blog/archive/2017/02/02.rss

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   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from February 2017</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from February 2017</description>
   6                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
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   9         <item>
  10                 <title>Ruling ignored our objections to the seizure of popcorn-time.no (#domstolkontroll)</title>
  11                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ruling_ignored_our_objections_to_the_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no___domstolkontroll_.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ruling_ignored_our_objections_to_the_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no___domstolkontroll_.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Mon, 13 Feb 2017 21:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago, we received the ruling from
  15 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_day_in_court_challenging_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no_for__domstolkontroll.html&quot;&gt;my
  16 day in court&lt;/a&gt;.  The case in question is a challenge of the seizure
  17 of the DNS domain popcorn-time.no.  The ruling simply did not mention
  18 most of our arguments, and seemed to take everything ØKOKRIM said at
  19 face value, ignoring our demonstration and explanations.  But it is
  20 hard to tell for sure, as we still have not seen most of the documents
  21 in the case and thus were unprepared and unable to contradict several
  22 of the claims made in court by the opposition.  We are considering an
  23 appeal, but it is partly a question of funding, as it is costing us
  24 quite a bit to pay for our lawyer.  If you want to help, please
  25 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml&quot;&gt;donate to the
  26 NUUG defense fund&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  27
  28 &lt;p&gt;The details of the case, as far as we know it, is available in
  29 Norwegian from
  30 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nuug.no/news/tags/dns-domenebeslag/&quot;&gt;the NUUG
  31 blog&lt;/a&gt;.  This also include
  32 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nuug.no/news/Avslag_etter_rettslig_h_ring_om_DNS_beslaget___vurderer_veien_videre.shtml&quot;&gt;the
  33 ruling itself&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  34 </description>
  35         </item>
  36
  37         <item>
  38                 <title>A day in court challenging seizure of popcorn-time.no for #domstolkontroll</title>
  39                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_day_in_court_challenging_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no_for__domstolkontroll.html</link>
  40                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_day_in_court_challenging_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no_for__domstolkontroll.html</guid>
  41                 <pubDate>Fri, 3 Feb 2017 11:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
  42                 <description>&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;img width=&quot;70%&quot; src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-02-01-popcorn-time-in-court.jpeg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  43
  44 &lt;p&gt;On Wednesday, I spent the entire day in court in Follo Tingrett
  45 representing &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;the member association
  46 NUUG&lt;/a&gt;, alongside &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.efn.no/&quot;&gt;the member
  47 association EFN&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imc.no&quot;&gt;the DNS registrar
  48 IMC&lt;/a&gt;, challenging the seizure of the DNS name popcorn-time.no.  It
  49 was interesting to sit in a court of law for the first time in my
  50 life.  Our team can be seen in the picture above: attorney Ola
  51 Tellesbø, EFN board member Tom Fredrik Blenning, IMC CEO Morten Emil
  52 Eriksen and NUUG board member Petter Reinholdtsen.&lt;/p&gt;
  53
  54 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.domstol.no/no/Enkelt-domstol/follo-tingrett/Nar-gar-rettssaken/Beramming/?cid=AAAA1701301512081262234UJFBVEZZZZZEJBAvtale&quot;&gt;The
  55 case at hand&lt;/a&gt; is that the Norwegian National Authority for
  56 Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (aka
  57 Økokrim) decided on their own, to seize a DNS domain early last
  58 year, without following
  59 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.norid.no/no/regelverk/navnepolitikk/#link12&quot;&gt;the
  60 official policy of the Norwegian DNS authority&lt;/a&gt; which require a
  61 court decision.  The web site in question was a site covering Popcorn
  62 Time.  And Popcorn Time is the name of a technology with both legal
  63 and illegal applications.  Popcorn Time is a client combining
  64 searching a Bittorrent directory available on the Internet with
  65 downloading/distribute content via Bittorrent and playing the
  66 downloaded content on screen.  It can be used illegally if it is used
  67 to distribute content against the will of the right holder, but it can
  68 also be used legally to play a lot of content, for example the
  69 millions of movies
  70 &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/movies&quot;&gt;available from the
  71 Internet Archive&lt;/a&gt; or the collection
  72 &lt;a href=&quot;http://vodo.net/films/&quot;&gt;available from Vodo&lt;/a&gt;.  We created
  73 &lt;a href=&quot;magnet:?xt=urn:btih:86c1802af5a667ca56d3918aecb7d3c0f7173084&amp;dn=PresentasjonFolloTingrett.mov&amp;tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fpublic.popcorn-tracker.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&quot;&gt;a
  74 video demonstrating legally use of Popcorn Time&lt;/a&gt; and played it in
  75 Court.  It can of course be downloaded using Bittorrent.&lt;/p&gt;
  76
  77 &lt;p&gt;I did not quite know what to expect from a day in court.  The
  78 government held on to their version of the story and we held on to
  79 ours, and I hope the judge is able to make sense of it all.  We will
  80 know in two weeks time.  Unfortunately I do not have high hopes, as
  81 the Government have the upper hand here with more knowledge about the
  82 case, better training in handling criminal law and in general higher
  83 standing in the courts than fairly unknown DNS registrar and member
  84 associations.  It is expensive to be right also in Norway.  So far the
  85 case have cost more than NOK 70 000,-.  To help fund the case, NUUG
  86 and EFN have asked for donations, and managed to collect around NOK 25
  87 000,- so far.  Given the presentation from the Government, I expect
  88 the government to appeal if the case go our way.  And if the case do
  89 not go our way, I hope we have enough funding to appeal.&lt;/p&gt;
  90
  91 &lt;p&gt;From the other side came two people from Økokrim.  On the benches,
  92 appearing to be part of the group from the government were two people
  93 from the Simonsen Vogt Wiik lawyer office, and three others I am not
  94 quite sure who was.  Økokrim had proposed to present two witnesses
  95 from The Motion Picture Association, but this was rejected because
  96 they did not speak Norwegian and it was a bit late to bring in a
  97 translator, but perhaps the two from MPA were present anyway.  All
  98 seven appeared to know each other.  Good to see the case is take
  99 seriously.&lt;/p&gt;
 100
 101 &lt;p&gt;If you, like me, believe the courts should be involved before a DNS
 102 domain is hijacked by the government, or you believe the Popcorn Time
 103 technology have a lot of useful and legal applications, I suggest you
 104 too &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml&quot;&gt;donate to
 105 the NUUG defense fund&lt;/a&gt;.  Both Bitcoin and bank transfer are
 106 available. If NUUG get more than we need for the legal action (very
 107 unlikely), the rest will be spend promoting free software, open
 108 standards and unix-like operating systems in Norway, so no matter what
 109 happens the money will be put to good use.&lt;/p&gt;
 110
 111 &lt;p&gt;If you want to lean more about the case, I recommend you check out
 112 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nuug.no/news/tags/dns-domenebeslag/&quot;&gt;the blog
 113 posts from NUUG covering the case&lt;/a&gt;.  They cover the legal arguments
 114 on both sides.&lt;/p&gt;
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