The courts have struggled to enforce copyright laws. The organizations designed to protect their member's copyrights, such as the RIAA, MPAA and IFPI aren't doing much better. In what has become a dizzying task for the entertainment industry has now fallen on the laps of European ISPs.

According to the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), a Belgian court ruled yesterday that an ISP must "take responsibility for stopping illegal file-sharing" on its network. The IFPI has been embroiled with European ISPs for years, attempting to force Internet carriers to take on the task of copyright traffic cop.

Earlier this year, the IFPI had published "10 inconvenient Truths" on file-sharing, where it directly blamed ISPs as a major factor in the proliferation of online piracy.

"ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale."

According to the IFPI, not only do ISPs encourage piracy through the benefits of a high quality service, but they facilitate it as well - damning words to say the least. And in a region where networks aren't protected by the much hated-yet-suddenly-not-so-terrible DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), ISPs cannot hide behind a safe harbor provision like their American counterparts. That fact brings us to yesterday's ruling.

Since an English translation of the ruling isn't available, we're forced to go off what the IFPI statement reads. According to the IFPI, the "...judge said that ISPs have the technical means at their disposal to either block or filter copyright-infringing material on P2P networks and gave the ISP Scarlet (formerly Tiscali) six months to implement such measures." American ISPs can only be notified to remove the work – not be held responsible – because the DMCA safe harbor provision protects ISPs from exactly what’s going on in Europe.

And how exactly does one go about blocking infringing material? It seems that Audible Magic, which the judge presiding over the case brought up, will be the primary filtering technology.

Here's the simplified scoop on Audible Magic’s technology. The content owner provides a copy of the work to Audible Magic, which then "finger prints" the work and stores it in a database. Their software is then installed on the ISPs network, which examines and compares packets with the finger print database. Packets that don't match pass through, while packets that do match are blocked. Will it work?

If the history of file-sharing has taught us anything, it's that any technology developed to fight copyright infringement has been readily countered. Audible Magic at this point isn't a viable threat, and a strange feeling suggests that it never will.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
File-Sharing/P2P Related :: Copyright Issues

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