commercial distribution.

The indictment lists several movie titles that were reproduced, distributed and seeded on BitTorrent prior to the U.S. DVD release data including “The Green Hornet,” “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and “Yogi Bear.” All films carried the group’s “IMAGiNE” tag.

According to the announcement from Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil MacBride and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton, Perkins, Cherwonik and Lambert were arrested Monday. Lovelady reported to the authorities yesterday.

“These four defendants are charged with serious intellectual property crimes. Through IMAGiNE, they allegedly sought to become the leading source of pirated movies on the Internet,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

“This Justice Department, working with our partners at ICE, has made fighting intellectual property crime a top priority, and we will continue to bring cases against individuals and entities devoted to cheating consumers and undermining artistic pursuits.”

Given the claims in the indictment and how the group’s activities are being portrayed, the IMAGiNE defendants are in serious trouble. First, it quite rightly points out that between 2009 and September 2011, IMAGiNE obtained video and audio for the latest movies from different sources, combined them, and then released them online.

But then, presumably because of their involvement with the UtN tracker, they are blamed for the subsequent infringing actions of UtN members. According to the indictment the four are responsible for the reproduction and distribution of “tens of thousands of illegal copies of copyrighted works.”

The maximum prison sentence for conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and for each count of criminal copyright infringement is five years in prison. All four defendants are scheduled to be arraigned on May 9, 2012.

As reported by TorrentFreak last year, rumors persist that IMAGiNE were led to the slaughter by a rival group with a grudge.

Source: IMAGiNE BitTorrent Piracy Group Indicted, Face Years In Prison

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament have just announced that they will reject the controversial treaty.

“Although we unambiguously support the protection of intellectual property rights, we also champion fundamental rights and freedoms. We have serious concerns that ACTA does not strike the right balance,” announced Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE group leader.

Verhofstadt said that ALDE continues to support multilateral IP enforcement efforts, but only those with a transparent, publicly discussed mandate. He added that ALDE shares the legitimate concerns of those who participated in the anti-ACTA protests in recent months.

“Civil society has been extremely vocal in recent months in raising their legitimate concerns on the ACTA agreement which we share. There are too many provisions lacking clarity and certainty as to the way they would be implemented in practice,” Verhofstadt noted.

One of the key problems raised by anti-ACTA activists is the way the treaty has morphed and grown since its inception. From its roots as a mechanism to deal with counterfeit goods, ACTA grew to encompass the unauthorized sharing of digital media online. This means that from targeting strictly criminal enterprises, ACTA now risks sucking in the man in the street. This one-size-fits-all approach is opposed by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats.

“Furthermore, ACTA wrongly bundles together too many different types of IPR enforcement under the same umbrella, treating physical goods and digital services in the same way,” said Verhofstadt. “We believe they should be approached in separate sectoral agreements, and following a comprehensive and democratically debated mandate and impact assessment.”

Yesterday the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said that ACTA may have unacceptable side effects on fundamental rights of individuals.

“While more international cooperation is needed for the enforcement of intellectual property rights, the means envisaged must not come at the expense of the fundamental rights of individuals,” assistant European data protection supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli said in a statement.

“A right balance between the fight against intellectual property infringements and the rights to privacy and data protection must be respected. It appears that ACTA has not been fully successful in this respect.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated

Source: Liberals and Democrats Announce Rejection of ACTA

There is, however, an even ongoing bigger case in which the New South Wales police are accused of massive software piracy involving its criminal intelligence database.

The software in question, ViewNow, is developed by the UK company Micro Focus. While the company licensed its software to the police in the past, it discovered nearly two years ago the police were using thousands of unauthorized copies.

Even worse, the police also shared the software with third parties such as the Ombudsman’s Office, the Department of Correctives Services and the Police Integrity Commission. All without permission from the software company.

In an attempt to get compensated for several years worth of mass piracy, Micro Focus has filed a lawsuit in which it’s demanding more than $10 million in damages. Micro Focus’ managing director Bruce Craig says they saw no other option than to sue, as they can’t go to the police.

“When someone pirates your software you think who am I gonna call, the police? In this case, they’re the pirates,” Craig comments on 7.30.

“This is potentially a crime that has to be handled as a civil matter because everybody’s got their hands dirty,” he added. “The victims can’t go to police – it’s the police who are doing the stealing.”

At the center of the legal battle is a dispute over the licenses for the ViewNow software. Micro Focus says the police had licenses to install ViewNow on up to 6,500 computers, but in fact more than 16,000 copies were installed. In addition, the police shared copies with other organizations without permission.

“The licenses were for police only. Yet police were out there handing out our software like confetti,” Craig says. “They did not pay for those extra licenses. It’s incredible. It shows an organization that’s completely out of control.”

The police on the other hand claim that they are not aware of any restrictions. Instead, they claim that they could use as many copies as they want according to their interpretation of the contract.

To make matters even worse, Micro Focus is now threatening a new lawsuit as they suspect that the police have replaced the ViewNow software with an alternative called NetManage Applet. This application also belongs to Micro Focus, and they have not licensed the police to use that without restrictions either.

Who’s right and who’s wrong will eventually be decided by the court, but there is already one losing party – the taxpayer. The police have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and the case has barely begun.

Source: Australian Police Accused of Mass Software Piracy

From its roots three years earlier, in 2009 Cleland created myPDFscripts, a platform which enabled him to share his passion with others. In recent months, however, things have not been easy. To cut a long story short, Cleland has been plagued with DMCA takedown requests from movie studios, one in particular.

November last year Cleland was forced to take down the site after Universal issued complaints against more than a hundred scripts. One of them, at position #69 on the list, was from the classic movie ‘Repo Man’. Interestingly, its creator Alex Cox contacted Cleland about the takedown directly.

“I believe you have received a ‘takedown’ notice from Universal to remove the script. I do not agree with this. I’m very pleased you have my script on your site and would like to see it remain. If you would like to add any other of my scripts, get in touch. You are welcome to post them,” Cox wrote.

But given the direct interest of a powerful company such as Universal, Cleland was concerned of the consequences should he simply repost the script. So he contacted the studio for clarification.

“Mr. Cox is the author of the Repo Man screenplay; however, his rights to and interests in the screenplay for the film were granted to Universal Pictures, which is the exclusive owner of Repo Man throughout the world in perpetuity, including, without limitation, all copyrights in the film and in the underlying screenplay,” the studio responded. “Accordingly, Universal stands by its request that you take-down the Repo Man screenplay from your website.”

So, if posting the actual script was off limits, maybe it would be OK for Cleland to post a link to the copy of the script that Alex Cox hosts on his own website? Apparently not.

“Please don’t post the links,” advised Universal. “I don’t believe Mr. Cox is authorized to post the script on his personal website either.”

Cox disagrees.

“Universal are both right and wrong. Right because in many cases writers do cede all their rights to a purchaser, and lose them. Wrong because REPO MAN wasn’t a work for hire, and in three years time all rights to the script will revert to me under an obscure provision of US copyright law. This may be why they haven’t sent me a takedown notice: but it’s disgraceful that your site has been kneecapped in this way,” Alex told Cleland.

“Have you thought about transferring all the material to a server outside the US — in Brazil, perhaps? I know of others who have done this to keep valuable sites alive.”

But Cox doesn’t end there. After giving Cleland permission to post up every script he’s ever written (he’s already given everyone permission to download his films), he finishes up with an alarming broadside against the studios.

“The studios, including Universal, are pretty clearly a criminal enterprise, operating an illegal blacklist and functioning as a price-fixing cartel. They actually have legislation which permits them to operate as a cartel abroad (the law is called Webb-Pomerene) but absolutely no right to operate as a cartel domestically. They do so because they’re powerful and have politicians in their pockets,” Cox notes.

“If the cops ever went after them using the RICO statutes the whole studio cartel would collapse like a pack of cards, and individuals like their ‘litigation counsel’ would have to look for honest work. It’s unlikely that this will happen, but we can dream,” he concludes.

At the moment myPDFScripts is suffering a bit of a crisis after Mediafire blocked the site’s locker account so whether Repo Man and the other scripts will ever appear there remains to be seen.

Source: Repo Man’s Alex Cox: Move Sites Overseas To Kill Copyright Complaints

Most often these lawsuits are filed by porn companies, independent movie studios such as the one behind The Hurt Locker, and more recently book publishers such as Wiley. In almost all cases the aim is to identify users and get them to settle out of court, a strategy dumped by the major labels of the RIAA several years ago.

Now, however, there has been an interesting development in northern Europe. The case involves an album from a very young artist called Robin Packalen, a child sensation who appears to be Finland’s answer to Justin Bieber.

On 22nd February 2012, Packalen, who’s signed to Universal Music, released his first album. Unsurprisingly the official street date was beaten by two days thanks to an uploader on The Pirate Bay. This didn’t go unnoticed by his label.

After monitoring the swarm, IFPI and Teosto, the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society, went to court to obtain the personal details of the individuals behind a total of 82 IP addresses.

IFPI and Teosto convinced the Helsinki District Court that the pre-release leak cost them significant sums of money. The Court subsequently ordered two ISPs, Telia Sonera and Elisa, to provide the names and addresses of the alleged infringers to the rightsholders as requested.

Telia Sonera, to which 34 of the IP addresses relate, said it would comply with the Court and had no further comment. Elisa (30 IP addresses) also indicated it would comply if it could, but it may not have the information being requested.

The news has spooked one individual who contacted TorrentFreak this afternoon. He told us that he was one of the file-sharers in the swarm when the album was released and after seeding for a long time he’s “99% certain” his IP address will have been tracked.

“It happened to be my little sister’s birthday and guess who is her idol? Yep, you guessed right. As I’m such a nice big brother, I decided to download for her Robin’s newest album as a birthday present,” he told us.

“Well, it now seems like that present is turning out to be quite expensive, should they decide to send me a letter asking for money. If they do, I guess I have no other option but to pay. I’m just a poor student that can’t afford an expensive legal adviser to help me out.”

The question now is what IFPI and Teosto (or perhaps Universal directly) will do with the identities once they have obtained them. According to Antti Kotilainen of anti-piracy group TTVK (the outfit that conducted the investigation), the responses will vary.

“Every case will be investigated separately. Consequences will vary from compensation to a criminal investigation,” he said.

But considering the artist in question here – none other than Finland’s Justin Bieber – the chances are that many children will be caught up in the sweep. What will happen to them?

“In those cases, we hope the families will have a serious conversation with their children about piracy,” Kotilainen added.

Jarkko Nordlund, CEO of Universal Music Finland, warned that more albums had been monitored and more action could follow.

“This is a constant fight against piracy. We want to make sure people know there are legal ways to buy music online. We will communicate with the TTVK and see if there are serious infringers that we want to take to court,” Nordlund concluded.

Update: Comment from Joonas Mäkinen, Pirate Party of Finland

Robin’s album has sold more than 80,000 thousand copies, and IFPI and the court handling the case see 82 downloads as notable financial losses? This is ridiculous. He can’t even get to the official top lists in the broken system because the album is low-priced in the first place. Simply the act of just going after these filesharers costs more money and time for the lawyers and courts than could be gained if those downloads were directly converted to physical album sales.

It’s now even in the official PR discourse that the millions of YouTube views of his music video are celebrated as a success. From the perspective of a fan and end-user, it often makes no difference if the musical pieces are available for listening on YouTube, streaming services or as downloaded files. 82 people thought the latter was a more convenient way for them. This is not a good enough reason to allow third party organization get their hands on private information of ISP customers.

Source: Court Gives IFPI Permission To Identify Pirate Bay Users

Rather than come to the negotiated settlement preferred by YouTube, GEMA commenced legal proceedings on copyright grounds against the Google-owned video site. The action concerned 12 specific music videos uploaded by YouTube users to which GEMA owns the rights but for which YouTube paid no royalties. GEMA argued that YouTube hadn’t done enough to monitor content submitted to the site.

Today a court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube is indeed responsible for the material its users upload to the site, despite the site having state-of-the-art filters which aim to detect and remove infringing content.

Presiding Judge Heiner Steeneck said his ruling gave both sides a reason to declare victory. GEMA wanted YouTube to take responsibility for videos uploaded in the past as well as those uploaded in the future but that was denied.

“YouTube isn’t the perpetrator here, it’s those people who illegally upload songs,” Steeneck said. “That’s why YouTube doesn’t have to search all videos uploaded in the past. It only has to help detect videos from the moment it is alerted about possible violations.”

Although YouTube operates its ‘ContentID’ anti-piracy system which detects infringements by way of digital fingerprints, the court ruled that in isolation that is insufficient. In addition YouTube must now filter by keyword too.

Both sides say they are considering their options and are yet to announce whether they will appeal the ruling.

Source: YouTube Liable For Copyright Infringements, Court Rules

The case navigated several layers of the Australian court system, with iiNet winning the initial ruling and all subsequent appeals, before finally ending up in front the High Court in December last year.

The thrust of the case hung on whether iiNet had willingly authorized the copyright infringements of its customers. Lower courts found that iiNet had no duty to police its own networks, even when AFACT supplied so-called proof of infringement by its customers.

Just moments ago, the High Court unanimously dismissed AFACT’s final appeal.

“The Court observed that iiNet had no direct technical power to prevent its customers from using the BitTorrent system to infringe copyright,” a summary of the Court’s findings read.

“Rather, the extent of iiNet’s power to prevent its customers from infringing the appellants’ copyright was limited to an indirect power to terminate its contractual relationship with its customers.”

The High Court further noted that the warning notices previously sent to iiNet by AFACT when the ISP’s customers allegedly infringed copyright “..did not provide iiNet with a reasonable basis for sending warning notices to individual customers containing threats to suspend or terminate those customers’ accounts.”

Since the notices were inadequate, iiNet could not be considered to have authorized the infringements of its subscribers when it did not act on them.

The High Court sits at the pinnacle of Australia’s legal system and its rulings cannot be appealed. Today’s decision forms a binding legal precedent on all lower Australian courts and will be taken into consideration by judges in countries with comparable legal systems such as India, Canada and the UK.

All of this factored into the reasoning of AFACT and its chief sponsor the MPAA to take legal action against iiNet, as revealed by US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in November 2011. The US Ambassador to Australia in 2008, Robert McCallum, reported back to Washington that iiNet was chosen because it was judged too small to put up a decent legal fight. In the cable, the Ambassador prophetically cautioned the coming legal tussle could be perceived as “…the giant American bullies [versus] little Aussie battlers….”

AFACT could never have known Wikileaks would out the plot, or that the legal case would so spectacularly backfire. Today’s decision will hurt Hollywood’s copyright enforcement agenda on multiple levels. Alongside the setting of an unwanted legal precedent, AFACT has been dealt a significant public relations blow in its ongoing lobbying efforts in Australia.

Prior to the decision, AFACT’s Managing Director Neil Gane told TorrentFreak via email, “Regardless of the outcome [today], the landscape has changed. In the three years since the case commenced, legislators, regulators and courts around the world have recognized that ISPs must play a central role in preventing online copyright theft.”

Anticipating a loss in the case, AFACT began lobbying government and ISPs behind closed doors last December. The process has been widely criticised for a lack of public consultation. While the Australian government has suggested it prefers an industry agreed model for combating copyright infringement to legislation, leaks have revealed AFACT and its lobbying partners have been pressuring for an outcome that forces ISPs into a policing role.

The option of having ISPs forced into that role through the courts has been blunted by today’s High Court decision and it can be expected AFACT will step up their lobbying efforts of law-makers directly.

Update: Both parties held separate conferences following the emphatic 5-0 High Court decision. The mood in the iiNet camp, who stand to recoup $6 million in legal fees, was jubilant.

“We’re very pleased with the results announced in the High Court,” iiNet Chief Regulatory Officer Steve Dalby said. “The five-nil judgement puts us in a much stronger position.”

AFACT’s Neil Gane was expectedly downbeat. “Both judgements in this case recognize that copyright law is no longer equipped to deal with the rate of technological change we have seen since the law of authorization was last tested,” he said.

iiNet CEO Michael Malone was keen to stress the importance of the win. “This is a world first case. No case has gone to judgement in the highest court in the land. I’ve had text messages and emails from people from all over the world,” he said.

Mr Malone said he looked forward to finding solutions to content piracy, but said a large part of the problem was content creators’ unwillingness to make their products available in a timely and cost-efficient manner. Expressing a personal fondness for hit US TV series Game of Thrones, Mr Malone lamented he was not able to access the latest episodes of the show legally in Australia.

Both Mr Malone and Mr Dalby expressed concerns about AFACT’s methods for collecting data on alleged infringers. “I dont’ have any confidence in the notices [of alleged infringement] that we’ve seen,” Mr Dalby said.

Mr Malone added that by standing up to AFACT and its Hollywood backers iiNet had enhanced its reputation in the Australian marketplace. “I’d argue [the court case has] positively impacted our reputation … Our role is to connect customers to the internet and with each other. We’re not going to remove your access without some sort of independent review,” he said.

Source: iiNet: ISP Not Liable For BitTorrent Piracy, High Court Rules

The rightsholders, represented by anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, wanted to force local ISP ePhone to hand over the personal details of a subscriber who allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books on his server, 27 of which breached the publishers’ copyrights.

In June that year the court ordered ePhone to provide the information but the ISP felt it would be wrong to comply, and instead took their case to the Court of Appeal. The ruling of the lower court was overturned on appeal and the case was sent to the Sweden’s highest court.

In the event even the Supreme Court couldn’t decide and it in turn forwarded the case to the European Court of Justice. A few moments ago the ECJ released its decision, one that is sure to please rightsholders.

The ECJ decided that there are no EU barriers which stop ePhone being ordered to provide the information as requested by Antipiratbyrån and the book publishers. The Court said that Swedish law strikes an appropriate balance between the rights of copyright holders and citizens’ rights to privacy.

Having obtained the decision from the ECJ, the case will now head back to Sweden’s Supreme Court.

“We feel very satisfied with this judgment. It is extremely important that we have received this message,” said Kristina Ahlinder, president of the Publishers’ Association.

“The important next step is that the Supreme Court gives us the authority, that the evidence is sufficient and that we have the right to share this information. The illegal publication that has occurred from this IP address is comprehensive,” Ahlinder added

If Sweden’s Supreme Court indeed decides that ePhone must hand over the information, it is not clear if the publishers are even ready to continue with a civil case against the alleged infringer. But of course, other entities such as the music and movie industries have been watching closely too, since it clarifies their position going forward. IFPI, among others, are welcoming the ruling.

Source: ISPs Have to Identify Alleged Pirates, EU Court Rules

Its outward structure is simple. Internet users who are discovered uploading copyright material are first sent two warnings via their ISP. On receipt of a third, copyright holders can take the Internet account holder to the Copyright Tribunal where they face hefty fines.

If entertainment industry lobbyists were to be believed the legislation couldn’t come soon enough since local artists were being seriously hurt by downloading. But it took a full two months for RIANZ – the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand – to deliver their first batch of just 75 warnings. All of them related to international artists and local artists were completely absent.

Now, more than 6 months after the so-called ‘Skynet’ law was introduced, local ISP TelstraClear has confirmed that one of its customers is the unlucky recipient of a third and final “enforcement” warning, delivered on behalf of RIANZ.

The alleged music pirate now has a week from the date of the notice to lodge a dispute. Failure to do so could lead the individual to be referred by RIANZ to the Copyright Tribunal for a punishment which could include a fine of up to $15,000.

TelstraClear, an outspoken critic of the ’3 strikes’ legislation, confirmed that it had been receiving just 15 notices a week from RIANZ. Nevertheless, that’s a significant amount when compared to those sent to any and all ISPs by the movie industry.

The MPAA-affiliated New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft (NZFACT) has sent a grand total of *zero* notices since the new law allowed it do so.

There are a couple of theories as to why this is the case. NBR, who spoke with an industry source who did not wish to be identified, said the size of the market in New Zealand meant it was too small for Hollywood to bother sending notices.

The other theory, which is connected to the first, is related to cost. When an ISP sends out a notice they can charge copyright holders a fee of $25. There is a further cost of $200 to take a case before the tribunal. With thousands of notices sent the costs would soon mount up.

There is speculation that to overcome this cost-related problem, RIANZ have been monitoring file-sharing networks in order to work out who is doing the most infringing and targeting those users first. Proportionately, users will download more individual instances of music than they would movies, making them easier to spot on separate occasions.

The $25 fee is currently being reviewed by the Economic Development Ministry which will have to decide if the level should be increased, reduced, or maintained. NZFACT boss Tony Eaton has asked for them to be thrown out completely, which suggests the movie industry might have more interest in sending notices if they become free.

But according to a report out of the TelCon12 telecommunications conference in Auckland today, ISPs have been bemoaning the costs of preparing the system versus how things have turned out.

“It’s more complex than just, ‘receive information, send notice’,” TelstraClear’s Oonagh McEldowney said, adding, “We’re nowhere near recovering our setup costs.”

An industry source told TorrentFreak that the ISPs budgeted for many more thousands of notices to be pushed through in order to ensure their initial outlays on systems implementation were covered. Being left high, dry and out-of-pocket will not have been well-received.

Update: Scott Bartlett, CEO of ISP Orcon, has confirmed his company has also sent out a ’3rd Strike’ notice.

Source: Kiwi ISP Issues First Music Piracy ’3rd Strike’, Movie Biz Can’t Be Bothered

By now it’s a well-trodden path – send out scary letters to alleged copyright infringers and ask for money to make mostly imaginary court cases go away.

This controversial business is almost always conducted with a law firm front and center, who spend much of their public-facing time throwing around legal jargon and talking endlessly about infringed rights.

But Lyndsay Honey, who became famous in the UK for his ‘gonzo‘ style movies which placed himself at the center of the action, seems to want to ‘keep it real’ by continuing the tradition of doing his own dirty work – and that includes speaking publicly about his latest attempt at monetizing porn.

In an interview with Vice.com, Honey explains that due to “everything on the internet being free”, his income dropped by 90% in 2 years. This development didn’t go unnoticed by Revenue and Customs who apparently thought something underhand might be going on in Honey’s tax affairs. While noting that he assured them that wasn’t the case, Honey is clear about his motives for entering the ‘speculative invoicing’ market.

“At the end of the day, if I can’t make money out of porn, the only way I can make money is to get to the people who are not buying it,” Honey explains. “I need to earn a living. I’m not a charity.”

But while talking straight has its benefits, sometimes little nuggets of information leak out. From his own mouth it seems Honey isn’t that desperate for cash. After separating from his wife (their house went on the market for £2.5m), Honey now lives in a “beautiful apartment block” and goes on to admit that things are pretty good.

“I still have a very nice lifestyle,” he told Vice. “When I say I’m skint, people say, ‘No, you’re not skint mate, it’s just now you’ve only got three cars instead of five.’”

And even while claiming porn is “a sinking ship”, Honey admits that he’s still shooting movies (which of course someone must be able to sell) and to this day remains the highest earning porn star in the country.

“I still do like, two or three shoots a week in porn for other people, so I literally just turn up, fuck someone and come home and it pays good money,” said Honey.

As his venture into file-sharing settlements shows, Honey is trying squeeze every drop of revenue from the most popular items in his back catalog. His 2003 film Fancy an Indian is the movie that will appear in the letters going out later this year, but far from picking a title that hasn’t done well, the reverse is true. Honey says that Fancy An Indian and The XXX Factor are not only his most pirated titles, but also the ones he’s made the most money from.

However, according to the 60-year-old, not all free content online is bad. Currently he’s working on a mockumentary (NSFW), apparently in the style of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Ironically, Lyndsay is giving it away for free to build an audience with the intention of later selling it to a TV company.

But while an impoverished Honey isn’t an impression that springs from his interview, it may well be that getting even more rich from file-sharing settlements is something that will remain out of reach.

Due to restrictions placed on his company by the High Court, the letters sent out to O2 customers will be much more tame than those previously sent out by ACS:Law. Furthermore, when people respond with a clear “I didn’t do it, and I don’t know who did,” Honey and his associates at Golden Eye may well have to accept that answer as final rather than bully them into submission.

Internet users in the UK may have bent over initially for Andrew Crossley, but they’re better prepared for Ben Dover, there’s little doubt about that. Don’t give up your day job, Honey.

Source: BitTorrent Troll Admits Its All About Making Even More Money

These were the words that accompanied the launch of a new file-sharing site in 2008. The aim of The Student Bay was to bring to free books to the masses.

“Student Bay does not publish the course books as a whole, rather we divide them up in chapters, so that one can download them for personal use,” they added.

Due to the similarities present in their domain names and logos, speculation grew that The Pirate Bay and Student Bay were connected. There were even claims that The Pirate Bay’s Gottfrid Svartholm (aka Anakata) was directly linked with the site, an accusation he denied.

By December, Student Bay had been reported to the police by the Swedish Association for Educational Writers (SLFF) with the organization insisting that Svatholm was connected to the site. In fact the only connection was that the site had been hosted at PRQ, a web host previously owned by Svartholm.

Indeed, The Pirate Bay openly criticized Student Bay for taking subscriptions via premium SMS and suggested that sharing should be free, but by May 2009 it was a moot point – Student Bay had closed.

Last December, very nearly 3 years after the original complaint against the site, Swedish prosecutor Frederick Ingblad announced that a 23-year-old man had been prosecuted for founding and running Student Bay.

He was charged with violating and assisting in breaches of copyright law between August 2008 and May 2009, and charged with “regularly receiving and assimilating payments” from site users totaling $8,000.

But despite a lengthy investigation and legal process, the prosecution were left disappointed by a ruling from the Södertörn District Court today.

In the judgment the Court said that the prosecution had not shown “that [the defendant] alone or in concert with others had started the website StudentBay.se, whose domain was registered by another person during the fall of 2007.”

The defendant had previously admitted doing some paid design work on the site but denied being the site’s operator. The District Court agreed, noting that it had “not been established” that the defendant had “administered the website.”

The Court concluded that despite being involved with the website the defendant had not done enough to be found guilty of the crime in question – facilitating copyright infringement of textbooks.

“It’s excellent that there was an acquittal,” said Victoria Westberg, spokeperson for the Young Pirates. “We believe that it’s obvious that no one should be found guilty for only having designed a website and created a logo. It feels good that the District Court shares our view.”

The prosecution is expected to appeal.

Source: Student Bay File-Sharing ‘Admin’ Walks Free

Initially a law firm called Sidley Austin LLP had been negotiating on Megaupload’s behalf for the return of such assets and funds held in Hong Kong, New Zealand and Canada. Funds were indeed released from Hong Kong in February (to pay Mega employees) and from New Zealand in March (to pay for Kim Dotcom’s living expenses).

At the end of last month, Sidley Austin LLP and Rothken law firm filed a motion in the US to have more funds released to cover Mega’s legal fees. Later Sidley Austin withdrew and a new law firm called Quinn Emanuel Urguhart & Sullivan took their place.

The addition of the Los Angeles-based company to Megaupload’s legal team was widely considered a great asset for Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants to exploit. Andrew Schapiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel, had previously represented several technology and media companies including Google and YouTube, leading the latter to a summary judgment in its $1 billion lawsuit against Viacom.

In a new court filing the US government complains that Schapiro’s past record in copyright cases, and that of Quinn Emanuel as a whole, present a series of conflicts of interest.

The government says the first conflict concerns YouTube. Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan reversed a lower court’s decision to issue summary judgment in the Viacom v YouTube case, so now that battle is back on. YouTube is also listed as a victim and potential witness in the criminal indictment against Megaupload. Quinn Emanuel can’t have interest in both cases, the government says.

The second claimed conflict concerns Google, a company represented by Quinn Emanuel on a number of occasions including some involving the company’s AdSense advertising service. According to the Megaupload indictment, Google withdrew its Adsense service from the now-defunct file-hosting service in part due to copyright infringement concerns. The government intends to call Google as a witness in the Megaupload case.

But it doesn’t stop there. The government goes on to list several companies that have been represented by Quinn Emanuel in copyright matters who are also alleged victims in the Megaupload case and who could be called as witnesses.

The list includes a who’s-who of Hollywood and TV companies including Disney, Fox, Time Warner, Warner Bros. and HBO, in cases dating between 2006 and 2009. Another, a trademark dispute involving the company Danjaq LLC (holder of copyrights and trademarks relating to James Bond) and Sony dates back to 1998.

Software companies make an appearance too. Quinn Emanuel represented Brøderbund Software back in 1986, Intuit (the company behind Quicken) in 1997, and at some point Bulletproof Software. It is claimed that all of these companies had their products distributed unlawfully via Megaupload and could be called to give testimony.

“It is unclear how Quinn Emanuel intends to zealously represent defendants Megaupload Limited and Kim Dotcom while also protecting confidential attorney-client information gained in the course of representing other clients [...] particularly where those clients’ interests are directly opposed to those of the defendants,” the government writes.

But according to the government the conflicts go even deeper, particularly since Quinn Emanuel are now applying for funds seized from Megaupload to be released in order to pay legal fees.

“The possibility of a conflict of interest raised by Quinn Emanuel’s proposed representation of Megaupload Limited and Kim Dotcom is not limited to mere subject matter. The assets seized by the government from defendants may eventually be restored to victims – including possibly the current and former Quinn Emanuel clients listed above – as restitution,” the government adds.

In any event, the US government believes that the amount of money already released by New Zealand to Kim Dotcom ($240,000 to be released in monthly installments of $32,000 until the funds are depleted then indefinite monthly payments of $16,000) will not prove restrictive when it comes to hiring a “competent” legal team, “..even if such funds prove insufficient to pay Quinn Emanuel’s billing rates.”

The government’s complaints pose a real problem for Megaupload. Will it ever be possible for Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants to recruit a high-quality copyright specialist law firm that hasn’t ever represented any of the potential witnesses in the case? It seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, the fight for legitimate users of Megaupload to get their data back continues.

“The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will ask a federal judge on Friday to establish a process that would allow lawful users of Megaupload’s cloud storage service to get their files back,” the EFF reports.

Update: Quinn Emanuel just responded to the objections in quite an entertaining rebuttal.

Here’s a quote:

“[I]f the Government is to have its way in this case, the only lawyers before the Court will be those representing the Government. If the Government is to have its way, the only evidence available to the Court would be that cherry-picked by the Government, for the Government, from the universe of relevant servers slated to be wiped. If the Government is to have its way, in sum, Megaupload will never get its day in Court and the case will effectively be over before it has even begun.”

Source: US Govt. Objects To Megaupload Hiring Top Law Firm

In recent months its been all about the file-hosters themselves, the Megaupload raid in January and the fall out ever since. Today we bring news of action against a site that supplied links to films, music and games hosted on file-hosters all around the world.

On Monday, Greek police swooped on addresses in the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki and arrested a woman said to be 40 years-old and one of the operators of GreekDDL.

The site, which is hosted in the United States and remains partially online but with “major upgrades” underway, was a significant player. Authorities claim that it had in excess of 500,000 members.

To get an idea of the gravity local police are putting on the case, we can compare some recent stats. According to US authorities Megaupload, one of the world’s largest websites at the time, cost rightsholders $500m. GreekDDL (according to Alexa Greece’s 63rd largest site) allegedly cost rightsholders $85.4m (65m euros).

The amounts quoted are, as always, up for debate. It is being claimed that GreekDDL had to shut down for a while in January (traffic stats do indeed show a nosedive) since much of its indexed content had been stored on Megaupload. If that was the case, presumably the ‘losses’ to rightsholders would have been counted twice in two separate cases.

Authorities add that GreekDDL charged its members a subscription for access, although it’s not currently clear if these are simply donations by another name. GreekDDL did have a so-called ‘premium’ VIP section but what went on there is unclear. Nevertheless, police say that in January alone the site received 220,000 euros.

It’s also claimed that the admins of the site generated “substantial amounts” of revenue both from advertising and directing site members to online gambling sites located abroad, earning “commissions of up to 40%” on the latter.

Police say they want to detain two other site admins, one of whom is reportedly being tracked with the help of Swedish authorities and Interpol.

Source: Police Make Arrest, Hunt Admins Of 500,000 Member File-Sharing Site

Worldwide lobbying efforts have borne fruit and now it’s almost routine to see ISPs dragged into the debate on illegal file-sharing and treated as if they are the reason the problem exists, or at the very least that it’s their place to take responsibility.

According to a report coming out of Russia, authorities there are about to get tough on Internet service providers whose local networks are being used to share copyrighted and other illegal material.

These networks, present within the ISPs’ own infrastructure, provide users’ access to a wealth of legal content and services such as Internet Relay Chat, but inevitably unauthorized content is available too. While there is no suggestion that the ISPs directly advertise the availability of such material, there are claims that they use the existence of these networks as a plus point when marketing their product.

Authorities say that in advance of a crackdown, the Interior Ministry’s cyber crime department is currently carrying out nationwide checks on Internet service providers. Results of that audit should be come available either late this month or during May.

However, according to representatives from three of the countries largest ISPs who spoke to Vedomosti.ru, none were aware of any investigations currently underway.

Penalties for direct copyright infringement in Russia can be as harsh as 6 years imprisonment. Extending liability to intermediaries is something being touted in a series of amendments to the country’s Civil Code proposed by President Dmitry Medvedev and passed to the State Duma last week. They could be in force as early as September.

Source: Russia Moves To Hold ISPs Responsible For Illegal File-Sharing

It has become so important that some of the world’s leading Internet companies such as Google and Facebook, rights groups such as the EFF and Public Knowledge, and the biggest entertainment companies through the MPAA, have all become involved in the case.

First a little background. Marques Gunter owns a site called myVidster, a site designed for users to upload links and embed videos hosted on 3rd party sites. In 2010, adult studio Flava Works filed a copyright complaint against myVidster and 26 Doe users of its service.

Flava Works alleged that Gunter had failed to correctly police his site for infringement. Although Flava did not deny that Gunter had responded to specific takedown requests, the company said that despite being made aware of them, Gunter had done nothing to stop a sample of 26 repeat infringers who continually reposted links to infringing material on the myVidster site.

In July 2011, a contributory infringement claim was upheld and a preliminary injunction awarded against myVidster. The company was denied a DMCA safe harbor defense after it was said to have not done enough to deal with repeat infringement.

“[Gunter] removes videos from myVidster that are listed in DMCA notices, but goes no further. Beyond his mechanical response to the notices, Gunter refuses to concern himself with copyright protection,” Judge John F. Grady wrote.

“It is true that service providers are not required to police their sites for infringement, but they are required to investigate and respond to notices of infringement—with respect to content and repeat infringers,” Grady added.

Noting the importance of the case, late November 2011 the EFF and Public Knowledge filed an amicus brief. The pair said that Grady had gone too far with his interpretation of the DMCA and noted that the law “….does not say when and how service providers must terminate the accounts of ‘repeat infringers,’ nor does it define ‘repeat infringer’.'”

Also in November, Internet giants Google and Facebook signaled their interest in the case and their desire to have the original decision overruled. Their submission is complex, but boils down to a common theme.

“Lack of certainty not only harms established businesses like Google and Facebook, but may prevent investment in and development of the next Google or the next Facebook. A [recent study] found that imposing greater liability on Internet intermediaries for the actions of their users would have a devastating effect on investment in early-stage Internet companies,” the pair wrote in a joint amicus brief.

With such important issues at stake, and with their interests leaning more towards holding service providers liable wherever they can, on April 4th the MPAA added their amicus brief to the mix. The MPAA wants Judge Grady’s 2011 ruling upheld.

“Contrary to the assertions of myVidster and amici Google and Facebook, search engines and social networking sites are not the only businesses that desire certainty in a challenging online marketplace,” MPAA wrote. “MPAA member companies and other producers of creative works also need a predictable legal landscape in which to operate.”

“By advertising infringing material, refusing to terminate any of its users’ accounts, and failing to identify and stop infringers who repeatedly embedded links to unauthorized video streams and displays, myVidster did not qualify for safe-harbor protection,” the MPAA continued.

Again, the brief submitted by the MPAA is highly complex, but it too can be boiled down to a simple interest.

“Given the massive and often anonymous infringement on the internet, the ability of copyright holders to hold gateways like myVidster liable for secondary infringement is crucial in preventing piracy,” the MPAA states.

In keeping with that theme and according to a statement from Flava Works CEO Phillip Bleicher seen by AVN, Flava Works are also suing the web hosts of myVidster.

US-based Voxel.net and Netherlands-based LeaseWeb.com are said to be on the hook “…for failing to remove MyVidster.com from its servers despite dozens of DMCA notices alerting Voxel.net and LeaseWeb.com that Gunter was a repeat infringer. Under DMCA, safe harbor no longer applies to sites that fail to remove repeat infringers.”

Flava Works, Inc v. Gunter, currently up before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, is one of the most important copyright-related cases around and definitely one to keep an eye on.

Source: MPAA Joins Google, Facebook, EFF In Repeat Infringer Copyright Battle

Gather IP addresses from BitTorrent networks and go to court to obtain the physical identities of those alleged to have infringed their copyrights. From there, approach account holders with an offer to settle for a couple of thousand bucks to make (in almost all cases) an imaginary lawsuit go away.

In this case Hard Drive asked the court to force ISPs to hand over the details of 90 Internet subscribers alleged to have downloaded and shared the movie “Amateur Allure – Natalia” at some point during a 63 day monitoring period.

The court noted that discovery can only be permitted with a court order and after showing “good cause”. The “good cause” standard can be met on four conditions:

(1) the plaintiff can identify the missing party with sufficient specificity such that the Court can determine that defendant is a real person or entity who could be sued in federal court;

(2) the plaintiff has identified all previous steps taken to locate the elusive defendant;

(3) the plaintiff’s suit against defendant could withstand a motion to dismiss; and

(4) the plaintiff has demonstrated that there is a reasonable likelihood of being able to identify the defendant through discovery such that service of process would be possible.

But Judge Howard R. Lloyd had problems, particularly when considering whether the requested early discovery would be “very likely” to reveal the identities of the Doe defendants.

Hard Drive had previously stated that discovery would allow it to “fully identify” each BitTorrent user suspected of violating its copyrights. However, as Judge Lloyd pointed out, while the ISP account holder may have been the infringer, he may also be merely the bill payer. Indeed, anyone with access to the IP address could be the actual infringer.

The court then went on to list all seven of the subsequent “fishing exercise” processes Hard Drive goes through in order to find out who did infringe when the account holder isn’t the person they’re looking for. It was all too much for the court.

“It is abundantly clear that plaintiff’s requested discovery is not ‘very likely’ to reveal the identities of the Doe defendants. Indeed, plaintiff admitted at the hearing that neither it nor any other plaintiff it is aware of has ever served a single defendant in one of these cases where early discovery has been granted,” Judge Lloyd wrote.

And when it came to “good cause” things didn’t improve either.

The plaintiff in the case needed to show all Does to be in the State of California but Hard Drive shot itself in the foot when it admitted that its IP geo-location tool was “…only truly reliable when predicting the country in which an IP address is located.”

Confirming the above, Hard Drive admitted that in other cases where discovery was granted it later found that some of the ISP subscribers did not live in the state where the lawsuit was brought.

The court also had problems with 90 Does being connected together in one lawsuit after Hard Drive admitted that it had no evidence to show that the BitTorrent users ever shared the movie between each other.

“Plaintiff has not shown that the defendants acted in concert simply by appearing in the same swarm at completely different times,” said Judge Lloyd. “Therefore, the court cannot find that ‘a single transaction or series of closely related transactions’ connects these 90 Does and makes joinder proper.”

The court denied Hard Drive its application for discovery of the Doe’s identities and ordered all but one defendant to be severed from the lawsuit. If Hard Drive wants to pursue them it will have to file individual complaints against them.

Judge Lloyd’s summing up will be music to the ears of those who oppose so-called copyright trolls.

“The court realizes that this decision may frustrate plaintiff and other copyright holders who, quite understandably, wish to curtail online infringement of their works. Unfortunately, it would appear that the technology that enables copyright infringement has outpaced technology that prevents it,” Judge Lloyd wrote.

“The court recognizes that plaintiff is aggrieved by the apparent infringement and is sympathetic toward its argument that lawsuits like this one are the only way for it to find and stop infringers. However, the court will not assist a plaintiff who seems to have no desire to actually litigate but instead seems to be using the courts to pursue an extrajudicial business plan against possible infringers (and innocent others caught up in the ISP net).

“Plaintiff seeks to enlist the aid of the court to obtain information through the litigation discovery process so that it can pursue a non-judicial remedy that focuses on extracting ‘settlement’ payments from persons who may or may not be infringers. This the court is not willing to do,” Judge Lloyd concludes.

Source: Court Kicks Out Copyright Troll Who Has “No Desire To Litigate”

On March 1st the Sinde law went into effect and now, a month on, the Spanish Ministry of Culture has revealed that in total almost 300 official complaints have been received.

The Comisión de Propiedad Intelectual (Copyright Commission) has received 213 copyright complaints plus 79 closure requests from rightsholders against specific websites accused of online piracy.

The Commission will investigate all allegations and has the power to dismiss claims or set the ball rolling for further action, including the removal of links said to infringe copyright through to the court-ordered closure or ISP blockade of entire websites.

Although the process between complaint and site shutdown can in theory be completed in about a month, the Ministry of Culture reports that no punitive action has yet been taken in respect of the 300 complaints.

It is not clear how many of the complaints being processed, if any, are the result of a hacktivist sabotage campaign launched on the day the Sinde law came into effect.

The group Hackivistas encouraged sites to link to a copyrighted track from artist Eme Navarro, a member of the music rights group SGAE but also an outspoken critic of the Sinde law. Hundreds of websites reportedly linking to Navarro’s song without permission, with Navarro subsequently reporting them to the Ministry of Culture.

While the initial aim of the campaign was to overload the Commission, it was also designed to discover more about the uncertain takedown process. Current thinking suggests that Spanish hosting companies will be asked to shut down non-compliant websites and ISPs will be asked to block those hosted outside Spain.

In theory it’s possible to shut down sites within a month, which could mean that the first closures from the first batch reported by the Ministry of Culture will be seen in April.

Source: Spanish ‘SOPA’: 79 Site Takedown Requests in First Month

Last year the parties agreed on a system through which copyright infringers are warned that their behavior is unacceptable. After six warnings ISPs may then take a variety of repressive measures, which includes slowing down the offender’s connection and temporary disconnections.

The new plan was announced under the name ‘Copyright Alerts‘ last year and will be implemented by all parties by July 12, 2012. As this deadline nears, the CCI today unveiled several key players who are going to lead the group.

Surprisingly, the Executive Board is exclusively made up of representatives from the RIAA, MPAA and the ISPs.

RIAA’s Steven Marks has been appointed as Vice Chairman and General Counsel, MPAA’s Marianne Grant is the Senior Vice President, Comcast’s Alan Lewine is Senior Counsel, Verizon’s Thomas Dailey is Chairman, Viacom’s Daniel Mandil is Associate General Counsel and AT&T’s Brent Olson is Vice President of Public Policy.

For an organization that aims to educate Internet users in a responsible way, consumer rights representatives are completely absent from the Executive Board.

However, the Advisory Board does include public rights advocates including Jerry Berman, the Chairman of the Internet Education Foundation and founder of the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Gigi Sohn, co-founder of Public Knowledge.

The latter says it wasn’t an easy decision to accept the position. Sohn is especially worried about the threat of Internet disconnections.

“I still have concerns about some of the points in the agreement. One of the most prominent is the threat that consumers could have their access to the Internet cut off,” he says.

“I will ask at the appropriate time for the ISPs to promise not to interpret the agreement’s ‘temporary restriction’ provision as allowing for suspension of user Internet accounts. This provision is most troubling because an individual could lose access to the Internet just on the basis of suspicion alone.”

The CCI will be headed by copyright and consumer protection expert Jill Lesser, who will serve as Executive Director. Unlike some members of the advisory board, Lesser is delighted with her appointment and is eager to start sending out the first batch of alerts.

“I am excited to lead CCI as it begins this constructive effort to reduce and deter online copyright infringement in a way that is centered on education and deterrence, not punishment,” she said. “This unprecedented collaboration demonstrates that when content providers and distributors work together we can protect copyright and empower consumers at the same time.”

As expected, CCI is mainly focusing on the educational component of the scheme, but in essence it’s deterrence through punishment.

While we now know a little bit more about the people who will lead CCI, the organization has yet to announce the company that will be responsible for tracking down millions of BitTorrent pirates. Last year sources told TorrentFreak that DtecNet got the lucrative contract, but that was the last we heard of it.

One thing’s for certain, the company that gets the contract will have to be reviewed by an independent expert to see if their evidence gathering techniques pass the scrutiny test. But even when the end-stage tracking evidence is solid, there will always be many wrongful accusations, not least because people run unsecured Wi-Fi networks and ISPs make mistakes.

Those wrongfully accused Internet subscribers have the right to call for an independent review at the cost of a $35 filing fee. These disputes will then be handled by the American Arbitration Association, CCI announced today.

While the CCI is confident that the alerts are an effective way of deterring online piracy we have our doubts. For one, the monitoring system is relatively easy to bypass through a proxy or VPN. Secondly, the multi-million dollar plan only covers a few of the many sources of online piracy.

The millions of U.S. Internet users who download via cyberlockers and streaming portals are not affected by this agreement at all, as these downloads are impossible for third parties to track.

Time will tell who’s right.

Source: BitTorrent Crackdown Center Prepares to Punish Pirates

Behind the scenes Megaupload has been negotiating with the Department of Justice to allow these users to temporarily access their files.

“Megaupload’s legal team is working hard to reunite our users with their data. We are negotiating with the Department of Justice to allow all Mega users to retrieve their data,” Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak previously.

However, weeks have passed by and thus far no workable solution has been found.

Tired of waiting, one Megaupload user has now asked a court to find a way to return his files. Through his attorneys, Kyle Goodwin, owner of the sports news site OhioSportsNet, filed a brief at a federal court in Virginia.

“It is one thing to take legal action against an alleged copyright infringer. It is quite another to do so at the expense of entirely innocent third parties, with no attempt to prevent or even mitigate the collateral damage,” the brief starts.

The attorneys explain that Goodwin signed up for a premium Megaupload account that he used to store raw footage of games, player and coach interviews, and promotional materials for his business. This Megaupload account served as an online backup of the files he stored on his hard drive, in case that crashed.

Unfortunately for Goodwin the hard drive did indeed crash in January, right after Megaupload was shutdown. However, when he attempted to download the backup files, he noticed that Megaupload was no longer operational. As a result, the sports reporter claims to have suffered significant losses.

“The loss of my files has made doing the business of OhioSportsNet difficult,” Goodwin explains in his testimony. “For example, at least four parents had inquired about paying me to put together highlight reels of their children’s sporting events to send to colleges for recruiting purposes. Without my files, I have been unable to do that.”

The attorneys argue that the Government is responsible for this loss, and claim that Goodwin’s Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure has been violated.

“The government cannot just execute its search warrant and wipe its hands of any responsibility for the property incidental to that warrant, especially when the government’s actions have the direct effect of impermissibly denying innocent third parties of their property,” they write.

They further argue that Goodwin and many others have become victims of an overbroad takedown.

“Perhaps in an attempt to avoid responsibility for its seizure, the government has alleged that some data on the servers consists of infringing copies of copyrighted works. However, the potential presence of others’ infringing files does not diminish the Court’s responsibility to safeguard customers’ lawful and noninfringing files and provide for their return,” the brief reads.

Goodwin hopes that the court will ensure that the matter is resolved, and demands the return of his files, and the files of others who are in the same position as himself.

Source: Sports Reporter Demands Return of Megaupload Files

The Australian Financial Review and the BBC’s Panorama programme combined to publish a four-year investigation into the operations of News Corporation subsidiaries, unveiling damaging claims of a plot to facilitate and encourage piracy with the aim of crippling pay-television rivals.

The allegations cast shadows across the main-stream media landscape, with implications for the conduct of news outlets and the arguments of anti-piracy lobby groups through to the structure of the pay-television landscape itself.

The reaction of News Corporation’s 81-year-old Australian founder and CEO was swift. Rupert Murdoch used his new love of micro-blogging platform Twitter to rubbish the claims, the publishers and make implied threats of legal action against those raising the allegations.

Murdoch’s sensitivity is understandable. The negative publicity generated by earlier phone hacking scandals could be alleviated in part by suggesting that if immoral – even illegal – activity had taken place, it occurred during the pursuit of journalism, however tawdry or overzealous.

Using piracy as a corporate weapon to damage competitors contains no such narrow mountain trail to the moral high ground. Worse, it undermines a global campaign against piracy led by Hollywood lobby groups such as the MPAA, of whom News Corporation is a major member via its entertainment subsidiary, FOX.

In Australia, the web becomes more tangled, ensnaring a current consultation process to control and limit file-sharing. Leading up to a secretive series of meetings held between the Australian Attorney-General’s department, copyright monopoly lobby groups and internet service providers, News Corporation unleashed an attack on media piracy via its local publications, as noted at the time by Torrentfreak.

The articles were backed by a study commissioned by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), of whom News Corporation is a member, again via its subsidiary FOX.

AFACT now has the onerous task of keeping a straight face during the closed-door discussions while it argues for the criminalisation of not-for-profit piracy as a major backer and publicity partner is embroiled in a corporate piracy scandal.

The Australian pay-television market is small compared to its foreign counterparts. Until last week it contained only two major players whom largely broadcast the same limited number of channels. The tiny size of the industry has been blamed on everything from over regulation to rampant file-sharing. The new piracy allegations suggest a more sinister story.

Last Friday, dominant player Foxtel, part owned by News Corporation, came a step closer to acquiring its smaller rival Austar in a $AU1.9 billion take-over which will deliver Foxtel a virtual monopoly of the cable-television market in Australia.

Moves from internet outsiders such as FetchTV, Netflix and local Netflix-clone Quickflix have made inroads into the medium, but all offer limited content and Netflix currently requires Australians to circumnavigate geoblocking. Television content sold via platforms such as Itunes is also routinely geoblocked and/or suffers from unexplained inflated pricing.

The US Embassy in Canberra views limited options for accessing content as a driver of piracy in Australia. Australia’s stunted pay-television market is part of this problem. Many popular television series appear months or years late, or not at all. The free-to-air television market has suffered decades of audience and revenue decline and can no longer afford to regularly syndicate high-cost content.

Australians are left in a shifting half-light of what is globally popular, forever reading about new content online, watching the trailers, inadvertently seeing spoilers in social media – while often being left with no legal way of participating.

The allegations against News Corporation in Australia have not been heard in any court, and may never be – the Australian Federal Police are reluctant to get involved, despite Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy urging the claims to be investigated.

If the Panorama and Australian Financial Revue’s claims are substantiated and it is proved one of the largest media corporations in the world engaged in predatory piracy to damage rivals, the fallout will be large. News Corporation bases much of its content sales on securing paywalls and selling entry. Competitors, audiences and governments will not be happy if it is established that News Corporation’s other business model was predicated on coldly and clinically facilitating the piracy of the content of rivals.

About The Author

Myles Peterson is an Australian Journalist & Writer.

Source: The Hypocritical Use of Piracy As a Corporate Weapon

The file-hoster released a pro-Megaupload song featuring stars such as P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Mary J Blige, Kim Kardashian and even boxer Floyd Mayweather all publicly endorsing the site.

Within hours the ‘Mega Song’ was watched by hundreds of thousand of people, but the fun stopped when Universal Music Group (UMG) took down the video from YouTube. In response, Megaupload filed a lawsuit against UMG and after several days YouTube finally reinstated the video.

Why the video was taken down has never been made clear. However, UMG did reveal that it had a deal with YouTube to take down content even if it doesn’t infringe their rights, which raised the eyebrows of many legal experts.

The lawsuit had the potential to turn into a landmark case, but it was quickly overshadowed by the criminal indictment against Megaupload. This is one of the reasons why Megaupload’s legal team has now decided to voluntarily dismiss the case.

“The sham takedown notice case will be dismissed without prejudice,” Megaupload attorney Ira Rothken told TorrentFreak. “Megaupload will be permitted to refile the case if it chooses to do so,” he added.

Megaupload still believes the Mega Song takedown was illegitimate, but its legal team needs to direct all of its resources towards defending Megaupload against the criminal charges of the United States Government, as well as the troll lawsuits currently being filed.

“Megaupload is shifting its litigation resources to defending against recent US copyright related actions across the world and opportunistic copycat civil suits,” Rothken told us.

The current priority for Mega is to file a motion in response to the US indictment. Earlier this week Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom exclusively revealed some of the evidence they will use to refute the allegations that they were operating a piracy haven, including friendly partnership requests from major entertainment industry companies.

But there is much more to present, according to Dotcom.

“These are just a few hints,” he told TorrentFreak. “Our upcoming court filings will reveal the full nonsense dimension of the indictment.”

Source: Megaupload Drops Mega Song Lawsuit to Focus on “Nonsense” US Charges

The treaty, which is aimed at harmonizing global copyright enforcement globally, has largely been formulated behind closed doors and its critics fear it will only lead to censorship and surveillance of Internet users.

The plan was to ask the ECJ to look at ACTA and decide if it conflicts with the EU’s fundamental rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression and right to privacy.

Separately, David Martin, a UK MEP who is drafting the Parliament’s position on ACTA, made a proposal to put ACTA before the European Court of Justice to get its opinion, but the committee decided yesterday that wasn’t needed and will now vote in June on whether to approve ACTA.

The European Parliament’s trade committee rejected the plan with 21 MEPs voting against, 5 in favor and 2 abstentions. This means that ACTA could now be put before Parliament in a matter of months. Had ACTA been immediately referred to Europe’s highest court, it would have meant a delay of one, maybe two years.

This, according to activists, would have dampened the momentum of their anti-ACTA work which reached unprecedented levels and Europe-wide protests earlier this year.

“Referring ACTA to the court is no substitute for the political procedure needed to check this agreement and determine democratically whether its entry into force is in the European interest,” said Pirate Party MEP and Shadow rapporteur on ACTA for the GreensAmelia Andersdotter.

“Only a democratic ratification process via the European and national parliaments is able to provide such a judgment, and we therefore welcome today’s decision to continue with this process,” she concluded.

ACTA will now be pushed through committees in the European Parliament during April and May and then to a final full Parliament vote at its June plenary session.

“If ACTA dies in European Parliament, then it’s a permakill, and the monopoly lobbies will have to start fighting uphill,” said Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge in a comment. “If ACTA passes, the same monopolists get tons of new powers to use, and close the door for the foreseeable future behind the legislators for a very necessary reform of the copyright and patent monopolies.”

After its existence was first discovered by the public in 2008 after documents were uploaded to Wikileaks, ACTA’s opponents now have just 10 weeks to pull out the stops.

This article has been updated to clarify the involvement of David Martin MEP

Source: ACTA Battle Nears Climax in Europe

The solicitor at the center of that lawfirm, Andrew Crossley, was both fined and suspended from practicing law, which seemed to put a hold on similar cases.

However, it didn’t dissuade everyone. Yesterday, the UK’s High Court approved a case involving UK pornographer Ben Dover (real name Lyndsay Honey) and his company Golden Eye International. Now, ISP O2 will have to release the details of up to 9000+ subscribers listed in the document for Dover and Golden Eye. The precise number is unclear, as other companies that attempted to send letters through Golden Eye were denied the opportunity.

It’s success at last for the pornographer, as he’s had several similar cases thrown out in the past including a partnership with 170-year-old law firm Tilly Baily Irvine which ended in sanctions last year.

This claim process started 6 months ago, and with O2 stating they would not contest the case. Chief Master Weingarten, in response,  suggested that Consumer Focus (a government funded body looking after consumer rights) represent the IP addresses – the intended defendants – in court instead, a role Consumer Focus accepted.

Despite a strong defense, including pointing out all the issues with these kinds of actions, Weingarten approved the order, but with conditions. In perhaps a first for this sort of litigation, the court will be supervising the content of letters sent out to the alleged infringers, partly because of the ACS:law debacle.

In particular, the one-sided nature of the letters – only indicating the consequences should the alleged infringer lose – was not deemed appropriate, being indicative of bullying. Instead consequences should they successfully defend themselves should also be included.

Yet the most important part of the ruling is near the end, and might stop this practice once and for all; blanket fees to “make it all go away” are not acceptable.

137.   Fifthly, I think that Mr Becker’s response in his second witness statement to the point made by counsel for Consumer Focus referred to in sub-paragraph 60(v) above is telling:

“… it assumes that £700 will be successfully obtained from each of the 9000, when that is plainly wrong. In fact, it is likely that only a small proportion will result in a successfully obtained payment of any sum.”

This comes quite close to an admission that the figure of £700 has been selected so as to maximise the revenue obtained from the letters of claim, rather than as a realistic estimate of the damages recoverable by the relevant Claimant from each Intended Defendant. In any event, that is the inference I draw in the light of the matters discussed above and in the absence of any disclosure of the information referred to in paragraph 88 above.

138.   Accordingly, I do not consider that the Claimants are justified in sending letters of claim to every Intended Defendant demanding the payment of £700. What the Claimants ought to do is to proceed in the conventional manner, that is to say, to require the Intended Defendants who do not dispute liability to disclose such information as they are able to provide as to the extent to which they have engaged in P2P filesharing of the relevant Claimants’ copyright works. In my view it would be acceptable for the Claimants to indicate that they are prepared to accept a lump sum in settlement of their claims, including the request for disclosure, but not to specify a figure in the initial letter. The settlement sum should be individually negotiated with each Intended Defendant.

No more fee demands. Instead they can only state that they will accept a lump sum payment as settlement, to be negotiated if the accused accept liability. Otherwise, it will be down to the courts. It also seems that after many cases, Chief Master Weingarten has understood that these cases are about profits, not protecting rights. Very little money and a lot of grief was the prediction we highlighted earlier this month, and that seems to be the case.

Meanwhile, up to 9124 households are going to get a letter through their door talking about the porn they’ve allegedly downloaded. Let’s just hope that the tracking software, claimed to be ‘forensically accurate’ (huh?) does better than in times past, or there’s going to be a lot of needlessly embarrassed families, and unnecessary family strife when the postman calls.

Source: Mass BitTorrent Lawsuits Return to the UK

The so-called Big Four labels – EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner – wanted the ISP to install proactive filtering technology aimed at stopping unauthorized file-sharing among Eircom’s customers. Eircom refused, IRMA sued, and the case ended up in court – but not for very long.

At the 11th hour in February 2009 the companies came to an agreement which would see Eircom introduce a graduated response system for dealing with errant subscribers.

However, Eircom needed something in return. The agreement had left Eircom in the unenviable position of being the only ISP in Ireland with an official policy of disconnecting customers on the mere allegations of the music industry.

But the first recording industry target, ISP UPC, refused to play ball and after being sued it eventually won its case.

While the labels did ‘reward’ Eircom’s compliance with the MusicHub service, the product has been labeled lacklaster and when PaidContent asked how many users the service had, Eircom refused to tell them.

So with Eircom now at a commercial disadvantage and no immediate sign that the industry will force any other ISP to implement 3 strikes, the ISP is being left to go it alone. In making the best out of a bad situation it’s now describing what it is doing as an “obligation”.

“Eircom is of the view that these obligations are part of a role that all responsible companies must serve,” Eircom’s consumer managing director Stephen Beynon said.

Eircom insist that they want to respect their customers’ right to privacy but from fighting IRMA in 2008/9, they now believe that other ISPs should do as they have done, and do a deal with the recording group.

“We think that it would be better for everyone if the industry and the rights-holders found a way to tackle this problem. It’s not going to go away. The current situation is not ideal but we could create something that moved the issue forward if we worked together,” Beynon added.

Or in other words, the water’s great, come on in.

Beynon says that Eircom believes it has an obligation to uphold the law when illegal activity is brought to its attention but it’s taking the word of a private P2P tracking company as final and there is no judicial oversight, something that causes controversy in every jurisdiction it’s suggested.

It’s interesting to note that if Eircom had held its ground back in 2008 when it was sued by the labels to proactively filter subscriber upload data, by now it would have heard Europe’s highest court dismiss what they were being asked to do as illegal.

Had they known that in 2009, would they have felt so compelled to do the 3 strikes deal?

Source: Lonely ISP Wants Other Providers To Disconnect Pirates

ACTA imposes significant requirements on the 30 or so signatories should they ratify it, none are yet to do so, impacting far wider than the commonly discussed aspects of file-sharing and media piracy. ACTA brings generic medicines into play. To some extent it dictates how nations should deal with trade-marks and patents. In the words of Australian Law Professor Dr Matthew Rimmer, ACTA “seeks to define and channel how nation-states enforce concepts of intellectual property.”

Australia’s lack of public and political opposition to ACTA stands somewhat alone in the international community, accentuated by limited local media coverage. The rare light shone on Australia’s role in negotiations during last week’s “Justice Standing Committee” hearing only came after the treaty had already been signed in October, 2011 – as was noted more than once by the handful of politicians present.

Senator Scott Ludlam, an outspoken supporter of Julian Assange and his Wikileaks organisation, seized the opportunity to grill the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade and other supporters of ACTA who presented themselves. If body language is anything to go by, the good senator was less than enthusiastic about the answers he received.

Later in the week, a very different group of people gave evidence, drawn from the ranks of concerned members of Australia’s academic community. Their testimony was largely negative, attacking ACTA on multiple levels.

Human rights expert Dr Hazel Moir, of the Australian National University, pointed to the role copyright monopolies played in drafting the secretive treaty and questioned their motives. “The music industry has a very rigid business model. They’re only prepared to sell certain things at certain times,” Dr Moir testified.

Some of the harshest language came from Dr Matthew Rimmer, an intellectual property law expert, also from the ANU. Dr Rimmer took aim at the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade’s role in negotiating the treaty.

“The Department [of Foreign Affairs & Trade] have been one of the chief advocates,” Dr Rimmer told TorrentFreak after giving evidence. “They’re conducting and running their own line on what should happen. I’m not sure that represents a wider government approach.”

Dr Rimmer questioned why other government departments had not been included in the treaty negotiations.

“There was a need for Treasury, Finance and the Productivity Commission to be involved. I also think the Department of Health [& Ageing] have been ignored … their concerns have not been raised.”

Those concerns include the impact ACTA may have on Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme – a government program that provides subsidised drugs and medicines to the entire population. Bans on the use of generic medicines could see massive blow-outs in the cost of the scheme according to Dr Rimmer. “There’s many real problems with the one department having soul carriage [of ACTA] that have simply been ignored,” he said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade has been lead by no less than three ministers since ACTA negotiations began in 2008. None have shown a particular public interest in the treaty, preferring the rough and tumble of internal party politics and visits to Afghanistan and Washington.

Australia’s ruling Labor Party and conservative opposition have a long standing history of combining their numbers to pass treaties and agreements driven by the US State Department – as ACTA is.

Australia’s role in negotiating ACTA has been near invisible, both locally and internationally. Transparency in the process has been non-existent. Mainstream media coverage has been negligible. Expert local voices have been ignored.

Should Australia ratify ACTA, it will sign up to a treaty negotiated in secret by a single, questionably-lead government department with parliamentary hearings held after the fact and outcomes that could be felt across the legal and policy landscape of the nation. Such a process runs counter-intuitive to how a modern liberal democracy operates.

About The Author

Myles Peterson is an Australian Journalist & Writer.

Source: The Department For ACTA

In an attempt to deter online piracy, a third-party company will collect the IP-addresses of alleged infringers on BitTorrent and other public file-sharing networks.

The ISPs will then notify these offenders and tell them that their behavior is unacceptable. After six warnings the ISP may then take a variety of repressive measures, which include cutting off the offender’s connection temporarily.

After the initial announcement things went quiet, but that changed last week when the RIAA and the Center for Copyright Information confirmed that all major ISPs will start warning BitTorrent users this summer.

This renewed attention resulted in wide press coverage, and also sparked massive protests. Activist group Demand Progress quickly switched back to SOPA-style campaign mode and launched a petition asking ISPs to cut out of the deal.

“They’re selling us out,” the group writes.

“Just weeks after Internet users from across the globe came together to beat SOPA, the major ISPs are cutting a deal with Big Content to restrict web access for users who are accused of piracy.”

The call didn’t go unheard, and within 24 hours more than 60,000 people signed the petition. Today this number has swelled to more than 90,000 and the end still isn’t in sight.

Earlier this week the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also expressed its concerns over the so-called ‘graduated response’ system. They highlight that the agreement puts the burden of proof on the alleged file-sharers, which doesn’t seem fair considering the many wrongful accusations that can occur.

“One key problem is the arrangement shifts the burden of proof: rather than accusers proving infringement before the graduated response process starts against a subscriber, the subscriber must disprove the accusation in order to call a halt to it,” EFF writes.

“Worse, accused subscribers have to defend themselves on an uneven playing field. For example, they have only ten days to prepare a defense, and with only six pre-set options available. Of course, there’s no assurance that those who review the cases are neutral, and the plan sorely lacks consequences for an accuser who makes mistaken or fraudulent claims.”

The EFF informed TorrentFreak that they plan to launch an activism campaign in the near future to raise awareness of these issues.

How ‘bad’ the graduated warning system turns out to be largely depends on what punishments Internet providers intend to hand out. Needless to say, a temporary reduction in bandwidth is less severe than cutting people’s Internet access.

At TorrentFreak we are interested in finding out which third-party company will be hired to monitor people’s BitTorrent downloads, and how solid their evidence gathering methods are.

This is important, because the RIAA’s previous partner MediaSentry used rather shoddy techniques which resulted in many false accusations. The RIAA’s current partner DtecNet also has shortcomings as they fail to understand how BitTorrent works.

As we move closer to the July deadline more details should emerge. At the same time the online protests are also expected to increase, both through public initiatives and various advocacy groups. While it’s doubtful that they will ever get the same exposure as the SOPA revolt, there is no doubt that these protests will be noticed.

Source: Planned BitTorrent Pirate Punishments Spark Protest

Worried that a negative judgment might have lasting effects for sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia, Google explained the the studios are wrong when they say that Hotfile doesn’t deserve protection under the safe harbors of the DMCA.

“Without the protections afforded by the safe harbors, those services might have been forced to fundamentally alter their operations or might never have launched in the first place,” Google wrote in its brief.

But the MPAA objected to the search engine’s intervention, describing its brief as a “systematic effort by Google, itself a defendant in ongoing copyright infringement cases, to influence the development of the law to Google’s own advantage.”

“Although Google purports not to take a position regarding summary judgment here, Google unmistakably seeks a ruling against Plaintiffs. Google’s motion should be denied,” the studios conclude.

Now Google has responded and roundly rejects the MPAA’s opposition.

The search engine denies that it wants the court to rule one way or the other, but is instead trying to highlight the importance of the DMCA’s safe harbors “and the broad consensus that has developed among courts called upon to apply those provisions.”

Google says that its intention for filing the amicus brief is not to directly assist Hotfile or indeed further its own interests, but to help highlight the importance of the court’s decision on the wider Internet.

“Google’s aim in seeking to participate in this case is to underscore the importance of the Court’s decision to a wide array of legitimate and socially beneficial Internet services, and to the overall climate of free expression online,” Google’s counsel writes.

Google says that its filing is “classic amicus curae” – assisting in a case of general public interest, supplementing the efforts of counsel, and drawing the court’s attention to law that escaped consideration. It adds pointedly that the MPAA has not attempted to use relevant DMCA case law to have the brief dismissed.

“It is telling in that regard that Plaintiffs’ Opposition does nothing to refute the actual legal and policy arguments in Google’s proposed brief,” Google notes. “Rather than oppose Google’s arguments on the merits, Plaintiffs try to silence Google.”

It will be interesting to see the outcome of the conflict here between the MPAA and Google and whether it remains localized in the Hotfile court room or spill over to other affairs. While Google’s points regarding the effects of this case on the wider Internet are noble, it seems unlikely that they aren’t considering their own interests too. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make their stance any less valid.

The IFPI also took up an aggressive stance (1,2) against Google recently but it’s difficult to see how rightsholder conflict with the world’s most influential Internet company will yield the results they’re looking for.

Source: Google Strikes Back After MPAA Objects To Hotfile Intervention

However, starting last year more and more BitTorrent-related cases were filed at Florida state courts. The copyright holders in these cases are exploiting a loophole based on the pure bill of discovery, which allows them to demand subpoenas to send to Internet providers without having to provide any evidence.

For months this cheap trick proved to be very effective, but not anymore. In the case of movie studio Boy Racer against 615 unnamed BitTorrent users, Judge Marc Schumacher has issued a landmark ruling.

The judge starts off by describing mass-BitTorrent lawsuits as “fishing expeditions” and brands the copyright holders as trolls.

“[These suits are].. used to extort settlements from defendants who are neither subject to the courts’ personal jurisdiction nor guilty of copyright infringement, but who are fearful of the consequences of being publicly named as a defendant in a suit that seeks disclosure of the contents of their personal computers.”

The judge notes that many federal courts have dismissed BitTorrent lawsuits, and he himself now does the same, but for different reasons.

The basis of the dismissal is the fact that “copyright trolls” are violating BitTorrent users’ right to anonymous speech, a right that’s protected by the First Amendment.

“The Supreme Court often has recognized that the First Amendment protects anonymous speech. Other federal courts have held that Internet users sharing copyrighted works via the BitTorrent application are themselves engaged in anonymous speech that warrants First Amendment protection,” the judge writes in his order.

Judge Schumacher goes on to explain that because he has no jurisdiction over copyright matters, he cannot establish whether the claim of the copyright holder trumps the anonymity of the defendants. Thus, it is impossible for a state court to conclude whether the copyright holder’s request to identify the file-sharers is legitimate or not.

In short, it means that BitTorrent users’ right to anonymous speech shields them from being exposed through state court lawsuits.

In addition Judge Schumacher also ruled that the “pure bill of discovery” cannot be used for mass-BitTorrent lawsuits at all. The reason for this is that these subpoenas are supposed to target the defendant, not a third-party such as an Internet provider in this case.

Commenting on Sophisticated Jane Doe’s blog, where the news about the order broke, lawyer Richard Viscasillas suggests that the decision could mean the end of nearly all mass-lawsuits in Florida state courts.

“This latest Order by Judge Schumacher is now the only precedent in the 11th Judicial Circuit that I and other attorneys will be invoking to get all pending cases by all Plaintiffs dismissed with prejudice,” Viscasillas writes.

“This is the proverbial ‘shot heard around the world’ that may just spell the end of all the ‘pure bill of discovery’ troll lawsuits in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The Trolls have to be in an absolute state of panic right now.”

The order is indeed quite remarkable, and good news for tens of thousands of BitTorrent users who have been sued in Florida. Although BitTorrent itself is far from anonymous, it’s good to see that there are judges who prevent this fact from being abused though troll tactics.

Update: Shortly after this article was published we learned that the order in question has been vacated.

It turns out that the order was drafted by a defense attorney and Judge Schumacher apparently signed it by mistake, assuming all parties agreed on it. This is bad news for the defendants and means that the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in Florida state courts are very much alive for now.

Source: Judge: BitTorrent Downloads Are Protected Anonymous Speech (Updated)

The UFC has a track record of aggressive anti-piracy action. They’ve threatened countless bars for showing both illicit streams and under-licensed deliveries of their events, and gone after numerous sites, their operators, and uploaders.

But for quite some time the MMA organization has threatened to expand its reach by going beyond suing those actually providing illegal streams to suing those who simply watch them. To be fair most observers thought this was just another of UFC president Dana White’s famous rants, but this week an interesting picture began to emerge.

UFC announced on Tuesday that parent company Zuffa LLC had successfully taken down a site called Greenfeedz which had illegally streamed a dozen UFC events. While there’s nothing particularly unusual about that, the UFC casually noted that they had also obtained the email addresses, user names and IP addresses of people who allegedly watched unauthorized streams.

So maybe the UFC are just throwing that out there to scare people a little? Apparently not. In an interview with MMA Junkie, UFC chief legal counsel Lawrence Epstein confirmed that the fight organization will be going after individuals who watched events dating back to May 2011, a number said to be potentially “voluminous.”

Who gets sued and who doesn’t is yet to be decided, with Epstein noting that the the UFC needs to “have the requisite proof” that individuals actually watched shows without paying. Nevertheless, the lawyer predicts that the Greenfeedz databases will provide lots of information including “names, emails, telephone numbers and sometimes even addresses to identify those people that are watching illegally.”

But according to First Amendment attorney Marc Randazza, it is not at all clear how the UFC will take action against those who simply watched illicit streams.

“I have a very hard time finding a theory of liability for someone who merely watched an illegal broadcast. That’s like saying if a bar was illegally publicly presenting a movie or an NFL game, that everyone in the bar would be liable,” Randazza told TorrentFreak.

“My guess is that the UFC’s attorneys will not really go after people who merely watched the fights. They may, however, use the data they gather in order to find out if any of those people were re-distributing it,” Randazza adds.

Although it seems unlikely that the UFC will carry through with their threat to sue stream viewers, if they do they can expect opposition.

“If they’re really going after people for merely watching an illegal stream, I’d defend that case free of charge,” Randazza told TorrentFreak. “That’s not the right thing to do.”

Source: Can You Be Sued For Simply Watching An Illegal Video Stream?

It was the first round in the ongoing “Operation in Our Sites” through which more than 300 domain names have been seized to date.

After the site’s domain was seized, five people connected to the movie streaming site were arrested last year. With the sentencing of Jeremy Andrew, all have now been sentenced.

Andrew was accused of taking part in the NinjaVideo conspiracy and pleaded guilty to a copyright infringement charge last October. Andrew, known online as “Htrdfrk,” started out as a regular visitor to the site but was later recruited as staff member.

His tasks were to secure the servers and moderate the forums, which the prosecutor described as important roles.

“Like the other charged defendants, Andrew filled an important role in the NinjaVideo conspiracy; Andrew served as “Ninja Head of Security”, which involved setting up, managing, and securing servers used by the conspiracy to store infringing content.”

“Andrew also served as one of the moderators of the NinjaVideo forum board; in that role, he provided technical support to website visitors, which included assisting visitors with accessing infringing content.”

The prosecutor admitted that, compared to the other defendants, Andrew played the smallest part in the conspiracy. Nevertheless, he asked the court to sentence Andrew to several months in prison. The defense on the other hand argued that a short probation term would be more appropriate, as Andrew has no criminal past and was not motivated by monetary rewards.

The court sided with the arguments provided by the defense and sentenced Jeremy Andrew to three years probation and 150 hours of community service. In addition, he has to pay the MPAA $5,250 in damages.

“The defendant did not seek out to join the conspiracy and was not motivated by any monetary rewards,” was one of the reasons Judge Anthony John Trenga gave for the lower sentence. “The defendant has accepted responsibility for his actions and is remorseful, which the Court believes is sincere,” he added.

The Judge further noted that letters from Andrew’s friends and family that were submitted to the court aided in the lower sentence. While the ruling will probably be welcomed as relatively good news by Andrew, satisfaction at the Department of Justice will be dampened. Unlike in previous cases, the DoJ opted not to issue a press release.

Now that the last of the five arrested NinjaVideo admins has been sentenced, we can give a complete overview of this landmark case.

The harshest sentence was handed to NinjaVideo founder Hana Beshara, who will spend 22 months in prison followed by 2 years of probation and a payment of $210,000 in damages. Fellow admin Matthew Smith received 14 months in prison, two years supervised release, and was ordered to pay back just over $172,000.

Joshua Evans received 6 months in prison, two years probation, and was ordered to pay the MPAA $26,660 restitution. Justin Dedemko was not listed as part of the NinjaVideo conspiracy but will spend 3 months in prison followed by 2 years of probation, and has to repay the MPAA $58,004.

One indicted NinjaVideo admin, Zoi Mertzanis from Greece, is still at large.

The case against NinjaVideo is crucial for several other previously arrested streaming site admins including UK student Richard O’Dwyer who will soon be extradited to the US. Brian McCarthy, the owner of ChannelSurfing.net and Yonjo Quiroa, who operated 16 streaming sites, are both yet to be sentenced.

Note: the original verdict came in last month but has not been reported in the media.

Source: NinjaVideo “Head of Security” Avoids Prison

“We encourage the Indian film industry to reject as we have, the false argument that you cannot be pro-technology and pro-copyright at the same time,” he continued.

In framing “content theft” as a problem affecting the county’s middle-classes and alongside a clear dig at the likes of Google and Wikipedia, Dodd’s words could have been pulled verbatim from any pro-SOPA speech. But unlike the United States, India doesn’t need new legislation to allow site blocking – they already have it – and Dodd must be as jealous as hell.

Indian film companies have previously obtained court orders to have sites blocked at the ISP level but in recent weeks the IMI, the RIAA-like Indian Music Industry trade group, has shown the movie industry how it’s really done.

In a series of court actions at the Calcutta High Court, 142 music companies of the IMI have succeeded in obtaining orders to force every ISP in India – 387 in total – to block 104 sites (list here) the industry accuses of online piracy.

And when it comes to implementing the blocks, there are no half-measures. ISPs have been ordered to implement DNS and IP address blockades and for those thinking of using a DNS outside India, Deep Packet Inspection will step in to ensure the domains remain blocked.

“This decision is a victory for the rule of law online and a blow to those illegal businesses that want to build revenues by violating the rights of others,” said IFPI CEO Frances Moore in a statement.

But in a clear signal that for the music and movie industries even the toughest of anti-piracy measures are never enough, Moore says that current developments are a good start.

“The court ruled that blocking is a proportionate and effective way to tackle website piracy,” Moore noted, adding that the Indian government should now “build on this progress” by advancing further legislation to tackle digital piracy.

As tough as the Indian court orders are, already their weaknesses are being probed. One of the key sites on the lists – Songs.pk – has already circumvented the blockade by resurfacing with the new URL of Songspk.pk since the blockade was incapable of physically taking the Czech-hosted site offline.

But although the Indian labels have taken the nuclear option in blocking huge numbers of sites, Apurv Nagpal, CEO of Saregama, one of India’s largest music labels says that they don’t want to destroy their opponents. Interestingly, Saregama acknowledges the pirate sites’ “passion for music” and says the industry wants to befriend them.

“We don’t want these sites to be shut down, we want them to pay a license fee and flourish as a business,” Saregama said. “There are legitimate businesses in operation too. The scope is there, and we want these sites to be legal.”

It would be a cold day in hell before Westerners heard the likes of Chris Dodd or Frances Moore make a statement as radical as that. But if the stick is to work long-term it has to be backed up with a sizable carrot, and if the pirate sites really do only want money, surely that’s their Achilles’ heel right there.

Source: Court Orders SOPA-style Blackout of 100+ Music Sites

The deal involves content owners, such as recording labels and movie studios, monitoring peer-to-peer networks including BitTorrent for copyright infringements and reporting instances to Internet service providers. The ISPs have agreed to take steps to “educate” allegedly infringing customers through an escalating system of notices, warnings, and other measures.

While it was big news at the time and a very hot issue, since mid-2011 very little has been reported on the progress of the deal. The initial announcement said that ISPs would start implementing the alert system by the end of last year, but this obviously didn’t happen.

However, according to the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), the organization responsible for administering the scheme, all parties are on target to initiate the programs by July 12th this year.

“The members of the coalition are making significant progress at developing a cooperative system to educate consumers and deter copyright theft,” a spokesperson told TorrentFreak.

“CCI is working to implement what is an unprecedented effort and is proceeding on pace with the MOU. We will have announcements in the near future that will include the naming of the [anti-piracy monitoring] partner and details on how CCI and the technology partner will work together.”

According to CNET this positive outlook was confirmed by RIAA CEO Cary Sherman.

During the Association of American Publishers’ annual meeting yesterday, Sherman reportedly announced that ‘most’ of the major ISPs involved in the so-called “graduated response” (such as Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable)

Sherman said that the process hadn’t been easy, with each ISP having to establish their own database to keep track of repeat infringers, the very people whose habits the studios hope to change. So come July, what changes should customers of the major ISPs expect?

Those not engaging in file-sharing on P2P networks or those who use BitTorrent over a VPN or proxy will probably notice very little (cyberlocker sharing is not covered), apart from ultimately having to help finance the scheme through their ISP bills.

For those who choose to download and share popular music from EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner, or do likewise with movies owned by Disney, Sony, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner, things will change.

Under a White House and lawmaker supported “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) published last July, ISPs will send advisories to alleged copyright-infringing customers.

The first so-called ‘Initial Educational Steps’ will advise customers that copyright infringement is illegal and a breach of the ISP’s terms of service, that legal alternatives are available, and that continuing to infringe may have consequences including account suspension or termination.

The Acknowledgment Step, reached when an Internet subscriber is accused of additional infringements by rights holders, will see ISPs send Copyright Alerts requiring acknowledgment of receipt from account holders along with a pledge to end infringing activity from the account.

Should several attempts at ‘educating’ a subscriber fail, ISPs will be able to send a Mitigation Measure Copyright Alert which again requires customer acknowledgment. It will advise that a customer has received prior warnings and as per the ISPs terms of service, a ‘Mitigation Measure’ will now be applied to the account.

Mitigation measures can include throttling of upload or download speeds, a temporary reduction in service quality to one step above dial-up, redirection to a landing page so that the customer can be further ‘educated’, or even account suspension. No ISP has yet agreed to the latter and no ISP is allowed to disable VOIP, email, security, or TV services.

Source: ISPs To Begin Punishing BitTorrent Pirates This Summer

But rather than being scared of the big bad wolf, kids in Belgium have a new foe – the country’s evil copyright overlords.

In quite possibly their lowest move yet, rights group SABAM are now trying to attach a price to children’s reading sessions taking place in libraries up and down the country.

More often associated with music-related collections, SABAM have been contacting libraries that hold sessions where children can listen to stories read out by library staff. These, the group insists, are events held in public and are therefore chargeable.

One target for SABAM is a library in Dilbeek that has been holding a twice-monthly reading hour for children.

“Each time a dozen or so children attend,” library worker Alexandra Vervaecke told DeMorgen. “A while ago we were suddenly contacted by SABAM and told that we have to pay. I have done the calculations: for us it would amount to 250 euro per year.”

Naturally the libraries are mulling ways to avoid paying SABAM – one option is to limit readings to older stories that are copyright free, but even that’s not easy.

“Even Grimms’ Fairy Tales are on a list of works for which one must pay,” said Vervaecke. “This is because only the original version is copyright-free. In any case it’s impossible to read only older texts.”

LINC, a non-profit organization that helps to set up public reading spots in libraries, is concerned by developments.

“A few hundred euros might not sound like much, but for small libraries it is quite a lot of money and the effects will not help to promote reading”, said spokesperson An Valkenborgh. “Since the report from Dilbeek we’ve heard from a few other libraries that have also been contacted about paying or are already paying.”

It’s not clear if there is a link with the increased SABAM activity in this area, but currently in Belgium it’s Jeugdboekenweek – children’s literature week. Nevertheless, SABAM insist they have a right to get paid.

“We have a department that actively tracks events for which royalties must be paid. It could be that they have seen a notice and thus contacted us,” said spokesman Jérôme Van Win. “For libraries there are no exceptions to the law. They are public places and so royalties must be paid for a public reading session.”

Only 3 months in, 2012 is proving to be a busy year for SABAM. Last month the group lost their legal battle with social networking site Netlog, with the European Court of Justice ruling that hosting sites aren’t allowed to filter copyrighted content as that would violate the privacy of users and hinder freedom of information.

In a separate case originally brought by an artist back in 2004, a judge’s findings means that SABAM is now facing accusations of falsifying accounts to cover up bribe payments, abuse of trust, copyright fraud and embezzlement.

Update: Although the original article at Belgium’s DeMorgen seems very clear, and despite the author of that article contacting SABAM and receiving a quote for his story, SABAM are now saying that there is a misunderstanding. While they clarify that they are able to ask for payment when a literary work is read out as a public performance, in the case of the Dilbeek library, SABAM say that the fee requested was only for the playing of music.

The bottom line is that if libraries arrange a reading they do have to contact SABAM to see if the work to be read is protected. If it is then the library has to pay SABAM a fee.

Source: Rights Group Demands Cash So Libraries Can Read Books To Kids

But when the big rightsholders feel under threat, they’re happy to crush those very same people in pursuit of money. Cue an awful story today from the UK’s Daily Echo.

For the last 20 years a little pub in Southampton, England, has been serving beer to the local community and all that time it’s had the same name – The Hobbit. But Saul Zaentz, the producer behind movies such as The English Patient and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, has sent in the lawyers to do something about that.

Zaentz owns the merchandising rights to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and his lawyers have warned that if the pub doesn’t change its name and remove all references to Tolkien-related items by the end of May, its owners will be sued for infringement.

Understandably its owners are upset. They can’t afford to fight the studio but their pub’s very identity is now at risk. People supporting a Facebook campaign against the studio’s threats is growing quickly.

But even more worrying is that this action by Zaentz against a local pub doesn’t sit in isolation.

In November 2011, Zaentz sent his lawyers to threaten the owners of a small cafe in Birmingham, England, near to where Tolkien was born. The sandwich bar, known as The Hungry Hobbit, was accused of copyright infringement despite operating under the name for the last 6 years. The current owners are first-time business owners of less than a year’s standing.

In a letter titled “Unauthorized Use of Hobbit” – Zaentz’s lawyers ordered the owners of the cafe to stop using the word Hobbit or face legal action, claiming that the sandwich bar’s use of the term would be detrimental to the brand and would leave people to believe that the outlet is endorsed by Zaentz.

But the threats don’t even stop there. A small company in Scotland making wooden lodges dared to refer to one of their products as “hobbit houses” on their website. Of course, Zaentz sent in the lawyers and the company were forced to comply.

But let’s step back for a moment to see what the origin of the word ‘Hobbit’ actually is. Was this something conjured up from the depths of Tolkien’s imagination in 1937, a product of his mind and his mind only? That’s up for debate.

In 1895, folklorist Michael Aislabie Denham listed a massive collection of interesting creatures in his publication ‘The Denham Tracts Vol 2‘ which included “. . . nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants..”

And, of course, ‘Hobbits’.

It seems absolutely ridiculous that 125+ years after an imaginary creature was reported somehow a company can come along and turn the lives of normal people upside down over the use of its name.

Trademarks may have to be protected, but being a heartless bully can’t be the answer.

Source: Hollywood Lawyers Threaten ‘Hobbit’ Pub

Although they successfully obtained the identities of alleged file-sharers through the court using the Tilly Bailey & Irvine (TBI) law firm, things quickly went wrong for GoldenEye. TBI pulled out due to bad publicity and the company was eventually fined late 2011 by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority for their mishandling of the cases.

In September 2011, Golden Eye were back again, trying to extract money from Internet users via the previously untested route of the small claims court. But in December 2011 it all fell apart following proper scrutiny in the High Court.

And now, in March 2012, unbelievably Golden Eye are back again with a third attempt.

Their new case against ISP Telefonica UK was up in the High Court this morning before Mr Justice Arnold, the judge responsible for ordering the ISP level block against Newzbin2 and the ongoing proceedings aimed towards a block of The Pirate Bay.

Golden Eye were seeking a Norwich Pharmacal Order, a document which if granted would allow them to identify their target of 9,000 alleged file-sharers and write to them with a demand for £700 each. If totally successful the scheme could net the company a cool £6.3 million in settlements.

From the court Computeractive’s Dinah Greek reported that Mr Justice Arnold was unhappy with the wording of the draft letters created by Golden Eye which claim they could ask ISPs to cut off or throttle the connections of alleged file-sharers, something the porn company has no authority to do.

Furthermore, Greek later posted another key point on Twitter – all Golden Eye have by way of evidence is a simple IP address, a particularly poor item of proof that has proven both unreliable and insufficient in the past.

Justice Arnold eventually deferred his decision to grant or deny the order pending the presentation of further evidence. He is expected to rule in approximately two weeks.

Although it will have serious implications for potential recipients of Golden Eye threats, the Open Rights Group believes that Justice Arnold’s decision also has the potential to have a big impact on how the Digital Economy Act works.

“At issue is the strength of the evidence required against alleged copyright infringers facing possible civil action. It should help focus attention on the need for [communications regulator] Ofcom to demand that water-tight standards of evidence are required for rights holders chasing alleged infringers through the Digital Economy Act,” says ORG’s Peter Bradwell.

“Ofcom are required to define the standards of evidence required against alleged infringers through the Initial Obligations Code (pdf). The revised version of this is due out soon. Without stringent standards, there is a risk that people are wrongly placed on infringement lists and are subject to the civil action in the initial phases of the Act.”

But even if Golden Eye are successful in obtained a Norwich Pharmacal Order, they will not be getting an easy ride and won’t be pulling in the cash they expect. After all, a similar venture cost ACS:Law’s Andrew Crossley his business, reputation, possessions and even his girlfriend.

“Golden Eye (should they get their NPO) will get very little money and a TONNE of grief,” predicted Will Gilmour, an expert in so-called pay-up-or-else schemes. “Speculative invoicing does not equal good business.”

Source: ‘Pay Up Or Else’ BitTorrent Scheme Resurrected in UK High Court

In April 2011 the High Court sided with the government and said that copyright holders have the right to tackle unlawful file-sharing, but in October the ISPs were granted leave to appeal on the grounds that the DEA might breach several EU directives.

Just minutes ago judges Lady Justice Arden, Lord Justice Richards and Lord Justice Patten declared that the ISPs have lost their appeal and the Digital Economy Act will stand.

TalkTalk described the ruling as “disappointing” and along with BT say they are now considering their options. Groups representing copyright holders have welcomed the Court of Appeal ruling.

“The ISPs’ failed legal challenge has meant yet another year of harm to British musicians and creators from illegal filesharing,” said Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI.

UK Internet service providers will now be required to send warning letters to customers who the music, movie and software industries claim are infringing their copyrights on file-sharing networks.

After a year of sending letters, communications regulator Ofcom must report on the results of the campaign. In the event it has been ineffective in reducing file-sharing, so-called “technical measures” can be put in place – a euphemism for Internet disconnections and/or Internet throttling.

Open Rights Group, who have been campaigning against the legislation, said the Court of Appeal ruling has shortcomings.

“There is one thing the court cannot tell us: that this is a good law. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport had no evidence when they wrote this Act, except for the numbers they were given by a couple of industry trade bodies. This is a policy made on hearsay and assumptions, not proper facts or analysis,” ORG’s Peter Bradwell said in a statement.

“So significant problems remain. Publicly available wifi will be put at risk. Weak evidence could be used to penalize people accused of copyright infringement. And people will have to pay £20 for the privilege of defending themselves against these accusations. The Government needs to correct these errors with a proper, evidence-based review of the law.”

In comments to the BBC, Adam Rendle, a copyright lawyer at international law firm Taylor Wessing, said he expected BT and Talk Talk to take their appeal to the UK’s Supreme Court.

Source: UK File-Sharers Face Disconnections After Appeal Court Ruling