Copyright Law

Mininova Ordered to Remove Copyrighted Material

By soulxtc

Dutch court gives it 3 months to remove torrent trackers that link to copyrighted material or face fines of ?1000 euro ($1,422 USD) per link up to a maximum of ?5m ($7.13m USD).

Dutch BitTorrent tracker site Mininova has been ordered by a court in that country to remove all torrent trackers that link to copyrighted material or face fines of  ?1000 euro ($1,422 USD) per link up to a maximum of 5 million euro (7.13m USD).

BREIN, the anti-piracy group behind the lawsuit, complained that current efforts by Mininova to remove infringing material don’t go far enough.

The court agreed, saying that even though the site doesn’t actually host copyrighted material it nonetheless helps users obtain it and therefore violate copyright laws.

Mininova acted unlawfully by “giving opportunity to, encouraging and profiting from infringements on copyroght and neighboring rights,” reads the ruling.

“Please note that we do not host any copyrighted content on this website,” reads Mininova’s copyright policy. “The torrent (metadata) files that we host do not contain data that might be copyrighted in any way. However, we offer a service to remove torrents from our website if the copyright holder of the content requests so.”

Mininova has 3 months to either comply with the order or file an appeal, the latter I’m sure the site is currently considering.

“This verdict is what we asked for,” says BREIN director Tim Kuik. “A site like Mininova is responsible for what happens on the site and must prevent illegal links to movies, TV series, music, video games and other content. This milestone verdict that enables us to stop the wholesale access to illegal content that such sites supply.”

It also stresses that it’s important because it will help the “development and growth of new legal business models,” but doesn’t say how.

It was only because of illegal file-sharing and decreasing CD sales that the music industry decided it was time to get on board with the likes of Apples iTunes and license their music for digital downloading, albeit grudgingly. Even then it took years to get rid of DRM so that consumers finally had a comparable alternative to P2P available.

The same has been true of the movie industry, which thanks to another year of record breaking profits, still fails to give consumers the sort of selection and on-demand viewing options that P2P provides. It has no reason to to see the “growth of new legal business models” because it hasn’t been faced with the sort of economic decline that finally forced teh music industry to listen to consumers.

It still thinks you shouldn’t even be allowed to make a backup copy of a purchased DVD because apparently the price of a DVD is predicated on the “notion of certain use rights associated with certain price points.” In other words, it’s counting on it wearing out or being lost and you having to buy a replacement.

Either way, the case is another success of sorts for BREIN who earlier this month managed to get a Dutch court to order Swedish BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay to block Dutch citizens or face a 30,000 euros ($42,906 USD) p/day penalty. It is currently appealing that decision.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on August 26, 2009 (boomark / email).