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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.'"
My first reaction is "so? Sounds fair". I mean, it's going at the source of pirating and illegal sharing, not a problem.
The article raised the issue of false positives. It had this chilling bit on it:
"Of all the letters we have sent out, we only had 2 other people who corresponded back who said we were mistaken," Jacobsen said. "And we didn't think we were."
Oh, wait-- the folks doing the automated search get to decide whether its infringement. This is kinda backwards.
I mean, someone thinks you stole a coke from 7-11, the cops come and listen and maybe a judge makes a verdict-- not the 7-11 clerk.
But here, the person making the allegation gets to decide if it's true or not-- and when has any person ever been really psyched to say "Oh, wait, sorry, I was totally wrong, wasted your time, and opened myself up to legal risk by making a false accusation."
So, neat idea, but the implementation needs some better due process.
A.
that title is really stupid. Sorry, but if you went into Blockbuster and "lifted" titles you too would be being chased.
Your no longer a customer if your not paying for the content.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.
wow, quite a knee-jerk rant you have there.
First of all, it's not "illegal search" if you HAVE THE FILES OPEN FOR SHARING TO BEGIN WITH. If you and I were both on KaZaA and you had some Simpsons episodes, I searched for that and found them on your computer BECAUSE YOU HAD THEM AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC, how is that an "invasion of privacy?" You are making this out to be that they have some crawler that checks random IP's and does a full HD scan. THAT would be illegal.
Face the facts, YOU ARE PIRATING ILLEGAL COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. However way you determine to package that up for yourself is your business, but you're still doing it. The MPAA is within it's right to come after you if you blatantly leave it lying around for anyone to find.
You're only a customer if you pay for a product, or have a legal license to use the product free of charge. I.e. Windows XP NFR copies...you're a customer even though you didn't pay for it.
People who are involved in trading music/movies on the Internet are, for the most point in time, either fully aware that it is copyright infringement (I hesitate to say stealing because I don't really believe it is, but it is copyright infringement) or are vaguely aware that there's something "grey" about it.
It's within the (RI/MP)AA's right to go after the individuals who are responsible for copyright violations, which they are doing--rather than try to increase prices on movies, institute DRM, etc. If a large-scale sharing user knows that if he gets caught, he'll have his bandwidth taken away, that'll be a decent deterrant. Similar to the Windows XP preview editions and Microsoft IRC spiders-anyone running Windows XP and an fserv at the same time was given a nice little message, courtesy NET SEND, warning them not to share software illegally. (I personally know two people this happened to.)
Besides, the gnutella network isn't all it's talked up to be, anyway. I run a very fast DSL connection (1536/512 up/down) but STILL can't maintain more than 3 Gnutella network connections or pull more than 2kb/sec. I get transfers on IRC over 50kb/sec and direct from web sites in the 150kb/sec range...Gnutella as long since stopped being useful to me.
Besides, everyone knows the REALLY good movies are found in IRC FServs in the distro group channels, or on FTP servers--not on Gnutella. All you'll find on Gnutella are fakes and porn.
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.
Uh-oh.
Are we now to believe that a form letter generated by Share-O-Stop software can threaten an ISP into cutting off someone's service? Does the MPAA really think they can get away with this?!
See, the thing about P2P was that it was so incredibly distributed that it would be impossible for the MPAA to sue all of us... but now, it looks like they're trying. As we've learned, the threat of legal action can frequently be as effective as actual legal action, at a fraction of the price.
I can't believe they're using bullying tactics like this. What bastards. Maybe there's some kind of threatening form letter we can send to something the MPAA depends on, to cause them a great deal of meaningless trouble? Anyone have any ideas?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The MPAA doesn't forward information to the police because they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. They send form letters and threaten legal action, but if they clogged up the court system enough (across how many jurisdictions? Quite an expensive nightmare for them) with frivolous accusations, the courts wouldn't look so fondly on this sort of thing.
There really is something incredibly frightening about this mafia-like body's accusations having some of the force of law.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It becomes an invasion of privacy if they decide to break into your computer. What is going on here is quite different. Its more akin to people leaving piles of copied movies on the road with a big "take one" sign.
If you make stuff available for download you stuck it up for people to see and put it out in the open.
There are guilty until proven innocent problems with the current take down approaches but the privacy one is a red herring here.
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.
No, it's not even then. The key words you're looking for are "unreasonable search and seisure," and while we may consider this unreasonable, in the eyes of the law, it's perfectly legit as long as no law enforcement body put them up to it. Now whether it would stand in CIVIL court is another matter, but if you try to go that route, the MPAA would be able to, and would be within their rights if they did, to seek to CRIMINALLY prosecute you. Getting a lawyer is probably a good idea if they have falsely accused you and no one is listening to your side of the story, but if you have actually posted the movie, the smart thing to do would be to take it down when your ISP comes knocking.
I can't remember how many times I've said or thought "without the fucking customer, my life would be so much easier". I'm so glad to see somebody finally decided to just say "screw them" to all their customers and live the easy life.
I wonder if the MPAA is hiring...
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
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
Unless things have changed dramatically, the MPAA is still using software from Ranger Online to perform their searches exclusively. This software isn't all that technically impressive. Anybody with an understanding of protocols and search techniques can make the searches they do in public forums like gnutella and IRC. So then I imagine that they do a simple traceroute to locate the ISP or hosting provider and then a whois for the contact. THis all publicly available and frankly probably requires lots of human intervention. We're not talking banks of computers here, we're talking about a room full of MPAA flunkies doing jack Valenti's bidding.
The DMCA requires ISP's to takedown materials that are alleged to be infringing until the alleged infringer disputes the allegation. There's a whole messy procedure for the back and forth, and it favors the intital claim of infringment.
Watch out if you are on 192.168.x.x networks! They'll be coming for you next!
I disagree... The MPAA was being lazy going after the software developers before. Now they're moving towards going after the actual offenders. They're getting closer and closer to the actual infringers. Granted, they're doing it slowly, but they're getting there.
Disgusted by this whole modus operandi, I sent the following e-mail to several addresses within Ranger Online:
---
Gentlemen,
I have the static IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (via my {ISP Name Here} business Internet service) and am officially notifying you that I will not tolerate your firm snooping around on my computer, using bandwidth that I paid for, in order to conduct your clandestine spying. I suggest that you take whatever steps are necessary to assure that Ranger Online and its affiliates never access that IP address. Any attempts by your firm to access data on my computer will be treated as a "trespass to chattels."
I do not like your self-appointed 'net police' attitude. You are not a law enforcement agency and your searches are being carried out without probable cause or a warrant. The accuracy of the information you produce is suspect and your methods have not been undergone public scrutiny and peer review. You are using huge amounts of bandwidth from consumers, businesses, and institutions that often have limited resources and bandwidth already.
Frankly, you are like spammers. You believe that you have a right to use bandwidth paid for by others for your own financial gain.
Regards,
{Name and address}
If I do not get a response from them, I will reformat the message into a printed letter and have it delivered with a signature required and a return receipt.
> YOU ARE PIRATING ILLEGAL COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
Ah, so all these copyrighted recordings
are illegal to begin with? Well, then,
pirating them is the least we could do...
Considered harmful.
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.
To quote the article " Called "Flyster," the program will allow downloading in complete anonymity, according to developer Louis-Eric Simard. However, those who host files for download could still be traced, he said"
No, they only need to litigate in the cases where the takedown notice isn't sufficient to cause the offender to cave and pull the content. To quote the MSNBC story "...the music industry has been behind several high-profile arrests of individuals involved in the online music trade. And just last week, The Wall Street Journal reported the industry is planning to step up such individual prosecutions." Wrong. Given an IP number and a timestamp, the ISP can check their RADIUS or DHCP logs and determine who was assigned that IP at that time. Dynamic IP does make it tougher for a random attacker to come after you, but it gives you very little insulation from lawyers who subpeona your ISP for their records. These 'rights' you speak of, where were you granted them? If your contract with your ISP says you cannot host servers, you do not have that right. Your desires are not rights, they are wants. If you want to run a server, have a static IP address, ask your ISP how much more you must pay them to be granted these priviledges.I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I know this from a hunch, and therefore you owe me royalties.
If you don't want to pay them then prove to me that you're innocent. Sending me police-verified evidence of an approved ISP's logs should be sufficient.
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?