Rapidshare Divulges Uploader Information

Gorgonzolanoid notes a post on TorrentFreak reporting that the German Rapidshare is divulging uploader information to rights holders. Record labels are apparently making creative use of "paragraph 101" of German copyright law, which gives them a streamlined process to ask a court to order disclosure of information such as an IP address. "In Germany, the file-hosting service Rapidshare has handed over the personal details of alleged copyright infringers to several major record labels. The information is used to pursue legal action against the Rapidshare users and at least one alleged uploader saw his house raided."

Comments

Why even use RapidShare anyways?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are far better hosts that don't require you to purchase a "premium" account. Why even bother with RapidShare?

Re:Why even use RapidShare anyways?

[Anonymous Coward]

But those don't offer to disclose your IP address for $19.95 a month! They do it for free!

Re:Why even use RapidShare anyways?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently they lend enough credibility for a judge to okay your home being raided.

Some basic rules to follow.

[palegray.net]

• It's best to avoid illegal acts. If you don't like a law, work to change it.
• Support alternatives to infringing activities. I don't like the music industry any more than most people here, and I like to support independent artists in any way I can. I use Linux on all my desktops and servers because I (a) it works well for me, and (2) I don't enjoy feeding Microsoft more money.
• Use strong crypto whenever possible. This shouldn't be limited to cases where you're doing something naughty. It's just a good habit to be in.

Re:Some basic rules to follow.

[Microlith]

I'm a coward who only breaks laws I can get away with (eg. downloading stuff I shouldn't on torrent sites). I do it because the risk is low, at least for now. If the police actually went full-bore with dealing with downloaders, I'd stop immediately. I'm just talking about the ideal way to fight an unjust law.

Why not just post next time with "My opinion is worthless, please ignore me>" since it's obvious that your "stance" is about as strong as a peice of wet paper.

Re:Some basic rules to follow.

[Threni]

So, to take 2 examples from more or less opposite ends of the spectrum, smoking weed at home or hiding Jews from the Nazis don't count as ethical disobedience? You can not agree with a law but not want to die/go to prison for it. Perhaps he has another term? Moral disobedience? Who cares what he calls it?

Re:Some basic rules to follow.

[Kalriath]

Actually, you'd be thrown off the jury for having a pre-conceived opinion, and rightly so. It is the duty of a jury to be completely neutral to either party, so that a fair decision can be made.

Re:Some basic rules to follow.

[fm6]

It's best to avoid illegal acts. If you don't like a law, work to change it.

The copyright laws are not going to get changed anytime soon. The media conglomerates just ahve way too much clout.

Civil disobedience is a tried and true way to oppose unfair laws. The fact that non-whites no longer have to go to the back of the bus is a testimony to that.

But note that it isn't civil disobedience unless you're willing to go to jail. Is anybody out there willing to go to jail for their "right" to download a copy of Terminator Salvation? No? Didn't think so.

Re:Some basic rules to follow.

[mrvan]

Good job for Godwinning the discussion! :-)

Resistance during war-time occupation is a different ball game from civil disobedience (although see Gandhi). The purpose of resistance (including hiding jews and other persons) is not to force the Nazi regime to change, it is to kick them out and limit their effectiveness.

[although, *IF* a lot of people (esp. Germans) would have stood up and openly challenged the Nazi regime, for example by refusing to serve in the army and by refusing to co-operate in the Jew laws, things might have ended differently...]

Re:Some basic rules to follow.

[RicardoGCE]

Corporations are winning the war against our rights. What else are we suppose to do about unjust laws?

What rights? The sacrosanct right to wipe my ass with how an author asks that I handle his work? Or the right to bitch about how awful music/movies/games are today, all the while massively consuming whatever the RIAA/MPAA-children spit my way?

How about actually creating new works and sharing them with the community, how about supporting content creators in tune with your ideas regarding copyright, how about laying the foundations for a freer community by actually creating content people are free to take and share, with no strings attached?

Richard Stallman decided contractual and copyright-related restrictions were threatening his community. So he said (may not be an exact quote ;)) "fuck all y'all, I'm writing my own OS". Most (yes, some do walk the walk, but most? Not at all) digital "rebels" of today would have settled for cracking and pirating, instead of creating, and we wouldn't have gotten the GNU-led FOSS community that not only serves as realistic alternative to commercial computing solutions, but also are an important counterweight that at the least, helps keep commercial vendors on their toes, and at the most, slowly makes the light dawn on them: You can profit without enslaving users! What a novel concept.

If instead of whining about the "right" to take (sorry, "share") that which the creator/rights owner has placed restrictions on, people actually created new content, the world would be a far richer place than if copyright were simply done away with. But it isn't going to happen. Because downloading "Wolverine" while feeling you're striking a blow for freedom beats actually doing so.

I love free culture. Sometimes for practical reasons (OpenOffice is better than MS Office, in my opinion), sometimes for financial reasons (I have no beef with MS operating systems, but Linux gives me a comparable experience for zero money), sometimes for political reasons (I try not to buy DRM-restricted content). But going from that stance to "everything is free because I decree it" is just infuriating. I like copyright. I like the notion that if I create something, I get to decide the terms for its distribution.

Contribute something to the cultural enrichment of the community. Modern copyright law just means that "they" can keep tight controls on the content "they" own. So let's stop favoring their offerings, if the terms are disagreeable. Let's make sure there's a sufficiently large and appealing body of free works so as to make them as obsolete as sympathizers of poohooping (trying really hard not to use the word "piracy", in order to avoid the mandatory "surely you mean 'copyright infringement', as 'piracy' means high-seas pillaging" retorts) say their business model is.

Re:Some basic rules to follow.

[Jarik_Tentsu]

Why not just post next time with "My opinion is worthless, please ignore me>" since it's obvious that your "stance" is about as strong as a peice of wet paper.

I imagine he's like most of us who download illegal stuff. It's a law that is socially and to some extent morally acceptable to break with very little risk. Hence we do it, to get free stuff. The sad state of the record and movie industry leaves any 'guilt' long gone.

But if consequences and risk increases, of course people are gonna stop. I think people who try to pretty up downloading illegal stuff as a politically 'stance' against it are really just trying to validate to themselves a nobler reason when really, we just want free shit.

~Jarik

Re:Some basic rules to follow.

[russotto]

The Dutch sociologist Kees Schuyt formulated a number of rules for something to classify as ethical disobedience (rather than eg anarchist revolt or petty crime). Gandhi formulated a similar set of rules for his non-violent protest.

Let's have a look at Schuyt's rules:

1) The act is illegal;
2) The act is conscionable; it appeals to your conscience and that of your fellow citizens;
3) There is a link between the criticized law and the chosen illegal act;
4) The act is thought out and not impulsive;
5) The act occurs in public;
6) You co-operate with arrest and prosecution;
7) You accept that you might be punished;
8) You used legal means of protest before;
9) You are non-violent and remain non-violent;
10) The rights of your fellow citizens are respected as well as possible;

Let's see how this plays out for some copyright protester. He sets up a laptop outside MPAA headquarters, downloads that Wolverine pre-release (never mind how he gets an internet connection), and plays it for everyone around. Most likely outcome is he's ignored, of course, but let's assume he's not. The MPAA calls the cops. The cops arrest him, under a criminal copyright infringement statute. It's page 3 news, at best. The guy disappears into the system, maybe rating a Slashdot article at conviction and sentencing, maybe even an AP brief. He's in Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for a few years. Few know about it. Fewer care. Nothing changes.

So why are these rules considered the only "ethical" way to do it? Perhaps it is precisely because they are ineffective: those who support the status quo are seizing the high ground by declaring that in order to object "ethically", one must also object ineffectively. Why, as an opponent of that status quo, should I or anyone else accept their definitions of "ethical"?

Re:This is what you get...

[BlueKitties]

... when you're not a computer expert and didn't realize they were logging your IP.

Re:This is what you get...

[Brian Gordon]

What other options do you really have? If you're running through a proxy then you have less bandwidth available and you're still relying on them not divulging their logs. You can try a service like tor if you want to be a bad netizen and also put up with 1kbps download speeds. Centralized P2P like gnutella is by far the worst file sharing option and torrents aren't much better, even on a private tracker. In all cases (except Tor) you're trusting at least one third party and in gnutella and bittorrent you're trusting a lot of third parties. Trusting a single third party with an excellent reputation has been protecting yourself. Unless you mean that people should use darknets..

Re:Truth in naming

[Teun]

In most places I know it's only the making available, the uploading, that's a legal problem.

Accidental copying?

[tepples]

How about actually creating new works and sharing them with the community

If I did, I could get sued for accidental plagiarism. It happened to George Harrison.

Richard Stallman decided contractual and copyright-related restrictions were threatening his community. So he said (may not be an exact quote ;)) "fuck all y'all, I'm writing my own OS".

To establish that copying has occurred, the copyright owner must demonstrate both 1. the alleged infringer's access to the copyrighted work and 2. the substantial similarity of the works in question. It's easy to shield yourself from access to proprietary software: don't read non-free source code. But music differs markedly from computer programs in this respect. Once you've heard a song on the radio or as background music in a grocery store, you are deemed for the rest of your life to have had "access" to that song.