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Five Years Before Any New U.S. Anti-Piracy Laws, MP Predicts

Posted: 18 Apr 2014 01:39 AM PDT

Under immense pressure from powerful entertainment companies, in 2011 it looked almost inevitable that the United States would introduce powerful new legislation to massively undermine Internet piracy.

Championed by Hollywood and the world’s leading record labels, the Stop Online Piracy Act made headlines around the world for putting super-aggressive tools into the government’s arsenal. At the same time, however, proper consideration wasn’t given to their potential impact on innovation.

As a result, citizens and technology companies teamed up to stage the biggest protest the Internet has ever seen resulting in a back-down by the government – and Hollywood in particular – on an unprecedented scale.

The fallout became obvious in the months that followed. The usual anti-piracy rhetoric from the MPAA and RIAA was massively toned down, at times becoming non-existent. In its place emerged a new and softer approach, one aimed at making peace with the very technology companies that had stood in their way.

This week an intellectual property enforcement leader very familiar with the big studios and record labels revealed just how much damage the SOPA defeat is responsible for.

Speaking in Los Angeles at an event hosted by the Motion Picture Licensing Corp., UK MP and Prime Minister’s Intellectual Property Advisor Mike Weatherley said that it would be a very long time before anyone dared to push for new legislation in the United States.

"It's going to be five years before anybody puts his head above the parapet again," Weatherley told executives.

If Weatherley’s predictions are correct, that takes us beyond 2020 before any new legislation gets put in place, a comparative lifetime online and a timescale during which almost anything can happen.

But Hollywood and the labels aren’t sitting still in this apparent ‘quiet’ period. A new strategy has been adopted, one that seeks voluntary cooperation with technology-based companies, the “six-strikes” deal with United States ISPs being a prime example.

Cooperation has also been sought from advertising companies in an attempt to strangle the revenues of so-called pirate sites, a move that has been gathering momentum in recent months. Weatherley told the meeting that existing laws might need to be “beefed up” a little, but from his overall tone those tweaks seem unlikely to provoke any SOPA-like backlash.

Also generating interest is Weatherley’s attitude towards Google. The world’s leading search engine has been under intense pressure to do something about the infringing results that appear in its listings. At times the rhetoric, especially from the music industry, has been intense, and could’ve easily spilled over into aggression if Google had decided to bite back. However, the UK Prime Minister’s IP advisor says he sees things differently.

“I know in America [Google] are considered much more of a pariah than they are perhaps in the U.K. But I have to say they are engaging with me and they recognize that something has got to be done,” Weatherley told the meeting.

But while Weatherley talks peace and cooperation and the MPAA and RIAA keep their heads down in the States, much anti-piracy work is being conducted through their proxies FACT and the BPI in the UK. Instead of tackling the world’s leading file-sharing sites from U.S. soil, the job has been transferred to the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Not only does it keep the controversy down at home, it also costs much less, with the British taxpayer footing much of the bill.

TorrentFreak has learned that only last week a new batch of letters went out to file-sharing related sites, with yet more demands for them to shut down or face the consequences. Things might appear quiet in the United States, but that doesn’t meant things aren’t happening.

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

Landmark Case Sees Pirate Bay User Hit With 5 Year Sentence

Posted: 17 Apr 2014 09:12 AM PDT

In a blaze of publicity mid December 2013 it was revealed that South Africa had netted its very first Internet pirate. SAFACT, the Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft, said it had caught a man uploading a high-profile movie to The Pirate Bay.

The case had unusual hallmarks from the start, not least since SAFACT admitted it had engaged the services of a “certified ethical hacker" to identify, profile and trace the uploader. Adding to the intrigue, SAFACT also refused to name the uploaded movie, although it was later revealed to be Four Corners, a local gangland film that was yet to be officially released.

Initially, the identity of the uploader was also shrouded in mystery but he was later revealed to be 29-year-old Majedien Norton. The IT engineer was reported to have uploaded the movie on November 21, 2013, although there is no sign of it now, which suggests that the father of two later deleted the file. Norton later admitted to buying a ‘screener’ copy of the movie off the streets and uploading it to Pirate Bay.

As in many countries, relatively minor and non-commercial instances of copyright infringement are dealt with via the civil courts in South Africa, but from fairly early on it was clear that this case would be different. The overall anti-piracy tone was that an example needed to be made and a precedent set for those tempted to make the same kind of mistake in future.

Today the case concluded in the Commercial Crimes Court in Cape Town and it seems that SAFACT largely achieved its aims. After being arrested under the Counterfeit Goods Act and facing a fine plus up to three years in jail, Norton came to an arrangement with the state, pleaded guilty, and was handed a five-year suspended jail sentence.

"It's a huge relief for me and my wife," Norton told local news outlet htxt.africa. "I'm just glad we can put this behind us now and move on."

But while SAFACT and the rest of the anti-piracy lobby will be pleased with the harsh albeit suspended sentence, in a recent interview the director of Four Corners was philosophical over the piracy of his movie.

"I think the way people think now digitally they don't see piracy as piracy any more. They see it as sharing. We will definitely not get as many people to the cinemas as we would have if the film were not pirated," Ian Gabriel said.

“At the same time, there are people who have seen the film who would never have got to the cinema. I'm pleased the film is reaching those people because there's a message of pride and self recognition and of choice for ordinary people that the film is delivering and its important that message be heard."

And while SAFACT clearly believe that the threat of criminal punishments will help solve the piracy problem, Gabriel sees things from a different angle. Noting that movies cannot exist without money, the director says a more considered approach to piracy is required.

“I suggest in order to continue to enhance our quality of life, creative rights of origination need to be secured on some consensual level, probably not through aggressive policing, but rather through a common sense approach to the protection of creative endeavour for the benefit of all," the director concludes.

SAFACT are yet to comment on the conclusion of the case.

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