MPAA Gets Court To Block Popcorn Time Websites In UK, Despite Judge Admitting The Sites Don't Actually Infringe
from the we-seem-to-have-a-problem-here dept
We've written in the past about the UK going a bit nuts in ordering ISPs to block sites over potential copyright infringement, often using questionable logic and little concern for the unintended consequences of out and out censorship. Now it's reached a new, somewhat ridiculous level, in which a court has sided with various Hollywood studios in ordering a bunch of websites be blocked for merely distributing versions of the Popcorn Time software, even as the judge admits the studios' argument doesn't make much sense, since the sites themselves don't offer any infringing material, and no infringement flows through the sites themselves.The court clearly recognizes that a site distributing Popcorn Time is quite different from torrent sites or streaming sites:
So the operators of both BitTorrent sites and streaming website sites have been held to infringe copyright by communication to the public even though the infringing copy of the copyright work itself does not come directly from those websites but because the sites contain catalogued and indexed connections to the sources of those copies. The website operators are held to have intervened in a highly material way to make the copyright works available to a new audience and to infringe.So, don't order them blocked, right? Not so fast...
The difference with the Popcorn Time system is that now it is the application itself running on the user's computer which presents to the user catalogued and indexed connections to the sources of the copies. If a PTAS site is purely the source from which the Popcorn Time application software is downloaded and the application itself, once operational on the user's computer, never connects back to the PTAS site then can the reasoning employed in the earlier cases apply? I do not believe it can. I cannot see how the operator of the PTAS website commits an act of communicating copyright works to the public. The PTAS site simply does not communicate any copyright works to anybody. There is no transmission (or retransmission) of the copyright work at all. What the PTAS site makes available is a tool. The tool is the Popcorn Time application. From the point of view of the user, the PTAS site is not the place at which they encounter a catalogue or index of content. It is the Popcorn Time application, when running on the user's computer, that provides catalogued and indexed connections to the sources of infringing copies of the claimants' copyright works. The operators of the PTAS sites are facilitating the making available of the content by providing this tool but that is a different matter. In my judgment the scope of the act of communication to the public cannot be stretched as far as to cover the operation of a site which simply makes the Popcorn Time application itself available for download.
Accordingly I am not satisfied that the operators of the PTAS websites Popcorn Time IO, Flixtor, and Movie Panda are committing an act of communication copyright works.
The issue I have to decide is whether the suppliers of the Popcorn Time applications are jointly liable with the operators of the host websites. In my judgment they are. The Popcorn Time application is the key means which procures and induces the user to access the host website and therefore causes the infringing communications to occur. The suppliers of Popcorn Time plainly know and intend that to be the case. They provide the software and provide the information to keep the indexes up to date. I find that the suppliers of Popcorn Time have a common design with the operators of the host websites to secure the communication to the public of the claimants' protected works, thereby infringing copyright.I understand the logic. The judge is arguing that these tools are mainly used for infringement, and thus that alone should make them somehow responsible and thus they can be blocked. But, that is one slippery slope if you follow that logic all the way down. Under that logic, the VCR should never have been allowed. In the early days -- before Hollywood figured out how to make use of them to the studios' advantage -- most VCR usage was not for authorized content. Ditto for many other innovations as well. Yet, rather than outlawing them, we allowed them to develop, and the industry eventually figured out how to use them properly.
Although I am not satisfied in relation to communication to the public or authorisation by the operators of the Popcorn Time websites, I am satisfied that the operators of these websites (both PTAS and SUI) are jointly liable for the infringements committed by the operators of the host websites.
Thanks to this kind of ruling, that will never happen with Popcorn Time (in the UK at least), and that seems pretty dangerous. It's yet another case of Hollywood shutting down what it fears, rather than learning to embrace it and give users what they want.
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Filed Under: blocks, censorship, filters, popcorn time, uk
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Other countries that are less afraid of new things will catch up and leave these dinosaurs behind eventually. That's what will happen. It's not like we haven't got good examples throughout History, eh? *wink wink*
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"jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
If you're defending the enablers of infringement, then you're a pirate.
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
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Re: Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
Taking your argument and putting it another way and using the same logic the judge applied to block this site, let's see how it sounds then.
"If Walmart is selling guns then they're enablers of murder and if you defend Walmart then you're a murderer too."
Ipso facto, Walmart must be shutdown because they sell tools which CAN be used to take the lives of others.
I'd ask if you see how retarded that kind of logic, yours and the judge's, is. Except I know Retarded is your nom de plume. So you wouldn't realize how moronic that kind of thinking is.
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Re: Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
King Sized Rizla is a different matter entirely.
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Re: Re: Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
What's your point?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
If I defend Ford Motor Company, does that make me bank robber?
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Re: Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
I'm confused. If I defend Hollywood, does that make me The Spanish Inquisition, Josef Stalin, or Pol Pot?
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
If a bit of piracy is the cost of enabling free speech so be it. It is not as though the studios, labels and publishers are not making a profit.
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Re: Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
Welp, looks like I defend 'the enablers of infringement', guess it's time to hit the store for the eye-patch and stuffed parrot for my official pirate uniform.
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
Well considering that this is simply not true, probably quite a few more times.
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Re: "jointly liable" is not a slippery slope. Overt acts with sole purpose to infringe.
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Madman Masnick
This is a horrible ruling and if it were here in the US it would set a horrible precedent.
Ehud
*Well I'm personally butthurt he turned down my offer to go do coffee or whatever for that offer they have in the techdirt store where you get a 30 minute face-to-face with him. I wasn't even going to bring a macaroni-picture for him to sign. However, the reason I originally expressed an interest in the meeting [which was unrequited and I cried for hours --maybe days] was because Mike puts things together. Anyone can analyze a ruling or write a story. It takes knowledge of the context to frame it in a way that expresses WHY and HOW it is important. Still... the story is not about Mike. It's about the judge's ruling. Right?
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Re: Madman Masnick
It may not set a precedent in the US, but it will b e quoted in support of similar actions in the US.
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Which, funnily enough, is the reason why LSD is illegal in the UK.
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Re:
What if you use Popcorn Time only view Public Domain movies?
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Re:
That assumes that it can only be used for infringing purposes, which is not true.
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Re:
Well, then they should legalize it immediately! LSD has many legitimate medical uses.
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And they've allowed PopcornTime to develop as well, you dumb schlub.
Mike Masnick just loves to see artist's rights trampled.
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Re:
No, not really:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150129/06555929849/anti-piracy-group-so-desperate-to-go-a fter-popcorn-time-that-it-threatens-blog-software-maker.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140 711/18044627859/mpaa-stretches-dmca-to-breaking-point-with-questionable-take-down-request-popcorn-ti me-repositories.shtml
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I pay for a Netflix subscription, but it doesn't always have the content I watch because of movie studio cockblocking bullshittery.
I would also pay for HBO Go if I cared at all about Game of Thrones, which I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't.
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Freedom of speech
If you're defending someone you're exercising your right to freedom of speech.
Those would would remove our right because "someone copied a file" are the threat to free speech, free expression, and freedom in general.
E
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The judge got it almost right
So the operators of both BitTorrent sites and streaming website sites have been held to infringe copyright by communication to the public even though the
infringing copy of the copyright work itself does not come directly from those websites but because the sites contain catalogued and indexed connections
to the sources of those copies. The website operators are held to have intervened in a highly material way to make the copyright works available to a new
audience and to infringe.
The difference with the Popcorn Time system is that now it is the application itself running on the user's computer which presents to the user catalogued
and indexed connections to the sources of the copies. If a PTAS site is purely the source from which the Popcorn Time application software is downloaded
and the application itself, once operational on the user's computer, never connects back to the PTAS site then can the reasoning employed in the earlier
cases apply? I do not believe it can. I cannot see how the operator of the PTAS website commits an act of communicating copyright works to the public.
The PTAS site simply does not communicate any copyright works to anybody. There is no transmission (or retransmission) of the copyright work at all. What
the PTAS site makes available is a tool. The tool is the Popcorn Time application. From the point of view of the user, the PTAS site is not the place at
which they encounter a catalogue or index of content. It is the Popcorn Time application, when running on the user's computer, that provides catalogued
and indexed connections to the sources of infringing copies of the claimants' copyright works. The operators of the PTAS sites are facilitating the making
available of the content by providing this tool but that is a different matter. In my judgment the scope of the act of communication to the public cannot
be stretched as far as to cover the operation of a site which simply makes the Popcorn Time application itself available for download.
Accordingly I am not satisfied that the operators of the PTAS websites Popcorn Time IO, Flixtor, and Movie Panda are committing an act of communication
copyright works.
Note that the judge issuing the ruling is no other than Colin Birss - the same who wrote the sensible landmark Media CAT Ltd v Adams & Ors [2011].
A full link to the ruling is in order:
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2015/1082.html
He clearly understands the technology and his reasoning is not that offering a dual use application without more is illegal but rather that the websites are jointly liable on account of their linking the application with torrent indexes which are already blocked and the way in which the application is promoted.
Had the sites been smart they would just have called their app Torrent streamer and offered it for download and not linked themselves with any online indexes.
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Well this is what courts do...
On the face of it the requirements of CDPA s97a are pretty specific:
So if somebody isn't infringing copyright, they shouldn't have their website blocked.
The sites developing Popcorn Time aren't directly dealing in any copyright-infringed material; but the court finds that because they are acting with a "common purpose" with sites that index torrents, then providing PT is indeed using the ISPs' service "to infringe copyright".
The court also finds it pretty convincing that the software is "authorising" its users to infringe copyright (which is itself to a copyright infringement), but can't formally find that because the movie studios' lawyers screwed up that bit of their case.
A few posters above have asked, 'but what about VCRs etc' -- the UK does have its own version of the 'Betamax' decision, specifically a case where an Amstrad dual tape deck with double-speed deck-to-deck recording was found not to be "authorising" copyright infringement... which is why Alan Sugar has been fronting The Apprentice on the BBC for the last ten years, while the developers of PT probably won't.
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Microsoft Windows
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