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RIAA MediaSentry, Dead In US, Is Alive In Australia
newtley writes "Disgraced and discredited 'private investigator' MediaSentry, fired by former patrons Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music, and Sony Music and their RIAA, may be dead and buried in America, but it's alive and well, resurfacing in Australia where it's once again plying its trade, probably under new management. 'I currently (but not for long) reside at a student dormitory... in Brisbane, Australia,' says a p2pnet reader, continuing: 'Yesterday I got called into the Managers office because the network manager had been contacted by MediaSentry and emailed one of the generic copyright infringement emails as a result of me downloading Angels and Demons. Now instead of studying for my exams and working on my final assignments I must take time to find a place to live before the 29th of May (2009).'"
You chose to break the law and were punished for it.
Exactly what is the student's complaint?
If he did break the law, he needs to accept the consequences. If he didn't break the law, he should rebut the accusation.
"Now instead of studying for my exams and working on my final assignments I must take time to find a place to live before the 29th of May (2009).'""
Wah?
I mean come on, you're paying the price for doing what you knew would get in hot water at school. you DID read the acceptable use policy before you signed it right?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Damn, you could at least lose your dormitory for a movie worth watching.
Even worse result:
<RIAA> See? Illegal file sharing is why Angels and Demons did poorly at the box office and got an average rating of 38%! It isn't the economy or quality, folks, our formula has never failed therefore it must be the file sharers! </RIAA>
My work here is dung.
"Now instead of studying for my exams and working on my final assignments "
It seems to me that if you were really concerned about studying, you'd have done it before downloading Angels & Demons.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Now instead of studying for my exams and working on my final assignments I must take time to find a place to live before the 29th of May (2009)
Yeah right, that's what I used to say when I was in college too. If you had actually been studying for your exams and working on your final assignments instead of watching movies, you wouldn't be in this situation, would you?
Qxe4
Yeah the illegallity of sharing movies is a gros affront to human dignity. Downloading free movies is exactly like what Rosa Parks did. Shithead.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, don't do it.
Words to live by.
As expected, there are a large number of replies by people who didn't even bother to read the summary. (Or, have poor reading comprehension, or even both, I guess.)
The submitter is not the same as the student.
Anyway, the point is, MediaSentry is still "alive", and still sending out automated messages.
Now it seems that the student admitted to downloading the file ("as a result of me downloading Angels and Demons"), which sort of screws over any real complaint they may have had.
Personally, I think it's disgusting that the manager paid any attention to the "generic copyright infringement email" at all. Seriously, if I were in that situation, I would delete the email and forget about it.
I wonder, who is MediaSentry acting for in this situation? Does that company know that MediaSentry is doing this? Do MediaSentry have the right to sue on behalf of that company?
And, is MediaSentry keeping track of these emails and watching for responses?
I wank in the shower.
this is weird. i'm i the only one here who finds this punishment (eviction) to be totally over the top for this copyright infringement?
I put crime in quotes, because I believe it's only a civil infraction (although, I don't know much about Australian copyright law). In any case, getting kicked out of a dorm room for one 'count' of copyright infringement seems a little harsh, no? I mean, they could have started by just cutting his Internet access for a couple days or a week or something.
I mean, I really fail to see how it is even *legal* to kick someone out of a dorm room/apartment/etc for copyright infringement. Don't you guys have any tennants' rights laws in Australia?
What the fuck is wrong with Slashdot??? The guy saying that your right to download movies for free is the same as your right to sit on the bus regardless of your skin color, he gets a +5 and hailed as a god among men, and the guy who says that's a retarded comparison is modded Troll. Every last one of you honestly believes that downloading Angels and Demons is exactly the same thing as refusing to give up your seat on a bus because of the color of your skin? Honestly? HONESTLY?
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Haven't you learned anything? ..."
Your correct phrase should be: "... me allegedly downloading
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This is true. Likewise, just because laws can be broken doesn't mean that every crime is a protest.
What Ms Parks did was absolutely, positively, NOT in the same league as what this student did.
To claim so diminishes both Civil Rights and the arguments against Intellectual Property.
There are things in the IP realm to protest, but the 'right' to download Angels and Demons is NOT among them.
They sent an email informing the college as owners of the IP address of the infringement. He admitted to it, and while looking over the agreement for use of his dorm, which almost certainly included a clause along the lines of "not using your ethernet port in your dorm for ...", they decided to terminate his residency.
Stop looking for a way to spin this into "the new lows that RIAA will go to". It ain't.
no just today's mods
"Now instead of studying for my exams and working on my final assignments I must take time to find a place to live before the 29th of May (2009).'""
Wah?
I mean come on, you're paying the price for doing what you knew would get in hot water at school. you DID read the acceptable use policy before you signed it right?
Um ... where's the due process. A third party, which has been discredited in another country and fired by the copyright cartels there because their ability to track offenders has been so abysmal and inaccurate, has made an accusation. One that, based on their track record in the United States, should be taken with a mountain of salt.
Based on that accusation, someone has been evicted from their home at a time when they should be studying for exams. As far as I can tell, there's been no disciplinary due process, no hearings, no opportunities for appeal, just a summary eviction with no opportunity for the student to put their case forward. Maybe s/he is guilty. Maybe his/her roommate is a prick and used his equipment to do something stupid so they wouldn't pay the price. Maybe someone else did it entirely, and spoofed his IP address. Or maybe, like in so many cases in the US that the company had to close their doors, no one in the dorm was involved at all, and they're barking up the wrong tree completely.
Doesn't matter. Summary punishment has been meted out, on the barest of accusations. That is a problem, the student's guilt or innocence not withstanding, and if I were considering sending a kid to university, that's one school I would avoid quite possibly wasting my hard earned money on.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I believe that people have a right to read, listen, watch, remix, rebuild, modify, reverse engineer and otherwise contribute or take part in our culture. Obviously laws around the world today don't match my beliefs, and many people disagree with this statement.
I believe that a commons, a public library by and for everyone is a better model for creation and distribution of content than one that is limited by an unnatural monopoly. That everyone stands on the shoulders of giants and no man is an island of information.
The student that got kicked out of their dorm is not Rosa Parks. They are likely not oppressed in their day to day lives, just the victim of an IP scheme that has outlived it's usefulness.
Sure it's an analogy, or simile, but that doesn't make it a good one. Sorry, but comparing some kid wanting to watch Angels and Demons for free to a Civil Rights leader taking a stand against legalized overt racism is complete BS.
A better analogy (simile) would be something like :comparing Rosa Parks to file sharers is like comparing apples to tentacle rape.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
From where I'm standing you are getting a +5 for mis-quoting and mis-representing what that person meant. Also, creating a gross generalization of the slashdot crowd.
Sorry, not theft.
So in your world no one gets paid for their content. There's a reason not everyone is a content creator...not everyone's good at creating content. If the thing you did best in life (i.e., had the most talent at) was creating content, would you want to get paid for it? If you don't believe professionals that create content should get paid, then get ready to watch YouTube crap the rest of your lives...the truly talented creators will not have the spare time or energy to devote to their creations because they'll be spending all their time and energy in another career in order to survive. World, if you want to go the "commons" route, get ready to lower your standards for creative content.
You're an idiot. There is no argument for freely viewing or downloading IP that cost it's developers hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. Go back to sleep and your dreamworld that's free of any IP. To me it sounds like you disagree with having an economy. Once again you're a fool. It sounds like you live your life in a video game like Second Life - that's how out of touch with reality you are. So in your life I suppose you could take everything for free from culture like you spouted in your post. Flame off.
That would be a fine postition except for the fact that the actual content creators are not the ones getting the bulk of the revenue. I am all for seeing that artists get full and proper recompense for their work; its the bloat in the system that is the problem...
Coldmoon over Dark water...
So you think that movie studios should spend $100+million on a movie and then give it away? They may not be handling the situation well, but that doesn't mean it's right to steal their content.
So because the system is imperfect and the content creators don't get the bulk of the money, you would support cheating the system so that not even content creators get any of it?
Fine logic there.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
So, in your perfect little world, who pays for the creation of the content (a.k.a. IP)? Do the actors work for free? What about the camera men, gaffers, builders, editors, musicians, fx artists, and dozens if not hundreds of other people involved? It doesn't matter if you're talking about a crappy, over priced Hollywood blockbuster or that great little indy flick put together on a shoestring budget. Money is required.
Don't get me wrong, altruism is a great thing, but the truth is this utopia of yours does not work until _everything_ is free. I agree with your statement that, "a commons, a public library by and for everyone is a better model for creation" and I would love to create for the pure pleasure of it. But I need to pay rent, pay to turn on my lights, pay for gas and food and even pay my taxes (yes, I like having functioning public works, clean, drinkable water is a really nice thing!)
The simple fact is someone has to pay the bills. So, my question is, where exactly does this "right to read, listen, watch", something I may have created, come from?
What gives you the right to take freely from other people?
The rights of fair use, to "remix, rebuild, modify, reverse engineer," etc, are something we need to protect with vigilance, but freeloading and stealing shouldn't be tolerated!
That begin said, vigilance is also needed to protect the rights of the student, on the assumption that he didn't do anything wrong and is being wrongfully accused. That, however, is a different issue from your statement above.
Maybe you should have been studying for your exams & working on your final assignments instead of downloading movies illegally.
WTF? Hers was a Human Rights Issue. Downloading of a movie is Theft. I may not like the costs to see a movie or listen to music, BUT Its whats funding thousands of jobs. My wife loses hers soon because the Movie Industry is laying off heavily.
Basically Human Rights vs theft. How can you even compare them?
Maybe the Movie and TV industry should start taking paycuts like the rest of us we complain about CEO's taking home far in excess in proportion to their contribution however actors are the same a small select group take home a disproportionate amount along with many fringe benefits. Then to be worse than the CEO's often expect to get paid over and over through royalties not just 1-5 years (as in bonuses) or even 17 years for a patent on something that saves lives, but 90 years.
just a thought imagine if your bricklayer asked to get paid because our using the house you paid him to build
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
It still seems like you are trying to get stuff for free, letting other people pay for it. Sure, in the old days there were patrons who paid to have things made, but that was clearly not as good as copyright. What problem do you have with chipping in your fair share to pay for something you enjoy? If you don't think you'll enjoy it, you don't have to pay, of course. Someone has to pay for the production of the art, why not the ones who enjoy it?
Qxe4