Friday, January 24, 2020

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Swedish Court Issues 'Dynamic' Pirate Bay Blocking Order
Ernesto, 24 Jan 06:49 PM

In recent years, Swedish movie outfits and Hollywood studios, including Disney, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros, have been working hard to get local ISPs to block The Pirate Bay.

The first success came a few years ago when a blocking order was issued against local Internet provider Bredbandsbolaget. This was later followed by an interim order against Telia, Sweden's largest ISP, which was struck down on appeal and sent back to the lower court.

During the second try of the case movie companies again requested a blocking order against The Pirate Bay, as well as three other sites, Dreamfilm, FMovies, and NyaFilmer.

Last month this case was decided in favor of the rightsholders, with the court not only issuing a blocking injunction but also one that can be extended

The Swedish Patent and Market Court ordered Telia to block access to the four pirate sites to prevent these from facilitating further copyright infringement. In addition, the rightsholders are also allowed to add new domain names and IP-addresses going forward.

The movie companies requested this expansion option since blocking orders are often circumvented through new domains and proxy sites. Telia objected to the request for such a "dynamic" blocking order, but the court sided with the copyright holders.

"It is clear that the services change domain names and URLs and that this is a quick, easy and inexpensive way to bypass the effect of a blocking procedure," the court writes.

"A blocking injunction should, therefore, in order to effectively serve the rights holders' interest in preventing infringements, not merely target specified domain names and URLs," the order adds.

This effectively means that Telia must update its blocklist when it's made aware of changes. Any new URLs and IP-addresses have to provide access to any of the four pirate sites, including The Pirate Bay.

Telia also objected to the general blocking order and questioned whether the rightsholders had shown any proof of infringement. However, the court refuted these arguments and stressed that, under EU law, ISP can be ordered to stop pirating subscribers.

The case resulted in a clash between several rights that are defined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In this instance, the property rights of the movie companies weigh stronger than Telia's right to entrepreneurial freedom.

Hans Eriksson, Senior Associate at the law firm  Westerberg & Partners, highlighted the case at IPKat, believes that dynamic injunctions, which can be updated regularly, will become more and more common.

"Dynamic injunctions like this one are likely to be the future for blocking injunctions in Europe," Eriksson tells TorrentFreak.

The Market Court's injunction is valid for three years. If Telia fails to properly implement the blockades, it risks a penalty of 500,000 Swedish Krona (€47,500). Telia is not happy with the outcome, however, and has already filed an appeal.

A copy of the Patent and Market Court's order, in Swedish, is available here (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Russia's Anti-Piracy Deal to Delete Content From Search Engines Extended Until 2021
Andy, 24 Jan 11:38 AM

When leading content companies and distributors plus Yandex, Rambler Group, Mail.Ru Group, vKontakte, and RuTube signed up to a landmark anti-piracy memorandum in 2018, new ground was broken in Russia.

Assisted by the creation of a centralized database of allegedly-infringing content, Internet platforms agreed to voluntarily query the resource in near real-time before deleting content from their search indexes. The plan was to make pirated content harder for users to find and within months, hundreds of thousands of links were being purged.

The end-game was to have the terms of the agreement written into local law but as some expected, things didn't run entirely to plan. Early October 2019, with the memorandum a year old, it effectively timed out. Negotiations ensued and a short extension was agreed but a deadline of end October came and went without a draft being presented to parliament.

With another deadline missed, an automatic extension to end December 2019 came into play but it's now clear that the plan to formalize the agreement in law is still a very long way off.

During a meeting at the Media and Communications Union, the industry association formed by the largest media companies and telecom industry players, the parties – with assistance from telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor – have now agreed to another extension. The voluntary agreement will now continue for at least another year, the clearest indication yet that this isn't a straightforward matter.

According to industry sources cited by Vedomosti (paywall), the decision not to push ahead now towards legislation was taken jointly by the signatories and Roscomnadzor.

While many specifics aren't being made public, sources indicate that the mechanism for resolving disputes between the copyright holders and Internet platforms has proven complex. Another area of disagreement centers around demands from rightsholders and content companies to have sites delisted on a permanent basis, if they are repeatedly flagged as offering links to infringing content.

Another key issue is that under the current system there is a clear bias towards video content and the largest copyright holders, while others have to take a back seat or are left out altogether. It will take a considerable period of time to overcome these hurdles, a situation that isn't helped by a reported lack of time in the State Duma to deal with the legislation.

As a result, the memorandum will now be extended to the end of January 2021, to allow the parties and the government to come up with a credible framework before writing it into law.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

 
 
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