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Cyber Sleuths vs. Secret Networks
amnfinch writes "I saw this article on BBC news and frankly, I was blown away. Just another example of the relentless campaign to treat file swappers as criminals when their 'crime' is murky at best." Sir Haxalot provides an article on the flip-side: "CNN has a story on 'exclusive' Peer to Peer networks, that require 'knowing the right people and having a wealth of content on your hard disk to get into the clique.'"
Do the RIAA really think they can do anything to these networks? Or are they just trying to 'act tough'?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
It's not about whether or not there's a lock to pick, nor how strong it is; it's about the fact that there's about 30 million locks which have to be picked at any one time.
That's why clamping down on P2P is going to be so hard. It's not because of the difficult of catching people - after all, most of the make virtually no effort to cover their tracks even when using centralised services - but the fact that there are simply so many of them. It's like trying to delete every single byte of data on a hard disk - it's not very easy to do at all without completely destroying the disk itself.
Bash script for FP whores
I call BULLSHIT!
when their 'crime' is murky at best.
Actually, it's pretty clear. Distributing copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission is illegal. Nothing murky about it. The sense that I seem to get from slashdot is people really, really want to share files, so they tell themselves there's nothing wrong with it.
Thieves are thieves, my friend, not matter what their excuse.
What about newsgroups? I hear about people trading very large amounts of data via newsgroups all the time, including entire CD's. It seems to be more reliable than peer-to-peer, and it's private. And what about the IRC? I've heard of people getting software shipped to them before it's even released to the general public because of good contacts on IRC channels!
quote:
"Recently, Republican Senator Sam Brownback offered an amendment to an FTC reauthorization bill that would force "owners of digital media products to file an actual case in a court of law in order to obtain the identifying information of an ISP subscriber" rather than the current standard where the subpoena power is virtually unchecked."
Sounds like Sam Brownback has the right idea, and I want to give him some encouragement...
It seems that money is the only thing these people seem to care about, so I think I will take what I would have spent on a music CD (about 20 bucks) and send a money order to this guys campaign fund instead. I think I will add a nice little note on why I did that. Too bad I can't vote for him directly...
I think I'll send a note to my senator as well, along with a copy of the Brownback note, explaining why I'm not sending HIM any money.
Twenty bucks isn't much.... but what happens if just one percent of the people who read this do the same thing? Hell I might make this an ongoing project, and send twenty bucks a month to whatever congress-critter seems to deserve it the most at the moment.
Thinking of hiding behind nicknames like "hottdudeXXX" or "bluemonkey13" or even installing new software to cloak your identity? Think again, says Mr Ishikawa.
"We got an e-mail last week from someone saying 'How did you find me? I used Peer Guardian' and he thought that would save him from our spiders. There is nowhere to hide."
What about P2P networks that encrypt all traffic? How are they going to determine what media you have (based on the 30s that they apparently download from you) when it's all encrypted?
How about when I trading legal copies of music (like SHN/FLAC/etc Grateful Dead shows?) Will these 30s clips match up?
Of course the article is narrow on details.
This "spider" crap worries me.
Just another example of the relentless campaign to treat file swappers as criminals...
There are copyright laws and these people are breaking them. They're criminals so they should be treated like criminals!
Now whether there should be copyright laws... That's another story.
Do you? I sure as heck don't, maybe John Ashcroft does, or someone at the RIAA, geez. Sure seems to be a lot of it about, huh?
Oh, wait! A clue!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Look, I file swap, but it is still illegal to trade copyrighted material. Everyone that trades files knows this, it is just that they don't care. It's just like speeding, it's illegal, but it doesn't matter until you get caught.
Busta Rhymes: Pass the Courvoisier
U2: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Bon Jovi: You Give Love A Bad Name
Van Halen: Hot for Teacher
Especially if they have dynamically allocated IP addresses.
Good grief! With comments like "there is nowhere to hide", or, "If you have an active internet address or connection and you are actively sharing files, our spiders will find you", these people are sounding like power-tripped teenagers! It really makes you kind of sick to see the apparent pleasure these people derive from doing this. They are proud of infiltrating your computer and gathering your personal information in order to bully you into submission. *shudder* I guess that's the sort of personality that it takes to accept a job like that in the first place.
Sola Scriptura * Sola Gratia * Sola Fide * Solus Christus * Soli Deo Gloria
From the original post:
'knowing the right people and having a wealth of content on your hard disk to get into the clique.'"
If anyone already on the network can allow someone onto the network, then there is still a possibility of someone charming their way into the trust of others. They need to take it one step further, and give a unique public key/private key to each individual, and have a single person responsible for adding people to the network. Otherwise, if anyone on the network can invite anyone else, then the network will grow exponentially, and then you won't be able to control the network.
It's not about whether or not there's a lock to pick, nor how strong it is; it's about the fact that there's about 30 million locks which have to be picked at any one time.
The RIAA doesn't want to prosecute everyone who shares files, they want more people to stop sharing files. The idea is that if for everyone they do go after 10 (or whatever) other people will stop.
They have been described as Hollywood's digital detectives and they have a warning for anyone illegally trading music or movies: "You can run but you can never hide."
...
Hell, given that most computer geeks have trouble getting out of their chair, let alone run, I'd say they're in pretty deep trouble
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
In any case, "private peer networks" sound suspiciously like "pedophile rings", especially to the hysterical media folks.
A private network can never have the volume of sharing, and hence harm to the copyright holders, that the big public networks like Kazaa have. And the cost of tracking them down is prohibitive. So I don't see this as something the RIAA needs to get worked up over any time soon. "Private" sharing, in some form or another, has been going on for decades. Analog tapes and software piracy before the days of the Internet are just two examples of tacitly-accepted piracy which was simply too low-volume to be an issue.
Now, if something like Freenet were to provide fully anonymous, public sharing with the ease-of use and pervasiveness of Kazaa, I think the RIAA would be scared.
It is illegal to publicly distribute copyrighted works without the copyright holder's consent.
People who use any publically available service to upload copyrighted works without the copyright holder's consent are breaking the law.
If you consider this crime to be a measure of "civil disobedience" against the evil entertainment industry, then you should be prepared to face jail time as many famous practitioners of civil disobedience have in the past.
I don't understand what is so "murky" about this issue.
For more information, click here.
Having read these two paragraphs, I think an untrained monkey with an old laptop, a pencil and a notebook could track down a few hundred people by itself, if this is the kind of person they're dealing with.
There is no lock that can't be picked and our technology ensures that there is not a rock in the world you can hide under if you are sharing files.
In non-RIAA-threatening lingo : "we know how to run tcpdump".
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
getting a large number of people that you trust using the same network -- so that you have access to large amounts of files -- is going to be a bigger problem than security, and that's a big problem in and of itself, really. Are the other private groups/programs that can be used for filesharing?
FreeBSD for the impatient.
Sounds like something the "Your computer is broadcasting an internet address" guys could use. It could link to a place selling Raid by mail.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
at drunken college party, RIAA employee flips over super technology card and yells, "DRINK MOTHERFUCKER!"
"Matching Technology"? Oh no! They've learned to use regular expressions to parse an unencrypted text stream! Good lord! Now no one will be safe swapping files online! However will the file sharers bypass the modern technological marvel of grep?
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
I wonder about DirectConnect. DC allows the user to control the hub he wants to connect to.
How can these sources trace which hubs the user connects to?
Each hub have their own specific purpose (type of media) that you can connect with..
Last, some hubs require you to share a certain amout or else you will be booted... No Leechers with DC.
a few clicks from the original story and you get to the following:
u sic/302 2170.stm
I live in the UK, but US computer users will be able to access the songs I share on file-swapping networks. Will the RIAA sue me?
No. The RIAA's UK equivalent, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), says this is a US action that is affecting only music downloaders in the US because international laws are different. The RIAA cannot take action against people outside the US.
Is the BPI planning to sue UK users?
It has said it will not rule out suing individual users, but that it would be a "last resort". The BPI says it is currently trying to educate people - including sending out leaflets to colleges and large business - to tell people where they can download music legally.
It also says using peer-to-peer services risks downloading viruses. But if the RIAA's actions are successful, a similar system could be on the cards for the UK.
and on other countries:
Are other music industry groups going to take similar action?
Four countries in Europe have already taken action - Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Italy, says the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). German police impounded computer equipment in April in the town of Furth that had been used to upload up to one million files. In Italy at least 75 actions have been taken.
Will legitimate online services ever rival the peer-to-peer sites?
The launch of the Apple system iTunes, where US users can choose from 200,000 songs at 99 cents a song has been a huge success, with more than five million songs downloaded in the first month. The system will be launched in Europe later this year. Microsoft are also in discussion with Universal, the world's biggest music group, about a similar system.
the whole thing is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/m
As reported on MacSlash, Buymusic.com is violating copyrights. Jody Whitesides, a musician, found an old CD he made for sale on the Buymusic.com site without ever being informed/asked/paid. He checked and also found albums from friends of his. As it turns out, they all had dealings with a brick and mortar distribution company called Orchard in the 90's that supposedly went out of business. They didn't and now it seems that anyone who had dealings with them might be on Buymusic.com without their knowledge, consent or recompense.
All I have to say is if they want to scan/search our networks for illegal music (for those of us that don't have them or even allow that sort of thing to go on) they'll have to pay us for the bandwidth that they use. I refuse to let someone freely waste my bandwidth, especially if I pay for it. If Mark Ishikawa "former hacker" CEO of BayTSP wants to scan our networks I say send me a big (read 10 figure) fat check and you're welcome to scan my network all you want. I refuse for someone to make money off of me if while running up my bandwidth usage bill. Companies like his can kiss my donkey's butt!
ERGHHH!!!!
HAHAHAH...
funny stuff.
As human beings we have the right to anonymity as a basic human privelege. We should not abuse that right to harm others, nor should we be denied the right to not be public if we wish. The RIAA and similar organizations seek to eliminate that right in a certain venue in an attempt to control more resources utterly, i.e., the musical recordings of the artists who they supposedly, fully "represent".
Does anyone remember what happened to anon.penet.fi? And now hotmail.com and the equivalent msn are owned by microsoft and extremely popular years later, after the first popular anonymous e-mail service (Penet) was shut down for allegedly committing a crime through offering anonymous e-mail.
Thinkingman.com New Media
The media is run by politicians which are in turn paid off by groups like the RIAA. A large news organization like the BBC is undoubtedly pushing to have people fear the RIAA and roll over for them. I don't see, though, how they(news groups, not the BBC specifically) get interviews with people and believe theyre so damn smart. Talking about being unable to hide. Pfft, just because most kazaa users are 14 year olds downloading the new ICP or Britney Spears doesn't mean that these detectives of P2P sharing are any good... Damn over-hyping media.
I really wish article submitters would stick with the facts and stop injecting their opinions into the stories they are submitting. Statements such as that only makes one sound like a zealot (granted, though, there are plenty of people who agree with 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.
Sometimes I can't believe what makes the front page. Apparently it comes as a shock to Michael that groups of people who trust each other will provide software and other collections of bits to others on the group.
I remember people using war-ftpd to share so-called "warez" to each other, long before the average person had ever heard of Winamp.
How is it newsworthy that people do the same thing with music?
Ugh ugh ugh.
If this story is worth the front page, then this comment is worth reading.
Hint: neither is true.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
to know the right people and to have a wealth of content on your hard disk, just skilled fingers, tongue and some savvy to get into a mare.
Private warez sites have existed since the first modem. They've never been immune from police. I don't see how a site full of mp3's is any different than a site full of adobe software (and if it's a private ftp site, chances are it's gonna have a bit of both). I'm not making any moral judgments on such sites, but am merely wondering why this is something considered "new" and why anyone would think that it is secure from prosecution?
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
As well as making money, Mr Ishikawa's vision for BayTSP is to become a hi-tech version of Pinkerton, the legendary detective agency that protected presidents like Abraham Lincoln ...
Ok, that may not be the best example there, guys.
The thing is, though people may well be deterred, I think they will probably continue to use P2P after short time anyway when they see geeks carrying on like nothing's happened.
Joe Sixpack: Wow! I can download ten songs a day for free!
Joe Sixpack's friend: Cool! So am I!
One week later
Joe Sixpack: I got a letter from the record companies. They tracked me down, so I think I'll stop.
Joe Sixpack's friend: Wow, guess I'd better stop too.
They stop. One week later, Joe Sixpack and Joe Sixpack's friend see a Geek using a P2P service
Joe Sixpack: Dude, I thought the record companies sued you if you shared files.
Geek: Only a few people. They're just trying to scare everyone else straight.
Joe Sixpack: Really?
One week later
Joe Sixpack: Wow! I'm downloading more songs than ever before, and the record companies really haven't busted me!
Joe Sixpack's friend: Me too!
They all live happily ever after, except for the media giants which have to switch to a proper business model. The end.
Bash script for FP whores
That's wrong!
-1 distasteful
It's not at all clear that sharing a file with a friend is illegal, and it's clearly not immoral.
Copyright exists to provide incentives to push works into the public domain, not to keep them out of it.
--Mike--
I have been locked in my basement for the past fifteen years with my cluster of VAX systems happily running DECNET... ...until I read this article...
Now I discover this whole new world using the previously secret TCP/IP protocol!
How exciting.
I will be "FTP-ing" some files today!
Q: What's black and blue and doesn't want to f*ck?
A: The five year old boy in my trunk!!!!
hahahah.
Trading is just going to move underground. If you have a smaller trading group with enough suppliers of content, there is no need to share with everybody in the world. A virtual, private P2P will be tough to track down. This is not really a bad thing. It will cut down on the trading of files by most people since suppliers are hard to find. It will go back to trading between friends which has been around for decades now but now it will be digital sharing rather than analog.
"You'll know they're talking, but you won't know what they're saying. It's quite impossible to crack the algorithms," said Lowrey, whose company, Endeavors Technology, is designing a file-sharing system for corporate clients.
Actually, you don't even know they're talking. A program can send small encrypted blocks regardless of whether the user actually sent a message. If nothing is to be exchanged some no-op message can be transferred which is as large as a normal encrypted message block. Don't let the attacker know more than necessary.
As for the elitist country-club type of sharing cliques - those always existed. Whether they are using private IRC channels, FTP or some newer p2p system like DC, that's not much of a difference. Of course release groups don't let anybody join, to name one example.
The problem with private circles - they can always be infiltrated by 'traitors'. It's not a technical problem anymore once a person feels threatened enough to cooperate with the police.
Cringley did a profile of Ishikawa last year.
check out this website.. it says it all
www.penguinhosting.net/~jpeck/prime/
let me know what you think
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to shed a tear over people file trading Busta Rhymes material, or just about any rap for that matter. Its time our society stops labeling rappers as "artists" (for the most part). So if file traders prevent people like Suge Knight and P Diddy (or 50 Cent)from making a fortune, so be it. Pitty though, since it is my opinion that Dr. Dre is talented...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The twist would be that the system would allow relaying of searches and of actual files. In other words, if I request a file that is on my friend's friend's computer, then the file has to come through the computer of our mutual friend. The whole idea is to keep things as encapsulated as possible... kinda like how terrorist cells work.
Now, I know that this increases network traffic... adds a lot of opportunities for a "weaker link" in the chain (imagine if one of the people in the relay chain is using a 56k modem)... decreases the "connectedness" of the whole sharing network, etc. However, I think this is the only real way to keep the RIAA from just being able to download a song and, *pow*, have the IP of someone to sue.
Also, some of these problems mentioned might be assuaged by the fact that people might feel more comfortable leaving their stuff shared. I, for one, have gobs and gobs of stuff that I could share, but I don't... because I have way too much to lose. However, if I knew that the only people who could connect to me would be people that I know... I'd have tons of stuff up and shared... 24/7.
The strange thing is that it seems to me that this was Aimster's plan, but they got shut down for some reason. But I don't know why.
These private networks are the best. You get all best stuff pre 0-day. It is tough to gain admission, but you can sign up by including your email in one of those "2003 Warez" emails you may have seen forwarded in the newsgroups. Those lists are scoured looking for others deserving of such exclusive status. My exclusive invite along with my hard drive full of Carrot Top mp3s got me in. I'll never go back to paying for stuff again.
With the awesome powers described below to bad these guys aren't after the Spammers instead...
From his Silicon Valley base he told BBC News Online: "There is no lock that can't be picked and our technology ensures that there is not a rock in the world you can hide under if you are sharing files."
having a wealth of content on your hard disk to get into the clique
Sounds more like a trap to me.
Goddamned moderator's to autistic to get that joke!
The RIAA doesn't want to prosecute everyone who shares files, they want more people to stop sharing files. The idea is that if for everyone they do go after 10 (or whatever) other people will stop.
... i.e. none whatsoever.
The idea is wrong, both ethically and practically. Ethically it is absolutely heinous to make some people pay an exaggerated price in order to frighten others. Indeed it could be argued that it is unconstitutional (14th amendment) to go around destroying some lives in order to 'communicate' a point to others (some are getting very, very harsh treatment, while others are being left alone). Practically, deterrence has been shown not to work, as we see every day with speeding and the woefully ineffectual and counterproductive War on Drugs(tm, Reagan & Daddy Bush). Indeed, deterrence of such crimes is only marginally effective at best, and more often ineffective altogether, particularly with teens, whose notorious "it will never happen to me" attitude is more or less hardwired into their biology and often remains intact well into adulthood. The entire youthful 'immortality syndrome' conspires against any such efforts at deterrence at several levels, something the RIAA and other cartels seem to be unable to grasp (talk about not knowing your market, or your customers).
A teenager sees a few thousand people get busted, out of several million, and (virtually every one) rightly concludes that they'll never be prosecuted. Indeed, any one filesharer is far more likely to be killed in a car accident than to be brought to trial by the cartels, and we've seen what a deterrence death by physical mutiliation resulting from a high speed automobile impact has on teen driving
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Distributing copyrighted material is not the same as sharing files. I share files all the time, and so does anybody who browses the net.
So when saomeone says files swapping/sharing is illegal, they are wrong.
You do not need the copyright holder permission to exercise fair use.
hat is where it gets murkey. Is it fair us to download a copyrighted file that I already own? foe example, I have song 'A' on cd I bought. Can I download song 'A' from the net?
Is it illegal to share a file? hard to say, since it hasn't been challenged in court.
By sharing I mean someone says "hey, you got to here this!" then you listen to the song. Theh you decided to buy it. If not, you then remove it from your hard drive.
Clearly this does not hurt sales anymore then me going over to your house and listening to a record the same time you do.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
the legendary detective agency that protected presidents like Abraham Lincoln
They didn't do a very good job with that Lincoln thing.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
GNUnet is where P2P will be in 5 years. And there is nothing the RIAA can do to find out who uploaded the files. It's as anonymous as anonymous gets...
2 51 %2C44%2C141
http://freshmeat.net/projects/gnunet/?topic_id=
"The IP address is unique at the given point of time that they're connected to the internet."
Please prove the above statement. I find it rather hard to believe that there couldn't be a spoofed IP address on a de-centralised network consisting of millions of networked machines which have little knowledge of what else is out there.
Sure, it would make some packets take the wrong routes if there were two machines with the same IP address, but I'm sure that "local" to your network area it would work well enough to use P2P apps.
I'll leave the more obvious "and look what that got Lincoln" and "How long did Pinkerton take to find the James gang?" lines alone and instead comment on the delusions of adequacy from this guy.
Umm, yeah. You're badass:
Pinkerton: Guarded presidents. BayTSP: busts 13 year olds swapping Busta Rhymes and Bon Jovi songs.
Pinkerton: risked agents' lives and dealt with dangerous, vicious criminals. BayTSP: risks vicious infected paper cuts from laser printer whipping out C&D letters.
Sheesh.
This article is the funniest thing I have read in a long time.
"This is just over a few hours and I have almost 14,000 records with a variety of different titles ranging from Daddy Day Care to Anger Management and Charlie's Angels."
What the BBC didn't mention is that she is using the newest ueber-kewl anti-piracy spider PACKETNEWS.COM
For any similar industry stoolie morons lurking here - welcome to the net. You must be new here. "Pirates" switched from BBS to FTP to HTTP to IRC to P2P. The next step will be using crypto to obtain anonynimity that WILL foil IP traces. You will have to do better than chasing down sharers with a glorified webcrawler:
inform your clients that resistance is futile and they have to change their business model to catch up with new distribution technologies that the net enables.
Nice try though, and again: welcome to the digital era.
The a$$h0le who runs the 'company' is just making inflammatory comments in an article that amounts to free advertising for him and his cronies. Frankly, the idea of being snooped on, just because I'm sharing files that may or may not be copyrighted, is yet another blow for our civil liberties. They seem to be dropping like flies these days...
The article is pretty clear. His company searches for specific copyrighted materials. Not random sharers.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Copyrights exist to provide an incentive to push works into the public domain, by providing a means for the publisher to make money off the published work. Sharing files with friends deprives him of that income. I don't see how sharing files with friends is 'clearly not immoral' (though one could argue that it isn't).
One could argue that since copyright is effectively broken (ie: it doesn't push anything into the public domain due to the fact that its been constantly extended every few years for the last hundred years) that there is no obligation for the populus to obey copyright laws as they gain no benefit.
Social contracts only work if both sides hold up their end of the bargain, and in this case, the RIAA and associated industries have failed to do so. Once they start releasing material into the public domain after a relatively short amount of time, I (and I imagine many others) will start rewarding them by paying for some of the material they have copyright on.
How about distributing Cult of Scientology's copyrighted "religious texts" so that people can see just how messed up it is, and save people from them?
Or how about if a prominent politician or business leader said all kinds of racist / sexist / etc. things in a private place protecting them by copyright. Don't you think it's better that people be informed about something like this rather than blindly obey copyright law?
There are many other examples too. From my point of view, right and wrong have nothing to do with copyright law.
I'll probably just shy away from buying new CDs and DVDs in general. That's not to say I will go on a pirating rampage, but I'll stick to free and currently legal alternatives that don't leave me with a sour taste in my mouth.
One thing I do know is that current mainstream media distribution methods are horrible. Let's take a look:
1) Television. Most any content consists of 30% ads. Even paid content can be costly (esp. in the US) b/c if you subscribe to a blanket movie network, you may find a competing one gets exclusive access to a certain studio's movies.
2) Radio. I live in a city with a population in the millions. I am into electronic music and have a very hard time being able to find any at, say, 4 in the afternoon. Even when I do hear it it's during some "live-to-air" session where they're continuously plugging the club's name and how great the atmosphere is. Again, it's interrupted by huge amounts of ads. I know I'm not the only one feeling this way as I've heard the same kind of gripes for different genres.
3) PC Gaming. I can't say how many games I've wanted to try and ended up purchasing due to a lack of a demo that ended up being terrible. It was even worse in the C-64 days, where a games' box art would have screenshots from the arcade rather than the C-64 screenshots. Ever play a demo of The Sims or Sim City 4000? Neither have I.
All that said and done, it's not hugely traumatic, just a shift in lifestyle. Don't buy games unless they have demos or incredible word of mouth, be very stingy with how many times you go to the movies (or at least support directors/writers/studios who aren't just creating the next cash grab movie), try to find an internet radio station playing what you like.
It's not like we're going to war here and lives are at stake. I could just go nuts and warez the universe, but spending even 1ms in jail just b/c I wanted to download Glitter to see if it REALLY WAS that bad doesn't seem worth it to me.
I know someone can reply and say I have my head in the sand, but I think it's more a matter of picking your battles carefully.
Whatever happened to Nullsoft's waste? I know it got pulled by AOL and all, but no one's bothered to pick it up, rename it, continue working on it?
[o]_O
Now that the signal to noise ratio on P2P networks like KaZaA is about 1.00, it is time to start flooding the networks with massive amounts of "music" files named after popular new releases, with the same sizes as the tracks would be, but the actual content would be expletives like "Fuck the RIAA". Make the files really big, and put them behind a 28.8kbps modem. Let them waste their time trying to download all of that content to find out you really aren't sharing copyrighted material.
"Mr Ishikawa's vision for BayTSP is to become a hi-tech version of Pinkerton, the legendary detective agency that protected presidents like Abraham Lincoln..."
Didn't he die of old age or something not assassination-related? Anybody?
After I have received the wisdom of good teaching, I will untiringly teach all people. - The Teachings of Buddha
Q: Why do programmers confuse halloween and Christmas?
A: Because 31(Hex) == 25 (DEC)!
Nerlinger arrogantly points out that you're a dimbulb and the proper punchline is "Because 31(OCT) == 25 (DEC)
Q: Why do programmers confuse Easter and Boxing day?
A: Because you're an overly literal anal-retentive geek!
alt.anonymous.messages
+
anonymous remailer
+
4096-bit asymmetric key
=
private
Soon (sooner, rather than later, due to the P2P witchhunt) there will be software that does this quite automatically. Ban remailers and something functionally equivalent will pop up.
There is just no likely way for the recording industry to stop P2P due to the momemntum of its technological development - never mind the arguments about scale you frequently see here.
"That's the last we'll hear from b1g_c0ck_23. What's this? Who's this b1g_c0ck_24?? Get him too, Jones!"
Umm, since when was the crime of piracy "murky at best"?
I would bet that everything you're interested in has been concieved in the last thirty years and your desire to not properly respect copyright law is directly related to your total lack of having created any type of content worth protecting.
Write a movie, record a song, and then tell me that you don't want your rights respected when people start to literaly steal food from your plate.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
I wonder if all this fear of getting sued by RIAA will be a push for Freenet. Freenet does seem to be quite secure. And perhaps it gets usable for meaningful things as well then.
If this were a democracy where the voters actually had any power to control the system then file-sharing would be quite legal. Everyone from pre-teens to grandma does it. Almost oobody really thinks that it's wrong. It's only the money of the wealthy IP holders that is keeping these things illegal and constantly adding anti-consumer laws.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
What if Mr. Ishikawa's spiders are searching for individuals on /. who oppose the RIAA and then use this information to hack into their computers looking for mp3s?
Or what if those spiders are connected to some credit card database and those indiviuals who haven't bought the latest Bon Jovi CD will be sent threatening letters?
Logically, what you say makes sense.
Legally, it does not.
You may have some fair use rights to the instance ON THAT CD, but that does not mean the person giving you the copy online has permission to do so, and if it's illegal for him to give you a copy, you are receiving an illegal copy.
Fair use is a murky wood, and in the slashdot world, it's very over used.
You can say "that's silly, that's not logical".. but it's the law.
Quote from the BBC article:
Two of the industry's top seven movie studios have engaged the sleuthing services of BayTSP, but because of contractual arrangements they can't be named.
A snapshot of illegal movie downloads by BayTSP's chief technology officer Evelyn Espinosa was revealing.
"This is just over a few hours and I have almost 14,000 records with a variety of different titles ranging from Daddy Day Care to Anger Management and Charlie's Angels."
Well, since Daddy Day Care, Anger Management and Charlie's Angels are all Sony films, Sony must be one of their customers.
You know spam's getting to be too much when I see "Cyber Sl.*" and my mind immediately subs in "Cyber Sluts".
Then call me Captain Kirk.
At my university there's a Direct Connect hub run by an anonymous student that is accessible only by people in university IP addresses. It's crazy fast, has TONS of good (and quite illegal) media, and the university looks the other way because it helps relieve the MASSIVE (and expensive) bandwidth pressure back when everyone was trying to use Kazaa.
Makes me want to live on campus until Freenet turns into AnonymousKazaa
no thanks
These secret networks will only work if you know all of the members personally. If the members are letting in people they meet online then you never know if it is a RIAA cop or not.
A solution to this problem would be a trusted network. The network would be setup in such a way that you can only download from people you trust, which should be only people you have met in real life and that you know does not work for the RIAA. You might be saying that this would make for a very small network. True, but each person you trust can allow people they trust into the network. In order to get files from these people or to even search these peoples files you have to go through your trusted friend. That friend would stream a download from a person that they trust to you and no identifying information would go along with it. It would look as though the file was on your trusted friends computer and you downloaded it from there. So you could build a huge network of people based on trust and you dont have to trust anyone that you do not know. The only people who ever come in direct contact with your files are people you know so there is no way of you getting caught. Assuming all the traffic is encrypted and this actually scales to a decent number of members it would be the perfect file sharing program.
Anyone bored enough to build it?
I do not need the copyright holders permission to giveaway, trade, or sell there works.
Go to a library or used music store some time.
I do not need there permission to exercise fair use.
I do not need there permission to invite you over to listen to an album with me.
there are may perfectly legal ways to handle copyrighted works.
Now, copying and distributing outside of fair use may be copyright infringment, but thats totlly different.
It is criticle we keep a sharp focus on the issue and stop using broad claims like "FIle sharing is a crime!" I share picture of my family with my brother through file sharing. Please tell me how that is a crime.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I am not a member of any RIAA company. I write/record/produce/distribute my own music. I permit free downloading, free dissemination, and all I expect in return is that my music isn't plagiarized. See the link below.
I do, and today's was quite chilling:
"We won't win any popularity contests. We don't really care what people think."
RIAA spokesbot Amy Weiss, articulating with remarkable candor the litigious music industry's view of its customers,
San Francisco Chronicle, 28 July 2003
actually, program like 'WASTE' are great, and in fact, the music industry should embrace them. Why you ask? simple, it returns us to the good ole days where nobody cared if you made a copy of an album to give to a couple of your friends.
Think about it, once one of these 'trusted rings' gets to big, it will be infiltrated. The more people involved in an originization, the easier it is to infiltrate. so rings of say 5 people aren't worth the effort because the lose, if any, would be far below the cost of getting them. However a ring of 1000 people is worth the effort, and easier to get into.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Infinite supply and a finite demand creates a price of near-zero.
Digital recordings are now infinitely reproducible, and only a finite people want song A. Therefore, we should begin to move toward a price of zero for song A, and all songs on CD B.
So, my question is why is RIAA spending so much time and money suing people. Instead of finding a way to stop the infinite supply. Especially, since technology is moving so fast that in one to two years there will be completely anonymous peer-to-peer file sharing systems.
My advice, innovate now before you go out of business.
"640 K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981
I though the copyright laws were quite clear.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
What I do in my own house (hard drive) is my business, and I don't want anyone peeking in my windows (ports) without my permission.
Ahhh, the classic "what I do in my own house" defence. Presumably you think that within the privacy of your own home it's OK for you to do anything, regardless of whether society considers it legal or illegal.
By that rationale, you're allowed to rape, torture and murder people without a care in the world as long as you do it at home. After all, it is your house.
Please, stop living in a dreamworld and come back to reality. Just because it's your house it doensn't make you immune from the law - right or wrong - within it.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Alcohol consumption was illegal too, but everybody kept doing it anyway. They arrested a lot of people, then everybody ot fed up with that stupid law and had it repealed.
So...I say, everybody, keep on trading files, eventually everyone is going to get sick of being treated like a criminal and they'll change the law to make file sharing legal.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Why on earth would you willingly compare yourself with what amounted to a legally sanctioned group of murderous thugs?
If you want a good start as to who the Pinkertons really were read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of The United States." While Labor certainly had to answer for some of its own murderous thugs, the Pinkertons themselves were responcible for a rather large part of it.
Frankly, I see many parallels between what's going on now with copyright and what happened years ago with labor.
In terms of it's [file-sharing's] legality, just because the government and corporations say that something is illegal doesn't mean that it is. I am quite tired with people on the board dismissing the arguement to freely share files and information under fair use as whiny. I look at each and every file I share and each and every file I download as an act of civil disobediance.
I do not control the Sig, the Sig controls me.
You know, the one where a whole bunch of blind people each touch a different part of the elephant, and therefore have a different idea of what the elephant is?
Of course, that means that the RIAA clearly has its hand up the elephant's ass...
They're getting off easy.
You made Mt. Dew spew out of my nose...that's a horrible horrible waste.
Please don't think it's impossible to imprison 30 million people. I admit it is highly unlikely, but there is a chance (howether slim) that the US will continue on its totalitarisation path and eventually organisations like RIAA will be given "go" in regards to these 30 million.
And if there is the political will to proceed, millions of people can be found, convicted and jailed, all with nearly inhuman efficiency.
Let's hope this never happens.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Publicly distributing copyrighted material without the copyright holder's consent is against the law.
Libraries and used music stores distribute original, legal copies to a single client, which is fine.
Fair Use is legal. Publicly distributing complete copies of songs, albums, and movies is not fair use.
When I listen to an album privately at your house, that is perfectly legal. Don't let the groupthink convince you otherwise.
Broad claims like "file sharing is a crime" are always going to be shot down in an arena like this. Publicly distributing copyrighted material without the copyright holder's consent is illegal.
For more information, click here.
ttt
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
If this is an accurate rendering of (or materially similar to) the contract that Jody Whitesides signed back in the late 90's, then the sublicensing would seem to be legal (keeping in mind that IANAL).
I expected that if the ass's of America didn't win we would see laws to ban filesharing in a couple of years.
The P4 could have a similar effect. Since it is impossible to know directly if the person at the keyboard of a computer is an adult or not,it would mean a system similar to the adult-check on porn sites. A p2p program would require you to select a username and password and have $1 charged to your credit card, possession of a cc is taken is proof of being an adult.
At that point, the p2p's without adult authentication dissapear from sourceforge and US hosted websites. It becomes easier for the enforcement agencys to have people kicked off the p2p networks that use adult authentication. The open-to-anyone p2p software become like decss, copys appear on a million websites outside the USA. The RIAA then starts sending out letters to ISP's demanding they disconnect users of non-adult-check p2p's.
Depending on the details of the P4 bill, operators of p2p networks might be able to get around it by operating a network that only allows mp3 to be swapped, no images,zip's or exe's that might contain pron.
they'll be here long after the RIAA has gone bankrupt offending it's customer base - both public and musicians.
This is just a stupid cry for attention from the newsies.
What's with all the networks inventing new 'crimes' anyways? I thought that was decided by the law creation folks (whatever names they go by) and not the big-bellied lobbyists?
(getting tired of those stupid 'satellite hacking' commercials up here in Canada. Last I checked reverse engineering and monitoring of PUBLIC broadcasts (such as satellite) was for the most part legal in Canada. Not that I care - I don't watch any TV)
Our legal system wouldn't let a monstrosity like the DCMA survive from what I know. Ah well...
Seriously. Can you "distribute" something to yourself?
The same technologies that are used by some people to listen to music they've never purchased is also used by other people to listen to music that they've legally purchased, but left at home to avoid risking damage to the fragile media. They aren't denying anyone a sale, in fact they've already purchased the item. All they are seeking is control over the time, manner and place of their peaceful enjoyment of their purchase.
On the other side, we saw RIAA executives attempting to tell a Congressional committee that they believed a husband could not share a CD with his wife, and neither could dupe a CD to listen to in the car or at work. This isn't even "fair use,' it's basic rights for any purchase under the doctrines of "first sale," "community marital property," etc. Yet the RIAA would seem to challenge even these rights.
Once we concede that there's A lawful use of this technology (e.g., me setting up an icecast server on my cable modem at home so I can listen to my collection at work, properly password protected etc.), then you can't presume criminal intent or argue that the tools themselves have no lawful use.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I'm sure this encryption-breaking is violating the DMCA somewhere (considering how broad it is)
Massive networking attempt for friends
You know, I don't care if its on P2P, but someone *selling* songs off my record is not fucking cool. I sure not getting any $$$ Orchard is NOT a label! It is/was? only for distribution. They have NO rights to this. This was paid out of our pockets. All of it.
Hmm - this may make it to my journal...I've got some calls to make tonight. BTW - We have some CDs left (the band is no more), if you like the samples, email me and I'll get you a CD... might as well make lemonade... grrr. ;P
..are one of the reasons I miss playing UO, and the people I encountered there. JaredOfEuropa, that has to be an Ultima Online player. I wish I hadn't sold my accounts... I wish I still had time to play... :( :(
Thanks for the insight.
Pinkerton also assasinated striking coal, copper and iron miners. They were renowned for the ability to break strikes and enforce discipline for robber barons and ruthless industrialists. They were actually more like mercenaries and mafia enforcers than detectives.
Yes, I will give you that point. Ludacris is one of the least skilled rappers currently in the Urban top 40.
A huge upset has been taking place over the last week regarding the usenet newsgroup alt.binaries.pictures.hussy. This is a newsgroup where images of nude teenage girls were routinely posted. Not child porn, for the most part, just nudity.
Last week, EasyNews (a major News Service Provider [NSP]) disabled the accounts of several posters to the group, and deleted most of the posts out of the group from their pool. They officially claimed to have done this at the request of US law enforcement which means the same US law enforcement probably also asked for the personal info of the account holders.
This newsgroup, which has been a reliable source of images of nude girls for more than a year now, has ground to a halt. The predominant posters whose accounts were restricted by EasyNews are lying low for obvious reasons, and posters who were posting through other NSPs are lying low as a result of the scare tactic effect - that which the RIAA is using. And nobody else has yet taken their place, not even from other providers. People are running scared.
This week, the target was "teen erotica" for whatever reason. Next week it may quite possibly be "copyright infringement" (and if you keep up with the news.admin.net-abuse groups, you've probably already seen all the "Report Piracy" posts).
Still think Usenet is private?
Still think it's anonymous?
Think again.
Yes. Here are the bastards. Pretty sick. I know our contract isn't for this length, and I don't know how they would even *have* a CD to sell - they are all in boxes at my pals house.
This is wonderfully counterproductive on the RIAAs part.
We all know downloading mp3's actually increases the rate at which we buy CDs - because of finding new bands and music we wouldn't hear otherwise. So if RIAA succeed in reducing the opportunity for distributing mainstream bands and music then the exposure for 'the rest' can only increase. The number of CD an individual can buy isn't infinatly elastic, so the result will be that the RIAA will drive down their own sales as a proportion of total CDs sold.
I'm curious as to how one would track down people sharing files when the people are actually programs that have been installed via viruses targeted at a certain well-known operating system? From what I understand, downloading the files is completely legal.
Heck, what about people sharing from countries that don't play nice with the U.S. IP laws?
Not can, you moronic fucktrolley, but must. By definition, "fair use" only occurs without the copyright holder's permission. If the holder gives permission, you've got a license, not fair use.
And my lawyers take turns assraping your corpse, because you utterly fail to establish three of the four factors in the fucking statute that explains fair use, and the fourth factor doesn't do you any good, because:
So you see, you uninformed cockgobbler, you really make a giant sphincter of yourself when you pontificate so grandly on a subject of which you are completely ignorant. But, I'm sure, you already know that.
"Mark Ishikawa, a former hacker"
Hmm . . . for such an accomplished individaul it seems the concept of DNS has escaped Mark Ishikawa completely!! Poke around with nslookup - you'll see what I mean. RANK AMATURE mistakes. How is it that a company who is unable to perform the most basic of IT tasks is selling a technology service?
I am skeptical of the capabilities Mr. Ishikawa's company is bolstering - this smells of another ill concieved bay area startup. It is doomed to fail.
Now that I think of it . . .
Given that the core concept of this bussiness is to eraticate it's life blood - the P2p community - I highly doubt ANY venture cap firm would touch them - let alone another IT company. I smell a fake . . . or rat as it were.
From this Sept. 2002 PBS article on BayTSP
One thing BayTSP's spider programs don't do is sit at the Internet peering points sniffing all packets as they go by. "That would be wiretapping, which is illegal," he says. "All we do is go to the same places any user could go, look at the same files anyone else could look at, and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public."
The BBC article acts like this is some new big deal, but it's exactly the same thing they've been doing since at least September last year. I think they've spun the article to make it seem a lot worse than it is. Perhaps the only difference is that they have more clients demanding the info now, or that they've decided to prosecute people at a lower level of infringement?
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Pols as in political types. No POLLS have ever shown it to be a deterrant, nor has any actual data. So... if we don't mind killing people, some of them even children or retared, or retarded children... then using your argument (though its entirely logical) is not going to have any effect.
This space available.
I agree that downloading songs for free is not always right. But what if the only other option is living forever without listening to that music because you just can't afford it. Don't you think it is logical to do this when the only other option is to live without. Afterall, you ae not hurting the recording companies/artists anymore than you would by not buying it. Ofcourse, all this argument assumes that you can honestly gauge whether you can afford to buy i. But if you CAN honestly do this?
Am I wrong or would they have to establish a chain of custody for all data. They can't just accuse people and collect cash. Don't they need to show how they got the data for each song, and track it back through the ISP to the user and then to a specific computer which they would need to examine that persons hard drive. Or have a third party log, and track my data activity with a specific link to my person. Otherwise it is just my word against theirs, in which case the preponderance of the evidence would swing in my favor, because they have no substantiated facts.
Nah, real musicians would still do it for free then, with free software like Pro Tools and Cakewalk. Then they would promote their music with web pages made with other free tools like Flash MX, DreamWeaver and Photoshop. (Well, all that stuff is free when you have KazaA and Gnutella)
My blog can kick your blog's ass
It can easily be argued that information is something that, by its nature, cannot belong to any one person and therefore copyright is not valid. That doesn't fit the value system of most western nations, but that doesn't make it an invalid value system.
The "there'll be no music" arguement is complete BS. Before modern copyright law, people made music. Creative people will draw, sculpt, and make music independent of copyright law. Creating art is something people do. The only thing that copyright law produced was 1)RIAA/MPAA, and 2) pop stars. Maybe you think that there are not enough N'syncs, but I for one think one is too many.
If you look at the contracts that most musicians sign, you will see that they are exceptionally one-sided. So, while the musicians ARE getting screwed by p2p, the real losers from p2p are the record labels. And frankly, I don't have much compassion for record labels.
I also want to mention the Lifetime + 70 years copyright length. I think that the RIAA/MPAA are trying to keep the public domain as empty as possible, in the hopes that the public domain withers away. Yet the corporations will take as much from the public domain as possible (e.g. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
didn't quite work out, did it?
I don't think I'd compare myself to Pinkertons if I were starting a business. They ran the intelligence operations for the Union in the U.S. Civil War and were 0wn3d by the confederacy. They protected Lincoln into an early grave ("Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the show?").
They made their money by providing strike-breaking mercenaries back in the day when advocating limited children to 50 hours a week was a dangerous, radical notion.
So, ordinarily, I'd decry BayTSP for being a bunch of soulless mercenaries who, like their employers, are simply out to make a buck for themselves without giving a single thought to the long-term repercussions of their actions. But then I thought harder, and came up with a way for BayTSP to redeem themselves.
If, as BayTSP claims, there is nowhere to hide, that they can turn any Internet identity into a realspace name and address and serve them with a subpoena, then I hereby charge BayTSP with the following mission:
Find and publish the identity of each and every spammer on the Internet.
By doing this, BayTSP will be contributing to the quality of the Internet community, rather than tearing it apart for meager economic gain.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
A - the P2P sharers are encrypting copyrighted materials.
B - the RIAA's goons are breaking the encryption
why does A + B not equal C - mass, widespread and publicly admitted criminal violation of the DMCA by the RIAA? Of course, under any rational interpretion of the DMCA, one would have to be breaking the encryption for the purpose of violating the copyright in order to be guilty of a crime, but the RIAA itself has argued in court that there is no intent requirement.
Since they have publicly admitted their ongoing intent to violate DMCA in national publications, we should contact our State Attorneys General and inform them that they should bring criminal charges under the DMCA.
I'll be dropping the California Attorney General a little line, myself.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
ELITE back in the BBS days meant you knew someone with a pirate BBS... least in the circles I ran. So they missed the 'leet bus by about 2 decades.
meh
Why don't you really boycott them? You probably are not going to like this, but the best way to fight them is to not download or traid their stuff.
All you are doing by downloading and sharing stuff from lables that support the RIAA is justifying the RIAAs existence. If you stop giving the lables music value by not listening or traiding the RIAA probably wouldn't be worth it to the lables.
If you really want to kill them stop listening to and downloading stuff by the lables they represent.
You have been found in violation of Godwin's Law.
You Lose. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Thank you for playing.
i was pleased to see the bbc related links included this balancing (if unfortunately titled) article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3022996.s tm
I'm sure some virus/trojan/worm writers read Slashdot, so how about writing something that does something positive for the world?
You need to write a trojan that infects Win32 boxes. This Trojan would do the following...
1) Install a copy of Kazaa Lite, and mask its presence
2) Share all the mp3s on the targets drive
3) if there are no mp3s, download some and share!
4) Profit!(*)
5) Plausible Deniability! (err, Mr. RIAA Goon, I had this "Kazaa-Trojan" on my computer, so I am not guilty of sharing music. F-You!
* the 'profit' here is to have every windows user in the world sharing a shitload of songs... think about it!
You WANT NiCads, the older ones are better ones. They don't hold a charge for long so you will always be topping it off, ensuring you are at peak voltage.
Is it not possible for an ISP to avoid this nonsense by automatically deleting logs every 90 minutes or so, and forcing the release of IP addresses every few hours? This way when they receive a supoena, they honestly won't have a clue who was using what IP address at the time. If they do this as a matter of policy, then I don't think they could be touched.
My rights don't need management.
Really. What was his pseudonym? Any references...guys that are still "in the black" that can vouch for his history? It's amazing how many guys I have run into over the past 10 years that "used to be hackers"...and for God's sake, IT'S CRACKER when used in this context.
Also, as for this intimdating quote of his which reads: "There is no lock that can't be picked and our technology ensures that there is not a rock in the world you can hide under if you are sharing files." What is this guy smoking? Words escape me to describe the blatent arrogance and idiocy of such a statement. In other words, he is saying that if I encrypt a copyrighted song using 448 bit Blowfish, he can "pick that lock". Ummmm...okay, show me. I know this (crypto) may not specifically be what he was referring to (or maybe it was), but it's just such a stupid comment that I can't NOT fire back. Sheesh...just read that quote to yourself a couple of times and see if it doesn't make your head spin.
What? With people like this doing chasing? He said, " there is not a rock in the world you can hide under if you are sharing files." Yeah, he looks like he knows all about living under a rock. Come out and see the light!
Mark Ishikawa. I'm sharing files, thousands of them on my Debian Mirror. You are welcome to come and get them at any time. It might help change that bad attitude of yours. All that bandwith you are wasting could be used to make people happy. You too, Coltrane. Microsoft and the RIAA are dying. There's a beter living to be made being nice to people and treating them with respect than there is to posting infamatory bullshit on Slashdot all day.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You realize that this is the way AIDS gets around. Yes, I just compared the RIAA spyder to the AIDS virus.
I think it's time to stomp out the source. Don't buy CDs from record stores. Buy them from bands you like at the show and share them with your friends the traditional way, long ago covered by fair use. Bite me RIAA - you never brought me anything worthwhile anyway.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Also, here's some discussion on the issue.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ok, even though it's an AC, you have to agree... If file sharing drops by 50% or even 25% and the RIAA doesn't get the rise in sales they will not have a leg to stand on.
:)
It's not so wild that it couldn't work. Even if 100's of people quit sharing and boycotts the labels... where will the RIAA place the blame then?? If file sharing drops, thier sales keep dropping or stay the same, it will just prove the point we are trying to make BY sharing.
This is PURE EAU DE TROLLETTE
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
...care to explain what's right about trading artists' material without their permission?
"Sufferin' succotash."
Doesn't the DMCA make it a crime for the RIAA to even try breaking this encryption?
Oh wait..they're the RIAA - laws don't apply to them!What they don't mention is that they also probably record the MAC address. And most people's MAC address never changes. So if they see Jack_Arse_21 has a different IP from l33t_sk1lLz, but they have the same MAC address, they are the same person.
Also, by the same token, they could tell if there are multiple file-sharing hosts on the same IP address (that is, behind a firewall or NAT).
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
Copyright IS NOT property.
--Mike--
doesent this guy have a vested interest in keeping people file swappin? as soon as all the "Digital Pirates" are gone he's out of business. So (just like the Anti Virus companies) he needs to keep a balance between sucking off the RIAA and not gettingt the file swappers below the critical mass it takes to form a growing community of pirates.....
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
Qoute from artcle
"As well as making money, Mr Ishikawa's vision for BayTSP is to become a hi-tech version of Pinkerton, the legendary detective agency that protected presidents like Abraham Lincoln and hunted outlaws like Jesse James."
Let's see now - Lincoln was assasinated and Jesse James was rumoured to have lived in freedon to a ripe old age.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Easy.
FM broadcast usage... it's called mandatory broadcast licensing.
Analog tape recording and swapping, legally defined as "fair usage".
Why is the digital equivalent (128K MP3 via P2P) of taping and tape trading illegal?
Campaign contributions aka legal bribery to elected Federal officians. If you want to construct some great moral principle out of this, be my guest. But don't expect to be treated with respect for expressing your viewpoint.
Even if you are being paid to spread RIAA propaganda here via some anonymous PR firm, you really can't expect respect for that even from the people who sign your paycheck.
If you're saying this because you actually believe *AA propaganda about "protecting starving artists", you're too dumb to deserve respect.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Eminem's latest album was "prereleased" to P2P a month in advance. Tell him about the income he was deprived of. It is generally believed that the P2P acted as free promotion for the album, which went immediately to #1 in sales.
Ask Radiohead about how using P2P has deprived them of sales.
There are plenty of bands around which case studies of Internet marketing can be done.
If making music publically available without restriction was bad for music publishers, why do record companies pay radio stations to play their music in the modern version of payola?
A 128K MP3 is simply a promotional item. It can influence a buying decision whether played back on the radio, downloaded, or played back as streaming audio via Internet Radio. You say "it's a product"? I don't see anyone buying them and neither do you. Putting one up on a P2P network is simply the equivalent of putting a track on radio stations and getting it to a few potential customers free of charge.
This isn't about protecting artists. Nobody who knows about how record label contracts work would believe this, though perhaps you do.
This is simply about conditioning the public to fear downloading even explicitly legal files from any locations other than a record industry approved pay-per-download source.
They simply want to cut off independent artists from access to the public in large masses, they want to be able to say to an indie "you can make a living in music with us or not at all".
An artist can make a pretty decent living selling 10K records at a per-unit profit of $5 each to supplement touring. It's a lot harder at 25 cents a record AFTER the record label's version of its costs have been repaid. The industry wants to take the choice away from musicians technology gave options to.
Tech Public Policy stuff
"This involves launching robotic searches across the internet, on all major peer-to-peer networks, in 65,000 newsgroups, FTP sites,..."
:) Or if you are really creative... create your own ISP..then you get hit with a $750 fine (by not giving a user's location)...thus eliminating your 1,950,000 Charges of copyright violations for ripping every song ever posted. I am sure you would be fined more than 750 if you ripped that many songs...but I am unsure how they bill the ISP for not disclosing the location of a user...please post a response if you know.
:)
Does anybody realize what this means!! Google has been captured...it is like the fall of Washington DC to the Brits! PTP is doomed, doomed I say
LMAO
Anyway...well everybody, novell is looking pretty good now
The end of the DMCA will coincide with the Apocalypse/Rapture, for only God can stop the Spawn of Man.
After note:
The DMCA is "necessary" for the protection of Copyrighted material...but how can the stop the "57 million people who have downloaded music", can we really fine that many people? And if that many people are willing to rip music and movies...what does that say about the prices of CDs and Movie Tickets? $25 for a CD and about $10 for a ticket?
Maybe the problem does not lie in the user, but in the source, like windows...just exclude the AOL User.
LOL Windows pun...couldn't resist
"bitten the hard thing"?
Is that Finnish for "Bit the big one"
or is it like "Up shit creek"
I wonder if this will get modded down just for the Subject line
tell him how you feel about violating your fair use rights, and assuming you are pirating because you are sharing files or because the files arent checked to see if they are really what they are entitled like as happened to professor usher:
1
MARK M ISHIKAWA
LOS GATOS CA 95030
(408)399-4361
(408)399-4391
(408)399-457
What would happen if some country decided to hell with copywrite laws and pattents? I believe people would still trade with them. Maybe if someplace goes ahead and does it we can see what effect it has on progress, creativity and standard of living. I for one do not believe anything will be retarded, just more efficient, no burocracy and an expansion of freedom of speach and exression.
Take for example:
Invite only private networks. Physically separated networks such as in dorms and college campuses. Family networks sharing the family Funny, how about double server networks where half the song is supplied by one random server, and the other half by yet another random server, it's not even the song until combined by the recipient, sneaker net, Geek Raves and lan parties.
Why do I have this vision of 15th century monks trying to track down people using printing presses instead of buying hand copied books from monastaries.
Only the first and third line should be in itallics.
You compare copyright infringement governed by copyright laws made through the legal bribery of Federal elected officials in collusion with the *AA organizations to rape, torture, and murder?
What planet are you from? And why don't you go back where you came from?
Of course, a more relevant question is how much is an anonymous PR firm working for one of the *AA organizations or one of the major labels paying you to unload this swill on slashdot?
The other possibility is that you've been exposed to so much *AA propaganda that you believe it to be fact... which speaks to your intelligence.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Wrong.
You've never heard of mandatory broadcasting licensing? (which includes royalties paid via Performing Rights Societies paid to the composer) Did radio stations suddenly shift to playing 30 second song samples without telling anyone?
You've never heard that tape swapping via analog tape is fair use not requiring permission of the copyright owner?
You really should try sources of information other than *AA propaganda before you try to sound like an informed adult discussing a public policy issue, you've already revealed your ignorance to the public.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Peer Guardian is only as good as the list of blocked IP addresses you have. No doubt these scanning companies are trying to acquire and use IP addresses outside ranges already identified with their companies.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What if the "socializing" bit of obtaining access to an exclusive network meant finding the network, then before you are able to see any of the shared material on the trusted p2p network you must first push (say) 10Gb of (illegal) material to the network.
Once a member of the trusted network has verified the material the key to the network will (maybe) be handed out.
Now if a user that normally would not have gained access (such as a record company or similar) had tried to gain this access, have helped the sharing of 10Gb of copyrighted material (their own if they aren't afraid of massive lawsuits), and they can still not be sure that they gain access to this network.
If they do gain access, and notice illegal material on the network: could a "clean-hands"-thing make it difficult for them to sue anyone on this network where they contributed themselves to the data?
Am I totally off my noodle here?
It doesn't take an economist or a lawyer to understand point 4 - sharing copyrighted content that you do not have rights to millions of people would have DEFINITELY have a substantial impact upon the value of the copyrighted work.
The evidence available from non-RIAA studies and from empirical evidence shows that the value of copyrighted work increases when redistributed to millions of people.
The record industry obviously knows this at an internal level, that's why any track played on a commercial radio can be regarded as a paid advertisement for the actual CD product.
128K MP3s distributed via payola-compensated FM or P2P or via Internet Radio is not the product. A product for which there is no market can not be considered a "commercial product" in any sense but a narrowly legal one whose definition comes from laws made by politicians 0wn3d by the *AA.
It's merely a promotional item which the public uses to make buy/don't buy decisions about the actual product, either a CD or better than broadcast quality downloadable tracks from iTunes.
That's why independent musicians often release their own work via P2P channels. Only in the dreamworld occupied only by *AA publicists, you (is that redundant?), and politicians 0wn3D by the *Aa do people buy CDs without listening to at least some of the content first.
In the real world, it doesn't matter whether a person makes a buying decision via P2P download, Internet Radio, or FM radio with respect to a decision to buy making money for the artist.
Why don't you wander off and go tell Eminem that the person who uploaded his entire current album to P2P destroyed the value of all of his work.
Of course, in the real world, not the one you live in, his album went immediately to #1 and he's crying about P2P all the way to the bank. And there might be some personal risk for you in telling him this to his face, he is not reputed to suffer fools gladly.
One other thing about your anti-piracy whining. If the *AA really cared about piracy, they'd be using the politicians they own to do whatever it takes to get the Asian countries in which bootleg copies of CDs are pressed to stop instead of the cosmetic efforts in process now.
The *AA problem isn't piracy, they merely want to strike so much fear into the public that they will only download MP3s from "approved" music industry sites... which would effectively cut off independent artists from using the Net as a promotional channel. That's the real bottom line. I work to publicize an independent artist and finding people willing to host her MP3s for P2P is very difficult because of the RIAA attack on P2P users. Of course, that means that the RIAA attack is succeeding, at least in the US... the personal solution... host them in a free country where the *AA didn't subvert the political process.
Do you guys really think that nobody has managed to figure out the obvious?
Tech Public Policy stuff
In this case, unauthorised copying deprives the rights holders of income that they may or may not have received. The "may not" is important because many copiers do not have the budget to go buy the music.
See my journal, I write things there
The previous comments about this article have some how turned into a debate over what is theft and what is not. Or just f@ck the RIAA comments ingeneral. As I may agree with those posts the article is about private P2P networks, getting into those networks and the fact that those type of Networks will be the future.
I believe that there is no safe haven for filesharers that choose to trade copyrighted material in breach of the copyright. However, as an owner of a private network I must ask the question...What laws are being broken if unwanted guests such as the the RIAA come into my network without permission. They then would be a hacker. Hacking(ie cracking) is illegal. Hell, the FBI spends a better part of it time and budget tracking people who break into networks where they do not belong (FBI calls them hackers).
Next question...If the RIAA or other associations broke into my network and then tried to sue me for what they saw, or claim they saw, how is that now different then a cop breaking into your home and then finding somethind illegal and the arresting you for it. They can't, they need a search warrant, which in order to get, they need probable cause. As for the RIAA (non-law enforcement agency) they couldnt even get a search warrant. They may however be able to convince a law enforcement agency (ie FBI or local police to get one), but i'm sure that there are many loop holes that would get you off there. Basically, let them get into my system, let them hire companies to get into my system. As much as they try, and as much as the poliicians try, they are not above the constitution, and any defense attorney worth anything could get you off. So let them try...I say everyone needs to set up a private network, screen users, and put up a nice big disclaimer warning law enforcement and members of RIAA, MPAA and anyone else you do not want in your network to stay out or face prosecution.
Just my two cents...
Waste is good for small groups but because of its mesh style, and encryted network, its really only necessary on a RIAA/MPAA partroled campus.
DC's central server requires minimum shareing sizes (normaly like 50gigs or something huge)
and can handle a ton of people
i'm leaveing for Baylor in a month, anyone going there want to start a waste/DC network or know of any existing ones? (aim, msn or icq me)
i also have friends at A&M, i've heard they run some very large campus wide systems on teh LAN because of very low bandwidth caps per day.
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
Back in the 'day we had a P2P network.
It was called Apple ][ software piracy. We'd get together and swap software. How did you get to the bigger collections held by others? You had to have a big collection yourself, or be a buyer of new titles which the others would copy, then someone else would break.
So to hear about 'secret' P2P nets where the cost of entry is knowing the 'right' person, or having a large collection yourself is not at all shocking. (Most of the collection was not something I would have bought, if I had the $$$.)
The RIAA has stated they need to hack into private networks, otherwise known as VPNs, to track down the naughty copyright violators: "If users think that any particular service guarantees their anonymity, they're wrong," Naturally the RIAA will need to inspect and decode every single packet sent using an encrypted protocol to determine if it contains copyrighted material. The NSA may be able to do this (not that we'll ever know), but I really doubt if a bunch of limp-noodle Hollywood lawyerswine have the funding or technical ability to do it. Supposing though, that through some miracle, they can pull it off. How will organizations that employ VPNs or PPTP for legitimate business purposes react when they hear that the RIAA is cracking their transactions? Is this legal? It seems about as "murky" as the sharer's crime... My own view on the subject is that I can spend money things I can't get for free. I don't download too much and never share. My stingy ISP makes me pay for UPLOADS (yes, that means if I dl something from another customer they charge twice for one data transfer!) I'd go for another but the competition isn't all that better... Anyway back on the subject I have little cash and my (possibly teenage) logic says I have a small chance of being done by a record company.
The question is, if the RIAA does successfully sue file swappers for copyright breach, will they then give a fair percentage of that money to the musicians. How will they determine the proper percentages to dole out?
students.washington.edu?
As per your "Direct Connect hub", I would say: get it while the gettin is good. Chalk up one more suponea.
Sig it.
one, try breaking something non-kiddie like usenet, two, NOTHING is safe, that means these pompus asses that are making a buck fucking over everyone and his grandma, and I would laugh myself sick if someone dropped them a trojan or something. And no this is not an ok for script kiddies to go in and screw things up, and those fellow programmers that know the finer points of hacking, I hope you are like me and not dumb enough to do it, or at least dont get caught...
btw I am just too lazy to log in
Kafka wanted his works burned after his death. Many, many people are very glad his executors refused to follow his instructions and published the stuff.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
And I'm Spock. We also have an internal file-sharing service on our campus, an open-source Gnutella client called Gnucleus. Like you said, tons of speed, tons of content and participation. By the end of one academic year, I had filled several hundred GB of movies and music. I've also heard wonderful things about DirectConnect. The great thing is, the **AA can't snoop around and find out what you're sharing. From my experience, network administrators tend to get mighty touchy when someone from the outside intrudes on the network. This is definitely something that needs to be adopted by all.
Bollocks. They're not even remotely similar crimes (legally *or* morally).
Don't just assert something, argue it.
In my opinion illegally copying music is exactly like shoplifting. Not something expensive, but say, a pack of gum. You're taking something without paying that you (rightly) have to pay for. You may think it's too expensive, but the only correct response to that is not to buy it.
There's a word for taking something without paying that you should pay for: "stealing". There's also a word for a person who steals: "thief". It really is that simple. If you think it isn't, explain what you think the fundamental difference is between illegally copying digital music and shoplifting a pack of gum.
You've never heard of mandatory broadcasting licensing? (which includes royalties paid via Performing Rights Societies paid to the composer) Did radio stations suddenly shift to playing 30 second song samples without telling anyone?
It is against the law to publicly distribute copyright material without the copyright holder's consent. Radio stations pay their ASCAP fees to obtain the copyright holder's consent.
You've never heard that tape swapping via analog tape is fair use not requiring permission of the copyright owner?
It is against the law to publicly distribute copyright material without the copyright holder's consent. Tape swapping is not as great a threat as MP3 swapping to copyright holders because (i) it takes a non-trivial amount of effort to duplicate tapes, and (ii) tapes degrade in quality as they are duplicated many times, whereas MP3s can be shared very easily and without subsequent loss of quality.
Stop parroting anti-RIAA propaganda if you want to be taken seriously.
For more information, click here.
in our own lifetimes. Is the public domain not something that continues long after our own demise? The consumer's that is. I agree that works over one or two hundred years old should be in the public domain, but just because the entire "Journey" catalog is not freely available twenty years after it was concieved doesn't make copyright laws broken. Somehow, we all paid for our entertainment ten years ago. Just because we have technology to do something previously illegal doesn't magically make things legal, no matter how much we wish it to be so.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Sorry, Lars. I didn't know you were still so angrrry.
Aren't there any politicans who read slashdot?
No Congressional representatives, or wannabes?
Let me make this clear. 60 million people use P2P.
Those people are now, rightly, fearing jail. But they continue to use P2P, because they like it so much.
That implies it is an important value to them.
60 million people constitute a LARGE voting population. Certainly larger than RIAA+artists, most probably large than any campagin affects the RIAA efforts can have.
Take the Bull by the Horns. Advocate legislation that protects P2P users. Copyright infringement be damned---60 million is a HUGH voting block. Enough to sway a presidential election. In area with high broadband saturation, enough to sway a congressional (state or federal election). Be the candidate to protect your voters. Call P2P a fundamental right. Certainly, more radical changes have been advocated, and although opponents will say 'Your putting artists in the poor house', it really doesn't matter. If your constituents were worried about that, they WOULDN'T be using P2P.
Besides, if you were willing to hire them as an aid, I'm certain that many young, asprining, fresh out of college polisci people would be willing to write papers defending P2P.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
No, you are confusing "specific intent" crimes with "general intent" crimes. Mala prohibita and mala in se have nothing to do with mental states by definition, although most malum prohibitum offenses (i.e. speeding) do not require a specific mens rea.
A malum prohibitum offense is "an offense prohibited by statute but not inherently evil or wrong." Downloading mp3's and driving over the speed limit are the two most obvious examples of such an offense.
A malum in se offense is "an offense that is evil or wrong from its own nature irrespective of statute." Murder, shoplifting, burglary, assault/battery, treason/selling national secrets to the Chinese (unless you're a Democrat President, then you can do that and it's not even malum prohibitum, go figure), arson, rape... those are all mala prohibita offenses. (I'm sure you know this, but the other guy who responded to this asked for definitions of 'the latin terms').
At any rate, your post misses the point that there are copyright infringements that you can go to jail for, and there are copyright infringements that you will only get sued for. There's a big difference between the two. You can, in theory, go to jail for downloading a a number of songs off of kazaa if their value exceeds $1000. Keep in mind, the value of the song (yes, just that one song - a "copyrighted work") will be $16.99 -- the price of the album (same way RIAA calculates their losses). That means if you download 58 songs within a 180 day period, you can go to jail if you wilfully did it. That means if you intentionally get on kazaa, select 58 songs (over a 180 day period), and click "download" section 506 applies to you and you can go to jail. Who here has not downloaded 100 songs a year? Jail for you. Is downloading approx 100 songs per year inherently evil? Well, the RIAA will tell you that it is, but the rest of the population knows that its not. Malum in se? Not a fucking chance. It shouldn't even be malum prohibitum. It should be perfectly legal, encouraged, and enjoyed by all. The recording industry can then either come up with a new way to sell a product that everyone can make perfect copies of with a click of a button, or find new jobs.
But the only reason why there are so many civil suits lately is because the RIAA does not need probable cause (or even reasonable suspicion) to file civil infringement charges against you. They just need your name and the $50 to pay the filing fee to issue the subpoena. If it turns out (like the UPenn Prof. "Usher" case) that you are completely not liable, they will just nonsuit the case against you, and go on to the other thousands of downloaders they've subpoenaed. The Fourth Amendment does not apply to the RIAA. Frankly, if they are going to act like the police, then I think the Fourth should apply to them by implication. They should have to get search warrants from neutral magistrates based on probable cause to watch (broadband-tap) my connection. Or else the exclusionary rule should apply to anything they "find." They should have to read Miranda rights to everyone they sue (regardless of the fact that the sued is not in RIAA custody/interrogation). And they should have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt on all elements. If you act like police (and yes, that includes rent-a-cops) then all the constitutional protections should apply to you. It's always bothered me that private rent-a-cops can arrest someone, interrogate them, and not have to give Miranda warnings. Then when the "real" cops show up, everything the accused has said (possibly something incriminating) to the rent-a-cops can be used against him/her.
Anyway, that's just a pet peeve of mine.
One person's malum prohibitum is another's malum in se. I don't know if I agree with that statement. One can make a lame, attenuated argument that any violation of any law (driving 36 in a 35 zone) is inherently evil (i.e. "speeding endangers everyone, and you put everyone's life at risk!") But no, d
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
No, you are confusing "specific intent" crimes with "general intent" crimes. Mala prohibita and mala in se have nothing to do with mental states by definition, although most malum prohibitum offenses (i.e. speeding) do not require a specific mens rea.
I'm not mixing them up. I never said that either of them have anything to do with mental states by definition. I said that there isn't much of a useful distinction, especially in this day and age -- i.e., nowadays we have much deeper discourse about what we think is actually "inherently" right or wrong, and thus the lines are much blurrier than they would have been when society first started talking about mala prohibita and mala in se as discrete concepts. In fact, I said "The clearest difference between the two is that mala prohibita tend to be offenses that don't require any consideration about an actor's mens rea", which is very similar to what you say ("although most malum prohibitum offenses (i.e. speeding) do not require a specific mens rea"). And when I say "the clearest difference," I imply that it's still not absolutely clear that one offense doesn't require consideration about mens rea compared to the other.
Is downloading approx 100 songs per year inherently evil? Well, the RIAA will tell you that it is, but the rest of the population knows that its not. Malum in se? Not a fucking chance. It shouldn't even be malum prohibitum.
I hope your crim law professor didn't waste any time trying to get you to explain the difference between the two! It's just not useful. I understand where you're coming from; at heart, I agree that downloading 100 songs isn't inherently evil, or even kind of evil. But therein lies the problem: that's what you and I think, but what does society think? What do lawmakers -- who ostensibly represent society -- think? You hear all the time the reference to downloading songs off Kazaa/Napster/etc. as "stealing". Is stealing not evil? You imply in your post that it is. If it is rightfully analogous to stealing, then of course it's "evil". No doubt you (and I) would argue that it's not analogous to stealing, but that's irrelevant; it's what society as a whole thinks that matters. I think we'd agree that mala prohibita should have consequences nowhere near as severe as mala in se. But if there's confusion about what particular offense is stealing (i.e., "evil") and what's not, then I don't see how the distinction between the two is useful at all.
Certainly, the distinction isn't a hard guiding principle for society and its lawmakers, as it shouldn't be. That was the point of my post.
But the only reason why there are so many civil suits lately is because the RIAA does not need probable cause (or even reasonable suspicion) to file civil infringement charges against you.
Of course they don't -- it's a civil suit! Your problem, I'm sure, isn't that they can willy-nilly file civil infringement suits against people. This is the way the American legal system is set up -- notice pleading is a low standard to reach in order to file suits easily, and then we have heightened standards later to even it out. Your problem is more that the RIAA can issue subpoenas without having filed suit in the first place. Right? Well, I have the same problem. But you must understand where the lawmakers were coming from: there's obvious, enormous copyright infringement going on; infringement is illegal; but no one can figure out who's doing the infringing! What balance of rights are you going to set? Think long and hard, because that's what the lawmakers did (hopefully). They may have been unduly influenced by the ??AA's FUD and perceived the wrong balance, but that's for us and future lawmakers to figure out.
One person's malum prohibitum is another's malum in se. I don't know if I agree with that statement. One can make a lame, attenuated argument that any violation of any law (driving 36 in a 35 zone) is inherently evil (i.e. "speeding endangers everyone, and you p
I'm not mixing them up. I never said that either of them have anything to do with mental states by definition. I said that there isn't much of a useful distinction, especially in this day and age -- i.e., nowadays we have much deeper discourse about what we think is actually "inherently" right or wrong, and thus the lines are much blurrier than they would have been when society first started talking about mala prohibita and mala in se as discrete concepts.
Ok, I guess I understood your statement to imply malum prohibitum = specific intent whereas malum in se = general intent. I know see what you were trying to say, and yeah, I agree.
I hope your crim law professor didn't waste any time trying to get you to explain the difference between the two! It's just not useful. I understand where you're coming from; at heart, I agree that downloading 100 songs isn't inherently evil, or even kind of evil. But therein lies the problem: that's what you and I think, but what does society think? What do lawmakers -- who ostensibly represent society -- think?
Well, it's not useful from a purely legal standpoint, unless you are on the committee setting sentencing guidelines, I suppose. Other than that, it's an adjective and nothing more (at least not substantively). But I don't think defining an act as malum prohibitum or malum in se is as subjective as you do. Downloading music, no matter how much, is not evil. Anyone who does argue that downloading a song is either named Lars Ulrich, owns a BIG record company, and/or is a high-ranking member of the RIAA. And deep down inside, they know it's not "evil"... they just don't like it because in their mind, it's costing them money. Their revenue has gone down over the past few years (along with every single other industry - ya know, it's a recession....) thus they can either blame Clinton (pres when the recession started), themselves (which never happens), or an external force (that's always the easiest, and that's what is gonna happen). Our revenues are down, people are sharing our music online, therefore that must be the reason. I think slashdot has had hundreds of stories showing that logic is complete bunk, but the RIAA is nothing more than a group that organizes price-fixing and attempts to get the most $17 music CDs sold as possible. They see filesharing as costing them money (which at the very least is arguable, and in fact is complete bullshit), there is a (ridiculously overbroad) statute (17 USC 501) that can stop people from doing this, so I suppose they have a semi-fiduciary duty to sue as many people as possible. I say "semi" because if they decided to not sue kids for downloading songs of Kazaa, I could not imagine that as being a breach of a fiduciary duty to RIAA members. [Also keep in mind that it is the recording industry assoc, not the musicians/artists assoc, so the RIAA owes absolutely no duty to any bands or singers. The interests of the two groups sound like they are mutual, but as we all know, those interests are adverse 99% of the time. The only time they are not adverse is when a band/performer is in the top 0.0001% of income generating acts, such as Metallica. Those guys have the bargaining power to negotiate deals so far in their favor that they are, in effect, their own recording industry.] Everyone knows that the best way to get people to comply with a stupid law is to try to convince them that not doing so is evil/immoral. That is best done with TV commercials (still pisses me off the gov't wastes taxpayer money on those jackfuck stupid anti-drug commercials) and highly-public lawsuits. Everybody knows downloading music is just fine, not immoral in the slightest little bit, so the whole "it is no different than walking into Best Buy and shoplifting a bunch of albums" argument is nothing more than appeal-to-emotion advertising.
You don't think driving 100 mph in a school zone is evil? I certainly don't think it's reckless. Going 60 in a school zone, that's reckless. Going 100 in a school zo
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Anyway, wish me luck - today is day 3 of the Bar Exam ;) So far, so good... although that multistate 200 m/c question test really is a bitch.
:)
Oh man, I didn't know you were in the middle of your bar exam... sorry about the long post. days -- CA? You'll be fine, but good luck! The really hard part is the waiting... Anyway, I'll just comment on the last part, although there are good points to discuss all around. (I also have work to do!!)
Yeah, that whole droit morale is a French thing. That in and of itself makes it suspect and presumptively stupid. It doesn't deal with infringement, though. It deals with the right of an author not to have his work altered. Not so much regarding derivative works - that's normal copyright law - but it usually has to do with, for example, someone spraypainting the sculpture you made and put in the public park. But the BIG difference is that the "moral right" remains with the individual who created the work, even if and after he assigns his copyright over to someone else.... and even if the work was a work for hire. That is so stupid the only way the french can justify it is to stick the word "morale" in the description. It's kinda like the PATRIOT Act... if you're not for it, you're not a "patriot." If you're not for droit morale, you're not a very "morale" french citizen. The moral right/droit morale concept is not about adding a moral element to infringement... it's just a funny name given by the french to their silly little system.
Interesting -- that's narrower in scope than what I learned about it. I understood that droite morale would allow, for example, an artist to prevent his painting from being cut up and turned into another piece of art (that would be derivative), or a musician to prevent his music from being sampled in part (that would be used in a derivative work). I'll certainly admit I'm a corporate lawyer, not an IP lawyer, though I did well in my IP classes and I try to keep up nowadays.
Yes, droite morale is a French thing, but I think the moral rights concept is broader -- for example, at least to me, it encompasses the "cultural products" idea, which says that cultures have an important stake in the maintaining the integrity/authenticity of their "products" (e.g., their native wares, their literature, etc.), and that they should be given certain extra rights in order to protect it. It's definitely based on IP rights.
The moral right/droit morale concept is not about adding a moral element to infringement... it's just a funny name given by the french to their silly little system.
Hmm. Two things: first, when I talk about infringement, I'm talking about IP rights, because that's what it's really all about, right? IP rights aren't anything more than rights to sue for "infringement." By "infringement" I don't necessarily mean contravention of section 106 rights, but rather contravention of IP rights, whatever we think those rights are.
The other thing is that I guess we might differ on our definitions of "moral." I do think that the idea that an author or a culture has rights to maintain the integrity of their work is a "moral" issue. It's not straight up a question of good versus evil, but I do think it's a question involving shades of right and wrong, which I think reflects what most moral issues are.
Anyway, just a few short thoughts, but good luck! Hope you're going on a bar trip, and have fun!