copyright infringement Archives

EMI Records v UPC – the case for legislative solutions to illegal file sharing

Earlier today, the Irish High Court released its decision on whether it would grant an injunction against an ISP (in this case UPC) requiring it to implement a graduated response solution to reduce unauthorized file sharing of music. After reviewing a large amount of evidence and hearing from experts, the Court ruled that this type of order would be just and proportionate. However, it ruled that it lacked the jurisdiction to make such an order.

Here are some of the important findings made by Justice Charleton, the same judge who presided over the EMI Records & Ors -v- Eircom Ltd, [2010] IEHC 108 case :

The business of the recording industry is “being devastated by internet piracy”.

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MGE v GE-what did the 5th Circuit decide about the scope of the DMCA TPM provisions and was it right?

Last week, the US Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit released a controversial decision interpreting Section 1201(a) of the DMCA in MGE UPS Inc v GE Consumer and Industrial, Inc. 2010 WL 2820006 (5th Cir.2010). Prof. Geist has suggested that the case decided that the “DMCA is limited to guarding access controls only to the extent that circumvention would violate the copyright rights of the copyright owner.” His summary of the case is neither accurate nor complete. Here’s why.…

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Isohunt permanently enjoined by US court

Yesterday, District Court Judge Stephen Wilson issued an order permanently enjoining Ishount and Gary Fung from continuing to engage in copyright infringement. The Court found an injunction necessary because the plaintiffs “have demonstrated that they have suffered irreparable harm, and would suffer further irreparable harm from Defendants’ continued infringement”.

According to the Court, “Plaintiffs’ power to control their rights has been so compromised by the means through which [Defendants] encouraged end users to infringe (digital files plus the internet) that the inducement amounts to irreparable harm.”…

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What do LimeWire, Napster, Kazaa, and Isohunt all have in common?

LimeWire now joins the ignoble club of sites and services around the workd that have been found liable for inducing, contributing to, or authorizing massive online copyright infringement. Other well known sites and services found liable on these and other secondary liability or criminal theories include Napster, Aimster, Grokster, Kazaa, Pirate Bay, Mininova, Usenet.com, Newzbin, and Isohunt.

Courts around the world have not tolerated or been willing to countenance online businesses whose core business model involves profiting from facilitating online copyright infringement.…

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Injunction to issue against IsoHunt in a busy month for the courts

There has been some confusion over whether an injunction has issued yet in the US IsoHunt case. In short, an injunction has not yet issued against IsoHunt. However, US District court Judge Stephen Wilson issued a tentative order on March 23, 2010 ruling that a permanent injunction is going to be made against IsoHunt. A copy of the tentative judgment is available here.

The tentative order contains the judge’s ruling as to why the Court intends to grant a permanent injunction. …

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The fallout from iiNet: markets and laws failing in face of net piracy

Last week the Federal Court of Australia released its important decision in the iiNet case. As many commentators have pointed out, the court declined to require Australia’s ISPs to disconnect those of its subscribers who are repeat copyright infringers.

In the course of reaching this decision, the court made a number of important rulings about the liability arising from the use of BitTorrent networks including the following:

Seeders and peers that make music available for sharing are infringers under Australia’s making available right.

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The Epidemic of Online Book Piracy

When people think of unauthorized file sharing, they often focus on music, movies and TV programs, and software. Often forgotten is the magnitude of the illegal file sharing in the book publishing industry. A recent study published by Attributor documents what the Association of American Publishers calls an “Epidemic of Online Book Piracy”.

The study monitored piracy for 913 popular books across the most popular 25 file hosting sites starting in October 2009 for a period of 90 days.…

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Fung and Isohunt found liable for inducing worldwide copyright infringement

Earlier this week, a US district court granted summary judgement to MPAA members holding that Gary Fung and four websites operated by him, including Isohunt one of Canada’s largest bittorrent sites, contribute to massive worldwide copyright infringement.

Operators of bittorrent sites like isoHunt often claim they are nothing but content neutral search engines like Google. The Isohunt court disagreed holding, based on uncontested expert evidence, that approximately 95 percent of all files made accessible through Isohunt were infringing or highly likely to be infringing.…

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Non-commercial P2P file sharing is not fair use says court in Sony BMG v Tenenbaum case

A U.S. district court has now issued a wide area injunction in the Sony BMG Music Entertainment v Tenenbaumcase, 2009 WL 4723397 (D.Mass.Dec 7. 2009). The order is as follow:

“…defendant shall be, and hereby is, enjoined from directly or indirectly infringing plaintiffs’ rights under federal or state law in any sound recording, whether now in existence or later created, that is owned or controlled by plaintiffs (or any parent, subsidiary, or affiliate record label of plaintiffs) (“Plaintiffs’ Recordings”), including without limitation by using the Internet or any online media distribution system to reproduce or distribute any of Plaintiffs’ Recordings, except pursuant to a lawful license or with the express authority of plaintiffs.…

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Mininova gone, who’s left and where are they located?

In August of this year a Dutch court ordered Mininova to remove all infringing torrents within three months. Yesterday, Mininova complied with the court’s order and disabled all torrents, except those in the licensed “content distribution” part of the service.

Mininova was the world’s second most popular unauthorized BitTorrent site. It facilitated infringement on a massive scale, with more than 10 billion downloads. Its demise follows Pirate Bay which was also ordered shut down following a decision by a Swedish court this past April which found Pirate Bay’s operators criminally responsible for copyright infringement.…

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