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$4 Million In Fines For Linking To Infringing Files
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The MPAA won judgments totaling $4M against two sites which merely link to infringing content. They're not arguing that it's an infringement of their distribution right, like the RIAA has with their 'making available' argument. Instead, they got the sites for 'contributory copyright infringement', just like RIAA v. LimeWire. To translate all that legalese into English, search engines which primarily index copyright-infringing material and the people who run them may not be safe in the US. That applies even if the sites in question do not host any infringing materials, participate in, or encourage the infringement done by their users. And, even honoring DMCA notices in order to take advantage of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions hasn't prevented the **AA from suing."
Google is likely to sued real soon as well as many other web sites.
This is actually something I hadn't considered before. Say some industry thugs go out and find some techno-thugs who just happen to operate in a jurisdiction outside the reach of U.S. law and monitoring. Said techno-thugs inherit big bags of money for all the infringing content they can get placed on competing independent distribution systems alongside "legitimate" tracks.
Unfortunately for them, said independent distribution guys just happen to be inside U.S. jurisdiction. Bad day...
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I see this as a very bad thing all around. Surely the point of search engines is that they provide access to all corners of teh interweb and can only do this by hitting every site and indexing it. If they become responsible for the content on those sites, or rather not providing links to "illegal" content, how do they continue to provide that access when they may potentially have to vet every link they index?
OK, so they can filter but surely that's as much of a minefield as indexing everything? Imagine the law suits when their filtering algorithms start excluding one company and include their opposition.
Not sure I like the sound of this.
Well, no. These sites' purpose and content consisted substantially of indexing and enabling the search for unlawful copies of copyrighted works. While Google certainly has some capability to do this as well, I don't think most people would see that as a substantial portion of their content or their purpose.
This case really isn't that surprising.
This will break the internet.
Don't think so. The ??AAs are much like school bullies. They prefer picking on the weaker kids, they rarely try it on the ones that can push back.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I mean, apart from these sites do you know any other site that so blatantly and directly markets themselves to people breaking the law? It'd be on the level of a water pipe store with a posted map to nearby pot salesmen. Aside from my feelings on copyright, if something first is illegal I think there should be limits to how far you can go assisting them, marketing to them, turning a blind eye to them and so on. Whether you call that "aiding and abetting", "conspiracy" or "contributory infringement" is more of a legal issue, but clearly some of these sites overstep what I'd consider natural. It's like seeing a gun marketed as "Cop killer*" and in 2pt font "*only applicable when said cop is on drugs, shooting wildly around him and shooting him would be in self-defense". Some of the piracy sites are equally blatant, like "Get the latest TV shows here*" and in 2pt font "*no responsibility for 3rd party content."
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
How do you know that these two sites did not intend for people to share their own movies?
The same way I know the bridge being offered to me isn't really for sale - because I'm not a schmuck.
Don't be one either.
We would like to welcome our new search-engine overlords! Seriously, Microsoft a few years ago was considering jumping ship to Vancouver, BC. We are working on a more open set of copyright laws (vs the draconian U.S.) and I'm sure there would be some HUGE tax incentives. Granted the RIAA/MPAA's northern arms will want the same thing but I suspect it will be denied. Money trumps pretty much everything, and up here Google et all would have a lot more then the CRIA.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
easy, find an XSS vulnerability in either the MPAA or the RIAA site and link it to copyrighted material, then also target government websites with the same XSS vulnerability and do the same, repeat over again until change.
You do realize that your viewing habits are in the fringe and that these companies couldn't give less of a shit? The solipsism of your post is mind boggling.
Looks like they have it both ways again. The requirement to honor DMCA complaints without a court order is balanced by the privilege to host information without having to check it for copyright violations first. If they don't want to allow the latter, why should we allow them to take a short cut when they want some information taken down?
It's like seeing a gun marketed as "Cop killer*" and in 2pt font "*only applicable when said cop is on drugs, shooting wildly around him and shooting him would be in self-defense".
Problem is, the guns are there SPECIFICALLY to kill cops. Well at least that's what the right to bear arms was for. I'm not saying you should mow down every pig you see, but the whole point of arming plain citizens is to (theoretically) protect themselves from the threat of a totalitarian regime. Obviously that definition has little meaning anymore, the gov't is out of control and on a rampage, but the intent was there.
There's nothing in your constitution that states "Citizens have the right to download copyrighted content without retribution". That's why these issues are being decided in courts of law.
The fact that much of this indexing and filtering can be fully automated blurs the line a fair bit. Google could be doing the same thing as any torrent tracker, all it takes is basic web scraping and community moderation (explicit or implicit, the latter being Google's tendency). Google would stand to profit quite a chunk from such gray-area activities (hint: it already does).
So why is it that Google is not in court over file sharing ? They're as big a facilitator as any other index, if not more since it actually indexes the indexes. Google is like one monster torrent search that aggregates TPB, Mininova, IsoHunt and hundreds more.
Google is not in court, because the RIAA/MPAA doesn't have enough money to beat them. That's all.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Our copyright in the US works largely on the owners' good graces, apathy, and ignorance. Copyright infringement, in a technical sense, happens constantly. And not just from music and movie downloaders, but ordinary people. Tattoos of cartoon characters, playing some popular song on your guitar, hosting images someone else created on your own server.
This may, in fact, have appeared on Slashdot before, but John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, estimates that a typical person could easily rack up $12.45 million in copyright liability doing ordinary things like sending email, sketching on a notepad, the afore-mentioned cartoon tattoo, writing poetry, and singing "Happy Birthday." And then there's this:
You can find the entirety of Professor Tehranian's article in PDF here.
The entire structure of our copyright law in the US is based on what strikes me as being the courts' absolutely blind willingness to enforce laws, the language of which criminalizes the day-to-day acts of normal people, and therefore makes the system open to the sort of hyper-technical abuse characterized in the article.
Of course, our national legislators are to blame for the sloppy language, not the courts. But the courts are still the agents enforcing these laws that just fly in the face of any reasonable or well-considered social policy.
I agree.
Breaking the law and then complaining that the punishment is unfair because it leans too heavily in favor of corporate interests is not the right way to go about it. The right way is to refuse to purchase the *AA's products (thus depriving them of ammunition), and then becoming politically active about IP policy.
This isn't a situation where you need to break the law to make a living or to feed your kids. It's just music and movies. Learn to play the piano. Go see a play.
(And to strike pre-emptively, yes I know that the entire system is unfair and tilted against the little guy. But for all its warts this is the best system so far devised. And when enough people get angry the politicians will jump on the populist bandwagon, too.)
After many years of cases like this, why are people still basing their services in the US? I live in Norway, and due to some legal precedents set in this country, I would not ever have my torrent trackers or ed2k indexers hosted here. In fact, I would not even have my name associated with that service because I would be paying anonymously to a host in a country were the laws are more suitable.
Dvorak on Doomtech
Personal and verbatim, non commercial copy should be allowed.
And commercial copying should simply be taxed and the revenues handed to the creator of the copied work (to the extent with which such creative works need to be funded and monetized beyond other incentives). The whole monopoly aspect is what prevents and hampers the creation of wealth and flow of information. It needs to go.
It's annoying that many politicians in capitalistic countries can see the economic market damage created by state-run monopolies, but somehow fail to acknowledge the same damage caused when you hand out state-sponsored monopolies to private interests.
completely dark Internet 3.0 sites that give you links to sites outside of the USA in 3.... 2.... 1...
Bad laws are bad laws, the community will 'route around them' and that will be that. Also get ready for the court cases that the **AA will lose because the content was not infringing etc.
It's not possible to continue their berserk legal campaign and not injure some parties. I believe that the blowback will always be expensive for them, and continued elucidation of their antics to the public will be harmful to their standard revenue streams. There will be NO new CD's or DVD's in my house from now on. I can live without them. period. it's not so difficult.
In the USA in particular, any effort to educate the populace should be squarely aimed at government legislators. That is to say: When you publish, publish in the form of:
Look what we sent to Senator XYZ? All this information about IP and how the law is not good, and why it's not good. Senator XYZ doesn't care about your rights, here is how s/he voted on issues relating to your rights.
If 800 legislators have to be swift boated, meh, who fscking cares. That's what happens when you volunteer for public service.
Once the issues become election issues, it will get sorted out because they cannot begin to help the lobbyists if they are serving biggie sized burgers in their home city after the election. They have to get elected, and if doing so means forsaking their **AA lobbyist friends, believe me, they will.
That is how the people shut down a bad law campaign. Elect only people that do not support those laws.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Please put down the mallet and quit sounding the deathknell for personal freedom. I still have mine. You still have yours. Try to stay within the law, and you'll probably keep it. If you don't like parts of US law, then vote and lobby to change it. Research the issues and write your congressmen real paper letters with convincing arguments and evidence. Post cogent, pertinent comments on their web sites. If you don't like paying for movies and music, you certainly are welcome to make your own [subject to copyright and pornography laws, of course]. Contrary to some opinions, the US is still a free country. As evidenced by this rant here today.
[Flame Off]Invenio via vel creo
Except that *linking* should NOT be considered a crime, regardless of how you view IP rights.
That is as bad as simply writing a book on how to make an explosive device and being sued into nonexistence.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1) Translate name of movie into Chinese
2) tudou.com / 56.com / youku.com / any chinese video site
3) ???
4) PROFIT
Good luck getting Chinese sites shut down. Even if you get rid of the indexing sites, mildly creative people will be able to just search foreign video sites.
I picture places like tv-links.co.uk (Oh, how I miss thee) reemerging, perhaps as some sort of decentralized P2P darknet. There's no host to take down, and you couldn't possibly target all of the members. A good use for Freenet, I think, that doesn't involve pedophilia (unless they index Alice In Wonderland).
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Um, it's called civil disobedience (well, so long as people are accepting the punishment to prove a point) and rebellion (against absurd laws). How *else* do people find out about or really even take much consideration about laws which, otherwise, might only be applied in a much more conservative and "accpetable" fashion? Those who approve of the relevant laws can always claim "well, it'll only be applied in extreme cases". And the further the "extreme case" turns to the "common case", the more people realize just how much such laws shouldn't be written because the promises will be broken.
By the same token, this isn't a situation where there needs to be a law for artists to make a living or feed the kids. This holds not only because copyright already exists and this is yet another example of an absurd extension to "further protect" what is already legally protected, but it is also the case that aritsts can live and feed their kids without copyright.
And in this, I wholeheartedly agree. Everyone should be copyright holders, further proving the point that *anyone* trying to make or extend a living off of some sort of government monopoly under some guise that it's a inherent right is an abuse of society*. Besides that, everyone being artists furthers societal development because most people won't go through the effort to try to enforce their copyright when people are merely trying to enjoy it; and that extends to being able to reuse with attribution, again without much fuss from most people. But, then, attribution is pretty much the only part of copyright I like; and attribution is not even a certainty of copyright (copyright is transferable away from the original author or can be obtained through work-for-hire to complete attribute exclusion of the creator(s)).
So, yes, let's all work to turning copyright into a pointless and futile exercise. I try to do my part. In the mean time, I'm just not willing to shun all other, potentially asinine, copyrights+licenses. Perhaps some day I'll have the will to be RMS-like and not compromise.
*Some restrictions may apply. Feel free to come up with clever examples where a government monopoly is an inherent right to a person and appropriate.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
"In televison, the people are the PRODUCTS being delivered to the advertisers; the real customers."
lol, there is a difference between a broadcasters POV in effort to obtain advertising dollars and the consumers POV in whether or not they actually watch the advertisements.
In verification, an advertiser does not get my number, name or person by my just watching a commercial. But I get the advertiser number if I chose to watch and write it down and I get the product or service if I chose to by it. Advertisers are being delivered to me, the consumer, via commercials. It is this delivery media which the broadcasters are selling to the advertisers and nothing more than abstract an sales pitch that makes it sound like its the other way around.
I call it "bit flipping", the act of taking something and making it sound to be just the opposite of what it really is. As its all advertisement/promotion, be it a commercial I might see or a sales pitch the broadcaster pitches to the advertisers to "buy" air time.
But lets ignore facts and assume you are correct. Come February 2009, broadcasters inventory of consumers get reduced by the federal government. So how many broadcasters think they own me or more specifically, my attention? And how much of it does each own? I bet it adds up to much more than 24hrs of my attention a day. Doesn't that sound rather silly? Do not get so caught up in sales rhetoric that you lose sight of reality.
Come February 2009, I won't be watching broadcast TV. And I will have lost sight of whatever "Reality TV" is broadcast.
Listening to the radio this morning (I suppose radio will be the next thing to go totally digital) and there was a talk on how this Y generation is really DUMB, as in stupid, as in uneducated, as a result of computer technology. Even here in Gerogia the school test scores are so bad they actually through out all history tests with the conclusion that it can't be that bad, over 80% failed...
I suppose with the drive to use internet connection to broadcast TV shows and movies.... their will be a further contributing to the educational downfall. Another thing to add to teh list of student with pocket sized entertainment distractions.
And of course it all comes back to blaming piracy and suing the consumer.... Gotta teach them consumers not to watch.
The problem is that these kinds of decisions open up new slippery slopes in places where there wasn't any sign of one. People have settled and paid substantial chunks of change to the RIAA and MPAA when they weren't even the ones infringing, because they were afraid that if they fought they'd end up paying more. It's only been recently that any of these false lawsuits have been successfully fought. Once they get their foot in the door they'll start throwing the "linking" argument in their bag of dirty tricks, and who knows how many people will end up getting nailed by this who had no idea that there was a slope anywhere near them.
This has NOTHING to do with whether I object to "paying for music or movies". My shelves full of CDs and DVDs should answer that. This isn't about me, I don't run a music search engine. This is about bad law and bad precedents creating new ways for people to unwittingly infringe.
Actually, the point of the 2nd was to ensure that a totalitarian regime never came about in the first place. Reason being is that as long as the 2nd was intact no one would dare to bring about said regime. But thanks to the bullshit interstate commerce clause along with the progressives lovely anti-gun train, you get where we are today.
The whole monopoly aspect is what prevents and hampers the creation of wealth and flow of information.
The whole monopoly aspect is what controls and channels wealth and information. This doesn't have anything to do with protecting the artists, it has everything to do with protecting the artist's overlords ability to control and profit from the artists in their stable.
We are all just people.
The geek is libertarian only when it suits his convenience.
Taxation on distribution is the simplest way to control content and production.
The market doesn't set the price, the tax code sets the price.
The monopoly passes to the state and what the state doesn't want to see on the shelves doesn't go on the shelves - because no one can afford to buy it.
Mixed economies like those of the United States have been remarkably successful in generating wealth and and encouraging the free flow of information.
In ten years, J.K. Rowling moved from welfare to being richer than the Queen of England. That didn't stop other writers from claiming a significant share of the juvenile market.
The Harry Potter films became a training ground for a generation of young actors and a world showcase for veterans of the London film and stage.
Harry Potter is uniquely British - like The Avengers or James Bond - and its value to the UK as a cultural export can't be measured simply in pounds or dollars.
its because your quote fails exactly at that point.
musicians and movie makers have never been compensated for the work they do. musicians have been given few cents over $20 worth single album sales by the distributors, and told to go on unending world tours in order to earn money for themselves. this has been going on for aeons.
same goes for movies. directors, actors get much more cut from movie sales, but then again the lion's cut goes to people who do nothing but monopolize the distribution effectively.
we are paying zillions of dollars to people that do not generate any added value into the music/movie.
i wouldnt give a damn, if they were not also harming, damaging the ability of the creative crowd to distribute their own stuff. but situation has been so that up to today, if you havent been able to sign your soul out to a big distributor, noone knew your music, your art, your small films. but then internet came and alternative distribution became possible. good. things were going to change. but then big buck distributors started to try attempts in hampering those distribution methods, because they pose a great danger to their own monopoly - people being able to do distribution independently - holy cow, what kind of heresy.
so, this point is the point where your argument breaks down. those people not only damaging a business sector, but in general damaging the creative development of human civilization, for they have a bigger power than they are worth.
Read radical news here
I have no embarassment whatsoever in telling musicians and moviemarkers that they've cultivated a disgusting and immoral entitlement mentality in expecting to get paid for the rest of their lives for each work they produce.
I'm a software developer. I write thousands of lines of code every year. I've probably written well in excess of a million lines of code since I started doing this. And you know what? I was paid for writing each one of those, with no expectation of continuing profits until I die. I can point to lots and lots of places where the people that employed me made quite a bit of money from my code. I really don't have a problem with that, even though I'd say that the majority of programmers, tech writers, and other creative folks who produced copyrighted work for hire provide a lot more benefit to society that the majority of musicians and filmmakers. Why should some high-school dropout with no useful skills other than wailing (off-pitch, no less) into a microphone expect to be any different? Similarly, why should any corporation expect that?
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
I dunno... why should there be perpetual ownership of property.
This doesn't answer my question. I am a voter. I want to know what I am getting out of granting, for example Disney, the exclusive right to copy and distribute hundred year old cartoons. Convince me.
After all, I am strangely colored.
yea, youre right. i shouldnt be siphoning off 100% of the remaining 1%. instead i should pay exorbitant rates to cds containing 2 useful songs next to 12 shitty ones, and feeding the existing system so we all can get exploited gloriously.
Read radical news here
The vast majority of professional musicians are paid a fixed hourly rate, and have to start looking for work again when a particular job is finished.
This.
Whenever I did a pit orchestra or other contract gig, I negotiated a fee per-performance (not hourly, but it's basically the same thing) and I knew up front how many performances would be involved, and there were stipulations in the contract regarding the possibility of extra performances and that I was providing a service that I could subcontract out if needed. Contracts where a *specific* performer was required would obviously be better paid due to the restrictiveness of the contract, and the basic "supply and demand" aspect another poster alluded to somewhere along the line.
"Why should an artist not be entitled reap the benefits of the album they recorded?" One could ask the same of any other industry - why doesn't a newspaper reporter or magazine editor get a cut of every copy sold? It's because the recording and film industries (and to some extent, publishing) have developed a ridiculous entitlement mentality that most other industries are grown-up enough to avoid. I really don't have a problem with a limited term of copyright, but what we have now is just totally out of hand. The idea of copyright was to encourage future creativity, not be another form of welfare, and certainly not an endorsement of the ridiculous idea that just because someone thought of something that idea somehow *belongs* to them.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas