TorrentFreak Email Update

Anti-Piracy Group Will Take Pirate Bay Blocking Case to Supreme Court

Posted: 22 Feb 2014 02:23 AM PST

Following a 2010 attempt by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN to force local ISP Ziggo to block The Pirate Bay, rival ISP XS4ALL joined in the fight against the Hollywood-funded group. Initially a court decided that the ISPs wouldn’t have to block the site, but BREIN took the case to a full trial – and won.

On appeal the verdict swung in favor of the ISPs after they successfully argued that the blockade was ineffective and denied subscribers' free access to information. January 28, 2014, marked a big day in the Netherlands for both The Pirate Bay and its millions of fans, despite neither party’s involvement in the just-completed legal proceedings.

BREIN, on the other hand, went away licking its wounds and contemplating its 326,000 euro ($445,000) legal bill. Neither ISP wasted time unblocking The Pirate Bay.

With the verdict handed down and The Pirate Bay unblocked, the next step in the battle, should there even be one, lay in BREIN’s hands.

Now, three weeks later, the anti-piracy group has signaled its intention to fight on, criticizing The Court of The Hague’s ruling that site blocking should be dismissed if it’s ineffective.

“That statement is at odds with the opinion of judges in other European countries on blocking and preempts the judgment of the highest European court which is expected shortly. BREIN’s claim is that service providers blocking access to illegal websites has already been assigned by the court,” the group said in a statement.

BREIN adds that it has already established a number of grounds for appeal and will take its case to the Supreme Court.

“Depending on the type of appeal it can take a year to eighteen months before a decision,” BREIN chief Tim Kuik told Tweakers. “Moreover, there are still questions for the European Court of Justice so it might take even longer.”

In the wake of the Ziggo and XS4ALL victory, UPC, the Netherlands’ second largest ISP, said that it had reached an agreement with BREIN over its blocking of The Pirate Bay. The company said it would suspend the block, pending the outcome of its own case with the anti-piracy group.

Commenting on that development Friday, Kuik said that only the Supreme Court can provide the final answers. Taking further legal action now makes no sense, he said, as it only “makes the lawyers richer.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

RapidShare Stops Washington Lobbying Efforts and Regains Pirate Stamp

Posted: 21 Feb 2014 09:19 AM PST

In recent years the Swiss-based file-hosting service has made tremendous efforts to cooperate with copyright holders and limit copyright infringements.

The company adopted one of the most restrictive sharing policies of all cloud providers. This resulted in an exodus of users, which cost 75% of RapidShare’s employees their jobs.

After the U.S. Government labeled the site as a “notorious” piracy-facilitating market a few years in a row, the company decided that it had to change the negative perceptions in Washington. To do so, RapidShare retained the lobbying firm Dutko.

"We decided to increase our efforts to explain what RapidShare really stands for and how we are spearheading the industry's efforts to combat copyright infringements," RapidShare attorney Daniel Raimer told TF at the time.

These efforts soon paid off, as RapidShare was no longer listed in the Government’s Special 301 Report of notorious markets during the years that followed. This change could be directly linked to its presence in Washington, the company believed.

"The fact that we were not included in the 2011 list is a result of these educational efforts," Raimer told us.

After joining the Washington lobby for nearly four years, RapidShare and Dutko recently decided to part ways. After spending well over a million dollars, paired with the drastic anti-piracy measures RapidShare had taken, both agreed that RapidShare’s image had significantly improved.

RapidShare lobbying budget

rapidshare-lobbying

Indeed, any neutral follower of the cloud hosting industry would agree that RapidShare is no longer a piracy magnet. It therefore came as a total surprise that the U.S. Government reinstated RapidShare as a notorious market in this month’s Special 301 Report.

"Although RapidShare.com's popularity has diminished since its 2012 listing, it remains one of the most active sites worldwide as well as in the Czech Republic, where it is best known as Share-rapid.cz," the Government wrote.

While it may be a total coincidence that RapidShare was put back on the list after it pulled its lobbying efforts from Washington, there is something uncanny about the development. And that’s not just because the site is no longer an appealing site for those who are out to share copyrighted material.

The United States Trade Representative (USTR), who compiles the list of notorious sites, does so based on public comments from copyright holders and other interested parties. However, none of the rightsholders who submitted their input for the most recent list mentioned RapidShare, or the seemingly unrelated Share-rapid.cz. All other file-hosting sites on the other hand, were mentioned.

Of course USTR does have the right to add websites based on other sources, but it’s definitely not common, especially not when it concerns a service that has taken such a strong stance against piracy in recent years.

It’s safe to conclude that someone has been pulling some strings behind the scenes to get RapidShare back on the list, but who, will probably remain a mystery.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.