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| Publishers Force Domain Seizure of Public Domain Music Resource Posted: 22 Apr 2011 01:36 AM PDT While most readers will be very familiar with the commercialized mainstream pop sounds of the last 10 to 20 years, spare a moment’s thought for the deep history of our modern music. Without the great composers of the last few hundred years – Mozart, Beethoven, Bach to name just three – our soundscape today might be very different. A group of people who are completely immersed in this history and absolutely determined to preserve it, are the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) who slavishly index public domain scores. “Started more than five years ago in 2006, IMSLP has grown to include more than 90,000 scores from more than 5,000 composers,” administrator Edward told TorrentFreak. Indeed, IMSLP’s coverage is extensive, spanning just about every composer one can think of. But one piece from their archives has just caused them a huge amount of inconvenience. IMSLP’s listing of Rachmaninoff's Bells, which was created in 1920 by a Russian and is public domain both in Canada and the USA, was spotted thousands of miles away by the UK’s Music Publishers Association (MPA). Feeling they had some authority over the piece, MPA issued a DMCA takedown notice, not to the IMSLP site, but to their domain registrar, GoDaddy. “We understand that Godaddy are the sponsoring registrar for the website http://www.IMSLP.ORG which makes available unlicensed copyright protected sheet music notation which is an infringement of copyright. By assisting this website, Godaddy are liable to pay damages for secondary copyright infringement once notice of the infringement has been given,” said the MPA’s Jake Kirner in the DMCA notice. Without a second look at the issue, elephant gun wielding GoDaddy complied, seizing control of IMSLP’s domain name and taking them completely offline. Needless to say IMSLP were furious noting that the MPA’s assertion – that Rachmaninoff’s The Bells is protected under copyright in the US – “is nothing less than a bald-faced lie.” IMSLP then when on to publish the MPA’s DMCA takedown notice in full on their website, which solicited demands from the MPA to have it removed. IMSLP refused. “Seriously, you can’t expect to take down a major website, with a bogus DMCA takedown notice, and then try and hide the evidence. Can you see that? It makes you look ridiculous,” they wrote. Then, just a few hours ago and following a threat by IMSLP that they could sue, MPA suddenly withdrew their complaint from GoDaddy. Despite describing the original complaint as “underhanded” and “bogus”, IMSLP still managed to be gentlemen about the issue, and offered a “sincere thanks” to the MPA for their retraction. “While IMSLP encourages open discussion of copyright issues, we have zero tolerance for underhanded tactics. To MPA’s credit, they have voluntarily retracted their claim. IMSLP will also be working on technical measures to prevent any future attacks,” they added. This is not the first time IMSLP have had legal woes. “IMSLP previously encountered major legal turbulence in 2007, when Universal Edition, an Austrian music publisher, successfully forced a shut down of the site,” administrator Edward told TorrentFreak. “However, IMSLP was able to recover after 9 months of reorganization.” Source: Publishers Force Domain Seizure of Public Domain Music Resource |
| Italian Court Orders All ISPs to Block BTjunkie Posted: 21 Apr 2011 02:01 PM PDT
Local authorities claim that BTjunkie was one of the most frequently visited BitTorrent sites in the country, with over half a million visitors from Italy every day. In addition, they claim that aside from downloading music and movies, it was also possible to stream soccer matches of Italy’s top competition – the Serie A – via the site. The court order follows an investigation by the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), an Italian police force with responsibility for dealing with cybercrime, and falls under operation “Poisonous Dahlia.” The name of the operation references Dahlia TV, a pay-per-view television network that shut down in March due to financial problems. Among other things, Dahlia TV was offering live soccer matches of the Serie A soccer competition. According to the prosecutor BTjunkie is in part responsible for Dahlia TV shutting down, as it allegedly offered streams of the soccer matches that the television network broadcasted. This appears to be a misunderstanding, as BTjunkie is a regular torrent indexer that is not involved in streaming in any way. TorrentFreak briefly spoke to BTjunkie’s owner who was surprised by the developments in Italy. He’s currently considering how to respond and whether there are ways to circumvent the blockade, but he told us that he does not intend to appeal the court’s decision. “I’m disappointed with the Italian judicial system. We will do our best to fight for Italian peoples right to communicate. At the moment I can suggest to try any of the other popular torrent sites and checking TorrentFreak later for a update on alternative methods for accessing BTjunkie from Italy.” BTjunkie is not the first BitTorrent site to be rendered inaccessible in Italy. The Pirate Bay was first 'censored' in the summer of 2008, when a similar court order led ISPs to block millions of Italians from accessing the world's largest torrent site. At the time, The Pirate Bay chose to appeal the decision and it eventually won the court case. The Court of Bergamo ruled that no foreign website can be censored for alleged copyright infringement and the block was lifted temporarily, as the case was appealed once again by the authorities. The Supreme Court then reviewed the case and ruled that ISPs can be forced to block BitTorrent sites, even if they are not hosted in Italy or operated by Italian citizens. According to the decision by the Supreme Court, sites offering torrent files that link to copyrighted material are engaging in criminal activity. The above means that even if BTjunkie’s owner wanted to, fighting the ban will be very hard, if not impossible. In response to the Pirate Bay blockade some people setup a proxy site that offered access to The Pirate Bay, but this site was eventually pulled offline by the authorities as well. |
BTjunkie will be "censored" in Italy following an order from the public prosecutor of the Sardinian capital Cagliari. Both the IP addresses of the site and its domain name will soon be made inaccessible by all Italian ISPs, blocking users’ access to the site. | You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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