[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[FYI] THE GERMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION SYSTEM (RPS)



http://www.wipo.int/eng/meetings/1999/osp/  

----------------------------- CUT -----------------------------------

          WORKSHOP ON SERVICE PROVIDER LIABILITY

          (Geneva, December 9 and 10, 1999)  

          OSP/LIA/1 Rev.1(November 22, 1999)
          ONLINE SERVICE PROVIDER LIABILITY FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
          prepared by Mr. Kamiel Koelman and Professor Bernt
          Hugenholtz, Institute for Information Law,
          University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
          (available in Adobe PDF and MS Word 97 formats) 

          OSP/LIA/2 (December 1, 1999)
          A LOOK BACK AT THE NOTICE-TAKEDOWN PROVISIONS OF THE U.S.
          DIGITAL
          MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT ONE YEAR AFTER ENACTMENT
          prepared by Mr. Batur Oktay, Corporate Counsel, Adobe
          Systems Incorporated, Seattle,
          Washington and Mr. Greg Wrenn, Associate General Counsel,
          Yahoo! Inc., Santa Clara, California
          (available in Adobe PDF and MS Word 97 formats) 

          OSP/LIA/3 (December 1, 1999)
          NOTICE AND TAKE-DOWN AGREEMENTS IN PRACTICE IN EUROPE-VIEWS
          FROM THE
          INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRIES
          AND THE
          RECORDING INDUSTRY
          prepared by Dr. Nils Bortloff, Legal Advisor, International
          Federation of the Phonographic Industry
          (IFPI), London and Ms. Janet Henderson, Rights Strategy
          Manager, BT Internet and Multimedia
          Services, London 
          (available MS Word 97 format) 

----------------------------- CUT -----------------------------------

In dem Dokument OSP/LIA/3 findet sich u.a. folgende Passage:

http://www.wipo.int/eng/meetings/1999/osp/doc/osp_lia3.doc

--------------------------------- CUT -------------------------------

[...]

FEASIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR SP'S TO BLOCK ACCESS TO ILLEGALLY POSTED MUSIC 
FILES FROM THEIR SERVERS? - THE GERMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION SYSTEM (RPS)


Right owners are often confronted with the SP's position that 
technical solutions to deal with unauthorized content were not 
feasible (see above). It should be noted that Internet Service and 
Access Providers install and operate routers1. They establish 
business relationships with each other to determine which will carry 
the traffic of the other. These sorts of negotiations require that 
they control the routing computation of their routers to make sure 
that packets are forwarded only in accordance with the business 
agreements. The packet forwarding process in the router is not a 
passive forwarding of the incoming signals. The packet is processed 
and manipulated by the router before it is transmitted onwards. So 
the SP's that purchase and install these routers have a heavy 
participatory role in the operation of the Internet.2

The very recent Rights Protection System (RPS) - developed in Germany 
- offers SP's an effective means in order to block access to such 
infringing files based on the above mentioned role of routers.

I. Introduction and aims of the RPS

RPS is able to analyse the data transmission and to prevent the 
access of specified URL's leading to illegally posted music files 
(but also to other content).

It is a national protection system and enables the enforcement of 
national law on the Internet. Its aim is to prevent damage through 
Internet misuse in national territories, to protect copyright holders 
and stop piracy. The system can be used for multiple uses such as 
copyright infringement, distribution of products which are illegal 
under national law (e.g. pharmaceuticals, illegal drugs, arms), 
enforcement and control of the importing of digital goods in a legal 
manner in connection with state tax laws and for prevention of 
acquiring material off the Internet which is illegal under national 
law (e.g. pornography, hate material).

The system follows the model of "on-border-seizure" which monitors 
border (data) traffic and provides protections against contents to be 
illegally "imported".


II. Functioning of the RPS

The system is based on Novell's caching system. It works with a 
negative list of URL's offering illegally posted music files and 
analyses from within the caching system every new inquiry to the 
router table in order to determine if the URL is found in the 
negative list. Thus the RPS functions as a filter before the router.

If the URL is listed in the negative list access from Germany will be 
denied. Update to the negative list will occur regularly through 
secure electronic transmission on an hourly basis. The data 
maintenance could be handled by a government authorized entity such 
as the customs office. Updates could also be provided by any other 
trusted third party. In order to preclude misuses and carelessly 
negligent proposals the German National IFPI Group considers to 
exempt SP's equipped with RPS from liability and perhaps to require 
that a bond be posted as is done in the border confiscation procedure.

To achieve effective protection in Germany it is necessary to 
establish it with all SP's (app. 50-70) with transmission gates to 
foreign networks. Small SP's are not disadvantaged because they buy 
their bandwidth from larger SP's. For them it is not necessary to 
install the RPS. RPS works with standard soft- and hardware and is 
easy to install without additional service needed for the SP's.

A prototype is now being used and tested with some supportive SP's. 
An additional feature of this system is that it provides the SP with 
a further benefit: With the RPS-part of the caching system greater 
transmission speed is possible. Costs for similar caching system are 
estimated to be up to three times as much as with the RPS.

III. Performance of the system

The system is supposed to be in accordance with hard- and software 
standards for SP's and thus avoids speed and implementation problems. 
It brings with the caching function an increase in performance for 
the SP. Without caching there is a 3 % decrease in performance. One 
RPS unit is able to simultaneously handle 100,000 user requests. 
Should the RPS break down there will be no loss in performance of the 
SP.

Several German Government officials from the Ministry of Justice, 
Economy and Technology, Cultural Affairs to the Chancellor's Office 
have already pointed out their interest in this system. Other 
National Groups of IFPI have already signaled their interest as well.


1	Routers, which connect networks, perform most of the work of 
directing traffic on the Internet. They examine data packages that 
travel across the Internet and examine where the data is headed. 
Based on the data's destination, the packet is routed in the most 
efficient way - generally to another router, which in turn sends the 
packet to the next router, and so on.
2	David. Clark (Senior Research Scientist, Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, Laboratory for Computer Science), "Design and 
Operation of the Internet", October 1997, p. 16 (point 3.11). 

[...]

--------------------------------- CUT -------------------------------

Eine .PDF-Version findet sich unter

  ftp://ftp.fitug.de/pub/eu/OSP_LIA3.PDF