Movie Industry Files Injunction Against UK ISP

daedae writes "The Motion Picture Association (MPA), which represents studios including Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney, have filed suit in the UK against BT, Britain's largest ISP. The studios are asking for an injunction which would force BT to block access to Newzbin, on the grounds of massive losses to Usenet piracy."

Comments

Hehe, so much for cooperating

[SmallFurryCreature]

Awh, poor BT, after taking it up the ass for the content owners, they get it shoved up there again!

Remember that when dealing with the content industry, if you give them a finger, they bite of your head.

Once this motion passed, other motions will be easier and easier until the entire internet consist only of sites the content industry approves off. And politicians who are used to compromises let it all happen because they think the content industry will meet them half way. The problem with meeting someone half way is that if it is you who keeps doing this, sooner or later you are completely on the other side.

For those who can read dutch, read it and weep: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/75349/overheid-hollywood-staat-achter-onze-auteursrechtplannen.html

For those who can't read dutch: You poor wretch of a not quite human being. How can you face the dark void that is your miserable life each day?

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Hal_Porter]

Dutch is just swamp German.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Thanshin]

For those who can't read dutch: You poor wretch of a not quite human being. How can you face the dark void that is your miserable life each day?

Dutch, a language with less native speakers than other great winners like Tagalog or Hausa.

But don't worry, it's still almost five times more useful than Mandingo. :)

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[AmiMoJo]

Just as bad is the fact that they want to use Cleanfeed, the system that silently and transparently blocks child porn sites. Talk about a slippery slope. We were assured that this system would not be abused for commercial reasons, it was purely for blocking the worst examples of child abuse.

BT has a history of screwing its customers. They throttle iPlayer and YouTube so you can't watch the high quality streams in the evenings, and heavily retard (or "manage" as they prefer) P2P traffic. They have data unlimits* too. They also conducted secret Phorm trials and somehow got away without anyone going to jail. Oh, and according to Ofcom their "up to 20Mb" service gets an average of about 7Mb.

* In ISP land "unlimited" now means the same thing as "limited", the only possible difference being that with unlimited sometimes the actual figure is a secret (e.g. Virgin's is 350GB/month but they don't publish it). I suppose it is a bit like flammable and inflammable. Therefore I am coining a new word: unlimit. It means the same thing as limit.

Would it really have hurt....

[Anonymous Coward]

to have given an accurate summary? They are not asking for an injunction again Newzbin, that site was sued into oblivion. They are asking for an injunction against Newzbin2 which has arisen to take its place. TFA you submitted says just that.

Actually I can't hold you to that, the article is horridly written.

"The Motion Picture Association (MPA), which represents studios including Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney, is urging a judge to grant an order forcing telecoms group BT to cut off access to the Newzbin website."

"The MPA won a court battle against Newzbin last year and the site was taken offline."

"But it reopened abroad under the name "Newzbin2" and is run by anonymous operators, compelling the MPA to take the unusual step of trying to force BT to block the site."

This is why you hire editor's to proof these things children. Someone should have slapped this writer for contradicting himself within his own story.

Would otherwise have purchased them?

[kaptink]

Because all those using usenet to get movies would otherwise have purchased them? I doubt it.

Is this not the same as suing gun manufacturers for making lethal tools?

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[hawkinspeter]

No, it's more like forcing pavement (sidewalk for you american-english speakers) makers to rip up the street to prevent you from going to a gun shop.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[TheRaven64]

It's not much more complex. The point of newzbin seems to be to provide indexes of usenet groups, providing files that instruct clients which posts they need to download to get a particular movie and how to assemble them. Presumably you just go to their web site, pick the thing you want to download, click on a link to the file describing it, and then your usenet client grabs the files, assembles them and presents them for you to play.

The more interesting thing to note is that the number of users willing to pay to access binary newsgroups expressly for the purpose of downloading this kind of content. If the MPAA had any brains, then they'd realise that these people have demonstrated that they are willing to pay for quickly delivered DRM-free movies, and would spend some time working out how to get them to pay the copyright holders, rather than intermediates who don't pay them anything.

What happened to HRA 1998, ECHR Article 10?

[kasnol]

Right... And i thought such injunction is inconsistent with HRA 1998 / ECHR Article 10, freedom of expression. You shouldn't block the public access to information...

Re:What happened to HRA 1998, ECHR Article 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they get counter-sued for tortious interference in a contract between two other parties (BT and their consumers).

Again???

[sirnobicus]

Why is this news worthy, Every second day the MPA, xxAA is going after some one due to massive losses.

Re:Again???

[rainmouse]

An American association is trying to force a British ISP to censor the internet, and you consider this non news worthy?

Re:Again???

[msobkow]

The American movie industry has been trying to censor the entire world's internet, in case you hadn't noticed. It being the UK this time is nothing special.

Re:Again???

[ashkante]

Maybe their "losses" wouldn't be so massive if they weren't spending all their money on lawyers?

Re:Again???

[Joce640k]

You forgot to put massive losses in quotes (and with a [sic] after it), viz: "massive losses"[sic]

Fun quote

[PhrostyMcByte]

"The applicants and others have been making huge efforts, not only against the Newzbin website, but against piracy in general and yet the industries are still suffering huge losses to piracy," Richard Spearman, representing the MPA, told the court.

I guess this is as close we'll ever get to hearing them say "Over the past 10 years we've spent a lot of our members' cash trying to kill off sharing sites, yet we've ultimately proven ineffective."

Apple, Amazon, Spotify, and others have affected piracy far more than the RIAA/MPAA/etc. ever will.

Re:Fun quote

[AmiMoJo]

The MAFIAA should take a look at usenet service providers. They charge a flat monthly fee for all-you-can-download or you can buy so many gigabytes of data allowance. If they offered something like that with music in FLAC format and a good selection of TV and movies I'd probably take them up.

Re:Fun quote

[PhrostyMcByte]

I suppose we'll eventually see a package deal with movies, TV, and music all for one monthly price. I doubt we'll ever see lossless included in that, but we can dream ;).

It's not a subscription service, but FLAC has been gaining more and more speed online.

Topspin handles a lot of big names (I see Beastie Boys, The Doors, Linkin Park, Lady Gaga, and Paul McCartney on their front page. Lots more deeper in.) as well as a ton of awesome indie bands (The Whigs are great, check them out!).

Bandcamp focuses on indie bands. I've recently bought albums from Young Beautiful in a Hurry, Beast Make Bomb, and Andrew Figueroa Chiang and the Blazing Rays of the Sun through them. You can usually stream entire albums (not just previews) for free as much as you want before you buy, so it makes for a really nice experience.

Both usually have MP3, AAC, FLAC, ALAC, and sometimes even audiophile quality 24bit/96kHz FLAC (if bands provide).

Re:Fun quote

[TheRaven64]

I don't agree with people making money from copyright infringement, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are doing. And the fact that they are doing means that people are willing to pay to commit copyright infringement. That means that they are willing to pay for the media, but they don't agree with the terms that the owners are providing. They should take a look at this and see why they're rather pay to get their products illegally than legally.

To borrow their favourite metaphor, if people would rather buy your products from a dodgy market stall that got them off the back of a lorry than in your shop, then you should spend some time trying to work out why. It's no good (commercially speaking) shutting down the market stall if you don't turn its customers into yours in the process.

That's what happens

[phantomfive]

That's what happens when you make censorship legal, like the UK recently did. People are going to start expecting you to enforce it

Re:That's what happens

[buglista]

yeah. that was a half-baked POS bill if ever there was one. I'd forgotten about that for the moment - though I did write to my MP about it at the time.

"massive losses" == Boycott?

[malsbert]

How many here has boycotted the xxAA members?

I have, and that makes me a little worried when i see the xxAA use claims of "massive losses" to justify their continuous lawsuit, i mean; When i no longer go to, or rent movies, the xxAA suffers losses, that is after all the point of boycotting them :) BUT, if all the xxAA has to do, is to make the claim; if i am not buying their "content" then i must be stealing it! where does that leave me and my little boycott? is there any point to a boycott, if it can be dismissed so easily? should i just forget it, and start pirating?

Re:"massive losses" == Boycott?

[JockTroll]

is there any point to a boycott, if it can be dismissed so easily? should i just forget it, and start pirating?

Boycotts do not work. Not against an adversary of the MAFIAA's financial might. Assassinating their officials, murdering their lawyers, bombing their offices and targeting their assets with wholesale destruction, however, will work. The sweet money your masters pay you ain't so sweet anymore if the price for it is being pumped full of red-hot lead at your workplace or being beheaded in front of your employees.

Re:So friggin' what!

[JosKarith]

This is an attempt to put a precedent into law. The next step will be massive numbers of lawsuits against everything under the sun, clogging up the legal system to the point where they can say "Look, put in a DCMA-style takedown system and we won't have to bother you anymore". Some judge tired of hearing these cases will start the ball rolling. At that point we may as well just hand UK internet over to the MPA.

Genie is out the bottle

[Stu101]

At the end of the day, file sharing wont go away. It may well change forms and maybe even go back to sneaker net or "swap meets" but no matter what they do, they won't be able to get back to the 80s revenue streams. (It doesn't help that the music is more crap these days, but thats another argument)

At the end of the day, the world of file sharing has been changed forever by the internet. We can get offshore encrypted proxies for as little as $5.

The other major difference the net has made is that people are better connected and tend to gravitate to like minded people. In the world of instant communication, encryption and dropbox et all, sharing will just mutate into other forms, and groups with similar interests will create their own file sharing platforms and darknets.

Also in my area at least (or my interests) there are more artists giving stuff for free.

The days of mega money from media are gone. All this is akin to trying to put toothpaste back in the tube, it's not going to work.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[Joce640k]

When I was a student most other students had twin tape decks and shelves full of cassette tapes. Strangely enough, the "80s revenue streams" happened after that.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[rizole]

For people on a good wage with little or no dependants it is a relatively small amount of money and I remember those days well. That's not what the population of the world consists of though.

I have kids now. We can and have fed our family of 4 for a week on ten quid when the need has arose and sometimes when it hasn't just because. I consider ourselves comfortable and know other people and families in comparatively impoverished circumstances to our selves. I've never met anyone who is malnourished or starving but I'm led to believe there are plenty of people in the world who are.

When I grew up I realised just what a huge sum of money ten quid is.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[Heed00]

Yep. The difference today is that you can see the sharing going on -- and that, of course, is why the media companies then mobilized their wall of lawyers. For an industry that's "going out of business" due to sharing, they sure as hell are taking a long time to die.

Re:BAN the MPAA from the network

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a similar thought when I saw this story yesterday. BT and the other ISPs in the UK should just kick the MPAA off the internet - cut any service they have in the UK and block all their sites hosted abroad. There's no reason why ISPs should be forced to do business with them.

Films can be download for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but with the current state of the film industry, I would only watch films if they paid me - paid me an awful lot to watch their awful crap.

The first rule of usenet

[Legion303]

Usenet? Preposterous--no one's used that fossil internets relic since 1990. The MPAA would be smarter to go after newer technology, like that Napster stuff.