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Hollywood Muscles Aussie ISPs Over Movie Downloading
Tenaka Kahn writes "Whirlpool is reporting that American movie companies are using a company (MediaForce) to try and muscle Aussie ISPs into disconnecting users who indulge in movie sharing."
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This kind of stuff and I often hear of colleges that don't allow students to use certain ports at all. Isn't there a way to stop colleges from doing this? What if you had another reason to use those ports, a reason they don't know about.
Somehow this has to be against your rights somehow...
With 1 GB or 3 GB transfer caps, and very expensive per MB charges for data transfers in excess of this, Australian broadband users are hardly likely to be sharing any movies.
I imagine that about now, a whole bunch of small Aussie ISPs are pooling some cash for legal advice on exactly what they are liable for. IANAL, but such things as "common carrier" provisions, "Fair Use" and so forth are not the same as in the US. For instance, you can't tape television shows on your VCR in Australia. (warning: PDF links abound).
More info on Australian copyright law is available from the Australian Copyright Council. Interesting links:
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
The media companies regularly have robots on the peer to peer networks with fake files and log attempts to download them. The robots also search for various movies/songs/etc and if found they try to download it. They dont actually download it, they just send the request so they can get the IP address, then drop the connection. This is very likely the information that they refer to.
suddenly I feel very tired
The Guide to the Digital Agenda Act 2000 -- Australia's
version of the DMCA -- could be useful in clarifying who is responsible for
policing this sort of thing.
There is one interesting bit in
particular:
ISPs and carriers
The Act
also clarifies the liability of telecommunications carriers and carriage service
providers, including Internet Service Providers (ISPs). These groups are not
liable for infringing material communicated via their facilities, unless they
have control over the content of the material, (eg if they administer the
website themselves), or they authorise an infringing act by another (eg their
subscribers). The key factors in determining whether they have authorised an
infringement include:
* the ability to prevent the
infringement;
* the relationship with the infringer;
* the steps
taken to avoid infringement; and
* compliance with any relevant industry
codes of practice
in otherwords
tough shit RIAA
No, movie sharing is *not* a copyright violation.
Distributing a copy of a movie *to others who do not own a copy* is a copyright violation.
(This is clearly stated in "My Own Book Of Laws As They Should Be".)
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
Look at
/ 0, 2000024985,20271225,00.htm
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/security/story
One interesting quote:
"Brendan Scott, a lawyer with Gilbert and Tobin, said it was uncertain whether MediaForce could bring legal proceedings against an Australian ISP. "The reason I say maybe is that the law prohibits reproduction and distribution to the public, but, from memory, doesn't directly impose obligations on third parties," he said."
So, mediaforce is probably going to have to go after the users one by one...
Australia it is not illegal to give away copyrighted material, only if you sell it.
d f
you are 100% incorrect.
please brush up: http://www.copyright.org.au/PDF/InfoSheets/G010.p
Clearly the person you replied to was confused about the meaning of 'illegal' vs. 'criminal', else they would not have said that the civil courts deal with it.
This has some basis in law. Compare the section of the Copyright Act 1968 dealing with civil actions to the section dealing with criminal offences. You will find that the criminal offences only deal with copyright infringement where there's money involved or where it occurs to an extent that will prejudicially affect the owner of the copyright. In other cases it is a civil, not criminal, matter.
The Australian Copyright Council also has an information sheet on the topic.
......http://online.securityfocus.com/archive/1/30647
Depends on what you mean by sharing.
Inviting people to watch a movie with you in your living room is fine.
Charging people to watch movies at your house is not.
Putting a movie on a P2P network so that others can make copies of it also is not. Of course, that will almost certainly be viewed as distribution by a court, so maybe it doesn't come under your meaning.
Making copies for friends also is not ok in most parts of the world. The United States does allow people to make copies of audio recordings that can be shared on a limited basis, but that ain't movies.
Actually, it (bullying) is already a very effective tactic.
There is a mechanism at work here: a company can communicate with anyone it wants to and threaten to seek a legal remedy if any exists in the target nation's legal system.
If any of the target companies/individuals don't give in to the demand, two things can happen:
1. The corporation can walk away, having scared all, some or none of the target ISP's.
2. They can make good on the threat of legal action.
Walking away after even partial success entails the company's having worked wonders for the price of a few emails written by people they have on salary. Essentially, it costs them nothing.
Corollary: defending billions in revenues can cost very little money.
Making good on the threat closes down an avenue of access--remember that carnival game with the gophers and the hammer--for 'pirates,' 'liberators,' 'guys-who-feel-hosed-by-overpricing,' etc., while simultaneously proving to any onlooker who wasn't scared before that a multibillion-dollar organization has a long reach.
Corollary: Even given a suit with no imaginable merit, a court system will go through the motions forcing the companies and individuals to spend money--at the very least, in answering motions and summonses to court.
Corollary 2: with a legal staff in place, a lawsuit is a minor expense for a large enough company that can easily bankrupt an ordinary citizen or smaller company.
We won't even talk about what happens when the corporation is big enough to get the U.S. government involved...
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
However, saying copyright is theft is factually inaccurate. Im going to quote someone more qualified than I on this though:
" This is not a matter of opinion, but rather of law. Copyright violation is a tort, i.e., a claimed business wrong that can be settled as a matter of civil law between the two parties. There are sundry defences and exceptions that might apply. One's local public prosecutors won't pay for the investigation or lawsuit -- because they do that only for matters of criminal law. Which brings us to:
Making a copy of an abstract property over which legislated monopoly exists does not qualify as "theft": Theft is a concept in _criminal_ law, under whose provisions it applies only to tangible property (and therefore not to [downloaded songs or movies]). Crimes are wrongful acts that are considered injurious to _society_, unlike civil torts, which are private disputes that can be settled in court. Criminal cases are underwritten and paid for by the state. Proof must be shown beyond any reasonable doubt, instead of a mere preponderance of the evidence (as in civil cases). The claimed victim can't get "damages", unlike in civil law -- as the dispute is between the accused and the state, not the accused and the claimed victim. Last, the accused can be imprisoned, instead of just being subject to monetary awards and court orders." Rick Moen (Linux Mafia - posted this on the rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan newsgroup about "theft" of an e-book. However, its applicability here is obvious.
Course, I tend to forget that the /. crowd likes to lean toward the everything should be free mentality and we all should live in Shangri La where everyone can get whatever they want without consideration of the people who actually created the product.
Finally, just because a company is based in the US it doesn't mean they have no legal complaint in other nations. Many companies hold both US and international patents and copyrights in other nations. With the economy being as global as it is doesn't only make sense to protect your property as much as possible in all of your markets?
Bitch all you want, but if these companies hadn't been publishing the movies/music all these years none of you would have anything to steal/share. This doesn't make those companies infallibe in my eyes but their actions don't make them the hand of the devil either. They are a business protecting their interests - just like you guys contacting ISPs to encourage them to do nothing are trying to protect yours.
Oddly enough though, I imagine if you were the president of one of those same companies I imagine your view would change pretty quickly. People are notoriosly willing to be careless with other peoples money.