Slashdot Mirror
All Malibu Media Subpoenas In Eastern District NY Put On Hold
NewYorkCountryLawyer sends an update on the progress of Malibu Media, the company that filed subpoenas and copyright lawsuits over alleged BitTorrent piracy of pornography films:
A federal Magistrate Judge in Central Islip, New York, has just placed all Malibu Media subpoenas in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and Staten Island on hold indefinitely, due to "serious questions" raised by a motion to quash (PDF) filed in one of them. Judge Steven Locke's 4-page Order and Decision (PDF) cited the defendant's arguments that "(i) the common approach for identifying allegedly infringing BitTorrent users, and thus the Doe Defendant, is inconclusive; (ii) copyright actions, especially those involving the adult film industry, are susceptible to abusive litigation practices; and (iii) Malibu Media in particular has engaged in abusive litigation practices" as being among the reasons for his issuance of the stay.
This has nothing to do with the DMCA, this is a straight out copyright infringement lawsuit being filed.
The real problem is that the methods the copyright holders (or the copyright enforcement goons acting on their behalf) are using to identify torrent users aren't good enough and its good to see at least one judge willing to call these enforcers out on it.
1) Reform copyright terms to 5 years by default.
This severely penalises small content producers in favour of massive corporations, all a publisher needs to do is wait five years and they can leverage their marketing and distribution might to completely own a franchise while the original creator gets nada.
In addition anything less than Berne Convention for copyright is a none starter; that boat has sailed. However Berne Convention is a lot less than what we have currently in both north America and Europe. Rolling Copyright terms back to Berne Convention should be the initial goal.
I know you're trolling, but I'll bite anyway.
All the perceived negative effects of porn stem from sex and nudity having been given a historic stigma by the church, for which your kind is to blame entirely. There is nothing evil or harmful in natural sexual processes whatsoever, nor in the naked body, but just the opposite: they provide happiness and enjoyment, and as a side effect produce offspring which was nature's motive for making sex enjoyable in the first place.
The above doesn't excuse non-consensual or violent porn of any kind, nor sexual servitude under duress, let alone attacks on children. Those are all simply criminal abuse, and should have no place in a civilized society. That's not because of religious doctrine but because abuse and duress are a violation of people's personal freedom and safety in a supportive society.
Religion has programmed you into seeing good things as evil without any defensible justification other than historic dictats. You really ought to think about it yourself a little more deeply and logically, instead of blindly adopting what you're told to think. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
It was on behalf of a local author who presented to my user group with a sad little short story. After having published a children's book through Amazon (trade paperback POD, not Kindle) which became popular, some site in the UK popped up with a scanned copy of her book offered for sale. This is apparently a common scam targeting both print and online authors. We filed a takedown, and the pirated content was gone the next day.
DMCA works internationally in "notice and takedown" countries, which include the EU. It's by treaty, somewhat like extradition.
Correction: Someone in that household, or leeching that household's WiFi or someone with a hacked cable modem or someone at the ISP downloaded that content that they may or may not have known was copyrighted.
Or due to a clerical error, perhaps it was another household.
If you want to know about the merits of the practices that Malibu Media use, go to Ars, Techdirt, or Popehat and search for "Prenda Law".
Hint. There ARE NO merits to their practices.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The decision isn't about what is or is not copyright infringement. It's about whether you can sue somebody without any evidence that they did in fact commit a copyright infringement.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
What is right wing about that process? The Democrats support the movie industry, not the Republicans.
The fact that Democrats support something doesn't negate the possibility of something being right wing. The Democrats are not ideologically pure, or ideologically homogenous, and very few of them can be considered "left".
To me, pretending that copyright is only about property rights, and ignoring the fact that copyright was also supposed to be about free speech and about making material available for free to the public after a limited time, is definitely "right wing".
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Another way to say it is that if you haven't made your money on it within 5 years, you almost certainly never will.
Not all artistic works have the short life of a Hollywood blockbuster or Top 10 music track.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it