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Australian P2P Sites Disappear Overnight

Posted by samzenpus on from the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't dept.

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."

17 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business? by DeepDarkSky · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, if they shut down the P2P sites which were demanding most of the bandwidth requirements of the ISP, then it eliminates the need for broadband for a lot of people (at least for the time being). If people don't need broadband anymore, wouldn't ISPs lose broadband business? Are the anti-piracy groups willing to pay the ISPs for their "losses"?

    1. Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business? by IEEEMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      See post above about p0rn. There is no way that people who have had an opportunity to use the boardband providers could possibly go back to dial-up or anything else for that matter. Bandwidth is a drug and we are all addicted to speed. Besides, it might just push folks to look to legal sites to get their music and movies, you just never know.

    2. Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business? by jmcmunn · · Score: 4, Interesting


      I would say you're completely backwards here. Most users discover the ability to pirate large movies/music/files AFTER they get broadband. They don't usually buy broadband just to start pirating, it's just a side effect. So based on that theory, they will still keep their broadband to surf the web or whatever their original intent was. Perhaps the ISP's will be able to increase each user's "available" bandwidth if the select few stop sucking it all up with PSP crap?

      I for one, have vowed never to give up my high speed internet ever since the first day I had it 6 years ago. A lot of things have changed since then, but it sure hasn't gotten easier to surf the web on a dial up connection. There are so many pointless graphics on most sites these days, that a dial up connection is becoming useless.

    3. Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business? by DeepDarkSky · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'll add a little more to this:
      ISPs may look at P2P traffic the same way some people looked at smoking at one point.

      Somewhere in the world, governments still look at smoking and tobacco sale as a good revenue source, and so they are willing to "sacrifice" the people's health, or put differently, "mortgage" the people's future health costs to get cash upfront. Eventually, as we get more serious about public health and the danger of tobacco use is just so blatantly obvious and the health insurance industry catches up, it will become more costly to allow people to keep smoking, and therefore smoking may eventually become completely illegal - maybe.

      Let's say that ISPs are doing the same - they would be doing themselves a disservice to shut down P2P completely, even though they can absolutely block every form of P2P if they really wanted to. They are turning the blind eye to the problem of P2P and piracy because it is a source of revenue and it allows them to build up the infrastructure and the business demands while at the same time allowing enough business opportunities to develop legitimate broadband uses. Of course, in this case, they are doing it at the expense of the copyright holders who are "losing billions" to piracy each year.

      So my analogy, confused and unclear though it may be:
      health insurance = copyright holders
      government = ISPs
      people who pirate = people who smoke...

      Eventually, I'm sure, we will see that piracy P2P will become less prominent as legitimate P2P and download services and streaming services are developed and put in place. Witness the large ISPs like Verizon and Comcast building up their infrastructure and forming partnerships with content providers, etc.

  2. But after the raid? by bird603568 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They will probally open back up. Its like a dealer the cops are comming so they swollow it and sell it later.

  3. Re:Dang It! by smudge8 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live in Australia, and I woke up this morning to find that my connection speed was shocking. About 1000ms ping to local sites. Roughly 1 out of 2 packets dropping.

    Amazingly enough, I quit aMule and everything came good again instantly. Equally amazingly enough, all the downloads which I had queued and were going fine last night had disappeared.

    I don't actually think it's really linked (especially since we're not exactly talking about emule networks, are we?), but it's certainly odd.

  4. Am I a pirate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use P2P, in the form of bitorrent, for one purpose...

    I have a very busy work schedule with a lot of travel. There are 2 or 3 broadcast TV shows that I like so I download episodes when I miss them. Is there any real difference between that and just programming my VCR to do the same?

    Frankly, if they make this impossible, it won't make me watch more TV. It will just mean I'll miss the episode(s) in question. With the exception of the times I am home for "my shows," I simply refuse to watch TV anymore due to the 15+ minutes of commercials to watch a one hour show. Hell, I don't even keep the file after I've watched it since I don't want to fill up the hard drive on my computer.

    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.

    So I just hope they don't shut down my favorite tracker site and keep my fingers crossed.

  5. a little misleading by dirtydamo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As far as I know, all of the P2P networks which are being shut down are strictly local: they use IP filters to restrict to users within the same state (and on the same peering system) to take advantage of some ISP's free intra-state traffic.

    So this really has little effect except on the uber-leechers who are in any case breaking the law (this is of course a gross generalization, but one I am quite confident making).

  6. Re:Dang It! by smudge8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just to come to my own defence...

    Actually, I wasn't stealing music or movies - maybe what I was doing wasn't exactly 100% legal, but... I was downloading some episodes of something I taped off the TV. The tape was completely stuffed when I went to watch it, though. As for music... every mp3, m4a and ogg on my computer, I own the CD for. So there.

    Is it actually legal to download a copy of something you taped or not? In Australia it could be an issue, but what about in the States?

  7. Re:Next: Legal Defense Fund by bigtallmofo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The MPAA issued a press release saying they went after Lokitorrent. How does that mean that Lokitorrent didn't disappear?

    I was as big a fan of Lokitorrent and BitTorrent in general as anyone, but collecting tens of thousands of dollars as a legal defense fund and then mysteriously "settling" and effectively disappearing after the fact does not sit well with me. What were the terms of the settlement? Did Lokitorrent have to turn over all the money they collected from their legal defense fund? I find that unlikely.

    Show me a press release with the terms of the settlement and my suspicion could be allayed. Until then, I think it stinks.

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
  8. Duty Free P2P by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    In the UK, you can just cross the channel for your Duty Free P2P.

    A french appeal court ruled yesterday in favour of somebody who downloaded about 500 movies, on the ground that those were private copies, and that he didn"t redistributed them, and that a tax was payed on blank media

    source: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/11493

  9. Re:Good ridence by Maestro4k · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.
    • I agree, but I think what the music industry's doing is wrong. They're quite effective though, look at your own post, you've already assumed all those sites had nothing but warez and illegal stuff on them. We don't know if that's the case or not, as the cases have not gone before a court. It doesn't matter though as MIPI has won the war, even the article thinks so:
      • However, MIPI has shown that it might win its war on piracy through publicity alone: by doing high profile raids on well known businesses, then making audacious claims to the press about what it has found, it is sending shockwaves throughout the internet community. One user suggested that "Australia's isolation, which has protected it in the past, may no longer be a deterrent to law-enforcement authorities."

      This is just wrong, it essentially allows MIPI to be judge, jury and executioner. They don't need to bother to PROVE anything, they just cause everyone to stop using BitTorrent and P2P out of fear, even in cases where they were going to share something legal.

    I pay higher prices for software and music because of the rampant theft.

    • You pay more for your music because the music industry can charge more while waving the piracy flag in your face. You're partially correct, other than sheer greed the main causes for higher prices are outright theft (shoplifting) and large scale piracy operations that duplicate and sell illegal copies. The downloading online has not been shown conclusively to be a major impactor at all. The various studies done come back with opposite results, generally what result you get depends on who's funding the study.

    Contrary to what the prevailing attitude seems to be here, the vast majority of the public does pay for their software and music.

    • You haven't paid much attention have you? We agree, but with a few qualifications, namely:
      1. People won't pay a price they perceive as unfairly high, CD prices are hitting this now as people realize that CD blanks are insanely cheap and CD prices haven't come down much since their introduction
      2. People will go download what they want if the music industry refuses to offer it to them in a format they can buy. The music industry killed off CD singles, and many people refuse to buy whole albums for one or two songs (Online music stores like iTunes are not a complete solution to this, many people want a physical CD so they'll copy a friends instead of buying a digital music download)
      3. People like to know what they're buying is worth buying. When the majority of the songs on a CD haven't been played much, if at all, on the radio and in-store listening kiosks playing snippets of a few choice tracks along with the propensity for CDs to have only a few good tracks and the rest garbage many people will download an album to listen to before they decide to buy Do note that the music industry brought all the above problems on themselves.

    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.

    • Right, and you really think the current actions of the music industry will stop this group of determined pirates? The real pirates, the ones costing the music industry real money, are still out there making thousands and thousands of copies of CDs and selling them on the black market. They don't bother with BitTorrent and P2P because it won't make them any money.

    • And don't be fooled by the music industry and BSA's ravings,

  10. Now, usually I would have no problem with this.... by gt_swagger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But seeing has how the RIAA and its many incarnations worldwide have been deaf [dum dum TISHHH] to the demands of those they depend on for SO LONG, I say pirate on my friend. It's quite simple really... the RIAA can quit living in the mid-to-late 20th century and get with the program, or alternatives will find their way into market and force the RIAA to change to survive. A brief rundown of the MANY shortcomings of the RIAA: - They DO NOT do justice to your average artist [Steve Albini, producer of Nirvana's "In Utero" album, explaining how the artist is screwed: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html ] - Convicted of breaking federal anti-trust laws for price fixing et al multiple times - They keep pushing forward this one-hit-wonder crap assembly line style, making you pay the $12 (use to be $20 before anti-trust suit) for one or two songs. They don't want you to download online per-song [see the older Slashdot article about them wanting to raise the rate for an online download], because that threats this model of forcing you to pay for extra music that sucks. - They have NO concept of fair use. They've made it pretty evident they don't want you to rip your CDs into your own mix... or *gasp* put your mix on an mp3 player. How pirate of you. iTunes? Hope you don't like burning your mixes too often to change them around. We wouldn't you to get fair use of that piece of "intellectual property" you just PURCHASED THE RIGHTS TO now would we? For extra credit class, please view KoRn's music video "Ya'll Want A Single" --> it is bootlegged online in many places, and the video even requests you download it. "Film makers can offer their audience a choice of ways to see movies -- they can view them in the theater, rent them, or buy them. Music companies are much less flexible. It's hard to buy one song. You're forced to buy the CD." - Peter Chernin, CEO Fox Entertainment Group Quite frankly, the RIAA has shown it doesn't care if it craps on me, so I don't mind seeing everybody crap on them. Karma is a b**** aint it?

    --
    The Peanut Gallery, Ubergeek, Biblically Sober
    NCAAbbs.com: Thousands of fans, Hundreds of teams, Just one place
  11. Time for a community response by Progman3K · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We have to collectively STOP buying music CDs.
    It hasn't been shown that downloading music hurts the music companies, quite the opposite HAS been shown in fact.

    So we have to send the industry a message by no longer buying their product.

    If they don't have our money to use against us like they are now, they won't be able to pull these kind of totalitarian abuses.

    OK, you argue it might force all the music companies out of business. So what? With the Internet, they are no longer necessary; artists can market their music to clients directly.

    And in any case, the music companies no longer represent us, they are forcing horrible formulaic content down our throats.

    Put an end to these abuses, boycott the music industry!

    --
    I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
  12. Re:Won't stop anything by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2, Interesting
    You cannot stop P2P
    Looking at the most recent tactics of the RIAA/MPAA and their pals around the world, I would say that they are no longer targetting P2P directly anyway, or the companies that develop/host the P2P applications. They are now going after P2P users who upload materials owned by them. Uploading such material is illegal in most countries, and most P2P clients will upload as well as download (that's the whole point of them). Witness the recent flurry of cease-and-desist letters sent to users in various countries... next is a few trial cases which they will probably win or settle, and then the floodgates of litigation will open. The message going out to P2P users is: We can find out if our material is being traded on P2P, we can find you doing it, and we will sue you for it. The cease-and-desist letters have already made people more wary.
    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  13. New revenue model for ISPs by EmagGeek · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, now that ISPs are losing all of their customers that won't bother using P2P anymore, they'll have to get RedHat to increase the frequency of Fedora releases to make up for it.. if that's even possible :)

  14. Word. this is Right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I stand by every word you said, and to add, i am tired of and WILL NOT have a corporation stand between myself and my people. Why should the RIAA become arbiter of the emotional, spirtual, and cultural riches that music has been for ages in human experience?

    Same thing as the "the church" [insert favorite theocracy here] saying the only way to know god is through them. I personally, want my culture back.

    Am I being extreme? You decide. The RIAA can blow away on a wisp and music will not suffer. That's the biggest exaggeration with this whole mess i've yet heard, and becomes exponetially less real as we have.. ain't it obvious folks.. the INTERNET. Now let's make like some civilized people and communicate. emotions. culture. Freely.

    Shall i rant on that the RIAA and MPAA are *real* psychological weapons in use against taming us (Americans) & the world? No, i'll save that for later.

    way to go parent.