German file sharers received countless settlement notices for allegedly sharing copyrighted material in recent years, thanks to companies like Digiprotect and Logistep. However, it looks like P2P users, and others wrongfully accused of file sharing, may have a new ally: Saxony’s Consumer Advocates (Verbraucherzentrale) recently announced a new legal aid program to help recipients of settlement notices. The organization’s press release quotes spokesperson Beate Scharf:

“You should take the deadlines of these notices seriously, but never sign any settlement without prior review.”

Many recipients of these settlement letters have never even shared any files, according to the consumer advocacy group, but merely registered the Internet account used for the alleged infringement. German courts have disagreed in the past on how to handle these and similar types of liabilities, but most recipients just agree to pre-settlement offers that cost them hundreds or even thousands of dollars instead of pursuing their case in court. Read more »

Germany’s Undersecretary of Culture Bernd Neumann wants to adopt a three strikes policy against file sharing similar to the one recently enacted in France. “We can’t say that this is out of the question,” Neumann told the audience of a media policy event of the German Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), according to heise.de.

The CDU is currently the majority partner in a coalition government with the Social Democrats (SPD). Germany’s Secretary of Justice Brigitte Zypries, who is an SPD member herself, had previously voiced strong objections against three strikes, calling the idea to boot suspected file sharers off the Internet after three cases of infringement “a completely unreasonable punishment.” Neumann did however get strong support for his position from Germany’s music industry, and he vowed to get Zypries to talk to the major labels about their position.

Three strikes isn’t the only Internet-related issue that’s currently keeping Germany’s politicians busy. The country is also in the midst of a heated debate of how to fight child pornography online. Germany’s conservative Secretary of Family has proposed a country-wide Internet censorship that would have to implemented by ISPs on the DNS level.

Internet activists and civil liberties advocates are outraged about this idea. They have started a very successful online petition drive against it, which has currently more than 100,000 co-signers. One of the concerns that activists have is that child porn will only be the first of many unwanted forms of content to be blocked. They have certainly reason to be concerned: The music industry has already proposed to put file sharing sites like the Pirate Bay and Mininova on these block lists as well. Read more »

(And Other Ideas To Avoid Being Treated Like a Criminal)

As of July 2006, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing in just under three years. In 2004, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) joined this misguided, anti-consumer crusade.

Filing lawsuits against anonymous “Doe” defendants, the RIAA and MPAA seek to uncover the identities of P2P users and force them to pay thousands of dollars in settlements. Many innocent individuals are being caught in the crossfire.

While there is no way to know exactly what the RIAA and MPAA are going to do or who they are going to sue, users of publicly-accessible P2P networks can take the following steps to reduce their chances of being sued: Read more »

In the first conviction of a file-sharer in the country, Portuguese authorities have handed down a harsh sentence of 90 days imprisonment in order to “set an example”. The unnamed individual faced court after the Portuguese version of the RIAA issued a complaint about unauthorized uploading.

It seems that every country around Europe has its own ways of dealing with file-sharers. In the UK these days it’s customary to send out educational warnings, but in the past borderline extortion letters seemed in order, depending on the mood of the day.

Downloading has been tolerated in the Netherlands but France would like to disconnect persistent file-sharers from the Internet.

Another day sees another country’s interpretation of the law when it comes to dealing with file-sharers, this time from sunny Portugal. Following a complaint from the Portuguese version of the RIAA, a court in Portimão has handed down a severe sentence in the country’s first ever case involving a file-sharer.

One incredibly unlucky individual has been sentenced to 90 days in jail for uploading music on P2P networks, with the severity of punishment decided upon “to set an example”.

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Reports are coming in that the government in Malaysia has ordered the immediate suspension of all BitTorrent trackers hosted in the country. In a shock move, the government – citing the ‘Copyright Act 1987′ has ordered hosts to suspend servers that host BitTorrent sites, pending an investigation. Many sites are currently offline.

+When BitTorrent sites get into legal trouble or other pressures force a move to a new location, the speculation begins on the safest place to go.

For instance, would a site bail out of the Netherlands and move to Canada? Is Canada too dangerous now, and would a move to Sweden be more appropriate? What about moving to Ukraine-based hosting like Demonoid or further afield – China or Russia maybe? Inevitably, discussions usually involve ideas of moving sites east, to countries like Malaysia.

Fairly high-tech countries like this seem an attractive proposition, particularly given their government’s track-record in failing to do much about piracy.

Given this background, BitTorrent tracker admins with their sites hosted in Malaysia were confronted by a very unpleasant surprise today.

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The six individuals who are arrested for allegedly sharing music on the OiNK BitTorrent tracker, are due to report to police at the start of July. The five men and one woman, who are suspected of conspiring to defraud the music industry, will have their bail extended. Unsurprisingly, the police need more time to make their case.

On Friday 23rd May, three people were arrested by police, followed by another three on Wednesday 28th May. All six – five men aged between 19 and 33 and a 28-year-old woman – were arrested in the UK on suspicion of “Conspiracy to Defraud the Music Industry”, and other copyright offenses.

It is alleged that the individuals were users of OiNK who uploaded music to other users in advance of its commercial release date.

Suspects were taken to their local police station for questioning and required to provide DNA samples and fingerprints. Sources close to those arrested confirm that most accusations relate to the uploading of a single album by each suspect but despite the fact that uploading music is not a crime in the UK if done for no profit, somehow this civil issue had been transformed into allegations of serious crime, with police paying close attention to donations the suspects made to the site, presumably in an effort to find some financial motive.

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The ‘legal threats’ section of The Pirate Bay is where record labels, movie companies, software house and general anti-pirates have their complaints posted after the staff on the site have ridiculed them. A new set of complaints has appeared in the last few days – some of the most cringe-worthy ever.

When organizations and companies don’t like it that their material – be it music, movies, games or software – are indexed by a torrent site, very often they will contact the site in question and demand that the relevant .torrent files are removed. A lot of sites will remove the files but a few refuse.

Most people know that The Pirate Bay doesn’t like to remove torrents at the copyright holders request, in fact they claim they have never removed any.

Instead, when a copyright holder enters into dialogue with the staff, instead of removing the files in question the site posts the discussions up in the ‘Legal Threats’ section. Most of the discussions are entertaining to a degree, with some even extending to personal insults.

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The British government appears to be running out of patience with ISPs as they struggle to come to an agreement with the music industry on P2P music piracy. One ‘top-level’ ISP executive says “The British government just put a gun to our head.” Major UK ISPs are now in “serious” talks with the music industry.

Recently we reported on the agreement between UK ISP Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Industry to start sending out warnings to Virgin’s subscribers who the BPI accuse of uploading copyright music.

Now, according to a Digital Music News report, the British government has started urgently applying pressure to prominent ISPs to find a solution to the ‘problem’ of file-sharing. The pressure includes a threat to bring in new laws, should ISPs and the music industry not come to a solution of their own.

The government previously set a deadline of April 2009 for the parties to reach an agreement but according to sources, pressure is intensifying to deal with the issue sooner. A “top-level executive” gave an indication of the level of pressure stating: “The British government just put a gun to our head.”

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Only a few weeks ago, a University of Washington study showed showed how inaccurate the MPAA and RIAA’s evidence gathering techniques are.

Now, instead of improving their pirate chasing tactics, the MPAA simply claims they don’t need any evidence to bankrupt “alleged” copyright infringers.

Threat Level reports that the MPAA now argues that it has the right to demand up to $150,000 in damages per illegally downloaded file, without having to proof that someone actually downloaded that file.

Yes we know, this doesn’t make sense at all. Luckily, MPAA lawyer Marie van Uitert explains why copyright holders should be able to claim thousands of dollars without having to proove that a copyright infringement actually took place.

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The MPA(A) has announced that it is demanding $15.4 million from the Pirate Bay in the upcoming court case, to cover the damages they suffered from 4 movies and 13 TV-episodes that were made available via the popular BitTorrent tracker.

The movie titles they are claiming damages for are Harry Potter, Syriana, The Pink Panther and Walk the Line and the 13 episodes of the popular TV-show Prison Break.

MPAA demands 222,50 kronor ($37) for each download. For Harry Potter, 261,50 kronor ($43) and for the first season of Prison Break 416 kronor ($68).

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