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."

Comments

Dang It!

[vjmurphy]

I was nearly finished downloading the complete works of Olivia Newton John and that new Men at Work greatest hits reissue. Now where will I turn to for my Australian pop song downloads?

Re:Dang It!

[CCelebornn]

Why the UK of course, the official home Kylie and other gorgeous ex-aussie soap "stars"!

Re:Dang It!

[smudge8]

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.

Re:Dang It!

[smudge8]

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?

Re:Dang It!

[cpt kangarooski]

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?

In the US it is illegal to violate the exclusivity of any of the rights of copyright holders enumerated, among other places, in 17 USC 106. One of these is reproduction, which is what occurs when you tape something off of TV, and also when you download.

However, it is possible that this conduct may, in some or all cases, fall under an exception in the law. One such exception is fair use (section 107), which may apply in some cases. However, it's also possible that in some situations, fair use won't apply. It's impossible to say that, e.g. all home taping is fair use. It depends on the specifics, so one instance of home taping, by one person, might be treated differently than another instance, perhaps by another person.

It's difficult to say that courts would allow downloading as a fair use, since it has little in its favor. That home taping has been known to be a fair use is in fact pretty surprising.

Of course, one good thing to note is that distribution, which is what you do when you upload, is a separate right, and thus a separate infringement, and likely much harder to defend.

Re:Dang It!

[3terrabyte]

Yea, it's legal, but is ain't a hundred percent legal. I mean you can't walk into an internet cafe, boot your laptop, and start downloadin' away. You're only supposed to download in your home or certain designated places.

It breaks down like this: it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it and, if you're the proprietor of the CD, it's legal to sell it. It's legal to carry it, which doesn't really matter 'cause -- get a load of this -- if the cops stop you, it's illegal for them to search you. Searching you is a right that the cops in America don't have.

Re:Dang It!

[Es02]

Well that's the LAN parties illegal then as well. If iPod users here are
in violation, what's an SMB share at QGL constitute?

*Sigh*

Yet another means for driving underground what could be used instead as a legitimate revenue stream.

As for Bittorrent, there are companies distributing updates and patches through it, along side Linux distributions which *should* at least have stopped them [corporate interest clause] and yet we see that going down
as well.

Copyright has for a long time been biased in favour of the user, perhaps too much so, but this is not a compromise, it is the same problem but in reverse and exacerbated. Placing all the rights into the hands of publishers and ostensibly the artists leaving the consumer with none is more of a gross injustice than giving too much to the consumer at the possible expense of the artist.

If a product is interesting to enough people then people will share it, it is a s simple as that. Most people will ignore the fact that it constitutes stealing. However, this also constitutes a very powerful form of free advertising for companies in a medium where most advertising is ignored [eg. E-Mail ads and those annoying pop-ups] potentially opening those companies up to another re4venue stream.

An example: Much of the music I own I heard first on the radio. Similar stories abound on the net. Download a low-medium quality rip of an album or movie, find you enjoy it - buy it - else delete it. You also don't get the pretty album art with a download unless you do some hard searching.

Another way of looking at it is the question: "Have you ever wanted a single song that was only available on an album where you hate/dislike the rest of the disk?" I answer "yes" a lot to that question, I'm also fairly poor. The ability to download single songs is not yet at a stage where it mirrors the choices offered by CD/DVD vendors.

P2P is often described in the media as being illegal. This as any informed Slashdotter will of course know is grossly untrue. P2P systems such as Skype or Seti@Home which take advantage of the Ad-Hoc nature inherent within the Internet are not illegal and by itself neither is file sharing [Although serving copyrighted content is a whole other can of worms].

If suing/ prosecuting those who operate networks used for illegal activities is justifiable then why aren't the Telco's who own the copper and fibre networks being hauled in front of courts? Its their networks being abused as much as its say Kazaa's. Road networks are used for illegal racing, parts dealers to obtain speed and performance enhancing gear, so why aren't they liable in the same way as a file share network?

The networks are a service, they have a legitimate purpose - the sharing of information. Their usage only becomes illegal when the use of that service becomes an abuse of that service. How does that differ from the above examples where the service providers are not liable?

We are using an electronic medium that traverses borders? Nope: phone phreaks,
spammers and almost every type of crook you can imagine uses the telephone
networks and/or internet to conduct or plan illegal activities. Yet it is them
who are targeted not their service providers.

So is it because the net is an inherently more lawless environment than the other networked systems allowing them to squeeze more money out of ISP's and small businesses instead of having to target [relatively] poor end-users? Looks like it doesn't it?

So to cut a long story short: Sharing good. Court-cases [potentially] bad.

Re:Dang It!

[Es02]

Is it stocked with warez mp3s and Div-X ;-] ?

If so they'll hunt you down and bomb it from the sky[pe].

Next: Legal Defense Fund

[bigtallmofo]

Not everyone is rolling over to MIPI, however. The administrator of one site has vowed to seek legal advice as a result of MIPI's enquiries into the legality of his operations.

I think I know the drill here. Set up a legal defense fund, collect tens of thousands of dollars and then disappear.

Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[DeepDarkSky]

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"?

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[IEEEMonkey]

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.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[LiquidCoooled]

Never underestimate the lure of porn on internet connections.

As connection speeds have been increasing, peoples ability to download more and more porn has also been increasing.

Is there a limit? Could a user REALLY use 100mbit purely for porn. Or is the standard 1-10mbit adequate?

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[DRobson]

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.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[jmcmunn]

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.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[tomhudson]

ISPs are reporting major drops in bandwidth usage

Other losers in the fallout:

1. Hard drive manufacturers
2. DVD burner manufacturers
3. And, finally (surprise) - Microsoft, Symantec, etc - as people who no longer see a "need" to be on the internet all the time have less need to be forcefed hardware and software upgrades, newer computers, and security products.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[DeepDarkSky]

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.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[Joules Burn]

Not entirely true, I've had several customers go back to dialup, purely because there only interested in email and very minimal web browsing and thought the price of broadband was excessive for their needs. I expect to see more of this, due to rising(?) broadband prices and the end of the fad for many.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[northcat]

It's the opposite. ISPs will incur less costs if the bandwidth usage is less (I believe most Australian ISPs don't charge based on data usage or based on time). Once people get broadband they will never go back.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[northcat]

It's the opposite. ISPs will incur less costs if the bandwidth usage is less (I believe most Australian ISPs don't charge based on data usage or based on time). Once people get broadband they will never go back.

Oops, forgot to add another point. If people can afford broadband then they'll definitely switch. Especially the kind of people who would download warez/movies (I'm implying that people who download warez/movies also use the Internet a lot for other purposes and hence they would prefer speed.)

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[D. Book]

Increased speed and download quota are not the only reasons people get broadband in Australia. One major benefit of ADSL/cable is the "always-on" nature of the connection, so there's no need dial-up. Apart from the annoyance of having to dial-up and repeatedly reconnect (many dial-up accounts have a automatic "kick-off" after X number of hours online), it's a significant cost issue since phone plans here don't typically offer "unlimited" local calls. Another is the fact that it doesn't tie up the phone line, which eliminates the need to pay connection and rental fees for a second line. In many cases, these are cited as the primary reasons for getting ADSL or cable, though increased speed/quota is probably still the main one for most people.

So while a reduction in copyright-infringing P2P use might make existing users choose plans with lower speeds/quotas, it's unlikely to reduce the uptake of broadband and it certainly won't make any existing broadband users want to switch back to dial-up.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[Zorilla]

It's the opposite. ISPs will incur less costs if the bandwidth usage is less

Unless you have some sort of Aussie-Comcast. Then you'll get "special super stupid cool improved rates" where you can upgrade to 1 Mbps for an extra $10 per month or downgrade your email storage capacity to keep your current rate. (Which is what Flet's ADSL recently did to me here in Japan)

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[Yartrebo]

At least for me P2P was the killer app and I would not have broadband without it.

Also, I really doubt my ISP doesn't make a profit otherwise they wouldn't be so lax about it.

The web might be slow, but I'm on a budget too. I've got to spend limited entertainment dollars wisely.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[smooth wombat]

Geek: I invented a program that downloads porn off the internet one million times faster.

Marge: Does anyone need that much porno?

Homer: (drooling) One million times...

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[MasterOfCeremonies]

As a possessor of a big penis I can say it has its downsides.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[antdude]

That is why I surf without graphics at home on dial-up. :) You don't need stinking graphics for reading stuff online.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[MukiMuki]

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.

Does NO ONE use Opera?!?!

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[DeepDarkSky]

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.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[1u3hr]

How many large p2p sites do you know of in Australia?... all the leachers will go overseas

According to TFA, most of the P2P networks were using uncapped bandwidth, between users on the same ISP, or same state. Downloading from overseas is going to burn their caps pretty quickly. Or maybe people will revert to sneakernet and have CDR swapmeets.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[DickBreath]

Anti-Piracy will NOT hurt the ISP business.

Most people will continue to use all the bandwidth they can get. Well, er, I mean that the Windows malware on their computers will consume all of their bandwidth.

Without all of that p2p traffic, Malware may get a better chance to help entrench itself. Could all networked Windows boxes eventually become so completely compromised that the compromises extend even to the build processes? Some kind of a "malware" tipping point?

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[snuf23]

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.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[__aabgfe356]

sif! People use broadband for heaps of legitimate reasons, dloading legit, open source etc sotware for one, playing games, online media content + more! Personally if this move frees up some of the national bandwidth for the rest of us who dont illegally download copyrighted content, then great! Faster NS for all!

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[jmcmunn]

Ha! I guess so. Even the preview didn't help me catch that one. D'oh!

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[jmcmunn]

Hell no, why would I want to see an ad banner or pay $39 for my web browser when there are two (or more) great ones for free? I'll download an image blocker plugin before I pay money for a web browser. And what is the point of getting rid of the ads on web pages if the browser has built in ads??? Opera blows until it is free.

For now though, my high speed internet keeps me surfing fast and Firefox avoids most of the ads just fine (especially with a few key extensions).

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[log0]

I think most people are in the same boat as you. However I predict many people, rather than go back to dial-up, would simply switch to a cheaper (200MB cap) broadband plan to keep the snappy response and convenience of always-on.

Still, it will hurt ISPs.

Re:Anti-piracy may hurt ISP business?

[modecx]

What, like getting it stuck in a door?

But after the raid?

[bird603568]

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

We shall go on to the end,

[t_allardyce]

..we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the web and P2P, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the wireless networks, we shall defend our warez, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight in the bedrooms, we shall fight on the internet cafes, we shall fight in the universities and in the schools, we shall fight in the ISPs; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this filesharing or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our warez beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Chinese hackers, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World.mp3, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the RIAA.

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[Pantero Blanco]

"To ignorant Americans"

Give it a rest already. I've talked to Europeans who thought WW2 was fought against Soviet Russia.

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[theparanoidcynic]

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.

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[gavin_barr]

To easy to misunderstand a joke based on a famous quote?

Whilst the French might not have fought much in France, "we" the Allies certainly did....

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. -- Winston Churchill, British House of Commons, 4 June 1940.

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[t_allardyce]

I was implying that the RIAA are the 'old' but they need to be liberated of their own insanity.

Ok you got me im an RIAA spy and im taking down all your user names for evidence..

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[FlopEJoe]

American nationalsts are jackasses and insain because France didn't want their back door deals into Iraq's Oil for Palaces program? Insain because of all this freedom and democracy breaking out all over the place? What exactly are you defending?

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[strider44]

Sure the french fought in france plenty of times: World War 1, 2, Napolean, Alsace-Lorraine, plenty of others I'm sure.

They were even on the winning side (eventually) for four out of five.

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[Anonymous Coward]

Well argued... I'm sure you won many a debate. Interesting how people resort to little spelling corrections in lieu of an actual argument.

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[Buzz_Litebeer]

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.

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[A beautiful mind]

I agree with your post, however get the terminology right: nationalists are positive, as they think of their country in a positive way, and don't try to cause harm for others. (according to the original definition)

Sovinists, the people you're referring to, on the other hand want to take advantage of other countries, or bash them just to make their own country look or be better.

Re:We shall go on to the end,

[Buzz_Litebeer]

Even though I come back to this late, and I expect no one to view it.

A few of the headlines jumped right out at me.

Iraq anniversary marked by more fighting

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-03- 21 -iraq-attacks_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

Perhaps fighting means peace? I dont abide with that definition...

US says troops killed 26 militants in clash
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7254703/

Thanks for the link, it further solidifies my position. So where you linking to prove peace is or is not breaking out all over the world? If the latter you succeeded handily, if the former... I feel you need to read your own source material before looking like a jackass.

Won't stop anything

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Won't stop anything

[aftermath09]

yep, watch all the servers move to outer mongolia. anyone want to set up an ISP out there? ;)

Re:Won't stop anything

[vettemph]

I don't believe that they are hassling P2P. just hassling free music servers. ...not that I'm taking an opinion.

Re:Won't stop anything

[JaredOfEuropa]

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.

Re:Won't stop anything

[HuguesT]

Then users will respond with more stealthy ways to conduct P2P trading. Those that don't require a tracker for example.

Draconian business practices

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm appalled that the MAPI chose to take this action, but even more shocking is that the provincial government of the Republic of Australia, is willing to play the role of jack-booted enforcers.

Before you know it, other Australian territories like Fiji or New Zealand will be cracking down on P3P sites. I will no longer do business with Australian web sites.

At least there is hope in that the House of Commons in Melbourne is debating applying the CD levy towards the MAPI demands.

Which is nice.

Re:Draconian business practices

[datafr0g]

New Zealand and Fiji are *not* Australian territories! - A proud kiwi!

Re:Draconian business practices

[shutdown -p now]

Unlike aussies, the kiwis actually dislike the US of A and their current policies quite a bit. Or that is my impression, at least.

Re:Draconian business practices

[laemas]

Have you ever heard the phrase "hook, line and sinker"?? You could probably apply it to your post.... (I am a Kiwi)

Re:Draconian business practices

[TeraCo]

The number of people who replied is almost frightening.

WHY ARE PEOPLE BEING STUPID ON THE INTERNET? WHY?

Re:Draconian business practices

[boarsai]

Since when was New Zealand and Fiji a territory of australia? Is this music crack down just a smoke screen for the rising of a new world superpower? While you're all worrying about your latest downloads of "the wiggles" and "high five" ... our government is quietly taking territories under our control. New World.mp3 indeed... but this is the remix baby!

Free the bandwidth!

[datafr0g]

Free the bandwidth from these Dr Who leak downloading bandwidth wasters and speed up my number of Slashdot homepage refreshes per second, while I wait for the next story to be posted!

Yes but . . . .

[theparanoidcynic]

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.

Re:Yes but . . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that traffic also costs money, especially International traffic which is very expensive. When you think about the number of different connections your Torrent makes vs. the size of the torrent, it starts to get expensive for the ISP when a large majority of users do it.

Re:Yes but . . . .

[PsiPsiStar]

Of course, the high traffic users also offer the least profit.

The most profitable users of broadband are not the ones constantly downloading music online 24/7.

This may not be so bad for the ISPs.

Re:Yes but . . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

ISPs are reporting major drops in bandwidth usage.

Nice graphs about the bandwidth usage drop in Finland after local Finreactor was busted are available from Ficix (scroll to bottom of the page) (organization which routes most of the traffic between Finnish ISPs). Finreactor was busted a bit before middle of December, and for example Suprnova went away shortly afterwards. It has taken three months for net usage get back to same levels.

...more traffic == more business for an ISP.

Isn't most of the ISP money coming from customers who pay for their ADSL/cable modems? At least here, home connections are never priced by bandwidth usage, so the ISP always gets same amount of money not depending on the amount of traffic. And more there is traffic, the more ISP has to pay for routers etc so that they can handle all the traffic... So, less traffic would seem to be better for ISPs, though maybe some customers change to slower and cheaper connections if there is nothing to warez.

Re:Yes but . . . .

[northcat]

Why does everyone seem to think that?!? More traffic == more COSTS. People pay the same amount regardless of how much they use it, so the less they use, the better for ISPs. And how many people, do you think, are going to refrain themselves from getting broadband because the availability of warez has become less?

Re:Yes but . . . .

[jonwil]

Actually, in australia, unlimited accounts are very thin on the ground (at least when I looked for the broadband account I am on)
Most accounts are either limited bandwidth then pay extra or unlimited but you get shaped back to 64k or something after you use a certain amount.

Re:Yes but . . . .

[karnal]

Is there a charge associated with converting the traffic?

Similar to an Exchange rate for currency...

Oh well, I thought it was funny when I thought it up.

Am I a pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Pantero Blanco]

If you skip commercials, most of the movie/tv show people already consider you a pirate.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[4im]

If you skip commercials, most of the movie/tv show people already consider you a pirate.

Maybe so, but where did they get my signature that I'd agree to watch their shows only along with all the crap around?

Their wishful thinking doesn't make it reality.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[jxyama]

>Is there any real difference between that and just programming my VCR to do the same?

programming the VCR and watching it later is 100% legit. no questions, no strings, no iffys. so why not use it?

i think the real question is, what is the difference between programming the VCR and p2p/downloading for you?

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Simulant]

Yeah... but if the networks made their shows available for download WITH commercials, guess where I'd be getting my shows from?

Unfortunately for them, the only place I can get them (and I mean, The ONLY place, since I live outside of the US) provides them commercial free.

I'm not complaining though. ;)

Actually, considering the fact that I can't find any players/codecs combination that will allow me to actually fast forward easily and accurately through most of the video I download, if the networks released shows with commercials, I think most people would be watching the commercials.

Of course that may quickly change....

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Dr.Opveter]

In the Netherlands you're considered a pirate when you make a copy of something and make it available publicly, without the permission of the creator/author.

When you use P2P i guess when the download is finished you have made a copy, and at that moment you are making the full copyrighted material available publicly, so you'd be a pirate.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Pofy]

Yes, because none of them do that. And they all read every single ad in a newspaper before turning page, they stop in the subway to read each ad before jumping on the train (even if they miss 10 of them while reading the ads) and so on. Yup, seems likely...

Re:Am I a pirate?

[eldimo]

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.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[bwalling]

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?

Yes, with P2P, you have access to content that you didn't pay for. You have access to HBO/Showtime/Spice/etc. Not all things are broadcast in all areas. Sporting events get blacked out in areas. Local advertisers lose out when you download a show because you probably didn't download it from someone living in your area, using your cable provider (there are local ads through the station that broadcast the show as well as through the cable provider).

You may not care about advertisers, but if the effectiveness of TV ads diminishes, then the quantity and/or quality of TV content will also diminish.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[knight37]

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.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[TLSPRWR]

"i think the real question is, what is the difference between programming the VCR and p2p/downloading for you?"

"Oh crap! I forgot to set my VCR/PVR/DVDR and/or they changed the time schedule again without me noticing to some crappy program that needs better ratings. How am I expected to follow the rest of 24/Lost/Smallville/Soap Opera(tm) without the knowledge gained in that episode? Well, I guess I just won't follow the TV show and let them lose out on higher ratings now that I've lost motivation to follow the show."
Why shouldn't you be able to download it on a P2P network? That was just a theoretical example (I don't follow TV at all, myself), but if they're going to continue making TV shows vital to follow every episode, then they're going to lose on viewership if someone can't work their schedule around that show or timeshift in some manner. Maybe they'll make back up for lost viewers it on DVD sales, but I don't know. I fail to see how going to a torrent site to download the episode you missed is worse than programming a VCR/PVR/whatever to tape it for you and editing out the commercials yourself.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[ratboy666]

When the cable industry started up in Canada, the cable companies slurped up US signals, and distributed them to Canadian cable subscribers.

No, the US providers where not paid.

Furthermore, US ads where replaced with local ads.

Niiice.

And now that industry has the HUTZPAH to complain that I download TV shows!?!

And, its offtopic - and I don't anything about Aussie IP law, anyway.

Ratboy

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Politburo]

It was accepted because altough it is difficult to enterely bypass the commercials (you still see it, even on FF)

Not always true. I once had a VCR that did not display picture when FF/REW in certain recording modes.

Furthermore, and more importantly, the VCR was accepted for time-shifting because SCOTUS said so, not because the industry acquiesced.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Shajenko42]

If you simply leave the room during commercials, they consider you a pirate. Fuck them.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Sj0]

I was going to point out that it's not the same arguement at all, but then I read the rest of your post, and realized that at no point are you right. Your point of view is wrong on a fundamental level which I cannot begin to correct in a single post.

Start with the idea that we are not serfs whose duty is to solemnly serve the will of companies we buy services from, nor the companies those companies buy services from. When it comes to Cable TV, we are the customers. We're in charge. If you don't like it, rant and rave all you want, because there's jack shit you can do about it.

Personally, I download The Daily Show every morning because I don't want to stay awake until 11:30pm every night to catch it all. I pay extra for the premium channel it airs on. That entitles me, as far as I'm concerned, to watch it. If I don't watch their ads, that's tough shit. I never signed anything that says I must watch them. Oddly enough, you can't pull the copout that I'm stealing anything either, because I'm watching a program I have paid for the right to watch.

Do you fancy yourself a conservative, perhaps? I ask because it's usually people who mistakenly label themselves as conservatives who act as if we don't deserve any rights to things we pay for, ironicaly.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Politburo]

Sporting events get blacked out in areas.

Blackouts exist because of clauses in the agreement between the league/team and the TV station/network. They do not exist because of any law or any agreement with the ultimate customer (the viewer). "Violating" a blackout, as a viewer, is completely legal. People who live in shared markets are frequently able to get around blackouts (i.e., people who live in areas that get signals from both the NY and Philly markets can watch the national NFC game on Fox 29 instead of the Giants on Fox 5). Note that all of the digital cable/satellite "total sports" packages basically throw away the blackout rules (obviously this exception exists because these packages bring in additional revenue).

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Sj0]

What's with people who are fundamentally wrong today?

Unless you download shows from the channels you don't have access to, come up with a good reason why it's illegal or immoral. I'm not the only one who pays good money for cable TV, and if I download a show I could have watched on the TV (sans commercials), it's content I have paid for in full, as far as I am concerned.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[eldimo]

Purchasing something does not entitle you to do everything with it. You can buy cigarettes, but cannot smoke in many places. Did you ever sign something that said "I will not smoke here"?

Subscribing to cable does not grant you the right to distribute the program. Neither does downloading an illegally distributed program is. Try to explain this to a judge. :)

If you don't like this, you have only one right: the right to stop watching it. You are not in charge. The society you live in has laws. Ether these laws are right or wrong is another story completely. :)

As for my political agenda, I am neither liberal nor conservative. I just try to balance both points of the view. And I do believe and I want as much as you that the entertainment industry should change (and will be forced to change). But I wanted to point to the original poster that was he was doing was illegal, and that he's reason for doing so were wrong.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Sj0]

Does the law that downloading a copy of something I have the legal rights to watch is illegal?

If I'm authorized to watch this program, how is downloading it illegal distribution? It seems to me that the same "licensing" scheme used to prevent people from downloading something they have no right to gives them full rights to download something they have the right to in another medium.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[eldimo]

The producer of the show only grants your TV channel that right to "distribute" the program. The channel owner expects you to use its broadcast signal to watch it (fine prints at the end of the program + FCC regulation). The channel owner and the producer do not recognize the internet as a valid distribution channel. It is illegal to distribute a program on the internet. It is illegal to download a program from the internet. Nobody is the owner of the program, except the channel owner.

I know it's the same program. But the ways to get it are different. One of them is legal, the other is not. And that make you actions illegal. It's like paying the milk man, but getting the milk directly from the cow, without the cow owner approval. Maybe the cow owner wants you to get the milk only from the milk delivery man, where the milk is processed and purified (so that he's not liable if you get sick).

Re:Am I a pirate?

[Sj0]

Then it seems it's illegal.

At any rate, as long as everyone gets their money, legality aside(because the law and morality are not the same, naturally), there's nothing morally wrong with doing it this way, and following the law doesn't help me sleep at night. :)

Really, I COULD buy a TiVO, but I prefer just getting it the next day. ;)

Re:Am I a pirate?

[AC5398]

*** You may not care about advertisers, but if the effectiveness of TV ads diminishes, then the quantity and/or quality of TV content will also diminish. ***

The effectiveness of TV ads dimished a long time ago by sheer overkill. Everywhere I turn, I see commercials - on tv, on the subway, on the subway floor, in the newspaper, in the elevator, as background noise on the radio. It's gotten to the point where I am ignoring signs posted on doors as the subconscious thinks 'advertisement' - before it has even read the sign - and tells the forebrain to ignore the white square pasted on the glass in front of me.

The commercials come on tv? My first, overriding instinct, is to turn the channel. It's a major effort for me now to remain tuned to the same channel when the ads come on.

Click click click.

So I purchase dvd box sets. Cheap dvd box sets. And edit out commercials whenever I get the chance; whether by fastforward, skipping ahead 2 minutes, or channel change. Any tv show that prices its content too high does not get my dollar. If this means they go out of business, so be it.

Buyer beware? More like seller beware!

I owe them nothing.

Re:Am I a pirate?

[FreakWent]

"programming the VCR and watching it later is 100% legit. no questions, no strings, no iffys. so why not use it?"

Not in Australia!!

Re:But surely

[Sj0]

http://www.legaltorrents.com/
http://www.xandros.com/products/home/desktopoc/dsk _oc_download.html
http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/bittorrent/ download.html
http://www.ferrago.com/
http://syd2.ausgamers.com:6969/
http://www.filerush.com/
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/blizzarddo wnloader.html
http://www.slackware.com/torrents/

Who is the one living in the bubble here? Personally, I love being able to download popular files quickly. I guess you'd prefer to pay fileplanet for the privilege, hmm?

a little misleading

[dirtydamo]

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).

Re:a little misleading

[cortana]

Shades of http://bash.org/?142934? :)

Re:Next: Legal Defense Fund

[Netsnipe]

Here's the MPAA press release that proves that the scam story was never true to begin with.

Well...

[Grendel Drago]

... if they were Germans, they were right.

--grendel drago

and the nazi boot in the computer

[spectrokid]

as seen here

Re:Next: Legal Defense Fund

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

This is why...

[agraupe]

This is why it's so much better to trade torrents on IRC. I use Russians (allofmp3.com, if you're interested), or the CD store, for my music, and IRC+BitTorrent for anything else I might need. I don't think they could shut down an entire network, and even if they did, all the operators of #insert-bt-channel-here would have to do is move a whole bunch of bots to a new place. It's interesting how older technology sometimes gets the job done better. BTW, does anyone know a good source of .torrents for music?

Re:This is why...

[DRobson]

IRC isnt as usable to your average leecher, hence its not as worthwhile for your regional music hired muscle to crack down on. If the bulk of the leeching population moved to IRC you can bet your arse that they would immediately move in an attempt to ban the protocol. Moving bots to a different network is identical to switching web servers.

Old technology isnt (generalising here) better, its just used by a smaller core of diehard nerds that arent worth prosecuting.

Re:Next: Legal Defense Fund

[northcat]

If you had even bothered to read a few comments on that story, you would have known that lokitorrent did not indeed disappear and MPAA did in fact go against lokitorrent.

Good ridence

[Blitzenn]

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.

Re:Good ridence

[westyvw]

Fuuny you should say this: "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."

Actually, the effect has been the opposite on music, the price went down due to piracy.

As far as software goes, why dont those companies offer SERVICE such as real support and charge for that? The reason whysoftware costs so much isnt due to piracy (damn do we have to go here again???), its due to becomming a standard and setting a price point that businesses will pay. The rest of the users they could care less about because it just ensures that people will be famialiar with it at work, thus closing the loop.

Re:Good ridence

[Spad]

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

That is weapons grade FUD and you know it. You pay "higher" prices for software and music because the companies know they can get away with charging those prices. If anyone questions it they can just claim that they were "forced" to raise prices because of piracy.

When was the last time you saw anything come down in price after yet another "successful crackdown on piracy"? In fact, with the exception of the recent drop in CD Album prices (Because they realised that people really aren't willing to pay £15 for one), when was the last time that the price of *any* media product went down instead of up?

Re:Good ridence

[hypergreatthing]

"I don't understand how people think that downloading cracked copies of software isn't stealing"

That's easy, because it's not stealing. It's copyright infrindgement.

"Maybe once the consequences of the actions get high enough, more people will stop"

Ohh, so you mean like drugs?

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

I love how people can say that since copies of software/music/movies aren't being sold that they are losing money somehow. No one is entitled to a profit.

"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"

And has that ever stopped anyone so far? From either copying said software or from you buying it?

"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."

To people who would not have bought it in the first place, yeah, that certainly fits the crime. Make them buy it twice! Maybe someday there's be lower prices all around (damn, you're living in a fantasy land there buddy).

Re:Good ridence

[ThosLives]

Actually, you *shouldn't* be paying more for software because other people are "stealing" software. The reason for this is another Econ concept (probably Econ 201 though, rather than 101).

The issue here is that software is not a "limited commodity" in that when I'm using a piece of software I am not preventing someone else from using that piece of software. This is different than, say, a hammer: if I'm using a hammer, you can't use the same hammer. The solution is to create a second hammer, which has an appreciable cost. The replication cost of software / music is almost zero though. A DVD, however, is a limited commodity, because if I'm watching a DVD at my house, the guy down the street can't be watching the same DVD at his house. That's why I'm willing to pay for a DVD; I like the quality and exclusivity of the thing.

Because software / music / etc. is not a type of thing where use is exclusive, the traditional models people use to set prices and make purchases breaks down.

This is like folks saying, "We lost $5M last year due to downloads"; that's not true, that's "we couldn't convice people to pay us for our product." That's not "lost sales" or anything, that's "poor marketing" (I include price setting in "marketing").

That's the real core of the matter though: ownership rules on software and such aren't the same as for automobiles. The old idea of copyrights and stuff isn't going to work any more and we're seeing the first sign of it. What "authors" and "performers" need to do is say, "I'll keep making stuff as long as I get enough people to pay me enough for me to keep doing this." This is a change of outlook from "I want to get as much money as I can from this". Put it this way, if I write a decent piece of software, and people want me to keep writing software, they will be willing to pay me for my programming services. If they don't pay me, I will do something else - supply and demand at its simplest. Under this new scheme, people will still pay musicians because a performance is an exclusive thing - you can only get the experience of being at the performance by, well, being at the performance.

The higher prices you pay for software are to pay for the enforcement of rules, not to protect the software! The other way to look at it is this: If I'm building cars and I need to sell 1,000,000 to pay for the people to make them, I better hope to get that many sales. With software, if I need to sell 1,000,000 to pay for the people to make them, I'd better set my price so that 1,000,000 people pay for it. If I get that sales volume at the price I set, I've done my job; if I want more profit I'd be better to adjust the price / features to get more people to pay me. If some people *don't* pay me, though, I should not care because it doesn't actually cost me anything if they don't pay me. Note that this only applies to downloads and copies, not purchased media (because of the exclusive nature of media)!

While I would advocate a massive reform of intellectual property law in general (including trademarks - what's up with the crazy trademarks I see on logos and stuff?), I also submit that there are currently laws on the books that should be honored. The appropriate course of action isn't to ignore or openly disobey the laws, but to put pressure on the appropriate channels to change the laws.

Re:Good ridence

[MadMoses]

Let me start with saying that I'm not trying to defend file sharers. I'm not one of them. I also agree on your thoughts on inadequate sentences. But...

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 [...]

Dream on. Most likely, this will never happen. The music industry didn't lower the prices of CDs since their initial rollout in the 80s, like they wanted us to believe. They are actually thinking about increasing the price for music downloads now that it is accepted by millions of users. What makes you believe they would lower their prices if they somehow managed to decrease file sharing, given their track record?

No, face it, even if all file sharing services all over the world would shut down over night, they would not lower their prices.

Re:Good ridence

[cpt kangarooski]

I don't understand how people think that downloading cracked copies of software isn't stealing.

Because it's not. It's illegal, it's just not stealing. Arson isn't stealing. Trespassing isn't stealing. Murder isn't stealing. If they're wrong, they need to be wrong for reasons that stand on their own, rather than by trying to stuff them into a category in which they don't belong.

Generally, I find that there are good reasons for copyright infringement to be illegal, but that most people who throw around loaded terms like 'stealing' don't know what they are, and can't actually make a good argument for their position. They're just appealing to emotion. Don't do that. Appeal to reason.

Simply make the people that are caught pay double the full retail price for each piece of stolen software.

Heh. You should take a look at 17 USC 504. The level of damages you suggest are tremendously low (and kind of vague) in comparison.

Re:Good ridence

[HPNpilot]

If you think you pay higher prices "because of rampant theft" then you have bought in to a spin unsupported by reality.

There are many points to consider, but here are two:

Supply and demand: At zero or very low price there will be greater demand for a product. Most of the people who get the product this way would not pay the going market price and so it is not fair to say that the producer has lost any money. The number of people who are willing to pay the going price but acquire the product via P2P or from the guy on the streetcorner hawking CDs has been shown from studies to be insignificant at this point. (Conclusion: free availability increases market penetration without adding support, distribution or advertising costs.)

Protected product pricing: By your logic a product which is perfectly protected from copying should cost less than one that is not. However, the opposite is true. For example, as Microsoft tightens their activation procedures, prices are increasing rapidly.

Your bandwidth comment makes little sense. The very reason you have the availability of a broadband connection is because of the demand caused by the free flow of large multimedia files. Had full copyright protection been in place all along, the adoption of broadband would not be where it is today. The interaction between different economic sectors is far more complex and intertwined than it may seem at first glance.

But I do agree that the extreme positions taken on all sides do nothing to help come to an agreement and compromise position.

Re:Good ridence

[Maestro4k]

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,

Re:Good ridence

[Anonymous Coward]

The economic issue is called "dead weight" -- basically, suppose that I download adobe photoshop CS. This constitutes no loss on the part of adobe because under no circumstances could I ever afford the $500 price tag -- they've lost nothing. I could afford $25, but since they won't sell me the software at that price, there exists a market inefficiency. By downloading photoshop from a torrent site I am creating $475 of value in the economy (for myself). This is a win-neutral situation. Its a big win for me, and its fiscally neutral for adobe, thus a net win for the economy.

Now if I was a business that needed photoshop and was able to pay $500, but I chose to download a cracked version for free -- this *would* harm adobe as its tantamount to depriving them of a sale.

Do you see the difference?

Re:Good ridence

[Epi-man]

This is like folks saying, "We lost $5M last year due to downloads"; that's not true, that's "we couldn't convice people to pay us for our product." That's not "lost sales" or anything, that's "poor marketing" (I include price setting in "marketing").

I agree pirating isn't stealing in the traditional sense (someone else losing usage of the item), but the comment "We lost $n last year due to downloads" certainly can be true. It certainly could be lost sales. Imagine this scenario I suspect is not all that uncommon: There is a group of 10 people who all want to play a game together. All 10 are willing to buy the game, it is worth it to them. Instead, one of them discovers a cracked copy online and downloads it, and then distributes it to the other 9. Had that illegal download not been available, the company would have had 10 sales, now they have 0. Is that not "lost sales" vs. "poor marketing?" The marketing had worked, they had 10 willing customers that decided instead to infringe on the copyrights and not purchase the product. Do you honestly think this type of scenario doesn't occur? I agree (especially with the music folks) that their numbers are probably quite inflated and many of the those downloading/copying games wouldn't buy them otherwise (I have fallen in that catagory many times), but to say they don't "lose sales" to illegal downloads does not line up with my sense of reality.

Re:Good ridence

[Yartrebo]

Good point.

There are two important economics points that one should remember when thinking about these kind of situations:

1 - Market price is related to marginal revenue, not marginal cost. In a free market the two are the same, but not in this situation.

2 - The ideal price (where marginal revenue equals marginal cost) is heavily influenced by the elasticity of the demand curve. In particular, when marginal cost is next to zero (as in CDs and DVDs), the ideal price is when the elasticity is 1.

Bootlegging increases the elasticity, since higher prices make more people buy the bootlegs. The more efficient the bootleggers (P2P, at a cost of $0, is more efficient than street vendors, at a non-zero cost) and the more popular the bootlegging is, the more elasticity is effected.

What this all means is that economic theory agrees with the parent, and that bootlegging and P2P decrease the price, not increase.

Re:Good ridence

[Yartrebo]

Media itself is always going down in price.

Bandwidth: Used to be $20/month + $3/hour for dialup access. Now it's $42/month for unlimited broadband.

Removable Storage: Used to be $1/1,440 kB floppy. Now it's $.30/4.4 GB DVD-R.

The only thing going up is pre-recorded media.

Re:Good ridence

[Yartrebo]

What's the retail price of something that isn't offered for sale anymore?

Re:Good ridence

[DarkSarin]

That is certainly one possible scenario, but it is not the only scenario. More often its along the lines of, "man, I want to try out this game, but I don't want to shell out $40 for a limited version." There are some games that I don't buy--and won't. Not because they aren't good, but because I wouldn't play them often enough to justify the cash layout.

An example is Unreal Tournament 200x. I love the game, but I won't buy it (for a variety of reasons). I have not pirated it, but I have played the demo a lot. The demo, in fact, is great. If I was just getting together with friends, I would never buy the full version--sure I would play it for the evening, but not any more than that.

Game developers generally make money off of two demographics--the dedicated players (think World of Warcraft) and the rich (and there may be some overlap) kids. Folks like me, who have neither much disposable income (but some), nor much disposable time, are much more likely to want to play a game for the afternoon on a single occasion.

Games I buy? Ones with extremely high replay value (Diablo II) that don't incur continuing expenses.

Re:Good ridence

[Kirth]

However. If those 10 people instead of buying your game buy any other game, or just download an open-source game, the maths in terms of money remain the same.

Illegal copies are, from a purely economic point of view, nothing more than "the same product, but cheaper". And if they're stripped of copyprotection, they're "the same product, but cheaper and without ugly restrictions". Or put the other way, the original is "the same product but more expensive and with restrictions"... Go guess what the market will do?

This of course, is a terrible problem. With all these non-scarce goods, the market works always against you. I don't have a working solution for the dilemma that the writer/producer/whatever would like to be paid, but economics work against him. Still, it is clear that contemporary techniques (copyright-law, copy-protection, digital restriction management) don't really work.

Re:Good ridence

[ThosLives]

Your example has an inconsistent set of assumptions: if the gamers opted to pirate the game instead of purchasing it, that means they were not willing to purchase the game at its price (the "cost" of the risk of getting caught was lower than the monetary "cost"); if they were, they would have. To get their purchase, the copmany would have had to set the price lower. The balance to this system is that, if enough people do not pay for the game, more [games] will not be produced and those people who want to buy [games] will be SOL. The system doesn't need "copyright protection" to function for non-exclusive goods/services; if it was indeed a free market it would be self-balancing. This is the thing that folks don't want to acknowledge when it comes to any type of protectionist measure, be it unions, tariffs, or whatever. These measures give a false sense of value to the producer where the value does not really exist; this causes all sorts of economic hardship.

If people are not willing to pay the price for a piece of software, music, a book, or whatever, then they are saying with their money that it has very little value, so if it wasn't there they would not feel like they were missing out. The "producers" would then have to go produce something that is valued to get revenue and perhaps produce the "unvalued" item/service for personal enjoyment. Nowhere in economics does it state that you are entitled to always have a market for the thing you want to produce.

Incidentally, this doesn't address at all the issue of non-exclusive commodities.

Like I said, Econ 201; even if you don't like the implications.

Re:Good ridence

[Gruneun]

You pay "higher" prices for software and music because the companies know they can get away with charging those prices.

God forbid someone spends their time and efforts creating a product and attaches a price that they feel it's worth. If you don't think it's worth it, don't buy it, but don't imply that it makes the creator evil or somehow becomes justification for stealing it.

Re:Good ridence

[calculi]

No, God (who doesn't exist btw) doesn't forbid it. But don't lie and tell me I'm paying higher prices because some people steal it, especially since it costs the company nothing directly to have their software pirated (as long as the pirate wouldn't have purchased it otherwise -- and almost all wouldn't).

Re:Good ridence

[brkello]

Illegal copies are, from a purely economic point of view, nothing more than "the same product, but cheaper".

What a strange statement. I am not sure if it is really valid. Because in one scenario money is transacted, and in another it isn't. Maybe you mean that if the game is bought or pirated in both cases the company still has the product and the consumer still has the game. Most of the statements in this thread strike me as intelligent bull shit (not so much the parent, but the grand grand parent). I can understand the point that is trying to be made...but in the end, it all sounds like a justification for the piracy of software. Yeah, so what if you aren't depriving the company from the product. You are still using something that you should have paid for. Then people bitch about copy protection. Well, they wouldn't be trying to do that if you morons wouldn't be using their software without paying for it. Then you use copy protection as a justification to pirate more...please. It's one thing to pirate and understand what you are doing is wrong, but to justify that doing it is ok...that just doesn't make sense. If you want to do the "right" thing, either pay for it, or don't use it. If you try to justify it somehow, you should be slapped. (again, this is not aimed at the parent, but others in this thread). I think the only real way to stop this is to actually make it so that people are afraid to use pirated software. If you start slapping people with fines, it will curb it a little. Right now, no one worries about it except companies. Or, (and I don't reccomend this), companies can put out their own pirated versions of the software that actually really screws up your system. Like, deletes key registry files and puts up a screen saver that says, this is what you get for trying to run illegal software. Of course, that's a horrible thing to do, but it would curb piracy.

Re:Good ridence

[Stonehand]

Bogus argument.

In the absence of the cheaper (and in this case illegal, but in practice the probability of actually suffering legal consequences approaches zero for anybody but a massive sharer or a business that gets raided) alternative, the willingness to pay a higher price for a legal product may drop remarkably.

Re:Good ridence

[Stonehand]

On the other hand, you may have cost Jasc the approximately $100 or so potential revenue they tend to charge for their competing product, and Adobe the same approximately $100 or so for Adobe PS Elements -- as both companies offer cheaper photo-editing software specifically for the market that wants to do photo editing but not pay for full Photoshop. Ditto Picture Window Pro and the bleedin' rest of the market. There is likely something else you -could- afford.

And it may be quite possible that you could afford $500 if you cut out other expenses. How often do you replace your computer or automobile, for instance? How much do you spend eating out rather than cooking for yourself? And so forth.

Re:Good ridence

[jratcliffe]

"The higher prices you pay for software are to pay for the enforcement of rules, not to protect the software! The other way to look at it is this: If I'm building cars and I need to sell 1,000,000 to pay for the people to make them, I better hope to get that many sales. With software, if I need to sell 1,000,000 to pay for the people to make them, I'd better set my price so that 1,000,000 people pay for it. If I get that sales volume at the price I set, I've done my job; if I want more profit I'd be better to adjust the price / features to get more people to pay me."

Only problem with this analysis is that you don't need to sell 1mm copies to break in, you need to generate $xxx (call it $1 million) to break even. Be that 1 copy @ $1MM, 1k copies at $1k, or 1MM copies at $1. Assuming that there are a total of 1 million people out there who have any interest in your software (i.e. would use it if it were $1), then the ones who pirate do have an impact. If everybody pays up, then you can sell the product for $1 a copy, and things go along swimmingly. If 200k people pirate it, then you need to generate $1 million from only 800k users, not 1 million, so the price has to be at least $1.25. Your breakeven price has gone up.

That being said, it's certainly true that # of illegal copies * retail price/copy lost revenues, but some portion of those illegal copies are used by people who otherwise _would_ have bought the software, and those are real losses to software vendors.

Re:Good ridence

[Politburo]

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.

How can there be a vast majority AND a large minority?

Re:Good ridence

[Poeir]

This is like folks saying, "We lost $5M last year due to downloads"; that's not true, that's "we couldn't convice people to pay us for our product." That's not "lost sales" or anything, that's "poor marketing" (I include price setting in "marketing").

Brings up the notion of something like, I lost $1 billion last year because sales of my dryer lint were lower than anticipated due to people stealing their dryer lint from the laundromat. (Price per item: $500 million)

Re:Good ridence

[prisoner]

You make some very well thought-out and valid points. However, I'm not sure that many of them make much difference in the real world. The most obvious of which has to do with your format and selection of tracks arguments that concern music. Is isn't that your points here are invalid, it is just that most people don't take the viewpoint of "fuck it, I won't buy it" and stop there. Instead, they just d/l the whole thing off the net for free.

I mean, who are we kidding here? If you have a big pipe to the internet and can get all of the movies and music you want on demand (and for no charge) are you going to run to the store to buy even a single track (if it were available) off a cd that you like? No! You're going to hose it off some torrent or IRC or whatever. This shit has got to stop.

Are the current enforcement methods stupid and over the top? Yes, but what other course of action is open to the publishers? Are they going to send out kindly worded letters to people everywhere asking them to stop? I dunno, does that tactic work for the IRS? Doesn't seem to otherwise they wouldn't have an "enforcement division".

The bottom line here is that the people that make this stuff publicly available are breaking the law and, if caught, will be subject to the tender mercies of the Justice system. Just because the laws are stupid doesn't mean that you can break them and not be subject to the consequences of your actions. I hate red-light cameras but that doesn't mean that I run through them just because I object. It means instead that I got involved and got the laws changed....oh, and leave your "big-industry, big-money" argument in the bag. The companies peddling that red-light technology (at least in my neck of the woods) are some of the largest defense contractors in the nation.

Re:Good ridence

[aaronl]

Or you could do it how it's really done. Charge the highest possible price that the market will bear, whether or not you make it cheaper.

Example: cost to develop software is $600,000. Production, shiopping, advertising is $1,500,000. Sale price is 50$. Volume to cover costs is 42,000 units. You know you'll sell at least 350,000 units. (I'm assuming a decently popular video game genre.) You've made $17,500,000 in revenue and $15,300,000 in profit. After 40% taxes, you have $9,945,000 in real profit. You could have likely sold another 100,000 units if you priced at 30$ instead of 50$, but at 30$ the end result is only $6,840,000.

Re:Good ridence

[Travelguy100]

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

I'm sorry - this statement is absolutely incorrect and displays a lack of knowledge about how markets work. Unfortunately, it keeps geeeting repeated by The RIAA, BSA, MPAA and various other agenda driven organizations so often that people start believing it.

People pay what they perceive to be a fair price for products. The argument that prices would be lower if traded copies weren't available has as much validity as the argument that music CD prices will come down once the cost of coverting record plants from vinyl is recovered.

If I'm willing to pay $100 for software package X with a certain level of leakage, why would vendor X reduce that price at all? Fact is, they wouldn't - there is no economic reason to reduce the price. In fact, there would be every reason to increase the price.

Re:Good ridence

[ThosLives]

aaronl has the right idea here; his example is demand-based (the market is willing to bear $50) where your example is supply-based (I need to get $1m to break even). Generally the type of product/service you're offering determines if you have to base things on breakeven cost or profit maximization. The thing that nobody really knows, and at which they must guess, is the slope of the demand curve. In aaronl's example, a 40% price reduction ($50 down to $30) only yielded a 28.5% increase in volume sales (350k to 450k). This means you wouldn't lower the price. However, if a 10% price drop yields greater than 10% volume increase, you would drop the price (overall increase in profit). Sometimes you can actually gain profit by raisingprices - like is happening with all the oil companies (a 10% rise in price sure doesn't produce a 10% drop in demand); if you look at the profits for the oil companies last year they made a killing.

Your example is very appropriate for the situation: the company set their price at $1 hoping to get 1 million customers, but they only got 800k instead. The reason is that, for their price point, some other product beat theirs out (in this case, $0 with a slight chance of legal action). The question is, if they lowered their price to $0.90, could they get 1.1 million customers to make their $1 M requirement? I'd say that, given your example, the market for their product at $1 is only 800k; the other 200k folks wanted the item but weren't willing to pay that price so they went to a distributor with lower cost (the "risk" of getting caught with an illegal copy). As I mentioned above, it's really two products: the software with no legal consequences for $1, or the software with a low chance of legal consequences for $0.

The companies are looking at it like they didn't get what they were due, when it was really that they forecasted demand incorrectly at the price point they picked. The thing is, there is no magic formula that guarantees what your sales volume will be based on price. You can guess, but "past performance is not an indicator of future performance."

I think people forget that demand curves aren't just a function of the price of a given product, but also the prices of alternatives to that product. With "downloadable" products, the two alternatives are what I stated above: the same item with potential legal consequence or without.

I did realize, however, that your example pointed out how smaller demand causes prices to rise; if there is only a market for 800k at $1, the supplier would raise prices to, say, $1.50 and hope they could get 670k to pay (note they shouldn't expect 800k customers at the higher price!). The price did not rise, however, because people stole their product; the price rose because they weren't at the equilibrium point on the curves. What nobody knows, though, is if the people who didn't pay would pay if there were no alternatives (if there was not a $0 option). That's the only way you could claim lost revenue, and that is not a determinable number. (The reason it cannot be determined is because the decision process is a complex beast between all available alternatives; when the set of alternatives changes, the assumptions that worked before probably no longer hold true).

Re:Good ridence

[jratcliffe]

Extremely cogent and thoughtful - what are you doing posting on Slashdot? ;) You're right, there is a price on the "alternative good" of taking and not paying, it's Penalty * % chance of getting caught. Since the chance of getting caught is very low, the perceived price is very low.

That being said, the idea that, since it's tough to determine what purchase behavior would have looked like, had the "take and don't pay" option not been available, nobody can claim lost revenue, just doesn't fly. Clearly, the lost revenue isn't retail price * illegal downloads. Just as clearly, it isn't zero. From a law enforcement point of view, I have no particular issue with assuming that it's retail price * illegal downloads. After all, if you lose your ticket at the parking garage, they assume you've been there 24 hours, not that you just got there.

Fundamentally, I think we disagree about what companies can reasonably expect about customer behavior. I think that its unfair to tell companies "you should have designed your business assuming that a significant portion of potential consumers will break the law instead of purchasing your product."

If we do want to tell them that, then we shouldn't be surprised when they design their businesses to reduce that risk (requiring a phone call to activate software, anti-copy technology on CD/DVD, etc.).

Re:Good ridence

[snuf23]

"when was the last time that the price of *any* media product went down instead of up?"

The entire prerecorded video market was created because of cost reduction. In the early '80s prerecorded movies cost about $80 a pop. This is what gave rise to the rental market. Then a video was released at the $20 price point (I could be wrong but I think it was E.T.) and became a mass market success. This lead to an across the board price drop on videos. Even DVDs are mostly priced in that range.
Also if you factor in inflation, if a price for an item stays flat over a substantial amount of time, than you can say that the price has in fact decreased in adjusted dollars. I paid $50 for the computer game Ultima 3: Exodus in 1983. It was a high end game for the time, but that price hasn't changed all that much in 22 years.

Re:Good ridence

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Think about it, if you had spent thousands of dollars on copy protection and DRM that got immediately broken time and time again why would you continue to throw money down that hole? It's not a very sound business practice, once it's obvious (and it's been so for a looooong time) that DRM and copy protection aren't going to stop piracy you need to look for another solution.

The DMCA makes any technical restriction have the force of law. DRM isn't only useful for making it hard to either pirate or exercise fair use (it is breakable - your argument is true), but it is useful for making it ILLEGAL.

XOR (some 8 bit byte) was used as an encryption method for a bar code reader. (I am being vague, don't want to break any laws). Such a scheme is trivally breakable, true, but it still allowed the DMCA to be used.

Re:Good ridence

[neonmagic]

Partly yes. Partly no. Large corporate businesses seek to control - whether there's piracy or not, they'll still seek to introduce methods to control their customers. The MPAA and RIAA are monopolies. Yet the US government seeks to give them unlimited power (above the law, legal for them to do dDos attacks as an example). Laws are for everyone to abide, not for the rich and powerful to avoid. As to downloaded music (mp3s), a lot of people do buy the CDs. I grabbed an "illegal" mp3 of Avril Lavignes "complicated" a few years ago and was hooked. The result? I've bought both of her albums, seen her live in concert @ Sydney, bought all of her CD singles. If I hadn't heard that song (courtesy of someone else - "illegally" downloaded mp3) i'd never have heard of her, since I don't listen to the radio and don't watch TV. Sure - not everyone's like this, but some people are. Technically, i've participated in piracy, but I challenge the RIAA and ARIA to have a go at me. They're rich, greedy bastards, that's all. With the introduction of compact discs, it became easier and cheaper to make music (LPs were much more expensive to produce). Recording companies profits sky rocketed, whilst artists didn't get an increase in royalties. music stores could pack more "music" and also made more money. The losers? The artists. The recording comapnies are nothing but greedy leeches. They leech on others talent, when they have none. They seek to control and rort the system, because they are rich and powerful. I also fail to see why 2 US based monopolistic organisations have ANY legal right to extend their crap to any other country other than the US. As to those that engage in piracy - I suggest you go back to dialup accounts. Or drop your internet accounts completely. If 80% of the population does it, it'll completely fuck the ISPs, and have a large downward effect on local economies. Keep doing it. Speak with your wallet, withhold money. Don't use their services. It's the only thing that large bastard corporations understand. Don't buy music CDs/DVDs, DVD movies, VCR movies. Boycott them. Six months of this and the MPAA and RIAA would be broken, and the artists would be rebelling. The damage to local economies would force governments to intervene. Return power to the people, for the people, not for the very tiny % of greedy, rich bastards that seek to control, and seek to be above the law(s). I use GPL'd software. I'll never touch commercial software again. I won't support illegal monopolists like Microsoft, and I certainly won't support a corrupt US or Australian government. Dave

Re:Good ridence

[Blitzenn]

" I am creating $475 of value in the economy (for myself)."

That is a very zenophobic view of the economy. If you are stealing tools so that you can do a job that you otherwise could not do, then you are taking that money from someone who legitamately purchased those tools to conduct their business. You have removed an equal portion of dollars from someone elses economy. You cannot add money to your own 'economy' without it coming from somewhere. That is too narrow a view on how things work.

Re:Good ridence

[Epi-man]

My original post:
but the comment "We lost $n last year due to downloads" certainly can be true. There is a group of 10 people who all want to play a game together. All 10 are willing to buy the game, it is worth it to them.

Your reply:

Your example has an inconsistent set of assumptions: if the gamers opted to pirate the game instead of purchasing it, that means they were not willing to purchase the game at its price (the "cost" of the risk of getting caught was lower than the monetary "cost"); if they were, they would have.

No, my set of assumptions are not inconsistent. I stated that all 10 were willing to pay the price, it was worth it to them for the game. Absent the (like it or not) illegal option of a $0 option (talking opportunity costs since you like economics, the opportunity cost is darn near zero since odds of being caught "stealing" the copy is near zero), the company had sales of 10, now they have sales of zero. Where is your reply refuting my statement?

Later on you say:
If people are not willing to pay the price for a piece of software, music, a book, or whatever, then they are saying with their money that it has very little value, so if it wasn't there they would not feel like they were missing out.

Again, you are ignoring that these 10 people were willing to spend the money on the software, it was that valuable to them, but when presented with a zero cost (in their minds) option, of course they took it, they are bargin shoppers like the rest of us.

Nowhere in economics does it state that you are entitled to always have a market for the thing you want to produce.

I disagree, in economics you always have a market for what you produce, it may have a population of zero, but you can try to sell whatever you want (yes, in the world of economics prostitution is allowed). To support this concept in the laws of the United States (and most other countries) do state that you can control the distribution of what you have produced, and others are not allowed to take what you have produced and offer it for nothing without your consent (in the case of the GPL), or compensation to you (they originally purchased it from you if it is hard goods, or a license you agree is transferrable).

The system doesn't need "copyright protection" to function for non-exclusive goods/services; if it was indeed a free market it would be self-balancing.

Sort of a tangential question, and not intended as a troll or inflamator, but does this mean you don't support the GPL or BSD licensing?

Re:But surely

[Sj0]

How so? Those two are both examples of massive downloads that are difficult to get from servers nowadays because of bandwidth concerns. To be honest, I got most of those from google.

and legaltorrents is mostly creative commons music. That's the one I thought of right away.

Re:Next: Legal Defense Fund

[bigtallmofo]

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.

Sounds like

[rbanffy]

Sounds like "nuclear scientists disappear overnight".

An evil genius must have kidnapped all australian p2p sites in a plan to create a secret weapon that will dominate the entertainment industry.

Back to Dial-up

[vettemph]

Looks like we can all switch back to dial up now. Nothing like $10.99 internet access. I was getting tired of paying $50 bucks anyway.

Re:Yay Finally

[inflex]

Woah, obviously too much of a rush to the head there - all the excitement.

What I meant to say is that it'd be nice with all the P2P traffic gone - as for a change the other sites on the net will appear to come down at a decent speed.

Of course, irrespective of it being a tongue-in-cheek humor commonent and because I /implied/ something negative about P2P I got struck down as flame-bait, hilarious.

Wait until ISPs get accounts cancelled

[Russ Nelson]

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

Re:Wait until ISPs get accounts cancelled

[eazyduzit]

I don't think people will cancel their accounts but will instead opt for lower quota/speed plans to save some money. For gaming, downloading the usual patches, service packs, etc, broadband is still the only way to go. A 256K plan would be more than adequate for such purposes.

P2P (I include NG's here, if not strictly p2p) has been one of the 'killer apps' that make broadband a commodity worth paying big bucks for. ISP's have known this and were quite happy to accept payment for users of their infrastructure to download 'warez'. Note, I do not say that they explicitly condone this, just that they are aware of it.

As for me, it's all good. arrr me hearties!

Re:Wait until ISPs get accounts cancelled

[prisoner]

HAHAHAHAHAHA...how many people that have broadband that you know would ever go back to dialup?

Porn alone will keep them on broadband...:)

all-you-can-eat bandwidth part of the problem?

[guanxi]

At least in the U.S., most ISPs provide virtually unlimited bandwidth to home users at a flat rate.

It works very well for me, and I understand the other advantages, but if the home ISPs made money per Kb downloaded, they'd no doubt see file sharing as a good source of revenue and would find more ways to support it, technically and politically.

Re:Why wasn't that typed in *GERMAN*?

[theparanoidcynic]

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.

House of Commons?

[TapeCutter]

... in Melbourne? .... and Johnny has invaded Fiji and New Zealand? .... and WTF is P3P?

BTW, is Bush still King of the USA?

Duty Free P2P

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:But surely

[makomk]

Gee, it's almost as if legal P2P usage is a tiny, insignificant amount compared to the enormous amount of illegal use.

As someone commented in another post, it may be insignificant in amount, but that doesn't mean it isn't important. In the case of BitTorrent, the legal uses occur because it really is useful for legal purposes (just non-mainstream ones like the fabled "downloading Linux ISOs").

Not, at least for software

[dallaylaen]

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.

Well, I find this proposal reasonable but it will never be adopted:

1. One cannot get ALL the freeloaders, even more -- try to sue someone for download, and the judge will likely say "NO". Downloading is bad, but de-facto only redistribution, is illegal.

2. As for software, extermination of warez will move 10% of users to legal apps and 90% to free analogs. There are many open source programs around that may have less features and be less convenient... But good enough for $0 you pay for them.

FF five years, most p2p users are trained with free/open programs, like OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. Software makers lose much money. No, they don't want the warez to go away, it's a good advertising and it holds competitors back (less users, less bug reports/interest/donations).

Now, usually I would have no problem with this....

[gt_swagger]

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?

That's not what he said

[Pac]

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.

Re:what is it with australia?

[TapeCutter]

Nah, They mentioned the hurricane (2nd one this month) but the biggest news I saw last night (channel 10-Melbourne) was about two Real Estate agents who got caught bonking in a clients house. They have been planning this since before we signed up to the FTA, but this is also the homeland of Rupert Murdoch, so you wont see much differen to FOX type reporting on the commercial stations. Part of the FTA was to implement US style IP laws in Australia. The IP bastards have already stolen our Ugg boots and tried to scrap our cheap prescription drug system using IP as a weapon. For over 30yrs, people in Australia have rarely had to go without medicines due to thier cost and yet the drug companies still make a profit.

Re:Why wasn't that typed in *GERMAN*?

[skarmor]

Gas prices are now higher here than they have ever been. The national average is over $2/gallon, and there are numerous angecies saying that it only goes up from here.

Frankly, I don't think that would be the case if old Georgie was seriously trying to secure permanent oil interests in Iraq. Perhaps we will benefit in the long run, but if we do, I suspect that it will be only if greater peace and stability makes it to that region.

Anyone who thinks that this war was just about securing American oil interests is being shortsighted. The deisred result from this conflict is ultimately for America to gain control over the middle eastern region. In order to get control of the region, individual countries (Iran , Iraq, Lebanon, Syria) need to be "stabilized" by the means of education (or re-education) of the population, investment in infrastructure and, of course, the deployment of massive amounts of American troops who will "liberate" the people from their current political regimes.

Strategically it is a good idea for the US to have an (even greater) controlling interst in the middle east, from the perspective of resources (oil) and geography, to act as a foil against an incresingly contrary Europe and the ever-increasing economic and military "threat" posed by both India and China.

Now I can understand the American position where they are the dominant power and will do what it takes to remain so -- but it irritates me when they act as if this America-first strategy is an excellent thing for the rest of the world...

Re:Why wasn't that typed in *GERMAN*?

[A beautiful mind]

Okay. I won't even use the "i'll bite" phrase which i hate with passion.

Do you have the same amount of evidence to the French bribe case as you have had for WMD which turned out to be a logical loophole, magically disappearing?

There never were pro-american demonstrations on the Middle East, at least not significant ones. Actually, 2/3 of Iraqies would have preferred if americans wouldn't have invaded their country and toppled Saddam. The religious leader who got elected in Iraq is a quite enlightened one, compared to the surrounding countries, including Izrael, but i wouldn't say he's american friendly. He just serves his own country.

Syria is being pushed out of Lebanon for two reasons: a.) increasing international pressure (UN resolution) b.) The uproar caused by Hariri's assassination and huge demonstrations caused by it. The government resigned in Lebanon just because of that.

I think you're not making sense. Go get rid of your american pride a bit, and try to look at the world, actually, instead of some government-close tv stations.

Re:Why wasn't that typed in *GERMAN*?

[KingEomer]

If this is off-topic then so are all of the rest of the posts under the grandparent. Look at the grandparent's title. What do you think it was talking about? Yeah, it was talking about the "fact" that the US won WW2 for Europe.

Clockwise or Counterclockwise?

[HomerJayS]

When all of these Aussie P2P sites flushed the evidence down the toilet (as the door was being broken down by the authorities), does the evidence swirl clockwise or counter-clockwise before going down the drain?

Re:Clockwise or Counterclockwise?

[EmagGeek]

I think hard drives spin in the same direction regardless of where in the world they are... :)

Re:Clockwise or Counterclockwise?

[Maxo-Texas]

hehe. That's pretty clever.

Re:Clockwise or Counterclockwise?

[BancBoy]

Wouldn't that be anti-clockwise?

Time for a community response

[Progman3K]

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!

Re:Time for a community response

[RobertoTSM]

You cant seriously expect that to work can you?
For starters, it isn't the record companies alone that "force horrible formulatic content down our throats", it's mainly the radio. Commercial radio. Commercial radio is not concerned with music at all. All it cares about is advertising. It plays music that people are buying, have bought, and plays the songs AROUND ADVERTS. the music draws people in, people hear the ads, the product makers pay the radio station and the people pay the product makers for a product.
The music companies are only trying to make money, thats what you do when you go to work, make money. The record companies are trying to protect the thing that earns them money. The music. Now, you don't have to listen to the music they provide, and you definately don't have to buy it. But remember, when you DONT buy a given artists CD, the artist doesnt get paid. Sure artist wont make much (depending on what sort of contract said artist has), but music is this persons job.
And music companies are completely necessary, because without them smaller bands who could not fund the pressing and distribution of their music normally, could get assistance from the music company. The money would be taken out of the artists royalties, and then the artist would start making money at a reasonalbe rate, BYPASSING THE RECORD LABEL. So. Stealing music DOES take away from artists, SOMETIMES DIRECTLY, depending on the artist and contract.
-Me

Re:Time for a community response

[Stonehand]

All we freakin' need is for hordes of wannabe artists with less talent than ego spamming people looking for customers. Right.

Re:Time for a community response

[cortana]

Then they will blame falling sales on piracy...

RIP - PeeringSA

[.tekrox]

"I barely knew you, and now your gone - your wise flow of bits has all but dried - and only your IRC remains, Rest in peace our Friend"

Re:what is it with australia?

[kimba]

this is also the homeland of Rupert Murdoch, so you wont see much differen to FOX type reporting on the commercial stations

Rupert Murdoch owns NO Australian free-to-air television stations. Stick to the facts.

I know P2P is here to stay...

[PeterBrett]

...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.

New revenue model for ISPs

[EmagGeek]

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 :)

Winning occupations and the nature of power

[ThousandStars]

Fear of getting bombed doesn't lead to long-term reform, and occupations are never won.

Sometimes fear of getting bombed doesn't and sometimes it does, and sometimes actually get bombed does lead to real, long-term reform. The poster children for this kind of rehabilitation are Japan and Germany, which rose from the rubble they wrought around themselves during WWII to become first-world nations and excellent global citizens. It took millions of lives and an almost unfathomable amount of ordinance, however, to bring them around; and in the post war years, numerous American magazines printed articles asking if we were losing the peace. Look at Life or Time magainze circa 1946 - 1949, and you'll see dozens of examples of articles arguing that we were losing out against the past and failing to win the minds of the people. Those countries were occupied, and although it took a long time, a lot of money and an enormous amount of difficult work, eventually they arrived where they are today.

Since you're referring primarily to Iraq in your post, I assume, I'll say that I'm not convinced that Iraq is going to turn out the same way, but now there is a chance, and that chance didn't exist and couldn't have existed under Saddam's regime. Time is unlikely to render an exact verdict to either side you create, but is likely to see whether Iraq adopts democratic principles and sticks to them. If so, that will mean the occupation is won, as it has been in other places; but it has also been lost in other places, and I suspect those directing American forces are well aware of the historical precedents. The man you dub "the most dangerous" alive knows it and so do his advisers: but they also know that sometimes inaction is far worse than action.

It's popular these days to slam "the most dangerous man alive," but the same people doing that were the same one denigrating Reagan during the Cold War, even though the Cold War ended shortly after his watch. Reagan was right about some things: the Soviet Union was an evil empire, and it deserved to fall, just as in more recent times the Hussein regime was evil and deserved to fall. Time, which you mention, will eventually show whether the United States went about destroying its power the right or wrong way, but whatever arguments come from time are too early to use now to render a verdict.

"The most dangerous man alive," though, does not come from the hand-wringing school of diplomacy, and we have seen where European hand-wringing over the existance of evil has led the world before. Let us hope it does not lead us down an even darker path in the future.

"major drops in bandwidth usage"

[nurb432]

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?

P3P

[Brando_Calrisean]

I'm still using P2P - God damnit, I missed the upgrade again. Why.. why didn't anybody send me the memo?

Good for them...

[PrimeWaveZ]

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.)

Re:Good for them...

[kocsonya]

"Creators of intellectual property deserve to be paid for their work."

What intellectual property do you mean? A trade secret? A trade marked logo? A patented way of combing your hair to cover the bald spot (no kidding, it *is* a USPTO patent)? Maybe music?

I guess you mean copyright. In that case, they do. However, the corporations that sell you the creators' work eat most of what you pay. In addition, I understand that it may take a long time for an artist to create a work, thus you want to guarantee that (s)he gets income after the work is released. Fair enough, you need some incentive to make the artist to create more work. But tell me, how exactly will the fact that whenever you say Mickey Mouse the till opens in a big Co help the corpse of Mr. Walter Disney to create more funny cartoons? What incentive can an artist get 95 years after his/her death?

Furthermore, why do you not pay a football or whatever else player? You can have videos of famous matches, great shots, big events. The players are the actors *as well as the authors* of what you see on the screen. Do you pay copyright fees for *them*? Nope. You pay for them to run around on the field. If they don't run any more, they don't get money.
The copyright for a match is owned by whoever made/released the footage. They created nothing, they merely recorded it yet it is their property, after 95 years of *their* death. It is like a music band being paid as long as they play on stage. If they don't concert any more, that's it. If anyone listens to their stuff later, well, so what. They don't get money.
What is the difference between watching a famous match and watching Mickey Mouse?

When a master chef creates a new delicious dish the consumption of named food can give you just as much pleasure as listening to a song. I am not necessarily referring to "Burger a la McDonald" here, but possibly something with a slightly higher culinary value. Anyway, that dish is just as much of a product of a mental process as a song. If you can have the ingredients you can reproduce it (just like if you have a blank CD you can reproduce a music one or if you can play or sing, you can reproduce it live) and if you want to give the recipe to your friend, nobody stops you writing it down and giving it to him. So why does not the chef get money every time anyone on Earth cooks that dish?

I am not advocating piracy. I do not download music or video either. (Except one MP3: I wanted a song and I was willing to buy the CD. Unfortunately, the guy who created the music (the artist) was long dead and the inheritor of the copyright decided that the song is not for consumption any more. No CD, full stop. Now, I've downloaded that one.)

I do not support piracy in general. However, I do not support the special status of a group of entertainers either. Most of what comes from Holywood or from the big music firms is entertainment, not art. I guess it would be hard to find deep artistic meaning in the Terminator or in Spice Girls. It is their job to entertain you and they should be duly compensated for it. Just like any other service provider. So why should you pay their (legal) heirs, who had nothing to do with the "artistic" process, for almost a century after their death? Do you pay the guy who designed your house? Do you pay the guy who designed your clothes? Can someone legally build a house that looks the same as yours or tailor clothes looking the same as yours? Sure he can. Yet, those designs are just as much of intellectual works as a Spice Girls song. In fact, a nice house design probably has a lot more artistic and intellectual value than the song. Yet you are not worried about the architect's income after his death.

I agree with you, entertainment should not be free. It is a service, like any other. It should also be treated as a service. If your stock broker gets you a very profitable portfolio, you pay him a fee. If he drops dead the next day and your stock keeps earning money for the rest of your life, you don't give a ho

Re:Counter question

[Maxo-Texas]

Ah, but now the networks are starting the show a minute early and running a minute late so you can't DVR it without setting aside a 3 hour block for a 1 hour show.

Technically - Yes

[nurb432]

While i agree with you totally, and do that myself for shows i wasnt home for, or didnt happen to record that night, the 'industry' does not agree.

Do the courts agree with us or the industry? That will be the real question.

Answer ? Use legal P2P sites ...

[sla291]

... because they can't shutdown legal Creative Commons licensed materials...

For a great example of CC + P2P, see jamendo.com

Word. this is Right.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Good ridence-P2P refugees.

[Shajenko42]

Econ 101 and some business sense tells you that the more people you spread the cost around, the cheaper overall it is for everyone. Less people, higher cost per an individual.

Maybe you should have stayed in until Econ 102, where they discuss cartels and monopolies.

Re: aren't most Porn downloads copyright violation

[guidryp]

This is not a contradiction, since most porn downloaded is probably copyright violation as well.

Frankly I don't know anyone with broadband who doesn't download copyright material in some form, and if it was stopped outright, I think most of us would get dialup for basic surfing and email. I know I would.

So if you can't download anymore copyright violating:
Games
Music
TV Shows (my main DL)
Movies
Books
Comics
Apps
Porn
Then what is your big bandwidth sink?

Re:Counter question

[prisoner]

I didn't notice this until I started using media center. However, media center doesn't seem to care what time it starts, you just tell it to record the show and it seems to work....

freenet

[Fry-kun]

time to migrate to freenet, boys & girls

Re:Why wasn't that typed in *GERMAN*?

[VivianC]

Go get rid of your american pride a bit,

So I gather that despite your poor spelling and grammar that you are not American?

and try to look at the world, actually, instead of some government-close tv stations.

So you are saying I should avoid the "government-close" American media and instead trust the government owned media in your home country? Seems a silly idea to me.

pay for your music, it's easier

[pbjones]

oh dear, what a shame, you are going to have to pay for something instead of stealing it.

Re:Why wasn't that typed in *GERMAN*?

[A beautiful mind]

First of all, speaking english as my third language suggests that i'm not the most perfect english writer. So what?

Secondly, how could you judge me not knowing which country do i live in? Because you're referring to my "home country". Which is not germany, fyi. Oh, and you know, no news source is unbiased. The trick is to find two opposite source of informations, with around the same amount of bias and compare them.

Didn't anyone else get this joke?

[theSpartan]

I love that scene from Pulp Fiction. Nice job.

Australia not a Republic

[pingofdeath]

Being an Australian I noticed several big mis-truths in your post.

1) Australia is NOT a republic. We are a constitutional monarchy. With the exception of people in the retired services league and the governor general (the Queens figure-head in Australia) this doesn't mean much. The only thing that would change if we did become a Republic would be the stripping of the Union Jack from our flag.

2) Fiji and New Zealand are NOT Australian territories. While we may claim many famous Kiwi's (New Zealanders) to be Australian (Russel Crowe, Mel Gibson), they are a completely independent country.

3) House of Commons??? There is no House of Commons, in Melbourne, or in the whole of Australia. You are thinking of the British system. While we are a monarchy we do not have the same system as them such has the House of Lords, House of Commons, etc.

4) What has cracking down on warez sites got to do with you doing business with Australian websites? Before you try to say these sites had legitimate downloads, they didn't. The vast majority of what was available was copyrighted material.

5) MAPI is not the acronym of Music Industry Piracy Investigations, that would be MIPI as stated several times in the article.

6) P3P?!?! WTF is P3P?

7) Why is a CD levy a good idea? How would you like a levy on screwdrivers and crowbars because a small minority of people use them to break into houses? Or a levy on tea spoons because junkies use them to cook up? The idea of CD levies is ridiculous!

How the hell did you get Score 1???

Re:Australia not a Republic

[decaying]

Mel Gibson is from the USA, born in NY I believe. He then moved to Australia after his dad won Jeopardy or something

Re:Next: Legal Defense Fund

[cortana]

No honour amongst thieves, eh? ;)

Re: aren't most Porn downloads copyright violation

[pod]

But dialup is a pita.

As said many times before, there is more to DSL than bandwidth. It's just NICE to have. Fast, always on, no tieing up phone line for hours at a time (on-line gaming?) Need to look something up, boom, and it's there, etc. It's not a necessity, but it is nice to have above and beyond bandwidth.

Re:But surely

[rfunches]

"I guess you'd prefer to pay fileplanet for the privilege, hmm?" I'd bet that the **IA have a "financial relationship" with Fileplanet.

They shut down more than just P2P

[The Sith Lord]

They shut down entire online communities. Most of these P2P sites, were also hubs for users to chat, have a laugh, say what's on their mind.
Sure there was some file sharing, but the reason for the sharing was to keep in touch with other users.
Now we need other outlets to keep in touch, but they just won't be the same ...

(and btw, this happened over a week ago ...)

Who are _you_ kidding?

[Dire Bonobo]

> I mean, who are we kidding here? If you have a big pipe to the internet and can get all of the movies
> and music you want on demand (and for no charge) are you going to run to the store to buy even a
> single track (if it were available) off a cd that you like? No! You're going to hose it off some
> torrent or IRC or whatever.

Who are you kidding here? I have plenty of bandwidth, and no particular interest in P2Ping the music I'm looking for. If there's something I want, I'll either buy it (physical or d/l) if I can find a price I consider reasonable, or simply spend my time on something else if it's too hard or expensive to be worthwhile.

"If P2P is easy, nobody will buy music" is simply false---I'm hardly alone in my spending habits---and making that claim shows either ignorance or willful deceit.

Besides, if easy and legal copying would kill the music industry, why haven't CD sales collapsed in Canada? Copying CDs and downloading mp3s is court-affirmed legal there, but I haven't heard of music sales rates plunging below the corresponding US levels. That fact alone suggests the legality or illegality of copying/downloading makes very little difference in music revenue.

I think you're giving customers far too little credit; by and large, we're pretty honest.

Australia has P2P sites?

[Kris_J]

And all this time I've been buying DVDs from the ABC shop like a moron. Oo, reminds me, I should check when Opal Fever is being released...

Oh yeah.

[/dev/trash]

You though the penalties were strict for sharing music files, wait til you get busted for sharing kiddie porn.

Re:Oh yeah.

[Fry-kun]

someone actually wrote a program to filter any kiddie porn from your node.. just use that :P

Interactive remote work

[leonbrooks]

For that, even in text mode, dialup just sucks.

You're talking about WAIX, PIPE, VIX etc

[leonbrooks]

Telstra ding you for traffic both ways. Some ISPs ding you for the max of either way. Most only charge you for traffic sent your way (ie, downloads).

Many are connected to state-wide peering arrangements like WAIX, and most of those offer free traffic across the peering point (so, forex, ArachNet don't account me anything for an ISO image I pick up from a WestNet server). EfTel don't do the free traffic. Highway1 only recently started doing so. iPrimus, the Scrooges, even account you for traffic from other iPrimus customers and their own servers!

Actually, King Canute did!

[leonbrooks]

King Cnut I ("The Great") had advisers who kept telling him he was more or less a god. The beach incident was set up by Canute to teach is advisers (who were also present) some humility and self-restraint.

2) is not quite true

[leonbrooks]

Both Oz and EnZed have explicit provision in their Constitutions for North Island and South Island to be described as states belonging to the Federation of Australia.

Re:2) is not quite true

[Macgrrl]

I believe you'll find that it was considered having NZ join with Australia into a single nation at Federation (Australian - 1901) but that NZ decided not to. They are a sovereign state in their own right at this time, however both countries are currently members of the British Commonwealth, as is Canada.

Re:Yay Finally

[emohawk]

"the internet king perhaps he can provide me with faster nudity"

Re:what is it with australia?

[TapeCutter]

Why should I stick to the facts when I was only making a subjective inference?

I was implying Rupert has had a big influence in Aus, US & UK, you took it as implying ownership of a broadcast outlet. We do have 2 excellent public stations that report in the style of the BBC (ie: "Tell the story" style as opposed to "Push the message" style). The rest are FOX clones.

Rupert owns a large chunk of our cable services and has had an undeniable influence on this countries media for a long time. Watching news & current affairs on any one of our three big commercial channels is pointless unless you are into sports results and weather forcasts. The "news" itself resembles a re-run of desperate housewives and pushes the same messages and distractions as the FOX, SKY & CNN cable stations.

Here is a fact: Rupert has stated that his media outlets are deliberately biased.

And another one: An Octopus's birth canal runs through the center of it's brain.

The rest of this post is hearsay and informed opinion. Try out an experiment with Google news. Pick an international story, go to the list of "related stories" and sort by date to find the origin and read it. Go up the list and watch how the headline changes, read a few recent ones from diferent countries (most now publish a good english version). Look at how the news site marks an "opinion piece" or fails to do so. Look at the sites that avoid certain stories by making a big thing out trivia (JJ's tits). Most of all look at how the vast majority simply copy the press release then edit & spin for home town consumption.

Re: How the hell did you miss the joke???

[pingofdeath]

At first I thought it may have been an attempt at the joke, but I didn't see any humour in it at all. IMHO

As for '-1 Supercilious Wanker', people like you are the reason I don't normally bother to post on slashdot. And if you have mod points, why the Anonymous Coward?! Scared someone will mod you down for being a tard?

/me makes note to self to not bother posting on /. again due to smacktards

Re: aren't most Porn downloads copyright violation

[HuguesT]

What, you are not running Gentoo or Debian Unstable and downloading 100 of MB of patches every day ?

Hand back your geek card this minute.

More seriously the next legal bandwidth sink is VoIP, soon to be followed by the other VoIP, as in video.

Retail price of "out of print"

[Blitzenn]

" What's the retail price of something that isn't offered for sale anymore?"

The retail price for that is called growth in commerce. As demand rises for a product that did not have enough demand before to create commerce, commerce becomes 'born'. Recently, many very good examples (ebay, amazon, netflix, blockbuster, etc.) of how this particular kind of commerce works have sprung up. Most are very successful. There was an article in Wired News regarding this called The long tail of the economy that explains this very well. If you are stealing the music you are having a hard time finding, then you are short circuiting a very important part of our new economic cycle.

Unfairly low?

[Blitzenn]

My proposal is unfairly low? So you think that the penalty for a given crime should severly outweight the crime itself? The crime is stealing goods and or services. The cost of those goods and services stolen should be the real penalty. If we want to deter crime than perhaps we should make the penalty a bit higher than the cost of the goods when purchased legaly. Then the cost of doing business illegally is higher than legal business. That's all that is needed. To go further is over-reactionary (which seems to be bred into judges and lawyers these days). Rampant crime is no reason to raise the penalty for a single individual. It is a reason to raise the level of enforcement. Any other way of looking at it defies common sense AND justice.

Re:Your comments and tangential question

[ThosLives]

I think your first couple comments highlight what I was trying to say; I'll have to work on my wording. You state that "absent the $0 option, they were willing to pay" which is my point; the assumptions change as soon as you introduce the other option. I won't belabor that idea though.

I'm also not sure I agree with your statement that you always have a market, even if the population is zero. This could be pedantic, but if the "market" is zero interested parties, then I'd argue that there is no market.

I agree that you should have the rights to control the distribution of what you produce, assuming people are interested in the product/service. I also agree that this needs to be done within the construct of currently established laws (see my original post on this matter, the last paragraph). I would say, though, that some methods of controlling distribution are of more merit than others.

As far as the GPL or BSD licenses: While I don't know that I would personally use those licenses, I support them as the copyright holders (within our current legal system) should be able to pick whatever distribution scheme they desire. As such, I respect the terms of those licenses and would support them in that sense. However, I find the GPL and BSD slightly awkward in that they do not grant complete freedom with the code; they put restrictions on it. For a license to be completely free, it would have to be something like "you can do whatever you want with this except keep other people from doing whatever they want with this." My biggest hesitation with the GPL is with the concept of what constitutes a derivative work; I'm not familiar with the BSD license though so I can't speak to that. For instance, if I use some GPL library in my application, I don't consider my application to be derived from it; I could plug in any other functionally equivalent piece of code instead. If, however, I extend the functionality of that library or modify the library code, that is definitely a derivative work. I'm sure there is grey area in the middle, and I know there's philosophical arguments all over the spectrum. The way I see it there is a difference between "derived from" and "relies upon". So, in short, while I support the GPL, I don't agree with it. Again, that's probably pedantic with the semantics, but I want to make the distinction clear.

I could talk more on this, but I think that answers most of your questions.

Re:Your comments and tangential question

[Epi-man]

I think your first couple comments highlight what I was trying to say; I'll have to work on my wording. You state that "absent the $0 option, they were willing to pay" which is my point; the assumptions change as soon as you introduce the other option. I won't belabor that idea though.

I think you are right, we are talking past each other. My original point was attempting to justify the comment of "lost sales," where the sales are lost to the second option, as you point out.

I'm also not sure I agree with your statement that you always have a market, even if the population is zero. This could be pedantic, but if the "market" is zero interested parties, then I'd argue that there is no market.

Re-reading my comment, I sure can't disagree with you there. I guess economics says you have the right "to market," as in the verb, but you may not secure the noun as a result.

I would say, though, that some methods of controlling distribution are of more merit than others.

I think we are on the same page there.

As far as the GPL or BSD licenses: While I don't know that I would personally use those licenses, I support them as the copyright holders (within our current legal system) should be able to pick whatever distribution scheme they desire.

So do you support the (in our discussion) game makers in attempting to sell their product, and not allow the illegal zero cost option? From your original post it seemed to me that you did not feel they should be allowed to do that, which now seems to be a gross misinterpretation of your post (and caused my wonder of your opinions of the GPL).

Re:Why wasn't that typed in *GERMAN*?

[ifwm]

"Do you have the same amount of evidence to the French bribe case as you have had for WMD which turned out to be a logical loophole, magically disappearing"

Why is the first argument always "Well, you guys did bad things too"? Why are you people always so keen to resort to such ridiculous tactics?

If a country fucks up, hold it accountable. US, France, Iran and whoever. But stop playing that stupid game of moral equivalence. It's unseemly, and only gets everyone dirty.

OK, we'll swap them...

[leonbrooks]

...some of our shiny minerals for some of their tasty icecream if they go ahead. (-: