Month: October 2018

Earlier this year there was a massive uproar, bordering on full-blown panic, about Europe’s new privacy regulations.

The GDPR introduced thorough data protections for Europeans, which applies to all sites and services that serve European users.

Suddenly, tens of thousands of websites around the globe had to make sure that they weren’t crossing any lines with their data collection policies. As a result, people received a flurry of emails asking them to ‘update’ their email subscriptions, or agree to new terms.

While the mass hysteria has faded now, the fallout is still noticeable. The good news is that Europeans have regained some of their privacy online, but in some cases, this comes at an unexpected cost.

Several non-EU based websites and publications responded to the GDPR by simply blocking all EU visitors. And, after several months have passed, these blockades are still in place.

Europeans who try to access newspapers such as the NY Daily News or the Dallas Morning News are not getting in, and USA Today redirect them to a separate portal that offers a “European Experience.”

Even Unroll.me, which offers people a handy tool to unsubscribe from mailing lists, is off limits.

No entry for EU visitors

When stumbling upon one of these GDPR blocks this week, it raised a question. What will happen if the EU decides to implement Article 13 of the proposed new copyright law next year?

Article 13, also known as the ‘upload filter’ proposal, will require many large Internet platforms to make licensing deals with rightsholders, or implement measures to block pirated content on their servers.

These requirements are not limited to European companies. They will affect all larger websites and services worldwide that deal with user-uploaded content and are available in the EU.

“Copyright law, including the current version of Article 13, if passed, applies to all websites visible in the EU, so foreign ones may decide to geoblock because of this, yes,” the office of Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda informs us.

While it will be easier to hold European companies responsible in court, its scope is similar to the GDPR, which means that it will likely cause some uncertainty among foreign sites as well.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcick, for one, appears to be pretty concerned as we highlighted earlier this week.

“The proposal could force platforms, like YouTube, to allow only content from a small number of large companies. It would be too risky for platforms to host content from smaller original content creators, because the platforms would now be directly liable for that content,” she explained.

While it seems unlikely that YouTube would block the entire service for Europeans, especially because it already has some pretty advanced upload filters, Article 13 might spook other services enough to start geo-blocking. Especially if Europeans are a minority on the platform.

This may sound like unrealistic fearmongering to some, but is it really, if you look at all those sites and publications that still have their GDPR blocks up after months?

This type of self-censorship is not new either. Previously we have seen that several YouTube-ripping sites voluntarily blocked US and UK visitors, fearing legal repercussions from local rightsholders.

If Article 13 does indeed result in geoblocking efforts, it will ironically restrict access to content, much like the GDPR is restricting access to some information and services.

One significant difference compared to the GDRP is that, under the latest text, Article 13 will not apply to “small” sites and services. This means that services with less than 50 employees and a balance sheet not exceeding 10 million in annual turnover are excluded.

At the moment various EU bodies are negotiating the final draft of the proposal, which will make clear what’s at stake here.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Die Zhuque-1 hat es nicht in den Orbit geschafft: Beim Zünden der dritten Raketenstufe kam es zu Problemen. Bei einem Erfolg wäre der Hersteller Landspace das erste von rund 60 kommerziellen chinesischen Unternehmen gewesen, das einen Satelliten ins All gebracht hätte. (Raumfahrt, Internet)

Es passt fast in jede Parklücke: Ein Faltauto des Startups City Transformer soll Städtern künftig das Leben erleichtern. Das innovative Fahrzeug wird zusammen mit Yamaha entwickelt. Vorbestellungen sollen voraussichtlich ab 2020 möglich sein, mehrere Versionen sind geplant. (Elektromobilität, Elektroauto)

From reviving old MMOs to archiving digital nonsense, read the news roundup for the week ending October 28, 2018

Continue reading ...

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Over the years we have covered dozens of piracy-related lawsuits, mostly from US courts. In many of these cases, defendants are foreign sites or services which don’t put up much of a fight.

That doesn’t appear to be true for the copyright infringement lawsuit a group of major record labels recently brought against Tofig Kurbanov.

Right off the bat, the Russian operator of the YouTube rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com hit back with a motion to dismiss. Helped by a team of several prominent lawyers, he argued that the Virginia federal court lacked jurisdiction.

The record labels, including Universal, Warner Bros, and Sony, countered the motion last week, but this was quickly followed by a response brief from the defense team.

At this stage of the case, both sides are arguing whether the Russian site operator can stand trial in the US, Virginia in particular. The record labels said yes, noting (among other things) that the sites use domain names that are administered by the VeriSign and Neustar registries, which are both headquartered in Virginia.

In its reply this week, the defense team notes that this argument is not just silly, but the height of absurdity.

“Because the Court will be tempted to believe that Plaintiffs are simply making a silly argument – as opposed to a patently absurd one – Plaintiffs’ actual argument needs to be articulated,” Mr. Kurbanov’s lawyers write.

They explain that the record labels don’t argue that their client registered the domain names with Verisign or Neustar, which they would see as a silly argument to warrant jurisdiction. No, these registries ‘merely’ oversee the top level domains, .com and .biz respectively.

“Plaintiffs here instead argue that – even though Defendant’s Websites were registered through Arizona registrar GoDaddy.com – jurisdiction is proper in Virginia because Verisign, Inc. oversees the entire top-level .com domain and Neustar, Inc. oversees the entire top-level .biz domain.

“Currently, there are 137.9 million registered .com domains and an additional 2.25 million .biz domains. Under Plaintiffs’ theory, every owner of each of those 140+ million domains are subject to personal jurisdiction in Virginia,” they add.

FLVTO

The defense argues that the site operator shouldn’t stand trial at all, but if the court decides otherwise, a transfer to a California federal court is requested. The labels objected to this as well last week, noting that it would be “less convenient” for all parties.

However, the defense has an interesting comeback to these arguments, noting that the labels themselves chose California for their case against YouTube-MP3, another stream ripper.

“Plaintiffs seem to have a touch of amnesia, forgetting that they brought a near-identical lawsuit two years ago in the Central District of California where they argued that jurisdiction was proper in part because, they alleged, that was ‘where several Plaintiffs are located and/or maintain substantial business operations’,” the defense writes.

In addition, they point out that several labels are located in California, as well as YouTube, several advertising brokers, as well as more visitors of the websites in question.

According to the defense, the only reason why the record labels would prefer Virginia is the so-called “rocket docket,” referring to the speedy resolution of the cases in that jurisdiction.

“Plaintiffs’ only (apparent) motivation for being in the Eastern District of Virginia is to take advantage of the Court’s rocket docket. The Visigoths are indeed at the gate,” the defense writes, ending with an ominous reference.

Both the site operator and the labels have listed a wide variety of arguments and counter-arguments to convince the court that they are right. At this point, it’s impossible to tell in which direction things will go, but the recent filings show that the Russian site operator is putting up a thorough defense.

—

The defense’s reply memorandum in support of the motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, transfer to the central district of California, is available here (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Kann Software Malereien erstellen? Eine erfolgreiche Auktion beweist, dass es zumindest Abnehmer für KI-Kunst gibt. Ein Bild des Entwicklerteams Obvious bringt 432.500 US-Dollar ein. Allerdings haben sie sich dafür wohl stark bei anderen KI-Systemen bedient. (Neuronales Netzwerk, KI)