UK P2P Fight Brewing

forunder writes "Zeropaid has been covering a very hot topic going on in the UK right now. The government, prodded by entertainment lobbyists, has gotten six UK ISPs to agree to help police piracy on their networks. A leaked government letter says they are looking to cut internet piracy by 80%. In the same week Microsoft released a study which found that some 54% of UK file sharers are between 11-16. The UK's Green Party has already spoken up, calling the new policies an 'Attack on Civil Liberties.'"

Comments

How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[patio11]

Release a CC song as good as any one by Britney Spears.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Anonymous Coward]

Release a CC song as bad as any one by Britney Spears.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[oodaloop]

Yeah, all the free music from Beethoven can't hold a candle to Britney Spears.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[aussie_a]

Funny how Britney Spears somehow gets listened to a lot more then CC songs.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[mccalli]

Yeah, all the free music from Beethoven can't hold a candle to Britney Spears

Unless you're playing it yourself, you will find there's still copyright on the performance of that music.

You're free to take Beethoven's music and form a string quartet to play it. You're not free to take a performance of Beethoven's 5th by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and stick it up on bittorrent - that's definitely still copyrighted.

Cheers, Ian

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming up next on Radio 1, the new super hit song by the "GEEK GRLZ", "Big Fat Linus Love" ...

Ooooh oooh ooooooohhhhh
We love a man, oh we dooooo
Linus linus linus, we luv yooooooo
We've got da BIG FAT LINUS LOVE!

BIG FAT LINUS LOVE!
BIG FAT LINUS LOVE!
BIG FAT LINUS LOVE!
COMING AT YA! BAM BAM BAM!

etc.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[cheater512]

People are suckers for advertising.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[johannesg]

Yeah, all the free music from Beethoven can't hold a candle to Britney Spears.

What "free" music from Beethoven is that? Is there any place on the internet where you can legally download "free" music from Beethoven?

Beethoven himself might not be in a position to claim copyrights anymore, but any recording is _also_ subject to copyrights by the individual artists performing the music (according to the Rome Convention - look it up). So any Beethoven CD you can find in the shops today, or any Beethoven record your grandparents might have in the attack, is still subject to copyright, and that copyright will outlast you just as much as Beethoven's would, were he still alive.

Let's face it, the system is very carefully designed so that you will never, NEVER, see any works appear in the public domain.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[ettlz]

Funny how Britney Spears somehow gets listened to a lot more then CC songs.

It's just the usual killer combination of low-brow material, high production values, and good old-fashioned fappability.

And Britney, bless her, hasn't had the latter for a long time now.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[RDW]

'You're not free to take a performance of Beethoven's 5th by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and stick it up on bittorrent.'

You are if it was made before 1958, here in the UK (where copyright expires on audio recordings after 50 years). And there are plenty of excellent recordings from the 'mono era' that are well worth listening to. You get into a bit of a grey area if you've ripped the tracks from a modern CD rather than the original record, since the digital re-mastering may itself be subject to copyright. It'll come as no surprise that the audio industry wants this law changed, and there's already a proposal from the EU Commission to greatly extend the copyright term throughout Europe. Can't let those Beatles albums go free from 2013...

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[RDW]

'So any Beethoven CD you can find in the shops today, or any Beethoven record your grandparents might have in the attack, is still subject to copyright, and that copyright will outlast you just as much as Beethoven's would, were he still alive.'

In the UK this isn't true about the records in the attic, unless you have young grandparents (see comment above). It _might_ also not be true about the CD if the original recording was made >50 years ago - see 'COPYRIGHT IN REMASTERED SOUND RECORDINGS' here:

http://www.copyright.mediarights.co.uk/

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Candid88]

Exactly. Not just advertising though, but marketing and media attention.

Everyone knows who Britney Spears is whether a fan of her music or not. She's been on TV countless times, has songs played daily on radio stations around the world etc. That's what the record publishers are all about (unsurprisingly, people don't tend to buy music they haven't heard from artists they don't know of). It's a very different job from actually making music.

Music piracy doesn't prevent music being made, it just stops people making large amounts of money directly from music sales. Those who are purely driven by financial reward through direct music sales might stop making music, but 'artists' will keep making music just as now. Through aspects such as concert sales, they still also have the opportunity to make healthy fortunes.

If the stranglehold on music of the record publishers can be removed we will start seeing music return to being based on talent rather than "prospective sales figures" record executives have assigned to new artists. At present, the quality of the music is only a small part of that "prospective sales figures" calculation; aspects such as: sex appeal, ease of publicity (heavy drug use seems to be good for this at the moment) and market positioning feature at least as high on the list as the actual quality of the music.

The less stranglehold a few select record company conglomerates have one the industry the wider selection of artists which will get chances to gain the publicity needed to get a band off the ground.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Zoxed]

> Release a CC song as good as any one by Britney Spears.

Which, of course, the average pub band could do in 1/4 hour :-)

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[khakipuce]

Yeah but he was flat-chested and had awful legs

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Shimbo]

"What "free" music from Beethoven is that? Is there any place on the internet where you can legally download "free" music from Beethoven?"

The BBC made all Beethoven's symphonies available online in 2005, to howls of outrage from the music industry. Unfortunately, it was a time limited offer without redistribution rights. Still, they had well over a million downloads.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[TheRaven64]

There are also a lot of good recordings done by university orchestras and released into the public domain, as well as some BBC recordings released under permissive licenses. A few of these are even accessible through iTunes (you can get them via the store just as you would commercial music, you just don't pay any money for them).

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[TheRaven64]

Is there any place on the internet where you can legally download "free" music from Beethoven?

Yes. Go to the iTunes store, follow the links to universities and you can download free recordings of a fairly large number of classical pieces performed by university choirs and orchestras. Some of these universities also host their own downloads sites, but iTunes gives you a centralised way of getting at them. I've not looked in much detail at what's available, but I've downloaded a couple of hours of music from Duke University in this way, and it's pretty good quality.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[h4rm0ny]

Yes - either hordes of people are buying and playing music they don't like through the mind-control technologies of the music industry or... outlandish as it sounds, many people like something that you don't.

Complaining about Britney is doubly showing people's age, however: firstly for complaining about it, and secondly for being out of touch enough to continue complaining about its popularity long after its popularity has faded, or at least its certainly not the big thing anymore.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Snaller]

Which is of course deeply immoral.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[RDW]

A while back the BBC experimented in distributing free mp3s of all the Beethoven symphonies, and attracted over 600,000 downloads:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/06_june/16/beethoven.shtml

However, the clueless 'BBC Trust' has now explicitly excluded classical music from any further DRM-free audio downloads:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/30_04_2007.html

This is, unfortunately, pretty typical of the Trust's behaviour. Despite being charged with looking after the interests of the audience, they're always more than happy to bend over backwards (or just bend over) to appease the slightest hint of industry whining about 'unfair' competition ('market impact'), and are big fans of DRM.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Candid88]

"Yes - either hordes of people are buying and playing music they don't like through the mind-control technologies of the music industry or... outlandish as it sounds, many people like something that you don't."

People buy what's available. People didn't not buy 386's back in the early 90's even though we have far better today.

"Complaining about Britney is doubly showing people's age"

1. I believe I'm younger than Britney,
2. Where exactly in my post did I complain about her? I actually don't mind her music.
3. It is possible for a non-old person to dislike Britney Spears.

I complained about the method through which she becomes an international hit where's someone with a better voice misses out due to factors purely advantaging a music publisher.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[lilomar]

What "free" music from Beethoven is that? Is there any place on the internet where you can legally download "free" music from Beethoven?

Um...yeah.

At least google something before claiming it doesn't exist on the internet.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[MBGMorden]

It's just the usual killer combination of low-brow material, high production values, and good old-fashioned fappability.

And Britney, bless her, hasn't had the latter for a long time now.

Actually, despite going through a rough patch, Britney has cleaned up pretty well these days.

Besides - this is Slashdot. Anything vaguely resembling a female that says Yes is "fappable" to most of the core audience here. 99% of the single guys here (I'll exclude the few in a relationship as there are other factors in play there - ie cheating) would be all over her if given half a chance.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[h4rm0ny]

What the...? Oh, sorry - I meant to reply to the parent post of your comment. The "suckers for advertising" one. Apologies - my mistake.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[gacl]

musopen.com

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[ettlz]

Actually, despite going through a rough patch, Britney has cleaned up pretty well these days.

Oh, you are so nasty!

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Music piracy doesn't prevent music being made, it just stops people making large amounts of money directly from music sales.

Music piracy also "just" stops people from making small amounts of money directly (or indirectly) if they didn't already have a large fanbase. You would have to be, oh I don't know, Britney Spears in order to make a comfortable living off being an "artist" in an environment of unrestricted piracy. Oh, and you'd probably have to start making a lot less records, and doing a lot more live stuff, so that people feel the need to pay the money to come to the show, rather than stay at home on their sucking up their endless supply of free media and instant gratification.

Just because people on /. want a bright future for media sharing, doesn't mean it's at all possible. Honestly, I don't know where people get it from. Formerly poor artists suddenly getting a break from people having total, anonymous power to break their financial futures? And those same anonymous overlords have plenty to gain from abusing their power? I would laugh if they weren't so serious about it.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Candid88]

"You would have to be, oh I don't know, Britney Spears in order to make a comfortable living off being an "artist" in an environment of unrestricted piracy."

You already have to be someone like Britney Spears to make a comfortable living being an artist!

The way I see it, and what I was trying to get at in my post (probably not very well) is that at present the music publishers work to concerntrate the industry's takings to just a relatively few 'promoted' artists. With 99% of musicians making virtually nothing (from album sales at least).

Whilst I don't doubt piracy is reducing the industry's total takings, I think piracy helps disperse what is taken much more widely. People rarely fork out the extorinate price of a CD on a band they've never heard of before. If you can get that album for free though then you are far more likely to discover you like "unknown band X's" music. This then opens up the oppurtunity for the band to actually make some money from you, an oppurtunity which for 99% of bands is currently almost non-existant.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[OutSourcingIsTreason]

"You get into a bit of a grey area if you've ripped the tracks from a modern CD rather than the original record, since the digital re-mastering may itself be subject to copyright."

Why? There's nothing artistic or creative about sampling audio from an old phonograph record and removing the clicks and pops with, say, Audacity. It's a very mechanical process. Furthermore, if you and I each have a copy of the same public domain Beethoven record, digitize it, and then do a perfect job removing all the surface noise, we'll end up with identical-sounding digital audio files. Why should either of us be able to claim copyright on that? All we're doing is restoring the audio to sound like the original public domain recording. It's not like we're adding a wowzy new synthesizer track.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[blackest_k]

or to put it another way fans buy music,and you don't get to be a fan without hearing the music.

1% is probably a major over estimate of the percentage of musicians actually getting exposure from the music industry. The rest comes from club dj's friends and piracy.

As an exercise, can you think of 10 artists you are a fan of where you got introduced to their music solely from radio play and the music industry?

here's a simpler question consider any artist of who you are a fan of and have bought a commercial recording of. what percentage of artists that you like have you never had a pirated copy of something they have done.

Are there artists within your music collection who's music you wouldn't have, had you not heard via a pirated copy?

All a crackdown online piracy is likely to do is reduce exposure for many bands and result in reduced music sales, if it doesn't it will largely be due to the fact most music is available on a dvd for a few quid on the local market, ignoring that people will still swap music between friends.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[RDW]

I don't necessarily disagree that the remastering is not copyrightable, but see the link in my other comment - basically, this hasn't been tested in the courts yet, at least in the UK, and there are legal arguments both ways, perhaps depending on the amount of 'intervention' that's gone into the remastering process. While the major 'reputable' companies selling historical CDs work from the original discs or masters, some certainly seem to be happy just to rip a track from a competitor's CD if the original recording is out of copyright.

I would disagree that there's nothing creative about audio restoration - it takes a good musical ear and a lot of experience to make the (largely subjective) decisions required to make a decent transfer, and there's still vigorous debate about what level of intervention is acceptable. Remove all the hiss from a 78 and you risk killing the high frequencies of the music itself, but leave too much in and it'll distract the listener. Do you want the CD to reproduce the experience of listening to a shellac disc on a bakelite gramophone as closely as possible, or do you want to go beyond what the original technology allowed and process out noise that could not be removed at the time? There is no 'perfect job' here, and there are widely varying versions of some major historical recordings on CD (e.g. Schnabel's Beethoven piano sonatas) where the restorers have made quite different decisions about how best to deal with these problems. To my ears this guy does a pretty good job, by the way:

http://www.naxos.com/historical/engineer_thorn.htm

Things become a lot more clear cut if you have an excuse to do a remix, of course. The next digital iteration of the Beatles albums will probably sound quite a bit different to the current CDs, which should keep sales of the official versions healthy for another few years after the copyright on the current versions expires...

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

You already have to be someone like Britney Spears to make a comfortable living being an artist!

Although a cute statement, with a little truth behind it, it actually isn't accurate at all.

Whilst I don't doubt piracy is reducing the industry's total takings, I think piracy helps disperse what is taken much more widely. People rarely fork out the extorinate price of a CD on a band they've never heard of before. If you can get that album for free though then you are far more likely to discover you like "unknown band X's" music.

Piracy may just have a small place in what you would consider an optimal system, but we can't really afford to legitimise it. We, as music fans, would suffer a lot more from legitimised piracy than anything we could lose from wiping out piracy completely.

Besides, I actually reject the notion that piracy is needed to help propagate new music. Labels don't need piracy, because they have marketing, and can distribute samples of their music freely around the media. Indie artists can always use P2P without it actually being piracy, because they sanctioned it. By cracking down on piracy, but not so hard that we eliminate P2P sharing, everyone ends up getting more or less the best of both worlds. The person who misses out is the person who likes label music, but isn't prepared to pay for it, but his satisfaction would come at the expense of everyone else's.

I actually would like to see copyright infringement become a low-level crime. It would separate the rich and powerful from the legal system, would provide real disincentives to copyright infringement, and it would lend accountability to the whole process. Gone would be the days when the RIAA had to rely on their threat tactics, because it's no longer happening on their time and money, and tax-payers could be reimbursed by a small cut of the repayments. The biggest costs would be incurred at the beginning, but as copyright infringement becomes less popular, the costs will decrease, and we may even see economic benefits from there on out.

Not only listening in...

[Anonymous Coward]

..but also filtering content. Let the process of tearing up your BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB, and Carphone Warehouse contracts begin!

UK Citizens

[ilovegeorgebush]

If this was truly about piracy and stopping people from infringing copyright, these fascist bastards would stop you from sharing CDs, Vinyl and tapes. Hell they'd bring down radio just to stop you sharing.

Why the hell are they so bent on MP3s? Why don't they get the fact that they stand to make a LOT more money if they embrace the technology and accept that their business environment has changed for the good? I am so sick of reading this, and seeing the everyday person either going buy without knowledge of what the BPI et al are doing, or not realising that it's breaching their civil liberties (and not even caring!).

Keep downloading. Bleed 'em dry - that's what I say.

Re:UK Citizens

[Bogtha]

If this was truly about piracy and stopping people from infringing copyright, these fascist bastards would stop you from sharing CDs, Vinyl and tapes. Hell they'd bring down radio just to stop you sharing.

Why the hell are they so bent on MP3s?

Can you set up servers to monitor for people sharing CDs, vinyl and tapes? It's a lot more cost effective in terms of expenditure:detection to go after MP3s. I'm sure we'd all like it if grep worked in the real world, but I'm afraid it doesn't. Not for you, not for me, and not for the government.

Re:UK Citizens

[Fungus King]

I'm personally holding out hope that companies will start to adjust their business model to take into account the natural inclination towards 'sharing' that the Internet gives people.

As a semi-related example, Power Tabs Network was forced to close by a publishing body in the UK a while back. Quite a lot of sites offering transcriptons for guitar etc uploaded by hobbyist contributors have suffered in the last few years as a result of publishing associations like these, but as it happens negotiations between the two parties in this case have resulted in an agreement to be reached whereby the site will remain active and the publishing body presumably receive some part of ad revenue or something for royalty payments etc (I don't know the details).

I know it's not quite the same as sharing mp3s/videos, but since tab sites have been targeted quite viciously over the years, it's a start... hopefully...

Re:UK Citizens

[ilovegeorgebush]

I was just trying to highlight the hypocrisy in their logic and to confirm my beliefs that this isn't about piracy, but about setting up laws & policies so they can keep their pockets lined until The Next Big Thing (TM); instead of adapting and embracing.

Re:UK Citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that was nice and brave of you. And on top of your misplaced bigotry your naming is geographically misplaced. Triesmann is clearly Germanic. The double 'n' should have given you that.

Don't you racist trolls have anything better to do?

Re:UK Citizens

[davester666]

The thing is, the internet IS "The Next Big Thing" [or rather, it was 5 years ago]. Both the major music labels and the major movie studios are risk-adverse to new ways of doing things. Even though EVERY SINGLE FORMAT CHANGE has earned both industries buckets and buckets cash.

Music went from LP to cassette/8 track to CD's and now to MP3's
Moves went from theaters to VHS/Beta cassettes to DVD's to BluRay/HD-DVD's [well, it's too early for the 'buckets of cash' for BluRay].

Both industries have millions of people literally begging to have a reasonable, easy, legal way to purchase both audio and video to use on their computers, TV's, portable devices, etc.. [particularly evidenced by the iTunes store, that even with it's crappy, arbitrary limitations required by both industries, has sold billions of songs and millions of movies, even though with only a minimal amount of additional effort, people could get the same thing WITHOUT the limitations for free].
Both industries are also facing rampant piracy on the internet.

What would any self-respecting industry do? Naturally, their first reaction is to keep throttling iTunes, both by refusing to permit it to sell DRM-free music [and DRM-free video], by forcing it to sell or rent a movie for the same price or more than the retail price of a DVD, but without any extra features included with the DVD. By arbitrarily requiring that a $3000 computer connected to a $3000 HD television is limited to 480P because the driver for your mouse is not signed by Microsoft [alternately, you can't view it at all on the Mac because Apple doesn't agree to the ridiculous demands that Microsoft caved to for viewing HD].

Re:UK Citizens

[Mistshadow2k4]

These bastards think we owe them a living, and they are so ingrained (deliberate use of that word - they are ingrained as dirt in a carpet) in our government that we have no hope of ever defeating them.

The racist troll has a point there. Every damn singer or band out there seems to think they ought to be entitled to tax my income just because they once recorded a few songs, even if I don't listen to them. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why I'm supposed to care so damn much about the artists and the music executives. They wouldn't give a crap about me even if they knew me, so to hell with them for my part.

Re:UK Citizens

[EvilAlphonso]

Keep downloading. Bleed 'em dry - that's what I say.

I replied instead of modding you down...

Stop consuming their products and be vocal about it, support the alternatives: Magnatunes, Jamendo, independent labels, ...

That is the only course of action that doesn't give them the kind of legal powers you don't want them to have. "Keep downloading. Bleed'em dry" as you advocate will give them the excuse for the power grab.

It is well past time to tell them "We're mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore". Boycott their music and movies... read a book, explore the outside world and interact with other human beings. Spread the message. Anything else is playing the copyright holders' game.

Re:UK Citizens

[aproposofwhat]

You think my bigotry is misplaced?

(Hint - 'a fine old Irish name' is a common piece of sarcasm related to Ashkenazi origin, where I come from.)

Oh, and I'll post as me this time - karma to burn, and I hate Israel and all who support the rotten cesspit that it is.

Re:UK Citizens

[msormune]

Isn't that why DRM was invented in the first place? For the media companies to try to embrace the Internet as a distribution media?

Oh yeah, we are supposed to oppose that...

And BTW, downloading illegal MP3s is not a civil liberty.

Re:UK Citizens

[houghi]

Have you actually spoken to the artists? I have. They know they don't get any money from the copyrights. In fact they seldom own the copyrights.

It is the copyright holders who are to blame and look who that is. Most of the time this is some company.

Re:UK Citizens

[jimicus]

The racist troll has a point there. Every damn singer or band out there seems to think they ought to be entitled to tax my income just because they once recorded a few songs, even if I don't listen to them. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why I'm supposed to care so damn much about the artists and the music executives. They wouldn't give a crap about me even if they knew me, so to hell with them for my part.

Not strictly true.

Every damn record label out there seems to think that because they've made money in the exact same way for many years, this state of affairs must continue - be it by making anything which threatens it illegal or by taxing it so they get a cut of the money.

AFAICT, most of the artists they've recruited to the cause fall into one of a relatively limited number of camps:

• In a similar position to the record executives. Making reasonable money off CD sales, probably because they're successful enough to be able to negotiate a half-decent contract. (Think the Cliff Richards of this world).
• Heavily dependant on the music industry as it stands to promote them. Much easier to sell all the concert tickets if your potential audience has at least heard a few of your tracks on the radio recently and knows you're still performing. (Think more-or-less anyone whose work is being played to death on the radio).
• Believes the music execs who say "You die if we die".

Note that there are plenty of very talented individuals and bands who are reasonably successful but for one reason or another don't fall into any of the above categories. They're the people who you hear saying "You know, I may be a musician but I don't think I'd miss large chunks of the music industry if it were to disappear tomorrow". Think Courtney Love.

Re:UK Citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

Just throw a few bucks at a recording artist if you ever see one. You'll be giving them more money than the record company would have if you had bought all their records.

Re:UK Citizens

[mgblst]

That is a bit of a logical leap.

"Surely if police really wanted to stop speeding that would setup dangerous traps on the road and start shooting people?"

Doesn't really make any sense, does it. They do what they can to stop pirating, without getting too ridiculous.

Re:UK Citizens

[lysse]

They did. As far as I'm aware, it's illegal to make any copy at all, even a backup, of any medium in this country, and it might even also be illegal to make a tape of a radio broadcast (I'd have to check).

Re:UK Citizens

[Cr4shnBurn]

I agree with you mate! They can suck it. No matter what happens I'm going to keep downloading. Yes I'm one of those kids.

Re:UK Citizens

[rtechie]

Mod this guy up, he nailed it.

As I've talked about before, I've had to work with these people and they're horrible. It really is pure stupidity. Their bean-counters had determined (circa 1999) that the record industry would make less money selling single track MP3s than the full album CDs they were currently selling (about 1-2 billion a year less). Their bean counters were absolutely right, at least in the short term. So they've been fighting digital music tooth and nail. Of course, CD revenues have plummeted since then, but they still believe (rightly) that digital music costs them money.

The big labels passionately hate iTunes for two reasons:

1) They're deathly afraid of getting locked into one vendor. This is what happened with music videos, where one vendor (MTV, who also owns VH1) had near-complete control of the market. Initially MTV ran the music videos (which were essentially advertisements) for free (without charging the labels). As long as they were a premium service without advertising this worked, and when they eventually switched to advertising this worked for a while, until the advertisers realized the videos themselves were ads and insisted that MTV start charging the labels, or give the advertisers very steep discounts. So they started charging the labels (no payola laws for music videos). This is basically why you don't see music videos on MTV anymore.

2) Steve Jobs tricked them. When he pitched iTunes to the labels he repeated over and over again that iTunes would work only on Macintosh computers using Mac-only MP3 players, EVER. This was important to the labels because it meant that iTunes COULDN'T dominate the market because Macs were unpopular, and possibly piracy was limited to the handful of people using Macs. So porting their platform to Windows is seen as a major betrayal by the record labels.

Of course, the market is shifting towards unprotected MP3s. They very thing the big labels were viciously fighting 10 years ago. This is also because unprotected MP3s (as a format) aren't locked to a single vendor, the way Protected AAC and WMA are. After the iTunes debacle, this has become extremely important to the labels.

They're still bastards who actively hate you, musicians, and music in general. Don't give them a dime no matter what. Get your music off P2P. You can almost always get something of superior quality off P2P anyway.

Re:UK Citizens

[You ain't seen me!]

(Think the Cliff Richards of this world)

Please, Why did you have to mention Cliff Richard - you have ruined my day, and now I think I shall have to go and kill myself.

Unfortunately

[Kupfernigk]

the current UK government is run by people who are terrified that US companies will withdraw from the UK if we do not do exactly as they wish. Most of them are purely politicians who have never had jobs in the real economy, so all they know about the world is what they get told by lobbyists. The present Prime Minister is a typical example: PhD in the history of the Labour Party, no less, and then a knowledge of economics derived, basically, from what he gets told by people with lots of money. He is now trying to avoid admitting that our financial crisis is worse than that in the US, because the US actually has a lower proportion of its assets in the housing market and banking (US house prices started from typically half what they were in the UK, so a fall is much less serious.)

Unfortunately the alternative is a PR man, so you can guess how well that is likely to play out.

It would be kind of the US to vote in McCain and let us have Obama, thank you very much. Somebody who has at least spent years discussing civil liberties and civil rights with law students, even Chicago law students, has at least put in the groundwork to be allowed to have opinions on the subject, and politically he's probably on the moderate wing of our Conservative Party.

We do have one politician who has a clue about the subject, Jack Straw, but his current opinion seems to be "I'm far too clever to become Prime Minister and then lose an unwinnable election".

Currently Brown will do anything to try and keep the so-called service economy - entertainment, banking, supermarkets - onside. And the chance that a Government full of middle aged white men who single finger type, and only when they have to, will get a clue about the implications of almost free distribution of all kinds of data is extremely remote. Their idea of data sharing is leaving critical Government databases on unsecured laptops in taxis.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Brownie has made the best decision of the last 50 years by a politician in the UK.

Bank of England interest rate independance.

Wont say anymore cause Im not sure what he done is good/bad.

Re:Unfortunately

[R_Dorothy]

THE ARTICLE HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM APART FROM THE ARTICLE ABOUT THE LEAKED GOVERNMENT LETTER

There - fixed it for you. Geez - I know this is /. but at least RTFS before commenting about TFA. Then again, you got modded insightful - by the same mods - so I don't know what you are complaining about.

Re:Unfortunately

[adam.jimenez]

couldn't agree more

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

The present Prime Minister is a typical example: PhD in the history of the Labour Party, no less, and then a knowledge of economics derived, basically, from what he gets told by people with lots of money.

You know, all things considered, accusing the UK of having a prime minister with a PhD is not too bad. Somehow, people have got used to the idea of prominent Anglophone world leaders being dumb. I don't know where they could have gotten that idea!

And just so you know, the fact that the music industry brings billions of pounds into the country is true independently of whether lobbyists tell the ivory-tower prime minister so.

Re:Unfortunately

[segedunum]

given that THE ARTICLE HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

Hmmmm, there is more than one article quoted here to give some background on this whole anti-piracy thing, so I'll give you the link here (actually given above):

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9652/Leaked+British+Government+Letter+-+P2P+Will+be+Cut+by+80%25

Now, a leaked letter dated just two days before the major revelation has surfaced and shows that the British government is just as adamant over the idea of ISPs being copyright police as the major copyright industry - if not, more so......the British government has secretly set a goal of reducing file-sharing by 80% over the course of the next three years. The letter was signed by Baroness Vadera, the business minister.

Reading the whole article text usually helps. There you go. This is pretty much British government policy. You got modded insightful for not actually reading.

But please, don't let this stop your plans for a generalized semi-conspiratorial anti-government, to say nothing of anti-USA rant. Becaause clearly this is what qualifies as "insightful" here.

Fuck. You've been modded up to insightful because you believe that that comment was an anti-USA rant - which it wasn't in any way, because it describes the situation as-is from the point of view of someone who, presumably, actually, you know, lives in the UK? It certainly rings true with me and the article proves it.

The irony seems to go like this:

1. Attack a comment for something you believe it says, but actually doesn't.
2. Fail miserably to read the context around the article, or even the links, and say that it has nothing to do with something when in fact it does.
3. Add in a sarcastic comment about what passes as 'insightful' around here.
4. As a result of 3, get the mods second guessing themselves.
5. Get a stupid comment modded as insightful.

Re:Unfortunately

[aproposofwhat]

Actually, Brown is a pretty bright guy, if a little misguided (hint - Straw is the worst possible choice for us - he's an opportunist arsehole who would have crawled further up Shrub's arse than Bliar).

If he can cross the charisma gap, and persuade Ken Clarke to resume his duties as Chancellor, then we might not face a total meltdown.

I'm a natural Labour voter (one grandpa a boilermaker, the other a miner), but I could never vote for Milliband (Red Sea pedestrian) or Harman (useless tart).

Re:Unfortunately

[ettlz]

You know, all things considered, accusing the UK of having a prime minister with a PhD is not too bad.

The GP isn't accusing the Prime Minister of having a Ph.D., the accusation is of having a Ph.D.-in-the-history-of-the-Labour-Party.

Re:Unfortunately

[aproposofwhat]

Yes, but he did that on the back of Ken Clarke's non-interference policy.

He has since fucked up the model by imposing taxes on investment and stupid actions like the fuel price escalator and the extra tax on diesel (hint - the worst polluters on the road are Tony Bliars old friends from Stagecoach who never maintain their filthy buses - most ordinary car drivers are keen to minimise the amount of shit that comes out of their exhaust...).

Bring back Ken!

Re:Unfortunately

[Threni]

> If he can cross the charisma gap, and persuade Ken Clarke to resume his duties as Chancellor...
> I'm a natural Labour voter

Clearly not that much of a Labour voter if you believe the Conservative Ken Clarke will do anything the Labour PM Brown would ask him to.

Re:Unfortunately

[arkhan_jg]

UK government business minister Baroness Vadera is expected to announce a deal she brokered...

The UK government has stated that they will bring in legislation, starting after the summer, to force all ISPs to co-operate with the music labels on copyright infringement if they can't come up with a self-regulation scheme that satifies the labels' agency, the BPI. The UK government is working hand in hand with the french government, who've already started the implementation of the 3-warnings-and-cut-off setup the french government favours.

A number of UK ISP's, with the notable exception of virgin, have been telling the music business to piss off, that policing their customers for potential infringing content and invading their privacy without any say-so from a court or judge is not their responsibility. Unfortunately, the UK government disagress, and is piling on the pressure to co-operate voluntarily before they are forced to do so by laws very much in favour of the copyright cartel.

UK ISP's are already required to keep records on users email and web-traffic due to the RIP act; it wouldn't take much for that system to be expanded substantially and the government have already ballooned the idea of having it all stored in a giant government database instead of at the ISP.

A conservative government would likely be no better; they mooted the idea of extending the duration of copyright for music recordings in exchange for more 'family-friendly' lyrics from rappers for example.

Be under no illusion - this is a direct result of government threats against the ISP industry to spend their time and money to prop up the existing business model of the copyright cartels.

Re:Unfortunately

[aproposofwhat]

Ken was against the Iraq war, and would make the best Chancellor we could hope for (if not Prime Minister).

Grow up.

Re:Unfortunately

[Nazlfrag]

Just count yourself lucky that you still hold Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Elizabeth is still my monarch here down under though, so you're not totally forgotten.

Re:Unfortunately

[jez9999]

Indeed it's tragic that the moronic Conservatives didn't go for Ken Clarke as their next leader, I would've supported him wholeheartedly. It's even more tragic that they were probably correct in their assumption, in going for Cameron, that the British public wouldn't vote in Clarke because the Sun/Star/Express-reading imbeciles give much more of a shit about style than substance, and think Clarke is one of the 'old corrupt guys' rather than someone who has a clue.

Re:Unfortunately

[Threni]

I think it's you who have to grow up if you think Ken Clarke is going to become a Labour politician - you're living in a dream world. You might as well ask Brown to pass a law giving Ken Livingstone control over London again.

Re:Unfortunately

[meringuoid]

I could never vote for Milliband (Red Sea pedestrian)

Because Disraeli did such a poor job as Prime Minister.

Re:Unfortunately

[Candid88]

"the current UK government is run by people who are terrified that US companies will withdraw from the UK "

Well lets see, of the 4 big music studios (listed in order of global sales from 2005 http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20050802.html), you have:
Universal: French
SONY BMG: Japanese / German
EMI: British
Warner: USA

So of the four, only the fouth biggest is even a "US controlled" company. I also very much doubt Warner (as with any company) "wants" to withdraw from the UK. That makes precisely no sense what-so-ever; they are after money for shareholders, not some sort of nationalistic bragging competition (which is all completely meaningless in reality anyway).

I do hate this kind of analysis though because in reality they are all "mutli-nationals", with shares being constantly bought and sold by stakeholders from all over the world. Universal for example is owned by "French" conglomerate Vivendi but laregly headquatered in the USA, but also comprises of the PolyGram studio which is/was German.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

You could always reply to their consultation (goto www.berr.gov.uk) and respond.

If we all stand up for our civil liberties we might just win this!

Re:Unfortunately

[aproposofwhat]

Well - yes he did - his policies led directly to the Suez Crisis and to the 'great game' in Afghanistan and Iran.

What a twat, and his novels aren't any good as well.

God help us if Milliband (another Red Sea pedestrian) takes over.

Re:Unfortunately

[mdwh2]

I agree - for the lazy, the link is at: http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page47141.html . Deadline is 30 October.

Whilst the Government don't have to listen, if a majority of responses oppose, it does make it harder for them to claim they have public support for such measures. And certainly, responding is better than just commenting about it on Slashdot :)

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why being an opportunist is something bad? Hey people there is this guy who does whatever we tell him! Get him! Kill him! We don't want direct democracy!

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

...stupid actions like the fuel price escalator

Actually, the escalator was introduced by the Tories in 1993, was in place throughout Ken Clarke's office as Chancellor, and was abolished by Gordon Brown in 2000!

Don't bring back Ken!

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

You are talking out of your butt-hole. Most politicians in parliament are either medically trained or legals. Go count the number or solicitors in the house of commons. Joe Dirt does not get to be a politician unless they're coming from the extreme left via union power.

Re:Unfortunately

[aproposofwhat]

Yes, you're right - my bad.

But when the escalator was introduced, fuel prices were stable and the intention of the escalator was to reduce fuel usage at a controlled rate.

Brown has used it instead as a revenue raiser - that's where the problem is.

they think its the problem

[arbiter1]

they think its cause people are cheap, but they put out shit and price it so much and most won't pay for it if its not worth it. i'll admit i download games, and try them out to see if they are even worth the ~50$ price tag they stick on it. if it is i will pay money and buy it, but most games and most music for that matter aint barely worth the cd/dvd they are burned on

Pointless

[CmdrGravy]

The UK government right now is in such a mess it's almost surreal. They have an unerring knack of seeking out absolutely dreadful headline grabbing initiatives which they seem to think will re-establish them as a party the public would like to vote for but which are in fact unbelievably stupid and ridiculed as such by the public at large. This is just yet another example and just highlights the fact the only people they are listening to are special interest groups and lobbyists.

The ISPs are only going to be sending out warning letters, they're not actually going terminate anyones contract or take any other sort of action except perhaps throttling P2P connections, which they probably do already and there is still a wide choice of alternative ISPs in the UK which have not signed up to this nonsense.

As I understand it the ISPs aren't doing any monitoring at all off their own bat, the arrangement seems to be that the media cartels do the monitoring, like they do anyway, and just tell the ISP a particular person might be doing something they don't like at which point the ISP simply sends the letter. A horrible arrangement for sure but not one which gives the ISP much grounds to go on when people start challenging their accusations of wrongdoing.

Hopefully at some point soon the ISPs will realise this is all much more trouble than it's worth and give up and the current government will call an election and get the boot.

Re:Pointless

[Goffee71]

I look forward to the debate hitting the House of Lords: Leader of the House: "Next motion - changes in copyright law to proscribe peer-to-peer file sharing."

Lord Knob: "Hold on one moment, we're the peers! We share files all the time. Law rejected!"

Lady Felch: "I've got a file! And a drill, in the garage next to my Range Rover, do you want to borrow it?"

House: "Murmur, murmur, mumble, Agreed!"

Re:Pointless

[Exanon]

Hey, if you find me a country where the government only do the will of the people and I'll move there.

Re:Pointless

[Threni]

> As I understand it the ISPs aren't doing any monitoring at all off their own bat, the arrangement seems to be that the media cartels do the
> monitoring, like they do anyway, and just tell the ISP a particular person might be doing something they don't like at which point the ISP simply
> sends the letter. A horrible arrangement for sure but not one which gives the ISP much grounds to go on when people start challenging their
> accusations of wrongdoing.

They're warning people that what they're doing is illegal and threatening to disconnect them. And they will disconnect them, to be sure, if it's clear that what they are doing is illegal. I know of at least one person who'd got a letter from their ISP complete with a list of what they've been sharing (it's the uploading they are bothered about), so the technical ability to list exactly what they are sharing exists - you won't be able to say that what you were sharing isn't subject to copyright restrictions.

Sure, the dodgy downloaders might get another ISP but the original ISP doesn't care about that - they just want to be seen as not blatantly allowing piracy which could be avoided. This means the ISPs are less open to action by the BPI etc, and to government legislation carried out at the request of the BPI etc because of unstopped piracy.

Oh, and you can calm down about all this `the people won't stand for it and elect another party`. 98%+ of the UK voters couldn't give a shit about ISPs sending letters to people who are sharing/downloading other people's intellectual property, or even disconnecting/fining people who decide to continue sharing - and neither of the 2 main parties (who, let's be honest, are the only ones who are ever going to get voted into power) are going to condone piracy (even if one of them comes out in support of filesharing uncopyrighted stuff).

Re:Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't diss the Lords. They have consistently stood in the way of every privacy breaking, ID introducing, DNA logging policy from the Commons for the past 5 years. Ironically, I find myself supporting their decisions far more than those of the party I voted in.

Re:Pointless

[CmdrGravy]

It's only Virgin which is saying that you could be disconnected for behaving illegally, the ISPs who have signed up with the BPI are specifically not threatening disconnection.

The ISPs entire business plan is to get more people to use their broadband service and sign up to the 'biggest package' they can so it really is against their interests to threaten their own customers with disconnection or reduce the amount they download. If it wasn't for pressure from the government there's no way they'd even be considering sending letters and the only reason they are is in an attempt to stave off yet more badly thought out dangerous Labour legislation which would affect their business even more.

Re:Pointless

[Blackhalo]

"The UK government right now is in such a mess it's almost surreal."

The Government that governs least governs best, I should think. If the UK's is ineffective, it sounds like a nice place to be.

"For the children" and "to stop the terrorists" should be a clear signal that someone is trying to get an otherwise unlikely law enacted to please corporate interests or expand government power.

Re:Pointless

[CmdrGravy]

The UK government is ineffective, not ineffectual. It's style of governance is a drunken lurch from one cock up to the next which is really bad way of running the country. I'd much prefer they just talked amongst themselves and got nothing at all 'done'.

Re:Pointless

[khakipuce]

I look forward to the debate hitting the House of Lords:

Leader of the House: "Next motion - changes in copyright law to proscribe peer-to-peer file sharing."

Lord Knob: "Hold on one moment, we're the peers! We share files all the time. Law rejected!"

Lady Felch: "I've got a file! And a drill, in the garage next to my Range Rover, do you want to borrow it?"

House: "Snore, Snore, Snore!"

There fixed that for you

Re:Pointless

[didroe84]

Hear, hear! They keep trying to dismantle the house of lords though. Or at least neuter it. We need guys like them who are in it for the long term.

Re:Pointless

[TheRaven64]

After visiting Parliament and watching debates in both houses, I was fully in favour of abolition of the House of Commons. It's really worrying how much higher the standard of debate and understanding of the issues is in the Lords than the Commons. They're meant to serve as a brake on populist policies, but they seem at the moment[1] to be serving as a brake on monumentally stupid (and unpopular) policies from a government that is completely out of touch with reality.

[1] And, by 'at the moment' I mean 'for the last decade or two, maybe longer.'

Re:Pointless

[Threni]

> It's only Virgin which is saying that you could be disconnected for behaving illegally, the ISPs who have signed up with the BPI are specifically
> not threatening disconnection.

Isn't Virgin one of the six who've signed up, though?

> If it wasn't for pressure from the government there's no way they'd even be considering sending letters and the only reason they are is in an
> attempt to stave off yet more badly thought out dangerous Labour legislation which would affect their business even more.

At the risk of sounding as if I'm apologising for Labour, it's the record labels (as well as other groups) who are lobbying the (current Labour) government - they'd be lobbying whoever was in power, and the ISPs would try and resist legislation, regardless of the government who would introduce it. The Conservatives are even more in the pocket of companies than Labour. This is not a Labour vs Conservative argument, as protecting intellectual property rights has only really been an issue for the last 20 years or so, and both parties broadly agree on the matter.

Re:Pointless

[mdwh2]

I agree. Humour aside, I've seen debates in the Lords that have far more insightful arguments, and they aren't afraid speak up on controversial matters.

It's the commons that is far more likely to go "mumble mumble" and then pass through legislation without even debating it.

The only downside however is that the Government still have influence in the Lords - their whips can turn out the large number of Labour peers, who vote in line with the Government without taking part in the debate.

Re:Pointless

[mdwh2]

Although ISPs like Virgin Media are also having trouble meeting the demand (they recently blamed BBC's Iplayer for this). So this measure could be a way to slow or get rid of people downloading the large amounts of material (they already do some slowing of your connection, whether it's legal or not what you download). Thus, they can advertise "fast X-MBS connection", but not have to worry about providing what they advertise, as anyone downloading too much gets slowed or kicked off for possible-copyright-infringement.

Re:Pointless

[lysse]

It's just a shame they have no real power to speak of, a fact of which said government has taken ample advantage.

Re:Pointless

[damburger]

Homer: When will people learn. Democracy. Doesn't. Work!

Re:Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the best comment I have seen since I started reading Slashdot. Should be modded up to at least 10.

Re:Pointless

[Grumbleduke]

This is why I shudder every time there is mention of dismantling the Lords. It seems to be a very effective barrier (in theory) between the newspapers and the law. i.e: (1) The newspapers run a story about how such a thing is terrible and the government should do somehting about it, (2) The commons think that this means the people care about this and so (worried that it will lose them their seats in the next election) quickly write a bill to cover this which is rushed and so full of holes. And then in an ideal world, you get; (3) The Lords point out the holes, do not have to worry about "public opinion" and so can throw out the ridiculous law. Perhaps it is the House of Commons that needs replacing/an overhaul.

It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[mumblestheclown]

Yet another slashdot troll headline. A not unreasonable cooperative attempt by private companies to cut piracy with no government intervention whatsoever is an "attack on civil liberties."

Let's see if I have the basic dance correct: if a GOVERNMENT program comes out that attempts to curb piracy, then you scream and yell that privacy is a private matter between individual and rightsholder. If a PRIVATE progam is developed to combat piracy, even one with quite mild constraints like this one, we get bitching and whining that corportations are acting in place of government.

Here are the golden oldies we expect to see in this thread:

• I trade my linux binaries via P2P (fine - then you should have no problem of rightsholders doing file-hash-based enforcement)
• I learned about band X from P2p (fine - in which case if it makese economic sense for a company or band to release thusly, they will.. it's their decision to make)
• piracy involves guys with eye patches. this is copyright infringement. actually, it's both. get thee to a dictionary.
• yes, but they can't tell with absolute certainty who is using a given PC. absolute certainty is not a condition of law - reasonableness is.
• It's not illegal if it hasn't been released in my country (anime, etc). NONSENSE.
• P2P is fair use. No, it isn't. Especially in Britain, where the concept of fair use is much more restricted than in the USA (which *IS* an actual problem with the british system). But, don't worry - your 1.5 tb of movies and music isn't fair use ANYWHERE.

have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jcd2025]

1.5tb of movies? Im assuming you didnt count pr0n in your movies category.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

I agree with your rant up to a point, although the bit about unreleased stuff doesn't make much sense.

The bit that concerns me is that the UK governmnet seems to be moving more and more towards US style enforcement. The law is the law, even copyright stuff. However, punishment must fit the crime and as we have seen in the US, these big media bodies are quite willing to sue poor people for tens of thousands of dollars.

That will never happen in Britain. The strong are not permitted to bully the weak here, as apparently they are in the US.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Sique]

You missed one:

- Two wrongs don't make a right.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[the_brobdingnagian]

I trade my linux binaries via P2P (fine - then you should have no problem of rightsholders doing file-hash-based enforcement)

I still oppose to the filtering and thus monitoring of my downloads. Especially if I'm downloading legal stuff.

I learned about band X from P2p (fine - in which case if it makese economic sense for a company or band to release thusly, they will.. it's their decision to make)

Doesn't make it legal maybe, but can make it morally acceptable to me. Why would it be illegal if you are not hurting anyone?

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

ISP's shouldn't be in the business of monitoring anyone's internet any more than BT should be in the business of listening into private telephone calls and reading private faxes. Neither should governments. So I feel perfectly justified in complaining about both.

How about neither the government nor ISPs spy on internet use? The people complaining about 'piracy' carry on starting civil suits against those they believe are committing copyright infringement. With evidence to back them up mind, not just wild shots in the dark like at the moment. They could also try asking for reasonably realistic compensation instead of the pie in the sky figures they currently come up with.

Amusingly, as of my post the, only jackass posting the 'golden oldies' you mention is you. Congratulations.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[bobbocanfly]

"""it's not illegal if it hasn't been released in my country (anime, etc). NONSENSE. """

If that is nonsense then how are we supposed to watch something that hasnt been released here? If the company behind it see no value in releasing it in your territory (and therefor making no money from it), there is absolutely no reason to stop you downloading something. It doesnt hurt anyone.

I like the way sites like UKNova or TheBox do it. If a show is going to come out on DVD, it cant go up on these sites. Im pretty sure there is also a time restriction rule, so shows can only be up for a month or two. Basically its like BBC iPlayer, except it works on all platforms (without flash, which is non-free and a no go for the hardcore freedom lovers), its a much higher quality and completely DRM free. Sites like this let Americans (or anyone else for that matter) catch up on shows they watch in the UK, without hurting anyone (if its not going to come out on DVD, no money will be "lost").

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

- WoW Patches (not affected)
- legal p2p-tv (not affected)
- technically unenforceable (that's right)
- trolls bashing the British government (TFA isn't about that)
- Admittances of illegal filesharing featuring bullshit-excuses
- some car analogies, in Soviet Russia jokes and other memes

That should about cover it. Thread closed.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

That's an absolutely appalling post and I couldn't agree less. You think someone on minimum wage, trying to bring up kids, should have their income garnished for 10 years so some wealthy executives can carry on collecting their bonuses? That's sick.

Let's agree something - burning a copy of a Coldplay CD isn't going to ruin anybody. It's a victimless crime and not at all like physical theft.

What this is about is the US Corporate Empire bearing down on weaker countries, trying to protect it's revenue at the expense of others. That is bad enough by itself, but not only that, the music industry in itself is horribly broken. Governments don't seem to care whether cheap trash is peddled at 95% markup, with dozens of companies all sticking their fingers in the pie. Music sales have been falling for years, because it's overpriced, overexposed and often of a poor quality.

Perhaps governments shouldn't care about that. But they should protect their own citizens from vicious attacks by immoral lawyers working for executives that care not for right and wrong, only for personal gain.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

I also like to live in a society of law and economic progress

Define economic progress! The gap between rich and poor is growing under right wing politics. Predictably so, since your aim is to make the rich richer and oppress everyone else through legal and economic tools.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[HungryHobo]

"After all, the nominal "cost" to the metro company of another rider is effectively zero. " The nominal cost of 1 more rider is small, the nominal cost of 10,000,000 extra riders would be huge. The cost to the music company for one song downloaded on a p2p network is exactly zero. the cost of 10,000,000 songs downloaded on a p2p network is exactly zero. Changes the game a little. Now of you might say they won't sell albums if people can get them off p2p sites, and you could call that a "cost". Of course then you have to show that their sales droped because of filesharing for that "cost" to be valid. Unfortunatly since the advent of filesharing the sales of most big labels seem to have climbed in a very healthy manner. Now comes the point. I never used to listen to music. At all.Had no interest. I tried out some filesharing sites in the napster days cause "hey, why not, I'm bored" Got some music, I liked it. Then I did something very very strange, I went and bought a copy because I like having a solid CD with a nice case, just like I like to own solid paper books. Bought a bunch of other CD's as well. Many of my friends are the same. Total cost to the copyright holders: 0.00 Total income which they never would have seen otherwise: ~200.00 Total lost revenue: 0.00 But they could haul the guy I got the copy from to court and say "HE COST US 200 THOUSAND DOLLARS!" On the other hand since napster died I've downloaded no music at all and I've bought none. Who's lost revenue there? It doesn't matter if a billion copies are going around online. If you get two thousand sales where you would have only got one thousand otherwise then you haven't "lost" anything to piracy. The pirates have not harmed you in any way shape or form. The metric of "take [number of downloads]*[retail price]" and claim that as how much you've "lost" is stupid if in the meantime you've gained sales which you never would have had otherwise since if you've gained sales you would not have otherwise then you've lost nothing. if you've lost nothing then what case do you have for claiming you've been harmed?

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[HungryHobo]

I keep forgetting that slashdot doesn't understand the idea of newline characters and so needs fecking HTML code to work.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[aproposofwhat]

What a load of (pardon my French) cuillons.

Yes, copyright infringement is similar to riding a train with no ticket - the train is going to the destination anyway, and it's only a social contract that makes you think that you need to pay for a ticket.

That's your choice.

The music is available by virtue of being digitised - it's now as free as a train ride.

Me - I pay for my music, and my train rides, but I don't object to others sharing my ride (unless they play rap shit!).

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

Let me ask you this: what should be the penalty for a shoplifter who shoplifts, say, candy?

A slap on the wrist, first time. Repeat offenders could be taken to task eventually but stealing small amounts of candy should never result in giant fines or prison sentences.

But please, don't let my reality intrude on your comic book view of the world.

I do not live in a comic book. I live in the UK, where virtually everyone agrees that we should not allow corporations to run roughshod over families.

Please tell me more about this theoretical person

Not theoretical! Also, stumping up $20 a month for broadband does not make someone "fair game" for lawyers earning $300,000 per year.

You'll find software from the smallest of the small shareware companies being pirated regularly.

I agree that's bad. Where is the software industry body that's going after those guys? There isn't one. So if you steal software, you get away with it. If you steal music, you get financially crippled for life? Real nice.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Opportunist]

To me, tens of thousands of dollars does not seem unreasonable. It's not a crippling amount of money (but it will sting) to anybody who owns a computer[...]

Is it? Does it? Says who?

Fixed fines favor rich people. When you're rich, 100k USD is pocket change. That's the fine you threaten me with? Ok, send the bill when you catch me, but don't bother me 'til you do. That's one of the reasons why you can see a lot of rich people participate in illegal activities where it's even likely to get caught. I mean, who cares about being caught speeding in an illegal street race when the worst you have to fear is a few 1000 bucks fine when he makes more money by just sitting around?

OTOH, when you sue someone who is paying back a student loan or, worse, a teenager who is about to want one, a 100k fine ruins a life. Forever. Ever tried to get a student loan with a debt like that on your back?

If you want a fine to sting (and only that), make it income dependent.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Zironic]

>let me ask you this question: let's say the subway (metro, tube) cost $20 per ride, but the ride wasn't to work or particurly >necessary, it was just fun. What sort of punishment would be appropriate for somebody who was caught after jumping the turnstyle >every day for 10 years? After all, the nominal "cost" to the metro company of another rider is effectively zero. Clearly $20 x (10 >years) is not a reasonable punishment since there's no disincentive in this - we'd then ALL jump the turnstiles and just pay if we >got caught, since we'd be no better off.

Atleast in sweden the punishment for jumping the turnstyle every day for 10 years is exactly the same as the punishment for jumping it once, aproximately the cost of 2 months of metro access.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[cabalamat3]

A not unreasonable cooperative attempt by private companies to cut piracy with no government intervention whatsoever is an "attack on civil liberties."

Nonsense. The UK government's plan is that the MAFIAA (in the guise of the BPI -- British Phonographic Industry) will get to institute a "3 strikes and you're out" system whereby if they say they've caught someone illegally filesharing 3 times, they will force their ISP to disconnect that person.

This is an infringement of civil liberties, because:

1. it's all to be done on the BPI's say-so. There will be no trial, no court case, so presumption of innocence. Note that even the government admits in their consultation document that the MAFIAA gets it wrong in 30% of their accusations.

2. it presumes collective guilt -- a principle alien to British justice; if one person in a household is making illegal downloads, then everyone in that household is punished.

3. it's grossly disproportionate. If someone commits a ctime while on a pavement -- for example beinbg drunk and disorderly, or causing a fight, or whatever -- they are not banned from using any pavement for the rest of their life.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[noob749]

I agree with you in principle, but for me the issue is with boundaries.

1.5tb/mo isn't fair use? ok, then what is? and who decides? my concern is that isps will soon be capping us at 1.5GB/mo and still call that fair use. and is 1.5tb/mo really so unreasonable in a world where people are about to start downloading (legitimately) high def movies? with apple tvs and other similar gadgets taking off, who gets to decide what's reasonable?

same thing with trading linux binaries etc. i know i only download legal stuff, but who decides what is and isn't fair? what's stopping isps going crazy and flagging anything they like? don't forget about all those folks who are lobbying against net neutrality (i don't like those people).

also, on a seperate point, don't mess with the kids. under 18yr olds should not be fined because they realistically can't afford to buy stuff. it's not their fault all the cool brittney spears crap is targetted at a market with no income. but thats another argument altogether.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Opportunist]

Well, I stopped believing in the copyright laws when they turned from a tool to balance the interests between creators and users into a tool of creators to keep an outdated and obsolete business model afloat.

We're currently in a state similar to the one we were with hackneys a century ago. Trains began to make them useless for cross country transportation. Did you ever notice how train stations are outside of towns, or at least were until the towns grew around them? Say your thanks to the laws that should protect hackney business of taking passengers to the train station. Know the silly laws about men with flags running in front of automobiles that we enjoy to laugh about so much? Same lobby at work.

Did it work? Fortunately, it did not. We do have cars today, we may drive them at leisure and, while still in effect today in some areas, the pointless flag-laws have been in disuse for decades. People simply ignore laws that serve no purpose, you see.

Hackneys turned into cabs and they still exist. They probably don't make so much business anymore, a lot of their biz was also eaten up by public transport, but you may be surprised, they somehow survived, even without forcing the people to exist without alternatives. Because they're usually more comfortable than trains or busses, and cheaper than your own car if you only need them rarely.

The parallels are quite stunning. Except that using the content industry's idea of content is usually anything but comfortable.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Nazlfrag]

Indeed, can't have your cake and eat it too. Get rid of region encoding or complain about foreign piracy, not both.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Beriaru]

P2P is fair use. No, it isn't. Especially in Britain, where the concept of fair use is much more restricted than in the USA (which *IS* an actual problem with the british system). But, don't worry - your 1.5 tb of movies and music isn't fair use ANYWHERE.

Wrong

In Spain, the non-comercial copy of copyrighted media is fair use. Search "private copy" ("Copia Privada" in Spanish) for more information.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[arkhan_jg]

This is a government ordered process. As I've gone into more here, the UK government has already told the ISPs to bend over and do what the BPI and other copyright cartel representatives want, or they'll pass a law forcing them to in the autumn session. Remember, this is a 'private' initiative for one set of companies to spend time and money propping up the business model of another set, with potentially innocent customer's privacy being invaded and service degraded purely on the say so of the music labels - no court, no judge, no oversight of any kind.

I don't use torrents for copyright infringement (my existing old CD collection is far better than the crap on p2p these days) but I'll going to still be caught up in this as all customers will be. What if my IP is spoofed, or my wireless hacked? What right of appeal will I have with this 'private' agreement? my ISP is MY ISP, not the record companies. The labels can gather evidence and go to court like everybody else to have their evidence examined - the british court system is nowhere near as supine as the US one, which is why you've not seen the vast swell of lawsuits. They might actually lose because of crap evidence techniques and barratry.

Remember the outrage over youtube handing all their logs over to viacom? Now imagine if google had done that voluntarily without a court order. That's how I feel right now.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Dr_Barnowl]

The train analogy is reasonable (ignoring the fact that a train has limited capacity ; digital duplication has no such restriction)

With a privately run train company, if everyone freerides, there is no incentive to run the service. The train operator will take technical measures to guard their revenue (indeed, train guards are now called "revenue protection officers" on my trains). If this is made technically impossible (each technical measure of revenue protection is circumvented), the train operator has no incentive to continue to run the service, in a totally free market (where the only reason to run a train service is the presence of people willing to pay for carriage).

Since public transport isn't a luxury (most industrialized societies rely on mass transport to function), at the point this happens you could hope for the trains to be nationalized.

Music isn't a necessity in the same way that trains are, but perhaps it should also be nationalized ; you can see shades of this in the taxes on CD media earmarked for the music cartels. Make all the music available on a single service, in any popular format (FLAC, MP3, AAC, OGG), no DRM, etc. Introduce a single flat-fee license to download from this service (like the UK TV license allows UK residents to watch free-to-air channels). Allocate portions of this fee to artists based on their download popularity.

It might not bring in the same revenues as the existing music industry, it might not be open to the same profiteering, but if you can't make a profit in the "traditional" way, it provides music to the people where it would otherwise be difficult.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep forgetting that slashdot doesn't understand the idea of newline characters and so needs fecking HTML code to work.

You are doing it wrong then.

I use "Plain Old Text" and it always understands my newlines with no HTML tags required.

I can even include tags like bold and italics and everything "just works" with the "Plain Old Text" setting.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[mumblestheclown]

So, mr slap on the wrist the first time and then increasingly stiffer penalties - ISNT THIS EXACTLY WHAT IS BEING PROPOSED HERE?

I also live in the UK. The irony is that many ocmpanies DO run roughshod over UK public, but NOT THE MEDIA COMPANIES WHICH ARE BEING SYSTEMATICALLY RIPPED OFF FROM.

Specifically, there are no class action lawsuits in the UK, nor, for the most part, are there punitive damages. When I got on a london-based Eurolines coach a few years ago where the french-african driver had been drinking (we found out later), drove on the wrong side of the road several times and ran out of gas, leaving us to wait by the side of the road for hours in the middle of the night until a replacement bus could be found we were told that we had no legal basis for complaint since the coach company had in the end delivered us to paris with no injuries in the very wide timeframe it had allowed in its schedule. As a result, NO punative action was taken agains the company, and people suffer.

My friend had a major bit of cosmetic surgery botched due to the blatant error of a technician at a very expensive london clinic. I don't mean "something doesn't look quite right" or "in any medical procedure there is a level of assumed risk" - I mean actual scarring and so forth due to the clinic having a new operator with an hour's training mis-set a machine with no oversight. We were told that as a result of this, basically no (or very little) economic recovery was possible as my friend does not actually work as a model.

In both of these cases, MORE, not less lawyers would help the situation greatly in london in keeping corporations from running roughshod over those guys.

but, just because bus companies and clinics can get away with things that are completely unacceptible in the USA does not mean that somehow people are entitled to the labour of those in the media or software industries, free.. doubly and triply so because such things are UNNECESSARY LUXURIES with many FREE ALTERNATIVES.

Your ranting about $300,000 lawyers is completely misplaced, juvenile, bullshit and reeks of the worst kind of jealousy.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[mumblestheclown]

I'm sorry, but i could not get past your first bit of excrement.

If you don't know enough basic economics to realize that the cost of 10,000,000 people downloading a song on P2P doesn't have real costs to the producer in the form of decreased demand for their products, then you are, quite simply, undereducated in this matter.

To put it in terms that maybe even you can understand:

What do you call the guy who that has the cool new music track that none of his friends have? He's cool.

What do you call the guy who paid for the cool new music track that his friends downloaded for free? He's a sucker.

Economic reality happens in the aggregate. Until you understand this well understood basic principle of life, about as fundamental to economics as numbers are to math or atoms are to chemistry, you really have no business commenting are on anything.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Please. These are no "wild shots in the dark". If they were, they wouldn't work and wouldn't hold up in courts. As we've seen from cases in the USA and elsewhere, this is done algorithmically first by analyzing the shape of traffic to see that it is indeed p2p (by which ports it uses,etc) and then it uses a hash lookup table to identify known infringing files.

You need to pay closer to attention to the court documents that NewYorkCountryLawyer has excerpted here and on his blog. Your description of how the MAFIAA goes about suing people is FAR from accurate. For one, they do not use any traffic analysis - they just connect to bittorrent trackers like thepiratebay and/or user's own machines running limewire, etc. And two, they don't use file hashes, they just use keywords in filenames without even downloading the file themselves to check content. Yeah, I didn't believe it either until he posted some 'expert' testimony by one of the MAFIAA's 'expert' witnesses describing the process they use about a year ago.

The only reason their shenanigans have held up in court is that the relatively few people who have actually taken the gambit (the choice they offer is pay ~$2K now or they will take you to court for at least $10K and most people take the $2K fine rather than spend more than $2K on a lawyer and risk losing) have not had enough money or connections to bring in real experts to decimate the MAFIAA's piss-poor evidence collection.

If i don't, I have a mechanism to change this, which is to elect people who will change laws in ways that are amenable to me.

You must be awfully rich to be able to afford that kind of influence, the MAFIAA has contributed over 26 million dollars to politicians so far this year.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Blackhalo]

Copyright is a government granted monopoly given to the rights holder. In the U.S. it is supposed to be a "limited time" for what is now an obscenely large value of time.

I would argue that since these international cartels of rights holders work to circumvent the social contract that grants their monopolies, the publics lack of observation of these rights and outrage as to the extent of them is justified.

I am perfectly fine with the catch 22 of limiting Government over privacy concerns and limiting Corporations in the public space to such an extent that they are unable to enforce their rights.

I have problems with the government being used to squeeze every last possible penny out of a creative work for a corporate interest at the publics expense.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If you don't know enough basic economics to realize that the cost of 10,000,000 people downloading a song on P2P doesn't have real costs to the producer in the form of decreased demand for their products, then you are, quite simply, undereducated in this matter.

Funny that. My niece is in a music video that is just about to hit 10,000,000 downloads from youtube alone, nevermind the artist's own website where it has been on full-screen auto-play on the home page itself. The song is also currently #1 on the top 40, top 100 and highly ranked on a couple of other billboard charts for both airplay and sales. By your logic that can't be because all those downloads must be reducing demand.

The fact is that freeloaders have both positive and negative economic consequences and it is far from decided just how they impact the economic opportunity of distributors much less creators. To ignore the actual effects on the aggregate in favor of simplistic models about 'well understood basic principles of life' is to argue from ignorance.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[mumblestheclown]

Ah yes, anecdotal evidence. Where would any standard slashdot piracy discussion be without anecdotal evidence? We've already covered the "I download linux isos on P2P" and "poor single mothers on welfare getting sued by evil lawyers" memes, so I guess a completion of the trifecta was inevitable.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[CmdrGravy]

What you and the BPI etc are ignoring here is the fact that music can be distributed for free, the fact that previously it couldn't is what the media companies have built their businesses around. Don't forget they are first and foremost distribution companies, it's down to the musicians to actually make the music.

Now the landscape has changed, their unique position as music distributors is in danger of being completely undermined and they are asking the people ( through requesting government legislation ) if it's acceptable for them to protect their existing business model and take steps to curb the free distribution channels which are replacing them.

It's up to us, the people, to decide whether or not we think the world is a better place with music companies to filter out and develop musicians for us or whether we think that even if music is distributed for free musicians will still be interested in making music for us to listen to. That's the real debate we should be having.

Personally I think musicians and music would survive the loss of music companies, good ones can make money from playing live and from the hundreds of annual music festivals using singles and albums to promote interest in their live shows.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

ISNT THIS EXACTLY WHAT IS BEING PROPOSED HERE?

As long as that's where it stays. A minute ago you were advocating giant fines! We're very worried that the US is trying to mould our legal system to be more like theirs. We would not allow this. Actually I'd feel better if it were handled as a criminal case. That would at least guarantee some proportionality.

Without quoting your entire rant about damages, I agree with some of it. I find civil law to be utterly bizzare sometimes. While I haven't much sympathy for people who have plastic surgery, that should probably get your friend a refund and a token of goodwill, at least. However, having a drunk coach driver doesn't entitle you to damages. Never did, never will. That's a criminal matter and it's not really the coach company's fault. I'm rather disturbed that you seem to want to be able to get money from someone every time life takes a shit on you. That is not the British way, chum. Stiff upper lip, what?

More lawyers help only those who can afford to employ them. Therefore they do not improve or provide any benefit whatsoever to society as a whole. Lastly, I do not consider lawyers helpful to me because they're only ever going to work against me. I have employed lawyers for simple matters before, but I'd never sue anyone, while someone may sue me some day.

I admit I am a little jealous of people with gigantic salaries. But then I do Ok myself, I can feed my family and have enough luxuries that I feel very lucky compared to many people in the 3rd world suffering under the yoke of US and EU trade subsidies and arms dealing. Actually the things that make me happy in life are the things that cost nothing. So you can have your $300,000 and enjoy it, but it'll never make you happy. But if anyone comes near the food I put in my son's mouth - expect a fight.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to say theoretical, my family is a fine example. we lived on minimum wage wiht just one parent, there were 4 of us kids. I had a shitty old pc that was just able to play some games. we had a cheap £5 broadband deal.

We couldnt afford the £3 to rent a viedo, let alone buy a dvd. The only way we could see a new film was pirating it. And just so you know, do you have any idea what its like being that poor, where you litterally cant spare 50p.

You ever tried gorwing up that way, the stigma at school... i can see from your response that its unlikly you know what thats like.

So much for "Theorectical"...

posting AC cause can't be arsed to log in. real account is Ragnaruss

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Seto89]

Yet another slashdot troll headline. A not unreasonable cooperative attempt by private companies to cut piracy with no government intervention whatsoever is an "attack on civil liberties."

Let's see if I have the basic dance correct: if a GOVERNMENT program comes out that attempts to curb piracy, then you scream and yell that privacy is a private matter between individual and rightsholder. If a PRIVATE progam is developed to combat piracy, even one with quite mild constraints like this one, we get bitching and whining that corportations are acting in place of government.

Here are the golden oldies we expect to see in this thread:

• I trade my linux binaries via P2P (fine - then you should have no problem of rightsholders doing file-hash-based enforcement)
• I learned about band X from P2p (fine - in which case if it makese economic sense for a company or band to release thusly, they will.. it's their decision to make)
• piracy involves guys with eye patches. this is copyright infringement. actually, it's both. get thee to a dictionary.
• yes, but they can't tell with absolute certainty who is using a given PC. absolute certainty is not a condition of law - reasonableness is.
• It's not illegal if it hasn't been released in my country (anime, etc). NONSENSE.
• P2P is fair use. No, it isn't. Especially in Britain, where the concept of fair use is much more restricted than in the USA (which *IS* an actual problem with the british system). But, don't worry - your 1.5 tb of movies and music isn't fair use ANYWHERE.

have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?

What about the part of the depend that's below the equilibrium price? All those users who wouldn't buy it for this price even if there were no downloads possible, and thus if they download the album, the business isn't actually losing profit? Surely in those cases there is no damage done. And actually the popularity arising from such an action (they tell their friends about the album)), it might actually prove beneficial for the business.

What we must all consider is whether the costs of fighting piracy aren't higher than the actual costs of piracy. There are some articles out there saying that the best solution for business is to ignore piracy. All in all, preventing P2P music downloads can actually reduce to amount of music sold legally, and isn't that the main motivation of those businesses?

Oh wait, actually it might not be. There is one thing more important that money, and that is power. These enormous corporations want to get control, just like a lot of government officials. In which case, yes, I'm going to oppose these laws.

Oh, and as this is Slashdot, a reference to an appropriate xkcd comic is in order :P

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Ah yes, anecdotal evidence. Where would any standard slashdot piracy discussion be without anecdotal evidence?

Bullshit. #1 on the top 40 is the fucking penultimate of "anecdotal evidence" you are the one who made the comment about 10,000,000 downloads. Do you even have one documented anecdote of 10,000,000 downloads hurting business?

No, all you've got is hand-waving about "well understood principles." Would you be happier if I cited the Stanford Law paper that basically says the same thing? Or how about all the other anecdotes like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, etc?

Your worldview is by far overly simplistic and the best you can do when faced with countering evidence is hide behind ignorance.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[mumblestheclown]

This ruling exists because of a tax on CDs and other blank media in spain that was meant to compensate the authors. Once it became clear that this was becoming technologically obsolete (as people were not using CDs, etc any more) an anti-p2p law was passed. So, basically, you fail.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[kramerd]

As true as that may be, people still jump the turnstile in sweden. For some people, its because they are too poor to pay the ride fee. For others, they just think they wont get caught. Not the same thing as filesharing issues.

Granted, there are people who fileshare for the thrill of getting away with doing something they believe to be wrong. But others do so with the belief that it is part of bigger picture war with the music/movie labels. IMHO, this is partially the music/movie labels fault. They produce crappier and crappier items and charges high prices for them, while advertising to the point that people will consume these goods but only because there is no reasonable competition (as opposed to the content being of high enough quality to warrant a purchase). To be fair, my consumption has severely dropped over time, as I find alternatives to music and movies. I read books. I play video games. Once you buy a video game, you can play it forever. In order to get a fair price on music, you have to get a contract for service, so you are renting it, not owning it. With the exception of perhaps 2-3 movies per year, none are worth the $8 they cost in the cheap rack. Even on my 50inch plasma tv with theatre quality 5.1 surround speakers, the cost of renting a movie is questionable at best. Still, that doesnt justify downloading a crappy movie while it is still in theatres. Don't watch or listen to crap, and dont share crap that you wouldn't watch or listen to. Only then will the business model adjust and movies/music be worth buying.

All that being said, I completely disagree with filtering content on the Internet. The entire purpose of the internet is to share information. This includes filesharing. I will get marked troll, but it was lack of freedom of information that caused a bunch of crazies to leave Britain and start a new life in what has become the United States. My ISP should not do anything other than provide Internet access. Not email acces, not pay my bills access, but internet access. Anything that transfers information over a network of computers that I want to particpate in, they should provide. Thats that basis of being an ISP.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[aproposofwhat]

Either the mods like rap, or they can't understand that once something is in digital format, the cost of distribution is nil.

Otherwise, why mod my perfectly reasonable comment down?

If you want something to mod down, try my anti-Zionist comments - I don't mind that, as I know it's only your prejudice that guides the mods.

What's trolling about pointing out that once something has been digitised, it's free?

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[houghi]

Let's agree something - burning a copy of a Coldplay CD isn't going to ruin anybody.

That depends. Where you willing to pay for it or not?
If you were and you now don't, then somebody is not getting your money, so it is not a victemless crime.
If you were never to give any money for it, then it is victemless.

A bit like buying a Rollexx for 10EUR. If you by it instead of a Rolex, you harm the company. Most likely you would never have bought a Rolex anyway, so who cares?

The obvious problem with the victemless or not is that both sides cheat with the numbers. On the one side we have the companies who claim that each copy would have been a sale, which is bullshit. On the other side we have people who say that everybody buys more music, because they learn about a band that way, which is also bullshit.

The truth is somewhere in the middle, but nobody really knows where exactly.

I believe that it doesn't matter that much, because the comapnies get extra income from other places already. Ringtone anybody?

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

If you were and you now don't, then somebody is not getting your money, so it is not a victemless crime.

yes but who is not getting the money? Chris Martin? The bugger is loaded already. If he misses out on another £2 (or however much) an artist gets for a CD now, it is a bit of a stretch to say that he's a victim.

Cue lots of bleating about the people employed in the industry...

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

posting AC cause can't be arsed to log in. real account is Ragnaruss

Seems it would be quicker to log in than to type all of that. Funny how laziness can actually lead to more work. Perhaps the attitude that led to your family's poverty has propagated down a generation.

posting AC cause I want to.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

1.5tb of movies? Im assuming you didnt count pr0n in your movies category.

No, that's what the Fibre Channel SAN is for.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Seems it would be quicker to log in than to type all of that.

Unless he can't remember his password because his home browser has it memorized and he's not reading slashdot from home.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What's trolling about pointing out that once something has been digitised, it's free?

You are supposed to write it as gnu/free. That's why.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[mdwh2]

And where is your evidence?

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[cliffski]

yes I think you have, although you missed out the more brain dead arnarcho-communist-teenage angst ones...

"Information wants to be free!!!111"
"the marginal cost of production is zero, therefore I can have it for free!!!"
"I'm stikc1ng it to the m4n!"
"Musicians are all billionaires"
"The artists don't get the money anyway"
"Its no different to listening to the radio"
"its just like using the library!!!11"
"Everyone does it!
"stopping copyright infringement is censorship"

Sad times, that such bullshit is rattled out as justification for taking other peoples work for free.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[cliffski]

do you expect other people to pay taxes too? or you happy to be the only guy paying that as well?

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[mumblestheclown]

If you think a coach company is not responsible because their driver has been drinking and is not properly trained to operate on british roads, then you are quite possibly the most brainwashed moron I have ever seen in my life. It's amazing how you can make juvenile anti-corporate rants and yet spout this 'stiff upper lip' nonsense when a true example of corporate dangerous incompetence rears its head. Furthermore, it might occur to you that not all cosmetic surgery is elective, and, again, you are an absolute moron if you think that simply getting one's money back is some sort of reasonable recompense for gross professional negligence.

you think lawyers have not helped you? good god man. look - i hate lawyers in a general sense, too, but I have some sense in me. have you ever been on an airplane or train or driven a car? why do you think such modes of transport are orders of magnitude safer than before. because of beaurocratic oversight? NONSENSE. It's due to the legal system of the USA, where the threat of lawsuits ensured that companies overdesigned and stayed on pace with technological developments in safety. All those european product safety standards - have you noticed that they are mostly based on US developments? This is because there are no legal drivers in europe to push such things organically.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[1u3hr]

I keep forgetting that slashdot doesn't understand the idea of newline characters and so needs fecking HTML code to work.

Change your default format from "HTML formatted" to "Plain old text". You can still use bold, italic, etc tags, but newlines are translated into P codes.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[cliffski]

When its YOUR job that's on the line, I bet you
don't dismiss it as 'bleating'.

By the way, the fortunes behind WalMart and Tescos make coldplay look like peasants. maybe you should shoplift a bit next time, in order to 'put things right'? Or is it only righteous theft if you think you can get away with it?

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[aproposofwhat]

I pay taxes through PAYE, as most Brits do.

Otherwise, believe me, I would be avoiding taxes like the plague.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[giafly]

To me, tens of thousands of dollars does not seem unreasonable. It's not a crippling amount of money (but it will sting) to anybody who owns a computer

Lucky you. So young and innocent. In the real world...

More than a third of adults would be unable to support themselves for a fortnight [14 days] if they were made redundant or found themselves unable to work, according to two separate surveys published today ... 36% of people would run out of cash in just 11 days - guardian newspaper, July 25 2008

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[cliffski]

I see. I pay corporation tax, based on accounts I provide. Next year I'll lie, and not pay a penny. I'm sure you don't mind making up my shortfall. Meanwhile, I'll be in the pub celebrating.
Cheers mate.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Zironic]

Well, actually there is a rather large organisation that is actively lobbying for the metro becoming free and tax financed. What they do is that they each pay a sum to a mutual account every month (think it's about 1/3rd of what hte metro would charge) and then they all just jump the turnstile and if they get caught the organisation will pay the bill.

That feels rather similar to the pirate community, maybe someone should set up a mutual account to pay for RIAA legal threats.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If you get your opinions from the anti-copyright maniac NYCL

So, are you saying he lied about the MAFIAA's court testimony?

you sue the phrase MAFIAA without irony,

I would like to sue them, no doubt. But I'm afraid I don't have any standing.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

Risky - be my guest!

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

Yep exactly, that's why if you murder someone you go to prison rather than having to pay a fine. Otherwise Bill Gates could go around slaughtering people left right and centre. In a big car with spikes on top!

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

I don't care if I get the sack. I'm a computer geek - people need me to make their expensive sh1t work! I'll be fine. I've always leaned left politically but find myself in agreement with the right when it comes to employment. Skilled, mobile labour and legislation providing a bit of compensation if you do get canned, is far better than entrenched industries, overemployment and trade unions. That's one of the few things the UK has just about right. A manager can barely glance at an employee in France without causing a strike...

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[drsmithy]

While there's something to be said against people being sued for tens of thousands of dollars, what's the alternative? What's your solution to the piracy problem?

Decriminalise not-for-profit copyright infringement.

To me, tens of thousands of dollars does not seem unreasonable. It's not a crippling amount of money (but it will sting) to anybody who owns a computer, and at those rates it is unlikely that the companies are actually making any serious money, given their costs involved. to me, it's just about right.

What ? "Tens of thousands of dollars" for the average person represents an entire year's after-tax income. For someone who is _poor_ it's likely more "spare" money than they'll see in their lifetime (or at least a significant chunk thereof).

It's going to do a hell of a lot more than "sting".

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[HungryHobo]

"in the form of decreased demand for their products"
I dealt with this.

My metal head friends generally have 2 collections of music.

a big case of blank CD's with pirated music on them which they're free with sharing, "wow that's good" "ya, wanna copy?here"
and their precious "real music" with printed covers which stays in the cases and is only taken out for show.

They still spend all their money on CD's.
Read that last sentence again.
They spend money on CD's.
Every single one of them could get all the music they want for free.
Yet they'll spend all their money on CD's so that they can own "the real thing.

Explain that with your basic economics.

Infringe till they pry it from my cold dead hands

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't pirate, I obviously infringe. In a world where we have less and less control and things seem to spiral away, we need a place where we can 'Stick it to the man', and the internet is it. I don't care about letters. The internet will adapt to meet the challenge. New protocols, new encryption. Hell, private groups who burn DVD's and mail them like the good old days. This genie isn't going back into any bottle anyday soon.

It's all a PR excercise by the ISPs

[91degrees]

The ISPs know who pays their bills. They're not going to get rid of customers unless they become a net cost. They might ditch a few of their customers but only because their bandwidth use is too high, and a complaint from the BPI will be an excuse.

Keep your torrenting to a reasonable level and ignore any complains from the ISP (and maybe install peerguardian or something). They really don't give a damn what you do.

Re:It's all a PR excercise by the ISPs

[spasticfantastic]

I think you're spot on - it's a bit like the "TV detector vans" of years gone by (They claimed they could determine who was watching tv without a license using high tech vans but it was just a fake antenna on a van) The ISP's cannot realistically determine who is downloading copyrighted material - even a complaint from the BPI will not be proof that this is happening. I'm out of contract with Talk Talk so have just cancelled with them and I suggest others start to do the same.

Re:It's all a PR excercise by the ISPs

[mpeskett]

I'm pretty sure TalkTalk have specifically said they won't disconnect any of their customers... that puts them a small step ahead of the other 5 in my estimation.

Obviously the other alternatives that haven't signed up at all are better, but we're already on TalkTalk and the broadband comes free with the phone, so I have to find some reason to justify not dumping them.

Here we go

[kvezach]

Bring in the encryption and the trackerless DHT system again boys! Then they can't tell if you're sharing Linux or.. something else.

Re:Here we go

[MagdJTK]

They don't look at each person and try to tell if they are sharing illegally. They simply join a load of illegal torrents and read off the long list of IPs to which they connect. Encryption only works if only let people you trust join the party.

Re:Here we go

[Ginger Unicorn]

Which is why i use Azureus with the SafePeer plugin. And PeerGuardian on windows. It blacklists known MPAA/RIAA and now hopefully BPI spying IP ranges. Of course that relies on the comprehensiveness of the blacklist, but at least it removes you from the "low hanging fruit" category. It also helps if you don't download anything high profile, like blockbuster movies and shitty pop albums. Because I don't pay for DVDs it justifies me spending 6 freaking quid every time i go to the cinema. (about every 1 1/2 weeks on average).

If this stuff wasn't so stupidly expensive and inconvenient i would totally pay for it. If there was a MPAA/RIAA/BPI authorised torrent site that worked as simply as mininova or isohunt, and just had a £5 a month subscription fee with authenticated trackers that dished out unencumbered MPEG-4/FLAC/MP3 format files i would subscribe in a heartbeat. I already happily pay for a broadband connection every month so that i can get this stuff from torrent sites anyway - why don't these dickheads get with the program?

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

This assumes they have a Clue and won't just try to block / get pissed about any bittorrent traffic. See also: usenet, recently...

Its about distribution

[Freaky Spook]

Why the hell are they so bent on MP3s?

Its not about MP3's at all, its about distributors holds over the distribution channels, which brings the majority of their revenue.
Digital music and the internet removes any artificial barrier the music/movie industry has traditionally held, and now they are having to resort to pressuring governments into making laws to secure their channels. P2P and file sharing is just the excuse they happen to use to get themselves more control.

Governments happily oblige because at the same time they get more control over the internet too.

Re:Its about distribution

[KDR_11k]

Naah, it still has the usual barrier: Obscurity. Anyone can run an internet radio station, true, but few run a popular one. Control the popular ones and you control the market, doesn't matter if people can set up alternatives when noone knows about them.

Re:Its about distribution

[nurb432]

I would expand that to 'its about control of knowledge'. Music is just the vehicle to get it accomplished.

Re:Its about distribution

[gsslay]

Digital music and the internet removes any artificial barrier the music/movie industry has traditionally held

What was "artificial" about it? They recorded the music/movie. They made the physical records/CDs/tapes/DVDs. They owned them, they were physically in their possession. If you want one, then you buy one from them. Seems about as natural as you can get in a free-market system.

Now you can debate all you want about how removing the physical aspect from things has changed things. But the point remains that it is the industry that recorded the music/movie. You can take control of the distribution channels, but if you're not paying anyone to make the music/movie, pretty soon you've got nothing to distribute. And right now I don't see any mechanism in P2P torrents that facilitates paying the people who make the music/movie.

And no, having a vague idea that they'll somehow get paid some other time, by some one else, possibly for something else, maybe, is not a solution.

Re:Its about distribution

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems about as natural as you can get in a free-market system.

Wrong. In a free market, one absent copyright monopolies by definition, anyone who purchased a copy from them would be free to produce new copies. If I buy a table, I'm still free to make similar tables and sell them. People holding copyright monopolies have gotten used to to having the power to defy free market forces.

 

Vote With Your Feet

[prophecy]

The problem is that there is a portion of the ISPs who market towards heavy users and as a result: pirates. Companies with cross chatter from their media devisions such as virgin may be happy to help cut piracy but those who are targeting the heavy users will mop up the profits.

Re:Vote With Your Feet

[Lyrael]

Fortunately, all six of these companies are ones that already invoke a 'fair use' policy and throttle bandwidth at peak times. Anyone who actually cares about this already flocked to better ISPs long ago. :)

Re:Vote With Your Feet

[iainl]

I'm on Virgin Media, one of the Big Six. Their definition of throttling as per the website is to drop my download speed back to what they were giving me for the same money last year anyway. So I can't say I'm that put out by it.

As for these letters, I think they're a good idea. They're not a threat of a lawsuit, they're not a threat of disconnection. That Microsoft study demonstrates that most of the letters will be going to the PARENTS of the infringers, not the kids performing illegal acts themselves, so it should have a fair-sized impact anyway.

Re:Vote With Your Feet

[plasmacutter]

I'm about the right age to have kids, and I vow to teach my kids at the earliest point at which they can comprehend how to use p2p, and use it effectively.

You forget that the generation having kids now is the same generation which had napster pillaged from them by a greedy rock band who used to sing about "halls of justice painted green" before they sold out.

Considering they way they punish 999 callers

[sleeponthemic]

I would imagine their idea of enforcement goes something along the lines of savage rick rolling on the limewire network.

Build it, and they will...

[Atari400]

So, 54% of UK file sharers are 11 - 16? Like little Johny is listening to "MP3s" in his bedroom? Yeah, right. Can't wait for the festival of denial when the head of the household gets a letter inquiring about *those* downloads...

Surely a real vote winner.

Re:Come try this shit in Australia

[Goffee71]

Indeed, I'd liken our nation's respective attitudes to those of our respective Marines when confronted with the Iranian Navy in the Gulf:

British Marines - 'Don't cause a scene lads - we surrender'

Aussie Marines - 'F**k off!'

Guess which lot spent a month in a jail, were humiliated on TV and a disgrace to the nation. Go the Aussies on this one

Protect yourself

[spasmhead]

Just Install peer guardian and configure it to use the Level1 Bluetack blocklist... then your safe as this blocks the vast majority of all anti P2P organisations worldwide. If everyone did this the BPI's job of detecting file sharers would be a WHOLE lot harder and their deal with ISP would become worthless.

On another point, I think its naive to think that if your ISP send you one of these "informative" letters that they wont pass on your personal details to the BPI, who identified your IP address in the first place. The next logical step after is you end up in court fighting a copyright infringement case against the BPI or one of its "partners".

Re:Protect yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but I'm fairly sure that the Data Protection Act prevents internet-monitoring organisations (or anyone else for that matter) from obtaining your name/address etc from your ISP without some sort of court intervention.

In fact, this was the very subject of a recent BBC Radio 4 interview with a representative of TalkTalk (a UK ISP). According to the spokesman, is it precisely because a monitoring organisation only ever knows your IP address, that they have to rely on your ISP to pass their complaint on to you.

Re:Protect yourself

[Stevecrox]

This is an agreement between two business organisations as such it wouldn't be exempt from existing laws. We have a thing called the Data Protection Act in the UK which protects everyones information. If the BPI gave virgin an IP address and Virgin contacted me then it hasn't been broken but if Virgin start handing my personal information over to the BPI without my permissionn and without a court order then legally they would be in very hot water. Deliberate breaches of the data protection act can lead to jail sentances and massive fines.

Re:Protect yourself

[spasmhead]

Walk past a public CCTV camera in the UK and make an official request to get a copy of the footage on which your image is contained, as is your right under the data protection act. Wont happen, you will for one reason or another never get that video. The Data protection act doesn't mean squat in practice.

Re:Protect yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

but peer guardian doesn't support vista :(

If you check the bitorrent stats...

[patio11]

... I have no doubt, whatsoever, that it empirically does not.

The real reason

[Anonymous Coward]

They want access to download data to sample the market. As we know the music business has been in decline for many years. The internet has a lot to do with this, but copyright infringement is not the cause. It really comes from the disconnect between the companies and their audience. In the old days the music companies ran the musical culture of their respective territories. They had A&R men who trawled the clubs and gigs, there was a national, official chart show that everybody watched, and you bought your discs from record stores that logged the sales. Now, these relatively tiny companies, thinned out by cutbacks and run by a small group of lawyers have lost their grip. They no longer select the next big thing and dictate music culture to us because the distribution channels have fragmented and changed. They are no longer staffed by musically literate and culturally connected people who can make value judgements on their product.

By and large, young people buy what they are told is cool. The question is, who is doing the telling? What they want is access to download data, otherwise the market is effectively hidden from them. When the next big musical movement comes around they could end up completely cut out of the loop. The excuse is "Piracy", but, as we all know, rather than equating to lost sales "Piracy" is actually a free form of advertising. It's all about control of the data for marketing.

So, this toothless arrangement is rather comfortable for all. The record companies pretend that they want to catch "pirates", and the ISP's and government play along because that seems a reasonable excuse. In reality, they don't want to prosecute too many copyright infringing file sharers, because that would create a storm (since everybody does it). The ISP's are happy to play along, because eventually, once the right to unfettered access to public data channels is cemented they will begin legitimately selling the media companies access. The theatre of suing the occasional filesharer is just a smokescreen to hide the fact that they just want access to the data for other reasons.

Re:Come try this shit in Australia

[meringuoid]

British Marines - 'Don't cause a scene lads - we surrender'

Those weren't Marines, they were sailors from the Royal Navy. The Royal Marines are a separate organisation.

Error in summary

[Lewie]

The summary says that 54% of filesharers are children, when the linked article says that in fact 54% of children are filesharers, which is actually much more interesting.

Re:Error in summary

[TheRaven64]

Especially if that number is constant across the age ranges considered children, since it means 54% of new voters each year are file sharers. Something that the government ought to be taking into account if they want to stay in power.

A Microsoft study says what?

[Zephiris]

"Microsoft released a study which found that some 54% of UK file sharers are between 11-16."

That's a very different statement from what the article says.

"UK kids are driving a new wave of digital piracy, and 14yos are the most likely to be file sharers, according to a recent "Real Thing" anti-piracy study conducted by Microsoft.

The "Real Thing" survey involved 270 children and 1,200 adults (16 and older).

Some 54% of children aged 11-16yo use illegal P2P and file-sharing services compared to 15% of adults."

Some 135 children surveyed do not constitute 56% of all illegal pirating activity in the UK (as claimed by the slashdot article?), and this seems like a case of intentional (or merely bad) pruning. Supposedly 145 children (54%) out of those surveyed pirate. A rather equivalent number of the adults, 180 (15%) do.

Studies tend to be up there with lies and benchmarks, but comparing two groups with radially disproportionate sample sizes? And where are the samples from? Are these at specific places? Why such a disparity in the group sizes? Then again, it does admit to be an "anti-piracy" study, so I guess they aren't exactly that interested making it fair or unbiased.

At any rate, the statement in the slashdot version and in the the article linked are very different, regardless of the supposed validity of the study.

Re:A Microsoft study says what?

[Opportunist]

It should probably say "54% of 14 year olds don't know yet that you better shut up when you break a law while most adults wised up when they grew up".

Re:A Microsoft study says what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Adults are better liars. Most adults I know are avid filesharers, but they'd rather not talk about it to a Microsoft employee.

UK Government undertaking consultation on this..

[Anonymous Coward]

This issue is under currently consultation.

The consultation document can be found at http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page47141.html which explains the background to the issues, the legal issues and the questions BERR are requesting feedback on.

I assume the Green party (and many others) will respond via this mechanism.

Some areas I found interesting were the thoughts on possible technical measures, and what is being undertaken in other countries in this area, such as France.

it's publicly financed anyway

[speedtux]

The only entertainment worth anything coming out of the UK in recent years seems to be the BBC productions. Given that they are publicly financed through TV fees, why should the British not be allowed to share them freely?

No, people are suckers....

[Nazlfrag]

and there's one born every minute.

Power via control

[Nazlfrag]

You cannot wield power over those who share of their own volition.

Who gives a damn ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their strongest threat is to throttle heavy P2P users which they're already doing.

Talk Talk's MD has publicly stated that they believe it to be illegal to provide user/IP details to anyone who doesn't have a warrant, and that they have no intention of cutting off users.

So anyone daft enough to be a Carphone Whorehouse customer might get stiffly worded letter warning that downloading is illegal ? O Noes !

From the linked article:

"Say what you will about the corporitization of the US, but at least we do have some privacy on what is the world's leading and single most important means of knowledge and communication."

Presumably it will remain warm, safe, and cozy under the author's rock, right up until the RIAA letter arrives ?

Churn

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess there will be a lot of people moving from the big ISPs to small ones. Then some of the small ones will become big ones, start "policing piracy" and users will move again, either to a newer small ISP or maybe to one of the old big ones that has become a small one again having lost most of its users.

A smart small ISP would seize the moment, ensure that their inward migration system is smooth and easy, and make appropriate mention of the fact that they are not one of the six...

Bad UK P2P, bad!

[codeButcher]

I like brewing! Why on earth do they want to fight that?

Not that I have RTFA or even the B'ing Summary, but still....

Re:Infringe till they pry it from my cold dead han

[Opportunist]

I don't pirate, I obviously infringe.

I do neither, but obviously I must infringe too. I don't buy the crap that is currently produced. I don't even download it (it's not even worth the bandwidth it takes). Yet still, the dwindling sales (what dwindling sales, btw, I hear year after year that the content industry makes a record plus?) are due to copy culture.

The dwindling sales are not due to people infringing. The dwindling sales are due to a lack of supply that meets the demand. I don't want movies that consist of SFX to hide the threadbare plot. I don't want music that sounds exactly the same as the other moronic American Idol crap you tried to cram down my throat last year. Meet my demand and I will buy your supply.

But no, that can't be it. When people don't buy, it has to mean they copy, because it can't be that they simply don't want the crap.

Pirate anti-defemation league.

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrr! We arrrr against all copyright infringement. We arrr not that kind of scum! We steal ships and boats and occasionally kill the crew. Arrr. But illegally download music, movies, and other copyright material?!? Nevarrr!

We arrr by no means associated with those despicable and wimping activities as illegal file sharing.

Arr!

relax

[afkcpu]

Filesharing has always existed whether it be in a digital form or physical form. In the 70s im sure people lent each other vinyls of their favourite bands. It was strictly illegal but it was overlooked because the police had bigger fish to fry. The same applies to today, they only intend to crackdown on hardcore users who are making a business from copyrighted material. However I think because of digitalisation and lighting-fast internet speeds, downloading say a few gigs worth of songs has become the norm, which is too much in the eyes the big coporations. (however that could be justly argued.) In simplified british terms, 'don't take the piss.'

"Anti-USA rant" - can you read?

[Kupfernigk]

I suggested that Brown was wrong about thinking that he has to keep the US on side. I suggested that Barack Obama is better qualified than any of our present candidates to run GB., because, as a professor at Chicago, he made his students think about issues like civil liberties. And I suggested that the US financial crisis is much less severe than that in the UK. Wow, that's anti-US ranting, saying your economy is sounder than ours and some of your politicians are more intelligent. I also suggested that somebody whose entire career has been based around the fortunes and fate of a political party was not a good person to run the country.

Other than that, a number of other posters seem to have pointed out to you that you didn't read the original submission.

So we're back to suing children?

[Opportunist]

54% of filesharers are kids. They want to cut internet "piracy" by 80%.

So we're back to ruining lifes before they really started?

The Most Wanted Song

[xaxa]

Available here:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/komar.html
"This survey confirms the hypothesis that today's popular music indeed provides an accurate estimate of the wishes of the vox populi. The most favored ensemble, determined from a rating by participants of their favorite instruments in combination, comprises a moderately sized group (three to ten instruments) consisting of guitar, piano, saxophone, bass, drums, violin, cello, synthesizer, with low male and female vocals singing in rock/r&b style"

I hate it, but I quite like the Most Unwanted Song.

Re:The Most Wanted Song

[B4light]

Both of those songs suck

Re:The Most Wanted Song

[Loko Draucarn]

It sounds like what you'd get if you piped P.D.Q. Bach back in on itself through a filter made of Aphex Twin and Andy Warhol.

And it's got tuba, bagpipes, accordion, AND pipe organ! What's not to like?

Re:Come try this shit in Australia

[I confirm I'm not a]

They are not a separate organisation, they are part of the Royal Navy. From their website:

Are the Royal Marines part of the Army?
No. The Royal Marines are an amphibious force and are therefore part of the Royal Navy.

That's not 3 warnings

[Nicolas MONNET]

That's actually 2 warnings, on the 3rd strike you're cut off.

And yes, it sucks. Sarkozy is a cunt.

Re:Come try this shit in Australia

[meringuoid]

Have they been re-organised recently? Last I heard, the Naval Service consisted of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, as separate entities, plus a variety of reserve and auxiliary forces. The Government have been rearranging the armed forces quite substantially in recent years, so I may be out of date here.

Re:Come try this shit in Australia

[I confirm I'm not a]

I don't know, to be honest. My dad was RN back in the 1960s/early 1970s, and I always thought of the RM as being part of the RN, so I was surprised when you said that and checked on their site. It is quite possible that at some point over the last 2-3 decades they've been re-organised a few times - their history seems to be one of re-organisation, after all. I hadn't realised, for example, that their commando role only stemmed from the Second World War - I assumed that it dated to the Boer War, for some reason.

Re:It's summer, and the RIAA/MPAA is trolling

[bit01]

have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?

No, you missed the most obvious one:

• Copyright fanatic repeating the same old content-free industry propaganda is mysteriously modded up to +5, probably by sock puppets.

Free clue: Excessive enforcement of badly broken copyright law is an attack on civil liberties. Even if you are too much of a zealot to acknowledge that.

---

Paid marketers are the worst zealots.

don't cut down piracy, up your quality

[ninjapiratemonkey]

Cutting piracy won't make people buy more CD's. Obviously not everyone's like this, but personally, when I download something, I only did it because I wouldn't normally buy it in a store. If p2p didn't exist, I just wouldn't be listening to it. If artists make songs good enough to buy, I will. The "pay what you want" Radiohead album, I bought the CD in stores. Because it's that good. I didn't pay the first time I downloaded it, but after listening to it, I decided it was good enough to pay them for it.

Yes, I know, not everyone's like that, but I know enough people who are like that, to make the assumption that piracy is not what's killing them. It's their quality of music.

If the industry wants to make money, they don't need to cut back on piracy, they need to up their quality.

There will be no distiction, we're all guilty!

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISPs won't give a hoot, they won't want the grief, so if you breach threshold of say 3GB a week or whatever caps are in place, they will simply send you a letter asking you to cease and desist. They won't have the time or inclination to check what's in your traffic, they will simply equate bandwdith use to ripping shit off!

I don't rip MP3s or vids, maybe the odd TV episode if I can be arsed. So feck-em, I will be shifting copies of Oracle software and Linux distros in a nice rotation, so I can goad these scum.

They will learn

[soast]

Besides there being bad music prices are too high. When they decide to get rid of all ways to record media people will just not buy anything. i know when i goto the store and see a DVD/blue ray for $20 + bucks im like 'that's OK i don't need it'. Everyone will have that attitude. lower the prices then they will be competing with the bootleggers and win because i will spend $5 for a real copy before i spend $5 for a fake.

Easy Listening

[Randomly]

What's wrong a market dynamic that makes wealthy those performers whose art makes us want to give them some money?

Re:Come try this shit in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

And who would have been shot as a threat? Yep, the Brits.

Who'd want or need to shoot an Aussie? What have they got to do with the world today?

My 2p.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is file sharing now being called illegal. Even people here are now reffering to file sharing as illegal. Not only is this a little wrong but it is a completely stupid statement.

File sharing is NOT illegal. Sharing copyrighted material is illegal.

I dont understand how cracking down on a technology which potentially coudl eliminsate the requirement for large expensive hot energy consuming datacenter based mirror services.

This is not just an attack on pirated material but it a government level attack on common sense and civil rights.

Wasn't this announced last week?

[crimperman]

Isn't this "story" just rehashing the news about the MOU signed last week (see first link in TFS)?
Ah yes but this is /. isn't it.

As for the 54% of 14 year olds (although their sample size was tiny IYAM) who share files. We can't be sure what they were using the P2P for as we're only given quotes from the press release by a very interested party. Okay they were probably downloading some music in breach of copyright but even if they continue, the MOU agreement means the worst they'll get is a letter to their parents.

Like that's gonna stop 'em!

Bigotry

[Keeper Of Keys]

You may be right that Israel is a rotten cesspit; that's not why people are calling you a bigot. You're a bigot because you presumed an entire mindset for someone based on the sound of his name, and - given that he's apparently a music biz apologist - tarred all Jewish people with the same brush.

Re:It's summer, and someone is trolling

[mdwh2]

with no government intervention whatsoever

Are you reading the same Slashdot as I am? It mentions several examples of Government actions.

I guess the Government consultation on the matter is also a figment of my imagination, right? As you seem incapable of reading summaries, let alone articles, allow me to give you the title: "Consultation on legislative options to address illicit P2P file-sharing".

have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?

You missed this one.

Future

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the biggest/best anonymous p2p? If everyone switches they will have to find some other way. Damned if I'm going to pay for a anonymous proxy until forced, never strikes me as a good place to give my card details to...

Re:Come try this shit in Australia

[kramulous]

Ahhh, the advantage of being the arse end of the earth. You know, I like it that way.

What I'd pay good money for

[clickclickdrone]

These days, I rarely download music BUT I'd sign up for a service that provided copies of older/rarer stuff. Having been a serious buyer of vinyl back in the day with all the coloured vinyl, remixes, 12inch singles, gatefold double packs etc., I love collecting, especially unusual stuff.
Most of the downloading I've done has been things ripped from vinyl by others or simply unavailable elsewhere (got a few albums of 'premixes' i.e. albums before the final version, work in progress cuts etc). I can't imagine many artists happy with officially making those available but if any would, I'd pay. Equally, it's frustrating, especially to fans of particular artists when a rare mix or limited edition can't be tracked down at any price - it's things like that that I start looking for although since the demise of Napster and the increase in torrents, I find it much harder finding anything of interest outside the usual well known artists and mixes, all the really interesting stuff has just dropped of the radar, unless I'm looking in the wrong places or using the wrong P2P networks/clients.
On the downside, it would kill the used record market somewhat if it was easy to get hold of rarer stuff in digital form but then many collectors will still pay $200 or whatever for a real copy of album x even when MP3s are available and collecting has always been up and down anyway. I've got 12inch singles that used to exchange hands for £500+ but now are worth maybe £50-60 assuming you could find a buyer at all.
Bottom line is, if a service started tomorrow that had *everything* by *everyone* available (fantasy mode here), I'd happily pay $1 a track/$40 a month to have access to that.

The Get Off My Lawn Act

[damburger]

The summary says it all; the UK government intends to crack down on piracy and most of it is being done by 11-16 year olds. We are still in the demographic grip of the baby boomers and they are stamping on a yet another generation who sees things differently from then, just because they can.

Security of investments is the main priority of the now retiring boomers. Anything that threatens long established profit making is seen to them as a threat to their nest eggs and all other priorities are irrelevant.

The upcoming generation values freedom of information, but of course they can't vote so without representation they are subject to the whims of the senile and frightened, as my generation have been before them.

The Green party in the UK has about as much electoral success as its American namesake. The best hope would probably to have this issue taken up by the Lib Dems, as they have enough seats in parliament for someone to actually notice them once in a while. However, they seem to be politically floundering at the moment.

Re:The Get Off My Lawn Act

[smoker2]

I don't support extensions of copyright, and I am part of the tail end of the baby boom.

The upcoming generation value nothing that they have to work to attain. They want everything for nothing or as cheap as they can get it. Why should somebody who has worked their whole life to build an income have it taken away from them by people who have yet to contribute anything to society. To put it another way, what is going to happen to the upcoming generations descendants ? Who are they going to steal from to finance their lives ? Their parents appear to show no signs of being willing to save for their retirement in any form, so it will be their kids that pay, just as it is now.
The baby boomers created the wealthy society that we have today, everybody since has just taken a free ride. Why do you think we are heading towards big problems due to having too many old people ? Not enough young people to pay for existing financial commitments.
The government is to blame for spending too much on welfare (unemployment) which drained all our resources. We live in a credit based society, which cannot continue for long without collapsing. So next time you get something for nothing, bear in mind that while you get it free, your kids and their kids will be paying for it.
BTW freedom of information has nothing whatsoever to do with ability to download music for free. Unless you think that Britneys latest album somehow supplies knowledge.

Re:The Get Off My Lawn Act

[damburger]

Fuck you. No, really. Fuck you.

Your generation took advantage of post-war social programs paid for by previous generations, then when it came to your turn to pay for the next generation as your parents had done for you, you used your demographic weight to vote in vicious conservatives who gutted those programmes to lower your taxes.

You took, took and took from society and have never gave anything back. Then you have the fucking nerve to accuse every subsequent generation of being workshy and having an inflated sense of entitlement. Your hypocrisy sickens me, and makes you glad you will die sooner than I will. Seriously, your post convinces me your demise will improve the planet.

Each generation these days has it harder than before. When I started my first degree in 1998 the UK government gave me a £800 grant and I did not have to pay tuition. A student starting now has no grant and has to pay £3070 per year tuition. And it is going to go up. Back when you were college age, UK students would've received housing benefit for fucks sake.

So, in summary, please hurry up and die. Our society will keep getting meaner, more alienated, and more unfair towards the disadvantaged in society so long as you draw breath and use your vote to horde the wealth of society whilst 18 year olds face increasing financial hardship.

Fuck off and die. Seriously.

What us companies?

[plasmacutter]

The "RIAA" is composed of european record labels!

Re:It's summer, and the RIAA/MPAA is trolling

[plasmacutter]

have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?

No, you missed the most obvious one:

• Copyright fanatic repeating the same old content-free industry propaganda is mysteriously modded up to +5, probably by sock puppets.

Free clue: Excessive enforcement of badly broken copyright law is an attack on civil liberties. Even if you are too much of a zealot to acknowledge that.

---

Paid marketers are the worst zealots.

i'm going to go with this one for 500 alex!

Re:Infringe till they pry it from my cold dead han

[plasmacutter]

Agreed on the special effects as a "patch".

I seriously wonder if the writer's guild is still striking, because i swear I see more and more commercials which, if you listen "between the lines", are basically saying "this movie got great reviews on it's special effects! come to the theater and experience the massive explosions in sensurround!"

Re:Infringe till they pry it from my cold dead han

[Opportunist]

You don't have to read between the lines. When they read the reviews in an attempt to make you watch it, you invariable hear about great FX, mind shattering explosions and fast paced action.

When to you hear about or even read yourself the last review where a movie was praised for its deep character development, its unpredictable plot (that this is a criterion for a good movie alone tells you something, that should be a given, why should I bother watching a movie if I already know how it is going to end?), its dense story or its meaningful dialogue?

ObHeinlein

[sconeu]

Every damn record label out there seems to think that because they've made money in the exact same way for many years, this state of affairs must continue - be it by making anything which threatens it illegal or by taxing it so they get a cut of the money.

Time for the Obligatory Heinlein quote:

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit.

-- The Judge in Life-Line

Brewing

[diqrtvpe]

Well, I for one am sick and tired of all these tee-totalling P2P geeks getting together to fight brewing. They may not like beer, but that doesn't mean everyone else has to suffer!

Re:Infringe till they pry it from my cold dead han

[plasmacutter]

at least theyre good fodder for rifftrax. i recommend the one for bourne identity

UK P2P Fight Brewing

[Anonymous Coward]

So file-sharers in Britain want to outlaw the production of alcoholic beverages?

Politics.

[Jacob91]

is the answer. Get onto your local MP. I did have have a really insightful comment, but just reloaded the page accidently and its gone, that and being a noob and not knowing how to paragraph (please help) i just posted this.

Re:The UK

[jambox]

Come over here and say that, we'll show you how to win wars.

Record companies

[Anonymous Coward]

My take on it is this :
when CDs arrived we were told they were expensive because they were "hard to make". The production costs dropped but the record companies held the price artificially high. If you've bought an album on vinyl they want you to buy it again on CD and pay for the music twice. Prices of CDs in UK have ONLY dropped because of companies like PLAY started selling them cheap (and the record companies tried to close down retailers like that too). Every investigation into CD price fixing has resulted in ZERO action. I don't have a problem with paying for music, but I will only pay for the music I WANT and then only pay for it ONCE. How many duff albums have we bought on the strength of a couple of tracks? I want to pay the artist DIRECT. If they only get 30p from every album sale, the NEW way makes sense. Death to record companies, they are no longer needed! They had their chance but sat back and tried to order back the sea like King Canute. They didn't embrace the change. They took instead to hounding the people that MADE them their money. I will be glad when they all go bankrupt. Just buy reasonably priced music DIRECT from the artist you like. THAT's a better way. The name of this game is GREED ask Gene Simmons.... :)

In 38 milliseconds...

[maz2331]

The P2P apps will be updated to use exclusively SSL-encrypted connections through an onion routing algorithm.

Great. Just what we need.

Leave Britney Alone!

[PetiePooo]

How friggin dare anyone out there make fun of Britney after all she has been through!

She lost her aunt; she went through a divorce; she had two friggin kids; her husband turned out to be a user, a cheater; and now she's going through a custody battle.

All you people care about is *sob* readers and making money off of her. She's a HUMAN! *sob*

What you don't realize is that Britney is making you all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about her. She hasn't performed on stage in years. Her song is called 'Give Me More' for a reason because all you people want is MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE!

LEAVE HER ALONE! *sob*

You are lucky she even performed for you BASTARDS! LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! *sob* Please! *sob* *sob*