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Australian ISP Argues For BitTorrent Users
taucross writes "Australian ISP iiNet is making a very bold move. They are asking the court to accept that essentially, BitTorrent cannot be used to distribute pirated content because a packet does not represent a substantial portion of the infringing material. They are also hedging their bets purely on the strength of the movie studios' 'forensic' evidence. This ruling will go straight to the heart of Australia's copyright law. At last, an ISP willing to stand up for its customers! Let's hope we have a technically-informed judge."
An ISP grew a pair?
One packet per customer, sorry folks.
Bought a book, and then started handing out copies I make of the book one page at a time It is not copyright infringement?
Yeah, that will fly~
Using it to counter this specific item i.e. forensic evidence, might.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Cobden for iiNet - "You aren't the boss of me"
Bannon for Studios - "We told them to stop letting people do bad things, and they didn't do what we told them!"
Apparently there is speculation over whether iiNet will try to argue that packets of data are not a substantial portion of a work, or maybe that the one to one nature of bittorrent isn't the same as a public dissemination, but personally I hope that they establish first that the studios don't have a right to just shut people down by accusation and then argue the technicalities that might get them off. I think that the arguments that it isn't piracy are much weaker than the arguments that the Studio's lawyers do not representive a duely appointed government representative.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Taken independently, each of my blow was not enough to kill!
Perhaps I'm misinformed, but is there any evidence to suggest that BitTorrent is used exclusively to distribute copyrighted materials? It seems to me that the argument against it is that it *may* be used to distribute copyrighted materials. If this is truly the case, then I guess we had better go ahead and unplug the whole internet. It was fun while it lasted, but it *may* be used for evil, so while I agr*#&$@@ NO CARRIER
Each packet is just a bunch of 1's and 0's - those are hardly copyrighted either... right?
Just because someone is arguing a side that most of us support, doesn't mean that their argument isn't ridiculous. We need to keep our intellectual honesty about us. Taking their reasoning, it could be argued the TCP/IP never violates copyright; that a file broken out on disk clusters never violates copyright; and so on.
If you're sharing a copyrighted file via torrent without permission, I think you indisputably are violating copyright law. Perhaps copyright law is poorly conceived... I certainly think it is. However, I don't think arguing through silly loopholes is going to help the core problem. The law needs reformed.
Why? because movies have to be approved by the government and Hollywood see that as too much work.
So while hollywood has given up on china, china hasn't given up on them.
BTW, I think since our government is being so intrusive into private businesses lately maybe they
should do something actor pay and ticket prices, Also how much Network Exec's can make.
I don't know about AU, but the US has long standing laws and precedent for how to deal with situations where people try and get around the law using silly technicalities like this. You don't think organized crime hasn't played these sort of games in the real world before?
Courts hate people trying to be 'smart' infront of them with arguments, and this is exactly what iiNet is doing. Why limit this to Bittorrent? If breaking the item in question down into individual packets eliminates the copyright concern, then surely just transferring the file by any means digitally will do the same - I can't think of a single protocol which doesn't use packets to transfer a fractional payload of the total, including TCP.
iiNet are going to fall flat on their face with this argument.
When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will use encryption. This is the next step.
I regret that I only have one mod point to give per post.
Reminds me of this: http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Global/B/B4ADC8C2-A786-4C79-A721-BA1C1BF5E1D4/0/chp18014.jpg
By that exact same reasoning a raw IP packet "cannot be used to distribute pirated content because a packet does not represent a substantial portion of the infringing material". Yet every packet that gets sent on the internet is built on raw ip. Are they saying, therefore, that any piracy that is perceived to occur at anytime over the internet is actually a figment of somebody's imagination?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's important to consider that the studios are claiming that ISPs should be responsible for what their customers do with their service. That is, that "iiNet was responsible for customers downloading movies illegally and then burning them to DVD to sell or share with friends." To me, that's the much more interesting matter.
The studios should then sue the electricity companies for providing electricity to people's DVD burners.
Zenosparadox
Honestly, this is the same type of argument :)
"...but yer honor, how could I have gotten all of these leet warez? Anytime I would have wished to download any one of them, I would have an individually, incredibly tiny packet. Furthermore, I would have downloaded only half of each packet in half the time, and a quarter of the packet in a quarter of the time. So you see, I could never have downloaded anything at all, and Dell must have put this Ukrainian copy of Left 4 Dead on my computer when it was shipped!"
Following that logic, the following would also be true. The internet can't serve up web pages, because all of the content doesn't fit in a single packet. VoIP can't be used to communication, because an entire conversation can't fit in a single packet. The list goes on and on. What kind of idiot comes up with these arguments?
The movie industry is fighting against the very laws that they helped create. There are five very interesting posts that I found in a couple of minutes on Whirlpool that discuss the situation the ISPs and the media companies are in. The short of it: the media companies lobbied for particular procedures that let them go after individual users; they got them; and when they found that they were unworkable, decided to go after the ISPs instead. Deja vu, anyone?
The page-a-day analogy is a good one. It really shows how weak the argument/defense is, and I really hope they have something better for their day in court. Otherwise they're just opening up the BitTorrent community to a general attack at the ISP level.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
So this is basically Zeno's argument applied to network communications.
If we are going to be honest, let us all (RIAA, MPAA etc) admit that its people, not technology that violate copyrights.
If we are going to be honest, how about the Music cartels refund all the royalties they collect from the sale BLANK cd's and dvd's. (they arent all used to violate copyright)
If we are going to be honest, how about the RIAA, MPAA stop labeling copyright infringer's as thieves (copyright violation isnt theft, different law).
If we are going to be honest, how about the RIAA, MPAA confess all the dirty legal and technical methods they have used in their attempt to convict anyone they can (other than the sony hack we already know about)
Its a dirty fight, the other side isnt interested in honesty or fairness, i say we fight them any way we can.
That's a daft argument. You could extend that to say an ethernet frame and say 'oh because ethernet frames are broken up they can't be used to distribute copyrighted data'. Similar argument for reading writing blocks to disk etc... It's pretty obvious bittorent can be used to transmit information copyrighted or not. Their defense should focus on the accuracy identifying weather the information transmitted is copyrighted or not, since people do use bittorrent for legitimate reasons. ISP's probably want to win this case because they are aware of the enormous amount of traffic bittorrent generates, most of it being movies, mp3s etc... Forcing them to curtail this will hurt their revenue. The other side of the coin is that people that create music, movies, software are entitled to license it however they want. If they give it away for free good for you but if they copyright it and require payment for it then that doesn't mean you can just take it from them.
Well, for a start, I don't understand what you mean by 'consume it in its totality'. Normally, once I've finished consuming something, it is destroyed. When I consume a litre of petrol in travelling, that's one litre less petrol in the world. When I consume a loaf of bread, again, one less loaf of bread. What is consumed when - entirely hypothetically of course - I copy a movie? Electricity, I suppose, and bandwidth, but I'm paying for both of those.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Just a quick thought,
Copyrights can only be applied to goods, I believe, right? If this is the case, then why is IP of this nature even copyrighted to begin with?
It would, in my eyes, seem to be more of a service than anything. By purchasing a legal copy of a movie online to download, I'm receiving nothing physical for what I payed for. It's not a good.
I am, however, being provided with the service of entertainment.
Can services be copyrighted?
If I were to go down the street, find a street performer and start to copy him (See: Eurotrip, silver "robot"), and other people were to start paying me, would that be considered copyright infringement? Can he copyright his "act" to begin with?
Maybe I misunderstand something, but this seems messed up to begin with...
I don't understand that at all. I don't consider either something you 'consume'. I listen to music. I watch videos. I don't consume either of them, any more than I consume a book when I read it, or consume a chair when I sit on it, or consume a table when I eat my dinner off it. To my mind, if you consume something, you use it and use it up entirely in doing so. You consume food, you consume fuel, you consume anything that is necessarily destroyed in the process of its usage. For nondestructive usage, we have all manner of perfectly cromulent verbs that we can use instead.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I am all for ISPs standing up for the rights of their users, but I call bullshit on this one.
Bittorrent CAN be used for copyright infringement, just like a photocopier. Just because it CAN be used for illicit purposes doesn't mean that it always is. I have downloaded several Linux distributions using Bittorrent.
It's one thing to say "No, we're not giving you any information about our subscribers without proof." It's quite another to pretend that it's not possible to do something that we all know is.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
And murder is murder. And copyright violation is copyright violation, and is the same as murder about as much as it is the same as theft.
You are committing the mistake of over generalizing and trivializing the term "intellectual property." A recorded musical performance or the creation of a video is the direct distillation of labor, as is a patent on a new type of water pump or a new type of chemical to dye fabrics, for example. Your implicit claim that "intellectual property" lacks substance or is in some way not real or does not merit compensation for its use is indefensible.
You are being deliberately childish or obtuse for the sake of argument and you know it full well. Are you claiming that there is nothing wrong with listening to a musical recording without compensating the individuals or organizations that created it even if they 1) have not authorized you to do so and 2) are explicitly requiring you to pay for purchasing a recording or a digital stream of the performance?
the downloader [is violating] the reproduction right by fixing the transitory data stream to a medium on his computer.
Allow me to conjecture wildly, and see where that takes me.
From the {RI,MP}AA's point of view, there are two steps missing: "???" and "Lost profit!"
It would be interesting to see how this plays out in court. Maybe that's a way to be a law-abiding citizen while still getting Free Shit (tm)... otherwise, there's always Jamendo :D
Eh. Mostly, we don't care. With any luck, enough people will join in on the infringement bandwagon, and consolidated entertainment as we know it will crash and burn (not likely, but it's always good to have hope).
In other words, until it's free, we'll take it anyway. When it's free, it won't matter.
You are being deliberately childish and obtuse as well, and you know it. Those uses are legal in that the creators of the music have authorized this use. It is perfectly legal for you to listen to music in this manner. Stop making up bogus examples you know are irrelevant and deceitful.
There is another side to the coin, you know. You'd do well to not insist that others "grow up for Chrissakes" if they don't share your opinion. It makes you look like a child.
It is not an opinion. It is a fact. The music you listen to at the mall or on the radio is legally licensed. The music you pirate off a disk or download via file sharing without payment is not. You know this. There is no opinion here.
The other side is this: I bought the music. Why can't I do what I want with music that I own?
Again, you know perfectly well why. You did not buy "the music," you bought a recording of the music. There is a license associated with it as well as copyright law. You know this, and you can look on the packaging for the copyright indication or the Terms and Conditions set forth by the copyright owner. You can make any specious claims you want, but you know perfectly well that you are wrong and are simply making things up to justify your use of other peoples labor for free.
If I'm advertising the music by letting people hear it for free, I should be paid. Let me reiterate this: I should be paid for it. You have to pay any other entity to get advertising. That's why you strive so much for word of mouth, because you don't have to pay for it and it nets you profit. You don't sue your advertisers into oblivion.
Is your advertising work done for hire? Were you contracted do do it? Is it advertising or are you merely allowing others to obtain free copies? You are scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Word of mouth does not involve giving away copies of copyrighted work by non-owners. You know it. Stop making crap up. Nobody hired you to do any advertising.
But I guess I live in a fantasy world, because I feel that the first sale doctrine had it right. There's a huge difference between subscription and purchase, chief, and music is not a subscription. Considering that I don't sign anything when I buy music, I'm not bound to whatever conditions the artist has.
Wrong again. Good Lord, look at the fucking CD jewel case or the Terms and Conditions of the download site. Do you see the copyright indicator? You are bound by copyright law regardless of whether you made any additional contractual agreements. You are bound by any conditions the artist or distributor specify that are covered by copyright law. It is prevailing law and you are bound by it whether you like it or not, whether you understand it or not, and whether you are aware of it or not. This isn't rocket science. You can't just make shit up and expect the world to accept it. Ask a fucking lawyer. You definitely live in a fantasy world.
Why would a professional musician or a crew making a movie want to do so for nothing? How would they pay their expenses? Why do you think you have some kind of right to take it for nothing? Should people who make music, or video, or legitimate inventions, etc. simply not expect to receive any income for them? Should you not expect any income for your labor and investment in resources and materials? What does "when it's free, it won't matter" mean? Who will be making it for free and what will be their motivation? Are you pointing out some attractive and scalable new paradigm for labor and its compensation, or are you just making pointless noise?
Am I the only one astonished at the number of people on this thread who can't grasp something so clear and simple as copyright violation being a crime in the same way that theft, murder, fraud, perjury, breach of contract, etc. etc. are crimes? What's their to understand? How is copyright violation not a crime in the same way as theft is a crime?
What do you mean "nothing physical"? Is it spiritual? Is it in some magical dimension? You don't think magnetic marks on a disk or voltage spikes on a wire are physical? Are you so obtuse that you can't distinguish between A) the service of providing you a medium with digital data of some kind, and 2) the actual digital data itself and the labor and investment that went into creating it? Can digital data spontaneously form into a movie or a song in such a way that all that is needed is the service to allow you to obtain a copy?
Absolutely. There may or may not be something wrong with copying and distributing a musical recording without the permission of the creators or their authorised agents - it's certainly illegal, but that's not the same thing as wrong - but with _listening_ to it? Are you serious?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Why would a professional musician or a crew making a movie want to do so for nothing? How would they pay their expenses?
Concerts, theaters, live performances in general. You know, the way they used to do it before TVs and CD players.
Why do you think you have some kind of right to take it for nothing?
Nope, no right - just the ability. Although if it weren't free to me, I wouldn't bother with it anyway, or if I just had to have it, I'd buy it used (for which the artist gets nothing). If anything I'm just giving the artists free proliferation.
Should you not expect any income for your labor and investment in resources and materials?
Do you think that if there were a way for me to copy my labor endlessly for free, that I'd bother to go to work in the first place? I'd create entire organizations that ran on my free labor. It's an apples and oranges comparison here, since I'm blue-collar. My labor is exactly that.
If it weren't, if I actually produced something that could be copyrighted or patented, then I'd take a bit from it (like everyone else) and then release it to the public in short order (unlike most). I am not a greedy person: my needs are modest.
Unless of course, I managed to come up with something that was so beneficial to the public that it demanded to be released freely. Some times you just have to give for no compensation other than gratitude.
What does "when it's free, it won't matter" mean? Who will be making it for free and what will be their motivation?
I really thought this was self-explanatory. Once people finally give up on preventing public dissemination of their works, this issue will be moot.
Are you pointing out some attractive and scalable new paradigm for labor and its compensation, or are you just making pointless noise?
Not new; old. There's simply no need for the huge profit machines that run on artificial scarcity. Artists shouldn't be in their field for fame or fortune. I don't really care if they are or not, but I certainly can't respect that position.
Because - at least in most of the jurisdictions derived from English law - it's usually not a crime, but a civil offence?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Do you think that if there were a way for me to copy my labor endlessly for free, that I'd bother to go to work in the first place? I'd create entire organizations that ran on my free labor. It's an apples and oranges comparison here, since I'm blue-collar. My labor is exactly that.
It is not apples and oranges at all. Labor is labor. The means by which the product of the labor is distributed certainly influences the market price, but it is simpleminded to expect that below a certain distribution cost or ease of reproduction the creators should expect little or no compensation. An expensive creation such as a motion picture depends on a large number of people viewing it in a theater or buying or renting the DVD at a low price. The fact that the DVD can be easily reproduced or that it is possible to sneak into the theater and view the movie for free does not justify the illegal behavior nor does it render it morally, socially, or economically acceptable. You are simply trying to invent shallow reasons to justify illegal behavior that in effect steals income from people and organizations. The fact that the RIAA and many of its backers are corrupt crooks doesn't justify the behavior either.
I guess you can't see beyond the end of your nose far enough to see the corrosive consequences on the economy, on the value of labor, and on the support of intellectual property creation and distribution of condoning, generalizing, and scaling up piracy of copyrighted material and breach of licencing. You have to be told by adults wiser and more responsible than you, but of course you insist on not paying attention.
Sigh...
...are we scared yet?
In my mind, there are goods and there are services.
The movie/music industry is providing me with a service, entertainment. That is what I pay for after all, entertainment. I don't go to the theatre in the hopes of receiving something that I can take home and use or show off to others.
Am I the only one astonished at the number of people on this thread who can't grasp something so clear and simple as copyright violation being a crime in the same way that theft, murder, fraud, perjury, breach of contract, etc. etc. are crimes? What's their to understand? How is copyright violation not a crime in the same way as theft is a crime?
If that were so, the media industries would call the police and report it, not sue for damages. Nevertheless, even if, as you assert, it was "a crime in the same way that theft, murder, fraud, perjury, breach of contract, etc. etc. are crimes", (breach of contract isn't a crime either, btw) then why do people assert that "copyright infringement is theft" instead of "copyright infringement is murder" or "copyright infringement is rape" or "copyright infringement is drunk driving"? Since the principle's the same, according to you.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
... but this is /., I know.
Can we assume maybe that the only ISP to actually fight the movie studios in court is not being as stupid as the summary implies, and one of the largest ISPs in Australia have unstupid legal council for just one moment?
A bad summary? On my slashdot?
For a start, they are rumoured to be saying something along the lines of what the summary says.
Secondly, anything reported to have been said by iinet that seems absurd is probably some incredibly specific thing designed specifically to counter some incredibly specific piece of pseudo-legal bullshit put forth by the big evil companies, specifically.
People, have faith that the only ones fighting your fight are not stupid.
Just a quick thought,
Copyrights can only be applied to goods, I believe, right?
Wrong. Bring in the next case.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
"Because - at least in most of the jurisdictions derived from English law - it's usually not a crime, but a civil offence?"
It's all too easy to cross that line. In the USA, the threshold is $1,000 of value in 180 days. Distribute just a few copies of PhotoShop or a similar app and you're in criminal territory. If, like many Slashdotters, you have a substantial music collection in your share directory and you run BitTorrent overnight, that $1,000 point can race up really fast.
In practical reality, the US government tends to reserve criminal charges for folks who run the counterfeit CD/DVD operations or who leak a pre-release movie (506(a)(1)(C)), or who otherwise engage in blatant, highly visible piracy. So, most Slashdotters who commit piracy solely via BitTorrent, even if they share a lot of stuff, should reasonably expect only civil penalties. But it's important to understand that the low monetary threshold combined with fast transfer speeds makes lots of us criminals.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
"If that were so, the media industries would call the police and report it, not sue for damages."
Oh, they do. Microsoft works with law enforcement quite a bit. The music industry calls the cops from time to time as well:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/guilty-verdict.html
It's a safe bet that most busts for criminal copyright infringement are the result of a tip-off from a copyright holder.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/film-pirates-put-iinet-in-the-dock/2008/11/20/1226770617457.html
From memory, the trial was due to be held around October 5th.
iiNet are suggesting that observing a couple of bittorrent packets is not enough to infer a breach of copyright because each packet does not contain a substantial amount of the original work. Much more data would be required before you could assume a copyright breach.
From the article you linked to:
... which is exactly my point, and the point relevant to this article.
This is no mere file sharing case, so if you share the odd file now and again, you don't need to worry about facing charges like this.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Not quite correct.
They'd still complain, because complaining is fun and profitable. But it would be much flimsier complaining.
As posted above, it would be hysterical to have a centrally organized Ripped Page site/service.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You just found the beautiful phrase.
"There's a real and appropriate analogy to stolen goods here, even though copyright infringement and theft is not the same."
Gets past the lowest grade snarks who trumpet they the two are not identical, while keeping the discussion open to determine exactly what grade of "not-right" pure unauthorized downloading is.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Kohlberg's fourth stage of moral development.
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
I'd rather not lose access to the vast body of public domain work i download and distribute over bit torrent
Copyrights used to expire; trademarks don't. The former owner of copyright of many works still controls the trademarks on the works' titles.
You can't, as far as I know, trademark purely artistic work, there has to be a business purpose to the trademark beyond enforcing IP.
In Canada, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES is trademarked.
Are there many lawsuits getting around in Australia? Or are they simply trying to get ISP's to warn users off P2P? I haven't heard of any Australian lawsuits, but maybe i've just had my head in the ground...?