A UK judged ruled on Friday that the 23 year operator of the TVShack.net linking website could be extradited to the US to face a trial for alleged criminal copyright infringement. In rendering the decision the UK court made some important findings about the scope of UK copyright law. They included the ruling that organizing and providing hyperlinks to infringing content from a linking website can infringe the making available right.
Posts Tagged ‘copyright infringement’
Do linking sites infringe copyright?
January 18th, 2012DNS blocking and filtering in the EU
December 14th, 2011Crowell & Moring LLP, a law firm with offices in the US, Brussels and the UK released a white paper that describes the legal mechanisms available to copyright holders in the EU to prevent ISP systems from being used for online file sharing. Published by the US based Copyright Alliance, the paper provides a summary of European laws which have been used to grant injunctive relief to prevent online file sharing including injunctions requiring ISPs to implement DNS blocking. The paper also summarizes the recent ECJ Scarlet case which dealt with the power of EU courts to grant orders requiring ISPs to filter peer to peer traffic over their networks.
UK moving ahead with graduated response after Hargreaves Review of IP
August 10th, 2011Last week, the UK government confirmed its intention to implement the graduated response process set out in the UK Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA). Several documents released along with the response to Professor Hargreaves’ Review of Intellectual Property and Growth summarized the UK process and compared it with the graduated response processes enacted in France and New Zealand. See, Draft-Sharing-of-Costs statutory-instrument, Impact Assessment for the Sharing of Costs Statutory Instrument, and Digital Economy Act Appeals Process: Options for reducing costs. The documents provide a useful summary of how these different international laws designed to reduce online file sharing work.
Is Google News legal?
May 17th, 2011Earlier this month a Belgium appellant court released an important decision finding Google liable for copyright infringement by offering its Google News service to subscribers in Belgium at the Google.be and Google.com websites. The decision in Google Inc v Copiepresse et al, Brussels Court of Appeal (9th Chamber) May 5, 2011 suggests that services such as Google News cannot be legally offered in many countries around the world even from servers located in North America. The case is thus a very important one.
The Pirate Bay operators lose criminal appeal and sent to prison
November 27th, 2010The Swedish Court of Appeal affirmed the legal liability of the operators of the Pirate Bay. A video from the court is shown below. Meanwhile IsoHunt and its founder Gary Fung await a ruling from a California court on whether they are liable for contempt of the injunction order of Judge Wilson by continuing to operate the IsoHunt BitTorrent website in violation of the injunction.
EMI Records v UPC – the case for legislative solutions to illegal file sharing
October 11th, 2010Earlier today, the Irish High Court released its decision on whether it would grant an injunction against an ISP (in this case UPC) requiring it to implement a graduated response solution to reduce unauthorized file sharing of music. After reviewing a large amount of evidence and hearing from experts, the Court ruled that this type of order would be just and proportionate. However, it ruled that it lacked the jurisdiction to make such an order.
Here are some of the important findings made by Justice Charleton, the same judge who presided over the EMI Records & Ors -v- Eircom Ltd, [2010] IEHC 108 case :
MGE v GE-what did the 5th Circuit decide about the scope of the DMCA TPM provisions and was it right?
July 29th, 2010Last week, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit released a controversial decision interpreting Section 1201(a) of the DMCA in MGE UPS Inc v GE Consumer and Industrial, Inc. 2010 WL 2820006 (5th Cir.2010). Prof. Geist has suggested that the case decided that the “DMCA is limited to guarding access controls only to the extent that circumvention would violate the copyright rights of the copyright owner.” His summary of the case is neither accurate nor complete. Here’s why.
The MGE case
Isohunt permanently enjoined by US court
May 21st, 2010Yesterday, District Court Judge Stephen Wilson issued an order permanently enjoining Ishount and Gary Fung from continuing to engage in copyright infringement. The Court found an injunction necessary because the plaintiffs “have demonstrated that they have suffered irreparable harm, and would suffer further irreparable harm from Defendants’ continued infringement”.
According to the Court, “Plaintiffs’ power to control their rights has been so compromised by the means through which [Defendants] encouraged end users to infringe (digital files plus the internet) that the inducement amounts to irreparable harm.” Further, “it is axiomatic that the availability of free infringing copies of Plaintiffs’ works through Defendants’ websites irreparably undermines the growing legitimate market for consumers to purchase access to the same works.”
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