CyberLaw Blog

Archive for August 14th, 2008

Leaked Shows Signal Start of ‘Pre-Air’ Season: “With increasing frequency, illicit copies of new television shows debut on file sharing networks before they make it to the airwaves.

(Via Wired News.)

Another Internet Site Is Banned: “The censorship against the internet sites is continuing in Turkey. After youtube.com and dailymotion, not the sites of kliptube and gundemonline.com are banned, too.”

(more…)

Olympic Committee wins gold for foot shooting: “

Free publicity for protest video

YouTube has pulled a video of a Free Tibet protest after receiving a takedown notice from the International Olympics Committee.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Sharing 2999 Songs, 199 Movies Becomes ‘Safe’ in Germany

Prosecutors in a German state have announced they will refuse to entertain the majority of file-sharing lawsuits in future. It appears that only commercial-scale copyright infringers will be pursued, with those sharing under 3000 music tracks and 200 movies dropping under the prosecution radar.

During the last few years the legal climate in Germany has become more and more weighted against file-sharers, with hundreds of thousands receiving threats of legal action. Based on information gathered by anti-p2p tracking outfits, an offense is reported which the public prosecution service is obliged to investigate due to the fact that copyright infringement is a criminal issue in Germany. The ISP of the alleged infringer would then be forced to hand over the personal details of those accused, who would then be threatened with legal action.

Very often the legal action is not carried out but the threats are used as leverage to get ‘compensation’ from the alleged infringer to hand to the rights holder. It seems that the legal system in German has had enough of this ‘abuse’ of the criminal law system for ‘civil’ monetary gain.

In an interview with Jetzt.de, prosecutors from the Nort-Rhine Westphalia area state that those sharing files for personal, non-commercial uses, will no longer be the target of a lawsuit.

Christian Solmecke, a lawyer working at Lawyers Wilde & Beuger and currently defending around 500 file-sharers against the German music industry told TorrentFreak: ‘That means, that the music industry in Germany has no chance to find out the real address behind an IP-address at the moment,’ which is clearly a major obstacle for someone looking to take legal action.

The dividing line between personal file-sharing and commercial file-sharing needs to be defined clearly under the law, and the prosecutors have gone some way in offering this definition. ‘The guidelines say that no investigation should be done if the damage is lower than 3000 Euros (approx $4,500),’ Christian told us. ‘The guideline says that the damage of trading one song is 1 Euro ($1.50). That means, that you could have 2999 Files on your computer and the prosecutors will not investigate.’

The damages for a movie are being touted at 15 Euros (approx $22.00) each, so presumably anyone sharing less than 200 movies will be considered a non-commercial file-sharer and should avoid prosecution. However, the prosecutor has indicated that those sharing brand new movies still in theater cannot expect to receive the same treatment.

Christian told TorrentFreak: ‘This decision is very new, we do not know what consequences it will have or if all prosecutors in Germany will follow the new guidelines.’ However, the German music industry is clearly unhappy, labeling the decision as ‘a catastrophe’ and refusing to accept it.

Should this decision spread around Germany, P2P tracking outfits such as Logistep AG and the German company Digiprotect will have to look elsewhere to make up their revenue. There are indications that Digiprotect is already branching out into the UK, in a new partnership with everyone’s favorite anti-p2p lawyers, Davenport Lyons.

Olympic Committee Takedown Shows Risks of Ill-Timed Take-Downs | Electronic Frontier Foundation: “Olympic Committee Takedown Shows Risks of Ill-Timed Take-Downs”

Deeplink by Corynne McSherry

It’s never OK to use improper copyright claims to take down legitimate, non-infringing content, but such takedowns are particularly galling when they are timed to directly interfere with the impact of a political message. That’s what happened this week to the Free Tibet movement, and the situation illustrates the risks of a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to copyright policing.

The 2008 Olympic Games have been marked by controversy relating to the human rights record of its host, China. Two days ago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) added to the debate by demanding that YouTube block a video of a protest by Students For A Free Tibet. The demand appeared to be based on a bogus copyright infringement claim: the protesters had projected various images on the wall of the Chinese consulate in New York, and the video of the protest was titled “Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony.”

This is not the first time the IOC has used an intellectual property claim to stomp on speech. Nor is it the first time a content owner has caught a dolphin in its DMCA takedown driftnet. But the political and time-sensitive nature of this video made this “mistake” particularly appalling.

The blogosphere reacted with outrage, and rightly so. EFF made some inquiries of our own (we understand YouTube did so as well) and the IOC ultimately withdrew the complaint. That is a good thing. But this takedown highlights a larger problem. It takes just seconds to have a video taken down, but over two weeks to get a video put back up. And YouTube’s hair-trigger content verification program has made takedown even easier and faster—content owners can rapidly create lists of videos for takedown, and then send a takedown demand with a couple of additional clicks.

If IOC had not withdrawn its notice, here’s what would have happened in this case: the protesters’ DMCA counter-notice would have started the clock running and, if the IOC didn’t sue within 10-14 days—which of course it wouldn’t have, because it didn’t have a claim—the video would be restored. But that wouldn’t happen until after the 2008 games were over, and the delay would inevitably lessen the video’s political impact. As political organizers of all stripes know, timing is everything.

The DMCA was not designed to help content owners silence legitimate speech, even temporarily. But that’s exactly what happens when content owners don’t bother to form a good faith belief that the material they target is actually infringing. Shame on the IOC for failing to meet its minimal obligations.

(Via Techdirt.)

The IOC Joins the DMCA Censorship Club: “The International Olympic Committee is no stranger to overzealous protection of what they perceive to be their intellectual property. We’ve covered their ridiculous attempts to change British law to ‘protect’ the terms ‘Olympics’ and ‘2012′ (the year London hosts the summer games). It seems the folks at the IOC want to control all aspects of their sporting event, even how people discuss it. Knowing this, and the ways in which the DMCA has been abused time and time again, it was hardly surprising when the IOC sent a take-down notice to YouTube for a video posted by Students for a Free Tibet.

The video, which showed a pro-Tibet candle-light vigil in New York City and images from the March protests in Tibet, was dutifully pulled by YouTube. However, it was unclear what infringement the IOC was claiming. Although their famous interlocking rings were briefly shown, that would seem to be a trademark, not covered by the DMCA. Even if they claimed the rings were copyrighted creative content, their creation in 1913 places them firmly in the public domain (on copyright, the trademark remains — but the DMCA isn’t for trademark). Luckily after a number of sites questioned the action, the IOC withdrew their complaint. This remains troubling, though. The DMCA was not meant to silence legitimate speech, but the number of times litigants have suppressed content they don’t like is staggering. This case benefits from external media attention due to existing hot-button political issues, but not all censored YouTube videos are so lucky and, undoubtedly, bogus DMCA requests have censored videos which result not in blogosphere outrage, but silenced expression.

Kevin Donovan is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Kevin Donovan and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

AOL phisher gets seven year sentence: “AOL Phisher Michael Dolan has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

(Via Macworld.)

Privacy worry over location data: “Privacy groups express concern as Yahoo unveils its new location tool to support a growing generation of web services.”

(Via BBC News.)