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Leaked MediaDefender Emails Show Student P2P Traffic Down
An anonymous reader writes "The MPAA and the RIAA have been targeting universities in a fury claiming that college students are causing them huge losses. However, some leaked MediaDefender emails show that may be a huge exaggeration. 'I also want to state that I am not for the illegal sharing of files. I am absolutely against it. I just want to make sure that the numbers presented in the media are fair numbers. I have a feeling they aren't fair at all.
'"
They don't show that student P2P traffic is down, just that the methods that the MAFIAA use to give numbers of students using P2P are flawed and the numbers are probably lower than they say. Given their sterling track record with manipulating numbers, it's hardly surprising. Plus, it really only deals with the Gnutella network, whereas most of the traffic nowadays would probably be using Bittorrent.
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
The MPAA and the RIAA have been targeting universities in a fury claiming that college students are causing them huge losses.
This is a bogus claim anyway, everyone knows college kids (aka Students) are piss poor and couldn't afford to buy the music even if they didn't download it.
Now they're just piss poor and bored.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
It's not down at my school....
Just yesterday someone was talking about how they have 6000 illegal downloads. Someone else said "Only 6000?!"
Not kidding.
Of course I don't want to download anything that would be considered illegal You're apparently a college student who doesn't pirate stuff? Are we supposed to take you seriously? You might as well tell us you're the son of God come back to earth to end world hunger and put an end to war, as that would be just as believable. What do you take slashdot for?
I only kid. I do however think this is less than noteworthy. I'm pretty sure it's been widely known that the RIAA types have inflated their statistics for some time now, what with their formula of x number of pirated copies = x number of sales lost and then x sales lost * y unreasonable charge == z unrealistic losses.
I got a catholic block.
... numbers distort the RIAA! But seriously, I doubt any of us are surprised that the RIAA's lying through its teeth. It's been suspected since, oh, just about forever. It's nice to have some supporting documentation, though.
Just take a look at this recent opinion piece to MIT's newspaper. Here's a student who believes that "the free flow of information" (as he says twice) is the ultimate good. Lots of students still don't understand why copyright exists. In fact, some will even try to explain that physical property is the only kind that should have value. It's totally mind-boggling, even when these students are the ones who will be going out and making the next generation of intellectual works.
Even the GPL and all copyleft mechanisms rely on copyright laws. If people want their wishes as content creators to be respected (whether that is to allow some forms of redistribution, like CC-NC, or not, like "All rights reserved"), they need to respect copyright law and not subvert it.
--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.
- students have found ways to not be discovered
- the students have got all the stuff they want
- there's nothing much worth downloading at present
- (my favourite) The RIAA are getting tired of the "war" so they're engineering a victory. Look! our stats say we've won - we can stop now.
- possibly the stats are over the summer, when the colleges were empty
Just like house prices, you can't draw any real conclusions from a single data point. Give it a year and see if there's still a downward trend or if this was just a blippoliticians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I wonder how many students at technical colleges and universities are using BitTorrent to download Linux ISOs, free software packages, etc...
I know that's what I use it for (no, I'm not kidding).
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I gotta go shower now, for some reason I feel so dirty....
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
Just get all the nation's leading universities to drop their backbone connections in favor of Comcast cable. I promise you, you'll see a huge reduction in network utilization, and BitTorrent connections won't trouble your admins any longer.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Have gnu, will travel.
I have been downloading using the Gnutella network, newsgroups, usenet, and torrents since early highschool.. but I am an exception; being a computer science major.
Gnutella market became huge when I was in highschool.. which was Napster... that is when most students learned and starting using this tool. It has really been the last few years that most people I know are using other means of downloading besides Gnutella network; but still a majority do that are not computer literate. I have taught several peers how to use torrents and most now not use it.
I don't know anyone that does not do any illegal downloading; but this is generally music/videos. I can see the majority of illegal music/video downloading being students as most do not have the funds, or care enough to pay for the music. Most adult music is generally mainstream and thus bought from mainstream MPAA and RIAA suppliers, being HMV, Walmart, etc.. A large percentage of students music will be the TOP billboard hits but general interest in non-mainstream music is generally more prevalent in comparison to adult; thus being where a majority of music downloading and sharing comes into effect.
From my understanding and evaluation of peers, is that most know the dangers of illegal downloading and know that some sort of precaution is needed. As the majority of suits against illegal downloading are against users of Limewire, Ares or other various p2p applications; most see torrents as a safer practice. So to observe this decline is normal, as most adults I know that download music illegally don't even know what torrents are and have been slower in approaching p2p; and I generally find that the adult generation like to keep what feels more comfortable to them instead of trying the "newest" thing.
The only real way to combat this generation of downloading is to partner with the ISP's because only they can really throttle the connections and stop this. Too many services allow options such as RC4 encryption making it almost virtually impossible for the RIAA and MPAA to attack; and its almost hopeless to attack a handful of millions. Fortunately for the RIAA and MPAA this is almost becoming a reality as this YouTube generation is pushing the envelope.. I use to have bandwidth of ~3.4 mbps, but a general bandwidth of 1 mbps is now more common.
Shocking! The numbers quoted in the articles show a steep drop in June and July, having reached a peak in midwinter.
There's a number of P2P sites, and P2P programs which don't allow connections to MediaDefender or other such P2P sites. Personally I've seen their IPs end up in the blocked list of Peer Guardian more than a few times.
I think perhaps they are experiencing a little bit of Heisenberg's at the macrolevel: By observing it, they are changing it. Send enough annoying letters saying X had Y media on X's computer on a P2P site as discovered by this IP address: Z, well, you're going to get programs cropping up to prevent any connections to Z.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
If the numbers went down, the MAFIAA will claim that their anti-piracy efforts are working. This means that not only will those anti-piracy efforts not go away, but people are much more likely to take them seriously with their next claim.
If the numbers didn't go down, the MAFIAA will claim that piracy is rampant, and use that as an excuse to do even more DRM, and get even more laws passed for them.
It's called spin. Let me try some of my own:
If the numbers went down, I claim that this proves that piracy isn't as much of a threat to their profits as they thought, and therefore, DRM should end.
If the numbers didn't go down, I claim that this proves that people are so sick and tired of the MAFIAA's bullshit on their legitimate products that they're willing to turn to piracy.
Here's my trump card, though: If we really can't tell who's right, the default position should be consumer freedom.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Just take a look at this recent opinion piece to MIT's newspaper. Here's a student who believes that "the free flow of information" (as he says twice) is the ultimate good. Lots of students still don't understand why copyright exists.
:] I suggest you think it through a little more. The notion was not formed without the use of rational thought, so an intelligent person like you should be able to understand it... right?
:]
Oh, some of us understand just fine. It's the part where people don't agree with how the law is written or enforced that get you into problem territory.
In fact, some will even try to explain that physical property is the only kind that should have value. It's totally mind-boggling, even when these students are the ones who will be going out and making the next generation of intellectual works.
No, they usually say that IP isn't really property because it's not truly rivalrous. Sure, the law creates rights that are in rivalrous in an artificial way, but you can have two people listen to the same tune whereas two people can't eat the same grape. You may have heard people refer to IP as "imaginary property" recently. It's not because they don't know what IP is supposed to stand for, but because they don't agree with it.
It's totally mind-boggling, even when these students are the ones who will be going out and making the next generation of intellectual works.
Mind-boggling? That sounds more like a statement of ignorance to me. I don't have any trouble understanding why they'd think that, nor do I have trouble understanding those with views like yours. When I hear that something is "mind-boggling" I usually find out that people are trying to ascribe intelligence to something (or someone) that lacks it, or that they haven't thought something through. In this case, it would appear to be the latter.
Even the GPL and all copyleft mechanisms rely on copyright laws. If people want their wishes as content creators to be respected (whether that is to allow some forms of redistribution, like CC-NC, or not, like "All rights reserved"), they need to respect copyright law and not subvert it.
The GPL IS a subversion of copyright law after a fashion. RMS wrote against that notion that we need copyright because it's used to enforce the GPL quite specifically in one of his essays (yes, you can't enforce the GPL without copyright law, but you don't really need it, either). You might want to talk to the man who wrote it before you make claims like that. I did. [1]
Anyhow, to get back on topic, I don't see how you can say that not supporting copyright law makes them an infringer. I also don't think that that essay you linked to was written out of ignorance. It's written because people are fed up with this crap.
Perhaps you haven't yet realized this, but the more laws we make, the more criminals there are. Obviously, the more we criminalize the things people are already doing, the more people who are going to break them. And you can't have fewer than zero people breaking a law, so adding to the laws will certainly never create fewer criminals. The point isn't the ridiculous notion that we could just abolish all laws and have "zero" criminals. Some things, after all, are worth the cost of criminalizing them. But it's a mistake to think that laws are without cost. And here, a reasonable person can make the case that we're simply better off if we don't criminalize something, whether or not we like or agree with it.
Of course, you seem to find that "mind-boggling"
[1] To prove it, I'll point out that I also read the confusing words manifesto. Whereas RMS would like us all to stop using the word, I have chosen to subvert it with the term "Imaginary Property" not unlike how RMS chose to subvert copyright with the GPL rather than hoping to abolish it. RMS disagrees with me about that term, BTW, in that it still lumps together at least three disparate areas of law, but you'd have a hard time finding someone with whom he agrees about everything
Silly MAFIAA - trix are for kids!
And the kidz will always be three steps ahead of you. Face it. Your business model is done. Go figure out some other way to make a living.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Your publisher really wants you to think copyright is the only thing protecting you from starvation. The truth is that artists and authors made decent livings long before copyright laws came into being. Furthermore, the artists and authors who work outside the copyright model today can still do pretty well for themselves.
The idea that you need a publisher in order to sell a book is strong evidence of copyright's badness.