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IFPI Turning To Lawsuits
Sherman's doppleganger writes "The IFPI (the "European RIAA") has made a lot of noise about filtering this year, but it looks as though 2008 is instead becoming the year of the lawsuit. The IFPI has now sued an Irish ISP in an attempt to keep copyrighted content off of its network. 'The lawsuit accuses Eircom of abetting illegal downloading by allowing copyrighted material to traverse its network unimpeded. The IFPI... wants the ISP to start filtering traffic to scrub all illicitly uploaded and downloaded copyrighted material on its network.' The lawsuit comes less than a week after an Israeli court forced the nation's three biggest ISPs to block access to HttpShare.com."
These people are ripping apart the infrastructure of one of Human kind's greatest achivements over their petty squabble. I'm really sick of it, and it would be easier if these people just got the hell off our planet. Fuck thesse people. Fuck the DMCA, Fuck the IFPI, fuck the EUCD, fuck it. I'm sick of these monsters that want to drag us down into the dark ages with their greed. Its just sick.
So if this succeeds, can we expect people to start suing the Ministry of Transport because the proceeds of (real!) crime are traversing their road network unimpeded?
Do as you would be done to.
I really don't understand how the RIAA can do what they've been doing, what with the legal actions, blocking, etc, "for the artists". The "artists", which are the songwriters, song publishers and song performers, are represented by ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and the sort, for the payments and receipts of royalties, in addition to the Library of Congress and copyrights (including International agreements). IMHO, the RIAA, and their sort, are nothing but mobsters, trying to rough-up people via the legal system instead of street "hits".
It seems to me a basic concept of Western law. For example:
Should a toll road's owner be fined if someone transports illegal goods on it? Or required to search all cars that pass?
Should Disneyland be fined if someone manages to smuggle in 'shrooms and consume them waiting in line for Pirates Of The Carribean? Or conduct drug searches and tests on all patrons?
Should a taxi driver be fined if a passenger sneaks trash out the window? Or required to maintain all windows and doors to be sealed at all times?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
"File sharing is crucial to the success of musicians such as myself who offer free downloads of their music. We do this to promote our work, and to gain fans."
And that is one of the reasons it must be stopped.
You are the real enemy.
you would think, but given the creative lawyering and flagrant corporate abuse of legal systems across the world, you might well be wrong. if there's anything to be learned from the legal system(s) in the u.s., it is that it doesn't cost much to write laws to your advantage.
Ok then clever clogs.
How do you know what is illicit and what is allowed?
Is the content of the website you are downloaded owned by (for instance) perfect 10?
Have I given permission to YOU to download a css stylesheet I designed for use on my website?
Is the Code in the software update you are getting copyrighted to the person you are getting it from?
Did the original rights owner give you permission to distribute that mp3 file to your IM friend?
the list is endless.
Without knowledge of what is illicit and what is allowed you might as well block the whole lot.
liqbase
People here are unclear on what the RIAA and their European cousins are trying to do. They are not dummies, and they know perfectly well that personal sharing ("piracy") actually helps their sales. They also know perfectly well that these lawsuits will not stop real piracy ("Psssst. Honorable Sir! Look here! 5 CDs for one dollar!"). They are willing to forgo those lost sales in pursuit of their real purpose. The purpose of the lawsuits is to create a climate of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) surrounding *legal* downloads. That is because what they *really* hate is not "piracy", but independent musicians. By stifling music sharing, they stifle independents, and keep the music distribution monopoly to themselves. They don't especially hate FOSS, but they don't feel especially guilty about innocent bystanders getting nailed either.