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."
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.
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?
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
"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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.