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European Piracy Crackdowns
DigitumDei writes "The British
Phonographic Industry has been busy over the last half year. Their recent success which netted them £50,000 in out of court settlements is certainly not going to be the end of it with the UK courts forcing 6 ISP's to release information on a further 31 file sharers. The ISPs have 14 days to comply. And once located will be offered the opporunity to settle out of court. 'We would particularly advise parents to check what their children are doing on the internet and make sure that they are not breaking the law by filesharing illegally,' said Geoff Taylor, BPI General Counsel." And in other news, the oldest and largest ISP in Sweden, Bahnnof was the subject of a raid that netted what looks to be the biggest results in Europe ever; as well papper writes "The Swedish organization Antipiratbyrån, which has nothing to do with Swedish goverment, recently got hacked. This was both revenge for and an attempt to stop similair raids like the one who took place this friday, against the ISP Banhof. During the raid several FTP-servers were seized. On the hacked site the responsible group, AUH, posts some private e-mails about an alleged informer and makes threats to release more information and of course there is the mandatory braging. The site is located at Antripiratbyran with a mirror elsewhere and a translated verison also online (although it seems unreachable at the moment). "
anyway, saw this on their site day or so ago, and i think its cool APB is the most hate institution in sweden, but they have had like 150 or so open cases with people all over. With alot of it going on on TV in sweden this is just the begining.. Btw, baunhoff (spelling?) where their OWN ISP.. so they cracked down and got their self shut down. And now they try and use a off-shore (as in usa) webhost.
And the site targeted is Antripiratbyran
The Danish version of the Swedish anti-piracy organization is funded by the settlements, and money from the industry. Absolutely none of the money from the settlements will ever reach the artists.
There seems to be a misunderstanding here.. Piratbyran (The Pirate Bureau) http://www.piratbyran.org/ AntiPiratbyran (The Anti-Pirate Bureau) http://www.antipiratbyran.org/ The mirror of the hacked site is available at: http://ak.webcust.prq.se/Arga.unga.hackare_2k5_rev enge.is.sweet.htm
Quick translation:
AUH = Angry Young Hackers
We have moved in here after the previous owners got repelled off the Internet, just like a body repell dead and unwanted organs.
We have, just like you, been wondering about what happened at Bahnhof (the ISP who got busted) since we are, young of course, very angry so we feel that we need to share the information with as many people as possible
Just so you also will be angry, and that your friends and their friends and so on.. until the streets of Internet are full off angry mobs who scream AUH! AUH! AUH! and demands the blood of Pontén (the lawyer from Antipiratbyrå)
Daniel
Hi and welcome to AUH's new home in cyber space!
We have moved in here after the former owners got rejected from Internet like a body rejects dead and unwanted organs. We have, like you, wondered what actually happaned at Bahnhof and since we are, except young, very angry we feel requested to share this information with as many as possible. All because you should be able to be angry too, and so that your friends can be angry and their friends' friends and so forth until the streets of Internet are filled with an angry mob that barks "AUH! AUH! AUH!" and demands the blood of Pontén!
Wow.
That news story is nearly as interesting and informative as it was three farking days ago.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
swedish law is messed up.
:)
software piracy falls into the same group as prostitution. its illegal to perform the "act", but its not illegal to exist. if that makes sense.
for example, if a police office catches a prostitude selling services to a gentleman, a crime is being committed. however, prostitutes are legal citizens - and, even their tax is declared so.
the same goes for software piracy, if a company can say "hey, i downloaded this file from user X - which is a copyright violation" and the cops come and cease your computers and find the file in question - you will be convicted of sharing files illegally over the internet.
however, if you have 1TB of TV shows and DVDR images - yet they cannot find the file they have the injunction for; you are free to go. owning the files is legal, sharing them isn't.
there was a case with some direct connect users where a guy got busted by the cops for sharing files; however, he got his computer back with all his illegal files without any legal action been made because they could not find the file in question.
interesting
20 pages so here are some extracts...
Hi Oliver,
Please find our P2P fact sheet attached.
Kind regards
BPI Anti Piracy Unit
Sent: 08 March 2005 16:27
To: Tonia Howell
Subject: P2P networks
Hi,
I am a small producer for a few local bands here in the UK and have been thinking about releasing some demo tracks on the P2P networks, as it seems simpler than getting air-play time.
I am worried about recent reports in the news and advertising campaigns linking P2P networks with piracy and Terrorist activities. Although I am not a member of the BPI I would be glad of any advise on the matter.
Reagards,
"The unauthorised distribution of music over the internet is against the law. It infringes the
legal rights of artists and record companies. And it's bad for music.
The British record industry, which is responsible for the lion's share of the UK's investment
in new artists in excess of £150 million per year cannot possibly hope to continue
investing in new music if nobody pays for it."
Note, 'distribution', not copying.
"After years of widespread illegal uploading, the new legal download sites give music buyers
the opportunity to access an enormous range of music whenever they want."
Note, 'uploading', not downloading.
"The UK's official download chart was launched last September, and is set to be merged
with the UK singles chart this April."
Note, this doesn't include bittorrent downloads.
"CONTENTS
1) Illegal filesharing and the music industry
a. What is filesharing?
b. How can I tell if I am filesharing?
c. What's wrong with illegal filesharing?
d. The research: why filesharing damages sales
e. The picture in the UK
2) Online music piracy the industry response
a. Litigation
b. Instant messaging & consumer awareness
3) The rapid growth of legal music downloads
a. The UK digital download market
b. Broadband: opportunity for growth or the end of the album?
4) Further information
a. the UK's main digital music services
b. UK Digital Music Timeline, March 2005
c. Why illegal filesharing is wrong what the industry says
"
"a. What is filesharing?
Filesharing is the activity of trading digital files with other users over the internet. Users
trade files by downloading (to obtain them) and uploading (to distribute them).
In this context, downloading is when an internet user obtains a digital music file from the
internet. If this is done, for free, from an unauthorised source, it is likely that it has been
done illegally. UK internet users can download legally from an increasing number of
sources; see section 4a of this pack.
The more serious activity of uploading, is when an internet user allows other internet users
access to their digital music files. This is commonly done using filesharing programs. The
uploader is effectively distributing music illegally on the internet. This act is unlawful
regardless of whether or not the music was acquired illegally or legally.
Although the technology (also known as peer-to-peer, or p2p) offers lots of potential for the
development of legitimate services, the vast majority of songs currently available on file-
sharing networks are copyrighted works that are being distributed illegally."
"b. How can I tell if I am filesharing?
If you have filesharing software (known as a client) on your computer, have music in a
shared folder, and are connected to the internet, it's highly likely that you are filesharing
music illegally.
Here is a list of the more well-known filesharing clients that are used to fileshare illegally:
Kazaa, Grokster, eDonkey, LimeWire, Overnet, Direct Connect, BitTorrent, Soulseek,
Bearshare, iMesh, WinMX, Ares, Gnutella, GrabIt.
The only way to be sure that no one is illegally filesharing from your computer is to remove
the filesharing software altogether.
Bookmark the webpage below for a simple guide to re
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
That translation is horrible. The original was written in fairly good swedish (minor grammmatical errors). The translation software seems to have a problem with the swedish special characters (a very common problem in the computer world).
A good translation: "Welcome to AUHs new home in the cyberspace
We have moved in here after the previous owners were rejected from the internet, just like a body that rejects a dead or alien organ.
Just as the rest of you all, we have been wondering what really happened at Banhofs and as we, apart from just being young, are very angry we feel compelled to share thís information with as many of you as possible. We do this to anger you, your friends and the friends of your friends as well, continuing untill the streets of the internet is crowded by an angry mob crying AUH! AUH! AUH! and demanding the blood of Pontén."
The only thing that accomplishes is make their case for them when they go to congress to buy a new law.
If they can show a correlation between falling sales and rising downloads, they can argue that people still want their product, but are obtaining it illegally, depriving the industry of sales.
However if they have falling sales AND falling downloads, that would suggest that people just don't want their product anymore.
Of course most people simply want shit for free, and disguise it as a protest.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Hello and welcome to AUH 's new home in cyberspace!
We have moved in here since the last owners were evicted from the internet, like the dead and unneeded organs of a body. We have, like you, wondered a lot about what really happened at Bahnhof and since we are, except young, very angry, we feel compelled to share this information with as many people as possible. So that you will be angry too, and your friends will be angry, and their friends will be angry and so on until the streets of the internet is filled with an angry mob chanting "AUH! AUH! AUH!" and demanding Ponténs[Note: Henrik Pontén, lawyer and front figure for Swedens Anti-Piracy] blood.
We'll start of slow by letting someone named 'Peter' sum up the situation
Hello there, Peter! It will be interesting to find out what kind of infiltration you guys have been doing
Before long, we realize that Pater is a pretty nasty person - time to infiltrate the infiltrator. An just so you know, we have infiltrated you, your sites, your mail and your activity ever since we stole your passwords through SONG 4 years ago. I suppose this makes us more macho than you.
Interesting, Peter is mailing IRC-logs to Anti-piracy. Could this means - is Peter the bad guy? Let's continue looking and see what we'll find!
Oh my.. That's a bad Peter! Mailing from home when you're undercover is just what you need to do if you want people to find out!
w00t! A chello address in
"Crazy kids! Downloading Phonographs!"
Wow, and if you think that's wacky, the NAACP stands for the National Association of Colored People, when "colored" has been politically incorrect for half a century now!
And guess what the 2nd "T" in AT&T stands for -- "telegraph!"
Seriously, it's interesting that people start tripping on the "P" in "BPI" whenever it's posted. I'm guessing that it's because many Slashdotters are teenagers, and organizations that have been for around for longer than they have are still an intriguing concept.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
It's called a joke. Poking fun at a clearly dated name.
Anyways, a lot of companies simply change what their initials stand for, or just remove any meaning from their initials. See 3M or BP for example.
3M now stands for "3M", instead of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. BP is simply BP now (for all practical purposes). They are no longer British Petroleum.