Slashdot Mirror
Iceland and USA Feel the Copyright Industry's Wrath
spellraiser writes "Iceland's Internet traffic saw a substantial decrease this week as police raided the homes of 12 individuals suspected of sharing massive amounts of copyrighted material over a private, local DC++ hub that was infiltrated by SMAIS, the Association of film right holders in Iceland. The people who were raided were questioned by the police, and had computer equipment confiscated. It is unclear at this point what their fate is, but there is a distinct possibility might face charges." And in the U.S., an anonymous reader writes "The Recording Industry Association of America strikes again with yet another round of lawsuits. Jon Newston over at P2Pnet.net doesn't hold back anything in his great commentary on it today. Best quote 'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'"
Osama is lucky he doesn't share videos over the Internet or he would awaken the RIAA Rebellious Viva La Resistance Militia capturing him in 24 hours.
I had to look that one up
p lay=faq&faqnr=1&catnr=1&prog=1&lang=en&onlynewfaq= 1
FYI
http://dcplusplus.sourceforge.net/faq/faq.php?dis
What exactly is the Copyright "Industry"? Do you mean the music industry or the movie industry? Copyright is not an industry.
they're helpless to pay $8 to see a movie in the theater?
I know I'm going to be modded up on this
Does that mean the copyright industry is an enemy of the USA and Americans? Why else would it be waging wrath upon them?
dropped an amazing 40% after the raid. Wow. Fun.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I have a long term vision on the end of this: http://www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA/love7.html
God spoke to me.
As this register article (from today) shows:_ music_pirates/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/01/uk_to_sue
Anyone know how they go about infiltrating a DC network?
What's so shameful about this is: file sharing is not going away
And people buying CD from artists under RIAA isn't either.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
When the RIAA went after P2P software we all screamed "don't attack software that has legitimate uses, go after the people actually breaking the law." Now that they're doing just that everyone's still pitching a fit.
'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'
Maybe those poor helpless men, women and children should stop stealing then.
These icelanders hadn't been using a network like my own. Anonymity, each link to another person crossing an international border... it wouldn't have been infiltrated nearly as easily. Oh well...
The RIAA just doesn't get it. Continuing with these lawsuits is not going to do anything but build another revenue stream for them. At this point, one has to wonder if they realize that and if that is all they are hoping for.
You see, the market has already spoken and it has spoken loudly. An entirely new paradigm of music distribution has evolved and it isn't going to regress to the way it was in the previous generation. The RIAA had their chance to give people a product they want online and to use the new mechanism of distribution for profit. It failed to do so, thus other non-sanctioned methods entered the space to fill the void.
What will happen now is one of two things. Either the RIAA realizes that they can't have it their way and comes up with an acceptable online offer that will attract customers, or they will continue to spin their wheels in vain and alienate their customers who will in turn seek other outlets from which to obtain music.
1. Sue tons of people.
2. People bitch to politicians.
3. Politicians pass another copyright adjustment law that 'protects' consumers while improving the recording industry's profit margin.
4. Profit!
It's that simple. They have no fear of boycott or consumer retribution. Consumers of music are sheep. Even if some of the sheep wise up and stop buying, there are more people growing up to take their place, which is probably as good an explanation as any for why the music industry targets youth.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Back when the RIAA was focused on Napster and P2P, didn't we say they shouldn't be focusing on the technology, but on those who misuse it?
Now they're doing just that - focusing on the people, not the technology. Their methods could be a lot better (they should focus on people who share a lot, not anyone with an MP3 with a suspicious name), but they *are* on the right track.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.
Of course it is - they're the ones causing all the problems!
...the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.
This is precisely the right thing for the labels to do. Go after the people who are breaking the law, not the people who make products that can be used to break the law. It is good because it is the way law should be (punishing the infringer, not the toolmaker), and it is good because it shows people how much the current copyright model sucks. Actions like this are exactly what we want, so that people will be motivated to move to new economic models of content distribution.
We need to find an economic model that both compensates the creator and moves the product into the public domain (or a similar Open license). Actions like this are exactly what will show the general public the value of the public domain.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Who happen to be sharing copyrighted material, i.e. breaking the law.
Lets call a troll a troll, here.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
From a moral point of view: people who distribute copyrighted material are violating both the letter and spirit of the law, and deserve to be punished.
From a strategic point of view: The only alternative to punishing copyright violators, short of abandoning copyright altogether, is to make violation impossible through Orwellian DRM backed up by even more Orwellian legislation, or by hamstringing the Internet in some other way. I don't want to lose my freedom and my technology because some punks thought they should be allowed to download music without paying for it.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
We won't need the internet anymore, after all there isn't enough music being created to keep up with the ever increasing storage capacities.
Soon everything ever created will fit on one DVD and that will be the end of the RIAA as we know it!! The pirates win!!
Of course I'll have to explain to my future grandchildren why we have been listening to the same Britney Spears song for the last 30 years, but screw it!! it was FREE!!
Anyone know exactly how the RIAA is going about prosecuting these days? I'm one of a lot of people who used to do a lot of filesharing and have since cleaned up their act (I went the way of iTunes). I deleted music I didn't honestly own and haven't obtained any illegally since; my question is, is the RIAA suing indiscriminately based on IPs possibly logged many many months (or even years) ago, or are they going after still-current offenders?
It seemed in the beginning that they were making a statement, and that (based on decreased Kazaa traffic) the message got through. The fact that they're still suing people is scary of those of us who got that message long ago but no longer have the opportunity to sign onto the now-defunct amnesty list (which was plagued by legal issues anyway).
http://actionPlant.com
A quote from a German Colonel made during operation Barbarossa:
"The German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him and he will be eaten to the bone."
So it is with the *AA. Eventually they will fail out of the sheer weight of numbers they are fighting.
My rights don't need management.
'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'
I hate to side with the RIAA here, but don't you remember all the p2p networks screaming in court, "You can't blame us, we don't put pirate music on the internet, our users do!" Apparently the RIAA got the message.
If this were about the SCO lawsuits we'd all be crying for the distros and hardware vendors to indemnify us. I guess it's a little too late to ask Kazaa to take the blame for us.
Why are we sticking up for people who make copyrighted Hollywood movies available for download? The one and only defense of P2P networks is that they are not "pirate to pirate" networks but rather a new tool for distributing independent, privately financed media and breaking the Hollywood deathgrip on media distribution. For years we've screamed that attacking the toolmakers (DMCA) is insane, that the tool abusers are to blame. And now, when the RIAA finally listens to Slashdot and sues the pirates themselves we're still against them?
It's articles like this that convince lawmakers, businessmen, and the Silent Majority that all this crowd is actually interested in is stealing movies. Right now I'd be hard pressed to argue with them.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
This is pretty funny, as stated in the news report domestic bandwidth for the entire country dropped about 40%. This can be seen as clear as day from the usage stats for RIX (Reykjavik Internet Exchange) a centralized point for traffic between Icelandic ISPs. Check out the second and third from top here
You can see the bandwith reduction here
We want them to go after the people ILLEGALLY sharing files.
These people are knowingly and willingly breaking the law.
This is much better than them trying to shut down the p2p networks/applications themselves.
With the Icelandic population betwen ages 10-40 at probably about 100K, 12 people going icefishing for a weekend makes a substantial decrease in Icelandic Internet traffic.
--
make install -not war
Good point! People breaking the law certainly SHOULD be prosecuted, but not the people who make the software that lets them. It's the same thing with gun manufacturers: they shouldn't be prosecuted either in civil or criminal court when a gang member uses their product to shoot somebody, neither should Ginsu for making the knife that someone uses to go on a bloody rampage. The issues that I have are: 1) CD prices are too high, 2) the little guy needs to be better able to represent himself in court. I'd like the RIAA can fix (get it?) the price problem, and I'd like them to stop flexing their lawyer muscle to make an example of 15-yr-olds and grandmothers to intimidate John Q Public.
...this is exactly what we asked for, and it's the right way to do it. For years advocates of P2P have said that copyright holders (which, regrettably, includes corporate entities) should be pursuing the individual violators rather than trying to kill P2P software or force ISPs to block their use.
The corporations may be a bit severe in their approach, and IMO the RIAA's tactic of fining offenders through a pre-court settlement is something of a miscarriage of justice. But when press releases tell us about P2P users busted for blatantly ignoring copyright holders' rights -- to the tune of thousands of files, twenty-four hours a day -- I find it hard to sympathize with them.
Best quote 'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'"
How about this instead:
"It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on the actual men women who are breaking the law and causing the problems on the first place"
Finkployd
does iceland even have jails ? Seems like everybody would know everybody on that island.. Iceland is a prison within itself, god damn remote and isolated, they might as well sentence these guys to a lifetime of Icelandic Living, the best they can do.
the worst punishment might be restricting them to the island, no more trips to tahiti... heh.
John_Allen_Mohammed.
Allah Ackbar,
Linus is Great.
The one and only defense of P2P networks is that they are not "pirate to pirate" networks but rather a new tool for distributing independent, privately financed media and breaking the Hollywood deathgrip on media distribution.
The one and only defense?
I thought it was that we are free people who are innocent until proven guilty, and should be free to connect our computers together without having to prove that we have a "legitimate" reason first. But that's just me ...
Nice sig, very poetic.
Have you read "Grendel" by John Gardner? There's a scene where a dragon is telling Grendel that Nature has no absolute scale, that things have size only in comparison to other scales, and that there's infinity in both directions. Gardner phrased it much better than I did.
Btw, the book "Grendel" has nothing to do with computers, the RIAA or Iceland. It was however, enthralling and fresh. To the mods: I know this is off topic, which is why I posted with no Karma bonus. Thank you in advance for not mod-bludgeoning me :)
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
You have completely broken the Slashdot rule of profit planning. The rule plainly states that there has to be a completely unknown/crazy/impossible event represented by "???" before a profit can be made. ;-)
"Best quote 'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'"
At the risk of being modded troll, what is wrong with cracking down on people who are:
Since when was it a right to do that with one's internet connection and movies? How does the headline submitter expect movie industries to make any money, if he endorses this behavior?
DC++ hubs were started in Iceland because we usually have to pay extra for foreign downloads so people started sharing stuff between them for free.
When they raided the 12 guys (and seized 11 terabytes of data) all the dc servers were shut down and immediatly MRTG graphs clearly showed about a 50-60% traffic between domestic connections.
We have long heen proud to say that we have very high percentage of net users here, about 95% (number pulled out of ass) of the country has the internet and DC isn't the only way Icelanders share copyrighted stuff.
In fact most people just get cd's from friends who download from DC or someother p2p sharing app.
So in our case most of the population is rampantly breaking copyright laws all the time and suddenly because of complaints from SMAIS 12 random guys are arrested and two of them held for 24 hours.
2 years in prison is the maximum punishment for a crime like this while murder is maximum 16 years and if anyone is convicted for a copyright violation in Iceland we are going to have to put the entire nation behind bars.
I'm personally disgusted that our government is even thinking about putting profits of american companies above the well being of the people it is supposed to serve.
Hitler's in the fridge.
People trading in illegal media are not "helpless", they're criminals. The RIAA should be suing lawbreakers instead of trying to get software banned. The same goes for people who pirate Windows and then complain about Linux/BSD -- a bunch of whiners.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Stealing music is wrong however you do it. If the artist realizes that there is a chance they could get more gigs and sell more tickets to shows by releasing their music for free then great but that's their choice. If they succeed in preventing P2P sharing people are just going to resort to CD Burning again. A lot of people, including the inventor of BitTorrent are making a lot of money just from donations and none of that goes to a middleman. Hopefully artists will turn to word of mouth marketing and donations sometime in the near future.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
I think you misspelled a word there, earlier. Instead of "is not an industry", the actual spelling should be "should never have been allowed to become its own industry".
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
Industry sourced cited by today's Times newspaper claim that the writs will start to fly within the next month as the UK's answer to the RIAA, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) targets "the most flagrant users of peer-to-peer Internet file-sharing sites", as the paper puts it.
Dude, this is p2p were talking about, don't you mean BPI (British Pornographic Industry)
This biased story line read like an excerpt from Les Miserables or Oliver Twist. If I don't like the 35 MPH speed limit on the road leading to my home I can't commute 70 MPH every day and not expect repercussions. If you don't like a law why not attack it legislatively? Make a grassroots effort to overturn the law. But don't knowingly break the law and expect to get any sympathy from me.
He keeps pushing his poorly reasoned "network" that no one wants to use because they know it doesn't solve a damn thing.
We're not talking about smoking here. Kick the little pissers out until they can act responsibly. Example:
The last four movies I've either seen in a theater or rented, in no particular order:
--(unadulterated) Gojira: Theater, fulfilled an old promise to myself.
--X-Men (1): Theater, first week of release.
--Episode 1: Theater, on release night.
--Princess Mononoke: Theater, on release day.
This, from when I used to rent/watch movies at least once a week. And my DVD collection stopped at 8 or 9. I remember enjoying movies, but since I really don't like the Racket, I avoid paying it for anything. Now movies and albums are a novelty.
They might force me to pay to watch, but they can't force me to watch in the first place. The same goes for music.
Oh come on. In this day and age if you share copyrighted goods online and have no clue that it is illegal then you are helpless because of a mental disability, not your financial state. While I have some sympathy for those who get caught, I just have to say you brought this on yourselves.
Until the law is changed, you know what you are up against if you share files you have no right to. We can disagree with what the RIAA is doing all day, and I certainly don't think that sharing a few songs is worth $5000 in fees, more like $1 or so for each song IMO, but these people are merely stupid, not helpless.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
This is a flaw in the justice system then, and not an indication that the RIAA should stop trying to sue. If you think that it costs too much money to defend yourself in the judicial system (which I wouldn't disagree with...), that's great -- but don't confuse the two issues. By the way, where are the "numerous" cases of people who don't even own computers being sued found at? I was under the impression that they were tracking all of this with IP information, and ISP cooperation...
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
One way to test a thesis is to view the result if it were true.
The record industry wishes us to believe that every download is a lost sale. If true, what would their sales be if all downloads had never happened? Does this figure sound reasonable? Or does it exceed the total GNP of the G-7 nations, plus Nigeria?
I, for one, do not believe for a moment that Internet music sharing has kept the music industry from suddenly expanding several times in size. And since they can't tell the truth about this, I don't believe them about much else either. Do you?
Then again, I don't believe memos allegedly typed in 1971 clearly using Microsoft Word are authentic either. But if they are, then I'm using them as prior art to invalidate all patents relating to Microsoft Office!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"suspected of sharing massive amounts of copyrighted material over a private, local DC++ hub that was infiltrated by SMAIS"
I just finished reading TFA, and the only two hits on google-news,
and I saw no explanation for the phrase "private local hub".
This phrase made it sound (to me) like the arrestees were on a LAN,
where the p2p traffic wasn't passing over the public net --
which, IF true, would be a lot more chilling.
Once again, let me post our Constitution: Article 8, Section 8, Clause 8:
/.'s, a lot of whom do programming for a living, can support theft of digital media.
The Congress shall have Power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Our Constitution protects the authors and inventors from theft via the "exclusive right" clause. That means the authors and investors can say how much they will charge for their works, and how their works will be distributed.
I read over and over again how socialists try to justify "copying" files saying that nothing is really stolen. Wrong! The author's exclusive right is stolen. This all goes back to property rights - which is something socialists and communists do not understand. Property rights enables capitalism which is what makes America great.
It still surprises me how
So if you're going to mod be down, you better have a good arguments against our Constitution and exclusive right.
Or, one could say that the action had a chilling effect on privacy.
<gets ready for beating>
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Since it's not the politically correct point to make at
That's a heckuva lotta file sharing.
And within that 2.5TB of data, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some pirated software [MSDN Universal, Autocad, Acrobat/Photoshop] that might interest the BSA [or whatever they call it in Iceland].
Iceland might consider becoming the world's library since the other aspects of their financials are changing. The fishing is not as good as it used to be and trans-Atlantic airplanes don't need refueling stops anymore.
So why not just become the center of world trading in 'copyrighted' materials and take a microcharge of each trade? They'll get kicked out of the EU? Hardly likely. Brussells can be really boring on a small Eurocrat's salary and full-price media product can be mighty expensive (and will definitely be going up in price).
Better Iceland become the world's library than Vanuatuu, because that little island could just disappear in a typhoon and take all the servers and storage with it.
Maybe, you say, no one should be the world's center of 'illegal' trade in 'copyrighted' materials. Nonsense, that is a spin fantasy of the media giants who need inexpensive unofficial downloads as much as they need full-service 'all-fees-paid' fully-legit product sales.
When five companies control most of the world's media, it doesn't really matter if people buy the product at full copyright-paid Western prices or discounted 'pirate' prices. Either way they get all the money eventually because they are the only game in town. It's more important that people consume ever-increasing amounts of corporate media product. The money will get back to them. That isn't the case when there are thousands of small and medium-sized media companies globally. However that situation no longer exists and the media executives should revise their overall concept of how this new global framework works.
In a sense the reference in the parent to secret underground terrorist religious organizations is apt because these groups are the primary competition to the global media companies, especially in the developing world where 2/3rds of the population is under the age of 25. Hollywood and religious fanaticism don't mix all that well in the long term. Both compete for the leisure time attention span (and the loyalities) of the billions of new young people. In America, corporate Hollywood won because in the current political alliance between the major corporations and the religious right the religious community has always been the weaker partner.
This should probably be a Slashdot FAQ:
Q: "Why does the rest of Slashdot hold inconsistent opinions?"
A: "Because it has more than 2 users."
Venting their power on the helpless men and women who can't fight the financial and legal power of the RIAA is still a futile and losing battle by virtue of the simple fact that there are too many people sharing files. They don't have the resources to get everyone. :)). The War on Drugs has backfired and bankrupted it's proponents. Let's hope the War on P2P will do the same.
It's as if you tried to stop drug use by targeting all the users of drugs (and we've seen how well that works
*yawn*
In the article(pretty much the same one that's being "passed around"):
RIAA sues 762 more over music swaps
In addition to those sued anonymously, the RIAA said it had sued 68 defendants whose identities had been discovered and who had declined offers to settle.
Looks like we'll finally get to see someone stand up to the RIAA's lawsuits.. I wish them luck..
The problem with Iceland is that there is a lack of criminals in the country. The police sit around and do nothing all day and all night.
Guess the got sick and tired of watching CSI, and when the request came in, jumped at the chance.
No one will be prosecuted in this case, this is clear.
As for the drop in traffic - the entire population is ca. 300.000 people, so 12 active users account for quite a bit of traffic - although the entire country is wired.
"Don't want to get sued? DON'T BREAK THE LAW!!!"
;).
No, don't want to get sued then *change* the law. Let us make copyright 0 years. The people can make it any length they wish since copyright is an artifical creation of law.
I may settle for 14 years though, if they beg us enough
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
As long as people keep having kids, do you not think there is a ready and vast supply of people willing to trade stuff online?
Teenagers are the expendible infantry of the P2P wars.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The "War on Drugs" analogy isn't really applicable. P2P participants are the drug suppliers as well as the drug users. If you rip a new CD you just bought so others can download the files for their own use then you are a pusher that is a valid target, right?
That's all?
The "If you aren't guilty you have nothing to worry about!" attitude. Please, that is just stupid. The problem with civil suits is that the bar for bringing them is much lower, as is the standard of proof.
The RIAA doesn't really need to do anything but file to have a lawsuit against you, they don't have to meet any real burden. In a criminal trial, the prosecution has to have a minimum level of evidence, or the case will just be thrown out. Likewise the burden in a criminal trial is beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning they have to have pretty convincing proof you are guilty. In a civil trial it's a perponderance of the evidence, meaning they have to argue a little better than you.
Now all this was intentional. Criminal trials are intended to be for, well, crimes, things that society wants to punish you for. They also can carry very stiff penalities. Civil trials are for resolving financial disputes. If a tennant skips out without paying you, you take them to civil court to try and get your money.
The thing is, with copyright infringement, the amount they are allowed to ask for is so outrageous, it might as well eb jail time. They can sue for $150,000 PER INCIDENT which means for EACH file. Now you cannot honestly believe that someone having a signle MP3 on their harddrive costs the RIAA $150,000 (if you do then realise you are saying they should be worth several times the current gross world product). The fine is clearly excessive, which is prohibited by the constution.
So you get sued. Even if you are innocent, you basically have to settle. Hiring a defense isn't cheap (and you don't get one by default like in a criminal case). You also need a GOOD defense since they don't have to prove you shared the files beyond a reasonable doubt, just argue that you did a little better than you argue you didn't. Then, if you lose, well they basically own everythign you make for the rest of your life since we are talking of millions of dollars per CD.
THAT is the problem. If the RIAA was suing people for the price of the CDs they are sharing, I'd have no problem. I've got no problem with them saying "Oh you have 20 CDs worth of music you didn't purchase? Fine, we want $350." I wouldn't even have a problem if they sued for say, twice the amount. YOu are allowed to have some punitive damamges in there. However the statutory damages on the books are so excessive that it's literally a matter of your entire finincal future, just for a few songs. You are forced to settle, innocent or not.
What's more, UNC did a study, the link I'll post from home later if you like that showed that filesharing has a stasticaly insignificant impact on music sales. So you are talking extreme punishments for something that appears to be of very little harm.
It's like speeding enforcement. It's a minor offence, so it's a minor punishment. A reasonable fine, and some points on your license. We could reduce speeding to almost nothing by giving police M2s and having them destory any vehicle and kill any driver going over the speed limit, but that seems rather excessive and unfair. The same is true of having a hundred thousand dollar fine on copying music when it seems to have no impact on sales anyhow.
"It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on random men, women, children, and elderly grandmothers who do not even know what P2P is but have their lives screwed over because of spyware or a wonky ISP IP log."
Yes, I can see where that is fair.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
" People trading in illegal media are not "helpless", they're criminals."
That's a little too simplistic, esp. since we are talking about copyright which is an artifical line drawn in the sand.
Draw it else where, at say 0 years and abolish it altogether. Since copyright is law, and law can be changed by the people, we can change it if they continue to harass the population.
The small mogols will find their quest for profit by stifeling new technology and turning society into a copyright police state will not be tollerated.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
So in your mind the well being of your fellow countrymen and women depends on the free and unfettered distribution of warez, music and movies?
Um... because it's the exact opposite ends?
That the GPL uses the same means (copyright) to achieve its ends ("all software must be free") is, while somewhat ironic, utterly irrelevant if you believe that all software, media, whatever should be free.
Intellectual property is no longer intellectual if you put it in a medium that is easy to copy, share, replicate, and redistribute...
And then act as if it's some big criminal surprise when people are copying, sharing, replicating, and redistributing it.
That's not intellectual anymore. It's just plain naive. Stop supporting legislation which promotes the naive. Face reality.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
"committing tons of theft of intellectual property"
Its called copyright infrindgement and is seperate and different from theft. No physical object is stolen and the 'owner' is not deprived of use of their 'property'.
"How does the headline submitter expect movie industries to make any money, if he endorses this behavior?"
Does this industry's fantasy 'right' to profit trumpet the peoples' right to freedom of information? Their fantasy 'right' to profit include turning society into a DRM police state and blocking new technology?
Their right to profit, if it exists at all, comes secondary to the will of the people. Copyright is a mere bill that can be revoked with a majority at any time, and that time seems sooner then ever.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
Individuals create MP3 from CD tracks - RIAA does not sue
Individuals swap these MP3 files - RIAA does not sue
Individuals buy 10 billion dollars of MP3 players to play the shared files - RIAA sues
RIAA allowed the infrastructure for the usage of Music files to grow to a usables size then converts it into a profit point without having to spend marketing dollars to convince user to switch to this new music format. RIAA did not lose money to files sharers- They gained millions of addicted customers.
I once read a book that another family member bought, am I a copyright infringer? I still have a local copy- I remember the story.
-
Even if some of the sheep wise up and stop buying, there are more people growing up to take their place, which is probably as good an explanation as any for why the music industry targets youth.
Except those youth are growing up in an environment where they've probably downloaded the music they listen to more than bought it. They're not likely to suddenly change and go to buying only. In fact they're more likely to stop buying music at all. Lawsuits aren't likely to faze the younger generation, especially teenagers who already think they're invincible physically.So now that's not going to work, the number of people willing to share/download music, even in the face of lawsuits, is only likely to increase, not decrease. Surely someone at the RIAA has enough brain cells to realize this.
"Boy, that Jaguar is overpriced: it's a few hundred dollars of steel, glass and leather. Therefore, I can steal it."
- don't-deprive-you-from-using-it." Do you scream when companies use GPL code without releasing the source? How is this different?"
It's called 'copyright infrindgement' and not theft for an important reason, they are different. Physical property is different than ideas and information. You do realize that you are not deprived of your ideas when someone else thinks them, right?
"Don't give me that "copyright-infringement-is-not-stealing-because-I
Do I scream? Who are you talking to, I think you'll find a wide audience here at Slashdot. As for companies bullying individuals, you'll find people fighting against them by what ever means at their disposal including flinging called copyright laws in their face.
"Let's make a deal: Microsoft can close the Linux source and you can copy all the music you want."
Lets make a better deal, abolish copyright and then the GPL and all other licenses won't be necessary. I like that better, lets go for it all it takes is a simple majority vote to repeal the copyright bill and we are there.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
I think I'll setup and exact replica of Slashdot called slashdork.org equipped with an RSS reader so when slash adds something it'll update my site too. I'll even go so far as to use their subject icons, figure out a way to duplicate their comments, etc.
I wonder if I'll end up feeling their wrath?
I know for sure I'll feel their user's wrath.
The tragedy of this is not only that these penalties are overly harsh, not commensurate with the crime, and burden millions of users for the benefit of a relatively small industry.
The tragedy is that it is a grotesque distortion of the once highly limited copyright law, a law that was only meant to regulate publishers. The incessant lobbying of spineless representatives has caused the scope and penalties of 'infringement' to balloon, without deliberation and without consulting the public.
Just as importantly, it is the industry's public relation's 'propaganda' (as Chomsky would call it) that has effectively morphed public opinion about what copyright was, what it is, and what it should be. It has changed from merely affecting publishers to affecting everyone, and it seems to many 'natural' and 'obvious' that individual users are committing willful and egregious crimes. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the parent post accepting the sad truth--"Downloading copyrighted material that you have not purchased is a crime."--wholeheartedly.
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
Anonymous Coward:
"So in your mind the well being of your fellow countrymen and women depends on the free and unfettered distribution of warez, music and movies?"
Answer:
Well being = not being thrown in jail for two years for a victimless crime.
The companies that are claiming losses are companies distributing music and movies but since the internet these information distributors are completeley useless and should be putten out of their misery as soon as possible and if sharing copyrighted material is losing them money, GREAT!
Then I can feel good about dl'ing my daily dose of warez knowing that Im helping bringing down a complete waste of resources such as SMAIS and MPAA and RIAA and all those fucking abbreviations.
PS. I would also like to mention that in Iceland we have 5 local TV channels and most of the stuff I download is something I couldn't even see here if I wanted to pay normal price for it.
Hitler's in the fridge.
OK. lets get this out of the way. It is NOT theft. It is NOT a criminal act [yet]. In fact calling it htat shows how much propoganda can program folks. Theft is when you steal a tangible item.
Now. Why is it social protest? Its people realizing that they are being price gouged by large corporations involved in price fixing. Price fixing and unreasonable extension of copyright. Copyright was a thing granted to people and companies to ENCOURAGE development and to help the author benefit from it. Unfortunately the length of it now does just the opposite. And in some ways this is another aspect of the problem
Recent court cases have ignored the basis of it. And the industries involved have refused to compete with each other pricewise for the most part even today, and tried to avoid using new technologies to help them stay competitive. As such people are using the much lower priced alternative of P2P, many recognize the greed and conspiracy among the music and other companies. People feel a bit pissed that they have been abused to the degree that these companies have fixed prices, etc. Some of the online music sites are a good step in the right direction. $.99 a song isn't too bad. The problem is that the music companies are going to try and conspire to raise these prices I think. I think that the record companies are in for a shock. They are no longer needed. The internet has replaced them.
As computer capabilities expand hollywood too could be in for a shock within my lifetime. I can see a day where 1 guy in his basement will write, direct, etc a computer designed set of actors and props to make a movie. Currently its a group effort, but I can see a day where 1 person alone....will make movie magic.
Adapt or die. The future is coming and if you stand against it you will fall.
We seem to have tons of hacked windows boxes out there spewing spam and everything else out into the wild. How come no one has made some sort of P2P zombie that shares (or at least proxies) tons of music from all over the net? That would either get the RIAA to sue the owner of every unpatched windows box in the world, or make it pretty much impossible to prove that anyone knew they were sharing.
Either result seems like it would be fun to watch.
Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
"Let's make a deal: Microsoft can close the Linux source and you can copy all the music you want."
You do realize that people will come back with the "GPL wouldn't be necessary if they're was no copyright" argument, don't you? Of course they'll miss the important point, that there's more than just "copyright" as a means to keeping things under control. Some having been hinted at on this forum.
"Sky Captain and the World of Tommorow" is an excellent example of the basic Hollywood problem today.
It didn't make any money.
In fact it lost a ton of money.
Box Office Mojo website reports that this product costs $78 million US to produce and $28 million US to advertise and promote. Yet in the critical first two weeks of theatrical release, it has brought back only $25 million. Generally Hollywood movies now must bring in 1/2 of their production costs in the first weekend of release in order to be considered profitable in the long run.
This product was well-made and certainly has appeal to a segment of the audience, but it was essensially a vanity project between the star Jude Law and the art director.
The real problem here is that someone in the studio framework who should know better allowed a $100 million vanity project to get made. This seems to indicate that Hollywood is running out of ideas for product and are beginning to throw money at anything that has a star's enthusiasm.
Studios are supposed to the star's bullshit filters, not bullshit enablers.
This is just one sign that Hollywood is on the verge of a product crisis not unlike those that hit it both in the 1950's from television and the early 1970's from the counter-culture.
You people need to realize that Copyright Infringment is in fact Stealing!! ,and that equals stealing money directly from the Airlines and Railroads!
And Driving a car is Stealing too, By driving
a car YOU(yeah i mean you, you thief)
are breaking the rules to get somewere
Now you may not have planned on buying an Airline ticket anyway but that dosent matter!
And the Airlines may not actually loose anything
since the planes fly anyway but....
The Airlines spent money developing the routes
provides security ect ect...
And along comes you thieves stealing your way
to another location and circumventing security too
in the process.
Anyways, Stop pirating the transportation system
wenn you need to go somewere, you stinking thieves.
hmmm or maybe driving a car is not stealing?
and maybe speeding while driving is not Armed Robbery?
and maybe just maybe Copyright infringment is
not stealing too....maybe Copyright Infringment is
just Copyright Infringment?
Murder seems immoral in and of itself. The freedom to have information does not seem remotely 'evil', if it is even evil, or as extreme as murder.
Thanks for playing though...
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
http://www-m.isnic.is/status/rix/linanet/linanet-w eek.png
Hehe... warez is teh shit!
"These icelanders hadn't been using a network like my own. Anonymity, each link to another person crossing an international border... it wouldn't have been infiltrated nearly as easily. Oh well..."
And the moral's we're teaching our youth is...DON'T GET CAUGHT DOING YOUR CRIME. Is it any wonder we have Enron's, Worldcom's, S & L's, and all the rest. We yell about all the rest, all the while creating more and more like them every day.
"This phrase made it sound (to me) like the arrestees were on a LAN,
where the p2p traffic wasn't passing over the public net --
which, IF true, would be a lot more chilling."
Actually, these users where on a DirectConnect hub that required registration to use. The rumours say that "someone" pobably got contacted by the police and decided to become their friends instead of paying whatever the police wanted. The DC community is pretty large here, most people at school know what DC is and use it, and we have som big hub networks so to get your favourite movie is, erhm *was* pretty easy.
So yes, actually the traffic went though the public net.
Isn't that like, breaking into your house (private residence)?
No. More like, taking away all your belongings?
Where is a law to protect *this* right. That nobody has the right to confiscate a man's computer. I don't trust these dorks with my files.
Most of you anyways...
You rant about how everyone that 'steals' a copyrighted work is a criminal, and should be punished, yet I'd say that everyone that has commented on this matter (in that way) is a criminal (by your definition). It's a fact of life that people borrow this or that from someone at some point in time to get a copy for yourself.
I'm sure you'd argue that wait, these (pirates? heh) people are REALLY criminals, because they are doing more then just that one 'innocent' thing.
BS...
Plus, it's really time for this whole issue to cause a forward thinking set of changes. The ability to easily transfer data of any sort is only going to get easier as time goes on. It's too easy for it to feel like you are doing nothing wrong, because ultimatly you are not doing anything but grabbing some 1' & 0's, it's not like you have stolen money or blood on your hands etc, it's information.
Maybe us humans need to finally get over the mine syndrome (greed) and start worrying about real problems for the first time...ever..
Intellectual property laws are stupid. So are Copyright laws. In fact, many laws are stupid. They are only there because people don't have any concept of sharing or helping their fellow man beyond trivialities (..or are cattle).
"The RIAA had their chance to give people a product they want online and to use the new mechanism of distribution for profit. It failed to do so, thus other non-sanctioned methods entered the space to fill the void."
I'm certain Apple will be surprised to hear that. Who knew history could be so flexible.
Wikileaks, no DNS
It's amazing the twisted logic people will use to remove themselves from all responsibility for their own actions.
" Best quote 'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'" "
The RIAA should have never even gone after P2P application writers. Being able to share a file with someone (or everyone) is not in itself any crime at all! They should ALWAYS have gone after the infringers of the (C) themselves. If sharing a (C) file with someone (or everyone) is a crime, then the sharer is certainly the main guilty party here. Secondly, anyone knowingly DLing and using (C) works is a secondary culprit. Running (or writing) a P2P client itself is NOT A CRIME AND SHOULD NEVER BE!
When did we lose all our sanity anyway?
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
The death of the RIAA would NOT mean the end to music. It might however mean that in 30 years, you won't be listening to whatever they call the Britney Spears clone who would be popular at the time.
"I have to agree with this. If there isn't any avenue to legally purchase it I have no moral qualms with downloading it."
And ladies and gentlemen I give you exhibit A what's wrong with humanity. As that old joke goes "How do you know there is intelligent life out their? Because it's not visiting here."
You have no right to be entertained. If no one wants to sell/give/whatever something to you. A bond of automatic entitlement doesn't immedietly form.
Also most of the material on P2P networks doesn't fall under the "I can't legally obtain it". Second you say you can't "legally" get it. Have you even tried? Did you call Arista for example and make a deal to be a distributor of their out of print material? I'd be more than willing to bet that the majority that bring up the "I can't" really mean "I will not" and follow the path of least resistance.
If I wasn't going to buy the music, then how can they say my downloading of it lost them a sale? I know people with endless music archives. The music is there and free for me to listen to it, but if it cost anything I wouldn't pay for it. It's like that free egg roll that you don't really want but since it is free you take it anyways. They won't get my money either way, unless they sue me for something.
Oh J.F. Christ. It's easy to talk brave from the security of your anonymous P2P programs.
And just why should others fight your battles for you? So you can get free stuff, while they get the jail time and fines?
I used to very anti-IP from a libertarian standpoint that it interferes with markets. Wouldn't it be so elegant if we could do away with these silly laws and let the bits free? But anarchy belongs after the singularity, when we know the output to sentience and control the input.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Under current law, movie and record companies have a legal right to go after those who distribute their copyrighted material without authorization. If you don't like it, than work to change the law instead of bitching about them abusing the law. All corporations that sell directly to consumer are actually extremely vulnerable. Organize a boycott that results in even a 5% decrease in their sales, and you'll get their attention -- fast! The problem is, 99% of the consumers simply don't give a shit.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
"I thought it was that we are free people who are innocent until proven guilty, and should be free to connect our computers together without having to prove that we have a "legitimate" reason first. But that's just me ..."
They can go to court and fight you know.
Just like in any other form of dispute.
Also the "innocent to proven guilt" applies to crimminal cases, not civil cases.
Or do you think the legal system should be rigged so P2P'ers get special treatment?
I decided to translate what was going on on the chatroom on the biggest Direct Connect Hub in Iceland just before it was closed down.
:@ :////////////////////
[22:31:15] <Eval> Guys
[22:31:17] <Eval> LISTEN
[22:31:24] <Eval> THERE IS A BIG BUST GOING ON AT THE NATIONAL POLICE COMMOSSIONER
[22:31:30] <Eval> REMOVE ALL THE DISKS YOU ARE SHARING FROM YOUR COMPUTERS
[22:31:34] <Eval> I MEAN ALL OF THEM
[22:31:53] <Eval> THEY HAVE ARRESTED A FIEW, INCLUDING OLD ADMINISTRATORS FROM DCI [Direct Connect Iceland]
[22:32:03] <Eval> THEY WILL BE HAVING A MASSIVE SEARCHES THE NEXT DAYS
[22:32:12] <Eval> ALL DISKS FROM YOUR COMPUTERS AND GO AWAY FROM YOUR HOUES
[22:33:25] <Eval> THEY HAVE ARRESTED 12 PEOPLE SO FAR
[22:33:30] <Eval> WE DON'T KNOW IF ANY USER OF THIS HUB IS RELATED TO ANY USER IN HERE
[22:33:34] <Eval> BUT TO BE SAFE, REMOVE THE DISKS
[22:33:43] <Eval> NO ONE FROM VALHOLL [this hub] HAS BEEN ARRESTED YET
[22:33:44] <Archanum> lol you are joking, right?
[22:33:51] <Eval> NO I'M NOT JOKING
[22:33:57] <Archanum> ok )
[22:34:03] <Archanum> Thanks for letting us know
[22:34:11] <Eval> i know some of those who have been busted
[22:34:24] <Archanum> eww i wouldn't let this happen to me
[22:34:25] <Eval> i tink we will close tempoarilly while we try to find a way out of this
[22:34:54] <Archanum> i was calculating the fines i have to pay if the c0ps find this out
[22:35:02] <ingo> WTF!
[22:35:03] <Archanum> compared with the fines they have in denmark..
[22:35:07] <Eval> ingo this is NOT A JOKE
[22:35:07] <Archanum> and that's 16 millions [16.000.000ISK = $224656]
[22:35:14] <Eval> and we will most likely close for a while after a fiew minutes
[22:35:26] <Eval> you have our addresses
[22:35:29] <Eval> xxxx@xxxxxx.xx [address hidden]
[22:35:37] <Eval> we will watch this and see what happens
[22:36:10] <Eval> Skifan [the biggest reseller and publisher of music in iceland, a division of the Northern Lights Corp, the biggest media corporation in Iceland and a member of SMAIS] is doing that
[22:36:18] <Eval> just letting you know so you know where you should NOT buy Christmas presents
[22:36:26] <Eval> i have to go outside. everything is going down here
[22:36:38] <ingo> i will never shop there again!!!
[22:36:51] <Eval> later guys
[22:37:07] <Eval> let the word spread. make a copy-paste of what i wrote
[22:37:12] <Eval> this is not a joke
[22:37:15] <Eval>
[22:37:32] <Eval> DON'T let them take arrest you with your share
[22:37:37] <Eval> later, i have to fix......my computer
* The text inside the brackets is only for explaination but not from the oginal text.
.
here
Just plug it in and turn it on -- no wep. You will have to spend some money on a lawyer for defense, but you will win and it will be cheaper than settling with the Ack Acks!
"I'm personally disgusted that our government is even thinking about putting profits of american companies above the well being of the people it is supposed to serve."
Let's change this to assage your moral outrage.
"I'm personally disgusted that our government is even thinking about putting profits of [Small, independent developers] above the well being of the people it is supposed to serve."
Feel better, Robbing Hood? And NO, it's not a victimless crime, and so far none of your cohorts have been able to prove conclusively otherwise.
"...but to remove the source of the problem in the first place."
Humanity's lack of morals and ethics? Pretty hard to do. Maybe with our superiour brains we can engineer all our defects out.
Copyright infingement can also be criminal matter
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
"It also does not mean government would necessarily have a say in content, it could simply pay content creators based on what the population votes for, etc."
You mean like what happens now, when you buy a DVD, book, or CD?
"It's like speeding enforcement. It's a minor offence, so it's a minor punishment."
I saw a video of the outcome of "speeding" Burning vehicles everywere. I guess we better let this guy off with a minor fine.
"Yes, compare me to the wealthy that loot old people's pension funds."
Those "wealthy" were young once.
"Of course it's illegal to violate copyright, congressmen were bribed repeatedly to make it so."
Maybe in your country. Our's had the sense to put it into our constitution.
" I'm supposed to feel ashamed because I think those laws are less valid than some of the more fair, sensible ones? "
Situational ethics rules again.
"Fuck you."
I'm just an incidental victim. Your the one getting fucked.
> "...the music industry is now determined to
> vent its wrath on helpless men, women and
> children who can't hope to stand up to it with
> its tremendous political and financial power.'"
Helpless? A handful of people lob the equivalent of a nuclear bomb at an industry trying to rightly profit from its own intellectual property?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Metanet is somewhat known, I've spoken with the owner before. Don't insult things you dont know about.
Good work everyone working on the next generation of P2P networks.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
Step 3 is kinda flakey.
Politicians won't do jack no matter how much people bitch unless people pay em off.
So yeah, democracy works very nicely if you have several million greenbacks to pitch in.
"As usual, you're missing the entire point of copyright law. At least in America, copyright law was not introduced to give publishers a license to print money, it was introduced to encourage people to produce material which would then enter the public domain after a limited time."
As usual you assume people aren't as smart as you are. I'm perfectly aware of what copyright laws for. What I'm ALSO aware of is that the majority of the material on P2P networks falls within the copyright period, BOTH old and new. This isn't some liberating to the public domain going on, but wholsale "copyright infringement".
"So those people who have rights under copyright law also have an implicit responsibility to make that material available, otherwise if they could simply destroy all copies the day before copyright expired they would obviously have eliminated the entire reason why they were given that right to print money in the first place. As such, I can't see any reason why someone should not download material that the publisher is not releasing to buy."
The rather glaring hole in your argument is that they did release copies, else you wouldn't be hankering for them. Also didn't you just say they "didn't have a license to print money?" And last it's your responsibility to obtain a copy when offered. Neither party is obligated to make certain that YOU get a copy.
"No, what's wrong with humanity is people who expect to get rights without accepting the associated responsibilities."
That applies as much to consumers as it does producers.
Downloading copyrighted material that you have not purchased is a crime.
Please note that the RIAA has pursued legal action against FILE SHARERS - NOT DOWNLOADERS.
If you make the copyrighted material available to others, you are essentially publishing the material and are logically competing with the legal publisher.
Please repeat after me -
UPLOADING/SHARING the material is punishable, DOWNLOADING IS NOT!
The RIAA wants you to THINK that downloading is illegal when it is in fact very much legal. You may take issue with the fact that the source of your copyrighted material is a criminal, but that plays no part of your position in the legal sense.
And I'm not talking about the big names, the artists like Britney Speares and Jennifer Lopez who wouldnt notice the loss of a couple million! I mean the little guys! Like the store owners who arent getting your business! The truck drivers who arent driving all those discs from point A to point B! The manufacturers who aren't pressing all those CDs and cases! The printers who arent printing the inserts!
All of these people might LOSE THEIR JOBS if P2P networks are allowed to continue, and that is NOT RIGHT!
(if you read the above as a troll post, you arent reading it right. I'm sorry about the AC, but my IP is within a block which has been banned- I sent an e-mail to moderator@slashdot like it told me to, but I havent gotten so much as a "Yes, we really meant to ban you" so I'm assuming it's collateral damage. I'm Lord Bitman, thebitman@AT@comcast.net. If you make a reply and are expecting a response, please send me an e-mail too (without a user page, I can't check for replies easily))
Yay for BREAKING THE LAW to PROTECT THE LAW!
You are all my heroes!
After the raids DC++ use and file sharing droed and alot of ftp sites were closed down by their owners fearing further raids.
So file sharing accounted for 40% of the internet traffic.
Sindri Traustason.
Within hours of the raids, net traffic in Iceland fell 40 per cent, according to SMAIS (Iceland's association of film right holders)
what the hell do film right holders know about network traffic? is it the icelandic department
of copyright enforcement, networking services, and bait&tackle shop?
-evilme
The multi-billion-dollar music industry is selling CDs like hot cakes but it claims its record label components, the artists under contract to them and support workers are suffering terrible financial and personal hardship because of online file sharing.
This is utter nonsense.
It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.
So let me see if I have this right. P2P networks help increase CD sales according to the slashdot crowd, which means more profit for the RIAA members. And now the RIAA is suing Joe and Jane User for sharing files through P2P, which means more profit.
Sounds like two healthy profit centers to me. I wonder if there's a way to reflect this through GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures)?
Ruby on Rails Screencast
To my thinking you've shown a mark of real intelligence. I wish I was less stubborn, sometimes!
Wikileaks, no DNS
far better to bitch-slap individuals engaged in wholesale copyright infringement than to try to outlaw P2P apps outright, which have legitimate uses.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
I wonder if there's a way to verify the link between P2P distribution and CD sales. Suppose a record company were to promote two albums, say two bubblegum artists who are roughly the same in popularity and past CD sales. Artist #1 releases their CD through normal means, while Artist #2 has the record company deliberately prime the P2P networks with full mp3 copies of the album before its release date.
What would the results be? All things being equal, Artist #2 would sell more than #1 according to the Slashdot crowd, while the inverse would be true according to the RIAA. Who knows, maybe it would have no effect at all.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
I know who you are.
I know what you want.
I don't care about your laws, or your profits.
I don't care about your claims.
I don't care that you think I'm "stealing."
You can't control me, you can't control the world.
You are fighting a losing battle.
You are like a screaming child, impotent.
You can kick and bite, you can even hurt me.
You will never change me.
Every day, I spread the word. I give free copies of anything other people want. Every day, more people realise that they don't have to pay.
What am I leading to? For what am I fighting?
In me, and others like me, you have aroused a dormant militancy. I despise everything that you stand for. I hope tirelessly for the demise of this millenium's great satan.
I am fighting against the fascist corporations of today. I am fighting against profit margins, groupthink and "product."
To the entertainment industry: You have had your day in the sun. Now, the birth of the digital domain has sounded your death knell. Like a fly caught in a spider's web, you fight against your doom, only to entrap yourself further. The future of musicians is, as always, left to the goodwill of the fans.
To the software industry: Pirated software is but a stopgap. Free software is the future, and there is nothing you can do about it. Every box I fix is one less installation of windows, office, and photoshop. Kick and scream as you may, but it works, it is easy, and the endless cycle of useless and economically debilitating upgrades will soon wind down. No longer will you be profiting on ignorance.
To my peers: Fight the entertainment industry by directly supporting artists. Copy the music, the movie, the book. Send a check, money order, or other monetary units directly to those responsible.
Fight the software industry through turning people on to the free software. The point of useability for the average person has been reached.
In the streets, offices, workplaces, classrooms, spread the word to your peers. Convince one person at a time, and the effects will leave you amazed.
To my comrades-in-arms:
You have suffered defeat today, but tomorrow is a brighter day. These are the hard times before the masses awaken. Take heart in the future.
In closing, let me say:
Viva la revolution!
It's fair use to trade a CD or a vhs of a movie you taped with a friend. The courts have ruled that. It's also fair use to trade with 10 friends. When does the number get too high where fair use no longer applies? Even at high numbers, some fair use rights probably still exist, though how much is still something undefined. Radio raches millions of listeners who can all tape from the airwaves. Taping from radio is considered fair use. How far does file trading have to be from radio before those rules no longer count? I think of that when I hear people say file trading is a crime. It's what prevents me from agreeing that file trading breaks the law until a high court confirms it as so. Remember, the second highest court in the land
said taping TV programs at home was illegal. The Betamax case reversed that in the Supreme Court.
"You have no right to other people's IP"
You may obtain a property right in that IP if you agree to the asked-for price. If you do not pay the asked-for price, you are misappropriating someone's property. Again, for the love of God, get it through your head, you have no right to someone's IP.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
It puzzles me why nobody ever goes after USENET backbones, etc. for having such an extensive archive of commercial software. Is it possible to hold a service like Supernews (www.supernews.com) accountable for hosting certain binary groups? Is there some kind of loophole I'm unaware of that makes the worlds most persistant warez distro (alt.binaries.*) invisible to legal radar?
Perhaps it's just to obscure (read: hard for morons to use).
..since I am SO disgusted by these raids I will never EVER pay for movies and/or music again, in protest.
Boycott the media companies and copyright profiteers!!
Any law that turns half the population into a criminal, is a wrong, stupid law.
I don't have a sig.
The cause of the raid is that both major ISP's in Iceland are also television-station-owners, they are ISPs and Copyright sellers. Its a bad situation for filesharers. What is working for Icelandic filesharers is the law. It is NOT against the law to download copyrighted media. It only illegal to share it. The drastic drop in traffic is because the DC hubs that most all filesharing Icelanders connected to closed down as the news broke out. Icelanders are very computer literate and this is going to be a short term effect only. As soon as we as a nation can start syphoning of everyone else without ever sharing anything we in the clear.
I hate to be sued as much as the next guy, and I like getting music for free, so I can definitely understand the bitter reaction to the RIAA's strong-arm tactics with file sharers. But ownership exists as a legal ideology in this country. I doubt many of us with expensive cutting edge hardware would be willing to move to a society where ownership doesn't exist. Cuba, I think it's called, since the USSR went bankrupt. Too much /. anti-IP kool-aid over there.
So, given that we embrace ownership, why are software and music exempt from these rules? I really don't feel automatically entitled to the hard work, cleverness, or even luck of another man.
Now, as in the open-source software movement, if everyone agrees that the price they will pay to use another man's ideas is that they will share their own ideas, then no one loses. But when one party says, "Please don't steal what we've created," it's pretty obviously (although maybe mildly) evil to push them down and take it anyway. So again, why is the RIAA evil and the thieves(?) innocent? Just because the RIAA will do anything in their power to protect something that our laws say is theirs? Don't come "open-sourcing" into my house and try to take my system, or I too will do everything in my power to prevent/punish you.
This kind of post makes me nuts. If, as you say, the information distributors are useless, then why do you want their stuff in the first place? You really can't have it both ways. As for only having 5 TV channels--if TV is that important to you, move to the US. We have 1000s of channels. You'll be in paradise.
> they are unwilling to pay 99 cents to download a song, they
> are unwilling to buy music at the retail level -- there is no
> excuse left.
Yes there *IS* an excuse. A fairly major and important one.
When you buy that $.99 song from the iTMS, the majority of your money... I believe it's $.67... goes to the record label, which then.... maybe.... gives a tiny cut of that to the artist. That is just not acceptable. When, after Apple takes their cut, the money goes ENTIRELY and ONLY to the artist, and NOT to anyone affiliated in any way with the RIAA; then, and only then, will the iTMS be a proper way to buy music.
ANY solution, including the $.99 iTMS downloads (And yes, on other issues, I probably COULD be fairly called an Apple fanboi.), that delivers even a single penny to the likes of hillary rosen and lars ulrich is entirely unacceptable.
And that's why I DON'T use iTMS.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
"Copyright infringement is a crime."
So is going 70 MPH or spitting on the sidewalk.
But you don't seem to get your panties in a wad about it.
There are copyrights, yes, fine. But why are the police enforcing what used to be until about 2 years ago a civil offense?
Doesn't it bother you that your tax dollars are being used to subsidize the RIAA and MPAA? Or is your cosmic sense of justice so perverse that like the queen of hearts, you scream "off with their heads" to the slightest offense?
"It simply shows that the public are willing to take the chance that they will not be caught and prosecuted for breaking those laws, however flawed they may be."
If that was true, we'd have people shoplifting and committing physical violence in order to get economic gain.
But most people will not harm another person, even if they knew they probably wouldn't get caught, and even if they knew they could grab $1M.
Why? Because people may not do the right thing, but they have a sense of right and wrong. And copying a CD fails that test of being "wrong".
Copyright on this scale is an unnatural law, because it goes against a basic human virtue...sharing is good. Unless we pass a law that says it isn't? Might as well pass a law that a sunny day shouldn't be enjoyed.
Does it bother you in the slightest that file-sharers are subject to higher penalties than people who commit battery?
Who happen to be sharing copyrighted material, i.e. breaking the law. Lets call a troll a troll, here.
I hate this kind of crap. Illegal or not, there is nothing inherently evil with copying things. BTW, I suppose if they stang up Harriet Tubman for starting the underground rail-road .... would you say she got what's comming to her? Yeah, tell me all about it .... or do you even know what I'm talking about.
"I saw a video of the outcome of "speeding" Burning vehicles everywere"
Really? You saw a speeding car make vehicles start burning everywhere?
The other day, I was sitting in traffic and the car in front of me (not moving) burst into flames. They didn't appear to be speeding, but you appear to be more knowledgable about this effect of speeding cars bursting into flames.
Can you explain more about it?
"Boy, that Jaguar is overpriced: it's a few hundred dollars of steel, glass and leather. Therefore, I can steal it."
Boy that Jaguar is overpriced. I'll go home and make a car that looks just like it.
Ooops, I can't. Copyright infrigement. Bugger.
Any other irrelevant (and incorrect) comparisons you'd like to make?
"by stealing their work "
Well, why did they leave their work out in the open where anybody could get it?
Did they get it returned? Its not lost forever is it?
Damned thieves, always stealing from artists!
"Im sorry, but from where Im standing the RIAA are hitting the right people."
I think what people don't realize is how much they are hurting the artists. Artists like Ashlee Simpson, Nelly, and Brittany are being deprived of their livlihood by this kind of corruption and filth in the human condition.
I don't know about you, but I think these fines of $5000 are too low. I think they ought to start throwing people in jail until they learn that unless they pay for their music they are no better than people who shoplift, steal cars, rape women, or have sex with little kids using candies to lure them into alleys.
You cannot argue file sharing is any different, because sex perverts only hurt a few little kids. But file sharers hurt the artist, the musicians, the songwriters, the recording studios, the labels, the RIAA. My god, how can you compare perverted sex with one person to the loss of millions of dollars from a single file sharer?
These people make me sick. I think I would take a burning wooden stake and shove it up their ass so far they'll never share another song again.
Filth! Criminal! Defiler.
I am so pissed off right now that I'm going to burn the neighbor's house down because I've overheard the kids talking about downloading music off kazaa. I'll show little Sandra and Billy that we're not taking this lying down. Maybe burning their family to death in their house will teach them the lesson that we're not playing around anymore.
P.S. Oh, and Bush won the debate last night too. He appeared presidentical and really in command of the facts. People who said he sounding like a fucking idiot are just jealous of him and his really smart intellect.
Who would want sympathy from you? Is that important someplace in the world?
With that face, I suspect I could give you some sympathy... if it would help.
Dude, they are your laws. If they are so bad, why did you guys pass them?
I wonder when we will see the first RIAA lawsuit induced suicide?
I see you don't like kids, did you just sprung out of a jelly bean?
Obviously, there is a difficulty in debating things if they never make it to court, or any other forum where some kind of precedent can be established; furthermore, there is a definite sense of severity and fear.
But it would be interesting to look at this one aspect of the situation: How many hours there are in a day. How many movies, how much multimedia, how much music can one single human being (assuming that this is for personal use) possibly listen to or watch in any given period of time?
This is where the distinction between personal use, sharing on the internet via some software application, or mass-producing for profit can be drawn. The people doing the suing and the raiding and the lobbying are interested in getting their point across, even if the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Somehow, it seems that this is what the whole point has become, up and down the ladder of authority.
But I think if you were to really look at the legal situation, the legal details, aside from any pre-set fines of any kind, the actual financial liability that any one human being could be liable for - the one thing that you couldn't really get past is that there are only 24 hours in one day, 365 days in one year, and that the average life span of a single human being is so and so. And then, of course, an individual must sleep and do other things besides listen to music or watch movies, so any potential financial liability should be calculated around that figure.
This only applies to personal use, however... it does not apply to sharing or mass piracy for profit - but I think that it is important to draw a distinction between these things. You could have terabytes upon terabytes of stuff, but you would eventually end up having more stuff than you could ever listen to or watch in your entire lifetime - if you download a song but never listen to it, where has there been any kind of financial damages occured to the artist?
Also, it is good to have a forum of some sort - the ability to share - say, for instance, if a group of friends gets together for dinner and a movie, and each time they get together a different person out of the group brings a movie to share... that way they can share and discuss their likes and dislikes. This is good for the individuals, it's good for the culture, and it's good for the artists involved as well. Whether this type of forum takes place on the internet or in someone's house shouldn't really make that much of a difference.
It might be a good idea show the RIAA the error of its ways. Sure I have downloaded a few songs from P2P networks but I have also downloaded some of those same songs from iTunes to have a better version of them than what was available on P2P networks.
If all P2P file traders could stop trading and buying music for one month the RIAA could see the loss in business and they would not have the networks to blame it on. They might not be so quick to sue the people that are buying their music....I doubt it but it would sure make their cases much harder to prove no matter how much they pay Howard Berman.
"Best quote 'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'"
What happened to the arguement about suing the infringers instead of the software makers. I guess it sounded good untill they actually started suing the infringers. They called your bluff and now you're shocked and angry?
This whole "big brother is watching" business gets me the nerves. Hello??? We live in America, not the U.S.S.R (big bad communists! remember?)
Unfortunately, one can't debate on piracy either because he'd have the feds tapping his phone line.
I'd say more, but hey...
<.<
>.>
big brother is watching.
Didn't Jesus say...
"The Law was made for man, not man for the Law"?
So what should we do with Laws that protect the powerful and threaten the weak?
Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
"It's like speeding enforcement. It's a minor offence, so it's a minor punishment. "
I'm going to speak to all the artists out there for a moment. You heard it here folks. Your hard work basically being trivialized. If someone takes your work it's a minor offense. If someone takes their work then it's not so trivial. Now ask yourselves this. Do you really want to continue producing anything for that kind of audiance? Even if you're not asking for money. Do you really want to produce anything for such an unappreciative, and vulgar audiance? You spent literaly years gaining the skills and knowledge in order to be considered good. Spend goobs of money to learn from some of the best, and what is your reward? The mere thought that all that is considered "minor" should have your blood boiling by now. Maybe we should ask them how they feel about their professions? If they say "minor" then I expect all the talk about outsourcing to cease. Just remember in closing that there can be no copy-right, without copies. Keep either the originals close, or share them only amoungst those you can trust. Maybe a freenet for artists, were your work will not be considered "minor", and the audiance will certainly be more appreciative. A peer to peer amoung true peers...hmmm.
Hey, I'm sure some folks might be seeing "red". Deep breath, please.
Instead of the other "illegals", the norm violated may not be substantive in the eyes of many (similar to pot in some communities). The societal norm here (a/k/a "The Establishment") is the current system for delivering reasonable and proper remuneration to artists and creative folks and their producers.
While a bunch of folks are heavily involved in pursuing criminal prosecution of the illegal organizers/profiteers (the "bad guys"), another group or groups is involved in making public examples of the "users". Face it - without the "users" the problem goes away overnight. The "bad guys" are in it for bad guy purposes - to exploit for profit at expense of others. I am all for the FBI, state and local police, Homeland Security, CIA, etc to go after the "bad guys" and I can see some value in doing something to the active "users" group.
The prosecution of "users" seems unfortunate, but we do not seem to have worked out a better societal solution to "warning" vast numbers of potential "users" away from supporting the illegal activities of the "bad guys". Our society has a history of pillorying relative innocents - consider Hester Pryne in Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" - nothing much has changed in 300 years...
When we really understand why we do this as a society, maybe we can work out something better and it will change. My current opinion is that we won't in my lifetime...
Since I do not like what the RIAA IS doing, I just don't buy their stuff. I spend my money to go to a concert instead..
ps SMNO (def)- "sticking my neck out"
Lost in space at an early age. Survived the vacuum. Now rebuilding castle in air.
I agree totally.
The only thing I find lacking with this argument is a scientific basing for that conclusion, which I will try to fill.
I define good as the being the common good, which I define as a combination of equality and the summed happiness of every person. Evil is definied as !good. It's a complimentary term that isn't strictly needed, though it can be quite conventient.
Like any basic premise, there is no hard scientific reason to accept my basic premise, but I consider it to be a very reasonable and common sense definition of good that lends itself to some level of scientific scrutiny, though being a social science, it can never be as exact as physics or mathematics.
Using this premise, simple cases of murder, like a person killing his ex-spouse or a drunk crashing his car, are evil because they reduce the happiness of the victim all the way to zero, are very unequal, and do not bring nearly enough, if any, benefit to society to balance the costs.
As far as information goes, violating copyright generally increases both equality and happiness, since raw efficiency is increased (the ideal price point for any good or service is where marginal_cost = price, which basic economic theory gives us) and you have many poor and middle class people benefiting at the expense of the rich. To punish copyright violators is evil, since overall happiness is reduced (both from the direct cost of having people sued or thrown in jail, and from the increased prices and reduced usage of information) and money is transferred from poor to rich. Therefore, copyright is an evil law.
The argument about 'people not creating if they're not compensated' can also be explained with this theory. For people who do stuff for the love of it, that love and the potential fame contributes to their happiness, the art contributes to overall society happiness, and since everyone benefits, it is fairly equal, though a small payment to the artist might be most equal. For stuff that people don't love to do, the resources should be mobilized so that projects that return a net benefit to society get done, and so that their fruits are as widely distributed as is efficient. The infornmation workers would be paid a normal salary, since this is just like any other job.
What I like about my 'good' and 'evil' is that it is fairly objective, as each individual gets to define his or her own happiness, and so long as you accept the basic premise, good and evil can be argued using psychology and economics instead of religion and morals.
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March 2004.pdf
PDF only, sorry if you're a Linux type. Joint study on the effects of P2P on music sales by Harvard and UNC Chapel Hill. They did quite an excellent job of analyzing the data and did a good control for causality (way too many studies look only at correlation which is fairly meaningless).
I see you don't unxderstand at all what I said. Probably why you posted AC.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does anyone find this figure stupidly ridiculous? 2.5Tb of storage wouldn't be difficult in most of today's PC's but 2.5Tb of illicit material stored on a (or multiple) PC's? Please, who would even bother with that? It would be a nightmare to maintain that much data just for the sole purpose of sharing. Think about how much 2.5Tb of 'media' would involve.
If your average mp3 is around 6Mb, then that would be 436906 songs.
Even if he was storing DVD ISO's on there, that's still 543 films.
2.5Tb between the 12 of them poerhaps, but one person? I doubt that for a second.
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
I still think they're pondscum for some of the intimidation tactics they've used, particularly the wildcard searches in which they claim rights to files they don't even own, but where ISPs are forced to fold because of (justifiable) fear of lawsuit. But good tactics on attacking the sharers rather than downloaders...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.