TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Anti-Piracy Group Agrees to Lift Pirate Bay Blockade
- Kim Dotcom Raid Warrants Legal, Court of Appeal Rules
- Piracy Monitoring Firm Asks ISPs to Disconnect Repeat Infringers
| Anti-Piracy Group Agrees to Lift Pirate Bay Blockade Posted: 19 Feb 2014 04:01 AM PST Last month The Court of The Hague handed down its decision in a long running case which had previously forced two Dutch ISPs, Ziggo and XS4ALL, to block The Pirate Bay. The Court ruled against local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, concluding that the blockade was ineffective and restricted the ISPs’ entrepreneurial freedoms. Responding to the verdict the two ISPs quickly unblocked the site, but with separate cases still pending The Pirate Bay remained inaccessible to users of various other Dutch ISPs. In a surprise announcements today, this situation changed. UPC Netherlands, the second largest ISP in the country, said it has decided to lift the Pirate Bay blockade.
In a message on its website UPC says that it discussed the issue with anti-piracy group BREIN and reached an agreement to discontinue the blockade, at least for now. “BREIN and UPC therefore agreed to lift The Pirate Bay blockade,” the statement reads. BREIN has yet to decide whether to appeal the case against Ziggo and XS4ALL. If it does so successfully, the blockade may be reinstated again, but this could take years. KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile and Telfort are the remaining ISPs who still block The Pirate Bay in the Netherlands. It is unknown whether they plan to lift the ban in the near future. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.    |
| Kim Dotcom Raid Warrants Legal, Court of Appeal Rules Posted: 18 Feb 2014 11:34 PM PST
Following allegations from the United States government acting on behalf of Hollywood, officers of STG, New Zealand's elite counter-terrorist force, raided Kim Dotcom’s mansion, detaining the German-born businessman along with his wife and his children. Adding momentum to mounting controversy, six months later a High Court judge found the warrants to be overbroad and therefore illegal. The decision was a huge boost to Dotcom’s fight against looming extradition to the United States. This morning, however, the case has taken a new twist, with the Court of Appeal overturning the earlier High Court ruling that the warrants lacked specificity. Conceding that the warrants contained flaws, a panel of three judges found that overall the warrants were legal. “[We] are satisfied that the defects in the search warrants have not caused any significant prejudice to the respondents beyond the prejudice caused inevitably by the execution of a search warrant,” the judges write in their ruling. “In this case the practical consequences for the respondents must be assessed in light of the nature of the electronic items that were seized when the warrants were executed. Assessed in this way it is clear that..[..]..no more items were seized than would have been without the defects in the search warrants.” In support of this assertion the judges note that despite police seizing more than 135 electronic items containing 150 terabytes of data, a number of electronic items, which the police concluded did not contain relevant evidence, were not seized.  Noting that Kim Dotcom’s "life and soul is on his computer", the judges said the entrepreneur would have understood want the warrants were all about. “In our view a reasonable reader in the position of the recipients of the search warrants would have understood what they related to. This view is reinforced by the fact that Mr Dotcom was a computer expert who would have understood without any difficulty the references in the search warrant to his companies (Megaupload, Megavideo and Megastuff Ltd) and the description of the various categories of electronic items,” the judges write. “The defects in these warrants were therefore not so radical as to require them to be treated as nullities..[..].. here there was no disconnect between what there were reasonable grounds to believe might be at the properties and what the warrant authorized the police to take. In other words, this really was a case of error of expression. The defects were defects in form not in substance,” the decision adds. “We therefore allow the appeal in respect of the validity of the search warrants. These warrants are consequently valid,” the judges conclude. However, the decision by the Court of Appeal does not go entirely in favor of the authorities. The data contained on the electronic devices seized in the raid was previously cloned by the police and sent to the United States, an act that was found to be unlawful in earlier proceedings. This morning the Court of Appeal upheld that conclusion. “In our view the words of the Solicitor-General's direction in the present case plainly did not authorize removal of the clones to the United States,” the ruling adds. Kim Dotcom’s US-based lawyer Ira Rothken announced on Twitter that his team his currently analyzing today’s ruling by the Court of Appeal. “Our @KimDotcom legal team is reviewing the rulings made by the Court of Appeal and will likely seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court,” Rothken said. Ahead of an extradition hearing currently scheduled for April, Dotcom took a swipe at US authorities and suggested that the fight would continue. “The only party found to have committed piracy in the #Megaupload case: The FBI. Shipping my hard drives unlawfully to the US,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m not sorry that fighting back, getting up and being successful are encoded in my DNA. I’m happy I can support my family & challenge evil,” he said. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.   |
| Piracy Monitoring Firm Asks ISPs to Disconnect Repeat Infringers Posted: 18 Feb 2014 10:27 AM PST
These notices are traditionally nothing more than a warning, hoping to scare file-sharers into giving up their habit. More frequently, however, they now include a request for a small cash settlement. Rightscorp is one of the companies that facilitates these settlement demands. The company scours BitTorrent networks for people who download titles owned by the copyright holders they work for, and then approaches these alleged pirates via their Internet providers. The company partners with prominent copyright holders including Warner Bros. and BMI. On behalf of these clients Rightscorp usually asks for $10 or $20 per infringed title. Since these settlement requests are concealed in DMCA notices, there is no need to obtain a court order. Under the DMCA ISPs are obliged to forward the notices which means that Rightscorp can contact the alleged pirates without knowing who they are. While a $20 settlement may sound reasonable, these costs can increase rapidly as Rightscorp sometimes sends out multiple settlement requests for a single torrent. For example, if they catch someone downloading an album with 18 tracks, they send out 18 settlements notices demanding a payment for each infringement. People who, as a matter of oversight or intentionally, settle for only one of the infringements are then confronted with a scary threat after a few days. In a follow-up email seen by TF, Rightscorp warns that the alleged infringer’s Internet account is now at risk since they have been placed on a list of repeat copyright infringers. “If you have received multiple notices, your account is on a list that we send to your ISP every week requesting that it be terminated,” Rightscorp warns in their email. The company adds that many ISPs are following up on Rightscorp’s list, and do indeed terminate accounts that have allegedly downloaded copyrighted material on more than one occasion. “Many ISPs follow the law 17 USC 512 (i) and terminate service to repeat infringers who we identify. It will stay on that list until you close this matter with us or our client decides to escalate.” The account termination angle appears to be important for Rightscorp, as it’s also mentioned in several spots on the company’s website. The question is, however, how real these threats are, as there are a few questions regarding Rightscorp’s claim.  The “unpaid” reminders, such as the example listed above, are only sent to people who have settled an earlier infringement and in the process willingly shared their email address with Rightscorp. Since the company sends out settlement requests for each track listed in an album download, they can send a reminder if the person only settled for one of the tracks. However, if the same IP-address is caught sharing something else a week later Rightscorp can’t accurately claim that this is a repeat infringement. Nor do we expect that downloading an album with a dozen tracks will be seen as repeat infringements by any ISPs. Rightscorp simply can’t know that unauthorized downloads belong to the same account unless they occur at the exact same time. After all, they only have an IP-address on an infringer, and these tend to change over time. In other words, it is impossible for Rightscorp to compile an accurate list of accounts that downloaded copyrighted material on multiple occasions. TF contacted Rightscorp hoping to clarify some of the issues above, but we have yet to hear back from the company. Even if Rightscorp does have an accurate list, it’s very unlikely that any of the larger ISPs will disconnect an account holder without solid evidence of repeated infringements over a longer time period. The Copyright Alerts System for example, allows for up to six warnings for downloads that are at least a week apart and even after the sixth warning there is no rule to close people’s accounts. Perhaps the threat of having one’s Internet account terminated is not as real as Rightscorp wants alleged pirates to believe? Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.   |
This is a significant move since the court has yet to decide on the appeal in UPC’s case, a decision which isn’t expected before April this year.
January 2012, New Zealand police carried out the largest ever action against individuals accused of copyright infringement.
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