While some producers, directors and actors actually believe that BitTorrent and other filesharing tools help to boost the fanbase of films and TV-shows, this group disagrees. Signed by a staggering 116 names including the likes of directors Sir Alan Parker, Mike Leigh and supported by several entertainment industry groups, the letter claims:

At a time when so many jobs are being lost in the wider economy, it is especially important that this issue be taken seriously by the Government and that it devotes the resources necessary to enforce the law.

Ignoring for a moment that notably they make no mention of job losses in their sector, one of the problems with their demands is that the law they seek to enforce is civil law, not criminal.

Beyond employing judges there is nothing more that the government can do to enforce it. That is the problem with copyright law, it’s hard to know what’s legitimate and what’s not, what can be copied and what can’t, without checking with the rights holders first. This was exemplified perfectly earlier this year, when the IFPI sent out takedown notices for Travis tracks, despite the actual copyright holders, Travis, having already given permission to distribute.

The bigger problem comes from their data, the 98 million illegal downloads and streams. While we know TV shows are popular, our own data shows that British TV rarely features in the top 10. Movie downloads are more fleeting, with a certain bias towards the newest films, with a few exceptions. Their figures are also questionable; while we count downloads, we can’t quantify them with a figure for the UK.

Yet, if their stats on downloads are of questionable accuracy, it’s nothing compared to the power they ascribe to the ‘almighty ISP’. They believe that ISPs have the power to stamp out file sharing, stopping people from downloading TV shows and movies; they just need a prod. In this belief they are sadly mistaken.

Again, recent news has shown how hard it is to control access to even one image in the UK, on a cut-and-dried subject like child pornography. Being able to determine if something is infringing copyright or not would require huge lists of content, and real-time examination of all Internet traffic. Not just deep packet inspection, but an all-invasive Big Brother monitoring system, beyond the dreams of even the most totalitarian dictator.

Of course, those that bother to check facts know that not only is such a thing illegal (criminally illegal, not just civil) but that the tools they’ll want to use just don’t work. The problem is highlighted by Michael Malone, CEO of ISP iiNet, currently under attack from various movie studios, “I think they genuinely believe that ISPs have a secret magic wand that we are hiding and if we bring it out we can make piracy disappear just by waving it.”

And, when just this year it was reported that UK commercial TV broadcasters “enjoyed a bumper April with the highest viewing figures in five years”, that total TV viewing was up 10% year-on-year, and “the valuable yet hard-to-reach 16 to 24-year-old demographic [i.e the typical file-sharer] watched 4.9% more commercial TV in April year-on-year and saw 12% more ads,” you have to wonder exactly what the problem is.

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

Consequently the court ruled that access to The Pirate Bay had to be blocked. Tele2 appealed this decision, but lost again two weeks ago.

The court case was initiated by the IFPI – the infamous anti-piracy organization that represents the recording industry. The IFPI later tried to use the “landmark decision” to force Swedish ISPs to do the same, but failed. In fact, it seems that filtering traffic to The Pirate Bay is actually illegal according to European law.

The fight is not over yet though. Since this case could have huge implications for other ISPs and websites, Tele2 has announced that it will take it all the way to the Supreme Court. Fortunately for them, they won’t be alone either. They are backed by the telecommunications industry association. Jens Ottosen, president of the association told Computerworld that, if this decision is upheld, Danish ISPs might be forced to block other sites as well.

In a response, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak: “We’re confident that Tele2 will win in the Supreme Court, when they [the court] really dig into the technology and try to understand the whole concept. It’s important for net neutrality and it’s also important for file sharers in Denmark to have this tried (and won).”

When the appeal is successful, The Pirate Bay will claim damages from IFPI. “I hope that they [Tele2] win so we can demand retribution from IFPI.” Peter said. “As I’ve stated earlier we would like them to have to pay damages to us. In that case we would help set up a fund for Danish aspiring musicians that in turn would release music using a Creative Commons license.”

The Supreme Court still has to accept the appeal before the case can go on. Despite the outcome, blocking The Pirate Bay didn’t have the effect that the IFPI was hoping for. On the contrary, traffic from Denmark went up, instead of down. However, this case is about more than just The Pirate Bay, it is about censoring the Internet.

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

The Court of Bergamo has now lifted the block, and ISPs are again allowed to grant their users access to the most frequently used BitTorrent tracker on the Internet. More details on the decision, and the reason why the block was reversed, will be made public later.

In a previous interview, Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi described the order as “‘original’ or ‘creative’ at best,” and said it should not have been ordered in the first place because of the lack of jurisdiction. In addition, they argued that The Pirate Bay is not breaking any laws since it’s not distributing copyright infringing material.

The court’s decision might set an important precedent for BitTorrent sites in Italy, especially for Colombo-BT, the largest Italian torrent site, which was shut down by the same prosecutor responsible for the Pirate Bay block. The action against Colombo-BT was orchestrated by the anti-piracy outlet IFPI, which also hijacked all Italian Pirate Bay visitors following the block.

Visitors who were blocked from The Pirate Bay were redirected to an IFPI server, instead of a server operated by the Italian government. This is again an example of how lobby groups such as the IFPI, MPAA and RIAA are treated as government institutions. Since many Pirate Bay visitors claimed their privacy was violated, the Italian Pirate Party and Altroconsumo filed a complaint with the ombudsman earlier this week.

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

So far, the IFPI has had little success with their lobby, that’s probably why they decided to put legal pressure on the ISPs. “We believe that ISPs have a special part to play in this and must help us. The discussions we’ve tried to have with the ISPs haven’t led anywhere,” IFPI’s Managing Director in Sweden, Lars Gustafsson, said in response to their recent announcement.

The IFPI claims to have studied several ISPs practices, but according to Lars Gustaffson they intend to focus on one particular company which they claim facilitates filesharing on the Internet. One of the services they hope to stop is their nemesis, The Pirate Bay.

Gustafsson was advised by his legal team not to disclose the name of the ISP yet, but many people think the ISP Bahnhof will be the most likely target, since they are recommended by the pirate community because of their high stance on integrity.

“The ISPs don’t believe they have any responsibility to help when it comes to hindering filesharing,” says Lars Gustafsson. IFPI already sent out letters to several service providers, urging them to start monitoring their customers and filtering websites.

Most ISPs refuse to cooperate with the IFPI though. Last month, Telia Sonera, a large Swedish ISP responded to the IFPI’s request by stating that such actions are illegal under EU law. Norwegian ISPs later responded with similar arguments.

On the other hand, the IFPI claims that restricting access to filesharing sites might actually benefit ISPs. “Illegal P2P file-sharing may have helped drive broadband subscriptions in the past, yet today these activities, particularly in respect of movies, are hogging bandwidth,” they state.

Thus far, the IFPI has won in Denmark. In February, a Danish court ordered the ISP ‘Tele2′ to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. The decision is currently under appeal, and the Pirate Bay recently announced that they will demand compensation for the block.

To be continued…

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

A crucial factor in the ruling is thus that the ISP commits copyright infringement in their routers when they allow access to The Pirate Bay. An absurd claim of course, and even more serious, it opposes the Infosoc Directive, that formed the basis of the Danish copyright law.

In in Article 5 of the Infosoc Directive it is clearly stated that “copying in routers” is allowed, as an exception to and a limitation of the rights holders’ exclusive rights. Even more so, this is non-negotiable, and every member state of the EU must accept it. Oscar Swartz, an Internet pioneer and writer in Sweden who has been researching the case extensively rightly argues that the Danish court misinterpreted the Directive in this case.

The misuse of the article in question has been confirmed by Cecilia Renfors, a Swedish judge and special governmental investigator who had the assignment to propose new legislation to combat unauthorized file-sharing. “She refers to the former opinion by the Swedish government and reconfirms that a Danish model would NOT be compatible with Article 5.1 in the Infosoc Directive. She also repeats the opinion that the Danish way actually nullifies the whole purpose of that Article,” Oscar writes.

The Danish ISP Business association has decided that they will challenge the decision in court. Ib Tolstrup, the director of the association said in a podcast interview with Computerworld that Tele2 is going to challenge the ruling, as they realize they are the only nation in Europe that talks about “copying in the routers”. Tolstrup further said that, if Denmark wishes to be a top IT nation, the topic must be put on the political agenda because a Google block is not far away if they do not challenge the courts decision.

In a comment to TorrentFreak Swartz said: “I am surprised that the Danish ISPs have simply accepted the rulings in Denmark when they are so obviously illogical and dangerous. The courts say that any network provider performs “copying” in their routers. If that is correct the consequences are enormous and The Pirate Bay and the two other cases in Denmark would just be the beginning.”

Swartz continues: “I think the case shows that we have to fight all the time. Stand up. Not back down. Work hard. Make research. Try to get the message out to media. What I miss in Sweden, and Denmark of course, is professors and lawyers who are also participating in the fight for communications freedom. Like in the EFF in the U.S. where top professors and lawyers donate time and knowledge to support cases in court. Where are they here?”

In a response to the courts decision, The Pirate Bay launched jesperbay.org. The site is named after Jesper Bay, the head of the Danish IFPI, and gives detailed instructions for affected customers on how to regain access to The Pirate Bay.

Interestingly, it turns out that the block by Tele2 didn’t have the effect that the IFPI was hoping for. On the contrary, Pirate Bay traffic from Denmark went up, instead of down. However, this case is about more than The Pirate Bay, it is about censoring the Internet.

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

The Pirate Bay team is also asking fellow BitTorrent admins to help out, by redirecting all customers from Tele2, to The Jesper Bay. They have written a piece of code that will redirect all the users from Tele2 to The Jesper Bay, so they can change their DNS.

The ruling of IFPI vs. Tele2 was officially released a few hours ago (translation included at the end of this post). It concludes that the ISP -Tele2- assist in copyright infringement because they give their customers access to The Pirate Bay, therefore they have to prevent access to the site.

A dangerous ruling, which is expected to result in Pirate Bay being blocked by other Danish ISPs, similar to what happened in the AllofMP3 case last year. However, it does not end there, other divisions of the IFPI throughout Europe have already announced that they will start similar cases.

Today, the IFPI in Norway and Finland announced that they too are considering taking action against Internet providers.

The executive director of IFPI Finland, Arto Alaspää, announced that they are considering taking action against ISPs in Finland: “Similar block petitions are likely to be used in Finland,” he said.

Alaspää was soon followed by his Norwegian colleague, Marte Thorsby, who told Dagbladet.no: “The verdict is very positive for us. We have to see if we can get this to Norway as well.”

Sebastian Gjerding, spokesperson for the Danish pro-piracy lobby Piratgruppen, told TorrentFreak yesterday: “It’s very frightening that the IFPI can get through the courts with something like this. In Turkey and China its the state that decides what information the people can access and what should be censored. In Denmark its apparently the record industry.”

For now, Jesperbay makes it pretty easy to lift the block. Let’s hope Tele2 will appeal against the IFPI, so it only has to be a temporary solution.

Translation of the court ruling, by Piratgruppen

It is found undisputed, that the website www.thepiratebay.org functions as an index and search engine which allow the users of the website to download files from each other.

Following the presentation of evidence it has been substantiated, that the major part of the material being exchanged between the users, is protected by the copyrights administered by the claimants, and that the claimants have not given their consent to such publication. Furthermore, it has been substantiated that the use of the website, which according to the information site www.alexa.com holds a 23. place among the most popular sites in Denmark, is somewhat diffused in Denmark.

The exchange of copyrighted material taking place among the users of the site , without the claimants consent , thus constitutes a violation of the copyrights for the audio and motion picture recordings and literary works administered by the claimants, to which the claimants hold the exclusive rights, cf. the Danish Copyright Act § 2, subsection 1.

The court finds the website www.thepiratebay.org to be functioning as a necessary and specifically created search engine for the unauthorised distribution of copyright protected works. Furthermore, the court finds the website’s function to be considered that of making copyright protected works available to the public in a manner to be compared with that of public performance, cf. the Danish Copyright Act §2, even if the www.thepiratebay.org is not itself responsible for the publication of copyrighted works online. The court in this connection emphasises the fact that the website, by means of its search function, is programmed with directs links to copyrighted materials hosted by its users, cf. UfR 2001.1572 V.

It is undisputed that costumers of the DMT2 Ltd. Telephone company have access to the website of www.thepiratebay.org and related sub pages and sub domains.

According to §2, subsection 2 of the Danish Copyright Act, any direct or indirect, temporary or permanent and full or partial reproduction is to be considered a reproduction, in any given way and in any given form. Any kind of copying is hereafter covered by §2.

The telephone company’s dissemination of access to the www.thepiratebay.org entails the transmission of copyright protected material through the company’s web. Hereafter, the court takes the view that the transmission of the works by DMT2 Ltd. entails temporary reproduction of the nature treated in §11 of the Danish Copyright Act. The fact that it is a temporary reproduction is to be given no significance, as the reproduction does not take place on a legal basis, cf. UfR 2006.1474 H, Københavns Fogedrets kendelse af 25. Oktober 2006 i sag FS 15124/2006 og Frederiksberg Fogedrets kendelse af 15. August 2007 i sag FS 7509/2007.

On this basis, the court finds that DMT2 Ltd., by giving its customers access to the www.thepiratebay.org, assists in the violation of the copyrights administered by the claimants, cf. the Danish Copyright Act §2, subsection 2, cf. subsection 1. The circumstance that the www.thepiratebay.org in a certain , even though limited , extend gives access to legal filesharing among the users of the website, is not found to legitimate the wrongful violations.

The County Court hereafter takes the view, that DMT2 Ltd. engages in actions that conflict with the rights of the claimants, cf. the Danish Administration of justice Act §642, subsection 1, nr. 1. The remaining grounds for injunction in accordance with the Danish Administration of justice Act §642 are found to be fulfilled as well, an the material presented to the County Court does not give any grounds for stating that an injunction against DMT2 Ltd. will cause damage or inconvenience in any evident disproportion with the claimants interest in such injunction, cf. the Danish Administration of justice Act §643, subsection 2.

It is ordered that:

It is prohibited to the DMT2 Ltd. to assist in the publication and reproduction of audio and motion picture recordings and literary works to which the claimants hold the exclusive copyrights, via the www.thepiratebay.org.

DMT2 Ltd. is ordered to undertake the adequate measures, suitable in the prevention of access for DMT2 Ltd. customers to the website of www.thepiratebay.org and related sub pages and sub domanis.

Case Closed

Court adjourned

Frederiksberg Fogedret d. 29/1 2008

Oversættelse: Nikolaj Heltoft

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

This proposal has come under fire however, by Pirate Parties all around the world. The Chairman of the Austrian Pirate Party, Florian Hufsky, stated “it’s a tyrannical attempt to curtail useful knowledge from the general public on par with policies of China, Saudi Arabia and North Korea. Thus, whilst ineffective as a measure, it is a strong deviation from the principles of the open society.”

With the various Pirate Parties aiming for the European Parliament in 2009, there is not a voice that can easily be discounted, and with the incumbents making these gargantuan faux-pas, it may seem that they are in with a shot of success

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

If it’s any consolation, The Pirate Bay is not alone in being blocked. In March, YouTube was banned for hosting videos that insulted the founder of modern Turkey. To the relief of many Turks, the ban only lasted two days, as Google promptly pulled down the videos. And last month, WordPress.com was blocked because some of its users were charged with defamation of a Turkish author.

The first we heard of the Pirate Bay block was two days ago, when Cenk, a long-time reader of TorrentFreak from Turkey, e-mailed in to let us know that The Pirate Bay was no longer accessible in his country. Cenk states that since last Monday, government has shut down all access to thepiratebay.org. However, the press has said nothing on the matter. “I did not hear about thepiratebay.org getting sued or anything and even there was no news on the newspaper or anywhere,” he wrote.

We asked the TPB guys if they knew anything about this. According to them, it has been blocked “for over a year.” They’re “not sure if it’s the whole country or just the major ISPs,” but “there was some court ruling over it.” That court ruling, we’ve discovered, has ordered Türk Telekom, Turkey’s largest ISP, to block The Pirate Bay, though why exactly is still unknown to both the site’s admins and users of the site in Turkey.

There is a comical irony to this all, given that Turkey is the home of some of the most famous real life pirates history has seen, those of the Barbary coast. One can only guess that they have yet to set sail in the intertubes.

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