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Uni Students Slammed For Music Swapping
jomaree writes "The SMH Online reports that Sony, EMI and Universal will be in the Federal Court today, in an attempt to stop students using uni computers to swap music files. Michael Speck, the director of Music Industry Piracy Investigations, is quoted as follows: 'And we're not talking about one track here, one track there,' he said. 'We're talking piracy, significant examples of piracy.' By contrast, Sydney Uni says it knows of one student with a handful of files on a website, which does actually sound quite a bit like one track here, one track there."
Harsh, but preferable to some jerk putting DRM in my hardware.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Seriously, people. If you're going to submit a story, please bother to spell out the words, even the long ones.
Yeah, it sucks for Uni students. I wonder how it will affect Poly students?
Sue those university students for all that they're worth!! ... ..
They don't have anything?
oh.
Australia's major record companies, Sony, EMI and Universal, are acting on suspicions that students, and possibly staff, are using the universities' computers to swap digital music files. The industry says the three universities have not divulged information, but that others have co-operated.
Ah, great. BSA-style enforcement that tosses the ol' "guilty until proven innocent" mythos out the window. The alarmist in me wonders how long it'll be before consumers are forced to prove their compliance with copyright, or submit to "music collection audits".
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
a guys website which had a few songs to download. Then goes on to say.
"The focus of these organisations should be on people who are running or pirating music for clear commercial benefit,"
How does sharing a few singles on a website pose a pirate threat or count as pirating music as a clear commercial benefit. Granted I don't know the full situation but it doesn't sound like anything more than "Hey here are some songs I like from [Fill In the Blank] band! Check em out!"
If you get an error, type "OVERRIDE" or "SECURITY OVERRIDE" and then try the optimize command again.
It's war on a generation of cyber piratesPrint this article | Close this window
ByAmanda Morgan
February 18 2003
The recording industry has launched its most aggressive offensive yet against illegal music swapping over the internet.
In the Federal Court in Sydney today, record companies will try to seize evidence of song swapping by students using the computer networks of the universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmania.
Record labels in the United States and Europe have warned the world's top 1000 companies they must stop illegal music swapping on their networks or face legal action.
Australia's major record companies, Sony, EMI and Universal, are acting on suspicions that students, and possibly staff, are using the universities' computers to swap digital music files. The industry says the three universities have not divulged information, but that others have co-operated.
Michael Speck, the director of Music Industry Piracy Investigations, which tracks swapping on behalf of the Australian record industry, believes the illegal file trading is significant.
"And we're not talking about one track here, one track there," he said. "We're talking piracy, significant examples of piracy."
The University of Sydney says it knows of one student who established a website with a handful of songs for swapping on its system. It has "isolated the website, and will hand over the evidence at an appropriate time", a spokesman said.
There are hundreds of thousands of song files on personal computers worldwide. They are "swapped" for free using special software, robbing artists and their record companies of royalties.
But the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Cameron Murphy, said the industry was wrong to target students.
"The focus of these organisations should be on people who are running or pirating music for clear commercial benefit," he said. "I don't think there is any benefit to the community in prosecuting individuals who do this as a one-off. I mean, we'd have half the students in Australia in jail."
Mr Murphy also questioned whether the universities should be forced into the role of policing their students.
Mr Speck denied the industry was making an example of the universities. "Somebody gets caught being involved in a wrongdoing and they utter, 'We're not the only ones, why are we here?' Well, you got caught."
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/17/10453305 39310.html
=252) refR=refR.substring(0,252)+"...";By contrast, Sydney Uni says it knows of one student with a handful of files on a website, which does actually sound quite a bit like one track here, one track there
John Q Student had a track, EIEIO
And on this track he had a song, EIEIO
With a "track track" here and a "track track" there
Here a "track" there a "track" everywhere a "track track"
John Q Student had a track, EIEIO!
(God I love having to stay up late to do homework)
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Although putting the perpetrators out of business, destroying the "infrastructure of terrorism" as the Bush adiministration would say, is not without worth, if any advocate of content providers' rights has learned anything over the past few years, it is that, just as Islamic terrorism starts with the corrupt, anti-semitic arab education systems, piracy is also the result of a deeply ingrained culture, and the most effective way to stamp it out is to cut it off at the roots.
People are always arguing that piracy is somehow reasonable, because "if only there were music available at the price I WANTED to pay, I would buy it, and I wouldn't have to steal it". Try this argument at the convenience store: "I think that bottle of malt liquor is only worth 10 cents, and if you won't sell it to me for 10 cents, I'll steal it". It doesn't work that way. Over the past several hundred years we have replaced the rule of the mob with free markets, which ensure an equitable price for both buyer and seller through the natural interactions of supply and demand. The availability of free stolen products, of course, undermines this market and makes content production ultimately impossible. Some efforts of this type may be necessary initially to restore the rule of law: But remember, if you don't like this kind of intrusion, the best thing to do is stop pirating music right now, let this culture of piracy be destroyed, and allow a market-based system of online music distribution to be established. Once this has happened, heavy-handed enforcement will be unnecessary, and everyone will be able to get what they want for a fair price.
Says the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties:
"I don't think there is any benefit to the community in prosecuting individuals who do this as a one-off. I mean, we'd have half the students in Australia in jail."
I totally agree. As long as these students are not making money by trading this music, this seems like a real cheap shot. Before you know it, they are going to prosecute college kids for putting a quarter on a string and getting their laundry done for free.
On the other hand, SHAME ON YOU TODAY'S COLLEGE STUDENTS! If you're going to be engaged in these illicit activities, at least make a minor effort to hide your tracks. That's what college is all about ;-).
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
Where it's not obvious, could you please expand on any acronyms used by story submitters?
/. editor to do, doesn't it?
Someone who's Australian (or world travelled) might know off the top of their head that SMH refers to they Sydney Morning Herald but it would be nice if the rest of us don't have to go clicking through links or searching the web just to find out what this TLA (three letter acronym) or that ETLA (extended three letter acronym) stand for.
On the other hand, that sounds too much like actual editing for a
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
http://slashdot.org/~PetWolverine is his profile, as is saying
"I have 60 GB or so of MP3s that you need. "
That, and his server 'seems' down. Then again, A-ARBL-bla bla sounds like a dns rbl list. Whoops.
Universities often represent some of the fastest connections to the internet that aren't traffic monitored. People have fast connections at work as well and its the threat of their IT department monitoring the network, finding out about P-2-P and getting the employee fired, that prevents people from filesharing at work (albeit some companies have lenient policies with regards to this)
Universities, OTOH, aspire to higher ideals of complete freedom (else all of us students would protest, at least in theory). Hence no threat from the University IT department, for the ones that haven't capitulated to such RIAA blackmailing.
As a result, a very large chunk of filesharing traffic originates or ends at university IPs. Hence they make the perfect RIAA target. Its fairly logical.
We just have to hope that universities don't give in to this kind of blackmailing. The question of threatening a student's freedom is much larger than that of stopping some of them from taking part in illegal acts.
It's not just an issue of money. It's a question of control.
The RIAA's accountants know that their profits have increased in the past few years. The RIAA's lawyers know that their profits have increased in the past few years. But there are people out there that are not using officially sanctioned music in officially sanctioned ways at officially sanctioned times with officially sanctioned equipment. That means there are people out there who are not under the control of the company, the mythical "consumer." This cannot be tollerated.
Microsoft has been making money hand over fist for two decades. Someone installing WinME on three of their computers when they bought one copy is not doing them any harm. If anything, it means fewer copies of Win98 in use, which means less old stuff for them to support. That's good for them. But it means that there are people out there not using the product in the officially sanctioned way on the officially sanctioned number of systems. Microsoft (and Bill Gates in particular) simply cannot deal with the concept of someone not using the product on their terms.
All of that goes back to one of the fundamental flaws in the capitalist mindset: The consumer. The mythical consumer is not a person. The mythical consumer is a machine that stands on the other side of a cash register and accepts input (products) and returns output (pictures of George Washington). They can be reduced to a mathematical equation of supply and demand. They can be manipulated by marketing. They can be made to fit into nice little cells on a spreadsheet. In short, the consumer can be controlled.
It fits nicely into the whole financial theory. Passive object Consumer (C) is convinced by active object Marketing Department (M) to purchase passive object Product (P), created by passive objects Employees (E) under the employ of the active object Owner (O). Add it all up, and you get a nice tity profit (n) for the Owner.
(C + M) + P(E) = O(n)
(A very efficent method, eh?)
There's just one problem: Not all human beings are passive objects C. Humans are not a mathematical equation. The equation works when it is not possible for a person to function otherwise. You force them into playing the role of C or E, and the equation comes out nicely. Everying is predictable, profitable, and controllable.
But as soon as something comes along that threatens the stability and controllability of that equation, panic mode sets in. The printed book would be the death of learning. TV would be the death of radio. VCRs would be the death of movies. DAT would be the death of radio. Cable would be the death of movies. E-books will be the death of learning. The Internet will be the death of civilization. And so on. A little control slips away, and the end is nigh, defend the System to the last lawyer.
No one likes uncertainty (except possibly Shrodinger), and no one likes surprises (except at birthdays). It's not your money that the RIAA or the MPAA or Microsoft want. It's your passivity. They want to know that you can be controlled, not because they want power or greed or world domination but because then you are predictable, and they can wrap their minds around something predictable. Everyone likes things to be predictable. Everyone likes knowing where their next meal is coming from.
So what do we do? Don't be a consumer. Don't be passive. Don't be swayed by marketing. Don't be a part of a machine, however well intentioned and genuinely useful it is (and it is). Most importantly: Don't take your business elsewhere. That doesn't work, it only makes your life more difficult. Saying "we'll just use open source software" doesn't do anything about the continued growth of draconian attempts at regaining control with their collateral damage. Turn and take the issue head on, at its core level: The law.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
"Australia's major record companies, Sony, EMI and Universal, are acting on suspicions that students, and possibly staff, are using the universities' computers to swap digital music files. The industry says the three universities have not divulged information, but that others have co-operated."'
Who's computers and network?
"Information" doesn't always mean open content. They're protecting their copyrights, nothing more.
Banaaaana!
They are "swapped" for free using special software, robbing artists and their record companies of royalties
On behalf of everyone and as a gesture of goodwill I would like to volunteer to try and make it up to Kylie for this heinous crime. Someone else can do the record companies
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
If university students started putting their books online, would publishers go out of buisness? Would people stop writing books as a result?
:) Its funny that they chose to target university students for this, as if they wanted to paint their case a joke.
Likely yes, and most definately no.
If people put music online, would the record producers go out of buisness? Would people stop making music?
Hopefully yes, and hopefully people would stop making bad music.
So who are the only people standing in the way of a revolutionary step in education? Darwin's corporate bastards
God spoke to me
We should be able to do whatever we want with the information on our computers and on our networks.
That's just wrong.
You've never installed and used Linux, have you?
;-)
"Then, use a floppy disk to get the ethernet card drivers installed."
Huh? What'cha smoking? Them's DOS stuff.
"they would still have to compile the P2P software. (As we know, almost nothing that you download every successfully compiles)."
I'll give you that one. I use Lopster all the time, and I have to pull it from CVS. I wouldnt expect my dad or somebody to know how to do that, let alone have the tools to pull. Still, lopster's proven great for me.
"rarely (ever?) distributed in a user-friendly precompiled format,"
how's:
apt-get install neato_program
(CHING CHING) 2% 32% 65% 100%
Installing neato_program
Done
Even a brain-dead windows user could do that (no offence to those brain-dead windows users- I know there's smart ones out there).
"it's a virtual impossibility that anyone using Linux could figure out how to swap files, therefore, making all university students install Linux is the answer. "
I LOVE that answer!!!! Do you know how many default install Redhat boxes there will be? Lots and lots! of shared files
No, it's Sydney so in that context it's always university. Duh, you'd think you'd never brought rubbers to school or passed out after a good pisser.
Disclaimer: I'm not Australian, but I really think the Crocodile Hunter is stupid enough to watch.
Should read:
Some students at the University of Cincinnati have also gotten in trouble for file sharing. You can check out the story on UC's Newsrecord. These students were visited by two IT people as well as four campus police officers. The students that got in trouble were using Direct Connect to share files. Some students had 150+ gigs shared. All students that were on the Direct Connect server had their internet connections shut off (in the dorms) and the people who were sharing a lot got in major trouble. As the newsrecord article says, the university decided, however, to keep all the consequences internal instead of letting the music industry, etc, deal with them. Just goes to show that if you aren't careful and don't have ways to hide your IP address, you can be easily traced.
"Men lie."
"Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about bioluminescent plankton."
-Dan Brown
A staff member was suspended from Monash University (in the outer suburbs of Melbourne) a few weeks ago for "alleged infringement of copyrights in sound recordings and song lyrics published on the staff member's home page". Apparently this led to a large amount of co-workers' computers being forcibly searched as well. No other suspensions have happened, but a lot of people have become quite nervous. It's believed that this action was at the behest of ARIA, which is basically the Australian equivalent of the RIAA.
Now, many of us have recently been advised by our superiors that we will "infringe copyright" even by doing such things as copying our own CDs or encoding them to mp3 files and bringing them into work. Also, our networks are being regularly scanned for machines running file-sharing applications.
It seems that they're gearing up to instituting a policy where having a machine that has transferred large amounts of data and has been seen listening on certain well-known port numbers will soon constitute grounds for having the contents of its hard drive searched.
There are about 3000 bands in Melbourne and I expect about the same in Sydney. Many of these bands give away their tracks because it promotes their tours small international tours. /.ed). These bands make money by selling their CD's when they play and one sells two online but they make their money by playing gigs.
For example there are 5 bands in this list and four out of 5 of them travel around the world and play either as a band or as support for other bands. Based on the stats from the web page, I can can tell where in the world the different bands are (unless it gets
(and I am looking for assitance in maintaining the site for any live music lovers Downunder)
They are "swapped" for free using special software, robbing artists and their record companies of royalties.
Robbing implies that something is taken. College students by nature dont have much money. A poor college student wasnt going to buy the cd anyways, so their are no lost royalties. Furthermore, the artist will make money in the future when the college student goes to the artist's concert. That's what the industry should focus their efforts on. Making money from things that cant be duplicated (although I guess they're trying to make cds like that)
Publishers Wiley, Springer-Verlag, Prentice Hall and others have indicated that they intend to pursue legal action in order to stop the piracy of books in Australian universities.
"It's not just a few students lending a few novels here and there" aaid spokesperson I.L. Douche. "Some campuses have an entire building filled with books which they lend out to anybody."
:wq
People are pirating my music instead of buying it. The fact that they have a pirated copy of my songs means they want them. I went to a lot of trouble, effort and expense to conduct business according to the laws of this country. If I am able and required to follow the rules, I damn well expect the consumers to do so as well. As far as I'm concerened, Palladium can't get here quick enough.
I followed the rules. If I have to use the full power of the law to get people to reciprocate, I will.
It means if i suspect EMI to be creating and album to harm me I can just take them to court without any proof.
This is getting ridiclous. The record labels are not police, and even the police cant take you to court without a warrant and reasonable evidence. The univs should counter sue, after all i bet there will be enough lawyers!
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
wrong. When no one has any mp3's to save, there is no need for huge amounts of memory. Music playback will be limited to Sony's DRM, dog-robot music. All your mp3 are belong to us.
Do you need a website upgrade?
So are you against intellectual property rights?
evil adrian
By contrast, Sydney Uni says it knows of one student with a handful of files on a website...
Are you trying to imply that unauthorized file sharing almost never occurs at universities? Don't make me laugh! At least in the United States there are uncounted gigabytes devoted to this activity. Many universities have had problems with network bandwidth due to file sharing. It's a lot more than "one student with a handful of files"! How credible do you hope to be when you make claims like this?
So Sony et al are either not thinking of the possible longer term consequences, or this is a short-term measure because they suspect in the longer run they will lose this war.
In the 60s and 70s, students demonstrated against bad governments (South Africa, Greece, US involvement in Vietnam, Chile and Cambodia). Perhaps the time is coming when they will demonstrate against overbearing corporations.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
What about music you cant get from stores?
Most of the stuff I look for on MP3 is old music that isnt deemed 'popular' enough to stock in stores or even be produced any more. If it is, it is VERY hard to find.
As for all the other stuff I download, its stuff I WOULDNT go out & buy anyway. Its just nice to have the music there for a bit of variety as its free, I certainly wouldnt go out and buy it for money. However, the music I do like and I can buy, I DO buy.
I get the hunch feeling that a lot of people who 'collect' music are also just getting it cos they can, not getting it instead of buying it. I dont see how people like me are hitting the industry. I think there are a lot of people out there that 'collect' in this way.
Though I do see that there are a lot of people that download INSTEAD of buying something they want and I can see how that can be a hit.
Anon...
Maybe if the campus libraries allowed an unlimited number of people to walk out with a perfect, full copy of a book you might have an analogy. But instead they only allow a single person to have a particular copy of a book checked out (if you can even do that) at a time.
Surely most people would think that free entertainment is more beneficial to the human race than paid-for entertainment. The Romans even had that "Bread and Circuses" thing going on. But I don't think that should mean that any artistic creation instantly becomes everybody's property. Which is silly.
And, life only has meaning if the person living it gives it meaning...
evil adrian
what i don't understand is why so many people are using their considerable talents and intellect to create arguments FOR, and technology TO rip off some of the most harmless people in this country- musicians. Way to go, guys, hurt a group of people who do no harm to the environment or society, and have done nothing but enhance your lives.
I can't believe the demonization of the musicians in general, so everyone can not only feel not guilty about music piracy, but you can convince yourself that you're doing a valuable public service as well.
so let me ask you, MP3 traders, you who are so socially conscious, do you know who is really ripping you off for their own diabolical ends? Why aren't you going after who's really in control of money and powerin our country? What are you doing to thwart them?
it's been proven that when the music industry rips people off intelligent, comitted people can make them pay for it. That's how you do it, that's how you make a real change.
when you're done with the record industry what are you going to do steal from the 'real' man? oh that's right- nothing...that would take effort and commitment, and let's face it, making a REAL change in this world just isn't as fun as watching your downloads complete.
Warez by any other name...
I don't think I'd call the idea of "belonging" selfish. I think it's perfectly reasonable that if one spends time constructing something that it ought to "belong" to him.
If I make a spear with which to hunt fish, it hardly seems reasonable that someone could just take it, leave me, and use it. That is selfishness (and laziness) on the part of the taker.
So money is just a generic way of taking someone's ability to make things and quantify it, so they can buy things that are useful without having to barter and all that crap.
But, at it's basest level, I would hardly call a notion of ownership selfish in nature, though people can certainly BE selfish.
evil adrian
"That's US$1300 that the students aren't shelling out." Horseshit - plain and simple. That's US$Fuckall the students aren't shelling out. No way the large majority of this or other lower income groups are going to be coughing up this amount of moola to 'legally' acquire all they've shared. That's the various recording industries' paid-shill rally cry. They fully know that it's a plain fallacy they are gonna suddenly recoup all this 'lost' revenue. They also know that rather than apply some thought to the issue, a lot of people are gonna see the words 'steal' and 'piracy' and immediately get a bug up their arse and hop on board the mindless Association Train-of-Propoganda. Sure, argue the case based on copyright infringement, but don't spout some steaming pile straight from the 'RIAA/ARIA' Press Kit ffs.
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
then i scan that picture and put it on my website. some people like it enough to want to buy a print. some people like it enough to want to buy the original.
i used to buy an album each week, back when audiogalaxy was in its prime. now, i haven't bought an album in well over a year
And here I am with no modpoints, darn
Banaaaana!
> They don't have anything? ..
Wouldn't we laugh at Record industry if they go to a 5th world country (politically incorrect) and sue people swapping files there? That's exactly what they are doing.
I realize that file swapping is illegal; it's a form of stealing under the current law, but... what Record industry did appears a little extreme, and it's quite ironic, because pop culture, pop songs are not about obeying the law, yet the one who promotes pop culture enforces the law.
But we (I work in IT at a college) *do* have policies against using our equipment for breaking the law, and copyright infringement is specifically listed. And if we catch them, we'll nail them. All the RIAA needs to do is note the date/time and IP and we can trace that back to a specific student and disciplinary procedures WILL happen. Problem is, the RIAA doesn't get personal satisfaction. Just like when someone e-mails abuse@ and we reply "We are investigating and will take appropriate action. However, FERPA prevents us from sharing with you the results of our investigation and any disciplinary action." It pisses the complainer off and it's to no good end because we *do* act on these complaints and if a student is violating our terms, they get disciplined and sometimes expeled.
LOL the Borg! (I am not laughing at you, I am just laughing!)
If you boil human nature down to the bare minimum, we all do things that benefit number one. We don't do things to make other people happy unless their happiness makes us happy -- does that make it a selfish act? Technically yes, and therefore, yeah, I guess we are selfish by nature. I think that is the price of being able to think.
Hmm... we don't NEED money. But it helps. Without money, I would need to learn how to slaughter animals, raise crops, build a house, generate electricity, etc. etc. With money, I choose a profession, and people pay me to do my job, and I pay other people to do their job. It makes life a lot easier in a way.
Is it everyone's goal to acquire things at the expense of others? Unfortunately people don't even think half the time (the reason these mp3 piracy articles keep getting posted.)
It's late, if any of the above is incoherent I apologize.
evil adrian
And how is the copying of your spear denying you the use of your spear? If your spear is superior and everyone copies the spear, is your spear made more valuable or less valuable? Now that everyone is enjoying superior spears, aren't the whole lot of you made superior in the spearish sense?
Now, you own the design of the spear and possess it. Everyone must give you 3 conkle shells to copy your spear, everyone who has conkle shells is in a rush to give them to you. Some people copy your spear without giving you shells, so you stab them with your spear and give the chief many conkle shells to prevent yourself from being punished.
Many years later your children own the design on all spears, no more spears are being designed by other people and few superior spears even by your children. Indeed, the workers your children hire sometimes produce superior spears but they have no opportunity to gain many conkles such as you did because they are only workers producing spears in the name of your children. The chiefs and your children have come to an agreement allowing them to use their spears on any who dare to produce any spears at all. This is very profitable for the chiefs, since your children have many conkles to pay to him. How is your spear increasing the public good now?
The RIAA does read /.
He's going to be someone's pet alright
After copying it elsewhere of course...
.mp3 files. Of course it's pretty obvious that a file that is a couple of kilobytes in size and named index.html.mp3 isn't in fact a Metallica track. But, maybe I'll get to join in the fun...
I'm a Usyd student and I've known about this was happening for a reasonable amount of time.
I did a "find ~ -name '*.mp3'" when I first heard about it and was disappointed that I only had three mp3 files. None of which were music, and all of which were legally obtained.
Since I felt like I'd be missing out I copied one of the directories in my web space and then renamed the files to be
and yes, there's a metric fuckload of music piracy going on. Look through the Computer Science Honours rooms - students in a bandwidth-deprived country are suddenly allowed free reign on a university network. I haven't been through there for a while, but last year, about a third of all of the (student-owned) Windows machines were running some sort of file sharing program (usually Kazaa).
The Electrical Engineering department provide a few network access points. I'm extremely grateful for the service; I can flush my mail queue and get new messages. But the vast majority of people using the ports simply run Kazaa. Start it up, close the laptop, and go on with whatever work you're meant to be doing. It annoys me in a way, because when they were announced we were told that bandwidth would be monitored and the service shut down if we abused it.
I've seen people run FTP servers while they're there. That seems like pretty blatant abuse to me.
But then, it's not like there's a shortage of points to plug into the network around the uni. At least two of the libraries have open ports, and most of the computers in the Psych department log in automatically as Administrator. And let's not forget the open wireless access point in the *cough* vice-chancellor's office *cough*. Which can be reached from the street. And dishes out DHCP. And is on the internal LAN, with all of that yummy site license software.
Ahh, the things you discover walking around uni with a laptop...
I'm probably gonna get slammed for this, too bad.
Universities (and higher education in general) are havens for piracy. File/application swapping among stundents is the norm, but that's been going on for years and I don't think it's what anti-piracy groups have a problem with. They fear one thing: bandwidth.
The concern is two-pronged:
1. Students come to school and suddenly get hooked up to a fat pipe. Megabit-speed internet connectivity in dorms and computer labs. Little Johnny freshman sets up a couple of movies to download on edonkey and leaves for the weekend. During that weekend his 1mbps/1mbps pipe is almost saturated uploading. Johnny gets his movies and, before watching and deleting them, manages to share them with 200 other users.
Home users are usually much more aware of what's going on, maybe even more ignorant of their options. It's hard to stay ignorant when your dorm buddy's always finding new ways to download stuff.
2. Students working in computer science deparments setting up pirate sites. While P2P piracy is huge, traditional 'warez scene' piracy - while reaching less people directly - is probably just as big. It's hard to run a warez site from a private company, people are going to wonder where all the bandwidth is going. But slip that site into a university network, with it's goverment subisidized pipes and it's terabyte-class monthly transfers and it's just a pebble in a pond. With full access to the equipment, students can reroute traffic, shape other traffic to give their 'users' maximum transfers. They can make systems disapear to all faculty computers, or even all on-campus computers, just to cover their tracks.
Almost all of the top warez distribution sites I know (I'm talking WHQ and regional HQs for major groups) are run on university pipes. The rest are hidden among other major bandwidth hogs. (VoIP companies and the like)
Or, maybe the anti-piracy posse is just paranoid.
"We're talking piracy, significant examples of piracy.' By contrast, Sydney Uni says it knows of one student with a handful of files on a website, which does actually sound quite a bit like one track here, one track there"
Give me a break. Typical slashdot fud. The issue is not some stupid website sharing a handful of songs. It's about p2p file sharing on the uni network. Either the uni is completely clueless about what goes on, or they're lying.
Vote for Pedro
No, without money you could still choose a profession and barter professional services for all those things.
While I am sure that the music industry has to try to recoup what they perceive as lost revenue it is in stark contrast to the approach a lot of other companies use when targeting students. Namely giving there products away for nothing.
Yeah sure at present student live on 10 $/euro/pound/drachma a week, and 98 % of that goes on drink and mind altering substances, but the students of today are the consumers of tomorrow (and the next day and the next day), or that is they will be if they don't get butt f#$@$ked left right and centre for making there spending money go a little further.
Compare the record companies approach to that of the credit card companies (stolen or otherwise). CC companies allow relatively high amounts of abuse on the part of students as the are in it for the long run, they know that the dreadlocked Muppet in front of them now will some day come, cap in hand looking for a credit extension for what ever....
Of course the record companies could say that by the time these "cyber pirates" start to put their money where there mouth is the out-moded business model they now use will be part of every business 101 class on how NOT to do business.
A few posters mentioned why don't the Uni(versities) get behind the students, if their uni is anything like mine (www.dcu.ie) then students are a necessary inconvenience that must be tolerated in order to continue to receive revenue to fund the construction of white elephantesque structures, what seats and space in the library, naw we don't think that is needed.
--My sig is bigger than your sig--
Simply give all your mp3 files the extension .guf and make Winamp the player for .guf files... Now let the authorotyes search your disk for music files.... muhahaha.
PS This plan not guaranteed to work.
/me re-reads the article No one is talking about prevention, they're talking about consequences.
Banaaaana!
Though it is offtopic, the fresh humour is most welcome here. Most certainly deserving of +ve mod points.
Don't waste them on this post - in either direction.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Today during an ethics lecture at the University of Tasmania for postgraduates, file swapping and using illegal (pirated) software was mentioned in the same context as faking experiment results and experimenting on humans! At least now I know why they mentioned it as they are obviously a little perturbed by the audit...
Go to a show instead or just listen to the wind whistling between your classmates' ears.
Watch the fuckers crumble when their cash flow flat-lines.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
At my university the filesharing has been demanding almost 150% of the off-campus bandwidth. Needless to say, performance is hurting, badly. Administration recently appealed for the filesharers to voluntarily cut back during day and early evening hours so people doing research and other "real" school activities can get through. I can sympathise with wanting to cut back on this activity, but for different reasons than the RIAA's.
i swear i never let a palladium enabled computer to set foot on my desktop. If they enforce them upon me... then i'll never touch a peecee again. there always has been copying, even when i was duplicating Commodore 64 tapes on my deck in the year 1984. and i have no money to buy software/music... but i agree if u use software/music in a commercial environment (when you make profit out it) then you have to buy it.
You would think they would sort out the illegal CD pressing plans in Asia before going after individuals.
But that would require them to actually do some work or even, gasp, spend some money.
Most people don't care who gets ripped off, and no matter what you think nobody is being ripped off.
Don't believe me?
Show me the balance sheets of the companies claiming harm. I want to see the amount they claim they lost in the respective account of their financial statements reflected as a loss.
Lets suppose that by a miracleous trick the Music Cartel can probe that they lost money. The ones losing money are the industry cartel, a bunch of companies that act immoraly to extort as much profit as they can without exposing themselves to any risk, be in the form of sane competition or investment in musical talent.
With the exception of a very few artists most do not make a living and can't even re-coup the investment they make on their carrers. It is like this now, but it was like that long before MP3 and the Internet. Look, if you want to educate yourself start with Courtney Love presentation to the US congress regarding this matter.
And in regarding stealing as a form of political protest, please read Nelson Mandela's autobiography: you follow the law until this becomes an impossibility.
The only thing I agree with you is that people should not be infringing the copyright of anybody, they should be sharing legit music leaving the Music Cartel with their offerings in the shops' shelves.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Show me the financial statements of the Music Cartel in which they reflect piracy as a loss.
Your "comparation", as used by you and uncountable number of clueless people, is just laughable.
When you steal the malt liquor bottle the poor owner of the store has to write it as a loss for the business.
I want to see the financial statemtns of any company claiming that piracy is costing them money.
Ther is a fscking reason why copyright infringement and theft are two different crimes, you dimwit.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That this is the United States and here, you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty and for normal crimes we have plenty of defenses in the legal system for this. In a criminal proceeding the burden of proof is entirely on the prosecution and if they fail to prove anything, you don't need to say a single word in your defense to win.
Other countries do not necessiarly have the same laws, nor should they have to. A country has the right to run themselves differently than the US. However here it IS supposed to be the case that you are considered innocent and do not need to prove that unless someone else can present evidence of your guilt. However the media companies want to turn that upside down, they want to be able to say that they should be able to accuse you of something and then you be forced to prove your innocence.
That SHOULD be illegal in the US as we hold the "innocent until proven guilty" thing pretty sacred here.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
When you "buy" some music, it is actually only licenced, and then only to you, so any sharing of music is therefore illegal. Students should be stopped from playing any copyrighted music load enough for any more than one person to hear. In fact, all HiFi systems should be illegal... only personal music players should be allowed, and only as long as they are incapable of making any audible sound to anyone else other than the owner (licencee). Humming and Singing of Copyrighed music should be stopped too.
return 0; }
hey, don't CDs in Australia spin counter-clockwise?
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
A masterpiece of timing if you ask me. Nothing like having concrete examples to bludgeon us into losing what rights we never had in the first place.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
And what percentage... Small I'd say, but thats just due to low eposure of that kinda material. I'd certainly listen to more old stuff, if I knew what was really good.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
You're somewhat on, but you're also somewhat off
The artists who sign bad contracts *do* share the responsibility for their resulting misfortune. However, when a person goes to a used car dealer and plunks down hard-earned cash for a shiny lemon car, that person is about as responsible for the car as the artist is for what the record companies do with the music.
So it goes that we have laws. There's a grey area between legitimately "bundled" goods and services and violating the Sherman Act by leveraging dominance in one service market to exert pressures on other services.
It is getting *CHEAP* to produce your own CD. Then you have to promote and distribute it. The Internet is making that cheaper too. Before the Internet, the only way to reach a wide audience with your music was through the big labels and their payola networks. Best Buy hasn't made things any better. Soon, people will re-learn how to reach the record boutiques. This time it won't take a big label to do it.
Which brings me to my point: labels control access to the artists and the audiences. If they lose control of access to either, then their price-controlling ability goes *poof*, and so goes their business. Only small labels will survive (or big ones that begin to behave like small ones).
In the mean time, I still talk to people who think that *the* music business *could* make them filthy stinking rich. People are amused by the idea of a comfortable (but not obscenely rich) life working and releasing new material, and playing to audiences, and building up a catalog, and slowly building residual income from older releases. I always get raised eyebrows from musicians when I tell them to stick to it because they are lucky to pay the rent without needing a "day job."
Now whose fault is it that they think they need to sign that contract? Why does it seem like the choice is between bad contract and floundering between music and a crappy day-job? You simply cannot assume that the "mutually beneficial" crap is a given condition. Really ask yourself where the image of selling one's soul to the devil by signing a record contract would come from.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Wow, armed robbery of a vehicle under way? I had no idea. How many dead?
It's easy to get around Kazaa. I've been doing it at University of Waterloo for a while, even though they have a policy against it, and block all Kazaa ports. Just run Kazaa 2.0 or greater and change the port to 8080 or 80. They noticed me running it on those ports, because they sent me a message telling me to stop. Then you just have to use a firewall, and don't allow any incoming connections on those ports. Kazaa will run fine. Look for Kazaa Lite with K++ extensions and leech away.
In my (limited) knowledge of serious internet piracy (40Gb+ a day) in which 'release groups' distribute the latest rips of films and music. The only way this is possible is over, at the bare minimum, a 10Mbit connection, which unless you want to shell out an awefull lot of cash, is only practicaly available to Uni students (and maybe sysadmin in larger companies). Concequently the majority of these high volume sites are run by students.
;-)
At this rate of data you are getting ~600hrs of music or ~ 55hrs of film per day (~25hrs/hr and 2hrs/hr respectively). Which is obviously totally impractical for personal watching/listening purposes (not to mention the storage issues). The motivation for the release groups and sites is that they want to be seen as 'l33t' and get the releases of whatever it is they are interested in the fastest. Most of the stuff I dare say is deleted without even being reviewed.
My point, is that taking each student to court, especially those putting a couple of songs on a website is futile. If they encouraged the Uni sysadmin to run a few more bandwidth checks they would take out the problem at source (I dare say it's not hard to spot when one IP takes up several percent of the whole universities usage).
But don't tell them that,
I like watching futurama before it's aired
(I dare say 40GB a day is not the amount traded by the largest sites, but it gives a ball park, for most uni scale operations)
My spelling isn't bad, I'm evolving the language
I guess by your definition ebonics must be an advanced language.
By my definition, you're an idiot.
oh thats right, students go to the university for free and dont pay for the network.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Yes and I'm protecting my rights of free speech which states I can share whatever information I want, as well as my fair use rights. Why do the rights of rich people outweight the rights of the majority all of the sudden? I guess democracy is a pipe dream and not reality.
Its our rights vs theirs.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The majority of people like having freedom on their computers, they like sharing information. do we have a democracy or not?
Join the taliban.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
non-profit copyright infringement is a crime that NO ONE should do time for. When that happens, the RIAA is STEALING FROM ME. My taxes are high enough already. I don't need any fake criminals clogging up the courts or prisons that I ultimately pay for.
BTW, it's that time of year in the US again...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Where in order to explain human relationships, we use math.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
Six years later, this collection still covers 90% of what I like on the radio. I bought maybe 1 CD per year to cover the new stuff and except for re-releases of Beatles, classical music and (maybe) Jewel, they sucked badly. I also bought a net album of the Front Porch Country Band on mp3.com after listening to low bitrate version of every song and it was much better than the CDs.
I don't know dude. Since you don't have money to pay Clear Channel to play your music, how am I supposed to know what to buy? You should put some of your stuff on gnutella or mp3.com for us to sample. I'll cut you a deal. Come out, the anonymous coward that you are, and give us a link with a full version of a couple of your songs and 32Khz of the rest of your CD (so that I know you are not filling it with crap). If I like it, I swear on my family honor I will give you $15 for the CD or $2 for each song I choose if you let me download 160Khz MP3s and cut RIAA arses out of the picture.
I know I am probably not talking to a real musician who would be happy people are listening to the music even while complaining about lost profits. But my offer still stands for any and all genuine artists reading slashdot. Just remember I have to LIKE your music first and don't bother with "ALTERNATIVE" "ME TOO" rock.
Before you start to congratulate me on the extraordinary frequency range of my ear. Guess I should have used the preview button!
And I will say it again.
The RIAA's current efforts are like Horse Breeders at the turn of the last century complaining about the comming of the car. people are going to get form place to place the best way possible and they will obtain and listen to music the same way. Right now nobody is offering a way to pay for what P2P provides.
Treating people who copy and distribute IP freely the same as commercial pirating ventures out for profit via re-production of IP material is absolutely absurd. Restricting the flow of information soley to prevent this communal sharring which the digital age has made feasible is severely detrimental to society and taken to the extreme it makes the advantage of information sharing presented by copmuters and the internet largely moot.
The old models are broken people and the real problem with discussions regarding this issue is that people are fundamentally seperated into two groups, those who are attempting to adapt values to the realities of a digital society and those who have maintained the old values and attempted to transfer them. Simply put, Classic value systems regarding physical media are outmoded when applied to digital data.
Copying != Stealing
Copying Freely != Selling illicit copies for profit ( Piracy )
I am not necesarrily saying copying and copying freely is fundamentaly right, just that they are not equivalent actions to the physicaly and capitalistic profit based concepts of stealing or piracy. The RIAA is persuing them as if they are equivalent and that is not right or just and the odds are they are going to seriously trample over some people before the system finally works to correct the situation.
The ability to freely share digital information that has come with a digital society is a very good thing but obviously it is going to present some serious challenges for the industries which have built up for centuries around physical distriubution of things which are now capable of being digitized and which people are now begining to desire in a digital format. Trying to restrict this new ability to a faithful reproduction of the system which governs the exchange of physicaly based information will also maintain the limitations of physcial media which defeats the whole damn purpose of having a widely acessible digital domain in the first place.
Values need to change. We need to decide if we even WANT the digital domain to be subject to the same costs and restrictions as physcial distribution systems. The reasons for doing so before was the protectors of the producers of the material ( ie printing is EXPENSIVE and necesarry ) however that is not the case with a digital infrastructure, the paradigm has changed. Right now we can choose to take digital information rights/distribution down a down a differant path than pysical which is by and by what most people using Napster/Kaza/Gnutella are doing. Right now RIAA's sole claim to rightousnous is in the prosecution of laws that were made in ignorance of what the future would bring. The Digital Mellinium Act has yet to go fully through the judicial review process and I think by and by it is going to sooner or later come to a landmark decision in the supreme court. Unfortunaltly the process is a hell of alot slower in real time than it is reading about it in a history book.
In short I think the RIAA would be much better off it it spent all the money it is wasting on P2P litigation instead on finding a way to harness P2P. Instead they are too stuck on the fact that their 'cheeze' supply is dwindling.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Many schools are having problems related to unauthorized downloads. Lehigh University is among these. Seventeen "cease and desist" orders. Seventeen! The university is cooperating the the RIAA and the MPAA in identifying the students involved.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
I work in IT at UM, and we have gotten several angry emails from the RIAA about certain students sharing a lot. Of course the university tucks tail and blocks their network access and we have to sit them down in front of a committee and make sure they don't still have copyrighted works still on their machine
We also have to point them to the appropriate use policy... with the one line very far down in it that says "YOU MAY NOT copy, install or use any equipment, service, information, data, image, recording, or other work in violation of applicable copyrights or license agreements."
This is probably what other Universities are doing... setting a general policy to CYA.
UM appropriate use policy
I attend UW Oshkosh in Wisconsin, a public college of about 10,000 students. All the dorms have 10 megabit ethernet for internet connections. Well, one day about a month ago I was busy surfing the web when my connection just stopped working. After much fruitless effort to get it to work again, I hear a nock on my door. Two IT guys say I was caught sharing copyrighted software (AutoCAD) and made me disable file-sharing in Kazaa while they watched. I was so disturbed by this Orwellian situation that I called the IT department and asked how I was found to be sharing copyrighted files. The guy says that a third party informs them of the IP adress of useres they find sharing, and they could obviously tell exactley what dorm room it belonged to. So had this ever happend to anybody else?
Next you'll be presenting that the reason that my wife slept with the milkman was because it was raining on a wednesday.
Lets look back in the 1600's.
Man A employs 2 men. Man A invents something which no longer requires 2 men. So he fires one.
By your argument, inventions and progress are evil.
The generally accepted argument which ironically spured the creation of copywrights to begin with is the opposite.
You feeling stupid yet?
God spoke to me
Love doesn't pay the bills, it just makes the lack of opulence more bearable. That's what we're really talking about here. It's not poverty or starvation, just the lack of opulence. Take away the girls, the drugs, the limos and all the wasted studio time and you're left with the real musicians rather than the shameless hair bands.
Professional violist vs. pop star.
As far as the law goes: some laws SHOULD be broken. Although I don't need to. You see, there is a legal recourse that I have that simply didn't occur to you.
Mebbe you should rant less when you post...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
the sooner they all become lifetime non-cutomers the sooner the world will be rid of the RIAA.......
What right does a musician have to tell me what I can and cant do with my own god damn computer. If you wanted to lock your music up, why did you put it on a CD? Oh, that's right, to make money. Fuck off and die ya parasite.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Oh,and with your spelling I actually honestly do believe you are a musician.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Copyrights != information Not to mention I don't remember any ammendment saying citizens had the right to share any information they wanted.
Banaaaana!