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9th Circuit Affirms IsoHunt Decision; No DMCA Safe Harbor

Posted by timothy on from the disproportion-nation dept.

crankyspice writes "The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed, in Columbia Pictures Industries v. Fung (docket no. 10-55946), the summary judgment and injunctions against Gary Fung and his IsoHunt (and 3d2k-it) websites, finding liability for secondary copyright infringement for the sites' users' BitTorrent (and eDonkey) file sharing, under the 'inducement' theory (set forth by the Supreme Court in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster Ltd. , 545 U.S. 913 (2005)). The injunctions were left largely intact, with modifications required to make it more clear to the defendants what BitTorrent (etc) related activity they're enjoined from." Bloomberg has a short article on the case, too.

17 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. somebody refresh my memory... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why was it, again, that anyone ever gave the legal system any say over what happens on or with the internet?

    It existed for decades without so much as their awareness, and did arguably a lot better than it's doing now, with fewer problems, less stifling of rights, no big brother style monitoring, and so on.

    1. Re:somebody refresh my memory... by emagery · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're kidding, right? The law can be abused, sure, but so can the internet... and when people need a recourse, what else have they got but the law?

    2. Re:somebody refresh my memory... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > The law can be abused, sure, but so can the internet... and when people need a recourse, what else have they got but the law?

      Yet, that wasn't actually a problem for the first few decades. If people didn't like some part of the itnernet, they were free not to go there. Happened all the time on usenet. Somebody says something you don't like? Killfile 'em and that's that. The worst they could do is badmouth you, and nobody was stupid enough to believe slander about somebody posted to usenet, so that made fuck-all difference.

      Then, one day, AOL came along, and at first tens of thousands, and then millions of people suddenly complained, "Hey, there are things here we don't like!!!one11!! Somebody should DO something!!" Then the legal system said, "Hey, waydaminnit! We don't have control over this internet thingy - people are doing things without our permission, and we MUST have control over it". And other legal systems agreed, because the internet was insulting their god / way of life / whatever.

      And from there on, it's been downhill. The end game is NOT going to be something nice.

    3. Re:somebody refresh my memory... by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The law is the "alternative solution", SOE for human societies are warlords and demigods. And no "we" were not just fine without the law, wander outside your village and the kings men will kill you, stay inside the village and you will be counted as his property. Really mate, read some history or visit the Congo for fuck's sake because you have no idea what your world would be like without the rule of law.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    4. Re:somebody refresh my memory... by skywire · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Assuming you are not a troll, but merely have not bothered to think before writing, allow me to provoke you to exercise your grey matter.

      If a group plan a bank robbery via Skype, would you say "Hands off our internet"? If someone blows up a building full of innocents by transmitting a code to an explosive device through a connection over the Internet, should that action be ignored because "We need a free Internet"?

      The Internet is simply a communications medium. Like any other, it can be used to commit actual crimes. The problem here is not the state being able to govern acts committed using the Internet. The problem is the unjust copyright laws that outlaw what is no crime at all, and is in fact a boon to mankind: the mere copying of harmless and useful information, whether over the Internet or otherwise.

      --
      Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
    5. Re:somebody refresh my memory... by fredprado · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In the same way a person using a phone can order someone to blow a building it can do through the internet. It is not motive to regulate and monitor phone calls neither to regulate the internet though. Many times the harm you do trying to prevent something is orders of magnitude worse than the thing you are trying to prevent. That is true regarding the "War against terrorism" and also regarding the attempts of Internet regulation.

    6. Re:somebody refresh my memory... by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Eternal September was why I changed my stance towards teaching people. I don't let them in my rose garden again.

      The internet was our rose garden. We planted, we watered, we grew, we built our little gardens with joy and saw those little tulips and lilacs grow, were proud of them, showed each other what we did and handed over the seeds if someone wanted them. Was no problem either, we knew they'd take them and grow something nice outta them that we could come over and watch, and maybe take a seedling back home if we wanted.

      Then came the eternal September people. We thought it's great. More people! More who want to come and grow! More who we could share our knowledge with and in mere months we could accomplish now what we thought would take decades! They saw our gardens and went "wow, cool, we wanna", and we were happy and, let's admit it, folks, kinda proud, too. We all were the geeks back in school, and now some of the cool kids called something we called cool. It was kinda nice, ya know.

      Problem was, we let them into our garden, they went for our most wonderful rose bush that we took months to grow and that we were really proud of, grabbed it, uprooted it and took it with them because they wanted to have it in their garden. And that, let's face it, was not cool. I mean, we would have handed him a sprout, for free of course (even though we soon noticed we won't get anything back, but hey, call it development aid), but just going and taking away what we worked on was simply not cool, ok? So what did we do? The usual, of course, when nightfall came we went over their fence (provided they had one in the first place, most had no idea how to build one and didn't bother to ask), got our rose bush back and just for good measure we rearranged his seasoning herb field. Nondestructive, but it should send a message, don't mess with us, or we'll go out and pull a prank on you. We know more about gardening than you may ever think you could know, so play nice, sonny.

      Did he heed the message? No, he cried bloody murder how we "violated" him and how he was defenseless against such bullying, and how the park rangers should finally come in here and make sure he's safe from us hooligans. We were kinda flabbergasted, ya know? Hey, buddy, dunno if you noticed it, but we were here first. YOU come to US, and now you cry for rules that limit us? Aside of this being anathema, you should... uh... hello officer? Yes? You don't say... really?

      This is also where that alleged "anarchy" of the internet came in and this is where people started crying for laws because of "us bullies". Well, the history of the US ain't much different, when the settlers cried for the cavalry because the Indians wanted their land back...

      But we were still kinda happy. Well, we now had to put camo nets over some of our gardens so the park sheriffs don't see them, but we arranged with it. We just made the next big mistake when we told the masses what we grew there and that they should be allowed to enjoy it as well. Big mistake. Suddenly everyone started growing and of course companies who live off selling you those herbs didn't enjoy that one bit. They didn't really mind us few doing it, but now that it had arrived with the masses, they noticed a big dip in their sales and that's when they started to send the sheriffs after us.

      A little later they noticed how they could make even more money by not destroying our gardens but taking them over. They came into our garden, and again, some of us even welcomed them. I mean, it was kinda more convenient to buy your seeds in here instead of having to go out of it into the real world to get them. That soon changed when we noticed how they often used to steal our bushes and we couldn't even get it back because it suddenly belonged to them too. Again, we were taken aback but it only went downhill from there. We were evicted, we were bullied to the corner and we stood there, fists clenched in range but we could not fight back.

      I, for myself, learned my lesson. Keep the masses away fro

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. The law is an ass by fnj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And it is a bought and paid-for ass.

    1. Re:The law is an ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Absent legislation to the contrary, the US Federal courts can be reliably expected to protect capitalism. While many on this board don't seem to think much of digital property rights, both the US Congress and the courts have no problem with them, just as they have no problem with real estate being privately owned with possibly complex patterns of leasing and other negotiations with other parties, or with corporations being privately owned.

      Just because hordes of twenty something males at Slashdot, Reddit and similar sites think they have a fundamental right to download whatever they please for free, doesn't mean that the US government and courts will turn their backs on one of this country's major export businesses and sources of comparative economic advantage.

    2. Re:The law is an ass by westlake · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And it is a bought and paid-for ass.

      The geek's explanation for his every failure in law, politics and government is bribery.

    3. Re:The law is an ass by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's actually quite a good default position, with incompetence only slightly behind it.

    4. Re:The law is an ass by blankinthefill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What exactly do you call the case of Clarance Thomas not recusing himself from the decision on the AFA? It may not be bribery, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that it was all honest or just. Or how about the case of the Kids for Cash scandal? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal ) Not a federal judge, I grant you, but still a judge. And that's just two examples off the top of my head. I don't think there's necessarily much direct bribery going on... but that's not the same thing as saying the system is honest, either.

    5. Re:The law is an ass by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's actually quite a good default position, with incompetence only slightly behind it.

      The number of federal judges impeached for all causes since 1904 is 10.

      Two were acquitted, Six were removed. Two resigned. Impeachment in the United States

      NEW ORLEANS - U.S. District Judge Robert F. Collins was convicted yesterday of scheming to split a $100,000 bribe from a drug smuggler, making him the first federal judge in the 200-year history of the judiciary to be found guilty of taking a bribe.

      Federal Judge First Ever Convicted Of Taking Bribe [June 30, 1991]

      When confronted by fact, the geek retreats into fantasy,

      You're claiming that the self policing system isn't corrupt because it doesn't result in many convictions? Is my sarcasm meter broken or did you seriously just try to make that argument?

      --
      "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
  3. The law comes to Deadwood. by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why was it, again, that anyone ever gave the legal system any say over what happens on or with the internet?

    It's been a long tome since the Internet was the geek's private playground.

    1. Re:The law comes to Deadwood. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Tor hidden services.

  4. Conflict of interest on the part of CNN/FNC/MSNBC by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The geek's explanation for his every failure in law, politics and government is bribery.

    As I understand it: The average citizen gets information about issues and candidates from one of the major TV news networks. A news source can refuse to cover a particular issue or a particular candidate's campaign. This means the citizen won't be made aware of it. So if TV news networks fail to cover developments in copyright law or candidates who have expressed interest in a balanced approach to copyright, they can influence the behavior of voters. Now guess what conglomerates own the major TV news sources and would have a reasonable motive and opportunity to exploit their conflict of interest: the parent companies of five of the six studios that make up the MPAA.

  5. Define bribery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Billions of dollars go into 'lobbying' each year, that's not money required to hire the people to express the opinion, that's money funnelled into the political machine directly. With PAC funding, that's pretty much money in the pocket, they can do with PAC money whatever the candidate wants. That money is a bribe in all but name.

    The problem here is, the word bribery has lost its meaning because the crime has largely been legitimized.

    Geeks make big play about Citizens United, but that just *increased* the bribery by allowing companies to openly bribe politicians.

    So yes, bribery it is. Here the copyright holders have a legitimate complaint, but instead they're attacking the third degree from it. Instead of going after the copyright infringement, or the torrent tracker, they're going after a search engine of the torrent trackers. Twice removed from the offense. To drive it through they're conflating the infringement the ISOHunt guy did with the search engine.