Legal Group Says Unlimited Broadband Promotes Piracy

bennyboy64 writes "Unlimited broadband plans are all too familiar in many countries; in Australia they're scarce. One ISP offering such a plan between the hours of 8pm and 8am, AAPT, is being looked at as a matter of high interest by a legal group representing the interests of the global film industry, AFACT (the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft). It said AAPT was encouraging users to download copyrighted material. AAPT's advertising states: 'If you want unlimited music, unlimited games and unlimited movies — get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT.' AFACT executive director Adrianne Pecotic said: 'In the context of the AAPT promotion, we have a concern that it could be misconstrued to promote illegal downloads and that's something that we'd like clarified.' AFACT is currently involved in what will be a landmark court case with Australian ISP iiNet. It recently claimed in court proceedings that there was a link between iiNet upgrading the service plans of heavy Internet users and the proliferation of film piracy."

Comments

I just use

[Anonymous Coward]

aapt-get.

aapt-get remove afact

aapt-get install mapiratinboots

Re:I just use

[Z00L00K]

It may be a problem, but the biggest issue with music/movie piracy is the missed opportunity from the music and movie companies. They have not tried to offer the customers what the customers want but forcing them into a scheme of messy DRM and other ugly actions which either enrages potential customers and triggers them to really copy the media or makes the customers want to limit their purchases.

Re:I just use

[tsm_sf]

You're dealing with the same mindset that killed what would have been the most profitable online venture in history. The death of the original Napster showed us that their interest is not financial, but rather a matter of control.

Oh, just piracy?

[Jack9]

Also commerce and terrorism and scientific research and banking and hacking and collective processing and ....

Re:Oh, just piracy?

[dominious]

...porn?

Re:Oh, just piracy?

[Odinlake]

Also Internet promotes piracy... We should shut it down. Then freedom promotes piracy because people who can meet physically are prone to copy each others songs etc. directly => everyone should be imprissoned. Oh and... no I'm going to stop here

What about Interstate Highways?

[meerling]

They make it much easier, faster, and cheaper to smuggle goods and other illegal activities across state lines.
Obviously they were made to promote such illegal activities...

(yes, that's sarcasm, and so is this...)

>^_^<

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[arbiter1]

how about cars in-general, they let you carry hundreds if not thousands of pounds of illegal things so they promote the activity to

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[wizardforce]

First let me say that I agree with you. Second, it looks like their beef was with how the isp advertised it. The implication being that any licensing charges associated with music, games and video would make it effectively impossible to make use of all that the isp was offering *legally*. But it is like you said, they *could* use it for those purposes but that doesn't mean that the risk outweighs everything else the internet user could do with the bandwidth.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[AmigaHeretic]

I have to agree with this.

Take torrents, people use them for sharing data. Now probably 90% of the traffic is illegal in some way.

Now take the roads on my way to work. 90% of the people are doing something illegal on the roads. Usually that is speeding, of course some people are transporting drugs etc.

So 90% of the population breaks the law when using the road. 90% of people break the law when using torrents.

Does that mean we should get rid of roads?

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Architect_sasyr]

Can't we just get rid of the other 10% of the population?

An interesting observation of my own about human behaviour has come to mind - if your average law abiding citizen (think they) can get away with it, they will break "soft" laws. Soft here meaning "I'm not harming anyone or stealing" laws, which is a rather common excuse for torrents ("I'll buy it later... if it's good") and speeding. Regardless of what we do about these things (speed cameras or taking down the pirate bay), normal, every day, generally law abiding people, will continue to break these "soft" laws.

What that says about human nature, I don't know, it just seemed appropriate to the thread.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Korin43]

Unlimited downloads of music, movies and games hardly implies copyright infringement. Examples: iTunes, last.fm, Microsoft's music store, Hulu, flash games, Steam...

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[someone1234]

Cars are not broadband, what about trucks? A series of them, maybe?

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[wizardforce]

Unlimited downloads of music, movies and games hardly implies copyright infringement.

Sigh... We already know that. That doesn't stop the copyright NAZIs from claiming that the ad implied illegal activity. Now to address your confusion over my post: What I basically said was: piracy does not out weigh legal uses of the internet.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[badboy_tw2002]

The thing is, we're rapidly approaching the point where legal downloads are outlasting illegal ones. This month alone I've gotten three games of xbox live which probably totaled 8-10GB of data, not to mention probably 15-20 hours of legal streaming video off netflix, hulu, etc. But hey, lock me up for being a criminal. Hey Australia, 2001 called and they're jealous of your awesome internet!

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[mysidia]

Well, the size of your car is not unlimited, there are generally some highway regulations about the maximum your vehicle can weigh, and what its dimensions can be.

You can't even travel unlimited times... you eventually have to buy more gas (and therefore, pay more highway-related gas taxes)

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[srjh]

There's also an increasing number of bands such as Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead who have legally released their own material for free online.

And the sky didn't fall in.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[wizardforce]

What that says about human nature, I don't know, it just seemed appropriate to the thread.

It says that human beings make at least a basic calculation of risk and harm. Soft "crimes" are perceived as being low risk, low harm. Otherwise, normal people probably wouldn't be engaging in them as much.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[DemonBeaver]

Nah, how about tubes?

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[palegray.net]

Here's a CB intercept from your series of trucks:

Upstream bound and crypted, loaded up and pingin',
We're gonna send what they say can't be sent,
We've got a lotta bits to move and a short relay window.
I'm bandwidth bound, just watch
Ol' "Pirate" run.

Keep your bits hard on the NIC. Son, never mind them fiters.
Let it all stream out 'cause we got law to break.
Downloaders are thirsty in Atlanta and there's a proxy in Texarcana.
And we'll bring 'em flicks no matter what it takes.

Upstream bound and crypted, loaded up and pingin',
We're gonna send what they say can't be sent,
We've got a lotta bits to move and a short relay window.
I'm cap bound, just watch
Ol' "Pirate" run.

Ol' Admin's got them netstats and he's hot on your trail.
He aint gonna rest 'til you're in jail.
So you got to fake 'im and you got to con 'im,
You got to keep that keyboard tappin'.
Just put that proxy down and give it hell.

Upstream bound and crypted, loaded up and pingin',
We're gonna send what they say can't be sent,
We've got a lotta bits to move and a short relay window.
I'm torrent bound, just watch
Ol' "Pirate" run.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[OrangeCatholic]

>What that says about human nature, I don't know, it just seemed appropriate to the thread.

It's an extremely appropriate observation that 90% of "generally law abiding people will continue to break" the law.

To a Martian that would be some kind of logical paradox.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[jonbryce]

In Britain, a pretty large proportion of bandwidth is used for iPlayer downloads, which are legal. Youtube is also very popular, and is mostly legal - they have a royalty agreement with the MCPS.

Most people who don't read slashdot find it very difficult to use peer to peer software and to find reliable downloads that actually are what they say they are without any trojans added.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[jonbryce]

No, it means we should get rid of the law in question.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

What that says about human nature [...]

It says much more about the laws than the people.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Stanislav_J]

They make it much easier, faster, and cheaper to smuggle goods and other illegal activities across state lines. Obviously they were made to promote such illegal activities...

Well, both the Interstate system (originally known as the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways) and the Internet (which grew out of ARPANET) were both originally conceived at least in part with government/military interests in mind.

You just can't trust civilians with these things...

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[nine-times]

That's largely what I came in here to say. It may be true that really fast unlimited Internet access makes it easier and more convenient to engage in certain kinds of illegitimate behavior, but it also makes it easier to engage in lots of legitimate and useful behavior.

In this case, it may be true that unlimited broadband will hurt media companies by making piracy easier, but it could also help their businesses by opening up all kinds of new business opportunities. The problem they're having seems to be that they're dragging their feet on new business opportunities.

My big question is, who's paying this "legal group"? Is it the record companies who are trying to keep their old business models? Or is it the ISPs who are looking for an excuse to not provide good service?

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[TheP4st]

"the size of your car is not unlimited"

Neither is bandwidth.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have entirely too much time on your hands... Stop watching 'Smokey and the Bandit'.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Kjella]

Not really. It's well proven that people will break any limit a little as long as the risk/benefit is in their favor, and won't back down until you're way over the limit. Speeding is a very good example, I think everybody agree you need speed limits and can't have people going 100 km/h through a residential area that should have 35 km/h. So you make the limit 30 km/h, most people drive 35 km/h but you can hit those going 40 km/h+ hard because they're like "way over". Those that go 35 km/h aren't practically punished because there's so many and the fines would be so little because it's just over, in fact the speeding cameras and traffic controls normally don't issue tickets at the lowest level. It wouldn't matter if the limit is 40, 50 or 60 km/h, it's always this way. Call it a little bit of marketing - instead of increasing the limits and having a real sharp dropoff, they put the limits very conservatively, let people skirt the rules a little and get general agreement that too much is too much. So it's much more about human nature than actually being bad laws.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Hatta]

And the Grateful Dead, who got the idea from old bluegrass musicians. Free music has been around a lot longer than the internet. The internet just makes it so much better.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

Not really. It's well proven that people will break any limit a little as long as the risk/benefit is in their favor, and won't back down until you're way over the limit.

"Well proven" where ?

Speeding is a very good example, I think everybody agree you need speed limits and can't have people going 100 km/h through a residential area that should have 35 km/h.

If someone is prepared to do 100km/h down a residential street, then a number printed on a sign is in no way going to deter them.

So you make the limit 30 km/h, most people drive 35 km/h but you can hit those going 40 km/h+ hard because they're like "way over". Those that go 35 km/h aren't practically punished because there's so many and the fines would be so little because it's just over, in fact the speeding cameras and traffic controls normally don't issue tickets at the lowest level. It wouldn't matter if the limit is 40, 50 or 60 km/h, it's always this way.

It is not. *Properly* set speed limits, using the 85th percentile rule are only exceeded by a minority of people, and that proportion drops off further as the speed limit is increased (ie: does not stay constant, as you suggest).

If you have a section of road where the 85th percentile is 40km/h (let's say, outside a school at 3:30pm), then posting an 80km/h limit is not going to result is people driving down that street at 80km/h+.

Call it a little bit of marketing - instead of increasing the limits and having a real sharp dropoff, they put the limits very conservatively, let people skirt the rules a little and get general agreement that too much is too much.

If a significant proportion of people are exceeding the limit, then the limit is too low.

So it's much more about human nature than actually being bad laws.

So how do you think your "human nature" works on roads that have no speed limits ? You think everyone just keeps accelerating until they hit their vehicle's top speed ?

There is a large body of research and well understood science behind setting speed limits. Even though it is typically ignored and/or improperly used by politicians who see it as an easy source of revenue, and scorned by save-the-children types who have no idea what actual road safety entails, it most certainly exists - and it in no way supports the assertion that "people will break any limit a little".

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[zmollusc]

Heh, outside a school at 3:30 pm the average speed is around 1 mph as the parents stop in the middle of the road to pick up their kids because other parents are lining the sides of the road picking up other kids.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I always add a copyright notice disallowing distribution to my trojans and worms. When the media companies finally have their way I will be able to sue the entire human population for copyright infringement.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHA
HAHAHA
HAHA
HA

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aussies have one of the highest speed limit compliance rates in the world. The stats don't show that that its helping but you in Victoria you can (and will) get a ticket for going 103.1 in a 100 km range. The road between Melbourne and Sydney has cameras that take photos of registration (licenses) plates about 8 times along the 6 hr trip and if you are more than 3% over, they send you a ticket in the mail. Of course the young guys with knives and broken bottles are happy to break the rules.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Digital distribution is becoming popular in a big way, and games are getting bigger every year. Look at the sale that D2D has on right now: $5 for a bunch of good games. Some of these games (eg. Frontlines: Fuel of War) are 10GB in size.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

The stats don't show that that its helping but you in Victoria you can (and will) get a ticket for going 103.1 in a 100 km range. The road between Melbourne and Sydney has cameras that take photos of registration (licenses) plates about 8 times along the 6 hr trip and if you are more than 3% over, they send you a ticket in the mail.

Note that the Australia Design Regulations for vehicles state a speedometre only needs to be accurate to +/-10%, so you should be able to challenge any speeding ticket that falls within that bound fairly easily.

With that said, pretty much all speedos read low by ~4-5%, so if you're ticketed for >5% or so over, it's essentially guaranteed you "knew" you were speeding.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Anonymous Coward]

It says that people don't like violence, but when it comes to crimes that are based on doing something only the law says is wrong, ie: imaginary things, people don't have a problem ignoring them.

Many of us would want to wretch or help if we saw someone having the shit beat out of them, or we'd sob uncontrollably at the murder of a loved one. We feel hate and anger when someone lies about us, or even if they discuss a truthful, but sordid past. This is instinct. Instinct makes things factually wrong.

How many of us want to wretch, how many of us cry, how many of us feel raging anger and hate when we see someone download music that makes them happy, or see someone going 5 mph over the limit? 10% of us?

There's your answer, and there's your "why".

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but if 90% of people using roads were using them to transport dead bodies so that they could get away with murder, and only 10% of the traffic was legitimate, we might have to rethink our system.

All crimes aren't of equal weight. Presumably, you're going to claim that piracy is similar to speeding, whereas pro-copyright types will claim that it's closer to stealing. That's the issue that has to be decided, and your argument stands or falls with that issue (and ergo cannot be used to adjudicate that issue.)

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[jesset77]

And the Grateful Dead, who got the idea from old bluegrass musicians. Free music has been around a lot longer than the internet. The internet just makes it so much better.

Haha, it's funny when people say "nuh, not only can piracy walk down this street, so also can free or independently produced content!"

All the while Big Media execs are going "tomaytoe, tomahtoe.."

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[spire3661]

Content providers will always act as if there is no legitimate use for the internet besides commercial offerings. Not really surprising....

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[jesset77]

In this case, it may be true that unlimited broadband will hurt media companies by making piracy easier, but it could also help their businesses by opening up all kinds of new business opportunities. The problem they're having seems to be that they're dragging their feet on new business opportunities.

You can't use off-peak internet to watch Hulu. Big Media are definitely taking advantage of digital media and the internet, it's just that you cannot serve the needs of copyright and reality at the same time, regardless of the transmission medium.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[spire3661]

Laws are a function of human society, all law stems from man. Your statement is redundant

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[jesset77]

In Britain, a pretty large proportion of bandwidth is used for iPlayer downloads, which are legal. Youtube is also very popular, and is mostly legal - they have a royalty agreement with the MCPS.

Youtube cannot be downloaded off-peak and then viewed during the day. At least, not without illegally jail braking the content from the site.

Most people who don't read slashdot find it very difficult to use peer to peer software and to find reliable downloads that actually are what they say they are without any trojans added.

Normally I would just say "use the Pirate Bay" to such users, and things like mind the comments and pay attention to the reputation of content posters. But then Big Media realizes there is a vector protecting luddite downloaders from viruses and trojans, so they try to take down the Pirate Bay.

Never mind that there are a jillion different torrent sites online, this one has a reputation of being a relatively safe and spam-free clearing house. Big Media is happy with torrent sites existing, so long as they are dangerous and diseased as you mention.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think everybody agree you need speed limits and can't have people going 100 km/h through a residential area that should have 35 km/h.

Speed limits keep people from going 100 km/h in residential areas? I have friends who used to/still do drag race down a 2 mile stretch of road in a residential area and no one in the area even thinks of reporting it to the police. And for the record, the speed limit in that area is 30 mph (about 50 km/h).

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

how about cars in-general, they let you carry hundreds if not thousands of pounds of illegal things so they promote the activity to

Gas is limited, so illegal activity is curbed!

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[dangitman]

If someone is prepared to do 100km/h down a residential street, then a number printed on a sign is in no way going to deter them.

No, but the massive fine or loss of driver's license for being that far over the limit will deter it.

There is a large body of research and well understood science behind setting speed limits. Even though it is typically ignored and/or improperly used by politicians who see it as an easy source of revenue,

To the best of my knowledge, Australian speed limits (and red light timing) are set by guidelines established by scientists and engineers, not by politicians.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[dangitman]

Speed limits keep people from going 100 km/h in residential areas? I have friends who used to/still do drag race down a 2 mile stretch of road in a residential area and no one in the area even thinks of reporting it to the police.

Well, that's your problem. Not all societies are like that. Road safety is taken much more seriously in some countries than others.

If your friends are engaging in that kind of juvenile behavior, why don't you talk to them and try to persuade them not to?

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Niksko]

I suspect it's not AAPT. They kind of just started offering this service. It would have been easier for them to just not offer it in the first place.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Philip_the_physicist]

In Britain, a pretty large proportion of bandwidth is used for iPlayer downloads, which are legal. Youtube is also very popular, and is mostly legal - they have a royalty agreement with the MCPS.

Youtube cannot be downloaded off-peak and then viewed during the day. At least, not without illegally jail braking the content from the site.

Would watching videos which have been cached by your system be violation of the anti-jailbreaking laws? For that matter, would caching a legally streamed file be an illegal copy (and even if it is, is there any loss to the originator if it is from somewhere like youtube where it can be repeatedly watched without fee)? If so, would watching a copy from an ISP's cache or a corporate proxy be a violation?
I suspect that such a case would make a lot of scum-sucking dirtbags very happy.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Sabriel]

"pretty much all speedos read low by ~4-5%"

I'd heard that too, so soon after we got a portable GPS for our car I tested it - the speedo was within 1 km/hr of the GPS all the way up to 110 km/hr. Mind you, that assumes the GPS unit wasn't also incorrect, but I'd also done timed runs against distance markers and that seems to agree.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

No, but the massive fine or loss of driver's license for being that far over the limit will deter it.

Which explains why no-one ever does it, right ?

You don't "deter" normal people from doing things with excessive punishments (well, you can, but you need to go to ludicrous extremes - eg: overbearing surveillance, crippling fines, life imprisonment, capital punishment, etc - to achieve it). The whole line of thought behind that principle is broken. If someone is prepared to do something as reckless as 100km/h down a residential street, the threat of fines and loss of license is not going to deter them.

If you *genuinely* want to reduce traffic speed on a residential street, then you re-engineer them so that people feel like the "old" speed is too fast. Typically this is done with speed bumps and/or chicanes, or narrowing. The only reason to just drop the speed limit from, say, 40 to 30, is so you can fine people for speeding.

To the best of my knowledge, Australian speed limits (and red light timing) are set by guidelines established by scientists and engineers, not by politicians.

Strange, then, that the posted limits (not to mention ambient speed) on most freeways is notably lower than in other countries with similar, if not worse, roads (eg: Germany's unrestricted and 130km/h Autobahns, France's 130km/h Autoroutes, Italy's 130km/h Autostradas, etc). In fact, 120-130km/h seems to be the typical motorway speed in most of Europe. Can you think of a reason why "scientists and engineers" in Australia come to such different conclusions than their overseas peers ?

The crusade against speed in Australia (and particularly Victoria) has demonstrated, quite well, how little bearing speed (and the brutal enforcement thereof) has on road safety. After nearly two decades of it, though, speeding is actually decreasing. Of course, this hasn't really made the roads any safer, but it has - unsurprisingly - resulted in tolerances tightening to keep the money flowing in (Exhibit A: Victoria's technically unenforceable 3km/h tolerances).

Finally, I'm not sure why you bring red light cameras into the discussion. In Australia (and all the parts of Europe I've been to, with the exception of Italy) they don't have any of the gross implementation corruption that is rampant throughout the US (primarily, the shortening of amber phases). Red light cameras are not (yet) used as a revenue-generation device in Australia.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[VoltageX]

and the ABC has followed suit with iView, averaging 200mb per show.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

I'd heard that too, so soon after we got a portable GPS for our car I tested it - the speedo was within 1 km/hr of the GPS all the way up to 110 km/hr.

That's actually fairly surprising. I've tested with several vehicles and GPSes myself and found the 4-5% figure the be fairly accurate. What make, model and year ?

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[dangitman]

You don't "deter" normal people from doing things with excessive punishments (well, you can, but you need to go to ludicrous extremes - eg: overbearing surveillance, crippling fines, life imprisonment, capital punishment, etc - to achieve it). The whole line of thought behind that principle is broken.

Well, obviously something is working. Why is road rule compliance so much higher in Australia than the US, if such things don't work?

Strange, then, that the posted limits (not to mention ambient speed) on most freeways is notably lower than in other countries with similar, if not worse, roads (eg: Germany's unrestricted and 130km/h Autobahns, France's 130km/h Autoroutes, Italy's 130km/h Autostradas, etc). In fact, 120-130km/h seems to be the typical motorway speed in most of Europe. Can you think of a reason why "scientists and engineers" in Australia come to such different conclusions than their overseas peers ?

Well, setting speed limits is not an exact science. What makes you think that the Australians got it wrong, and the Europeans got it right?

I believe that there are also laws in many of those European countries that mandate better performance or condition of vehicles than in Australia, where you can drive pretty much an old banger than meets rather lax roadworthy requirements.

According to physics, slower is safer, so wouldn't that mean that Australia's slower limits are the more scientific option? Of course, people still need to get places, so that needs to be balanced with absolute safety. The way I see it, if you're going at 100km/h you're still going to get where you're going pretty quickly. Why the need for the extra 30km/h? Besides, 100km/h is more fuel efficient than 130.

Finally, I'm not sure why you bring red light cameras into the discussion. In Australia (and all the parts of Europe I've been to, with the exception of Italy) they don't have any of the gross implementation corruption that is rampant throughout the US (primarily, the shortening of amber phases). Red light cameras are not (yet) used as a revenue-generation device in Australia.

I bring it up as a comparison of the cultures and legislatures. Having lived in both countries, Australia simply does not have the same corrupt meddling in safety laws as the USA does. It's a country with a tradition of civil service and respect for boffins (CSIRO, etc). Since you're arguing it's political, then I need to see some evidence that politicians directly meddle with speed limits.

If you drive in both Australia and the USA, it's not difficult to come to the conclusion that the US has a lot more insane behavior on the roads. Maybe this is just a cultural difference - but I suspect the enforcement of laws (and particularly the attitudes of law enforcement) has something to do with it.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Architect_sasyr]

1998 VT SS Commodore Series 1. Accurate to within 1km.
1990 Ford Laser GL. Accurate to within 2km.
2006 Ford Falcon. Spot on.

That's just naming three. The GPS' in those are two different TomTom's, and a Navman. YMMV, but the only time I've ever had a speedo appear out is when we put larger tyres on one of our vehicles because we were using it off the tar.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[Sabriel]

Mazda, 323 Protege, 2003. The GPS is some LG brand. Since it was about a year ago, I did another test run to avoid relying on memory:

Car/GPS readings 20/20, 30/30, 40/39, 50/48, 60/58, 70/68, 80/79, 90/89, 100/99. No 110 zone locally, sorry. :)

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

Well, obviously something is working. Why is road rule compliance so much higher in Australia than the US, if such things don't work?

Because the road rules there are even sillier than they are in Australia and their enforcement even more corrupt ? Come on, you pick one of the few countries in the civilised world that is worse for this sort of thing than Australia, then try to use that as an example of how good Australia is ?

Further, where is the evidence of this "higher compliance" ? How is it measured ? How does it compare to other countries like France, Germany or even the UK ?

Well, setting speed limits is not an exact science. What makes you think that the Australians got it wrong, and the Europeans got it right?

The fact it's safer to drive in most of Western Europe than Australia. Anecdotally, it's also far less stressful - even in countries like Italy (well, at least on the motorways) - this is largely due to drivers having vastly better lane discipline.

According to physics, slower is safer, so wouldn't that mean that Australia's slower limits are the more scientific option?

According to evidence, absolute speed has relatively little influence on safety - that is, the probability of having a fatal accident. Additionally, in the context of speed limit enforcement, it's even more irrelevant since the vast majority of accidents happen at under the posted limit (ie: "not speeding"). If the relationship were as you describe, then the higher-speed roads in Europe (and in general - ie: as opposed to lower speed urban and residential roads) would be deathtraps. The unrestricted German Autobahns would be clearly more dangerous than other motorway systems. In actual fact, they're amongst the safest in the world.

The way I see it, if you're going at 100km/h you're still going to get where you're going pretty quickly. Why the need for the extra 30km/h? Besides, 100km/h is more fuel efficient than 130.

Because it gets you there quicker, and the less time you spend on the road, the safer you are. An extra 30km/h will make a substantial time difference for even a 200km journey, let alone longer 500km and 1000km trips.

You sound like someone who doesn't do much driving outside of a major city. Your argument simply boils down to "well it's fast enough for me, so why would anyone want to go faster".

I bring it up as a comparison of the cultures and legislatures. Having lived in both countries, Australia simply does not have the same corrupt meddling in safety laws as the USA does. It's a country with a tradition of civil service and respect for boffins (CSIRO, etc). Since you're arguing it's political, then I need to see some evidence that politicians directly meddle with speed limits.

My position is more that it's clearly not scientific, which doesn't really leave any other options than political meddling (be it direct or indirect).

State Governments have spent (at least) twenty years telling everyone how incredibly dangerous it is to exceed the speed limit. How anyone who does so is a reckless danger to society. They have done this instead of pursuing more effective strategies because those other strategies are both expensive and difficult. "Speed kills", on the other hand, is the exact opposite - easy and profitable. It is the "think of the children" slogan of road safety, and has about as much relevance.

The three pillars of road safety in Australia are "Belt up", "Don't drink and drive" and "Speed kills", with the latter two drawing the strongest focus by far. Of the three, the first is basically pointless (seatbelt usage rates are already in the high 90s and have been for a decade or more), and the third is a relatively minor factor in fatalities. Only the second carries some genuine weight. Progress with steps that would actually improve road safety (stricter car regulations, proper driver traini

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[spiralx]

Actually, if you want to cut accidents, then this is what you want to do rather than adding more obstacles...

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

Actually, if you want to cut accidents, then this is what you want to do rather than adding more obstacles...

I expect that works quite well in areas with high levels of pedestrian traffic, but I doubt it does so well in residential streets with much fewer people walking around.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[dangitman]

Because the road rules there are even sillier than they are in Australia and their enforcement even more corrupt ? Come on, you pick one of the few countries in the civilised world that is worse for this sort of thing than Australia, then try to use that as an example of how good Australia is ?

My point is that they have almost nothing in common. Enforcement isn't corrupt in Australia - everybody gets the same treatment. While in America, your infringement is either totally ignored, you get busted for driving while black, get a free pass for driving while being a cute female, or used as an excuse for drug searches.

What makes you say that enforcement in Australia is corrupt?

If the relationship were as you describe, then the higher-speed roads in Europe (and in general - ie: as opposed to lower speed urban and residential roads) would be deathtraps. The unrestricted German Autobahns would be clearly more dangerous than other motorway systems. In actual fact, they're amongst the safest in the world [wikipedia.org].

That's of little relevance, as autobahns are very different to the roads that most of us do our driving on. They are designed for high speeds.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

My point is that they have almost nothing in common. Enforcement isn't corrupt in Australia - everybody gets the same treatment. While in America, your infringement is either totally ignored, you get busted for driving while black, get a free pass for driving while being a cute female, or used as an excuse for drug searches.

This is what's called a straw man.

What makes you say that enforcement in Australia is corrupt?

Because the laws are designed and enforced with a an objective of revenue raising, rather than road safety.

That's of little relevance, as autobahns are very different to the roads that most of us do our driving on. They are designed for high speeds.

The typical Autobahn is designed no differently from any reasonably modern Australian Motorway. Indeed, many of them are noticeably worse. If you'd ever actually been on an Autobahn, you'd know that.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[dangitman]

This is what's called a straw man.

How is it a straw man? Do you even know what that term means?

Because the laws are designed and enforced with a an objective of revenue raising, rather than road safety.

What evidence do you have of that?

The typical Autobahn is designed no differently from any reasonably modern Australian Motorway.

But most of our driving isn't done on motorways, it's done on streets and roads. So autobahns and highways are mostly irrelevant.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

How is it a straw man?

That would be the part where you start going on about "driving while black", etc.

What evidence do you have of that?

Pretty sure I've already covered my reasoning.

But most of our driving isn't done on motorways, it's done on streets and roads.

Which is relevant to how Australian motorways are designed...how, exactly ?

So autobahns and highways are mostly irrelevant.

Considering one of your (not to mention the Government's) key arguments seems to be "faster == more dangerous", why is the level of safety on the roads with the highest vehicle speeds not relevant ?

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[dangitman]

That would be the part where you start going on about "driving while black", etc.

How does telling a truth that makes you feel uncomfortable make it a strawman? A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position. As I said, I don't think you even understand what the term means. I wasn't even attacking any argument, let alone making up an argument of yours to attack.

Pretty sure I've already covered my reasoning.

But provided no evidence. The speed limit in Australia has been 100-110km/h for many years, well before speed cameras and such. So, where is the evidence that seed limits have been lowered for financial gain?

Considering one of your (not to mention the Government's) key arguments seems to be "faster == more dangerous", why is the level of safety on the roads with the highest vehicle speeds not relevant ?

Because you're not providing any evidence that faster is safer. Just pointing to the autobahns is irrelevant, because drivers there have a different standard of training, different vehicles, etc. Correlation is not causation. Even if their speed limit is higher, and there are fewer accidents, does not mean it's because of the higher speed limit. Do you really believe that if the speed limit was lowered on the autobahns, and it was obeyed, that there would suddenly be more accidents?

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[bennettp]

...

My big question is, who's paying this "legal group"? Is it the record companies who are trying to keep their old business models? Or is it the ISPs who are looking for an excuse to not provide good service?

http://www.afact.org.au/about.html AFACT members include: Village Roadshow Limited; Motion Picture Association: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Australia; Paramount Pictures Australia; Sony Pictures Releasing International Corporation; Twentieth Century Fox International; Universal International Films, Inc.; and Warner Bros. Pictures International, a division of Warner Bros. Pictures In

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

How does telling a truth that makes you feel uncomfortable make it a strawman?

The straw man is you redefining "corruption" in the context of this discussion and then making an unsupported assertion about it, in an attempt to divert the discussion away from something you don't want to address. You can call it an "Irrelevant Conclusion" if you prefer.

Incidentally, if you don't think those things happen in Australia, you're pretty naive.

But provided no evidence.

Actually, I did provide evidence of roads with higher speed limits have no worse (or better) safety statistics.

The speed limit in Australia has been 100-110km/h for many years, well before speed cameras and such. So, where is the evidence that seed limits have been lowered for financial gain?

Speed limits have not been _raised_ despite dramatic improvements to vehicles and roads applying upward pressure on 85th percentile speeds. Additionally, there is the significant (and disproportionate) redistribution of resources to "combat speed", and the lowering of tolerances. These are the things delivering "financial gain".

Because you're not providing any evidence that faster is safer.

Probably because my primary argument is not that faster is safer, but that faster is not inherently more dangerous. That an overall (albeit probably insignificant) improvement in safety would probably result from spending less time on the road, is a side issue.

Just pointing to the autobahns is irrelevant, because drivers there have a different standard of training, different vehicles, etc.

But you either haven't argued about any of those, or have just dismissed them out of hand. Your position (along with the Government's) is, quite simply, that faster == more dangerous (regardless of any other factors - though several police and government spokesman have said on more than one occasion that better driver training would be a bad thing as it "encourages risk taking"). "Just pointing to the autobahns" is, in fact, extremely relevant to refuting your assertion.

I am well aware of the different factors in other countries affecting road safety, which is why I mentioned them earlier as an example of how Governments in Australia could be improving road safety but aren't, because they're too focused on minor issues like speed and seatbelts.

Correlation is not causation. Even if their speed limit is higher, and there are fewer accidents, does not mean it's because of the higher speed limit.

A straw man again - and an ironic one at that. My argument was that a higher speed limit without higher fatality rates demonstrates there is not a causative relationship between speed and safety, in the face of your assertion that there is.

Do you really believe that if the speed limit was lowered on the autobahns, and it was obeyed, that there would suddenly be more accidents?

Another straw man.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[dangitman]

The straw man is you redefining "corruption" in the context of this discussion and then making an unsupported assertion about it, in an attempt to divert the discussion away from something you don't want to address.

Bullshit. I was just having a friendly discussion of some cultural differences that I think are important. That you think it irrelevant, does not make my argument a straw man.

Incidentally, if you don't think those things happen in Australia, you're pretty naive.

I never said that. It's just nowhere near as endemic.

Actually, I did provide evidence of roads with higher speed limits have no worse (or better) safety statistics.

But you haven't shown a causal link. The differences could be due to many things, for example, Europe being more public transit friendly, so people are less likely to depend on cars when their driving ability or physical condition deteriorates, or have to drive home from a party or something. You also didn't provide any figures. For this to be true, you'd have to show that EVERY country with higher or unrestricted speed limits have substantially lower accident rates, and that would still just be correlation.

Speed limits have not been _raised_ despite dramatic improvements to vehicles and roads applying upward pressure on 85th percentile speeds.

But why should we be using the "85th percentile" it doesn't seem like very good assumptions, and is based on flawed premise and methodology. What reason is there to raise speed limits?

Probably because my primary argument is not that faster is safer, but that faster is not inherently more dangerous.

But it is. Did you fail basic physics or something?

A straw man again - and an ironic one at that. My argument was that a higher speed limit without higher fatality rates demonstrates there is not a causative relationship between speed and safety,

Not a strawman, and no, you haven't demonstrated it. You seem to think that any veering from your talking points is a straw man. Very odd.

Another straw man.

How? it's a perfectly relevant question. I just think you don't want a real discussion, you just want to preach.

Re:What about Interstate Highways?

[drsmithy]

Bullshit. I was just having a friendly discussion of some cultural differences that I think are important. That you think it irrelevant, does not make my argument a straw man.

But it *was* irrelevant. It had nothing to do with any of the previous discussion, nor my quoted text you were "responding" to. You changed the topic from the poor setting of speed limits, to racism and "cute girls".

But you haven't shown a causal link.

Uh, I don't need to. I'm refuting an argument, not making one.

You also didn't provide any figures. For this to be true, you'd have to show that EVERY country with higher or unrestricted speed limits have substantially lower accident rates, and that would still just be correlation.

No, I don't, because I'm not trying to argue what you think I'm trying to argue. I'm _refuting_ the simplistic argument that "speed kills", and all I need for that, is to demonstrate situations where higher speeds have not led to higher fatalities (ie: where speed doesn't kill).

There are fatality rates either on, or directly linked from, the Wikipedia page I linked to. Though I would have hoped someone arguing fervently about road safety would already have a rough idea of how the various countries compare in terms of fatalities.

I don't disagree at all the the lower rates in Continental Europe are probably due to other factors like better driver training. That's why I said from the start that the Australian Governments *not* investing any time or effort in those other areas supports my position that they're not really interested in actually improving safety.

But why should we be using the "85th percentile" it doesn't seem like very good assumptions, and is based on flawed premise and methodology.

We should be using it because it's based on decades of research and data, not gut feelings and politics. If you think the assumptions and premises are bad, then by all means come up with some new ones that are also supported by evidence.

What reason is there to raise speed limits?

When done appropriately, it increases traffic throughput, improves compliance rates and lets people get where they want to go sooner. What reasons are there *not* to (appropriately) raise speed limits ?

But it is.

The evidence says otherwise.

Did you fail basic physics or something?

In fact, I got one of the highest marks in my school, then went to University to study it. However, I am unfamiliar with the equation that connects speed and accident probability.

Not a strawman, and no, you haven't demonstrated it. You seem to think that any veering from your talking points is a straw man. Very odd.

It was a straw man. I never argued lower fatality rates were caused by higher speeds, I demonstrated that - contrary to your assertion and Government propaganda - that higher speeds do not inherently cause more fatalities.

How? it's a perfectly relevant question. I just think you don't want a real discussion, you just want to preach.

It's a straw man because I never made any such argument.

Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant costs

[Anonymous Coward]

First shoot all the lawyers.

Then shoot all the lawyers AGAIN!

No different than Hard Drive advertising

[joeflies]

Consumers don't understand what a terrabyte is. They do understand that if it holds hundreds of thousands of songs, then it must be huge though. So hard drive manufacturers often advertise how many songs, movies etc a hard drive can hold. It never said that you should be filling it with illegal music or movies, even though most people don't legally have a terrabyte of music. It's more or less to convey massive size to someone who doesn't understand what the technical metric measures out to. So if australia's got a problem with the ISP, let's see them apply that rule evenly and ban hard drives too.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[Idiomatick]

Most people....? A TB of music at normal compression is nearly 250,000 songs. At a dollar a pop I doubt any person has that many legit mp3s in North America.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[blind biker]

Consumers don't understand what a terrabyte is.

Yep. Looks like you're a bit confused, too.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[BikeHelmet]

Which is exactly the point. Look at the value you get for your new $100 HDD! You'll never fill that! ;)

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

terra -> earth, so terrabyte = mudpie?
mm, delicious, who can convert: 1 mouthful of bacteria-filled dirt into libraries of congress?

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[rolfwind]

So if australia's got a problem with the ISP, let's see them apply that rule evenly and ban hard drives too.

But it's not "Australia" that has a problem with it, just an overly loud special interest group that wants to fuck over the other 99.9% of the population to their insane demands and with the $$$ and lawyers for it too.

Forget about tarring and feathering tax collectors, these groups are even worse and that punishment would be too kind!

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[OrangeCatholic]

Yeah wow. A dollar a pop? Are you serious????

So by your logic, all media content is sold per smallest unit. Therefore, nobody can afford to fill a hard drive. Therefore, anybody owning a hard drive is breaking the law.

Thanks, digital Orwell! I hated my own thought-crimes, until you showed me the way!

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[syousef]

even though most people don't legally have a terrabyte of music.

I see you've never had a conversation with an audiophile. "MP3? Don't even talk to me if you're using MP3. FLAC? FLAC is for suckers man. I use a terrabyte per CD man. I know CD is only 44.1kHz and 44,100 samples per second but unless you're ripping your wave files at 320kHz and 440,000 samples per milli-second you're missing the forth golden harmonic. Don't forget to use pure gold cables otherwise it degrades and you won't hear the difference"

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[Kjella]

That really isn't a fair comparison. This is about using and abusing the many ways to understand "unlimited", just like many ISPs used it to limit bandwidth and claim it was still unlimited because you were connected 24/7. In this case, specifically that unlimited can be interpreted to mean "any song" and not "as much as you want". If they had said "Downlaod the latest Hollywood blockbusters with our new Unlimited Internet" then it'd quite clearly be foul play because it doesn't actually provide that. One of the reasons Grokster was so beaten in the 9-0 supreme court ruling if I recall correctly, is that they directly told you you'd be getting content that was there illegally. The same would an ISP be, so they have to define their "unlimited" wisely.

That said, it does not matter as bandwidth will increase regardless of promotions. It's not promotions that have made my internet speed go up ~300 times in the last decade. Nor is it promotions that means one mid-size tower with 5x2TB disks can store a library of congress. Soon we'll have enough bandwidth and storage that it's like tap water. Want something? Well your 1Gb/s+ connections draws a long sigh, and you have it. I'm already no longer a 24/7 bandwidth hog with this 20Mbit connection - and yes, 2.2MB/s actual download - because I see no point. I would never get around to watching/listening/play everything I could download. That wouldn't fundamentally change if I got a gigabit connecion. I'd get things faster but I'd still have no means to consume 1Gb/s of information. Not even streamed QuadHD super-BluRays.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[zach297]

Unless you fill it with movies which are easily 100 times as large as MP3s.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[moxley]

It's a good argument, but I would also say that there is a HUGE problem with the entire concept of "legal" and "Illegal" songs - obviously the industry groups like the RIAA want to make everything that isn't a new, direct purchase of a brand new album from a retailer (E.G. format shifting, sharing a CD with your mom, etc) illegal, but our culture and the law (in a lot of cases from what I can tell), would disagree.

It's clear that people doing egregious commercial piracy and selling bootleg copies of CDs you could purchase anywhere are illegal and should be.

But If we look at the day-to-day cases of what the RIAA would consider an "Illegal" song, like someone downloading an album which they have never purchased from an FTP site that belongs to someone they don't know - which laws are they breaking? Are they civil or criminal laws?

How does that equation change if, say, the files come from bittorrent and are an album that the person already owns (I do this a lot, with the fast connection I have it's easier for me to download stuff I already own and life than it is to rip it)?

I just think that with fair use and the state of the laws, it's not clear exactly what the legal status of a lot of this sort of stuff is, despite the attempts by industry groups to make everything seem illicit. The fact that they are trying to force materials into elementary schools to equate downloading music with theft of physical property is telling (and ridiculous); they are going after the kids trying to indoctrinate them at a young age, and are using the abuse of the legal system to financially intimidate people into settling their cases - which shouldn't be necessary if the legalities surrounding this are as cut and dried as they'd like the public to believe they are.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[thuerrsch]

What's worse is that even the few members of that tiny elite who know what a "terrabyte" is (= terrible amount of data to lose) are, for the most part, actually thinking of "tebbibytes" ...

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[jedidiah]

One movie all by itself can be 33G.

If you think a 2TB drive can't be filled up with "bought" content, then you are living in the past.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[jedidiah]

No. We just weren't born yesterday.

tebbibyte? Try saying that to a teenager with a straight face.

Who makes up this crap? A committee maid up of Jessica Simpson, Hannah Montana and Britney Spears?

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[jesset77]

I just think that with fair use and the state of the laws, it's not clear exactly what the legal status of a lot of this sort of stuff is [snip] - which shouldn't be necessary if the legalities surrounding this are as cut and dried as they'd like the public to believe they are.

Fair Use law is pretty cut and dried. You violate copyright in a manner that is protected by fair use. And then you try to make your fair use position as clear as you can make it, but you might still be taken to court if it is not already 100% clear that the copyright holders will lose the case.

Fair Use cannot apply until you are already infringing copyright. Then, it can only be invoked as a protection in court on a case by case basis.

Commercial interests (such as search providers using thumbnails of copyrighted images in their search) can take advantage of fair use, because one court case can endorse an entire business model for them. I'm pretty certain most residential users are not willing to go to court to protect individual habits, however.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[dangitman]

I see you've never had a conversation with an audiophile.

Has anyone ever had a conversation with an audiophile? I imagine it would be pretty difficult, what with the constant drooling and the brain damage and all. Assuming they are capable of verbal speech.

Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising

[Idiomatick]

Uncompressed blurays? Maybe if you hate drive space i guess.

having computer promotes piracy

[postmortem]

Shall we all go back to stone age? No piracy there.

Religion, dictators, kings, and rest have tried for centuries to limit freedom, and they all eventually failed. RIAA/MPAA should get the idea already.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[bertoelcon]

Religion, dictators, kings, and rest have tried for centuries to limit freedom, and they all eventually failed. RIAA/MPAA should get the idea already.

History repeats itself, what did you expect?

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[meerling]

Copyright a song, and wait for someone to sing it without getting your permission... Stone Age IP Piracy !

Or you could use something closer to real piracy, get some clubs, beat the snot outta some other group, and take their stuff.

The only thing likable about the stone-age (Hollywood version) is the gorgeous busty leopard skin bikini wearing ladies. (At least if your male.)

>^_^<

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[icebike]

Religion, Dictators, and Kings have power of live and death over you. That they "Eventually Failed" was small consolation to the millions they put to the Sword, the Guillotine, and the Gallows.

RIAA/MPAA are on a death march. Their own. They just don't realize it yet.

And they will take intellectual property with them. The backlash will be rather sever, when the sheeple wake up and realize that you can't have a fast computer because some one in a far off land wrote a song.

Eventually, it will be necessary for society to roll it all back. Copyrights, Patents, the whole nine yards.

Compose a song, sing a song, write a book: You have 4 years, then its public domain. Invent warp drive: Ok, 7 years. Sorry, we can't wait for you to die in order to use the product of your brain. We birthed you, we fed you, we educated you, you owe us.!!

Don't want to sing a song under that scenario? Fine. We will get someone else. People have been producing music far longer than they have been paid for it.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[QuantumG]

Wow, you almost said something pointed there.

As a matter of fact, "having computer promotes piracy" is kinda right. I'll clean it up for you though:

      having easy and regular access to copying machines makes copyright law seem evil and wrong, and ignoring it seems just.

There ya go.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[clarkkent09]

We birthed you, we fed you, we educated you, you owe us.!!

While I agree that there is a case for the copyright and patent terms to be shorter than they are, it is scary that people can make a statement like this in apparently non-sarcastic way and get modded up for it in a forum of generally educated people. It is not some mickey mouse musician trade organizations that are moving us closer to a dictatorship, it is people like you.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[rohan972]

It is not some mickey mouse musician trade organizations that are moving us closer to a dictatorship, it is people like you.

It's both. They're like the "left" and "right" wings of two party political systems.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[jonbryce]

Actually, before the printing press was invented, "piracy" was the normal method of distribution, but it wasn't illegal at that time.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[ultranova]

Shall we all go back to stone age? No piracy there.

Really? I bet that when a bunch of cavemen were sitting around a fire and cooking their catch, one of them told a story he'd heard from someone else without paying the original author! For that matter, I doubt the inventor of fire had been paid for the use of his method of generating heat by oxygenating plant matter.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[Bob_Who]

It is not some mickey mouse musician trade organizations that are moving us closer to a dictatorship, it is people like you.

...a dictatorship? As a result of Mickey Mouse or the Pirates of the Boston Tea Party? And that puts us at the mercy of a despotic autocracy ?

What a drama queen, scooby doo. Turn off your talk radio. This is sounding like a cartoon idiocracy.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[NotBornYesterday]

A little known fact is that before modern fires were invented, cavemen used to burn themselves for warmth in a proprietary process, and were obliged to pay for licenses to do so. Eventually, the first open-source movement found a way to burn non-sentient organic matter, and released that technology into the public domain. After that, the user base of the proprietary caveman-burning technology eventually (but predictably) died out, and history gave us what we consider to be "conventional" campfires.

There was also an interesting story about the open-source "wheel" eventually winning out over the expensive and proprietary "square rock".

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[spire3661]

In this context, hes exactly right. No art is made from a void, no invention is solely the work of one man.

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[jesset77]

We birthed you, we fed you, we educated you, you owe us.!! While I agree that there is a case for the copyright and patent terms to be shorter than they are, it is scary that people can make a statement like this in apparently non-sarcastic way and get modded up for it in a forum of generally educated people. It is not some mickey mouse musician trade organizations that are moving us closer to a dictatorship, it is people like you.

It's not sarcastic, it's just hyperbole. Poster is modded up for expressing the general idea that creativity remixes that which already exists in your environment in public, so it is foolish to coin it and then hold it hostage from the public.

Whenever you create media, you build it from the experiential raw materials of your peers. You should not be able to simply charge your peers for access to it without first paying them back for the raw materials. That is what is meant here by "you owe us".

Re:having computer promotes piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Well,It is the business plan of the AAPT and AFACT has no right to question the AAPTon it's business plan.Why should the AAPT limit their plans for the AFACT?I think it is the responsibilty of the end user and AFACT should be targetting the end user not the ISP itself.
My girlfriend is living abroad and we video chat daily so the usage is maximum and I dont see any illegal stuff in that.And their are lots of free stuff(legal) out there.
Their are millions of podcast out there also.So,The problem lies is that AFACT thinks only things which are copyrighted and have some monetary value associated is the only thing worth downloading in the world.What a screwed up ideology and how snobbish of them.

Piracy was lower

[mysidia]

When there was no such thing as records, cassettes, VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs, CD-Rs, no such thing as microphones, MP3 players, Radios, iPods, iTunes, online music stores, etc.

Ban all these things!

Re:Piracy was lower

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it was higher (adjusted for reality change). But there weren't any large companies to lobby congress.

Re:Piracy was lower

[Anonymous Coward]

It was even lower when there were no movies or music. And although I don't believe they should ban them. Some artists deserve to be banned.

Now on the other hand, the MPAA normally accepts movie trailers and rate them. Some of them are now using shorts of the movie that sometimes don't even appear. Can we stop that false advertisement? They keep making some movies look good, when they're not.

I vote trailers should be at least 3 hours long!

Re:Piracy was lower

[mysidia]

That's true... and piracy was even lower before the printing press, when books had to be copied by hand, television, and the telephone as well... I forgot to mention those particular gadgets that need to be banned... :)

Of course it is

[Rix]

People want to pirate. Get over it. It's not going to stop.

If you're a dick about it, you might convince people who would otherwise pay you some of the time to pay you none of the time. That's it.

Re:Of course it is

[stonedcat]

There have been some cases such as the release of The Man From Earth where online piracy led to wide spread sales of the film.
The director himself posted on several scene release sites and setup a paypal account where people who liked his movie could either donate a small amount or pre-order the dvd.
Cases like this are far from common but I can see where this might be the future of entertainment.
Surely if I like something enough and someone makes it easy for me to throw a few dollars to the people actually involved in the making of said entertainment instead of a greedy corporation I'm down with it.

Re:Of course it is

[Anonymous Coward]

The first honest comment in this whole section.

I am a pirate. And I think it is very improbable that all the people ranting about how they dare to call you pirates really never pirate anything.

Re:Of course it is

[petrus4]

There have been some cases such as the release of The Man From Earth where online piracy led to wide spread sales of the film.

Sure. I'll quite happily send $12 (the price of a movie ticket) straight to a director for the download of a new movie. Food at home is much cheaper than popcorn in a cinema, and I'm not paying for public transport, either. So he still gets full (concession for me, am on a pension) ticket price, which I have no problem with, and I financially come out ahead of what I'd spend on a trip to the movies right now. Everyone wins.

Re:Of course it is

[teg]

If people want to take things without paying, is this also "something people should get over. It's not going to stop."?

Content isn't free to produce, and unauthorized copying/pirateing, while not theft, does often deprive content creators of money they would have gotten otherwise. I don't know how to solve it, but I don't think "giving up" is the answer here - just as in other issues with big problems and no immediate path to success.

And FTR: I don't like DRM (so much so, that I'm not buying many kinds of content protected by it), I think Lex Disney (paying legislators to extend copyright) should be criminal - and at least only apply to new content produced after the law is passed but I do see that there is a problem with unauthorized copying. I think the damages in US lawsuits are ridiculous. I value privacy. I just don't agree with the premise that piracy is OK because many are doing it.

Re:Of course it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you think this way only because of the endless campaigns of the anti-piracy groups. If they wouldn't campaing, we wouldn't think twice that there are actually people who have to live off it (although these people are not at all those the MAFIA campaigns for).

Still, the few who voluntarily donate are hardly enough to consistently generate quality content.

Re:Of course it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I like your idea, that still leaves out a whole lot of people. The director is NOT the only piece of the puzzle.

Re:Of course it is

[jesset77]

Content isn't free to produce, and unauthorized copying/pirateing, while not theft, does often deprive content creators of money they would have gotten otherwise. I don't know how to solve it, but I don't think "giving up" is the answer here - just as in other issues with big problems and no immediate path to success.

Then again, since most of us who promote Copyright Abolition do know how to solve it, you can breathe a sigh of relief.

With a global internet, you need no distribution middlemen. You can create content, market it directly to the masses and use Assurance Contracts to guarantee financing from the first round of recipients to your content. Enter into the contract before you even begin work on the project. Then once delivered, the content can be treated by your financiers as they see fit (including any among their number rebroadcasting to the world, most likely for free) and you won't care as you have already been compensated to produce the content.

Strategy #2: Canned content as advertisement instead of product. If you are a musician for example, record and distribute work locally to encourage people to come to your show. Alternately, produce work pro bono to gain reputation, which can then be used to jump start larger projects backed by contract to first sale, as mentioned above.

Strategy #3: without copyright, none of your work needs to be 100% original. Lean on previously produced material. Remix, backdrop, fill in the blanks. Explore the boundaries of creativity side by side with all other members of the human race, and with no corporate or governmental restrictions. When you find a groove you can express better than everyone else, money will find it's way into that groove as people will wish to experience what you are creating. They will also wish to use that as a starting point for their works, and the more eager they are to do so the more eager they will be for first sale to get the ball rolling.

Copyright is not foundational to the economics of creativity. Copyright does nothing but pervert these economics for the artificial gain of those who are already in power, and it does inestimable harm to the public in the process. Copyright is a form of censorship, and derives it's power by directly preventing individuals from sharing knowledge with one another.Ostensibly this is to generate "profit", but in reality the only coin of interest to Copyright holders is power and control. Profit lasts only a moment, but power and control allow you to squeeze the populace for residual profit in perpetuity.

Re:Of course it is

[teg]

Your statement doesn't make me breathe more easily... it would kill many sorts of content that I appreciate. Most movies would disappear. Games more complex than a regular iphone game would disappear. Books too, when they finally go digital.

The good thing about your suggestion, is that everyone who supports it can do it today. Only copy freely distributable resources and don't pirate the content which would disappear in your scheme. Support your local artists, and be a patron of the arts where you live.

One of the main benefits of copyright, is that it allows someone creating a product to spread cost of creation onto many consumers, rather than having to find one customer willing to pay e.g. $300 million upfront to see "Lord of the rings" as the first viewer.

Re:Of course it is

[jesset77]

One of the main benefits of copyright, is that it allows someone creating a product to spread cost of creation onto many consumers, rather than having to find one customer willing to pay e.g. $300 million upfront to see "Lord of the rings" as the first viewer.

Slave labor built the great pyramids in Giza. I'm not too sad that such projects are no longer common. Instead I am glad to have billions of dwellings that suit single (living) families, and glad that people are not forced to serve a centralized master with grand, but stupidly inefficient visions.

At any rate, Assurance Contracts have nothing to do with finding "one" customer. They have everything to do with finding a finite number of customers interested enough in banding together to fund your work however, while the rest of society is left (rightly) out of your transaction.

The good thing about your suggestion, is that everyone who supports it can do it today.

No, not precisely. Today the funds are dry because of the money average people pay to have themselves hogtied by Big Media. On top of that, I cannot produce independent content without the exponential expense of sufficiently obscuring my sources as to prevent the liability of third parties demanding a slice of all possible revenue.. or just squashing my production if that is the level of control they desire.

Feel free to make your 100% genuinely original magnum opus. When someone sues you claiming it's too similar to their work you have never heard of, you'll see where I am coming from. And don't go thinking you can just rely on public domain fables as a backbone for your work, as there no longer is such a thing.

Aside from the cost of connecting with your audience without using any trace of material they have ever actually heard of before, you have the expense of retaining legal counsel for the inevitable lawsuits as you grow.

No wonder a body cannot find sufficient grass-roots funding for projects anything like I am recommending. Well screw it then, we'll just buy the LOTR book. and Pay to watch the movie in theaters. Pay again to have it on DVD, oops forgot the extended edition, oops now we need it in Blu Ray. How much again for the ringtone?

Jesus, he's right.

[straponego]

Let's go back to dialup. That will be so much better for Hollywood et al. And obviously what buys more Cristal for illiterate scumbags with hot tubs in their stretch Hummers is of Paramount Fucking Concern.

Re:Jesus, he's right.

[Samgilljoy]

bee-boo-bee-boo-cushshshshshshsh

Re:Jesus, he's right.

[rdebath]

Let's go back to dialup.

Wouldn't stop downloading anymore because the machines at each end are much more powerful and so they can use much better compression formats than way back then.

On top of that, the transfer protocols (eg: bittorrent) are seriously effective at using any bandwidth they are given, the only reason they seem slow sometimes is that they're only given a tiny upload bandwidth compared to most websites.

With a reasonable quality you can have video playback at about 10Mbyte/minute, that makes the numbers easy. It sounds like a lot for a modem, but the trickle through a modem is like a dripping tap, little by little it fills any bucket.

• 1 hour is 15Mbyte.
• 1 day is 370MByte
• 1 week is 2.5 Gigabytes
• 1 month is 11 Gigabytes, what was your broadband usage limit again?

And with bittorrent you don't need a server; this is the modem to modem rate with any number of peers.

Re:Jesus, he's right.

[mlts]

This reminds me of a time way back when 14.4k was common (yes, it was a relative eon ago). A certain ISP I happened to bump into viewed that 9600 bps or higher actually encouraged warez transfers. So, this ISP didn't just just limit modem speed to 2400bps, but threatened to remove the account of any user who asked why it was done, because "normal, law abiding" people checking E-mail or using Netscape using Trumpet Winsock and Eudora never needed any more than that. They even viewed that the artifical limits on bps also discouraged hackers from war-dialing their modem bank.

This stuff is SSDD, except that the technology has moved from dialup to broadband.

Re:Jesus, he's right.

[divisionbyzero]

Heh. And that stopped just about zero people from pirating I'm sure. People pirated with 300 baud; 1200 baud; 2400 baud; 9600 baud; 14.4k; 28.8k; and 56K. It's not the bitrate. It's the business model.

Re:Jesus, he's right.

[Mr. Underbridge]

This reminds me of a time way back when 14.4k was common (yes, it was a relative eon ago). A certain ISP I happened to bump into viewed that 9600 bps or higher actually encouraged warez transfers.

That's funny. It's exactly why I bought my 14.4 at the tender age of 15. I suppose your ISP was right! ;)

Well, that and for porn, of course.

Re:Jesus, he's right.

[Sirusjr]

Funny, I downloaded just as much when I had 56K, I just had to leave EVERYTHING on overnight. Of course at that time most of the music online was 128kbps so it wasn't so bad. They couldn't stop it then and certainly can't stop it now.

Re:Jesus, he's right.

[jesset77]

A certain ISP I happened to bump into viewed that 9600 bps or higher actually encouraged warez transfers.

Remind anyone of why we cannot burn raw data to Blu-ray yet?

Allergy

[DaMattster]

I've got an allergy to bullshit. Seems like the telecom companies will stoop to any low just to be able to use bandwidth caps, throttling, and/or anti-network neutrality actions. This positively disgusts me!! Software piracy will not be stopped by this. Perhaps, it will only be impacted by a very, very small margin. Instead of coming to their collective senses that they just need to upgrade the damn network to handle the bandwidth, they piddle on to find any excuse not to spend money towards upgrades. They tout such speeds as 20M down. Whoop tee doo! In Japan they have 100MB symmetric broadband. Why does America, Canda, Australia, and England not want to keep wup with modern high speed broadband as defined by Japan?

Re:Allergy

[wizardforce]

Too bad the "unlimited" plans don't give the telecomms any incentive to upgrade. It would be different if the more bandwisth they provided meant more revenue but in the current system it is more profitable to cap bandwidth use on "unlimited" plans (fraud) and throttle heavy users. The high bandwidth users pay the same as anyone else so as long as the telecomms can hold their local monopolies and insist on their current business model there is no incentive what so ever to change things. If we really wanted to force these telecomms into getting off their arse and upgrading everything, we'd destroy those local monopolies of theirs, go after them for the fraud they call "unlimited" plans and encourage a cahnge to $/TB instead of a flat rate. Done correctly, it wouldn't make economic sense for them to throttle high bandwidth users as that would essentially slit the cash cow's throat. Everyone who uses less bandwidth should pay less (with competition) and it would make sense to put new infrastructure in as it means they can handle more bandwidth and therefore make more money. unfortunately no one is really interested in doing any of that. the locals want their pipe hell or high water, the telecomms want to be able to milk their existing bandwidth until the government gets fed up and subsidizes them... again... and then there's people who stubbornly want their unlimited plans and don't want to get throttled and wonder why there's no real incentive for the telecomms to make it happen.

Re:Allergy

[Philip_the_physicist]

RTFA: the AAPT isn't making the claim, AFACT (the Australian MPAA/RIAA) is.
secondly, AAPT offer unlimited data overnight, and it was their marketing of this that got them into trouble.
Thirdly, Conroy has promised that the new FTTH network will be built, although I do realise that this isn't a hugely significant promise, especially given its source.

Re:Allergy

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does America, Canda, Australia, and England not want to keep wup with modern high speed broadband as defined by Japan?

In the Australian case, depending on who your suppliers are, it costs $300/megabit to haul data across the pacific ocean, then an extra $100/megabit if you are on the monopoly telco's (Tel$tra) DSL hardware, so the data limit is understandable..
Luckily in recent years ISPs have started to break the incumbent telco monopoly, lowering costs to around $200/megabit across the pacific, then $10/megabit for DSL.

Some new housing estates do have 100mbit FTTH, in the ones not cabled by the monopoly (Tel$tra), there are 100m plans that are competitive with ADSL2. The governments FTTH plan will break the local loop monopoly completely by putting Telstra on the same terms as everyone else.

The good thing about bandwidth caps here is that American style anti-neutrality doesn't fly. Sure, ISPs do unmeter access to their own hosted content (understandable), I haven't heard of much deliberate throttling of third party sources, unless you deliberately chose a 'leecher' ISP..

Re:Allergy

[mcbridematt]

Why does America, Canda, Australia, and England not want to keep wup with modern high speed broadband as defined by Japan?

In the Australian case, depending on who your suppliers are, it costs $300/megabit to haul data across the pacific ocean, then an extra $100/megabit if you are on the monopoly telco's (Tel$tra) DSL hardware, so the data limit is understandable..
Luckily in recent years ISPs have started to break the incumbent telco monopoly, lowering costs to around $200/megabit across the pacific, then $10/megabit for DSL.

Some new housing estates do have 100mbit FTTH, in the ones not cabled by the monopoly (Tel$tra), there are 100m plans that are competitive with ADSL2

The good thing about bandwidth caps here is that American style anti-neutrality doesn't fly. Sure, ISPs do unmeter access to their own hosted content (understandable), I haven't heard of deliberate throttling of third party sources, unless you deliberately chose a 'leecher' ISP..

Re:Allergy

[AHuxley]

Some Australian isp's may slow P2P traffic.
I like to think of Australian telcos as a cartel.
Telstra set the bar at a max and no body is going to rock the boat with the new connections to the USA.
If the Australian telco community can fool most people into thinking packets are still golden, why change.
A few gimmicks and PR stunts.
Australian unlimited business plans show they cam do unlimited, but like to keep the end losers on a per gb drip.

Re:Allergy

[Rich0]

I'm actually a fan of usage-based charges. ISPs shouldn't be able to advertise unlimited plans, and then cut people off for using them in an unlimited fashion.

Right now provider A and provider B both advertise unlimited plans with the same bandwidth and cost - so which should I choose? Instead, suppose provider A indicates that their plan is limited to 20GB per month and provider B limits at 60GB per month. Now I know which one I want. I might even sacrifice a little speed in favor of a higher total cap.

This should of course be combined with net-neutrality. No unlimited caps for content providers x, y, and z.

ISPs could also use this to distribute traffic - no limits during particular hours, etc.

Your monthly fee would cover some level of total usage (possibly zero), and then there would be a charge per MB/GB/whatever (with the term "MB" defined as either a MB or MiB - I don't care which as long as it is disclosed). Customers should also be allowed to set a limit on their total bill so that when they get a worm infection they don't get a $5000 bill. As an aside, cell phone companies need a similar law. If the customer doesn't want to be able to upload 500GB of data then they should be allowed to tell the ISP to just cut them off before they go over their limit until the next billing cycle.

Re:Allergy

[trawg]

The article is about AFACT - the copyright mob in Australia - trying to stop the caps. Not the ISPs (they have their own issues with bandwidth that are not at all related to copyright). In Australia, I think we're actually better off than, say, people in the USA - because our limits are clearly defined and well published. Unlike in the US where you have these 'unlimited' plans getting advertised and then you get randomly cut off when you use too much data.

AFACT trying to limit our downloads is, imo, worse than the ISPs trying to cut it off. What business does AFACT have to tell anyone about how much they should be downloading? I routinely leave large downloads and uploads going overnight so it doesn't tie up my connection during the day, and it's sure as shit not anything AFACT need to worry about - backing up my data, photos, my legitimately purchased digital content, downloading Linux ISOs (actual, real ones, not the airquote ones that people use to ever-so-subtly refer to pirating shit).

AFACT and ISPs have butted heads regularly in the past. They're a bunch of complete dicks that are pushing the same retarded line the RIAA/MPAA do, just in a different way. There was a great roundtable on an Australian TV show about it last year which you can watch online (possibly only if you are in .au, depending on how fucked their licensing is, I guess).

Re:Allergy

[Anonymous Coward]

American style anti-neutrality doesn't fly.

Wait a minute. Hold up. Didn't our FCC just come out completely on board with net neutrality? That's what I thought.

Sure, ISPs do unmeter access to their own hosted content (understandable)

That is the complete antithesis to net neutrality. You have been snowed. And your veiled anti-American jingoism is just ugly.

Re:Allergy

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia, I think we're actually better off than, say, people in the USA - because our limits are clearly defined and well published. Unlike in the US where you have these 'unlimited' plans getting advertised and then you get randomly cut off when you use too much data.

I live in Atlanta and upload and download 100's of GB's monthly and have never heard so much as a peep out of my ISP. I don't know anyone nor have I ever heard of anyone that has been cut off for using too much. I have never been to Australia and don't particularly care to go. However, I have gotten enough bits and pieces through reading Australian drivel here on Slashdot to know that your internet service there is pathetic. You have a special kind of cognitive dissonance going if you have snowed yourself into thinking you have good broadband service. If you have enough bits left over this month, maybe you should do a wikipedia search on Stockholm Syndrome. I think that would be enlightening for you.

Re:Allergy

[laughingcoyote]

Also, keep in mind that if they're advertising a "continuous" speed of 20 Mb/s download, that's only true if they have no bandwidth cap. Otherwise, that's a burst speed.

If you have a cap of 50 GB per month, then 50 GB/month is your maximum continuous rate. That already is a speed (amount of transfer over time), so we just have to do simple dimensional adjustments to convert that to more familiar terms. 50 GB = 400 Gb, so there's our starting rate: 400 Gb/month. If we presume a 30-day month, that's ~13.33 Gb per day, ~.5555 Gb per hour, ~.00925 Gb per minute, or .000154 Gb (.154 Mb, or 154 Kb) per second. At that rate, you can transfer maybe 3 times more data in a month through this "broadband" plan than you could with an all-you-can-eat dialup (56K) plan. Reduce the cap to 10 GB/month, and you're transferring -less- than you could with dialup!

Now, it's certainly true you get faster burst speed than with dialup, but that's what anything on a capped plan is aside from the above-a burst speed. Your maximum sustainable speed is the maximum speed you could sustainably have running. If they have a bandwidth cap, that bandwidth cap determines the max sustainable speed. It's false advertising to advertise "8 Mb/s CONTINUOUS speed with bursts up to 12!", when their own policies prohibit using that speed continuously. In the above case, 12 is usable for short bursts and 8 for longer ones, but neither can be used "continuously" on a capped plan.

Re:Allergy

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if not the countries, at least the large cities? I expect to be able to get cheap fast fiber in and around DC but apparently that is an unreasonable assumption.

Re:Allergy

[wintermute000]

You've also got an allergy to engineering reality.

POPULATION DENSITY

Sure there is a lot of telco BS in the mix but the bottom line is that population density in some places makes it not ECONOMICALLY viable . Studies for Australia's proposed FTTH have come up with rough costings of $215AUD (thats nearly 200 USD) per household assuming uptake rate of 80%.

Then again never let the facts get in the way of a semi-geek high horse. 'just upgrade the damn network' LOL

Re:Allergy

[simplexion]

Japan is tiny in comparison to USA, Canada and Australia... England has no excuse though.

the future?

[Montusama]

Maybe they are afraid that we will learn how to download cars.

Re:the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse: Using the Interpipes to download oil!

This thread is so full of win

[carp3_noct3m]

I dont know who to mod UP? Fuck, well I guess I'll just post and save the mod points for something that I actually have some chance in hell of influencing. Fuck you all Corporate Trans-National Business Bending to Like minded Office managemant fucktards. (caps = FACT BLO)

Its simple and effective just...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill all the lawyers.

Here's the truth...

[iCantSpell]

"It recently claimed in court proceedings that there was a link between iiNet upgrading the service plans of heavy-internet users and the proliferation of film piracy."

The multi-billion dollar movie industry is the link between proliferation of film piracy and legislation.

Time for dialup

[MaXintosh]

Time to go back to dialup. Why, no one ever pirated anything back then. Oh, er, wait...

It seems to me that the argument is shades of the tax on CDRs. Obviously, they argue, this service (unlimited broadband) is primarily used for committing IP infractions. Well, sure, but like CDRs, there's a lot of legitimate uses for broadband, too. I'd think that the push all over for schools to get broadband and computers would sort of make that clear. At least, I didn't think it's getting installed to hep people get warez.

Sadly, if the world works the way it tends to work, the whining idio... er, industry execs will get the final say.

Promotes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Enables; not promotes.

In other news...

[caius112]

No curfew after 10 PM promotes burglary and violent crime.

They didn't say 'unlimited PIRATED movies, music a

[popo]

I think some people forget that there is an endless amount of freely playable, listenable and viewable content on the web....
  And one doesn't have to violate copyright to enjoy it.

So does breathing

[syousef]

Quick. Cut off all the oxygen. It's a known fact that all Internet Pirates. That's a documented 100% breathe oxygen. We must eliminate the oxygen NOW! Otherwise we encourage piracy. Don't even get me started on Water. Water has been linked not only to piracy but also to terrorism. We must cut off the supply at the taps!

Re:So does breathing

[shentino]

I dunno, I think you can get DHMO banned purely as an environmental pollutant.

Jack asses

[iccaros]

Every time a Person in the Industry talks about taking away something from people to keep making them more money.. .makes me so mad I want to pirate what ever it is they are selling...

I wonder is that really AFACT?

[majorme]

bla bla bla, unlimited plans ruin the film industry... execs of major studios are starving :(

"if i had a rocket launcher"

[Anonymous Coward]

some son of a ....lawyer and his familly would pay

Re:"if i had a rocket launcher"

[Golddess]

Hey now, it's not the child's fault what his mother/father does for a living.

yeah, right.. piracy

[Z80a]

As far i know, the legit content bought over the internet go down the same pipe.

Maybe these are the ones they're actually trying to kill while using the "OMG PIRATES" argument?

Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[ChameleonDave]

8pm to 8am? I wish!

I am currently on AAPT's unlimited-offpeak plan. The article summary is wrong. The offpeak period in fact begins at 2am. You can actually see this in the fine print at the bottom of the linked Youtube video.

In passing, I'll moan about something related. Last month, we went over our onpeak limit of 20GB. Our broadband was cut off, and we had to content ourselves with dial-up speed for the rest of the month. We sighed, and thought, "oh well, at least the broadband will only be cut off from 8am till 2am. We're paying for unlimited traffic from 2am till 8am, so we'll still have that."

I had, of course, forgotten that it was AAPT we were dealing with -- that cesspit of incompetence, greed and malice. The wankers cut us off overnight too.

Since then, I have resolved to be careful during the day, and to download the Internet every frickin' night from 2am till 8am.

Back to dial-up for you, bub!

[macraig]

Let's all go back to dial-up analog rates and service to satisfy the copyright czars that we have no practical means to steal their content, shall we? The good old days of sneakernet piracy were really so much more satisfying anyway, weren't they, since you actually got to know some of your fellow pirates?

Hmm

[ShakaUVM]

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone had to pay for metered internet (ala Australia)?

Do you think that sites like Youtube would have ever taken off had it cost $277 to watch a single video (at a rate of 2 cents per kilobyte, which is what I pay for metered data on my cell phone right now)?

In a very real sense, the amazing innovation we've seen in the last decade or two has been the result of relatively cheap flat-rate internet.

America is still far behind other countries in bandwidth costs and availability, but things like the RUS grant help with the latter, but our existing oligopoly doesn't help with the former. My choices where I live are:
AT&T DSL ~$20/month for 1.5mbps - though I live in the middle of the suburbs, we've got a lot of copper between us and their central office, so we can only get 768k and 1.5mbps service here, and the 1.5mbps crapped out so often I had to downgrade to 768kbps.
AT&T U-Verse ~$50/month for 18mbps service. My apartment building has funky wiring, so even though it's available to the other apartments even in my complex, they couldn't wire me for U-Verse where I live.
Comcast Cable Modem ~$44/month for theoretical 12m/1m service or $25/month for 1m/384k. I hate Comcast (more than I hate AT&T even).
Virgin Mobile Data or Verizon Mobile Broadband service - One dollar buys you around 16MB of data within the next 30 days. Not suitable for the home office.
Verizon data ~$45/month + phone service for unlimited data using a tethered blackberry. Plus it's not really suited for networking my home office. I also hate Verizon with a passion. (Noticing a trend? =)
Verizon FIOS, if it were available, would be around $50/month. If they could install it in my apartment, which is doubtful.

The sad thing is that in 1995, we had pretty damn fast ethernet connections in my college dorm, and residential broadband STILL hasn't caught up with what I had there 14 years ago.

It promotes open source and Creative Commons too

[macemoneta]

It seems that they forgot that unlimited bandwidth promotes open source and Creative Commons content too.

Oh, and cloud computing. And free online education.

Probably all things they have never heard of, so they're not important.

By the same reasoning

[kawabago]

By the same reasoning building roads promotes drunk driving!

Re:They didn't say 'unlimited PIRATED movies, musi

[naich]

"I think some people forget that there is an endless amount of freely playable, listenable and viewable content on the web...."

I think they are well aware of it, and want to nip it in the bud by effectively outlawing it and restoring their position as the only distributors of content. While they might be genuinely concerned about piracy, I think they also realise that this is also a prime opportunity to make a land grab for all internet content.

Re:Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[Philip_the_physicist]

Maybe someone got confused, sine AARNet give free unlimited quota from 8PM to 8AM, and free access to peers (including Internode and hence all their mirrors and all of .on.net; Google and YouTube, and a load of other domains) to at least some of their customers.

(Before anyone gets too excited/jealous, AARNet is the Australian Academic Research Network, and access is strictly limited, so no, you cannot get this at home.)

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[sakdoctor]

Do what you want, âcause a lawyer is free,
YOU ARE A LAWYER!

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullets are expensive. That's not effcient use of resources.

Just dig a big hole and throw them all in it. And fill the hole up.

Re:Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[mrsurb]

8pm - 8am is exactly what they are offering on the front page of their website, as well as the billboard I drive past on the M4 in Sydney. They do note in fine print (though not so fine I couldn't read it driving past) that "Speed will be reduced on and off peak if peak usage exceeds 5GB". Sounds like a different plan than the one you are on.

Internet User says Legal Group Doesnt Know Shit!

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

"Liar whore, liar whore!... Fancy talk for a whore!"

This "Legal Group" doesnt know shit about how the internet works. The internet is not a one way delivery service designed to pipe corporate America's bullshit to consumers.

Instead, it is a network in which people are given power to contribute, communicate, and partake in the sharing of ideas and information.

Somewhere along the lines some people got it in our heads that mainstream media is the only entity allowed to transmit content and ideas to end users. You can thank the Movie, TV, Music and Radio industry for that.

However the times are a changing as a wise man once said. This is about having the power, not as a giant rich corporation, but as a person to perhaps distribute their own music, paintings, writings etc.

Bandwidth is required no matter what they want to attribute its usage to. Bandwidth increases, and never decreases. Our computer CPU's dont get slower, they get faster, and I'm sure they would say thats because "we're all pirates" sigh.

Put it this way...

In the 50s, if we could all have our own TV signal transmitters that reached the entire nation.... we would have had them.

Now we just have something better.

Fair is fair fuckers. The new media is here.

Re:Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[Matt_R]

I'm no fan of AAPT, but their website clearly says Enjoy unlimited downloads from 8pm-8am.

I like usage caps

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I prefer usage caps over charge per usage. I like my monthly costs to be deterministic. In Germany, I get a UMTS "fair flat" (after 5GB of transferred data the connection is throttled to ISDN speed which means 64kBit/s upstream and downstream) from O2 for roughly 20 EUR per month. I'd rather get my mails slower in the last few days of the month than pay 5 EUR extra because I watched a few videos on YouTube.

Unlimited broadband promotes lots of things

[DrXym]

Sure it promotes piracy, but it also promotes Video on Demand, digital downloads, IPTV, VOIP, MMOs, and Web 2.0 style apps many of which are distinctly commercial in nature and require lots of broadband. So I really don't see what the hell the point of singling out piracy is.

Re:Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[ChameleonDave]

8pm - 8am is exactly what they are offering on the front page of their website.

Ah, I considered the possibility that the summary might be talking about a different deal from the one I have, but when I saw that the Youtube video also said 2am, I took that as confirmation. Anyway, the controversy over the encouragement of illegal download applies to both deals.

I see that the ad for the 8pm–8am deal mentions 5GB of peak traffic and says that if you go over it, you will be throttled both off and on peak. In my case, I did not respond to an ad. AAPT phoned me up and orally offered me 20GB on peak, with unlimited downloads off peak. We did an audio contract right there on the phone. I never agreed to my offpeak broadband being cut off if I went over my onpeak limit.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[palegray.net]

And fill the hole up.

With more lawyers? I can see it now...

"It's lawyers, all the way down."

In other words, welcome to Hell.

Dear Lily Allen

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY&feature=player_embedded

THIS JUST IN!!!

[Zixaphir]

Free will is the source of all crime! OMG, GUYS! We could all be safer by just giving up our free will!!

I reinstalled my computer this month...

[bolt_the_dhampir]

..and in the process I've downloaded 200 gigs, according to my firewall/router box, mostly from Steam (all my games are on Steam) but also a huge Linux livedvd and a few gigs of updates for my MMO of choice (about 15, to be exact). My point is: There are perfectly legal ways to use an assload of bandwidth, and I do.

Re:Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[Barny]

I will have to content myself with Internode then, I know how much I am paying, what exactly I am getting AND I get a shit-ton of free stuff :)

A PR issue for the movie and music companies

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't it be the problem of the movie/music companies if there's an implicit "pirated" in front of every mention of a movie or piece of music?

Like sand between their fingers

[viking80]

The music industry's monopoly on distributing a very important part of the human culture is slipping away like sand between their fingers.

The grip they held on our culture has been choking, and made them very rich. It was solely based on cost of distribution technology.

Their effort, legal and technical, will be no more successful than the scribes effort to forbid the printing press a few hundred years ago.

Re:Like sand between their fingers

[grcumb]

The music industry's monopoly on distributing a very important part of the human culture is slipping away like sand between their fingers.

Dude, it's water, not sand. Sand won't run through tubes.

Sheesh.

Re:Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[AHuxley]

Read the fine print "Speed reduced off and on peak if peak usage exceeds 5GB. 24 month cost is A$2,158.80" ~US$ 1872

Great

[Dunbal]

Let's destroy the internet and go back to the stone age. Then surely there won't be any digital copying of copyrighted works...

As for piracy, I hear it's promoted more by a combination of ships and firearms - usually cannons or rocket launchers.

I have far more sinister proof

[SmallFurryCreature]

Do you know who is REALLY to blame for all those illegal downloads that help fund terrorism?

The movie industry. Without any regard to their fellow man and society they keep on producing movie after movie drawing their poor victims into a downwards spiral of constantly try to download the latest of their poison.

Why, I say that if we ban the movie industry (and really, only a communist could be against that) then the act of pirating movie will be wiped of the face of the earth and our youngsters will be saved from this destructive path the pinko's and homosexuals from hollywood have set them on.

Save a child, kill a hollywood producer.

I dare you to find a single flaw in my resoning. No movies, no piracy.

Re:I have far more sinister proof

[dangitman]

You think I don't want to? It's those TV networks, Marge ... they won't let me. One quality show after another, each one fresher and more brilliant than the last. If they only stumbled once, just gave us thirty minutes to ourselves, but they won't! They won't let me live!

More a matter of income...

[TestedDoughnut]

I can honestly say I downloaded more less-than-legal content on an 1.5mb/s ADSL connection than I ever have on my 25mb/s cable connection. Why? Because I had ADSL back when I was in high school and was dirt broke. $50 bucks for a video game back then seemed more like a rip off than it does now simply because I now have disposable income. Now that I have money, I actually use pay services such as Netflix, Napster, and Steam. It's less of a matter that I want high bandwidth so I can download illegal files faster, it's more so I can download the files I legally purchase faster.

Just my $0.02.

Re:They didn't say 'unlimited PIRATED movies, musi

[ljw1004]

There isn't an "endless" number of movies. The number is finite, and if you limit yourself to freely viewable movies then that's a tiny fraction. So I think it's dodgy for the ISP to talk about "unlimited movie downloads".

Likewise for music, if you limit yourself to freely downloadable music then it's a tiny fraction of what's available.

Games? I don't know, but I bet that if we consider the total number of *bytes* of all free and non-free games that you can download, then the non-free games take up more than 99%. That's mainly because non-free games have more art and audio in them.

nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Netherlands ISP's advertise this way for years now.

Air promotes murder

[pmontra]

Same logic applied, no need to say more.

before the internet, there was naked sneakernet

[h00manist]

sneakernet worked great. in fact, the bandwidth was much greater and was never a problem. i encourage the kids to use sneakernet, in fact, due to increased bandwidth and privacy advantages over internet sharing. walk over to friend with 10 dvd's and trade for his 10 dvd's - done. 47GB shared, total privacy rights, no internet or p2p or copyright snoops involved, automatic backup to dvd included, real-time live 3d holographic-like human interaction, naked frolicking option possibilities if interested. well, at least that's what cassette music gifts for girls were for. but the recording and composition options on cd and dvd are much greater...

Usenet Group says unlimited piracy promotes....

[Bob_Who]

Broadband.

Why else would anyone need it? Who needs cable or fat dsl for email or surfing? Get a clue, Comcast and AT&T it ain't your service or personality that's worth the price. Its the value added booty. Back in the old days of radio and tv they didn't charge anything for the bandwidth (airwaves) or the media. Now is costs for both content and feed, and you never get to really own it, with DRM. If you do try to move the media, then you get called a pirate. Your called a thief any time you hear or see anything that isn't an advertisement or data mining operation! Aaaaarrrrrggg! This is a typical corporate construct of extortion, and we must chop their heads off. What a racket, and they call us the pirates! DON'T BUY TUNES FROM GOONS. And don't buy this line of BS either. It won't fly. It never does for long before the natives revolt with pitchforks and torches.

Counterpoint: Legal Profession drain on society

[Anonymous Coward]

Headline: Netizens determine that a cost-benefit analysis of the Legal profession in the United States shows that the costs to society far outweigh the benefits. Use market economics and your vote and encourage these leeches to find honest and productive work - the planet will be better off for it!

And I hope AAPT told...

[divisionbyzero]

AFACT to go fuck themselves and prove harm first instead of engaging in a smear campaign?

Proprietary software promotes piracy

[alukin]

It is obvious. Free software can not be pirated. It is free for all. Just download and use. Proprietary software is easy to crack and pirate. May be it's time to think not of "box" selling business models and DRM, but of some new business model of Net age?

Monsters like Microsoft are happy with piracy because it is a good promotion technology, BTW.

Just like the phone system

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlimited talk for local calls on the land-line phone system promotes crime.

It also promotes the economy generally, but that's just an inconvenient fact that they need not mention at the same time.

just stupid

[tru3ntropy]

ISP's provide a service; do you sue the power company because some people are using the power to grow pot or run a meth lab. You go after those that supply the problem not the legitimate service that enables them; that only hurts the genuine customers and does not address the problem.

Youzing Lojicks

[DynaSoar]

Unlimited broadband makes piracy possible, therefore it promotes it, so let's get rid of it.

OK, let's put that into a formula so we can reuse it lots of times, changing it enough each time so we don't have to call it a remake every time.

If A is a sufficient condition of B: then A is a causative factor of B, and not A is a sufficient condition of not B. OOOOh, I see Nicholas Cage reading that, you know the way he just saunters down the line until he gets to the main point where he suddenly RAISES-HIS-VOICE-AND-RUNS-STUFF-TOGETHER.

OK. Follow that thinking? Great, then try this.

Unlimited oxygen makes idiocy possible, therefore it promotes it, so let's GET-RID-OF-ALL-THE-FUCKING-AIR-ALRIGHT?

I'm just kidding. We wouldn't want to get rid of idiocy. If we did, who would make all those movies for us to watch?

I'm starting to suspect the reason most movies are fiction is that many of the people who run the entertainment industry are pathological liars.

I wonder what the illegal groups think about this?

[Old97]

Just askin'

What an Excellent Precedent

[psbrogna]

Cheap camera promote child pornography, cheap lighters promote arson, and holy crap- what about cheap pens?! Are we absolutely positive the general public needs access to the wheel and the lever? Perhaps we should think more about that as well.

... and free speech promotes saying BS

[garutnivore]

We should limit broadband to prevent unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials to the same extent that we should limit free speech to prevent people from uttering bullshit.

Yes, AFACT, I'm looking at you.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[CFBMoo1]

They tried that at CERN, here's what happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaWVmLNvbqM

DRM

[EvilRyry]

Oh yeah? Well I say that DRM promotes piracy.

Thus proving ...

[NotBornYesterday]

... that analogies (even the infamous slashdot car analogies) have a breaking point, past which they snap back in your face. And I'm about to make it worse, most likely.

"Unlimited broadband" doesn't mean you can have a car of gigantic or unlimited size, which would be like unlimited bandwidth. Instead, picture a large car on a highway with an extremely high speed limit. You can saturate your allotted bandwidth (fill your somewhat large car to capacity) and drive the length of that highway repeatedly at top speed as many times as you like between 8pm & 8am. No gas required. The cars run on electricity piped through or near the roads themselves, like a street trolley.

No, that one isn't exactly right either.

Wait, I've got it, here's another. Imagine that instead of one huge car, you had lots and lots of little cars, each of which could only carry a tiny amount of cargo, perhaps only a gram or so in mass (a "datagram", if you like). Or, since you "pack" data into the little car, we could call the car a "pack". Except that as I said, we can only put a tiny amount of data in each "pack", so perhaps we'd better add the French suffix for small, and refer to it as a "packette", or a "packet" for those who prefer the anglicized spelling. Your broadband connection is like a highway that would allow you to send a vast number of cars ("packets" or "datagrams") out, and receive an even larger number in (since they are disposable cars, they would be destroyed after the gram of data was removed). Since the cars would be too small to hold an intelligent driver, and since the highway has lots of on and off ramps and construction detours, the route the car would follow would have to be controlled by a system of semi-intelligent guides. Since their job is to help the cars follow the right route, we could call these guides "routers". The access to this highway can either be Limited or Unlimited. "Unlimited" means that the "routers" allow you to send and receive as many little cars as you can fit on the road, given the road's insanely high speed limit. "Limited" means that aggregate total of cars you can drive across it in a given period of time is arbitrarily set lower than the highway's total capacity for cars.

So ultimately ... wait, what was the question again?

Sounds true to me

[buddyglass]

Though I'd exchange the word "enables" for "promotes". Downloading twenty feature films per month is possible because it's no more expensive to download twenty feature films than it is to use your account just for email. If the cost of net access were actually tied to bandwidth consumed, though perhaps not linearly, this would no longer be the case, and it would become cost prohibitive to download movies indiscriminately. IMHO this is the "right" way to handle issues such this, rather than ISPs attempting to block certain ports, throttle users, inspect content, etc.

Service is good, ad is bad

[markdavis]

>"If you want unlimited music, unlimited games and unlimited movies -- get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT."

Sorry, with advertising like that, they should get at least a little legal attention. Nothing wrong with "unlimited" Internet, but they should be more careful with their ads...

Buy our gun- Unlimited killing and shooting in malls.
Buy our car- Super fast for unlimited speeding and running over children.
Buy our stereo- If you want unlimited power and volume for annoying your neighbors.

Just about anything "good" can be used for "bad". Now, if they had said:

"If you want unlimited bandwidth for video conferencing, system backups, online gaming, browsing, and streaming video & music" the whole flavor changes considerably.

Lily Allen is a hypocritical file-sharing pirate

[mdwh2]

LOL - I liked this. I'm surprised the story hasn't made Slashdot (I keep meaning to submit it). For those who hasn't heard, Lily Allen joined in the filesharing "debate" by lobbying for the planned law to disconnected suspected filesharers from the Internet. She set up a blog (now deleted) to tell the Internet why they are wrong, making the same poor arguments that we've all heard before ("it's not free to make, so it can't be free, can it?")

Except she's now been exposed as a filesharing pirate herself - she made "mixtapes" of other artists' music (she admitted she didn't have permission), in order to promote her own career, and the mp3s were still on her (EMI owned) website until she was exposed.

She was also found plagiarising an article in her first blog post, without permission or attribution.

There's been some coverage in the mainstream media, but sadly most are only reporting "Lily Allen against filesharing ... and then shuts blog because of the abuse she received, poor her!"

So basically, it's okay for her to rip other artists off in order to promote her commercial career, as she "didn't have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry", but the rest of us are stealing when we download, and should be disconnected. As an open source software developer who bends over backwards to obey copyright licences (e.g., when I'm looking to include music in my games), I find it ridiculous that she lectures me on copyright law, and gets to lobby for a law I oppose, yet she's the one ripping off artists without permission, and evidently doesn't give a crap unless it's her own music. But when I criticise Lily Allen on her arguments on support for the law, I'm the one who gets labelled a "thief"!

Why isn't Lily Allen being hounded for being a "thief", or sued for millions? And given they were on EMI's owned website, are they going to have their Internet connection disconnected?

And whilst she whined about "abuse" she allegedly received, she was happy to post this offensive rant from James Allan.

Hands cause fistfights

[sjames]

Hands cause fistfights, Legs promote fleeing from police.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not the Lawyers that are the real problem. Its the law makers that need to be shot first. No stupid law no need for lawyers. problem fixes it self.. and it will help the economy, world peace... ok so I stretch that.

()

http://www.itnews.com.au... is a bullshit link

[bitemykarma]

Fuck http://www.itnews.com.au/News/156640,afact-raises-concern-over-unlimited-isp-plans.aspx ASPX: microsoft idiots

Advertising has it's tastes in Beer

[Anonymous Coward]

They're all mad because somebody made a lot of money off free software. Then that person turned around and gave away a better product than what a large company could with all the money in the world. The Unlimited broadband opens the gates for people to communicate together. This doesn't sit well with secret societies. They want to keep us all apart. Television is full of simulated life and drama (1) portraying how open communities are a terrible condition. With no ability to hide behind laws, rules and guidelines you won't be able to commit crime without your neighbors intervening. For the same reason you won't need to.

Crime only exist from being a state of mind created by groups of individuals who want to enslave us. The nesting instinct (2) is evil. For a moment ponder the reasons why you would want to hide away in a dark room looking at porn, hacking into computers or downloading inferior software you'll never use.
Addictions.

(1) Zak De La'roche - No Shelter - Rage Against the Machine

(2) Jack - "Talking about IKEA" - FightClub

Re:Advertising has it's tastes in Beer

[Zontar The Mindless]

Wasn't Lrrr of Omicron Persei 8 supposed to eat you in front of a live TV audience or something?

Hey ..pirates use oxygen

[Anonymous Coward]

lets take all the oxygen out of the atmosphere

This just in!!!

[MarkvW]

Unlimited freedom promotes abuse of freedom!!!

Lawyer's and other useless primate's

[Anonymous Coward]

Two small boys, not yet old enough to be in school, were overheard talking at the zoo one day. "My name is Billy. What's yours?" asked the first boy. "Tommy," replied the second. "My Daddy's an accountant. What does your Daddy do for a living?" asked Billy. Tommy replied, "My Daddy's a lawyer." "Honest?" asked Billy. "No, just the regular kind", replied Tommy.

One day, there was this lawyer who had just bought a new car, and he was eager to show it off to his colleagues, when all of a sudden an eighteen wheeler came out of nowhere and took of the driver's side door with him standing right there. "NOOO!" he screamed, because he knew that no matter how good a mechanic tried to fix it, it never would be the same. Finally, a cop came by, and the lawyer ran up to him yelling. "MY JAGUAR DOOR WAS JUST RUINED BY SOME FOOLISH DRIVER!!!" he exclaimed. "Your a lawyer aren't you?" asked the policeman. "Yes, I am, but what does this have to do with my car?!?!" the lawyer asked. "HA! You lawyers are always so materialistic. All you care about is your possessions. I bet you didn't even notice that your left arm is missing did you?" the cop said. The lawyer looked down at his side and exclaimed "MY ROLEX!"

For three years, the young attorney had been taking his brief vacations at this country inn. The last time he'd finally managed an affair with the innkeeper's daughter. Looking forward to an exciting few days, he dragged his suitcase up the stairs of the inn, then stopped short.

There sat his lover with an infant on her lap! "Helen, why didn't you write when you learned you were pregnant?" he cried. "I would have rushed up here, we could have gotten married, and the baby would have my name!"

"Well," she said, "when my folks found out about my condition, we sat up all night talkin' and talkin' and decided it would be better to have a bastard in the family than a lawyer."

Re:I agree

[lysergic.acid]

I guess they should have phrased the ad better:
"If you want unlimited legally purcha...—er, licensed DRM-protected music, unlimited legally licensed DRM-protected games and unlimited legally licensed DRM-protected movies -- get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT. Do not under any circumstances use your AAPT broadband to illegally commandeer seafaring vessels. Also, do not use AnyDVD to bypass UOP restrictions. Be sure to always read the FBI Warning, copyright notices, and watch anti-piracy ads and future releases that are displayed before every movie (and take meticulous notes on what films you would like to purchase a limited viewing license for in the future)."

I don't have unlimited broadband...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm on comcast.

Steam, netflix, itunes

[Carra]

Steam, direct2drive, gog.com... The online game distributors are rising from the ground at a quick rate. And the games are getting larger and larger. How long until blu-ray replaces dvd for games on pc? Offering a 20 gb game to someone who has a 20 gb monthly limit is not going to get you any sales. And future game streaming services like OnLive are impossible with capped internet. Netflix, hulu,... You can not watch a movie a day with that limit. If someone wants to buy a movie a day from your service they quite simply can't. Your consumers can not buy as much as they want. Or they end up paying twice. One euro for that gb they downloaded on top of the price of the movie. In other words not competitive with your local video shop. Capped internet is putting a bottleneck at the advancement of internet services. With the current limits in Belgium online movie watching or streamed is not feasible. Piracy might rise with uncapped internet but you're not going to get any more money from online services to fill your pockets either.

Grateful

[LihTox]

After reading so much about how bad American cellphone plans are compared to the rest of the world, and how bad our broadband is, and all that, it's nice to hear that there are "first world" countries whose residents have less available to them than in the US. My condolences to the Australians.

Water

[chocapix]

Don't even get me started on Water. Water has been linked not only to piracy but also to terrorism.

And natural disasters too. I heard that floods, in most cases, were caused by an excess of water.

More effective solution

[Roger W Moore]

Let's go back to dialup.

Why? If the most important aim is to stop illegal downloads then a far better solution would be to abolish IP laws. That would completely stop all those illegal downloads. Of course the consequences of that on the economy would probably be bad but likely no worse than everyone being forced to return to dial-up and it has the advantage of completely solving the problem and not just reducing it.

Re:More effective solution

[jesset77]

Why? If the most important aim is to stop illegal downloads then a far better solution would be to abolish IP laws.

Ah man, now you're just being crazy. What's next, stop water boarding alleged terrorists? Take down the Great Firewall of China? We'll all get killed.. somehow. :P

What a crock of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Over here in Europe (Belgium) it is not that easy to get dvd boxsets of series you like.

I had bought series one and two of weeds legally in London when I was last there and enjoyed them.

I wanted to get the remaining series. So I check are they available on Amazon (for download) or iTunes. Guess what? No, they are not available in my country. Because of legalistic teritorial bullshit.

Now here is the rub. Here was I a lazy individual that just wanted to pay a reasonable price to conveniently download these series but I can't . I don't want to order them and get them delivered because I don't know when I will be at home ever and find it to be a hassle. But the producers of the content won't sell it to me in a way that makes my life easy.

Well, I ended up going online and streaming the content and didn't pay a penny. Looks like I will be doing that again and again and again because it is so convenient. So I am now watching free content because of the industry itself.

So from where I am standing, the solution lies with the content owners. Just give us the goods for a reasonable price and make it easy to access.

They won't do that however because they got too used to fleecing us. Remember how expensive dvd's uused to be before piracy??? So they shoot themselves in the foot.

Sure they are

[Rix]

They're not enough for movie stars to make 10's of millions of dollars per film, but that isn't necessary.

Actually, I think sucking a lot of money out of the content industry would do it wonders.

So do libraries

[Rix]

Content producers have never, and will never be paid for every single instance of content consumption.

Fighting piracy is morally equivalent to burning libraries.

Yeah -- Do It!

[Bob9113]

AAPT's advertising states: 'If you want unlimited music, unlimited games and unlimited movies -- get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT.' AFACT executive director Adrianne Pecotic said: 'In the context of the AAPT promotion, we have a concern that it could be misconstrued to promote illegal downloads and that's something that we'd like clarified.'

I think AAPT should comply as quickly as possible. Here's the copy change I would recommend:

'If you want unlimited music, unlimited games and unlimited movies -- get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT, and content from Podcasts and other user generated media that encourages you to consume it, in the way you desire. Traditional media from the major labels does not want you to consume it the way you want. They do not want your business in the way you want to give it. So -- don't.'

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[dgatwood]

Digging a hole that big is expensive. Just pick a site in the middle of the desert somewhere, then nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. :-D

Re:I agree

[jesset77]

Beyond the advertising, there is the concern that the only "legal" ways to downl... er, "licence" video and audio content are streaming, requiring you to be physically present to see the ads.

AAPT's service, by only providing unmetered downloads in off-peak hours, encourages the last thing Big Media wants, and I mean ever. "time shifting" and local archival.

Remember, copyright isn't about whether or not you have paid for the content. Not at the core. Instead, it's all about control. Big Media will never sell control, control over how media is consumed guarantees them future revenue.

Big Media wants to control where and how the content exists, they will never allow you to download a copy you can archive or backup. They should always be the only source, and you have to come back to them to see it again, even in circumstances when that means not having to pay every time. When you are done watching it, they never want you to have a copy lying around that could exist after Big Media decides the old content is competing with new content. Big Media gets giddy thinking about old CD's and DVD's that they illegalize your power to "back up" getting scratched and unusable.

Thus, it is understandable why the strategy of transferring data off-peak in order to conserve precious network resources would threaten the basic business model of copyright. The goal of conserving actually scarce resources using real economic strategy will always conflict at the core with the made up game of conserving artificially scarce copyrighted resources for artificially inflated profit.

So, that's what I make of this situation. All marketing aside, copyright holders have a vested interest to prevent us from time-shifting. To prevent us from downloading now and watching later, even when it balances strained network load. Consumers must be online, downloading content realtime. Their every pause, fast forward and rewind and channel change recorded. They must be attached directly to the teat. Then, and only then, can Big Media erase under-selling content from history ensuring noone will have a copy archived.

So yeah, tell me again how downloading content makes me a selfish ingrate?

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[jesset77]

sakdoctor should work "pro bono" into the lyrics :3

Um, they got it backwards...

[jmerlin]

It doesn't ENCOURAGE piracy, the converse is true, though. Bandwidth limits DISCOURAGE piracy, because you use up all your bandwidth. The fact that the converse is true does not imply that this statement is true, however. A common logical fallacy.

I think they missed the point

[Cprossu]

Computers promote piracy.. back before the internet, recording your programs on tape promoted piracy, then people selling blank floppy disks promoted piracy, then the original internet forums (bbs) were all about distributing software and therefore promoting piracy (at a blistering 300 bps if they were lucky) so then phone lines promoted piracy, then the internet happened, but a bigger deal (for piracy) was the fact CD burners showed up and...promoted piracy, I recall several organizations protesting the fact that burnable cd's would be compatible with manufactured ones, then a music sharing application made the internet viable to.. errr promote piracy easily, then the broadband revolution happened and ..etc

there has always been piracy, there will be piracy for a long time after, and the only ones who will suffer because of it are paying customers, not form the pirates directly, but from tools implemented by the respected software manufacturers for preventing it (thus causing unhappy PAYING customers).

Seriously, why don't we just break down and say breathable air causes piracy while we are at it? it makes about as much sense, and removing all traces of it would cure piracy for good.... or at the very least would cure the problem of people caring about it (damn bots)

Unlimited bandwidth encourages piracy?

[Chas]

That's like saying the Earth's massive (relative to the volume of a single human) atmosphere encourages hyperventilation of hydrogen.

uh huh...

[Viral Architect]

Faster broadband speeds promotes piracy the same way adding another lane to a highway promotes drug trafficking. Yes, downloading pirated stuff is going to go smoother, but so is downloading legal stuff. Just because you have a faster speed doesn't mean you're going to use it all. Maybe you just want youtube HQ videos to play faster or your browser to respond as fast as the rest of your computer. Maybe you keep your files backed up at an online place like Rapidshare.com or something. Suppose you want to download all 20GB of Debian Linux. I guess nobody in the world wants to do these things. If they do, they're SOL because some people may use it for illicit purposes. In that case we should also outlaw knives, cars, heavy objects, dense objects such as pipes or wooden planks, and anything else because you can also use these to hurt people. We should've never made computers easy enough to use to let these wallstreet assholes get their dirty mits in on it.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[Ihmhi]

Yar, har, fiddle dee dee,

Our overly-litigious culture is a deep-rooted societal problem,

Do what you want 'cause a lawy-

Yeah, it needs some work.

Unlimited Broadband DOES NOT Promote Piracy

[angelbunny]

Piracy is the process of selling an item you do not legally own to another.

If someone can download content on the net for free then how can pirates compete with that?

Unlimited Broadband REMOVES Piracy.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[Anonymous Coward]

My god! It's full of lawyers!

uhh

[maxjustus]

that's like saying cheap gas promotes genocide.

Follow the money

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Follow the money ... and I bet you'll find that this "legal group" is funded by the Big Cable/Telco Lobby, which would very much like to abolish unlimited broadband plans and usher in an age of per-byte billing. It'll be just like the good old days when they could charge megabucks per minute of long distance phone calls.

Re:Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[dangitman]

Since then, I have resolved to be careful during the day, and to download the Internet every frickin' night from 2am till 8am.

You might want to have a little chat with Ted Stevens, and help resolve his problem with receiving internets from his staff.

Not true...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have pirated stuff since the BBS days, bandwidth has nothing to do with it!

Theft? THEFT?

[Dj_fishlover]

AFACT (the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft)
Theft? THEFT?
My god, they have named an entire organization after a misconception. Unless they work for the (quite few?) artists that have been lured (should have payed more attention to reading the contract before signing it) into an contract that deprives them of their rights to there works, thus their copyright, to media companies.

It's not everyday when a random person at the internet steals the copyright of a work on the internet. The proper term is a violation of the copyright law, and making an illegal copy of the work.

I also agree

[symbolset]

But the problem can be narrowed down from Internet Service providers to Electricity providers. It can be factually proven that five nines of computer software, music and video piracy is supported by the electricity utilities. All of the hardware used to decode, transmit and receive this intellectual property theft is powered by the irresponsibly unlimited distribution of electrons by the power utilities. The electrons themselves are unknowing innocents in this matter. They are enslaved in "generating plants" by the evil power distributors and put to their fell tasks by consumers by the trillion to be ultimately demoted to a lesser form of energy, heat. Very few are briefly promoted to photons chasing through a fiber optic pipe before suffering this indignity in addition to being put to the cruel task of piracy.

The cure is of course to prevent the generation and transmission of electrical power. There will be some minor collateral consequenses, but they're of little import relative to the protection of intellectual property that is America's greatest stock in trade.

"Analog" also has a responsibility here. The approximation of inherently continuous information to digitized forms, such as sound pressure levels to digital samples and photon frequency samples (pixels) to photon counts, and of course the reverse conversion, is an evil attempt to circumvent the right of every individual to create works based on their observations and edit them, or to invent them from whole cloth. All electronic circuits that convert from analog to digital, or from digital to analog should therefore be banned. If a medium is analog it should stay analog, as God intended.

Re:Frivolous lawsuit filer should pay defendant co

[Philip_the_physicist]

Actually, in Australia, if the defendant wins they will get their costs paid (IANAL, this came from an ISP rep on Whirlpool), and this is part of the reason why no downloaders have bee sued there, and the industry hasn't even bothered filing a suit to get the customer's details. The other reasons are that only actual damages can be awarded, and only the actual downloader, not the ISP customer, is responsible.

Also, I suspect that if they won against a downloader (a leach, so no losses due to uploads, although these would also be hard to prove), the damage to *them* would be far less per file than the cost of buying legally, because the loss wouldn't include wholesaler/retailer profits and overheads, and they really would not want people to notice that.

AIUI, the loser usually has to pay costs, but I hope there is some sort of reasonableness requirement, so you wouldn't end up with damages of $500 and costs of $100000 or something silly like that

Legal Group?

[MacWiz]

I clicked on the link to this story just to find out what "legal group" was still taking such a small-minded and ignorant point of view.

Hiring mercenary lawyers to fight the rise of technology with scripted Orwellian doublespeak does not constitute a "legal group."

If anything, this is like watching the MAFIAA play a game of Risk. They tried to get North America first, and failed miserably. Europe has too many different fronts, Asia is too large, the Middle East and Africa are too unstable to get a foothold. This leaves South America and Australia.

If you can't maintain control of Australia, all your plans for world domination are a joke to everyone else playing the game.

By the way: Unlimited breathing promotes health

[HollyMolly-1122]

Why don't limit some oxygen if it's possible to manipulate by laws ? It's always plausible to create and promote some reason to make some hidden people more equal than others.

Unlimited breathing promotes piracy as well!

[HollyMolly-1122]

Why don't limit some oxygen if it's possible to manipulate by laws ?

Re:They didn't say 'unlimited PIRATED movies, musi

[popo]

Well, now you're getting into semantics.

So if you're going to go there: The number of all movies in existence is also finite.

Or, one could argue that one could watch a single movie infinitely.

Re:Summary is wrong. AAPT are wankers.

[Anonymous Coward]

TPG: I get 65GB peak and 85GB off peak. separate throttling for each period.

Piggies...

[twoHats]

Uh oh - There are pigs in the china shop...

"Unlimited" is misleading advertising.

[axlGrease]

Just how much can be downloaded in 6 hours?

TIME is the limiter. How many bits per second was that?

1000 kBps or 125 kilobytes per second, or .125 decimal megabytes per second ...
7.5 megs per minute, or 450 megs per hour, or .45 decimal gigabytes per hour ...
2.7 gigabytes per day.

Not enough to fill a DVD.

84 gigabytes per (31-day) month. There's the limit of a saturated connection.

Do you want fries with that?