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UK Record Industry Starts Suing Filesharers
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has the story that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has started a first set of lawsuits against UK file sharers. 23 people paid £50,000 to settle out of court. This is the first time people in the UK have been fined, and probably won't be the last. From the article: "We are determined to find people who illegally distribute music, whichever peer-to-peer network they use, and to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
This is just the start of the trends which have become somewhat commonn place in the states making the hop over the Atlantic. I think read on Drudge yesterday that the MPAA is considering a similar manuever in the UK. Insiders say that they plan on going after people who are sharing 10 movies or more. For now they are only planning on targeting those who offer up movies which have yet to be released but I would imagine they will be widening that net before too long.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Seriously, 50,000 pounds for some music? They're so extreme with the amounts.
I had a doubt. If my neighbour uses my wireless network (which I have kept open as a social service) to download copyrighted stuff, can I be sued????
fuvoo: watch something
When will the record companies learn, if they price there product in an affordable price range, people will buy.
r ow ing.fast/
Apple has sold approximately 85 million songs in the first two months of 2005, surpassing Piper Jaffray's initial estimates for the entire March quarter. Based on Apple's earlier announcement of 300 million total tracks sold, Senior Research Analyst Gene Munster says that iTunes sales could account for $83.2 million in revenue in the March quarter--or about $35 million more than the firm has been estimating. The firm also believes average daily sales rate has been 1.35 million per day since late January, which very similar to the 1.43 million daily run rate (i.e., sales of songs) in the weeks following the holidays. "We had been anticipating a more significant drop off in iTunes sales from the levels seen in the weeks following the holidays."
In addition to driving iPod sales, the firm says that Apple's iTunes Music Store will also contribute significantly to the company earnings: while it estimtates that the current operating margin on iTunes is in the low single digits, Piper Jaffray says it believes iTunes profitability will begin to increase throughout 2005, with operating margins reaching 5% to 10% in 2006.
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/03/02/itunes.g
How many of these 23 people were under 10 or over 80 years old? And did at least half of them own a computer?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
The music companies are totally right in doing this. It IS their property, and people don't have the right to use it for free. Go use Napster or iTunes if you don't want to buy cds.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Some parents have been genuinely shocked to discover what their children have been up to
If that's all your kids have been up to on the internet when you're not watching, you're in OK shape...
I need more sleep. I just read that as 'British Pornographic Industry'.
My other first post is car post.
50,000 pounds for music? Things have sure gone up when I was a kid. Bubble gum used to cost a quarter too!
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
"...make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
Don't most artists make only a pittance on their album sales anyway, even after they have paid back the label for their 'generous' promotional contract?
Call me cynical, but claiming that the settlement money is going to go to artists seems disingenuous. Of course claiming 'lost' profits by the labels on file sharing is moreso.
Quick Vyvyan! Eat the hard drive!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
why don't they just sue for the ammount of $ they have stolen (i.e. the average cost of a CD) instead of charging these OUTRAGEOUS fees? Any body?
I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on disk somewhere.
Its so simple!
of course wave upon wave of lawsuits will probably help to slow down sharing as well.
air and light and time and space
So, way back in the day, everyone was outraged that the music industry was trying to fight piracy by litigating away P2P technology, instead of going after the people who were actually breaking the law.
Now they're going after the people who actually break the law, instead of trying to end P2P.
I think that the idea of fair use ought to be extended, but am I supposed to be outraged that this is happening? They're actually going after people who are breaking the law, instead of trying to end technologies with legitimate uses.
Isn't this exactly what we asked for?
Just wait until this trend spreads across all countries and continents...be afraid of the Antartic Recording Industry (ARI)....I mean, imagine being sued in a currency that doesnt exist!
Or just paying your debt with penguins.
Hmm... How many people do you think they will sue? 10? 20? 1000? You know I don't know anybody who bothers to use p2p to pirate music anymore. There are easier ways to get old or indie albums by borrowing off of friends and everything new or mainstream is crap. My friends and I share music perfectly easy without P2P, in fact one of the first things I do with new friends is share our music collections with each other. The genie of digital copying is out of the bottle and it's going to take a lot of restriction to get it back in again. Enough restriction to destroy the music industry itself. Record sales aren't going to improve until the BPI or the RIAA stop stuffing crap down our throats, stop suing us and stop treating us like criminals, even if from their perspective we are. Society has changed, forever.
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
make them compensate the artists
Bahahahahahahaha hahahaha hahahahaha hahaha haha whew.
Sorry about that.
I mean, really, I don't want to pay what I consider outrageous prices for crap. I'm not downloading anything either. If you want some good music, go down to your local coffee house and listen to a good live band and buy their CD if you like their music. For the price of a coffee, I can listen to a small live concert for several hours while I do homework. You mean you can try before you buy? Amazing! The CD's I get from the local artists (and other independent artists that come through my area on tour) are much cheaper than the record-label CD's and the quality of music is sooo worth it. While the ethics of downloading the label's music is disputed, one thing I think we can all agree on is that the labels would have no ammo if people would just boycott them instead of refusing to purchase their crap and downloading music. Boycotts do work. And boycotts 'steal' nothing from the artists.
These aren't the sigs you're looking for.
Assume that we all know filesharing is illegal, immoral and makes you fat.
Now take a look around you and see that not many people care and are doing it anyway.
You want to stop them doing it, considering the moral argument doesn't work?
Ask why they do it.
Then take that reason away from them.
If they continue to share, that wasn't really their reason.
The popularity of iTunes says that people are willing for pay for downloaded music.
I would suggest that the reason for this is that you can get the song you want at the price you want to pay, rather than getting a lot of stuff you don't want at a price that is too high for the whole.
Not wanting to listen to arguments doesn't make them any less valid, it only means you refuse to help out on either side of the battle.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
---Isn't this exactly what we asked for?---
Pretty much, and under the law, it's a reasonable approach. But in the long run, it's a futile one, and a foolish one.
First, the massive quantity of US lawsuits has caused no slowdown in p2p filesharing. So it's not an effective means of stopping copyright infringement.
Next, it's bad PR, and is turning off more and more consumers and artists from doing business with the major label cartels. It's also interesting that they continue to settle out of court, rather than letting any case go through. I think there's some fear on the RIAA and their equivalents' parts that a court case would 1) reinforce fair use rights and 2) set a precedent for the value of a song.
Most importantly, rather than seeing this as something that must be stomped out and trying to turn back the clock, a smarter approach is to find a way to profit from this obvious consumer demand. The same thing happened with the VCR, and now the MPAA makes more money from video sales and rentals than from box office receipts.
My opinion is they need to set up a system similar to this one. It takes advantage of the massive power of p2p, yet protects copyright and actively encourages users to only deal in legit files by giving them a financial incentive.
It's like walking into a Wal-Mart, stuffing something in your coat, walking out, and justifying it by saying that they charge too much anyway.
No, it is not. It's more like not wanting to pay $5 to rent a movie that you've heard is bad, so you walk over to your friends house and borrow it. You've just screwed the movie company out of money and should be tossed in jail for "stealing" by not paying them every time you watch it.
Learn to love Alaska
They're determined to find anyone who distributes music who isn't them, PERIOD. They're a starving, wounded beast, cornered by its own fear and ignorance. All they know how to do is threaten people who exchange music, whether they've got a right to or not. Why can't I let a friend listen to a stream of a song that's otherwise idle on my HD, when I can loan them the CD? Why can't a few of my friends tune into my stream, when I can bring the CD to a party? Because they never had enough lawyers to force you to pay them for those fair uses. But on the Internet, these music biz weasels can finally insert themselves into every music transaction as tolltakers. Or so they think - any smart people running the biz have run *from* the biz already. So the dumb beast makes its last stand, taking down as many victims as it can.
--
make install -not war
I think It's important to note that it is generally only the uploaders who are being fined for their activities. A joe bloggs day to day downloader has nothing to worry about: "The UK internet users, ranging from a student to a local councillor, have admitted putting up to 9,000 songs each on the web for other fans to download."
In the UK is this normal practice? - If you cannot crack the bat over the head of a minor, go looking for a parent.
If this had gone to court and the courts sided with the BPI, what sort of punishment would have been dished out, and who would be punished? - the minor, or the parent, or both?
Specifically, if the parent didn't know a crime was going on (meaning they genuinely didn't know their child was downloading copyrighted material), how can the parent be held accountable?
If the parent cannot be held accountable, in these circumstances, why the hell did they settle out of court?
--all typos created using myKeyboard(TM) (patent pending)Probably everyone has played a version of the lemonade stand game that teaches simple economic sense or for those more into other things the drug game w/ the same basis.
/em sends a copy of the lemonade stand game to MPAA, RIAA and now BPI.
I'm not an economist or even a leader in the corporation I work for but that game taught me that people are willing to pay what they feel is a decent price for the product they receive and will not purchase any lemonade that is $5.00 a cup even on a 99degree farenheit day with no clouds in the sky.
... which p2p networks are they monitoring? :o
People sharing files is just like people copying a movie or tv show for a friend. Lets also remember that an MP3 is NOT an exact copy. So for the record producers to say that is stealing is wrong.
Lets also look at new censorship rules being pushed by politicians in the US.
The internet is hated by TV, Music and film companies.
How long will it be before we have boxes installed on all computers checking for anything that might be copyrighted or anything that is deemed 'indecent'.
We might be seeing it already. The war has begun.
..that people ripping songs from Phonographs was so widespread.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
I guarantee all lawsuits would stop within a month once the soul-sucking corporations stopped getting their infinite percent cut.
It's a rant people, don't reply like this was a thesis statement, but seriously, when are we going to make them give up the "for the artists (children)" argument? I think if the court is going to rule in their favor it should also require them to publicly announce their true actions. Which are using the legal systems to prop up an outmoded business model and integrate profit margins that they otherwise would never have earned anyway.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
You sure it is? Would it be my responsibility if I leave a handgun lying around, someone takes it (preferably a minor in the household) and shoots someone, I'm responsible. So far so good.
Other question: if I leave my car unlocked, so it gets stolen and involved in an accident - am I responsible, too? Cars are dangerous things. Not as much as firearms, but can be devastating nonetheless. Assume it is my responsibility, too.
What about a box cutter on the front porch? Still dangerous and I'm responsible, eh? Allright, what about a bottle of whiskey? Wine? Beer? Could be dangerous to minors, I'm responsible, right? Think of the children! What about a bottle of milk? Some people are allergenic to lactose. It could go sour and get an unsuspecting thief (a child, maybe!) a sick stomach. Am I responsible?
After all, it boils down to three questions:
- to what extend can someone be held responsible when others misuse their property?
- how much can someone be held responsible for harm created by services, goods or anything else given away for free? - how "dangerous" is a regular IP connection? Like a handgun? Like a car or heavy powertool? Knife, alcoholic beverage? Milk?
I see an open Wifi-spot exactly as dangerous as an open public letterbox. Not even in the case of a serious letter bomb would one these people be sued a) the postal service for providing unchecked packet relay, b) the mailman, c) the person responsible for the letterbox, maybe a mall owner where that thing is located d) the manufacturer of paper, strings, stamps and glue.
What do we learn from that? Do not ever accept to take a letter/transmit an IP packet from your neighbors into town/to your gateway. Ignorance is negligence, openness is danger, sharing is stealing, not assuming the worst is abetting it, freedom is slavery. Thanks pal for reminding me. I'll register for re-education tomorrow, I promise!
I bought a CD recently of 50 year old recordings. It hadn't been remastered or cleaned up in any way. I didn't special order order it but when I saw it I figured I'd never see it again. At any rate I'm the fool because I spent USD$23.95 + tax for a single CD. I'm left wondering though how many more fools like me are still around and what the fuck the record companies think the real world notion of value is? I mean, seriously - an old recording repressed to a CD with no post production, probably was sitting in the bins for 10 years and every 'artist' involved is probably dead by now. D'ya think the suits made their money on it, yet? Perhaps the only response we as consumers have is to try to press the copywrite owners into a patent-like situation where they get exclusive rights for a few years and then they lose all rights to the recording and we can do with it whatever we wish.
Some questions i'd like answered:
yeah, there's always a quote like this. trying to make it sound so righteous. What about the parents who said "wtf, you're extorting 5 grand out of us for what?" they never get quoted. What attempt. It's pay a huge fine*, or go to court and risk paying a really huge fine. It can't be a deterrent and be fair. So admit it: it's not fair to the people caught, but you're desperate to scare people. I trust the next BPI press release will show how much the artists got from this (yes, sarcasm).What kind of music (artists, genres, labels) were they sharing?
Why were they singled out (uh, awful pun)- sharing >x000 songs on a fixed IP for > x days?
Are the IPs of these british organistions listed in anti-anti-P2P blocking lists? i can bet these people weren't using any blocking, but would it have helped is another question.. proper anonymous music trading networks anyone?
*and admit you've been naughty and promise not to do it again, of course. whatever that means.
interesting, the fact that two people out of such a small pool were caught *twice* suggests they are looking for something very specific, like a particular list of songs (e.g. counting the matches, then taking the IPs of those with the most?). i'm guessing that these were people with dynamic IPs, rather than those sharing e.g. at home and at work.
Well i've been expecting this to happen in the UK - really, i'm amazed its taken until 2005 - and i always said "fuck it, safety in numbers" but i have to admit it is slightly scary to know you could get caught... i guess carrry on with the indie music, people! (and you know, buy some; just don't support the pigopolists, either by buying their music, or getting caught and really funding their lawyers.
btw, do they actually have to listen to your songs to see if they are the material as named? if so, maybe having a max-uploads-per-IP in the client would help you not get into trouble, as well as being fairer, spreading things around?
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Usually this results in songs that take 5-10% less time to listen to. Excellent stuff!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Until the laws are returned to something reasonable (like the original 28 years with no automatic extensions), I will continue to freely flaunt these laws without a touch of guilt. If they are going to abuse the system, I'm going to ignore it.
I think this is the prevailing attitude around here, not the "music should be free" or "it's not stealing anyway." And this is why most of us don't really care much for copyright holders, especially of the music and movie persuasion.
The second they started pounding nails into the coffin of fair use in the US (DMCA combined with CSS on video DVDs and all the various crackpot attempts to block copying on audio CDs), combined with extending copyright for such insane lenghts of time as to destroy the very idea of public domain (is anything in the public domain in the US? The Bible, maybe? And I hear Moses was filing for an extension...) has created the general "screw me? well screw you right back" attitude from the populace.
i haven't bought a single cd since 1999 when i started using napster
many iterations of file sharing tools later, i'm on emule, and i have a simple solution to beating the riaa, et al:
i embrace world music, i let my mind wander
currently, i'm into filipino music (i live in new york city)
the thing to do is is to expand your musical interests to things beyond the usual pop crap, and you are also therefore using the new file sharing technology to its greatest benefit: connecting with resources that otherwise would be beyond your grasp in the pre-interent universe
embrace world music, screw the pop crap, and you win two ways:
1. you won't be on the riaa's radar
2. you'll grow new brain cells as you develop an awareness of a world beyond your nation's borders
there really is a lot of good stuff out there that isn't the usual robbie williams or britney spears crap
free your mind and give the bastards who want to market you sugar water the finger in the process
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"We are determined to find people who illegally distribute music, whichever peer-to-peer network they use, and to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
If anything, it is the labels / artists who should have to pay fines everytime they rattle off phrases like that. I bet they don't use that sort of language in court. No one is stealing anything from anyone. There is no property that is being exchanged, nor has anyone's actions resulted in someone somehow losing any material item. They make it sound like every d/l song is a lost sale and that a lost sale should be counted as an asset. Maybe at Enron, but that's completely bogus.
What is happening is that people are illegally infringing on the labels / artists right to distribute (ie. copy) said material. That is not stealing. If someone goes into a library and photocopies an entire copyrighted book, they are infringing on the copyright owner's right to issue copies; however, that does not compare to the person who goes into a bookstore and removes from the bookstore, without paying, the same book. THAT is stealing! Both are committing an illegal activity but they are exceptionally different in character.
Besides, copyright is a stupid law to begin with.
Fifteen of the 23 used the Kazaa peer-to-peer network, four used Imesh, two used Grokster, one used WinMix and one was on BearShare.
Looks like slsk is still below their radar (unsurprising, being 99% dedicated to non-major label stuff).
The trouble with the "they only go after uploaders" theory is that p2p stops working if people stop sharing. You can't say "it's alright, we can still get away with downloading", when nobody dares make their files available for you to download.
I have a family friend who works in the music industry today who spoke to the BPI after receiving a letter detailing what the BPI was doing and how they were suing people who held copyrighted material that his company was involved with. In a telephone conversation he had with a representative of the BPI he inquired as to where the money was going to. Originally the BPI replied 'the artist' but on further inquiry they admitted that the money was going to be used to... sue more people!!!!
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
and your trebles are belong to us.
It is totally American to steal copyrighted content. The entire country was founded on it for goodness sakes. Prove me wrong. Did the US pay Britain for the land they essentially took? No of course not. Did they pay for all the books they copied, etc? No of course not.
In fact America was literally founded off of stolen technologies from Britain and other countries and that includes music. Now that other countries are doing it to them or are the average joe is following in their own illustrious footsteps they whine and complain and make laws to prevent exactly what there is a historical precedence for.
Here's something for you. What the RIAA and the MPAA are doing is totally UN-AMERICAN and flies in the face of what made the country the nation that it is today.