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EZTree Shuts Down
John3 writes "Easytree.org, a popular Bittorrent tracking site also known as EZT, shut down today after their ISP received threatening letters from attorneys. Unlike sites like Lokitorrent that have been shut down in the past, torrents on EasyTree were usually unreleased live musical performances rather than commercial product. Is a site that shares old Stevie Nicks, Frank Sinatra, and Ian Hunter live shows really that much of a threat to the music industry?"
Is a site that shares old Stevie Nicks, Frank Sinatra, and Ian Hunter live shows really that much of a threat to the music industry?
Yes. History has shown that if you give people an inch, they go the whole way. If they want to be successful (both image-wise AND legal) they need to pursue ALL cases of piracy.....even if it's older bootlegs.
Are they that much of a threat to the music industry?
No! They're not a threat at all. You see, all it takes is a letter from someone claiming to be a lawyer and they are shutdown. Easy Peasy.
Of course. The threat is one of control. The RIAA is a music cartel who's entire business model exists around the premise of being the best way for aspiring artists to get their music out to the masses and make some money while doing so. This business model requires the perception that they control the market to the largest extent possible. Every nick in their armor is one more chance someone else might realize that the Internet has blown the doors off content distribution business models.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Is a site that shares old Stevie Nicks, Frank Sinatra, and Ian Hunter live shows really that much of a threat to the music industry?
Anything that provides quality product free of charge is going to cut into the sales of overpriced crap. What really scares them is that people may discover there's more to music than k0rn and j-lo.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It is when these companys want every last penny, and DVD boxed sets of old rat pack performances, etc., go for anywhere from 22 bucks to 99 bucks.
Even if it's a different performance and is only availible through bootleg channels (I.E. Grateful Dead), they are scared to death a fan might "get their fix" and not buy a boxed set.
Ridiculous.
How about you stop posting all the popular Bit Torret URLs to a high-traffic news site? That might keep them a live a bit longer...
Every performance is copyrighted. If you make a work, you own the copyright to it. Your question was more "does the record company have rights to the artist's live performance", and that would boil down to the contract they signed.
I would think that the record company does hold some rights to the live performances.
Sucks, but, i think thats the way it is.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
A great example of what I am talking about is the Greatful Dead. If my recollection of my GD days are clear they basiclly didn't care if you recorded a boot leg of thier concerts. If they were touring today, my guess is that they would be happy to allow this sort of distribution.
Those that don't choose to allow it, whether you like it or not, have the right to defend thier copyrights. If you don't like the fact that a performer decides to enforce thier copyright, don't listen to thier music. Just don't steal thier music and then justify it by saying they are *ssh*les for not giving it to you for free in the first place.
If the site did not contain any copyrighted material that the clients of these lawyers owned then they would have no standing to bring a law suit. This is not "alternative" music it is popular music that is being distributed for free without due compensation to the copyright holders. If the site only contained music and live shows that were voluntarily posted by the artists/copyright holders, there would be no legal way for the RIAA, MPAA, or any other entitiy to shut down the site.
It's a tricky question at the minute that combines several fields of law. Recently (IIRC) there was a ruling that stated that the current US laws against bootlegs were unconstitutional, not because the idea was unsound, but specifically because it gave a perpetual time period, in violation of Section 8 clause 8 of the constitution. That states:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
So that law may be rewritten and come back.
The other legal issue is whether or not someone has the right to tape a concert. Most of the bands on btree specifically allowed and encouraged taping. However, there is no inherent right to record a performance, so someone making the tape could be sued for doing so if there was no permission. Whether that tape could be distributed after the fact is another question entirely, which I don't know the answer to.
Many of the bands featured on EZT allowed non-commercial trading of live shows yet some don't however allow trading of their shows even if you can't buy the live material in a store otherwise. No one is profiting from these bittorrent sites so its a bummer that the artists and their lawyers get so upset. I guess EZT is going to leave us much like the awesome sight sharingthegroove.org did a while back. Atleast bt.etree.org is still up!
To answer the question, of course they're no threat.
This is all about power: corporations have it, the people (nor their democratically-oriented institutions) do not.
In a time when air is sold on the streets of Mexico City, where the WTO is pushing the idea of private ownership of water, this is just another symptom of capitalist greed run amok.
I am afraid, if your position indicates any tendency for the average world citizen, that you lack the genuine capacity for critical thought. What Orwell is opposing in the real literary meaning of his text, such as is applicable even now, is the rise or enshrinement of authoritarianism-the *communism that he opposed had at the time become overtly and excessively focused on the provisional governance of the revolutionary area and imposed authoritarian demands on it to suppress that motive force. FOSS represents rather, for most successful projects, either or both the proper balance between authoritarianism for efficiency and democracy for general welfare more than any other systems as participation is either fully optional or selected as avenues of development by corporations to whom the workers have already sold the quantity of their labor power that if assigned it would take from them.
Yeah, but aren't only the web site and .torrent file in China? The peers would be everywhere.
Thank you. I've never heard a better argument for why laws deserve zero respect. Let's have some anarchy.
EZTree stole that intellectual property
This is an oxymoron. "Intellectual" property cannot be stolen, by definition. Only physical property can be stolen. IP can be copied, infringed, abused, improperly used, or devalued, but without actual removal or destruction of the original, no "theft" exists.
You(pl) cannot recreate the definition of stealing to make copyright infringment sound more destructive or immoral. I won't let you.
EZTree certainly committed a crime.
I wouldn't be so sure of this if I were you. IIRC, the legality of bittorrent (among other P2P applications) is being contested in the Supreme Court right now. AFAICT, there is no evidence that EZTree was even seeding the torrents - in which case, they were not even infringing on anyone's copyright - they were simply contributing to infringement, which may or may not be considered a crime (in the U.S., which is where I presume EZT is located) based on the court's decision.
Oh -- and never confuse legality with morality or illegality with immorality. The two concepts are, at best, weakly related.
Oh, how true. It's a knife that cuts both ways - some moral things are illegal, and some legal things are immoral.
I reply:
Substantially non-infringing uses.
You were speeding once. Should you lose your car?
You stole a package of chewing gum. Is that Grand Theft?
You made a mistake once. Does that make all your actions those of a hardned criminal?
It's not a perfect world. If there is an infriging performance, notify them to remove the tracker. Only if they don't do that quickly enought then might you consider threating a lawsuit. These lawyers are nothing more than legal extortionists in my opinion. The law should not be allowed to be used as a club against those who cannot afford to defend themselves.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
torrents on EasyTree were usually unreleased live musical performances The key word in that sentence is USUALLY. As a (now former) EZT user, that "key word" is, in fact, wrong. The EZT moderators were quite meticulous in their identification and banning of any material that was officially released. Ditto for any material from artists who objected to their shows being posted there, such as The Allman Brothers Band. Offending torrents were, as far I could ever tell, banned before anyone ever got a chance to snatch them. Lots of those live performances ARE commercial stuff too. Go look at the CD aisle at Best Buy, and imagine that, there are plenty of professionally produced live concerts. Nope, wrong again, not on EZT...any such recording would have been banned in short order. They took great pains to comply with the law, and still they were shut down.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Let's be clear. I've been a user of EZtree for about 2 years. I loved it. I have traded Gratefuldead, Wilco, Gov't Mule, Black Crowes, Ani DiFranco, the Spin Doctors. These are all completely, absolutely, LEGAL. I have also traded Joe Bonamassa which is, once again, LEGAL. I spend a great deal of time involving myself in the live music recording world because I love live music, and if an artist has an open taping policy (which all of these bands do) that makes it legal and fun to trade. I want to reiterate this: This is a site providing legal content that was shutdown. It's called a false positive and whoever is responsible should be marched off of a cliff buccaneer style.
Secondly, they aren't calling it BOOTLEGS for a reason...NO ONE WAS CHARGED. Ever. Bootlegging is when you tape a show in secret, against the artists consent, and then make a profit off of it. Is this illegal? Yes. Is this looked down upon by the trading community as a whole? Absolutely. This was a _free_ service provided by people who had similar interests, and honestly, I have made trips to the store to buy the CD of a band whose live performance impressed me many times. That is a business model in action.
I don't use Exeem, Kazaa, or any of the bastard Torrent sites that seem to pop up every six months, and to have some blood hungry jackal attack a site that has nothing but artist AND fan well-being in mind pisses me off.
Now, occassionally, YES, I will admit something would pop up that was 'questionable'. I.E. A taped artist with an unclear official taping policy. That is a tragedy, however, is EZT responsible? I would say yes, to a point. But to shut them down completely because it MIGHT be POSSIBLE to PROBABLY use it to infringe SOMEONE'S rights is not only ridiculous it is out of place in the American court system. What happened to lawsuits only being filed by those whom it affects? It is illegal for me to sue because some other moron used his spork wrong and lost an eyeball, so who is the artist losing money behind these 'legal threats'? I'd like to know, and if I ever find out they have lost my business for good.
All in all I see a lot of uneducated, misdirected copyright law flaming. It's sad when the good kid has to stay in from kick ball because everyone else was disobeying the rules.
Damn this pisses me off.
Fortunately, distribution channels are becoming so cheap and so ubiquitous that it won't be a whole lot longer before bands just ignore the big studios entirely and release things themselves or through more responsive independent labels.
Nobody is going to miss the likes of BMG/Sony...
The term "bootleg" usually refers to a recording of a band who does not allow recording (usually called a stealth recording) that is offered up for sale. Tapers hate bootlegs, we tape for our own and others enjoyment, not to make money off someone else's hard work. However sometime some shady individuals get a hold of our recordings and put them up on Ebay. There are entire groups of tapers dedicated to bringing these illegal auctions down.
The record stores that were raided deserved it, but offering up the shows for free to anyone who wants them is ok in my book.
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
...will be the eventual widespread use of more-secure, hard-to-prove-who's-using-it, hard-to-prove-what-its-used-for file sharing software. Something like Freenet, although I'm not trying to start a debate about a particular project's privacy/security.
Remember, enough complexity = reasonable doubt.
The problem is, truly bad actors can use those more-secure options. Terrorists, kiddie fiddlers, David Hasselhoff. I know they're already out there doing their secret, ugly stuff, but the more prevalent those options are the better for those bad actors.
So, in effect, the RIAA/MPAA is
1) engaging in an 'arms race' it ultimately cannot win and
2) encouraging/promoting a much darker internet.
Meanwhile, sales are up for DVD's, and the music industry continues to puke out horrible pap and insist that the reason nobody's buying is piracy.
Because if they hold the key on all the major distribution channels, they believe they can sell more of *their* product. If the distribution channels are open to any/everyone, more product will be sold, but a lower percentage of that product will be theirs.
Hey, Mr McCarthy, haven't you heard - Communism isn't being used as the big scary thing anymore. What you should say now is something about FOSS being "TERRORIST".
Then they should release it commercially. If Radiohead released their show at Radio City, I'd buy it today. They haven't. So I traded for it. It's an amazing show. Next time they come to Chicago, you can be sure I'm buying a ticket. Bootleg trading is for recordings you *can't* buy commercially.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.