CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘Copyright’ Category

Mod chip seller infringed copyright in game elements, even if not in whole game: “A man who sold computer chips that enabled pirated video games to be played on consoles was rightly convicted of copyright offences, the Court of Appeal has ruled.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

The strange death of illegal downloading: “(Guardian)
This year is the most successful in the UK’s history for singles sales. More than 117m have been sold ? comfortably beating the previous record of 115.1m, set in 2008. It is happening because of an explosion of new companies offering tracks free, legally, without having to go to peer-to-peer sites and thereby avoiding the risk of getting bogus tracks or viruses. People are flocking to them simply because it is a much easier way of listening to music. None of these sites were started by the music industry. Two of the newbies, Spotify.com and We7.com, alone have gained at least 5 million new users in their first year, mainly people who previously downloaded illegally. They use so called ‘freemium’ business models offering streamed tracks for free if you accept an advert or for nothing if you take out a monthly subscription.

“

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Yaman Akdeniz, an Associate Professor of law at the Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University today (29 September, 2009) made an appeal to the Beyoglu Criminal Court of Peace to overturn the blocking decision involving both myspace.com and Last.fm from Turkey. The blocking decision was enforced by the Turkish ISPs since Friday, 18 September, 2009 by the order of the Beyoglu Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office (order no 2009/45 dated 26.06.2009)

The blocking order was issued subsequent to a request made by Mu-yap, the Turkish Phonographic Industry Society with regards to intellectual property infringements through these two sites.

Akdeniz asked the Court with his lawyer to overturn the blocking decision, and argued that the Supplemental Article 4 of the Turkish Law No. 5846 on Intellectual & Artistic Works which was used as a legal measure to issue the blocking order is unconstitutional. Therefore, Akdeniz asked the Beyoglu Criminal Court of Peace to consider sending his case to the Turkish Constitutional Court for review.

Details of the appeal will be made available once the Court considers the case. [Blog entry by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz - I will update this story as more information is made available - last update on 29.09.2009]

MÜYAP: No Intention to Block Access to Last FM and MySpace: “MÜYAP chairman Forta claimed: ‘Ownership rights are stolen, we fight for our right. Turkish law blocked access to the websites’. Forta argued that MÜYAP agreed with MySpace and that the site can be accessed again within a few days.”

(Via Bianet :: English.)

Copyright Protection Without Harm to Freedom of Speech: “In the course of the discussion of blocked access to the entire contents of MySpace, RSF pointed out that the Turkish Internet legislation violates the European Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.”

(Via Bianet :: English.)

Reporters Sans Frontières: Prosecutors violate online free expression to protect copyright

Published on 23 September 2009

The social networking website MySpace has been blocked in Turkey since 19 September over a copyright dispute. Anyone trying to visit the site sees a message saying access has been blocked by order 2009/45, issued on 26 June by the prosecutor of the Istanbul district of Beyoglu. Two other sites, Lastfm.com.tr and Akilli.tv, have been blocked by the same order.

“Copyright is often used as grounds for censoring the Internet,” Reporters Without Borders said. “But blocking websites is a disproportionate sanction that violates online free expression. “Withdrawing the content that violates copyright would suffice. Censorship is a common reflex in Turkey and we condemn it strongly.”

Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, told Reporters Without Borders: “Measures are taken against the Internet as if this was still the era of the dinosaurs.”

Disconnecting access to a website on the orders of a prosecutor rather a judge is a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, which Turkey has signed.

Many European countries, including France, are look at the possibility of suspending the Internet connections of those who illegally download content protected by copyright. While the desire to protect literary and artistic creation is understandable, Reporters Without Borders believes such measures would constitute an unacceptable restriction of online freedom of expression.

The press freedom organisation urges the Turkish government to amend law 5651 governing offenses committed online in order to reconcile it with the need to respect free expression in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The video-sharing website YouTube has been inaccessible since May 2008 in Turkey, which is ranked 102nd out of 173 countries in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

As of Friday, 18 September, 2009 access to popular social networks Myspace and Last.fm are blocked from Turkey. The blocking order is issued by the Beyoğlu Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office (order no 2009/45 dated 26.06.2009). It is suspected that both sites are blocked because of “intellectual property infringements” following a request by Mu-yap, the Turkish Phonographic Industry Society. It is also alleged that Myspace and Last.fm were part of about 100 websites which were subjected to blocking on Friday. [Blog entry by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz - I will update this story as more information is made available - last update on 23.09.2009]

Access blocking is a legal remedy for intellectual property infringements provided under
Supplemental Article 4 of the Turkish Law No. 5846 on Intellectual & Artistic Works. This provision was introduced in March 2004 and provides a two-stage approach:

Initially the law requires the hosting companies, content providers, or access providers to take down the infringing article from their servers upon “notice” given to them by the right holders. The providers need to take action within 72hrs. Currently, no one knows whether Mu-yap or the right holders approached Myspace or Last.fm. Both sites have versions in Turkish and Myspace has recently opened an office in Turkey. Therefore, by law, I would expect the right holders to get in touch with these two companies for the removal of “allegedly infringing content”.

If the allegedly infringing content is not taken down or there is no response from the content providers (Myspace and Last.fm), the right holders can ask the Public Prosecutor to provide for a blocking order, and the blocking order is executed within 72hrs by the Turkish Internet Service Providers.

Currently access to myspace.com as well as lastfm.com.tr is blocked from majority of Turkish ISPs. However, access to last.fm is not currently blocked, and a major ISP, Superonline has not yet executed the blocking order which coincided with a religious holiday. Furthermore, those who have iPhones or Macs can use the relevant Last.fm applications without any restrictions from these devices.

The Turkish website “sansuresansur.org” (‘censor to censorship’) prompted internet users on their website not to accept the bans without a word of protest. Musician Aylin Aslım wrote the following on her facebook site: “Blocking access to myspace.com is serious injustice to independent musicians in Turkey. We do not want to be forced to return to music channels and record companies with their filthy politics. We want our music to be available freely to everybody who wants to listen to it”. Furthermore, Mehmet Tez from Milliyet daily newspaper commented the blockage on his own web page hafifmusik.org (‘light music’): “Well done! A great success. Turkey is proud of you”.(See Bianet: MySpace and Last FM Censored)

Blocking access to popular social networking sites such as YouTube, Myspace, and Last.fm will damage Turkey’s reputation whatever the reasons behind such decisions. Blocking access to any of these Web 2.0 based applications and systems have extreme side effects. Blocking orders not only result in the blocking of access to the allegedly illegal content (usually a single file or page) but they also result in the blocking of millions of legitimate pages, files, and content under the single domain that these systems operate.

These sites are not known to promote illegal content and activity even though their services may contain content which may be deemed undesirable or illegal by Turkish law and any other state laws around the world. The courts, the judges, and the public prosecutors therefore should not issue “domain based blocking orders” and there is no need to “burn the house to roast the pig” as was established by the US Supreme Court in Reno v. ACLU (U.S. Supreme Court majority decision, Reno v. ACLU (26 June, 1997)).

Lily Allen hits out at file sharers as Tories mock government plans: “The battle within the music industry over how to deal with internet pirates intensified today as the Conservatives announced their opposition to government plans to disconnect repeat offenders from the internet, and Lily Allen condemned artists who have spoken out against the proposals.

Allen, in a lengthy posting on her blog, criticised “rich and successful artists” such as Ed O’Brien, of Radiohead, and Nick Mason, the Pink Floyd drummer, told The Times that file-sharing had some beneficial effects for artists.

Allen wrote today: “I think music piracy is having a dangerous effect on British music, but some really rich and successful artists like Nick Mason from Pink Floyd and Ed O’Brien from Radiohead don’t seem to think so.

“Last week in an article in The Times these guys from huge bands said file-sharing music is fine. It probably is fine for them. They do sell-out arena tours and have the biggest Ferrari collections in the world.

“For new talent, though, file-sharing is a disaster as it’s making it harder and harder for new acts to emerge.

“The Featured Artists Coalition also says file-sharing’s fine because it ‘means a new generation of fans for us’.

“This is great if you’re a big artist at the back end of your career with loads of albums to flog to a new audience, but emerging artists don’t have this luxury.

“Basically the FAC is saying, ‘we’re alright, we’ve made it, so file-sharing’s fine’, which is just so unfair to new acts trying to make it in the industry.”

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

Mininova Must Remove all Friggin Torrents: “While few are crying over The Pirate Bay, Mininova is a different case. Mininova has been fighting BREIN, the Dutch copyright authority, but unlike The Pirate Bay, this isn’t a fight to the death. Instead, BREIN doesn’t want to see the more moderate Mininova eliminated – rather only torrent files it feels link to copyrighted works.”

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

Oz gov suggests world’s worst copyright protection scheme: “

Desperate to retain internet villain of the year title

After taking the prize of internet villain of the year for worst internet blocking proposal on the planet, the Australian Government appears determined to do the double, with what has already been described as the world’s worst comms interception scheme.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)