Slashdot Mirror
Verizon to Reveal Customers in DMCA Subpoena Case
JulisJ writes "NYTimes reports that Verizon will turn over the names of online subscribers accused of swapping music. This could be a big blow to the file-swapping community, even if you're swapping legit." There's also a story on News.com. See our previous story for background.
here is a mirror in case the article gets slashdotted (sure to slashdot me as well i'm sure)
http://digitalsushi.com/home/mikec/mirror.gif
*ducks*
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
...Does that constitute filesharing? :)
Bowie J. Poag
"The Court of Appeals decision confirms our long-held position that music pirates must be held accountable for their actions and not be allowed to hide behind the company that provides their Internet service," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement.
Pirates by whose account? Their good guess? To the RIAA/MPAA we're all guily until proven innocent. We've already seen cases where the RIAA has made mistakes in identifying the true pirates. How many more mistakes are they going to be allowed to make without a penalty for their actions?
Mike
Oh yeah, what are they gonna do? Come and arrest me?
BRB, someone's knocking on my doo..&)DFF *& &FEfew8afujewa8iop9u
NO CARRIER
My journal has hot
/me hopes I'm not one of them...
Do these people who are being identified know who they are? Does anyone know if Verizon contacted them and made them aware? If so, would Verizon liable if they packed up, deleted all the potentially infringing files and left the country?
The RIAA are also covering this. (very smugly I bet)
You 'Kids' need to understand that MOST file swapping is illegal, so the legit uses will suffer because of it.
Keep passing the open windows...
LOL! That's a good one, "swapping legit"! Do another one, maybe about the "compassionate" conservatism of the Bush administration this time!
The Free desktop that Just Works
IANAL, but can they still prove the individual's guilt if they wiped there hard drive?
"Oh someone must have spoofed my ip! I don't trade music, I swear!"
Polaroid. See what develops!!
What do they have, packet sniffers and logs running?
"Sir! 62.32.39.112 just sent a MP3 file to 230.93.122.5! Lets send in the SWAT team!"
This is the reason I only download movies and Tv shows. Music is much too dangerous.
doesn't this fit under illegal search and siezure?
I am pretty sure, but not certain, that you have the right to view the search warrant to see if it is valid. Now since your internet provider gets the warrant they have they right to look at it, but since they are not searching your property its legal for them to take whatever your IP has on you. But isn't any information that the IP gets on you illegal since it was an illegal search and seizure of sorts or did we sign away all of rights to privacy when we signed their EULA thing?
If they don't, it's their asses on the lines for obstruction of justice.
I think that the RIAA and MPAA have gone way too far. We don't need a private or secret police force in america, and we certainly don't need already super rich industries suing everyone with a DSL line to their home.
I'm truly begining to wonder when it is exactly that the public at large is going to stand up against this horrible abuse of power and perfect example of corruption of democracy and say, ENOUGH. This is getting very old very quickly and I'm tired of always hearing about the *AA lawsuits.
P2P is here to stay because people don't value the bilboard top $100 as worth $15 a CD, they value it as giving it the time to download the song. It's the same with anything else, entertainment is valued at what the consumer is willing to pay for it, it's the fact that these companies think that they're losing income. NO YOUR NOT, it's not that valuable to us and we're not going to pay for it so quit trying.
Is this concept really so hard to understand?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
If I were one of those people, I would sue Verizon for releasing my information.
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
After hearing this news many people are going to be discouraged by filesharing. This could be the end of people thinking they can get away with it.
So the implications will be:
1) People will stop sharing their files and leech
2) People will stop sharing and move over to services like eMusic/Apple.
3) Everyone starts using freenet!
The last option sounds the best, its the evolution of Filesharing like Kazaa was after Napster. The more they attack pirates the further underground they push them.
There is no god
Do these people who are being identified know who they are?
Let's me do some extensive research for you...
(reads article)
Yes, they do:
"Ms. Deutsch said Verizon had already informed the two people whose information is the subject of its lawsuits against the recording industry group. The group has filed two additional subpoenas, and those subscribers have also been informed that their names are to be divulged."
It's not the RIAA who's ruining P2P for everyone else, it's the people who are abusing it.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
...how much this is going to effect their subscriber base. I would leave them for sure if I saw my ISP doing this kinda stuff. :P
No I didnt spell check this post...
Yes, it doesn't work the same way that Kazaa does or Napster did, it is more like a parallel world wide web, but I certainly don't think that the Napster-inspired UI paradigm is the "be all and end all" of P2P user interfaces.
Some people complain that Freenet's anonymity make it too slow, yet I have been able to get entire 900MB movies from it at about 90k/sec (over a 160k/sec downstream connection), and do-so consistently and reliably.
The Freenet developers are working hard to improve Freenet's speed too - as we speak they are working to migrate over to the vastly more efficient java.nio networking library which should dramatically reduce Freenet's CPU requirements.
Further down the line, they have been working on a radical rethink of Freenet's core routing algorithm, called "Next Gen Routing", which should make Freenet much faster when it comes to retrieving information.
Anyone worried about this issue should go to the Freenet website and help them with a donation ASAP.
do have to worry about the RIAA/MPAA if I watch my pr0n with the mute on?
Slightly offtopic, but don't copyright laws allow for a certain amount of reproduction of a work of media, like 10% or less?
Why can't the p2p networks be designed to allow each user to share no more than 10% of the toal work? Would this be legal?
I submitted this story earlier today, but it didn't make it. Basically, Sen. Sam Brownback from Kansas is announcing the "Consumer,Schools, and Libraries Digital Rights Management Awareness Act," which will, among other things, require that a copyright holder win a lawsuit in order to obtain the name of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate.
In the meantime, I say turn about's fair play: let's all of us accuse the RIAA of illegally distributing our copyrighted material and invade their privacy without bothering with the courts. Let's rat out every music executive out there who's downloading kiddie porn or sending naughty emails to their mistresses. Hey, if they can do it to us, why can't we do it to them?
my 2 cents...
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
This could be a big blow to the file-swapping community, even if you're swapping legit.
Exactly. Both of those people may be forced to use ftp.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
The case immediately exposes the four defendants to legal action.
The nytimes.com and news.com articles don't say anything about why these 4 guys are being singled out. What about all the other millions of guys out there using P2P to swap music? Are they just trying to make a guy feel left out?
--- I'm Green Hornet's sidekick not Inspector Clouseau's!
The RIAA can be contacted at:
RIAA
1330 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036
phone +1-202-775-0101
fax +1-202-775-7253
Let them know what you think.
...even if you're swapping legit...
Subject says it all. If you're 100% legit what's the problem?
You couldn't argue against what I said, so you just moderated it down. Very big of you.
Fine. I'd like to find out the names behind some IPs I personally suspect of using the brand name Jello(tm) without permission. How do I file?
What? I can't unless I'm a multinational corporation? That sure sounds like equal protection under the law to me.
-Ryan C.
-Ryan C.
Given that an epidemic of illegal downloading is threatening the livelihoods of artists, songwriters and tens of thousands of other recording industry workers who bring music to the public
Epidemic? Gotta love that spin....If the artists weren't getting bent over by the RIAA in the first place, it'd be even less of an issue.
I've yet to hear of any artists or workers that are pan-handling or have become squeegee people....In other news the RIAA states that file-sharing is causing the sky to fall and the world to flatten!
Methinks Verizon will lose many a customer over this.
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
The professor? Chances are with this precedent, the RIAA will just demand all the names of people they _think_ are trading illegal files. Knowing the ISP, they'll probably hand over the names, and disconnect your service in the process for violating TOS. The ISPs will just assume everything is true.
:)
Since the RIAA didn't even bother CHECKING the files first, who knows how many people are going to get screwed this way. I'm sure there are Pro-RIAA zealots out there who PURPOSEFULLY put out fakes. Well I guess there is a brighter side. Those guys will get nailed too
If I had been contacted I would have finially been able to use those discs that came with my computer. I would secure wipe the drive (many times) and reload to the original config. The problem is that would prove my guilt because no reasonable person would believe I would actually still be running Windows Me. (damn foiled by Microsoft again)
What is this, some kind of random bable generator?
Yet another reason to be using IP security in transport mode. When you do this, all the ISP can see are the source & destination IP addresses, and the fact that the rest of the packet (transport protocol included) is encrypted.
No more spying.
No more "traffic shaping" based on the protocols you use.
All they can do is traffic analysis.
With all of the Verizon subscribers, why did they pick four? Was it the volume of files that they had or is it that once they have the four, they have firmer legal ground to go after the rest?
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
It ain't gonna work on me, I've got already loaded the latest Hiro Protagonist antivirus ware!
no-registration link
Obe
I can understand Congress being bought out by various copyright holders, but I was amazed to find that courts going in favor of the DMCA. How this couldn't be viewed as a major violation of privacy and in fact condones corporate vigilantism is beyond me.
When that piece of shit law finally hits the Supreme Court, I really hope they step up to the plate and show the world what Checks and Balanaces really means.
HOW is the parent a Troll? Just because /. agree with this viewpoint? If anything, this should be marked "Interesting" as it is a valid point. At least that is what the courts seem to lean towards nowadays.
Why don't we all grow up and learn to live past our petty differences?
Unfortunatly, Verizion is one of the few companies who (so far) was willing to stand up for consumer rights. It's sad; it just wasn't unexpected.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
at msnbc, where this story is running also, (http://www.msnbc.com/news/922214.asp?0dm=C12LT) they state at the end "Meanwhile, both sides (RIAA and Verizon) are closely watching for legislation coming soon from a Republican lawmaker that would require copyright holders to file an actual legal case against a suspected infringer before they seek the subscriberâ(TM)s identity via a subpoena."
Anyone know who is proposing this and what it entails? Any other details?
-DarDack
"Life is not fair"
"This could be a big blow to the file-swapping community, even if you're swapping legit"
If your "swapping legit", you probably have nothing to fear.
What I don't understand why there is such a pro-stealing stance in the write ups of these articles on Slashdot. Those assholes who are sharing materials that they don't have the rights to are making it harder on the rest of us. Maybe we should have an article promoting the idea of violating the GPL next.
Someone mod this up as funny.
I'm sure Mrs. Rosen must have posted it:-)
I know this may be out of left field, but could I not copyright my identity? What's to stop me from copyrighting my name, address, phone number, email, IP address, etc? If my ISP were to reveal my identity, I could then initiate the same process that the **AA is initiating against file swappers. This way, anyone who infringes on my privacy by either sending my spam, telemarketing, revealing my address, engage in identity theft, or revealing my identity to people/organizations I don't want would be guilty of copyright infringement.
Just a thought.
This space left intentionally blank.
for the people who are getting steamrolled by the DMCA.
There was a time when lawmakers wrote laws for the people.
It seems lamakers now write laws for whomever will keep them in power longer, which generally means who supplies their campaigns with the most money.
The RIAA funnels millions into lawmaker campaign coffers, and so we have the DMCA.
And the little guy gets steamrolled.
Is this really what American Democracy is all about?
Unlike ordinary "John Doe" subpoenas, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows copyright holders to subpoena information without first seeking a judge's blessing, making it an easier and cheaper method for tracking down alleged copyright infringers.
That's not correct. Had Verizon responded by shutting off the offending material, it could not have been compelled to reveal the subscriber's information short of RIAA filing a John Doe suit.
Verizon made a different claim. It said, "I'm just an innocent ISP. Someone else owns and is in posession of those servers." RIAA then quite reasonably said, "Well then you have to tell us how to get in touch with them so that we can serve them the same DMCA notice." Verizon said, "Nuh uh!" and the current legal battle ensued.
Basically, Verizon thought they saw a hole in the law and were trying to take advantage of it. The safe harbor portion of the law says that in order to be protected from copyright infringment claims, Verizon would have to take down any infringing material a customer put on their server at the owner's request, UNLESS the customer wrote a counter letter claiming that the material was non-infringing. If the customer wrote such a letter, Verizon could leave the material up and still not be liable for any infringement, however they would have to pass the letter back to the complainer and the letter was required to include the customer's contact information.
Not explicitly addressed in the law was the understanding that the IP addresses assigned to various companies was a matter of public record, stored at the various IP registries, so a copyright owner could directly determine who owned a particular server.
Verizon went to court and said, "That IP address is delegated to someone else, and just because the IP block delegations to me are published doesn't mean I have to publish who I delegate IP addresses to."
In essence, the court said, "Horse puckey! The IP address registry says that's your IP address. If its not, you have to say whose it is. And you better hurry up before we decide that it was yours after all and you lose your safe harbor protection!"
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Hey tough guy, don't you get it? The day of government enforced corporate monopolies is slowly, grindingly dragging to a close. Why? The massive, hundreds of millions strong groundswell of public opinion is finally being given a voice, and that voice is P2P. How many times has Kazaa been downloaded? You think those numbers are exaggerated, or part of some Kazaa marketing spin?
We can and will download software, music, films, and anything else we can lay our paws on for nothing more than the cost of the connection. Why? Because we're sick of the overcharging and package stuffing indulged in by all the major producers? No. Because we are immoral and anarchistic criminals seeking to imbalance western economic equilibrium? No.
We do it because we can, and its cheaper than buying the damn things. A couple of examples are not going to stop or even slow down the tidal wave which is all around us. The floodgates that no one even knew were there are open, and they will never be closed again. Its over.
Sorry for your troubles, but if I was you I'd get into cabbage farming or something. Open source is not a viable alternative, its the only way its going to go! Anything that can be committed to an electronic medium should be immediately free.
You're wasting your time otherwise.
If I put up a web page on my machine or in the FTP headers and such, on my IP saying that site cannot be accessed by the RIAA, its affiliates or anyone working for the RIAA for any reason and that doing so constitutes illegal intrusion into my system, would that make the RIAA liable for accessing my system illegally. Is there any kind of electronic tresspass law which people could use to make it illegal for them to send their web crawlers and such over your website and such?
Given that I don't host their crap on my site, what gives them the right to eat up my bandwidth constantly by randomly searching for mp3's? (My personal webserver has been crawled by a suspected RIAA bot about 15 times this week) I know they are doing this as they have Embarrased themselves in the past by searching harmless systems.
This makes going over my log files when I need to a real pain too when I have access logs showing some damn bot pouring over every file name on the system.
So do those of us who are sick of them using these abusive tactics have any recourse to go after the RIAA for intruding on our systems with annoying bots? I for one am tired of them cataloging my web server and trying to FTP in anonymously every 10 hours or so just because I *might* have something of theirs posted up.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
effect: Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result. definition
affect: To have an influence on or effect a change in definition
you wanted affect.
If someone should happen to post it, perhaps she might receive a few new catalog subscriptions... perhaps enough to flood a city block?
Why not post some other interesting RIAA office addresses? It might make sending subpoenas and cease and desist notices more interesting if they have to wade through an ocean of Spiegel catalogs to do it.
Denial of service indeed.
Here's a suggestion:
Everyone here send letters to every single recording company ordering them to turn over information to use under the law. Also, send millions of letters to Verizon asking them for the name of everyone who ever visited your web site. You have logs! You have IP addresses! Let's go! Clog the system!
This development is significantly more serious than the lawsuits currently filed against P2P software developers, such as the one against Streamcast. First, there is a set precedent of the RIAA winning suits against individual persons - take the university students that were sued earlier this year, for example. Regardless of if the P2P suits are won - after all, there can always be another P2P app developed and posted online somewhere (just ask Justin from Nullsoft about that) - if individuals themselves are faced with the threat of multi-million dollar lawsuits by the RIAA for swapping music files, who is going to take the risk? Is the threat of settling out of court for tens of thousands really worth risking an illegal download of a song that could be purchased for .99 cents from a 'legitimate' provider?
Does this mean that so-called 'legitimate' music file services, such as those provided by Apple and RealNetwork, will become the preferred method of obtaining music online?
What does this mean for ISPs who provide broadband? How many of you have seen the Comcast commercial, where they pitch the fact that you can quickly download music files as part of the reason to switch to cable internet access? (the ad is of a guy burning a CD for some girl he just went on a date w/...) I know for a fact many consummers are moving to broadband simply because they can download music, movies, videos - for "free". While I doubt that there would be an exodus of cable/dsl subscribers leaving their service to return to dialup, if file sharing were no longer 'safe', so to speak, what impact would this have on future sales of broadband internet service? On some level, Verizon has to understand that file sharing's survival has an impact on sales of their DSL service - while I'm sure they are trying to protect the rights of their customers, they have to also be aware that the elimination of P2P as one of the broadband 'perks' is a blow to the appeal of their product.
Should ISPs include some kind of 'legitimate' file sharing service as part of their broadband plan?
If the RIAA believes these kind of injunctions are going to somehow stimulate sales of CDs, they are sorely mistaken - removing the on-demand, popular method of previewing an artist's recorded work prior to purchasing will only hurt CD sales, not strengthen them. The best thing the RIAA could do to stimulate music sales is to prevent crappy music from getting recorded in the first place...
Rreally
Ignorant
Anal
Assmunches
Sorry.
Just venting.
But they really piss me off.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
can we start up a blackhole list for media companys (and thier hired thugs, ie media force) net blocks, and blackhole them, just ignore, and shun. i think this wold be good, and then block the dial up ip address of isp they use. so isp will get pissed, and not sell them dial up, dedicated, or other services. kinda like the a email RBL list. that would be a start....
I earn more than you and I steal.
Also, I know how to spell.
If it is so easy to get the ISP to reveal the identity of a P2P user, why not get them to give the names and addresses behind the accounts that send SPAM?
Yeah, and somebody else mentioned that Senator Brownback's biggest campaign contributors were telecoms like BellSouth, SBC and Verizon.
The best democracy money can buy!
wow this AC has been to the Morpheus University of the Melodramatic!
There is no god
Or something like that. All that is really being proven at this point is that Joe Blow's ISP account was connected during certain times. What if Joe has an open WAP, and someone connected up to it and used it for illegal filesharing without his knowledge? Maybe Joe was out of town for the week, and his housesitter was doing the filesharing? I'm not sure I see how they can pin this on Joe, just on a computer connected to Joe's broadband service.
Casca
(emphasis added by me)
I guess the two decks in the player could have been in a prearranged, formal combat between two persons, usually fought to settle a point of honor, but I highly doubt it. I'm sure you meant it was composed of two usually like or complementary parts instead. Too bad you didn't say that.
i am at work but my home computer is on right now swapping songs.
what are they going to do? cut off my access?
i go to another isp.
are they going to sue me?
show me my illegal files. they are all on an external usb drive. oops, no more drive.
prove i traded files with a certain name/ ip?
someone hacked my account. my ip changes every time i login. prove it's really me.
and if they do, i will proudly go down as a martyr for the cause of intellectual property common sense. if those legions of lawyer assholes want to make me a fallguy for the fucking riaa, so be it.
the corporatization of intellectual property has gotten to the point where innovation is stifled in the name of maximizing corporate profits.
intellectual property laws should FOSTER creativity, not squash it. i would be proud to be turned into a bankrupt cause celeb for the sake of publicizing and casting a spotlight on a bankrupt morality.
some of you think no one will care. well, guess what, more and more people are caring every day about individual rights being trampled in the name of the bank accounts of large corporations. i am completely unapologetic about my file swapping and i will be proud to be sued by these mother fuckers if what i get in return is the image of the little guy getting screwed by corporate interests broadly publicized.
first rule of public relations: there is no such thing as bad pr. any noise that is made over this case is good pr for the cause of individual rights versus corporate greed. fuck them. go ahead and sue me assholes.
my file swapping is going on right now and will not be stopped. i will switch isps, i will switch file swapping programs. and there is nothing you can do to stop me.
and oyu can take "me" to be the individual in pursuit of intellectual property common sense.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
just say it the fact you are a moral scumbag, you don't have to go into the "quasi-liberal" philosophy of all things. /.-reading-quasi-intellectuals.
/.er wake up, smell the coffee, and see that you are a perennial loser.
you'd probably rob a bank, steal a car, murder a person, blow up WTC buildings, if your anonymity is guaranteed.
modern economies are built on such infrastructure. if artists, programmers, directors don't get paid -- why would they produce anything?
if you are saying things are overpriced, did you even try and buy the 99 cents/song from apple. i bet you didn't (ohhh, wait -- no client for linux, windows, etc -- you already have an excuse). but, i bet when they do have one, you'll still pirate.
because thats who you are, a low life pirate. a thief. a mongrel of
so, grow up, pay for the stuff, you want. if you can't afford it, buy less. don't complain its too expensive and download an overzealous amount.
and pleeeease stop claiming p2p is the result of an informed public. you are the first one to blame the "public" for microsoft's dominance, the rise of american idol and survivor, and ultimately the existense of religiton.
you have no high moral grounds. you'd pick up a 10 dollar bill on the ground if you saw it. please, fucking, mr. insightful, you are as human as they get. even if they made thigns cheaper, people like you would still d/l tons of music, giving them no incentive to lower the price. instead, spending the money on high-priced lawyers (don't worry, i hate them more then i dislike your post)
SO, FUCKING STOP!!!!
STOP using your fluid moral high groups, your quasi-liberal propogandas. you're retarded ways. there is a lot of free music to be found (really free, given out by the aspiring artists). but, no, you want to d/l the latest crap like sean paul and ludacris (and god knows who).
so, mr. conventional
the gov't is here to stay, and a liberal gov't will only make it bigger and fatter. a republican gov't will only make it more pro-business. you lose either way. (there is no alternative).
Seen a movie with a hacker in it! Bwahahahaha. You crack me up.
At least Verizon didn't in this case -- Good for them! There have been a number of cases where ISPs have just rolled over and released names. $cientology has done it a number of times with completely bogus copyright claims. (Theoretically they could be counter-whacked in court, but who wants to get in a legal battle with people who'll spend millions to avoid paying out "one thin dime"? [Although, in the end, they paid out over 80 million thin dimes, w00t!]) AOL rolled over for the US Navy without even a DMCA claim. "According to the sworn testimony of US Navy staff legalman Joseph M. Kaiser, he called AOL and immediately got the full real name and state of residence of the AOL member who owned the profile in question."
If the RIAA didn't check the files at the time, and assuming the files are long gone from computers involved, where's their case? (Pro-RIAA zealots? Where?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
See Mom, I DID learn something in school!
--Sig? Uh, it's in my other pants.
Oh, there is a way, but the fat sheeple that populate this dessicated mass we call Earth have grown too complacent to handle it. It's time to bring down the system, a hard reboot of society. It's either that, or keep on following the spiraling congo-line into annihilation.
I see... Didn't seem like a real language as each 'word' was always composed of an alternance between vowels and consonants.
Who are the four? Has Verizon contacted the alleged offenders and said "The RIAA is after you". If not, then think of all the schmoes deleting files. Who wins? The RIAA. Once again this is a tactic.
Kill the White Man
I changed my name to reflect an expresion of my innerself. As I feel this is an unique expression I do not want others copying it and infringing on my art.
How bout that?
-- taking over the world, we are.
. . . what effect this will have on Verizon and who uses it, if any. That's something worth following - if Verizon does indeed suffer loss of customers, etc. that may be a powerful club to motivate other companies NOT to give in to the RIAA.
.
That is of course, if enough people care to boycott/protest/avoid Verizon . .
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
just say it the fact you are a moral scumbag, you don't have to go into the "quasi-liberal" philosophy of all things.
/. before, the very same artists who were producing art before being overtaken by corporate economics will continue to do so.
you'd probably rob a bank, steal a car, murder a person, blow up WTC buildings, if your anonymity is guaranteed.
Hmmm. What on earth gave you that impression?
if you are saying things are overpriced, did you even try and buy the 99 cents/song from apple.
Take a closer look. Thats exactly what I wasn't saying.
why would they produce anything?
As has been pointed out on
and pleeeease stop claiming p2p is the result of an informed public
Never said that either.
I'm not trying to excuse or defend file sharing. My own opinion on the matter is entirely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. All I'm doing is pointing out the solid facts of the matter. I'll gladly consider any reasoned point of view, and if it's better than mine, logically, it would not make sense not to adopt it.
So far, I have yet to see a better assessment of the facts as they stand.
And no, I won't stop.
So what's the RIAA going to do with hundreds of thousands, and if other ISPs follow - tens of millions, of seperate teenagers downloading music? Go after each and every one of them? Try it. Just. Try. It.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
I do not know jack about the law, but can not the people who the ISP have contacted simply toast their computers? [By toast I mean burn/destroy them to the point of no data gathering possible] Would this not hinder any type of searching that the RIAA wants/needs to do? I realize that once a search warrant has been issued you are not able to destroy evidence, but if these people have not been served yet they are able to do this, correct?
I also realize that the ISP has the info the RIAA is after, but wouldnâ(TM)t toasting the computer help anything along. [By help I mean, keeping the user out of the Big House].
g
Stop laughing. Yes, you! I'm serious.
What was music like before recordings? People wrote songs, to be sure. Other people published the sheet music under copyright. People played the music and sang the music. Some bought the sheet music, others played by ear and remembered the words. The people who wrote the music didn't get rich, but some of the publishers did. (Sound familiar?)So if Congress says, "Copy away!" and the recording industry dries up and blows away:
How is this a bad thing? Think about it with an open mind and see where it leads.Will there still be music? Yes.
Recorded music? Maybe.
Will the people who write the music starve? No. (They'll keep their day jobs.)
Will the publishers starve? Not if they can be retrained as burger flippers. [Joke!]
Will there still be professional performers? Yes.
Will you or your kids learn to play an instrument and sing? Quite likely.
Will you enjoy getting together with friends and neighbors for a "Music Night" every week? Probably more than you enjoy sitting alone in your room wearing headphones.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Dear Mike Hunt,
You have been shown to be sharing massive amounts of pr0n. This is driving people away from downloading our music files, which reduces the chance that we can fuck them when we mass-mail these letters. Here is a list of your IP's that are violating:
192.168.0.6-27
192.168.0.50
Please take them down as soon as possible, or we will be forced to DDoS them ourselves.
Your New Best Freinds,
RIAA (Recording Industry Asses of America)
These
anonymous p2p applications
will be come even more necessary......
I'm not in the states, so the RIAA etc can't (yet) come and get me. But what the stay of play if like me you a Wi-Fi link with only the ESSID and channel set, (my linux box is locked down from everywhere), but anyone can (and is free) to use my Hotspot.
I don't know who they are, what they do... I just provide free bandwidth if there around.
Do I get done for file sharing??
Seems to me, they're just likely to make HEROES out of the guys buy announcing their names. Hope they spell 'em right...
sharing copyrighted material is illegal. period. when will you dumb fucks learn?
hows about getting a fucking job?
Will all of us get one job and work in shifts, or will one of us support the rest with this job?
then you'd be able to *buy* shit instead of stealing it.
I don't buy or steal shit, but I will sell you some. $5/lb sound good?
use open source software every day at my job. the difference between you and me is i earn over $60K a year from exploiting the shit you dumbasses pump out for nothing.
Kudos. I have better manners and don't smell from "exploiting the shit" as you say.
hell, i dont need to pirate CDs because i can afford them. I buy CDs, then go play them in my Lexus on my way to work.
Again, kudos! A Lexus, hot damn. I bet you have a huge pecker too, huh?
Get a WAP, stick it behind your cablemodem/router/whatever, and claim you had it set up insecurely for a while and that someone else was using it to download all that music. Course, this don't work well if they snag your hard drives and you haven't securely wiped them...
File Sharing Hurts mega corporations, not musicians. The five major labels (Sony, Universal, BMG, Warner Bros, EMI) would like us to believe that file sharing steals from musicians. Wrong! It's actually the major labels who steal from the musicians! What you need to know about Major Label recording contracts: 1.Typical royalties paid to the artist come out to about 10Â per album sold. 2.The artist loses ALL COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP to his/her music. 3.All recording, production, mastering, and music video production costs COME OUT OF THE ARTIST'S royalties. 4.The label has total control over what the music is used for. The label is free to license anything they own to whoever they want. (Think about it next time you hear that classic song on an S.U.V. commercial) What you need to know about Clear Channel: 1. Owns the majority of radio stations in the U.S. (over 1500). 2. Receives huge payments from the 5 major labels to play major label owned music. 3. Has direct ties to the Bush administration and actively censors artists who do not support their rightwing politics. (I.e. Clear Channel has stopped playing the Dixie Chicks) Why would an artist sign to a major label? 1. Without the major label's connection to Clear Channel the artist has NO CHANCE OF EVER BEING PLAYED ON THE RADIO. 2. Without the major label's connection to MTV the artist has little chance of ever getting a video played. 3. Often the artist is wooed to the label by a large advance (sometimes in the millions of dollars), but the artist has to pay this money back to the label. File sharing Facts: 1. File sharing gives equal exposure to ALL musicians regardless of corporate sponsorship. 2. CD sales rose steadily until AFTER Napster was taken offline (check SoundScan numbers)â"CD sales only began to drop once the labels began calling the majority of their customers thieves. 3. The major labels began to reduce the number of releases BEFORE the Napster hearingsâ"EVEN THOUGH CD SALES WERE RISING. 4. Independent artists are currently SELLING BETTER THEN EVER BEFORE. Why the major labels are so scared of file sharing? Because the labels know that the only thing they can offer new artists is the chance to be heard on Clear Channel and seen on MTV. File sharing allows any artist to be heard by potentially millions of people, this has the corporate labels terrified. They are willing to go to any lengths to stop us from hearing independent artists. Recently the RIAA has sued a Michigan Tech student for sharing music with other students. The total amount in damages the RIAA sought from this single student was a whooping 97 billion dollars! (the case was eventually settled out of court) Every time you buy a CD you are supporting a system that exploits musicians and STEALS their intellectual property. Stop funding the persecution of fellow students! Stop giving money to huge corporations who take 99% of the money that rightly belongs to the musician! If you want to support musicians, consider downloading or copying their album and mailing them 5 dollars (that's fifty times what they would make if you paid 18$ for it!).
So far, the spam kings have easily hidden their identities and outwitted most of the software and schemes people have used to try and secure their inboxes from junk mail. Many of the same practices could be (and probably will be) incorporated in file-sharing software.
In the meantime, we have learned the following from the Verizon case:
1) Don't share 600 files
2) Munge the names of files, and use different extensions from "mp3" or "wma" (Did I hear someone say "ogg vorbis?")
3) Don't stay online with your filesharing software all day
Our house runs a wireless lan in a city type area. If RIAA went after us, we could just say that we have no idea who shared those files. It could easily be our neighbors who jumped on the network. That will always be plausible doubt.
This is also known as guilty until proven innocent, for those of us that may show up as a false-positive on the illegal P2P scale.
Even more interesting, as mentioned in the News.com article, is a related story from yesterday morning that I missed. It seems the Republicans are getting it right... or at least are trying to. Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas is seeking to regulate how digital rights management (DRM) is incorporated into consumer products. Also, the proposed bill would require that a copyright holder gets permission from a judge before receiving the name of any alleged illegal P2P user.
Of course, DRM goes against everything I believe in, but any kind of regulation of how this technology is deployed is a step in the right direction. Allowing the marketplace to intelligently decide what amount (if any) of copy protection is reasonable is a Good Thing.
The RIAA a private organization is requesting information on private individuals who are under suspicion for having violated copyright laws. Shouldn't this fall under the jurisdiction of a criminal investigation requiring Judicial approval to release the names.
Basically, the precedent here is I can write my local ISP and say that I have a bunch of I.P's addresses who I suspect of having offended me or violated something and to please release their names and info. How does this work? Or is the RIAA working through law enforcement.
It would seem that request should come from a State AG or some other law enforcement agency.
This made me think that the copyright act needs a little bit of updating to allow for the things that TAXPAYERS do nowadays with their technology: playing rips of their music for convenience, for one thing.
Fully anonymization and strong encryption is inevitable. Coupled with the decentralized nature and FastTCP and I give the current Media industries another 7 years.
RIAA is fighting a losing battle but they are gonna take as many people down as they can.
....hey man turn that radio off before I get in the car. I don't want to get in trouble for listening to something that I didn't buy.
the next windows virus should be a honeypot that does nothing but mockup the gnutella/ edonkey/ overnet protocols.
then we will see how these millions of dollars on lawyers was so well spent.
these people should concentrate on improving their products and not this crap.
this is all just paranoid hype to explain away why their stock prices suck so badly.
when actually there hasnt been a movie or a record made that i can think of in the last few years that given a few months of time isnt a waste of plastic to own. and if they are worth while, they are selling like crazy and the p2p systems dont really impact them (as if people arent going to buy the matrix on dvd *and* have the screener).
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Can someone explain to me how it is that corporations and government in the US are allowed to have their way with citizens the way they do, "IN THE LAND OF THE FREE"? (RIAA, "Patriot ACT", etc... ha! My ass...)
True about what they need to do, but I think it's too late. Kids won't pay for what they got for free. It would have to be ridiculously cheap (like 5 cents a song) for it to stop piracy.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
You know, I have generally had a rather negative view of freenet and its users, seeing it as a purposely-designed tool for the specific violation of various laws (child porn and warez distribution) which are legitimate. Now, with stuff like DMCA and private, corporate police sniffing around I begin to appreciate some of its benefits.
I have never been much of a P2P user - I am just not driven by music (I'm not a high school kid anymore with silly, misplaced priorities) but I have, on rare occassions, downloaded a music file now and again. Perhaps I had a tune in my head and couldn't remember quite how it went or what the words were, so I'd do a look-see on gnutella or equivalent and download it.
Now comes shit like the Patriot Act, DMCA, Patriot Act part deu, ad infinitum and suddenly I want the option available to access data and files in an untraceable fashion. Not because I am some slimball, snotnosed kid who thinks he is entitled to anything but because I want the OPTION of accessing data that something like the Patriot Act might find "interesting"...or because I want to be able to download the rare mp3 or whatnot of a single song that has hung up in my head for the moment without being threatened by an illegitimate corporate police force. Hell, things like DMCA and the Patriot Act almost make me want to access things "they" would rather I not just as a means of rebellion, to tweak "the man's" nose. I think I'll take another look at freenet just in case.
See what stupid and even dangerous and unConstitutional/anti-Constitutional laws do? They turn simple, good citizens like myself into quasi-criminals because corporations and aspects of government have overstepped themselves.
To bastardize a quote from Star Wars, "The tighter you squeeze, the more (people) will slip through your fingers."
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
According to this report, the names HAVE actually been turned over today as Verizon Turns Over Names in Piracy Case
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
Hope they try it.
Democracy says that file-sharing is good. More American's voted for it than voted for the President of the US. File sharing has more support from the American people than any politician or government program.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Volunteer Fake Swappers can beat this. A bunch of people can organize online to trade files with names like "Stairway to Heaven" or "I'm A Loser, Baby". These files would actually not be music at all. Then when the RIAA busts them for copyright infringment, sue them, and get bad publicity for RIAA.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
It's like a riot in LA or looting in Iraq. Too many people are doing it for the RIAA to realistically go after them all. I just opened my KAZAA and saw more than 4 million people sharing files.
IT's like paying taxes...if we all stopped as a protest, what would the government do???
What would stop the RIAA from handing over to Verizon, Earthlink, Optimum Online... a list of IPs and timestamps and saying, "Give me everyone on the list." Since Verizon lost this one battle, is that the next step?
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
More than once I've been threatened with lawsuits for that sort of thing, having been the lead tech at a small ISP for several years. Thankfully nobody actually started legal proceedings. Proud to say I didn't cave once to the unreasonable demands. I did provide all the logs and such I could find once when the secret service came by with a subpoena though. That was an altogether different case than somebody sharing some music though.
Looks like the scare tactics aren't working!
"...This could be a big blow to the file-swapping community, even if you're swapping legit."
Isn't that like saying "this could be a big blow to the pornography-subscribing community, even if you're just reading the articles?"
(And yes, the pun was intended.)
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
A few high profile cases is all the RIAA needs, and one of these days they will get it. That will end my sharing.
The only way to stop this, IF YOU BELIEVE THAT THE MUSIC BUSINESS MODEL MUST CHANGE, and IF YOU BELIEVE THAT INNOVATION IS BEING SNUFFED, is to take drastic action now.
If the RIAA is citing 5% percent dip in sales, make it 50%. If you buy 10 CD's a year, buy only 5. If you buy 20 CD's a year buy only 10. Better still, if you can copy a friend's CD do so.
If you take steps now, which I am (I have gone even further and cut my CD buying 85 % to buying only 15 % of what I used to buy) then everyday will have an effect on the RIAA. A year has only 365 days, and if retail stores can move from black to red just because number of shopping days decreases by 1 or 2 - just imagine what will happen if number of shopping days falls by 200. The industry big boys, the fat, and all these extra vultures like Rosen and Sherman will be wiped out.
Can it be done. I belive it will be done. But, I just hope it doesn't take a few high profile cases of RIAA MPAA screwing people, before the non-violent Gandhi method of boycott will gain speed. If it doesn't, soon, I won't be sharing files - though neither will I buy and CD's.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
THIS is why you keep an old unpatched machine around, on which you have accumulated every trojan, back door and virus and worm known to scriptkiddie kind. Uber gatorize it, have so many guys taking control you can sit back, have some popcorn and a pop, watch it like big time rasslin! Should be easy enough to do that, why helpful rascally young fellas will help you do it! Just let it sit wide open on the ole intarweb for a few days! There ya go. You get popped, act stoopid, have your hired "expert" examine the machine in front of notaries and the fuzz and the moozik and moovee goons, he goes "AHA! LOOKIT HERE! Slap fulla slappers!... and whatnot, etc" Then claim that e-vile hackers must have taken over your machine and used it for illicit cyber file trading piracy, and how dare they, and you are gonna sue someone over this!
,too, see how many ya get. Help it along, whack the monkey, install swamps for the gator, click every banner you can find, have the dialers competing for the loot, just max that badboy out, the mother of all borked boxes.
and etc. Might work, how expensive is a spare old box? Probably fun to do
then...act stoopid, and don't blow your cool by giggling.....
stock fraud
hooking up cable TV without paying
phone phreaking
identity theft
software piracy
etc., etc., etc.
It's unlikely that you're going to get caught or punished for "sharing", but don't kid yourself about what you're doing...
Give me a break -- if it was in the Times, it is probably just a made up story anyway! anti-sig
1. Be contacted by Verizon that your name is one of them being given out.
2. Go buy the CD's (used if possible, if new then don't open them) for all the music you have shared.
Sure you'll probably be in debt, but you won't be in jail/fined. After the trial, sell/return CDs.
Dude that is stupid. huh. huh. gay porn. huh.
I just read about Earthstation 5 - no idea who they are (prehaps the RIAA in disguise!), but this program claims to be
Well, it sounds interesting - I'm not going to try it though *G*
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There are a lot of kids out there that dl (insert popular filesharing proggie here) then download music to their hearts content. This is what the media is pushing in our faces, that p2p networks are the nemisis of the music industry, and they are. But what do we (ie. slashdotters) have to worry about, even if all the p2p networks were shut down, which seems damn impossibe, we would just go back to the old ways of getting files, FTP, HTTP, usenet, IRC...etc. The people who will suffer is the average 14 y/o kid who uses their family cable to down songs. If these users were eliminated, then there would be 99.9% less publicity about filesharing, and the elite .1% could carry on.
I can dream...........
btw, this is a first post
Prohibition was bad for big business. Copyright is good for big business. Welcome to capitalism.
"The technology will move faster than the court systems," said Jorge A. Gonzalez, the founder of Zeropaid.com, a repository of information for file-sharing software. "The new programs being developed are going to mask users. By the time Verizon has to start turning over a lot of names, the identities of users will be unknown."
That about sums it up. Filesharing isn't going to disappear, it will just get smarter. Eventually, we'll start pulling the same measures as email, although they might be more effective in P2P: tarpitting, blacklisting, etc etc
In the meantime though, why not move to Canada. I've yet to hear of such a case here (possibly offset by the crappy CD-tax?). Anyone else heard of RIAA attacks here up North?
If the recording industry dies and the artists have to fend for themselves, that means that the S***TY BANDS DIE! That's right. If people feel the music is worth paying for, they will, otherwise, the artist fades away, without any recording industry to advertise the hell out of it as the best thing since Led Zeppelin. How do you think that groups that get rejected by the RIAA members survive? They make good music, and their fans keep them alive, withouot any help from groupthink courtisy of the RIAA.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
Guess what.. This is the case in Canada. It's perfectly legal to copy music for your own personal use. You can't make copies and pass them along to friends, but you could theoretically borrow an entire CD collection and make copies for yourself and still be within your rights.
Class action anyone?
No no no, you're missing the idea.
Perjury isn't actionable in civil court... Its a bona fide FELONY CRIME. According to 1994 data from the Bureau of Justice, the average jail time for those convicted of perjury is 15.6 years. 1996 data has 87% of perjury cases resulting in conviction.
Those knuckleheads at the RIAA are sending out "good faith belief" notices under penalty of perjury every time their stupid bot sees the filename "michaeljackson.mp3" in your Kazaa directory.
We're talkin' jail, man! Find yourself a friendly prosecutor and you can nail their asses to the wall.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
"I agree, I was a Verizon customer when this first occured and I was maxing my connection out daily downloading all kinds of things, though most of it was not P2P."
Damn! You geeks really love your porn.
Mind you, I'm not saying the following represented a GOOD thing... it undoubtedly resulted in one or more extra drunks on the road...
Once I was at the local bowling alley at closing time. I was the least drunk of the group, and even I didn't want to drive. So we hung around the parking lot, trying to avoid the issue, when we noticed a guy visibly staggering, by all appearances falling-down drunk. He then proceeds to get into his car (new, though I don't recall exactly what type), and after missing the keyhole several times, starts the engine, BUCKLES HIS SEATBELT, and puts the car into gear.
Needless to say, he is immediately stopped and made to do sobriety tests and a breathalyzer the instant he leaves the parking lot. He passes all of them. The absolutely irate police are forced to let him go, as they can't even ticket him for a seatbelt violation! Meanwhile, everyone else has left while all cop eyes were on the Designated Drunk (who was, of course, completely sober).
Pissing off cops may not be a very good idea, but it's still legal if done properly.
Right after that, the cops hustled us into our car and made me drive it back to the nearest person's house (about two blocks) though I *did* have some alcohol in me. I didn't know if I should do it or refuse. Luckily, they weren't trying to set me up for anything, they just wanted us to go away, and we got back without incident.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
"That's why (shameless plug to generate interest) using UDP with spoofed source addresses might be the only way to be truely anonymous. Of course that brings up other issues, such as scalibility, and flow control, but we're trying to work those out."
Kids! How little they know.
"If the RIAA believes these kind of injunctions are going to somehow stimulate sales of CDs, they are sorely mistaken - removing the on-demand, popular method of previewing an artist's recorded work prior to purchasing will only hurt CD sales, not strengthen them. The best thing the RIAA could do to stimulate music sales is to prevent crappy music from getting recorded in the first place..."
Well see the problem with the "preview" argument is that one doesn't need either a quality copy, nor all of the song to make a determination "will I buy that?". Filesharers however not only want a quality (good enough) copy of the entire song, but also the entire CD. And there's sites that have copies of the liner notes to make it complete. The only difference between legit and copy is the size of the hole in your wallet.
"So if Congress says, "Copy away!" and the [commercial software] industry dries up and blows away:
Will there still be [software]? Yes.
Recorded [software]? Maybe.
Will the people who write the [software] starve? No. (They'll keep their day jobs.)
Will the [commercial] publishers starve? Not if they can be retrained as burger flippers. [Joke!]
Will there still be professional [programmers]? Yes.
Will you or your kids learn to [program]? Quite likely.
Will you enjoy getting together with friends and neighbors for a "[Program] Night" every week? Probably more than you enjoy sitting alone in your room [in front of a computer].
How is this a bad thing? Think about it with an open mind and see where it leads."
Is that now the RIAA is going to go after these people HEAVILY so they can make examples out of them. All this becuase they've had to put a lot of effort and get bad publicity because Verizon did the right thing.
" You have posted a list of colloquial names for several different acts, suggesting they are all equivilant and are all "stealing." They are not. Each of the acts you listed is different legally and ethically."
WHOOSH!! Missed the point by a mile and a half. I'd clue you in but you'd proably miss that too.
"By doing so, you are distorting our language, and only serving the needs of RIAA and their ilk."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh boy! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! OH GOD I wet myself. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
WHOO HOO. Thanks chief. I needed the laugh.
Because, y'know, the shitty customer service, higher prices than local DSL lines, and looming corporate control wasn't enough reason to quit using Verizon.
The best form of security is obscurity. How long will it take for the RIAA to start pursuing the smaller local ISP's? I doubt-- But then, those would be easier targets in the courtroom...
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
"P2P is here to stay because people don't value the bilboard top $100 as worth $15 a CD, they value it as giving it the time to download the song. It's the same with anything else, entertainment is valued at what the consumer is willing to pay for it, it's the fact that these companies think that they're losing income. NO YOUR NOT, it's not that valuable to us and we're not going to pay for it so quit trying."
Yep! I'm going to download this MP3 and that movie and play it over and over just to show that evil company how much I don't like their products. I'll burn it on my $300 cdburner (as soon as I get it out of hock that is) Even give it to all my friends so they too can protest, the evil corporation, over and over. Valuable? Pfft, just as soon as I get through with this download I'll give you my two cents worth on how worthless your product is. Strike a blow I will as your coffers are not being filled up from the income you're not losing.
"Is this concept really so hard to understand?"
Apparenty not.
"Strangely enough, the Apple iTunes music store seems to be doing surprisingly well."
and
"The Record Labels are getting what they deserve, the "Oh, new technology! Goodie! More money for me!" way of thinking is catching up with them."
Oh yeah they're getting exactly what they deserve.
The difference is that private property and the rights that accompany it (my hat, my toothbrush, my car, my underwear) preceed the existence of government--or even the concept of government. Governments enforce this right through laws that establish penalties for theft. Stealing is a crime against the person, according to nature of man.
Copyright, however, and the right of exclusivity that accompanies it, was created by the government, though the enactment of a law. There is no precedent right that is being enforced by the law. Even though the law provides remedy to the copyright holder in cases of infringement, the crime is a crime against copyright law, rather than against the person.
--When you buy proprietary software, you don't get better software. What you get is the right to complain about it.
heheh, methinks you may be partially right!
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
This all stops as soon as you, and everyone you can possibly convince, stop buying CDs, DVDs, seeing movies, etc.
Hit the RIAA and MPAA where it counts.
The RIAA has outlasted it's usefulness. Let's bury them.
funny how new artists encourage filesharing to get their name out, but when they get big we're stealing their music. "suffering" = riding around in cadillacs and party yachts.....? i dont feel bad for any of you.