Supreme Court hears case that could trigger big crackdown on Internet piracy
arstechnica.com35 points by fizl a day ago
35 points by fizl a day ago
From the article:
'Clement said that hotels limit speeds to restrict peer-to-peer downloading, and suggested that universities do the same. “I don’t think it would be the end of the world if universities provided service at a speed that was sufficient for most other purposes but didn’t allow the students to take full advantage of BitTorrent,” he said. “I could live in that world."'
Insane. So Sony's lawyer is arguing that every university student should have sub-broadband internet speeds simply because a small fraction of the students infringes copyright.
You can alter the rate of transmission for different types of traffic. This is one of the benefits of the packet system. For example, if you wanted to rate limit peer-to-peer connections but not peer-to-giant-corporation connections, all you'd have to do is modify the QoS settings on your router. You can do this at home.
> Sotomayor said [to] Cox. "You didn’t try to work with universities... You could have worked with a multi-family dwelling... You did nothing".
Like YEAH, of course, they were not obligated to do anything under the DMCA, they were not hosting the material in question. Also, just because Sony sends you a letter alleging someone who is using your service is doing something 'illegal', doesn't mean they are. Why should Cox bear the burden of an investigation when there is no legal requirement to do so?
I wonder if this precedent is set, will that mean they are required to shut off Open AI's internet, when I put in a DMCA complaint that they pirated my IP?... Nah, American Law only applies to the poor.
The copyright holder can sue. Let them sue. They could always sue.
Why are we letting them send frivolous notices and make the ISP a letter carrier in the first place?
Fuck off Sony. Why are the data carriers responsible for anything the end users do? If I use electricity to power a hot plate to cook up marijuanas is the electric company responsible?
Cox can fuck off, too. Ideally they would not have any idea what their customers are doing but that doesn’t make them enough money. They must sell a product and also make their customers a product.
Elsewhere, in another G20 jurisidiction:
Roadshow Films Pty Ltd & others v iiNet Ltd (commonly known as AFACT v iiNet)
was a case, commenced in the Federal Court of Australia, and then heard on appeal in the Full Federal Court and High Court of Australia.
Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) claimed that iiNet authorised primary copyright infringement by failing to take reasonable steps to prevent its customers from downloading and sharing infringing copies of films and television programs using BitTorrent.
* An appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court was dismissed.
* A subsequent appeal to the High Court was unanimously dismissed on 20 April 2012.
This case is important in copyright law of Australia because it tests copyright law changes required in the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement, and set a precedent for future law suits about the responsibility of Australian Internet service providers with regards to copyright infringement via their services.