Copyright infringement (DMCA) notices for unlicensed anime

[Messerschmitt_Bf-109]

Just in the biggest countries. There are of course the nations who care nothing for copyright material...Russia..cough.

[mist2123]

Originally Posted by The_Dominion

You seem to be under the impression they cannot do what they want with their equipment. I assure you this assumption is false. If you would like more info read up on the discussions of net neutrality. The whole debate is whether the internet, and connections to it are able to be monitored, and restricted as the ISPs see fit. So far, in term of legality, the Government's response was "let the free market work things out". So if Comcast wanted to blocked access to all .exe files online for one reason or another, they could. It would just mean you as the consumer may need to reconsider the company you are getting your internet from.

well we its gona hurt them more that it hurt us. They would lose potential customers and big $$$$.
Even if bt is banned we know another person will try to make a new protocol that we can exploit

[WanderingKnight]

All I can say is I'm glad I live in Canada where the whole file-sharing thing has been rendered a non-issue.

For once, I can also say that I'm momentarily glad to be living in a third world country where companies wouldn't even bother to pursue us Bittorrent downloaders.

[GHDpro]

Originally Posted by FooSoft

I think it might be time to switch distribution routes as well. Anyone know if paid usenet services (ie Giganews) are suitable?

If I had to switch my ways of downloading, I'd pick usenet as well. I'm not sure what you mean by "suitable", but afaik most paid usenet providers don't keep logs and some even offer SSL connections. As downloader, you're pretty safe. Even if they raid the usenet provider (which will likely never happen) all they have is your account details, but not what you have done with it.

As for uploading the chances of getting into trouble are a bit higher, but in all likelihood the worst thing that could happen is that they close your account. Which is not a huge problem as there are quite a few paid usenet providers around.

IMHO GigaNews is about as deluxe as you get, but for a hefty price. I personally like Astraweb because they offer "pre-paid" accounts, where you buy say 25GB of download "credit" in advance. This is ideal for people who don't download a whole lot. Their $25 for 90GB offer could potentially last several months to a year if you only grab a few fansubs per week. If you're into a lot of downloading, UseNetServer offers unlimited downloads for $14.95/month, which is a bit cheaper than GigaNews.

For those not familiar with usenet: it's one of the oldest bulletin-board like protocols on the internet. Originally designed for text it doesn't really work well for "binaries", but nonetheless hundreds of gigabytes is being posted every day. The advantage of usenet is that if you pick a good provider, you can download really fast. The disadvantage is that you need to get familiar with usenet readers and binary repair tools (QuickPAR etc) and that you need to pay for an account (as most providers either don't provide an usenet server of their own anymore, or if they do, it's really crappy).

Hmm... maybe I should start a NZB site for anime ?

[Tempusweir]

ya i'm glad to live in Canada too, were no one seems to care, i have downloaded 5 tb of anime in the last 3 years,it would probably be bad if i lived somewhere else and was fined for all that downloaded material.

[Samanosuke]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin_Sama

All I can say is I'm glad I live in Canada where the whole file-sharing thing has been rendered a non-issue.

But for how long ? aren't companies and such putting more and more pressure on the government to change the law about this ?
for now we are ok , but i fear it's not going to last long :S

[2H-Dragon]

Originally Posted by GHDpro

Hmm... maybe I should start a NZB site for anime ?

Might be an idea. The only thing out now is animeusenet afaik. While not bad they aren't really the fastest uploaders so I end up getting my anime by xdcc or ddl. The site ain't all that stable either now that I think about it.

[Messerschmitt_Bf-109]

Originally Posted by Samanosuke

But for how long ? aren't companies and such putting more and more pressure on the government to change the law about this ?
for now we are ok , but i fear it's not going to last long :S

Yep, governments are run by business and they make the laws to better the businesses over the people. That is any government.

[Gamen]

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

Incorrect. I know, because I've had customers' service cut off before. I didn't want to do it, but I had to do it. If an ISP doesn't stop infringement from occurring on their network once they've been notified, they can become liable.

Now, I've only done that in the case when I couldn't contact a customer after trying for some time, and I made sure the service was restored as soon as I could help them stop sharing the file.

Good point, I'd overlooked the fact that all my notices from Comcast are from different items that I'd already hit 1.0 on and thus had already stopped anyway.

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

Larger ISPs would, I'm sure, gladly drop service altogether for repeat offenders. They cost money every time the legal department intervenes, and they are a potential risk.

I don't know about other ISPs, but as a repeat offender on Comcast, I can say I still have service. I do comply and stop specific torrents, however.

Fortunately, my university is somewhat more permissive. They do cut off your internet, but only until you sign a form saying you won't do it again.

As for Comcast's actions concerning Bittorrent, yah, they can do whatever they want. There's two issues, common carrier status and net neutrality. Common carrier means they can't be held accountable for what goes over their network as long as they don't examine the content of the message, and net neutrality is mainly about not giving different levels of service based on the source and destination of a message. Both of them do not apply to ISPs, but to the telecoms. Something I'd like to see changed, as broadband ISPs are monopolies and should be regulated as such.

[tempVariable]

I was sent one of those letters last week for the Nagasarete Airantou anime from BayTSP. =\

[The_Dominion]

Originally Posted by tempVariable

I was sent one of those letters last week for the Nagasarete Airantou anime from BayTSP. =\

Anymore details, like your ISP, and where you downloaded it from?

[Edgewalker]

IMO if fat cats manage to get rid of net neutrality it will be a disaster for both them and us. A disaster for us for obvious reasons...

.... a disaster for them because they wont stand a chance in hell against the sudden mass increase of Cyberterrorism/Hack attacks that would follow. Every hacker and his/her mom would blast AT&T into oblivion ( just using att as an example since their CEO is one of the biggest perpetrators here )

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

They can't block all bt traffic as not all bt traffic are illegal. There legi bt users.

Whether it's legal or not does not matter. They block it because it is "disruptive" to the network. ISPs will block anything they consider disruptive or potentially dangerous to the network. Some examples are port 135 (most real isps filter this at every border), Sitefinder (many isps null routed it), SMTP traffic (too easy for spam), HTTP servers (they don't want you running an HTTP server), and the list goes on and on. Do all of these have legal uses? Yes. Are they all potentially dangerous or disruptive? Yes. Could BT fall into this list? Yes, easily. It's a very noisy protocol and uses a lot of bandwidth.

[Calawain]

Originally Posted by cbmfive

Please realize that for most of us, this is approaching a worst-case scenario. You are pretty much obligated, at that point, to hire a lawyer to help sort things out. It's possible that you won't get out of the situation without either paying a few thousand dollars or getting dragged into court. Most people can't afford to ignore the problem until this point.

Even if it never reaches that point, the odds are that your ISP account would be cut off already. Most people aren't willing to let things go that far, either.

Maybe Odex doesn't have every right to crap in the swimming pool, but you can't exactly ignore it when a turd brushes against your leg.

You really aren't obligated to hire anyone to comply with a DMCA request if you choose to do so. It is extremely simple on it's face, either comply with the request (delete/stop seeding the file) or they may in the future decide to try and take legal action against you. It requires no interpretation or court proceedings unless you want to fight it. However, you could also totally ignore it and 99.999999 percent chance nothing will happen as a result for many of the reasons discussed here. A "worst-case scenario" would be a US court enforcing a judgment against you and saying you have to pay them 100k dollars, receiving a DMCA notice is not worst-case. Tens of thousands upon thousands of these silly things go out daily.

[Arcwave]

This whole ordeal is ridiculous. Comcast won't win. Do they really think that they can wipe millions of peoples' accounts for downloading these shows? Hell, most probably end up purchasing them anyway, like me. The only reason why they're sending out these emails is because they don't want to me liable by the companies in Japan for not doing anything at all. And I also think i ts absurd that they would slow down bit-torrent transfers; Hell, my dads company uses torrents for legit file-transferring reasons. I don't think Comcast would do that.

Don't worry kids, S.W.A.T. won't be breaking down our doors anytime soon.... hopefully.

Jesse
tricofilms.com

[mt-i]

Originally Posted by guest

I know that one case in France is reported but the user could very well be downloading English fansub. It was never clear that what language fansub was download.

It was a French fansub distributed by the (reputable) French fansub group Nerae using their own tracker, which is hosted in France, and doesn't carry licensed material.

Whether ODEX is actually entitled to enforce the copyright of Japanese right-holders worldwide is anyone's guess at this point, but it sounds unlikely that they can do much more than giving downloaders a good scare either way. Unless AVPAS members really are willing to spend considerable money on international legal advice and to risk a major PR backlash.

[Vexx]

The number of C&Ds and "scare letters" that wouldn't stand up in any legal proceeding are too numerous to count. However, the poorly-written DMCA in the US allows someone to mess with an Internet user simply by posting a form to their upstream provider (ISP). The onus is now on the user: contest it by asking a lot of pertinent questions? or just take the seed down? Most would rather not lose their account, especially when often no other option exists. The normal ISP (a.k.a. NOT comcast) likes your money and as long as you don't hog the network they don't care but executing the takedown notice reduces their legal risk.

The attack lawyers are counting on you taking the easy path... take that specific seed down ... but they're also hoping you'll get scared and stop seeding all together. All for the cost of an email that they probably charged their copyright holder several hundred dollars for.

The takedown notices just happen to synchronize with Comcast's demonstrated antagonism towards the P2P/torrent protocols. Comcast doesn't want to have to upgrade its network, they *LIKE* their current business model, they *LIKE* assymetric service (mostly down not much up) --- They want the user to experience entertainment on their cable channels ($$) or via streamed feed ($).

I have a few business customers who have a business account with Comcast -- I'll just say that Comcast does... not... *get*... business accounts. They try to treat them like residential users. I'm always having to fight with them over issues involving upload bandwidth in general (quote: "You do know this business has a business account, right? Because you're reading from a residential user script, eh?") Residential accounts typically do not guarantee the user anything but business level accounts generally have some level of accountability/reliability.

[Mr.B0y]

I had to get in on this and let every one in on a little secret...

There is absolutely no way possible that any one can prove in a court of law that an i.p. address is legal proof of your identity. Period bar none end of story. The way you end up getting sued is because you don't know this simple but sound legal precedent. You some how through the system that is set up to get you to legally take responsibility for something you didn't do such as...

A.) Leave a voice mail message stating that "you have removed the offending content from your computer".

B.) An email from your password protected and service provider monitored account stating that "You didn't know it was illegal, your sorry and that you wont do it agian."

C.) Explaining to a "service representative" that is most likely a contracted employee of a company hired to get you to legally take responsibility for something you didn't via a recorded conversation that "no I do not have an unsecured wireless router in my home it is all cable modem cat-5 and me doing the downloading."

Any 10 year old from China, India or Indiana can "spoof" an i.p. address and become any one they want any time they want with minimal effort, any half assed attorney can prove this with one expert witness. No jury in the world will ever convict some one with that much doubt. If you didn't download something then don't say you did in attempt to move process along thinking you are going to be left alone. DENY it, plain and simple no conversation just tell them NO and they will have to prove it. If you didn't fall for the myriad of tricks designed to "entrap" you into taking legal responsibility then they have nothing but a number that any one can fake.

I'm just trying to help. If Comcast didn't get loans from the the banks which in turn get loans from the American people to start their business I would be the first one to say run it how ever you want. If they didn't receive tax breaks for "infrastructure" building, I'd say "you earned it go ahead do your thing." That's not the case, they are profiting off of the backs of American citizens then taking their opportunity and screwing the same people that helped to get them where they are, they are truly SCUM.

So... Plain and simple do not admit that you have done anything wrong if you have not done anything wrong, private companies are not under any "entrapment" guide lines. They can use any means they see fit to try and get you to take responsibility for something you didn't do. JUST SAY NO.

Let me add this in because the Comcast employee knows he gets the last word on the bottom of the page....

Originally Posted by cbmfive

This is pretty bad advice. If subpoenaed, Comcast can in fact prove that you have a specific IP, and that you are transmitting data to specific other IPs.

Originally Posted by cbmfive

"This is pretty bad advice. If subpoenaed, Comcast can in fact prove that you have a specific IP, and that you are transmitting data to specific other IPs."

Wrong! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address_spoofing

You probably work for Comcast, it is good advice. Comcast is scum.

[Ranko]

So TOR time?

Would routing my torrents around tor help out?

[cbmfive]

Originally Posted by Mr.B0y

I had to get in on this and let every one in on a little secret...

There is absolutely no way possible that any one can prove in a court of law that an i.p. address is legal proof of your identity. Period bar none end of story. The way you end up getting sued is because you don't know this simple but sound legal precedent.

This is pretty bad advice. If subpoenaed, Comcast can in fact prove that you have a specific IP, and that you are transmitting data to specific other IPs.