p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA News:- Audible Magic’s CopySense nonsense has been a joke ever since Mitch Bainwol, the man who currently runs Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA, began personally touting it around the US Congress four years ago.

Back then, “It is important that universities are not sold expensive, ineffective solutions [ie, CopySense] simply to appease the public relations needs of the RIAA,” said EFF staff technologist Chris Palmer, going on »»»

It is also important that policymakers not be misled by the bullish pronouncements of the RIAA and Audible Magic regarding the effectiveness of “acoustic filtering” technologies.

Information from public sources suggests that Audible Magic’s filtering technology is trivial to defeat. For universities, this means an investment today may well be worthless tomorrow. Policymakers, meanwhile, would do well to examine all filtering technologies closely before putting faith in the promises of vendors. A close look at Audible Magic’s technology suggests that its filtering is no silver bullet.

And yet the application is still around and still being hailed by the Big 4 and its general factotums.

In fact the, “CopySense Appliance is the only solution that can identify and block illegal sharing of copyrighted files while allowing other legitimate P2P uses to continue,” Audible Magic continues to claim.

“In mid-2007, after a battle with copyright group SABAM, a court in Belgium ruled ISPs can be forced to block and/or filter copyright infringing files on P2P networks,” says the story going on »»»

Although most people familiar with the technical hurdles recognized that this was a massive if not impossible task, the judge in the case ruled that ISPs are indeed capable of blocking infringing content and gave Scarlet six months to comply.

Scarlet said right from the start that it believed that if it complied with the court order it would be breaking the law. The ISP claimed that Belgian law forbids it from spying on its customers so it lodged an appeal against the ruling, with managing director Gert Post saying: “This measure is nothing else than playing Big Brother on the Internet. If we don’t challenge it today, we leave the door open to permanent, and invisible and illegal, checks of personal data.”

Now, over a year later, Scarlet’s lawyers argued in court that the company simply cannot stop the flow of illicit files, which is a serious situation since the ISP has to pay compensation of 2,500 Euros for each day it fails to do so. According to a report, Scarlet has tried different techniques to try to comply with the ruling but has had no success.

Scarlet was initially able to impede P2P traffic with the help of Cisco technology but, “All this led to was complaints from the customers, and it did nothing to stop the availability of the illicit files,” says TorrentFreak’s enigmax, going on:

“A lawyer for Scarlet, Christoph Preter said: ‘We have actually received complaints that P2P traffic was slower, but it remained possible. It is only a deterrent measure.’

“The ISP quite rightly refused to block all P2P traffic, since it said it would be blocking legitimate traffic too. However, copyright group SABAM said this was not a valid excuse. ‘The argument put forward by Scarlet,’ said SABAM’s lawyer, ‘is not about the impossibility of blocking, but about the consequences.’ SABAM clearly doesn’t care who is affected, as long as it gets its way, stating that Scarlet simply hasn’t tried hard enough to comply with the court.”

An attempt to filter files was initiated last year by SABAM itself, says the story, continuing »»»

On the advice of an appointed P2P ‘expert’, the court ruled that Scarlet must use the content filtering technology offered by Audible Magic. However, Scarlet tried this system and it didn’t work when scanning for files on their network. During last year’s court case it was claimed that Audible Magic had experience with filtering in the US with Verizon and in Asia with another ISP. However, Scarlet made inquiries with Verizon about the partnership but was told that no such deal exists and Audible Magic refused to reveal who the Asian ISP is.

“We have misled the court,” said SABAM’s lawyer. “But SABAM followed the expert in the choice of Audible Magic, so we were acting in good faith.”

Meanwhile, audible Magic will be able to continue making unfulfilled or promises about CopySense and touting its prowess.

Will it be stopped in Belgium least?

“A ruling in the case is not expected until 2010,” story adds.

personally touting it – P2p ops decry RIAA filter claims, March 4, 2004
expensive, ineffective solutions – Audible Mag’s ’silver bullet’, July 13, 2004TorrentFreak
TorrentFreak – ISP: It’s Impossible For Us to Stop Illegal P2P, September 23, 2008

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under P2P, RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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