IsoHunt Petitions Canadian Court For Copyright Blessing

A Cow writes "As an act of self-defense, the popular BitTorrent site isoHunt has decided to file a petition to ask the Court of British Columbia to confirm that isoHunt — and sister sites Torrentbox and Podtropolis — do not infringe copyright. isoHunt owner Gary explains to TorrentFreak: 'Our petition summarizes BitTorrent technology, its open nature and a whole ecosystem of websites and operators that has developed around it, that CRIA does not own copyright to all files distributed over BitTorrent or on isoHunt websites, and we seek legal validation that we can continue to innovate within this emerging BitTorrent ecosystem on the Internet.'"

Comments

paraphrased

[Anonymous Coward]

While this is just a paraphrase of the legalese used, the only glaring difference between the summary and the petition is the lack of *winks* and *nudges* used within the document.

Re:paraphrased

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you can't help but think that its interesting that the general public thinks that the commercial system for
media distribution sucks ass, and has developed not just one but several ways to illegally distribute content.

Re:paraphrased

[BPPG]

"...and has developed not just one but several ways to illegally distribute content."

what?

It's not the method that's illegal in the case of P2P, it's the content, for certain values of content. There's nothing illegal about Bittorrent itself.

Re:paraphrased

[NoobixCube]

I think what he meant by "illegally distribute content" wasn't referring to the means of distribution. What the poster meant might have been illegal in the sense of distributing that specific content without a legal right to do so. There's nothing illegal about a blank CD, but buying that same disc with copied music on it is almost certainly illegal.

Re:paraphrased

[AceofSpades19]

a cd with copied music isn't illegal if its your 1 backup copy of the album which is fair use if you bought the album legally

Re:paraphrased

[plasmacutter]

a cd with copied music isn't illegal if its your 1 backup copy of the album which is fair use if you bought the album legally

because we all know you only need one backup copy right?

Re:paraphrased

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair use Canada? Or fair use USA? And just for the hell of it. Please define the boundaries of this "fair use" so that others may not cross it.

Re:paraphrased

[NoobixCube]

(Although I hate reading any post preceded by this acronym...) IANAL, but I was speaking from my understanding of Australian copyright law (since that's where I live). I forgot that "fair use" is much more liberal in most other countries. In Australia, fair use almost predates the record player (I know, I exaggerate a little...). Our copyright law is so antiquated as to probably be completely inapplicable today.

Re:paraphrased

[plasmacutter]

(Although I hate reading any post preceded by this acronym...) IANAL, but I was speaking from my understanding of Australian copyright law (since that's where I live). I forgot that "fair use" is much more liberal in most other countries. In Australia, fair use almost predates the record player (I know, I exaggerate a little...). Our copyright law is so antiquated as to probably be completely inapplicable today.

no, it's quite "modern", go read the fine print in AUSFTA

Re:paraphrased

[BPPG]

Yes, in Canada there is an extra levy on blank optical media. This levy is basically a "you-might-be-a-pirate" tax. So you can't be caught for copyright infringement if it's for personal use on discs you paid for.

It's more of a gray area than anything, right now in Canada. Bill C61 was going to explicitly legalize backing up(if you back up in a certain way), while also explicitly outlawing many other things (including many forms of backing up that might bypass so-called "digital locks").

Re:paraphrased

[BPPG]

yeah, after re-reading that, I think you're right. It was just phrased in a funny way. I thought he meant to imply that any method other than the commercial one was illegal, but that would be a pretty silly thing to say ;-)

Re:paraphrased

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it that some morons who have a stick up their butts think that cars should be illegal because some of them are used when holding up a bank? That is the same as saying that any torrent system should be banned, etc, just because one of it's uses is a bad one.. If we used the same reference for everything, pretty much absolutely every single thing on earth would be illegal.

Re:paraphrased

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

No-one was suggesting that. It was just a tool that could be (and often is) used to illegally distribute content. That, as you pointed out, doesn't make it illegal.

Re:paraphrased

[gobbo]

Fair use Canada? Or fair use USA? And just for the hell of it. Please define the boundaries of this "fair use" so that others may not cross it.

We don't have a clear legal definition of fair use in Canada. In this situation of recorded audio we have "personal use" which is defined in the Copyright Act. It includes things like making a mix CD for the car or loaning a friend a CD so they can copy it (really!). For these privileges we pay a levy on blank media.

Re:paraphrased

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it would be a different story if, whenever you saw a car, there was a 99.99% chance it was being used for a bank robbery.

Re:paraphrased

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not that BitTorrent can be used for illegal purposes, it's that it almost always is. I'm sure nuclear bombs can be used for legal purposes, but does that mean that everyone should get to have one, even if the chances of it being used safely are next to zero?

Re:paraphrased

[Anonymous Coward]

Oversimplification of copyright law, which is based on a fairly complex statutory framework, is a dangerous thing.

In Canada, Part VIII of the Copyright Act provides a limited exemption to copying music only and only to an "audio recording medium" (i.e. media which, if blank, would be subject to the levy). The reason there's no levy on an iPod is that they're not considered "audio recording media" and, therefore, copying your music to such a medium constitutes copyright infringement, unless you're licensed (i.e. you downloaded from iTunes).

There is absolutely no private copying exception for downloading videos, and don't even think about calling it "fair use" -- in Canada, that concept doesn't exist. What we do have is "fair dealing", with a number of limited, listed exemptions much narrower than our southern neighbours enjoy.

Re:paraphrased

[Jorophose]

Yeah but nobody's ever been sued for these sort of things in Canada.

CRIA even went on record saying they like things the way they are, that they just collect on CDs. (I believe they do collect on DVDs as well that pretty much means I'm going to download movies too because I've pretty much paid for them)

~1$ a CD (else I can't see why a CD and two DVDs both sell for 1$.) is worth it to me for a bunch of songs, don't you think?

Re:paraphrased

[Progman3K]

>>Please define the boundaries of this "fair use" so that others may not cross it.

Fine: I own the bits on the DVD or CD I bought and I may make as many copies as I like of my property.

Re:paraphrased

[shnull]

Yes we have that here too on blank dvd's and cd's but overhere it's more of a look !!!! we forgot to make money of that - kinda tax ...

Re:paraphrased

[wrook]

Yes, in Canada there is an extra levy on blank optical media. This levy is basically a "you-might-be-a-pirate" tax. So you can't be caught for copyright infringement if it's for personal use on discs you paid for.

I know what you mean, but it's really important to be precise when describing the levy since it has a big impact on how the new copyright bill could be drafted. In essence, what you are saying is what the recording industry *wants* you to think. Because they goofed up badly years ago and they want a new law to fix it for them.

The copyright act says, in part, "...the act of reproducing... [a musical work] ... for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright"

That's right. The thing they gave up for the levy was that private copying *does not constitute copyright infringement*. It's not a "get out of jail card for pirates". It means, explicitly and clearly, that you are allowed to make private copies of music. It is completely legal. And it should be encouraged!

The very important implication here is that amendments like Bill C61 attempt to make it impossible for us to copy music, when it is, in fact, our right to do so. As I said, the recording industry screwed up extremely badly here. And I know the levy isn't popular. But that 21 cents per CD gives me the right to copy any music I want to. It doesn't sound so bad to me.

Admitedly, there should be provisions for people who use large numbers of blank media for non-music purposes to opt out. This is a weakness of the levy.

Re:paraphrased

[Anonymous Coward]

"We don't have a clear legal definition of fair use in Canada. "

We don't have "fair use" in Canada, we have something called "fair dealing". And although it was poorly defined, a Supreme Court case a few years ago (2004) clarified things significantly, including the interepretation that fair dealing is a user RIGHT that complements and balances the rights copyright holders have. Here's a quote from the wikipedia page:

"The fair dealing exception, like other exceptions in the Copyright Act, is a user's right. In order to maintain the proper balance between the rights of a copyright owner and users' interests, it must not be interpreted restrictively. ... 'User rights are not just loopholes. Both owner rights and user rights should therefore be given the fair and balanced reading that befits remedial legislation.'"

They actually got it! As far as I'm concerned, that statement ought to be framed. And they listed 6 factors to evaluate in terms of whether something constituted fair dealing, whereas there was hardly anything previously. So, there's been some progress. Well, up until Bill C-61 !#!@#$!# it up, but in that respect there's been progress too.

Re:paraphrased

[BPPG]

Yeah, you're right, I should have specified that I was talking about audio discs.

However, in Canada downloading of copyrighted content is totally fine. It's the uploading that gets you into trouble. And unless you are only a leech (you asshole!), you automatically break that law by using Bittorrent for copyrighted content.

Re:paraphrased

[BPPG]

I don't really buy this argument. There are quite a few torrent websites focused on distribution of not-infringing content, usually free software, freeware, and creative commons and/or public domain art and music.

The main thing is that Bittorrent sites like IsoHunt may typically be used for copyright infringing content. But it the site itself does not typically host any infringing content at all. That's the reason why they're allowed to exist in the first place.

Re:paraphrased

[zoward]

This is de facto true in the US as well, where, while it may be technically illegal to download someone else's copyrighted IP, the RIAA will never sue for this. There is this fear that if they do, and the person in question already owned a copy of the IP in question ("I had the CD and it broke! Really! Here's the pre-download dated receipt!"), a precedent could be set making some forms of downloading legal, and make all those black-and-white "downloading music is stealing!" advertising campaigns much less clear to the average man on the street.

As in Canada, it's uploading that the (C|R)IAA goes after, because there is no "gray area" where it would be okay to give someone else's copyrighted IP away without their permission to do so.

Re:paraphrased

[BPPG]

mod parent insightful, much better explanation.

Canadian DMCA?

[TubeSteak]

We have since tried to come to an understanding, but just as with the MPAA in the US, they ignored our offers of cooperation by the take down of .torrent links to their content files, so long as they provide sufficient identification," Gary Fung [of isoHunt] told TorrentFreak.

Does Canada even have a notice-and-takdown law in effect?

Re:Canadian DMCA?

[Tubal-Cain]

I hope so. Better than finding a lawsuit in the mail one day.

Re:Canadian DMCA?

[d_jedi]

No, we do not. The lawsuit is frivolous, and isoHunt's "copyright policy" has no basis (ie. provides no immunity) under Canadian law.

Sickening

[Vertana]

The idea that an intermediary trafficker can be held accountable for the files and data passing through it is disgusting. By this logic why aren't ISP's held accountable by law for child pornography passing through their servers? I hope IsoHunt succeeds in their endeavor and shows that government the flaw in their logic.

Re:Sickening

[larry bagina]

There's a flaw in your logic. It's called "common carrier."

Re:Sickening

[plasmacutter]

There's a flaw in your logic. It's called "common carrier."

and as has been pointed out before, ISP's, at least in the US, were removed from "common carrier" and placed under the category "information service".

Re:Sickening

[Swizec]

By your logic why are drug traffickers held accountable?

Re:Sickening

[Dan541]

not if your on Comcast

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. The equivalent analogy would be the Postal Service being held accountable for dealers sending drugs through the mail.

Re:Sickening

[lord_sarpedon]

Because drug traffickers are people, and it is easy for said people to determine that what they are selling is illegal.

There's not a a special kind of bit with "COPYRIGHTED" written on it that is easy to distinguish from the trillions of others.

I'll also point out that IsoHunt doesn't even _see_ the possibly copyrighted data.
Keeping with your silly argument for a bit...
The drug traffickers are listing themselves in the phone book, and some bright people such as yourself want to sue the publisher.

Re:Sickening

[click2005]

Drug traffickers are generally fully aware of what they're carrying and its legality. The illegal stuff being transported is also usually the only/primary material. The idea of a common carrier is that they are transporting so much stuff that it would be reasonably impossible to inspect every package.

Re:Sickening

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Do you think it hasn't been tried? Ask Comcast about what happened in New York.

Re:Sickening

[joocemann]

By your logic why are drug traffickers held accountable?

A drug trafficker actually owns and then distributes the drug.

In your analogy, a torrent site would be like you walking up to a guy on the street, asking him "you know where I can buy some weed?" and he tells you "oh.. there's a guy over there I think.. he might not be there anymore... but there's a bunch of these guys around.. umm.. maybe that guy over there possibly." while pointing. He's not moving or selling the drugs, he is referring you to them.

Furthermore, it is the not the explicit intent of these sites to aid in 'finding drugs', but rather to aid in helping people find what they ask for and relaying the information as to where it is.

Get it?

Re:Sickening

[Intrinsic]

OMG, the first post I have seen so far that has some sanity in it. Its it just me? or are more and more people so becoming stupid that can see outside of their own ideologies.. I think the issues is that there are too many people that are looking to blame others instead of take part in the responsibility of where we are today in regards to copyrighted file sharing.

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

As a resident of BC, if this petition is successful, I think i'm going to be pioneering a new way to sell drugs....

Re:Sickening

[matchlight]

I think it's closer to a phone book with "escort services" listed.

Re:Sickening

[joocemann]

So if I walk up to a guy on a street, and I ask him "where does John Smith live, I'm going to shoot him in the head with this gun", it's perfectly ok for him to tell me, and he shouldn't be held accountable for anything. Is that right?

While I would tell you that, yes, that man does not have a moral obligation to protect John Smith from you; I also think it is alarming that you bring murder of a human in analogy with potential losses of money.

life>money. You may not agree, and if so, I would pity you.

Re:Sickening

[andy_t_roo]

in general no. however, just like for drug trafficing there are specific laws writting for this situation - its called being an acessory to murder.

This is because (currently) we value a human life more than abstract entities such as money or information.

Re:Sickening

[Tim C]

While I don't know about drugs, for certain crimes that level of involvement may well get you slapped with either "aiding and abetting" or "accessory before the fact". It is generally at best legally and ethically a grey area to knowingly help someone commit a crime.

Of course the key word there is "knowingly", so no I don't think that the torrent sites et al should necessarily be prosecuted, it really depends on their individual mode of operation.

Re:Sickening

[DrScotsman]

I think it's closer to a taxi driver taking what turns out to be a terrorist to the airport.

Re:Sickening

[wrook]

Ironically, in many places paying (or charging) for sex is not illegal. It is "solicitation" that is illegal. In other words, advertising that you are charging for sex, or advertising that you are willing to pay for sex is illegal.

Which puts the phone book with "escort services" listed on somewhat shaky ground from my perspective.

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got one of those by my phone. The label on the front says "Yellow Pages".

Re:Sickening

[nstlgc]

For your allegory to make sense, I think you need to hold the airline responsible, or whatever vehicle they use to enter the country.

Re:Sickening

[houghi]

A drug trafficker actually owns and then distributes the drug.

No he doesn't. Just like UPS doesn't own the packages, most drug traffickers are just couriers.

The difference is that the drug trafficker is aware of the content, while UPS is not (or should not be) aware of the content. That is unless you clearly and honestly state that the items you are sending are illegal drugs.
That way when you send it through UPS, and they catch it, the UPS drivers will not go to jail, while somebody who hides it the goatse way, will.

Now comparing it with an ISP becomes a bit easier. An ISP will also not have the knowledge of the content of the packages. At least it should not have that knowledge.
The moment it is aware or is made aware it should indeed take appropriate action. Otherwise it is indeed guilty of providing illegal content.

Re:Sickening

[phillous]

I think its closer to a series of pointless analogies, none of which are at all useful or provide any more of an understanding that any reasonably intelligent person couldn't have gained by reading the comments that are actually about TFA

So its like a car, and you attach rockets to it.....

Re:Sickening

[ultranova]

So if I walk up to a guy on a street, and I ask him "where does John Smith live, I'm going to shoot him in the head with this gun", it's perfectly ok for him to tell me, and he shouldn't be held accountable for anything. Is that right?

Your analogy is false, as murdering John is an evil act by default, while downloading a file is not. A better analogy would be asking: "Where does John "the Fence" Smith live ? I need to deliver this packet to him."

Then again, fencing stolen loot is also usually considered morally wrong, while copyright infringement is not, so my analogy makes the whole thing seem too sinister too.

Re:Sickening

[MBGMorden]

Which puts the phone book with "escort services" listed on somewhat shaky ground from my perspective.

The idea is that you are paying for an escort - sometime to spend time with you. That's not illegal at all. And from what I've heard, some older guys (by older I mean 60+) do sometimes hire an escort just to talk to and spend time with because good escorts (as opposed to street walkers) are often college educated and very refined, as their target clientele are generally businessmen and the upper class (and their rates reflect that - the cheapest I've seen is $180 an hour and up to $600 for your non-famous type escort, though $300-350 an hour is a more common range. When you get into porn stars and the like the range jumps up to around 1200-2500 an hour).

That said, it's pretty much a given that barring an exception like I mentioned (ie, some old guy actually does want to just talk), escort service means sex. The supposedly legal loophole is that they claim that though you paid to just talk and spend time, they found you irresistible and just couldn't help themselves, so consensual sex took place. Of course, if you really do just want an escort for the evening at some function, most good escorts are more than happy to provide that too.

For the most part though, most jurisdictions simply turn a blind eye to the escort industry. The street walking area of prostitution is more heavily policed because the girls walking around, soliciting, etc, puts it in people's faces and the uptights get nervous/angry etc when they see it. The escort stuff generally happens behind closed doors, so it's generally "out of sight, out of mind".

Truthfully, I'm still not sure why is this day and age prostitution is illegal anyways. It's one of those incredibly rare things where something is legal if you give it away and illegal to sell it. My guess is that a lot of wives/girlfriends (and even husbands/boyfriends) don't want quick, guaranteed, no-strings attached and discrete sex available to their partners, but that's not really a valid reason to make a law.

Re:Sickening

[steelfood]

Which is perfectly legal where escort services are legal. And escort services are legal, because there's no requirement on the escort to actually engage in sexual activity with the patron.

There may be local laws prohibiting escort services or denying escort services certain abilities, but these may or may not be constitutional.

Re:Sickening

[YttriumOxide]

In most of the world, it's not illegal. Actually, I didn't even know it was illegal in the US until a few years ago when someone casually mentioned it. I was honestly quite shocked and brought up the exact point you made there - it's legal to "give it away", so why is it illegal to sell it? It just seems crazy to me really.

I don't have any interest in their services (I do pretty well without paying thankyouverymuch), but I do have a good friend that used to do it for a living and she's a great gal - nothing like the stereotypical "crack-whore" or whatever. Good way to make money while she was studying, and she said she actually really enjoyed the job a good 80% of the time, which is something many people can't say.

Re:Sickening

[cdrguru]

Prostitution is illegal nearly everywhere because it is clearly recognized as a situation that most women do not find themselves in voluntarily. Even if someone does decide on their own to become a prostitute, they usually find themselves in an unexpectedly abusive situation - having to turn all their money over, etc.

It rapidly gets out of control with the pimp or madam having all the power and the worker none. It also leads to a lot of other things that are pretty bad.

Why is indentured servitude illegal today? Weren't there some nice masters? Wouldn't it be better to just focus on the "bad masters" and keep the practice so there wouldn't be as many homeless and destitute people today? Same argument.

Re:Sickening

[ShieldW0lf]

why are drug traffickers held accountable?

Because they don't work for the US Government. If you don't buy your drugs from the US Government, how are they going to pay for all those black ops?

Re:Sickening

[MBGMorden]

That's an argument that is pretty much universally false, especially on the escort side of the business. Many women escort voluntarily because the money is good, and contrary to popular belief not all escorts have a "pimp" or a "madame". A large number are independents who answer their own phone and handle their own affairs. I've met several girls who were doing so to pay their way through graduate school. Even though some people think "OMG THEY WOULDNEVERDOTHISONTHEIROWN!!!!111one", for many women they don't really care. I go to work in an office and have 8 hours of time to do whatever the hell my employer tells me to do. To them it's often no different - they're paid to work for an hour or two and don't really care that they're going to have sex because they choose not to make it a moral taboo. A lot of that also stems from the fact that escorts are generally well treated by their clients. There are exceptions mind you (that will quickly land a client on blacklists that many providers share), but it's not uncommon for a client to bring gifts of wine, chocolates, lingerie, or any other type of gift (many providers even keep wishlists on their websites for such purposes).

What you describe IS more common on the street walking side of things, but even there the situation you describe is borne largely out of the fact that the activity is illegal in the first place.

Sure indentured servitude isn't illegal, but some very bright fellas came up with that idea that it would be smarter to outlaw THAT practice than to declare picking crops in general illegal and then declaring a victory over the evils of slavery.

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they're not specifically distributing (hosting) the "drug", I think it might be argued that torrent sites are "profiting" off the "drug" here... To the extent that sites like bittorrent can be said to be "profiting" at all (I don't know what their business model is, but I would presume it has something to do with the service in question here)...

Re:Sickening

[Tenebrousedge]

I would think that torrent hosting sites make most of their money off of ad revenue.

Re:Sickening

[Arterion]

My 9 to 5 is a situation that I do not find myself in voluntarily. I have to do it for the money, or starve and be homeless.

Where's my law protecting me from that?

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly I think holding ISOHunt responsible for what people look for on it is no more negligent than if google were to be held responsible for anything and everything illegal that is searched for on their site. Since in essence torrent sites are nothing more than glorified search engines that people can use. The difference being that the site allows you to search for material people are sharing from their computer instead of hosting the file over the web.

(and a note about governments and the value of life:
"The EPA's estimate of the "value of a statistical life" was $6.9m as of this May â" down from $7.8m five years ago â" according to an Associated Press study released today.")
-taken from www.ethics.org

~Joe

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you completely got the point of the analogy and didn't focus on a small point of order instead.

Re:Sickening

[Curtman]

It rapidly gets out of control with the pimp or madam having all the power and the worker none.

Much the same as it would have been for any factory worker prior to the industrial revolution when labour unions came into being.

Re:Sickening

[rkanodia]

If I may quote the late George Carlin: "Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?"

Re:Sickening

[narcberry]

My wife needs to stop advertising that I'll get some if I do the dishes. I'd hate to call her a whore or anything...

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is the website does not refer you to where the files are. It is just a search engine like google or yahoo or ask, it just looks for torrent files matching your search, it can't check that each upload doesn't violate copyrights. The uploader is responsible. Furthermore, there are many legitimate files distributed through BT, just to save the host bandwidth costs, such as unsigned artist, video, Linux distros, documents, etc.

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I walk up to a guy on a street, and I ask him "where does John Smith live, I'm going to shoot him in the head with this gun", it's perfectly ok for him to tell me, and he shouldn't be held accountable for anything. Is that right?

While I would tell you that, yes, that man does not have a moral obligation to protect John Smith from you; I also think it is alarming that you bring murder of a human in analogy with potential losses of money.

life>money. You may not agree, and if so, I would pity you.

Although it is unnecesary to bring murder into this it still doesn't change the situation being desciussed and that the murder analogy has a valid point. The man, drug deal, refferer, whatever still plays a role in the situation and should be held accountable for something at least

Re:Sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I walk up to a guy on a street, and I ask him "where does John Smith live, I'm going to shoot him in the head with this gun", it's perfectly ok for him to tell me, and he shouldn't be held accountable for anything. Is that right?

For this analogy to work, isohunt users would have to query "Where is *** file, it is copyrighted and I'm going to steal it." Furthermore, the search engine at isohunt would have to be capable of recognizing that last bit as a statement of intent, rather than simply part of the search. At this point, isohunt become aware of the intent of the user, and still chooses to supply him/her the information, despite its illegality. Only then may isohunt be considered liable for the copyright infringement.

I know I'm dreaming

[perlchild]

But I'm hoping that in trying this case, the court takes into account the media levy and clarifies the whole thing, pretty far on the side of the consumer.

Re:I know I'm dreaming

[fyoder]

But I'm hoping that in trying this case, the court takes into account the media levy and clarifies the whole thing, pretty far on the side of the consumer.

Unlikely given their current strategy. They aren't trying to justify Canadians accessing copyrighted content without fee, but rather are essentially saying to CRIA, "Hey, guys, we're on your side. Just point out any torrents pointing to copyrighted material, and we'll take them right down".

But CRIA doesn't want to do that. Perhaps they feel it would be easier to just shut down isoHunt completely, rather than having to monitor it and report every single infraction they find.

isoHunt would win this one in a rational world. They host torrents, not copyrighted material. Not all torrents point to copyrighted material, and they not only stated, but demonstrated, a willingness to remove torrents which do point to copyrighted material.

The only argument CRIA could make is that isoHunt should be responsible for policing the torrents themselves, and have been negligent in this duty.

Re:I know I'm dreaming

[srothroc]

It seems like (in my pessimistic worldview) that it's more likely that the whole plan will backfire and that the courts will rule that torrent distribution sites such as isohunt (I mean, their name implies the a search for ISOs, and I'll be that the large number of ISOs available on that site are illegal) exist solely to facilitate the illegal sharing of copyrighted files through legal methods.

It seems like, to me, a newspaper is allowing drug dealers to take out classified ads (legal) and those dealers drive cars safely (legal) to legal parking spaces where they are legally allowed to congregate to pursue an illegal transaction.

I know the analogy isn't spot-on, but the fact of the matter is, a large number of those torrent sites specialize in providing copyrighted content.

Re:I know I'm dreaming

[AigariusDebian]

IsoHunt has no way of knowing if:
1) the torrent contains what it says on the box
2) if the files in question are protected by copyright
3) if the holders of the copyright object to such distribution.

Only if all 3 of the above is true, the distribution of the files in the torrent might be considered illegal (and only by a court).

IsoHunt has no legal basis to determine any of the above. The copyright holders must monitor the files and notify IsoHunt of any discovered torrents with potentially infringing material.

They need to provide:
1) proof of content (actual content of the files in the torrent)
2) proof of copyright (papers that show that they are the copyright holders or their representatives in this case)
3) takedown notice (in writing)

After that is delivered (on paper, with proper signatures, via snail main), IsoHunt can take down the torrent as soon as possible. Due to limited staff time that might take up to two weeks. :)

Re:I know I'm dreaming

[Anonymous Coward]

You make a good point. We should all just go around posting people's private information, copyrighted content and kiddie porn, then waiting for the courts to get US, rather than using law-abiding citizenry common sense and not posting it in the first place. After all, it's not like when you post stuff on the internet, the damage has already been done.

Re:I know I'm dreaming

[YttriumOxide]

It seems like, to me, a newspaper is allowing drug dealers to take out classified ads (legal) and those dealers drive cars safely (legal) to legal parking spaces where they are legally allowed to congregate to pursue an illegal transaction.

I agree that that's a lot what it's like, and I see no problem with that.
Out of interest, have you ever tried placing an ad in your local newspaper to sell drugs? Most papers would be quite happy to let you (well, in every place I've lived - maybe the US is different). Of course, if you do so, you should probably expect calls from the cops, but in your example, I see nothing wrong with the placing of the ad, the driving of the vehicles, or the congregating in public places. All of those things are just as legal for a drug dealer to do as they are for anyone else.

It seems like (in my pessimistic worldview) that it's more likely that the whole plan will backfire and that the courts will rule that torrent distribution sites such as isohunt (I mean, their name implies the a search for ISOs, and I'll be that the large number of ISOs available on that site are illegal) exist solely to facilitate the illegal sharing of copyrighted files through legal methods.

I download a lot of stuff, both things I "am allowed to" and things I "am not allowed to". Thinking about it, I don't really download a great deal of ISOs, but the ones I do tend to be legal (Linux distros and so on). Now, if we're talking video and audio formats, THAT'S a different story.
(although, it still shouldn't be enough "evidence" to cause a problem for them - I could start a company called "Door to Door Heroin", and as long as I don't actually engage in illegal activities like selling heroin, there's nothing illegal about it)

What victory are they after?

[narcberry]

What are they trying to win? They afraid the courts are going to take away all their monopoly money one day?

I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[martinw89]

I noticed they kind of act as though they represent the entire BitTorrent user base. I hope this doesn't cause more harm than good. On installing BitTorrent on a friend's computer, he asked "Is this legal"? My college's anti-getting-their-ass-sued-by-the-RIAA propaganda has already melted the minds of a lot of people around here to thinking that any kind of file sharing, regardless of content, is illegal. I hope this turns out well and doesn't backfire.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[Anonymous Coward]

My college's anti-getting-their-ass-sued-by-the-RIAA propaganda has already melted the minds of a lot of people around here to thinking that any kind of file sharing, regardless of content, is illegal.

Agreed. As a new college freshman, I've met plenty of people who had BitTorrent on their computer and deleted it as to avoid any lawsuits. I figure keeping a copy of Transmission on-hand is fine so long as I don't go downloading illegal stuff.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[plasmacutter]

My college's anti-getting-their-ass-sued-by-the-RIAA propaganda has already melted the minds of a lot of people around here to thinking that any kind of file sharing, regardless of content, is illegal.

Agreed. As a new college freshman, I've met plenty of people who had BitTorrent on their computer and deleted it as to avoid any lawsuits. I figure keeping a copy of Transmission on-hand is fine so long as I don't go downloading illegal stuff.

wow, you didn't educate them?

This is how ignorance leads to government license to criminalize things (as in cold hard time)

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[Anonymous Coward]

My college's anti-getting-their-ass-sued-by-the-RIAA propaganda has already melted the minds of a lot of people around here to thinking that any kind of file sharing, regardless of content, is illegal

And you have discovered the real reason behind the ??AA propaganda efforts.

You get people thinking that P2P (and mp3 file rmats) is illegal, and you create a belief that only physical media is legal. This means that your media is "legal", and new artists still need you to promote themselves.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[Anonymous Coward]

I never said that. I did, in fact, educate them.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[plasmacutter]

I never said that. I did, in fact, educate them.

ah, I stand corrected then.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Why were you installing BitTorrent on a client who didn't even know what it was?

I don't imagine he asked you to "show me how to download music", then questioned the legalities after you mentioned BitTorrent which seems more ironic than anything else.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[martinw89]

As someone in a similar situation, there's only so much I can do. I'm one geek, and because of this, some people assume I'm just swapping files all day.

The school, on the other hand, has really ramped up it's anti file sharing campaign this semester. In the science library, one of the rotating messages on the screen is "ILLEGAL ACTIVITY IN THE LIBRARY - Sharing files illegally is not allowed in the library or anywhere on campus!!". This is only so-so bad by itself. It gets worse though. They now scan all of our traffic in any publicly accessible campus location. They had been doing this in the dorms for a little while now, but scanning ALL traffic only started this semester. But wait, it gets even worse. There are these metal signs in common outside WiFi spots that show "MONITORED" and symbols for a laptop, a phone, and some other wifi device (can't remember which one).

It may sound like I am making this up. I absolutely am not. My school is on the farther end of the "We love you RIAA!!!" spectrum. Needless to say, I have an SSH tunnel ready the second I leave my off-campus apartment. I wish more people would do the same.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[martinw89]

He wanted to try Ubuntu, I didn't want to suck up a donor server's bandwidth.

You're probably trolling but I forgot to clear that up in my original post anyway, so thanks for letting me clarify =)

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[Z34107]

wow, you didn't educate them?

I work for tech support at the college I attend, and they hate bittorrent and most P2P stuff. Through some special "deal", they only have a 20Mb/s symmetrical line for the entire campus.

So, they have extensive bandwidth rationing and quotas. Every MAC address must be registered to its owner - unknown MAC addresses are assigned an IP in a special subnet, and get redirected to a registration form. Machines registered to students are capped at 113KB/s (they probably decided everyone would get an even 1000Kb/s.)

So, amongst other things, my college has banned P2P. They figure: A) 99% of the time it's copyright infringement, but more importantly B) it eats the bandwidth that's barely adequate for web surfing to begin with. Even with every student capped at comcastic speeds, a few of them running a torrent client (and using their cap) 24/7 means less bandwidth for lab machines (and faculty.)

If the IT people go over the bandwidth logs and find some bandwidth sink, and that bandwidth sink is making hundreds of simultaneous connections to random IPs on different ports, they're cut off. The student in question has to ask nicely and fill out an apology form to get their room's ethernet jack turned back on. I guess it makes sense, but it's a pain in the but from my point of view. (I want to watch cartoons!)

So, the relevant part of my post: At my college, bittorrent is deleted (or gets deleted by the guys staffing the help desk if the students who are too dumb to fill out a web form have us do it for them) as a preventive measure. They bought too little bandwidth, and the powers that be can't be moved to change it, so no file sharing regardless of content. It's not really an "education" thing at my campus, at least - although that couldn't hurt. (One chick couldn't fathom that A) downloading copyright music is, for better or for worse, illegal and B) that there were other ways to listen to music. Like CDs, or online stores, or internet radio, or something.)

I guess ignorance works both ways: "OMG I have to delete it 'cuz its illegal for anything!" versus "The powers that be gave you dial-up, so be thankful" versus "Huh? Nobody got paid for that terabyte of music I got from limewire?"

Now, a school my friends go to (a public university, even!) have wired all of the dorms and most of the buildings with gigabit ethernet. Their idea of bandwidth saving is "share all the files you want locally; just don't tell anyone." But, most of the buildings on my campus are lucky to even be cat5 - it's a pain to work in the buildings that still have cat3. Some are rumored to have (long-darkened) coax. But, for your computer, not for the TV. Some old guy mumbling about BNCs and whatnot...

I guess the point of my rambling is that where I attend school, there's the same stuff happening - no P2P, remove your clients! - but from a "scarce commodity" standpoint rather than a "legal ignorance" thing. (Although there's plenty of that, too.)

Wish us luck!

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[Anonymous Coward]

For every person who falsely believes P2P itself is illegal, there are at least 3 others who falsely believe that "if it's on the internet to download, it must be legal" without even giving a thought about why other people would choose to pay for it (they must be stoopid!). I hope you're educating these people, too. I wouldn't want to think you're advocating piracy or anything like that.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[supernova_hq]

Wow, sucks to be you buddy!

Here are BCIT, the only time they ever worry about monitoring is for virus detection (they virus-scan the user folders) and SERIOUS illegal stuff (packet sniffing, internal attacks, DOS, etc.

Actually, if you read the "how to connect to the internet at BCIT, they actually RECOMMEND that you use a VPN connection when using the open wifi (we have an open network, and an WPA2 network).

Then again, this isn't too surprising considering this is both in Canada and from a college that specializes in teaching students how to detect, deal with and even cause these types of traffic.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[supernova_hq]

Wow, I sometimes forget how nice it is to go to a major tech college (BCIT), we have dedicated fiber to and between each campus and I have never seen the speed drop below 500Mb/s. In fact, if you stay there late (1-2am, yes, it happens), you can get upwards of 2-3MB/s (yes, Bytes, not bits)!

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[nbert]

Sharing files illegally is not allowed in the library or anywhere on campus!!

Somehow this makes me wonder which illegal activities are allowed on campus. I mean the statement is either redundant or it implies that certain illegal actions will be tolerated.

If you didn't paraphrase it might be fun to ask them ;)

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[melikamp]

It may sound like I am making this up.

Sure it does. May be it's because you omitted the name of your school.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[steelfood]

Granted, you are only one person, but you should do what you can to help others understand the actual situation. File-sharing isn't illegal, only the sharing of copyrighted works is illegal (and not a criminal act but a tort for that matter). You might also want to give people who are interested instructions on how to get around the school's restrictions. Obviously, you should prevent the instructions from being traceable back to you (print them out at home, carry them in a backpack, and put them in bathrooms or something).

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more damage

[martinw89]

University of Florida. We are also the birth place of Icarus, a technology now used on other campuses to look for file sharing.

The law has it all wrong.

[suck_burners_rice]

The laws on all this cyber stuff are totally wrong. It should be stated quite simply in the law that:

If you provide a service, such as a communication service, a file transfer service, a web-based service, or any kind of Internet-based service, and someone else who is using that service is doing something illegal or something they shouldn't be doing, then that someone else should be liable and you should NOT.

Think of it this way. You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone speeding along those roads gets in an accident and kills someone. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!

Another example: You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone is transporting illegal drugs around in a vehicle, using your roads and freeways to do so. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!

So why should a service that is based on the Internet be any different? Why should those providing the infrastructure be liable for bad things people do with that infrastructure? If infrastructure-providers were supposed to be liable because they somehow facilitate something bad, then why don't we go back to being cave-men, because anything and everything that we have in the world can be used for some bad purpose.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[harlows_monkeys]

Another example: You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone is transporting illegal drugs around in a vehicle, using your roads and freeways to do so. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!

How about this? You build a road. You brag about how convenient your road is for transporting illegal drugs. You take steps to make it so the police will have trouble catching drug transporters on your road. Shouldn't you bear some of the responsibility for drug transport on your road?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then it seems that the drugs bought from the bootlegger come without the extra ingredients that prevent you from enjoying them at your leisure and you thank the owner of the road for bringing you high quality produce without the downsides.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[plasmacutter]

Another example: You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone is transporting illegal drugs around in a vehicle, using your roads and freeways to do so. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!

How about this? You build a road. You brag about how convenient your road is for transporting illegal drugs. You take steps to make it so the police will have trouble catching drug transporters on your road. Shouldn't you bear some of the responsibility for drug transport on your road?

how about a counterexample to your heavily loaded example:

you build a road, you place a checkpoint every 5 paces at which a dea agent takes the car apart piece by piece searching for drugs, strip searches all occupants regardless of age in full public view, and reserve the right to take your car to the crusher on the mere accusations of anyone on the road (good luck getting away with that obama bumper sticker if it's in georgia).

oh yeah.. that's how the law is today.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[kesuki]

since when does isohunt brag about providing illegal, copyrighted works on it?

try "linux" http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=linux wow i didn't know a version of linux had had over 10,000 seeders (parsix, linux by name)

okay not a fan of formatting and installing, how about a vmware appliance http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=vmware+appliance

yeah, isohunt suggests that you get full iso images, but what full iso images? of copyrighted contet? or of gnu linux isos?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you think the CIA should be held responsible for their numerous activities in this area? Citation needed? Just Google, should get a 100k or more results. Must say I would agree on this one example.

No tool should take the blame for its user's misuse of it though. Even people with good sense misapply reasoning, take for example Sir David King, hopefully his fellow Brit's will give him a proper roasting over him suggesting that everything should be dropped and all the nations great minds and research funds be turned to solving global warming.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

"You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone is transporting illegal drugs around in a vehicle, using your roads and freeways to do so. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!"

Congratulations, you just described and infrastructure provider. Or more relevantly, in this case, an ISP.

Now consider this. You are a company who sells a map of all of the best places to get illegal drugs, and who to ask for them. This is more accurately isoHunt, since they are simply a directory. They don't transfer any files, they offer very little to no infrastructure to enable the transfer. The freeways aren't theirs, but the map sure is.

Note: To pre-emptively clarify why I said "sells" the map, consider Advertising Revenue.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[SpeedyDX]

Poor example. The State has a responsibility and a duty to maintain the safety of roads and freeways. If they do not do so (i.e., people rampantly exceeding speeding laws and the State not enforcing said laws), then the State is endangering the lives of its citizens. Anyone who gets hurt as a result of such speeding may, depending on the legal system, sue the State for damages. It is the speeders fault for speeding, but the State also has a duty to monitor and enforce speeding laws. If we were to apply that to your argument, it would have the opposite effect that you were intending. The tracker would be responsible for filtering and monitoring the content, or anyone who gets harmed (e.g., copyright holders who do not give consent to distribution) may hold the tracker liable.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

Go the web site. Look at the list on the right labeled "top searches". At the moment, it reads:

      1. axxo
      2. fxg
      3. spore
      4. the dark knight
      5. iron man
      6. prison break
      7. bangkok dangerous
      8. psp
      9. tropic thunder
    10. stargate atlantis
    11. pineapple express
    12. pc games
    13. mamma mia
    14. 2008
    15. metallica
    16. disaster movie
    17. death race
    18. wanted
    19. french
    20. mummy tomb dragon emperor

The first two items, Axxo and FXG, are DVD rippers who distribute copyrighted content. The next 14 out of 18 are direct searches for copyrighted content. Linux ISOs don't even make the top 20. By the way, each one of those links goes to torrents that are obviously holding copyrighted content (unless "cam rip" has some new meaning I'm not aware of).

According to the site itself, its main purpose is helping people violate copyrights. The only way its owners can be unaware of this is if they've never visited their own homepage. Now really, I don't care if you engage in filesharing, but don't you think claiming ignorance is a little ridiculous here? Clicking on their most searched-for item gives you a list of *nothing but copyrighted content*!

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Tuoqui]

The thing is the government doesn't limit the people who can use the roads or freeways. They treat a motorcycle carrying 1 person the same as a transport truck carrying 50+ tons of goods. This is 'Common Carrier' status. However, if the government suddenly decided to start filtering who can go on the roads, say only motorcycles between 3 pm and 6pm. They'll have already made the commitment to check traffic going through their roads and freeways and thus responsible for anything that goes through their roads/freeways.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[plasmacutter]

They treat a motorcycle carrying 1 person the same as a transport truck carrying 50+ tons of goods.

someone's never seen the diamond lanes

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Thanks for the analogy. Now it's a simple matter of seeing who's is more appropriate for the current situation.

And the winner is... the GP! He correctly identified that the target was not the ISPs, but in fact bittorrent and other P2P sharing software, and the things he mentioned were analogous to real life actions performed by companies behind certain P2P sharing software (e.g. bragging = advertising). All in all, it was a splendid analogy, and was only loaded because, well, some companies decided to load themselves that way.

As for your analogy, besides being wildly mis-aimed at the legal system in general, is also wildly inaccurate. In fact, so general was your attack, it's even a little hard to tell if this is analogy, or just a plain prophecy. Try again next week!

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it this way. You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone speeding along those roads gets in an accident and kills someone. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!

Another example: You are a state. You build roads and freeways. Someone is transporting illegal drugs around in a vehicle, using your roads and freeways to do so. Is it your fault or theirs? Theirs!

Dude, that's a wrong analogy...

You forgot... internet is a series of tubes!!! Not roads or freeways!!!

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

"www.thepiratebay.org" has some pretty strong connotations if you ask me. "Interstate-95", not so much.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[johndmartiniii]

Sorry, I couldn't hear you. Mama Mia was on really loud.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Intrinsic]

Your talking about corporations, not people. A company or a corporation is not a person. Making a copy of something and sharing freely hurts nobody accept possible's someones pocket book. If I had to choose between someone sharing a file and someone not sharing a file, as a person, im going to choose the former. Copyright infringement is not more fundamental that freedom of choice to do with what you have in your possession as you will. If you put something out expect that its not going to be used as intended. If you want someone not to use what you have made, dont share it with the world, lock yourself in a room and create all the works you want and keep it to yourself. See how much good that does you.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Intrinsic]

Golly, I guess that wouldn't be happening if the content industry hadn't stuck their head in the sand and said "This is not happening, digital distribution is an illusion". IF the content industry got off their asses when this started happening and created a digital content distribution system that made it inexpensive and easy for people to purchase content copyrighted file sharing would have never gotten as big as it is now. The content industry needs to take responsibility for their own inaction and the fact that their unwillingness to act IS part of the problem, instead of blaming everyone else for their own stupidity.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[moniker127]

Look, we all know that bittorrent is commonly used for copyright infringement. But that does not mean that it should be illegal. Bittorrent / bittorrent sites are just the delivery method.
To use an analogy:
If someone speeds down the street in a corvette, what should you (the law enforcement) go after? The driver? Take away their license? The car? Make fast cars illegal? The street? Make streets illegal because people speed on them?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[freakdiablo]

You forgot the shout box, people are openly asking for links to copyrighted files, if copyrighted torrents are legit, etc.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[rea1l1]

There are plenty of legal reasons one would search for the names of copyrighted material. For movies there are previews, for software there are demos.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

Look at the search results. That's not what the overwhelming majority of that site's users are doing.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Intrinsic]

I'm playing "Cry me a river" on my violin right now.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

I don't really care what the content industry does. I don't really care who shares what, either. What does bother me is two things. The first is that people try to claim some sort of moral high ground for downloading DVD rips. The second is that they use such shallow, hypocritical, and transparent excuses to justify it.

Content industry's evil? Then why are you making their product more popular? Why not just not spread it at all? Don't like DRM? Why help push it into existence? Want to support indie artists? Why not make more room for them in the torrent search results?

And then come the excuses. "What about people downloading Linux ISOs?". Yeah, I'm sure there are *tons* of people downloading Linux ISOs 24/7/365, because *none* of those distributions have auto-updating package managers. "The tracker search sites don't know what people are downloading!". And since they have no idea, they can't possibly organize the torrents into categories, right? Besides, who would actually, you know, *look* at their own web site? "How dare they cap my bandwidth, they advertised unlimited usage!". Except that no resource is unlimited in practice, and a site full of IT people suggesting ISPs design their networks for 24/7/365 full-throttle illegal usage is laughable. "File-sharing increases sales for content-producers!". Do you really think iTMS would ever have gotten off the ground if Napster had spent the last decade alive and at full strength?

File-sharers will argue every technicality to their last breath, but the moment someone else does so, it's pure evil. What if a company wants to spread your medical records around? Aren't those just "imaginary property"? Why should you get a say in what happens to those bits? What about Russian crackers stealing credit card numbers? Where are the cries of "that's not stealing, nothing was physically lost"? There's no consistency, no compromise, just selfishness. Anyone who can tell their ass from a hole in the ground can see that this silly file-sharing "movement" is really about getting as much free stuff as possible. I'm sick of hearing about it. Bring back the Slashdot that was really about tech news, not ridiculous crusades and libertarian frippery.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this? You build a road. You brag about how convenient your road is for transporting illegal drugs. You take steps to make it so the police will have trouble catching drug transporters on your road. Shouldn't you bear some of the responsibility for drug transport on your road?

Where have bittorrent's makers ever bragged about its capabilities to pirate? They built a tool, and pirates chose to use it (and modify it). Your analogy should be:

You build a road. Drug runners start using your road and bragging how awesome it is. Private citizens put up road blocks to stop the drug running but block all other uses as well. You tear down the roadblocks and put a fence up on side of road to prevent vandalism.

Your notion is that the road should be torn down. If drug runners move to another road we should tear that down too, until there's no roads left.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Intrinsic]

Its selfish to have any expectation of return when you create something that the world finds valuable. your fans, or people who value your work get to decide how its going to be valuable to them, and they do that with their actions. If you are someone that cares about the interests of others, and that shows though your work and how you present that work then people will likely feel a desire to compensate you. But when you expect something in return, without trusting people to make that determination themselves, you end up pissing people off and forcing them to act against you. all Im saying that content holders need to take some responsibility for people copying their works. I dont think thats much to ask. And when you go around blaming other people because you are loosing money, its that just makes people more likely to fuck with you even more. There is a reason why people do what they do. When you look at the reasons behind it you will find that it takes two to tango.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[arkhan_jg]

How do you know for sure they're searching for industry copyrighted content? Plug those same searches (except the first two) into google, and you'll get a whole bunch of material - still copyrighted - but put up by people who want to publish it for free viewing. PSP, pc games and 2008 are pretty generic!

There are two types of copyright infringement offences, the first is direct infringement. Bittorrent trackers and tracker search engines do not directly infringe copyright, as they do not host that actual material. They only potentially break the 2nd type, such as vicarious and contributory infringement in the US, where they actively and knowingly help others infringe copyright. Do such offences exist in Canada?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, by your logic, because Glock sells handguns which eventually end up in the hands of crackheads who like to commit armed robbery, Glock somehow has some kind of culpability?

What you're missing is that isoHunt's top searches are WHAT THE PUBLIC IS SEARCHING FOR, nothing more, nothing less. Don't you think isoHunt would prefer having open-licensed stuff as the top searches? Don't you think Glock would prefer that gang-bangers don't shoot innocent bystanders using their products?

Same idea.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

But when you expect something in return, without trusting people to make that determination themselves, you end up pissing people off and forcing them to act against you.

Again, these sorts of arguments apply to far more than IP. The way any sort of trade or barter works is that the buyer and seller both have prices they're willing to pay. If they can agree on a price, they trade, otherwise, they walk away. Those are the valid choices. Following your logic, every paycheck on Earth should be optional. If you're saying you want pure socialism, that's okay, but you should say so up front.

How exactly are media companies "forcing" people to do anything? If you think the transaction is unfair, then *don't participate*. Content holders have zero responsibility for downloaders' actions. Could they have taken other courses of action that might have resulted in less file sharing? Probably. Were they obligated to offer services on your terms at your price? No.

Your argument might work in situations where vital goods and services are at stake -- if someone price gouges while selling water during a natural disaster, for instance. But it doesn't work here. Content providers are offering luxury goods. Nobody needs pop music or Hollywood movies.

When you decide to "fuck with" someone just to satisfy yourself, you have abandoned all claims to victimhood. Again, this is my complaint -- I don't care what you do, but how you justify it. There's nothing justified about being a jerk just because you don't like how somebody deals.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

No, that's not all it is. They organize the torrents into categories. They also let users post torrents. And finally, they have a choice of which trackers they index. They have some legitimate trackers and some that are specifically for certain kinds of illegitimate content (e.g. XBox games). The site does not work in a purely algorithmic way. It's not spidering or accepting arbitrary tags. There is human decision-making behind what shows up in those search results. And again, even if they were totally innocent and only wanted legitimate content, wouldn't the fact that 95% of their traffic is completely illegitimate be an obvious sign of complete failure?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Intrinsic]

Yes that's what i am saying upfront, if socialism works better than what we have now, that being capitalism then that's the way we should go. People are more important than capital. I don't feel like this is a justification. Just the facts. in the situation of digital distribution, the power is in the hands of everyone. So people that want to sell something are at the mercy of the people that use the system to fit their needs, not the other way around. There is no bargain. You say, "here is what I have to offer", and then the person on the other end can decide on if they feel what you are asking is worth it. If not, they have the power to not go along with what you are asking. nobody controls the how information is distributed on the net, you can try and make a claim that you do, but the results are the proving that its opposite.

and as far as IP goes, that's another illusion. Intellect and property don't go together. intellect should be shared by all, not claimed as some stupid idea that you think you own your own thoughts. You communicate with people, they are entitled to build on it or use ideas and thoughts as they see fit..

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

How do you know for sure they're searching for industry copyrighted content?

Because I'm not a complete moron? I have a BT client too, and I do know how to use torrent trackers, thank you very much. Remember, their *top two searches* are for groups that only distribute copyrighted content. Also, you're welcome to click on the links yourself and see what comes up. You can sort by number of leechers to see what people are actually downloading (hint: it's full-length movies). I'm not just making this up, you know.

I don't care whether it's illegal or whether they can get off on a technicality. Just admit that a technicality is all that it is.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Intrinsic]

I just wanted to add, that if you dont like the way the internet works, where people are free to use information that is distrubited on the net as they see fit. You are free to not use the internet to sell your works, if you feel that people are not going to purchase what you have to offer. Nobody is forcing you to use a system that doesn't give you control over your product.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

Yes, it is about free stuff. Why did you need (note: *need*) to go to the effort to watch Ironman without paying? Oh wait, you didn't. And what's to say that someone who has my medical records is going to use them for identity theft? What if they just use them for advertising purposes?

If you want to talk about an interconnected world, then file sharing and the security of your medical records do boil down to the same thing -- the rule of law. You can't demand that other people obey laws that protect you if you're not willing to obey laws that protect them, no matter what trivial inconvenience it creates for you. If you don't like the laws, we have processes for changing them. Those processes do not include "getting their stuff anyway just because I feel like it".

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

Oh, okay. If you're advocating socialism then that's a whole different matter. I don't have enough information to know whether I agree with you or not, but it's at least consistent.

I think some form of IP is necessary in a capitalist system, not for media, but for research and development. For example, there's a company called ARM that designs CPUs (you may have heard of them, they're really popular in the embedded space). They don't manufacture anything -- they license their designs to other companies, who then incorporate them into microcontrollers. This works because designing high-end CPUs is a very difficult and expensive thing to do, and many companies would rather not bother with it (at least not all the time). It's nice to be able to have a company like ARM, but without IP it's completely impossible -- nobody would pay them.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Splab]

Didn't you just commit copyright infringement by copying their top search list?

Also, any content is copyrighted, it makes no sense to talk about them providing links to copyrighted content since any search engine is doing that. While I do agree with you, in that isoHunt can't claim ignorance you should be very very careful about the terms used when talking about copyright infringement.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Intrinsic]

I think some form of IP is necessary in a capitalist system, not for media, but for research and development. For example, there's a company called ARM that designs CPUs (you may have heard of them, they're really popular in the embedded space). They don't manufacture anything -- they license their designs to other companies, who then incorporate them into microcontrollers. This works because designing high-end CPUs is a very difficult and expensive thing to do, and many companies would rather not bother with it (at least not all the time). It's nice to be able to have a company like ARM, but without IP it's completely impossible -- nobody would pay them.

It would be great if we applied IP to only people that are greedy. It would be fine to force people that dont know how to share/compensate to force them to share/compensate. Most Corporations have no comprehension of social responsibility so they fall under this category more than people do I think. People need to learn how to be human beings regardless if you are working for yourself or you are a apart of a large entity that makes products. Thats what this all this is about IMHO. If we had more people in this country that looked at all of the human beings in this world and all the things that human beings create as sacred, or valuable to all we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Being able to appreciate life for what it is, and not what kind of gain you can obtain from it is what unities people to help each other and we really need more of that in this world now, more than ever.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would agree on your principles wholehartedly. The problems are:

1) ISPs are throttling all BitTorrent traffic unequivocally. So if you are downloading from a legal content only tracker, the ISP discriminates the activity as it would from trackers focusing on illegal/warez content.

2) There are a lot more people working from home. I worked in Tech Support 10 years ago for ISPs. When hi-speed came out, many professional users *wanted* to pay more for the commercial service. Faster speed and better service. The cable and telcos wouldn't let you buy it for a residential property.

The thing was and is more likely today - between Day Traders, Engineers with CAD drawings, Photographers, Grapx Designers, etc those working at home or for a small business - people that help the economy going, might be prevented from doing their work. Are we going to force more people to drive to the office?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, get a grip.

Surely DRM is wrong so that's why someone decides to rip the movie or music. I don't want to go through the hassle of the ripping, so I just download the movie or MP3. It's just so much more convenient.

There's also the issue of distribution. Why do I get movies in theatres only almost a year after the U.S. guys can buy them on DVD's? That's not exactly fair is it? So I just go to my ol' faithful torrent-search website and find it and watch it.

To counter the argument that I would have done so anyway: do you know Steam? You know, world-wide distribution, works like a charm (although slightly heavy on resources), and everyone can get the same game at the same time. You can download anytime you want! Now that's convenience! And I pay for it! I really like it. It's content WHEN I want, where I want it, namely NOW and HERE.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[stephanruby]

Go the web site. Look at the list on the right labeled "top searches". At the moment, it reads:

Come on. This is a fully automated listing. Should they have a fully *moderated* listing? Human moderation usually increases liability, not decrease it. Time and again, lawyers have told me not to moderate my own forums/chat rooms unless I receive specific requests/notice to take action (otherwise I would be required to moderate them 24/7). If a web site owner/carrier ignores common sense, it is certainly because the law protects the purposefully ignorant owner/carrier.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

on't like DRM? Why help push it into existence?

That reason is fairly obvious: If DRM never works, there's no point in them using it. And gee golly gosh, now we're seeing music sites dropping it. It's funny what an expression of demand can cause.

And then come the excuses. "What about people downloading Linux ISOs?". Yeah, I'm sure there are *tons* of people downloading Linux ISOs 24/7/365, because *none* of those distributions have auto-updating package managers.

I've seen quite a few legit torrents, Linux and otherwise. It's a great way to send >1 gig files. I just purchased Modo today, for example, and I recieved a BT link to over a gig of training videos for it. When Buck Bunny, the Blender-made movie came out, you could not only download the huge-ass HD video, but you could also download all their content to play with. BT has plenty of legit uses and it's growing.

"How dare they cap my bandwidth, they advertised unlimited usage!". Except that no resource is unlimited in practice, and a site full of IT people suggesting ISPs design their networks for 24/7/365 full-throttle illegal usage is laughable.

So, in other words, they should never have used the word 'unlimited', right? Incidentally, it's not like 'illegal' usage is going to bog the network down more than 'legal' usage. Thanks to streaming video, there's lots of ways to spend lots of bandwidth. Heck, ask anybody with an XBOX 360. They oversold their capacity, that's not the pirates' fault.

"File-sharing increases sales for content-producers!". Do you really think iTMS would ever have gotten off the ground if Napster had spent the last decade alive and at full strength?

How do you think iTunes ever got off the ground? Haven't you ever wondered what made the music industry stop and say "Hmm.. maybe we should give this digital music thing a try?" Well, let me put it this way: They looooooooooved selling CDs. Albums, mind you. They loved charging everybody ~$20 for ~10 crappy songs. Then, one day, millions of people are downloading, ripping, and otherwise getting music onto their computers and eventually their MP3 players. But here's the funny thing, they're not really tightwads. $400 for an iPod, fill'er up.

You're asking how long iTunes would have been around when Napster was at 'full strength'. I have a counter-question: How long would it have taken for iTunes to get off the ground if Napster had never been around to show the world that a huge market existed?

"What if a company wants to spread your medical records around? Aren't those just "imaginary property"?"

What if I download an MP3 file and it stops a full-scale alien invasion? We can invent lots of scenarios, but let's try to keep it on Earth. My medical records going around can actually do me harm. I'd rather not let my enemies know that I'm allergic to peanuts. ;)

Where are the cries of "that's not stealing, nothing was physically lost"?

I think an emptying of a bank account would classify as 'physically lost'. In the case of music or movie downloads, the worst case scenario is the potential non-sale. The big question is how is that potential really turning out? GTA4 was a VERY highly anticipated game. Everybody was waiting for it. Arguably, a significant chunk of the XBOX 360 and PS3 populace would know how to download a torrent and burn it. The game was leaked a week before release. It made $500 million dollars. Fascinating. The RIAA claimed that a billion songs a month were flying around the internet without authorization, the implication being that a ridiculous amount of people were busy avoiding spending money on music. Profits are up over the years. Weird. Why is that happening?

Anyone who can tell their ass from a hole in the ground can see that this sil

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Ash Vince]

Go the web site. Look at the list on the right labeled "top searches".

I am sure if you looked at googles top searches you would find porn came out very highly, but nobody actually thinks google are pornographers. All isohunt do is spider for bittorrent trackers then query them for results. If you closed down all the trackers that specialise in pirate content, then isohunt would not show you pirated content.

While your point may have been valid if we were talking about many other torrent sites, a torrent search engine can hardly be found liable for content that an automated search finds while trawling the web. If it could be held liable, all the web search engines we rely on would be required to filter their results for copyrighted content. I could see google image search being held liable for any copyrighted images it returned under the same law. While google MAY be able to come up with a technical solution to this, a great many other search engines would not and would be forced out of business.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[kesuki]

okay, so the top 20 are all copyrighted content, did you bother to check if they're in google's search database too? spore
the dark night

i'd keep going but wow the top 20 all show up on google, with the 'filetype:torrent' prefix, so why isn't google in court for having a 'filetype:torrent' feature which clearly makes searching for torrents with google so much easier? after all your argument is that torrents are primarily for illegal downloaders, shouldn't every search engine that finds torrents be affected?

iso hunt is a search engine, their problem? they only do torrents.

why are people going after the search engines, and not the torrent trackers or the torrent seeders? oh wait, they tried going after the 'seeders' and failed miserably in every appearance in court.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[KGIII]

Or the signs expressly forbidding certain types of vehicles on certain roads. (Like you can't take trucks over a certain size on some residential roads and you can't take your bike or moped down the freeway.)

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[zippthorne]

Your argument might work in situations where vital goods and services are at stake -- if someone price gouges while selling water during a natural disaster, for instance.

No, not even then. There's really no such thing as "price gouging." Since what happens if the vendor fails to raise the price of water is either shortage due to hoarding, or the price rises anyway through grey-market resale of hoarded water.

The price that maximizes profit is not gouging. It's efficiency. Any other price also cannot be gouging, either, by definition.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[zippthorne]

Neither of those vehicles can use the diamond lanes.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[cliffski]

"Its selfish to have any expectation of return when you create something that the world finds valuable"

congratulations, the most laughable crap I have ever read on this site this decade.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[cliffski]

such things are easily found ion legal sites with the blessing of the copyright holder. Don't kid yourself people go to isohunt to download a PDF of a movie review using bit-torrent.

The defence of this stuff is laughable.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[cliffski]

so you are saying that none of the products sold through steam are found on isohunt?
hahahahahahahaha

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[skeeto]

The first is that people try to claim some sort of moral high ground for downloading DVD rips.

Remember that the law has no bearing in morals or ethics. Laws artificially provide consequences for certain actions, which helps to either encourage or discourage those actions (not that this is a bad thing). Copyright law (supposedly and ideally) encourages authors and artists to write and create by offering incentives (a monopoly on their works), and discourages people temporarily from copying these works (well, it's supposed to be temporary!) with penalties, like fines, etc. The law isn't about right and wrong in any sense.

Considering that, in the US anyway, copyright law - whose original purpose was ultimately to serve the public by encouraging authors to write and add to the culture's public domain - has been twisted around largely in favor of publishers. There is no end in sight for copyright terms, which now extend more than a lifetime. But copyright is defined by the constitution as being temporary. In its current form it is unjust and should be generally be ignored.

The ethical decision involved is in participation: by not paying for movies we are not assisting in their production. "Freeloading". If no one participates, nothing will be produced. However, file sharers tend to be the biggest spenders (and also consider that the 12-year-old file-sharers don't have money anyway and are unable to participate), it seems that file-sharers are in fact participating, more than other readers/viewers/listeners. The music and movie industry are in no danger of bankruptcy either. In the end, it seems that file-sharing helps publishers more than hurts them.

Also consider that these are different times than they were over 10 to 15 years ago. We live in the information age, where anyone can trivially duplicate, create, and transmit large amounts information all over the planet in milliseconds. The old models of monolithic distributors are becoming the buggy whip. New business models need to (and are) emerge to take this into account. Laws need to change to adjust to our new technology. To not take advantage of our technology would be foolish. It would be like outlawing cars because it hurts the horse salesmen's pockets.

Copyright wasn't something a normal person had to think about. In the copyright compromise, the public gave up a right they were unable to practice. Today, we all have our own personal printing presses, and normal people now live against the law. (Paraphrasing Lessig) This is corrosive and corruptive.

"How dare they cap my bandwidth, they advertised unlimited usage!". Except that no resource is unlimited in practice [...]

When they advertise it as unlimited and sell it to you as being unlimited, it sure as hell should be unlimited. Otherwise, ISPs are being deceptive. If I tell you I am selling you a horse, but deliver the mule, am I not being dishonest? (sorry, Fiddler fans) However, this has finally started to change in the last few weeks.

Do you really think iTMS would ever have gotten off the ground if Napster had spent the last decade alive and at full strength?

Yes. There is more file sharing today than ever. If it weren't for Napster, iTMS would most surely not exist (at least not yet).

What if a company wants to spread your medical records around? Aren't those just "imaginary property"? Why should you get a say in what happens to those bits?

This argument is a red herring. If I decided to publish my medical records, then I would be okay with this. I, however, did not publish them. This is a privacy issue, not a copyright one. Trying to argue this point hurts your credibility with your other on-topic points.

There's no consistency, no compromise,

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[cdrguru]

The only "inexpensive" delivery is free. And the "industry" isn't ready to give in to that yet.

And why would digital deliver be any cheaper? Do you honestly believe that $19 of the $20 for the DVD in the store has to do with making the DVD and putting it in the store? The DVD costs about $0.40 at the quantity they are making them. The store is taking maybe 20% at the most. The rest is paying for the content and the production of the content. Sorry, but the only way you get inexpensive digital downloads is by stealing them, like AllOfMP3 did.

Of course I believe that it is free now and will be more free in the future. The generation that grows up downloading whatever they want are unlikely to be able to turn back the clock and say now that you have to pay. If it is digital, it is free. Today and forever more. Anyone expecting anything other than ad revenue is deluding themselves. And when the next browser comes out from Microsoft with built-in ad blocking that game is over as well.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

I don't like DRM either. And of course there are legitimate uses for BT -- it's a great protocol and is widely used outside of the file-sharing community. But I still think the file-sharing movement is about free stuff. I base this on the visible content of the popular torrent search sites, which curiously nobody else seems to be mentioning. Abstract arguments and anecdotes are not very convincing. Look at the isoHunt site. Actually go there and look at it. Do you think the people downloading zero-day cam rips of The Dark Knight are motivated by ideology? There's no DRM on a movie screen, and it's easy to wait a couple months until you can see the movie in a cheaper theater or a matinee showing.

I sympathize with your problems, but you haven't answered my main question: if you don't like the terms of a sale, why should you get the item for free instead of just not buying it? If you've already bought the product and it doesn't work and you can't return it, that's one thing, but none of the movies on isoHunt are even out on DVD yet. Nor have most of the people downloading games or apps bought them.

And as for content providers calling us thieves, the only place I hear that is Slashdot and other copyright-obsessed news sites. I'd be just as happy to see those stories go as well. By the way, industry profits don't tell us anything, especially since most users probably *don't* know how to download a bootleg copy, especially on consoles (doesn't that require a modchip?).

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

You claim that content providers have helped create unjust laws that hurt the public (which I agree with). You then claim that file-sharing seems to help publishers more than it hurts. I find this inconsistent. If you want copyright laws to change, helping content providers acquire more money with which to lobby Congress is not the way to go.

You also say that copyright terms are unreasonable, and that 20 year terms would be better (which I also agree with). But the site under discussion is hosting movies that were just release in the last month or two. Even under your ideal scenario, it would still be illegitimate. The most popular torrents are the ones with the newest content.

The medical/financial record argument is absolutely relevant, because privacy is just as much a fuzzy and arbitrary construct as IP. Your medical records are published as part of service transactions, and part of that agreement is that the recipients respect your control of the information. Hey, that sounds familiar... and no, there isn't necessarily any harm involved. Giving a copy of my records to advertisers might slightly increase my junk mail but doesn't otherwise harm me materially.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

But I still think the file-sharing movement is about free stuff. I base this on the visible content of the popular torrent search sites, which curiously nobody else seems to be mentioning. Abstract arguments and anecdotes are not very convincing. Look at the isoHunt site. Actually go there and look at it. Do you think the people downloading zero-day cam rips of The Dark Knight are motivated by ideology? There's no DRM on a movie screen, and it's easy to wait a couple months until you can see the movie in a cheaper theater or a matinee showing.

I don't know where these people come from. You've got a point, all this content's showing up on it, whose doing it? But I have a counter question: If the number of people doing it is so high, why is Dark Knight coming close to reaching Titanic's success? Do you honestly believe that the DVD is going to flop? It's hard to say that the number of people going for strictly for free stuff. Since nobody can actually pinpoint any damage, it's not easy to answer your question. We don't know that the people downloading it never saw the movie. We don't know that the person won't purchase the DVD. Heck, we don't know if somebody dl'd it, watched it, didn't pay for it otherwise, but was first in line for the sequel. As I said, you still have to show damage. Everybody has their own reasons for downloading stuff. The question is whether or not the majority of that reason is to avoid paying for it. I don't deny that zero-day Dark Knight rips look compelling, but dude, you picked the most successful movie of the summer as your example of how people are 'stealing'.

I sympathize with your problems, but you haven't answered my main question: if you don't like the terms of a sale, why should you get the item for free instead of just not buying it?

Unfortunately I'm not somebody to ask about zero-day rips. However, there are at least two reasons I can think of. First is that there's often a delay between when a movie is released in the US and when it arrives in other countries. All that hype, and blammo, lots of people get to see it first, and you get to spend the next two months dodging sites dripping with spoilers. Are they right to do so? Nah, not really. On the other hand, we're starting to see more releases that are closer together. Hmmm. The other? They just liked it and wanted to have it. I mean, you're going to potentially spend days downloading something, right? Might as well download what ya like! Of course I'm being speculative, here, but it's an academic discussion until we get a clearer view of what's motivating people.

Nor have most of the people downloading games or apps bought them.

Honestly dude, you have no way of knowing that. You have absolutely no way on Earth to know that. Wanna know the funny thing? Take the most pirated apps out there, for example, and usually you'll find that they're also the most successful in the marketplace. Let me put it another way: If Adobe snapped its fingers and all pirated versions of Photoshop suddenly stopped working, would their revenue stream double within a year? Mm?

And as for content providers calling us thieves, the only place I hear that is Slashdot and other copyright-obsessed news sites

I just quoted you once on it, go look it up. Also go look up the levies passed in Canada on blank media, if you live there, you're being charged for the bootlegging you haven't done yet. In the US, the story is similar, only it's with blank casette tapes. Do you use Windows XP? Have you bumped into their copy restriction scheme that sniffs your hardware? That took quite a bit of work to set up. Not just the coding, but all the support staff needed to be around 24-7 to deal with unlock-related customer problems. Yep, Microsoft sure thinks highly of you, there. The broadcast flag? How about Michael Eisner having a go at Apple because of their rip-mix-and-burn ca

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[AdamHaun]

I think you have this backwards. The Dark Knight isn't popular in spite of bootlegs, it's bootlegged because it's popular. The same goes for apps. Of course the most-downloaded apps have the highest sales -- they're the ones everybody wants!

You're giving a whole lot of excuses and what-ifs, but they're pretty far-fetched. How do I know that the people on those sites haven't bought what they're downloading? Partly because of the nature of the content (e.g. pre-release rips and other things they can't possibly have bought). Partly because of the language used (the word "warez" pops up frequently, for instance). Partly because many of the downloaders are college students on high-speed connections who don't have $50 to spend on a game (I was one a few years ago). Partly because of human nature. Plus, if you already own the content, why download an extra full-copy? Why not just get a crack? It's not like you can't use the same tools as the rippers themselves. In fact, usually when you download an app you get a plain old copy of the CD with an an extra file inserted that contains the crack. You even have to apply it yourself.

I think you're also getting confused about who I'm talking about. I think the vast majority of *file-sharers* are after free stuff. The majority of the *general population*, on the other hand, doesn't have the expertise to go hunting through torrents and deal with codecs and whatnot.

You are correct that there are many reasons for people to download files. However, if it were true that most people are motivated by something other than getting stuff for free, the bootleg scene itself would be vastly different than it is today. At the very least, there would be much less emphasis on full copies of new and unreleased content.

I'm not being bombarded by any messages about copyright because I don't seek them out. I never heard about what Michael Eisnor said until you mentioned it. I don't buy a lot of blank CDs, and when I do I don't notice a few extra cents (although I agree that those levies are silly). I don't use Vista. I don't care about a broadcast flag because I don't watch broadcast TV. I can live without their media. It's not a right or a necessity. Not even close. And again, if you don't like what they're doing, why are you supporting them by popularizing their product?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Blakey Rat]

That reason is fairly obvious: If DRM never works, there's no point in them using it. And gee golly gosh, now we're seeing music sites dropping it. It's funny what an expression of demand can cause.

DRM/copy protection has "never worked" for video games, either. But virtually all video games released still have it... so it looks like your filesharing movement is falling down on the job there, huh?

I've seen quite a few legit torrents, Linux and otherwise. It's a great way to send >1 gig files. I just purchased Modo today, for example, and I recieved a BT link to over a gig of training videos for it. When Buck Bunny, the Blender-made movie came out, you could not only download the huge-ass HD video, but you could also download all their content to play with. BT has plenty of legit uses and it's growing.

Nobody's saying it doesn't, but it's still a matter of percentages. Maybe right now, 5% of bittorrent traffic is legit, and maybe that 5% is growing every year (assuming you mean 'growing' as a percentage of total traffic, not as a number of downloads), but that doesn't change the fact that 95% of bittorrent traffic is copyright infringement.

What if I download an MP3 file and it stops a full-scale alien invasion? We can invent lots of scenarios, but let's try to keep it on Earth. My medical records going around can actually do me harm. I'd rather not let my enemies know that I'm allergic to peanuts. ;)

The POINT is that you can't go around crying, "there's no such thing as virtual property! information wants to be free!" and also support HIPAA/medical privacy laws. If you do, you're a hypocrite.

GTA4 was a VERY highly anticipated game. Everybody was waiting for it. Arguably, a significant chunk of the XBOX 360 and PS3 populace would know how to download a torrent and burn it. The game was leaked a week before release. It made $500 million dollars. Fascinating.

That's a pretty damned thin argument. "arguably" a significant chunk of people know how to burn DVDs that will play in an Xbox, and/or modify the hardware of their Xbox to allow it? Seriously? If I were to be extremely, extremely generous, I'd say that's 10% of console owners, but I think 10% is still a vast over-estimation. Either way, without showing exactly what that percentage is, your entire argument dissolves away.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

DRM/copy protection has "never worked" for video games, either. But virtually all video games released still have it... so it looks like your filesharing movement is falling down on the job there, huh?

Some games are going out of their way to not have that protection anymore. Customers are growing more and more dissatisfied with the restrictions these 'protections' have put in place. Music stores aren't using DRM anymore. So, sorry, no, it's not 'falling down on the job'.

Maybe right now, 5% of bittorrent traffic is legit, and maybe that 5% is growing every year (assuming you mean 'growing' as a percentage of total traffic, not as a number of downloads), but that doesn't change the fact that 95% of bittorrent traffic is copyright infringement.

There is no 'fact' about anything you said. You think it's 5%, and you used the word 'maybe'. You don't know the actual percentage anymore than I do. It's like saying the internet is 95% porn. It sure seems that way, but really, nobody knows.

The POINT is that you can't go around crying, "there's no such thing as virtual property! information wants to be free!" and also support HIPAA/medical privacy laws. If you do, you're a hypocrite.

I didn't say anything like that. That doesn't really matter, though, for the reasons I've already mentioned. You should read my other long-winded post in this thread, it clarifies my view more.

That's a pretty damned thin argument. "arguably" a significant chunk of people know how to burn DVDs that will play in an Xbox, and/or modify the hardware of their Xbox to allow it? Seriously? If I were to be extremely, extremely generous, I'd say that's 10% of console owners, but I think 10% is still a vast over-estimation. Either way, without showing exactly what that percentage is, your entire argument dissolves away.

Okay. I wasn't aware you had to mod the XBOX to play the torrent. I'll grant you that, you win that one. So... what about every PC Game ever made? Why didn't piracy kill Quake, StarCraft, Warcraft, The Sims, etc?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Blakey Rat]

Piracy has killed several games in the past, notably Starsiege: Tribes, which was released with no copy protection or DRM and had many times more illegitimate users than legitimate ones. Arguably, Halo Mac was killed by piracy, if you consider it a different game from Halo PC.

Of course all the games you mentioned came with copy protection/DRM. The only thing it really shows is that, hey, copy protection is effective, at least for PC games. Sure, none of the copy protection schemes are perfect, but as long as there are protections in place to prevent casual copying, it seems to work just fine. You're actually arguing *for* DRM at this point.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I think you have this backwards. The Dark Knight isn't popular in spite of bootlegs, it's bootlegged because it's popular. The same goes for apps. Of course the most-downloaded apps have the highest sales -- they're the ones everybody wants!

That isn't at all what I said. I said with a movie as popular as that, we should have seen damage caused by piracy.

How do I know that the people on those sites haven't bought what they're downloading? Partly because of the nature of the content (e.g. pre-release rips and other things they can't possibly have bought). Partly because of the language used (the word "warez" pops up frequently, for instance). Partly because many of the downloaders are college students on high-speed connections who don't have $50 to spend on a game (I was one a few years ago). Partly because of human nature. Plus, if you already own the content, why download an extra full-copy?

I hear what you're saying, man. But the problem is a sudden in-flux of people not paying for stuff should be quite measurable, but it's not happening. For all these college student ware-downloading penny pinchers running on human nature, we're not able to find a dent with their footprint on it. Don't get me wrong, I can see very clearly where you're coming from. I totally see how you'd arrive at that conclusion. Heck, I was that college student, too. But I can't say there is a huge number of people doing that when there is no evidence of it. I just don't know. I am not omniscient.

By the way, I do have a few of answers to your question:

1. Lots of cracks only work on very specific binaries. The version you have of software may not match the version that has the crack. Therefore, it's good to have the app that goes with the crack.

2. Most BT clients can let you pick and choose which files to bring down. Often the crack is seperate so you can easily just download that little bit. So there's really no need to host it seperately from the torrent itself. That's why it's difficult to find that one episode of M*A*S*H you're looking for as its own torrent. They just put up the whole 15 gig tracker and you pick and choose what you really want to come down.

3. CDs are a big pain in the ass. Most of us have 500+ gig drives, right? It's handy to have that installer there, too. I can tell you that from personal experience. I have cracked software that I've paid for. The software was at version 9 when I bought it, and the cracked version I have is for version 9.3. It's more convenient for me to install the 9.3 because the 9.0 has to be followed by the upgrade to 9.3.

BitTorrent is not the same sort of thing as using newsgroups or HTTP/FTP transfers or whatever. It's a different animal and as such you really cannot draw those conclusions so definitively.

I think you're also getting confused about who I'm talking about. I think the vast majority of *file-sharers* are after free stuff. The majority of the *general population*, on the other hand, doesn't have the expertise to go hunting through torrents and deal with codecs and whatnot.

I beg to differ. First off, it is very easy to download and watch movies and to pirate in general. Secondly, thanks to the MPAA's campaign to tell people not to download movies, everybody knows they can do it. Third, Napster created a huge circus before broadband penetration was even significant. It's not a small handful of people.

You are correct that there are many reasons for people to download files. However, if it were true that most people are motivated by something other than getting stuff for free, the bootleg scene itself would be vastly different than it is today. At the very least, there would be much less emphasis on full copies of new and unreleased content.

I maintan that if the picture were as bleak as you say, there'd be actual measurable damage instead of an increase in revenue. I'll grant

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Piracy has killed several games in the past, notably Starsiege: Tribes, which was released with no copy protection or DRM and had many times more illegitimate users than legitimate ones.

That doesn't mean all that much. If lots of copies went around but the company never received a rightful profit, then I'd totally back you up on that. But... more pirated copies than not? Starsiege came out in 1999. It hasn't been on shelves in ages. Of COURSE it's going to have more illegit copies out there. The same's true for Starcraft and just about any other game that's heavily played in recent years. As for Halo 3, it had bigger problems than Mac people not ponying up. Yet, it still went on to sell over 8 million copies.

Of course all the games you mentioned came with copy protection/DRM. The only thing it really shows is that, hey, copy protection is effective, at least for PC games.

Not really, no. At best all it shows that a popular game will make lots of money despite piracy.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Blakey Rat]

That doesn't mean all that much. If lots of copies went around but the company never received a rightful profit, then I'd totally back you up on that.

That's exactly what did happen. Tribes is actually free at the moment, so the current success of the game is irrelevant. (I'm not even sure if the game's master server is still running or not.)

As for Halo 3, it had bigger problems than Mac people not ponying up.

I'm not talking about Halo 3, I'm talking about Halo. The first one. The reason there's no Halo 2 on Mac is because the original Halo was pirated to hell and back on that platform. (Some estimates were that over 50% of the copies in circulation were pirated copies.)

Halo 3 has NO problems with Mac people not ponying up, because it was never released on Mac (and is extremely unlikely to ever be.)

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Curtman]

You're forgetting that here in Canada, the content providers were the ones that lobbied to have their levy applied to blank media.

We've already paid to download those movies and songs. Not downloading them would be throwing money away.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[plasmacutter]

actually I thought my analogy was quite a bit more accurate, though i failed to clarify exactly why.

My analogy represents the kind of oppression which would have to exist period before parasites like the MAFIAA stopped trying to litigate nascent industries out of business (along with a substantial chunk of fundamental human liberty).

Indeed, case law, thanks to bribery and corruption, are quickly approaching that way-point.

The only thing which is not fully in place (but is slowly being rolled out across various universities and websites) is the ubiquitous, overzealous filtering.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[plasmacutter]

of course, you ignore the fact that a more accurate analogy would be a map showing places to get all drugs regardless of legality.

in which case, every eckerd, rite-aid, walgreens, cvs, kroger, publix, wal-mart, and meijer would also be listed.

Damn all those horrible addicts trying to find the nearest place to get their heart/crohns/depression/cancer medication!

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"I'm not talking about Halo 3, I'm talking about Halo. The first one."

That was my fault man, I apologize. I don't know why I read 'Halo 3', but it wasn't because of anything you did. Again, sorry man. You are right in the sense that I'm not fully versed in those games in particular.

The reason there's no Halo 2 on Mac is because the original Halo was pirated to hell and back on that platform.

The game was a Vista and XBOX exclusive. That had nothing to do with piracy. MS didn't even want them playing on XP.

(Some estimates were that over 50% of the copies in circulation were pirated copies.)

Okay. So what does that actually mean? Would they have sold twice as many copies? Did 100% of the people decide they wanted the noCD version? Nobody knows. It can't be proven. Even if a high piracy rate did kill Halo 2 on the Mac, which isn't what happened but I'll run with it anyway, the game did have protection.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

My analogy represents the kind of oppression which would have to exist period before parasites like the MAFIAA stopped trying to litigate nascent industries out of business (along with a substantial chunk of fundamental human liberty).

Sure, but that's not really what we were talking about. It doesn't really work as a reply to the OP's "heavily loaded", but currently (or recently) accurate analogy.

Of course, I also disagree with you, but that's a separate matter. Since you weren't exactly asking for a rant, disregard this as an axe-to-grind if you want.

I think that it's possible to keep piracy down to an acceptable level by monitoring large anonymous communication channels. Channels where strangers share large volumes of digital data make up the largest part of piracy. I think we can curb 90% of piracy, while keeping the privacy of private communication. No public strip searches, I promise!

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Blakey Rat]

The game was a Vista and XBOX exclusive. That had nothing to do with piracy. MS didn't even want them playing on XP. ... And you don't think it was at least partially because they knew releasing it on Mac would be a mistake, after the disaster that was the Halo 1 Mac release? Believe me, I know a lot of people who worked for Bungie, they love Macs, virtually all of their games have been released on Macintosh, and many have been Mac-exclusive. What changed their mind?

Okay. So what does that actually mean? Would they have sold twice as many copies? Did 100% of the people decide they wanted the noCD version?

Doesn't matter; the fact is a ton of people were enjoying their game without paying for it. It doesn't matter *why* they were pirating the game.

the game did have protection.

Of course it did, and despite that protection it was pirated to hell and back. Thus proving that they should have use more invasive DRM in the future. Thus proving the point of the grandparent that started off this entire discussion. (To paraphrase: if you really don't like DRM, you wouldn't prove to games/music/movie companies that it's needed by pirating their products.)

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

And you don't think it was at least partially because they knew releasing it on Mac would be a mistake, after the disaster that was the Halo 1 Mac release?

In this case, no. Microsoft was pushing Vista. I remember when Halo was first shown. As I recall, it was developed on the Mac and intended to be easily ported. I'm no expert on the Halo franchise, but I really really doubt there was much reason why the game engine used absolutely had to run on Vista but not XP. That was rather evil of Microsoft.

Doesn't matter; the fact is a ton of people were enjoying their game without paying for it. It doesn't matter *why* they were pirating the game.

It does matter because it isn't a fact that a ton of people were enjoying the game without paying for it. The only fact is that there were people downloading it from websites. We don't know how many of them had paid for it. This issue is muddy because games like this require the CD to play and that's really f'n abnoxious. Lots of people go download the pirated copy because of that. It's also really important to know WHEN that level of piracy hit. If it wasn't until two yeas after the release of the game, it's virtually meaningless.

Of course it did, and despite that protection it was pirated to hell and back. Thus proving that they should have use more invasive DRM in the future.

Nope. a.) It would have been cracked anyway without taking significantly longer. b.) The invasive DRM would have strengthened the demand for a cracked copy. c.) It's entirely possible, and likely, that invasive DRM would have made some people sit back and wait for the cracked copy to come along so they can avoid all that BS. There is absolutely no guarantee that they would enjoy any more sales.

Thus proving the point of the grandparent that started off this entire discussion. (To paraphrase: if you really don't like DRM, you wouldn't prove to games/music/movie companies that it's needed by pirating their products.)

That cannot be proven until it is proven that restrictive copy protection would actually increase sales. Worse, it has been disproven by recent decisions to stop using it.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Blakey Rat]

It does matter because it isn't a fact that a ton of people were enjoying the game without paying for it. The only fact is that there were people downloading it from websites. We don't know how many of them had paid for it.

If they bought it, why would they download it from a filesharing site? You're making no damned sense.

This issue is muddy because games like this require the CD to play and that's really f'n abnoxious.

Game consoles require the CD to play, and those seem to be doing pretty well. (What's obnoxious is BOTH requiring the CD AND requiring a bunch of disk space for the install. One of the many reasons I've stopped buying PC games altogether.)

Lots of people go download the pirated copy because of that. It's also really important to know WHEN that level of piracy hit. If it wasn't until two yeas after the release of the game, it's virtually meaningless.

"It's ok if they take our product without paying for it, because our product has been released for 2 years." Christ, you're doing EXACTLY what the grandparent was talking about: justifying your piracy with a LAME excuse.

The press release about the piracy rate was something like 3 months after the game hit shelves, IIRC. Not that that matters; whether the game has been out for one week or five years, piracy is still piracy.

Nope. a.) It would have been cracked anyway without taking significantly longer. b.) The invasive DRM would have strengthened the demand for a cracked copy. c.) It's entirely possible, and likely, that invasive DRM would have made some people sit back and wait for the cracked copy to come along so they can avoid all that BS. There is absolutely no guarantee that they would enjoy any more sales.

You know that and I know that, but neither of us are game publishers. What would you SUGGEST publishers do in response to stories like this? Boil it down to one sentence:
"We added a level of protection and piracy was extremely high."

What response would you expect other than:
"Well, then we need to add more levels of protection?"

Seriously, do you know anything about how humans beings behave at all?

In any case, none of that justifies piracy. The correct response, if there's a product you're not interested in buying (for ANY reason, including invasive DRM), the correct response is not to buy it. Pirating the product anyway just encourages more DRM in the future, it sends this message to the game's publishers: "gamers are criminals"

That cannot be proven until it is proven that restrictive copy protection would actually increase sales. Worse, it has been disproven by recent decisions to stop using it.

Oh yeah? Link me. If it's been "disproven," you should have a myriad of sources and examples to back that up.

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If they bought it, why would they download it from a filesharing site? You're making no damned sense.

Lots of reasons. (Deja vu, I was just telling somebody this yesterday.) Some cracks only work on a particular version of the binary file so it's beneficial to download the app along with it. People wanting to rid themselves of needing the CD can just download the cracked version, in full, and have that ready to reinstall. Some are people who have lost or damaged their CD and simply want to replace it. I've actually met people who download this stuff just to have it. Like it's a scavenger hunt or something. Maybe they barter with it? I don't know.

Game consoles require the CD to play, and those seem to be doing pretty well. (What's obnoxious is BOTH requiring the CD AND requiring a bunch of disk space for the install. One of the many reasons I've stopped buying PC games altogether.)

Boy do I agree with you about how much easier it is with console games. I wanted to go buy Spore until I found out how restrictive its copy restriction is. WTF. I just want to play the game, not 'register' it. To answer your question, CD-ROM drives in PCs server different duties from consoles. It's a much bigger pain to swap out discs on a PC for a game when other things are going on. It's the nature of the beast. Game consoles also have a different audience and differently natured hardware that seem to side-step the issue. I imagine part of it is simply that consoles that can store games is a recent thing. I'll tell you something I'm not sure that you're aware of. People have found a way to generate ISO images from PSPs and store them on Memory Sticks. My PSP has 8 or 9 games on it without any UMDs in it. All of them are legit, but two of them I did download instead of rip. It was just easier.

"It's ok if they take our product without paying for it, because our product has been released for 2 years." Christ, you're doing EXACTLY what the grandparent was talking about: justifying your piracy with a LAME excuse.

That isn't what I said. By the time 2 years have gone by, the game is typically no longer availble for sale. Many of the people will no longer be able to easily dig up their copy of it. Etc. There's really a number of reasons why somebody'd go download it later. Settle down.

What would you SUGGEST publishers do in response to stories like this? ... Seriously, do you know anything about how humans beings behave at all?

Why do you think I'm annoyed with their stance on piracy? Why do you think I suggested making the DRM worthless instead of trying to convince ppl to throttle back the on-line downloads? I totally hear you, man. They let a train of though run away from them the legit customers were bitten.

The correct response, if there's a product you're not interested in buying (for ANY reason, including invasive DRM), the correct response is not to buy it. Pirating the product anyway just encourages more DRM in the future, it sends this message to the game's publishers: "gamers are criminals"

Not buying it sends the message to game publishers that people don't want the game. It's no more informative than that. If the game is highly pirated but sales are low, they'll start asking questions like if the price was too high. If it's a given that copy protection won't work, they won't have much other choice than to find out why.

Oh yeah? Link me. If it's been "disproven," you should have a myriad of sources and examples to back that up.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/09/yahoo-music-to-recor.html

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[Blakey Rat]

Boy do I agree with you about how much easier it is with console games. I wanted to go buy Spore until I found out how restrictive its copy restriction is. WTF. I just want to play the game, not 'register' it. To answer your question, CD-ROM drives in PCs server different duties from consoles. It's a much bigger pain to swap out discs on a PC for a game when other things are going on. It's the nature of the beast.

No, it's because PC games companies don't give half-a-shit about the quality of their product. If a console with significantly wimpier hardware than my desktop computer can do it, then there's NO reason a PC can't also do it. And since most PC gamers have been beat-down over the years by low-quality products, they don't demand any better.

BTW you're not missing anything:
1) Spore is an EA game, and therefore practically guaranteed to suck
2) Spore is a highly-hyped high-concept game which is also a year late; I've been a gaming fan long enough to know that games like this are also guaranteed to suck. (See: Black and White or Fable, for example.)

That isn't what I said. By the time 2 years have gone by, the game is typically no longer availble for sale. Many of the people will no longer be able to easily dig up their copy of it. Etc. There's really a number of reasons why somebody'd go download it later. Settle down.

It's still piracy, regardless of how much time has gone by! (Well, until the game is put in the public domain.) I'm unsettled because you are justifying the piracy of software by saying it's "ok" to take if the game is two years old. Wrong. It's legally wrong, and it's morally wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is the EXACT kind of weak-ass justifications that pirates tell themselves while they rob game developers of income. Which was the grandparent's entire point: if you're going to pirate games, don't waste our time and yours coming up with weak-ass justifications that wouldn't convince a kindergarten, and just admit you're pirating games because you're cheap.

Not buying it sends the message to game publishers that people don't want the game. It's no more informative than that. If the game is highly pirated but sales are low, they'll start asking questions like if the price was too high. If it's a given that copy protection won't work, they won't have much other choice than to find out why.

If people don't buy it, but tons of people pirate it, it sends the message that gamers are crooks who don't give a shit about paying for goods they consume. The fact that people pirated it means you're coming to the wrong conclusion; obviously people willing to break the law to get the game actually *do* want it. Duh.

If people didn't buy it, and people didn't pirate it, that would indicate that people don't want it. But that's basically the opposite scenario to the one we're talking about.

It's not a given that copy protection doesn't work; you have to be pretty uber-nerd to even attempt to break copy protection on a PC game. You have to actually mod hardware to break copy protection on most consoles, and throw away your ability to play online. (I dunno about the PS3, actually, I just have an Xbox.)

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/09/yahoo-music-to-recor.html
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hooray-for-no-drm/amazon-jumps-headfirst-into-drm+free-music-download-market-with-12000-record-labels-260898.php

^^ Three major music distributers stopped using DRM. This is despite all of the MP3 files floating around on the internet. Success.

Music store... music store... music store... this is relevant to video games, how?

Re:The law has it all wrong.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'm unsettled because you are justifying the piracy of software by saying it's "ok" to take if the game is two years old.

I didn't justify anything or say anything is okay. This whole discussion is about lost income. That's all I'm talking about. I don't think games downloaded after two years really represent significant lost income. Please stop confusing my arguments with arguments other people have made.

This is the EXACT kind of weak-ass justifications that pirates tell themselves while they rob game developers of income. Which was the grandparent's entire point: if you're going to pirate games, don't waste our time and yours coming up with weak-ass justifications that wouldn't convince a kindergarten, and just admit you're pirating games because you're cheap.

I don't have any games I haven't paid for. I do, however, have games I've paid for but cannot play anymore through legitimate means. I am not alone. Meanwhile, 'robbed' game developers can't actually show that money would be in their account, otherwise. You're not operating with data here, merely assumptions.

If people didn't buy it, and people didn't pirate it, that would indicate that people don't want it. But that's basically the opposite scenario to the one we're talking about.

But that's what you suggested! You said if the copy restrictions are unacceptable, don't buy the game. How are they supposed to know it's because of the DRM?

It's not a given that copy protection doesn't work; you have to be pretty uber-nerd to even attempt to break copy protection on a PC game.

Every game has a crack. Anybody can apply a crack. It's not a huge learning curve. We agree about your point on console piracy.

Music store... music store... music store... this is relevant to video games, how?

Oh come on, meet me half way here. *Sigh* Okay: First off, the RIAA has been EXTREMELY vocal about piracy etc. Their minds were changed. That means the customers' message got through. Secondly, look at Slashdot right now. There's a bit about Spore and its DRM. It's on people's minds now. EA's having to look at the issue. Rewind a day or two, and there's the story about the Gamer's Bill of Rights, which includes a NOCD version of games being released a month after the initial launch. It's a topic of discussion and it's already caused closed-minds to reconsider. Relevent and important.

deeper pockets

[Brain Damaged Bogan]

too bad that the movie industry/music industry have much deeper pockets and will keep spreading their propaganda - uneducating everybody on what filesharing is and isn't.

Good move isohunt.

[MrKneebone]

This is an interesting move - good on them! You could easily argue that CDR and DVDR are predominantly used for piracy, but they openly sell them at all the major gorcey and department stores. Obviously becuase they have other legitimate uses too - just like bittorrent.

Subscription

[electrosoccertux]

I think media companies are shooting themselves in the foot, in the long run, by cracking down on Piracy.

Here's what's happened with me-- as I grew up, got to the real world, and started making more money, the cost of buying has been fewer and fewer %points of the amount I make. I feel less and less urge to download. All they'd have to do is offer a direct download service, or pay-for-and-be-reimbursed-some-for-using-bittorrent on their login-requiring tracker, and I'd probably just do that.

Therefor, the real thing they should be fighting for is a larger, more stable middle class of America, so that more people have disposable income, whatever actions on their part that entails. The easy solution would be to give everybody welfare checks, but then we'd become the Romans, and everybody knows how that worked out for them...

Second, for their benefit AND America's, they should focus less on fighting piracy in certain markets-- or risk being left behind when these markets take off (China, India, Russia [if their market ever takes off] and any other lower-income-no-middle-class-countries).

Why? An Italian man I met while in Florence had the absolute best English of almost any foreigners-speaking-English I've met in my [short] life. I asked him how he learned to speak so well, so fluently, and coherently-- he said he eventually stopped watching the English movies with Italian dubbing (terrible voice acting, the English voice acting is so much better he was saying), and went ahead and learned enough of it by watching American Hollywood movies, that he began switching the subtitles off, and simply listened to the dialog and eventually figured it out. What better way for them to increase their market share than let the production quality of their movies (and lets be honest, Hollywood films ARE the best, simply no one else has the capital or skill to pull off mass production of multi-hundred-million dollar movies like Matrix, Transformers, Batman, etc. on the scale that we do) speak for themselves, and once you've got the fish hooked and grown, you can start charging. Until that time though, the spread of American ideals and values (although contrary to the way our government currently operates-- privacy, freedom of speech, freedom to vote, freedom to run business and oust a competitor through sheer technical superiority and efficiency of business-- (for instance, doesn't happen in China, you've got to know who to pay off and how much, when, etc. if you want to have a chance at starting a company)) would be far more valuable to them as a multi-national media corporation. (Because people will begin to see that free-market economics, freedom of speech, freedom to vote, are superior to the alternate methods of doing business and running a country; that we would be perpetuating the "great America" idealogy, "I can make my fortune and future there and then bring my family, and all will be well with me and my family", "democracy", as in a country lead by people elected (usually) by the majority of the people, and similar values, which the furthering of in the world would be good for America, would be spread to the nations and we'd have many more allies, and many fewer enemies.)

Potentially more valuable to our government as well. I would argue that the government should pay Hollywood a stipend for
a). them turning a blind eye to piracy external to English speaking countries and
b). a set number of propogandic films proclaiming the wonders of a free society, free economy, free competition, freedom to love who you choose, not who your parents say, and the benefits that brings to the every day citizens (a middle class, the American dream, a house, etc.), on the grounds that it's good for the government and security of western countries to bring them to our side-- from the bottom up. Want a great way to fight militant Islam? Torture isn't quite it, and force like in Iraq (though it definitely will work in the long run) is expensive, difficult to do, and leaves the surrounding countries envious, bitte

Re:Subscription

[electrosoccertux]

Heh, I titled it subscription, but forgot to add that a subscription model would be great-- just by your license or whatever and you could download however much you like. It'd have to be something reasonable, but, unlike music, most people watch a movie and aren't interested in seeing it again. You could still purchase the blockbusters on DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever; but I and I think most people would be happy to have a pay-a-flat-fee-and-see-once-or-twice-service.

Re:Subscription

[Anonymous Coward]

You underestimate the power of greed. The media (press, movies, RIAA memebers, et all) are the worst of the dirty capitalists. Anything they can do to control more and extend their monopoly is a good thing. Telling the truth has no relevance to them. CNN is no different then Fox News; they're both selling advertising space, and the truth be damned.

Re:Subscription

[plasmacutter]

The easy solution would be to give everybody welfare checks, but then we'd become the Romans, and everybody knows how that worked out for them...

the romans didn't have welfare, and it didn't fall because of welfare.

It fell because they didn't have their own citizens serving in their military, because they expanded beyond the capacities of their social structure and economy to govern their territory, and because of internal corruption resulting from too much consolidated power at the top.

as for the "spread of american ideals and values", I don't know what starry-eyed landscape you're looking at, but i'm here on planet earth where the spread of "american ideals and values", especially in terms of copyright, has plunged the entire western world into an economic tail-spin.

Re:Subscription

[Darkness404]

The problem with that is, eventually record companies would charge for "premium" content and over 10-15 years all the new things become "premium" content while they rack up money by subscription fees. Not to mention that paying an extra fee for downloads is going to make the west head backwards in internet usage as 50-60 year olds aren't going to care about music but still have to pay for it.

Re:Subscription

[plasmacutter]

CNN is no different then Fox News

in all fairness this isn't quite true.

CNN is merely amoral.

Fox news was founded on and operates with the express purpose of misinforming the american public and keeping the shrill, corrupt, and incompetent ultra-right in power.

Re:Subscription

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you look at the ratings, Fox is considered more fair and balanced than CNN.

Re:Subscription

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, as long as they aren't ultra-wrong, I'm fine with it!

Re:Subscription

[Anonymous Coward]

A brief encounter with any cross-section of Fox News watchers will reveal why.

Re:Subscription

[Intrinsic]

*We can argue about this (whether it's really better for them in the end), but I think it would be, just like it was to us (until just recently) in the history of our country-- good people seeking good jobs, a family, a life; and benefits reaped from free economic competition, free voting, free society in general. You have generally good people, and your democracy is set. This is what gets me about the people who think we shouldn't push our "ideals" on people of other countries-- my question to them is "who are you to get in the way of the civilized countries ushering in a government that would be run by that people and for the majority of that people, which the people could overthrow peacefully and easily with the strike of a ballot, instead of a strike to the head?!" The change to freedom always has to happen from within, and our job would be spent less on forcing them to change at gunpoint, and more on encouraging and baiting them into that change. Then, if still necessary, we go in anyways like Iraq and meet with much less resistance, because people would think "well a democracy probably _would_ be better than what we have now, I just don't want to bother getting to that point, too much work, etc...", and it all goes much better.

I liked the first part of your comment. And then we reach a point where you talk about capitalism and free markets. To be honest I think what proponents of free market economies miss is the fact that the United States it is very good at creating an illusion that we are free. Once you get down to the core of what this country is about (Money) you start to realize that its not really free. Money creates an illusion that you are free. Money doesnt make you free, peace of mind makes you free, money is a by product of that peace and what you do to help other people maintain peace of mind. As soon as you forget that you have made yourself a slave of a process that befits the people on the top, especially when 5% of the population are the ones with the power and wealth. The 5% of the people of the United states are the ones that make all of the decisions. The have multinational corporations that hire Lobbyists to push for more consolidation of wealth and power, so that they can retain what they have at the expense of the majority. You see this with the passing of retroactive immunity to telephone companies that are spying on Americans. And the people in power use these laws and wiretapping to make people not free by secretly waging war against people with differences of opinion. When you see it for what it is you realize that its not freedom, you are buying into an illusion that hurts alot of people. Nothing is worth that. Not all the riches in the world can give you what you want if its a cause that undermines other peoples freedom. Thats what this country does, it undermines peoples freedom so that certain individuals can become wealthy.

If thats your idea of a solid system for everyone in the world to live by, Id say that you are seriously missing the depth of the problem, and you better wake up fast before you find yourself wishing you would have paid more attention to whats going on around you.

Re:Subscription

[R2.0]

"the spread of "american ideals and values", especially in terms of copyright, has plunged the entire western world into an economic tail-spin."

A quibble: American policy on copyright has largely followed European policy - see Berne Convention.

No, I don't blame the Europeans for how the bankrupt American legal system is using copyright laws, but concepts like "life plus XX years" is European in origin.

Re:Subscription

[crispytwo]

won't be a problem if you tax bandwidth usage: 10 cents/GB/month transfer or whatever.

Re:Subscription

[ucblockhead]

No, they didn't have welfare...they just gave free bread to all of their poor citizens. Totally different...

Re:Subscription

[nospam007]

>the romans didn't have welfare, and it didn't fall because of welfare.

Sorry, but you're way off.

"When Julius Caesar came to power in 48 B.C., he found 320,000 persons on government grain relief. Temporarily slowing the welfare state bandwagon, he ordered the welfare rolls cut to 200,000. Within a half-century, the rolls were back up to well over 300,000.

Government Bread

A real landmark in the course of events came in the year 274 A.D. Emperor Aurelian, wishing to provide cradle-to-grave care for the citizenry, declared the right to relief to be hereditary. Those whose parents received government benefits were entitled as a matter of right to benefits as well. Aurelian gave welfare recipients government-baked bread (instead of the old practice of giving them wheat and letting them bake their own bread) and added free salt, pork, and olive oil. Not surprisingly, the ranks of the unproductive grew fatter, and the ranks of the productive grew thinner.

Surely, many Romans opposed the welfare state and held fast to the old virtues of work, thrift and self-reliance. Just as surely, some of these sturdy people gave in and began to feed at the public trough in the belief that if they didn't get it, somebody else would. That attitude only hastened the slide into bankruptcy..."

From http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=3

Re:Subscription

[Splab]

Holy crap are you ignorant or what???

First of all, go see the world, lots of people speak excellent English. Second, Hollywood produces the best movies? Again, go see the world, Hollywood makes a load of crap - yes they top the box office figures, but who gives a fuck, the best movies made are not top grocers.

And your rant about infiltrating the society - go buy/loan "Legacy of ashes", read the part about how you yanks tried that in Iraq and look at the multiple clusterfucks you have made. We (the rest of the world) would appreciate it if you stopped meddling.

Re:Subscription

[westlake]

but i'm here on planet earth where the spread of "american ideals and values", especially in terms of copyright, has plunged the entire western world into an economic tail-spin
.

the last time I looked - copyright had little to do with the price of oil. or housing. or support costs for an aging population.

but media production - books, film, television, video games, et al. - were generating a lot of skilled jobs and export dollars.

Re:Subscription

[Anonymous Coward]

If people weren't so fucking mistreated and misrepresented by these assholes then I'd actually buy music, movies and games. As it stands, a game that forces copy-protection BS down my throat is gonna get a download and never a buy. It's not that I don't love the games or appreciate the work gone into it, but I just don't agree with criminalizing your legitimate users. They should have figured out by now that no amount of copy-protection bullshit is ever going to work, nor even slightly deter people. It's a waste of money, a waste of resources and just in general a waste.

As for music, the RIAA's lawsuits forced me to stop paying for it. I'm not going to pay for your legal team. If I like the music, I'll support the band by seeing them in concert.

As for the MPAA - Is anyone gonna stop going to see movies in theaters? No, not unless the movie sucks. I can't name a single person I know who'd rather watch the DVDrip of the dark knight instead of the IMAX version, unless they're fucking broke. In which case it doesn't factor into any losses.

Now with Blu-Ray, people are going to do what they've been doing - Download the shit you're gonna watch once or twice and buy the shit that is worth buying.

You may ask, what right does one have to access this content without paying for it?

Copyright in regards to content like this is only a little imaginary idea. The reality is, I have access to this, thus it is my right to access it as no one has challenged it. In the same way that Marijuana is technically illegal, however it is my right to make the decision for myself to violate that law.

The morals or ethics behind it are completely irrelevant, as it's entirely subjective. There is no physical loss on the part of the copyright holder, only an imaginary "What if they paid for it". And everyone should know by now, the vast majority, i'd say in general upwards of 95% of content people download, is something they would not have bought in the first place, aside from CDs. However, I should say I supported buying CDs from artists who I sampled their music and enjoyed.. until the RIAA's insane lawsuits. So that is my personal stance against them.

Re:Subscription

[Blakey Rat]

the best movies made are not top grocers.

Well, that's a relief! I wouldn't want to see a bunch of movies about middle-aged men washing tomatoes.

I hope this doesn't cause more seeds.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well this forums certainly gotten a lot of mileage out of the "dual use" argument. Fortunately courts are unable to do several things to clarify this issue. 1) They're unable to access these BT sites. 2) They're unable to count total unique seeds. 3) They're unable to determine which seeds fall under copyright and which don't. Faced with these facts BT is obviously as clean as the driven snow, and so clean it squeaks.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more seeds.

[Darkness404]

Sure, but the RIAA seems to have no problem with performing DoS attacks on the sites. Yet they cry foul whenever anyone hacks the RIAA's site.

Legality has never stopped the record companies before.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more seeds.

[Ostracus]

Ummm, you do realize the story is about Isohunt trying to convince a Canadian COURT, not the RIAA, right? The RIAA is totally irrelevant in this story. The basic question is, is IsoHunt facilitating a crime by hosting torrents? The way to answer that question is simple. Go look. The rest is common sense.

Re:I hope this doesn't cause more seeds.

[Tubal-Cain]

The RIAA is totally irrelevant in this story.

It's not even in the same country.

Sorry, you came close

[BiggerBadderBen]

But for us to really understand, you need to use a car analogy.

Re:Sorry, you came close

[Anonymous Coward]

But for us to really understand, you need to use a car analogy.

ok ok, I'll clarify for him.

The internet.. is a series of tubes, and you can think of isohunt as the road going through those tubes from place to place.

Now, if the police catch someone with drugs on that road, do they dynamite the road because it's being used to smuggle drugs?

NO! Because there are big trucks on that road, trucks carrying enormous amounts of material! Enormous amounts of material!

If you dynamite that road, they all have to find a new road to get the isohunt to me, and that takes several days!

We can't have that, so we, the plaintiffs, ask for protection for our torrent indexing service.

Paralyzed

[Ostracus]

"It's not the method that's illegal in the case of P2P, it's the content, for certain values of content. There's nothing illegal about Bittorrent itself."

Does the same apply to the variants that hide the payload as well as who's on either end?

Re:Paralyzed

[Fnord666]

Does the same apply to the variants that hide the payload as well as who's on either end?

Yes. YMMV depending on your country of residence of course, but in general the fact that a protocol obscures either the participants or the payload is in no way illegal. Or at least it wasn't at the time of this posting. Similarly it isn't illegal to use an anonymous remailer if you so chose or to encrypt your email. The content of the email on the other hand might be illegal if you were threatening someone, for instance.

Re:Paralyzed

[BPPG]

Encryption is not a crime!!!

Sad Sad Sad

[renegadesx]

I think its sad we live in a time where someone has to petition a court to say "we are legit".
Copyright laws have allowed greedy business execs go on witch hunts not seen since the Inquisition.

RIAA, MPAA and ESA go around bullying anyone they can trying to extort money, patent trolls filing lawsuits left right and center. It is truly a depressing age :(

Sincerly,
IsoHunt user

Re:Sad Sad Sad

[cliffski]

you do realise that 99.9999% of websites have no such worries, because they don't build their entire business model around distributing copyrighted content...

isohunt isn't billed as the #1 site for linux distros!!!!!
Its clearly full of copyrighted content and they know it. No surprise they realise they are one lawsuit away from some heavy shit.

Levy

[Spc01]

Yes here in slovenia we have a levy on everything (no exceptions).
This includes: CD-R,DVD-R,iPOD,Hard Disk, VCR, GSM, GPS (because they can play mp3's), PC's (because they have disk in it), Mac's (because they have disk in it), Printers (because you could have printed some copyrighted lyrics), Photo scanners, fax machines, wrist watches (with disk in it), cameras, photo only cameras, flash cards, USB sticks, routers, Wii, Consoles .. etc etc.. because you just might copy an mp3 on an Canon EOS flash card.

I think this is just abuse of money .. why should i pay "SAZAS" (slovenian RIAA) money for a GPS receiver because it "can" play mp3's ? or why should i pay some tax on a DVD-R because i might copy a copyrighted content on it ? or perhaps copy whole album of mp3's to Canon EOS 40D flash card ?
If i pay for this kind of shit i expect something in return - i then have all the rights to copy anything because i payed for it ... so it kinda legalizes the right to copy anything and put it on the net .. or private use.

Re:Levy

[anilg]

You can't just make up countries, you know..

Talk about lopsided

[celtic_hackr]

So, what you're saying is that copyright infringers should be given the benefit of current technology to speed the illegal distribution of content they do not own, but the actual copyright holders should be forced to use the most ancient form of currently available technology, thus allowing as much time as possible for the illegal distribution of content?

Forcing the content owners to send out snail mail letters. You're not even going to let them fax sigend copies, and you'll allow the site owners to take whatever time they want to remove infringing content? Wow!

So, I guess you think the same way RIAA et al think? Take all you can and leave no survivors. Here, I always thought that two wrongs don't make a right, but you seem to be on the flip side of that coin. It's opinions like this that hurt the OSS movement and also the BitTorrent providers. With friend like this who needs enemies. We can be our own worst enemy.

While I say it is the responsibility of the copyright holder to enforce his rights, I think that they should be given as much help as is reasonable, given the vastness of the internet and illegal downloading ability it has. It's one thing to burn copies of a copyrighted work for a few friends, but it's another thing to allow the world to download them. However, copyright law needs a major overhaul. No one whose support matters is going to listen to those putting forth arguments like yours.

Bit torrent sites should be capable of detecting at least some infringing content, at least after it has been downloaded at least once. If a download passes through a torrent and it matches bit for bit with a known copyrighted work over the same time-slice, then the probability it is infringing has a positive correlation. Such a file could then be monitored on subsequent downloads over different time-slices, and if it is a 100% match it should be removed.

Furthermore, on what content should be proactively removed should be dependent on whether or not it is available for purchase or not, or is pre-distribution. For example, a torrent of an episode of the Daily show should not get the same protection as a copy of an unrelaesed stolen copy of a new Guns & Roses album. But still if the Daily Show people ask for a take down of such an episode, it should be honored, and honored going forward also. There's much more that could be said here, to create a balanced solution.

Re:Talk about lopsided

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bit torrent sites should be capable of detecting at least some infringing content"

How? Also, copyright breech can only be persued by the copyright holder else I would have sued Sony in the UK for their breach of GPL in seeding copies of LAME in their rootkit.

So Bittorrent sites, not being the copyright holder, cannot legally persue a copyright breech.

Irrespective of whether they are capable or not.

Re:Talk about lopsided

[cliffski]

Excellent post. isohunt do not actually require paper copies, only a very few, very arrogant, and very silly sites insist on that. ironically, one of them is google...

isohunt does respond to legitimate DMCA take-down requests sent by email. I know this to be true, as I have sent them some, and they complied no problem.
I wish all bit-torrent sites were as responsible as them.

Re:Talk about lopsided

[YttriumOxide]

You're not even going to let them fax sigend copies

I'm not sure about Canada (or the US), but in many countries a fax can't be considered a legal document, as it's not the original signature, merely an electronically re-created representation of it. That's the whole idea behind "filling out forms in triplicate" rather than just filling it out once and making a couple of photocopies.

And are isoHunt being told

[Anonymous Coward]

"I want to take without license some copyrighted work. Bwahahahahaha"?

No.

If you asked someone "Where is John Smith" and then when told, shot him, is that helpful bystander guilty of accessory?

No.

media levy only cover audio, not video, softw. etc

[Anonymous Coward]

But I'm hoping that in trying this case, the court takes into account the media levy and clarifies the whole thing, pretty far on the side of the consumer.

The media levy only deals with music / audio, and not videos, software, pictures, etc. So if isoTorrent has any of those files, they can be nailed for it. (IANAL.)

Copyrighted files

[nurb432]

The web interfaces DO house copyrighted content, since the torrent files are an IP object and subject to copyright. I is also the *only* thing they distribute, aside from the normal popup ad, which they have permission to re-distribute.

We give them full rights to distribute the the torrent files, and any attempt to prevent that could be considered restriction on free speech.

How the hell is this 'insightful' ?

[the computer guy nex]

Fox News was founded to make money. Many studies have been done and all concluded that the media does not align with the values of the viewers. One study claimed that 88% of the members of media viewed themselves as "liberal" while this number is only in the mid teens for all Americans. While I'm not going to look for a source, I'm sure everyone agrees with this general premise.

Fox News saw an opportunity and took it, and has become by far the #1 cable news channel. It is probably the only conservative slanting news outlet on cable. Just because it has a different slant than CNN ABC NBC and CBS does NOT mean it is "corrupt" and "misinformed." It had the highest numbers for both the RNC and DNC.

Claiming they are any more guilty of misinformation and corruption than other media outlets is flat out wrong. If you want evidence, even listen to members of your own political party. The left media was blatently pro-Obama and anti-Clinton during the primaries.

I've had a number of liberals say to me that Fox News had by far the most balanced coverage of the Democratic primaries compared to the DNC TV channels (CNN ABC NBC CBS).

Re:How the hell is this 'insightful' ?

[plasmacutter]

One study claimed that 88% of the members of media viewed themselves as "liberal" while this number is only in the mid teens for all Americans.

this is misleading.

"how to lie, with statistics" politics 101.

A more accurate breakdown would be that newscasters are more liberal on social issues, but as soon as it shifts to the economy they become the biggest right-wing reaganite nutcases you've ever set your eyes on.

The reality is the news was neutral-to-moderate-right. If you think fox news is not propaganda you need to get your head on straight.

Re:How the hell is this 'insightful' ?

[plasmacutter]

I'd like to add that most think tanks doing these "studies" you lay claim to are conservative ones.

There are a myriad of reasons for this, but two major contributors jump out at me..

First and foremost, the republican party primarily services the wishes of the upper 2% of the US income spectrum, with particular attention given to the upper fraction of a percent who run the nation's corporate enterprises. Their wealth is considerably greater and infinitely more disposable than the lower 98%, meaning much more funding is available to organizations to push their agenda. **

second, because of the history of both parties since the civil rights eras, the republican party has become a central clearinghouse for intolerant authoritarians who can't (couldn't, since fox news has corrupted the media at large) tolerate equal time and even footing given to both sides of an issue.
The rest of america doesn't see the need for these "studies" because they don't feel indignant when the media fails to stereotype and ridicule those who disagree with them.

**Disclaimer: I do think the perspective of this sect is indeed important in the crafting of laws, but these people still represent the extreme minority in national and global society and, given their interests are diametrically opposed to that majority, they should be providing corrective guidance rather than active steering of public policy.

It's at +5 but mod up anyway

[Blakey Rat]

Thank you. I've tried to say this in the past, but you've said it far better than I ever could. The hypocrisy among filesharers on this site (and everywhere) makes me sick sometimes.

Argumentative techniques aren't sickening

[loqi]

I also think it is alarming that you bring murder of a human in analogy with potential losses of money.

It's not an analogy, it's a clarifying simplification. The original argument was basically "Distributing information which enables people to do X is not wrong, because the wrongness of distributing information is independent of X." It's perfectly legitimate to substitute the most "wrong" thing imaginable for X to debate the merit of that statement. If a fundamental difference does exist between the substitution of "murder" and "copyright infringement", then the original argument has been invalidated due to the revealed dependence on X.

life>money. You may not agree, and if so, I would pity you.

life>money seems pretty substanceless for such a bold-sounding statement. Even if life is your only terminal value, money still has instrumental power to save it. So how much life is better than how much money? If you refuse to admit the existence of a conversion rate between the two, you limit your own potential to save life (and whatever else you care about enough to claim that it's ">money"), and I would pity you.

Re:Argumentative techniques aren't sickening

[joocemann]

The problem is that things are not so simple. You cannot equate a life to money. Obviously you can, but many people, including myself, will disagree that they can be equally represented with 'simple' arguments.

Furthermore, money is a concept and product of mankind's creations. Like spam, bread, copyrights, etc. Humans are a product of an amazing series of events that gave rise to what we are today. Life is precious beyond all money. This is my opinion, and you can attempt to argue with me (and others) about some balance between life/money, but this is a fundamental belief, not one of critical debate.

I hold life, especially that of my own species, to be much more precious than money ever could be. You, in simplifying complex things, have found a way to convince yourself otherwise. Good job.

And in all your keen observation you could not come up with an alternate response than to use my own of "I would pity you"? Please grow up.

Surprise! source is an ultra-right think-tank..

[plasmacutter]

WOW are you an astroturfer!

Registrant:
Mackinac Center for Public Policy
      140 West Main Street
      P.O. Box 568
      Midland, MI 48640
      US

      Domain Name: MACKINAC.ORG

Here is the wikipedia entry for this "accurate and unbiased source"

The Mackinac Center for Policy Research is the largest conservative state-level policy think tank in the nation. It was established by the state's leading conservative activists to promote conservative free market, pro-business policies. Reflected by its board of directors and those funding its operations, the Center works to advance its policy objectives primarily though its publications, but has an increasing physical presence throughout the state. The Mackinac Center has moved beyond Michigan by hosting think tank schools that have lead to the franchising of its operations in nearly every state and 37 other countries

Congrats, you just linked to the central hub from which places like fox news and hannity glean their ever so accurate "information".

I'll believe the KKK's history on race relations before I believe a word they say.

relevant section of the copyright act

[gobbo]

Right, thank you for being more specific.

Here is the section of the copyright act that deals with copying for private use:

80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of

(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,

(b) a performerâ€(TM)s performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or

(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performerâ€(TM)s performance of a musical work, is embodied

onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performerâ€(TM)s performance or the sound recording.

Limitation
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):

(a) selling or renting out, or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or rental;

(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;

(c) communicating to the public by telecommunication; or

(d) performing, or causing to be performed, in public.

1997, c. 24, s. 50.

Useless Analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading through these comments so many people are attempting to use inappropriate analogies to explain this situation and its completely ridiculous. It is senseless to compare isoHunt to a drug dealer or a highway. If any body takes the time to read through Gary Fung's affadavit you will see that he makes a very convincing and appropriate comparison between isoHunt and Google. Both are search engines which crawl and index the internet to provide users fast access to information they need. The difference is that isoHunt indexes .torrent files exclusively while Google indexes .torrent files in addition to websites and other filetypes. In the evidence he attaches search results for Phantom of the Opera on isoHunt, as well as results when searched in google with the filetype specified as .torrent. The results are similar. Seeing this similarity between one of the industries largest and most respected corporations and isoHunt it seems obvious that isoHunt does nothing criminal on their website. Their policies about take downs are clear and there databases hold no actual copyrighted information. On this basis I believe that the website should not be held responsible for violation of copyright.

The moral and ethical debate surrounding internet piracy is another matter entirely. I believe the reason websites like isoHunt are being targetted is because the bitTorrent protocol enables the process of file sharing to be so anonymous and difficult to track. Without breaking laws themselves, copyright holders cannot typically monitor bitTorrent clients activities and meanwhile, trackers are difficult to convict in a court of law because they do not store any copyrighted information either. So, without enabling a mass violation of privacy and allowing companies to monitor internet users activities it is impossible to convict the actual perpetrators of the piracy. Additionally, even if they could convict these people, the process would cost more money then they could possibly recover. As a result companies like isoHunt are being targeted by organizations like the CRIA.

I think the best course for the media corporations is adapt to the changing landscape of the media market. Technologies like iTMS are already doing this in part by making media affordable and more importantly more accessible than bitTorrent. One thing which I would like to see arise from the music industry is a renewed emphasis on live performance. Concerts given by some of today's most famous artists are simply embarrassing in their quality that it makes me wonder what claim they have to the copyrights being fought for. If they can't reproduce any semblance of the music which they claim to be theirs how can they expect users to buy their records in the name of supporting them. I think that sites like isoHunt are in position to support a reinvention of the media industries which incorporates distribution by bitTorrent be it free or at a cost.