Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Warns Infringing Customers Of Abuse
tm writes "Comcast recently sent out letters to DMCA-infringing customers, informing them of their illegal downloading transgressions. The notice clearly states that Comcast has been asked by the copyright owner, MGM, to notify the individual of their actions and demand that the downloaded file(s) be immediately removed. In addition, the individual must write a return letter, which consists of an explanation and an apology. It appears that if a valid explanation is given, such as 'I don't know how to secure my access point and my neighbors run wild on my connection,' then both Comcast and MGM will be happy. If the explanation is not satisfactory however, they may proceed with fines, termination of service, ect. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and if this will influence other ISPs to go after customers at Hollywood's request."
Hello Verizon.
They seem to be the only one standing up for their customers' rights.
So, the moral of the story is, if I'm pirating media online, I should leave my access point totall unguarded, with no encryption, or passwords, or logging. That way, I can just blame evil phantom wireless hackers and never get in trouble.
Viruses? Fine by us.
Spam? Sure, go right ahead...
Non-DRMed p2p filetransfers? STOP IN THE NAME OF THE LAW
I guess this means I'd better clear out my queues/start encrypting things.
http://siokaos.org/
This is a much more sane response than just filing a lawsuit. It at least gives the users the chance to do the right thing rather than bring the hammer down on their head like the RIAA has been doing.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
So if you write back, give them a crapy excuse "sorry, I didnt know kazaa was bad" They have proof in writing. PROOF IN WRITING. That you admited to violating the law. Anyone see something wrong with this??
How this for a letter: "Yes, I might have said content, I apologize if I do. Why I have it? I plead the 5th"
snowulf.com
In the letter from Comcast, there is no mention of offering an apology.
Dir Corporate Whores,
I apologize for being such a cheap bastard but I just can't see myself paying 9 dollars for a movie ticket, 5 dollars for a popcorn, and 4 dollars for a pop.
I also apologize for not being willing to wait 6-8 months for a movie to be released to video and dvd as I am such a lazy fool that I do not want to spend the time or money involved in walking or driving to the video store.
Most of all... I am quite sorry for getting caught, I promise you that that will not happen again.
Sincerely,
A. Nonymous
P.S. I do not agree with or support any of what I just wrote in this hypothetical and mythical letter.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
That's not what the letter says at all. The letter is based on the allegation of offering the file for download (which you do, when you use bittorrent).
You only need to counter-notify if you believe you've received this notice based on a non-infringing file. No mention of any letter of explanation/apology is made in the linked document, so unless the poster has a different letter that he didn't post he's entirely misunderstood this notice. Otherwise, turn off your torrent and let them know that it's no longer there. If you feel the obligation to make up an excuse when you do that, go ahead.
IANAL, but I don't think I'd offer any explanation besides "Thanks for the notice. I have ensured that no such file is available." unless pressed into it by further action from the copyright holder. Like talking to the police, ISTM that the less you say, the better.
.sig: file not found
Heck they were almost DisneyCast!
They're probably playing establishing a track record to appease their next Hollywood acquisition target.
Getting a letter from your isp telling you have no privacy, or being accused of downloading "Walking Tall"? Geesh, if you are going to pirate movies, choose good ones. No one, but a fool breaks into a jewlery store and steals the cubic zirconium.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
What seems funny to me is that I have know about 15 people who download gigs of crap a week, and each one of them thinks that BitTorrent is untraceable. They give me excuses like "The packets don't have the file name information", among others. I tell them all the time that thier only real protection is thier isp's willingness (or lack thereof) of getting involved.
I just type my sig in the reply form...
Dear Comcast and MGM,
Chewbacca defense!
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
It's 'etc.' you insensitive clod.
"Some people bitch about apathy, but I don't really care."
- Sin Elemental
What do they really expect Comcast to do? They simply abided by the law, and informed customers of their rights.
Note Comcast didn't assume guilt, they made it clear they are passing on information, and provide options of remedy as per DMCA.
Seems pretty clean to me. What is comcast to do? Just take a lawsuit and pass off the cost to all the subscribers?
Yea exactly .. Comcast being one of the biggest distributers of video media .. they are losing 'profits' by allowing u to serve those files. Interesting to see that bittorrent was the method of distribution .. I wonder if you can get away with sending only parts of a file :)
...it appears that if a valid explanation is given (ie. I don't know how to secure my access point and my neighbors run wild on my connection...) then both Comcast and the copyright owner will be happy.
There's nothing in the letter that leads to this conclussion. They say:
"Comcast will provide a copy of the counter notification to the party who sent the original notification of claimed infringement. We will them follow the DMCA's procedures with respect to a received counter notification ".
Any lawyer out there who can specify the DMCA's procedures in such a case? Does pleading ignorant work? It would be too easy
If they can hassle people over downloading illegal files surely they could spend their time better and track all the people who have accessed child pornography.
I guess the RIAA and similar organisations mean more to Comcast then some little girl being abused..
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
Is this not just a sneaky way of getting ISP's to give them user information? Rather than going through the courts and doing it legally (and facing the risk of failure), recording associations sneakily do it like this - they get the info they want, and the desired effect- bit more fear, and less file trading.
Where does it say anything about you having to send an apology and an explanation? This is just a standard DMCA notification letter, which Comcast is REQUIRED to send in order to be protected from lawsuits by copyright holders. You have a right to send a counter-notification, which is a formal statement that they're accusing you in error. Usually you don't have to do anything about these letters, aside from the obvious step of not sharing copyrighted material online. This looks like a standard DMCA letter, ISPs have been sending these out for years.
I refuse to apologize for something I may or may not have done. I plead the 5th.
It can't be long now, we'll start with the disclaimers and all... I can just imagine it:
"By accessing this node you indicate that you are not now, nor have you ever been a law enforcement agent, postal worker, or employee of any Media corporation engaged in interstate commerce, nor are employed by any such organization."
More work for the lawyers, YIPPEE!
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
"So sorry. My bad. --con$umer"
[
Once more I apologize for my ruthless actions on the internet, and beg your forgiveness, ________________.
Sincerely,
Joe Schmoe, Downloader
BTW I really, really, really, really hate the lameness filter.
ECT!?! I can't believe they can arbitrarily pursue punishments of this magnitude. How can they use ECT without a trial or a hearing at the least. Yet more proof that the US justice system has been perveted by our corporations.
Hell, governments can't use ECT on convicts in most first-world countries and we'll let fscking cable companies do it.
Hate me!
I know a guy on Cox that got one of these last Wednesday too. It was from BayTSP. It quotes no law other than vaguely referring to the DMCA. They shut his service off cause he wasn't home to see the email within the 24 hour period they gave him to respond. He played dumb and told them he had wireless and didn't know how to secure his WAP. They told him they'd turn his service back on after he went home and made sure BITTORRENT was OFF all his computers.
BT is legal and I use it for Linux transfers.
They included a report that appeared generated by one of their spiders and was no proof of him doing anything far as I'm concerned. It was meant to scare him.
Also, the District of Colunbia v RIAA on Dec 20 2003, ruled transitory data across a network is NOT subject to the takedown provisions of the DMCA and as such, they have no right to discontinue his service. It's like making the phone company disconnect your phone for making an illegal phone call (which they can't do). Same thing.
The guy I know, didn't even go home. He called them back an hour later and told them, 'Nope, nothing there' and they turned it back on with Cox blaming his neighbors.
It was the only way I could get the program to download the non-copyright files at a decent speed.
Seriously, I have 3 or 4 options right now for broadband. If comcast is going to monitor my usage then I'll decide to go elsewhere for service. The only way they'll stop this kind of activity is if they lose customers by doing it.
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
It's actually intereting -- given Verizon's victories, why would Comcast play DMCA ball for MGM?
Could it have anything to do with Comcast's (recently abandoned) bid for Disney? And Disney-MGM Studios?
Playing megamedia connect-the-dots is fun!
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
"They seem to be the only one standing up for their customers' rights."
And what rights is that exactly (1)?
Two since when has it been businesses, business to take care of your "rights"? That's your job, not theirs.
(1) Note how everyone's liberal when it comes to defining "rights", but no one is quite so generous when it comes to their "responsabilities". Wonder why that is?
"...Comcast request that you immediately remove the allegedly infringing works from the Service or Comcast will be forced to remove or block access to the works.
If you believe in good faith that the allegedly infringing works have been removed or blocked by mistake or misidentification, then you may send a counter notification to Comcast. Upon Comcast's receipt of a counter notification that satisfies the requirements of the DMCA, Comcast will provide a copy of the counter notification to the party who sent the original notification of claimed infringment. We will then follow the DMCA's procedures with respect to a received counter notification."
Since it is a bit torrent link they're talking about (if you go by the port number in the complaint) you could easily say that your child or something had to get 'the internet talk' and kill it as easily as that.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
It's never good to go after your customers, if you want to stay in business. Comcast may suffer a bit for this depending on how aggressive they get.
Given that ISPs have not been held responsible for what people do without their knowledge in the past, this raises the interesting question of why Comcast is doing this... I wonder, if maybe Comcast knows more about what their customers are doing, than they are letting on. This would essentially make them partially responsible, so now they have to cover themselves.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
If more ISPs just assigned a dynamic IP address, privacy would be increased substantially since record companies would have to force ISPs to figure out who leased the IP address during the time of the infraction. Frankly, I think ISPs should not be held responsible nor accountable for the actions of their users, and in fact, there should be a strong sense of privacy protection among ISPs. Sure, you can isolate your traffic to specific ports and encrppt using things like secure-tunnel.com, but ISPs should not be listening in on you nor identifying you to ANY company. That'd be like your telephone company mentioning that you call 1-900 numbers just because your employer asked them. Our rights mustn't be trampled by these organizations for any reason. These companies should not be able to control DIGITAL / ELECTRONIC impulses that are shared, nor identify who is sharing what series of 0s and 1s. We need to grow up as a society and mind our own business. If what you're doing isn't working anymore, find something else. Taking away civil liberties to protect yourself is a gross affront to the greater good.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Dear Comcast, Thank you for your letter. The file that you mention as infringing were collected off your NNTP server at netnews.comcast.net, and not via a p2p program. Your broadband sales information touts "watch moving on the internet" and other such features, I believed that your news server, and its content were part of these features. My appoligies, and I will miss the Comcast NNTP server when your shut it down.
It's a good thing I steal somebody else's internet through their WAP.
The image is a dream, the beauty is real. Can you see the difference?
Keep in mind, Comcast is also trying to sell you premium cable channels and video on demand. Any MGM movies obtained through p2p is potentially revenue lost to Comcast as well. I don't believe this would be a factor with Verizon, since they're not doing the cable thing.
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." -- G. K. Chesterton
Anyone care to comment on how effective peer guardian is and avoding this unpleasantness?
Do they care as much about tv shows? Sometimes I use bittorrent (or edonkey?) to download television shows that I missed.
I work for Cox Communication's Network Security department, and we handle hundereds of these issues a day.
You are found to be sending out copyrighted material over P2P networks, we get the complaint, and turn your service off. You call in, we tell you you were distributing the copyrighted gaybarebackporndivx.avi - and you promise to disable your outgoing filesharing.
We turn you back on, close the ticket, and all is back to normal.
-Imidazole2
It looks like this user was using bittorrent. If you are using bittorrent, the only client you should ever use is Azureus. Once you have Azureus installed, also install the Azureus SafePeer plugin. This will download the latest ip addresses from PeerGuardian which moved to a new address. This should help keep unwanted users out of your box.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
As it stands right now, IPS aren't expected to enforce the legality of stuff traveling across their networks.
It seems like a major bad idea to start doing that, just for the hell of it. They open themselves up to the same charge as all the p2p filesharing apps---that it is they who should be held responsible, as enablers, rather than the individual who is actually breaking the law.
I mean really, if you were the RIAA, who would you rather sue? Some joker who has 50 cents in his bank account and 11k on his credit card, or Comcast?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Comcast has been sending these notices to people for a year now. I don't see why this is news.
"I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake, a terrible flood, locusts! It wasn't my fault, I swear to God!"
- 'Joliet' Jake Blues, The Blues Brothers
The government's moral compass is controlled by GPS.
In times of crises, they alter it to suit their needs.
Well basically its the same thing we have known all along. This isn't about "downlading" as the blog and topic states. Its about sharing or uploading files via P2P and Bittorrent. If you don't want to get caught be a leecher. Now you may have some misguided notion that its "only right" that you should be giving if your taking, but that's the suckers play. Don't fall for it. All of those people who will give you flack and try to blame you for the eventual downfall of P2P for not sharing are not going to be there to pay your $10,000 fine when you busted.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I think it's a mighty fine point you're trying to make.
Whether you've simply downloaded a copyrighted work for your own use, or have chosen to share it with a million of your friends, you've still done something that, under current law, is illegal.
You haven't paid for or otherwise licensed the work. You downloaded it without permission of the copyright holder, and as such, you are in the wrong.
Either way, you take the risk, you better expect to pay the consequences if you get caught.
I think it's weird that they would accept "I am routing for other people" as a defense, as it's likely a Comcast ToS violation. Maybe telling them that will get you out of the frying pan with regard to the copyright infringement issue, but then get you into the fire with Comcast themselves. They probably don't want you as their customer, to be someone else's ISP.
And if you're someone else's ISP, then I would think the DMCA notice would end at you, unless you know who to forward it to. If you don't give up your user, then aren't you the one who will end up liable?
Being an ISP for anonymous users seems like a good way to:
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"Seems pretty clean to me. What is comcast to do? Just take a lawsuit and pass off the cost to all the subscribers?"
You're more insightful than you know. That's exactly what they should do. And they should let every one of their customers know why they are doing so. People are getting away with this kind of behaviour exactly because they believe that there are no consequences. Well bub, I can't think of a clearer message than a hit to the wallet. Will they lose customers? Yes, and hopefully it'll be the people who brought this down on everyone's head. There are customers, and then there are "customers". And for every action, there's a reaction, and it isn't always a pleasent one.
I am so sorry that MGM/Comcast charges so much money for their shitty service/products that I am forced to steal it. So, out of great respect for the millionaires in Hollywood who still seem to be making money from MGM, I will end this apology with a quote: "Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on." -cb
Remember, licking doorknobs is illegal on other planets.
"In accordance with the DMCA and Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy, Comcast request that you immediately remove the allegedly infringing works from the Service or Comcast will be forced to remove or block access the the works."
Comcast is demanding the file be removed from (The "Service"). I use Comcast and when did my personal Hard Drive contents become under the control of their Acceptable Use Policy?
If the file was placed on rented Web space on one of their servers, maybe... But to demand I remove a file off my personal hard drive because it is in violation of their Acceptable Use?
This seems to me to be a line crossed. If they've now declared that the contents of my personal hard drive are covered under their "Service" then I say Bring it on! That's a fight I'd morgage the house to pay for!
I'm going to install BitTorrent just so I can get one of these letters. I'm mad.
...but it's not ect. it's etc.!!!
I'm currently using Verizon, and though I am EXTREMELY happy with them (never had downtime yet, and they seem to be on "our side"), I still see them as "fancy suit big-business"... I'm just waiting for them to complain to me about bandwidth issues or DMCA violations till I get SpeakEasy. If you ever read "The Da Vinci Code" you'll understand what I mean when I say it feels like I'm being interrogated in France...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
If this has anything to do with their (defunct) Disney deal...are they trying to snuggle up with Hollywood to increase their chances of a studio takeover bid. And if so, your isp being the one in charge of getting you for pirating movies from their studio is pretty scary.
Aside from that, just go buy the stupid movie. A $15 DVD is much cheaper than your bail, court costs, lawyer fee, etc.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
..I just deleted it, you can even come and check me up if you like, just call a few hours ahead so I can ..uhm... prepare the coffee.
That was the first thing I thought of, because we here all remember the DMCA as the 'anti-hacking' bill. Then I RTFA and was reminded that DMCA is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act - which also includes some circumvention provisions but mainly deals with ... copyrights on digital stuff from this millenium, if I had to guess.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
"If they can hassle people over downloading illegal files surely they could spend their time better and track all the people who have accessed child pornography.
I guess the RIAA and similar organisations mean more to Comcast then some little girl being abused."
Ah, yes. the "well why aren't you pestering real crimminals, instead of bothering me?" defense, that every cop has heard from speeders. What makes you think they aren't? Want them to announce to the crimminals that "Hey guys! We're watching you commit a crime, and we're going to turn you in".
Besides what makes you think they can pick, and choose, what laws thay can and can't enforce, which your post amounts to?
I just wasn't thinking when I typed 'Dir' rather than 'Dear'.
Part of it also was the original opening was "Dir Sir's", it's more likely that there was confusion in the similarity of those two.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
...we're one step closer to full blown anonymous P2P.
So, bring it on! They might score a point or two now, but once the anonymous apps are unleashed, they'll be shitting their pants!
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I'd guess that 90% of broadband subscribers use their bandwidth for pr0n, filesharing, or gaming (if not all of the above), and that "family-friendly" uses of a high-speed connection are few and far between. How long will it be before high-speed ISPs lose their customer base by bending over for the content cartel?
That said, if an "apology" is all that's required, I guess we need not sound the alarm yet.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
everyone has their own guilty pleasures, but getting busted for downloading a "rock" movie is just laughable.
I would guess this must be a very common response to illegal file trading charges. It's also about the worst, logically. The trading of child pornography is probably the best argument out there to encourage service provider cooperation to monitor file sharing.
The spidering/monitoring technology that MPAA develops today to take their movies off the net will eventually be used to cut off the streams of exploitive material. It's not like law enforcement has the budget to independently develop technology tools to do this stuff. Honestly, I would happily trade my ability to anonymously download theater-filmed "Walking Tall" files today, if it helps stop the exploitation of children in the future. That's a great trade-off.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
Wow, a warning. Zero wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS. Claim you had a major virus infection that used your box as a p0rn zombie that was spreading files via BitTorrent and other means. A virus that the ISP let through. Sue the ISP for incompetence and invasion of privacy. They counter that you downloaded illegal files, but cannot find them on your hard drive. Counter claim that their logs are inaccurate and the IP they claimed you used may have belonged to someone else. With them unable to produce any evidence that you have those files on your hard drive, you have a good chance of winning.
;)
Sue me, I need the money!
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I went to a private high school. Nearly our entire senior class went out drinking on our senior class trip. This was a school sponsored trip and created a problem for the administration. The "helpful" deans came to our class warning us that the administration would do something horrible to us, so we should draft a letter as a class apologizing for our transgressions and they would go easy on us. (I was not present at this meeting with the deans. Had I been, I wouldn't have let it happen like it did.) Our class officers wrote a letter of apology which was then used as a basis to pursue the issue as fact rather than heresay as it had been up to that point. It created a much more difficult situation for our class as the administration set their sights on expelling a number of my classmates. We had to get creative in order to accept discipline as a class. But, had we not provided proof in writing, I don't think they would have been able to really discipline us like they did. Anyway, maybe slightly OT, but this definitely reminded me of that.
Just in case the server crashes and burns (like they usually do),I have put up a mirror.4 494418547 is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_221/aorula.com/2004 _05_01_archive.php#108356004494418547 g es/20040503/Comcast_Doc.jpg m e.do
The mirror of http://aorula.com/2004_05_01_archive.php#10835600
The mirror of http://aorula.com/images/20040503/Comcast_Doc.jpg is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_221/aorula.com/ima
The mirror of http://www.mgm.com/home.do is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_221/www.mgm.com/ho
What I want to know is in this case who initiated discovered this download incident and initiated the complaint? Was it some 3rd party P2P watchdog hired by MGM who then complains directly to ISPs then the ISP accuses the customer? Or does Comcast police all downloads without waiting for incident complaints from companies like MGM? If that's the case then unfortunately Comacst cutomers agreed to it on sign-up, as from Comcast's Terms of Service: "Monitoring of Postings and Transmissions: Comcast shall have no obligation to monitor postings or transmissions made in connection with the Service. However, you acknowledge and agree that Comcast and its agents shall have the right to monitor any such postings and transmissions, including without limitation e-mail, newsgroups, chat, IP audio and video, and web space content, from time to time and to use and disclose them in accordance with Sections 4 and 5 of this Agreement, and as otherwise required by law or government request. " ... and from their privacy policy page "Comcast uses personally identifiable information collected on the Service as necessary to render the Service and to ... determine whether there are violations of any applicable policies and terms of service; " I guess that's standard for all ISPs Terms of Service, and we all agreed to it. Don't like it, use the other broadband carrier in your area, oh, they have the same terms, oh well.
A friend of mine had his cable access turned off because cableone was notified that they'd downloaded Starsky and Hutch. When they called the company for an explanation they were told that if they signed a statement saying they had downloaded the file and deleted it they would turn their cable back on. When they said that they hadn't downloaded the file and in fact had proof that neither one of them were in the house at the time the file was downloaded. They were told the connection couldn't be turned on until they'd resolved the issue with the company investigating for the movie company.
They don't even have a wireless network, so it's pretty clear that whoever is doing the monitoring messed up, but still their only recourse is to sign a statement admitting to wrongdoing.
Needless to say they now have dsl and satellite tv.
It appears that if a valid explanation is given, such as 'I don't know how to secure my access point and my neighbors run wild on my connection,' then both Comcast and MGM will be happy.
IANAL, but there are laws about theft of service from cable companies. These were passed to prevent people from sharing their cable TV with their neighbours, but apply to their Internet service as well. Saying that you have an access point would be admitting to committing theft of service.
What Would the Fab Five Do?
Watching paranoid schizophrenia in action when concocting these paranoias is even more fun. Why anyone moderated that post to Interesting is fascinating, but in keeping with /. lore.
"If comcast is going to monitor my usage then I'll decide to go elsewhere for service. The only way they'll stop this kind of activity is if they lose customers by doing it."
Ha Ha, oh I'm sorry. Did you just advocate that companies should willfully take on "customers" that are going to break the law, and get the company in trouble? How about we put your actions were your mouth is, and you willfully take on a crimminal.
You will have to excuse my distrust for bytecode performance, but how well will a Java network-client perform on a 100mbit connection?
My intuitive guess would be a hosed CPU, but that's just me.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
It's interesting that the infringing files are bittorrent downloads. So anyone downloading with bittorrent will have this stuff lying around on their system incidentally to their clicking on a link online.
So, now all you have to do to be criminalized by these spying bozos is click on a bittorrent link and boom they claim infringement under DMCA with teh full weight of the law.
All you need to say is that you clicked a link online and you didn't intend to serve the damned file.
This is just great, in a distributed filesharing network like bittorrent they're now going after everyone who downloaded the file and happens incidentally to have it served from their system.
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." -- G. K. Chesterton
I think most fundamentalist terrorists have this quote scrawled in their caves.
Dear MGM,
I am sorry that I wasted 4 hours downloading and watching Gigli.
Anyone want to get in with me on a company that writes "apology/explanation" letters for subscribers that get this notice? I figure it would be pretty easy to set up a nice template in Word or such and just fill-in-the-blanks.
Think I could get $5 per person for it? =]
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
mod this ignorant cunt into oblivion folks.
next time try skimming TFA, nevermind bothering to RTFA.
Sorry for posting as an AC, But I have gotten one of these Letters. There is a copy of it on dslreports or if you search on google for Comcast DMCA.
It clearly states on the letter that you must immediately remove the allegedly infringing works from the service or comcast will be forced to remove or block access to the works. They didn't get me specifically for downloading, they got me for uploading because of the nature of Bit Torrent. This torrent was of course, hosted on suprnova.org.. I believe that site to be nothing more than a honeypot nowadays, with fake seeders aplenty.
They got me for a Hellboy VCD.. The actual "time frame" of the crime was approximately one second. So, they caught me busting a miniscule amount of a file and popped me off a letter not even 7 days later.
It seems pretty easy for ISPs to just not keep logs and protect their customers from these lawsuits.
Specifically, what does Earthlink do?
I know it is going against the grain here, but I use Comcast for my Internet access. If you do, you know that over 50% of the bandwidth that you pay for is being used by punks (mostly trying to hack into your home pc). If they kick a few punks off the line, I am happy. I am not one to blindly support some hacker, music/vid pirate, or script-kiddie just because he uses some variant of Linux instead of Windows. Theft is theft. Get caught, get kicked off Comcast, give me more bandwidth.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
Anybody think about going after Comcast for violating USC 18 2511(c)? It states:
2511(c) intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection;
And more specifically 2511(3)(a):
2511(3)(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection, a person or entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not intentionally divulge the contents of any communication (other than one to such person or entity, or an agent thereof) while in transmission on that service to any person or entity other than an addressee or intended recipient of such communication or an agent of such addressee or intended recipient.
Looks to me like Comcast violated US criminal ccode and perhaps 371 (conspiracy with MGM).
I'm not one for violating copyrights, but the DMCA is being used in other areas to prevent much needed security discussions and crack down on whistleblowers. Moreover, pointing out that a company sucks these days invites a SLAPP lawsuit. Maybe we should go back to the days of bang-paths and store-and-forward. If there are enough overlapping wireless networks in your metro area, you'd never have to cross physical infrastructure and it'd be virtually untracable. Store and forward's also a lot more difficult for some corporation to take over. It's easy enough to configure a program to listen on only one interface, so setting up your machine to provide a service over wireless only is pretty straight forward. Just a thought...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
While I can see allegations of copyright infringement, if the user was in fact sharing a copyrighted movie, I'm a bit confused by the DMCA aspect. No encryption was being circumvented (it was a camera rip), nor was the copy made from a digital source of any kind, and it's not even clear that the user is the one who made originally made the rip of the movie, so I would think standard copyright law would cover the situation - it was a copyrighted movie, he was allegedly distributing it. What provision of the DMCA was supposedly being violated here?
What exactly was paranoid schizophrenia? Do you actually think that major corporations don't align their efforts for mutual benefit? Perhaps I should call you a catatonic schizophrenic?
I simply pointed out that Comcast had been looking to acquire Disney -- seems pretty relevant to me.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Get ready for Bittorrent that uses IPSEC or SSL. No more matching port numbers with taps. Then what? Well, the farming tools that the RIAA are using aren't going to be foiled. They will download the client, particpate - handshake with your machine, see you have that Britney Spears vid, and nail you by your IP address. So, encryption isn't really going to help.
Here is a good one, if I pay for HBO on Digital Cable but I miss the Sopranos, then download it from bit torrent am I breaking the law? It's the same as using TiVo, or even a VCR. Of course comcast being the cable provider probably wouldn't like that. But how different is it from having a friend tape it for me?
What is the consensus regarding partial segments of files? If a hypothetical p2p (emule for example) user has a list of partially downloaded files in his queue, and allows some uploading while downloading segments - but then removes the file at the instant in which it is fully downloaded, then...
1. Does that technically still violate the rules? Is this hypothetical p2p user liable for sharing segments of an incomplete file?
2. Are the same red flags raised when ISP's are looking for uploaders, regardless of whether the uploader actually has a full copy or not? I'm guessing the answer to this is yes...
3. What if I never actually gain a full copy of the file? Am I ultimately liable for sharing something that I never even really had? I see some interesting prospects for p2p apps here, which could potentially do some excessive "scratch" downloading, to make sure I am providing enough segments back to the community that I am not a leech, but at the same time, to make sure that I am never actually sharing segments of anything for which I intend to at some point have a full copy downloaded...
F*ck Off. If you want my business, live with it, I'm downloading shit. Otherwise I can take my business elsewhere. Sincerely, To-Be Former Customer.
In response to your communication, please see the following link which serves to demonstrate that it was not I that downloaded this crap! :
Punk Party I would NEVER, by (choice) listen to
"Drink-fight-fuck" by g g allen
Sick Pleasure - "Destroy the human race"
the Little Fuck-ups "I think you're shit"
Although they all contain noble sentiments, the music is BAD!
These kids just wandered into my hangout and I don't know where they came from! In fact if you can identify any of these miscreants I would appreciate receiving the information.
Here is a picture of the actual suspects in this case:
Evil Women
A local radio station would also like this info as they caused considerable damage to the premises!
Those college kids aren't too happy either. Thank You, The Nerd.
Just roll out CryptTorrent and when big brother is spying on your traffic they won't know if you're talking to aunt bertha on MSN or downloading a petabyte of porn.
Dear MGM and Comcast,
I am profoundly sorry for downloading bad backups of the movies I already own as per fair use.Also sorry I pay so much for my bandwidth choked account.I am sorry that Comcast has to invade my privacy for the protection of MGM, a poor mom and pop shop founded by a heroin dealer.
I'm sorry MGM works so hard and spends so much to bring us so little and uses their overpriced movies to attack the world.
oops,my mistake,I'm not sorry comcrap and MGM are sorry.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Ok I received a similiar letter a while back... here's my question? What all are these people watching us do? How the hell is their monitoring of my internet activities not "Invasion of Privacy"??????? Feeling rather violated, Jason
Jay Dale "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!"
It's been a quite while since Hollywood put out anything worth downloading. If anything, MGM should pay these folks for their heroic efforts in advertising; in that they might inspire the uninspired to return to the theaters. Most of the interesting parts of the movies are already beamed directly into almost every American household in the form of trailers. What these people are doing is showing an enthusiasm for the whole of the production (no matter how bad it is) and quite possibly encouraging the downloaders to actually make the pilgrimage to the theater to voluntarily part with someone's hard earned cash.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Actually, that was the last millenium.
Actually, all Microsoft requested, was for them to inform me, offering a file named Windows_Source.zip was likely illegal -- by forwarding the Microsoft's letter to me.
But SpeakEasy.net -- the celebrated "geek friendly" (you can run servers) ISP -- shut me down -- without even checking, if MS' allegations were true (I removed the file the day before MS sent their letter to SpeakEasy)!
Trouble was, I was on vacation, so it lasted for a week... They gave me credit for the whole week after I cleared it upon coming back, but I am still fuming.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It seems Cablevision / OptimumOnline also started sending out these letters.. at least on the behalf of BayTSP and Paramount ... a uhm.. friend .. of mine got one of these ... same kinda deal - request a reply and all
Others ISPs are already doing it.
Two of my friends have had their Time Warner cable modem service terminated.
The letter that you were supposed to sign and return was not, however, an apology and explanation. It was essentially an admission of guilt... They wouldn't restore service without a signature on that letter.
In effect, you are screwed either way. If you don't sign the letter, you can't get your service enabled again. If you do sign the letter, you're admitting guilt (and signing it) so they can easily sue you later (the copyright holder).
At the time of this post there were 200 comments, and 30 of them were rated +5, very few of them were +3 or +4.
Ideally moderation separates the good stuff from the bad-- and this fails just as bad if everything is rated 0 than if everything is rated +5.
I know folks might be saying a lot of good things, but try to separate the *really* good stuff from the *sort-of* good stuff with mod points.
Make the mod system work better. Create less mediocre +5s
(attached to this comment because I think it's better than +5s higher up on the page)
RD
It looks like the letter is about someone "sharing" a movie for others to access is the issue addressed - NOT the original downloading, as most here seem to be assuming.
That said, I think anyone getting such a letter had better go see a lawyer before they essentially write the copyright holder a written confession.
So instead of using the tried and true Wookie Defense you can now use the access point is wide open defense. That does not make sense.
Look at the monkey!
While its within their right to complain if they find a violation of their AUP, its also their obligation to PROVE it first..
Until they prove something to me that needs to be addressed, the letter would just be tossed in the trash.
Not only that, but the insult would most likely drive me to a more reasonable ISP.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What I don't understand is why ISPs don't just toss the logs every 24-48 hours - they are sending out the letters to comply with the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. If they deleted the logs as policy, they would be compliant with the provisions, and wouldn't be *able* to send out letters. IANACopyrightLawyer.
Another thing - There is no 'open' advice on EFF or Chilling Effects as to what to do when you get a letter. In my case, the file may have been something I shared, but I truly don't recall having the file listed at the stated filesize.
It would be nice to know what the hell to do, as sending a letter of any sort seems to open yourself up to a suit (which as we all know, I will win, because of resonable doubt and the fact that the justice system is fair and not based entirely on who has more money.)
ugh.
When is this point going to be leveraged?
I can name my fuckyouRIAA.txt file to The_Matrix.dvix and have my service disconnected. This is
a ridiculous position. Does a file name now constitute proof?
Now I hope that they ignore my former roomate serving movies off my computer while I was at work.
postmodernsideshow.com
Get real, if the media industries continue with this crusade against sharing, they will negate any reason for most home owners to have broadband.
People dont need 1.5m to check their mail(spam)... And who is going to want to spend 50 bucks a month if the cant actually USE it.. ( remember the restrictions on VPN and such from a while ago )
Its time to adjust to the public's ( i.e. customers and voters ) demands.. Not continue to try to squash them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This letter is just a notice. It informs the downloader (who by using BitTorrent is also uploading), that the works are copyrighted and should be removed (stop the BT). No letter or apology is required unless you believe it is your right to continue sharing the file.
/.
Please people, READ the notice word for word. Oh wait, this is
I've seens posts saying they need to apologize, or they were JUST downloading, etc... Learn to read!
It didn't say anything about an apology. I told them the offending file was removed. Here are the counter procedures from Comcast's site:
A valid written counter notification made under Section 512(g)(3) of the U.S. Copyright Act must include the following information:
A physical or electronic signature of the customer or user.
Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled.
A statement under penalty of perjury that the customer or user has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
The customer's or user's name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the customer or user consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if the customer's or user's address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found, and that the customer or user will accept service of process from the person who provided the notification of infringement or an agent of such person.
I'm waiting to see how it turns out.
When travelling, it's ok if the airlines lose your emotional baggage.
Say, does MGM care about their old cartoon series ExoSquad. The series that they only put the first 13 episodes on tape and laserdisc, which are out of print, and likely never to hit DVD. 'Cause I'm so close to completing my collection.
What is wrong with MGM asking Comcast to contact the criminal using Comcast's servers to distribute MGM's copyrighted material? I'd come down on them like the hammer of god if someone stole something from me and then blatantly tried to sell or give away something that was clearly my property. The users are lucky that they're getting the chance to apologize in a letter instead of open court. If MGM or Comcast was monitoring what you downloaded that would be another thing altogether.
Verizon is now offering Direct TV service... at least in my area (NYC).
is legal :)
If you cant remember, then you cant be compelled to say anything 'incriminating'.
"sorry sir, but i can not seem to recall that incident".
Hey, it works for the thieves in congress...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The moral of the story is
"If you have any option in your area whatsoever, do nto use Comcast as an ISP"
The only way these companies and media groups listen to the consumer is when you speak with your wallet.
A suprisingly good show. And perhaps due to MGM refusing to release it for people to buy most of the episodes are floating about.
There isn't anything in the current copyright law descibing criminal acts for some one abtaining a copywriten work in a fashion thats not consistant to what the owner wants. All the laws i can find about it deals with making the copies and distributing them. I would be interested into were you got the downloading is illeagle. i know it isn't right and morally might be consdiered to need to be illeagle but as of now I don't think it is.
Simply downloading something doesn't violate the law. I'm pretty sure that is why RIAA hasn't went after those that just download and one of the reason why p2p networks are still leagle. RIAA has threatend to sue those that are just downloading but I think they would have a tuffer time then SCO is having with it's linux users. After all this isn't like walking into a store were your expected to pay for somethign then walking out without paying. You goto these places with expecting not to pay somethign and then find somthign (that should be paid for) made availible free.
I'm quite familier with title 17 of the us code, state and local laws might differ and there is a possability of a law I havn't seen yet. If I'm wrong (leagaly not moraly) then please cite the laws for me. Or at least tell me if it is a state or federal law and what state.
A good source for federal laws and case law is cornell's law site.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/
They are *not* passing any information on their subscribers back to MGM or any other party.
They're passing along these letters at the behest of parties, who provide comcast with an IP and timestamp. Beyond that, Comcast doesn't care what you do with your connection. They're just obligated to pass on these warnings under DMCA. The only time comcast will provide subscriber information to another party is under court order.
It seems that everyone who's mentioned a specific movie title has been busted for downloading a cam/screener of something that's currently in theaters.
While (insert standard anti-MPAA/RIAA rant), we did know that the MPAA is getting more concerned with cam/screener piracy than anything else, and I wouldn't be surprised if they continue to leave casual infringers of films that are out on DVD/VHS pretty much alone.
Anyone got a counterexample?
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
[Devil's advocate] ...do I need to be graphic?
1. Mr Pedo chats up young girl nearby. Maybe even gets a picture.
2. Mr Pedo makes a frivolous subpoena request, claiming that girl's IP was sharing his copyrighted something, using a fake ID.
3. ISP can only comply.
4. Mr Pedo never files a lawsuit.
5.
[/Devil's advocate]
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Rights? The right to trade a copy of "Walking Tall" recorded in theater with a camera (judging by the filename)?
Your insulated view may not allow you the perspective necessary for objectivity, but trust me, it is disputable whether or not an individual has the right to record "Walking Tall" in a theater with a camera and then distribute it. It is not a clear case as you would like to present it.
Would it be acceptable for someone to take an audio-only recording device to record the sound track for the movie? What if it was just a legal pad, and a pencil? Assume they know shorthand and could storyboard and transcribe it precisely. Is it immoral and/or illegal to transcribe, and describe the goings-on of the movie with a notepad and pencil? What if it was just someone's mind? What if Mr. Joe Hypothetical had eidetic memory and some expensive renderware on his PC at home. If he sees a Pixar movie and his mind, and software at home, enables him to recreate the movie exactly, should it be illegal?
What if you didn't have superhuman memory, or fancy software, but instead were just a great story-teller. Say you remembered the movie well and related all the details to your friends in an entertaining fashion. Is this copyright infringement too? Or what if you're not even a great story teller, but you remember the high points of the movie. Should it be illegal to divulge spoilers to those who have not paid? Are spoilers copyright infringement, do you think?
Humans already have the capacity to store, retrieve and relate information, you can't get around that fact! So the issue must be one of quality, right? The Valenti argument, that the "real problem" is that digital copies don't degrade. Well, what is the problem with recording from a theater? If you start with a degraded copy, isn't that great for the MPAA using that logic? If the issue isn't one of quality, it must be one of control. But where is the line drawn, when humans themselves have I/O and computational ability and when this is the direct root of human civilization?
If you pay for access to an idea, must you therefore relinquish control of your mind? That is what the argument reduces to.
Ponder TJ's words:
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the mora
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but the letter seems to indicate that removing or stopping the offending "offsite backup" is enough, "or Comcast will be forced to remove or block access to the works".
I have no plans to send them a letter in return.
It doesn't say or imply, IMO, that unless a letter is returned, further legal action will be taken. It does seem to imply that if the activity doesn't stop, that your service is in danger, which makes sense.
That's a long standing urban legend...
I got one of these letters several months ago accusing me of sharing some movie i've never heard of on a p2p. I called their abuse department and asked what the deal was and explained that I had never used morpheus or whatever the p2p was and that I never had the filenames in question. The guy told me that there were discrepancies between the databases that they used to generate the letters and the database that tracks their ip leases. Meaning... The ip they listed was never one that was assigned to me, and the letter was a mistake. The guy in their abuse department said that they are required to send the letters but to just throw it away and move on and nothing else was ever going to happen anyway.
Part of the reason that Comcast is playing ball is that they were ASKED, vs. VERIZON who was given a 'writ' and a demand for customer info. Comcast has been asked to notify SPECIFIC customers of violations or potential violations. Honestly I think that is the way the system is SUPOSSED to work, and if you ARE trading in illegagl copies you SHOULD get busted. If you own a copy of the source material, then they should be going after the people who downloaded it without proper legal right.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
the funniest thing about all of this is that the more complaining that the RIAA or whoever do results in the more underground operations that will rise to share the data.
This also resulting in better written more secure products by and for the pirates themseleves.. Hell, first you had ftpd. Now you have ftpd with identd, ip restriction, keyed private irc channels, servers and more. You need to be screwing the group founders' sister to have any affiliation.
If they keep complaining they will never track people down. The people will always win. They need to come up with a better way to go about things and right now it looks like only encyption type methods help for a limited time. Oh well, they will have to come up with something better.
-- The box said Windows 2000 or better... so I installed Linux
Never deal with P2P crap again. Go to the masters: Newsbin.com
Then AGAIN I feel that TO speak the way that you WRITE would make a PERSON seem to be either GOING through some deep eMOTIONal problems OR they are JOHN Wayne, back from THE DEAD.
The letters do not require an apology, nor do they require any response from you.
The letters pretty clearly state that if you believe you are hosting the file legally, free from copyright encumbrance, and you object to getting threatened with the DMCA for what you believe are spurious reasons, *THEN* you can write a letter to plead your case.
Even if it was a copyright violation, if you just remove the file (in most cases it's long gone anyway), the problem goes away... they are not strongarming you, they are asking you to not make trouble. I don't often chime in on the side of Comcast, but fucking hell, did 'tm' or Cowboy Neal even *read* the fucking thing before going all rabid?
If you start getting dozens of these letters, you might consider strong encryption, changing your lifestyle, getting a new broadband provider, or just laying low for awhile. If you get *one*, and it's not served to you in person by a human at your door, then (a) read the damn thing and (b) don't get your panties in a bunch, you fucking knob.
I am not familiar with the referenced file. I searched my computer and did not find this file in my filesystem. I often get unsolicted links sent me via AIM, Email, web popups, and network popups. One of these links may have been clicked on.
Signed
Comcast user
Lets be realistic here. There is NO mention of Comcast giving out ANY user information. I assume MGM contacted Comcast with a list of IP addresses, Comcast is tackling this from their own end. Big picture though... How is anyone realsitically supposed to know what is indside a file before downloading it? Is a file name and an IP address enough evidecse to assume you were knowingly contributing to copyright infringment? What if you got an email saying "New Microsoft Updates" and it happens to point to http://somesite.inv/xfiles.torrent (remember, many popular email clients do not directly show you the link and render html).
Torrents provide an easy way for anyone to see the participating members. Of course the media companies have no easy way to see if you got the whole thing, 10kb of it or have been redistributing it at 100kB/sec for 10 days.
Usenet seems to be more protected for the downloaders as the only place logs are kept are with the individual news server owners. Any attempt at a media company getting the download logs would be truely a fishing expedition. The point of all these questionable methods being used by the media companies is to scare people and do it with the cheapest and easiest method. If it really did come down to a court case involving money and damages, they would need more evidence then an IP address and possibly a filename to get money and prove a point. Detailed logs of your file transfers and possibly even packet captures, exact timestamps, the file in its entirety as transfered from YOUR computer only (you could have been pushing out bogus data etc) and probably much more. All of this is already possible with the cooperation of ISP's but the bang for the buck is not good. They want to protect their rights in a civil court but want it done cheaply with no effort involved. The result is campaign contributions, FUD, and cheesy attempts at laws. The DMCA and the one proposed allowing them to "hack" into your computer stand out the most.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
My terms say
In connecting to the Broadband Service, you must only use a PC you own or lease, and you must not attempt to connect your PC to the Broadband Services from outside your home . This includes the use of wireless or non-wireless networking technology to connect your PC or any other PC to your Broadband Services from outside your home (other than your own garden) or the connection of your PC to anyone else's Broadband Services.
Full Terms Here
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Dear Sir/Madam/Media Monopoly
In response to your cease and desist letter claiming I have infringed upon some mythical agreement I can only offer the following explaination. GO FUCK YOURSELVES. I'm truely sorry you think you are entitled to increasing profit margins by using government controls. As our most high glorious exalted leader said to the Iraqi's, "Bring it on!."
Sincercely
PS I know what you do in the privacy of your boardroom/bedroom.
ntl: user policy
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I know we all like to pick on the DMCA but you shouldn't just throw it in every writeup. These people are violating copyright law, not the DMCA. The DMCA is being used to force them to remove the material or else the ISP without sending a C&D or court order. That is the only way it is involved.
did you see the smiley face?
Reading comprehension is not your strong point, now is it?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Though I do tend to agree that if people get busted for unauthorized trading, so be it.
But I don't think that Comcast's action vs. Verizon's is based on coprorate "feelings" regarding whether they were asked nicely.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Please :)
Specially people with lots of capital and the will to start new IT commpanies. Oh yeah and with more patience than the people who came here before the bubble.
Thank you.
In an unrelated question, has anyone tried the spray on products for defeating "speed cameras"? Found one listed at Phantom Plate but don't know if the stuff really works. Probably should drive the speed limit more closely, but those darn cameras are going up everywhere in Maryland.
I wouldn't bother. For one thing, a spray-on product is likely to be rather ineffective - sure, it could be a textured clearcoat, but the texture is only going to trap road dirt and make your license plate filthy all the time.
The other thing is that around here (Ontario, Canada), it's illegal to have anything on your license plate. Cops ignore dealer frames and clear plastic license plate covers, but if you go with anything else, they're likely to nail you.
Another thing is that photo radar units (in Ontario experience) tended to be installed in high-traffic areas because that's where they'd catch the most violators. Because they're high-traffic areas, they're also precisely the places where you shouldn't be driving like an idiot. I like to stretch those throttle return springs, too - but the time and place to do it is in an *empty* piece of freeway where there's no traffic. No traffic generally means a quiet enough area that a photo radar unit wouldn't be financially viable or would be subject to vandalism. My personal record is getting my 1976 big-block Dodge Ram up to 120 MPH - it got a little scary so I didn't push it further, the aerodynamics of the vehicle are such that the back end was getting light. And the only person I was risking was myself.
The other thing I'd remind you is that the speedometer in your car is really not a very accurate gauge - generally +/- 10% anyway. Then, you get the optional wheel package on your new car, and you'll have bigger wheels with the same speedometer - probably no difference in the speedometer pickup gear (VSS) or software in the ECM, and you'd be going ($whatever_percent_the_circumference_of_your_tires _are_bigger_than_speedometer_design)*($speedometer _reading).
A friend of mine is a cop, and he told me the rules: they don't pull you over if you're within 20% of the speed limit. 120km/h in a 100km/h zone will be ignored, unless you're driving like an asshole (changing lanes constantly, tailgating, staying in the passing lane when not passing, etc.).
I have never in my life been nailed for speeding or any other moving violation. Cops are reasonable, and if you're playing safe, they don't care.
Vehicles I've had (as a testament to how quickly I've travelled):
Fast cars I've driven extensively (in order of potential for speeding tickets):
Like I say, don't worry about the photo radar. You'll only find it installed in places where you shouldn't be driving like an asshole.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
If my roommate is caught downloading and the Comcast account is under my name, I'm probably going to get my ass handed to me, aren't I?
What are the odds I can get use the defense, "It was my roommate?"
Extract a statement admitting to the activity before the lawsuit is even filed. From a legal standpoint, it's brilliant.
Hint: Do Not Reply!
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
"Could it have anything to do with Comcast's (recently abandoned) bid for Disney? And Disney-MGM Studios?"
No. MGM is currently in negotiations with Sony Pictures for a buyout. MGM does this every few years or so. They'll probably go back to Time Warner because Richard Parsons (Time Warner Chairman) has been shown to be very flexible in terms of ownership structure on joint-ventures whereas Sony (Columbia) Pictures probably would not offer such a concession.
A combination of the classic MGM AND Columbia film libraries might also incur antitrust issues, at least in the European market. Again, a merger between MGM and Warner Bros. Pictures (division of Time Warner) would be the more sensible option.
Comcast is trying to be more of a good-neighbor with the content providers because it itself is jumping into the content business. They just acquired TechTV a couple of weeks ago...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I know a lot of people are against piracy. That's great and all, but what does that have to do with the fact that Comcast is basically spying on their users? Don't you see anything wrong with that?
A lot of you are blind and assume that because it's their network, they can do whatever they want. They can *to a point*. What if they collected information about sites you visited in an attempt to sell targeted media to you? If that were the case, it's not okay, but the second you throw in "illegal activity", it becomes okay? No!
You can be against it all you want, you can speak your opinion all you want, but mind your own business, especially if it doesn't affect you. Instead, realize that there are greater evils, like the fact that these corporations are taking the law into their own hands. It's happening more and more every day, and if you shrug it off and say, "Well, it's okay because it's targeting pirates," then you have no respect for privacy period.
Are you really willing to bend over without thinking give up your privacy just so the industry can go after a few home P2P users sharing files? It's absurd to think you can stamp out piracy by going after home users and it's even more absurd to willingly give up your right to privacy just so they can try.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
The usual movie piracy procedure is like this:
1. First distribute camcorder recorded version of movie
2. Follow-up with high quality 3 part camcorded version
3. After 2 months release divx screener copy
4. Release full DVD rip of screener copy
5. Release divx of retail DVD
6. Release full DVD rip of retail DVD
You can generally pick when and which version you want, it all depends on how eager you want to see the movie. At least this is what I've heard.
"Keep in mind, Comcast is also trying to sell you premium cable channels and video on demand. Any MGM movies obtained through p2p is potentially revenue lost to Comcast as well."
One of the things that keeps me away from PPV and VOD is the fact that rarely do the cable channels present the movies in their original aspect ratio. Until they start broadcasting widescreen, my money will go to NetFlix.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
First of all, this isn't new. I got one of these from Comcast back in September, which was 8 months ago.
:P
Second, it does not say you must submit an explanation and apology. You only have to submit something to them if you believe that the file was mistakenly identified.
The only thing this is asking you to do is stop sharing the file. Which is what I did. Comcast is not trying to invade your privacy. And they are most definitely not doing this because they want to, it's because the copyright owner has used the DMCA to force Comcast to notify you of your infringement.
I really wish the editors would look into the details of things like this before submitting a story. It's almost as if they want to post misleading information to make controversy amongst us users and start a heated debate.
Joseph?
I guess it's just me, and IANAL, but I really don't understand, nor do I give even one crap, about the DCMA.
Naturally I understand the stealing is wrong. I hope I am not violating this DCMA, as I don't do things I here others do, like P2P mpg's and such.
What I can't understand is why Comcast:
1) Gives a crap
2) Gets involved
3) Threatens the COMCAST customer
On behalf of a third party. Of course a third party who isn't third, since they own part/all of Comcast. But still, legally supposed to be a third party, I think (but then IANAL).
This just like to me that if I rob a bank, driving a Buick, it is somehow the fault of General Motors and which oil company I bought the last tank of gas from. Not me. And if the bank wants, it can just get it's money back by suing GM and oil company XYZ, or get them involved with pursuing me, the bank robber.
Please, those of you who are lawyers - stop the madness!
Just Me
PS - I'm switching from Comcast. This is end for me. Of course my other broadband choise is Qwest (aka QWorst) so out of the fry-pan and into the fire!!!!
Oh dear, another "but think of the children" mindless response. Our liberty is worth nothing in the balance of saving just one child!
You've heard the phrase "freedom isn't free" right? There will always be people who get the short end of the stick because someone else exploits the freedoms that are suppossed to be inherent in our society. The only way to erradicate those exploitations is to erradicate those very same freedoms.
You can certainly plead 5th amendment in a civil court. Especially if when you do not you'll be subject to criminal prosecution. However, since in civil court you dont need "beyond reasonable doubt" to lose but rather "preponderance of the evidence" your chances tends to be worse. Also when you invoke the 5th you can be barred from presenting your defense, and the jury will be told that they may infer you did anything for which you invoked the privilege. In summary, you better have a very sympathetic jury when you plead 5th in civil court. IANAL.
On the other hand: all ISPs suck. I've had PacBell DSL. It went down once a week, and when you called to ask why, you'd get some guy in India. *sigh*
I also have T-Mobile. I pay $20 a month billed to my cell for the hotspots deal. If I'm out far from home and something interesting happens, I can pull into a Starbucks and ssh into work. (More fun: $6 more gets me GPRS stuff, == I can check my mail via pop3 on my phone. (All this stuff goes on my cell bill.)) If I'm at home, I use my neighbour's wireless net. All set.
I don't know why I bother, as this is already an old thread, but I'm assuming you might check on your post, even if it's an AC post.
First, it's not to save one child. Hundreds of millions of children are exploited for sexual purposes every year.
Second, there is no "Freedom to Download Movies" to be infringed. There are valid legal reasons to rip a CD to MP3. There is no valid legal reason to take a camcorder into a movie theater and post the video for download. It might fun. It might be easy. But, it's not defensible as a liberty.
The constitution guarantees those rights not reserved by law to the people. Copyright, however, is a right that is enumerated to the creator of the work.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
Of course they care. Because this is OBVIOUSLY lost revenue. If you weren't busy watching ExoSquad, you'd obviously be paying hard cash for other MGM releases instead.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It seems like ISPs are shooting themselves in the foot by helping the industry. Why would anyone bother with DSL or Cable if they had no use for the bandwidth. Watching all the latest pop music videos on Launch I guess? I could get by on dialup just find if all the internet was used for was checking email.
"DirecTV does, at least from what I've seen. Maybe you just need a better cable company."
The problem is, going with DirecTV is not a solution to broadband providers. It is a fact that cable modems are faster than DSL. IMHO, giving money to DSL providers is like throwing pearls to pigs. While I am fed up with cable companies raising their rates constantly, the fact remains that they did incur huge expenses in upgrading their pipes throughout the 1990s. The regional Bell companies (most of which are now SBC) did not. They had a technology (ISDN) that could've given the masses the internet much sooner (given that 1200 baud modems were the rage back then) than we got it but they failed to deploy it properly (my Atari 1040ST natively supported it back in '86, in the OS).
The problem with cable is that cable is its own worst enemy. They raise prices. They won't discontinue analog when they'd save a fortune if they made digital cable the standard package. If they'd embrace "a la carte" and force the content providers into it, they'd eat their satellite competitors for brunch.
What really needs to happen is large institutional shareholders like CalPERS legally challenging groups like the Roberts family who control Comcast like they were majority shareholders when in fact, they are minority shareholders but thanks to ridiculous rules they set up, they are the masters of Comcast and do what they feel like doing.
Here in the Sacramento market, we do have an upstart cable competitor. Its called Surewest Broadband (formerly WinFirst), and they deliver fiber directly to your home. They rewire your home with CAT5, and their transmission speeds are the closest you'll get to gigabit ethernet to your home in the next 5-6 years. They also bundle telephone service with it, whereas I myself have to go through Vonage over Comcast cable for VoIP because Comcast is too lazy to offer it. Granted, SureWest Broadband is bankrolled by the fees their parent company (local telephone monopoly Roseville Telephone) makes in its market, but it is serious competition in this regional market to Comcast. Unfortunately, it is not available all over the Sacramento Metro area, only in pockets. I'd also say that cable was much better when AT&T Broadband administered this area prior to the Comcast acquisition. Stupid FCC (and FTC)... Place restrictions on the AOL Time Warner merger, but play wrist slapping on Microsoft and Connect Four with Comcast...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
There is no valid legal reason to take a camcorder into a movie theater and post the video for download. It might fun. It might be easy. But, it's not defensible as a liberty.
Except only ONE person took that camcorder into the theatre. It was posted and shared and the act of sharing it is different than the act of camming it - again, even the law says so. Your argument in this case is moot, as sharing those files is the issue here, not creating them. As in child molestation images, the creation of the material represents the real crime - what comes of the material after that creation should, quite arguably, not be a crime at all.
Just for all the tinfoil hat paranoids like me, it doesn't appear that Comcast is "monitoring" their users' internet usage (Gotta keep the common carrier status 'n all), but rather MGM sent them a letter that said, "Hey! This user is sharing this file, at this IP Address, at this time! Make them stop!" and Comcast sent a letter to the customer saying basically, "Um... this guy says you're doing this. If you are, knock it off. Otherwise, why is this file showing up connected to your IP address?"
I really don't think there's any spying going on here.
- GNU/Anonymous Coward
HEUREKA!
I just came up with a solution to spam!
What we need is a P2P client using all those windows zombies which spammers currently use. That will eat up bandwith from the zombies -> less BW for spam. Also that way RIAA/MPAA start paying attention to zombies, after all they are used for file trading and cloaking the real "criminals" identities. When RIAA/MPAA etc start sending the subpoenas, the ISPs will start working to get rid of those zombies..
Does anyone know if I can configure emule to use zombie as proxy..?
Not sure if this is meant to be funny or insightful..
They don't ask you to admit to guilt.
I got one of these letters because of some stuff on my computer that they thought might have been the property of Macromedia. Comcast just says they're going to block access to this file unless I give a reason it's not a violation of the DMCA.
Not good, maybe, but it's not what you're describing.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Alright now is this going a little too far, or has it already gone too far??? If the biggest crime your committing is download a bunch of crap movies that MGM put out than who cares. You know who cares a company than grossed $368.8 million dollars between January 3, 2003 - January 1, 2004 according to www.boxofficemojo.com Go here for those stats : http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/ . This year they happen to be losing money. They want to blame it on the downloads and the bootlegs. Of course it had nothing to do with the score of flops they have been putting out does it. Lets see the list of winners includes Good Boy, Uptown Girls, Agent Cody banks 2, Barbershop 2, and now Walking Tall. Which has not yet made it money back. Again according to Box Office Mojo http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=walkingtal l.htm . Just to clarify I am not saying these are bad movies they just weren't moneymakers. Now we have to take into consideration that we are talking millions of dollars being spent here, and there is some profit. Each of the movies made at least a million dollars, but that won't buy the big wigs at MGM that new beach house, or what ever it is they spend their money on. Well I guess we better get those bas***ds that are downloading our movies cause its just wrong and illegal.
As long as you are breaking Comcast's rules, then Comcast cannot be held liable for your actions.
Hundreds of millions of children are exploited for sexual purposes every year
Most of them by R. Kelly and Michael Jackson.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
You think there is anything stopping this from happening now?
At least a court order has a longer papertrail than simply bending an ISP's arm.
--Demonspawn
They want to shut down Gmail because "a machine" is going to look at the "private" e-mails of people that "agree" to let them do so. Yet they don't seem to give a big fuck about them watching every damned move I make on my computer in the privacy of my own home "without my permission"!? Ok one more attempt at this, I don't understand how them tracking my internet useage (the only way they can get that information) is not a blatant slap in the face of my right to privacy? We do have a right to privacy do we not? That's where "Invasion of Privacy" came from? I think all these bullshit rule makers had better step back and let the public make their own decisions. If they don't they're going to trip over each others feet and end up in a tangled up mess and "we the people" are going to end up with one hell of a big mess.
Jay Dale "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!"
Cox, already does this. Luckily, it is pretty easy to BS them, they're not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer. Unfortunately, though, I've hear that if someone complains about you three times, they'll cut off your service whatever your excuse is. And it really sucks since there's not too many other ISP's around here (in Wichita, KS). *prays for SpeakEasy to come here and liberate us from these bastards, Cox*. Luckily though, you can improve your safety quite a bit by using Protowall or other blacklisting software.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
Dialup gets more appealing as time goes on.
You don't have to deal with all the trojans, the attempts to use you as a spam gateway, and now getting your ass sued for being insecure (unknowingly or otherwise).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'm quite familier (sic) with title 17 of the us code, state and local laws might differ and there is a possability (sic) of a law I havn't (sic) seen yet. If I'm wrong (leagaly (sic) not moraly (sic)) then please cite the laws for me.
This kind of post really cracks me up. If I were able to get past the 20+ horrendous spelling and grammatical errors, I might believe this guy knows what he's talking about. I mean, he claims he's quite familier (sic) with the pertinent codes. However, when it looks like an 8-year-old wrote it, I'm hard pressed to believe there's any coherent thought behind it. The only things missing are the lined paper and a burnt-umber crayon.
Dear sumdumass,
Are you familiar with Merriam-Webster?
Regards,
Note to others:
A little skill in spelling will get you far in life. Would you hire someone who's resume looked like the parent post?
Note to prospective employers:
Make your candidates write something during their interview. This guy will undoubtedly have his resume professionally written, and you certainly wouldn't want him issuing your press releases!
</decaying-spelling-rant>
What the monopolists call 'stealing' or 'piracy',
they used themselves to call 'new sales losses'
in another more innocent time. That was before the
monopolists took over the government in a practical
way. When the RIAA can propose laws at whim and
caprice and get their bought and paid for sock
puppets in Congress to actually PASS such travesties
of right and justice, then these monopolists are
actually in de facto control of our government.
We used to, and most of us really in our gut
still feel, is that when we buy a tape or a record, it is ours to keep and do with whatever we want whenever we want. It rightfully should not be some kind of specious license to be revoked at whim or hint of extra attainable greed. We all used to copy friends tapes of music that we liked so that we could listen to it too. Sure the copies were'nt the best, so if we really liked it, we went out and bought it. If we had two cars in the family and cassette players in each one, we did not buy complete collections of expensive tapes so that each could have a 'licensed' library. Tapes were often left in hot cars and degraded from the heat. These had to be replaced. Often a good tape was no longer being made and was basically irreplacable. We did not go out and 'sell' these things! No one would buy them! They had their own collections.
We are not hurting the musicians or other 'artists' by buying extra copies of this stuff for our cars, extra bedrooms, ad nauseum. Most of the 'artists' these days will NEVER hurt for lunch money. The twelve years olds who are sued by the RIAA will certainly now know hunger. In older times, the artists were routinely cheated out of their royalties by the publishers and the 'labels'. Somebody should ask the ghost of Billie Holliday what SHE thought about how the record labels fought to get her money from the public!? Somebody should ask Willie Nelson how nice those royalty cheating record companies are to the artists. And those companies have the royal nerve to hide behind the artists that they cheat while they extort money from customers that they blackmail, while the whold time they get protected by politicians that they bribe!!!!! I think that the Jews would call this Chutzpah! The recording companies would understand what Chutzpah was; most of them are run by Jews. But then calling them these names would make them mad and they might resort to doing in this country what they do in Palestine where they have never been brought to justice for stealing a whole nation from the Palestinians. I am not Palestinian, but know what a thief is. And the present Jewish leader, Sharon, who rockets and bombs innocent children in high rise apartment houses, is no different from the monopolist executive who would do the same thing if he could in his monopoly's pursuit of ill gotten gains frim a somnambulistic public.
I'm also curious about whether they are proactively scanning their own network for content, or if they are merely forwarding DMCA cease-and-desist letters from the studios.
If they're doing the former, then they're filtering their network based on content, which is enough for them to lose "common carrier" status under the law, making them liable for all illegal traffic that their routers forward.
No service provider with half a brain would want that.
"Simply downloading something doesn't violate the law"
This simply isn't true. It may not be a criminal act, but it is still against the law, and the copyright holder can enforce his or her rights in civil court. Sharing violates the distribution rights under 17 USC 106(3), and downloading violated reporoduction rights under 17 USC 106(1). Furhter, sharing also probalby violates 17 USC 512 (or whatever section it is that makes it infringement to digitally transfer a copyrighted work).
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
I was gonna change to Comcast from Star Power (RCN)
I guess I won't then...
too much of a coward to leave your name. No responsibility for your actions. Anyone with an IQ over 75 could see that Orion was apparently joking. I have not seen that brand of humor since Andy Kaufman died. Orion, a bit of advice, next time leave that "warning, slippery when sarcastic" sign when you post something like that, as the mentally challenged have no idea that you are joking. Unless that is what you meant to do?
I have a question for /.ers regarding copy write laws. First, I'd like to say that I don't download music, and I don't download movies. I buy CD's and I buy DVD's. However (with my Qwest connection) I DO download TV shows via P2P. Is this breaking the law? Seems to me that I could pop a tape in the VCR and record shows off TV (presumably legally... as far as I know), so what's the difference in storing it on my hard drive instead of a VHS tape. Is this legal or illegal?
This complaint is for file sharing and not down loading.
this is actually one of the provisions of the DMCA.
Some Cable companys already have a process in place to deal with this.
And no they can't tell what your downloading only what your sharing.
I can't believe this got by editing.
Tetalon
Official statement from a Comcast representative when they blocked my remote user's VPN appliance from connecting to our network (he lives out of DSL range, and his attbi service was working just fine until Comcast took over):
"Comcast Internet services are for entertainment purposes only, therefore, you will no longer be able to run your VPN over our network."
I would imagine that the Entertainment portion of the Internet includes hunting down downloaders and such. Gotta love it, "Entertainment purposes only..."
man rtfm
Thats an interesting aproach to it. Now the person offering it for download is the one sharing and they are definatly violating the law as you said.
But for me to be able to give you somethign, I already have to have the copy and then give it to you. In other words the person making the unauthorized copy would be the person offering it for download. You see, if it is placed there for me to download, in a place that usually offers legal downloads free of charge, then it is no different then going into a store and buying a carton of milk that came off of a hijack milk truck earlier that day.
I will have to do some more thinking on that aspect of it. I may be wrong and sometime I find that often the case.
You can substitue milk for a book magazine or whatever above. I'm still not sure i see it being the downloader liability. Were would the violation rest if i copied an article word for word from cnn.com or foxnews.com and placed them into my newsletter that you conect to a news-server and download to your computer to view offline in your newsreader. Clearly I would be the one in violation but, would you be in trouble too for downloading it? Well maybe not the firstime but what if this type of thing happens several times a month and it is well known it happens? Here we are drawing closer to p2p networks and the likes.
I know it is moraly wrong and is moraly stealing when you do goto a site to downlaod somethign you know you should be paying for. But i'm not sure that the law is set to see it that way.
First, it's not to save one child. Hundreds of millions of children are exploited for sexual purposes every year.
Are you really claiming that at least one out of every forty people in the entire world is sexual exploited every year? If that were true, more than half of the world's population would be a victim. Your hyperbole reveals your mindless agenda.
Second, there is no "Freedom to Download Movies" to be infringed.
However, there is this little thing called the fourth amendment. You are advocating the development of technologies that, if employed by the government in "the war on kiddie porn" would be serious violations of the fourth amendment.
-----
First, it's not to save one child. Hundreds of millions of children are exploited for sexual purposes every year.
-----
There's a quantum logic that says that you'll find anything if you look for it hard enough. Would you mind stating, for the jury, why you're obsessed with child pornography? We have hundreds of witnesses waiting in the wings who will attest to never having viewed child pornography nor have they participated in the abduction of children for exploitative purposes. How is it that you're surrounded by this filth?
-----
Second, there is no "Freedom to Download Movies" to be infringed
-----
On this you are correct. I propose the following solution:
1> Make all filesharing punishable by death. Let's quit dinkering around with this crap.
2> Give the media companies a full, unchallengeable, government enforced monopoly and see just how truly fair priced they are.
3> Watch CD and DVD prices double, triple, or quadruple within five years of establishing the monopoly.
4> Watch as media conglomerates starting sponsoring prisons just as often as they sponsor baseball parks.
5> Profit from prosecuting every poor shmoe that can't afford their overpriced crap.
6> Watch civilization degenerate.
God I wish you people would start thinking a little more than five minutes into the future. Pharmaceutical companies jack prices and every single Prozac-head in the nation cries foul but when media companies start throwing around RIAA/MPAA pronouncements you all bow down like your HMO threatened to cut off your fix.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
but having illegaly aquired copyrighted works has nothing to do with "circumevention devices" last time I checked.
The outlawing of circumvention devices is only one of the DMCA's many provisions. Another major provision is the copyright holder notification system, which requires any ISP to identify its users to a copyright holder if the holder can point out a specific thing that's infringing.
Previously, ISPs could use the "common carrier" defense, and claim "I bear no responsibility for the contents of the data my customers transmit". But now they must respond if a specific violation is pointed out. (George Lucas attempted to abuse that regulation by sending a mass mailing to ISPs notifying them that all Star Wars videos were infringing, but that didn't work because it was unspecific)
You only see the points on an article as of the last time a page loaded. Therefore (esp. on new stories) you may have 5 moderators who read a good Score=1 story and think it should be a bit higher. They all mod and then it's magically a +5 without any of them knowing there were other mod points coming. The only proper solution is an "Overrated", which has it's own drawbacks (esp. if it was a "Funny" post), and burns extra mod points that may be better used elsewhere
- Sig
So they tried, and they failed. Why would they be bending over backwards for them now?
Reply and say that your neighbors run wild and you're clear? Has anyone read the TOS? You're not allowed to let anyone off your property use your internet connection. Sounds like it would be getting you into deeper water. Possibly hotter too.
Think for a minute about PeerGuardian's purpose, to prevent you from connecting to known RIAA/MPAA/BSA/etc hosts. Read that again, slowly, and pay special attention to the word "known."
If you think that the MPAA is going around scanning P2P networks from IP addresses registered to MPAA (or if you think that BayTSP is going around doing it from BayTSP IP addresses), you need to get with the program. You can block every
What if I told you that there are RIAA employees, acting as agents of their employer, who run "DMCA bot" software on their home PCs, over their home broadband connections which are subsidized by the RIAA? What is PeerGuardian going to do now, block every known broadband IP range? Like I said, half a condom.
Forget PeerGuardian. More importantly, if you're trading copyrighted material, forget BitTorrent. Check out something like Freenet or MUTE (I suggest the former, as the latter is so early in development as to be mostly unusable). If you find Freenet too slow for your liking, go back to BitTorrent. Hell, feel free to install PeerGuardian if it makes you feel better. Just don't come crying when the copyright police show up.
I could never understand why people who do illegal things such as software, music, and movie piracy once caught bitch and complain about their rights being violated not even taking into account the rights of the people whos work they infringed on.
You got busted sorry to hear that. Now delete the file get on with your life and be thankful that they are not sueing your ass off for infringing on their copyright in stead of acting like you did nothing wrong and it is MCA's fault for tring to protect their rights which were definatly violated.
Inititing safety precaution #5, lifting the seal... :)
:)
:)
:)
Yes I did mean to put up a sign like "warning: slippery when sarcastic", my Adult ADD must be acting up again.
But then I am a pirate from a long line of pirates, actually I have Viking Acenstery. Norse worshippers of Loki, we did raids by longboats. I served some time as a pirate with the Chinese pirates, learned Kung-Fu and other useful things. Captain Ming taught me how to set up my own file sharing network, and how to cover my tracks on the Internet. Using NSA backdoors I was able to gain access to Comcast servers and remove my piracy activity from their logs. So they haven't gotten anything on me. I am a techno-pagan, a worshiper of Loki, who taught us how to mix Magick and Technology. So my spells help me pirate more files and cover my tracks. I am the Neromancer, and I'm tracing! I access big server networking using my brainpower and a magickal interface invented by Loki and passed down to his followers like me.
Loki believes that all information should be free, all works of art and copyrights should be free for use. This is our religion, this is what we believe. To deny us our religous freedom for this is a violation of our rights and offends our great God Loki. We have the right to pirate anything we want, DeCSS came direct from Loki, as did many other technologies. Loki showed us how to combine Magick with Technology to make things smaller and cheaper. Loki helped guide the creation of Arpanet and eventually the Internet. Loki came up with the idea of P2P file sharing networks. I am on a holy quest to free all information. I am a holy man, I am protected by Demons! Loki chose me to be the Silicon Messiah of cyberspace. Eventually when I free enough information, I will be invited to Asgard to eat of the golden apple and become a Norse God.
Oh yeah if anyone believes any word of this post or any other posts by me in this thread, seek professional help. Your sense of humor is in bad need of repair.
"Warning: slippery when sarcastic!"
This humorous rant, brought to you by Orion Blastar's dark sense of humor.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
The problem is that our society doesn't like it when there are different rights applied to different people. Thus the popularity of "universal" rights that can be applied to everyone. Unfortunately, this betrays the very simple fact that some people are better than other people at some things, and thus are more deserving of certain privileges.
Take driving, for instance. Why on earth should a person who competes in car racing for a living, who attends or even teaches driving schools (for example) be subjected to the same driving rules as a senile geriatric who last took a driving test in the 50's? You could make them take different tests, but administrative costs would be prohibitive (not just giving the tests, but also policing drivers).
I've long thought that drivers should be subjected to different tests to determine their actual ability. Not just to make sure that old people (notoriously bad drivers) are kept off the roads. But also to keep rural drivers off of city streets, slow drivers out of the left-hand lane, etc. I hate the fact that a kid in the middle of Idaho gets the same license as a commuter in a big, congested city (like Boston or New York). Keep these morons off our city streets, and you'll see an end to traffic as we know it.
Its not all about speed. I use DSL, because comcast is the only Cable (and the only BB alternative) where I am. Comcast service is 1.5x as fast as my DSL and 10 dollars cheaper. So why am I on DSL?
Yeah, I cant spam or hack other peoples boxen or send out kitty porn... for the sake of a brevity lets include all of that in "fuckwittery" above.
"But for me to be able to give you somethign, I already have to have the copy and then give it to you."
Look at it this way -- if you steal a book, then leave the book in a place where someone else can take it and make a copy of it, yes you've stolen the book, but it is the person who made the copy who is violating the right to control reproduction.
When you copy a file off of someone else's computer, their computer doesn't first make a copy and then send it to you. If ti did, then your analogy would be correct. What really happens is your computer assembles a copy of the work from information it obtains from the other computer. That's a violation of the copyright owner's right to control reproduction under 17 USC 106(1), and there is a long list of cse law that supports this.
Downloading is just as illegal as sharing.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Well actually the computer sending the file is the one making the copy because it is in posesion of the file the entire time.
When the computer sends the file it doesn't send the original, deleting the existance of it after being transmited. what it does is load the file into memory (first copy) and then breaks it into little pieces while preserving the original. After it is spilt into smaller section as define by the transmision control protocal, it then transmits the copy to the other computer (second copy and the one you end up with). (it is really more complicated then this but it is an acurate representation of how it works)
For your book analogy to be acurate, you would have to place the book onto my computer for me to be the one actually makking the copy. I'm in a little bit of a hurry but I can reference the ways the computer transmits the files if you feel it is neccesary. Anyways the file is both distributed and copied on the computer offering it for sale/download. the downloading of it is just the transportation. It is exactly the same as if you made the copy and mailed it to me. Thats just the way the computer works.
The DMCA did not remove the common carrier defense. See e.g. the Netcom case, which precedes the DMCA, and also see DMCA 512(l) -- Other Defenses Not Affected. If the RIAA, MPAA, and Harlan Ellison aren't careful and keep trying to cut holes in the DMCA-provided defenses, service providers may end up fighting for these pre-existing defenses leaving the DMCA moot.
Also note that a provider merely providing connectivity -- a 512(a) provider -- is not required to respond if a specific violation is pointed out. The Verizon case established this, at least for now. This was a miscalculation by the xxAAs, as they didn't forsee broadband and didn't expect people to be serving up the material from their own computers. They expected most people to be using ISP-provided servers thus subjecting the ISP to 512(c), which includes the takedown and subpoena conditions.
All a 512(a) service provider has to do to avoid liability is noted in 512(i)(1)
The technical measures referred to do not exist yet. Note that the ISP is required to have and implement a policy of termination of repeat infringers. But nothing says they have to take the complaintant's word for it that infringement is taking place.I Haven't tried it, but I have been driving the limit more and more these days for a different reason: Fuel Economy...
Measured Values
Average Speed Miles/Gallon
80 Miles/H 20
75 Miles/H 23
70 Miles/H 25.5
65 Miles/H 28
~55 Miles/H >30 (The average speed wasn't well recorded, so take this one with a grain of salt)
and this is in a 1996 Chevy Lumina
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
It seems to me that this is more comcast covering their arse, and while I think it's shitty that they should have to, I can understand why they would have to do this.
I am a Comcast customer, and while I would love to have an alternative, I can't get DSL (would have to replace the wiring in the house to get it), I can't, so I stick with comcast. While I do not download movies or music off the net (I have nothing morally against it, just that there is very little out there worth watching or listening to, and for the few movies I do want to see it's easier to just go rent the DVD than to spend a week trying to find a good copy that is what it claims to be and is hosted on a decent connection), but from my experience they seem to be pretty reasonable about stuff if you actually call and explain to them why you need or were doing $foo.
I run a web and ftp server from my home, then send me a letter about it once, I called and explained to them why I was running the server, and they said "ok, no problem" and never complained again. I was also working on a fully rendered 3D movie for awhile and was sending transfering several GB a day with my collaborators, they never shut my service off, but again sent me a letter, I called and explained what I was doing, and again they said no problem, and even offered to give me a discount on a higher bandwidth account since I had been a customer since they started offering the service around here.
And I said all that to say thing, I think a lot of people like to complain about comcast, but from my experience with them, while they do try to keep abuse down on their network, they are not unreasonable and will work with their customers if you have a valid resason for doing whater it is that you are doing, and it's hard to blame them for the movie industry abusing a bad law.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Road Runner here in NC gives me a DHCP-assigned IP that hasn't changed in almost a year, and the last change was when I changed Ethernet adapters. Also, I haven't heard a single complaint in all this mess about TWC/RR cable internet. I used to install the stuff, and I read about some bandwidth limiting to 2M/256k to try and sell "premium service for the serious internet user" at $50 more a month for 3M/384k...but I not once installed "premium service" and no one really gave a rat's ass; I assume that whole idea was lost because they have been advertising for many months that "our service just got up to 50% faster!" so I'm willing to bet they just let everyone have the 3Mbit downstream part of the deal anyway on the residential side and that was the end of that. Oh, and since I'm in NC, I don't have to deal with Comcast! Yay!!!
Maybe 'feelings' is the incorrect term, but there are numerous potential liability issues involved in providing customer data to 3rd parties, especially when litigation is involved. Comcast was provided with ip/user information and requested to notify their customers of potential infringments/violations. Verizon, on the other hand, was given what turned out to be MANY incorrectly filed ADMINISTRATIVELY issued court writs from another district demanding user information. I have to agree with you on the corporate feelings issue, I am not convinced that corporate board members/directors are human anymore, much less have feelings of connectivity or responsiblity to the rest of the living organisms on the planet.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?