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... ;)
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Anybody else keeps reading 'The British Pornographic Institute'?
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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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?
Once again they (BPI) are taking the easy "sue you" route, instead of going after the masses of scumbags who are pirating, duplicating and selling music at carboot sales, markets, seaside promenades and suchlike DAY IN DAY OUT.
Surely more money is lost this way than with "filesharing", and I'm sure the taxman would have something to say about the loss of revenue due to music sold and bought by these means.
How many files must a man share on P2P networks before he is classed a major filesharer? I dont see people handing over money for this, its purely their bandwidth - The file sharer gets no monetary reward for his actions.
How many counterfeit cds must a man sell before he gets noticed and prosecuted? The first time a counterfeit cd is sold, say with 20 tracks he has made more money than somebody who has shared millions of files using a P2P network.
Did anyone else read that as the "British Phonographic Institute". Oh wait...
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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
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.