TorrentFreak Email Update

Hollywood Fails to Add Torrent Sites to Child Abuse Filter
Universal Music Can Delete Any SoundCloud Track Without Oversight
UK PM’s IP Advisor Won’t Stand For Re-Election

Hollywood Fails to Add Torrent Sites to Child Abuse Filter

Posted: 04 Jul 2014 01:41 AM PDT

Website blocking has become one of the music and movie industries’ favored weapons in their seemingly endless fight against online piracy. Blocks of torrent and other sharing sites are in place in many countries around Europe, mainly due to court injunctions forcing ISPs to take action against copyright infringement.

While legal action is one way of introducing a blockade, other methods require much less time, effort and money. This week the spotlight was placed on the UK, where the government has pressured ISPs to introduce default-on filtering for their subscribers, ostensibly for the protection of children. The result is huge overblocking and conveniently for the entertainment industries, hundreds – possibly thousands – of file-sharing sites wiped out with the correct settings.

With the right level of knowledge these filters can be turned off, but other more serious national anti-child abuse mechanisms cannot.

The UK’s Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) maintains a blocklist of URLs that point to sexual child abuse and criminally obscene adult content. Over in New Zealand the Department of Internal Affairs maintains DCEFS, the Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System. Both are run in cooperation with the countries’ ISPs with the sole aim of keeping the most objectionable material away from public eyes.

Today, however, it’s been revealed that Hollywood attempted to broaden the remit of New Zealand’s DCEFS in order to protect their own interests.

The Motion Pictures Distributors Association (MPDA) has a familiar sounding name and unsurprisingly has some well-known backers. Fox, Sony, Paramount, Disney, Universal and Roadshow are all members of the group which coordinates the distribution of movies in New Zealand.

According to a RadioLIVE report, in order to prevent copyright infringement the studios requested access to the DCEFS child abuse filtering system.

After obtaining government permission, Hollywood hoped to add their own list of sites to DCEFS so that by default subscribers to New Zealand’s main ISPs would be prohibited from accessing torrent and other file-sharing type sites.

But in the face of objections from both the ISPs and the Kiwi government, Hollywood was forced to scrap its plans.

“[The ISPs] were not prepared to agree to that extension and in any case it would have shifted the mandate somewhat from [the Department of Internal Affairs'] primary focus on preventing sexual abuse of young children,” Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne told the show.

There can be little doubt that Hollywood believes web filtering is an effective mechanism to reduce infringement – MPAA chief Chris Dodd explicitly said so during his speech at the International IP Enforcement Summit last month. But the notion that governments should treat the filtering of copyrighted content and child abuse in the same way is not only controversial but unlikely to win sympathy with the public.

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

Universal Music Can Delete Any SoundCloud Track Without Oversight

Posted: 03 Jul 2014 10:38 AM PDT

The major record labels still see online piracy as one of the main threats to their industry. To counter this problem they are constantly monitoring the Internet for copies of their work being shared without permission.

This also happens at SoundCloud, which in recent years became one of the most popular services for people to share music.

As a legitimate service, SoundCloud helps copyright holders by accepting takedown requests. However, in some cases SoundCloud goes a step further.

This is what DJ Mr Brainz discovered after his paid account was terminated due to repeated copyright infringements. Mr Brainz used SoundCloud to post copies of his radio show, which he believes drives more sales, but Universal Music disagreed and took down his files.

To find out more about the alleged infringements the DJ asked SoundCloud for additional details, as Do Androids Dance reports. Quite surprisingly, however, SoundCloud couldn’t provide more information as the removals were carried out by Universal music directly.

“Your uploads were removed directly by Universal. This means that SoundCloud had no control over it, and they don’t tell us which part of your upload was infringing. If you look at your tracklist it may help you find the Universal content they wanted blocked,” SoundCloud’s copyright team explained.

“The control of removing content is completely with Universal. This means I can’t tell you why they removed your uploads and not others, and you would really need to ask them that question,” the SoundCloud representative adds.

In other words, SoundCloud grants Universal Music the power to delete any and all content they deem to be infringing. This apparently happens without oversight or any record of what’s being taken down.

This blanket removal power is especially problematic since the affected users don’t know what they have done wrong. Without any details on the allegedly infringed track, it’s pretty much impossible to file a counter notice.

These type of broad takedown powers are not unique to SoundCloud. Previously YouTube has come under fire because the company allowed record labels to remove “disrespectful” videos or other non-infringing files the labels deemed inappropriate.

The recent issues at SoundCloud are not an isolated incident either. Over the past several months many users have complained about an avalanche of takedown notices. After America’s DJ Kaskade had 70 percent of his SoundCloud tracks removed due to alleged copyright infringements, he said he would start his own music sharing site instead.

“I will move forward with constructing my own portal where I can share what I like when I like,” Kaskade said.

Despite the critique SoundCloud sees no wrongdoing. The company points out that users are free to dispute any inaccurate takedowns. Unfortunately that’s easier said than done.

It is clear that SoundCloud is putting its users at a significant disadvantage here.

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

UK PM’s IP Advisor Won’t Stand For Re-Election

Posted: 03 Jul 2014 08:37 AM PDT

In September 2013, UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced the appointment of Mike Weatherley MP as his brand new advisor on intellectual property matters.

As the founder of Parliament's Rock the House competition and member of the All-Party Parliamentary Intellectual Property Group launched in 2003 to raise awareness and rally against copyright and related infringement, Weatherley seemed like the ideal candidate.

The then 56-year-old quickly offered his support to the recently formed Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit and promised to assist the government to focus on anti-piracy enforcement issues aimed at protecting the creative industries.

By December of 2013, Weatherley was making it clear that ISPs should be held responsible for their customers’ infringing downloads and just weeks later suggested jail sentences for persistent file-sharers. Greater accountability for companies such as Google became a recurring theme in the MP’s work.

But while Weatherley has made quite an impact in his unpaid position, his role as a Conservative Member of Parliament will come to an end in the first quarter of 2015. In an announcement today Weatherley confirmed that he will not be standing at next year’s General Election.

Noting the enjoyment he’s had serving the people of his constituency in the south of England, Weatherley also touched on his role as Cameron’s IP advisor.

“Over the past year, I have taken immense pride in serving as your Intellectual Property Adviser. I am sure that you will agree that we have made huge steps towards really getting politicians and industry talking – which is key to making the most of our country's wealth of creative talent,” the MP told the Prime Minister.

If Weatherley keeps to his own predictions then he will step down as an MP before May 2015 but he also hints that he would like to remain involved in government IP matters.

“It would be a privilege to continue offering my assistance in this regard,” he told David Cameron.

Interestingly, local media is reporting that Weatherley is believed to be returning to the creative industries. The 57-year-old was formerly the European vice-president of the Motion Picture Licensing Company and also worked as the finance director of record producer Pete Waterman’s empire.

A revolving door situation, where Weatherley heads out of government into a position with a large entertainment group, hardly seems out of the question given his history, but for solid information the world will have to wait. In the meantime his work in government will continue, with some of his time devoted to the industry he’ll soon be re-joining.

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