Websites seized/closed for Copyright

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I am saying that copyright law imposes no such duty on a web site such as MR. The Canadian Copyright Act (which applies to MR, located in Canada) is here. I'd appreciate it if you'd be good enough to point out which part of the Act imposes the duty that you say that we have.

Harry, my analogy was clear that is all that is required.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

ie, it's your responsibility to check before downloading.

So you are saying that in your interpretation of copyright law, it is everyone's responsibility to research the copyright status of the target of a link (which they haven't seen yet), every time they click their mouse. Under that interpretation, I would bet that almost everyone on the internet is guilty of copyright infringement.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The web site's responsibility is to ensure that the files it's hosting are legal in its location.

I see. So in your opinion, if a filesharing site hosts it's servers in a country that doesn't honor copyright, then it would be perfectly acceptable for then to distribute any content they want? Just want to make sure I got that right.

[astrangerhere]

I copy this from another source and the emphasis added is my own. This is in addition to Big Sis' ICE efforts.

United States Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat from Oregon) said this month that he would hold an Internet anti-counterfeiting and infringement bill from moving forward — thus possibly delaying its chances for passage until the next session of Congress. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), has a provision allowing the Justice Department to pursue restraining orders, preliminary injunctions, and injunctions against websites that have "no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than" copyright-infringing activities. It would also hold credit card companies and other partners liable. Wyden called the bill a "bunker-busting cluster bomb when what you really need is a precision-guided missile."

[DMSmillie]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's not really true Harry. The book may be out of copyright in one country but not another and that makes it a violation of copyright to that country. You are trying to push the onus on the user instead of complying with the law.

What law? That's the heart of this issue. According to Harry, MR is complying with "the law". It just happens to be the law in Canada, where the servers are located. No different to what Project Gutenberg does, except that they are located in the US, I believe, so they try to ensure that they are in compliance with US law.

You appear to be arguing in favour of websites being subject to laws in countries other than the one in which they are physically located, which opens a real can of worms. I doubt many in the US or the UK would be in favour of the Chinese or Russian legal systems having jurisdiction over websites located in the US or the UK.

An alternative might be to do a location check based on a visitor's IP address, but as we all know from the many discussions on these boards, it's easy to fake that using proxies.

It seems to me that all one can be expected to do is ensure that a website is fully compliant with the laws of the country in which it is based, and make it clear to visitors that it's up to them to ensure that they are not breaking the laws of the country where they are located if they download specific material.

Originally Posted by kennyc

If what you are claiming is true then any ol' pirate site could put up a disclaimer and be in the clear as well.

Strictly speaking, if the material the site contains is legal according to the laws of the country where it is based, then, other than blocking access to the site for all IP addresses based in one's own country, where the material is not legal, and making official complaints to the legislators/politicians in the hosting country, I'm not sure what else can legally be done about it. Different, of course, if the site is located in the US, for example - then it comes under the jurisdiction of US law.

- Donna

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I see. So in your opinion, if a filesharing site hosts it's servers in a country that doesn't honor copyright, then it would be perfectly acceptable for then to distribute any content they want? Just want to make sure I got that right.

Acceptable? No, of course not. But it wouldn't, by definition, be a breach of copyright to host such material in a country which has no copyright law (Afghanistan is an example of such a country).

Do you believe otherwise?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

So you are saying that in your interpretation of copyright law, it is everyone's responsibility to research the copyright status of the target of a link (which they haven't seen yet), every time they click their mouse. Under that interpretation, I would bet that almost everyone on the internet is guilty of copyright infringement.

Yes. And that too is the interpretation of sites such as Project Gutenberg. Do you believe otherwise?

Just stop and consider for a moment. What actually is the alternative? That every web server in the world must contain complex code to check the copyright status of all downloads in every country in the world? Not a terribly practical idea, is it?

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

So you are saying that in your interpretation of copyright law, it is everyone's responsibility to research the copyright status of the target of a link (which they haven't seen yet), every time they click their mouse. Under that interpretation, I would bet that almost everyone on the internet is guilty of copyright infringement.

While not referring specifically to ebooks the US Supreme Court in their refusal to hear Monday the case of the 16yo music downloader let a ruling from the 5th Circuit stand. Her lawyers claimed "innocent infringement." The Court disagreed saying she should have known the copyright status before downloading. The notice is printed on the CDs and that is sufficient even though no one was in possession of CDs.

Evidently, the law from 1988 requires us to go to the store or research online the copyright status before initiating all downloads.

The case is Harper v. Maverick Recording Company, 10-94.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Okay, you want to be serious about this, let's be serious. My point is that Pirate sites could say the same thing. Would they then be absolved or all culpability? I think not.

I took your comment as meaning that the pirate sites could be based in the US as long as they had a "check copyright in your country" disclaimer. And that those in other countries may access the files if legally permitted. And you believe they should not be allowed to host such files.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Certainly it is. But if you, in the United States, choose to download a book from MR that is not in the US public domain, then it's you that's breaking US copyright law, not MR. That's why we have a banner on all the book download pages saying:



ie, it's your responsibility to check before downloading.

Looking through the Patricia Clark Memorial Library I see there is quite a bit there that is not public domain in the US.

[DMSmillie]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Looking through the Patricia Clark Memorial Library I see there is quite a bit there that is not public domain in the US.

However MobileRead is located on servers in Canada, so what matters, surely, from a legal perspective, is whether or not the material is in the public domain according to Canadian law?

- Donna

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DMSmillie

However MobileRead is located on servers in Canada, so what matters, surely, from a legal perspective, is whether or not the material is in the public domain according to Canadian law?

- Donna

That doesn't seem to matter when we are talking pirate sites.

[Sil_liS]

From my favorite torrent website:

July 4, 2010 - US users, welcome to the lighter and lightning-fast isoHunt! Although we bring this new search engine to you with a burden from the lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we hope you understand the reason why we are making this change. We are addressing concerns Judge Wilson has expressed over inducing copyright infringement in the United States. Though inducement is never our intention (and we have evidence to support it), with isoHunt Lite we want to affirm publicly that isoHunt's essential function is merely to provide a search engine and a public utility with all the net neutrality it affords and should be afforded.

Why would you still use isoHunt, you ask now that it's just like Google and Yahoo, and you can search for torrents with those? While we won't dispute that claim, there's a fundamental difference: On isoHunt Lite you get ranking by constantly updated seeds/leechers and ratings, statistics specific for BitTorrent, in addition to search relevancy and age. A general search engine also do not group as one multiple, identical torrents spread on different websites on the Web. Your continued use of isoHunt will also support our upcoming appeal against the MPAA, and we thank you in advance.

We protest we are required by US injunction to keyword filter for US users as we view it as censorship and a violation of your freedom of speech, and we are appealing this. The DMCA mandates with good reason that copyright notice and takedowns requested by copyright holders be done under penalty of perjury with accurate identifcation, with standard practice of links or URLs, not broad mucking with the dictionary. If you want to join us in protest, share this by Tweet, Facebook, etc. and write to Congress. Donation to organizations like the EFF will also help.

UPDATE: Regular isoHunt interface now available again to US users.

I don't know when the regular interface was available again to the US, since I didn't have this problem to begin with, but I guess that it is clear what the court decided.

From the Copyright Policy page:

If you represent a copyright holder and email our copyright@ addresses without fully reading and understanding this policy, you accept that any further email from you may be refused by our servers. You additionally accept and understand that email from you may or may not be published publicly by us or any 3rd party of our choice (such as the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse). This means please don't send 'privacy notice' signatures with your copyright emails.
...
On the subject of jurisdiction, please refrain from sending allegedly infringing links to content which was NOT produced in your country, unless representatives of either the Canadian or US rights-holders have contacted us prior to your notice being sent. They'll need to email us a note giving you explicit permission to submit takedowns on their behalf, as well as provide their name, phone number and job title. This requirement is so that if for some reason you fail to understand repeated warnings about accuracy -- such as sending us links which neither you nor the rights-holder could possibly be construed as owning, we have someone to speak to about your lack of accuracy (under penalty of perjury).
...
Note that as of Jan. 22, 2007, we have moved servers to Canada and are no longer subject to US DMCA laws. We are keeping this copyright policy and procedure modeled after the DMCA, as it worked for us and for copyright owners in the past, and we find this procedure and takedown process to be mostly fair.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by DMSmillie

However MobileRead is located on servers in Canada, so what matters, surely, from a legal perspective, is whether or not the material is in the public domain according to Canadian law?

The material is located in Canada, where it's legal, but the MR forums are giving out links to material that's not legal to download for many of its members.

Torrent sites often don't host any material at all; they just share links. Why is it okay to shut down a torrent-linking site, which shows where files are available to download even if that's illegal in your location, but not okay to shut down MR, which shows where files are available to download even if that's illegal in your location?

The legal logic is the same in both cases. MR can perhaps claim that the majority of its activity is not filesharing, but by that logic, any torrent-linking site that has an active messageboard could avoid prosecution. (And many of them do.)

There hasn't yet been a precedent established that "it's legal to point people to files it'd be illegal for them to download, as long as those files are legal where they're hosted." If that were the case, one could get around all the issues by buying server space in Afghanistan.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by DMSmillie

However MobileRead is located on servers in Canada, so what matters, surely, from a legal perspective, is whether or not the material is in the public domain according to Canadian law?

- Donna

My comment was directed to the other Americans on MR. Sorry.

There are items that are still in US copyright and shouldn't be downloaded from the library by other Americans.