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University of Michigan Student Wants SafeNet Prosecuted
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An anonymous University of Michigan student, targeted by the RIAA as a 'John Doe,' is asking for the RIAA's investigator, SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry), to be prosecuted criminally for a pattern of felonies in Michigan. Known to Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth — the agency regulating private investigators in that state — only as 'Case Number 162983070,' the student has pointed out that the law has been clear in Michigan for years that computer forensics activities of the type practiced by Safenet require an investigator's license. This follows the submissions by other 'John Does' establishing that SafeNet's changing and inconsistent excuses fail to justify its conduct, and that Michigan's legislature and governor have backed the agency's position that an investigator's license was required."
SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."
Why do they insist on calling p2p itself illegal? Do they actually understand the law at all, or are they relying on public ignorance to keep them justified?
Wait....nevermind...
"SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks..."
Limewire is illegal? What other "p2p networks" are illegal? Good to see that the judicial system is finally wising up to those weasel-worded bastards.
What a bunch of cocks. Don't they understand that it's the combination of collecting the information and presenting it in court that is the issue here?
How we know is more important than what we know.
There's that minor difference between recording that information for simple personal use and recording in for use as evidence in a court of law. Otherwise, there would be no need for PI licenses since, after all, a PI is only recording publicly available information like where you go and what you say.
But of course we all already knew this...
On one side we have a massive industry with an unlimited supply of lawyers (and public officials) and on the other side we have somebody who's obviously right.
Let's see which way this one swings.
[Although the phrase "Michigan's legislature and governor have backed the agency's position that an investigator's license was required" does make me cautiously optimistic - Let's get this one right, Michigan!]
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If their defense is true, their "evidence" should be inadmissible, since publicly available information cannot be used to trace it to an actual person.
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Gotta love that: "If we need a license, everyone that uses Limewire needs a license." Sorry, but the rest of the world isn't hired by the RIAA specifically to start legal proceedings based on the data they are collecting. There is a difference.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
Nobody likes MediaSentry but they do make a compelling case. If you require a PI license in order to simply view logs of connections to your machine and to contact the people referenced in those logs then the law would be extended to a lot of other things.
If I not mistaken I thought the line between requiring a PI license and not is simply where the information exists... If you are using third parties or other people's hardware then a PI license if clearly warranted.
But on the other hand if all the information you're using is in-house then the license is simply not warranted or helpful.
I don't think it would serve the public good at all to require a PI license, particularly if all Network/System Administrators ended up requiring one.
It also wouldn't stop SafeNet/MediaSentry from operating the way they currently do.
Is MediaSentrys public information? I can't seem to find all the data they gather.. hmmmm...
when they're under oath. Right now they're speaking through their mouthpieces, who will say anything, anything at all, no matter how nonsensical it is. It will be hysterical when one of the actual crooks is actually required to testify under oath about his or her illegal conduct. I'm betting (a) they take the Fifth, and (b) the RIAA's whole litigation campaign goes down the tubes.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
While it may be publicly available, Limewire or people doing Google searches don't typically use the results to support criminal prosecutions and lawsuits. They'd have a better argument that private investigators shouldn't require licenses than that they are acting as private investigators.
Brett
Hopefully now these bastards will actually get prosecuted and shut down. the number of false positives they've turned up and RIAA (read: Sony/BMG/Universal/etc) have litigated is truly disturbing.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
You can't exactly present a file called "IllegalDownloaders.txt" to a court of law and have it be proof. Yes, anyone can view the data that they collect(IPs, etc). So far, they have been using "We are a giant corporation! Of course we would not lie!" to vouch for the authenticity of their data. MediaSentry has never been through any sort of rigors whatsoever. It could be a seagull pecking at a number pad for all we know.
Everybody knows that the law wasn't written to apply to important people!(or their hired lackeys, unless a scapegoat is needed)
Good heavens, the commoners are getting quite out of hand. They'll be demanding perjury charges for false DMCA takedowns next!
Well, yeah, if they intended to use the information they downloaded as evidence in a civil case, I suppose they would!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
One would think SafeNet comes up with a better defense than that. Stupidity as a strategy for legal defense is not going to work for them.
I hate this notion where ya can't do squat without some license from the government. So on purely libertarian grounds I'm forced to take SafeNet's side. Yes there are some legitimate chain of evidence issues involved, as other posters note, but basic liberties have to trump that. Evidence collected by a licensed & bonded investigator should be given extra consideration in court perhaps but ANYBODY should be able to collect evidence of criminal activity from the public Internet and should be able to testify in a court of law.
Now with that said they ARE a bunch of clueless wankers from all appearances. But on the other hand with the bulk of the tech press so obviously biased against them I'd be listening extra careful so as to form a more informed opinion if I were an actual juror on a case involving them.
Democrat delenda est
Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one.
But not everyone using a search engine or collecting data from a p2p client are doing so for the purpose of presenting evidence in court.
Nice try.
The whole point of requiring a license is for investigative purposes. P2P users rarely if ever 'investigate' each other any more than running a whois on the IP address.
Mediasentry is obviously trying to avoid the backlash, which hopefully will back fire on them.
By claiming that you shouldn't need a license to practice these types of claims, MediaSentry has essentially decided that any simple google search of a user should suffice as verifiable evidence. The reason the law was created, and the reason that the law exists is to make sure that the supposed evidence is actually legitimate. A private investigator is likely to do a real search into the evidence to see if it is legitamate, whereas a simple google search leaves no proof, but merely a statement of possibility. If someone were trying to deceive people who were spying on them, they might use a false IP address, and thereby throw off the untrained. This is why governments require a PI license, and why these ready, shoot, aim lawsuits aren't legally sanctioned. It's based on the idea that most of the time they'll get it right, not proof that they're right first.
Let's consider an alternate story: hardscrabble open-source advocate uncovers evidence that Microsoft misappropriated his GPL'd code, files lawsuit. Microsoft convinces the State of Michigan to prosecute him for failure to have a private investigator license. It's not hard to imagine which side Slashdot would take, no?
Come on! We're all supposed to be good libertarians here. There's no good reason for the government to require a *license* in order for somebody to gather non-private information. We shouldn't cheer when the government abuses a bad law - even if it's being used against a party we personally disagree with.
If you walk around in the park and watch people and write down what they're doing in order to prove they're doing something illegal, that's called an investigation and you need a license. That's also "publicly available information that millions of people have access to" or whatever they're claiming. It doesn't have to be private, hidden information to be an investigation. In fact, getting that is basically just called a subpeona, not an investigation.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one.
First, let me say- Uhh... no.
Here's the requirements, and some of them are quite interesting. Like:
A person, firm, partnership, company, limited liability company, or corporation shall not engage in the business of furnishing or supplying, for hire and reward, information as to the personal character of any person or firm, or as to the character or kind of business and occupation of any person, firm, partnership, company, limited liability company, or corporation and shall not own, conduct, or maintain a bureau or agency for the purposes described in this subsection except as to the financial rating of persons, firms, partnerships, companies, limited liability companies, or corporations without having first obtained a license from the department.
Hmm....
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"Illegal P2P"? So, I guess that means that the WoW patches I just downloaded from the Bittorrent network are illegal.
I should expect a cease and desist letter from Blizzard any minute now...
WTF is with these RIAA and affiliate companies always making the statement that P2P is illegal? It is some of the MATERIAL that may be a violation of copywrite to distribute without license. The networks themselves and the sharing of free-to-distribute medias are perfectly legal. Maybe if they understood this, they would have a better result in court.
Really, the RIAA and MediaSentry/SafeNet need to be grilled in court over and over and over again. They still won't get the point, but I'm sure a few kicks in the nuts will wipe the grins from their faces.
I'd lean towards your opinion, except for one thing: There are a multitude of things you can do on your own behalf, but once you want to sell your services, it's different. [see: prostitution]
Electricians, cosmetologists, lawyers all do things that you could many times do yourself. But if you want to sell yourself as an expert to others, there are licensing and other rules.
While SafeNet might only be using public information, but who's to say they aren't also illegally tapping into information they aren't supposed to? If they were licensed P.I.'s their licence would be at risk if they violated the rules. Risk of their professional license is another way to keep them straight, for things that criminal and civil law don't cover.
Let's consider an alternate story: hardscrabble open-source advocate uncovers evidence that Microsoft misappropriated his GPL'd code, files lawsuit
This is a fallacious comparison of the two situations.
First and foremost, the developer himself found the evidence.
Second, he retains a lawyer and sues the company specifically, rather than a john doe in order to gain his identity and go on a fishing expedition.
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Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one.
Well, if what you are collecting is going to be used in court documents, then yes, you probably should use a LICENSED Private Investigator.
As far as I'm concerned without some investigation body or standard to back up the 'documents' containing information obtained from the internet, it should all be heresay at best.
I'm baffled that ANY judge is buying what they are being presented, without some 'legal' authorized body validating the investigation techniques or so called evidence being produced and presented.
As a Michigan resident is there any way to support this petition?
Scott Moulton gave an excellent talk about Computer Forensics professionals needing Private Investigator (PI) licenses at Defcon 16. Basically the Private Investigator lobby has been pressing state legislatures to classify computer forensics as PI work. This does little to guarantee that the public is protected against poor/shoddy computer forensic work, and it does everything to increase the number of dues-paying members to the PI licensing body.
The law may be making the online community happen, in this instance, where it is causing the RIAA grief. But on the whole, laws like the Michigan law are not good for the computer forensic and computer security community.
Scott Moulton's talk at Defcon 16: http://defcon.org/html/defcon-16/dc-16-speakers.html#Moulton
Pretend I said something meaningful or insightful here.
If collating all that freely available information is legal, then shouldn't the p2p search engines not have to worry about legal threats from riaa/etc??
between this entity and everyone else, and that's intent.
Regardless of how SafeNet is getting the information -- through public information recording, or through more thorough computer forensics -- they are still acting as a computer forensics investigator for RIAA. They must have an investigator's license if they are doing this.
Also consider this case:
A computer forensics company is assigned to gather information on any given person's computer practices. As part of the study, they may use publicly available information that doesn't even relate to the field of computer forensics. Despite that the information is publicly available, they are still conducting a computer forensics investigation. They still must have a license.
The law is pretty clear here, it's a bad argument on SafeNet's part.
Section 338.822
(b) "Computer forensics" means the collection, investigation, analysis, and scientific examination of data held on, or retrieved from, computers, computer networks, computer storage media, electronic devices, electronic storage media, or electronic networks, or any combination thereof.
(e) "Investigation business" means a business that, for a fee, reward, or other consideration, engages in business or accepts employment to furnish, or subcontracts or agrees to make, or makes an investigation for the purpose of obtaining information with reference to any of the following:
(i) Crimes or wrongs done or threatened against...or any other person or legal entity.
(viii) Computer forensics to be used as evidence before a court, board, officer, or investigating committee.
Section 338.823
(1) A person, firm, partnership, company, limited liability company, or corporation shall not engage in the business of professional investigator for hire, fee, or reward,
It basically all comes down to the fee requirement and evidence to be used in front of a court.
"records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license"
Great. Now the RIAA will start suing end users who use "public information available to millions" to find files, legal or not, on search engines because we don't have a license.
Sometimes we powerless voters - who do not have hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the legislation we want, nor a high-priced legal team to use as an extortion racket, and whose votes are being thrown away by the counters (diebold...) - have only one reasonable course of action left: play two corrupt power blocs against each other.
Sadly, this can all be resolved by them very easily with a transfer of funds between the two organizations to make them best friends supporting amended legislation to exclude MediaSentry-style investigations from the rules, or to allow super-easy licensing of MediaSentry-type investigators.
... but conducting organized and covert surveillance through it is not. At least not in my state.
MediaSentry deserves to go down. Hard.
Hans? Is that you?
The reason that PIs are licensed is because they snoop on people's lives. So the public has a real interest in making sure that they're not only reasonably trustworthy, but that they have the means and information to punish them if they do something wrong.
The PI licenses therefore encourage accountability by making sure that they can't just lie and get away with it. If they lie, their license can be revoked. If they lie, the court knows who they are and where they live and they can drag them before a judge if they do something wrong.
So while I sympathize with the notion that we shouldn't need the government's permission to do every little thing, I do think that there are cases where people hold too much power and too little accountability. And in those cases, the public has a legitimate reason to demand that measures are taken to make sure that these people have to answer to someone if they abuse their power.
B and C are the same parties, but nice try attempting to portray the **AA as "mean and bad" without appearing to demean the beloved musicians.
Some musicians sell the rights to their creations to others. Some choose to market them themselves. It does not matter — for this argument — the B and C in your example are one and the same, and B is damaged — at least some of the people, who got their music for free, would've paid for it.
Giving away and using copies of somebody else's works without permission is much closer to theft, than, for example, the right to sell pornography is to free speech. Stop blaming other people's common sense, when they disagree with you — American schools aren't that bad...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Every time you run `whois' to determine, which network an attacking IP belongs to, you perform (an unlicensed) investigation.
Keep this in mind cheering for the little music-thief. He is using a completely bogus law — the licensing is required for more and more things, turning more and more things from being rights (derived directly from the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness) into privileges, which the Executive Government can take away on a whim, without bothering with Judicial, etc.
It is a far more important battle than "the right to free music" or any other of slashdot's usual topics of outrage.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I've mentioned it elsewhere in this thread, but the ubiquitous use of the word "theft" in the context of p2p file-sharing is a slur, not unlike the use of the "n word" in reference to african americans.
It is used to denigrate the practice and practicers of p2p file-sharing (more often than not no matter what the material shared is).
Is there not some basis for a suit in that?
I would imagine there must be a legal reason why more partisan news sources don't use the term "towel head" in reference to people of arabic descent or "kike" in reference to people of jewish descent.
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"fallacious"
Does everyone love homophones (or near homophones) as much as I do?
Isn't stalking illegal? I don't know about you guys but I think there is a difference between haphazardly accessing public information, and following/stalking people (tracking specific users). Why should it be any different when its online? They should need a license before they can stalk people.
SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other [...] p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."
It's not whether the info is there; it's how it's used and gathered. All of your public activities are in plain view of other people, and some even take pictures of you, but if someone starts following you around everywhere taking photos, but doesn't have some sort of license, it's called stalking.
Everyone else using P2P isn't representing itself in court... or is this a logical leap lost on them?
If someone were to shoot this company in the kneecaps, maybe their boss will be a little more careful about its practices hurting children. Especially if you shoot them with a shotgun like Michigan state lawyers!
You may have had a hard time explaining why file-sharing isn't theft because the two are pretty close.
But not quite the same.
I wonder some times if we're not trying to stretch precedent too far here. It's clear that file sharing is more like one candle lighting another than it is one person stealing another person's candle. Have we not gone over the edge, where we can no longer apply the term "theft", "piracy" other epithets to something that is so very difficult to match to the original definition of those terms? Modern usage is so different I think depending on precedent is just a wee bit bogus. The act of copying a file, legal or otherwise, is something different, and new rules and definitions should apply.
Once I pointed out to my young daughter that dragons were an evolutionary offshoot of birds. "Don't be silly, Daddy! Dragons are Dragonkind".
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
... with a target on his chest painted by the RIAA, is asking for the RIAA's investigator, SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry), to be persecuted criminally for a pattern of felonies in Michigan, exactly as their sponsors have criminally persecuted so many others."
This is an interesting concept.
How would this affect a group like Perverted Justice, who uses "private investigator" techniques to track down people (both legitimate pervs and also people who simply disagree with them).
Could they also be prosecuted for failing to obtain a Private Investigator license, or is there some difference that I haven't thought of?
I'm curious what folks thoughts are on this when considering the implications of supporting this case against MediaSentry.
No... Every p2p user (legal content or not), search engine, etc, would require an investigator's license if they were to expect their findings to be permissible in a court of law...
Meh
All those other users aren't collecting and using this information as EVIDENCE in court of law. Which is what most "investigator" legislation is about. I hope SafeNet/MediaSentry/RIAA gets nailed to the wall with really large, rusty spikes on this one.
-- Motto: If it doesn't make sense, always follow the money.
Right, let's get a list together and sue the pants of :
Google ...
MSN
Yahoo
To most people, theft is taking what you didn't pay for. That's exactly what file sharing someone else's IP is - you have something you didn't pay for, even if nobody else "lost" it as a consequence.
No, I don't think that's true. To most people, theft is taking something away from its rightful owner: the fact that someone "lost" it isn't just an irrelevant detail, it's the most important part.
Go ahead, ask someone, or just try a thought experiment. Suppose your neighbor told you they saw someone "stealing" your car, but then you looked in the driveway and your car was still there. The neighbor explained that it was a new kind of "theft" that doesn't cause you to lose the "stolen" item.
Would you feel robbed?
I doubt you'd care at all, and I'm certain that most people wouldn't care. Most people consider theft bad because of its impact on the victim, not because the thief gets something for free.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
IANAL, but that all information gathered by a third party that does not have a private investigator license (or court appointed warrant, whatever) is inadmissible as far as I know. You can gather all the information you want, but whether or not you can use it against someone in a court of law would require gathering that evidence through proper channels, I'd think.
However, holding onto that gathered information and using it in other ways would fall under an entirely different law. But rendering that information inadmissible in court would force the RIAA's corporate spies to follow the law or be essentially useless except for building a case for just cause for a warrant.
"SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire"
By that logic, wouldn't everyone who owns a video camera need an investigator's license? Or is it the act of monitoring someone for the purposes of an investigation that requires an investigator's license?
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
What if they snuck into your concert after you've already sold all the tickets you wanted to and have made all the profit you needed to cover costs and give everyone a bonus?
What have you lost then?
Nothing.
The guys making bucks from RIAA suits are like Danny DeVito in that Matt Damon movie, The Rainmaker. They would have licenses to practice law if they were savvy enough. Don't think of them as legal entities, duly representing the power of the courts, they are just some guys filing paperwork and gloating about the gullibility of people who can't defend themselves. These guys think they're important every time a Slashdot article appears about their scare tactics. RIAA suits should come with a mandatory picture of Danny DeVito pretending to be a lawyer.
If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license.
Incorrect. It would be required if they wanted to enter their information in a court of law. An investigator's license doesn't allow you to break the law, it only certifies that the investigators are reliable. (Cough, cough). In reality, it gives the courts something to revoke if you screw up.
I couldn't be happier with a SafeNet investigation. Let's all rally around our respective God or Gods and pray that these jerks get what they deserve.
You're disagreeing with the PP because they don't agree with what YOU think is "true".
Sharing != theft.
I haven't taken, I've made.
Ah, but rememeber that in the time before the oceans swallowed Atlantis, that men fought over the mystery of steel--a technology known only by the Cimmerians until they were destroyed by Thulsa Doom and his snake-worshipping cult!
Conan is still remembered!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Wow, everybody can use public services... Well take an example of public bus. Peoples goes in, goes out. If by chance, any person in the bus is spying over who enter that bus at a corner street and exit at another corner street... and use that data to "investigate" over public person moves... and then bring that spying date to court...
You need a freaking license to spy on others! Why? Because we get a private life and we protect it and the government protect it too.
Jourdespoir
Wait -- they're Safenet now? When the hell did that happen?
Karma is for whores
SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."
Bullshit. If private investigator licenses were required to take compromising photographs of people in public places, everyone who owns a camera would be required to have a private investigator license.
Ummm, hey, dumbass; it's not the act alone that matters. It is the act as part of an investigation. Are you retarded, or lying?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I am not familiar with the law in Michigan. I am somewhat familiar with what was attempted in Texas. I believe they have similar roots and similar objectives.
The idea is to eliminate the "shadetree forensic examiner" from the marketplace. These folks represent themselves as being qualified but often do more damage than useful work. Read up on Bando v. Gates for an example of an unqualified forensic examiner.
The problem is most people are missing the point. States do not differentate between actions taken as part of an investigation or not. States do not differentate between evidence being collected for court vs. information for private use. If you are going to regulate examiners, then by God they are going to regulate examiners. What defines an examiner? Well, the Texas proposal would have regulated anyone doing "examination" work.
Yes, indeed, using Google would have fallen into their definition in some cases. This is not a matter of fine-tuning the law. This is utter silliness. The objective - elimination of unqualified people touching computers - is a good one. I'd really like to have a law like that to keep most of the people that come to me for help from ever touching a computer again. But it is not a realistic objective and not one that is compatible with the current state of the art.
Bemoan the use of "unlicensed investigators" all you want, but be aware that the bloggers license is next if this really were to succeed. I suspect it will not. The law may remain but it will not be enforced. Ever.
I think there is a flaw in the argument by SafeNet/MediaSentry that the information is: "available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one." is flawed.
Millions of users might have access to all of that information, but only one is making money from it..... Guess who???!? SafeNet/MediaSentry. Their business is based upon the SALE of that information to the RIAA.
That must count for something in this smoke and mirrors game they are playing, don't ya' think?
Get em dude! Time to bring pain to litigious vomit.
And no, MediaSentry, we don't all need investigator's licenses. Why? None of us are claiming to be a professional witness or sourced for investigative purposes, are we? I never told anyone that joe-blow did something wrong and that I have proof, did I?
Why do they insist on calling p2p itself illegal?
They're not just trying to flame the file-sharers.
They're trying to convert the Internet to a broadcast service (with themselves as the gatekeeping broadcasters). A centraized-producers, sea-of-consumers model.
These are the media conglomerates. They became multibillion dollar businesses in an environment where providing "content" had a high capital cost. This let them serve as gatekeepers, collecting a lot of money for the works they distributed (but still out-competing live performances due to economy of scale) and keeping most of it for themselves.
But advancing electronic and computer technology has brought the tools of mass-market "content creation" within the financial reach of the ordinary "starving artist". And the inherently peer-to-peer internet, with high bandwidth, flat rates, and cost-distributing tools like torrents, has brought the distribution costs to near-nothing. So artists without investors can bypass the gatekeeper and go straight to the customers/fans on an industrial scale.
This means that the artists can now out-compete the gatekeepers. So to protect their lucrative business they are taking a number of measures to attack, not just competition from unpaid distribution of their own material, but also this potential competition from artists escaping from their channels.
You see it here in the attempt to brand peer-to-peer as synonymous with crime. But you also see it in other places: .alt hierarchy for example.) This raises the cost of "distributing content" and reintroduces gatekeepers.
- Torrent throttling.
- Asymmetric connections with high download and low upload speeds (presupposing the ISP's customer consumes more than he produces).
- Bans on "servers".
- Legal moves to make ISPs responsible for the content of files they transfer, store, or serve. (Web sites, netnews, etc. Notice the attack on the
- And (of course) propaganda buried in the entertainment they produce. (Just as they once did crime shows villainizing video games, computer bulletin boards, and the like when they were competing with broadcast TV for eyeball time - and before that smearing cable TV operators as a class in the early days when they weren't and conglomerate-owned and were seen as pirates of the off-the-air signals and competitors purveying imported and local content.)
If they can get the general public to avoid peer-to-peer and go back to central producer / distributed (and paying!) consumer, they've won the battle.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
And, we do(nt) generally call people on anti-depressants "druggies"
The stretched truth has now snapped, entering the realm of, at best, embellishment.
Maybe that's a stretch for you but I have ALWAYS wondered why a pot smoker is a drug addict but the guy on Prozac isn't. Both are drugs. Both are powerful drugs. Yet, one is perfectly acceptable and the other can land you in prison.
America has very very hypocritical policies when it comes to drugs. Some are fine (but are equally as dangerous) while others that are less harmful, are prohibited. If you would like to argue this point, please feel free but I can come up with hundreds of examples where a normal, rational person would clearly see the conflict.
Ethyl Alcohol, for starters....(booze)....
I have no connection to this, I just happened to look over at http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/ and saw the request for help at the top. It's a pretty easy way that a lot of people can help the cases a little bit. Go sign up for a PACER account. I looked at the recordingindustryvspeople blog and had no idea what Pacer was, but it appears to be the only (maybe just an easy?) way to get federal court documents. They charge 8 cents per page you download including the docket page, but it caps at $3.40 for all case-specific information and the good news is they don't send a bill for under $10 per calendar year. So lots of people can download either 2 really large pdfs if there are any or about 125 pages minus docket pages without getting charged at all. Or if you want to contribute a few bucks, buy the pdfs after that and send them to Ray. One thing that would be nice is to know what files have already been sent to him. I signed up for a Pacer account and didn't feel like putting in my credit card info so it said it could take up to a week to get an account. If you put in your card info you can get it immediately.
You're right about "to most people"... However, that just means that those most people need to be educated... I agree entirely. However, there also needs to be "wiggle room" for the common vernacular to be (at least!) mildly different from legal jargon. See "hacker v. cracker" - another misappropriation of words that are "pretty close," but where anyone with enough brain cells and ego to care would be able to tell the intended meaning from the context.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
Remember, kids, John Doe doesn't infringe on others' copyrights, and neither should you.
We have a chance here to see and understand fundamental issues involving an attempt through the use of pseudo law, innuendo and implications of impropriety by the corporatists to maintain their monopoly on distribution which they formerly enjoyed in the pre Internet era. This is not a simple issue of supposed theft or copyright violation but rather just another manifestation of the attempt to regain some control over the wave of freedom that was unleashed by the personal computer and the Internet. But the forces of liberation, however in conflict with a previous era's outrageous profiteering through proper "marketing" channels,
will not be stopped, constrained or penned in by the limitations of laws created in an earlier time with undreamed of and unimagined conceptions of this future.
This conflict extends to the necessity for the abolition of the "Electoral College" and the eventual establishment of virtual Internet State entities with law courts, rules, and most especially, guarantees of freedoms which the modern pharisees, otherwise known as "lawyers", are incapable of protecting.
Enjoy the period of relative calm for the genie pf personal empowerment, unleashed by the Internet, will NOT be placed back in the bottle - and all the King's horses and all the King's men, will not put humpty's copyright laws, or his nation state, back together again.
Necessary but not sufficient.
Learn the difference.
learn the fucking difference
Fixed.
btw, dont open at work
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.