Danish Anti-Piracy Organization Bills P2P Users

faaaz writes "The danish anti-piracy organisation Antipiratgruppen has billed approximately 150 p2p users an amount of up to $14,000 each for sharing copyrighted material. The organisation says 'Pay up, or we'll sue!'" There's also a Reuters article.

Body of article

[magiluke]

By Bernhard Warner, Reuters, 11/26/02

LONDON -- In a unique crackdown on illegal file-sharing, a Danish anti-piracy group mailed invoices to alleged pirates demanding compensation for downloading copyrighted materials off the Internet, an attorney for the group said on Tuesday.

The Danish Anti Piracy Group (APG) identified 150 alleged pirates asking them to pay a combined $133,600, said Morten Lindegaard, an attorney for the group. The biggest offenders face a bill of $13,360.

"We are demanding full payment for the use of these copyrighted materials," Lindegaard said. The APG has worked with the Danish branch of music trade body International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, to crack down on online piracy. The decision to seek compensation for downloads opens up a controversial new front in copyright holders' ongoing campaign to curb consumer piracy on the Internet, a phenomenon blamed for a decline in CD sales and upswing in the free trade of video games, computer software and video games.

The tactic is drawing protests from some technical and legal experts who insist that without the violators' computer it's impossible to prove the existence of copyright violations. Others question the size of the bills.

"In this case, we're talking about compensation for the damage the Anti Piracy Group claims its members have suffered. It's the courts that decide the amount of compensation to be paid due to copyright infringement, not the victim." said Martin von Haller Groenbaek, a Danish attorney specialising in IT law.

KAZAA, EDONKEY USERS TARGETED

In each case, the Danish users were accused of downloading copyrighted materials from file-sharing networks Kazaa and eDonkey, two popular so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) networks in Denmark, Lindegaard said.

Lindegaard, 29, and his helpers -- four Danish university students -- developed a software program that monitored Danish file swappers on the two P2P networks, honing down to the users' Internet Protocol, or IP, address to confirm they were logged on from Denmark.

The program also traced the files shared and the time at which they were downloaded. After reviewing the evidence, a judge ordered the users' Internet service providers to pass on the violators' billing addresses.

In each case, the alleged pirate first learned they were being investigated when they received a bill in the post, which began arriving late last week.

A spokesman for the Danish Consumer Council said they received roughly 50 complaints from the fined individuals. After an initial investigation, the council determined the APG complied with local data protection laws, the spokesman added.

STUDENTS, PROFESSIONALS FINGERED

Lindegaard said the accused range from high school students to professionals. They downloaded materials ranging from Eminem songs to the latest Star Wars film to the video game, "Grand Theft Auto."

"The top 10 computer games, music and movies -- it's all there," said Lindegaard.

The alleged pirates were billed based on the amount of files they shared. For a single music file, they were charged $2.67; $26.70 for a movie and approximately $50 for a video game, Lindegaard said. But technical experts threw into question the fairness of the bill, pointing to the fact that copyrighted material from time to time is distributed for free across the Internet in a legitimate manner.

For example, major record labels allow users to download select songs from new album releases off the Web. The tracks typically expire after a period, but in some cases the deactivated track may still appear on a users' hard drive.

Also, the labels, movie studios and video game makers have increasingly distributed bogus files on P2P networks that resemble the genuine article, down to file size and title, to frustrate would-be downloaders.

"How do you know each of these copyrighted materials is illegal? That's the big issue here," said Urs Gattiker, a professor of technology and innovation management at Aalborg University in Denmark.

what if.....

[ejaw5]

In the instructions made to install Kazaa (Full)without adware (cydoor, et al), one of the things to do was to delete the ~/KaZaa/db folder and replace that with a dummy file by opening notepad and saving a blank file as "db" (no extention). As a result of this, all downloaded files in (~/Kazaa/My Shared Files) would appear to have "failed" in Kazaa, and the downloaded files would remain in their *.dat files. It would also NOT include them in your list of files shared. You'd then have to rename the files with extentsions before exiting Kazaa or else you'd lose them.

So...if you want to download on P2P you could probably take these measures and be okay

Re:Lol ...

[Loki_1929]

Settlments in lieu of lawsuits are quite common and perfectly legal in the US, and most other countries I'd suspect.

Re:Who gets the money?

[C0deM0nkey]

Do I get to keep the songs and movies that I downloaded if I pay up?

No.

From the article:

"If they pay now - and delete the illegal content from their hard drives - then the amount is cut in half and they avoid going to court. Those who don't pay up are to be sued."

Re:screen shots != great proof

[Loki_1929]

"3) which family member used the computer?"

This isn't like a motor vehicle; the person who owns the ISP account is responsible for how it's used. This is why a company can be liable for its employees' copyright infringment.

Re:How would they prove this?

[Zemran]

This is a civil case, not a criminal case. They do not have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt, just in all probability.

Re:How do the Danish know ...

[Anonymous Coward]

By Swedish law you are guilty if you make copies of copyrighted material available to the public, regardless of if you own it or not. Guess it's the same in Denmark /moon

Re:This is dangerous

[dissy]

Actually they not only log each channel change, but power on/off, and the volume/mute changes done through your converter (Of course not the volume/mute done through a TV)

All of this data is sent back along the cable feed to their log server in real time.

A simple call to tech support with a problem will prove this, as when they ask you do to something such as change a channel, they will tell YOU when you did it or if you didnt do it right.

In addition, they can also feed commands into your converter to change its channel, power settings, etc.

Each converter has a serial number on it that is tied to a household/billing account.
If you ever call and report your name they log that with which converter at the time you called about as well, so if you only call for one and your buddy calls for another, they can narrow it down to who has which converter as well (Thou they dont really use that particular data, its more of a note than anything.)

A simple notch filter on the cable line can block these signals, but dont expect any help from tech support if you do that. They will tell you they arnt getting a reply from your converter and something must be wrong with the connection to it, most likely dispatching a technition to fix the problem locally.

Officially they claim to only use these logs for trouble shooting, but its also been proven they use them to watch for cable pirates.
If you continuously change to channels you dont get and Watch those channels for any amount of time, yet you dont pay for them or havent orderd the pay per view show, it sets off flags that alerts them.

This is why 'test boxes' that are just descramblers also include these notch filters.
As far as the cable co can see from one of those, the converter isnt even hooked up to their network.

Re:No it isn't

[Rick the Red]

No this is not what Slashdot has wanted all along. What we have wanted all along is for them to bust people who are DOWNLOADING / possesiing songs they don't have the licence to; versus the simple act of posting a legal song.

Did you RTFA? They are going after the people who downloaded the files, not those who served them. The servers could be in a country with no copyright laws (and thus legal); they don't care about the servers, they're going after the downloaders. Hell, for all we know these clowns ran the servers (would that be entrapment?)

Of course, as others have pointed out: 1) These guys are not the copyright holders and thus have no standing to demand payment, and 2) They have no proof that these are illegal copies. But what do they care? If I wasn't encumbered with ethics, I might try this scam myself. Then again, if I wasn't encumbered with ethics I'd be spamming you all with ads to my porn sites.

Nope

[bstadil]

Pay up or we'll sue? Isn't that fucking blackmail??

No, threaten to sue is perfectly legal.

Danish copyright law

[Inf0phreak]

is downright weird. Get this: I may go to the library and borrow a CD, make a perfect digital copy of it at home and take the CD back to the library. I may also borrow a CD from a friend of mine and make a copy of the CD. However, I may not receive a copy of said CD from my friend. The difference is that in the last case I had "outside help" in copying the CD. Thus, it wouldn't save my a** a whole lot to show up in court with the physical media and pointing to it - it would still have been illegal. On the Danish site Newz.dk [www.newz.dk] a couple of guys have pondered if they should make a few "APG target marks" consisting of files like "Harry Potter CD1.avi", "LOTR_TTT CD2.avi", etc. containing nothing but junk data or something they have a legitimate right to distribute (Linux ISOs might be great for this. They are the right size too ^_^). It would be interesting to say the least to see APG look real stupid in court then.

Re:Blank mp3s

[TeknoHog]

Don't you mean 4:33 [everything2.org]?

It's from screenshots of what they're sharing

[janaagaard]

According to a posting by an eDonkey user who got busted (edonkey2000.dk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4117 [edonkey2000.dk] - it's in Danish), the screenshots are of the files you're sharing. eDonkey has a file listing feature, so you can check out what the other clients are sharing.

It seems to me that it's that it would be pretty hard for APG to find what you're sharing or downloading if it wasn't for the listing feature, unless they're willing to set up a client or a server and start sharing illegal stuff themselves. So that's one more reason to use eMule in stead of eDonkey, since it let's you disable the file listing feature. ;)

Antipiratgruppen is representing

[SigveK]

In short, they are representing most of the record labels, virtually all danish musicians and performers, music distributors, games and movie makers and distributors. Translated from antipiratgruppen.dk: The music industry is represented in the group by

• IFPI [ifpi.org] - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
• NCB [www.ncb.dk] - Nordic Copyright Bureau
  Quote from the site:
  The transfer of rights to NCB is organised in the following way: rights owners in the Nordic countries and the Baltic States transfer all their rights to the national performing rights society. This society administers the performing rights and transfers the mechanical rights to NCB. Thus, NCB represents virtually all copyrighted music in the Nordic and Baltic areas in connection with recording and the manufacture and distribution of copies of recordings.
• DMF danish site [www.dmf.dk] - Danish Musician Union. some english info [www.mxp.dk]
• DAF [artisten.dk] - Danish Artist Union

In addition, the members of APG is

• MUF [www.muf.dk] Danish site - Multimedia Union, which represents makers and distributors of computer and console games
• FDV - Union of Danish Video distributors, which by large is local branches of the major movie companies or their danish representative

  So this is basically a group representing many, if not all copyright holders for the material in question

Re:Awww Crud!

[Yossarian45793]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, defines "piracy" as:

1. 1. Robbery committed at sea.
      
   2. A similar act of robbery, as the hijacking of an airplane.
      
2. The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.
   
3. The operation of an unlicensed, illegal radio or television station.
   

pirates on the loose

[snarkh]

Here is a quote I pirated from the Oxford English Dictionary. Note the date:

1668 J. HANCOCK Brooks' String of Pearls (Notice at end), Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practise to steal Impressions of other mens Copies.

Fair Use in Denmark

[Simon Kongshoj]

Well, speaking as a guy who actually lives in Denmark.....

Since Summer 2001, various forms of digital copying have been legal in Denmark. Before that, Danish law on this area bore obvious marks of being written by people who had no idea what the whole thing was all about (prohibiting all forms of digital copying without prior permission -- bye bye Internet :) ). The laws are confusing, though. According to Forbrugerrådet (the "Consumer's Council" -- I'm not sure if you Americans have a similar organization), Danish citizens are allowed to:

• Perform a digital copy a legally obtained work, eg. a legally purchased CD, book, tape, whatever.
• Copy a work, where the artist or copyright holder has permitted copying.
• Copy a legal CD borrowed from a friend.
• Play a legally copied CD in a social setting such as a party.
• Copy to your personal computer with intent for "electronic execution within the home" (ie. home listening, but no P2P warezing)
• Listen to your copy at home, in your car, in your summer house, on your boat, on your discman, etc.

We are not allowed to:

• Copy a copy of a CD
• Copy works fetched from the network that have been placed there without the artist or copyright holder's express permision.
• Copy a CD and play it at someone else's party (this I find a little strange -- but oh well)
• Listen to a copied CD on your place of work's music system.
• Give away a copied CD.
• Lend, swap or sell a copied CD.
• Send a digitally copied work using e-mail.
• .

(from Forbrugerrådet's web page [forbrugerraadet.dk])

I hope this helps shed a little light on the situation.

Re:Screenshots do not constitute proof

[chrj]

Here, how about this? I'll create a directory on my drive. Let's call it "/home/stwrtpj/al_qaeda_plans". Now let's copy some files in there from other directories, but lets give these files name like, oh, I don't know "plot_to_kill_george_w", "destroy_america", "smite_the_infidels", aaaaand "plans_to_blow_up_hoover_dam". Now let's take a screenshot of Gnome's file manager proudly displaying those filenames. So does this mean I'm a terrorist? Does this give anyone the right to pursue civil or criminal charges against me? No. "plot_to_kill_george_w" could contain a freaking grocery list for all you know.

A danish slashdot-like site has been speaking to some lawyers in order to get their facts straight. Given the fact that the AntiPiracy-group is not some government thing set up to nail those pirates - this has to go to civil court. The "innoccent until proven otherwise" concept then gets transformed into "we'll just have to convince the judge". If you and your lawyers can explain to the judge that screenshots doesn't prove anything it would be nice. Right now there a now legal precedence in using screenshots in court.

Danish Law, 2002 1984

[kjeldsen]

A Danish Law from April 2001 actually makes this possible.

It gives the copyright holders the right to collect evidence and present this to a judge. The judge then issues a warrant based on the evidence (yes no 3rd party is involved). The warrant can be for a house search or in this case to get information from a isp based on the ip's they collected. The law has been used to raid netparties as well.

The problem is that all this happens outside the criminal courts, they run all the cases as civil law suites.

I hope they stepped over the line, and that our silly goverment that doesn't know a power button from the reset button, changes this absurd law.

Look a pig that flies (sponsered by S O N Y)

Encrypted P2P

[atarian]

www.filetopia.org for P2P chat and file sharing using strong encryption and IP hiding.