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
"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
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...
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!!
This is the reason I only download movies and Tv shows. Music is much too dangerous.
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
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."
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)
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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...
(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
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
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.