CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘ISP liability’ Category

Post from: TorrentFreak

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Movie Studios Sue ISP Over BitTorrent Piracy: “

Seven Hollywood studios including Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros and Disney have teamed up to sue iiNet, Australia’s third largest ISP. iiNet is accused of doing little to stop its subscribers from sharing copyright works via BitTorrent. The ISP denies the accusations.

iiNet, one of Australia’s largest ISPs with over 1,400 staff, was the first company in the country to offer DSL speeds over 1.5 Mbit/s to the regular consumer market, and now offers speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s. These relatively healthy speeds have proven attractive to iiNet’s customers and in common with subscribers at other ISPs, many have been utilizing their bandwidth by sharing copyright works via BitTorrent. Seven Hollywood studios are so incensed they are now sueing iiNet.

Today, through an AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) press release, studios including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network (the top rated free-to-air broadcaster in Australia), announced that they are to sue iiNet for copyright infringement.

The companies state that they are suing iiNet for ‘failing to take reasonable steps, including enforcing its own terms and conditions, to prevent known unauthorized use of copies of the companies’ films and TV programs by iiNet’s customers via its network.’

Adrianne Pecotic, Executive Director of AFACT said that the studios were forced to sue, since iiNet failed to take action against its customers who the studios claim are committing copyright infringement. Chris Chard, Managing Director of Roadshow Entertainment, claims their titles Happy Feet, No Reservation and I am Legend had all been pirated by iiNet customers using BitTorrent.

The studios want iiNet to disconnect infringers, but up to now, iiNet has refused to do so. Mark White, chief operating officer at iiNet told APC that his company would consult with the Internet Industry Association (IIA) to formulate a response.

‘Our view is pretty straightforward. We don’t condone or support piracy in any form, and people who choose to pirate content should face the force of the law,’ he said. ‘This is an industry issue, and we’ve been talking with the IIA, and we’ll work with them in terms of handling it.’

iiNet’s CEO Michael Malone said that the company disputes AFACT’s claims that they refused to do anything about the problem, telling Computerworld, ‘They send us a list of IP addresses and say ‘this IP address was involved in a breach on this date’. We look at that say ‘well what do you want us to do with this? We can’t release the person’s details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can’t go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else’. So we say ‘you are alleging the person has broken the law; we’re passing it to the police. Let them deal with it’.’

Of course, it is not unusual for movie studios, copyright holders and commentators to skim over the details in claiming that it’s trivial to kill copyright infringement, it absolutely is not. Just this week, Mike Mulligan of Jupiter Research said in a piece entitled ‘Why Music Can’t ‘Just Be Free’’, that all P2P developers (and presumably ISPs in this case) have to do is ‘support their claims off innocence by embedding filtering mechanisms into their apps.’ TorrentFreak wrote to Mike offering to present precise details of his suggestions to Vuze, LimeWire, Shareaza and Morpheus but, unsurprisingly, there has been no response.

The problem is clearly not lost on Michael Malone: ‘I think they genuinely believe that ISPs have a secret magic wand that we are hiding and if we bring it out we can make piracy disappear just by waving it.’

The legal action against iiNet was filed in Australia’s Federal Court on November 20th (today), and the proceedings will continue December 20th 2008.

Belgian ISP wins reprieve in copyright infringement filtering case: “A Belgian internet service provider that had been ordered by the courts to filter out copyright-infringing material from its network has won a court reprieve. It will not have to pay the €750,000 in fines that have built up over the past year.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Belgian judge reverses moon-on-stick music copyright ruling: “

Audible Magic meets network realities

A Belgian judge who slapped a €2,500 per day fine on an ISP until it filtered its network for music copyright infringements has reversed the decision after music lawyers conceded it wasn’t technically possible.…

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(Via The Register - Public Sector.)

: “Protecting human rights on the Internet

Council of Europe launches guidelines in cooperation with online games and Internet service providers

(03/10/08) The Council of Europe today launched, in close cooperation with European online game designers and publishers and with Internet service providers, two sets of guidelines which aim to encourage respect and promote privacy, security and freedom of expression when, for example, accessing the Internet, using e-mail, participating in chats or blogs, or playing Internet games.

See guidelines for:
- online games providers [pdf, 1542KB]
- Internet service providers [pdf, 1599KB]“

(Via .)

ISP Involvement May Stem P2P Usage in UK: “If studies and surveys are any indication of the truth, UK residents would put to an end their P2P ways if ISPs started getting involved with copyright enforcement. Under the ‘three strikes’ proposal, repetitive and high volume offenders would be disconnected for trading copyrighted works.”

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

Post from: TorrentFreak

ISP: It’s Impossible For Us to Stop Illegal P2P: “

An ISP which was ordered by a court to stop illegal file-sharing on its network, says it simply can not. The Belgian ISP Scarlet says the court’s verdict is unworkable and after trying to slow traffic and also filter it, it says it’s not possible to stop the flow of illicit files since Audible Magic doesn’t work.

In mid-2007, after a battle with copyright group SABAM, a court in Belgium ruled that Internet Service Providers can be forced to block and/or filter copyright infringing files on P2P networks. Although most people familiar with the technical hurdles recognized that this was a massive if not impossible task, the judge in the case ruled that ISPs are indeed capable of blocking infringing content and gave Scarlet six months to comply.

Scarlet said right from the start that it believed that if it complied with the court order it would be breaking the law. The ISP claimed that Belgian law forbids it from spying on its customers so it lodged an appeal against the ruling, with managing director Gert Post saying: ‘This measure is nothing else than playing Big Brother on the Internet. If we don’t challenge it today, we leave the door open to permanent, and invisible and illegal, checks of personal data.’

Now, over a year later, Scarlet’s lawyers argued in court that the company simply cannot stop the flow of illicit files, which is a serious situation since the ISP has to pay compensation of 2,500 Euros for each day it fails to do so. According to a report, Scarlet has tried different techniques to try to comply with the ruling but has had no success.

First of all, Scarlet slowed down P2P traffic with the help of some Cisco technology. All this led to was complaints from the customers, and it did nothing to stop the availability of the illicit files. A lawyer for Scarlet, Christoph Preter said: ‘We have actually received complaints that P2P traffic was slower, but it remained possible. It is only a deterrent measure.’

The ISP quite rightly refused to block all P2P traffic, since it said it would be blocking legitimate traffic too. However, copyright group SABAM said this was not a valid excuse. ‘The argument put forward by Scarlet,’ said SABAM’s lawyer, ‘is not about the impossibility of blocking, but about the consequences.’ SABAM clearly doesn’t care who is affected, as long as it gets its way, stating that Scarlet simply hasn’t tried hard enough to comply with the court.

The second solution, the filtering of illicit files, was a solution put forward last year by SABAM itself. On the advice of an appointed P2P ‘expert’, the court ruled that Scarlet must use the content filtering technology offered by Audible Magic. However, Scarlet tried this system and it didn’t work when scanning for files on their network. During last year’s court case it was claimed that Audible Magic had experience with filtering in the US with Verizon and in Asia with another ISP. However, Scarlet made inquiries with Verizon about the partnership but was told that no such deal exists and Audible Magic refused to reveal who the Asian ISP is.

‘We have misled the court,’ said SABAM’s lawyer. ‘But SABAM followed the expert in the choice of Audible Magic, so we were acting in good faith.’

A ruling in the case is not expected until 2010.

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Bits: Dealing With I.S.P. Snooping: “A law professor argues that Internet providers are probably violating wiretap laws if they monitor the surfing of their users for advertising, but he still proposes making the laws even tougher.

(Via NYT > Technology.)

ISPs Nationwide Unite in Attack against Exploitation: “ISP-based newsgroups have taken a beating in the last month, as New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s initiative against child pornography has forced many of the more popular newsgroup hierarchies offline. Verizon, Sprint, RoadRunner, and late last week, AT&T, have all acted on the Attorney General’s recommendation. Today, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) announced a ‘historic’ agreement where all member companies have entered into a MOU (Memoradum of Understanding) with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) to attack child pornography on their servers and networks.”

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

House of Commons debate on Internet Regulation, 4 June, 2008

Column 893
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Watts.]
7.32 pm

John Robertson (Glasgow, North-West) (Lab): I am pleased to have the chance to discuss internet content and internet service providers with my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, not least because I have been trying to secure this debate for several months. I know that, like me, many of my colleagues regularly receive correspondence from constituents who are worried about internet content, and I have been especially keen to discuss those matters following the Byron review, but on several occasions I have been told by the Table Office that there is no Department appropriate to field such a debate. The strategy of representatives of each Department that we tried to assign it to has been to hold up its hands in affront and deny any responsibility for the matter.

My worry is that that is an allegory of the current situation relating to responsibility for internet content, and that the excuse is, sadly, endemic. ISPs claim to be mere inanimate conduits; search engines plead their neutrality; Ofcom has intentionally been denied any remit for content; other UK Executive and regulatory bodies, including the police, have powers over only a tiny minority of websites; and the Internet Watch Foundation is limited in the subjects it monitors and by the international nature of the internet. As a result, the various initiatives that have been implemented are piecemeal and inadequate, and the internet stands out as an anomaly against similar media as a place where, essentially, anything goes. It is a paradox that the efforts of ISPs to deal with illegal content are a strong argument for regulating them, as we see that the tools they have are the most effective method of controlling material online.

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California pols ask ISPs to block child porn | Tech news blog - CNET News.com: “California pols ask ISPs to block child porn

Posted by Marguerite Reardon, Update: This story was updated at 2:55 p.m. PDT to add comments from AT&T.

California’s governor and attorney general are asking Internet service providers to help stop the dissemination of child pornography.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued a press release Friday asking Internet service providers in California to follow the lead of Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint in ‘removing child pornography from existing servers and blocking channels’ that disseminate the illegal material.

‘Protecting the safety of our children must be a top priority, not just for government, but also for businesses with the direct power to reduce the ability to conduct illegal activity,’ they said in a joint letter to the California Internet Service Provider Association. “