Anti-Piracy Group Will Take Pirate Bay Blocking Case to Supreme Court

[~Time Published February 22, 2014 at 01:15PM]

*/*/*/*/*/\*\*\*\*\*

Following a 2010 attempt by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN to force local ISP Ziggo to block The Pirate Bay, rival ISP XS4ALL joined in the fight against the Hollywood-funded group. Initially a court decided that the ISPs wouldn’t have to block the site, but BREIN took the case to a full trial – and won.

On appeal the verdict swung in favor of the ISPs after they successfully argued that the blockade was ineffective and denied subscribers’ free access to information. January 28, 2014, marked a big day in the Netherlands for both The Pirate Bay and its millions of fans, despite neither party’s involvement in the just-completed legal proceedings.

BREIN, on the other hand, went away licking its wounds and contemplating its 326,000 euro ($445,000) legal bill. Neither ISP wasted time unblocking The Pirate Bay.

With the verdict handed down and The Pirate Bay unblocked, the next step in the battle, should there even be one, lay in BREIN’s hands.

Now, three weeks later, the anti-piracy group has signaled its intention to fight on, criticizing The Court of The Hague’s ruling that site blocking should be dismissed if it’s ineffective.

“That statement is at odds with the opinion of judges in other European countries on blocking and preempts the judgment of the highest European court which is expected shortly. BREIN’s claim is that service providers blocking access to illegal websites has already been assigned by the court,” the group said in a statement.

BREIN adds that it has already established a number of grounds for appeal and will take its case to the Supreme Court.

“Depending on the type of appeal it can take a year to eighteen months before a decision,” BREIN chief Tim Kuik told Tweakers. “Moreover, there are still questions for the European Court of Justice so it might take even longer.”

In the wake of the Ziggo and XS4ALL victory, UPC, the Netherlands’ second largest ISP, said that it had reached an agreement with BREIN over its blocking of The Pirate Bay. The company said it would suspend the block, pending the outcome of its own case with the anti-piracy group.

Commenting on that development Friday, Kuik said that only the Supreme Court can provide the final answers. Taking further legal action now makes no sense, he said, as it only “makes the lawyers richer.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

*/*/*/*/*/View@Source\*\*\*\*\* (http://ift.tt/1l89ghK)



[IFTTTautoSHAREv1.015 | Shared with ifttt.com More shared news etc on: http://bit.ly/Schavuiten_blog | RSS source: http://ift.tt/1heth1N]

MPAA Banned From Using Piracy and Theft Terms in Hotfile Trial

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 29, 2013 at 09:11PM]

[ < - - Content ]
The ongoing legal battle between Hotfile and the MPAA is nearing its climax.

In August the movie studios won summary judgment on the issues of DMCA defense and vicarious liability, while the file-hosting site was cleared of direct copyright infringement. The remaining issues, including the damages amount, will be decided during a trial early next month.

In preparation for the trial both parties have submitted motions to the court in recent weeks. Hotfile, for example, asked the court to prevent the MPAA from using “pejorative” terms including piracy, theft and stealing as these could misguide the jury.

District Court Judge Kathleen Williams has now ruled on these motions, with the file-hosting service scoring several important victories.

The Judge granted Hotfile’s “pejorative” terms motion, which means that the movie studios and its witnesses are not allowed to use words including “piracy,” “theft” and “stealing” during the trial. The MPAA can, however, use the term “art” when referring to movies and TV-shows.

“Defendants’ Motion in Limine to Preclude Use of Pejorative Terms is GRANTED IN PART. The parties may not use pejorative terms but may use terms of art,” the order reads.


The file-hosting service previously argued that since piracy and theft-related terms are derogatory, their use could mislead the jury and possibly influence their judgment. According to Hotfile there is no ground to substantiate the use of such terms.

“In the present case, there is no evidence that the Defendants (or Hotfile’s founders) are ‘pirates’ or ‘thieves,’ nor is there evidence that they were ‘stealing’ or engaged in ‘piracy’ or ‘theft.’ Even if the Defendants had been found to have directly infringed on the Plaintiffs’ copyrights, such derogatory terms would add nothing to the Plaintiffs’ case, but would serve to improperly inflame the jury.”

The MPAA countered that there is absolutely no reason to exclude words that are commonly used in cases related to copyright infringement. Banning the terms would make it hard for MPAA’s lawyers and the witnesses to describe the events that took place, according to the movie studios.

“Terms like ‘piracy’ and ‘theft’ are commonplace terms often used in court decisions, statutes, and everyday speech to describe the conduct in which Hotfile and its users engaged, and for which the Court has already found Defendants liable,” MPAA’s legal team wrote.

With her ruling Judge Williams clearly sides with Hotfile’s argument that the jury could be misled by piracy and theft-related descriptions. This is a clear win for the file-hosting service, but it also leads to the awkward situation that several witnesses can’t name their job titles, such as Warner’s head of Global Corporate Anti-Piracy.

Additionally, the MPAA can no longer quote Vice President Joe Biden’s famous comment: “Piracy is theft, clean and simple.”

The full list of motions Judge Williams ruled on includes more good news for Hotfile. For example, with regard to Hotfile’s countersuit over alleged DMCA abuse by the movie studio, Warner’s motions to exclude the term “perjury” and the studio’s audit of its anti-piracy system from trial were both denied.

On the downside, Hotfile’s request to prevent the MPAA from bringing up the criminal indictment against “Megaupload” was denied. This means that in describing the Megaupload case the movie studios can’t quote passages that reference piracy or theft.

It will be interesting to see how the MPAA tackles Hotfile now that they are restricted in the language they can use. It probably means that the term “copyright infringement” will be used more often than they had hoped.

To be continued.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

[ - - > ]



[Source: http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-theft-terms-in-hotfile-trial-131129/] | Image URL: http://torrentfreak.com/images/piracy-crime.jpg]

RIAA and BPI Use “Pirated” Code on Their Websites

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 02, 2013 at 01:00PM]

[ < - - Content ]
Copyright is a double-edged sword, and those who sharpen one side often get cut by the other.

Two weeks ago we reported that the new Healthcare.gov website had stripped the copyright notice from one of the scripts it used. This blatant act of ‘piracy’ prompted us to take a closer look at the websites of several anti-piracy organizations, and today we present our findings.

As it turns out the U.S. Government is not the only one violating copyright licenses. The websites of music industry groups RIAA and BPI also use infringing code.

On both sites we found open source JQuerys scripts that are released under the MIT license. This license permits any person or organization to use, copy, modify, merge, distribute, or even sell copies of the software. There’s only one condition users have to agree to; that the original copyright notice stays intact.

Ironically, the scripts used on the RIAA and BPI websites have the copyright licenses removed.

BPI uses the depreciated template script jQuery.tmpl.min.js, and as can be seen below, yesterday there was no reference to the MIT license or the copyright holder listed at the top of the file.

BPI violation

The image below shows what the 2011 copy of the script should look like, with the proper copyright credits and applicable licenses included.

Proper credits

The RIAA makes a similar mistake with the image slider plugin jquery.orbit.min.js. This software is copyrighted by the design firm ZURB but the version in use at the RIAA website yesterday fails to mention this, or the MIT license.

RIAA violation

Here is what a copy of ZURB’s plugin should look like when the copyright holder and MIT license are properly mentioned.

Proper credits

TorrentFreak asked both RIAA and BPI for a comment yesterday. RIAA said it was looking into the issue and appears to have added the copyright notice now. BPI has not responded to our question but clearly received our email as they also updated the file with proper credits.

These type of violations are not unique, and can be found in many websites all over the Internet. Still, from outfits whose raison d’être is protecting copyrights, we have to expect that these issues are carefully checked.

The violations were probably caused by the web developers who coded the RIAA and BPI sites. We doubt that any of the higher ranked executives know about it, but next time they may want to instruct their coders to keep their site free from copyright infringements.

This is not the first time that an anti-piracy group has been accused of pirating software. A few years ago the MPAA removed the linkware license form Patrick Robin’s Forest Blog software. The movie industry group later said that this was a mistake, and it was only used for testing purposes.

Instant Update: A final check upon publication revealed that RIAA and BPI both fixed the infringements, probably more swiftly than the average website processes DMCA requests. Neither group provided a comment on the copyright violations.

Source: RIAA and BPI Use “Pirated” Code on Their Websites

[ - - > ]



[Source: http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-and-bpi-use-pirated-code-on-their-websites-131102/] | Image URL: http://torrentfreak.com/images/delete.jpg]

Piraten Somalië verdienden 250 mln

[Author: ]

[Time Published November 02, 2013 at 04:55AM]

[ < - - Content ] Piraten die schepen kapen bij de Hoorn van Afrika en Somalië hebben sinds 2005 tussen de 250 en 300 miljoen euro aan losgeld verdiend. Dat geld is vervolgens weer gebruikt om andere criminele activiteiten te financieren, zoals mensensmokkel en drugshandel. Ook worden er milities mee onderhouden. [ - - > ]



[Source: http://nos.nl/tekst/569939-piraten-somalie-verdienden-250-mln.html] | Image URL: http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png]

Before buying shows, Netflix checks piracy sites to make sure people are watching

[Author: ]

[Time Published September 14, 2013 at 10:20PM]

[<-- Content]
One of Netflix's goals has always been to combat piracy of TV shows and movies — if you can get all the shows and movies you want for only a few dollars a month, the company hopes you'll stop downloading them illegally. But as the service rolls out in the Netherlands, Reed Hastings' team has gone so far as to actually check piracy statistics in determining what shows to buy. VP of Content Acquisition Kelly Merryman told Tweakers that "with the purchase of series, we look at what does well on piracy sites." That led to Netflix buying Prison Break, for instance, a commonly torrented show in the Netherlands.

Merryman told Tweakers about some of Netflix's other considerations as well, including shows like The Voice that the company...

Continue reading…

[-->]



[Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/14/4729984/before-buying-shows-netflix-checks-piracy-sites-to-make-sure-people] | Image URL: http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/8950153/Family_in_living_room_4_-_Netflix_Logo_on_Red_large.jpg]