Belgian ISP Scores Victory In Landmark P2P Case

secmartin writes "Belgian ISP Scarlet scored an important victory in the first major European test of copyright law. The interim decision forcing them to block transfers of copyrighted materials via P2P has been reversed, because the judge agreed with Scarlet that the measures the Belgian RIAA proposed to implement proved to be ineffective. A final decision is expected next year."

Comments

Not a victory

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats not a landmark victory, thats a "your honor their idiots their idea doesn't work" "your right don't waste your time."

All they got there was a "That doesn't work" not a "you can't do that"

Re:Not a victory

[cpicon92]

you're honore, i ca'nt spelle

Re:Not a victory

[Kingrames]

In this day and age, that is an epic victory to be sung by bards for all of eternity.

Re:Not a victory

[MrNaz]

1. Find a mirror.
2. Repeat while looking at yourself: "You're an idiot and your spelling and grammar is atrocious."
3. Do this exercise and then read these instructions.

You are now closer to being able to contribute to your country's literacy rate.

Re:Not a victory

[Kjella]

Thats not a landmark victory, thats a "your honor their idiots their idea doesn't work" "your right don't waste your time."

All they got there was a "That doesn't work" not a "you can't do that"

Don't abuse the troll mod, this isn't trolling. After reading the TFA I tend to agree as it says "The court has now ruled in favor of Scarlet, staying the fine until the final ruling in this case which is expected about a year from now." Basicly, they haven't been able to make the filtering work and since they've been at it for years I doubt they will a year from now either, but this ruling doesn't say they need not implement a filtering system, only that they won't be fined until there's a filtering system that works. I don't think one can be made to work, but who knows what a judge might decide next year - "This is a POS but it's better than nothing"? A good ruling yes, but the last word has not been said.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope "ISP" means waffles and "P2P" means syrup!

Re:common sense: 1

[The Master Control P]

0/10, plagarized; Original work is required for passing grade.

Belgian RIAA

[TubeSteak]

We're going to need a better term than
"[name of country that is not America] RIAA"
Since the last "A" stands for America

I propose RIA* and MPA*
[/Serious]

Collectively, they can be referred to as **A*

Re:Belgian RIAA

[Aerynvala]

I vote we call them the Borg. They have that whole assimilation/destruction, adherence to bland uniformity in common.

Re:Belgian RIAA

[ethana2]

I call them the Music and Film Industry Associations. Simple and to the point. MaFIA.

Re:Belgian RIAA

[jnnnnn]

Let's just go with ****. After all, every time I hear about them I want to swear.

Re:Belgian RIAA

[FrankDrebin]

Hear hear. I also suggest we pronounce the * correctly as "hole".

Re:Belgian RIAA

[Calydor]

Holeholeahole? What does that mean?

Re:Belgian RIAA

[PlasticArmyMan]

We are the RIAA. Lower your firewalls and surrender your harddrives. We will add your bank balance and soul to our own. Your life will adapt to service us. Court cases are futile. Etc. :)

Re:Belgian RIAA

[Splab]

I like the way the register puts them - Record industry Ass. of *. Perhaps we should use (_*_) to denote all countries?

Re:Belgian RIAA

[Godji]

Barely Original Recordings Group?

Re:Belgian RIAA

[mattb112885]

My vote is for PITA

So..

[Aerynvala]

If people use public transportation to move 'stolen' goods, does that mean stores should have the right to sue the transit authorities running the bus systems? Because that's pretty much what that case amounts to.

Re:So..

[sortius_nod]

Well, if you knowingly allowed someone to transport stolen goods on public transport you'd be liable as the operator (depending on how high up it went). Unfortunately audio/video files aren't really that tangible, and the network operators "should" be able to know what's going on.

It's more of an ethical victory rather than a victory of common sense - to monitor and block users traffic really sits on the edge of being ethically "good".

I do see this as a nice stab in the eye of the MaFIA, but it really is only that. They'll heal and come back with more gusto next time, they've got more money than any ISP has, so really it's not a case of IF they can get this kind of crap to fly, but merely WHEN.

Re:So..

[catxk]

Add to the argument that the amount of illegal goods in the public transportation system is substantial, lets say more than 20 percent of everything transported, and also that there is tech available that allowed the transport company to identify commuters carrying the illegal goods.

Now you have an interesting argument, albeit still worthless as you will now try to come to a conclusion for a real case (piracy) based on "facts" derived from a fictional case (transport company).

Re:So..

[secmartin]

Well, if you rob a bank the driver of your getaway car is likely to land in jail. The main argument in this case is that there are ways for the ISP to know the content transferred is illegal. The ISP says all solutions they tried were ineffective, thus countering this argument.

Incidentally, I think this is one of the main reasons many ISPs are no longer offering Usenet access; if they are offering their customers newsgroups with the name "alt.binaries.warez" it's hard to argue they don't realize it contains copyrighted material. With P2P transfers that argument is easier to make, especially if the software uses encryption.

Re:So..

[atomic brainslide]

the grandparent assumes that someone has already determined what goods are stolen and what ones aren't when they are being transported. the concept of fair-use in most sane copyright legislation makes the determination of a violation nontrivial.

just like in real life, no one can stop you from transporting stolen goods without first determining whether those goods were indeed stolen or are merely borrowed, purchased, bartered, found, inherited, etc.

i suspect that this is the crux of the legal case here. ISPs aren't able to determine what content is in violation of copyright because most copyright has special cases and exceptions that depend on usage; something the ISPs are unable to determine from their perspective.

Re:So..

[jonaskoelker]

Add to the argument that [...] there is tech available that allowed the transport company to identify commuters carrying the illegal goods.

There isn't. Suppose I wear a hood plus striped shirt and carry a bag of money that says "loot". When the police officer on board starts questioning me, I show him the contract that documents my employment as a courier for Sillybank.

In the case we're talking about: the problem isn't detecting peer-to-peer. The problem is detecting copyright infringement.

You can have two identical bit streams where one infringes copyright and the other doesn't. It all depends on the humans at the ends of the bit streams, and the senders' agreements (or lack thereof) with the copyright holder.

(case in points: WoW, ubuntu, Creative Commons movies).

Re:So..

[nahdude812]

Except that in your corollary, the goods aren't stolen: they're indistinguishably perfect counterfeits which you are giving away for free.

Re:Belgian RIAA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think I can solve this with a Twitter analogy:

Slashdot has an insane user called Twitter, he comes out with a lot of weird shit, just like the RIAA. Then a user called freenix appears and spouts the same weirdness, as do a bunch of other users. They all have different names and UIDs than Twitter but, if it talks like Twitter, if it doesn't post anything other than support for Twitter, it's safe to assume that it is Twitter.

The same is true of the Belgian RIAA: if it talks like the RIAA and litigates like the RIAA, it's safe to assume that it is the RIAA.

Think about it, the RIAA is made up of the world's most powerful record labels. They may have registered different names, but they're the same beast underneath. :)

Hi, Belgian here...

[Paaskonijn]

I'm afraid you've been misinformed.

There's no real victory here. At least, not what we on Slashdot would call a victory. The judgement still stands. The only thing that's been revoked is the penalty of 2500 euro per day the ISP does not actively block illegal downloads on its network.

The judge explicitly asked Scarlet to keep looking for "a technical solution to suit the decision of the court".

The final decision (and our last chance at a real victory) is scheduled for October 2009.

Re:WTF Scarlet?

[Paaskonijn]

You're not very familiar with Sabam, are you? They've been acting "all American" for as long as I can remember.

Re:Belgian RIAA?

[mce]

Think about it, the RIAA is made up of the world's most powerful record labels. They may have registered different names, but they're the same beast underneath. :)

Yes and no. Of course the RIAA and its Belgian "counterpart" SABAM are strongly linked through their members, but they're not just "the RIAA registering under a different name". SABAM was founded in 1922, and represents not only the recording industry (let alone only the US one), but also independent authors, composers, etc. In fact, one of my grandfathers - who was a composer - was one of the founding members. The problem is that in reality the small guys have no say whatsoever in this game, be they producers (with which I mean: authors & performers) or consumers of music. Only big money rules and that usually is in the hands of people who themselves don't contribute anything culturally substantial at all.

Re:WTF Scarlet?

[NaughtyNimitz]

Oh man, don't get me starting about SABAM. I compose my own music for websites (using garagaband!) and EVERY TIME i get a letter from them asking me what source/author i used so they can bill me. I really really really hate them.

Well.. what did you expect

[Noctris]

I actually work in the media area and have negotiated contracts with these guys.. A couple of nice examples: They actually sued an artist over using his OWN song on his OWN website, cause the artist had a contract with them, so sabam should do all his copyright related stuff and he never asked them for permission to put his own intellectual property on his own website... Their contracts still speak of "Phonograph" (yes.. like Thomas Edison did) when they mean "songs" or "tracks".. And they think they can tell isp's how to do their stuff ? Damn.. they still prefer a fax over an e-mail..