Free Talk Live

I dislike using the term ‘piracy’ in relation to copying or sharing music and software. Piracy, after all, connotates Somali renegades raiding ships and taking hostages. In these instances (as with all cases of actual theft) a person is denied use of their legitimately acquired property. When software and music are ‘pirated’, however, the original owner still has his or her property.

"...Websites hosting pirated content could also be blocked under the Act, and although proponents say these steps would protect content creators, opponents, who presented a petition to parliament with thousands of signatures, see the Act as a threat to civil liberties."

The US Government has yet again shuttered several domain names this week. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes.

And so it starts...DHS can now seize domain names and shut down websites without warrants or warnings. ICE appears to be targeting sites that help Internet users download copyrighted music, as well as sites that sell bootleg goods, such as fake designer handbags.

Website hosting company GoDaddy has officially voiced its support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Bill in 2012, which is designed to thwart movie and music piracy on the Internet by empowering copyright holders to effectively shut down websites or online services found with infringing material. If passed, the U.S. government could blacklist any website it deems in violation of copyright, which could range from a few posts in a Web forum to a few links sent in an e-mail.

In a continuation of the Department of Homeland Security’s mass seizure of domain names related to “counterfeit goods,” many of which turned out to have been seized in error and without any apparent legal recourse, the DHS has now seized RojaDirecta.org, a popular Spanish soccer website.

Legal Analysis by Corynne McSherry
Over the past few days, the U.S. Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and nine U.S. Attorneys’ Offices seized 82 domain names of websites they claim were engaged in the sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and illegal copyrighted works.

The major record labels are known for their harsh stance on copyright infringements, which in an ironic turn of events is now costing them millions of dollars. Revealing a double standard when it comes to ‘piracy’, Warner Music, Sony BMG Music, EMI Music and Universal Music now have to pay Canadian artists $45 Million for the illegal use of thousands of tracks on compilation CDs.

The company also began embedding each film distributed to theaters and critics with a unique identifier, so that Warner could trace leaked and pirated movies back to their source. But, in a piece of delicious irony, it seems that Warner Bros. may have actually stolen this technology from a German company called Medien Patent Verwaltung (MPV).