Month: April 2016

Wer auf eine Webseite mit unerlaubt veröffentlichten Fotos verlinkt, begeht nach Ansicht des EuGH-Generalanwalts keine Urheberrechtsverletzung. Sonst würde das Internet nicht mehr funktionieren. (Leistungsschutzrecht, Google)

Viele Spieler finden, dass World of Warcraft früher besser war und haben deshalb das Original auf dem privaten Server Nostalrius gespielt. Der wird nun auf Anordnung von Blizzard geschlossen - die Fans wehren sich mit einer Petition. (WoW, MMORPG)

Nach einer Serie von Rückschlägen hat Samsung seinen Umsatz und Gewinn wieder steigern können. Alles deutet darauf hin, dass das an guten Verkaufszahlen für die neuen Galaxy-S7-Modelle liegt. (Samsung, Mobil)

One of the key roles of the EU’s Court of Justice is to interpret European law to ensure that it’s applied in the same manner across all member states.

The Court is also called upon by national courts to clarify finer points of EU law to progress local cases with Europe-wide implications.

In recent years the Court was called upon to rule on several cases related to hyperlinking, in an effort to established whether links to other websites can be seen as copyright infringement.

Previously, it ruled that links to copyrighted works are not infringing if the copyright holder published them in public, and the same is true for embedding copyrighted videos.

But what if a link points to content that is not authorized by the copyright holder? Would this still be allowed? According to EU Advocate General Melchior Wathelet, it is.

In an advisory opinion to the EU Court of Justice, which will issue a final ruling later, the Advocate General reviewed a dispute between the Dutch weblog GeenStijl.nl and Playboy.

In October 2011, GeenStijl.nl published a post linking to leaked Playboy photos, which were hosted on the file-hosting service FileFactory.

Playboy publisher Sanoma successfully requested the removal of the photos at the hosting service, but in response GeenStijl continued to link to other public sources where they were still available.

The Dutch Court asked the EU Court of Justice to rule whether these links can be seen as a ‘communication to the public’ under Article 3(1) of the Copyright Directive of the Copyright Directive, and whether they facilitate copyright infringement.

In his advice today the Advocate General acknowledges that the hyperlinks facilitate the discovery of the copyrighted works, and make them more easily available. However, this isn’t copyright infringement.

“…hyperlinks which lead, even directly, to protected works are not ‘making them available’ to the public when they are already freely accessible on another website, and only serve to facilitate their discovery,” the EU Court of Justice’s writes, commenting on the advice.

The Advocate General argues that “linking” is not the same as making the content available, which would apply to the original uploader. This means that GeenStijl’s actions can not be characterized as copyright infringement.

“The actual act of ‘making available’ is the action of the person who effected the initial communication. Consequently, hyperlinks which are placed on a website and which link to protected works that are freely accessible on another site cannot be classified as an ‘act of communication’ within the meaning of the Directive.”

“In fact, the intervention of the owner of the site which places the hyperlink, in this case GS Media, is not indispensable to the photos in question being made available to internet users, including those who visit GeenStijl’s website,” the Court clarifies.

The advice is a setup for a landmark ruling. However, the Court stresses that the advice only applies to this particular case.

Technically, most torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, mostly link to material that’s already available elsewhere. However, in these cases the general purpose of the site may also be taken into account.

That said, the advice is good news for news sites, bloggers and the general public, as incidentally linking to relevant copyrighted material should be allowed in most cases.

The Advocate General’s advice is not binding, but the European Court of Justice often uses such advice as the basis of its rulings. The final verdict is expected to be released later this year.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Zum Start der Ultra-HD-Blu-ray-Disc herrscht im Handel 4K-Chaos, und auch für den Europa-Start fehlt es an Hardware. Zudem fehlt ausgerechnet der starke Blu-ray-Unterstützer Sony. Eine Playstation 4K würde gleich zwei Probleme lösen. (UHD-Blu-ray, Blu-ray)

Tired of having to deal with invalid DMCA takedown requests, Automattic, the makers of WordPress, wants changes made to the law that punishes those that repeatedly submit bad requests.

As part of public consultation on changes to the DMCA, Automattic has submitted their take on the issue, and based on their experiences, it appears that invalid DMCA requests are a big problem for service providers like Automattic.

The problem, Automattic says, is with the overuse of automated bots in identifying potential copyright infringement. These bots often fail to take into account fair use, which can be a much more common occurrence on personal blogs.

"While we recognize that the use of automated tools may be necessary with respect to some types of infringement on some types of websites, personal blogs are not the proper targets for enforcement robots," writes Automattic's General counsel Paul Sieminski.

"Copyright holders have an obligation to consider fair use before sending a takedown notice, and robots simply cannot tell fair use from foul in any but the most obvious circumstances," Sieminski explains.

Invalid takedown requests are not just a problem being faced by Automattic, it's a much larger problem that affects almost all medium to large Internet businesses. A recent study found that almost a third of submitted takedown requests may be invalid, or at the very least, questionable.

But while Companies like Automattic face serious consequences if they do not comply with DMCA takedown requests, there is currently no punishment for those that habitually submit invalid requests. This, Automattic says, should change and that statutory damages would be the best way to address this issue.

"Damages from abusive notices of claimed infringement can sometimes be difficult to quantify. Thus, in order to further the goals of compensation and deterrence, statutory damages for abusive notices of claimed infringement and abusive counter notifications could be added either to section 504 or to section 1203," writes Sieminski.

Automattic also feels that the use of bonds should be extended to copyright holders seeking to use the DMCA takedown regime.

"Such a bond may be the only way to ensure that those who cause damage via misrepresentations are called to account for their misdeeds," says Sieminski.

Obwohl das iPhone SE das bisher günstigste neue iOS-Smartphone ist, wird Apple daran gut verdienen. Denn die Produktionskosten sind so gering wie bei keinem anderen iPhone. (iPhone SE, Smartphone)

Roboter, Drohnen oder das Smart Home: Einsatzmöglichkeiten gibt es viele für ein Lidar. Das Problem der Laserabstandsmesser ist der Preis. Das US-Unternehmen Scanse hat mit Sweep einen günstige Variante entwickelt. (Technologie, Roboter)

Der Panama-Leaks-Firma Mossack Fonseca ist offenbar nicht nur das Steuerrecht herzlich egal - sondern auch die IT-Security. Kein TLS, Drown und uralte Versionen von Drupal und Outlook Web Access machen es Angreifern leicht. (Security, Wordpress)

Nvidia hat ein paar zusätzliche Informationen zum GP100-Chip und der Tesla P100 mit Pascal-Technik verraten: Das Package ist für 32 statt 16 GByte HBM2-Speicher vorbereitet, was für künftige Modelle interessant wird. Erste Benchmarks zeigen, dass der Beschleuniger wie erwartet vor allem bei FP16- und FP64-Berechnungen stark ist. (Nvidia Pascal, Grafikhardware)