On legal spectacles

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 11:23 pm

With the TPB trial just wrapping up, some comments on our case and theirs.

Some have asked me what's going on with our case(s), with no update for a while. For our US case, there really hasn't been any news. We are still waiting on Judge Wilson to decide on MPAA's motion for summary judgment. Since it's taken so long (15 months and counting on this motion), I'm sure the Judge will make a careful opinion on this motion with many important issues raised at stake.

For our Canadian case, we are currently defending against CRIA's motion to convert our petition to a full action. It's disappointing to see CRIA wanting to unnecessarily complicate our well defined petition, in attempt to bog us down with time and money through messy discovery and in the process the court's time too. We are no doubt fighting this upcoming motion in about ~~April~~ March and will update on how that goes.

For TPB's trial, it's been amusing to see how poorly organized the prosecutors are and how weak is their expert witnesses in proving anything technical. And I'm slightly jealous their trial came before ours when our MPAA case started much earlier. But yesterday's arguments from the prosecution can I believe make or break their case. They point out that Google for example "works with rights holders to prevent piracy. TPB on the other hand constantly mocks rights holders." While we follow similar copyright policy as Google, there is big problems with our current copyright regimes and I wish the best for TPB. Because the copyright system is fundamentally broken, with terms lasting over 100 years and with almost no way to know what maybe copyright infringing, in what country and in what context of sharing, and what authorization for distribution rights holders have granted. If TPB win, it would perhaps be a sign that we can start pushing back for more fair and sane copyright.

UPDATE (CRIA motion):
I've tweeted the court meeting with CRIA lawyers, it's been covered by TorrentFreak and various Canadian media coverage, such as Ottawa Citizen and CTV.

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 11:36 pm

I wish you and TPB good luck. I know first hand how messy and stressful legal battles can be, of course not to the extent that you and TPB are facing. The two of you are in our thoughts.

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:24 am

The following, is my own opinion, and not necessarily of this site.

isoHunt has always as far as I know had a DMCA page, offering any copyright owners a chance to remove any files that may have been indexed on this site, that they claim to own.

But do they (Universal in this instance), really know what they own, and if its copyrighted.

Checking out wikipedia I found mention of this action in 1984

Quote:

In 1984, Universal Studios sued Nintendo to stop them from profiting on their new Donkey Kong arcade game, on the basis that Donkey Kong was too similar to King Kong, which they owned. In the end, Nintendo's lawyers showed that Universal had argued against RKO General in 1975 that King Kong was in the public domain. Nintendo also won the appeal, a counterclaim, and a further appeal.

Universal Studios one of the film companies suing isoHunt etc. suing a company for copyright infringement over property they had already argued was public domain in an action against them selves.

Breaking it down.

Universal claimed King Kong was public domain.
Universal sues Nintendo claiming King Kong was copyrighted and owned by them. Losing the case on appeal.
Universal sues isoHunt for copyright infringement, would this mean films such as King Kong, which they have argued is Public domain?

Arghh, I cant understand the copyright laws in the USA, let alone the different ones from other countries. If anyone can tell me in laymans terms whats copyrighted and what isn't it would at least help me to guide others. Oh thats right, most the companies don't bother informing of any infringements they know about. Rolling Eyes

Wiki has a few other examples too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud

By the way this post is copyrighted and not to be used in any way, unless you want to, if so, hey Help yourself, got no idea if I own the post or not. lol

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:52 am

What IsoHunt needs is not necessarily just luck in order to win the court case.
If you own something, let say you bought a dvd, and a friend of yours would like to borrow it, so you share it with him, you are not charging him any money, so you are not profiting. The copyright holder of that dvd already profited from you buying it. Now that you own a copy, you can lend it to anyone else who you wish to see it. What's so different from sharing it on the internet? No one is making a profit.
Corporation are just greedy and evil non-human entities with one sole purpose: Maximize profits and reduce costs. Profit over people.

IsoHunt will get out of this one. Let's start brainstorming ideas. There is a loophole in the system and it must be found and exploited soon.
File sharing is not stealing and is not a crime.

A crime is something bad done onto another human.
Granting legal rights to non-human entities such as corporations is immoral, wrong and like opening a pandora's box, empowering a monster that we cannot control. This must be stopped. Real people are more valuable than a corporation's profit.

Humans united against non-human evil entities with mistakenly given legal rights.

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:48 am

I think this issue stems down to the goals of the movie compeny's as said many times, these compenys can profit from this yet they go aginst the flow. Now its too late for them to go back on their mistake and their going to have to pay for it. Hopefully we, as Humans can sit down and figure this out. I am talking about movies not music stuff. The Movie cast and directors get paid ahead of time and just about get nothing more from the film once its done, expect fan girls and oscars. Nither of which require someone to buy the film rather just watch it. There is no artist getting hurt in this proccess, the only one hurt is the mass movie compenys. This can be solved properly yet they dont they want to crush it out. I dont think they are doing this out of love for law and legal vaules, they are doing this cause of their phobia of their bussines will burn down. Their fault is that their phobias are their greatest tools, but not unless used correctly. Its going to take a whole new re-writing of the copyright laws, and the vision of the movie compeny's ideals and goals.

Enterntianment should not be an art form shadowed by a wall of money and greed. Enterntianment as early from its root has always been somthing by the people for the people, no matter if it was upper or lower. (I am no socialist but you cant have 100% of one side Wink

) People make art without intention for money first, of corse it is neccessery to make a living but the idea of doing art for a living is not a decision based on "Oh man I got to do this to live!" its one made cause of one's love for art. copyright, at the same time protecting the art yet hindering its abitly to florish, is grabbing such art by the neck, limiting it, denying it the right to be expressed. As said many times it is a broken system, I never actualy see it considedred a perm system anyway, I always seen it as a temp one made for the time untill as better one comes over to take its place.

So when you sue such a place like IH, or TPB, your not only sueing people who do infrige copyright, but also the people who post their hard work here as a freeware, music, or indepandent film! Just cause people use P2P search engines to look for content of questenable legalty, can not deny people's right to find their favorate artist which does not have a contract with a big compeny, which agreed to have his art on the internet, and wants his art free for the mass population.

you may sue and sue and fighting this thing called the Internet, you may try to change the Human condition, or you can try and live with it, rather than fight.

Walt Disney wrote:

In planning a new picture, we don’t think of grownups and we don’t think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget…

One thing that has showed its usefulness between 2 forces going head on, is the power of compromise, the idea of sitting down and finding a working solution noting that the current does not work. Both sides may be at fault one way or the other, but the side which does not enable a solution is the guilty one.

The funny thing is When you isolate the ones who are against p2p, you just about see how alone they are, I wonder if they realize that or
their just to scared to look over their shoulder to check.

Everyone is human, everyone has a right, but such rights should be used with cation, even thou this right is not a privlage and cant be taken away, its a right that if used correclty can limit others.

Art has been abused by this system and now it requires a whole new re-write.

I r not a socialist I am just a person with multi personality aka in the middle all the way cause no side has all the answers nor does it work all the time
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Edit

Now for the actual legal issues, it seems with TPB's trial that the prosecution relyed on the ideal that p2p is just a copyright thing. However now that their getting their balls handed to them one can see how this whole thing has been implanted into people's minds. They dont see it as a service not made orignialy for copyright and illigal stuff. It was made as a way to share information. p2p is legal and anysite assosiated with it is legal. Its the indevidual that should be held responsible, and the prosection are going lost.

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:29 am

I'm getting scare everytime I hear this kind of news.. Shocked

The Government needs to learn how to share Cool

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:20 am

CrazyMcCool wrote:

Walt Disney wrote:

In planning a new picture, we don’t think of grownups and we don’t think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget…

Interesting quote. was he referring to the human soul?

pc

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:28 am

Well the fun thing with quotes is that no matter what no one will really know what they originally were ment, or said for or towards. Its up to us individually to interpret them so...idk Very Happy

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:17 pm

I think ggggg700 had a really good point: no-one is profiting from the sharing of files on the internet (unless you're burning cds and selling them). Has anyone else seen this preview at some theatre movies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg_yehioJX8

It says, "You wouldn't steal a car, you wouldn't steal a purse (...) so don't download movies" (paraphrase). Some guy on the internet also had a good point in saying, if you steal a car, the person you stole from doesn't have a car any more. If you steal a purse, the victims purse and it's content is gone from them. When you download movies, you're not taking anything away from anyone. It's not stealing.

And also, in the commercial, it clearly shows the stand where someone downloaded movies, burned them to discs and is selling them. That's a blow to their case in court.

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:37 pm

hunniboo wrote:

I wish you and TPB good luck. I know first hand how messy and stressful legal battles can be, of course not to the extent that you and TPB are facing. The two of you are in our thoughts.

I could not say that better hunniboo Wink

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:44 pm

i'll say one thing, when IsoHunt wins, i'd sue the piss out of everyone who brought litigation against you to recoup lawyers fees and get compensatory damages.
those guys would be paying for isoHunt's website, equipment and the whole lot for a very long time.

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 2:52 pm

We need an file-sharing lobbyist lol

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:19 pm

A good example is just like the OJ case, when he tried to take back his memorabilia and then it turned into a case. Businesses should know already the consequences of producing something that is technologically able to be reproduced. Big Deal...Grow Up; stop getting Greedy...

This is almost like an argument over the constitution; what is just and what is unjust.
We need reform...and don't go asking your government for it, ask the people because people have power. Don't forget the government SERVES YOU, not the other way around.

Look how many times music has been re-created over and over with new artists coming in taking old songs and remixing them, so what, same with movies...

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 12:29 am

Good luck Isohunt! Surprised

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 2:24 am

good luck isohunt...you guys do so much for us...you have my best wishes...