ISP refuses to remove site alleged to contain illegal code

Verio, the US ISP, is refusing a request by the US film industry to remove a web site that it says is illegal. It goes against the approach of most recent cases in the US where ISPs are quick to remove such sites in fear of legal action.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wrote to Verio demanding that the ISP remove access to Cryptome.org because it alleges that the site posted a program called DeCSS that can crack the anti-copying code that protects DVDs.

The MPAA said that both John Young, who runs Cryptome.org, and Verio were in breach of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In August last year, a New York federal judge ruled that posting or linking to DeCSS code is in breach of the DMCA. An appeal against that decision is pending.

Under the DMCA, upon receipt of such notification, Verio states that an ISP is required:

“to expeditiously remove or disable access to the allegedly infringing material, and then notify the customer. The customer may then send a counter-notification under the Act, which the service provider must forward to the complainant. If the service provider does not receive notice that the complainant has filed suit against the customer, the service provider then re-enables the site.”

Verio did not disable the site. Instead, it asked John Young if he was making available DeCSS. John Young replied with a link to the file in question on his site, stating that “the file does not contain a circumvention device as defined by the DMCA.” He claims that he did not post DeCSS but instead posted code for CSS, the scrambling system it is designed to break.

Verio advised Young that “unless and until we receive notification that the MPAA has filed suit against you, we will not require that you remove the materials, nor will be block access to your site.”