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TorrentSpy Ordered By Judge to Become MPAA Spy
PC Guy writes "TorrentSpy, one of the world's largest BitTorrent sites, has been ordered by a federal judge to monitor its users. They are asked to keep detailed logs of their activities which must then be handed over to the MPAA. Ira Rothken, TorrentSpy's attorney responded to the news by stating: 'It is likely that TorrentSpy would turn off access to the U.S. before tracking its users. If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.'"
now no one will use torrentspy. It never ceases to amaze me how hard some people will try to put the genie back in the bottle.
Yet another reason to use the Pirate Bay - being based in Sweden, it's incredibly unlikely that much action will be taken against it, especially in the current political climate there (as a direct result of the raid). Now they just need a way to clearly mark torrents that are tracked only by them...
- Frans.
Which is to say, game, set and match, MPAA.
rj
Seriously, the G8 countries are the axis of anti-piracy-evil.
They harm piracy business and it's superior products with their anti-competitive thinking and their illegal laws.
Um, Does anyone remember FTP? Or the other 69 methods of moving files around? This is just another sad attempt for someone to try to control something they dont like! The internet has become The Tree of Knowledge that God banned from us long ago, and some people don't like it!! This will stop piracy about as well as burying a goat's head in your back yard to ward off evil spirits!! DEATH TO THE MAN!!!
"It never ceases to amaze me how hard some people will try to put the genie back in the bottle."
There's ONE way. Simply stop producing content. Kind of hard to "steal" what doesn't exist.
If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.'"
You know, I heard in some countries, they can tap the phones if they get a court order, even though the privacy policy of the people talking says otherwise.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
There goes all the privacy anyone will have now, and in the future. The only bridge remaining is to pass a law that says any torrent site will be required to yield data. From there, the MPAA can define what a torrent site is by it's activity, even though it may be a commercial site. Yes, our privacy is lost, and the constitution is cut down once more.
"we have copyright laws on the books and content producers rely on those laws to protect their livelihood" While this may not apply to the MPAA to the same extent, the RIAA are most certainly not a content producer, nor are any of the members they represent. ARTISTS are content producers, not record companies.
- Frans.
Buggy whip makers relied on the horse drawn carriage to protect their livelihood, and look where they ended up. Sorry, but capitalism means no one owes you a living, and if you refuse to adapt by providing something people can't get on their own, then you're toast.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Poor little copyright violators are going to have to find a new source to steal from while making high and mighty moral claims about how evil the **AA groups are. I think the RIAA and MPAA can rot, and sincerely hope that this trend of the government to support their broken business model of attacking the citizens with insane claims ends soon. However, I am so sick of people getting up in arms about these shutdowns, and then wave their tiny little banner of "but bittorrent is used for legal stuff" yeah...so...it is...but I would guess that most of the people who parade out that silly argument have never used it for anything legal themselves, and just continue to download copyrighted works.
In a nutshell, get some self discipline and quit crying. I think all of the illegal download places should be shut down permanently. These stupid people cry about prices of software, about treatment of customers, and then they get the software and use it anyways. So, the company still gets its massive userbase knowing full well that many will be illegal copies, but as long as it grows their market share they will get more sales in the long run than what anyone "stole" from them. I went to linux because I can get any of the software I could need easily (no crack/serial/download searching) free (no astronomical sticker prices), and legally (no mega fines, or any of the recent trend of jail terms) and actually pay for the tiny amount of Win32 software that I ever use. The same goes with music, I just don't buy it anymore. And here is a shocker folks, when you don't use OS/Software from the commercial world who cuts all the stupid DRM deals...when you DO put one of those "copyright protection highjacker" type disks in that install all manner of rootkit type garbage...not much happens.
In closing, for all you who are going to respond to this... If you are doing so from an illegal install of Windows or other OS... Go switch to a legal alternative through download or purchase before you even bother.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
everyone start sharing goatse material with torrentspy. The MPAA will freak out:)
How can one delete an account on torrentspy ? I don't find a button to do so... unfortunately.
There should be a law requiring all sites that allow you to register to also have an unregister button somewhere.
All jabber/xmpp servers allows you to unregister.
Ok, so if they do just "block the entire US" whats to say somebody won't set up a mirror, a howto on using Proxy servers outside the US, or IP spoofing (not sure if that would work with downloads though...) or any of a billion other ways to get around this?
So...anyone who is actually concerned about their privacy when accessing a site that might be tracking them will use an anonymizer like Tor? Mission accomplished.
I don't believe the courts have the power to make an order like this, regardless of whether or not it is enforceable.
Actually, by the sounds of this, I think the judge could get impeached. Let us hope the ACLU or someone gets involved.
It was only a matter of time before governments began trying to figure out a way to regulate the Internet. All governments like control and the internet is by its very nature hard to control, and designed to be a nigh bit diffcult because of redundancy, etc. Sure China and Saudi Arabia and other countries try by limiting the number of ISPs and including filters, but people still find a way.
If you want to do something illegal on the net and can find a way to make money at it (the real tragic flaw of Napster), then there are a host of countries that would be happy to host for a percentage. And I'm not sure if anything can really be done to stop that. Trying to stop drugs hasn't worked.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I really think that with all these torrent-sites providing access to content people should pay for, things have gone too far, but so does going after sites that link to sites that host torrents that provide connection to a tracker to find people sharing the files - and even these people are in most cases still far away from the original source.
I just received the subpoena
You're almost as dumb as the people who call the cops when the stuff they stole gets stolen.
Go straight to stupidville. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.
Or maybe not. Your analogy is weak.
Other countries seem to have far more liberal standards when it comes to p2p. As already mentioned, Pirate Bay is hosted in a foreign country over which we do not currently have jurisdiction, nor plan to. (no oil.) So, unless the US can apply pressure to the government over there, those people are immune to the consequences. The only option the US would have is to go the China route, start blocking access to servers Big Brother feels don't support of morals and standards of Fremurica.
I think we've already established that the MAFIAA are DDT and file-sharing sites are cockroaches: all their efforts to kill off the population just drives the evolution of the technology and breeds a better roach. Seriously, without the MAFIAA we'd probably all still be using Napster and complaining about the broken songs.
Where is the endgame here? Does P2P win and the MAFIAA is reduced to paying for a few token arrests and prosecutions? Does it go the route of illegal drugs where p2p is available if you know where to look for it but no intelligent person would run the risk of losing everything with a bust? A lot of casual pot smokers I know have gone that route, they'd love to spark up now and again but they have too much to lose now between career and family, it's just not worth it.
What's kind of funny here is that stuff can go on under the radar for years before it blows up big enough for the media to comment on. Digital content piracy was going on for years and years before we even had broadband. All the porn getting traded over bulletin boards via dial-up was nothing more than scans from porno mags. I can't say there were never any lawsuits filed over this but I certainly never heard of them. And still, this was obscure enough that only the geeks even knew it existed or commonly had computers to download it. The closest most girls ever came to a computer in those days was asking a geek friend to help them type up a report. Filesharing met that perfect storm when more non-geek kids got computers for school, broadband became commercially available, and Napster made the whole process so easy no geek had to explain it. And those broadband speeds meant that images were no longer the only feasible thing to trade.
One thing is for sure, this genie is not going back in the bottle. Our economy is in decline, real earnings are down, we're getting squeezed on gas, food costs, etc. We can't pirate a tank of gas but we can download the latest blockbuster. What do you think is going to happen? I think most geeks here can see the difference in their own consumption dynamics. When I was a teenager, I didn't have any cash so I downloaded all my software. In college, still no cash so I pirated all my anime. And damn, it took a long time to hunt down all the individual episodes of a series. But three hours of effort could save me $150 for the DVD's, well worth the effort. But once I graduated and had a real income, my time became more valuable than what I could save by pirating, it was easier to buy. I don't have to hunt down crappy encodes, then waste time organizing and burning to CD's, etc. But if I was ever reduced to the cashflow of a college student, the entertainment budget would be the first to get cut.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
So does this apply to just registered users of the site, or does it extend to I.P. addresses of people who visit the site but are not registered users? The difference is subtle but important.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
>> You know, I heard in some countries, they can tap the phones if they get a court order, even though the privacy policy of the people talking says otherwise.
You're referring to wiretaps placed on specific individuals. This is very different.
Here this judge has ruled that the equivalent of wiretaps be placed on all customers of this company, regardless of their standing, oblivious to all issues of privacy, and at the behest of another corporation rather than a government agency. It is quite without precedent.
But this ruling won't stand for long, is my guess.
Every company wishing to undermine its competitors could demand that they implement similar internal monitoring to ensure that there is no infringement of their copyrights. For example, Microsoft could demand that all fileserver transactions in named large corporations be monitored and their logs be made available to MS in support of suits for infringement of Windows and Office copyrights.
In that direction lies madness, even worse than the current one. It's so grossly anti-competitive and so utterly dismissive of privacy considerations that it'll get overturned pretty quickly, I would guess.
In fact, that judge is going to get severly panned for a whole raft of reasons brought out in this thread. His ruling really verges on the incompetent. Or of course, it could be much worse than simple incompetence --- this does smell a bit of corruption, not necessarily driven by MPAA dollars but by old-boy network handshakes with their lawyers.
Pretty grim all 'round, even by the US's rapidly collapsing standards.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
At least TorrentSPY will now be living up to their name.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
The government has no reason to care about the whole IP debacle really. What it really is a question of is an old industry with awfully rich people in charge (don't give me crap about starving artists, the fat cats that took their money in the first place could starting paying it back...) that has grown accustomed to ripping artists and consumers alike off. Music survived an awful long time before the RIAA, and so did acting before MPAA. It is a transition, which no government should interfere with. The industry and the artist and consumers alike must find a new balance. I've heard that people pay to listen to live music for instance, maybe that is how music should pay the bills, not recordings of it? Who knows but the future.
What the government *SHOULD* interfere with is price fixing, Mafia tactics, scare tactics, extortion, invading of privacy, breaking the law, etc. Which these bloody people are doing all the time. This what is getting to me, why should any government on earth be allowed to persecute individuals the way RIAA/MPAA and their friends are doing. I do not live in the US, but please please, everyone, do read this Wikipedia entry and really think about what it says. If what the RIAA/MPAA is doing isn't cruel and unusual, nothing else. When beating and raping people is seen as a lesser crime than copying certain combinations of 1s and 0s, this are both cruel, and soon getting all to usual!
Buggy whip manufacturers did not have their business threatened by their *own* product being distributed in a manner that essentially places no financial burden on those distributors.
What torrentspy trackers? How is torrentspy any different from google:i rates
http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl%3A.torrent+p
So you're saying music will go the way of the buggy whip?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
So even if you track someone's movements within the Torrentspy site, that still doesn't prove they actually pirated anything. All it proves is that you clicked on a link to a .torrent tracker that's most likely being hosted on another site. It's not even evidence that you've actually downloaded the tracker and started received the file that the tracker points to. This seems like a highly dubious method to try to identify pirates.
"You could reword that "...make a living by being paid the licensing fees required by their government mandated monopolies.""
Why would anyone reword something to bolster a lie? Creating something isn't a money factory, otherwise Tim Schafer and Psychonauts would have been collecting his "licensing fee" and making a fortune. Maybe some are just mad that the government requires you to honor reciprocal agreements and PAY for the content you "borrow"? Keen notion that. A society requiring you to play by it's rules so you can enjoy it's fruits.
that needs to take a course in the history of science and technology.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
people get paid to play music all the time.
Doing a quick IP trace http://visualroute.visualware.com/ tells us that Torrentspy is located in the Netherlands. How exactly does that fit into all this?
[i]If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.[/i] Well policies can never overrule law... So if they want to keep servicing the US than they have to do what the judge ordered them (unless they appeal the ruling ofcourse).. And let's not forget that 90% what is getting onto torrentspy is 'illegal' stuff...
"This was about the MPAA. Movie stars have gigs now?"
Sure they do. Look at The Governator of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Ronald Reagan managed to do okay too, after quitting the movies - Governor, then President.
Sonny Bono - US Congress.
And internationally, there's La Cicciolina, the onetime porn star elected to the Italian parliament in 1987.
Would any of them have been able to get elected without the name recognition from their previous careers?
Kevin Smith on Prince
t will not stop torrent traffic, so what has actually been achieved?
Monitoring of legal traffic. For some reason, the Total Information Awareness crowd thinks that's useful. They also think they can get usefull information from torture. That or they might just want to be able to embarrass, humiliate and otherwise abuse people who don't agree with them. Control what it's all about isn't it?
Aren't you glad the USSR was dismantled? Isn't it nice we no longer have police states like East Germany, where all the phones were tapped, people were encouraged to denounce each other and innocent people dissapeared regularly? I am.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Torrentspy should just put up a giant red label on their site that reads: "If you're American, please don't download from us. Your stupid government is making us track you. Go to such-and-such site instead."
I've pretty much had it with companies who treat their policy as if it were the law of the land.
Yes, when you enter into a contract you are bound by its terms, but the idea that any policy is immutable is gaining acceptance and seems to be the norm at least on the companies' parts.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I've stopped being interested in music.
You would be hard pressed to find any music in my house thats less than 5 years old, and all of it i own legally. I still listen to music however, but i think my newest CD was pearl jam's binaural. Not really sure if thats just me getting older or sick of hearing about all the music fiasco and i cant say i really care either!
I'm not sure any such records could be used in a case against Torrentspy itself. I've read legal definitions that classify presenting evidence against oneself as self-incrimination, which is unconstitutional.
it drives our political system. We have all these Republican presidential candidates espousing a belief in God, when their only allegiance is to the dollar. Corruption! We have all these Democrat candidates being all so clever in their opposition to the Republican ideals, when their only allegiance is to the dollar. Corruption!
It will sink us all.
If you don't want DRM then stop pirating, you can't have it both ways.
My neighbour stopped pirating because he didn't want DRM. Unfortunately, when he drank the rooster blood, the moon wasn't full and no matter how many times he shouts "DRM BEGONE FOR I AM PURE!", the DRM refuses to vanish in the usual red puff of smoke.
Any ideas on what he should do next?
Thanks!
If this sticks, its a really bad precedent for any 'provider' in the states. None will be trustable.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Could TorrentSpy argue under the 5th Amendment that tracking their users then turning it over to the MPAA would be self-incrimination (at least as far as the MPAA is concerned?)
IANAL, obviously.
I recognize that it would probably mean the MPAA would argue to the judge that taking the 5th would "appear" guilty... but what happened to innocent until proven guilty?
>I think all of the illegal download places should be shut down permanently.
How?
Several years ago I started getting mail from American Airlines because I'd registered on their website to get some information about flights. It took me several months to get the mail stopped.
1. The company that was sending mail for AA wasn't AA.
2. They had no mechanism to remove my account information (email address and name) from their database.
3. They did have the ability to put me on a "Safe Harbour" list.
4. If they did that, I wouldn't get ANY mail from AA. Ever. Even if I asked for it.
5. Or from any OTHER customers of the mailing list handler.
6. They claimed they needed to do this for various reasons (people who kept re-registering and then complaining about the mail, postal regulations, audits, and so on).
They said that this was common, that most companies never actually removed you, they just marked your record "dead". I checked around after that, and, yes, that did seem to be the way they worked.
In that direction lies madness...
You know, people really don't talk this way anymore, and that is a shame. Common discuorse vocabulary has lost most of its verve and spice, as we aim for ever more dull verbal constructions that, above all, avoid emotional reactions in our communicative subjects. I know this verges on off-topic, but I think that 'madness' is an appropriately gravitic and perjorative term for what most would simply describe as unfortunate or lamentable, even if they truly felt much deeper.
Veering back on topic, I think that either of your two theories as to why any judge would rule in this way are quite plausible, and I would only add a third that judges (in my admittedly limited experience) can often be ornery and fickle sorts who can take an irrational dislike to a particular lawyer (e.g. "he was young and had a saucy tone") and punish his side with impunity under the color of prima facie legitimate procedural decisions. This could be just judical crankiness that in this particular case, due to a lack of care often associated with anger, actually overreached by a good distance the legitimate bounds of procedure.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
You DO realize that NONE of those people get royalties, right? So they don't get a dime from CD sales.
So the only harm they might suffer is if recordings aren't made at all.
Guess you took that stupid brain washing ad they stick before movies too seriously?
"Trying to stop drugs hasn't worked."
That's really the telling point isn't it?
We tried to stamp out drinking. That failed.
We tried to stamp out drugs. That failed.
Drugs and Alcohol at least are physical items that have to be manufactured and transported and this can be more easily confiscated.
What lunatic thinks we'd ever be able to stop the copying of files?
"Then, watch with glee as it becomes popular. Then watch with horror as nobody pays for it. Paying for things is "outdated" you see, and not paying artist is the only way to "right" a wrong."
Way to create a strawman on about 3 different levels. I get it. I'm imagining all those artist out there who would have sold a zillion albums except for evil downloading. And of course, people are saying music should be free! All the time! And of course, let's not forget the poor musician. They're sitting over there, next to the poor children we're trying to protect.
"It basically boils down to, if you want the damn product pay for it. "
Yeah, well, that's part of the problem, isn't it. Good luck trying to get $18 for a CD. Bring it down to $6, and people will pay for it. If the the RIAA member record companies can't hack it at that, then the RIAA has to go away.
"If your favourite artist signs with a label, THAT'S THEIR RIGHT. Who are you to say "because you signed with, say, EMI, I won't pay for your music?"
The people with the money are saying that. The only reason the labels can exist is because the people, the citizens, have allowed them to exist. When the time comes that people feel they shouldn't exist (which appears to be rapidly approaching), then they will go away.
Musicians will still exist. Ho hum. Life goes on.
Back in the 90's here on slashdot, when the madness started with the RIAA, I opined that the more the RIAA rails against their customers, the more their customers will rip them off. Well, they decided short term profits were (and still are) the right way to go. I put it in far more crude terms. I suspect there were RIAA shills reading at the time, and perhaps they took my words as a challenge. I dunno. Maybe I'm personally responsible for the RIAA acting like clueless idiots. Either that, or too much coke fried their critical reasoning facilities.
Anyway, people downloading music is a fact of life. You can't stop it. You've got to live with it. And if you can't, you die.
Oh, and by the way, Sony/BMG sells CD's for $6 apiece. I buy them direct all the time. Although, I have a funny feeling the artist is getting screwed by the Sony/BMG on this deal. Oh well, as you said, the artist has the right to be stupid, I guess.
>>If you don't want DRM then stop pirating, you can't have it both ways.
Bullshit. Todays (and proly tomorrows) DRM is far to week to stop pirating. I download what i want, when i want it.
If you dont want pirating then make more effective DRM, *you* cant have it both ways. LOL.
So now that a newer technology is out (electronic downloads) it's OK to physically steal things belonging to the old technology (physical medium)? I don't think that's what he was saying...
When you say "law of the land" which land do you mean? The US or the Netherlands? US law is not and should not be taken as international law. If torrentspy has a policy consistent with the law of the Netherlands, the us should spend it's resources on issues that concern the majority of Americans (like getting out of Iraq or figuring out how to fix Medicare) and let a particular private industry interest take care of it's rights in the courts of the Netherlands. US courts should respect the laws of other countries.
Yes google provides a great search as you mentioned, i find it more funny to use these examples.
live.com search engine owned by microsoft search for Windows Vista ISO and Office XP and dvdrip
but yes google is much better at this, just find it funny i can use a microsoft website to find a torrent for their own software. Same thing is true about a few other companies. Ira Rothken was my defense attorney on a civil case with microsoft and Disney being 2 of the plaintiffs for a very similar thing. Disney and Microsoft both dropped out the suit from this basic argument about their search engines, still had about 5 more software companies left, but after a while they just dropped the case.
I dont see this ruling standing either if it is appealed, this isnt like getting a wiretap, the cops or whatever do all the work, they don't force the business to do it for them, then just give the logs to the cops when they want, this seems more like a tactic to scare some people and hurt the business of Torentspy.
s/©//g
The economics of music works something like this: Record labels get the vast majority of profits for recordings. The artists get the majority of their income from live shows. Even if the artists make $0 from their albums, and their music is any good, they can tour. Most of us go to work 250 days a year, and give the fruits of our labor to our employers (patents, etc). This is all about the RIAA's profits, not the musician's.
A hacker that had hacked TS and was paid by the MPAA to do so has turned double-agent and is now giving every detail out to TS. TS might likely sue the MPAA for employing someone to perform an illegal activity.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Ah, but not every movie star wants to get into politics that directly. And they do gotta eat before they get elected, too.
Of course, there are other ways for movie stars to get paid, since we're not planning to go extravagant for them. We could go back to what the MPAA had in the Golden Age of Movies: actors, screenwriters, and directors sign with studios and get a salary from the studios for the duration of the contract.
Of course, bringing the old system back would mean that the studios could exploit all actors and directors equally. Under the present system, there are actors and directors who have enough influence to get decent-to-excellent pay from the studios, and who are considered important enough to hire anyway. That wouldn't happen much under the contract system.
Then again, lesser actors and directors--including ones that are as yet unformed--might do better under the old system. But this system is dangerously close to the RIAA labels' current system, so...
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
I was just pointing out the gigs in politics. They also do a lot of product ads for tv. Andie McDowell plugs Oil of Olay, Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger make spots to encourage California tourism, William Shatner did all those internet ads ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
"Dear user, it appears from your IP address that you're inside the US. Our privacy policy doesn't allow us to serve the US legally. Please use this proxy in Russia: http:..."
thegodmovie.com - watch it
What exactly is stopping them from packing up, moving the site, and reopening the entire network under a different name? Perhaps chopping it up into several smaller trackers.
Nobody can stop the internet. Nobody.
Thanks.
The TV advertising gigs are directly relevant because they actually involve acting! And since everything else on TV is paid for through ads or through cable and satellite fees, that's a good system.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Some movie stars are artists.
Some movie stars can actually act well enough to be good actors despite the extra charisma. Those people are artists--maybe not as much as the screenwriters or directors, but they are.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Last I checked, it was $15 to $18 for an album with solid media and a case at record stores, or cheaper if the store wants to get rid of certain five-year-old albums. It's $10 for a whole album (any length) at iTunes, so you do get a discount for sacrificing the solid media and the case--though iTunes tries to ship cover art with its digital albums.
True, it is a bad deal if you buy all the tracks of an album but one on iTunes; but if you're buying the entire album, digital is cheaper.
They did try to price movies like music once, back in the early days of videotape: it cost $100 for a Betamax or VHS tape. Almost no individuals bought movies at those prices, and the studios weren't crazy about rental places buying them. That's why movies only cost $20 now: people just won't pay more than that.
Music may be sold for considerably more than it costs the labels to make & distribute it, but even in this slump there are still many people willing to buy albums at the prices the labels are charging. The labels are pricing to milk the demand, not to reflect their cost to supply it.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Yes, we are still allowed to play other people's songs, even if some of those in charge of printing the transcripts are making it tricky. Playing them in public, however, would require someone--either you or your venue--to pay a songwriter association to make it strictly legal.
We know how most slashdotters feel about the songwriter associations, right?
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
1. Monitor TorrentSpy.
2. ?????
3. Profit!
Of course! It's so obvious!!
You are reading a sig. Cancel or allow?
Actually, it appears that EMI has found a cut-off for releasing DRM-free songs. The songs iTunes is selling as iTunes-Plus songs (inc. many of EMI's) have no DRM. EMI allows this because those songs are watermarked with material to ID the purchaser, so if any of those leak out they'll know whose copy it was.
The film studios are another matter. They have not released digital DRM-free material ever, and it's unlikely that they'll change their mind in the near future.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
I think you're funny dude. But alas, I am an ac too who will never know the righteous power of a mod point.
The mafiaa aren't stupid. They know they can't completely destroy filesharing. Most of their activity is intended to be a chilling effect.
What he's saying is that the MAFIAA will go the way of the buggy whip. There are ways to create music and art other than recording cartels manufacturing popularity for the latest boy band or diva. In the course of history, that's actually a rather new thing. What the MAFIAA does, product manufacturing and marketing, is no longer relevant due to the Internet. The Internet does both of those, and places them under artist control. Game over, cartels: Adapt or die.
No. It would, if musicians were all as stubborn and unimaginative as record execs, but they're not. There are other business models for music besides "write song now, sell copies later", and as long as musicians adapt, there will still be music.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
The music labels' business is threatened by the very nature of the thing they're trying to sell. It's foolish to try to make money from selling numbers, and they were lucky to have gotten as far as they did during the "bubble" period when it was practical for big companies, but not individuals, to make copies.
Now the bubble has burst, and if they don't adapt to the world as it exists today--where copyright is easy to violate on a large scale and impossible to enforce 99% of the time--they'll face the same fate as a dot-com millionaire-for-a-day who didn't know when to quit the game.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Your analogy is weaker. Stealing != copying.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Are screwed big time.
Thanks to people's general aversion to pay money for anything other than food, clothing, shelter, (and gasoline) has resulted in this pervasive 'information wants to be free' mentality that 'infests' the internet.
If no one is really willing to buy the stuff you create, what can you do?
I see one of five possible options....
1) Sell it for 'almost nothing' (like $1-$2) from a website.
2) Give it away for free from a website and put out a 'tip jar' there to collect donations (if any) for you.
3) Give it away from a website plastered with 3rd party ads (like Google Adsense) that benefit you.
4) Give it away from a website with few/no strings attached trusting that such a gift will result in actual cash money for you down the road in the future such as a paid job or people willing to buy custom created product from you.
5) Give up and learn how to play poker successfully online for real money--the current big thing online that pays real money (just not in a predictable way like a normal job would).
Slashdot captcha: predict -- quite ironic.
The crappy part is that now that the RIAA has sucked all the money from the artists on record sales, a lot of groups have to pay money to their record label with profits from the tour.
The funny part is when the RIAA keeps claiming they're thinking of the artist. Yeah, the way the rancher thinks of the steer he's raising.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"The artists will keep making music, and the movies will probably continue in similar fashion. If they don't, it's not that big of a loss."
Is it? Can you really live in a world that has no artists?
Also I have a link around here, but basically the "gravy train" argument is false. Artists will continue to create, but that doesn't mean they will distribute. Remember most artists create for themselves, first! Then they may distribute. But not into an environment that's hostile to those who wish to make a living.
Y'know what, I pirate. I don't pirate the MPAA's work or the RIAA's work, because both are sue happy so I avoid them. In related news I buy 0 songs a year and I buy very few DVDs, at most one or two a year, and I think the last time I bought a DVD was Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (although I might have got Shawshank Redemption or Dave for a christmas gift after it, I'm not sure the order they came in. But I'm fairly certain they're the last 3 DVDs I got).
Instead I pirate a fairly geeky medium, which I also have trouble buying in my local area, although I don't buy as much as I could. I buy 4 items a month from this medium (which I'm going to be increasing to 5) along with lots of it for christmas gifts and birthday gifts. Whenever I stop pirating the work, the amount I buy decreases to 0. Whenever I pirate it, the amount I buy increases again. I buy stuff from this medium because the publishers have said they won't sue piraters.
So think about that MPAA, I doubt I'm alone.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=filetype%3Ato rrent+pirates+-search+announce&btnG=Search would be a much better search.
Connected to localhost
220 Sftp-4: ATS (private) ftp server
Name (localhost:anonymous):
331 Password required for anonymous.
Password: p2p@mail.com
230 User anonymous logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files. This must be a device to circumvent copyrighted works !! And it is fully anonymous ! hurry! ban it fast; before one pokes an eye out!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Why dont the just shut down the website. This is complete disregard of user privacy. Why dont they go after google and microsoft who are tracking user activity. Google indexes millions of links for pirated downloads.
"If you are an artist, I suggest that you stop trying to make your money on information. "
Well that explains RMS's vision of the future then.
"Software is a similar but more complex issue not fit for this discussion."
Information is information, and the tools don't care if it's software or music.
"But please, by all means, go on fighting for what you believe in. I respect that."
Well I'm glad I have your permission. but I think you don't see the scope of the problem, and the ruin that it will bring to our society, and yes your defeatist attitude irritates me. I've lived a very long life and I've seen your kind of thinking since before WW2, and I'm still seeing it. And the consequences are still the same regardless of wheither we're talking about the Germans or entertainment.
"The war has been lost. Perhaps that means no music and no movies. If so, that's the price consumers are going to pay. But if you think that you can stop it, if you think that it ever will stop, you're honestly deluding yourself. It's not going to stop."
Well you're half right. Greed knows no boundaries and that's all the more reason to be vigilant against it. But you do contradict yourself. If there is no more entertainment, then there is no more piracy. So much like a virus the host dies, and the virus with it.
"I deliberately didn't take a stance on the right or wrong aspect of it because I don't think it makes one lick of difference."
The wages of sin are death. That's one HELL of a difference.
"Even if you managed to convince every person you ever spoke to (you won't), you'll hardly make a dent in the "culture of piracy". It's already so pervasive that it's useless."
So is all the other behavior that society legislates. If we applied your way of thinking, there wouldn't be a society left to enjoy. Were do you draw the line in your "Majority rules" world? And will you find your voice and courage before it's too late?
law is an instrumennt of a government.
policy is something a corporate entity wants you to like.
that's all i meant.
nothing more.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I can't believe that this hasn't been tagged "itsatrap".
Now, what's the difference between the US and China ?
;)
In China, the Government orders the administrators of a website (see "Google") to spy, sorry, "keep logs" of what their users do and hand them over (to the government).
In the US, the Court orders the administrators of a website to spy, sorry, "keep logs" of what their users do and hand them over (to a private company).
Hmmm... I see the difference... in China there's a government, in the Us there are only big companies...
have a nice day (wherever you are - luckily I ain't concerned by this case