Last week, a group of music and other entertainment industry representatives urged the UK government to consider drafting legislation that would force ISPs to disconnect alleged pirates. This proposal now faces opposition from an unexpected corner as a coalition of top artists has spoken out against it, saying that disconnecting their fans is the wrong path to take.

In an attempt to have their voices heard, a group of leading musicians have started their own lobby group, the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC). The group includes members such as Robbie Williams, Billy Bragg, Radiohead, Iron Maiden and Travis, and aims to correct music labels and lobby groups that claim to act in the best interest of artists.

The most recent intervention by the coalition of artists concerns the call by entertainment industry lobby groups for so called ‘three-strikes’ legislation, to disconnect repeat copyright infringers. Again, the copyright lobby has been acting on its own and without asking for input from the very artists they claim to represent.

“Not for the first time, we at the Featured Artist Coalition are forced to question whether the record industry is representing the best interests of artists in calling for such measures,” UK musician Billy Bragg writes in an article for the Guardian, dealing with the topic. According to Bragg the music industry is trying to blame ISPs for a ‘problem’ that is not as easily solved as it would first appear.

Several studios including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network (Australia’s top free-to-air broadcaster), announced last year that they were to sue Australian ISP iiNet for copyright infringement.

The studios, under the umbrella group AFACT, stated that iiNet “failed to take reasonable steps, including enforcing its own terms and conditions, to prevent known unauthorized use of copies of the companies’ films and TV programs by iiNet’s customers via its network.” AFACT had demanded disconnection for alleged infringers but iiNet refused. According to AFACT, since iiNet knew that its subscribers were infringing copyright, it too was breaching copyright by “authorizing” the infringements. Legal action followed.

Just recently AFACT was forced to drop some of the charges against iiNet, withdrawing the claim that the ISP was the primary copyright infringer and directly responsible when it refused to disconnect alleged pirates within its subscriber base. The allegation, know as “conversion”, is that iiNet interfered with the studio’s “right of possession”, a breach of their rights.

AFACT tried to convince Federal Court Judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy that iiNet was guilty of “conversion” but he disagreed, kicked out the claim and ordered the studios to pay iiNet’s costs for that element.

The remaining claim against iiNet is that the ISP is liable for the copyright infringing actions of its subscribers, something it denies. However, AFACT are increasing the pressure on iiNet to again admit that its customers are pirates, something it tried to do earlier. They say that since they have lots of evidence that iiNet’s subscribers are pirates, iiNet should just admit it and stop wasting the court’s time.

“AFACT has presented evidence of tens of thousands of instances of copyright infringement by iiNet’s users,” said a spokesperson for the anti-piracy group. He claimed that iiNet had already accepted the validity of that evidence adding, “To make those acknowledgements and not accept that those customers are engaged in copyright infringement is simply a tactic by iiNet designed to delay and frustrate the running of the case.”

iiNet chief Michael Malone disagreed, saying that it’s not up to iiNet to admit anything, it’s up to AFACT and the studios to bring the evidence. “If they come and say that a person is committing piracy, it’s their obligation to prove that,” he said.

The case is due to return to court 9th June 2009.

tion to prove that,” he said.

The case is due to return to court 9th June 2009.

Yet again, Spain’s answer to the RIAA has been flexing its muscles in trying to close down another site that offers links to copyright works. Time and time again the Spanish courts have kicked out claims against similar sites, declaring them to be entirely legal, but SGAE has its hands firmly pressed to its ears.

This time SGAE targeted Agujero.com, a site which amongst other things offers links to files found on various P2P networks. Defended by lawyers David Bravo and Javier de la Cueva, Agujero.com is protesting its innocence using the same successful defense employed earlier by P2P site Sharemula. However, the increasingly deaf SGAE believes otherwise, claiming that the site operates illegally.

“The entertainment industry has tried to criminalize websites linking to P2P,” Javier de la Cueva told TorrentFreak. “After four years, it seems they have given up with criminal proceedings as it is clear it is not a crime because a link is not a copy nor is it public communication. It is just metadata, data about data. Now they [SGAE] have begun civil claims.”

Mininova, based in The Netherlands, is up against local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, which has a reputation for forcing torrent sites offline. Through legal action, BREIN now hopes to convince the court that Mininova has to filter its search results, so that all .torrent files which may point to unauthorized content are removed.

The initial date for the trial was set or May 20th, but was postponed today. “The reason for this postponement is solely due to personal circumstances of our attorney and has explicitly nothing to do with the content of the case,” Mininova’s staff writes in a response to the news.

The Mininova trial will set an important precedent for all other BitTorrent indexers hosted in The Netherlands. If the court rules against Mininova it could mean that copyright holders get more control over what is shared on Mininova, and hundreds of torrent sites that use their torrents as input for their indexes.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

Last week, ‘godcanjudgeme‘, a prolific uploader to Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, Mininova and OneBigTorrent, made another upload to add to his long list of releases, but this one turned out a little differently to all the others.

Blue Gold : World Water Wars from director Sam Bozzo is a movie about one of planet earth’s most precious resources – water. It examines the ‘future’ for water and how various corporations are plotting to control its supply, how governments use water for political gain and how the control of this essential liquid could be the source of future military conflicts.