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MPAA Goes After Its Customers
EyesWideOpen writes "The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is issuing 'takedown' notices to ISP's to alert them that customers are using their internet service to transmit or post copyrighted movies. The ISP's in turn send a letter to the customers threatening to disable their internet connection unless the offending material is removed. The MPAA is using software that 'cruises file-swapping networks like Gnutella to find copyrighted materials, hunts down the IP address of the poster, then discovers which Internet service provider is being used.'"
Nope, it's not an invasion of privacy. You are using a publically accessable program to break the law (whether I see it this way or not is not the point).
The MPAA didn't come to your house and serve you w/a fine, warrant, etc. They called your ISP, told them you did X and asked them to stop you.
The ISPs usually have a TOS agreement that you agreed to when you started the service. By downloading this shit, you broke that TOS. The ISP has the right at that point to stop you from breaking those TOSs.
It's not invasion of privacy until they actually arrest you for doing it. That would be crossing the line.
Before submitting a song to AudioGalaxy, a user has to 'appropriately identify' themselves. Once a user is identified, they can submit songs to the AudioGalaxy universe to be authenticated for distribution.
When an identified user submits a song for use, the song is fingerprinted, and identified as 'good'. A properly identified song is the responsibility of it's submitter. AudioGalaxy is simply a tranmission medium. If a copyright holder feels that their song is improperly submitted, then they can go to the person responsible for the song for the 'publishing' of it. If a user is identified as consistently submitting unauthorized copyright material, then their entire set of authentications can be revoked.
user authentication
Users can be authenticated by any of a set of means -- eg:
- A credit card authorization (should appear on credit card summaries as something obvious like "ID verification audogalaxy-id.com" with the domain (and www.domain) pointing to a page that precisely describs what the ID was for and about and what the associated person would be responsible for [[in case the ID was the result of a credit card theft]]).
- Thawte (www.thawte.com) allows all sorts of ways to authenticate the identify a person -- including their 'web of trust' system which is free, and various paid methods.
- Persons who don't have access to (or don't want to use) other methods, could mail in a notarized copy of personal ID,
- Pick your favorite other method of verification.
Once a user is verified, they would be issued an SSL certificate that would allow them to submit songs (automatedly) for authentication.SSL certificates allow for repudiation, so if someone's ID was used inappropriately, they would be able to issue repudiation.. It should be possible to issue repudiation starting from a specific date (when the certificate was compromised), generally (e.g. if the identity was issued improperly), or even for specific songs (if a publishing authorization turns out to have been mistaken, or the publisher has second thoughts.).
Sharing would then be checked for authentication of a song, rather than a record company claim (after the fact) of copyright infringement. If a record company claims copyright on a song, they would identify it by fingerprint (or a fingerprint summary) then DMCA procedures for notifying the 'owner' of the impugned song would follow.
The point here is that the users are then explicitly responsible for the songs that they post -- combining this with the fact that the RIAA is now proving themselves capable of going after the individual violators, this means that they should have a much harder time going after distribution services like AudioGalaxy for actions that individual customers are really responsible for. (and able to be held responsible for)
On the other hand, the RIAA's high-handed tactics may backfire on them, and provide a real boost to the indie music industry.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
There is going to come a moment when the people who get rich off restricting availability of readily copyable content go after Usenet.
If it becomes impossible to post arbitrary content to Usenet, I believe a line will be crossed.
It is already the case that the law, especially in the US, is tilted too far away from the consumer and into the hands of copyright holders who figure that by so perverting the system, they can take shortcuts to profit like DVD region coding that spit in the face of their customers.
As the parasitical feeding frenzy between media owners and our representatives - who fear the disapproval of those media - goes on, at some point there will be a flashover where we realize just how screwed we are.
Remember these prophetic utterances: Usenet is the tiber, the last stand of liberty.
It's called "probable cause". If a cop stops you for a traffic violation and sees a fat sack labeled "COCAINE" in your back seat, he has probable cause to search your car. This has been stretched quite far, for instance, having a locked gate on one's yard has been construed as probable cause for police to go in and look for marijuana plants. ('Cause if you weren't hiding something, why would you lock your gate?)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I've spoken to a number of people who seem to have no qualms about downloading illegal material that someone else has shared -- their view: "Nobody's gonna catch me anyways, so why should I bother obeying an unenforceable law?" Every single person that I have spoken to who does this is FULLY aware of its illegal nature, but don't give a damn because they believe that unless some self-righteous bastard such as myself draws attention to their activities, they'll never get caught -- and even if I did say something to someone, it'd be my word against theirs. Stalemate -- no point in pushing the point any further. But I have yet to find a single person that thinks it's "grey"... Everybody knows it's wrong, but they just don't care.
It is this attitude of feeling untouchable, I believe, that is the cause of the degree of piracy we see today. Going after the people who illegally share material might do a lot to make it inconvenient enough for such people to stop doing what they are doing, but until we can change the underlying attitude, we won't have really done anything to solve the problem -- only hidden it from public view.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
My friend who works at the Medical Sciences building of a major university got a call from the U's IT department, who in turn got a call from the U's lawyers, who in turn got a call from the good ol' MPAA. Apparently someone in the building was sharing movies illegally (is there really any other way?). Not sure what the repercussions are yet, since this happened 3 days ago. My friend feels kinda bad about it, seeing as he was the one who suggested installing Kazaa Lite.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
It's very easy to eliminate false positives. You do a search on the P2P network for songs whose copyright you own. Then you download that song, and check that it is "yours". Whatever IP address you made the TCP connection to is breaking the law.
As an efficiency step, you can save the checksums of the verified songs which are yours.
If a landlord provides internet service and someone misuses it, does the landlord get punished for trying to provide a service? What if one of your teenagers has a friend over for the afternoon and the MPAA comes a knocking. Everyone denies knowledge. Shall we prosecute you?