Supreme Court Wants US Input On Whether ISPs Should Be Liable For Users' Piracy (arstechnica.com) 108
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Supreme Court signaled it may take up a case that could determine whether Internet service providers must terminate users who are accused of copyright infringement. In an order (PDF) issued today, the court invited the Department of Justice's solicitor general to file a brief "expressing the views of the United States."
In Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, the major record labels argue that cable provider Cox should be held liable for failing to terminate users who were repeatedly flagged for infringement based on their IP addresses being connected to torrent downloads. There was a mixed ruling at the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit as the appeals court affirmed a jury's finding that Cox was guilty of willful contributory infringement but reversed a verdict on vicarious infringement "because Cox did not profit from its subscribers' acts of infringement." That ruling vacated a $1 billion damages award and ordered a new damages trial. Cox and Sony are both seeking a Supreme Court review. Cox wants to overturn the finding of willful contributory infringement, while Sony wants to reinstate the $1 billion verdict.
The Supreme Court asking for US input on Sony v. Cox could be a precursor to the high court taking up the case. For example, the court last year asked the solicitor general to weigh in on Texas and Florida laws that restricted how social media companies can moderate their platforms. The court subsequently took up the case and vacated lower-court rulings, making it clear that content moderation is protected by the First Amendment.
In Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, the major record labels argue that cable provider Cox should be held liable for failing to terminate users who were repeatedly flagged for infringement based on their IP addresses being connected to torrent downloads. There was a mixed ruling at the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit as the appeals court affirmed a jury's finding that Cox was guilty of willful contributory infringement but reversed a verdict on vicarious infringement "because Cox did not profit from its subscribers' acts of infringement." That ruling vacated a $1 billion damages award and ordered a new damages trial. Cox and Sony are both seeking a Supreme Court review. Cox wants to overturn the finding of willful contributory infringement, while Sony wants to reinstate the $1 billion verdict.
The Supreme Court asking for US input on Sony v. Cox could be a precursor to the high court taking up the case. For example, the court last year asked the solicitor general to weigh in on Texas and Florida laws that restricted how social media companies can moderate their platforms. The court subsequently took up the case and vacated lower-court rulings, making it clear that content moderation is protected by the First Amendment.
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Yeah that about sums it up, eh?
The idea that an "accusation" is sufficient for anything even close is ludicrous. Prove it in court, then we'll talk.
Re:NO (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, its insane that to consider "accusation" as a threshold for anything here.
But frankly, even a conviction, or even serial convictions shouldn't be the threshold here.
The internet is becoming over time an essential service, like telephone and electricity. To outright take away someones right to use it, should require something FAR beyond mere copyright infringement to even considering suspend someone's right to use it.
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And as a technical identification a mere IP address being listed on a torrent tracker fails on multiple levels.
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Says who? I've seen no evidence they take any additional effort beyond IP scraping. Which is why those blocklists that get passed around don't work.
Re:NO (Score:4, Insightful)
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not to mention that copyright laws are complete corrupt and exploitative in the first place, it's our culture, we shouldn't have to pay the upper class for use of it
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" Prove it in court, then we'll talk." The Federalist Society has populated the courts with fascists, in the old sense of the word where there is a seamless web of authority between companies and the government. In such a system, there is no recourse. The company always wins. In this sense, it probably doesn't matter what the Supreme Court decides, the jack-booted thugs of the Fed. Soc. can screw you in the lower courts. They have already got a majority on the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit. The rest a
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In other news, car manufacturers will be liable for speeding, and mail services reponsible for stolen/illegal goods being shipped.
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his bark is worse than his bite, even his negotiation skills are childish
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Think about it. We already have this problem in several markets where "someone doing bad, blacklists the physical address, paypal account, or email" and how effective is that to the person residing there?
If you start cutting off internet access, they will just go to the next ISP, and when they lose access to that ISP, they will use a mobile carrier, and when they lose access to that one they will just do wardriving and do it at the community library, school, coffee shop, etc.
Look how much a "do not enter" s
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^ Mod up
They are Internet Service *Providers* (Score:5, Insightful)
not Internet Service Police.
Policing should not be their job. It should never be their job.
Why isn't that obvious???
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I think it has to do with "common carrier" status. A common carrier has to treat everyone equally. They don't want to do that, but they don't want to be held responsible for what content they choose to carry either.
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Was AT&T responsible for phone scams or prank calls?
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In some cases they were supposed to be but most of the time they just took the scammers money.
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It probably depends who notified them about the scam. If it was the police, with a warrant, then it might be argued that failure to disconnect the number leading to more people getting ripped off could make them somewhat liable.
On the other hand some rando internet cop claiming an IP address was used for copyright infringement should be ignored, for obvious reasons.
Re: They are Internet Service *Providers* (Score:2)
âoe On the other hand some rando internet cop claiming an IP address was used for copyright infringement should be ignored, for obvious reasons.â
The important point here is theyâ(TM)re not looking for copyright infringement. Sony is arguing torrent = copyright infringement. Theyâ(TM)re asking ISPs to disconnect torrent users because they might be using torrents to get copy right material.
It's got nothing to do with common carrier (Score:2, Insightful)
They also want to be able to dox and harass their opponents. Again, without getting banned.
They do not, of course, want to extend any of this to said opponents.
None of this matters, because Section 230 of the CDA explicitly protects the creators of a software based communication platform f
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They also want to be able to dox and harass their opponents. Again, without getting banned.
A bit late for one of them [imgur.com].
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The case isn't about platforms, it is about ISPs where common carrier status does matter. If ISPs aren't treated as common carriers, than they could be held liable for piracy committed by their users.
I also don't think there's as much money on the piracy side of the battle as folks here would like to imagine. Comcast owns Universal, which is a big IP holder, and I really can't see them flying the Jolly Roger on this one.
Treating them as common carrier (Score:2, Troll)
I say "unless you're paying attention" because they've struck down dozens of laws & rules that would've increase everyone's pay, gave us cleaner and safer water and air, and stopped businesses from abusing us.
But hey, ignorance is bliss. Until it isn't.
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requires repealing S230. Or the Supreme Court could just ignore the law.
As he just told you, common carrier doesn't even apply to platforms. Furthermore, Section 230 isn't even relevant here, all of this falls squarely within the DMCA's safe harbor clause. Don't go around talking about "ignoring" the law when you obviously have been ignorant of it your entire life. How is it you're so old and so fat that you've never spent any of that massive amount of time and energy you've accrued towards educating yourself?
They've been doing that a lot lately and unless they're paying attention most right wingers agree with them.
If we use both your own definition and your own admission, you're as
DMCA safe harbor has explicit requirements (Score:2)
Assuming we are actually going to follow the laws as written then the DMCA is out the door and section 230 applies because it protects the platform owner from the legal consequences of their users actions.
The right wing is ab
Re: DMCA safe harbor has explicit requirements (Score:2)
And unless you're again going to just ignore the law and all those requirements, requirements which the cable companies among others lobbied for, then no it does not apply. Again though the supreme Court could care less about what's actually written into laws. They rule by Fiat.
That's actually what's in dispute here: Have they met their statutory requirements. Here, as is common, we have a case with a bit of ambiguity. This is exactly what the appeals process is for. The supreme court is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
Assuming we are actually going to follow the laws as written then the DMCA is out the door and section 230 applies because it protects the platform owner from the legal consequences of their users actions.
ISPs aren't platforms, crackhead. Even if there was no DMCA at all, section 230 still has zero relevance. This matter is strictly within the domain of copyright laws.
The right wing is absolutely desperate to either strip that protection entirely or to only apply it if absolutely no content moderation is done because they know that without the protections their billionaire backing means they can sue whoever opposes them into pulp and common carrier won't protect you because the right wing has unlimited resources to crap flood any forum that doesn't tow their line.
So that's why you're always whining and bitching about slashdot moderation. Given you're such
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"the Supreme Court could just ignore the law. They've been doing that a lot lately"
hey look, it's backwards day. The supreme court has finally started following the law instead of doing what they think people want them to do. You are still stuck in the propaganda your side was spouting when trying to push your coup into a full on single party system.
You lost, they lost, get ready for a whole lot of pain as everybody you've been listening to and backing goes to prison and your information network and all it'
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Somehow my post is both incoherent and yet able to be parsed by anyone who can read at a fourth grade level. I guess I'm magical!
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I didn't think of my comment as "right wing", nor do I think of myself as such. I do think if an web site wants to be immune from responsibility for what it carries, it cannot police it beyond what is proscribed by law. If a web site. or social media, or any other site curates its content, it should be held responsible for what it publishes. How does this differ from traditional media? Maybe I'm missing something.
That's actually worse (Score:1, Troll)
Propaganda works unless you're hyper aware of it to an almost unhealthy degree...
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Propaganda works unless you're hyper aware of it to an almost unhealthy degree...
On the contrary, you yourself routinely propagandize without even realizing it. You're also assuming everybody else is susceptible to it simply because you yourself can't avoid being swayed by it.
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You are right in principle but web sites are protected by section 230. His arguments are old because the left wants to kill section 230 now that Elon Musk bought twitter removed all the curation of moderate and right leaning content. This allowed millions to see 'misinformation' which is to say legitimate information which contradicted the strawmen crushing arguments on left leaning fact check sites.
Similar to Trump and Vance fact checking the false real time fact checks of the debate moderators when they c
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As it turns out there are severe side effects related to long term hormonal birth control usage and they probably should have used far more caution.
As father with two daughter, and now two granddaughters, this is a discussion that has come up several times. If the pill is so safe then why are you requiring a pelvic exam + pap smear before you'll prescribe it? Are you lying about how safe the pill is, or are you lying about why you insist on the exam? Either way, you are lying :)
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I have two daughters that aren't quite old enough for this yet. But my wife and I have discussed and the current contender is copper IUD when they get first period without explaining that it is birth control so they don't know pregnancy isn't a risk/consequence. They'll figure it out eventually but it lasts 12yrs.
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"The right wing wants to kill S230"
Try to keep up, the left wants to kill S230 now because Musk called their bluff by outright buying an existing viable platform and dismantling their censorship. Also they are and always were the nazis.
"Or Twitter. Which is somehow worse."
Yes, all that free speech *gasp* and they don't even take down the fact checks of the strawmen our fact checkers gave!! *clutches pearls*
Seriously you'd think it was 4chan instead of the fairly civil exchange of social commentary and news
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Loss of S230 protections would be a disaster for the US, but potentially a huge opportunity for Europe.
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I think it has to do with "common carrier" status. A common carrier has to treat everyone equally. They don't want to do that, but they don't want to be held responsible for what content they choose to carry either.
A common carrier does not have to treat everyone equally. They have to not discriminate on the basis of content. They can still sell different speeds, bandwidths, etc. and can charge different rates for different usage plans.
How is the ISP choosing what content to carry? What content have they blocked? Be specific.
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It IS obvious, as are most of the other simple legal arguments people are posting (such as the whole innocent until proven guilty bit).
So obvious, in fact, that I suspect "asking for input" really means "soliciting the interested parties to bribe against each other."
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Those tour bus sized RVs don't come cheap you know!
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*ding* *ding* *ding*
Why are a handful of copyright cartel organizations being actively defended by tax dollars in the first place when there is mass civil disobedience by public who are supposed to be in change and pay those tax dollars?
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Oh, it very much SHOULD be obvious.
the issue is that these copyright fools want a consistent, easily fungible target for "ALL THESE PIRATES!"
This is 100% about what is "convenient" for "Rights Holders", and 0% about what makes actual legal sense.
It is very inconvenient for eg, SONY, to build a case incriminating a specifically named defendant. It is VERY CONVENIENT for them to assert "5000 pirates using COX addresses!!"
It is very inconvenient for them to bring 5000 individual cases with individually named
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It's even worse than your analogy makes out. The police are not tasked with punishment. I'm more interested who the Internet Service Court is. Last I checked the USA had a right to due process.
In the spirit of..... (Score:1)
Stupid ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
The MPAA / RIAA have decided it's too much work to go after individual copyright infringers, so they
want to put the burden of policing the entire internet onto the ISP's themselves.
For them, it's far easier to sue one entity ( and more profitable ) than it is to go through the process
of unmasking every John / Jane Doe on the internet whom they accuse of copyright infringement.
-emphasis on accuse-
Until someone has been found guilty and exhausted all appeals, they are considered innocent until
proven otherwise in this Country. ( At least, that's how it's -supposed- to work )
You don't get to start doling out punishments until the aforementioned court processes have concluded.
( Which are expensive. Thus the reason they don't want to bother going that route. )
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The MPAA / RIAA have decided it's too much work to go after individual copyright infringers, so they want to put the burden of policing the entire internet onto the ISP's themselves.
This feels intentionally obtuse. The copyright holders go after the ISPs because they don't know which user has had a specific IP address assigned to them - But they do know which ISP has ownership of that IP address.
Furthermore, the ISP does not want to responsible for unmasking the personal data of their users - So they
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"Furthermore, the ISP does not want to responsible for unmasking the personal data of their users - So they are left with the burden of policing."
No... the burden is still with the copyright cartels. If someone borrowed money from me at your party and I didn't get their name that doesn't mean it is on you to chase them down and make them pay. Making them pay is my problem, helping me do so isn't yours just because you are able.
Re: Stupid ideas (Score:2)
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You can only send the FBI after conservatives and they are 90% less likely to infringe.
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It's even worse than you say. In the USA we've effectively reached the point where we've concluded an IP address does not identify a direct person infringing. But this is precisely what they are going after ISPs for. By shifting the blame they are trying to reset the argument.
Accused? (Score:1)
Not "found guilty of"?
It seems that Sony has stolen the plot of my new movie. It is about the beginnings of a new corporatist police state where the right to due process under the law no longer exists.
I say: Unplug their Internet.
Re:Accused? (Score:1)
accused of copyright infringement with no trail an (Score:2)
accused of copyright infringement with no trail and poor standard of evidence?
Uh... NO (Score:4, Funny)
I can barely trust the ISPs to provide an accurate invoice, why would I trust them with getting the law correct?
If ISPs are liable for repeat offenders (Score:5, Insightful)
Then copyright holders need to be liable for false reports. Preferably criminally liable, for whoever puts their name to the complaint without verifying it is valid. At the very least, any lawyers (and it's always a lawyer) who put their name to a false complaint should be automatically disbarred, absent any evidence of deliberate deception against them.
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Yup. Most of the time they just scrap IP's from torrents. That means anyone could just pop up a metallica song attaching their modified tracker and have it list IP's of their enemies to get their access shutdown.
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We call them gratuities now, thank you very much. https://www.scotusblog.com/202... [scotusblog.com]
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Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I don't think you are stupid enough to truly believe anything you just said.
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I heard a rumor that Musk is going to buy it and try to turn it into a news station. That would be hillarious.
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The truth is that the poster above is right, this protects both parties. I thought it stunk that Obama killed a US citizen with a drone and without any court process whatsoever. And there is no statue of limitations on murder.
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Copyright vs. Guns (Score:4, Interesting)
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If some product is found to have been used in a crime
Wrong. It's taken away if the item is suspected of having been used in a crime, and the owner cannot prove on the spot that it was not used in a crime. Its a blatant presumed-guilty-until-proven-innocent legal doctrine and so is outright unconstitutional (though it has not been ruled as such). It's a corrupt law that is used by corrupt law enforcement to their own profit. This is the opposite of a good model to follow.
I also disagree that gun manufact
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this is known as "civil forfeiture", and no, it doesn't require somebody to be found guilty
It appears that the tide might be turning [slashdot.org] on this.
At any rate, the whole "product is found to have been used in a crime" seems silly without a criminal and a guilty verdict. The internet connection doesn't just connect to a torrent site on its own and download stuff. The crime requires intent and intent requires sentience.
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this is known as "civil forfeiture", and no, it doesn't require somebody to be found guilty
You say that like it's a good thing.
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Treat them like the phone company... (Score:2)
The phone company isn't liable if someone plays copyrighted music down the phone line, why should that same phone company be liable if someone sends the same music down the same phone line except as digital bits instead of analog audio?
phone company is not liable for drug deals at the (Score:2)
phone company is not liable for drug deals at the pay phone!
what happens when an upstream ISP cuts off an 911 (Score:2)
what happens when an upstream ISP cuts off an 911 center
based on an accusation to some place in the city that may have free wifi or free internet access.
And the accusation flags an IP that is part of some city / area network link.
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Halfway surprised they didn't wait a bit... (Score:2)
Wouldn't Trump have an impact on some of the staff for this? I don't know all the details of what they can or can't pick/change when they swap presidents, but...
Meaning would a Trump selected Attorney General say something different?
Input? (Score:3)
Input?
Does said input happen to come in the form of luxury RVs?
Is Turnabout Fair Play? (Score:2)
If it's found out that Sony has an album with a song which has been stolen from another artist...will the company be kicked off the Apple Store?
In other news... (Score:2)
Ahh, so... (Score:3)
Obviously not (Score:3)
Why do these no-insight, no-practicality ideas crop up time and again? Is this, again, bog-ego "judges" not actually getting some minimal insight into the matter they are asked do decide on? Because all it takes here is maybe half a day of reading. And look, they waste tons of money instead and create FUD. What a fail.
Only if other industries are similar (Score:1)
How is this different from a car? (Score:2)
GM puts OnStar in all of their vehicles, whether buyers subscribe or not. Let's imagine they all subscribe for the sake of this discussion.
So, GM has the ability to know where a vehicle is at all times, and in most cases they probably don't pay much attention (other than selling that data.) In theory they could do real-time analysis to detect a road-rage drivers, although that would be quite expensive. Imagine said road-rage driver hits a pedestrian and injures/kills them. Is GM now vicariously responsi
Don't accept it (Score:2)
It's a mislead. Assuming anything else but a dumb pipe is the wrong direction and is simply a setup for sideways action later. The pipes are dumb (alldata/anydata). Don't give legitimacy to this.
No legal precident (Score:2)
Are Ford and GM liable when bank robbers use their vehicle as the getaway car? What about companies who knit ski masks? How about the store that sold the ski mask? Is the registered owner of the car that was stolen to be the getaway car liable?
What the plaintiffs in this case want is to not have to do any work or spend any money to combat piracy which fits with their business model of creating content once and making money off it forever.
MAFIAA should get bent (Score:2)