I hope this doesn't venture too far OT At 16:24 01/05/2012, Neil J. McRae wrote:
Whilst I personally believe that these solutions don't work as a standalone option I think we also need to remember that many if not all of the people downloading stuff via TPB are actually breaking the law.
I echo that, and as, co-incidentally, I am involved in some copyright infringement situations myself (as the copyright holder I hasten to add), have some observations.
It's obvious to me (and seeing input from those with much greater technical knowledge than I have myself) that attempting to block at the 'serving' ISP level is pretty well futile (I'm sure some will recall the idea that all ISPs should retain copies of all emails - proposed back in the late 90s). From a commercial aspect, why should only those 'selected' ISPs have a burden to implement a court decision anyway?
It seems to me (and this may be stating the obvious) that the point is being missed - it is the source that action should be against *or* the end users who are stealing material. Now, the latter is well nigh on impossible and the former seems to be shied away from because of the complications of multiple jurisdictions. In this area of law we have a far from 'joined up' Europe and when copyright/piracy issues involve the US (e.g. material on the likes of YouTube, Facebook etc). When the likes of Getty Images find their take down notices ignored by social networking companies such as those mentioned what chance do smaller companies or individuals have? Yes Getty is big enough to pay out the legal costs to make an example of a few cases but when the piracy is rife they are in an impossible position. Until it is accepted that the operators e.g. TPB, YT FB etc are responsible for what they carry (a responsibility they generally rebuff robustly) we will not get far with this problem.
I'm no expert and if I have misunderstood the situation I apologise. Regards Nic
