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		Innocent ISP On Trial by the Movie Industry. A Case of Misunderstanding. Big mistake. Imagine that an Internet access company or its owner is directly responsible for the content of websites published by their subscribers. Imagine that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) can be sued because a subscriber is publishing alleged illegal information on a website. As an ISP, how can you ensure that people who publish websites using your services do not in turn make you vulnerable to expensive lawsuits and legal battles? Would you request that all content be submitted to you for review and approval before it is available to everyone on the WWW? Would you ask webmasters to provide you with all the updates and changes they make on their website? Changes that can be made at any given hour, minute, and/or second. Definitely sounds impossible. Roman Kazan is the owner of Escape.com an Internet Access and Web hosting provider in New York City and he is being sued by 8 major movie studios for publishing an unauthorized de-cryption formula which allegedly allows people to copy DVDs. The Plaintiffs' list includes Universal City Studios, Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Tristar Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Time Warner Entertainment, Disney and Twentieth Century Fox Film. The illegal content - as stated by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) - was available at a website called www.krackdown.com, owned, administered, developed and maintained by James Thoms. The homepage features the site owner's telephone number that appears when users move their mouse over the logo. Mr. Roman Kazan is officially listed in the site registration file as the Technical Contact through his Escape.com ISP. Somehow, the movie industry people have identified Mr. Kazan as the owner and operator of www.krackdown.com, when in fact James Thoms is the owner. According to Roman Kazan this is how krackdown.com and thousands of other websites come to life. Someone like James Thoms calls Escape.com in order to subscribe for a web hosting account. A sales representative then asks James for his name, address, telephone number, method of payment and finally asks James what he wants the domain name to be. James requests "krackdown.com." Escape.com registers the domain name with Network Solutions, which is the domain name registrar. Network Solutions bills James Thoms directly for the registration and points the domain name to the ISP server (Escape.com), giving it a so-called Internet telephone number (IP address). James requests a password from Escape.com for his account. Now he is ready to develop his website: publish content and make changes at anytime. At this point, neither Roman Kazan nor any of his employees are aware of the information James is offering on his site. They would only access the website if there was a technical problem. For instance, someone is trying to download the site but it is not available. Through Network Solutions "whois" process, such a person can easily find who the technical contact is. The record for krackdown.com indicates Roman Kazan. In the view of the MPAA that makes Mr. Kazan responsible for the content of that site. The question arises: why is the ISP liable for a Webmaster's actions, who is also the administrator and billing contact? Mr. Kazan - who has been connected online since 1987 - is familiar with cases of controversial material published by subscribers. In the past he has collaborated with authorities upon their request to investigate and identify the owner and take down a site. He has never been associated with those websites or liable for their content. James Thoms, the owner of krackdown.com is not mentioned in any of the court papers. Mr. Kazan is being considered the owner and operator of the controversial site. This action should scare any ISP. On Thursday, January 20, 2000, a U.S. District Court judge in New York requested that the DVD de-coding software be removed. In fact it was removed on January 15, 2000 by James Thoms who notified Mr. Kazan in an e-mail. Roman Kazan, in his affidavit, emphasizes that he does not control the content of his subscribers' websites. Moreover, he admits he is not familiar with DVD technology whatsoever. "I don't even own a DVD player". Despite that he had to stand before the court aside two men, all facing serious digital piracy charges with the prospect of being convicted, going bankrupt or even ending up in jail. "All this for something I haven't done" - says Roman (24) who is defended in court by pro-bono lawyers from Electronic Frontier Foundation. "I'm the ISP, I'm not the administrator. They are suing the wrong person" - Kazan defends himself. At the same time Mark Litwack, a lawyer for MPAA still considers Roman "the owner and operator of the website". In its most current news release MPAA celebrates the judge's ruling "that will force a group of New York-based Internet hackers to stop the posting of software that allows illegal copying of DVD's". In the Escape.com's office in Midtown Manhattan Roman is reading various press articles and newswires discovering to his surprise he is now a hacker. The case, which is supposed to go on trial in the New York's U.S. District Court, as soon as next week is fundamental to the future of the Internet in the United States. "He is not the proper person to be sued" - proclaims Robin Gross, EFF staff lawyer working on this case. "We'll get Roman off the hook" - she promises. Hopefully, she is right. The majority of all websites are online with an ISP. Even MPAA uses one. This is why it appears to be some misunderstanding or negligence in the Plaintiffs' perception of an ISP such as Roman Kazan's Escape.com. Protecting the movie industry, creative artists, consumers and copyright owners is critical but not at the unfair expense of innocent ISPs. Lukasz Bulka lbulka@hotmail.com