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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.'"
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
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.
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.
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.
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
"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
Remember, folks: if you go to the bathroom during the commercials, you are stealing that television broadcast!
Didn't we learn anything from prohibition? If half the population routine violate a law, then perhaps it makes more sense to change the law than to put half the population in jail.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
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.
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.
Duh, that's why they are publically saying it is hard to use in every article they can. They want the public to be afraid to even try it.
They know that us geeks don't care, but they know that the public only believes what they are fed.
If Joe Blow 13 year old (clueless) hears that Freenet is hard to use over and over, he is less likely to try it.
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.
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
Of course, that might or might not happen, as we know the public to be easily scared and all. On the other hand, it is very possible that it will not work, like things do not work for, say, marijuana. Of course, the penalties the RIAA wants to impose on file-sharers are orders of magnitude worst than the penalty for simple possession of marijuana, but it is my opinion that these penalties will not hold for long once they start applying it to too many people.
As for the smaller, encrypted P2P networks, I don't think the RIAA is after them for now, as they don't really cause them that much trouble. Just as music-sharing before the era of P2P, a P2P network of 30 people does not make as much noise as one of millions of users, and arguably, in the eyes of the RIAA at least, not as many missed sales.
In the end, the first people who get caught in RIAA scare tactics and decide to fight back(there shouldn't be too many of them) will be the ones who will decide of big P2P network's future. If they manage to win their case, or even bring the penalty to something affordable and acceptable for a 'normal' person, there will no longer be any way for the RIAA to scare people. On the other hand, if they end up having to pay 1000$ a month or worse for the rest of their lives, you can expect that a lot of users will shy away from the network, making them less and less efficient...
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.
"Copyright exists to provide incentives to push works into the public domain, not to keep them out of it."
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).
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
There are people who trade rare, hard to find (read: suppressed by the studios) cartoons. Most are indeed over 50 years old. Let me mention a few names. "Song Of The South." "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarves." "Tin Pan Alley Cats." "Uncle Tom's Cabana." "Herr vs. Hare." "The Blitz Wolf." "Tokio Jokio." "The Japoteurs." etc. etc. Most have either politically incorrect stereotypes and/or inflammatory anti-German or anti-Japanese content that was part of popular culture during World War II.
From a cartoon historian's standpoint, this is all stuff that should not be suppressed. Maybe it should also not be shown to impressionable children, as well -- at least without an accompanying history lesson as part of the deal. But not everyone who is interested in animation is a kid. Some of us are adults. And it is the adults that are being denied by the embargo on certain politically incorrect cartoons.
And as far as creative people having their food stolen: the screenwriters and songwriters and musicians whose "rights" are supposedly being "protected" by the RIAA/MPAA Sturmabteilung are also systematically being raped up the butt, no Crisco offered, by the same Big Media companies that the RIAA and MPAA actually represent. A recent post I made in my Slashdot blog is all about this.
Moreover, my husband is a musician, who has seen things from both the side of the struggling, unsigned musician and the exploited, swindled musician signed to a contract which in other businesses would be laughed out as being horrifyingly one-sided and biased towards Management. He is now beginning to release all his back catalog of music that he himself owns copyright and publishing on, for free, on the Internet. The only strings attached are that he'd like people to talk to him if they want to either put a song of his on a retail compilation album or use one of his songs in a movie or TV show. If you want a look, here is the link: http://www.richiehass.com/. Why is he doing this? Because his gamble is that once people get acquainted with his back catalog, when he finally gets an indie CD of new stuff done and up on CD Baby people will be sufficiently interested enough to buy it.
The actions of the RIAA and the MPAA are the actions of frightened Luddites fearing the loss of their livelihoods. As history shows, when old industries die, new ones spring up to take their place. The economic models that have supported musicians and other types of artists over the millenia have shifted considerably. They will likely shift again with the flow of technology. Like the song goes, "It's Evolution, baby." Adapt or die.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I think the RIAA is trying to plug a Titanic sized leak with dish towels. They are not going to be able to stem the flow of files across the web. Rattleing their sabers will not get them very far. I would conclude that we will see a percentage of people dump their connection to the big services, and erase all their swapped files. Then there will be those who sit tight, and weather the storm in rebellion, and then there will be those who find the way around the wall. With all due respect to those corporations who aid the RIAA in there failing crusade, I hope they are being paid well, because this crusade will eventually fail. Personally I don't participate in file sharing, but I can remember the days of buying a tape (ooops did I date myself?) and making copies for my friends. Just like trying to make CD's copy-proof, technological inginuity and rebeliousness will overcome. Technology is progress, and with progress comes winners and losers. Here the winners will eventually be consumers and artists, the losers will be the RIAA and it's allies. Stand clear when those big ones fall.
" My next house will have no kitchen - just vending machines and a large trash can. "
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.