Slashdot Mirror
130 Filesharer Homes Raided in Germany
Flo writes "Today, 130 homes have been raided in Germany under the allegation of filesharing. Law enforcement agencies had been monitoring an eDonkey-Server for two months. 3500 identified users are being investigated. Searches took place when users shared more than 500 files. Partners of the music industry helped identifying copyrighted material, but monitoring of the servers was solely done by law enforcement."
Searches took place when users shared more than 500 files.
I hereby invoke my Triple-S Rule which stats: Sharing Shit (they) Shouldn't
News flash: Break the law, and you might get caught.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
This is excellent news. The IP rights-holders appear to be responsibly investigating the actions of people violating copyright law.
I'd rather have a million more Jane Doe lawsuits and investigations like this one before DRM achieves greater legal backing than (in the United States, anyway) the DMCA already gives it.
Copyright holders have always had the right to take legal action against copyright violators, but they made a tactical error when they chose to fight Napster instead of the users, and when they attempt to pass laws instead of civilly enforcing existing laws.
NEWSFLASH: Sony and the RIAA are not law enforcement agencies.
Let me be exceedingly clear on this point.
The RIAA and the Sony Entertainment Corporation are NOT LAW-enforcement agencies. They are entities designed to make money. In making said money, they have the means to buy government influence.
This is called corruption, even while the coporation continues to screw the consumer.
The ethical debate we - as citizens, consumers, potentially file-sharers, and ultimately the ones with the votes - have to deal with is: which is more, or in this case less ethical? Corruption at a federal or even International level, or Copyright Infringement?
That is a choice I leave to you.
Informatus Technologicus
I don't think that would help. They can nail you for sharing files, even if the people you are sharing with are outside the USA. I don't believe law enforcement has to prove the other party downloaded anything, just that you were sharing.
What if someone in Germany was sharing a popular MP3. I download it in the USA. Does that make it less of a crime than if I downloaded it from someone sharing in the USA.
But to the point. These laws are stupid. File sharing is no different than what many people did in the 80's when they made tapes of music and shared it. Or taped music off the radio. I remember when radio stations used to not speak when a song started, so you could make a good copy. Now, the RIAA is going nuts and calling it theft. I always believed theft is those guys who profit selling pirated copies. But giving it away for free because you liked a song is not the same thing. Too bad the law disagrees with me. It makes me believe the RIAA used lots of cash to buy legislators to vote their way, after all, running an election is expensive.
If you ask me, the RIAA is a bunch of jackholes. Long before they started suing, they invaded the p2p networks and made available bad copies of mp3's. People would download them, and then realize it was 3 minutes of a screeching sound. I stopped buying music around that time and I remind myself just how friendly those big music companies are. I guess it wasn't good enough when I used to buy CD's and listen to the occasional MP3 on-line. Now they can live without my money.
And look at the trends with television viewing. Everything is going digital, so you won't be able to make a copy of anything. No more VHS, even TiVo is having a new flag which will force anything recorded to be deleted in 7 days (if the station uses the flag). And to top it off, when you want to fast forward commercials, guess what TiVo does? A pop up box with an advertisment is shows. Geez, isn't that why I'm fast forwarding. Lets face it, we live in a world where movie theaters force us to watch 30 minutes of commercials before they start the movie we payed $10 to see with the $6 popcorn and $6 soda. And when the DVD comes out, we are forced to watch previews of the FBI warning screen without the ability to fastforward. And a year later, the same DVD is released with special features.
They exists to rip us off. If they just wanted sales, they would treat the customer with respect. But there are too many people, and there is always someone willing to buy.
Hmmmm yes, raiding people's homes is clearly a fair and balanced response to allegations of copyright infringement.
Yes, but likewise you don't hear about Germany applying pressures to the USA for copyright extensions. Though they might be worse nationally, the extention propositions have always come from internal corporate lobbying pressures; and not a sense to "catch up with the rest of the world."
It's sad really, as its meant the death of one of humanity's greatest intellectual achievements: the public domain. I equate it to the extermination of public libraries; sacrificing the bettering of society for the sake of saturating the corporate coffers. Of course, when politicians in charge of copyright reforms in the US are themselves bribed (via election funds) $300,000 by entertainment conglomerates, how can we expect any differently.
I'm not saying that corporate concerns should have no say in law-making; I'm saying that the laws that are being designed right now should have more of a balance.
> I'm as liberal as the next guy, but people who steal things understand the risks involved, or if they don't, they deserve what they get simply out of ignorance.
;)
People who use the law to defend industries for which there is no longer any need are enemies of the people.
The recording industry should just die. File sharing is the best thing to happen to music since the invention of the LP (it completely rekindled my interest in popular music after years of apathy, and the same goes for many of my friends). Copyright is supposed to be about the interests of the consumer. Well, it's quite clear that the interests of the consumer are served better by the free exchange of music than by having to financially support an industry.
People will still make and distribute music if they aren't being paid (for all sorts of reasons). If you don't want to, you don't have to. But don't crap on the listeners who have no need to support an outmoded business model. No one has any moral right to make money from music, just as no one has any moral right to make other people pay every time they tell a story you told them.
File sharing is like marijuana - you just aren't going to be able to stop people from doing it.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
Those who argue "Serves them right, they knew it was a crime" don't realize just how bizarre this whole situation is. You have police come to your house, take your computer away, and you'll get fined with thousands of Euros for something which is utterly trivial. If this is taken to an extreme, it's even worse than the "war on drugs": You don't even have to leave your house to be labeled a criminal.
The music industry has this funny idea that they can scare consumers into using iTunes and similar networks. This will work -- for a while. But when you have all the technologies mentioned, copyright infringement that is undetectable will become prevalent -- because you just download 1 GB from your friend via IM, or swap DVDs (or soon HDDVDs), or use IRC and FTP. And it's not like you have to be a technology savvy guy to do these things. My mom can use IM, when she gets broadband, she can swap files.
So, what you are left with is completely arbitrary enforcement on some services, scare tactics that work against some, while the underlying "problem" keeps getting "worse" because of technology (hardware, software). Just wait until the next file sharing application with a built in "how anonymous do you want to be?" slider comes along.
The problem will only go away when those who make music embrace sharing as a way to popularize it. Those who like it, will pay. What will work better in the long run -- scaring people into paying? Or letting them choose to? If the industry doesn't realize the answer and tries to criminalize society instead, it's time for people to force them to. I really hope that initiatives like the Swedish "Pirate Party" are successful in working towards the decriminalization of non-commercial copying.
Marijuana is legal in quite a few countries. It can happen.
No, in no case is copyright infringement stealing. They are two completely different things. (If you broke into my house, took the masters of the songs I'm working, and copied the stolen data, that would be both copyright infringement and stealing, but still two seperate acts.)
Perhaps. That doesn't means that a state-created artifical monopoly on the act of making copies is, or ever was, a good way to see that authors and creators get paid; any more than making people sing royalties for singing in the shower would be pratical, moral, or just.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So this must mean that Germany has solved all of their problems with child porn, identity theft, extortion, and all of the other shady activities that can happen online, right?
Because there's no way that they'd place corporate trademark and copyright issues ahead of the safety and security of their citizens, would they? On the taxpayer's dime, too?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Fuck you and your RIAA buddies. If you give me the choice between P2P retrieval of legitimate content and my RIAA music collection, I'll wipe my non free music in a heartbeat. It's crap like this that tightens my resolve to avoid non free music. I can get all I want from archive.org, magnatune.com, others like them, artist CDs bought at the club and etunes. You pigopolists and your old commercial shit are on the bottom of my list.
We can debate the morality of surrendering to government sponsored ownership of culture, but the practical path is to not help by sharing non free material. Government mandated broadcast monopolies and many other bogus laws lead directly to the creation of the big three music publishers. As the owners of the previous convenient means of sharing music, radio, the publishers have co-opted a large part of our culture. No one really won that one, least of all artists and those actually making the music. The best way to fight it is not to purchase or share RIAA shit.
Lack of hassle is another reason to delete it all. The accused should be presumed innocent, despite having their doors kicked in. As I pointed out, there's plenty of free content out there by people who want you to share. Much of it is easiest to get by bit torrent and other P2P services. If possesion of RIAA shit is the incriminating evidence, you might be better off without it. That way, I won't have some dickhead like you tut tuting in my face about how I'm getting what I deserved.
That's kind of what they want - RIAA only or nothing RIAA for you. They are forcing you to chose. If everyone gave them what they wanted, the world would be a better place.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Copyright is supposed to be about the interests of the consumer.
Actually, it's quite the opposite; copyright is about the interests of the artist. The point is to give an artist the ability to make money on what they create, so that artists have an incentive to go on creating, thus encouraging the progression of the arts. The individual consumer's interests are not central to the idea of copyright at all.
I don't think the guy who stole my car battery was planning on buying one for himself. That doesn't make sense.
Neither does your analogy. If I steal your car battery, you no longer have it. On the other hand, if I can make a copy identical to the one you have, you've still got yours and I've got one too.
Hasn't this been gone over frequently enough? Copyright infringement may be illegal in many countries (whether or not it should be), but that doesn't make it theft, any more then the widespread prohibitions against drunk driving make that theft.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
If you STILL feel inclined to hold your misguided, fanciful, but NOT-thought-out *beliefs* after reading this, and choose to reply... I don't know if you're more stupid or brave...
(Is it "brave" to be steadfastly wrong?
"To err is human, to totally fsck things up requires an election." - L.W. Hale
They own the airwaves,they own the big venues.You either bend over or you don't get to play anything bigger than your local club.They are plenty of bands out there that are selling out 300-700 seat venues every night and selling their cds as fast as they can print them but because they won't take .35 an album (I've known guys that signed and yes,That is how bad they screw new acts) you will most likely never hear from them.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"File sharing is no different than what many people did in the 80's when they made tapes of music and shared it."
I beg to differ here. Making a copy of a tape or record and giving it to a friend is "sharing". Making 10,000 copies and giving them to 10,000 friends [sic] is "publishing".
Moreover, sharing had a built-in limitation because it had a cost: the tape. How many high-school kids in the '80s bought 10,000 tapes, made copies, and then just gave them away to strangers?
Sorry, but publishing is not fair use.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
War aber vorhersehbar. Sonst hätten se ja nicht diesen Urheberrecht Zusatz gebaut. Macht die natürlich nicht weniger 'nen Haufen Arschlöcher die hier dauernd die Gesetze für so'nen Scheiß verschärfen. Das alte Urheberrecht war vollkommen ausreichend, alles danach is reine Korruption.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Copying somebody else's work against their wishes is also bad.
Copying somebody else's work against their wishes is NOT bad. In fact, the purpose of copyright law is exactly to make this happen.
Copyright law was a deal between the public and content producers that gave content producers the right to limit distribution for a limited time, in exchange for the requirement that their works fall into the public domain (i.e., can be copied against their wishes) after that period. The goal was to balance an economic incentive for content producers against the public's right to copy.
What has happened with copyright law is a perversion: content producers effectively have gotten copyright in perpetuity, through numerous technological and legal tricks. And, worse yet, people like you actually wrongly believe that people have some sort of basic right to control information after they have made it public.
If you don't want your ideas to be disseminated, keep them in your head; you have a right to do that, that works, and you need no goons to enforce it. People like you want the adoration and profit that comes along with sharing your ideas with others; if you want that, you should lose your ability to control your ideas after a short while.
I think the RIAA is stealing from us as much as we from them but unfortunately their stealing is legal, and in any case two wrongs don't make a right.
Freeing slaves might be illegal, but it's still the right thing to do. I'm not saying that this situation is analogous, but it illustrates that taking illegal action in response to bad laws can be justifiable.
What widespread sharing really shows you is that the law may be out of step with what society wants, and that's a problem in a democracy.
In any case, I think civil disobedience in this case might consist of sharing something illegal that is obviously ridiculous, like an original recording of Glass's several minutes of silence.
The other way to make this sillines stop is to undermine the music industry's business model, to work on the political front, to set legal precedents, and to make recording companies and their artists simply look uncool (need I say Michael Jackson).
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
"File sharing is no different than what many people did in the 80's when they made tapes of music and shared it."
I beg to differ here. Making a copy of a tape or record and giving it to a friend is "sharing". Making 10,000 copies and giving them to 10,000 friends [sic] is "publishing".
I guess you don't understand how P2P really works. Nobody is giving out 10,000 copies of a song. Typically, they are "giving out" one or maybe two complete copies of a file.
Also, the file is typically not a "perfect copy" of the original, it is downsampled in some way.
I'm not necessarily advocating either side of this argument, but please, keep to the facts.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Erm, when the politicians that are supposed to represent the people don't set rules that are agreed upon by the people then your point kinda loses it's edge. Many Western democracies are two party systems where both parties are bought and paid for by large industries with effective monopolies. At that point the law is meaningless.
I'm afraid that the world has changed. George Orwell imagined a world in which the law was set up solely for the perpetuation of the state. Aldous Huxley imagined a world in which apathy was the primary tool of control. The modern corporation seems bent on taking the worst of these two worlds and making it our future. And short of revolution, there is not much we can do about it.
It turns out that actually as well as buying politicians it is possible to buy the general public. And once a system is big enough that statistical errors are small, you can make that public elect who you want, and who you want will then give you the laws you want. Modern politics in the West is bought and paid for, you are living in a 60's fantasy that wasn't true then and isn't true now.
Check the size of your shared folder in edonkey, amule or whatever.
If you have more than 500 shared items you are at risk. Unshare (or outright delete, if you're paranoid...) any items over 500, and you should be (relatively) safe, unless they already have your IP.
Last week was Romania, this week was Germany, and next week may be another European country. Play it safe, and stay under 500; in Germany the 130 raided had more than 500 items to share.
(I checked my amule this morning: had 1800+ items. I quickly unshared everything older than 100 days, and now I'm down to 96).
You sir, are a prince amoung men!
Wow that's really great police work, you gotta put it to those German police with their efficiency - Apparently next week they're planning to do a big raid of about 10 major street gangs and they're planing to take 5000 guns off the streets! Oh wait whats that? they're not planning a raid to take guns off the streets? they're going to instead concentrate solely on copyright infringement? oh, well, im sure that's pretty important too, I mean a few people getting shot doesn't really hurt the economy!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
So driving 1 mph isn't speeding, 2 mph neither, and to not break your little "no arbritary limits" rule, driving 100 mph through a domestic area shouldn't be speeding either.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck