Belgian ISP Scores Victory In Landmark P2P Case

secmartin writes "Belgian ISP Scarlet scored an important victory in the first major European test of copyright law. The interim decision forcing them to block transfers of copyrighted materials via P2P has been reversed, because the judge agreed with Scarlet that the measures the Belgian RIAA proposed to implement proved to be ineffective. A final decision is expected next year."

Belgian RIAA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does the Recording Industry Association of America have anything at all to do with Belgium?

Belgian RIAA

[TubeSteak]

We're going to need a better term than
"[name of country that is not America] RIAA"
Since the last "A" stands for America

I propose RIA* and MPA*
[/Serious]

Collectively, they can be referred to as **A*

Re:So..

[catxk]

Add to the argument that the amount of illegal goods in the public transportation system is substantial, lets say more than 20 percent of everything transported, and also that there is tech available that allowed the transport company to identify commuters carrying the illegal goods.

Now you have an interesting argument, albeit still worthless as you will now try to come to a conclusion for a real case (piracy) based on "facts" derived from a fictional case (transport company).

Re:So..

[secmartin]

Well, if you rob a bank the driver of your getaway car is likely to land in jail. The main argument in this case is that there are ways for the ISP to know the content transferred is illegal. The ISP says all solutions they tried were ineffective, thus countering this argument.

Incidentally, I think this is one of the main reasons many ISPs are no longer offering Usenet access; if they are offering their customers newsgroups with the name "alt.binaries.warez" it's hard to argue they don't realize it contains copyrighted material. With P2P transfers that argument is easier to make, especially if the software uses encryption.

Well.. what did you expect

[Noctris]

I actually work in the media area and have negotiated contracts with these guys.. A couple of nice examples: They actually sued an artist over using his OWN song on his OWN website, cause the artist had a contract with them, so sabam should do all his copyright related stuff and he never asked them for permission to put his own intellectual property on his own website... Their contracts still speak of "Phonograph" (yes.. like Thomas Edison did) when they mean "songs" or "tracks".. And they think they can tell isp's how to do their stuff ? Damn.. they still prefer a fax over an e-mail..