Top 40 Countries for Copyright Piracy & Cyberlockers

PCreso's comment elicited the suggestion that (New Zealand) countries should/must all sign-up to the US standard. See also:

...It's a report that the USTR puts out each year which names which countries have been "naughty" when it comes to intellectual property laws -- and then tries to shame/coerce them into putting in place much stricter copyright and patent laws. In the recent State Department cable leaks about copyright laws in other countries, what quickly became clear is that diplomats frequently use this list to put pressure on countries that have perfectly reasonable copyright laws to create copyright laws that will almost certainly harm citizens and local culture."

 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110216/02322713125/isnt-it-time-to-drop-laughable-special-301-report.shtml

Which probably explains why many countries have lost faith in the WPO's supposedly "consensus" method of arriving at decisions
(description: whereas the majority of the animals want to vote differently, the elephant wants to push everyone else around)

For anyone who doesn't know about the WPO "decision-making system", the WPO may come to any "decision" (per the above), but it means nothing to member countries - unless and until their sovereign government decides to enact a suitable (or suitably modified) law.

Before America 'insists' on enactment of any WPO 'decision', perhaps it should first become an exemplar of enactment and stop being two-faced about international ("free") trade - steel, agriculture...

(these are not my words)
"And people wonder why foreign governments, and many of us who pay attention to these issues, consider the Special 301 process to make a mockery of the US government on intellectual property issues."

- they come from another article which has plenty of links debunking the USTR report:

"Double Standard On The Special 301 Report: Industry Is Allowed Vague, Unsupported Statements; Consumer Advocates Are Not"
 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110309/16431613420/double-standard-special-301-report-industry-is-allowed-vague-unsupported-statements-consumer-advocates-are-not.shtml

It is easier to be friends with someone if you are not constantly (seeming) to be telling them what to do... one key to friendship is mutual respect - if you want the other person to respect you, first respect them (and behave in a fashion which engenders them to have respect for you)!

The recording and movie companies are happier, the more their product is (bought and) played. Logicians are impressed by the number of (valid) arguments put forward. The copyright holders'  repetition of much-the-same, over-and-over, does not make them any more 'right' than they were first time they trotted-out their propaganda - and particularly not when the weight of their 'evidence' can't be proven outside their own hear-say. That the USTR puppet-like repeats them, shames us all - and does nothing to actually combat the problem!

Jart, you're the second person to praise my superiority in as many days - the last guy said "dat's ingenius" whereas yours was "dis is..." - oh wait, that's not what you're saying...

I'm sorry, but despite having "a brain the size of a planet" I cannot begin to work out which suppliers might be/are 'shady dealers' - or more importantly, which ones are definitely not! There are many, but I've yet to notice anyone laser-painting a pirate skull and cross-bones on the under-side of their cloud!

As you've guessed, I don't have an account, but have been invited to view photos of holidaying friends (the envy-inducing rats!), who do. How is an ordinary person (ie, non-IT and thus still sane) supposed to begin to figure out the moral dimension of his service providers???
NB if you are an IT or InfoSec Manager, this is the same guy, who amongst his colleagues, is responsible for those brick marks on your forehead, after you've repeatedly told them NOT to open 'those' email messages/visit those sites/bring games software to run on 'work computers', accept overly generous gifts from hitherto unknown Nigerian sugar-daddies... It simply doesn't impinge on 'the man in the street's' radar!

The three models:

a) this is still illegal - there is no 'requirement' that money change hands: an unauthorised copy can be breach of copyright simply by existing (NB differences between jurisdictions, IANAL!). I would disapprove of this, and venture to suggest that if I attached to this comment a copy of the Beatles track I heard at lunch-time, IE would wipe it tout-suite! (can one even attach files to these posts???)

b) "snippets" is a difficult territory, and there are huge differences between even copyright-respecting jurisdictions, particularly related to parody! Yes, I agree with the general concept that a 'taster' acts as an advertisement/an inducement that one will buy something known/found to be enjoyable. It has been many years since I actually had to buy?rent a software license, but I recall many moons ago, living in a copyright-ignorant country and acquiring a bootleg copy of WordPerfect (how many years ago???). Familiarity enabled an easy justification of paying for a full copy, soon after returning to 'civilisation'! (however I recognise that there are some individuals who are able to behave otherwise/are totally ignorant of copyright law/don't have a professional reputation to consider...)

c) I return to my point about 'who' before 'how': It is perfectly legal to run a cloud offering storage space and controlled access thereto. What MAY be illegal is a client using that space to store and/or make available items that 'belong' to someone else. In this case, before selecting a service provider (continuing the theme above) we would have to inspect the 'holdings' of every other client, in order to ensure that all are above-board and thus suitable company for respectable society. (like that's going to happen!)
As you say, we can both imagine that certain service providers may actually seek 'disreputable' clientele, perhaps because they perceive business opportunity. This is not new. There must be other service providers who have long provided web hosting to 'naughty' sites (I won't use the p-word here, in case of filters!) - some/much of which is illegal in certain contexts and jurisdictions. However, (speaking for both my photo-sharing friends and myself) we don't visit places where such 'services' are 'advertised'...
I agree that such content as contravenes copyright (within jurisdictional bounds) should not be there, and that the copyright holder should be able to seek redress. WHO he seeks redress from is the file poster/owner and *not* the service provider or other clients on the same service. HOW it is done, is to follow the legislated process of that jurisdiction and *not* to disrupt the innocent (and perfectly above-board) lives of those 'other clients'!

I'm reasonably confident we have common ground on 'the crime'. Perhaps we differ on 'what comes next'? Similarly in the second-last para, I'd like to use another (filter attracting) p-word, the one for 'professional women' or 'ladies of the night': another so-called victim-less crime, that isn't. Take a look around (the various legal jurisdictions, not at the 'ladies'!)  and review this whole question of the meeting point of technology, law, and social mores/morality. A similar legal quandry exists around 'illegal narcotics' and surveying the (even, 'western') world we see some places that allow it relatively openly, some which have 'shades and grades' between what is allowed and what is illegal, and still others which take a (clear) 'hard line'. There is no (international/inter-state) agreement on a single, 'right', answer for either of these problems, and I put it to you that copyright pursuit and punishment is heading in the same (lack of) direction!

As to the last paragraph, we may well disagree. I cannot see that it would be a good thing to turn ISPs and other service providers into cops or censors. First of all, my ISP is basically an organisation of comms techies with a marketing department grafted onto the front-end (sadly, many are the other-way around!). Where is their expertise in either law or sociology? Before we start asking them to look after our morals, how about getting them to notice that certain users have machines spewing non-routable protocols and other non-characteristic usage patterns? If they had done this years ago, we might have more educated users paying more attention to their AV and anti-spam precautions - and that, surely, is much more of a technical problem, smack-bang in the middle of the service providers' IP-bound expertise!?

I agree that it would be better, indeed more 'professional' if the industry were to step-up. However if you think that a government can do it, even if saber-rattling, publicity-seeking representatives want to mouth-off on the subject; then I'd like to point-out the (not so legal) precendent of 'high encryption' and how the US government thought they could legislate its use and thus keep it from 'the bad guys'. There were two SERIOUS failures in this train-wreck of an idea: 1) the bad guys pricked up their ears and made a point of finding out what all the fuss was about - and had no trouble in doing-so; and 2) the US almost stopped work on encryption enhancement, and in an astonishingly short period of time, what was once 'strong' had become 'easy' and the 'good guys' were playing catch-up in a bid to get-ahead!

If you write an article and post it here on IE (oh wait, you have) then you are entitled to 'copyright protection'. However if someone rips you off, by re-publishing under their own name for example; then it is up to YOU to find that situation and to take whatever (legal) action you determine. Where do these industry groups get-off, imagining that they should have particular facilities and privileges to protect their copyrights? (ahem, in the case of pop music, shouldn't that 'ownership' lie with the performing band?) You should be entitled to exactly the same protections, detections, and avenues of recourse. However, as regards "detection", you have now exactly what you would have had back in the days of print production - if somebody copies you, you have to expose them - without help from the government or the service provider- ie the old man who runs the newspaper kiosk down on main street!

If these warez sites are so available, and so openly accessible, then why aren't the studios and record labels pursuing them? If such a site is in Canada, the Netherlands, or Switzerland, you can't tell me that they don't have an office there, and couldn't mount an action within that jurisdiction... Why do they expect Uncle Sam to lean on other peoples' (elected) representatives, to do their 'dirty work' (even if it is to 'clean up')?

In the previous post I suggested a (basic) mechanism, something like a Google search engine with a file 'detection' algorithm - come to think of it "go, ogle" sounds like a really good name for a p-word index, but maybe something like "go get 'em" for the IIPA et-al? Once they've done that, and shown it to be working, I could see the legal beagles figuring out how to use an algorithm (rather than "prying eyes")  to inspect even web sites/download directories 'hidden' behind access controls - with something like a judicial warrant a required part of the process, of course. Let's see these guys DO something instead of moaning and crying* (all the way to the bank) - and expecting 'the guvmint' and/or everyone else to do stuff for them (and, for free!)...

*copyright acknowledgement to departing Mayor Daley of Chicago "contended America is a "country of whiners" that's spent the last four decades fearing the impact of foreign governments on the nation's economy instead of showing the confidence and sacrifice to lead on a global stage."  http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Hello I am Logan from Argentina

The post also has many errors and the source (D' Alessio Irol Consultant for the local IFPI affiliate)

Taringa:

It is not Cyberlockers

It is not site-link P2P

It is not site-link Bittorrent

It is not a forum

And it obeys law DMCA like Google or Blogspot

http://www.taringa.net/takedown-notice.php

If Taringa is a site of hyperlinks, then also Google must be blocked and the USA to comprise of the list In the server of Taringa any file is not stored (audio, videos, images, pdf, etc…) , like in another server (fileshare, hotfile)

Greetings from Argentina!

PS: In IRAQ there are arms of massive destruction

PS2:Data

METHODOLOGY:

http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2011/2011SPEC301METHODOLOGY.pdf 

CHART OF COUNTRIES' SPECIAL 301 PLACEMENT (1989-2010):

http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2011/2011SPEC301HISTORICALCHART.pdf 

COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES:

http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2011/2011SPEC301CIS.pdf 

HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF SELECTED COUNTRIES’ PLACEMENT
FOR COPYRIGHT-RELATED MATTERS ON THE SPECIAL 301 LISTS:

http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2011/2011SPEC301CIS.pdf

Top 40 Countries: 

http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2011/

Hi Dln,

Excellent input and good debate, but I think your opening “That if I pay Hotfile/Rapidshare et al to give me cloud storage space for the purpose of backing-up my personal photography; you would like to take them off-the-air, eg by un-DNS-ing them” – this is apt logic but realistic?

If you simply want to store online your personal photography, documents etc., there are a myriad of good and most free alternatives? I think we should not be naïve or disingenuous about this, we all know what such sites as HotFile / Rapidshare / ISOhunt…….. are really about, and what they are used for by the vast majority of users?

I want to try three models for you see if we can find common ground:

(a) A user places a few of his/her favorite songs or videos on say USENET these are picked up by others – no financial gain and similar to passing on and gifting a used CD or DVD. I would be surprised if even the IIPA or any could really fight this one?

(b) A fan places snippets of songs or videos on YouTube – you try them for free, like what you hear or see then go and buy the real version from Amazon, iTunes, NetFlix etc. Again reasonable? 

(c) Then contrast this operation - basically providing download access for any commercial DVD, BlueRay, TV program, songs….. =  Sites: 542, Trackers: 159,703,  Active Torrents: 6,861,640, Files: 162.59 milion, Size: 12,324 TeraBytes,  Peers: 29.90M – one of the top 50 trafficked sites in the world. Make a lot of $$$; from ads, ad-sense, paid links, and charge for unhampered uploads / downloads. Maybe unreasonable? 

I think you hit the nail on the head “copyright is a social matter” and morally we do know the provision for the wholesale downloading of (Warez) pirated goods is an issue, there is no such thing as a victimless crime. 

Likewise the Internet is a “social matter” the peering, linking by ISPs, DNS, even the search engines are all voluntary and not delineated by any law.  Yet! - And I for one would like the Internet community to respond to the problem in (c) above rather than the law and governments do it for us?  

Hi Pcreso

Firstly I would agree and be the first to argue the industry itself does have to determine alternative and more innovative business models. The point about “Luddites” is also realistic. All one has to do is see the Sony DRM disaster in 2005 to see how the industry can get it really wrong, by poor judgment see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal 

I liked your point re: NZ and other countries, but this also has to be viewed from a perspective of international law, in fact NZ is a signatory to 3 of the main forms of International law on copyright protection:  

1. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, Berne, September 9, 1886, came into force December 5, 1887

2. Universal Copyright Convention, Geneva Act, September 6, 1952, came into force September 16, 1955

3. Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Marrakech, April 15, 1994, came into force January, 1 1995 Note: membership in TRIPS coincides with membership in the World Trade Organization.

The 4th major one is the WIPO Copyright Treaty, Geneva, December 20, 1996, which came into force in the US March 6, 2002, and even signed by China for example in 2007. NZ have yet to sign this one. 

The overall point is, whether we like it or not, most countries are obliged to comply with IIPA / USTR legal arguments primarily due to WTO & TRIPS.

Old adage "If we do not like the laws then get the government to change them, or change the government" 

DatDamnGuy

Actually a few services already do this very effectively, as an option, e.g. OpenDNS, with 10% of the world's traffic.

If the blocklists are at a DNS level they can be very effective, ask Internet users in China, UAE, etc. Circumvention methods say via Tor, anonymity, or other proxy methods are increasingly compromised or logged regularly.

It is clear, as with the Google statement in December 2010 they are starting to remove ad-sense facilities from any site suspected of piracy http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/12/making-copyright-work-better-online.html - so increasingly the search engines will also be a factor in what is essentially block listing.   

Have I understood you/the USTR correctly? That if I pay Hotfile/Rapidshare et al to give me cloud storage space for the purpose of backing-up my personal photography; you would like to take them off-the-air, eg by un-DNS-ing them, and deny thus me both access to my data and to enjoy the services for which I have paid?

These 'bitlockers' provide a service. Some of their clients use if for good. Some for 'evil'. Just like anything else in this world! Why are the 'good' people being painted as part of the evil empire?

Due legal process involves an accusation, backed-up by evidence, to a court.This process exists today. No 'change' is necessary!

Legal process costs money. Let's face it, if I accuse one them/such a large company and attempt to sue, my action will likely fail by their simple tactic of dragging out the case for so long that my legal fees overwhelm such (relatively) small pockets. If I withdraw, justice will not be served, but (they will quickly say) that is the way the system works...

In their case, the legal process is that they need to accuse an individual (who is contravening THEIR copyright), follow the process, and win compensation/seek punishment - 'see justice done'. Their problem is that to deal with piracy they need to take-on tens?hundreds?thousands?millions of individuals. That process sounds equally prohibitively expensive as the opposite scenario I painted, above! Perhaps that is why they have failed to resort to it, with any frequency - and when they have, have made heavy use of their PR resources to ensure such are, no - 'become', "high profile" cases.

In short, there has been a legal process in place, but they haven't made (much) use of it. Agreed it is an imperfect process, but that is the way of the law, if not the way of the world - and with mild examples I've shown that it exhibits advantages and imperfections which cut 'both ways'.

There is NO legal process which gives their copyright-hunt any priority over others' paid contracts with cloud vendors - and neither should there be!

BTW 'legal process' is included in the famous principle of "checks and balances". In this case it allso says that if 'you' falsely accuse me (of anything), I can seek redress.

If these (self) interest groups want to "tighten up", will they at any stage be mentioning how they will compensate those of us affected as 'collateral damage' or 'falsely accused' - and seeing they want to make things easy for them, how will such a process be 'one click' easy?

I liked the reference to anti-spam precautions. I'm not into the technology of audio and video on computers. However I was impressed by my computer's ability to accept a music CD (duly purchased from a legal store...) and even whilst loading the first track, to interrogate a database across the Internet to be able to display a range of artist credits, track title, and other information in the player application's GUI. So, being curious, I looked into this and realised that by making a hash value out of the data representing a music track, there was a reasonable chance of (uniquely) identifying it and thus being able to respond with reference information. Clever thinking!

Google have made a business out of 'scraping' our web sites and indexing key-words by the page - by the unique web page! Similarly I wrote a small routine which analysed web pages by calculating a hash value and thus by checking-back the next day is able to advise if the content of the particular page has changed meantime. Surely then, the music companies can use exactly the same technology to scan these bit-lockers (and a myriad other web sites, ftp sites, bit torrent sources, etc, to locate copyright materials? The hard/bulk work done, now they can use human confirmation, 'owner identification', and due (legal) process... All this without impacting those of us who have nothing to fear/have done nothing wrong.

Copyright is a social matter. Using 'technology' to deal with it must be done at the level of 'the tool'. If copyright holders wish for their rights to be respected, then they must respect others' rights too (even - first)! For example, the speed at which they drive their cars, eg within a residential area or as they pass a stopped school bus; is a social decision. If they care to flout the law and 'speed', then there is legal process - implemented in society's interest by traffic police, whose role is firstly to "protect" (the innocent).

However, should the IP industry wish to install governors on their cars engines which will automatically shut-off the fuel supply when sensors indicate that they should exhibit caution (and thus turn the social "should" into a technological "must")- then that would be a technological 'solution' and one that applies equally to everyone (whose car has such a governor/inhibitor to normal and legal operation) - but God help the woman giving birth, the kid who has swallowed poison, the injured person with arterial bleeding, ... who you are rushing to the hospital, should such extenuating circumstances ever arise...

The more the Internet develops, the more I think it was invented by the (Gods of) the Ancient Greeks: there are idylls and ambrosia - but there is also Pandora's box (did you mention "Hydra"?). It is important that (self-interested) 'solutions' don't throw the baby out with the bath-water!

Hi Cipreses

Sorry but right from the source i.e. IIPA:

"The most popular “cyber locker-link-sharing” site in Argentina, called TARINGA, has more than 6,000,000 users. Taringa, notably, is also one of the top five most popular cyber locker-link sites in the world".

http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2011/2011SPEC301ARGENTINA.pdf

Your arguement is with IIPA & the US Trade Representative? 

Um no, he's wrong actually. Blocklists on such a scale would never work because of the circumvention tools that exist.

Instead of looking at this from the IIPA is right & all that so-called "piracy" is wrong, perhaps a more reasoned perspective could be "Is the IIAP morally or even legally correct in trying to dictate to foreign nations that their copyright law should be more like that of the USA?"

Each nation is entitled to legislate its own interpretation of these issues, as they see fit. You could equally ask why is the IIPA trying to dictate to the world, and lobby the US government to pressure countries that prefer a more liberal approach to change.

Here in NZ (& in other countries) we have adopted a stance that all too often copyright & patent legislation stifles creativity and productivity, mostly before an altar of corporate greed. Hence the strong corporate lobby from organisations like IIPA to restrict competition via such legislation.

There are two sides to this, and the compromise is probably some middle road, where both creativity & investment are protected & fostered. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Michael_Vs_Sony for a high profile example of corporate profit vs artists creativity.

Consider how the IIAP & it's predecessors have resisted change & new technologies. Pre recording technologies they worked with live artists, and came out with all sorts of rhetoric about how vinyl records would destroy the music industry... they bitterly fought allowing radio to broadcast recorded music because then no-one would need to buy records. Followed by the cassette tape, which would of course only support piracy by dubbing vinyl, & the next outcry when dual cassette players came along so that cassettes could be copied as well. Then CD's & cd-burners were going to wipe out the profits for companies & the livelihoods of musicians. Then DVD's were going to destroy the movie & music industry. Now the internet...

If they'd wake up & consider how to build a business model around the new technologies instead of being luddites running around spending vast amounts, generated by artist's creativity & popular support, lobbying governments to legislate to protect their profits, they might get my support.