Slashdot Mirror
Internet Blackout Threat for Music Thieves in AU
An anonymous reader writes "News.com.au is reporting that the ARIA [Australia's Version of the RIAA] is making plans to have ISPs cancel or terminate the accounts of those who download music illegally. If the user is on dialup, that's not a problem: their telephone line will be disconnected. 'Fed up with falling sales, the industry — which claims Australians download more than one billion songs illegally each year — has been discussing tough new guidelines with internet service providers (ISPs) since late last year. The music industry is lobbying for a three strikes and you're out policy to enforce their copyright. Under this system, people who illegally download songs would be given three written warnings by their Internet service provider. If they continued to illegally download songs, their internet account would be suspended or terminated.'"
Why would ISPs agree to this? I can imagine it now, a group of ISPs implement this and then customers flock to the small ISPs who aren't big enough to warrent attention from the ARIA. Faced with a slump in revenue the ISPs reverse course and try to win customers back.
Let's not get started on SSL encrypted DCC transfers on IRC channels or private FTP servers! That's going to be almost impossible to track. These kind of darknets (as I've seen them called) or going to be very hard to shut-down!
Does this even matter anyway? My friend from Canada brought over his personal collection on a 320Gig drive when he visited this week. This is getting more and more common, people now have so much portable storage that it's often easier to swap collections and cherry pick the songs you like (or take the whole collection if you prefer). Compared to downloading, this is a far safer way to pirate on a huge quantity of music.
At some point, their revenues will become so small that they start to lose credibility. A case in point, where are the blacksmiths' guilds today? This whole issue with trundle on for some time to come but the inevitable will eventually happen. Time is on our sides, my friends.
Simon
Maybe this is okay and/or legal in AU. Is this legal in the US? What about due process? What about overdue process?
Anecdotally, as an aside, I had on my mind about three artists (new artists, e.g., Paolo Nutini), and hence, three cds I set out to find and purchase. Circuit City, no dice (didn't really plan on buying there what with their recent employee abuse program) -- they had about 1/4 the number of racked cds than last time I'd looked there. Best Buy, sorry. And the local CD store, nope! No selection, nothing. I don't know which came first the chicken or the egg, I don't even know which is which, but my thirst for new music is about the same as before -- but recently I'm finding I can't buy cds as before.
I'm not buying the "pirates decrease sales" spiel. My cause and effect for buying fewer cds is strictly the continued unavailability of cds on display. It used to be a smörgåsbord, now the stores look like the cutout bins of years past. This (the RIAA, and others) is an industry that rather than weather a business model storm and changing business dynamics to adapt continues to insist on taking their ball home with them (hey, it isn't even their ball!) so we can't play. And somehow, they still want to demand we pay them. Please, please, please!, just let them become irrelevant quickly so we can get on with our music!
How could they determine what is "illegal" and what is bought from a reputable online store? Or if a band offers a download from their website, would that be flagged as well? I don't see how there couldn't be any false positives with this agenda.
Napalm is nature's toothpaste
In any case, the implementation is sure to be a nightmare: families with shared accounts, botnets, and false-positive identification will make enforcement difficult, even if the ISPs actually wanted to comply. Which I doubt they do. Do ISPs have "common carrier" status is *.au? If so, they will be loathe to jeopardize it.
Until they meet their pirate friend with a 10 Tera collection of Everything Ever Published Ever, and realize that they've been scared by the the boogyman, again.
Remember, it is all about money, big money, billions of buck that they wnat us to give them. Wish they would pay cops, firemen, teachers, and me so much. And to think, I am a dinosaur, deaf, blind, toothless, feable, crippled. Poor guys, they need the money to send thier kids to college I guess, or to get them a guitar.
Retired dinosaur, simple user, volunteer, guinea pig
OK, so our down-under comrades may have it bad if this goes through, but how much can one expect that the power-hungry RIAA is eyeballing the use of such tactics here in the US?
That besides, it raises a slew of other questions, like this scenario that could be used as sort of an "SDOS" (single denial of service) attack: Joe Aussie pays for a 3.0mbit link down in Perth, where he also enjoys the comfort and convenience of wireless Internet. How difficult would it be for anyone, and I mean damn near *anyone* to login to his network and start pirating anything from music to movies to God knows what else? Forget WEP encryption, recent articles have demonstrated that most networks could theoretically be cracked in minutes by someone with a decent knowledge of how it works. Never mind the hundreds upon thousands of networks that will go unprotected, and incidentally, exactly what methods will they employ to determine what kind of traffic (legitimate or pirate) is crossing the lines in Australia?
Sounds like a good time to go war driving!
That works both ways. If you cut off a (probably large) section of your customer base, you open the flood gates for competition in the longer term. Oh, as well as seriously damaging your brand.
I don't see why ISP's would agree to do this. It's right up there with... Load gun -> aim at foot -> Fire!
I am sure the ISPs, phone companies will hurry to terminate their contracts and sources of revenues with their own customers, so that the recording industry can make more profit.
Ignore the RIAA and their clones, and their artists. Stay with old music exclusively, or take the money that you would have spent otherwise, and support a local band, there must be at least one in fair distance who you like.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I own almost 400 CD's and didn't want to go through the hassle of ripping all of them, so I downloaded a lot of them to put on my MP3 player. It was easier than having to continuously switch out CD's, and the quality of the .MP3's I download are usually better than the ones I rip. (Not to mention that many of my older CD's just don't rip properly.) How is this illegal? Or even immoral?
Whatever....they'll never stop file-sharing and will play catch-up forever with technology-savvy individuals who are smarter than they are.
I think that the decline of music sales coincides with the rise in internet usage not because of the terrible pirates of music, but because of porn. Bear with me, it makes sense if you think about it:
I used to watch videos for very mediocre music, because the chicks were hot, scantily dressed, and fed this former teenager's fantasies. But today's kids don't need to buy a CD to have fap-fudder, they can get free porn with ease.
I theorize that the so-called decline of the music industry isn't because of music pirates, as they claim, or because their music suddenly sucks (the monkeys sucked, sucking isn't new), but because they were NOT in the music of selling music, but in the business of selling sexually suggestive material.
You can't take the sky from me...
With the newly restructured internet those who have been identified as online pirates will only be eligible for ISPs which block all streaming media content.
The business is going to go the way of automobile sales. Bad credit? No broadband streaming media enabled ISP for you. You might do better at the used car lot down the street and you'll have to take the additional hit of a high interest network nanny so, over the course of five years, you'll pay just as much for that pirate ISP as you would for a new car.
It'll be the next wave of socially stigmatizing people. "Daddy, how come we can't download music for our iPod?" "Well, kids, a long time ago I was caught copying a floppy disk." *wailing and gnashing of teeth*
While, down the block, in the house with the gas-guzzling 10-ton SUV belonging to the guy whose second uncle works for MS, whose third nephew is an aide to a state Senator, and whose sister married a middle manager in an accounting firm which manages investments for RIAA lawyers, they'll be streaming Star Wars Episode 15 in hi-def.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The RIAA and other groups claim that shifting the format (from CD to mp3) constitutes a new license and therefore you need to pay again. I do the same thing as you do, especially if my girlfriend takes the CD and I haven't put it on my computer yet,
Napalm is nature's toothpaste
I haven't yet RTA, but I expect to find that the difference between downloading and uploading music has been forgotten by whoever wrote the summary. It's terribly frustrating have repeatedly to explain to people that they can download with impunity as long as they don't upload.
Why can't people get this right even on slashdot???
--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's sister?
You download it from someone and then you remotely delete it from his computer.
For pirates, streaming isn't important, bits-per-day is.
If ISPs limit bandwidth that may have some impact, but removing streaming won't.
If necessary, pirates will disguise their traffic as whatever is allowed under the current anti-piracy regime.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It would be impossible to implement over here. There may not be enough competition in the broadband market, but there's enough that someone will say no to the RIAA and gain a significant competitive advantage if they do.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
I wonder what is going to happen when the politicians who have sold thier souls to the record industry group realize that the people who they sold out are VOTERS. it doesn't take a very large group of extreemly motivitated people to swing an election.
I predict an interesting time in Aussie politics in about 3 years. Then, Payback time.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
I'm not familiar with ARIA, but maybe they - unlike the RIAA - actually want their business to thrive rather than shifting it to profit-by-suing-customers? Who knows, they may even have legitimate evidence for the copyright infringement in Australia instead of picking a customer to sue from a hat as the RIAA seems to be doing.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
(Almost.) If a system like this were put in place and rigorously enforced, and after a year the Australian music industry still saw declining sales, it would put a pretty big nail in the coffin of the "our industry is dying because of you filthy pirates" argument. The industry goons will not stop bleating that until it becomes such a ridiculous claim that any reasonable person reacts to it with derisive laughter instead of seriously considering it.
If, on the other hand -- unlikely though I think it is -- their sales shot up all of a sudden, then people like me would be forced to admit we were wrong. Which honestly I'll be happy to do if there are convincing hard numbers that contradict my point of view.
On the other hand, it's not worth causing so much trouble to so many people just to test a theory, which is why I'm only "almost" in favor of this.
That's fine... if ISPs are held financially responsible for the losses they cause when they disconnect someone groundlessly. Losses includes lost productivity, time spent on trying to get the service reconnected, lost business, distress, etc.
So, each Internet user in Australia is down loading more than 100 songs a year? Sounds like the usual hype, smoke, mirrors and bs the riaa uses in the US.
"I don't see why ISP's would agree to do this. It's right up there with... Load gun -> aim at foot -> Fire!"
Unsurprisingly slasdot wouldn't. Seeing other POVs isn't a strong point around here, so I'll help you out. Bandwith hogs* is a valid reason. Get rid of the illegal traffic clogging the networks and money is saved all around.
*And to cover the follow-up complaints. One people who abuse the networks aren't customers, and two no one else will want them either so running to someone else will not work. And last I don't think they're as big a group as chest-beaters would like to think. Oh and as far as the "competition" angle. Well all you abusers please feel free to start your own "pirates" ISP. A heavy dose of reality is long overdue for all of you.
it's seem that the best way to defend against this is to promote the hell out illegal downloading so everybody does it. :)
When the ISPs have disconnected half of their customers maybe they will think again about this deal.
PeerGuardian. Cox Cable in Florida uses the same policy. One request from any random media company and they cut off your bandwidth. Give 'em a call and they warn you that you have two more chances and then they turn off your cable. Don't ever get Cox if you have a choice... but not because of this - they just stink in general. I installed PeerGuardian2 when I got off the phone with them, and haven't had an issue since.
That is not legal. Downloading it still making a copy, which is prohibited under copyright. Should it be covered under fair use? I'd say definitely, but I don't think that particular issue been tested by the courts yet.
There may not be enough competition in the broadband market, but there's enough that someone will say no to the RIAA and gain a significant competitive advantage if they do.
Not to mention that most US broadband providers have limited regional monopolies in exchange for universal access. If they start cutting people off, they can expect a spanking first from the local PUCs and then from the class-action lawyers. Wouldn't look all that pretty.
"If they cut you off, you're done."
In the States that's the fastest way to bring on an anti-monoploy suit. What are the legal ramifications of a non-government organization that could "cut you off" form a significant section of society? Will the ISP hold a "trial" to allow the customer to deny or defend the charges?
We are all just people.
When can I get in "talks" with ISPs to change their guidelines?
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
According to TFA: "We had a meeting a few weeks ago with the Internet Industry Association (about the new guidelines) but we're yet to hear back.
Yeah. The IIA is probably still working on getting "Sod off, wankers!" translated into legalese.
The MPAA is already using similar tactics in the US. Cox Communications once put a hold on my account because a DVD rip was found on my account. Once I called tech support they explained that on the first and second offense access was simply suspended until the client called in, and the account would be suspended after the third violation. He then went on to say that it was the MPAA scanning P2P networks, rather than the ISP. We even ended up chatting about different firewalls and ways to avoid getting caught.
Now it was my fault...I had turned off my firewall for work, and forgot to bring it back up when I was finished. So shame on me. But the bottom line is that this practice is already in place with at least one major American ISP and MPAA properties...
*For the sake of simplicity, I ignore Tasmania and the other islands, although I'm sure ARIA is counting them. I also round off the decimals
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
From a section of society?? Hell, I remember about 10 years ago when many people didn't have the internet. It's hard to argue, even in this day and age, that it's THAT important.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
If the Aussie industry's sales are that poor, shutting down must be a viable option. Do it -- then Australia will really understand your worth.
Yeah, I think the ISPs would lose a lot of customers - not in protest, but simply because their
traffic looked like or really was pirated material.
If they manage to get laws passed, the ISP's dont have much choice in the matter.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
''If you donload music, we will cut off your Internet'' is actually something they dearly would want to do, but it is completely infeasible on a larger scale.
Think about it:
(1) They cannot prevent encrypted traffic: Pople working over VPN or SSH, SSL to stores, encrypted email, etc.. Also it is difficult to really ID encrypted traffic and protocol headers can be faked.
(2) How much bandwidth do music download take? 1MB per minute of music? Even with 28Kbps downstream, i.e. slower dial-up speed, that means a minute of music takes 40 seconds to download. Throtteling encrypted traffic is not going to help. But it will cost ISPs customers that are doing legitimate things.
All in all this is just one more empty threat in the music industries scare tactics. Just as the others before, it will not work. And it will certainly not fix their basic problems: An outdated business model that does not fit the techological realities and a lot of bad music people are unwilling to actually pay for.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Australia has a telephone supplier with a "universal service obligation" - there is no way anyone is going to lose their telephone connection. The basic telephone service that they are mandated to supply also has a *fixed* non-timed charge for local calls (ie. the ones you use for ISP connections), so that basic service is all you need.
Australia also has unbundled services - your internet connection is separate from your telephone service.
Bottom line:- if your ISP cuts you off, they can't stop your telephone (even if they are the same company)) and you just go elsewhere.
Please don't take this post as being unloving on my part. I know I disagree strongly with the opinions of many people here.
The prevalent attitude amongst this community of users seems to be that stealing music is morally acceptable because "downloading music doesn't hurt sales", "the RIAA is a bunch of jerks", "I bought the song so nobody should be allowed to tell me what I'm allowed to do with it", and/or "I can't get it anywhere else". None of these reasons justify stealing.
Does piracy hurt sales? Maybe it hurts them a lot, maybe a little, or maybe it helps them, none of those things give you the right to decide that you can take for free the copyrighted material of someone else. If piracy helps music sales then the RIAA still has the right to stick with an unprofitable business model. It's not for you or I to usurp someone else's rights saying that it's for their own good. From what I read on Slashdot the RIAA seems to target innocent people who already have significant burdens in life or don't know much about computers and networks so that the RIAA can change or clarify laws by courtroom verdicts. That's wrong and Yahweh sees it. For those that think that it's okay to steal from the RIAA because they're evil; that eye-for-an-eye approach to justice is also wrong. If you bought the song online from someone who had the right to sell it then you bought it under the condition that you were not allowed to reproduce and redistribute it. I'm trying to think of how to put this bluntly enough to make it obvious without sounding insulting... You are being provided with a song that you aren't entitled to own at all. You can't take advantage of an offer that you're not entitled to and then cry out "oppression" because it's not everything you desire. Maybe you actually can't get a song in any legal way. Well, it's the property of someone else. If they choose not to sell it then that's their prerogative. People seem to think that they have more rights than they actually do. I think it was last year in France that there were protests over proposed legislation to make it easier to fire an employee. From the perspective of most Americans it is absurd to think of a company being obligated to retain any employee, especially an unprofitable one. Should a company not be allowed to terminate an employee that they feel is doing an unacceptable job, or to let some people go to save the whole company from bankruptcy (note that I'm not saying it's right to let someone end up on the street if it can be avoided)? Likewise this attitude of entitlement to music or the right to do with a digitized song whatever one wants is unfounded.
If you didn't have your internet connection tommorrow, and were told that you were accused of being a thief, would you be like, "Well it wasn't that important." I think you might have failed to infer that 10 years ago (little internet), now (majority internet), will lead to a future world where to be denied internet access will be equivilent to being denied any use of a telephone, cellphone, or wireless communication device. I think you would be pretty pissed off. The internet has and will continue to become more and more important.
But I also agree with you that the internet does not feed you, clothe you, or provide a place to live. Those come from people, not machines, and we should not look away from those right next to us.
---FourChannel---
That is not legal. Downloading it still making a copy, which is prohibited under copyright. Should it be covered under fair use? I'd say definitely, but I don't think that particular issue been tested by the courts yet.
Of course it's legal. Just look at all the shareware and commercial trials that can be downloaded over the Internet. It's also completely legal to accept the copy of copyrighted web pages that HTTP servers send you. The key is that the network transfer of the work is considered to be an actual transfer, just like getting handed a CD with the work on it. It has been upheld in several cases that caches, proxies, and store-and-forward routers do not infringe copyright by holding ephemeral copies of copyrighted works, so it makes sense that downloading something from the Internet is just as legal as accepting a CD from someone, e.g. if you know the CD is stolen, you can't accept it just like you can't download software from War3z-R-Us and claim it was a legitimate copy. In short, the burden of following copyright law falls almost entirely on the uploader.
That would be illegal for the carriers to deny you a right to the internet as has already been ruled by SCOTUS. A hacker's sentence and parole were altered to not include a ban on internet usage because it would deny him of a necessary right to the internet. They deemed the internet so important in life now that it is a staple for most americans and therefore a right that should not be trounced upon easily. The large carriers whom are granted near monopolies on phone and cable service whom operate the high speed connections would quickly get sued and prosecuted via RICO and anti-trust laws if they started pulling that crap here. At least they should, with Gonzolas at the helm though they would probably be to stupid to look into it.
something needs to be done about these people. I don't care what country you're talking about, or which particular flavor of the RIAA you have to contend with. Something needs to be done before these assholes bring the roof down on all of us.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
They don't have to. Take a look at a typical Acceptable Use Policy. They don't have to provie it in court, they simply have to find that you're doing something against their policies. The same policy that some of us beg to be used against spammers and phishers and virus-laden zombie machines is similar to what RIAA wants used against pirating downloaders, and it does *not* require a trial.
License, eh? That means they're happy to replace lost or damaged media at cost, right? /retorical
If the ISPs follow your line of reasoning, they'll be woefully inadequate for handling the bandwidth demands created by the large scale move to TV-on-the-internet, which is only in its infancy with the likes of Youtube today and is already starting to cause ISPs to wig out.
ISPs are worse than useless - they're a hindrance - and the sooner we find ways to decentralize internet access to where people don't need central ISPs, the better.
ISPs don't have a God given right to tell internet users what to do, and when the technology comes to where they're not needed for access, this truth will become glaringly evident.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
It's not the MP3 per se that's illegal in this case, at least under US law. In fact, personally ripping an MP3 from a CD you own is possibly (this is still not clear) illegal in the United States. Note that it's the ACT OF RIPPING that's supposedly illegal, the act of making an unauthorized copy. Just like making a direct copy of the CD (in CD-Audio format) is also supposedly illegal. Now that MP3 or CD copy may be technically "counterfeit merchandise", but OWNING it is not illegal per se. So it's really up in the air whether PURELY downloading an MP3 (from an FTP site for example) of a track on a CD you already own is illegal. Probably not. But UPLOADING even a tiny part of that MP3 to anyone (even people who own the CD) IS ILLEGAL as it's "distribution". Due to the way most P2P programs work, downloading MP3s through P2P is illegal because you're "distributing".
If you think about it for a minute, this is basically pure extortion by the labels against the ISPs "Do what we say (read: Give us money.), or we will put you out of business." The ISPs really have no choice but to fight, because if they continue to pay blackmail to the labels they'll eventually be forced out of business. Again, make no mistake, the labels want the ISPs to give them a pile of money. This isn't about "enforcement" of any "laws". They simply see the ISPs as a juicier target that's easier to sue. This strategy hasn't worked in the USA, where telecom companies have a lot of power, so they're trying it in Australia were media is considerably more powerful.
Are you talking Australian or US law? Because this is most certainly illegal in Australia.
Cogito, ergo sig.
No they don't. They may argue that it's not a fair use (though I haven't heard that one for a while) with regard to format shifting, but that's all. Virtually no works other than computer software and internet-downloaded media are even claimed to be licensed routinely. And in fact, they aren't. I've never even heard of a regular CD in a record store where the copyright holder claimed that it was being licensed, not sold. So don't assume that everything works like software, and better yet, don't assume that anything should: EULAs are anachronistic and provide no benefit to anyone, really. The only reason they're still around, (other than to allow abuses by licensors that no one should be tolerant of) seems to be inertia.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I don't know about Australia, but in the US, at least, you're quite wrong.
Downloads from the Internet are generally either 1) of public domain material (e.g. US government works, works where the copyright expired or was given up, uncopyrightable works), 2) copyrighted but licensed by the copyright holder, either expressly, or implicitly based on the conduct involved (e.g. almost all authorized web sites, home pages, etc., since it is implied that when the copyright holder has works put online that people can freely look at them, making incidental downloads in order to do so), 3) put up pursuant to some exception in the law (e.g. thumbnail images might fall under fair use), or 4) are put up unlawfully.
Also, downloads are not transfers of anything. US copyright law was mostly written with the idea that copies are things like books or records. It's not all that well designed for computers. In particular, it defines a copy as a material object in which a work is fixed, and prohibits the unauthorized creation of copies. Since it is impossible to move material objects over telecommunications networks (I've tried to stuff a CD down the ethernet cord, but it just won't go. It works in cartoons, but not in the real world, I guess) it is necessarily the case that the downloader is creating a new copy when he downloads. This is illegal. It is absolutely not the same as accepting a tangible CD from someone. Instead it is like looking at their CD and making your own.
Finally, the courts have ruled that the party liable for downloading is the party that directly causes it to occur. Since most people on the P2P networks are not forcing your computer to download music against your will or without your involvement, and since your computer does download when you instruct it to, it puts the liability for downloading on you, the downloader. The uploader, meanwhile, is breaking other copyright laws, but he's not directly on the hook for your downloads; that's on you.
I would suggest looking at the Napster case and the Intellectual Reserve case for more on this.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Someone is going to make a lot of money. Set-up a VM service outside the AU and let users remote in and run P2P clients within the VM. The users bring down the files from the VM directly to their home PCs via encrypted methods - even something as simple as sftp would work. There's no files stored on the ISP inside the AU, no way for the ISP (or anyone else inside the AU) to know what's in the encrypted traffic stream.
If an ISP starts doing any company (or cartel's) bidding, they no longer can claim to be neutral for content. This means that if so much as one child porn images streaks across an ISP's wires or servers, they can be credibly liable. After all, they actively prohibit copyright infringement, so why can't they stop or prevent the commission of a real criminal (or even tortious) act? While I doubt that criminal prosecutors would take that to heart, I do know that it would very likely leave a participating ISP quite defenseless to any civil suit that comes along naming them as a defendant...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The flaw in this insane argument is that the ARIA (and the ISP) becomes responsible for anything that results from the former customer not having a telephone line.
Did I read this correctly? The ARIA is going to get the telephone company to permanently disconnect some poor Australian's telephone if they believe that they are downloading music? Not everyone has a cell phone or will be getting a cell phone. What about the lawsuits that happen against them when a child dies because there wasn't the ability to call the emergency authorities after a household accident? The parents sue the ARIA on the grounds that the child would not have died if the ARIA had not forced the removal of the telephone line on superficial and unproven reasons. The newspapers start yelling about innocent Australian children forced to die to protect trashy American pop music profits.
The above poster is right about the hard disk swap to build music collections. I do this with older 40-120 Gig hard drives. Fill them full of high-quality 200+ bps MP3s, package them in bubble-wrap, and loan them to friends, co-workers, and any interested party. This and inexpensive double-layer DVDs that hold 150 albums is the real future of music distribution, not commercial music download services.
It's too bad that the ARIA/RIAA doesn't understand this. The era of selling individual recordings is just about over. Not just the idea of selling a single three minute song on a plastic disk or a download of a song for a set price. People in the future will be buying large collections of music and media that has a common theme, like all the 'classic rock recordings' of the 1970s, on a hard disk or DVD set. And they won't be buying these items from the five multinational corporations who persist in holding the illusion that they own them.
That's just not true. I have over a dozen ISPs I can choose from here, and the majority of metropolitan based people in Australia do also.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
I was just thinking that. Any large urban area with many people using a wireless router, preferably 802.11n, should or could set up a mesh network, if there were several thousand I wonder how easy it would be for users to hop from several routers to surf the mesh network and browse files on someone's home PC based website. Almost like the old BB days.
It just goes to show, copyright holders are determined to extend their legal rights at every opportunity, regardless of whether their industry is being helped or hindered.
Some of the so-called facts in TFA are a bit dodgy.
About 80% of ISP end-users in Australia are using an ISP that is a different company to their telephone services provider. ARIA would have legal problems getting telephone services cut-off as well due to the requirement for Telstra(/rebadged phone provider) to provide emergency services capability to all landline nodes.
Of course, the fall in CD retail prices due to price pressure from online music sales has nothing to do with this. People can now buy just the tracks they want instead of getting an album-load of crap on CD.
Of course, competition from online music sales has nothing to do with this. People can now buy just the tracks they want instead of getting an album-load of crap on CD.
Australian Bureau of Statistics Census figures show that only 18 percent of Australians have internet access. According to ARIA, now, every single Australian with internet access is a music pirate.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
But I also agree with you that the internet does not feed you, clothe you, or provide a place to live. Those come from people, not machines, and we should not look away from those right next to us.
The internet is how I run my servers, contact my clients search for help. So it does provide the income that I need to do all of those things
Cutting off my internet access would very quickly leave me homeless.
no isp in AU will do this, OR they will sign a loose deal and never have the balls to enforce it. why you say? because i can promise massive litigation against them if they do, and no business would ever willing take the burnden of potential litigation that another business has previously been dealing with. not to mention all the angry support calls and extra work it will cause them. it's already been established that isp's can't be sued for their users downloading music, so why the fuck would any of them want to do aria's job for them? my bet is there's no isp's seriously considering this and it's yet more bullshit from the music industry.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
How will Australian ISPs know when one of their clients is a music thief? I would imagine a music thief wouldn't have access to the internet, otherwise he'd just download music instead of stealing music CDs from stores.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
The downloader does not create a new copy. It is the server that creates the copy and gives it to you.
My Transformation Website
Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
If the Australians vote in a Howard government again that would enact such a law, then they deserve this crap.
Really - it's time that we stopped blaming lobby groups for promoting their agendas. They do what it is in their nature to do. If the people of Australia are so enamored of PM Howard and his Tories to support this sort of thing (assuming it is implemented) then they get the sort of government - and laws - that they deserve.
Lobbyists further their own agendas. When the voter stops furthering his or her own personal agenda - then they get what they deserve.
(Note to Americans readers: the democracies of most other industrial nations offer more electoral choices and have significantly larger voter turnouts than your own because of compulsory voter registration. There are vast restrictions on election and lobbyist spending during elections in other nations that are not present in your own. Please don't judge "the inherent flaws in the system" within America and suppose it exists everywhere else. It does not. If the Australians re-elect this government - it's their own damn fault.)
.Robert
would you title a story about bush protestors "pinko commie liberals erode national security"?
would you title a story about anti-abortion republicans "fascist corporate schills demand an end to women's rights"?
then why the heck is this story about civil disobedience to controversially overreaching copyright laws entitled "internet blackout threat for music thieves"?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
remember, according to the reaganomics apologists, they can do whatever they want, theyre a private company, and who gives a damn if they have power rivaling the government.
hence: dmca abuse is perfectly OK, att comming back together is OK, and reclassification of monopoly internet providers into an "information service" to serve their desires for non-neutrality is OK.
the solution to that pesky bill of rights.. privatize it so you can claim "private property" against anyone who decries the obvious erosion of rights.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Actually according to US law in most states if you knowing own a copy a piece of music without owning the original (ie, a "pirated" or "stolen" copy) then technically it could be considered a stolen good since the MAFIAA claims so and that jurisprudence has been set in the courts. Therefore, if you own a illicit copy, then yes you could be charged to possession of stolen goods and in many states if the products in question total greater than $250 then you could also be charged with grand theft which could give you up to twenty years of ass pounding.
Pagan? Geek? Check out #paganism on Freenode IRC
You're right...I'm in Melbourne, and can choose from dozens and dozens of ISPs...most of them do suck, however. As there's basically no such thing as unlimited downloading in Australia (see previous sentence) I'm agog that we manage to steal a billion dollars worth of music a year, as it takes so fucking long to steal on our crappy bandwidth.
You completely missed my point.
1) I'm saying technology will progress to the point where ISPs aren't needed and each of us can get directly onto the net without them.
2) Your definition of "abuse" is already on the verge of collapse. People will be watching movies and TV episodes over the net, and very soon. They're already doing it on a relatively tiny scale now with the likes of Youtube. So what you define today as "abuse" will be defined very soon as "normal use" or even "less than normal use". This has already happened in the past. The websites most people browse right now would probably have consumed abuse level bandwidth in 1999. Youtube would have crushed any ISP's bandwidth back in 1995.
So in essence, your heroic ISP exercising its "rights" makes it inadequate to handle the bandwidth demands of today, much less the future.
Unless you're arguing that technology should be held back, your only course of response here is a mea culpa, or more uneducated schoolboy rants. My money is of course on the latter.
You're still trying to challenge me? LOL, you little pipsqueak, welcome to school.
Lesson #1: economics. ISPs have survived financially with raising bandwidth to meet rising bandwidth demands. That's a FACT, and you look like a total retard by trying to contradict that.
Lesson #2: physics. You're an idiot yet again. Bandwidth has been increasing to meet consumer demand. This is not going to stop any time soon unless people like you take over, which fortunately is not ever going to happen.
Geography is irrelevant here. This is a global phenomenom.
Obviously, your reading skills are nonexistent. I said the time will come that ISPs aren't even relevant. P2P or some emerging technology will enable people to get online without needing a centralized ISP. Why would I want to start a new ISP when in perhaps 15 years TOPS, they'll be like the dodo?
Your knowledge of the internet hovers between nil and zip, and nil is leaving town.
Illegal downloaders are not the biggest threat that ISPs face: Youtube and its siblings, are what present the new major threat. Streaming video, streaming audio, pay per porn...
Allow me to introduce you to the term "adapt or perish". No, really, you're clueless about what that means. Don't even bother coughing up your pathetic rendition. The ISPs are going to adapt to rising bandwidth demands or they're going to be ditching even legal customers, or they'll get majorly bogged down.
It's that simple. And yes, I am a network administrator. I run a data center. I know the business, and you just talk a bunch of crap. Go back to your Spongebob reruns and cool yer heels, son.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Remember (since we're discussing US law), the law defines a copy as a material object in which the work has been fixed. A paperback book is a material object. A vinyl LP is a material object. A canvas is a material object. A hard drive is a material object. A stick of RAM is a material object. Mere information is not.
And colloquial definitions are irrelevant, since the law has specially defined this term. Only the legal definition matters to the law.
I dare you to show me one site on the Internet from which you can download a hard drive. I want to be able to connect my laptop (which has only one hard drive) to some website or torrent, and twenty minutes later the laptop has two hard drives because it downloaded the actual, tangible, drive. I dare you to show me this. Maybe if you live in the Star Trek universe this is an everyday event. But if you live, as seems more likely, in your parents' basement, it never ever happens.
When Alice has a file on a server and Bob downloads it, what happens is that Bob cause his computer to request information from Alice's computer. Alice's computer responds and sends information to Bob. But it does not send a copy because hard drives do not travel over Ethernet. When Bob's computer receives that information, it writes it to various storage media, such as RAM, or hard disks. By doing that, it creates a new copy, namely, that RAM, or those hard disks.
So yes, the downloader's computer is where at least some, which is enough, new copies are being made.
And who caused this to happen, who bears the responsibility? That would be the downloader. Really, the only situation in which the downloader could convincingly argue that it wasn't his volitional act that caused the infringement would be if someone else had control of his computer and was making it do that. Of course, just how likely is it that someone would actually do that? In my experience, hackers don't bother getting root on someone else's computer just to download mp3s. Intermediaries, e.g. ISPs (particularly in the days before the 17 USC 512 safe harbor) tended to have better luck with that line of argument, though they won by shifting blame to the downloader, so not much help for you there.
The uploader could be argued to be liable as well under a theory of secondary liability, but really he has engaged in either distribution (or public performance or display, really, but the courts like distribution for some reason), which is exactly as infringing, but in a different way, and which we don't really have to concern ourselves with here.
This is why we ultimately see things like the Napster opinion:
I trust that you have a better understanding of this now.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
When Alice has a file on a server and Bob downloads it, what happens is that Bob cause his computer to request information from Alice's computer. Alice's computer responds and sends information to Bob. But it does not send a copy because hard drives do not travel over Ethernet. When Bob's computer receives that information, it writes it to various storage media, such as RAM, or hard disks. By doing that, it creates a new copy, namely, that RAM, or those hard disks.
If you really want to boil it down, when Bob requests information from Alice, Alice has to read the data from her hard disk (which has in addition to the original work, a derivative work in the form of error correcting codes), the hard disk stores a copy of the original work in its cache, the drive copies the information onto the data cable, the controller copies it into internal registers and then copies it onto the system bus when appropriate (either via DMA or when the CPU issues in IO read instruction). For DMA transfers, the information is copied directly into system RAM, for direct IO the CPU copies the information off the bus into internal registers and the cache, then copies it into internal RAM. To actually send the data to Bob, the CPU then copies the data from memory (requiring a read into the CPU and cache for each byte/word of the data) into a second copy in a network buffer (some OS's use scatter-gather to keep the data in one memory buffer and skip this step), then the CPU has to copy the data back over the IO bus to the network card/modem which requires more loads, caching, and stores. Finally, the network card or modem copies the data onto whatever network it's connected to.
In this relatively simple example, there are at least 8 copies made by Alice's computer. That doesn't even include the case where intermediate P2P software accesses the data from the disk, copies it and hashes it, and does whatever else before finally sending it to the network stack. It's inconsistent for the court to rule that infringement of reproduction rights does not occur when Alice makes her copies, but does when Bob makes his copy to his hard drive, because EULAs have been ruled valid on essentially the same claim; that Alice has to make internal copies of software she has purchased in order to use it.
And who caused this to happen, who bears the responsibility? That would be the downloader. Really, the only situation in which the downloader could convincingly argue that it wasn't his volitional act that caused the infringement would be if someone else had control of his computer and was making it do that.
If Bob asks Alice to violate a law, and she violates it, she is fully responsible for her actions unless she was coerced. Bob might have accessory charges or be charged with contributory infringement, but it wouldn't affect Alice's culpability.
a derivative work in the form of error correcting codes
I would find it difficult to characterize checksums or parity as derivatives. More likely they're either irrelevant (checksums) or just part of the overall reproduction (parity; see the videogame cases from the early 80's).
It's inconsistent for the court to rule that infringement of reproduction rights does not occur when Alice makes her copies, but does when Bob makes his copy to his hard drive
In the past, when someone has actually bothered to raise the issue, the courts have found it to infringe. But usually, who cares? Since statutory damages are calculated per work, not per infringement, and since compensatory damages for the incidental copies would be overvalued at a nominal sum of $1, no one cares about them. The point is to get all the direct infringers you can, and from there to get the indirect infringers. This used to be of some interest when there were ISPs who were intermediaries and who had deep pockets, but they usually fall under the safe harbor now.
If Bob asks Alice to violate a law, and she violates it, she is fully responsible for her actions unless she was coerced.
You'll find that it is more nuanced than that. Again, the 512 safe harbor has really taken over here, but for an earlier case dealing with these issues, I strongly suggest you read Religious Technology Center v. Netcom. Of course, the reason we have the safe harbor is because not every court followed this particular logic. The uncertainty was not good for the Internet.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
There may only be one provider for the physical line but ARIA is suggesting removing the connection at the ISP. No where in the article does it say that you can't just switch ISP.
I don't see what the big problem is, this is no where near as harsh as RIAA. Furthermore if you like the song, pay for it! And don't tell me "I want to try before I buy", you can do this in most record stores I've been to, there are a multitude of options available for previewing songs on music sites and for smaller bands you often get them actively putting their songs up for free.
I live in Australia.
The APC Broadband Choice section gets its information of Whirlpool, http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/
You can see that almost every major centre in Australia has various ISP's trying to get your money, but to be honest its utter trash the idea that they will cut off telephone use, as thats typically Telstra domain not ISP domain. The author is just proving he doesn't know what he's talking about.
I always wondered where this setting was...
I would find it difficult to characterize checksums or parity as derivatives. More likely they're either irrelevant (checksums) or just part of the overall reproduction (parity; see the videogame cases from the early 80's).
If a portion of the work can be recovered from the parity, doesn't that make it a derivative work? For instance, CDs using CIRC carriy 1 byte of parity for every 3 bytes of data, That means if the data itself could be split from the parity, there would be one perfect copy and one degraded copy (approximately 8 bit mono, versus the 16 bit stereo of the CD). If the parity was increased, the ratio of data bytes to parity bytes could be lowered further to produce increasingly accurate representations of the data. After there are more parity bytes than data bytes, a subset of the parity bytes can be used to recover the entire data. Another interesting possibility is secret sharing where data is split into multiple pieces of which some number are required to reassemble the original work, and without a sufficient number no information can be obtained. Would it be illegal to split a copyrighted work into three pieces, of which any two were required for reconstruction of the work, and then share the pieces individually? No portion of the actual work would actually exist in any of the pieces, just a mathematical relationship that allowed the work to be reconstructed from at least two pieces. See Shamir's secret sharing algorithm for instance.
In the past, when someone has actually bothered to raise the issue, the courts have found it to infringe. But usually, who cares? Since statutory damages are calculated per work, not per infringement, and since compensatory damages for the incidental copies would be overvalued at a nominal sum of $1, no one cares about them. The point is to get all the direct infringers you can, and from there to get the indirect infringers. This used to be of some interest when there were ISPs who were intermediaries and who had deep pockets, but they usually fall under the safe harbor now.
Every RIAA lawsuit I've heard of has targeted uploaders, perhaps because it's the only way they can find filesharers and still have a case, so it certainly seems that creating a copy and sending it over the network is considered infringement. The cases I've looked at claim both reproduction and distribution infringement. Looking at RTC v Netcom I found MAI SYSTEMS CORP. v. PEAK COMPUTER, INC., 991 F.2d 511, which ruled that simply loading software from permanent storage into RAM constituted the creation of a physical copy, which is apparently the same argument used to enforce EULAs.
You'll find that it is more nuanced than that. Again, the 512 safe harbor has really taken over here, but for an earlier case dealing with these issues, I strongly suggest you read Religious Technology Center v. Netcom. Of course, the reason we have the safe harbor is because not every court followed this particular logic. The uncertainty was not good for the Internet.
As far as I can tell, the difference is that service providers do not necessarily know the legal status of the content they allow users to store and transfer. On the other hand, someone running P2P software will usually know which files are being shared and their legal status, although this is not always the case. As the Napster case showed, even direct knowledge that a service is being used for illegal activities is enough to warrant contributory copyright infringement.
Even if Telstra was to cut off telephone access, optus has their own network infrastructure in metro areas.
It would be problematic for them to implement this at best, with encryption and overseas anonymous proxies I hardly see how it would be possible to catch more than a few people.
If a portion of the work can be recovered from the parity, doesn't that make it a derivative work?
That would just make it a portion of the original work, expressed differently, but not derivative. This is why I had mentioned the videogame cases from the 80's. The question arose, IIRC, whether the audiovisual portion of the game was copyrightable since it varied depending on user interaction with the fixed software, and the court found that it was since the same inputs would produce the same outputs. With the parity, the parity data always represents a portion, effectively, of the file. It doesn't recast the work, though.
Your secret sharing thing wouldn't fly either for the same reason. Remember, a work is fixed if it can be perceived naturally or with the aid of a device. Recombining the secret would qualify, meaning that the split secret still embodies the work and thus can't be freely copied.
Every RIAA lawsuit I've heard of has targeted uploaders, perhaps because it's the only way they can find filesharers and still have a case, so it certainly seems that creating a copy and sending it over the network is considered infringement.
Uploaders are easier to find and lower in the food chain. Knocking out a downloader has no beneficial side effects for RIAA. Knocking out an uploader might cut off some downloaders or at least force greater competition for scarcer uploading resources, so that's better for them. This is also why they went for the networks first of all.
Also, you can't create a copy and send it over the net, if you're talking about what you appear to be talking about. A copy in copyright terminology is not the same as the colloquial word 'copy' in the computer context.
loading software from permanent storage into RAM constituted the creation of a physical copy, which is apparently the same argument used to enforce EULAs.
EULAs really have little to do with copyright law, due to 17 USC 117, and more to do with sales law (see e.g. ProCD and Klocek).
As far as I can tell, the difference is that service providers do not necessarily know the legal status of the content they allow users to store and transfer.
Also, automated systems they provide, which users use, are not very volitional from their perspective. They set them up, but they respond automatically after that.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Im honestly sick of record labels crying that they cant turn a profit when the market is disappearing. I have a question for everyone. How many Blacksmiths do you see around these days? Do you know why? Its because the market for them isn't there anymore would be blacksmiths are now in other markets. When will the music industry shut up and move to another market?
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Oh God. This is like teaching physics to a March of Dimes kid. You keep thinking that, and say hi to 1940s bandwidth theories and 1995 standards of "bandwidth hogs" for me.
BTW Slashdot is a huge bandwidth hog. I suggest you sign off for good.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I can see this affecting legal free downloads (sites like MacIDOL, etc) more than it will with torrenting and limewire. If the bastards at my ISP implement this, and wind up cutting me off for downloading a song that's made publicly available, I'll have their effing nuts in a legal vice if it effing bankrupts me.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Okay. The Mod missed the humour there...
Signature applied for, Patent Pending
What follows is my opinion only, and should not be construed as representing the facts of the matter in any way possible, except where noted.
.torrent file and manage to get me disconnected, I'd likely sue them under an "interference with contract" tort. The simple act of being connected to a tracker does NOT imply, as Mediasentry would like it to, that you are moving any data whatsoever.
The problem with this is that the IIA is likely to agree to this proposal in some form or other, in order to be seen to be doing "something". The CEO of the IIA has a reputation as a lobbyist first, and an ISP Industry Association CEO second. If the IIA is seen to be "proactively setting policy" on something as big-ticket as file-sharing, then Coroneos'll likely go for it. It doesn't matter if the "policy" in this case was written by ARIA, three ISPs and a singing waiter, or even The Piratebay. This is a worry.
Fortunately, while most of the east-coast ISPs are IIA members to some degree or other, Adelaide and Perth based providers are typically members of SAIA or WAIA respectively, and pay (at most) lip-service to Coroneos' lobbyists.
Additionally, if ARIA thinks they have the legal right to demand your phone get disconnected, then ACMA (AU equiv of FCC) will likely hit them with something called the Universal Service Obligation (briefly: at least one licensed carrier MUST provide phone service in a given area to ANYONE who wants it, subject to paying the bill.)
Finally, if ARIA's goons see that I'm connected to a tracker that happens to be announcing for an MP3
Storm. Teacup. Move along.
You're doing it wrong.
Besides the big-name ISPs whose sole purpose is to rip off the country, in Australia, I don't think there really are any monopolies on internet. Many ISPs are available Australia-wide, and I had, when I switched ISPs lately, over a hundred to choose from.
Ezekiel 23:20
That raises a funny point: I used to promote and DJ at doof parties in and around Sydney and all my 12"s have a notice that they are not for public performance on the label. WTF else do they think ppl do with vinyl records? I know you could buy a public broadcasting licence from the MAFIAA but no promoters I know bothered. Also, the kind of music I'm talking about was only targeted at that scene (and maybe bedroom bangers) so??!1
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
Hi all, this is my first post. I know this is off topic, but upon reading this it struck me that the Australian government are quite daft when it comes to the law. I mean I was watching the telly the other day and up pops John Howard; he was saying he's looking at changing the law to stop HIV-positive people coming to Australia. I don't know what you might think but I think the moral implications are scary. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SYD219295 .htm
As far as I'm concerned forcing Internet providers to cut off their customers is out right stupidity. I was reading about this push to revamp the internet and the first thing that struck me is, they're going to force the world to go underground, I mean how many internets do we need? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070413/ap_on_hi_te/re building_the_internet
I think most people are decent enough, and will do what they can get away with by and large, but once you open a big door like the internet, I can't see most people being satisfied with it being slammed in their face.
I don't think this has been applied in actual criminal cases. RIAA civil claims do not seem to be be resulting in criminal cases for theft or grand theft. Large scale producers of copied DVDs are usually charged with producing counterfeit goods, as that is a more applicable statute.
In the 1970s, Pinochet's Chile, with its authoritarian government, lack of civil-liberties protections and strongly corporatist ideology became a testbed for radical "free-market" policies. A lot of the reforms implemented by Reagan and Thatcher were first tested in Chile.
Right now, Australia (with its authoritarian government, lack of civil-liberties protections (there is no fair use, no safe harbour provisions, and no legal protections for free speech) and strongly corporatist ideology) is becoming the Chile of intellectual-property absolutism. Australian copyright laws are more draconian than those in the US or EU, and are only going to get more severe.