We were forwarded a letter from the RIAA via our lawyers on Friday whom in turn received it from Public Interest Registry (PIR), who is the registry operator of the .ORG top level domain. The letter was sent from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asking PIR “to reconsider whether it wants its services to continue to be criminally exploited by The Pirate Bay.”

The full text of the letter appears below.

PIR forwarded the communication to us “for review and possible action”. The only specific action that PIR requested was that we “forward the letter to the registrant for comment.”

We have done so, and TPB has responded:

Hello, TPB is DMCA compliant and if TPB receive any DMCA complaints from RIAA they will be investigated and removed if found to be valid. We have not revived[sic] any DMCA complaints from RIAA at all so far this year.

We then followed up to specifically inquire about the RIAA allegation that TPB website was being used to distribute malware, something which if true and not the result of an unintentional security compromise would put them in violation of our Plain English Terms of Service (also note that the domain cited in the RIAA letter with respect to distributing malware was thepiratebay.SE which we do not manage).

TPB responded:

Hello, As with every site that are displaying 3rd party advertising trough external ad-networks, sometime bad and corrupt ads slips by, it happens to everyone, here is an example:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/big-name-sites-hit-by-rash- As soon as it is discovered/detected on TPB, the ads will be taken down, or the entire ad-tag from where the malware comes, until the issue is resolved. Usually with the help of google webmaster-tools to track down the exact source of the malware. It has happened twice during 2016, both times when adding new ad-networks, They were taken down directly when detected.

At this point we’ve determined that there is no further action to take on our end and we have informed PIR accordingly. We have told PIR (and we would have told the RIAA the same had they included a return email address in their letter):

At this time we find no violation of our AUP. Absent either a specific proceeding pursuant to our accreditation as a .ORG registrar or a legal

finding in a competent jurisdiction to the Province of Ontario, there is nothing for us to do. easyDNS will of course always: comply with our contractual obligations – both to the registries we operate under and to our customers; comply with the laws under which govern our jurisdiction (the Province of Ontario, Canada) and enforce our own Acceptable Use Policy. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Our opinion in these matters continues unchanged. As a Registrar or as a DNS provider unless there is a clear violation of our AUP or net abuse (which we are competent to detect), taking action against domains based on content or at the behest of third-parties, regardless of their altruism or noble intentions, amounts to having us adjudicate international law. It’s not reasonable to expect us to do that and you don’t want your domain registrar doing that.

We should also mention our Open Letter to Bit Torrent operators, wherein we predict a near-future where due process across borders catches up with technology and when that happens it will be relatively quick, easy and painless for a law enforcement agency in one country (i.e. Sweden) to have the requisite order issued in another country (like Canada, eh) and cause any domains that have been found guilty of violating copyright and freeriding on content creators’ efforts to be shut down.

Ahead of that day, if I were a filesharing site operator I’d be using my time wisely in concentrating my efforts on legitimizing my operations. This could include negotiating blanket licensing agreements with mechanical rights agencies.

We aren’t talking wikileaks here, this isn’t a free speech or a whistelblowing issue, it’s a due process issue. Bittorrent sites expecting some kind of safe refuge on easyDNS believing we would approach the situations they get us into under the former would be severely mistaken.

Further Reading:

Redacted Letter to Elizabeth Finberg Re the Pirate Bay Dated 6 2 16 Final