blog/data/2017-02-03-popcorn-time-court.txt

   1 Title: A day in court challenging seizure of popcorn-time.no for #domstolkontroll
   2 Tags: english, nuug, offentlig innsyn, opphavsrett
   3 Date: 2017-02-03 11:10
   4
   5 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-02-01-popcorn-time-in-court.jpeg"></p>
   6
   7 <p>On Wednesday, I spent the entire day in court in Follo Tingrett
   8 representing <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the member association
   9 NUUG</a>, alongside <a href="https://www.efn.no/">the member
  10 association EFN</a> and <a href="http://www.imc.no">the DNS registrar
  11 IMC</a>, challenging the seizure of the DNS name popcorn-time.no.  It
  12 was interesting to sit in a court of law for the first time in my
  13 life.  Our team can be seen in the picture above: attorney Ola
  14 Tellesbø, EFN board member Tom Fredrik Blenning, IMC CEO Morten Emil
  15 Eriksen and NUUG board member Petter Reinholdtsen.</p>
  16
  17 <p><a href="http://www.domstol.no/no/Enkelt-domstol/follo-tingrett/Nar-gar-rettssaken/Beramming/?cid=AAAA1701301512081262234UJFBVEZZZZZEJBAvtale">The
  18 case at hand</a> is that the Norwegian National Authority for
  19 Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (aka
  20 Økokrim) decided on their own, to seize a DNS domain early last
  21 year, without following
  22 <a href="https://www.norid.no/no/regelverk/navnepolitikk/#link12">the
  23 official policy of the Norwegian DNS authority</a> which require a
  24 court decision.  The web site in question was a site covering Popcorn
  25 Time.  And Popcorn Time is the name of a technology with both legal
  26 and illegal applications.  Popcorn Time is a client combining
  27 searching a Bittorrent directory available on the Internet with
  28 downloading/distribute content via Bittorrent and playing the
  29 downloaded content on screen.  It can be used illegally if it is used
  30 to distribute content against the will of the right holder, but it can
  31 also be used legally to play a lot of content, for example the
  32 millions of movies
  33 <a href="https://archive.org/details/movies">available from the
  34 Internet Archive</a> or the collection
  35 <a href="http://vodo.net/films/">available from Vodo</a>.  We created
  36 <a href="magnet:?xt=urn:btih:86c1802af5a667ca56d3918aecb7d3c0f7173084&dn=PresentasjonFolloTingrett.mov&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fpublic.popcorn-tracker.org%3A6969%2Fannounce">a
  37 video demonstrating legally use of Popcorn Time</a> and played it in
  38 Court.  It can of course be downloaded using Bittorrent.</p>
  39
  40 <p>I did not quite know what to expect from a day in court.  The
  41 government held on to their version of the story and we held on to
  42 ours, and I hope the judge is able to make sense of it all.  We will
  43 know in two weeks time.  Unfortunately I do not have high hopes, as
  44 the Government have the upper hand here with more knowledge about the
  45 case, better training in handling criminal law and in general higher
  46 standing in the courts than fairly unknown DNS registrar and member
  47 associations.  It is expensive to be right also in Norway.  So far the
  48 case have cost more than NOK 70 000,-.  To help fund the case, NUUG
  49 and EFN have asked for donations, and managed to collect around NOK 25
  50 000,- so far.  Given the presentation from the Government, I expect
  51 the government to appeal if the case go our way.  And if the case do
  52 not go our way, I hope we have enough funding to appeal.</p>
  53
  54 <p>From the other side came two people from Økokrim.  On the benches,
  55 appearing to be part of the group from the government were two people
  56 from the Simonsen Vogt Wiik lawyer office, and three others I am not
  57 quite sure who was.  Økokrim had proposed to present two witnesses
  58 from The Motion Picture Association, but this was rejected because
  59 they did not speak Norwegian and it was a bit late to bring in a
  60 translator, but perhaps the two from MPA were present anyway.  All
  61 seven appeared to know each other.  Good to see the case is take
  62 seriously.</p>
  63
  64 <p>If you, like me, believe the courts should be involved before a DNS
  65 domain is hijacked by the government, or you believe the Popcorn Time
  66 technology have a lot of useful and legal applications, I suggest you
  67 too <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml">donate to
  68 the NUUG defense fund</a>.  Both Bitcoin and bank transfer are
  69 available. If NUUG get more than we need for the legal action (very
  70 unlikely), the rest will be spend promoting free software, open
  71 standards and unix-like operating systems in Norway, so no matter what
  72 happens the money will be put to good use.</p>
  73
  74 <p>If you want to lean more about the case, I recommend you check out
  75 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/news/tags/dns-domenebeslag/">the blog
  76 posts from NUUG covering the case</a>.  They cover the legal arguments
  77 on both sides.</p>