Slashdot Mirror
Shut-Down Movie Site Promises MPAA Court Fight
idolcrash writes "It looks like the owner a movie site shut down in 2001 will be attempting to take the MPAA to court regarding the shutdown of his website at the request of the MPAA, claiming he'll take them all the way to the Supreme Court to challenge the Constitutionality of the DMCA, under which his website was taken down."
No, it's worse than that. They made a patently false allegation in order to get the site shut down.
He raises a good question. How could he make a movie available for download before it was even made?
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
It's worse than that. Someone who has no affiliation with the supposedly infringed copyright owner can make a claim to your host, colo service, registrar or ISP that isn't even founded in reality (because they hold a grudge) and get you shut down.
One of the popular domain registrars threatened to shut my domain down (redirect to NULL in DNS) if I did not comply with the complaint. The complaint was that I was selling pornography to children and distributing pirated music through my site.
Of course, my site has nothing to do with any such thing. My site was mostly used as a personal email server and as a meeting point for a guild I play with on an MMORPG. There *wasn't* any music, videos, children porn or anything else there. We barely even had anything multimedia related unless you count user's avatar pics for their user profiles for the forums.
The person complaining was just some git with a personal grudge against one of the people in our "guild" that they had run across in-game and had a tiff with.
But I still had to spend a lot of my personal time preventing a shut down because my upstream failed to apply due dilligence to the situation before overreacting.
These places should refuse to act on any such complains UNLESS THE COMLAINT IS NOTARIZED AND ISSUED BY A LAWYER.
That a private organization could/can autonomously demand that an ISP shutdown a site without due process is repugnant in the extreme.
A private organization can *demand* anything. Case in point -- SCO demanding linux licenses.
The DMCA goes slightly overboard with its power in regards to server shutdowns, but it isn't that horribly unfair with regards to copywrited material on a server. [Its horribly unfair in other ways though...]
If the RIAA wants an ISP to shutdown a site, it has to make a good faith statement that the material is not legal, and that they are authorized to act for the copyright holder. Note the "good faith" provision -- this is where things have been going wrong, and it is not a problem with the DMCA. It strongly appears that certain agencies are automating searches for material and aren't manually checking the results before sending letters. This is one of the major problems.
Of course, once a site is taken down, the site owner can demand his day in court, and if the RIAA does not file a lawsuit within two weeks, the site should be put back up.
As I said, not horribly unfair. The only "fix" I can see is a grace period for the site's owner to reply to the possible copyright infringement before the site is taken down. (IANAL, but the good-faith provision should already be in effect: Asking for material to be removed without acting in good faith should open the asking party up to a few lawsuits under section 512, part f, but again, IANAL).
The other problem that I am hearing about is that ISPs are taking down sites without valid takedown notices. If I'm reading the law right, this should violate "safe harbor" provisions for ISPs, but I have yet to see an ISP prosecuted for this.
Generally when you sign up with an ISP they reserve the right to take your site down for any reason. Choosing to take your site down even though a proper takedown notice wasn't served doesn't violate the law directly, but the ISP wouldn't have the safe harbor provision to fall back on if they were then sued for breach of contract (but again, if the contract says they can take down your site for any reason, then you're screwed).
From my limited understanding of contract law, I might have to disagree. Again, IANAL, but I seem to remember that contracts must be done in good faith: depending on the jurisdiction, arbitrary termination is not consider good faith. So if you have a contract for 12 months of service, and they terminate you in 5 months, you might have grounds for a lawsuit.
I tried googling for this information, and other then finding every TOS for every ISP out there, the only mention that I can find is that Israeli law seems to agree with me. (In the US, there also seems to be regulations against doctors "abandoning" patients, but that seems like a specific case.)
I'd love for a contract lawyer to chime in and tell us what are justifiable causes for termination of a contract.
The other 18 movies they said I had just came out and were listed at the very bottom of the website and 99.9% of my visitors know I did not have movies on my website. There was one email from someone that asked if I had movies on my site and I told the truth in my deposition that is what you should do right tell the truth and that is all I do always on my site. Yes you can download movies online "ONLINE" this means the Internet not my site. As I stated in the post above I was the 1st to post the news about movies on the Internet and the MPAA did not like that but they love the millions of Internet visitors I send them each year. Note they send me all the posters for the movies and the trailers too. I am not rich by no means Anthony I put it all on the line for this fight and I always return money to anyone that is not happy. So you sound like you like the MPAA you sure do talk just like them reading between the lines and only point out what looks good for the MPAA. Anyone can take a word and say it means something other then you meant it to be. It is called "hyperbole." and the MPAA love to do it and the courts. The fact is the MPAA made a very big mistake and are trying to cover it up and I will not let them. Note see how they do not post news about them winning in the courts they just wish I would go away they love keeping everyone in the dark ages. My Members and I will make them face the light it is time for them to crash and burn.
Michael Jay Rossi
President
InternetMovies.com Inc.
Again, IANAL, but I seem to remember that contracts must be done in good faith: depending on the jurisdiction, arbitrary termination is not consider good faith.
Maybe. I should have said you're probably screwed. It all depends on the jurisdiction and the details of the specific case. In New Jersey, for instance, I believe the contract has to be illegal (as in telling someone to do illegal things, e.g. a contract to kill someone) or "unconscionable" to be unenforcible. Terminating someone's contract (and presumably refunding them for any unused time) because you believe that you are going to be subject to a lawsuit if you don't doesn't seem unconscionable to me, regardless of whether or not it turns out you were technically right.
No one was tricked and that is your MPAA thinking and in the documents I did not admit to this. You are very wrong and you are the one that is trying the trick people into believing missed fact just like the MPAA does. If you do not work for the MPAA you should they will love you.
My ISP should give anyone they same rights just as the next guy even if the site was free or cost money. Your views on how the world should be our shared with the MPAA and RIAA and most of us on the plant do not share your same ideas of the perfect world.
No one was making a profit of their works and you forget they send me all the movies assets to post on my site. They love the free traffic and ask me to send it to them all the time I sell them millions of movie tickets. One of the MPAA lawyers even asked me for one of my protest T-Shirts to wear. You really have no clue but you're welcome to think any way you like. There is no gray area here just the good and the bad and you're on their side bad thinking. I am suing them for the crime they did and they will pay for it all us good people will see to that without your help.
Micheal Rossi
InternetMovies.com Inc.