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ISP Bans RIAA to Protect Its Customers
fader writes "Information Wave Technologies, a northeastern (US) ISP has announced that "it will actively deny the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) from accessing the contents of its network". Apparently this is in response to the RIAA (and MPAA, but they don't seem to be blocking them yet) plan to actively attack P2P users. All I can say is, you go, guys! I hope more ISPs will follow their lead."
That takes guts. They are going to actively search&seek out the RIAA drones! Unfortunately, they will be placing "fake" files on gnutella....the question being, are those fake files worth the gain of having a major isp on "our" side?
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
I work for an ISP also and would like their network information so I could pass it along to the boss to block.
Does anyone have their IP blocks?
Just because they gave the DOJ a handjob doesn't mean we can't get around that.
Get paid to code OSS
I am sure this is the start of a huge slew of lawsuits. UserFriendly had a strip about this on Sunday. You can view it here. It raises an interesting point. The comic implies that anyone with a big enough footprint can ignore/swat the RIAA if they want.
That said, I think that the banning of the RIAA from networks is a start. Now they need to ban the spoofers and companies like MediaDefender who spend all of their bandwidth downloading files from YOUR computer to keep other people off.
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
If ISP's had karma, Information Wave Technologies would have just hit the cap. I just sent an e-mail to them at thier riaa@informationwave.net address expressing my thoughts... you should too. Imagine what thier management would do if they got 25,000 e-mails stating how much people liked thier service?
(Yes, I know what would happen... thier mail server would go on strike, and be burned because it was too close to the exploding webserver)
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Everyone should be against any censorship!! May the RIAA burn in hell , but this ISP is no better....
Hell, this will proubly be modded down to hell, but think about what this could do to all our freedoms....
Secure multi-mediation is the future of all webbing...
The RIAA has announced its intention to crack any boxes that it wants to and has even bought a bill that would legalize it for them. That makes the RIAA a big security threat, even bigger when you consider that they have no oversight and a long record of not caring about little things like rights. Any contact with their network makes you vulnerable.
Any security type would want their network protected from snooping of any kind. Especially from a company that wants to shut down anyone it doesn't like and is protected against liability for any damage it does. An ISP blacklisting a company that does this, or even just announces that it plans to, is protecting its customers and being a good citizen.
I think the idea is going to catch on.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
But if a traceroute stops at the ISP edge router, how can the RIAA prove an individual customer was sharing/downloaded a file. The burden of proof should lie with the accuser, if AOLTW or Universial can't find the guilty party, they are SOL.
Read my plan to save the Bengals
I truly applaud this ISP's efforts. Right on, y'all.
There've been a slew of comments about how maybe AOL will adopt this policy given enough consumer pressure or maybe RoadRunner will or any other major ISP. Think for a second about that.
There is a reason these groups are called media conglomerates. They have faces across many different media. Those who provide the Internet connectivity medium also provide the musical content medium. AOL and Time Warner are all owned by a conglomerate that makes records.
But again, right on to those smaller ones who take a stand like this. Maybe if we reward them with our business, we'll put the conglomerates in their place.
http://starboard.flowtheory.net/
Actually, it isn't stealing.
.wavs and mp3's on my computer of my own composition. I own the rights to their use, and I choose to distribute them freely. My sharing of MP3's is NOT illegal under any construct of the law.
The supreme court has ruled time and time again that you cannot patent a sound. Nor can you copyright it. You can copyright it's composition (the sheet music), but you can't own a sound.
Never mind that argument. Think on this: I have several
However, the act of copying music from CD's without approval IS a violation of the law, provided I do it for profit. The profit doesn't have to be monetary. I can exact profit from the loss of sales the artist would normally enjoy. That said, seeing as I am not SELLING the mp3's, and study after study has proven that the sharing of mp3's BOOSTS sales, they have to PROVE that they suffered a loss from my activities.
It gets even more complicated than that - they only have Offensive Rights for protected works. They means THEY have to sue ME, and if they don't do it within 5 years of the infringement, they lose offensive rights to that work in TOTAL.
So go ahead and argue that people who share mp3'
s are stealing (and privately, I agree), but the RIAA and the artists themselves have the onus places on them to do something about it in court.
Some people are arguing that Napster, Morpheus, LimeWire et al are facilitating this, and are thereby guilty through association (in an "aiding and abetting sort of way). IF that's true, and I AM willing to scede that argument, then the RIAA and the artists need to take action against the manufacturers of CD-RW, DVD-RW, Casette tapes, mini-disc, VHS, Super-H, BetaMax etc etc etc, ad inifinitum. Anything less implies that they don't actually care about protecting their rights.
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
Which is that the RIAA simply does not understand the tech industry or technology.
It's like allowing an 18 year old with a basic knowledge of physics to decide regulations for bridge building.
For a less abstract analogy, I know that my television has been stolen from me. I don't know who, but I know it had to be someone in my neighborhood. Using the RIAA as a model, I should be able to go into each of my neighbor's houses to look for this television, without their permission. And if I have a strong suspicion that I have found the violator, I am allowed to destroy the house. That's basically what the RIAA wants.
Humorless sig goes here.
Instead of just blocking the RIAA itself, how about blocking RIAA members? Imagine if Sony, RCA, AOL/TW, etc.. had all of their internet traffic blocked by ISPs? It really wouldn't be that hard to get the consumers on the side of the ISPs, as the ISPs could argue that the RIAA and its members are promoting and financially supporting electronic terrorism!
The RIAA is not going to use their corporate network for this; They are going to use disposeable connectivity such as DSL, cable, and dialup to launch these attacks.
...and on a another note, how long do you think it will be before the RIAA has trained dogs to search out illegal copyright infringing media sniffing every bag and person at the bus temrinal, trainstation, or airports? How long before they request the DoJ to randomly pull over and search automobiles for CD-R, Dubbed Audio Cassettes, or *gasp* portable mp3 players and arrest the driver/owners for interstate transport of stolen property and seize the cars for sherrifs auction? IMO this whole IP thing has gone so sideways that all bets are off, infact I'm suprised we havent seen a shotgun weilding hillary rosen on the covers of Time and Newsweek.
The two questions I have for you armchair systems admins and network engineers are;
1. What good will blocking 208.225.90.0/24 and 12.150.191.0/24 do for your network?
2. What good will transit providers derive from blocking 208.225.90.0/24 and 12.150.191.0/24 from traversing their network?
This is a purile waste of time and energy, do the right thing; Call your congress critter, hack them back, or protest in some other more effective way -- a router or iptables entry is a weak protest.
This communication is secured using Rot-26 Encryption Algorithm, Unauthorized decryption will be subject to laughter.
If there is any chance that anyone could identify RIAA crackers from REAL crackers, the RIAA must be registering or keeping records of it's actions. Would any unrecorded or unapproved action then be classified as a REAL attack - along with REAL liability ? Would every report of cracking need to be cross-referenced or would they all be ignored ?
If ISPs report every instance of cracking by the RIAA, wouldn't the limited resources of the FBI be required to investigate so many 'approved' federal crimes that the real criminals would be getting away with more ?
These guys have the right idea, document, blacklist, AND report - treat the RIAA attempts like any other illicit action on their network !
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
They are blocking the RIAA (which I could care less about), and they are also blocking users of P2P software. So the moral is don't be a dweeb on their network, whither you are the RIAA or a P2P user, and you will not get blocked, right? Wrong, at least I don't think so. I go through an ISP which uses dynamic IP assignment, as do many many people in this world. You can see where this is going now, can't you? You could easily be blocked from their networks just because some pimple faced kid who just happened to have your IP address an hour ago tried to download Britney's latest crap. Assuming their blocks never expire, then it is logical that most ISPs entire address range will eventually become blocked. Hmmm, not good.