The case had been brought by the major labels (headed by EMI) against local ISP UPC in an attempt to force it to block Internet piracy.

“It is not surprising that the legislative response laid down in our country in the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, at a time when this problem was not perceived to be as threatening to the creative and retail economy as it has become in 2010, has made no proper provision for the blocking, diverting or interrupting of internet communications intent on breaching copyright,” Justice Charleton’s judgment began.

The Judge noted that by not having this legislative mechanism in place, Ireland is non-compliant with its obligations under European law.

To address this situation and to appease the labels, late 2011 the government promised to publish an order early this year that would allow rightsholders to go to court to prevent the country’s ISPs from supplying a service which could provide access to infringing sites.

But despite the promises from Ireland’s Minister of State for Enterprise, EMI – who previously threatened to sue the state if they didn’t take the action promised in the previous paragraph – seem to have run out of patience before January even completes its second week.

Yesterday, EMI Records (Ireland) filed a lawsuit against the Irish state for failure to correctly implement certain provisions of EU copyright law.

Lawyer and lecturer at University College Dublin, TJ McIntyre, believes that the labels will rely on a principle under which damages against a state are possible if three conditions are met.

“First, that the result prescribed by the directive should entail the grant of rights to individuals; secondly, that it should be possible to identify the content of those rights on the basis of the provisions of the directive,” he writes.

McIntyre adds that the third condition, that there should be a “causal link” between the breach of the State’s obligation and the losses suffered by (in this case) the labels, could prove problematic.

“Establishing a causal link between Irish law and filesharing will be difficult, particularly given the evidence from elsewhere that blocking is ineffective,” he concludes.

Site blocking could be a last resort for the record labels. Following an investigation into the legality of a 3 strikes-style regime operated by Irish ISP Eircom, in December the country’s Data Protection Commissioner ordered the practice to be brought to a halt on privacy grounds.

Source: EMI Sues Irish State For Not Implementing Piracy Blocking Provisions

Thus far, they have booked minor successes in Denmark and The Netherlands. But they show no sign of stopping and now they are moving on to Irish and Norwegian ISPs.

This week the music industry sent an email to several Internet providers in Ireland, asking the companies to block their users’ access to The Pirate Bay or face legal action. In a response to this request, Eircom said it would agree and the ISP will block customers access to the Pirate Bay starting September 1st.

Thus far Eircom is the only ISP that has caved in to the threatening letter. UPC and BT Ireland – two other local ISPs – explicitly denied the request from the music industry and said they would rather fight the issue out in court.

“UPC has informed the rights holders that there is no basis under Irish law requiring an ISP to block access to certain websites and that it will not agree to a request that goes beyond what is currently provided for under Irish law,” UPC said in a statement.

“Should the rights holders proceed with their threat of legal action if UPC fails to block access to Pirate Bay, UPC has every intention of vigorously defending its position in Court,” they add. BT Ireland sides with UPC and said that there is no legal basis for the request to block The Pirate Bay.

Eircom’s decision to agree to the demands from the music industry doesn’t come as a big surprise. Earlier this year they already reached an agreement in which they promised to warn alleged pirates, and disconnect those who are caught repeatedly.

Source: Eircom Agrees to Block Pirate Bay Access

Details of the arrangement have been fairly limited but now an apparently leaked document gives a unique insight into the private deal put into place to allow Eircom to avoid further expensive legal action at the hands of the music industry.

The document passed to TorrentFreak, titled ‘Briefing Note on Arrangement Between Eircom and Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) with regard to Copyright Infringement March 2009′ begins by giving some background to the deal and why it was implemented.

Listing ‘Key Points of the Draft Protocol’ the document promises that Eircom will not monitor its customer activities or install equipment to achieve the same, and will not provide any customer details to any 3rd party “including the record companies” while adhering closely to laws concerning data protection.

The Evidence

The document explains that IRMA will supply Eircom with IP addresses and evidence to prove infringements. The document specifically lists not just uploading infringements on peer to peer networks but strangely, downloading too. Quite how downloading will be proven will remain to be seen.

Under the agreement, IRMA will supply the following information in their infringement notifications:

1. Details of copyright holder (name and address)
2. Why the notification is being sent (i.e. setting out the breach of copyright)
3. Details of the actual copyright work infringed (artist, song, title and album title)
4. The IP address along with a time stamp to show when the investigation was initiated
5. A time stamp to indicate when the investigation was completed
6. Details of the P2P application used by the alleged infringer
7. The hash value of the infringed copyright work

The document says that the information provided by the record companies “will be of the same type as that used in the three previous disclosure actions in the Irish High Court involving the parties,” noting that Eircom will not act on a notification which does not carry the information listed above.

Additionally, Eircom has requested that IRMA provides independent certification to show that notifications have been lawfully obtained, including “reputable annual independent certification that the necessary legal, I.T., entity level and regulatory controls relating to the obtaining, generating and processing of data by Dtecnet [the anti-piracy tracking company tasked with monitoring infringers] (or any other supplier engaged by the record companies) have been complied with.”

Handling the ‘Graduated Response’

On the first strike, Eircom will inform its customer there has been an accusation of copyright infringement. On the second accusation the customer is warned that he risks being disconnected if there are further allegations. The final step is detailed in the document as follows;

On a third occasion of being detected as infringing copyright, and having reviewed the position, the subscriber will be served by Eircom with a termination notice and, subject to extenuating circumstances arising, will be disconnected thereafter.

So what measures are there to safeguard Eircom’s customers from errors, unfounded disconnections or other mitigating circumstances?

According to the document, at all stages in the process Eircom’s customers will have the right to complain if they feel they have been “inappropriately or incorrectly identified as infringing copyright,” and will be dealt with using the ISP’s existing broadband support systems. Additionally, this section seem to provide a little room for maneuver in certain circumstances;

Eircom has also reserved the right to remove a customer from a particular level or not to effect a disconnection where Eircom has received representations or complaints and believes that the infringement as alleged has not taken place or where there are particular extenuating circumstances which would make the disconnection of the customer unjustified.

Eircom will engage with that person at all times to ensure that there is a full understanding of the issues and that any accidental or unintentional infringement can be identified and remedied.

Dealing with the ultimate sanction – disconnection.

Disconnections will only be carried out when Eircom is “totally satisfied that there is clear evidence of sustained copyright infringement, that the alleged infringing person has had sufficient opportunity to explain its circumstances and that all possibilities that the person was a victim of accidental infringement have been eliminated.”

If the main conditions are met, Eircom will then disconnect its customer based on two elements – a TOS violation (copyright infringement is not allowed on Eircom accounts) and the ISPs legal obligation to disable access to infringing content on ts network, once it has been made aware of it.

Blocking Websites

There had been rumors that Eircom had agreed to block some websites i.e The Pirate Bay, but according to the document, Eircom has not agreed to implement a website filter – on copyright grounds at least. However, as part of the settlement it was agreed that Eircom would not oppose a court application by IRMA to force it to block The Pirate Bay specifically but no other sites are mentioned.

Time will tell if the details above constitute the final agreement, but the framework seems entirely consistent with the way the music industry wants ISPs to handle infringement. This deal with Eircom will be one to watch closely.

Source: Leaked Document Reveals Eircom Deal With Irish RIAA

Crudden claims that the film would not gain coverage in Ireland, due to certain clips contained in the film, pointing out the American taking pictures around 16 minutes into the film, to TorrentFreak as an example. Usually, such low-budget independent releases would have been put on videotape, copied a few dozen times, and passed around those already interested in the topic, a videographic samizdat as it were. With the advent of BitTorrent, the reach of the film-maker has exploded.

When asked why he decided to to release via BitTorrent, Crudden, who described himself as ‘pretty untechnical’, said “Basic answer is I saw Steal this Film and read I stuff kind of in an academic way by Eben Moglen and an Irish guy called Alan Toner and they just argued that this was the maximum efficient system in history for distributing stuff. I also thought it might get out of an activist ghetto that way too.” And get out of the ghetto it has. Whereas, he explained, it used to take “months and months to get rid of 100 VHS tapes of a documentary back in the day,” according to the tracker stats, since its release it was downloaded more than 1000 times.

One of the comments to the first part asked “can we get the cost to make a film low enough to enable a blue-collar moviemaker scene?” Eamonn thinks so, and is working on that, as a part time tutor in film production in Queens University, Belfast. He also has a word of warning for the major Hollywood studios. “[It] makes entry level at a global level easy for people without gatekeepers and cliques determining what gets made. It will get very interesting when a generation really familiar with it start bypassing institutional production AS WELL AS distribution”

The production and dissemination of work which may otherwise be censored is a significant non infringing use of P2P that no court should be quick to dismiss. No court that values free speech anyway.

The torrent for Route Irish is available here.

Source: BitTorrent, Uncensoring Independent Filmmakers