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The Future of Copy Control
TechLawyer writes "For those of us interested in the use of the DMCA, and the tactics utilized by copyright enforcement specialists under the DMCA, Law.com ran an interesting article today on Dave Powell and Copyright Control Services. Read about how he plans to knock out Napster & how he shuts down warez d00dz from .com to .ru." There are some fascinating and ugly quotes in here about how this guy goes after targets - a combination of harassment and threats against their service providers, admitted illegal actions, etc. Meanwhile, this LA Times story describes even more insidious technologies apparently designed for use in transparent proxies - censorware for copyrighted materials.
His company is, in fact, at some risk of going out of business. The parent corporation, Sunhawk.com, is poorly managed, bleeding dollars, and laying people off left and right. As far as I can see, they don't have a business model to speak of and CCS seems to generate the only real revenue they see. I doubt that it's enough to float the parent corp, especially considering the idiocy of the management team.
.2 cent sheet of paper to switch signage between the existing restrooms. I am no longer there, so I'm not sure how it turned out--but this whole discussion was after fifty employees had already been laid off. More have been let go since.
True story: several months ago, Sunhawk had a staff of about fifty, approximately eight women and the rest men. The men's restroom had two toilets and a urinal--the women's had eight toilets; one apiece. Obviously, there was often a line outside the men's restroom. Much grumbling occurred, and the logical suggestion was made: let's switch restrooms. The CFO, a woman, nixes this, and starts getting quotes on how many thousand dollars it will cost to re-model the shower room as an additional men's restroom. This instead of a
They also continue to shell out for expensive tech toys, new servers and the like, although their website only has traffic maxes of about 40 concurrent users. Also, the place is a security nightmare--I imagine that anyone CCS has offended who has half a brain would want to attack the Sunhawk network instead and use the VPN link to hit CCS. CCS, obviously, has their end of the pipe locked down pretty well, but it matters little since getting in from Sunhawk would be a walk in the park.
Posting anonymously for the obvious reasons (Taco, please don't give up my IP on a court order!)...
Stealing, after all, is wrong and even though the Internet gives people a sense of anonymity, most people don't like to think of themselves as thieves.
Step one. Shame the "pirate". Try to make him feel bad. Note that they shame anonymity too. More on this later. see [*] below.
"A subpoena will look something like this," Powell says, lifting an inch-thick sheaf of papers off his desk. "A pirate gets this in the mail and it's like, 'holy s--t.'"
Step two. Scare the "pirate". Bonus points for use of bleeped profanity.
managing director of Copyright Control Services (CCS)
Step three. Throw around big titles and acronyms to make the "pirate" hunter look like a massive organization replete with black helicopter, guns, huge offices next to the pentagon, etc. Full of important people... well full of something.
Powell and his crack team of cybersleuths
Step four. "Shock" words. Oooo. You left out "commando" and forgot the Mr. T speak.
And Powell employs a formidable arsenal of remedies.
and
"no one on the Internet is as strong as CCS."
Step five. Brag about the size of your dick. Translation of former: I 4m s00 l337 4nd my r00t ki7 4nd sniff3rz r s0 w3ll st0ck3d d00d! And of the latter: "My testicles are just sooo much bigger than yours!"
He can have a suspect's Internet connection turned off
and
When the evidence seems irrefutable, Powell says: "Let's go get him."
Step six. Make yourself into an unquestioned military dictator who need not go through due precess to 0wnz y0ur a55. "I can whack your ass on my authority any time I damn well fell like." Yah right.
Powell represents a small list of software companies
and
"Gentlemen," he wrote, "please be aware that this is no longer a game. Software piracy is a crime. Infringement of our client's rights will not be tolerated.
Step seven. Hide who you work for. A lack of names prevents bad publicity, stock value drops, and sales reductions that the "pirate" hunter KNOWS will result from pissed off consumers. The lack of names also gives the illusion of having more industry support than you really do, cuz you leave the reader to guess. [*] Wait, didn't they say anonymity was bad just a little earlier?
"You can bet that 60 of these people were involved in piracy," he says. "If the police raid a whorehouse and you're standing in the hallways...."
Step eight. Use guilt by association. Joseph McCarthy one said, "We'll go easier on you if you'll just provide us with the names of your fellow communists."
One frustrated poster queried the group as to why his requests for software were going unanswered. "You should be aware that many regular posters are lying low right now," came the reply. "CCS is out. They got me more than a year ago. Otherwise I'd help you out."
Step nine. Make up lots of fake "piracy" busts. Have conversations with yourself on USENET behind different secr3t h4ndl3z to make it look like you're having an impact. Act real scared of yourself when you're impersonating other people.
You are imperiling the future of music production. This is a felony in the U.S.
Step 10. Always advocate that US law is, of course, world law. Other nations are all backward and savage and need to be enlightened and tamed, eh? Surely everyone agrees that land/ideas/etc. can be owned, right? We are from the One True Culture! We pat ourselves on the back for trading necklace beads for Manhattan Island from those dumb barbarian indians. Aren't we clever!
Step 11, prevalent throught is to elevate illegal copying into this thing, "PIRACY" . Demonize the crime to make it seem more evil. It's not. That's why I use the quotes. Piracy is where thugs board ships at sea, kill (or rape and then kill) the crew and passengers and loot the vessel for whatever they can get.
This is on a par with copying a PSX CD? A rapist or 2nd degree murderer can be caught, tried, sentenced, serve his time and be out in 3 years and not one dollar in fines, while the unauthorised copier can get 10 years and $1,000,000 in fines? U, excuse me?
So, is this organisation really doing anything? Why should they? Their goal is to warp the mind of the "pirate" into giving up his activity. This is psychological mind games. If you stop, they win. Fight the power. Fight the propaganda. If they had their way, You'd owe them money every time you power up your PC or click on an app. The threat of "piracy" keeps software vendors from raising prices beyond that "sweet spot" between too high of a price boosting piracy and too low of a price that doesn't turn as much a profit as they can otherwise get. It's all about THEIR money and how to extract YOUR MONEY from you to the maximum extent that they can. For you are the consumer. FUCK YOU.
Remember, "It's not theft if nothing's missing."
A bit strong? Then let's look at the terms.
This guy makes the Sheriff of Nottingham look like a saint. Further, his actions could constitute a violation of the UK's Data Protection Act and also a violation of anti-hacking laws.
(Which, since UK law now defines crackers as terrorists, goes back to point #1.)
Under UK law, this guy could be looking at life, with no chance of release, =IF= the UK police chose to act. He'd make a nice cell-mate for Ian Brady.
We'll see how interested the UK Govt. is in acting in the interests of it's citizens, with how it reacts to his conduct.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I can see it now, fast fwd 20 years hence, a current college student is running for President and is asked, "Have you ever pirated music?" - answer: "Well, I, uh, I did download a track once, heck everybody did it back then! But I didn't listen to it!"
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Look, we all bitch an moan about how the RIAA shouldn't be trying to shut down Napster. Why? Because they are doing nothing wrong. They are like a publisher of bomb making books.
The fact is, a crime is being committed. The RIAA should not be going after Napster, but you can bet your ass they should be going after the violaters. Like jammer in the story.
They are the ones causing all the problems. If you don't agree with a law (or a business practice in the case of the leeches at RIAA passing almost no money on to the artists) you don't have a right to break it (Thoreau aside for the moment as even in the case of civil disobedience you don't have a right to expect not to be jailed).
The reason this is our great hope is that the public won't stand for it. The RIAA attacked Napster because they knew that going after the fans was a loser. If this guy does it then one of two things is going to happen. Either Congress will pass laws at the request of the nation to fuck the RIAA, or the RIAA is going to realize that the nationwide boycott of their goods is costing more than sueing jammer can earn them and they'll come up with a better idea.
--
"...In December 2000, CCS ran across one of the most brazen pirate sites Powell had seen on the Internet in months....[Powell] received a tip from an informant who knew the site's administrative password, allowing Powell to download the e-mail addresses of all the registered users."
Isn't this crime under the legislation of most developed nations? If you access a person's computer without that person's authorization (even if you have all the passwords), you are guilty of hacking and can go to jail (unless you are law enforcement and have a warrant to search).. Amazing to hear that a lawyer will actually admit to doing something like that.
It's bad crime-fighting too, since in the U.S. evidence obtained illegally is automatically discarded.
I usually don't care about the whole piracy debate (it's easy not to worry about it that much when you use Linux), but it really irks me when I read about someone using illegal techniques to catch people doing illegal stuff.
- No Sig Today
I like this..
They've managed to figure out how to fine and steal money from people without trial, without even convicting people of anything.
They just send a takedown order and offer people a choice: Either pay $8000, or risk going into debt for the rest of your life just attempting to prove your innocence.
Sweet racket, isn't it? RICO anyone? Either pay 'protection money', or they fuck you over, whether or not your guilty, and the best part is no trial necessary. They don't even need evidence!!
Then, when they send a subpeona, actually take them to task, countersue on whatever grounds you can (invasion of privacy, frivilous lawsuit, emotional distress, whatever) and go to the courts knowing that you didn't download anything that *wasn't* (as far as you knew) not allowed by "fair use". Besides, you were just using the network to download things that you didn't already have rights to.
Then, once they're busted a few good times, and hopefully had the pants sued off of them and some bad media exposure, see what happens.
Then again, I need another Mountain Dew...
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
...its now.
When someone actually boasts about exploiting the prohibitive cost of mounting a legal defence then its time to look at reforming the system. The law exists to protect the innocent as well as punish the guilty. This guy however has a "Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out." kind of attitude.
He claims to act when the "evidence" is decisive. But whose standard of evidence are we talking about here? He is not a judge, or even a lawyer but a person who admittedly gets off on coming down on his targets. To allow such a person to brazenly threaten people (comply or we will send you broke fighting it) amounts to sanctioned blackmail.
>>Intellectual-property owners don't have a
>>fundamental natural-law right to restrict the
>>copying of their intellectual property.
>
>and
>
>>There is no right to steal others' IP.
>
>Which is it?
Actually, there isn't a contradiction here, though it certainly is confusing. The orriginal poster is referring to a concept in the philosophy of law in which it is believed that there is a set of freedoms so fundamental that all people should enjoy them. Not everything one has a right to under this so-called "natural law" is necessarily reflected in human legal systems, and there isn't any guarantee that natural law addresses all subjects. The orriginal post is simply asserting that "rights" in this sense do not apply.
Another use often made of the word "rights" is to speak of freedoms fundamentally guaranteed by the constitution of a country, generally, at least in my experience, the US of A. ('course, that's where I live, and we *do* have a tendency to forget that the rest of the world exists.) In the US, there clearly *isn't* any right to intilectual property. The constitution simply permits congress to make such IP laws as it deems fit. Conversely, since the congress is allowed to make IP laws, there isn't any legal right, here, to use other peoples' IP.
There is also an important distinction to be made between ethical and economic justification of intilectual property. It seems clear to me that there is no economic justification - the marginal cost of a copy of a piece of software is entirely in the overhead of maintaining a high-bendwidth network. Once the bandwidth is there, it costs the same whether it is active or idly sending null-padded frames because you don't have anything to transfer.
The ethical argument is less clear to me. Certainly, people who contribute new ideas, tools, and art deserve to be compensated for their efforts, if for no other reason that we'd all rather have them spend their time benefiting society that way than just trying to keep bread on the table. On the other hand, derivative works are the essence of progress. If it weren't for derivative works bulding upon eachother over the centuries, we'd still be a race of hunter-getherers, and probably not even much good at that. It seems to me immoral to refuse others permission to create coppies of my contributions to society and to create their own derivative works. For that reason, I license any code I write under the GPL unless otherwise compelled by someone who is paying me to write the code. Even then, I try. Personally, I think I should be paid for the effort of creating the software, not for the number of coppies of it that get made.
Despite the orriginal poster's claim that freedom of expression is entirely separate, I must disagree. Any technological solution to copy protection, were it to exist, would also have the effect of restricting the same data copying and transmission technologies that are essential for free speech to be effective.
I don't pirate software. I don't have any music on my computer that I believe to be illegal. I do have mp3s of a large segment of my own CD collection, which I find useful despite the fact that sitting here at my computer I am not ten feet from a 160-watt stereo with a 3-cd changer, and I only use them in ways that I believe to be legal under fair use. I would nonetheless be quite upset if I were unable to make those coppies to my hard drive, which enable me, among other things, to put together my own playlists with more freedom than the 3-disc carosel allows and to listen to my music collection in a friend's room across campus without having to cary the crates full of disks over first.
I am leaning toward the position that "intellectual property" cannot be ethically justified, because the mere copying of bits has no direct effect on the original author of those bits. I am leaning toward the position that if I have a stream of bits I don't want copied around, then I need to keep them secret.
In the software world, that could be accomplished by running an ASP rather than selling software copies. Or, software authors could use individual nondisclosure agreements with users (properly agreed to before opening the shrinkwrap, of course). But note that this last could only hold the discloser responsible for the software being revealed...receivers of the copy who did not agree to the NDA would be under no obligation not to use or copy the software.
Notice that this would also undercut the GNU license, since if one doesn't have the right to restrict how bits he has authored are copied, then he can't enforce the GNU restrictions.
I make a living writing software, and I like the idea of authors, artists, etc. being able to make money from their creations. Someone out there give me a solid ethical justification for intellectual property restrictions, please.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
From a technical point of view, someone who wants to post potentially incriminating material and uses NNTP from their cable modem deserves what they get.
As for the transparent proxies detecting content, unless there is legislation restricting users to a handfull of well-known formats, in the presence of even simple cryptography or compression, that's a pointless exercise. OTOH, I see no problem with companies trying to detect copyrighted works by participating in P2P networks; of course, since P2P is moving towards tit-for-tat schemes, these participants better be prepared to put up some interesting content themselves in order to particpate :-)