Copyright

With all apologies to George Harrrison, it's time to sing the "repeal me, repeal you" blues in Florida. This comes up in the latest strange twist in Flo and Eddie's fight against Sirius XM, which has been the subject of several previous blog posts. In these cases, Flo and Eddie have claimed that common law copyright, not federal copyright, protects their sound recordings and this includes the right of public performance under a variety of State laws.[ref]Flo and Eddie v. Sirius XM Radio: Have Two Hippies from the 60's Just Changed the Course of Broadcast Music?[/ref] Recall, that after winning in California and New York, Flo and Eddie lost their claim in Florida[ref]Flo and Eddie Lose Florida Lawsuit against Sirius XM[/ref] after a Federal Judge ruled that: "There is no specific Florida legislation covering sound recording property rights…[i]f the Court adopts Flo and Eddie's position, it would be creating a new property right."[ref]Flo and Eddie Inc. v. Sirius XM Radio Inc. U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida 2015 WL 3852692[/ref] The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals was similarly at a loss and punted the issue over to the Florida Supreme Court,[ref]Flo and Eddie Inc. v. Sirius XM Radio Inc. 827 F.3d 1016 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals 2016[/ref] where the issue is now being briefed. And this is where things get really tricky. Turns out, the Federal Judge was wrong. The Florida Legislature did recognize the existence of common law copyright in sounds recordings. It did so all the way back in 1941. It did this by repealing all such common law rights then existing.[ref]§ 543.02, Fla. Stat. (1977)[/ref] The title of Section 543.02 is titled "Common law rights abolished." Its text states in part: "[A]ll asserted common law rights to further restrict of to collect royalties on the commercial use made of any such recorded performances by any person are hereby abrogated and expressly repealed." But wait, they're not done yet! The very next section, 543.03 states: "The sole intendment of this enactment is to abolish any common law rights attaching to phonograph records and electrical transcriptions, whose sole value is their use, and to forbid further restrictions of the collection of subsequent fees and royalties on phonograph records and electrical transcriptions whose sole value is in their use, and to forbid further restrictions of the collection of subsequent fees and royalties on phonograph records and electrical transcriptions by performers who were paid for the initial performance at the recording thereof." In plain language, if common law copyright did not protect sound recording performance rights under Florida law, no rights exist to repeal or abrogate, and no action by the Legislature would have been necessary. The reason why the legislature effected the repeal of the common law in 1941 was a reaction to  Waring v. WDAS Broadcasting Station, Inc.[ref]194 A. 631 (Pa. 1937)[/ref] in which the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that not only was there a common law copyright in a sound recording but that common law right included the right of public performance. "[T]he plaintiff had common-law rights of property in his orchestra's renditions of the songs, and, second, that there is no logical or practical reason why the restriction placed upon the use of the records should not be enforced in equity…"[ref]Waring at 638[/ref] North Carolina and South Carolina passed similar legislation to Florida's in reaction to the Waring decision. Oddly enough, these laws are still on the books, but apparently not being enforced.[ref]The North Carolina legislation was passed in 1939 as N.C. S. J. 148, now N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann.66-28. South Carolina legislation was passed in 1939 as S.C.H.J. 70, now S.C. Code Ann.39-3-510.[/ref] Florida's repeal of common law copyrights in sound recordings lasted until July 1, 1977, when the Florida Legislature repealed almost all of Chapter 543. That's right. They repealed the repeal.[ref]House Bill 1780 (Chapter 77-440)[/ref] This explains why there is so little case law on common law copyright of sound recordings in Florida.  The Florida Legislature wrote them out of the law books for 36 years. So, now that Florida repealed the repeal, does this mean that the common law rights have been revived? Apparently it does. The Supreme Court of Florida has ruled this is true on a couple of occasions. "[W]hen a statute changing the common law is repealed, the common law is restored to its former state…  Nor does section 62 of the Revised Statutes, providing that no statute of this state which had been repealed shall ever be revived by implication, prevent such restoration of the common law."[ref]Florida Fertilizer & Manufacturing Company v. Boswell, 34 So. 241, 45 Fla 301 (Fla. 1903)[/ref] About 60 years later, it said the same thing again. ""Upon repeal of the statute in 1955, the common law of the state as it existed prior to the act was revived."[ref]North Shore Hospital, Inc. v. Barber 143 So.2d 849 (Fla. 1962)[/ref] This would have the effect even if sound recordings were distributed during the period of the repeal. A Federal Court Judge directly addressed this point: "The Court agrees that repeal of a statute does not divest one of a defense which arose under the former statute. Thus, arguably, anyone who relied on § 543.02, Fla.Stat., to protect against a claim of common law copyright prior to July 1, 1977 may be protected. However, since this is an action seeking damages and injunctive relief for future wrongdoings, Defendants have failed to state a reason why this Court should reverse its prior ruling that § 543.02 cannot preclude this action."[ref]CBS, Inc. V. Garrod, 622 F.Supp 532 (M.D. Fla. 1985) at 534[/ref] So, now that it appears that common law rights in sound recordings did exist in Florida, have been revived and are currently enforceable, there remains one more hurdle: did Flo and Eddie lose their rights by "publishing" their sound recordings in the State of Florida? The answer appears to be no. Here is the Court in the Garrod case interpreting Florida law: "Thus, because of the unique nature of the recording business, and the fact that there was no simple method of protecting record producers' interests until phono-records were protected by the Sound Recording Act of 1972… CBS did not lose its common law copyright through publication by distribution of its records."[ref]Id.[/ref] Courts in New York,[ref]Capitol Records v. Naxos of America, Inc.,  830 N.E.2d 250 (N.Y. 2005)[/ref] California[ref]Capitol Records LLC. V. BlueBeat, Inc. 765 F.Supp 2d 1198 (C.D. Cal. 2010)[/ref] and North Carolina[ref]Waring v. Dunlea 26 F.Supp 338 (E.D. N.C. 1939)[/ref] have come to the same conclusion. Finally, the repeal by Florida became effective on July 1, 1977, a full six months before the effective date of the then "new" Copyright Act of 1976, which became effective on January 1, 1978.[ref]The Copyright Act of 1976: Transitional and Supplementary Provisions Sec. 102[/ref] So, the rights of Flo and Eddie would have been fully revived prior to the effective date of Section 301(c) of the Copyright Act which provides that: "With respect to sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, any rights or remedies under the common law or statutes of any State shall not be annulled or limited by this title until February 15, 2067." Does this mean Flo and Eddie have achieved a "reversal of fortune" with regards to their rights in the State of Florida? Stranger things have happened.

There's no denying it. Lawyers copy from each other. And sometimes this copying is word for word and paragraph for paragraph. Many times this copying is done with permission. Lawyers make available sample contracts, license agreements and court filings to other lawyers, knowing full well that they are going to be copied. They probably have benefited themselves from other lawyers sharing their work with young attorneys and are simply paying back the favor. Others jealously guard their work. In their minds, giving out a contract that they have spent hours and hours writing, crafting and redrafting makes no sense. "Why should I benefit a lawyer I am in competition with for clients," is their rationale. And I understand their point. What is rare is not only for a lawyer to directly plagiarize a majority of another lawyer's work without explicit or implicit permission, but for the offended lawyer to file a copyright infringement suit over it. And last week, a Federal District Court handed down an opinion in just such a case, in Newegg, Inc. v. Ezra Sutton, P.A.[ref]CV 15-01395 TJH (JCx) U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (2016)[/ref] Personally, under normal circumstances, I freely share my work with other lawyers. But I've been ripped off, as well. Back in the earlier days of the internet, people were discovering just how lucrative placing pornography on a website was. I was contacted by a striking woman of mixed French and Vietnamese heritage who wished to take advantage of this trend. She wanted me not only to help her file for copyright on the naked images of herself, but to protect the contents of her website as well. To be fair, the images were not what I would consider pornographic. They were nude pictures, only of her, but nothing that would be out of place in the pages of Playboy. Her concern was of what is commonly known today as "scraping," e.g. using a computer to scan and copy all the content off a website for placing on a different website. She recounted to me certain girls she knew who awoke one day to find an exact copy of their website was now on a website hosted in Poland. To this end, I drafted what I jokingly called the "gates of hell" click-through agreement. Since most of the content was behind a paywall requiring credit card payment, with only a few "teaser" photos made available for free, I felt reasonably secure that such a transaction would arguably satisfy the minimum contacts necessary to establish jurisdiction in the United States. By clicking through and processing the payment, the user agreed:

• Not to copy the pictures or other content.
• Not to share their passwords with anyone else.
• Not to allow minors to peek over their shoulder.
• Not to view the photos in a country where such viewing would be illegal (like Iran).
• In the event of a dispute over whether the rules were broken, consenting to personal jurisdiction in the United States and the Federal District Courts for subject matter jurisdiction.
• Stipulating to the assessment of $20,000 statutory damages for each photograph copied.
• And anything else I could think of.

She was very happy with my work and paid my bill promptly. And who got ripped off? I did. She called my office, very agitated. "They copied everything and put it up on another site!" "Your photos?" "No! Your agreement!" She provided me with the URL, and sure enough. There, on a totally unrelated "adult" website, was word for word, my click-through agreement. I guess I should have been flattered. They passed up the opportunity to copy literally hundreds of photographs of a beautiful naked woman to instead copy my legalese. But I was pissed. And so was my client. She had, after all, paid me a nice fee to write it up. Yet, after a few moments thought, there was little that I could do. While my work was probably covered by copyright, I hadn't registered the "work" with the copyright office. This meant I could not ask for statutory damages or my attorneys fees. I could only recover my "actual" damages, presumably meaning the fee I charged to draft the click-through agreement in the first place. My cost in trying to litigate the matter, even if I represented myself, would vastly exceed that amount. I decided to do nothing. Which is not the case with the matter of Newegg, Inc. v. Ezra Sutton P.A. While no lawyer that I know of registers their "work" with the Copyright Office, the Plaintiff here apparently did. Plus, the need to copy another work is rather unnecessary. As the Court notes, the Civil Procedure Rules allow you to incorporate all or portions of another's brief "by reference."[ref]Id. at 3[/ref] Nevertheless, the Court rules: "Because there is no dispute that Newegg is the owner of a valid and registered copyright for its draft brief, or that Sutton copied substantial portions of Newegg's draft brief without permission, the next issue is whether Sutton's copying constituted fair use of Newegg's draft brief."[ref]Id. at 1[/ref] Here's how the Court came down on the four fair use factors:

• Factor one favored the Plaintiff because the "allegedly infringing work was used for the same intrinsic purpose as the copied work," and the infringing work was not "transformative" because "[h]ere, Sutton did not add new expression, meaning or message to Newegg's draft brief. Sutton merely made minor and cosmetic changes to the draft brief."[ref]Id. at 2[/ref]
• Factor two only slightly favored the Defendants because while "legal briefs can be the subject of copyright infringement and, by extension, can be captured within the scope of the fair use defense. Because Sutton's brief is a functional presentation of fact and law, and in accordance with the Supreme Court's priority in disseminating factual works, the second statutory factor weighs slightly in favor of Sutton."[ref]Id.[/ref]
• Factor three weighed heavily against the Defendants; the Court ruled that the copying was "most, if not all, of the substantive portions of the draft brief, and that Sutton's use of the draft brief was not transformative…"[ref]Id. at 3[/ref]
• Factor four weighed slightly in favor of the Defendants; the Court ruling that the Plaintiff had failed to "provide any evidence that it has ever licensed or sold its briefs, or that there is a market for the licensing or sale of its legal briefs."[ref]Id.[/ref]

This resulted in a finding of infringement, and a denial of the fair use defense. The reasoning on factor four is a bit of a head scratcher. Certainly, a brief on the specific facts of a case might not be "recyclable," but certain arguments, lines of logic and the case law that supports them certainly can be. And certainly there is a robust market for legal forms, licenses and contracts, as the people who flock to sites like LegalZoom[ref]LegalZoom "Business Insider ranked LegalZoom 27th on its list of the world's most valuable startups."[/ref] can readily attest. And those who steal legalese off adult websites can also attest.

September 8, 2016 saw a much needed injection of common sense and fair play into both the internet and copyright protections for authors. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that a website that knowingly, and for profit, linked to illegal copies of photographs belonging to Playboy magazine, infringed Playboy's rights under Article 3 of Directive 2001/29, which states: "Member States shall provide authors with the exclusive right to authorise (sic) or prohibit any communication to the public of their works, by wire or wireless means, including the making available to the public of their works in such a way that members of the public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them."[ref]Decision can be found at Judgment of the Court[/ref] Please note, faithful reader, that the English translation of the Court's decision is not always the picture of clarity, but bear with me. Here's how the whole mess went down.

• In October of 2011, Playboy contracted with a photographer to take nude photographs of Dutch Model Britt Decker.[ref]Photos of Dutch Playboy Model Spark Major EU Copyright Ruling[/ref]
• "On 26 October 2011, the editors of the GeenStijl website received a message from a person using a pseudonym, which included a hyperlink to an electronic file hosted on the website Filefactory.com,… [a "file locker" site] located in Australia, that electronic file contained the [as yet unpublished] photos at issue."[ref]Decision at 4[/ref]
• The very same day, Playboy requested that the parent company prevent the photos from being published.[ref]Id.[/ref]
• The website refused, instead publishing a story the very next day with links to the photographs bragging "and now the links with the pics you've been waiting for." Clicking on the link took the user to the FileFactory account where they could download 11 files containing the unpublished photos.[ref]Id.[/ref]
• Playboy demanded the links be taken down. The website thumbed their noses at them.
• Playboy sent a notice to FileFactory, who took the files down.
• The images got reposted to Imageshack.us on November 7, 2011. The website linked to them again, crowing "Update: Not yet seen the nude pics of [Ms. Dekker]? They are HERE."[ref]Id.[/ref]
• Playboy sent a notice to Imageshack.us, who took the photos down.
• The photos got reposted again. The website again linked to them, taunting Playboy with the headline: "Bye Bye Wave Wave Playboy."[ref]Id.[/ref]
• Playboy finally published the pictures in December 2011, and filed suit against the website and its parent company.[ref]Id.[/ref]

The Court first found that the mere posting of a hyperlink was not, in and of itself, illegal, stating "posting hyperlinks on a website to works freely available on another website does not constitute a ‘communication to the public' as covered by that provision."[ref]Id. at 8[/ref] However, whether the work was posted legally was another question. The website was certainly on notice that they were on the file locker sites illegally. "In contrast, where it is established that such a person knew or ought to have known that the hyperlink he posted provides access to a work illegally placed on the internet, for example owing to the fact that he was notified thereof by the copyright holders, it is necessary to consider that the provision of that link constitutes a ‘communication to the public' within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29."[ref]Id. at 11[/ref] Plus, the photos had yet to be published. They had yet to appear anywhere "with the consent of the copyright holders." The Court ruled: "[P]osting, on a website, hyperlinks to protected works which have been made freely  available on another website, but without the consent of the copyright  holders of those works, would be excluded, as a matter of principle, from the concept of ‘communication to the public' within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29. Rather, those decisions confirm the importance of such consent under that provision, as the latter specifically provides that every act of communication of a work to the public is to be authorized [sic] by the copyright holder."[ref]Id. at 11[/ref] Further, an authorized posting would extend not only to unpublished material, but that material which is placed behind a paywall. "The same applies in the event that that [sic] link allows users of the website on which it is posted to circumvent the restrictions taken by the site where the protected work is posted in order to restrict the public's access to its own subscribers, the posting of such a link then constituting a   deliberate intervention without which those users could not benefit from the works broadcast."[ref]Id.[/ref] Lastly, the fact that the website operated "for profit" was the final nail in the coffin. The Court ruled that the fact that a website operates for profit creates a presumption that the website has checked out whether the posting is legal or not. "Furthermore, when the posting of hyperlinks is carried out for profit, it can be expected that the person who posted such a link carries out the necessary checks to ensure that the work concerned   is not illegally published on the website to which those hyperlinks lead, so that it must be presumed that that posting has occurred with the full knowledge of the protected nature of that work and the possible lack of consent to publication on the internet by the copyright holder. In such circumstances, and in so far as that rebuttable presumption is not rebutted, the act of posting a hyperlink to a work which was illegally placed on the internet constitutes a ‘communication to the public' within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29."[ref]Id.[/ref] So, let's recap the Court's decision:

• You can't post infringing links where you have actual knowledge that the material is infringing.
• You can't post infringing links where you have good reason to suspect that the material is infringing, like where it is not yet commercially available.
• You can't link to copies where the copyright owner has taken steps to prevent their further dissemination, such as placing them behind a paywall.
• If you are operating for profit, you have a duty to investigate the legality of the linked material.

The reaction was, of course, over-heated, the "death of the internet as we know it" and self-serving baloney. As reported by Yahoo, the website released a statement on its website claiming: "If commercial media companies - such as GeenStijl -- can no longer freely and fearlessly hyperlink it will be difficult to report on newsworthy new questions, leaked information and internal struggles and unsecure networks in large companies."[ref]Playboy wins copyright battle over web links to its images[/ref] Let's take these one at a time:

• "Freely and fearlessly." Nope. How about "carelessly" or "negligently?" Nope, even that doesn't quite do it. How about "knowingly and not giving two hoots about the damage being done?" Yep. That's more like it.
• "Newsworthy new questions." There was nothing newsworthy about the photos. They had yet to be published. The fact that the photos had been leaked might be newsworthy, but this could have been reported without linking to the complete collection of actual photos.
•  "[L]eaked information…and unsecure networks in large companies." Again, these facts can reported without linking to the material.
•  "Internal struggles." The only struggle was to keep unpublished material off the internet.

Note that when the file lockers were sent notices, they took the material down. The GeenStijl website posted and then reposted the links two more times after they were clearly on notice that the material was infringing. What got them in hot water was their arrogance, which is all too common amongst internet users who say "I'm going to do it because I can and who cares if someone else gets hurt in the process." See e.g. file-sharing, content scraping, bit-torrent of illegal copies, passing around hacked nude photos of celebrities, revenge porn, child pornography…the list is endless. Not to be outdone, the Electronic Frontier Foundation howled: "There are also many times when knowingly linking to something that is infringing is entirely legitimate. For example, a post calling out a plagiarized news article might link to the original article and to the plagiarized one, so that readers can compare and judge for themselves. According to this judgment, the author of that post could themselves be liable for copyright infringement for linking to the plagiarized article—madness."[ref]European Copyright Ruling Ushers in New Dark Era for Hyperlinks[/ref] Of course this is wrong and overstated. The EFF conflates the concepts of plagiarism and copyright infringement. They are not always the same thing. One may copy ideas, theories, arguments and hypothesis from another work without credit without this turning into copyright infringement, because copyright does not protect these things.[ref]17 USC 102(b)[/ref] But copying these things from someone else's article without proper attribution certainly would be plagiarism.[ref]What is Plagiarism?[/ref] Lastly, the EFF sets up a straw man and knocks it down. The hypothetical news story could certainly report on the plagiarism, without reproducing any of the material, or on certain small portions that would be regarded as fair use. There is no over-riding need or necessity to reproduce or link to the entire article. In short, the situation here is really no different than that posed by Harper and Row v. The Nation,[ref]471 US 539, (1985)[/ref] where unpublished material is made public, to the economic detriment of the copyright owner, a situation the Supreme Court of the United States quite emphatically ruled was not fair use. The result should be no different here. Perhaps the EFF is worried that their website "Lumens" (formerly "Chilling Effects"), which as I have pointed out before is the world's largest pirate site, with literally millions of working links to pirate material,[ref]Chilling Effects: How Harvard and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Operate the World's Largest Pirate Site[/ref] might run afoul of this Court's ruling. The EFF and Harvard University sued for massive copyright infringement? I'd pull up a chair and watch that one.

A lot of very silly arguments get passed around the Internet by those who desperately want to believe them. Remember the argument that piracy of copyrighted material really didn't hurt artists financially, and in fact helped them? It took three researchers from Carnegie Mellon University to bury that ridiculous notion once and for all.[ref]Copyright Piracy and the Entertainment Industries: Is the Effect Massive or Negligible[/ref] Well, our intrepid trio is at it again, this time taking on the contentious issue of website blocking, which if you only listen to extremists like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, you would think that this will lead to the destruction of the internet as we know it.[ref]EFF, CloudFlare Ask Federal Court Not To Force Internet Companies To Enforce Music Labels' Trademarks[/ref] A year ago, I wrote how courts in three different countries had ordered website blocking, and yet the internet failed to spontaneously self-destruct.[ref]Courts in Canada, Germany and U.S. Order Website Blocking, Internet Fails to Spontaneously Self-Destruct[/ref] In the ensuing year, I haven't noticed that my internet behaves any differently than it did before. This is because the EFF doesn't understand the difference between criminal copyright infringement and legitimate free speech. So now we have this study that shows that not only does site blocking work, but the internet remains unscathed. Titled "Website Blocking Revisited: The Effect of the UK November 2014 Blocks on Consumer Behavior,"[ref]Website Blocking Revisited: The Effect of the UK November 2014 Blocks on Consumer Behavior[/ref] Brett Danaher, Michael D. Smith, and Rahul Telang make an in depth analysis of consumer behavior in the United Kingdom following the court ordered site blocking of 53 websites. I will note, as I do when Google funds a study,[ref]Google Funded Study Concludes Google Needs More Legal Protection From Small Copyright Owners![/ref] that this research is a part of Carnegie Mellons "Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics," which is partially funded by an unrestricted grant from the MPAA. Their findings conclude:[ref]Abstract to "Website Blocking Revisited"[/ref]

• The blocks reduced visits to the infringing sites by 90% over a 14 month period
• There was no corresponding increase in visits to unblocked pirate sites
• There was a corresponding decrease in piracy of 22%
• There was a corresponding 6% increase of visits to legal pay streaming sites such as Netflix
• There was a corresponding 10% increase in visits to legal free (ad supported) streaming sites

  So how did the whole "blocking doesn't work" narrative get started? Because at the start it was just one website that was blocked: the notorious "Pirate Bay." "[C]ourt ordered blocking of The Pirate Bay in the UK caused only a small decrease in total piracy levels because most former users of The Pirate Bay switched to other unblocked piracy sites. Thus, the event did not cause any increase in paid legal streaming of movies or television. However, when 19 major piracy sites were simultaneously blocked in November 2013, Danaher et al. found that this action caused a meaningful reduction in total piracy levels in the UK and also caused a statistically and economically significant increase in usage of paid legal streaming sites (like Netflix)."[ref]Website Blocking Revisited at 3[/ref] The blocking of 53 websites in November of 2014 also reduced piracy levels and increased legitimate consumption, but did not have nearly the positive effect of the 19 blocks put into place in 2013.[ref]Id. at 4[/ref] The question then becomes, "why didn't the blocks prevent 100% of the visits to the blocked sites? Doesn't this mean that site blocking doesn't work in the end?" Well, first of all, no law is 100% effective. My daily commute to work is empirical evidence that laws against speeding, even at a very generous 65 mph, do not prevent people from greatly exceeding the speed limit. So, a determined pirate will find ways around it, in this case the VPN or "virtual private network" which masks your location from the ISP. The study bears this out. "The coefficient of interest for visits to VPN sites is positive and significant  at  the  90%  confidence  level,  indicating  that for  every  10  additional  visits  to blocked sites before the blocks, a consumer increased their visits to VPN sites after the blocks by an additional 30%... In spite of this increase in VPN usage however, our data show the blocks caused a decrease in total piracy."[ref]Id. at 14[/ref] And, "There  are  several  potential  reasons  for  why the drop was not 100%...some ISPs may not have blocked all of the sites until sometime in December, depending on how long it took them to comply…[additionally] some smaller ISPs were not targeted by the court orders and thus did not participate in the blocks."[ref]Id. at 11[/ref] Additional points were raised in a companion paper by Nigel Cory of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.[ref]How Website Blocking is Curbing Digital Piracy Without "Breaking the Internet"[/ref] It posits that one of the reasons site blocking is successful is that it does not rely on coercive factors, the enforcement of which can vary. "Government interventions targeting online infringement can reduce piracy, especially when done in cooperation with firms to promote legal content, but when enforcement activity loses credibility, piracy and sales of legal content revert to original levels. (endnote omitted) For example, the 32 percent decrease in piracy caused by Sweden's IPRED law (which made it easier for rights holders to detect and identify file sharers) returned to previous levels after six months as the public realized it was not going to be enforced. (endnote omitted)"[ref]Id. at 19[/ref] Mr. Cory also points out that the costs of website blocking is not as prohibitive as some might lead you to believe. "The cost to block the first website in the United Kingdom, for NewzBin2, was $7,100 for the main domain and $142 for each subsequent site (if the website operator tried to move to another site). (endnote omitted) Without providing a detailed breakdown, an Australian government estimate gave the cost per ISP to enact website blocking as $95,000 annually. (endnote omitted) Estimates by Astralian ISPs also vary—from $36 per domain name (TPG Internet), to $183 per site and $29 per DNS (M2 Communications), to $7,350 in labor costs for setting up initial compliance, $2,200 for a landing page, and $18 per additional site (Telstra). (endnote omitted)"[ref]Id. at 11-12[/ref] And let's not kid ourselves, this is for-profit criminal copyright infringement, as the arrests[ref]DOJ widens KickassTorrents probe, charges three Ukrainians in global copyright-infringement case[/ref] of the principals and shuttering of the notorious pirate site KickassTorrent demonstrated last week.[ref]U.S. Government Indicts Three Alleged KickassTorrents Operators[/ref] This is no more an affront to the principles of free speech than bans on the distribution of child pornography. Unless, of course, you're the EFF and defend the rights of people to anonymously access child pornography.[ref]United States of America v. Edward Joseph Matish, III. EFF's participation is noted at page 4. NB: While the description contained in the Order of the material downloaded is not graphic, you may find it disturbing.[/ref]