Pegasi warning, please read

[Staff 9765]

Hello!

BurstNet USA (with which we operate Pegasi) informed us through a support technician (!) that due to alleged copyright infringements (3 notices in one week, one of them a duplicate of another, without any legal proof), that we have a "last chance" (sic) to stop infringements.

BurstNet USA just takes for granted copyright trolls claims without taking into consideration its own paying customers counterclaims, which are granted by USA Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

BurstNet USA has no interest in checking whether an alleged infringement is real or not, showing an unacceptable disrespect toward its customers, toward DMCA safe harbors and above all showing a total lack of interest in ascertaining facts and truth.

BurstNet USA makes false and defamatory claims insinuating that we host copyrighted materials on our servers, while as you know not only we don't host copyrighted contents on our server, but we don't host anything at all. It would be so easy for BurstNet USA to ascertain that we don't host anything at all on our servers, but they prefer to try to pathetically intimidate their paying customers than to spend a few minutes to check the truth and consider the claims of the paying customers who make their business possible.

We are therefore considering to cancel Pegasi server with them. Also, we will surely cancel the plans of adding various 1 Gbit/s servers with them in their 2 USA datacenters, and we recommend that you switch to another server as soon as possible.

We don't need them, you don't need them and above all the open Internet does not need this kind of providers.

Kind regards

[Hennry 0]

Thanks for this important update! This is why I like Air VPN so much!

Other question: does this also afflects the UK-servers of BurstNET?

[Staff 9765]

Thanks for this important update! This is why I like Air VPN so much!

Other question: does this also afflects the UK-servers of BurstNET?

Hello!

No, it does not. Anyway we're ready for another UK provider which meets our requirements should BurstNet UK team act in the same way.

Kind regards

[FPyro 2]

Hi!

Can they (BurstNet USA) just disconnect you without reasons other than the DMCA notifications?

Seeing that you do not host any files whatsoever, would it not be possible to take the issue to court and win easily?

And what could be the reason for a Datacenter owner to take sides so obviously? What would they risk by ignoring the DMCA notifications?

Thank you

[Staff 9765]

Hi!

Can they (BurstNet USA) just disconnect you without reasons other than the DMCA notifications?

Hello!

That's questionable. Their AUP forbids, obviously, copyright infringements through their servers, but this infringement has not been proved and they have made no effort to prove or disprove it . However their last communications are assuming a notice as a proof. Please note that they did NOT disconnect the server, we took it offline. If we received another bogus infringement notice while the server is offline we would be able to make a general case against the detection methods of copyright infringements and the reliability of the claims of various private entities.

Seeing that you do not host any files whatsoever, would it not be possible to take the issue to court and win easily?

At this stage there is no reason to do so, the service has not been suspended. There are only elements for libel and/or defamation, but then again that might be a personal liability of the man who wrote to us, not necessarily of the company.

And what could be the reason for a Datacenter owner to take sides so obviously? What would they risk by ignoring the DMCA notifications?

The DMCA provides extremely strong safe harbors (liability exceptions and limitations) for mere conduits of data, so the mere conduit of data such as bandwidth provider effectively does not risk anything, even if the infringement could be proven in court. Actually, as far as we know every ISP in the USA has not even been sued for liability in copyright infringements. This is a very similar principle for which in the past voice phone providers were never sued for liability in crimes committed through phone usage. It is a principle of the liability exemption of the carrier which was first affirmed in the Roman Empire, where the first mail system open to the citizens (cursus publicus) was regulated so that the postman/carrier was not responsible for the crimes committed with/through the packages content.

EFF made a great job about DMCA notices, you might like to read here (republished by the TOR Project):

https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-dmca-response.html.en

Kind regards