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9th Circuit Affirms IsoHunt Decision; No DMCA Safe Harbor
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.
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.
And it is a bought and paid-for ass.
before the record and film industries go after Google and its competitors..
What does that even mean?
I am so glad I never became a lawyer like my mother wanted me to.
I said - don't look Ethel!..., but it was too late..., she'd already looked.
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.
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.
It sees more cases, so numerically there are more overturned. On average it's rulings are overturned about as often as any other circuit court in the country.
The 9th Circuit is a joke. It is the most overturned circuit in the country
Citation needed that a significantly larger percentage of the Ninth Circuit's decisions are overturned than those of other circuits. The fact is that the population of the Ninth Circuit is larger; therefore more cases will be brought. If more cases are decided, and the same percentage of them are overturned, a greater number of decisions will be overturned.
The 9th Circuit is a joke. It is the most overturned circuit in the country and the laughing stock of the judicial system.
It's a meaningless stat when the Supreme Court takes on less than 100 cases a year and perhaps 25 of those will be from the nine states of the Ninth Circuit.
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.
> some people seem to think that corporations and intellectual property are codified in the constitution!
States play a big part in the legal structure of the US too. And it happens that states have decided to charter corporations.
As far as intellectual property, that is certainly codified in the Constitution.
Right. Most people get all their information from a single TV channel, and will never change this TV channel (perhaps their remote is broken?)
TV stations freely ignore candidates they don't like, the way FOX never mentions Obama.
I'm not sarcastic, I can't help talking this way!
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
As far as intellectual property, that is certainly codified in the Constitution.
Citation needed.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
There is no need. They profit by providing convenience (assuming they make more than the cost to host). Anyone can post a torrent and then send a link out or post it somewhere. Just subvert Twitter or Pintrest or any number of social systems that let you follow someone.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
It doesn't matter, the same few people own all the mainstream channels. Some people actually go out of their way to find the truth, but most people will be spoon fed their news by these few people. In the cases their interests conflict you can infer something from the discrepancies between them, but most of the time their interests converge.
Article I, section 8, clause 8: [The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
At least make it hard, seriously.
No it isn't. Please do not repeat myths.
Here it's Slashdot, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeerah, ABC, SBS, Sydney Morning Herald, Pravda, South China Post. Sometimes I watch CCTV news as well. Occasionally, I read Pravda in an effort to keep my very rusty Russian language skills from entirely disappearing (okayyyyy... maybe a bit of Soviet nostalgia there, too; so sue me, already, for having grown up in the heyday of the Cold War, and let's get on with it).
I quit bothering very much with CNN or any other US outlet ten years ago... About 5 minutes after I saw how much news *didn't* get reported on the American sites/channels. Which was about 5 minutes after my first evening TV news experience in Australia with ABC, SBS, and BBC.
Shit, last time I was *in* the US, I watched SBS or BBC on my laptop for my news fix. Tried to watch CNN with my Dad, and the cognitive dissonance actually started making my head hurt.
Fortunately, he lives on a lake in Florida; he, his dogs, his fishing boat, and I found lots better things to do most of the time than watching television. :)
Moving away from the US was the smartest damn thing I've ever done in my life--it got me away from the mental poison known as American TV.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
That's basically what this ruling says. Sure it targets a specific site, but it doesn't differ from the thousands exactly like it and the even bigger number almost like it.
The core issue is that it states that by linking to resources that brings you closer to commit copyright infringement, you enable infringement and thus commit it yourself. All sites on the Internet do this - by choice or by proxy. Nothing is more than a few clicks away from any page so any click might bring you closer to something illegal and thus that link and the site it's on are enabling it.
The ruling does not distinguish between deliberate links and generated links, like the result of a search or other form of automated indexing (like what was used on Isohunt), nor the link depth involved. Unless there's a least a clear ruling on how many clicks represents a 'safe distance', any link is potentially leading to something bad and thus a part of this badness, and this means that every single link on the entire Internet is enabling and thus part of everything illegal.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
It's possible to download all music you ever need from YouTube. That's secondary infringement right there!
Most people get all their information from a single TV channel, and will never change this TV channel
You'd be surprised. In my extended family survey sample, at least one householder sticks to MSNBC because she likes being told what she wants to hear. I've made her fully aware that she treats the issues on which the Democrats and Republicans as a sports rivalry where she roots for the Democrats, and she told me she enjoys it. Besides, even if they do change channels, it's from one channel that doesn't adequately cover developments in copyright law to another channel that doesn't adequately cover developments in copyright law.
TV stations freely ignore candidates they don't like, the way FOX never mentions Obama.
I was thinking more along the lines of Ron Paul's 2008 campaign.
Such a vague definition means that you will lose if the government does not like you, but will win if they do. Of course it was designed to be that way.
That doesn't codify intellectual property. It merely gives the US Federal Government authorization to create such a thing. The justification for creating such a thing is given as the public good. It is not framed as some sort of new form of property. It is not framed as a virtual land grab.
Copyright is OPTIONAL.
Copyright is not a right.
"Congress shall have the power" versus "the right shall not be infringed".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
When the most liberal court in US is against the people who can save us now ?
JAM
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8
It certainly does codify it as it places some parameters around what it should look like.
And yes Copyright is a right. It says so in the Constitution.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/29/local/me-9th-scotus29
imho open indexers should be exempt from the dmca laws, it's just a robot listing of what's out there.
The whole reason for OCILLA was to make indexers exempt from copyright law provided that they respond promptly to notices of claimed infringement.
type "youtube full movies" into google search.
The first result from Google youtube full movies resulted in a playlist, and the first movie I tried (not the first on the playlist) had a message that it had been blocked by Content ID.
THE ENTIRE CHAIN INCLUDES ONLY GOOGLE SERVICES AND IT'S GOOGLE DOING THE HOSTING OF THE WHOLE ACTION CHAIN!
YouTube is known both for promptly responding to OCILLA notices and for proactively matching videos submitted by users to samples submitted by copyright owners. In fact, the complaint against YouTube seen more commonly on Slashdot is that YouTube is often too eager to remove material believed to have been used without permission, even if it is in fact used with permission (such as the Hugo Awards webcast) or used under a statutory limitation on exclusive rights.
youtube advertises as "Share your videos"
I take "Share your videos" to mean "Share videos that you created or whose copyright you otherwise own", not merely "share videos a copy of which you own". If an MPAA member seeks statutory judgment against YouTube on the basis of "Share your videos", the burden will be on the MPAA to convince a judge otherwise. Nor does YouTube advertise with the names of specific movies that aren't on Google Play, to the best of my knowledge.
So, if I don't advertise that I'm dealing crack near school, I should be safe?
I fail to see how your analogy applies. There's a difference between failing to qualify under a safe harbor statute and no safe harbor statute existing in the first place. These providers claim safe harbor under the OCILLA statute for operating an automated search system. The movie studios convinced the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the safe harbor does not apply to any provider that advertises using the titles of specific works whose copyright owners have not allowed them to be made available through the service. If there were an analogous safe harbor statute for dealing prescription drugs without a valid license, that'd be news to me.
I'll see your biased newspaper article reporting on one term, and raise you a well-sourced scholarly article by a prominent Constitutional scholar.
Your move, junior.
No, its just those kids that keep playing on your lawn.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Typical slashdotters arguing about anarchy. The issue is legal remedies if and when they are necessary. Right now, damn few slashdotters can afford to pursue a legal case on ay form of harm from the internet, let alone defend against one. It's become a stomping ground for government and big data lawyers with size 11 feet.
What we need is an internet small claims court, not DMCA.