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Sweden's File Sharing Debate Becomes Mass Brawl
praps writes "When Sweden's Data board gave the film and games industry organisation Antipiratbyrån an exemption from data protection laws last week it seemed that file sharers were on the ropes. Then the music industry joined in with some punches of its own, saying it too will hunt those who share songs online. Suddenly, file sharers have the support of their ISPs, who are refusing to cooperate with the big industries - and it's game on." From the article: "Only the file sharer's ISP can link the IP address to the person. If the ISP receives a request for such information from the police, they cannot refuse it, but a few calls from TT revealed that requests from APB would be ignored." We've previously reported on Swedish anti-downloading laws before.
So the European equivalent of the MPAA/RIAA will have succeeded in shutting down file sharing of copyrighted material in Sweden only to see it pop up elsewhere in the world. This game will continue because, like all forms of covert smuggling operations, the excise tax charged by these organizations are viewed by the consumer as onerous and overpriced. If the music and film industry were to reduce their taxes, just as England did in the mid-18th Century, they will find that compliance increases and smuggling declines to nominal levels.
You can say the same thing about prohibition. Once you create a black market for a product through legislation or exorbitant pricing, it is impossible to put smuggling down permanently.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
That seems like exactly the right thing to do to me, actually. Not that I think that copyright infringement is something that necessarily should be allowed, mind you, but if somebody's done something wrong, then it's the job of the police to investigate - not private companies'. And the fact that Antipiratbyrån seems to have planted evidence in the past (search for it, I'm too lazy to look up the story; Slashdot covered it) just shows again why this is important.
What's more, it's not immediately clear to me why it would even be legal for an ISP to give out data about customers to a private company that asks for it, without (I presume) the customer's knowledge or consent. Not that I know a thing about Swedish law, of course, but that sounds like exactly the kind of thing that could result in class action lawsuits and the like, so if I was an ISP, I'd definitely err on the safe side here and only hand over customer data to the police, not private companies, and only when ordered to do so by a court of law.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
That's a stupid statement.
... If the owner of said item wants it to be.
.50 to a another schmuck, and then .50 to the musician.
Music, information, entertainment should be free!
Musicians don't make music to just give it away (some do) but they also need to eat. I have no problems handing over some cash for a CD I like.
What I don't like doing is handing over 25.99 for a cd, and having 23.99 go to a label,
That's what I don't like.
But running around saying it all should be free is ridiculous. Remember, making that cd you listen to, or that mp3 you just downloaded, took time, took money and is someones lively hood.
It's like stating all car repairs should be free!
oogly boogly!
Not trying to pick on you, but I find that statement little odd. May be I am not understanding RIAA business, but are they selling anything directly to the consumer? RIAA is an association - a front for Recording industry. If people collectively decide that RIAA is evil, which they wouldn't be wrong by the way, how hard is to abolish that start a new front with a new name and do the same shoddy things all over again? Mean while the recording comanies will still be selling music. Once people are listening to the music they like, they don't think about RIAA or BMG for that matter.
I know every body keeps complaining that artists are screwed and blah blah blah. But in reality, I am seeing a lot of artists supporting RIAA and co. To name a few - Metallica, Eminem etc. Even the one that are quiet are guilty according to me. Even if they are not getting paid their worth or their share, they are getting enough to buy and maintain a lavish lifestyle. Bottom line - it doesn't matter what people think as long as we have urge and need for music. Consumer will be screwed, whether you like it or not. My $0.02
Your sentiments are noble, but misplaced. You blame the legislators for not throwing out this stuff immediately; they aren't the problem. They'd probably be thrilled if they could simply do that. The problem is that there are very rich organizations trying to pull strings. And you cannot simply sweep aside the very rich, because they wield a great deal of economic power.
The metaconflict is arguably about the power of pure wealth versus the power of the democratic government.
Play more gigs.
jh
It might help if you actually provide reasoning behind your post. Like why entertainment should be free, and if it is free how you are going to fund creation of new entertainment. Independant bands haven't had much trouble so far, but making an independant game or movie is pretty hard to do if you can't be expected to get money back through sales. Most of the indie games and movies aren't anywhere near the quality of those made by game and movie studios.
So, what do you propose? Have the people fund it through tax revenue? But why should my dollars go towards music, movies, and games I don't want to buy?
Care to share your brilliance with us, instead of labelling people who disagree "brainwashed capitalist?" Ad hominem attacks, and proclaiming that you are obviously right without giving any sort of reasoning, are the hallmarks of a weak mind.
Whoever has the most money to buy legislation protecting themselves. My bet is the music/film industry will purchase the right to sue.
In the US, many ISPs are a division of a larger media corporation. Therefore, their finances come from hawking such media (See AOL etc.). The obvious connection to this is that the ISP will not stop their parents from impeding their customers. In Sweeden, however, this appears to not be the case. The ISPs make money from their ability to move data. They don't care what kind of data that they are moving, if they did, they would lose money. If a customer gets sued, they are out that customer, and the people that downgrade their internet packages because they stopped using so much bandwidth for fear of a lawsuit. The media corporations are not equipped to make use of the ISPs bandwidth, so banding together with them would hurt the ISPs bottom line. Media company's solution: Try to buy them out and stop competition. To stop competition, they either have to get laws passed, or advertise more about how great their music videos are.
This brings us to the future problem. A newcomer ISP can always offer cheaper service if they only provide bandwidth and not media. To combat this the MediaISPs will make more complicated rate structures which obfuscate the fact that the customers are paying more, in hopes of staying around longer. This will be alongside their legal fight to gain more powers associated with IP. The newcomer ISP competes only if there is sufficient free content on the internet to justify the bandwidth.
2*31*37*263
Of course, the ISP:s aren't refusing to identify customers because they're a bunch of swell guys. They make a bunch of money selling fast broadband connections, where the faster ones are primarily used by file sharers. Forwarding warning letters would also be a bunch of extra work, and they have nothing to gain - they'll just lose customers.
The only solution is legal download services. TV shows, which make up a large part of the traffic, are distributed in an antiquated fashion, and the technology is here to change that.
Imagine if music was distributed the same way that TV shows are. The new song of your favourite artist would only play on radio stations in the US, where it's interrupted by commercials halfway through. After a couple of months it'd start to play on radio stations in the rest of the world. Only after a year would you be able to buy the CD in a store, but it would be protected by DRM so you couldn't pick it up a few months early on your visit abroad. Bizarre, isn't it?
Let's hope iTunes TV download service turns out well, so we can finally get fast, legal downloads at a decent price.
READY.
#
...and make better music.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
The music industry would like you to pay every time you listen to your CD.
Having you buy another one if you break it is still waaaay off this objective, but rest assured that they will do everything in their power to get there.
Same with the movie industry of course.
So, enjoy your free re-listening while it lasts.
In my opinion, Scientology is a cult you should avoid.
No thats stupid - to say patterns can be "owned". Patterns are just patterns, and if person A knows a pattern and tells parson B this pattern there is nothing that makes a person C able to regulate it.
If some laws say otherwise, the laws are stupid to. Whats stupid or not is not determined by law but is a subjective view. You think it is natural that people own patterns, but many dont think so.
Worst. Rocky. Refernce. Ever.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
A distinction should be made between small scale copying for free, and large scale copying for financial gain.
That was how the original "fair use" precedent was set, and described in the AHRA. Small scale copying between friends was covered under fair use, large scale copying for selling unlicensed copies was illegal. The problem is that the Internet introduces a third type- large scale copying not for profit. Both sides of the debate are now trying to treat this new category in terms of the existing two- sharers by arguing that it's not fundamentally different from making a copy for a single friend, and publishers by arguing that its effect is not fundamentally different from selling bootleg movies on a streetcorner. But both of these positions are wrong. It's something entirely new.
Then they should sell their music, not the rights to it. Hmmm, let's see. The record company pays for the time in the recording studio. They get the rights to the music recorded because it's a work for hire. They then recoupe the cost of the recording studio time from the artists take of the sales, but continue to own the rights to the songs. Well, I geuss they should negotiate with a different major label since this one sucks. What do you mean all of them have almost identical contracts? Well, then the artists should be happy to suffer for their art. Don't you think?
Yes I realize that this is ridiculosly over simplified, but does cover the basics of most initial contracts for most bands.
The fight for freedom has many fronts. This front's name is freedom of speech (for music writers, that is - if a record label won't publish some singers' song because it doesn't benefit them or because of government crap, how effective his message will be? In this case, "Art wants to be free" (free as in freedom, not as in beer).
First: I'd gladly buy a CD if it's cheap enough and it's worth it. I don't want to spend my money in a giant marketing apparatus promoting tours. People who go to the tours ARE ALREADY paying. If I'm not going, why should my money go to them? I don't want to spend twice on a product. On the other hand, if a musician puts up his website and has a "donate" button for some tour, i'd gladly click if I consider the artist good enough.
Second, if you had to choose between spending $100 on the poor, and giving them to record companies, which one would you choose? You kill no one by downloading a file. And I'd rather download a song from the internet than financing kidnapper bands or druglords who sell pirated goods on the street.
Third, you can't force a teenager to give away his money to the poor. But in the same way, you can't force him to feed the RIAA monster companies who are already obsolete anyway. Why invest money in something that has no reason to exist?
Fourth, The only reason people have to pay for music is because the RIAA has twisted the law in their favor, lobbing them with the money the customers have paid. If I'm spending money on a music as a government tax (in the form of lobbying), I have the right to decide what should be done with my money, don't I? I'd rather download a song and donate a dollar to the group, than paying $20 to the RIAA, who will only give about 50 cents (or less) to the group in question.
Finally, The RIAA has stolen a lot of money from customers. Is it wrong to want to take that money back?
These are some of the reasons file sharers believe it's not only "not wrong", but a just cause, to share files. One thing can be wrong and legal, or viceversa. The laws supporting evil monopolies like the RIAA can, and must go away.
(You can quote, copy and link to this as the "File Sharer's manifesto". This is free speech and belongs to the public domain - permission to correct spelling / grammar is granted)
The reasons why the ones you've mentioned are supporting the RIAA is that they have deals put on their album such that they make a good chunk of change off of each one sold ( points per album, etc ). Plus when you are the one that manufactures the album, own your own recording study, have your own distribution network, the RIAA sees very little off of those albums. So why not be seen as a standup citizen. It's the people/bands who are just hitting the seen that get bent over the most by the likes of the RIAA. That's why many new bands ( and some old ) are releasing directly to the net and skipping what they, and many others, see as an archaic systme.
I disagree with these points:
We want to ensure its's possible to make a profit from creative works.
Online file sharing should probably be discouraged, or at least not strongly encouraged.
I could care less about profits from creative works. Copyright law doesn't exist to make people money. It is to increase the amount of information available to the citizenry. The idea is that if you give someone a monopoly on disseminating their works, they will be more likely to disseminate said works. What needs to occur is to find out what length of copyright will allow for the dessemination of the most works into the public domain, wether that be 10 days or 10 years.
Online file sharing should be strongly encouraged. If P2P file-sharing falls out of favor, we'll go back to the days when only someone who can afford to buy web space in order to disseminate their program. File sharing takes the power of information out of the hands of large conglomerates and gives it back to the people, where it rightly belongs.
"It's like stating all car repairs should be free!"
bad anology. Its like telling someone how to swap out an alternator (on a radio show), and then not letting them describe to others in as much detail, how to do it. A song isnt a commodity any more than a haynes manual is. My stereo is producing the sound.
A better anology would be that going to see a band at a club is the same as taking your car to the shop. The parts (song, alternator) are availiable to both parties, what counts is that the people actually doing the work ( mechanic, stage musician performing) actually get the money for services rendered. People shouldnt OWN songs. OF course you need to have copyright to give respect to people, but ideally I shouldnt have to pay someone to sing their song, tell their story, or describe how to fix a car. If i could make perfect copies of the aleternator of my car, i shouldnt have to pay anyone to do it.
freedom is independance. slavery is control.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
>But the first time I saw this happen, it made me think: piracy in general can have more economic impact that you realize at first.
...
Let me get this straight:
If your customers are being routinely hacked
You know why this happens
The link to piracy here is circumstancial. Your bandwidth could be misused in some other way just as easily... a Paris Hilton video, a very popular Linux ISO, or "anything" really.
Of course the customer is always 'right' and you let them use '1234' as a password, and the cycle repeats.
Banks do NOT let their customers use '1234' or '9999' as a PIN!
The person holding you to this policy IS THE PROBLEM. They do not care about the loss of revenue or the distress to the customer, so long as their job is made easier.
There are little rules you can enforce on passwords: 8 characters at least, include at least 1 number, etc. Make it easy to resend the password automatically if they forget it, so you're not getting support calls on that either.
You do NOT need to make them use difficult random passwords to eliminate most of the problem.
'cat'.. LOL...
I disagree, and the reason is because people are like crack addicts when it comes to music. And the music industry knows it.
Proverbs 21:19
Once people are listening to the music they like, they don't think about RIAA or BMG for that matter.
That's why the RIAA exists, to protect the interests of the studios while minimizing negative PR for individual companies in the recording industry. If one individual company, say Sony, started throwing around lawsuits it would be easy for consumers to stop buying their products. With the RIAA it's difficult to know where individual studios, publishers, distributors or artists stand on the issue. Most people don't want to boycott music altogether, so the RIAA can act without hurting it's market much.
But in reality, I am seeing a lot of artists supporting RIAA and co. To name a few - Metallica, Eminem etc.
A lot of artists? You named two, and neither are what I would call typical artists. Metallica has sold out and is over the hill. Most old school Metallica fans I know either have grown up or think all of their new stuff sucks. Their career has peaked and they have much more to gain by supporting the RIAA than by pissing off their fans. Eminem is similar. He's at the point where he can put out any crap and people will buy it, kinda like U2, plus there's rumours he's going to retire. Again, he has nothing to lose from denouncing file sharing and everything to gain.
It's interesting to me that there are only a few artists that have actively come out in support of the RIAA's position out of thousands of musicians. I don't think the quiet ones are guilty, I think they are just smart enough to not get involved. They don't want to alienate their fans, but they want to keep a good relationship with their studios. It's actually somewhat unfortunate. It would be interesting to know what most artists honestly think about file trading, but as long as the RIAA and the studios are involved I don't think we will get an honest answer from anyone.
Find coupons in Greeley
Lets summarise:
>The **AA sucks. (+5, Insightful)
>>Yes they should all die and their pets should be raped. (+4, Interesting)
>Won't someone think of the artists! (+4, Interesting)
>> Yes, stealing songs is wrong. (-1, Troll)
>>> *five million posts on the correctness of calling it stealing*
>>>> Information wants to be free! (+4, Funny)
>>>>> *several thousand government/big business conspiracy posts*
And now my ten cents. Music is over priced, yes. And yes, the labels churn out crap, because largely that is what the average person wants, remember, we are not the average consumer. The artists do deserve to make money from their music. The **aa practice sleazy tactics at best. Downloaders often abuse the fair use rights.
So, really, the **aa fuck us over in terms of taking the public domain, and limiting our fair use rights. We fuck them over by sharing what we have with others. Both are wrong. I'd argue that theirs is typically more wrong (don't try and argue that sharing 10,000 mp3s with random people is fair, please) but the real point for me is that they have the power/money to make theirs *legally* right...
Ok, phrase it like this instead; intellectual monopolies should not be allowed.
"It's like stating all car repairs should be free!"
No, actually it's like stating anyone should be allowed to fix a car.
You're confusing the right to charge for your work with monopoly rights allowing a certain party to control what other people do with their property.
do you understand they've built a kind of mafia and monopoly...
Monopoly or not, nobody is forcing us to buy any of it.
Saying it would go away if people didn't want it is very naive, kind of like saying Republican neo-cons will go away because most people don't like what they're doing
Nothing naive about it. They will go away the moment people stop supporting them and voting for them. Nobody's forcing us to vote for them either. The fact is that the majority of people who voted do like what they're doing. Unless you have solid evidence that states otherwise.
In short, the choice is ours to make, not the RIAA's, neo-cons', or anybody else's. Get 51% to vote your way and the problem will go away in the following January(plus or minus a few years).
What?
"So if person A told person B all about your patterns, say bank account, PIN, Credit Card #"
You know, if you dont want your PIN spread around you should probably keep it to yourself.
"if a person works long and hard hours to produce something useful or that people enjoy, then it is ok for people to take what that person has done and not give him any sort of compensation for it"
Of course not. That person should be able to charge however much they wish. However, that does not mean they should be allowed to then prevent the purchaser from doing whatever they want with their newly purchased property.
"thus undercutting me and running me out of business, is that OK?"
That's the fundamental reason that the free market works; the creation of wealth through the ever increasing efficiency of production. So, yes, that's the way it's supposed to work. Unless you're opposed to or dont believe in competition or free market capitalism in general.
"If its OK, then why should I bother to develop widget A in the first place?"
Because it gives you a competetive advantage? Because it solves a particular problem you were having?
There are many reasons, but in the end it comes down to this; are we as a society satisfied with the rate of development we're getting without added incentives? If we're not satisfied with the rate we need to create a system that creates extra incentives for development. And if you start there you'll find that granting monopolies is one system that is extrordinarily inappropriate and creates such effects as slower adoption of new technology, creates legal overhead for any combination tech, sometimes even making it impossible to produce, creates lockin effects on the market, diverts resources from research into marketing, etc.
The IP system is in its essence a form of taxation/subsidy system, in the form of monopoly rent on certain items, comparable to other product taxes in economic effects. As for what the public gets for those hidden taxes, it has got to be the absolutely worst performing and undemocratic subsidy/corporate welfare scheme ever invented.
I hereby amend my previous position: "Information that hurts no innocents wants to be freely accessible."
No, all information wants to be free, just like chlorine gas wants to expand to fill whatever volume it occupies.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Of course, established 'artists' with strong contracts written to fit the current system will support them. Garth Brooks at the peak of his industry power even called for levies on the resale of used CDs reasoning that, after all, consumers are paying to hear his music, not buying a CD. For every one of them there are thousands for whom the RIAA do nothing of benefit. The Haves want to maintian and strengthen the current system to the point of federal regulation of information movement (for Eminem or Metallica, god help us...) and Have Nots are locked out of the system by RIAA payola and oligarchical control of distribution channels. That's the easy part to understand, the hard is why any outside of an entertainent company's board room or a bought politican like Fritz Holling would support the RIAA.
When you say 'in it' do you mean supporting the RIAA or making/performing music in general? After seeing them in concert, I would believe the latter is true. It was absolutely the worst frickin concert I've ever been to. Aside from the poor acoustics (don't know if it was them or the arena) they really didn't seem to be enjoying themselves on stage. Contrast that with the Beastie Boys - that was one of the best concerts ever. It was so obvious they were having fun on stage (and making a ton of money too) which made it a much better concert.
The Anti-piracy Bureau are also forced to inform everyone they register the IP address of in their databases, otherwise they aren't allowed to store the IP address according to Swedish computer privacy laws.
So... The APB then have problems with following this practice since the ISP's won't give them personal data (necessary to contact the user they log) without a police order, and it all turns into a kind of circular legal problem that benefits the file sharer, and makes the APB databases illegal if they'd keep registering IP's and bypassing the police. (in Sweden, an IP address is definitely considered private information you can't just register however you like; much like a social security number)
Personally, I believe this is more proof that our privacy safety nets are working as intended than that they're broken. If the APB find an IP address and want to register this one, they should really need to contact the police, and if they decide it's worth tracking up, let them proceed, and if not, force them to delete the IP address from their databases. That way, it's in the end the police that enforce our laws and not a private organization.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Much like the Mob is an association of "legitimate businessmen from New Jersey."
The RIAA treats customers and artists as adversaries. In its mind, coercion and extortion are the best ways to ensure future earnings, not better product and lower prices. The recording industry (the entertainment industry in general) has a low ethical standard that would make the crooks from Enron, WorldCom, and Adelphia proud. That the RIAA continues to thrive while the crooks who stole millions from those companies are in prison speaks to the silliness of our system of justice.
In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.