Slashdot Mirror
UK Record Industry Sues 'Major Filesharers'
Joel Rowbottom writes "The British Phonographic Institute has warned that it is about to engage in a round of legal action against file-sharing users, following in the footsteps of the RIAA. Apparently they are 'safeguarding the future of music' - don't you just feel so secure and cuddly knowing that?" Their statement is available.
Now might be the time to move to an anonymous P2P network. ANts is a 3rd-generation multi-hop P2P network that uses both point-to-point and end-to-end encryption. A search for material doesn't give you a list of files and IP addresses, like in a normal P2P network, but a list of files and virtual addresses. Nobody knows what virtual addresses belong to which hosts; routing is learned by ant-colony optimization.
The network is small now, and it needs nodes. Go to the page here (Coralized) or download the webstart file directly from here (also Coralized).
Note that the network is now still very small. It might also take a good while to connect. Java 1.5 is required.
I feel secure and cuddly again... ;)
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
Anybody else keeps reading 'The British Pornographic Institute'?
Because if they do, I guess they'll might become as credible as them...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
It obviously doesn't work for the RIAA, so why take the political heat?
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
...sitting in the UK thinking I was safe from this type of stuff.
Ah well, at least I'm safe in the knowledge that ReiserFS can delete a rather large number of gigabytes in a few seconds...
Next those bastards will be trying to sue me for eating my crumpets with tea! Limey scum.
According to Pete Waterman ( Stock, Aitken & Waterman ) it doesn't matter that UK single sales are actually rising, this is just a blip / does not alter the fact that filesharing thieves are damaging the industry. Well actually not the industry because that is doing OK but it is damaging the poorer artists who are now going to get even poorer.
Filesharing, he says, is illegal. Just like recording songs from the radio is illegal but the bottom line so far as he is concerned is that people are listening to music and he's not getting paid for it. I really don't like Pete Waterman.
Maybe we see what we want to see sometimes. ;)
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
No, you're not. Most people's brains use a reading shortcut where it grabs the letters at the start and end of the word and then infers what the word is based on that. "Phonographic" starts with a P and ends with "graphic." I litterally have to go letter by letter to resolve the word correctly.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
So this only applies to users who are burning MP3s to LP, right?
:D
it's friday, cut me some slack
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
I know a young single mother in the US who got sued and had to use her kid's college fund to pay the RIAA. Sorry, but piracy or no piracy, that simply isn't right, and I am surprised that there hasn't been more public revulsion in the US over this. Hopefully there will in the UK.
Music, musicians, even paid entertainers existed long, long before the RIAA and other similar entities existed and musicians will be better off when the middle persons are gone! Hopefully.
...not to mention Private P2P and Lieutenant Limewire
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
Keep reading? Hell yeah! I have a subscription to that bitch. They got some kinky shit in there...
Girl: *moaning*
(Grandfather clock strikes three pm.)
Guy: Tea time! Sorry lass, I'll have to finish you later.
Joel Rowbottom writes Apparently they are 'safeguarding the future of music'.
I didn't know Slashdot was a propoganda machine. Nowhere on that page linked (where the statement is) is that phrase in the text.
I don't support the actions of these people, but don't lie to make your case. It makes you no better than the people you decry.
Major filesharing of copyrighted material that isn't under a GPL-like license is illegal, damaging to the industry, and should be dealt with accordingly. This is on a different scale than simply sharing a few songs between friends (which is likely to actually improve sales in the long run), so don't confuse the two. If the industry was going after everyone who was making personal backups of their music or making copies for friends, then I would have a big problem with it. But going after "major filesharers"? It's their duty to do that, for the preservation of the industry!
I distinctly recall readers' comments in a recent /. article (Ballmer on iPod) which proved that no /.ers actually posess any MP3s obtained illegally from peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.
No, really. It was all stuff ripped from their own personal CD collection and such like. Honest.
Those 'sharing' the files do not have a right to do what they are doing. They don't own the licenses to the songs nor do they have an agreement with either the artist or record company to distribute the songs. They get what they deserve.
Now go ahead and be good little mods and mark me as Troll or Flamebait because I dare to express a point of view which runs counter to the whole 'information wants to be free' crap.
If you're so keen on giving away information then you develop something, pay with it out of your own pocket and give it away. We'll see how long you survive.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
What is the BPI going to do to stop british music download in other countries where there are no/very primitive piracy laws especially for music download from the net.
I guess not much. Piracy is not that easy a task to do away with that u sue a few percent and expect the whole to react.
It occurred to me when I was reading the article, one of the subheadings was "targeting fans", and it occurred to me the fundamental difference between different roles and relationships that motivates people to download music illegally and the lawsuits by the music industry comes down to differentiating fans vs. customers. The music industry are targeting fans who are not customers. Fans support the artists, but through being a customer, support the artists financially and at the same time pays the commercial "tax" to the music publishers/industry.
As quite a few articles may have already pointed out, the music industry, after all, isn't suing customers, because if they were customers, they'd have paid and there would be no reason to sue.
Artists have fans, music publishers/industry have customers. The major problem is, fans generally want to support artists without having to be customers, because they are not customers of the artist, and frequently, most of the money doesn't go to the artist.
Not at all. I figured if the Pornographic Institute was coming after file-swappers, Slashdot would be down to about 6 people by the end of the month.
Mod point free since 2001
hello i am an amerikan. just to let you know, we're not the moral compass of the world. do not follow our lead. in fact, many times, you can apply the "costanza method" and do the opposite of what our instinct is. thank you for your time
I think you're confusing it with the Library at Conservative Party Headquarters, aren't you?
'No rational religion claims "supernatural" exists, that's an atheist slander.' - seen on slashdot.
The solution is simple; and it applies to everyone/everything.
If an inspector/cop/whatever comes to your premises to look for pirated music/apps/whatever, and you know you have a lot of it and your gonna be someones bitch in jail, the most effective thing to do would be
*drumroll*
KILL HIM! Why? Simple... You'll get a lighter sentance.
Now _there's a thought for ya...
:)
In much the same way that "Fire Truck" starts with 'F' and ends with 'uck'... or "Rex Hunt" ends with 'unt' and smells of fish (but you probably wouldn't know Rex Hunt (crazy fish kissing minor tv personality who does a fishing show) if you weren't Australian).
That's well timed - today I coincidentally fried my mp3 collection (and the rest of my data) anyway. Stupid hdparm...
Every cloud really does has a silver lining, I guess. It doesn't make me feel any better about it though!
Music has exists about as long as humanity...it doesn't rely on the current model of sales and profit, and music will continue to exists if the commerical system surronding it colapses. So, any arguments about safegaurding the future of music are fatally flawed.
Anybody remember when we used to just tape each others lp's and they had that very convincing campaign called "Home fucking is killing prostitution"?
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.
Remember that millions of people play the lottery each week. This is just the same but in reverse ;-)
Notice how they've cleverly begun confusing "file sharing" with "copyright violation".
This is just moving towards a time where they can pass a law saying that all ISPs must block all ports besides port 80, and all ports registered with the FCC for valid, licensed use, like AOL Messenger and Windows Media.
Obviously the majority of the editors and posters here have similar viewpoints to eachother politically and socially, and so to anyone with an opposing view this place is filled with propoganda.
I personally think musicians have a right to make money from selling their music, especially small artists, without a bunch of jackasses giving their work away to literally thousands and thousands (and then millions if the work is deemed valuable and gets popular) of people.
I say sue the pants off the bastards. If you disagree with the way an artist chooses to distribute and/or charge for his/her music... then don't listen to the artist. Its as simple as that. Or get off your lazy ass and make your own music.
Many artists see value in free distribution. And so P2P is good for them, and often they'll encourage it at their shows. Some artists don't see the value and feel robbed. Hence legal action against the criminals who violate their rights is the only recourse at this point in the game.
Do you mean they sing as well? I thought they were kids TV presenters :-)
Am I the only one who read that as, "British Pornographic Institute"?
Nope. The guy who posted just before you did as well.
When the RIAA tried to shut down Napster, the Slashdot line was, "but people like this! And you're not offering a legal alternative!" And Slashdot was right.
When the RIAA sued the "second-generation" P2P companies like Kazaa, the Slashdot line was, "But they just write the software! They can't be held responsible for how people use it!" And Slashdot was right.
Now, with a dozen legal music stores available, the RIAA (and its ilk) are suing the individuals responsible for breaking the law. And now, finally, they are right, and Slashdot is wrong.
There are easy, affordable, online mechanisms for getting the music you want, in which the artists get paid. And there are ways to get music such that the artists don't get paid. One of them is right, and one of them is wrong. The individuals sharing stuff don't have anyone else to point a finger at; it's not the RIAA's fault, it's not Kazaa's fault, it's their fault if they break the law and deprive artists -- and the companies which support them -- of fair compensation.
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
Yeah? Even if they'd said sharing files of music to which copyright applies, how about establishing such in law before trying this?
I can't believe that these people were getting away, unchallenged, with such sweeping (not to mention incorrect) generalisations also on (UK) television this morning.
Have we lost all sense of objectivity?
Did anyone else read that as the "British Phonographic Institute". Oh wait...
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Can't we just download all of an artists cd, send them a letter with $5 in it, and say "Hey, thanks."
That way, we can remain anonymous, make sure the artist gets more than a few cents, and feel good about our downloadings.
In reality, I'd like to pay some artists *more* than $5, but that's more than they are making now (per cd)...
Let's look at the facts:
1. Teenagers and those under or around the age of 25 do most of the file-sharing.
2. The same age-group buy all the formulaic "music-by-numbers" trash that infests the music charts.
3. The record companies make their profits from plastic, injection-moulded pop star clones because those are the "musicians" (term used loosely) who they can pay to spit out a few MOBO ballads and then ditch them when they start demanding too much money after a couple of successful soulless singles.
So, either the BPI wins in which case spotty teenager can no longer download his music and has to be a lot more discerning in his musical tastes...
or
spotty teenager wins and it no longer becomes productive for record companies to churn out Britney Sucks clones or boy bands...
Hell, I don't know about you guys but I'm getting a front row seat with my Led Zeppelin CDs, a bag of popcorn and a big bucket of coke!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
i guess ill put that 3rd 100gig hard drive back in tonight...
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
No, Feargal, if all you were trying to do was make the world a brighter place then you wouldn't mind people copying your music. I try to make the world a brighter place by making music, the difference between us is that I'm not trying to make money at it. What you're trying to do is make the world a brighter place and make yourself money - absolutely fine, but there's a difference.
No, the people who invest time and money in learning to make music are the biggest investors. What the record companies "invest" in is recorded music which you can buy in shops. I hate the way they talk as if the entirety of music is the stuff you buy in shops, it's so dismissive of the people who invest in being able to make music.
Remember, this is a government minister who shold know better: firstly, the obligatory comments about misuse of the terms "piracy" and "theft". Secondly, does anyone make money out of participating in a P2P network?
No they're not. A shoplifter in a Music store is committing property theft while a serial [?] uploader is committing copyright infringement.
This one is much closer to reality (except the use of the term "Intellectual Property" in place of "copyright law").
Surely the "worrying lack of understanding" is someone so close to the issue not recognising the difference between property theft and copyright infringement.
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
From the statement:
Hmm. I was under the impression that the main use for BitTorrent is to share the load of software downloads. Given that (as far as I know) there is no way to search for a file over BitTorrent (other than finding the appropriate tracker), using it as a Napster-alike would be both impractical and somewhat masochistic. <hat type="tinfoil">Perhaps this is also a cunningly concealed smear campaign against free software?</hat>
In all seriousness, though, when we're encouraging people to download new releases of (say) Firefox via BitTorrent, its association with KaZaA and other somewhat dodgy software of its ilk could discourage "upstanding citizens".
On a totally unrelated note, the newspapers I've seen today are using a photo of Avril Lavigne to illustrate this tale of the plight of the poor starving musicians...
How about you stop downloading and stop buying CDs?
How about we ALL do that?
What do you think happens after all the record stores can't shift their stocks of CDs and Sony's profits start falling?
You stop feeding them money, they have to get off their backsides and do something about it...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Third Generation (I think that's what they're calling it) P2P programs like ANtz and Mute rely on a sort of plausible deniability and waste a lot of bandwidth. They're strictly peer-to-peer and distributed. When you get a request for a file, you don't know whether the originator is the person connecting to you, or someone behind them. There is no request to make a direct connection. So while you could point the finger at them, you may be wrong.
The problem with this - and I've pointed it out to the developer of Mute - is that someone with enough resources (like the RIAA, or that British Porn group) could log on thousands of times, and make enough reasonable guesses about who's sharing what with who to pinpoint some of the major sharers, who would be smart to figure out how to change their IP address and what parts of their collection they make available on any given day frequently to avoid detection.
Also, as I said, this wastes a lot of bandwidth, because you're not making a direct connection to the person you're sharing with, you could be acting as a conduit as well, so people who pay for bandwidth will raise the familiar bittorrent protests - I'm paying too much for what I'm downloading. Of course, P2P not being bittorrent and being used for trading 99.99% illegal stuff (bittorrent at least is used to distribute things like linux flavors), all those people should shut up and be grateful they're not paying $20 (or their local currency equivelant) for the CD/DVD etc. they're downloading.
Also, once this third generation stuff catches on, it's just a matter of time before they start sueing the guys who make the software for aiding and abetting file sharing, or whatever that thing congress wants to pass into law says is illegal. You know, the thing that overturns the Betamax/Mr. Roges law. Then again, the guy who makes Mute told me that he's in it for the fame, so being sued could just make his day. Though sueing the developer seems like a free speach issue to me.
The ultimate irony is that most of these client are based on Waste, which was made by Justin Frankel (homepage, Rolling Stone article, Wikipedia entry), who was an employee of AOL Time Warner at the time he released it.
safeguarding the future of music
They're looking in the wrong place. They'd be better off helping us forget the dreck that is The Prodigy's latest album.
Rather than say we need to make breaking the law undetectable (and all the problems that can occur with that, ie. illegal porn).
Lets suppose a band covers a really old rubbish song and turns it into a great song. Suppose they do it without permission and get sued.
While the band broke laws they released a great song which made people happy. So while strong copyright laws can ensure that artists get revenue for their hard work, they can also limit peoples enjoyment.
Why not make the laws simpler, basically if you cover a song the author of that song is automatically entitled to 50% of the earnings. Likewise if you sample something, it much easier than arguing things out in court and seeking permission.
He isnt trolling....in our fair isles its the truth.Because our Chief Justice Lord Woolf has decided crimes against Private citizens should be dealt with leniently.
Wanted : A Signature.
Because selling MP3s would make a profit and reduce piracy. Now, if that is the case, you have to ask why they're following the course that they are...
The management in charge of locating and developing music talent might be a bunch of coked out lowlifes that would sell their own mothers into slavery for below market value, but the army of ravenous accountants, lawyers, and other denizens of hell are actually quite sharp. These people, given the 2 choices of "sell MP3s and make nice profits" and "continue with a 1970s business model and die" will choose the former *every* single time.
So, if they aren't making that choice, well then, it's because there is a third one. More so, we can deduce that this third choice is indeed more profitable than that first one, the "honest business" choice. How can that be so? Well, in short, it's the "dishonest business" method. First, you need to create a piracy crisis, but hell, that sort of fell into their laps. Second, you need to wait for technology to advance to where we have the capability of making (mostly) working DRM. Then, when you own everything, you can let the money roll in, and buy legislation when necessary to patch this or that hole that you missed.
"But NoMoreNicksLeft, if that is so, won't hackers break the new DRM?"
Maybe, but does it matter? You don't stop hackers from hacking by punishing them when they commit an infraction. No, they still have that annoying privacy in their home... too many will get away with it where you can't do anything about it. You go after the hive. If some web forum describes the hack, nail it to the wall. Co-opt the internet, make it too transparent. Spam up the email systems, so that everything concentrates to a few email services that are easily subpoenaed. You see, hackers work in groups. A DirecTV smart card takes dozens, if not hundreds, of engineers to produce. To have a fair shot at it, dozens of hackers need to work together. If you can divide them, well, barring that one in a billion genius, they are defeated. And while they're scrabbling around trying to make a comeback, you're building the nextgen smartcard with 1000 engineers...
"But NoMoreNicksLeft, if that is so, won't we just make our own music?"
Yeh, sure. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather listen to an enthusiastic amateur any day rather than some of this shit I hear on the radio. But in the coming years, they'll make that something that's legal only if you are *licensed*. And how will they do that? They'll tell you it's for your own good. Congress will decide the RIAA is raping too many musicians, so they'll try to protect you from this... even if it's really the RIAA pulling the strings, and it's to protect them from you. But even before that, DRM will get in the way. As little as 3 musical notes can be copyrighted, did you know that? Obviously, when you use the mixing software, it will be searching for you playing covers without a license. There are what, 13 notes total (I'm not musically talented) ? Do you think it's difficult for a machine to recognize notes, or a sequence of them? Especially 10 years from now, when all of this will go down? The software might just lock you out, or maybe report you, but the effect is the same... you won't be making music. Go on, search the thrift stores for a serviceable tape deck, and something to record onto. The future is bleak
Can you explain what "automagically " means, and how it differs from "automatically" or "magically" ?
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
I think you'll be surprised:
http://www.suprnova.org/
Though if you wish to keep your image of bittorrent as the pure virgin of p2p then I wouldn't follow the link
Under what UK laws are the planning to sue file-sharers? And how are they planning to prove their casee in a court of law? At the end of the day they are going for the massive file sharers, 1,000,000 songs etc... It's just a terror tactic to frighten their own consumers into buying their sub-standard products. My mp3 collection is all ripped- straight from my cds! I have no need for Britney Spears and the like.
kin242.net
It's that ugly time worldwide where the revolution of innovation smacks against the solidity of legal protection. While I'm all for sustainable business, its fruitless to spend so much time, energy, money, and grief for what continues to and will ultimately be a socially approved method of distribution. Filesharing is not stoppable. Ever more complex methods of securing content will eventually put too many restrictions on the consumer to the point where lesser quality will be preferred to digital purity (people will make recordings of lesser quality and distribute them p2p) and the cat will stay out of the bag.
People will go to jail or be fined and never really accept that what they did was wrong. They'll be sympathized with. Pressure will build to change the rules, and the business will still lose. Instead of capturing and winning the opportunity that's in front of them now, the music business reinforces they're legal leverage while losing their customers. Desperate, they're clinging to the "they must use us" mentality that brought the end to so many monopolies before them and gave rise to new one's who LISTENED to what people wanted and found a way to profit from it.
Ok, I'm done now. Sorry everyone, here take my soapbox back.
meh.
see here: MUTE filesharing project
its working like this: you as a node only know your neighbours, and what they want, but you can't see wheather they or somebody else wants this package and they simly work as a hop.
Why is it that P2P networks get all the coverage, yet I never see any mention of Usenet. It must be the largest and biggest source of warez on the face of the planet.
Not only can you find pretty much anything you're looking for, it's also pretty quick for releases, coming just under Topsites and FXP groups. So why has Usenet managed to continue so hassle free?
I'm assuming it may have something to do with the best servers being 'pay monthly' and the slight complexity of it all (multiple rars, pars, par2's, etc)?
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
I'm a spotty teenager, you insensitive clod!
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
If it seems like an artist is only making music in order to make money from it, I don't want to listen to them -- it usually means the music is bad. Just look at Metallica in the last few years. Even the most hardcore Metallica fans I know think their last few albums sucked.
This is not to say I won't support artists. I just don't support artists who don't seem to want to make music anymore than I want to help users when their email "stops working."
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
Downloading music you already paid for is ethical (scratched CD's, etc)
Neither is it ethical to sue the pants off your customer base, and bribe politicians to make laws that make it easier to sue/imprison said customer base.
I live in India and there is absolutely no way I can find the kind of music I like in music shops. I mostly listen to classic rock and while I can find stuff like Led Zep, The Doors, Deep Purple, etc. I can't find lesser known bands like say Ten Years After, Grand Funk Railroad, Allman Brothers, ZZ Top...not even Chuck Berry, basically there isn't much choice in my kind of music. Online stores don't stock this kind of music either and there are no equivalents for iTunes etc. in India
There aren't any classic rock stations on the radio. There are like two rock programs a week, (BTW, there's only ONE radio station that plays English music anyway and that's mixed with Hindi too) on the radio that too at odd hours like 11 p.m. So radio isn't a good way to hear new stuff either.
I occasionally borrow music from my friends but this is also not 'new', in the sense I've generally heard it before its just that I don't have the album or the song. Plus, there are a very very limited number of people who listen to the same stuff as I do. Most people listen to crap like Britney, Enrique, Hilary Duff - I hadn't even heard of Duff until the other day when a 10 year old girl told me.
So there really isn't a way for me to hear songs which I haven't heard before. In that sense P2P is great, it lets me sample stuff.
Given a choice I would buy the music I download from P2P, albeit only if I like it. I don't think there's a problem with that, the same principle applies when you hear songs on the radio.
Its not like I don't respect the artists' creativity, talent, hard work etc., I really do, but my problem is that I'm 16 and I really can't ask or expect my parents to buy me a new CD every week or so when we already have more than 200 CDs. Of course when I grow up I would buy my music instead of getting it through P2P, but right now I don't think I have an option...
future of music. oh, silly me, turns out it's the lawyers and filing clerks and bling-bling weasels.
if they're the future of music, they should make all their briefs on staff paper in operatic form, recording it as performed in court so appellate courts can either boogie or throw beer mugs, as appropriate to the pleading.
otherwise, STFU.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
which never seems to get a mention...
alt.binaries.pirated.music.for.free roolz
who cares, it's a dead industry and everyone knows it except them.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Who else read phonographic and saw pornographic? I'm such a loser :(
The braindead babble, much like yours, is the result of the naive application of pure boolean logic to situations which aren't black and white. You can't just boil a complex problem down to a small number of truths in this hand-waving manner, as you will notice by the number of well written replies picking large holes in all the assumptions you've made to get there.
These days, I'm seeing this style of grandstanding boolean logic applied to so many of the world's issues by people with far too much power. It doesn't solve anything, and usually ends with war.
Have sledgehammer, see every problem as a nail.
The BBC Article has this great little caption under the picture of "Head of the IFPI Jay Berman" who "says piracy stifles new talent". Bahahaha! Big Music stifles new talent more than "piracy" ever could. Is the payola as alive and well in the UK as it is in the US? How about your radio over on your side of the pond, are 75% of your radio stations owned by the same conglomerate? Here in the U.S., there is no threat to music greater than the major labels themselves.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's okay to sue large well-budgeted entities, like companies, because they have money to defend themselves.
It's not okay for a large company to sue individuals, because it's like shooting fish in the bucket.
It's not okay to strengthen laws against technology that has any legal use whatsoever, because, well, it has legal use. That said, I can't think about a technology that doesn't have a legal use.
It's not okay to pass laws that increase IP protection, because there is more than enough already, and it really gets in the way of progress as it is.
Now, RIAA behaviour is despicable because they sue people who can't defend themselves, not because the illegal filesharers are right.
It may be a good idea until the courts decide that using an "anonymous p2p" client indicates presumed guilt.. Then it wont matter much what you are doing on it..
Dont laugh, it just might happen considering who is running the world now ( the corporations )..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
With the poor fonts that came with Xmanager, yes.. it looked like that to me as well..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The annoying thing about principles is that by definition they don't adapt to circumstance. Neither does copyright law. Both my principles and my country's laws say that ripping off any target is as morally wrong as any other.
Of course, the damage done may be different, but that's the key thing about crimes: the effects are measured in terms of damages to the victim, not benefits to the perpetrator. The fact that you guys are ripping music for personal use and not for profit doesn't mean that it isn't damaging the people whose legal rights you are infringing. The amount of damage (real damage, not random music industry figures with unrealistic bases) should be the basis for any penalties.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sorry to point out the flaw in your logic, but you do have a choice (btw you always have a choice). That choice seems to be to buy less "new" music.
You have based your argument on the assumption that you are entitled to new music every week. This is simply not true. In the U.S., you are entitled to free speech, free press etc. (I'm not familiar with India's constitution), and you have the option of obtaining new music by paying for it, or breaking copyright law and aquiring it unpaid via p2p networks.
If radio is really that bad, that sounds like a potential business oportunity to me. Quit whining about being 16 and get a job. Even at $15 a pop, I was able to afford a new cd each week, save $50 for college, go to school and have a few bucks left over (while working fast food).
You hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called "everybody" and they meet at the bar. -Drew Carey.
Well said sir!
Does it go on forever?
Unfortunately not. In the UK we have very little in the way of "fair use" rights. AFAIK, there is still no automatic right to make a genuine back-up copy of software/music/movies, for example, yet every computing pro I know would advocate a good back-up policy, and I've sent back four DVD box sets with a scratched disc in the last year alone.
Similarly, I know many people who burn mixed CDs from several sources so they can just let them play unattended. They pay for the originals as normal, and in the case of DJs they often pay hundreds or thousands of pounds in PPL fees for the legal right to play that music in public as well, yet technically they breach copyright by making the mix. This one really is a clear "no harm, no foul" situation (unlike making copies of someone else's media for personal use, where there is at least a case that harm is done). It is purely for the convenience of the person making the mix, and yet it is illegal. Go figure.
The sooner someone reviews the CDPA and so on with a view to giving the purchaser sensible rights, the better.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I think you'd be surprised that suprnova isn't searching bittorrent. It's searching a collection of trackers.
You can't be sued for covering a song, however, you do have to request permission first, like you say. There are compulsory licenses for this.
Legally Recording/Distributing Cover Songs
i am a soviet space shuttle
First of all, a large portion of P2P users are quite likely under the age of 20... they likely don't know much about being hippies or communism, and aren't likely any dirty than others of their age.
And bribing congress is a related problem, because it's not about "ripping off the music industry," it's about being sued for breaking laws. But the problem is, the laws and penalties keep changing, because the "industry" is bribing politicians to make them worse - and using their monentary clout to scare out settlements in face of said penalties.
The problem here, is not just that the industry may at times be getting "ripped off," but that they are ripping us off through our wallets by price fixing. And more importantly, they are ripping us off through our dimished rights through bribed politicians.
I'm sorry, but while there's no real excuse for dl'ing a commercial item you didn't pay for, neither is there an excuse for crippling the discs that I did pay for so that I can't make anti-scratch or roaming copies.
So guess what. I don't need to justify myself. The music I've been listening to the last few years: bought and paid for or freely licensed. The games, bought and paid for. It's the industry that is justifying itself by attacking consumers with lawsuits and copy-protection, claiming damage by piracy when in truth they're making more profit than ever. When I go on Kazaa I'm happily downloading copies of music simply because it's easier than trying to rip my own copy-crippled discs... think about that for a second.
The same is true of every other law, and if you stop and think about it, that includes those laws recognising the right to ownership of physical property.
Copyright infringement is not the same as theft in legal terms, but in the grand scheme of things, the same supporting arguments apply for recognising legal copyright as for the legal right to ownership of physical property. (I'm not talking about details like 20 years vs. 30 years, nor am I equating the two concepts. Rather, I'm talking about the fundamental, underlying ideas, like granting rights to the individual for their personal benefit, when those rights encourage a benefit to society as a whole in return.)
You're putting words into his mouth, but assuming the above is true, society depends on the development of much intellectual property, so it's fortunate that the law sides with (your description of) his viewpoint.
Not really. Good reviews seek to be unbiased, to present both sides of an argument and to let the reader decide. dspeyer's journal is an opinion piece, and of course he's entitled to his opinion. Still, I really can't accept as an authority a piece that sets aside the entire field of economics in favour of a story about aliens in order to claim that copyright infringement has no consequences for the holder. I also note that most of the "moral case law" he cites is decades or even centuries out of sync with today's reality, and that what worked well then may not work now that copying is almost free and almost instant. IOWs, it was an interesting read, but I don't accept it as The Truth(TM) because it has failed to understand or address so many basic counters to its own arguments.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
In todays news http://futurezone.orf.at/futurezone.orf?read=detai l&id=253146 is something about austrian IFPI sueing too. I talked to the IFPI on the phone about the situation. They only want to save the musicians he said. They're not interested in doing something against the copy control on audio CDs (so I could buy my songs in the next shop).
... where? We have some OD2 solutions (win/IE/WMP only) and no iTunes shop around yet. So this i no option either.
He told me I could still buy music online. Like
The only option is free downloads like FM4 soundpark (which they support). But why do I need IFPI or any other middle man then?
He hang up before finishing the conversations. Seems like they're not interested in selling the records. If the really want to save the musicians and do something against copying CDs they should not release them. So no one can copy them. Be paranoid guys!
b4n
Of course. Then again, the same thousands of people all writing to the government officer responsible to make their case would probably have achieved a similar goal. After all, the wonderful thing about elections and politics is that not only do you get to choose who will be your leaders, you also get to choose who won't. Those who go up against the general population are unlikely to last long. [Casts sideways look at GWB and TB, smirks, and looks away]
As a society, we acknowledge the benefit of a legal system and policing by consent. Where that consent no longer holds with the general population in a democracy, the law must be changed, and even political/legal systems as corrupt or incompetent as those in the UK or the US recognise this, albeit too slowly at times.
Civil disobediance is justified as the last resort when the system fails, but going to that level otherwise simply diminishes the strength of the political and legal systems on which we rely. To this extent, the situation does indeed admit shades of grey, but it is not in our interests to let relatively benign things like "I want this music for free" to undermine the entire legal system!
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The company also said that the most prolific online pirates bought 21 per cent more CDs than the average among such consumers, and were also more likely to be music lovers.
Don't you think MS already does this? Every company tracks their sales and customers information. MS makes their own stinkin database, they would be pretty silly to not use it!
This is just dumb. MS sells MS Windows around the world, not just in the USA. Not every user of MS Windows has an internet connection or can afford one. It would be pretty stupid to require an internet connection to just use an OS. What about people/companies that want to use MS Windows in a restricted kiosk? I developed a custom kiosk for the fortune 500 that I work for and we have a few thousand of these running Win2k out in the field. They are _only_ allowed to connect back to our network and cannot get out to the internet or MS. If MS required these 1,000's of kiosk we have to "phone home" to MS, we would have had to come up with a different, and most likely, non-MS solution.
Huh? The software uses an algorithm to check if a code is valid. People reverse engineered that algorithm and can create tons of valid keys.
And how can MS know which person with a dup key is the valid owner? Do you know how much it would cost MS to manually check every discrepancy with dup keys. I will address the rest of this one with the next response.
Have you every been a programmer or admin for any company with more then 500 or so employees? I have. I have worked at 3 fortune 500 companies and the current one I work for has 140,000+ employees. Without Volume Licening, MS on the desktop would _not_ be an option for big customers where MS makes tons of cash. I would like to see you go around and manually register 2,000 corporate MS Windows desktops, let alone 10,000+ desktops. It just won't happen. The volume license allows big customers to do big deployments without having to go around to 1,000's of desktops to do the stupid activation.
That could only encourage people to look for alternative and possibly drive business away from MS. A company can only be so restrictive to their customers before customers start looking elsewhere. Also, piracy has _HELPED_ MS. It helped them get to the monopoly status they have on the desktop and with MS Office. By looking the other way, MS allowed a critical mass of users to develop. Now they want to try to change that and get money from those users.
As a programmer, I do not agree with software "piracy". However, MS is making _tons_ of cash now. Getting extra revenue from "priates" may increase the bottom line a little, overall it would not have a big impact financially. Many of the "pirates" of MS Software only uses it because they can get it for free. If you take the the free out of it, they would look for something else. Most people in the world do not live as Americans do with so much disposable income. 2/3 of the world live on $2 USD a day or less. Having a computer is a luxury to those people. And the onse that do have a computer, certainly cannot afford the high prices of MS Windows and MS Office.
MS knows
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
It's a very informative yet unbiased book on how much the RIAA sucks ass and is taking away our freedom, not just fighting piracy.
6 so far by my count. At least 6 that have admitted it. I mean, I didn't, did you? You'd have to be some kind of porno obsessed....ah SLASHDOT. I see.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
You may wish there were a different way to distribute music, but disliking the current method of sale is not moral, let alone legal, reason to take what is not rightfully yours. For better or worse, the artist and distributor have entered into a contract that gives the distributor the rights to the artist's work. You may think the artist is underpaid, and you may think the record company is greedy. You are probably right. But you are presented with a product which you can choose to buy. It is not the case that the musicians' plight is sufficiently grave that militating against the distributor is justifiable.
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
On a totally unrelated note, the newspapers I've seen today are using a photo of Avril Lavigne to illustrate this tale of the plight of the poor starving musicians...
LOL! That's funny, because I went on a music strike for years. I finally relented and bought Avril's first CD after downloading that skater boy song. Without p2p I wouldn't have found her and wouldn't have bought her CD (I don't listen to the radio).
Personally, I don't believe that I have to BUY music to ENJOY music.
I make music on my computer at home, and I like it. A filesharing network would be perfect for sharing home-spun music, and that wouldn't be piracy at all.
If we don't buy or use anything [from money'd music] then our filesharing networks are our own, and then the corporate vultures can only bitch and moan about how their greed drove us away, and how we never came back, and how our networks aren't pirate networks, they're PUBLIC DOMAIN SHARING NETWORKS, WHICH DON'T DEAL IN PIRATED CORPORATE MUSIC, OR IN MUSIC FROM CORPORATE PIRATES! Then their attorneys can go to the unemployment line, where they might learn the value of free music. =)
There's synthesizer software and a HUGE individual capacity to make music. People dont need hollywood's crappy genre's.
You might ask "But where would we be, without such valued corporate musical stereotypes as the airhead-fem-teenybopper,
the criminal-turned-gangsta-wrapper,
the frustrated-earth-hating-angry-metalhead,
the oversexed-horny-popstar,
the desperately-in-love-pseudo-singer,
the voice of corporate social conscience,
or the voice of artistic despair?
the_REAL_sam, where would we be without those things?"
Once upon a time, nobody was dependent on corporate $urrogate culture.
We might miss them, but the real artists will still make music, and they'll manage to make a living, too. The brittany spears's would take their millions and fade away, and we'd get to listen to real artists with genuinely artistic motives.
Sure, we hear the music, not the motives. Maybe our present-day favorites fall within corporate genres, but REALLY, the true artists would keep at it.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Unfortunately there's a crime the UK called Going Equipped. What this means is that you are equipped to steal something and you have the intent of doing so (crowbar, skeleton keys, screwdriver etc).
It could be that the installation or use of software like ANts could be construed by the CPS as going equipped, though it's civil offense to infringe copyright here, for the moment.
Deleted
P2P downloading and music purchasing are not exclusive. In fact many studies have proven that at times they go nicely together.
In other words, download song, like song, buy album.
I've bought albums of artists whom I've downloaded the songs for online, because I end up liking their music. These were from legal sites, but there's not much difference there.
And as for sueing actual customers... you don't think that sueing P2P downloaders - particularly children or young adults - is enamoring the general public of the RIAA do you?
The key issue is to promote the "free exchange of information" and show why that's good for us all.
We need to focus on the free exchange of *freely-offered* information. Then those who offer freely will be rewarded, and the others (UK recording industry/RIAA/MPAA/etc.) won't.
In other words, as much as poosible:
- exclusively use and promote free software
- exclusively use and promote free music/content
- creativecommons.org
- comfortstand.com
- www.opsound.org/opsound.html
In this view, it's a red herring to be so worried about sharing information that others don't want to share.
Ian
The problem with your reference to original intent is that when copyright was first developed paper and printing were expensive and so any copying was expensive. Now, copying is cheap and easy. You couldn't [easily] non-commercially rip off a copyright work in the past as commercial printing equipment was required. This all changed with photocopying I guess.
... I don't know whether there was an original intent to protect music. But then music was always performed directly and not indirectly through technology. Then some stingy miser who didn't want to have to rent an orchestra to listen to tun3z went and invented wax drums.
...
;0)>
As far as music goes
Copyright is broken. Just like patents are. Both _were_ started with the intent of proper compensation for the creator of the work. If we could go back to that
I agree, some very rich people need to look to the greater good and not adding another million to their bank accounts.
PS: must check dates as to when printing press (steam version early 1800s - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press) and Queen Anne (earl 1700s - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne) were around
1/ Downloaders are *not* taking something from someone. The file is copied. This is why copyright is such a knotty problem. The original artist is not deprived of a physical item. It isn't theft.
2/ You are, potentially, depriving them of fair compensation for their efforts. However, the protections afforded by the law are being enforced by the distributors, not the artists. This is because most artists don't retain ownership of their copyright. At first, this benefitted the artist. They got an upfront fee so they could eat next week, and the printer/music distributor took the risk of mass-producing copies of the work in the hopes that it would sell. Now, one sees that the internet provides an almost-free channel for rapid distribution, which eliminates a lot of the costs associated with music production. The benefit to the artist is diminished, and the risk is increased (that copies will be disseminated outside the control of the distributor).
The distributor is using any means possible to reduce that risk. This is understandable, in the same way that the Gas Lamp companies did everything in their power to eliminate the Electric Light Bulb. It was a threat to their business model. But why should the government step in to help anyone maintain their business model? Is this a capitalist democratic republic, or a communist state with state-sponsored business protections ?
There is very little reason to see this in moral terms. If we choose to look at this from a utilitarian perspective, in fact, it appears that the greater good of society gained by a cheap and unfettered access to artistic works outweighs the smaller good of the financial well-being of a limited list of corporations and even smaller list of artists. (That's even considering the argument that lessening copyright protections will harm the artist. Given that the current protections are only nominally on the artists behalf, and that the distribution model of the internet increases an artists potential audience, I don't see that this is as strong an appeal as it sounds). Furthermore, the harm caused by the corporations in their efforts to protect their interests is of a greater relative detriment to the individuals sued than any caused by either the individuals in question or the entire practice of file-sharing in general.
So while I agree that the practice of P2P file-sharing is eroding the monopoly of the *AA's and that it is currently legal for them to protect that monopoly, I don't feel you've made a case for file-sharing's immorality.
At risk of repeating myself, the presence of an almost-free channel for rapid distribution does not give anyone the authority to act illegally, however outmoded the actions of the *AA may appear. Even if the artist does poorly from his contract, there are only two options:
1) Buy music from the distributior, marginally benefitting the artist
2) Take music for free from P2P networks, benefitting yourself
It is a guilt-assuaging fiction that option 2 will somehow encourage artists to transition to P2P distribution of their works, thereby helping themselves financially. Assuming their current contracts would allow this, and they certainly don't, the current methods of paid internet distribution rely on a client-server model. Enabling P2P distribution of paid content would require impeneterable DRM the likes of which has never been seen. The costs of distributing one's work in the client-server model would without doubt be cheaper than setting up one's own network of paid P2P distribution. The alternative would be licensing rights to your work to to a centralised paid P2P network: welcome to the new Record Companies.
I am in a band, we have not yet been signed, and, the current way things go with record industries, I will try not to be.
Why am I saying this? Well, it is all to do with sharing. The main argument from these people is the "hard work that goes into music". Yes it is hard, but I don't, and I hope others don't do it for money. Music is just that, music, so when I share my bands music, and beleive me when I say I will be the top of list of uploaders sharing it, I will be sharing it with the intention to let other people enjoy it, and if they want to go to the website and buy merchandise etc then there we have it. Right there, they are giving us something which we deserve, because they like our music, as opposed to being given one choice, to buy the music.
This whole music thing is stupid. Why should I pay as much as £15 for a CD, thats a months internet access, which will get me more? CDs are too expensive, with little benefit over getting them through other methods. How much does it take to make a CD? My guess is 50p, and I say that to be safe, chances are it is like 10/20p. So that is 300%+ profit.
Third and final point, why the fuck are you filing lawsuits? Are you that moronic. The average person buys CDs, therefore, they are your customers. So you decide "We dont have enough money, lets get more by suing the people that provide(d) us with our money." Jesus christ even Microsoft doesnt do that....
I didn't mean a reflection of society on every issue. Sorry about not being clear, but I meant the current copyright law. Society is in trouble when they realize they can vote themselves money or the equivalent. Copyright though should be something that is in the interest of the public and allows for future growth. You can make the public pay for something without labeling them a criminal. At least, that's my opinion.
That's scary.
Yes, you're right, 100+ years and growing shouldn't count as perpetual. I've read both sides of the case, and I've read the evidence saying that copyright will be fought to be extended every time it comes up for it to die. We'll see who was right in about 2030 when copyrights from the 1920s start to expire. 90 year material that is still owned by someone. How much of that do you see being sold? How much do you think is just lost?
That's scary.
LOL! What about Corporal Punishment and Private Property?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."