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Mininova Starts Filtering Torrents
Dreen writes with this snippet from TorrentFreak: "Just a few days before their court appearance, Mininova, the largest BitTorrent site on the Internet, has started to filter content. The site is using a third-party content recognition system that will detect and remove torrent files that link to copyright-infringing files."
Mininova collapses. How Mininova went from being the largest BitTorrent site to being the smallest.
Sounds like they don't want any hits anymore. Meanwhile, alternatives like the Piratebay, isohunt & torrentreator are likely beefing up their infrastructure to accomodate the increase in traffic. There has been speculation on dutch tech sites that they only did this to appease the dutch copyright vigilantes, so they are making a half-assed effort to filter some stuff out. Let's face it, a torrent site without any "illegal" (under dutch law, downloading music & movies is LEGAL!) content is about as useful as a 3-legged, dead dog. With a nasty case of fleas.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
Biological weapon for a trebuchet.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Yes they are - but now they can more-or-less show 'good faith' to the judge.
Currently mininova - knowing full well the reason why people use their site - simply go by the strict laws.. if a copyright holder / representative tells them they're hosting particular copyrighted content, they'll take it down.
Of course it will be back up there 5 minutes later. This is pissing the Dutch interest groups off who are trying to slap the mininova people around a bit with other laws / more loose interpretations.
But now they can say "ahh, but look.. we installed a filter.. it's not our fault that them sneaky pirates find ways around those filters.. it would be *impossible* for us to manually go over each and every upload!".. then hope to exit the court grinning while their main page continues to display top 10 lists of every popular category with scarce 'legal' torrents (I think the Windows 7 Release Candidate was the only one when I checked yesterday and yes, I know there's nothing illegal about a torrent file itself.. splitting hairs over technical details is what they'll be doing in court).
Well, I downloaded the latest Lost torrent from it yesterday without any problem (sorry, I can't wait until they decide to air it here in Europe), so the filter is apparently not very good.
Mininova can not technically be an alternative to a Bittorrent tracker (like TPB etc.), since Mininova is not a tracker - it's just an indexed repository for .torrent files.
There's a difference between the Mininova defense and the TPB defense:
Mininova: "These are copyrighted, yes, but we do our best to remove content when flagged and we've even installed a filter to remove it automatically. It's not our fault if people still try and get around that."
TPB: "These are copyrighted, yes, but we don't fucking care. Ahahaha, losers."
I'm sure you can pick up the subtleties...
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Downloading is in fact legal in many jurisdictions. But the problematic thing with Bittorrent is that it makes you an uploader as well, and that decidedly isn't legal in many jurisdictions.
And it only took the RIAA + friends what? 4 years to kill Mininova? It must be frustrating to know there are literally hundreds of other torrent sites, all of which will be happy to take the 'refugees' from this minor inconvenience.
In any event being able to bully torrent sites into submission through legal means isn't what I'm worried about. I'm much more worried about them coercing ISP's into their little self-regulation schemes, as if it's somehow an ISP's responsibility to protect Sony BMG's copyrights. It strikes me as being just as misguided as expecting the people who maintain our roads to be responsible for people smuggling drugs across the border. Sorry guys, if you want to cling to the old IP system in the information age you should be prepared to do all the hard work yourself. If you don't like it I'm sure we can come up with some new, fairer systems to try.
Or, you know, just bribe politicians until you get your way. I guess that works too...
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
I went to mininova just now, and on the front page I found:
Featured torrents:
"How to bypass mininovas copyright filter"
If I say that Google shouldn't have to actively search out and filter content (which they don't, nor do they have to by US law), does that mean Google is predominantly used for copyright infringement? I don't think so.
Your argument is a straw man anyway. I don't think anyone would deny that bittorrent is mainly used for copyright infringement, but the issues are whether search engines should be liable. Also consider that even though something is copyright infringement by law doesn't mean it is unethical - e.g., someone downloading something they already bought in another format, or a BBC licence payer in the UK downloading BBC produced content, and another example would be using it as a form of timeshifting, downloading a show you just missed on TV you pay for. Consider, in the UK it's copyright infringement to copy a CD you've bought onto your own mp3 player. So it would be accurate to say that "MP3 players are used almost entirely for copyright infringement" - however that's not really a fair statement, and doesn't mean people are downloading things they haven't paid for.
No, he's right. The behaviour of the sites in question has a huge impact on the outcome... Mininova is at least attempting to appear as though they're cooperating with copyright holders. TPB, by contrast, has a long history of replying to C&D letters by telling them things like "This is Sweden, you've got no jurisdiction, silly American coroporation, so fuck off" and then posting said takedown notice on their site so that everybody can read their ridicule.
There's a slight difference. And the copyright laws aren't really *that* different in Sweden when compared to the Netherlands.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I know it's a wiki, but it's a carbon copy of the real lawbook, it's just the only page I could find that allows me to directly link to the article.
Let me translate something for you:
"Als inbreuk op het auteursrecht op een werk van letterkunde, wetenschap of kunst wordt niet beschouwd de verveelvoudiging welke beperkt blijft tot enkele exemplaren en welke uitsluitend dient tot eigen oefening, studie of gebruik van de natuurlijke persoon die zonder direct of indirect commercieel oogmerk de verveelvoudiging vervaardigt of tot het verveelvoudigen uitsluitend ten behoeve van zichzelf opdracht geeft."
Which you can translate loosly to:
"It is not considered copyright infringement if a copy is made solely for the purpose of own practice or study without direct or indirect commerical gain, and when the copy is only meant for himself".
If you want to read it yourself, here is a shoddy google translation: here
In short, under Dutch law, it's legal to make copy's of copyrighted works (be it a movie, music or a piece of text), only if it's for yourself and does not give you a commercial gain. This rule was originally built to support people making back-up copies for them selves, but applies to the internet too. What you CAN'T do is upload copyrighted files (uploading = distribution), and this whole legal blurb doesn't apply to applications (uploading or downloading of software is both illegal).
Your turn.
His point stands, I think. A big "Fuck you guys" is gonna get you on the shitlist of pretty much any judge, court, or (probably) jury.
I'm sorry, you're wrong. The attitude of the person has to be kept separate from the crime commited. The crime must be treated unbiased. The law doesn't say "It's illegal to break copyright laws, and if you're a bit of a middleman it's illegal if you have a nasty attitude, otherwise it's ok". In Sweden (which I guess differs from the states in this sense as you seem to think that everything works as it does in the US) you should be able to flip off the judge and shit on his desk if you want. You'll get sentenced for indecent exposure but this should have absolutely no impact on the initial trial. That's called a fair trial.
I am the lawn!