Slashdot Mirror
Court Docs Reveal Kazaa Logging User Downloads
Dan Warne writes "The most explosive documents in the ongoing Kazaa court case have emerged today, including logs of discussions between parent company Sharman and the Estonian developer of the Kazaa Media Desktop. They include extraordinary admissions like: "Reporting will make Kazaa look like spyware, as soon as it becomes evident we record downloads and playbacks, users will flee to competitive networks" and then "One can argue that we have knowledge of copyrighted material being downloaded in our network and have to install filters. If we are reporting [gold] files, then technically we could do the same for every file." Finally, "RIAA [could] collect the IP addresses for everyone who has searched for or downloaded that file." Despite the Kazaa developer's concerns over these issues, Kazaa went ahead with the logging." (More below.)
Warne continues "APC Magazine journalist Garth Montgomery, who has covered every day of the trial in the Australian Federal Court, says: "In a nutshell, this has got to rate as the most explosive document revealed. It makes it damn near impossible to maintain the separation theory that Sharman and Altnet rely on in terms of business independence and technical infrastructure. The control they exercise over the system is complete." Montgomery has also scanned in all the documents and made them available in PDF format, including the confidential Kazaa purchase contract and technical specifications for the Kazaa Media Desktop."
It looks like bye-bye kazaa. It will soon join Napster (The real one, not roxio).
When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
...I am reminded of why I use a reputable, private bittorrent server and alternative (read: under-the-radar) means of P2P. Hasn't this been suspected about Kazaa for quite some time?
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
You mean that when I use an electronic network to transfer information, that information travels in orderly patterns that can be tracked? What happenned to the magical fairy of the internet that made all things miraculously anonymous?(/sarcasm)
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Kazaa has always been the seamy underbelly of the internet. While Napster at least had a little swagger as the slick pirate software, Kazaa has been plagued from the start with spyware and other malware.
Good riddance.
I think stuff like that shows you why closed source software can't be trusted. I bet bigger companies do similar sorts of things as well, as part of their "software updates" and all the other network traffic they generate.
... so dead.
And stupid. They knew that they were walking a very narrow path with respect to legality. They had to be like Caesar's Wife - not only pure but seen to be pure. But instead they took their behaviour well over the line into things that they knew were illegal. And then recorded the fact that they were doing it.
Breathtaking.
These people are stupid. Not only do they discuss matters as whether they're arguably criminal conspirators / facilitators -- but they do so in on the record documents, as opposed to quiet chats in the cafeteria.
That's Richard-Nixon-tastic.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
So does this mean that they can get the logs and go after people who have illegal downloaded media?
http://illhostit.com/ - Webhosting
Creepy stuff. Not that the logs are all the useful -- considering just how many people and IPs will be in them. That's like getting a list of 5 million people... you can't send them all to jail and/or fine them. Or... can they?
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
They've been walking a tightrope for years....looked like it just snapped.
Other contries to consider are Mexico and Argentina.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
It looks like we are going to evolve backwards... everyone will be running back to IRC for their illegal needs.
Ehta nyeh IBM, ehta Macintosh!
I was assisting in installing KazaA once. It was like: "What do you think," the librarian asked me. "According to this EULA they could log our downloads," I said. "So? Is it good or is it bad?" (She's so cute!) "Bad. I do not authorise it. Remove it, add to the black list, never bother me again." Now, if anyone is screaming bloody murder because a program does something that was explained explicite or implicite during the installation, one is not the brightest individual under the Sun if you ask me.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
News Flash!
Management may at times ignore developer concerns, although developers can have insight into the customer base not obvious to management.
It's been that way at every company I've worked at...and usually ended up in tears.
Tears for customer support, that is.
Film at 11.
Seriously only internet newbies, grandmas & grandpas installed the Kazza Media Desktop. All other installed Kazza Lite (No Adware!) or eDonkey.
Later all eDonkey users switched to Overnet and later on to eMule and BitTorrent
An open source P2P application is more safe in use than a closed source application because clever people can read and understand the code.
Oh I forgot:
1) Idea
2-6) see above
7) ???
8) No Profit
9) Sued by RIAA/MPAA...
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
...if other "reputable" download services like soulseek are up to the same wrongdoings as kazaa. How can anyone know for sure?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Yeah, you're right :D. This also downs the credibility of Skype to the ground.
Your head a splode
Is it just KaZaa Media Desktop that is affected by this, or is it done on the server end, thereby logging downloads by ALL clients, such as giFT-Fastrack?
Thousands of sassy teenaged American girls with crappy websites & livejournals do *NOT* make you right.
What strikes me as remarkable is that anyone thinks so-called "lawsuits" of this nature will in any way stem the Niagra-like flow of files being shared on computer networks.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was, attempts to pressure a legitimate society-wide demand with artifical "legal" constraints simple result in a Newtonian counterforce of equal strength
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals.
It is clear that the individuals behind Kazaa are just a bunch of crooks trying to get rich of bootlegged goods, but so were the rum-runners of yore, and in the end, after much bloodshed and suffering , it was seen that rum could indeed be run legally with out the "sky", as it were, "falling". Let us hope those in power today come to a similar realization soon.
If you read the article carefully, unlike the submitter, you will find that gold files (and all searches?) were logged while 'illegal' downloads *could* have been logged. But the article is very vague. Where are those scanned documents??
Ludwig Wittgenstein
There ought to be a campaign "Geeks don't let friends use spyware" or something. Heh. Make a vow today to give your friends safe P2P software - it's the gift that keeps on giving!
Well, the recording part is the part that's really sad. It's such massive lack of clue, it's... well, come to think of it, probably standard for management.
And wth is with all these companies and collecting data about their users? Everyone must track you, profile you, and make you go through an intrusive registration just to (for example) download a patch to a product you've bought.
Now I _know_ that you're not really anonymous on the Internet, they can collect a ton of data about you, bla, bla, bla, Sure, they _can_. But do they even have a _legitimate_ use for that data? I.e., one that doesn't boil down to "we can sell the list to spammers later."
Most of the collected data nowadays (and again I don't only mean Kazaa) is plain useless for anything even resembling an aggregate statistic.
E.g., in Kazaa's case can they even do an automated aggregate statistic over the filenames? How? There must be hundreds of different ways to write the same filename, so good luck telling whether more people download Britney Spears or Eminem. Or which genre do people download more. And even if (ad absurdum) they could get an aggregate statistic, what would they do with that data?
E.g., in the case of some companies' intrusive registration forms and out-of-hand data collection, wth are they gonna do with such pieces of trivia as my house number or telephone number? _How_ does one use that in an agregate statistic?
I mean, "How many people bought our product in Europe vs USA?" is a statistic. "How many people with an even house number bought our product?" is at most useless trivia. There is _no_ useful information in there.
Dunno, reminds me of dogs chasing a car. They have no idea what they'd do with it if they caught one, but they just must do it anyway.
Sad.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Glad I only use Kazaa for porn!
Thats my story and I'm sticking with it. (That was a bad pun...)
They use encryption and promise you will be anonymous. "ES5 hides your IP address while you are uploading and downloading files"
;)
pS,
Folks, lelieve it when you see it. Make sure to read the caveat at the bottom of the page: Folks, take these ramblings as the virtually unedited observations from each day of the Kazaa trial. At best, it's anti journalism. The other side is going to misconsture everything in their favor and present it that way to be as damaging as possible.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I found an article on the evolution of "I could care less". (I really have nothing better to do with my time right now)
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ico1.htm
In my opinion it's lazy, wrong and just plain annoying English but then again I don't want to interfere with the natural evolution of language.
So feel free to use whatever you wish - just remember that a lot of people will think you're an idiot for using "I could care less".
IF this sort of action was taken at KaZaa what decisions of a similar nature are being taken at Skype?
I know that I use it for personal calls with no inherrent value but there are compaanies who are starting to use it to cut inter-office and employee communications bills - they could very easily be concerned about this.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
What ramifications does this have for Skype? If it seems the company is not trustworthy, then no amount of "this is not spyware" will allay users' fears now.
I've had enough of /. lately, whats with the unchecked facts? I know it's claimed that its up to the users in comments to identify this, but when the site constantly posts such trashy and unsubstantiated nonsenese it's hard to keep the faith.
5 ECA256FA1000FB45F/$FILE/TopSearch%20specifications .pdf
For example, they're not actually logging file downloads, nor what you do. All they acknowledged is that they do this for Altnet, which you must have figured out (How can you buy a file from Altnet without the owner knowing about it?), and that they could potentially do this for Kazaa if they were so inclined and able:-
"Pritt: Posting stats to to 3rd party servers...."
it starts. But then, the fact of the matter follows:-
"Of course we won't know about downloads and playbacks of non-signed content, but it doesn't make a difference because:-
1) It's hard to communicate this to lawyers and users.
2) If we are reporting signed files [Ed: Altnet] then technically we can do the same for any file."
See for yourself, http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/2F22997D6933B1
Bottom of page 4.
In other words, they only logged what they said they would in the user agreement, but they didn't broadcast it because people who don't check their fucking facts will post it on large public forums for debate, and immediately leap to all the wrong conclusions.
It's not the dynamite people think it is. All it shows is that they can log, it means that the next few moves are foretold:-
1) The argument will be made that they can log, and therefore are complicity.
2) The counter-argument will be that logging on
such a scale is an invasion of privacy, illegal and out of the scope of the user agreement.
3) The argument will be made that the agreed upon logs with the users can be used as evidence against P2P users. It's not a serious logistical blow, but will be the *real* credibility damage Kazaa will face.
The endgame is either a Kazaa concession to log all activity, another sale to a different country or just a block on un-authorized files through a deliberately dis-incentivised weak version of Kazaa noone will want, and the winding down of the network will play to the Napster tune.
A poor justification at best. I can understand the implied sarcasm, but in this particular case I don't think it holds. I'd wager that on a great majority of occasions when this version of the phrase is spoken, a sarcastic tone is not implied and that it's simply perpetuated through uninformed familiarity.
:)
Or maybe I just got up early this morning and feel like shit
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Well I *could* care less about the issue, but that would require effort on my part.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
You're on line downloading... downloading is illegal in the onctext of what most people use it for... What would it be for them to bite you back? Alls' fare in love and war as they say...
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
Billboard Jan 8, 2005 - Regarding the federal Syndney court battle over Sherman's Kazaa technology and major labels attempt to "recover compensation for past illegal downloads":
[The labels' lead barrister] Bannon also asked [Sherman chief technologist] Morle to sign on to Kazaa using a "special command line." This lead to those in attendance witnessing a connection to an alleged central server in Denmark, which Morle said he thought had been "phased out." The labels claim there is a "bank of some 20 computers in Denmark" contolling Kazaa.
During the 13-day trial, the parties submitted "hundreds of pages" of documents and sworn affidavids of expert witnesses as evidence. Only a portion of these winesses provided live testimony.
Attempting to establish the operators' ability to control the network, other industry experts said user statistics have been collected by Sharman, users' activities could be monitored, and logs could be maintained to trace users' locations.
Hey, hey---'just because he uses lynx, doesn't mean he's stupid. It means he's a hacker. 'Better watch out. ;)
It's not an oxymoron. Perhaps you need to look up the word "reputable". I will help: it means having a good reputation, being honorable.
If this underground bittorrent service has both a good reputation and it is honorable (ie: they are not screwing their users), it is reputable. It doesn't matter that you don't like what they are doing, or that it is illegal.
I'll thank you to stop pissing on my language and twisting it for your own purposes. I'm having enough bloody trouble with marketroids making the word "buy" mean "license".
As I remember reading, Kazaa was such a hard legal target to bring down because of how decentralized the business is. Servers in one jurisdiction, employees in another, the company registered in a third, bank accounts in another, and onwards, etc.
While it offers an extraordinarily complex legal knot to untangle for anyone trying to bring a suit against them, once they do land in court, the company's internal workings will all be well documented because everyone communicates through email or IM. Oops.
Ok, they have IP address and whatever was downloaded. No the question is how long is the retention policy of your local ISP with respect to the IP address you had durning that download period.
Expect a call?
Bottom line, if you want to download stuff illegaly, do it carefully and non-mainstream. One of these days there will be a sensable way to purchase music that you can burn to cd or otherwise do what you like for a fair price. Until that day comes, don't be a moron about it.
Well, don't be a moron then either.
Don't Tread on Me
Anything more than a screenfull of plain english is a waste of time and the people who write the ELUA's that suck your data prey on this fact. They really want to help you so they burry it in a one-click contract more complicated than a housing loan. Not every granny owns a geek to interpret ELUA's for her.
As for TFA my tin hat says this could be some sort of "mutual destruct" attempt, there could be some very interesting names and companies in the mountain of logs.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I believe Topsearch.dll is the file that does this. I think that kazaalite does not create this file, and certainly not the hacked versions of kazaalite.
Correct?
You could read the source and compile it yourself if you're so inclined.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
The server only keeps a track of what IP numbers have WHAT files. When you search, the server sends you a list of file names and IP numbers. YOU communicate with the PEERs to download files. The server does not know what files you download--UNLESS YOUR OWN SOFTWARE TELLS IT WHICH FILES YOU DOWNLOAD. That would be SPYWARE.
What I think was going on here was that the SPYWARE on kazaa was sending info back to the server on what files you downloaded. That is the spyware part of kazaa/altnet. Specfically, the file topsearch.dll.
However, and please correct me if I am wrong, kazaalite, and specifically the hacked version 2.4.1 does not contain this topsearch dll file. Thus, kazaalite, at least the old hacked versions of it, do not inform the server of what you do, or what you download.
THen we have the question of how long your ISP keeps server logs of IP numbers.....
Or at least that is how it used to be in the old days, before this fancy internet thing.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm not suprised at all.
This is why I'd rather work with an open system that doesn't have a 'parent' company attached to it. And that's also why I don't, and have not used Kazaa for a VERY long time.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
You'd be realizing it instead.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Well, if you were in North America, anyhow. (dunno how that got deleted from the original post.. crazy internet.)
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
. . . it's got to be one of the worst jobs in the world.
If you're a policeman (policeperson?), and doing your job right, you want to serve, to help people, to protect.
Then you have to stop, for speeding, one of these citizens that you want to help, and they start lying and trying to weasel their way out of something that they knew they were doing illegally, like a bratty 3-year old, only probably with worse language. The citizen ends up in his weaselly arguments at the conclusion that it is your fault that he was speeding in the first place. You are level-headed enough to write the ticket anyway. Three days later the police chief calls you into his office and explains that the speeder was the mayor's nephew, circuitously asks about ways to let the nephew off the hook. Now, you have to either stand up for your word, the law, and your principles, and risk losing your job, or knuckle under to petty corruption and lose a little more self-respect.
I think it wouldn't take very long for me to get cynical with a job like that.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Hey, sweet, if no one can see my IP address, that means I can't communicate with them via tcp/ip, which means a return to IPX/SPX, just like playing starcraft on a lan pre-TCP patch. Hells yeah!
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
You can bet the *AA's will be subpoenaing the records, and will have a field day.. .
I wonder if they will sue under 'intent to defraud' for people that simply searched on a file name, regardless if they didn't download..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is a troll. Skype is not owned by Sharman. Skype is run out of Luxembourg and was created by the people who created Kazaa, not the people who own it now.
I think it's safe to say that just by association, it further sullys the reputation of their competitors, too.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
Clueless, or ordered by the government?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Say I!
Logging of IPs, files... talk about smoking gun.
Isn't it possible that you can release your IP, let it expire and get a new one? Or, how about those that have dynamic IPs? How does it work for them?
Live forever, or die trying.
DO you have documents (like say, the ones mentioned in the article) to prove this?
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
While a common technique, "argument by comparing your opponent to a child" really isn't particularly rigorous.
And complaining about those who object to calling infringment "stealing" twisting words is getting it entirely backwards. It's those who call infringement "stealing" who are trying to sidestep the entire question about what, if anything, is being done wrong.
If you want to say that copyright infringment is immoral behavior, you have to make that argument. Not declare the case closed by calling it "stealing" and ridiculing anyone who objects to the metaphor.
I'll agree with lazy, wrong and just plain annoying. The people who use could care less have no idea that it's supposed to be sarcastic.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
What makes it immoral? I've always thought of it as basically being amoral, with perhaps an argument towards morality, but not an amazing one.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
to help you with your spelling. It is explicit or implicit
>To help with your general knowledge in Indo-European linguistics, the -e ending is (among others) an adverbial flexion in Latin. In other words, it is an equivalent of the English -ly. Explicite is the Latin for "Explicitly".
Thomas-
Is it me, or does the defense of Kazza & Co. really blow? A paranoid person may think that it's being done on purpose to sink Kazza and get an example of how P2P networks can and should be closed after an undisclosed exchange between the RIAA and the Kazza executives involving the Cayman Islands and/or thick brown envelopes. I don't think anyone could forge better evidence against them even if they tried, and they just happened to leave a paper/electronic trail of all those discussions about their less correct deals. Right.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Spyware-free tinfoil hats.
On the one side, P2P on the Internet is 'stealing'. Individuals that participate in such actions are criminals and deserve whatever actions they get.
On the other side, P2P is a paradigm shift not contemplated when individuals first dreamed up copyright. At the time, copying materials had cost. Developing materials also had cost. The 'pirate' then would have an advantage over the content creator in that he/she skips the developer costs, while they both share the materials cost. Now, however, materials cost have dropped to nearly zero (It's not free, but for the sake of this discussion, it might as well be). This fundamentally changes the variables, and thus P2P should be allowed.
-----
Now here's where I am (and you too, maybe). I've given up (for the most part) on paying for media content. I just don't care anymore. I rarely see movies at the theater. Don't get the newspaper or cable/satellite. And I never buy CDs. I will, however, consume media via P2P. I do this for entertainment. It's not that I particularly care about what media I am consuming, just as long as it sufficiently entertains me at that time.
Here's where the problem comes in. I mean it when I say that I don't care about what I'm consuming. That means that an entertaining non-copyrighted media file can be just as fun as something that is copyrighted.
My contention is that as this wacky world of the Internet marches on, the distinction between something that is copyrighted (BAD in P2P-land) and something that is not (GOOD in P2P-land) gets blurred for someone like me. In other words, it's entirely possible that I can/will/do consume media files that I honestly don't realize shouldn't be consumed by me without some sort of payment to somebody. If I knew, I'd just skip it. In fact, I do. I skip it everyday by not subscribing to cable, the newspaper, or going to movies/buying CDs. When it comes to the Internet, however, I would like to consume content freely and legally, but I can't!!
Here's where I look to the other side of the looking glass. The argument these days frames Internet users and the bad guys. The media interests are forever using the world's court systems in an effort to prosecute and punish people who have attained their files via P2P. But it's entirely possible (and will be even more so in the future) that there are people like me who can't discern between copyrighted material and free materials! In the future, innocent people simply trying to entertain themselves freely on the Internet can (and will) be prosecuted for obtaining files that they honestly didn't know were 'bad' files.
Personally, I think this sucks. I think it's time someone brought this argument forward and went on the offensive (in courts) against the media companys for polluting the Internet by allowing their copyrighted materials (prosecutable files) to exist at all.
I realize that there is nothing that can be done to stop the proliferation of these legal bombs, but they sure as hell don't have to keep pushing for the inane idea that everyone who shares these files does so intentionally, and in an effort to hurt their financial positions.
You forgot to refute the part of his logic that assumes that one disreputable user makes the entire service disreputable. Some people use Slashdot to post "Gaynigger" trolls - does that make Slashdot a disreputable, homophobic, racist website? How about people who use Linux to develop Internet worms - does that make Linux a disreputable kernel?
For a group of people supposedly at least remotely qualified to perform scientific analysis, there is a whole hell of a lot of disregard for any sense of logic here at Slashdot.
Is a GIANT magnet...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
And never was.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If you're not in the USA the RIAA probably won't care.
They care, they just can't sue you directly.
They can, however, exert pressure on local authorities, or found and fund a similar organisation that will do so at their bidding.
You can't take the sky from me...
Since when is conversion amoral? The right to distribute copies of a copyrighted work is a right of ownership.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
And the real reason the *AA are trying to get P2P banned is not because they're losing revenue (they're not, their profits are up) but because P2P threatens their distribution monopoly.
If P2P really kicks off then they're not going to be able to "push" their latest crap at people any more. Using P2P transfers everything to a "pull" model and, who knows, people may actually start looking for new interesting stuff on their own. Before too long independent artists/small time players will get equal access to "ear space".
And once their distribution monopoly is cracked they'll go the way of the dinosaurs. They know this, we know this. That's why they're after P2P.
"Illegal" downloads are the best free advertising the music "industry" ever had (just look at the relationship between CD sales and downloads from Napster and Audiogalaxy)
Their problem is that they just can't sell the same amount of crappy advertising or rig the playlists any more. Their payola funds will come to nothing and the "indutry" parasites will have to work for a living.
That's why they're crying.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Why would they sue the Enterprise? Is that even possible?
paintball
If you stopped paying your bill, you'd still own the electros, it'd just be harder to get them to move.
paintball
haha...
;)
do you have stairs in your house?
Yes, I have some vague clue on data mining. I'm not an expert by any means, mind you, but I've been asked to program that kinda stuff before.
What I'm trying to say, though, is that there's a level of granularity beyond which it becomes _trivia_ instead of a statistic.
For example, "How many games did this team win?" is a statistic. Gives you some idea of their performance. "How man games did they win on a rainy tuesday afternoon?" is garbage. It's trivia material, not anything useful.
Ditto for breaking down, say, sales statistics by street. Take for example The Sims, a game which had such an intrusive registration. How does that kind of fine granularity help them make a better game?
Grouping the buyers by country or state, now ok, I can see _some_ point in that. There are cultural differences which will be reflected. Now consider it finely grained, down to street and house number level. "How many people bought our game on Elm Street?" How the heck does that help them make a better game?
No, seriously. I want to know.
"that information has value to others trying to sell stuff to you- Sherman networks knows that you liked SNL with Ashly Simpson- so in theory they could sell your name / address to companies that sell SNL videos"
Bingo. That's why I made the distinction between "legitimate use", as in, stuff they need to provide a better service, and seling that data to spammers. That kind of fine granularity is useless for a legitimate aggregate statistic, but is valuable to spammers. (I do include spammers of the snail mail or phone kind.)
I.e., that detail of data mining just tells me "non-legitimate". It tells me that there was a _dishonest_ mind behind it all. That, yes, they do have a plan, even if a backup plan, to sell your data for money. In one word: lamers.
Unrelated, if Sherman planned to sell data back to the companies in RIAA, they're more stupid than I though. So they're accessories to something illegal, know it's illegal, make a recording of it, and... plan to sell the data to the ones they helped defraud? Geesh. It's last going to a bank and saying "wanna buy a list of your offices I drove robbers to?"
I can only hope that it wasn't their plan, because _that_ kind of massive stupidity would just be depressing.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Go through this thread and note the posts that explain how only the Kazaa Media Desktop has the potential to do this, and NOT kazaalite. Now notice how those posts are modded down.
THen go back and see the posts that say that the server will log all kazaa downloads. See how those are modded up.
Is it possible that the public relations arm of MPAA/RIAA is action right here on this thread?
Am I the only one who sees this differently? It reads to me like the the guy is arguing against ever using logs. He is just describing all of the things that can go wrong if they begin doing so. He doesn't actualy claim that this is a practice they have been doing all along. More like a lot of 'what if' statements.
If you want to say that copyright infringment is immoral behavior, you have to make that argument. Not declare the case closed by calling it "stealing" and ridiculing anyone who objects to the metaphor.
Nobody defines it becuause it's brain-dead obvious. The fact you've clouded your own mindset to the point you feel it's not obvious is telling. For instance, taking Doom 3 without paying for it is immoral. A lot of people spent years working on that game to make a living, and you're taking it while not paying for it--that makes it immoral.
It's brain-dead obvious.
These are basic concepts of right and wrong taught when we're three years old. This moral relativism, pro-piracy spiel I sometimes see on Slashdot where "I'm so used to the convenience of downloading that I've justified it in my mind so that I'm not doing anything wrong" is pretty childish. Funny how this attitude disappears when Slashdot posts articles about companies using GPL source code. Not only is it referred to as "stolen" code, but the companies are dumped on for violating the GPL copyright! By your reasoning, why should anybody follow the GPL? What's wrong with breaking it?
This generation of computer users seems to be all about "Gimme that, it's mine! Gimme that, it's mine!" The sense of entitlement is amusing and creates these sorts of hypocritical situations.
Apparently, this is why you do not squeeze the Sharman.
Thank you! There are so many mainstream Windows apps that include spyware it's not even funny.
:P
Just a few days ago I helped a friend try to clean up a family member's computer -- the 2+ GHz machine was literally taking a minute or two to draw menus and open Explorer windows. We mananaged to run Spybot S&D and Ad-aware in safe mode, and found more than 3,000 "objects" (yes, I realize many of them may have been simple cookies.) You *can't* deny that this is a big problem for non-geek users, and a pain for those geeks who have to support people running said software. Maybe the mod(s) who got to my original post work for Microsoft.
If he's using it for legitimate purposes, why does it matter whether it's under the radar or not?
Well you could want to stay under the radar if you were using P2P to get hold of Falung Gong documents in China or Microsoft products in Iran, but you're right, it's unlikely that the grandparent was anything other than a theif.
"Is it possible that the public relations arm of MPAA/RIAA is action right here on this thread?"
Quite, quite possible. So the XXAA has agents here to subvert the truth and warp our opinions? Certainly an intriguing possibility.
But on the other hand, consider this - isn't planting the seeds of doubt a very efficient way of destroying trust? And claiming conspiracy where there is none is practically impossible to disprove. A very effective way of doing so, especially in an enviroment prone to believing it.
Exactly the kind of thing an operative from a large corporation working against the geeks would say, isn't it?
BURN HIM!
I was referring to the fact that "everyone" uses Kazaa Lite instead of regular Kazaa.
Making unsubstansiated claims and then trying to prove them with unrelated proof isn't a good way of getting your point across.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
I for one will laugh and point when they lose the case they stupidly set themselves up for to begin with.
Can anyone define how viewing/listening to something 'live' on the tv/radio and downloading it for later use is any different than the BetaMax ruling of 'time dilation'?
Read the rest of this rant...
If the knockee has the P2P app, it'll answer, and the two apps can have a nice little chat. If not, no answer, and on we go. Plus, of course, you can just manually add people you already know have the app.
At a 2nd tier of connectivity, as clients learn about other clients, they can (slowly and reasonably) share client lists with each other, and pretty soon, you'll have a good sized network connected P2P with no central server at all.
The only people with logs of who has downloaded what would be the people doing the downloading/uploading. Assuming you kept them, which isn't a given.
Add solid encryption; stir to taste.
I mean, really -- how hard a problem is this to actually solve in a final and complete manner?
It seems to me that the P2P developers are not trying very hard.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
high ID, open firewall ports, 200 sources, 3 days before file started downloading.
I'll admit that I dont share anything but what I'm downloading or downloaded during the session and try to share that as vigorusly as possible to spread as many chunks to other shares as possible. By design I tend to try to run Emule more like bittorrent. Once I get a chunk I get decent downloads around 10-40KB's and upload at about 25-30KB's but thats as soon as I get something to share. Also keep in mind that Clients dont care how many files your sharing. (becasue Leechers would spoof counts to valid clients or share a ton of useless files) As long as your uploading to them your getting a better queue rank. Since it's hard to upload what you dont have it's what causes the first chunk to be the most painful.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
I don't seem to understand something about the legality of file sharing, and how *riaa is sueing those who share.
If I own a CD, wouldn't I be able to download the mp3's leagly? It wouldn't be much different than using a ripper to do it. So what is so illegle about that?
And they are sueing people who share the stuff, never have I seen anything for someone who is downloading. So what is wrong with sharing? It is part of the legle system to get MP3's for your CDs. There is just no way to tell who is leagle and ileagle on our ends.
I would love to share every CD/movie I have ever puchased, and somehow stick it to *iaa when they take me to court if I could.
Why can't there be something like this:
Lawyer: You commited copyright infringement, you owe us 10k for 500$ worth of music.
Me: I didn't commit copyright infringement, I paid for all my music.
Lawyer: Well you owe us 20k for allowing others to pirate our music
Me: What are you talking about, this is how the system works, and as far as I know, everone who has downloaded from me owns the music as well.
Judge: Go away riaa, no case here.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
You haven't countered the parent's argument. You just ignored the parent and gave the same argument again.
You're not saying why it's obvious (apparently it isn't obvious enough for the parent, or for me, or for most people for that matter). You're even using the language you're trying to defend in your argument, which is classical circular reasoning.
Also, you're attacking the person, not the argument, by calling him childish and stuffing words into his mouth.
As far as a counter-argument goes, you haven't even produced an cohesive argument, so why bother.
What about people with dynamic IPs? Are they going to call my isp and demand to see their MAC tables? That's a lot of backchecking.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Wait this doesn't seem to be that big a deal for one they were talking about developing the procedures. They never stated that they have this control with current software. Although I do not know what the standard for liability Is in australia. This limd of kind liability was discussed abd rejected in us betamax case.
Conversion may very well be amoral. Nevertheless, copyright infringement is utterly distinct from conversion, among other reasons due to the fact that the former does not involve wresting exclusive control over something, and the latter does.
If you want to compare it to a common law tort, the appropriate one would more likely be a minor case of trespass to land. (although even land is more rivalrous than works are)
The right to distribute copies of a copyrighted work is a right of ownership.
Authors have no special right to distribute copies of their works, and to the degree that they have such a right -- which is indistinguishable from everyone else's right -- it's an aspect of the right of free speech, not of ownership. (well aside from ownership of the copies themselves, but I don't think you care about the copies per se)
Plus, it's not at all evident that copyright is a property right.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
for around the cost of a pot of coffee a day, your grandma could be supporting a geek's caffeine habi^w^w^h^h^h, and as we all know geeks put money back into the tech economy ad infinitem, so every input counts. Everybody wins; the RIAA doesn't get to find your your grandma looks at baloon and vynil porn, doesn't sue her for downloading the album sexy-rubber by madonna, your grandma gets to be efficient and productive with her computer, and a geek who would otherwise be starving may end up with enough to subsist herself and or play quake.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Copyright infringment means copying Doom 3, which is different from taking [a copy of] it. Since you appear not to understand this, let me make an analogy: Say you've got a can of soda that you're about to drink. Then I come up to you, take it, and drink it myself. You'd be pretty upset, right? Well, that's because I stole your soda and you don't have it anymore. Now, imagine instead that I take it, magically duplicate it so that now there are two cans of soda, and then give one back to you. So you still have a soda to drink, and now I have a soda to drink too. Would that still be stealing? Moreover, would that even be a bad thing? Keep in mind that you still have your copy, and that there was nobody involved in the transaction except you and me.
Now, the folks at Coca-cola might get upset about that (epecially if I started selling copies), but they would be upset about copyright infringment, not stealing, because of the theory that only they are allowed to make that particular substance.
And that's the difference -- the concept of "stealing" is based on the physical fact that if someone takes an object away from you, you don't have it any more, whereas the concept of "copyright infringement" is based on philosophical arguments and balancing incentives to creation against distribution to society.
Now, you may not understand all that, but it should at least be "brain-dead obvious" that if stealing and copyright infringment were the same thing, I wouldn't have been able to spend four paragraphs contrasting them!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You're not saying why it's obvious (apparently it isn't obvious enough for the parent, or for me, or for most people for that matter). You're even using the language you're trying to defend in your argument, which is classical circular reasoning.
I don't need to say why it's obvious. If you don't think it's obvious that taking something from someone that they are selling without reimbursing them for it--even if you're able to produce a pristine binary copy instead of taking something tangible--is immoral, there is nothing I can say to convince you anyway. You've already justified piracy in your mind to the point that any sort of debate doesn't make a dent.
You may as well start asking people why it's immoral to go around slugging people in the face. It's one of those brain-dead obvious things. I respect if you disagree about the way the music industry behaves, but I don't respect if you can't explain why taking something from someone that they are selling is the non-obvious case (not immoral) instead of the obvious case (immoral).
Again, if there is nothing immoral about copyright infringement on P2P, then there is nothing immoral about taking GPL code and doing whatever the hell you want with it regardless of what the GPL says. You can't pick and choose moralities.
Copyright infringment means copying Doom 3, which is different from taking [a copy of] it.
Um, if you're copying Doom 3, you are taking a copy of it. Use whatever word you want--receiving a copy, obtaining a copy, it doesn't matter. You're taking a copy of Doom 3.
I believe the endless battle over the precise semantics used to describe software piracy is a distraction some people put up to avoid the real debate about the immorality of the behavior in the first place. Just my opinion.
It doesn't matter what anyone's logs say you downloaded. If the RIAA can't verify the contents of the file to prove it really was the copyrighted song in question, then they have no case.
Assuming Kazaa was logging all downloads, what server would be doing the logging? Remember, unlike Napster, there is no "central authority" that keeps an index of all the files shared by all the clients on the network. On the Kazaa network, all the indexing is done by a second tier of Supernodes. The only way all the downloads and/or searches could be logged is if every single Supernode (we're talking thousands here) was doing the logging (and the operators of said Supernodes all being in on the game.) The only way a network like Kazaa could be keeping a log of all the activity is if every single client did, in fact, send all of its searches to two servers: the network of Supernodes and another central server, which would be evident by looking at the source code.
Reprise the theme song and roll the credits!
<semantic argument>Taking a copy is different from making a copy. In the first case, the person you're taking it from doesn't have it any more, in the second case they still do. How much clearer can I possibly make it?!</semantic argument>
<morality argument>I've made many, many posts about this topic, so here's the short version:Compensating the artist is not the point of copyright. The sole purpose of copyright is to enrich culture. Culture is enriched by creating more works of art, and distributing those works so that everyone can enjoy them.
Distribution of those works is handled by putting them into the public domain; we don't need copyright for that. What we need copyright for is to hang a carrot in front of artists as an incentive to create more works -- and it's the "creation of works" bit that's the important part; compensating the artist is just a side effect.
Anyway, copyright law attempts to strike a balance between providing a benefit to society (increasing creation) and placing a cost on society (limiting distribution). The problems people see in the system today boil down to the idea that that balance is skewed: it favors the creation of works too highly. So, conveniently, technology provides a way to correct that skew (i.e., increase distribution) in the form of P2P.
Oh, and if you want proof that I'm correct about the purpose of coyright, do a search for my previous posts ("mrchaotica" "jefferson" "copyright" are good keywords), or look at this example </morality argument>
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Alright, then here we go-
It's not immoral. Not at all. However, the contrast is important. It is immoral to steal. It is not immoral to copy. Since you are saying that the two are one and the same, and my entire premise rests on the fact that they are not, that is more than a semantic debate, it is central to the concern in question.
Stealing is something we "naturally" dislike. When someone grabs something out of your hands and uses it themself, you no longer have it. If that thing is food, you go hungry. If that thing is a car, you can't go anywhere. When my car was stolen, it was the fact that I -didn't- have the car anymore that I found objectionable, not the fact that the other guy -did- have a car. Had he been able to sit down next to my car, copy it exactly, and drive away, I would not have objected a bit. When the police found the car undamaged, my first thought was not "Oh good, whoever stole it no longer has the benefit!" but "Oh good, I'm not taking the bus tomorrow, and I don't have to deal with the insurance anymore!"
The laws against theft address natural scarcity, scarcity which already exists and cannot be created or changed by law, only addressed. A limitless number of cars cannot be produced. Each one requires steel, plastics, wiring, glass...
You cannot "copy" and reuse these components. Each time you want to build a car, you need more steel, glass, plastic, wire, rubber, manpower, so on, so on. The law addresses the natural fact that me taking a car from you deprives you of it.
On the other hand, copyright creates artificial scarcity where none existed before. Enough copies of anything that can be digitized can be made to satisfy anyone who wishes to possess such a digital copy. It is not an attempt to deal with a natural situation-it is an attempt to impose an artificial one which would not, but for the law, exist at all. These copies can be made in such a way that one copy can be made into two, and two into four, and so on-the original owner need not be deprived of their copy in order that someone else have one.
In another post, you mentioned laws against punching someone in the face. Let's look at that one the same way. If I punch you in the face, you will be injured. Is that a natural problem (exists just because it exists) or an artificial one (created by the law so that the law might "solve" the problem it made?) Well, I submit that once again, it is natural, and the law simply seeks to deal with something that already exists and would continue to exist without the law.
The debate against copyright, then, is thus-it is a "problem" created entirely by law. If the copyright law were removed, so is the problem. There is no scarcity of what the law seeks to control once the law itself is removed-everyone can have one.
"But no one will create anything!" is your next argument. Alright...tell that to Homer, who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. Copyright wasn't a thought in a single person's head at that time. Guess those weren't creative? How about the people who developed Linux, and -deliberately- left the software free of distribution restrictions? Guess that's not creativity?
Once again, the problem is created artificially-our overvaluing of money and material wealth. Want the law to address the fact that "creators" got to eat? Subsidize them directly. Easier, addresses -only- the problem in question without creating more, and doesn't needlessly criminalize or force. The law's power to coerce, while necessary, should never be used to solve a "problem" which the law itself creates. Don't believe me? Look at the success of the laws against drinking and driving (something which really is dangerous and a serious problem, and the laws and associated social taboos have driven this problem way down) against Prohibition (infringed on people's fundamental right to treat their bodies as they so choose, including deciding what to put into them. It resulted in the creation of gangs to supply the millions who ignored and refuse
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Is there anyone out there who actually didn't know this was happening? The fact that it installed Gator and Bonzai buddy in its earlier releases should have clued everyone in...
Not that I have installed it in a long while, but I think now it installs WeatherBug, which everyone knows is really a pop-up system.
Kazza is, was and always will be SpyWare in my book... Go with any Gnutella system (and then remove the spware) or Torrents instead.
My 2 Cents.
Stop modding the parent down?
Do you work for Kazaa or something?
Funny isn't it?
If someone called Bill Gates stupid or even Stephen Jobs they might not be modded down.
Here I am saying something very true.
Kazaa - a company that is notorious for infecting PCs with trojans and spywares and full of greed.
How many of you didn't get your system fucked after installing Kazaa?
Lame moderator:
Go and suck a dick!
or rather, a bastardised, ocker version of it :-).
.The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
The person who pointed out that you're not making an argument is right. Saying over and over how your opinion is obvious is not an argument.
Using P2P to download copyrighted work is usually illegal, that much is certain. But immoral? How so? Because it's illegal? Does the law of the land determine your definitions of morality? Adultery is legal; do you think it's moral?
Is taking Doom 3 without paying for it inherently immoral? That doesn't exactly sound like the last message left by God. Is what makes taking Doom 3 immoral that they're asking for money for it and you're taking it without paying? Is that how morality works? The thing that always comes up in court regarding intellectual property misuse, is harm (how much has been done to the rights holder), but maybe they should rewrite the rules - you violate copyright, you are son-of-a-bitch, no questions asked.
Copyright is a complex subject, no matter how loudly a man says that it's simple.
A similar argument can be heard coming from anti-abortion nuts:
It's murder!
Really? How so?
It's an innocent life!
Really? How so?
It just is!
What makes you say that?
I just know!
Okay. Next.
Just thinking of countries that don't or didn't have extradition treaties with the US. The Great Train Robbers went to Brazil, a Nazis after the second world war went to Agentina, and we always see law breakers running to Mexico in North American movies.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
I did not mention searching. Searching is not what RIAA can use. Downloads, maybe. Sharing, yes.
Anyway, this whole thread is about downloading. You download from peers, not supernodes.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
This Niagara has a tap. Our cable ISP offers a branded version of MusicNet. USENET downloads have been capped. Its parent company is a media giant hostile to P2P. You will not find its DSL competitors any friendlier.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was, attempts to pressure a legitimate society-wide demand with artifical "legal" constraints simple result in a Newtonian counterforce of equal strength.
Prohibition had its roots in the nineteenth century and was the last reform movement of that era of that era to gain national success. Prohibition failed in cities which were multi-ethnic, multi-racial, with significant religious and class differences from the rural and small-town reformers which had driven the movement for decades.
But to carelessly generalize from the Prohibition experience is dangerous.
Broadband access in the United States is generally limited to an affluent center-right middle class, which knows no geographical bounds, and in which other divisions are muted. Property rights are an issue they do understand and around which they tend to coalesce. No free lunch.
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals
This is singulary incoherent and fanciful.
The middle class does not break out the guns because Amazon charges $18 for the latest Harry Potter DVD or Blockbuster offers an all-you-can-eat DVD rental buffet for $15 a month.
Nor do they riot whenever some punk kid gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
...to put everyone who's never used P2P in a building they're not allowed to leave, and call the rest of the world "jail".
Similar concepts have been envisioned.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Just curious ;)
I only download music by bands that have released the material for free (Grateful Dead and Mike Keneally live shows, mostly). However, it's not impossible, due to a mistake by me or someone else, that I could accidentally end up downloading something copyrighted due to being mislabeled, etc.
I could continue as I'm doing now, knowing that one mislabeled file could result in a painful lawsuit and tens of thousands of dollars in costs.
Or I could "play it safe," and suck up to the RIAA, and stop enjoying relatively obscure bands that release their material to the public for free- and go to a nice safe online music store and buy music that's safe, but which is generally TRASH.
The real purpose of heavy-handed copyright enforcement, IMO, is to crush the life out of the sharing methods used by bands who place material on the market for free- that's where the real threat lies. And if you don't "play it safe," one mistake could cost you every extra penny you will ever make for the rest of your life.
"Support our Oops."
How is the parent Redudant? Anyone?
Warning: The KaZaA cronies are here!
How is the parent Offtopic ? Anyone?
We are talking about similar technologies
Warning: The KaZaA cronies are here!
Where do you suppose creative works come from? In the previous example, the 'copier' didn't come up with his own idea for a refreshing beverage. He copied the Coke. But Coke is Coke's idea; that's what the phrase 'intellectual property' refers to. It's *their* idea. If you want to similarly benefit from an idea, you should have an idea of your own. Coke is sharing their idea with people for an agreed upon price. If the consumer doesn't agree to the price, he doesn't buy it. If Coke doesn't agree to the price, he doesn't sell it. Anything other than a mutually agreed upon exhange of values is a form of coercion.
The upshot of what many of you are extolling (that there is no such legitimate thing as intellectual property) will be the withdrawal of those ideas from the marketplace. What then?
The purpose of copyright is to enrich culture, by ensuring that creative people continue to share their ideas. Copyrights do this by providing a legal foundation for restricting the exchange of those ideas/products without coercion - that is, both parties to the exchange receive a value for that given. Giving someone else a copy of the song you wrote is your right. Giving someone else a copy of a song you didn't write is not your right. It's not your idea, and the person who had the idea, created the song and made it available for sale didn't agreee to the exchange.
This is really not rocket science, fellas. Property and property laws are the basis of western culture. The concept of property is inextricably tied to all other human rights, as well as to democracy. Communism and other socialist schemes are diametrically opposed to the notion of individual property rights; there's a very good reason that is so.
RFT!!!
Dave Kelsen
Conversion may very well be amoral. Nevertheless, copyright infringement is utterly distinct from conversion, among other reasons due to the fact that the former does not involve wresting exclusive control over something, and the latter does.
If I have exclusive control over product a, and you subvert that control by infringing on my copyright (by copying and distributing product a), I no longer have exclusive control over product a. Where's the utter distinction?
RFT!!!
Dave Kelsen
Your arguement is flawed because despite your claims, you KNOW you are infringing on copyrighted materials. Your statement that "I don't particularly care what media I am consuming, just as long as it suffiently enterains me at that time."... chances are if someone took the time to make something sufficently entertaining, they also took the time to copyright it. If it looks like it cost 100,000s of dollars, it probably did.
The reason you've stopped paying for media is because you don't have to, not because that media isn't worth paying for. There is a reason newspapers, dvds, cable costs money. You aren't paying for the physical newspaper, but for the content inside. Content costs money to create. I'm not saying that media isn't over-priced, it is, but to say that you don't know what media is copyrighted or not is silly. If you want to download something for free, then take the time to find out if it is free (a quick trip to google could clear it up for you). I would assume you've at least slightly researched whatever it is your downloading. Otherwise how do you know what that movie/show/etc is about. I don't imagine you just randomly click download links, but I could be wrong.
Your reply to him: I don't need to say why it's obvious.
Your reply to me: It must be nice to just say that without any supporting evidence or explanation.
Fascinating that the rules you want to apply to us don't also apply to you. You seem to have a history of this. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised. If you have any desire to really help your cause, you may want to make at least a feeble effort at formulating an actual response instead of the endless repetition you practice so freely. Of course that could be extremely difficult when you don't have a leg to stand on.
What?
But my larger point was based on the future. I contend that in the future, it will only get more difficult to tell the difference.
Audio files can be this way now. If you find a link to a song (maybe a friend of yours simply recommended the song/link to you), how are you to know if that song is copyrighted or not? Are there not thousands of people in the world creating music files that are to be freely shared? Not for profit, but simply because they want to?
The world is a big place. Billions of people in the future will literally be empowered to create professionally produced audio and video on their own for whatever reason they wish. They may or may not want money for copies of their work, but the point is that there is nothing inherently identifiable in an audio or video file that says "you may copy this, or you may not". And there probably is no realistic way that there ever could be.
I also understand your point that it is my responsibility to determine whether I have legal access to the file that I am downloading, but is this really feasible? Especially in the future with trillions of files floating around on the P2P network.
I truly believe that the future will see all of us being 'pirates' without our even realizing it.
I'm sorry, I'm using a term of art. 'Exclusive' with regards to copyright, is the right to exclude others at one's leisure. It's not a right to actually do anything, however, and it is not to be confused with the more common use of that word to mean 'sole.'
To use a common example, if I take your car, I have trespassed to chattel. If I materially ruin it, I have converted it. (do note the distinction, as copyright infringement certainly doesn't rise to the level of harm needed for conversion as well)
What's important there is that since your car is rivalrous, when I take it, you don't have it. I have exclusive control, wrongfully, against everyone, including you, the rightful owner.
If I merely infringe on a copyright, however, I have not removed your exclusive control, I'm merely ignoring it. You can still exclude everyone else just as much as you ever could. When I stop, you don't get anything back, because nothing was taken. You just get someone to stop ignoring you.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Certainly there is something amiss in the music industry, where a CD sells for $30AUD and the "artist" gets $1. Personally I'm more in favour of the work of musicians and singers than "artists".
Nowadays, we can all listen to music for "Free".
We have been able to do this on commercial radio for some time, however the difference between that old model and this new digital model is that no advertising revenue is gained and piped indirectly back into the music industry.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
I'm sorry, I'm using a term of art. 'Exclusive' with regards to copyright, is the right to exclude others at one's leisure. It's not a right to actually do anything, however, and it is not to be confused with the more common use of that word to mean 'sole.'
It might be useful in this arena if you a.) use terms which are in reasonably common usage, and b.) stick to the normally accepted meaning of those terms. Just a suggestion; in the cases where that isn't feasible, you might signal the difference somehow. Now then; if you circumvent my ability to exclude others - *any others* - at my leisure, you have abrogated my rights. Your point of view implies that there is no other property than what is referred to legally as 'real property'. You surely must know that this is not true, so perhaps I am misunderstanding what I am reading.
If I merely infringe on a copyright, however, I have not removed your exclusive control, I'm merely ignoring it. You can still exclude everyone else just as much as you ever could. When I stop, you don't get anything back, because nothing was taken. You just get someone to stop ignoring you.
In fact, if you nullify my legal rights by your deliberate action, you have taken something from me, expressly against my wishes. The legal term for this is theft. It does not apply strictly to material property in any venue I am aware of.
You seem to be confusing the issue. Say I have property I wish to defend, and I put a fence around it to keep it safe. You climb over the fence and steal it. Truly, you have not removed the fence, and it will still keep out those who won't climb over it. But the objective of the fence is not to keep people from climbing over it; it is to safeguard my property. This is likewise the objective of copyright law, and when you circumvent the lawful owner's control of his property, real or otherwise, you are stealing, legalistic bullshit notwithstanding.
RFT!!!
Dave Kelsen
It might be useful in this arena if you a.) use terms which are in reasonably common usage, and b.) stick to the normally accepted meaning of those terms.
Well, I don't normally see people talking about conversion, so I guess I made a poor assumption. At any rate, the correct term in the copyright law jaron is 'exclusive right.'
Now then; if you circumvent my ability to exclude others - *any others* - at my leisure, you have abrogated my rights.
No, we have merely infringed upon them; abrogation strikes me as more along the lines of completely getting rid of them. An infringement hardly destroys a copyright, it merely offends it.
Your point of view implies that there is no other property than what is referred to legally as 'real property'.
I don't believe I said that. There is real and personal property, and some personal property is intangible. Nevertheless, I think that copyright is at a minimum arguably not personal property, as not all of its characteristics mesh with that of other property:
* The subject matter is non rivalrous, which is distinct from other property rights
* It has to be specially granted by the government, which is unusual
* It has to expire, which is very unusual
* It has to expire for a public purpose, and this has never been found to be a taking
In fact, if you nullify my legal rights by your deliberate action, you have taken something from me, expressly against my wishes.
Your rights aren't nullified by infringement. They're infringed, but you still have them and can still assert them. It's the difference between respecting something naturally, and being forced to respect something.
The legal term for this is theft. It does not apply strictly to material property in any venue I am aware of.
No, it depends. For starters, theft is really only a criminal term -- civilly it would be trespass, trespass to chattels or conversion in the vast majority of the time. Plus it's rare for it to apply to intangible property, and anyway, as has been discussed, theft does require a deprivation, and deprivations of copyright don't happen in the course of an infringement.
To restate that for emphasis: When you infringe on a copyright, you do not steal that copyright.
You seem to be confusing the issue. Say I have property I wish to defend, and I put a fence around it to keep it safe. You climb over the fence and steal it. Truly, you have not removed the fence, and it will still keep out those who won't climb over it. But the objective of the fence is not to keep people from climbing over it; it is to safeguard my property. This is likewise the objective of copyright law
No, first, there is a world of difference between a copyright and the work the copyright pertains to. I think that you're conflating them. An infringement does not involve a taking of either, but at most only the former can be property to begin with.
So to borrow your very poor analogy, it's as though you have a creative work, and you erect a fence of rights around it to protect your exploitation of that work. To infringe would be to exploit the work by bypassing the fence. But the only conceivable form of theft would be to steal the fence itself -- which obviously doesn't happen 99.44% of the time, if at all.
Second, the objective of copyright law is solely to promote the progess of science, specifically the equal public interests in the creation of original works, creation of derivative works, and unencumbered enjoyment of those works. It's not actually intended to protect anyone specific.
when you circumvent the lawful owner's control of his property, real or otherwise, you are stealing, legalistic bullshit notwithstanding
I assure you, if I walk on your land, I haven't stolen it and you could never make out a case claiming such. You might not like the formal distinctions in the law, but the law cares about them a lot. If you were to try such a tactic, I assure you, you would have your claim dismissed because it's simply unfounded. Probably not a good idea then, when you have no option other than to play by the rules, to call the rules bullshit. It avails you nothing.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Your rights aren't nullified by infringement. They're infringed, but you still have them and can still assert them. It's the difference between respecting something naturally, and being forced to respect something.
Well, that's refreshing and reassuring. I still have my rights, and can assert them; apparently they are meaningless assertions, as you (or anyone else) can simply decide that what I wish to do with my property doesn't matter. After all, I still have my rights.
The statements you have made indicate that you are (most likely deliberately) missing the purpose of copyright law. The hypothetical fence I described earlier is not designed to keep people from climbing the fence; that would be nonsensical, along the lines of putting up a sign which reads, "DON'T READ THIS SIGN". The purpose of the fence is to prevent unauthorized access to what's inside. Similarly, the objective embodied by copyright law is not to protect the piece of paper it is written on or the concept of copyright - it is to prevent unauthorized access to the material which is copyrighted.
You've said it nearly correctly yourself. Copyright law is designed to protect the public interest in the creation of original works. You seem to have no notion of how it is supposed to achieve that protection, or why.
Copyright law protects the public interest by defending the natural right of the creator to dispense with his creation as he sees fit, in recognition of the simple fact that in many cases - certainly not all - the creator could and would choose not to make his creation public at all, or perhaps not to create the work. It is for this reason that when you violate the creator's right to dispense his creation as he sees fit, you act against the public interest.
Even a peremptory perusal of the final sentence in my penultimate reply would show that I neither claimed nor implied that when you circumvent a lawful owner's control of his property, what you are stealing is that property. Nonetheless, you are stealing. There are many things in this world which have value, but cannot be counted as chattels. Such faulty conclusions in a court of law will at the least gain you a reputation for carelessness. Likewise, you failed to grasp that it is not the rules that are bullshit -albeit some certainly are - it's the legalistic misdirection. You fail to engage the issue on its merits, choosing instead to obfuscate with non-sequiters and outright misrepresentations. For example, you state that a creative work cannot be property.
No, first, there is a world of difference between a copyright and the work the copyright pertains to. I think that you're conflating them. An infringement does not involve a taking of either, but at most only the former can be property to begin with.
Whether you engage in this kind of misdirection as a matter of habit, or incidentally, or with full intention, is hardly germane.
By the way, the example I gave previously is best expanded thusly: suppose the property I wish to defend with my fence is a waterflow, for which I performed research, bought the land, and did the excavating required to allow it to flow to the surface. When you climb my fence and steal a bottle, I still have the spring, and I have not been measurably impoverished; while I will never miss the water, I have been robbed. But you have a concrete and physical item, although you did not do the work required to produce the water as I did.
You may demean the simple example, but I don't believe you fail to grasp the meaning of the legal protection granted by copyright law. Of course, you may choose to misunderstand it, and you may choose to denunciate it, or attempt to abridge or destroy it - or, as seems to be the case here, simply to obfuscate it.
I referred to my most previous posting as penultimate, and so it is. I will no longer reply to this thread, but I will certainly read any replies you (or any others, of course) care to make.
RFT!!!
Dave Kelsen
As I agree with you that stealing is wrong, I wonder is pirating software really stealing. Say you never had any intention of buying this software in the first place, weather it was $5 or $500 you would never buy it. You get that part right? So if all the money that you were going to spend on this game should go to the author, Right? My answer is. They deserve none of my money, because I was never going to pay for it in the first place. If my options were simply to have a copy of the software legitimately or not to have it at all, I would simply not have it at all. But, as the situation is, at hand, I can have my cake and eat it too! If I get caught, I will simply pay the consequences and pay up. In all reality I actually do pay for the software I download if I think the software is worth it, for instance Photoshop cs I own legally, reason being is that I believe in their products. I believe they are worth paying for. But to this day I would not own Photoshop legally if I had never downloaded it for free in the first place (for me a 30 day trial is not enough time to use a program to it's full potential). I did not have the money at the time, but I needed the program, I used it. Later I got a better job and now I own the program. I bet if you asked the people that have a lot of illegally downloaded software if they were to either chose to have the software legally they would say here take it back! I don't want it. The creators would never have made that money anyways. When pirating software dies, our country dies. There will always be someone pirating software. They will never stop us, ever. It will always be done for the rest of history in one form or another so I think everyone should just stop bitching and deal with it. Yes, if you have the intentions of buying the software but you steal it, it is wrong. But if you never had any intentions to buy this software in the first place who are you hurting? The money still would have never left your pocket and enterd the pocket of another. Basically buy making a statement that stealing is wrong you are saying hey you should not break the law, well thanks for the update we will all keep that into consideration. Now I need to get back to S'eanceing the devil for my evil plans. What is this in my arse, oh the cruse fix I was sitting on earlier whoops it must have slip into the brown dimension! My bible is speaking to me I must be going now! Jesus said it was alright to use the software, so it was fine!