Slashdot Mirror
Australian P2P Sites Disappear Overnight
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of a raid on an Australian ISP, local P2P site operators are shutting down operations in droves, according to community site Whirlpool. The raid was the result of an investigation by Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), who claim they have a number of targets lined up for future raids. Overnight, a number of sites have shut down or been shut down, and ISPs are reporting major drops in bandwidth usage."
Fact: There's money to be made in P2P networks
Fact: If it's not legal in X it's legal in Y
Fact: If company is hassled in X, it goes to Y
You cannot stop P2P, you can only hassle it in the short term.
How many large p2p sites do you know of in Australia? Bugger all at last count. This just means that all the leachers will go overseas for their files. In addition, the cost of bandwidth for seeders and their ilk over here is prohibitive. I think you'll find that this wont have that much of an effect on ISPs.
ISPs are reporting major drops in bandwidth usage.
And couldn't we expect the ISPs, especially some of the state owned(?) ones to start pushing against a crackdown when they start losing money? dDOS excluded, more traffic == more business for an ISP.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
I'm so damn sick of these American nationalists who think they need to dig at France at every possible opportunity. I have news for you jackasses: the French were one of the few significant countries with the balls to tell you you were insane and they had the nerve to be right too.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
If you skip commercials, most of the movie/tv show people already consider you a pirate.
I think your claim of "proves that the scam story was never true to begin with" has merit but is far stronger than it should be.
The only thing that an MPAA press release truly proves is that the MPAA will do anything to stop the trading of movies on the Internet.
Occam's razor aside, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Lokitorrent fiasco was in fact a scam that the MPAA decided to capitalize on by putting out a press release.
I am sure I will get modded down for saying this, but I hope they shut them all down. I don't understand how people think that downloading cracked copies of software isn't stealing. Maybe once the consequences of the actions get high enough, more people will stop. I pay higher prices for software and music because of the rampant theft. Contrary to what the prevailing attitude seems to be here, the vast majority of the public does pay for their software and music. There is however a large minority that feels otherwise and continues their criminal practices. They are the ones driving software companies to add more and more layers of security to our software. They are the ones that are causing the honest amongst us to have to jump through increasingly more difficult hoops to install, register and maintain our software. Perhaps now, with more of these File sharers servers going dark, I will be able to start to enjoy lower prices on my software and music and more bandwidth from my ISP.
I don't support jail time for these people at all. I think that is severely over-reactionary. Simply make the people that are caught pay double the full retail price for each piece of stolen software. That should be discouraging enough and fits the crime. Jail time is ridiculous, ludicrous and a stupid reaction from small minded people. I certainly don't condone the crime, but there is also a crime going on with the over the top severity of the punishments. Let's stop the moronic behavior on both sides of the fence here.
ISPs are reporting major drops in bandwidth usage.
Wait until ISPs start getting accounts cancelled. It's simply not possible for people to receive less value from a service and be willing to pay the same price. The interests of ISPs and copyright holders are NOT aligned, and the ISPs that don't realize that they must oppose the copyright crackdown will go out of business.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Fear of getting bombed doesn't lead to long-term reform, and occupations are never won. Time will prove the 5.5 billion of us who think America is out of its collective mind and its so-called is the most dangerous man alive right. This will become the Vietnam of your generation. I can't say I'll feel any sympathy for the nominal half of America responsible.
As for the other half, welcome to the sane-but-powerless club.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
This is the same argument as "I'm too poor to buy that Porsche, so I'll just steal it instead. If I were rich enough, I would pay for it... So it's ok." etc.
If you can't watch it live, then don't watch it. Or wait and buy the DVDs. It's the current business model of television. Network does not make these shows to entertain you. They make these so to (gasp!) make money.
Yeah, I know. There this thing called VCR. But VCR is a glitch in the entertainement industry that was accepted. It was accepted because altough it is difficult to enterely bypass the commercials (you still see it, even on FF), and to distribute the show. Now with the internet and DIVX this is another story. But again a VCR recorded show and a DIVX of a show it two different things, and people have problem realizing that.
Well argued... I'm sure you won many a debate. Interesting how people resort to little spelling corrections in lieu of an actual argument.
I enjoy your claim of "freedom and democracy breaking out all over the place"
can you provide a link? Would it be better if we could wait and see if it lasts?
Remember the important lesson the president learn. Simply declaring something is so, doesnt make it so. that only works in the United States. you can declare science is stupid and people will beleive it in the United States. Things dont work quite like that elsewhere, and your definition of democracy and freedom may vary.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
First, he said he can (as in "is able to because either it is on network TV or he paid for the cable showing it") record the shows.
Second, at least this way someone gains: if he does not watch the shows, the benefit for the station/provider/advertisers is zero. If he downloads a file made elsewhere, that station/provider/advertiser combo benefits. The mean effect of people who paid for the content downloading it instead of watching directly is probably nil.
I simply refuse to watch TV anymore due to the 15+ minutes of commercials to watch a one hour show.
So I'm not really sure what the broadcasters hope to gain, other than trying to protect their advertising revenue as they lose eyeballs to people who are tired of the noise level on broadcast TV.
Look, advertisement is the current way these shows get paid for. If you're not watching the ads, you're not really a "customer" of the TV show producer anyway, so why should they care if you get to see their show or not? The thing is, if enough people can readily bypass the ads, then those ads lose value to the advertiser, and so they pay less money for them, and so the TV producers get to make fewer shows or make shows that have lower production values. Crappier actors. Crappier writers. Crappier crap. So in a sense, by supporting piracy, you're killing off any chances for good television shows to be created. You're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
ON THE OTHER HAND, if TV networks started offering their shows on the internet to download, either as ad supported or as pay-per-show or something, I think a lot of broadband users would jump right onboard. They are clinging to an obsolete technology/business model and ignoring the fact that a) we live in a VERY small world nowadays, it makes no sense to try and release something in the USA and not the UK or the rest of the Enlgish speaking world, and b) technology is capable of doing some incredible things for content delivery that they aren't servicing, so naturally, like in the days of prohibition, that market still gets serviced, but it's being done underhandedly.
Knight37 - Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer
...when I see that six of the "Top Downloads" on Sourceforge's front page are P2P clients.
I think the RIAA, MIAA and friends are fighting a battle that they'll inevitably lose, no matter how expertly they play the governmental and legal systems.
King Canute didn't have much luck either.
Pirate Party UK
If by chance the industries are ever successful in driving out the 'copyright infringing P2P networks', then they have just killed the consumer broadband market. ( and removed their source for free advertising in the process )
If you have nothing to download, then why have broadband? So you can get faster popus?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I am all for the elimination of truly infringing content on the internet and punishing those who distribute it. I don't believe that all information should be free, though I disagree with the dumb tactics of the worldwide music industry groups and their ilk. Creators of intellectual property deserve to be paid for their work. And while there are substantial noninfringing uses of these networks, many sites are dedicated to promoting the distribution of infringing or substantial amounts of infringing content. And, generally, there are more reliable means of accessing legitimate content than through these networks (excluding BitTorrent)
As for the decrease in bandwidth usage, I'm all for that if it is able to lower the cost of consumer broadband to a more reasonable level. The exessive use of broadband for questionably legal activity slows down networks for people who need to legitimately download their ISOs (or have their Windows boxen be spam zombies.) With the lower nominal use of networks, maybe prices will drop (as opposed to killing of the broadband market like one poster suggested.)
Well, look at it this way - the tobacco industry settled the suits - this will mostly protect them from future liability claims. So as far as the public and insurance companies go, they will have to assume the harms of smoking in the future and can no longer rely on being able to hit up the tobacco industry for it.
That being said, insurance companies and government sponsored health care will look to actively reduce smoking because of the health implications and the health care costs associated with them. The insurance companies will continue to increase the premiums of smokers to a point where they just cannot afford to continue smoking. The government is already making it really difficult to smoke - high taxes and various cities banning smoking in public places (Dublin, NY, etc.). They are already a lot closer. In Tokyo they even experiemented with banning smoking on the sidewalks in one particular district.
In the end, you are going to have very few places to smoke and it's going to cost you a lot to buy cigarettes, to insure yourself, and to take care of you health-wise. No one is calling for outlawing smoking completely right now, because too many people are still smoking and it would be a disaster (a la the Prohibition). So what they will do is make it costly and socially embarrassing to smoke (see all the people standing outside in the cold and rain smoking). At some point, they can make tobacco completely illegal, though at that point, it may simply be a formality.
With the exception of work connectivity (and I think those of us in tech need more bandwidth than others), video, music, software access are the chief benefits of broadband.
Admittedly not all of it is illegal (i.e. iTunes) but the media companies so far haven't done a great job of leveraging broadband for legitimate services.
Sometimes my arms bend back.