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Russia's War on Piracy/Malicious Software
tmk writes "Russian minister Leonid Reiman has announced new legislation to fight software piracy. According to official information the share of pirated software in the Russian Federation decreased in the last years from 90 to 60 percent. Reiman dismissed as a myth the impression that many viruses originate in his country: 'Viruses are written all over the world. Russia is waging a consistent and successful war on malicious software.' Reiman calls for an international organization to fight Internet crime. Last year Russia agreed to take down Allofmp3 after the United States intervened."
Are natural partners. Expect the USA, China and Russia to embrace draconian copyright law enforcement as an _excuse_ to monitor and control all transmission of information with their borders. All copyrightists are scum.
Russia agreed to shut down Allofmp3
"The government will be expected to begin complying by June 1, 2007."
They only agreed to it is so they could get into the WTO.
We'll see how strong their resolve is & how quickly Allofmp3 returns.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Allofmp3 is still alive and well. What happens to it in June, when new legislation is enabled, is not at all clear. I doubt they will just disappear. As to levels of software piracy in Russia, I doubt they are as high as in the US.
In Soviet Russia malicious software fights you!
-- Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
... the Chinese, Russians, Americans, etc come looking for me because I use http://www.openpgp.org/, http://www.truecrypt.org/, and http://www.openvpn.net/.
-terrified Canadian
but thy pirates will keep dem treasures buried and safe. To all Prussian pirates, Yarr maties!
Damn!
for sale
I'm a self-modifying sig virus
that is, [cough]. YARR!
I am system administrator in a large nuclear physics institute in Moscow, which is by no mere coincidence a vital part of the Russian internet backbone. Since my day one I've been advocating Linux and free software, and here's the fruit: already about 10% of the institute's workers, including the director himself, use various distributions of Linux [mostly Ubuntu/Debian, Mandriva and Red Hat]. Besides, I'm currently engaged in talks with Sun regarding our migration to Sun Ray, which will run on a customized Debian system.
I believe that if the result will look as I expect it to, the university [it's the largest university in Russia and AFAIK Europe] which we are a significant part of might break off Microsoft crap in toto, although this statement can be considered a pure speculation at this moment.
Call it what it is, "Data duplication." Or perhaps even "copyright infringement."
Stop calling it "piracy." This nomenclature implies a very debatable moral judgment. Since it is quite obvious that data duplication does not include rape or murder, it is a very ill-fitting term to begin with.
Just stop using it.
In Soviet Russia virus makes you!!
Why UNIX?
Why else would a country enact laws against the interests of both country's population and its future economic power? I can see limited term copyright laws being beneficial in Russia, but only with exemptions for income levels and educational use. How does anyone benefit from a kid being computer illiterate because his parents one year salary still can not buy Vista, Office and Photoshop? If one day oil cartel countries force US women to wear burkas, you will know how that feels. Stop mucking with democratically chosen laws of sovereign nations.
Cracking down? So why is Gorbushka growing?
Have a look here:
http://www.moscow-blog.com/?p=202
What we need is a war on copyright. That's your REAL piracy, right there. The only legitimate issue is plagiarism. Everything else is no different from the old railroad monopolies maintaining their turf. It is pure robbery.
So put down your keyboard and pick up a gun
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun
And it's one, two, three
What are we fightin' for
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
Next stop is Disneyland
And it's five, six, seven
Open up them big steel gates
Aint no time to wonder why
WHOOPIE! we're all gonna buy...
What?
I think what you really meant to say was "most popular" and "newly released".
The same in China. They bootleg whatever sells well
But they don't keep massive databanks of every DVD / CD / software ever produced. Ready to be burned, printed and sold to you.
How could you tell the difference between pirated CD's and non-pirated CD's in a store? The ones I see appear identical to me.
Heard of this from a sysadmin friend who lives in Saratov, Russia. His company got raided and its owner was dragged to court and had to pay fines. Fines were substantial. He was also required to comply with licensing requirements in full, so fines weren't his only expenditure. I tried to "sell" them on Linux at least on the servers, but the boss is afraid of anything "free as in beer" now.
...Allofmp3 take down YOU. (may god and /. mods forgive me)
Anyone believes Russian piracy rate has dropped from 90% to 60% over the last year(s) should instead believe the Russian government is capable of solving all their poverty and corruption problm by the end of this year.
we have people starving in the streets in developing nations, nobody raises a stink about it.
we have people dying of diseases that are curable or quite treatable because big pharma wants their patent money, you dont see anyone threatening to boot the US out for utter cruelty and neglect of human life.
we have confirmed human rights violations (and related labor rights violations) across the boards with several of our major trading partners, and nobody raises a voice.
but as soon as hollywood stirs ever so slightly... OMG WE GOTTA ACT KICK THIS ONE THREATEN THAT ONE. hell i wouldnt be surprised if we went to war because of it (and coincidentally, copyright laws more draconian than ours were one of the first institutions the provisional government set up in iraq, at the behest of monsanto)
i hope we as a species die in a fire, preferrably nuclear, so the roaches can grow up and inherit the earth. theyre much cleaner, gentler creatures than we are.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Allofmp3.com is still operating as normal. www.allofmp3.com
Here's to the Apocalypse. It's been a good run, but you're right, we're totally broken. *Raises a beer to toast the coming World War III*
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
About 85% of the attack attempts at my site originate in Amsterdam but have a reference URL at ?????.by.ru These include filenames like cmd.txt, cmd.gif, r57.txt and such but, in reality, are scripts to compromise the system. The source IP is usually in Amsterdasm for some odd reason. Maybe the .NL people are lax in hacking enforcement. Just an observation anyway. Posted anonymously to protect my web site :)
Yeah right. There are literally 10s of other AllofMyMp3 like sites. They have flourished like mushrooms. And not just in Russia. They seem to run out of every former Soviet republic.
Not to mention the incredibly effective job that street based anti-piracy enforcement has achieved.Not.
At best, it provides another opportunity for the cops to shake down stall holders.
I think you will find anyone selling pirated CDs finds it easier to pay the cops or copyright inspects an "on the spot fine". That way everyone is happy. The CD software seller gets to keep doing business, the cop is paid, the cops boss gets a cut, and business continues.
What are you worried about? This is the market is supposed to work, after all.
I would venture anything the reason he had to go to court was because some competitor in the same town had paid the inspector to raid him, and take him out.
I'm around 100% certain these incidents have nothing to do with copyright violations, but are rather an extension of commercial warfare, Russian style.
You need to get out more and read a bit of overseas news.
Your points may be good as far as they go, but they hardly capture the sum total of the Human Race. Still, if you feel this way and are certain that you're right, then go ahead - lead the charge into oblivion. You go on, and the rest of us will be along later.
What developing nations have people starving in the streets? As far as I know the only starving people are in impoverished countries, and even then they aren't being ignored, we ARE trying to help. What have you done to help? These starving people deserve nothing from me, I have no obligation to help them and neither does anyone else, and yet we do because we have compassion for them. When you understand compassion and love, you will not want our species to die in a nuclear fire. Think about it.
Qxe4
And without the patent money, big pharma would never have developed many of those medicines in the first place.
We raise our voice, we protest, we issue statements of condemnation. There's nothing short of war we can do to stop such violations.
I wouldn't doubt it in the next few decades, though probably not about the early release to the internet of the new 007 movie.
Information is quickly becoming the most valuable commodity, and I'm sure widespread cybercrime will lead to global political conflict.
Compared to the average
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> "Russian minister Leonid Reiman has announced new legislation to fight software piracy."
Oh Mercy Me! It's great to begin my week with a good joke!
Is a "copyrightist" someone who believes that some form of copyright should exist? Or is a "copyrightist" someone who thinks copyright laws should be extended in duration and very strong in enforcement? Perhaps a "copyrightist" is someone who uses copyright enforcement as an excuse to implement invasive monitoring of information flow. Or is a "copyrightist" merely someone who disagrees with your views on copyright law?
I may not know what a "copyrightist" is, but at least thanks to your cogent analysis, at least I know they're all scum. But I wonder, where do these "copyrightists" fit on the Scum Ladder? Are they scummier than Big Oil executives? Scummier than used car dealers? Scummier than rapists? What about spammers? Arey they scummier than spammers?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"compassion and love" are merely means to an end for the vast majority of people.
for corporations and governments it's for PR issues.
for individuals it's to engender the good graces of others by being able to say to others "i donate to this charity".
It's all about posturing, engendering friendship in people to use in order to further your own goals, it has nothing to do with this noble compassion and generosity you say exists.
real compassion is donating anonymously, without claims, and dying with that secret.
I only know of one person who has ever done this, and that man is dead now.
the truth is an ugly thing is it not? oh but i assume ill get the good old -1 (troll) or (flamebait) because the truth is so ugly apparently the mods cant stand to look at it.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
You'd think that a large and relatively modern country like Russia would be developing all its own software and wouldn't need to pirate software made by American companies.
A disgruntled employee has left and tipped off the authorities. This stuff is all the rage over there right now.
Have you never done something for someone else because of compassion or love? Most people do things for mixed reasons: partly selfishness, and partly compassion. It is quite rare to find someone who acts completely out of love, or completely out of selfishness. Real compassion is doing something for someone because you care about them, whether it be secret or not, and it makes you feel good and alive (although if you are doing it because you want to feel good, then all of a sudden it's not compassionate any more, and it won't make you feel so good. Deliciously paradoxical, isn't it?)
Qxe4
Why should they? Put the research where it belongs, to university labs. Keep it open and shared, and develop cures for more diseases instead of having three manufacturers making three expensive patented variants of the same drug that differ only by a position of an unimportant methyl group, or that are different salts of the same molecule. The same money that are paid for drugs by insurance companies and Medicare, if invested purely to open research and testing, are likely to yield more of cheaper meds for the entire world, instead of being wasted on duplicated effort, lawyers, and marketing. According to some figures I encountered long ago, the cash spent on PR, advertising and marketing often exceeds the cash spent on R&D.
They (the police) don't believe in copyright (nor do they know what it is in minute detail, I'm sure), but they do believe in edicts from their superiors. They were told to enforce, and they did enforce. Just a few years ago they couldn't even do it since there was no legal mechanism for doing so.
I'm sure the guy could have gotten away with it for much less if he had connections in the police, though.
To be precise, in Russia you own someone else's software.
The American part should be changed accordingly.
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
Everyone seems to know of high-profile cases, such as AllOfMp3. No wonder, AllOfMP3 used to one of the most popular music shops out there, just a bit less popular than iTunes.
Unfortunately, due to this 'fight', a lot of innocent people get hurt by the system. You heard of Ponosov's case, where a headmaster of God-forgotten school in Perm region has been tried for an alleged 'intellectual property violation'. And this case was not brought on by Microsoft. It was brought by a regional prosecution office. And that was just a beginning...
Nowadays corrupted goverment officials and law enforcement officers use 'software piracy' as yet another way to make a 'quick buck' in bribes. Their demands are completely ridiculous. Here is a couple of examples:
I don't know about you, but it brings a tear to my eye to see a formally-socialist state which persecuted and exploited the masses set aside their differences with a capitalist nation which persecutes and exploits the masses to defend the rights of large corporations to persecute and exploit the masses; this land is my land, this land is MY land, doo-dee-doo doooooo doo....
Well, I work in a university lab doing pharmaceutical research. It's one thing to do the sort of basic research to develop an active molecule, it's a completely different thing to bring a formulation to market. Just be glad that drugs are covered under patent instead of copyright, in which case aspirin would cost $10 a pill.
I think that kid will be more computer literate if he would stay with Linux, OpenOffice and Magick instead of "Vista, Office and Photoshop".
There are plenty of benefits using open software. There are fewer games, less distraction to serious work with computers, more transparent access to the internals of the programs.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Which indicates a competitive environment, if there were only 1 medicine to treat a specific disease, there would be no need to market. In fact, a perfectly competitive environment has more money spent on marketing; J&J spends $250M on advertising Tylenol.
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