ISPs get a break on piracy 
By Alex Lash
November 25, 1996, 6:15 p.m. PT 

                A prominent trade organization has claimed victory
                in settling suits against several Internet service
                providers that allegedly hosted pirated software
                but has quietly backed down from its position that
                ISPs should police themselves for illegal material. 

                The Software Publishers Association today settled
                the third of a series of copyright infringement
                lawsuits it filed earlier this year against regional
                ISPs. The suits held the ISPs responsible for
                subscribers who had allegedly posted pirated
                software or material that could be used to help
                people hack or illegally use commercial software. 

                Officially, the association said it agreed to drop the
                suits only because the offending material had been
                removed. At the same time, however, the group
                has softened its aggressive Internet Anti-Piracy
                Campaign launched in October by removing a key
                document from its Web site that had drawn
                serious objections of ISPs. 

                The suits against the ISPs--GeoCities, Tripod, and
                Community Connexion--kicked off the beginning
                of the campaign, which proposed to help reduce
                piracy by asking for the cooperation of
                intermediaries like service providers. 

                All three suits were filed on behalf of Adobe
                Systems, Apple Computer, and Traveling
                Software, which claimed their software was being
                distributed illegally from Web sites hosted by the
                ISPs. 

                Today's settlement, with GeoCities, concludes the
                legal chapter of the long-running story. But in its
                attempts to protect the intellectual property of its
                1,200 members, the association has stepped on a
                lot of toes and would now like to make peace with
                the ISPs it has angered. 

                An integral part of the campaign was the ISP
                Code of Conduct, a document the SPA asked
                service providers to sign voluntarily to demonstrate
                that they would cooperate to fight pirated material.
                The SPA expected the service providers to force
                their customers to remove material allegedly
                related to hacking or piracy. 

                The problem was that ISPs consider themselves
                common carriers; like telephone companies, they
                believe they shouldn't be responsible for policing
                the content they transmit. 

                A reference to a "compliance officer" brought
                howls of protest from ISPs who maintained it was
                not their job to hunt through their subscribers'
                Web pages. 

                "We did not sign the code of conduct," said
                GeoCities CEO David Bohnett, whose company
                provides free email and hosts personal Web sites
                for 225,000 subscribers. "One part requested that
                we look at all material before it's posted on
                GeoCities. That's inconsistent with our content
                guidelines." 

                Only five ISPs had agreed to sign as of November
                15. The association maintains that ISPs
                misunderstood its intent but has removed the Code
                of Conduct from its Web site anyway. The
                Association says it will eventually repost the Code,
                but hasn't set a timetable. 

                Although he agrees with the ultimate goal of
                fighting piracy, Bohnett said the SPA didn't give
                his company notice that illegal software was
                posted to Web sites on his service before filing
                suit. 

                Even Adobe officials, responding to questions
                about the SPA's campaign on their behalf, also
                questioned the organization's tactics. "There's
                some fair criticism about whether the SPA gave
                enough time for compliance," said Greg Wrenn,
                general counsel for Adobe. "The first emails were
                meant to start a dialogue, not to serve legal
                notice." 

                Wrenn still supports the SPA's goal of clamping
                down on piracy at the first warning signs, noting
                that a company like Adobe can lose a lot of
                money in a brief period of time if illegal copies of
                its software are let loose on the Internet. He
                doesn't think ISPs should have to be Net police,
                but they shouldn't ignore such obvious signs as
                multimegabyte file transfers from a subscriber's
                Web page. 

                With the same argument, the SPA's campaign
                director Peter Beruk said the association would
                refocus its efforts to help ISPs educate their end
                users about piracy. 

                Copyright © 1996 CNET Inc. All rights reserved.