According to a decision by the Frankfurt Court of Appeal the victims of WiFi theft can’t be held responsible for the thieves’ copyright infringement. The same court that previously ruled parents can’t be held responsible for the flle sharing activities of their children overturned a lower court’s decision, and potentially dealt a blow to the campaign being waged by a UK lawfirm against several hundred people for alleged copyright infringement.
The IFPI and Italy’s Guardia di Finanza have announced the shutdown of the alleged file-sharing forum Downrevolution.net for thousands of instances of copyright infringement.
In connection with the site, four people have been arrested and each will face a “criminal investigation.”
Reports claim that only one of the men arrested was over the age of 18 meaning the rest are minors. There was no word on whether they will prosecuted as minors however. 17 computers, three external hard drives, and hundreds of counterfeit CDs and DVDs were also seized from a house in Sesto San Giovanni.
As we reported 2 weeks ago, Universal Music Group (UMG) wants to dismiss a long-running file sharing lawsuit against Marie Lindor. UMG’s lawyers are trying to get the lawsuit dismissed without prejudice, which would mean they make no admission of being wrong, and are therefore not liable for Ms. Lindor’s legal expenses. This is based largely on the claim of “false statements and misdirection” by the defendant and her lawyer, Ray Beckerman. They’ve even gone so far as to request that Ms. Lindor pay their legal costs.
the MPAA is arguing in legal brief that plaintiffs should be allowed to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages with no proof that anyone has actually downloaded from a defendant’s shared folder. The brief was filed by MPAA lawyers threw in in Jammie Thomas’ appeal of the $222,000 judgement against her for copyright infringement. Judge Michael Davis asked for public comments on whether simply making files available is a violation of The Copyright Act and the MPAA took the opportunity to put in their 2 cents worth. Actually 2 cents may be a little generous for the MPAA’s contribution. Their argument basically goes something like this, it’s difficult, or maybe impossible, to prove that people are actually downloading files from someone’s shared folder so the courts should just assume files are shared with the intention of distributing them illegally and rule in favor of the plaintiff. The real problem with the MPAA’s position isn’t necessarily the idea that sharing files is infringement. Even some legal scholars who disagree with the “making available” as infringement argument have pointed out that copying a song to your computer for the purpose of sharing it illegally might be infringement. But that’s not the same thing as no proof. It would still require the RIAA to show a defendant’s intent. Their lawyers don’t stop there either. They also make the claim that because of a judicial principle that US laws be interpretted in a way that conforms to international treaties “making available” automatically became infringement with the signing of 2 WIPO copyright treaties in the 1990s. As is typical for the entertainment industry, the MPAA filed their brief on the last day arguments were to be accepted. This effectively presents any counter-arguments to be entered into the record to point out the flaws in their reasoning.
YouTomb, a site focused on tracking all the videos that have been removed from YouTube for copyright violation, is a research project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The people who created the site are the MIT Free Culture student group. YouTomb says it,”Continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown.” “The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.” YouTomb records the title of each video that is removed from YouTube along with a description of the video, who uploaded it, when it was taken down and a few screen shots. There are no actual videos that visitors to the site can watch. The site is currently monitoring 223,246 videos and has flagged 4,396 videos that have been taken down for alleged copyright violation. The companies that have removed the most videos include, TV Tokyo Corporation, Viacom International Inc, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and World Wrestling Entertainment. YouTomb says its initial focus is on videos hosted by YouTube, but it is also interested in other video collections. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Web sites are protected from legal action if they remove infringing content after receiving a takedown notice from the copyright holder.
A New York Times article purporting that Microsoft is working with NBC Universal to create a “copyright cop” — or anti-piracy filter — for the Zune that will prevent playback of unauthorized videos, was refuted by Microsoft today.
In the article which appeared on a Times blog, Saul Hansell, a Times reporter, quotes J.B. Perrette, president of digital distribution for the movie studio, as saying there are two reasons why NBC chose Microsoft’s Zune over Apple’s iTunes for content distribution.
One reason given by Perrette is that Apple insists on paying the same wholesale price for all videos, so that Apple can charge $1.99 for each film. The other is that Apple presented NBC with a flat out refusal on a request to include filters in the iPod.”Microsoft, by contrast, will accept NBC’s pricing scheme and will work with it to try to develop a copyright ‘cop’ to be installed on its devices,” according to Hansell’s story.
CC is a special license that allows anyone to download, share and mix other people’s music as long as they give proper credit. Recently, Nine Inch Nails released their album under a Creative Commons license, and it has been a great success!
Charles Manson of the Tate and LaBianca murders and leader of the infamous Manson Family, has released the digital album One Mind over the Web.
One Mind is licensed under the Creative Commons license witch allows anyone to share it with others, remix it and use it for non-commercial uses. The exact legal details are here.
The Washington Post reports:
the latest RIAA lawsuit against a P2P file sharer, some new, disturbing facts have come to light. It turns out the RIAA wants to make CD ripping, the act of copying music from a legally purchased CD to your PC, illegal.
Jeffrey Howell, an Arizona man accused of keeping a 2000 song collection on his computer, is accused of keeping “unauthorized copies of copyrighted recordings”, music he ripped from legal, store-bought CDs…
Yeah folks, that’s what it came down too, even ripping music on your OWN computer, from your OWN CD, that you purchased with your OWN money is unauthorized, according to the RIAA.