Slashdot Mirror
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!
...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.
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.
>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...
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.
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