Following up on Torrent Shutdowns

dantheman82 and others have submitted a number of links about the recent closure of torrent mega sites like suprnova and torrentbits. The Unofficial Suprnova Closure FAQ comments that some torrent site maintainers have been arrested and that Suprnova was closed over fear of similiar fate. DeHavilland notes that the finnish police raided an unnamed torrent site. There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.

Comments

What does mobilizing foreign police actually mean?

[enoraM]

> There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is
> that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.
This would be scary, if you think that taking sites down was not just and legitimate. I don't know the facts about finish rights, but under german right suprnova could have been shut down.
It's not always the US pushing and picking on people and maybe it is not in this case. At least I believe, that the finnish police made it's own independent decision.
With Indymedia It actually seemed to be some tougher mobilizing:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/10/07/204217.shtml? tid=153&tid=219 This may or may not be the case with suprnova.

unnamed finish site

[f4k3r]

the "unnamed site" that was raided was FinReactor, there was a video (of something) about it on thepiratebay a few days ago

Re:unnamed finish site

[Keruo]

and despite of MPAA claims, it had absolutely nothing to do with the raid
National Bureau of Investigation(KRP) made announcement that they(MPAA) were trying to fish off free publicity from their investigations, and had nothing to do with the shutdown

MPAA had nothing to do with the finnish raids

[edgrale]

Actually it has been reported that MPAA had NOTHING to do with the finnish raids.
The KRP (Keskusrikospoliisi = FBI?) has publicly said that the MPAA has not been in contact with the finnish authorities. Here is a site (in finnish) that says it all.

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[ultrabot]

At least I believe, that the finnish police made it's own independent decision.

That's what the Finnish police themselves say. What's interesting is that MPAA has been attempting to take the "credit" for the raid. Sure, everyone knows they are lying bastards, but one would expect them to pick lies that are not so easy to check...

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[SlayerofGods]

I don't know the facts about finish rights, but under german right suprnova could have been shut down.

That's kind of funny, because under American law (yes the dreaded DMCA) suprnova was safe from lawsuits because it just acted like google as a clearing house for information and didn't actually run the trackers with infringing material.

Re:BooHoo

[DeathFlame]

Last time I checked, US law doesn't apply everywhere.

So they are not CLEARLY offering illegal content, as...

Wait a minute. Let me actually look this up. I'm applying patent law thinking to this...

*looks it up*

Oh fuck. Okay, so copyright protection usually DOES apply in foreign countries, assuming they signed the Berne Convention, are members of the WTO or signed the WIPO Copyright Treaty.

Criminal copyright law is not entirely new

[Kaseijin]

Until recently, copyright law in the US was a purely civil matter....

The bar has been repeatedly and drastically lowered in recent years, but copyright infringement for commercial gain has been criminal since the 1800s.

The facts on copyright and international relations

[JonKatzIsAnIdiot]

When confronted by mindless Slashbot tripe such as:

There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.

I find it refreshing to look at the pertinent facts:

• the Berne Convention, which first established the recognition of copyrights between sovereign nations, was the brainchild of Victor Hugo, a French author.
• The aforementioned agreement was first adopted in Berne, Switzerland. - Berne Convention
• The European Union extended copyrights to life of the author plus seventy years in 1993, a full five years before the US did with the Sonny Bono act - European Copyright Harmonization
• As mentioned elsewhere, the Finnish police acted independantly, with no input from any of those 'evil American copyright owners'

The anti-American whining is making you look stupid. Stop it.

Annan has not been accused of taking money.

[ChessHacker]

then ask why Kofi Annan and company were personally involved in the Oil for Food scandal.

There is absolutely no evidence that Kofi Annan has personally profited from the oil-for-food program.

Remember, this program was set up at the behest of the US, with support from the UK and was, according to UNICEF, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Sectio nID=15&ItemID=6861

Wrong

[DarkMan]

This particular fallacy needs to die.

Under the DMCA, specifically the section 512(d), sets out the criteria under which the 'search engine ' examption applies. The following key points are worthy of note:

Section 512, paragraph (d),
A service provider shall not be liable ... if the service provider :

part (1)(A) does not have actual knowledge that the material or activity is infringing;

(B) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or

(C) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;

Thus, this can only apply if the site owners are never aware that the material they are indexing is infringing.

A simple look at the front page of Suprnova.org is enough to belie that.

If a site wished to claim 512(d) as a defense, they would have to demonstrate to the court that they did not know any of the material they indexed was infringing.

Now, there might be a defense, under the multiple layers of abstraction, in that Suprnova indexed .torrents, which were merely pointers to the infringing data. That's nothing like a 'I'm just a search engine like Google' defense, however.

Simple rule of thumb: If it's common knowledge that a site is were to look to find infringing materials, and is of little other use, 512(d) won't apply (on the grounds that it beggers belief that a site owner would have no grasp on _why_ so many people were using thier site).

Disclaimer: You're not paying for this, this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice, contact a lawyer in your juristriction.

Re:OWNED!!!!!!

[CowboyMeal]

Interesting. If you view the source, the FAQ is still there, they just commented it out.