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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).'"
Damn, you could at least lose your dormitory for a movie worth watching.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
You chose to break the law and were punished for it.
Getting students evicted by putting pressure on the dorm management? That's setting a new standard in scumbag behavior, so what's next now? How do you go deeper when you've already dug a six feet trench underneath the sewer lines?
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.
Not sure about what colleges you went to but off-campus housing > *, only reason I thought people live in the dorm was because it is required for the first two years for new students.
"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
Find out the names and addresses of the management of MediaSentry and.......
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Of course he could have also been studying and working on assignments instead of downloading crappy movies and infringing on the copyright rights of those that hold them.
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.
I'm going to pretend I have no opinion in this post and instead make a "meta-comment:"
What I find fascinating is that, just a year ago, an overwhelming majority of Slashdot readers would have defended this student, written posts to the effect that it is justifiable to download copyrighted work, made angry statements about the MP/RI-AA, and the like. Now, I see many more posts (and story tags -- currently "righttosteal") like yours. Sure, the old pro-pirate posts are still around -- they are probably even still the majority -- but I think that the percentage is lower. I wonder if this means that attitudes are changing, and whether this is due at all to the RIAA's campaign.
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?
Theft implies he could have and would have purchased it otherwise. It also implies he took the opportunity to watch the film away from somebody else, which is not the case.
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?
Haven't you learned anything? ..."
Your correct phrase should be: "... me allegedly downloading
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Do you *seriously* contend that losing your housing with like 2 weeks' notice or something ridiculous like that is a fitting response to the activity in question? I totally have sympathy for this guy. I don't see why anyone should lose their housing over copyright infringement. I mean, just disable his ethernet ports for a week or something. I fail to see how kicking someone out of the building with short notice is an appropriate response for minor copyright infringement.
There should have been a question mark at the end of the subject line of my previous post, for those confused. I just forgot it when typing out the subject.
"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
Let me see if I understand this correctly. You want our sympathy for doing something illegal, getting caught by someone and losing your residence. You then publicly admit you did it, and hope that you won't lose the lawsuit that is sure to follow! I don't really understand the purpose of your post other than to admit to being a pirate.
I certainly have no sympathy for you, I have no animosity towards the people that caught you but if they did anything illegal you should certainly hold them accountable.
Why bother
No theft implies he acquired it illegally nothing more.
Why bother
You don't go to jail for cheating on a test.
You do get kicked out of school, however.
It seems that the situation is this: 1. Person X has by his own admission downloaded a movie. The admission was probably in some blog post, he hasn't (hopefully) admitted anything to the dorm management. 2. Dorm management received an email from MediaSentry telling them about some copyright infringement, and asking them to take the strongest possible action. 3. Dorm management talked to the guy, and the guy thinks he now has very little time to find a new place to stay. In the USA, one of the main problems is that the RIAA threatens 80 year old grannies, dead people, seven year olds and so on for illegally downloading music that we can reasonably assume they haven't downloaded. We may also assume that they threaten some genuine illegal downloaders as well. The other problem is that the consequences don't fit the severity of the action. In this case, it seems from what the article says that the guy is guilty of what he was accused of. But what should he have done? The problem is between him and dorm management. You can't expect the dorm manager to know about the RIAA (or whatever it is called in Australia) strategy; it took US judges years to figure it out, and I would expect that the average US judge should be more intelligent than the average Australian dorm manager. I think the right thing to do would have been first to deny anything to the dorm manager, then take a day to collect some of the tons of information that is available about the company and show it to the manager. Tell the manager: This is a company that in the US has accused 80 year old grannies, dead people, and seven year olds. That is currently accused in the USA for illegal investigations, and that has been fired by the RIAA in the USA because they are so incompetent. I haven't downloaded any movies. You can't evict me from the dorm because these guys make some wild accusations. You definitely can't evict me 14 days before my exams. If you try to evict me, I would have to go to court and ask for damages, which would be considerable. I'd hate to do that. Maybe the RIAA in the USA can do that, but you are a dorm manager and not the RIAA, and this is Australia where we have proper laws and not the USA. So let me stay here. If these guys think I've done something illegal, they can sue me.
Attention Australian p2p users. MediaSentry's lame-ass tactics are now working within our borders. If you're gonna do it, don't get caught, like me.
Alright, just as a note, reading the article here provides a lot of enlightenment. Specifically, the second paragraph from the person. "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. The manager then proceeded to adopt an -as far as i can tell- exageratingly literal interpretation of the following exerpt from the automated email: 1.) Disable access to the individual who has engaged in the conduct described above; and 2.) Terminate any and all accounts that this individual has through youâ With less than a month left to the semester and in the misdt of the examination period he has asked me to leave the dorm. While I understand he does reserve the right to terminate my stay at his descretion I was just inquiring about the seriousness of recieving a MediaSentry email and if they are infact even lisensed to conduct their âoeinvestigativeâ work outside of the United States. 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)." Looking over this, I'd actually paint a different villain. I think the manager already had it out for this guy, or, at the least, is a serious douchebag. Did the guy confess or not? Who knows. He -does- claim to have challenged MediaSentry's right to even send the e-mail, as well as being kicked out for it, and the person who followed through with it was the manager. I'm going to guess that the manager is either an asshole with a vendetta, or had his balls cut off twenty years ago and is scared shitless of anything that even smacks of legal action directed within fifty miles of him. Oh, and, seriously, what the hell? "You deserve to lose the place you live right before exams?" Seriously, what the hell is your idea of 'proper punishment'. This is the kind of stuff that can ruin the rest of someone's life. Does someone deserve to have their college degree taken away for what is, basically, a form of shoplifting? Or sneaking into a movie without paying for it? Copyright infringement is more popular then actual shoplifting, but carries a hell of a lot less risk to all parties involved. There's no real reason for such a disproportionate punishment as seen here. The question isn't "Does the punishment fit the crime" - it doesn't. The questions are if the guy actually confessed, and what the hell was going through his manager's head.
Articled headline is misleading if not completely wrong. MediaSentry is not dead, and the MPAA is still using it. They're just masquerading as "Safenet DMCA". But, it's still the same company. But now they're attempting to escape the horrible PR associated with the name MediaSentry. Exactly like the name of Gator was changed to Claria in an attempt to avoid allegations of spyware that were largely accepted as true.
MediaSentry lives on in the US and ISPs are still bowing to their scare tactics and threat letters, typically this means immediately punishing their customers without due process and based solely on the allegations of SafeNet DMCA/MediaSentry.
Question everything
I spent a lot of time studying and working at universities in Brisbane, so I have a little first-hand knowledge of the situation in the colleges. Really, it's no different to ANY university college, where there's been traditionally lax enforcement of rules against piracy.
Certainly when I was around a few years ago, the colleges were hotbeds of piracy, since they had some of the best internet connectivity in the whole country -- the colleges have very fat pipes straight to AARNet, which, in the absence of clear rules and enforcement, is a clear invitation to abuse.
To be honest, I'm surprised it took this long for the record industry's hired thugs to start making examples out of college kids. Lack of due process is part-and-parcel of how MediaSentry and their scumbag customers operate, and they probably were counting on the fact that the colleges are run by clueless and credulous religious douchebags who could be very easily bullied around (I know, because I've met a few of them).
Looks like MediaSentry and their dickhead mates have created the chilling effect they were looking for. I just feel bad for the kid losing his college room, even if he was busted doing something wrong.
Next time, don't download the movie from bittorrent; instead, go to the nearest video store, shove a DVD down your pants, and run like hell!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I suppose when everyone realizes that it's less risky to buy DVD off Chinese kids in the street then get them off Usenet or torrents, it'll be funny to see the record companies go 'OH SHIT' when they've realized they've given a massive free kick to organised crime. I'll laugh my arse off when it happens.
There are better ways to go about finding a place to live!
Of course if you need a roommate who is cool with the same activities that made you homeless in the first place, then maybe this is the best place.
Anyone here want a future "example" as a roommate? Make sure you get the last months rent up front, if the awards in the US are any indication, he won't be able to make his rent at some point.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
1.) The RIAA doesn't have anything to do with a movie. That's the MPAA, a completely different group of scumbags.
2.) He was downloading the movie in question in order to (ostensibly) watch it, as opposed to (again, ostensibly) diligently study for those exams. My give-a-fuck pretty much ran out after making that connection - at least where "I'm getting kicked out at exam time!" is concerned.
3.) I'm seeing a lot of comments regarding "due process" - this is a civil matter, through and through. While he is Down Under (the bus, looks like), I suspect tort laws work pretty much the same. He admits to downloading the film - no "allegedly" bullshit here, folks! Reminds me of that song... when charged with "Reckless Discharge of a Firearm" for shooting a jukebox, the defendant replied "Reckless, hell! I hit just where I was aiming!". Ahem. I digress.
Anyways... he admits to downloading the film - which the MPAA has contracted with MediaSentry to monitor. MediaSentry, again contracted to do so, sends a DMCA-style notice to the University. The University is contracted by the student to provide housing and an education. The student is obligated to meet certain terms of the contract, or risk breach. He didn't meet one of those terms - likely, a clause along the lines of "I agree not to use the University network to download or distribute copyrighted material for which I do not have permission to download, distribute, view, or listen to." They cancelled the contract - or a portion thereof. He's lucky he gets to take the exams, honestly.
These days, if you want to pirate, at least be smart about it. Use peerguardian and/or Tor and/or Freenet and/or IRC and/or FTP. Old school isn't monitored nearly as closely as this newfangled bittorrent stuff, but even with bittorrent, you can take some very simple measures to protect your identity. Otherwise, you might as well walk into a store, take what you want, and walk out without paying - smiling for the camera the whole time, no mask, no pillows, no wigs - and wonder how they found you when they come to arrest you.
I'm sure someone will posit that "pirating isn't stealing!". Most people make this argument by stating that copying a file isn't theft; you still have a copy. That's completely true. Piracy is theft because you didn't buy a license to listen/view the copyrighted work, not because you "stole" the work itself. It's an important distinction. If you don't like the price of the license and want it for free, you can either pirate it (theft of service), or wait until the copyright expires. Until copyright law is sane, piracy is easier - but it is still theft. Change the law, not the definition of theft.
Truck driver, plumber, Linux systems engineer.
One that would use the net to distribute files in a manner that makes it virtually impossible to trace where and to whom they were distributed.
I'm sure there are groups of people worldwide who await the news of such a breakthrough.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
As much as we may object, currently it's not legal to download movies like Angels and Demons except thru outlets the copyright holders designate. I know - media likes to be free - but are you an activist who can take risks and tolerate the consequences or a student trying to build a future for yourself?
You put this on yourself. And you whine that you don't have time to do your homework and study? What about all that time you spent downloading and watching movies?
I'd have sympathy if you were wrongly accused - but you did this and being an educated person you knew the risks and this gamble didn't pay off in your favor. You played in shark-infested waters and got bit. Suck it up and move on.
No theft implies he acquired it illegally nothing more.
Nope. Theft implies taking an item from someone without their permission, not just obtaining an item. I can buy drugs from someone and it's not considered theft, even though I acquired them illegally. Just to be pedantic:
Theft - the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use
The key is that you're depriving somebody of personal property. Since he just COPIED the data and didn't deprive anyone of their own copy, it falls under copyright law.
This doesn't sound like MediaSentry. In this case they actually located an actual download. That's not MediaSentry's style.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Wow, OK let me rephrase that. Theft implies the method used to acquire the item was not the usually accepted legal method of item acquisition appropriate to the item and its usual acquisition method.
Theft can also be defined as depriving someone of control of the item in question and copying it certainly deprives the owner of control of that item through means not approved by the controlling owner. You need not remove property to have stolen it if you have denied the owner rightful compensation for that control. Are we quite clear now as to the legality of his acquisition of the aforementioned copy of the previously mentioned item?
Why bother
I know almost nothing about Australian law, but in the U.S., downloading a copyrighted work without a license is a copyright violation, and in some cases may be a crime. For civil copyright infringement, the law does not care whether you actually knew you were infringing the copyright. So you absolutely are the one who has to check for this.
I suspect Australian law is similar.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
"Bring out your dead" - Business model undertaker
"Here's one for you, do you take cronies too?"- Public
"Sure, pile it on the cart" - Business model undertaker
"I'm not dead" - MediaSentry
"He says he's not dead" - Business model undertaker
"He soon will be" - Public
"I can't take him like this, it's against union rules" - Business model undertaker
"Well can you come back Thursday?" - Public
"Sorry mate, I've got pay-per-view news on Thursday" - Business model undertaker
"If you just hang around he'll be dead in a minute" - Public
"I feel better" - MediaSentry
"No you don't, you'll be stone dead in a minute" - Public
"I feel like going for a walk" - MediaSentry
"You're not fooling anyone you know" - Public
"But I feel fine" MediaSentry
---MediaSentry is smacked around the head with the common sense stick---
"Told you you'd be dead in a minute" - Public
"Dump him on the cart then, next to SCO" - Business model undertaker
Maybe you should have been studying for your exams & working on your final assignments instead of downloading movies illegally.
Except, culturally, things work a little differently here. Or, at least they used to.
When you do something wrong, you own up to it. You admit your mistake. To deny you did something that you did actually do is seen as cowardice.
It goes back to the playground rules when you were at school.
But the times, they are a changing. More often, people are choosing to get a lawyer (goon) and hide behind them and make up bullshit lines instead of owning up and admitting what they did was wrong.
The innocent until proven guilty line only works for me when the accused is actually innocent. The guy in the story was just being a non coward.
.
Hang on ... I'll download it.
Should have considered, perhaps, that they might actually have desired and expected that he adhere to the contract that he as an adult signed.
Contracts say a load of shit. Not trying to troll, or flamebait, or defend this guy. Just making a point, and then y'all can make of it what you want.
Have you read the EULAs of all your software? Can you remember what all of them say? Can you tell me what your employment contract says (NDA and non-compete clauses in particular)? Your account with your phone company, ISP and TV company (cable, sat, what have you), what do they say about what you can and can't do to their networks? Your contract with the bank, what does it say about liability for debit/credit card abuse?
All those kind of contracts typically say a lot of reasonable stuff. And a little bit of shit hidden in the cracks. "You work overtime for free", "We can cut off your Internet if we don't like how you use it", "we can evict you if someone files a civil suit against you".
Why not just charge him $10 for the price of a movie ticket
+ $25 (for the hour of lawyer time it took to research and contact the manager [probably with sort of form letter at that])
+ $25 (for the hour of Media Sentry time for monitoring the p2p transaction.)
While $60 might be a slightly expensive "movie ticket", the studio gets their cost recovered plus it is a low enough incentive that there will always be repeat offenders from whom to recover the lost revenue until a way is worked out to distribute movies electronically and on the same day as the movie release.
Social Contract Theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society. REF
Hobbes argues that we will do ANYTHING to avoid the State of Nature and will always, rationally, pick absolute authority.
I can not be told better, from the same article:
According to Locke, the State of Nature, the natural condition of mankind, is a state of perfect and complete liberty to conduct one's life as one best sees fit, free from the interference of others. This does not mean, however, that it is a state of license: one is not free to do anything at all one pleases, or even anything that one judges to be in oneâ(TM)s interest. The State of Nature, although a state wherein there is no civil authority or government to punish people for transgressions against laws, is not a state without morality. The State of Nature is pre-political, but it is not pre-moral. Persons are assumed to be equal to one another in such a state, and therefore equally capable of discovering and being bound by the Law of Nature. The Law of Nature, which is on Lockeâ(TM)s view the basis of all morality, and given to us by God, commands that we not harm others with regards to their "life, health, liberty, or possessions" (par. 6). Because we all belong equally to God, and because we cannot take away that which is rightfully His, we are prohibited from harming one another. So, the State of Nature is a state of liberty where persons are free to pursue their own interests and plans, free from interference, and, because of the Law of Nature and the restrictions that it imposes upon persons, it is relatively peaceful.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
Humans are essentially free, and were free in the State of Nature, but the âprogress' of civilization has substituted subservience to others for that freedom, through dependence, economic and social inequalities, and the extent to which we judge ourselves through comparisons with others. Since a return to the State of Nature is neither feasible nor desirable, the purpose of politics is to restore freedom to us, thereby reconciling who we truly and essentially are with how we live together. So, this is the fundamental philosophical problem that The Social Contract seeks to address: how can we be free and live together? Or, put another way, how can we live together without succumbing to the force and coercion of others? We can do so, Rousseau maintains, by submitting our individual, particular wills to the collective or general will, created through agreement with other free and equal persons. Like Hobbes and Locke before him, and in contrast to the ancient philosophers, all men are made by nature to be equals, therefore no one has a natural right to govern others, and therefore the only justified authority is the authority that is generated out of agreements or covenants.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Madison on Shay's Rebellion (a violent opposition by ~1200 farmers regarding free trade agreements with Spain on the Mississippi River. Farmers feared the agreement would affirm sovereignty of Spanish traders):
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government. REF
In another letter criticizing the (not yet ratified) constitution:
I do not like... the omission of a bill of r
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
And according to the supreme court, theft requires "misappropriation of physical property". But if the TV says it is theft, then the Supreme Court must be wrong... so long as I can trust Big Media doesn't have any conflict of interest with television.
Hmm...
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
...where failing US business models comes to die.
God I wish this country had an identity of its own.
And a spine.