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Entertainment Software Association Following RIAA?
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 25, 2008 04:21 PM
from the iceberg-ho dept.
from the iceberg-ho dept.
cavis writes "My organization just received an e-mail from the Intellectual Property enforcement division of the Entertainment Software Association. It accuses one particular IP address with 'infringing the copyright rights of one or more ESA members by copying and distributing unauthorized copies of game products (through peer-to-peer or similar software/services).' It goes on to name the filename and the application: Limewire. Has anyone had any contact with this group? Are they following the RIAA's lead and pursuing litigation for peer-to-peer piracy? I'm just trying to evaluate what I am in for as I try to battle P2P within my network."
Read on for more details.
The letter reads in part (with my redactions):
The Entertainment Software Association ("ESA") is a US trade association that represents the intellectual property interests of numerous companies that publish interactive games for video game consoles, personal computers, handheld devices and the Internet(hereinafter collectively referred to as "ESA members"). ESA is authorized to act on behalf of ESA members whose copyright and other intellectual property rights it believes to be infringed as described herein.
Based on the information at its disposal on 24 Nov 2008 01:09:08 GMT, ESA has a good faith belief that the subscriber using the IP address [IP address] infringing the copyright rights of one or more ESA members by copying and distributing unauthorized copies of game products (through peer-to-peer or similar software/services), in violation of applicable copyright laws, through internet access that [agency name] provides directly to the [IP address] or through a downstream provider that purchases this access for [IP address].
The Entertainment Software Association ("ESA") is a US trade association that represents the intellectual property interests of numerous companies that publish interactive games for video game consoles, personal computers, handheld devices and the Internet(hereinafter collectively referred to as "ESA members"). ESA is authorized to act on behalf of ESA members whose copyright and other intellectual property rights it believes to be infringed as described herein.
Based on the information at its disposal on 24 Nov 2008 01:09:08 GMT, ESA has a good faith belief that the subscriber using the IP address [IP address] infringing the copyright rights of one or more ESA members by copying and distributing unauthorized copies of game products (through peer-to-peer or similar software/services), in violation of applicable copyright laws, through internet access that [agency name] provides directly to the [IP address] or through a downstream provider that purchases this access for [IP address].
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Yesterday... all my troubles seemed so far away! (Score:3, Funny)
Well, at least they're speedy!
Legal advice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot is fine too; asking can't hurt, but don't neglect your lawyer.
Re:Legal advice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, but this letter can.
Send out a company wide email with this message and the letter:
Do to legal action imposed on us, we need all users of P2P software to meet with our attorny on Monday. P2P has no valid use for our line of business so our attorny will not represent you in court if you receive one of these letters with your IP address on it. As a reminder the use of P2P software is not allowed on our network.
Re:Legal advice. (Score:5, Interesting)
Downloading software is no longer a valid business use? Why, because P2P is only used for illegal purposes? You must be in management if that's your line of thinking.
Parent
Re:Legal advice. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even then there are usually other ways to get the data, and since most corporate firewalls make P2P difficult, P2P is rarely used in business.
Parent
Re:Legal advice. (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly, management that has little to no technical education or knowledge.
I deployed a great bittorrent setup within Comcast 3 years ago to spread the load for software patches and upgrades. It worked like a charm in the 12 offices I tested it in.. Until the Management idiots at the NOC in Philly threw a fit. They approved the test but a complete knob that had a title but no brain heard the acronym P2P and freaked like a frightened school girl. We had to kill the project because of a single uneducated wussie in upper management. (He was recently let go with the current downsizing that is running wild in the company.. I cry for him.. Really... :-P)
Anyone that says there is no legitimate use for P2p in business is simply very very uneducated.
Parent
Re:Legal advice. (Score:4, Insightful)
One thing that I've learned the longer that I've stayed in the industry is that upper management often responds better if you call them a dick when they're being a dick.
Now, naturally you want to gussy it up a bit to not be as insulting, but you have to speak the language that they understand.
In addition to the technical merits of P2P (you might not even want to trump those up that much), basically get them alone and say "Listen, Bob. I understand you're doing what you think is best for the company. You pay me for my experience and knowledge though, and in this situation you're being a little too quick on the trigger without getting all the facts. Peer-to-peer is merely a way for computers to talk to each other, and using it internally is not unethical, or illegal, and it will save us money over time.".
There. Adjust as necessary for the situation (and be ready to accept POSSIBLE rejection), but 99% of the time I've found that if you pull management (or at least, the non-IT portions of management) aside and nicely explain why they're acting stupid, they'll often do what's right.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Um...naive a bit?
1) P2P has lots of legitimate uses (linux much?). I use it more for legal than illegal these days actually.
2) Just because you're not breaking hte law doesn't mean they won't target you. Remember their business model: rather than producing anything of value they send letter, receive money, profit. Reference: all the people without computers getting sued. Reference: that study where they got a cease and desist sent to a network printer
What I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't say the atto
Re:Legal advice. (Score:4, Insightful)
Um...naive a bit?
Illiterate a bit?? He wrote:
P2P has no valid use for our line of business
He's not saying P2P has no legitimate use, just that in that specific job, it has no legitimate use. Even downloading a legal copy of Linux is not a valid use of the companies internet connection to, say, a peon working in the accounting department.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
P2P has great value, but not at most offices. The average desk monkey doesn't need to be downloading the newest version of Knoppix, that is IT's job, and no one worth their salt in IT would be using Limewire. False argument. It is some desk monkey who thinks he knows what he is doing, and he doesn't.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've yet to work in an IT department that doesn't have at least half the techs using some sort of P2P app, whether it's Limewire/Shareaza garbage or BitTorrent.
And no, I'm not in the 3rd world. These are mostly legit offices, but like any industry, 75% of all techs are shifty imbeciles with worthless credentials.
Re:Legal advice. (Score:4, Informative)
Are you suggesting they negotiate with terrorists ? Because that's what these litigating spammers are.
There is no such thing as "good faith belief", unless you work for the police. Recent RIAA court failures should be a sign.
Get them to show you undeniable proof, or else they can fuck right off!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
There, fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Get a lawyer and ask them for legal advice.
I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that:
* Simply stopping the infringement at this point might be enough to resolve the matter
* You should re-enforce your organizations computer/network use policies (and ensure that you have one)
* You might consider disciplining the responsible person if you don't think a word in their ear will be enough to prevent this re-occurring
The text in TFS although written in a very legal style does not seem to imply further action is being taken, yet.
Take it to the press (Score:4, Interesting)
Make sure this gets mainstream press coverage. Be sure to sensationalize it and compare it to the RIAA. Watch them back down quickly.
Re:Take it to the press (Score:5, Insightful)
Make sure this gets mainstream press coverage. Be sure to sensationalize it and compare it to the RIAA. Watch them back down quickly.
So far it looks like they're being very diplomatic about it. It's somewhat disturbing that they're actually monitoring Limewire for copyright infringement, but as far as possible responses go, sending a letter that essentially says "We tracked someone to your network, we'd appreciate if you'd do something about it." is one of the better ones. It would have been nice if they actually asked for something to be done, instead of leaving it open with the implication of possible legal action, but it's a lot better than saying pay up or we'll see you in court (which is no doubt what the RIAA would do). This approach is similar to the one that the MPAA has adopted in which they send a letter that essentially says "We know you're violating our copyright, we have records of you transferring such and such movie on such and such time from such and such IP. This is a warning, please stop now or we'll pursue legal avenues." (friend of mine received such a letter). Notice that the ESA isn't asking for money, and no where in the letter (at least the portion we're provided) does it say anything about a lawsuit.
Personally, I'd start by tracking down the moron running Limewire on a company system and have a chat with them. Then I'd block Limewire (no reason to be running that period, bittorrent is defensible, but Limewire is just an excuse to get a trojan on your system), and circulate a memo explaining that it's unacceptable to be running unapproved P2P software (to allow for possible valid uses of bittorrent). In the memo I'd make sure to stress the security implications and strong risk of virus infection possible from downloading off a P2P network. In particular make sure to point out that anti-virus software really only defends against well known threats and that it's trivially easy to create a trojan or virus that can go undetected and then distribute it through a P2P network for weeks or longer before AV software becomes aware of it. This nicely sidesteps the whole copyright infringement argument while still pointing our the very real security concern these apps pose for a commercial (or government as the case may be) intranet.
Parent
Leisure Suit Larry (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they are finally getting around to busting you for making copies of Leisure Suit Larry and giving them to your friends.
Re:Leisure Suit Larry (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
bad timing on their part (Score:2)
the riaa's extortion model is under legal attack
My reply (Score:2)
"Great. And what do you expect me to do about it?"
You are not liable for anything your users do on the network. If you are operating a service like youtube, you'd have a DMCA takedown request. Taking down the allegedly infringing content puts you in the clear. End of story. If you aren't, then you really don't have to comply with anything they say. The RIAA doesn't sue ISPs for damages. They sue the person doing the infringing.
A court proceeding would be limited to requiring you to divulge who owned
Re:My reply (Score:5, Informative)
WRONG
If you are a company, you certainly are responsible for what your employees do with your network resources. Just about the only way the company can weasel out of it is to show good faith attempts at reprimanding the offenders and attempts at preventing their future misbehavior.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but if you saw subby's email address, you'd see his "organization" is the West Virginia government [wv.gov], so I'd wager things might be a little more complicated for him.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Executive Privilege [wikipedia.org] and a reminder that you can't sue a soveregn entity unless it allows you?
Re: (Score:2)
Not exactly, there is the 'safe-harbor' [wikipedia.org] provision of the DMCA that may matter in this case.
So what do they want? (Score:5, Informative)
Are they merely asking for the infringement to stop, are they threatening to take you court and asking for an out-of-court settlement, are they asking for the identity of the person with the IP address?
If it's the first option then it's easy, find the person who might be infringing and deal with it. Perhaps even block the Limewire service on your network. Setup guidelines for accepted computer usage within your organization. Then ignore the letter unless it demands some form of communication back to them, or threatens legal action if something isn't done about it. If it does ask for a response or you get a second letter, then refer to legal advice on how to deal with it.
The other two scenarios may require legal opinions and official responses.
Important questions... (Score:2)
Well, it's an interesting letter, but there are some questions I'd want the answers to before moving forward in any capacity:
1. What copyrights exactly are they claiming have been infringed?
2. Who are they saying has infringed them?
3. What exactly do they want you to do about it?
I'd also repeat what has been mentioned here by more than one person - consult a lawyer about this, and find out what your liability is, and the best way to proceed. One thing you have to consider is that they could have come acros
Need more info here (Score:2)
What do you mean, your "organization"? Is this letter directed at an ISP or are you the network admin for a company? Have you checked the machine with the corresponding IP to see if Limewire is installed?
Get A Lawyer. (Score:5, Insightful)
Get a lawyer.
There may be many people in the /. crowd who, rightly or wrongly think any system where lawyers are needed is bad. That's besides the point. You need legal advice. Lawyers provide legal advice.
Get a lawyer.
It's all well and good to ask for input from /. and Groklaw etc., but get competent, professional, legal advice and trust it over what anyone says here. Nobody here is a lawyer. (And if they are, then they're not being contracted by you to get legal advice, and so are not liable; moreover, they don't have the full details of the letter you got.
An example: Someone said 'take it to the press.' Ask a lawyer before you do that. There are all sorts of procedural reasons why doing that could make a court rule against you. What sort of reasons? IANAL.
So before anything else, get a lawyer to sit down with you and go over the letter, have them research and follow up on the letter, and see what your legal obligations are. Is the ESA asking for a name to go with that IP address? Is this a C&D letter of some kind? Are they threatening your company with legal action? Heck, for that matter, does this organization actually exist? (Someone could be pulling an elaborate joe job. Unlikely, but possible.)
In short, get a lawyer.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What sort of reasons? IANAL.
While your love of it in the pooper is entirely your own decision, and I respect you for being able to admit it so bravely, I fail to see why the submitter shouldn't take something to the press as a result.
Bullshit takedown notice (Score:2, Informative)
They haven't made a request for takedown, haven't cited the applicable laws for the aforementioned, and do not mention the specific instance of the infraction. What you've got here is a bullshit takedown notice. It's a scare tactic. Send back to your ISP that it is not a valid DMCA notification and no action is necessary. Also, it takes more than an IP address to prove infringement -- they also have to prove it was you, on a computer that was using that IP address, at that time. Short of a forensic search o
It depends on the state they're based in. (Score:5, Funny)
If their mailing address is in Nigeria, I'd settle immediately. There could be big $$$ in it for you.
Yes and no (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, we've been contacted by them (I work for a large university). We got a DMCA takedown notice. However no they aren't acting like the RIAA, they seem to be working like the MPAA. That is to say they send a notice saying "Please remover this shit and yell at the user." We say "Ok we did," and that's the last we ever hear from them. They don't seem to be suing people, they just seem to be trying to get the ISPs to take down the content.
Could be a good thing. (Score:3, Informative)
I got one of those passed on to me via my ISP once. Turns out I'd picked up a virus and someone had installed filesharing onto one of my PCs. Thanked the ISP, cleaned up the machine, never heard another thing about it.
So clean up your network, thank them for letting you know, and I'd assume as long as it doesn't happen again, you're okay.
Admit nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
Old news (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.seebs.net/log/archives/000195.html [seebs.net]
They sent me a nasty note because a mirror of the Interactive Fiction archive contained a file named "doom3.zip". (It was a many-year old text adventure hosted with the permission of the author.) They felt it was most likely a "retail copy of Doom 3".
According to them:
1. They review every message they send carefully.
2. They send hundreds of thousands of messages a month.
That latter estimate is from 2004 -- I can't imagine it's gone down.
I have no idea what they'd do in the unlikely event that their complaint wasn't stupid on its face; in my case, they backed down while telling me how important the work they do is. I consider them subhuman scum who are working actively to completely destroy the PC gaming industry as best they can. Given a choice between their crazy harassment and unauthorized use of my network, and Brad Wardell's high-quality software with no copy protection and good attitude, I think I can safely say I speak for anyone who has ever worked with, for, or on a video game, or who has ever played a video game and might want to again some day, when I say that I sincerely hope the ESA completely ceases to exist and is not replaced. I think they do a great deal of harm and waste a lot of money that could have been put into something with some kind of benefit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, just missing. Perhaps you should click read more yourself.
Re:What link? (Score:5, Informative)
No, I mean that that is the link. From the initial summary:
Click the link below to read part of their letter.
Sure enough, clicking on the link gives you part of the letter.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's effectively an Ask Slashdot. No link required.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.theesa.com/
For awhile there, I thought, "Oh, great. Another person whose parents couldn't spell Theresa."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I thought it was Jar-Jar's website.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.theesa.com/policy/antipiracy.asp [theesa.com]
Next time href it.
Re:great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ridiculous isn't it. The RIAA are one of the most despised groups in North America now (I want to say the world, but don't know how true that would be), and it's like the software industry looked and thought "WOW! We MUST get a slice of that juicy animosity pie!"
Idiocy.
Parent
Re:great... (Score:5, Funny)
You turn right and are confronted by a man in a suite.
He hands you a slip of paper.
You have been sued by a grue.
Parent
Inherently bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are these kinds of investigations really inherently bad in and of themselves or is it just the way the RIAA has handled the court procedings after the fact?
Personally, I think that if you can sanely, rationaly, and beyond a reasonable doubt prove that someone has violated the copyright, you have the right to make them stop and seek some amount of damages. The problem with the RIAA is that they almost never prove beyond any kind of doubt, they violate laws in their investigations, and they seek damages many
Re:Inherently bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that if you can sanely, rationaly, and beyond a reasonable doubt prove that someone has violated the copyright, you have the right to make them stop and seek some amount of damages.
(emphasis mine)
Damages for what? A lost sale? Hardly.
Seriously, thousands of people make their living producing the games that I love to play.
And through all the time they have been doing this, piracy has been rampant in the computer game industry. Funny how they keep whining, they should all be dead and gone by now, since there's obviously no money to be made when everyone are copying their valuable intellectual property.
Parent
Re:Inherently bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how they keep whining, they should all be dead and gone by now, since there's obviously no money to be made when everyone are copying their valuable intellectual property.
God, I wish! I miss the good old days when games were made by people who:
a. Like to write code, and
b. Like to play games
NOT c. Like to work unpaid overtime so they can ship a half-baked release that just happens to compile, to appease their foreign shareholders who are going to scuttle the company anyway.
The fact that I see game ads on TV all the freaking time is proof that these companies don't get it. If the game were any good, they wouldn't need to spend 42 bajillion dollars on advertising. The games would sell themselves, because gamers read the rags, troll the forums, loiter at EB... they're not watching Survivor, they're playing their friggin' XBOX!
If anything, I'd say TV advertising actually encourages piracy, because all these non-gamers who DON'T want to spend the money, now they know about this game, and they've been seduced by the misleading FMV clips. They hit Limewire or TPB and devour it whole, while the hardcore gamer's still waiting for his goddamned pre-order to arrive in the mail.
The game houses that do well today, are the ones that are lightweight, nimble and gamer-centric. They don't reskin last year's game and charge another $70 for it, they produce FRESH CONTENT. John Carmack isn't sucking some wall street tycoon's tit, he's writing code! Stardock aren't waiting for the holiday season to release GalCiv 2009, they're producing content-rich expansion packs that deliver real gameplay, not just higher-poly models. Oddly enough, you don't hear those developers whine about piracy much. They drive their ferraris, they pay their staff and taxes, and wouldn't you know, their customers actually have some sense of loyalty.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not how statutory damages work. Like it or not (and going by your sig, I'll assume "not"), when you willfully commit copyright infringement, the IP holder has every right to come after you regardless of your intentions - and when you knowingly violated the copyright (downloaded a game being an example, as compared to taking an unreasonably long excerpt from an article perhaps), the damages that company can be awarded increase significantly.
Is that what the law should be? That's a matter of opinion,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are these kinds of investigations really inherently bad in and of themselves or is it just the way the RIAA has handled the court procedings after the fact?
Depends on if you see anything "bad" with unlicensed investigative agencies using unproven/untested/unverified software written by god-knows-who to track down alleged copyright infringement based on the "making available" argument with no knowledge of whether or not the alleged copyright infringer actually uploaded any copies of the file(s) in question.
they violate laws in their investigations
Wait, so you just asked if these kinds of investigations are really inherently bad and then later spoke of the fact that they violate the law in the process