Slashdot Mirror
BitTorrent: Sysadmins to face the music
An anonymous reader writes "Two sysadmins in Australia are set to get sued by the music industry after the federal court ruled that Melissa Ong and Ryan Briggs did ignore calls to remove Web sites that were in breach of copyright. All major music labels in the country have banded together to take action against the duo's employer Swiftel, an ISP which allegedly hosted BitTorrent file-sharing hubs (which contained pirated music etc)."
Why don't we share free music instead? Pirating music is equivalent to pirating Windows XP - why do it when OpenBSD is available instead? There's a lot available under the CC.
Only three remote holes in the default install, in more than 10 years! OpenBSD
Don't mean to sound like a pot-smoking hippie here but it is simply the truth.
What do the BitTorrent file-sharing hubs do in response? Buy a little time shuffling across different portnums until the fix is in to support tunneling protocols, that's what. There may be a limited number of port numbers, but there are literally an infinite number of ways of translating one sequence of bytes into another sequence of bytes.
BitTorrent over a gaming port. Why not? You gonna block gaming ports? Have fun at the support desk.
Swiftel, et al, responds by investing massive amounts of resources in detecting the protocol in real-time, so as to differentiate gaming use from BitTorrent goodness, and wins.
For a day.
The response that encrypts the stream, stegonographically, arrives a day later.
By putting up obstacles you only feed innovation. The tunneling protocol is going to consume more bandwidth of course, so now everybody is going to be thinking about how to compress the stream even further than it already has been.
By putting up barriers, the censors only provide the incentive to create new technologies to overcome them. Create distributed systems that allow trusted peers to authenticate with one another. Verify the quality of content being requested. Allow for protocols that defeat sniffing and snooping, possibly by making it so that existing protocols must be scrapped.
Swiftel, China and the MPAA are doomed to fight this war forever, losing all the way, because essentially they are playing the role of adversity while the peers are playing the role of biological organisms.
Adversity fuels life.
Swiftel, China and the MPAA are fueling piracy.
It's a beautiful day. Why? Because this shit is FUN.
Bring it on, and thank you.
It took federal courts to determine that they "ignored phone calls..." I'm glad to see tax dollars being put to such good use.
Scott Swezey
The law specifies that this is a proper course of action.
The fact is that the law does not support the "right to share" when it becomes massive intellectual property piracy. To believe differently is to be deluded.
You can change the law, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of money. Guess who has that. That's right! YOU and all your filesharing friends. Unfortunately it is the record companies who are going out of their way to influence elected officials and getting the laws that they want passed. Meanwhile, you (the general "you") sit on your ass and bitch and moan about how the RIAA is being a bunch of bastards.
Get organized and get active. The only way you can stop this kind of action is to make it illegal.
sadly i doubt they differentiate between trackers and actually hosting copyrighted content. i can understand if the copyrighted content was being hosted with bittorrent being the means of distribution, but i highly doubt that is the case.
http://www.sledgehammercomputers.com
... it's the industry. Although I haven't RTFA, I believe that these people should be reprimanded, if nothing else then to push the argument for higher open-standards when it comes to music. Why on earth would someone want to restrict the world from loving their babies!? I say, downloads by donation (for hosting) and CDs at cost. Make a living off a non-creative based job. Isn't that what working is about?
Anonymous Coward
As you would know, Theo, there isFree music available. The lyrics are even about Freedom, so you don't have to have anything to do with Non-Freedom.
A: Hello sir B: What? A: Hello! We're calling regarding... B: What? A: HELLOO! We're calling for the peer to peer... B: What? A: About the bittorrent... B: What? A: About the wares... B: What? A: About MP3 bittorrent links... B: What? A: WILL YOU TURN DOWN THE DAMN MUSIC? B: What?
who ignore email infringement notices are hardly uncommon. As a sysadmin for several small clients, I sure don't want file-sharing going on on MY network no matter how beneficial it may be to me personally. The article is pretty vague unfortunately - they 'treated the infringement notices like spam.' So why didn't the music industry send them ACTUAL notarized letters in the first place? If I took every piece of semi-legit-looking crap that arrived in my inbox seriously, I'd be handing out credit card numbers left and right, and I'd have about a 10-foot-long penis and twenty free iPods by this point!
Are anybody else seeing the strangeness in sueing australian citizens in an us court? What can the possibly an US court do to an foregin citizen?
Did they host the torrent files using the ISP's equipment? Cause if so that's just stupid. I believe in the occasional "extened demo" or "educational discount" when it comes to personal warez but when it comes to running a business it's a huge liability. Sometimes I wonder where all these 4TB DC++ hubs are coming from. Exploited servers? Does anyone know?
They were never delivered legal documents. Only sent emails and (apparently) there was a phonecall. Why would you comply with emails? Remember that site a while back that made phony cease&desist emails and sent them from hotmail/fake accounts to see how many ISP's complied? Everyone booed the ISP's who went along with it. This ISP ignores the emails and now they're getting sued. I wouldn't blame them. Why would they act on a legal matter if they weren't sent any legal instruction/documents? The whole thing is stupid. More info here: http://whirlpool.net.au/
Basically how about the govornment try keeping a datacenter safe at the end of the day people pay to host their servers/website in a datacentre. I'd like to see them keep the data safe from hackers and deal all of a sudden with a supposed official request to remove a website. Anyone can make a phonecall... whats wrong with a fax or a visit from an official. These things need to be taken seriously it they want a serious response.
"(which contained pirated music etc)"
.. No they didn't.
.torrent files are saved at the server. No illegal material needs to be sent out from, or hosted at a bittorrent server.
Only
That's the beauty of Bittorrent you see..
You cant fight in here, its a war room!
Anyone else tired of the media's love of terrible puns? If I see another bad pun... I'll do absolutely nothing, partly because I'm lazy.
Also, partly because I live in a country with gun control laws. Editors should be thankful.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Well, what the hell...
Their actions are just like if the KKK sued a bus company because they "let niggers aboard". Who cares that you hate Blacks? It's not up to the bus driver to decide who can enter and who can not -- in many jurisdiction, the driver is even not allowed to deny service to a customer if that customer isn't disruptive. And in this case, the web sites who used these ISPs didn't even commit any crime themselves -- they merely provided an index for illegal activities.
Following this logic, they may start persecuting bus operators because they don't strip search every passenger. You know, that old lady may be a hidden courier for a dope ring...
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
all this trouble for what some silly numbers binary 01s $$money 01s statistics 01s communism 01s (go china)
Yeah....They should have tried this trick of terrorizing telemarketers.
hilarious
I work for an ISP that does some hosting.
We recieve copyright complaints all the time, and every single time we contact our user and let them know we received a notice and to cease file sharing. Most of the time it is their kids anyways.
One guy wanted to try to do the whole "I'm entitled to download this movie" speech. We just told him that we were warning him that we received it. In other words we CYA'd. In the case of multiple complaints we would lock the account (multiple being several over a few weeks).
Mainly, reading TFA, these admins not only knew about, but helped set up and maintain the bittorrent hub (considering they had access logs from it). Plus documentation had been requested and not provided, and they had deliberately ignored several notices (for deliberately ignored phone calls have to go unanswered).
I'm not saying they are so guilty as to go to prison, however they kept the site going, and ingnored request by the copyright holder AND court. That does count for something.
so much for good taste
Art is not a commodity, not if you're not Andy Warhol.
Music cannot simply be substituted for other music. A piece means something.
If we stop listening to certain music simply because of the economic situation, then we lose more than just our freedom to share music. We lose the music itself.
Promoting people who happen to make good free music is a good thing. Ignoring good label music is a bad thing.
The inevitable response to this post will mention Britney Spears. If Britney Spears is the only thing you know of that's been released on a label lately, or even if you think similar things make up the majority of what labels release, you're just not keeping an open ear.
Labels release an absolute ton of stuff of all kinds. They generally *promote* crap, but that doesn't mean they don't have their hooks in a lot of wonderful work. What you hear on Clearchannel isn't a thousandth of what the record companies have purchased lately.
Young artists have dreams of grandeur. They think signing with a label is a stroke of luck. Maybe they're wrong, but they do it. Letting that destroy what they've produced is a crime.
Nothing to do but break the law and watch the economy shift in response.
Here's how this will pan out:
They will get sued and ordered to pay 50 gadzillion dollars, AND court costs.
The court will look at their income, and the lack of prior convictions, and order them to pay 20 bucks a week for the next 100 gadzillion years.
In the meantime, at least 42 new torrent sites will open to replace each one that has been shut down, and these will be progressively harder to shut down due to being physically hosted in
(a) Russia
(b) China
(c) An Oil platform, and finally,
(d) The moon.
Meanwhile our sysdamins have paid off the 20% of the court costs of the guy that brings in the suitcases for the lawyers. They are now old, but venerated figures in the piracy underground.
Who wins? No-one.
The Records companies have lost heaps of money, our sysadmins have also lost heaps of money, the effect on global piracy was imperceptibly small, and the legal teams of both parties are sitting together on their company yacht, toasting their victory with pina coladas under the stars.
About bittorrent there is no doubt that it will be growing more and more with time, but there is another proyects like:
WASTE and MUTE
About freedom, here are some interesting articles by Richard Stallman
Right to Read
Misinterpreting Copyright
Reevaluating Copyright
Freedom or Copyright
Good bye
PS: RMS lost some records maybe somebody can help him Can you find any of these records?
Rock and Roll
if you wanna see the best way of ignoring infringement complaints about bittorrent, read the piratebay's legal threats section.. http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php
Best comment I've seen in a long time... Thanks :)
Were they actually hosting music or were they providing pointers to music. I think the distinction is very important because it feel like the music industry is playing on the lack of technical knowledge in the general (downloading) population.
I, personally, think that hosting music for download is wrong (I think that we should have far more rights regarding what we do with music we have bought though) but wrong with a little w. I can't see any way that providing a pointer to music is wrong though. I admit that the music industry is going to be annoyed that people are providing pointers but information shouldn't be illegal.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
What happens when someone fakes an email header so it looks like an infrigment notice from a movie studio etc. For example Saying there is copyrighted material on the pharmacydirect.com.au website. So because of this case, emails are given the word of law by the courts and the Pharmcacy Direcy website is taken offline. Pharmacy Direct then sues the ISP for losing it millions of dollars. What will the courts do then.... Emails cannot be given legal status as they are too easily faked. It they were not there would be an easy way to filter spam emails. Another Lively discussion on this happening on www.whirlpool.com.au Direct link is to the discussion is here Bluemars
There used to be a time when companies didn't send Cease & Desist letters. They just subpoenaed the offending party and took them to court. This was looked down on because sometimes the poor little copyright violator didn't realize what he was doing wrong and was suddenly staring down the legal departments of the big guys. So they came up with the idea of C&Ds which give fair warning to any party who might be offending the party in question.
It was a method of 1) encouraging the offending party to see the error of his ways and stop doing the bad thing, and 2) to establish in no uncertain terms that the offending party was aware that their actions were causing offence.
With that, everyone and their brother started sending C&Ds instead of actually suing. It's cheaper and doesn't require any court action, so both sides come out way ahead if the C&D works.
Unfortunately they have become so much like "Final Notice" bills that just seem to keep coming without actually reaching a conclusion. Offenders just toss the C&D in the trash and the Offended just send another C&D. Neither side really wants to take it to court because that would entail actual lawyering.
There ought to be a law that mandates that only one C&D per offence may be sent to any customer. Once that has been ignored for a certain amount of time, the offended party would either have to stop sending it or actually take the offender to court.
I'd love to see some P2P violators squirm in the courtroom. Currently they hide behind their anonymity and the knowledge that despite any C&D they receive, that many others are also receiving them and the odds of actually getting tapped by the RIAA is slim to none.
You don't have any cocaine near yourself, you don't personally know anyone with cocaine, you don't even know if cocaine is mentioned in the notes without checking the thousands of notes regularly. You only own the noticeboard, and are freely allowing people to post there whatever they have to offer.
Is that legal? I would think so, in itself. What if that noticeboard had a sign on top saying "Cocaine Community", would that change things?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this"
Doctor: "Then don't do this"
If the court says folks were breaking the law, then by definition they were breaking the law. End of story. Don't like it? Try to get the laws changed, or buy the god damn CDs, or boycott the music industry by refusing to listen to the music it publishes. Stealing is not the answer.
Now they are saying, at least in Australia, that these are legally binding documents? Ya think?! IANAL but I have a real problem with this. The last time I looked legal notices were supposed to be on paper, not in the form of bits down the cable. This doesn't even begin to address the issue of legal liability for the ISP/hosting provider that does take action on one of these e-mails and it turns out that the e-mail was either fraudulent or in error. Sheesh, what a can of worms.
I do know one thing. For simple self-protection I am so not going to host anything other than something I myself create, and even then I'm probably going to end up in software patent hell, knowing my luck. So much for the Internet age. It was sweet while it lasted.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
I second Magnatune and want to throw a nod out to CD Baby, too.
Between CD Baby and Magnatune I now get *ALL* of my music from these two sources and couldn't be happier.
Ooooowww, Could you forward a URL please?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"We'll be demonstrating that the company had knowledge of what was happening, and that these two individuals knew of this [piracy] activity," Tony Bannon, counsel for the labels, said.
The plaintiff has promised to demonstrate that they had full knowledge, not just that they had unverified takedown notices. And if they do - It's fair enough. But they'll have their day to prove it.This is the second case I've heard of where an organization sent legal notices through e-mail and took legal action as a result of a failure to respond.
This might have been a reasonable thing to do in 1990, but since then the flood of spam and viruses has increased to the point where it's effectively impossible to accept and read all email that arrives at a well-known address. Assuming that a message has been recieved because you don't receive a bounce message is completely unreasonable.
The labels allege Swiftel's senior systems administrators Melissa Ong and Ryan Briggs ignored calls to remove Web sites that were in breach of copyright, and instead "treated the infringement notices like spam."
Given the way facts get twisted even when all parties are trying to communicate accurately, this quote could well be a distorted version of something like "a spam filter at the ISP inadvertently lost the messages".
Here are a few comparisons. Audiogalaxy Contrary to popular believe, this came before Napster, but had the ability to resume/pause downloads, and had way better download reliability. It was Also one of the best places to find alternative/unusual music (Sci-Fi/Final Fantasy). It also died for the same reason Napster did. Central Server. But, it was operating for two years before Napster, and slipped under the RIAA's radar. One of the best uses of user-operated FTP sites linked by a central server to the users. Napster Started the whole concept of P2P in the mass-market. It's biggest weakness was the fact that it used a central server, hence it could be locked onto, and isolated. That is what killed Napster. Kazaa The first true P2P network (Morpheus used the same network as Kazaa, FastTrack, before switching to GNUtella), it has OK transfer rates, file listings, and the ability to pause/resume transfers. Downloading very large archive files is fraught with the threat corruptions. Limewire Like Kazaa, only offering Better Porn, in a Java-Based Client. eDonkey/eMule/Overnet Quite possibly the best network before BitTorrent, this has fast search capabilities, OK-ish transfer rates, and the ability to share portions of a file before it's even downloaded. Revolutionary for the time. It also calculated how much you could download based upon how much you were uploading. Less Uploads = Less Downloads. This was aimed at combatting the 'Leecher' problem that has, and still does, plague Kazaa BitTorrent One of the best P2P tools of our time, except for the lack of a built-in torrent search system. Ability to pause/resume downloads, to share partial files, as well as being able to restrict downloads based on uploads. However, it has one weakness... it lists all the IP's whom are you downloading from, or uploading to, which could be traced.
~The TwoTailedFox posts again....
I was with swiftel for a while, and the article is incorrect- the hub in question was DC++.
I know our IP laws are pretty similar to the US and are being "syncronized" because of the recent FTA, (Fuck The Australian's) agreement. However as I understand it there was no legal notice given to the ISP, so legally the sysadmin cannot act, therefore the case will be laughed out of court. BUT, it will cost a fortune to get an actual court decision and the lawyers don't mind being laughed at for the right price.
I think that the labels are looking to settle out of court, thier lowest buyoff price might be something like, forcing the ISP to make thier "report infringement" info more prominent. In other words they are trying to scare sysadmins into making sure thier message gets prominent (and free) advertising and to inject some parinoia into thier bosses for good measure.
An outragous claim backed by deep pockets will often force the victim to "do something" to get the legal monkey off thier back. The bully knows they have no chance of winning in court. However it doesn't matter since they also have no intention of going to court, they want to "negotiate an amicable settlement". I hope the ISP shows some balls and drags them through the courts to get recompense for legal costs and losses due to injuring thier reputation.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The law is not God. It is manmade. It has not more power or legitimation than any other idea. Without the weapon of the police, it is nothing more than a contribution to a debate. This shows that a law is no differant from any tyranny. People should respect and care for each other by their own free will. On any side. We don't need any law to do that.
If they host servers with illegal content, then this is no news !
The slightly off-topic part: More and more online music stores appear on the net, which I consider a good thing. I for one would love to go there and buy a song if I hear one I like.
Problem is: If I would like to buy a random song from the top 40, changes are that with my linux machine, I can't buy it. Or maybe I can... but I can't download it, burn it or whatever. Because I don't have WMP ! I'm not downloading it illegally. If they don't let me buy and download a simple mp3 (or ogg or whatever) with GOOD quality (192kbps), they won't have me as a customer.
The terrible thing is that people that DO have WMP don't even know they are helping the big music companies in restricting everything their customers are allowed to do.
And for complete albums... , CD's are still better value. You get some media with it (CD), a case, a booklet AND the music is of better quality ! And if it is copy protected and does not adhere to the CD audio standards... they lose my business as well. I wish more people would make a statement like that. Then it might make a difference.
If you think music/video is to expensive... don't buy it, but don't copy it either. If you are not willing to pay, you probably don't need it bad enough. Buy buying restricted media, or stealing it, you just are part of the problem, making it worse for everyone.
fly in court - how can a sysadmin be responsible for stuff that the users are putting on the system in the space that they are allotted.
now if a court order came down and said to lock those people off and remove all their files then ya I guess they would have to comply - but otherwise the sysadmins just can't respond to every joker that wants somebody files deleted. I think you would just be asking for trouble.
Pirate Bay
There much to be said when local laws actually allow and encourage an activity.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Stop buying all CDs/DVDs until copyright laws are reduced to 10 years. Sonny Bono was a prick.
Check out Webjay.org, it's all about sharing free music.
Not because I care about the music industry but because it's about time that someone besides the endpoint is held responsible for content. For Christ's sake I can go to jail for content that goes through someone else's network and they get to hide behind a lot of legal mumbo jumbo.
To me it makes sense to go after the ISP's directly. I see it similar to the parents that don't properly look after their children. The children get in trouble, and then the parents get in trouble for allowing the children the freedom to get in trouble. It's a scary analogy (especially if you're an ISP) but I think if they want to subdue piracy, it's the quickest means to an end.
With that having been said, I do have to mention that I think the entire task is going to be extremely fruitless. Even if they shut down massive torrent sites or p2p networks, people will just find a new way of stealing music/videos.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
I personally like The Pirate Bays way to handling copyright complaints: Answer with extreme ridicule and a rich sprinkling of insults on top. Those insane emailed form-letters with cease-and-desist orders and various blatant threats are pretty much useless in any case because they usually don't specify what the violation exactly is supposed to be, and thus it is pretty hard to remove whatever the problem might be.
Besides, one clearly has to wonder about the qualifications of a lawyer that sends DMCA-violations to a foreign country (where the DMCA doesn't apply, something any lawyer should know).
So, I clearly understand why the sysadms of an Australian ISP would ignore legal threats sent from the U.S. - they have no juristiction and thus pretty much can go sue themselves.
They call themselves the "SABAM" and they "represent" the music publishers. All public use of recorded music is subject to a (negotiable in the sense of "let's be reasonable about it, guvnor") fee that is calculated by square meter, number of places, etc. Normally it applies to all public events. When I asked the organiser of the open-air xmas ice-skating rink why they played such terrible 1960's jingles he just said, "sabam".
An artist who publishes his own music has to register with the SABAM or he won't find anyone to distribute or play it.
So you get insane situations like a group playing their own songs, live, who have to pay the SABAM up front for the concert, then claim the money back, minus a fee.
Or, to produce an album, you have to pay about 500 Euro up front to the SABAM, who may eventually pay this back.
And, if you make a deal with the SABAM then their cousins, the B-vergoed, come knocking, asking for due payment for "the music authors".
Little of the collected money actually goes to any artist. The big labels like PIAS get the largest chunk, the rest is lost in administration.
To be fair, the SABAM are fairly decent about it, and like all Belgian institutions, are happy to interpret the law depending on how much they think you're trying to cheat. I.e. they do not come to your wedding parties, but they will crack down on clubs that aren't paying a fee.
My blog
Next thing you know the RIAA and MPAA will be setting up offices in Lagos, Nigeria.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Calls? That's like saying they sent an e-mail. No evidence of receipt, so much can go wrong. So what? They didn't return calls to probably the rudest voicemail messages they'll ever get. I don't blame them.
Send them a couriered envelope requiring a signature and proof of delivery. Now we're talking!
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
I play in a "small/unknown" band, our most recent cd was pressed by a relatively small label, and the tracking/mixing/mastering was paid for out of pocket. We're not doing it to get laid or make money, we're all either in relationships or can very well meet girls on our own, and have 'real' jobs. Even so, that part is irrelevant, you're right in saying that a lot bands have an ulterior motive for playing music.
That being said, we do charge more than cost for our cds and eps, and don't feel badly about it.
Why? Because music is a hobby for us. We already pay out of pocket for decent guitars, amps, drums, personal recording equipment, etc. We're not trying to make a business out of this, and we've never made enough off of merch sales to even begin to subsidize equipment, we view those as personal investments. We do sell a decent amount of merch, but that really only pays for gas to out-of-the-area shows, trailer rentals, and saving towards buying a trailer (which will be at least 80% out of pocket).
I can't speak for bands that play the same town every week and try to get you to buy their $10 4-song EP, but for the rest of us, being a band can be expensive, we're literally just trying to cover some expenses.
--- What
This is entirely correct. To date not ONE hosting site has challenged this in court. Why? Because the **AA are basically bullying them into submission with the threat of exhorbitant legal fees. Don't have limitless pockets to fight? Then what choice do you have?
When the first case goes to court, then and only then can we know for certain that merely hosting a torrent file is enough to fall foul of whatever laws exist in that country. And that is unlikely to happen because those bringing forth these extortions will make sure they compromise before that happens just in case they lose and precedent is set.
Visceral Psyche Films
I am in film school. I intend to make movies for a living. I also agree that copyright as it stands today is grossly overextended.
So I intend, as far as possible, to make my movies with an eleven year copyright on them. Why 11 and not 10? Simply to allow for a ten year anniversary DVD etc before giving it back to the commons.
I'm hoping my stance will encourage yourself and others like you to support my films by buying them when I release them (if you like them of course!). I will try to put them online as simple non-DRM media files for free, with the hope that you will then buy the DVD from me with commentary tracks, extras etc. It's an experiment (and no films yet made to use as tests) but I firmly believe that people will respect me if I respect them as customers. Keep an eye on my website later in the year.
Visceral Psyche Films
IANAL, I only know what I read over at Cornell. True, US law is mostly irrelevant to these Aussies, but I doubt what you're saying makes any more sense under AU law.
While 17 USC 1 seems to imply that you may be correct insofar that copyright on a derived work may be held separately from the original, this requires that creation of the derivative work be legally authorized (section 103a). The right to authorize derivative works is one of the exclusive rights of a copyright holder (section 106). Without that, the creation is illegal.
Furthermore, according to this handy PDF copyright office circular (which is probably based on the US case law)
Considering that the creation of a torrent is based on a mechanical mathematical algorithm to checksum the various portions of the file, this would suggest that no separate copyright as a derived work is possible, and that copyright is reserved to and retained by the copyright holder of the original work. While fair use might cover the process of ripping CDs to MP3s for personal use, or even the creation of a torrent file, publishing either for public use fairly clearly exceeds the scope of coverage of section 107. Once you add in that it's not clear Australian law recognizes such fair use exceptions, and you'll want to put your psychiatrist on danger money as well as your lawyer.A representative fingerprint of the blocks of the original work has not been deemed a Copyright issue yet, despite its use in multiple protocols and digital signature systems.
Merely because no-one has tried the argument in court, does not mean the judge will not have to recess for an hour while he tries to stop laughing when someone presents it. Just because lawyers are trained in straining at gnats and swallowing elephants does not imply the judge must swallow that elephant.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Thanks, exactly what i was trying to say, only worded better.. :)
You cant fight in here, its a war room!
Ummmmmmm, funny; The last time I checked the law, it pretty much stated that one doesn't have to do anything, unless a judge orders it. I guess those judges of the land down under; Are wrong? I also guess business managers of local yoderlers know the law better than the rest of us.
But if you send something via email, you're an idiot if you don't consider the fact that you might accidentally be filed as spam by spam filters, so if someone doesn't respond to your letter, you try another contact method -- say, the next one down the list. No one is going to stop using a spam filter on their email, and like it or not spam email looks a lot like the stuff that was probably sent out.
And no one made you use email in the first place -- you had a list of choices and you chose the top one on the list even though you knew about this potential downside. And you whine when you run into the downside you knew about, or should have known about?
If you don't like being spam filtered, kindly solve the spam problem for the rest of us, making those filters unnecessary, then convince the rest of us to use your solution.
Or stop bitching.
i am a soviet space shuttle
In Canada the offending organization is called SOCAN. They collect a tax on every blank CDR/CDRW sold. It doesn't matter if I am using the CD for storing my own photos. They distribute the wealth to record companies.
I've never heard of it before, but so far it appears to be a total piece of crap.
:(
I got it to download *TWO SONGS* - that's it. It won't finish the other 2 tracks that it tried to grab, and no matter what I set it to, I only have 2 complete songs.
tried the Stable & unstable ones. Still no luck.
Count that as a failure in my book. Maybe I'll check back in a few months.
May-bee the dingo down-loa-ded your mu-sic.
That's like saying "if you want to play video games why buy an X-box when the N64 is so much cheaper."
BSD - Servers at work
Linux - General Desktop
Windows - Games, and other media software that doesn't have comparable offerings on alternative OS's
It's not just what people are used to... sometimes it's the only thing that will do the job as the need it done.
Please remember what you're talking about here -- a few, maybe 20 SHA hashes of chunks of a Copyright work. The original might be 1.2GB and the SHA hashes thereof a hundred KB. This is so negligable as to fall under 'fair use' for sampling (use of a very small part of a Copyrighted work to reference said work is perfectly legal in most countries.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I remember, and am quite familiar with the insides of a torrent file. Heck, I've even posted a uuencoded .torrent file to /. just to see if it could be done.
So, since I haven't found the specific code for Australia, let's consider US law . The definition of fair use is covered by 17 USC 1 section 107, and while "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" is one of the criteria, it is not the only one. Consideration must also be given to "the purpose and character of the use" and "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" (as well as "the nature of the copyrighted work", which is not overly relevant here).
Since the "purpose and character of the use" in creating a torrent is (aside from hypothetically very strange home network usage) facilitiating the widescale distribution of the original, and given that "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" is without remunerating the copyright holder to provide duplicates of the original to anyone with a network connection, some patience, and a tranquil conscience... yeah, I think you'll need a really good lawyer to get a judge to swallow that elephant.
Now, these guys are Aussies. And, while I haven't found the on-line equivalent of the USC (Cornell rocks!), I did find this little blurb noting that AU law recognition of fair use is limited to "research or study", "criticism or review", "reporting of news", and "professional advice given by a legal practitioner or patent attorney". Which would likely rule out any fair use claims in this case.
Other countries laws vary-- and may in fact allow torrents under fair use. Feel free to point out a country and its copyright law if you have a particular one in mind. But it won't fly in the US or the Land of OZ.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
The "demo" model can work for both consumers and publishers. If the argument is that consumers simply want to try before they buy, then record companies can release low bitrate version of songs. This should be good enough for those really just wanting to demo and not good enough to keep them from buying something they already got for free. The only problem is that this means the record companies need to put out good stuff.
I can just smell a public stoning of Bram Cohen is on the horizon.