newzbin2

The abuse of takedown notices

In Feburary, TechDirt discovered that one of it’s key anti-SOPA polemics had been deleted from Google’s index as a result of a bogus DMCA takedown notice. The article goes onto detail similar dirty tricks on Torrentfreak.

In my article, “More on the Newzbin2 affair”, I comment on BT’s attempt to clarify the initial injunction and the issue of false notifications and liability for acting on them. The judge said there was no evidence that false notification would be significant. Despite the well documented existence of speculative invoicing scams, this would seem to add to the evidence that while accusing innocent infringers is free of consequence, some at least will do it. …

Unintended Consequences of DNS blocking

Now that BT’s DNS service has been reviewed by a Court and the newzbin2 site been deleted, can I assume that all sites within the DNS database are permitted by the copyright holders and courts?

I feel that we as the ISP’s customers need some “certainty”. …

And for our next trick, we’ll make the Pirate Bay disappear

The Guardian ran a story yesterday which states that a coalition of music publishing corporations have threatened BT with court action to get them to “block” the Pirate Bay since they feel they have a legal precedent in the newzbin2 judgements. …

More on the Newzbin2 affair

Last week, BT and the Movie Studios returned to court to discuss the terms of the newzbin2 injunction. The judgement is a pretty much a victory for the Studios. BT must use Cleanfeed to block notified sites, they must use it to block all addresses notified by the applicants, the proposal that only sites that ‘predominantly’ induce copyright infringement should be blocked was rejected, they can’t turn the blocking off for operational reasons without the permission of the applicants, they can’t terminate the injunction in circumstances where the applicants don’t injunct BT’s competitors in a reasonable time frame, BT have to pay for the enforcement, BT have no right to claim damages against the studios for consequential liability, BT have to pay the studio’s court costs to the point of the initial newzbin2 injunction, costs incurred after the injunction are born be each side. …

Some thoughts on censorship and the internet

Earlier this week, the MPAA and BT returned to court to agree subsiduary terms around the court injunction that BT is to use its Cleanfeed technology to block the newsbin2 web site. In considering the events in court and the judgement, I found an article I had written but not posted about the case and the politics, including the governments announcement to back the Hargreaves Review and Ofcom’s reticence in pursuing the use of the Digitial Economy Act’s web site blocking powers.

I have now published the article, called Censoring the Internet as at the 7th August, which is roughly when I finished it. …

Censoring the Internet

In August, earlier this month, Vince Cable announced the Government’s response to the Hargreaves Review aka the Google review into intellectual property law. Some of the UK’s IT companies, including Google together with many economists, strongly believe that the current intellectual property laws in the UK inhibit innovation and growth and persuaded Cameron to launch a review into the intellectual property laws. The review was chaired and directed by Professor Hargreaves and it published its report “Digital Opportunity, A review of intellectual property and growth” earlier in the year. This article looks at the Hargreaves Review’s recommendations and reactions to the report and comments on Cable’s speech which de-committed the Government from pursuing the web bocking clauses of the Digital Economy Act. …