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Music Industry Sues Irish Government For Piracy
bs0d3 writes "The music industry has initiated a lawsuit against the Irish government for not having blocking laws on the books; on the theory that if blocking laws were in place then filesharing would go away. On Tuesday the music industry issued a plenary summons against the Irish government which is the first step towards making this litigation possible. This all began in October 2010 (EMI v. UPC), when an Irish judge ruled that Irish law did not permit an order to be made against an ISP requiring blocking of websites. Recently several ISPs across the European Union have been ordered by courts to block thepiratebay.org through legal maneuvers."
I was actually going to post something about that, but I looked it up and apparently Ireland doesn't have sovereign immunity.
The more I read about all this stuff going on, the more and more I think of Accelerando by Charles Stross. The description in the news of these companies makes them sound like organisms trying to compete in an artificial world, with less and less connection to reality. Soon their actions will be run by programs, and will eventually become sentient :P
(Book is available free online if interested, see http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/accelerando.charles_stross/)
printf("Goodbye cruel world!\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b");
The crux of the case will lie in proving that there is a causal link between the lack of laws requiring ISPs to block websites, and the damages claimed. The precedent is Francovich v. Italy. However, given that the judge in a ruling against British Telecom forcing them to use Cleanfeed to block access to websites like Newzbin and TPB acknowledge that tools to circumvent the system were available. And, in fact, Newzbin has released a client allowing access to their website despite the Cleanfeed block. The same software allows access to TPB. It relies on both encryption and the TOR network. Newzbin told BBC news that 93.5% of UK users have downloaded their Cleanfeed circumvention software. This flies in the face of the judge's comment that "Even assuming that they all have the ability to acquire [the means to circumvent Cleanfeed], it does not follow that they will all wish to expend the time and effort required."
93.5% of UK Newzbin users may not be "all" people in the UK who want to use file sharing networks, but it certainly means that establishing the causal link between lack of ISP blocking remedies and damages from file sharing will be difficult. People want access to those files, and Cleanfeed has proven largely ineffective at stopping two of the main sites involved in sharing. It should also be noted that these sites are not the actual hosters of the allegedly damaging files; they are merely portals to peer-to-peer networks that have other access methods available (e.g. DHT on BitTorrent). Again, the claim that blocking these websites would prevent financial damage is rather dubious.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
Well, Ireland is part of the EU and voluntarily subordinated its laws to those of the EU. So this sounds like a proper jurisdiction to me. If this court doesn't agree, then the suers have pretext to take up the case at the EU court level.
I thought so to, but it turns out (if you read the article) that the suit is about that Ireland has not implemented certain items in Union legislation. Thus, a court proceeding for Ireland is entirely appropriate, especially since Union law have precedence. The court is then asked to look at whether Irish law is compliant with Union law, so the court cannot force the state to make new laws, they can however force the state to follow Union law.
For the non-european who have no idea about how it works (this is a simplified version): EU legislation can be seen as federal law, but most of the legislation (known as directives), are actually laws about that the states should make laws fulfilling a certain set of requirements. If a state does not implement "federal" directives in local legislation within the directive's implementation period, those individuals and companies that suffer some kind of damage that they would not have suffered if the law was implemented, have the right to sue the state for non compliance. This is a normal procedure; try to solve it locally at first, the next step is to take it up with the Union so they can start infringement procedures against the state. Normally, the courts would in this case ask for union level courts for an opinion of the compatibility between state and union law.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
It's fair to say that the tobacco companies probably feel under continuous assault nowadays so are going to fight any legislation aimed their way. Even seemingly harmless things turn out to be the thin end of a painful wedge.
I'm not saying that tobacco companies are innocent but it's interesting how _everybody_ feels qualified to take a swipe at them and regularly does. In the UK we often have headlines about how smokers cost the NHS huge sums - some guesstimates range as high as £5 billion. That's a huge amount of money and a serious drain on central coffers.
Except for the fact that smokers paid (roughly) £10.5 billion in tax in the UK last year. That means for every pound they used up, they put in 2. If the government decides to not put that money into the NHS (and paying for that bill is one of the reasons they use to explain their putting up tobacco taxes every year) then it's not the smokers' fault.
And no, I'm not a smoker, I'm an ex-smoker. I just hate lies and lazy statistics.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
So you would support a ban on alcohol?
It's a poison sold for ingestion of the general public.
I actually would.. however, biggest difference is maybe that alcohol users don't generally force others to suffer from the poison as well. Compare to smokers who are poisoning non-smokers all the time. I can't walk thru any street in the downtown without someone poisoning themselves and me at the same time.. I, however, can walk generally without anyone trying to push alcohol down my throat. Your mileage may be different but I would expect it to be pretty close to my experience.
p.s. if it's about becoming nanny-state that such poisons are being put out of sight.. what about the general law against killing? I mean why aren't you free to do so too ? (yes: poisoning others is killing them btw, even if death may take many tens of years to manifest)
The thing about that number is that someone did an analysis of it and called it bogus because smokers on average die at a younger age and, even when you take into account the things they die from (that are often caused by smoking). this results in them costing the government less than those who live healthy lifestyles.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Except there was a Dutch study done a few years back that showed smokers cost the health care system less money over their lifetime than non-smokers. There were several other studies that also back this up. As far as I know, there has been nothing to show otherwise since. Basically smokers get cancer and die earlier than non-smokers. Non-smoking "healthy" people tend to live much longer and get more exotic diseases which cost more to treat.
They're not being sued because a law doesn't exist. They're being sued because they allegedly haven't implemented an EU-wide law which they are (allegedly) obliged to; such implementations are a condition of membership of the EU. If you, as a citizen of an EU member state, have suffered harm from your nation's government not implementing an EU law which it has been obliged to, then yes, you can sue your own government. It's called a Francovich claim and is the basis of individual citizens ensuring that their own government can't shirk on their responsibilities to implement EU laws.