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Internet Blocking Protests Force Mexico Government Retreat
106,000 Signatures in Support of Pirate Bay Founder Delivered to Danish Govt.
Viewing Pirated Material Is Not Direct Copyright Infringement, Judge Tells Tarantino

Internet Blocking Protests Force Mexico Government Retreat

Posted: 24 Apr 2014 03:24 AM PDT

An attempt to introduce laws that would have given the Mexican government the power to block the Internet and other telecommunications appears to have failed.

The government earlier said it wanted to introduce legislation to combat illegal activities on the Internet, including child pornography. But after drilling down into the details of the text, activists say that the draft law being debated by the Senate would allow the government to censor the Internet whenever it liked.

One of the articles, which states that the government could force Internet service providers to “temporarily block, inhibit or annul telecommunications signals at events and places deemed critical for the public safety” sparked protests both on and offline, with hundreds taking to the streets on Tuesday.

While the government insists that the measures are only intended for dealing with serious crime, activists are concerned that the proposals go too far, threatening both privacy and economic development.

But by yesterday the tone of the government had changed, with Sen. Emilio Gamboa, leader of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in the Senate, announcing that the proposals would be scaled back.

“Any other additional power, like the blocking of signals for national or public safety will be excluded from the reform,” Gamboa said.

In attempt to calm the situation further, Gamboa added that new measures to force ISPs to hand over information on their subscribers would not be expanded.

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

106,000 Signatures in Support of Pirate Bay Founder Delivered to Danish Govt.

Posted: 24 Apr 2014 02:20 AM PDT

Last year following a failed appeal to the Supreme Court in Sweden, Gottfrid Svartholm was extradited to Denmark. There he stands accused of hacking into computers belonging to IT company CSC.

The nature of the Pirate Bay founder’s detention has been highly controversial. His reputation as a master hacker led authorities to treat him with fear, placing him in solitary confinement, severely restricting his interaction with other inmates and limiting his access to books. Magazines sent in from outside were also off-limits, since prison authorities feared they may contain encrypted messages.

These extraordinary conditions prompted the creation of a petition by the Free Anakata Campaign. After a gentle start the protest gathered momentum hitting 50,000 and then 100,000 signatures. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Gottfrid’s mother Kristina said that the petition had put tremendous pressure on the authorities, leading them to ease her son’s book restrictions and interactions with other inmates.

After exceeding 106,000 signatures the petition was delivered to the Danish government yesterday. The Danish Pirate Party had the honor of handing it over to Minister of Justice Karen Hækkerup.

The Internet petition, which reached 106,538 signatures, was printed out onto 2,600 sheets of paper and presented to the minister in a box covered in pirate wrapping paper.

“In my eyes he is in solitary confinement for no reason. I mean, he is being treated worse than a serial killer,” said Rolf Bjerre from the Pirate Party after the handover.

DR.DK legal correspondent Claus Buhr said that Svartholm’s adverse conditions are a product of the authorities’ lack of experience of dealing with someone with the Swede’s capabilities.

“If he was a killer or suspected of drug crime, they are accustomed to those kind of suspects and know what they’re capable of. However, a possible super-hacker is someone the Danish police very rarely have to deal with,” Buhr said.

“This is probably the reason why he is being held under the strictest lock and key, simply because it’s not fully understood what he can do, and whether he’s able to get information in and out of jail.”

Even though Gottfrid has been held in Denmark for more than five months, the investigation against him is still underway with no immediate end in sight. In the meantime he’s being allowed just one hour a day outside and a single controlled visit with his mother, who travels from Sweden to Denmark each week to see him.

The case is expected to go to trial in the early days of September 2014 and it’s hoped the petition will ease his conditions before then.

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

Viewing Pirated Material Is Not Direct Copyright Infringement, Judge Tells Tarantino

Posted: 23 Apr 2014 08:55 AM PDT

Back in January, Quentin Tarantino discovered that a copy of an unreleased screenplay to potential future movie The Hateful Eight had been made available to the public without his permission. He’d shared the document with six individuals and either one of them – or someone linked to them – had leaked it.

Shortly after dozens of news articles appeared online, news site Gawker reported that following a “temper tantrum” Tarantino had decided that he would no longer make a Hateful Eight movie. The next day The Wrap reported it had obtained a copy of the script and within hours it was being made available by the AnonFiles.com file-hosting site. From there it appeared on Scribd.com, viewable to millions of visitors.

But while people would have to find the script themselves if they were interested, Gawker later made the process significantly easier by publishing an article titled “Here is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script” containing links to both AnonFiles and Scribd. Gawker refused to take down the links when asked, although both AnonFiles and Scribd both removed the file.

Through his legal team an enraged Tarantino accused Gawker of encouraging copyright infringement, but Gawker fought back saying that in the course of its reporting the links were protected under “fair use” doctrine. On January 27, Tarantino’s lawyers filed a complaint alleging copyright infringement against 10 ‘Doe’ defendants and contributory copyright infringement against Gawker.

Yesterday, however, the lawsuit received a substantial setback.

In order for a defendant to be found liable for contributory copyright infringement there must first be evidence of direct infringement carried out by others. In other words, to proceed against Gawker, Tarantino’s lawyers needed to show that visitors to Gawker’s site who read the article in question actually clicked the links to AnonFiles or Scribd and went on to commit direct infringement on the script.

“However, nowhere in these paragraphs or anywhere else in the Complaint does Plaintiff allege a single act of direct infringement committed by any member of the general public that would support Plaintiff's claim for contributory infringement. Instead, Plaintiff merely speculates that some direct infringement must have taken place,” wrote U.S. District Judge John F. Walter in his ruling.

Adding more problems for Tarantino, the Judge said that even if there were allegations that individuals had accessed the links in the Gawker article in order to read the script, that would still not support Tarantino’s claim for contributory infringement. Citing a previous case involving adult magazine publisher Perfect 10, Judge Walter said that simply viewing the script would not be enough.

“Even if Plaintiff alleged that individuals accessed the links contained in Defendant's article in order to read Plaintiff's script, such an allegation would still not support Plaintiff's contributory infringement claim against Defendant. Simply viewing a copy of allegedly infringing work on one's own computer does not constitute the direct infringement necessary to support Plaintiff's contributory infringement claim,” the Judge wrote.

“In addition, based on the allegations of the Complaint, there can be little doubt that Plaintiff has a strong claim for direct infringement against Doe 1, a/k/a AnonFiles.com. However, Plaintiff has not alleged and it is highly unlikely that Plaintiff will be able to plead facts demonstrating that Defendant somehow induced, caused, or materially contributed to the infringing conduct by publishing a link to the screenplay after it was wrongfully posted on AnonFiles.com.”

In light of the above, Gawker’s ‘fair use’ defense was not addressed.

“The Court concludes that the fair use arguments, albeit persuasive and potentially dispositive, are premature and the Court declines to consider those arguments until Plaintiff has had an opportunity to demonstrate that he can state a viable claim for contributory copyright infringement,” the decision reads.

While round one goes to Gawker, Tarantino’s legal team now has until May 1 to submit its amended complaint and stage a comeback.

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