Pirate Party Launched Another Movie Portal

The Czech Pirate Party launched “Linking is Not a Crime” campaign back in July, which was a sign of protest against a teenage being fined $7 million for simply providing links to copyrighted content. Earlier, in frames of this campaign the Czech Pirate Party had already launched 2 film download portals, where it was providing links without hosting the information itself.

The high school student in question was a 16-year-old Liberec resident. He was accused by the Czech Anti-Piracy Union for offering links to copyright content and is now demanded to pay over $7 million in damage. In response, the Pirate Party has opened another portal, called Moviehome and also referred to as “Facebook for movies”.

The head of the local Pirate Party claimed that sharing of links is actually a principle without which the web would cease to function, and that’s why they were regularly fighting against the criminalization of linking. The party also pointed out that the Czech Anti-Piracy Union had no idea what to do, as they were probably focusing on the court action with the student, hoping that they might claim all of the party’s sites are against the law. At the same time, the Union also didn’t want to give them publicity and didn’t have much to say, because really the Pirate Party’s websites were legal.

The party claimed they would support Moviehome as long as it maintains its non-commercial status, since they are a party which doesn’t want to depend on the finances from online advertising. This is the reason for all of their linking websites being strictly non-profit. However, the party believes that for others there is nothing wrong about running commercial linking sites – actually, Google has been doing so for a while now.

The party noted that they would also welcome anyone with such project who asks for their support – for example, the Pirate Party has already sent open invitations to The Pirate Bay to make use of Czech hosting in case legal matters force the BitTorrent tracker to do that.

In addition, apart from the three Czech linking websites there comes the Pirate Party Canada’s Travis McCrea’s website, which means that pirates simply decided they couldn’t lose that war. The party is sure that if the country’s court rules linking is a crime, the public uproar would get the party into parliament, because public hates to lose rights they already had, particularly when they fought hard to obtain them.

Canadians Opposed Surveillance Legislation

The governing party of Canada – the Conservatives – was planning an omnibus crime legislation which was supposed to include surveillance provision. Although the bill is not yet tabled, opposition to this bill is already growing.

Recently the web was hit by the suggestions that the Canadian surveillance bill may be bundled in to omnibus crime legislation and tabled in the near future. That wasn’t exactly news for industry observers, but the news was that multiple experts, academics and organizations have stepped up to formally oppose the bill in question. They have recently sent an open letter to Prime Minister where they voiced their concerns about the proposed legislation. The opposers cited previous laws making up the surveillance legislation in the last government session and expressed their concerns about them. The particular concern is that three of the proposed bills would have serious negative implications for the privacy rights of the citizens. In addition, the controversial aspects would not receive the scrutiny they deserve if they were rolled into an omnibus bill.

The main focus of concern was the ease by which the country’s ISPs, social networks, and even their handsets and cars can be turned into instruments to spy on their activities, thus implicating fundamental rights and freedoms. In addition, the letter contains a very detailed list of other concerns, warning that the costs of enforcing such measures would finally be passed on to consumers, because it is a new cost of doing business for Internet service providers. Actually, it has precedent: in France, when the country’s government forced Internet service providers to adopt a “three-strikes” regime, the broadband providers just passed the costs of implementing the system on to their subscribers.

Although the letter was signed by a lot of people and organizations, there’s a difference between when the citizens were fighting dangerous bills in the past and today. The matter is that the Conservatives have a majority government, which means they are able to pass whatever bills they want without fearing an opposition. In other words, no evidence or reason would matter to the government, it will simply legislate how it likes, and this is the government the country is stuck with.

The Pirate Bay Sued By Finnish Record Labels

The largest BitTorrent tracker site in the world The Pirate Bay has been sued again. Now the plaintiffs are more than twenty record labels from Finland, desperately attempting to halt piracy in their country. The petition to block The Pirate Bay was sent by the country's Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center on behalf of the IFPI.

Finnish pro-copyright outfit, which claims its goal is to ensure favorable operational conditions for the recording industry in the country, represents 23 record labels that launched a lawsuit at the Helsinki District Court. Like other similar outfits, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in Finland required the court to order telecommunications company called Elisa to deny access to a popular Swedish site providing Internet users with access to copyrighted content like music, films, and other material. The representative of the IFPI claimed that a legitimate online market can’t develop in country if infringing services like The Pirate Bay are allowed to go on with their operations.

In response, the Internet service provider argued that it doesn't condone piracy in the Internet, and refused to block access to The Pirate Bay unless the court orders it to do so.

Founded 8 years ago, the BitTorrent tracker allows millions of people to share copyrighted content through BitTorrent technology, or P2P links offered on the website. Two years ago, the website founders were fined and sentenced to prison for copyright infringement, but The Pirate Bay is still operational. However, the members of the service are still being pursued.

For example, recently the Denmark judge ruled that the website member nicknamed Icenfire should pay over $35,000 in damages for movie upload. The movie in question was Anders Matthesen’s comedy of 2009, “Black balls”, which was released on Blu-ray in the country, but the United States and Canada never saw the movie in the stores. The fine included the cost of the violation itself ($28,000) and associated court costs ($7,500). The individual was singled out by a Danish pro-copyright group, which claimed he was the original uploader. The outfit had raided his home in Denmark back in February, right after the routine analysis revealed the unauthorized upload

Sony Turned To Rootkits Again?

Sony’s problems with PlayStation 3 began when its root keys were discovered and published in the Internet. Today the company is making another effort to fight against jailbreakers – the rumors are that Sony is using the latest firmware update to upload rootkit on to the console in order to spy on users.

In fact, it seems like the troubles of 2005 are all over again. 6 years ago Sony tried to curb music piracy of its albums, encoding the CDs with the infamous SunnComm/MediaMaxx technology, which was highly questionable under law. Actually, the mentioned technology installed a rootkit on to users’ PCs, unable to be detected by any anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Once this was discovered in the technology, virus writers simply hid their malware in rootkits and anti-virus software had no power against it. In other words,

Sony’s protections schemes went too far, which led to litigation in many countries. Finally, by 2007, the lawsuits against the company were settled.

Now the situation is similar: after the root keys to Sony’s PS3 had been posted online by a user nicknamed GeoHot, it became clear that games not authorized by the company can now be played. The company required that the tools used to find the root keys be handed over, but the user said it makes no sense because the keys are now public.

Although it seemed like there’s little Sony can do about it, it was wrong. CNet suggested that the company has been distributing a new firmware update, which is reported to contain rootkit technology, again. It would spy on users’ consoles to make sure they are playing only authorized games. Meanwhile, the report of CNet mentions that Sony has yet to activate this code.

If it is really so, this could cause more legal problems for the company. First of all, the very idea that some piece of software could spy on gamers will raise several legal privacy concerns. So far it is doubtful that such technology would be legal in the United States. Meanwhile, Canada has even tougher privacy laws, which also decreases the chances of such scheme being legal. By the way, privacy concerns became a huge problem for the company in Canada 6 years ago.

Actually, it’s really quite striking that the company might even consider choose this way again. If Sony really decides to try this, it would have to go over privacy legislation in every country to ensure it isn’t breaking any laws, at the very least.

Canadian Recording Industry Insulted the Independent Musicians

The representative of the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) recently visited Washington to discuss the country’s copyright legislation over there. However, his discussion ended up with independent artist being furious about his comments.

The comment that insulted the musicians who chose to distribute their works online for free related to the assumption that Canadian citizens are willing to support the country’s record industry and Ottawa was called to act. The CRIA’s representative thinks that this “modern digital century creates beggars of creators, sending them back to the 1800s.”

At the same time Canadian artists know that Canadian Recording Industry Association doesn’t even come close to protecting the interests of the country’s material creators. That’s why the major country’s record labels left the Association after the Liberals Bill C-60 came around. The CRIA described people ready to give away their works for free as beggars from the 1800s – that’s what seems to creep close to the defamatory line. On the contrary, the artists themselves think they are rather fueling their independent business model by making the content they created available in the Internet. In fact, no-one can argue that it’s up to performers to choose whether they use the common (outdated) business model or their own. The brightest example of such artists is Toby Emerson, who has been giving away his music for free by uploading it to MySpace and other free services, and he finally became one of the most famous Canadian musicians online. Only then he began selling his works – when he already had a huge fan base. Now he’s enjoying both his fans and profits from his works, which he doesn’t have to share with record labels.

That is just a guy who chose a different way of marketing and succeeded. Why should he be called a beggar? Because he differs from the others? But he’s not alone – thousands of musicians are doing the same. Because he does have control over his works, as distinct from the performers who sign contracts with record companies? Hardly.

Targeted artists, insulted with this announcement of CRIA, remind the Association that the industry’s failed business model is not their problem. The public isn’t going to tolerate any efforts to censor creators, so if they decide to share their own creations on BitTorrent, they have every right to do so without being offended by such words.