Irish ISP Blocks Pirate Bay

Bad news for Irish file sharers as Eircom, the country's largest ISP, has made good on the terms of its deal with rights holders and blocked access to the Pirate Bay.

This is of concern for two reasons: a) copyright holders clearly have an inordinately large amount of lobbying power that enables them to force an ISP to change its entire way of doing business, and b) ISP content filtering is creeping into Europe.

Source

Eircom Pirate Bay Blockade Takes Effect
(LINK)

Meanwhile, in Australia their ISP filtering regime may be coming to an end.

Source

Aussie firewall nears death
(LINK)

The Current Trend of ISP Censorship

Ireland is the location of the latest example in the current trend of ISP censorship.

EMI, Sony, Universal, and Warner had sued the Irish ISP, Eircom for "knowingly facilitating copyright infringement"(1) in failing to prevent illegal file sharing by its customers. Eircom should have been able to rely on Article 5 of the European Copyright Directive(2) which provides that ISP's can't be held liable for data transmissions, even if they infringe copyrights. Nevertheless, copyright holders were victorious when it was announced that Eicom had agreed to put in place a "three strike" system, similar to the one in operation in France, whereby persistent infringers will be removed.

IRMA, the Irish Recorded Music Association, has recently sent letters to other Irish ISPs demanding that they follow Eircom's lead and block access to "any website the music industry says is responsible for illegal music-swapping"(3). This lead the General Manager of the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland, Paul Durrand, to state that IRMA's actions "could impact on user privacy, damage the development of new internet services and hurt Ireland's standing as an e-commerce hub"(4).

So far, the Irish Government has not acted as extremely as Australia's, which goes so far as to actually blacklist websites with the aid of filtering software(5). However, IRMA's actions could be taking the country one step closer to Oz.

Footnotes

(1) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/03/eircom_agrees_to_three_strikes_enforcement/
(2) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001L0029:EN:HTML
(3) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/irma_letter_to_isps_blacknight_solutions/
(4) http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/12506/comms/internet-body-labels-irma-legal-threat-spurious
(5) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/oz_internet_net/

The "tv-links" Situation, A Recap (1 of 3)

This post is the first of three in a series that will examine some of the most important recent situations involving internet television. The goal is not to provide a deep analysis but to briefly cover the main talking points. The first situation involves tv-links.

Who was involved?

In October of 2007, David Rock, the owner of the TV-Links website was arrested under suspicion of facilitating copyright infringement(1). TV-Links acts provides links to online content such as television shows and movies, but importantly it does not host the content. It is similar to thepiratepay.org in that regard. The copyright holders' group FACT was the impetus behind the arrest.

Issue

The key issue is, similarly to thepiratebay.org, can a website that merely provides links to where allegedly infringing content exists be deemed liable for copyright infringement? Copyright holders would like that answer to be a resounding yes, however it may be more reasonable to allow websites that provide such links to avail of a safe harbour defense with a notice and take-down policy in effect.

Outcome?

At present there has been no activity following Rock’s release from custody and nothing has come before a court. Following the closure of tv-links.co.uk, a new website tv-links.cc sprung up. The change of server location from the Netherlands has shown the weakness of any attempts at policing the internet with certain foreign jurisdictions providing an easy escape route for all manner of questionable activity(1).

Footnotes

(1) Interestingly, the case has an Irish connection with one of the senior moderators of tv-links being arrested in Ireland - http://www.thenewfreedom.net/wp/2007/10/19/tv-linkscouk-raided-owner-arrested/
(2) A recent WHOIS search shows that tv-links.cc is registered in Panama

Sources

1. "Web Site TV Links Present Unique Legal Dilemma"
Associated Content, 8/1/2008
(LINK)
2. "The Good Ship TV-Links Sinks"
Digital-TV Blog, 30/10/2007
(LINK)
3. "Mr. Rock of Tv Links.co.uk Less Guilty Than Google"
Associated Content, 30/10/2007
(LINK)
4. "British Man, David Rock, Arrested for Piracy"
Kelly Herdich, Associated Content, 29/10/2007
(LINK)
5. "TV-Links man: 'I'm no master criminal'"
Lucy Sherriff, The Register, 29/10/2007
(LINK)