Slashdot Mirror
Usenet Group Sues Dutch RIAA
eldavojohn writes "With the Pirate Bay trial, it's been easy to overlook similar struggles in other nations. A Dutch Usenet community named FTD is going on the offensive and suing BREIN (Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland). You may remember BREIN (along with the IFPI & BPI) as the people who raided and cut out the heart of eDonkey. This is turning into a pretty familiar scenario; the FTD group makes software that allows its 450k members to easily find copyrighted content for free on Usenet. The shocking part is that FTD isn't waiting for BREIN to sue them. FTD is refusing to take down their file location reports, and is actually suing BREIN. Why the preemptive attack? FTD wants the courts to show that the act of downloading is not illegal in the Netherlands. (Both articles have the five points in English that FTD wants the courts to settle.) OSNews has a few more details on the story."
All RIAA spin offs needs to die.
These brave Dutch people will defend everyones rights against the sinister Italian menace. If only Americans had spines and would stop the Italians from poisoning our hot dogs with their silly Italin music-boxes that prevent real songs from being found in our hearts. One thousand red salutes to Chairman Mao!
I seem to recall MDY Industries taking pre-emptive legal action against Blizzard. It doesn't work as well as you might think.
..have broken the first rule of Usenet.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
How the hell is BREIN the "Dutch RIAA"? They have no links to each other, no affiliation, no hard relation whatsover.
Calling them the "Dutch RIAA" is inflammatory and deceiving. This is slashdot sensationalism at its finest.
It's in the mind of the people.
When someone is tried, he's at least "sorta" guilty, right? Else, hey, nobody gets arrested without some reason, right? At least there's suspicion that he MIGHT have done it. When he is tried, there's a reason, right? Hey, they wouldn't go to court if what the defendent does isn't at least "sorta" illegal...
This isn't how the justice system works, but this is how people think. Nobody is dragged to court without at least some kinda reason. So suing instead of waiting to be sued is, from the PR point of view, quite sensible.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Even if they win and prove it isn't illegal, all they;ll get is a bunch of new laws making sure it is.
The RIAA has a big name, more expensive suits and money to spend on politicians. Politicians aren't going to listen to a bunch of people who run something called 'Usenet' which is full of scruffy hacker/hippie types who go on and on about how things should be 'free' (as in freedom, not beer!!)
No sig today...
Downloading, in essence, should not be illegal. The fact that someone is in possession of materials that they do not have the copyright to should be the focus of the legal procedures. There are plenty of reasons why someone who has the rights to a piece of information (i.e. someone who pays for cable in order to have the right to view an episode of a televisions show wanting to download said television show) would access them digitally.
A company should have to prove that an individual does not have a license for materials that they possess. I see this as a simple issue of due process of the law.
There are two sides to the story. The criminal aspect, and the civil aspect.
I'm not sure about dutch law, however, a lot of the recent UK law (which I am more familiar with) has been enshrined here via EU directives aimed at legal harmonisation. So don't take what I say too seriously...
The civil aspect covers the violation of the copyright license associated with the works. You are not criminally liable for merely breaking a license. The criminal aspect only comes into play when you break something enacted in statue.
Consider, The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1998) here in the UK -
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/ukpga_19880048_en_5#pt1-ch6-pb5-l1g107
s.107 covers the criminal offense (Criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing articles). It limits criminal acts to those performed in the course of a business, in terms of sale, and those performed other than for "his private and domestic use".
The civil issue is different. Merely obtaining something does not mean you agree to a license. But common law has long established that using something, in a certain manner - often in accordance to normal use - can imply a factual agreement to contract.
Therefore, one should assume that aquiring a copyrighted work does not mean you have to assume the terms of its license, but once you decide to use the product in a non-domestic, public or commerical manner, it is implied you accept the incorporated restrictions (which will prohibit such use). You will then be liable.
So there is this big grey area that needs testing!
Win or lose, its another story in the news about how flawed the music, movie, and print industry is and how unwilling the players are to modify their business model. They do seem to have a decent legal base, so lets hope for a win!
From the article,
So, supported by two Dutch copyright lawyers and IT experts, FTD have filed a lawsuit against BREIN in which they request the court clarifies these points;
Government agencies must go through a series of checks before they prosecute a citizen--the whole "innocent first, prove guilty" thing. For some reason these rules no longer apply when the agency is backed by large, private corporations...
A small difference with, say, the USA is that downloading music and films is legal in the Netherlands, but uploading is not. So even if BREIN's assertion that FTD is aiding and abetting downloading is correct, that does not in itself mean that anything illegal is going on. In fact, the reason FTD is suing BREIN is because they are fed up with the slander against them; BREIN has publically accused them of illegal behavior, and now FTD wants to get a legal ruling that tells them to go piss up a rope.
If everyone involved flicked a pebble at the RIAA and their cousins around the world they'd very quickly become buried under a mountain.
So now they'll take your order for flowers for Mothers day, and show you where to get Clint Eastwood warez for Fathers day.
When the headline calls BREIN the Dutch RIAA without quotes or any context, slashdot is calling them an arm of the RIAA, not the equivalent, not having similiar purposes, etc.
You are wrong, and so is the headline. Does anybody take English or grammar lessons anymore?
to respond to the parent:
No they're not - disable the plugin path that allows this.
"But then people will just hack it about!"
yes, but then certainly their software was hacked and they're clearly not just allowing this.
as for the grandparent and point of the subject:
even with music and movies out of the way, there's still software downloads as well.. BREIN 'represents' its members there as well, and downloading software that is being distributed by somebody other than the person(s) or group(s) allowed to distribute it, is illegal - so BREIN still have a case even if a judge were to definitively declare that downloading music and software is legal.
Note that I mention 'definitively declare'. The law is slightly ambiguous about this and a lower court ruled some time ago that if the source is illegal, so is downloading from that source. I.e. in NL, you're not allowed to upload, as per GP, so how is one supposed to 'download' if nobody 'uploads'?
I don't recall if they appealed that decision or not, but the law simply isn't too clear on this, and I'm guessing that eventually it will get cleared up - and I don't expect it to be cleared up in favor of the pirates (arrrrr!)
Just to note... BREIN is more like the RIAA (music), MPAA (movies(/TV?)) and whatever software interest group in U.S. exists for entertainment titles (so not the BSA, as that's all business such as Photoshop, AutoCAD, Office, etc.) rolled into one.
Each of those do have their actual equivalents (RIAA = BUMA/STEMRA, MPAA = NVPI, ???? = B.I.G.), but BREIN can be seen as the 'parent' organization, but without many of the legal things tying them together.
that Brein is dutch for brains? BRAAAAAIIIINS!!!!
If the article submitter meant "the Dutch equivalent of the RIAA", he could have written words.
"Dutch RIAA" doesn't appear in the summary, and the article does call BREIN "the Dutch variant of the RIAA". Headlines are supposed to be short, not necessarily precise.
FTD is doing horrible things to usenet, they're a plague on any newsgroup they descend upon. FTD makes software so people can use Usenet as a P2P system without ever interacting with the newsgroup. This has not been popular with most newsgroups that have standards for posting. FTD does things their way, and when massive complaints from newsgroup participants are posted, the FTDers never see them. I've seen newsgroups destroyed by floods of FTD posts. The regular participants (the most valuable members of the newsgroup) have their contributions buried by massive floods of off-topic posts. And there's nothing you can do to stop them.
On most usenet groups, FTD is commonly parsed as "Fuck The Dutch." They want to exploit Usenet for their own ends without participating in Usenet culture. Fuck em.
yea...pun is "intended" as the entire copyright lobby would be analogous to the Dominion and the consumer (Joe Smoe and everyone else under the sun) would be the Federation and its allies (I'm sure there are those who are already adorning their Klingon looks).
but yea...hopefully FTD's gamble pays off...or we'll be in a frozen wasteland (another DS9/Breen reference).
I was about to proof that BREIN indeed is RIAA/MPAA./IFPI etc. But i get the message "Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters" So instead, i will just type some names of company's that started the BREIN foundation. WIch can be confirmed by the dutch pirate party. - IFPI - UNIVERSAL - Buena Vista Home Entertainment - Disney - Microsoft - MPAA And so the list goes on .. and on and one..
You do not talk about Usenet.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.