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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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Proving once again that U.S. government and businesses recognize no boundaries, CNN (among others) carries tidings of U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson refusing to drop a copyright infringement suit against Kazaa owner Sharman Networks Ltd. (based in Austrailia, incorporated in Vanuatu) brought by the music (RIAA, no doubt) and movie (MPAA, also, no doubt) industries. Perhaps Sharman Networks spokeswoman, Kelly Larabee, should consider the fate of Manuel Noriega and how 21 million (where do they come up with these numbers?) americans are at risk of subversion by wanton music and movie swapping. Battle of the Coral
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It seems like if they can't stop it in the US of A they might as well try some other countries...
A company can not just barge into another country and demand their wants and rules be met. They have no legal clout, they filed no suit, it's as if someone from the next town over from where you live barges into your house and tells you to stop using your alarm clock to wake up in the morning because he created the alarm-buzzer noise.
If they cave though, then bullying becomes a legal and effective way of getting your way, and we're all screwed.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
President Georges W. has announced a new US NAVY/USAF taskforce destined to take out the communication equipment of foreign ISPs who are complained against by the *AA. The technology used is a combination of EMP and smoke-signal broadcasting.
Tracking by IP address is becoming more and more useless all the time. You can basically just wardrive around your neighborhood until you find an open network, and then download all your warez from there. Who will get in trouble? Not you!
Some people can even connect to other networks without leaving their own house (some California houses are really close together). You could even target someone to get in trouble just by using their open network (they might have thought they were being generous).
Sex - Find It
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
Take a look here for a sample. This is what the ISP received, most likely.
Since you own this IP address, we request that you immediately do the following:
There really isn't anything that MediaForce can do. Their issue is with the user, not the ISP. I'm sure the ISP will be willing to answer any subpoena requests, but the idea of the ISP seriously thinking about disabling a customer because of one of these notices is silly.
Ask anyone who is in the right place at a big ISP. They'll tell you they get hundreds of these.
Adam
Warner Bros: Hello, some of your customers are downloading copyrighted material on KaZaA.
ISP: Ummm... Well, we're going to have to get back to you on that.
Warner Bros: While we're on the phone, would it be possible to send Steven Case to you guys via air mail? We don't want him.
ISP: Ummm... No.
Warner Bros: He may be useless, but he doesn't eat much. Please?
ISP: Goodbye.
*click*
Warner Bros: Never a break...
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
Start up Kazza (lite), start downloading a file.
Open up a command line and run netstat
You get the IPs you are downloading from clearly displayed.
Now track those IPs via RIPE, ARIN and APNIC and you know the ISP, send legal letter, then errr, profit?
IANAL, but isn't sharing a movie or music a copyright violation? The owners of the copyright are asking the ISP to stop the people who are infringing their copyright. What is the problem? Copyright is pretty much international law with the Berne convention. I see no jurisdiction problem here.
Q.
prepare for karma burn...
australia still has copyright law, and ISPs still tend to protect themselves by stating in their TOS that users who use the service to break a law are subject to termination of service. the majority of "hollywood" (read: major studio productions) are protected by international copyright, thus making it entirely legal and right for the american studio to inform the australian ISP of a user on their system violating copyright.
it's just as if you contacted an australian ISP and informed them of a user sending out SPAM. would you not expect the ISP to repremant the user, if not disconnect them entirely?
of COURSE the studios have legal clout. it's basic, every day copyright. you run a distribution system for movies protected by international copyright, you are breaking the law. this is not personal use. this is not fair use. this is an illegal distribution meant to subvert payment. framing it as anything else destroys every good-natured and honest approach to legal reasons for allowing filesharing. when you lie, you make a better case for filesharing to be illegal.
Did any one catch that? First of all, it is unfortunate that they are considering to abide... but that is not the scary part. The scary part is that Australian ISPs are seeking legal advice to check whether US companies have any jurisdiction in Australia!!!!!. Naturally, there are few lawyers here, but isn't it obvious that regardless of how big or scary a company is, it has no jurisdiction outside of US. Nothing in US has jurisdiction outside of US (besides the army maybe...)
Unfortunately, there are some people who respond to threats. In Australia we have had a number of ISPs that have failed to honour the contracts they have made with their customers out of fear of litigation. This kind of yellow belly behaviour is common where the threatened feels no respect for those who will suffer from their complacency. These are the people we need to report.
If you have had your account removed or your service disconnected by your ISP, please report it!
It is the responsibility of our freedom loving society to avoid service providers who fail to protect that freedom. If each of us take notice of these reports and boycott those ISPs that fail to protect us, then maybe we can affect real change.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I have no problem with the record/movie companies going after the users. Isn't that what the slashdot crowd has been crying all along? Don't go after the networks, go after the users? Hell, when people stop crowding my isp with nothing but illegal traffic, maybe my connection won't run like a pig?
What I do have a problem with is a bunch of arrogant american fuckwits, obviously blinded by the sunshine that comes out of their mate's asses, who think they have the right to force THEIR laws on others. Here's an idea assholes, if you're going to tell people in other countries how to run their god damn lives, take 5 minutes, 5 MINUTES to find the relevant australian law to go after them with.
technically, when one participates in a P2P network such as FastTrack, they're still not violating copyright law.
Here's the point I want to make in a nutshell, and argue about it as you will:
nobody is violating copyright laws by simply "sharing" files. The only copyright infringers are the ones who download shared files without owning a license to those copyrighted works.
In other words, in order to break the law, one must download a copyrighted, non-free file that you don't have the rights to use. When the RIAA or MPAA claims you are breaking the law, they are bluffing - they have no way to ascertain whether you've actually got a license to use the files you share, and they have no idea whether you're downloading files which you don't have rights to.
Note that this whole argument took place many years ago when the VCR first came into popular use.
An ISP should not take action based on an unsubstantiated e-mail from some unkown entity who claims to have some authority.
These buffoons in their airconditioned offices with their window views are going to have to put in a full days work to make a difference here.
Any ISP worth their salt will not give these people any personal details. They will also know that they cannot take action against the user without some proof or some order from a local authority.
If Media Force wants to get into Australia they are going to have to stop sending worthless e-mail s and speak to local Australian law enforcement. Learn local laws and try and take this to offenders properly.
In reality they won't do that. They are going to just sit back and send their worthless e-mails and collect their fat cheques from Warner etc. No big days work coming out of Media Force, I'll wager.
The good news is that at some point the Record mafia will realise how inneffective these stupid upstart companies are and will drop them.
They will go broke and hopefully go back to loan sharking or selling snake oil.
ISPs - Don't log anything that isn't 100% necessary, and then set it up so it autodeletes to protect your customers. Remember that your customers are your most valuable business asset, and third parties asking you to close and account are creating a retention problem. Can you afford a 1%-3% increase in attrition?
Record/Movie Biz - Stop the witch-hunt before public opinion turns on you. Copyright is an abridgement of free press and speech... What the people gave you, we have the power to take away... Find ways to lower costs and make getting new music easy... and for God's sake MARKET DECENT MUSIC and MOVIES. Most of the crap you've foisted on us is suitable only for MST3K or the soundtrack of a movie on MST3K... Come out with something NEW already (when the biggest movies of the year are based on an old novel and a comic book or are sequels, you aren't exactly pumping out the new ideas...)
-- $G