Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Release a CC song as good as any one by Britney Spears.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
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.
ilovegeorgebush
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.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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
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.
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.
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.
Bring in the encryption and the trackerless DHT system again boys! Then they can't tell if you're sharing Linux or.. something else.
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.
1.5tb of movies? Im assuming you didnt count pr0n in your movies category.
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.
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.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
You missed one:
- Two wrongs don't make a right.
I would imagine their idea of enforcement goes something along the lines of savage rick rolling on the limewire network.
I record my sleeptalking
Surely a real vote winner.
IBM doesn't play chess with the Universe.
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".
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?
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.
... I have no doubt, whatsoever, that it empirically does not.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Those weren't Marines, they were sailors from the Royal Navy. The Royal Marines are a separate organisation.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
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.
This sig washed every five years whether it needs it or not!
"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.
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
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.
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.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
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?
"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?
I keep forgetting that slashdot doesn't understand the idea of newline characters and so needs fecking HTML code to work.
and there's one born every minute.
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!).
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
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.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
You cannot wield power over those who share of their own volition.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Indeed, can't have your cake and eat it too. Get rid of region encoding or complain about foreign piracy, not both.
Not that I have RTFA or even the B'ing Summary, but still....
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
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.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
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.'
Other than that, a number of other posters seem to have pointed out to you that you didn't read the original submission.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
54% of filesharers are kids. They want to cut internet "piracy" by 80%.
So we're back to ruining lifes before they really started?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
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.
This is where the serious fun begins.
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.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
That's actually 2 warnings, on the 3rd strike you're cut off.
And yes, it sucks. Sarkozy is a cunt.
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.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
This is where the serious fun begins.
have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?
No, you missed the most obvious one:
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.
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.
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.
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.
01110000 01010111 01101110 00110011 01100100
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.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
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:
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.
:P
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
There are two kinds of people - those who are radioactive and those who have already decayed..
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
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?
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
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?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
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...
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
What's wrong a market dynamic that makes wealthy those performers whose art makes us want to give them some money?
Isn't this "story" just rehashing the news about the MOU signed last week (see first link in TFS)? /. isn't it.
Ah yes but this is
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!
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.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
Ahhh, the advantage of being the arse end of the earth. You know, I like it that way.
.
And where is your evidence?
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.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
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.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
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.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
do you expect other people to pay taxes too? or you happy to be the only guy paying that as well?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
The "RIAA" is composed of european record labels!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?
No, you missed the most obvious one:
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!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
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!"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
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?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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:
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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!
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.
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.
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?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
at least theyre good fodder for rifftrax. i recommend the one for bourne identity
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I pay taxes through PAYE, as most Brits do.
Otherwise, believe me, I would be avoiding taxes like the plague.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
Lucky you. So young and innocent. In the real world...
Reduce, reuse, cycle
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.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
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.
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.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Risky - be my guest!
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
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!
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
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...
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
Come over here and say that, we'll show you how to win wars.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
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".
The P2P apps will be updated to use exclusively SSL-encrypted connections through an onion routing algorithm.
Great. Just what we need.
"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.
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*