7 ms·

>TPB is DMCA compliant I thought they explicitly weren't. See http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/ http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pir

by ikeboy 10y ago

>TPB is DMCA compliant I thought they explicitly weren't. See http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/ http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/, or https://torrentfreak.com/completely-ignoring-the-dmca-an-option-for-torrent-sites-160131/ https://torrentfreak.com/completely-ignoring-the-dmca-an-opt... (from earlier this year) "The Pirate Bay has refused to take anything down on copyright grounds from day one and yet it remains up today." Is there any other indication that TPB has begun obeying DMCA requests, or are they lying?

toomuchtodo 10y ago
They only host magnet hashes. None of their content is DMCA-actionable.
- Esau 10y ago
  They are not a US site so why would they concern themselves with the DMCA?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Several TLD registries exist under US control, allowing for their use in exerting US will.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Why i have long wanted to see the gTLDs moved to .us to make that overt.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    That's not the point. They claimed to be DMCA-compliant, whether they need to doesn't have bearing to whether that's true.
    - lucideer 10y ago
      I've not researched their compliance in detail, but from a purely logical perspective, the point would be that they are DMCA-compliant by being exempt from any actions required of them in response to DMCA requests. They comply with all DMCA requirements, which for them is none.
      - ikeboy 10y ago
        If their only claim is being outside US jurisdiction, then "we are DMCA-compliant" is a misleading and false claim to make. They may not be subject to DMCA, but then they're "not DMCA compliant, for good reason".
        squeaky-clean 10y ago
        They are not subject to DMCA (not being inside the USA). However, even though they are not subject, they are still "DMCA compliant" because they do not store any data that could infringe upon copyrights, they only store links to that data (or links to ways of accessing). I like the point @redthrowaway made. "I don't serve food to the public out of my office. Thus, I am trivially in compliance with food safety laws." In the same way, TPB are compliant with the DMCA (and also compliant with food safety laws). Sure, it might seem like a silly defense, but it's true and it works.
        ikeboy 10y ago
        >they do not store any data that could infringe upon copyrights, they only store links to that data This argument has largely not held up in court. See Isohunt. I've asked elsewhere in this thread for a single example of this argument (for a torrent site) working in US courts, and nobody had one. Do you know of any?
        e12e 10y ago
        As far as I know the isohunt case was settled, so no legal presendent was set? https://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-shuts-down-after-110-million-settlement-with-the-mpaa-131017/ https://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-shuts-down-after-110-millio... There's some more detail in the Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#Legal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#Legal As far as I know there are two issues: 1) whatever the technical details, if it can be shown that the intent is overwhelmingly to fascilitate unlicensed copying - then any search engine could be held to be illegal. b) These other cases are old; there are technical differences between indexing magnet links and storing torrent files, not to mention running torrent trackers. While intent is still important, I'm not sure the technical differences don't matter now. As far as I know linking to illegal content is (mostly) legal.
  - babuskov 10y ago
    AFAIK, .org is a US controlled domain.
    - belorn 10y ago
      As of 2015, ICANN is an internationally controlled entity.
    - __jal 10y ago
      AFAIK, the RIAA was complaining about a .SE domain to the .org registrars.
JoshTriplett 10y ago
Compliance with the DMCA requires removal of infringing content. TPB does not host infringing content. Thus, they're vacuously compliant.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  Do you have any precedent that says it's not infringing? Isohunt and others used similar arguments and lost.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - wheaties 10y ago
    The EU courts have determined, quite rightly, that merely having an link on a website does not equate to piracy.
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      The EU courts, quite rightly, do not set precedent for US laws like DMCA.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        The Pirate Bay operates outside of the US; US law (and the DMCA) does not apply to them.
        lambda 10y ago
        But PIR, which runs the .ORG registry, does operate in the US, and thus US law applies to them.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Which is an odd scenario, isn't it? A US private firm (the RIAA) applying pressure to a US technical registry for US interests when The Pirate Bay doesn't infringe per the letter of the law, nor resides within the United States.

by ikeboy 10y ago

toomuchtodo 10y ago

They only host magnet hashes. None of their content is DMCA-actionable.

Esau 10y ago
They are not a US site so why would they concern themselves with the DMCA?
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Several TLD registries exist under US control, allowing for their use in exerting US will.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Why i have long wanted to see the gTLDs moved to .us to make that overt.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  That's not the point. They claimed to be DMCA-compliant, whether they need to doesn't have bearing to whether that's true.
  - lucideer 10y ago
    I've not researched their compliance in detail, but from a purely logical perspective, the point would be that they are DMCA-compliant by being exempt from any actions required of them in response to DMCA requests. They comply with all DMCA requirements, which for them is none.
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      If their only claim is being outside US jurisdiction, then "we are DMCA-compliant" is a misleading and false claim to make. They may not be subject to DMCA, but then they're "not DMCA compliant, for good reason".
      - squeaky-clean 10y ago
        They are not subject to DMCA (not being inside the USA). However, even though they are not subject, they are still "DMCA compliant" because they do not store any data that could infringe upon copyrights, they only store links to that data (or links to ways of accessing). I like the point @redthrowaway made. "I don't serve food to the public out of my office. Thus, I am trivially in compliance with food safety laws." In the same way, TPB are compliant with the DMCA (and also compliant with food safety laws). Sure, it might seem like a silly defense, but it's true and it works.
        ikeboy 10y ago
        >they do not store any data that could infringe upon copyrights, they only store links to that data This argument has largely not held up in court. See Isohunt. I've asked elsewhere in this thread for a single example of this argument (for a torrent site) working in US courts, and nobody had one. Do you know of any?
        e12e 10y ago
        As far as I know the isohunt case was settled, so no legal presendent was set? https://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-shuts-down-after-110-million-settlement-with-the-mpaa-131017/ https://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-shuts-down-after-110-millio... There's some more detail in the Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#Legal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#Legal As far as I know there are two issues: 1) whatever the technical details, if it can be shown that the intent is overwhelmingly to fascilitate unlicensed copying - then any search engine could be held to be illegal. b) These other cases are old; there are technical differences between indexing magnet links and storing torrent files, not to mention running torrent trackers. While intent is still important, I'm not sure the technical differences don't matter now. As far as I know linking to illegal content is (mostly) legal.
- babuskov 10y ago
  AFAIK, .org is a US controlled domain.
  - belorn 10y ago
    As of 2015, ICANN is an internationally controlled entity.
  - __jal 10y ago
    AFAIK, the RIAA was complaining about a .SE domain to the .org registrars.

JoshTriplett 10y ago

Compliance with the DMCA requires removal of infringing content. TPB does not host infringing content. Thus, they're vacuously compliant.

ikeboy 10y ago
Do you have any precedent that says it's not infringing? Isohunt and others used similar arguments and lost.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wheaties 10y ago
  The EU courts have determined, quite rightly, that merely having an link on a website does not equate to piracy.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    The EU courts, quite rightly, do not set precedent for US laws like DMCA.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      The Pirate Bay operates outside of the US; US law (and the DMCA) does not apply to them.
      - lambda 10y ago
        But PIR, which runs the .ORG registry, does operate in the US, and thus US law applies to them.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Which is an odd scenario, isn't it? A US private firm (the RIAA) applying pressure to a US technical registry for US interests when The Pirate Bay doesn't infringe per the letter of the law, nor resides within the United States.