Norway Mulls Anti-Piracy ‘Complaint Board’ Proposal
Written by enigmax on October 14, 2008Anti-piracy organizations send out thousands of infringement notices a year to alleged pirates. Strangely enough, these infringement notices are hardly ever backed up by solid evidence. The Norwegian Consumer Council is now proposing to create an independent committee to deal with copyright infringement disputes between alleged pirates and rights holders.
Similar to other consumer rights organizations, the Norway Consumer Council (Forbrukerrådet) is dedicated to representing the interests of consumers, operating independently of the commercial interests of others. It aims to influence business, at the same time as educating and providing help to consumers, and has been vocal in its opposition of iTunes DRM.
Back in March this year, the Council (NCC) entered the file-sharing debate, when it advised members of the public not to comply with the demands of a Norwegian law firm. The law firm, Simonsen, had sent out letters to ISPs demanding that alleged pirates sign legal agreements accepting that they had shared files, and promising never to do it again. The NCC legal officer, Hans Marius Graasvold, said that the signing of such a letter (which is very similar indeed to the letters sent out by UK lawyers Davenport Lyons) makes the consumer liable for all past and future acts of file-sharing in his household, and should be avoided at all costs. This intervention by NCC led to the Norwegian ISP association advising their members not to pass on the lawyers letters.
NCC is also opposed to any “3 strikes” type legislation, calling it a “grossly disproportionate” response, with Hans Marius Graasvold stating that consumers facing such allegations are deprived of due process and their right to privacy. Internet access should be provided by an ISP on “neutral terms” with “legal protection against arbitrary termination of the contract.”
Presumably trying to find some middle-ground in this file-sharing debate, which includes the sticky issues of citizen’s rights, due process and privacy, the NCC has started discussions with representatives of the copyright industry and ISPs, with a view to the creation of an independent committee empowered to act in cases of alleged copyright infringement. Major Norwegian ISPs have apparently welcomed the initiative.
The proposals suggest that such a committee should be run by a public authority, and act as a mechanism for alternative dispute resolution and in other cases, a complaint board. When an alleged pirate is approached with allegations by a copyright holder, the consumer would then have the opportunity to send the complaint to the committee for its consideration, with any decision subject to appeal.
The NCC hopes to put its proposals to the Norwegian government by mid 2009.
Ofcom, the UK’s independent regulator for the communications industry has also indicated that it could get involved in the file-sharing debate, in trying to find an alternative to the doomed “3 strikes” proposals, although it hasn’t suggested that it would offer any arbitration services.
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19 Responses
Scandinavia kicks butt again :)
Would be better if they just left things as they are and let those bastards keep screaming, but I guess they have to show that they are at least doing something…
Hopefully it will drag on for a few years… or better still, decades and will come into force long after bit torrent is gone.
Hmm, do I sound biased? :D
Cheers!
http://www.eZee.se
Still a pretty free heaven, but think I’ll change to private sites on Norwegian stuff from now on. Not that there is much worth copying though.. What’s not worth copying is not worth buying at this time.
As a foot note:
Tøndel, gå og dø!
In English: Tøndel, please die!
Glad to see you have an eye open for what’s going on in Norway too :)
Tøndel is a prick, and should be treated as one.
I wonder how they will take my whole crapping in the letter and sending it back thing…
oh well.. my only regret will be the smell the mailman has to endure..
great news for pirates!
“When an alleged pirate is approached with allegations by a copyright holder, the consumer would then have the opportunity to send the complaint to the committee for its consideration, with any decision subject to appeal.”
say i am a software and movie pirate living in Norway. i download lossless music and burn CDs and DVDs and sell them on markets. i make 50,000 euro/month from my piracy activities
now under this proposal (according to torrentfreak) pirates are not going to be subject to the criminal law and police action
Enigmax i am surprised at you. you are losing it dude
h33t, you know nothing about Norway. It ____IS____ illegal to ____SELL___ pirated music, apps, movies etc.
In addition, 50 000 eruos a month? ehhh that is a little less than the normal norwegian make A YEAR.
Also, there are not many people that buy pirated stuff. Exactly. We’re so fucking rich
WTF h33t…
Why are you trying to somehow affix the ‘pirate’ label only to commercial pirates, while everyone else is somehow ‘filesharers’
Fact is, no such distinction will ever happen. Other than calling them commercial pirates anyway. People like being called pirates, people like the swashbuckling imagery of fighting the system as an outlaw. Not to mention the fact that it’s simply gotten too widespread to attempt to change it now.
h33t is a moron, ignore him.
Commercial pirates are the enemy. Its not about changing the meaning of the word ‘Pirate’, its about reminding people that every invention to date has been called piracy. Its about reminding people that if it weren’t for people of our type, you would be living in complete control.
Adapt or be forgotten, pretty simple.
@pirated
Damn right there :D
h33t, the word “pirate” can be either for profit or not for profit.
Well, all this may be great, but do not any of you reading this think that it is more important for the file-sharers themselves to stand up against all those “anti-pirates” rather than big organizations/businesses like consumer rights groups or ISPs? I think that it is much more important for the file-sharers themselves to take action, not just for consumer rights groups, or for ISPs to resist.
Roze
http://www.28chan.org/fs/ <- File-sharing bulletin board
Who the f*** would buy physical copies of DOWNLOADED software from you, off the street, you moron?
“People like being called pirates, people like the swashbuckling imagery of fighting the system as an outlaw. ”
Pirates—> The new N iggers?
http://ezee.se/articles-blog/2008/07/11/pirates-the-new-niggers/
Why not drop the term pirate entirely? Replace the term with filesharers for those who download content over the Internet for free, and bootleggers or counterfeiters for those who copy content and sell it for a profit.
@Jeff
What did I just say? Nuff said.
@www.eZee.se
Interesting article, I’ve never seen that before.
@15, you’re welcome!
A lot of people have not, here’s hoping you will pass it on.
Cheers!
This system already exists in many western nations. Its often called something like the “small claims court” or “petty claims tribunal” and has a cap on the amount of money involved (e.g. maximum $5000).
Basically, its the kind of court Judge Judy presides over and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that putting all the silly little court cases in a different category to the important ones is a sensible idea to avoid clogging the system.
Problem with that is the fact that the MAFIAA wants it to be much worse than that as a “punishment”. They don’t want it to be in such a place, they are convinced it’s more important than that. Even though logic dictates that it should be either there or nowhere.
@Blok (16)
We have that in Norway too, but as I see it, this is a new version only for “copyright-issues”
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