European court protects file sharers
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ISPs not obliged to hand over subscriber info European telcos and ISPs do not have to hand over subscriber information to record labels which are trying to find file sharers.â¦
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A US federal appeals court ruled in favor of peer-to-peer software makers this week, stating that the companies behind the Grokster and Morpheus services are not liable for copyright infringement due to the actions of their users.
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The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a pivotal case pitting copyright holders against the makers of file-sharing software.
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The European music industry today announced a major crackdown against file-sharing, the practice of sharing copyrighted songs over the internet using networks like Kazaa, with the filing of 459 suits against file-swappers, 28 of whom are British.
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(InfoWorld) - Consumers in Europe have another group looking out for their digital rights with the opening of a Brussels office by the U.S. nonprofit group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF has battled the U.S. government and corporations to protect the rights of consumers and technologists in areas like free speech, data privacy and digital rights management. It has brought or helped to defend cases against the U.S. Department of Justice, Apple, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, AT&T, and others. On Monday it opened an office in Brussels, home of the European Commission and the European Parliament, and said it would play a more active role in shaping European law and advocating on behalf of European citizens. The office was funded partly by Mark Shuttleworth, the South African dot-com billionaire who launched the Ubuntu Linux distribution, and by the Open Society Institute, a U.S. grants foundation chaired by George Soros. Erik Josefsson will be the EFF's European Affairs Coordinator. He was previously the head of the Swedish chapter of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, which helped overturn the proposal for a unified patent system in Europe. The EFF didn't say which issues it would pick up in Europe. Areas it could potentially get involved with include the battle under way against Apple to force it to open its digital rights management (DRM) system, so songs bought from its iTunes Store can play on music players other than Apple's iPod. It has already been involved in some European cases. A few years ago it set up a defense fund for the Norwegian teenager Jon Johannsen, known as "DVD Jon," who was accused of creating an illegal program, DeCSS, to watch DVDs on his Linux computer. He was eventually acquitted by a Norwegian court. In the U.S. the group has fought the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a controversial law that seeks to prevent people from cracking DRM systems to access copyright works, but which critics say has been misused to inhibit innovation and fair use. It also brought aÂ class action suit against Sony BMGÂ over the "rootkit" copy-protection technology used in some of its music CDs, helping U.S. and Canadian customers to get refunds. And it helped defend several bloggers who were sued by Apple for allegedly leaking information about upcoming products to online news sites. Its current cases include a class-action suit against AT&T for wire-tapping on behalf of the U.S. government, and a suit in Florida on behalf of citizens whose votes were not properly registered by e-voting machines.
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The entertainment industry took aim at law-breaking European internet file-sharers on Thursday, with the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announcing plans to sue hundreds of copyright infringers.
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The European Union investigates whether saving search data violates privacy laws.
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A U.S. Court of Appeals panel has ruled against a Missouri man who was seeking to overturn a guilty plea in a precedent-setting case involving his use of the Kazaa file-sharing network to download and store child pornography images.
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Copyright groups may not be able to demand that telecom companies hand over the names and addresses of people suspected of swapping music illegally online, a senior legal adviser to the EU's highest court said.
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The EU's top court ruled that telecoms do not have to reveal file-sharers' names when subpoenaed in civil cases.
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The music industry claimed another legal victory in its battle against illegal file sharing in Europe on Friday, but the win may not last long.
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One of Denmark&#39;s largest ISPs said on Wednesday it will&#160;fight a court injunction mandating that it shut off access to a file-sharing Web site, in what could be a closely watched battle with the music industry in Europe.Tele2 met with representatives of other ISPs on Monday and decided to challenge the injunction, said Nicholai Pfeiffer, Tele2&#39;s chief of regulations.As a result, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is understood to have filed on Tuesday a further justification for the injunction with the court, Pfeiffer said.Tele2 has complied with the injunction and blocked its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay, a Web site that hosts torrents, or small information files used to download larger files from the BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) network. The IFPI alleges that Danish Internet users are using BitTorrent to download, without authorization, copyright content that they found using The Pirate Bay&#39;s list of available torrents.No other Danish ISP has been ordered to shut off access to The Pirate Bay. However, IFPI plans to send letters this week to other Danish ISPs asking them to also block The Pirate Bay, said Jesper Bay, spokesman.&quot;Whether they are going to do that or not, it&#39;s up to them,&quot; Bay said, adding that IFPI hasn&#39;t decided whether to pursue more injunctions.Bay said the injunction has two purposes: It sends a signal to ISPs that they have a responsibility to stop piracy and to users that downloading copyright content without permission is illegal.The content the IFPI objects to is actually hosted on the PCs of users around the world. The torrents coordinate the download of file fragments from different PCs, and those fragments are eventually linked together to form a complete file that can then be uploaded to other machines. BitTorrent has many legitimate uses, including software distribution, and is used by some media companies to deliver their content.The record industry has employed companies specializing in file-sharing forensics to track down individual Internet users it says are sharing copyright content illegally. It also&#160;sought to shut down Web sites such as The Pirate Bay&#160;that are part of the P-to-P network.The Danish court concluded that Tele2 was assisting in copyright infringement. Tele2, as well as other ISPs that have come under pressure, maintain they are blind to what their customers transmit on their networks and should not be responsible for policing content.&quot;Our overall view is we don&#39;t actually want to take sides in this dispute between IFPI and The Pirate Bay,&quot; Pfeiffer said.The Pirate Bay said on Friday that traffic from Denmark has shot up 12 percent since Tele2&#39;s block was imposed. The Pirate Bay also set up an alternative Web site for Tele2 customers giving them instructions on how to circumvent the block.Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay faces trouble in its own waters. In Sweden, charges of profiting and encouraging copyright infringement are pending against four people involved with the Web site.&#160;
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The US Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether Internet file-trading networks should be held responsible when their users copy music, movies and other protected works without permission.
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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court was asked Friday to hold two Internet file-sharing services responsible for their customers&#39; online swapping of copyrighted songs and movies.
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A court ruled that the distributors of software used by millions of people to exchange music files over the Internet cannot be held liable for aiding copyright infringement.
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The acquisition by Microsoft and Time Warner of a company with a significant portfolio of patents covering digital rights management technologies generates scrutiny by European antitrust regulators. The main focus of the investigation: Microsoft. By Wendy M. Grossman.
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Late last month, the Court of First Instance in Brussels issued a decision ordering Scarlet, one of Belgium&#39;s leading ISPs, to begin blocking copyrighted material that passes through its servers. The court gave the ISP six months to implement one or more technologies recommended by a court-appointed expert, and threatened the company with fines of up to 2,500 euros per day (roughly US$3,400) if it fails to comply.