September

September started off with the continuation of the Jammie Thomas trial where Thomas appealed her $80,000 fine. Amongst other arguments, the fine seemed to be arbitrarily selected.

After a ThePirateBay Mixtape of all the songs Joel Tenenbaum was fined for, an RIAA lawyer took the unusual step of saying that the mixtape was all Joels fault.

France was, of course, back in the headlines in the month when the French Pirate Party had a shot at winning a parliamentary seat, further bolstering the international parties success on the international stage. No doubt, the Pirate Party in that country was able to get some support on the issue of Three Strikes law which, after a few bungled attempts, managed to produce the oddly titled “France Passes Three Strikes Law for Second Time”. Regardless of the French Pirate Party’s growing success, it seemed that the inevitable happened where France adopted their three strikes law.

Tension in Australia over the governments so-called “voluntary-mandatory” internet filter continued when opposition parties wanted to end the farce altogether. In response to some of the criticisms, a minister said that he never wanted to filter p2p traffic.

More news in Ireland happened when one Irish ISP decided to block ThePirateBay.

In the UK, the British government made it official that they supported the three strikes legislation, saying it was an “evolved” plan. The UK ISPs were quick to denounce the move. In a show of even more solidarity against the three strikes law, UK musicians quickly denounced the three strikes law as well. In case there were artists still skeptical about those who are against the three strikes law, a UK consultant said that artists shouldn’t really worry about internet piracy in the first place. Distraught by all those artists arguing against a three strikes law in the UK, the major music labels tried to argue that all artists were united in supporting a three strikes law.

In a rather humorous and ironic moment in September, Sony BMG faced a near repeat of the lawsuit against it for software piracy in France and were accused of a textbook definition of music piracy in Mexico. No doubt the company was once again embarrassed given their stance on piracy in the first place, but it lent credence to the theory that it’s often the case that the biggest complainers to a problem are also often the biggest culprits as well.

Doubts continued with the acquisition of ThePirateBay when GGF was delisted from the Swedish stock exchange. Keeping ThePirateBay accessible for all was under attack, but one Swedish ISP did appeal a court order to block the website. Shortly afterwords, GGF, trying to salvage some credibility, managed to get re-listed in the Swedish stock exchange. Unfortunately, the news was followed up by even more bad news for the buyer when they faced court over unpaid debt. On the legal front, something happened during ThePirateBay trial that few thought was possible, the major record companies and the admins agreed on something – specifically that there were questions to be raised over a judges affiliation affecting his judgment. Admins for ThePirateBay later appealed the decision that the judge was not biased in his guilty verdict citing even more bias from the three judges on the panel.

The Canadian Pirate Party in September was also able to give us a landmark interview when they were one step closer to becoming an official political party. By the end of the month, the party launched a BitTorrent tracker to show once again that there are legal uses for BitTorrent among other things.

October

October started off with the continued, at least for many observers, circus of the acquisition of ThePirateBay. After creating a deadline for the acquisition of the BitTorrent site, the deadline came and went without a purchase. Google also wound up in a bit of controversy when it temporarily removed search results, then re-instated them again. Then, after, once again, failing to get ThePirateBay removed from the internet, the major entertainment industry corporations tried to get, what was described as, the websites ISPs ISP to block access to the website – obviously without much success again. Then, after all the ups and downs, GGF themselves finally admitted that the acquisition of ThePirateBay was “uncertain”. After that fiasco, the legal front for ThePirateBay got even more heated when BREIN was caught forging evidence against the site. Meanwhile, the trial against ThePirateBay was delayed until the Summer of 2010 – putting a halt on the whole trial, no doubt, to the dismay of the copyright industry. Meanwhile in the Netherlands, in spite of falsifying evidence against the admins of ThePirateBay, BREIN won a legal victory against the site. ThePirateBay, after seeing their first sale fall through, said that they were on the hunt for new buyers. Legal issues about the site then took a turn against them when a Swedish court said that the site must be shut down or else the admins faced additional fines.

Not satisfied with a three strikes law, the UK music industry demanded that “illegitimate” p2p sites be filtered as well. Sometime later in the month, a petition surfaced online that would get the government to legalize non-profit P2P activity. Seems like it was just another sign that UK citizens were unhappy about the governments “evolved” plan as well. That was not to say the entire government was on board for a three strikes law though as 21 MPs some time later in the month announced their opposition to the three strikes law; they called it a futile attempt to disconnect pirates. A British ISP also showed further evidence that the three strikes law was ill-conceived by showing just how easy it was to piggy-back WiFi. Ideologies also collided in the country when the major music business argued that The Pirate Party’s idea of a 5 year copyright term would undermine the whole industry. The three strikes debate then roared back in to headlines when a poll conducted with Open Rights Group suggested that 73% of British citizens believed that a three strikes law would harm use of vital services – as if there needed to be more evidence on how many people oppose the law, but further proof was there. It seemed that something happened within the government – whether it was public pressure or France having to legislate that the third strike would be issued by a judge is unclear – as they said that a third strike would be issued by a judge. That didn’t stop Britain’ss top spies from denouncing the three strikes law because they argued that it would fuel online anonymity, thus making it harder to spy on people over the internet. Opposition only continued to mount against the three strikes law when MPs argued that an internet connection is considered an essential service.

Spain made it into the headlines again in October when the government was set to establish an anti-p2p commission.

France, of course, was also in the headlines, but the first headline of the month to come out of the country was definitely an ironic one. The story described the French presidency accused of pirating a DVD. This would make the governing party a repeat copyright infringer of all things. Nothing much happened for a while though until later that month when France’s top court approved of the modified three strikes law where the third strike would be issued by a judge.

In the US, there was finally a resolution for ASCAPs controversial attempt to get performance royalties for ring tones. A judge killed the attempt by ruling that a ring tone is not a public performance.

The whole European Union also made headlines in October when they stunningly did an about-face and gave an OK to disconnect alleged file-sharers.

November

November started rather differently with a story that seemed to have eluded headlines for a while – ACTA. It was revealed that ACTA would bring in a global DMCA and a three strikes law. After facing severe pressure all around the world to have ACTA transparent once and for all, the MPAA hit the panic button and said that criticisms about ACTAs transparency were merely a “distraction”. Later on, an additional leak from the elusive treaty confirmed everyone’s worst fears.

Spain’s government said that they wouldn’t implement a three strikes law.

Norway made headlines when a court ruled that ISPs couldn’t be forced to block ThePirateBay. Sometime later, startling news emerged when an artist was told by a royalty group that they were forbidden from uploading their own work to ThePirateBay.

Interestingly enough, the United Nations also weighed in on the copyright debate by saying that jailing teenagers for p2p was not the answer.

After managing to get a three strikes law in place, South Korea’s copyright industry said that p2p must be filtered.

ThePirateBay made headlines pretty much every month of the year so far, and November was no exception. After the ISPs ISP of ThePirateBay was ordered to shut off access to the site, that entity then appealed the order. Shortly afterwords, a monumental shift from within the site occurred where all torrents were dropped completely and p2p users were directed to magnet links instead (which were compatible with all the popular clients by that time).

MiniNova also made headlines when it announced that they were going legit. User then left the site for more attractive alternatives.

ISOHunt also made headlines when it filed claims against CRIA in self defense.

Meanwhile, in the UK, a very symbolic study was released which showed that artists made more money in a p2p world. It also showed that record labels may be the only entities in the entire business that were actually losing money. Shortly after the study was released, the UK government appeared to be bolder by modifying their three strike law plan and turning it into a two strikes law. British ISPs understandably raised more concern by saying that these types of laws would undermine the digital economy in Britain.

In the US, Fox argued that the US should disconnect file-sharers just like France (with their three strikes law where a judge orders the third and final disconnection).

December

The year is almost out, but just because the year is wrapping up doesn’t mean the news would do the same thing.

In Spain, the copyright wars started to really heat up when the Spanish government signaled that it planned on toughening up copyright laws. Late in the month, Spain mulled shutting down P2P sites without a court order.

In the UK, copyright issues remained red hot when tech giants urged the government to remove a clause in the reform that would force spying on users even if no illegal activity was occurring. British ISPs, in the mean time, reaffirmed that they were against the proposed three strikes law. Adding fuel to the fire, it was discovered that the UKs three strikes law would cost $800 Million per year.

France, in the mean time, made headlines again. For a third time, France’s governing party was caught infringing on copyrighted material. Many observers argued that maybe the French governing party should be disconnected from the internet considering that they were busted a third time for copyright infringement.

ACTA also made headlines when one ambassador implausibly argued that people would walk away from the table if ACTA were to be divulged. Of course, the controversy surrounding the so-called agreement sparked a coalition in New Zealand which aimed to disseminate information about the negotiation and the agreement. Coincidentally, after a few days, New Zealand political parties demanded answers on ACTA.

New Zealand made headlines for other reasons – like their three strikes law moving ahead for instance.

Canada made it into headlines in the biggest way it could. CRIA, an arm of the RIAA, was sued for a historic $6 Billion in damages for not paying artists for selling their music. Regardless of the fact that the case was merely filed, the damage was very apparent with pretty much whatever credibility they had left on copyright related issues pretty much eradicated. It was news that was so big, the owner of a record store wondered why he was being investigated for piracy for having a mere couple hundred CDs without bar codes while CRIA, an “expert witness”, stood accused of pirating hundreds of thousands of works. That didn’t stop CETA, another ACTA essentially, from rearing its ugly head though.

Australia made headlines again in December over, you guessed it, it’s controversial filtering plan. This time, the Australian government revealed their plans for internet filtering. Unfortunately, the Christian lobby signaled that the filtering plan didn’t go far enough. Sometime later, a parody news site made a very humorous article making fun of the Australian governments attempt to filter the internet.

China also made headlines in December when it shut down BitTorrent sites allegedly over porn.

In the Netherlands, BREIN attempted to ban UseNet discussions claiming that what went on in UseNet was simply criminal.

Israel made headlines interestingly enough. Apparently, the most comprehensive study on the subject concluded that Israeli ISPs do, in fact, throttle p2p. The revelation sparked officials to note that the ISPs could face legal action for the activity.

Chile made headlines in December when it resisted American calls to filter the internet.

Back overseas to the US, major copyright industry representatives decided to meet with White House officials to discuss copyright issues. After much criticism, the MPAA were forced onto the defencive. The MPAA answered criticism that they were secretly negotiating without all stakeholders involved by saying that anyone could set up a meeting with US reps too if they so desired. Interestingly enough, an American court also ruled that Canadian site ISOHunt was liable for copyright infringement. How that affects things for the site overall is unclear.

The Joel Tenenbaum case made headlines, though people’s viewpoints had since changed. While the Harvard law professor appealed the case questions were being raised on his performance in the trial. Quite a change considering that toward the beginning, many considered the lawyer and professor a hero – that viewpoint has since started to waiver.

Google was caught up in another copyright case. It seems that having a formal DMCA system where if a result contained infringing material, rights holders can request that the results be removed. Apparently, that wasn’t enough for one record label which sued the search giant for copyright infringement along with several other companies in the search industry.

What year would be complete without the usual headline of the MPAA enjoying record breaking profits again? Even better, the MPAA made profit records not once, but twice.

To 2010 and Beyond!

Where things go from here is unknown. Will 2010 be just as eventful? That much is unknown, but if the past is anything to go by, chances are, many things will happen this year in the world of p2p and tech as well. For now, keep tuned in to ZeroPaid as we get ready to roll on a brand new year. It could be a bumpy ride. We hope you enjoyed the review. Thanks for reading.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

May

May started off with several stories pretty much happening at the exact same time. One of those stories was the increase in support for municipal broadband by major tech companies. Project Greenlight, the municipal broadband company that could in the US scored an uprising that caused more opposition toward the movement that would kill municipal broadband. The so-called “level the playing field” bills that would kill municipal broadband was ultimately sent to committee – that included the Senate version.

Another story was the story about how Canada’s presence on the priority watch listttttt started to lead many into believing that <a href=”http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86148/is-putting-canada-on-a-priority-watchlist-going-to-backfire/” target=”_blank”watch listhlist for many countries held no water. Losing more and more support on the international stage as well as within Canada, the IFPI appeared to be going as far as to obstruct free trade in Canada in a bid to tighten copyright laws – a plan that never really panned out for the IFPI. Later on that month, the Conference Board of Canada suffered a major embarrassment when it was caught pirating a report to call for tough actions against piracy. If that wasn’t bad enough, revelations quickly emerged that the Digital Economic Report by the Conference Board of Canada ignored independent research as well. Ultimately, the Conference Board of Canada withdrew the report.

The constant drum beat of the so-called three strikes law continued throughout the month of May. The European Union re-opened a graduated response meaning the three strikes law was once again on the table. Later on, the three strikes law in Europe was once again killed – this time, for good. It dashed hopes for the major entertainment industry to have a three-strikes-and-your-out system in place for an entire continent. Meanwhile in France, in what seemed to be a very big point in the timeline of the Three Strikes Law in the country was one man voicing opposition to the three strikes law – an opinion that cost him his job, but gripped a nation with an interest in tech and political related issues. In spite of the political outcry, the French Three Strikes law was passed anyway. Then in Britain, a UK copyright group demanded that alleged file-sharers be disconnected from the internet, but the British ISPs stood firm and rejected the calls. Later back in France, there were revelations that the French Three Strikes law would see 1000 disconnections per day.

The MPAA’s overall success continued in May with the major success of Wolverine at the box office showing that movie leaks, once again, has no impact on cinema ticket sales.

The CEO of LimeWire was caught up in Congress trying to convince regulators that the program is safe for consumption. This happened while congress was debating a law that would prevent inadvertent file-sharing.

The RIAA, a few months in to an era they promised would be litigation free, filed even more lawsuits they promised they would never file. While they were making more enemies in that respect, they were also making enemies with an old ally – public radio. One of the RIAA’s members higher ups also made the comment that nothing good ever comes out of the internet – a comment that drew anger from many places around the internet.

The major political fallout of ThePirateBay guilty verdict continued to prove that there was political ramifications as The Pirate Party’sssss support continued to grow and was projected to win two seats in the EU Parliament. Meanwhile, a Swedish bank decided, in spite of an unsettled court case, decided to freeze the bank account of the admins of the BitTorrent site. The demands for a fair trial grew particularly when the admins demanded one. With a political backlash looming, the Swedish government did the unthinkable, push for more draconian laws affecting the internet – in this case, demand mandatory data retention for 6 months. After facing a major fine, prosecutors that miraculously managed to convict ThePirateBay admins demanded further fines and a gag order on the admins. They reiterated their demands saying a $3.6 Million fine was not enough. Supporting the conviction of ThePirateBay admins grew more challenging when news later broke about how the BSA admitted that losses due to piracy were entirely hypothetical – while obvious to most, a reaffirming admission nevertheless. Ultimately, ThePirateBay admins finally made things happen when it was decided that a three judge panel would decide whether or not the original judge that convicted the admins was biased. This happened at roughly the same time when polls continued to show that The Pirate Party was set to win at least one seat in the EU Parliament. Things continued to appear to be going in ThePirateBay admins favour when the courts rejected the demands for an additional fine and gag order. Things grew increasingly hairy when a Swedish minister was caught applauding the outcome of ThePirateBay trial. Meanwhile, The Pirate Party support gained a major supporter when a famousdish writer explained why he is voting for the party.

While the year is filled with studies, one study in particular seemed to reaffirm many observers of the copyright debate’s belief – a flat rate is, indeed, the way to go.

The RealDVD trial kept making occasional appearances in the headlines as Real accused the MPAA of anti-trust violations.

Privacy was also an issue that made headlines throughout the year. At one point, after France decided to push for three strikes law, the government took things a step further and pushed for legalizing the use of malware by police among other things. It was a law so draconian, few believed what they read when the story broke.

The Joel Tenenbaum case re-emerged in the headlines as the Harvard Professor defending an alleged file-sharer suggested that file-sharing is “fair use”. The Harvard Law professor later said that the RIAAs lawsuit campaign was an unconstitutional abuse of the law.

Spain made it into the headlines when the record industry took P2P developer Pablo Soto to court over unfair competition.

The Australian web filtering debate grew when confusing language emerged that the filtering would be voluntary mandatory. That didn’t stop the Australian Christian Group from reiterating calls for a porn filter though.

June

June started off with Spanish citizens demanding internet civil rights. Probably facing huge pressure from the public, Spanish counterparts for the copyright industry later backed down from demanding a three strikes law for the country.

With questions swirling about the future of the RIAAs filesharing lawsuit campaign, the RIAA went public to say that file-sharing lawsuits are not about the money but a “fair and reasonable” campaign.

Things grew more tense around ThePirateBay trial’s outcome. One artist even put one of his albums on the site to protest his art being used against the admins during the trial. Later on, time was up and the admins for The Pirate Bay urged European citizens to get out and vote – though they didn’t exactly say for who, just get out and vote. Things seemed to just play in to Swedish The Pirate Party’sssss favour as the party then went on to win two seats in the EU Parliament. Meanwhile, things quickly went sideways for the admins of ThePirateBay when the three panel judge ruled that the original judge was not biased in making his guilty conviction. The Pirate Party’s success didn’t stop at the EU Election. The party proved to be growing in strength both nationally and internationally – many point out that the victory in Sweden inspired many others around the world to start their own national Pirate Parties. While the Pirate Party movement was growing stronger and stronger, the Swedish government decided to divert 15 police officials to investigating copyright infringement. Interestingly enough, shortly after that announcement, ThePirateBay formally launched its VPN service. Scrambling for some way to stop the overwhelming success of The Pirate Party, a Swedish politician made the unfortunate decision to equate Pirate Party Supporters with rapists. Bad news later emerged for ThePirateBay admins in the midst of all this when a court ruled that the original judge was not biased. By that point, many rumours circulated about the three judge panel being biased as well. Oddly enough, right after the ruling, the admins were issued a court summons via Twitter by Dutch anti-p2p organization BREIN. Also towards the end of the month, many in Sweden questioning the entire judicial system of Sweden. Things were going along smoothly PR-wise for ThePirateBay until news emerged that the website was sold. Many users then flocked to alternatives as a result, outraged and calling the admins “sellouts”. This was, perhaps, the first time the admins experienced negative publicity from the public.

Not to be forgotten, the Jammie Thomas trial took an interesting turn when lawyers moved to bar evidence provided by Media Sentry in the trial. The retrial of Jammie Thomas started later on that month. Unfortunately, in the same month, Jamie Thomas was also fined $1.92 Million for sharing a mere 24 songs.

The MPAA’s trial against RealDVD took a critical turn when the MPAA said that even making one DVD was illegal. Meanwhile, the MPAA found themselves admitting to losing the PR war to “the enemies of copyright”. One might observe that the language further signalled a sort of more mean spirited language that later seems to be part of a later PR war.

Controversy in Canada continued over the Conference Board of Canada’s report when the CEO spoke out to do some damage control only to have an ex-employee counter the CEO’s claims. Meanwhile, uncertainty about the Canadian government’s ability to handle internet related issues grew when the governing party introduced mandatory ISP level surveillance legislation. Sadlypears for many that the governing party let Canadians down upon review of both surveillance bills. The response was swift as many Canadian newspapers responded by making mast-head editorials denouncing the surveillance legislation. Things started to look dicey on the political landscape in Canada when the Liberal party announced that they would combat piracy and ratify WIPO. The reason this was dicey because with the governing party and the Liberal party, there is enough votes to pass anything. Things looked dicey until the Liberal party, no doubt facing internal controversy, backtracked on calls to ratify WIPO and merely saying that their calls to ratify WIPO was merely to mark interest on the subject… honestly! While the copyright debate grew in Canada, news surfaced that BNN, a Canadian broadcaster, was accused of censoring the copyright debate by taking down several videos on the subject from YouTube.

A report out of Russia suggested that the Russian government wanted internet anonymity abolished.

A UK Minister, after the government faced even more pressure to change their minds on the three strikes law position, continued to defy the industry’s calls for a three strikes law saying that such a law was “too draconian”. One of the ways that the copyright industry exerted pressure onto the government was through a study that was cast in to doubt when reviewed. A UK ISP also said that the idea that one can stop file-sharing is “very naive”. Another study in the UK suggested that losses due to piracy were fictitious and that if losses occurred, it wasn’t due to file-sharing and piracy, but rather, gaming and DVDs. Undeterred by a botched PR campaign and growing scepticism about the anti-file-sharing movement, a copyright industry entity argued that a three strikes law was the way to go and that throttling was a waste of time.

Frances LOPPSI 2 law that would allow police to upload malware received an expert review which had further insights and confirmation in the law. Meanwhile, fresh from passing the three strikes law, France went on to use military intelligence to shut down a private BitTorrent website. Later on that month, the French president was dealt with another embarrassing blow to his plans for a French Three Strikes Law when France’s Constitutional Court ruled that the three strikes law was unconstitutional. Fresh from the PR loss of having the three strikes law ruled unconstitutional, French authorities reiterated that they would be going after Snowtiger donators and uploaders. It was that point in time that a new face of the three strikes law would emerge – a judge had to order the third strike and consequential disconnection. This new version seemed to catch on in other countries later on – at least, that’s what other countries were pressured to adopt by the international copyright industry conglomerates. Interestingly enough, like the Swedish Pirate Party, the French Pirate Party was called a “hacker group”. The party refuted being called a “hacker group”.

In New Zealand, after being forced to back peddle on implementing a three strikes law partly due to the major blackout protests, New Zealand gave signals that it would re-introduce the three strikes law in that country.

Let’s not forget that during this month was also the tenth anniversary of Napster. On the anniversary, KFPA Radio interviewed both Jared Moya and myself to discuss the implications of Napster’s original release. Michael Geist marked the anniversary by debunking several file-sharing myths. CRIA, while still in possession of some PR credibility still at that point, freaked out about Michael Geist debunking the file-sharing myths and argued that the file-sharing problem was a “fact”.

Germany also made headlines when critics picked apart the mandatory DNS blacklist proposal. Civil unrest against the government, as a result of this, grew in the country. RapidShare, a German based company later in the month, was fined $33 Million for copyright violations. As a result, many started looking for alternatives to the one-click hoster though it never ultimately affected the services dominance in the one-click hosting industry.

Germany wasn’t the only country having political troubles trying to make ISP blacklists. Political tensions in Finland mounted when a Finnish transparency website was placed on the mandatory blacklist. With many internet related issues facing Germans and a government appearing to ignore their citizens, it might not be a surprise that after the success of the Pirate Party in the EU that the German counterpart managed to snag national seat from a defecting party member of another party. In spite of this, Germany passed surveillance legislation anyway.

The United States made headlines in other ways as well. One of those headlines was ASCAP demanding an additional performance tax for ringtones.

Curiously, Argentina made headlines for the first time this year here on ZeroPaid when the countries newspapers demanded to use data retention to go after alleged copyright infringers.

Banking on the success of the previous victory by the copyright industry getting one Irish ISP to bring in a three strikes law, Irish counterparts of the copyright industry moved to try and pressure more ISPs in Ireland to put in place a three strikes policy.

Australia continued to remain in the headlines with the governments plan to filter online video games as well. This was in the face of severe questions of how much of the internet the government was going to filter.

If there was one issue all countries had reason to worry, it was the continued negotiations of ACTA. During June, consumer groups demanded that ACTA negotiations be halted. One of the concerns of ACTA was a complete lack of transparency.

While artists supporting file-sharing is nothing new, another artist joined the ranks of many other artists who said that there were positives to file-sharing. Later on, Moby said that suing music fans is not a sustainable business model.

July

July saw what may be one of the biggest copyright related loss for the UseNet community. UseNet.com suffered a copyright infringement case loss.

In the US, controversy kept rolling over ASCAPs decision to demand performance royalties on ringtones, but the EFF slammed ASCAP for the demands saying that ringtones are like music being heard on a car stereo system with the car windows rolled down. Towards the end of the month, the hearings on allowing exceptions to the DMCA made headlines when one lawyer argued that a user cannot access legal content forever and it’s an over the top demand to say otherwise.

July also reconfirmed that ThePirateBay had changed. The site made headlines when ThePirateBay announced that it would pay seeders money – all part of a new business model apparently. The acquisition seemed to go as smoothly as one could hope, but just days after the acquisition, things started to fall apart for the deal. The buyer of ThePirateBay was accused of insider trading. Still, The Pirate Party on the other hand was still enjoying the euphoria of their major victories on the national and international stage. In the process, they wrote an op-ed saying that copyright laws endanger people’s digital freedom. The deal between ThePirateBay and Global Gaming Factory looked increasingly bleak as more questions were raised about the acquisition of the site – GGF refuted the questions, saying that the deal was going along smoothly. While the deal was going on, the MPAA echoed previous calls by other arms of the copyright industry to shutter ThePirateBay.

Things in Canada got interesting when The Pirate Party of Canada landed on Canadian shores and began to establish themselves. Meanwhile, as BNN took heat for censoring the copyright debate, BNN responded to criticism saying that the videos were part of a broader round of takedowns and wasn’t targeting the copyright debate in particular. A little bit of a political turf war was seen in Canada on the news that the Pirate Party were entering the political stage. The Green Party said that there was no need for a Pirate Party given that there was already a Green Party willing to take the issues to task. The Pirate Party responded to those comments. It was then that things really turned around in Canada when the governing party held a copyright consultation. Some were sceptical, but most embraced the government initiative (how often does that happen on issues like this?) with open arms – the consultation wound up being the most successful consultation ever in terms of number of responses. During the month though, the consultation seemed to be the talk of the town with many talking about copyright in and outside the consultation. Access Copyright hit the panic button and said that the entire copyright debate will rob creators of their livelihoods.

The infamous Dream Pinball lawsuits in the UK took an interesting turn when wrongfully accused victims caught up in the lawsuit began to step forward. Meanwhile, the UK government started to show signs that they were weakening on their stance on copyright. The government said that they’ll need time to start reducing P2P activity. While it seemed that UK ISPs stood firm against a three strikes law, one ISP, Karoo, suddenly implemented a three strikes policy on their own. Critics called the decision a “KangKaroo court”. Interestingly enough, in the mean time, the UK music industry’s own economist, as if an echo to the major success the MPAA begrudginglyy admitted, said that UKs music revenues were up by 4.7%, a different take considering a while back, there was suggestions that the UK music industry was suffering thanks to competition by the movie and gaming industry.

Frances defiance of letting the three strikes law get away became more apparent this month upon word that judges would be given 5 minutes to rule on each disconnection – 5 minutes of work that required far more time to go through on a case-by-case basis. The PR war kept rolling on though when the French broadcaster that fired the employee for voicing his opposition to the three strikes law was sued over the incident. Meanwhile, the three strikes law was then delayed a few months.

The Jammie Thomas case roared back into the headlines proving that the case wasn’t over. After dealing with the blow of being fined millions, Jammie Thomas’ legal council announced that they would be appealing the court decision – one of the reasons would be based on constitutional grounds of the fine in question. The back and forth action continued in the courtroom when the RIAA demanded that Jammie Thomas be barred from P2P. Jammie Thomas’ legal council later confirmed that one of the reasons for appealing was because of constitutional questions being raised by the fine.

The Joel Tenenbaum case made headlines when the RIAA cried fowl over the idea that the Media Sentry evidence should be suppressed on the basis of the company violating wiretapping and private investigation laws.

When everyone thought that the EU-wide three strikes law was finished, there was word that one EU parliamentarian suggested that download regulations needed to be overhauled. Things got dramatic on the EU stage when one European anti-piracy group called The Pirate Party’s message “criminal”.

New Zealand made headlines in July again when the government revealed a newer gentler three strikes law. In fact, one MP suggested that there should be a blank tax for P2P so as to legalize it.

On a positive note, a Spanish judge in the same month ruled that not-for-profit P2P was legal.

On a more sad note, July saw South Korea’s three strike law go into force.

Things grew somewhat scary when Finland mulled banning the activity of talking about DRM circumvention.

It wasn’t always bad news throughout the year for Australia. The government suggested that maybe there was a more appropriate way to deal with P2P – possibly warming up to the P2P movement in a way. In an odd turn of events, Australian ISPs suggested that the controversial filtering plan by the Australian government would not slow down internet speeds – one of the major criticisms of the Australian internet filtering plan.

Creators continued to question the big copyright companies tactics with UK legend Stephen Fry comparing the RIAA to big tobacco companies. Lawrence Lessig weighed in himself on P2P saying that P2P is the new prohibition.

As if to show one more sign that the file-sharing movement was pretty much unstoppable, one small developer was developing one method of putting a song into a picture that would be readable and played back into audio. What was particularly fascinating was seeing how one could manipulate sound via Photoshop – not exactly a conventional software for modifying sound, but video demonstrations proved that it was possible.

August

News about Joel Tenenbaum rolled right from July to August when word came out that Tenenbaum was fined $675,000 for sharing 30 works. After the ruling, Tenenbaum set up a website that accepted donations that would go towards fighting the RIAA in court.

The Jammie Thomas case too made headlines when a revelation emerged that the US government was stepping in to demand that the judge throw out claims of unconstitutionality.

It seemed as though BREIN made some inroads in a Dutch court when a judge ruled that ThePirateBay was legally obliged to block users from the Netherlands. Amidst the commotion surrounding ThePirateBay, Brokep, an admin of the BitTorrent site, announced that he was leaving the website. Undeterred by repeated bad news about the deal between GGF and ThePirateBay, rumours surfaced that the company planned to acquire even more BitTorrent sites once the current deal was wrapping up. Along side that were rumours that a major record label was about to make a deal with ThePirateBay. Of course, The IFPI wanted GGF to pay for ThePirateBay fine if the deal were to go through. Not liking the earlier ruling in a Dutch court, ThePirateBay then said that it would challenge the Dutch courts decision to force the website to block Netherlands traffic. It was then that GGF made another bold move by announcing that it was negotiating a licensing agreement with a performing rights organization. Unfortunately, shortly after the announcement, GGFs stock was halted until the company produced the cash it promised to buy ThePirateBay. Trying to salvage the acquisition of ThePirateBay, GGF publicly disclosed their grand plan to legitimize ThePirateBay. Unfortunately for GGF, police began to suspect insider trading. Legal troubles for ThePirateBay continued when a Swedish court ordered a Swedish ISP to block ThePirateBay. Towards the end of the month, GGF investors abandoned ThePirateBay acquisition. The escapade wasn’t over though as GGF then said that GGF investors approved of the plan to acquire ThePirateBay. Things went south again when tax collectors seized GGF CEOs assets that would go to paying back taxes.

In France, steamed by the slow progress of the French Three Strikes Law, a special session was set aside to deal with the law as quickly as possible.

Stunningly, there was movement again to neuter provisions in the EU telecoms package that would once again revive the EU-wide three strikes law.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the copyright consultation continued to prove to be a hit amongst Canadians with more and more submissions continuing to pile up. Remarkably, while all this was happening, the copyright industry had the audacity to call for a Canadian three strikes law. It would prove to be one of the last calls to do so in the year as well. Coincidently, the Canadian Manitoba Music industry, during a round table, shunned CRIAs stance as if to re-highlight the rift between Canadian record labels and CRIA. Things continued to remain interesting in Canada’s copyright consultation when DOC supported the expansion of “fair dealings”. More calls to expand Canada’s fair dealings continued to roll in to the consultation. Adding fuel for the demands for a more liberal approach to copyright, the ESA pointed out that the Canadian gaming industry grew without the need of a Technical Protection Measure or anti-circumvention law in place. No doubt freaking out about the whole consultation process and where it turned, the copyright industry was probably scrambling for a plan. It got one, but stacking the town hall meeting in their favour didn’t exactly go over very well for Canadians. In an almost symbolic move, an American music group called the idea of a fair copyright law in Canada “disgusting”. The NDP, the political group that sparked that comment responded, saying that they make no apology for their stance on copyright.

With other countries having suggested that they would filter the internet, Malaysia suggested that it, too, plans to filter the internet.

Germany saw one MP renew calls to legalize file-sharing, saying that a neutral stance of a blank tariff was the way to go. At the end of the month, the German Pirate Party even won several government seats.

Things started to grow dark in Australia when ISPs essentially asked via proposed legislation to become copyright cops.

In the UK, the criticism about “KangKaroo Courts” gained momentum when UK ISP Karoo backed down from plans to implement a three strikes policy and, instead, require a court order. With all this uncertainty about the digital future of the UK, it was probably no surprise when news emerged that the UK managed to get their own Pirate Party. The timing of this couldn’t be better since it was just a short while later that the UK government turned around on its initial stance of not legislating in a three strikes law and seriously planned on a p2p crackdown. The British Pirate Party quickly built a name for themselves, writing a provocative piece on why the cost to fight file-sharing was “too high”. It was then that the UK government pretty much made it official that it would disconnect file-sharers after all. A British ISP was dismayed at the governments change of heart on the issue of disconnecting file-sharers and said that the war on file-sharing was futile. This caused the British government to be on the defencive with their plan to disconnect alleged file-sharers.

Things grew bleak for Mininova in August when a court ordered the site to remove all copyrighted content.

Things seemed to start to turn around in Finland upon news that a Finnish Pirate Party was officially registered in the country.

One Irish ISP went along with the idea of blocking ThePirateBay, but it turns out that it was the only ISP willing to do so at that time. The Irish Pirate Party announced its opposition to the ISP decision.

The MPAA’s war on RealDVD seemed to draw to a close in August when a judge barred the sale of RealDVD.

One artist in August said that P2P was a global word of mouth, becoming yet another creative that said that there were positive attributes for file-sharing.

Stay tuned for the final part of the review.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

January

2009 kicked things off with a bang with the ever ongoing Australian plan to filter the internet. The news at that time came with the revelation that the internet filtering plan would be mandatory for everyone with no opt out. Opposition parties of the government called the Australian plan to filter the internet offencive to parents. The German government announced similar plans to filter the internet. In the United States, it wasn’t a plan that went quite as far as to filter the whole internet, but one of the US ISPs did begin to throttle FTP, UseNet and P2P traffic.

There was also the news that seemed to be a repeating theme these days as well. News surfaced that Hollywood was breaking profit records. At that time, it was in overseas profits.

Meanwhile, there was big news about the RIAA when they fired MediaSentry, an anti-filesharing organization that observers say botched several investigations on alleged file-sharers. It seems to be interesting for that to happen while the RIAA was getting heavy in to a legal fight with a Harvard Law professor in what would become one of the more dramatic file-sharing cases the year had seen. The story continued to make headlines with the RIAA blaming the professor for dragging out the case. After attempting to block the broadcast of the case in question, a judge permitted the broadcast of the file-sharing case. It would seem ironic that the RIAA would refuse the broadcast of the case given that they advocate so heavily on educating the public about these issues. The irony and controversy was amplified when the RIAA later attempted to block the broadcast of the trial claiming that it would unfairly benefit the defendant. The judge, in an interesting turn of events, granted a review on broadcasting the trial.

RIAA was also busy trying to get US ISPs to disconnect alleged file-sharers. Unfortunately for the RIAA, the ISPs fought back, hesitant on, among other things, losing customers.

Later on in January, it was discovered that after promising that it would finally stop their lawsuit campaign, the RIAA filed even more file-sharing lawsuits.

The year also started with a major news story about what many might call the moment DRM was in serious trouble as a viable business model for selling music. iTunes announced that they would finally begin selling DRM-free music.

January’s eventfulness continued with the beginning developments of the MPAA vs what would probably be the legalities of selling a DVD back-up utility in the United States.

Another noteworthy development was WebSheriff bringing down one-click hosting blog RLSLog, though it didn’t take long before the website was brought back up.

The so-called “three strikes law” was a major story all year long and beyond and the year started off with the British government saying that it won’t consider a three strikes law. It was that story that triggered massive pressure from major copyright companies aimed directly at the UK government to change their mind. Meanwhile, it seemed that an Irish ISP was more willing to cave to pressure and agreed to start going along with a three strikes law.

February

News spilled over into February with Vuze calling on the FCC to look in to Cox throttling p2p traffic. While questions were swirling about blocking BitTorrent, Irish ISPs also agreed to block BitTorrent tracker sites.

The Harvard Law professors trial continued to be in the headlines in February with news organizations calling for the file-sharing trial to be broadcasted because the case was in the publics interest.

The British government seemed to still not be giving in to pressure to mandate a three strikes policy when the Digital Britain report was issued.

Meanwhile, TorrentSpy appealed a ruling won by the MPAA because the owners believed that it shouldn’t be mandated to violate users privacy.

After releasing their album online for free, the a case study was done on the Nine Inch Nails method of releasing music to the public that concluded that this was the future of the music industry. It continued to show that not all artists believe in suing music fans and many other tactics deployed by the major record labels.

More news surfaced that trials would begin on the Australian governments internet filtering plan. Things would later heat up with one professor infamously remarking that an unfiltered internet has no place in a democracy. Electronic Frontier Australia was quick to fire back saying that the professor was misrepresenting the issue. By the end of the month, more politicians in the Australian government saw that the plans to censor the internet wasn’t that great of an idea.

The ever famous Pirate Bay Trial started in February and it cemented the name “spectrial” given that a victory seemed to be pretty much a guarantee given the case built up against it. On day two, when news came that half the charges were dropped, many observers found the trial to not only be a shoe-in victory for ThePirateBay, but the copyright industry’s case was becoming more like a farce. Day 3 of the trial revolved around the fact that users, not the site admins, were responsible for what is placed on the site. On day 4, ThePirateBay was accused of purposeful crime on a grand scale, ignoring how the website actually worked in the first place. On day 5, Peter Sunde took the stand to answer some pointed questions by the prosecutor. On day 7, prosecutors began altering their charges on ThePirateBay admins. On day 8, a record executive took the stand saying that ThePirateBay was responsible for their supposed woes and refuted arguments that file-sharing has had a net positive effect on the music industry. On Day 9, a professor argued that there was no link between filesharing and music sale losses.

February also saw a relentless campaign by the copyright industry to tarnish Canada’s reputation. One of those entities was the IIPA which claimed that Canada should be placed on a priority 301 watch list because of movie piracy. While the effort would prove ultimately successful, it led many experts to realize that the watch lists could not be trusted given the anecdotal decision to put Canada on the watch list in the first place. It would seem like an interesting point of view given that there were revelations surfacing that Canadian ISP bandwidth growth fell by 45%.

The three strikes law theme continued with wide-spread protest in New Zealand where websites were blacked out because of the censorship potential of the legislation because the legislation is easily dubbed “three accusations and your out”. Meanwhile France finalized plans for a government three strikes agency.

Another story of note was that after Wikileaks published an extortion letter issued by Davenport Lyons, the organization responsible for sending out thousands of P2P lawsuits, the company then threatened to sue Wikileaks claiming that the letter was protected by copyright law.

There was also another sign for Swedish citizens that foreign entities were encroaching on to their countries political landscape when the government approved an expansion on police powers to target filesharing.

February ended with a bang when the French governing political party (UMP), the party who was leading the charge for implementing a three strikes law in France, was sued for copyright infringement. Their plan to offer a “symbolic” 1 Euro payment didn’t exactly go over very well.

March

The beginning of March saw the end of the prosecutions closing arguments for ThePirateBay on day 11. After watching the whole trial, pretty much every observer thought the admins of the BitTorrent site had a guarantee to winning in the trial due to how badly botched the prosecutions arguments were. Meanwhile, outside the court, there was major pressure for ISPs to block the site including countries like Norway which refused to block the website. Back in the court on day 11, the defence made their closing arguments for the defence was being made.

March saw the continuation of the theme that the MPAA was enjoying ever increasing profits as well.

Then, in spite of claims that the RIAA would stop suing music fans, the RIAA continued filing lawsuits against alleged copyright infringers.

The three strikes law theme of 2009 continued with revelations that the French three strikes law would cost $40 million annually. Meanwhile in New Zealand, many users were relieved to find out that after weeks of widespread protests, the government backed down from plans to implement a three strikes law. Still, that didn’t stop South Korea from implementing a three strikes law.

There was also news in the scene where Swedish police raided a Sunnydale server. Prosecutors said that the server was the source of all the material in spite of the large userbase that actually uploaded to the site in the first place.

With the UK under pressure and starting to show signs of caving in to big industry demands, British artists became vocal and compared prosecuting file-sharers to putting toothpaste back in the tube.

In the US, legislation was introduced to prevent accidental file-sharing.

Australia’s filtering plan got way more heated when ISPs started to refuse to take part of the ridiculous plan to filter the internet once they discovered that the filters broadened to include things outside of child pornography.

There were also many developments that showed the legitimacy of filesharing including a record label distributing content via Mininova.

April

April began with more news that the MPAA continued to break record profits though insanely claims that it’s nothing to apologize for and it needed stronger copyright protection to protect the industry anyway.

April also say a change in music consumption habits as they downloaded both legitimately and illegitimately less and are resorting to streaming music more.

The three strikes laws made headlines again with France passing their controversial three strikes law. The law garnered the support of U2s band manager. When all seemed lost, there was a surprising defeat for the French three strikes law when French MPs went on vacation, allowing the defeat of the legislation. Meanwhile in the European Union, the EU-wide three strikes law hit a major roadblock for a second time with the law simply being voted down. It seemed to be much easier, though, for Taiwan to pass the three strikes law though. Towards the end of the month, France saw the three strikes law make it back to parliament with an embarrassed president vowing that the legislation would pass this time. Meanwhile in the UK, Britishhhhh prime minister signalled that a three strikes law was still not going to happen. Opposition towards the three strikes law continued to mount in France as the French arts community revolted against the three strikes law.

VPN’s popularity grew particularly with ThePirateBay’s VPN service hitting 113,000 users. Some point out that anti-filesharing laws are still futile because technology will always be a step ahead of authorities and lawmakers.

The Pirate Bays result of the trial was greatly anticipated. Almost everyone was betting on an innocent ruling, but virtually everyone was shocked to find out that in spite of such an error filled prosecution, the judge ruled that ThePirateBay admins were guilty anyway. Outrage ensued. ThePirateBay then went on record to say that the site would live on. Still, the guilty verdict was so stunning and outrageous, there were signs emerging that the verdict would have a major impact on the European Elections. In the mean time, UK ISPs ended up blocking ThePirateBay because, they say, the site had adult content on it. While some ISPs caved to pressure, others like the Swedish ISPs refused to block ThePirateBay. Back at the trial, after the guilty verdict, lawyers for the defence smelled something funny and discovered that the presiding judge was a member of a pro-copyright organization. This led to further outrage over the BitTorrent sites trial. Protests went so far as to create a website called ThePirateGoogle. The website was quickly blocked by Google, but the site was more about proving a point rather than create a functional tool for users to find torrents on ThePirateBay. Google was not amused and eventually asked people to stop comparing them to ThePirateBay. Whether or not there was a stigma that Google didn’t want, lawyers pointed out that ThePirateBay’s legal demise could endanger the search giant. Artists came out to support ThePirateBay on the grounds that the ruling against the admins was questionable. Meanwhile, US representatives called the guilty verdict “significant positive progress”, further proving to many that the US was heavily involved in the trial in spite of not really having much legal jurisdiction in the country. The political fallout was severe as The Swedish Pirate Party’s popularity soared to the point of people predicting the party winning seats in the EU parliament.

Mininova, in the mean time, would make their last major milestone of 8 Billion downloads as their court date loomed.

In the US, the court case revolving around the MPAA and RealDVD was heard by a judge, commencing an interesting court case surrounding the legitimacy of selling a DVD backup utility in the US. Yes, this is still 2009.

Web filtering fever spread around the world with German government commencing their web filtering plan – a plan that saw the exponential growth of a movement to stop web filtering in Germany. The filtering debate went so far as to have German book publishers demanding to block Rapidshare. Meanwhile in Australia, the country that seemed to have started the movement for governments to try and seize control of the internet, a public forum was started that allowed Australian citizens to have their say on the matter of internet filtering.

April also saw one of ZeroPaid’s most popular articles on the site. In the United States, the major ISPs rolled out push polling to try and block a cheaper alternative for internet connectivity via municipal broadband. The story gained the attention of so many, that the legislation to stop the ISP was eventually shelved. The debate around it saw an interesting debate between people who believe that the government should stay out of the market and those that believe that ISPs have abused a oligopoly to continually raise prices of broadband while still having the quality of service to continue to degrade.

Stay tuned for part 2.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

We interviewed Jake Daynes, a spokesperson for the Pirate Party of Canada recently and we had some interesting responses to our questions.

ZeroPaid: What is the Pirate Party and how has it grown since the launch?

Jake Daynes: The Pirate Party of Canada is the Canadian counterpart of the international Pirate Party movement, which has gained seats in Sweden and Germany. We are fighting for fair copyright, patent reform, net neutrality, and government transparency. Our goals can be found here.

ZeroPaid: We’ve heard about a Pirate Party distribution platform that is being launched. What is the distribution platform exactly? Has it been officially launched? Are there any partners involved in this project?

Jake Daynes: Right now I don’t want to say much, but I can say that it utilizes a very “pirate-y” distribution method. Right now it has been started up, though we have not made it live, and we have several partners in this, such as Musicians United Against Censorship, Electronica Artist/DJ: Frozen Ice Cube [Author's note: The latest music is currently here due to recent technical issues] , and Fading Ways Music.

ZeroPaid:What sort of artists are you looking for? Is it genre specific or location specific or can anyone around the world with any musical style join in? Is it moderated and if so, how long does it take for something to be posted?

Jake Daynes: No, we are not genre specific, we are looking for anybody and everybody! We do have a slight moderation system, which is mainly me going through every track, just to make sure it isn’t a copyright violation, but it shouldn’t take more than 24 hours to get something posted, once the project is live.

ZeroPaid: For artists, what kind of reach does this platform provide (like, how many people are accessing it)? Do you expect this number of people to grow?

Jake Daynes: This platform is access to a global stage, with Pirate Party support in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Germany, and the US, we have access to millions of people that are all looking for new music to listen to!

ZeroPaid: I’ve noticed on your home page that you have a sufficient number of members, but you seem to have a second bar for people sending in forms. Are you able to officially register as a political party yet or do you have to have that number of forms handed in before that happens?

Jake Daynes: Right now we are asking everybody to send in their forms, as we need to have a minimum of 250 to register with Elections Canada, though those that sign up are still counted as full members, as membership is free!

ZeroPaid: It’s been talked about plenty of times that the Pirate Bay had a major influence on the success of the Swedish Pirate Party. The only big things like that happening around in Canada seem to have been copyright reform legislation which is already on the back burner because of the copyright consultations. Would you say that the Pirate Party’s growth is attributed to a reaction to major copyright related events or is it more of an ongoing growth for the Canadian Pirate Party?

Jake Daynes: Actually, few people know it, but Canada has it’s own Pirate Bay right here in Richmond, B.C.: isoHUNT, which is run by Gary Fung just south of Vancouver. Copyright is a global issue that is affecting everybody, and even though the copyright consultations are putting reform on the back burner as you put it, the PPoC is continuing to grow, with members and chapters all across the country.

ZeroPaid: There have been a number of countries that have Pirate Parties officially registered, but all these countries seem to be in Europe. Is it the goal of the Pirate Party of Canada to be the first non-European country to be an official political party?

Jake Daynes: Yes, currently the PPoC is looking to become the first non-European party to be officially registered.

ZeroPaid: There are rumours that there could, on a remote chance, be an election in the Fall. If that happens, is there a chance that the Pirate Party could be in that election?

Jake Daynes: Sadly no, because of current election legislation, the PPoC would have to have been a registered party 60 days before the writ of an election, though we will continue to push our issues, and hope that the voice of fair copyright is heard by current parties.

ZeroPaid: There are a number of people out there who might suggest that the party doesn’t stand much of a chance with the First Past the Post system along with the established parties. Having said that though, is it the goal for the party to win seats or is it more about sending a message to government that said Canadians are concerned with certain issues in the copyright, privacy and technology related fields of policy making?

Jake Daynes: Yes, it is in fact very difficult for a new party to break into the First Past the Post system, take, for example, the Green Party, garnering 13% of the popular vote last election and still not gaining a seat. Our goal is indeed to gain seats, though one important point is that our message is heard, because lets face it, we as a party prove that Canadians are concerned, and some even passionate about these issues.

ZeroPaid: Do you have anything further to add?

Jake Daynes: I, Jake Daynes, would just like to add that if anybody is interested in the Party, my personal email is JakeDaynes@PirateParty.ca, and I would be happy to discuss them with you. If you would like to debate the Party’s views, our forums are very lively.

ZeroPaid: Thank you very much for your time.

Jake Daynes: Thank you Drew

We would like to thank Jake Daynes for taking the time out of his busy schedule to talk to us.

The Pirate Party of Canada was started somewhere between the end of June and July 2nd. It’s been seeking membership since the launch and has grown to roughly 500 members in the span of two months. Pirate Party of Canada’s official website home page.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Should an ISP block website because of a complaint by a corporation or an organization of corporations? This could be one question that could draw a line in the sand between the copyright industry and supporters of free speech in Europe.

Earlier this year, the European Union blocked the three strikes law by declaring internet access as a fundamental right. Since then, the copyright industry has been scrambling to find some sort of quick cheap fix to stop all forms of file-sharing on the internet by, among other things, implementing three strikes, censorship, throttling and anything else they can get other people to throw at file-sharing. Since the political way by implementing things like the three strikes law seemed to not be quick enough, the industry went after ISPs. Eircom in Ireland was one of those ISPs.

Starting September 1st, as a part of a settlement between the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and Eircom, the ISP has agreed to start blocking The Pirate Bay.

Just days afterwards, the Irish Pirate Party issued a statement saying that they are “deeply concerned by news that eircom is to block access from its subscribers to thepiratebay.org.”

“The Party,” the statement continued, “which is opposed to censorship and stands for the protection of individual privacy, finds this action wholly disturbing and believes it should not go ahead.”

“The Pirate Party believes that this block will set a precedent not only for further monitoring of Internet users, censorship and general debilitation of Internet services in Ireland, but also for similar action against other Irish companies providing Internet services, such as BT Ireland, Smart Telecom, Perlico and UPC (two of which have already been similarly threatened), severely damaging competition in this sector and curtailing efficient broadband rollout.”

It should be noted that as of the 20th, other Irish ISPs did vow to keep fighting IRMA which wants to force ISPs to implement three strikes and blocking internet websites such as The Pirate Bay. Given that the Telecoms package had the final say on disconnections by saying that internet access is a fundamental right, it’s not hard to conclude that Irish ISPs disconnecting users is not only bad publicity, but illegal by European law as well. From an observational standpoint, a lawsuit to force an ISP to break European law seems to be some sort of legal twilight zone – one can only imagine what is going on behind the scenes of these ISPs that are still fighting.

The Irish Pirate Party also noted that backup copies of The Pirate Bay have been distributed online as well and questions whether blocking the site would be even remotely effective in the first place.

In addition, the Irish Pirate Party quoted sections of Irish copyright laws IRMA used to go after ISPs and pointed out that “Neither the Pirate Bay, nor Eircom, store any copyrighted materials on any of their servers or within their service infrastructure. Also since the law specifically refers to singular works this section of the law cannot be used against an entire site or service.”

Unfortunately, as it has been proven in past cases, what local laws say hardly matters since the copyright industry tends to interpret copyright laws their way and enforces their interpretation of the laws as they see fit. In the past, this point was particularly prevalent when the copyright industry persuaded Swedish lawmakers to break local Swedish law when the websites server farms were raided by police back in 2006. The move by anti-piracy efforts backed by the US earned lawsuits from local businesses who were taken offline thanks to the server farm raid. Accusations of illegal activity by officials in 2006 during the raid ran fast and furious.

The kind of debate over whether or not ISPs are allowed to enforce their own three strikes policy or are allowed to arbitrarily block websites at the copyright industry bidding doesn’t appear to be exclusive to Ireland given that this kind of debate is already happening in the UK when a key political figure did a “u-turn” on the governments stance on three strikes after spending a short vacation with an American billionaire from the copyright industry and, by extension, in the Netherlands where MiniNova was ordered to remove all links to trackers containing allegedly copyright infringing material.

While it seems that the copyright industry is trying to find every back door they possibly can to try and find ways of defying the will of the European Union, this effort could ultimately backfire as it further legitimizes the stance of the Pirate Party in many European countries. It gives very real relevance to the concerns of the party for potential new voters who have already voted in one to two members of the party into the European Union. If the copyright industry doesn’t see it, surely policymakers should given that it’s their jobs on the line, not the industry’s.

Whether this particular issue between Eircom and IRMA becomes a key political point remains to be seen, but at the very least, it’s shaping up to be another controversial point in the European copyright debate.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Already, one UK minister said that a so-called “three strikes” law is too draconian back in June, but more recently, a UK ISP tried to institute their own three strikes law. That case caused the Open Rights Group to describe the three strikes regime as ““Guilt by accusation, punishment without trial“.

This may really ultimately be the core problem of a so-called three strikes regime – how many civil or criminal cases can see someone punished based on an accusation and without the option of going to court? What a three strikes regime has had a history of is trying to dodge the whole court system and skip right to punishing people based on an accusation essentially.

That’s what makes the latest blog posting on the UK Pirate Party’s website all the more interesting. In it, Andy R. discusses legal aspects of file sharing.

Back in June of 2008, a leaked letter said that the government was setting a goal of reducing file-sharing by 80%. When the Digital Britain report was issued later that month, that target ended up being 70%. By then, many in the file-sharing community were up in arms over the governments plans. Fast forward a year later, the British government wanted more time to reach that goal.

This was brought up as a key point in the UK Pirate Party’s posting. Under the presumption that a fair trial were to be brought up to the accused for each case, Andy R. had this to say:

Justice for those accused of file sharing will naturally require the opportunity for those accused to have an opportunity to see the evidence against them and challenge it in a court of law. To reduce file sharing by 70%, assuming 7 million people sharing 100 files each means dealing with 70% of 700,000,000 files. That’s 490,000,000 fair trials, or if, as has been rumoured there are to be two different offences, one for uploading, another for downloading, nearly 1 billion fair trials.

Her Majesty’s Courts Service say in their annual report that they dealt with 150,000 criminal cases and 2 million civil claims last year. Can they realistically be expected to cope with an additional 1 billion next year, and has their budget of £1,766,222,000 been expanded 500-fold to do so? The answer, quite simply is no.

The inescapable conclusion is that the government are not intending to fund the expensive luxury of justice for those accused of file sharing. We can only afford to have a system without justice, where simply being denounced by a copyright-holder is sufficient for summary punishment to be dealt out, and that summary punishment will be dealt out to 70% of 7 million people.

This is an extremely strong argument using basic math. After all, in the US, ever since Napster was shut down, there has been a rigorous lawsuit campaign against file-sharers by rights holders with, unsurprisingly, an emphasis on deterrent punishments. Andy’s argument is a very good highlight on why the copyright industry simply cannot go after every file-sharer and why there was a strong hope that deterrents would work – which they didn’t. It’s the simple principle many file-sharers have been aware of for years – safety in numbers.

Since the industry cannot scare people back into the music stores, it’s not a surprise that there is the strong push for a three strikes regime these days – to skip the expensive justice system altogether so they don’t litigate themselves into bankruptcy.

The problem of enforcing a three strikes law is that it doesn’t jive with the whole concept of justice in the first place – guilt upon accusation, punishment without trial. In order to enforce such a regime, the industry has the next to impossible task of trying to convince the public that the court system is no longer needed in cases of copyright infringement to justify a three strikes law.

Suddenly, those court rooms with those evil lawyers, corrupt judges and a disgrace of a legal system now becomes the file-sharers safety net. Quite the reversal of thinking in light of the US government siding with the RIAA and urging the judge to ignore arguments that the Jammie Thomas damages of $1.92 million in fines for many file-sharers aware of the political wrangling’s of copyright.

Given that the copyright industry in the UK is pushing – and pushing hard – for a three strikes regime in the UK and that many are realizing that the sought after three strikes regime involves the accused not being able to dispute the accusations in court, it’s not hard to figure out why there is a rise in the Pirate Party’s popularity these days. A political party that many see as impervious to the back room lobbying of the copyright industry to push through draconian copyright laws. As the threats grow for many who might – whether warranted or not – have their culture of the internet cut off, those people discover the real threat of human progress being pulled back by close to 25 years and all the benefits that came with the internet revolution.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

It seems that the movement of the pirate party keeps sailing on. Less than a week ago, we reported on the Pirate Party becoming an officially registered party in the UK. Now, it seems that the Finnish Pirate Party has accomplished the same goal of becoming an officially recognized party.

According to the Finnish Pirate Party website, the Finnish Pirate Party managed to get the necessary 5000 signatures to become an official political party (Google translated)

More from the posting:

The party can now participate in the Finnish parliamentary and municipal as well as European parliamentary elections. Its current primary objective is to get representatives in the Finnish parliament in the 2011 election. Its current primary objective is to get representatives in the Finnish parliament in the 2011 election. Piraattipuolue is the 8th officially registered pirate party internationally. The Pirate Party is the 8th officially registered pirate party internationally.

The party seeks to strengthen the protection of privacy and freedom of speech, to reform the current copyright legislation by legalizing non-commercial file-sharing and drastically cutting the duration of copyright, and to abolish pharmaceutical and software patents. The party seeks to strengthen the protection of privacy and freedom of speech, to reform the current copyright legislation by legalizing non-commercial file-sharing and drastically cutting the duration of copyright, and to abolish pharmaceutical and software patents.

This is great news for the Pirate Party movement. With two more countries now having their own pirate party in less than a week, the momentum seems to be in party’s favour. The question is, how many more countries can the pirate party movement become officially registered?

Pirate Party Finland home page (Finnish)

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A member of the Pirate Party of Canada has written in to inform us that the Canadian Pirate Party has recently undergone a makeover of the original website. It even has a brand new domain at PirateParty.ca.

Already, back on July 2nd, just a little over a month ago, we reported on the formation of the party as it looked for members to help spread the word of the party. Just days later, after getting major recognition online, it caught the attention of the Green Party of Canada who commented that the Pirate Party of Canada was not necessary given that Canada has the Green Party. Members of the Pirate Party responded saying that, among other things, this is an excellent sign for the Pirate Party for getting such recognition.

The new website is a far cry from the old website as it no longer has just a row of links and a logo on the home page. There’s a blog, a more integrated navigation bar and, interestingly enough, a picture of a pirate ship that seems to resemble the former logo of ThePirateBay.

The Canadian Pirate Party is still seeking more membership. Their goal is to become the first Pirate Party outside of Europe to have a formally registered political party. As of this writing, the membership is currently just shy of 30% of the needed signatures to become a formally registered party. It will be interesting how well the party spreads its word online as well as how membership will rise now that a Fall session of classes are coming up in the coming weeks in Canada given that the traditional age group for people voting for the Pirate Party has been around the 18-30 years of age. There’s plenty of opportunity for growth given that the Canadian mainstream parties seem to have still been trying to grasp the full potential of the internet to garner support in Canada.

What also bodes well for the user rights movement in general is that there’s the additional momentum of the Pirate Party. If, after the Copyright consultation, the government somehow decides, against the will of Canada, to table another Bill C-61 with three strikes and a restriction of Fair Dealings, for example, there’ll be increased motivation to vote for the Pirate Party.

Certainly interesting times for the party. It further highlights the growing movement of the party given that just yesterday, the UK Pirate Party, became formally registered as a political party.

Pirate Party homepage
Pirate Party member signup page

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

The appeals process takes time. That’s why we haven’t heard much from the Jammie Thomas case in a few months now. Back then, many Americans saw the award of $1.92 million as shocking and another reason to see the copyright laws as a departure from reality. The verdict even made waves during the Canadian copyright consultation as major reason to not go down the lawsuit road while considering new copyright laws.

That’s what, for many, makes this latest development all the more shocking.

According to a legal brief filed by the Department of Justice, the Department of Justice is arguing, “If it is necessary to reach the constitutional question to resolve defendant’s motion, then defendant’s motion should be rejected because Conress’ carefully crafted statute satisfies the Due Process Claus.”

They further argue, “The current damages range provides compensation for copyright owners because, inter alia, there exist situations in which actual damages are hard to quantify. Accordingly, the statutory range specified by Congress for a copyright infringement satisfies due process.”

In other words, they argue that because there is little to no evidence that points to actual harm, the damages should be this high in the first place and, therefor, not unconstitutional to fine a young woman $1.92 million for sharing non-commercial copies of 24 songs.

In short, philosophically speaking, the Department of Justice’s argument is this: Actual damages is hard to show. Congress made a copyright law with a given range of damages. Therefor Thomas cannot claim damages are unconstitutional.

There’s probably hundreds of ways to point out why this argument fails. Saying that actual damages are hard to claim is irrelevant to how constitutional the award is. So premise one doesn’t work. Congress have passed copyright laws, but laws can be overruled by the constitution. If congress passed a law that dictated that no more elections shall be had and the current party must stay permanently in power, the constitution would overrule it. Since the constitution has power over lawmaking, premise two is false. Therefor, the DoJ argument fails miserably here.

The bigger concern here is that this is a plain example of a government backing a few particular corporations. Why is the government trying to interfere in this particular case – especially helping the RIAA gang up on someone who has little to no hope in paying off the $1.92 million award in the first place. One wonders why the RIAA needs the whole government backing their case in the first place? Was it getting difficult to fight in the first place and has to resort to the whole government with their unlimited resources to help win the case?

In any event, the government backing the RIAA in a lawsuit may be more disturbing than the fact that the defendant was fined $1.92 million for sharing 24 songs non-commercially.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

If one were to say that internet privacy and concerns for file-sharers rarely, if ever, cross paths, this latest development would only further disprove this myth. While the Australian government says that the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2009 – Network Protection is merely about network maintenance, the Electronic Frontier Australia paints a very different and far grimmer picture on what is going on.

EFA’s submission addresses our key concern that the proposed legislation provides a very broad exception to the prohibition on interception of network communications for the purposes of ensuring that a network is ‘appropriately used’. This is a very broad category that means that all network operators in Australia will be able to monitor the substance of communications that pass over their network for compliance with their Acceptable Use Policies – the terms of which could include nearly anything. The AGD suggests that this is necessary to increase security, but have not shown any convincing justification why the contents of communications need to be examined nor why the scheme should extend beyond corporate networks to all Australian networks – including consumer ISPs.

This proposed changed threatens to radically alter the ability of network operators to intercept, store, and disclose information passing over their networks. There are no safeguards to prevent disclosure to law enforcement agencies or third parties. It is entirely possible for these new provisions to be used to examine P2P filesharing data for copyright violations, for example, and to disclose any captured information to copyright owners.

In other words, these amendments could be used to get ISPs to do all the dirty work for the copyright industry.

In a submission during the very short consultation period, the EFA submitted their comments with regards to the proposed amendments, saying that the consultation was far too short for more critical analysis. They further comment with the following:

Section 5(1) effectively provides that ‘network protection duties’ includes monitoring the content of communications in order to ascertain whether the network is being ‘appropriately used’. Because of the broad undefined nature of the term ‘appropriately used’ and the fact that many AUPs may contain restrictions not on protocols or services that internet uses may use but upon the purpose for which those communications are being made, this provision opens the bulk of network communications to potential interception and continuing surveillance.

A common example can be found in AUPs that prohibit the use of peer-to-peer filesharing networks for the purposes of copyright infringement. In order to determine whether “the network is appropriately used”, a network operator would be required to intercept all peer-to-peer traffic and attempt a determination of whether any given traffic streams are being used to communicate copyright material without the licence of the copyright owner. Not only is such a task difficult or impossible due to the inherent complexity of copyright law and need to analyse the scope of any potential licences or fair dealing defences, it seriously imposes on the privacy of network users who are using legitimate file-sharing protocols for non-infringing activity.

EFA opposes the construction of ‘appropriately used’ in s 6AAA of the exposure draft. We submit that the definition in s 6AAA ought to be amended to reflect that operators are only entitled to intercept and monitor communications where those communications pose a threat to the security of the network itself. EFA notes that there are already laws in place which deal with the disclose of sensitive information, and that there are already civil and criminal procedures available to determine the origins and contents of communications that appear to contravene such laws. The proposed amendments have the dangerous effect of reversing the burden of proof for such monitoring, allowing network operators to monitor for compliance, rather than to seek disclosure once a prima facie case or reasonable suspicion of unlawful
activity exists. To the extent that operators of networks require the ability to monitor the activities of their users, there is no justification for allowing substantive examination of the contents of communication as opposed to the envelope information – numbers and types of packets and their destinations.

At best, this law should be a frightening prospect to all internet users, not just file-sharers as this is a huge infringement of personal privacy. While Canada is currently in the midst of mulling lawful access once again, at least the scope was far narrower than this. Even the US, home of the much despised DMCA didn’t go this far. Even the French three strikes law required some action from rights holders. To date, this appears to be the worst ISP law proposal we’ve ever seen followed closely by Austrian newspapers wanting to use data retention to enforce copyright.

Clearly, to the best of our knowledge, Australia is mulling the concept of boldly going where no other country has gone before in terms of mass communication interception. One wonders if the government has any idea what kind of task it would be to force ISPs to patrol their own networks on a packet-by-packet basis. Searching through headers on an entire major ISP is probably full time work for a team of internet specialists. That doesn’t even touch encrypted traffic. ISPs would probably have to pay money to a whole task force to people just to comply with this law which could have been spent on critical infrastructure upgrades, so Australian ISPs have a lot to lose, let alone Australian ISP customers who would have to worry about an ISP specialist covertly spying on every message or packet they send and receive online.

The law proposal will be debated in the Australian parliament in December, so there is still time to oppose this law.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.