FITUG e.V. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft

THE GERMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION SYSTEM (RPS)

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

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)

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

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

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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).

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Eine .PDF-Version findet sich unter

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

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