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ISP Sued By Irish RIAA
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An ISP in Ireland has been sued by the Big Four record labels because its subscribers have engaged in P2P sharing of the record companies' song files. The record companies claim the ISP should be buying Audible Magic's CopySense, the software being peddled by the RIAA's expert witness, which supposedly would filter out copyright infringement. Of course, not everyone agrees."
The two "obvious ways" to defeat Audible Magic (as listed in the article) do not seem very promising to me. If large numbers of filesharers begin to send huge transfers amounts of data over SSL, it's going to be pretty noticeable. In this day of ISP "traffic shaping," I wouldn't be surprised to see SSL throttled down to the point where transferring large files becomes painfully slow. The second strategy is not currently possible (as the article itself states). It goes on to admit that future OS upgrades would be required. I'm sure Microsoft will be more than happy to modify their TCP/IP stack to help make filesharing as easy as possible.
This technology is not foolproof, but it does require filesharers to jump through additional hoops to distribute files. Hardcore filesharers will no doubt toil obsessively to workaround the issue, but some casual downloaders may conclude that the hassle and risks associated with filesharing is becoming greater than the costs of paying $0.89 to get the song from Amazon, etc.
Eliminating %100 of copyright infringement is not a requirement for the RIAA to regard its strategy as successful. Simply making the process risky and aggravating enough that most people will switch to paying for music is enough. Each generation of this cat and mouse game between the "pirates" and the RIAA has resulted in an increased compartmentalization of p2p networks. Sure the "hydra" will grow more heads and live on, but it's hard to ignore that something that could immediately be located and downloaded on Napster in the Year 2000 now frequently takes time to hunt down and leech via bittorent.
Doesn't this sound suspiciously like extortion? "buy our 'partner's' software/protection or we'll sue you for infringement" I wonder what kind of kickback they're getting on it?
If they wanted them to use the software so bad, they would give them a copy for free.
Greedy bastards
A funny story that sort of shines out as an example here of how this all fits together:
In Australia in recent years there has been a push to stop selling cigarettes to under 18's. There are harsh fines and so forth to both the business and to the individuals who would do the selling.
One smart (or lazy/tricky depending on what way you look at it) cookie decided that as a shop owner who sold tabacco products, he was being asked to do regulatory work on behalf of the state government here who said that he shouldn't sell to minors. He took the government to court - and amazingly won the case. (I couldn't find anything on google though).
THe basic premise is the same here though, the RIAA and governments are imposing rules about what can and can't be done by users of something else, but they want someone else to do all the dirty work imposing the law. It's a bloody great way not to do any work if you ask me - by getting someone else to do it, and pay for it.
While I support copyright, I think that they should stop trying to get ISP's to do all the dirty work.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Parents of child porn victims sue camera manufacturers for allowing pedophiles to make child porn.
Corporate hacking victims sue computer manufacturers for providing hackers tools to break into their systems.
Violent crime victims sue weapons manufacturers for enabling criminals to harm them.
China sues Western democracies for giving its citizens subversive ideas of freedom and civil liberties.
Sueing somebody to force them to buy a product... isn't that kinda, I dunno, anti-competitive?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I *want* people to redistribute my copyrighted material over P2P networks. Preventing this from happening causes me a problem. If my material is wrongly detected as something the RIAA don't want shared, it harms *my* profits.
I suppose the question is, how do you detect false positives, and when they happen who do I sue?