Open WiFi Owner Not Liable For Illegal File-Sharing, Court Rules. Dependant on the side they're representing, lawyers around the world have taken opposing stances when it comes to liability for infringement via open WiFi. When representing plaintiffs they speak of 'a duty of care' to rightsholders and when defending Internet users they insist that holding individuals responsible for the actions of others is a step too far. In a landmark case in Finland, a court has just agreed with the latter. As people’s lives and the Internet became more and more entwined during the last decade, investment in multiple web-enabled devices rocketed. From simple multiple PC locations to network-enabled storage devices and games consoles, effective home networking – wireless in particular – has gradually become a basic requirement. In recent years, wireless routers – the now-commonplace devices enabling these networks – have become a conflict ground for lawyers working in file-sharing cases.
But instead of caving in the woman kicked back. The Fight Against Copyright Enforcement & The Fight For Civil Liberties Are The Same. With the ongoing success of the world's Pirate parties, I've seen the copyright industry start to push back, claiming that copyright enforcement can't be tied to civil liberties; that they are two separate issues.
That's not a true statement from the copyright industry. The whole point of the fight for net liberties is that the copyright monopoly cannot be enforced without cutting down civil liberties. Here's why. Before the net, if you wanted to send a copy of something that was protected under the copyright monopoly, it was an absolute given that you could do so. You would send that copy in the mail without a single thought of repercussions. You could send copies of drawings, you could send mixtapes of music, you could send copied movies. The problem recently is that civil servants, not politicians, have been tasked with upholding the copyright monopoly. For when I send a piece of music in an e-mail to somebody, I typically violate the copyright monopoly. Let me explain. Anonymous, Decentralized and Uncensored File-Sharing is Booming.
The file-sharing landscape is slowly adjusting in response to the continued push for more anti-piracy tools, the final Pirate Bay verdict, and the raids and arrests in the Megaupload case. Faced with uncertainty and drastic changes at file-sharing sites, many users are searching for secure, private and uncensored file-sharing clients. Despite the image its name suggests, RetroShare is one such future-proof client. The avalanche of negative file-sharing news over the past weeks hasn’t gone unnoticed to users and site operators.
From SOPA to Megaupload, there is a growing uncertainly about the future of sharing. While many BitTorrent sites and cyberlockers continue to operate as usual, there is a growing group of users who are expanding their horizons to see what other means of sharing are available if the worst case scenario becomes reality. Anonymous, decentralized and uncensored are the key and most sought-after features. RetroShare’s downloads at Sourceforge Downloading with RetroShare. Artist and Hacktivists Sabotage Spanish Anti-Piracy Law. In an attempt to sabotage a new anti-piracy law that went into effect today, hundreds of websites in Spain are participating in a unique protest organized by a local hacktivist group. The websites all link to an "infringing" song by an artist loyal to the protest, who reported the sites to the authorities to overload them with requests.
Traditionally, Spain has been one of the few countries where courts have affirmed that P2P-sites operate legally. This situation was met with disapproval by the United States Government who behind closed doors proceeded to help the Spanish authorities draft new laws to protect the interests of copyright holders. Threatened with being put on a United States trade blacklist, the Government passed the so-called ‘Sinde Law’ in a rush late last year. The law allows for the blocking of allegedly infringing sites based on reports from copyright holders, a position similar to that proposed by the US SOPA bill. Navarro delivering the complaints. Pornidustry.png (580×580) Seven Ways to Stop Piracy Without DRM.
Anti-Piracy Warnings Have No Effect on iTunes Sales. To back up their demands for tougher anti-piracy laws, the music industry often promotes statistics that show how drastically sales improve when they have their way. This week the music industry did this again by claiming that the French three-strikes law has been highly effective and has boosted iTunes sales tremendously. But is this really the case? Or have the media and lawmakers been fooled again by the copyright lobby?
The majority of the reports and press releases put out by the music industry in the past several years can be summarized in a few words: “Piracy is evil and we lose a lot of money because of it.” Even today, when more music is being sold than ever before, the RIAA, IFPI and other music groups still lobby hard for draconian measures to curb piracy. One of the countries where these lobbying efforts have paid off is France, where Internet users are now monitored by the state and disconnected if they are caught pirating three times.
This is bogus. Hadopi vs Pirate Bay. MegaUpload: What Made It a Rogue Site Worthy of Destruction? Yesterday a massive operation took down MegaUpload, one of the world’s leading file-storage services and one of the world’s biggest sites, period. While the timing came as a huge post-SOPA protest surprise, the fact the site was targeted was not – for many months there have been rumblings behind the scenes that something might be “done” about MegaUpload. Nevertheless, the manner in which the action was taken and the language used by the authorities in doing so was utterly unprecedented. So the key question this morning is this – What made MegaUpload a rogue site which deserved to be completely dismantled and its key staff arrested?
The answers lie in the 72-page indictment and show just how the authorities (with the massive assistance of the MPAA, no doubt) framed Mega’s activities in such a way as to strip it of any protection under the DMCA. In the U.S., online service providers are eligible for safe harbor under the DMCA from copyright infringement suits by meeting certain criteria.
2011: Piracy Wars and Internet Censorship. At the end of the year when new developments draw to a close, it’s time to take a look back and take stock. Below is our overview of some of the most interesting events we reported during the first half of 2011. Take a deep breath… January After pressure from the entertainment industries, Google started to censor piracy-related keywords from its instant and autocomplete services. Keywords such as ‘torrent,’ ‘BitTorrent’ and ‘RapidShare’ were excluded from the start, and later in the year Google added a wide range of new terms including ‘The Pirate Bay.’ Despite these efforts the RIAA remained dissatisfied, patronizing the search engine with a could-do-much-better “Report Card” in December. The mass-BitTorrent lawsuits that entered the US during 2010 reached a new milestone in 2011 with the 100,000th person being sued for alleged copyright infringement.
One alleged BitTorrent user paid a mysterious settlement of $250,000. February March In the ongoing mass BitTorrent lawsuits, U.S. April May June. 2011: Striking Pirates and Stopping SOPA. During the second half of the year SOPA dominated much of the news, but of course there were plenty of other interesting things going on too. Below is a selection of some of the most remarkable topics covered here on TorrentFreak in the latter part of 2011. Part 1 (covering the first 6 months of the year) can be found here. Feel free to add your assessment of the last year in the comments section below. July BitTorrent had its 10th birthday at the start of July, and inventor Bram Cohen was kind enough to share his thoughts on the past decade with us. In the same month the MPAA, RIAA and all major ISPs in the US announced a deal to curb piracy with a six-strikes warning system. Under the agreement the ISPs agreed to send “copyright alerts” to subscribers whose Internet connections are used for copyright infringement.
Around the same time, the French authorities provided some details on the scope of their three-strikes law, Hadopi. August September October November The SOPA soap continued. How to Completely Anonymize Your BitTorrent Traffic with BTGuard. What Does My Internet Provider See When I'm Downloading Torrents? Which VPN Providers Really Protect Your File Sharing Activities?
Um wow. You do realize VPNs have legitimate and legal uses right? Same goes for bittorent and p2p sharing — you can in fact use those services completely and entirely in a legal way. Well done internet police. Glad you felt the need to scold Lifehacker. Yes, but if you look at the article, it specifically mentions the lawsuits. Unless people are getting sued for downloading legal stuff there? @dunehunter You can be sued for anything, even when you're legal. Think back to the number of times the RIAA and its ilk were wrong and still are in many cases. The burden of proof (and the costs) should be on the plaintiff, not the defendant.
So because some of it is illegal all of it is illegal? Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously? As detailed in yesterday’s article, if a VPN provider carries logs of their users’ activities the chances of them being able to live up to their claim of offering an anonymous service begins to decrease rapidly.
There are dozens of VPN providers, many of which carry marketing on their web pages which suggests that the anonymity of their subscribers is a top priority. But is it really? Do their privacy policies stand up to scrutiny? We decided to find out. Over the past two weeks TorrentFreak contacted some of the leading, most-advertised, and most talked about VPN providers in the file-sharing and anonymity space. Rather than trying to decipher what their often-confusing marketing lingo really means, we asked them two direct questions instead: 1. 2.
This article does not attempt to consider the actual quality of service offered by any listed provider, nor does it consider whether any service is good value for money. P2P Supporting VPN providers NordVPN NordVPN website Private Internet Access. Scammers Try To Trick Cash From Surprised ‘File-Sharers’ With hundreds of thousands of warnings already sent out, chances are that soon most French Internet users will know someone who has received one. Unsurprisingly, scammers are now riding the wave of publicity and uncertainty by sending out fake Hadopi emails which trick users into requesting more information about their 'infringements' which cost them money. Since October 2010, the French government agency set up to police the country’s file-sharers have been busy sending out infringement warnings. By early September 2011, ISP account holders on their first strike from Hadopi had swelled to 650,000, while those on their second numbered 44,000.
If Hadopi carry on at the current rate, by this time next year around one in 20 households in France will have received at least one warning, and it could be argued that most people will be aware of someone near to them having received one. Internet users have just started receiving emails which claim to be from Hadopi. Perhaps The Copyright Industry Deserves Some Credit For Pointing Out Our Single Points Of Failure. Through new legislation the copyright industry is trying to gain unprecedented control over the Internet. Very worrying plans that need to be stopped, but there is also something to learn from. Perhaps we should be grateful that the copyright industry, in their distorted sense of entitlement to the world, are pointing out crucial weaknesses that need to be fixed.
Yesterday’s column here on TorrentFreak on how the copyright industry keeps pushing its own interests into law was very worthwhile, and highlighted the endemic corruption of the current system quite well. I think the latest bill goes so far it would have unintended consequences, though — unintended for the copyright industry. This latest bill in the United States, named SOPA (a Swedish word meaning “piece of utter garbage”, and I am not making that up), would essentially eliminate due process of law and right to defense. It would create a j’accuse! You will note that everybody in the proposed system is completely rightsless. Are You Guilty If Pirates Use Your Internet? Lawyer Says YES.
Today we publish two opinion pieces from copyright lawyers who are familiar with the mass-lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent users in the U.S. Both lawyers discuss whether someone can be held liable for the copyright infringements committed by others on their Internet connection. The opinion below comes from Marc Randazza, a lawyer who has sued thousands of BitTorrent users in recent months on behalf of copyright holders. His piece focuses mainly on the question of whether people who operate open WiFi networks are liable for the copyright infringements of others. As much as we may disagree with his cases in this field, Randazza has always been gracious with his time when we have had questions about his and other cases.
We understand that our readers may not agree with Randazza either, but we ask that comments remain civil and respectful. He has been respectful to us, and we ask that readers treat him as our guest and take the opportunity for debate. Why Negligence in Torrent Cases? I. II. Are You Guilty If Pirates Use Your Internet? Lawyer Says NO. Today we publish two opinion pieces from copyright lawyers who are familiar with the mass-lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent users in the U.S. Both lawyers discuss whether someone can be held liable for the copyright infringements committed by others on their Internet connection. The opinion below comes from Nicholas Ranallo, who is a licensed attorney in California and New York. He currently resides in Boulder Creek, California and is building a solo practice handling emerging issues in Intellectual Property, Internet law and e-commerce. Ranallo’s opinion focuses on the question of whether people are liable for the copyright infringements of others, which may occur when they operate an open WiFi network or when they share their internet access with roommates or employees.
The other post in this series, which argues the opposite of Ranallo (but focusing on the open WiFi angle only), can be found here. This statement needs to be deconstructed and examined. A. In MGM v. B. C: Inducement?