PayPal Joins London Police Effort 117
derGoldstein writes this excerpt from Ars Technica: "PayPal has joined a music copyright association and the City of London police department's bid to financially starve websites deemed 'illegal.' When presented with sufficient evidence of unlicensed downloading from a site, the United Kingdom's PayPal branch 'will require the retailer to submit proof of licensing for the music offered by the retailer,' said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's latest press release." The press release can be found here.
No surprise here. (Score:5, Insightful)
The monopoly is the economic nature of copyright. And, like pringles, it is addictive. Once you pop, you can't stop.
Boycott the bastards (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd boycott PayPal, but sadly, I can't boycott them any more than I already do.
What is proof? And who's proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have seen numerous times in the past where the recording industry will seek to charge for works they have no power over. Specifically independent works. We have seen cases go to court where elements of the case were discarded because the plaintiffs didn't actually own the copyright over some of the material in question. So I am guessing, that under this arrangement, the big music publishers will not be required to show they have ownership or authority over any specific works at all and that a mere accusation will result in damaging actions against another party who may be operating in a completely legal manner.
The article only says "sufficient evidence" is needed to start the action and doesn't say what is required. I suspect it will only be their word that infringement is occurring and we already know that the view music publishers have of infringement does not match that of the rest of the world as "fair use" and other such things simply do not exist in their minds.
And just as in the case of the DMCA, we are seeing more and more skipping over the use of the courts system. We are seeing essentially police and others operating at the request of private industry. Only recently, we have seen the tragic result that come of that sort of situation where Cisco was involved in the arrest of a former executive who happened to be suing them at the time.
The influence of business over government is damaging to the rest of the world. And this only seems to be getting worse.
Dulang, dulang, dulang (Score:2, Insightful)
So I am guessing, that under this arrangement, the big music publishers will not be required to show they have ownership or authority over any specific works at all
Even if the alleged infringer countersues for slander of title?
I suspect it will only be their word that infringement is occurring
Not necessarily. For any given song by an independent songwriter, I suspect the incumbent music publishers will be able to dig up an older song that the songwriter is likely to have heard back in grade school. For example, after it was discovered that George Harrison had accidentally reused four measures from "He's So Fine" in his song "My Sweet Lord", Harrison lost a lawsuit for roughly a million dollars. Yet Lady Gaga gets away with reusing much more of that: four measures from "Waterfalls" and six from "Express Yourself" in "Born This Way".