Mailing List Archive

Court orders for blocking of streaming services
Greetings -

Recently, a court issued a troubling set of rulings in a default decision
against "Israel.TV" and some other sites.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572373/gov.uscourts.nysd.572373.49.0.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572374/gov.uscourts.nysd.572374.49.0.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572375/gov.uscourts.nysd.572375.53.0.pdf

While the issue of domains being confiscated and being handed over to a
prevailing plaintiff for an international domain with no obvious nexus
to the United States by a United States court via orders to companies
that happen to be in the United States is a bit of a concerning issue,
that's not operationally relevant.

What's more concerning is that the ruling includes an expansive clause
B, "Against Internet Service Providers (ISPs):"

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that all ISPs (including without
limitation those set forth in Exhibit B hereto) and any
other ISPs providing services in the United States shall
block access to the Website at any domain address known
today (including but not limited to those set forth in
Exhibit A hereto) or to be used in the future by the
Defendants (.Newly-Detected Websites.) by any technological
means available on the ISPs. systems. The domain addresses
and any NewlyDetected Websites shall be channeled in such
a way that users will be unable to connect and/or use the
Website, and will be diverted by the ISPs. DNS servers
to a landing page operated and controlled by Plaintiffs
(the .Landing Page.) which can be reached as follows:

This expansive clause basically demands that ISP's implement a
DNS override in recursers, which may be dubiously effective given
things such as DNSSEC and DNS-over-HTTPS complications. This is
not an insignificant amount of work to implement, and since they
have not limited the list to big players, that means us small guys
would need to do this too.

Perhaps more worryingly is the clause "by any technological means
available," which seems like it could be opening the door to
mandatory DPI filtering of port 53 traffic, an expensive and dicey
proposition, or filtering at the CPE for those who run dnsmasq on
busybox based CPE, etc., etc.

This seems to be transferring the expense of complying to third
parties who had nothing to do with the pirate sites.

Complying with random court orders where there isn't even a formal
notice that there's been a court order is problematic. I would
guess that the 96 ISP's listed in the order are going to receive a
formal notice, but by what mechanism does the court think that a
small service provider would even be aware of such an order?

What happens with respect to the "Newly Detected Websites"? What
mechanism exists here?

Who is going to pay for the costs?

And how is this practical when this scales to hundreds or thousands
of such rulings?

It seems to me like the court overstepped here and issued a ruling
that contained a lot of wishful thinking that doesn't reflect the
ability of miscreants on the Internet to just rapidly register a new
domain name with a new fake credit card. Certainly it is trivial
to host the actual websites well out of legal reach of US courts,
and with domain registrars without US presence. This leaves those
of us in the network operations community in the position of
shouldering costs to comply with a court order, but without a clear
mechanism to continue to be in compliance. This could become a full
time job, if the defendants want to play the game right. "israel.tv"?
"1srael.tv" (with a "1" or "L" for the first letter, etc).

Is anybody here considering recovering compliance costs from the
plaintiffs?

... JG
--
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way
through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that
democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"-Asimov
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
Joe -

All excellent questions. The Internet is a relatively new phenomenon when it comes to the US court system and thus there has always been an ongoing risk of “interesting” court orders that are shaped by primarily by the plaintiffs understanding of the Internet (rather than being shaped and/or anchored in the reality of those who operate the various services that actually make the Internet function.)

I would suspect that several of the larger ISPs involved and the some of the providers of DNS services will respond to such an order, but it is not assured. (ARIN regularly reviews federal orders issued that might preclude operation of the Internet number registry service accordingly to the wishes of the community, and the issuance of these orders were noted but do not appear not applicable to our services.)

It’s also possible that some of the US telecommunications/Internet trade associations might respond, as they have regulatory and legal folks dedicated to such activities (i.e. WISPA, FISPA, NCTA, CA, CTIA, etc.) – If you are a member of one of those associations, then it’s worth inquiring with them.

Best wishes,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers


> On 5 May 2022, at 8:07 AM, Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net> wrote:
>
> Greetings -
>
> Recently, a court issued a troubling set of rulings in a default decision
> against "Israel.TV" and some other sites.
>
> https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572373/gov.uscourts.nysd.572373.49.0.pdf
>
> https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572374/gov.uscourts.nysd.572374.49.0.pdf
>
> https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572375/gov.uscourts.nysd.572375.53.0.pdf
>
> While the issue of domains being confiscated and being handed over to a
> prevailing plaintiff for an international domain with no obvious nexus
> to the United States by a United States court via orders to companies
> that happen to be in the United States is a bit of a concerning issue,
> that's not operationally relevant.
>
> What's more concerning is that the ruling includes an expansive clause
> B, "Against Internet Service Providers (ISPs):"
>
> IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that all ISPs (including without
> limitation those set forth in Exhibit B hereto) and any
> other ISPs providing services in the United States shall
> block access to the Website at any domain address known
> today (including but not limited to those set forth in
> Exhibit A hereto) or to be used in the future by the
> Defendants (.Newly-Detected Websites.) by any technological
> means available on the ISPs. systems. The domain addresses
> and any NewlyDetected Websites shall be channeled in such
> a way that users will be unable to connect and/or use the
> Website, and will be diverted by the ISPs. DNS servers
> to a landing page operated and controlled by Plaintiffs
> (the .Landing Page.) which can be reached as follows:
>
> This expansive clause basically demands that ISP's implement a
> DNS override in recursers, which may be dubiously effective given
> things such as DNSSEC and DNS-over-HTTPS complications. This is
> not an insignificant amount of work to implement, and since they
> have not limited the list to big players, that means us small guys
> would need to do this too.
>
> Perhaps more worryingly is the clause "by any technological means
> available," which seems like it could be opening the door to
> mandatory DPI filtering of port 53 traffic, an expensive and dicey
> proposition, or filtering at the CPE for those who run dnsmasq on
> busybox based CPE, etc., etc.
>
> This seems to be transferring the expense of complying to third
> parties who had nothing to do with the pirate sites.
>
> Complying with random court orders where there isn't even a formal
> notice that there's been a court order is problematic. I would
> guess that the 96 ISP's listed in the order are going to receive a
> formal notice, but by what mechanism does the court think that a
> small service provider would even be aware of such an order?
>
> What happens with respect to the "Newly Detected Websites"? What
> mechanism exists here?
>
> Who is going to pay for the costs?
>
> And how is this practical when this scales to hundreds or thousands
> of such rulings?
>
> It seems to me like the court overstepped here and issued a ruling
> that contained a lot of wishful thinking that doesn't reflect the
> ability of miscreants on the Internet to just rapidly register a new
> domain name with a new fake credit card. Certainly it is trivial
> to host the actual websites well out of legal reach of US courts,
> and with domain registrars without US presence. This leaves those
> of us in the network operations community in the position of
> shouldering costs to comply with a court order, but without a clear
> mechanism to continue to be in compliance. This could become a full
> time job, if the defendants want to play the game right. "israel.tv"?
> "1srael.tv" (with a "1" or "L" for the first letter, etc).
>
> Is anybody here considering recovering compliance costs from the
> plaintiffs?
>
> ... JG
> --
> Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
> "The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way
> through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that
> democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"-Asimov
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
On Thu, May 5, 2022 at 3:09 AM Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net> wrote:
> It seems to me like the court overstepped here and issued a ruling
> that contained a lot of wishful thinking that doesn't reflect the
> ability of miscreants on the Internet to just rapidly register a new
> domain name with a new fake credit card. Certainly it is trivial
> to host the actual websites well out of legal reach of US courts,
> and with domain registrars without US presence. This leaves those
> of us in the network operations community in the position of
> shouldering costs to comply with a court order, but without a clear
> mechanism to continue to be in compliance. This could become a full
> time job, if the defendants want to play the game right. "israel.tv"?
> "1srael.tv" (with a "1" or "L" for the first letter, etc).
>
> Is anybody here considering recovering compliance costs from the
> plaintiffs?

Check with your lawyer to be sure and then ignore the ruling. A judge
in a civil case definitely does not have the authority to bind folks
who are not parties to the suit. It's a fairly basic due process
issue.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



--
William Herrin
bill@herrin.us
https://bill.herrin.us/
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
On 5 May 2022, at 7:12 AM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us<mailto:bill@herrin.us>> wrote:

On Thu, May 5, 2022 at 3:09 AM Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net<mailto:jgreco@ns.sol.net>> wrote:
It seems to me like the court overstepped here and issued a ruling
that contained a lot of wishful thinking that doesn't reflect the
ability of miscreants on the Internet to just rapidly register a new
domain name with a new fake credit card. Certainly it is trivial
to host the actual websites well out of legal reach of US courts,
and with domain registrars without US presence. This leaves those
of us in the network operations community in the position of
shouldering costs to comply with a court order, but without a clear
mechanism to continue to be in compliance. This could become a full
time job, if the defendants want to play the game right. "israel.tv<http://israel.tv>"?
"1srael.tv<http://1srael.tv>" (with a "1" or "L" for the first letter, etc).

Is anybody here considering recovering compliance costs from the
plaintiffs?

Check with your lawyer to be sure and then ignore the ruling. A judge
in a civil case definitely does not have the authority to bind folks
who are not parties to the suit. It's a fairly basic due process
issue.

Bill -

That approach may be viable with one judgement from a court that you don’t share jurisdiction with, but probably doesn’t scale any more than the proposed technical measures...

I.e. it’s probably wise for there to be some degree of constructive engagement and education over these orders, as absence of such will inevitably lead to an abundance of similar rulings as other plaintiffs in the online content industry seek the same “all ISP” remedies - e.g., from <https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2022/05/02/piracy-websites-isp-block/> -

"In the approaching months and years, it’ll be interesting to see whether the move becomes a common component of judgements in similar stateside cases.”

Best wishes,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
On 5/5/22 6:07 AM, Joe Greco wrote:
> Greetings -

Hello,

Aside: Any greeting more cheerful / up beat seems ... misplaced.

> Recently, a court issued a troubling set of rulings in a default decision
> against "Israel.TV" and some other sites.
>
> https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572373/gov.uscourts.nysd.572373.49.0.pdf

How can someone go to court with "unknown" information like in exhibit
A? This seems insultingly incomplete like someone simply didn't want to
do their homework.

> https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572374/gov.uscourts.nysd.572374.49.0.pdf
>
> https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.572375/gov.uscourts.nysd.572375.53.0.pdf

I take umbrage at the fact that many of the domain names aren't actually
domain names and instead are host names or URLs which are decidedly
different than a domain name.

If you want someone else to do work on your behalf then you should have
the decency and respect to give them /directly/ actionable and
/accurate/ data.

> This expansive clause basically demands that ISP's implement a
> DNS override in recursers, which may be dubiously effective given
> things such as DNSSEC and DNS-over-HTTPS complications. This is
> not an insignificant amount of work to implement, and since they
> have not limited the list to big players, that means us small guys
> would need to do this too.

As others have suggested, I would run this past in-house / retained
lawyers before doing anything more than sending an email about it.

> Perhaps more worryingly is the clause "by any technological means
> available," which seems like it could be opening the door to
> mandatory DPI filtering of port 53 traffic, an expensive and dicey
> proposition, or filtering at the CPE for those who run dnsmasq on
> busybox based CPE, etc., etc.

"diverted by the ISPs DNS servers" seems to be a very small subset of
"by any technological means".

I'm waiting for the day that the plaintiff looses control of the landing
page to the original defendants and uses the court order -- such as it
is(n't) -- against the plaintiff. -- "Hey, you failed to renew the
domain for your landing page, so we did. Now we are using your own
ruling against you. Either we get the traffic or your own landing page
is filtered as a (Newly-Detected Website)."

> This seems to be transferring the expense of complying to third
> parties who had nothing to do with the pirate sites.

I feel like "undue burden" is going to come into play here.

> And how is this practical when this scales to hundreds or thousands
> of such rulings?

As it is, it won't.

> Is anybody here considering recovering compliance costs from the
> plaintiffs?

:-)



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
It appears that Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net> said:
>While the issue of domains being confiscated and being handed over to a
>prevailing plaintiff for an international domain with no obvious nexus
>to the United States ...

Most of the domains do have US nexus. Two are in .TV, one in .COM,
both run by Verisign, one in .XYZ which is assigned to an LLC in Las
Vegas, registered via registrar Namecheap which is in Phoenix. .DEV is
Google, again registered via Namecheap. The ones in .AC .LY .TO and
the non-existent .ISR, not so much.

I agree that the rest of the language demanding that every ISP,
hosting provider, credit union, bank, and presumably nail salon and
coin laundry in the US stop serving the defendants is nuts.

The defendants didn't show up in court so the plantiffs would have
provided a proposed order which it looks like the court just rubber
stamped. That was pretty sloppy of her.

R's,
John
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
John Levine wrote:

> I agree that the rest of the language demanding that every ISP,
> hosting provider, credit union, bank, and presumably nail salon and
> coin laundry in the US stop serving the defendants is nuts.

As the order is to those "having actual knowledge of this Default
Judgment and Permanent Injunction Order", according to DMCA, that
should be a reasonable order for hosting providers of illegal
contents but not for transit ISPs.

In addition, it seems to me that name server operators "having
actual knowledge" that some domain names are used for copyright
infringements are not be protected by DMCA.

Masataka Ohta
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
The plaintiff’s won a default judgement, because the defendants didn’t show up in court. But they could not have shown up in court, because they were only listed as “John Does” in the lawsuit. Thus no defendant could have “actual knowledge” that they were sued, let alone be serviced with litigation documents. For the court to then approve sanctions against innocent non-parties to the suit is a logical contradiction.

This just illustrates yet another way our legal system is horribly broken. Just as was demonstrated by the lawsuit from the family of an oil change outlet’s employee against a totally innocent customer, after that employee was killed by negligence of a fellow employee and the oil change outfit’s management. The car owner had no hand in the death, and in fact wasn’t present and had no power to prevent it. Yet he is the one being sued.

Shakespeare was right :)

-mel

> On May 8, 2022, at 1:24 AM, Masataka Ohta <mohta@necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp> wrote:
>
> ?John Levine wrote:
>
>> I agree that the rest of the language demanding that every ISP,
>> hosting provider, credit union, bank, and presumably nail salon and
>> coin laundry in the US stop serving the defendants is nuts.
>
> As the order is to those "having actual knowledge of this Default
> Judgment and Permanent Injunction Order", according to DMCA, that
> should be a reasonable order for hosting providers of illegal
> contents but not for transit ISPs.
>
> In addition, it seems to me that name server operators "having
> actual knowledge" that some domain names are used for copyright
> infringements are not be protected by DMCA.
>
> Masataka Ohta
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
On Sun, 2022-05-08 at 12:01 +0000, Mel Beckman wrote:
> The plaintiff’s won a default judgement, because the defendants didn’t show up in court. But they could not have shown up in court, because they were only listed as “John Does” in the lawsuit. Thus no defendant could have “actual knowledge” that they were sued, let alone be serviced with litigation documents. For the court to then approve sanctions against innocent non-parties to the suit is a logical contradiction.
>
> This just illustrates yet another way our legal system is horribly broken. Just as was demonstrated by the lawsuit from the family of an oil change outlet’s employee against a totally innocent customer, after that employee was killed by negligence of a fellow employee and the oil change outfit’s management. The car owner had no hand in the death, and in fact wasn’t present and had no power to prevent it. Yet he is the one being sued.

So odd to see someone on NANOG describe a video I just watched. For the
interested here it is from Steve Lehto's channel:

Oil Change Customer Sued After Worker Kills Someone w/Car
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVXN1oEWKZE

That guy also did one on the subject of this thread:

Court Orders All ISPs to Block Three Specific Services:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LrieGDMac8
>


-Jim P.
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
Mel Beckman wrote:

> The plaintiff’s won a default judgement, because the defendants
> didn’t show up in court. But they could not have shown up in court,
> because they were only listed as "John Does" in the lawsuit. Thus no
> defendant could have "actual knowledge" that they were sued,

As the defendants are those identified as "d/b/a Israel.tv, as
the owners and operators of the website, service and/or
applications (the “Website”) located at or linking to the
domain www.Israel.TV;", you are simply wrong.

> For the court to then
> approve sanctions against innocent non-parties to the suit is a
> logical contradiction.

Wrong.

Those knowingly actively cooperating with the defendants are not
innocent at all though DMCA makes some passive cooperation
innocent.

Masataka Ohta
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
Masataka,

But the phrase “or linking to the domain” Includes hundreds, possibly thousands, of unwitting certain parties: anyone who operates search services, or permits people to post links in discussion groups, for example, would be included.

I think I am simply right.

The lawsuit is contradictory and overreaching. But worse, the court issued a nonsensical judgment, whether to deliver it or not, and that is a travesty.

-mel

> On May 8, 2022, at 6:29 AM, Masataka Ohta <mohta@necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp> wrote:
>
> ?Mel Beckman wrote:
>
>> The plaintiff’s won a default judgement, because the defendants
>> didn’t show up in court. But they could not have shown up in court,
>> because they were only listed as "John Does" in the lawsuit. Thus no
>> defendant could have "actual knowledge" that they were sued,
>
> As the defendants are those identified as "d/b/a Israel.tv, as
> the owners and operators of the website, service and/or
> applications (the “Website”) located at or linking to the
> domain www.Israel.TV;", you are simply wrong.
>
> > For the court to then
> > approve sanctions against innocent non-parties to the suit is a
> > logical contradiction.
>
> Wrong.
>
> Those knowingly actively cooperating with the defendants are not
> innocent at all though DMCA makes some passive cooperation
> innocent.
>
> Masataka Ohta
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
Mel Beckman wrote:

> But the phrase "or linking to the domain" Includes hundreds, possibly
> thousands, of unwitting certain parties:

DMCA treats "linking" to illegal contents as illegal as the
contents themselves, which is why I wrote:

: In addition, it seems to me that name server operators "having
: actual knowledge" that some domain names are used for copyright
: infringements are not be protected by DMCA.

> I think I am simply right.

So, you know nothing about DMCA. Read it.

> The lawsuit is contradictory and overreaching.

As for transit ISPs enjoying a safe harbor of DMCA, yes, as I
already said so.

Masataka Ohta
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
First, I have NOT read this order, however:

> As the order is to those "having actual knowledge of this Default
> Judgment and Permanent Injunction Order

This tells me all that I need to know in terms of the scope of it. A default judgement means that the defendant never responded. That means that the only thing that the court has to go on is what is in the plaintiff's pleadings.

Moreover, generally speaking and because of that, a default judgement will often (if not close to always) give the plaintiff everything for which they asked. Again, I have _not_ read the pleadings, but I'd bet dollars to doughnuts (what *does* that saying mean, anyways?) that if you read the plaintiff's pleadings, specifically in their "what they want the court to do" section (called in some jurisdictions a "request for relief" or "relief requested"), you will find that the court's order closely tracks what the plaintiff asked the court to do.

Again, when a defendant defaults, that's pretty much SOP, the court will create an order based on that for which the plaintiff has asked.

Anne

--
Anne P. Mitchell, Attorney at Law
CEO ISIPP SuretyMail
Author: Section 6 of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (the Federal anti-spam law)
Author: The Email Deliverability Handbook
Board of Directors, Denver Internet Exchange
Dean Emeritus, Cyberlaw & Cybersecurity, Lincoln Law School
Prof. Emeritus, Lincoln Law School
Chair Emeritus, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop
Counsel Emeritus: Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) (now the anti-spam arm of TrendMicro)
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
Masataka,

You’re incorrect about the DMCA when you say “DMCA treats ‘linking’ to illegal contents as illegal as the contents themselves”. You must knowingly link to works that clearly infringe somebody’s copyright. A link to the Israel.TV websites themselves is not to a specific work, so it’s not covered by DMCA. So first, as long as you don’t know that a work is infringing someone’s copyright, then you cannot be held liable for contributor infringement for directing users to that work. But, over and above that requirement, a link that doesn’t go directly to a specific work, but just a website in general (as the judgement declares “shall block access to the website”) is completely out of the bounds of DMCA.

Nevertheless, this is still a court order, and presumably carries the full force of the court despite its ridiculous nature. It has the potential to force innocent parties to spend a ton of money defending themselves against red herrings and straw men.

-mel via cell

On May 8, 2022, at 8:22 AM, Masataka Ohta <mohta@necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp> wrote:

?Mel Beckman wrote:

But the phrase "or linking to the domain" Includes hundreds, possibly
thousands, of unwitting certain parties:

DMCA treats "linking" to illegal contents as illegal as the
contents themselves, which is why I wrote:

: In addition, it seems to me that name server operators "having
: actual knowledge" that some domain names are used for copyright
: infringements are not be protected by DMCA.

> I think I am simply right.

So, you know nothing about DMCA. Read it.

> The lawsuit is contradictory and overreaching.

As for transit ISPs enjoying a safe harbor of DMCA, yes, as I
already said so.

Masataka Ohta
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
A point of order:

> The plaintiff’s won a default judgement, because the defendants didn’t show up in court. But they could not have shown up in court, because they were only listed as “John Does” in the lawsuit.

It's actually a lawsuit against "Does 1-10 DBA Isreal.tv", so the defendants actually are on notice, they are the people behind israel.tv. This is a not-all-that-unusual method when a defendant goes out of their way to hide their individual identities. Basically this means everyone and anyone at israel.tv unless and until the actual individuals responsible show up.

In order for a lawsuit to move forward _at all_, the plaintiff has to submit a certified "proof of service", which includes a sworn statement by the process server, proving that the defendant was actually served. In this case I'm guessing (and again, it's only a guess, but an educated guess) that the process server walked into the offices at israel.tv, at Cihannüma Mahallesi, Saray Cad, 34353 ?stanbul-Turkey, and handed the summons to someone.

A much more likely explanation for why they defaulted is that because the people behind israel.tv are not in the U.S. (i.e. in a country other than that in which the lawsuit was filed) they figured that they didn't have to bother responding.

Anne

--
Anne P. Mitchell, Attorney at Law
CEO ISIPP SuretyMail
Author: Section 6 of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (the Federal anti-spam law)
Author: The Email Deliverability Handbook
Board of Directors, Denver Internet Exchange
Dean Emeritus, Cyberlaw & Cybersecurity, Lincoln Law School
Prof. Emeritus, Lincoln Law School
Chair Emeritus, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop
Counsel Emeritus: Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) (now the anti-spam arm of TrendMicro)
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
Mel Beckman wrote:

You are confusing "illegal" and "guilty".

The first party publicly transmitting illegal contents
or links to the contents are guilty, which means the
links themselves are illegal.

But, DMCA makes some third party providers providing
illegal contents or illegal links guilty only if some
condition of DMCA is met.

Same for civil liability.

> You're incorrect about the DMCA when you say "DMCA treats 'linking'
> to illegal contents as illegal as the contents themselves".

See above.

> You > must knowingly link to works that clearly infringe somebody's
> copyright.

Same is true if you are transmitting not links but the contents
themselves.

> A link to the Israel.TV websites themselves is not to a specific
> work, so it's not covered by DMCA. So first, as long as you don't
> know that a work is infringing someone's copyright,

You totally miss the point of the order, though I wrote:

: As the order is to those "having actual knowledge of this Default
: Judgment and Permanent Injunction Order",

Masataka Ohta
RE: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
I'm not very clear on the laws around much of this discussion, but I've been following this with interest.

I have a tongue-in-cheek question... if the documentation provided by the plaintiff to the court, and/or the court documentation including the final ruling, includes the specific URLs to the websites to block, does that constitute transmitting links to illegal content? They could not argue they didn't know the legal issues surrounding said links.

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+philip.loenneker=tasmanet.com.au@nanog.org> On Behalf Of Masataka Ohta
Sent: Monday, 9 May 2022 11:55 AM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services

Mel Beckman wrote:

You are confusing "illegal" and "guilty".

The first party publicly transmitting illegal contents or links to the contents are guilty, which means the links themselves are illegal.

But, DMCA makes some third party providers providing illegal contents or illegal links guilty only if some condition of DMCA is met.

Same for civil liability.

> You're incorrect about the DMCA when you say "DMCA treats 'linking'
> to illegal contents as illegal as the contents themselves".

See above.

> You > must knowingly link to works that clearly infringe somebody's
> copyright.

Same is true if you are transmitting not links but the contents themselves.

> A link to the Israel.TV websites themselves is not to a specific > work, so it's not covered by DMCA. So first, as long as you don't > know that a work is infringing someone's copyright,

You totally miss the point of the order, though I wrote:

: As the order is to those "having actual knowledge of this Default
: Judgment and Permanent Injunction Order",

Masataka Ohta
Re: Court orders for blocking of streaming services [ In reply to ]
Philip Loenneker wrote:

> I have a tongue-in-cheek question... if the documentation provided by
> the plaintiff to the court, and/or the court documentation including
> the final ruling, includes the specific URLs to the websites to
> block, does that constitute transmitting links to illegal content?

Doing something authorized by law in a way specified by the
law can not be illegal. So?

Masataka Ohta