Slashdot Mirror
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). "
Appenrently they have the right break in and look through other peoples stuff if they think there are some "pirated" things there.
What happens if I don't want them looking through my private mail/pictures/documents?
They will not stop this stupid behavior unless we hit them where it really hurts, their wallets.
So, don't buy another CD, don't see another film, dont rent another DVD and don't buy any programs from the companys sponsoring "Antipiratbyrån" until they stop this foolishness!
'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,'
Its amazing that government authorities still aren't aware that in most cases, its pretty damn clear to a child (over the age of 11 anyway) whether they are filesharing illegally or not. They should be responsible for checking their actions, not the parents.
In fact, cutting out 90% of the activity may well satisfy The Man. I can't see that it's worth spending millions chasing down people swapping files among their friends via FTP, private newsgroups etc.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Individual infringers are somebody else's problem:
They sued the mp3 codec clones, but I didn't speak out because I use ogg vorbis,
They sued the pirates of Windows, and I didn't speak out, 'cause I use Linux,
They sued over CSS, but I didn't speak out because it wasn't in my country,
They sued the music and movie downloaders, but I didn't speak out because I used a different filesharing network,
They sued me, but there was no-one left to speak out for me.
Sorry for that, I'm trying to make the point that there should be public outcry if the public believe it is being robbed of its fair use rights. It isn't right to let individual people suffer because they're not you.
I'm not suggesting that we should burn our money so everything can be free. I'm more pragmatic than that. Further, I think that legal methods should be used to bring justice where the law is broken, but there remain questions about the way in which the industry associations have gone about suing filesharers.
OK people, this is a running joke and a scare tactic. If the population of England is about 52 million (according to a quick google search), and the latest round of suits targets 31 people according to the story, and if a mere 1% of Britons file share, the numbers look bleak.
52,000,000/100 = 520,000
520,000/31 ~= 16.7K
Hmm, what are the odds of getting hit by a bus? Now, if the revent Slashdot stories about Britonss being the largest group of downloaders out there means that there are more than 1% downloading, the numbers get worse for the industry.
Besides suing your customer base not being the brightest idea on the planet, just ask SCO, the odds of them doing anything appreciable are laughable. Look at eDonkey for example. The RIAA has sued thousands of users in the US, and it is putting such a dent in..... never mind.
This is a headline grap people, and with each headline they grab the tool gets less and less effective. In the US, rounds of new suits barely make a third tier story at HardOCP.
My prediction: News headlines, people fearing big brother, thousands of files purged. Millions shrug and go on with their lives.
Next round: Page 4 news headlines, people mildly nervous, hundreds of files purged. Millions shrug and go on with their lives.
Round 3: Covered in niche publications, no one gives a rats ass, tens of files purged. Millions shrug and go on with their lives.
Round 4: Niche publications have better things to cover, cattle mutilations and CIA microwave mind control lasers trump the latest file sharing atrocities. 7 files purged and a grandmother in Cardiff wets herself. Millions shrug and go on with their lives.
-Charlie
Well, since link and the hack is publicly available, it doesn't take more than a mouse click to get the stuff anyways, even if I DID leave it out/censor it. This is just a translation right of. If someone abuses the information herein, they could've done so either way, especially since hardly anyone but swedes, who don't need the translation, will find use for the sensitive info.