Piracy Case Could Change Canadian Web Landscape 156
meatheadmike writes to tell us that a recent Canadian court case brought against the Canadian Recording Industry Association by isoHunt Web Technologies, Inc, could drastically change the web landscape in Canada. "The question before the British Columbia Supreme Court is if a site such as isoHunt allows people to find a pirated copy of movies such as Watchmen or The Dark Knight, is it breaching Canadian copyright law? 'It's a huge can of worms," said David Fewer, acting director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa. 'I am surprised that this litigation has gone under the radar as much as it has. I do think this is the most important copyright litigation going on right now.'"
Bad news (Score:4, Funny)
If you can download their movie for free, Terrance and Phillip are going to go bankrupt.
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Different jurisdiction, same story. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Do any of you have any ideas how a fellow Canadian can show support for ISOHunt?
Other than just e-mailing them I mean.
Re:Different jurisdiction, same story. (Score:5, Funny)
This is Canada. We don't make noise. We write letters. And only if it's about something that's really really annoying.
It's also not really something we need to worry about in Canadian copyright law... all the ISOHunt people need to show is that they are not actually making the files available themselves. In Canadian copyright law, it's ok to copy/share materials as long as it's not for material gain, and you're not distributing on a large scale.
Re:Different jurisdiction, same story. (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, things like the invasion of Poland, or when someone (ahem!) burnt down the city of York. Of course, we deliver those letters personally, and staple the envelope to the forehead of the recipient. Repeatedly.
...And politely.
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Battle of Bladensburg [wikipedia.org].
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Yes. The invasion of Poland is largely considered to be the start of the Second World War, beginning 1 Sept 1939. The United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on 3 September 1939, and Canada on 10 Sept 1939.
The Americans think of Pearl Harbour being the start of the Second World War, 7 Dec, 1941, but the fighting in Europe had been going on for two years already.
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Well, to our credit, 1941 is when the allies stopped losing the war. It may seem egotistical but us American sort of think the fight just started when we entered.
Actually, I'm joking a bit. Canada allowed Americans to join their military before America entered the war. One of two fighter air squadrons served under Canadian command and was transferre
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Any idea where those 15,000 were or what they were doing exactly? Certainly they didn't seem to be pilots as there were only 9 US pilots involved in the Battle of Britain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-British_personnel_in_the_RAF_during_the_Battle_of_Britain [wikipedia.org]
And of course, that was the real turning point of the war because it was the first major defeat of Hitler's forces, up until that point he had been advancing without fail. With a combination of RAF/Commonwealth airpower and British/Commonwealth naval
Not quite... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's different because Canadians have ALREADY paid for the content, in the form of a levy on all storage media. So the media companies want to be paid twice.
Re:Not quite... (Score:5, Informative)
The issue at hand here is whether or not an individual/corporate entity can link to a copyrighted files (or in this case link to a file that has a link to look for a list of people that might have the file you need).
Re:Not quite... (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue at hand here is whether or not an individual/corporate entity can link to a copyrighted files (or in this case link to a file that has a link to look for a list of people that might have the file you need).
I think this case is great news.
Either the court sides with isoHunt and the issue is permanently settled...
OR the court sides with the CRIA and the search engines hire lobbyists to fight it out and get the law changed.
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Re:Not quite... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not /strictly/ true. It's true that "fair use" and "format shifting" are established more firmly here than in the U.S.
In Canada it's always been legal to make copies for personal use. This means that it's perfectly OK for you to take a line output from your 8 track stereo to your line in on your Mac Pro and create a digtal copy of that Rush 2112 album you bought in 1976.
Similarly, it's fairly clearly legal for you to rip a copy of the Serenity Special Edition DVD you've bought to watch on your iPhone. You're breaking encryption, but it's probably still legal.
To extend from that to "it's not illegal to download copyrighted works for personal use" is a stretch. Essentially the point in the scenarios above if that you've already /paid/ for a "licence" at whatever prevailing rate the things costs. From there, you can shift your format...you don't need to buy multiple licences (though you obviously can.)
Whether this justifies the liberation of content gets into muddier waters. If I buy the DVD can I download a copy and say that's my "other format?" Maybe....maybe....the source may be illegal, but technically I do "own it" but I'm not sure that's justification. (Though I may use it as justification also.)
In the case of over the air TV shows such as "30 Rock" I don't have to "pay" for a licence. It's paid for by advertisers. If I download it without advertisements...different situation. It's not like anybody's lost money, except in the abstract sense that the network could have made _more_ money through advertising revenue with a larger audience...unless of course I watched it live as well.
In the case of a Compact Disc there's a more direct cause and effect: if I download a liberated copy of the medi, somebody's lost money. Labels aren't going to keep putting out music for no money, and bands aren't going to be able to record if nobody ever buys albums (touring revenue notwithstanding.)
The media levy muddies the waters a bit, but only a bit.
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Re:Not quite... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't disagree with your assertion, but that's your personal politics of music not the legality at play.
Neko Case told Paste Magazine that touring payed for her farm in Vermont, not recording. I believe strongly in supporting musicians while they're touring, and detest the face that I'm basically supporting Ticketmaster most of the time anyway.
Nirvana may have recorded Bleach for $600 but most of those millions of eventual fans didn't go see them because they bought Bleach, and even fewer of them went to see them at Neumo's.
Most of those fans heard of Nirvana long after they'd been signed by a major label and given a massive promotion and marketing push.
I'm not saying a similar story /couldn't/ have happened if they'd just toured like crazy, I'm saying the story you're telling happened in the current system and not outside of it.
I feel similarly about Radiohead's succesful "experiment" with selling In Rainbow's direct, btw. It really wasn't that interesting an experiment...it was a band that had benefited from millions of dollars of earlier promotion leveraging their name recognition. It's much more interesting to see what new bands are doing with the new medium...those bands that aren't signing with major labels (like the aforementioned Divine Ms. Case, who's been asked to do so more than once but values her integrity and independence.)
It's about the legality, not the politics. In Canada if I've seen an artist live does that give me the right to liberate all of their music? I've asked this myself...I keep going to /see/ Kathleen Edwards but I don't own much of her music. Can I liberate it? I don't think it's legal.
Followup question: if I borrow a CD from the library and rip it, is it legal for me to keep it?
Re:Not quite... (Score:4, Funny)
Absolutely not. You didn't pay anyone the right to even use it (at least that's how I think they might see it in court)
But if you rent a BlurRay movie from Blockbuster or Rogers Video and are forced to 'rip' it to your Linux PC to play on your 40" TV screen (as you have a BD drive in your PC, but do not own a standalone player) and just happen to *forget* to delete the copy off your hard drive after you return it could be a different story.
For some reason that seems to happen to me 2, sometimes 3 times a week. ;-)
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Or you could delete it, and it could miraculously remain on a snapshot of your home file system.
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Actually, it IS legal to rip a library CD, and to keep the copy. That's black-letter law in Canada, and why we pay the blank media levy.
You can copy and keep anything -- the interesting wording in the law says, IIRC, that the person doing the copying must also be the one doing the keeping.
Re:Not quite... (Score:5, Informative)
Essentially the point in the scenarios above if that you've already /paid/ for a "licence" at whatever prevailing rate the things costs.
Incorrect. Any person can make a copy of any copyrighted musical work for their own personal use. It doesn't mean they can only copy things they already own, it doesn't matter if they've paid anything for it at all. You can come to my house and copy all my CDs, and so can everyone I know. You may also invite anyone to come to your house and make copies of your CDs, including the ones you copied from me. Making any copy of any recording for personal use is not infringement.
See the "Copying for Private Use" section of the Canadian Copyright Act: http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33770 [cb-cda.gc.ca]
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Ok, so that's an interesting section. It's interesting that it applies /specifically/ to "musical works." It certainly suggests that my library example is solid: I can borrow and rip without fear of violating copyright.
It does nothing for the case of movies however....
There is also the issue of the Harper Government's moves in the field:
http://media.knet.ca/node/4052 [media.knet.ca]
but I haven't been following them.
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Ah...one other thing. That section states that the "act of reproducing" a musical work doesn't violate copyright.
Downloaded music from the Internet is not a case "reproducing." I haven't reproduced anything...it's been created from the ether.
If you have the media in your possession, it seems to make it fairly clear that you can "reproduce it." This is basic fair use doctrine.
The person who reproduces it can do so only for personal use. Sharing it online is not personal use.
It *does* seem that the library CD
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A very valid question, and frankly does anybody record from the radio anymore? Isn't that what podcasting is for? (Check out NPR's All Songs Considered live concerts...some amazing stuff.)
I basically think they implemented the levy without considering it fully. I don't think it was /started/ as a revenue grab. I think it was started with good intention, though incredibly badly implemented (which is why it was tossed by the courts at one point.) I think it's /become/ a blatant revenue grab since those ideali
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It's different because Canadians have ALREADY paid for the content, in the form of a levy on all storage media. So the media companies want to be paid twice.
They want to be paid as many times as they can. Remember DRM?
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Whereas your strategy is to get paid as few times as possible?
I /think/ I understand your point, but I'm not sure that it's a really valid argument. Not every paying isn't really going to solve the problem either...
Re:Not quite... (Score:4, Insightful)
The article in question is about downloading movies. You're referring to the Canadian levy on blank CDs, which goes to Canadian recording artists and Canadian record labels. If you've bought a blank CD in Canada, odds are that none of it went to the people who worked on The Dark Knight or Watchmen -- both products of the USA.
Your purchase of blank media might give you a sense of moral justice in pirating, say, Celine Dion or Bryan Adams tracks... if this is ample justification for you, then go about your merry pirating ways and God bless you. But it would be a stretch to apply this moral justice to downloading Watchmen.
Re:Not quite... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a Canadian and I download music and movies, I do buy blank media but I don't buy it for moral justice, I buy it because I need somewhere to put the movies and music. I don't NEED to settle my morals because frankly I don't give a shit. I'm around when some of my friends watch those paparazzi shows and if Hollywood can afford those clowns ridiculous lifestyle then it can sure as hell afford my free copy of Watchmen.
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Wow, it's nice to know that I'm not allowed to buy American movies in Canada. After all, how ever would the money find its way back to the creators of those movies? Likewise for American music.
Now that I think of it, how would they ever sue you for copyright infringement in the first place? I mean, they're all from America (musicians and actors only work in America, right?) and people are pirating all over the world! Maybe they'll make organizations in various countries to represent their interests and
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If you think any of the money from the CRIA or whatever is just funneling money from them to the RIAA and its labels? I havent heard a story of a single Canadian artist labeled or not getting any money out of this so obviously the money is going somewhere because I dont think they have a furnace they're using to burn it.
I don't condone commercial piracy but damn I'll stand up for anyones right to 'personal piracy' because as it stands the copyright laws are far too slanted towards the producers and it seems
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Putting something on your computer so that anybody can access it when they have a link to it and then publicly posting that link for anybody to find sort of forgoes any notion that might have otherwise existed that the copy was just for private use, don't you think?
You are conflating "making available" with "copying".
If I copy something for my own use, I need somewhere to put it. If that "somewhere" happens to be a shared drive, that's a separate legal question.
If my intent was to copy it to share it out, that's no longer private copying, but if my intent was to make it available so that I can access it regardless of where I am when I travel, then putting it in a shared location is perfectly reasonable.
If I were to allow everyone in my city (or province, or the entir
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That levy is for music not movies, television shows, software or whatever else you find on torrent sites.
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Frankly, anybody who's got the kind of free time to search out a minidisc these days SHOULD be assessed some kind of levy. That's WAY too much free time.
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The cheap MP3 players that my wife, son and I bought all came with a song or two. So they were not blank and no levy. Hopefully other MP3 players also do the same.
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Is that why they include 1 or 2 songs? I thought it was so you could "test" it right out of the box.
I'm not being cynical, I'm actually genuinely curious as to whether or not these devices (with a couple songs) are covered under the tax.
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The tax is on blank media. When they were talking about implementing the levy on hard drives, mp3 players etc there was talk that this would be a legal workaround. So I've taken it for granted that that is why they put the songs on.
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Yep, it's called divide and conquer. Of course, the governments and big media are quite globally united, with things like copyright treaties, sadly.
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Its the voice of the public vs the $$$$ of like mpaa. you know which side will win this.
Re:Different jurisdiction, same story. (Score:5, Informative)
>>>So this is like the Pirate Bay case, only the issues are being examined in Canada.
I don't know why you were labeled insightful", because you're flat wrong. Piratebay provides the tracker server which enables piracy. Isohunt does not. Isohunt is like google, a search engine, which means technically they are doing absolutely nothing wrong.
The fact that google links to all websites, where isohunt only links to torrent sites, is the basis of this case and has implications for ALL search engines, as it may require them to stop linking to torrent sites too.
Re:Different jurisdiction, same story. (Score:5, Informative)
The Pirate Bay (TPB) offers an "optional" tracker that can be used for either legal or illegal purposes.
You can however post a torrent on TPB without any of the Pirate Bay trackers, so in this case TPB will act just like IsoHunt.
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Like I said: "Piratebay provides the tracker... Isohunt does not." The prosecution in the piratebay case argues that the tracker is used to steal copyrighted items, but that same argument does Not apply to isohunt. Therefore the two cases are not the same.
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Can somebody explain what it's all about? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't understand. Is the torrent site suing the CRIAA (Canadian Recording Industry Assh*les from America) to see whether non-Canadian content is copyrighted by the CRIAA? I thought those companies were subsidiaries of the recording companies and they just cross-license their stuff.
Legalese is so very confusing.
Re:Can somebody explain what it's all about? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Have you ever heard of a sense of humor? Do you even know what humor is? Apparently not since you don't recognize a joke when you see one.
Oh and to answer your question I've visited every province except Nunavut.
Laws and stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone yells and jumps about over copyright. And while in truth yes, it will have an effect on our lives and how we conduct business, the law will never settle the matter. No matter how many judgements, treaties, proclaimations, arrests, convictions, and everything else we throw at it, it cannot change the fact that the internet is global. You can't stop the signal, nobody can. We can't simply dismantle the network, and try as we might to control what goes over it, if a connection can be made someone will figure out a way to get the data through. The internet doesn't care about copyright. It exists to transmit information between people, and nothing will ever deny that power. Not as long as it exists.
We might bear witness to a fifty year war on copyright, pirates, and blah blah blah, but the problem will never go away. The signal will always be there, someone will always have a copy, and eventually the economic drain that will come from fighting this war will bankrupt its supporters. Eventually. It might not happen in five years, or twenty, but it will happen.
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Re:Laws and stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds reminiscent of the war on drugs...
The laws are screwy. I can take a 2x4 to your head and be out in six months for aggravated assault, but spend ten years in jail for downloading a song you made. I think we're already there.
Re:Laws and stuff (Score:5, Funny)
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Hope you didn't illegally download that 2x4. ;)
You jest, but the day is coming... [fabathome.org]
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I can take a 2x4 to your head and be out in six months for aggravated assault, but spend ten years in jail for downloading a song you made.
[Citation Needed]
How exactly does a civil judge sentence anyone to jail?
The only way you can get jail time is for criminal copyright infringement.
And that's if you can get the FBI to investigate and the DOJ to prosecute.
Generally, the FBI is only interested in large scale (the scene) non-commercial infringement, commercial infringement (selling bootlegs), cammers, and anyone leaking pre-release material.
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Everyone yells and jumps about over copyright. And while in truth yes, it will have an effect on our lives and how we conduct business, the law will never settle the matter. No matter how many judgements, treaties, proclaimations, arrests, convictions, and everything else we throw at it, it cannot change the fact that the internet is global. You can't stop the signal, nobody can. We can't simply dismantle the network, and try as we might to control what goes over it, if a connection can be made someone will figure out a way to get the data through. The internet doesn't care about copyright. It exists to transmit information between people, and nothing will ever deny that power. Not as long as it exists.
We might bear witness to a fifty year war on copyright, pirates, and blah blah blah, but the problem will never go away. The signal will always be there, someone will always have a copy, and eventually the economic drain that will come from fighting this war will bankrupt its supporters. Eventually. It might not happen in five years, or twenty, but it will happen.
This post sort of makes me want to hack the Gibson
HACK THE PLANET!!!!
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You can't stop the signal, nobody can.
My international army of backhoes, fishing trawlers, and Tesla coils disagrees.
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1) Shock - This was Napster
2) Denial - The time between Napster and torrents
3) Anger - This is where they are now
4) Passive Acceptance - Not there yet folks
5
and your browser runs Google... (Score:4, Funny)
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How much electricity is used for piracy? What portion of isoHunt's traffic is for data that is not copyrighted?
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Here in BC it is hydro power which is delivered by the crown corp. BC Hydro.
So really it is the fault of the government for enabling us to download copyrighted material.
Not surprising. (Score:2)
That question has already been asked here in the USA. Is linking illegal? YES.
Case in point: 2600 magazine linking to DECSS code
Now what this will lead to is more of whats happening over in Australia and China.. We'll have content filters on each country divide monitoring for copyrighted materials and "websites known for trafficking of copyrighted materials". It'll be another WaronDrugs, this time with scatterplots of the whole population being charged with fines randing from 750$ to 35000$, plus federal ha
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That question has already been asked here in the USA. Is linking illegal in the US? YES in the US.
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:5, Insightful)
+1 cause you're technically right, but seriously, if America thinks its illegal, they'll pressure someone else to think the same thing.
Only reason why tv-links went down was because of US involvement.
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Yep... The USA has no influence over any other country.. except
ACTA
Sweden's PirateBay criminal suits
Iraq's new IP policy
Canada's New IP policy
And others Ive missed...
Yep. The USA is an island all alone.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:4, Insightful)
+1 cause you're technically right, but seriously, if America thinks its illegal, they'll pressure someone else to think the same thing.
Only reason why tv-links went down was because of US involvement.
Completely true. The US attempts to push its ideals on other countries (I don't even need to give any examples, as anyone should be able to think of quite a few).
There are many items where Canada has held it's own on standpoints (copyright so far, leniency on marijuana etc). My biggest complaint is that the general viewpoint of "Americans" (as we refer to US citizens even though they aren't the only country in america) is that their viewpoint is the only right on and everyone else should follow suit.
My original post was to clarify that:
illegal in the US != illegal in other countries
Hardly redundant, and an important point to make as it seems many aren't clear on that.
digital world (Score:2)
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It's not too tough to convert something from any analog format to a digital format...
Basically they'd have to just not publish their songs ever. Or perform them ever.
Why this wording? (Score:4, Insightful)
if a site such as isoHunt allows people to find a pirated copy of movies such as Watchmen or The Dark Knight, is it breaching Canadian copyright law?
I don't get it.
Are they trying to subtly make a point that only certain movies should be protected?
Or do they really feel that the general public doesn't know what a "movie" is, and could use some examples?
Maybe it's a nitpick, but something about that language just seems gratuitous, yet most news media seems to do just that.
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How would I know if your youtube video that is posted on a torrent site is freely distributed by you or someone else? This is the worst case "it obviously is not free"
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Maybe it's a nitpick, but something about that language just seems gratuitous, yet most news media seems to do just that.
They're picking movies that are in the public eye so that readers (you) can relate to the issue being described. Even people who don't go to the movies have more than likely heard something about Watchmen or The Dark Knight.
12 years ago it would have been Titanic and Men In Black.
It's just a rhetorical trick and a useful one at that.
At the end of TFA: The Dark Knight became the most pirated movie in history after people found it through a BitTorrent search engine while it was still in theatres.
/It isn't qu
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They are pointing out that isoHunt allows people to find movies (1) where the general public obviously has not been given download permission, (2) that would still be copyrighted under any reasonable length of copyright, and (3) are intended to be paid for. This is one extreme of the spectrum of items that can be found, where the other extreme is obviously public-domain works. However, the point is that the former is possible, and does that mean what isoHunt does is illegal?
It also, of course, puts in
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In Canada, musical recordings and movies leave copyright after fifty years. (Written works leave copyright fifty years after the death of the author). That means that an extensive list of movies is public domain (in Canada) and can be legally downloaded. For example,
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Fantasia (1940)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
I used a torrent the other day to get a copy of music that my dad used to have on album, "Yvonne de Carlo Sin
Re:Why this wording? (Score:4, Interesting)
One could argue, though, that the remastered version is merely a derivative work and covered under the original copyright. Just as changing the font of a novel would not cause it to be a new copyrightable book.
purely legal (Score:2, Informative)
Since the consequences of putting up such "sign posts" is that people will find this material it is therefore arguable that the consequences were foreseen (if disregarded).
This is called inferred intent. The principle comes from UK Criminal Law but is applicable universally because it speak of a basic truth. That to recklessly ignore the natural consequences of your actions, but to carry on with those acti
Re:purely legal (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, no.
IsoHunt acts as a search engine and returns torrent files that can be either "legal" or "illegal".
No search engine can determine with 100% accuracy if something is legal or not, not even Google.
If I record a movie in my own garden, I can release the video on my website or even on The Pirate Bay with a license saying that only the people in my home town have the right to download the video and the rest don't.
IsoHunt will index the torrent file nevertheless and from your point of view, IsoHunt indexes an illegal torrent that should be taken down, but from my (the creator) point of view it's perfectly legal.
It's the USER'S RESPONSIBILITY to read the terms of the license, the description of the torrent file I made and download the movie if he believes he's allowed to.
So what I'm saying is that a movie or song or any binary data can be copyrighted but also can be legal to download it, it's illegal to distribute/download/upload/whatever something you don't have rights to do that and IsoHunt or any other search engine can't know that.
You can use Google nowadays for much worse things than copyright infringement, things like how to make a lockpick, how to prepare cocaine, how to steal a car, how to make a gun... but apparently a company's loss is important enough to stop something very useful to a lot of people.
It's not even worth to start commenting about cases where a company makes a movie making millions in US but doesn't feel it's worth releasing a DVD or a VHS to a small country, because they estimate they'll sell very few copies there and the profits will be smaller than the distribution and fabrication costs.
When this company retains copyright over something but yet keeps that something locked and unavailable to where I am, is that company really losing any money or suffers any losses if someone copies and gives away that stuff for free in that country? Should that company be allowed to keep copyright for 90 years on that? What was copyright supposed to be for, anyway?
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Re your last paragraph - agreed. As I said, as to whether these sites have committed a moral crime is another matter.
Re:purely legal (Score:5, Insightful)
And how would you do that?
Let's say you have "Madonna.jpg"
How is IsoHunt supposed to know if it's
(a) a scan of a Madonna CD artwork (illegal)
(b) a picture you made with a camera of a Madonna statue
(c) a picture of your girlfriend you like to nickname "Madonna"
(d) a picture of the cover of a book that has Madonna in the name.
Or, if I make a movie of myself and friend at a party, dancing on Prince's music, and I label it "Prince - Purple rain.avi" should IsoHunt remove it because it may be the actual video of the song or should IsoHunt staff be forced to download it and count how many seconds of Purple Rain actually are (if any) so that they can determine if it's fair use (less than 30 seconds of song) or not?
If it's more than 30 seconds, do they use the Canadian laws where IsoHunt is, or MY laws, which may consider any length of song fair use?
They sue over legal things, too... (Score:2)
> Or, if I make a movie of myself and friend at a party, dancing on Prince's music, and I label it "Prince - Purple rain.avi" should IsoHunt remove it because it may be the actual video of the song or should IsoHunt staff be forced to download it and count how many seconds of Purple Rain actually are (if any) so that they can determine if it's fair use (less than 30 seconds of song) or not?
Thing is, Prince would still go after you for that even if it was clearly fair use. I base that on the fact that th
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Yeah, well, let him sue me and see how much DCMA applies in Greece or Ukraine or Russia or my country. Maybe he'll learn that DMCA applies only in US.
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> Yeah, well, let him sue me and see how much DCMA applies in Greece or Ukraine or Russia or my country. Maybe he'll learn that DMCA applies only in US.
Strangely enough, many non-US providers obey DMCA notices even though they don't necessarily have to. It can be quite annoying at times, actually. But their logic is probably that they DO have copyright treaties with the USA and they don't want any legal trouble.
That said, there certainly are non-US hosts that ignore DMCA notices. The legal threats sec
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But they specifically don't filter out titles known to be unavailable for free. Ergo they allow such titles to be searched for and found, ergo they intend that result.
It would be pointless to filter those titles out. As soon as they started doing that, people would start encoding titles so that the filter won't block them and then publishing lists of real titles and their encoded names in some frequently changing location that is easy enough for a person to find, but difficult for a computer to decipher. It already happens frequently on usenet because DMCA takedown notices to the big usenet sites like giganews have so far all been the result of automated title searches
Re: (Score:2)
Automobile manufacturers don't specifically filter purchasers that are likely to use their cars to rob banks.
Are car companies guilty of bank robbery?
Camera manufacturers don't specifically stop random pervs from taking upskirt shots of women in shops. Does that make the camera manufacturer guilty of sexual exploitation?
Tools have been used for good and bad purposes for centuries. But somehow, just because it's a search engine, involving a computer, you think it has to be treated completely differently.
Re: (Score:2)
So why are books explaining how to make bombs, how to hack, how to murder, etc all legal? Yes, it's obvious people will use such things for nefarious purposes. Just like it's obvious people will use isohunt to download illegally. But there are also perfectly legal uses of such resources. And there are perfectly legal uses of isohunt.
So in Google (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Short answer - too bad (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that people are still trying (and for the most part, failing) to make money from digital works. There are considerable forces in the world that want to make this impossible. And they are winning.
If you spend money for a movie, you are their sworn enemy. If you pay for music, in any form, you are part of the problem and they think they are part of the solution.
The problem is, right now they can win. For the most part "crime" on the Internet can't be effectively punished. Which is why just
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously, you did not have a computer when you were a kid.
Yes, children can be seduced on
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that people are still trying (and for the most part, failing) to make money from digital works. There are considerable forces in the world that want to make this impossible.
Wrong. They are simply trying to stop large companies from lobbying to prevent the free sharing of information. Lobbying to perpetually extend copyright, lobbying to penalize copyright infringement more harshly than rape or murder, lobbying to collect taxes on other companies' products solely because they wish to. And they are winning.
This means I can buy movies and post them on the Internet with the specific intent of making sure not another dime is spent on that movie, ever again.
Sure, and you can also buy movies and post them on the Internet with the specific intent of becoming a billionaire. Doesn't mean it'll work, though, and given the wide range o
If It's In Canada... (Score:1, Troll)
If it's in Canada, how could that possibly be true? :^)
indexing is not copying (Score:3, Insightful)
repeat after me indexing is not copying.
No matter how much the RIAA wants you to think otherwise. Indexing or making other available of where to find something is very different from actually making it available.
Also making it available is not the same as copying it. People who put a movie up on a server are not violating copyright. Digital media must be copied to temporary storage to be played.
Do not listen to the RIAA and their weird interpretation of what is a violation of copyright.
On the face of it... (Score:2)
...it saeems as if this is a case over whether or not a search engine can be held responsible for making it possible to find illegal content.
And doesn't that mean that search engines would then be liable for the content of sites they list?
And doesn't that mean that search engines need to know the nature of the content they index?
And doesn't that mean that Google, for instance, needs to decipher if the results in a 'Watchmen' search are lawful previews, generic fanboi blog noise, press releases about the ope
OK - so here - do this (Score:3, Interesting)
go to Google and type in:
"bandName" "recordTitle" download inurl:blogspot
just substitute "bandName" with the name of the band you want and "recordTitle" with the title you need from them.
BANG.
the blogs linking to them come up.
sigh. So simple and convenient...
RS
Just a matter of time (Score:2)
Before ALL content is restricted and you can only post 'approved' items.
"but you can run xyz to get around it!" for now, just wait until TPM/DRM tech is *required* to run. Then your files ( and thus applications ) themselves become subject to approval by the future 'internet content governing body', a wing of the UN.
Enjoy what is left of your freedom while you can. Dark days are coming.
And before you label me as just 'yet another tin foil hatter', if i had told you a decade ago we would even be having this