TorrentFreak Email Update |
- File-Sharers To Receive Warning Letters, But No 3 Strikes
- Law Professor Defends Alleged Hurt Locker Pirates
- The Paranoid Anti-Piracy Group With No Employees
| File-Sharers To Receive Warning Letters, But No 3 Strikes Posted: 02 Nov 2010 04:39 AM PDT In an effort to reduce illicit file-sharing, draft legislation was passed in Finland last week which will require Internet service providers to send letters to customers suspected of unauthorized sharing. The warnings will be initiated by copyright owners, but at no stage will Internet subscribers' identities be compromised. A three strikes-style regime is not on the agenda.
To this end, Finland’s Government has drafted changes to both the country’s copyright and electronic data protection laws with the aim of reducing what it terms the “unlawful distribution of creative content.” The legislation, which was presented to parliament last Friday, proposes an alternative to expensive court proceedings initiated by copyright holders. After infringers are tracked on file-sharing networks by copyright holders, allegations of infringement will be sent to Internet service providers who will then be required to forward them to the appropriate subscriber. “The proposed approach is taken to guarantee that the subscriber’s identity data stays with the Internet service provider and is not disclosed to the copyright holder,” Government Minister Jorma Walden said in a statement. At this stage, the exact text of the letters has not been revealed, but it is thought there will be no outright allegations of wrongdoing. It is hoped that this approach to dealing with infringements will reduce the need for police involvement in simple file-sharing cases and the subsequent load on the courts. The bill, which is a continuation of negotiations started in 2008 to promote e-commerce and content creation, is expected to come into force during spring 2011. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| Law Professor Defends Alleged Hurt Locker Pirates Posted: 01 Nov 2010 03:28 PM PDT In recent months thousands of US BitTorrent users have been sued for allegedly sharing movies such as The Hurt Locker. Among the victims are several people who have never even downloaded a single torrent file, but nevertheless have fallen prey to the infamous pay-up-or-else scheme. San Fransisco Law professor Robert Talbot and his students are now stepping up for two dozen of these wrongfully accused individuals. Inspired by their UK counterpart ACS:Law, The U.S. Copyright Group (USCG) brought the profit-from-piracy business model to the US this year. The lawyer group was hired by several movie producers and has sued thousands of BitTorrent users who allegedly file-shared motion pictures, including the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker and more obscure titles such as Far Cry and Call of the Wild. On behalf of the copyright holders, USCG sends out settlement offers to affected BitTorrent users. To settle the case, the alleged copyright infringers have to pay up to $2,500 or face the risk of higher penalties in a full-blown court case. TorrentFreak has been in touch with several victims of this scheme and nearly all of them are clueless about how to counter the legal threats. Even those who are swearing to have never touched a BitTorrent client sometimes feel inclined to settle the case just to avoid running into more trouble later on. The main problem is that hiring an attorney often costs more than the settlement amount, and ignoring the settlement offer might lead to an even worse outcome. A few of these alleged downloaders have found help from a University of San Francisco law professor, and it’s not costing them a dime. Cnet reports that Professor Robert Talbot and his students are currently representing 23 alleged downloaders, and there are still a few vacancies left. “We try to go into situations where something wrong is done to someone and part of our mission is to help them. We try to combine all that while at the same time teaching students,” Professor Talbot said. The professor is able to handle this many cases because his students are helping out with the cases. For the students these cases are an excellent learning experience and the defendants are not complaining about the free offer either. The only ones that wont be pleased are the lawyers and copyright holders on the other side. “I feel like that this is a good cause. I’m always looking for ways to motivate students. They are incensed about what is going on,” Professor Talbot said, adding that he thinks he has a good chance of winning the cases he’s representing. Meanwhile, the number of BitTorrent lawsuits in the US are stacking up, with the current count exceeding 20,000 for this year alone. Despite the critique from fellow lawyers, the public outrage and even a bomb threat, USCG and other law firms continue undeterred. To be continued. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| The Paranoid Anti-Piracy Group With No Employees Posted: 01 Nov 2010 06:53 AM PDT Antipiratbyrån (Anti-Piracy Bureau, APB) regularly makes headlines for its work against file-sharers in Sweden. Now, APB lawyer Sara Lindbäck has given an interview where she speaks about piracy, the MPAA, The Pirate Bay, and the level of secrecy APB adopts to protect those working for it. This group manages to conduct its business with zero turnover and not a single employee (or snitch) on the books. When it comes to anti-piracy investigations in Sweden, one could be forgiven for thinking that Antipiratbyrån (the Anti-Piracy Bureau) is involved in all of them. APB has played a part in actions against the Warez Scene, BitTorrent trackers, Direct Connect hubs, regular file-sharers and is often connected with issues surrounding The Pirate Bay.
Like many anti-piracy groups, APB has lawyers at the helm and few are more famous than Henrik Pontén, a man loved so much in pirate circles that he became officially renamed by admirers. But not even the seemingly ubiquitous Pirate Pontén can do all the work on his own. In an interview, APB lawyer Sara Lindbäck has been revealing a little more about the organization and its work against file-sharing in Sweden. Naturally, one of the first subjects covered was the recently completed appeal of The Pirate Bay founders. The decision in the appeal will be handed down later this month, but how does Lindbäck feel it will go? “What we see is that The Pirate Bay has been convicted in several other countries around Europe,” she explains. “I would be surprised if they are not convicted in Sweden.” However, Lindbäck cautions that there is a problem with infringements on the web because even with verdicts in hand, they still carry on. “It is a dilemma with Internet crime that I believe we must review,” she adds. APB has very close ties with Hollywood and shares their desire for total Pirate Bay destruction, but while Lindbäck admits that the entities share information, she refuses to comment when asked if APB is funded by the studios. But the secrecy doesn’t stop there. Lindbäck also refuses to reveal how many people work for APB or anything about their finances. Indeed, according to Nyteknik.se, APB is simply a business association, which for tax purposes has a turnover of zero and no employees. Lindbäck says that it is necessary to maintain a level of secrecy over APB’s operations in order to protect those working for it. “I have not been exposed to the same [amount of abuse] as my colleague Henrik Pontén,” she reveals. Other than hate-mail, she wouldn’t be drawn further on the kind of things people do to get under APB’s skin in case that encourages more attacks. No one would dispute that in Sweden, APB are a deeply unpopular group, perhaps because they work against such a large proportion of a population which has come to believe that file-sharing is a fundamental right. “In Sweden, 1.1 million people constantly file-share pirated movies,” Lindbäck explains. In a country of just over 9.2 million, that’s one potential enemy in every crowd of ten people nationwide, but move into the city with a group of men with their teens a decade behind them, things get worse. “The typical illegal file sharer is a 30-year-old urban man with a slightly higher salary than average,” says Lindbäck. But it’s not just APB’s general anti-piracy stance that has opponents so angry, its techniques have generated quite a lot of controversy too. While it’s known that APB has informers on file-sharing sites, there have been allegations that not all of them are willing. A source who previously worked in law enforcement claimed earlier this year that APB had been tracking down teenage file-sharers and threatening them with reprisals unless they snitch on their friends and hand over information on the sites they use. It’s also been claimed that APB coerced FTP passwords out of server users in order to conduct their investigations. “There is no basis to these claims,” Lindbäck insists. “None of the complaints have led anywhere.” With no end in site to either The Pirate Bay, the Scene, or file-sharing in general, the work of Antipiratbyrån will continue for the foreseeable future. Expect to hear lots more from them, but don’t expect much more transparency. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
In common with most countries around Europe, Finland has been under pressure from the entertainment industries to do something about unauthorized Internet file-sharing.
Indeed, the | You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment