Search engines and linking vs Big Music
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- An Edonkey server can’t be held liable for infringing downloads if the operator takes reasonable care to prevent them.
That’s the decision of a Germany ruling against Warner Music Germany, which’d sued an administrator, “after they discovered songs of a Warner Music artist indexed by the server,” says P2P Blog, going on Warner had initially prevailed in court, “but the admin appealed the ruling and was now able to defeat the major label, according to heise.de.”
The court ruled the admin didn’t participate directly in the infringement because his server didn’t host the audio files, says the story, going on:
“It also ruled that there was no intentional facilitation of infringement because Warner’s lawyers couldn’t prove that the Edonkey network wasn’t at its core a neutral network.
“The court finally decided that a keyword-based filtering system was enough to stop infringement and that the server admin wasn’t required to proactively stop future infringements of titles that were not part of the original complaint.”
Imaginary Property (IP)
Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG are using their CRIA (Recording Industry Association of America) to try to close down Canadian BitTorrent and P2P search engine isoHunt, claiming it’s infringing their copyrights by linking to sites which, it claims, infringe their copyrights.
However, isoHunt founder Gary Fung is fighting back.
In a major first, isoHunt became the first such site to go from defense to attack in the online file-sharing wars, p2pnet posted last weekend.
On his web site, “This is one of the hardest decisions I had to make, to sue one of the most powerful lobby and corporate conglomerates in Canada,” says Fung, going on »»»
But for sake of continuing operation and development of isoHunt, this is something we must do. I don’t pretend to speak on behalf of all BitTorrent websites or users, but I speak to point out that with a lawsuit from CRIA hanging over our heads, we fight not just for our survival as an internet company of search engines and social networks, but also for other websites, from BitTorrent sites to larger search engines like Google, on which most of us have come to depend. The legal ramifications concerning search engines and linking here are far reaching.
For a better understanding of what brought us here, this is a brief history of our dealing with the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association).
In October 2006, CRIA’s anti-piracy department sent us a notice and takedown on certain songs. They included correct identification by URL’s of .torrent links to files allegedly infringing their copyright. We took them down.
There was no further communication, until May 2008 when Mr. Sookman, counsel representing CRIA, issued cease and desist letters to isoHunt.com and our sister sites ( Torrentbox.com and Podtropolis.com ), as well as to our upstream ISP. The letters all used similar language, that our websites serve no other purpose but to infringe CRIA’s copyrighted music. They harassed our ISP with accusations of hosting a den of thieves (my paraphrase). We pointed them to our copyright policy ( http://isohunt.com/dmca-copyright.php ), and that we have cooperated in the past in identification and takedown of links they wanted removed. We asked them in subsequent letters to identify links to their copyrighted files as we had done in 2006. They ignored our offers, and cited there’s no “safe harbor” for a service provider like us and our copyright policy doesn’t mean anything to them in Canada.
Here lies some great ironies. We have had cooperation from various music companies and associations in other countries in issuing notice and takedowns for links to their respective infringed content, some of which are the same international companies that CRIA represents. Some of their copyright agents have made blunders in misidentifying links, like requesting takedown of links that look very much like porn, based on colorful vocabulary in their filenames, or at least we were pretty sure were not music files based on some of their file extensions. But we move on after rejecting such obviously erroneous requests. But CRIA’s blatant ignorance of their very own past takedown practices which happened to be proper and correct just because they want to sue us, illustrates the importance of ISP safe harbor provisions in the new bill C-61 for the survival of whole classes of internet websites and search engines.
No wonder why a group of prominent Canadian artists and labels formed the CMCC, broke out of CRIA and told them, “not in our names” ( http://www.musiccreators.ca/wp/?p=231 ). This is why Canadians who care about music should support artists in the CMCC group, those who doesn’t want to sue their fans, those who are trying to find ways for fans to share in our new world online that can fairly compensate their work, and those who actually make good music. At least I’m a fan of some on the CMCC’s artists list.
Before you think I’m trying to rally a riot against copyright, I want to reiterate our stance that we do believe in Imaginary Property (IP) because imagination takes effort, and realizing them through music or videos or games takes more effort, time and money. Copyright laws need reform for the 21st century, and my hope as a Canadian is in a substantially improved C-61. I defer to Geist’s blog ( http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ ) on pointing out what’s wrong with C-61 in its current form. All Canadians who appreciates how copyright affects them should support reform for a more fairly balanced bill C-61. Geist’s website has information on how Canadians can help reform C-61.
Stay tuned.
P2P Blog – Court: Edonkey sever admin not liable for infringement, September 9, 2008
p2pnet – isoHUNT sues record labels’ CRIA, September 6, 2008
web site – isoHunt sues CRIA on legality of search engines, September 8, 2008
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September 10th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
…and fung even asked them nicely
the CRIA are rotten pigs!
September 10th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I’m going to sue to have Google Earth shut down because it shows burglars where my house is.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Taht sodnus lkie a good ieda. I’ll satrt the blal rnillog and let you konw how I get on.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:49 am
lol, i always laugh whenever i see someone writing like “Free Thinker.” Not because his spelling is bad, but because as lnog as the frsit and lsat lteter of ecah wrod is crorcet, yuor barin siltl raeds the wrdos ceroltcry.