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UK High Court Orders ISPs to Identify File-sharers
securitas writes "The BBC reports that the British High Court has ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to divulge the identities of 28 customers accused of music file-sharing to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the UK equivalent of the RIAA. The court order issued by Mr Justice Blackburne is a big victory for the BPI and its umbrella oranization, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), especially after recent setbacks in Canada (CRIA) and the USA. Blackburne is quoted as saying, 'On the face of it this appears to be a powerful case of copyright infringement.' The ISPs have 14 days to comply with the court order. More coverage at the Guardian/Reuters and the Register."
when push comes to shove, will it turn out this way here too? This really changes things if ISPs are going to have to police their users. This should cause ISP rates to go up as well, which is bad for everyone.
CB$#@*(
free ipod and free gmail!
For a moment i thought it was the British Pornographic Industry. If the porn industry starts suing people internet would be obselete for me. :(
"Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much." -Walter Lippmann
These 28 customers accused of music file-sharing are from North Korea. Then what are you going to do?
There go all the Benny Hill rips from Emule!
I'm glad we're allowed to improve our cultural knowledge base here in Canada. ;) Time to go download some more songs.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Is the new age of file-swapping enforcement a lottery now? Not long until file-traders must obtain draft cards".
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
You know what, you can spare all of your music should be free hippy bullshit, if these were the 14 biggest file sharers out of a population of fifty million plus British internet users, then so be it. It's not like anybody can say that they didn't know it was illegal, that they didn't know they were violating international copyright laws.
Why don't the ISP's just dump all their usage logs to /dev/null ? For the sake of customer privacy.
Can't really expect the ISP's to come up with data that they don't have, can you!?
Meh.
When I signed up for my 512 kb/s ADSL in Kuwait, I asked the ISP salesman specifically if I might have any problems with file sharing.
He said it's perfectly fine with the compnay policies, and even suggested a few P2P clients that he liked!
It seems to me that keeping detailed logs of your users is just a big legal headache.
One of my clients was once interested in installing detailed internet monitoring and logging (so as to see who is wasting time on the web). They lost interest rapidly when I pointed out that they could be compelled to provide it in court should someone sue.
SurfControl and the other Big Brother ware makers never include that in the copy.
Here's what I'd do: You need to keep certain logs so you can know if there is an intrusion, DoS, etc, but program your logs to automatically erase every week. That means that there will never be more than THE CURRENT WEEK's worth of data that could be subpoened.
Of course, I'm sure if ISP's start doing THAT the RIAA will just get Congress to pass laws that make us all retain ALL logs for all time...
Corporatism != Free Market
"They are uploading music on a massive scale, effectively stealing the livelihoods of thousands of artists and the people who invest in them."
Yet they chose Brittany Spears to be the front-person for the anti-pirating campaign. How about paying some of those starving artists to play frontman instead?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you have an open WAN for anonymous people to connect to the internet over, can the owner of the router (and ISP connection) be held responsible for sharing files over said connection?
Compared to the next step, I mean. How do you identify filesharers when they do it secretly and not via some dumbass gnutella/fasttrack/etc that lets everyone in the world know exactly what you're doing?
Well, you don't. You just suspect everyone whose traffic stats look abnormal. Sure, the hell will freeze before ISPs are going to provide this data for free. So what happens? A new law...
The ISPs have 14 days to comply with the court order.
Apparently the courts in Europe know how to set deadlines, unlike the US Courts.
seems that Cananda is the only country to have the sense to tell the music industry to shove it...
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
...I read:
"...the British Pornographic Industry (BPI), the UK equivalent of the RIAA."
Dyslexia can be funny.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I'm still of the opinion that criminalising your audience is a very dangerous game for the record labels to be getting involved in. And also extremely sad and backwards. I think Steve Job's comment that he treats downloading tracks as his biggest competitor to iTunes Music Store.
In any case, it will further push the record labels one step further away from any claim to believe in the importance of music for music's sake and hopefully open up the eyes of fans to the sheer amount of manipulation these guys now have in terms of creating pre-planned acts, factory stamped songs and shallow, empty and talentless indivduals who want fame more than anything else.
It will be extremely interesting to see how the music press in the UK react - most of them are in the pay of the music business anyway except a few genuine exceptions, Void Magazine for one...
Also I really hope that this will provide more impetus to people experimenting with the copyleft music scene...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
First they need to find one of those 'starving artists' who are happy that they have signed over their rights to the songs they have written or performed over to the local equivalent of the RIAA. Or at least happy enough about the deal that they will play the front man for the local anti-pirating campaign.
Nope, I don't think they will find many either.
-Rusty
You never know...
Anyone have the full disposition ? What IP addresses are the BPI asking to divulge the identity of ?
Not that I'm worried or anything.
Why doesn't everyone put up files named Madonna_Like_a_Virgin.mp3 or Britney_Spears_Takes_it_Reel_Good.mp3 filled with random data? A few hundred thousand of those on the peers should give the BPI a headache.
You could plead you innocence quite legitimately.
They would then have to copyright file names....
Stick Men
"The recording industry may not agree, but the U.S. Supreme Court thinks personal privacy is far more important that music piracy," Red Herring reported. "On Tuesday, the high court refused to entertain an appeal of a unanimous 2003 decision by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that held that copyright holders cannot force Internet providers to identify file sharers using a mere subpoena.
Industry watchers see this as yet another blow that the recording industry has taken in its fight against online file sharing -- a fight it is slowly losing. The lawsuits in question were between New York's Verizon Internet Services and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), headquartered in Washington, D.C."
From instapundit.com 5 minutes ago, of course. :)
In the US, the ACLU would be screaming bloddy murder, and lawyers would be flocking over this like vultures over a rotting elephant.
Judges in Britain are called Mr Justice $surname. Just like Dukes are His Grace $fullname etc.
Phil
I guess today is a passable day to die.
Uh, has anyone caught that the filing was done by a Mr Justice Blackbourne?
So, if he is a judge, then justice is being sought by Justice Justice?
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
here is the kind of email you can receive from a copyright holder. > Re: Unauthorized Use of Twentieth Century FOX Film Corporation Property - ALIEN VS. PREDATOR > > > Notice ID:###### > Notice Date:# Oct 2004 ##:##:## GMT > Case ID: ####### > > > Dear Sir or Madam: > > TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION and its affiliated companies (collectively, "FOX") are the exclusive owners of copyrights in motion pictures, including ALIEN VS. PREDATOR. > > It has come to our attention that ADSL is the service provider for the IP address listed below, from which unauthorized copying and distribution (downloading, uploading, file serving, file "swapping" or other similar activities) of FOX'S property is taking place. The documentation included at the end of this notice specifies the location of the infringement. We believe that the Internet access of the user engaging in this infringement is provided by ADSL or a downstream service provider who purchases this connectivity from ADSL. > > This unauthorized copying and distribution constitutes copyright infringement under applicable national laws and international treaties. Although various legal and equitable remedies may be available to FOX as a result of such infringement, FOX believes that the entire Internet community benefits when these matters are resolved cooperatively. We urge you to take immediate action to effect removal of the detected infringement listed in the attached report, including: > > (1) Notify the account holder of this infringement > (2) Request the account holder remove the infringing material > (3) Disable access to the infringing material > (4) Take appropriate action against the account holder under your Abuse Policy/Terms of Service > > We appreciate your efforts toward this common goal. Please send us a prompt response indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter. Please reference the above noted Notice ID and Case ID in the subject line of all email correspondence. > > The undersigned has a good faith belief that use of FOX's property in the manner described herein is not authorized by FOX, its agents or the law. Also, we hereby state, under penalty of perjury, under the laws of the State of California and under the laws of the United States, that the information in this notification is accurate and that the undersigned is authorized to act on behalf of FOX with respect to this matter. > > Please be advised that this letter is not and is not intended to be a complete statement of the facts or law as they may pertain to this matter or of FOX's positions, rights or remedies, legal or equitable, all of which are specifically reserved. > > Please contact us at the above listed address or by replying to this email should you have any questions. Also note that this infringement notice contains an XML tag that can be used to automate the processing of this data. If you would like more information on how to use this tag, please do not hesitate to contact BayTSP. > > > Very truly yours, > > Sarah Bergman > Compliance Manager > BayTSP, Inc. > PO Box 1314 > Los Gatos, CA 95031 > > v: 408-341-2300 > f: 408-341-2399 notice that the real crime is to watch alien vs predator :D
Have you noticed how all judges in the UK seem to have the first name Justice? Must be some sort of ordained-from-birth thing.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
I've done this several times. I go over a friends house, with two other interested people. We all have Macintosh computers. We all have Firewire Drives. At around 1 in the afternoon we start drinkin' ourselves stupid and plugging our drives into each other's laptops or desktop (depending). Then we go through the drive, copying files over to our own drive as we see fit.
Net result?
I have 85 gigs of music on my 120 gig drive.
Now, it's much more "site specific" - I'm not "open to the public" but I know my friends have remarkable taste in music and we get to recommend music to each other.
If I like something, I go to the record store AND I BUY THE CD. (sometimes I buy it used, sometimes new, depending on how I feel and the depth of my pocket and the obscurity of the music)
Why? It's not because I'm feeling guilty - I just know that the CD will likely outlast the hard drive, and it's just good sound back up policy.
Of course, to rip all my CDs over would take a few months of dedicated part time effort, but that's fine. It's still good to have the back up, JIC.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.