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RIAA Wants Limits On Net Neutrality So ISPs Can Police File Sharing
Presto Vivace writes "Reporting for Computer World, Grant Gross writes that the RIAA is asking the FCC not to make the net neutrality rules so strict that they 'would limit broadband providers' [flexibility] to "address" illegal online file sharing.' It seems the RIAA is unclear on the concept of the Fourth Amendment. 'The FCC should not only avoid rules prohibiting ISPs from blocking illegal file trading, but it should actively encourage ISPs to do so, the RIAA said. ... Other groups called on the FCC to stay out of the copyright enforcement business. If ISPs are required to check for copyright infringement, they could interfere with legal online activities, said six digital rights and business groups, including Public Knowledge, the Consumer Electronics Association and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.'"
We're all for net neutrality, except that we hate the concept and it should be changed to reflect this.
The only thing that can made the RIAA dinosaurs die out is a meteor on their headquarters.
-- Cheers!
I'm not a lawyer, but I did study constitutional law. I don't mean to be critical, but people should drop the concept that the Bill of Rights applies to private and/or corporate entities. They are applicable to the FEDERAL government. There is still debate on which amendments should apply to the states - e.g. the recent 2nd amendment lawsuits against state governments and D.C.
RIAA just won't quit will they. Their idea would require ISP's to spend money, they don't even want to spend money to upgrade their networks to deal with increased load.
So what they're saying is their business model is so flawed that it can only be supported by making other businesses pay for their complete failure in the marketplace? Yeah, that makes sense... in bizarro world. The FCC is being maligned for being a "liberal" establishment, but this is about as conservative a viewpoint as it gets: They're asking for their business to get special treatment because it makes horseshoes in a automobile era. Or, put another way -- they want a bailout.
Yes, how very liberal of them. /snark
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Quoting: "Internet service providers should have authority to block subscribers from sharing music and other files without permission of the copyright owner, the RIAA said."
I don't think highway operators in this country have ever been compelled or encouraged to stop grand theft auto, or interstate smuggling of stolen goods... Or that phone companies have been expected to prevent con artists from swindling people out of their money to buy "beach-side" Florida swamp land. Et cetera. This would appear to be unprecedented.
It is a federal offense to riffle through someone else's mail. This nonsense by the RIAA and friends is like saying "yeah we agree that FEDEX etc. shouldn't be going through other peoples' mail... except to make sure that people aren't pirating things..." Everyone understands that position to be completely ridiculous so why is it that the concept is so difficult to apply to internet packets etc? Just as your mail is legally protected from being ripped open by others, so should your internet packets. It isn't the job of ISPs to do the RIAA's work nor is it their right to riffle through your online activities at their whim.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I serously doubt that ISPs would want to take on the role of online copyright police, though some might welcome it as an excuse to block or throttle bandwidth-heavy, potentially infringing traffic (anything P2P, for instance, or perhaps -- even more nefariously -- anything not explicitly added to an ISPs whitelist of official content). Otherwise, it seems to me the added burden of filtering illegal downloads specifically is something ISPs would rather avoid (but which the RIAA would love to impose).
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
The RIAA is correct that the ISPs are in a unique position in that they easily (relatively speaking, of course) could implement safeguards to stop the trafficking of any files they want. There are some hiccups in a potential implementation, and it wouldn't come cheap, but the RIAA is at least correct that the easiest--nay, only--way to stop file trading is to cut it off at the source.
What they don't get, however, is that the ISPs have no obligation to them to do this. It doesn't sound like the RIAA is willing to pony up the cost for this (at least, they aren't volunteering), or otherwise contribute to making it work. It sounds more like they've decided that the FCC and the ISPs should help them, since they've proven to the world at large that they're not capable of helping themselves. I don't see what makes them feel they've earned the right to be "saved." It's ludicrous.
How about newspapers? Those are fundamentally far more important to society than entertainment music. Yet, advertisers have increased their dollars spent online, leaving less to be spent in papers; further, the wider reach of the internet is more attractive than a page in a newspaper that reaches, in major markets, a few million (and that's only a handful of places). Further, of those million, only a fraction will actually see the ad, since few people read every section of the paper. So, newpapers are going under all over the country, yet no one seems to be crying to save them. How about we help them out first?
Since most ppl use encryption on their illegal downloads now days, ISPs can't tell if its legal or illegal cause far as they know it could be say a Linux distro or even a game from a company that uses bitorrent like system (aka blizzard does)
I support filtering copyrighted material... as soon as copyright law is so clearly defined that no copyrights need never be decided in a courthouse again and even computerized systems could determine what is and is not copyright infringement with absolute 100% certainty.
Anything else will undeniably limit freedom of speech.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
That vigilanteism is fine online?
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
I serously doubt that ISPs would want to take on the role of online copyright police, though some might welcome it as an excuse to block or throttle bandwidth-heavy, potentially infringing traffic (anything P2P, for instance, or perhaps -- even more nefariously -- anything not explicitly added to an ISPs whitelist of official content). Otherwise, it seems to me the added burden of filtering illegal downloads specifically is something ISPs would rather avoid (but which the RIAA would love to impose).
Absolutely - there's a similar bill over here in Britain that has been estimated to cost £500m ($800m), or approximately £25 ($40) per user, a cost that the ISP would pass straight on to the customer. I would assume that the cost per subscriber would be about the same in the US - I wonder if the RIAA is offering to pay...
The British provisions are being debated over here at the moment - the ideas sound pretty similar; among other provisions, they would force ISPs to disconnect people accused of copyright infringement, which over here has lead to the brilliant question in the House of Lords: If someone's child downloads a film while waiting around in Parliament, does Parliament get its internet access shut off?
ISPs have far easier tools to cut down P2P traffic if they so choose, without that damocletian sword called liability dangling over their heads.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The RIAA can't legally do this because I already have a patent on: 'A technique for alienating your consumers by persecuting them.' US Patent 3,141,592 So I will charge a licensing fee of a modest 1 million dollars for every potential user of every ISP that uses this. Or approximately the population of the earth^3 million dollars. Now I'm worried they may use it anyway, so I've already applied to have a tax instituted in Europe to make up for the losses of every potential infringement on my patent.
They can do that now, but if net neutrality law prevented them from throttling P2P traffic then a "copyright infringement" loophole might enable them to block all instances of suspected copyright infringement (e.g. anything sent over P2P) rather than actual copyright infringement.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I dont see the RIAA helping the copyright holders defrauded by the CRIA in getting their money... In a previous article published by Zeropiad (http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87340/canadian-music-industry-faces-6-billion-copyright-infringement-trial/) it is estimated the CRIA has defrauded artists and copyright holders out of more then 30 million dollars. It's funny how quick they are to try and chase the home consumer for piracy but I dont see them working that hard to ensure money gets to the copyright holders. There is also the matter of the burden of proof and reasonable doubt... At the end of the day without a complete forensics analysis of each suspects computers they have no way of telling if their suspect (based on an IP and MAC address) is even the actual offender. Thus they shouldn't have any right to request the ISP perform any policing of filesharing. When a friend or client sends me a take down notice they receive form their ISP in Canada I have advised them to respond to them by telling them to get stuffed ; that they have no idea what they are talking about
This is another attempt by the RIAA to dilute their highly unpopular (and unconstitutional) warfare on anyone who exchanges music. If they can "get" the ISP's to do the filtering for them then the next step would be for the RIAA to "require" the ISP's to be the bad guys.
Net Neutrality is something worth fighting for. This RIAA attempt is a sideways attempt to undermine the free access to most information.
Tisha Hayes
That RIAA, MPAA BSA etc. are dangerous terrorist organizations conspiring against the constitution of the United States of America and several other western countries.
They are more dangerous than armed terrorist because they are trying to minimize the rights/freedom of people. If we need laws like they want we also need a non-transferable copyright which is held only by the artist/writer/inventor and expires when the holder dies.
Don't get me wrong, I do not like or support piracy but the ideas of those people reminds me of Stasi, KGB or NKVD.
The FCC wasn't created to do TCPIP.
IT WAS CREATED TO DEAL WITH POWER AND FREQUENCY!
They have no business on the web, and the only thing that will happen is they will fuck it up. just like they have with their own original mission statement.
You only hear about the FCC and the web, each time this propaganda tries to give the FCC the power to regulate more shit, in this case TCPIP.
They will gain control of the WEB if the public allows the fascist corporations to control the engineers. THINK DAMN IT! It's only been the last couple years the FCC has been associated with the web.
KEEP THE GOD DAMNED FCC OUT OF THE FUCKIN WEB!
Do not give them the authority to regulate the fucking web!
Unless you desire NO PUBLIC outlet for information at all. Is that what you want?
Keep getting side-tracked with stupid ass stories and don't protest.
This is predictable as clockwork!
Sounds like RIAA just wants to have its own way. Why doesn't it go and found some new country where they can make these crazy rules?
If SPs can sniff the data to detect and block copyright material then they will also be able to detect malware, spam and all the other attacks going in and out of their networks. Maybe it is just easier to blame end users (including grandma) for not installing fixes to crazy security bugs and to charge them for the bandwidth when they're attacked than cleaning up their networks
It's not Blockbuster's job to make sure I don't make copies of the movies I rent either.
It's not my power company's job to make sure I'm not using electricity to run my DVD-duplicator.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
From a recent PBS Newshour analysis AIR DATE: Dec. 22, 2009
Subject: How Dangerous is the Cyber Crime Threat?
JEFFREY BROWN: Well, in fact, President Obama had talked about doing this as early as May. And then there were reports that it was taking a while to fill the position or to figure out who that person would report to.
JAMES LEWIS: There's a dispute in the White House and in the administration. And I think that slowed things down. Some people think it's best to leave the Internet alone, let it be the Wild West, let it continue to have a limited role for government, and the Internet community will find its way out of this problem. I don't happen to agree. I'm not sure where Howard comes out on this, but...
JEFFREY BROWN: Don't you agree why?
JAMES LEWIS: I don't, because we have tried letting the Internet community solve this. We have tried seeing if it was a self-organizing global commons. It hasn't worked. It's just like the Wild West. Time to move in the marshals.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec09/cyber_12-22.html
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
But who says who the copyright owner is? The riaa wants to own all music and make un singed band be locked out of putting there own music on line for free without paying the riaa for the right.
Well i'm betting some of them do have a want to filter. Think of a cable company that gets told it wants to filter or it doesn't want to have access to new movies on Pay per view. See how that would work, "we're not sure of your ability to ensure that this PPV content doesn't get out, but if you manage to filter the internet connections you provide, we'll take that as a sign you are trustworthy"
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
Being forced to pay for content consumed is a far cry from involuntary servitude.
Being forced to expend resources policing your network so you can report crimes might qualify as involuntary servitude, though I think that is a stretch too.
There are much better arguments against what the RIAA is proposing than this 'its slavery' nonsense. Proposing something this far from rational just makes you, and everyone on your side of the fence, look irrational, and weakens your position overall.
You aren't helping. Please, stop.
again. film at 11.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
But 'terrorists' only want to kill us, they like everyone else. Probably because they mind their own damn business. Of course if we would have just nuked them to begin with we wouldn't have this problem and the oil would be flowing like the proverbial milk and honey.
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
I'm completely opposed to the RIAA and think copyright should be outright abolished, but... "It seems the RIAA is unclear on the concept of the Fourth Amendment"? The Fourth Amendment doesn't apply at all to what a private party can do to monitor another private party using their service. Provided it's in your contract with your ISP, which it most certainly is, they can monitor you for illegal activities (or any other activities they consider violations of said contract) and shut you down if they want.
Go look up "private property" and stop thinking it's the government's damn job to protect you against anything you don't like. (Same goes for "network neutrality," but that's beyond the scope of this post.)
Liberty in your lifetime
That depends on the particular terrorist in question.
Some terrorists "hate us for our freedom"
Some terrorists hate us because we are assholes who invade their country, sometimes we had a very good reason, sometimes not so good of a reason.
Some terrorists hate us because their country invited us to be there to save their ass from a madman and they think the land is holy and we are infidels, Bin Laden is of this type.
Some terrorists want to install a global totalitarian theocracy where everyone submits to the absolute will of the state lead by a select group of clerics and convert or exterminate all non believers and reverse the last thousand years of social and technological advancement. Not all of these guys are in the Taliban, some of them are jingoistic American Christians.
There is no one solution.
What was once known as the Recording Industry Association of America seems to find more profit in lawsuits these days.
The riaa wants to own all music and make un singed band be
About the only bands that escape the music industry unsinged are the indies. Most of the rest get their fingers burnt.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Why should the RIAA have to spend it's time and money pursuing Jack and Jane Internet users when they can instead sue the consolidation point of them: the ISPs they subscribe to...
Once it is allowed for ISPs to do this, the RIAA can start going after the companies that aren't, or (and this is important) aren't doing a good enough job, in addition to end users. They already have all the information to do this, it's just that the current attitude is that the ISPs don't do packet policing.
So, if the RIAA and MPAA can get this changed, it's a whole new revenue stream for them. It makes a lot of sense.
On the other hand, I would think this would make the ISPs more compelled for net neutrality. If it stays neutral, they don't pick up the liability related to policing the packets.
Sean
Nothing about net neutrality law prevents them from throttling P2P traffic per se. The issue is quite simple: if the heuristic of throttling is based purely on amount of use, regardless of what that use is or from/to whom it is, it should be fine. The trouble comes in when a company throttle certain types of traffic or from/to certain providers. P2P might be the threat of the day, but there's still plenty of large volume ftp sites out there, and there's no real reason to not throttle them for a user if they use ftp more than P2P.
Quite simply, developing special technology for one application or set of applications is stupid anyways; it means having to create a new tool each time the public shifts in their heavy data usage. Well, it's not really stupid if the throttling is targeted specifically to cut down on bandwidth available for a competitor's or partner's competitor's product. But, then, that's precisely what net neutrality is designed to address. Having said that, I'm not sure how you can address things like VoIP or other emergent low-latency demanding software without special exceptions in the net neutrality law (and regular revisions), but the whole P2P throttling thing for bandwidth reasons is clearly a red herring.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
I agree that the labels get tossed around a lot, but I don't think it's unreasonable to claim that that it's ridiculous for the FCC to be called "liberal" in a pejorative way for opposing what is effectively a bailout, because it makes no sense, and that's what GP post was against.
It's weird how you're ranting against the GP who is also complaining about weird use of those labels. Or maybe you're just trying to defend the RIAA? Good luck with that one.
JAMES LEWIS: I don't, because we have tried letting the Internet community solve this. We have tried seeing if it was a self-organizing global commons. It hasn't worked. It's just like the Wild West. Time to move in the marshals.
One of the more frightening things I've read in awhile. It's something you would have expected to hear from an official in a totalitarian government. Matter of fact, Mr. Dipstick (not you, I mean this Lewis character), it has worked, and has worked better than anyone could possibly have dreamed when the Internet first went public. The man is either completely ignorant of the ongoing multi-trillion-dollar global economic benefits resulting from advanced communications, or he's dissembling. Either way, holding such opinions should automatically disqualify him from any position where he could influence the government's Internet policy-making.
... it was just largely uncontrolled and unmonitored by big government. Matter of fact, at that point in U.S. history there was no such thing as "big government", and we were arguably a lot better off. Unfortunately for us, the lack of overt centralized government control, regardless of its necessity, bothers some people to no end. Seriously, it does (it's an emotional thing, a kind of mental illness that really should require appropriate psychiatric treatment) and it's people like that who need to be kept far, far away from the reins of government.
So, this is just another powermonger offering solutions to problems that simply don't exist in order to extend government authority into yet another area where it isn't needed. This presumption that the Internet is somehow "broken", and consequently must be locked down completely China-fashion just because of mass copyright infringement is insane. Honestly, this is one of the most dangerous rationalizations to come along in recent memory. I mean, my GOD, these people seem to believe that the Internet's only purpose is enable copyright infringement and this idiot is going right along with that defective worldview. Fact is, the Internet, wild is it may be, has done more good for more people than anything else since the dawn of the Industrial Age, and if you truly care about your fellow man, Mr. Lewis, you'll not mess with success. Furthermore it's people like Mr. Lewis who see nothing wrong with taking the Internet's incredible power and utility away from us, so long as everything is properly controlled and monitored by the appropriate government agency. Where do they find these people?
What's even more ironic is his choice of the Wild West as a metaphor for the Internet. The old west was nowhere near as violent as Hollywood makes it out to be
Dilbert: Don't you think you're abusing your power?
Wally: What would be the other reasons to have power?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I know of at least one ISP that does that, and it is wonderful. My roommate got a virus on his laptop and our switchport was shut down, forcing him to immediately clean it up instead of letting it turn into a zombie node.
I think you just gave your age away, old-timer! :-)
In addition, you probably confused most of the kids hanging out on your lawn as a bonus.
For those of you that wondering:
Briquette Bardot==Brigitte Bardot
Now, get off his lawn...and quit drooling!
BTW, thanks for the trip down Memory Lane, and the excuse to look up B.B. again!
"Mind if I sit down?" Retief pulled out a chair, seated himself, and took out a cigar.
signed,
Another Keith Laumer fan.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
It's FFVII, you insensitive clod!
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Since they control politicians with their antiquated business model.
Actually I believe the framers intended that inalienable rights meant that they were inalienable. I don't believe they meant that they are inalienable unless some local or State Government, or some corporation or special interest decides they want to rape us all.
So you see, there is confusion, but it is not on our part; the confusion is on the part of those who don't know what the term inalienable means.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
But the RIAA needs to die. Copyright laws will only get more Draconian while they are around, at least in their current form.
Again, why would they want to target P2P specifically? They don't care what uses massive amounts of bandwidth, what they care is that their networks are clogged. It's far more profitable and far easier to implement for them to simply say you may use, say, 20Gig a month and if you're over that, we throttle you down to 64kbit so you can't do more "damage". And, behold, that's how it's done by a few providers here. That's very easy (and cheap!) to implement for them and it does not open the proverbial cans of worms like liability (if you can and do sniff traffic, the demand to filter copyright infringement and kiddy porn are not far behind) and legal issues (because, at least here, the sanctity of mail stretches into the digital domain and sniffing in someone's email without good reason is a nono).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"BUT and ISP already has deep pack inspection"
The ISPs should only being using inspection tools that help them shuttle bits to and fro and comply with QOS and other contractual obligations with their clients.
Anything else, including most forms of deep-packet-inspection, should only exist where required by law and only be used in specific, court-approved cases. The fact that these are available to comply with criminal law enforcement is not a license to use them for anything else, including civil cases. Unless a prosecutor and a judge are involved, copyright issues are civil cases, and law-enforcement-specific tools should be off limits.
I can see two other uses for deep packet inspection, but this should also be purpose-specific and off-limits to all other use: 1) Preventing network harm, and 2) voluntary inspections at the customer's request.
An example of #2 would be a customer who is under attack or is receiving harassing emails and who is enlisting his ISP to help track down the attacker or harasser. A careless attacker may leave identifying information that cannot be seen by a surface-level packet inspection only. Another example of #2 would be an ISP that offers "accountability and blocking" services that rat out suspicious activity to the account-owner, which would presumably be a parent in the case of a family, a business owner in the case of a business, a parole- or probation-officer in the case of someone on probation who is only allowed limited Internet access, or possibly an "accountability partner" of someone who is voluntarily dealing with personal/addiction issues that involve the Internet.*
*Anyone know of an ISP that will limit my Slashdot time??? Just asking.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.