Intellect or Insanity, Jonathan Klinger's Blog

In about two weeks time, I’ll attend the Wikimania2011 Conference and discuss Cultural Fair Use, Political Narrative and Copyright; while this might sound as one big mashup, because there is no apparent connection between copyright and political narrative. The story of fair use, however, points us to why copyright, more than any other thing, has to do with Politics. The text of this lecture is somewhat derived from my research with Dr. Nimrod Kozlovski for Consumers International about Fair Use in Israel.

But first, a short story. One of my favorite TV shows is South Park. I’ve been watching them from 1997, and have been a fan of the authors and their opinions; when Trey Parker and Matt Stone described their approach towards copyright in their interview for Reason Magazine back in 2006 i was quite happy to find out their approach for copyright was that of a true artist, a wish to reach a wider audience. In a same manner, back in 2008 when they launched South Park Studios, a website to allow watching all their episodes through video streaming as well as remixing and sharing their content, I understood how much they were artists and how they were not just in it for the money.

In 2008, South Park paid tribute to the internet nation with an episode criticizing the Writer’s Guild of America’s Strike while paying tribute to some of the latest internet meme sensations such as the sneezing panda and the Star Wars Kid. One of the subjects of criticism was Samwell, whose video “What What (in the butt)” depicted an African American male pondering whether the viewers of the video wish to “do it in the butt” with him. The video was displayed in the popular YouTube site free of charge and received millions of views.

In the “Canada on Strike” episode, the four prepubescent characters in South Park wish to earn a quick buch from the internet and decide to film a viral video. The position Butters, one of the characters, in the same way as Samwell is in the video and make the unconceivable, take the already grotesque video and make it even more grotesque. This is basically why I love South Park so much: the interaction between extreme free speech and the ability to mock the already mocked to a grain gives them the ability to go on for so many shows. This is the video that Butters produced:

Samwell decided that South Park’s use of his “Work” constituted as copyright infringement and decided to sue Viacom for copyright infringement. Viacom decided to be the better person and instead of settling the case out of court (which would help it, as a copyright owner to fight others who make similar uses of its content) decided to try and use the affirmative Fair Use defense. This week, a Wisconsin federal judge dismissed the case, arguing that South Park’s use of the work was fair (read the full opinion of 10-CV-1013 Brownmark Films LLC, v. Comedy Partners). The court weighed in favor of what I try to call “Cultural Fair Use” which became somewhat popular recently, but is not actually in the general Fair Use exemptions.

For all you non-lawyers, fair use is a defense (codified in 17 USC 107 for those who use copyrighted works for causes such as “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research”. However, South Park’s use, in spite of the wish to be considered criticism, is not really criticism, but mockery or homage. South Park used Samwell’s work in order to criticize the viral videos altogether, not the work itself. In a similar case, where a famous Israeli Comic Book (or should I actually say “Graphic Novel”) cartoonist depicted Donald Duck in order to mock the Isreali Society, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that his use was not fair as the criticism was not on the work itself (RCA 2687/92 Geva v. Disney). Only recently, the lower courts acknowledged that other, cultural aspects of fair use in order to stretch society’s public domain and ability add some works of authorship to the public domain without the formal requirements of copyright terms, solely because such works have become works of the public due to popularity and demand.

The recent cultural fair use is based on folklore more than anything else. The basic elements are that once a work has exhausted its commercial value and became a part of popular culture, it may allow others to create additional social value by reusing the work. Such uses may be mashups, remixes or other uses which are not highly criticizing or transformative, but are without any impact on the actual market value.

[Here comes that part where if you read this prior to hearing my lecture you thanked me, because the crowd will be rickrolled]

A good example is Rickrolling, the phenomenon of baiting someone into clicking a link on the internet which leads to Rick Astley‘s “Never Gonna Give You Up” video, which is not as grotesque as Samwell’s “What What”, but is no less funny. People have used this song and attempted to add it into popular culture and other works as an homage to the internet nation; either by playing it instead of the end credits to Bill O’Rielly‘s show, paying tribute in an episode of the popular TV show Family Guy, using Barack Obama as the singer by mashing up his speeches or even a Stephen Hawking tribute to the song.

But putting Rick Astley‘s career aside, let’s discuss Government Works for a bit. The US, as well as other states, has a “Government Works” clause that determines that any work of authorship made by the state itself is not subject to copyright. Unlike the US, Israel does not have such clause. Therefore, a material part of Israel’s history is subject to copyright; meaning that the national photo archives and other government works such as reports of the Central Bureau of Statistics are subject to copyright. In such case, when Israeli nationals (and other nationals, actually) wish to use government works, they must either license them or find other sources.

This creates a burden, first of all because the Israeli government does not benefit from selling licenses. It is not one of its positions as a government nor is it a material source of profit. The government has set up its Press Office to allow dissemination of information freely from the government outwards and copyright restrictions seems to contradict Israel’s wish to disseminate its message.

During the 2010 term, Parliament Member Meir Sheetrit submitted a bill introduced by Wikipedia Israel, proposing that non-commercial use of government pictures shall be free of charge, as long as the use is with credit, and does not manipulate or alter the photos in any way. In an interview, Sheetrit stated that one of the reasons for the governmental opposition to the bill was the fear from use of the photos by organisations
which are hostile to Israel or wish to promote the opposing narrative.

The bill was prepared following a study by Creative Commons Israel and Wikimedia, which dealt with Crown Copyrights. The understanding and discussions were whether to apply fair use principles to these uses or to exempt them individually. The tension between personal uses and political uses was balanced by the Israeli ministry of justice, which drafted the bill for MK Sheetrit, and exempted non-commercial use only.

Interestingly enough, the definition of what is commercial and what is not has yet to be discussed. It is interesting to note that both the language of the bill and the language opposing the bill use copyright as censorship or impediments on free speech. The rationale behind the bill, at least as stated by MK Sheetrit, was to allow the dissemination of Israeli Hasbara (propaganda) and use of the Israeli imagery for free by bloggers, Wikipedia and other organisations who wish to use them in order to enrich their works. However, at least as stated by MK Sheetrit, the governmental opposition was based on the fear of use by hostile organisations. Both parties held an opinion that government works are a part of the discourse and that copyright may be used to prohibit others’ speech or to allow them to undertake one’s narrative. These rationales underplay the economical aspects of copyright, and deal with fair use in a different manner, which is the ability to silence political speech.

If, indeed, the only rationale for copyright in Israeli government works is political: to maintain the political narrative, then one material aspect, which is the commercial value of the work, has to be let aside when discussing government works. Let’s, for this cause, inspect the incentives behind copyright and see whether they apply for government works (based on the incentives described by Julie E, Cohen in Copyright as Property in the Post-Industrial Economy: A Research Agenda); the purpose of Copyright was to encourage new and original authorship, however, in Government Works, there is little originality, most Government Works are either documentary (formal photographs or official journals) or are the result of a research; and even if commercial uses were made using these works, then the Government shall continue to create.

Therefore, the incentives for Government Works do not exist in copyright. Now, what’s left is the apparatus of control, and this is actually what’s important in copyright nowadays, more than the economical incentives in Copyright, it seems that Governments, like artists, wish to keep the control of what others shall do with their works, therefore applying their political narrative through copyright.

Israel’s offer for a “Israel Friendly License” shows that we do have a problem: Israel wishes to enforce its political narrative through copyright, by granting a license to use its works solely for those who adhere to its standards. Because the Government does not work for-profit, we can learn, more than from any commercial entity, that fair use is required for criticism, because it is made exactly where people do not want others to use their intellectual property.

A year ago, I conducted alongside Dr. Nimrod Kozlovski a comprehensive research about Fair Use in Israel, which was made for Consumers International. The 2010 Report about Fair Use in Israel was the first of its kind; we reviewed almost all the court decisions regarding fair use ever since the young state of Israel was established, conducted a survey between hundreds of content creators and interviewed dozens of people whose work involved copyright: musicians, artists, photographers, journalists and others. We wanted to find out how they felt with subjects such as remix artist Kutiman‘s Thru You and other issues relating to sampling, remixing and creating upon other’s works. One of the interviews I conducted was with Terry Poison‘s Bruno Grife. Terry Poison, for non-Israeli readers [wiki article] is a popular music band, with electro-pop influences and quite interestingly, displays the new Israeli music, as it is not targeted to Israelies, written in English, and performed worldwide.

I spoke with Bruno for about an hour and one of the subjects was, because of Terry Poison’s music genre, the question of remixing and fair use. Actually, not the “fair use” in the classical form of the Israeli Copyright Act that is solely for self learning, research, criticism, review, journalistic reporting, quotation or teaching and examining by an educational establishment, but the Cultural Fair Use which was created in C 7648-09-08 Smadar Katz v. Ben-Tzion Rothman and OCR 11646/08 Premier League v. John Doe. In both cases, the court addressed fair use as a cultural right, and ruled that uses may be fair even if they are not in the extensive list of purposes.

Bruno explained that “when fans upload a portion of our show to YouTube it disturbs me, but when our fans perform homages such as LipDubs, it doesn’t … if a fan takes something that is ours and then remixes it, we’d love to integrate it. If it’s good, it’s good. But when something turns commercial, the line is drawn”. afterwards, he explained about where hew uses others’ materials: “we perform live mash-ups, I can take the chorus of someone else and take-off my music, because is is a part of respect for the influence he gave me, and live music is the place to let others discover music we love”.

But putting all of of this aside, a recent arbitration between two popular Israeli musicians puts this issue in a whole new perspective. [Hebrew link to the news story]. In 2002, Israeli band Hadag Nachash released an album called Local Substance (actually, more like “Local Material”, but the reference for drugs all over the album is a part of the decision). One of their songs, “Ma Naase” (what will we do), was influenced or quite similar to another Israeli artist classic hit, Ariel Zilber “Veeich Shelo” (no matter what, literally). Zilber sought arbitration, claiming Hadag Nachash violated his intellectual property rights; and Justice Theodore Or, residing as the arbitrator, ruled damages for Zilber and issued an injunction prohibiting Hadag Nachash from performing this song in their shows, mandating them to redact their albums from record stores and removing this song from the ACUM (the Israeli equivalent to ASCAP) repertoire.

Hadag Nachash’s Song

Zilber’s Song:

However, the question of whether whether Hadag Nachash copied the song isn’t relevant if you discuss cultural fair use. This right is a person’s right to perform homage, to give credit, to take the music he grew on without harming the original music’s commercial value. Hadag Nachash’s homage to Ariel Zilber does not harm Zilber’s ability to sell even one album. In the same way that sampled music never harmed the value or commercial potential of music. If we take interesting examples of sampling showing increased sales, we can see that Eminem’s song, Stan was what brought the success of the sampled Thank You, performed by Dido.

this shows how the tort in copyright, where copyright should prevent damages to the plaintiff, crashed. Zilber did not and won’t lose money here. In old songs, older than 5-6 years, the commercial value of the work was already maximized. And as usual, the fact that someone creates work based on your work and makes money off of it doesn’t mean that you have to be compensated (see, for example, C 1074/05 Maariv v. All You Need).

Therefore, the unconstitutional prohibition of playing the song makes it a part of the Illegal Art Corpus, in a same way that DJ Danger Mouse‘s The Grey Album was: the only way to hear the song is to download it illegal in the file sharing networks. Now, the question arising about what will Zilber do against all the bloggers who put up the song in their blogs to explain about the case.

And finally, I want to show a small Homage that Israeli artist Edan Alterman gave to many artists. Alterman performed a song in one of his shows which “infringes” the rights of a dozen artists; however, the cultural value in the performance exceeds any infringement. This is a distinct example on how Fair Use has to include homage as an exemption: music this good can’t be illegal.

Justice Or’s arbitration ruling does not apply to myself. I am not a party for the subject matter and unlike courts, which can issue injunctions against the general public, the arbitration ruling applies only to the parties. Moreover, one has to remember that one of the articles in The Israeli Arbitration Act is that the court may invalidate an arbitration is the decision is unconscionable. The result of this arbitration, if it like the press is reporting it (as it does not appear anywhere, and we can’t find the ruling) harms my right as a public for culture. As such, it has to be invalidated. If Hadag Nachash wants, the court is open to hear them.

As a footnote, this version of the songs so how many homages could be put in one song, and nothing goes wrong:

[Originally in Hebrew]

Software, as a matter of principle, is usually licensed but not sold; this is what the recent ruling in 42:07-cv-01189-RAJ Vernor v. Autodesk was all about. Therefore, usually, when a person sells (or licenses) software, the end user signs or accepts an End User License Agreement (EULA) which includes the array of rights and duties attached to the software itself.

Copyright laws limit the rights to create copies or distribute software without the original author’s permission, and the EULA is the permission to hold the end-user’s copy of the software. Without the EULA, any action performed may infringe on the author’s copyright. However, both clause 12 to the Israeli Copyright Act and clause 106 to the US Copyright Act do not limit the use of software, solely its copying and distribution. The court ruled in Vernor that the author may limit consumer right and therefore software developers may limit the way that their end-users will use software or interact with other components.

However, most software developers prefer to use EULAs in order to allow the use of the software and not sell copies, so that they could redefine the rights attached to it. For example, clause 24 to the Israeli copyright act allows modifying copies of software for security purposes and court also acknowledged that consumer rights may overcome eulas (MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F. 2d 511 – Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit).

While the courts were not supportive in acknowledging the consent to these agreements in all cases (Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp., 150 F. Supp. 2d 585 (S.D.N.Y.2001)), it is quite obvious that they govern the ability to distribute, but not use, the software (CV 07-3106 SJO UMG v. Augusto). Meaning that the need of a software license is meant to define what exactly is the relationship between the developer and the end-user and rearrange the rights attached to the copyright laws.

Out of this need, to provide end uses with a clear and simple license, lawyers earn a good living. Every software developer has a simple choice: should he pay a few thousand dollars to a lawyer who will draft a document in non-readable legalese, or release the software without any license and hope for the best. The licenses, usually, contain liability limiting clauses (and see, for example, clauses 15 to 18 to the Windows XP EULA which limit Microsoft’s liability to any damage and for any cause).

EULA should come in any place where code is conveyed, but not for web-based services, where a copy of the work is not distributed. Therefore, the difference between EULAs and Terms of Service, which are an agreement regarding the use of the service, should be acknowledged.

Now, after understanding this, we can relate to the subject matter. This week, binpress launched its beta service. Binpress is a commerce platform for web applications and allows web developers, and any other person who wrote a script, plug-in, code or service to upload the code and sell it to others. Amongst other this, it allows the developers to create their own software licenses and save the costs in drafting a license by using the generator, picking what rights apply to the end-user and what don’t (decent disclosure: I wrote the modular license agreement). For example, the developer could pick whether the person who bought the software may distribute it to other people (a developer license), the term of the license, the ability to chose how many cores and websites may use the software (for example). Eran Galperin wrote a comprehensive post about binpress’ licensing mechanism you should read.

In brief, the system is quite similar to the Creative Commons license generator, by allowing the user to pick what license he wants for his software and what rights are attached to it. The difference is that binpress’ license is commercial and for web applications.

Then why should I, as a lawyer, cooperate with a system that may take away money I could charge my clients for EULAs and allow my future potential clients to write licenses by themselves? Theoretically, any person which develops applications could choose binpress as his marketplace and save the cost (and see also my Hebrew post on Freemium by lawyers); well, the answer is double: first, is that the system is dedicated to web applications which are sold by binpress. Meaning that whoever develops large-scale software, commercial distributions or software containing more than a mere conveying of code (like validation keys) would still have to find a lawyer to draft an agreement. The second is simpler: I believe that this system does not prevent lawyers from earning money, it just makes their living more efficient.

Most licenses you read are generic and written in a way that no human could grasp or read, they were written by chewing hundreds of requests and demands time after time and served to developers without any understanding. In contrast, large systems with legal questions of privacy, open source and real legal problems would still need legal consultation and will avoid using this systems.

Therefore, the generator does not harm my earnings, it does not replace my legal work, it just allows the end-user to pick an educated pick between paying a few thousand dollars when he doesn’t need and tailoring the agreement for him. When it’s a developer who sells a few copies every day for a dollar or two, it’s not right to pay that much for legal counsel.

[Originally in Hebrew]

Intellectual Property laws have more than a few political implications; many times issues of political speech interfere with copyright. For example, Shepard Fairey, an artist who authored the famous “Hope” poster for Barack Obama, was sought by the Associated Press for copyright infringement as the image of Obama was based on a copyrighted photo (and in Israel, a the Supreme Court will soon hear a similar case, RCA 7774/09 Weinberg v. Weisshoff, where the Defendant is sought for copying a photo the Plaintiff took into a coin made in memory of the assassinated prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin). In another case, the US Senate candidate, Sharon Angle is sought by the proprietors of rights to newspaper articles for presenting copies of the articles which she appeared in, on her personal website and there are more cases; mostly, these cases are borderline in relation to copyright protection, but they are classical monetary suits, not political.

In contrast, the story which was spread on the press during the last few days was not less surprising, but at least ended in an interesting manner. Two days ago, the New York Times reported that the Russian government and police use copyright laws in order to supress political dissidents. The system worked as follows: The Russian police used its granted authority to enforce copyright laws in a violent manner (and it did so in the past, where it sent a school principal to prison for using unauthorized copies of Microsoft Windows) and claimed that copies of Microsoft Windows installed on the dissident organization’s computers are unlicensed (pirated – jk); In Russia, where the unlicensed software rates are only second to the Israeli conviction rates by a person’s confession, it is more than likely that a political organization will use unauthorized software>.

First, it was reported that Microsoft encouraged the enforcement as a part of its zero-tolerance to copyright infringement policy; however, after suffering from damage to its public image, apparently, it decidedto reform its licensing policy, so that a general license will be granted to non-profits in order to protect them from political pursuit. In a post published by Brad Smith, Microsoft Senior VP and Counsel, he explained that Microsoft could not be a part of this and must take an ethical stand.

The claim may be true, but it could also reflect a wise business approach. Until today, Microsoft profited from unlicensed use in 3rd world countries. Microsoft also knows that if raids like this will continue, dissidents will stop using Windows and move to open source software, and primarily Linux, in one distribution or another. Moving to Linux is unilateral, it changes a person’s point of view: from organization that were dependent of a specific software to a part of a larger community; Most organization who hear about open source are enchanted by it, they have an option to donate, contribute, change, share information and not just run the program.

Moreover, Privacy Enhancing Technologies are more available on open source operating systems. From the EXT4 file system which comes by default in Ubuntu and encrypts your hard drives (similar to Microsoft’s BitLocker, but it just works), through TOR servers who reduce censorship: Open Source is the new heaven of dissidents.

Therefore, Microsoft’s blanket license comes to heal a small shallow scratch, not the problem: Copyrights are ill, and Microsoft took the right way to take care of it: acknowledging that non-profit use is fair and allowed. However, until further technologies, innovative ones, will protect dissidents, the raids will continue. Today it’s the operating system, tomorrow, the word processor, afterwards? image editing programs.

Around a month ago I went to court to discuss a case which I counsel with another attorney. The case was quite simple: The plaintiff claimed that the defendant, which we represented, took from its website the technical specifications of a gadget and copied it alongside a phrase describing the gadget. Altogether we represented three defendants which were sought by the same plaintiff (and there was a total of 20 defendants) for 100,000 ILS (~30,000 US$) each.

When arriving to the pre-trail, the plaintiff’s counsel explained to us (and to another counsel sitting on behalf of another defendant) that he is willing to settle, and there is a ongoing rate for settlement. The Judge, which was sympathetic for our interesting legal claims, that copyright could not be asserted on technical specifications, facts or ideas (PCA 8304/09 Bezeq v. Dapei Zahav, C 37759/07 Elisha Shochat v. Maariv), and that the phrase itself was lacking originality and too short to be copyrightable (Hebrew post of copyrighted tweets, CA (TA) 178/79 Hallinger v. Estheron, DR, 1980(2) 45) offered that we settle anyway. She claimed, righteously, that the settlement offer was low enough that it justifies settlement in order to avoid litigation.

And the judge was right: settling the case was lower than the cost of the lawyers in the process and would have been also lower than if it turned out that our clients were right and would have been granted attorney’s fees pursuant to dismissal of the case. Meaning that the copyright bully won: it won a nice sum for something he isn’t entitled to, just because the litigation cost was lower.

But this case is not rare when you look into copyrights: around once a week I’m addressed by persons who received notice due to publication of copyrighted images in their website (usually the same plaintiff by different attorneys), even though some of the cases were fair use, and others lacked any commercial value, the attorneys ask for sums which are a hundred times greater than the sum paid for the image in the free market. For example, Tess Scheflan sought Ynet, Israel’s biggest website (C 58032/07 Tess Scheflan v. Yedioth Internet) for publishing images she published originally on PicShare and was awarded 28,000 ILS, even though the image would have been bought, legally, for no more than a few hundred ILS.

And why was all this required as an introduction? In order to explain why The RIAA offer to Jammie Thomas to diminish their awards granted by half was a strategic move made to hurt users. Thomas is a single mother who was sought by the RIAA for publication of 17 songs through Kaaza. The court first decided that Thomas should pay 9,250$ per song as the jury of her peers found that Thomas made several songs available to the public and infringed the RIAA’s copyrights; but Thomas appealed the ruling.

In the Appeal the District Court ruled that making a work available to the public is not copyright infringement (06-1496 Thomas v. Capitol) and returned the case to the federal court for retrial. In the retrial, the jury ruled that Thomas actually was involved in wilful infringement and awarded the RIAA a sum of 1,920,000$ (04-CV-1497 Capitol v. Thomas).

Thomas appealed this ruling (again) and the district court ruled that the awards granted were unconscionable and exceed any sum a reasonable jury may award (04-cv-1497 Virgin Records of America v. Thomas). The District court conclusion was that the awards should be reduced from 80,000US$ per song to 2,250US$, three times the minimum damages to be awarded by a court; as as the damage was unclear, high awards aren’t adequate.

Even though the court ruled 54,000US$ in damages, the RIAA generously offered Thomas an offer she can’t refuse: remove and revoke the appeal, and we’ll request lower damages, to be donated to a worthy cause.

And why would Thomas decline the offer? she was in a similar situation like the defendants I represented; Her personal interest may rise substantially had she refrain from creating a precedent which will hurt copyright holders (and this isn’t the first time Thomas refused to settle). Thomas knows what we all knew: the RIAA sends threatening letters where they scare innocent file sharers with millions of dollars in damages, as in the case of Joel Tenenbaum who lost a case against the RIAA and as to pay 675,000$.

Now, you must understand that there are law offices which send pre-suit notices and take the same strategy; where claims for fair use, lack of liability, criticism and others arise, they’ll refuse to answer but will leave silently, just in order to avoid a precedent saying they cannot threat others and request outrageous sums for using images in blogs. We need public defendants, people who will go to court just for the sake of not bending when a copyright troll comes in and say the truth: we are facing bullies.

[Published in Hebrew]

The research we conducted with Ynet News in regards to p2p throttling and DPI in Israel, which was (even after reading the criticism) most likely the most comprehensive in Israel, even though it needed more research. One of the results was a Parliamentary hearing by Meir Sheetrit, the chair of the Science & Technology Committee. The real question is what to do with it.

Daniel, one of the commentators in the Hebrew blog, claimed that a class action lawsuit could not be substantiated on contractual grounds. I disagree, but in spite of many calls and mails I received to launch a class-action, I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. A class action may be filed according to the consumer protection act or based on other obligation. Allegedly, the ISPs obligation to net neutrality in their license (and see clause 5.4.1 to the general ISP license) and their obligations according to clause 29 to the Telecommunication Act are sufficient cause. The problem? The Class Action Act requires monetary damages, and there is more than one problem to prove it.

And what are things all about? If the cause of class action lawsuits is not to enrich the attorneys and plaintiff but to bring restitutional justice, then it will not be made; in the best case, a settlement would be made where the attorneys will receive 500K ILS and the plaintiff 1M ILS, where all the related clients will receive 10% bandwidth upgrades for a few months. Apart from that, even if different damages were made to different potential plaintiffs, there’s still place for class action lawsuits (OCR 31032/06 Shalom & Malka Fabrics v. Tel-Aviv). But what was the damage?

Many comments were written in wrath and required justice and a lawsuit. The problem, none of the commentators had any monetary damage. Is blocking a p2p download cause-worthy? Could those people come to the court in clean hands and explain to the judge what are the files they downloaded? Most likely, some lawyers’ will to be first just went up to their heads.

Of course, one should understand the difference between illegal file sharing and other interference that may occur in prioritizing VOIP traffic or blocking other services.

The people with the most to gain from this research, most likely, may be the Copyright Organizations. If we recap the discussions on the Electronic Commerce Bill around a year and a half ago, where the idea was that An ISP shall not be liable to acts committed by its users if it wasn’t aware of the activity and was not supposed to be aware, we understand the problem (See also Dubitsky v. Shabiro and MGM v. Grokster). Actually, ALIS, the Israeli equivalent of the MPAA could request the ISPs for damages, as they interfered with traffic and blocked. De-facto, this claim would not be far from the required legal conclusion: if the ISPs did not interfere with traffic, they were better of in regards to liability.

Therefore, if someone should sue the ISPs to bring restitutional justice, it should be the Copyright Holders. If they were actually harmed by file sharing (and I doubt they were), let them sue the ISPs and make them pay, understand and acknowledge that by blocking they inflicted liability on themselves. That way, and only that way, they’ll learn.

[Posted in Hebrew]