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'?
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 . . . . .
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
what right minded student would waste money on tuition and books?
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.