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South Korea Joins the "Three Strikes" Ranks
Glyn Moody writes "For years, the content industries having been trying to get laws passed that would stop people sharing files. For years they failed. Then they came up with the 'three strikes and you're out' idea — and it is starting to be put into law around the world. First we had France, followed by countries like Italy, Ireland — and now South Korea: 'On March 3, 2009, the National Assembly's Committee on Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting & Communications (CCSTB&C) passed a bill to revise the Copyright Law. The bill includes the so called, "three strikes out" or "graduated response" provision.' Why has the 'three strikes' idea caught on where others have failed? And what is the best way to stop it spreading further?"
Simple. Accuse prominent law-makers of copyright violations.
Three times.
Except for the french president, he only needs two more.
There probably needs to be made a ruckus for each law-maker that needs to be disconnected, but after a few successful stories in the media, they'll either write exceptions for themselves into law (and that can easily be used against them next elections) or the law is dropped.
So who do we get to appeal to when we've been falsely accused. The power company can't cut off my electricity without some legal recourse. The city can't turn off my water or sewer without some legal recourse. Who do I appeal to when my only ISP shuts me off because someone spoofed my IP address or botted my machine, or hijacked my router?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If you want to stop it, just stop downloading.
Are you honestly telling me that you have downloaded music or movies e.t.c. and actually believe you deserve it because it's there?
If you really do, I think you need a slap.
TPB and stuff are great and it is funny... but how many people really think deep down that they are correct?
I agree that one download does not mean one lost sale e.t.c. and that half of the stuff these companies say is crap, but it does not mean I deserve to download anything I see.
What exactly is the problem? You break the law, you are punished. Hating on PITA DRM is one thing, but arguing against punishment when you are plainly violating copyright is just stupid.
I don't like your attitude. One sec while I fire off some copyright violations to your isp.
In many of these cases, "You break the law" is actually "The RIAA(or local equivalent) accuses you of breaking the law". That is the big problem.
A situation where you can be punished on the strength of a mere accusation, without any legal standards of evidence or proof, is an absolute travesty.
Really, three strikes and you are out is straight from a game someone sat down and created out of thin air one day. Now people are basing laws on the concept? WTF?
3 strikes is more appropriate for a cultural struggle, which is what this is. Many of us firmly believe that intellectual property law is invalid, and that there is no duty to society to follow it. Both we and industries built on IP are trying to convince the public towards our perspective, and the "3 strikes" law gives some limited protection to people who have only heard our side and don't know the legal risks.
In the end, what we hope is that instead of simply "learning and accepting" the concept of intellectual property, people will just be more careful not to get caught, and that eventually we can remove copyright and patent protections entirely from our legal system. In the meantime, it's nice not to have people have their lives ruined in this cultural/legal struggle.
By analogy to other struggles over notions of human dignity and autonomy, if people who were part of the Underground Railroad had a 3-strikes rule, it would've afforded them some protection without requiring a complete victory .. yet.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I hereby accuse you of terrorism. Would you like to face the punishment now, or do you think that due process is important now?
And, like a lot of people, you missed the point: there is no need in any of these provisions to prove that you were indeed file sharing. All it takes is an infringement allegation by someone stating that they represent a copyright holder. That's it. And I can tell you that the vast majority of ISPs will log the allegation, tally up the current count, and cut off the Internet if the tally reaches three. If you're lucky, they send out form mails stating that they received an infringement notice, and how many there are now.
You got DHCP? You're pretty much guaranteed to get someone else's notice. And as you pointed out, a lot of stuff gets done over the internet. Including my job. The Recording associations are essentially killing off the ability of anyone but large corporations to use the internet. Of course they're happy with that. The questions is - are you? Can you be?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It's not fairer. "3 strikes" implicitly assumes that you are guilty. It's typically used in sentencing proceedings in some criminal courts.
In applying it to filesharing, the laws conveniently (for the accuser) leave out the proof-of-guilt phase. It is really just "3 times accused and you're out". At least with a lawsuit the accused has a chance to put forth their side of the story to an impartial court of law. The new laws do not.
Harsh penalties for file sharing strike most people as being wrong.
However, wholesale file sharing of copyrighted material also strikes most people as wrong.
A tiered system is seen as being more fair, punishing those who commit a "youthful indiscretion" more lightly, and repeat, presumably more hardcore offenders more harshly.
It makes sense from a limited perspective.
My comment is now on your computer, as are many other people's comments. The notice at the bottom of the page says that the comment is mine. I don't want it on your computer, so now I can call your ISP and claim that you have some of my content on your computer. Two of the other people on here can do the same, and now you don't have the internet any more.
Yeah, that's a BS example, and wouldn't stand up in court. But it doesn't need to. All you need is three allegations, and you're done.
I hereby accuse you of terrorism. Would you like to face the punishment now, or do you think that due process is important now?
He can't hear you. He unmisteriously disappeared.
we need a online equivalent of a Lech Walesa. Look at what came out of one simple strike in a shipyard.....
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
For example:
-Book of Armaments, Chapter 9 (excerpt)
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
Seems to me that what is needed is a large number of people abusing this law and lodging false complaints with the aim to deny service to random/ non-random people before the legislators will be able to understand what a stupid law this is. Once enough of their (voting) constituents are adversely affected they'll either rescind it or be voted out of office.
No, the problem is standard of proof, at least as described. On the other hand, if there is an appeal process and the accused has to prove that they have not made any illegal downloads then you are right, the issue is with the burden of proof.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Three, copyright law has gone way off the rails to the point where it is significantly impairing free speech, innovation, and creativity. Century-long copyright terms, takedown notices to block speech one disagrees with, DRM that seizes control of communications technology, and a tremendous concentration of cultural ownership in the hands of a few companies are bad enough. Strengthening the enforcement of illegitimate and unjust laws only increases the injustice.
I concur. The copyright law is a bright example of laws not serving the people but lobbyists. And, it's going to get worse and worse and worse, until *we, the people* wake up and make a shift in governance which puts the legislative, judicial and executive branches of the government in their place, serving the people.
Serving you and me, listening to our needs, proactively finding ways to support us and make our lives easier, cheaper, healthier and happier.
Currently, *money* is the most important thing to the government. And, government has found ways to collect its money from us, without accountability from our side. We have no control about giving our money or where our money goes. Lobbyists do have that control and they use it to steer the government.
When a shift happens that makes *us, the people, and our well-being* the most important thing for our government, then we will see policies that serve our interests.
This shift will not happen in the government before it happens for most individuals.
What we are seeing is the government acting as a greedy, insecure, vengeful child-king. Our last president was a wonderful illustration of that.
Our own insecurity, greed and separation manifest on a large scale.
Our laws naturally become more and more oppressive until we can't take it anymore and then get eased just enough to avoid violent response. After a while this is the new norm and a more oppressive version gets pushed again, and again and again. We are cornered and the walls are closing in, all the time.
This is how you boil a frog, this is how you enslave people under the illusion of freedom.
And, of course, there's always the power... http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/19.html
Scenario: the wrong geek gets 2 strikes, gets mad, and fires up a botnet (or just happens to have, say, $20,000 laying around to rent an existing one for a few runs). The botnet causes a significant percentage of users in some country to start getting their "strike warnings". As a result, the fallacy of the idea that IP addresses identify human beings is exposed (or the fallacy that ISPs invest the slightest effort in controlling botnets, if you like).
Make 'em use text-only browsers :D
"Look mum, i'm watching Lord of The Rings in ASCII art!"
Wow.
So anyone who doesnt agree with you and might think that infringing copyright is a bad thing MUST be 'astroturfing'. What a closed-minded view. Maybe if you actually considered the possibility that the people with differing views honestly held them, and actually listened to them, you might learn something?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
A surveillance society to keep copyrights in place is not acceptable.
If there has to be a choice between surveillance on all civilian communications and ceasing the copyright regime, I choose ceasing copyrights.
Who are you going to email your legal arguments to once your internet is shut off?
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Make 'em use text-only browsers :D
"Look mum, i'm watching Lord of The Rings in ASCII art!"
The Ralph Bakshi version, right?
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
There are other programs and if you do not want others knowing what "traffic" you carry then you would be wise to use them.
The more I know, the less I know
Why random people?
Let the law pass, then use the law to deny service to the very same lawmakers who voted it in. Shouldn't take long to piss them off.
Why hurt the common man unless we have to when it's the legislators that are being stupid.
I also recommend using the law to hit big corporations in a variety of ways.
Leaving aside the idiocy of treating logfiles like fingerprints, are you absolutely going to swear that the ISP machine and the RIAA machine are set to the same time?
The RIAA's whole approach is a house of cards, and I believe that in the end they will irreversibly damage the credibility of genuine computer forensics.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Massive fraud. With a constant barrage of phony (but authentic looking) infringement letters sent to ISP's. ISP's cannot/will not validate each letter they receive (or have emailed or faxed to them).
Why is it unlikely to have packet forging, Most linux box allow MAC address and IP address spoofing.
Just spoof a neighbor's mac and IP and open a TCP connection. As far as the router / switch is concerned there is no difference between 1 machine opening many TCP Connections and many machines with same mac address each opening a few tcp connections.
Sure the average movie downloading teen doesn't have the knowledge to do this but I am sure there is already some app you can download which provides a nice friendly GUI interface.
Such legislation would cause more economic loss than the actual infringement (businesses included).
Which is why the ISPs will challenge the law in court when and if the MAFIAA attempts to bring suit for failure to "cut off" a customer(s). If you were a business and some third party, who is not a paying customer, came to your place of business waving some piece of paper in your face and told you to "cut off" certain customers and never serve them again (resulting in a loss for your business) would you just do it? Certainly not, and neither will the ISPs. The negative PR from their customer base and the prospect of losing tens of thousands of dollars a month in subscription fees will put ISPs in a fighting mood, lawsuits be damned. A lawsuit might take years to work its way through the courts and in the meantime the ISP is losing tens of thousands of dollars per month in subscriber fees from customers that it has been forced to "cut off". The MAFIAA will be put in its place when it starts costing the large ISPs such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint/Nextel real money. It will be like when SCO foolishly attempted to sue IBM and Novell, the MAFIAA will be swiftly crushed by the much larger telecom industry and their lobbyists/attorneys.
So anyone who doesnt agree with you and might think that infringing copyright is a bad thing MUST be 'astroturfing'. What a closed-minded view.
First, WOOSH!
To explain...the point is that the "astroturfer" is as guilty of actually astroturfing as the "file sharer" is of actually sharing copyrighted material in a manner that is not permitted. At this point, both are just accusations, but at least here on /. there is a way to allow the accused to prove the accusation is false.
Most of these "three strikes" copyright laws aren't even "guilty until proven innocent". They are "guilty if any large corporation that holds copyrights says you are".
Since there are no provisions in these laws for false accusations, the correct solution is to find the IP addresses of any of the people in power who passed these laws and accuse them of sharing your copyrighted content.
A real solution, of course, would be the content holders to get off their collective asses and make way for a global and non DRM:d way to access content at a reasonable fee.
Everyone that has tried this has been abused. No ifs, ands or buts; everyone that has tried going the open route has been anally raped with no lubricant, and no kiss afterwards. It's worked like this:
Company 1: *drm*
Consumer: "u fagget i pirate u"
Company 2: "That's not right... here, just pay a reasonable fee, and I won't limit you"
Consumer: "lol ur easy 2 pirate fag"
Company 2: ":("
Company 1: *MASSIVE LITIGATION PUSH*
Your idea makes sense on paper, but human nature is a painful reminder that it just doesn't work in reality. Check out the piracy numbers on the completely open (and Linux enabled!) World of Goo.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
Meh. People are gonna pirate regardless, and no matter what DRM is invented, it will be cracked. There will always be content pirates. The best you can do is treat your LEGITIMATE customers well enough that they buy from you again and again and compensate for whatever losses you might take from pirates.
A real solution, of course, would be the content holders to get off their collective asses and make way for a global and non DRM:d way to access content at a reasonable fee.
Everyone that has tried this has been abused. No ifs, ands or buts;
Yup, which is exactly why the Amazon MP3 store went under and iTunes is still selling just DRM tracks.
Oh wait...
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Lawmakers aren't subject to the laws. That's why they pass stupid laws in the first place: they know that any complaint made against them will be investigated and, unless done by a large enough company, ignored.
The common man is the only one you can hurt. Legislators are quite safe in their ivory fortress.
If politicians are untouchable, then corporations are Demon Gods capable of smiting you with lawsuit and then dragging you through all kinds of legal Hells. Don't even think of going up against them.
You know that old joke? "Cthulhu for president - why vote for the lesser evil?" The sad thing is that, as far as powers that be go, Cthulhu is the lesser evil.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I think if any company, corporation, charity or any other legal entity is convicted three times of any criminal offence then they should be disbanded/unchartered/dissolved and all the funds and assets should be forfeit to the government.
That's an example of why three strikes is a bad idea.
Your argument contradicts reality.
Let me explain...
Don't break the law and you aren't in trouble.
This is exceptionally unlikely for nearly everyone to do.
First off, if you are not a lawyer by profession, you already lost at that game. All of us reading this have broken probably around a hundred laws just today in our normal daily lives. You included.
Most of those laws aren't even known, occasionally even by the police! They are still public record and 'on the books', thus are law.
Did you know in the state of Ohio, it's illegal to walk down the street with two ice cream cones in your pocket?
It's true.. and despite the unlikelihood of that happening, in addition to its harmlessness, it is still a crime.
It's like people who complain when they get a ticket for "only going 5mph over the limit" (ie, only breaking the law a little).
No, not really at all like that. In that example, a police officer both is witness to your crime, and generally has proof in the form of a radar/laser gun readout.
In the case of what the article speaks of, there is no proof (because it is not needed to make an accusation, by definition.)
Simply by having someone else CLAIM you committed a crime is enough to count as a strike.
Three such CLAIMs and you are offline.
If actual evidence and proof were required in the law, and it went before a judge or a jury of peers, then most of us would not have a problem with this law. But that isn't the case, and so most all of us have a problem with it.
What exactly is the problem? You break the law, you are punished.
Again, if that was actually what the article was saying, not only would it not be a problem, but it wouldn't even be posted on slashdot. But somehow you missed that part in the article (like, you know, all of it)
These people may or may not have committed any crime. It doesn't at all matter.
You are accused of breaking the law, and you get punished. That doesn't seem like a bad thing to you?
If not, then just wait until you get your way. I can find more than three people which will claim you broke a law, just so you won't feel bad about being punished for it when you are punished.
I don't understand the conspiracy theory here. It just doesn't make sense.
It's in the RIAA's best interest to provide accurate time stamps because they gain nothing by having the wrong people's connection cut. If the real offender is still uploading then the RIAA has just wasted time and money and achieved nothing.
It's in the ISP's best interest to keep accurate time stamps so they can cut the right person's connection because each customer they turn off is $60 a month they stop making - that adds up after a while. Not to mention that shutting down the wrong people means the RIAA will keep coming back telling them to shut off even more people.
Not to mention all the negative publicity they would get if they shut down the wrong people.
So, what devious hijinks are you expecting?
Maybe not
It's in the RIAA's best interest to provide accurate time stamps because they gain nothing by having the wrong people's connection cut. If the real offender is still uploading then the RIAA has just wasted time and money and achieved nothing.
Wrong. Utterly and completely wrong.
In the mind of the RIAA, EVERYBODY is guilty of "stealing" their product. Even if they didn't "catch" you downloading something, you're guilty of downloading something, even if it's not theirs. And if it's not theirs, it's even better, because it spreads fear that downloading *anything* will get you sued.
Make no mistake - the RIAA's litigation campaign isn't actually designed to catch people who are copying their music, it's designed to scare everybody into going back to buying overpriced shiny discs.