Norwegian ISPs Refuse MPAA’s Request to Disconnect Pirates
Written by Ernesto on March 28, 2008After being blown off by the Norwegian police, MPAA lawyer Espen Tondel is now demanding that ISPs disconnect Norwegian file-sharers from the Internet. According to IKT Norway, an interest group for ISPs, the lawyer has sent a letter to Norwegian ISPs on behalf of The Norwegian branch of the MPAA.
In the letter, Tondel asks the ISPs to notify customers who share copyrighted content, and threaten to disconnect them from the internet. Tondel also attached a document that supposedly links the IP-addresses of seeders to copyrighted works.
It seems that Norway is not alone in this, Jim Williams, the MPAA’s senior vice president opted for a similar disconnection policy in the US yesterday. IKT Norway is not too happy about the letter though.
“In a constitutional state, the police and the prosecuting authority have the job of investigating and indicting, not lawyers and communication engineers”, says Hallstein Bjercke from IKT Norway, in a press release.
“Most of the big ISPs in Norway are members of IKT Norway and we will support the various ISPs as best we can against what we see as a preposterous demand from Simonsen”, Bjercke adds.
He asks the ISPs to contact IKT Norway instead of answering the law firm’s letter. “In our opinion, Tondel asks the ISPs to assist them in their private investigation on filesharers. Tondel’s law firm asks the ISPs to use personal information about their customers in a way that would be a breach on the Norwegian laws on personal information and personal privacy, in addition to breaching the contract between individual customers and their respective ISP.”
“What Simonsen is actually asking for is confessions from the alleged filesharers, which can be used against them if Simonsen decides to sue”, Bjercke said.
IKT Norway makes it clear that the Norwegian ISPs will not take the role of investigator and judge against their own customers. “To give that kind of responsibility to the ISPs is like asking the mailman to control the contents of every letter and package he delivers,” Bjercke says.
IKT Norway is now checking into the legality of the law firms private investigation and the legality of connecting personal information to the customers of Norwegian ISPs.
(translation by Stian Andreassen)
Previously: BPI Crackdown Planned as BitTorrent Becomes ‘Too Easy’
Next: BitTorrent Inc. + Comcast = Love, Peace, Harmony…Not!
41 Responses
Healthy news day today! :D
Awww, poor MPAA/RIAA/IFPI, the ISPs don’t want to play along. Bwahahaha.
Espen Tondel, Dude You are Fucked up LoL
Soon all countries will refuse your shits.
You have to search for another way to make huge $ easily, making $ from pirates are impossible now.
Open a shop and be a shopkeeper LoL
Sell Tomato and potato & live happily, hahahah oh god i can’t stop laughing
RIP Espen Tondel LoL
God Bless you Mr.Espen Tondel
Espen Tondel prøver seg igjen… Fjortisskid :\
ISPs know that they would lose so many customers (and also incomes of course ;) ) if they would listen to MPAA RIAA IFPI etc. so they just say FUCK OFF to them.
And that’s a good thing.
Well, the romantic days of private detectives like Philip Marlowe and Hercule Poirot are over. Not even the lovely female clients that used to turn up in shaded offices are around anymore.
[quote comment="321369"]Espen Tondel prøver seg igjen… Fjortisskid :\[/quote]
Quoted for truth, min norske venn.
I am glad to be a customer at Telenor, Norwegians biggest ISP, because they are the last one who would disconnect pirates.
Love it when Espen Tondel (almost wrote “Tøddel”, and all norwegians know what that means xD) tries to controle the world. =D
“What’s in it for us?”
This is what I imagine the ISPs ask themselves as they consider the requests. What exactly would an ISP stand to gain from supporting these actions? Why would they rather support the requests, than not?
Law aside, it doesn’t even strike me that the media companies have tacit support for their movement in many cases.
What I am about to tell everyone is a secret and the big corporations should not know of this…
The big companies like dreamworks and warner should get rid of the MPAA,IFPI and all their counterparts. If you think pirates are stealing think again, pirates increase your sales through popularity, what has the MPAA done for you, lost alot of court cases and won the pety ones using terrorist tactics. Cut them off and you can save a whole lot more money than you are actually losing.
Well, duh! It is Norway :D
In Norway the ISP’s care about their customers. And I’ve never heard of any throttling :D
OF course not. Its against the law to break a contract by giving you a lesser service then what you signed up and paid for.
At least here in Norway, Scandinavia, Europe… LOL
Btw: Hers an follow up article:http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=517045
Some cind soul translate it for the non Norwegians?
[quote comment="321513"]Btw: Hers an follow up article:http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=517045
Some cind soul translate it for the non Norwegians?[/quote]
Basically it is just an article about that “ForbrukerrÃ¥det” (watch out for bad marketing, consumer’s rights etc.) warn the ISPs about giving these lawyers (Simonsen) info about the customers that might be filesharers.
“The lawyer firm Simonsen have in co-operation with Norsk Videogramforening (not sure how to translate that, but something like Norwegian Video) sent letters to a lot of the Norwegian ISP’s. The letter say that one or more of their customers have used their connection to share Norwegian movies through BitTorrent.
Simonsen suggests that the ISP’s should notify the customers that they might get thrown of the Internet. The lawyer firm have attached documents that is said to prove that certain IP’s have shared files illegally.
Forbrukerrådet thinks that no ISP should sign the letter.
- The declaration puts the consumers in a highly unclear area of Norwegian law, where they (ISP’s) will end up with almost unlimited responsibility to the copyright holders.
IKT-Norge (Information Techonology Norway) is shocked over Simonsens’ declaration.
In a country where there are courts and police the police should do the investigation and the court the judging, not lawyers, according to Hallstein Bjerke (in IKT-Norge)”
If you are wondering, the letter say something like this:
“The signer hereby declares that all sharing of copyrighted files has stopped and will never happen again” (simple version).
Basic translation, sorry for my bad English but haven’t used it for real in over a year ^^.
And something that I think should be mention, an executive in one of the big ISP’s in Norway said something like this:
“You can’t hold a waterprovider (water to your house) responsible if the consumer are using it to make hjemmebrent (homemade alcohol)”. And I say, you can’t hold the postal office responsible if I send something illegal through mail to a friend.
[quote comment="321535"][quote comment="321513"]
“You can’t hold a waterprovider (water to your house) responsible if the consumer are using it to make hjemmebrent (homemade alcohol)”[/quote]
now that’s original !
I know, but it is the same thing. Laughed when I first saw it too.
Although most of the Norwegian ISP’s just toss these letters away, one do send them to their customers. Start.no. Even though they send the letters they say that they won’t consider removing their Internet. To them it is just natural to send the letters on, they are just letting their customers know that they are beiing watched.
Everything is legal with these people!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
laugh if you will but these are the people that are gonna be spying on us 10 years from now -_-
I think the internet should be banned and re-started with anti-pirating measures.
first, i would like that torrentfreak starts to block this fakebalmeshit.com
ontopic: i think they see now that they are into real big trouble. maybe big4 chiefs are pressuring lawyers harder, maybe big4 thinking they not going the right way? maybe they will stop seeing us as pirates, and rather like dedicated consumers? is there really a hope for that?
[quote comment="321639"]I think the internet should be banned and re-started with anti-pirating measures.[/quote]
cant do that,us army is too busy right now,
hmmmmmmmm,come to think of it,all those **AA should sue u.s army for
inventing internet in the 1st place.
omg….,i’ve responded to a spammer,felt like my iq’s dropping,oh well,as my name implies..
Lol, this mpaa shit is so homo.
Long live democracy and the rule of law, for now :)
I’d just like to take this opportunity to say..
FUCK THE MPAA!
Awww, poor wittle Espen Tondel!
It seems that Norwegian ISPs *don’t like* the idea of committing terrorism against their own subscribers at the behest of the MAFIAA.
To make matters even worse, that mean ‘ol IKT Norway is now investigating the legality of Tondel’s bullying racket… Err, I mean “private investigation”!
Poor, poor wittle Espen. You know… I’m shedding tears for him. Tears of piss.
Hey!You spelled his first and last name wrong… its spelled like this:
“LOSER”
Without the quotes of course, and yes, i know its strange he has the same first and last name :)
http://www.ezee.se/
Serves them right, stupid people. Why don’t they chase some real pirates instead of interfering with their customer base and the Internet. But that’s right, that’s too hard isn’t it? Just make legal threats and everyone will fold up like a pack of cards, right?
We don’t want your interference and you’ll find that we all band together and buck like a mule. Your puffed up power is in your head, not your muscles.
This is not a movie. Real life is not so accommodating. You should learn the difference. I know they shouldn’t have encouraged you by letting you win so many cases. See that’s the carrot, and now you’re along for the ride. It’s all part of the game in legal circles. Brace yourselves, you’re going down.
[quote comment="321622"]laugh if you will but these are the people that are gonna be spying on us 10 years from now -_-[/quote]
In America, yes. But America isn’t a country, it is a giant business. The rest of the world are completely sane and will not tolerate that crap.
You spy on us, we spy on you. On a Norwegian newspaper (Dagbladet.no) the comment box have been turned into a place where everybody post info about Espen Tondel. Full name, adress, cell phone number, e-mail, how many kids he has, what car he drives, how much income he had last year and so on. We take revenge!
[quote comment="321639"]I think the internet should be banned and re-started with anti-pirating measures.[/quote]
Good Luck on that one buddy. While your at it, Mt. Everest is in my way, be a good fellow and move it for me will ya please?
…and here i thought the internet was an “open” culture now why is there a power struggle to try and control an “open” culture?
Isn’t the internet the future to communications? If ISPs start disconnecting their customers, who will view/use their content?
at very least Esepen Tondel and his crew, scares away some shares. and in their eyes i guess that can be seen as good.
… Where does MPAA get the idea that they have authority over everyone in every country? They aren’t even part of the government. They are a lobby for movie companies. Give me a break.
We gotta make sure the MPAA stops bullying foreign governments and ISPs world wide. We can stand up to them!
Nothing has value.
Honestly, I dont feel any responsibility towards society. I dont feel obligated to respect the conduct of business or other aspects of finance. I dont respect property. I could not care less about “the law”. Justice means nothing to me.
Modern world, you treat me with so little respect; you have created a monster, a sociopath. Me? I have lost the idea of a me, I`m nothing but a loop that constantly feeds irrational needs.
You thought you could make a profit out of me. Consume/consume. But you failed… and we all lose.
(ps. not sarcasm or anti-p2p. Just poetry. Fuck us all, and best wishes.)
Espen Tondel is a shame for Noway.
99% prosent of those who know of him thinks he’s an idiot.
I’D LIKE TO MEET THIS GUY SO I CAN TAKE A GIANT SHIT ON HIS FACE, YOU KNOW LIKE HOW EVERYONE ELSE DOES.
“In a constitutional state…”
You know.. a constitution is just a piece of paper..
…at least for some peeps the country which MPAA comes from it is just that…
Norway is cold, immoral, ugly, dirty and the people wreak! Sure the love torrents!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
FUCK YOU, ESPEN!
Født Navn Postnr Poststed
1954 TØNDEL, ESPEN 0778 OSLO
Formue Alm.inntekt Skatt Skatteår
965531 3576353 1156755 2006
185000 2331800 793402 2002
615000 2857700 1158585 2001
For you English speakers, in 2006, Espen’s savings was: 965 531 NOK, his income: 3 576 353 NOK and tax paid: 1 156 755 NOK. He’s making a lot of money by suing pirates, probably gets it all from MPAA! Bastard.
RIAA break laws, MPAA break laws, IFPI break laws, MD break laws, filesharers dont break laws they share digital information witch copyright laws have not adapted to.
Not to mention breaking copyright is a civil matter not criminal as investigating without a license, Network sabbotage, distorsion, blackmail, bribes etc etc.. list is extremely long by now and have they been penalized for breaking the law yet? no ofcourse not…
Consumers should be penalized for sharing with others what they bought and own, corperations, parasites and dinosaurs should all get a soft towel whiping their ass as they walk around spewing shit.
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Here’s the funny thing.
Tondel is an asshole.
Norwegian ISPs think Tondel is an asshole, so they’ll be making sure HE is the one who bends over in the end.
Now, I ask of you – compare this reaction to IP infringement claims from a Norwegian ISP to those of American ISPs and realize that you Americans are royally fucked. And, interestingly, we Norwegians are the ones who actually *have* royalty. ;)
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