TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Rise Up Against Govt Anti-Piracy Plans, ISP Urges
- Google Joins New Coalition to Stop Ad Revenue to Pirate Sites
- New Pirate Bay Blocking Battle Set For The Summer
| Rise Up Against Govt Anti-Piracy Plans, ISP Urges Posted: 10 Jun 2014 01:44 AM PDT
Brandis has, however, consulted deeply with the entertainment industries. His proposals for solving the piracy issue are straight out of the MPAA and RIAA cookbook – three strikes and account terminations for errant Internet users plus ISP blockades of torrent and similar sites. The reason why the debate over these measures has dragged on so long is down to the defeat of the studios in their legal battle against ISP iiNet. That case failed to render the ISP responsible for the actions of its subscribers and ever since iiNet has provided the most vocal opposition to tough anti-piracy proposals. Today, iiNet Chief Regulatory Officer Steve Dalby underlined that stance with a call for consumers to fight back against “foreign interests.” “The Hollywood Studios have been relentlessly lobbying the Australian Government on a range of heavy-handed solutions, from a 'three strikes' proposal, through to website filtering – none of which take consumers' interests into account,” Dalby explains. On three strikes, Dalby notes that even though customers will be expected to pick up the bill for its introduction, there’s no evidence that these schemes have curtailed piracy or increased sales in any other country. “This leaves us asking why Hollywood might think this approach would work in Australia when it doesn't even work in their own patch,” he says. While Dalby believes that the studios’ imposition of ‘three-strikes’ will do little to solve the problem, his opposition to overseas interference is perhaps most visible in his attitudes towards site blocking. "Why would the Australian government let a foreign company dictate which websites our citizens can access? Are our legislators captured by foreign interests? Should we allow American commercial interest to dictate Australian national policy?" he questions. Perhaps inevitably, Dalby says that piracy has only blossomed in Australia due to a failure to serve the market, and the studios must address that first. “Copyright holders have shown us that they're not interested in new models for Australians, despite the success of services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu in the USA,” he explains. “The pattern of US traffic Internet now depends on what content is made available via legitimate distribution channels like Netflix, rather than on the Pirate Bay. Giving your competitor a ten-year head start distributing a 'free' alternative is pretty stupid. No wonder the content industry is uncompetitive, with that attitude.” Demand for legal content exists, Dalby says, but only if consumers aren’t subjected to release delays and uncompetitive pricing. “And that's the fundamental difference between iiNet and the rights holders. They want to tackle how customers are pirating content. We want them to look at why, and then move forward, addressing the cause, not the symptom,” he says. Alongside calls for Australians to lobby their MPs, Dalby says he hopes that Hollywood and the government decide to take a more positive approach to solving the problem. “Until that time, we'll continue to push for a better future for Australian content users, one removed from the constraints being discussed in Canberra,” he concludes. Dalby’s attack on the proposals currently on the table shows that a voluntary agreement between iiNet and rightsholders is as far away as ever, an indication that the years-long battle is far from over. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.    |
| Google Joins New Coalition to Stop Ad Revenue to Pirate Sites Posted: 09 Jun 2014 10:59 AM PDT
Every week there are often aggressive opinions published on why cutting off revenue is perhaps the most powerful weapon in the online piracy war. This crescendo has already grown into notable action in both the United States and United Kingdom. Later this week a new initiative will be presented to the public, and the fact that Google is onboard will no doubt help to promote the completeness of the effort. Continuing the European effort after the UK, this Thursday in Rome, Italy, a coalition of key advertising players plus the main anti-piracy groups of the music and movie industries will announce the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding. The announcement, taking place at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s IAB Events 2014 conference, will see the IAB, music industry anti-piracy group FPM and Fapav (the Italian MPAA) announce a new coalition to deprive revenue from pirate sites. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Enzo Mazza, chief at music industry group Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana (FIMI), explains how the initiative will work. “IAB Italia, the local branch of Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has been very active in discussing with music and movie associations a self-regulation approach to promote an effective action to prevent advertisers from posting ads on rogue sites,” Mazza explains. “IAB already educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. In our goal the agreement should promote a cooperation in order to implement effective measures to prevent ads being placed on rogue sites and to quickly remove any ads that are found to have been so placed.” Having Google on board is also a plus, Mazza says. “Google is already doing a lot of efforts in this area and the company promoted a strategy so-called ‘follow the money’ which we consider part of a general strategy based on enforcement on one side, self-regulation and legal offer on the other side.” Mazza says that a joint committee compromised of MoU signatories will be created to oversee the technical implementation of the project, with consideration given to how similar schemes are operating elsewhere. This will include the auditing of advertising companies and networks for compliance with a code of conduct respectful of intellectual property rights. On a day-to-day basis the committee will receive complaints from rights holders detailing the appearance of advertising on “rogue sites” and take action on these with brokers and the advertisers themselves. Whether they will be able to cut through the complex and labrynthine mechanisms often employed by such sites will remain to be seen. The Memorandum of Understanding has been passed to the Italian competition authority for approval and while the project is clearly in the early stages, momentum is clearly there. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.   |
| New Pirate Bay Blocking Battle Set For The Summer Posted: 09 Jun 2014 06:45 AM PDT
Speaking with Norway’s Aftenposten, Rights Alliance chairman Willy Johansen now confirms that his group will file a case at the Oslo District Court within a few weeks with the aim of having the country’s ISPs block The Pirate Bay and other similar sites. Johansen says Rights Alliance has already written to the ISP Telenor with a list of sites it wants blocked. He wouldn’t reveal any other contents of the letter but as expected Telenor isn’t going to do anything voluntarily. “We can not act as a court or a police authority to act for third parties who want sites to be closed. We will only deal with a court decision,” Telenor’s Jørn Bremtun said in a statement. New legislation in Norwary does allow for the blocking of sites, but cases have to be taken to court in order to balance copyright protection with freedom of information. “When [the ISPs] will not block voluntarily, we must prove the illegality of the different sites,” Johansen said. Rights Alliance hope to do that during the summer with a decision from the Court expected in the fall. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.   |
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