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Music Piracy Unit Raids ISP in BitTorrent Assault
renai42 writes "Australia's music industry piracy investigations unit has raided an Internet service provider in Perth, Australia in what it says is the first Australian assault on the use of BitTorrent technology for copyright infringement. Outgoing Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) general manager, Michael Speck, said the raid was launched this afternoon at the offices of Swiftel Communications."
I am pretty sure they are civil, and the court order was obtained from a civil court.
This is also not the first time this sort of attack has been carried out, a year or so ago a court order was taken out against the largest ISP in Australia, Telstra
For anyone interested there is a lot more information about this People Telecom raid at http://whirlpool.net.au/
Here is the Wikipedia explanation
And here is how it is done in Australia
It is considered the "atomic bomb" of IP rights enforcement, and is quite old. Because the defendent is not heard before the raid, it was removed from most laws until the new wave of harsh IP enforcement.
In Denmark this was implemented a few years ago due to pressure from the United States. This is another reason I do not like the US government: Now anybody having copyright, patents or trademarks can raid my private home if they can prove that it is likely that their rights were infringed upon.
What if the raidee has all disks encrypted?
And Music Industry 'Piracy' Investigations for a title? What about Music Industry Copyright Investigations as a more correct name - oops, too easy to take the MICI out of them.
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
Australia doesn't have a bill of rights. The government can do as it pleases.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Bing's Rule: Don't try to stem the tide -- move the beach.
Music/movie industry - start moving.
How does that work though? Surely they aren't allowed to use force, and I can't imagine someone is going to open the door for them...
I think it's pretty much the same here in Australia, as we've just signed a similar FTA with the US. There's been a lot of uproar about it, but the Howard government has shoehorned it through anyway.
I'm right in the middle of a book about it, so not fully versed yet, but there are apparently some DMCA-like provisions in there which may do serious damage, quite aside from the economic concerns many sectors hold.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
The evidence isn't admissible, but it is sufficient to obtain a warrant in order to find admissible evidence.
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
I dunno, 3dgamers.com, a popular demos/patch/etc site uses it as their primary distribution method. I really have little intrest in illegally copying games or whatever with it, easier to just go buy them and they aren't that expensive. However I find that plenty of legit free stuff I want is either very slow without bittorrent, or simply won't allow me to have it at all without bittorrent.
For that matter, when a patch for World of Warcraft comes out, their patcher fires up and starts, you guessed it, a bittorrent session. Good thinking too, as patch release days are always brutally slow, but it's hard to justify enough bandwidth full time since you don't need it that often. They'll give you the option to hot use it, but it goes quite slow.
So seems to me that bittorrent has plenty of legit uses. It is just an intelligent extension of HTTP, after all.
...so they've started doing physical raids of ISPs to get BitTorrent users. Give the OSS community a few months, and there'll be a fully encrypted version of BitTorrent that's all but impossible to trace.
They really don't get it, do they? Every time they try to crack down on P2P, it evolves into something harder to stop.
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
No, the government did not give them a court order. The court gave them the authorisation to act on the court's behalf. The government is not involved in this in any way (seperation of the court and government and all that). In fact, the gov't does not even have any say in whether or not the courts can do this - it is an inherent right of superiour courts.
Now, imagine other scenarios - such as a tobacco company destroying evidence linking smoking to cancer. It would be in the public's interest for this information to be obtained, and in such a circumstance, a Anton Piller order would make a great deal of sense.
Further, the parties (usually lawyers) are acting as officers of the courts. Thier duties to the court override any and all obligations to anyone else (including their clients).
So, it's not the Anton Piller orders themselves that are bad, nor is it the Australian government; it's just the application in this particular instance. And given that this was presented as an ISP intentionally creating a system whereby users could exchange copyrighted material, you can understand why it might be important for the court to obtain evidence immediately.
But yeah, it still sucks in this particular application.
http://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/200503/10/200503101 25531_CS/20050310125531_CS.dbp.asp
The article is in swedish, but it's very similar to the attack in Australia (being a civil action). They hit, shut down the business and are looking for 20 MP3:s and 8 movies on a hosted server. The accusations are directed at the ISP, not the users sharing the files
Bahnhof is the oldest public ISP in Sweden and a small enough actor to easily be pushed around (two dozen employees). They stayed clear of the bigger companies for obvious legal reasons.
Pirates give legit BitTorrent users a bad name.
Pirates are legit users. People fight this stupid IP/Copyright bullshit by continuing to copy and share information.
Pirate is just a word for "terrorist light".
Has anybody thougth of organizing a Worldwide RIAA boycott day - when nobody buys any music?
Or even better a week long boycott.
During The Price of Silence event it would be clear how much revenue is generated, so that we could see how well or badly the major labels really do.
I can't forget when the leader of a not-even-that-famous Canadian band "...taking care of business..." said on national radio, that after their first big hit the President of their label invited them for a dinner and promised them that if they produce just one more hit, he can promise them that they never have to work again in their life. As the musician said: the President proved to be right.
This story can really set the context to understand all the industry efforts: desparately trying to return to the good old days...
You indirectly bring up an interesting point. Namely, what is the "breaking point" of the average US citizen?
I've asked my less politically aware friends questions like "how bad would it have to get for you to 'do something' (write to congress, get politically active, anything semi-subversive)?" Most of them say that nothing they would ever do would matter, so staying put and keeping their mouths shut is the best way to go through life.
But all the same, I wonder what event could create a critical mass of disgruntled citizens that would be up for some serious reform.
Correct. Might be worth your while to read the original article first. The customers were running it, not the ISP. ISPs in Australia don't run illegal content sites.
The MIPI decided that because a DirectConnect server, known as Archie's server, could only be accessed if you were a customer of the ISP, that the ISP was liable.
What they didn't know (or chose to ignore) was that the ISP had download limits but the limits didn't apply if you were transferring data between members of the same ISP. They were just trying to leech more data between themselves.
So what you end up with is the MIPI hurling out press releases about their vapid accusations and trumpeting their misguided cause, attempting to spread fear and chaos amongst ISPs and their users by suggesting that the ISP was running some sort of piracy ring. They just wanted their day in the news. But anyone with knowledge of what was going on can see how clueless the MIPI really are. I wonder if People Telecom are going to sue for defamation?