Legal news stories and other items of interest

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CRIA + CMEC = COPYRIGHT + CONTROVERSY

RUMOURS OF CONTROVERSY:

The summer is almost over. And according to the polls, so too may be the honeymoon with the new Conservative government. Rumours are hot and heavy that the Conservatives will introduce a copyright bill this fall - and that it may even be a priority for this government.
excesscopyright

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30 Days of DRM - Day 24: Time Shifting (Circumvention Rights)

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RIAA vs Paul Wilke

p2pnet.net News:- The Big Four Organized Music cartel's RIAA accused Paul Wilke of illegally distributing music online ------ despite the fact none of the songs named were on his computer 'illegally,' or in any way 'illegal'.
p2pnet

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Dangerous WIPO broadcast treaty

p2pnet.net News:- Government negotiators and broadcast officials descend on Geneva this week to continue negotiations on a treaty that few people have heard about, yet one which may have damaging long-term consequences for consumers, technology companies, telecommunications providers, and the Internet.
p2pnet

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Germany: Crackdown on TOR-node operators

The public prosecutor’s office of Konstanz raided computing centres of seven providers in Germany, seizing ten servers because of the proliferation of child pornography. Nothing new, things like that happen all the time, the juicy detail is that some of the servers were merely running a copy of the TOR, a software to anonymize the usage of the internet to protect your privacy.
Itnomad.wordpress
Tor Germany in porn row

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Record labels evasive about in-house use of file sharing apps

In its zeal to rid the world of the scourge of music sharing over peer-to-peer networks, the RIAA has unleased a barrage of lawsuits over a span of two-plus years. Two defendants are fighting back: one by exploring whether the record industry uses file sharing apps themselves, and another by insisting that a name and IP address isn't sufficient basis for a lawsuit. We talked to a lawyer involved in one of the cases to get some additional insight into what's at stake here.
arstechnica

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EMI goes after The Beachles

p2pnet.net News:- "Copyright is supposed to protect expression and encourage creativity," says Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing. "EMI is using copyright to suppress both. They are censors and thugs."
p2pnet

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Firm behind eDonkey to pay $30 million to avoid piracy claims

LOS ANGELES - The firm behind popular online file-sharing software eDonkey has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

New York-based MetaMachine Inc. was one of seven technology firms to receive letters from the recording industry last fall warning them to shut down or prepare to face lawsuits.

Since then, the operators of BearShare, i2Hub, WinMX, and Grokster have Goodbye Everyone.reached similar agreements.

"With this new settlement, another domino falls, and we have further strengthened the footing of the legal marketplace," Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, said in a statement.

Under terms of the latest agreement, MetaMachine and its top executives, Sam Yagan and Jed McCaleb, agreed to immediately cease distributing eDonkey, eDonkey 2000, Overnet and other software versions.

The company also agreed to take measures to prevent file-sharing by people using previously downloaded versions of the eDonkey software.

A federal judge must still give final approval to the terms of the settlement.

A call to eDonkey CEO Sam Yagan was not immediately returned.

The eDonkey Web site on Tuesday featured a message from the company telling visitors that the eDonkey2000 Network was no longer available, and a warning that people who steal music or movies are breaking the law.

The message concluded with "Goodbye Everyone."

Several file-sharing services have yet to reach settlements with the recording industry, including Warez P2P, Limewire and Soulseek.

In August, the recording companies filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the firm behind LimeWire. That case is pending.
AP Wire

How can they claim it's a victory when WinMX is still being used by people?
Instead of using eDonkey you can use eMule which is open source.

If you go to eDonkey.com you get this message.
Quote
"The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available.

If you steal music or movies, you are breaking the law.

Courts around the world -- including the United States Supreme Court --
have ruled that businesses and individuals can be prosecuted for illegal
downloading.

You are not anonymous when you illegally download copyrighted material.

Your IP address is 70.xx.xxx.xx and has been logged.

Respect the music, download legally.

Goodbye Everyone."

Check out this forum thread on slycks for more info.

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eDonkey Settles for $30 Million

eDonkey goes down

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30 Days of DRM - Day 25: Statutory Obligations (Circumvention Rights)

Section 32.1 of the Copyright Act features a list of several exceptions that ensure that the Copyright Act is compatible with other federal statutes that might require copying that would otherwise constitute infringement. While none of these exceptions are particularly crucial from a user perspective, the principle of consistently retaining the Act's prescribed exceptions is an important one. The statutory obligation provisions include disclosures under the Access to Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, and Broadcasting Act requirements. The Access to Information Act may be relevant here given that DRM's submissions to the government could fall within an ATIP request. Similarly, the Broadcasting Act provision could become relevant. To address the issue, a blanket circumvention right to meet statutory obligations is needed.

30 Days of DRM - Day 26: Investigation of Concealed Code (Circumvention Rights)

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BitTorrent User Pleads Guilty

Scott McCausland pleaded guilty today to “conspiracy to commit copyright infringementâ€

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MPAA SUES CHINESE PIRATES

Opening a new front in their war against video pirates, the MPAA today (Wednesday) filed lawsuits against two shops in Beijing, China that allegedly stocked knock-off copies of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Incredibles, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, War of the Worlds and other titles. In an email to the Associated Press, Frank Rittman an MPAA lawyer, said, "We need every tool _ strong laws to support copyright, strong enforcement of those laws, stiff sentences for people who violate those laws, and most important, an understanding ... that buying pirated movies hurts the industry and makes it difficult for movie makers to make new films."
contactmusic

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The RIAA vs The 'A' Team

p2pnet.net News Special:- The RIAA is whining because it's lawyers have come across yet another victim they haven't been able to cow into instant submission, something that's happening with distressing (for the RIAA) frequency, lately.

Owned by EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and last, and least, Warner Music (USA), the misnamed Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) thought it had Paul Wilke, a 52-year-old Illinois man, nailed.

They claim he'd illegally distributed copyrighted music over the Net, the same old song used on the 20,000 or so people, including young children, whom the labels call "criminals" and "thieves" for allegedly sharing music with each other online.

But these are are civil cases, attempts by the cartel's RIAA to cast them as 'criminal' notwithstanding. And what's at issue isn't if someone's broken a non-existent law - it's whether or not they've infringed a copyright, which is a very long way from "criminal" or "illegal".

OnWilke, unfortunately for the Big Four, the music they're trying to say he illegally distributed was his own, bought and paid for. Moreover, he can prove it.

Here's how Talez summed it up in a slashdot post:

* Defendant: I'm tired of this *****. Show me what you really have so we can get this over and done with.
* RIAA: Uhhh... *****. We don't have a thing. Your honour could we please search everything the defendant owns in order to find something?

So Wilke, not about to cave and with whom p2pnet will be doing a Q&A, has retained Saper Law, a Chicago firm that's typical of the new breed of young and technically competent lawyers who'll be increasingly showing up in civil courts around the world, confidently taking on the labels with their embarassingly incompetent 'experts,' and run by technically ignorant senior executives.
p2pnet

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Sony BMG Canadian DRM scam

p2pnet.net News:- Sony BMG's supposed Canadian spyware plan looks more like a scam than a 'settlement'.

The company recently, and belatedly, followed through with an alleged deal for Canadians after being caught red-handed using its music CDs to weasel rootkit spyware DRM into users' computers without their knowledge or permission, in the process also endangering the health of infected systems.

It'll never live the international scandal down, its attempts to pretend it's an honest company merely trying to protect itself, notwithstanding.

"While it is good to see that the Canadian legal issues will be put to rest, the reverberations from the Sony rootkit case will last well beyond the December deadline for filing a claim," wrote Michael Geist.

Now Geist has revealed new lows of Sony BMG infamy.

The Canadian Sony rootkit class action settlement heads to court next week amid mounting questions about the deal. The EFF calls attention to a number of missing provisions, including no security reviews and no ongoing obligations to provide uninstallers for the rootkit. There is also a financial hit in Canada, with Canadian consumers receiving roughly ten percent less than U.S. consumers due to currency differences.

By far the biggest difference, however, is that the U.S. agreement is subject to injunctive relief linked to actions brought by several U.S. agencies and attorneys general. The Canadian agreement, by contrast does not include such relief. The justification for this difference is contained in Exhibit C, the only key settlement document that Sony has not provided to the public.

I have now obtained a copy of Exhibit C, which is an affidavit from Christine J. Prudham, Vice President, Legal and Business Affairs of Sony BMG Canada (Prudham is the same person who appeared today at the Copyright Board discussing how Sony BMG Canada released just 16 new Canadian records last year).

The affidavit seeks to explain why Sony BMG Canada believes it is appropriate to grant Canadian consumers fewer rights than their U.S. counterparts. While there is the suggestion that Canadians would benefit indirectly from a U.S. injunction, the heart of the argument revolves around a series of copyright-related arguments that are utterly without merit.
p2pnet

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Watching sausage get made: the WIPO broadcast treaty

The controversial WIPO broadcast treaty continues to move forward this week as delegates from around the world gather in Geneva. The treaty makes provision for Technological Protection Measures, or DRM, which are unpopular with many.
ArsTechnica