High Court orders British ISPs to block "The Pirate Bay"

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

But normally you would have to prove the infringement by taking them to court, and this process bypasses the possibility of the websites to defend themselves.

The court has no jurisdiction over the sites themselves; that's exactly the reason that this process exists.

And just because a separate legal application is required for each site now, doesn't mean that this will always be a requirement.

That would require a change in the law. Of course any law could theoretically be passed in the future.

[Turtle91]

I can't really argue what the site's in question may or may not have done. I don't use those sites - and am not familiar with how they work, other than what has bee talked about here. From what I understand these sites do not actually distribute or store illegal/copyright material, they facilitate the distribution between individuals by maintaining a list of addresses on where to get said material. Is that about it??

The court ordered Internet Service Providers to block access to these sites because of a claim filed by the "aggrieved". This overt censorship is justified because the "site has a proven record of infringing the right holder's intellectual property rights." I would be very hesitant to use the word "proven" unless it has in fact been "proven". From a legal standpoint that would mean that it has been through the legal process of a trial where evidence is presented for and against and decided upon by a judge, would it not?? Any lawyer's out there to clarify that point?

I am certainly NOT defending the activities of these sites...those kinds of activities are definitely wrong...but I am even more against what appears to be blind censorship on the part of a government judicial system...and by blind I mean not allowing both sides to argue their case - no disrespect to any site-challenged who may be reading this. [edit: I didn't really just say that did I...must be time to go to bed!]

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by afv011

Indeed. And then there's the classic case of search engines - you could argue that they allow piracy as well, you can find torrents there for illegal material.

But as long as they process DMCA takedown requests, they are covered by the Safe Harbor regulations, and immune.
Google have processed 14.75 million requests in the last month:
http://www.google.com/transparencyre...als/copyright/
Details for
KAT: http://www.google.com/transparencyre...omains/kat.ph/
H33T: http://www.google.com/transparencyre...ains/h33t.com/
Fenopy: http://www.google.com/transparencyre...ins/fenopy.eu/

Google have received requests to remove 433,343 URLs for H33T. At $50 per URL, it would cost 21M$ to remove them from H33T itself.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The ISP's were not "taken to court" in the sense of being accused of having done anything wrong. What's happened here is a legal process that's been established to allow a rights holder to request that a specific web site be blocked, in cases where the site itself is outside the jurisdiction of the court, and the site has a proven record of infringing the right holder's intellectual property rights. A separate legal application is required for each site for which a blocking order is requested - this isn't any kind of a blanket process.

Why were the ISPs listed as defendants? And if a separate legal application is required for each site, why were three different sites named?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Why were the ISPs listed as defendants?

Because it is the ISPs who are being asked to take action.
The ISPs don't really care one way or the other whether they block the site, but they cannot enforce a block voluntarily without losing their safe harbour status. Therefore there needs to be a legal action forcing them to do so, to safeguard their own legal position.
That is why none of the ISPs actually defended the action, they don't care.

And if a separate legal application is required for each site, why were three different sites named?

From the first paragraph of the case:

The Claimants are record companies claiming on their own behalf and in a representative capacity on behalf of the other members of BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Ltd ("BPI") and Phonographic Performance Ltd ("PPL"). The Defendants are the six main retail internet service providers ("ISPs") in the United Kingdom. Between them they have a fixed line market share of some 94% of UK internet users. By this claim the Claimants seek an injunction against the Defendants pursuant to section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ("the 1988 Act"), which implements Article 8(3) of European Parliament and Council Directive 2001/29/EC of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society ("the Information Society Directive"), requiring the Defendants to take measures to block or at least impede access by their customers to three peer-to-peer ("P2P") file-sharing websites called KAT (claim HC12F4957), H33T (claim HC12F4958) and Fenopy (claim HC12F4959) (collectively "the Websites").

There were three separate claims, heard together.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The court has no jurisdiction over the sites themselves; that's exactly the reason that this process exists.

Consider this: if a website is under the jurisdiction of the court, would the court still use this process?

Originally Posted by HarryT

That would require a change in the law. Of course any law could theoretically be passed in the future.

Are you sure that this is required? Is there a law that is stopping this from being "High Court orders British ISPs to block all torrent sites"?

Originally Posted by murraypaul

But as long as they process DMCA takedown requests, they are covered by the Safe Harbor regulations, and immune.
Google have processed 14.75 million requests in the last month:
http://www.google.com/transparencyre...als/copyright/
Details for
KAT: http://www.google.com/transparencyre...omains/kat.ph/
H33T: http://www.google.com/transparencyre...ains/h33t.com/
Fenopy: http://www.google.com/transparencyre...ins/fenopy.eu/

Google have received requests to remove 433,343 URLs for H33T. At $50 per URL, it would cost 21M$ to remove them from H33T itself.

And here we see the wonderful world of copyright: a right of the corporations, not of the authors.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Consider this: if a website is under the jurisdiction of the court, would the court still use this process?

No, they would sue to get the site itself taken down.

See Newzbin (1): http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.../2010/608.html
The site then relocated outside the juristiction and reopened, leading to Newzbin (2): http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2011/1981.html, which in turn lead to the cases being discussed here.

And here we see the wonderful world of copyright: a right of the corporations, not of the authors.

You think authors were happy that 433,343 of their works were being illegally shared on H33T?
And H33T is a profit making organisation. A corporation, really.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

No, they would sue to get the site itself taken down.

See Newzbin (1): http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.../2010/608.html
The site then relocated outside the juristiction and reopened, leading to Newzbin (2): http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2011/1981.html, which in turn lead to the cases being discussed here.

And how long is it going to take until they stop going after the websites and just get the ISPs to block them? The legal system works (as much as it does) because there is also a defense. The court now has a procedure in place that bypasses the defense.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

You think authors were happy that 433,343 of their works were being illegally shared on H33T?
And H33T is a profit making organisation. A corporation, really.

The works aren't theirs anymore. Corporations own them.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

And how long is it going to take until they stop going after the websites and just get the ISPs to block them? The legal system works (as much as it does) because there is also a defense. The court now has a procedure in place that bypasses the defense.

As has been explained to you on several occasions already, this process is only used in cases where the site lies outside the jurisdiction of the court. It's pointless to speculate on hypothetical ways in which the law might be changed in the future. As things stand, this is the law.

The works aren't theirs anymore. Corporations own them.

Nonsense. If a book is sold by a publisher, or a record is sold by a record company, they don't "own" it. Copyright is still retained by the author.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nonsense. If a book is sold by a publisher, or a record is sold by a record company, they don't "own" it. Copyright is still retained by the author.

This is almost never the case in music anymore. It still is the case for most fiction books. Non-fiction is all over. Publishers are trying to change it though so that authors can never get their rights back even in fiction.

Greg

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by gweeks

This is almost never the case in music anymore.

We're perhaps talking about two different things here.

The "musical work" copyright is held by the person who wrote it. The "sound recording" copyright is (almost always) held by the record company.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

As has been explained to you on several occasions already, this process is only used in cases where the site lies outside the jurisdiction of the court. It's pointless to speculate on hypothetical ways in which the law might be changed in the future. As things stand, this is the law.

Nobody pointed to a law which specifies that this process is only used in cases where the site lies outside the jurisdiction of the court. This is the current practice, not the current law.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nonsense. If a book is sold by a publisher, or a record is sold by a record company, they don't "own" it. Copyright is still retained by the author.

If you look at the links murraypaul gave in post #483, under copyright owners you have the companies, not people.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

If you look at the links murraypaul gave in post #483, under copyright owners you have the companies, not people.

That's the copyright to the performance. As I said in my previous message, the work (which is what you referred to in your earlier message) is owned by whoever wrote it. The terms can be confusing. But it really doesn't matter - it's still copyright infringement either way.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's the copyright to the performance. As I said in my previous message, the work (which is what you referred to in your earlier message) is owned by whoever wrote it. The terms can be confusing. But it really doesn't matter - it's still copyright infringement either way.

Really? Because youtube videos of people singing songs that are under copyright were removed by record companies. If the companies only have the copyright to performances, then they shouldn't have the right to get the videos removed.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Really? Because youtube videos of people singing songs that are under copyright were removed by record companies. If the companies only have the copyright to performances, then they shouldn't have the right to get the videos removed.

Yes, really . There's an excellent summary of the (very complicated) way that it all works here, if you're interested in learning more.