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Danish Anti-Piracy Organization Bills P2P Users
faaaz writes "The danish anti-piracy organisation Antipiratgruppen has billed approximately 150 p2p users an amount of up to $14,000 each for sharing copyrighted material. The organisation says 'Pay up, or we'll sue!'" There's also a Reuters article.
Sounds alot like my ex-wife.
Free Instant Site Inclusion
I mean, going after those who actually possess and distribute something that they have not legally purchased? Sounds legitimate to me.
When men used to be men
If this organization isn't government sponsored, this sounds a lot like blackmail. I mean, pay or we'll sue? Who'll they have to go to? The big record companies, so pay up or we'll turn you over. And what guarantees does anyone have they won't turn around and sue anyway?
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Okay, so assuming this extorti...I mean apparently-legal action goes through, who gets the money? Is this anti-piracy group going to go out and distribute the monies to the appropriate copyright holders? Who decided what price to set for the various downloaded artifacts? Certainly there's a significant markup here.
Assuming a CD has, on average, 15 songs, and you can get a CD for $12 at Best Buy, $2.67--that's a 250% markup on each song.
And, who is going to ensure that paying these folks will prevent future prosecution by the copyright holders? Do I get to keep the songs and movies that I downloaded if I pay up?
This is exactly what the majority of slashdotters have been screaming for. Go after the abusers rather than the technology. It'll be interesting to see what the comments on this thread will be like. Let this hypocrisy begin... now.
When I watch Buchanan and Press, and see Press describe mp3 as no bigger a crime than not stopping at a stop sign, I realize it's finally beginning to hit the public at how much power RIAA is getting. People are getting sick of it, and if RIAA doesn't watch it, they'll find a lot of young people taking office and changing laws.
Before any of you americans start quoting your constitution, please remember that this is Denmark and the law is different there. Why not wait and see what happens first, eh?
How 'bout I send a bill to Kazaa for 'stealing' information about me that is used to provide ads that bother the shit about me? Oh wait, I can't threaten them with legal action like they can.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
...now we know what Step 2 is.
Step 3: Profit!
In the instructions made to install Kazaa (Full)without adware (cydoor, et al), one of the things to do was to delete the ~/KaZaa/db folder and replace that with a dummy file by opening notepad and saving a blank file as "db" (no extention). As a result of this, all downloaded files in (~/Kazaa/My Shared Files) would appear to have "failed" in Kazaa, and the downloaded files would remain in their *.dat files. It would also NOT include them in your list of files shared. You'd then have to rename the files with extentsions before exiting Kazaa or else you'd lose them.
So...if you want to download on P2P you could probably take these measures and be okay
$cat
"3) which family member used the computer?"
This isn't like a motor vehicle; the person who owns the ISP account is responsible for how it's used. This is why a company can be liable for its employees' copyright infringment.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I think this is the most brilliant piece of marketting yet. First they jam up P2P with blank mp3s to put people off using P2P and then they send those people a bill for accepting the blank mp3. $10 for a loop of nothing?
:)
Do they have a copyright on the blank loop? If not I think I should hurry up and copyright it
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
For example, I'm in a small, unsigned punk band. We distribute our music over P2P because it is a lot cheaper than getting webspace to host stuff and paying for bandwidth. But right now, we have to compete with all these ultra-shitty, ultra-popular bands like Metallica and Jon Bon Jovi for the eyes and ears of P2P users. On top of that, it gives us a bad name. People look at me funny when I say we distribute our music on KaZaA, like I'm some kind of criminal.
When we clean out the abusers and criminals from P2P and let the real people, the small-time, unsigned artists, get exposure, then we will have won. And I won't shed a single tear for these people who are fucking it up for the rest of us.
Software piracy is victimless theft.
BUT, putting that aside. Some points:
Too all those "They can't make me pay cause I didn't sign anything" or "Go ahead, sue me for not paying the bill.": You guys missed the point. This bill is an option. They are being nice to you. They are saying; OK, look, you're busted and, deep inside, you know you are busted. We are giving you a chance to avoid court and make this go away as if you were legit. Just pay this bill and you won't go to court. Oh, don't agree? Want to deny it? Won't pay? Fine. We'll take you to court. Oh... NOT for not paying this bill. You are right, you didn't sign or receive a service for THIS bill. Nope, we're taking you to court for the copyrighted material you have stole and are redistributing.
Too all the photoshop wannabe's with this: we could fake those screenshots. Do you honestly (stupidly) think that all they have are some dot-matrix printouts of some screen dumps? Think people. They probably had notarized witnesses present while capturing the data, or cops or the equivilent - for one. And they probably DID download the files from your computer and categloged them neatly with the IP your ISP DHCPed to you along with the records from the ISP where you dialed up from or which IP they gave to what MAC address on who's cable modem or what IP went to what DSL caller.
People - listen. This is not a troll or flamebait. Remember something
If you are not doing anything illegal - you have nothing to worry about!
Obviously legal users of P2P networks aren't concerned, they are happy. All those bandwidth hogs trading illegal stuff are being forced off. This is a GOOD thing remember? You have said you actually want this right? How could you possibly complain?
Before replying, think: only the thieves have anything to worry about - and you aren't a theif are you?
Let me be one of the first hundred people or so to say, "GOOD!" For far too long every post where anyone dares say anything that even remotely links P2P and piracy is instantly modded down and disagreed with under the guise of freedom.
Well, it's not about freedom. It's mostly about stealing music and movies.
People stole stuff, or at a minimum, engaged in the redistribution of it. Those people should pay.
Break the law, get in trouble. Oh, and don't explain why it shouldn't be against the law, and how it's better for record companies for us to share music. That's a rationalisation of the sickest kind. It's still illegal, and if the people who do it could spent one tenth the time they spend stealing things actually trying to change the law and they'd get it changed.
Nah, I'll keep stealing stuff until someone busts me.
The only problem is that they are NOT doing that. As it even states in the article (RTFA?) there appears to be no proof that the songs on those computers are illegal (ie they own the actual CD. They also make a mention that there doesn't appear to be proof that the files displayed on the screen are actually songs. That is of course a very "lawyer" thing to say but it DOES matter in at least US courts; but it isn't like it would have been too hard to at least check a few of the songs and try to get the judge to believe that if 20 out of 200 songs are real than the other 180 are real.
:)
... what I said above would include NOT busting me for downloading Metallica, Ride The Lightening because I do own that CD but it is scratched beyond repair. I legally own the CD and I have every legal right to have the song. The only gray area is who is allowed to provide me with the replacement data. It would be understandable for the publisher to want to charge me for the costs invovled with providing me the data again but certainly NOT to charge me for another licence. The key would be once I were to become in possesion of that data again, unless they observed me getting it they would have no way to tell if I got it from my own CD or someone elses, and it wouldn't matter if they did observe because they would have to prove I denied them revenue which I did not since I am in possesion of a legal licence. So far I know of no case law or legislation that would actually make me quilty of anything if I were to get a copy of that data from another legally licenced data source (aka friends CD).
... we want our FAIR USE RIGHTS facilitated (not expanded) by technology not abridged by it.
... or at least my interpretation of the VAST myriad of opinions that should NOT all be lumped together as, "Isn't that what SLASHDOT has wanted."
But the important thing here is that they do NOT have any proof that those people are in possesion of the songs illegally. To my knowledge there is no law against posting your songs up on a network. [wait for the whole point] They could of course make a case that you are putting them up there with the express intent of facilitating piracy (ie Napster) but that isn't what the people are being charged ($$$) for since it would be a criminal charge not something they could send you a bill for.
The individuals could of course say that it was simply the easiest way for them to make their own, legally obtained music available to themselves when not at home.
No this is not what Slashdot has wanted all along. What we have wanted all along is for them to bust people who are DOWNLOADING / possesiing songs they don't have the licence to; versus the simple act of posting a legal song. Of course the "posters" who do so for profit should be shut down because no matter if they own a real licence to the music they do not have the right to distribute. That is the discriminator: you have no way to deny inent to distribute if you are engaging in the business of selling the data. Remember the rules of logic and debate in the court room are very specific compared to a conversation in a bar or a chat room. Afterall how do you think OJ got off???
Back to the point
To put it simply
That is what Slashdot has wanted
If you can't be good, be good at it!
I'm sorry. I have to anal about this. Look through the Danish or United States laws passed on copyright, and you won't ever find the word "piracy." That's because the word piracy -- which is used to describe boarding someone else's seagoing vessil without permission and plundering -- is totally unrelated to copyright infringement in the English language. The reason the word "piracy" is used is because "copyright infringement" doesn't sound as bad. It doesn't sound as bad because it is not as bad. When you literally steal goods, you are depriving them of something. When you infringe on a copyright, you are depriving no one of anything but just that -- a copyright.
The reason this is important is, (1) people need not be confused by words that don't actually exist in their used context, (2) you can talk seriously about what constitutes "copyright infringement." If you make a personal copy, is that copyright infringement? Legally, no. But because piracy has no legal definition, the copyright holders are free to apply the word at their discretion. Ie: Watching a DVD on Linux is piracy. -- there's no legal definition for piracy, so prove it wasn't! Now simply watching a DVD on Linux is not copyright infringement, and I can prove it because there is a legal definition of copyright infringement.
When you use the word "piracy" you loose credibility with me. You are buying into the myth that copyright infringement is a legal and ethical parallel for stealing. In reality, there is no such thing as intellectual property or piracy of that property. There is a right to copy a work, and copying a work without that right is something else entirely.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
A lot of folks seem to be hung up on the "how do they know that "Half-Life.zip" is actually Half-Life, the game. Fact is, it doesn't matter. Under US law (yes, I know, it's Denmark, so YMMV, but I'm pretty sure the same holds), if you buy a kilo of powdered sugar from an undercover cop, you've just committed a drug crime, so long as there's reasonable evidence to indicate that you _believed_ that you were buying cocaine. By the same token, you'd have a hard time making the argument that you like to download files entitled real_slim_shady.mp3 because you like the name, but had no intention of actually getting an Eminem song.
I don't download stuff from Kazaa, Gnutella or even Limwire because I don't have them installed on my computer for one, and don't have the time to do this. But I must say that when I read things like some big organisation suiing the hell out of some teen or twenty year old (for whom $14000 is a hell of a lot of money) then I realise why I dislike the internet more and more. I remember working in an internet agency in the napster days where my coworkers downloaded about 200 Gigs of CD's in a couple of months and nobody really cared. Those were young guys who didn't really have the money to spend on dozens of originals, and they were fun, nice people and we had a good time listening to good music while coding websites for our soon-to-be-bankrupt agency. The net was fun and interesting. There were thousands of interesting sites and nobody was all too worried.
With the crash of the internet boom and the lack of cash, it seems as if all the ugliest bunch of greedy scum has crawled out of the woodwork to try and resttrict peoples lives and freedom so that they can rape them for as much money as possible. Christ it's like big brother in 1984. They watch everything you do, strip you of all your privacy and then have the fucking balls to pretend to be righteous about it as well.
Perhaps some time we'll have the last laugh...
Although it may have gotten lost in the translation to the digital world, legally speaking, deprivation of potential revenue has always been a difficult thing to prove, and was never the same thing as theft.
And why drag morality into it?
- IFPI - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
- NCB - Nordic Copyright Bureau
- DMF danish site - Danish Musician Union. some english info
- DAF - Danish Artist Union
In addition, the members of APG isQuote from the site:
The transfer of rights to NCB is organised in the following way: rights owners in the Nordic countries and the Baltic States transfer all their rights to the national performing rights society. This society administers the performing rights and transfers the mechanical rights to NCB. Thus, NCB represents virtually all copyrighted music in the Nordic and Baltic areas in connection with recording and the manufacture and distribution of copies of recordings.
So this is basically a group representing many, if not all copyright holders for the material in question
This is one of the people presued by the APG. He calls himself Siffan and he runs a danish website. Unfortunately his website: http://www.siffan.dk/ is mainly in danish.
He has written his version of events that happen when the APG came with the courtorder.
In short, it goes something like this: The APG came with a courtorder to see if he had an eDonkey-server up and running on his computer. They tell him he has the right to a lawyer and the presens of the police. He tells them that there is not running an edonkey server, but ther was some time ago...
The AGP has an "IT-man" with them... he is allowed to look at the computer to see if there is a server running (according to the courtorder) He agrees with Siffan, but then he browess through his harddrive and finds illegal software and mp3 files... Siffan was not comfertable with this,and points out that most of the mp3s are legal copies of his own cds. but agrees that he has illegal stuff on his computer and desides to be cooperative. Now AGP wants to take his computer with them. Siffan now says he wants a laywer, he is not able to get one a the pressent time, but the APG will not delay the case to the next day. So it ends with the APG straling off with his computer and some cd's.
The next day a lawyer representing the APG calls him and ask him to give up his right to have the case tested in a civil court or he will sue him within 14 days.
That is about it. It's late and I'm tired... But I hope you find this intresting.
Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies...
What I see happening here is a classic example of scare one and the rest will follow. I don't know much about Danish law, but I will assume it is roughly similar to other European countries. If all they have to go on is screen grabs of files names, then the don't have a leg to stand on, like the expert said without access to the alleged offenders computer they are largely unable to prove the case.
Also consdider where the files came from. If they have screen grabbed an image of what is in someones share list, all that proves is they have a file called 'such and such' on that users HD. If the user downloaded a file from another user and APG had some way to monitor that, then that probably breaches all sorts of privacy and computer misuse laws. But, if the user had downloaded the files from computers belonging to AntiPiratGruppen then you are getting in to the realms of entrapment, plus you must ask if AntiPiratGruppen wasn't breaching copyright itself. All this is speculation, but it leads me on to an important point.
It is certain some of these 150 so called 'Pirates' will pay up. They might not pay the full amount, they may negotiate a lower price and it will be because they are scared of what AntiPiratGruppen may or may not do to them. Once one person pays up APG will shout that fact from the roof tops and it will no doubt have the effect of scaring others in complying with the wishes of RIAA/BSA/FACT etc and leave P2P well enough alone. Effectively they will be using bully boy tactics to succeed. Regardless of your view on the legality and morals of P2P, you must admit this is a not a good thing as it sets a dangerous precident if it works.
Let's take a trip down memory lane. Me making a copy of a CD for a friend technically violates the copyright, but only the dumbest and most opperesive states would bother to enforce it. What monetary damage was done by my "perfect" seleveless, artless copy for my friend? Generally zero as my friend would never have bought the thing in the first place but has an inferior copy which might lead him to buy the "real" thing. We could walk further down that road to tapes where courts upheld your right to do just that. We could go even further back before acid paper and comercial pulp printing and find much weaker copyright laws. We could go back even further and find that for the majority of human history writers expected no finicial reward for their efforts and considered it an honor when others would publish their work.
What I see comming is some awful invasive world where others think they have a right to search my personal effects at will. They have screen shots of the victim's computers? They must have been windoze users, but the precident is disturbing. Suppose my ISP is pressured to not allow connection from "insecure" platforms that do not allow such spying? Well, screw that. I don't go places where people treat me like a criminal. I'm not intersted in RIAA music, I never ran Napster, nor have I ever fooled around with newer music sharing junk. I want to share my own work, not that of others. These jackasses seek to prevent others from publishing their own music. If they get away with it, soon other forms of publishing will be prevented. We are on the road to Tycho.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Any defense lawyer worth his weight in golfballs would demand proof that the screenshot was not doctored with a graphics editting program.
Trolling is a art,
Nice post. I agree by and large.
* they sell your shit
Yep, they arrange with both brick and mortar retailers (B&N, Tower, HMV, Sam Goody) and digital retailers (Amazon, CDNow) globally to put your music in their bins. Now, how good your placement is, how much in store advertising you are given is based on how much your label likes you, and how many CDs you'll probably sell. Moby? Front and center. End caps. Posters. A "rub Moby's bald head for luck" cardboard cutout at the door.
Fluffy and the Puffboys? 2 CDs in the "F" bin.
* they distribute your shit
Well, they sign with distributors, but ok, they manage your distribution.
* they promote your shit
True, but again, the amount and energy of that promotion will be very different for Linkin Park than for up-and-coming punk band Pus Casserole.
* they book your shit
Touring? Don't you have a booking agent? A sponsor? You might think about that.
* they speak "on your behalf" in these kinda situations
Again true, but the RIAA is much more of the "industry voice." And yeah, label attorneys are typically pretty good.
I mean, don't get me wrong. Even with all these advantages there are significant disadvantages:
* you must sell or you are dropped
* you get a fraction of what you'd make on an indie
* you often end up owing the label money
* occasional legal nightmares
These are minor to you? As I said, I spent fifteen years in the business, and I know of a few multi-platinum artists that either never recouped, or have such gargatuan legal bills that any profit is long gone.
Here's another one for you to ponder (and reply to if ya like.) Whose count do you accept when royalty time comes along? Every six months I get at least twenty phonebook sized royalty statements, telling me how many copies of a particular album sold in Burkina Faso, Singapore, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Israel, Anguilla, yada yada. I get an equvalent sized package from my publisher, with similarly arcane Excel effluvia. I think I read one once. Reversed, they make wonderful scratch printer paper, but otherwise, they mean little to me (except for the attached check which is always disappointingly low.)
I wouldn't even know where to go to get an independent auditor but I know of a few bands that did, and let's say...their figures differed from the publisher and label. A lot.
Basically, the labels/publishers tell you how many sold, and the band usually has to take that word as gospel. You comfortable with that?
In short, while there are big issues, I think labels DEFINITELY have a function. MP3.com proved that mass Internet distribution is a joke. The labels may have an 85% failure rate, but they are damn good marketers, and Kazaa would be much less popular without BMG music.
What films do people request on IRC film channels? The ones all over TV and print advertising. What CDs are most anticipated by the unwashed masses? The one's most heavily marketed. They watch the QT trailer for Nemesis with drooling glee. They hear a new Korn CD is forthcoming on radio and TV. And what do they say?
"Hey I gotta download that when it comes out."
Labels and film studios are neither anachronisms or useless. They still serve an essential function, and you're right - no signed artist would think that their label is merely a manufacturer.
Things have to change, but labels aren't going anywhere.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
... of extortion.
A company cannot send you a "bill" for a contract you never signed, stating "pay up or else". This is not an electric company talking about getting reimbursement for an unpaid bill. This is a company with which these people have no agreement sending them threats which amount to, "give us money or else".
A straightforward company would simply inform the police if they believe these people to have committed criminal acts and the culprits would be arrested, or simply serve them a summons in the case of a civil dispute.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Well, speaking as a guy who actually lives in Denmark.....
Since Summer 2001, various forms of digital copying have been legal in Denmark. Before that, Danish law on this area bore obvious marks of being written by people who had no idea what the whole thing was all about (prohibiting all forms of digital copying without prior permission -- bye bye Internet :) ). The laws are confusing, though. According to Forbrugerrådet (the "Consumer's Council" -- I'm not sure if you Americans have a similar organization), Danish citizens are allowed to:
We are not allowed to:
(from Forbrugerrådet's web page)
I hope this helps shed a little light on the situation.
Six sick