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RIAA, MPAA Recruit MasterCard As Internet Police
An anonymous reader writes "Two weeks ago, MasterCard felt the wrath of Anonymous Operation Payback-style DDoS attacks after refusing to process payments that were intended to fund WikiLeaks, the website which began leaking confidential US diplomatic cables last month. Now, the company is preparing to head down another controversial path by pledging to deny transactions which support websites that host pirated movies, music, games, or other copyrighted content. MasterCard lobbyists have also been in talks with entertainment industry trade groups, including the RIAA and the MPAA, and have made it clear that the company will support the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), sources close to the talks have said."
Ok, fine. You are now liable for any criminal transactions you don't block.
If you don't like that, you will send my money where I tell you to.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
will Indy music sites get shut down as well?
pioneer one donations?
Since when did people pay to infringe copyright? I thought the whole point was that you get the stuff for free anyway.
which is totally what she said
While I'm not against Mastercard saying "We won't allow customers to use Mastercard to buy illegal goods", I doubt they'll have a proper list of who to deny.
It would be ironic if suddenly less people allowed Mastercard for online purchases. I gotta imagine that nowadays online transactions are a large proportion of their income.
Cancelled my MasterCard, then chopped it up. Enough people do that, MasterCard will start to wise up.
Of course, I'm probably going to replace it with some flavour of Visa, which is probably just as evil and certainly did jump on the ban-Wikileaks bandwagon.
if you want me to use your service, then you need me to be able to use your service. If I can't use your service for the things I want, that what do I need you for?
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
So let me get this right, money equals speech, according to various Supreme Court Rulings. But a major corporation whose credit and debit vehicles constitute one of the major means for tendering payment, i.e., speech, is permitted to filter your payments to whomever it likes.
In other words, a bank gets to decide when your speech is acceptable and when it isn't.
And, of course, if you're wealthy or powerful enough, this isn't a hindrance. But if you're a working stiff, living on a trickle of cash flow and using revolving credit to solve the logistical problems thereof, you're essentially subject to the bank's approval of your fiscal expression.
Yet another distinction between serfs and lords in the information age.
I can see the fnords!
I suppose the *IAA kickbacks will be larger than the fees gained on infringing sites.
Why else would they do it?
Sent from my PDP-11
I know eh?
That got me thinking - if I'm allowed to create backup copies of items I've purchased, can I claim that I am merely helping someone create a backup inside the cloud if I seed my downloads, just as others are helping me create backups in cloud?
The entire music industry, worldwide, only sold $15.8 billion in product last year. For comparison, worldwide liquor sales were about $220 billion, and a single booze company, Diageo (Smirnoff Vodka, Johhny Walker, José Cuervo, Baileys, and Guinness Stout) has more revenue than the entire music industry. On a worldwide scale, the music industry is tiny.
On the movie side, MGM just came out of bankruptcy, and Warner is close to it. Hollywood Video went bust months ago, and Blockbuster is in bankruptcy. (Many Blockbuster stores will close after the holiday season.)
In computing, Apple's revenue for fiscal 2010 is about $63 billion. Microsoft revenue was about $60 billion. HP annual revenue is about $120 billion. Dell annual revenue is about $52 billion. Google is around $23 billion. Comcast is around $36 billion. AT&T is at $124 billion. Any of those players could buy out the entire libraries of most music and movie companies.
I'm surprised that Apple hasn't just bought out the music industry, rather than negotiating with it.
you recently submitted a payment to sdf.lonestar.org for your MetaARPA sustaining membership. This site has been identified as a Hacking siteand as such has been blacklisted from our payment processing system. Furthermore your donation to OpenBSD has also been declined for processing as the openBSD project sponsors known hacking activity and said bad things about our unquestionably patrio-tastic freedom war against terror.
in summation your cards with us have also been cancelled as you've been identified without a magnetic ribbon on any vehicles registered in your name, and are obviously not supporting the troops.
please consider purchasing a copy of jeff dunhams 'achmed the terrorist' comedy DVD, as well as anything sufficiently xenophobic, bigoted and patriotic from the Country music top 10/50/100 charts. Once clad only in a sweat-stained american flag and nourished only by fast food, can we consider reactivating any of your perpetual debt engines.
regards,
Master of Cards.
Good people go to bed earlier.
What does this really mean? On the face of it no one should really object to Mastercard / Visa / etc denying service to criminal enterprises or criminal activities. This is to be expected both in terms of business ethics and legal liability.
So the question is: who determines which enterprise is criminal / violating copyrights and what are the criteria and what is the process to have someone cut off? What is the appeal process?
From TFA:
"This move by MasterCard is just another in a recent long line of corporations and organizations that are taking it upon themselves to define the legality of situations rather than leaving it to the courts. One problem is that the US federal government is allowing the lobbyists for these organizations to dictate right and wrong. The RIAA and MPAA were the big influence behind the government’s seizure of several domains during the last week of November. "
Worst case, this is a monetary blacklist controlled by the RIAA (eg: RIAA sends unsubstantiated note to Mastercard listing "offenders". Mastercard moves immediately to deny service.) Very nice club for the RIAA to hold.
If I say that people engaged in prostitution are more likely to have STDs, am I a knowledgeable person, or would you convict me of engaging a prostitute? Perhaps I must also be a fool because I know things about 419 scams? Surely I'm a terrorist for seeing weaknesses in the TSA programs.
SIG: HUP
If the WikiLeaks "dirty" fightback taught the world anything then it was that the USA has too much control over critical worldwide infrastructure both technical and practical (Internet and Money) and it has shown that it cannot be trusted to control either. For reasons of their own most nations have been going along with the current world order as it was never openly abused and this allowed tacit approval, but as pressure grows from China, India and an emerging EU/Russia along with growing understanding from the people in these nations the world has in fact already irreparably changed. These sorts of activities will only hasten that change of power much to the detriment of the existing regimes. As the Chinese (and Mr Pratchett) say "May you live in Interesting times", it is a curse for a reason and these are interesting times.
If you say that people engaged in prostitution most likely have STDs, I'd say you've made an educated assumption. If you say that most people engaged in prostitution do have STDs, I'd be led to assume that you had firsthand experience.
Follow the same logic for your other examples. OP said "most pay warez sites seem to be scams" (rather than "must be" or "are probably") and "some even list fake games" (rather than "probably" or "might"). This implies firsthand knowledge.
LRN2IMPLY
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
If MasterCard and Visa does this for the MPAA, then anyone filing a lawsuit against any company will also name them as a Defendants so that there can be an order that will prevent MasterCard and Visa from processing payments until the Court is happy.
Fight Spammers!
I'd rather keep a box full of gold or titanium, since they take-up less space, and they can't be devalued by the Federal Reserve's printing presses. As for theft: The Canadian RIAA (and probably US RIAA too) has stolen more from artists then any of us ever could. They owes billions in unpaid royalties to their artists. "The claims arise from a longstanding practice of the recording industry in Canada, described in the lawsuit as "exploit now, pay later if at all." It involves the use of works that are often included in compilation CDs (ie. the top dance tracks of 2009) or live recordings. The record labels create, press, distribute, and sell the CDs, but do not obtain the necessary copyright licences." "Instead, the names of the songs on the CDs are placed on a "pending list", which signifies that approval and payment is pending. The pending list dates back to the late 1980s, when Canada changed its copyright law by replacing a compulsory licence with the need for specific authorization for each use. It is perhaps better characterized as a copyright infringement admission list, however, since for each use of the work, the record label openly admits that it has not obtained copyright permission and not paid any royalty or fee." "Over the years, the size of the pending list has grown dramatically, now containing over 300,000 songs. From Beyonce to Bruce Springsteen, the artists waiting for payment are far from obscure, as thousands of Canadian and foreign artists have seen their copyrights used without permission and payment." http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4596/135/
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I suppose the *IAA kickbacks will be larger than the fees gained on infringing sites.
Which is sort of funny, since it means that MasterCard doesn't think is piracy is significant enough to make money off of.
No, i'm visually checking my backup for data corruption.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
I'd rather have it known that I purchased the game legitimately, and had to use third party tools to make the software playable as opposed to being yet another person lumped in as another freeloader.
If paying customers make a loud enough statement about something, publishers back down. The removal of some Draconian DRM systems in the past were victories, however small, in this direction. What would help immensely is if publishers see people buying games and stating explicitly they their choices were affected by the absence of DRM. People pirating a game have no voice.
So.. is this what the next 20 years is going to be like?
Will it be that if you don't play by the corporation's rule they will put you on a black list and you won't even be able to live?
Because that's the direction it looks like it is heading right now. Maybe we're already there as important as the credit reporting agencies already are...
So I can't use a Mastercard to pay for Usenet service, then?
The first rule of Usenet is, you do not talk about Usenet.
Indeed. If you're going to pirate something... why would you pay for it?
The six million dollar man was not available in the US until recently. So instead of a Bit-torrent download, I now have the complete Time Life set.
I wanted a legit copy for a long time, but I wasn't allowed to have one for decades. I don't download warez or songs, but if the industry is going to have its collective head up its ass when it comes to releasing stuff to NetFlix or DVD, then frankly it deserves to lose revenue to others that aren't like me and are just happy getting it from torrent.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Most girls are whores.
The above statement doesn't imply that I pay for sex,
Only to the extent that it doesn't imply that you have sex.
If you had, you'd have to pay for it. Your admitted knowledge of girls is too limited to assume otherwise.
Ugh. I know people that buy pirated software so they can get their "creative suite" for ten bucks, or whatever.
Somehow that seems even sh*ttier than stealing it, since they are actually paying money, but not to the people who created the software. It's like a double f*ck you.
Are we to assume you work in law enforcement? It's difficult to see how a normal person could interpret his statement as admitting any of those things.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
For all that (rather tortured) explanation, one simple fact remains: knowledge does not always imply guilt.
People can have friends who experienced the field firsthand (he could be a teen), or they be a researcher in that field (he could be working for the Business Software Alliance), or they could simply be (inaccurately) extrapolating from what he's heard.
"Most girls are whores", and the previous narrative (although brief and poorly phrased), are two completely different situations.
The first would be a general statement, not a personal insight. It's usually one that comes from the guy who can't get laid, and is angry at the remainder of the population who is.
The second would imply intimate knowledge of the topic.
Consider it in a real-life context. If you were walking down the street, and the police stopped you and asked "Son, do you have any drugs on you?", if you were to answer "no pig, but dem niggas down dere do. ya, dem onez runnin'" indicates that you have intimate knowledge of the behavior of others. You might be let off. You might be charged either for intent to purchase, or as an accessory (i.e., lookout, delivery boy, etc).
In both cases, it's better to say one of two things.
1) Am I free to go?
2) I have nothing to say without my attorney present.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
If a cc company doesn't like your product, for whatever reason, they'll institute policies banning you and everyone else in your business. Is it legal to buy marijuana in your location? It doesn't matter if you live in one of the many places where it is, cc companies won't knowingly give those merchants accounts. Want to buy pictures of "child models"? Those sites can't get cc companies to work with them simply because their product is icky (not illegal in most countries, just really icky).
Sell something, do something, say something that the cc companies think will make them look bad and they'll cut you off. This is a surprise?
What's surprising to me is that the cc companies have decided that "pirate" sites (or however they define this subset of customers that they're going to cut off) are a sufficiently serious source of bad press that it's worthwhile to cut them off. More people every day are becoming more educated about media distribution, how evil some of the companies involved are, and how not-necessarily-immoral is the whole notion of downloading media. They might derive some public-image profit in the short term among the uneducated but I have to believe that in the long term most of their customers are going to understand this was a really dumb move.
What's in it for Mastercard? What do they gain by denying these transactions?
You don't, but the Pirate Bay actively encourages people to go out and buy branded T-shirts and such which support them; this merchandise is manufactured and sold by a third party (of which there are many). I've no doubt other sites do something similar.
Watch how quickly the merchandising companies drop them if Mastercard approach and say "Nice business you got here. Be a shame if you weren't able to accept credit cards any more." The already did something similar with allofmp3.ru.
Well and good, but the Pirate Bay have always contended that what they're doing is not illegal in Sweden.
(Not that it's always done them a lot of good, but I note the site's still there....)
Will we see the rise of non-American alternatives (global alternatives) to American credit cards? Visa and Mastercard being a tool of American foreign policy (they might have been in a soft manner before) gives incentive to just not use them.
I'm fine with no credit cards at all.
So would banning computers, your point being?
Can you seriously use a computer with only 100GB of space in this day and age? My Operating System + Programs would alone easily go over that, all legitimately purchased. That doesn't even begin to take into account media that I generate, such as home videos and pictures. With low end consumer cameras having 10 Mega pixels or more, 100GB doesn't really last that long. I'll probably go through 10GB of home media in the Christmas holidays alone, which will probably be kept forever. Multiply the size of that home media by 2 or 3 for backups too.
There are many uses of large hard drives to consumers that are completely legitimate.
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
Well... are you young, have good disease free equipment, and extremely attractive?
http://www.cowboys4angels.com/
http://www.vipmaleescort.com/
http://thestraightmaleescort.blogspot.com/
Just a gigolo
everywhere I go
people know the part
I'm playing
Paid for every dance
selling each romance
every night some heart
betraying
There will come a day ...
youth will pass away
then what will they say
about me
Artist: David Lee Roth Lyrics
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
So, let me get this straight... Mastercard won't let you buy a T-Shirt from Pirate Bay because they are evil haxors, but, I can still use my card to donate hundreds to the Klu Klux Klan? What does that say about Mastercard, or the rest of America for that matter?
How is it that the KKK didn't get branded a terrorist organization right after 9/11 anyhow? Why is it that we support/tolerate homegrown terrorism, such as white supremacy, as long as those guys aren't muslim?
What a fucked up country the USA is.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.