If this isn’t draconian enough, Mandelson includes giving the Secretary of State the power to introduce major new rules without Parliamentary oversight – this from a twice-fired, unelected politician.

Commenting on Mandelson’s attempt to fast-track proposals to amend the 1988 Copyright Act, and adding fuel to the fire this morning are the Liberal Democrats.

“This is an outrageous attempt to slip through sweeping changes with the minimum of scrutiny,” said Don Foster the Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary.

“We do not live in an autocracy, where major rules can be introduced on the whim of an unelected politician.”

Foster notes that his party does wish to address illegal file-sharing, but rightly adds that a workable solution is only possible through co-operation.

Although there will be many who support a crackdown on rampant piracy, many supporters of democracy on both sides are very concerned at Mandelson’s moves.

“For Lord Mandelson to attempt to create new offenses without proper assessment by the Commons is utterly shameless,” concludes Foster.

Hear, hear.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case progressed in the Federal Court today, with iiNet barrister Richard Cobden continuing with his closing submissions.

As detailed earlier in the case, after AFACT sent many thousands of copyright infringement notices to iiNet, the ISP responded by sending them to the police. Cobden defended that decision today, claiming that the notices could constitute evidence of copyright crimes.

While the studios had earlier insisted that they would never sanction unlawful investigation methods, ITNews quotes Cobden as saying that in gathering that evidence, it was likely the investigators themselves had also committed offenses, breaching section 132AJ(1) of the Copyright Act.

The barrister said that both investigators committed primary acts of infringement online, and while AFACT had earlier claimed that iiNet users burned copyright material onto DVDs after downloading it, in fact the only evidence of that being done relates to the copies made by AFACT investigators.

Continuing to attack the evidence provided by AFACT and its anti-piracy partner DtecNet, Cobden returned to an earlier assertion that DtecNet investigators did not behave as normal BitTorrent users would. Regular users would allow their torrent client to connect to any peers, but DtecNet filtered out any that weren’t issued with iiNet IP addresses.

ARN quotes Cobden as saying this action was “foolish” as it slowed download times to several days. As we heard earlier in the case, this led to investigators counting the same infringement more than once.

Last week, Cobden argued that AFACT hadn’t provided any evidence that iiNet customers had engaged in copyright infringement as they were only sharing small parts of files (such is the nature of BitTorrent), rather than the “substantial” parts, as required under the law. In order to prove his point, Cobden went on to cite an earlier copyright case.

In 2002, Australian TV station Channel 9 sued Channel 10 citing infringement under the Copyright Act 1968. Channel 10 had broadcast short sections of Channel 9 programs The Today Show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Days of Our Lives and Sale of the New Century in their television show called The Panel. The view was that of the 11 segments played, only 3 were long enough to constitute infringement.

As anti-piracy tracking companies such as DtecNet only record an instance of alleged copyright infringement timed to a single second, Cobden is arguing that there is no evidence to prove any “substantial” part of any movie was shared by iiNet users.

Cobden went on to insist that in order to confirm that evidence of infringement provided by AFACT was indeed accurate (before passing notices to their customers), it would be necessary for the ISP to breach copyright.

“If one wanted to check the DtecNet evidence and see on a range of IP addresses supplied by iiNet that infringing material was online, the only way to do it would be to use the BitTorrent client like DtecNet did, construct the parameters of the IP address range, locate the file and compare it to details in the spreadsheets,” said Cobden, as quoted by ITNews.

Cobden said that if iiNet passed unproven infringement notices to its customers, it would face problems if the account holder disputed the claims. After all, iiNet had only AFACT’s word that an infringement had been carried out, but absolutely no proof or other information to have a meaningful discussion on the issue.

It is likely that Cobden will finish his closing submissions next Tuesday 24th. The Internet Industry Association’s application to become a ‘friend of the court’ will be heard on the afternoon of that day, bringing the original date forward by two days.

The case will then end either next Wednesday or Thursday, but readers are advised not to hold their breath for the verdict – it could take several months to arrive.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

DL then wrote to the individuals demanding several hundred pounds to make the threat of a lawsuit disappear. Some paid up, but many did not, and the only cases DL took to court were against those who didn’t defend themselves.

Generating revenue from porn proves controversial

Then the law firm overplayed its hand and got into bed with DigiProtect, the German piracy exploitation outfit with a catalog of hardcore porn titles to its name. The rights were signed over to the company by the copyright holders so that DigiProtect could use them to generate revenue – lots and lots of revenue.

After mountains of bad publicity, DL withdrew from this business model. In May this year, the exact same scheme reappeared with UK lawyers ACS:Law. TorrentFreak asked company owner Andrew Crossley about the connections between ACS and DL – his reply: “NONE”. However, it was crystal clear that there were many links, not least that staff from DL were now working at ACS:Law directly on these cases – known cyber-squatter Terence Tsang as one example.

We’ve known all along that if those threatened put up a spirited defense and refused to be cowed they were never taken to court, but we had no proof as to the mechanism employed. Then, out of nowhere, months ago someone from inside either Davenport Lyons or DigiProtect leaked lots of sensitive documents to German news outlet Gulli.

Having remained secret until now, the documents made very interesting reading and along with a helping hand from TorrentFreak and armed with the leaked personal details and email addresses of some of the letter recipients, Firebird77 at Gulli was able to confirm the authenticity of the documents.

Document 1 – Ranking alleged infringers in order to decide who to pursue

The first document reveals how the targets are ranked based on an estimation of how likely it is that they will pay up. Each alleged infringer has their details filled in on a form (download here from WikiLeaks). The document shows that despite the claims that an IP address alone is irrefutable evidence of an infringement and will lead to being taken to court, the reality is rather different.

Letter recipients are given a ranking based on many parameters. Does the law firm want to continue to pursue the person? What are the chances of success? A zero would mean “no action” up to ten which would mean the respondent is ripe for maximum pressure. One letter recipient hired Michael Coyle at Lawdit Solicitors to defend him and this earned him a “three”.

One part of the form is entitled “Circumstances” and this is a very surprising section indeed. Despite the “fact” that the law firms supposedly already have solid evidence of infringement that they say will lead to court action if recipients don’t comply, the section seems to show that they make their decisions on who to pursue based on the recipients’ personal circumstances.

One circumstance is labeled “impecuniosity”, i.e the letter recipient is flat broke. Another is whether the recipient is on state benefits – this is expected to be proven by way of copies of benefit books and/or letters. TorrentFreak has evidence that one gentleman was asked to prove that he was indeed disabled in order to make the claims go away. Other circumstances include whether the recipient is a pensioner, a student or a child.

One other circumstance is an eyebrow-raising “out of jurisdiction” (no rightful claim could be made the against the recipient) along with whether or not the individual was aware of that fact.

The form also lists possible defenses that recipients rely on, including the breach of their wireless router, a virus infected PC, not being at home when the infringement occurred, no knowledge of infringement or the possibility that someone else in the location carried out the infringement.

Document 2 – Letter from lawyer Dr Kornmeier from Kornmeier & Partner to Brian Miller at Davenport Lyons

The 14 page document (download from WikiLeaks) details the agreement DigiProtect enters into with rights holders in order to exploit their copyrights for profit.

Included is a section which confirms that the original rights holders sign over the rights to DigiProtect so that they are legally allowed to make the works (hardcore porn movies) publicly available on P2P networks such as BitTorrent. Dr Kornmeier asks: “Does this constitute any problem under UK law?”

According to page 2 of the letter, when the recipient of these letters pay up, the spoils are divided up as follows – 51% to DigiProtect, 37.5% to Davenport Lyons and 11% to DigiRights Solutions. The remaining pages detail the exact business arrangement along with a list of the hundreds of porn movies covered by the agreement.

TorrentFreak discussed the documents with staff at the excellent BeingThreatened.com, a site set up to support and inform those targeted by Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law in the UK.

“These documents confirm what we have long suspected,” they told us. “This scheme is not about getting justice for the rightsholders at all; it is there to fill the pockets of companies like DigiProtect by exploiting many innocent people. Everyone with an IP address has reason to be worried about becoming a victim of these exploitative practices, whether they use P2P networks or not.”

Indeed, John Stagliano, boss of porn company Evil Angel which also worked with DigiProtect, admitted to earning less than £50 from each infringement and told the BBC the scheme “…was completely misrepresented” to him.

Uk consumer magazine Which? earlier reported Davenport Lyons to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority for alleged “bullying”. It will be interesting to see how these documents develop that case.

Thus far just two documents have been made public. Stay tuned for further updates.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case continued in the Federal Court, with iiNet barrister Richard Cobden beginning his closing submissions.

Referring to the allegations by AFACT that it detected around 97,000 instances of copyright infringement carried out by iiNet subscribers, Cobden said that there was actually only sufficient evidence to prove that a single subscriber had carried out any. That individual was the mole planted by AFACT and DtecNet to carry out deliberate ‘infringements’ on behalf of the plaintiffs.

iiNet’s protection under Safe Harbor provisions which limit a carrier’s liability under the Copyright Act remained intact, since no infringer had been identified other than AFACT’s own investigator. Since he was authorized by the plaintiffs, he committed no offenses and could not even be accurately categorized as an infringer. On this basis, iiNet did not disconnect him.

Cobden admitted that AFACT’s method of counting infringements indicated that it’s possible that from a sample of 20 iiNet users, on average they could have downloaded two to three movies each in the reported monitoring period of 59 weeks.

“It’s clear from the accounts that ultimately the [infringing] activity is likely to account for a very modest percentage of that user’s activity [and] a very modest percentage of their quota,” said Cobden as reported by ITNews.

Cobden went on to say that this didn’t amount to the “dramatic” amounts of infringement alleged by AFACT, so there was no evidence that this activity drove the uptake of iiNet high-bandwidth accounts from which the ISP profited.

Disconnecting users on such limited numbers of infringements shown on the sample accounts would have been a disproportionate response, he added.

The iiNet barrister also spoke in detail on iiNet’s privacy responsibilities under Section 112E of Australia’s Telecommunications Act, which he said undermined AFACT’s claims that by not complying with its requests it authorized the infringing activities of its subscribers. Detailed information on this key aspect of iiNet’s defense can be found here.

iiNet was never legally obliged to deal with AFACT infringement notices, Cobden told the court, noting that the law concerning copyright “authorization” does not require any ISP to suspend or terminate a customer’s account.

Cobden attacked allegations by AFACT that iiNet’s business model relies on illegal file-sharing, saying that the anti-piracy outfit had a distorted view of the world.

“In many ways the applicants look at everything that iiNet does entirely through the prism of their own concern for copyright infringement,” he said, noting that the company had been in business for many years and had simply kept up with offerings from its rivals Telstra and Optus.

“Once you take that prism away and look at it in terms of business and keeping up-to-date with technologies, and keeping its customers happy, almost every document, internal document, takes on an entirely different reflection,” he added, as quoted by ZDNet.

Cobden said there was zero evidence to back up AFACT allegations that iiNet users burned downloaded material onto CDs and DVDs and distributed them. This, he said, significantly decreased the number of copyright infringements claimed by AFACT.

iiNet’s legal team will continue with their closing submissions next week.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

A BPI investigation led to a police swoop on members of the group. They were subjected to searches, seizure of their computers and other assorted items, and later questioned at length.

The suspects were charged with Conspiracy to Defraud (the music industry), released on bail and ordered to reappear at later dates. One was later released with a police warning and told that charges would not be pressed against him.

In the meantime the alleged leader of DV8 had his bail pushed back to mid November pending further investigations. TorrentFreak’s previously-reliable sources positioned close to the case have now informed us that the individual answered his bail a few days ago and was subjected to another day of questioning. He has allegedly been charged with ‘defrauding the music industry’, although the conspiracy element appears to have been dropped.

Earlier we reported that two more arrests were made of suspected pre-release music suppliers to DV8. One of those individuals was an executive at a record label. Our information is that this executive has now lost his job, but no charges have been brought against him.

It was believed that the delay in charging the alleged leader of the group was due to the police needing more time to track down additional suppliers, one of which we were told works for a major media outlet. Indeed, we are now being informed that during the last few weeks there have been further raids on people linked to the group.

One is reportedly a writer at a music publication, who allegedly supplied music to the leader of the group. We are told he was raided 2 weeks ago.

Another is a US member of DV8 who left months before the first raid. He was arrested several weeks ago but is understood to have been released without charge.

Court dates are pending for those charged, but could arrive as quickly as early 2010.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case continued in the Federal Court, with AFACT continuing to make its closing submissions, marked by further attempts by barrister Tony Bannon to ruin the credibility of key iiNet witnesses Michael Malone and Steve Dalby.

Referring yet again to iiNet CEO Michael Malone’s earlier and multiple assertions that his company could not disconnect subscribers on mere allegations from a 3rd party, Bannon pointed that Malone had earlier referred to the evidence collected by anti-piracy tracking company DtecNet in a more positive light.

“But when asked the question in cross-examination, the truth is they regarded the notifications as compelling evidence,” said Bannon according to ITNews.

Based on what Bannon tried to insist was a contradiction, that “compelling” and “mere allegations” were incompatible when referring to the same material, Bannon asked the judge to disregard iiNet’s evidence.

Although earlier information about DtecNet’s methods were revealed in a closed-court session, CW reports that the anti-piracy company operated by downloading a portion of a file from iiNet subscribers while recording the IP address, the time of the transfer and the date, the protocol, the client id and a hash value.

Reiterating his earlier claims, Bannon insisted that chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby had deliberately exaggerated his claimed lack of understanding of BitTorrent and the infringement notices sent to iiNet by DtecNet. While Dalby had said that he had waited for AFACT to send more information, in fact internal iiNet email evidence showed that Dalby had discouraged further investigation, he said.

Bannon went on to state that companies like iiNet benefit greatly from illicit file-sharing, since the activity consumes a lot of bandwidth – the commodity the ISP sells to its customers.

Referring to an iiNet press release from late 2008 where the company said it would defend the court case, Bannon said the ISP had stated it could not disconnect a customer on a simple allegation. This, he said, amounted to assuring customers of their safety when carrying out illicit file-sharing.

Earlier in the case, iiNet claimed to have taken “reasonable steps” to deal with infringement on its network, an assertion roundly criticized by Bannon. The AFACT barrister said that iiNet has a technique to limit a subscriber’s access to the Internet if they don’t pay their bills, so this could easily be applied when an allegation of illicit file-sharing is provided by his client.

Bannon also said that since Westnet, the company iiNet had earlier acquired, already had a system in place to notify infringers, it was a “nonsense” to say that iiNet hadn’t got the facilities to deal with AFACT notices.

Bannon went on to tell the court that iiNet’s participation in discussions 4 years ago with the Internet Industry Association to create a code of conduct to deal with copyright infringement allegations, also did not constitute “reasonable steps”, since it didn’t address the “day to day” problems. Furthermore, he said that the overall plan by the ISPs was to aim at “doing nothing”.

Going on to strengthen his claim that iiNet “authorized and encouraged” the infringements of its customers, and in the face of iiNet failing to carry out any actions that could be described as “reasonable steps”, Bannon asserted that this meant that the ISP effectively allowed its subscribers to do whatever they liked on their Internet connection.

The case continues.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case continued in the Federal Court, with AFACT making its closing submissions and tearing into iiNet witnesses CEO Michael Malone and chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby.

The film industry, represented by chief barrister Tony Bannon, labeled Malone’s evidence as “incredible”, “evasive” and unreliable. Bannon said iiNet gave nothing but excuses for not acting on such notices and that Malone’s assertion that copyright laws should should be changed or an industry code introduced before he could act on infringement notices were “extreme”.

Since only Malone and Dalby appeared for cross-examination on behalf of iiNet, Bannon took the opportunity to criticize the company for not putting forward other staff from the company, who, Bannon claimed, would be better placed to answer the questions during the trial.

Bannon said this had put Malone and Dalby in the position of providing evidence on matters they knew nothing about, citing the pair’s lack of BitTorrent knowledge as a prime example.

“To put forward these two gentleman as the extent of familiarity of BitTorrent in the company is an entirely inaccurate picture of a company which plainly has a mass of technical expertise,” said Bannon, as reported by ITNews.

“It beggars belief that a company which paints itself as an Internet pioneer doesn’t have a level of knowledge within that company that knows exactly how the BitTorrent client works,” he added.

On an earlier claim where the iiNet CEO claimed to understand the BitTorrent protocol by not the operation of a torrent client, Bannon said it was a nonsense, to which insult to injury was added when it was revealed that iiNet operated its own BitTorrent tracker.

Bannon said it was clear to him that the only individuals in the court who claimed to know little to nothing about torrents were Malone and Dalby, but in reality the company understood the system perfectly well. Its motive for this stance, he said, was so that the company could distance itself from the accusations of authorizing the copyright infringements of their customers.

Bannon also heavily criticized Dalby’s evidence when he claimed to have the company’s policy on taking action only against repeat infringers “in his head”, insisting that no such policy exists.

iiNet is also asking the court to find its own terms and conditions both unenforceable and unreasonable, said Bannon as quoted by CW.

Although iiNet has asserted time and again in the case, that if a court ruled that someone had infringed copyright the ISP would disconnect them, the AFACT barrister said that iiNet’s own terms alone gave them the right to disconnect copyright infringers, and dismissed the ISP’s claims that the clause was unenforceable.

AFACT claims that iiNet engaged in secondary acts of infringement when it failed to stop its subscribers sharing illicit files on their network, citing the legal principles established in the 1975 case known as University of NSW v Moorhouse, details of which can be found here.

According to another report, the case could run over into a fifth week to 19th November and beyond to allow enough time for iiNet lawyers to prepare the company’s closing submissions.

The case continues.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“As the law is today, you can not have a media center without breaking the law,” he told TorrentFreak.

“When I think of a media center it is a place where you have all your movies, pictures and music together. You can only do that by having a digital copy of the movie.”

Henrik told us that he had taken this action to draw attention to laws which allow him to copy DVDs for his own personal use, but forbid him to remove the DRM in order to do so. In his confession he asked Antipiratgruppen for a response by December 1st, indicating if they are prepared to take action against him.

The group has announced that Henrik will indeed get a response, but didn’t tell him directly, instead preferring to comment via the press.

“It is a political matter, and we have sent it to the Association of Danish Videodistributors so they can consider it. But Henrik Andersen will get a reply by 1st December,” said Antipiratgruppen lawyer Thomas Schlüter to Comon.

Schlüter went on to say that proving this type of infringement is usually impossible.

“Unless people confess, then it’s impossible to prove that they have broken copy protection. We can not break down the door to people’s homes and explore what they have available on their media server,” he said.

Poul Dylov, director for Warner Bros Denmark and chairman at the Association of Danish Videodistributors, said they will have a meeting next week to decide whether to report the matter to the police.

Dylov added they have not previously encountered a similar event, and consider the confession to be a media event, an assessment with which Henrik agrees.

“Of course, until now the film industry has not met the intentions of the law and as the culture minister will not force the film industry [to allow copying by removing DRM] by changing the law, then there must indeed be an awareness of the problem through the media,” he explains.

“But the whole problem lies in a sense with the Minster of Culture who does not follow its own interpretation of the law and the intentions of it. This gives the film industry an easy ride to the detriment of consumers,” he added.

All will be revealed here, on or before December 1st.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“It requires very strong and concrete evidence to have these people convicted. We simply could not lift the burden of proof,” said Antipiratgruppen lawyer Mary Fredenslund when explaining the decision to Politiken.

In just a year, four cases against alleged pirates have come before the High Court in Denmark and the overall result for the copyright holders has been negative. Three of the defendants were acquitted due to insufficient evidence, and in the one case where a file-sharer was convicted, the defendant had confessed.

Defense attorney Per Overbeck says that in addition to these outcomes, cases against two of his clients have been dropped in recent years. “Antipiratgruppen has acknowledged that they can not get people convicted without either catching them in the act or threatening them to confess,” Overbeck said. “In practice, this means that without a confession there is no case,” he added.

Per Overbeck and Antipiratgruppen’s assessment that recent High Court rulings make it virtually impossible to get individuals convicted for illegal file sharing are supported by a recent Government report from the Ministry of Culture.

According to the report, IP-addresses can only be used to identify the person paying for the Internet subscription, not the person who actually downloaded the files. The courts have ruled several times that in terms of evidence, an IP-address alone is insufficient to prove guilt.

In one case a defendant walked free after arguing that that someone else must have accessed his wireless router to download copyright infringing material.

Despite these legal setbacks for copyright holders in Denmark, it is worth noting that Danish anti-piracy tracking company DtecNet remains the main partner of the RIAA and other music groups in countries where governments are looking to implement three-strikes policies to get alleged file-sharers disconnected from the Internet.

The evidence DtecNet gathers also consists of just an IP-address. Indeed, there is no known anti-piracy method to discover who is sitting at a particular keyboard, on any particular computer, at any given time.

In the on-going trial of AFACT v iiNet, DtecNet gathered the evidence used in the case. Under cross-examination a computer forensics investigator – who was previously a key witness in the 2004 KaZaA trial – admitted that any ISP account could have multiple users in the same household, and could have other unauthorized 3rd-party users if a wireless router was compromised.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Without any legal basis, Telenor refused to comply.

“This would be the same as demanding that the postal service should open all letters, and decide which ones should be delivered,” said Telenor boss Ragnar Kårhus.

The verdict in the case was due to be delivered October 30th, but was delayed until today.

IFPI has lost the case and Telenor will not have to block The Pirate Bay.

The court ruled that Telenor is not contributing to any infringements of copyright law when its subscribers use The Pirate Bay, and therefore there is no legal basis for forcing the ISP to block access to the site.

“Obviously we are pleased that the District Court has arrived at this conclusion,” said Telenor’s Ragnar Kårhus in a statement.

“At the same time it is important for us to emphasize that this case is not about being in favor of or opposed to copyright, but about whether or not it is reasonable to saddle Internet service providers with a censorship role in respect of content on the Internet,” he added.

Kårhus went on to say that the most important way for IFPI and other rights holders to maintain healthy revenue streams, is to develop business models and services that render the use of sites like The Pirate Bay less attractive to Internet users.

In making its decision, the court also had to examine the repercussions if it ruled that Telenor and other ISPs had to block access to certain websites. This, it said, is usually the responsibility of the authorities and handing this task to private companies would be “unnatural”.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case continued Friday in the Federal Court, with iiNet’s chief regulatory officer, Steve Dalby, taking the stand following his first appearance Thursday afternoon.

Yesterday, Dalby recalled having difficulty in understanding some of the terminology utilized by AFACT in the infringement notice spreadsheets it submitted to iiNet.

Dalby told AFACT barrister Tony Bannon that iiNet had told AFACT there was an issue with some items being unclear in the spreadsheets.

“There was no legend associated with this spreadsheet. I had to make an assumption. We asked AFACT for more information,” ITNews quotes Dalby as saying.

Bannon then criticized Dalby for not being specific and expecting AFACT to guess at which terms were not understood, but Dalby pointed out that he expected AFACT to contact the ISP for clarification.

Further discussion took place on the issue of IP addresses and how iiNet allocates them to customers. Time and again, Dalby explained that IP addresses are allocated to a customer account and they do not necessarily represent any particular computer that the customer may use.

In what is becoming a recurring theme, today Dalby told the court that iiNet had no intention of forwarding AFACT’s copyright infringement notices to its customers purely on their allegations.

“Our position was that we should not be doing AFACT’s work,” said Dalby. “If we had received authorization by way of court order, that would have changed our position.”

AFACT went on to tender a draft e-security code of practice from the Internet Industry Association (IIA) created earlier this year. It proposes that in future, ISPs could contact, and maybe even disconnect subscribers, who have malware-ridden computers which negatively affect networks. Despite Justice Cowdroy indicating that its relevance was peripheral to the case and wouldn’t but much use when he comes to make his decision, it was allowed.

Dalby said he believed that iiNet had not been involved in the draft and he was personally unfamiliar with it. CW reports that he had been quoted on the issue in the media, but Dalby said that it was a regular occurrence for the press to call him to comment on issues he was not yet familiar with, and in this particular case his comments were “neutral and non-committal”.

In September we reported that Australia’s Internet Industry Association (IIA) felt it had something to offer these court proceedings. IIA applied to be amicus curiae, a ‘friend of the court’, but AFACT objected, insisting the group would not be impartial and would favor iiNet.

The decision on whether this will be allowed or not has been delayed until next week.

In an indication that AFACT still objects to an IIA appearance, Bannon said that “….there’s a conceivable possibility they don’t want to add anything other than to say ‘hear, hear’,” apparently to the amusement of the court.

AFACT barristers are scheduled to make their closing statements next Monday afternoon.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

With a vote of 407 in favor, 57 against, with 171 abstentions, EU lawmakers sent the package back to the Council in May, due to concerns that Internet users would not have their rights sufficiently protected.

After all night negotiations the deadlock was broken after a compromise agreement was reached. Internet users in all 27 EU states will be entitled to be put through a “fair and impartial procedure” (although what that means exactly is far from clear), including the right to be heard in response to allegations before being subjected to the ultimate sanction – disconnection.

Christian Engström of The Pirate Party helped to shape the modified text that was accepted in a unanimous vote last night.

“The Telecoms Reform Package neither demands nor prohibits the implementation of three-strikes legislation to disconnect alleged file-sharers by member states,” Engström told TorrentFreak, adding that if they do implement such measures, they will have to be within the parameters of the directive.

As reported by Engström, the exact text reads:

3a. Measures taken by Member States regarding end-users’ access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks shall respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law.

Any of these measures regarding end-user’s access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks liable to restrict those fundamental rights or freedoms may only be imposed if they are appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society, and their implementation shall be subject to adequate procedural safeguards in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and with general principles of Community law, including effective judicial protection and due process.

Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.

Engström said the vote for the text was a positive surprise as he thought this agreement would never happen. Although in an ideal world it is not everything he could have hoped for, it is a big step in the right direction.

“We would never have been able to achieve this without all the work that the community of net activists has put in,” he further notes. “We have shown that ordinary citizens working together can make a difference. And this is only the beginning. The Internet community has begun to flex its muscles.”

Engström told TorrentFreak that although he is happy with the outcome, there are still many battles to be fought. “Nobody should be disconnected from the Internet in an open and free society,” he said.

The European Parliament and Council is due to make a decision on the Telecoms Reform Package in late November, with the laws coming into force early 2010. Member countries will then have 18 months to pass the legislation into their own national laws.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case continued Thursday in the Federal Court, with iiNet CEO Michael Malone taking the stand for the fourth consecutive day, and possibly his last.

Not unusually for a copyright trial involving BitTorrent, the issue of The Pirate Bay was raised.

Yesterday AFACT barrister Tony Bannon incorrectly suggested that iiNet’s very own BitTorrent tracker’s functionality had been taken down, later to discover that in fact the court’s network blocked BitTorrent transfers.

Bannon indicated that he would like to be able to give a courtroom demonstration of The Pirate Bay Thursday, and the judge agreed that it would be possible to lift the block so he could do so.

According to ITNews, Bannon was today true to his word.

After the demo, Bannon enquired of Malone whether iiNet had a desire for its subscribers to be able to access the world’s largest tracker, “…when the only purpose it serves is providing a way to download unauthorized copies of films?”

This question was met with objection from iiNet barrister Richard Cobden, who argued that customer “desire” was irrelevant to the case. The judge, Justice Cowdroy, was also keen to discover the relevance.

Bannon then became the latest in a long line of movie and music industry lawyers to reveal that should his clients win the case, they will take legal action to have not only the world’s largest tracker blocked from iiNet’s customers, but other similar sites.

He also revealed that around 50% of the alleged copyright infringements in the case came courtesy of The Pirate Bay.

Then Bannon attempted to show that by allowing its customers to access The Pirate Bay, iiNet effectively sanctioned and authorized their infringing activities.

“We seek Mr Malone’s position as to whether or not his customers should have access to sites such as this,” said Bannon.

However, after legal argument, Bannon withdrew the question.

Malone did, however, concede that iiNet had taken no steps to block The Pirate Bay, but qualified this by indicating that the company didn’t possess the means to do so. Bannon asked if it was technically possible and Malone replied that he could achieve a primitive block with additional equipment, but even that could be easily circumvented

“To completely and conclusively block access to The Pirate Bay, I believe it to be beyond our technical capability or of any ISP,” replied Malone.

Asked by Cobden if iiNet had ever blocked any web sites, Malone said the company had not.

This technical inability led to iiNet pulling out of the Australian government’s filtering trials, reports ComputerWorld. Malone has been an outspoken critic of the filtering scheme, labeling it “fundamentally flawed” and saying his company would only participate in the trials to prove that filtering would fail.

The case continues.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case continued Wednesday in the Federal Court, with iiNet CEO Michael Malone taking the stand for the third consecutive day.

Again AFACT barrister Tony Bannon tried to portray iiNet as an encourager of copyright infringement on its network, by referring to iiNet marketing where the ISP measures bandwidth in terms of how much music or TV episodes people can download. Malone said the company did this simply to give a customer an easier barometer by which to measure their consumption.

When questioned on the music aspect, Malone said the company referred to legal downloads, such as those from iTunes. Bannon countered by saying this could not be the case, since iiNet did not count downloads from iTunes towards a customer’s bandwidth quota.

According to iTWire, a welcome email from iiNet to new customers ended with, “Thanks for choosing iiNet. Happy downloading.”

By drawing attention to the above ponts, AFACT hopes to show that iiNet encouraged infringements, thereby losing its safe habor protection as a carrier.

CW reports that AFACT presented press articles regarding the levels of BitTorrent transfers on the Internet, in the context of actions taken by ISPs in order to limit P2P traffic.

In one article, Malone had said that BitTorrent transfers accounted for around 50% of all Internet traffic and admitted in court that BitTorrent had been used on iiNet’s network since it became available. He went on to agree that while much of this traffic involved the transfer of movies and TV shows, he didn’t feel that “..every young person in Australia is downloading illegally using BitTorrent.”

One exchange apparently raised a laugh in the courtroom when Bannon accused Malone of attracting heavy-usage customers in order to boost iiNet profits.

“I would prefer [those customers] go to someone else and let someone else be sued,” said Malone.

“And you’re happy to take their money in the meantime?” Bannon asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

Yet again, Bannon raised the issue of iiNet’s failure to forward AFACT copyright infringement allegations to its customers. However, an email presented from the Internet Industry Association’s Peter Coroneos, indicated that he was concerned that doing so could lead to an assumption that ISPs are responsible for the actions of their customers.

In the email exchange with Malone, Coroneos said it would be preferable and advantageous for all involved if the content owners could provide some legal alternatives.

After Bannon showed the court documentation showing policies in place at rival ISPs to deal with allegations of copyright infringement, Malone again confirmed that iiNet has no formal policy on how to deal with these type of allegations, noting that the company had yet to be presented with evidence of what he described as a “repeat infringer”.

Earlier in the case, Malone had defined a repeat infringer as one who had been proven as such by a court, but Bannon mocked Malone, asking if the iiNet CEO had just heard what he’d said and would he like to think about the question again for a moment.

Malone said he didn’t and Bannon accused him of treating the proceedings as a game.

The case continues tomorrow.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

While the public is denied access to drafts of the controversial agreement, lawmakers continue to receive input from anti-piracy lobbyists such as the RIAA and MPAA. Today, the 6th round of ACTA negotiations have started in Seoul, South Korea, where representatives from the U.S, the European Union, Canada, Australia and several other countries will discuss the treaty’s content.

As happened previously, parts of the document have leaked out to the public and they reveal that the agreement’s scope is even more far-reaching than previously expected. The Internet chapter of ACTA has very little to do with counterfeiting, but adopts many of the same policies that anti-piracy lobbyists have been calling for.

Among other things, the ACTA draft calls for a global three-strikes policy to disconnect alleged file-sharers from the Internet, without solid evidence or a court order. If ISPs won’t do so, they will be held liable for the copyright infringements of their customers.

Similarly, all participating countries have to adopt a ‘notice and takedown’ policy where copyright holders can request ISPs to remove infringing materials, again without having to provide solid evidence or proof that they actually own the copyrights. When ISPs don’t comply with the requests they will be held liable, which means that they will be seen as pirates themselves.

Unfortunately, all parties involved in the negotiations refuse to make the ACTA plans public, effectively preventing any constructive input from the public. Yesterday, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) petitioned President Obama to change this situation and be transparent about the agreement that will affect millions of people. Until that happens we can only fear the worst.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“I’ve started this because i don’t want to be a criminal,” Henrik told TorrentFreak.

“As the law is today, you can not have a media center without breaking the law. When I think of a media center it is a place where you have all your movies, pictures and music together. You can only do that by having a digital copy of the movie.”

“In my media center I have digital copies of my legally purchased DVD movies,” he writes in his confession. “Overall, I suppose I’ve made digital copies of approx. 100 films and 10 seasons of TV series,” he added.

On the surface this should be fine, since Danish copyright law allows for the private, non-commercial copying of purchased DVDs.

12.–(1) Anyone is entitled to make or have made, for private purposes, single copies of works which have been made public if this is not done for commercial purposes. Such copies must not be used for any other purpose.

Unfortunately the law does not allow for the circumvention of the DRM on the disks in order to do so.

75.c –(1) It is not permitted to circumvent effective technological measures without the consent of the rights holder.

“Since the above copying is a violation of Danish law, I would therefore like to declare myself in violation of section 75 of the copyright law,” Henrik told Antipiratgruppen.

While previously acknowledging this catch 22 situation, Denmark’s Ministry of Culture felt that the situation would shortly rectify itself.

“…it is expected that in future copy protection will be designed in such a way that it will be possible to take one or more copies for personal use, and this is certainly the intention of the law,” they wrote.

However, as Henrik points out, while this might be the government’s plan, the movie industry has failed to live up to this vision, hence his intended piracy martyrdom to draw attention to the issue.

“As the culture minister sees no reason to change the law, she must, in my opinion, not understand the problem, therefore I choose to confess to you, to see whether you are prepared to get the legislation tested in court,” says Henrik as he concludes his confession.

Henrik has given Antipiratgruppen until December 1st to respond. Even given a prosecution on a plate, it’s extremely unlikely they will take him up on his offer.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Continuing first from yesterday’s proceedings, ITnews reported an exchange between iiNet CEO Michael Malone and movie industry barrister Tony Bannon, over Malone’s understanding of BitTorrent.

Malone told the court that while he had an understanding of the protocol, he had never used uTorrent, the client used earlier by Bannon to give the court a technical demonstration. Bannon’s demo used iiNet’s own tracker (an installation of RivetTracker) which it has used to distributed several press releases which all relate to the trial.

It is difficult to see where Bannon was going with his questioning, but it began with an admittance by Malone that the torrent files were intended to be used by people with access to a BitTorrent client. Malone then denied that the releases were specifically targeted at iiNet customers, noting that anyone can access them

Under further questioning regarding the inclusion of a note in the torrent files dialogue box indicating the files were non-pirated, Malone reiterated that while he had an understanding of the BitTorrent protocol, he did not have experience of the client used by Bannon

Then, with an apparent deafness towards Malone’s perfectly clear response, and demonstrating an apparent ignorance between a BitTorrent client and the BitTorrent protocol, Bannon sought to press Malone into admitting to his 400,000 customers that he didn’t understand BitTorrent.

Again, Malone stated that he didn’t know how to put a comment on a torrent file, but Bannon persisted in trying to get Malone to admit that he knows how uTorrent 1.8.4 works, but Malone said he’d never used it. There could, however, be people in iiNet who had, he conceded.

Bannon then said that in the last 24 hours the torrent file functionality for the press releases had been removed. Malone said that if it had, he certainly hadn’t requested it, asking Bannon how he was attempting to access the Internet, suggesting that a firewall in the court was stopping the transfer.

TorrentFreak’s checks show a single seeder on each torrent and each one worked absolutely perfectly.

Moving on to iiNet’s handling of copyright infringement allegations, iTWire reports that Bannon tried to paint a picture that iiNet’s policy of forwarding AFACT notices to the police was little more than a cynical attempt to pretend that they were dealing with them, when in fact they were not.

For the umpteenth time in this case, Malone said that he was under no obligation to act on mere allegations from AFACT which were not backed up by a court order.

“AFACT was telling us to disconnect customers without further ado,” said Malone. “The question is, what should we do when confronted with illegal activity? And our response is, report it to the proper authorities.”

While iiNet said it had always been policy to forward the notices to the police, ITWire notes that evidence emerged that the company had sent notifications twice, although there was no indication of how many infringement notices were in each batch.

Yesterday Malone said that the evidence provided by tracking company DtecNet’s investigation was “compelling” and should be reviewed by a third party and the courts. In the face of this statement, Bannon asked Malone why he had not taken action based on AFACT’s allegations.

“This is a right,” said Malone, “not an obligation of iiNet.”

These days arguments in favor of anti-piracy action seem almost incomplete with the obligatory reference to child pornography, as we heard in yesterday’s propaganda piece from CBS. This case is no different.

Bannon put it to Malone that if the evidence provided was “compelling” and Malone had received “compelling evidence” that an iiNet customer was accessing child porn, would the company allow the user to do so “day after day?”

Of course, any allegations of this nature would involve the police, and the police or the courts would do the investigation, get the proper paperwork and order iiNet to comply, which they naturally would. Malone said that on mere AFACT allegations of civil infringement (as apposed to an infinitely more serious and jailable criminal offense), such action would not be permitted.

Bannone then pressured Malone to admit that “…you’re happy to tell your customers this from the witness box,” that iiNet will not disconnect subscribers for infringing copyright.

At this point one has to wonder if Bannon is deaf or just plain stubborn. It is absolutely crystal clear to anyone following these proceedings that yes, iiNet will disconnect customers for copyright infringement, providing there has been due process and a court has ruled that disconnection is appropriate.

The case continues tomorrow.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Today, iiNet CEO Michael Malone was questioned at length over dealings he had with Westnet, another ISP which was acquired by his company for AUS $81 million in May 2008.

Westnet had developed an automated system to pass on infringement notices from copyright holders to its customers, a process which Malone earlier described as “making more work for no benefit,” and was said to be scathing in defense of due process and consumer rights.

“Taking the opposing argument, a random third party is lodging an unsubstantiated accusation against a customer and you’re passing it on?” wrote Malone in an email to Westnet, continuing, “Your current approach is doing damage to the industry and iiNet’s position on this matter.”

According to itNews, today Malone admitted he had “hit the roof” when he had discovered Westnet’s policy on infringement notices.

When any company acquires another there is often a need to standardize procedures and policies, and with iiNet and Westnet the position was no different. Malone said that whenever he found differences in policies between the two companies he took steps to bring those of Westnet into line with those at iiNet. He also stated that he was unaware that Westnet had failed to follow his instructions and adopt iiNet group policy following the acquisition.

One of the reasons he sought to change the Westnet policy, he said, was to bring the company into line with the position held by the Internet Industry Association on the issue.

Cross-examining Malone on iiNet’s role in providing a broadband service which enabled users to share movies using BitTorrent, senior counsel Tony Bannon for the movie industry referred to infringement notices sent to iiNet for the Sony movie, Pineapple Express.

According to CW, Malone responded that as a mere service provider, iiNet had no way of knowing if any of its customers were engaged in copyright infringement, but could confirm that the individual who allegedly committed the breaches was still an iiNet customer.

The company was not aware, however, if the customer continued to breach copyright.

The case continues tomorrow.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Bragginrights, ShunTV, Btefnet, CDDVDHeaven, SciFi-Classics and Zonatracker served around 100,000 users between them, and were all targeted with lawsuits in May 2005. Earlier in the year moves were also made against LokiTorrent, s0nicfreak and TorrentStop.

While others faded away, users and admins of some of these sites regrouped to form new sites, and from the ashes of another targeted site, UK-Torrents, UK-T was born.

After the scares of 2005, becoming a large and open site became less attractive. With security in mind UK-T was an invite-only private tracker with an estimated membership of less than 5000. The site also had a fake frontend which gave birth to its codename: Wheel Mods

Some might wonder why the site is being referred to in the past tense after a healthy four years’ operation. The reason is that the site is no more.

In the absence of any official announcement either by the site’s staff or any anti-piracy outfit, details about the shutdown have been very difficult to obtain. After sitting on this story for quite a while, TorrentFreak managed to get a couple of individuals close to the site’s owners to part with a few pieces of information.

According to our sources a senior member of staff experienced legal issues following allegations of selling counterfeit DVDs which led to a search of his home address. Reports from a second source close to the situation claim that there have been further arrests of site staff, although we have been unable to confirm these reports at this point.

Some facts, however, seem fairly solid. Ex-site members are assured that they are safe, since staff quickly took the opportunity to securely delete the site and databases. However, the bad news is that the site will not be returning.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Without any legal basis it would be unacceptable for the ISP to comply, so it was left with no option but to refuse.

“This would be the same as demanding that the postal service should open all letters, and decide which ones should be delivered,” said Telenor’s Ragnar Kårhus.

IFPI, rarely one to make hollow threats, especially where lawsuits are concerned, made good on its word and sued Telenor.

The then-Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde felt that the lawsuit was an indication that IFPI was unhappy with the competition.

“They have had a monopoly on distribution and we’re breaking that monopoly, and in turn they sue people that allow access to our distribution method,” Sunde told TorrentFreak at the time.

The trial began on October 12th in Norway and for its part, Telenor argued that Norwegian law protects Internet service providers from liability for the actions of their subscribers. IFPI feels that the site is illegal and should therefore be blocked.

The verdict in the case was due to be delivered today, but there will be a delay.

According to Telenor’s Information Manager Atle Lessum, the judge has announced that due to illness the result will now be handed down next week.

The Pirate Bay is no stranger to blockades. From September 1st, an out of court settlement between Irish ISP Eircom and IFPI came into effect, which blocked customer access to the ‘Bay. Similar blocks are pending in Italy and The Netherlands.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.