RIAA/MPAA vs. xMule Author, EarthStation 5

Two bits of news in the ongoing battle between the RIAA/MPAA and the rest of the internet: One P2P company, apparently based in Palestine, has thrown down the gauntlet to the movie industry. Meanwhile, a developer of another P2P tool who unwisely chose to live in the USA has been shut down (mirror) by the RIAA.

Comments

Full text of article

[mskfisher]

He mentions having reached 90% of his bandwidth allocation for this month, so I would guess a Slashdotting wouldn't help things.
Here's the full text of the article, to hopefully stem some of that tide.

Today's Featured Article I've been personally shut down...

Thursday, August 21 2003 @ 12:46 AM CDT
Contributed by: Un-Thesis
Views: 788
Apparently I have been subpoenad, personally, on 8-17-2003 by an as-yet unknown entity under the DMCA clause, because of xmule, when it went on to gov'ment radar w/ the e-matters.de alert :P The subpoena lasts, suposedly, until Dec 6, when i must stand infrotn of a federal appellet court

100% of My job is online
100% of My school is online
100% of My friends are online
100% of My hobbies are online

and if i can't use a comptuer at all, they might as well put me in a federal
prison taht allows me to read and purchase any book i want...

As of 7:43AM MST (-7 UTC) my personal internet connection was shut down due to "unacceptable use". It took me 6 hours to finally contact my ISP customer support, a local cable modem provider, because they were swamped with MSBLASTER calls.

I was redirected to a 1800 number who redirected me to some other number, etc, until i finally reached a federal clerk's office in Washington, D.C. who informed me that it *seems* as though I have been personally subpaened by the USA Gov'ment on behalf of the RIAA. They told me that they were limited in their search for information due to the late hour (8PM EDT (-4 UTC)), but that the prosecuting body that issued under hte auspicies of the DMCA and NOT in the same category as the other 8,000+ copyright violation affidavits issued by the RIAA in recent months.

Additional bad news: xmule.org has reached 90% of its allocated monthly bandwidth. It is the 19th. I am very incapable of rectifying this decision w/out knowledgeable outside assistance in the United States (due to telephone communication required). If you can help me set up the other webserver, please contact me at 520-296-3408.

Unless DRASTIC action is taken within the next 48 hours, or my internet connection is restored, xmule.org forums will be permanently shut down until the bandwidth issue can be resolved.

Supposedly, the subpaena was filed on 8-17-2003. For those that know, the e-matters.de published xmule ni its security bulletin, thus, probably, raising us to teh level of teh RIAA's notice for the first time. Since I am the only american developer, and since i am really the only main developer, it seems they struck at the source.

I have not received written or otherwise announcement of the subpaena, and i still do not know the ramifications of my injunction. I may be able to use dialup or even DSL, cable is certainly out, or I may be completely barred form teh internet (this message might be illegal)

At this point i *know* i will need to hire a civil rights attorney, and if I am not liable to a prison sentence, then I might be able to leave the United States to either Mexico or Canada, at which point i will also need money to relocate...So any donations are greatly appreciated. PLEASE use the Amazon donation box, since it requires no online access by me, while paypal erquires a connectino.

I wont' know what my options are until some time tomorrow or later. Development of xMule seems to be the most likely target of me, since I have downloaded very little copyrighted material over the last, o, 6 months. I figured that before i found out i was banned completely from the internet i would send this mesasge...

Keep it real...weclome to the Fourth Reich of Amerika.

Un-Thesis

Copyright treaties in occupied countries

[dowobeha]

OK, so here's a question for you....

Most countries are signatories to one or more copyright treaties that commit them to recognizing and protecting international copyrights. They are therefore more or less prohibited from allowing the explicit breach of copyright declared in this PR release.

But who is responsible for enforcing copyright in an occupied country? Palestine has been recognized by the UN as an occupied territory, with Israel as the occupying power. With little real power, is the Palestinian Authority still supposed to enforce copyright restrictions? Or is that for Israel to do?

The same situation would apply, I assume, in Iraq. America is the occupying power, so I would think the same criteria should apply as in the Israel/Palestine situation. There is no true Iraqi government to enforce copyright, but on the other hand it seems a bit absurd to think that American laws should govern Iraq.

Interesting situation....

Nope..

[fault0]

Their company page (http://www.es5.com/company.html) says:

"Our group is made up of many people, Jordanians, Palestinians, Indians, Americans, Russians and Israelis. Some of us are Jewish, some Christians, some Hindus and other of us are Muslim.

Believe it or not, we all love and respect each other.

We all work and play together. Our families on many occasions eat at the same dinner table. We trust each other and are very close friends with each other. As a group, the most important thing in our life is our children, our families and love ones and of course our friends. "

Nice sentiment (BIG) BUT (/BIG)

[Chas]

Not that I'd de-advocating this sort of stance. I'd really prefer that my money not go to these money-grubbing [NAUGHTYS].

But think on this for a second. These idiots don't even have a NODDING acquaintence with common sense, or even REALITY. All they'll see, and yammer about, when sales plummet is "It's filesharing!" "It's texting!" "It's freedom of speech!"

No matter what, they're utterly incapable of believing tha that their sales dropoffs are actually due to:

1. Death of dinosaur markets, resulting in a narrowing of profit vectors.
2. Death of niches no longer favored by the consumers, resulting in FURTHER narrowing of profit vectors
3. A tighter, more fiscal-necessity-oriented economy
4. The decreased efficacy of marketing and promotion in a society that has "peer" review instantaneously available on a global telecommunications network.
5. An market already HIDEOUSLY bloated by a massive amount of content being released
6. Alternative forms of entertainment competing for the consumer dollar in said economy
7. The shoddy market research which results in the greenlighting of...
8. A growing preponderance of "crap" product being shoveled out to the public which then DON'T get consumed. Tying up resources as product languishes on shelves. For the distributor, the point of sale, and the artist.

Need I go on?

In short, no matter what people do, or do not, buy, the likes of the MPAA and the RIAA will merely blame-shift so they don't have to accept responsibility for their own [NAUGHTY]-ups.

Re:Nice sentiment (BIG) BUT (/BIG)

[enjo13]

Your wrong, kind of.

The MPAA and the RIAA are quite aware of why they're not making money. They don't truly beleive that filesharing and text messages are killing their business. The people running these things are many things, but stupid is not one of them.

What they are really interested in is providing the perception of being victims. They are hoping to use this perception that they are failing at the hands of college-age criminals in order to garner anti-competitive protections for their business. Even if they may be making less money than before (is that even true?), media remains a TREMENDOUSLY good business for established players. By establishing themselves as victims, they can prevent new distribution channels (like P2P) that they can't control from allowing new competitors to emerge.

In the end, that's what this is about. The Theater->Video->Tv chain is a tightly controlled one for the members of the MPAA (the RIAA has similiar in CD->Radio). When indepednent film makers can start to distribute quality work over alternative distribution channels it is in the best interests of these companies to shut them down.

One thing to consider.. if the RIAA wasn't seen as the victim of 'stealing' on Napster, does the DMCA even get passed? I doubt it.. Much like the airline industry bail-outs. Without 9/11 the Airlines would have a much more difficult time getting money out of our government, but since they are seen as 'victims' of the increased fear after 9/11 it is much easier for them to get these kinds of concessions.

These laws are not born out of hatred for the American consumer, but generally on really wanting to do the right thing. After all, if the MPAA is being stole from then we should do what we can to fix that. The problem is, our representatives are having trouble seeing the difference between justice and manipulation.

Re:It's Idiotic.

[Dunark]

...Yes, Hollywood DOES have the right to make money. ...

No they don't. They have the right to TRY to make money by making movies that people want to see. They have no right to expect a profit if they make crap, no matter how much they spend making the crap.

Yup

[Andy Dodd]

Used CDs:

a) Are cheaper
b) Don't send money to the RIAA

I haven't bought a new CD in many years. I have bought used though.

half.com rocks.

Re:Not that it needs to be said, but

[Jaysyn]

That's what happens when 2 groups of people argue over imaginary friends.

Jaysyn

Stealing stolen movies from ES5?

[JoeShmoe]

For the "sake of curiousity" I decided that I wanted to check this site out. Particularly the claim of providing first-run movies (I'm not interested in wasting my money on The Hulk...hey I got the text page telling me it sucks, remember?). I don't know if it's the bandwidth constraints of refugee camps or the serious slashdotting but the movie stop for two minutes of buffering just about every 20 seconds.

Frustrated, I whipped out my trusty copy of ASFRecorder. Imagine my surprise when it failed to connect! First time that has ever happened to me. So I whipped out my trusty backup copy of ASFRecorder that was recompiled with a Windows Media Player User-Agent string. That didn't work either! This was bizarre. I'm watching the video play right now (albeit poorly) in WMP but ASFRecorder with the exact same user agent is getting connection closed. I try HiDownload, again, failed, even with the same agent string! What is going on here?

The entire thing is SWF based so I download an evaluation copy of SWF Scanner and decide to see what URL I'm actually going to. Low and behold, what is this?


on (unLoad) {Get URL("mms://stream.es5.com:1755/es5/movies/The%20Hu lk-384.wmv" , Target = "")


What the hell is with that blank "target" paramenter? Can anyone explain that? I have a feeling that is the problem. ASFRecorder only takes a URL, there is no place to specify a target. Ditto for HiDownloader and Windows Media Player. I confirmed that if I type the stream location into Media Player, it fails to connect. But, if I make an ASX file that links to the stream and includes the blank "target" parameter, it works!

Okay, now it's gone beyond trying to see if The Hulk is really as crappy as everyone says. This is a mystery, and I'm hoping someone here can figure it out.

In short, streaming file plays in Windows Media Player but it seems impossible to capture this stream using any of the tools available. Is there a solution? And why would these boneheads at war with the RIAA/MPAA bother to sabatoge downloads to begin with?

- JoeShmoe
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