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Record Labels Sue Spanish P2P Pioneer For $20M
elguillelmo writes "Promusicae, the Spanish record industry association, has sued MP2P Technologies and its founder, P2P pioneer Pablo Soto, for $20 million, citing unfair competition. Soto is behind the recently launched Omemo, an open source social media storage platform that allows users to share files anonymously, and the MP2P protocol, among other developments. Soto announced the organization's intention to defend itself in a statement published on his blog (in Spanish, Google translation)."
TomTheGeek notes related news that Warner Brothers has admitted it employed one of the investigators in the case against the Pirate Bay founders. We discussed initial reports of this controversy last month.
It matters not whether you're in the right or not, but if you get sued it ruins your year.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
The wording of that seems to have nothing to do with the legality of sharing files. Promusicae just don't like competing. At least there's one such organisation that says what it means.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
I assume this is like oh no, it's unfair competition that they're giving away their music for free. Okay time to play judge. Here's what I've got to say: "Sir, this company's product is software, not music. Case dismissed" *bangs gavel*
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
The recording industry sues someone who records nothing for unfair competition. Sounds almost right. The judge must be LOLING A LOT!
I do! You insensitive clod!
What?
unfair competition? That is like Microsoft suing Novell for competing with them. I mean what do have against them. "We feel it is immoral and highly harmful to standardized business practices to provide an alternative to standard more expansive forms of distribution." ...
WHATDAFUX
I mean what the heck you can't sue someone simply for providing software which "might hurt your business". Lets wait for Microsoft to start suing download managers for having the possibility of being used to download Microsoft :P
In the odd little world of the Mafi*AA, _any_ competition == unfair competition.
-- Will program for bandwidth
This particular lawsuit cannot hide behind the evil copyright infringers.
Reaganites in the us (im sure every nation has their version of them in one extreme or another) wail on endlessly about the freeloaders who think they are "entitled" to welfare, while conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room.
Today's corporate controllers feel their companies not only have the right to exist, and therefore receive massive tax-payer bailouts the magnitude of entire state budgets, but think they have the right to profit. This is particularly blatant with the music and film industries world wide, who count a person's refusal to buy as "stealing" and characterize emerging business models as murderous.
oh snap! that home depot across the street just stole the revenue lowes was entitled from everyone who turns left off the exit instead of coming down the oncoming lane from the opposite side of the bridge!
A more convenient location for northbound and westbound travelers is an unfair competitive advantage! where is my anti-trust council!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Now that WE are controlling music distribution, we should give some thought over what exactly we are going to do with the situation.
There appears to be a great struggle going on between the four global music/film corporations and the thousands of technically advanced internet applications programmers over the ability to control (or to be more precise, the ability to remove controls) over the distribution of recordings of music and films.
Incredibly, the internet applications programmers appear to be winning. Otherwise the big four companies wouldn't be going to such extreme legal measures to stop them.
Now would be a good time to ask ourselves whether we really want this. We should consider the long-term ramifications of destroying the music/film distribution industries. Remember that ancient Chinese curse: be careful about what you ask for, since you just might get it.
Basically what the technical elite want is to have free or nearly free access to all the media recorded products currently offered for sale by the big four. The real question here is whether they want this access for themselves only or for everyone. Or whether the technical elite want to be able to control who gets access to free media product and how much free media product the technical elite (those people who write the P2P programs) plan to distribute.
The big four media companies fear that the P2P programmers are going to attempt to make all commercial media product free to everyone, and put them out of business. But this is absurd. Because there are billions of people who depend on the big four for their continued access to new product, and the technical elite (those who write and to a limited extent, control the P2P environment) don't have the interest or the ability to supply all these people with a continuous stream of new media product. They are programmers, not media distribution executives.
If the big four CEOs were smart and seriously wanted to crush the P2P community, they would cut back on product development and releases and blame it on the P2P programmers. Instead they make exciting ads telling people that it is illegal to get free media product by using P2P programs. Which is the same thing as educating people who weren't aware that it was possible to get free music and films by using P2P. Which is really dumb on their part.
Because the big four won't consider cutting back on product release in order to crush the P2P community, then it must be that the revenue streams that they are getting from new product is far, far greater than the revenue that they are losing through the P2P programs enabling of free access to media product. So this anti-P2P vendetta is just a personal thing between the big four executives and the P2P developers; a 'my dick is bigger' contest between these two small groups.
The big four executives and the P2P developers would be wise just to sit down and work out a 'cap and trade' agreement that would give the P2P developers free access to media product in return for the P2P developers agreeing to limit the distribution of this product to only the people whom they consider to be 'cool'. Since this is what is going to happen eventually anyway, they should formalize the situation before someone (someone important) gets hurt by allowing the lawyers to run amok.
How come Slashdaughters don't think like this and talk like this whenever this topic comes up for discussion?
In Spain, SGAE, Promusicae and others (spanish RIAAs) are paid a percentage ('canon') of the price of storage devices: CDs, DVDs, printers, hard drives, cameras... in compensation for their hypothetical losses because of P2P. But now they are showing that they also want to adopt the US way to 'defend' their copyrighted media, so we'll end up being f*cked twice. And our ruling party, the PSOE, calls itself leftish. Contradictory, isn't it?
Spanish RIAA-like associations (SGAE and subsidiaries like Promusicae, etc.), are being investigated right now because of lack of transparency, illegal politic finantiation, blackmail ("chantaje").
The prosecution is nonsense and will result in a null case, but their intention is to stop actions not by legal reason, but by legal intimidation (in Spain there is *fear* about speaking against the SGAE in public media, because of you can be sued easily). Many people do google bombing refering "http://www.sgae.es/?ladrones" as a measure to protest against these "kind and polite organizations", so when you look for "ladrones", they appear in the first place.
You can't afford to play in court even if it's not a loser pays system.
I fail therefore to see the change.
PS: how can there be unfair competition when copyright is a state mandated monopoly???
Check it out:
Assuming 1 aXXo movie = 700 MB, the average MP3 = 5 MB, and a $200 hard drive increases in capacity every 1.5 years (not unreasonable), then:
-5 years (2012) - Weâ(TM)ll have 7 Terabyte hard drives costing $200, capable of storing 9,643 Movies or 1.3 Million songs!!
-10 years (2017) - Weâ(TM)ll have 51 Terabyte hard drives costing $200, capable of storing 73,225 movies or 10.3 MILLION songs
-15 years (2022) - Weâ(TM)ll have a 389 Terabyte hard drive costing $200, that can store 556,000 Movies!!! or 77.8 Million songs (Is there even that many songs in the history of the world?!?!?)
-20 years (2027) - Weâ(TM)ll have a 2956 TERABYTE hard drive, costing $200, that can store 4.2 MILLION MOVIES or 590 MILLION MP3s!
==================
GAME *UCKING OVER!
===================
By 2030, we will have every movie and song in the world stored on our freaking wrist watches.
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
The police officer who flipped from the force to Warner has allegedly flopped back and is again in uniform.
Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan on the matter:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsydsvenskan.se%2Fnojen%2Farticle331913.ece&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=sv&tl=en
Don't be crazy anymore!
The meaning of "ladrones" is needed to understand the parents post.
Not just the right to make a profit, but the right to ever-increasing profits. Used to be if a company's profit dropped, there would be soul-searching to see how they could change and adapt their methods and products to better suit the current economic situation, to more accurately meet consumers' needs, or to effectively compete against other companies. That has changed -- now, if the bottom line starts dropping, it's never the company's problem, it's all those outside forces that must be bullied, threatened, lobbied, bribed, or regulated into submission. "We've been doing it this way for X number of years, and we want to make sure that we can still do everything the same way, only keep making more and more money."
It's not just the record and film industries that see the Internet as a threat. Newspapers, magazines and other traditional media are running scared. Governments fear the notion of people actually forming and sharing their own opinions instead of being told what to believe, and corrupt governments and politicians fear their carefully obfuscated dirty laundry being hung out on the Net for all to see. As the Net grew in popularity, the initial corporate attitude was, "aw...how cute." Then it became, "hmmm.....how can we make a profit off this thing?" If they failed to do so, it then became "the Internet is evil and must be killed, or at least molded and shaped to serve OUR needs."
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
I assume that by EVIL copyright infringers you mean media companies who release content in trade secret packages, willfully and knowingly refusing to meet their end of the copyright agreement.
The copyright system as I understand it is that, in exchange for publishing media into the public domain, you receive an exclusive right to distribute what you publish, protected under copyright law.
thx e
thx e
those cases are probably gonna be settled in brussels, and the french speaking eu judges and bureaucrats there are probably gonna make a mincemeat out of riaa.
Read radical news here
The maxim of leftism is that you don't have to produce, but you still benefit from the work of others, and that's rigurously followed by PSOE, UGT, SGAE, and millions of government employees put there by their ideology and not merits. Both PP and PSOE are quite similar, but for PSOE is the second time in a round that manages to bankrupt the country, so in economic terms, PSOE is the worst party Spain has ever had.
Thanks for the reply. My point is not that whatever reasons people have for downloading free media product, it's that the digital revolution has taken the concept of physical property off the media product (music and film recordings). The media companies need to come to a realization that their products are not physical boxes that can be bought, sold, and moved. These products are much more fluid now. Some people are going to pay a high price and many people won't pay a high price for their product. Having the consumers determine the price that they will pay for the individual title of media product being offered is concept that the media companies completely detest, but one that they are going to have to adjust to. Digital technology has destroyed the 'one price for all' model. The companies that can adjust to this will survive during the great coming 21st century crash, and the others won't continue to be around.
Since the media companies have become so dependent on the tech community to create and deliver their products, they should accept that the people who work in the tech community are going to consume their products for free (by downloading them). The media companies could encourage young people to go into technology careers by granting free legal downloads to everyone who graduates from college with an engineering or computer science degree. Since these are the very people who are creating the P2P programs that are wrecking havoc on their industry, it would be in the interests of the media companies to buy the techies off so cheaply.
But they don't seem to realize this.
The solution? All legal work should be pro bono. Laywers should be publicly salaried employees like any other civil servant. Exposing the Justice System to for-profit desires is just asking for corruption.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
The current situation is perfectly fine: people pay for experiences (e.g. movies, concerts) and physical copies (DVDs and CDs) whereas all shared digital information distributed over the internet or on disl or whatever is free. It's been this way for decades and has worked out just fine. Content producers just need to stop wasting their music fighting movie/music sharing and just accept it. There's nothing wrong with sharing.
The music, movie, video game, and book industries (to name a few) have not disappeared and are in no danger of disappearing -- or even being harmed -- because of P2P. That's simply the reality of the situation. This war against P2P is about money and control, nothing more.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
The real difference between digital intellectal property and real physical property is that with digital intellectual property, the more you pay for it, the less control you have over it. With real property, the more that you pay,and the greater of the percentage of the property that you own, the more control you have over its use.
The only way to control intellectual property in a digital format in the ways that you have described is to obtain it for free. The fact that this is illegal puts the category of digital intellectual property outside the parameters of the legal system. Nearly all digital property is possessed by people illegally. Very few of the pieces of intellectual property like the MP3 files on most people's PCs and iPods are actually owned legally. Since possession is 9/10s of the law (and 100% for drug offences), then the fact that most digital intellectual property is owned illegally means that the concept behind digital property law is flawed and unworkable, not that all the people with MP3s on their PCs are criminals. It can be realistically determined that digital intellectual property is not property at all, and therefore can't be stolen.