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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.
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.
"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
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?
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.
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.
"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
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
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.
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.
.
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
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