ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a punishing, secretly negotiated copyright treaty that could send ordinary people to jail for copyright infringement. ACTA would establish a new international legal framework that countries can join on a voluntary basis and would create its own governing body outside existing international institution. ACTA has been negotiated in secret during the past few years.
Sounds somewhat worrying to me. ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers’ privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet legitimate commerce. What is ACTA? document gives details on the agreement. The EU will soon vote on ACTA.
La Quadrature ACTA web page says that ACTA would impose new criminal sanctions forcing Internet actors to monitor and censor online communications. It is seen as a major threat to freedom of expression online and creates legal uncertainty for Internet companies. For some details read La Quadrature’s analysis of ACTA’s digital chapter.
La Quadrature du Net – NO to ACTA video (one side of the view):
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published “Speak out against ACTA“, stating that the ACTA threatens free software by creating a culture “in which the freedom that is required to produce free software is seen as dangerous and threatening rather than creative, innovative, and exciting.
ACTA has been negotiated in secret during the past few years. It seem that nobody can objectively tell us what ACTA is going to do. You should oppose it for this exact reason. What exactly it will do is so multi-faceted and so deeply buried in legal speak it requires a book or two to explain.
If you don’t like this you need to do something on that quick. The European Parliament will soon decide whether to give its consent to ACTA, or to reject it once and for all. Based on the information (maybe biased view) I have read I hope the result will be rejection.
Another worrying related thing is Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites in U.S. and outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Proponents of the bill say it protects the intellectual property market. Opponents say it is censorship, that it will “break the internet”, cost jobs, and will threaten whistleblowing and other free speech.
I don’t like this SOPA plan at all, because the language of SOPA is so broad, the rules so unconnected to the reality of Internet technology and the penalties so disconnected from the alleged crimes. In this form according what I have read this bill could effectively kill lots of e-commerce or even normal Internet use in it’s current form. Trying to put a man-in-the-middle into an end-to-end protocol is a dumb idea. This bill affects us all with the threat to seize foreign domains. It is frankly typical of the arrogance of the US to think we should all be subject their authority.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
NZBMatrix Closes Their Website
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/12/09/1325206/nzbmatrix-closes-their-website
“Hot on the heels of the closure of Newzbin2, this morning the usenet NZB indexing website NZBMatrix closed shop in the face of another DMCA notice. NZBMatrix allowed users to sift through messy usenet groups and quickly find data for download”
Comments:
They’re going after the Usenet providers as well, via automated DMCA takedown requests. The providers have no choice but to comply (and to keep up, also automating the process), which means content is effectively gone within hours of being uploaded.
The irony when it comes to TV shows/movies is the same as it used to be with the music industry: the stuff being downloaded is largely not available to buy online legally. I wish they would put their efforts into making this content available for purchase instead of wasting their time trying to stem the flood of copyright infringement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google: Copyright removal requests spike to 2.5 million per week
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/272349-google-copyright-removal-requests-spiked-to-25-million-per-week
Google announced Tuesday that the number of requests it receives each week to remove links to allegedly infringing websites in its search results has grown ten-fold over the past six months.
The number of copyright removal requests sent to Google has risen to more than 2.5 million per week from 250,000 in six months, Google Legal Director Fred von Lohmann said in a company blog post. He said the number spiked after it launched its copyright removals feature in May.
“As policymakers evaluate how effective copyright laws are, they need to consider the collateral impact copyright regulation has on the flow of information online,” von Lohmann writes.
When asked about the spike in take-down requests, a Google spokesperson said they believe some of the increase is from Google streamlining the process to submit requests, and also due in part to copyright owners using more sophisticated tools to identify piracy and send notices to Google.
The search company will now disclose how many Web links to certain websites, such as the Pirate Bay and isoHunt, it removed from its search results because of take-down notices. It will also provide data for how many Web links it removed for each copyright removal request, as well as the percentage of Web links it decided not to remove from its search results.
People will also now be able to download spreadsheets filled with all the copyright removal data included in its “Transparency Report.”
The entertainment industry has criticized Google for not doing enough to crack down on websites that offer pirated copies of movies, music, TV shows and other infringing content. The recording and film industries say their bottom lines have been battered by the rise of infringing sites.
Google was among the most vocal corporate opponents against SOPA and launched an online advocacy campaign against the measure, arguing that it threatened free speech and would stunt innovation.
“We’ll continue to fine tune our removals process to fight online piracy while providing information that gives everyone a better picture of how it works,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
MPs: ‘Chilling’ new libel law will CENSOR THE TRUTH online
We’re not trolling, you can silence a site with an email
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/12/dafamation_bill_human_rights_joint_committee_report/
A proposed overhaul to Britain’s stringent libel law could have “a chilling effect on those publishing material online”, an influential human rights committee warned today.
The tabled amendments to the law of defamation could force website owners to take down defamatory material on request even if there is a valid legal defence to keep it online. That’s according to Parliament’s human rights joint-select committee, which criticised the draft legislation.
As the law stands right now, there are a number of defences to publishing a statement that damages a person’s reputation. One such defence is simply the provable truth: it is defamatory, for instance, to call someone a crook, but it is a justified statement if, say, a court has found them guilty of fraud.
But Clause 5 of the proposed legislation allows someone to order a website to take down a defamatory statement about them regardless of any valid legal defence. If the website complies and censors itself, it can avoid further litigation. If the website operator chooses to stand by the defamatory material then it must run the gauntlet of the High Court.
they were concerned that freedom of speech could be threatened if the government didn’t introduce a “higher threshold” to protect against material said to be defamatory being removed from the internet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Starts Reporting False DMCA Takedown Requests
http://torrentfreak.com/google-starts-reporting-false-dmca-takedown-requests-121213/
Google has quietly rolled out a new feature to its copyright transparency report, allowing the public to see when DMCA takedown notices sent by copyright holders are false. The search giant is currently processing more than a dozen million “infringing” links per month, but points out that not all requests sent by rightsholders are legitimate. As an example, Google cites a request where a major U.S. motion picture studio asked them to censor their IMDb page and official trailer.
In some cases the notices are flagged as false because the content has already been removed from the original site. But the automated systems used by copyright holders also include perfectly legitimate content as we’ve highlighted in the past.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Google either.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ISP Walks Out of Piracy Talks: “We’re Not The Internet Police”
http://torrentfreak.com/isp-walks-out-of-piracy-talks-were-not-the-internet-police-121217/
A leading Australian Internet service provider has pulled out of negotiations to create a warning notice scheme aimed at reducing online piracy. iiNet, the ISP that was sued by Hollywood after refusing to help chase down alleged infringers, said that it can’t make any progress with righthsolders if they don’t make their content freely available at a reasonable price. The ISP adds that holding extra data on customers’ habits is inappropriate and not their responsibility.
tomi says:
Hollywood Studios Caught Pirating Movies on BitTorrent
http://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-studios-caught-pirating-movies-on-bittorrent-121225/
BitTorrent is used by millions of people every day, including people who work at major Hollywood studios. Those who are said to be suffering the most from online piracy are no stranger to sharing copyrighted files themselves. New data reveals that employees at Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Disney, Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox are openly pirating movies, games and other forms of entertainment while at work.
Aftermath: Hot trends 2012 « Tomi Engdahl’s ePanorama blog says:
[...] many attacks for various reasons and SOPA [...]
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tech Giants Brace for More Scrutiny From Regulators
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/technology/tech-giants-learning-the-ways-of-washington-brace-for-more-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Silicon Valley lobbied hard in Washington in 2012, and despite some friction with regulators, fared fairly well. In 2013, though, government scrutiny is likely to grow. And with this scrutiny will come even greater efforts by the tech industry to press its case in the nation’s capital and overseas.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Beyond SOPA: the top nine tech policy stories of 2012
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/more-than-sopa-the-top-nine-tech-policy-stories-of-2012/
Smartphone patent wars, porn trolls, and Kim Dotcom made 2012 a banner year.
The year 2012 started off with one of the most dramatic developments in Internet policy to date: the total implosion of the SOPA/PIPA bills in mid-January. Of all the stories we covered this year, there’s little question the outcry over SOPA most changed the debate in Washington.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Chinese Pirate Bay’ taken down after appearance on US blacklist
Gougou goes way of dodo
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/07/china_gougou/
One of China’s most prolific search engines for pirated content, Gougou, has closed down as the country continues to clean up its act when it comes to intellectual property rights.
It remains to be seen whether it was taken down by the authorities or at owner Xunlei’s behest, although TechInAsia reports that the Chinese online firm was forced in 2011 to cancel its plans for a US IPO because of heavy links to pirated content on Gougou and P2P site Xunlei.
It can’t have helped that both appeared on the latest US government blacklist of Notorious Markets issued last month
After much pressure, local search giant Baidu eventually went legit in 2011 and signed a deal with music mega-corps Sony, Universal and Warner which put paid to its deep linking to pirated content.
Tomi says:
The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”
http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartzs-crime/
If I had taken the stand as planned and had been asked by the prosecutor whether Aaron’s actions were “wrong”, I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as “inconsiderate”.
It is inconsiderate to download lots of files on shared wifi or to spider Wikipedia too quickly, but none of these actions should lead to a young person being hounded for years and haunted by the possibility of a 35 year sentence.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims.
Source: http://blogit.tietokone.fi/lexoksanen/2013/01/13/rip-aaron-swartz-tyosi-tullaan-muistamaan/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Prosecutor Dismisses Charges Against Aaron Swartz
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/swartz-dismissed/??
Tomi Engdahl says:
On humanity, a big failure in Aaron Swartz case
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit/bj8oThPDwzgxBSHQt3tyKI/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw
If it was beyond scandalous that Aaron Swartz was facing 35 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines for downloading a bunch of obscure academic treatises without a subscription, it is beyond tragic that he is now dead.
The argument about whether Swartz should have been facing criminal charges in the first place is largely academic.
It’s true that JSTOR, the subscription-service archive from which Swartz downloaded the articles, didn’t want him prosecuted. MIT, whose computer system Swartz used to download the information, was less forgiving.
People who steal things usually benefit financially from it. Swartz downloaded the material because he believed that such information — in this case, much of it research underwritten by taxpayers — should be free to the public. He did it not to make a buck, but to make a point.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lawmakers slam DOJ prosecution of Swartz as ‘ridiculous, absurd’
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/277353-lawmakers-blast-trumped-up-doj-prosecution-of-internet-activist#ixzz2I8cJBb3m
Tomi Engdahl says:
Congressional Offices Continue to Illegally Download Movies and TV Shows
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/01/14/congress-continues-to-illegally-download-movies-and-tv-shows
Since October, employees of Congress have downloaded everything from the reality TV show “The Ultimate Fighter” to 3D family movie “The Smurfs,” data show.
Unauthorized downloads of copyrighted material is illegal in the U.S.
ScanEye shows the illegal downloads haven’t stopped.
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. Attorney breaks silence, defends prosecution of Aaron Swartz
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2013/01/us-attorney-aaron-swartz-statement.html
Swartz was accused of hacking into an MIT database and downloading thousands of academic articles, which he allegedly intended to disseminate freely. The charges against him reportedly could have carried penalties of more than 30 years.
The prosecutors recognized that there was no evidence against Mr. Swartz indicating that he committed his acts for personal financial gain
a sentence that we would recommend to the judge of six months in a low security setting. While at the same time, his defense counsel would have been free to recommend a sentence of probation. Ultimately, any sentence imposed would have been up to the judge
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 1: The Law)
http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/
The Internet activist Aaron Swartz has died from an apparent suicide. Swartz was facing a criminal trial in April on charges arising from his effort to “liberate” the JSTOR database, and there has been a lot of commentary accusing the prosecutors in his case of having abused their role in ways that contributed to Swartz’s tragic death.
Swartz’s friend Larry Lessig led the way by angrily condemning the prosecutors who charged Swartz as “bullies” who acted like they “had caught the 9/11 terrorists red-handed.” According to Lessig, the prosecutors acted in an “the most absurd or extreme way” and “don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government.” A lot of people seem to agree, and today’s media has picked up the story
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aaron’s Law: Violating a Site’s ToS Should Not Land You in Jail
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/18/0144236/aarons-law-violating-a-sites-tos-should-not-land-you-in-jail
“Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren proposes a change to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) which would remove the felony criminal penalty for violating the terms of service of a website and return it to the realm of contract law where it belongs. This would eliminate the potential for prosecutors to abuse the CFAA in pursuit of criminal convictions for simple violations of a website’s terms of service.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aaron’s Law: Violating a Site’s Terms of Service Should Not Land You in Jail
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/13/01/aarons-law/267247/#
It won’t bring him back. But the loss of the Internet activist has prompted a bill in Congress that would protect others from the same kind of prosecutorial abuse.
Aaron’s alleged “crime” was that he used MIT’s network to access a database of academic journal articles (JSTOR) and download millions of those articles to his laptop computer. He didn’t “hack” the network to secure those downloads: MIT is a famously open network. He didn’t crack any special password system to get behind JSTOR’s digital walls. He simply figured out how JSTOR was filing the articles that he wanted, and wrote a simple script to quickly gather those articles and then copy them to his machine.
All the government had to show to launch its witch hunt against this young activist was that he had violated JSTOR’s “terms of service” and taken (as in copied) something worth more than $5,000.
The “terms of service” (TOS) of any website are basically a contract. They constitute an agreement about what you can and can’t do, and what the provider can and can’t do. Not everything on a website is governed by contract alone: Copyright and privacy law can impose property-like obligations independent of a TOS. But the rules Aaron were said to have violated purported to limit the amount of JSTOR that any user was permitted to download. They were rules of contract. Aaron exceeded those limits, the government charged. He therefore breached the implied contract he had with JSTOR. And therefore, the government insists, he was a felon.
It’s that last step that is so odd within the tradition of American law. Contracts are important. Their breach must be remedied. But American law does not typically make the breach of a contract a felony. Instead, contract law typically requires the complaining party to prove that it was actually harmed. No harm, no foul. And in this case, JSTOR — the only plausible entity “harmed” by Aaron’s acts — pled “no foul.” JSTOR did not want Swartz prosecuted. It settled any possible civil claims against Swartz with the simple promise that he return what he had downloaded. Swartz did. JSTOR went away.
But the government did not. In the weeks before his death, the government reaffirmed what they had been insisting upon for the 18 months before: jail, a felony conviction, and a bankrupting fine, or else Swartz was going to face a bankrupting trial.
This rule of American law is absurd — especially in a world where prosecutors can’t be trusted to make reasoned and proportionate judgments about who should be labeled a felon and who should not. A breach of contract is a breach of contract. It is not an act of treason. It is not a threat to the realm. If every breach of contract worth more than $5,000 were a crime, Manhattan wouldn’t be the world’s most amazing city. Manhattan would be a federal penitentiary, with every prominent Wall Street firm very well represented. Fail to execute a trade on time? Two years in jail. Back out on an acquisition? Thirty to life.
Computer law is different, however, because Congress didn’t really understand this “wild west” (as the network was called when Congress passed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 1986), and because geeks make them uncomfortable. For 25 years, the CFAA has given federal prosecutors almost unbridled discretion to bully practically anyone using a computer network in ways the government doesn’t like. It does that by essentially criminalizing the violations of a site’s “terms of service” in combination with obtain[ing] anything of” at least $5,000 in value.
Aaron Swartz is dead — in my view, as a friend who knew him well for more than a decade –at least in part because of this breach of its duty by the government. Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney overseeing the prosecution, demonstrated that breach with the ignorance she displayed when this indictment was announced. As she said then, “Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar,” — demonstrating she knows nothing about computers, and apparently nothing about crowbars.
But now Congress may actually do something to remedy at least part of this important flaw. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has introduced a draft bill — importantly, first on Reddit, a platform Aaron had helped to build, and, once she gets the Net’s feedback, in the United States Congress — to change this rule of the CFAA and return contract law to its civil home. Her bill, which she calls “Aaron’s Law,” would limit the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and exclude “crimes” that are nothing more than a breach of contract. No more “felonies.” No more prosecutions resulting in prison sentences.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kim Dotcom reveals Mega will offer 50GB of free storage, hopes to offer Megaupload data transfer
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/17/kim-dotcom-reveals-mega-will-offer-50gb-of-free-storage-hopes-to-offer-megaupload-data-transfer/
Kim Dotcom on Thursday used Twitter to reveal some interesting new tidbits in regards to his upcoming Mega service, which will be hosted at the New Zealand-based domain Mega.co.nz. Two days before the service is to go live, Doctom says he plans to offer 50GB of free storage to all members and is also working on bringing over users’ Megaupload files and data, but has so far run into legal issues.
This is a huge amount of free storage. It’s easily more than the 2GB offered by Dropbox, the 5GB by Google Drive, or the 7GB from Microsoft’s SkyDrive.
Mega will launch on January 20 during “a press conference like no other.” The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will of course be watching closely
Tomi Engdahl says:
File-Sharing Is Riskier Than You Know
http://inthepersonalcloud.com/2012/11/29/file-sharing-is-riskier-than-you-know/
The sheer ease of file-sharing in 2012 is astounding but what might be even more shocking is the number of people who choose to download files like music and movies illegally.
According to an article from The Guardian, over 43 million people illegally downloaded songs in the UK alone during the first six months of the year. But the landscape overall is still largely unchanged; virtually everything you could possibly think of is available just as quickly and still without cost. File-sharing though seemingly innocuous, is a risky habit that makes you, your personal information and computer or phone susceptible to harm.
Let’s start off with the most obvious thing: malware. A study a few years ago found that nearly 20 percent of files downloaded from the internet, legal and illegal, contain some form of malware.
If you’re using BitTorrent to illegally procure files, you’re possibly opening doors in your system
There’s two more points about file-sharing that get a bit less attention.
running a bunch of torrents, you’re you’re negatively affecting your machine’s performance and leaving less bandwidth for other applications to do important things
Finally, if you’re illegally file-sharing, you might just get busted. It happens and the Recording Industry Association of America and the US judicial system are largely unforgiving.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Survey Suggests P2P Users Buy More Music
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/21/0129236/survey-suggests-p2p-users-buy-more-music
“A new survey commissioned by Google suggests that music listeners who utilize P2P filesharing services buy 30% more music than non-sharers.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIT Warned of a JSTOR Death Sentence Due To Swartz
JSTOR acted naively, but corrected itself later. MIT acted naively and then stupidly, but realized their mistake too late. Prosecutors acted like prosecutors typically do these days (I.E. tyranically) and a vulnerable kid took the least painful way out.
Source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/22/0219224/mit-warned-of-a-jstor-death-sentence-due-to-swart
Tomi Engdahl says:
Swartz didn’t face prison until feds took over case, report says
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57565927-38/swartz-didnt-face-prison-until-feds-took-over-case-report-says/
The late Internet activist was facing a stern warning from local prosecutors. But then the U.S. Attorney’s office, run by Carmen Ortiz, chose to make an example of Aaron Swartz, a new report says.
The report is likely to fuel an online campaign against Ortiz, who has been criticized for threatening the 26-year-old with decades in prison for allegedly downloading a large quantity of academic papers. An online petition asking President Obama to remove from office Ortiz — a politically ambitious prosecutor who was talked about as Massachusetts’ next governor as recently as last month.
Ortiz has defended her actions as appropriate.
Ortiz compared Swartz to a common criminal in a 2011 press release. “Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar,” Ortiz said at the time. Earlier this month, less than three months before the criminal trial was set to begin, Ortiz’s office formally rejected a deal that would have kept Swartz out of prison.
If Swartz had stolen a $100 hard drive with the JSTOR articles, it would have been a misdemeanor offense that would have yielded probation or community service.
But the sweeping nature of federal computer crime laws allowed Ortiz and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann, who wanted a high-profile computer crime conviction, to pursue felony charges. Heymann threatened the free-culture activist with over 30 years in prison as recently as the week before he killed himself.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Antigua’s Legal “Pirate Site” Authorized by the World Trade Organization
http://torrentfreak.com/antiguas-legal-pirate-site-authorized-by-the-world-trade-organization-130128/
Last week we broke the news that the island nation Antigua and Barbuda wants to start a Government run “pirate” site.
Today, this plan came a step closer to reality when the Caribbean country received authorization from the WTO to suspend U.S. copyrights during a meeting in Geneva.
The decision confirmed the preliminary authorization the Caribbean island received in 2007, and means that the local authorities can move forward with their plan to start a download portal which offers movies, music and software without compensating the American companies that make them.
Thus far, the U.S. has only warned Antigua that “Government-authorized piracy” would harm the ongoing settlement discussions.
“Government-authorized piracy would undermine chances for a settlement that would provide real benefits to Antigua. It also would serve as a major impediment to foreign investment in the Antiguan economy, particularly in high-tech industries,” U.S. officials said earlier.
However, these comments haven’t changed Antigua’s course.
“We assume this is just rhetoric for public consumption”
If Antigua does indeed pull through, it will be rather interesting to see how the U.S. responds. It might add a whole new dimension to the ongoing “war on piracy.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Proxied Torrents Could End ISP Subpoenas
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/28/1645252/how-proxied-torrents-could-end-isp-subpoenas
“I think it’s inevitable that we’ll see the rise of p2p software that proxifies your downloads through other users. In this model, you would not only download content from other users, but you also use other users’ machines as anonymizing proxies for the downloads, which would make it impossible for third parties to identify the source or destination of the file transfer.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Prosecution of Swartz Typical for the “Sick Culture” Pervading the DOJ
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/29/0219239/prosecution-of-swartz-typical-for-the-sick-culture-pervading-the-doj
“there’s something wrong with bringing prosecutions so complex that they are guaranteed to bankrupt all but the wealthiest. These tactics have become so normal within the Department of Justice that few who operate within the bowels of this increasingly corrupt system can even see why it is corrupt.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
WTO Approves Suspension of US Copyright in Antigua
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/29/0020218/wto-approves-suspension-of-us-copyright-in-antigu
“On Thursday TorrentFreak broke the story (verified by BBC) that the government of Antigua and Barbuda, a tiny island nation on the Caribbean, was planning to launch a legal ‘pirate’ website selling movies, music and software without paying a penny to U.S. copyright holders. Now, the World Trade Organization has given its final approval for the Antigua government to launch the website.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software That Flagged HBO.com For Piracy Will Power U.S. ‘Six Strikes’ System
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/02/05/1846233/software-that-flagged-hbocom-for-piracy-will-power-us-six-strikes-system
“A copyright monitoring program called MarkMonitor mistakenly flagged HBO.com for pirating its own shows, and sent automatic DMCA takedown notices to the network. It’s a funny story, until you realize that MarkMonitor is the same software that will power the U.S. Copyright Alerts System (a.k.a. “Six Strikes”), due to be rolled out by the five largest U.S. ISPs sometime in the next month.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Movie industry not entitled to Usenet piracy profits, UK high court rules
http://www.itworld.com/it-management/340679/movie-industry-not-entitled-usenet-piracy-profits-uk-high-court-rules
A copyright infringer is more akin to a trespasser than to a coin thief, the judge said
The movie industry has no rights to the profits made by the owner of Usenet-indexing website Newzbin2 by infringing on copyrights, the England and Wales High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, has ruled.
“A copyright owner does not have a proprietary claim to the fruits of an infringement of copyright. I shall not, therefore, grant proprietary injunctions,” wrote judge Guy Newey in a ruling published on Tuesday.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), represented by Universal Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Disney and Columbia Pictures, sued David Harris, the operator of the Newzbin2 website, and Christopher Elsworth , who used to run the site’s predecessor Newzbin.com.
Newzbin2 was a British website that indexed binary files posted on Usenet. The site also created files in the NZB format listing all the Usenet messages containing the constituent parts of a posted binary file, allowing users to download the posted files more easily.
The studios started litigation against the site’s predecessor, Newzbin, in 2008
After the ruling, Newzbin was taken down, but soon after this Newzbin2 came into existence, essentially doing the same as its predecessor. Newzbin2 was closed by its operators in November last year.
Newey ruled that a copyright infringer cannot be compared to a thief who steals a bag of coins, as submitted by the studios’ lawyer. “A copyright infringer is more akin to a trespasser” than to a coin thief, Newey said.
“That leads to the next point: that a landowner has no proprietary claim to the fruits of a trespass,”
The MPAA will seek leave to appeal the case because it believes the decision does not take the specific facts of this case into account, a spokeswoman said in an email.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Four years in the Pirate Bay: director Simon Klose on why file-sharing is still political
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/7/3964086/pirate-bay-director-simon-klose-on-file-sharing-mpaa-kim-dotcom
Filmmaker Simon Klose has spent the last four years following the founders of The Pirate Bay through its legal struggles, technical issues, and ongoing battle with some of the most powerful corporations on Earth. Tomorrow, he’s releasing his documentary on the subject, TPB-AFK, distributed free under a Creative Commons license. The Verge caught up with Klose to talk about file-sharing, Kim Dotcom, and the decision to give away his movie for free.
Do you think sites like the Pirate Bay have to be run by outlaws, or will we get to a point where these services are legal?
I don’t know. Some people see the Pirate Bay as digital civil disobedience. This power shift has given three young dudes the power to run one of the internet’s largest sites for a decade, having some of the wealthiest corporations and governments against them. The sort of power shift where that’s possible, it’s really interesting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The inside story of Aaron Swartz’s campaign to liberate court filings
And how his allies are trying to finish the job by tearing down a big paywall.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/the-inside-story-of-aaron-swartzs-campaign-to-liberate-court-filings/
Years before the JSTOR scraping project that led to Aaron Swartz’s indictment on federal hacking charges—and perhaps to his suicide—the open-data activist scraped documents from PACER, the federal judiciary’s paywalled website for public access to court records. (The acronym PACER stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records, which may sound like it’s straight out of 1988 because it is.) Swartz got 2.7 million documents before the courts detected his downloads and blocked access. The case was referred to the FBI, which investigated Swartz’s actions but declined to prosecute him.
A key figure in Swartz’s PACER effort was Steve Schultze, now a researcher at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. Schultze recruited Swartz to the PACER fight and wrote the Perl script Swartz modified and then used to scrape the site.
Until recently, Schultze has been quiet about his role in Swartz’s PACER scraping caper. But Swartz’s death inspired Schultze to speak out.
Schultze and Swartz conferred with open government advocate Carl Malamud, who offered to provide server space to store the gigabytes of data they hoped to liberate.
Swartz asked a friend to go to a Sacramento library that was participating in the program. After the librarian logged the friend into the library’s PACER account, the friend extracted an authentication cookie set by the PACER site. Because this cookie wasn’t tied to any specific IP address, it allowed access to the library’s PACER account from anywhere on the Internet.
Access denied
It took a while for the courts to figure out what was happening. “The way the library trial was set up was that the courts would continue to track usage but would simply never bill the libraries for the usage that occurred,” Schultze told us.
Swartz started his downloading in early September. On September 29, court administrators noticed the Sacramento library racked up a $1.5 million bill. The feds shut down the library’s account.
“I thought at the time he was actually in the libraries.”
“Apparently PACER access at the main library I was crawling from has been shut down, presumably because of the crawl,” Swartz told Schultze and Malamud in an e-mail that day.
The courts issued a vague statement about suspending the program “pending an evaluation.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Warner Bros. Defends Allegations It Abused Anti-Piracy Tool
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/warner-bros-defends-allegations-abused-419756
In court papers filed this week, the studio reveals its views on whether fair use needs to be considered when causing files to be removed from the Internet.
Very few actions cause more controversy online than when a copyright holder causes the takedown of material argued to be completely legitimate.
Since then, there have been efforts to collect a database of false DMCA takedowns. Meanwhile, there’s been a legal debate over whether copyright holders must consider fair use before sending takedown notices.
Maybe that issue seems settled. Perhaps it isn’t.
Here’s the full brief.
In some smaller respects, there’s common agreement with how Warner Bros. and the EFF are reading the recent Lenz ruling. The studio says that failure to consider fair use won’t “give rise to liability,” which is another way of saying there’s really no penalty for not considering fair use. The EFF says in its own blog post the “the practical problem…If a trial is required to prove up a DMCA misrepresentation claim, few people victimized by unfounded takedowns will have the resources and time to obtain redress.”
In short, do copyright owners have to consider fair use? That’s still subjective.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computer News “Pirate Bay inhibition of no use,”
IP and DNS-blocking methods are useless, since as early as the first search engines to those matches any user can Unblocked proxy service sites.
“The most effective prevention can be achieved by closing the site. Another option would be to block access to the site for the location of carrier networks, the site is not possible, either directly or through a proxy server, “Savola said.
Savola believes that Finland on prevention regulations are problematic for operators, among other things, that the costs incurred by them. Costs can be particularly unfair because the inefficient inhibition with not just be reduced even those pursuing copyright holders losses.
“It seems to be more a policy against copyright power play as the need to truly solve the problem,” Savola suspects.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/pirate_bay_estoista_ei_ole_hyotya
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anti-Piracy Group Rips Off Pirate Bay Website, Faces Lawsuit
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-group-rips-off-pirate-bay-website-faces-lawsuit-130213/
A Finnish anti-piracy group has copied the design of The Pirate Bay website for their latest anti-piracy campaign. The Pirate Bay is outraged by this move and says it will sue the group for breaking their site policy, which clearly states that organizations are not permitted to steal the site design for nefarious purposes. “People must understand what is right and wrong,” The Pirate Bay says.
Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC, known worldwide for tracking down a 9 year-old “pirate girl” and having her Winnie The Pooh laptop confiscated, launched a controversial campaign yesterday.
The group copied The Pirate Bay’s design for their campaign site, including the CSS stylesheet, and replaced the logo with one of a sinking ship.
Of course the site doesn’t host any torrents. Instead, all links point to a page which informs visitors that there are plenty of legal alternatives to The Pirate Bay.
The Pirate Bay, generally quite supportive of copy-pasting, is not happy with CIAPC’s apparent infringement and plans to take legal steps against the anti-piracy group.
“We are outraged by this behavior. People must understand what is right and wrong. Stealing material like this on the internet is a threat to economies worldwide,” a Pirate Bay spokesman told TorrentFreak.
CIAPC effectively copied The Pirate Bay CSS stylesheet. This is a violation of The Pirate Bay’s usage policy, which specifically prohibits the use of any site material without permission.
“We reserve the rights to charge for usage of the site in case this policy is violated”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comments from http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-group-rips-off-pirate-bay-website-faces-lawsuit-130213/
That’s brilliant. If they rule in favor of The Pirate Bay, the group has to pay. If they rule against them, Pirate Bay gets legal precedent to say that copyrights are invalid.
Was thinking that – how dumb! If this gets into court it will be very interesting.
Who said that it had to be the site owners that personally take legal action for copyright infringement against TPB?
Copyright infringement is copyright infringement regardless of who carries it out – however as TPB is not a hosting site, they don’t infringe diddly squat – stealing the code of their website and reusing it without permission is a blatant infringement.
It’s an equal catch 22 for anyone against copyright.
If TPB starts defending their copyrights that would be inconsistency of the highest order
This is now confusing. Copyright infringement is now blurry. Pirate Bay itself is hypocrite already by sueing them… or by making such term on their website. Both sides are wrong here.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Iceland Wants to Ban Internet Porn
http://gizmodo.com/5984264
The Icelandic government believes that, since porn can damage children through computers, game consoles and smartphones, they should just ban it completely from the country’s internet tubes. Apparently, making parents responsible for their children education and the materials they are exposed to is not an option and, instead, they want to prohibit every Icelandic citizen to access porn.
Some of their ideas so far:
- block porn IP addresses and
- making it illegal to use Icelandic credit cards to access x-rated sites.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Pirate Bay Reports Anti-Piracy Outfit to the Police
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-reports-anti-piracy-outfit-to-the-police-130218/
The Pirate Bay has asked the Economic Crime unit of the Finnish police to investigate the alleged criminal actions of anti-piracy group CIAPC. Last week the group copied The Pirate Bay’s design, violating the site’s usage policy. In their complaint TPB cite a similar case where the owner of a parody site was prosecuted recently. “We will not stand by and watch copyright enforcing organizations disrespect copyright,” TPB comments.
The “parody” defense doesn’t apply under Finnish law, TPB argues, citing a recent case in Finland.
“In a similar case, the prosecution and the Helsinki Court of Appeals have found that a parody site can violate the moral rights of the original author. Changing the logo or making slight edits to the text are not enough to remove this liability,” they informed the police.
While The Pirate Bay recognizes the irony of the case, they feel that they have to pursue this matter.
Should The Pirate Bay be awarded damages they won’t keep that money for themselves. Instead, the money will go to the 9-year old girl who was “harassed” last year.
But, even if they “lose” it wouldn’t be a big deal, as that’s a win for the right to parody.
“It’s interesting to see, how the police reacts to Pirate Bay’s demands. On facts the case is indeed very similar to Matti Nikki’s case, in which the prosecutor decided to bring the charges on behalf of Save the Children.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google looks to cut funds to illegal sites
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/9875339/Google-looks-to-cut-funds-to-illegal-sites.html#disqus_thread
Google is in discussions with payment companies including Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to put illegal download websites out of existence by cutting off their funding.
If Google goes ahead with the radical move, it would not mark the first time that illegal websites have been diminished or driven out of business by having a block put on their source of cash.
In 2011, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, cut off all donations to WikiLeaks, the controversial website headed by Julian Assange, which blew the lid on a string of government secrets by publishing classified information online.
The Californian company is wary that the radical plan may have unintended consequences, for instance companies using it to stamp out the competition, but it is thrashing out details and could put it into action in the spring.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Enforcing copyrights in Europe
In the absence of laws, private companies are doing the job
http://www.cjr.org/cloud_control/post_acta_in_europe.php
if SOPA, which would have expanded the ability to enforce copyright, had passed, “entire websites could’ve been shut down just for linking to [the clip].”
Although SOPA and its European equivalent, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), were rejected last year, the spirit of the laws that never were lives on, said attendees at an Internet conference last week in Vienna, organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
“ACTA is dead in its past form, but the underlying ideas are still alive,”
The European Commission is tackling the copyright issue by studying it for a year
“the current fragmented rules in Europe and elsewhere have created frustrations,”
Meanwhile, in the absence of ACTA or any other new copyright agreement, the trend now is toward private enforcement by intermediaries through their terms and conditions contracts.
Online intermediaries, like YouTube, Google, domain hosts, PayPal, or Facebook, have written takedown policies into their terms and conditions contracts so that they will not be seen as accomplices to copyright infringement, libel, or other illegal content. To limit their own liability, they retain the right to remove or disable content
“What they say is, ‘We may remove any application for any reason or for no reason,’” McNamee said, echoing other critics who charge that the current right to remove content is too broad. The way they see it, there are two problems. First, online hosts are being asked to protect copyright laws that have become outdated in the 21st century. Second, free speech is being circumvented.
Dawn Nunziato, professor of copyright law at George Washington University, said that if any Internet speech is to be blocked, it must be done with transparency, notice, and foreseeability. There can’t be any secret blocking or filtering, she said. Internet users must be able to predict in advance what the scope of the restriction is going to be. And, she added, they must have the right to appeal.
“It you’re going to distinguish between legal speech and illegal speech, you’re required to use a scalpel and not a sledgehammer,” she said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
RIAA Says Google’s Anti-Piracy Search Algorithm Is Bogus
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/riaa-google-algorithm-is-bogus/
The Recording Industry Association of America said Thursday that Google’s algorithm change to lower rankings of sites with “high numbers” of copyright-infringing removal notices has had no “demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme Starts Monday
http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-starts-monday-130223/
The much-discussed U.S. six strikes anti-piracy scheme is expected to go live on Monday. The start date hasn’t been announced officially by the CCI but a source close to the scheme confirmed the plans. During the coming months millions of BitTorrent users will be actively monitored by copyright holders. After repeated warnings, Internet subscribers risk a heavy reduction in download speeds and temporary browsing restrictions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet providers launch controversial Copyright Alert System, promise ‘education’ over lawsuits
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/25/4026194/infamous-six-strike-anti-piracy-program-barks-harder-than-it-bites
The new program rolls out with five major internet service providers today, but the bark is worse than the bite
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Pirate Bay Departs Sweden And Sets Sail For Norway and Spain
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-departs-sweden-and-sets-sail-for-norway-and-spain-130225/
Following threats of legal action in its traditional home of Sweden, a few hours ago The Pirate Bay set sail for pastures new. Sweden’s Pirate Party had been providing bandwidth to the site for the last three years but came under intense pressure last week when a local anti-piracy group threatened to sue. The Swedish pirates have now stepped aside and handed the responsibilities to pirate parties in Norway and Spain.
When it comes to hosting a website there are thousands of companies and organizations around the world open for business. However, the options reduce massively when your site is internationally infamous.
For this reason The Pirate Bay has been hosted in many countries over the years, hopping across borders when one country or another became intolerant to its activities. As legal and political pressure mounted on the site its options narrowed further, with the threat of police raids eventually forcing even more drastic countermeasures.
With a seamless transition The Pirate Bay is now being serviced by the pirate parties of Norway and Catalunya.
“TPB did of course have lots of backup transit lined up for ages. This is however the first time we are going to show two at the same time,” The Pirate Bay’s Winona told TorrentFreak.
“It will be interesting to see who is now blamed for hosting TPB. In the end, maybe the anti-interneterians will understand that they can’t win a fight when they have the people against them.”
The decision to choose Norway and Spain as locations for The Pirate Bay is perhaps best viewed through the prism of recent court action in the former and a complete lack of action in the latter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme Starts, With Mystery Punishments
http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-starts-130225/
After a long wait, the controversial “six-strikes” anti-piracy system kicks off in the United States. Soon the first BitTorrent users will receive so-called copyright alerts from their Internet provider and after multiple warnings subscribers will be punished. But, what these punishments entail remains a bit of a mystery. None of the participating ISPs have officially announced how they will treat repeat infringers and the CCI doesn’t have this information either.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Should you be worried about the new “six strikes” anti-piracy rules? Yes and no
http://gigaom.com/2013/02/26/should-you-be-worried-about-the-new-six-strikes-anti-piracy-rules-yes-and-no/
Summary:
A new system of warnings for users who download copyrighted content is being rolled out by some of the biggest internet service providers in the United States. Is it something you should be concerned about? That depends.
Why you shouldn’t be worried:
It doesn’t affect all internet service providers
You get six strikes, which is probably more than you need
You won’t get cut off, just lectured and irritated
There are lots of ways around these restrictions
Why you should be worried:
Your ISP is going to be doing some heavy snooping
The new rules don’t take into account fair use
Copyright holders are unlikely to stop here
This puts commercial entities in place of laws
The bottom line: There’s reason for concern
In the end, while this move may not affect you directly — or may only be a minor irritation in your daily life — the fact remains that it marks another attempt by content owners to exert their influence in areas that should belong to the courts and should in principle be protected by things like the First Amendment and the principle of fair use, neither of which are even mentioned by the promoters of this process.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NPD: Illegal P2P music sharing declined 17% in 2012 as Internet users turn to free, legal streaming services
http://thenextweb.com/media/2013/02/26/npd-illegal-p2p-music-sharing-declined-17-in-2012-as-internet-users-turn-to-free-legal-streaming-services/
These latest figures come from NPD’s annual music study, which shows P2P wasn’t the only sharing activity to shrink. In fact, it looks like music sharing as an activity in general is dying out, at least if you look at some of the most popular ways of doing so:
Music files burned and ripped from CDs owned by friends and family fell 44 percent.
The number of files swapped from hard drives dropped 25 percent.
The volume of music downloads from digital lockers decreased 28 percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
For the First Time Since Napster, Music Sales Are Growing
http://allthingsd.com/20130226/for-the-first-time-since-napster-music-sales-are-growing/
The last time music was a growth business was 1999 — back when people bought millions of Britney Spears CDs, and GeoCities was the third-most popular Web property in the world. You know what’s happened since then.
But music’s slide may have finally stopped. Last year, recorded-music sales inched up 0.3 percent worldwide, to $16.5 billion, according to industry trade group IFPI. That’s the first time global sales have increased since the Napster era, and it echoes bumps we’ve seen earlier in the U.S. and other markets.
If the growth sustains, it means that the predictions we’ve been hearing for a decade and a half have finally come true: Digital sales are increasing fast enough to outpace the decline in physical. Last year, digital grew 9 percent and accounted for 34 percent of revenue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hollywood targets “rogue” mobile apps in war on pirated content
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/01/net-us-hollywood-apps-idUSBRE92003Y20130301
Hollywood studios, which for years have waged a war against online piracy, are now going after so-called “rogue” mobile apps that use images from movies and television shows without their permission.
Google responded to Warner’s notice and removed the app within days, in the latest example of how Hollywood is stepping up its efforts to protect its intellectual property in the quickly expanding app market, which is pegged at $20 billion in 2013.