We continue to see courts getting involved in telling registrars and search engines what they must do to comply with a growing number of complaints that arise with issues of copyright infringement.
A couple days ago we wrote about a German court telling Key-Systems that they and all registrars can be held liable for the infringement violations of their customers.
Gizmodo reported that a U.S. judge has ordered Google to turn over all information they have with regards to a leaked trailer for the new Marvel Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Marvel also asked to enter Google owned property that coincided with the time, date and location of the upload. That request was not granted.
From the article:
Yesterday, a federal judge granted Marvel a subpoena against Google, which will help it find out where the leak came from. Google was told:
“Your are commanded to produce at the time, date, and place set forth below the following documents, electronically stored information, or objects, and to permit inspection, copying, testing, or sampling of the material.”
The subpoena goes on to command Google to take “all identifying information for the user ‘John Gazelle'” to court on November 18th in San Francisco.
Apparently, Marvel also asked to for “entry onto the designated premises, land, or other property possessed or controlled by you at the time, date, and location set forth.” But it didn’t get that. Instead, it’s asking for “the IP address from which the file named ‘ap-tlr-l_int_360p.mp4’ and containing content known as Avengers: Age of Ultron was uploaded to the Google Drive Site” and whatever else Google will tell it.
Read the full article on Gizmodo
Included in Google terms you agree to when you sign up is:
For legal reasons
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:
◦meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
◦enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
◦detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
◦protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.
What part of that exempts a copyright infringer from having his info disclosed via court order?
I don’t get you people. I don’t. You agree to the terms. Then don’t whine about it, when your data gets handed over, same as in a physical business scenario.
Congratulations on jumping to conclusions here based on the view that you are the first person commenting to an article which is just reporting that the event happened.
What people don’t you get ? your the first person that replied to this I don’t see anybody complaining about anything.
Sorry. I am not trying to start a flaming war, or say I know it all. It’s just logic makes me ask, you read the terms, you agree to them. If you impersonate anyone else, or if a civil action results in a court order to the Registrar or in this case, Google, your info is handed over in harmony with the terms you agreed to. I was referring to Danny Pryor’s comment to the previous article linked to in the above blog post,
German Court Says Domain Registrar Can Be Held Liable For the Infringement of their Customers
Key Systems hosts file-sharing sites. Its terms likely state the users are not to violate copyright. Why is it objectionable for Key Systems to uphold its own terms? Yes, Registrars and Google provide “infrastructure.” Why does it exempt them from asserting its terms, when it is apprised of a violation? The user ignores a court order, so to stop a violation and protect itself, the copyright holder exhausts the next possibility, the Registrar, or in the above case, Google.
Neither case says the Registrar or Google has to police its users. Just, when the violation became known to them, to act in accordance with their terms.
Here it is, in the Registration Agreement
4.Regardless of the regulations here and in the general terms and conditions both sides can terminate the agreement for important reason.
a.An important reason for Registrar is given in particular when Customer is in delay of submitting the fee in the height of the monthly fee for a contract which has a minimum duration or for a contract where a certain duration time period has been agreed upon;
violates laws, rules or good morals with the content offered on the domain or the domain name itself, and despite warning does not modify the contents in such a way that they meet the requirements regulated in the terms and conditions within reasonable time, or
According to the Torrent Freak article, Key Systems employed creative legal maneuvers to avoid accountability, stating since It can’t determine copyright infringement, because it is not the copyright holder! Catch 22!
Raymond Hackney brought the previous article to bear on this opinion piece, not me.