As the technology takes root in the society, it is becoming hard for the intellectuals to protect their products from online injustices. One attempt to tame these vices have been to bring in board the Internet Service Providers (IPSs) to board under the international copyright legislation to limit the pirate activates. Legal action has been taken as a remedy to this problem to the IPSs who fails to corporate with this legislation.
Australia is a leading nation in the online piracy activities with over 11.6 % of illegal downloads of the season four of Game of Thrones movie that has just been released a month ago. The government has been considering taking stern actions against offenders using international examples. (Gould, et al, 2010) Several approaches to curbing these unlawful acts in the USA include slowing internet connection by ISPs while the New Zealand model has been bringing the offenders to the book and charged. These measures have not been successful in slowing down these unlawful acts of copyright infringement.
The Australians have sought news ways on its effort to address the online piracy in the session papers of the Australian legislation parliament. On 30th July 2014, the government released a paper on the copyright infringement offenders seeking the public opinion on the proposed amendments to the legislative piece that would address this menace. The amendments had three proposals to amend the law to establish a flexible framework that would allow a range of solutions that are all inclusive and fair to all the players such as the ISPs, rights holders and the consumers.
The amendment proposed was designed to accommodate a recent court decision that categorically said that iiNet had an indirect power to prevent infringement. This meant that ISPs had no legal power to prevent the subscribers from doing infringement rights. (Maskus, 2010) The ISPs can still discourage or reduce these online acts extension of authorization liability ISPs critical to ensure the existence of a legal blueprint that would encourage the cooperation of all the players especially the ISPs. (Shavell, 2001). The government will have the legal mechanisms to prescribe the actions taken in the copyright industry if industry mechanisms or commercial schemes are not established.
Amendment was also proposed to the copyright act to enable the rights holders to file proceedings in the court against the ISPs to block to the internet sites operated outside Australia. This is because the right holder has the legal ability to take actions for Australian websites. In granting this conjunction, the rights holders are required to collect enough evidence to establish a threshold that would satisfy the judges. The courts will also ensure that the rights of any other person and the freedom are not infringed by this conjunction. The paper also proposed the amendment of the copyright act to extend the application of the safe harbor scheme to all the players engaged in the sections 116ac. of the copyrights act.
Recent cases
Recently there has been the initiation of legal proceedings to a number of online copyright infringement actors. These actors are the internet providers who provides the users with platforms to engage in copyright infringement acts.(claytonutz.com, 2011).Some of and the cases that captured the global stage are the Pirate Bay of Sweden, Newzbin case of the United Kingdom and RapidShare case in Germany.
Newzbin case.
In 2010, Twentieth Century Fox sued the British Newzbin company for intellectual rights infringement on the basis that the website operated to locate and identify the unlawful copies of films online, and sharing the links of these files and this enabled the users to acquire them.(davies.com, 2013) Newzbin created another digital file known as NZB that operates on the same principle top torrent files, but this was specifically for the UseNet system that allows users to upload and view messages on this system. This system interconnects a series if Usenet servers that allowed a wide range of sharing digital files on this new system.
Twentieth Century Fox argued that locating and categorizing of this unlawful copies, and offering an easy platform to locate and download options, Newzbin promoted the copyright infringement of its members, worked in a common ground with its members to infringe the copyright laws and acted as an internet service provider with full knowledge that its subscribers are copyright infringers. In its defense, it argued that Newzbin provided the same services as the internet giant Google, but its services were designed for the Usenet system.
The presiding judge found the Newzbin guilty of authorizing acts of infringement to its users, entered a common ground with its members to infringe rights and communication of the Twentieth Century Fox works to the public. Twentieth Century Fox also sought an injunction to stop the Newzbin from including in its databases entries identifying any material distributed through Usenet system in the copyright infringement. The judge declined to offer this injunction to Newzbin and ruled it was not necessary to establish that ISPs had actual knowledge that another person was using its services to infringe copyright rights. The judge also declined to offer any other injunction that to the Newzbin because he was not satisfied that the accused had full knowledge of such rights infringement.
RapidShare.
This is a German-Swiss web hosting and digital file sharing company founded in 2006. The Germany royalties collector GEMA filled proceeding against rapid share in the regional court of Hamburg for copyright infringement in respect to more than 5100 recordings that GEMA claimed had been shared through RapidShare. (news.com, 2013) GEMA filed evidence showing that it had advised RapidShare about this infringement, but RapidShare ignored the calls and sharing continue despite using MD5 hash filtering.
The regional court found that RapidShare was not directly responsible for this rights infringement. The court held that it was a legal duty of RapidShare to ensure that this infringement does not occur through the use of its website. The court also determined the use of MD5 filters was not sufficient to prevent users from sharing files in which copyright subsisted. Twentieth Century Fox. The court issued an injunction to RapidShare that it stop sharing recordings listed by GEMA including enforcement that RapidShare obstruct its users from making the files available as well or face a fine of up to EUR250, 000 per instance of infringement.
Conclusion.
The recent copyright cases discussed above shows some interesting aspects of the internet service providers in respect to account holders who infringe the rights now and then. In all The cases where account holders are provided with internet access platforms which can easily infringe rights, the ISPs appears to be the purpose of allowing this to happen. ISPs are liable for these authorizations or help the infringers to continue with this vice. (Walmsley, 011)The findings also show legal complexities that the ISPs can also escape this liability. The overall stand is that ISPs have a legal mandate to discourage or influence their users to stop these infringement rights, but it is not within their legal capacity to directly control the actions of their user.
The art industry in Australia is lobbying for the introduction of laws that requires all ISPs to monitor the file sharing activities of their users. The same law has been introduced in other countries, but there is no substantial evidence that indicate that these laws ha any tangible benefit, in deterring the copyright infringement. For the moment, entertainment providers and other intellectuals can only rely in the legal frameworks against ISPs established from the purpose of deterring and minimizing copyright infringements.
Works Cited
Gould, David M., and William C. Gruben. "The role of intellectual property rights in economic growth." Journal of Development Economics (2010): n. page 127. Print.
Maskus, Keith E. "Intellectual Property Rights in the Global Economy." (2000): Print.
Shavell, Steven. "Rewards versus Intellectual Property Rights." Journal of Law & Economics (2001): n. pag. Print.
Walmsley, Ben. Key Issues in the Arts and Entertainment Industry. Woodeaton, Oxford: Goodfellow Pub. Ltd, 2011. Print.
http://www.claytonutz.com/publications/edition/07_august_2014/20140807/australian_government_seeks_new_ways_to_limit_online_copyright_infringement_in_new_discussion_paper.page (Accessed on October 31, 2014 at 12 pm)
http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/online-copyright-infringement-forum-can-anything-stop-our-nation-of-pirates/story-fnjwneld-1227054171162(Accessed on October 31, 2014 at 12 pm)
http://www.davies.com.au/pub/detail/407/online-copyright-infringement-recent-cases-worldwide-and-legislative-responses(Accessed on October 31, 2014 at 12 pm)
