During a keynote speech, Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire producer David Puttnam announced a number of measures he’d like to see taken against piracy. In addition to educating children at an early age that’s it wrong to download copyrighted material, he wants movie camcording outlawed and ISPs held responsible for the activities of their users.
Following raids against a large file-sharing site in December 2009, police in Greece are engaged in an ongoing operation to close down the country’s largest BitTorrent site and arrest its operators. Thus far there have been six arrests, with Interpol chasing two further admins believed to be located in The Netherlands.
Performing rights group GEMA has won an injunction against newsgroup outfit, UseNeXT. A court has forbidden the Usenet company from offering around 100 musical works from the GEMA repertoire and says that in the future, Usenet operators will have to take a greater responsibility for the environments and services they offer.
Faced with difficulties in dealing with those who share movies and music using BitTorrent, in recent months Swedish police have targeted those using more exposed file-sharing systems. As stats are revealed showing just how problematic these prosecutions have become, an anti-piracy group is calling for a change in the law.
After a fairly bumpy ride, the High Court trial between Newzbin and the MPA has reached its conclusion. While the site’s owners are claiming that the site will remain open no matter what, a negative result could result in hefty damages and an obligation to make changes to the site, including the implementation of a Mininova-style filter.
After failing to bring ISP iiNet into line with some extremely lengthy and expensive legal action, Hollywood has been left short on options in Australia. Of course, AFACT won’t give in. It is appealing the case and has resorted to sending out messages to scare Internet file-sharers. But does another organization have a different approach up its sleeve?
After mountains of controversy built up in the wake of the ‘pay up or else’ letters sent to thousands of alleged file-sharers, one would think other lawyers might be put off following the same track, but not so. Tilly Bailey & Irvine are the new kids on the block and have just been labeled by a Lord as an “embarrassment to the rest of the creative rights industry.”
Last week, Torrents.ru, a massive Russian BitTorrent site had its domain name suspended by order of the authorities. It quickly returned with a new URL but with accusatory fingers being pointed at Autodesk, questions raised over the .RU domain, DDoS attacks and a petition to the Russian President, the drama isn’t over yet.
After an ISP refused to hand over the identity of a customer to anti-piracy lawyers who claim him to be the first uploader of a pre-release movie, they took the case to court. Shrouded in secrecy the case is heading for the Supreme Court but even if the anti-piracy group wins, they’re going to get the ID of the wrong guy.
In early February, AFACT, representing several Hollywood movie studios, lost its case against Aussie ISP iiNet after a judge ruled the ISP was not responsible for the infringements of its subscribers. Now the anti-piracy group is claiming that Justice Cowdroy was wrong on almost all points and will appeal his decision.