TorrentFreak Email Update |
- ACTA Is DEAD After European Parliament Vote
- Kim Dotcom: Joe Biden Ordered the Megaupload Shutdown
- YouTube-MP3 Fights Google With Lawyers and 220K+ Signature Petition
| ACTA Is DEAD After European Parliament Vote Posted: 04 Jul 2012 04:00 AM PDT This is a day of celebration. This is the day when citizens of Europe and the world won over unelected bureaucrats who were being wooed and lobbied by the richest corporations of the planet. The battleground wasn’t some administrative office, but the representatives of the people – the European Parliament – which decided in the end to do its job beautifully, and represent the people against special interests. The road to today’s victory was hard and by no means certain. 478 against, 39 in favor and 165 abstentions
What lead us here?Six months ago, the situation looked very dark. It was all but certain that ACTA would pass unnoticed in silence. The forces fighting for citizens’ rights tried to have it referred to the European Court of Justice in order to test its legality and to buy some time. But then, something happened. A monster by the name of SOPA appeared in the United States. Thousands of websites went dark on January 18 and millions of voices cried out, leaving Congress shell-shocked over the fact that citizens can get that level of pissed off at corporate special interests. SOPA was killed.
The activism carried over beautifully to defeat this monster. Early February, there were rallies all over Europe, leaving the European Parliament equally shell-shocked. The party groups turned on a cent and declared their opposition to ACTA in solidarity with the citizen rallies all over the continent, after having realized what a piece of shameless mail-order legislation it really was, to the horrors of the corporate shills who thought this was a done deal. Those shills tried, tried hard, tried right up until today, to postpone the vote on ACTA past the attention of the public and the activists. Alas, they don’t understand the net. And there’s one key thing right there: the net doesn’t forget. But the key takeaway here is that it was us, the activists, that made this happen. Everyone in the European Parliament are taking turns to praise all the activists across Europe and the world for drawing their attention to what utter garbage this really was, not some run-of-the-mill rubberstamp paper, but actually a really dangerous piece of proposed legislation. Everybody thanks the activists for that. Yes, that’s you. You should lean back, smile, and pat yourself on the back here. Each and every one of us has every reason to feel proud today. What comes next?In theory, ACTA could still come into force between the United States and a number of smaller states. Ten states have been negotiating it, and six of those need to ratify it to have it come into force. In theory, this could become a treaty between the United States, Morocco, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and Switzerland. (But wait, the Mexican Senate has already rejected ACTA. As has Australia and Switzerland in practice. Oh well… a treaty between the United States and Morocco, then, in the unlikely event that the United States will actually and formally ratify it. You can see where this is going.) As described before on TorrentFreak, without the support of the European Union, ACTA is dead. Doesn’t exist. The European Commissioner responsible for the treaty, Karel de Gucht, has said that he will ignore any rejections and re-table it before the European Parliament until it passes. That’s not going to happen. Parliament takes its dignity very seriously and does not tolerate that kind of contempt, fortunately. This is something relatively new in the history of the European Union’s democracy – the first time I saw Parliament stand up for its dignity was during the Telecoms Package, where the Commission also tried to ram through three-strikes provisions. (Instead, Parliament made “three strikes” schemes illegal in the entire European Union.) That said, many of the bad things in ACTA will return under other names. For the lobbyists, this is a nine-to-five job of jabbing against the legislation until it gives way. Just another day at work. We need to remain vigilant against special interests who will return again, again, and again, until we make sure that the legislative road for them is completely blocked. We must remain watchful. But not today. Today, we celebrate a job extraordinarily well done. Today, on July 4, Europe celebrates a day of independence from American special interests. Today, we stood up for our most basic rights against corporate giants, and won. Congratulations to all of us, and thanks to all brothers and sisters on the barricades across the world who made this happen. (This article is also posted on falkvinge.net.)  About The Author Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy. Book Falkvinge as speaker? Source: ACTA Is DEAD After European Parliament Vote
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| Kim Dotcom: Joe Biden Ordered the Megaupload Shutdown Posted: 03 Jul 2012 11:49 AM PDT When Megaupload was raided in January, questions were raised as to why the U.S. Government acted so aggressively against a company that seemingly played by the rules. It’s no secret that the MPAA provides the authorities with “leads” for criminal investigations on a regular basis, but considering the size and location of the company Megaupload was not an ordinary target. Soon after Kim Dotcom was released from custody he pointed the finger at Washington, arguing that the Mega investigation was a 'gift' to Hollywood, facilitated by corrupt Government forces. In the months that followed Dotcom and his team researched the motivations of the U.S. Government which resulted in some revealing findings. While Megaupload’s founder is cautious about revealing too much early on, he says he has information which shows that it was none other than Vice President Joe Biden who called for the Megaupload takedown. “I do know from a credible source that it was Joe Biden, the best friend of former Senator and MPAA boss Chris Dodd, who ordered his former lawyer and now state attorney Neil MacBride to take Mega down,” Dotcom told TorrentFreak. Dotcom previously hinted that Biden was involved in the Megaupload case through one of his tweets. “Lovebirds” Biden and Dodd
According to Dotcom the Mega case was discussed June last year in a meeting in the West Wing of the White House. “After we received information from an insider we scanned the White House visitor logs for all meetings of Chris Dodd and studio bosses with Joe Biden and Obama. They are publicly available on the White House website,” Dotcom told us. “It is interesting that a man by the name of Mike Ellis of MPA Asia, an extradition expert and former superintendent of the Hong Kong police, was also at a meeting with Dodd, all studio bosses and Joe Biden. The same Mike Ellis met with the Minister of Justice Simon Power in New Zealand.” An overview of the visitors that were present at this meeting is listed below. Barry Meyer – CEO Warner Bros Entertainment, Brad Grey – CEO Paramount Pictures, Michael Ellis -Managing Director MPA Asia Pacific, Chris Dodd – CEO MPAA, Jeff Blake – Vice Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Ronald Meyer – President Universal Studios, Michael O’Leary – MPAA Senior Executive Vice President for Global Policy and External Affairs, Robert Regan – (?) and Rich Ross – Chairman of Walt Disney Studios at the time. The meeting
The information above does indeed suggest that the Megaupload case was discussed at the highest political levels last year. Noteworthy is also the MPAA’s lobbying disclosure statement of last year which includes money spent on lobbying the office of Vice President Joe Biden. What exactly Biden’s role has been, and whether that’s problematic, remains to be seen. However, Dotcom is convinced that corrupt elements in the U.S. Government brought Mega down. More on this will be made public in the near future. “At the appropriate time we will release what we know. The whole Mega case is quite the political thriller,” Dotcom concludes. Source: Kim Dotcom: Joe Biden Ordered the Megaupload Shutdown
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| YouTube-MP3 Fights Google With Lawyers and 220K+ Signature Petition Posted: 03 Jul 2012 06:22 AM PDT
Google’s lawyers gave YouTube-MP3 seven days to comply, but in the meantime the search giant took technical measures to severely restrict its ability to operate. But weeks on it’s clear that YouTube-MP3 owner Philip Matesanz believes he has a cause worth fighting for. Philip, a 21-year-old applied computer science student, today gave TorrentFreak details of his structured fightback against the US search giant in the hope that Google will give him the fair hearing that up until now he says he has been denied. “I have to admit that have previously never sought case studies on Google’s legal position. Until now I thought they would understand that they cannot stop their users from creating recordings of a public video and would simply tolerate it,” Philip told TorrentFreak. In order to precisely understand the situation, Philip recently sought the opinion of lawyers on the legality of YouTube-MP3 in Germany and its functionality in respect of the YouTube Terms of Service, an agreement Google says YouTube-MP3 breached. Philip spoke with two lawyers – Philipp C. Redlich of HÄRTING Rechtsanwälte and well-known IT lawyer Christian Solmecke from the Wilde Beuger Solmecke law firm. Solmecke sent TorrentFreak a copy of his report this morning. He is absolutely clear on one of the main points, that YouTube-MP3 does not use the YouTube API. As a result “..YouTube's API Terms of Service do not apply here, as no contract has been created which would allow for the Terms of Service to come into effect.” So ToS argument aside, what about the inevitable copyright-related questions? “The infringement of YouTube's Terms of Service brings with it no legal consequences for YouTube-MP3.org. YouTube-MP3.org is also not at fault so far as Copyright Law is concerned YouTube-MP3.org undertakes no copyright-relevant action. “Also, liability of the user's for copyright infringement is not incurred because their actions are covered by the right to make private copies under paragraph 53 sub-paragraph 1 sentence 1 Copyright Law. The demand for YouTube-MP3.org to bring about a cessation of its service is therefore unfounded,” Solmecke writes. Credit: Ioannis Milionis (mycartoons.de)
The report from Redlich’s is also detailed, noting that there are “..strong arguments in favor of YouTube not being able [to successfully] object to either the user or the provision of the MP3 conversion service, YouTube-MP3.org, on the grounds of an infringement of its copyright or of unfair competition.” As long as YouTube doesn’t implement encryption to prevent storage of streamed content, doing so would be legal, Redlich adds, noting that the downloading of streamed content from YouTube for private use does not require the permission of copyright holders. In addition to trying to bring down his service this year, Philip says that Google has also undermined his ability to generate revenue in the past. In 2010, Philip says that Google closed down his Adsense account, kept several months of earnings, and then ignored letters sent to the company by his lawyer. Then last year Philip said he signed an advertising deal with another company that Google was in the process of buying. The acquisition didn’t go ahead but Philip feels that Google had a hand in influencing the other company not to do business with him. The signed advertising deal was left unfulfilled. Whether or not Google will be prepared to change their position considering the developments above remains to be seen – thus far they haven’t been responsive to Philip’s lone voice. But would a few hundred thousand more make a difference perhaps? Philip recently started a petition on Change.org asking Google to allow third-party recording tools for YouTube. The response from his userbase has been huge.  “I have started a public petition that already has more than 220,000 signatures even through it hasn’t been mentioned by any news site,” Philip explained. “I didn’t expect such a great feedback. It is not based on any news coverage but on the strong will of my users who are spreading the word about it. I’ve already surpassed other petitions that received worldwide press coverage.” So for now it’s over to Google to consider whether YouTube-MP3 is a potentially useful partner or one to be threatened and put out of business. Interestingly, perhaps all is not lost. Google already appears to have softened its stance on allowing users to download YouTube content for later viewing….. An update from Philip is posted here. Source: YouTube-MP3 Fights Google With Lawyers and 220K+ Signature Petition
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In the wake of this, as citizens realized that they don’t need to take that kind of corporate abuse lying down and asking for more, the community floodlights centered on ACTA. 
Mid-June, one of the web’s largest YouTube conversion sites was 
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