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IsoHunt Petitions Canadian Court For Copyright Blessing
A Cow writes "As an act of self-defense, the popular BitTorrent site isoHunt has decided to file a petition to ask the Court of British Columbia to confirm that isoHunt — and sister sites Torrentbox and Podtropolis — do not infringe copyright. isoHunt owner Gary explains to TorrentFreak: 'Our petition summarizes BitTorrent technology, its open nature and a whole ecosystem of websites and operators that has developed around it, that CRIA does not own copyright to all files distributed over BitTorrent or on isoHunt websites, and we seek legal validation that we can continue to innovate within this emerging BitTorrent ecosystem on the Internet.'"
The laws on all this cyber stuff are totally wrong. It should be stated quite simply in the law that:
If you provide a service, such as a communication service, a file transfer service, a web-based service, or any kind of Internet-based service, and someone else who is using that service is doing something illegal or something they shouldn't be doing, then that someone else should be liable and you should NOT.
Think of it this way. You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone speeding along those roads gets in an accident and kills someone. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!
Another example: You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone is transporting illegal drugs around in a vehicle, using your roads and freeways to do so. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!
So why should a service that is based on the Internet be any different? Why should those providing the infrastructure be liable for bad things people do with that infrastructure? If infrastructure-providers were supposed to be liable because they somehow facilitate something bad, then why don't we go back to being cave-men, because anything and everything that we have in the world can be used for some bad purpose.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
This is an interesting move - good on them! You could easily argue that CDR and DVDR are predominantly used for piracy, but they openly sell them at all the major gorcey and department stores. Obviously becuase they have other legitimate uses too - just like bittorrent.
By your logic why are drug traffickers held accountable?
A drug trafficker actually owns and then distributes the drug.
In your analogy, a torrent site would be like you walking up to a guy on the street, asking him "you know where I can buy some weed?" and he tells you "oh.. there's a guy over there I think.. he might not be there anymore... but there's a bunch of these guys around.. umm.. maybe that guy over there possibly." while pointing. He's not moving or selling the drugs, he is referring you to them.
Furthermore, it is the not the explicit intent of these sites to aid in 'finding drugs', but rather to aid in helping people find what they ask for and relaying the information as to where it is.
Get it?