Pirate Bay User Uploading Black Balls Gets His House Raided
A Pirate Bay user in his 20’s who uploaded a screener copy of a Danish movie named Black Balls (Sorte Kugler in Danish) has been tracked down and raided by the same anti-piracy group that recently shut down the EliteBits BitTorrent tracker. Although the man seems to have uploaded only four movies, the group is labeling him “a big fish”.
While conducting their usual monitoring of file-sharing networks, anti-piracy outfit Antipiratgruppen noticed that a user with a Danish IP address was uploading a screener copy of the Anders Matthesen movie ‘Black Balls’ via The Pirate Bay.
Antipiratgruppen collected evidence and asked a court to force TDC, the man’s ISP, to reveal his identity and home address. The court complied.
Armed with a warrant and a representative from the court, last week Antipiratgruppen carried out a raid on the man’s Herning home to gather evidence of his alleged offenses.
Maria Fredenslund, lawyer with Antipiratgruppen, was keen to emphasize the significance of the raid.
“We are waiting for the IT expert’s report on yesterday’s action, but there is no doubt that he is behind massive violations of copyright. We found and seized several hard drives, web server, etc. so it will take time to go through it all. The case is a good example of how a case which at first glance seemed modest, in fact, is about massive piracy. At least in Denmark,” she said in a statement.
Although Fredenslund said that they presume the man’s hard drives were filled with copyright content which made it a “very big case”, she also noted that the man in his 20’s had to her knowledge only violated movie copyrights online four or five times. A quick look at the user’s Pirate Bay account seems to confirm he has uploaded a handful of movies and a small number of music torrents.
Fredenslund told Danish media that Antipiratgruppen secured an injunction against the man so if he continues to share files he can be punished. Speaking of the man with DR.dk, she said that her group doesn’t intend to “sue him to hell” since they are “nice people”, but will need to see the volume of files traded in order to calculate the compensation required.
In November 2009, Antipiratgruppen announced that after losing several court cases they had largely given up on trying to get illegal file-sharers convicted, mainly due to their inability to gather solid evidence.
Indeed, the Danish courts have ruled several times that in terms of evidence, an IP-address alone is insufficient to prove guilt. However, the new tactic is to label people like this screener uploader and torrent site operators as “big fish” in order to get a warrant to seize physical evidence.
Fredenslund said that because this man was the first to make Black Balls available on the Internet, Antipiratgruppen had considered this as an aggravating factor which justified their action.
Equally, the recent raid on the operator of the EliteBits BitTorrent tracker was targeted at “traffickers”, she explained.
[thanks to conner395 and enigmax via cc]
Beckett Teen Sensations Twilight Magazine Loses Injunction
Summit owns copyrights and trademarks associated with Twilight and New Moon, the movies. Beckett sold two “fanzines” (labeled unofficial collectors’ guides, and not corresponding to my idea of a fanzine, but ok) reproducing numerous images from the films, along with trademarks and promotional images related to the films. In particular, Summit alleged that the fanzines used Summit’s stylized Twilight trademark on their covers; contained unauthorized reproductions of photos, including photos not available from Summit’s website and photos altered in violation of the site’s terms of use; contained removable posters and images of trading cards that were also unauthorized reproductions of Summit’s works. Covering the internet bases, Beckett also featured one of the fanzine covers on its Facebook pages and attempted to auction the printing plates for the covers on eBay.
Summit had little trouble with its copyright and trademark claims, apparently with little dispute from Beckett. Of note: the court rejected Beckett’s argument that Summit’s website gave Beckett permission to use many of the images. Beckett didn’t show likely success on that defense, as was its burden, most notably because it couldn’t explain the use of photos not present on the website. Moreover, the license here didn’t allow alterations of the photos (the terms of use said that users “will not edit, alter or modify any of the Content without Summit’s prior written approval”), and Beckett altered them, exceeding the scope of the license.
On trademark, the court accepted Summit’s argument that it owned a valid, protectable mark in a stylized, block-lettered TWILIGHT, and Beckett displayed a virtually identical mark in the fanzines, including on the outside front covers and pull-out posters. Moreover, Summit has licensed its mark for a “seemingly endless” list of goods, including posters, which both indicated the strength of the mark and the relatedness of the goods. In the absence of opposing evidence or argument, the court found likely success on the merits.
The court then presumed irreparable injury for both causes of action, despite Beckett’s argument that it had voluntarily ceased the troublesome activities, recalling the fanzines, terminating the eBay auction, and removing the offending cover image from its Facebook page. But as of the day Beckett’s opposition was filed, the fanzines were still “widely available” in retail stores and over the internet. Thus the dispute was not moot. Then, the balance of hardships followed: if an injunction was wrongly denied, Summit’s copyrights and trademarks are “at risk of being devalued,” while granting an injunction would just force Beckett to keep doing what it said it would (cease all offending activity). And there’s a public interest in vindicating copyright rights and avoiding confusion.
The court did agree with Beckett’s objection to the scope of the requested injunction, which would cover fair use as well as foul. Thus, any injunction needed to make express allowance for §107 fair use, and also needed to define Summit’s marks expressly, especially if any marks other than the stylized TWILIGHT were to be covered.
The following is the official statement from Summit Entertainment:
“Summit Entertainment acted to protect its rights in a situation which found Beckett Media using copyrighted and trademarked images and materials relating to the Twilight films for Beckett’s financial gain without an agreement in place with Summit to legally license the right to produce materials based on its film franchise. Beckett’s sale of standalone magazines under the name Twilight, and wholesale use of Summit’s copyrighted material in a commercial product, went well beyond the intended purpose of Summit’s publicity site. We applaud the court for its judgment in this matter.”
(Summit Entertainment, LLC v. Beckett Media, LLC, 2010 WL 147958 (C.D. Cal.))
[thanks to xploitme and rebecca tushnet via cc]
The Need for a Reverse Creative Commons Copyright License
I make no secret that I am a fan of Creative Commons.
Though the system has it’s flaws it, overall, is a great idea that is well-executed.
But there is a pretty severe limitation to the system, it requires the copyright holder to take action first. If the copyright holder does not proactively license his or her work under a CC license, it is locked away and there is precious little help in getting the potential user of the work permission, even if the owner might be willing.
This is why there is a need for a CC system that starts with the user and works backwards. This could be a boon not just for the sharing and reuse of copyrighted works, but also for the Creative Commons Organization itself.
Though this is just an idea, I want to lay out how such a system might work and what the benefits/limitations might be to get the conversation rolling.
How It Might Work
The problem is pretty simple. If a potential user finds a work they want to ask permission to use and it isn’t granted universally, as through a CC license, they have to ask permission. However, few people are comfortable doing that and even fewer know how to do it properly, with full legalese.
A reverse CC system could fix that by having the user pick out the license that they need/want and then emailing it in the form of a permission request to the rightsholder via email. All the user would have to do is pick the rights they need, enter some information about the work, and then send it. This could also be used in situations where the copyright holder has a CC license but the user needs more permissions for a one-time use.
Ideally, this permission request would come in a similar format to current CC licenses, with first an easy-to-understand version of the terms and then a legalese one to satisfy the lawyers. Ideally, such a request would be usable both by smaller copyright holders, who might be unfamiliar with CC licenses and big corporations who have much more standardized permissions systems.
Such a system could do a lot of good for the copyright climate on the Web and it doesn’t take much imagination to see its potential.
Why It’s Important
While there are stock letters that can achieve much of this effect, they are not intuitive and they can be very intimidating. The easier this process is made, the more likely people will ask permission and the clearer things are to the copyright holder, the more likely they will say “Yes”.
Also, since this license would be CC-branded, it would be a good chance to introduce the CC brand and licenses to people who don’t use them. It might encourage the spread of CC licenses or at least awareness of the name.
Most importantly though, it would give users the tools they need to quickly, easily and effectively ask for permission to use work. This could drastically reduce disputes about who gave permission for what and the nature of the use. By getting these requests into a more structured format, everyone can understand them better making them more clear and forcing people to spend less time on them.
It’s a win-win for both rightsholders and potential users alike.
Some Limitations
A CC-style system for asking permission would not correct the biggest problem with rights clearance, the time required to do so.
Most Creative Commons searches for a work are done for some immediate need such as an image for a written post or a clip for a video in production. Usually, in these cases, there are many similar works that can perform the task and the key is to find one that is properly licensed. A good example is looking for a CC-licensed image of a sunset for an article.
This method would only be useful in situations where a very specific work was needed and waiting was possible. If there is no specific need, there is likely enough CC-licensed or otherwise available works that you can find what you need quickly. If you can’t wait, then the project is probably dead regardless.
Such a system would also face strong issues in terms of internationalization and problems. Though the CC Organization managed to largely resolve the internationalization issues with their main product, it might be too heavy of a load to go through it again, especially for something likely to be rarely used.
Furthermore, this is heavily prone to user mistakes. It requires the user to know what work they needs, be able to find the right copyright agent and then contact them. While this is a simple task for blog posts and Flickr images, it isn’t easy for music and movies. In fact, there are many people who are paid very good money to figure out just those issues.
Despite these limitations, there are still many situations where such a permissions system would be useful, especially for students and others who are assembling larger projects over a period of time. Best of all though, it would be a way to introduce copyright holders who do not use CC licenses to the concept and bring them, even if just with one or two cases, into the fold of sharing their content.
Bottom Line
Though there would be flaws and limitations to this system, it would also fill an important gap within the current licensing system and make it possible for users to effectively initiate the licensing process.
Though Creative Commons was right to start with the system it did as it is both easier to implement and more likely to be widely used, there is still a need and an audience that is unserved by this licensing revolution that could be an opportunity for all involved.
As great as standardized licensing is, it is a one-way street without standardized permission requests as well. It’s time to empower the user too and help them open up new doors for themselves and rightsholders.
[thanks to giuli-o, jonathansin, and jonathan bailey via cc]
