FBI Raids Arizona School District Over Copyright Infringement

markclong writes "Federal agents in Phoenix and elsewhere in the country raided schools and other targets in a national crackdown on pirated music CDs and movies. The schools lost Internet access including emails to and from elsewhere on the Internet." Despite the assertions in the article, Google doesn't currently pick up any indications of a national school sweep.

Comments

Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[Allen Zadr]

So now the Copyright Infringement of Music and Movies is linked to organized crime activities. O.K., I can believe that.

A school district is searched because of piracy?

Obviously the AZCentral.com site sees the link, but I don't. For organized crime to bother, there would have to be money exchanging hands, and I highly doubt that either students or staff of the Deer Valley Unified School District are paying for downloaded pirated materials.

Am I missing something here?

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[Mr. Arbusto]

This is something that has bothered me for quite sometime. If the CD was purchased and then shared. How is the sharer committing copyright infringement. The property is there, and there is NO money changing hands. Perhaps I just need a swift kick to understand.

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[Anonytroll]

Yes, you are missing something.

The bitter sarcasm in the link of organized crime to "piracy"/copyright infringement is that organized crime is behind some of the infringement. However, every infringement can (and it seems like it will) be treated as if organized crime was involved, no matter how stupid. That means: the link has been done, now one is interchangable with the other.

(On a sidenote: it is easier to not go after the organized culprits. It takes too much effort.)

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[JWW]

The recording industry has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I download music or not.

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[slackerboy]

From the article: "Last year, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on the link between international copyright piracy and organized crime, and the FBI has said that there is strong evidence that organized-crime groups have moved into intellectual-property crime, using the profit to pay for other activities."

It doesn't say anything in there specifically about MP3s. I think the link discussed at those hearings probably had to do with the massive quantities of bootleg CDs/DVDs/software that can be bought on the street in a lot of countries. Linking that sort of thing with MP3 file-sharing is a tenuous connection at best.

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[lynx_user_abroad]

If the CD was purchased and then shared. How is the sharer committing copyright infringement.

Are we talking about sharing the purchased CD, or about sharing a copy of the purchased CD?

You can share a CD you own.

You can share an analog copy of a CD you own, but only with "friends", and you can't do it for commercial gain.

You can't make a digital copy of a CD and share it without seriously risking infringment.

Under this reading, sharing an MP3 ripped from a CD with friends is fine, as long as it is an analogue of the original. If an exact duplicte of it turns up anywhere else, you're toast.

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[Zocalo]

I've had similar thoughts to this one too, but not overlooking the fact that money does not need to change hands to commit copyright infringement - which would be your "swift kick". ;) The RIAA's recent lawsuits have all been targetted at the people making music available to download via P2P, but surely it's the people that actually download it that are committing the copyright infringement. They are the ones that actually issue the commands that generate the copy after all; where is the additional copy created in the process of sharing a folder in Kazaa or whatever?

If I understand US fair use rights correctly, I can legally buy a CD, rip the data to MP3/OGG or whatever and store them on my hard drive for personal use. If so, then by the RIAAs logic I become a criminal the instant I share that folder on the Internet. But if we extend that line of reasoning, why not prosecute a library for copyright infringement? After all, they are willfully leaving all those books lying around where any number of Joes could come in and photocopy them.

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[WizardOfZid]

Seems I remember a raid in Toledo last year of a bunch of homes to confiscate PCs and modems for uncapping broadband service speed limits by Buckeye Cable.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/27/13 29248&mode=thread&tid=99

The FBI raided about 13 homes and took 23 PCs and modems but I don't think there was ever any arrests or indititments. The FBI had said the amounts exceeded $25,000 stolen but it never was pursued further.

A quote from a comment on that story, "At this stage they say they have not charged anyone with anything, but confiscated systems for evidence. My bet is that the systems will be returned and charges never filed. This is more of a scare tactic."

Might this be a similar situation; have a big profile raid and then do nothing else?

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[Laur]

The RIAA's recent lawsuits have all been targetted at the people making music available to download via P2P, but surely it's the people that actually download it that are committing the copyright infringement. They are the ones that actually issue the commands that generate the copy after all; where is the additional copy created in the process of sharing a folder in Kazaa or whatever?

You have this exactly backwards. The uploader is the one distributing copies of the media. A copy is made at the uploaders end and is sent down the wire to the downloader. The downloader is merely receiving the copy, he did not create the copy (and couldn't since he doesn't have the original). It makes absolutely no difference if the downloader "initiated the request." So far I have been unable to locate the section of copyright law which forbids receiving copyrighted material, although copying and distribution is quite clearly prohibited. This may be part on the reason no downloaders of copyrighted works have ever been sued. Does anyone know the specific part of law that prohibits downloading?

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[Zocalo]

A copy is made at the uploaders end and is sent down the wire to the downloader.

That's a good point I'd overlooked. The copy of the data is indeed made on the host's PC, loaded into IP packets and sent on its merry way... Hmm. So, if I were to share a huge volume of copyrighted media but never actually had anyone download any of it, I wonder what the RIAA's take on that would be? The law prohibits making a copy, so if one of these cases actually made it to trial, presumably the RIAA would have to prove not only that the music was available, but was actually downloaded too.

Does anyone know the specific part of law that prohibits downloading?

Well, "downloading" is a little specific; I'd say "receiving" is more likely, if it's in there at all. I'd guess it would be have to be handled like receiving physical stolen goods; you'd have to prove that the recipient knew it was stolen and then accepted it anyway. I don't think the RIAA's lawyers would find this too difficult given all the press about P2P, so the only reason I can imagine they haven't tried using this law is because there isn't one (yet).

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[shark72]

"You can share a CD you own."

That much I understand. If I have a CD, I can loan it to a friend. If he makes a copy of it, he's in violation of the law, but that's largely irrelevant to the act of me loaning him my CD.

"You can share an analog copy of a CD you own, but only with "friends", and you can't do it for commercial gain. You can't make a digital copy of a CD and share it without seriously risking infringment."

This is where I get lost. Can somebody please point me to the section of US copyright law which spells this out? I understand the part of the law about libraries and similar institutions being allowed to make copies for archival purposes, but I can't find anything that relates one way or another to making copies and giving them to friends.

Re:Copyright, Organized Crime and Schools?

[someone247356]

"Sitting at a Xerox machine and copying a book, page for page, is wholly infeasable."

Ugggggg....

Since when does easier == illegal?

It doesn't. Never has, never will. Why do people keep bringing this up?

Think about it for a moment. Transcribing a book by hand is hard, taking pictures of all of the pages is easier, therefore, taking pictures of books is illegal, right? Nope.

Using a photocopier is easier than taking pictures, or transcribing it, therefore using a photocopier is even more illegal, right? Wrong again.

Copy a pdf of a book from one location and pasting it in another is easier still, that's got to be sooo illegal we need to apply the death penalty, right? Um, no.

The "how" is, or should be, irrelevent. The "what" is what matters. "Fair-Use" is the same no matter what the material is, regardless of how easy or difficult the process is. The fact that I can legally "space-shift" music (for one example) is still legal no matter how I do it. Copying an LP to another LP, an analog tape to another analog tape, a CD-ROM to analog tape, a CD-ROM to another CD-ROM, an LP or analog cassette, or CD-ROM to a MP3/WMA/Ogg are all equally legal. As long as I keep them to myself the RIAA and the FBI can take a rather long walk off an equally short pier.

Why do you think the RIAA the MPAA and their cronnies are trying to prevent you fom exercising your rights? Because it's rather well established that you in fact have those rights. They can't legally stop you from making a copy of the latest album that you have legally purchased. So what they are doing is making it illegal for anyone to make the tools needed to allow you to exercise those rights. The logic assuming there is any, would have prevented the VCR and photocopier if they could have gotten laws like "No Electronic Theft Act" (the NET act that made non-commercial copyright infringment a crime for the first time ever) and the "Digital Millenium Copyright Act" (DMCA - which made the tools used to do the copying illegal, as well as telling anyone else how you managed to exercise your legal rights illegal.)

In the twisted world ofo the RIAA/MPAA etc. All knowledge exists for the sole purpose of making them money. Anything contrary to that is, or should be illegal. The only right you have is to use the music/movie/book, etc. in a manner that maximizes their profits. Any attempt to do otherwise is, or should be illegal. If you come up with a new use for said book/music/movie, then you should have to pay them again for the privilege. Any use that is an easier or more convenient use of a previously existing right, should naturally result in more money in their respective coffers. Since they believe that any use, every utterance should result in more money going to them, all damages will be calculated in terms of money they believe they should have received. Since the courts are making it more difficult (read "expensive") for them to sue consumers, naturally the FBI should be doing it for them.

The fact that the more time the FBI spends chasing eight year olds downloading copies of Hillery Duff, is less time catching kidnappers, or foiling the next 9/11 terrorist conspiracy is irrelevant to the RIAA and their bottom line.

Unfortunately, the current crop of bought congress critters are more interested in pleasing their corporate masters than the citizens that ostensibly elected them, is a failing of our republic. Until enough people get mad enough to actually do anything about it, like voting the bulk of congress out of office. I don't see things changing.

As an aside, a Canadian court recently ruled that people who make files available for sharing on P2P networks aren't guilty of anything. They used the "photocopier in the library" analogy to justify their decision.

someone247356

Sad

[mfh]

These feds are barking up the wrong tree for a number of reasons. By raiding school systems, they have no proof of who downloaded the copyright infringed files, and therefore no recourse but to infringe upon the rights of students and employees, in an attempt to push the agendas of special interest groups like the RIAA and MPAA. This Gestapo crap should not be tolerated. Schools are for learning, not launching political campaigns, selling ideals, or pushing agendas. IANAL, but why not simply exclude school systems from the P2P copy protection laws? If you want people to pay, charge reasonable prices, create excellent content, and protect your public image. Nobody likes a bully, and the FBI is acting like one, IMHO, and they are taking a page from the RIAA.

follow the money

[53cur!ty]

Cops for hire!! Things are not much different then during the Wild West. Instead of range wars on the plains we are having hollywood wars in cyberspace

Where the answers are

Cost.

[eddy]

How much does it cost to hire FBI for an afternoon of breaking down doors? Will it cost me extra to have them draw their weapons in a "low ready position" while doing it?

Locker raids

[AtariAmarok]

Let's snicker at the image of non-tech-savvy FBI agents busting open lockers: "Lars, do you see MP3's in this locker?" "No, Phil. Not yet. What do they look like anyway?" "Not sure, Lars. Maybe we can go back to the office and get a special kind of dog that sniffs for MP3's. That will save us a lot of trouble".

Secretive part scares me

[The I Shing]

What scares me is how secretive everything seems with this story. No-one except the FBI knows anything about how this whole thing came down.

I just can't believe that school administrators weren't warned about the illegal activity and given the opportunity to shut it down themselves. All I can guess is that the FBI figured that if they gave the school a big embarrassing black eye it would serve as a warning to administrators of districts across the country to crack down on their own students.

Re:Secretive part scares me

[Otter]

All I can guess is that the FBI figured that if they gave the school a big embarrassing black eye it would serve as a warning to administrators of districts across the country to crack down on their own students.

I'm just guessing, too, but since the FBI isn't normally running around dragging filesharers out of study hall, I'm thinking this isn't about some illegal copy of In_Da_Club.mp3. It's about some warez crew using the school's computers for heavy-duty sharing, either by an insider (a la the Boston arrests a couple of years ago) or by compromise.

We'll see, and if I'm wrong -- yeah, this is a ludicrous misuse of FBI resources. But I'm thinking the vagueness of the story isn't secrecy, it's from the rushing of a half-understood story into press.

Re:Secretive part scares me

[eclectro]

I'm just guessing, too, but since the FBI isn't normally running around dragging filesharers out of study hall, I'm thinking this isn't about some illegal copy of In_Da_Club.mp3. It's about some warez crew using the school's computers for heavy-duty sharing, either by an insider (a la the Boston arrests a couple of years ago) or by compromise.

That's an interesting thought. Windows computers can be horribly comprimised with trojans. Which means the actual lawbreakers may not be even on the campus!

We all know how underfunded and overworked sysadmins don't get around to patching the machines, so they could be confiscating these machines purely for evidence. Not that anyone at the schools are committing a crime.

We all might be jumping to conclusions here. Not that slashdotters would ever do such a thing.

Another thought, I wonder what role "carnivore" is playing in this.

Good to hear!

[frs_rbl]

Now that they've got their hands on real criminals, I hope they'll stop harassing those poor aliens...

Pisses me Off

[TnkMkr]

You know what really pisses me off about all of this. It has nothing to do with the ethical issues of piracy, what really pisses me off is the wasted FBI resources. If we have enough FBI agents in Arizona to waste raiding a school trying to catch some kids sharing music does that mean that: 1. all of the abducted children in the state have been found 2. all the murders in the state have been solved or prevented 3. All the illegal drug trafficing through the state has been haulted 4. All extortion has been stopped in Arizona. I do not deny the music companies their right to persue legal compensation if they feel they need to, but some how I just think the FBI has better things to do than bust little Jimmy for sharing his CD collection online.

Re:Pisses me Off

[sudnshok]

But don't you feel all warm inside when you see your tax money well spent on protecting rich people's money?

Instead of investigating how companies like Ticketmaster rape millions of American wallets each day, lets focus on copyright infringement so that the 10-20 top execs in the movie and music biz don't see their personal income drop from $30M/yr to $28M/yr.

Lets raid schools.

I'm not saying copyright infringement is right, but there are so many other fucked up things in this country that affect more than 20 people. It makes me fuckin sick.

And I don't want to hear about the starving artists and movie stars. MTV Cribs won't have a shortage of people to profile anytime soon. If there was a magic bullet to completely stop all forms of piracy tomorrow, do you honestly believe prices would come down? No fuckin way! Instead, those execs would pocket it all and blame the high prices for CDs on something else.

When will the masses be protected from the few wealthy elite? Never.

BTW, what ever happened to the Ticketmaster congressional investigations?

Re:Pisses me Off

[maxpublic]

This would only be true if the FBI's primary goal were to keep you as safe as possible - which clearly it isn't. The FBI's agenda seems right in line with the rest of government: to exert as much control as possible over the general population, through the use of fear and the random revocation of the Bill of Rights.

Welcome to the New World Order! Now where did I put my jack-boots?

Max

Did I mis-read the article?

[cexshun]

I don't recall reading anything in the article that stated the FBI was looking for pirated music and movies. That was all pure speculation. The FBI refused to comment. Perhaps the FBI was investigating the school using illegal copies of XP in the labs?

Aren't we at war right now?

[GileadGreene]

Good to know that the FBI doesn't have anything better to do right now (like, for example, cathcing terrorists before they can kill another large group of US citizens), and can take the time to combat this obvious menace to Homeland Security. I mean, people who pirate software or music are practically as bad as terrorists in terms of the damaging effects they have on the economy, right? Right.

Disclaimer: I do not support copyright infringement. Nor should anyone who wants to see things like the GPL actually be enforced. But given our supposed National Security situation I'm a little disturbed that the Feds are devoting this much in the way of resources to something that's really inconsequential in terms of protecting American lives and livelihood.

weekend?

[nuffle]

Why couldn't they wait till the weekend, or at least after hours, instead of disrupting children's school day?

It wouldn't be nearly as good a scare tactic.

Oh for fucks sake...

[DesScorp]

Comparing the FBI cracking down on copyright violation to Nazi's rounding up Jews is about as lame as it gets.

"Oh Amnesty International, Help Me! Those Bush Nazi's took away Kazaa!"

Re:Oh for fucks sake...

[I confirm I'm not a]

To be fair to the original poster (and I do think he/she is over-egging it slightly), Pastor Niemoeller's quote did not begin with "they" coming for "the Jews". The point of the quote was to demonstrate that Fascism begins in a subtle fashion - "First they came for the Communists " ... (everyone hates commies, right?) ... "then they came for the Trade Unionists" ... (organised labour equals communism, right?)

When armed agents of the state kick down school doors, if they're not looking for real threats to national security they had better expect comparisons with previous examples of state terror.

Karma begone!

[xutopia]

Only in America and Australia will you see such a thing. I remember seeing the videos of police telling teenage school girls to get down at gun point (here). The principal suspected drugs in the school but none were found. The police then gave a statement by which the dogs had smelled drugs in the school bags but the drugs had not been found.

What next? Will your house be raided on suspection of IP infrigement? Could SCO ask the FBI to raid your house if you are using Linux?

I have a question

[Progman3K]

Why aren't there software-piracy raids?
I mean I understand about the RIAA having huge lobbying power and all, but if you do the math, you'll no doubt find that there is more money lost to software piracy every year than there is to MP3-trading.

A song has been valued at 99 cents recently, but a Windows license is typically 300 dollars, and I'm sure there are millions of pirated copies of Windows out there.

Even if software piracy ISN'T as big as music-piracy, it must still be huge.

Why aren't there more software-audits?

Why are governments placing a disproportionate amount of emphasis on something like music-piracy?

Re:I have a question

[EvilNight]

Well, it's probably a matter of the maturity of the piracy in the two different industries.

Computer software vendors have gotten used to the idea that no matter what copy protection schemes they use, a cracked/pirated version of their software will be all over the internet within days of release. They've been getting used to this idea since sometime in 1970 when it first became an issue. I'd also say that all parties involved have just about given up on the idea that they have a chance in hell of stopping it, and have accepted it as a cost of doing business. After all, the legitimate users of the software still make them a profit. No one has ever proven that one download of a program is equal to one loss of a sale, because it isn't, and never will be. For some, it's like trading baseball cards.

The RIAA/MPAA and other entertainment providers have not gotten used to this idea yet, because to them this piracy problem (at least the internet one-to-many part of it) is completely new. It'll take decade or two of every copy protection scheme they invent being craked overnight, and every release appearing on the internet the instant it hits the theaters before they end up giving up the same fight and accepting it as the cost of doing business. In the meantime, we will see these kinds of raids from time to time just like we did with the FBI raiding the warez scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

It'll probably be a lot worse for the media industry. They've got more to lose, and their product is popular with everyone, everywhere, unlike software which is only popular with computer users. Computer use is a lot more widespread today than it was when this was happening in the software world, as well, and that is surely a contributing factor. Add to this the moral and legal ambiguity of the entire problem, and you end up with a lot more users who are willing to engage in this behaviour. After all, how can recording a copy of a song from the radio be legal, while downloading it from the internet is not? TV shows from a TiVo that are shared and downloaded are somehow different from TV shows recorded on a VHS tape and dubbed? Are they really? Fundamentally, they are the exact same activity. The big difference is that one is distributed through a channel controlled by the Big Money(tm), and one is not. That difference, to many, is no basis for a law regulating the trade of human culture, since government has no business and no right to pass laws to ensure the continuance of corporate profits.

It's a losing battle, and everyone knows it except the corporations. The ones that figure it out and adapt will survive, the ones that don't, won't. Same goes for countries... those that allow the freedom will have a major advantage over the ones that don't. Sadly, it looks these days as if the USA is going to be one of the least free in this area. Fundamentally this is a battle over who has the right to control and distribute human culture. The existing control structure is being severely eroded by a new distribution mechanism that is controlled by no one and answerable to no one, and it is as titanic in implications as any social change in human history, make no mistake. This is about your right to broadcast, your right to be heard.

Bottom line is, as always, to do as your conscience demands. What the law demands is negotiable, because law has seldom followed conscience in letter or enforcement, especially these days. The more unconscionable laws that pass, the less respect people will have for the law itself, and the more eroded the base of society becomes. Someday it'll end in a revolution, as always, and when we pick up the pieces we can build something better from the mess. It'll sort itself out in a few decades just like all other major societal changes do, and the world will end up a better place because of it.

Get ready for hard times

[WanderingGhost]

I don't like when I'm pessimistic, but... Things don't look good, really. This sort of episode shows that people doing things based on laws and pressure from whoever-is-big-and-says-he-is-losing-money (sometimes not even money). One important thing that is being ignored more and more is common sense. This is not only related to copyrights, but to a lot of other things (international relations, etc).
Maybe it will be too late when they find out that laws don't fix problems? That problems shouldn't happen in the first place? And that laws shouldn't be viewd as "the truely correct thing", which can be used as an excuse to do all kinds of weird and crazy things (because the law says I have this "right")? Even if the industry technically has the "right" to fight piracy, did they think about it first? Do the artists understand what's going on? Surely they don't. They just believe what they are told... That "the evil people are taking away their money, and that they'll be doomed if nothing is done".

OK, I feel better now that I said this... But I'm still pessimistic.

How to keep the RIAA from raiding you

[eltoyoboyo]

Evidently someone in the Deer Valley school district must be running a file sharing supernode with lots of recent stuff

Check out Eff's site for guidelines on how to keep the RIAA sniffers at bay. And use common sense! If you are sharing the Usher, "Confessions" album, the current Billboard #1 selling album, you are directly competing with record stores and radio stations. You should get shut down IMO. However, sharing ISOs to FreeBSD is a Good Thing. (You could probably, illegally, share the Perry Como Christmas album and not get noticed....IANAL)

FLT

[patte]

This is probably the US part of the big raid in Europe where some Fairlight sites went down.. rumors have said that sites in both .nl och .us got busted.

Some pictures from Utwente Campus:

http://undying.by.ru/flt.JPG
http://mjrider.student.utwente.nl/gallery/politie
http://www.swecheck.net/bust/index1.html

USA becomes a police state

[dimss]

Ten years ago USA were symbol of freedom for us. Five years ago I wanted to get US visa and job.

Now I see that your country becomes a police state at dangerous speed. My life began in Soviet Union (not in Soviet Russia, I was born in Soviet Latvia). We couldn't even imagine anything like KGB raiding our schools!

But show me the link.

[Allen Zadr]

Right but Organized Crime has no interest in depriving others of money, unless it's a direct derivative of making money for themselves.

P2P based piracy doesn't fit. Selling pirated CDs and Video Tapes does, but unless the school store is selling pirated CDs - then this just doesn't fit.

Two Sides to this

[Thunderstruck]

It seems to me there are two issues that arise from this little raid.

1. The police used a warrant under seal. This is a bad thing. How exactly are one's constitutional rights to be secure in person, house, papers (electronic documents) and effects protected if one cannot even review the warrant? Is it justified by an FBI argument than they don't want to reveal the source? If so we've got bigger problems, like the FBI using that justification for to seal ANY warrant. Then of course you have your right to face accusers... Lots of work for the lawyers here.

2. We might actually get some real, hard, law out of this case. If you get enough people into the court system with large scale raids, eventually you'll catch a person with a lot of money and the intestinal fortitude to fight you rather than settle out of court. Then we can finally learn what fair use is, whether your rights to confront an accuser include a computer accuser, and whether these sealed warrants are... warranted.

IAAL, and as my tax professor always used to say, "I don't mind playing by the rules as long as I know what the rules ARE." - (F. Slagle, USD School of law.)

IP theft

[Kombat]

The recording industry has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I download music or not.

Which, of course, you do, right?

Let's switch some of those words around, and see if it still sounds as hypocritcal and self-serving.

"The software industry has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I illegally download warez or not."

"The movie industry has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I sneak into movie theaters without paying or not."

"My favorite band has already lost all the revenue they would have ever gotten from me, whether I sneak into their concerts without paying or not."

Yup, it does.

In each of my examples though, notice that nothing physical was stolen, yet in every case, you're taking something you didn't earn, didn't pay for, and thus, don't deserve. If you can justify one, you can justify them all.

Who will create the next Unreal Tournament when no one feels like paying for them anymore? Will we bitch and moan on places like Slashdot about how "all current video games suck, why isn't anyone making any GOOD games anymore?", oblivious to the obvious causation - the fact that we've all turned to stealing our software/games/music/movies rather than paying for it?

Re:IP theft

[Anonymous Coward]

Slippery slope argument. All people who download music do not also download movies or games.

I myself don't even download as much music anymore, because I have most of what I wanted and am perfectly happy to buy anything new I feel is worth it. Anything inaccessible (read: not available in my country or out of print) I'll download. I have stopped downloading warez'd games for the reason you cite. I don't download movies because I feel $5-$7.50 is a perfectly fair price for the movies I do go see in the theater. I download programs only when I could not do my job without them (to date the only illegal program I have is Photoshop, and it's an ancient version that does what I want and nothig more-- and the only reason I downloaded that was because I didn't like the GIMP for putting together images for my web site design work).

We have not "all" resorted to stealing. Some of us do not steal at all; still others steal only when certain conditions are met.

But then again, reasoning with asshats like you never works, so that's why I'm psting anonymously-- so I can forget I ever wasted my time trying to "justify" my actions to someone who doesn't understand that it's none of their fucking business what I download or why I do it.

Re:IP theft

[kiwimate]

Well put. I can't believe in the space of 60 seconds you've been modded down from 4 to 2. Oh wait, yes I can -- the truth only hurts when it should, and you're 100% right, and there are simply too many people who don't want to take responsibility for their actions and admit that what they do is wrong.

It's truly amazing what lengths people will go to in order to justify their wrong acts.

Re:IP theft

[Anonymous Coward]

in every case, you're taking something you didn't earn, didn't pay for, and thus, don't deserve. If you can justify one, you can justify them all.

In that case, I choose to justify them all by pointing out that I didn't earn or pay for the air that I breathe, but yet I still deserve it.

What you are missing is the fact that copies don't deprive anyone of anything. No doubt you are champing at the bit to say that they deprive the copyright holder of revenue, but that was precisely JWW's point: the RIAA has acted in such a way that they will not get revenue from him. Whether he later goes on to make copies illegally is irrelevent to this fact, as long as he doesn't distribute those copies to others.

Who will create the next Unreal Tournament when no one feels like paying for them anymore?

I don't see the makers of UT suing kids and lobbying for completely unreasonable laws.

the fact that we've all turned to stealing our software/games/music/movies rather than paying for it?

Copyright infringement is not theft. I am not stating that copyright infringement is moral. I am stating that it is a completely different offence to theft.

Re:IP theft

[cpt kangarooski]

In fact copying music is entirely legal anyway.

This is incorrect. In fact, as a rule, reproducing a copyrighted work unauthorizedly is infringing. There are various exceptions to this, but that's a far cry from being 'entirely legal.'

We have always been alowed to record a friends CD or tape, the radio, TV shows, movies we rent, etc, etc, etc.

Also incorrect. The AHRA is permissive of certain sorts of copying, but is pretty new, and isn't really that expansive. Most copying around here probably isn't AHRA compliant. And there's no blanket exceptions generally that match what you're talking about. The closest you could get would be fair use, but fair use does not permit blanket statements to be made -- each fair use must be justifed anew based on the circumstances that surround it; making a copy of a show on tv for time shifting might have much better chances of success in a fair use argument than copying a rented movie.

Truthfully the only crime (legally) with copying music is not the downloading but the sharing.

Incorrect, and three for three. Downloading copyrighted music unauthorizedly is illegal as it infringes on the copyright holder's exclusive right to reproduce the work. Sharing it is also illegal, since the copyright holder also has an exclusive right to distribute the work.

Man, doesn't anyone read 17 USC 106 anymore?

Re:IP theft

[gobbo]

The grandparent poster may in fact be American, but may have omitted their country of origin in a lapsed moment of Canadian chauvinism (perish the thought!). There are lots of canucks (proportionally) on this site, after all.

In Canada it is, in fact, legal and ethically acceptable to download a tune you'd like to hear or borrow a friend's CD and put some tracks on a tape for the car. Legally, as encoded in our copyright laws, and ethically, as culture has a communal element, like it or not. Besides, any time I or my friends shared music with each other (going back to 8-tracks, eh), it resulted in further sales for the artist, since we were engaging in grassroots marketing. Win win.

Now there's a further element: I paid for personal use copying, through levies included in the recording media price when I purchased it. I guess that makes it both ethical and moral, too.

The grandparent's assertion that it is illegal to share is even ambiguous in Canada, and they're still hashing it out: the latest decision is that P2P sharing a la Gnutella is a bit like having a photocopier in a library.

Too bad about that Land of the Free thing, eh? :-P

Re:IP theft

[fitten]

that it's none of their fucking business what I download or why I do it.

Actually... if it's software that I sell for a living, it *is* my business (in multiple senses of the word) when you download my software and use it for free. But you are right, I wouldn't care *why* you did it because the end result is the same regardless of your rationalizations to ease your conscience.

Re:Hehe

[BJZQ8]

I'm the admin in a school district...and we went to a generic login for that very reason; the fact that, without cameras and DNA samples, you can never tell if someone logging in is really them. (Here comes the analogy that will be counter-analogied and counter-counter analogied to death) I mean, if someone steals a fence post from your front yard and beats someone to death with it, could you be held liable for kiling that person? Passwords and usernames are very freely shared amongst students, and no amount of goading or agreement-signing will change that. The only ultimate cure is teacher supervision...but then again, we're too busy fiddling with standardized tests and leaving no child behind to do that.

More criminalization of civil laws...

[TheRealStyro]

The criminalization of civil law is not what our country's founding fathers created. They created a legal system where a copyright owner could take a potential violator to court. These actions of searches and seizures of private property (& don't get me started on legality of sealed warrants) before a proper trial violate several constitutional, as well as international, laws. We need to contact our elected representatives and let them know our outrage at their silence while our rights are being trampled.

crackdown related to Dutch raids?

[Zarn]

> Federal agents in Phoenix and elsewhere in the
> country raided schools and other targets in
> a national crackdown on pirated music CDs and movies.

Dutch news site NU.NL reports that the FIOD-ECD (Economic Crime Unit of the Dutch IRS) raided twenty locations on Wednesday, mostly campus locations in Groningen, Utrecht, etc in search of illegal software. This was done at the request of United States Customs Service (emphasis mine).

Dutch news sites often confuse one Federal service with another. Could this be related to the raids in Arizona and the "national crackdown"?

Are we sure they are after music?

[chosen_my_foot]

The knee-jerk reaction is that this is a P2P bust, but the article never seemed to verify. There is this quote:

"Federal agents in Phoenix and elsewhere in the country raided schools and other targets in a national crackdown on pirated music CDs and movies."

Notice, however, there are no statements from the FBI about the nature of this raid. It is possible they are looking for pirated software more than pirated music. I used to work in the Office of Technology for a school district, and I know for a fact that at least 25% of our software was unlicensed. Just innocent little things like 1 Windows 98 CD and key for a 25-computer lab and so forth. At one point, we did order 25 copies of Win2k but they were sent with no product keys. We were told to wait for the keys to come in, but we installed with one of our existing keys anyway. If I had to estimate, I would say that we had no less than 300 computers running off of the same product key with no site license.

I had to search for cracks for a few utilities a couple of times, as well. When the librarian's database was backed up on 8 floppies and disk 4 went bad, I needed something to repair a corrupted .ZIP file. The only shareware utilities I could find had a 1MB filesize limit, so a crack was necessary.

Was it so wrong, though? The kids needed computers for education. Our department's budget was very small, and we had to maintain dying hand-me-down servers and PCs with next to nothing. Microsoft was willing to give free copies of Win2k, but only if we had been given donated machines and only if those donated machines had blank hard drives.

I'm waiting for the press release before I grab my pitchfork and torch. It could very well be that our villains are not the RIAA but the ever-unpopular Microsoft and other software companies.

Fsck sake...

[Maqueo]

OK, so we use every trick in the book the get kids into buying into stuff == (happiness|coolness) and then we wonder whey they just grab it instead off the net instead of spending the $$$ they don't have?

Napster Library?

[krysith]

Ever wonder how history might be different if "Napster" had instead been named something like "The Sharing Library of the Internet"?

I think that people would have a far different reaction to a "library" being shut down than a "peer-to-peer startup company". People understand that libraries are supposed to share information - that's what they do. And generally people don't have a problem with that. It's when buzzwords like "P2P" and "piracy" become involved that people have a problem with file sharing.

Note to self: if ever making P2P applications, call them Library-something-or-other.

I call BS

[MunchMunch]

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"I prefer to steal Babbage's, but thats just me."

Please. You 'theft' nuts are why we're moving to a pre-Statute of Anne conception of copyright. You cannot look at information as property, and not end up at a situation where you advocate anything less than perpetual copyright.

Additionally, if you combine this with the insane but popular concept of creativity being a result of Foucoultian "genius," then you have a situation even worse than Conger-dominated England, circa 1708, where every literary work, like Shakespeare was inherited through a single publisher family and kept from the public for hundreds of years.

You think you are being 'common sense' and 'intuitive' in a lawyer-speak, responsibility-shirking world when you use words like 'theft.' But you of course don't realize that you're just taking an ultimately simple-minded approach that is absolutely inimical to the ideals of copyright that Framers like Madison and Jefferson intended when it was created--to be a civic-minded engine for progress, emphatically NOT a grant of property.

Pisses me off...

[eclectic4]

Good thing we hired more FBI agents in the aftermath of 9/11 to stop terrorists. Looks like the extra man hours are paying off!

Spending my tax money on having the fucking FBI literally raid the place my children go to learn to insure the RIAA and the Movie industry pad their yearly record breaking sales numbers is beyond ludicrous.

Absolutely insane.

Meanwhile, we have 12,000 gun murders a year, education budget keeps getting cut, we still don't provide health care for our children (at LEAST), employee production has skyrocketed and large corporations apparenlty can use the FBI to break the balls of our kids, in school, to quelch loss of profit.

No wonder the world fucking hates us. Our priorities are so fucking whacked, I wouldn't want our brand of "freedom" to spread either! We don't want to spread freedom, fuck, if that was the case then we would have invaded Saudi Arabia, a "great" ally and one of the worst human rights abusers in the world, years ago. But, they have things we need, so we leave them alone and call them our friend. In the case of George W., actually very good friends.

No, what we really want to spread is the idea of property rights, capitalism, greed, wants, consumerism, you know, to make a few people rich, because that's what matters most!

Re:Way to go !

[Mycroft_VIII]

If Jefferson and Madison are "extremely obscure historic figures" for you then a) I feel sorry for you, and B) I seriously question your ability to partake in this discussion with any credibility.
He wasn't confusing the isue, he was actually discusing in a more complete context. But I suppose if the subject was math you would make the same arguement if someon brought up multiplication and long division.

Mycroft

Ludicrous!

[aksansai]

This is one of the most ludicrous statements I've heard in a while. I can't believe it was declared "Insightful" by a moderator.

To be so ignorant as to imply that the FBI doing its job in domestic affairs will deter its ability to prevent terrorism (by any organization) is amazing to me.

The FBI is not an entity with one sole investigative purpose. It is an entity that is the federal government's ability to make sure that federal law is respected and upheld. They are a law enforcement group. Copyright infringement is just one of their purposes - they've been tracking down copyright infringement even before the popularity of trading music on the Internet (have you ever seen one of those big FBI warnings at the start of a movie).

The FBI states that its priorities are as follows:

1. Protect the United States from terrorist attack.

Top priority would mean that most of the agents working for the FBI would be dedicated to preventing another attack from a terrorist organization.

2. Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage.

What good is freedom if foreign governments get to decide what happens with our government? I can completely understand why this ranks #2 on their list of priorities.

3. Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes.

Although it may be a highly debated topic, exchanging software, music, or other digital data that is a copyrighted work without the permission of the publisher or author is illegal. The fact that it is the third priority means that this would also have quite a few agents to investigate these crimes. In my opinion, I believe that they are probably understaffed for this particular task.

4. Combat public corruption at all levels.

This would include state officials. Imagine the scope of work that is necessary to fulfill this priority.

5. Protect civil rights.
6. Combat transnational and national criminal organizations and enterprises.
7. Combat major white-collar crime.
8. Combat significant violent crime.
9. Support federal, state, county, municipal, and international partners.
10. Upgrade technology to successfully perform the FBI's mission.

If you have any doubt in the FBI's ability to investigate possible terrorist threats, go their website and do the research for yourself. I would hate to think what would happen to this country if our sole purpose was to defeat terrorism while neglecting our domestic issues. A crime is a crime - and affects us all, in the end.