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| BitTorrent Crackdown Center Prepares to Punish Pirates Posted: 02 Apr 2012 01:20 PM PDT
Last year the parties agreed on a system through which copyright infringers are warned that their behavior is unacceptable. After six warnings ISPs may then take a variety of repressive measures, which includes slowing down the offender's connection and temporary disconnections. The new plan was announced under the name 'Copyright Alerts' last year and will be implemented by all parties by July 12, 2012. As this deadline nears, the CCI today unveiled several key players who are going to lead the group. Surprisingly, the Executive Board is exclusively made up of representatives from the RIAA, MPAA and the ISPs. RIAA’s Steven Marks has been appointed as Vice Chairman and General Counsel, MPAA’s Marianne Grant is the Senior Vice President, Comcast’s Alan Lewine is Senior Counsel, Verizon’s Thomas Dailey is Chairman, Viacom’s Daniel Mandil is Associate General Counsel and AT&T’s Brent Olson is Vice President of Public Policy. For an organization that aims to educate Internet users in a responsible way, consumer rights representatives are completely absent from the Executive Board. However, the Advisory Board does include public rights advocates including Jerry Berman, the Chairman of the Internet Education Foundation and founder of the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Gigi Sohn, co-founder of Public Knowledge. The latter says it wasn’t an easy decision to accept the position. Sohn is especially worried about the threat of Internet disconnections. "I still have concerns about some of the points in the agreement. One of the most prominent is the threat that consumers could have their access to the Internet cut off,” he says. “I will ask at the appropriate time for the ISPs to promise not to interpret the agreement's 'temporary restriction' provision as allowing for suspension of user Internet accounts. This provision is most troubling because an individual could lose access to the Internet just on the basis of suspicion alone.” The CCI will be headed by copyright and consumer protection expert Jill Lesser, who will serve as Executive Director. Unlike some members of the advisory board, Lesser is delighted with her appointment and is eager to start sending out the first batch of alerts. "I am excited to lead CCI as it begins this constructive effort to reduce and deter online copyright infringement in a way that is centered on education and deterrence, not punishment," she said. "This unprecedented collaboration demonstrates that when content providers and distributors work together we can protect copyright and empower consumers at the same time." As expected, CCI is mainly focusing on the educational component of the scheme, but in essence it’s deterrence through punishment. While we now know a little bit more about the people who will lead CCI, the organization has yet to announce the company that will be responsible for tracking down millions of BitTorrent pirates. Last year sources told TorrentFreak that DtecNet got the lucrative contract, but that was the last we heard of it. One thing’s for certain, the company that gets the contract will have to be reviewed by an independent expert to see if their evidence gathering techniques pass the scrutiny test. But even when the end-stage tracking evidence is solid, there will always be many wrongful accusations, not least because people run unsecured Wi-Fi networks and ISPs make mistakes. Those wrongfully accused Internet subscribers have the right to call for an independent review at the cost of a $35 filing fee. These disputes will then be handled by the American Arbitration Association, CCI announced today. While the CCI is confident that the alerts are an effective way of deterring online piracy we have our doubts. For one, the monitoring system is relatively easy to bypass through a proxy or VPN. Secondly, the multi-million dollar plan only covers a few of the many sources of online piracy. The millions of U.S. Internet users who download via cyberlockers and streaming portals are not affected by this agreement at all, as these downloads are impossible for third parties to track. Time will tell who’s right. Source: BitTorrent Crackdown Center Prepares to Punish Pirates
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| Sports Reporter Demands Return of Megaupload Files Posted: 02 Apr 2012 06:30 AM PDT
Behind the scenes Megaupload has been negotiating with the Department of Justice to allow these users to temporarily access their files. "Megaupload's legal team is working hard to reunite our users with their data. We are negotiating with the Department of Justice to allow all Mega users to retrieve their data," Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak previously. However, weeks have passed by and thus far no workable solution has been found. Tired of waiting, one Megaupload user has now asked a court to find a way to return his files. Through his attorneys, Kyle Goodwin, owner of the sports news site OhioSportsNet, filed a brief at a federal court in Virginia. “It is one thing to take legal action against an alleged copyright infringer. It is quite another to do so at the expense of entirely innocent third parties, with no attempt to prevent or even mitigate the collateral damage,” the brief starts. The attorneys explain that Goodwin signed up for a premium Megaupload account that he used to store raw footage of games, player and coach interviews, and promotional materials for his business. This Megaupload account served as an online backup of the files he stored on his hard drive, in case that crashed. Unfortunately for Goodwin the hard drive did indeed crash in January, right after Megaupload was shutdown. However, when he attempted to download the backup files, he noticed that Megaupload was no longer operational. As a result, the sports reporter claims to have suffered significant losses. “The loss of my files has made doing the business of OhioSportsNet difficult,” Goodwin explains in his testimony. “For example, at least four parents had inquired about paying me to put together highlight reels of their children’s sporting events to send to colleges for recruiting purposes. Without my files, I have been unable to do that.” The attorneys argue that the Government is responsible for this loss, and claim that Goodwin’s Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure has been violated. “The government cannot just execute its search warrant and wipe its hands of any responsibility for the property incidental to that warrant, especially when the government's actions have the direct effect of impermissibly denying innocent third parties of their property,” they write. They further argue that Goodwin and many others have become victims of an overbroad takedown. “Perhaps in an attempt to avoid responsibility for its seizure, the government has alleged that some data on the servers consists of infringing copies of copyrighted works. However, the potential presence of others' infringing files does not diminish the Court’s responsibility to safeguard customers' lawful and noninfringing files and provide for their return,” the brief reads. Goodwin hopes that the court will ensure that the matter is resolved, and demands the return of his files, and the files of others who are in the same position as himself. Source: Sports Reporter Demands Return of Megaupload Files
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Starting this summer, the Center for Copyright Information (
In the wake of the MegaUpload shutdown many of the site's users complained that their personal files had been lost due to collateral damage.| You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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