Movie Industry Files Injunction Against UK ISP

daedae writes "The Motion Picture Association (MPA), which represents studios including Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney, have filed suit in the UK against BT, Britain's largest ISP. The studios are asking for an injunction which would force BT to block access to Newzbin, on the grounds of massive losses to Usenet piracy."

Comments

Hehe, so much for cooperating

[SmallFurryCreature]

Awh, poor BT, after taking it up the ass for the content owners, they get it shoved up there again!

Remember that when dealing with the content industry, if you give them a finger, they bite of your head.

Once this motion passed, other motions will be easier and easier until the entire internet consist only of sites the content industry approves off. And politicians who are used to compromises let it all happen because they think the content industry will meet them half way. The problem with meeting someone half way is that if it is you who keeps doing this, sooner or later you are completely on the other side.

For those who can read dutch, read it and weep: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/75349/overheid-hollywood-staat-achter-onze-auteursrechtplannen.html

For those who can't read dutch: You poor wretch of a not quite human being. How can you face the dark void that is your miserable life each day?

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[dwater]

off!

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have written a proper fuck off in dutch now shouldn't ya

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Anonymous Coward]

Who needs dutch when you can read the superior language: french :)

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Hal_Porter]

Dutch is just swamp German.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Thanshin]

For those who can't read dutch: You poor wretch of a not quite human being. How can you face the dark void that is your miserable life each day?

Dutch, a language with less native speakers than other great winners like Tagalog or Hausa.

But don't worry, it's still almost five times more useful than Mandingo. :)

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[AmiMoJo]

Just as bad is the fact that they want to use Cleanfeed, the system that silently and transparently blocks child porn sites. Talk about a slippery slope. We were assured that this system would not be abused for commercial reasons, it was purely for blocking the worst examples of child abuse.

BT has a history of screwing its customers. They throttle iPlayer and YouTube so you can't watch the high quality streams in the evenings, and heavily retard (or "manage" as they prefer) P2P traffic. They have data unlimits* too. They also conducted secret Phorm trials and somehow got away without anyone going to jail. Oh, and according to Ofcom their "up to 20Mb" service gets an average of about 7Mb.

* In ISP land "unlimited" now means the same thing as "limited", the only possible difference being that with unlimited sometimes the actual figure is a secret (e.g. Virgin's is 350GB/month but they don't publish it). I suppose it is a bit like flammable and inflammable. Therefore I am coining a new word: unlimit. It means the same thing as limit.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[TMW2N]

to be fair Virgin's "limit" is at peak times, when you're probably going to find things are a bit slow anyway. I'm on Virgin, and downlod more than that most months, mostly overnight, and I've never had their warning letter.
Virgin are pretty up front about their peak time monitoring, and afaict have only recently come up with a figure for triggering their sending of a letter.
(for disclosure reasons i work for a company who work for virgin, but have no interest in promoting their services, i'm just giving my experiences)

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[cpghost]

And politicians who are used to compromises let it all happen because they think the content industry will meet them half way.

The original sin was to invent copyright in the first place. If you grand some rights to anybody or any entity, you can't expect that entity to compromise on it: they'll want it enforced, no matter what, because the moment you granted them that right, you've always sold the farm. All WE can do, is to heat up the pressure on the politicians to limit copyright again. But I highly doubt that I'll see this in my lifetime. Maybe a new generation, accustomed to file sharing will eventually, but it takes at least one generation to phase out the current breed of politicians. And even then, it's not sure we'll be there eventually: just look at current youngsters who keep parroting stuff like "sharing is stealing." They've took the RIAA/MPAA bait hook, line, and sinker. I'm not very optimistic.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats I didn't like about BT is that they lie about their throttling, I kept getting very slow speeds, a 8mb connection when I was certain I could get more (I live very close to the exchange) and very slow evening speeds, was told everything was fine on their end and it must be a wiring fault for which I was responsible to get fixed etc.

I ended up switching to a popular slightly niche isp, paid slightly less each month, have a rock solid stable 17mb connection which I could probably get more out of if I fiddled with the master socket/bell wire), no cap and my choice of fastpath/interleaving and can even set my DB/SNR settings, so rock solid but slowly, very very fast but sometimes get a dropped line etc.

BT lied for months about slow speeds, especially in the evening being nothing to do with them, and they were not throttling.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[advocate_one]

CLeanfeed was already being abused... ORON was being blocked allegedly because some of the images being hosted there were kiddie porn, but the entire site was being blocked... it just so happens ORON is also a weblocker type company and was hosting content other than kiddie porn... the end result of blocking it for the few items of kiddie porn was that it was also being blocked for the pirated content it was hosting... I was wondering when Rapidshare and the other weblocker firms would fall foul of Cleanfeed... after all, it wouldn't be beyong the wit of the content industry to sneakily plant kiddie porn up there and get Cleanfeed to block them as well...

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[tehcyder]

The original sin was to invent copyright in the first place. If you grand some rights to anybody or any entity, you can't expect that entity to compromise on it:

There's nothing absolute about copyright any more than any other human right. It's all a question of what society agrees amongst itself is a good idea. So there is absolutely no reason not to hav reasonable copyright laws.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Ash Vince]

The original sin was to invent copyright in the first place.

The concept of copyright in itself is not such a bad thing. Firstly it is the cornerstone on top of which the GPL and a large amount of open source software is built:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html

Without copyright a company could take open source software and utterly violate the GPL without the original author having any remedy what so ever.

Secondly, there are many of us who rely on producing content protected by copyright in order to put food in our mouths and pay the rent. Take the example of computer games, these take many man hours to produce initially from many different people but can be infinitely copied once they are a finished product. Without the concept of copyright you could buy a computer game, then sell it on as many times as you wanted without sharing any of the vast profits you made with the people who produced the product originally. Since you did not have the overheads of actually producing the game in the first place you could sell it far cheaper than the original authors and so more people would buy it from you than them. This would obviously not be any fairer than the current system.

Under a capitalist system without copyright law this is exactly what would happen too since the most ardent capitalists find any way they can of making as much money as possible. The only way to prevent this without some sort of copyright law is to remove money from the equation but that requires the people who made the game in the first place to not need money either and this would only be the case in a pure socialist society.

Since we are not living in a pure Socialist world with no money we need some sort of way to ensure that people can produce content like books, games, music and films and still some sort of reward. What's more, they need to be sure they will get a reward if they produce something popular in order to have an incentive to do it and the means to produce more after the first once is published.

The only argument is therefore if there should be exemptions to copyright law for certain things like books covering medicines and healing and how long copyright should be protected. I am not making any suggestions for either of these, just suggesting that it is not as easy as scrubbing all concepts of copyright from our law books, something you seem to be suggesting by calling copyright an original sin.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[AmiMoJo]

There are two limits on Virgin, the daytime and evening STM limits where they throttle your connection down to below 20% normal speed, and the hidden 350GB monthly limit. If you pass the monthly limit they send you a nasty letter informing you that you are using their unlimited service too much and please try to stay within the unlimit in future.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[pla]

The concept of copyright in itself is not such a bad thing. Firstly it is the cornerstone on top of which the GPL and a large amount of open source software is built:

The GPL wouldn't need to exist if we didn't have copyrights.

That said, I will agree with your first point - The granting of extremely limited exclusive rights for a single-digit number of years after creation quite likely does encourage people to create; Allowing the enforcement of copyrights for so long that the original vanishes into obscurity long before anyone has the right to archive it, however (a huge problem with source code, where after even 25 years we have more complete works from ancient Greece than we do from smaller mid-80s dev houses), does not serve the goal of adding to the common stock of our culture.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Anonymous Coward]

or use Google Translate (automatic in chrome, my fav browser).... pft who needs to learn dutch.....

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[mattoo]

Which is why native dutch speakers typically speak a lot of languages, so a native dutch speaker is probably able to communicate with a lot more people than a native english speaker!

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[TheRaven64]

The main reason for that is actually on topic: the movie industry. Dutch TV contains a huge amount of foreign-language content, with subtitles. If you grow up listening to foreign languages and reading subtitles of the translations, it's hard to avoid learning at least a bit of a few other languages, and English has the advantage that everyone speaks it badly, especially native speakers...

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Builder]

Oh, so you're on BE now then ? :p

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[RoboRay]

The obvious solution is for everyone to learn Chinese.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[dylan_-]

The concept of copyright in itself is not such a bad thing.

Well, I think it is.

Firstly it is the cornerstone on top of which the GPL and a large amount of open source software is built:

As pointed out; without copyright there would be little need to have the GPL.

Secondly, there are many of us who rely on producing content protected by copyright in order to put food in our mouths and pay the rent.

Not that many. Most writers I know don't make any money from copyright. They make money writing bits and pieces on demand, giving talks, etc. Only really popular writers actually make money from being able to stop someone else selling their material. Similarly, most musicians I know make money from recording jingles, doing backing tracks, playing live, giving lessons, etc. Only really big and popular bands make (more) money from stopping someone else selling their materials. Computer games are perhaps an exception to the general rule though

Without the concept of copyright you could buy a computer game, then sell it on as many times as you wanted without sharing any of the vast profits you made with the people who produced the product originally. Since you did not have the overheads of actually producing the game in the first place you could sell it far cheaper than the original authors and so more people would buy it from you than them.

How would they make "vast profits" if someone else could simply undercut *them*? You also ignore the first mover advantage and the advantage of being the licensed reseller, of having the game hard coded with *your* website to buy add-ons and updates, with the fact you have that nice printed manual, that you've arranged to get your copy of the game into stores, and the fact that no-one is going to bother selling copies of your game unless they're sure it's going to be a big seller!

Since we are not living in a pure Socialist world with no money we need some sort of way to ensure that people can produce content like books, games, music and films and still some sort of reward. What's more, they need to be sure they will get a reward if they produce something popular in order to have an incentive to do it and the means to produce more after the first once is published.

Well, firstly I think that the benefits of copyright are massively overhyped. But even if they weren't, I don't think that placing restrictions on the activities of everyone else is a good solution. Sharing information should be a *good* thing. Instead it's criminalised in order to make more money for products that are already successful (or no-one would bother copying them to start with). That can't be right...

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Pieroxy]

copyright (...) does not serve the goal of adding to the common stock of our culture.

However, it does serve the goal of preventing value to enter the common stock of our culture.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[GooberToo]

The GPL wouldn't need to exist if we didn't have copyrights.

Completely false. Period.

The intent of the GPL is to encourage people to work collaboratively such that modifications are available to everyone. Without copyright law, the GPL becomes an MIT or BSD style license whereby anyone can take anything and use it for anything they want without ever contributing back changes. That's a huge difference. Its the cornerstone distinction between the GPL and other, more liberal licenses.

And contrary to the hippy ignorance which always seems to surround the anit-copyright trolls/pirates, copyrights exist so as to encourage creation. Without them, the ability to create is dramatically reduced. And again, contrary to the hippy anti-copyright/pirate group-thunk, copyright fuels a significant portion of the world's economy. It creates jobs. It empowers small businesses. And frequently it allows small business to grow to medium sized businesses and medium sized businesses to grow into large businesses. By not stealing copyrighted products, you absolutely are subverting the economy and indirectly advocating socialism.

If you want to advocate socialism, by all means do so, but don't attempt to subvert capitalism by half truths, lies, and general misinformation. The simple fact is, a lot of people who ignorantly advocate socialism, by means of piracy and anti-copyright stance, do so completely ignorant of the implications of their actions - as is typical for hippies, with socialistic leanings.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[ameline]

De donkere leegte is vrij aardig, dankt u.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Anonymous Coward]

"Poor BT" ?! Considering their penchant for forcing deep packet inspection on their customers without telling them (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/17/bt_phorm_lies/) I'm quite surprised they didn't seek to avoid this lawsuit by providing a very reasonable quote to the content owners for services including (but not limited to) spying on their own customers!

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[pla]

Without copyright law, the GPL becomes an MIT or BSD style license whereby anyone can take anything and use it for anything they want without ever contributing back changes.

You've inappropriately mixed contexts here, though... Without copyright, we have no need for someone to contribute back to the community, because the community doesn't need "permission" to take what they have and run with it.

In the closest situation that does exhibit the problem behavior you describe - A modification to GPL'd code for private use only - Even under the GPL you have no obligation to release your changes. And once you do distribute something, only the existence of a copyright stops everyone from doing whatever the hell they want with it.

(That said, I will admit that source code vs binary distribution makes this a somewhat messier issue; But you need only look at how often 3rd parties releases fixes to Windows before MS bothers getting around to the job, to see that source code amounts to a convenience rather than a necessity).


And contrary to the hippy ignorance which always seems to surround the anit-copyright trolls/pirates, copyrights exist so as to encourage creation.

Sorry, did I not write "The granting of extremely limited exclusive rights for a single-digit number of years after creation quite likely does encourage people to create" clearly enough?


Without them, the ability to create is dramatically reduced.

Sorry, but bull. The ability to create has nothing to do with copyright; Copyright affects one and only one aspect of content creation - It adds "profit motive" to the reasons to create. Everything else, copyright only hinders.


If you want to advocate socialism, by all means do so, but don't attempt to subvert capitalism by half truths, lies, and general misinformation.

Uhh, smoke what again? Aside from the fact that I said nothing at all about various economic systems, you do realize that copyright actually favors socialism, by encouraging people to donate to the common good over the long term, in exchange for a temporary revenue stream on the short term?

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[__aayurq3262]

As pointed out; without copyright there would be little need to have the GPL.

You don't understand the GPL. I wrote code last week and contributed it to a GPL project. I don't want some big company taking my code, building on it and refusing to let me and others see the changes. That's why I used the GPL. The GPL lets me require that big company to do what I want them to do with my code - let others use it under the GPL. Without copyright, I can't require them to do anything.

A quote I like:
If you want to give away your code: use BSD.
If you want to share your code: use GPL.

I wanted to "share," not "give away."

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Anonymous Coward]

'the content industry'

keep peddling this bullshit that everything that YOU want for free is made by EVIL corporations. it helps thieving cunts like you sleep at night, no doubt.
Fucking tool.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[BitterOak]

Dutch is just swamp German.

Wrong. Dutch is closer to English than German is, so if anything, it is an elevated form of German.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Ihmhi]

Dutch hater.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Coren22]

Interesting trivia: The Ewoks speak nonsense Tagalog. One of my coworkers was telling me about the first time she watched that movie while still living in the Philippines, and she actually knew what they said, though it was meaningless.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that most of your illegal content (not just copyright infringed) is probably going to the same upload sites that are used by everybody else. That is Rapidshare being one of the largest has the most illegal content just like it has the most copyright infringed content too.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[shutdown -p now]

You've inappropriately mixed contexts here, though... Without copyright, we have no need for someone to contribute back to the community, because the community doesn't need "permission" to take what they have and run with it.

Let's assume we have that hypothetical no-copyright world.

Suppose I take some GPL'd library, build a product around it, and sell it as binaries only, no source code. Now, the community doesn't need permission to take what they have, yes. But all they have is a huge binary, which is pretty much useless for them. The effective contribution is thus zero.

Whereas, in a world with GPL+copyright, the community gets back the code which is then reused by members of that community...

Coincidentally, this is also Stallman's official stance on copyright - he would agree to ditch copyright altogether, but only if the law would enforce copyleft (i.e. source availability) universally instead.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[WorBlux]

Secondly, there are many of us who rely on producing content protected by copyright in order to put food in our mouths and pay the rent. Take the example of computer games, these take many man hours to produce initially from many different people but can be infinitely copied once they are a finished product. Without the concept of copyright you could buy a computer game, then sell it on as many times as you wanted without sharing any of the vast profits you made with the people who produced the product originally. Since you did not have the overheads of actually producing the game in the first place you could sell it far cheaper than the original authors and so more people would buy it from you than them. This would obviously not be any fairer than the current system.

Firstly, copyright originated as a system of censorship. If your book didn't have a copyright mark, you weren't allowed to publish it. Such marks were only granted to government friendly or neutral works.

Which just means the first few copies could be priced very highly or the game is not released unless a certain number of people pre-order it. It's not like there is just one possible way of doing things. You've made a false dichotomy, the way creative content is sold and supported now in the mainstream or no way. There are other methods that do not require an intellectual monopoly. By having free adaptation and modification, one can argue that a lack of copyright will lead to more creative content being available. The works of Shakespeare and the greatest classical composers were created without the protection of copyright. Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote without copyright.

Check out Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine or Against Intellectual Property by Stephan N Kinsella for some very cogent free-market arguments against copyright.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[WorBlux]

If you want to advocate socialism, by all means do so, but don't attempt to subvert capitalism by half truths, lies, and general misinformation/p>

So capitalism requires the government to grant monopolies to bushinesses? That's all a copyright is, is a monopoly granted by the government.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Ash Vince]

Coincidentally, this is also Stallman's official stance on copyright - he would agree to ditch copyright altogether, but only if the law would enforce copyleft (i.e. source availability) universally instead.

I knew there was a better link regarding copyright and RMS than the one I was posting, thanks for reminding me of it

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Ash Vince]

Secondly, there are many of us who rely on producing content protected by copyright in order to put food in our mouths and pay the rent. Take the example of computer games, these take many man hours to produce initially from many different people but can be infinitely copied once they are a finished product. Without the concept of copyright you could buy a computer game, then sell it on as many times as you wanted without sharing any of the vast profits you made with the people who produced the product originally. Since you did not have the overheads of actually producing the game in the first place you could sell it far cheaper than the original authors and so more people would buy it from you than them. This would obviously not be any fairer than the current system.

Firstly, copyright originated as a system of censorship. If your book didn't have a copyright mark, you weren't allowed to publish it. Such marks were only granted to government friendly or neutral works.

Which just means the first few copies could be priced very highly or the game is not released unless a certain number of people pre-order it. It's not like there is just one possible way of doing things. You've made a false dichotomy, the way creative content is sold and supported now in the mainstream or no way. There are other methods that do not require an intellectual monopoly. By having free adaptation and modification, one can argue that a lack of copyright will lead to more creative content being available. The works of Shakespeare and the greatest classical composers were created without the protection of copyright. Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote without copyright.

Check out Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine or Against Intellectual Property by Stephan N Kinsella for some very cogent free-market arguments against copyright.

Firstly, I do not care how the system of copyright originated, I care what it evolved into. We started off as sea dwelling microbes but that bares little relation to us now.

Secondly Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote before the printing press so there was far less need for copyright in his time with regard to books. The big thing that has changed recently is the ease with which things can be infinitely copied. You also completely ignored me mentioning computer games, this analogy was chosen specifically because it took more that one person working on them to produce the finished product.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[dylan_-]

You don't understand the GPL.

Yes, I think I do. I've been following Free Software for...quite a few years now. ;-)

I don't want some big company taking my code, building on it and refusing to let me and others see the changes.

Why on earth would they want to do that, in a world without copyright?

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[__aayurq3262]

Why on earth would they want to do that, in a world without copyright?

For the same reason TiVo locks down their code with encryption/authentication, etc. - so everyone, including me, has to buy my work to get access to any improvements they make to it. Getting rid of copyright won't prevent companies from using DRM and other technological measures to lock down the code. The only way to make sure that my code stays free for all is to use copyright to require others to keep it free.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[WorBlux]

I did not ignore computer games, I gave you two models in which you could make money from them without copyright that I will now repeat. Charge a very high price for the first few copies, so that those who wanted to copy and sell at a low price would have to bid against each other to be the first in the market. Or don't release until you've presold enough to cover costs. Another method I've not yet mentioned, but in use today is to release only on consoles or other devices protected by signing keys from copying.

As far as the biochemistry goes, that sea dwelling microbe has quite a bit of resemblance to us. Ours is of course more complex. but the building blocks and construction methods are exactly the same. The mechanics of copyright are still almost exactly the same. If you publish without permission, you're in deep $hit. There are many cases where companies try to use copyright law to stamp out speech critical of them. There are also many cases of excellent work, doomed to limbo land because the publisher

And Shakespeare? And France which had one of the most vital publishing industries when the didn't have copyright? And some English authors who made more money in the US where they did not receive protection of copyright, than they did in England?

The thing to look at when considering the price of the copyright bargain is not the absolute cost of copying, but the comparative cost. If the cost of one copy in a one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, or one million piece is significantly less than a one-off copy, then there is room for an argument saying that granting monopolies to encourage this sort of mass production will lead to more works distributed. But where the cost of a one-off copy is the same or almost the same at the cost of one copy in a million copy run, there argument makes far less sense. In this respect the modern world is far more akin to the ancient one, than of the recent past.

The arguments are available from the sources I mentioned and much more cogent than my summaries of them.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[GooberToo]

Pull your head from your ass and stop offering red herrings as a troll.

By pushing a socialist agenda (all your work is our work and you have no say, and we'll consume said work without compensation), as it directly affects the market, it is by definition, anti-capitalism and pro-socialism. You can't force people to give away their work for free and claim you are anything other than socialist - at best.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you actually address the argument instead of just saying "but it's socialism!"? I know you've been brainwashed by the right wing, but it's not necessarily a bad thing for something to be socialist.

That said, I do agree with you that it's a bad idea to completely eliminate copyright (but I'm actually going to make a real argument). A creator should have some exclusive period of time to profit from a work as an incentive to keep creating. I do not, however, believe that 120 years from creation/95 years from publication is reasonable. If anything, it just encourages people to rest on their laurels once they create something. A more reasonable term for copyright would be on the order of 15 years so that the creators are encouraged to make new stuff and so that others can build upon the work.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[GooberToo]

The argument isn't that "but its socialism", its that you are demanding a free ride in a capitalistic society. When your work is given for the greater good, get back to me. Until such time, you're just a lying, hypocritical, thieving, piece of shit.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[WorBlux]

The government granting a monopoly is the very essence of modern copyright. This is certainly not a red hearing, and certainly not trolling. It's a simple statement of the principles and nature of a thing. I am not trolling, just because I've exposes a contradiction in you thinking. Nay, you have bought into an equivocation (I'll get to that later)

If I copy a thing, the person still has the thing for which they worked. If you make a bike and I copy the design, you can still pedal up and down the street all you want. Also a capitalist system guarantees absolutely no return for one's labor. You can pour 80 hours a week into a startup for a year, and still see it fail miserably, leaving you in so much debt that you have no choice but to declare bankruptcy. In fact the idea that labor is valuable per se, is an idea more closely related with Modern and Historical Marxism that with modern market systems.

An economic system is market or socialist depending on one thing primarily. That is whether there is trade in capital goods or not. Capital good being primarily to land, natural resources and other real estate, and secondarily to machines and tools that are useful in creating other products.Intellectual templates or general ideas are not capital good, and are not even properly economic goods, because the production is never limited by them.. If you make coffee, you could run out of fuel to roast the beans, the beans themselves, or the water or the fuel to brew the coffee with, but what you will never run out of is your recipe for brewing or roasting. You need only one and it does not diminish with use. What this means or implies is that the use of intellectual templates has no marginal value. This means a market is not needed and is not possible to rationally allocate these things. There can of course be services to improve these things, but monopolies on intellectual templates is in no way necessary for a market system.

And even if we were to accept that mere labor demands compensation, most musicians and writers using the traditional publishing models don't see a dime for their published works. Unless you are already successful and popular, you have to agree to forward publishing costs. That means you don't see a cent of royalties until they exceed to often inflated publishing costs. They usually make their money by doing things that cannot easily be copied, such a custom work, personal appearances, or live performances. And even worse that that is that you have to sign over copyright to do so, meaning that authors cannot even use extensive quotes of their previous works without permission of the publishers.

The equivocation you've made is between copyright (government grant of a monopoly) and creators getting paid. These are in fact two separate and often unrelated things. There are many ways the creators can get paid and make a living without copyright, several of the methods are explained in the two sources I listed earlier. And besides that there are methods that are hard to copy such a custom or commissioned work, or providing work in a content that is hard to reproduce such as a theater or performance hall. When I say that copyright should be abolished, I am not saying that creators should never get paid, or that your a sucker for paying for a copy of anything. Nay, more often then not, I pay for media, because I know exactly what I'm getting, and also because I value the creative content and want to send a concrete signal and reciprocation of that value. I especially love indie games because they don't just recycle genre methods and feels but really try to create their own. I am also quite partial to creative commons and DRM-free works, because this shows a respect of the creators to their fans, instead of the message of disdain and distrust that is created when you are willing to get the government to forcibly intervene on your behalf against your fans.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[WorBlux]

Anything more that 5-7 years, and anything that prevents non-commercial verbatim copying is intolerable. (95% of creators extract 95% or more of potential rents within that time frame anyways) Only huge and already successful creators benifit from more time that that.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[WorBlux]

Again you've made an equivocation. Creators can and do get paid without copyright.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[dylan_-]

Getting rid of copyright won't prevent companies from using DRM and other technological measures to lock down the code.

The difference being, once the DRM is broken there will be legitimate non-DRM sources for the same software. It will make less and less sense for anyone to put out a DRMed version.

The only way to make sure that my code stays free for all is to use copyright to require others to keep it free.

Perhaps you're right. If you are, it's too high a price for me. I'd rather lose some code and gain additional freedom.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[GooberToo]

There is no contradiction - except in your retarded brain. The fact you believe there is a contradiction only proves you have absolutely no fucking clue what you are talking about - which is, in fact, 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of every pro-pirate dipshit who stupidity posts on the topic.

It boils down real quick and simple so either you'll completely understand and agree or it will completely validate you're a stupid, lying, dumb, piece of shit. Either everyone needs to participate in a socialist economy or those who refuse to do so while stealing the works of others are thieves and freeloaders. The ONLY other option is pay artists their rates based on fair market value. And since you're not willing to pay a couple hundred to thousands and thousands of dollars to hear the performance, we immediately know you're completely full of shit. Which leaves us to the only possible answer - you're a piece of shit thief or a socialist pushing an agenda. Period.

Re:Hehe, so much for cooperating

[WorBlux]

1. I'm not for theft and murder on the high seas.

2. I've provided example of at least two methods that can be used to make money from original artistic content that depend on a market, but do no depend on a copyright. I've provided links to works written by people who research the topic as part of their profession to support my argument. Yet if I don't agree with you (who by all appearances has no special knowledge of the subject, and is not acquainted with writings of those who do) I'm stupid or dishonest. Either you really do believe that and are stupidly arguing someone you believe to be liar or moron (doesn't say great things about you), or you are saying whatever you think will divert attention away from your want of counter-arguments. (still doesn't say great things about you)

3. Theft involves 1.taking a thing 2. without permission, and 3. with the intent to deprive the owner of it. Copying is definitely not theft, never has been, never will be except by metaphor. Copyright is not the same as paying artists, paying artists is not the same as having copyright. (see my previous post for the long argument.)

4. Market-value is a meaningless term outside a framework of people willing to pay for something. When someone puts fair in front of it, it always almost means that they presume their values should be substituted over those of others. While a private performance may cost that much, a public performance where cost is split between many people is something I do on occasion under ordinary circumstance. If you think I'm a piece of shit for looking at some of the band's songs on unofficial video to decide weather it's worth going or not, then to be honest I don't care.

5. As per previous argument that you have not addressed or can not address (due to lack of background), capitalism requires a market of capital goods. General ideas have no marginal utility and are not limited, thus they are not properly economic goods, much less capital goods.

6. Now look, I understand the only semblance of an argument that you've made here. If you get something of some personal value from another person, then it's nice/good to reciprocate in some manner. I even agree with this judgement. However that's not what copyright is about per se. In addition even if that was what copyright was per se, there's still a lot more nuance to it. There are the utilitarian questions that must be answered in the positive before copyright can be justified. Do creators end up with more money under copyright than without? Is the distribution of money among artists more even than it would be without? Do you actually end up with more creative content for all your trouble? If yes to these benefits, how much is it going to cost consumers to pay the monopoly rents? How much less art and culture will people be exposed to as a result of these rents? Are there any other hidden cost, like needed to build more courtrooms as a result? Then there is the question of justice. Is it really proper to introduce the force of government to make people be nice to artists? Even when considered that general ideas are non-rivalrous, that there is no tangible damage or loss when you copy them, and that it doesn't not disturb the social harmony or division of labor, when a general idea is not monopolized.

Would it really have hurt....

[Anonymous Coward]

to have given an accurate summary? They are not asking for an injunction again Newzbin, that site was sued into oblivion. They are asking for an injunction against Newzbin2 which has arisen to take its place. TFA you submitted says just that.

Actually I can't hold you to that, the article is horridly written.

"The Motion Picture Association (MPA), which represents studios including Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney, is urging a judge to grant an order forcing telecoms group BT to cut off access to the Newzbin website."

"The MPA won a court battle against Newzbin last year and the site was taken offline."

"But it reopened abroad under the name "Newzbin2" and is run by anonymous operators, compelling the MPA to take the unusual step of trying to force BT to block the site."

This is why you hire editor's to proof these things children. Someone should have slapped this writer for contradicting himself within his own story.

Re:Would it really have hurt....

[jc79]

This is why you hire editor's to proof these things children.

Oh dear, Muphry's Law strikes again.

Re:Would it really have hurt....

[GNious]

This is why you hire editor's to proof these things children.

Hire editor's what? And what are "these things children"?

(or did you forget to hire an editor to proofread this thing, Anonymous Coward?)

Re:Would it really have hurt....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you hire editor's to proof these things children.

+5 for Irony.

Would otherwise have purchased them?

[kaptink]

Because all those using usenet to get movies would otherwise have purchased them? I doubt it.

Is this not the same as suing gun manufacturers for making lethal tools?

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[magusxxx]

No, it's like suing Wal-Mart for selling them.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[hawkinspeter]

No, it's more like forcing pavement (sidewalk for you american-english speakers) makers to rip up the street to prevent you from going to a gun shop.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this not the same as suing gun manufacturers for making lethal tools?

The problem is they don't provide proper instructions for wart removal... Brit man shoots off own finger to remove 'painful' wart

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[Anonymous Coward]

THAT'S IT!
Replace all the walkways and roads with lava!
Nobody will be able to get anything! Problem solved.

Contacting MPA, I'm sure they will love this new discovery.
Although they will have quite a challenge replacing the internet with lava, but I am sure they will manage it given they live in The Zone.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[tehcyder]

Because all those using usenet to get movies would otherwise have purchased them? I doubt it.

I think if you can be bothered to download a movie from usenet (which is not as straightforward as just pressing "play" on your TV recorder), you are probably quite interested in that movie, and there is indeed quite a good chance you would have paid something to see it.
So, no, not everyone would otherwise have purchased it, but an unknown percentage would.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because all those using usenet to get movies would otherwise have purchased them? I doubt it.

I think if you can be bothered to download a movie from usenet (which is not as straightforward as just pressing "play" on your TV recorder), you are probably quite interested in that movie, and there is indeed quite a good chance you would have paid something to see it.

So, no, not everyone would otherwise have purchased it, but an unknown percentage would.

I think it's the other way around: Since downloading from usenet requires a certain amount of interest and work, it would be a helluva lot easier for them just to buy it in the first place. Since they are actually investing a lot of work in pirating it, it seems plausible that they never would have bought it.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[mehrotra.akash]

is usenet more complex than torrents?

cause with torrents and magnet, i can just go to tpb, search, click on the magnet sign, and the movie on my disk in a few hours

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[sgbett]

In my experience easier, more reliable and always fills my pipe. ymmv.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, no, not everyone would otherwise have purchased it, but an unknown percentage would.

I think I can narrow it down to somewhere between 0 and 100.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[foniksonik]

It may be more effort the first time (and maybe that is more effort than getting Netflix maybe not - depends on having a credit card, etc). Internationally it may be the easiest/only way to access this content After that it's just a browsing exercise.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[foniksonik]

Even easier is subscribing to an rss feed of latest movies / episodes torrents.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[TheRaven64]

It's not much more complex. The point of newzbin seems to be to provide indexes of usenet groups, providing files that instruct clients which posts they need to download to get a particular movie and how to assemble them. Presumably you just go to their web site, pick the thing you want to download, click on a link to the file describing it, and then your usenet client grabs the files, assembles them and presents them for you to play.

The more interesting thing to note is that the number of users willing to pay to access binary newsgroups expressly for the purpose of downloading this kind of content. If the MPAA had any brains, then they'd realise that these people have demonstrated that they are willing to pay for quickly delivered DRM-free movies, and would spend some time working out how to get them to pay the copyright holders, rather than intermediates who don't pay them anything.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[Bert64]

And you get them from a single server, which you may have had to pay to subscribe to..
I don't see why they don't go after the big nntp server providers and try to subpoena logs out of them.

Re: Would otherwise have purchased them?

[sgbett]

I've always wondered this too, I wonder if its as simple as they just don't know about them. Remember rule 1...

What happened to HRA 1998, ECHR Article 10?

[kasnol]

Right... And i thought such injunction is inconsistent with HRA 1998 / ECHR Article 10, freedom of expression. You shouldn't block the public access to information...

Re:What happened to HRA 1998, ECHR Article 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they get counter-sued for tortious interference in a contract between two other parties (BT and their consumers).

Re:What happened to HRA 1998, ECHR Article 10?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Right... And i thought such injunction is inconsistent with HRA 1998 / ECHR Article 10, freedom of expression. You shouldn't block the public access to information...

Unless that information is copyrighted, or patented, or a trade secret, or immoral, or a matter of national security, or ...

Re:What happened to HRA 1998, ECHR Article 10?

[tehcyder]

The human rights act soesn't say you have a right to all information in the world for free.

Re:What happened to HRA 1998, ECHR Article 10?

[cyber-vandal]

It's not an absolute right unfortunately:

Under Article 10, “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by a public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent states from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema.”

The Convention continues; “The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for the maintaining of the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”

It would fall under "prevention of disorder or crime" in this case.

Re:What happened to HRA 1998, ECHR Article 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally, the act allegedly constituting tortious interference must have been illegal or at least improper in some way; hence the word "tortious".

So in other words, No.

-Legal Troll (censored and unable to post due to unpopularity of opinions)

Dear American MPA Idiots,

[omfg-no]

Go somewhere else and fornicate Yours Sincerely UK

Re:Dear American MPA Idiots,

[Chrisq]

Go somewhere else and fornicate Yours Sincerely UK

Yes, they are so gay.

Re:Dear American MPA Idiots,

[Anonymous Coward]

Go somewhere else and fornicate Yours Sincerely Everyone

Fixed that for you

Again???

[sirnobicus]

Why is this news worthy, Every second day the MPA, xxAA is going after some one due to massive losses.

Re:Again???

[rainmouse]

An American association is trying to force a British ISP to censor the internet, and you consider this non news worthy?

Re:Again???

[msobkow]

The American movie industry has been trying to censor the entire world's internet, in case you hadn't noticed. It being the UK this time is nothing special.

Re:Again???

[ashkante]

Maybe their "losses" wouldn't be so massive if they weren't spending all their money on lawyers?

Re:Again???

[sqrt(2)]

They are most definitely not suffering massive losses. Massive copyright infringement does not necessarily mean massive losses, the two have never been connected in any meaningful way. It's merely speculation, fuzzy math, and fear-mongering from big business.

Re:Again???

[Joce640k]

You forgot to put massive losses in quotes (and with a [sic] after it), viz: "massive losses"[sic]

Re:Again???

[Spad]

MPA != MPAA

Re:Again???

[The Bringer]

It's because America's economy has little of value outside their intellectual property. Relatively speaking of course.

Fun quote

[PhrostyMcByte]

"The applicants and others have been making huge efforts, not only against the Newzbin website, but against piracy in general and yet the industries are still suffering huge losses to piracy," Richard Spearman, representing the MPA, told the court.

I guess this is as close we'll ever get to hearing them say "Over the past 10 years we've spent a lot of our members' cash trying to kill off sharing sites, yet we've ultimately proven ineffective."

Apple, Amazon, Spotify, and others have affected piracy far more than the RIAA/MPAA/etc. ever will.

Re:Fun quote

[AmiMoJo]

The MAFIAA should take a look at usenet service providers. They charge a flat monthly fee for all-you-can-download or you can buy so many gigabytes of data allowance. If they offered something like that with music in FLAC format and a good selection of TV and movies I'd probably take them up.

Re:Fun quote

[PhrostyMcByte]

I suppose we'll eventually see a package deal with movies, TV, and music all for one monthly price. I doubt we'll ever see lossless included in that, but we can dream ;).

It's not a subscription service, but FLAC has been gaining more and more speed online.

Topspin handles a lot of big names (I see Beastie Boys, The Doors, Linkin Park, Lady Gaga, and Paul McCartney on their front page. Lots more deeper in.) as well as a ton of awesome indie bands (The Whigs are great, check them out!).

Bandcamp focuses on indie bands. I've recently bought albums from Young Beautiful in a Hurry, Beast Make Bomb, and Andrew Figueroa Chiang and the Blazing Rays of the Sun through them. You can usually stream entire albums (not just previews) for free as much as you want before you buy, so it makes for a really nice experience.

Both usually have MP3, AAC, FLAC, ALAC, and sometimes even audiophile quality 24bit/96kHz FLAC (if bands provide).

Re:Fun quote

[tehcyder]

The MAFIAA should take a look at usenet service providers. They charge a flat monthly fee for all-you-can-download or you can buy so many gigabytes of data allowance. If they offered something like that with music in FLAC format and a good selection of TV and movies I'd probably take them up.

Or, to put it another way, these usenet service providers are making money out of copyright infringement, which I thought we didn't agree with here, as it will be perfectly obvious from which groups are being accessed whether people are downloading Linux ISOs or the latest Transformers pile of crap.

Re:Fun quote

[AmiMoJo]

Or, to put it another way, these usenet service providers are making money out of copyright infringement, which I thought we didn't agree with here, as it will be perfectly obvious from which groups are being accessed whether people are downloading Linux ISOs or the latest Transformers pile of crap.

What I meant was that there is a market for such a service, and as rights holders the MAFIAA are in a position to provide one legally. In fact that is pretty much what Spotify, Hulu and Netflix do, right? Flat monthly fee, consume as much as you like.

Re:Fun quote

[TheRaven64]

I don't agree with people making money from copyright infringement, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are doing. And the fact that they are doing means that people are willing to pay to commit copyright infringement. That means that they are willing to pay for the media, but they don't agree with the terms that the owners are providing. They should take a look at this and see why they're rather pay to get their products illegally than legally.

To borrow their favourite metaphor, if people would rather buy your products from a dodgy market stall that got them off the back of a lorry than in your shop, then you should spend some time trying to work out why. It's no good (commercially speaking) shutting down the market stall if you don't turn its customers into yours in the process.

Re:Fun quote

[Anonymous Coward]

See, I would do this as well, but the idiots won't do it for god knows what reason.

So many people download from torrents, download sites, usenet and the like because it is simply easier, and there is no fuss with DRM crap and so on.
If they were to just put up this service, decent price, decent overages (lets face it, it would be there regardless), blah blah etc., so many people would actually sign up to it since they actually are frightened about the whole lawsuit stuff potentially happening to them.
They might not think about it much, but it is always there, in the back of their minds, "It could be me caught next..."

Right now would be the perfect time to put such a service up. Others already have and are seeing large numbers of users. From licensed anime to music, they all see really decent numbers.
Add Pay-as-you-go, even more users who'd rather not commit to a subscription or only use it on the odd occasion. (one reason I hate MMOs, I'd play so many if they had PAYG since I don't play games long enough to justify a monthly price, as a personal example)

They are stupid NOT to do this. Every quarter they don't, they actually are losing out money, money that people would be happy to pay if they would stop being complete dicks to everyone. (including their artists!)

Re:Fun quote

[Bert64]

A service like that was being offered in China by Nokia not so long ago if i recall...
Because they have to compete against widespread piracy in china, the end users actually get better deals... In other countries, they try to suppress piracy through legal means so they can gouge everyone else on price.

That's what happens

[phantomfive]

That's what happens when you make censorship legal, like the UK recently did. People are going to start expecting you to enforce it

Re:That's what happens

[buglista]

what, when? It's always been awkward with the libel laws, and public interest immunity certificates, D-notices and the like. But what's got worse recently?

(e.g. see Simon Singh vs. BCA)

PS. RSF - Reporters Without Borders - place UK and USA at #19 and #20 respectively in the Press Freedom Index. ( http://www.rsf.org/IMG/CLASSEMENT_2011/GB/C_GENERAL_GB.pdf )

Re:That's what happens

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Economy_Act_2010

Censorship in the name of fighting copyright infringement is still censorship.

Re:That's what happens

[buglista]

yeah. that was a half-baked POS bill if ever there was one. I'd forgotten about that for the moment - though I did write to my MP about it at the time.

Re:That's what happens

[tehcyder]

That's what happens when you make censorship legal, like the UK recently did. People are going to start expecting you to enforce it

Preventing people from downloading free versions of copyrighted material is not censorship. If I want to see Fast and Furious 5 (or whatever) I can go to the cinema, get it on DVD, watch it on Sky or whatever. I do not have a human right to be able to downloaded it for no cost at my convenience.
Calling this censorship is trivialising real censorship, such as executing journalists or placing artists under house arrest.

Re:That's what happens

[tehcyder]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Economy_Act_2010

Censorship in the name of fighting copyright infringement is still censorship.

No, it's not. Censorship means that the government makes it illegal to distribute or own a piece of work at all. Censoring would be applied to the distributors of films, not consumers.

Re:That's what happens

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're right it isn't... but when you give an opening that can be abused (like the UK has)... you open up the door to massive abuse by people who really do want to restrict what you can and cannot see. (Whether it be because of money or "that they know best" doesn't really come into play here.)

It's rather like twisting a law to get at your political opponent or business rival... the UK just made it easier to twist their law's intent. That's not to say the US doesn't have the same problem, either. Besides, why WOULD you want to see Fasterrer and Furiouserrer 5? :) 99% of movies aren't worth paying to see even at matinee prices... I can't fathom why people waste bandwidth downloading them.

Re:That's what happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately copyright isn't as black and white as you put it. Copyright laws are regularly used to silence dissent, parody and other forms of political expression.

Re:That's what happens

[Xest]

What new act are you referring to that supposedly made censorship legal?

Censorship has always been legal in one way or another- IWF, BBFC etc.

Re:That's what happens

[Maestro4k]

Preventing people from downloading free versions of copyrighted material is not censorship. If I want to see Fast and Furious 5 (or whatever) I can go to the cinema, get it on DVD, watch it on Sky or whatever. I do not have a human right to be able to downloaded it for no cost at my convenience.

Not everything on Usenet (not even all the binary stuff) is illegal copies of copyrighted materials. There's plenty of legal stuff too. So yes, trying to make an ISP block an entire site is censorship. Especially since none of that material is actually available from Newzbin2. You can get NZB files from it, which you'll need to use with an actual Usenet provider to download anything illegal. Newzbin2 is basically an index, nothing more, it's not even quite equivalent to a torrent tracker because you can't connect directly to Usenet to get the stuff via the site. The NZB files just tell your Usenet client how to ask a Usenet server to find them for you.

So friggin' what!

[EzInKy]

Kill Newsbin2 and Newsbin3 will take it's place, kill Niewsbin3 and along comes Newsbin4. Will the MPAA never accept that there is no winning this battle and concentrate it's energies on producing products that people are actually willing to buy instead of trying to continue their failing business model that assumes people will pay for whatever crap they choose to market? Make good movies and people will pay you to make more good movies, make crap and try to market it as gold and people will through shit back in your face.

Re:So friggin' what!

[JosKarith]

This is an attempt to put a precedent into law. The next step will be massive numbers of lawsuits against everything under the sun, clogging up the legal system to the point where they can say "Look, put in a DCMA-style takedown system and we won't have to bother you anymore". Some judge tired of hearing these cases will start the ball rolling. At that point we may as well just hand UK internet over to the MPA.

Re:So friggin' what!

[poetmatt]

until it hits the highest courts in the UK that is, which would maybe strike this down - or it could go to the EU, in which case it probably would be struck down.

Re:So friggin' what!

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are producing nothing but crap, why are people trying to download it?

Just stop watching it.

Re:So friggin' what!

[fremean]

I don't watch it - but they just assume I've pirated it and watched it.

Not the only one

[Jimmythekey]

There are far far more indexing sites than newzbin, and better ones at that!

BAN the MPAA from the network

[Anonymous Coward]

One way to stop this, is to re-write the ISP TOS that if you work for the MPAA, you can't use the connection for business. This way the moment they file a lawsuit, a counter suit is filed for breaking the TOS and denying any crap found using the connection.

Re:BAN the MPAA from the network

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a similar thought when I saw this story yesterday. BT and the other ISPs in the UK should just kick the MPAA off the internet - cut any service they have in the UK and block all their sites hosted abroad. There's no reason why ISPs should be forced to do business with them.

Re:BAN the MPAA from the network

[Anonymous Coward]

So Are you for or against net neutrality?

Re:BAN the MPAA from the network

[Anonymous Coward]

Contract freedom still trumps net neutrality. Try again.

Re:BAN the MPAA from the network

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm for neither.

I'm for sites being hosted by decent people.
People who are abusive in nature should be banned from the internet.
This includes individual people, to entire countries if necessary.

And the voting process should be done directly through ISPs.
They should get customers involved in such a thing.
Make them more aware that their rights are being destroyed by idiotic companies like this who simply want to nickel and dime them to poverty. (and their own artists at that, they don't give a damn about their rights either)
Be it through letters, or an ISP application that tracks connection status stuff for them and provides updates to them on stuff like services, general ISP news, polls, etc.
This is at least better than doing some interception on port 80.

I'd love for such a thing to happen, but it likely won't.
I know that TalkTalk (current ISP) do try to inform customers on some of this stuff on the odd occasion, but sadly only a small minority will ever see this. (that includes TalkTalk Members site)

What outcome to expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep smashing ants with sledge hammer.

Somehow, there are always more ants, and my house is wrecked. What is going on?

The problem with massively distorting piracy figures is that everyone becomes the enemy ...

I suspect they now think that they just make movie cause they want too, as no one is paying to see them ...

"massive losses" == Boycott?

[malsbert]

How many here has boycotted the xxAA members?

I have, and that makes me a little worried when i see the xxAA use claims of "massive losses" to justify their continuous lawsuit, i mean; When i no longer go to, or rent movies, the xxAA suffers losses, that is after all the point of boycotting them :) BUT, if all the xxAA has to do, is to make the claim; if i am not buying their "content" then i must be stealing it! where does that leave me and my little boycott? is there any point to a boycott, if it can be dismissed so easily? should i just forget it, and start pirating?

Re:"massive losses" == Boycott?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had it their way, they'd sue people just for not consuming their content (after all not buying their valuable trite is evidence for piracy!)

Re:"massive losses" == Boycott?

[JockTroll]

is there any point to a boycott, if it can be dismissed so easily? should i just forget it, and start pirating?

Boycotts do not work. Not against an adversary of the MAFIAA's financial might. Assassinating their officials, murdering their lawyers, bombing their offices and targeting their assets with wholesale destruction, however, will work. The sweet money your masters pay you ain't so sweet anymore if the price for it is being pumped full of red-hot lead at your workplace or being beheaded in front of your employees.

Re:"massive losses" == Boycott?

[malsbert]

Damn Jock, What did the MAFIAA do to you?!? Impound your Pron collection?

I mean; if they did, I see were your coming from, those thing takes Years to build up!

Re:"massive losses" == Boycott?

[Xacid]

Hell - what about the sheer reality of economics today? With less cash floating around people typically don't have as much leisure cash. Instead of seeing movies at the box office maybe they'll wait and rent? Or instead of movies, how about beer?

Re:"massive losses" == Boycott?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget it and start pirating. There is some legitimacy to pirating content. There is nothing wrong with it ethically. You are not stealing. Even if you were society better first be providing a minimal level of means to your survival before it starts calling it unethical. People have needs and you should feel obligated to your fellow neighbors needs before being selfish to yourself on luxuries; those with the least of means have no ethical obligation to pay for said content. Those with stock, well kept homes (even if mortgaged), fancy cars, and other luxuries are the ones most obligated to pay. I pay at the movie theater although limit cash toward other online services. Mostly because of the ethical implications of using non-free software and digitally restricted content. Though in all honesty I should probably not be paying for movie tickets either. There are a number of unethical things the industry takes part in from censorship to digital restrictions. I have yet to become aware of any company that would risk or even be able to operate without taking part in such restrictions though. Many rules come from the top down. Legal or otherwise. For instance in order to get the rights to show a particular movie the distributors may make it a requirement that theaters check the IDs of ticket holders before allowing entrance. In cases of Netflix and other online operators companies are required to use digital restrictions; software that enforce rules about what a consumer can do with the movie.

Exactly because...

[denzacar]

...they go after someone every other day.

Have you noticed that YOU are already conditioned to consider that to be perfectly normal?

Genie is out the bottle

[Stu101]

At the end of the day, file sharing wont go away. It may well change forms and maybe even go back to sneaker net or "swap meets" but no matter what they do, they won't be able to get back to the 80s revenue streams. (It doesn't help that the music is more crap these days, but thats another argument)

At the end of the day, the world of file sharing has been changed forever by the internet. We can get offshore encrypted proxies for as little as $5.

The other major difference the net has made is that people are better connected and tend to gravitate to like minded people. In the world of instant communication, encryption and dropbox et all, sharing will just mutate into other forms, and groups with similar interests will create their own file sharing platforms and darknets.

Also in my area at least (or my interests) there are more artists giving stuff for free.

The days of mega money from media are gone. All this is akin to trying to put toothpaste back in the tube, it's not going to work.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[Joce640k]

When I was a student most other students had twin tape decks and shelves full of cassette tapes. Strangely enough, the "80s revenue streams" happened after that.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[nullcodes]

When I was a student most other students had twin tape decks and shelves full of cassette tapes. Strangely enough, the "80s revenue streams" happened after that.

thanhkyous you for nullcodes

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[tehcyder]

When you grow up you will realise that the relatively small amount of money that adults spend on music/movies/games or whatever is really not an issue to them, and they'd rather spend ten quid on a DVD than hours downloading and reassembling it from usenet.
Once you're working, you don't really have the time or inclinaion to watch two or three movies a day anyway.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[Anonymous Coward]

Price check on a TV series boxed set.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[rizole]

For people on a good wage with little or no dependants it is a relatively small amount of money and I remember those days well. That's not what the population of the world consists of though.

I have kids now. We can and have fed our family of 4 for a week on ten quid when the need has arose and sometimes when it hasn't just because. I consider ourselves comfortable and know other people and families in comparatively impoverished circumstances to our selves. I've never met anyone who is malnourished or starving but I'm led to believe there are plenty of people in the world who are.

When I grew up I realised just what a huge sum of money ten quid is.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[Heed00]

Yep. The difference today is that you can see the sharing going on -- and that, of course, is why the media companies then mobilized their wall of lawyers. For an industry that's "going out of business" due to sharing, they sure as hell are taking a long time to die.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[Heed00]

When you grow up...

You'll stop using this little phrase in order to make yourself feel superior to someone you disagree with.

Re:Genie is out the bottle

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony still makes twin tape decks.

Out of scope much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Next they'll sue the electricity companies for providing people with the electrons they need to download copyrighted material. Then come the cars. The cars allow people to drive to markets where they can buy counterfeit goods. The cars must be redesigned so this is not allowed or WE WILL SUE!!

Douchebags.

Re:Out of scope much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is that BT and other ISPs have already shown themselves prepared to censor sites on the Internet Watch Foundation blacklist in the name of combating child porn, so surely it's only a small step to start blocking sites on the MPA's blacklist too in the name of combating copyright infringement. Slippery slope, people... slippery slope.

Films can be download for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but with the current state of the film industry, I would only watch films if they paid me - paid me an awful lot to watch their awful crap.

Re:Films can be download for free?

[tehcyder]

Sorry, but with the current state of the film industry, I would only watch films if they paid me - paid me an awful lot to watch their awful crap.

No one is forcing you to watch their awful crap, you know, any more than you have to listen to their horrible music.

And it's still censorship when done by corps

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's still censorship when done by other than the government.

Yet you'll never hear of an american fundamentalist complain of it.

The first rule of usenet

[Legion303]

Usenet? Preposterous--no one's used that fossil internets relic since 1990. The MPAA would be smarter to go after newer technology, like that Napster stuff.

Re:The first rule of usenet

[synapse7]

Would clients like bintube fall under usenet?

Re:The first rule of usenet

[Anonymous Coward]

I beg to differ.... it's faster and more reliable than "napster" like stuff.

Re:The first rule of usenet

[Legion303]

I don't know. There's no such thing as usenet anyway.

I don't get it. Why do they not sue the American

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they not sue the American NNTP providers
    Registrant:
            Easynews Holdings, Inc.
            Inc. Easynews Holdings
            PO Box 1286
            Winter Park, FL 32789
            US
            Email: admin@easynews.com

      Domain Name: SUPERNEWS.COM
      Registrar: TUCOWS.COM CO.
      Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
      Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net
      Name Server: NS1.SUPERNEWS.COM
      Name Server: NS2.SUPERNEWS.COM
      Status: clientTransferProhibited
      Status: clientUpdateProhibited
      Updated Date: 09-oct-2010
      Creation Date: 17-apr-1996
      Expiration Date: 08-oct-2020

That's horrible!

[cheekyjohnson]

A potential loss of potential profit. Of course, using their superior intellect, they are able to transform that into a situation where they are certainly losing money that already belongs to them!

you dont understand the GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

the reason that GPL software even exists is due to actual copyright extremes and such. if there was not copyrights then it would not exist windows would not dominate and thre would be no need nor have been a linux. BUT you force windows on us and other crap and this is what happens you make a safe spot inside the system and with the GPL it is protected.

there hope that tells you something.and why is my right click spell checker no longer workign?

I bet BT agreed to this action beforehand

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, we really really want to go after our users but could end up at the wrong end of a lawsuit unless we can show compelling reason. I know, how about you get an injunction to force us. Don't worry, we won't fight the injunction too vigorously, then we can give our users hell and there won't be anything they can do about it.

Sorted!

Enough BS

[Evtim]

OK, it is time for reckoning. Does anyone believe anymore that money loss is the prime drive of the media distributors? I don't. It is impossible that all of them are fools and do not see that they can only loose.

So, what is the deal? What do they want?

I don't know but my speculation is that it is about control of the internet. They just got a good deal with governments. Our Overlords use false, unprovable claim of money loss, the distributors play along. G'ment installs total control banging the drum (reinforced by the terrorist threat and protection of the kids) . After the scam is executed the scammers give each other favors.

Can anybody think of other possibilities (again I say they can't be all idiots)?

Re:New Javascript on Slashdot

[TheRaven64]

I see the same behaviour on OS X / Safari. I guess the Slashcode team were trying to prove that it's possible to get a consistent user experience across multiple browsers.

What bothers me is...

[EvilStein]

They are trying to get BT to use this s00per s33cret anti child pornography blacklist to do their dirty work. The blacklist that wasn't supposed to ever be used for commercial interests and was supposed to be 'to protect the children.' Now the MPA is saying to use it .. to protect their commercial interests.

Newzbin doesn't host the files either. They're an indexer, and even these days I'd still say that there is a lot more perfectly legal content on usenet than not. There are still thousands of very active discussion boards, hobby boards, and more homemade copyright free amateur porn than you can shake a boner at.

The MPA is pissing into the wind. Again.

going after the wrong person

[SkunkPussy]

Assuming this website is in violation of the law, then they should be targetting the operators of the website, not BT.

Its like suing a bus company because a shoplifter used the bus to go and rob a store.

Bullshit action like this just makes our broadband connections more expensive.

Alright, dammit!

[squidflakes]

Who told the MPAA about Usenet? Seriously, that was the last best place to... uhhh... research.. yes, that's it, research trends in illegal music and movie sharing.

It also doesn't say you are allowed to pay for it

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's your point?

The right to information means that someone has to prove that the information is being "stolen". Hard to do when it's being infringed. So no crime. Well, it's still copyright infringement, so you can prove you're being damaged by it.

What? That's too difficult?

Copyright doesn't say you have the right to get paid.

Please point out where he said he's watching it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go on, show us where he says he's being forced to watch the crap. Or even IS watching the crap.

All they said was that to watch their crap, they'd have to get paid to do so.

OMG! Huge losses??

[countertrolling]

Pull the other one!

La-La Land

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

When you grow up you will realise that the relatively small amount of money that adults spend on music/movies/games or whatever is really not an issue to them, and they'd rather spend ten quid on a DVD than hours downloading and reassembling it from usenet.

You obviously live in Yuppieland and have no idea of the plight of lower middle class families in America. Dual 100K incomes is not the norm. Hell, dual $30k incomes isn't even the norm.

I personally know a number of families who are having trouble putting food on the table on a weekly basis, and no they aren't lazy fucks. One family has five jobs between the two adults. I'd like to see you try to support a family on $10 or less an hour. That's a premium wage for "non-professional" workers in my city at the moment and competition for those shitty jobs is fierce. The majority of hourly working in my town are pulling in $7 and some change per hour.

For these people putting food on the table is #1, rent/mortgage is priority #2. Being able to pay for their kids' college is #3. Forking over money to the content mafia is far down on the list of priorities.

I'm sure you will complain that these people should have studied harder or gone to college or something so you can feel better about them having a shitty life. Not everyone has had the ability or opportunity to attend college and boost themselves into the class of "professionals." There will always be a lower middle class and society will always need them to do all of the shitty jobs in this world.

An Alternative?

[atriusofbricia]

Am I the only one who would be willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for an HD downloaded non-DRMed copy?

Netflix is close with their service but you have to keep re-streaming the thing every time. I'd be happy to pay a reasonable fee for a service where I could get something similar to what one could get from the newsgroups. That being a fast and high quality download without DRM that I can stick on my local server and watch anywhere in the house.

But no.. it's easier to just sue everyone and try and force people to buy the service you're providing by killing all alternatives.

countertrolling & the trolltalk.com crew

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheat the moderation system - here's how they downmod others, and this is where countertrolling explains what he's doing while he trolls others (to his fellow trolltalk.com friends):

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2245866&cid=36491652

And, here's where countertrolling's "troll mechanics" for downmodding others is explained in detail by someone that got sick of it happening:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2271908&cid=36579618

As far as bogus up moderations, the trolltalk.com bunch (tomhudson, countertrolling, & others) collectively "team up" to upmod one another, in teams, as favors to one another.

(Talk about low, and bogus!)

---

In fact, here's what he says about it, why he does it, and to all of us here:

"What the skiddies here don't understand is that I don't give a shit about dumbass 'karma' on the internet.. I'm here for the jollies with nothing to lose or fight for.. watching them destroy their world.. They can go absolutely nuts as far as I'm concerned.. It's nothing but pure entertainment (and data points) for me and mine... Tragicomedy is probably the best word I can think of to describe it" - by countertrolling (1585477) on Thursday June 30, @10:26AM (#36622502) Journal

QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2281808&cid=36622502

Sounds like a sick individual to me.

BREIN-fucked government?

[fritsd]

Remember that when dealing with the content industry, if you give them a finger, they bite of your head.

Zie ze es grijnzen op die foto.. waar staat die gast van BREIN eigenlijk? verstopt achter dhr. Teeven?

For those who can't read dutch: You poor wretch of a not quite human being.

Oblig. Austin Powers GoldMember quote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ882QYzr-M

No, no, no, you need a car analogy.

[mjwx]

No, it's more like forcing pavement (sidewalk for you american-english speakers) makers to rip up the street to prevent you from going to a gun shop.

It's more akin to suing Voxhaul for selling a Vectra that could be potentially used to take a sports shooter who will never shoot anyone to a gun shop.

This is obviously a false scenario mind you, as no one in their right mind would be caught dead driving a Vectra.

Re:No, no, no, you need a car analogy.

[cbiltcliffe]

It's more akin to suing Voxhaul for selling a Vectra that could be potentially used to take a sports shooter who will never shoot anyone to a gun shop.

This is obviously a false scenario mind you, as no one in their right mind would be caught dead driving a Vectra.

No one in their right mind would be caught dead spelling "Vauxhall" as "Voxhaul" either. Come on. I'm from Canada, and they don't even sell those cars in North America, and I knew it was spelled incorrectly....

Oron.com still on filter list

[Anonymous Coward]

Oron.com still is on the CP filter list, AFAIK. Because this causes *ALL* requests to Oron.com to be fed through a proxy server for filtering of the few bad URLs, this completely breaks all downloads - as far as Oron.com are concerned, the whole of the UK are visiting from a handful of IPs, one per ISP. The only way to download from Oron.com last time I checked was via a foreign proxy - thanks to idiotic implementation on the ISPs' part.