Operation Fastlink Nets 1000s in Pirate Sting

womanfiend writes "The Iowa City (Iowa) Press Citizen has been reporting the last two days about "'Operation Fastlink,' a multi-national investigation launched in April." Apparently, the investigation has netted a local college student hosting 13,000 titles worth a bundle of money both in simple value and liability for as many times as logs show the titles were downloaded. According to the P-C: "...'Operation Fastlink,' which targeted the underground community's hierarchy with [FBI] agents conducting more than 120 searches within 24 hours in 27 states and 11 foreign countries. At the time, authorities identified nearly 100 people as leaders or high-ranking members of international piracy groups." Sounds like somebody's in deep doo doo."

Comments

Call me when the headline reads:

[Chatmag]

1000's of spammers caught in sting.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[Creepy Crawler]

Substitute "Counterfeiting" or "Treason" instead of spammers.

*thinks of what Constitution says about federal crimes...

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[Vicsun]

The lobby against spam is nonexistent. Seriously, unless spam starts to seriously hurt someone with lots of money it's here to stay.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[2nd Post!]

Isn't that what 'piracy' is, counterfeiting?

So the current headline should really say, "Operation Fastlink Nets 1000s in Counterfeiting Sting' or something?

Or is it because of some obscure cost/packaging/distribution reason that this isn't technically counterfeiting?

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[slungsolow]

Is Bill Gates Rich enough?.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[iamwahoo2]

the grandparent clearly meant counterfeiting as in specifically the illegal production of money. I will make sure you get another copy of that memo.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[b1t r0t]

Isn't that what 'piracy' is, counterfeiting?

Counterfeiting is when you try to pass something off as the real thing.

An MPEG2 file named "Gigli.mpg" is not a counterfeit.
A DVD-R with Gigli.mpg burned to it and "Gigli" written on it in Sharpie marker is not a counterfeit.
A DVD-R with a scan of the Gigli disc art printed on it with an inkjet printer, in a DVD snap case with a scan of the Gigli cover sheet is a poor counterfeit.
A DVD pressed in Hong Kong with the Gigli disc art silkscreened on it, and a 4-color printing of the Gigli cover sheet is a good counterfeit.

The same applies to money:

A piece of paper with "ONE DOLLER" written on it is not a counterfeit.
A piece of paper where someone has drawn something vaguely looking like US currency but with no attempt to copy the artwork or face is not a counterfeit.
A xerox of a $1 bill, trimmed to size, is counterfeit, especially if you attempt to pass it off as such, like by using it in a vending machine.
A $200 bill with the face of George W. Bush is not a counterfeit. Neither is a $3 bill with the face of Bill Clinton.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[mazarin5]

1000's of "Counterfeiting" caught in sting.

1000's of "Treason" caught in sting.

Hope This Helps ;)

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[TheGavster]

That's a sex dollar bill (not a typo ;)) with the face of Bill Clinton: http://www.books4you.addr.com/ClintonSexDollarBill .html

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[2nd Post!]

The grandparent wasn't clear or else I would have grokked.

You obviously don't understand the meaning of the word 'clearly'.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[KilobyteKnight]

You obviously don't understand the meaning of the word 'clearly'.

Some would question your understanding of the word "obviously".

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[2nd Post!]

the grandparent clearly meant counterfeiting as in specifically the illegal production of money. I will make sure you get another copy of that memo.

define obviously: Easily perceived or understood; quite apparent

define clearly: Plain or evident to the mind; unmistakable

The original poster was not clear or else I could not have made that mistake. The response used the word clearly in criticizing me, and the very meaning of the word clearly is 'unmistakable', yet the fact that I didn't understand means the grandparent was not clear at all and the responder isn't astute enough to properly use 'clearly'.

What the responder should have said is, "The grandparent probably meant counterfeiting as in specifically the illegal production of money."

But instead the word clearly was improperly used, along with the tongue in cheek comment, "I will make sure you get another copy of that memo," to which I had to snap back with my own criticism.

If something is clear than the use of the word 'clearly' is redundant. If something is not clear than the use of the word 'clearly' is stupid.

My use of the word "obviously" is clearly redundant, but used as a means of impugning the intelligence of my critic who thinks he's smart by being a smart-ass.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[iamwahoo2]

Well, it was clear to me.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[Vicsun]

It's not hurting him or his business. It's merely a nuisance.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[op00to]

NBAHAHAHAHA HOLY CRAP BILL CLINTON SEX HAHAHAHA

Did you make that one up yourself? Cause it's SOOO funny! I've never ever heard anyone make a reference like that before!

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[2nd Post!]

Obivously

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[b1t r0t]

No, that would be fraud, not counterfeiting. Mail fraud in particular.

FBI searches

[Anonymous Coward]

[FBI] agents conducting [..] searches [..] in [..] 11 foreign countries

Why the bloody fuck are FBI agents able to conduct searches in forgein countries? They have nothing to say outside of the US!

Re:FBI searches

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

They may not have jurisdiction in foreign countries, but they have information and expertise.

And more importantly, perhaps, not many countries want to anger the US, for economic and political reasons.

Re:FBI searches

[joeytmann]

More than likely it was the FBI telling local authorities, we have this evidence against one of your citizens we want you to arrest him and we want to be there to watch over things. Its a neat little thing called cooperation...

Re:FBI searches

[tenman]

United States == cooperation?

Re:FBI searches

[joeytmann]

Well usually it take too to cooperate...atleast our version of it.

Re:FBI searches

[joeytmann]

and damn i need to remember to preview so I catch my typos....

Re:FBI searches

[PalmKiller]

I would think this would normally be under US Customs. I suspect that the US, now the CIA, NSA, FBI, US Customs borders are quite fuzzy due to the 9-11 changes in the rules, allowing all agencies to pretty much do as they please.

Re:FBI searches

[Dysan2k]

Yup, and when that country has a national disaster, say.. oh I dunno.. a Tsunami, who's the first country that starts having to dole out "emergency funds" to them. I don't like the US going into other countries at all, but it should be the foreign country that just says "No! We have our own police and procedures and we'd thank you to stay the hell away."

I'd reply to this

[atarione]

.... but I'm too busy formatting my HardDrives..Must destroy evidence.....mmmmm evidence

Re:I'd reply to this

[jellomizer]

You better do more then format your drive all that normally dose is just wipe out the FAT Table. You need to get a program that fills your hard drive with Random Data 1 and 0 and 0 and 1 and do it a couple of times to get rid of any residual data.

Re:I'd reply to this

[maximilln]

Residual data is an urban legend. Don't believe the spook-show you read from the FBI/CIA.

Fill with 254. Filling with 0 or 1 may, on fast fills, leave the other bits. That's the origin of your residual effect.

If "residual effect" were real, why don't you see random r/w errors on a regular basis?

Re:I'd reply to this

[saintp]

Luckily, I know just the program.

Re:I'd reply to this

[didde]

If you're using OS X you can always use FileVault to encrypt your stuff with AES-128.

Or if you're paranoid just use Secure Empty Trash or format your disc using Disk Utility and have it write random data over the entire disk 8 times.

Re:I'd reply to this

[jellomizer]

I am sure that was ment for sarcasm. But the extra time it usually takes to format a disk is just checking for bad secotors. and the /Q just skips the scandisk. * For fun dor a format c: and at 99% hit crtl-brake and check it out your data should still be there.

* I Would sugest that you try in on a system you are not afraid of formatting over in the case that.
A. You are not using Microsoft Format.
B. The speed of your computer from 99 to 100 is to fast for you to hit brake.
C. I am compleatly wrong which I dont think I am. But they may have changed this in a newer version.

Re:I'd reply to this

[dougmc]

Luckily, I know just the program.

Your link points to a company that sells magnets. A better word than `program' would probably be `product'.

But no matter. It takes very strong magnets to erase today's high density media. Yes, you can erase (or at least seriously distort the data) a floppy or cassette tape with your average magnet, but to erase a DLT tape requires something much more powerful. As for a hard drive, I'd expect the required strength to be similar to that of a DLT.

Why do I know this? Because we upgraded our DLT drive to a model that puts more data (20 gb native vs. 10 gb native) on the same tapes. But the tapes needed to be erased before it would use the higher density (and the drive couldn't do it itself.) A standard bulk tape eraser would NOT do it -- it didn't affect the tapes at all, no matter how much we tried. Neither would a monitor degauser. After some investigation, I found that this wasn't expected to work, and a company that could erase the tapes for us for about $1/each. Worked nicely ...

Re:I'd reply to this

[Kjella]

No, the /Q will simply overwrite the FAT instead of the whole disk. This means that all your data will be still there, recoverable after such a back up. Where as after a full back-up, good luck.

Kjella

Re:I'd reply to this

[wdd1040]

That's easy in linux.

So...

Here's dd for Windows for most /.ers out there...

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite/dd .htm

Re:I'd reply to this

[kryptkpr]

The /Q just skips bad sector checks (these take 99% of the formatting time). Your data is still recoverable either way (unformat).

If you're gonna do the Ctrl+Break thing, it does work, but do NOT use /Q. It works because the bad sector check is done first, and this is the "progress meter". If you abort the bad sector check at 99%, no harm is done.

Re:I'd reply to this

[JJahn]

Yeah, you pretty much need a degausser designed to take care of hard drives/tape media. I have one in my office here at work manufactured by Audiolab that does the trick quite nicely. You turn it on, rotate the disk drive a few times until the timer goes off and its completely erased. The thing is remarkably heavy for its size too.

Re:I'd reply to this

[AviLazar]

Residual data is pretty real. My friend works for a company that used to do data recovery (they have evolved to selling wholesale lockboxes to financial industry). Everything from formatted hard drives, to hard drives that were in a fire. There are plenty of articles on the web that discuss the different methods of recovering data from a formatted disk. Google it and you should find plenty of articles:

Dawn of the Undead Data

Re:I'd reply to this

[AviLazar]

microwave man, throw them in the microwave...it worked for that kid in "The Core"

Re:I'd reply to this

[drinkypoo]

You can get demagnetizers from places like radio shack used to be. Besides being able to demagnetize tools and parts (small magnetized screws can be a real pain in the ass when you try to put them into a steel enclosure) it can also do a dandy job of erasing floppies and credit cards. If DLTs can format their own tapes, a demagnetizer like that could almost certainly do the trick. The only question is whether you'd have to spool the tape past it.

Re:I'd reply to this

[benna]

That would be wayyyy to slow. At the higher levels of the "warez scene" there are gigabit servers that transfer things at ridiculously high speeds to other gigabit servers.

Re:I'd reply to this

[prisoner-of-enigma]

I keep looking for the "brake" key on my keyboard and I just can't find it. You must have one of those special keyboards.

I guess I'll just have to content myself to pressing the "break" key instead, huh? I'm sure it's not as good as hitting the "brake" key, but maybe the computer is aware of homophones.

Re:I'd reply to this

[Dachannien]

Your link points to a company that sells magnets. A better word than `program' would probably be `product'.

Tell that to India.

Re:I'd reply to this

[wastingtape]

Another great example of Hollywood attempting to portray the computer-age culture, but my "favorite" line must have been:

"We want you to control the flow of data on the internet. What are you going to need?"

"Lots of HOTPOCKETS!!!"

Re:I'd reply to this

[dasunt]

If I format a HD, and fill it with random 1s and 0s , you cannot recover what has been deleted, if you could, then you can store 400gig on my 200gig HD.

This may be tinfoil hat-ish, but I've been told that it is possible to recover some data after a hard drive has been zeroed.

Basically, the recovery procedure would involve reading the strength of each bit, and trying to guess what that bit was before. Due to the width of the drive data ring and the size of the write head, I believe that this mechanism is possible. You can't position the write head exactly on the data stripe, so if you overwrite a 0 with a 1, at the edge of the 0 bit will be some of the left over 1's. Ne'ermind that overwriting the 0 bit with the 1 bit will leave a weaker 1 bit than overwriting a 1 with a 1. Its an analog storage mechanism. To the hard drive hardware, any value over x% is a 1, and any value under x% is a 0. Plus there should be a skew in the write position along the data ring -- everytime a drive writes, the bits may start at a slightly different position. The net effect of this is that the drive keeps a hint of the previous data on the drive, and, theoretically, that data can be recovered. This would be easier to do on a drive that was formatted once, without being defragged, and without many files being deleted and rewritten.

That being said, this would be an expensive recovery, and the recovered data would probably have some gaps in it. If you piss off the local police department, and do a quick zeroing of the drive, you are probably safe. If you piss off the NSA, you might want to consider turning the hard drive into slag.

For normal destruction of data, I prefer some variant of 'badblocks -c 64 -w -p 10 -t random /dev/hdx'.

If the above 'badblocks' tries to write to a badblock and fails, some data in the badblock may still be recoverable. Depending on a variety of factors, a good deal of text data may survive. But this is a problem with any software-based hard drive format: the hardware in modern drives tries to swap out failing blocks with spare blocks by design, and without the OS's help or knowledge. Even if you get all the bad blocks the OS sees, the hard drive may have hidden some from the OS. So no matter which software command you wipe a drive with, some data may still survive. Hence the "slag" option when you piss off the NSA.

Re:I'd reply to this

[Cramer]

No, it is not. It is, however, a very difficult and time consuming task to recover. You don't see r/w errors because a) the heads on your drive aren't that sensitive (we're talking very, VERY, small differences that are often not *directly* readable -- differiential magnetic analysis), and b) modern drives use highly complex error correction methods that are all but invisable under normal use.

It's *alot* more involved than simple pencil-and-paper inspection where you can instantly see where a "1" has been erased and a "0" written in it's place. It's sorta like finding out what's under a blob of White Out(tm) when the White Out(tm) -- and what's under it -- isn't even noticable.

["fast fills"? I think you have "hard drive" and "eeprom" confused. And even then, you've got it backwards... eeprom's read 0xff when empty; 1's are free, 0's have to be burned.]

Re:I'd reply to this

[AviLazar]

I kind of like Hollywood protraying ONE kid controlling all of the data flow...let them fear the gangily geek - unfortunately (not really) i am not gangily or geeky looking.

Re:I'd reply to this

[lachlan76]

This is the source from which everyone gets information on the topic from.

Or so it seems.

To make the data unreadable, you must overwrite it approximately 20 times. From what I've heard, 10 times is enough, but 20 times if you want to be sure.

yeah the American people

[Shakrai]

Sounds like somebody's in deep doo doo

Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World.

Well in fairness they are still going after them -- this just seems like wasted resources to me.

Re:yeah the American people

[dsanfte]

Terrorism -- the perfect invisible enemy for a nation consumed with fear. Do you enjoy being manipulated?

Re:yeah the American people

[Shakrai]

Terrorism -- the perfect invisible enemy for a nation consumed with fear. Do you enjoy being manipulated?

Oh bugger off. Mind you I completely agree with you and roll my eyes at this crap and all of the public service announcements about "being ready" and I would tend to agree that it does seem to be a scheme to keep the current politicans in office...

All that said... bugger off. What do you think is a higher priority for our limited law enforcement resources? Going after terrorists (despite my rant they are actually somewhat of a threat and we can't completely ignore them), the Ken Lay's of the World, or just your run of the mill rapist/murderer guy who has the heads of the three college girls he murdered last week in his freezer? Do you really think that going after people for copyright violations is more deserving of limited law enforcement resources then any of those things?

Re:yeah the American people

[conteXXt]

"Well in fairness they are still going after them ""

Are you sure of that? I thought that building prisons for non-violent drug offenders was the current priority.

Re:yeah the American people

[cavemanf16]

Well, you're crossing genre's of "crimes" there, but I think you're on the right track. Who the FBI, CIA, NSA, DoD, and the Pentagon ought to be going after is China, Korea, Thailand, and all the other Southeast Asian countries that are costing American companies millions, if not billions, in 'lost revenues' on computer software sales. Sadly, that would require an act of war, and since our government leaders know that this is not a viable solution for saving a select few American companies millions of dollars every year, they stand by and let the piss-ant agents go after all of the American citizens who aren't really making any money off of these thefts of computer programs to give the rest of the country's bumbling idiots a sense that all is well in our great nation.

It's pathetic, and sad, but such are the times we live in. If this were medieval times we'd probably just go try to kick some Southeast Asia ass, but then we'd also only live to be about 40 and could get burned at the stake for not kissing the royal scepter and worshipping the Pope.

Re:yeah the American people

[RovingSlug]

Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies ... this just seems like wasted resources to me.

Versus what? Vigilante law? Or perhaps you mean allowing organizations like the RIAA or MPAA to fast track lawsuits ... because nothing could go wrong with that.

I prefer law enforcement to enforces the laws, not private organizations with a single mind for profits.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

The wholesale looting of others intellectual property is a very destructive thing. Of those 13,000 titles you can very sure that among them were titles by the non-industry powerhouses.

I've worked as an employee and contractor to a number of small niche players who wrote popular useful software but were ultimately forced out of business due to the direct and indirect effects of piracy.

It is criminal what is being done to some of these companies. When you have a potential customer base of perhaps 5,000 you really need to make sure that you do exactly what your customers want.

I helped organize a QA and customer satisfaction drive for a niche regional software provider. We surveyed every user of the software. Took suggestions and complaintants and feedback on every bit of the application. All told we collected, ranked, anaylzed and implemented 6,500 changes ranging from minor tweaks to major rewrites. It was an 18-month project. Every issue was documentated, analyzed, and every user, every issue recieved a human-authored note that dealt in depth with the issue.

At the request of several users the licensing was vastly simplified even though it meant - at best - a 15% decline in revenue. A solid base of the users/sysadmins complained about the technical measures used to prevent licensing violations. They were removed completely and the honor system was instituted.

After the project, the application won numerous awards within its industry. User satisifaction with the application went from 62% to 98% between the versions. The average site had about 10%-20% smaller licensing costs. Support calls dropped 50% in 3 months. A comprehensive professional written and edited user manual was given to every user, and a robust feature request/enhancement/bug tracker went live.

It was vastly successful. Yet, within 12 months of that release, the company closed its door, and released the code from escrow to the clients. 40 programmers, QA, and support people lost their jobs, and the owner - a very nice woman - was financially ruined. A number of the customer sites also went belly up - as many as 10.

The software was an investment to be sure, but allowed you to run an efficent, competitive, and focused organization. When the anti-piracy features were removed competitors with pirated editions sprang up, offering similair services at lower prices - part of which was because the new enterprises could escape making an investment in software that their competitors did have to make.

The fact is that in this situation everyone knows what happened. A few key employees from one established place took a copy of the server with all the data files and software and all that, and went to establish a competitor in an adjoining state. Same product, 25% cheaper. That 25% is almost entirely made up by the fact that they did not license the software everyone else has to pay for.

In this case, private litigation is useless and slow. The software company and several established reputable companies ended up being run out of business by a truly awful display of poor ethics.

Pirates destroyed the lives of many honest people here. This software package that was cracked and passed around so viciously on many of the big warez networks was the lifeblood of a vibrant partnership of interests. And it was trashed so that a quick buck could be made by a few destructive people (who ended up closing up shop when the easy money was over; they didn't charge enough or save enough to make it through the long slow periods that are inherent in the industry).

Bottom line is that this was a true shame. And it's not all that uncommon. Government acts on behalf of people, and many times, that means acting on behalf of businesses. It's sure easy to be pissed about the FBI spending moneny on anti-piracy, but it has very real economic effects.

Law-enforcement, including the FBI, is generally well-funded. There really isn't a great battle for r

Re:yeah the American people

[windows]

It's the responsibility of law enforcement to enforce all the laws. And when the content being distributed reaches a certain value, it does become a criminal offense.

There's a big difference between an operation like this and the lawsuits filed by the RIAA.

First of all, the RIAA stated previously that the people they sue on average are distributing 1,000 titles. The college student mentioned in the story was distributing about 13,000 titles. That's a big difference. I also can bet you that most of the people that got sued by the RIAA were downloading music for their enjoyment and weren't doing it with the intent of distributing it to other people. On the other hand, this sting operation was busting a piracy ring. These people ran the servers for the sole purpose of illegally distributing copyrighted materials to others.

The amount of material and the intent is very different.

Re:yeah the American people

[ScentCone]

Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World.

Nope. This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that should be part of law enforcement's routine responsibility. If a local college student had 13,000 shop-lifted DVDs in his dorm room, is the store he stole them from supposed to just sue him and hope for the best? Hire private investigators? No: you get robbed, and you know who did it, you call the cops.

Of course, if law enforcement simply refuses to help, that's when vigilantism increases, and then we get people complaining about businesses taking the law into their own hands.

And, of course, complaining that law enforcement should be pursuing other things is no different, philosphically, than suggesting that they should stop worrying about, say, arsonists burning down businesses, and only worry about arsonists burning down houses. This is crime. Civil judgements are great too, but crimal justice must also apply. It's not "wasted resources" to attempt to demonstrate that an entire area of intellectual property theft is in fact theft.

Re:yeah the American people

[xZAQx]

I reckon the Madrid train bombing was invisible? And so was September 11th, right?

Invisible?

What planet are you from?

Moronic parroting post should read: Being a blind fool who believes Michael Moore is the second coming, only because he feels the need to identify with one political party: Do you enjoy being manipulated?

I don't "live in fear", but I do read the paper. Do you?

Re:yeah the American people

[vluther]

rapists and murderers are attacking individuals..and law enforcement goes after them too.

Apart from the 15 year sentence for his activities, I see nothing wrong with it. Law Enforcement people should be used to enforce the law, no matter how non violent the crime is.

How can these companies file civil suits when the entire warez scene needs to be penetrated legally, via a warrant etc. Corporations do not have the power and should never have the power to look up the kind of information and the way the Law enforcement agencies do.

It's not a wasted resource. Going after these guys helps make all the traffic on p2p networks legal, if you cut the source, the networks won't get any of the material. For all who think the movies etc are overpriced ...

No one is forcing you to watch them, no one forces you to play roller coaster tycoon 3. The inner workings of the Warez scene have a lot to do with people's self esteem getting a major boost when they get the 0 second warez.. it's being THE man who's got his finger on the pulse of piracy scene, and then he's l33t. 70% of the people who will get busted further in this sting, will never have played/installed/watched any of the titles they pirated. But, due to their actions lots of people who would've normally paid for these titles, will not.

To top it off, some of the software titles and even some of the better movies will be taken and sold on the streets of third world countries where the piraters are going to make the profit, not the studios.

Wether you think the industry makes more money than it should, or doesn't is irrelevant. I would be pissed off if someone took my program that I sell for $60, took it to india and was selling it to people for $10, without ever asking me, or even sharing money with me. I did all the work, these pirates have no right to my work.

Of course, I can also say, sales generated from pirated videos/games etc are used to fund terrorists.. so maybe going after the source is fighting terrorism.. just like drugs.. But thats stretching it..:).

Re:yeah the American people

[Rorschach1]

"Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World."

So next time someone rips off some code from your favorite GPL'd project, you're OK with not getting any law enforcement support if they're all busy going after rapists/murderers/terrorists, right?

Re:yeah the American people

[xZAQx]

I'm fairly certain that the FBI, et al, are capable of pursuing more than one issue at a time.

Especially since the story noted that this is a multinational effort.

Yay! Free Chong! Weed is good! < insert crappy hippy blathering here. >

Nonviolent drug offenders should not do more time than rapists and murderers, but stop pretending like the rapists and murderers are being ignored. We are at war, and although no one truly knows why we're at war, it's surely not a war on drugs (for once).

Re:yeah the American people

[DarkMantle]

But I've never seen anyone get arested for breach of contract before this. Which since these people are violating a contract it should be a civil suit between the company and the pirates.

Re:yeah the American people

[flosofl]

Ah... don't worry. People with his views are rapidly becoming marginalized in US politics.

Re:yeah the American people

[Kithraya]

Exactly. I can't get anyone to do anything about the people dealing drugs across the street, but these dangerous pirates are locked away now. Maybe if I say the people across the street are selling copied DVDs instead of crack, something would get done...

Re:yeah the American people

[mindpixel]

Hey, that was a wonderful post. What was the product?

Re:yeah the American people

[Cylix]

What was this product?

"but allowed you to run an efficent, competitive, and focused organization."

This is a rather vague statement... it could be a calendar application.

"The fact is that in this situation everyone knows what happened. A few key employees from one established place took a copy of the server with all the data files and software and all that, and went to establish a competitor in an adjoining state. Same product, 25% cheaper. That 25% is almost entirely made up by the fact that they did not license the software everyone else has to pay for."

Boookooo lawsuit bucks!

Piracy is going to happen, you have to factor this into any software sales. Even if you hadn't removed the licensing features they would have been worked around anyway given enough time. (Assumming the software was truely popular enough)

It really does sound like the product did a good job, but was horribly expensive. Combine that with bad decisions and lack of a legal offense for clear software theft, it seems to spell disaster.

Yeah, piracy is bad, but lets be honest here... most companies don't pirate software that is critical to their infrastructure as they need support contracts when something goes awry.

Re:yeah the American people

[Bimo_Dude]

<RANT>

I agree that this is a total waste of taxpayer money. As of June 2002, 1 in 142 US residents are in jail. The average annual cost to incarcerate an inmate in state prison is $22,650 . This is the country that is supposed to be the world leader in freedom and democracy? Am I to believe that this many people constitute a threat to society, that we have to lock them up? What about the real criminals... those that raid the resources of the world and kill thousands (millions?) of innocent people all in the name of corporate greed? I'm not sure who said it, but there is a saying, "Little thieves have iron chains, and great thieves gold ones."

The US government is supposed to be representative of the people, not corporations.

</RANT>

Re:yeah the American people

[Kosi]

...acting on the behalf of private companies ... instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World.

OK, the companies should care for themselves, you are right here. But U.S. law enforcement should be strictly limited to U.S. territory!

And: If someone looks at at all the things your troops do and have done in Iraq and other places, he could easily come to the conclusion that you don't go after the murderers/terrorists because you are part of the murderers/terrorists of the world. But this leads very far from the topic, so I will shut up here.

Re:yeah the American people

[nolife]

If a local college student had 13,000 shop-lifted DVDs in his dorm room, is the store he stole them from supposed to just sue him and hope for the best? Hire private investigators? No: you get robbed, and you know who did it, you call the cops.

Theft of a physical product is a criminal offense. A civil case is not required at all. Violating a copyright law is completely different as the damages and what was actually "lost or stolen" must be argued. If copyright law loses were cut and dry, the person who stole an the half-life code would be liable for exactly $49 and the editor that copied Shrek3 prior to the release date would have to pay up $12.99, the retail price of those products on the street. They only stole one unit from the owners. Involving the higher crime fighting organizations in the US is the copyright owners trying to get the best of both worlds.

Re:yeah the American people

[AvitarX]

I believe copyright is law not contract.

It could be argued that the downloaders are copying not the uploaders, but it has already been established that the uploader is infringing too.

Re:yeah the American people

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirates destroyed the lives of many honest people here.

Don't complain when your business model is based on an artificial monopoly law created by the state. Make some creative work instead of destructing, stop hoarding information. I don't have any symphaty for people who take the software freedom of others away.

Re:yeah the American people

[ScentCone]

You're right! So, let's say he has 13k DVDs from 13k different stores. Never mind the other 12,999 of them: should any ONE store just sit back and forget about it, or assume that every one of these thefts should be its own problem? I agree that the copyright laws simply don't begin to address this, and that's truly awkward... and that civil justice is an appealing way to treat the symptom (if not the problem).

Re:yeah the American people

[haruchai]

Yes. The FOSS community will file a CIVIL suit against the offenders.

Re:yeah the American people

[lukewarmfusion]

Your troll has been duly noted.

In the meantime, consider the "artificial monopoly" that keeps millions of folks in business. We're not talking about millionaires, we're talking about everyday programmers that need to feed their families and pay their bills.

The business plan - relying on licensing and copyright protection - is the most viable one for major software projects. You simply can't produce works like...say, Doom 3, without having the ability to pay all those folks for their work. They won't do it for free because they can't afford to live for three or four years on their savings alone. And after that, they're not going to give it away for free (because they just spent all that time and money of their own, and now they have to pay their bills).

Just because you don't want to pay for the software doesn't mean you have a right to steal it.

Re:yeah the American people

[haruchai]

Money that ends up in terrorist hands come from lots of sources. I would say that the biggest source of income for them would be fossil fuels.

Time to stop buying foreign oil, wouldn't you say?

Re:yeah the American people

[maximilln]

In the meantime, consider the "artificial monopoly" that keeps millions of folks in business.

Fake. Artists will always make art. Painters will always paint. Musicians will always make music. Programmers will always write programs. Society will always survive. If it were any other way we'd be extinct or living in caves.

The business plan - relying on licensing and copyright protection - is the most viable one for major software projects.

There's a difference between the easiest way to do things and the right way to do things. The dividing line is in morality, not legality.

You simply can't produce works like...say, Doom 3, without having the ability to pay all those folks for their work.

They could. Too bad we're so far down the "mine! all mine!" patent/copyright route that we don't know how anymore.

Just because you don't want to pay for the software doesn't mean you have a right to steal it.

If you leave $100 in the middle of your front lawn don't come crying to me when someone else picked it up. The media companies know they're dealing in a product which has unlimited supply. Why the farcical act of surprise when people copy it?

Re:yeah the American people

[pgnas]

"Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World."

Here we go! what kind of attitiude is this? This is the attitude that condones breaking the law. This is the attitude that says "hey, it's just stealing, it's not like I am hurting anyone"...

Please remember, software is their product, it is the sole means of how they make money, and when you pirate sofware, you are walking into their place of business and taking the product off the shelf and walking out without paying for it.

"Yea, but those big bad software companies are making ridiculous amounts of money, they are ripping US off with their unfair licensing or (insert any gripe here)"

Yes, I agree, some of the companies out there are unscrupulous, hell, I don't like GM,I think that they make crappy cars, would it be ok if I walked onto a car lot and drove off with a car?

This is such a ridiculous argument, ultimately, if you have a problem with the publisher, you have a choice, if you still choose to use the software, the argument is moot and you are just stealing.

This person clearly broke the law, there is no doubt about it. It is not like he ripped off and distributed 1 lousy game, we are talking about an excess of 13,000 titles, this is huge.

As far as: "going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World" what you are saying is that stealing on a large scale is not that bad, in fact, it may not event be a crime, right? wrong. What the hell is it with this Robin Hood Attitude about software? Open up your wallet and start paying for the goods.

Re:yeah the American people

[DarkMantle]

But in the case of software you're violating the EULA which is a contract. And it sounded like these were software pirates, not kazaa users that they arrested.

Re:yeah the American people

[maximilln]

Please remember, software is their product, it is the sole means of how they make money, and when you pirate sofware, you are walking into their place of business and taking the product off the shelf and walking out without paying for it.

Why don't they care about their product to protect distribution proactively? Like... don't put it in a form where everyone can copy it?

I'm sorry if you don't know how to do that. It's not my problem. My business is 100% intellectual property. Essentially, I have no product. I don't see anyone shelling out tax dollars to protect me. Why? Because it's understood that there's only one real solution: if you don't want it mainstream, then don't put it out in public.

Yes, I agree, some of the companies out there are unscrupulous, hell, I don't like GM,I think that they make crappy cars, would it be ok if I walked onto a car lot and drove off with a car?

No, because you've now deprived someone else of a car which cost about $3000 in materials and labor to build.

Forget about intellectual property for a moment. Just pretend it doesn't exist (if I can do it, and it's my primary business, so can you). Without intellectual property, what's the loss of the value of a CD? About $0.0000001. One song of a CD is about 1/10th that. So, even if he did distribute 100000 copies, that's still a loss of about 1 cent.

Re:yeah the American people

[maximilln]

But in the case of software you're violating the EULA which is a contract

An EULA is as much of a contract as the boxer short lint on my butt. Lawyers have been called "dung-scrapers".

Re:yeah the American people

[Surt]

There's typically no contract existing between the entities in question here. This is more like GM sells me a car, and Joe Schmoe steals it and sells it to Jane Eyre. GM doesn't get Jane's business. For whatever reason, I don't care. GM can't bring a breach of contract suit against Joe for their lost business, because they've had no contact with Joe. Instead, they need to get the police to enforce the anti-thievery laws so they won't lose Jane's (and others like her) business.

Re:yeah the American people

[Surt]

In all seriousness, if you notice any of them carrying anything shiny, I'd try reporting that they are selling bootlegged cds. If it gets investigated and turns out to be untrue, well, you were just mistaken about what the shiny things were, you thought they looked like bootleg DVDs.

Re:yeah the American people

[TrollBridge]

"They could. Too bad we're so far down the "mine! all mine!" patent/copyright route that we don't know how anymore."

So do you pay your rent/mortgage, cable, utilities, phone, etc. bills with good will and happy thoughts? Why are you so opposed to paying people for producing a product?

Re:yeah the American people

[monkeydo]

The contract argument supported by the EULA (if it is) is your defense when you are charged with the crime of copyright infringement.

Re:yeah the American people

[maximilln]

So do you pay your rent/mortgage, cable, utilities, phone, etc. bills with good will and happy thoughts? Why are you so opposed to paying people for producing a product?

You're propagating the false myth that imprisoning file-sharers will result in a pay increase for the inventors and creators, who are the just recipients of the laws' protection.

It's a false myth. Accept it. The laws aren't helping anyone to pay bills. The laws are only helping CEOs and Directors buy bigger ranches.

Re:yeah the American people

[Rorschach1]

And without law enforcement support, what's that get you? They could just ignore the courts all day long.

Re:yeah the American people

[b1t r0t]

The fact is that in this situation everyone knows what happened. A few key employees from one established place took a copy of the server with all the data files and software and all that, and went to establish a competitor in an adjoining state. Same product, 25% cheaper. That 25% is almost entirely made up by the fact that they did not license the software everyone else has to pay for.

This software package that was cracked and passed around so viciously on many of the big warez networks was the lifeblood of a vibrant partnership of interests.

So how does an inside job with employees stealing the source code and data relate to removing anti-piracy features? And what makes you call that "cracking"?

Geez, if you're going to troll, at least take the time to make up a consistent story.

Re:yeah the American people

[maximilln]

And without law enforcement support, what's that get you?

It would teach you the value of "take care of your own sh_t and quit whining for the taxpayers to cover for you".

Re:yeah the American people

[daniel_mcl]

"The wholesale looting of others [sic] intellectual property is a very destructive thing. Of those 13,000 titles you can very sure that among them were titles by the non-industry powerhouses."

I don't believe this at all. Those 13,000 titles probably consisted of every song ever recorded by Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, and various other "musicians," seventeen versions of Photoshop + crack, and various popular games.

I'd add that the situation you describe has *nothing* to do with what the FBI is doing, and further that the FBI will *never* help out with such situations if things keep going the way they are, because the vast majority of piracy is against the recording and motion picture industries, and if our law enforcement agencies go after that they'll never get around to helping out the little guys.

As an aside, it's well-known and statistically obvious that file-sharing has been an enormous boon to the recording industry; thousands upon thousands of people who previously didn't pay much attention to music got hooked by the simplicity of downloading from their computers, and their new interest in music has been driving large numbers of new sales.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

Sorry, I checked with legal, and as I know work for a competitor of the software, I can't really say. The product was a vertical market app used for the medical industry: essentially managed your entire office, billing, insurance billing, scheduling, etc.

Piracy is going to happen, you have to factor this into any software sales. Even if you hadn't removed the licensing features they would have been worked around anyway given enough time. (Assumming the software was truely popular enough)
No, not really. Every copy of the software used an active form of product activation, and required regular checks against a master database of legal copies: the client could go to a secure website and get a new pre-keyed version delivered by e-mail. That would only work on one PC - determined by a powerful hash of various system bits - and at one location. Every set of binaries was unique, and it was in daily communication (internet connectivity to a remote server was already required for many features). It was virtually foolproof. There really was no widescale way to fake the system. Maybe you could spend hours and make one copy run wrongly, but really, it couldnt be done on a wide scale.

Yeah, piracy is bad, but lets be honest here... most companies don't pirate software that is critical to their infrastructure as they need support contracts when something goes awry
I say no. I see it all the time. Every day actually. Companies - big and small - pirating infrastructure software on a daily basis from both big and small companies.

Re:yeah the American people

[Kosi]

This is the country that is supposed to be the world leader in freedom and democracy?

No, this is the country that once was the world leader in freedom and democracy. Nowadays they are only leading in pollution, aggression and plutocracy.

Re:yeah the American people

[maximilln]

I say no. I see it all the time. Every day actually. Companies - big and small - pirating infrastructure software on a daily basis from both big and small companies.

Good thing we're blaming all the lost profits on college kids and basement trolls.

Sheesh.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

No source code was stolen: a working copy of the software - which was newly setup not to require activation, and heavy onerus copy protection - was taken.

And what makes you call that "cracking"?
There was a small binary hack applied to a copy that was floating around. Certain advanced (dangerous) features of the software could only be executed with a support person on the phone. To control access you had to do a challenge/response with the support person. This was stepped over using a simple decompiler and a minor change.

Should have been more clear.

Re:yeah the American people

[Grym]

While I admit I feel the story you describe is quite unfortunate and probably happens more often than most slashdotters would think, I feel you're missing the greater question: Would stricter IP legislation/enforcement have a net beneficial effect on a small software development house like the one in your example?

I don't think it would. Take the article, for instance. So the FBI busts a college kid sharing 13,000 files. Do you actually think those files were small business applications? No... they weren't. They were movies, songs and maybe a few Microsoft/Adobe programs, and that's the only reason he got busted. Face it, the FBI is acting on behalf of big business, and no increase in legislation or enforcement is going to change that. The only people who will be busted for sharing software developed by small developers are people who are sharing big business software/content too.

But let's suppose, for the sake of the argument, that it did. Increased legislation/enforcement saved the mom-and-pop software development house from (arr!) pirates. Let's say that they make so much money that they end up on Microsoft or some other big company's radar. With broad software patents on even things like double-clicking, they will find SOMETHING that infringes. So, back to the courts, we go. Without a patent portfolio of your own for leverage, you can't settle and without virtually unlimited patience and legal funds of a large corporation, a small software house will lose or at least go bankrupt if they win. Out of the pot and into the frying pan.

So, even in our imaginary situation where piracy were completely eliminated, which isn't possible in the information era in which we find ourselves, the small business goes under. And, more interestingly, does so as a direct result of the IP laws/enforcement you posit would save it.

-Grym

Re:yeah the American people

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Its not a myth that if you produce something (through hard work). If someone else takes that hard workd and starts making a profit off your work, then you would naturally feel that that was theft of your work, and profit from something that was not theirs. This should be considered theft and the laws reflect that. The issue in this post thread is not about the copying of files as much as copying of programs which are a slightly different thing. Things that companies buy and use for their business. If someone else is selling your software and you don't get paid for that then that is theft. Song sharing is usually not used by business and should be viewed in a different light. There is some commonality in the issues. But here it may be the difference of Copyright vs Patent law, connected ideas but different laws in effect.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

I don't believe this at all. Those 13,000 titles probably consisted of every song ever recorded by Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, and various other "musicians," seventeen versions of Photoshop + crack, and various popular games.
The article mentions: "Members gain access to copyrighted material, often before its release, crack the digital protections and put it online for others to access, reproduce or pass along." This leads me to believe that this was actually a ring of the crackers themselves, not so much mules, but really, aritects of the infringement. The lead me to believe that it wasnt so much music/movies, but software/warez.

I'd add that the situation you describe has *nothing* to do with what the FBI is doing, and further that the FBI will *never* help out with such situations if things keep going the way they are, because the vast majority of piracy is against the recording and motion picture industries, and if our law enforcement agencies go after that they'll never get around to helping out the little guys.
I think it does. These are the people who actually crack the software. The FBI taking these people out is a big step to making it unpalattable to the "warez" scene to crack all kinds of software. The FBI will get involved if they have the ability to - evidence, clear economic damage, wide scale pirating, etc. Regional FBI offices often get involved with the "little guy" cases, but its just not often that it gets in the news like a worldwide bust.

As an aside, it's well-known and statistically obvious that file-sharing has been an enormous boon to the recording industry; thousands upon thousands of people who previously didn't pay much attention to music got hooked by the simplicity of downloading from their computers, and their new interest in music has been driving large numbers of new sales.
That's fine, music is not all thats at stake. Smaller software packages rely on small sales - $40/each @ 3000 sales a year is typical for a 3-5 person software company. That's only 8 sales a day. If a crack for a nifty piece of software gets out, those 8 sales may be reduced to 6 sales a day. That's a $25k a year difference in sales. That's a big cut. That's someone job being cut. Or a major benefit. Health-insurance for 3-5 people costs around that much.

The big companies can benefit and can handle piracy. It's true. I don't deny it. But there are side-effects.

Re:yeah the American people

[Famatra]

"In the meantime, consider the "artificial monopoly" that keeps millions of folks in business. "

Or slavery that kept the south in business with cotton. What is your arguement that we can tolerate something bad (like stopping information flow or slavery) if it gives us jobs or coin?

[The] free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny...Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
- Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Re:yeah the American people

[Grym]

Why should one HAVE to do that [factor piracy into sales]? Because software pirates say so?

No, you factor it in because the reality of the situation (not pirates) dictates it. It's like factoring the cost of the locks on the doors when you build your house. The fact that some people ignore such an unnatural convention as "intellectual property," is a reality no different than the fact that some people will steal.

Which doesn't matter. You don't have the right to pirate something just because you think the price is too high.

I don't think he was saying that. Simple economics dictates that the price match the highest price the market could bear. It should be no wonder that a company that a company whose price is too high would go out of business.

Just because current IP laws allow you to get literally something for tangibly nothing, that shouldn't lead to the conclusion that you can charge anything you want. The fundamentals of economics still apply, and I believe that was the purpose of the original poster's statement.

This is the piracy justification I posted about elsewhere in this thread. This is where you start offering reasons and defense for the piracy. You blame it on the software company. "I've decided your software was too expensive, and you made bad decisions! You should just accept piracy because it's your fault!" This is the same reasoning software pirates use so that they don't feel guilty about their behavior. When you point this out to them, they often lash out. Here on Slashdot, that lashing usually comes in the form of downmods.

Now wait a minute. Sure some posters/mods on slashdot are merely apologetic with regard to piracy, but that doesn't change the fact that there are serious and legitimate problems with our IP laws as they exist today. Not only that, but some people, myself included, aren't convinced that the concepts of physical ownership should apply to things as diffuse and indefinable as an idea.

-Grym

Re:yeah the American people

[conteXXt]

I think my point may have beena little vague.

What I am saying is you are at war with terror now, you are still at war with (some) drugs.

Why are you still even worried about what some people do that harms no one but (arguable) themselves?

I think you would be better served by emptying your prisons of these people. and stop building new ones.

Use THAT money to wage intermnable wars.

Re:yeah the American people

[Jerry]

You really DON'T know what the GPL means or what rights it protects, do you? Read it: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

First, the only people who can "rip off" GPL code are corporate folks who take a copy, make changes and/or improvements, and put the result into their PROPRIETARY binaries, surrounded by restrictive EULAs. It's like someone damming off a public stream and then charging folks for access to it.

Second, NO ONE (repeat: NO ONE) is FORCED to use the GPL on their application. Those that do, do so voluntarily, usually because they agree with the principles stated in the Preamble to the GPL. I suggest you read at least the Preamble so you have even a slight clue as to what the GPL means.

Well, to make things easier for you, here is the Preamble:
"Preamble

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.

Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow. "

Re:yeah the American people

[RpiMatty]

Overall, the top suppliers of oil (crude and refined products) to the United States during 2003 were Canada (2.1 MMBD), Saudi Arabia (1.8 MMBD), Mexico (1.6 MMBD), and Venezuela (1.4 MMBD).

(MMBD = million barrels per day) from

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html

Dang Canadians! Lets stop giving those hockey playing moose chasing beer drinking hoosiers our money.

i thaught the majority of hijackers on 9/11 were from iran? correct me if im wrong. the usa has sancations against iran and libya, so they dont get any oil money from us.

maybe once we set up a democracy in iraq, they will become a big supplier of oil for america, who knows...

just read this while waiting for the preview...

U.S. competitors in Europe and Japan depend much more on Gulf oil than the U.S. does: 30% of European oil imports and nearly 80% of Japan's come from the Gulf. The U.S. exerts significant influence on these countries through control of Gulf oil.

from http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol2/v2n4oil_body.html
its old, but lots of stuff hasen't changed from 97.

Re:yeah the American people

[xZAQx]

My godparents' neice was struck by a car driven by a man under the influence of several narcotics. She died, and so did her unborn child.

Harmeless?

Yeah, right.

Re:yeah the American people

[Dman33]

Not trying to feed the flames or anything, but I think he means "invisible" not in the sense that it does not exist, but in the sense that terrorism does not have a face. In it's nature, terrorism only exists with fear. If it is not able to spread fear, then it no longer exists.

Now, we as humans tend to fear what we do not understand or cannot put a face on. Terrorism is not a country, it is not a group led by one man, it is nothing that we have fought with conventional war techniques.. it is 'invisible' like the boogey man - one minute it is not there, and the next minute four planes are hijacked.

The problem is that instead of trying to learn about the people that utilize terrorism as a war tactic, we try to treat the terrorists as conventional adversaries. This is very likely not to work as the one thing that you must do when at war is to know everything about your enemy. If the people of the United States were given more information to know and understand the enemy and the rationale behind their thinking, then the people of the United States would possibly be less afraid of and more diligent against acts of terror.

Instead, we listen to color codes and run around wondering when the next skyscraper is going to fall.

Re:yeah the American people

[Matt2k]

> You're propagating the false myth that imprisoning file-sharers will result in a pay increase for the inventors and creators, who are the just recipients of the laws' protection.

> It's a false myth. Accept it. The laws aren't helping anyone to pay bills. The laws are only helping CEOs and Directors buy bigger ranches.

Right, and maybe if we keep repeating this mantra, it becomes true.

You avoided the question completely, good job. How do you pay your bills? Are you compensated for professional services? A salary of some form? Why don't you just work for free, what makes you so special that you deserve to get paid but others do not?

Piracy is a real crime, it costs real people real money. Saying over and over that you wouldn't have bought my software anyway is getting really fucking old.

Seriously, are you trolling here?

>
Fake. Artists will always make art. Painters will always paint. Musicians will always make music. Programmers will always write programs. Society will always survive. If it were any other way we'd be extinct or living in caves.

Wrong. Some artists will always make art, some painters will always paint, SOME musicians will always make music. The majority WOULD NOT.

Bye.

Re:yeah the American people

[RichardX]

I'm very sorry to hear that, but in that case the death was caused by an intoxicated driver - illegal drugs weren't the problem, the outcome would've been the same had the person been legally drunk on alcohol. The death was caused by the person driving intoxicated, needless to say an utterly irresponsible and selfish thing for any person to do, whatever the cause of the intoxication.

Re:yeah the American people

[EllisDees]

Maybe not invisible, but far, far less dangerous than many things that most people won't ever get very worked up over. Car accidents, the flu, slipping in the bathtub, peanut allergies - all things that kill more people every year than the worst terrorist attack.

That you can't see how the government is using Sept 11th as an excuse for any pet project it has in mind *cough* Iraq *cough*, tells me all I really need to know about who's manipulable.

Re:yeah the American people

[EllisDees]

The drugs did not kill your relatives, the asshole driving the car did. Notice how their current illegality did nothing to save them, either.

Re:yeah the American people

[EastCoastSurfer]

Um, this is slashdot. How dare you bring facts to the discussion!

Re:yeah the American people

[xZAQx]

Alcohol is no more acceptable. My, erm, "official" stance on drug legality is make them all illegal or make them all legal. You don't get to pick and choose. Marijuana isn't as harmful as alcohol, yet it's illegal.

Stupid cuntry. (sic)

Re:yeah the American people

[Tim C]

most companies don't pirate software that is critical to their infrastructure

I can't speak for most companies (but I suspect that you can't either), but I've certainly known a few to pirate critical apps, even ones they could legitimately charge clients for, rather than spend even a few hundred dollars in licensing fees, just because they could. There was no way they'd be caught (short of being ratted our), so they did it. Sometimes the license was literally $500 - $1000 USD that they could've charged the client, on a project costing > $500,000 in total, but they still pirated it.

Re:yeah the American people

[drinkypoo]

You have not actually shown that piracy is what caused the downfall of this company, and your comment was somewhat disjointed (as was your story) but this was nonetheless fun to read. Work more on supporting facts next time! B-.

Re:yeah the American people

[haruchai]

Perhaps but there also the court of public opinion / awareness - a bit harder to ignore.

Re:yeah the American people

[RpiMatty]

ooops my mistake.

Re:yeah the American people

[deblau]

Although I agree in principle that theft is wrong, I must point out that software has a functional aspect, while music does not. Britney Spears has no business customers who will go belly-up if she doesn't release an "album upgrade" (other than her label, and I doubt they'll fold). The music industry is notorious for not caring about their "end users", other than to milk them for their money. I think you'll agree that niche business markets are totally different from retail consumer markets.

I feel sorry for your loss, and I think it's a shame that your company went down because of piracy. You clearly cared about your product, and you cared about your customers. If the music industry showed the same kind of commitment, perhaps there would be less piracy.

Re:yeah the American people

[haruchai]

A lot of the bigwigs in the Middle Eastern terrorist worlds come (came?)from Egypt and Saudi Arabia - Osama bin Laden is but one of many.

Re:yeah the American people

[Kymermosst]

Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World.

You're a moron. Law enforcement works on behalf of private citizens and companies all the time. There are plenty of criminal offenses that require someone to notify law enforcement before anything can be done. They wouldn't chase the rapist if the victim never reported it, to use one of your examples.

By your logic, if someone broke into my house (let's say that they didn't cause any damage and didn't steal anything, just to make it fair), I should have to file a civil suit against this person, rather than call the police.

You might be arguing that all copyright infringement should be a civil matter, not a criminal matter, but in this case, it was a criminal matter and those arrested were charged with a crime.

Re:yeah the American people

[shark72]

"Or slavery that kept the south in business with cotton. What is your arguement that we can tolerate something bad (like stopping information flow or slavery) if it gives us jobs or coin?"

I think you've nailed it. My right to say how my program or my musical composition is distributed is just like the enslavement of black people in the 19th century.

Re:yeah the American people

[danila]

I wonder if you have ever considered even for a fraction of a second the positive effect to the economy? If 1000 companies use software which costs 500$, they get 500000$ of value and then some on top of that by actually using the software. It can work out to a few millions dollars of added value for the companies, for shareholders and for the economy overall. Meanwhile, your company loses 300000$ investment that you made. But there is more - since the software is now essentially free, 4000 more companies who would not have paid for it while it costed 500$ are going to use it. That's about 2 million (may be more, may be less) dollars more in value.

Of course, it's not as simple in real life - there is no support available, the source code is lost, since the authors haven't released it, and the company doesn't invest in the next product. But there are clearly positive effects which in many cases compensate for the potential losses of the developers.

Have you thought about it? Have all those people who lament 200000$ of losses thought about it? While piracy generates potential losses for the developers, it also generates very real and tangible net economic gains for the society overall.

Re:yeah the American people

[shark72]

"Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World."

The Slashdot groupthink during the Napster trial was that the companies should go after the individuals doing the pirating, and not the companies providing the service. When that started happening, popular opinion on Slashdot was that rather than filing unchecked lawsuits, the media companies should let the government take care of it. And now they are. This is another "be careful what you wish for" situation. Either way, if you thought somebody wronged you to the point that crossed the civil/criminal line, you might very well opt to press criminal charges rather than go through the time, expense and the hassle of a civil proceeding. You can expect others to behave the same way.

"Well in fairness they are still going after them -- this just seems like wasted resources to me."

Whether we like it or not, the intellectual property generated by individuals and companies in the US brings in a good share of our money and is a major factor in the quality of life we enjoy today. The short list of countries that have not signed the Berne Convention or otherwise don't have copyright agreements with the US -- Afghanistan, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Nepal, Oman, San Marino, Tonga and Yemen -- does not read as a list of countries in which I'd like to live, or even as a list of countries which are seeing explosions in the International art scene. I appreciate the fact that I own a car, a house, and that I have access to health care and indoor plumbing. The trade-off is, of course, that Microsoft is liable to go all crazy monkey on my ass if they catch me with a thousand pirated copies of Windows XP.

Re:yeah the American people

[shark72]

"Who the FBI, CIA, NSA, DoD, and the Pentagon ought to be going after is China, Korea, Thailand, and all the other Southeast Asian countries that are costing American companies millions, if not billions, in 'lost revenues' on computer software sales. Sadly, that would require an act of war..."

The US (and other Berne signatories) do fight piracy in the countries you've mentioned, and it doesn't take an act of war in the sense that you probably mean. It's typically done with economic sanctions.

Examples and more info:

• http://www.templetonthorp.com/en/news621
• http://www.bna.com/itr/arch245.htm
• http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Press_Release s/2003/May/Special_301_Report_Finds_Some_Progress, _But_Improvement_Needed.html
• http://usinfo.state.gov/ei/Archive/2003/Dec/31-309 8.html

Re:yeah the American people

[lukewarmfusion]

Stop thinking along the lines of small programs and start thinking about software packages that require many people and many months of work to create. What should those programmers, artists, and musicians do to earn money? How do they pay their bills for the next two years while they create the next blockbuster game title?

Copyrights protect the creator, whether you like it or not. The music industry, evil though it may have become, is designed as a way to ensure that poor artists can get their work heard and make some money from it. Simplified: To do that, they get a loan from the music company. In exchange, the music company does everything it can to recoup expenses and turn a profit. If they didn't have copyright laws to protect their investments, we wouldn't get such great music; even though there would be dedicated folks still creating music, you wouldn't hear it because it would be too expensive to record, produce, and distribute the music. And not a single one would do it anyway, because nobody would buy it (it's free, remember?).

Haven't you seen the thousands of open source projects that live on donations alone? How many of those programmers pay their bills on the money they get in their PayPal donations?

People make money by advertising, by selling products, and by selling their services. Information is guarded because it's valuable.

Re:yeah the American people

[conteXXt]

I feel for you.

But it changes nothing.

If the person had been drunk/stoned/tired/not wearing their prescription lenses
AND DRIVING - note

then the full force of the law should come into effect. You see BY DRIVING they endangered others.

If they stayed in and didn't DRIVE, then how exactly did they harm you or anyone else that you may care for?

(you obviously care not for people with addictions/different taste, so why not just let them kill themselves (quicker) with thier first joint or whatever the PMRC types spout as science these day?)

Another point. Knives CAN kill. so can CARS. shall we lock up their users too?

And don't get silly with the reply until alcohol is illegal again. mkay?

Re:yeah the American people

[Money for Nothin']

As of June 2002, 1 in 142 US residents are in jail. The average annual cost to incarcerate an inmate in state prison is $22,650 .

FYI, about half of the people in federal prisons, and around 20% of those in state prisons, (or 27%, by the DEA's numbers, though there they say the federal rate is about 5%, but this contradicts the Federal Bureau of Prisons figure of 54%) are in on nothing more than mere drug offenses, correct?

IMO, we ought to legalize all drugs, tax the hell out of those which seriously impair one's ability to operate machinery (e.g. cars, guns, etc.) so as to pay for the consequences which may result from legalization. Regulate the sale of the harder drugs (coke, heroin, etc.) by requiring a doctor's prescription -- a prescription as a recreational drug, much like Viagra... But softer drugs ought to be available over-the-counter for adults.

Legalizing marijuana alone would end the arrests of about 750k Americans/year and save the U.S. $7b in enforcing this prohibition, plus another $2b in housing weed-charged inmates.

Eliminate drug offenses, and your rate would go to around 1 in 284 (about 0.35%) Americans... Plus, by freeing all those people, we'd have more people here working productively and therefore able to share the cost of incarcerating the *real* criminals -- the murderers, rapists, fraudsters, etc., so the average annual cost of incarcerating prisoners would drop...

Re:yeah the American people

[TheLittleJetson]

I reckon the Madrid train bombing was invisible? And so was September 11th, right?

How about 'enigmatic'? I think what he's trying to say is, 'invisible' in the sense that you can't accurately assess how strong they are, who (if anyone) is in charge, etc.

In other words, was september 11 the acts of a powerful worldwide organization that is plotting the demise of western culture, or just 20 crazy guys with some box-cutters?

Obviously, nobody thinks the terrorist threat is completely fictional. That would be foolish. But there are those of us who think it's been highly exxagerated for poltical purposes.

Re:yeah the American people

[FinalMidnight]

While I can empathise, seems your employer was on the steep end of the learning curve.

Seems like some poor business decisions were made. Like to compromise the business model because customers asked that it be done. While this decision had advantages, it also turned out to have been expensive.

My family business has been subject to cut-throat competition a number of times. In the more than 20 years of business, the company has run about six major competitors into the ground. Many of these used cheap knockoffs of our products to compete.

Cut-throat competitors will eventually cut their own throat, as you noted.

I also point out that basing a business on a single product is inherently risky. Success or failure of the business is tied to the success or failure of the product.

A law of economics is that supply will always equal demand. When a product or service is expensive, alternatives will be found. The more expensive the product or service, the more attractive alternatives become. While this may not be fair, it is none the less true.

Any software product can be copied. Even if it is made of patented uncopyable bits, if the product is truly successful, then it will be reverse engineered. Developing a product first only gives a margin of time. From a few minutes (illegal copying) to a few years (engineered from first principles). How a company uses this time to cement their client-base is what separates the winners from the losers.

At the end of the day, was it relay the right decision to have licensing account for 25% of the total cost of the service?

I postulate that it was not piracy that killed your company, but a poorly judged market.

I do, however admit that piracy was a contributing factor, and may even have been the instrument of the demise of your employer.

Re:yeah the American people

[drinkypoo]

Those people should make money through support, distribution, merchandising of the trademarks involved (if any) and through directed development. If there's no demand they should write something for which there is demand, or get over it.

Information is valuable because we are greedy. We could instead make information Free, and make resources valuable. I personally like the idea of patents, maybe even on software if you couldn't get a patent for just any jack-off thing out there, and software patents need a seriously short lifespan. Both patents and copyrights make sense, but both last far too long.

Re:yeah the American people

[Kymermosst]

Copyright violation is NOT a felony, and is thus a matter for a civil case.

No matter how much you repeat that, in this case it is simply not true. Why don't we just take a look at the relevant federal laws here and here.

Now, the definition of "felony" is a crime that is punishable by more than one year of imprisonment (or death). Since this person distributed more than $1000 retail value of copyrighted materials in a 180-day period they are in violation of the title 17 law referenced above, and committed "criminal infringement". By the letter of the law, a crime. Since the title 18 law referenced specifies a punishment of up to three to five years imprisonment for said crime, it is a a felony by definition.

Leave it to an anonymous coward to not only spout 'facts' that haven't been checked, but also to fail to know (or check) the definitions of words.

Re:yeah the American people

[lukewarmfusion]

I agree that software copyrights and patents are excessively long... the lifespan of usefulness of a book or a painting is much longer than that of code. For almost as long as I've understood the problem, I've believed that the solution is not to abandon protections but to shorten them for certain works.

I think that information is valuable because it's not readily available. Think of how long you spend learning and perfecting a craft. Should you be forced to share that for free? Your education, your personal talents, and developed abilities are valuable because they are indeed rare. Information is not limited in the same way as resources, but the expense - in money, time, and personal dedication - of gaining that information is just as scarce as any given resource.

Re:yeah the American people

[Cylix]

Every place I have worked has been paranoid about piracy. Granted, the list isn't large, but I also have friends. Their companies share the software piracy fear.

Now, I'm in a smaller shop, but I carried that compliancy urge with me. The sole reason, I'm getting paid an alright salary (not large enough to worry about saving the company money for some year end bonus insentive) so why should I have to worry about someone causing issues on my network and then forcing me to deal with it.

Only recently were non-software piracy issues cause for worry.

Yeah, I should be careful with generalizations, but every large shop I have seen tends to worry about support contracts and piracy issues.

Now with our OSS stuff we carry our own support, but in this instance the product was being refered to as something fairly critical. It would have to have been damn good if someone wanted to carry a pirated app on their own.

Who knows, the next company might have pirate envy, but why deal with the potential problems if its not your money.

Re:yeah the American people

[Cylix]

I know this guy.... really bright PHD kinda guy. It's too bad he has fallen behind in technology in his later years.

He has explained some cracks he has written (though apparently they didn't call it cracking). Something like your software probably would have peaked his interest. He wouldn't have shared it, but removed what he would have thought of as annoyances.

On a purely technical level, this guy can go way above my head and he has even explained some of the tricky things people do and how he went about getting around them.

I really shouldn't have said most companies... bad generlization on my part... but its not something I see in my circle.

Now, I can understand the smaller apps getting away undetected, but hell I have a friend who admins a much larger company then mine and he goes ape shit over winzip licenses.

Are worries are a little simpler here ;)

Re:yeah the American people

[dsanfte]

You're more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than a terrorist. Where's the "War on Drunk Driving"? Or for that matter, the "War on Carcinogens in Food"?

A massive tsunami just killed probably 100,000 people or close to it. How many people die of smoking-related diseases just in the US every year? More than that.

Fear of cancer or automobile accidents won't scare people enough to get them to sign off on massive budget reallocations to the military, though. So Terrorism it is, with its few thousands of dead.

Re:yeah the American people

[iamwahoo2]

Exactly, Law enforcement is supposed to be doing this sort of thing, however the only time they act like this is if somebody with a big wallet is backing them. I have a good freind who is an internal auditor/fraud examiner who handed the county DA a $100,000+ fraud case where the person committing the fraud openly admitted it because he knows he was caught. The DA decided not to prosecute because it was not enough money. The FBI is even worse, they and other federal organizations are notorious for sitting on their hands and doing nothing with the information that they get from citizens no matter how valuable, yet they can manage to dedicate a whole team and operation to cracking down on college students sharing movies and music which only in their wildest dreams amounts to over $200,000 in actual damages? Unprosecuted big-time fraud is rampant in our country and if the FBI was truly acting as stewards of the american taxpayer then they could manage to do something about it just like they are getting involved in the file sharing crackdown. It is a bunch of bull that I pay an FBI agents salary but a politician at the top whore's them out like a bunch of private mercenaries.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

Like to compromise the business model because customers asked that it be done. While this decision had advantages, it also turned out to have been expensive.
Absolutely. They believed, hook line and sinker, that the customers were honest and that they just didnt have the 30 seconds to retrieve a new binary from the web site when they replaced or added a new PC.

After 15 years of steady customer base growth and good reviews, the owner really believed her customers could be trusted to be honest and ethical.

I also point out that basing a business on a single product is inherently risky. Success or failure of the business is tied to the success or failure of the product.
In theory its easy to diversify, but most small companies rely on a few or a single product or client account for its sustained size or health. Regardless, whether they had 1 or 100 products, a 40% drop in revenue in short period of time will really destroy a bottom line.

Any software product can be copied. Even if it is made of patented uncopyable bits, if the product is truly successful, then it will be reverse engineered...
You assume that their will be competitors. In the market I was in, there are very few competitors. The software and its protocols and formats are heavily regulated by federal and state government. The standards are dictated haphazardly and poorly. The billing procedures are a mess, and require constant tweaking. Every time Congress gets into office they add new rules or remove rules or change them or muck about. The product isn't static, it's not fixed in stone. It's a dynamic thing.

At the end of the day, was it relay the right decision to have licensing account for 25% of the total cost of the service?
Licensing is all a software company has to offer. They don't build houses, or cars, or anything else. What else is there? T-shirts? The income is what each site pays yearly to use the software. New sales adds a little extra to that - upfront costs, etc, but in reality, what else is there for a software company? A little bit of professional services/consulting - mostly done at break even to keep clients happy, but, unless people are willing to pay the yearly licensing costs there is nothing else.

Piracy was the pure cause. The customers claimed that anti-piracy measures were a big drain on them even though it was maybe 5 minutes a year of effort for them to deal with it. (Literally). I'd have to check, but out of thousands of annual support tickets maybe 5 were due to the anti-piracy measures. When, after customer request, copy-protection was disabled a huge percentage of clients didnt renew, and virtually no new sales were recorded. Yet, the installed base would increase. Sales guys would visit new businesses in the industry to find out how their new package was working out only to find that they were using a pirated copy of the software. "You selling XYZ? Ohh, we already use that. Nice job, its a good product!"

5,000 paying customers becomes half that in one revenue cycle. Growth in customers becomes massive loss.

There is no way to side-step the issue. The management deciding that anti-piracy features should be disabled killed the company. It allowed pirates to destroy the business.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

Let's say that they make so much money that they end up on Microsoft or some other big company's radar.
Most software is vertical market, customized to a small market. This market is bigger than MS, bigger than Adobe, bigger than any vendor. Hundreds, thousands of companies selling products priced $10k - $50k to a few hundred or dozen clients.

MS will never compete on this scale. Why? It's not that profitable. It takes too many resources. And too much local knowledge. Each state is different.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

It does not have net economic gains. The company I mentioned went out of business. That software ceased to be. People who already paid for it have to buy something else, because the software becomes out of date due to changes in the law and billing procedures within 12-18 months. Those people have to re-invest, and even the people who pirated it have to either pirate something else or actually buy another package.

Either way, people have to spend money on something they already bought and paid for. It requires a big outlay of capital and labor costs. Spending money on something you didnt need to replace is a net drain on the economy. Plus, on top of that, you have people who lost their jobs, tax revenue that was lost, etc.

There is no net economic gain from your scenario at all. There is a huge net loss.

One final thing. Most software that people pay lots of money for is not word processors or photoshop style apps. They are specific custom applications with small user bases.

If you run a medical billing company, you need medical billing software. Your investment of $50k in software does not gain you a $30k return. Without it there is no business. Without it you are not in the medical billing business. Period. If you have revenue $250k, that $50k investment is well spent. Ideally it'd be best if you didnt have to spend that money, but in the real world, it will never be the case. It may be cheaper, but it will always be there. The OSS projects that do exist always stagnate on this level. Why? There are 25,000 pages of laws regarding the topic. Thousands of rules for each insurance company. Books and books and books of information regarding the process, procedures, customs, etc. Data that must be licensed from monopolist sources, etc. It is impossible right now for an OSS app to do thse things. It is a full time job to maintain an app like this. Congress will pass a law and give you 30 days to enact changes. It's beyond what you can imagine almost!

Re:yeah the American people

[danila]

I agree with you that the case of your company is different from I described. When a company in a niche market goes out of business, everyone suffers and the economy suffers too.

But if we consider simplier products which do not require upgrades made for for larger markets (photoshop, word processors, etc.), which probably constitute most of the piracy, the situation is different.

So should be our attitude to piracy. We should condemn it when it harms both the producers and the customers, but we should tolerate it when the negative effect on developers is bearable and the positive effect for all the freeloaders is significant.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

We should condemn it when it harms both the producers and the customers, but we should tolerate it when the negative effect on developers is bearable and the positive effect for all the freeloaders is significant.
No, we shouldn't.

Having a law that is different based on who it effects to this degree and to this degree is inviting choas.

Getting something your competitors are required to pay for is a business advantage. Allowing some business to get this advantage and others to fail to get the advantage is just damn wrong. Laws that redistribute wealth and power from "developers" to "freeloaders" creates a disincentive to develop software. Most software is developed by small companies with a small number of developers. Not the other way around. These companies cannot afford what you suggest. And killing of thse companies is expensive and for what - so some people can get some stuff for free? Its fundamentally unfair.

Re:yeah the American people

[danila]

First, we can have a law against piracy, but tolerate it when it does more good than harm. Second, piracy often does more good than harm. It can be demonstrated really easily by anyone with a good grasp of economics (I wrote an article about this, but it's in Russian). We already have many laws which affect different people (companies) differently. Why shouldn't we have another one, especially when that law benefits the economy significantly?

BTW, when you say most software is developed by small companies, do you have data to back this up? Because the data I saw says the opposite.

Re:yeah the American people

[drinkypoo]

Learning is not information, so your analogy is ridiculously flawed - well, that and the fact that teaching takes time and effort while copying is not even an inconvenience. Knowledge is what comes from studying information, and I do think that the information needed to learn crafts should be freely available, perhaps after a short copyright period, in order to allow the trade to be preserved. How much knowledge has been lost due to being kept as a trade secret?

The fact that developing information is difficult is the only reason I am not entirely against patents and copyrights.

Re:yeah the American people

[pgnas]

"Why don't they care about their product to protect distribution proactively? Like... don't put it in a form where everyone can copy it?"

I think that a best effort should be made to protect something, however, you and I both know that what-ever protection methods you devise, nothing is safe, there is always someone smarter and more capable who is going to get a kick out of breaking your protection and ditributng the intellectual property.

Sure, there are some methods, but this ultimately may change the functionality of the software, or limit the market...

"No, because you've now deprived someone else of a car which cost about $3000 in materials and labor to build"

I think there is a general misunderstanding here, there is a value to intellectual property, otherwise people would not pay for it, just like the $3000 in materials, there may be 1,000,000 dollars in R&D, coding, or whatever...

So, it is still theft, I think GM is making their best effor to protect their cars by using keys and alarms, however, if you could transfer a car across the Internet, trust me, they would be flying across the net faster that porn.

I second that.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd much rather see spammers lose their assets and livelihood than a 1000 pirates get sent down for pirating the latest blockbuster movie/crap pop song/Windows OS

Re:I second that.

[toxtothogrady]

I presume most spammers pay taxes, therefore represent a nice little revenue stream for Uncle Sam. Why would the U.S. government bother spending its resources squashing profitable spam companies just because we peons (or our ISPs) complain about a little extra email? Answer is, they wouldn't.

It's more fun and rewarding for them to work high-profile "piracy" cases, busting the evil "pirates" and "hackers" of the world. And face it, the major ISPs and the citizens of this country don't have the lobbying power of the RIAA or MPAA, so nothing much gets done on our behalf. I think we'll see more and more cases like this in the near future, while spam continues to gobble up bandwidth and fill our mailboxes.

Re:I second that.

[hesiod]

> It's more fun and rewarding for them to work high-profile "piracy" cases

Do you really think the average net using citizen cares more about a piracy busting operation than a reduction in the amount of spam they get in their In-Boxes? I don't have numbers, but I would believe not.

Re:I second that.

[toxtothogrady]

Uh, that was sarcasm my friend... The average citizen doesn't give a crap about piracy cases. We'd prefer to see spammers STOPPED! My point was, that our govenment doesn't care what WE want. The RIAA and MPAA are a stronger force than you or I and our ISPs, and therefore those b&st*rds get catered to first.

The other point I was making, is that the really successful spammers generate a nice tax revenue for the government, so why would the government really care about shutting them down? It's free money for them. Get it?

Re:I second that.

[hesiod]

Sorry, my sarcasm detector must be broken :)

Re:I second that.

[JuggleGeek]

I presume most spammers pay taxes

Why? Is it because spammers are honest law abiding citizens?

I assume that most spammers are much more likely to hide their income, pay no taxes if possible, and probably do pay some because they can't avoid it. I suspect that some aren't really worried about the money they make spamming, but are using it to launder drug money.

Spammers are not honest people.

Wrong Department

[TrollBridge]

Should read "From the finally-going-after-the-lawbreakers dept."

We pissed and moaned when the authorities went after the makers of P2P software, crying that they should go after the people doing the infringement.

Predictably, now that authorities are actually going after the infringers, we have something new to piss and moan about. Let's get consistent, can we?

Re:Wrong Department

[JaffaKREE]

I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. There's so much crazy, crazy shit going on in the world. To think that a massive, worldwide sting operation was conducted to go after WarEZ D00Dz - undoubtedly costing millions of taxpayer dollars and occupying law enforcement agents for weeks or longer - is just insane. MOVIES, SONGS, SOFTWARE. These aren't life-threatening. I'm not saying such things should be ignored, but the scale, preparation and implementation seems to have been amazing for this project. Was it REALLY worth all that effort ?

Re:Wrong Department

[anthony_dipierro]

We pissed and moaned when the authorities went after the makers of P2P software, crying that they should go after the people doing the infringement.

I pissed and moaned, but I never said they should go after the people doing the infringement. I'd much rather they abolished all copyright laws.

Re:Wrong Department

[tenman]

Yes, ridiculous. This crime is nothing compaired to all that "crazy, crazy shit going on in the world" you talk about. Which is the same thing you cry when a cop pulls you over for driving to fast. You want everyone to turn their head to small crimes. Let's just stop following up on anything that doesn't injure someone. If they didn't rape or kill anyone, let's just not follow up on anymore claims of wrong. Right? You will never understand the concept of owning something of value, until you actually do own something of value, and some punk comes and takes it away. And as for your claim that it was a "massive, worldwide sting operation", it was 120 searches in 24 hours. Not massive by any sreach.

Re:Wrong Department

[JaffaKREE]

This isn't local law enforcement. It's the FBI. They *SHOULD* be worrying about the heavy-duty terrorist stuff. That's their JOB. Not being copyright lackeys.

Re:Wrong Department

[colmore]

This is an interesting legal/constitutional situation.

On the one hand, it's disturbing to see the Feds going after crimes that should be handled as civil suits. But on the other hand, private companies have no way of catching the big pirates (who are generally smart about covering their tracks) without access to the kind of surveilance I don't want private companies to have.

If this gets contested and goes to the Supreme Court, expect to see wrongful distribution of copyrighted material that exceeds some dollar amount become a federal crime.

Re:Wrong Department

[anthony_dipierro]

Oh, so you're from the "I shouldn't have to pay for stuff that people work to produce" "Information wants to be FREE (as in beer)!!" crowd.

Pretty much. You should only have to pay for something if you're taking something from the person you're paying.

Re:Wrong Department

[maximilln]

But on the other hand, private companies have no way of catching the big pirates

Those legal suits against each other are too expensive.

Re:Wrong Department

[NDPTAL85]

Do you think every company that depends on intellectual property is some huge megalithic entity? Aren't some of these companies small or midsized businesses that will go OUT of business if they can't get paid for what they're producing? So when those companies go under and those folks lose their jobs is that not an important issue? The perpetrator of the crime may appear generally harmless, but you greatly underestimate the amount of economic damage one twerp behind a keyboard can do while still in his mother's basement.

Come on Teal'C. I would have thought you'd have a much higher sense of honor than this! JaffaKREE!!

Re:Wrong Department

[plover]

Is it "worth" the effort? Cynically, considering that the government is probably going to collect millions of dollars in fines from the people involved, the answer would be "Yes. It's worth it."

If you were to "prioritize" all of law enforcement based on the severity of crime, every cop on the street would be fixated on catching every murderer. Once the murderers were all behind bars, the cops would all swoop en masse down on child molesters. Then, once every molester was in prison, they'd focus on rapists, etc. Burglars would never get noticed, and petty street crime like purse snatching, etc, would run rampant.

Obviously, that's silly. Cops spread themselves around, doing the best they can. So, what kinds of priorities do they use? They pick the so-called "low-hanging fruit" when the opportunity arises. Solve the easy cases, lock up as many bad guys as you can. It's kind of based on the idea that if you jail enough petty bad guys they won't have the chance to be really bad guys.

Now throw intellectual property laws into this mix. Hollyweird has managed to purchase enough congresspeople to convince them to consider copyright infringment "theft". Whether you agree that copyright infringment is theft or not, the cops are bound to the laws of the land, not what makes sense to you or I. So, if the RIAA does the work, cracks a case, chases down a "ringleader", sticks a mythical $200,000 price on his misdeeds and presents him to the FBI all tied up in a bow, yeah, they're going to take him in.

If you want to do something about it, send your outrage to your congressperson.

Re:Wrong Department

[jedidiah]

Except Officer Barney from Mayberry isn't supposed to be out there chasing down terrorists.

The FBI is.

Even thing like rape and murder are a little too pedestrian for them.

If we weren't in the middle of a "war on terror", things would be different. However, this is not 1994.

Re:Wrong Department

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Interesting, the concept of ownership is a construct to begin with. Most of these things 100 years ago were in the public domain. Lately the copyright, which was originally designed to protect the creator of the work and for some limited time his/her family, has comodotized the I.P. so it can be bought and sold by an "owner" not the creator, which makes a marked that wants to protect its assets, but for the most part, assests it did not create. Fairly recent legislation extended that period to much longer than the lifetime and family lifetime of anyone (priciply to protect Disney and the Steamboat Willy image).

If you were the creator of the work, I can see your beef. If you bought the work, or though a contract agreement with say a band or a scientist working for you, were able to "own" the work then it is a pervesion of the original intent of the law or if you will a much used "side effect" of the law.

If someone copies your song, have you lost it. No. If someone copies your image, have you lost it. No. If someone copies your program, have you lost it, No. What you have lost is the posibility of making money off that song, image, program... And it is property that you only own for a period of time that the law allows you to make an exclusive profit off it. A personal monopoly if you will. But that passes into the public domain as it should.

I think we need to go back to the 35 years it used to be, and get back protecting peoples life and safety not corporate profits.

Really, busting young kids by the FBI (not in this case) as mega criminals. Our businesses are Scrooging is up a little too much this holiday season.

Re:Wrong Department

[timmyf2371]

The problem with abolishing all copyright laws is that things such as the GPL would no longer work for "Free Software" as it's based upon copyright law.

With no copyright holders, code released as open source could freely be copied into proprietary software - that's right, companies such as Microsoft would be free to take whatever code from Linux they wanted and include it in a closed source product.

Like it or lump it, copyright infringement must be dealt with the same on all sides - if a GPL'd app owner's copyright is violated then quite rightly they should take what action they see necessary. And if a movie's copyright owner sees fit to take action against citizens who infringe upon their copyright then this is totally correct too.

Re:Wrong Department

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Too true. There are two types of situations here. One is if someone steals your I.P. and re-markets it as their own (Microsoft has been accused on occasion of this type). And this is the crime of plagerism and a violation certainly and should be prosecuted.

Another form is someone that gets ahold of some I.P. without paying for it. From a friend, say. If they would have spent money for it if they could not get it from a friend then you have lost some income but the effect of the indivuals use is much smaller than the above case. The DMCA's penalties make it a much larger effect from the prosecution standpoint and tips the scales making this kind of crime actually a viable income source for I.P. holder.

Do we see any examples of that. Lets see, Oh yes, companies that don't make a product but just hold I.P. rights, rights that they did not create but purchased and with DMCA, become very valuable properties indeed. Like SCO. Here is an example of not only someone holding property and squeezing for all its worth, but evidence that it is being used as a spoiler for Linux markets.

So there are arguments on both sides, large problems on both ends of the law. But I think we should have the laws protect the people more than the corporations. But after this last election I wonder if this country feels thats true anymore. Sigh. Whats freedom all about anyway

Re:Wrong Department

[anthony_dipierro]

Are you a programmer by any chance?

Yeah. I program a site which runs on Linux and uses free software tools. We make money through ads and subscribers to our service, not through licensing our product.

Or don't you believe that programmers, actors, musicians, consultants (you get my point) should be paid?

Sure we should be paid - once, when we do the work to create the product. Not over and over again any time someone uses it.

Teachers get paid, don't they? Yet we don't require that Bill Gates pays his High School teachers every time he uses something they taught him. Plumbers get paid too. But I don't have to pay my plumber every time I flush the toilet. Thousands of people like me get paid for producing products for Linux every day. Abolishing copyright is just going to make that number higher, because the tools to create the products will now be free.

Re:Wrong Department

[ToasterTester]

>>> There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do any

They fool themselves into thinking the only person losing out on this is some executive. Stealing effects all the behind the scenes people work on the films and music that they steal. Including the truck drivers and people who sell the products. It just forces the industries to raise prices to makeup for the loses and everyone loses. This goes on in every industry, the more people steal the higher prices go.

In my college days I worked for a large grocery store chain. They had different prices same products depending on the store. Why in high theft area prices were higher to compensate. In low theft areas prices were lower. Trouble is the high theft were usually in the poorer neighborhoods. It's a viscous cycle.

Re:Wrong Department

[anthony_dipierro]

The problem with abolishing all copyright laws is that things such as the GPL would no longer work for "Free Software" as it's based upon copyright law.

If there were no copyright law, there would be no need for the GPL.

With no copyright holders, code released as open source could freely be copied into proprietary software - that's right, companies such as Microsoft would be free to take whatever code from Linux they wanted and include it in a closed source product.

So what? If you don't want a closed source product, don't buy it. There's no reason not to let others who do want a closed source product to buy it.

Like it or lump it, copyright infringement must be dealt with the same on all sides

Sure, it should be abolished.

And if a movie's copyright owner sees fit to take action against citizens who infringe upon their copyright then this is totally correct too.

Well, I'm not going to say someone is wrong for using copyright law to their advantage. I oppose the law itself, and I certainly oppose criminal prosecution based on it.

Re:Wrong Department

[tomjen]

so you don't belive in people can have morales that tell them to do something (such as letting humaniti benefit from there thoughs) even if it cost them money?

Do you know how much software that is licended under the GPL? (or other libre license).

Re:Wrong Department

[cliffski]

well said.

Re:Wrong Department

[Merk]

The difference is that in a grocery store, people don't come in, take pictures of the products, then leave. Instead, they actually deprived the store of a product that the store was then unable to sell. That's why copyright infringement and theft are not the same.

I wouldn't be surprised if copyright infringment hurts the record companies a bit. On the other hand, nobody has ever actually proven it does. It may actually be the reverse. It could be that it ends up as advertising and that people end up buying more than they otherwise would have. But right now, that's a big unknown.

Even if it can be proven that Joe Blow having Gigli.mpg shared from his computer actually cost the record company $100 in lost sales, I still wouldn't say that Joe Blow deserves to be punished. The idea of "intellectual property" is fundamentally wrong. I've never seen any proof that copyright or patents actually help the public more than they hurt it. Drug companies claim that patents result in new drugs... but what if that drug is Viagra? Is that a benefit for the public or just a cash cow for the company? And what if the drug is actually useful, like an AIDS drug. Is it a benefit to the public to prevent other companies from saving people's lives while the patent is in force?

Music existed before copyright. Penicillin was invented without the assistance of patents. Current IP laws only serve to give more power to huge corporations and take it away from individuals. Copyright infringment isn't piracy, it isn't theft, and it hasn't been proven to necessarily hurt the infringed party.

Re:Wrong Department

[Maestro4k]

• You will never understand the concept of owning something of value, until you actually do own something of value, and some punk comes and takes it away.

I do own things of value, and in the sphere you're hinting at, IP, copyright, etc. I've written music, done research into security issues (not just computer, but all in the digital landscape), and written code. I've had all three stolen in the traditional sense, not just copyrights infringed. I've seen others take music I wrote and pretend it was theirs, get it published and get full credit for it. I've had a person talk to me about my research wanting to include it (and me) in a grant application they were working on turn around and claim the research was theirs and see my name mysteriously disappear completely from their application. I've seen my code stolen by peers and used for profit.

But you know, I still think the FBI has much better things to do. Am I pissed about my ideas being stolen? Hell yeah. Do I think it warrants law enforcement intervention? Hell NO. While I may have suffered even financial losses, the proper place for that to be settled is in court, in a civil suit. The FBI and other law enforcement should be out there going after the criminals that are truly dangerous, who's actions tend to leave dead victims. Even giving tickets to speeders is a better use of resources since the speeders might have crashed and killed someone.

Bottom line, while this was piracy on a fairly massive scale, they weren't killing or maiming people. We're supposed to be in the midst of a war on terror, and the terrorists have shown us they're quite happy to maim and kill. As a US citizen I want the FBI out there hunting down the terrorists, the kidnappers, the rapists and murderers. I don't want to see them going after some guy making copies of DVDs to sell, there are plenty of methods in place for the copyright holders to remedy those situations that don't involve the FBI.

• And as for your claim that it was a "massive, worldwide sting operation", it was 120 searches in 24 hours. Not massive by any sreach.

You do realize a normal search of just a house can involve well over 10 law enforcement officers? That we're talking a minimum of 1200 people here (the odds are highly against there being duplication of personnel, especially given the amount of paperwork involved). That 120 searches in 24 hours averages out to 5 searches every HOUR for one day? That's a search every 12 minutes! If that doesn't constitute massive to you, what in the hell does? Yes there are probably that many searches occurring any given day but not for the same sting!

I think what you fail to realize is we don't object to these pirates being brought to justice, but we do object to the FBI being involved in something so petty when compared to all the terrorism, rape, murder, kidnappings, robberies, etc. out there. If I'd heard that a sting took place involving local law enforcement acting in concert as part of a massive civil lawsuit/sting, I'd probably be OK with it. But I want the FBI out there working on the big crimes, and this doesn't qualify.

Or do you think I should have called up my local FBI office when my research was stolen and they should have arranged a sting to arrest the college professor who did it?

My collection is bigger than yours ...

[orangeguru]

Why are some people so stupid and put everything they collected online - especially when it's pirated? It's like screaming 'get me! get me!'

Re:My collection is bigger than yours ...

[John3]

I have a friend who just shares a limited portion of his collection at any one time. He'll leave five or six torrents open for a week, then close them and open five new torrents. Sharing all 500 of your DVD rips or all 50,000 MP3 files is definitely asking for the MPAA/RIAA folks to knock on your door.

Re:My collection is bigger than yours ...

[jellomizer]

They think that if they perform illegal activities they will get the chicks. Seriously I knew this guy who took pride in his pirated software collection. He would broadcast it to everyone espectilly any girl who had an inkling of interest in it, normally after that she would turn her head in descust, because he was the steriotypical nerd 100% (Tall, Lanky, Thick Rimmed Glasses, The Calculator Watch (Which he used and showed off daily), PDA, Laptop Computer, Stupid humor and just never got it, Head of A.V., etc...). Men like to show that they are the Alpha Male in some way or an other. If they can't be the biggest and strongest, or the smartest, they might as well have the largest colection of Warz.

Re:My collection is bigger than yours ...

[tenman]

exactly! but this is a question I have... the artical said that got 13k titles, from 120 searches. That's 109 files per search. But I know of 50-60 people around here where they could find 30k on one box. What is their definition of "high-ranking members of international piracy groups"? does that make since to anyone?

Re:My collection is bigger than yours ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad that this guy will be the one cutting your pay check in a few years as you toil in middle management.

Re:My collection is bigger than yours ...

[jellomizer]

No he wouldn't. He is just clueless.

Re:My collection is bigger than yours ...

[Taladar]

I don't think most pirates are like that. I would guess the majority are simply people without enough money to buy the things they want or people too lazy to go to the store, search half the DVD/CD Department for one Movie/Song and stand half an hour in the queue.

Re:My collection is bigger than yours ...

[Lord_Dweomer]

Bingo. Everybody knows that they're only going after the big guns now, and that isn't so much an issue with bittorrent if you usually just download the most recent stuff. You only keep a couple torrents open at a time, and close them when they're done. I mean, they may have logs, but so far only the REALLY big sharers are getting busted.

And in other news...

[suso]

Copy protoction still fails to stop rampant software piracy.

Re:And in other news...

[confusion]

What many people fail to realize is that when you mass distribute the *same* image (ie. CD). So long as that is the case, copy protection is always going to fail horribly.

Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/

Re:And in other news...

[Taladar]

The one thing I don't understand with copy protection is why it is still there after proving to be totally inefficient to stop pirates for years. It costs money and is an inconvenience for the legal customers but does not slow down pirates at all.

Re:And in other news...

[Arcanix]

Most people do not know how to get around copy protection, or even think about getting around it, they just know they need the CD in the drive for the software to work. It prevents casual copying of the CD for those who don't know about No-CD cracks. It would be more aptly called "copy inconvenience" instead of protection.

Poor college students easy targets

[vision33r]

The software industry are busy spanking poor college students who couldn't afford over-priced software while not going after companies that use pirated software.. It's everywhere and they can afford to pay for it.

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[mavi_yelken]

I hear you. Hey, FBI! Target Me!

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[Vicsun]

Rule number one of operation fastlink: You do not go after entities with $$.
Rule number two of operation fastlink: Oh, who am I kidding?

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[tenman]

Yeah, they want to tap those deep college student pockets... what the hell are you talking about?

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[tenman]

"The only way to make managers scared of being audited is to make them fear haveing to pay out huge settlements. The best way to do that is highly public law suits..."... oh, like SCO?

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[I8TheWorm]

while not going after companies that use pirated software

You're kidding, right? The BSA actively goes after companies that use pirated software. Canada has CAAST who is also actively pursuing companies that use pirates software.

So where did you dig up the fact that the software industry is only going after college students and not companies again?

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[LocoMan]

Yeah, how evil of them to go against the poor college students that couldn't afford the 13,000 software titles he obviously needed for his studies... :)

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[benna]

Or be a whistleblower and go to the government. This is where the government should be involved in copyright infringement, not with some college kids.

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[ajs318]

Some options you forgot:

4. You use manual methods.

5. You use open-source software.

6. You bring the corruption to light somehow.

The ugly truth is, piracy benefits the closed-source software industry more than it harms it. It benefits the likes of Microsoft and Adobe at the expense of small, independent firms. {Not that I think that small independent firms distributing closed-source don't deserve to go to hell, of course. Selling closed-source is still a heinous crime against humanity, whether you're rich or poor.} Just like wearing fake fur legitimises the wearing of real fur, and just like eating vegeburgers legitimises the eating of real m**t. And just like the government wants smokers to carry on

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[ajs318]

destroying themselves, so they can keep on raking in millions of pounds in nicotine-stained notes.

Don't copy...

[Phixxr]

...That Floppy!

College kids?

[tomstdenis]

I can imagine that call home

"Yeah mom, I was expelled. Why? Oh, uh, um, the FBI caught me using my net connection to distribute movies illegally. Yes, yes. With the computer you bought me. What? No. The tuition you paid is not refundable. Books? I'm off campus in under 24 hours, I don't have time to sell them. Another college? This is on my permanent record. BTW you wouldn't happen to have a couple thousand to settle this case would "

Tom

Re:College kids?

[jellomizer]

Nothing forces a kid to grow up more then multiple lawsuits. The kid was probably figuring that he was above the law and there was no way they could track him and he got more cocky over time. When they are in college they are usually 17 youngest and most likely 18-19 so they are no longer kids and they should know right from wrong by now and just because he was a college student it shouldn't ease his sentence.

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

If by 17 you don't know that copying media and "sharing" it is wrong...

first off...

COLLEGE STUDENTS

So you're saying retarded immature ignorant people go to college? I thought college was for the bright students who were already mature enough to take on an adult learning setting [e.g. no mommy or daddy around].

second, this kid will probably think he's some sort of martyr. He'll likely get news time as "the kid the big evil corps took down" just like all asshat criminal hackers [caveat being not all hackers are criminal so don't get 2600 on me] like mitnick or what's not.

Tom

Re:College kids?

[maximilln]

Nothing forces a kid to grow up more then multiple lawsuits.

Do you have kids? I don't care if they're doing anything "wrong" or not. How about we massage the laws so that, no matter what they do, they're always doing something "wrong"?

I'd love to slap your kids with a few lawsuits just to watch you get all indignant and defensive.

Re:College kids?

[krbvroc1]

Yeah, before you know it, these little fuckers will be ripping the tags off their mattresses! Obviously, P2P is a gateway crime to bigger things.

I once heard that Bernie Ebbers of Worldcom once shared a copyrighted VHS tape with his neighbors. If he had only been stopped then...

Re:College kids?

[randalware]

Parents shouldn't pay the legal bills.
Let them use the public defender, lose the case & bill the government.
Then with manditory sentencing, we can have the prisons full of these kids.

Just think, our own home grown cyber terrorists.

Another generation lost in the battle of the brain damaged.

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

Share implies that it was yours in the first place.

You can share your DVDs or CDs all you want. That's not illegal and in fact a nice gesture. I'll presume this is what you are talking about.

You can't download media for which you haven't paid then re-distribute it. I'll presume this isn't what you are talking about.

Don't tell me my presumptions are wrong.

Tom

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

I wouldn't hire a college dropout thief to plug in a keyboard let alone develop and implement software.

Also what says this kid had any tech knowledge about him? I can easily go on gnutella and get a GB or two of hot titty porn in oh say a couple hours.

I do agree that prison isn't a solution for non-violent crimes but I think that's the case for all non-violent crimes [drugs included].

But as per my other comment, the martyrdome has already become. Just look at the one of your post. You almost revere the kid already and all he did was copy movies!!! Imagine how you'd feel if he actually did something beneficial for mankind!!!

Tom

Re:College kids?

[jellomizer]

So you're saying retarded immature ignorant people go to college?

Yes, Yes I am.
I am a big supporter for people to go to college and live on campus for a while. It tends to be like a halfway house between parents and reality. Normally most College students quickly learn in college that their actions will have consequences. And they are no longer under your Mommies and Daddies Eyes and they wont be there to protect you every day. But on the flip side College is in environment where a person shouldn't be conserned about survival, Prepaid Room and Board, With Heat and Electricty Included, and Food. It is designed so they can focus on education. But they are no longer protected from the law. It lets them have a little bit of real life without it killing them.

Re:College kids?

[illumina us]

So who is to say that everyone on the net is not your friend and that you bought a CD or DVD and ripped it and are now sharing it with all of your friends. Can't really share anymore now can you?

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

You bought the media and accepted the copyright. They make it quite clear on the package [hint: learn to read]. So you violated their distribution license.

Again, stop being an asshat.

You can still be kind in this world. You just have to actually be kind. There is nothing "kind" with P2P distribution of stuff you don't have rights to.

If you physically share things [e.g. DVD or CD] that's kind because you are making a sacrifice so someone else can benefit [if not temporarily].

Of course I guess that's the world I live in. Where "kindness" is measured with thoughtless meaningless gestures...

Tom

Re:College kids?

[maximilln]

You bought the media and accepted the copyright.

They sold the media and accepted that I can do what I want with it. What reality are these media companies living in?

Face reality: they deal a product which is easily copied and distributed. Why should my tax money go to cover for their short sightedness? There's nothing unnatural about what's going on.

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

Given that I didn't live on campus I probably missed that class...

I agree that it would be cool and appropriate if students could go to work without having to then come home and work part-time jobs to pay for school.

That doesn't mean you abuse that freedom. The extra free time you have is meant not only for socializing [which I agree is important] but to explore your field.

I know all too many college and university grads who have finished school without work experience either from jobs or OSS they have developed.

I don't care how high your marks are. If you can't scrape together a couple nights here or there to write a tool or library or something then you're effectively uneducated.

This doesn't just apply to computer science though. In many fields you can find projects to work on [or get involved with at least] during your tenure.

The sad fact is people look at school as a business transaction. They deposit 4 years and a handful of cash and they get a ticket so they could might just maybe get a job.

Tom

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

Um what world are you living in?

Ever read a product service plan? They don't cover you hitting your stereo with a telsa coil. But you bought the stereo and should be able todo whatever you want with it.

The fact is most countries have IP laws [as stupid as they are they're still laws] and the back of most if not all media has a clearly labeled intention. E.g. copyrighted and do not re-distribute blah blah blah.

If you don't like these conditions you can always do without. Quite frankly that's not much of a loss given that the average movie and CD out there is just a re-hash of something done last year.

Wake me when new talent is actually talent and not just the next batch of 16 yr old titties.

Tom

Re:College kids?

[maximilln]

Ever read a product service plan? They don't cover you hitting your stereo with a telsa coil. But you bought the stereo and should be able todo whatever you want with it.

Including copy the stereo and make a reproduction of it. But the stereo industry doesn't have to worry about that because parts and skill for copying a piece of electronic equipment is very difficult. The media companies KNOW that the starting materials and skills for copying their product are readily available. There's no surprise here.

It's the media companies which need to get their heads out of the clouds. They're high on unlimited profits.

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

I'm not going to argue they're nuts.

They want money more than distribute music which is why the music industry is pure shite.

However... that's their right. Who are you to take that away from them. You want to make a real stand? Support indy music. Find where local [or indy] bands play and pay the cover, buy their cds, etc...

Put your money in the right hands. Cuz all you do when you P2P some RIAA or MPAA trash is help spread their strangle-hold on real talent.

Tom

Re:College kids?

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Interesting point about the stereo. But then a place like Radio Shack makes a business of supplying parts from which you can make your own devices that "are" copies of someone elses. But then that is patent law and not copyright, but the same idea.

Re:College kids?

[Technician]

I wonder when our government will get a clue.

Take students that have ambition. Saddle them with a debt they can never repay. Wonder why they don't get a career and pay high taxes, but become welfare reciepients and always taking jail space instead.

Smart move on someone's part.

How about a better punishment to fit the crime.

With DUI, each offence gets worse. The first one is a stiff warning.

I would think loss of the computer and such for the first offence should be a good shot over the bow. The second offence should be about the price of the student's first car. The third strike should be about the price of their first house.. They should learn well before it gets that far. But if they don't...

Re:College kids?

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

If we look at laws. Sometimes they are found to be bad or counter productive, or serving only one part of the community over another part and eventually they are struck down or changed. This will probably happen here as more and more of our children get criminal records (yes I believe it is a criminal offense) and their lives and livelyhoods are ruined just to serve the protection of the profits of Music and Movie producers.

Lets think long and hard about the actual cost of the DMCA and who is ultimately going to pay that cost, and for how long. Should a bright young adult be banned for life from a good job for sharing a song. Music lifts the spirit, this law will destroy lives. Balance the profits and the costs here. Lets bring some reality back to what we are really talking about.

If you can honestly say that you (as an caring loving intellegent adult, many assumptions on my part here) do not bend a bad law on occasion, along with so many other caring loving law abiding intellegent adults, then when you look down at your speedometer traveling with traffic and notice the speed around 70mph. Think of the young college kid who's life was ruined by this legislation and the law enforcements vigorous upholding of corporate profits.

Re:College kids?

[maximilln]

However... that's their right.

And it's my right to rip/burn/copy.

Who are you to take that away from them

I haven't taken anything from them. I'm simply ensuring that it's not enforced on me or my friends.

You want to make a real stand?

No. I don't. I like d&b, electro, ambient, trance. I don't want to make a stand. I just want to listen to music which artists are happy to produce. I don't want to have to worry that the web server, which allows me to listen to my own PAID FOR cd collection at work, will land me in prison.

Put your money in the right hands.

Y'know, if they'd quite scraping 35% out of my paychecks and another 6% at the register to fund these guido goons, maybe I could. You are familiar with,"Keep the farmer busy while stealing his chickens"? Taxes keep us busy so the mega-corps can fleece us blind.

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

Education should be looked at as "preventative societal medicine". If you educate your citizens they will likely get jobs, making products that earn the country some money all while lowering the number of people on welfare.

But instead, education is a business where you screw young adults out of thousands of dollars to only attend a school where the "teachers" [or professors] are uneducated unexperienced idiots faking their way through day-by-day.

I've just recently graduated from community college and I can easily and safely say I had to sit through classes with at least a half-dozen teachers who were totally ignorant of their respective subject matter [I mean common, PhD in biology instantly means a kernel developer!].

That's not to say college was a waste of time/money. Just not worth quite as much as they put it out to be.

Equally though I think the dudes actions deserve punishment. Jail is inappropriate but deprivation of a computer and say community service would do the lad some good.

Re:College kids?

[Surt]

A debt you can never repay is what bankruptcy helpfully ends in 8 years or less.

Re:College kids?

[Technician]

A debt you can never repay is what bankruptcy helpfully ends in 8 years or less.

And how many crimes of survival will you have in those 8 years. Homeless starving kids without a clean set of clothes do not make good imprssions at interviews. When their take home pay does not get them home, then they tend to borrow things to get by. If permission is not obtained first it can lead to a longer criminal record.

Methlabs make quick tax free money...

Remember, they are looking for money they can use for themselves, not give it all away to feed some monster debt. They are looking for food, shelter, transportation... A regular job does not provide it with the huge judgement over their head. All their money and more is due someone else.

They need money that isn't taken away the instant it's earned. If I had a full time job, and all my income was taken away leaving me none, I would soon stop showing up for work. I would be looking for shelter, food, clothing, and transportation instead.

Re:College kids?

[Com2Kid]

• first off...
• 
  
  COLLEGE STUDENTS

Yah, those most able to afford overpriced crap-ware! ....

Re:College kids?

[Homer's Donuts]

"Hi mom! I've decided to transfer schools midsemester. I'm going to attend Trinity Southern University... http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/08/033 7235&tid=111&tid=123&tid=133&tid=17 My new roommates name is Bootsy.

Re:College kids?

[flosofl]

Bankruptcy will not remove any encumbrances placed by the Federal Government. So any back taxes and punitive fines will still be there until they are paid, regardless of how many times one declares bankruptcy.

Re:College kids?

[Surt]

Bankruptcy stops the debt now, and then life is difficult but not impossible for 8 years because it is hard to get additional loans during that period. However, while possibly painful, it is not particularly difficult to live loan free. I've lived loan free for that long.

Re:College kids?

[JaxGator75]

If you don't like these conditions you can always do without

Why? Because YOU say so? Because they say so??? Whatever, Mom...

Re:College kids?

[pod]

With DUI, each offence gets worse. The first one is a stiff warning.

In most jurisdictions, DUI is a very serious offence, first or otherwise. Many places will suspend your locense and put you in jail for it. As it should be. I hope you weren't implying anything.

Is it obvious to anyone else..

[paganizer]

Is it obvious to anyone else that this person was caught a while back, and has a sealed plea bargain for lesser sentence somewhere whhich he got by agreeing to let them monitor his activities for a while?
Explains why he rolled over on himself so easily.

false Math

[hhawk]

"personally responsible for as much as $200,000 in losses to the industry"

That is making the assumption that everyone who pirated software would actually buy it and if they bought it they would pay full price..

Re:false Math

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I wish to make up fictional losses too. I could get all sorts of grants, welfare, and tax refunds. If I incorporate an some sort of IP company, will that be enough?

If these are true losses, and can be enumerated so exactly, are they filing them in their taxes or not?

Re:false Math

[anthony_dipierro]

Furthermore it ignores all the gains to the industry by the people who pirated the software.

Re:false Math

[I8TheWorm]

It doesn't matter if they would have bought it or not. The fact is they are in possession of the song/movie/software. Possession of the song/movie/software is how the companies that provide it earn revenue. So simply by having it, they have bypasses the revenue piece of the puzzle. That is, in technical accounting jargon, attributable to operating loss.

Re:false Math

[sudog]

Wrong re: songs. We already pay a tax on blank media on the assumption that we all make personal-use and share copies of music to each other. Thus, sharing music to one another is not illegal, nor wrong.

Eliminate the blank media levy, and I'll agree with you re: songs.

Re:false Math

[I8TheWorm]

Not if you live in the US... read here.

I do realize that Canada has such a tax which I think is wrong. I, however, live and work in the US, as do the songwriters that I know, and can really only speak regarding US laws.

Re:false Math

[Dragoon412]

That is, in technical accounting jargon, attributable to operating loss.

That sounds a lot like RIAA math.

I could give anecdotal evidence to the contrary, as I'm sure many other Slashdotters could, and many have in the past. The simple fact is, some accountant's belief that non-existant sales equate to losses doesn't mean they are actual losses. A loss would require losing something - as in, something that exists in more than an abstract or hypothetical sense.

Re:false Math

[I8TheWorm]

Then I don't think you've read the entire thread. What I said was this... if you've copied a song that you never would have bought, you still have a copy of it. That copy would have generated an amount of revenue for the producer of it, who incurred a cost in producing/packing it in the first place. Add the fact that there are a lot of people who download shared songs/movies/programs that would have bought them had they not found a free version.

Having been a victim in both music and software, I strongly disagree with anyone who says "I never would have bought a copy anyway, so having this copy of it didn't cost anyone" is just blowing smoke. The fact that you actually have the copy disproves the idea that you might have spent a whole $1 on iTunes for it. You have a copy. Repeat this to yourself over and over again. You would not have a copy if you hadn't wanted it in the first place. That is a loss of revenue.

Re:false Math

[Dragoon412]

I read the whole thread. My point is that your argument is bullshit. It makes the asinine assumption that all people have the means to purchase

Say some teenage kid downloads a warezed version of Photoshop, which then sits on his hard drive, never used. Was Adobe deprived of of a sale? Any rational person would say no.

Yes, it may take $1 or more worth of effort to download a single song off someone's P2P network of choice, but it takes little more effort to download a whole CD, or a movie, or a whole game.

What then? Because someone spent 2 minutes and then went to bed while his game downloaded means he would've otherwise spent $50 on the retail version of the game? That's laughable, and that's your argument.

What of people that don't want to support software vendors peddling DRM? What if the file isn't available on iTunes, or it is, and your player doesn't handle AAC files? Does Universal Records lose a sale because I downloaded a clip of a Jimmy Eat World concert that was never released for sale?

Your argument is so full of holes, it's laughable.

Not to say there aren't people that are happy enough with a downloaded version of something that would have otherwise purchased it, but to say that it's applicable in 100% of cases, or even the majority of cases, is asinine.

Re:false Math

[I8TheWorm]

If you read the whole thread, then why did you suggest I said it's applicable in 100% or even the majority of cases? All I'm saing is a loss of revenue can be attributed to file sharing. There simply is no arguement for that at all. If only one person, and I think we can all agree that there's one person out there somewhere, who downloads a game or song and would otherwise have paid money for it, then it's a loss of revenue. It's not a diffucult to understand term or scenario.

Again, justify it all you want, just not to me. In the past, you wouldn't have been able to have your own copy without paying for it (before tapes). The fact that you actually have a copy of it, especially to the folks that worked hard to make it in the first place, is a loss of revenue.

Re:false Math

[deblau]

The big change that accounting needs to incorporate is that traditional rules of economics simply don't apply to intangible 'property'. Economic principles and markets operate on the assumption that goods are scarce, which is false in the case of intangibles. If I build a chair and someone steals it, I'll write that off as an operating loss. If I play a record and someone tapes it, there's no loss. Economists have to bootstrap scarcity into the equation using legal fictions like "copyright".

To make the distinction crystal clear, if the guy from TFA had stolen a CD from Best Buy, it would be operating loss for Best Buy. If all he stole was the music on the CD (which he borrowed from a friend because he couldn't afford to buy the disc), no loss. The reason I know that there's no loss is that if there were, it wouldn't be claimed by only Best Buy, but also by everyone else who sells the same CD. That doesn't make any sense at all.

What little I know of basic microeconomics tells me that what's going on here is a black market. People aren't willing to pay full price, so they pay less through non-legit channels. The point is that they weren't willing to pay full price, so you can't count them as customers in the first place, hence no "lost revenue". It was never there to begin with, which is what I think GP post is saying. Again, the reason that this scenario is different from ordinary retail is that the thing being 'stolen' is intangible. If my CD ends up in someone's hands without them paying me for it, I can (and should) nail them for it. This situation is different.

Black market transactions take into account the cost of being discovered. This guy is facing 15 years in jail. Usually, this cost prevents black markets unless there is a serious cost/value discrepancy, such as (in this case) artificial scarcity through legal fiction. From what I understand, the reason there's so much piracy is that many people feel that the scarcity is a little too artificial. If the sales price would come down to something actually approaching marginal cost, maybe there would be less piracy. If the music distributors can't sustain at MP=MC, then they obviously can't compete in an open market, and should fold. This is the basic cycle of destruction and renewal brought about by technological advancement, and it's been working fine for several hundred years. Why muck it up now?

Re:false Math

[I8TheWorm]

You make sense, but I think a couple of points are missed. The first is this... if I am a talented poet/songwriter (which I'm not, I'm a stringed instrument player), and make my living writing, how am I to feed myself if everyone is getting the music I wrote free? I would have to find a job, taking away from my time devoted to writing, and my music would suffer. Music as a whole, it could be assumed then, would also begin to suffer as more and more people are forced out of the market because they can't sustain themselves in it.

Music isn't made artifically scarce, it's charged a fee to pay all of the people that worked to make it happen (even a few who didn't.. the label execs). The fees may or not be something you're willing to pay, but they are tangible, as the product you get for the fee is something you get to hold onto. However, it's not a necessary product, and you will continue to live a fruitful life without your copy of 50 Cent's latest release.

Now, labels are a different story. Yes, their markup for a product is absurd, and a more reasonable profit margin should be targeted. That being said, it still doesn't make it right to break the law. If you want the system to change, work to change it. Otherwise, continue to "share" files and risk going to jail for 15 years.

Re:false Math

[deblau]

You have some good points. Let me see if I have some good answers. :)

I think that the business model supporting musicians and songwriters will have to change significantly to survive. Looking at it historically, the current business model (artists employed by a private for-profit company whose purpose is making music) is fairly recent. Look at the great historical songwriters. Handel was in the employ of Dukes and Princes. Ditto for J. S. Bach. Mozart didn't make his big break until employed in the Salzburg court. Liszt, Wagner, and Strauss all worked in orchestras. If you feel that your music has more of the spirit of the chanson and madrigal, you earn your money by putting on performances. Unfortunately, the idea of writing music and words for someone else to sing is closer to operatic tradition, in which case I think you're in trouble trying to work for someone whose sole revenue stream is your work. I think that's why record labels hire lots of musicians, because they don't all make money all the time.

I don't think 'music will suffer' if 99% of musicians can't make a living from it. There were plenty of opera writers who went broke. That doesn't mean we didn't get great opera. The truth is that art is something one does for oneself, not for others. If you can get paid for it, great. If you get paid enough to make a living off of it, spectacular. I don't think it does, or even should, happen often. Once art is tainted by money, it inevitably suffers. I'm sorry, but that's my opinion.

The problem with today's music is that many of those who are making a living off it aren't succeeding because of their music, but because of their tits. I think this is the problem making the music industry 'suffer', not the hard work of songwriters or the talent of real musicians. The fact that many millions of dollars are spent literally advertising someone's ass doesn't mean I think the cameraman who suggested the best lens to bring out the roundness of the ass should get a cut. The fact that the only way they can legally enforce getting their fee is through copyright doesn't make copyright good.

If there were two changes to copyright that I would make, they would be very simple. The purpose of copyright it to promote the progress of the arts, and the person advancing the arts is the artist. Not the label, or the artist's spouse, or their best friend. For this basic reason, copyright should not last beyond the death of the artist (as an absolute maximum), nor should it be assignable or transferrable. Done. Artists promote art, and the labels have to negotiate for real product, with the leverage back in the hands of the artist (if they have something good to sell, of course). The labels might even drop the charade of arguing over copyright, and just hold open auditions for people with big tits that can hold a tune.

Re:false Math

[hhawk]

Part of my point was that if everyone was forced to either buy a legit copy or not use the software, some would not use it, some would buy it and some would buy an other brand of similar software (maybe more or less $$).

There are some people who steal software and use it every day for many years and never buy it, but there are also others who steal it use it once in a while and there are many who use it and over time, when upgrades occur or for other reasons (like increased use or reliance on the software) go out and buy a real copy.

There is actual real software that I have bought and paid for and NEVER used. I'm not sure that every time someone downloads software (legit or otherwise) that they end up using it.

Re:false Math

[shark72]

"If the sales price would come down to something actually approaching marginal cost, maybe there would be less piracy."

The music industry as a whole operates on less than a 20% net margin. This varies, of course -- Time Warner (which owns Warner Records) made 8% net margin last year, and Vivendi Universal had a 3% loss. By comparison, Logitech and Creative Labs both reported a 12% net margin.

If the record industry had runaway profits, your point would be self-evident, but as the record industry must make do with profits that are generally lower than the computer industry (and, of course, far, far less than many other industries), then it looks like we're applying different standards. That's perfectly reasonable, but just out of curiosity (there are no right or wrong answers here), if you were to change the rules so that record companies had a cap on the net margin they could earn, what would you set it at? 12%, 5%, 3%, etc. ?

Re:false Math

[shark72]

"Now, labels are a different story. Yes, their markup for a product is absurd, and a more reasonable profit margin should be targeted."

I'll ask you a similar question I posed the other guy -- what average net margin do you believe the record industry operates at? Since it's obviously too high, what net margin do you think is more reasonable?

Re:false Math

[I8TheWorm]

The typical (I really don't know much about average) margin is pretty high, but it's solely based on sales in numbers. Although a cd costs roughly $4 in hardware, including the j-page, image screening, etc... there's no easy formula to calculate how the other $12 is divied up. For each song, a royalty of $0.058 is paid to the writer(s). The artist stands to make close to $1 per record sale (after paying back all of the label advances).

Since net margin is actually net profit / net revenues, it's still difficult to assume an average. The reason is labels have so many other expenses to pay out. Receptionist, web designers, photographers, etc... But herein lies the rub. Major labels are wasteful. They want to cater recording sessions with extravagent $20K lunches. They want to impress people with large advertisements. They want to keep the competition from signing artists by signing them themselves, only to spend $250K on a cd project and then just shelf it.

The cost of a CD at Best Buy or Walman Marcus could drop substantially if the major labels changed their practice. That amount of waste is completely unnecessary, and only hurts the consumer in the end. A great CD could be produced, stamped, and marketed for $10 per unit in bulk. As a matter of fact, most indies sell for about that price without the benefit of dealing in bulk.

Re:false Math

[cheekyboy]

So any company could fake massive tax deductions by just faking a pirate whole 'stole' $500 billion worth of software?

No wonder USA is going bankcrupt with wall st dodgy criminal accounting and fake reports.

Cops are TOO DUMB to understand market economy rules, derivitives and future markets and the trades in currencies, which are a massive super legal criminal money making scheme.

But tell a cop - "12000 movies copied = $5.4m" ahh thats simple logic , presto he will understand.

Re:false Math

[deblau]

I prefer to keep my ignorant hands off hard caps. There are a lot of people much more qualified to answer that question. In fact, this is a question that the market itself could answer: as long as the margins are too high, you'll see substantial piracy. I don't have to lift a finger to get that result, and it achieves my ends. :)

As for the 'industry' margins, I'd prefer to see numbers broken down by artist, label, and distributor. I've already written off the distributors as doomed by the Internet. I wouldn't be at all suprised if their margins are very low, if not negative. Most artist margins are negative, too. Take those out of the 'industry' percentages, and I'd be curious to see what you get. I don't begrudge any business making money. On the other hand, if their prices are such that half the country's population feels a need to rip them off, c'est la vie. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

You're right about margins for different industries. Jewelry, in particular, has obscene margins. Then again, it taps directly into a primal need: vanity. Clothing is already marked up double digit percents for having a Tommy Pullmyfinger or Calvin Clone label sewn in. Music tries to tap into similar, primal, emotional needs. Of course, de Beers is an evil monopoly, and Nike runs sweatshops. If we're willing to let them slide, I suppose we shouldn't complain when the record labels take away our civil liberties.

Just goes to show

[Heem]

Many have gotten real bold about how they go about sharing things. In the old days it was like you had to be "elite" or "31337 d00d" in order to get to the restricted files on the BBS so you could download them at 2400 baud. Typically this meant that you knew the sysop, or were a friend of a friend. We have gotten too lax in the way that people are just randomly sharing out everything. Want to share stuff and download? I agree, but take it to encrypted tunnels on IPv6.

Re:Just goes to show

[BobSutan]

If everybody and their brother wants to share, then doesn't that show that the system is in fact broken? If our laws are supposed to prevent "bad" behavior and whatnot, then what constitutes "bad"? In the past "bad" was determined by a general concensus that it was naughty behavior and needed to be corrected/punished. If everyone is alright with file sharing, then why not change the laws to reflect the shifting idealogy that culture shouldn't be locked up? Besides, copyright is meant to facilitate useful arts and sciences. Just how useful is a movie about someone getting their head blown off anyway (which seems to be the bulk of American action flicks these days)?

Re:Just goes to show

[Heem]

I can't disagree with you. In the long term. However, in the short term, in order to avoid all the stickiness of these lawsuits and possible criminal action, it seems it would be best to be stealthy about it.

Re:Just goes to show

[I8TheWorm]

The problem is that everyone does not agree that file sharing is ok... and I'm one of them. There are more people murdered every day now, but that doesn't mean the laws should be changed because it seems a larger percentage of poeple think it's ok now.

Laws are not necessarily made to prevent bad behavior, but to prevent behavior that is considered harmful. Murder is an obvious one. But taking software/songs/movies without paying for them is harmful to the people that put it together. And don't think for a minute it's hurting the label/movie executives. It's hurting the few people they're going to lay off when their revenue dips.

I think your assumption that everyone is alright with file sharing is way off, given that not even everyone on /. thinks it's alright.

Re:Just goes to show

[maximilln]

But taking software/songs/movies without paying for them is harmful to the people that put it together

Debunked: they get paid the same no matter what.

It's hurting the few people they're going to lay off when their revenue dips.

So you admit that our laws, supposedly to protect inventors and creators, aren't even coming close to doing their job?

I think your assumption that everyone is alright with file sharing is way off, given that not even everyone on /. thinks it's alright.

Some people are parrots who don't know how to think for themselves.

Re:Just goes to show

[I8TheWorm]

Debunked: they get paid the same no matter what.

Bullshit. I got laid off from Sony Records in Nashville because of "revenue losses due to the overwhelming popularity of piracy." Do you think Tony Brown lost any of his income? Not in the least. But I got to live off of unemployment for two months afterwards.

So you admit that our laws, supposedly to protect inventors and creators, aren't even coming close to doing their job?

I wasn't an inventor or creator, just an IT guy. As for the songwriters, I also wouldn't say the laws aren't even coming close to doing their job either. While writers aren't making the money they used to, they are still making some money. And the laws aren't helping much because only a small percentage of file sharers have been fined.

Re:Just goes to show

[maximilln]

revenue losses due to the overwhelming popularity of piracy

How gullible are you? You got laid off because idiots had to go back and rewrite their accounting ledgers for the last 7 years because they'd been cooking the books.

And the laws aren't helping much because only a small percentage of file sharers have been fined.

How disjointed are your thought processes? The laws aren't working for the inventors and creators because they're working for Tony Brown.

Re:Just goes to show

[I8TheWorm]

Ok, you live in your world and I'll live in mine. I'm certain the sky is blue in mine though ;)

Re:Just goes to show

[Taladar]

Nobody talked about "everyone". He said something about the majority and consumers are a majority compared to media producers. Sure, it would change the entertainment and other information industries quite a bit if we changed the laws to match public opinion but I don't think the outdated model of "Intellectual Property" will stay forever

Re:Just goes to show

[I8TheWorm]

Actually, his comment was "If everyone is alright with file sharing, then why not change the laws to reflect the shifting idealogy that culture shouldn't be locked up?"

And I still don't think public opinion agrees that file sharing should be ok. Mayeb public opinion in our geek community, but not in the rest of the can't-program-the-clock-on-the-vcr world.

You may be right about the future of IP, only time will really tell. I just can't see a capitalist society rolling forward without some protection for IP. However, I do think that copyright laws have been extended beyond reason, and the laws should be changed back to a much shorter period. There is no reason my grandchildren should be reaping benefits for work that I did. If I play my cards right, they can be thankful for a nice inheritance instead.

Re:Just goes to show

[jevan]

But taking software/songs/movies without paying for them is harmful to the people that put it together. And don't think for a minute it's hurting the label/movie executives. It's hurting the few people they're going to lay off when their revenue dips.

But paying overly high prices for software/songs/movies doesn't especially help the little guys either.. just pads their bosses wallets.

While piracy might not be the answer, supporting the current, rape the artist/programmer/writter schemes isn't so much better.

We need to work on supporting a new option... where the people putting the real effort into the product are properly compensated.

Re:Just goes to show

[BobSutan]

Take the GPL and Copyleft. They may not be mainstream, but they're becoming more and more popular.

Re:Just goes to show

[I8TheWorm]

Finally.... someone with some sense. That model does exist, albeit in smaller distribution. Indie artists are getting their full compensation, but you have to look for them, because no major label is paying for distribution in BestBuy/Walman Marcus/etc... Software too. My favorite editor for coding is UltraEdit which is shareware. I've paid for three different versions now, and UltraCompare, for a grand total of $120.

The more we, as consumers, can do to promote the underdogs, the better off the model as a whole will be.

Re:Just goes to show

[BobSutan]

Actually, this is exactly my line of thinking. I'm not for ripping off people of their hard earned work. I'm against locking up large portions of our culture, which is all copyright is doing these days when it comes to entertainment. If we had the copyright laws that we have today in place 100 years ago nobody would have ever heard of Disney, amongst others. At no previous point in American history have corporations had so much sway in our legal system. Sure they might have been able to work loopholes and such, but not in the way of actually getting laws drafted to support their particular business models. The DMCA is a shining example of such legislation.

My point is, if people want cuture to be free then why fight it? Personally, I beleive there is something fundamentally wrong with locking up culture for profit. If you're into music then you should be in it for the music. If you make a buck from it, then you should be grateful someone paid you for doing what you love. The entire entertainment and sports industry are out of their damn minds. And the people that support them by throwing cash at their feet, so to speak, are the ones fueling this madness.

At the end of the day, at what point do we say enough is enough? We've already got copyrights that far exceed their original purpose and software patents that essentially lock up math equations for basically the rest of our natural lives. So I ask, how are our childeren's children going to be able to create new works of art or sotware when all existing ideas are being locked away for decades on end? All we're going to end up with eventually is a lack of creativity in the nation's youth. Mark my words, the effects of todays legisation both in terms of copyright and software patents won't be felt for decades to come. And when this crap does come to fruition I hope we'll all be looking back at this era like we do today with Prohibition.

And yes I know patents and copyrights don't belong in the same post like this, but my point is that the US government has made it clear that it is perfectly willing to bend to the will of the corporations despite how it may harm the citizens. This is not a "Good Thing" by any stretch of the imagination and we need to do our part to make it stop--My part is to encourage others to stop buying movies and music by any organization that doesn't actually support our nation's cultural growth. If it does, then and only then do I consider it a useful art worthy of my money and our governemnt's protection, albeit for a reasonable amount of time.

Our founding fathers had it right, but greedy assholes have slowly messed it up.

Re:Just goes to show

[benna]

It is still very much like that. Its harder than you might think for the FBI to infiltrate these things.

Re:Just goes to show

[Walkingshark]

Actually, I've noticed a strong trend away from decapitations in Hollywood movies lately. This is a very disturbing sign that in the future, our children might not be able to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing villians and their henchment suffer from the violent removal of body parts. This is an American tradition that has been around almost as long as having "God" in the pledge of alliegence, lets not let a few movie pirates take it away from us!

In conlclusion, God bless the wonderful red, red and red of the United States of Jesusland.

15 years....

[orion41us]

"Desir, registered as a student at the University of Iowa, waived indictment and pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Des Moines. He faces a maximum 15 years in prison on felony counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy. Sentencing is set for March 18."...


Ok - I know it was wrong - but 15 years! come on, 2nd degree murder is right aroung the same Sentence for ILLINOIS, anyone else think that this is a bit much....

Re:15 years....

[tekunokurato]

Well, to be technically correct about it, the guy doesn't face one count of whatever it is they're charging him with. If he did, it would certainly be less. Similarly, if he faced thousands and thousands of counts of 2nd degree murder, he'd probably have a much larger maximum penalty than 15 years.

Re:15 years....

[keyne9]

It is pretty obvious that murderers and perverts are less dangerous than intellectual property theives.

Re:15 years....

[duffbeer703]

It is well known that software piracy is a gateway crime. Thank god this guy will be doing 15 years of Federal time with no parole.

Next week he could have been raping your sister and killing your dog!

Re:15 years....

[curious.corn]

Ok but as I said about another guy getting buried in jail for stealing CC off a WiFi network: there's a limit to the cumulability of certain crimes; you can't transform a relatively minor crime in a life sentence by stodgily adding up jail time per act * number of violations. If anything it should have a Log progression and in any case a cap; nothing less severe than loss of life / pain should be punished with more than 10 years. Corp Excecutives get away anyway so being tough of little guys is maximally unfair... On the other hand, a sentence to some socially useful job is way more effective towards social rehabilitation / damage repair.

Re:15 years....

[nharmon]

Well, you might be glad to know that when the crimes are as related as these are, the sentences are usually served concurrently. So the 15 years being talked about may be 1 yr times 15 counts, which served concurrently would only mean 12 months in prison.

If you ask me, any jail time whatsoever is uncalled for. Other forms of correction can be found where the ends are met without the ruining of an otherwise promising future.

Re:15 years....

[deblau]

I addressed this awhile back in a spam thread. It's apples and oranges. The appropriate analogy would be if this guy killed 13,000 people.

If one bee stings you, it hurts. If 13,000 of them sting you, you get 15 years in jail and consider yourself lucky. It works out to about half a day per song. Shoplifting a single and getting tossed in the lockup overnight... that feels about right to me. At the very least, I don't think it's grossly disproportionate.

Cute!

[jargoone]

the investigation has netted a local college student hosting 13,000 titles

13,000 titles... awww, that's just adorable. I hope someone got a new hard drive from Santy Claus.

Now we know...

[mshiltonj]

... why our intelligence community can't catch Osama bin Laden -- they are being used as flunkies for the MPAA/RIAA.

I feel so much safer knowing those dangerous file-sharers are off the Net and no longer threatening the American way of life.

I can now look forward to the next riveting season of MTV Cribs and see millions of dollars being wasted by morons with good lawyers.

Re:Now we know...

[TrollBridge]

Of course, if you knew shit about shit, you'd realize that it is not the job of the FBI to hunt for terrorists abroad. That's what the CIA is primarily responsible for, and to a lesser extent, the NSA.

Re:Now we know...

[AndyChrist]

Most of the people who would be involved in hunting Bin Laden wouldn't have a lot to contribute to hunting warez groups.

The other way around, probably still true, but almost certainly less so.

Re:Now we know...

[Richard_at_work]

Yes, because the Intelligence Community should always concentrate on one crime at a time. How about we extend that to local police as well, everyone should get in line because all 1500 police in the City are busy dealing with Joes stolen car. These people didnt have the right to do what they were doing, the law says so, so the law enforcers did their job.

And the usual BSA propaganda

[pommaq]

From TFA:
is personally responsible for as much as $200,000 in losses to the industry
Business Software Alliance, which represents several software manufacturers, examined the two computer servers linked to Desir and reported that each contained client titles exceeding $2,500 in retail value. The $2,500 value is a benchmark in the federal criminal code.

This is, of course, complete bullshit. It's like Adobe always trying to claim that 12-year-olds warezing Photoshop are thousands of dollars worth of "losses" when there's no way in hell they would be able to buy the software. In many instances the widespread warezing of their software actually helps Adobe, since in a couple of years those 12-year-olds are going to enter their professional lives trained on Adobe's product, not their competitors'. Doesn't matter, though, piracy is wrong and you shouldn't do it (like doom2 said, if you're playing a pirated copy you're going to HELL) but these claims always strike me as ridiculous. Sure, send him to jail for a couple months or whatnot, but don't yell about how one pirate cost you bullions and bullions of dollars because it just isn't true!

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[leonardluen]

it doesn't matter if the people pirating the software are not able to aford it, or never would have bought it anyway, it is still a person using adobe's software without paying for it. had that person paid for it adobe would have gained however much adobe charges for photoshop. so it indeed is a loss for adobe. you can't deny that the person is using software with a retail value of several thousand without paying a single dime. so the person gained something of value without paying for it. technically it maybe be true that adobe did not lose a real physical object, but that doesn't mean that someone pirating adobe's software doesn't hurt adobe.

these arguements of companies not "losing" anything from piracy are "complete bullshit". to use your own words...they may not "lose" anything, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt them.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[maximilln]

so it indeed is a loss for adobe

If this is all about the Constitution and social responsibility... what gives Adobe the right to unlimited profit from society? Just because you scribble some code on the sidewalk and can convince a bunch of yahoos that it's the most prophetic thing since the Old Testament doesn't entitle you to unlimited profit. Eventually, society says,"Okay... you've made enough. The rest is free."

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[kpharmer]

> these arguements of companies not "losing" anything from piracy are "complete bullshit". to use > your own words...they may not "lose" anything, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt them.

Actually, most of the time the people hurt the most by piracy are the 2nd & 3rd tier players: if x millions of people who can't afford MS Office just pirate it, then they won't buy the more affordable OO, SmartSuite, etc, etc.

The chief reason that MS Office is a de facto corporate standard today - is due to piracy. So yeah, it's helped out these companies enormously.

Now that they've become the monopoly however, they'd like to chase those dollars, so they're cracking down. Well, perhaps the flip side is that it'll help encourage the use of free software.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[leonardluen]

what gives someone else the right to take something that does not belong to them?

now, i am not saying i like the current state of copyright laws, i am a strong believer that copyrights shouldn't last forever. i also didn't intend for this to become a debate about them, if it did i would probably agree with you. i agree with you in that you can't hold a monopoly on an idea.

what this thread is about is all the stupid arguments /.'ers use about how the company doesn't lose any money, in order to justify their own actions. it makes them feel better so they don't think they are harming anyone by using software they didn't pay for. but because of it someone somewhere may be going without a paycheck because the company doesn't have enough revenue to pay them due to all the people using the software without paying for it.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[Technician]

In many instances the widespread warezing of their software actually helps Adobe, since in a couple of years those 12-year-olds are going to enter their professional lives trained on Adobe's product, not their competitors'.

I know that's my case. I could not afford Photoshop. I started on ArcSoft which came with my camera. Then I graduated to the Gimp. I have no idea how to use Photoshop. I've never used it. I would try it if it wasn't so expensive.

It's like the software for doing DMX512 lighting. Several packages are $500 to $1700 in price. I use FreeStyler instead. It's free like Firefox.

Sometimes when you don't need the best, second best will save you a bundle of your best income.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[maximilln]

what gives someone else the right to take something that does not belong to them?

That's the way the entire world works. The sooner you come to grips with reality, the sooner we'll all be happier.

but because of it someone somewhere may be going without a paycheck because the company doesn't have enough revenue to pay them due to all the people using the software without paying for it.

The more important question is: Why are media CEOs still raking down $30 million/year + options + bonuses + perks when people are going without paychecks? Clearly the DMCA and "piracy" is a diversionary tactic.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[leonardluen]

Why are media CEOs still raking down $30 million/year + options + bonuses + perks when people are going without paychecks? Clearly the DMCA and "piracy" is a diversionary tactic.

the CEO's may be milking the company for all it is worth, but it is their company, they can drive it into the ground if they want. they aren't doing anything illegal by taking a disproportiantely large pay check. however someone that copies a program or song that doesn't belong to them is clearly doing something illegal and that has been illegal since the constitution was written. just because you think it is hypocritical for the CEO's to be raking in so much money while talking about how much money they are losing doesn't make it legal for you to steal from them.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[Famatra]

"it doesn't matter if the people pirating the software are not able to aford it, or never would have bought it anyway, it is still a person using adobe's software without paying for it. had that person paid for it adobe would have gained however much adobe charges for photoshop. so it indeed is a loss for adobe"

Stringing sentences together without using capitals does not make a statement true.

I got an idea, I'll make some software and slap a price tag on it for $5,000,000,000 and wait for someone to copy it: OH MY FUCKING GOD NOOOOOO billions lost to the economy!

Billions lost to the economy, or how about nothing lost since people did not and will not buy it. The same with adobe, they only potentially lose if someone who *WOULD* have bought the software decides instead to download it.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[leonardluen]

fine then since you don't like adobe then substitute for another company such as sierra, maybe that one is too big for you too and you don't think that piracy would hurt them, so lets get even smaller yet...how about a really small company such as malfador

my arguement is not dependant on using adobe. i hate adobe with a passion. my argument could stand with any software company. find one you like and replace any instances of the word adobe with your own favorite software company's name.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[Famatra]

"so lets get even smaller yet"

Lets so to the smallest possible: 1 person, me. And look, i already had an example with people stealing my 5 billion dollar software, let your hearts bleed for my losses from those dirty pirates!

In any event, I dont really think i lost 5 billion bucks since as i've said, for the second time now, people would not have bought it. The only way I would have *LOST* money if someone was willing to pay me 5 billion but instead downloaded it for free.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[leonardluen]

but if you live off of sales of your software and people aren't paying for it, you may not have physically lost anything, but those free downloads of software by people that didn't pay for it are not going to pay your bills.

it doesn't cost a store $29.95 to sell you a "widget 9000", so does that mean that you have a right to leave behind the maybe $25 it costs the store to put it on the shelf and then walk off with it? did the store then lose anything because you left behind enough money to replace the item? technically probably not, but does that give you a right to have that item just because the store didn't *LOSE* anything? it certainly doesn't make it legal.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[m-stitts]

You can't assume it would have been purchased, hence no loss. Lets say i write a shareware app that matched photoshop capabilities, and recorded every pc that went beyond the 30 day trial. I would end up in jail for even trying to claim a single loss on next years tax forms. The differance is one is a copywrite violation, one isn't. Piracy is'nt the same thing, selling illegal copies as your own definatly hurts someone.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[GlassHeart]

it doesn't matter if the people pirating the software are not able to aford it, or never would have bought it anyway, it is still a person using adobe's software without paying for it. had that person paid for it adobe would have gained however much adobe charges for photoshop. so it indeed is a loss for adobe.

There are two ways Adobe can be hurt. Its sales can be decreased, or its costs can be increased. Copying their software without permission would not increase their costs, unless they maintain an unusually large legal department to deal with this. Let's ignore costs for now.

You can only argue that it decreased their sales if there was a reasonable belief under which the sale would have been completed. A seven-year old would probably not have $700 to buy Photoshop, so the hypothetical transaction could not have occurred.

Does Adobe have the right to stop the young pirate from using their software without paying the amount they want? Absolutely. This is why we invented copyright in the first place.

Did Adobe suffer a loss or get hurt in this case? No. For Adobe to suffer a loss, the money that would've compensated them must have existed somewhere at some point in time.

In other words, it is a intellectually-dishonest overstatement to simply multiply the number of illegal copies by its list price to arrive at "losses". If you still have trouble with this concept, consider a poor third world country where virtually all copies of Windows are pirated. Imagine if the "losses" exceed their GDP, according to this formula. How can Microsoft possibly lose more money than that entire country has to pay? If I write a song, charge US$1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, and somebody copies it illegally, did I just lose more money than the world has to pay? Clearly that can't be.

This is not to say software companies don't suffer actual losses to piracy. This is just asking for a more honest accounting of such losses.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[vantagec]

Why do people equate "Failure to gain" with "Loss"?

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[maximilln]

the CEO's may be milking the company for all it is worth, but it is their company, they can drive it into the ground if they want. they aren't doing anything illegal by taking a disproportiantely large pay check

Good. Then, as long as we both acknowledge that they are scum sucking leeches, then we can both agree that they've forfeited any rights they may have which address the good of society.

however someone that copies a program or song that doesn't belong to them is clearly doing something illegal and that has been illegal since the constitution was written

I'm sorry. The Constitution addresses inventors and creators. No where do I see a clause to protect the rights of a self-serving CEO who has set a company up to milk for all its worth. Are our laws doing anything proactive because, you know, the word "proactive" is in the science and arts claus. How about we hold these alleged pirates financially responsible for the support of an inventor or creator of their choice. THAT would be proactive. Instead, we send them through the courts and to prison where it'll cost everyone, INCLUDING the inventors and creators, more tax money to support the alleged pirate. That sounds like lose-lose to me.

I wonder

[Docrates]

Shouldn't there be at least a debate on whether or not piracy is really a bad thing?

I'm trying to think if this is similar to how the alcohol-is-illegal laws were enforced before an actual debate (and other factors) led to the legalization of alcohol.

It would really suck to go to jail for 5 years for a crime that 20 years from now is not really a crime anymore...

Re:I wonder

[conteXXt]

debate? no debate allowed.

Ask the DEA about scientific experiments with medical cannabis. Not allowd to study it because it is dangerous. Proof? no proof necessary. It's illegal. why is it illegal? because it's dangerous.

This is your government on drugs.

Re:I wonder

[JustinXB]

I don't see why there should be a debate. It's my property. It's my song, or movie, or software. Nothing gives you the right to steal it.

Re:I wonder

[latroM]

Shouldn't there be at least a debate on whether or not piracy is really a bad thing?

It would help to use neutral terms, "unauthorized sharing" for example. Piracy is a propaganda term introduced by the publishers.

Re:I wonder

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

No such debate is possible, at least not in a condition that could be described as rational.

Somehow, a impressive fraction of people like you and I have been brainwashed into liking copyright laws as they are now. Something similar to the principle of "americans don't want to punish the rich, they want to become rich" is at work here. Everyone belongs to a garage band, and doesn't want to see their MP3s stolen. They write shareware, and the reason no one sends in the $5 paypal must be because of piracy, etc. To these people, copyright is a good thing, and needs to be agressively enforced. No matter what.

I don't believe they'll change their opinion even after such action leaves both the internet and the public domain a wasteland. The irony here is that if they did, even our corrupt politicians would be hard-pressed to ignore the lack of popular support for things like INDUCE, DMCA, NET. For every one of you that writes your congressmen against such bills, someone else writes extolling their virtues... we read their posts, even in this article.

Re:I wonder

[ScentCone]

When you OWN something, you can call its theft whatever you want. If I'm running a 7-11 and some some punk takes all of my forzen bean burritos and gives them out to his friends, that's not "unauthorized sharing." There is no debate here. If you can pursuade people that their work should be free to the masses, then you've talked that person into publising their content with no strings attached: hence, no piracy. If you haven't made that case, and someone still wants to make a living from their life's work, then pirating it is pirating it. Quit trying to semantically soften things to soothe your own guilty conscience.

Re:I wonder

[iamwahoo2]

What the parent is trying to say is that our society is collectively stupid and not capable of a semi-intelligent debate.

Re:I wonder

[SQLz]

Unauthorized copying is not stealing. Stealing: criminal law. Copyright: Civil.

Re:I wonder

[rlsthree]

If I'm running a 7-11 and some some punk takes all of my forzen bean burritos and gives them out to his friends, that's not "unauthorized sharing."

Put into perspective, it's more like purchasing a newspaper , and making photocopies for his friends.

Re:I wonder

[maximilln]

Quite possibly the best perspective I've seen yet.

A new newspaper will be out tomorrow, and they'll still charge $1.75 for it. Who cares about today's copy? Why are we wasting taxpayer resources on today's copy?

Re:I wonder

[tepples]

It's my song, or movie, or software. Nothing gives you the right to steal it.

I didn't steal it; I copied it. Nothing obligated you to publish it. If you're trying to defend copyright law using rights granted to you by copyright law, you're Begging The Question.

Re:I wonder

[JustinXB]

But that is stealing: To take without right or permission. Stop trying to defend your crimes.

Re:I wonder

[ScentCone]

If the newspaper publisher's policy was to give away the newspapers, then you'd be right. But they don't. They (and all of us) have a long-term interest in cultivating the notion that the creative work of hundreds of people (in the case of a newspaper) has value. It involves risk, cash, time, and careers. Can you blame the people that make a living this way for not wanting to promote the notion that, based on the number of hours old their work is, it's no longer valuable?

What about magazines? Is the content in my latest copy of Scientific American no longer worth anything 24 hours after I've received it? 48 hours? Should all the people that publish that magazine be deprived of their rights to because of that "perspective?" And of course, once Half-Life 2 has been on the shelves for a couple of weeks, it's no longer worth anything, so have at it, right?

Re:I wonder

[tepples]

But that is stealing: To take without right or permission. Stop trying to defend your crimes.

One perspective: I didn't take it. You gave it by publishing it. Now define "take".

Another perspective: Elvis A. Presley is dead and buried; from whom am I "taking" his recordings?

Re:I wonder

[plenTpak]

I don't think it's that simple.
The publishers sold their product. Once it came into someone else's possession, the publisher lost control of it. If they wanted to keep full control over their product, they should not have sold it.
What the publishers are currently trying to do is to be able to sell a product, while keeping control over it. This seems unreasonable to me. I don't see anything wrong with letting them try to reap all the benefit they can from their products, but if they don't succeed, punishing others seems excessive.
People should respect each other, but if you jail everyone who fails, the 3 unjailed people are going to have a hard time running things.

Re:I wonder

[JustinXB]

I didn't give you the right to copy it.

You're taking it from the recording studio or whoever has the rights to his recordings.

Stop being so dumb. Be a man; take responsibility for your crimes.

Re:I wonder

[maximilln]

If the newspaper publisher's policy was to give away the newspapers, then you'd be right.

Never worked for a newspaper, did you?

They give those things away all the time. We would routinely be shipped 200-300 extra copies to our station alone, every day. Did the newspaper fire any of us for taking our own copy home? No. Did they fire anyone for giving those copies away to their friends and family? No. Did they even care? No. We'd leave stacks of papers in front of stores, or on approved street corners, or at Churches. These were extra copies that no one would've paid for if we didn't leave them lying around.

Maybe the *AA needs to take a lesson from newspapers. They're not going to increase any profits by alienating customers. Newspapers figured out, long ago, that profits are much nicer if everyone has a copy. That one day that they don't have a copy, they may want one, and because they've been privy to free copies in the past, they're more likely to go out and buy one.

I suppose you never had to work growing up, so you never would've learned these finer points of business.

Re:I wonder

[ScentCone]

The newspaper example is getting stretched too thin, and isn't the right analogy for the discussion. There's no real good comparison between the paper, which costs much more to make than is paid for by subscribers (here, I'm thinking of The Washington Post, or the New York Times, etc), and something like a piece of software. I certainly wasn't thinking of the typical community paper that mostly pegs its advertising rates (where the real money is) to the circulation numbers, even at the risk of tossing away stacks of them so as not to hurt the perception of a wide readership.

As for your gratuitous remark:

I suppose you never had to work growing up, so you never would've learned these finer points of business

I sold and delivered papers as a kid, and have worked in businesses small and large since I was 9 years old, over 30 years ago. I've run mail order operations in $40M companies, and now consult for national retailers. The "finer point" may be the one on your head.

Read the article...

[BlackMesaResearchFac]

It's never the college kids that are downloading illegal copies that are busted (unlike w/ music). It's the kids and adults that contribute to the warez community that provides it for download. Granted it's not as if the warez community doesn't use the software they steal, but it's because of them that hundreds of people do not purchase a game or software package. Why anyone should think they ought to get a free ride just because this or that may be percieved as worse does not hold water.

Amen to that!

[Sgt O]

It's been said a thousand times in /. and I'll say it again.

These idiots are stealing other peoples/companies stuff and redistributing

They know it's illegal but they do it anyway so they get no simpathy from me.

I speed (allot) normally doing 80-90 mph on the way to/from work. If I get busted, guess what? I got busted! I know I'm breaking the law so you won't see me whine when I get a ticket.

Re:Amen to that!

[3terrabyte]

Yea, but you don't get 15 years in a federal prison for speeding, do you?

Re:Amen to that!

[latroM]

It's been said a thousand times in /. and I'll say it again.

Unauthorized copying isn't stealing.

Don't let the "intellectual property" term fool you. Nobody has lost anything and in some of the cases the gain for the society as a whole is posivite (a poor guy copies a $$$ program because he doesn't have money to buy the license).

Re:Amen to that!

[Diabolical]

got busted! I know I'm breaking the law so you won't see me whine when I get a ticket.

Yeah.. but this guy can get 15 years for something which isn't even close to doing a person bodily harm. However, if he did that he would face far less prison time.

C'mon ppl, these sentences are way too heavy for these kind of crimes. Punishment should be equal to the crime and not public (or corporate) outcry.

I can't wait to see the first death sentence spoken out for offering 100.000 illegal software titles.

Re:Amen to that!

[Sgt O]

Maybe copyright infringement != theft but we all know what's going on here so let be honest and take ownership of what we're doing.
You can get as legally technical as you want but ultimately people are taking stuff they did not pay for.

And, by the way, the speed limit on my way to work is 70 mph so I'm going 10 - 20 over (along with most everyone else).
I've been driving for 22 years and have had 3 accidents (under 35 mph, non at fault.)

In my opinion the people that cause accidents are the idiots on the fast lane going less than the speed limit while talking on the cell phone.

Re:Amen to that!

[Dan the Intern]

Unauthorized copying isn't stealing.

Does that make it any less illegal? Let's at least agree that arguing over semantics is not a valid debate tactic.

Re:Amen to that!

[oDDmON oUT]

Some people consider file sharing progressive taxation, if not outright advertising.

I would wager that most of the big software vendors enjoying immense market share wouldn't be doing so were it not for "piracy", "warez" and file sharing, getting their stuff into the hands of those talented enough to use it, but poor enough to be unable to afford it.

Likewise there are musicians and artists who would have vanished from the scene, if it hadn't been for downloadable files to alert and encourage us to seek out and support their efforts.

I know for a fact that I would not be buying the work of Frank Cho, or Philippe Buchet had I not first found them as scans in the a.b hierarchy.

Likewise, Goldfrapp and Invader Zim.

I didn't hear Goldfrapp on the local FM or catch the original airing of Zim on Nick. But I have bought all of the Goldfrapp catalog (and sold some of it too), as well as buying all 3 DVD's of Zim, and the only reason I did was...."piracy" alerted me to their existence.

This whole copyright/intellectual property thing strikes me the same way as the "War on Drugs" has.

The little people get to watch the spectacle of a bunch of suits bandying about a bunch of numbers pulled from their collective anuses, patting themselves on their backs after criminalizing something that only threatened their control.

Re:Amen to that!

[Kosi]

These idiots are stealing other peoples/companies stuff

You did not even have to RTFA to know that it is about copyright infringement, not theft! Maybe you are the idiot?

Re:Amen to that!

[tomjen]

The Autobahn.

Wrong you lose several places on german autobahns there is a limit for how fast you can speed.

Re:Amen to that!

[FunWithHeadlines]

"You can get as legally technical as you want but ultimately people are taking stuff they did not pay for."

But that's not the question. The question is if that is wrong to do, and are fundamental rights being infringed upon. Do you look at the sky on a sunny day and think how beautiful the blue looks with those contrasting puffy clouds? Do you pay anyone for that visual input? Of course not. But what if the laws in the land became so messed up that Sherwin Williams could claim copyright infringement on that particular shade of blue and white, and demanded payment every time you stared at the sky? What if you looked anyone, and then someone self-righteously spouted, "Pirate! You are taking stuff you did not pay for!"

Now turn from that example of visual input being artificially locked up and look at the real example we are dealing with: Audio input being artificially locked up. It is only in the last hundred years or so that the idea of copyright ownership of particular sounds has taken hold. For the previous several thousand years of human music, people played, people listened, no money changed hands. But in the most recent tiny sliver of human existence a group of laws have come into existence that allows companies to lock up certain streams of audio input. And then we get people so conditioned into thinking this is a normal and correct form of behavior, we get lectured about being honest and admitting that people are "taking stuff they did not pay for."

Yes, you are right, they are taking stuff they did not pay for. The bigger question becomes: Is this the way things should be? Sometimes laws become corrupted by commercial interests and are not they way they should be. That's what's being talked about here. We all know what the laws are. The question is are those laws fundamentally sound?

Re:Amen to that!

[EllF]

Somehow, bringing in examples of law in other countries doesn't quite defeat my argument about the intent behind American law. The intent of my first point was that certain laws protect against the deprivation of life, liberty, and property -- such as laws that don't let you go 90mph in a residential neighborhood; these laws are inherently different from laws that prohibit certain behaviors that don't result in that sort of deprivation.

The counter-argument to my position is, at least so far as I can tell, that file-sharing DOES represent a tangible loss of property in the form of money not spent. I haven't heard a particularly convincing argument to that effect yet, however. On the other hand, I have seen reports showing that since the introduction of wide-scale P2P software (and to a lesser extent, easy access to file-sharing), media creation companies have seen a tangible -increase- in profits. Granted, that doesn't mitigate the illegality of stealing; if someone can prove that file-sharing is theft in some other way, the profit margins of the **AAs don't really matter.

Re:Amen to that!

[Nelson]

He knowingly broke the law. If they make the punishment a $2500 fine and a slap on the wrist, is that more or less likely to curb this type of crime? That is nearly a hobby for some people; I could fork out $2500 a year and still come out way ahead of the game if I pirate millions of dollars in media. It's like taxes, I don't have to pay them, why should I be put in a federal pen. when I get caught? (Like Al Capone?) it's not like it hurts anybody, right? Not the troops in Iraq, not the Iraqis, not the many nations we give aid to. Just like stealing software or media doesn't hurt anyone, I mean who cares if they outsource your job to India? Or what of the nations that can't afford MS's software so they copy it and then the US beats up on them and their trade laws to curb it? What do you think the Chinese did to their wholesale software pirates and their factories?

What is the fitting punishment? Should the punishment be a force to stop the crime? 15 years seems kind of harsh in one sense, and in another, it makes me a lot less likely to wholesale pirate tons and tons of media. I'll be completely honest, I'm a legal user, I don't have any movies, music, or software that I haven't bought legally. I'm an advocate of the FSF, I use a lot of GNU software and GNU/Linux, I've contributed. I also own some high dollar software, Maple and Mathematica, Office on Mac OSX, several other pieces of software. When I see kids getting busted for piracy and people being sued for pirating music, it makes me think twice every time someone asks me for a copy of something. It justifies the FSF and their mission; if you think the laws are wrong, then support them. It is agaist the law to just steal media. To me, 15 years scares the hell out of me and encourages me to check the my wife's computers and any others in the house to make sure we're legal, I'll gladly go without or pay for the data rather than risk 15years; that seems like an effective deterant for me. We're not talking about some 12 year old kid who didn't know better, he knew exactly what he was doing, should that affect the crime? That's just wanton disrespect for our laws and society. Don't confuse this with civil disobedience, he wasn't actively trying to change the laws, just ignoring them.

Re:Amen to that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's just as illegal, but it's not as unethical. I consider harming people to be far worse than illegally violating someone's government granted monopoly. Don't you?

Re:Amen to that!

[Sgt O]

If, as the Counting Crows put it,

"They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them..."

then, it would be wrong.

But you are ignoring the fact that there are artists/software developers/companies that are developing and marketing their material expecting to make some money off of their work. The fact that it is as easy to steal their work as it is to look up at the sky does not make it right.

My question to you is "Would you be so quick to defend these people if they were going to Wal-Mart, buying a cd, burning copies and distributing them freely on the streets?"

I'm all for modern day Robin Hoods but what is happening with file sharing systems is just wrong.

Re:Amen to that!

[FunWithHeadlines]

"But you are ignoring the fact that there are artists/software developers/companies that are developing and marketing their material expecting to make some money off of their work. The fact that it is as easy to steal their work as it is to look up at the sky does not make it right."

I'm not ignoring that fact, I'm pointing out that this fact is built on a foundation of an artificial market. If you could charge people for looking at the sky, there would be industries that would spring up to charge people. Then people would say, "But you're taking money from their children's mouths." While there might be an argument to be made for that, it still wouldn't mean it was originally right to start charging for looking at the sky.

Now I'm not saying it's wrong to charge for playing music. This is a more complicated issue than saying, "You're right, I'm wrong." All I was saying is that the way we think of intellectual property is a very modern concept. And not necessarily entirely the correct one.

"My question to you is "Would you be so quick to defend these people if they were going to Wal-Mart, buying a cd, burning copies and distributing them freely on the streets?"

No, for now we are talking theft of a physical object that cannot be replaced except at greater cost. Download a song, the orginal owner still has his copy. Steal a CD from a store and that CD is no longer in the store's inventory. Big difference.

Re:Amen to that!

[Sgt O]

Please re-read my question to you: "...going to Wal-Mart, buying a cd, burning ..."

I believe I understand your point, I just don't agree. If a bunch of artist got together, put all their art work in a museum and charged $15.00 per person to view their work, I would think it ethically wrong for someone to pay to get in, take a bunch of high quality digital pictures and display them for free somewhere else. You seem to suggest there is nothing wrong with that.

Re:Amen to that!

[FunWithHeadlines]

"Please re-read my question to you: "...going to Wal-Mart, buying a cd, burning ..."

Yes, you are quite right, I misread your question and I apologize for that. And so to answer your original question, no, I don't think it would be morally right to buy a CD, burn it, and distribute it freely on the streets. On the other hand, the courts have found in the past that if you make a copy of a song on a cassette tape for your friend, that's free use. Oh, probably not if it reached the courts today, but that was pre-Net and pre-IP hysteria. So this is not an open-and-shut question. There is a range of activity, and somewhere along that range it begins to turn morally wrong.

"I believe I understand your point, I just don't agree. If a bunch of artist got together, put all their art work in a museum and charged $15.00 per person to view their work, I would think it ethically wrong for someone to pay to get in, take a bunch of high quality digital pictures and display them for free somewhere else. You seem to suggest there is nothing wrong with that."

Not exactly, but I can see where you would think that. In fact, I know it would be legally wrong to do that, and I also would consider that morally wrong. My point is that the very culture that encourages locking up of artistic work except for those who can pay has gone too far. It has created a new artificial reality. I would like to see things rolled back a bit.

Re:Amen to that!

[swv3752]

Ahh, but stealing is a criminal offense. Copyright Violation is (except in recent select circumstances) a civil violation.

A used car salesman sells you a lemon, you cannot have him arrested, rather you have to sue him. Civil violations are considered less of a legal probelm than criminal ones.

Re:Amen to that!

[shark72]

"I view P2P file-sharing as a form of civil disobedience."

And indeed, by installing and using Kazaa you are every bit the hero as those who risked their lives at the diner sit-ins in Montgomery in the 1960's.

Keep on pirating away -- the bigger your collection grows, and the more people with whom you share it, the more sanctified you become. God bless you.

Re:Amen to that!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yea, but you don't get 15 years in a federal prison for speeding, do you?"

And by speeding you actually endangered lives (yes I speed too)

Piracy is a monetary offense, and punishments should match the crime. When Kenneth Lay is sentenced remember the college kid who got 15 yrs for copyright theft. Enron's treasurer got 5yrs.

Remember when MCI defrauded the stockmarket out of $13bn and settled with SEC for a $500m fine (reduced from $1.3bn).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3053 068.stm

Or maybe RiteAid - $1.6bn restatement - got 8yrs in prison. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/18/national /main559152.shtml

15yrs...for a warez group that didn't collect a profit - maybe if they did, they'd have enough for those lawyers?

Just my 2cent perspective(not adjusted for US$ inflation)

Re:Amen to that!

[3terrabyte]

Great examples!!

Even though I think the piracy was on software, what about the Music Industry the other year? Found GUILTY of price fixing.... paid a mere 100-400 million (Sorry, can't remember how much) Came to a whopping $16 per person who filed.

With "punishments" like that, it's no wonder they price fix. Their payout was much, much higher.

Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[dahl_ag]

When I drive, I speed all of the time. I don't see anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe with the speed that I drive. But I know what the law is, whether I like it or not. And I know that I am breaking it. So if I get a speeding ticket, I deal with it like a big boy. I wish people would take the same approach to illegal file trading. If you want to do it, fine. But you know it is illegal, and there isn't much you can do about the laws. (lets be realistic, there are powerful influences behind these laws) So if you get busted, deal with it. You knew what you were doing.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[ChairmanMeow]

Yes, but it's sort of a false analogy. You can't get 15 years for speeding.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[dahl_ag]

Good point. But I think that people aren't complaining that the penalties are too harsh. I think they are complaining that there are penalties at all. Besides, most people aren't getting 15 year sentences. "Just" settlements of a few thousand dollars. A little closed to my analogy. Still not perfect, but my point remains. Quit whining. Or maybe I am just getting old. ;-)

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

And would you just "deal with it" if the punishment for speeding were 5 years in jail? I think not... since that's obviously a punishment that doesn't fit the crime.

Clearly, the same is true for piracy, no matter how massive it is. In the best case (for the companies, that is), money is lost. Of course, as a society whose very soul it seems is the money, I can understand why some people are vehemently against piracy, but let's get real here. Speeding is much more dangerous than piracy, since we're talking about actual people possibly losing their lives. Say all you want about piracy, but it's ultimately benign, and possibly beneficial in a social sense.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[smooth wombat]

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe with the speed that I drive.

Yeah, nothing wrong with doing 40 in a 25 mph zone. After all, instead of having 5 seconds to react to a kid running into the street you have less than 2 seconds.

Of course doing 90 in a 65 means you've increased the time it takes you stop by an additional 3 seconds and roughly 90 more feet.

Yeah, nothing unsafe about speeding.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[dahl_ag]

Yeah, I wasn't trying to argue that music sharing warrents the laws and punishments that it gets. I personally agree that it should be LEGAL to share music. It always pisses me off that bands like Metallica who got their fame because of people bootlegging their demo and concert tapes are now so strongly against music swapping. Biggots. I was more trying to emphasize that people know the laws and shouldn't be suprised if and when they get enforced. (of course the need to change the laws is a different matter) Its be a while since I did my sharing. Now I just pay for XM and still save tons of money vompared to my CD buying days.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[dahl_ag]

I said with "the speed that I drive". I don't speed in towns. For the exact reasons you give. And on the highways, I usually do less that 10mph over. This is usally with the flow of traffic, and arguably safer than going 10mph slower than everyone else. OK... OK... OK... bad analogy. Still my point remains.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[I8TheWorm]

I agree with you completely. If the punishment were harsher, you might have a different opinion regarding speeding. A $100 ticket once in a while may not be much of a deterrent. A points system that will add $1000 a year to your registration might be more of a deterrent. The possibility of spending quality time in prison would be much more of a deterrent.

You have a threshold for what you're willing to sacrifice related to "breaking the law" by speeding. You would probably drive 2 miles under the limit if you knew you would lose your right hand the first time you were caught.

People that get caught sharing copyrighted material know it's wrong, know that the **AA are using every means necessary to stop it, and shouldn't at all be surprised that, when they are caught, the book is thrown at them to set an example.

It's so cliche, but if you can't do the time, then don't do the crime. And certainly don't whine when you get caught doing something you know is wrong. Want to share files legally? Work to change the system first.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[iamwahoo2]

If something is only wrong if you get caught, then we should all do whatever we want so long as we do not get caught. This includes murder, fraud, assault, armed robbery, tax evasion, vandalism, vehicular homicide, and so on....

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Surt]

Actually, with speeding a jail sentence makes much more sense, since statistically you are definitely increasing your chance of accidentally killing someone.

Imagine you speed regularly, and on one of those days you have a tire blowout and the resulting crash kills someone (a typical example of how speeding results in death).

In my mind, that approaches premeditated manslaughter. You didn't set out to kill, but you knowingly engaged in activities that increased your odds of accidentally killing someone.

I would not be opposed to a jail sentence for that.

But stealing digital media??????

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Technician]

So if I get a speeding ticket, I deal with it like a big boy.

Would you feel the same way if they downloaded your car's computer and didn't ticket you for the once they caught you but instead ticked you for each and every time in the last 10 years you went at least one mile over the limit?

Are you ready to get hit with a half million dollar speeding ticket?

Monitoring someone who regularly speeds and holding all the tickets for several months, then nailing them for each and every offence is kind of a nuke impact ticket. That's what these folks are facing.

If my car could be downloaded and every time I had some infraction no matter how small (over the speed, rolling stop, stopping into the crosswalk, light out, seatbelt off to get billfold for drive up teller, etc) then I probably wouldn't drive. The probable loss of livelyhood by getting nailed once is way too risky.

For the suits at the **AA, I don't buy music, share music, burn music, etc. It's too risky. I don't have Cable TV or Satelite TV for the same reason. I just listen to the radio once in a while. Hopefully they won't bust me when I go to the bathroom during a station break.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[dahl_ag]

You bet I would quit speeding if this was the case. I would know the potential punishment and act accordingly. Same thing applies to file sharing. People *should* know that there could be huge penalties and act accordingly. Again, I am not arguing that the current punishment fits the crime, only that we know what the punishment is. We make a decision to act. And should be ready to deal with the consequences of those actions.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Technician]

You bet I would quit speeding if this was the case.

When you hit your first speed trap, you would quit driving..

I was lost upstate New York. The area was brushy with lots of tall hedges. I needed an intersection. I slowed down (55Mph zone) and found a 35mph sign. I'd never have seen it if I wasn't looking for a street sign in the overgrowth. Behind the next billboard was the cop with a radar gun. If I didn't need to take a corner, I'd have been nailed.

Just opening your browser and visiting a website that has an embeded MIDI backbround file can get you just like that. You cache the file.. Boom you have pirated the songwriters IP.

Just deciding not to speed or not copy copyrighted material is not that simple. Anytime you go down a strange road, you are at risk.

They are starting with FTP and P-P. Where will it end?

Will it end when your browser can't visit any site (because there are not any) that has any content not fully endorsed by Clear Channel?

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[r3ddr]

you might hit and kill someone when speeding file sharing won't kill anyone... that'a big difference. and you should go to jail for speeding over the limit, not for file sharing!

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Roger W Moore]

Yeah, nothing wrong with doing 40 in a 25 mph zone. After all, instead of having 5 seconds to react to a kid running into the street you have less than 2 seconds.

The solution to this is to teach kids not to run into the middle of the road. I was amazed at the ridiculously low speed limits around schools in the US. What happens when these kids grow up - they encounter traffic at real speeds and get killed?

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I appreciate the sarcasm, you're flat wrong. The government just assigns some arbitrary number as a speed limit that is often based more on target revenue from tickets than actual public safety. What's unsafe on highways is a variance in speed - and by setting the limit so low, that variance increases considerably.

Example: I used to live on a highway in the Kansas City metro that was 15 MPH faster going south than north - for no reason whatsoever. Of course, there were always plenty of police officers sitting in those northbound lanes and the small city with jurisdiction raked in the cash. Also, in Nebraska (where I frequently travel) the fine is supposed to be doubled in construction zones - but its actually doubled virtually everywhere in the southeast part of the state. "There is a road cone 50 miles west of here - better double the speeding fines!"

I'll agree that in-town speed limits are generally more reasonable..and I NEVER speed through a school zone.

(Note: I am not anti-police. In fact, my father is a decorated police officer and I run a small business providing software to police agencies)

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[dolphinlover]

Only in a crosswalk. Otherwise you are jaywalking.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[14erCleaner]

When I drive, I speed all of the time. I don't see anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe with the speed that I drive.

Clearly, you're an above-average driver!

(sorry, off-topic, I couldn't resist...)

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course doing 90 in a 65 means you've increased the time it takes you stop by an additional 3 seconds and roughly 90 more feet.

What makes me think that speed limit laws are fundamentally flawed is that they don't take into account the different characteristics of different cars.

At 90 mph, I know my BMW M3 can still stop more quickly and in a shorter distance than my Honda minivan driving 65 mph. I don't ever drive my minivan over 70. OTOH, if the road is straight, the weather is clear, and no one's around, I periodically get my M3 up close to 100. (Unfortunately not as often as I used to, since I presently live in an area where it's not safe to drive that fast, whereas I used to live in a rural area with miles and miles of freshly paved highways and no people.)

Of course, we can't have speed limit signs that read "80 for high performance cars, 60 for cheap half-beer-can-on-wheels-imports, 50 for trucks" ... clearly the law has to address the lowest common denominator. There's no way around this; the law has to be enforced evenly.

Now, if I get a ticket doing 90 in my M3, damn, I'll pay the fine and watch my insurance go up a bit. But this is why I have a radar detector in my M3, but not one in my minivan.

Just because the posted speed limit is X mph doesn't mean that X+25 mph is invariably unsafe.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if I drove 8 mph in a 25 mph zone, I would have even more time to react.

Or maybe if I drove 120 mph in a 25 mph zone, the odds of a child running out in front of the vehicle are less because by the time they did, I would have already travelled through the neighborhood. Thereby, the child is safe. (kidding...don't speed through neighborhoods you pimpled face kids)

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[X.25]

Speeding (and many other things) can cause accidents and deaths. And you get a ticket. Sharing files doesn't kill anyone, nor threatens safety of anyone - and yet he gets "up to 15 years".

This, simply, doesn't make sense. Fine, he was cocky, and he should be punished, but even MENTIONING 15 years is absolutelly insane.

Well, most of the planet is insane by now, I guess...

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Warpedcow]

Yeah, nothing wrong with doing 40 in a 25 mph zone. After all, instead of having 5 seconds to react to a kid running into the street you have less than 2 seconds.

Of course doing 90 in a 65 means you've increased the time it takes you stop by an additional 3 seconds and roughly 90 more feet.

So what makes having "5 seconds to stop" safe but "2 seconds to stop" unsafe? Safety is not a black/white thing, but shades of grey. Yes, 25mph is safER than 40mph, but that doesn't mean either is inherently safe or unsafe. I consider both safe enough. Same with the 90mph vs 65mph point (in most situtations). The basic idea is that a human being has a much better ability to judge safeness than a metal sign on the side of the road.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[rhuntley12]

What about doing 65 when everyone else is doing 90? Safe? BTW I agree with you, but it goes both ways.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[Magius_AR]

That's assuming you're measuring safe by "time to reach complete stop".
Personally, I find it rather ridiculous that most people think the safest and most proper way to avoid an upcoming accident is to slam on the brakes and hope for the best.

Virus Writers

[pawnIII]

I know its alot harder to track virus writers, but why doesn't the FBI, instead of monitoring these type of operations, spend more time trying to track down the latest virus writers?

It seems to me, that even a middle of the road virus does alot more damage than any p2p group can. Not to mention, there is malicious intent behind the people who write viruses.

In an age, where the number of viruses released each year continues to rise at an incredible rate. It would seem a better use of taxpayers fund to find the people who are trying to maliciously attack other computer user's computers.

Re:Virus Writers

[Anita Coney]

The answer is simple. The music industry has the federal government in its back pocket. What the music industry wants, the music industry gets.

When victims of viruses get a lobby as filthy rich and powerful as the RIAA, maybe the FBI will take some action.

Re:Virus Writers

[Anita Coney]

My belief doesn't make it true, reality does.

Re:Virus Writers

[Big_Al_B]

The music industry has the federal government in its back pocket.

I guess I don't understand what the music industry has to do with software piracy or computer virii. Can you explain the connection you're trying to make?

When victims of viruses get a lobby as filthy rich and powerful as the RIAA, maybe the FBI will take some action.

When I read articles about the "virus du jour", they always quote some anti-virus spokesmonkey saying, "Corporations will lose *gi-normous* amounts of money dealing with this virus." And "gi-normous" usually has 8 or 9 zeros to the left of the decimal.

Are you saying that corporations generally don't constitute powerful lobbies in DC? I would disagree.

Re:Virus Writers

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Untrue. It's much easier to track a bunch of mass pirates than it is to track down a lone virus writer. Pirates, by virtue of trading and grouping, must preserve their presence. Virus writers, on the other hand, can just write code, send it off, and disappear.

FBI Presence Outside US

[handy_vandal]

Why the bloody fuck are FBI agents able to conduct searches in forgein [sic] countries? They have nothing to say outside of the US!

The FBI has a considerable presence outside the United States:

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation is working every day not only in the United States, but in 52 countries outside our borders. The FBI has a Legal Attache Program which was created to help foster good will and gain greater cooperation with international police partners in support of the FBI's domestic mission. The goal is to link law enforcement resources and other officials outside the U.S. with law enforcement in this country to better ensure the safety of the American public here and abroad.

"Presently, there are 45 Legal Attache (Legat) offices and four Legat sub-offices. The FBI's Special Agent representatives abroad carry the titles of Legal Attache, Deputy Legal Attache, or Assistant Legal Attache. The FBI believes it is essential to station highly skilled Special Agents in other countries to help prevent terrorism and crime from reaching across borders and harming Americans in their homes and workplaces.

"Legats not only help international police agencies with training activities, they facilitate resolution of the FBI's domestic investigations which have international leads. The Legat program focuses on deterring crime that threatens America such as drug trafficking, international terrorism, and economic espionage."

Source: FBI

And:

"No one should scandalize the presence of FBI agents at the Mexico City International Airport, as the presence of intelligence agents at airports is common. Yes there are agents from the FBI (at airports), like our agents are in the U.S., like the Spanish police as well as carabineers (military or state police) from Chile and Italy are here. They are information agents, conduits for the intelligence systems of their countries to obtain confidential and verifiable information."

Source: Armando Salinas Torre, Interior Ministry Undersecretary of Migration

-kgj

Re:FBI Presence Outside US

[Jerry]

Interesting!

What this is saying, in effect, is that for all the major countries of the world (at least 52 of them) the concept of "One World Government" has arrived, and the UN has had no hand in it at all.

The scarey part is that these enforcement actions appear to be focused on assuring the income streams of some of the worse examples of "free enterpise" corporations the USA has ever produced.

Don't get me wrong...

[Karth]

If I recall correctly, this was the major bust in april. This is one guy that the records finally became unsealed on. Most of this is done and over with, and the warez "community" has probably moved on.

Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

According to dictionary.com, piracy is: Robbery committed at sea, which leads me to assume that Iowa has been moved to the high seas. . .in light of this new data, it really doesn't matter that someone downloaded a few songs, does it?

Re:Piracy

[billlion]

Exactly. Pirates kill people, take their stuff, sink their ship. Calling people who steal mustic electronically without any threat of physical violence pirates is hyperbole and to me suggests that the people using this terminology have very poor judgement and perhaps value profit more than human life.

time to go wireless

[utexaspunk]

with all the free and open wi-fi points in the world, i guess it's time file sharers went wireless. i suppose that could be a viable defense, as well, if one has an open wi-fi router at home. that is, of course, until the po-po confiscates your computer and finds all your warez on it...

Re:time to go wireless

[RatBastard]

That's great until they look at the MAC addresses in your routers logs and see that the only wireless system to access it is your laptop or that ALL of the traffic related to the criminal activities all point to wired systems on your LAN.

Re:13000 titles of what exactly?

[3terrabyte]

The BSA was involved. This sting was about cracked software titles. RTFA

Re:13000 titles of what exactly?

[tenman]

What difference does it make what media type they were holding? While it's lame to hunt down people for things like this, they were holding items that weren't theirs, then turning around and giving use of it away. I'm more suprised that if they did 120 searches of "high-ranking members of international piracy groups", and only got 13,000 titles. Seems like they should have done better homework on who these "high-ranking members of international piracy groups" really are."

13k.... giggle...

Piracy is a crime

[testednegative]

... stop stealing ships!

Software/Shmoftware....

[Himring]

In a couple of years all of those 1000s of titles will be a buck a piece in some bargain bin and shortly after chucked into the trash "bin" out back....

Is this really worth ruining some young person's life over?...

Re:Software/Shmoftware....

[ScentCone]

In a few years, my car will be a rusty piece of junk, too. I guess I shouldn't complain if someone steals it now, right? Anyway, I don't need it - I work from home, where I produce content that I suppose I should just set out on the curb right now with the trash to save some time.

Re:Software/Shmoftware....

[ScentCone]

Of course it does! And complaining about it doesn't change the REASON why you always see this reaction: because, at the gut level, theft feels like theft. People who labor to produce so-called intangible content/information seem to be the only ones that give a damn about the value of their work. Theft is theft is theft. The legal framework through which a remedy is sought certainly doesn't equate every flavor, but I can (and you should).

Re:Software/Shmoftware....

[ScentCone]

Right, I forget about that whole car-copying possibility. But suppose that the reason the guy stole my car was because of the brilliant, one-of-a-kind flame job that I spent 400 hours painting on it? I supposed that's just flame bait, though, and I deserve it.

About time too

[DrSoCold]

Freeloaders are threatening the future of P2P technology and giving us law abiding P2P users a bad name. If you can't afford to buy the titles, go get a better job!

Re:About time too

[DrSoCold]

Your an anonymous coward....and probably gay!

Another great victory

[MemoryDragon]

For Ebeneza Scrooge.... How does it feel to ruin young peoples live over something with questionable value...

Re:Another great victory

[anonicon]

For Ebeneza Scrooge.... How does it feel to ruin young peoples live over something with questionable value...

I don't know, why don't you ask the idiots who felt compelled to ruin their young lives warezing things with questionable value?

Re:Another great victory

[MemoryDragon]

Youth combined with stupidity, we also were stupid when we were younger, but the risk of getting arrested was much lower and more on the sane side of things.

Re:Another great victory

[ScentCone]

It doesn't matter! The only person who gets to say what something is worth is the person who owns it. That person can "say" it's worth a million dollars, and no one will buy it, and that person's a fool... but he's his own fool, and he's welcome to be. But when cheap bastards disregard the owner's notion of value by stealing their property, and then hide behind the cowardly sentiment that the property was only of "questionable value" in the first place... well, I supposed we could say that the theif's next few years, now spent in prison, was only of questionable value anyway.

Re:Another great victory

[/dev/trash]

Reminds me of college, when a bunch of aspiring teachers were busted for underage drinking. My state forbids those convicted of such a crime from getting their teaching degrees.

I have no sympathy., they knew the rules.

Re:Another great victory

[sixide]

Wow. I have sympathy. They were doing something well within their rights, and are forbidden from working in their chosen field, wasting whatever education they had completed? Absolutely ridiculous. If the punishment had fit the crime, no punishment would have been exacted.

Re:Another great victory

[Pantero Blanco]

"The only person who gets to say what something is worth is the person who owns it."

Actually, the common saying is "It's only worth what someone's willing to pay for it."

Re:Another great victory

[ScentCone]

If you read the rest of my comment, you'll see that I indicate that very thing. Perhaps a better way to put it:

The only person who gets to set the price is owner. Everyone else can meet the price or not, and the owner can be an idiot or not... but it's his choice. Ironically, the pirates perceive a value (or they wouldn't steal the property), but they choose not to pay the owner's price.

Re:Another great victory

[/dev/trash]

There rights? It's illegal in my state to consume alcohol under the age of 21. They were 19.

Extrapolate

[maximilln]

and liability for as many times as logs show the titles were downloaded

1) Don't keep logs
2) Just because I've downloaded Debian 15 times doesn't mean I would've bought it 15 times.
3) I've downloaded the Windows updates for 98SE about 20 times in the last year. Can MS sue me because I haven't bought the other 19 copies of Windows?

Inferences suck... laws suck... copyrights suck... The US sucks... I can't move because it would take too long to walk to Canada (and Canadians are all uptight about US'ans anyways).

Re:Extrapolate

[maximilln]

Yeah, those principles sure are great until it's time to back them up with action. Please spare us the righteous indignation.

Action isn't tolerated by the US gestapo. You, as an AC trolling coward, already know that.

Re:Extrapolate

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Would someone explain to me why *any* communications provider of any sort keeps any logs of anything at all? If they all stopped tomorrow, the gubmint couldn't do shit.

Re:Extrapolate

[RatBastard]

• 1) Don't keep logs
  I'll get right on that with my ISP and every ISP on the planet. Should only take about three phone calls to get that taken care of.
• 2) Just because I've downloaded Debian 15 times doesn't mean I would've bought it 15 times.
  Well, Debian is free, for one thing, so that particular argument doesn't really work at all. But on a general level it doesn't matter because you wouldn't have bought it at all. But, and this is the important part, you would have used software package X without paying fior it at all, which for non-free software is against the conditions of sale/use and is illegal.
• 3) I've downloaded the Windows updates for 98SE about 20 times in the last year. Can MS sue me because I haven't bought the other 19 copies of Windows?
  Microsoft provides Windows updates for free for Windows users. They don't care how many times you run the updates. They assume, rightly or wrongly, that there might be legit reasons for you to patch more copies of Windows than you own. Maybe you're stupid and you keep hosing your machine and you keep reinstalling Windows. Maybe you got hit by a few waves of killer viruses. Maybe you service computers as a business. The fact is that they don't care why you are downloading the Windows updates over and over.

Laws protect you against those that would do you harm. Copyright protects your works from those who would want to use them without due compensation (at the rate you decide as the copyright holder, be they college students milking that fat pipe in their dorms to large corporations who don't care if you breathe or not. You'd know this if you ever created any I.P. that you tried to make a living from. Many aspects of the U.S. do suck, but not the ones you are complaining about. And what makes you think Canada would be any better for you? Canada's copyright laws are very similar to ours.

Because we don't have enough people in jail

[HangingChad]

There's got to be some corner of federal prison somewhere we can stuff the infringer gang. Because obviously we don't have enough of our population in jail now that we have to give college students 15 years and remove any possibility of them ever finishing school and doing anything productive.

This way we can pay to keep them in prison, then continue to pay when they end up going back and back and back because they can't ever get a job anywhere.

But we sure showed them we're serious about getting tough, didn't we? Ha! Just like getting tough on drugs. That's been a really successful program, too. Got tough on those druggies to where today the cost of drugs is...well,lower than it used to be but that's besides the point. You gotta throw those bastards in jail! Not a grain of common sense, but we're definitely tough.

Worse than P2P?

[camcorder]

.../then distributing it online is personally responsible for as much as $200,000 in losses to the industry, according to federal records unsealed Thursday.
So what? With hundreds of seeds, just one .torrent file would cause that much 'loss'. The problem is not the warez groups, or those ftp servers. They are just hobbiest settlements. They in no way aim to spread copyrighted materials to the masses. Its pathetic to US government fail in the battle of p2p and turn its eyes on those warez groups. As in Iraq war, it showed its inpotent in terrorism war and find an innocent area of the world.

Well P2P should stop, crack spreading (how many years astalavista.box.sk is open?) sites should stop, because they are getting benefit (with showing ads) from illegal activity. But those ftp sites are not spreading anything to masses. Just to close users.

So if FBI wants to do a good job, they should find people who is getting benefit from those cracks, rips. Not those having that as a hobby, and either having no benefit from it and do not harm anybody. Real thiefs are the p2p networks, sites spreading warez to masses with popups and pr0n banners. While the are still wide open, what FBI did was plain bullsh*t.

it's like trying to bust drug dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

Every couple months the FBI does one of these stings and within 2 weeks everything is back to normal.

It's like trying to stop drugs. You arrest a bunch of people and in 2 weeks someone has already replaced them.

^ This is Insightful?!? ^

[Pollux]

The software industry are busy spanking poor college students who couldn't afford over-priced software

I was laughing so hard when I read this, then I read that someone modded it "insightful." Now I seriously question the rationality of /. modders.

And I suppose we should leave the poor drug dealers alone because, I mean, they're only in their low-to-mid 20's and grew up in such poor neighborhoods. It would be so cruel to go after these poor kids who had it so rough. I mean, how can they afford such over-priced 5 karat diamond rings, necklaces, and earings? We should be going after the diamond cartels instead!

So cry me a river. In the mean time, this kid got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. So yea, he deserves a spanking.

Re:^ This is Insightful?!? ^

[jedidiah]

No one has to clean up after a pirate. There aren't any bullet wounds to treat in the local ER, or hordes of junkies that need to go into treatment. A pusher at least has a significant impact on the local community even if he has no real victims.

A swapper has no such effect.

At worst, he gives people a copy of something they wouldn't pay for anyways.

Re:^ This is Insightful?!? ^

[Taladar]

AFAIK Warez distributors don't make any money from what they do and Warez do not present a hazard to the health of the consumers so what was your point again?

Re:^ This is Insightful?!? ^

[benna]

Well, yes, the government should stop arresting drug dealers, but I don't see how that is at all related.

Piracy Kits

[TFGeditor]

1. Package a floppy disk and an eyepatch in a silkscreened ZipLoc bag.

2. Distribute to computer stores and other retail outlets that sell software.

3. Profit!

Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[swb]

For example: This priority -- I can't even believe that a group of serious adults gets up in the morning with the idea that they're working to end the vast and dangerous conspiracy known as the "bong industry".

I can accept that they'd go after commercial counterfeiters and pirates of intellectual property, but given the extent of fraud and other naughtyness associated with spam (ie, selling prescription drugs), why hasn't the FBI gone after that before college kids trading bad movies they'll never watch and probably won't even have five years from now (hard disk crashes, changes in life priorities, etc), let alone wouldn't have bought or paid to see anyway (and despite the fact that the movies have probably broken even or made a profit *anyway*).

I'm sure if they actually *did* investigate spam via stings, they'd find massive tax evasion, fraud, violations of more substantive drug laws, and a bunch of otherwise legitimate corporations collecting a tidy profit by selling services needed to run a spam operation. Which is probably why they won't make the effort -- whenever big business gets involved, somehow the law doesn't seem to apply.

Oh well, at least we'll know that "college kids" and "bong makers" can be safely removed from the Bad Guy checklist.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[maximilln]

and despite the fact that the movies have probably broken even or made a profit *anyway*

Indeed. Where does one draw the line? I'll have respect for the US judicial system when judges start questioning the unlimited profit potential basis for the *AA arguments.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[Chatmag]

Thanks for posting that, my thoughts exactly. The people that answer spam, in particular for medications, are for the most part older folks that are on fixed incomes, and cannot afford the high price of pharmacy supplied drugs. They take a chance of saving money by buying the spam touted medications, and find that they have been robbed, either by not getting anything, getting a medication that is a placebo, or not up to quality. That's far worse a crime than simply downloading some music file.

The FDA has the power to go after these bogus medicine spammers, and they can enlist the help of the FBI in tracking down sellers of bogus medications. If they would, there would be far less spam. And just think of all the fun the IRS would have raking spammers over the financial coals.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[b1t r0t]

It's simple. Follow the money. The **AA have lobbyists. Stupid people who buy things via spammers don't have lobbyists.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[LurkerXXX]

And exactly why should they limit the profits? If someone wants to spend $1,000,000 for a ticket to see a two hour movie, I'd consider it insane, but it would be their choice to make. Why should they be regulated on how much they can charge for the entertainment they produce?

It's entertainment. It's not food or some basic utility (electricity, etc). You don't *need* to see any movie. If you want some entertainment you go see whatever you find entertaining that you can find for a price you think is reasonable. Don't want to spend $7 for a movie ticket? Don't. You don't NEED to see it. And you don't have a RIGHT to see it at some price you consider reasonable. Get over it.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

SO NOW EVEN PIPE STORES ARE SCARED TO SELL ROLLING PAPERS OR PIPE SCREENS TO LEGITIMATE USERS. (i.e. tobacco pipe)

Not that tobacco smokers are any more or less "legitimate" than pot smokers...

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[Dave2 Wickham]

I'm sure you'll find all the ISPs who have to spend so much money on spam have at least some money.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[hesiod]

That page made me disgusted.

And also funny ("funny" as in "OMFG")... Evidently, fake soda cans (sold as key safes) are illegal. Roach Clips? Will gator clips, clothespins, tweasers all be outlawed now?

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[merky1]

I have to imagine that there is no "contributions" in defending the public from spammers. I have to imagine that the entertainment industry has a few more dollars to throw at the problem.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[A beautiful mind]

Let's bring this one more step ahead. You don't need to eat anything but bread and water either. Anyone can tell you that that it's not vital for your life, or that intellectual food is almost as vital as material food. This is all about relativity as most things. To use the same expression as you did, you don't have the RIGHT to tell what another person NEEDS.

However, we can tell one thing: many people's opinion is that sharing intellectual property is justified by the high price on they are "legally" available or by some other moral reasons. My personal opinion is that using very high profit ratios on "intellectual property" is morally unsupportable. That's why i will not get over it. Would you be so happy if for example someone would cartel the food industry and make everything except bread and water available only on high prices and crush every cheap food providers based on obsolete laws? After all, bread and water is perfectly appropriate in supporting your life. To summarize it, my point is that i don't think the level how much you need a thing has to do with the price. Your model is a primitive one, not because it's too simple, but because it leaves out important factors, like relativity, fairness and the core meaning of your civil rights, like the right to own property and free will. It seems hard to understand for the first time why does it collide with the insane profit chasing, but i'll try to explain my reasoning: when the government wants you or the companies protected by the government in some way want you to pay for something an unreasonable price which is commonly said to be unreasonable, then your choice shouldn't be buying or not buying it. Your choice should be aswell being able to convince the other party to listen to reason. You can not really do that atm, only indirectly with using the second choice, as in not buying the intellectual property but "pirating it". I have to say, yes, its the responsibility of the ones who "pirate" it aswell, but more of the responsibility is at the companies and the government not doing anything reasonable to resolve the situation. Remember, peace cannot be kept by force, only by understanding.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[LurkerXXX]

Oh please. If you need *intellectual food", they've got more than you could ever consume, available for free from your local public library. Once again, deal with it.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[swb]

The point is that the industry associations claim that they need (Deserve? Have already bought and paid for?) jack-booted enforcement techniques because they stand on the brink of financial ruin at the hands of college movie and music traders.

If this was even remotely true and we had gone from a situation where Hollywood was making massive profits to being bankrupt and on the verge of collapse, they might have some kind of point.

But instead, they ARE making huge profits right now and the enforcement isn't against real threats to their business viability, it's just overzealous enforcement to reinforce a business model.

Why isn't the cost side of the music industry or movie business ever addressed? Gee-whiz special effects aside, why *does* it cost $150 million to make a fucking movie? Why DOES it cost $10-20 million dollars to record a pop album? Could it be the container-loads of money they're throwing at the stars? The never-ending line of lawyers, whores, coke dealers, Escalades full of ghetto losers, and other 10 percenters who have to get paid, too?

These people spray money like a firehose and produce schlock and when they DO have an occasional financial turkey it's the fault of a bunch of college kids collecting bits of data like you and I collected baseball cards, not the inane business management of movie studios, the shitty movies they make and the ridiculous lifestyles they promote and pay for?

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[lysacor]

But does it make it right that these organizations that are accusing people of "piracy" are also trying to destroy the one decision that makes legal backups possible of any media content you have (books, CD's, VHS, records, tapes, anything). Betamax decision
Regardless of need or want, this is a fundamental right they are trying to destroy, by using governments and their influence of politicians to create these problems...

if they were truly losing money, a hell of a lot more people would be out of a job...

Public discontent should prevail over private interest...
it isn't the common voice that prevails, it is the fatter wallet that speaks loudest, like it has always been.

Let us remember those individuals who stood up for themselves, and their actions truly protraying the disillusion of the rights of the common citizen of the world.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[LurkerXXX]

I will agree with you that the copywrite is being extended far too long. It shouldn't be a perpetual thing as it is moving toward, but it should be long enough to let the creator profit from their creation. Where the balance is between those two is a debatable point.

The grandparent however, seemed to think pirating is fine because he just didn't feel like paying the asking price for the entertainment. That is what I think is wrong. Trying to find a good balance in expiration time of the copywrite is something I think he and the rest of us should put our efforts toward.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[LurkerXXX]

But does it make it right that these organizations that are accusing people of "piracy" are also trying to destroy the one decision that makes legal backups possible of any media content you have (books, CD's, VHS, records, tapes, anything). Betamax decision

I think the backup issues is an entirely different arguement. I think that people should definitely be allowed to make backups of their media for their own use.

The people the RIAA/MPAA are going after didn't just make backups of their CDs in case they scratched the original, they were distributing the copywrited work on the internet. Two entirely different things.

if they were truly losing money, a hell of a lot more people would be out of a job...

It doesn't matter a bit if they are making or losing money. They have a right to charge whatever they want for the art they produce. You have the right to purchase it or not purchase it at that price. You don't have a right to just take it because you don't like their price.

Let us remember those individuals who stood up for themselves, and their actions truly protraying the disillusion of the rights of the common citizen of the world.

The great men of history were not thieves. Martain Luther King was not a pirate. Stop trying to pretend your cause and theirs are linked.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[lysacor]

I am not a pirate, I purchase all of my own songs, online or on CD, and the assumption on your behalf that I am a pirate is a good example of what the RIAA and the MPAA are using in their justification to sue people.

Herea good article by the guy responsible for putting out the Nirvana: In Utero album, you just might want to read it to find out who truly are the thieves in the industry, the people who steal the songs are just as likely to buy their CD's, all you are paying for is the CD, not the music

A person who expects compensation for their art regardless of the quality of the art is a business person, not an artist, and in my mind they are subject to whatever marketplace competition is due to them, and if they can't bring their product to market in a reasonable amount of time with reasonable expectation of consumer interest, then they should get out of the business all together.

To paraphrase what Ian MacKay states in this article with downhillbattle.org, "I may have written the song, so I think, 'I authored that song' but it's not property, it's not property for anybody!"
Interview with Ian MacKay of the Fugazi record label and Dischord

I am sorry to say my friend, but you accuse me of being a pirate, when I download the song to listen to see if I want to buy it, exactly like if it were playing on the radio, I don't keep the file download, because that would be truly stupid. If the music industry wouldn't have essentially "bribed" radio broadcasters into playing their "hit" songs over and over again, we might actually have a place that we could be exposed to decent music from new bands.

Don't assume that someone is a pirate just because they are defending their fair-use rights under copyright law, yes I rip songs from my CD's and place them on my hard drive for future musical compilations, (notice I didn't say MY songs because I don't own the songs), but I don't give them to someone else.


When the United States were still just British colonies, there taxes placed on various normal items, such a paper, and tea. These were placed by a corrupt Pariliament who wanted to bail out the East India Company from bankruptcy by removing most of the taxes on tea, and stifling smuggling of tea into the US, which was one of the few ways that the American colonies could make any money due to the oppressive taxes already in place for other goods.

Because of this repeal of the taxes on tea, the East India Company could sell the tea at a cheaper price, but none of proceeds would benefit the colonists, and furthermore it would allow Parliament to raise the overall prices of goods and services through the enactment of port controls and further taxation.

When the governor of the region met with some 5000 people, from Boston and surrounding towns, to send the ships carrying the "cheaper" tea back to England due to popular discontent with the situation, the governor refused to allow this to happen.

On December 16, 1773, 60 men from Boston dressed as mohawk indians raided the ships carrying the tea and dumped the tea into the boston harbor.
The Encyclopedia Americana (Connecticut; Grolier Incorporated, 1988)

The colonists back then were considered thieves, due to the fact that they rose up against a company that was colluding with a corrupt government, to dilute the value of a good used by other persons to maintain their livelihoods, as well as provide their families with food on the table.

But truly is this theivery? These were great men in history, men who stood up for their human right to provide for their families and make sure that their struggling societies survived, this among other things, is what formed the ideal to separate from the British empire, and become our own country.


The music industry is taxing those persons who wish to listen to music, through exhorbita

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[Zebbers]

Why should we artificially protect that which is not REAL property? It is not a right of theirs, but a privelege. The people aren't benefiting anymore, and it's time to revoke it.

Repost - 2

[maximilln]

Mods on crack... gave me an offtopic... I swear, there is some social clique of mods with a self-confidence deficiency which causes them to be reactionary to any reference to their lack of intellect. Tip: I've got more karma than mods have points...

Residual data is an urban legend. Don't believe the spook-show you read from the FBI/CIA.

Fill with 254. Filling with 0 or 1 may, on fast fills, leave the other bits. That's the origin of your residual effect.

If "residual effect" were real, why don't you see random r/w errors on a regular basis?

Hey whats that sound?

[M3rk1n_Muffl3y]

Osama, who is currently staying in the cave next door was just heard breathing a massive sigh of relief. Now that all the international "intelligence" agencies have decided he was "too much hassle" and instead are now going after "The College Student", he can at last go out for nice walks in the mountains. The event coincides with an update of the Evil Doers database, which following reshuffle has file sharing students in pole position. They are now seen as posing the greatest risk to the American Way Of Life.

Gawd Bless America.

Viable Defense

[TrollBridge]

Why is it that when someone gets busted for copyright infringement, the Slashbot hive buzzes with the effort of finding the next "viable defense" to justify copyright infringement.

Wouldn't a better way to preserve P2P fair use be to actively discourage abuse of the tools?

Or isn't the actual goal here the preservation of fair use?

Re:Repost

[Richard_at_work]

Residual effect deals with the alignment of the heads on the disks. For each write, they arent perfectly in alignment with the last one, so older tracks get left as portions. The reason you dont see random r/w errors on a regular basis is that the disk itself masks them from you, they happen, but the disk wrote the data in several seperate places for just this purpose. A 40GB disk can actually hold a LOT more than 40GB, if you discount error correct and just wrote everything once to the disk.

Digital/Analog.

[jellomizer]

If "residual effect" were real, why don't you see random r/w errors on a regular basis?

Well we live in an Analog world but we like to store information digitally. So what digital equiptment does is goes well anything over x volts will be a 1 and anything under it will be 0. While the data for 1 and 0 is normally pritty close there is a possibilty that say you move a 1 to a 0 you had 5 volt to 1 volt so it is still recorded as a 0 and if you put it back it may be 6 volt by adding 5 vold then when you bring it back to 0 again it may be 0.01 volt again. The reason why we dont use analog computers is becaue analog data is not always predictible so that is why digital is popular now because it uses cutoff of analog data to make its reasioning.

Re:Digital/Analog.

[b1t r0t]

Which has nothing to do with hard drives, since they store data using timed magnetic polarity transitions, not volts.

Re:Digital/Analog.

[maximilln]

ou had 5 volt to 1 volt so it is still recorded as a 0 and if you put it back it may be 6 volt by adding 5 vold then when you bring it back to 0 again it may be 0.01 volt again

That's pass 1. So, again, after repeated passes we should still see random r/w errors as all these little increments stack up. I assure you, my HDs are probably close to a hundred thousand passes on some sectors. If it's all proportional, then the residual effect equilibrates somewhere above 0.1... around 0.3 (for example). Making each bit indistinguishable from the other.

But... as another poster pointed out, it's about polarity, not voltage.

Re:Digital/Analog.

[drinkypoo]

And which induces an alternating current in the read head. Which, of course, is at a voltage primarily defined by rotational speed, distance, and coils of "wire". Are they still making thin film read heads?

Re:It's good to know....

[sosume]

Oh, I feel so much safer now that that evil pirate's pumpin' iron in St Quentin... next lock away those illegal copiers that I always see standing around the xerox machine .. they should be in jail as well, those darn copyright violators ..

the world would be much better if *all* police would focus on copyright violations.. go big corporations and corrupt senators!!

Only difference

[thrill12]

Is: those people get sentences which are the equivalent of the sentence for murder one.
This you can protest: why not fine them instead ?

Or, to go along your analogy, why not sentence you to 15 years for speeding, knowing that there is a chance you will hurt someone else ?

It is the absurdity of the punishment that strikes me odd here.

Re:Only difference

[jlgolson]

If the penalty was 15 years for speeding, I don't think many people would speed.

If there are harsh punishments for illegal file trading, what is the problem?

As long as the punishment is laid out beforehand, who cares? They made their bed, now it's time to lay in it.

-jg

Re:Only difference

[thelexx]

There's this little concept of "the punishment should fit the crime", otherwise we're back to chopping off hands for stealing apples.

Re:Only difference

[jlgolson]

otherwise we're back to chopping off hands for stealing apples.

Yeah, but I bet people would stop stealing apples.

But seriously, this doesn't mean that people shouldn't be charged with the crime just because you think the penalty might be too high. They should think about the risk/reward of their actions and proceed accordingly. If you want to change the penalty, write your congresscritter.

In other words..

[bannerman]

You're better off just robbing a bank and buying the software, if you can't afford it! Less jail time if you're caught!

On a more serious note, these guys aren't in big trouble for using/sharing pirated material, they're into mass distribution. The fellow who's looking at a maximum of 15 years is there because he's 1337 and is distributing tons copyrighted material for the heck of it. If you don't want the time, don't do the crime. Pretty easy to avoid this one.

I'd want the help of law enforcement if someone was stealing things from my place of business. I don't see that it's all that much different to have help with the piracy issue. It's true that the developer doesn't physically lose anything, but surely the developer's license ought to be respected. If you don't like the licensing or cost of Photoshop, use The Gimp. There's really no excuse.

Re:In other words..

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

I'd want the help of law enforcement if someone was stealing things from my place of business.

So would I (disregarding for a moment the fact that copyright infringement, while perhaps unethical, isn't stealing). But the only people being helped here are large corporations like Adobe, Disney, etc., who lobby for the passing and enforcement ever harsher laws (q.v. Sklyarov) to enforce an artificial form of "property."

Any small shop who had infringing materials "protected" by any of these raids benefited from the results of a pure accident--campaign contributions talk--the FBI doesn't care one whit for a small developer. Don't believe me? Write a shareware app, wait for the crack to get posted, and see how fast they act against that case handed on a silver platter.

Re:In other words..

[maximilln]

I'd want the help of law enforcement if someone was stealing things from my place of business

Every time you tell a joke, you're redistributing someone else's IP. What are YOU doing to make it right?

Re:In other words..

[bannerman]

You make a good point. They can't do everything, so they go for the cases that have a high dollar value associated with them. But on the other hand, the corporations with money are easily capable of doing this on their own. In fact, it would probably cost less and get more results to hire a couple of geeks to do their dirty work..

Re:In other words..

[ScentCone]

Any small shop who had infringing materials "protected" by any of these raids benefited from the results of a pure accident

But that's an important part of law enforcement's overall impact on crime. Lots of smaller potential victims of both direct crime or the corrosive effects of a generally criminal atmosphere are spared from that when the law catches up with the higher profile bad actors. Those guys set the tone, lend credibility to the lifestyle, and so on. Taking down some pirates isn't a panacea, but taking down none is crazy.

Re:In other words..

[tepples]

If you don't like the licensing or cost of Photoshop, use The Gimp. There's really no excuse.

Would somebody please point me to a working .psd import filter for GIMP that doesn't just give the "This file needs Photoshop 3.0 or later" in eight languages error message?

Re:13000 titles of what exactly?

[jedidiah]

It makes a considerable difference. Some media types are only a partial infringement of a complete work and allow for the possibility of "trumping up" the involved charges.

13000 mp3 violations is actually more like 2200 violations when considering marketed works versus the most damaging posible interpretation.

Fuel for OpenSource

[richi(3)]

Their only hope lies in Software Patents. Assuming there is a plan to "eliminate" piracy.

Less pirating means less money for software companies in the end game, in my opinion.

It starts with cheaper software due to lack of pirating, and an initial surge in profits, but free Open Source projects will become far more valuable, gain more attention, and benefit from more contributors. Make groups of individual's with few resources desperate, and they need little other motivation.

Focus more on the next step of the plan, threat of Software Patents, while using their first step to our advantage.

Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

What exactly does the arrest of criminals by constitutial and fair procedures have to do with "My Rights Online"?

Has software piracy become a right? Perhaps sometime when I wasn't looking?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

Sure, it's what's known as a fundamental right, which is differentiated from a legal right. The legal rights around this issue are hazy, but the fundamental rights seem fairly clear.

Your rights are not only what the government tells you they are. At least, you should hope and strive that they not be so.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[avgjoe62]

What exactly does the arrest of criminals by constitutial and fair procedures have to do with "My Rights Online"?

According to those same "constitutial and fair procedures..." all of those arrested are inncent, not yet criminals. Once the charges are proved, then you can call them criminals. Untill then, they are suspects awaiting trial to determine if they are criminals.

And actually, this has a lot to do with your rights. I've said it here before (and I'll keep repeating it until you folks get it :-)) that the old line "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." is about as big a fairy tale as you can find. False accusations, and the arrests they can lead to, can ruin your life without your ever being convicted of a crime.

This has everything to do with your rights. The sooner you realize this, the safer you'll be.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

Sure, it's what's known as a fundamental right, which is differentiated from a legal right.

Oh... So it's a fundamental right to profit from somebody else's labor?

Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[SQLz]

Heh, what happened to innocent until proven guilty? Your not a criminal till you get convicted.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Congrats, you're now on your way to an MBA, you could also get a job in the finacial sector.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

No the fundamental right is sharing what you have. I didn't note any profit involved, and even if there was, it's certainly possible to share without financial profit. In fact in most cases I would expect that the sharing comes at a net financial cost.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

As someone with experience in these matters, yes you are an alleged criminal and they are innocent until proven guilty, and yes, the grandparent post should have inserted the word alleged This is an important point.

HOWEVER, I cannot tell if you are defending these folks on Constitutional grounds or if you are defending them because they are pirates and violating copyright...

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

May I have your address please? I would like to share your eggs. And your television. And your wife.

This will come at no net financial cost to you, as you are so generously sharing what is yours. There is no profit involved.

Thanks so much!

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[maximilln]

This will come at no net financial cost to you, as you are so generously sharing what is yours. There is no profit involved

This is the heart of it. If you don't want it shared, don't give it out.

I, for one, will not be giving you my address but the media company will happily sell you a CD. It's time to tell the media companies to face up to reality.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[maximilln]

THEY ARE BREAKING THE LAW! LAW ENFORCEMENT GOES AFTER THEM!

It's not my law and it's my right to speak out agains the frivolous use of my taxpayer money to enforce the rights of the yuppie next door to his latest finger-painting. Screw him. His work sucks, his art sucks, and it's not worth my protection.

Also, pursuit of unlimited profits IS a right. It's capitalism

You want to be a hard-nose? Fine. Copying is a right. It's called nature and nature existed long before capitalism.

providing jobs for millions of Americans

Has nothing to do with the DMCA or file-sharing. Artists existed long before any laws.

The movie industry funds a lot of other industries, and perhaps you should take an economics class to learn about it.

I did. I learned about monopolies, cartels, and money-laundering. Perhaps you slept through those classes.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

Fine, fine, fine...

What rights of the alleged criminals have been violated? What rights of mine have been put in jeopardy by their arrest? (An arrest which appears to be totally justified, as far as the information in this story seems to indicate)

There's nothing in this story about unethical behavior, discrimination, brutality, or unlawful intrusion. There's an awful lot of evidence that they committed crimes, and the FBI arrested them for those crimes based on that evidence.

This is just a story about cops doing their jobs, isn't it?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[avgjoe62]

I won't ever justify or defend actual criminal conduct. I'm the kind of guy that got our company to make a donation to a local Breast Cancer Awareness fund to thank the author of Kixtart, pay for Tree Size and abide strictly by all shareware terms.

I was trying to make a point about your rights and how people perceive you once you've been arrested. Just because you are arrested doesn't prove you are actually guilty of anything. That's what we have courts for.

It pains me to see people misunderstand that. Just having to answer "Yes" to the question "Have you ever been arrested for a felony?" is enough to keep you from being hired most anywhere. So many people fail to realize how easily your rights can be lost that it frightens me. Just blithely assuming that since someone is arrested they are guilty displays a dangerous naivety...

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

This is the heart of it. If you don't want it shared, don't give it out.

They aren't giving it out, they're SELLING it. For money. To make a profit, so they can pay taxes and pay for that fine tunnel that they just built in my city. (The Big Dig). Thanks for that guys.

What reality should the media companies face up to? Yes, they should accept content distribution over the internet, but that does not make it OK to steal their product. (Steal = watch/listen to without paying for)

Your argument is terrible.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

OK, I completely agree.

I wanted to clear up whether or not you were defending them because they were alleged copyright violators or because they were just not proven guilty yet.

It's certainly not a perfect system, and we should all work to change it. Donate money to your local Defendants Rights organization, or something.

I have had experience with this very issue, and it is very very messy and very very painful.

In this particular case (didn't happen to me thank god) the record was 'sealed' which doesn't mean that much, but the person doesn't have to check 'have you been arrested' box...

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

It's not my law and it's my right to speak out agains the frivolous use of my taxpayer money to enforce the rights of the yuppie next door to his latest finger-painting. Screw him. His work sucks, his art sucks, and it's not worth my protection.

So for art which you judge to be "good" it is moral to protect the product of the artist's labor, but if you judget it to "suck" (yet still good enough to be worth stealing), the creator should not be allowed to make a living selling it, because you are entitled to a free copy.

Interesting take.

Stupid, but interesting.

I did. I learned about monopolies, cartels, and money-laundering. Perhaps you slept through those classes.

The movie industry is a monopoly? That's funny, I thought there were a lot of competing studios (and lots more competition from Hong Kong, India, Japan, and Europe.)

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Curtis Clifton]

What exactly does the arrest of criminals by constitutial and fair procedures have to do with "My Rights Online"?

According to those same "constitutial and fair procedures..." all of those arrested are inncent, not yet criminals. Once the charges are proved, then you can call them criminals. Untill then, they are suspects awaiting trial to determine if they are criminals.

and according to TFA, the "alleged" criminal in question has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the investigation.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[avgjoe62]

What rights of the alleged criminals have been violated?

Their right to due process by your assumption of their guilt merely from their arrest. This also puts your due process rights in jeopardy. I would also submit that you cannot determine if the arrests are justified or not. That is a matter for a court of law.

There's nothing in this story about unethical behavior, discrimination, brutality, or unlawful intrusion. There's an awful lot of evidence that they committed crimes, and the FBI arrested them for those crimes based on that evidence.

Your rights extend far beyond those you list.

The arrest described in the article is the first step, yet you are already refering to those arrested as criminals, with no facts yet submitted to a court in evidence. On that basis, Richard Jewell should be in jail right now.

Besides, there is another way to look at this...

IF I were a sofware developer, I would be pressing the FBI to release the deatils of what software was found, not just the ones that the BSA deems important. It sounds like Desir is about to plead guilty, given the cooperation sited in the article. I would like to know if any of my interests have been compromised here...

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[maximilln]

Actually copying without paying (theft) is not a right. It says so right there in the US Code

Oh? And under what authority was that piece of legislation passed?

and does not mention anything about copying in the Constitution.

Care to point that out? The Constitution contains verbage for inventors and creators. Those are the people who are the furthest from any benefits obtained by raiding some college students. Quit talking out of your ass.

And the Government investigates

Just how naive are you? Or how much of a troll?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[avgjoe62]

and according to TFA, the "alleged" criminal in question has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the investigation

No, actually he has signed a statement and cooperated. He has not yet pled guilty in a court, been convicted or sentenced. He could still recant everything. While that may be stupid, it's probably not as stupid as what got him in the article in the first place...

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[avgjoe62]

Ooopps... I missed this paragraph:

Desir, registered as a student at the University of Iowa, waived indictment and pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Des Moines. He faces a maximum 15 years in prison on felony counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy. Sentencing is set for March 18

I was basing my reaction on this paragraph:

On April 21, FBI agents executed a search warrant at his residence, seizing six personal computers, various computer components and equipment as well as computer games and software. Desir cooperated with authorities from the beginning, even signing a statement detailing his activities. He also has admitted to creating a second library federal agents seized in California.

However, is it just this one person arrested and convicted so far? Where are the 1000s from the title?

I wonder what software he was distributing? Are there any articles listing this?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Genom]

Actually copying without paying (theft) is not a right. It says so right there in the US Code and does not mention anything about copying in the Constitution.

Um...no.

Theft is when I take something from you, in such a way as to incur loss. For example, if I take your wallet, you no longer have it. You have experienced loss, thus taking your wallet is theft.

Copyright Infringement is very different. If I download a copy of a song, album, movie, or piece of software, the original is still there, and still in the hands of the person who "owns" it. They have experienced no loss. They still have everything they had before I downloaded anything. Therefore it's not theft. The person making the download available has, however, infringed the author's copyright, if this was done without permission.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

Whatever you want to call it, copyright infringement is illegal.

Downloading music and movies and sharing it with other people without paying for it is illegal.

You may think it is not wrong, but that does not make it any less illegal.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[AceM2]

So... What do you call someone who commits a crime and is never caught? Say I watch someone steal a watch, but the cops can't find enough evidence to convict. Is that person not a criminal who just got lucky?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Genom]

Indeed. I didn't comment on it's legality, only that Copyright Infringement and Theft are two completely different things, and should be treated as such.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Richard_at_work]

Uhm, its the COURTS that have to assume innocence until its proven otherwise. Its my right to assume either way, THATS WHY ITS CALLED A FREE COUNTRY. Hell, someone has to assume these people are guilty, otherwise no charges get brought. Its not a breach of due process for myself to assume guilt.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jonbryce]

State controlled monopolies, such as the movie industry are neither capitalism or a right.

Such monopolies are more common in a communist system than a capitalist one.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[EastCoastSurfer]

You produce crap, you want protection, and you take my money to give yourself that protection.

Where did the person who produces crap take your money? Did you buy some of his crap?

Oh you're talking about you taxes that are used to enforce the law. Well if what is produced is crap as you say, then no one will want to infringe on his copyright anyways.

Copyright infringement, for better or worse, is against the law. If you disagree with how copyrights currently work then stop buying things that are copyrighted AND stop infringing. That is the only way to really force a change.

You're probably one of those people who claim that all music is crap, but you go and download all of Britney Spears latest songs.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

This has to be the densest reply to anything I've ever posted on slashdot.

The point is that I have the right to share, not that I am required to share. If I choose to share my eggs with you I can. In fact, I have shared my eggs and television numerous times in the past.

Not my wife though, but some people do that, and I would not advocate taking that right away from them (except that there is some evidence that there is unavoidable psychological harm in the practice, a separate issue).

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[AceM2]

They have experienced no loss.

Only if you would have never bought the song, album, movie, or piece of software had the downloadable copy not existed. Not to mention, I think the definition of theft actually extends to 'services' as well as physical property. In any case, I know people like to say, "Oh, I wouldn't have paid for it anyway...", but I find that hard to believe for most people. Maybe you wouldn't have bought it as soon as you did or maybe you wouldn't have bought everything you downloaded, but I'm sure you would have bought some of it.
To me, it's like your boss saying he's going to raise your salary by $10,000 since you can do XYZ task, but then the next week saying you're only getting half because Employee.X said he can do the same task without a raise. You're still making the same money, the extra wasn't technically stolen from you, but is it right? That 10,000 was never in your pocket, but does that matter?
If a mechanic (let's say he also happens to be rich) has no other jobs lined up from 1100-1200, does that give you the right to have him/her work on your car from 1100-1200 and then not pay for labor? What would you call that if not theft? I mean, the mechanic didn't have anything better to do, makes enough money anyway, and you paid for any materials he used... Does that make it right? Sure, I want to get things for free too and I think this whole crackdown is retarded, but still.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

The point is that I have the right to share, not that I am required to share.

Aha! Exactly!

You are not required to share. If the record companies and movie companies wish to release their product for free (to SHARE) they are allowed to. You are not allowed to FORCE them to "share".

Thank you for proving my point for me!

Therefore, if the copyright owners wish to enfore their copyright (by not sharing) they are allowed to.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

I agree. They are two completely different crimes.

You still don't have a right to be a criminal.

Well, you do, but the state reserves the right to impose discipline for criminal behavior.

Once again, criminal suspects have been legally aprehended. Hooray! No rights were violated in this story.

That was my original point, and none of the flames which followed have managed to refute it.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

I'm not sure if you're just trolling or stupid, but if I sell you my egg, that becomes your egg, and whether or not you share your egg is your business, not mine.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

What's stupid but interesting is your theory that you have the right to take as much as you want, without ever asking me in person, for whatever your personal pursuit is.

I never postulated such a theory.

Stupid, interesting, and uncomprehending. Quite the trifecta you've got going there.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

It's the equivalent of me making a copy of my egg and giving it to everyone who was going to buy eggs from you.

Now only I have bought an egg from you, causing you to miss out on a large revenue stream.

Awkward analogy but it's true.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[anagama]

• Just because you are arrested doesn't prove you are actually guilty of anything. That's what we have courts for.

This reminds me of something I heard once. If you see a guy riding in the back of a police car, do you think: A) "I wonder he did?" or B) "I wonder why that presumably innocent person is in the back of the police car?" I completely agree with you - that being arrested is not proof of guilt. Yet when I see a person in the back of a cop car, I immediately think "A" and then have to remind myself of "B". It's hard work to not jump to conclusion.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

Their right to due process by your assumption of their guilt merely from their arrest. This also puts your due process rights in jeopardy. I would also submit that you cannot determine if the arrests are justified or not. That is a matter for a court of law.

I'm not the one jailing them. My clumsy omission of the word "alleged" on a web forum does not deny them any rights. At best, you could accuse me of slandering them, but only if you can show that I had malace towards these people (who I don't know), and what I said turns out to not be true.

Let me be more specific about the question I asked you before. What rights has the State violated by arresting these people who are reasonable suspected of committing a crime? Any?

The arrest described in the article is the first step

Bzzt!

Oh, sorry about tat. I have this buzzer that goes off whenever somebody uses a "slippery slope" argument in place of logic.

Some people who should have been arrested (because there is compelling evidence that they have broken the law) have been arrested. You have not made a case as to why this is a Bad Thing. You've just nit-picked over my semantics.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[accelleron]

As far as I can see, the only way to really satisfy both sides is for the pirate "industry" to revert back to what it once was - an elitist group enjoying the benefits of their intelligence. At that point, we were small and independent enough that Big Brother didn't notice us because we were too small to be worth their attention, and even if we were noticed there was not much that could be done due to the fact that we "evolved" seperately, and the closest thing to a central nervous system we had was the BBS, which in and of themselves were a greatly diversified network of independent channels.

If we were to revert back to such a small and independent structure, we would once again go "under the radar" by making the costs of legal action against us outweigh the benefits thereof.

And, since God knows /. has enough equal rights activists, I make my argument against the newbies and the "unwilling to learn but willing to benefit" thus excluded, which sadly have swelled the warez community to the size it is. The elite do have the right to consider themselves "better" than them. Just as a BMW owner should not have to drive at 5mph due to the fact that that's the maximum speed of a 1965 Dodge van, or a genius should not have to solve 5th-grade level math problems in 12th grade due to the fact that a Special Ed student can do no better. Averages are for the masses, and it has been a firm belief of society that those who can improve their life by excelling above the dumb masses, should. Hence, sports; Hence, executive positions; Hence, Ferarri. Et cetera ad infinum. So if someone has the skills to be in an elite community and others do not, or are too lazy to learn them, they deserve to be excluded.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[SLi]

Not that I'd like to defend piracy, but...

It being against the law in no way implies that it is morally wrong.

For example, suppose you could get arrested in China for speaking against the government. I don't care if the arrest and the following procedures are constitutional (in China) or not, they're wrong.

What makes you US people generally think that your constitution is somehow a law of the nature, granted from above or something? What if something in it is _wrong_?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

I don't have any rights to that revenue stream, that's the fundamental problem. People think they have a right to make money from certain things, even if that overrides fundamental rights of others. Clue: they don't. And their attempts to manufacture rights that conflict with natural rights will end in failure or tyranny. I'd prefer failure.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[wannasleep]

the movie industry is very close to being a cartel (or maybe it is)

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[benna]

Capitalism shouldn't be a right. All it does is takes away people's freedom by making them economically dependent on their empoyers. Besides all that. the whole concept of intellectual property is crazy. One can not "own" an idea.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[accelleron]

And what of the guy who happened to stop by someone's house 2 hours before they got murdered, was brought in, put on CNN, and then released due to the fact that the cops realized he couldn't have been guilty? Does he have to "take one for the team", and if so what has "the team" ever done for him? Is it just to damn the innocent man to a lifetime of unemployment due to an apathy-ridden, paranoid social system?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Stealthey]

Actually both your examples bear no similarity to copyright BS. First example is wrong because since you only make 50% extra because employee X can do the same task without a raise(that means you don't have to do it). Mechanic example is even more way off. He as to do manual labour. Your Car is unique, it has a unique problem, the mechanic has to specifically work on his car. Moreover just cause he worked & fixed his car doesn't mean no other car will have the same problem. Difference in both examples and Copyright infringement is, that they both are specific to the task, you do task a and you get $$$, you don't do it you don't get $$$. Moreover both cases are imperative, the boss still wants his work done, so he'll get it done, even if he has to pay someone else and obviously the car still needs to get fixed to be usable. Now compare that to Joe SixPack who claims that he wouldn't have bought the copyright material regardless. If Joe SixPack is true to his work, the author of copyrighted material isn't going to see any $$$ regardless of the fact if Joe SixPack downloads/pirates/borrows/copies blah blah his stuff. Not to sound as condoning copyright infringement..but to me it is human nature and very much capitalistic to pirate stuff. If you can get it for free why pay for it, doesn't that sound capitalism to you, how is that any different from Enron Execs. Only explanation I could/would buy for not doing copyright infringement, is that its morally wrong(in a socialist way). Its not wrong because law says so. Laws can be changed be it by invading another country or threat of invasion...or by buy ing out the politician...(add any other convient reason you see befitting). Morality on the other hand can't, you could be bought to ignore your morals but morals still stay the same... Uhm ...thats it...

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[hesiod]

> Did the system work? Kinda.

NO, not at all. If you were innocent and had ANYTHING adverse happen to you (excluding work time missed to be in court, and I don't even agree with that) the system did not work. You were bullied into paying $5000 that you should not have. THAT MEANS THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN.

I can't see how you aren't totally pissed off about that. I don't know what kind of job you had in college (or if your parents are/were wealthy), but many college students don't have 5 grand to their name, let alone able to shell it out suddenly due to a wrongful accusal.

Of course, I have my own reasons to believe the system doesn't work. I was accused for possession of pot, although they had no proof that it was mine -- it wasn't on my person or in my car. They said "no charges will be filed," 1 year probation, then it gets expunged, so I took your stance (although I was not fined) -- sure, nothing bad will come of it, so I'll just play along.

Two years later, I have an FBI record and am almost denied a job because of that (I explained the circumstances and our HR director said a similar thing happened to someone else there and basically ignored it). That was the only time I've ever encountered the police for anything other than traffic violations. Certainly not worthy of an FBI record, but there you have it. I'm on par with an international terrorist because I liked smoking pot when I was 23.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Temsi]

What makes you US people generally think that your constitution is somehow a law of the nature, granted from above or something? What if something in it is _wrong_?
You mean like the original version in which only white, male property owners were allowed to vote?
The rest of the people were only given the right to vote through updates to the Constitution, known as Amendments, long after the nation was founded. The last group to be included, women, only got the right to vote in 1920. That's 14 years after my grandfather was born. That's uncomfortably recent, if you ask me.

As for your China example, while I agree with what you're saying, just because we think it's wrong doesn't mean the people of China think it's wrong.
Right and wrong are not black and white. There is no absolute right and there is no absolute wrong. Everything is subjective. I think it's wrong that three small states with a total of 13 million voters have the same electoral votes as California which has 35 million voters, giving each of their votes 3 times as much weight as mine, but those who support the Electoral College system apparently think it's a good idea...

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[hesiod]

> Well, you do, but the state reserves the right to impose discipline for criminal behavior.

Thank you for pointing that out (no, seriously).

We seem to be on different sides of the argument over copyright infringement WRT the ethical state of it but in this case, I agree with you from a current legal perspective. These people broke a law that was established and extremely well-known in their "line of work." They knew what could happen, did it anyway, now are forced to suffer the consequences.

Regardless of whether the issue of making copyright infringement a criminal offense is "right" or not, no one's rights appear to have been violated here (well, except for the content producers). Slashdot's own little version of FUD, I guess.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[kholburn]

The movie industry is a monopoly? That's funny, I thought there were a lot of competing studios (and lots more competition from Hong Kong, India, Japan, and Europe.)

Copyright law gives a government created monopoly to the copyright owner. You really did sleep through those classes.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

I want to exercise my "right" (under your definition) to shoot you in the head. If it happens to piss off "the man" or you, so be it.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

State controlled monopolies, such as the movie industry are neither capitalism or a right.

You don't seem to know the definitions of "state-controlled", "monopoly", "capitalism" or "right".

The movie industry is not a state-controlled monopoly. The movie industry IS capitalism at it's finest, and the pursuit of riches and wealth and fame and fortune IS a right.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jonbryce]

It enjoys a monopoly on its product, controlled by the state. Therefore it is a state controlled monopoly.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[AceM2]

What does that have to do with the guy I talked about?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jonbryce]

They release a particular film. Nobody else can distribute this film without their permission. Therefore they have a monopoly over this distribution.

This monopoly is state controlled becase the state enforces this monopoly with copyright laws.

You may think this is a good thing. I may not, in certain circumstances, disagree with you. Nevertheless you do have to recognise that this is a state controlled monopoly.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[AceM2]

First example is wrong because since you only make 50% extra because employee X can do the same task without a raise(that means you don't have to do it).

What you just said makes no sense whatsoever. I think you're missinterpreting what I stated. My example was to show how it feels to get money taken away from you even though it wasn't actually in your pocket. Real world scenario: Record stands to make $100m (random), but a large amount of people decide to get their music online or from friends and it only makes $75m. Nothing was ever taken from the record company because they still have $75m. This applies directly to my analogy. Guy was going to get X amount, but company decided to use other guy instead so he didn't get as much.

He as to do manual labour.

True, but we aren't talking about life threatening work here. Maybe he just had to plug in a computer and switch out some sensors. In any case, he wasn't doing anything anyway. Hell, maybe he was going to go work out for a while since he didn't have anything keeping him active. Should you now not have to pay since he didn't have to go to the gym for a workout?

Your Car is unique, it has a unique problem, the mechanic has to specifically work on his car. Moreover just cause he worked & fixed his car doesn't mean no other car will have the same problem. Difference in both examples and Copyright infringement is, that they both are specific to the task, you do task a and you get $$$, you don't do it you don't get $$$. Moreover both cases are imperative, the boss still wants his work done, so he'll get it done, even if he has to pay someone else and obviously the car still needs to get fixed to be usable.

None of this is even relevant to the discussion, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. I mean it's all true, but it doesn't really do anything to argue against my case. The boss still wants his work done? The car is unique? Are you just trying to make this harder than it has to be? Honestly, in both my analogies you looked at an irrelevant point that I wasn't trying to stress yet you missed the big picture.

If Joe SixPack is true to his work, the author of copyrighted material isn't going to see any $$$ regardless of the fact if Joe SixPack downloads/pirates/borrows/copies blah blah his stuff.

You cannot tell me that every one of the millions of file sharers out there would not buy their music if they didn't have the ability to get it for free. That's simply naive and I'm not going to believe it. Maybe 75% of the stuff wouldn't be bought, but don't believe those guys who have 100,000 mp3s when they say they wouldn't buy any of it from the store. Right. I'll admit to it myself, when I was younger I downloaded music all the time that I would have had to buy otherwise. I could either download my music for free and buy something cool, or I could spend $30 for a couple of cds. What's a 16-18 year old going to do? A lot of my friends bought cds their whole lives until they were introduced to Kazaa or whatever. Only an idiot would believe that 100% (or even 90%) of the file sharing going on is being done by poor college kids that wouldn't buy it anyway.

but to me it is human nature and very much capitalistic to pirate stuff. If you can get it for free why pay for it,

Thanks for supporting my point. Got $100 and want to spend it? Get your music for free and buy something to impress your new girlfriend, or spend all your money on CDs? Exactly right, you're going to take your money elsewhere. Remember the analogy where the guy was getting a raise, but instead didn't get any money because someone else could do it for free/less? Oh, nevermind...

doesn't that sound capitalism to you, how is that any different from Enron Execs

You're going to say Enron is a good example of how capitalism is supposed to work? Oookay...

Only explanation I could/would buy for not doing copyright infringement, is th

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[accelleron]

only everything. You speak out on behalf of someone who deserves to be punished, but is not. I take the opposing side of the argument. Don't take me wrong, I am no equal opportunity/rights activist, there do exist distinctions from case to case, but you, like most of society, assume that every man taken into police custody "must've done sumthin'", an assumption that could not be more wrong. Are there people that lie, steal, cheat, murder, oppress, and rape without punishment? Yes. Have some of those guilty been released on lack of evidence? Yes. Does that mean that every man arrested has to carry their cross? I think we've got the wrong scapegoat here. The scapegoat should be the millionaire asshole that slices his wife up and walks. The scapegoat should be the jackass that launders billions of dollars and walks. The scapegoat should be the jackass who steals other people's work (or buys it for pennies) to become the world's richest man, and walks.

But no, they're rich. That means they walk. In order for society to get it's head out of it's ass (and out of the clothing of a few ugly celebrities) it would need to change. And that is what we'll never get our heads around. Therefore consider yourself correct.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

Copyright = state-controlled monopoly?

That's a warped view of things, to say that because laws exist preventing copyright infringement it is monopoly enabling.

Are you an anarchist?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Razor Blades are Not]

Actually, there's some discussion as to whether that little meme is actually true or not.

Whence do your rights spring ? Point to me the source for your fundamental rights, please? It might seem that you have a right to live, a right to freedom and happiness, but those "rights" were fought for, and won in a bloody revolution (at least, in the US they were). The people who fought for those rights enacted your Constitution, and gifted the people with their "rights". So in actuality, these rights you feel are "fundamental" were granted you by a government.

Calling something a "natural" or "Fundamental" right is nothing more than wishful thinking.

If it's so fundamental, why do you need to fight so hard to preserve it?

And you'd better fight hard, because it's not just your right to the fair use of artistic works (or to profit from their production) that is being eroded day by apathetic day.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jonbryce]

The whole idea of copyright is to give the author a temporary monopoly on their work so they can make more money out of it without fear of competition.

The prospect of this temporary monopoly is supposed to encourage the author to produce more creative works.

The original reason for introducing copyright was nothing to do with stopping "infringement" or "theft" or "piracy" or anything like that, it was to introduce a greater financial incentive to create.

It does work to a certain extent in some cases, but it also creates a huge legal barrier to derivative works and to newer, more efficient methods of distribution. The fact that copyright terms keep getting extended doesn't help here.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[ScrewMaster]

He quite plainly said it was illegal (which, may I point out, is often a very different animal from wrong) so you haven't actually made a point.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[ScrewMaster]

I suppose you were trying to be funny but the truth is that, in the United States, you do have the right to do that. Once. Then, with any luck at all, "The Man" will come along and remove that right, along with all the others you previously enjoyed.

But the parent poster is correct. "Right" is a very misunderstood word, nowadays.

Basically, it's like this: in spite of superficial appearances to the contrary there are really only two fundamental kinds of governments in the world. One can be described like this: everything is forbidden, except that which is permitted. The other works this way: everything is permitted, except that which is forbidden.

The first governmental type is known by various monikers, such as "Communism", "Fascism" or "totalitarian state". You aren't allowed to do much of anything unless "the man" has authorized you. Not the kind of place I would choose to live. But in terms of world history, and the conditions under which the vast majority of human beings presently exist, it is by far the most prevalent.

Conversely, nations such as the United States have traditionally fallen in the latter category. We have our Constitutionally-protected "inalienable rights" (read some Thomas Jefferson or Ben Franklin if you want to get an idea of what the term "right" really means) to start with. But our legal system was founded on the premise that only those things which are harmful to society should be forbidden: everything else was, by definition, permitted ... i.e., our right. Granted, the definition of "harmful" is still causing controversy to this very day, but the Founders knew that a truly free society would be unworkable on any other terms. They made damn sure that some really important "rights" were enshrined in the Constitution, but the expectation (and intention) was that the government would not unduly interfere in our lives. The point being that a "right" need not be explicitly granted by law: we have the right to do anything not explicitly forbidden by law.

So, keep in mind that "right" does not mean an activity that the government, out of the goodness of its collective heart, happens to allow you to engage in at some particular time. That kind of thinking is what got us into this mess in the first place (if Jefferson were alive today he would just cringe at the sheeplike mentality of the modern American.) No siree. A right is anything you want to do, as long as it doesn't conflict with those core behaviors deemed too dangerous to allow because society, as a whole, would be damaged by them. Mass murder, for example.

May I point out that while copyright infringement is illegal, it is the responsibility of the copyright holder to enforce his rights under the law? Not the government's? Not law enforcement's? The bulk of society is not damaged one whit by Napster, or Gnutella, or any other information sharing technology. Quite the opposite, in fact, the lives of millions have been enriched to a degree never before seen in history. In that light, it is anathema that the government should see fit to remove any of my rights, as a U.S. citizen, in order to maintain the already-overprotected rights of a few dangerous, unenlightened corporations.

The big problem nowadays, as I see it, as the "harmful to society" has been reduced to "harmful to a select group of private sector organizations." I'm referring specifically to corporations such as Disney and "industry trade groups" such as the MPAA and RIAA. The fact that they've successfully conscripted the Federal Government in their quest to restore iron-fisted control of their distribution channels should be a wake-up call for all of us.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[tom's a-cold]

Of course, I have my own reasons to believe the system doesn't work. I was accused for possession of pot, although they had no proof that it was mine -- it wasn't on my person or in my car. They said "no charges will be filed," 1 year probation, then it gets expunged, so I took your stance (although I was not fined) -- sure, nothing bad will come of it, so I'll just play along.

Something similar happened to me. I was out for a late-night walk, cop came up and picked up a baggie of pot from the ground. I assume it came from his pocket since I wasn't smoking at the time. The only thing that kept me out of the system was that he recognized me from high school and let me go. He was an asshole in school too.

The system works just fine. You're just wrongly assuming that its real purpose is what they taught you in school. It's a protection racket. Maybe a little extortion on the side. In that way it operates just the way it's meant to.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[avgjoe62]

I'm not the one jailing them. My clumsy omission of the word "alleged" on a web forum does not deny them any rights. At best, you could accuse me of slandering them, but only if you can show that I had malace towards these people (who I don't know)...

Actually, in a Deomcracy, WE are the ones jailing them. It is our police force that investigates and produces a suspicion of guilt that can lead to an arrest. It is our court that tries the suspects. And if you become part of the jury that determines their guilt or innocence, you most certainly are the ones jailing them. An assumption of guilt just because someone is arrested does take away someone's rights. The Criminal Justice System doesn't exist in a vaccuum... we are it!

Let me be more specific about the question I asked you before. What rights has the State violated by arresting these people who are reasonable suspected of committing a crime? Any?

Well, pardon me. "Your Rights Online" does not only refer to those that are violated. I thought you has asked this:

What exactly does the arrest of criminals by constitutial and fair procedures have to do with "My Rights Online"?

I then pointed out that merely being arrested does not mean these poeple are criminals. I think you would be asking a very different question if you were arrested and sent through our court system. In that light, this article has a lot to do with your rights and how a nerd, doing what nerds do, can run afoul of the law. If nothing else, this article should stand as a warning for those that violate copyright restrictions.

The arrest described in the article is the first step Bzzt! Oh, sorry about tat. I have this buzzer that goes off whenever somebody uses a "slippery slope" argument in place of logic.

BZZZTT!!!!

Sorry about that... :) I use that whenever someones truncates a quote to make it appear as something else. The full quote:

The arrest described in the article is the first step, yet you are already refering to those arrested as criminals, with no facts yet submitted to a court in evidence. On that basis, Richard Jewell should be in jail right now.

points out that an arrest is the first step in a process of determinig guilt, part of due process. I am not leading to any "slippery slope", I am pointing out how the courts work. But I see that you once again leaped to a conclusion...

Some people who should have been arrested (because there is compelling evidence that they have broken the law) have been arrested.

Again, this has A LOT to do with your rights. What the suspects were doing led to their arrests, which will lead to trials and eventually a resolution. In response to your original question, this is important stuff. This is your court system at work. It is all about our rights.

You have not made a case as to why this is a Bad Thing.

I never said the facts of ths case were a bad thing. I was gently chiding you for assumptions, but that is understandable.

You've just nit-picked over my semantics.

On that, I agree. Unfortunately, the law is all about nits.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[maximilln]

Oh you're talking about you taxes that are used to enforce the law. Well if what is produced is crap as you say, then no one will want to infringe on his copyright anyways.

People collect and trade crap. That's part of society. No one's infringing on copyright, they're just trading crap. My tax dollars, however, are being used to prosecute them for infringing copyright and I don't approve of that expenditure of my tax dollars.

Everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Are my representatives guilty of faithfully representing my interests? Hardly. The case can be made for more than reasonable doubt. When dealing with the government I don't need to justify my suspicion. The government is here to serve the society and, because of the direction of this relationship, they should be subservient to the suspicion of the public.

Copyright infringement, for better or worse, is against the law.

Under what authority is it against the law? The authority which gives Congress its power is the Constitution, which addresses inventors and creators, not the mega-corps who bought the first copy and set up factories to produce the product. Congress has passed laws to take action which is completely out of their jurisdiction. Look over the signing contracts for artists, or, more generally, the employment contracts for anyone who works in an industry which deals in intellectual property. None of those contracts contain verbage which serves to protect the rights of the original inventor or creator. All of those contracts seek to tie up all possible ends in favor of the corporation straight away. You can troll and say,"Don't sign it." That would clearly demonstrate your complete disassociation from reality.

You're probably one of those people who claim that all music is crap, but you go and download all of Britney Spears latest songs.

Ummmm. Yeah. That's it. Don't forget to use your other /. accounts to mod me down.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[maximilln]

They aren't giving it out, they're SELLING it. For money.

Good. I've bought it. Now quit trying to squirm out of the deal by bring up these legal documents about "copyright". Did they sell it to me? Yes? Good. Let's keep this simple. The more complex you make it, the more it becomes obvious that it's no better than a cheap alley poker game.

What reality should the media companies face up to?

The reality that the product is easily reproduced and copied. The reality that they are not entitled to use my tax dollars to pursue unlimited profits. The reality that the laws, as written and enforced, have no Constitutional basis and are in all reality in clear violation of the 9th and 10th amendments.

but that does not make it OK to steal their product

Lets talk about stealing IP. Go to Subway. Order one sandwich. Just one. Not all 25 or however many they have. Just one. Take it apart. Study it. Go to the store, buy all the proper bread and meats and cheeses yourself and make your own sandwiches. Give them away to your friends and family.

Subway has spent millions analyzing their store layout, their breadmaking, their toppings layout at the counter. Could they sue you for IP theft if you start distributing identical sandwiches? Forget for a moment about patents and copyrights. Don't be pedantic. It is Subway's IP which created that sandwich. You're not selling it. You're buying your own ingredients, making an identical sandwich with your own labor, and giving it away to your friends and family. Shouldn't that be counted as potential lost sales for Subway by your logic?

Where do you draw the line on the enforcement of IP? I don't want to hear legal arguments. I don't want to hear about your interpretation of copyright law. Where do you draw the line on the amount of power that someone else can wield with the authority of your tax money?

You don't. You don't ever draw a line. That's what makes you a sheep following lockstep.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[hesiod]

> The system works just fine. You're just wrongly assuming that its real purpose

Okay, "The System" works, "The Justice System" does not.

Not sure if that's deserving of a :) because its funny or a :/ because its true.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[EastCoastSurfer]

No one's infringing on copyright, they're just trading crap.

If it's covered by a copyright it's infringement. There is no argument here other than you don't agree with copyright law in general.

Under what authority is it against the law? The authority which gives Congress its power is the Constitution, which addresses inventors and creators, not the mega-corps who bought the first copy and set up factories to produce the product.

So now you question whether the law can be set up and enforced to begin with. You probably think it's illegal to collect taxes too?

If you think about it, a case could be made that it's better to be part of a big corp if you're an inventor/creator. No one person would ever have the resources to fully protect their copyrighted material in the type of environment we live in today. The mega-corps have even mostly failed.

I'm all for changing how copyrights work. Infringing on others copyrighted works it not the way to go about it. All it does is make people like the record execs think that they have a great product that tons of people of want so the only failure is stopping the people who share it.

You can troll and say,"Don't sign it." That would clearly demonstrate your complete disassociation from reality.

How is saying don't sign it a troll? If you're going to come here and preach about principles and how the man is keeping you down then fight it. All talk and no action. If more people acted (ie, completely boycotting all *AA products) things would change. Instead people bitch and moan about prices, about how copyrights suck and how all the products suck, all the while buying and downloading everything they produce. Brilliant!

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

You are thinking of patent law. Patents give you a temporary monopoly on the sale of a commodity which you invented.

Copyright gives you exclusive rights to distribute a specific work of art. It does not give you a monopoly on the sale of all artistic works.

The commodity in question is movies. The fact that Pixar & Disney have the copyrights to "The Incredibles" does not prevent me from selling a competing movie. My movie might not be as good as theirs, and far more people will probably want to buy "The Incredibles", but that's up to the consumer to decide. There is nothing (apart from my lack of movie-making talent and resources) to prevent me from making a movie which is every bit as good as theirs, and competing with them for movie consumer dollars. They don't have a monopoly on movies, and therefore there is no monopoly.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jotok]

Easy. You have to fight for your rights because there will always be people trying to take them away from you. Your argument seems to be that because people want to take them away, then you have no "right" to your rights (forgive me if I'm misreading it). Whereas, I would say that this is wishful thinking on the part of those with power who wish to prey upon those who do not.

Our inalienable rights, in the USA, are ensured or guaranteed by a government, but the government is not the source of those rights. The source of those rights is the human condition. They should apply to everyone, everywhere.

May suggest some reading? The philosophies of Kant, de Tocqueville, and Rousseau were all referenced during the formation of the Constitution. Perhaps they can fill in some of your knowledge gaps.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

Fundamental rights are those which exist independently of governments, or your ability to exercise them. Obviously it is possible to deprive someone of any right, government assured or not. You may be punished by a government for violating someone else's rights, but you can still violate them.

Defining fundamental rights is quite difficult. Perhaps the best definition I've heard is that it is the set of rights necessary for a rational free agent to exist to define the set of fundamental rights.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

You're an idiot and a communist.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

in a Deomcracy, WE are the ones jailing them.

Actually this is a Republic, not a democracy.

An assumption of guilt just because someone is arrested does take away someone's rights. The Criminal Justice System doesn't exist in a vaccuum... we are it!

Yes, when someone is arrested it does take away their rights, however habeas corpus allows them to contest their detainment and get their rights back should the People fail to make their case in front of a jury of their peers. Isn't America wonderful?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jlgolson]

The reality that the laws, as written and enforced, have no Constitutional basis and are in all reality in clear violation of the 9th and 10th amendments.

Yes, and all gun control laws are in clear violation of the 2nd amendment. Would you approve of getting rid of those as well?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[lemur337]

Also, pursuit of unlimited profits IS a right. It's capitalism

Sorry buddy. Free markets require some restraints on pursuit of profit. Like in the case of monopolies or Dick Cheney's abuse of his position.

The synergy between corporate profit and government service has grown to dangerous levels as should be obvious to anyone familiar with the Cheney-Halliburton connection. Competitive bidding for government contracts is a check on abuse of govenmental power and should not have been circumvented to put $7 billion in the hands of a Halliburton subsidiary. Corporate profit and government service have become incestuously tied and the two keep favoring each other at the expense of liberty and justice for all.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jaelle]

If you can find a way to make a *copy* of my eggs, you're welcome to them. I seriously doubt i'll be able to sell a lot of copied eggs, but getting the samples out there will do my egg business a world of good, as then people will want to buy my real eggs.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[benna]

Actually, I'm more of a libritarian socialist.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[avgjoe62]

Actually, Representative Democracy. Re-read The Republic if you really want to know what a Republic is. Here is what Wikipedia says on that subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

And writs of Habeas Corpus are intended to prevent you from being held indefinitely without being charged. They do not prevent you from being arrested or purge your arrest record.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[the angry liberal]

Just how naive are you? Or how much of a troll?

What a brilliant insight.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Munrobasher]

Isn't that the point where the egg analogy falls down? Sure, if I give my egg to somebody else then nobody can really complain. But in software piracy, it's a copy - the original owner can have his cake (egg) and eat it.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[SilverspurG]

Yes, and all gun control laws are in clear violation of the 2nd amendment. Would you approve of getting rid of those as well?

Absolutely. I'm not the suspicious type nor am I easily cowed into fear by a straw man conjured up by the politicians. Even if every one of my neighbors owned 10 guns each I would never fear being shot as I walk down the street.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Razor Blades are Not]

Indeed, this is the assertion of those philosophers. However, your appeal to authority doesn't answer the fundamental question - whence do those rights arise? As in all absolute moral philosophies, this question is rarely adequately dealt with. "The Human Condition" isn't adequate, at least, not so far as I understand it.
We 'assume' that these rights are inalienable, and assert that fact in the Constitution, but cannot prove that this is so.

You've completely misread my point. It's not because others wish to deprive you of your 'rights' that you have none, but rather that the basic assumption that your rights are somehow inalienable at all is unproven.
Simply declaring said 'rights' as fundamental and inalienable doesn't make them so. Did not Kant struggle with this himself ? Is this not why there are so many different attempts at framing an absolute moral philosophy throughout history?

The Constitution claims to merely recognize certain rights, hailing to moral absolutists as you point out. But we certainly cannot prove that it isn't the source of those rights in this country, since no moral philosopher can prove such rights exist, except perhaps within the confines of human culture (please point me to one who has - my education is no doubt woefully inadequate).

So no matter that the Constitution of the U.S. claims otherwise, it may well be the source of your rights in that country.

Finally, I certainly don't advocate giving up your rights. Quite the opposite. Since I don't subscribe to the view that any rights are fundamental, then each hard-won freedom is precious. It seems there's an attitude that 'fundamental' rights are somehow different from other rights, and a growing incredulity when such rights are not merely violated, but reduced or eliminated by the inheritors of a government that was designed to protect them.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Razor Blades are Not]

Interesting. So freedom isn't a fundamental right, then, since I'm certain that a slave or a prisoner can define a set of his rights, even though being imprisoned in body.

The problem with all absolute systems is that there's no simple way to derive them. If there is an absolute moral code, (fundamental rights), then we'd be able to point to it and say "this is it" and it should be the same for everyone. If this were the case, there'd be no discussion on what was moral or not, because you could just refer to your "big Book of Morality" (letters in the sky, what have you) and everyone would just agree on it.

Or is that too naive of an objection?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

No, freedom has to be a fundamental right. In order for a slave/prisoner to exist, someone has to be the slaveowner/guard. That person must be free (or someone up the chain must be free). Thus, even though not every person is able to exercise the right, the right must exist in order for someone to be the rational free agent who can then define the fundamental rights. If no one is free (we're all ruled by robots/ god declares no free will) then you reach a devolved case where discussion of rights is moot.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

Just another quick note on this subject, I'm assuming you've read the universal declaration of human rights. If you haven't, you should. It's probably the best attempt to define the 'big book of morality' out there so far.

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Yartrebo]

That's a non sequitor. There exist other ways to profit off of someone else's labor, therefore the implication "if it is a fundamental right to share information then it is a fundamental right to profit from somebody else's labor" is invalid.

Assuming that getting some enjoyment can be considered profit (quite a stretch), the most you can say is that "there exist some cases where you have a right to profit from somebody else's labor". For that there are numerous other examples as essentially all government services work that way.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Razor Blades are Not]

Not possible that someone has inherent right to rule.
From that everyone must be created equal ?
From that everyone shares fundamental rights?

Nice line of reasoning, but it fails on two counts.
1/ Not everyone is created (born, actually) physically or mentally equal, therefore how does one _prove_ everyone is created equal in any other respect? There *are* people who are physically and mentally superior. Why are they not more fit to rule ? (I guess I have to go and read some Kant and Rousseau to see how they do it)

2/ Even if one proves that no one kind of person is more fit to rule over another, that still doesn't prove that anyone has any rights. If everyone is created equal, that doesn't guarantee that we all have any more rights than a rock, which by expansion is created equal with us. If we can eliminate the rights of rocks based on some fundamental shared characteristic (being alive, being intelligent etc) then why can't we eliminate some other members of our species on similar grounds (less intelligent, less physically motile, green eyes, red hair) ?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Razor Blades are Not]

That's quite interesting.
I wonder.. Doesn't this assume that rational and free are necessary attributes of at least one agent ? In this case, say God is a rational free agent who declares there to be no free will... is he not depriving us of the rights of freedom (and possibly rationality) ? In which case the argument's possibly circular.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

Yes, the basic assumption is that rational/free are necessary attributes, and there's a further assumption that anything that is necessary equates with a 'right'. So if god is a rational free agent and declares no free will he's depriving us of our rights. Again, it is _definitely_ possible to deprive people of their rights. I personally just found this to be one of the most effective ways to try to define what those rights are.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Razor Blades are Not]

Do you disagree then that the argument is circular ?

By assuming that one must be free and rational to define rights, one presumes that those are therefore part of the rights to be defined, or it all falls down.

To me, it's logically ineffective unless one can demonstrate why one should believe
a) those two attributes are actually necessary to formulate a list of rights
b) if this argument is correct, there's no circularity in the logic - for example one could be free and rational and define a fundamental set of rights which do not include freedom or rationality.
Or something like that :)

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

I do disagree that it is circular.

I claim it is foundational. As a foundational premise, I claim that the fundamental rights are the set of rights necessary for a free rational agent to name the fundamental rights. This part is just definition. You can agree or disagree with my definition. I claim it is a good definition which leads to a pretty reasonable looking list of rights as you explore the definition. However, if you accept the definition, then certain rights do necessarily flow immediately. Freedom, for example, seems fairly obviously necessary for the free agent to exist. I'll even make the further claim that if you try to reduce the foundation by either attribute, that the resulting set of rights is pretty much non existant and uninteresting.

So that is the answer (in my opinion) to your 'a': if you remove either of the above attributes, the resulting set of fundamental rights is devolved and uninteresting.

As to 'b' the important thing that you are slightly off on is that the rational free agent doesn't actually get to define the set of rights. The set of rights he actually defines are unimportant to the argument. The question is what rights are necessary for him to exist in the first place. Those are the fundamental rights. If we cannot be rational free agents, striving to define our rights, then there's really no point in discussing our rights (ie striving to define them), is there? If we can't discuss/attempt to define our rights, there's no point having the conversation. Therefore I claim that we must:

Be free: if we're not free, the discussion is pointless, as we can't possibly influence the other's position.

Be rational: if we're not capable of thinking and reaching conclusions based on logic, then again, no point in having the discussion, there's no meaningful way to affect the other's position.

As a side note, I added you to my friend's list. This has been by far the: longest, most reasonable, and most interesting conversation I've ever had on slashdot. Thank you.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Razor Blades are Not]

Hmm. Interesting.
The problem I have is that I don't know what "foundational" means here.

To me, that sounds just like "presumptive". (No offense intended, BTW).

By saying "fundamentals rights are the minimum set of rights necessary for a free, rational agent to name them." it's presuming that free and rational are fundamental rights in themselves.

Circular logic is where you assume something you're trying to prove. To claim that discussions about rights that are not so based is "uninteresting" is just dodging the question.

It doesn't matter if we're not free.. well not to the question it doesn't. While it certainly matters for us to be free and rational to discuss and formulate this question, it shouldn't be necessary for the question to be answered, that we exist as rational and free. At least, unless your argument is actually that there are no such things as fundamental rights outside of the existance of rational free beings. Therefore the existance of a society of such creatures is the only reason for their existance.. they don't come from 'outside'.

The question as I see it is "How does one define fundamental rights?"
To say that such rights are definable as the minimum necessary for someone who is X and Y to exist who can so define them just leads to the question "How do you arrive at the necessity for X and Y attributes?"
By stating that these are inherently necessary by fiat is simply to ascribe them a fundamental nature of their own through intuition. "It's turtles all the way down."

Again - I expect I'm missing something (ahem) fundamental to your argument.

Oh - and yes, there's not usually a lot of cogent discussion on Slashdot, but I've been lucky enough to get my feet wet occaisionally, here.

Why go after pirates, answer?

[miffo.swe]

I think the reason they go after pirates is deeper than just being in the media industries pocket. Its pretty obvious that the third world is going to catch up with the rich world pretty soon, especially while we outsource anything labour intensive abroad be it industry or services. If the rich world holds all IP the third world will still be sucked dry by us maintaining status quo.

With the politicians thinking that media or "IP" will be the next big thing after the industrial revolution and the big export industry in the near future. Thus they are running around shitscared that it will just fail and everyone just share everything, effectivly killing an entire industri albeit a fictious one.

"Pirate Sting"

[Jonboy X]

Thousands arrested in pirate sting. Still no word on the fate of the confiscated parrots.

/me ponders

[Irashtar]

pirates are theives who steal software, and sell it to the masses, not people who give away programs they have no right too. there's also the subject of abandonware.

Something is fundamentally wrong with this.

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Do you really think these folks had time to actually use all those apps? These are merely the mega-collector types, and they trade mostly with OTHER mega-collector types. Sure, there is a bit of lost revenue on the fringe of the network, when some freelance consultant who really needs a copy of Visio to get a small project done but doesn't make the effort to afford it, hops on his local P2P and grabs it, or when a kid who can't afford squat doesn't want to nag his parents to death to buy some game and just downloads it. Most SERIOUS software users, however, DO INDEED purchase, because they want the support plan, they want the upgrade path, they want the paper documentation, they don't have the time to keep looking for new illegal license keys, etc.

The rest are just packrats trading with packrats to see who can make the biggest pile. Which makes them more like "freelance software archivists/librarians" than "thieving anti-capitalist contraband distributors".

Re:Something is fundamentally wrong with this.

[JadedLogik]

That's exactly what I see out there. The same thing with most music downloaders, they're not selling it, they're not listening to most of it...it's just the archival as hobby for a lot of them. I think that's an excellent way of phraseing it 5n3ak3rp1mp.

Re:Something is fundamentally wrong with this.

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

The truth hurts, don't it, Mr. Anonymous Cowardly Insulter? Take it from someone who wasted a lot of time in the "warez" collecting game... I speak the truth. And I'm in the tech sector (a developer, actually), and not only have a job but have to beat off people asking me to do work for them. Must just be Boston, I guess.

Where is a study showing how many sales are ACTUALLY lost to piracy instead of stupid figures counting every distributed copy as a lost sale??

why not just jail all college students?

[louzerr]

Here's an idea - let's combine the educational institutions with the correctional institutions! After all, what college student doesn't copy music, or movies, or drink under age, etc?

Why do we spend our tax dollars strong-arming our kids? Why do we do NOTHING about international piracy, especially in China?!? Oh, because it's so much easier to go after our own citizens. We would not want to hamper the rights of the international pirates, only our own citizens.

Does any part of our government represent the US Citizen any more?

It's good... I don't care...

[erroneus]

Commercial software is good in a way and bad in others. Blah blah blah.

I like open source stuff. I get warm fuzzies any time I run it for anything I do on a daily basis. I don't waste my time with games... haven't for years... (one day I found myself calling in sick to work because I wanted to play a game... omg... I'm addicted... so I quit... after I finished the mission of course!) But I can see where there are plenty of areas where certain commercial apps are 100% necessary. (Use photoshop because the gimp isn't quite "there" yet...)

I personally, think "misappropriation" of software for personal and non-commercial use should be "ignored" though it should never be considered "okay." (I think games, if they are good and worthy should be paid for as a means of applause.) But the commerial benefit of misappropriated software is way out there "wrong."

These college kids are not the users of the software. I remember back in those days myself. It was just cool to try to get the latest "whatever" was out there and share it. When Win95 was new, it was the coolest thing ever to play with. Sleek new UI, came with TCP/IP already and a browser too! MSIE was my favorite back in those days... it was included with the OS! How convenient! And free? Who could beat that?

Are they really causing a lot of damage to the industry? I just don't know the answer to that question... I just don't know. Do I feel like these kids are "evil" and just want to do damage? Hell no. Should they be shut down? Hell yeah! Should they be allowed to lead a normal life afterward! Hell yeah... the first time only. Do it again and f@ck'em!

That's my few cents anyway...

Re:It's good... I don't care...

[Document]

"These college kids are not the users of the software. I remember back in those days myself. It was just cool to try to get the latest "whatever" was out there and share it."

That's why _most_ companies offer their software at a cheaper rate to college kids. For example, I have a full copy of VS .Net (not student) that I purchased for $35. My brother-in-law has Photoshop which he purchased for $45. They lower the costs so college kids can use their software without having to pay the full cost of the software.

Re:It's good... I don't care...

[Slack3r78]

I'd like to know where he got Photoshop for $45 as academic pricing for Photoshop CS is $299.

Priorities and Consequences

[trackzero]

So if you want to be pissed about this, on whose shoulders do you properly place the blame?

Regardless of who takes the blame, what are the consequences?

Blame

Law enforcement? Maybe. On one hand, Law enforcement officials have the responsibility of enforcing the law. They do not write the laws, judge the validity of the laws, or assign punishment to those convicted of violating the laws.

On the other hand, federal law enforcement is an hierarchy subject to political pressure. A gentleman with whom I occasionally work is an undercover federal agent originally tasked to fight against child endangerment. His focus was online child baiting. He was very good at this, and brought some serious slime-bags to justice. It felt good to help.

Now, this same person is fighting terrorism. I support the move, because despite the fact that I think that child predators need to be stopped, it won't do the kids much good if they are blown up by some pseudo-religious maniac filled with unjustifiable hatred against all life.

Bottom line: Do I personally think that the priorities are what they should be, in an ideal world? Hell no. Do I think someone in the organization rolled over and kissed ass? Hell yes.

Do we blame the software/record companies? Yes, in large part. They should charge a fair price for a good product. I was in a business years ago. My former partner and his wife imbezzled a lot of money from me. This was hard cash- not "potential profit." We had hard evidence, but little money in pocket for legal fees. Did the FBI rush to our aid? Not as such. People will rip you off. Move on, learn to cope and take steps to decrease the frequency and severity in the future.

Consequences

We live in a fundamentally capitalistic world. People are money/reward motivated. The idea is simple: I work hard. I do something clever. I get quantifiable material rewards. A lot of people do amazing things under this system. "Gosh those 65-80 hour weeks really paid off!" Take away the reward, and you lose much of the work. I know there are exceptions to this. I use Linux. My current company contributes to a couple GPL'd projects in addition to writing closed-source software. If a potentially paying client stole some of our software, you can bet I'd be pissed. I have however looked the other way when our software was copied and used without permission or payment. It is free publicity under the right circumstances.

One final thought- what is the consequence of the current arms race between copyright holders and the illegal copiers and/or distributors of their intellectual property? Virtually any Slashdot reader is most likely convinced that file sharing is not going away. Most are also equally convinced that those opposed to file sharing are not going to change their mind. A very likely outcome I would argue, is the development of Cell networked and encrypted protocols that borrow from time-honored practices of the intelligence community. Now what scares me in this scenario is the probable secondary users of such networks- both terrorists and organized crime.

Meanwhile, in the same 24 hour period.....

[THESuperShawn]

50 women were raped, 100 people were murdered, and thousands were robbed.

Man, am I glad we have our priorities straight!

Umm FBI

[LWATCDR]

Don't you have.
1. Kiddie porn sites
2. Drug Smugglers
3. Kidnappers
4. Mafia members
5. Terrorists
to bust? I mean college students trading music that no one would pay for anyway? Seems like a waste of resources.

My cheese moved, again, dammit --Focus

[beavmetal]

Topic 1:
The music industry cried rape with the birth of the cassette tape, the Movie industry cried rape with the birth of the VHS.

The electronic filesharing movement is fundamentally different because of the sheer capability to move copyrighted material.

Pirates of the 80's actually had to move a physical tape. Still they profited greatly. Today, pirates move DVDs, software, and CDs both physically and electronically. The actual pirates are still running free in other countries, importing their crap illegally, very much like the drug industry, and they are still profiting greatly.

We keep moving the industry's cheese, and they keep dying in the maze.

Topic 2:
Both the FBI and the media industries have lost their focus. The media is supposed to be a entertaining facet of our lives, not a ruling factor. To the Media people, entertain, dont govern. To the FBI, investigate and protect, stop taking corporate bribes.

Topic 3:
Who doesn't have 13000 files on their PC. Thats around 1083 CDs (12 songs each). Over the last 10 years of buying CDs, that about a purchase of 9 CDs per month. Not to insaine. Of course, I have downloaded songs I purchased on cassette. I consider it a free upgrade. I have also downloaded songs that I like, but are such bubblegum sh!t stains, I would never pay for them. I consider the bombardment of Ads via TV and radio payment enough.

No one wants to buy crap, start producing some new innovate music rather than pushing your formulaic junk unto us.

Thank you, please drive through.

Re:My cheese moved, again, dammit --Focus

[Blitzenn]

>Who doesn't have 13000 files on their PC. I don't and there isn't another soul that I know of that does, or at least admits it. I have a wide CD collection myself. I haven't ever ripped one for someone else and don't ever plan to do it either. Ask me to make you a copy? You aren't my friend anymore. Don't ask me to break the law for you. I don't have to agree with the law, but I have to follow it. That's part of what is wrong with this country. We don't think we have to follow the laws we don't agree with or don't like. They are there for a reason, to protect the corporate cookie jar, not to protect you. That's also a problem, but we let those dorks who passed these stupid laws stay in office. Where are the young people who these laws effect on election day? Apparently they are too busy at home downloading crap. Get out and vote if you don't like it! Your lettin gthe people who have nothing better to do make the laws that govern YOUR life. You can stop it by making yourself heard. VOTE damm it!

Instead, copy...

[freeweed]

...this video.

(disclaimer: I've never been able to find a non-evil version of it)

Re:Instead, copy...

[Ziviyr]

Archive.org has an animgif version. ;-)

Well the one thing it does...

[Momoru]

I agree with most people's comments here....yes what he was doing was illegal and we shouldn't feel sorry for him, but also yes he shouldn't serve 15 years or be sued for millions of dollars. But what good I do think comes from this is it shows others that its a "real" crime. I know in the past i have shared software or knew others who had, and we all figured "eh this is too small potatoes for anyone to care about", because at the time no one was being prosecuted. But it was still a REAL crime. I'm certain this bust made at least one or two people rethink sharing files on their network. And I think thats the point of these high profile things is to make the reality of the crimes apparent to kids. How many people here stopped sharing files on Kazaa when the RIAA started suing people? I know i sure as hell did.

Re:Well the one thing it does...

[maximilln]

it shows others that its a "real" crime

I don't care how big of a lobby you stack up. It will never be a real crime.

By your logic, a large enough lobby could make chewing gum a real crime, or riding a bicycle a real crime, or using Linux a real crime.

Re:Well the one thing it does...

[Momoru]

Actually someone has made chewing gum a crime, its called Singapore. So in that sense I agree with you that anything can be a crime...Chewing gum is a real crime in Singapore. They want their streets to be clean, so whether you think its a real crime or not does not matter because what your doing is violating the law. Lobby to change the law if you want to, but I don't see why people should be able to take for free a product that I spent my time and money to create and want to sell. From what your saying Shoplifting would not be a "real crime" because its just a poor college student taking something from a big corporation...where do you draw the line for a "real crime" exactly?

Re:Well the one thing it does...

[Blitzenn]

I think the point is that someone can get a longer sentence and a heavier fine for downloading a warez product now than they are likely to get from killing someone with their automobile. We have a lopsided justice, no broken justice system in this country when start to do things like this to people because they 'hurt' a company. It sends a message that your mother's life is less valuable than the financial well being of a company. I think it's a pretty sorry state of affairs myself. It certainly makes it clear as to who is really holding the power here in the states.

So now we're supposed to take these DoJ press

[Hartley1]

releases at face value ? I highly doubt they caught any of the big fish in the warez release scene. What a waste of tax payer money.

Terrible idea...

[Kjella]

...we have this in Norway, and it is one of the looniest laws on the books. What it effectively means is that once you've reached a certain "treshold", crime is free. Have I shoplifted 20 times? Well, if I do it a 21st time, I'll get one more, but less for each one so it makes absolutely no difference if I do. It is paradise for career criminals, and does nothing for the rest.

Argue it how you like, but he does not seem like a casual pirate to me. He seems to have been actively leading a criminal life by piracy for quite some time. I don't see any prinicipally wrong with him getting a much harsher sentence than a casual pirate. I wish it was the same here in Norway (here we have a guy who's convicted of breaking & entering in somewhere between 500 and 600 cabins - he's still walking around, sigh).

Kjella

Re:Terrible idea...

[curious.corn]

I'm sorry to hear that... but seen from down here (Italy) Norway has huge karma among the laymen. All of Scandinavia is considered as advanced as you can get in terms of social & political organization; Eg: we were quite incredulous when the swede Foreign Minister Lindh was killed.

It seems that the rehabilitation part of the sentence isn't being carried out properly ;-) I'm not a psychologist but putting some perspective into an asshole's head by having him wake @ 5:00 AM and do something useful for the community would make wonders on his inflated ego... (which is, IMHO, the root cause of many un-social and criminal activity).

I'm italian, we still live by an amended fascist criminal prosecution code (Codice Rocco)... this christmas another 'cammorrista' (member of the neapolitan mob) was killed in a busy street in Naples. The death count is somewhere between 100 and 110... it doesn't work the other way either...

Re:Why not...?

[3terrabyte]

Too late once they're watching you. Warrants for your sister's house wouldn't hard to get.

Come on, this is the FBI. It's not like hiding a floppy disk down your air duct is going to work here.

Go away, you're not 21

[tepples]

Find where local [or indy] bands play and pay the cover, buy their cds, etc...

The kids being arrested for this are too young to get into places that serve alcoholic beverages.

Re:Go away, you're not 21

[tomstdenis]

Organize with your school then. At my crappy college we had a few indy bands playing during the summer.

How hard would it be to rent out a public area [e.g. near the university center] for an afternoon and get indy bands to play/hawk their wares?

Tom

Expect lots of piracy justification

[Anonymous Coward]

Expect lots of piracy justification responses to your post, and expect those replies to get mysteriously modded up. Pirates seem to live in a dream world where they have mentally blocked out the consequences of their actions, often with bizarre justifications ("It's too expensive for me to buy"). They are freeloaders who get bitter when the free ride is taken away. There is a big difference from the free-ness of the OSS world and the free-ness as in the -loader variety. It's as though Linux newbies apply one set of value to the other as though they are related. Just because you get TuxRacer for free doesn't mean you have a right to Doom 3 for free.

Slashdotters only care when GPL source code is "stolen." In any other situation, however, copyright never matters, and anyone attacking piracy or defending themselves from it is evil, "money-grubbing," and so on. When they go after individual downloaders--the very thing Slashdotters suggested they do during the Napster trial--they get attacked. It's easier to demonize then to address the issue.

The usual Disney propaganda

[tepples]

someone that copies a program or song that doesn't belong to them is clearly doing something illegal and that has been illegal since the constitution was written

Copying a >= 30 year old song (e.g. anything performed by Elvis or the Beatles) was not unlawful when the copyright clause of the U.S. Constitution was implemented in 1790.

Re:The usual Disney propaganda

[leonardluen]

yes, but copying songs 30 years old was illgeal at the time

and now copying any song after 1921 aparrently from now until the the rest of eternity will be illegal.

just because you don't like the law (i don't like it either) doesn't make it legal. don't complain to me about the law, complain to your congressman/senator

Re:The usual Disney propaganda

[tepples]

but copying songs 30 years old was illgeal at the time

No. The Copyright Act of 1790, enacted soon after the U.S. Constitution became law, provided for a 14-year copyright term renewable to 28.

just because you don't like the law (i don't like it either) doesn't make it legal. don't complain to me about the law, complain to your congressman/senator

I have complained to my representative and to both of my senators, but the law hasn't changed. What should I do to make complaining work?

Re:I call self-serving BS

[danheskett]

A case in point - you apparently never did file criminal charges, did you?
I was a contractor, it was a nice company to work for. That's all. It was solid basis for a business: people who want and demand a good product, who can pay for it, and who have a strong desire to be efficent.

A 5,000 unit basis for business means that if only 500 users switch your bottom line revenue is deeply hurt.

Cheap, pirated copies will only get one so far. In fact, it's superb marketing for the real product (the one with real support). What counts is the technology, the imagination of the people involved, and the management of the organization.
No, its not. When users stop paying for the licensing to use pirated copies it a direct hit against the bottom line. When all new sales stop but your software is turning up at hundreds of new locations, it has nothing to do with management or sales department or imagination. It has to with lost income and poor revenues.

FBI surveillance

[handy_vandal]

you completely missed the AC's point: the problem is not that there are FBI agent outside of the US, the problem is that FBI agent conduct searches outside of the US!

No, I didn't miss the AC's point. Perhaps you didn't read my post clearly, or failed to grasp the implications:

"Legats not only help international police agencies with training activities, they facilitate resolution of the FBI's domestic investigations which have international leads. The Legat program focuses on deterring crime that threatens America such as drug trafficking, international terrorism, and economic espionage."

Seems to me that "facilitating resolution of the FBI's domestic investigations" and "deterring crime that threatens America" might reasonably include FBI searches outside the US.

The FBI has a long and sorry history of conducting illegal searches inside the US -- why would the agency use lesser capabilities abroad?

-kgj

Solution?

[Famatra]

"Aren't some of these companies small or midsized businesses that will go OUT of business if they can't get paid for what they're producing?"

I guess they'll have to go out of business then. What is the alternative, a police state with mandated DRM on everything, along with cameras making sure you're not copying what your not suppose to? Don't forget the cameras to make sure you are not reading anything without paying the authors for their hard work, including this sentence: That'll be $20 please.

We live in a digital age. Copyright should be reformed along the lines that free distribution is allowed for personal or non-commerical use. If the parties do not or will not reform they will quick see that people will do so anyway, it is difficult to keep information unfree in a free society. If noncommerical use is allowed then these 'pirates' will quickly see their cash flow evaporate, or better yet - the media companies should realize they are competing against free of charge distribution models (P2P) since the monopoly pricing that worked in the past does not work today.

[The] free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

-Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

its simple

[Anonymous Coward]

to GET access to other people massive shares so you can find some rare, hard to find file, you have to SHARE a massive ammount.

Bingo-- Imagine being victim to a proxy-trojan....

[Seng]

It's probably happening right now as we speak. Some new worm/virus goes out, turns said PC into an anonymous proxy, and someone decides to route their illegal crap through your cable connection. Since you have no log of the intrusion, you're the one that has to prove your own innocense. (But, on a side note, if some of the music/software/movie vendors got off their high-horse and sold their product at a resonable rate, TONS more people would buy it. $20 for a CD? Hell now... Put it on a shelf for $5 or $10, there's going to be a higher number of purchases... Simple economics.)

And in other news...

[Richard_at_work]

Morals and Ethics still fail to stop rampant software piracy.

Destruction? Plus a Bonus Story Included! :)

[Famatra]

" The wholesale looting of others intellectual property is a very destructive thing."

Not any more destructive than turning our society into a police state with mandated DRM on everything i'd guess.

Since I dislike short replies but do like free stories I'll share one with you all :). This maybe one of the few free things we can read in our nice DRM future:

--
The Right to Read

by Richard Stallman

[image of a Philosophical Gnu]
Table of Contents

* Author's Note
* References
* Other Texts to Read

This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).

(from "The Road To Tycho", a collection of articles about the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution, published in Luna City in 2096)

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.

And there wasn't much chance that the SPA--the Software Protection Authority--would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment--for not taking pains to prevent the crime.

Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (10% of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)

Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.

There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.

Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.

Programmers still needed debugging tools, of co

math is fine, your comprehension false

[Somegeek]

The statement is NOT making an assumption OR using false math, you just need to read more carefully. If it had said "personally responsible for $200,000 in losses" you would be correct, but the author didn't say that. Read what you excerpted. It says "as much as". If you don't understand the phrase, it means it could be any amount 'UP TO' $200,000. That includes other amounts, like $10.00.

And you were modded insightful!

You mods keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. /Inigo

Right from wrong? Err.......

[Famatra]

"When they are in college they are usually 17 youngest and most likely 18-19 so they are no longer kids and they should know right from wrong by now"

Excuse me, right from wrong? I have little doubt that sharing certain kinds of information is *illegal* but immoral? I don't think so.

Feel free to give me your arguement though as how an artificial state created barrier (called copyright) against information flow is a moral imperative to be followed.

Change is in your hands

[Blitzenn]

The need to change the system is clear, in my eyes. We are placing a higher priority on softer crimes that hurt only a corporation than we are of harder crimes where people hurt other people. The problem is not in government. Government is elected in this country by YOU. If there were enough people out there getting outraged by this, then it would stop. The real problem is that the politicians KNOW that the group of people whothis targets the most 18-30 year olds, tend not to vote anyways. So passing a law that targets them is actually a good move. "I can say I am fighting crime and not hurt the people who vote for me". Best of both worlds for them. That group of people, 18-30 yrs old, sealled their fate in the last national election. They were supposed to be out in force, they never showed up

You guys are screwwing yourselves and then complaining about it! Here are the US Census stats. Look at them yourself, 18-24, one of the largest segments of the population right now. 38 percent registered to vote. The election results say that only about 25% of those registered actually voted. 45-65 age group, 70% registered and actually nearly 75% of them voted too. Who is screwwing who here? If you actually voted, I would bet you the politicians would take sharp notice over your issues or fear losing their jobs. I would personally guarantee it! Those numbers have to drastically change before ANYTHING is going to happen though.

One World Government

[handy_vandal]

... the concept of "One World Government" has arrived, and the UN has had no hand in it at all.

I suppose you could look at it that way.

When I think of "One World Goverment", what comes to mind is: Coca-Cola; Nike; Wal-Mart; etc.

-kgj

Can somebody tell me!

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about my right to take GPLed software, ignore the copy right, and redistribute it as a commercial product?

Re:Can somebody tell me!

[hesiod]

As set forth in precedent, it seems okay. There are quite a few of those, few (any?) that have been in court for it. Unfortunately, the people who are nice enough to release software for "free" can't afford legal counsel.

Hey big boy...

[alienmole]

So if I get a speeding ticket, I deal with it like a big boy.

I wonder how you'd feel about it if you were faced with up to 15 years in prison for speeding, as is the case here. Your manly ability to suck up speeding tickets has absolutely nothing to do with this case.

Re:Hey big boy...

[dahl_ag]

Yeah, in that case, you are right I wouldn't just suck it up. I would have avoided doing something stupid that I KNEW was punishable with jail time to begin with. I know people have been complaining about the punishment not fitting the crime. And I agree. But at the same time, you should be smart and take actions that fit the potential punishment. Regardless if you agree with the punishment or not. That is just the prudent thing to do until someone manages to get the punishment changed (or even better, eliminated) And if you get busted when you knew damn well what the punishment could be, you don't have the right to whine about it.

Libraries must be destroying the book industry....

[Viewsonic]

Doesn't make much sense to me.

/. Editorial Slant

[RatBastard]

Have you considered that it has more to do with /.'s editorial slant than the truth? Which busts get posted here, the college students (whio make up a significant percentage of /.'s readership), or large corporations (who don't)?

Trust me, large companies get busted for using pirated software all of the time. The BSA audits large companies and even government bodies, all the time looking for pirated software.

The difference here is that most corporations who get busted are not distributing said software openly on the Internet. Most of them are using illegal copies of said software in house. And the fact that the editors at /. prefer to post "800,000,000 college students arrested for choosing Liberal Arts majors" stories than "Scumsoft Corp was fined $100,0000.00(US) for using one illegal copy of MS Paint" as nobody really cares if a corporation gets busted.

Hmmm

[BlackMesaResearchFac]

He includes a false implication (implying erasing HDs would actually destroy evidence) in his attempt at humor and gets modded up for being funny. I correct him and getting modded as a troll.
Insightful moderation.

Copyright infringement is immoral regardless

[kmweber]

An act that is immoral is immoral regardless of whether or not it's against the law, and an act that's morally OK is morally OK regardless of whether or not it's against the law.

Copyright violation is an immoral act, period--regardless of the law. If it's not against the law in a certain jurisdiction, then it should be--or that government becomes illegitimate, because it is failing in its sole proper purpose of protecting individual rights.

Re:Copyright infringement is immoral regardless

[toxtothogrady]

You're confusing "immoral" with "illegal". Morality is subjective, based largely on individual principles. In a legal context, it's the facts that matter, not your interpretation of what's moral.

Re:Copyright infringement is immoral regardless

[kmweber]

You're confusing "immoral" with "illegal".

No, I'm not--that's my whole point. It's immoral regardless of whether or not it's illegal. If it's not illegal, then it should be BECAUSE it is immoral, but even if it is not illegal one should not engage in it because it is immoral.

Morality is subjective

Patently false.

Re:Copyright infringement is immoral regardless

[kmweber]

Then you are wrong on both counts.

Re:Copyright infringement is immoral regardless

[toxtothogrady]

Immoral to whom? You?! Like it or not, morality absolutely IS subjective. Some folks believe eating meat is immoral, others don't. I don't want either side of that argument legislating what I eat for breakfast based on their concept of morality. Some religions espouse polygamy, and other religions practice animal sacrifice. One man's religious or culturally influenced concept of morality is another man's paganism or crime. So yes, morality IS subjective. Don't give me this "patently false." bull.

Just because YOU say software piracy is immoral doesn't make it so. You aren't God, nor do you speak on God's behalf. You're certainly entitled to your opinion of morality, but that's all it is pal, opinion.

BTW, I don't take exception to anyone declaring software piracy illegal. It most likely will be judged so in this case. I would suggest, however, as many others have, that our government's priorities are totally out of whack.

One last thing: Try to reserve the word "immoral" for crimes that really are immoral, like rape, murder, child molestation, etc. It you paint stupid sh*t like software piracy with the word "immoral", the word will eventually lose it's gravity.

Re:Copyright infringement is immoral regardless

[kmweber]

Immoral to whom? You?! Like it or not, morality absolutely IS subjective. Some folks believe eating meat is immoral, others don't.
That doesn't mean that morality is subjective; it simply means that one side is wrong. I'm sick and tired of seeing this incredibly obvious and unbelievably shallow fallacy.

I don't want either side of that argument legislating what I eat for breakfast based on their concept of morality. That is not a matter for law, because regardless of its moral status eating meat does not, in and of itself, constitute a violation of individual rights. Copyright violation does (remember, copyright is an absolute moral principle, not merely a legal construction--the legal institution of copyright is merely to protect the absolute moral principle of copyright)

Just because YOU say software piracy is immoral doesn't make it so.
Nor am I claiming it does. It's not "I say it is true; therefore, it is true" but rather "It is true; therefore, I say it is true."

You aren't God, nor do you speak on God's behalf.
Of course not. Such an entity does not exist. It is logically impossible for me to be that which does not exist.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion of morality, but that's all it is pal, opinion.
No, it's not an opinion--it is an objective fact, true regardless of whether I or anyone else accept it as such. I, however, DO choose accept it as true (which it is); you do not--since you have chosen to reject reality, you are wrong.

One last thing: Try to reserve the word "immoral" for crimes that really are immoral, like rape, murder, child molestation, etc. It you paint stupid sh*t like software piracy with the word "immoral", the word will eventually lose it's gravity.
Why not? All constitute violations of individual rights; thus, all are equally immoral.

Re:Copyright infringement is immoral regardless

[toxtothogrady]

moral

1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.

judgment

1. The act or process of judging; the formation of an opinion after consideration or deliberation.

opinion

1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: "The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion" (Elizabeth Drew).
2. A judgment based on special knowledge and given by an expert: a medical opinion.

If I interpret those definitions correctly, morality is a "judgment" based on the "opinion" of a given entity--be it you, me, the supreme court, society, whatever. So, morality isn't an absolute. It's a perception of right and wrong. Apply that to copyright law and you'll get a wide variety of opinions. There's no absolute arbiter on morality, and your perception of morality is simply your opinion.

copyright is an absolute moral principle, not merely a legal construction
Really? I understand the legal part, but what book did you pull the "absolute moral principle" from? And who wrote it? If there's a book of "absolute moral priciples" out there, I'd love to read it. And don't tell me, "The Constitution" or "The Bible". Both works are flawed. Remember slavery? Immoral, but legal in the U.S. at one time. Legal doesn't necessarily equate to moral. Is copyright violation illegal? Yes. Immoral? That's a personal opinion.

since you have chosen to reject reality, you are wrong.
Nope, I merely reject your perception of reality. Apparently there's no room for gray area or interpretation in your world. It's "immoral this" and "immoral that." On what do you base morality? Regardless of your source, it's subject to interpretation and opinion.

Re:Libraries must be destroying the book industry.

[I8TheWorm]

With libraries, you don't retain a permanent copy of the original work. There is a convenience factor as well. It's much more convenient for me to pay $50 for the techinical book I need and have it around any time than to check it out once every two weeks to avoid being fined. Not to mention it's difficult, if at all possible, to find new works in a public library.

So I think your analogy is a bit wrong. A copier might be a better one, but copying a book page by page wouldn't be very convenient either. Plus you'd probably pay more for your single "copy" of the book in paper, toner, etc... than if you bought it off the shelf.

The point is there really isn't a good analogy for sharing copyrighted files.

Re:Repost

[DBA_01123]

Think of a recording head magnetizing a spot on the disk. The medium itself will have a strongly magnetized spot with a less stongly magnetized area around it. It's careful measurement of interferance patterns in these what you could call wakes that can be used to recover overwritten data. Overwriting several times with random data makes this very hard if not impossible to do. The wakes are there regardless of how perfect track alignment is.

FDA vs. States

[cdrguru]

Unfortunately, the regulation of prescription drugs is not in the hands of the FDA - it is in the hands of the individual states. There is no federal law that says you have to have a prescription to get Vicodin - there is a state law that says you have to. The DEA probably has some involvement. But, the FDA can't really do all that much.

I got this from an FDA employee that researches this stuff at a law enforcement conference. I really wanted to know why they can't stop the "prescription drugs without a prescription" spam. I'm not happy about it because with it divided by states it would require concerted action by multiple states to get anything done.

Re:FDA vs. States

[swb]

States may have some control over pharmacy formularies (ie, what drugs pharmicies can and must stock), but virtually every drug in the the US pharmacopia is involved in interstate commerce, and the Feds have total regulatory control over anything that they even THINK has crossed state lines.

Furthermore, you MUST have a DEA license (and a state license as well) to write perscriptions. I know three orthodonists and all three have told me they can't write perscriptions for narcotics as their limited DEA license doesn't include that (they can do antibiotics and local anesthetics like novocaine) -- they aren't barred by law from writing narcotic prescriptions professionally, it's just that they don't want to deal with all the DEA reporting requirements for narcotics, so they keep a much more limited license.

As an aside, the DEA has gone after a number of pain management doctors and clinics for "overperscribing" stuff like Oxycontin, MS-Contin and so forth to chronic pain sufferers (serious injuries, cancer, etc) and threatened to yank their licenses simply because the DEA believes that these people are getting "too much". Which has the great consequence that when you or I break a leg, we don't get nearly enough pain management because some DEA agent has our Doctor's license over a barrel.

Nice to know that when you get a terminal illness, some douchebag bureaucrat will be watching to make sure you don't get high.

Why?

[cdrguru]

If you are a person who has more time than money, why would you ever, at any cost, pay for something you can download? Unless the purchase price (and the trip to the store) is less than the cost of time to download it, nobody is going to be paying - as soon as everyone gets the message that there is no downside to stealing.

There are a couple of deterrents to shoplifting - getting caught, people thinking it is wrong, stuff like that. A lot of people - not quite most, but it is getting there - think there is nothing wrong with downloading music and movies. Your real chance of getting caught is almost non-existent now and is likely to stay that way for a long time. So, why would anyone pay $5 for a movie when they can get it for free? Quality? Minor hiccup. When people start ripping DVDs and posting them with high-bandwidth pipes the quality will go up. Too many people on "sharing" services are on low-bandwidth DSL or even dial-up connections still.

Re:Why?

[hesiod]

> why would anyone pay $5 for a movie when they can get it for free?

Yes, quality is a major concern, but not the only. There's also the case (covers, F&B), inserts, special features that generally are not available for download, commentary, etc. Downloading a decent-quality movie takes quite a while.

If I have friends coming over tonight & I decide we want to watch Robocop. There's no way in hell I could find it for download (well, matbe I can, I haven't actually looked for it), and even if I could, it would take a few days -- too long. If I could get a copy of it for $5, I'd just run to the video store & buy it, and since it's only 5 bucks, I'd probably buy another title too, in case I find out that one of my friends doesn't like Robocop (the heathen).

I don't know if you have experience using any P2P to download movies, but finding a specific title can be very frustrating unless it's very popular or new. If I could get a large selection of movies for $5 to $8, I'd be spending buttloads of cash to get all kinds of 80s movies -- for which the MPAA members involved have already at least broken even (or written off as a loss) and could afford to sell cheaper. It seems that everything goes down in price the older it gets, except collectibles, antiques, movies, and music.

Oh, come on now.

[bani]

You know he'd just punch the accelerator, hit the kid, and then drive off. Why is this even up for discussion?

"Laws protect you"

[bani]

"Laws protect you against those that would do you harm."

bullshit.

microsoft has done plenty of harm to me, yet the law hasn't done squat to protect me. microsoft has gotten off with not even a slap on the wrist in the last federal antitrust trial, which gives them a green light to continue their incredible abuse (with a wink from the current administration of course).

laws only protect the interests of those with deep pockets, the rest of us get screwed.

Anyone else notice...

[The Master Control P]

That when they shut suprnova.org down, the Azureus bittorrent client on Sourceforge got 3 million downloads in 2 days? Someone needs to go to Washington and beat everyone in sight with the Cluebat: Trying to resist the Internet is futile. Stop trying.

Re:Libraries must be destroying the book industry.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

With libraries, you don't retain a permanent copy of the original work. There is a convenience factor as well.

How many people read a book more than once? Same thing with a DVD - you watch it once and then 99.9% of the time it sits on the shelf doing nothing. In other words, retaining a permanent copy is of trifling little value to the vast majority of consumers. The value is in the first watching or reading of it. Sure there are technical books, but you walk into any public library and you'll find that the books meant for "entertainment" outnumber the reference manuals by at least 100 to 1.

Thus, libraries do definitely "hurt" the market for books (and increasingly for DVDs) which is why you get things like Pat Schroeder attacking librarians.

DOJ Press release

[thedarkstorm]

For more information, the DOJ has posted an article on its site talking about the sting. It's *old*, but still relevant for those that are new to the topic.
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/April/04_ crm_263. htm

Big Yellow Taxi

[Renegrade]

> If, as the Counting Crows put it,

> "They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
> And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them..."

I just find it interesting that this particular song was chosen as an example.

How many artists have sung this particular song? Eight? Nine? More? Oh well.

Re:Yeah - and a lot of good the Warez busts did, e

[Karth]

Yeah, I work at an ISP, and we are starting to see the dmca complaints for bittorrent. 99% of the people that get hit are using suprnova.

The next generation is already out there, full 2 way encryption, servers based in countries that don't care about US IP laws, and complex routing that makes it virtually impossible to trace who's getting what from where. I see people talking about these, and I wonder why the p2p community who swarmed suprnova hasn't moved to these more advanced protocols yet.

Re:Bingo-- Imagine being victim to a proxy-trojan.

[shark72]

"(But, on a side note, if some of the music/software/movie vendors got off their high-horse and sold their product at a resonable rate, TONS more people would buy it. $20 for a CD? Hell now... Put it on a shelf for $5 or $10, there's going to be a higher number of purchases... Simple economics."

I'm not sure where you're getting $20... is that Australian or Canadian dollars? For what it's worth, the average price of a new CD is $12.95 in the US. That's 4% less than last year.

It's a given that the folks who run the industries whose goods you desire also understand simple economics. To wit, the demand curve and the necessity of making a profit. The latter would rule out your suggestion of selling for $5.00. In the meantime, if they can make more money by selling a CD for $12.95 than they can for $10, that's precisely what they'll do. That might cause some people to opt out of buying it, or pirate it instead, but the most important thing to understand about the demand curve is that most of the time, you use it not to find the price that will sell the most units, but which will make you the most money.

Also, it's important to understand that if a company or individual clearly doesn't understand "simple economics" and prices something higher than you'd prefer, this is not a moral free ride to pirate the work.

OPERATION FASTLINK II HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED !!!

[popo]

Operation FastLink II has just been announced and has apparently already located numerous regional underground locations, often called "Libraries" from which thousands of law-breaking users have been flagrantly "sharing" copyrighted material including Books, Videos and Compact Discs.

This so-called "Public Library" system has apparently gone unchecked for hundreds of years, denying authors and owners of copyrights millions of dollars in lost revenue from potential sales.

Over 9,500,000 Librarians and criminal "Library Users" have been identified through user-logs and membership lists. Some users have even so bold as to carry identifying "Library Cards" on their persons.

Book Publishers are quick to point out that participation in this copyright-evasion scheme by these "book-sharers" denies the original copyright holders of their fair due from successive readings.

Thanks to Operation Fastlink II (sponsored in part by Barnes & Noble Booksellers as a public service) these institutions of uncontrolled information exchange are finally being shut down one by one.

God Bless America. Here's to upholding our moral character.

-Popo

Re:Nope. Clearly the company was mismanaged.

[danheskett]

Any software company which can't compete when someone offers a 25% discount is just run wrong.
You are misreading the situation. Its not the software company doing the discounting. A split-off company who uses the illegal copies of the software in question closes down the legitimate user of the software. That is a client lost to the software company. The discount effects the legal user of the software.

Secondly, any software of note should be sold through the various distribution channels. Those suckers want 30-50% off list, for starters. And your supposed fairy-tale company couldn't compete at those levels?
Most software is not sold at Staples or Best Buy, but rather, locally through sales people. Most software is not retail, but rather, targetted for vertical markets.

The bottom line is that your management put your mythical company out of business. It wasn't the pirates.
It was pirates, and ultimately the customers. The customers stopped paying licensing fees, because they pirated the software. Plus, customers who would have bought the software pirated it instead.

Define "belong to"

[tepples]

what gives someone else the right to take something that does not belong to them?

What, ultimately, gives publishers the right to claim that the work "belongs to" them. Furthermore, what gives publishers the right to claim that derivatives of their works "belong to" them? How would one reconcile copyright law with most ideologies?

Re:I call self-serving BS

[danheskett]

You lament your contractor went out of business because someone else sold "your" work 25% cheaper.
No. The legitimate customers of the company went out of business because competitors took their business.

See, the software in question is for medical billing. It is a niche. Highly regulated, highly specific, very expensive. If you want to do billing for a doctors office, you need software to do it - to generate billing files to sent to insurance carriers to get paid etc etc. Everyone must have it in the industry. No questions. There are a limited number of players in the market.

The legimitate users of the software pay monthly or yearly licensing fees per user or machine or whatever. The illegitimate users do not have to pay this large expense, and therefore, can offer much lower prices. As a business person you are at an advantage if you have $10k a month fewer expenses. This drives legitimate users out of business and therefore hurts the software companies revenue.

Add to that the fact that new businesses spring up but do not need to buy the software (its readily available online, for free), and suddenely very healthy company making a small profit for 15 years is now bankrupt.

See how that works? Nothing to do with counterfeiting. Everything to do with pirating.

As far as the name of the company and all that, I will happily disclose it to you: just drop me an e-mail. I now work for a competitor and signed a strict NDA which forbids me publically from speaking about certain things.

Are we discussing law or morals?

[tepples]

I didn't give you the right to copy it.

Was that right yours to give and take, other than through a body of law with which many ideologies disagree?

You're taking it from the recording studio or whoever has the rights to his recordings.

Why do you find it desirable that "the recording studio or whoever" still retain the privilege under copyright law to control copying even after all natural persons who materially contributed to a work are dead and buried?

Re:Are we discussing law or morals?

[JustinXB]

It's my right to give or not give. It's my work. You don't suddenly get the right to copy it freely. Lets see... Because they bought the work from him long, long before he died? Get a clue.

Re:Are we discussing law or morals?

[tepples]

Because they bought the work from him long, long before he died?

So do you claim that as long as a copyright is continually bought and sold among living persons, then it should last forever?

It seems alright that

[Compenguin]

I'll prbably get modded down for this but to me file sharing doesn't seem so bad. It was the engineers that created the technology for conventional IP distribution (records, cds, tapes, etc) that the artists and execs made millions off of and it doesn't seem so bad that the engineers score a free copy of something every once in a while.

License management and copy protection

[puhuri]

Every copy of the software used an active form of product activation.

Sounds like real pain to support. I've seen lots of different license services and product activation keys and they usually result in lost productivity. Currently we use "only" four software packages that use license server, each its own. After an OS upgrade, it is very likely that some of those breaks and if you want to support several versions of operating systems you need to tweak license manager tools for the magical combination.

The protocols are not documented, so you need to try to find out how you configure firewall and you still worry for security problems.

I wonder why companies must treat their customers as thieves. If your customer cannot use software because your copy protection sucks, she may end downloading a cracked version. Then you wonder why those customers do not pay to you...

Re:License management and copy protection

[danheskett]

Sounds like real pain to support.
For the client/end-user, it only required HTTP access to the central server OR HTTP access to the internal server: pretty much if your machine is either (1) connect to the Internet or (2) connect to a server that is connect to the Internet you had zero problems. Since it used standard HTTP we never had problems with firewall/ports to forward, etc.

After an OS upgrade, it is very likely that some of those breaks and if you want to support several versions of operating systems you need to tweak license manager tools for the magical combination.
Not so much in this case. It was a well designed system. Each binary was encoded with a serial number and a the challenge hash for the hardware of the machine. Bits of that binary were compared against a master copy back on the central server. The application would not function unless matched. Very fool proof, transparent, and painless. The installer for the client downloaded the binary and registered the copy automatically or there was a web-front end for it.

I wonder why companies must treat their customers as thieves. If your customer cannot use software because your copy protection sucks, she may end downloading a cracked version. Then you wonder why those customers do not pay to you...
The reason in this case was there are less than 5,000 paying licenses for the entire company. When we removed the copy protection and licensing enforcement renewels dropped drastically, new sales ceased, and the company went under. Each year about 95% of licenses renewed as the sale contract specified. A few went out of business or merged. A few changed software platforms. That's fine. But after removing the copy protection/licensing (at customer demand) about 40% of customers did not renew - meaning technically they should have stopped using the software. Based on some research by the sales guy it was determine that, no suprise, those 40% of users did not stop using the software, they just stopped paying.

If your customer cannot use software because your copy protection sucks, she may end downloading a cracked version. Then you wonder why those customers do not pay to you...
That was the reasoning used to remove the copy protection. The results were that 40% of the customers stopped paying, and new sales virtually halted since you could make a copy of the software in about 5 minutes and install new site in less than an 1 hour.

Pirating can hurt real people.

Re:License management and copy protection

[puhuri]

the challenge hash for the hardware of the machine....Very fool proof, transparent, and painless.

Marketignspeak by the designer? Then your machine breaks; you have replacement machine running within a hour and then you wait for a new key and wait... Probably your customer service responded in minutes? I've waited a week for new license keys; the value of license contract was 400 million dollars -- we did get some 99.9% percent educational discount, but still.

The license enforcement systems are designed to prevent use of software. Often their design is obscure (for a reason) and thus they are more unreliable than normal programs. I know this because I've both implemented licensing software and used several of those. Its pain for both sides.

those 40% of users did not stop using the software, they just stopped paying

Sounds like customers with low morale. What were they? Porn, MLM, spammers? What I know small business, they make sure that they pay for their tools. Goverment may be left without tax money, but not the one providing tools. And you talk about "sites". Could not you check if the site was created with your software and then make nasty questions?

Pirating can hurt real people.

..like a bad business plan. I'm not for pirating software -- if I do not want to pay for software, then I use free software. At work I make sure that we have same number of licenses than there are installed copies for each software even if there is no license server.

sharing is careing

[Anonymous Coward]

When i was in pre-school i was told i should share everything.

When i was in junior school i was told i should share everything.

When i was in senior school i was told i should share everything.

Now that i go to college i share everything and get told i'll go to jail.

Someones been telling me porkies!

Internet Pirates unfazed by latest Attack

[ubernoob22]

Internet piracy is, surprisingly, still alive and doing very well, despite the FBI's latest attempt to discourage individuals from doing so by holding them personally accountable for their actions.

"We understand how much our clients are suffering," reports Jonathan Smith, head FBI agent of 'Operation Fastlink'. "I mean, can't these pirates see what they're doing? They're dashing all these poor companies hopes of making their money. And without money, how can their employees enjoy their temporary, godless, materialistic life?"

Neither side seems willing to budge.

"Them reality-lubbers be causin' lots of trouble in the cyber-seas," says one pirate who wished to remain anonymous. "we be tryin' to pay for nothin' and do nothin'. Yearg, but it's never good to see one of your own walk the plank."

FBI- Stop wasting my fucking TAX DOLLARS ASSHOLES

[ThoreauHD]

Arresting college students? Grandmothers? Kids playing video games?

What that fuck is wrong with you sick bastards. Seriously, is your $75K ghetto salary a year worth fucking over your neighbors? How worthless are you?
Do you salute Hitler before you go to bed at night? Does it give you a warm feeling to know that you are on the wrong side of Freedom?

Then again, I suppose I understand, what can you expect from a faggot company founded by a crossdressing homo and getting corporate kickbacks.

Re:Residual data is quite real ...

[Nonesuch]

Residual data is absolutely real.

The solution is to never write cleartext data to the drive. If all writes (including swap) are always encrypted, and the encryption key is maintained in a secure manner, then residual data is meaningless.

If the data on the disk looks like a random series of zeros and ones, then you don't need to have an emergency overwrite process to nuke your disks, you can just "forget" your encryption key and claim the data was overwritten :)

BILL CLINTON IS A DIRTY MAN WHO HAD NAKED SEX!!!!!

[TheLittleJetson]

NAKED SEXS!!!!!

piss of piss to crack

[cheekyboy]

Sounds easy to 'crack'

1. run VMware.
2. install inside VMware.
3. copy vmware image for everyone.
4. 10000s copies running all thinking theyre unique.

Re:piss of piss to crack

[danheskett]

Sounds easy to 'crack' 1. run VMware. 2. install inside VMware. 3. copy vmware image for everyone. 4. 10000s copies running all thinking theyre unique.

Right. Well, excepting that the verification the app does expects a sequence of bits from the binary to verify. When the first verification takes place, the server tells the app to send bits xxxx through xxxy at the next random interval. The central server contains a database which holds which bits it is expecting next. If the client doesnt provide those bits next the server instructs the client to become disabled, and the jig is up. With 1000s of clients running in VMWare the problem becomes that each copy thinks it should send bits xxxx next when in fact another copy has promised to send bits yyyy next.

Sounding easy and being easy are too different birds.

Still not getting it.

[bobbuck]

Say the average guy makes $10/hour. The price of a song is about a $1 off the internet. That means Average Joe has to work 6 minutes to be able to hear a song (unless he has one these new high-tech FM "radios" which are clearly beyond the reach of common men.) If the average song is 3 minutes, Average Joe will have a 3 minute deficit for every song he purchases unless he's really into Purple Rain which would be a five minute surplus. Therefore all non-Prince fans should be allowed to download music for free. Anyone who doesn't see the logic in this must be a corprate stooge.

I love this analogy!

[Xebikr]

Speeding... You go too fast - You get caught - You get a fine. That's awesome! Let's apply a similar model for file sharing.

File sharing... You share too many files - You get caught - You get a fine. Think of the possibilities:

• Set an arbitrary limit. Say 100 files.
• Set the fine at $10 for every 100 files over the limit.
• You accumulate "points" when you get a file-sharing "ticket". Too many points and they take away your internet access.

I'd love to hear the conversation:
"Dude, I lost my internet access."
"Oh man! Why?"
"They caught me sharing 13,000 over. Now I have this HUGE fine, and I have to go to internet copyright school to get my DSL back."

Re:Education is a good thing.

[EllF]

You cannot argue for jury nullification, but you do have a number of other options if you hope to sway the jury. Primarily, you can plead guilty and make a statement explaining why it is the law and not your actions which is reprehensible. Alternatively, you could plead not guilty, and argue that you violated no law because you didn't deny anyone their property, etc. -- depending on what you were charged with.

Of course, I'm not a legal expert -- my degree is in philosophy, not law. The technical steps needed to oppose a law on moral grounds are something I'd leave to my lawyer; I know only what my position is.

Does anyone post ontopic comments anymore?

[Aku Head]

I thought that I could read this story to find out something about "Operation Fastlink" and the supposed thousands arrested.

I can find nothing ontopic in page after page of comments!

The comments are nothing but people's silly opinions about copyright law. It starts with the self-righteous claiming that people who violate copyright laws are no different than armed robbers. Instead of being modded down as trolls, these posts are modded up and then they are replied to ad nausium.

Where are the moderators? This topic is nothing but useless garbage now. There is nothing in here about "Operation Fastlink."

In the future, people who feel compelled to share their opinion with an uncaring puplic, should start a "Give your opinion about copyright law" thread. I don't care what your opinions are. I came here looking for information. Slashdot is not supposed to be a flamefest.

Re:MOD PARENT UP, NOT DOWN!

[Kosi]

LOL, modding me flamebait for this. The truth hurts, isn't it? :-)

This is sick but it is an alternative....

[museumpeace]

To wasting time learning a job skill in a country that's run by companies and politicians who, to judge the results, don't give a s**t if your job goes somewhere that pays less for work: From the article:

He faces a maximum 15 years in prison on felony counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy.

So far in my career as a programmer I have worked at 18 different companies and only a few of those jobs lasted longer than 2 years. This fellow has found a way to stay fed and sheltered from cold [though not from inmates one supposes] for 15 years. Someone remind why I am knocking myself out to keep a job that doesn't want to keep me? And its true that from jail, I would not meet many nice girls but I can't see that my programming career has been much better in that regard [or is that just me?...don't answer that!]
Here I am castigating my son the college kid for wasting good homework time on his immoral filesharing networks but maybe he has a more surefire plan than I do!
[ha! they don't have mod points for sarcasm!]
I don't mean to tar all employers as potential outsourcers...many of those 18 employers might still be in business if my wages and health bennies didn't cost so much But I am getting seriously OT here.

I must agree

[Changa_MC]

When you pay $12 for a CD, the artist recieves $0.15 from that purchase (a generous estimate, more than 3 times what some artists recieve). A Linux distributer that charged $11.85 per CD wouldn't be around for very long.

Whose intellectual property am I stealing by listening to a song on the internet? I already have the right to listen to my tape of the radio broadcast, why should I pay $15 for packaging?

If you cannot make money producing an honest product, don't come crying to me about it.

I think the FBI should pursue...

[rodgster]

In the last few months, I've filed complaints with the FBI's Internet crimes task force about a number of things: paypal and ebay spoofed sites hosted on us servers and fraudulent sellers on ebay.

My understanding after discussion of similar issues with clients is that the FBI doesn't care unless the $$ is >100K (as of a few years ago) even for traditional white collar crime.

I've also notified commercial software companies of fraudulent software sold on ebay and offered the seller up on a silver platter (paypal invoice, packaging, product, my contact info, my testimony, etc). Veritas in particular never even returned my call.

If you ask me, these are the people that deserve to be prosecuted. The ones who are directly financially profiting from piracy. Not some poor schmuck who is doing it to be elite.

Last time I checked

[rodgster]

Last time I went to a museum (Smithsonian) is was OK to take pictures. I'll sure it's legal for me to show those pictures to friends and family. And I believe I can post them on the Internet if I'd like.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is true of all museums.