CyberLaw Blog

Archive for May 6th, 2008

New York Piracy Law Smells Fishy Says Pirates: “

The new law proposes to make the recording of films in a cinema a class A misdemeanor with penalties of up to a year in prison, and a $1,000 fine for a first offender. Repeat offenders would be charged with a felony, and correspondingly higher penalties.

Unusually, however, the bill is unnecessary, as the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (link) already criminalized this action, with much stronger penalties. The question then seems to be not what the act is about, but WHY?

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

New York Piracy Law Smells Fishy Says Pirates

Broadband group: Some P-to-P blocking reasonable: “A broadband trade group representative told the U.S. Congress that carriers should be allowed to practice network management and slow P-to-P network access.

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(Via Macworld.)

EU – Commission supports EU Coalition of Stakeholders against commercial sexual exploitation of children on the Internet: “(RAPID)
Vice-President Barrot, Commissioner responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security, has expressed his strong support for the advanced plans to set up an EU Coalition of Stakeholders against commercial sexual exploitation of children on the Internet, presented by Missing Children Europe and other stakeholders at a press conference.”

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

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Wikipedia goes to court to defend defamation immunity: “Wikipedia, the free, user-generated online encyclopedia, faces a court battle to protect itself from liability for everything that users post on the site. The company behind the site will argue that it should be granted immunity under US law.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

RIAA Wants ISPs to Act on Piracy: “The RIAA’s Mitch Bainwol is back on Capitol Hill, and this time, he’s not touting how online piracy has been contained. Actually, quite the contrary. If there was a music industry equivalent of an SOS, today’s testimony would be it. Authorized downloads are way down, revenue has plummeted, and file-sharing networks seem impervious to just about anything thrown at it.”

(Via Slyck.com File-Sharing News And Information.)

Australian Bishops Urge Government to Ban Internet Porn: “Australian Bishops have issued a new call to action titled ‘Internet Safety: A Pastoral Letter from the Catholic Bishops of Australia,’ a missive that takes special aim at Internet pornography, calling it ‘…one of the most evil uses of the Internet.’”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

Cops demand more time in marathon OiNK investigation: “

BitTorrent admin probe continues

Cleveland police have again extended the bail granted to Alan Ellis, the administrator of Oink.cd, an invitation-only BitTorrent tracker shut down in a high profile dawn raid last October.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Former beer pitchman admits to child porn charges: Shannon Kari, Canwest News Service. Published: Monday, May 05, 2008

TORONTO – A Toronto actor previously featured in a series of high-profile beer commercials pleaded guilty Monday to possessing hundreds of images of child pornography and several hours of illegal video clips downloaded from the Internet.

Robert Smith, 42, made the admission mid-way through his trial after he abandoned legal arguments that the evidence found by police should be excluded because search warrants were obtained improperly.

The actor pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography and one count of making child pornography available.”

Tracking Down The Child Abusers (from The Northern Echo)

Stories about child pornography are increasing. But is the crime more common, or its detection more effective? How do police catch paedophiles and what toll does it take on officers?
In the first of a two-part series, Owen Amos finds out…

The Guardian: CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police: “

It is hard to resist shouting ‘Told You So !’:

CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police

Owen Bowcott
The Guardian,
Tuesday May 6 2008

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard as the force launches a series of initiatives to try to boost conviction rates using CCTV evidence. They include:

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