Slashdot Mirror
Renewed Crackdown On File Sharing
||Plazm|| writes: "Here is an article on CNet's News.com that talks about some ISPs, such as Adelphia and @Home, teaming up with record companies to crack down on not only copyrighted music trading but also other media such as movies. It goes on to talk about the rise of bounty hunter hiring by record labels to track down media pirates. It's good to see ISPs like Verizon reject such pressure from big label companies. But can they hold out forever?"
Knowing how that company works from the inside (disgruntled former employee). Don't look to see them have any clue of what they are trying to do until they have screwed it up so much that they can't remember what they were going to do in the first place. So file sharing on their machines will probably be the last place you'll be able to do it :}
When CNET realize they are getting alot of linkage to ad-less versions and block all referals from slashdot.
The Gnutella protocol works on any port, its part of the spec. All that would happen is the latest clients would pick a random port a run time.
"What's that? You mean I CAN'T give away copies of movies and songs without the authors collecting any money?" Why not? The record companies do this all the time.
I'm sure there are corporate spies reading Slashdot and you're giving them ideas and thinking out every move and countermove.
dont you :)
think its
time you
got a nice
new graphics
card so you
can see more
than 40 chars
on a line?
Here is an article on infoanarchy.org, that includes a pre-emptive letter from Fox to get ISP's to do its dirty work in halting trafficing of "Planet of The Apes".
Um, I think you're wrong. By copying music illegally you can have it for free, immediately, thus reducing the price of buying CDs quite drastically by eliminating the need to do it :-).
"- if I copy a file, we both have it. "
Do that pay my bills?
"WE have the power to decide how they should be"
Yes, but WE should behave ethically. That means, not steal other peoples work.
In sweden we had something called Löntagarfonder in the 80's. What happened was that the unions with help from the government stole money (that the government already had taxed) that the companies had on their bankaccounts basically. They said the companies had overprofits (what the hell is that?).
The effect this had was that the companies didn't want to have either their business and most of all their money in this country.
The private-business employment dropped every year and the government hired people instead to halt the unemployment. The problem is ofcause that it's the private companies that really makes money, government employees only costs money. By 1990 over half of the working population was employeed by the government.
This escalated during the whole 80's and culminated in the early 90's with a horrible crash of the Swedish economy when the whole financing of the society got undermined.
The lession is that you are always accountable for what you do. If you steal from someone (those companies in this case) it will come back to you sooner or later. The swedish people had to learn the hard way.
so generate a certificate. it's not that hard. nobody in this situation needs the trust relationship provided by a CA signed cert. In fact you don't even need a consistant cert. You could change the things regularily. For purposes of IP theft you don't need to know for certain that the other guy is who they say they are...
ISPs will simply be forced to monitor and ban the use of Freenet.
You must not be in the scene. A LOT Of the pirated movies (well the ones I see anyway) are the kinds that have been out of production for years, or were never released in the US (lots of anime). Granted, there's quite a bit of first run stuff as well in some groups, but who cares about that?
;-). If your video card has TV-out, you can pump the movie directly to your home entertainment unit and get the full effect. It's really quite astounding how nice a lot of these 50MB TV episodes look these days.
The quality is actually quite good these days thanks to DivX
I read the internet for the articles.
Put a machine in the record store. This machine would have a high-speed secure net connection to a large library of music and a built-in CD burner. It would allow me to log into the music library, pick 10-20 of my favorites, and burn a CD while I wait. It would charge maybe $1 per song for the disc, on the spot (make it take cash or credit cards). This would eliminate the album system, and with it the practice of charging $17 for two good songs and eight bad ones, and would be a far better distribution system than the existing record stores.
to stay moderately on topic
Does not copying it pay your bills?
Even if we don't shorten terms, we need more compulsary licensing.
I for one am itching to get Dogtanian in some form or another. And lots of other shows. That I can't get.
USENET is not a binary file forum. It is for text/plain messages, and works best as such.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Seven-eleven can't order the gun shop not to sell you any more ammunition, or Exxon not to sell you any more fuel, because you have been driving up to their stores and shooting the clerk. Nobody would even think of it.
The law is already stacked very much in favor of the corporate IP interests in these matters; they should just use it. If that's too expensive, or if the bad publicity would cost them too much, maybe they need to re-evaluate their strategies and business plans, rather than attempting to short-circuit the process that will get them what they want while not infringing on anyone else's rights.
A reversed example: Porn is illegal in most Islamic nations. What if OPEC said "Stop making your porn web sites accessible from our nations or we cut off your supply of oil?".
We expect everyone to obey our laws, but don't give a crap about local legal stuff in the USA violating laws is some foreign nation (see also Ebay selling nazi artifacts; illegal in France, Austria, Germany).
Pot.
Kettle.
Black.
Great response. I was laughing pretty loud at the part where the Canadian agency is quoting US court rulings.
However, perhaps this: is a _general purpose_ P2P search engine, which lets users search for any type of file (including documents, programs, source code, images), not just recorded music. should be rewritten
is a _general purpose_ P2P search engine, which lets users search for any type of file (including term papers, warez, source code, porn), not just pirated mp3's.
:)
Let's be honest here. Who is really breaking the law? The person who provides the MP3 file or the person who downloads the MP3 file? If he didn't own a copy of the song (CD, tape, etc.) and he downloaded it then he is clearly in violation of the copyright.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Wonder how soon the bounty hunters will be vivisecting MP3 d00dz they catch into living trophies for the artists and corporations they rip off.
My opinion is that they really thought that they'd just get the ISP or you to cave- whether or not they actually have a case or not.
Lawyers can tend to work that way, especially those working with big business.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If we're not trading OR buying, that would send a message, wouldn't you think.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If he liked it, he'd be buying it. If he didn't, he wouldn't. Without the ability to try it out for little to no expense on his part, even if it was a "poor quality" copy, he'd probably not ever buy it. He's said as much. While I don't entirely agree with his modus operandi, I do agree with the sentiment. I don't trade, but I also don't buy a lot of records or books these days nor do I go to the movies often- because I can't really sample the stuff all that often and there's so much dross out there that it's almost not worth my bothering with it all.
With him, you'd never have a sale to begin with without the "copying" in the first place. He was never a "lost" sale no matter what. If you can't sell the stuff without some sort of samples being handed out for free one way or another (like radio, singles, mp3/DivX:-) trading, etc.) to convince people to purchase the whole book/album/movie/etc. you're going to have a hell of a time selling anything anyway.
I might suggest another line of work in that case.
Oh, and if you're going to call someone dumb, you might want to do it with a real account and not mis-spell words like "which".
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Ok, let's try this again- since you either didn't read my reply to you (And I did reply to you- your post uses the same argument, same calling people stupid.) or you're too focused on yourself to "get" it.
If the person would have never bought it- you made nothing to begin with. Doesn't matter if they copy it or not, if they like your stuff, they'll do something to put money in your pocket- usually by buying the CD, but also by attending concerts, etc. If they don't like it or don't know about your work (if they don't hear it on the radio or from someone playing it for them or near them) then they're not going to buy it from you no matter what you say about it being your music. If it's worth paying for, generally speaking, people will pay for it- because the product from the record companies is a higher quality and easier to use product than an MP3, except in highly portable contexts.
When you do a recording for a label and "bust your butt for it", unless you're someone like Ian Anderson, Michael Jackson, etc. you're doing work for that record company- and it is they that own it, not you. In many cases, the contract makes your work a work for hire, not yours- ever. If someone's stealing from someone when someone copies that work, it's not the person that made the music that the copier is "stealing" from, it's the record company.
Furthermore, unless a rather sizeable segment of the population buys the record, the artist sees nothing from the sales of the record because their cut is so small- something on the order of somewhere around $.25-.50US per CD that sells for $16-20US. Unless you're platinum, all you get from the radio spots and CD sales is exposure. An artist generally makes money selling paraphenalia that's licensed to a given concert, concert performances, and in the case of indies without any label per se, direct CD sales for $4-10US.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
What production costs?
.25 (Assume the average royalty payout to
It costs something like $.75-1.50 a pop to make a CD with silk-screened artwork and jewel boxes packaged. That's in lots of 10k- it gets much cheaper in the hundreds of thousands that a major act ends up doing in a single pressing.
So let's run the numbers...
1.50 (Assume the most expensive)
1.00 (Assume marketing and production costs)
artist...)
----
2.75
Average cost of CD: $16 (Rounded...)
16.00
2.75
-----
13.25
That's a little over 13 dollars US that get divvied up amongst the likes of Best Buy (Who gets about 20 or so % of the total price on the disk- maybe a little more, maybe a little less...), the distributor (Ditto...), and the record company that collects some 40-60% of the shelf price of the record- for an outlay approximately $2-3 dollars per disc.
If it were production costs, they wouldn't be a multi-billion dollar industry. They're collecting most of that as profit.
The Radio Stations pay money to play the song, yes, but it doesn't amount to the money the band usually has to pay in the form of Independent Promotion. Only with the big ticket acts do you see the money flowing to the artists from radio play.
If you believe that the costs are huge, you're mistaken. Compared to what they rake in (and I don't mean the musicians) it's paltry. We are all being "strip-mined" for money by the entertainment industry. Ever once wondered why the apparent quality of the music has been going downhill and there always seems to be yet another new band? Ever wonder why they keep pumping out crap to the theatres instead of the rare quality work? Because it's cheaper to pump out stuff that the masses consider acceptable, if only just barely- even if the quality stuff produces awesome returns. It's not as high as they want them to be.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This is one danger of these mergers that create companies that want to control everything.
I guess it's time to start building wireless networks....
...richie - It is a good day to code.
It's harder to prove that it was you that was downloading. After all each time you dial you wind up with a different IP address going into a different modem. Plus, AFAIK, phone companies don't keep logs of local calls.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
The acts should not be illegal. Just think, Napster-like-systems provides a huge distribution channel for the record companies, so that people can get to hear the music, that is completely cost-less for them.
They could use it for marketing instead of paying tons of money for MTV and Radio.
Many things used to be illegal, but that does not make them wrong. One of the reasons for the American Revolution was the heavy taxation levied on the colonists by the King.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Is taping music off the radio illegal? Even if you haven't paid for it? No!
...richie - It is a good day to code.
AFAIK, this is perfectly legal under fair use provisions of copyright laws.
What the record companies would like is for you to pay a 25 cents each time you listened to a song, and 10 cents each time you hummed it.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Actually it does. MP3 sounds worse than CDs, expecially on a decent stereo system.
p2p costs a TREMENDOUS amount of money in terms of sales.
That's what the record companies say. Others argue that P2P increases sales, because people get to hear music they would otherwise not heard and as a result wind up buying CDs.
Plus potential sales are not money lost. Is it possible to deduct this from your income tax? I projected that I would make $10,000,000 this year. I didn't actually, so does that mean I lost money?
No offense, but that is what the radio is. free advertising, and free listening for the consumer (more or less). But the difference is that the radio is much more controlled: only certain songs are put up, and they are of lesser quality than those found on the average CD.
So, why not look at P2P as free advertising, except that it would be controlled by the consumer - you know the person that actually pays money for your product!
People wil buy CDs if you give them something worth having...
...richie - It is a good day to code.
And this is bad?! ;-)
...richie - It is a good day to code.
No. Selling copies of the tape is. I can make co0ppies for my friends....
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Well, the bussiness model of attacking and jailing your customers seems self-limiting.
How about making the entire catalogs of their recordings older than one year available online for $5/month. How about selling CDs with much better quality recording than Mp3 files and how about charging reasonable prices?
If you let your customers create CDs from the MP3 files you can scale down CD production and distribution and drastically reduce the costs.
How about letting you customers decide what they like to hear, rather than having overpaid marketing executives pick the 100 songs that get played on the radio.
Rather than trying to sell 5 million copies of one CD, why not sell one copy of 5 million CDs? There are many CDs that I would buy, if they were only available somewhere - but they will never be reissued, because only 10 would sell.
But the internet and MP3 files make it profitable to sell just 10.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
To get people to buy CDs you need to provide some additional value over free MP3 files. You can also tape songs of the radio for free, yet most people buy CDs anyways.
So, if CDs contain much better quality of recording, perhaps a nice booklet with pictures and text of the artist and cost $5, then people would be likely to buy them.
Downloading songs and burning CDs is not quite as easy, a buying a ready made product.
Think of distribution of MP3 as radio with infinitely many channels. By having more people exposed to the music you are increasing the chances that someone will buy the CD, or go to a concert and pay.
And the p2p exchange DOES NOT COST THE RECORD COMPANIES A CENT (sorry for shouting). It's a free distribution network for marketing their stuff.
I bet you the TV/Radio advertising budget of your average record company would cover the costs of running bunch of servers with all their recordings in MP3 format on them.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
For speaking kindly toward Verizon may thou be struck repeatedly and often with one million strands of unlaid fiber. When Verizon can actually get around to doing it that is.
http://windows.scares.us
I don't mean to flame, FreeNET is excellent. But it NEEDS a real search engine. Until Joe User can just type a search term in and get a list of hyperlinks to possible hits it will not work as a Napster replacement. It also needs to be packaged as an InstallShield style app for Win32. With minimal setup required. If it's not sufficiently brain dead easy it won't take off. And with something like MP3s, you want as many people as possible so that you can get the best possible transfer speed and selection. Until then, people will use whatever is easy to set up and use.
The service provider is not breaking the law any more than the manufacturer of MP3 compression software.
And trust me on this one: if the copyright owners manage to pull this stunt, i.e. make ISPs self-censoring, they won't stop there. And the makers of audio cpompression software might just as well be next.2 C3AF4F2snlbxq'|dc
--
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb15CB32EF3AF9C0E5D727
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
There is no constitutional issue here. Trial at a company? Due process? BWAHAHA! If he gets cut off, get another provider...
Yes, they are, but how does that imply that bounty hunters shouldn't be allowed to do the same ?
Or maybe you wouldn't mind if I followed you all day, took videos of you jaywalking and doing other minor stuff,
Jaywalking is not "criminal". BTW, your analogy is not analogous ("proof by analogy is fraud" : Bjarne Stroustrup), because the bounty hunters are not pursuing any particular individual.
It clearly is illegal. However, the record companies probably don't care about it very much, because the scale is considerably less severe than the grand-scale freeloading the napster cult took part in.
Your argument is a variation on the argument that someone with no money is poor, and someone with $1- more than a poor person is poor (hence by induction, everyone is poor) The argument is unsound, though the flaw is not obvious.
Likewise, with your argument, the answer is that there is a difference between small-scale freeloading and grand-scale freeloading, and there is a lot of middle ground.
Second of all, are you going to take these people word for granted that the people using Napster or Bearshare or whatever is actually a violator?
This is an obvious straw-man. No, bounty hunters are not infallible. That doesn't make them useless. (See: "Fallacy of excluded middles")
You can't even begin to list the various transgressions being done by the RIAA.
That would certainly explain why the slashdot mob are having such a hard time listing any such transgressions ! However, it doesn't explain the failure on their part to observe the transgressions committed on their part.
Creating a whole inductry of bounty hunters - is that endorsed by right thinking Americans now?
Perhaps you would care to explain how the en-masse freeloading of the napster cult is "American". Their rhetoric sounds like a vulgar form of Marxism.
Using the threat of legal action against ISP when they have no case
I agree. I think they should throw the users in the slammer instead.
So perhaps the police should go after the users instead. I agree that there are problems with using bounty hunters, however, the companies are within their rights to protect their property, indeed, it seems as though this is expected of them (what have the police done about internet piracy?)
I understand the difference between the two -- what you don't seem to understand is that I don't agree with you (in particular, I think file sharing is immoral under some circumstances)
Law is law, most laws written at the whim of the rich to benefit the rich, with a bone thrown to the rest of the country (in USA) every once in a while.
That's interesting, because people rich and poor are flocking to the USA right now, many of them are leaving countries where laws are written supposedly for "the benefit of the poor".
No such organisation exists. Why don't the napster crowd post some earnings figures ? Are they really too stupid to look it up (the big companies are public), or is it that the facts don't help their case ?
Not from organizations that bleed their artists, lay off employees so the executives can make another million, and force chaff down the collective-public's throat.
Your making sweeping generalisations. It's probably a correct statement -- about say 5 or so of the larger companies in the RIAA.
Laws should benefit everyone equally.
Definitions of "benefit" and "equally" are contentious. It's interesting to note the lack of success of economic systems that are intended to "benefit everyone equally", as opposed to maximising utility.
It is harder to get into the States now than ever...for the poor. If you have money, no problem.
This is just plain silly, and blatantly false. I'm in the US now, I have a reasonable amount of money, but this does not make it really easy. Most of the Chinese and Indians have very little money when they enter the country, but accumulate a fair amount after working for a few years, but it's still not that easy for them to gain legal status even after they're "rich". Meanwhile, Bush is considering granting residency for illegal Mexicans.
Witness the myriad protests and how they're handled.
They're handled a lot better than they are in most other countries.
That's a silly analogy (indeed, most analogies are). The freeloaders are not "victims of robbers". They are more analogous to the robbers.
That's odd, because if you're just talking about enterring, most of the Indian and Chinese students are poor when they enter.
If benefit and equally are contentious, than how are economic systems based on that principle?
They are not. That principle is a vague one, to have a basis for an economic system, you'd need to provide a clear statement of what you mean by "equally" and "benefit". A utilitarian and a Marxist might both consider the principle you stated to be important, but they would interpret those words differently.
One of the fundamental nitty-gritty issues here is the question of how it is decided that a policy does or does not benefit everyone equally.
To the failure of economic systems that treat all citizens equally: it is usually the (formerly) rich and powerful that have much to say about those failures.
Or perhaps there is disagreement as to what it means to "treat citizens equally".
Bill Gates alone could spend $150,000 a day and it would be 1000 years before he was broke.
First, that's not really relevant since you were talking about the profits of record companies, not the private assets of an individual. Second, you're assuming that his assets are liquid. They aren't.
These companies make an obscene amount of money.
The slashdot chorus keep chanting this, yet they are unable or unwilling to post numbers ...
Then I'd think that the robbers would have to shoulder at least part of the blame for perceived over-policing. Of course, it's easier for the communities with crime problems to point the finger at the police than it is for them to address (or even acknowledge) the greater problem.
Umm.. Isn't that ever so slightly illegal?
When an ISP charges you your monthly fee, they are contractually obliged to maintain your connection with the internet.
While it's quite feasible for them to suspend the agreement with you because they believe you've done something they're not happy with, I don't believe they actually have the power to charge you for that time, as you're not actually receiving a service from them. And the service is just about all the ISP offers..
Check the conditions very carefully. If it's stipulated in the agreement that they can charge you for services not rendered, then advertise that they could charge you for installations of nuclear submarines in your house, despite the fact they never do so.
If they're allowed to charge you for suspension of your account, get out now. And get other people out too.
Eventually, they could easily make the terms and conditions so strict that they could indefinately suspend everyone, and charge for doing nothing
Just seems like a BIG scam to me..
Malk
How do they expect to respond to things such as Freenet? Sitting on a DSL or cable modem line w/ my Freenet server and several dozen gigs of space given to it I hafta wonder how they expect to police such things. Are they going to shut off everyone they think might be using Freenet?
How would they prove I had intent to break copyright laws? As a routine matter I like to download random files off filesharing servers and Usenet and then repost them on Freenet under a naming scheme where you have the files mime type followed by it's md5sum. Something along the lines of image.jpeg.0f8432 and so forth. That means that my database only needs to keep track of relationships between file details and the files mime and md5sum's to make a match but it'd be rather hard to prove I knew any of the files were there since an automated script gets them from public sites and works with them without a human ever being involved. Hook an IM into Freenet and someone could effectively transfer any of these files just by telling the person on the other end the md5sum of the file they want. Jabber would even make this pretty easy to add I think and since it is one of the runners for IM standardized format they'd be hard pressed to cut off all Jabber service for their ISP without a lot of eventual whiplash.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Interesting how the majority here are jumping up and down when other people (RIAA MPA etc) are trying to protect their copyright. Wonder if it is the same group of people who jumps up and down when it is known that company X has disregarded the GPL (which is based on copyright).
Or is it such that *we* can break copyright, but *they* shouldn't be allowed to?
Je ne parle pas francais.
Maybe the monitoring boxes, just like windowsupdate.com, were infected too?
Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus",
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
That's just going to drive warez-monkies back into the real newsgroups and make it harder for anyone to actually communicate. Not that I have an alternative solution...
Oh wait, yes I do. How about content publishers actually do their own hard work of tracking down and prosecuting those who they feel have infringed their work? It shouldn't be SWBell or any other ISP's job to do so preemptively.
Owning a record company must be just like being 12 again - you know everything and nobody can tell you differently. Of course, a 12-year old with $millions worth of lawyers is a scary thought :)
Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus",
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
No, it isn't irrelevant. File sharing happened on the Internet for a very long time before Napster came along. It wasn't until people started "sharing" content that wasn't theirs that the powers that be started trying to crack down.
If people only shared what they were legally allowed to share then the MPAA/RIAA wouldn't get involved and there would be no arguments about what rights are being stepped on.
It is precisely because of the actions of pirates that our liberties may be curtailed. Yet rather than complain about the pirates, people complain about the groups pursuing completely legal courses of action. It's like complaining about rape victims rather than the rapists when the police start stopping individuals at night.
Legal responsibility isn't what @home or any other ISP cares about. you can always count on the corporation to take the path of greatest profit. if they happen to be in the content and bandwidth businesses simultaneously, well you know the obvious choice.
But the Cable ISP without a vested interest in the content being pirated (arrrrrrrr... say like a pirate arrrrrrr) has to weigh what costs them more? the "Pirate" consuming 8000% more bandwidth than the average user by serving up 50 gigs of movies, or actually having to pay someone to write letters and police the network.
In terms of quality of service the latter is the better deal for bob and betty user, and a great reason to ignore the all that pesky personal-rights stuff. It is then convenient to consider that whole bit about the personal rights of bob and betty user with crappy speeds cause of 1337 j03 m00vie hax0r next door.
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
The cost of producing the CD, printing the inserts, the jewel case (which many are trying to eliminate), packaging, bulk boxing, and shipping to the music stores is probably not more than about $3 per unit on the large scale the top 1000 are done with. The artist gets no more than about $1. The store adds a markup which if a normal markup amounts to about $1.
I do see some CDs produced and sold for $5 or less, and these are not overstocks or clearances. So where does the other $10 for a $15 CD go? Obviously some of that is marketing as the top 1000 CDs from the top labels by the top artists are heavily marketed all the time. But how much can that really be? $10 per unit? I don't think so.
$8 per CD would be a reasonable price. Of course free market economics is supposed to allow the supplier to set the price where they believe people will still buy it. And they do at $15 per unit. So in that economic sense, $15 is a reasonable price if enough people are willing to pay that price for it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
These things are not cheap to produce, at least the good ones. If they can be legally copied and traded all over the net, it will happen, and there will be no payback of all the costs involved in producing it. A song is one thing, but a major production is something else entirely. If copyright is dumped, you might as well dump the entire film industry and all the movie theatres that play them. Then there wouldn't be anything to trade and the need for bandwidth would vanish, and ISPs would fold. Oh wait, they're folding anyway. Nevermind.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
There's a major difference - if I take your painting, you don't have it anymore - if I copy a file, we both have it.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
Bounty hunters? What's next, posses and commando operations? Maybe they'll glom onto a bank of DS-3s and start downloading major sources to death (Yah, buddy. You used a lot more bandwidth this month. You gotta come up with $93,000 or we gonna cut you off.)
Of course, somebody's going to pay for it all and that somebody is whoever buys CDs, movies, etc. Gotta love technology.
Pleeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase dont take away my morpheus, @home!!! I dont think I could surivive :)
Joseph?
If only we'd see @Home put this much effort into cracking down on people who leave "File and printer sharing" turned on, or who are stupid enough to use their service without a firewall, or who run open mail relays, or who........
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
This is an ironic arena of businesses fighting with each other. On one hand, we have . . . well the MPAA and RIAA whom I trust to care about my well-being as much as I'd trust Pauly Shore with nuclear weapons.
On the other, companies who make money selling access. I doubt they care much about my rights either.
However, what we do have is two different corporate intersts colliding, and as noted, if people don't like one service, they can go elsewhere. I can easily see companies using this as a sales pitch eventually - we support your rights and won't back down (please pay promptly).
Maybe we can use greed against greed.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Actually copying music illegally can cause change, as it indicates a substantial demand, but an unwillingness to pay the current price. the two most reasonable conclusions from this are that these consumers aren't prepared to pay at all, or that they're not prepared to pay quite so much. It's more than likely that record companies will experiment with the latter conclusion if illegal copying continues to expand.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
As long as access to the copyrighted files is password protected so others can't snarf them, I don't see why not. I don't see how the RIAA's goons could find out that is happening anyways, especially if you use encryption.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
<SARCASM>That's all due to everyone's favorite piece of legislation - the DMCA.</SARCASM> It specifically states that ISPs must maintain a contact person that copyright holders can report violations to, and when informed of a violation, they must take action or be held liable for contributory infringement. That action can start with warnings, then go on to suspensions and account terminations. They don't have any choice in the matter. :(
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
If ISPs were common carriers, like the telephone company, they would not be able to cancel your account except for a limited number of reasons, such as not paying your bill. They would also be obligated to provide service to everyone on a non-discriminatory basis.
ISPs are not common carriers, they can cancel your service for any or no reason. They can refuse to provide service for any or no reason.
This means that an ISP can cancel your account if someone complains that you are violating their intellectual property rights. It does not mean that they have a legal obligation to do so.
Go outside, do something. There's more to life than the computer. Most TV is shit any way, so you're not missing much.
As of July 23, SWBell Internet Services & Prodigy are dumping a bunch of newsgroups "after evaluating possible copyright infringement issues". They posted an FAQ about it, and the bottom line is they're no longer offering any of the newsgroups with sounds, mp3, cd.image, movies, multimedia, warez, or vcd in the title.
What's your damage, Heather?
There's a simple solution, if things don't go the way we want, we stop buying cd's.
Were a CD boycott performed, what, pray tell, do you think the response would be from the MPAA?
"Well, jeez, I guess we can't force people into buying CDs. I guess we should just relax on the whole file-sharing issue."
or,
"See!? This proves it! I said it would happen-- they're illegally Napstering instead of buying CDs! Let's shut 'em down."
- What are we fighting for here, exactly?
We are fighting for the right to share files. The content of those files is irrelevant, because in their efforts to stop sharing of copyrighted material, the MPAA/RIAA will step on our rights.Saying that the mere existence of a file-sharing network equals copyright infringement is tantamount to completely disregarding 'innocent until proven guilty'. Something that I, as a US citizen, hold dear.
I'm fine with the MPAA/RIAA trying to keep people from distributing their stuff without permission. But when they step into the realm of the legal, paying consumer, and make it hard for them to exercise their legal rights, they've crossed the line. When I pay money for a CD, I'd damn well better be able to rip it and archive it on my HD and a CD, so that I can put the original safely away.
Oh yeah, you can technically rip it, but you can't tell anyone how, or you have broken the DMCA.
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
FC Closer
That's exactly the point. File sharing (including copyrighted material) has been going on for years (or maybe noone has heard of IRC and FTP). So what makes these dedicated file-sharing networks different? The fact that they are indexed and searchable. That's all.
Pretty soon it will be illegal for me to access a password-protected FTP site on my own box to retrieve music that I own and want to listen to on the computer that I am sitting at.
Sure, the courses of action being used by the MPAA and RIAA are legal - but should they be? It seems that the DMCA might be unconstitutional, and isn't that what the media conglomerates are using to battle file-sharing? Pretty soon you won't be able to send any files to anybody because they might be illegal. That's what I'm worried about. Like I said, the content of the files being shared should be irrelevant to the operators of the various file-sharing networks. The MPAA/RIAA are going after the file-sharing networks instead of the people actually breaking the law, because it's easier. It's like making sex illegal because some people might rape others.
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
FC Closer
But, should that leave the liability on the service provider? Is the phone company liable if someone sets up a big drug deal over the phone? Is the post office liable if you send a bomb or other illegal material via their system? No. I don't see why file-sharing is any different. The fact remains that the MPAA/RIAA don't want you to have any ways to potentially violate copyright, which means to do that they have to trample our rights.
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
FC Closer
Not to disillusion anybody or anything, but I'm sure this is just a business decision. Compare the money they'd get from the labels (not that huge) to the cost of setting this up (probably pretty big).
I wish I could believe there were a more altruistic reason, but this seems like the more correct answer to me....
--
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life
Let the ISPs know what you think, where it counts. If you have an account with one of the ISPs participating in such behaviour, cancel it immediately. Of course, you must be sure to talk to a live human and make sure that they understand the exact reason you are cancelling your account. Do this even if you don't have an interest in sharing files. Continuing using that ISP means you agree to their terms and they have no reason to behave anyway different.
SSSShhhhh!!!! You fool, don't tell them!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Funny how the printable version contains clickable links and animated GIFs. I bet that would work great with a printer.
A stricter application of the law might be more wholesome in two ways:
a) people who violate copyrights, regardless of whether that is the GNU GPL or of some flick, should be prosecuted.
b) don't harass people by shutting down their connection. Go to court. There's a reason for having courts, you know.
This is only true if the content is on their servers. On customer's servers they are legally the same as the phone company, only providing the wire and the telephone or IP address.
First of all I have to congratulate Verizon for something, OUCH!
They're not standing up for a cause; they're just negotiating for a higher payoff.
Let me get this strait...Some people thing @Home actually does a lot of connection pulling and warnings? I have had 2 incidents with @home in the last 6 months
1) The first was an attempt by one of their users to hack into my computer. I had logs of him doing it, a confession via IRC, and other data. I call up @Home directly, and what do they say? They said "send a report to abuse@home.com." Ok, so I have one of their customers trying to gain access to my pc WHILE I WAS TALKING and they won't do jackl about it.
2) I tried reporting some person from IRC that was continually advertising kiddie porn. I traced his IP back to @Home. I sent IRC logs of everything to abuse@Home. They e-mail me back 5 days later saying that I need to provide the E-MAIL headers. This is after I already explained where the info came from. I sent that back to them explaining. They sent another e-mail saying the same ting which I responded to. That was in April and as far as I know, nothing happened cause its still happening.
So people expect that @Home's threat will ever pan out..yeah right!
Female Prison Rape in NY
It so clearly is not illegal! If we both sell our CDs to a second-hand shop, and then buy them back again, instead of making a direct swap, that wouldn't be illegal. So how is swapping illegal?
However, the record companies probably don't care about it very much, because the scale is considerably less severe than the grand-scale freeloading the napster cult took part in.
The "grand-scale freeloading" is where a typical user on a 56k modem shares out some files a few times and downloads some files a few times. It's not necessarily very grand-scale at the individual level with Naspter, either.
Female Prison Rape in NY
*Groan*. Right. That's like saying "it's good to see convenience store robbers get away all the time."
'Twould be better for a hundred convenience store robbers to get away than for even one of our freedoms to be infringed.
'Intellectual Properties' are uncontrollable in the wild. To base an economy on them is just stupid.
can I share it with myself, on another machine that is on another location legally? yes. file-sharing in itself is NOT illegal.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
"So when they suspend (or terminate) your service, how do they get the cable modem back? If it was me, I'd keep it, out of spite."
When they suspend your service for 30 days you keep your cable modem and they bill you for
the 30 days as well. My friend tried to return
his modem so he would not get billed during the 30 day suspendion. Adelphia said if he returned the modem he would have to pay a conection charge
to reconnect him.
We do not have any other broadband options in our area so he is stuck.
AdFuel
I just had a friend lose his internet service. He
downloaded "Bear Share" and got one song.
Neil Young's "Cinnimion Girl"
I am having trouble with the fact that he was
"punished" (suspended for 30 days) without a
trial, hearing or anything.
No one ever downloaded any mp3's from him. Seems
a little unconstutional to me...he has the
Neil Young CD.
AdFuel
I haven't done this in a long time, but I used to record radio broadcast to cassettes all the time. I didn't own the record then either. How is this different to downloading an MP3 I don't own the CD for? Bottomline is it isn't ANY different. Either way I end up with content I want and didn't pay for. Sorry RIAA, you can't control everything, although you get a A+ for effort in this area.
Does DMCA supersede all previous "fair use" laws?
--Scott 8-}
It isn't illegal. Just like recording a show with a VCR isn't illegal as long as you don't sell it or profit from it. It used to be called fair use.
--Scott 8-}
Everything you point out here (the CD-R piracy tax, copy-protected CDs, etc.) is quite intrusive and nasty. It probably should be banned as it really does interfere with fair use.
However, it has absolutely nothing to do with the crackdown on actual illegal activity, which is what this whole article and thread is about. The way to go about protecting your assets is to prosecute those who are doing illegal things with them.
Uh...riiight.
"What's that? You mean I CAN'T give away copies of movies and songs without the authors collecting any money? That's wrong? Oh, I'm sorry...I'll stop now."
For a moment there, just a moment, I thought ISPs had done something useful -- cracked down on filesharing built into OSes.
How many systems are compromised because of a shared "C:" drive in Windows? How many windows VBS worms which spread over NetBIOS? How many SunRPC attacks? And even LPD..
@Home did something useful when it started scanning for open NNTP servers, as well as SOCKS server. They also nicely block the "default" ports on BO an NetBus. Why can't they do something even better by blocking 111, 136-139, and 515 (incoming and outgoing)?
No, this article is just about targetting people who use the unlimited like it is unlimited, which pisses off the ISPs ("Of course we don't actually mean what we say.").
--
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I'm not so sure why ISPs should be pressured to monitor what we're doing at all. I think they have not right to suspend my account for trading files. If i'm breaking the law, the record companies can call the police and have me arrested. Its time ISPs gain common carrier status.
I can only hope that those evil forces are 100% robbed of their source of income via massive piracy. They must die, so that companies with better morals can take their place (if such exist).
Yes, it is robbing, but IMO it is more like the robbing of Robin Hood. Technically illegal, but not to be compared to convenience store robbers.
Is downloading music that you haven't paid for (like when you don't own the CD, or the right to posses the music) illegal? Yes. Is the same true for movies? Yes. Then why are so many people breaking the law? Because it's easy and CHEAP! To add to it, we know how inexpensive making CD's is, and we know what WE must pay for them. This is a demonstration that record companies have been greedy for a LONG time. I'm not saying they shouldn't make money, but the price gouging involved with CD's is insane! If CD's suddenly dropped in price by half, sales would SKYROCKET! They'd make more money off of me, because I'd actually buy the CD's that only have one good song on them, instead of only buying the 2-3 CD's per year that are worth it to me to buy. Until then, there's Radio and internet streaming radio stations. The record companies won't be seeing my money anytime soon.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
If your CD is damaged, you might not be able to get a good digital copy of the music, and you'll have to do an analog copy instead. An analog copy of a three-minute song takes three minutes. (It's possible that I was using bad ripping software when I made this observation.)
The shareholder is always right.
In case anyone forgot @Home is in merger talks with Warner Records via AT&T's merger talks with AOL-Time-Warner-CNN-Netscape-Amazon.
Seastead this.
The authorities have tried port blocking before in the history of the Internet to prevent sharing of objectionable data, and it utterly failed then, as it will fail now.
Though it will be interesting to see if the ISPs try to claim common carrier status as a protection, after avoiding it (and the regulations that come with that status) for so many years. I bet the TelCo associated ISPs will go for it (it's what they know), and the small-fry independent ISPs will fold under pressure from the MPAA and RIAA.
I wonder which way Starbuck's will go when their IEEE 802.11b Internet access networks are deployed. Will they live up to their Corporate Social Responsibility Policy and support free speech, fair use of copyright, and open Internet access?
I've been on about this. With a large, invitation-only encrypted "cloud" (It's not elitisim -- anyone who wants to can set one up.) you can extend the web of trust concept to make sure that no lawyer/spammer/advertiser/record company exec can ever get into your network. The unencrypted internet proper will become a commercialized slum with billboards every 10 feet. Any file sharing (legal or otherwise) will be encrypted out the ass and any in-between nodes (Like your ISP) will be relegated to the carrier-only status they deserve. I'm just rambling here, really. I like the idea though.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I don't know about FreeS/WAN, but setting up an encrypted PPP pipe is dead easy.
Of course, it's easy enough for law enforcement to get on the network the old fashioned way (Offer immunity/reduced sentence to someone you have a criminal violation on.) End-to-end encryption as well as point-to-point is necessary.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
>> Groan*. Right. That's like saying "it's good to see convenience store robbers get away all the time."
Hilary Rosen!!? I didn't know you posted on Slashdot!
I used to love those comics when I was a kid. Too bad I can't get them in the states (Kalle Anka)
Now I have to install Kazaa to see if Adelphia will suspend my account. If they do, I will promptly cancel my service and they can say 'goodbye' to the $113/mo. I have paid them for the last year and a half (cable + cable modem). It really is too bad since my connection speed is great, but Earthlink DSL is now available for my home line so I can only lose so much.
These kinds of messages really nicely bring accross the message that everyone in the Slashdot community is for pirating and illegally copying IP.
Yeah, CDs are too expensive, but copying music illegally isn't going to change that in a hurry
---
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
God damnit! You can fight them. We all can. How much does the average lawsuit cost before any penalties are charged?
/. readers are smarter than the average bear. (I just violated the DMCA there) just blab on about how copy protected CD's aren't really CDs because they don't conform to the redbook standards...
I can represent myself against a record company. I will get laughed at in court. I will lose, horrably. But in the meantime, I lose a few days of work (sick days) and the record companies lose a few grand to pay thier lawyers. If they don't send a good lawyer, I kick thier ass because we all know
Get a couple hundred of us doing that (are you willing to stand up for what you believe in?) and they are out millions of dollars. That's not much, but eventually someone will get it to trial and that will be a big kick in the pants to them too.
Keep it outside of a criminal case and make it a civil lawsuit of some kind.
Make sure retailers know that they are liable too, if they keep agreeing to sell the broken disks etc.
civil disobedience works if you hit them where it counts. No not the nutz, the bank.
sopwath
P.S. Autechre sucks. Have you heard of Plastikman?
Well, I'm sorry for the bad analogy. I don't really believe in analogies, because they're all detracting from the real issue. However, sometimes they do get the point across. Other times, people need the spoon though.
What I meant is that society is not benefited by bounty-hunters, because of all the possibilities of fraud, violence and abuse. That's why we have a police-force. They're properly trained, monitored and trusted to do their work properly. The recent debacle over rogue lawyers sending a $5,000 fee to the author of Killustrator without Adobe's knowledge, illustrates these problems in reality.
IOW: It's good for a society to separate government and corporations. Corporations should NOT enforce law, not even by legalese blackmailing.
I guess you'll see what I mean in time though.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
That's what we have police for. Or maybe you wouldn't mind if I followed you all day, took videos of you jaywalking and doing other minor stuff, then send you a blackmail letter demanding USD $2,000? After all, you are a criminal..
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Like many other customers receiving similar notices, Martin simply went elsewhere.
"I told them where they could stick their modem and cable equipment and proceeded to cancel my cable TV and modem accounts," Martin wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "They are a communications provider. They are not censors or a government agency! Adelphia will never get another penny from me and I hope others follow suit."
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
...that they have convient links to all of the major programs for file-sharing conveniently at the bottom of the story.
"In
Hi!
m l
Would it be foolish to suggest you link to the printable version of this story?
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-202-6674297.ht
This way we could avoid this MASSIVELY IRRITATING DAMN ADVERT in the MIDDLE OF THE &&%%/ SCREEN.
Ciao,
Klaus
---
"What, I need a *reason* for everything?" -- Calvin
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
There's a simple solution, if things don't go the way we want, we stop buying cd's. I'd like to think that we could get enough people together that a six month moratorium on cd buying could seriously affect sales (assumming that most people, like me, still buy cd's). I'd also like to think that we care enough about this issue to go without buying any cd's for a period of time.
Copyright is a bargain with the public, if we don't like the way things are handled, WE have the power to decide how they should be. Granted, nowadays in the US the government seems more out to protect businesses rather that the people, but we still have the ultimate say.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
What if there are no alternatives. In many places, there's only one choice for high-speed access. If you're in a town that has Adelphia as its sole cable provider and DSL is not available, then you have exactly two choices for broadband access: buy from the Adelphia monopoly or forget about it. Sure you can go back to dialup, but one really can't compare the two types of connections. And in many places, smaller dialup ISP's are folding or being bought up by national giants like Earthlink and AOL, so your dialup choice may be limited to one or two providers as well. Sure the free-market solution is all well and good in a densely populated area that provides at least one cable modem option and several DSL options for high-speed access, but this situation is not universally true.
At least Ma Bell was ordered by the federal government to serve everybody, since they monopolized the U.S. telephone network for decades. In the broadband market, these requirements don't exist yet, even though local and federal regulations often lead to a broadband monopoly. Now some ISP's are shutting off users' accounts for possible (but not always proven) copyright infringment. What if next year Adelphia says: "Multiplayer Quake games are sucking up too much bandwidth. But preventing users from playing multiplayer games, we'll save tremendously on bandwith costs, resulting in higher profits." In a competitive situation, this scenario would be prevented, as the affected users quickly change to another high-speed provider. But in a monopoly, consumers don't have much recourse when their account is terminated because of some nebulous "violation" of a TOS agreement.
In order for the market to work, the government needs to have universal access requirements for monopoly broadband providers and needs to work to eliminate regulatory and technical roadblocks that prevent broadband competition in many U.S. markets. Otherwise, broadband consumers will be increasingly asked to bend over and take it under the broadband provider's rule "My way or the highway."
First of all, not everyone on Slasdot is a hypocrite.
Second of all, are you going to take these people word for granted that the people using Napster or Bearshare or whatever is actually a violator? What if the song "shared" is only similarly titled to some other RIAA song? You trust Random "Boba Fett" Bounty Hunter now huh?
You can't even begin to list the various transgressions being done by the RIAA. Creating a whole inductry of bounty hunters - is that endorsed by right thinking Americans now? Using the threat of legal action against ISP when they have no case.
If you want to complain about the hypocrisy of the slashdot crowd, then I should like to complain that "two wrongs don't make a right".;
The DMCA took away that status from the ISPs. They are now considered co-infringers if the "copyrighted" material is not removed immediately.
Curious. The first users and abusers of this provision was the Church of Scientology, who uses it like a sledgehammer to shut down sites critical of its activities. For all the bluster, the USENET group alt.religion.scientology was years ahead of the rest of the geek nation when it came to the implications of the DMCA.
Using Gnutella servents is not a declaration of copyright-infringing activity, nor is hosting an mp3 named Beatles-Yesterday.mp3 declaring that you are trading it either. I don't know how Judge Patel could just flip her gavel and declare that it must be so. I thought that U.S. law required proof, or some such silly thing. Giving the benefit of the assumption to record companies just because they are rich and huge is obscene. And the copyright bounty hunters can go blow the goats they so richly deserve.
Eventually files moving over the net will be filtered based on content companies' demands. I can't think of any way to avoid the coming corporate censorship other than laser networks on rooftops with 802.11x connections to local networks. Even then, government, ISP and media company sniffer trucks will be trawling the streets, looking for trouble.
I foresee the day, analogous with today's forfeiture and mandatory prison sentence laws, when copyright infringement bounty hunting will be a major industry on a par with drug testing. Imagine all the money if you get a percentage of 500,000 dollar fines per each infraction? People will be dedicating part of their lifetime earnings to paying off enormous fines to media companies and the government. People, there's just too much money floating around this issue; they'r are going to go dog-wild on us if we don't keep an eye on the IP maniacs.
Incorrect. What the US courts said is basically "if you can't prove it's legal, we can't let you transfer it. And we hold you responsible for illegal things which are transfered." So lets apply that fairly, shall we? That means, first of all, the US Postal Service. Starting tomorrow, the USPS must, MUST ensure that all data and materials which traverse it's network are in no way shape or form illegal. That means they'll be examing everything you send through the mail, and rejecting (and reporting) things they don't like. Send postcards so you don't get nasty reminders of this policy, like opened and resealed envelopes. Next, telephone. All telephone calls will be monitored, and the circuit will be closed at the first mention of anything illegal. Next, courier services. UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc etc, will be required to search all parcels, and to inform the FBI if you attempt to send or recieve anything illegal in the US. That means if you try to send something to, say, Russia, and it isn't illegal in Russia, but is illegal in the States, you'll hear a knock knock knocking at the door. Need I go on? Fine. Cars will have monitoring devices installed. Go over the speed limit, turn without signalling, take a hand off the steering wheel, boom, car shuts down where it is, and a unit is dispatched to impound it and you. Passing into, or out of, any private building will require your person and articles to be searched, because the owners of said building would, under these laws, be responsible for anything you were found carrying or doing that is illegal. I'll leave further examples up to the reader.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Actually, under US law, in theory, I should be able to say "I warrent that the contents of these packages are legal" and short of obvious danger signs, that's all you should need. I might or might not agree with it, but it's that whole 'innocent until proven guilty' thing. And yes, Napster's been given a list of songs, and they've been told that if they can't guarentee 100 percent that those songs, or no portion thereof, will pass through the nap network, they can't go forth. In other words, I've given you a list of explosive compounds that you must not let through a checkpoint. But if somebody later smuggles some through in a huge shipment of spices, you're screwed.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
It's their own damn problems if they don't care to crack open a networking textbook and look for "Quality of Service." Where X is defined as the number of users at a given point of time, A is defined as any given member of X, B is defined as the amount of bandwith any given member of X is allocated, and Y is defined as the total available bandwith out of the private network into the public, then the relationship between X, Y, A and B can be expressed as: B(A) = Y/X
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Now, that would serously depend on one's income, now wouldn't it? I know this can be a hard concept to wrap your mind around, but some people in the world, and the U.S., don't clear 15$ in a month. Besides, the production costs don't justify that price, that is what makes it "too much".
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
Yeah, sure it is a pretty thin defense, but between being price-gouged for years and giving money to artists via Fairtunes I don't feel the need for much of a defense.
Oh, and I consider all my CD's as owned not just by me, but also by everyone jointly. I'll even send you one if you pay for processing and shipping. :)
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
There is a difference between monitoring traffic and doing something about what you monitor: i see drug dealers on the streets every day on my bike ride to work, but i don't do a damn thing about it. I saw some Code Red attempts on my boxes at work, and i called the WinNT guys to make sure they were doing something.
What would you have had the ISP's do to stop code red? prevent specific types of data from passing over a known port to the end user's machine? Isn't that what we want them NOT to do?
-f
-f
www.blackant.net
The Code-Red worm is a wake-up call. This exploit demonstrates clearly the need to keep machines up-to-date with security developments
We should assess our response to the attack -- How quickly and reliably can we disseminate news about the threat? How quickly can infected hosts be located, isolated, and repaired? In the case of the Code-Red worm, even windowsupdate.microsoft.com was infected, and many hosts were re-infected during attempts to patch them.
(the last line included in regards to a separate post in this thread).
and now back to mp3s -
talking about Code Red in the file sharing column made me think that it would be interesting to distribute files via http requests in a fashion similar to Code Red's exploit attempts via GET requests.
This hides sharing a file in some other protocol, steganographically transferring a file.
I couldn't find anything out there like that, so i did some quick coding and came up with:
stegweb, a method to use HTTP GET requests and your web logs to distribute files.
the code is sloppy, the idea is impractical, but oh well it was fun to code.
-f
-f
www.blackant.net
Useless? If you have the Service Providers on your side...
Those of us using phone modems: the ISP knows what number you're dialing in at, what username you're logining in with (for the initial modem connection). This info is kept in a db of some sort (flat file or actual db) or at least should be if the ISP wants to be able to troubleshoot any problems.
Those of us using cable modems(at least Comcast, my provider): the ISP knows what MAC address you're using and has a db with that MAC address and your name in it.
Those of us using the school's connection:
Is it in your dorm? They know what port jack you're plugged in to so that DHCP IP can line up nicely to 1-4 people, depeding on how many share the room.
Are you using the computers in a computer lab? chances are you had to log in to the computer at some point. that will be kept somewhere: Fri Jul 27 08:59:39 EDT 2001 frisco logged in from 192.168.0.1 or so.
Are you using computers in an open lab? Where i work, we can match up a couple db's to tell you what DHCP address lines up with what Mac address, then what computer that NIC card is in, then what room that computer is in. but the best: some of those labs have cameras in them, Security keeps tapes of what goes on. give us a time and a DHCP IP address, we can get you a print out what the person using the comptuer looks like. Not that that's ever happened, and every time something close to that happens (police wanting email, etc) i raise a big stink about it and always always make sure the college lawyer has gone over the paperwork for it a few times, and i'd do the same if it was just to stop someone trading mp3's - i didnt get that 160gig raid for nothing!
Sure, you need to select data from a variety of different db's in order to track down the exact user, but that's really just a matter of a few case's, select's, and join's. It may take 1 second to track down 1 user, so 100,000 will be 100,000 seconds, or almost 28 hours. I don't think the big players will mind waiting a day and a half.
There are some sources for internet access that will be more difficult to track, like that access in the library, or at a webcafe. but even a lot of those places have cameras set up. The best is taking your computer somewhere with a large network, like a university or a corporation, and either finding a live drop or a live wireless network - then it will be more difficult to track you. Don't forget to change your MAC address while you're doing it and have some TIGHT firewall rules to make it harder fro Them. But how many people are willing to go through the effort just to trade mp3's and avi's?
But that only goes for tracking someone you know is trading stuff. first you have to find out they are trading, and that's where some good steganographic and cryptographic techniques will come in handy for the actual transmission of files. Distributing lists of who has what is another matter - how to separate who we want to be able to see that we are trading illegal stuff from the feds?
-f
-f
www.blackant.net
http://www.waldherr.org/blocklist
even if its not been updated for a year or so...
"'Twould be better for a hundred convenience store robbers to get away than for even one of our freedoms to be infringed. "
The freedom to own a convenience store, for example?
[...]
With the huge size of existing back-catalogue music collections, all recognisable media (songs/movies) will be in it.
Yeah right... Do you have any idea how big this databese would have to be? You'll have to archive every CD or DVD (at least. Let's not even consider songs or movies from other sources) in it.
How many different CDs are there, even when you limit the database the major record labels? Do you put DVDs released in other countries in it?
And how can this system recognize if a single data packet matches any piece of music or video in the database, considering how many different ways it could be encoded?
OK folks, this is GOOD NEWS.
Believe it or not, we WANT this to onerous, we WANT this to be draconian.
We WANT this to be SO OBNOXIOUS that Joe Sixpak's representatives and senators get the message and do something about the DMCA.
The whole mess caused by the DMCA is only going to get better if it first gets worse - enough worse to rise to the consciousness of the general population - and their elected congressmen.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
> After all, the net was created hippies with no strong profit mentality.
And it's now being taken over by advertisers and media moguls, and the pioneers are being driven underground into things like FreeNet, and trying to figure out how to keep it hidden and unblocked.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I guess I didn't really address your point - sorry about that. The RIAA stuff really isn't about the DMCA - yet, and that's what I was griping about.
You're right, the law is being mightily broken. But let's take a look at some fundamentals behind it. Let's take a medium that is SOOOOOO cheap that it's the chosen mailing tool of AOL. No longer do we get our 3.5" disks in the mail from AOL, reformat them, and make real use. Now they send us CDs. I'm under the impression that a stamped mass-produced CD costs on the order of 5 or 10 cents. This product is placed into a jewel box of similar cost, and sold for $16. This markup might even exceed Microsoft! Don't forget that that price really isn't covering royalties, for the most part, either. Read "Courtney Love Does the Math" for information about how much (or little) most artists get from the sales of CDs. That $15.80 is almost entirely profit, marketing, advertising, retail, etc.
In most situations, we have competition that brings prices down. In the recorded music industry we have the RIAA. I presume it has and still does fulfilled good functions. (The RIAA curve compensation curve in old phono preamps, to name one.) But in an open and competitive market, I have no idea how a price-to-cost ratio like exists on CDs can exist without some sort of price-fixing. I know about 'perceived value' being used to justify higher prices than cassettes when the costs are much lower. But normally market prices 'adjust' these things, and here they just aren't.
IMHO, the piracy exists largely because people perceive that they are being ripped off. Maybe they shouldn't trade anyway, and be law abiding citizens. I would cite the videotape piracy when tapes were $80, compared to after it dropped down to $20. Whenever there is WIDESPREAD crime, it's worth a look at the law behind it. Right now we have music sharing and the War On Drugs. Back in the 1920s it was Prohibition.
You're right, the record companies are being wronged. But I suspect they're just as much in the wrong by maintaining artificially high prices by
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The publishing industry, be it text, music, or whatever, used to be in the business of making information available to the market.
That has changed, because the Internet is far more efficient at that.
The publishing industry is now in the business of manufacturing scarcity, controlling access to that information. This is a fundamental paradigm change. Their present business model depends on their controlling access to 'their' information, and no business likes to change business models.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I am America, In america(and elsewhere I presume) we have rights. We should not have any servoce turned off simply beause a company feels we might be violating a copywrite. Why is it wrong for me to listen to a piece of music I bought while sitting on a computer miles from the source playing the music? On my computer I have a mp3 file called laughter.mp3. Its a a recording of my children laughing. If some music group came out with a song called laughter, and I play My mp3 on the internet, should they be able to shut down my connection on a whim?
*Groan*. Right. That's like saying "it's good to see convenience store robbers get away all the time."
No, its like saying "you can arrest a man because he was in a convience store, therefore he might rob it"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Its all done bt title. So if I happened to have a legitiment file that turns out to be the same name as a copywritten work they shut me down.
They make no effort to prove that that distrabution is within the bounds of copywrite law. Perhaps I just have a snip of work I'm going to use that falls under fair use.
not to mention my IP could be spoofed. or an unauthorized person is using my system.
we must fight to make the accusor at least have real evidence that there is a crime going on before disrupting our lives.
what happens when power lines start getting used as part of the internet? If some company just says I'm violating copywrite with no evidence, can they have my power turned off?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."
One of the quickest and best ways to access mp3's, movies, warez and pr0n is through the @home news-servers. So, isnt it a bit hypocritical that @home is cracking down on their customers mp3 sharing, while back on their servers you can download over 100 albums, 3 iso's and 5 movies a day. and that is without access to the alt.bin.warez and alt.bin.cd-image newsgroups
Under the DMCA, ISP's can't stonewall -- once they recieve notice that copyright infringement is taking place on their network, the only way to make themselves less liable is to disconnect the circuit.
Personally, I think this becomes 'guilty before being proven innocent', and is yet another reason why the DMCA/NET acts are terribly constructed laws.
Bounty Hunters? Seems to me yet another typical American (read USofA-n) solution. But than again, I can just imagine how this would work. Me and my laptop are happily enjoying a nice vacation in France, and suddenly I find myself tied in the back of a van waiting for the next cargo flight to the USA --- just because I had forgotten to wipe my MP3's.... There must be a better way. There goes my karma...
This is THE fight. There are only two paths ahead: an internet where you can run a Gnutella or FreeNet-type node and an internet where you can't:
And the decision about whether you can run a FreeNet node is going to be made substantially by ISPs. Congress appears to be immobilized for now. So this is the crux of the fight for the soul of the internet.
I'm not opttimistic.
I hear a lot of people bashing the RIAA/MPAA (myself included), but I don't hear very much constructive criticism.
Fair enough. How about we pass some common sense legislation that fairly balances the needs of citizens against the needs copyright holder in order to ensure a continuing flowering of the arts while maintaining basic democratic princip... NNNNYAYAYAYAAAHHGGGHHH!!!! NO!! LET'S PUT ANTHRAX IN HILLARY ROSEN'S LUCKY CHARMS!!!
(Sorry, man, I really tried.)
Guys - there are a few misconceptions floating around here that probably need to be cleared up:
(1) Encryption will NOT help. All they need is your IP when you attempt to download the copyrighted material (thats why they have the bounty hunters).
(2) DHCP will NOT help. Every ISP I know of keeps extensive records of which user was on their network using which IP at which time. All they need is an IP Addy and a Date/Time stamp to go with it.
(3) What you are doing is ILLEGAL. There is no two ways about it. You whine that some of the other methods used to prevent this such as Copy Protected CDs are illegal - but YOU BROUGHT IT ON YOURSELVES. They didnt bring those out until you guys gave them a reason to.
(4) Most ISPs WILL NOT stand up for you in this case. Why should they? They are barely afloat as it is - do you REALLY THINk that they will spend millions of dollars defending your right to pirate copyrighted material in court? Duh - think again.
(5) Copyright != GPL. Thats right boys and girls. You guys seem to treat everything as if it was OPENSOURCE whether or not it truely is. GPL is a bastardization of Copyright and not indicative of the real world.
Thats all I have to say. I hope this clears a few things up.
"Flame at Will"
Gam
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
I'd love to get the FBI to arrest the MPAA & RIAA board members for reverse engineering or breaking the encryption
They won't do this. The (RI|MP)AA bought the DMCA to use against what they deem to be pirates, not against themselves. So even if they are violating the DMCA -- which, by breaking our encryption, they probably are -- I guarantee you will never see a single RIAA/MPAA board member arrested for a DMCA violation.
---
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
>I bet most /. readers would try to escape from restaurants without paying if they get the chance.
I bet that if you consider yourself "normal", most psychologists would say the same about you. "Normal" people don't give their money away that easily. A sense of ethics and physical barries stops "normal" people from doing illegal things.
But ethics, like trust, is a two way street. If you look at me like a criminal everyday, I'll be disheartened (piracy tax on blank media). If you come straight out and accuse me of being a criminal (Degrade your CDs so I can't even use it in my car), in the real world I have two choices: Fight it (sue you for slander) or be it (if you think I'm a criminal I may as well be one). Well, there's a third choice for the apathetic, ignore it.
The first choice (fight it) isn't viable against media companies. They are so big you won't take them down. The third choice just makes you their patsy. So that leaves you with a shortage of options.
Now, the question is, when was the last time the restaurant fed you a poison with your meal and said you had to pay them to receive the antidote? Wether or not you consider this is what the new "copy proof" CDs are like I'll let you know this: After talking to people who only touch a computer at work to write up word docos, even they are disgusted by that behaviour. In fact, many consider it so heinous that they think I'm lying. Of course, as a fellow slashdot reader, you know I'm not.
BTW: I'm from Canada, and I have to pay $0.21 piracy tax on every CD-R I buy. I therefore don't cosider myself a pirate if I burn music onto those discs -- It's already paid for. My morals are in the right place. I benefit musicians I care about more than the RIAA ever has -- I run an unpaid 2 hour radio show in the KW area showcasing hard to find electronic music (pretty much all of it is hard to find). I do more for the artists I play than the RIAA ever will... Unless you can point me to some recent RIAA adverts for "Mouse on Mars" or "Autechre".
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
>However, it has absolutely nothing to do with the crackdown on actual illegal activity, which is what this whole article and thread is about.
:-)
You are right, but really my post was meant as a reply to the comment just above mine in the thread. I don't like being whitewashed with the brush of piracy, yet I was told as a slashdotter and a techie I am:
- Full of bullshit
- Of low moral standards
- Willing to steal from restaurants
- Willing to steal anything I can get my hands on (therefore willing to steal from my own mother)
First of all, it's copyright violation, not stealing (I won't get into that), second of all all the above are a set of extreme untruths. I have never stolen anything, my moral standards are so high I even gave up my religion to stick with them (oh, that's another story I won't get into), and while I do occasionally bullshit people it's for fun and they usually get the joke.
I guess I fell for the troll. Oh well -- at least the troll kept the spelling mistakes to a minimum.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Ok, you make a good point, but the problem is people are lazy. Most people would think I'm nuts for working for a radio station for free, never mind suing someone under the DMCA...
Your idea is good, but good luck convincing more than 10 people to do it. Besides, as a student, even the $1000 I'd need to spend to fight a case myself would break me. I am considering, however, donating to the EFF.
And I'd still try to help, but as a Canadian I really can't do anything about the DMCA because it doesn't affect me directly (although indirectly it scares the pants off me). I understand that most countries(probably including mine) are willing to extradite people for the slightest DMCA offense, but then its too late.
Plus, what with the media companies being in the pockets of the entirity of North America you can expect them to try to consolidate all the lawsuits into one so they can fight it easier.
Ho Hum.
>P.S. Autechre sucks. Have you heard of Plastikman?
Yup. My show's pretty new so I haven't spun any of that yet (it's hard enough getting the music never mind finding out about artists -- I think I'll have to start sending out requests to the indie labels). Autechre was once pretty good (around 1995) but I agree, their latest stuff doesn't work just right.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
The only way I could see ISPs finding out who is actually distributing copyrighted data would be to spy on users and look through data manually to find copyright violations. Of course, this would be a violation of several telecommunications laws
...
Oh god ... hope I'm not giving them ideas!
Actually I think you will find many (most?) ISPs already monitor most of the traffic passing in/out of their networks: IDS (Intrusion Detection) systems.
These are looking for crack attempts, and must filter every packet of data in order to match it to the pattern of a sample of malicious data.
Now obviously degrees of scale are different here, but these type of systems could easily be checking each data packet for it's similarity to a copyrighted media file.
I don't know anything of your American laws, so I don't know if it's illegal to monitor your traffic to see if you are transmitting malicious data, but you see my point: if transmitting copyrighted material is also illegal, then it's not a large jump to make
Huh? 'Scuse my ignorance, but how did the Code-Red worm end up on a few hundred thousand machines, if the ISPs are monitoring traffic?
... it just doesn't recognise it.
A fair point: note I said the IDS box needs a database of malicious data to match traffic against, so an IDS system can be rendered useless if someone comes up with a new exploit
With the huge size of existing back-catalogue music collections, all recognisable media (songs/movies) will be in it. It might not catch a new record which just came out (for instance), but I'm pretty sure if they were insane enough to set up a system of this size, they would develop an easy way of distributing new updates to their copyrighted material database.
Those of us using phone modems: the ISP knows what number you're dialing in at, what username you're logining in with (for the initial modem connection).
Here in the UK (at least) you can actually block your service provider from forwarding your phone number. I tend to use this when using my modem with Demon Internet to stop the amount of data about me being logged.
However, some ISPs (free access ones: maybe Freeserve) actually refuse the modem connection in this case, and if you want to use their service you must reveal your number.
The answer is freedom and privacy. This is one (precident setting) instance of an ISP monitoring or exercising editorial control over what transpires on their system. Once they do that, they completely open the door to any and all demands for monitoring. For an extreme example, the NY Times could ask them to start screening for illegal copies of their articles (like when a /. poster posts an article as a comment because the site is no longer available or /.-ed.)
However, even though what is happening is only meant to enforce existing laws, once ISP's like this assume editorial control over content that crosses their lines they are free to sensor beyond traditional free speech laws. For example, if my company gets irritated at "John Doe1" because he (I) posted what they believe to be sensitive material, they don't have to go through the tiresome ritual of court papers - all they have to do is give the ISP a call and make it worth their while to have him (me) digitally silenced. And it's all quite legal since my ISP assumed editorial control over the content I posted.
You remember what Sony executive said? He promised to take "the battle" to every user's home and computer. As soon as digital TV becomes more commonplace I expect to see media corporations like Sony start lobbying for making the net access by open and unapproved (uncontrolled) hardware and software illegal.
After all, the net was created hippies with no strong profit mentality.
Not formally. There was a Webnoize article entitled ' OpenNap Server Operators Challenge Canadian Copyright Law ' (paid subscription required) where they interview Brian Robertson of CRIA.
My favorite quote of his in the article is:
Of course I challenge anyone to find his reference to Canadian law in their letter to us.
Matt
Because really, would you prefer to watch your movie in 640x480 after spending all evening first finding then downloading or would you prefer to shell out a couple bucks to see it on the big screen?
Even if you do watch it first on your computer, if the movie is good you're still going to either go see it or buy the DVD because you can't yet replace that experience.
Of course it's only a matter of time..
Matt
Recently the Canadian Recording Industry Association sent our ISP this ceases & desist letter. Fortunately our ISP called us up and told us that they wouldn't be shutting us down unless they received a court order. We then fired back this response to CRIA pointing out the absurdities of their letter to our ISP.
A good source of info on copyright in Canada is Michael Geist's website. He actually wrote an article entitled Napster north of the 49th parallel outlining the current copyright situation faced by file shares up here.
Matt.
Exactly right.
I think it's a great idea for "content owners" to hire bounty hunters that go after those infringing on their copyrights.
However, someone needs to educate these companies on what that really means, because right now they are merely discriminating against those running certain software.
Instead, they should be downloading everything offered by a particular site. Then nailing the site for trafficking in illegal copies instead of this "trafficking in circumvention" BS. Also, once a site (warez or P2P or whatever) has been "caught" in the act, they should get lessened fines if they co-operate by continuing to offer contraband, but then logging all those dirty downloaders. Once the downloaders of the copyrighted works are identified, they can then be individually prosecuted for fines or whatever. Obviously, sneaky downloaders will be tough to catch, so you need technically excellent bounty hunters and a system that double and triple checks to be sure the guilty really are that.
This would be a more "sane" war on copyright infringement, instead of the current war on creativity/freedom/competition we've got going.
Of course, much like the war on drugs, this will open up the system to abuses, like putting contraband on somebody's machine to get them in trouble. So, some care will need to be taken in the actual implementation thereof. Currently since it's impossible to get a warrant to search a person's hard-drive unless you're the FBI, I don't think there's much risk of lost freedoms with this scheme.
Now, this is starting to get really long, but I'd also like to point out the current "scheme"(DMCA) used to protect copyright mostly goes after competitors to the large conglomerates instead of going after the customers(infringers) themselves. You really think the RIAA wants to arrest that 16 year old warez site owner who buys 5 CD's a month, goes to tons of movies and generally spends all his/her disposable income on RIAA stuff?
Translation: They already know infringement is a great form of advertising.
I look to a future where copyright and fame were both largely 20th century phenomena. In the future, anyone will be able to get their face, music, writings almost anywhere by without having to have them "published". For me, Napster seemed like a way to force the music industry (and others) into some new novel revenue generating construct in which everyone benefited. But in reality, it would mean the demise of a very powerful industry, though not necessarily the artists involved. In some ways (though to a lesser extent) it reminded me of the Chinese Students protesting against their government. It really seemed like "There are so many of us that NOTHING will be able to stop us now." But alas, they were stopped and so were we.
I don't necessarily like this approach that they are taking, but at some point, they have to be able to get some legal recourse for stopping people from sharing copyrighted materials. Either that, or forget the whole copyright system and replace it with something else, but realistically, that's never going to happen. Just like Income Tax will never be replaced with a more fair Sales Tax and we'll never get rid of guns in the hands of criminals.
I hear a lot of people bashing the RIAA/MPAA (myself included), but I don't hear very much constructive criticism. At some point, they have to be able to protect their interests.
Should they go after individual users? Personally, I think they should, but the outcry of that would probably be far greater than than anything they are doing now.
It was easy to hide behind Napster, when tens of millions of people were using the service, but at this point, if you've got 100 DVD movies on your system (assuming you've got the space!), I'd be pretty frightened of prosecution. And there wouldn't be much you could do legally, if they wanted to throw the book at you.
I'm wearing my Copyleft DeCSS T-Shirt as I type this, and if we're ever going to be able to denounce the DVD CCA and MPAA for going after 2600.com, then we're going to have to bend somewhere. It's like people say "DeCSS was not made to copy DVDs, it was made to watch your DVDs on Linux... Hey, did you copy that DVD for me yet?" That type of attitude should stop, and people should be willing to admit that what they are doing (copying and distributing DVDs, CDs, etc.) is wrong, if not in a moral sense, then at least in a legal sense.
Break the law, pay the price. So far we've been relatively lucky because they've been going after the wrong people (Dmitry Sklyarov, Napster, 2600, etc.)
to ISPs being forced by various powerful third
parties (government, big business) to monitor
how we use the internet will be widespread
adoption of systems like Freenet. Let's hope they
can make it more friendly for end-users, because
at the moment their support mailing list is like
one of those "Tech Support Funnies" email
circulars...
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Why does Gnutella (Limewire, Bearshare, etc.) display the TCP/IP address anyway? Bearshare even puts little icons of the company with the IP address! I know the original Gnutella protocol was designed this way, but it seems like it could be redesigned to create an alias for each Gnutella node. Using an alias would make it harder (note: not impossible) for bounty hunters to find out what ISP is behind the one sharing without hindering current functionality.
Beware of Sleestak
How can they stop me from sharing files unless they stop me from transmitting and receiving information?
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
That's a very nice formula, but it's not the way business operates. Think about it. What would happen to airline tickets prices if they didn't overbook flights? If ISP's had to provide enough uplink bandwidth to serve all of their users running at full bore simultaneously, either we'd be paying through the nose, or they'd be broke.
It wouln't really have any effect the open nature of the protocol, means the bounty hunter could simply right a client that does nothing more than cature IP's. remember the Client needs to know your Ip so it connect to you to get the content your sharing, therefore they could code I client that just read IP's, not matter if the Bearshare, Limewire client hid them or not in its display.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
First of all I have to congratulate Verizon for something, OUCH! (OK ~Grude~ nice going Versizon, on resisting pressure)
Ok, on to the rant.... Why aren't all ISP's doing this. Why is it that they don't understand their legal role here is to do nothing and should remain that way. They are granted enhanced service provider status under the law in the US. They are just like the Phone company, they provide a line, but can legally take no responsibility for whats on that line. The second they take any responsibility for whats on the line they loose that status. Perhaps because Verizon is in the phone business, they understand this and resisting pressure because they know thier legal standing in this, but more companies should be following the example. It seems to me that perhaps AOL is also understanding of this, lests consider they own Winamp which for alot of the world is the only way they know how to play that MP3 they just downloaded.
So far my provider for my Cable modem has not caved as far as I know and shows no signs of doing so, of course I never check my mail their, or hardly ever read their web site so who knows, it might have just changed.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
We should be using something like FreeS/WAN to make secure connections between computers and trade files or as the site says "allow systems to connect through secure tunnels without prearrangement". It's no one's damn business what I send to anyone I'm working with. Right now FreeS/WAN is only available for Linux, but I'm sure it can be coaxed into working for Cygwin and other platforms.
That combined with some file encryption makes the systems secure from brain to brain. Why have the file encryption as well? Because the pipe encryption hides *what* you are doing with the encrypted file, but once it's on a machine it's exposed again. Of course that means the people wanting your info have to go to more extreme measures to get the info, but you can take the pain, right?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Remember, cable modems (the most popular form of consumer broadband) are shared bandwidth. If one user is hogging the pipe, other users experience degraded performance, and the ISP racks up complaints and loses customers. If a handful of their customers are taking up 75% of the available bandwidth by distributing MP3s all day long, it doesn't matter to the ISP if they themselves are liable or not. It's in their economic best interests to keep the pipe free for everyone's convenience.
I haven't seen anything mentioned about an Onion Protocol. I remember a while back there was some talk about a project to re-do all of the basic TCP/IP stuff with totally secure format. I wonder how slow that would be in comparison. Regardless, it sure beats not trading at all. It seems somewhat ludicrous to me to go after all of this with legal weapons, but I really don't see anyone doing things any other way, except possibly Microsoft, but they're also using business practices. I guess really the philosophy with this kind of thing that I like most is the DSS hacking. But in that case, it looks like the hackers have won. So I don't know how anyone can ever hope to keep control of semi-private data.
Information wants Coq
Kids with free (as in unfettered) access to porn may bring serious public scrutiny to gnutella, et al.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
Yeah, I find it outrageously funny that the same people who blatantly break the law are the ones who are the most vocal when they are put a stop to. I don't really see the whole issue as censorship, but what is cost effective. I seriously doubt that Excite@home really gives a rat's patoot whether or not you are downloading the news, the spice girls, or porno. What they want is to be able to get the most customers on the cheapest equipment with the least support so that they can bring in the largest profit margin. If that means siding with the RIAA and MPAA as an excuse for kicking off violators then so be it. The fact is, that when you get to the root of the situation there is math involved (as there is in many things):
CUSTOMERS = REVENUE
BANDWIDTH = COST
cost of total bandwidth + revenue from customers should equal a positive cash flow. --- "Duh!"
Thousands of people downloading anything large would get blocked. My college operates off of leased fiber. We recently blocked Napster, Gnutella, iMesh, and all of the other stuff. Why? Because there wasn't enough bandwidth left for students to do research. It isn't censorship, just cost effective.
By the way, if any of you are using Excite@Home in the first place, I think that you deserve the crap that they give you.
-dr. layyze f. tooth PhD
Actually, that's not true.
If a user of a common carrier service is using the service for illegal activities, that service can be disconnected. For example, look at post boxes. The postal service is a common carrier, but if you use a rented box to further illegal activity, then that box can be taken away.
By adding in the warning about copyright, ISPs are really just covering their butts. They're giving themselves the leeway to cut service off at their discretion, rather than forcing themselves to wait for a court order.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
....are cracking down too. About time.
Crackdown on file sharing? That's an understatement - look what's happened to Napster !!!
---------------------
---------------------
%46%55%43%4B !
$DAS_RECORD_OR_MOVIE_COMPANY will send out "bounty hunters" to insure that their hi-jacked^Wcopyrighted material is not used unless they are paid off. And if you don't have proof that you paid for the content of your HD or if you are simply sharing with friends (likened to listening to a CD in a car with your pal), then $DAS_RECORD_OR_MOVIE_COMPANY will silence and punish you by removing your 'net connection.
$DAS_RECORD_OR_MOVIE_COMPANY are now working on getting the authority to search your HD for content without a warrant through ISPs. This is simply an abuse and $DAS_RECORD_OR_MOVIE_COMPANY should have no right or proper authority to do so. By even concieving this frame of thought, IMHO,
makes $DAS_RECORD_OR_MOVIE_COMPANY even more criminal than all of the dirtbags selling pirated CDs on the street corner.
What's next? Are they going to break down your door in the middle of the night because you set up a share at home to listen to your CDs at work?
Sure, $DAS_RECORD_OR_MOVIE_COMPANY has the right to protect their property, but not at this grave expense. This has to be stopped.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
These independent companies operate automated systems that can troll file-swapping networks looking for their clients' work. Once they find it, it is a simple task to figure out the Internet address of the computer that is offering the content to the world
Yeah, if you're stupid. There's a reason a network can be called a "A Distributed Peer-to-Peer Anonymous Information Storage and Retrieval System". And this is it. Of course most geeks have known this for a long time now. Nothing to see here folks, move right along.
--
- censorship-resistant publishing systems, why they are important
- Freenet, vs. Publius
- Gnutella, vs. Publius
- HTTP, Publius implemented over protocol
- Publius, documents, deleting/updating
- Publius, implemented over HTTP
- Publius, vs. Freenet
- Publius, vs. Gnutella
- Publius, why it is important
- Publius URL, tamper-check mechanism
- tamper-check mechanism (Publius URL)
The most important part of all this is that Gnutella is not anonymous!And from GnutellaNews: "A big however, however. To speed things up, downloads are not anonymous. Well, we have to make compromises. But again, nobody's keeping logs, and nobody's trying to profile you. " Yeah. Right. Until "you" are a broadband user dealing in the filthy spread of Planet of the Apes clips.
(Unexpectedly, the quotation above is from under the big heading "Gnutella is Anonymous"--which refers to the non-centralized nature of the network as a whole -- the initial publisher of a piece is anonymous, but you always know who you're downloading it from--just not whether that's the first-ever download or anything.)
This CNN article includes: But of course the knife cuts both ways: sure the authorities can get the IP of those who are willing to upload you child pornography (because they're sharing it), but they can also get the IP of those who are willing to upload you the illegal Planet of the Apes movie clips.
Again, freenet, folks, freenet. Plus, as long as you have some legitimate content you're sharing, you can even tell your ISP -- nono, I need to be on the freenet network, because that's where I market my free art, and all the public domain etexts -- I believe that it's important make these public domain texts available, but you know their servers aren't that great.
What's the ISP going to say? "Oh, okay. As long as it's not illegal."
Bam. Each ISP lets its users be part of the network for wholesome reasons, and the network as a whole mysteriously has untraceable illegal content. Win-win situation, where the second win reads "horrible loss", and refers to the rights of copyright holders. But then again, even Jefferson says we shouldn't have copyright anyhow. (No, I haven't read these papers yet, but +5 mod'd trolls keep going on about this stuff, so I might as well throw it in.)
--
Would encrypted filesharing "solve" this problem? Encrypting the search & result strings, & user file lists. I'd love to get the FBI to arrest the MPAA & RIAA board members for reverse engineering or breaking the encryption. Or does something like this already exist? Or what about using PPTP? If anyone's interested in pursuing this idea and have some experience developing filesharing apps - let me know. ggalante@@digitalbulldozer.com (remove the 2nd @)
You think maybe they've thought of that? I doubt they're using addresses to check out Gnutella that resolve to *.copyright.net, ya' know.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
While @home, et al don't give two shakes about IP, they do care about the bandwidth they're selling. They can't oversubscribe their networks if everyone is using 128kbps or 384kbps upstream and 1Mbps or more downstream with Gnutella, Freenet, or other connections.
I wouldn't be surprised if the broadband ISP's start taking a proactive approach, sniffing users looking for file sharing programs, claiming that these violate their TOS, and start issuing warnings/terminations.
Think about it--if you're a cable/DSL provider, what kind of customers do you want? Those who read email and go ga-ga at how much faster web pages with blinking pop-ups load than on dialup, or those who are sucking down a half-gigabyte a day from your NNTP server, and another from each of a couple of "premimum" (i.e. warez, pr0n, mp3, moviez) news servers and have seven Gnutella connections up?
There's a symbiotic relationship between "rights holders" and broadband providers here. Expect things to get worse.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Thank God, we have Motion Picture Association of America to teach us what is right and what is wrong!
Yeah, so other companies are doing this too. For instance the other day, I was out of town and called my young daughter and read to her from her favorite book. After the first paragraph, on operator came on the line and asked me to please cease and desist with my balatant copyright violation. I told her to fuck off and that information wants to be free, but they cancelled my phone service and put my daughter in juvinile detention. Now I have two copies of the book, one here, and one at home, and I purchased a reading license. It feels so good to be legal, and not an evil pirate!
Then there was the time I was calling a friend from work, and my CD player was on, and the same thing happened. I got a letter from the RIAA, and they cancelled my employers phone service. Of course, I was fired and they took my CD. But I should've known better! Distributing copyrighted content is WRONG!
And the other day, I connected my stereo to my computer and played my favorite Metallica MP3s that I downloaded and didn't pay anybody for. After 4 seconds, the power went out. The next day I received a fedex telling me that "your electricity service is only licensed for legal purposes. failure to abide by these terms will result in the immediate termination of your account.".
So don't worry folks, this is nothing new. Now I just have to read the license terms on this new flashlight I bought: "Your new Mag-Lite(r) flashlight is licensed soley for the illlumination of material that you have the right view. In order to enforce these terms, we reserve the right to audit your flashlight use at any time and without prior notice."
"not only copyrighted music trading but also other media such as movies" so, movies arent copyrighted... why does the slashdot community keeps on going against the law, just because most of you use a "free" OS, doesn't mean you'll get your music and porn movies for free as well... don't give that shit about "file sharing", 99% of it is for warez, mp3, and porn stuff, and the rest I can't say for sure.
don't download anything you don't already own. Then when your ISP comes calling show them that you have the CD's and just want to be able to listen to them remotely.
then get shut off anyhow for running a server on excite@home...DOH!!!!
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
How do you expect to get the file if it's not going to your IP? Your ISP can figure out what you are doing anyway. Ip spoofing is not useful for two-way connections.
It is apparent that the RIAA has been trying to raise piracy, sharing music with your friends, and even just plain making a backup copy to the level of murder, rape, and bail jumping. As long as the record labels get more money than the artists themselves, there will be piracy and other forms of mild revolt by the consumer due to the percieved (and true!) offenses of greed by the labels.
There must be a backlash against this, and it is our job to educate the people. Piracy is wrong, but so is the thievery of the record labels. More money must go to the artists!
Is it censorship? Probably, but its not anything a court will do anything about. Freedom of expression is in the Constitution is to protect you from the government, not some business. You are protected from such businesses by your wallet and freedom to go elsewhere.
/. contant all out crying over the RIAA and MPAA and then turning around and telling us all the cool stuff out on DVD that we just gotta have :D
Fair? Getting kicked for downloading copyrighted material and not being given a trial (As someone whined below) - Yep, totally fair. Its their ISP, not yours, they can kick you for any rules violation, and never tell me that downloading a copyrighted material is a "gray" area.
The fact is you can do all of these things, just avoid these cooperative ISPs, maybe they will learn. Some of them are ignorant of the law and just believe what any high powered organization tells them, others are fearful of the costs of court cases because they are marginally afloat in the first place, knowing full well they could go under fighting a case they would win, just simply not outlast.
Still, whats hilarious is
Uh, the kettle is black guys...
One more time: You have a choice, no use in beating a dead horse, take your money to the companies that show more respect for your rights and maybe the rest will get the hint. The RIAA is going to win the battle through ignorance, so find the law and let your ISP in on it, eventually you might change their view... you might not, but not trying is worse than losing
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
*Groan*. Right. That's like saying "it's good to see convenience store robbers get away all the time."
Regardless of how you feel about MP3 trading, you're a fool if you think having your ISP arbitrarily censoring your Internet activity is a good idea.
There is nothing inherently illegal in peer-to-peer file sharing, in fact, it can be quite useful (and legal).
As an aside, I think ISPs who do restrict their users unnecessarily are opening themselves up to a certain risk. To do so implies responsibility on the ISP for it's users actions. It would take a lot more than a couple "cease and desists" before I would assume this liability.
--
This is just another MPAA RIAA big brother tactic to try to make themselves look useful and possibly make some more money. Blocking client services like Gnutella and iMesh is difficult on any level within an ISP, primarily because it's just data flowing on a port. You can start by blocking specific ports, but this will be a game of catch the rabbit while users switch services, protocols become more intelligent, etc. Any ISP who is at all concerned with efficiency will quickly abandon these efforts.
The only way I could see ISPs finding out who is actually distributing copyrighted data would be to spy on users and look through data manually to find copyright violations. Of course, this would be a violation of several telecommunications laws. Using a file sharing system isn't illegal, and unlike Napster, many of these networks do not have a central source to go after.
It's also interesting to note Napster's community was its breaking point, because it gave unique usernames which could be tracked. In Gnutella's case, there is no clear way to track people. Specific networks could be tracked and IP addresses are available, but with DHCP those are pretty useless. It also raises the familiar point of placing IP addresses to real names (1 is easy, but imagine 100,000).
Hopefully the futility of all this will be realized. Napster was easy to get rid of, but now do these companies think every ISP will bend to their wills and censor communications and spy on the very people who provide the money to run their network?
Perhaps one day we will need confirmation that what we send is not copyrighted nor offends or violates any law or rule by any company with enough money to buy the pressure rights.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
For example, we were just discussing at work how, about 8 or 9 years ago, the Uuniversity of Florida accidentaly left one of their FTP servers open. My coworker got in and downloaded programs all night long from them.
Was it illegal? Yep, sure was. And that's my question. Why does it make it more illegal for someone to download music and programs via high-speed connections rather than dial-up? I have friends that are dial-up only, and have a dedicated phone line, and let it download nearly 24 hours a day. Why don't we see dial-up connections being shut down as well? Do they simply feel they are not enough of a threat?
Yes, downloading programs and files and music that are copyrighted *and that you do not own* is illegal. But how far can the ISP's take it? As a previous poster said, technically they are providing just a line, and, as a communications provider, can they really regulate what goes over those lines? I mean, if I am using my phone line to read someone a copyrighted something so they can copy it, can my phone line be shut off? Or is that something totally different?
Random Musings
This is entirely legal and justifiable, and a situation I, for one, am more than happy to live with. Of course, if people keep scrambling and screaming and scheming to preserve their right to illegally distribute other peoples' copyrighted works to strangers, we are ever more likely to see the inevitable corporate takeover of the internet by mega-publishing/infrastructure monsters like AOL/Time-Warner/Roadrunner/AT&T/Amazon.com(okay I'm speculating) and the next thing you know, every packet you send gets sniffed by a supercomputer. "Oh my god, you're violating my civil rights!" You protest. "There are no civil rights within the constraints of a comercially owned communications infrastructure. Didn't you read the click-through agreement when you signed on?"
Of course we MUST fight tooth and nail to protect privacy and legal file-trading on the internet. Protesting legal actions to discourage copyright piracy is NOT the way to do this.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I may be wrong - if people who are only privately "sharing" their music with themselves - i.e. using the internet to access their own collection remotely - then their rights ARE being infringed and that must be fought. But that isn't what this article says. ANd this says nothing about your right to rip your CDs. As far as I can tell the RIAA isn't even trying to fight that legally - they'll just try to make it technologically impossible, which is their perogative. At THAT point we enter the realm of the DMCA, where our rights are certainly being violated and which needs to be constitutionally challenged in a big way.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
If any of you had a website that earned revenue based on traffic, and someone hacked it so that those hits didn't register with the advertisers, you'd howl bloody murder. There is no f-in difference here.
Everybody has a right to practice civil disobedience. The price is the potential of punishment. Getting your service yanked is a paltry punishment indeed. Get over it.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Illegal!? this is illegal. These labels are licensed by the public. We gave them the privelege of providing a service that we would reward with our hard earned money; they subverted our position to buy legislative influence and squelch all activity that might take a bite out of profits. And I'm supposed to abide by legislation that demands I continue to line their pockets!? At this point, vilifying music piracy is about as insulting as a prohibition law. When the RIAA sets out to step on the rights of all citizens, including the people it's comprised of (whether they can see past their wallets to realize it or not), it's going to get a collective pimp-slap -- because the RIAA is our bitch, and they need to be reminded of that.
I always find this clause strange. ISPs' status as common carriers is now fairly well established, but they still choose to be responsible for policing what their customers are doing, beyond the endpoint of their cable.
I can see why ISP's take down content hosted on hardware that they own (http/ftp servers), but by cutting the cable to individual customers, they are acknowleding that they are not common carriers. I can see a clear distinction between serving copyrighted content from their own hardware, and maintaining a bit of dumb cable connecting my home network (which I am responsible for) with the internet. I doubt that the RIAA sends threats to the outfits maintaining the cable coming out of China.
I'm at a loss to understand why ISP's don't have contracts which say "We are a common carrier, you are responsible for your own actions" (which you are), then when they receive a complaint, either completely stonewall (i.e. spend nothing on responding to) the complainer until a court order arrives or just pass on the customer info (responsible for your actions, remember?), then step out of the way and let the (forewarned) customer and the copyright owner slug it out.
By giving themselves power to cut cables over copyright violation, and by protecting their customers from prosecution by passing on warnings, aren't ISPs actually making themselves more liable? Very strange.
So, does anyone know of any (home, retail) ISP that does have a "we're a common carrier, do what you want" clause?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Michael Healy, the company's senior Internet abuse investigator stands in the back control area of his ship's bridge with a motley group of men and creatures. Harris Schwartz, director of network policy and standards for Excite@Home and two controllers stand at the front of the bridge and watch the group with scorn.
...there will be a substantial reward for the one who finds the file-swapping networks and their subscribers. You are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive. No disintegrations.
SCHWARTZ: Bounty hunters. We don't need that scum.
FIRST CONTROLLER: Yes, sir.
SCHWARTZ: Those file traders won't escape us.
A second controller interrupts.
SECOND CONTROLLER: Sir, we have a priority signal from the Star Destroyer MPAA.
The group standing before Healy is a bizarre array of galactic fortune hunters: There is Bossk, a slimy, tentacled monster with two huge, bloodshot eyes in a soft baggy face; Zuckuss and Dengar, two battle-scarred, mangy human types; IG-88, a battered, tarnished chrome war droid; and Boba Fett, a man in a weapon-covered armored space suit.
HEALY:
BOBA FETT: As you wish.
How can they filter between legal public domain works being shared, and copyrighted media piracy? Do they have a magic filter which can sense the difference?
Thanks for painting an accurate picture of the world we're heading towards.
By the way, since the BSA is allowed to conduct "audits" of their customers software, what is to stop the RIAA from barging into my basement with an army of lawyers and checking all of my drives and media for illegally copyrighted files?
(A: My AR15)
Just because a few of us can read write and do a little math, doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe
Couldn't agree more.
/. readers would try to escape from restaurants without paying if they get the chance.
Personally I think it's all just bullshit.
People don't want to pay for anything plain and simple. Or at least get away without paying where they have the possibility.
It comes down to low morality.
I bet most
It's not always the case that what one wants to buy is available for sale.
Why should you have the freedom to steal other peoples work?
Your freedom stop where another persons / organisations freedom starts (freedom to protect and sell your own work for example).
No, it isn't. Thats my point.
"I didn't own the record then either. How is this different to downloading an MP3 I don't own the CD for? "
It isn't and it's equally illegal.
"If it is really good, most people are going to go out and buy it anyways because they want the "good" version, not just some cheap copy recorded off of HBO"
I don't beleive that. I beleive there are huge revenue lost because of copying. Money that has to be compansated on the casettes they do sell=higher prices.
If I'm not remembering it wrong the anger on /. over the Napster shutdown was that people couldn't trade music that the author wanted to be free. Atleast that was that people said.
Those companies and bounty hunters only tracks down people who DO break the law, whats wrong with that?
Sue the shit out of them so that we who do have some morality on our body don't have to buy music/software with added pricetags to compensate for piracy.
It's kind of funny that the people stealing music is often the same people who praises open source software for ethical reasons. Makes one wonders if it really has anything to do with ethics and not the fact that it doesn't cost anything.
When I lived in my off campus apartment back in college one of the reasons I moved there was they had a high speed internet connection in every room. Well it was an Ethernet connection to a server that had a connection to the internet, and that server was used by the ISP not only as a router, but also to restrict certain ports and do other various things for what they called "security." In reality all they were doing was giving us an incomplete internet connection, it was their version of what we "needed." Unfortunately for the residents, this meant we had no Napster, no FTP, no Gnutella, and the list goes on. All we basically could do was browse the internet and email. They didn't even have the network set up so that residents could share files with each other (through network neighborhood.) I think it was totally wrong of them to do this. They didn't give out all of these specifications when they advertised the place and when we took a tour and asked questions, all we got was "high speed internet connection." I know that it's the businesses choice to provide whatever, but in this case we had no alternative, and also it's just wrong to control what people can and can't do with their network connection if they are paying for a network connection.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ now you know
Pardon me, but your argument seems to be :
Sharing with None -> Legal
Sharing with Milions -> Illegal
What about
Sharing with a few of my friends? eg: My Friend buys a copy of CD1. I buy a copy of CD2.
Cant we swap those? Especially , if i like just one song in CD2, do i have to go to the damn store to buy it? And if I can, how many friends do you believe I can share with, before becoming illegal?
Who watches the most music videos?
Who are the advertisers targeting?
Which segment of the populace define their social behaviour and identity the most through music, media and movies?
Who are most of the media's biggest investments(boybands, Britney, etc) targeted to?
Who has the disposable income?
Who can they best imprint their product on?
And finally, Whose net-savvy, rebellious file-trading practices could hurt the profit margin the most?
Hint: the answer lies in the subject line.
Now for my anecdotal contribution to the whole P2P vs. RIAA issue:
A number of weeks ago I went to the record store (first time in over a year, and it's because I could actaully AFFORD to, not because I pirated it all year). I had been listening to the Brand New Heavies and decided that I really liked them. I had known about them by name for a long time, but P2P allowed me to *listen* and decide if I liked them. They were not on the radio, not in the jukebox at the store, not at a club, but on the net. And I took myself down to the record shop and found the Brand New Heavies, and guess how much the CD (a compilation- 17 tracks) cost? $55.00 CDN! Add another 14% in sales tax and I'm out $62.70 CDN! For one friggin' CD! WTF!?! So I hummed and hawed and finally said fuck this and purchased 3 other cds for roughly the same amount of money. 3 times the fun, except the Brand New Heavies will not see my money anytime soon, and I'm out an album I really wanted to buy but could not justify the cost. I doubt they had anything to do with the pricetag, but it's sad because I like them alot, but the fuckin industry sharks just got in the way. They don't care though, I'm over 25 and not part of their profitable demographic.
JUST AS IN "DISCONNECTED", which is clear by itself...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
OK
Drug MArket is estimated 100 billions / year (in US$)
Music must be around 30 billions.
Drugs will be about 100 000 000 producers, 100 000 resellers and a few billions consumers.
Music must be about 1 000 000 producers,10 Majors, 10 000 000 outlets...
+ You don't get a bribe if you allow a Maria Carey CD to pass the toll (you SHOULD get one if you happen to STOP the CDs in 8)
So, how do you fight a 100 000 000 000 Market, when everybody can see a 35 000 000 000 market has almost Free Reign 8| ?
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
[[[ I want to be able to place copies of music and videos I own on my own devices. That's what's called "legal". Everybody else, or so it seems, wants to share the music and videos with a million other people on the internet that don't pay. That's what's called "illegal". ]]]
I agree to an extent... but (and I'm probably going to get slammed for using the phrase again) there are huge "grey areas" here.
For example... if I purchase a CD, and I want to be able to listen to that music in my car (which doesn't have a CD player), I'll make a tape of it. I don't see a problem with this at all - what do the record companies expect us to do, buy two copies just so we can listen in the car as well? But you can't use a similar argument to justify burning a copy of a CD - when would you be in a situation where you can play a CDR but you can't play a CD? This is why the issue of "unrippable" CDs really hasn't bothered me at all.
Also... what about cases where bands have themselves voluntarily released MP3s? For example, R.E.M. released one of the songs from their latest album for free download from their website. Is it "legal" if this MP3 appears on a file-sharing system? Probably not, if the corporations have their way - but what's the difference? There's no loss of revenue, because it was "officially" released for free anyway. This begs the question of why the song was released - probably the official line is that it allows people to hear part of the album to see if they like it enough to buy it or not, thus potentially prodding some sales that they might not have had otherwise. But isn't this what a significant portion of the Napster community did anyway? "try before you buy"? I know that's all I ever did, and my CD collection contains a number of titles it probably wouldn't have if I hadn't had the use of Napster.
The issue is obviously an important one, but before we all go on our corporation-bashing missions it's probably important that there are always at least two sets of "extremists" - in this case, the "lock it all up" corporations are one, and the "rip everything and share it with millions" group is another. Neither are the right way to go about resolving the issue.
- Chris.
To people crying "but copyright violations are illegal" all I can say is so were abortions, drinking, not facing your partner during intercourse, operating a CB radio, etc, etc. It's when our representitives pass st00pid laws that it becomes our duty not to abide by them. To do so would give them more power and make us less free. And honestly, getting your cable modem subscription canceled for flagrant disregard of copyright laws is a small price to pay.
As far as I'm concerned the media conglomerations have abused the original intention of copyrights, namely to give credit where credit is due. For the longest time media giants told us we were paying for the experience of the music/movie/what ever, which many years later we found to be complete BS. I can not take my musical experience of Toto, recorded on an 8-track, to the store and exchange it for the same experience on CD. They tied the experiece to the media and made phat l00t. Now in the digital age their collective panties are in a bunch over the fact that everyone discovered just how media independant the experience can be. And they haven't figured out how to pump us for nearly as much, and probably never will.
In my personal code of ethics, as long as I don't claim to be the creator of "Obladi Oblada", I won't have infringed on MICHAEL JACKSON's copyright no matter how many peeps suck the mp3 off my HD. Thank you, and good evening.
You know, I've been thinking about this as well. the 95 year limit is from an age where information moves more slowly. Considering the rate at which all things digital become obsolete, I think that there ought to be a totally revamped system of digital copyrighting. I'm thinking around the area of 5 years. After that it's all public domain.
friends don't let friends teleport drunk
of the ISPs that are trying to prevent us from downloading MP3s and Divx movies so we can prevent ourselves, our friends, and our family from using these. Power to the people.
----
Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
I agree. Look at the VCR. Look at how much the movie industry complained when it came out compared with the number of the complaints now. It's not different. If it is really good, most people are going to go out and buy it anyways because they want the "good" version, not just some cheap copy recorded off of HBO or the radio or recorded from a cassette, converted to an MP3 and burned to a CD. This is actually helping the media industry. People get to try before they buy(encouraging growth) without having to go to the store and put on those stupid earphones. They can more easily filter out fluff products and get the ones they actually want.
----
Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
Huge money loss is kind of a big word. Seriously. How many people would prefer to wait six months after the video release for something like Jurassic Park 3(which was a great movie) so they can buy a two dollar tape and record it off of HBO or if they want to spend 2.95, off of Pay-per-view and have to write your own labels that 2 years later, no one will be able to read. If it is a shitty movie that they are going to watch ortwice, this may be a good option and I used to do it all the time. If it is a great movie, I usually do this and later buy the VHS(don't have a DVD player yet but still looking) because it is the "good" version that I'll be able to keep for years. Same thing with music. People have to physically download the MP3s, burn them to CD, and write good labels on them so they can find them later. This takes work. It is easier to buy the CD. They hear shitty music in an MP3 format, they aren't going out and buying it. If they hear good music, they are more likely to buy it. I agree with you that the company is making less money because of this which causes them to jack up the prices to make more money which concurrently causes more copies to be pirated and cycles continue ... but it's not as bad as it sounds. It only takes away a small percentage of actual sales.
----
Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
*Groan*. Right. That's like saying "it's good to see convenience store robbers get away all the time."
What are we fighting for here, exactly? I want to be able to place copies of music and videos I own on my own devices. That's what's called "legal". Everybody else, or so it seems, wants to share the music and videos with a million other people on the internet that don't pay. That's what's called "illegal".
The hacker/techie/music pirates always seem to walk this fine line between legal and illegal, slipping over on each side from time to time. Yes, the argument that we should be allowed to keep copies of the same music in various parts of our house is a sound one (legal side). But no, we shouldn't be allowed to share it with a million people on the internet (illegal side).
Or better yet, block the port at which the user is sharing at by using firewalls. This will keep the customer's connection to the internet alive, but it will block a GNUtella client from working. At least until the user changes the active port.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
DDDaaaaaammm Look in Dogpile under 'free web access'
I Personally envision a day when a napster type of network will carry the full net PRIVATELY... no kids, commies, or capitalist FAQs allowed. Everything carried by point to point laser or donated cable links. AOL IS TOOO BIG join juno free web today.Call up AOL, tell them bye bye... those mama jumpers are gonna buy out mama bell yet. Canm you freakin' believe that.The next mama they jump could be yours!
If you want to share your MP3s and get away with it then you need to do two things.
First, make sure that you can claim fair use for all MP3s on your machine (ie, those that are copyrighted, make sure you have the CD, Tape, Vinyl etc).
Second, "accidentally" make the folder that contains them a (read-only) windows share. If you don't use a firewall the whole world will be able to download them whenever you're on-line, but you're not guilty of using a p2p file sharing system.
Disclaimer: This advice comes with no warranty. If your ass ends up in jail, I ain't responsible.
The months are just too short. I can count the number of days on one hand.
This will work through any proxy:
GNU HTTP TUNNEL
Unfortunately it does need a server on the outside, and is a pottential security problem since it goes through the firewall.
But at least there is very little chance they can filter it.
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Hey, check the parent up! Would be a very very interresting experiment.
Sorry, the original post was labeled "Slashdot.org ", "Listen up" was a reply to that one.
Check it out!
I'm not really following you here but what is the problem.
If you read the article it says that they scan for copyrighted work. If you don't do anything illegal they will not get to you. Simple as that.
There is a difference between this case (witch falls under fair use) and putting up stuff on Napster so houndreds of thousands of strangers can download it (not fair use).
Is freenet ready yet?
File sharing ala Napster and the like is going to go much the same way everything else does. ISP's and record companies will crack down on it at frist, but then the population will find a new way of doing things. It is all up to Darwin to figure out what works best.
The beauty of MP3's and Divx and so on is that you are getting something for nothing. If a book is printed and someone steals it, then the store loses money... not so with MP3's.
If you look at the sales of record companies you can see that MP3 trafficking, although higher than ever has not stopped them from making staggering profits.
I have bought maybe 10 CD's in my life. The reason is that they are just too expensive. If I hear one song I like from a band, I don't want to risk buying the CD because experience has taught me that I rarely like all or even most of the songs on the CD.
MP3's have changed all that. Now I can actually check out the songs and if I like them I will buy the CD. So in MY case, MP3's have actually made me by more CD's than before. It also gives obscure bands a better chance to be heard. I don't know why they pursue this anti piracy stuff with such vigour. I think that most of the 'problems' are grossly overstated or even imagined.
PLus just imagine if you could buy MP3's on CD's. I would for sure buy a CD with all the songs by a band (and I mean multi albums). I think that it would be far more cost effective to forget about all this prosecution stuff and do some smart business. Drop CD prices to 5 dollars a CD. I would actually start buying even regular old CD's for that price. Same with DVD's.
The advent of digital media brings with it it's own new problems to the industry but it also brings tons of new opportunities. The Movie industry and the Music industry isn't helping anyone with these sorts of crackdowns.
Why prevent the spread of digital media without copyright? Just change the approach. Instead of crushing people who trade MP3's, just sell better quality ones. I wouldn't bother looking for MP3's and finding ones that are poorly recorded or are missing the last 20 seconds or something if I could buy them on CD's from the record label. And as if the Crappily encoded Divx I download off the Net is going to keep my dollars from flowing into the coffers of the movie makers, quite the contrary! If I download a cool movie off the net, then I will want to go see it on the big screen. I might not make that risk other wise cuz movies are freaking expensive too.
I think the bottom line is that the advent of digital media means more money for everyone in the industry. Stopped worrying about trying to stem the tide and go with the flow.
Okay, heres what I think we should do. /. donated a mere $5-$10 MAYBE we could buy our own /. island. Start a whole new country, and make our own laws!! BWAHAHAHA *TAKE THAT EVIL CORPERATIONS*
Everyone who posts on Slashdot, we are somewhat of a community right? If everyone at
:O\
Seriously there isn't much we as end users (most of us are right?) can do other than keep beating these companies at their own game. Eventually they'll realize they just can't win. After one file sharing program goes down, 3 more will take its place.
Someone suggested encryption earlier, that maybe a good idea. . .
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While this would cause undue processor load on routers today, give Moore's law a few more doublings, and I'm sure it's quite feasible.
This would deprive the 'net of anonymity, since few would be willing to take the risk of stripping the headers off a packet, because it would have to be signed by someone, and who would want to take responsibility for unknown data passing through them?
I fear it's become a race between regulators figuring out how to regulate the net and quantum computing rendering all known authentication methods insecure. And for the first time in my life, I'm rooting for the quantum computers.
If internet service providers stop allowing their users to participate in legal, reasonable filesharing, its not hard to imagine the people engaging in those activities (and "other activities") would simply take their business elsewhere, and those fascist ISPs will have to keep afloat with the fees payed by the occasional email users and web browsers.
I don't know if anyone has suggested this yet, but this type of pressure is going to easly convert people to FREENET because there is no way for any snoopers to determine what files you are transfering. The link you needto get started is: http://freenet.sourceforge.net