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ARIA Threatens To Sue Internet Service Providers
tymbow writes "It seems that ARIA (The Australian Record Industry Association, like the RIAA) is threatening to sue ISPs who allow the illegal download of copyrighted music. Could this lead to a situation where Australian ISPs are forced to actively censor websites and P2P protocols? What happens to legitimate P2P content like Linux distributions? It will be interesting to see where this goes."
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G_____________________________________naann_______ ________G
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G____________nnaana_nnn__nn_aa__nn__na_anaann_MERI CA______N
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A___________aa__ana_nn___nn_nnnnaa___ana__________ ________G
A__________nna__an__na___nn__nnn___SSOCIATION_of__ ________G
G__________ana_naa__an___nnn______________________ ________E
N__________ananan___nn___aan_IGGER________________ ________R
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um, dolor. Nunc nec nisl. Phasellus blandit tempor augue. Donec arcu orci, adipiscing ac, interdum a, tempus nec, enim. Phasellus placerat iaculis orci. Crasa sit amet quam. Sed enim quam, porta quis, aliquet quis, hendrerit ut, sem. Etiam fe
Didn't we see this a couple of days ago?
Since the attack, I have seen, heard, and read thoughts of such surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed. You've heard them too. Here they are:
1) "We're not good, they're not evil, everything is relative."
Listen carefully: We're good, they're evil, nothing is relative. Say it with me now and free yourselves. You see, folks, saying "We're good" doesn't mean, "We're perfect." Okay? The only perfect being is the bearded guy on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The plain fact is that our country has, with all our mistakes and blunders, always been and always will be, the greatest beacon of freedom, charity, opportunity, and affection in history.
If you need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see what happens. In about half a day, the entire world would be a ghost town, and the United States would look like one giant line to see "The Producers."
2) "Violence only leads to more violence."
This one is so stupid you usually have to be the president of an Ivy League university to say it. Here's the truth, which you know in your heads and hearts already: Ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more violence.
Limp, panicky, half-measures lead to more violence. However, complete, fully-thought-through, professional, well-executed violence never leads to more violence because, you see, afterwards, the other guys are all dead.
That's right, dead. Not "on trial," not "reeducated," not "nurtured back into the bosom of love." Dead. D-E-Well, you get the idea.
3) "The CIA and the rest of our intelligence community has failed us."
For 25 years we have chained our spies like dogs to a stake in the ground, and now that the house has been robbed, we yell at them for not protecting us. Starting in the late seventies, under Carter appointee Stansfield Turner, the giant brains who get these giant ideas decided that the best way to gather international intelligence was to use spy satellites. "After all," they reasoned, "you can see a license plate from 200 miles away." This is very helpful if you've been attacked by a license plate. Unfortunately, we were attacked by humans. Finding humans is not possible with satellites. You have to use other humans. When we bought all our satellites, we fired all our humans, and here's the really stupid part. It takes years, decades to infiltrate new humans into the worst places of the world. You can't just have a guy who looks like Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93 sweatshirt plop himself down in a coffee shop in Kabul and say "Hiya, boys. Gee, I sure would like to meet that bin Laden fella." Well, you can, but all you'd be doing is giving the bad guys a story they'll be telling for years.
4) "These people are poor and helpless, and that's why they're angry at us."
Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozen head collection was just a desperate cry for help. The terrorists and their backers are richer than Elton John and, ironically, a good deal less annoying. The poor helpless people, you see, are the villagers they tortured and murdered to stay in power. Mohamed Atta, one of the evil scumbags who steered those planes into the killing grounds (I'm sorry, one of the "alleged hijackers," according to CNN-they stopped using the word "terrorist," you know), is the son of a Cairo surgeon. But you knew this, too. In the sixties and seventies, all the pinheads marching against the war were upper-middle-class college kids who grabbed any cause they could think of to get out of their final papers and spend more time drinking. At least, that was my excuse. It's the same today. Take the Anti-Global-Warming (or is it World Trade? Oh-who-knows-what-the-hell-they-want demonstrators) They all charged their black outfits and plane tickets on dad's credit card(!) before driving to the airport in their SUV's.
5) "Any profiling is racial profiling."
Who's killing us here, the Norwegians? Just days after the attack, the New York Times had an article saying dozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin Laden fami
Rearrange the letters ARIA, and you get RIAA.
Coincidence? I think not.
I'm currently programming forum software. If this succeeds somehow, it's basically saying that as a provider of a service, even indirectly, I am responsible for all use of that service.
Users should be responsible for THEIR OWN use of the service. If you're going to punish something (and sorry about agreeing with the RIAA here, if only in theory), punish the act of breaking the law, not the catalyst that allows it.
My code doesn't tell between good and evil, sorry.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
NExt they can sue the phone companies, then the post office, and hell, lets sue the highway department, theyre all used to carry illegal music.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Yeah, about as interesting as a lighted candle inserted rectally.
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| ______________________________________._a,____ |
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| __ad#7!!*P____a.d#0a____#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#___ |
| _j#'_.00#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
| _"#ga#9!01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
| ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
| _________#1__________?________________________ |
| _________j1___________________________________ |
| ____a,___jk_ GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_|
| ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
| ______-"!^____________________________________ |
` _______________________________________________'
-posted by GNAA member Penisbird
I have a question. I'm no network engineer, so I don't really know... how would ISPs enforce something like this? Isn't the whole notion of a P2P network that you can't really control it? How would ISPs monitor when users are sharing files and put a stop to it?
Or are we talking about something that's essentially unenforceable, but ARIA wants it enforced anyway?
But the main point is that ISPs have common carrier status and can be no more liable for copyright infringement than the phone company can for the playing of music over the telephone.
I have been pwned because my
I WAS WATCHING Greta Van Facelift on Fox the other night, and she and her guests made me talk back to the TV. Shout back, actually. Nothing witty or trenchant, you understand, just something like, "Oh, come on!" Now, to be honest, it was late, and I was downstairs alone, and I was a little, what's the word . . . loaded, yes, that's the word. I was a little shined up. A little spiffed and a little miffed, and I shouted something and angrily turned off the remote. I don't know exactly how angrily a remote can be turned off, but as angrily as you can push a pfennig-sized piece of round plastic, that's how angrily I did it. Then I walked back to the bar, made myself one-for-the-stairs (as opposed to one-for-the-road) and read some P.G. Wodehouse to restore my cheery nature. But back to the freshly-tightened Greta.
Her guests were (INSERT INDISTINGUISHABLE ARAB NAME), from Hamas, and their attorney, Stanley Cohen. No, that's not a joke. Would that it were. Stanley Cohen, the attorney for Hamas. Check that handle again: Stanley Cohen. I mean, if you tried to make up a better name than that, you couldn't do it. Let's give it a shot, though, shall we? Irving Lefkowitz. Nah, too obvious. Lew Fishman. No, no, sounds like a carpet salesman. Isaac Bashevis Singer? Now I'm reaching. Nope, you just can't beat good ol' Stan Cohen. Yes, Stanley Cohen, folks, a hard-left, righteously indignant true-believer, an honors graduate from the William Kunstler School of Just-Not-Getting-It-And-Never-Will, who had flown all the way from New York to sit next to his wonderful client over there in not the land of milk and honey. Stanley Cohen. A man who, if he listened very carefully, would no doubt hear voices in the next room planning to blow the eyes out of more of his nieces and nephews. Stanley Cohen, and even typing that name right now and remembering this horrible man damning his own people again and again and again, I crack a nervous smile, because they're my people, too, and, God help me, if I didn't laugh, I think I might cry.
Oddly enough, out of the three of them, the homunculus from Hamas didn't bother me at all. I mean, if you think about it, why should he bother any American? We know exactly who he is and, in a way, we should be grateful for that. Because if we're only willing to absorb their own words--nevermind their demonic deeds--he and his brethren have a perfectly uncomplicated point of view and agenda, and their clarity should give us our own clarity, and wouldn't that be refreshing? You want us dead? Well, now, isn't that a funny coincidence. Guess what we want?
My point is, if American TV calls up and wants to put these philanthropists on, who could blame them for saying, "Sure!" I can just see them bursting out laughing and slapping each other on the back. ("They're going to put us on Fox TV! I told you terror works! And I'll bet their Green Room beats the snot out of Al Jazeera. I mean, please, how many olives can you eat?") If we're stupid enough to do that, I don't blame them for taking us up on it. All they have to do is take a few minutes away from packing rusty nails around the C4, pick one of their guys who looks, relatively, the least like a vicious scumbag, borrow a suit, and send him forth to smile for the cameras. With Stanley Cohen.
But let's leave the newly-stretched Greta for a moment, as well as our friends Stanley and Ishmael (no joke, his real name). A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Don't thank me. I'm a giver. Here we go:
The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank
Are people pirating by other means and lots of linux users switching ISPs because BitTorrent is getting blocked.
Thanks for the great idea. Now I can pirate the latest Britney Spears cd over my phone!
Dear rotten.com,
I am unsure if you are aware of the problems that your "Incident with the bird" picture has caused on the popular technology website slashdot (http://slashdot.org).
Many users of this site's messageboards are posting links to http://smoke.rotten.com/bird/ and making text based representations of a bird on a man's penis. Frankly, while I am pro-freedom, this type of photo sickens me. Could you please move the location of the bird page on your site to keep slashdot readers from seeing things that are completeley unrelated to computers and technology? I'm not asking you to remove the content, just to relocate it.
FYI the text representation of the bird is:
*p_e_n_i_s_b_i_r_d_p_e_n_i_s_b_i_r_d*
p______...__________________________p
e____(_..__`'-.,--,_________________e
n_____'-._'-.__`\a\\________________n
i_________'.___.'_(|________________i
s____________7____||________________s
b___________/___.'_|________________b
i__________/_.-'__,J________________i
r_________/_________\_______________r
d________||___/______;______________d
*________||__|_______|______________*
p________`\__\_______|__/__''\______p
e__________'._\______/.-`____{}|____e
n___________/\_`;_.-'_________/_____n
i___________\_;(((____.--'\_/_______i
s_________.(((_____.-;\_____________s
b____.--'`_____,;`'.'-;\____________b
i_taco's____.'____'._.'\\___________i
r_dick_--'_________|__\_|___________r
d__________________\_\,_/___________d
*p_e_n_i_s_b_i_r_d_p_e_n_i_s_b_i_r_d*
(Note: CmdrTaco's penis length exaggerated for effect only)
with a link to the offensive site (http://smoke.rotten.com/bird/) underneath, these "Penis Birds" are posted by Penis Bird Guy, Penis Bird MAN and several other users.
Regards, Andrew J. Tosh
Is there a bot somewhere posting this crud? I don't find it offensive, but I do find it boring and undeserving of first-post - is this the best you can come up with?
Driving back from a concert I noticed a store whih aparently specialized in Tatoos and Drug Paraphenalia. I wonder if any of these stores get sued when a druggie runs someone over crossing the streat. Or perhaps an even better example, has any drunk driving accident victim sued the bar which sold them the drink?
What's another word for Thesaurus?
-Steve Wright
Right, so insurance companies should sue oil companies who profit because burglars carry stolen goods away in cars which burn gas?
And does this "Mr Speck urged ISPs to halt the practice by blocking access to illegal music download sites and programs or "by other arrangements"." mean that all illegal music should have the TCP/IP "evil" bit set? How the fsck are the ISPs going to know if the bloody mp3s contain illegal music or not?
Hopefully the Aus legislators have more sense than those in some other parts of the world.
WHO gave these bushpeople the power of LAW!?!
Is ARIA what you get when you rot-13 encrypt RIAA? Wait, did I just violate the DMCA by saying that? Better go get my tinfoil hat.
The ISP is being sued for hosting a website that provided illegal downloads of copyrighted material. Although they do mention p2p sharing as a revenue for ISPs they can't really sue over something so hard to track.
It seems that they're trying to get the ISPs to accept responsiblity for their users' actions. You can sue another large company without nearly as much negative press as suing individual users, but the tricky part is that the ISPs actually have money and the need to fight.
So, the ARIA is trying to get them to accept it, and if they don't there'll probably be a PR campaign aimed at the politicians and lawmakers to pressure them to hold the ISPs responsible. If it goes over well for the ARIA, you can be damn sure the RIAA will try the same.
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
Australia turns off Internet access for entire nation.
"Filing individual lawsuits against every ISP proved to be too expensive. We were going to file a class-action lawsuit against ISPs as media which make pirating music and movies possible, but Telstra and the other major ISPs just ended up folding," said a government official on condition of anonymity.
The official would not comment on whether radio stations would be sued for distributing songs over the airwaves without encryption and rights management.
"It's premature, but all I can say is that we're considering it."
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
It's just hard to tell who's fault it is.
In the Untied [sic] States, the people who post copyrighted works without authorization and without exemption are direct infringers. The person who operates a server is a contributory infringer if the server has no substantial non-infringing use and a vicarious infringer if he has the authority to police the server and profits from the infringement. I don't know about Australian law, but these sound like the sort of extensions of the scope of dog-standard Berne copyright that any common-law country's judges would create.
Im not entirely sure how they will manage to enforce this in the end.
Sure, you can block ports, but ports can be changed.
Sure, you can scan for certain protocols in use, but protocols can be masked by ssh and the like.
I think the main issue being missed here is that P2P is not inherantly illegal. A car could be deemed illegal, because you *can* run over and kill a person. But trying to illegalise all four-wheeled automotive transport is clearly madness. Well, for the moment anyway...
This is fair. After all Kylie Minogue, Men at Work, and the remaining members of INXS (note to self: don't masturbate with a belt around your neck.) all need to eat, after all.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Well, ISPs could block a known port or range of ports. IIRC, gnutella uses 6346 as a default. Block all traffic on 6346 and that'd stop gnutella traffic for the most part.
And users could get past that by changing the default port. I'm not on gnutella but I'm pretty sure that's possible. If it isn't currently, it could be with a quick patch.
Then, ISPs could sniff traffic and look for mp3-ish content. And block that.
And the next gen file swapper would simply encrypt packets, making sniffing computationally unfeasable.
So the short answer is no, ISPs could not enforce this. They could throw up roadblocks, but they would eventually just be speedbumps.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
If you ask me this is just the first step towards some ARIA levy on the ISP's.
Most ISPs don't own their own fiber so it's just as much a farse to sue ISPs as it would be to sue the telco that does own the fiber.
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
Just encrypt all the peer-to-peer traffic. No more snooping...
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
First the RIAA started suing Americans who were downloading music. Now its Australian counterpart is doing something similar, except it's going after the ISPs instead of the end users. I bet RIAA's European counterpart will be next on the bandwagon... I won't comment on whether or not RIAA and ARIA are right to be doing this since I don't want a flame war to get started.
Hi. I'm someone who hates jews so much that I strap bombs to my chest and blow myself up in the GAP or whatever the fuck they have in Israeli jewmalls.
Pirating recordings over the telephone wouldn't work too well. Public switched telephone networks typically run a band-pass filter, rejecting most energy outside 300-3300 Hz. Much of the "groove" (non-pitched element) of a pop recording lies outside this range.
Pirating songs over the telephone, on the other hand, might get the music publishers riled up. A dial-a-song service would need a performance license from performance rights organizations. (American performance rights organizations include BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC.)
(... so has everyone else.... )
So basically, since the ISPs do have several non-infringing uses, they don't fit any of the above definitions... as with P2P networks.
I don't know how it would fit with the ISP actually hosting the files though... One would suppose that that would make that site the "server" and would make the ISP liable. *shrugs* IANAL.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Gun manufacturers are farily well shielded against lawsuits brought by gun crime victims, so I can see ISPs slipping in similar protectionary legislation in some random Congress spending bill (hey, why don't they just attach it to the energy bill?), since that seems to be the most effective way to help your business in this country (ala oil companies and fuel additive lawsuit shields...all over the news the last few days).
I do most of my downloading (of legal content) hehe from SSL-encrypted FTP servers.. so how would they know exactly what I'm downloading? It's kinda a given when I'm downloading around 50gb per week, but hey, they can't really prove that it's copyrighted content. That's gonna be the future of filesharing.. everything being encrypted.
...and AC/DC. However, not Mel Gibson, because I'd rather he didn't eat, but instead starved to death in restitution for his historical film travesties.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Oh no! The ISPs will block my favorite ports! I might have to change the settings of my P2P programs! Oh the inconvenience!
Seriously though. They are only doing this because when they go out of business they wont have any money with which to pay for frivolous lawsuits. Better now than never I guess.
And this lawsuit and ten million more like it, and a thousand clever laws and all the DRM in the world wont change the fact that their business model is fundamentally screwed and nothing is going to bring back the scarcity upon which their profits are based.
You can outlaw camcorders in video theaters in New York, but what if today's pirate is in Hong Kong? I saved 10 bucks by seeing Matrix Revolutions with chinese subtitles. It was barely worth watching for free (as I suspected), so I will definitely not be catching it in the theatere or on DVD.
Fuck you and your shitty sequels hollywood. I only pay for high quality product now. I intend to see return of king in the theaters and also get the trilogy DVD when the boxed set is released. I am an informed customer, only one of a growing group.
I don't know how it would fit with the ISP actually hosting the files though... One would suppose that that would make that site the "server" and would make the ISP liable.
In the United States, the ISP is typically considered to have the ability to police the use of its servers after having received a takedown notice detailing the URLs or IP addresses where infringing copies are available. I'm pretty sure that even in the absence of a direct Australian counterpart to the Dumbest Mistake on Copyright in America, which codified the procedure for sending takedown notices, such a takedown letter tradition could be forged from the common law technique of cease-and-desist letters.
FUCKTARD
Courtesy of the GNAA
Hey, we're not responsible for Mel Gibson, alright? He was born american, and he's american now. He just trained here.... Even Russell Crowe was born in unzud, but he lives here.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Thinking this headline refers to Aria Giovanni tells me I need to spend less time online...
Am I the only one who thought that Aria Giovanni was suing the internet for piracy of her pictures? I sure hope I wasn't... Or maybe I do hope that I am the only one.
Computational Madness in a round package.
No worries, wouldn't blame anyone for Gibson. Him being a complete wanker is totally his own fault. BTW, nice website!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Then at least they may clear themselves a bit from being the target.
At the very least, a courtesy e-mail to their customers might do something too. I'd much rather be warned that I was doing something wrong (assuming I didn't think it was a big deal, or I didn't know it was wrong at all) instead of suddenly being sued by some gigantic nameless corporation for thousands of dollars.
In other news the NAAFP (National Association for the Advancement of Fat People) is suing cows for "aiding and abetting" the exploitation of obese Americans.
In an unrelated case, a New York City woman is suing a concrete manufacturer for providing a pavement in which a Manhattan man had grounded himself whil illegally blowing a puff of cigerette smoke in her face.
I've never seen BT used for illicit activities
The Suprnova tracker network is used both for lawful and infringing purposes.
At a rough guess I'd say 90-95% of mp3s downloaded in Australia, are NOT Australia content.
(Yes, I am just guessing).
ARIA are SUPPOSED to work for Australian artists.
If the mp3s downloaded aren't Australian content, then ARIA are obviously just working as a sub-branch of the RIAA.
As Australia DOES NOT have a free trade agreement with the United States, could someone please tell ARIA to STFU.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Already we have ISPs who try and put download/upload limits on our connection which is then charged every month towards our account. This is already somewhat stopping file sharers and leechers alike from Aust. in some ways. Do we need to be tortured again by RIAA and all these authorities who do nothing but try and finger point in stopping the notion and the motives of all these internet? Talk about who is trying to govern internet after Microsoft....
kazaa- already uses encryption .. there is still a way to find out that the service is being used.
.. some default and if they fail then they go back to port 80 .. who is going to block that port -:)
kazaa - is also slick since they use many ports
mls
I'd suggest more people are now using bit torrent to get those big files. Saves server loads and sometimes is faster.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
First Delta Goodrem, now this.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Imagine for a moment if people sent a small amount of illicit class A substances to the head of ARIA or RIAA could they then get done for 'posession with the intent to supply'
But I couldn't find it. Maybe I was reading Ars.
given 65% of Slashdot an erection. Good thing you didn't include a Goatse.cx link.
ARIA are already proposing a CD-R levy to compensate for lost ARIA^H^H^H^H artist's revenue, claiming that it "makes sense".
Looks like burning Linux ISO's just more expensive Down Under.
all knowledge, ideas, music, art, words, are free. they own themselves. no single generation can claim ownership over anything. the work of humanity is that, the work of humanity.
all data distribution is freedom in action. all data distribution is legitimate.
Elijah Chancey www.elijahsadventure.com nomadic IT consultant, bicycling across america "all that you touch / and all
You know those copyright infringing electrons are supplied by the power industry... so they're the real culprits here ... at least until someone owns the sun.
wow so many gibson haters. I thought I was the only one.
I did some work recently for a large off campus college housing community. We were using packet sniffers to detect blaster worms and the like. Kazaa, and programs like that have some sneaky ways of hiding themselves, the only way we found them were to look for a lot of broadcasting of packets. I don't know, it just seems like these programs find away around various measures to stop them.
What will likely happen is that it'll hang in court forever as arguments over legitimate uses drag out. ISPs will say that there are legitimate uses of P2P protocols, ARIA will argue that intent is still to infringe on copyright, ISPs will counter by demanding proof, ARIA will say there are differences between documented purpose and implied purpose, and it'll just go on and on. And in the end, users will simply use proxies located outside of Australia, or use encrypted transfers. Difficult to stop a ball this size once it's gotten rolling, and it looks like ARIA might be poised to find that one out the hard way.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
Come on, legitimate P2P stuff like Linux distributions? Wink, Wink?
Who do you think you're kidding? P2P is used to illegally share copyrighted music. This is a fact. Quit with the "but what about all the free, independent music" and the "but there are legitimate things like Linux on P2P!".
You're absolutely not kidding anyone.
FUCKTARD
Courtesy of the GNAA
They sue Napster, and we say, "No, don't sue Napster. It's not its responsibility."
They sue individuals, and we say, "No, don't sue individuals. They do not understand what they do."
They sue ISPs, and we say, "No, don't sue ISPs. They should not be held accountable."
What does an industry group run amok have to do to buy some justice around here? Cut 'em some slack, already.
It is ludicrous to suggest that 20% of ISP's revenue comes from people illegally downloading music. Such a figure would not leave customers with nearly enough bandwidth for illegally downloading movies and games, both of which feature far larger file sizes than mp3s.
i mean it was founded as a prison colony, the population made it's way by subjagating other races, and wiping out hordes of amazing wildlife.
it would be more of a concern is nigeria or mozambique had these problems, at least they have a future and some kind of cultural identity.
the descendants of the criminally insane seek to screw around with your freedoms...i wonder if their leaders secretly masturbate to photos of America's bushy administration?
This is crap. Poor journalism too.
IANAL, but it's my understanding that the Communications and Privacy acts make it illegal for telco's and ISP's to snoop on customer activity (wiretapping). As such, they are not responsible for what their users do. They are also not entitled to reveal the details of users who are up to illegal activity unless compelled to by a court or the police.
A while ago there was a thread in the Internode forum on Whirlpool about this, where one of Internode's representatives explained it all (well, what their lawyers told them)
Does anyone remember that article about Riaa stealing themselves? A reporter asked the Riaa spokesperson where he got a certain report from because the report costed a few grand and the Riaa spokesperson went all shifty eyed.
Ever hear of a modem? Pirating recordings over the phone works quite well. i did it for two years before getting broadband.
The best they could do is close off all ports other than FTP, POP3, and HTTP and throttle down the bandwidth (even more than normal) for all "suspicious" encrypted traffic that is most likely "terrorist p2p VPN" activity.
--
Power to the Peaceful
Screw hollywood and the recording industry.
What a stupid fuckstick. That goes double for the moderator.
It's the Australian Record Industry Association.
Artists are only part of that. Other parts of it is distributors, record companies, etc.
That includes Australian companies selling music by foreign artists.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I very much doubt ARIA are so powerful as to be able to get cryptography banned. Maybe RIAA are, but certainly not ARIA.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
In the US, we already went through that oppression regime years ago in 1996-7 with the "Communications Decency Act" (CDA, or, "Why is this page black?"). Among other repressive techniques attempted by "Old Media" companies, and vested interests they protect, the CDA would have allowed complaints about Internet content, like chat room comments, or discussion group postings, to hold ISPs liable for any damage caused by the end user of the ISP. So ISPs could easily be pressured to cut off unpopular exprssion, without due any process. The US Supreme Court, in a cannily forward-looking decision, applied the same standards long used here for telephone companies, which are not liable for damage caused by conversations they carry, when the carrier does not edit the conversation (nor is even party to it). They killed the CDA. Slashdot itself, with its claim that all content belongs to the poster, aligns itself with that model, although its protection from liability is arguable, due to the moderator system. In the US, there are many tools available to defend our inalienable rights to free "speech" (or expression, as media sophistication has grown the understanding of that right). In Australia, you'll have to roll your own. Hopefully the US has provided at least some leadership in defining this implementation of freedom, but every person has to defend those rights, or be caught napping by those who would profit from your slavery.
--
make install -not war
I was talking about this very topic with someone yesterday. It appears the ARIA is trying to use wording in Australian copyright law to claim ISPs are responsible for the copyright infingement of people who use their network. It's a stupid and somewhat illogical claim, but not really all that surprising.
Some high profile lawyers have already had a say on the issue, and have stated that ISPs would likely be in breach of the more recent privacy act if they were to implement the sort of censorship the ARIA is demanding.
As an aside, it must be said that both copyright and privacy laws have some serious issues in this country. It is illegal to copy music from a CD in any shape or form. You cannot legally burn copyrighted CDs to use them in your car, you cannot legally make MP3s from copyrighted music to use on your PC regardless of whether you purchased the music or not. Also, the new privacy act is so over the top in some places that it is virtually impossible for some organisations to come into compiance with it without breaking it in the process...
---
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
From the Article you linked to:
"Mr Lake added: "Most Australians would be shocked to know using your VCR to record programs is illegal."
Wtf has that guy been smoking. Time shifting is NOT illegal.
Our fair use exemptions do not allow for it.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
They don't, in case you didn't realize... at least not in the US where there is plenty of precedent for organizations being able to hurt those who develop technology that merely has potential for "badness". For example, DirecTV. See also RIAA v. ChewPlastic.com.
There is hope, however. DirecTV is facing racketeering charges for their efforts.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
What's needed is something that ISPs can use to block Britney, Aguilera and the remainder of the dross that passes for popular music at present.
Is there a filter than can detect bimbo?
More seriously, there seems to be some sort of sensible middle ground here. If the record companies loosened the reins a bit and allowed people to download selected old stuff that's never going to sell zillions of copies again, they could provide their own P2P/download tool, their own encryption and their own tracking system. They could actually build a market around downloading free music, rather than trying to police it.
I'm quite certain there's musicians around who'd love to have their (old) music available for free download from record company sites, since it might trigger some interest in their new stuff that isn't getting airplay. For example, Duran Duran released music all through the 90s, but nobody bought it because the radio stations weren't playing it and their audience from the mid-80s had grown up. If they had the option of making a few of their old hits available for legitimate free download, they may have picked up a new audience for their newer stuff, and the record companies may have found a nice earner in enhanced sales of their new music.
At the very least, if they tracked stats on downloads from their own sites, they'd be able to work out which artists are ready for their next greatest hits compilation, how to pair up old artists for comeback tours, and so on.
The latest slackware ISO is only available on bittorrent.
um none of them work for artists
they work for record companies
after all artists would make relative bucks of cash selling fun little ditties to the fans direct over the internet, they could even burn the odd stack of cd's to sell at concerts, if those record companies would hurry up and die already.
In the hypothetical "worst case" scenario - all currently useful P2P ports blocked, traffic monitored, suspicious packets reported to the music Gestapo - there remains the possibility of routing the traffic of a P2P network solely through encrypted email. I can hardly envision POP not getting on the allowed protocol list. The limitation on bandwidth would be horrific, especially if hard-core censorship of the net leads to steganography becoming a must.
I suspect that in places such as Australia, where there is no legal protection of the right to use strong encryption, steganography may become an absolute necessity. Let them try to prove that the Bible passage has an MP3 encoded by means of whitespace variation, or that the photo of your dog you just sent is hiding a few kilobytes of the latest film.
The fundamental problem is then designing a medium of steganographic transmission that defies analysis by determined Polizei. If the stream of "contraband" packets becomes mathematically indistinguishable from the flow of "innocent" packets, even the most corrupt politician would have no choice but to relieve ISPs of the responsibility of trying to distinguish them - lest the nation lose its connectivity entirely, for the lack of censorship-specific supercomputing iron at most ISP facilities. Of course, this is rather fanciful speculation; other, possibly more extravagant things (i.e. nationwide covert P2P wireless) have been proposed. It just seems to me that steganography is a rarely discussed subject when methods of resisting hardcore censorship are discussed - which is a shame, because it may well become necessary - sooner than expected.
While there may be some caveats limiting P2P, it is a good thing to do.
Sharing music and movies is illegal, ethically wrong etc etc. Please, accept the fact.
Why people on slashdot whine about limiting illegal act, while they certanly want to reveil every valid legal point, which makes SCO case seem unvalid?
And, don't get me wrong: I use Linux and GNU tools on most of my work, and I really hate what SCO is trying to do.
Free software should not be destroyed / harmed by P2P illegalities. Music makers and record industry has copyrights on their stuff. Let them share their stuff the way they want, that's their freedom. As we know, not all freedom means free as in money. Music costs, and we should pay if we want it. If we want free music, then we better do it by ourself, not steel from the others.
Worrying about problems P2P limiting would do to open source is FUD. Linux is not shared by KaZaa and others. Do not spread FUD anymore, accept that music costs and pay if you need it.
Eleknader
First they came for the Americans
and I did not speak out
because I was not an American.
Then they came for the Australians
and I did not speak out
because I was not an Australian.
Then they came for the Linux users
and I did not speak out
because I was running NetBSD.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me
except for the slashdot crowd
but nobody was listening to them anyway.
What happens to legitimate P2P content like Linux distributions?
Excuse me, but you actualy beleave that theres any legal software out on the P2P networks??
Why should it be? Its always slower to download from P2P then from a university mirror anyhow, that almost always connect directly to thee backbone in your country/state/city.
Is there a Canadian equivalent of the RIAA as well? Should I stop downloading off Kazaa? Actually I think in Canada I am allowed to download, as long as I don't share. Haha, suckers!
Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) s39B says:
A person (including a carrier or carriage service provider) who provides facilities for making, or facilitating the making of, a communication is not taken to have authorised any infringement of copyright in a work merely because another person uses the facilities so provided to do something the right to do which is included in the copyright.In non-lawyer speak, this approximately means that you can't go after an ISP merely because its users mis-use the service to breach copyright - any more than you can go after the telephone company providing the local loop that all those dial-up accounts go through.
So ARIA can huff and puff, but this house ain't coming down...
APRA collects money for Australian artists, not ARIA.
Why do you feel it necessary to comment on stuff you clearly don't know about?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
don't forget AC/DC
Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity!
P2P ports are off by default.
To enable them, users go to their online account management, and select "Enable P2P"
They then have to agree to only share and download files they're entitled to, and will pay any costs caused to the ISP if they break this agreement.
Fuck Australia! We should just give that fucking island to the Jews. Either that or Cuba. The Palistinians need their homeland and the Jews need to get the fuck out.
Welcome to Capitalism you Commie bastards!
That's out it is here in Canada. It's terrible. I order my CD-R's from the States privately and don't pay any levies. I'm not sure if that's legal, but when you're releasing your own music independantly, and you need a lot of CD-Rs, you'd go broke if you bought them in Canada.
"Well, golly, Mr. ARIA, I guess we could do that. But you see, it'd take an awful lot of people watching what happens, and a lot of computers and software for them to do their jobs. That's going to run into a lot of money. So what say we ask the government to help us get this paid for? We'll was them to pass a bill for a new tax. Since it's to protect music, it just makes sense that it's a tax on music. We figure of you charge, say, 40% on top of the cost of a CD, that should cover it. You pass that along to us, and we'll do our best.
Mr. ARIA? Where you going? Mr. ARIA, don't you want to catch all them bad song stealing people out there?
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
... the whole shebang we're witnessing here is another FUD bomb by the monopolists.
The goal is to hinder independent publishers to distribute their works and convince the public that P2P is always illegal. John/Jane Doe don't care about choice (yet).
What scares the *AAs of this world is the fact that said couple could find out that there are actually non-ex-lawyers in the music business who care about quality. Target #1 independent labels who care about quality and not DRM (Digital Restrictions Management).
my 2 cents
Point is, the ISPs cannot, by any means, prevent people from sharing files via P2P protocols, except if everything is closed and encryption is forbidden. As soon as someone sets up https or uses something over SSH over httptunnel, it's gaping wide open.
Duh.
I would like to point out that although authorisation of illegal copying is general regarded as a breach of Copyright in Australia, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule.
The exception of most interest here was introduced by the Digital Agenda copyright reforms in 2000. They are sections 39B (for works) and 112E (for subject matter other than works) of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). These sections preclude from the infringement by authorisation provisions anyone who provides a communication service.
The purpose of the introduction of these sections was precisely to prevent the big record labels going after ISPs for something which, as pointed out before, they legally have no control over (due to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)).
I personally cannot see how such litigation can be successful in the courts in light of sch provisions unless there is some other way of reading the wording "not taken to have authorised any infringement of copyright".
ARIA is going have some difficulties with prosecuting Oz ISPs for authorising copyright infringement because of the recently enacted Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000. Basically legislators realised that internet based business is not going to prosper without certainty of liability. One of the objects of the Act is to 'promote certainty for communication and information technology industries that are investing in and providing online access to copyright material' (s3(b)).
s.36B says that persons (ISPs) who provide facilities for communications will not be liable if other people use the facilities to infringe copyright.
s.36(1A) says that in considering whether someone has authorised an infringement the following matters have to be considered -
(a) the extent (if any) of the person's power to prevent the doing of the act concerned;
(b) the nature of any relationship existing between the person and the person who did the act concerned;
(c) whether the person took any reasonable steps to prevent or avoid the doing of the act, including whether the person complied with any relevant industry codes of practice.
Consequently Australian ISPs can probably sleep pretty well. IANAL (why do I always have to imply sodomy when disclaiming a legal opinion?).
Michael Speck said ISPs relied on illegal music downloads for 20 per cent of their revenue
Oh, and I suppose they've got verifiable statistics from the ISPs they're about to sue to back this up? (more on this later)
Well it's not their job to be police here, they provide a service which is mostly legitimately used.
"We understand from employees of Internet companies that up to 20 per cent of their revenue in many cases comes from traffic created by downloading illegal sound recordings.
Oh here it is, the old unnamed source trick. Dubya likes that one too! And how many people really told them this, out of how many ISPs? Somehow, I doubt that's going to be a high ratio.
"There aren't many business that could survive if 20 per cent of their revenue disappeared
Reality check time. I should think quite a lot of companies have seen at least this much reduction in revenue in the last couple of years. They may have laid off a heckuvalot of people, but I think they survived! And, ISPs will all go bust if MP3s are no longer downloaded? Come on! Even assuming this wild 20% number, maybe they'll just adjust their business models, adapt to the changing environment, you know, like they do all the time anyway. The internet has such a fast rate of change that this is perfectly normal for any company based around it.
Mr Speck urged ISPs to halt the practice by blocking access to illegal music download sites and programs or "by other arrangements".
This brings us back all the usual censorship arguments, like who gets to decide which sites are blocked, on what grounds, with what oversigth, what appeals process etc. etc. Like I said before, ISPs are not police, and are certainly not judge/jury/executioner.
music piracy was "a growing market"
And your proof of this is? Your sales have also declined, in the middle of a global depression? Right!
What a load of bull! I know the writer of the article does present both sides, but she could have tried to find some real figures herself, instead of just presenting a series of quotes and counterquotes. Don't these people know what research is? Why should people get away with spouting whatever wild claims they like with no backup?
Skiing? Check out The Independant Skiers Portal
Well to pirate music over the telephone, clearly all you have to do is use a dialup modem :)
Which isn't so hard. You can download a song in about a half an hour, and all you need is a modem, and isp and a p2p network.
So what's next? YOU AND YOUR MODEM. Aussie's put up with WAY too much opression and crimes against them from their government. Let's hope australia does something about themselves and lays the groundwork for the more malevolent U.S.A
Encryption prevents isps and all other middle-men from seeing anything more than "ip so-and-so is sending packets to ip this-and-that". It's fairly trivial to do (i.e. there are numerous free and open libraries for doing strong encryption) and performance is a non-issue for typical homeusers because a typical home-pc is capable of encrypting stuff something like 2-3 orders of magnitude faster than the typical DSL-line can deliver.
This would not stop copyrigth-owners from going after actual infringers -- the ones who share their material. They can search for the stuff like everyone else, and then go after the people sharing it.
But it would stop stupid lean-on-the-isp attempts because the isp would have no possibility of seeing what exactly the customers are sending and receiving.
Its pretty clear to anyone that is paying attention.. The final outcome will be lots of $ chaning hands, many customers attacked, more laws enacted to control what people see/watch/do/think.
Its end goal is *total* control.. ( except for the people doing the law making, they are exempt )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have begun forming an Australian political party which has as one of its aims the return of telecommunications INFRASTRUCTURE to the public while cutting Telstra (Retail) loose to fend for itself along with all the other telcos on an equal footing.
Along with this I propose having Australian ISPs come under the common carrier provision, such that they, like telephone companies, will NOT be held accountable for the data transmitted through their servers and network infrastructure.
I am sick of the bullying of the global media corps and their litigation happy nature, and intend to do something about it.
You can too - visit our nascent party website and get involved:
www.neteffect.org.au
We are aiming to elect one or more representatives to Federal Parliament next year, and will be implementing some radical new ways of conducting politics in the age of the Internet.
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
Even transfer of non-encrypted material is practically impossible monitor ofcourse, given the wide range of different protocols, and because it's impossible to accurately identify illegal filetransfers. The only solution I can see that could be used to implement this, would be to ban the use of all TCP/IP, except some explicitly white-listed set of web pages.
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
"These bastards know that up to 20% of their proffits come from frivolous lawsuits, but they do nothing about it," said Brad Boiles who leads the team. "Printer makers must know that the discovery process, which is the most expensive part of judicial extortion, is their bread and butter. They are pirates by association with the likes of us, but only we should profit from this kind of thing."
Printer makers objected. "That's inflamatory, we've been working on DRM for years but have yet to perfect Universal Censorship Chips which can be used to prevent such harmful activity," said the chairman of the newly formed United Printing Ass. "We are worried that there is no technical solution and that a person will always be responsible for what they do with their printers."
Lumberjacks in Canada and the Southeastern United States were overjoyed. "Judicail extortion over judicial extortion? The mill's are going to be working overtime to keep up with this one. Add that to Christmas demands and we are looking at one great end of the year and a very happy 2004."
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Without guns, however, people would not be shooting each other. They would have to find another, more difficult way, to kill each other. Pulling a trigger is easy, having to use a knife makes a person think twice.
Without ISPs providing the gateway and the means, copyright violators will have to find other ways to steal.
Clamping down on ISPs won't make the problem go away, but one only needs to compare the homicide rates in Canada and the US to see that gun control works.
Frivolous lawsuits and inflamatory statements are just one way to manipulate public opinion. The paper does not care one way or another, so long as it does not step on their right to print inflamatory material. The RIs of the world know it and use this as one more means of spreading their extortionate message, "Someone needs to pay." When they have changed public opinion just enough, they can change the laws to their advantage. Once they have changed the laws, the government itself becomes their mouthpiece and they can concentrate on the next outrage.
The goal is Universal Censorship and control of electronic publishing. The powers that are have already made it difficult to run a website or any other "server" out of your house, now they are trying to remove the programs that have sprung up to replace normal information sharing. Free software is also target. Governments, old media press, traditional telco and many other intersts coincide with the recording industry's and they are winning on the owned wires.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ban FTP. It's a file transfer protocol. Also how about banning MSN messenger - you can transfer files with it. How about Windows - you can transfer files with that also.
How come telco's don't get sued if criminals use their service to plot crimes.
Bollocks to the ARIA. What a farce.
Does this mean we cannot download Kylie Minogue's music anymore?
I want my karma, and I want it now!
I am on the 512/128 flat rate internode.on.net plan. And I LOVE it! Two months in a row I have clocked up 30GB/month. That would cost me a fortune on any other plan that is out in Australia. In short, I LOVE Internode.
My current problem is that I have filled my 120GB HD already! So I have started burning least recently used stuff to cd.
Unmetered plans exist. I have a 512/128 unlimited for A$100/mo. I have averaged about 30GB per month!
Here are the pricing plans:
Internode ADSL prices
If this stands up, I'll be rich!!!
The legal precedent would be that ISPs are ultimately responsible for all content they carry. That means for each Nigerian SPAM I receive, I can sue my ISP for fraud.
I can't wait for the cash to start rolling in.
My next stop will be the local Barnes and Noble to find a book that I view as offensive and sue B&N for violating my civil rights.
Sure, port-based filtering may work, but what would truly be required to reply with potential legal order is protocol based filtering, where each packet is opened, and checked to see if it's carring data for a known P2P protocol.
o rcer_en terprise.shtm (commercial)
Some implementations:
-http://www.lowth.com/p2pwall/ (OSS)
-http://www.allot.com/html/products_netenf
P2P is a special problem for ISPs in Australia, where unmetered traffic plans are just recently making a comeback in the market. Note that these are specifically not _unlimited_ plans in the full sense of the word.
The first generation of unmetered plans died off when P2P first arrived on the market - ISPs assumed that the average consumer would only use so much bandwidth, which is crazily expensive here versus the US - think $0.01-0.15/MB, compared to $1/GB in the US. And so unmetered plans vanished almost overnight - many ISPs just folded for lack of funds to pay the bandwidth costs.
Then in early 2003, they made a comeback, somewhat related to an increased hardware spend on routers that had the CPU to spare to apply all sorts of traffic shaping. Now most plans come with the stipulation that the first 1-5GB/mo will be delivered without intereference, then, depending on the ISP, the connection will be throttled to ensure that it is always profitable. Users that don't like this (and there are many, check out http://whirlpool.net.au/ for a long list of whinging comments) can still opt for plans where all traffic beyond an intial free allotment is billed.
On metered plans, customers don't tend to use much excess after one big month of leaving their, or their childen's, or their employees, P2P software running amock. $0.10/MB equals a lot of legitimately purchased movie tickets, CDs, software, and DVDs, and very quickly so.
Now back to the ARIA article in question. ISPs should not have to care about the contents of the traffic on their wires, similarly as telcos should not have to care if you're chatting with your mother or neighbourhood pusher.
The ARIA has shown itself to agree with this in principle, as long as ISPs cooperate with them should customers decide to use their services to host ARIA licensed content without authorization.
Unfortunately, what has happened is that some ISPs have been caught blurring the line between their actions and customers. This is what the ARIA wants to avoid, for example:
-ISPs running internal, customer access only, or hidden/secret servers that host copyrighted content to which the ISP and its users don't have licenses to
-ISP staff have allowed close friends to run servers relying on the ISPs infratructure to do the same as listed above.
Nothing proposed is outrageous so far. It's a balance. I don't think that we should be implementing protocol based filtering, but I do think that content should not be used without license. Pay up, or use content that's licensed for free distribution. Heck, you just might find a lot of that on your ISP's mirror server - most of which are in unmetered for customers in Australia.
We here at the ARIA have recently intercepted telephone conversations where individuals were negotiating "borrowing" each other's CDs in order to make illegal copies to forego purchasing their own $20.00 Britney Spears plastic disc. This piracy is clearly facilitated, perhaps even encouraged by the telephone carrier in question. Take their advertisments where they claim you can speak to your 'relatives' at a really cheap rate. We all know that is simply code talk for 'talking to fellow pirates'. We will use the full power of the courts to force them to prevent this kind of activity in the future, or suffer heavily punitive monetary damages.
Oh yeah, some people were also negotiating hired murders and other physical crimes, but come on now, are those really important in light of this serious breach of our royalty system?
this would be the same as to sue the state for the use of the roads for (drugs)transportation by criminals.
Privacy is terrorism.
Are you sure? Try linuxiso.org
I make a reasonable middle-class wage by going to work and not spamming blogs with scams.
I'm here to report that Sneakernet is alive and well.
What's the *AA going to do next? Sue the USPS?
this seems to be stopping a medium because it has the capability of piracy or illegal activities. in such cases, you can argue that since they will be able to sue isps for their client's actions, then it goes that...
you can sue practically any company that hosts tv shows, movie, literature, and other media forms that foster any user to do illegal stuff. you can also sue manufacturers of appliance that support that stuff because it allows users to pirate. you will also be able to sue computer manufacturers and software that allows users to do the illegal stuff.
it is not the internet per se that is bad but what some users are doing with it that is bad. so you do not have to blame but the user.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
We had an incident a few years ago in Canada, where a woman drove home drunk after her staff party, crashed her car, severely injured herself, etc.
:)
The courts ended up finding the bar that held the party partly responsible for her injuries. Her employer was also held at fault, for failing to prevent her from driving drunk.
Now, this is after her sober co-workers offered to:
a) call her a cab
b) call her husband to come get her
c) drive her home themselves
Short of physically restraining her (and imagine the lawsuits there!), there's pretty much sweet diddly they could have done. Yet, our legal system placed quite a bit of blame on the bar and her boss for allowing her to be so irresponsible.
Of course, there's also the case of the drunk guy who jumped off a roof at a party, aiming for the pool, but hit the concrete instead. He successfully sued the homeowner's insurance company for damages.
It's very well established by now that in Canada, bars can be held responsible for the actions of their patrons, even after they leave. I find it patently absurd, but hey, the bar does after all keep forcing alcohol down my throat...
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
.. all recording industry associations are meanies!
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
I think what the poster meant as far as the slackware iso only being available through bittorrent is that is the only way that Slackware themselves are distributing it...what anyone else does after they have it is another story....