Pardon, Is This Your File?

Teknogeek writes "The BSA says piracy is thriving. At least, according to this article. Note one interesting statistic: '...the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download. And 12 percent admitted to pirating software.' How much do you want to bet that 45 percent gap is freeware and/or open source?" On a similar note, an Anonymous Coward writes: "MIT Technology Review reports on the process of scanning the entire internet for digital signatures matching copyrighted work (watermarking not required), and automatically emailing threats to the offenders and their ISPs."

Comments

the problem

[oni]

MIT Technology Review reports on the process of scanning the entire internet for digital signatures matching copyrighted work (watermarking not required), and automatically emailing threats to the offenders and their ISPs

The problem with this and all automated law enforcement schemes, be they traffic cameras or facial recognition, is that they create a substantial assumption of guilt that is almost impossible to refute. "The computer says you're guilty, so you must be"

People find it hard to believe a system that is actually catching lawbreakers can make a mistake, until the mistake lands *them* in trouble.

Re:the problem

[meta-monkey]

When it comes to getting you botted off your ISP, the constitution doesn't really come into play. If they send enough threatening letters to your ISP, your ISP can just drop you for fear of being sued. Read your service agreement with your ISP sometime. They say in there that you can't do anything illegal with their service, and they reserve the right to can you at any time. When the RIAA is threatening your ISP with lawsuits valid or not, marching down to their office waving a copy of the fifth (and maybe sixth) amendment(s) probably won't help you get your service turned back on.

Re:the problem

[cybermage]

The problem with this and all automated law enforcement schemes, be they traffic cameras or facial recognition, is that they create a substantial assumption of guilt that is almost impossible to refute. "The computer says you're guilty, so you must be"

Of course this means that it could be bypassing a persons presumption of innocence. I wonder if this could be constitutional grounds from throwing such evidence out?

Well, to answer your question, let's dispense with the premise above. The only thing these automated things can do is substantiate Probable Cause, which is the standard used by law enforcement to make arrests, request search warrants, etc. In some circumstances, for example, traffic violations, Probable Cause almost inevitably translates into guilt. If a cop clocks you going 80mph and hands you a citation for it. There's a very good chance you'll be found guilty by a judge, if you let it get that far. However, that doesn't mean Probable Cause equals guilt. The evidence in a traffic violation is usually enough to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt: The officer testifies he was tracking your vehicle, the officer testifies that the radar gun said 80mph; the officer testifies that radar gun was in good working order; and based on license surrendered to the officer at the scene, you were driving the car. Not a lot of room for reasonable doubt there.

Using a computer to analyze facts and come to a conclusion of Probable Cause is perfectly fine. The only thing that can then be used in court is the facts from which it drew the conclusion. If you're mailed a ticket from a traffic camera, the facts are a) the light was red, and b) there's a picture of you running the light. The software correlates these facts and sends a citation based on Probable Cause.

Probable Cause does not equate to guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That's a decision for humans to make; and since none of us have computers for peers, that's how it will stay.

Re:the problem

[foniksonik]

Tom Cruise will be showing up at your door soon with a warrant for your arrest, stating that you were thinking about thinking about planning to kill some one who just cut you off on the freeway in some near future incident.

You are guilty of course... I mean of thinking that is.

Since when does copyright imply a contract?

[pongo000]

I'm a bit confused here...two different sources quoted in the /. article seem to indicate that copyright automatically implies licensing. Has there been some change in the copyright law in this regard? A copyright, under US Law, is automatic: The creator of the work is automatically granted the copyright. This post is copyrighted by me, and under the law I'm not required to note that anywhere (although doing so will make it easier for others to recognize the copyrighted nature of my work). According to BSA and MIT, the mere existence of this copyrighted work (my post) automatically implies a license between myself and anyone who chooses to view, cache, or copy this post. How have we allowed the notion of copyright to become so twisted?

Re:Since when does copyright imply a contract?

[Jordy]

More importantly, all software except for that which is released to the public domain is copyrighted, including things like the Linux kernel. Just because something is under copyright doesn't make it commercial.

In a study of 1,026 Web users released Wednesday, the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download.

This could very well mean that people are downloading shareware, free software or otherwise and simply decided not to pay for it.

Well, in Fairness

[Stephen VanDahm]

Confessions of a Reformed W4r3z D00d:

In my MS Windows days every single piece of software I used was pirated. Windows 98, Office, Photoshop, the works. Now that I'm 100% Unix, I still get all my software for free, but legally now. I know that some of you never pirate software and MP3's, but you've got to admit that you know a whole slew of folks that do.

I don't think anyone contests that piracy exists, but even the existence of rampant piracy doesn't prove that software companies lose money due to piracy. Would I have bought a copy of Photoshop had I not been able to get it for free? Hell no! Same with Office 97 -- I wouldn't have paid hundreds of dollars for something when Lotus SmartSuite came free with my computer and worked just fine. The connection between unauthorized use of w4r3z and lost income is really hard to establish.

Steve

Wanna Bet?

[phyxeld]

How much do you want to bet that 45 percent gap is freeware and/or open source?

How much do you want to bet that a study about software piracy conducted by the BSA is about as unbiased as a study about communism conducted by China?

Doing anything with these numbers is silly, we all know it's just a bunch of bullshit.

Re:Article Says:

[br0ck]

hundreds of thousands of jobs...

So the BSA is claiming that 5-10% of the 3 million unemployed people in the US lost their jobs to piracy. Does anyone know what these numbers are based on? I guess all that success that the RIAA is having hasn't helped after all.

The other 43% are lying

[andrel]

57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download.

Almost everything on the web is copyrighted. When you click on a link your browser downloads it in order to display it to you. 100% of web surfers never or seldom pay for the copyrighted web pages they read.

(There are a few specialty markets, e.g. academic journals, where copyrighted web content is available by subscription only. But most of the web is gratis to all.)

Broken statistics

[ivan256]

Practically everying I download is copyrighted, including the slashdot page I'm typing this into. Most of it is freely available. Copyright doesn't imply that payment is necissary. It's unfortunate that the people with the most money available to buy laws with have the narrowest view as to how the existing laws work.

Fuck Yeah I'm a Pirate

[Monkelectric]

my peg leg is bigger then yours, my parrot knows twice as many songs as yours (he learned them from mp3s), and *my* eye patch is jewel encrusted.

Please don't use the world pirate as a noun or a verb to describe copying bits. Seriously -- when you use this bullshit terminology -- "they" have already won the first battle.

In the last few years various entities have *really* learned to use the language against us, we drive "pre-owned cars", we "pirate" music, we get blown up by "suicide bombers" (although some news stations are now calling them "homicide bombers"). We don't goto war we have "operations" ... I could think of a million others

When someone wants to call a thing something i'ts not -- they are trying to color your perception

Organized IP Sharing: the American Way

[rjamestaylor]

I spent the whole day downloading and consumming copyrighted material and didn't feel the least bit guilty. As a matter of fact the facility I used to do this non-buying consumption provided the tools and an organized database for me to pratice my skill at intellectual property consumption. The facility is not afraid of the police, infact it is located next door to the police station and the municipal court system--and they use this facility, too.

Yes, I'm referring to using the library to consume written (and audio-visual) works for free, without paying a dime. Maybe you've heard of this, the library? It was brought to our culture by Benjamin Franklin, publisher and promoter of the patenting concept which gave rise to the notion of intellectual property.

Infact, there is nothing discongruous between a patent or copyright and a library where such works are consumed freely by many people. Sharing a work wasn't the crime--misattributing someone else's work as one's own was the offense. But I digress.

Where is the concept of the library of software? If my local library began offering donated titles on a check-out basis, would not Microsoft, through its front called the BSA, demand it to cease and desist?

Today I spent the day at a library and at a Barnes and Nobles reading technical books on a subject I am not familar with, trying to (1) become familar with the subject matter and (2) to find good references that I would then purchase for my own collections.

If the BSA went after published works as well as software, I would have had to purchase 30 books on Java, XML, RMI, XML-RPC, RSS, EJB, etc., to accomplish what I did today. It wouldn't have happened.

Actually, I do the same with software. I'll borrow a friend's copy or use LimeWare, et al, to find a working copy of a program I want to evaluate (unless they have a true trial version to use; Office X preview was not a true trial version--it didn't work just like the real thing). Once I try it I'll make a decision: buy it or delete it. I don't continue to use it unless I buy it, because I want the updates and other goodies--and if I like it I don't mind paying for it. Just like my book scouring at the library/bookstore.

I propose that we establish software libraries--donated purchased software licenses that can be checked out (for evaluation purposes and short-term use). I propose that these be mandated by law to accompany the ever stricter copyright/patent laws so that the "intellectual" benefit to society of Intellectual Property not be lost ensuring the "property" benefit to private concerns.

Free software, on the other hand, falls into the library/copyright paradigm perfectly. Freshmeat, SourceForge, Savanaugh (sp? sheesh), are today's libraries for software. And it is Microsoft, not the FSF, that was fined for piracy--passing off the work of another as one's own. BSA and Microsoft: against casual sharing (like a library) and not respecting the copyright law. How un-American!