On Friday, a court of appeal blocked studios and disk labels for the use of accelerated assignments to identify internet users suspected of illegally sharing songs, films and television programs.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has judged that copyright holders could not use the copyright law of the digital millennium to soften Internet suppliers who simply act as conduits for the violation of the equipment.
The Motion Picture Association and Recording Industry Association of America had warned that blocking such assistants would hinder efforts to combat digital hacking.
“Piracy is an important threat to the creative market and for the US economy,” said sales groups in a friendly dossier last year. DMCA assignments are “an effective and often the only practical means of identifying pirates of online copyright,” they added.
The DMCA authorizes copyright holders to obtain assignments without first filing a complaint or obtaining the approval of a judge. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has long argued that the process is subject to abuses of “copyright trolls”, which can use it to file thousands of prosecution and request gains, whether it is an account account which is in fact responsible for counterfeiting.
The 9th circuit had not previously been addressed the question, but its decision aligned with the decisions of the DC circuit in 2003 and the 8th circuit in 2005. Since these decisions, the author holders have largely chosen to file prosecution against John.
“This decision does not prevent copyright from identifying online counterfectors,” said Victoria Noble, lawyer for eff. “It simply excludes a mechanism to do it which is particularly sensitive to abuse.”
The case was centered on “Fall”, the film 2022 on two women trapped at the top of a television tower. The low-budget thriller was a box office success for Lionsgate, and was also apparently popular among illegal downloaders.
One of the production companies, Capstone Studios, has filed a DMCA assignment on COX Communications, the cable -owner, seeking to identify the users of 29 IP addresses linked to the illegal sharing of the film.
An anonymous user opposed, arguing that he had left his wifi non -guaranteed router, but had not downloaded the film and did not want his identity to be disclosed.
A district judge was shaking with the user and canceled the assignment. Capstone appealed, arguing that the judge had wrongly interpreted the DMCA. Cox, on the other hand, argued that the decision was correct and that it should not be subject to such assignments.
Writing for a panel of three judges, judge Morgen Christen said that the DMCA assignments are not authorized when the Internet supplier simply acts as a conduit and does not host the counterfeit equipment.
Capstone had argued that individual “John Doe” proceedings are too heavy, but the panel was not convinced.
“We are sympathetic to this argument, but if the DMCA provides a sufficient remedy for copyright holders to justify their rights against counterfeit using P2P networking is ultimately a question for Congress, not the courts,” wrote Christen.
Kerry Culpepper, the lawyer who represented Capstone, said that he appreciated the work of the court to fight against technological issues, but said that he was “very disappointed with the result”.
“I hope that the Congress or the Administration will adopt measures to help copyright holders to face the scourge of online theft which steals millions of dollars and harms the American economy,” said Culpepper. “I note that the administration has instructed Jon Voight to make a plan to help save Hollywood. Stop the flight online should be a priority. “
Cox, on the other hand, applauded the result.
“The panel rightly recognized that the result here circulates directly from the text and the structure of the DMCA, as are the other circuits for having solved this problem,” the company said in a press release. “We appreciate the careful work of the Court – This decision provides important advice to rights, service providers and courts in the future.”
The Riaa and the MPA refused to comment. In their memory, they urged the court to make a decision narrower and warned that, while hacking continues to evolve, a wider dress could make it more difficult to go after the reverse proxy services, the registraires of the domain and other service providers.
