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from the injunction-for-thinking-the-lyrics dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Domain Registrar Can be Held Liable for Pirate Site, Court Rules - TorrentFreak
in September 2013, H33T.com, one of the Internet's most-visited torrent sites at the time, disappeared from the web .
Although the downtime was initially shrouded in mystery, it later became clear that the site had been targeted in a copyright infringement action.
In order to stop the distribution of a copy of Robin Thicke's album Blurred Lines, Universal Music had obtained an injunction against Key-Systems, a German-based registrar where the H33t.com domain name was registered.
Key-Systems wasn't happy with the ruling and the precedent it set but had no other option than to comply. However, the company informed us at the time that it would appeal the verdict, hoping to have it lifted.
This was the start of a drawn-out legal battle from which the latest ruling was just released.
The Higher Regional Court of Saarbrücken concluded Key-Systems can be held secondarily liable for the infringing actions of a customer if it fails to take action if rightsholders point out "obvious" copyright infringing activity online.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday December 26 2018, @08:02AM (5 children)
For me, the key sentence is this: "if a site owner is unresponsive to takedown requests, Key-Systems and other registrars can be required to take a domain name offline"
It makes sense, as long as "required" means "by presenting a valid court order", which is exactly what happened in this case.
qzm writes: "It must be a real bitch selling letterbox numbers in that city.. since that must make you liable for any crimes committed at that address."
Nobody said that they are liable, just that they must respond to a takedown request. If you rent out letterboxes, and the police suspect someone of illegal activity? They may well present you with a court order, demanding the right to intercept someone's mail.
Look, I'm no fan of copyright law, but the laws exist. As long as they do, they can be enforced. If a pirate site refuses to take stuff down, then the courts go upstream and have their site taken offline. This is not a surprise, nor in any way unreasonable.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 26 2018, @08:50AM
Can't we just RICO and MPAA and RIAA and be done with it all?
(Score: 3, Informative) by qzm on Wednesday December 26 2018, @10:14AM (3 children)
The domain system is not 'renting out letterboxes', that's the hosting provider.
The domain system is providing maps of locations.
You obviously didn't understand my point at all.
The hosting provider or ISP is the correct point to 'close the mailbox'
(Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Wednesday December 26 2018, @10:35AM
Yes, copyright law needs a major overhaul and is frequently abused, and yes, the reasoning of the court here is somewhat questionable, but at no point does it imply there are any more general issues that would lead to the analogies that you suggest.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 26 2018, @02:55PM (1 child)
And if you are a map maker, and the official authorities come to you with a court order, based on valid law, to remove certain information from the map, then you'll be in trouble if you don't do so. What was your point again?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 26 2018, @03:21PM
That it is still a bullshit.