TorrentFreak Email Update

MPAA Anti-Piracy Lobbying Targets FBI, DOJ, ICE, DHS and Biden

Posted: 22 Jun 2011 03:41 AM PDT

mpaa In its quest to stamp out piracy, the MPAA continues to pump money into its lobbying activities in the hope of planting the seeds of legislative change.

While the debate over whether corporations should be allowed to lobby crime-fighting organizations such as the police and FBI will rage on, at least there is an enforced level of transparency which allows the public to see where lobbyists are spending their money.

The MPAA have just made their mandatory disclosure for the first quarter of 2011 and it makes interesting reading.

In total the member companies of the MPAA – Disney, Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century Fox and Universal – spent $400,000 in the first three months of the year lobbying influential government departments. These included the office of Vice-President Joe Biden, a valuable MPAA ally in 2010 with his mantra of "Piracy Is Theft, Clean and Simple.”

In the filing, which covers the period from January 1st to March 31st, several government departments are listed repeatedly including the U.S Senate, House of Representatives, Homeland Security, Dept. of Justice, FBI, ICE, U.S. Copyright Office and U.S. Trade Representative.

On the back of moves to turn the activity into a felony, it’s no surprise that streaming illegal content featured heavily in the MPAA’s 1st quarter lobbying. Considering the huge effort already underway with domain seizures, many of them streaming-related, Operation in Our Sites remained firmly on the agenda.

Also listed is the issue of “Pay processors role in IP enforcement”, a reference to the developing strategy of strangling the revenue to sites that the MPAA believe are generating income from infringement.

In November 2010, file-hosting service RapidShare was among the first Internet services to be labelled by both the MPAA and RIAA as a so-called “Rogue Site”, a move which forced the cyberlocker service to initiate lobbying of its own.

In 2011 it is evident that Hollywood is continuing to pressure on the Swiss-based company. RapidShare is mentioned several times in the MPAA disclosure report under several headings, not least ‘Rogue Site Legislation’ and ‘Law Enforcement/Crime and Criminal Justice’.

Interestingly, ‘Graduated Response’ is also listed as a lobbying subject, although the U.S. appeared to rule out so-called “3 strikes” regimes earlier this month in response to a United Nations report.

On the educational front, the MPAA is keen to drive home the anti-P2P message to the country’s schools and universities. Equally it is pushing for anti-camcording activities in the Asia-Pacific region plus awareness of counterfeit movie usage at US military bases, a subject we’ve touched on previously.

The MPAA also discussed the anti-piracy company MiMTiD. A DMCA-related controversy connected to that company was covered by TechDirt in February.

The $400,000 spent by the MPAA in the first 3 months of 2011 represents a $30,000 uplift on the same period last year and a $60,000 increase on its spend during the final quarter of 2010.

Source: MPAA Anti-Piracy Lobbying Targets FBI, DOJ, ICE, DHS and Biden

Open Wi-Fi Is Not a Crime, BitTorrent Case Judge Hears

Posted: 21 Jun 2011 02:10 PM PDT

wifi Mass litigation "pay up or else" anti-piracy schemes continue to keep United States courts busy. The total of Internet subscribers who have been accused of sharing copyrighted material is nearing 200,000, and new cases are being filed every week.

More than a year after the first case was filed there is still very little consensus in the rulings handed down by various judges. Some simply side with the copyright holders, allowing them to contact the Internet providers of the alleged infringers to obtain their personal details. Other judges have dropped cases, arguing that they were filed in the wrong jurisdiction or that an IP-address is not a person.

Hoping to get a case at the Indiana Southern District Court dropped as well, a Doe who saw his IP address listed in the court documents wrote to the judge. The case in question is Hard Drive Productions vs. Does 1-21, which accuses 21 does of sharing adult content via BitTorrent.

Most of the judges have no clue that the copyright holders who file these lawsuits are not really seeking a full trial, but merely want to collect settlements. The Doe in question explains this in the letter to the judge, and adds that the evidence the copyright holders claim to have is highly unreliable.

“These lawsuits have been rife with shoddy ‘evidence’ accumulation and wrongful harassment of Internet subscribers with no effort or evidence to identify the actual infringer behind an I.P. address rather than just demanding money from the person registered as the subscriber of the Internet connection,” the letter begins.

In his letter the Doe further stresses that running an open wireless network is not a crime, weakening the claims of the copyright holders even further. People have the right to offer an open connection to outsiders. There is no law that prohibits it and there are several wireless routers that have a second (unsecured) connection as a feature.

“I hope and plead with you to consider the interests of neighbors in being able to have friends over with their laptops without having to draw up legal agreements and waivers before they can connect to the Internet and share our I.P. address.

“Not all unsecured networks are due to a lack of technical knowledge. Some of us leave them open to friends and others out of a sense of community. An Internet connection is an important thing for people today, for better or for worse. I fear that we are on our way to having Internet connections become like so many things in our country that must be locked up and hidden out of fear an intimidation,” the letter continues.

Doe’s letter

The Doe in question is right. Unless an Internet provider explicitly forbids unsecured wireless networks there is nothing wrong with running one. The person who pays for the account is not automatically responsible for all those who use it, but allowing copyright holders to continue their pay-up-or else scheme does put account holders at risk.

The letter sent by the Doe didn’t go unnoticed by the anti-piracy lawyers. Interestingly, however, their response didn’t dispute any of the arguments put forward, but merely discredited the source of the letter. According to attorney Raphael Whitford, the judge is being misled by pro-piracy activists.

“It is highly unlikely that this letter was written by one of the defendants in this case as the writer proclaims. The complaint was filed on May 20th and the anonymous letter was written less than two weeks later, before any discovery action was taken by plaintiff.”

“It is difficult to imagine one of the defendants stumbling across the exhibit attached to the complaint, and identifying their own IP address as one listed, in that timeframe. Counsel for the Plaintiff believes the letter to be submitted by a pro-piracy organization with an agenda of keeping the internet as a safe-haven for copyright infringement,” Whitford writes.

The judge has not yet responded to either of the letters, but the Doe who is accused of being part of a pro-piracy lobby did. In yet another submission to the court the Doe refutes the claim, while fanning the flames even more.

“I do not support piracy any more than I support abuse of the legal system to enable extortion and threatening pay-up-or-else schemes,” the Doe writes in another lengthy letter.

A few days later this was followed by another letter which appears to come from the same person, discrediting the copyright holder’s evidence again. In this letter the Doe also attaches rulings where federal judges have dropped similar cases because IP addresses don’t equal a person.

The plaintiffs attorney nor the judge have responded to these last two submissions.

It will be interesting to see how and if the actions of this lone Doe will be received by Judge Sarah Barker. The good thing is that the judge is now at least aware of the true intentions of the copyright holders, and the fact that granting the subpoenas pretty much kills the right to run open wireless networks.

The future will tell if it made a difference.

Source: Open Wi-Fi Is Not a Crime, BitTorrent Case Judge Hears

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