TorrentFreak Email Update |
| US Music Pirates Face New $150,000 Damages Claims Posted: 27 Apr 2012 01:19 PM PDT
The venture, which lasted 5 long years, saw the group target some 18,000 individuals and generate some of the most controversial anti-piracy headlines of the last decade. Recent years have seen the same strategy revived, largely by adult studios. With less of a reputation to preserve and possessing additional leverage as their victims fret over their taste in media becoming public, news of the lucrative schemes spread deeper into the porn industry and beyond. Eventually mainstream movie companies such as The Hurt Locker’s Voltage Pictures chanced their hand, and even more recently book publisher Wiley jumped on board. Now, after several years’ break, music lawsuits are back on the agenda. As revealed by a lawsuit filed April 20th in the US District Court For The Middle District of Florida, American metal band All Shall Perish are seeking to identify dozens of their fans who allegedly shared their music on BitTorrent without permission. Founded in 2002, All Shall Perish are on the Nuclear Blast label. Through their lawsuit, filed by World Digital Rights, they are seeking to convert 80 IP addresses, harvested from a BitTorrent swarm sharing their album “This Is Where It Ends”, into real-life identities. “Upon information and belief, each defendant went to a torrent site to download a torrent file and then downloaded and uploaded the copyrighted Work within the BitTorrent network,” court papers read. Among other things, the plaintiff demands that each defendant is held “jointly and severally liable for the direct infringement of each other defendant” and held liable for statutory damages of $150,000. A jury trial is demanded but as everyone knows by now, no robustly defended case will ever get to court. Settlements of a few thousand dollars will be offered and paid by terrified individuals, whether or not they are guilty. This is the second BitTorrent infringement case filed in recent days by the Dorta & Ortega law firm. Worryingly, both cases have their roots in Germany where lawsuits of this nature are running riot. If these succeed, more will surely come. Source: US Music Pirates Face New $150,000 Damages Claims 
   | ||
| Pirate Party Presents ACTA Alternative to European Parliament Posted: 27 Apr 2012 08:21 AM PDT “Today's copyright legislation is out of balance, and out of tune with the times. It has turned an entire generation of young people into criminals in the eyes of the law, in a futile attempt at stopping technological development.” These are the first words of a new book that two Pirate Party icons shared with all members of the European Parliament this week. Instead of merely pointing out what is wrong with current proposals such as ACTA, they’re going a step further by offering alternatives. “We feel that there are many people who know that the Pirate Party is unhappy with copyright legislation as it stands today, but who are unaware that we have a constructive proposal as to how it should be reformed. We are not just complaining,” Christian Engstrom told TorrentFreak. In the early years the Pirate Party was often jokingly characterized as a bunch of spotty nerds who simply want free stuff. While this perception has changed somewhat in recent years, especially when Christian Engstrom joined the European Parliament, there is still a need to clarify the Party’s position. “We wanted to explain why this issue is about preserving fundamental rights on the internet, and not just about getting free films or pop music,” says Engstrom. “The battle over ACTA has made many politicians aware of the fact that freedom on the internet is an issue that citizens (a.k.a. voters) care about, but most mainstream politicians are not very familiar with the issue.” The book gives a broad overview of how the current copyright monopoly is starting to degrade free speech and people’s privacy. Internet censorship proposals have become commonplace and alleged pirates are punished without due process, all without any clear evidence that more stringent measures actually cause a decline in piracy. Therefore, one of the key issues of the book is to offer alternatives. The Pirate Party doesn’t want to abolish copyright, they want to reform it. For example, the moral rights of authors would remain unchanged, but all non-commercial copying would be legalized. In addition, DRM woud be banned entirely. “I am hoping that the book will be helpful in that respect, and that the timing is quite good right now. If we manage to stop ACTA, the natural question becomes ‘okay, so what should we do instead?’ Then we have a realistic and sensible answer,” Engstrom told us. Those who are interested in reading the book can download it for free in several formats. A paper version is also available on the self-publishing platform Lulu. Source: Pirate Party Presents ACTA Alternative to European Parliament 
   |
In a time where copyright laws increasingly violate basic human rights, Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom and Rick Falkvinge want to break this trend.| You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment