Verizon Starts Passing On RIAA Infringement Letters To Users

from the what's-next,-though? dept

Allison K alerts us to the news that Verizon is the latest US broadband provider to agree to pass along the RIAA letters accusing Verizon customers of unauthorized file sharing. AT&T, Comcast, Cox and some other ISPs already do this. The letters don't include specific threats of action (so, no "three strikes" type policies), but the RIAA is clearly hoping that by passing on the letters it will discourage unauthorized file sharing. It's a bit of a waste for Verizon to need to spend resources on this, and it really is just the RIAA's first step in the door to eventually push for kicking people off of the internet, but on the whole it's not that terrible to pass along notices. In the end, my guess is that it will actually serve to do a lot more to promote encryption services than anything else. Maybe some encryption service can approach Verizon about "sponsoring" those customer notifications.

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BPI Unhappy With Techdirt, Seeks To Correct The Record... But Still Gets It Wrong

from the sorry,-that's-just-not-accurate dept

So, we recently wrote about how Geoff Taylor, head of BPI (the UK's equivalent of the RIAA) seemed to be going after British Telecom (BT) with a variety of highly questionable claims about how BT had some sort of obligation to stop file sharing on its network, and that BT was using unauthorized file sharing to prop up its own business model. Both claims are flat out ridiculous, but BPI apparently was quite upset with us pointing that out. Of course, rather than actually respond in the comments where we might have a conversation about it, they've been sending us a series of emails, taking issue with our statements and laying out their claims in more detail. In the interest of an open debate, I'll post BPI's comments here, with my responses mixed in (but of course):

It's unfortunate that in a piece which wrongly charges BPI with making things up, you have misrepresented what our Chief Executive said. He did not say that "BT broke the law in not stopping file sharing", as you assert.

Hmm. Let's look at what he did say: "If you operate a commercial service and know it is being used to break the law, taking steps to ensure it is used legally is a cost of doing business." Perhaps there's a way to interpret that, which doesn't imply that BT is breaking the law in not stopping illegal activity, but it seems like that is the rather clear implication of his statement. But, BPI goes on to say they actually just meant BT has a "social responsibility" to stop the illegal activity. Ah.

BT fosters a reputation as a socially responsible company. BPI has questioned whether it's appropriate for such a company to do nothing about 100,000 instances "a small sample" of the illegal behaviour that BT knows is occurring on its network. BT knows about this activity because BPI provides detailed weekly notifications enabling BT to verify each and every infringement. BPI's notifications are based upon robust copyright infringement detection techniques which have been accepted by the UK High Court in over 150 cases.

I see. Would that be the same "robust copyright infringement detection system" that a recent study in the UK found was accusing elderly couples of downloading gay porn, along with a significant number of other "false positives"? Furthermore, there's quite a difference between knowing that there is illegal activity on the network and being able to stop it. As we noted in one of our original posts, in a land with due process (the UK has that, right?), people aren't guilty upon accusation. It appears that BPI has leapfrogged beyond even the draconian "three strikes" proposals and is looking for something of a "one strike."

But this is a serious question for BPI: really, what would you have BT do? You are informing them of activity you claim is infringing, but BT has no way of verifying that is a fact. Secondly, by the time you've informed BT, the activity is over. So what is BT to do at that point? Finally, how is BT to determine what ongoing actions are actually legitimate? Plenty of smart content creators choose to give away their works on purpose. Plenty of the record labels represented by BPI, even, have long histories of sending out mp3s themselves for promotional purposes. BT has no way of knowing which content is legit and which is not. Pretending that BT can wave its magic wand and suddenly be all-knowing is just silly.

Oh yeah, as for the claim that BT "fosters a reputation as a socially responsible company," I would think that such would include not violating the civil liberties of its customers by spying on what they do online in an effort to prop up someone's obsolete business model. Wouldn't you?

We understand that BT employs very sophisticated traffic and network analysis technologies that allows it to see the proportion of network traffic that is P2P. We have never said that all P2P traffic is illegal, because not all of it is. But the weekly notifications we send to BT relate solely to music files which we know are being shared illegally.

Again, BPI assumes that BT can magically tell which content is infringing and which is not. Just recently, we pointed out that EMI -- in the UK -- was happily distributing infringing mixtapes from Lily Allen off of an EMI owned website. If someone is downloading such content, should BT stop them? How could it possibly know which content in real time is authorized and which is not? And, more importantly, why should that be BT's responsibility? Just because the folks at the labels that make up BPI haven't been able to adapt? If BPI believes that individuals are breaking the law, why is it not going after those individuals? Obviously, because it knows that it would be a public relations nightmare. But just because BPI has a PR issue, it doesn't mean that BT should have to spend a ton of money trying to fix BPI members' broken business models.

Since 2003, annual UK broadband revenues have increased from £0.6 billion to £2.7 billion (2008). Recorded music revenues have fallen every year in the same period, principally due to illegal filesharing. It is therefore not difficult to see that the growth of BT's consumer broadband business has been assisted by the increase in illegal filesharing.

Wow. I mean... wow. Talk about a logical somersault. Seriously? First off, just because one industry's revenue falls and another's grows, it does not mean the two are causal. I mean, this is really, really basic stuff. Correlation, causation, blah blah blah. But, even then, the link is so tenuous as to be laughable. First, the claim that recorded music revenue is falling. Well... be careful. As we've been pointing out, PRS in the UK has admitted that the music industry is actually growing, not shrinking. Apparently, the folks at BPI don't read the PRS economic reports. If they did, they'd know that the study found that the overall industry is growing, with a big shift in money going from recorded music to live music.

BPI, you're blaming the wrong culprit! It ain't the ISPs, it's the live venues! And those bands playing live shows! Why aren't you demanding that they cut it out! After all, wouldn't it be the "socially responsible" thing for them to stop gigging so that people would go back to buying CDs?

And, of course, the whole claim that the decline in recorded music sales is "principally due to illegal filesharing" is also flat out, ridiculously, laughably wrong. Study after study has shown that file sharers tend to buy more. Isn't it a lot more likely that the decline in recorded music revenues is due to a shift in the marketplace due to technology? That technology has taken away the monopoly on distribution that BPI members used to have. Whenever you lose a monopoly on distribution, it's to be expected that you lose monopoly rents and your revenue goes down. That's Econ 101 (or maybe 201, if we're talking monopoly rents... depends on your econ prof).

Besides, we spend a lot of time here working with and talking to and about musicians who have embraced file sharing, and put in place smart business models to take advantage of it. And, you know what? They're doing better than they did in the past. The problem isn't "illegal filesharing." It's bad and obsolete business models. Those who are embracing file sharing in combination with a good business model are doing better than in the past. That rules out "file sharing" as the problem, and suggests the real problem is BPI's resistance to smarter business models.

Other ISPs are recognising that it is not sustainable in the long-term for a high percentage of ISPs revenues to be based on the transmission of illegal data, and that in future they need to share in revenues from providing high quality entertainment services for their customers

This is again ridiculous. ISP revenues are not "based on the transmission of illegal data." ISP revenues are based on the fact that pretty much everyone needs an internet connection these days just to function. It's how people communicate, you know? Claiming that BT is making any more revenue because people file share is laughable. People are using the internet because it's useful for all sorts of things. Hell, we keep hearing ISPs saying that they need to break net neutrality because all this file sharing is filling up their network and costing them too much in network upgrades. How can they be making so much money off of file sharing if it's costing them so much?

Once again, this is typical entertainment industry drivel. They totally overestimate how much their own stuff is "worth" to the wider ecosystem, and then demand that everyone just pay up. Except... that's not the way the world works. The world works by having smart people with smart business models figuring out ways to make people want to give you money, not by sitting back and demanding others just hand over money.

So, thanks for the emails, BPI, but at least work on making your statements a little more believable next time. And, as always, our comments are wide open for you to reply to and interact directly with people here.

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Having ISPs Fight Piracy Could Cost More Than Claimed 'Losses' From Piracy

from the inefficiency-at-work... dept

While I'm sure defenders of kicking people off the internet will quibble with the numbers, ISPs are pointing out that the cost of implementing Lord Mandelson's plan to have ISPs police the internet for file sharing, will cost the industry significantly more than the music industry claims it's losing to "piracy." Even if you accept that the ISPs may be exaggerating the cost, we already know for a fact that BPI massively exaggerates its loss numbers. So if you cut back the ISP estimates significantly, the overall cost is still likely to be much higher. Meanwhile, we're still waiting for anyone to explain how kicking people off the internet gets more people to buy stuff. It's difficult to see how anyone could support this plan if they've actually put more than two seconds into thinking about it.

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ISP Slows Access To High Bandwidth Services 12 Hours Every Day

from the time-to-find-a-new-ISP dept

Over and over again we've seen folks on the tech side of ISPs admit that basic network upgrades can handle whatever traffic growth is happening on the network, without resorting to draconian efforts to slow down traffic. Apparently, there's an ISP in the Netherlands that didn't get the message. Broadband Reports is noting that Dutch ISP, UPC is slowing down all traffic to "high bandwidth services" from noon to midnight every single day. They're cutting bandwidth to these services by 2/3. So, apparently, if you have to do high bandwidth stuff, get it done in the morning.

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Serial Anti-Spam Lawsuit Filer Loses Appeal... And His Possessions

from the time-to-get-a-job dept

Back when CAN SPAM was passed, one of the (many) parts that annoyed anti-spam fighters was that the law was quite clearly limited in who could bring lawsuits. It was basically designed so that only the government or ISPs could bring lawsuits -- not individuals. This was done on purpose, as lots of marketing companies freaked out that they'd end up dealing with constant spam lawsuits from people upset about receiving their marketing messages. However, some anti-spammers worked on ways to get around this by setting themselves up as "ISPs," though only for the purpose of trying to sue spammers. This strategy backfired. A couple of years ago, one of the most fervent supporters of using this trick (his only "job" was filing these lawsuits against spammers) lost his case, and the court even told him to pay $110k to the firm he had sued.

He appealed, and the appeals court came down even harder on the guy for clearly abusing the law, pointing out that he was clearly a professional litigant, and not someone running a real ISP. But, perhaps even more fascinating is that the guy, James Gordon, didn't just lose the lawsuit, it appears he lost most of his possessions as well. Remember that ruling telling him to pay the $110k to Virtumundo? He refused. The company sent the debt to a collections agency, but told Gordon they'd call off the collections agency if he dropped the appeal. Gordon didn't:

When Virtumundo's collections lawyer showed up at Gordon's house with a moving van and a sheriff, Virtumundo again offered to stop its pursuit of Gordon's assets if he would drop his appeal, and he refused again, according to Newman.

Virtumundo's collections agency then cleared out Gordon's house, according to Newman.

He added that after seizing the contents of Gordon's home, Virtumundo offered to return Gordon's belongings if he would drop his appeal and again, Gordon refused.

As much as I thank anti-spam activists for trying to stomp out spam, that doesn't mean they get to ignore what the law allows, and set up what was effectively a professional anti-spam litigation service.

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iiNet Says Complying With Anti-Piracy Complaints Would Violate Telecom Laws

from the privacy-anyone? dept

We've been following the lawsuit down in Australia, where AFACT, the local entertainment industry "anti-piracy" group, has sued ISP iiNet, complaining that the ISP refused to do anything when it would send over infringement notices. From the beginning, iiNet's response has been clear:

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'.

AFACT continues to insist that iiNet should be responsible for becoming copyright cops themselves, and had won an early battle, forcing iiNet to hand over "sample" records of users. However, Big Al points us to the latest news, where iiNet is claiming that not complying with AFACT's usual demands (it is handing over the sample data after working out the details) isn't just an issue of iiNet not wanting to be AFACT's enforcer, but that it violates Australia's telecom act, and could be a serious breach of privacy laws:

"Under the Act, it is illegal for iiNet to use customers' personal information in the manner demanded by AFACT without a court order or warrant. Breaches of the privacy provisions of the Act can attract a two-year gaol sentence."

Separately, iiNet noted:

"To examine customer communications on the basis of a third party's allegations would be a criminal act for us to engage in."

"Our starting position on this would be there is good public policy reasons for why Australia Post should not be opening your letters. And good reasons for why carriers should not be listening to your phone calls or looking at what you download. Our view is that would constitute a criminal offence."

It should come as no surprise that AFACT isn't buying this, calling it a "very novel" argument and one it hadn't seen before, and claiming that IP address information is not the sort of information that's meant to be included under the telco act, since it's not really "confidential." This case just gets more and more fun to watch (though, if I had to guess, iiNet's arguments probably won't prevail).

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AT&T Blocks 4chan Over DDoS... But May Not Like What Happens Next...

from the that-would-not-be-a-good-thing... dept

A few folks have submitted the news that, apparently, AT&T is blocking access to a certain subdomain of 4chan. I just checked on my own AT&T DSL account and it's true that I can't get there (I can get there if I don't go via AT&T). That doesn't mean that AT&T definitely is blocking it, but there are reports that folks at AT&T have admitted that it's true. If you don't know what 4chan is, the 4chan Wikipedia page is probably the best way to understand it. Even if the site is controversial for some, it does seem quite extreme for AT&T to do an outright block, without any official warning or immediate explanation. Outright blocking of websites, without recourse and without a clear explanation of why, is extremely questionable and the sort of "net neutrality" violation that the FCC would likely come down hard against. If it's true that there's a block, perhaps AT&T is assuming that no one serious (such as the FCC) would come to the defense of 4chan, but that might be a mistake (in part because AT&T probably won't like what happens when 4chan decides to come to its own defense). Hopefully this will be explained away as a mistake. So far, the best explanation I've seen is (via 4chan) the claim that the subdomain was involved in some sort of DDoS attack, but you would think that, if that were the case, AT&T would have just made that clear from the beginning. Not coming out with a clear and concise explanation just looks bad, and seems to be stirring up 4chan folks to make a statement -- something AT&T almost certainly does not want. AT&T may be able to tap your phones, but getting on the wrong side of 4chan seems like a bad, bad idea.

Update: As expected, AT&T has confirmed (as we believed) that this was over a DDoS attack:

Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic.

Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers.

That said, I still think AT&T failed here, in that they did not make this clear from the outset. If they had stated upfront what the situation was, in conjunction with the temporary block, they would have been much better off. But by silently blocking, they kicked off a firestorm that had to have been expected by anyone aware of 4chan.

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No Truth In Advertising When It Comes To ISP Traffic Shaping In Canada

from the that-seems-like-a-problem... dept

Via Rob Hyndman, we learn that in the Canadian gov't hearings investigating broadband provider traffic shaping, the providers revealed a lot about their traffic shaping practices that seem to contradict what those same providers claim on their websites well selling connectivity. Even if traffic shaping is to be considered legal, shouldn't broadband providers be required to be honest about what they're offering customers?

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Court Orders iiNet To Hand Over Sample Records Of Customers

from the privacy? dept

iiNet is the Australian ISP that has been standing up for its customers' rights against the entertainment industry which is suing the ISP for not magically stopping copyright infringement. iiNet's argument, from the very beginning, has been that if the entertainment industry believes that iiNet customers are breaking the law, then they should sue those customers. It shouldn't be iiNet's responsibility to act as the industry's police:

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'.

iiNet has also raised questions about whether or not a user making use of BitTorrent is technically violating copyright, especially since they may only be sharing a tiny fragment of a file based on the way BitTorrent works.

Either way, a court has now ordered iiNet to hand over a small sampling of customer data requested by the anti-piracy group AFACT, which AFACT claims will show infringing activities on the part of iiNet subscribers. Of course, it would be no surprise at all that a group of folks hand picked by the industry can be shown to be infringing. The real legal question is whether or not (a) there's enough evidence to prove who was actually infringing and (b) more importantly, why this is iiNet's responsibility.

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Digital Britain: Few Surprises As It Looks To Prop Up Content Industries

from the government-doing-what-government-does dept

The final version of the UK government's Digital Britain report, its blueprint for updating the country's tech-related laws and infrastructure, has been released today, and it doesn't look like it holds too many surprises. Like the interim report that was released earlier this year, it's full of a lot of vague language, and as the UK's opposition party points out, seems most interested in propping up failing old-media business models. Two aspects of the report are grabbing the most attention. First, the government will start a 50p (about 80 cents) monthly tax on landline phones in order to build out broadband networks in rural and other unserved areas. Second, and more controversially, the report says the UK's communications regulator must cut file-sharing by 70%, and calls for ISPs to help accomplish this by keeping tabs on their users, sending them notification letters when they download infringing material, and giving up their details to content companies (with a court order) so they can be sued. It stops short of creating a rights agency run by the copyright cartel, as had been rumored, and while it doesn't endorse the use of a three-strikes policy, it does say that regulators will have the power to force ISPs to use other technical means (such as throttling connections, traffic shaping, and even blocking certain sites, services and protocols) to try and stop persistent infringers.

The report pays a lot of lip service to the fact that content businesses need to update their business models to the changing digital environment, but it really does very little to help facilitate this, instead preferring to make stopping piracy the central focus. The government seems to have fully bought into the entertainment industry's propaganda -- that it can't do anything until piracy stops, that it can't move forward as long as there's file-sharing. The reality isn't that the industry can't move forward, but rather that it won't. And, after all, if the government is willing to get involved and offer the industry special protection to prop up its ailing business models, why should it?

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

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UK ISP Boss: 'The Pirates Will Always Win'

from the so-now-what? dept

Last year, when the recording industry in the UK was pushing for ISPs to act as copyright cops, Charles Dunstone, the head of Carphone Warehouse and its TalkTalk ISP, stood up and bashed the recording industry for even daring to suggest that the ISP should be responsible for the recording industry's own inability to adapt. As he said at the time of the recording industry:

"They're not just shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted -- the horse has left town, got married, and started a family."

As numerous people are submitting, Dunstone is back at it, stating the obvious to a recording industry that needs to hear it. He's trying to explain to them that, no matter how hard it tries, it can't stop unauthorized file sharing, noting that "the pirates will always win" and any attempt to stop them is simply "naive":

If you try speed humps or disconnections for peer-to-peer, people will simply either disguise their traffic or share the content another way. It is a game of Tom and Jerry and you will never catch the mouse. The mouse always wins in this battle and we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid....

If people want to share content they will find another way to do it.... It is more about education and allowing people to get content easily and cheaply that will make a difference. This idea that it is all peer to peer and somehow the ISPs can just stop it is very naive.

Of course, this is what plenty of people have been saying for years. There have been plenty of opportunities for the recording industry to embrace opportunities, and they've failed almost every single time. Instead, as always, they want to complain about the "pirates" and the "thieves" while other companies build the new music industry around them.

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FTC Shuts Down Popular Scammer ISP; But Doesn't Seem To Be Impacting Spam That Much

from the that-mole-got-whacked dept

A bunch of folks have been submitting the news that the FTC has shut down an ISP, called 3FN, known for actively recruiting scammers and spammers to use its services. The FTC noted "Anything bad on the internet, they were involved in it," and has pushed its upstream providers to cut off service. From the details, it sounds similar to the story from late last year when upstream service providers pulled the plug on another hosting firm, McColo (due to public pressure, not gov't intervention), and cut off huge amounts of spam, since so many spammers relied on botnets through McColo. While some scammers are apparently upset by 3FN going down, some folks are noticing that there doesn't seem to be a corresponding drop in spam as happened last time. Apparently, the spammers realized that having a single-point-of-failure wasn't a very good thing, and have built redundancy into their systems now. So, while many scammers and spammers did use 3fn, losing it hasn't been nearly as devastating as losing McColo. So, it's definitely reached that whack-a-mole stage, where taking stuff down makes for good press releases... but is it really stopping anyone?

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Advocacy Group Says Canadian ISPs Should Be Required To Hand Over Subscriber Data Without A Warrant

from the unintended-consequences,-anyone? dept

Rob Hyndman points us to the news that a Canadian "victims advocacy group" called Victims of Crime has put out a report on how the government should deal with "internet-facilitated child sexual abuse." You should recognize that the recommendations are ridiculous by the way they describe the problem: "internet-facilitated child sexual abuse." Notice that they're including the internet as a part of the problem, rather than just a tool that's being used. The report starts off by making a bad assumption: that the internet is responsible for an increase in child sexual abuse by stating: "internet-facilitated child sexual abuse is growing at an alarming rate. Between 1998 and 2003, the number of charges for production or distribution of child pornography increased by 900 percent...." Now, that could mean that there has been an increase... or it could mean that more resources have been put towards lawsuits or (perhaps) that the internet has enabled law enforcement to collect more evidence to bring charges. In other words, you could easily interpret that evidence to mean that the internet has been an amazing help in bringing justice to those involved in such evil acts.

But where the report gets really troubling is the suggestions on what the government should do:

• introducing legislation to make it mandatory for Internet service providers to give law enforcement basic customer name and address information upon request;
• requiring internet service providers to keep data and internet surfing records for longer periods to ensure that evidence is not destroyed; and
• making it a criminal offence to refuse to give law enforcement a password or encryption information during an investigation.

In other words, throw all privacy rights out the window, don't require any evidence of wrongdoing or a court warrant and massively increase the costs for ISPs. And do they not think such laws would be abused? If police can simply request detailed information with no oversight, how quickly will it be abused to seek out anonymous detractors? Law enforcement and politicians have tried to seek out anonymous commenters many times, but usually a court is there to try to protect the right to anonymity and privacy. Yes, it's no doubt that child sexual abuse is a horrific crime and we're all for law enforcement doing whatever they can to crack down on it. But throwing out all privacy rights or due process is likely to have many, many, many negative unintended consequences.

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Six Months And Still No ISPs Officially Signed Up On The RIAA's Program

from the so-now-what? dept

Six months ago, you may recall, the RIAA announced that it was shifting its strategies away from suing individuals (though, it would and has continued to sue some) towards working with ISPs to kick file sharers off the internet via a three strikes policy (the industry prefers "graduated response"). However, no one could find any ISPs who had agreed to it, despite rumors that Comcast and AT&T were onboard. Yet, when later comments made people think that AT&T had agreed to such a plan, AT&T issued a denial, claiming that it was not working with the RIAA in that way. Now, Greg Sandoval points out that there still aren't any ISPs officially signed on. Among the interesting nuggets in the article is the report that the RIAA thought it could pressure ISPs into signing up by having NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo take their side. The only problem? The ISPs know that there's absolutely no legal angle that could force them into a 3 strikes policy, so Cuomo has no power to do anything. So, basically, for now not much has changed. The RIAA (post-layoffs) is still conducting lawsuits (though, fewer of them) and is hoping to push ISPs into agreeing to a plan most ISPs recognize would piss off most of their customers. But, of course, never count the RIAA out. For too long, they've shown that when they're stopped at one door, they've already been planning for many months to sneak in through one of many backdoors.

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Movie Studios Continue To Demand Australian ISP Admit To Supporting Piracy

from the but,-uh,-it-didn't... dept

You may recall last November that a bunch of movie studios got together and sued Australian ISP iiNet, for not being able to wave a magic wand and make all unauthorized file sharing among its users disappear. The ISP, who has taken a very pro-consumer stance, responded by noting that if there's any "theft" involved, it should be a matter for the police to investigate, not an ISP to take action based on allegations alone:

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'.

In March, the company further explained its defense, noting that direct file sharing between two individuals doesn't appear to violate Australian copyright laws, since there's no "public" distribution of the material.

The latest, as pointed out by Michael Scott, is that the studios are basically stomping their feet and demanding that iiNet admit that it broke copyright law.

To be honest, it appears the two sides are talking past one another. The studios insist that iiNet is breaking the law by not taking action against file sharers, while iiNet is pointing out that's not the issue. It's saying it would be perfectly happy to take action against those convicted in a court of violating the law. But it can't just take the studio's word for it, and so it sees no reason to act until a court has convicted someone.

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Minnesota Is The Latest State To Try To Force ISPs To Block Gambling Sites

from the this-will-end-badly-too dept

There have been a few attempts by state governments to force ISPs to block certain sites, and such attempts almost always end badly. Recently, for example, the state of Kentucky has been not just trying to block access to gambling-related websites, but to seize the domains in question. That failed when the courts pointed out how ridiculous it was. Perhaps the most famous such attempt was Pennsylvania's law to try to force ISPs to block "undesirable" sites from a list the gov't would put together. A federal court tossed the law, saying that it was unreasonable. You would think that other states would take notice before trekking down a similar path. But, apparently the news hasn't reached Minnesota.

Slashdot points out that Minnesota is trying to twist a law from half a century ago to mean that ISPs need to block gambling websites. Basically, the law says that common carriers need to comply with government requests to block gambling services. Of course, that assumes that ISPs are, in fact, common carriers -- a point that many would dispute. Also, the law was clearly intended for a very different purpose than someone using a broadband connection to access a gambling site. Still, gambling is another topic that politicians love to grandstand about, so expect this to keep moving forward, even if it makes no sense and has little chance of surviving a legal challenge.

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More Swedish ISPs Decide To Keep No Logs To Protect Users

from the consumer-demand... dept

We recently noted that a Swedish ISP was advertising the fact that it doesn't keep log files of its users, following the newly implemented Swedish law, IPRED, that requires ISPs to hand over log files if users are accused of copyright infringement online. It appears that the attention generated by that one ISP has now lead multiple Swedish ISPs to also promise to delete all user data, so that there would be nothing to turn over. As a representative from Tele2 noted: "It's a strong wish from our customers, so we decided not to store information on customers' IP numbers anymore." Between this and the new interest in encryption and VPN software in Sweden, you have to wonder why the entertainment industry was so excited about the IPRED law passing in the first place.

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Taiwan Sorta, But Not Really, Approves Three Strikes Law

from the not-quite dept

Billboard is noting that Taiwan has passed a "three strikes" law for ISPs to kick file sharers off the net -- except it's not clear that's really true. While that's what the headline says, the details sound a bit different. Taiwan did approve an amendment to copyright law, oddly "based on the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision against Grokster." Again, from the details provided, it sounds like it's based a lot more on the DMCA than the Grokster decision -- and nowhere is it explained why Taiwan would update its copyright law based on a US court case... The law sets up a notice-and-takedown provision (again, this is like the DMCA, not the Grokster case, which was about secondary liability), requiring ISPs to pass warnings on to users. Users are then able to file counter-notices.

What's not entirely clear, however, is how an ISP is supposed to "take down" content that is hosted on a user's own computer, or even how/why it should be responsible for what's on a user's computer. Instead, it seems more like the law just requires ISPs to pass on notices from copyright holders, and then has a three strikes provision where ISPs can restrict internet access. That doesn't sound mandatory, and it's not clear what the definition of "restrict" includes. It still doesn't make sense why ISPs would want to restrict their customers, but as long as the law isn't mandatory, then it hardly seems like a problem. ISPs have always had the ability to cut off users if they wanted to, so this hardly seems like a change.

The other interesting element of the new amendment is that:

ISPs are not automatically permitted to disclose the identity of individual copyright abusers. Only if an individual user submits a counter-request to restore content previously removed can their personal information be furnished to the rights holder.

At first, that may seem like a good thing. ISPs don't have to hand over private info on a mere accusation. It would be great if plenty of other countries followed that. But, what's troubling is the second part, whereby if a user files a counter-notice, their info can be given to the rights holder. That puts a massive liability on anyone if they wish to file a counter-notice, and will almost certainly create a massive chilling effect scaring most people in Taiwan from ever submitting a counter-notice, for fear of having their private info handed out. That means that copyright holders can have pretty free reign in demanding takedowns, knowing that most people won't bother filing counter-notices in order to protect their identity.

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European Parliament Still Debating Three Strikes Laws

from the which-way-will-they-go dept

I don't understand enough about how EU policy-making works to fully understand this, but the EU Parliament which has rejected "three strikes" type rules (that would kick those accused of copyright infringement offline after three accusations) as being against basic civil rights in the past, has apparently rejected yet again a three strikes approach. Yet... at almost the same time, we're being told that France is actively pushing the EU Parliament to approve a three strikes provision in a telco bill that will be voted on next week. There was some concern last year that while the EU Parliament rejected three strikes, it would backdoor its way in via a separate telco bill. Is that what's happening again, where there are two separate discussions about three strikes provisions? It would be great if those familiar with how the EU Parliament system works could explain the two items.

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AT&T And Comcast's Non-Denial Denial Of Three Strikes

from the watch-this-space dept

Yesterday some stories broke about how AT&T and Comcast were "testing" the RIAA's "three strikes" plan. As we noted, this wasn't a surprise at all, as both companies had indicated willingness to do so -- but it was amusing to see both companies avoid fully admitting it. In fact, both companies have now come out denying that they're doing any such thing, but you have to read between the lines here, and it's not at all difficult to see what's almost certainly happening.

Both companies are "testing" a program by which they send infringement notices on to the users. That's the part that both have admitted they're doing, but they get to deny any three strikes plan, because no one's getting cut off. But, that's only because people haven't been accused multiple times yet. Thus, this way they get to start heading down that path without ever making an official statement that they support the RIAA's plan to kick people off. It's a way to ease into such a program (they hope) without the PR headaches that would come with such a plan. But, note that neither AT&T nor Comcast will take a stand like Verizon has, where it flat out said that it will not give in to the RIAA (and, in Verizon's case, the company does have a decent history fighting against the RIAA when it comes to protecting its customers' privacy).

If AT&T and Comcast really want people to believe that they're not going down this path, then why won't they come out and say the same things that Verizon is saying?

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