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After BT, now Sky blocks Newzbin2

Paul Gershlick — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:22:21 +0000

Following its recent success in obtaining a court order for BT to block access to its users to Newzbin2, the file-sharing website,, the file-sharing website, the Motion Picture Association has asked further Internet service providers to block access to the website. Sky is the latest to agree to block its own users’ access.

European Court says Belgian Internet service provider does not have to block content that may infringe copyright – Scarlet v SABAM, European Court of Justice

Paul Gershlick — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:37:40 +0000

Scarlet, a Belgian Internet service provider, should not be required to block the content of its website users as a measure to prevent them from infringing copyright in music belonging to Sabam’s music artists. That is the ruling of the European Court of Justice. The Belgian court order that had required the blocking in 2007 was incompatible with the European Union’s fundamental rights to protect privacy and personal data. The blocking would have taken place without users’ knowledge and it may have blocked material that did not infringe copyright. Also, people other than Scarlet’s own customers would be affected by the blocking of Scarlet’s customers’ communications. The ECJ said that Member States must not impose a general obligation on ISPs who act as mere conduits, caches or hosts to monitor the information that they transmit or store. It ruled that although protecting intellectual property rights was a fundamental right, it had to be balanced against other fundamental rights.

Paul Gershlick, a Partner at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin LLP and editor of Upload-IT, comments: “This result is interesting in light of recent court orders that the MPA has obtained against ISPs in the UK such as BT and Sky, under which the ISPs have had to block access to infringing content. The law needs to be clearer or at least applied in a more clear way across the European Union.”

Music body wants green light to clear online legitimacy traffic signals

Mark Weston — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:49:42 +0000

The Performing Rights Society for Music has called on search engines to offer a traffic light service under which Internet users could see whether a music site they were going to was supporting legitimately available content or unauthorised music downloads. Accordingly, sites would be given a green or red flag. The PRS claims that the system would give people much needed information to be able to ascertain whether they are legitimately using music or not so that they can “do the right thing”.

Court orders BT to impose filter to stop its users having access to unauthorised film-sharing site – Twentieth Century Fox v BT, High Court

Mark Weston — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:44:58 +0000

The High Court has for the first time ordered an Internet service provider to block its users from accessing a website that contained copyright-infringing material. In a previous legal action, several film studios had successfully won against the Newzbin website for, at best, not doing enough to stop the widespread illegal file-sharing of films on its site. After Newzbin lost that legal battle, it shut down and simply relocated in another jurisdiction. Now, to have effective enforcement, the copyright owners have sought an injunction against BT, as a test case before going for other Internet service providers. BT had opposed the application, but has actually described the result as helpful. The Court dismissed arguments that BT would need to have actual knowledge of each specific infringement as its mere knowledge of the general infringements on the site was enough. In addition, the injunction could still be granted despite other copyright owners being affected as the film studios in this action had a sufficient enough interest.

Newzbin has now threatened to break BT’s Cleanfeed filtering system if BT attempts to block the site. BT has hit back and said that it would be appalled if that happened as Cleanfeed helped protect innocent from highly offensive and illegal content such as child pornography.

Digital Economy Act judicial review challenge fails – R (on the application of BT) v BIS, High Court

Paul Gershlick — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:38:48 +0000

BT and TalkTalk have failed in their bid to get the Digital Economy Act judicially reviewed. The Act was rushed through just before the last Parliament broke up prior to last year’s General Election and was passed in a rush in the so-called ‘wash-up’ procedure. The Internet service providers argued that the controversial parts of the Act that require them to deal with fire-sharers on their networks should not be brought into law. They said this was because the Government had failed to inform the European Commission of its actions, the Act failed to comply with European Union Directives on privacy and e-commerce, and the Act lacked proportionality. What the ISPs most objected to, though, was that the provisions restricting or suspending Internet access to potentially millions of innocent users would be unfair if someone else accessing their Internet connection – even someone not in their household – was the one responsible. The ISPs may yet well appeal this High Court ruling.

European Court adviser says Belgian Internet service provider does not have to block content that may infringe copyright

Paul Gershlick — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:02:43 +0000

Scarlet, a Belgian Internet service provider, should not be required to block the content of its website users as a measure to prevent them from infringing copyright in music belonging to Sabam’s music artists. That is the opinion of the Advocate General, an adviser to the European Court of Justice. The Belgian court order that had required the blocking in 2007 was incompatible with the European Union’s fundamental rights to protect privacy and personal data. The blocking would have taken place without users’ knowledge and it may have blocked material that did not infringe copyright. Also, people other than Scarlet’s own customers would be affected by the blocking of Scarlet’s customers’ communications. The adviser said that the filtering mechanism did not have adequate safeguards.

The next step is for the case to proceed to the court to decide. The Advocate Generals’ opinions are usually followed by the court, but not always.

Piracy in these shores on the up

Mark Weston — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:44:01 +0000

An estimated 8 million people in the UK continue to download music illegally. That’s the finding of a survey by BPI, the trade organisation for the UK record music industry. The survey also estimated that 1.2 billion tracks were downloaded illegally in 2010, accounting for 75% of the total music download market. Perhaps this demonstrates why there is a need to do something a bit different in the entertainment industry’s fight against illegal peer-to-peer copying. Whether or not it will be the Digital Economy Act will be discovered next year, as that piece of legislation is currently being challenged in the courts through judicial review.

For the full BPI press release click here.

US takes action against file-sharing and counterfeit product sites

Mark Weston — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:47:02 +0000

The United States government, through the Customs Enforcement Agency branch of the Department for Homeland Security, has shut down more than 70 websites that are alleged to have been offering pirate content or counterfeit goods. Included in the websites shut down were music download sites and sites selling fake designer brands of clothing.

The domain names in question are no longer accessible, and users are instead diverted to a webpage detailing that the domain name had been taken over by the government and listing the United States laws on copyright and counterfeit goods. It is believed that many of the websites are attempting to continue trading by moving to new domain names.

New powers suggested to close down UK domain names

Mark Weston — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:59:25 +0000

The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has proposed that Nominet (the UK domain name registry) should have the power to close down domain names if they are involved in criminal activity, such as illegal file-sharing. The proposal seems like a sensible one, offering Nominet greater power to shut down criminal websites. However, concern has been raised as to whether Nominet should have this power available before a criminal conviction has been secured. Whether the proposal develops into something more remains to be seen.

To see the full text of the proposal click here.

Founders of Pirate Bay lose appeal

Mark Weston — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 16:01:42 +0000

The founders of the notorious Internet peer-to-peer file-sharing site The Pirate Bay have lost their appeal over their conviction for the illegal sharing of copyrighted content. They were convicted by a Swedish court in 2009 to spend a year in prison and heavily fined, and although the appeal was rejected the appeal court reduced their respective prison sentences. The fine, however, was increased to about £4 million. Three of the four members were in court to hear the verdict, whilst the fourth was not well enough to attend. The absent member will have his appeal heard once he is well enough to be in court. Looking at his colleagues, however, he will not be confident of a positive outcome.

The Pirate Bay website had continued to function throughout the trial and respective appeals, but the pressure from governments, copyright owners and Internet service providers to lead to closure of the site is set to increase now that the verdict has been confirmed.

Digital Economy Act to undergo judicial review

Mark Weston — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:01:34 +0000

The Digital Economy Act is going to be judicially reviewed. The Act was rushed through just before the last Parliament broke up prior to this year’s General Election. The Act was passed in a rush in the so-called ‘wash-up’ procedure, despite controversial provisions not being debated fully and very few Members of Parliament attending the sessions. BT and Talk Talk, the Internet Service Providers, have argued that the controversial parts of the Act that require ISPs to deal with fire-sharers on their networks should not be brought into law. They say this is because the Government had failed to inform the European Commission of its actions, the Act failed to comply with European Union Directives on privacy and e-commerce, and the Act lacked proportionality. What the ISPs most object to, though, is that the provisions restricting or suspending Internet access to potentially millions of innocent users would be unfair if someone else accessing their Internet connection – even someone not in their household – is the one responsible.

The law is not automatically unfair, but the High Court may decide that it is when it undertakes the judicial review.

Intellectual Property Office website struck down by Operation Payback

Paul Gershlick — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:44:10 +0000

The website of The Intellectual Property Office was down for a whole day, after it suffered a denial of service attack at the hands of Operation Payback. Operation Payback is an anonymous group dedicated to attacking the websites of organisations that look to protect or enforce intellectual property rights. It had already successfully attacked, amongst others, the Motion Picture Association of America (the US’s trade film body) and ACS:Law (a UK law firm behind the sending of large amounts of letters threatening legal action to illegal peer-to-peer copyright infringers). The patent and trade mark filing service body has now become one of a number of high profile victims. So the question in this fightback on behalf of the intellectual property infringers is: who’s the next victim?

Ireland still the place to share – EMI Records (Ireland) Limited v UPC Communications Ireland Limited, Irish High Court

Simon Weinberg — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:40:31 +0000

The High Court of Ireland has rejected an application for an injunction against an Internet service provider (ISP) which would have required the ISP to block access to file-sharing sites by its customers.

The decision of the court was not, however, based on any support for file-sharing. The judge was actually clear in his condemnation of unlawful sharing of copyright material. The decision was made due to the fact that the Irish Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 is applicable to file-sharing in Ireland. The judge stated that the legislation made “no proper provision for the blocking, diverting or interrupting of Internet communications intent on breaching copyright”. As such, the powers of the court did not extend to obligating an ISP to block access to file-sharing sites. Instead, the courts’ only powers under Irish law was to require Internet hosting services to remove material that infringed copyright.

The judge maintained that the position in Ireland was not in line with relevant European law, but that it would need to be dealt with by the legislature rather than the courts.

US Court not in a Sharing Mood

Mark Weston — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:28:35 +0000

LimeWire, one of the Internet’s largest peer-to-peer file-sharing services, has been effectively shut down following an injunction issued by a district court in New York. LimeWire is obliged to disable its searching, downloading, uploading and file-trading features under the terms of the injunction. The injunction was granted after four years of dispute between the Recording Industry Association of America and the Lime Group.

Could law firm sending out mass letters for copyright infringement be first to incur new £500,000 fines for serious data protection breaches?…

Mark Weston — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:49:48 +0000

ACS:Law may be the first business to incur the recently introduced expanded fines of up to £500,000. The controversial law firm has made its name by sending out thousands of letters to alleged peer-to-peer file-sharers on behalf of content suppliers in the media and entertainment industry. The letters demand that the recipients pay hundreds of pounds and settle out of court or warn that they could face larger awards if the case goes to court. Many people have settled the claims, but the tactic has proved controversial as a number of recipients of the letters have claimed that they have nothing to do file-sharing and that they are being bullied by the firm. Following those allegations, the firm has been investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Things have now got a lot worse for the firm. Due to its notoriety, it became the target of a denial of service attack to bring its website down. As the firm was getting its website back up again, a large amount of person data – some of it sensitive personal data – was accessible through its public-facing site. The data then appeared on The Pirate Bay file-sharing site. The data involved over 10,000 people’s names, addresses, Internet addresses, credit card details and what they had been accused of accessing, including adult entertainment material. It also contained correspondence involving or relating to the accused people, including how much compensation had been paid.

The situation has drawn in Internet service providers such as BT and Sky, as much of the data had been supplied by them to ACS:Law. However, those ISPs claim that they had merely been supplying the data to the law firm in order to comply with their own legal obligations and the data that they had supplied was encrypted and secure.

The Information Commissioner is sharpening his tools as he looks for a high profile case to show off his new powers as a deterrent to others. Data controllers must take adequate steps to keep data secure. A serious breach of the Data Protection Act can now lead to fines of up to £500,000. Although no investigation has been undertaken yet, the Commissioner certainly sees that serious questions need to be answered, such as how secure the information was and how private information could have been accessed through the publicly facing website. The Commissioner will also be looking carefully at any encryption used, firewalls and staff training. The Commissioner said he could issue fines of up to £500,000 and although he would not put the firm out of business a company hit with a half a million fine would suffer real reputational damage. Ouch!

ISPs seek judicial ruling over legality of Digital Economy Act

Mark Weston — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:43:32 +0000

BT and Talk Talk – the Internet service providers – have asked the High Court to provide a ruling as to whether the Digital Economy Act is unlawful. They complain that the Act was scrambled through in a rush to pass legislation just before the General Election and that it conflicts with European Union laws protecting privacy and electronic communications. The ISPs say that implementing systems and processes that would enable them identify, communicate with and cut off users who share copyright material without authorisation would cost tens of millions of pounds. They say it would be better to get a court ruling now as to whether the new laws will be lawful rather than waste money on implementing something where the law turns out to be unenforceable.

Alleged file-sharers face crackdown from Ministry of Sound

Mark Weston — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:46:26 +0000

The Ministry of Sound has sent 2,000 letters out to people who it alleges have unlawfully infringed its copyright by downloading or uploading its tracks without permission. The letters ask for compensation of a few hundred pounds and threaten court action if the sums are not paid. Some recipients of the letters pay up, whilst others have protested their innocence and do not understand why they have been targeted for something they claim to know nothing about.

Paul Gershlick, a Partner at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin LLP and editor of Upload-IT, told the Trusted Reviews web site at www.trustedreviews.com the following:

‘If music is shared without the copyright owner’s permission, the copyright owner has the right to ask people who have distributed or obtained the music without their authorisation for money to cover their losses, costs and expenses. Even if the copyright owner is mistaken about some of the alleged infringement activity, there is nothing to stop them sending the letters. Copyright is different from some other intellectual property in this regard, such as trade marks and patents, where people have to take greater care before making claims.

‘Equally, there is nothing to stop anyone receiving these letters from simply ignoring them. It is up to them what they decide to do, as few, if any, of these sorts of actions have actually reached the courts to date. However, if their case does get to court, any person found to have done wrong may have to pay more, which is why some people simply pay up to take away the worry.

‘As frightening as it may be to receive these letters, especially for people who have done nothing wrong, they do not simply have to pay up. It is for the person making the claim to be able to prove what has happened. A recipient of the letter could deny it and question the evidence alleging the infringement. If the case is contested, recipients of the letter may wonder how likely it would be that the person sending them the letter would be prepared to obtain sufficient evidence and attend a trial, considering the relatively small sums involved in fighting each contested case. To be able to feel confident of winning their case, the claimant would either want to be in possession of a written admission of wrongdoing or the hard drive of the computer.

‘The implementation of the recently passed Digital Economy Act could make the position more concerning for households. The Act allows for the Government to introduce new laws that would put the onus on people with an Internet connection if it can be shown that copyright infringement had occurred through that connection, regardless of who actually did the infringement. This could affect people sharing a home or people whose Internet connections have been used by cybercriminals. Those new laws have not been introduced yet and would have to undergo Parliamentary scrutiny first, but there could well be pressure to do so if the music industry continues to suffer lost revenues as a result of continued peer-to-peer file-sharing.’

To go to the Trusted Reviews article, click here: http://www.trustedreviews.com/multimedia/news/2010/07/19/Ministry-of-Sound-Gets-Legal-on-Downloaders/p1

Ireland starts process that could see file-sharers cut off from Internet

Mark Weston — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:29:17 +0000

Ireland has started a process that could see illegal peer-to-peer file-sharers cut off from using the Internet. Eircom, the Irish Internet service provider with 40% of the Irish market, has started writing to suspected file-sharers based on Internet protocol addresses given to it by IRMA, the Irish record company body. After the first letter, if the file-sharing continues, a pop-up message will appear, and eventually the user could have their Internet use suspended, first for a week and then for a year. The action follows the settlement of a legal dispute between IRMA and Eircom over whether Eircom was doing enough to stop its users’ illegal use of music. Ireland is the first country to implement such a scheme, although similar has been proposed in France, the UK and elsewhere.

US Court issues summary judgment ruling against LimeWire for encouraging illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing

Paul Gershlick — Thu, 20 May 2010 07:24:29 +0000

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York has decided that it could rule without having a full trial in a copyright infringement case brought against a web service that facilitated illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing. Following the 2005 US Supreme Court decision against Grokster, the New York Court awarded summary judgment to 13 record labels. In the Court’s view, the service provider shared responsibility for the copyright infringement of its users by playing a significant role in the direct infringement of its users. When the illegal version of Napster’s service had closed down in 2001, LimeWire advertised itself as a replacement service provider. 93% of files and 99% of its traffic now related to illegally shared material and LimeWire did nothing to use filtering technology to stop it. Instead, it was deemed to have intentionally encouraged users into infringing copyright and provided infringers with a product that enabled infringement.

Protection for Amazon’s Kindle hacked

Mark Weston — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:22:28 +0000

The digital rights management software for Amazon’s Kindle has been hacked. Kindle is a platform developed by Amazon for displaying e-books. The hack attack means that e-books stored on the reader can be transferred to other devices. DRM software is controversial. Rights holders see it as crucial to protecting their copyright material from illegal copying by users, whilst users find that it restricts them from the freedom to do what they want with content. The Kindle hack attack follows other recent DRM hacks, including the reverse engineering of Apple’s DRM software for its iTunes service.

Law firm criticised for tactics in sending thousands of letters to alleged copyright infringers

Mark Weston — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:30:57 +0000

A law firm which is sending letters to thousands of alleged illegal peer-to-peer file-sharers has been accused of scattergun tactics which affect many innocent Internet users. Which?, the consumer group, claims that many people wrongfully accused of sharing pornographic material have settled the cases for hundreds of pounds rather than risk losing for thousands in court and face the humiliation of their good names being affected. AC: Law, the law firm behind the legal actions, denies being aware of any innocent people who are involved. The letters from the law firm were sent on behalf of its clients, DigiProtect and MediaCat, which are licensees acting on behalf of computer games and porn film companies to collect royalties for them. According to the lawyer who represents some of the accused, many of them have never even heard of peer-to-peer file-sharing, and some of the people accused of downloading computer games say they have never played a video game in their life. One possible explanation for people’s computer connections being targeted is that many computers running on wi-fi connections do not password protect their connections.

Government goes for illegal P2P file-sharers with Digital Economy Bill…

Mark Weston — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:41:04 +0000

The Government has introduced its Digital Economy Bill in the Queen’s Speech. Amongst the changes to the law to be introduced by the Bill are provisions that could see illegal peer-to-peer file-sharers cut off from the Internet. The BPI – a body that represents the record industry – thinks that it is a good thing to protect the creative sector. However, The Open Rights Group is concerned that people could be stopped from engaging in everyday activities like shopping and social networking. In addition, the Government plans to introduce age ratings on all video games aimed at children aged 12 years or older.