Popular file-sharing search site isoHunt may be the next inline, behind sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay, to fall to legal actions brought forth by the MPAA.
isoHunt has been in a long standing legal battle, one that the MPAA has won on many fronts. A federal court sided last year with the MPAA, ruling that Isohunt was liable for secondary copyright infringement. Gary Fung, the 27-year-old Canadian who runs isoHunt, said he and the MPAA are now battling over how to comply with the March 23 injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles.
“It is axiomatic that the availability of free infringing copies of plaintiffs’ works through defendants’ websites irreparably undermines the growing legitimate market (.pdf) for consumers to purchase access to the same works,” Wilson wrote in support of his injunction. The judge added that “upwards of 95 percent of all dot-torrent files downloaded from defendants’ websites” return infringing material or works “at least highly likely to be infringing.”
Wilson ordered Fung to comply within his order within 14 days of the MPAA providing Fung a list of content to be removed giving the parties until April 12 to hammer out an agreement.
In order for Fung and isoHunt to comply with the judge's ruling the site would effectively have to investigate every single file and or link returned by the site's search engine to see whether it's legal or not. Unfortunately this type of hands on verification would be nearly impossible to implement. Therefore it looks like Fung will have little to no choice but to shutter the site for good.
“Filtering against keywords. It amounts to nothing less than taking down our search engine,” Fung said in a telephone interview with Wired.com. His position is that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requires Hollywood and the MPAA to provide links to infringed files to be removed, nit just a simple keyword filter.
Keyword searches, he said, could scoop up non-infringing works adding such keyword filtering is nearly impossible to implement if it's to have any sort of precision, nor can it avoid conflict with fair use cases, free commerce, or extra-territorial law.
isoHunt is not the only site affected by the judge’s ruling. Torrent sites Torrentbox and Podtropolis may to be affected.
Read More:
ARS Technica - IsoHunt told to pull .torrent files offline, likely to close
Wired.com - Isohunt Ordered to Remove Infringing Content
Showing posts with label mpaa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mpaa. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Judge Continues Restraining Oder in MPAA, RealNetworks Case
A federal judge on Tuesday upheld an earlier decision and banned RealNetworks from selling RealDVD, its DVD-copying software.
Federal court judge Judge Marilyn Patel issued a tentative decision in the case on Friday requiring that sales be halted pending a hearing Tuesday. Today she renewed that decision blocking all sales of RealNetworks' RealDVD software.
After a three-hour hearing she kept her decision intact so she could have additional time to learn for sure whether RealDVD circumvents encryption software in violation of the DMCA.
Judge Patel suggested there was enough evidence, at least for now, of a DMCA violation. "I'm not satisfied that in fact this technology is not in violation of the DMCA," Patel ruled from the bench.
In their argument against a temporary restraining order, Real claims that it is complying with the terms of its DVD-CSS (Content Scrambling System) license and that the studios have no claim under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).
RealNetworks attorney James DiBoise countered: "This is literally a bit for bit copy of the dvd and continued by saying consumers had a "fair use right" to copy DVDs for personal use.
More information on the lawsuits: MPAA, RealNetworks Sue Each Other Over DVD Copying
Federal court judge Judge Marilyn Patel issued a tentative decision in the case on Friday requiring that sales be halted pending a hearing Tuesday. Today she renewed that decision blocking all sales of RealNetworks' RealDVD software.
After a three-hour hearing she kept her decision intact so she could have additional time to learn for sure whether RealDVD circumvents encryption software in violation of the DMCA.
Judge Patel suggested there was enough evidence, at least for now, of a DMCA violation. "I'm not satisfied that in fact this technology is not in violation of the DMCA," Patel ruled from the bench.
In their argument against a temporary restraining order, Real claims that it is complying with the terms of its DVD-CSS (Content Scrambling System) license and that the studios have no claim under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).
RealNetworks attorney James DiBoise countered: "This is literally a bit for bit copy of the dvd and continued by saying consumers had a "fair use right" to copy DVDs for personal use.
More information on the lawsuits: MPAA, RealNetworks Sue Each Other Over DVD Copying
Monday, October 06, 2008
RealDVD Temporarily Shut Down
Chris Albrecht at NewTeeVee is reporting that the RealDVD site has been temporarily taken down until at least Tuesday when a judge will review the matter. This comes following lawsuits filled by both RealNetworks and the MPAA last week. (see previous story)
RealNetworks gained a minor legal victory by having the case moved from a Central District Court of California in Los Angeles (the studios’ home turf) to a Northern District court.
RealNetworks is asking for a declaratory judgment against DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., NBC Universal, Inc., Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., and Viacom, Inc., in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that the RealDVD software fully complies with the DVD Copy Control Association’s license agreement.
RealNetworks gained a minor legal victory by having the case moved from a Central District Court of California in Los Angeles (the studios’ home turf) to a Northern District court.
RealNetworks is asking for a declaratory judgment against DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., NBC Universal, Inc., Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., and Viacom, Inc., in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that the RealDVD software fully complies with the DVD Copy Control Association’s license agreement.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
MPAA, RealNetworks Sue Each Other Over DVD Copying
On Tuesday the MPAA and RealNetworks filed lawsuits against each other over a dispute about whether RealNetworks' DVD-copying software violates movie studios' copyrights.
The Motion Picture Association of America filed its suit in Los Angeles federal court, accusing RealNetworks of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by making it possible for people to bypass copyright protection and make copies of movies on a PC. The studio organization also asks the court to stop RealNetworks from selling its RealDVD software. (MPAA Press Release - PDF)
The plaintiffs in the suit against RealNetworks include Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures, News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox, General Electric Co.'s Universal, The Walt Disney Co.'s Disney studio, and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros.
RealNetworks, on the other hand, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Northern California, asking the court to rule that the company's software fully complies with the DVD Copy Control Association's license agreement. The DVD-CCA develops the studio-sanctioned data-scrambling technology in DVDs that makes it difficult to copy the content. RealNetworks is a licensee. (RealNetworks Press Release)
The Nuts and Bolts of it:
The MPAA is alleging that the RealDVD software enables users to engage in an illegal practice known as “rent, rip and return,” where a person rents a DVD from a legitimate business like Blockbuster or Netflix, uses the RealDVD software to make multiple permanent illegal copies of the movie (they are illegal since you don't own the movie), and returns the DVD to repeat the process over and over again. The same scenario could occur when borrowing a friends' DVD collections, simply borrow the DVD, rip it to your PC and return it.
The problem is that RealNetworks has said the software only enables DVDs to be copied onto up to five computers. The one holding the main RealDVD license and up to four extra PCs holding program licenses and does not alter the discs' encryption technology meant to prevent wide-scale piracy. The cost involved includes $50 for the first retail copy as well as $20 for each additional license, who in their right mind is going to pay that just to rip and return DVDs?
RealNetworks claims that RealDVD does not remove or alter the CSS encryption and even adds additional DRM to the file saved on the hard drive. A ripped file supposedly cannot be played on another computer unless that computer runs another license of RealDVD (at the extra cost) as well. So in order to share these copies with anyone outside your licensed circle of PCs they'd also need to be RealDVD license owners.
The MPAA of course isn't agreeing with RealNetworks' argument. In its suit, the organization said RealDVD should be called "StealDVD." The group said the purpose of the copyright protection on DVDs is to prevent any copying of the content without the permission of movie studios. "The RealDVD software illegally circumvents this copyright protection system," the group said in a statement.
The movie studios have always claimed that illegal mass distribution of ripped movies across the Internet is their main concern. This scenario of illegally copying and sharing DVDs simply is not supported by RealDVD in any way. File sharers aren't going to shell out $50 for a program that relies on such a heavy use of DRM.
With the amount of freely available software available that will perform the same functions with extremely less limitation, it is hard to imagine a scenario where someone wanting to perform any of the acts that the MPAA are concerned would purchase RealDVD. Personally I really don't see why someone would purchase RealDVD to begin with.
The Motion Picture Association of America filed its suit in Los Angeles federal court, accusing RealNetworks of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by making it possible for people to bypass copyright protection and make copies of movies on a PC. The studio organization also asks the court to stop RealNetworks from selling its RealDVD software. (MPAA Press Release - PDF)
The plaintiffs in the suit against RealNetworks include Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures, News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox, General Electric Co.'s Universal, The Walt Disney Co.'s Disney studio, and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros.
RealNetworks, on the other hand, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Northern California, asking the court to rule that the company's software fully complies with the DVD Copy Control Association's license agreement. The DVD-CCA develops the studio-sanctioned data-scrambling technology in DVDs that makes it difficult to copy the content. RealNetworks is a licensee. (RealNetworks Press Release)
The Nuts and Bolts of it:
The MPAA is alleging that the RealDVD software enables users to engage in an illegal practice known as “rent, rip and return,” where a person rents a DVD from a legitimate business like Blockbuster or Netflix, uses the RealDVD software to make multiple permanent illegal copies of the movie (they are illegal since you don't own the movie), and returns the DVD to repeat the process over and over again. The same scenario could occur when borrowing a friends' DVD collections, simply borrow the DVD, rip it to your PC and return it.
"The incentive for the consumer is obvious and all but overwhelming," the studios said in a request for a temporary restraining order. "'Why,' he or she may ask, 'should I pay $18.50 to purchase a DVD when I can rent it for $3.25 and make a permanent copy?'"
The problem is that RealNetworks has said the software only enables DVDs to be copied onto up to five computers. The one holding the main RealDVD license and up to four extra PCs holding program licenses and does not alter the discs' encryption technology meant to prevent wide-scale piracy. The cost involved includes $50 for the first retail copy as well as $20 for each additional license, who in their right mind is going to pay that just to rip and return DVDs?
RealNetworks claims that RealDVD does not remove or alter the CSS encryption and even adds additional DRM to the file saved on the hard drive. A ripped file supposedly cannot be played on another computer unless that computer runs another license of RealDVD (at the extra cost) as well. So in order to share these copies with anyone outside your licensed circle of PCs they'd also need to be RealDVD license owners.
The MPAA of course isn't agreeing with RealNetworks' argument. In its suit, the organization said RealDVD should be called "StealDVD." The group said the purpose of the copyright protection on DVDs is to prevent any copying of the content without the permission of movie studios. "The RealDVD software illegally circumvents this copyright protection system," the group said in a statement.
The movie studios have always claimed that illegal mass distribution of ripped movies across the Internet is their main concern. This scenario of illegally copying and sharing DVDs simply is not supported by RealDVD in any way. File sharers aren't going to shell out $50 for a program that relies on such a heavy use of DRM.
With the amount of freely available software available that will perform the same functions with extremely less limitation, it is hard to imagine a scenario where someone wanting to perform any of the acts that the MPAA are concerned would purchase RealDVD. Personally I really don't see why someone would purchase RealDVD to begin with.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
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