Internet Providers To Begin Warning Customers Who Pirate Content

beltsbear writes "Welcome to the future that you warned us about. Starting soon, Verizon, Comcast and others will work with the Center for Copyright Information to reduce piracy. Customers thought to be pirating will receive alerts. 'The progressive series of alerts is designed to make consumers aware of activity that has occurred using their Internet accounts, educate them on how they can prevent such activity from happening again,' If a customer feels they are being wrongly accused, they can ask for a review, which will cost them $35, according to the Verge."

Comments

I should not have to pay $35

[Skapare]

... if I didn't do anything wrong. THEY should first prove I did.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Penguinisto]

C'mon - Verizon and Comcast likely wrote that provision themselves. After all, why treat it as a procedure when you can treat it as a profit center?

Just wait until they feel that profits aren't high enough...

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[mlts]

I'd write up yet another diatribe about guilty until proven innocent, but that is par for the course these days.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[RanCossack]

They don't even have to raise the fee; that's the best part of this, to them. They can just increase profit by going "Oh, let's pick accounts at random and accuse them of piracy."

35 dollars later, they say "oh, our bad", and they keep the money.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Nyder]

C'mon - Verizon and Comcast likely wrote that provision themselves. After all, why treat it as a procedure when you can treat it as a profit center?

Just wait until they feel that profits aren't high enough...

They are a corporation, profits are never high enough...

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[girlintraining]

C'mon - Verizon and Comcast likely wrote that provision themselves. After all, why treat it as a procedure when you can treat it as a profit center?

I've received about a dozen of these alerts. You know what I do with them? right-click... delete. Go ahead, tell me I'm pirating. Go ahead, threaten me. They once sent me a very intimidating "final notice" saying they were going to cut off my internet. It was the only one I replied to -- via a certified letter. All it had in it was a print out of the e-mail and the following word: "Nuts."

It's been four months and several terabytes of pirated material. I haven't heard a peep from them. Here's the truth guys: Ignore, ignore, ignore. They're trying to use fear to motivate people because they know the "problem" is so widespread that it would take tens of millions of lawyers working around the clock and an equal number of judges, experts, juries, etc., at a cost of many billions of dollars to go after everyone legally. Ignore your ISPs until they actually turn off your internet. Then... complain to your public utilities commissioner and legislators and explain how they're engaging in vigilante justice, it's unamerican, etc. Be creative, but above all, be loud, and send your complaints on something with a stamp on it, not an e-mail. Or use a fax machine. That shit gets read, unlike e-mails. We are legion. Don't forget that: Hundreds of millions of us. A few dozen of them. Even if they have machine guns and tanks, they're still fucked.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Jane Q. Public]

Bravo.

For once, a post I can agree with 100%.

The contract I signed with them has no provision for "punishment" based on some 3rd-party's say-so. If they tried to throttle me or cut me off, that is fraud or at least breach of contract.

They can threaten all they like, but I'd bet you a lot their lawyers told them they'd damned well better stop short of actually taking any action.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

That worked before because they didn't have this infrastructure in place. Now it will all be automated and the account will shut down just based on the number of notices it says you have in their system.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't ignore the first letter. I'd make life a living hell for the sender.

But then, I'm not pirating several terabytes of pirated material and then bragging about it on an internet website while also giving free (if dubious) legal advice and essentially saying "the system is broken so loot everything". Guess that gives me something of a moral high ground if I do get a letter.

You go on being legion. I'd rather be an individual than part of your mob.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Mitreya]

I should not have to pay ... if I didn't do anything wrong. THEY should first prove I did.

For the consumers that are reluctant to pay $35 to be reviewed and cleared, they will soon have $1000 (per file) fee for downloading content they consider illegal. And by then the new Terms and Conditions mandatory arbitration clause will be in place if it isn't already, so you'll have no recourse - and occasional $35 "compliance" surcharge will be a wise choice. If you never pay the fee, an occasional "mistake" may happen, where you are charged for a couple of illegal files even if you don't download anything (again, see the new arbitration clause).

I know someone is plotting this, because it will make money and I do not remember ever having a choice of internet provider (maybe 2 options at most) regardless of where I lived in the past 10-12 years.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[whoever57]

It won't be just $35.

It will be $35 plus give up all your rights .

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't get bad enough for you fast enough.

Clearly the solution is to protect your artificial monopoly at all costs even if it means harming innocent people who have never downloaded any copyrighted material. All without a court being involved in the process at all.

No, fuck you. Even people who like copyright should be against this.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[girlintraining]

I wouldn't ignore the first letter. I'd make life a living hell for the sender.

It's hard to make life a living hell for an entity that sold its soul a long time ago. I ignore all letters unless served to me by the sheriff as a matter of course. In this society, the threat of legal action usually shuts people up. I'm something of an exception to the rule though -- until legal action actually commences, I really don't give a fuck. Remember, there's plenty of time to settle or negotiate, it's not like the legal process is fast.

But then, I'm not pirating several terabytes of pirated material and then bragging about it on an internet website while also giving free (if dubious) legal advice and essentially saying "the system is broken so loot everything".

While I am bragging about it on an internet website, fair enough, nothing I say here is under oath. I can lie all I want; as long as the words themselves aren't inciting people to violence or in some way providing a clear and present danger to public safety. "Download ALL the stuffs!" doesn't exactly make my list of Things People Say That Reasonable People Get Scared About. Actually, it makes the Things People Say Everyday That Only a Very Very Very Super Very Tiny Number Of People Have a Problem With list... and that's about it.

Guess that gives me something of a moral high ground if I do get a letter.

You had the moral high ground from day one. Fair use used to be legal. I could share music and videos with you freely -- even copies, even copies of copies, or copies of copies of copies. The operative word is of course 'free'. I can't charge you for it, and you can't make a profit off it. But as long as you stayed within those boundaries, it was all good. And the reason for this was that a lot of our music, media, movies, art, etc., is part of our collective culture. My sister made a reference to the Jetsons the other day -- despite never having actually seen an episode of it. That's part of our culture -- it's symbolism for something about us. The future, flying cars, whatever, it's part of who we are. There are tens of thousands of things just like that, songs "everybody" knows. I have yet to meet a girl who can't recite the lyrics to Sweet Dreams (are made of these), etc. Fair use isn't a cheat -- it's an essential part of retaining and spreading our culture. Locking it up and saying only the wealthy can afford it is wrong. It may be legal, but it's wrong. It will always be wrong. There is no way in which a moral and ethical person can conclude it's anything but wrong.

Legal does not mean right, and illegal does not mean wrong. I do what's right, what I think is fair, and act within the standards of my community, not some arbitrary standard set out by some rich fucker in a suit who thinks he has a say. Listen, rich fucker, you don't. You never did. All the money in the world can buy you corrupt laws and public officials and a lot of influence, but it can't buy you me.

I am free. So take your laws, your lawsuits, your bullshit ideology -- and literally fuck yourself with them. And I do mean literally... print them out on a sheet of paper, and shove it up your goddamned ass. Are we clear here? This isn't about me being part of a "mob", this is about me being a proud member of my community. I am proud of my values, and I know these are values that the majority of people in my community, in the country, in the world, support and agree with. That is what I mean when I say "we are legion."

You cannot threaten or cajoule me into doing something I feel is wrong. That's what standing up for what you believe in means, and I'll do it every time. They got my number, they know where I live... anytime they feel like coming over and trying to force their ideas onto me, I'm up for it. I'm here, ready, waiting. I'm not hiding. I'll fight... but I won't go looking for one. And I encourage you to do the same. Any fool can make a law, and any fool will mind it. You do what's right, that's all any moral, ethical, member of your community can ask... the law... doesn't matter.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

When the content producers stop fucking around with the system (Infinite copyright terms, SOPA, DMCA, DRM, etc...), then then I'll consider buying stuff legitimately.

As long as they're passing laws that that keep works out of the public domain for over a century while raiding the public domain for stories to exploit themselves, they can go fuck themselves.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[flimflammer]

I don't think so. The ISPs will do everything they can short of disconnecting the user or harming their connection because all that will do is result in losing customers. ISPs only put up with this shit as much as they do because it's not losing them business. If they have to start giving up customers, you damn well better believe the ISPs are going to start fighting, kicking and screaming.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

You *still* believe pirating is stealing, even after spending time on slashdot?

I don't know about the other poster, but I do. It doesn't mean I'll get worked up enough to defend a failed business plan. This seems like one of the opportunities to get rid of crime by making it legal.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[copb.phoenix]

There's a void slowly forming for services that aren't directly associated with copyright infringement but won't answer to Old Media, either, to fit into.

I doubt I see it here, but Frontier was hesitating about joining the bandwagon. I don't know what they're at now.

All I know is, as long as people believe in a model of freedom in sufficiently high enough numbers, it will prevail. The only reason this happened is because people let themselves be told "even if you're not part of our problem, you deserve this".

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[girlintraining]

If they have to start giving up customers, you damn well better believe the ISPs are going to start fighting, kicking and screaming.

Not exactly. I have yet to see very many companies not roll over and play dead at the threat of legal action. The only time they ever do is when complying with the demand costs them more money than the retainer's fee. Someone sat down in some meeting room and decided with a few other people to go ahead and do this. That someone is very high up in the company, and it would take them hemmoraging cash before they swallowed their pride. Techies always think about the system, never about the people in it. No, they'll lose customers left and right, bleeding them out, until the shareholders ask why earnings are down. Then, and only at that point, will Pridey McPrides-a-lot reconsider.

And here's the thing: If all the other ISPs in your area decide to do the same thing (collusion!), they're going to figure there's not much incentive. You may switch to a competitor, but you'll still have the same problem there, and so on and so on, until you're out of the market. All these ISPs have been told nobody will go without internet -- and all internet providers have to "be in it together". But, if people do start dropping off, and not buying internet at all, the entire industry will convulse and retaliate then.

Not that I expect that to happen. I do, however, expect and ask that anyone who gets their internet shut off file lawsuits against the company. It does not matter if it's justified. It does not matter if you think you can win or not. File one. Everybody, file a lawsuit. File many lawsuits if you can. Keep them busy, keep them in court, and most importantly: Cost them money. And cost the courts time. Because they're overloaded, it takes months to get in on a civil action -- and lawmakers and judges will sit up and take notice when their dockets start filling up with the same thing over and over again. You hammer them, over and over, force them to spend money defending themselves. And at the same time -- make sure your assets are safe. Ask your family to take the title to the car, etc., once you file the lawsuit. Make sure you have nothing they can take away from you.

Kick those fuckers in the balls so hard their kids are born dizzy. That's how you win. And trust me: It works. If even 1% of the population contested their speeding tickets, the court system would implode just on that. I mean, as in, smoking crater of ruin. I'm not asking everyone who gets a letter to do something: I'm asking 1% of you to. If you can, if you're in a position to put up a fight... do it. Stand up for something.

This is how you fight authority... and win.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[rgbrenner]

Fair use used to be legal. I could share music and videos with you freely -- even copies, even copies of copies, or copies of copies of copies. The operative word is of course 'free'. I can't charge you for it, and you can't make a profit off it. But as long as you stayed within those boundaries, it was all good.

You do NOT get to make shit up. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

Look, I get it... you're pirating material.. and you're telling yourself all day long, it's ok... this *used* to be legal.

But it's NOT true. If you want to have a reasonable discussion about copyright law.. then YOU NEED TO STICK TO THE FACTS.

The first copyright law was the The Statute of Anne in 1709 in Britain. It did not apply to the colonies. The first copyright act in the US was the US Copyright Act of 1790.. it was similar to the Statute of Anne. http://www.copyright.gov/history/1790act.pdf

That from and after the passing of this act, the author and
authors of any map, chart, book or books already printed ... shall have the sole right and
liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending such map, chart, book or books, for the
term of fourteen years ...

And be it further enacted, That if any other person or persons, from and after the
recording the title of any map, chart, book or books, and publishing the same as aforesaid, and
within the times limited and granted by this act, shall print, reprint, publish, or import, or cause
to be printed, reprinted, published, or imported from any foreign Kingdom or State, any copy or
copies of such map, chart, book or books, without the consent of the author or proprietor thereof,
first had and obtained in writing, signed in the presence of two or more credible witnesses; or
knowing the same to be so printed, reprinted, or imported, shall publish, sell, or expose to sale,
or cause to be published, sold or exposed to sale, any copy of such map, chart, book or books,
without such consent first had and obtained in writing as aforesaid, then such offender or
offenders shall forfeit all and every sheet and sheets, being part of the same, or either of them, to
the author or proprietor of such map, chart, book or books, who shall forthwith destroy the same:
And every such offender and offenders shall also forfeit and pay the sum of fifty cents for every
sheet which shall be found in his or their possession, either printed or printing, published,
imported or exposed to sale,

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[GeoBain]

Just wait until they feel that profits aren't high enough...

Maybe then I'll finally be able to kick my digital habit.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[garaged]

Would you be willing to keep paying a small amount of your earned money to the guys that sold you the computer you used to create your work? Just because

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[gmuslera]

How lucky you feel today? The problem is not that they won't go after everyone, the real problem is if they will go against you in particular, and use that as an example to intimidate the rest even more. Remember the cases with lawsuits for hundreds or millons of dollars for pirating songs to grandmas?

Don't push your luck, if they don't get enough people complying, they could get lobbyed legal backing to actually cut your connection or other generic fast/automated mass punishment that don't need a lawsuit/lawyer/etc.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

... if I didn't do anything wrong. THEY should first prove I did.

Which is why I have an attorney on retainer. If they want to push it, they'll have to provide all that information to my lawyer during the discovery process, and when they are unable to show any solid proof they'll be covering the court costs as well.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

If they tried to throttle me or cut me off, that is fraud or at least breach of contract.

Usually not.

And they're not afraid of you. They'll just start answering those incoming John Doe requests.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[houghi]

They can just increase profit by going "Oh, let's pick accounts yearly and accuse them of piracy."

There, fixed that for you.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Tastecicles]

Mod parent up. Although, there is a caveat (isn't there always?):

What you seem to be describing is the Shareware Concept. This isn't so much fair use as a licence to copy and distribute. For those of you born after the days of bulletin boards and floppy disks on the front of magazines, here's how it works:

You get a copy of a piece of software from wherever (I'll use a copy of FractINT 18.0 I got on the front of a magazine a few years before my oldest child was born). The licence that comes with it (in electronic form, a file named license.doc and another called vendor.doc) says I can distribute as many copies of the software as I like, to whomever I like, BUT:

1. I cannot charge for the software. I am, however, allowed to charge for the media and bare distribution costs such as postage and packaging.
2. If I distribute the software as part of a compilation I MUST get permission in writing from the copyright holder (they're usually very good about this).
3. The software must not be modified in any way. Ancillary files not essential to the software's functionality but included with it (such as the licenses) must be bundled with it. Usually the license documents include a list of the files that must be included (an exception to this is the example given, where the authors actually encourage community input into the program, great mods/additions make it to the next version).
4. If I find the software useful, I should consider paying the author. Sometimes, what you have is a locked-down version (a "demo") of the full program. Pay a small fee and you get the unlock key. Sometimes it's a 30-day period with full functionality then it locks down. Same thing. OR for some games, you get to distribute the first level or three, pay the fee to get the rest of the game sent to you in the post (what a weird concept these days!)

Now, I've been using FractINT for nigh on two decades, it's the most fantastic bit of geek porn. I've also made regular donations to the authors in time and development (as they say, "Don't want money, got money. Want recognition". Great philosophy!) and I've managed to sort of keep up with the latest developments myself (though I still prefer the DOS version).

What the Shareware Concept and associated licence does in these days of wireless broadband and "What's a CD-ROM?" is reduce the cost of distributing software attached to it, to almost zero. You're not buying media or envelopes, or paying postage anymore. You're opening a Bittorrent client and hooking up to a tracker. There's no effort involved anymore, and that is what is scaring the SHIT out of the big vendors and the associatives - their business model is COMPLETELY OBSOLETE.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[houghi]

In Belgium it used to be (not sure if it still is) that if you do not make any money from it, the courts do not want to open a case and will consider it obstruction of the court.
Obviously if you make money from pirating then they will be happy to help. e.g. if you copy DVDs and sell them, you can be going to court. If you make a mixed tape to give to your loved one, you won't.
Running torrents won't bring you to court, unless you are the person who makes money from it.

That is why the local MAFIAA goes after the providers and (unsuccessfully) try to block TPB.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[mwvdlee]

If you pay the $35, all that changes is that you get an infinitesimal chance of not receiving mail from them again.
If you don't pay $35, you can claim they tried to blackmail you with false accusations if it ever goes to court.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[girlintraining]

The first copyright law was the The Statute of Anne in 1709 in Britain. It did not apply to the colonies. The first copyright act in the US was the US Copyright Act of 1790.. it was similar to the Statute of Anne.

If we're going to have a measuring contest over who can nitpick the best, I'm going to win. The first copyright law in the United States was common law, which our laws were derived from, and Clause 8 of the US Constitution. In other words, until 1790, all our laws were case law, decided by judges. After that, a small portion of copyright law was codified. That's the very small part you quoted. Fair use predates that and continued after the passage of that law in our common law system.

Now, if you'd be so kind, please reply with another wall of text only tangentially-related, as is traditional when someone pulls your pants down around your ankles and giggles at your ineptitude in a public forum...

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they hope they can cut off your internet, and you'll be so bored honey boo boo looks like a good show?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

You better hope to hell that your pirating is counted as theft because fraud caries a lot heavier penalty.

1. It's neither, it's a copyright violation.
2. It's not theft because he didn't take anything from you. You can speculate that he might have paid you instead of pirating, but in most cases people who pirate would not purchase it even if that was the only way to get it. They are pirating it as opposed to simply not having it at all. You're most likely confusing it with counterfeiting, which is when you pay someone for an illegitimate copy... in this case nobody is getting paid.
3. It's not fraud because he never entered into any contractual agreement with you.

I'm not supporting piracy, don't take this post the wrong way. But things might be able to turn around if people like you at least had a fucking clue about how the law works in regards to protecting your work. The problem we're seeing with the current laws regarding piracy is that it requires little or no proof on the part of the person filing the complaint that the person being accused actually pirated anything. And there is almost nothing to prevent outright fraudulent claims. Since you seem to be a bit of a jackass, I hope one day you have to deal with receiving a takedown notice for your own material... it's not easy to get that mess cleaned up, and you likely won't have any recourse for the time, money, and effort you spend doing so.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[girlintraining]

How lucky you feel today? The problem is not that they won't go after everyone, the real problem is if they will go against you in particular, and use that as an example to intimidate the rest even more

Okay, how can I make this more clear: Attention Recording Industry Suits O Doom: Fuck you. I'm a pirate. I'm dropping my pants right now and showing you my curvy white ass. Nana Nana boo boo, stick your head in doo doo. Come and find me!

Immaturity aside, let me be crystal-clear here: I don't care if they come after me. I don't care if they come after me with tanks, shotguns, and black helicopters. No matter how much they throw at me, they're still morally and ethically in the wrong. And for me, it's just that simple. Whether they succeed or fail is irrelevant -- I know I'm right, they're wrong, and that's that. And if they do come and try to make an example out of me, they're going to find out that I don't go down easily, I don't surrender, and I make a lot of noise in the process. I'll do everything I can to make the case as high profile as possible. I'll tell them to shove their million dollar lawsuit, and demand they make it a billion or trillion dollars. I'll claim to have pirated everything ever made since 1896. I'll wear t-shirts saying "Fuck this Court" in front of TV cameras. I will turn hating them into a goddamned religion, launching a massive PR campaign on Facebook and everywhere else. I'll stage a worldwide campaign to clog every fax machine in every judge, clerk, and legislator's office 24/7. And I'll do it all without having a penny to my name. They'll collect exactly dick from me, and I'll make that perfectly clear. I'll start an offshore bank account and ask for donations, and live with friends, on welfare... doesn't matter to me. I'll never work another day once the judgement lands just to deny them the extraction of a single fucking penny for their immoral acts. And all the while, I'll be right here, screaming bloody murder on the internet and every other medium I can inject myself into, calling these bastards out on the carpet.

This isn't about luck, it's about convictions. Let. Them. Come.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[hairyfeet]

I approve of this message 100%. I USED to be all for fair and just copyright, the kind that was actually written by the founding fathers...but that sure as fuck ain't what we got now. What we have is Jack Valenti's "forever minus a single day" copyrights and if that isn't enough the greedy pricks have even lobbyed and had some of the material that was public domain handed over to them! Meanwhile they fuck the artists as bad or worse than the consumer, see how Cheap Trick gets NOTHING from iTunes and Meatloaf had to spend over a decade in court and ended up filing for bankruptcy because they had the brass balls to claim that Bat Out Of Hell I, the album with the fricking Guiness record for longest stay in the top 200, never made a dime!

So fuck 'em, until We, The People have a say at the table again and copyrights are returned to a sane number instead of a fricking century and a half we should all just give them the bird. My ISP has made a good $7k+ off of me in the past 5 years and have only had to come out twice because of network issues, if they want me to give that money to someone else? I'll be more than happy to.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[hairyfeet]

I just wonder how long its gonna take for the other major corps that are gonna get screwed by this to start bringing out THEIR lawyers and lobbyists and getting nasty. Because i've known a LOT of pirates and ya know what? Frankly they buy just as much if not more than they pirate, in fact many of them pirate because there is just more entertainment out there than their budgets will allow. How many pirates buy from Steam? How many have Hulu or Netflix? And of course the search engines will get dinged as well.

I've known guys that buy the good movies and just download the crappy ones, I've known guys that have dozens if not hundreds of games in Steam and still download new games so they can see if they suck before plunking the cash, and I've known a LOT that will just download TV shows rather than watch them OTA because they would rather watch when THEY want instead of revolving their evenings around somebody else's schedule.

But the dirty little secret the ISPs don't want you to know is they WANT this, not because they give a flying fuck about piracy, but because they are too fucking cheap to upgrade their lines and they oversell the living hell out of them. if they can find an excuse to get rid of anybody that actually uses what they pay for then they can "cherry pick" their customers like they do the neighborhoods. I know in my area neither cable nor DSL has moved a single inch in over a decade, despite their ever rising prices and the fact the town is a third larger than it was a decade ago, because the cost of running lines might cut into their profits ZOMFG!

So for all those that are saying "The ISPs won't want to lose customers" know now that you are DEAD WRONG, they would LOVE to get rid of anybody that does more than watch some crappy SD YouTube videos because that means they can oversell their badly degrading infrastructure that much more. its gonna be all those businesses that rely on the net, your webmail and search, your cloud services and video services, those are the ones that will end up being the ones that break out the lobbyists and actually get heard because they can't afford to watch their customers dry up and blow away in a dead economy.

Kinda sad that it will end up "Battle of the douchebag corporations" but nobody listens nor gives a flying fuck about the consumer anymore, after all you can just bribe the politicians and get declared "too big to fail" and take the money straight from their pockets by gunpoint, why listen to them?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[myowntrueself]

They are a corporation, profits are never high enough...

Whatever, Che.

If the board corporation ever 'thought their profits were high enough' they'd be in BIG trouble with their shareholders and get hauled over the coals. Its called 'fiduciary responsibility'.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[fredprado]

Then you are an idiot. Copyright infringement may be illegal, but it is not "stealing" by any remotely logic definition of the word, and it certainly is not stealing by the legal definition of the term in any country in this world.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

This how I know you're full of shit: you refuse to post any details to back up your claims. And that "wall of text" is called evidence retard.

You were wrong, and it's hard for you to admit, so you lash out. It's a common reaction. You're still wrong, though.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

Spin.

The implication was that all corporations, by virtue of being corporations, will do anything to increase profit. That's false, but a common meme.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[nospam007]

"I've received about a dozen of these alerts"

As a European, can you enlighten me how the ISP got your email address?
Besides the fact that my account with my ISP is registered to my cat, they certainly don't have any of my email addresses.
Do the ISPs give you mandatory addresses that you have to check regularly?

Was it the olde 'Save a buck and get your invoice per email' trick?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[CastrTroy]

My only reply to this is that there's more free content out there than time allows. Sure there's a lot of entertainment out there, and if you choose to watch all the latest blockbusters, you will (possibly) run out of money quite quickly, but there there's also more free stuff than you could ever watch, assuming you hold down a job and actually sleep. Most people I know who pirate a lot don't even end up watching half the stuff they download because they just don't have the time. Renting 3 or 4 movies a week off iTunes a week isn't going to bankrupt most people. And if you need more media than that, find something else to do. People will spend $5 on a coffee from starbucks, which will last 20 minutes, but they won't spend $5 to rent a 2 hour movie from the internet which they can watch with a friend. People are seriously cheap, and only pirate because they get away with it so easily.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Verizon comcast etc dont give a fuck. They just want to tax you.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Wildclaw]

Actually, they are doing something much worse than that. They are participating in huge amounts of unauthorized wealth creation outside of the official market.

I think the official name for that nowadays is treason.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be thought of as patriotic.
It is obvious to everyone copyright is broken and stifling innovation, filling courtrooms otherwise judging actual, meaningful cases and being used to harvest money without return or product. When you respect laws that are broken, enslave you, and hold back society, you only help your oppressors . When you disregard a bad law along with everyone else, there is nothing left to do but change it or withdraw it.
If enough bad laws are left in place, long enough there is revolution. It's a battle of the wills for money and safety.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[flyneye]

Sic 'em, girly!

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Kamel Jockey]

You *still* believe pirating is stealing, even after spending time on slashdot?

(If you didn't mean to say loot, that's cool, we all make mistakes, just say so)

Tell people here that you use GPL-licensed code in a closed-source product and see how fast you'll be accused of stealing.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fair use used to be legal. I could share music and videos with you freely -- even copies, even copies of copies, or copies of copies of copies. The operative word is of course 'free'. I can't charge you for it, and you can't make a profit off it. But as long as you stayed within those boundaries, it was all good."

I'm not a lawyer, but you may want to consult one, because what you describe does not constitute fair use. It might be in some circumstances, but merely making the copy in a non-commercial context is not sufficient to make it so. While I agree with you that fair use is "not a cheat" and is an integral part of copyright, I think you're applying it a little more widely than it actually allows.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[snspdaarf]

Not possible to be that bored.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[dcollins117]

It would be a better idea to donate your $35 to the EFF/Pirate Party/pro-electronic-rights-organization-of-your-choice.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon - Verizon and Comcast likely wrote that provision themselves. After all, why treat it as a procedure when you can treat it as a profit center?

I've received about a dozen of these alerts. You know what I do with them? right-click... delete. Go ahead, tell me I'm pirating. Go ahead, threaten me. They once sent me a very intimidating "final notice" saying they were going to cut off my internet. It was the only one I replied to -- via a certified letter. All it had in it was a print out of the e-mail and the following word: "Nuts."

It's been four months and several terabytes of pirated material. I haven't heard a peep from them. Here's the truth guys: Ignore, ignore, ignore. They're trying to use fear to motivate people because they know the "problem" is so widespread that it would take tens of millions of lawyers working around the clock and an equal number of judges, experts, juries, etc., at a cost of many billions of dollars to go after everyone legally. Ignore your ISPs until they actually turn off your internet. Then... complain to your public utilities commissioner and legislators and explain how they're engaging in vigilante justice, it's unamerican, etc. Be creative, but above all, be loud, and send your complaints on something with a stamp on it, not an e-mail. Or use a fax machine. That shit gets read, unlike e-mails. We are legion. Don't forget that: Hundreds of millions of us. A few dozen of them. Even if they have machine guns and tanks, they're still fucked.

You sir, are a complete idiot if you think they don't know and realize all of this.

That is why they specifically do not and will not go after the "legion". They go after a handful at a time, with the right amount of focused resources and leverage, in which the average person does not and likely will not expend their own resources to hire a lawyer to fight it, and instead either cave in and stop their activity, or settle. It's also a tactic to not ruffle the feathers of too many of the masses (i.e. other customers), so don't expect that "legion" to be standing behind you in a courtroom anytime soon, helping pay for your defense.

And if you think letters to your local representatives will do jack shit with all this, tell me something. How often did you hear of that bullshit tactic being successful during the whole **AA lawsuit fiasco when they were firing lawsuits out at a dizzying pace. Kind of hard to argue your defense of "Daaaad, Verizon's picking on me!!" when they respond with your terabytes of evidence.

There are only "dozens" of the 1% too, yet who has all of the power and control. Don't make it sound like they're weak. And your bank account or legal resources ain't THAT big. Not even close.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[geekmux]

I should not have to pay ... if I didn't do anything wrong. THEY should first prove I did.

For the consumers that are reluctant to pay $35 to be reviewed and cleared, they will soon have $1000 (per file) fee for downloading content they consider illegal. And by then the new Terms and Conditions mandatory arbitration clause will be in place if it isn't already, so you'll have no recourse - and occasional $35 "compliance" surcharge will be a wise choice. If you never pay the fee, an occasional "mistake" may happen, where you are charged for a couple of illegal files even if you don't download anything (again, see the new arbitration clause).

I know someone is plotting this, because it will make money and I do not remember ever having a choice of internet provider (maybe 2 options at most) regardless of where I lived in the past 10-12 years.

In the way you've described, that's not a "fee". That's called "extortion", especially when the evidence starts mounting on the "false positive" side of things. If Verizon wants to do this, then fine. I want them to be forced to pay for a 3rd party oversight committee to review their cases quarterly and those results made public to prevent blatant abuse. This will be under the guise of protecting their customer base, which could be significantly and drastically reduced if word got out that they were falsely accusing customers, which the shareholders should want to curb.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[dlingman]

Me, I'd wonder exactly how many people who are so proud of pirating things actually make anything that others would consider pirating in the first place.

Price is not the point. It's never been the point. How much iOS software can you get from jail break sites? Instead of paying the $0.99 to get it. You want a movie? Can you not afford the $1 it costs to rent it from a redbox somewhere?

Most of the time, it seems like it's merely a contest to see who has the most stuff that they've not paid a fair price for, and a secondary goal is to feel good about "sticking it to the man/system/evil content producers".

Where I'd like to see the rules change, is content shifting. If I have paid for a movie, let me watch it where I want, as long as only one copy is being played at a time. Same for a game, or a book, or a song. A long time ago, Borland got this right. You could install their compilers wherever you wanted, as long as you only ran one copy at a time "Treat it like a book - only one person can read a given book at a time, but you can pass it to the next person"

Which leads to the next thing I'd like to change - ability to resell used copies of software. Walk into any gamestop, you'll see tons of second hard vid games. That model works. Why can't I sell my e-book when I'm done reading it? I paid pretty much the same cost as a dead tree version of it, and I can resell that.

Bah.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[causality]

You *still* believe pirating is stealing, even after spending time on slashdot?

(If you didn't mean to say loot, that's cool, we all make mistakes, just say so)

Tell people here that you use GPL-licensed code in a closed-source product and see how fast you'll be accused of stealing.

If the standard song or TV show or movie came with a license as generous as the GPL, and I violated it, I would call myself an asshole (not a thief because infringement is not stealing, but definitely an asshole).

It's one thing to thumb your nose at unreasonable restrictive demands that are unfit for the Information Age. It's quite another to have a license that is reasonable, not asking too much, and not terribly restrictive and then still violate it. One of those deserves to be honored a lot more than the other one. That's because one of those is a lot more honorable.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[rolfwind]

What I don't understand is why ISPs do this. I mean, a monthly paying customer is great, they pay a ton up front to snag new one, and iirc, as long as they act as a dumb pipe, they're not liable.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[geekmux]

If you pay the $35, all that changes is that you get an infinitesimal chance of not receiving mail from them again.

Yeah right. That's like saying if you reply to one spam email, chances are you won't receive spam from them again. If you pay the $35, all Verizon knows at that point is they have a willing and compliant customer on their hands who won't fight to pay their provider extra money. They likely will at some point, go after that individual again. And don't worry, they'll word these letters in such a way that $35 is being paid to "protect" you and prove you are innocent.

If you don't pay $35, you can claim they tried to blackmail you with false accusations if it ever goes to court.

Yes, and later, you'll be able to stand in court and claim they tried to blackmail you with false accusations...and just think you might actually win. And all at a "tiny" cost of a cost of just a few days off work and $3500 in legal fees.

If you want to call that a "win"...

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Seumas]

They don't have to prove anything. As far as I know, the legal system is never involved. They also don't seem to make the legal distinction between "downloading" and "providing/uploading". Or, for that matter, between "something that happened over your network" and "something you did". If you want to protest, go back to dial-up, I guess.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

Those that don't are bought up by ones that do.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[causality]

I'm not a fan of "me too" replies but sometimes there just isn't much else to add. So,

Amen, sister.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

You can think of bit slavery as moral and legal, but it's not.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[betterunixthanunix]

Guess that gives me something of a moral high ground if I do get a letter

In what universe do you get the moral high ground for supporting businesses that would rather attack PCs and the Internet than update a business model that was antiquated by the technological developments of the 1980s? I think you are confusing "moral high ground" with "well Disney told me to behave this way!"

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." If a law is not within the confines of that grant of power, it is unconstitutional.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[causality]

Now, if you'd be so kind, please reply with another wall of text only tangentially-related, as is traditional when someone pulls your pants down around your ankles and giggles at your ineptitude in a public forum...

When I do it, they usually just pretend like they never got around to reading that part. Even if they read and replied to everything before and after it.

Occasionally someone will have the decency to say something like "hmm that's a good point, you've made me think differently about this" but real adults who can do that are rare. Most are just overgrown two-year-olds, fevered egos trying to save face as if they are fooling anyone.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

The present bit slavery system is the cost we have for wanting a 21st century standard of living while dependent on 19th century invention for our transportation. When you are willing to kick the carbon habit, and leave the 20th century sprawlconomy behind, we can kick the paper mill, and its creation of perpetual property rights on people, to the curb.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

People who like copyright as it is today, would have liked slavery as it was in 1859. Every argument about the legality of IP law today, was made by apologists for slavery then.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

And you should return all runaway slaves to their owners, and report black people sitting in the front of the bus.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

Guilty until proven convicted.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[betterunixthanunix]

Except that copyrights were never a moral question. Never, not in their entire history, have copyrights been a law based on any sort of moral code. Copyrights have always been about business. They are no more a matter of morals than loading zone parking restrictions.

Copyright infringement is about as serious a matter as parking in a loading zone.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[fustakrakich]

As we have been told many times, constitutional limits do not apply to private enterprise. I happen to disagree, but that means nothing... until everybody does, and votes accordingly.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

It is this kind of statement that makes people run into the arms of the copyright industry, because the can say "It is for the artists!" The copyright industry is, of course, lying, because what they do has nothing to do with the artists, except as unfortunate inputs into the hit making process, but that is beside the point. Paying creative people for their work is, indeed, a moral issue, because if they cannot protect and profit from their work, they die. And then their out declines, for some odd reason.

Copyright is an intensely moral issue for two reasons, first it is immoral to profit from some one else's work while allowing them to starve to death, but second, copyrights can only work to the extent that people see them as moral.

In our current situation, we have the worst of both worlds. Spotify pays me .01 for ever 10 listens. That is, even to live in poverty I would have to generate 20 million listens a year. The artists are not being paid by and large. Conversely imposing a economic death sentence, which is what 100,000 dollars of damages are to an ordinary person, is clearly immoral.

Copyright is, and always was, a moral issue, and the present system is breaking down precisely because it is immoral.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[nurb432]

You can have service terminated at their whim if you read your contract. They dont have to prove anything.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[shiftless]

And they're not afraid of you.

They should be.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[nurb432]

They are a corporation, profits are never high enough...

Nor should it be. As long as they are doing it legally and 'accepted ethically'.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[nurb432]

I wouldn't ignore the first letter. I'd make life a living hell for the sender

And you propse to do thsi how? They are geared for customer complaints, this is just another type. Im sure suing them is forbidden via contract too, so you are stuck with *their* channels.

And if you get out of hand, *poof* there goes your account and any contact with them, or anyone else as you will be blacklisted umong all the major ISPs

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that different from a mafia style protection racket?

Seriously these guys are approaching bond-villain levels of evil.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[GameboyRMH]

Yarr pirate power! B-)

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[betterunixthanunix]

Copyright is an intensely moral issue for two reasons, first it is immoral to profit from some one else's work while allowing them to starve to death, but second, copyrights can only work to the extent that people see them as moral.

1. The moral issue with profiting from another person's work while that person is starving is by no means limited to copyrights. That trend can be seen in basically every industry. My university has people working for it who are not even paid enough to live in the town where the university is located.
2. Hardly anyone views copyrights as a moral issue. Most people would be uncomfortable walking into a house, even if the door is wide open and nobody is around, and taking something that is not theirs (desperate people might do it just to survive, but beyond desperation, most people would feel wrong doing it). Yet most people will download music, movies, and software illegally without a second's hesitation. The copyright lobbyists know this, which is why they are pushing for systems like this one: systems that appear to be pushing a moral argument for obeying copyright, but which are actually designed to punish (without any expensive legal process) anyone who violates copyright.

Spotify pays me .01 for ever 10 listens

The way I see it, musicians should be making money from merchandising, live performances, and contract performances (e.g. a performance given for an event, a special recording for a movie, etc.). The Internet could have been a way for musicians to advertise themselves and their upcoming performances, by using peer to peer networks to eliminate the cost of distributing recorded music and by building software into those music players that shows listeners when and where a musician is playing (and perhaps where to get t-shirts etc.). It requires a different view of how to monetize music, one in which recording is not the primary source of revenue, but at least we would not be expecting ordinary people to analyze issues that judges are supposed to deliberate on.

Copyright is, and always was, a moral issue, and the present system is breaking down precisely because it is immoral.

The present system is breaking down because it is based on theories about the distribution of information that are laughably out of date. It is breaking down for the same reason that the system of scribes copying books broke down: new technology.

Copyrights were never meant to help artists; they were meant to ensure that the public could access books, music, etc., by promoting the businesses which distributed such things. Today, we can distribute such things without those businesses; all that remains is to create a better way to utilize such technology. The law needs to be updated to ensure that the new, better way to distribute information is protected and promoted -- even if it means the death of the businesses that were promoted under the previous systems. The payment of artists is an orthogonal issue to the distribution of their works -- one that is going to require a different approaches for different kinds of work.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

but it is not "stealing" by any remotely logic definition of the word

One merely needs to look at actual definitions of to steal:

: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice

I gather the intent here is that copyright is not property, even though it is legally treated as property.

to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully

This definition doesn't even require that something be considered property.

It's pointless to make such an argument without even attempting to crack open a dictionary. Semantically, only countries which have a language which uses the word "steal" can have a definition of "steal", legally or not.

It's also worth noting that the term "intellectual property" has been used to describe things like copyright and such for a century and a half. Under that model/viewpoint, unlawful copying is indeed theft.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[ivrbobo]

until 1790, all our laws were case law, decided by judges

In order to prove your point, you would need to cite some case law generated during that period. The GP at least gave some concrete info.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Linsaran]

Most ISPs in the US provide an e-mail address with them. I suppose you don't have to check it regularly, but as with any business type relationship, it's probably a good idea to at least pay some cursory attention to alerts and things (besides advertising crap) that they send you, and e-mail is (to me anyways) preferable than actual mail.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[devent]

Nice quote. I think most of the people here did not reprinted anything in years. Also they would gladly pay 50 cents for every sheets they reprinted, zero times 50 cents equals zero after all.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[pongo000]

they know the "problem" is so widespread that it would take tens of millions of lawyers working around the clock and an equal number of judges, experts, juries, etc., at a cost of many billions of dollars to go after everyone legally

It's all fun and games until they choose you at random of which to make you an example. You might win the battle, but at significant monetary cost to you. I'm just saying...if you want to tweak the tiger's tail, make sure you've got the financial backing to back yourself up if the tiger decides to bite back.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Kethinov]

You *still* believe pirating is stealing, even after spending time on slashdot?

(If you didn't mean to say loot, that's cool, we all make mistakes, just say so)

Tell people here that you use GPL-licensed code in a closed-source product and see how fast you'll be accused of stealing.

Pirating a song has no commercial profit motive. Violating the GPL (in most cases) does.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It is stealing in the core, meaningful sense of the word. IP creates virual property for the exact same reason we have property rights: so the owner can, in a free society, take advantage of it without fear of someone just taking it like we were some hunter-gatherer society.

So, yes, you are right that it is not stealing a physical object, but it is stealing in the acual, meaningful sense of the word. You are violating the virtual property rights that were instantiated to provide the exact same benefits for the exact same reason as physical property rights.

I'm tired of this god damned semantic game about "it isn't stealing".

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[0111 1110]

And by that definition quoting someone on slashdot is also theft. Reductio ad absurdum. Also the use of the term intellectual property is pretty recent. I would say it wasn't used much before 1990. Besides, how certain biased people choose to use language has little to do with the law. Legally speaking copyright infringement is quite distinct from thievery.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Concerned Onlooker]

Yep. 99 percent of corporations give the rest a bad name.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[0111 1110]

Bzzt. Sorry. There actually is no such thing as "intellectual property". You can't own an idea. The can only own something tangible. Something physical. The whole concept of possession just doesn't work for abstractions like ideas. And there is no way to make it work either. Not even in a police state. Well, short of mind reading machines. If you want to prevent people from using your idea then keep it a secret. That is the only way.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Concerned Onlooker]

I would also propose that if anyone gets a notice of a $35 fine that they send the ISP a similar letter that states not only are they not paying it but that that they're also sending $35 to the EFF. And really do it.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[melikamp]

We've seen some of these alerts here. After ignoring half-a-dozen of them or so, I simply called Comcast and told them I am dropping them for RCN. The reason? 6 strikes. The lady on the phone did not know what that was, so I told her to google it and click the first link, and she did. So do us all a favor, folks: if you are dropping them now, give them 6 strikes as reason #1. Make sure the rep knows what it is. If there's one thing an ISP listens to, it's the reason why a customer leaves.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[czth]

Because having principles and being willing to stand by them must be insane, amirite?

It's not "piracy"; it's not "theft"; and it's not immoral although it may be illegal; it's "unapproved copying" at best.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[czth]

I have never used or checked an email address supplied by an ISP. I've been running my own mail server for ages. Many ISPs require you to actually set up the email accounts they supply (pick email names in their domain(s)), so they should know I hadn't done that. It's somewhat funny when they advertise X email addresses with an account, as if they're doing you a huge favor, given their near-zero marginal cost.

Side rant: while for much of the time I ran a mail server I had business class Internet with a static IP, but lately I've been running it on a residential IP, and it's retarded that some servers bounce mail because it's from a dynamic IP. Worse, though, are those servers that silently drop mail from a dynamic IP. I understand why they do it—because it's less CPU-intensive than, say, Bayesian analysis.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[0111 1110]

It's all fun and games until they choose you at random of which to make you an example.

IOW, for 99.999999999% of people it is all fun and games. That's called the safety of the herd. A principle that has worked for hundreds of thousands of years. It's true that some will be taken, but the likelyhood of any one person getting eaten by predators is actually pretty small. There are millions to hundreds of millions of people downloading files that infringe copyright right now. That's a pretty large herd.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[fredprado]

Thank you for helping with my case. Accordingly to the very definition you quoted it is obvious copyright infringement is not theft. You can't "take" the intellectual property of anyone (unless you are the government). Now you can apologize for being wrong and stubborn and leave us alone.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[0111 1110]

I don't agree. Talk is cheap. Let them actually kick you off the service first and only then go to a different ISP. Let them be the ones to make the decision that they do not want your dirty money.

I pay $120/month for my internet+landline service. if they kick just a tiny percentage, say 10,000 customers like me that would be 1.2 million dollars out of their pocket. I don't know how much the content industry is paying them for this, but it had better be a lot.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[rgbrenner]

Reading is difficult, eh? No one said fair use was made up... what girlintraining said was that she used to be able to copy things as much as she wanted as long as she did not charge anything for it.

That is not fair use. and she refuses to prove that it was ever legal.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[marcosdumay]

If you want to call that a "win"...

That depends on how much you get as compensation, doesn't it?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is... I don't reproduce a movie after downloading it, or add parts of it into a movie I'm making, and then sell it for profit. The standards are drastically different, and I feel that's a bad analogy.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention the current system if you pay for it DOES NOT WORK. Look up the "Wil Wheaton rant Dr Who" about he fricking paid for the Dr Who videos on Amazon only to find when he went across the border to fricking Canada of all places to work his videos WOULD NOT PLAY. what about all of us with netbooks? Legally there is NO WAY for me to watch movies without an Internet connection except by dragging a fricking battery sucking external DVD wherever I go. Will ANY of the media cartels just sell me a damn .avi or .mkv so I can play it on my netbook, or my media tank, or my PC when it doesn't have an Internet connection? NO!!

How sad that people will actually defend these douchnozzles when its the exact same shit that drove piracy in music, while you could get a standard .MP3 that would play anywhere on P2P the only format they would sell you was a DRMed up the ass .WMA that was constantly calling you a dirty pirate and refusing to play.

In fact I'd say the ONLY company that has gotten it right? Valve with Steam. with the constant sales buying a digital copy is frankly cheaper than a rental or paying for the bandwidth to download from TPB, it runs just fine with no net connection for i believe its a month but the longest I've been without net is a week so i can't be sure of the number, you get extras for buying like matchmaking,chat, and no longer having to deal with patches, in short they give you a REASON to buy from them whereas the cartels just say "Take our shitty service or we'll fucking spank you" while making damned sure to offer their content in such a way that's its in every way inferior to the pirated version.

Like I said though the bitch with this isn't the cartels, its the ISPs who would love nothing more than to have a legal way to just toss anybody that dares use even a third of what they pay for. mark my words the ISPs will give some "We support the American economy by fighting those that steal content" or some such horseshit when in reality they'll simply label anybody that uses more bandwidth than your average soccer mom a pirate and punt them. Sad that while we invented the net we're gonna end up on the short bus while the rest of the world is rocking 100Mbit lines. hell we are even getting stomped by Romania now.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Golddess]

To increase profit, at least 1 of 3 things must be done.
1) Increase the number of people you are accusing per day.
2) Decrease the length of time between repeat accusations.
3) Increase the fee to get rid of this pesky little smear.

They may not have to increase the fee, but I am skeptical that only sticking to the 1st and/or 2nd options would satiate their greed.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[mark-t]

You could always freely decide to switch ISP's if they did this. If enough people jumped ship over it, they may even change the policy.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Kjella]

Tell people here that you use GPL-licensed code in a closed-source product and see how fast you'll be accused of stealing.

Pirating a song has no commercial profit motive. Violating the GPL (in most cases) does.

That doesn't make it stealing, only commercial copyright infringement. The code is still there in the GPL software, it hasn't been removed from anyone's possession. Of course in common speech we generally use "steal" in many meanings that don't actually match the legal definition, like for example plagiarism is often referred to as "He stole my work" or it is used figuratively like "He stole a kiss". The irony is thick here because you're yourself using a word "pirating" which literally means "stealing at sea" to argue your point, in reality copyright infringement is neither stealing nor piracy. But now many of the pirates embrace the misnomer rather than reject it, trying to give it a Robin Hood aura - who was stealing.

In other words no wonder the legal system decided to keep their own definitions, distinct from all the strange things people call something. And in that system you don't get to call yourself a pirate unless you go out to sea, raise the Jolly Roger (this step actually optional) and start plundering. Meanwhile the copyright holders will call it stealing and the copyright infringers will call it pirating and in the end it only matters if people think it's right or wrong, this whole "likened to something else that people may or may not think is wrong" is overrated. It seems to me most people are able to make up their own opinion of this distinct from say shop lifting, and the MPAA/RIAA might not like the answer.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[mark-t]

Your plan could work...but it would involve specifically avoiding disclosing to anyone who might be in a position of professional responsibility to do something about any internet disconnection you might receive in the future that you were actually practicing the downloading of pirated content.

If you were as open about your practices with people who might be able to do something to prevent you from being so "victimized" as you were just here, I am resolutely convinced that it's highly unlikely that you'd find somebody willing to take your side in this matter.

I would consider, instead that you vote with your wallet, and simply not endorse an ISP that would cut off your internet for engaging in practices that you appear to consider so unfair and unreasonable.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[chihowa]

Side rant: while for much of the time I ran a mail server I had business class Internet with a static IP, but lately I've been running it on a residential IP, and it's retarded that some servers bounce mail because it's from a dynamic IP. Worse, though, are those servers that silently drop mail from a dynamic IP. I understand why they do it—because it's less CPU-intensive than, say, Bayesian analysis.

As irritating as it is to have to do this, you can usually relay your outgoing mail through the ISP's server. It will then appear to come from a "legitimate" source and won't get bounced.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[czth]

Thanks, I've thought about that but been concerned that they would reject it due to being from (meaning From header, not origin IP) a domain other than theirs. But I can always give it a try.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[girlintraining]

Occasionally someone will have the decency to say something like "hmm that's a good point, you've made me think differently about this" but real adults who can do that are rare. Most are just overgrown two-year-olds, fevered egos trying to save face as if they are fooling anyone.

Yeah. You've done that to me a few times. Like everyone, I very carefully looked over everything you wrote about ten times beforehand, and unlike everyone I admitted you had me. It's rare for me to get things wrong, and much more common to end with an "agree to disagree" stance, but... being able to admit it feels a lot better than being annoyed. Being wrong for me, once I'm over the initial shock of having tripped over it, is exciting and refreshing. It means there's something about the world that isn't known (to me anyway).

And what kind of scientist, geek, or technology person would I be if I didn't get excited by new, shiny things? :)

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[roc97007]

You are my new favorite person.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[BronsCon]

Drawing it out one step further, you keep your idea a secret, but that doesn't prevent me from having and using the same idea. There is no way.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[mark-t]

The ISPs will do everything they can short of disconnecting the user or harming their connection because all that will do is result in losing customers.

That's only likely to be true when a significant percentage of customers will actually consider another ISP to go to. Many people do not have a significant number of choices in which ISP's they receive internet service from... perhaps at most only two or three... unless they resort to dial-up.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[poofmeisterp]

... if I didn't do anything wrong. THEY should first prove I did.

"For $70, we will consider your idea."

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[poofmeisterp]

They can just increase profit by going "Oh, let's pick accounts daily and accuse them of piracy."

There, fixed that for you.

There, fixed that up for you.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[dnixx]

Step one: Collect underpants. Step two: ? Step three: Profit

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[SuperTechnoNerd]

So when you have to sell your house and or car to pay legal fees, where will you live? You probably don't own any of those things so you have nothing to loose. Don't get me wrong, I admire your zeal and your message, I share it. But then there is reality: paying thees men in suits which you (and i) loathe for the rest of your working life is another story. They will drag your face in the mud until you have no face. With that said, Good Luck and fight a good fight.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[BronsCon]

As long as the ISPs, owned by the content companies, act as dumb pipes, the content companies that own them lose paying customers. Since content generally costs more than the bandwidth used to transfer it, a content customer is more valuable than an internet customer, therefore it makes sense for the ISPs to drop their own customers if their parent companies think those same customers will become *their* customers.

Do I agree with it? Fuck no; I'm just laying out the business-and-marketing facts of the situation. Now, go pirate a movie so you have something to watch tonight.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[BronsCon]

GP is talking about Comcast. The *are* the content industry and they're fairly certain that if you aren't paying them $120/mo for internet, you'll end up paying them more than $120/mo for CATV. They're most likely wrong about that, but they don't know that yet.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

It works for someone.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[tqk]

This day is brought to you by collusion and RICO.

So, should we have a lottery to determine which CongressCritter will introduce a bill making open WiFi illegal? That is the only defence, yes? [An IP addy does not point to an individual person.]

I say again, boycott Hollywood; no-one really needs that shiat. Yes, I'm peeing into the wind ...

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[mark-t]

Warning... a TL;DR wall of text follows:

Stealing" can reasonably refer only to the unauthorized obtaining of a given resource. Whether or not the person or persons who had jurisdiction over that resource have actually lost anything of value because of it can be immaterial to that. Copyright infringement is stealing under that notion. However, this definition usually doesn't sit well with a lot of people.

So let's suppose that you decide to apply stealing to only mean the unauthorized deprivation of a resource to somebody else that they otherwise would have had. What is interesting, however, is that even in this specific context, copyright infringement could still rationally be considered stealing, as long as you as you consider resources that may not have any physical component (but assuming are of limited supply, such as network bandwidth, to give just one example) to be something that could reasonably be "stolen".

The reason copyright infringement is not usually perceived as stealing in this context, however, is that there is no widespread understanding of what anyone else is actually being deprived of. If the original copy still exists, what has actually been lost?

To answer this question, we have to go back to the origin of copyright itself... or, to be more specific, even further... back to before copyright existed.

In this era, all copying was done by hand... there were no computers or printing presses, and every copy of a work had to be painstakingly reproduced by hiring extremely expensive workers (slaves were not usually viable, since many were illiterate, and would not be capable of accurately copying text). This process was very labor intensive and often error prone. To that end, the originator of a work enjoyed a certain degree of natural exclusivity over his work on account of the difficulty for anyone who was not the originator to try to make unauthorized copies of it (it was expensive enough for those who were authorized, it was generally not viable for people who wanted to pirate the work). This didn't stop everybody, and some piracy still happened,. but in general, the natural difficulty associated with doing so tended to keep the problem of unauthorized copies in check... and again, to that end, the authorized publisher enjoyed a degree of exclusivity over their work. The reason that I am bringing this up is to establish that, at least originally, creators really had a form of natural right to control the distribution of their works. It was circumventable, but only with great effort and expense... and that tended to make the system work.

Then the printing press was invented, and it changed everything. Suddenly, copying something became much more feasible and affordable than it ever had been before, and there were no small number of content makers that were concerned about this.... since the existence of this invention could easily spell the end of the control they had formerly enjoyed over their works. Their options included to either self-censor themselves, and only publish a limited amount of their works, or to restrict their publications to a very selected audience, so they could retain a sense of control over the exclusivity that they enjoyed over where and when copies of their works were made. To encourage creators to publish more freely, however, and to thereby culturally enrich the society in which the work was published as a whole, the notion of copyright was invented... which was an artificial legal construct designed to preserve (to a limited extent) what the creator had formerly enjoyed. This gave creators a bit more incentive to publish freely, and utilize copyright, since it gave them the leverage they needed to ensure that any would-be unauthorized copiers could be discouraged from attempting it. It's important to note, however, that although the mechanism by which the creator's (or authorized publisher's) control over their exclusivity has altered, the net effect is relatively unchanged with respect to its impact on so

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[tqk]

It is stealing in the core, meaningful sense of the word.

BS. The copyright holders have lost nothing except a "potential" sale. There's plenty of studies out there proving that "pirates" spend a hell of a lot more than the rest of us buying legal copies.

This is a horrible, horrible way to treat your most prolific customers. This is a vile and disgusting way to do business.

Boycott!

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[unitron]

People who like copyright as it is today, would have liked slavery as it was in 1859. Every argument about the legality of IP law today, was made by apologists for slavery then.

So if somebody spends millions making a movie, their attempt to avoid letting you watch that movie without offering them any recompense whatsoever is the same as if they kidnapped you and transported you around the world to spend the rest of your life as a prisoner working the cotton fields?

Is it also immoral of them to decide not to have made the movie in the first place, since that would equally deprive you of a free viewing?

If you can't get something from someone else for free, that's the same as them taking something (liberty, labor, etc.) from you?

The above, of course, is a completely separate issue from "You're guilty until and unless proven innocent and you have to pony up $35 just to have the possibility of your innocence even considered".

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Jane Q. Public]

"Usually not."

Maybe not... usually. But I have a performance contract. I pay a certain amount per month for a certain bandwidth tier. If they were to throttle me, they would not be delivering on their part of the contract. Period.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[tqk]

Copyright infringement is about as serious a matter as parking in a loading zone.

You would think that. Well, until you watch a DVD and learn that there's a quarter of a million dollars on the line if you copy it and they catch you. I think that raises some fairly serious issues. Ie., your politicos have been bought, and you are legal cannon fodder for the legacy entertainment industry.

That kind of insanity makes me pretty angry, and I don't even "pirate." I'm resentful that such unjust stuff even exists.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[MrEdofCourse]

There really is no "defense" here. This is entirely outside of our legal system. Your ISP gets a notification, and they take action. You can pay $35 to "appeal" the "violation", but you're appealing to your ISP. My guess is what that $35 will buy you each time is entirely dependent on how much "competition" there is in your area. The ISPs don't want to lose you as a customer, but will take you down the 6 strikes path, especially if you're a heavy data user and not paying the $35 each time.

In their perspective, it doesn't matter if your WiFi is open. If it was, letter one will tell you to close it (along with instructions). If you were hacked or have a virus, your ISP will sell you protection. If your neighbor broke into your house and connected via ethernet, the ISP will gladly take your $35 for each notification.

Heck, if you were just randomly selected for extortion and nobody had even used your internet connection at all, the ISP will gladly take your $35.

What really sucks here is that a lot of free WiFi spots are going to close down. Larger ones like Starbucks may implement some sort of registration and ban policy, but mom and pop shops are going to shut down their WiFi (or sign up for hotspot service providers).

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[tqk]

Tell people here that you use GPL-licensed code in a closed-source product and see how fast you'll be accused of stealing.

If you hire me to do work for you, everything I do for you is owned completely by you. No contest.

If I do something for myself and incidentally release it to the world to use for free, and you take that free thing for yourself to charge your customers for my work, you bet your ass you're stealing!

Oh yeah, and you're a douchbag if you think that's civilized bahaviour.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Stirling Newberry]

The people who brought the slaves over spent enormous sums on doing so as well. Clearly abolition was a naked attempt to deprive people of their property.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[tqk]

Pirating a song has no commercial profit motive.

That's not true. I'm listening to Who's Next at the moment. I own a legally bought copy of it, and I've LOVED the damned thing for, what, twenty years? Thirty? Forty-one! Holy !@#$, I'm getting old.

In fact, I think I've legally owned both the LP and the cassette tape versions. Now, I can just go to YouTube and play it from there. I love this. "But my dreams aren't as empty, as my conscience seems to be ... Nobody knows what it feels like to feel these feelings, like I do ..."

You don't have to be like me, having bought two copies of the thing, to enjoy the YouTube copy, and I'm serving right now as the best advertising for The Who that they can possibly get. Free advertising from a WAAAAAAY (Holy !@#$!) satisfied customer!

"... pick up my guitar and play, and I get on my knees and pray, we don't get fooled again!!!!111"

HooRah! Woof, woof, woof! Piracy? What's that?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[crunchygranola]

...

The reason I say this is because they have operations in which to work out of already in this area. I'd bet if the law was not such a bitch there would be more competition. If not from these companies then from startups.

Don't blame "the law" (though the corporations are delighted that you do). Blame the natural tendency of large corporations to form de facto cartels, unless "the law" prevents it. The big boys aren't competing because they can charge exorbitant rates for mediocre service by unwritten "gentlemen's agreements" dividing up the service areas. And only a group of really deep-pocket backers can hope to form any sort of "start-up" against the competition of the likes of Verizon, Comcast, Charter, etc.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[tqk]

So, should we have a lottery to determine which CongressCritter will introduce a bill making open WiFi illegal?

In their perspective, it doesn't matter if your WiFi is open. If it was, letter one will tell you to close it (along with instructions).

Why should I close it? Because it inconveniences the Imaginary Property crowd? Fsck them; make me! I like to give free access to the net to those who can't afford it. And by the way (again), fsck 'em!

BTW, no my WiFi isn't open, but I'll defend to death those who do want to leave theirs open.

Isn't California supposed to be falling into the Ocean any minute now? What's taking so long? Damnit.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[tqk]

Are you aware that your initials spell "git"? Which is kind of funny, and pretty cool. :-)

If we're going to have a measuring contest over who can nitpick the best, I'm going to win.

Yes, you are. Rock on. Go git.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

And by that definition quoting someone on slashdot is also theft.

Quoting in this context is fair use. You can always contact Slashdot's parent corporation, Dice Inc., if you think you see a case of copyright infringement.

Also the use of the term intellectual property is pretty recent. I would say it wasn't used much before 1990.

Wikipedia notes several uses of "intellectual property", the phrase in English in 1845:

Only thus can ingenuity and perseverance be encouraged to exert themselves in this way usefully to the community; and only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man's own, and as much the fruit of his honest industry, as the wheat he cultivates, or the flocks he rears.

And in the "modern sense" in the constitution for the North German Confederacy (as "Schutz des geistigen Eigentums") in 1867. I gather it didn't become prevalent outside of the law on intellectual property until about the time you suggest.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

You can't "take" the intellectual property of anyone (unless you are the government).

You can "appropriate" it however.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[EdIII]

They would still be ignorant and incorrect to call it stealing, whether or not it is in their interests do so.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Sabriel]

Look, I get it... you're pirating material.. and you're telling yourself all day long, it's ok... this *used* to be legal.

But it's NOT true. If you want to have a reasonable discussion about copyright law.. then YOU NEED TO STICK TO THE FACTS.

Yes, let's. What was the legal status of copyright in the US before 1790? And as for the Statute of Anne, that was not the first copyright law. It was the first law in Britain that made the regulation of copyright the province of government rather than of a (government supported) guild and it should be noted that (a) the statute was lobbied for by the guild in question, to ensure their profits, and (b) that the guild then lobbied for extensions and expansions, and was variously successful.

Fundamentally, copyright (and patent) has always been about the control of the many for the profit of a few. All that's changed is the methods of coercion used in the process, but it's still coercion. That some cloak it as a "necessary" evil doesn't make it good, and I hold that it has never been necessary either.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[fredprado]

Nope. You can only make a copy. You can never take or appropriate the IP. Here the property is "something" as abstract as the idea that supposedly is owned. You can't take or borrow the property of the idea by coming into the possession of a copy. If that was the case anyone that legally bought a copy would have ownership over the idea because he has a copy. That is just one of the inconveniences of trying to extend ownership to things as intangible as ideas.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[rtb61]

Hardly call it spin, more you statement of fact based upon endless bitter experiences as a customer. Experiences that you know will be repeated again, and again and again and again ad infinitum. We live in an era of corporate lies and deceit as the norm, it just never ever stops of even fucking slows down. Snakes in god damned fucking suits are our corporate executives.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[dywolf]

internet big shot

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[dywolf]

if youre gonna nitpick a nitpicker, at least have the courtesy to actually point out the relevant parts. neither of your posts are relevant.
the important issue is that neither of you addressed the blatantly glaring fact that girlsintraining has no clue was constitutes "fair use".
of course, given that datum, I have to assume neither of you two do either.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[CastrTroy]

Sure, if you want to watch "specific film" then you may need to pirate because it's not available in your area or at all. But that's not my point. My point is that you can fill up all your free time with free entertainment. You don't have to spend a single cent. Even if you insist on paying for stuff, you still won't spend that much money. Unless you spend 16 hours a day consuming media you probably don't have enough free time to bankrupt yourself unless you purposely try to spend as much money on movies and other entertainment as possible.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[ShakaUVM]

> If they have to start giving up customers, you damn well better believe the ISPs are going to start fighting, kicking and screaming.

Not if they are "bad" customers that are torrenting heavily. The major ISPs been looking for ways to drop the top 5% of their data usage customers for years now.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

You can only make a copy.

You appropriate the IP by making that unauthorized copy. Hence, the label of "stealing".

IP may be a little more abstract than physical property. But the real difference is not the semantics of how you unlawfully exploit IP, but the ease with which one can do so. Copying illegally a work is just a little easier than copying illegally that work a billion additional times.

In the physical world, it's extremely hard to copy a complex physical item once, much less many times. And one need to come up with the physical resources to constitute these copies.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[fredprado]

Nope, you do not appropriate anything. To "appropriate" is to take property. In copyright's case the propriety is the "right to lawfully make copies" and you can't acquire this right by copying anything. This is not just semantics it is a deep conceptual and legal difference.

You, in your stunningly ignorance, confuse possession with property. Possession and property are directly related when we are talking about physical goods, on the other hand, possession and property are completely detached when we are talking about copyright for the reasons explained above.

So, no, you are just wrong and too stupid to notice it. By any definition you cannot classify copyright infringement as theft. It may be illegal but it is another infraction that is completely unrelated to theft.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[hairyfeet]

Yeah the 1% that own the ISPs and media cartels, works fucking great for them. they can constantly raise prices, never do shit about raising quality or having to worry about real competition, hell they can wipe their asses with $100 notes while snorting coke off the asses of $1000 a night hookers. too bad they numbers so little you could fit tham all in the average HS gym and have seats left over while We, the people get fucked.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[ipwndk]

Why do you even have trust in systems anymore? It is a long time since the law worked. If you're a problem, you'll be marked something that voids your rights, and you'll be prosecuted regardless.

Use the $35 for a safe encrypted proxy and ignore the police states interference in your private e-life.

Or save up for a lawyer. It's better to hide from big brother than to let it gather data on you however. It'll use it in any unfair way it can.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[RearNakedChoke]

It is stealing in the core, meaningful sense of the word. IP creates virual property for the exact same reason we have property rights: so the owner can, in a free society, take advantage of it without fear of someone just taking it like we were some hunter-gatherer society.

So, yes, you are right that it is not stealing a physical object, but it is stealing in the acual, meaningful sense of the word. You are violating the virtual property rights that were instantiated to provide the exact same benefits for the exact same reason as physical property rights.

I'm tired of this god damned semantic game about "it isn't stealing".

No its not semantics AT ALL. Copyright is like a platypus - it has a bill like a duck, a tail like a beaver, lays eggs and is venomous. That doesn't means its a duck. Nor is it a beaver. It is its OWN DAMN ANIMAL. Copyright violation MAY involve revenue loss, yes, but it doesn't always result in revenue loss. Now, actual theft, always results in loss. Copyright has similarity to physical things, but it has characteristics entirely unique. Yet you insist on pointing to just one aspect, pound the table and insist its stealing. That's like pointing to the tail of the platypus and insist its a beaver. Its not semantics. Its stupidity.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[cheekyjohnson]

Soooooooo.... we can each decide which laws are "reasonable" and break any we do not like... by declaring them "unreasonable"...

Yes. Very easily, in fact. The only requirement for doing so is that you have to be a living being capable of forming an opinion about something. Laws don't necessarily dictate morality, either.

So yes, it's very possible to decide that some laws are 'bad' while others are 'good' for yourself.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Inda]

I wouldn't ignore it either.

A simple letter back, yes I'm British, stating that I'd recieved their letter, don't agree with it, and will fight any legal action with great vigour, would be enough.

Big corporations have processes. Big expensive processes. Use them.

Internaly, someone delivers that letter, someone opens it, someone scans it, someone enters the data, someone has to follow the process through until the end. All that costs an expensive man-hour.

Or they bin it, which is also a result.

-------

Sub story... I got fed up with Tesco checking my 20 pound notes in front of everyone in their shop. Not once have I passed off fake money. Never, ever. I get offended by their acusations.

So I filled out one of their online forms, acusing them of passing off fake one-pound coins.

They phoned me twice and inbetween held an internal review and staff training exercise.

Cost to me - 3 minutes
Cost to them - over a man-hour

Do it.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

To "appropriate" is to take or use often without permission.

FIFY.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

Copyright infringement and theft are legally two different things, and the legal definition is what matters.

There are several things to note here. First, you depend here on the whim of a legislature for the "legal definition", who could change the definitions, perhaps to spite this very argument. Then what happens to your argument?

Second, there are a variety of crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, and counterfeiting which in themselves aren't crimes, but can and usually are committed for the furtherance of some act of stealing.

Originally, I wasn't saying that copyright infringement was stealing much less the legal definition of theft (though I did get sloppy and let someone move those particular goalposts without remark), but that "pirating", that is, acquiring and using copies of a copyrighted work without permission, was stealing. That is an act that goes beyond just copyright infringement.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[fredprado]

Exactly, which you can't possibly do with IP. Are you so dense on purpose or are you really this stupid?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

The original AC gave the example, "piracy" (of the IP sort). That would indeed be an example of copyright infringement that led to use of copyrighted material without permission.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Bardez]

On the first part, I think you got that backwards. The quote said that "you get an infinitesimal chance of not receiving mail from them again" Reworded: the change of you not getting mail from them again just became infinitesimal. You are arguing against the quote, and instead reinforcing it.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[bzipitidoo]

We have many different crimes, and while many of them are a form of theft, many are not: vandalism, assault and battery, speeding, rape, slander and libel, reckless endangerment, public urination, indecent exposure, trespassing, loitering, littering, jaywalking, and so on.

There are many different ways to view and treat data: ghostwriting, covering, plagiarism, and copyright infringement are some, but not all. Harrison's My Sweet Lord lead to an infamously long court case that concluded Harrison did not intentionally plagiarize He's So Fine. Another more recent case was the accusation that Men At Work's Land Down Under used a 1932 children's song Kookaburra. To really steal a song, you would have to take credit for having written it, without permission of the actual authors, and in such a way that the public believes you. Very difficult, but not impossible. What has happened is a massive theft of songs from the public domain by retroactively extending copyright. Songs that you used to have the right to freely copy and reuse were removed from the public domain. Another trick is taking some song from the public domain and making a new recording of it or even just a new arrangement with only one tiny change, copyrighting that, and going after people who use the original. Accuse them of copying your version instead of the original, and make them prove they didn't. Even though it is perfectly legal for everyone to use the public domain original, the threat is enough to effectively take the song out of the public domain. Sheet music vendors are always cooking up new arrangements to justify charging for copies of music that has long been out of copyright. If you aren't doing any of that, you aren't stealing songs.

With all these subtleties, why are you so hot to conflate copying and stealing? They are manifestly not at all the same.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[cgfsd]

I wonder if you paid the fee, then were exonerated. Could you sue (say in small claims court) for wrongful accusations and ask for compensation of the $35 back? If a person could sue in small claims court, that would really screw with a company. Most likely they would not show up and it would be a default judgement. The you could threaten to put a lien on their property, essentially extorting them! Profit!

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[fredprado]

Yes it would be an example of copyright infringement, which is illegal and prone to make you a defendant in a civil lawsuit, which has nothing to do with theft, which is a crime and can put you in jail. Even if you sell copyrighted material in a commercial scale you won't be charged for theft but for selling the stuff, or if you prefer legalese: "willful trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy on a commercial scale", which again, although being a crime, is not theft either (there are a few hundreds of crimes involving property besides theft if you are not aware).

Now stop being stubborn, admit you are clueless and go home.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[khallow]

With all these subtleties, why are you so hot to conflate copying and stealing? They are manifestly not at all the same.

If it was so obvious, then there wouldn't be arguments over this, would there?

I'm not particularly hot to do so. But when I see a large number of people come to the same erroneous conclusions, I speak up.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[anyGould]

I'm trying to think of any particular reason why I would ever pay the $35 - just keep an eye out for the when try and slip this into terms and conditions and call them up, refuse to accept.

That's assuming that you can't find a nice small-claims judge who will side with you when they throttle your connection (thus failing to meet their end of the service contract).

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[anyGould]

Agreed - and in today's world of bundling, you better believe that the competition will cheerfully take over servicing my account if my current provider started reducing service without cause (and "some third party doesn't like what I'm using my connection for" is *not* cause).

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[CodeHxr]

Except that VZ has probably squeezed some kind of anti-class action clause into their service agreements. It's all the rage these days.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Shagg]

But "innocent until proven guilty" is too inconvenient. Agreements like this are put in place between the Copyright Cartel and ISPs for the specific purpose of bypassing due process.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[hairyfeet]

Yeah the TEA party did SOOOO well, their reps got stuck in a corner and told to "STFU and cash the check bitches" and that was the end of that. The simple fact is YOU CAN'T CHANGE A CORRUPTED SYSTEM BY WORKING WITHIN THAT SYSTEM because its fucking corrupted duh! That is like thinking if you play 3 card monty long enough you'll find the lady, its just not gonna happen.

I'm sorry but all you can do is grab as much as you possibly can and wait for the system to collapse, that's ALL you can do. When people that can write million dollar checks are your opponents all the organizing in the world has ZERO effect, because whomever you get in there will be bribed before the week is out, you are playing a rigged game you can NEVER win, the only winning move is not to play the game at all and like the USSR wait for the inevitable collapse.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Nethemas the Great]

Pirating does not equate to a 1 for 1 sales loss and that is the general understanding on Slashdot. However, pirating does erode revenue streams of content creators as well as incur expenses for those facilitating the throughput. When you folks figure the world's content is yours to copy you're might not be causing a lost sale but you sure as hell are sh*tting on me and everyone else. My connection degrades because of your disproportionate use of capacity. The goods and services I purchase are encumbered and/or degraded because you've got content providers throwing in every kind of roadblock or speed bump they can dream up in an attempt to slow down if not prevent your activities. You've got politicians dreaming up all manner of intrusive, overreaching and unjust laws that create a dystopic environment for everyone.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[robsku]

I applaud you

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Nethemas the Great]

Ideas may be cheap to copy but ideas are not inexpensive to originate. The resources both tangible and intangible required to create them are just as real as a tangible good. If this were not true then they would be a near valueless commodity and not of interest as a subject for business pursuits. By copying an idea you are not depriving its author of the idea, but you are depriving them of a return on the investment they made to originate it.

It really doesn't matter that the language being used to discuss this subject isn't well fit for it. It is inappropriate behavior in a society that wishes to foster the development of new ideas. As a member of society that both produces and consumes I am offended by those that choose to rationalize and pursue a parasitic, greedy, and selfish lifestyle. I am offended by the burdens and consequences that you provoke upon us and I will surely not stay the hand of misery that will inevitably visit you.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[torkus]

But that's changing too. With legal streaming and torrent-based application updates (and installs!) bandwidth is climbing in a big way.

Heck, reimage your Mac and watch it eat several GB of bandwidth. Download WoW from scratch. Yes, those seeding a dozen torrents are gobbling up more than their 'fair' share. But if you're an ISP and don't want that...get a bandwidth cap. Suck it up, take the big PR hit, and do it. Don't hide behind MAFIAA backdoor regulation.

It AMAZES me that the MAFIAA, after being essentially kicked in the balls over sue-john-doe, decided that they not only weren't going to back off but were essentially going to create their own laws and legislation entirely separate from our actual legal system. They coerced the big ISPs into basically accepting a law that doesn't exist in any jurisdiction but the MAFIAA's court of corporate interests.

Am I the only one who things our legal system is enough of a joke that companies shouldn't be creating their own judicial branch?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Grumbleduke]

One merely needs to look at actual definitions of to steal:

to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice

I gather the intent here is that copyright is not property, even though it is legally treated as property.

to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully

This definition doesn't even require that something be considered property.

Firstly, either use legal definitions throughout, or don't use them at all. Otherwise you end up (as you have), selecting whether to use legal or vernacular terms to support your case ("it's taking property" - vernacular definition, "copyright is property" - legal definition). If we're going with legal definitions, though, we then have to talk jurisdiction.

With your first point - yes, copyright is often regarded at law as being property. Except that's not what is being taken. The copyright is simply being ignored. If I ignore your car, I'm not stealing it. Stealing copyright is, in theory, possible - copyfraud (dishonestly pretending to own the copyright in something and enforcing it, including against the real copyright owner) could be an example, but you really have to be a big record label or Hollywood studio to pull that off (and they do).

The second definition is a much more non-legal definition. So we can respond to that in the same terms. Copyright infringement isn't stealing (under that definition) because nothing is being "taken" or "appropriated"; it is merely being copied (although then we can get into the semantics of "take" and "appropriate"; your same dictionary gives "to take exclusive possession of " or "to take or make use of without authority or right" for appropriate, both of which bring us back to "take"; "to get into one's hands or into one's possession, power, or control", or perhaps "to transfer into one's own keeping" - I am obviously biased, but both of those seem to imply something more than copying).

It's also worth noting that the term "intellectual property" has been used to describe things like copyright and such for a century and a half. Under that model/viewpoint, unlawful copying is indeed theft.

The term has been around for a while, but it only really took off in the 70s, after a pretty intensive lobbying effort by the film, TV and music industries. It was their way of conflating copyright with "industrial property", pretty much in order to get the "it's stealing" comparison. That's also about the time the "Home Taping is killing music" and "Piracy is theft!" campaigns kicked off.

But still, no. Copying in breach of copyright still isn't theft, because the "property" part refers to the "copyright", not the information.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[mike4ty4]

Occasionally someone will have the decency to say something like "hmm that's a good point, you've made me think differently about this" but real adults who can do that are rare. Most are just overgrown two-year-olds, fevered egos trying to save face as if they are fooling anyone.

"MOST" are just overgrown two-year-olds -- do you believe this is a BAD THING? A very big PROBLEM with the world?! If so, do you think it is insurmountable, that this is how things must always be, or do you think they could be better, where 50% were real adults?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[uninformedLuddite]

In my country every time you buy blank media a part of the purchase price goes to the corporations to offset their losses from copyright infringement. I take this to mean that they have been paid already.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[uninformedLuddite]

And what kind of scientist, geek, or technology person would I be if I didn't get excited by new, shiny things? :)

A dead one?

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[uninformedLuddite]

I poke my tongue out at you and chant nanana

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[metaforest]

[scottish burr]
I am wearin' the Kilt ye insensitive fook!
[/scottish burr]

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[DirtyLiar]

They are a corporation, profits are never high enough...

Whereas a government, of course, would be satisfied with a certain level of taxation... right?

Guhwhaaaa?

Who brought up government?

AFAICT just you.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[bzipitidoo]

If it was so obvious, then there wouldn't be arguments over this, would there?

That's a typical fallback position of the "teach the controversy" stripe. The entertainment industry has done much to confuse the public, manufacturing this controversy over intellectual property. Yes there are arguments over it. Does that mean the issue is unclear? Not necessarily. In a way, I'm glad they've pushed the issue as much as they have, as it has ultimately cleared up many people's confusion. The more they push notions such as unskippable commercials, the more they show everyone how radical and nutty their positions are. The RIAA was voted the "Worst Company in America" in 2007, for good reason. See this. Over the years, I've seen a steady lessening in support for intellectual property rights. Every time a Sony pulls a rootkit stunt, or a TurboTax tries a boot sector mod that endangers people's data, or an RIAA member threatens an ordinary citizen for alleged copyright infringement, or Microsoft arrogates to itself the right to judge whether you are engaging in piracy and gets it spectacularly wrong as they did in Vista and with raids by the BSA, they convince a few more people to look at alternatives.

At the heart, this issue is whether a privileged few should be handed, by fiat, the power to impose a levy upon knowledge, backed by the full force of the government and law. And we already know the answer is no. If it were possible to control knowledge enough to make such toll collection workable, it would be very, very bad for society. Our technological advancement would grind to a halt. Thankfully, it isn't possible to control knowledge to that extent.

You could argue that's not the issue, and that the supporters of intellectual property aren't trying to go that far, that they are only trying to make sure authors are paid for their efforts. Oh no, they constantly try for the moon. They hardly trouble to make suggestions that are sane and reasonable. They do not have the moral right to do all these terrible things to prop up this system of compensation for authors. They should put their efforts towards setting up new business models, instead of trying to terrorize the public in a futile effort to maintain the unmaintainable. Like the Spanish Inquisition, they've gone too far, and more and more, the public is seeing that.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[Travelsonic]

(i.e., theft because you did not pay for content intended for sale)

So, if I get a CD as a gift, that is theft? I got it for free, legally [as it in o itself was legally obtained] - obviously you don't know what heft is... grab a dictionary, and read some law for fuck's sake/

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[KingBenny]

from what i read before about this i dont think there's any kind of legal action involved. It's more like a watered-down version of copyright trolling and probably the only reason they agreed to do it since they can make money on the fears of the ignorant like that

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[unitron]

The people who brought the slaves over spent enormous sums on doing so as well. Clearly abolition was a naked attempt to deprive people of their property.

Abolition wasn't about depriving people of their property, it was about re-defining property to not include other people.

You could have deprived slave owners of their property by taking their slaves away and handing them over to a new set of owners.

Are you contending that intellectual property is somehow being held in slavery?

In order to create a real slave, you have to deprive a human being of their freedom and future.

Expecting a return on investment when you make a movie isn't exactly the same thing.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[causality]

Occasionally someone will have the decency to say something like "hmm that's a good point, you've made me think differently about this" but real adults who can do that are rare. Most are just overgrown two-year-olds, fevered egos trying to save face as if they are fooling anyone.

Yeah. You've done that to me a few times. Like everyone, I very carefully looked over everything you wrote about ten times beforehand, and unlike everyone I admitted you had me. It's rare for me to get things wrong, and much more common to end with an "agree to disagree" stance, but... being able to admit it feels a lot better than being annoyed. Being wrong for me, once I'm over the initial shock of having tripped over it, is exciting and refreshing. It means there's something about the world that isn't known (to me anyway).

And what kind of scientist, geek, or technology person would I be if I didn't get excited by new, shiny things? :)

Yeah. I see it a lot like you do. Once I've committed the mistake, then I was in fact wrong. Nothing will change that. It's a matter of dealing with it like an adult and not entertaining this fantasy of myself as a perfect being who never makes mistakes.

If you want to be right so badly, that's how you do it, by correcting your wrongs. Not by lying about them. Then you slowly become more and more correct. In fact I think you are being modest/generous by saying I've done that to you a few times. You generally have your shit together. It's pretty rare I see you get something even slightly off.

I am thinking of changing my sig. I'll have to figure out how best to word it, but something like "the small-minded worry about fault and blame, while the wise consider cause and effect". One is personal and relative. The other is interested in what actually happened.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[causality]

Occasionally someone will have the decency to say something like "hmm that's a good point, you've made me think differently about this" but real adults who can do that are rare. Most are just overgrown two-year-olds, fevered egos trying to save face as if they are fooling anyone.

"MOST" are just overgrown two-year-olds -- do you believe this is a BAD THING? A very big PROBLEM with the world?! If so, do you think it is insurmountable, that this is how things must always be, or do you think they could be better, where 50% were real adults?

Well the problem is that when immature egos become the mainstream, they create a culture that encourages other immature egos and lets them live an entire lifetime without ever suspecting that maybe, just maybe, there is something better.

The minority who question are easy to disregard. No, I don't think it will always be that way. It will change voluntarily because people wake up. Or it will change the hard way, because the kind of society these people build is never sustainable. It always breaks and collapses horribly and must then be rebuilt.

Sometimes an alcoholic has to hit bottom.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[DirtyLiar]

It's also worth noting that the term "intellectual property" has been used to describe things like copyright and such for a century and a half. Under that model/viewpoint, unlawful copying is indeed theft.

Actually the corporations that will sue you for IP law infringement aren't suing you for copying or `stealing` the copyrighted material. They are suing you for `stealing` their lost potential profits that they assume that they would have received because they assume that you would have purchased their product. Plus the lost potential profits that they assume that they would have made from selling their product to everyone they assume that you passed a copy along to.

That is why they don't sue you for $45 for copying a $45 book, video, or program.

All corporations who sue individuals for IP infringement do not even consider a 1 to 1 loss (that 1 copy = 1 lost sale, and even THAT is patently illogical because everyone that gets a copy would NOT have purchased a copy otherwise), but assume that 1 illegal copy will result in multiple lost sales.

Re:I should not have to pay $35

[mike4ty4]

And what's the "something better"? And does this mean you're an "immature two-year-old" if you think there may be something wrong with the facts in the posts you're reading? That if you question it, or are curious about the facts, etc. then you're an "immature two-year-old"?

Ooor....

[O('_')O_Bush]

What's stopping them from extorting people by blanketing these notices and collecting $$$ for "reviews"?

Can I sue them for defamation instead?

Re:Ooor....

[PlusFiveTroll]

What's stopping them from extorting people by blanketing these notices and collecting $$$ for "reviews"?

Public insurrection.

Overturn a few cable company trucks in the town square and burn them, and the CEO/CFO's will think twice about this kind of shit. It will never happen, because most people think this kind of stuff will never happen to them. Most people also have no fucking clue that a illegitimate program can run under their user account, act as a vpn tunnel and download content from the internet. Good idea to make it lucrative for the 'bad' guys to frame the clueless when the clueless have to pay their way out of it.

Re:Ooor....

[jamstar7]

What's stopping them from extorting people by blanketing these notices and collecting $$$ for "reviews"?

Nothing.

Can I sue them for defamation instead?

Maybe, but unless you're Warren Buffett, they'll outlawyer you and you'll lose bigtime. Keep in mind these are the exact same people who claim that an IP address is 'positive identification' of a pirate's 'guilt'. This is just a way to scam up $36 bucks at a time off millions of customers, which will make them tons more money than spamming the odd hundred thousand customers to cough up a 5-10K 'settlement' since there's no paperwork or lawyers involved. All they'll ever have to show is a kindly-supplied logfile from your ISP showing 'unusual downstream bandwidth in use' and the judges will find for them if it ever comes to trial. For $36 bucks? Not likely. Think economy of scale.

Re:Ooor....

[Jane Q. Public]

"... and the judges will find for them if it ever comes to trial."

Actually, more and more judges have been ruling that an IP address does not identify a person.

As we saw here on Slashdot just the other day, the first "three strikes" prosecution in the Netherlands was thrown out of court on that very basis: all they had was an IP address. It could have been anybody.

And take a situation like mine: I keep my router open as a public service (as suggested by EFF)... and I have one of the strongest signals around. People on the next block over could be using my internet. I neither know nor care, unless they were to become abusive of my generosity.

Re:Ooor....

[jamstar7]

As we saw here on Slashdot just the other day, the first "three strikes" prosecution in the Netherlands was thrown out of court on that very basis: all they had was an IP address. It could have been anybody.

Doesn't matter what they do in the Netherlands, we're talking about ISPs in the US. You're comparing apples and hand grenades.

Re:Ooor....

[shentino]

Binding arbitrartion means you can't sue for it in the first place.

Re:Ooor....

[Tastecicles]

no problem, they'll just do a Jon doe and leaflet everyone who parks outside your house.

Re:Ooor....

[jamstar7]

Yeah, an IP address isn't enough, but an IP address with a timestamp is plenty.

No, it's not. And if you think it is, you clearly don't understand the issue.

Thing about it is, courts have ruled both ways, which tells me that judges are experts in law, not technology. Lawyer buddies tell me that 99% of winning a case is snowing the judge with the precedents that 'prove' your argument.

Hell, an Italian court just ruled that some guy's brain tumor was linked to his cell phone use. Science is still out on the matter, but the judge 'knows better'. Like I say, judges are experts on law, but their expertise doesn't necessarily extend any further, and in the case of IPs as unique identifiers, most judges aren't techie enough to have a clue. The *AAs have enough money to out-lawyer anyone. Win even a temporary victory against them, they'll come after you with intent to burn and loot. They have to, or their little extortion racket falls apart.

Re:Ooor....

[Tastecicles]

I beg to differ on your claim that judges are experts on the Law. I can tell you from first hand experience on many, many occasions that they are not. In fact, they tend to agree, without question, with the opinions given to them by the Clerks (who are qualified in Law).

Re:Ooor....

[Jane Q. Public]

"You're comparing apples and hand grenades."

I wasn't "comparing" anything. I just felt it was worthy of mention.

cost them $35?

[Anonymous Coward]

how much will be the penalty for being wrongly accused then?

Re:cost them $35?

[Skapare]

A Slashdot story about how they are bad.

Re:cost them $35?

[flimflammer]

A begrudging notice that they will no longer record that you are dirty pirate, however this notice does not represent their opinion that they were wrong about you, just that they're removing the entry.

I didn't know, RLY

[D,Petkow]

yo ISP, am I downloading warez? I am just running a TOR relay and I also participate in folding dem protein chainz, dem electric-sheep, dem distributed computing sh!ts. Oh, did i also mention I am running a public open WiFi Hot Spot and a proxy server for my friends in foreign countries, who cant access our local private warez sites, I meant linux trackers?? it wasnt me. it was the evil hacker next door, i guess. I doubt ISP's in Pridnestrovie Republic or other similar regions will comply, LULZ. Yawn.

Re:I didn't know, RLY

[game kid]

In your case they'd probably just add the $35 charge to your next bill plus $15 for the interpreter they'd hired to read that. :)

Re:I didn't know, RLY

[multicoregeneral]

Shit, I know whachu mean dawg. Jus cuz they be readin my packets an seein someonez downloadin dr who an homeland dont meen that I be stealin no pirate contentz an shit. Serisly its my brothuh. I cant controll what he duz wit my connectionz dawg. I dont wanna even know what he downloadin with his frends in russia. Shit.

Got one?

[CanEHdian]

Did you get one, or know anyone who received one of these? Visit the US Pirate Party.

Google Fiber

[moniker127]

Hey does anyone in Kansas City have a REALLY long ethernet cord?

Re:Google Fiber

[multicoregeneral]

I will, but they haven't come to my neighborhood yet. Bitches have only deployed it in Westport and the Plaza so far. So you'll need to talk to the smug hipsters and college kids.

Re:Google Fiber

[girlintraining]

Hey does anyone in Kansas City have a REALLY long ethernet cord?

Anything much more than 100 meters and it's useless. First, there's capacitive, inductive, and ohmic losses -- all of which eat away at signal integrity. But even if you cryogenically cooled it so it had zero line loss, signal latency still puts an upper limit of only a few miles. The ethernet standard has certain timing requirements and links become unstable, if not totally unusable, if the signal become desyncronized. There are other high speed networking standards that are made to go over long distances. Some of them could even be run over a several mile length of ethernet wire (if you were feeling more Scotty than LaForge). But basic 10/100/1000-BaseT? Forget it.

Re:Google Fiber

[moniker127]

I guess sarcasm isnt part of the ccna exam :D

Re:Google Fiber

[flyingfsck]

Must be a MSCE... ;)

Re:Google Fiber

[girlintraining]

Must be a MSCE... ;)

I'm neither, actually, I'm a BORED.

Re:Google Fiber

[Tastecicles]

Cat 5, Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat7 all specify a maximum unswitched segment length of 100m for x-BaseT ethernet over copper. Any longer and you're either needing some switchgear or relay hardware, or you're going fibre over 1000BASE-LX, and 1000BASE-SX, 1000BASE-LX10, 1000BASE-BX10 or the non-standard -ZX, of which 1000Base-ZX (single mode fibre at 1550nm) offers the greatest segment length of around 70km.

Re:Google Fiber

[GameboyRMH]

With a big satellite dish you can run wifi links until the curvature of the earth gets in the way. With OpenWRT the timing limits are adjustable.

Re:Google Fiber

[DanielRavenNest]

You may have posted that as a joke, but with unlimited bandwidth and low fees, Kansas City residents have an opportunity to become encrypted hubs for the rest of the country. It would go World > Out of country VPN > Kansas City > Elsewhere in the USA.

Re:vpn

[SuricouRaven]

There's Freenet, for the paranoid on a budget. Performance kind of sucks though, compared to torrents.

Legal groundwork

[EmperorOfCanada]

This is just to lay the legal groundwork for the music and movie industries. This way they can demand this list from the ISP and show that the evildoer just kept going in the face of legal threats.

Pretty dumb for any ISP to help to attack their customers. When will the media companies learn that going to war with your customers is not a sustainable business model?

Plus I torrent Linux quite often how long before they start threatening even legitimate torrent users?

Re:Legal groundwork

[Jerry Smith]

Plus I torrent Linux quite often how long before they start threatening even legitimate torrent users?

You just have to pay $35 every time you want to be able to use the word "legitimate". Pay for your innocence.

Re:Legal groundwork

[Jane Q. Public]

"This is just to lay the legal groundwork for the music and movie industries. This way they can demand this list from the ISP and show that the evildoer just kept going in the face of legal threats."

(A) It doesn't lay any "legal groundwork". They are simply notices that say someone else told them you were illegally downloading or something.

(B) The above point is important: the ISPs aren't informing the "copyright police", it's the other way around.

"Pretty dumb for any ISP to help to attack their customers."

Yep. It will eventually turn around and bite them in the ass. I suspect that sooner or later there will be some lawsuits, too.

Re:Legal groundwork

[Mitreya]

Pretty dumb for any ISP to help to attack their customers.

Not when they hold full control over said customers! I can't think of many companies that have so much of a monopoly

I live in a building that's wired for [some provider]. I don't even remember their name (goes through building management), but their shitty internet connection is all I've got.

Previously I lived in RI and internet was... Cox. Where getting Basic Cable + Internet was $5 cheaper than getting just Internet

Where are those customers going to go after being attacked? The ISPs could raise the prices until I decided to live without internet, so I suppose it was surprising that they only charged what they did and not more.

Re:Legal groundwork

[SuperTechnoNerd]

When has a corp. ever care about their customers? We are just tools. Another business "object". Here is the corporate breakdown in order of importance. 1. Share holders, and their interests. 2. CEO CFO, etc. Top brass. 3. Managers and marketing 4. Employees 5. Customers

Re:Legal groundwork

[seeker_1us]

It is in their business interests to threaten torrents of content that people have permission to download (e.g., Linux, independent musicians, movie projects like "Sintel." The copyright cartels business model is based upon "you want to publish your stuff? We own the channels. Sign over the rights to us and become our serf." Having an independent distribution vector threatens that business model.

Re:Legal groundwork

[tqk]

Where are those customers going to go after being attacked?

Starbucks, McD's, the airport, Plus 15 walkways downtown, shopping centres, ...

I can't wait to see the shitstorm happen when all of them are getting termination threats from their providers.

The first rule about

[networkzombie]

I'm using a VPN. I am very curious why they haven't complained about my bandwidth usage, which runs around 50 GB per month. Is that high or does it compare with Netflicks? I don't know, but my mkv goodness with no advertisements, censorship, or in-screen ads, is marvelous. I still go to the theatre but it feels like a total rip-off. My experience last month was the bright smart phone displays making it impossible to enjoy the film. You'd think they would fix that. Oh yeah, the popcorn at home costs about a nickel, with real butter.

Re:The first rule about

[arekin]

Before Comcast stopped enforcing their data cap it was set at 250gb per month, I think you're safe at 50gb whoever your provider is.

isn't this ...

[vlad30]

an illegal wiretap

Re:isn't this ...

[geek]

Only if the government does it. The contracts you sign up on likely cover this. Not that anyone reads them.

Re:isn't this ...

[Mitreya]

The contracts you sign up on likely cover this. Not that anyone reads them.

They'll probably put in an arbitration clause soon (just like eBay and PayPal are doing now). So no court recourse

And what choice do you have anyway.
I occasionally read these contracts, but if I find something outrageous, what can I do? When I sign up for something where I have options, I will cross outrageous things off or perhaps go elsewhere. But when it's the only game in town (ISP, both Apple user and Apple developer contracts come to mind here), I basically have to sign it regardless of how much I dislike it.

Re:isn't this ...

[mrbene]

No.

1. MarkMonitor goes to The Pirate Bay and grabs the .torrent files for today's top illegal content.
2. MarkMonitor has a farm of BT clients, all of which connect to the swarms as normal clients would, but that also log the IPs of all other members of the swarms.
3. MarkMonitor sends those IPs to the appropriate ISPs.

By participating in a swarm, you've made your information available to anyone else who joins that swarm.

There may be something that can be done with regards to "illegal to record my calls" in some jurisdictions, but it'd be a stretch.

Re:isn't this ...

[Tastecicles]

no company can ask you to surrender your legal/lawful rights under any circumstances. Least of all as part of a contract. Where this argument falls down is if you ACCEPT the contract, you also accepted the clause that you give up your legal rights. The company hasn't won; you've lost by your own action. Next time, try negotiating that bit out.

Re:isn't this ...

[Tastecicles]

wouldn't entrapment come in there somewhere??

Re:isn't this ...

[zippthorne]

I'd imagine that the monitor would have to have created the torrent for that, just joining the swarm doesn't necessarily imply that it's uploading anything.

Re:isn't this ...

[fnj]

That's actually pretty comprehensively wrong. First, a company can ASK you to surrender pretty much any rights it wants to. There's nothing to stop them asking, and a hell of a lot of companies extort a hell of a lot of concessions from a hell of a lot of little fish. However ...

Second, if you enter into a contract which stipulates limitations on your fundamental rights, depending on your jurisdiction that contract may well be ruled invalid if it ever comes to legal proceedings. So entering into such a contract does not always automatically end with your giving up fundamental rights.

Finally, and this is not a question of factual rightness or wrongness, attempting to negotiate an individual contract on your terms with Ebay, Comcast, Verizon, the electric company, the gas company, etc, etc, etc, is almost 100% guaranteed to be a failure. Your position with respect to the mega-corporation's position is so uneven as to be farcical.

Re:isn't this ...

[GameboyRMH]

And if the government does it, they'll just grant themselves retroactive immunity.

Re:isn't this ...

[tftp]

just joining the swarm doesn't necessarily imply that it's uploading anything.

Once you downloaded at least one block you are offering it for upload to others. It would be hard to prove in court that you connected to a swarm with a standard, unmodified BT client with the sole purpose of ... what would be your purpose, other than to share the material?

Re:isn't this ...

[Kjella]

Your best guide to entrapment. Basically if you're in a swarm, chances are very slim you'll find any entrapment defense since you were already predisposed to commit the crime. However in a civil case you may get some help from the unclean hands doctrine, they can't cause copyright infringement and then claim damages from it. They can only claim damages on things you did on your own.

Re:isn't this ...

[zippthorne]

Why would they use a standard, unmodified BT client for this? All they want is the address of everyone in the swarm. You have to be able to get that from the resources in the swarm in order to be able to request blocks from them. You don't have to fully download a block, or offer a valid block in return just to see the addresses.

Re:isn't this ...

[tftp]

Why would they use a standard, unmodified BT client for this? All they want is the address of everyone in the swarm.

You are talking about the monitor. Indeed, the monitor doesn't have to declare available blocks. But I'm talking about a casual BT user. Here is a quote from one of higher level posts:

By participating in a swarm, you've made your information available to anyone else who joins that swarm.

That was about a casual user who disloses his IP address to his peers. If one of those peers is a monitor ... too bad, you volunteered your IP address hoping for proceeds of a crime (so to say.) It's like walking up to a group of criminals in the street and offering some stolen goods for trade. A few accept your offer; but one of them is an informant, and you get arrested. There is no entrapment because the monitor (the informant) is a passive observer who had no communication with you.

Re:isn't this ...

[crunchygranola]

Finally, and this is not a question of factual rightness or wrongness, attempting to negotiate an individual contract on your terms with Ebay, Comcast, Verizon, the electric company, the gas company, etc, etc, etc, is almost 100% guaranteed to be a failure. Your position with respect to the mega-corporation's position is so uneven as to be farcical.

Ah the fantasy world of Libertarians, where every prospective employee of Walmart negotiates their employment contract on an equal footing with the $250 billion corporation. There is a very good reason that some of the richest, most powerful Plutocrats in the world are ardent Libertarians and have spent billions on "think tank" fronts (like the Cato Institute, originally named the Koch Institute) pushing this bizarrely implausible imaginary world.

NB: Few people seem to realize just how rich and powerful the primary pushers of the Libertarian philosophy - the Koch brothers - really are. Forbes gives them a low-ball valuation of $25 billion each, entirely excluding their ownership shares of Koch Industries (42% each). Since Koch Industries has an annual revenue of $100 billion, and the normal market valuation of an diversified petroleum industrial corporation like this when traded is at least twice its revenue, between them they own assets worth at least $135 billion.

Re:isn't this ...

[Slashdot Parent]

wouldn't entrapment come in there somewhere??

No. Entrapment only applies to the police, and even then, the definition is very narrow for a successful defense. If this was done by actual law enforcement (which it isn't, so the point is moot), to use "entrapment" as a defense, you'd have to show that you wouldn't otherwise have done the illegal act if it hadn't been for the actions of law enforcement. Basically, that you wouldn't have connected to the swarm if law enforcement hadn't acted in a way to cause you to do it.

Good luck with that.

Fairness

[Anonymous Coward]

If a customer feels they are being wrongly accused, they can ask for a review, which will cost them $35, according to the Verge.

My initial reaction was the typical knee-jerk thought that "innocent until proven guilty" has clearly been thrown out the window, but after further reflection I changed my mind. If you are accused of a crime in court you will end up having to pay legal fees. This is not that different. Reviewing the case requires manpower and the review is not working for free.

To be fair, the fee for the review should only be charged if the customer is found guilty. If the customer is innocent, then the accuser should be charged a fee. In addition to the amount for the review, the accuser should be forced to pay for at least one month of service for the customer, to compensate him for the inconvenience.

There must be deterrents against false accusations and none against proving one's innocence, otherwise this will be abused like DMCA takedowns.

Of course, I don't expect such a reasonable system to be put in place. The telcos just want to make money. They're only doing this to relieve the pressure from the content mafia. They know that even if it makes customers unhappy, relatively few will let them know about it and fewer still can actually do anything.

Re:Fairness

[arekin]

This is sadly not something you will be able to fight. Honestly I would never pay for this review because it will just come back the same and you will now be $35 dollars short. The reality is that their "research" is to use the same information that resulted in a letter being sent to you to verify that you pirated material (whether you did or did not). Ultimately you're screwed. Best means to fight it is to get a legitimate copy of materials you were downloading and claim that you have a license to own a backup of said materials. Not sure that this would work, but it is the best means I could imagine that you would be able to legitimize any downloads you have made. Course I would only do this if they say that they are taking you to court.

Re:Fairness

[cheekyjohnson]

If you are accused of a crime in court you will end up having to pay legal fees.

The difference is that this isn't a court case and should not be handled by ISPs. That's just asking for abuse.

Re:Fairness

[rjr162]

The difference is if you win in court the other party pays your fees (if you and/or your lawyer do it right since shit... The only reason you're there is because of a claim that proved to be false)

I highly doubt the ISPs are going to reimburse you the $35 if they find out you were "innocent"

Re:Fairness

[msobkow]

True, but when you defend yourself in court, it's your lawyer that's making the money. Someone on your side.

This is a cash cow that is just ripe for abuse by the ISPs, not a service fee.

To put it in perspective, I don't have to pay a fee to have my email unblocked should it be incorrectly flagged as a source of spam. This is the same situation -- defending yourself against an unproven allegation. And much like spam flagging, if it happens once, it's likely to happen again (because once a spammer starts spoofing your email address they'll keep spoofing it.)

Re:Fairness

[Hatta]

My initial reaction was the typical knee-jerk thought that "innocent until proven guilty" has clearly been thrown out the window, but after further reflection I changed my mind. If you are accused of a crime in court you will end up having to pay legal fees.

No, you were right the first time. Forcing innocent people to pay legal fees is an abdication of the principle that you're innocent until proven guilty. If you're falsely accused, the accuser and the state should be required to make complete restitution, including your time billed at an hourly rate that would make your attorney blush. Anything less encourages the law to be used as a weapon.

Re:Fairness

[PPH]

In addition to the amount for the review, the accuser should be forced to pay for at least one month of service for the customer, to compensate him for the inconvenience.

How about paying me for my time* to deal with this BS? Verizon et al are just hoping that most people will write off $35 as not being worth their time to pursue.

*Attorney's fees can usually be recovered more easily than one's own time spent on such matters. But then it was attorneys that set this system up in the first place.

Re:Fairness

[Lost Race]

To be fair, the fee for the review should only be charged if the customer is found guilty. If the customer is innocent, then the accuser should be charged a fee. In addition to the amount for the review, the accuser should be forced to pay for at least one month of service for the customer, to compensate him for the inconvenience.

No, to be fair the accuser should always pay. If the customer is found guilty the accuser has extra ammunition for a lawsuit, where they can recover that fee as part of the damages.

Re:Fairness

[scharkalvin]

Actually I I'm accused and found not guilty I might consider suing the ISP for slander.

DOWN-loading?

[Zimluura]

Probably just for uploading.

If this is really for downloading it's sorta scary as it bypasses the legal system for default guilty with your ISP. If enough people go to smaller ISPs after being gigged for listening to a song on youtube the big ISPs may learn to stop treating their customers with contempt though.

If it's illegal to DOWN-load copyright material without permission...well, in that case things are pretty messe.....err... Ahem, In that case I'd like to inform YOU that by viewing this message you've clearly illegally downloaded this message without my permission and you owe me 150000 usd (150000 per time you've hit the refresh button).

Re:DOWN-loading?

[_8553454222834292266]

Yeah. Why does everyone keep repeating the bullshit that this has anything to do with downloading. It's obviously about uploading.

Re:DOWN-loading?

[Slashdot Parent]

Probably just for uploading.

In the case of bittorrent, it's a little hard to download without uploading.

the customers will be asked

[Osgeld]

" the customers will be asked to acknowledge that they received the warning. "

and just how are they going to issue this warning? send it to your comcast.com email account that no one uses?

I had this same shit back in the dialup days with ATT, got a 300$ bill cause they wanted to change my unlimited plan to a byte limited plan, only notification I got was sent to my worldnet email which I never even knew the fucking password for ... a good cussing and a theat of suit made that go away with one phone call.

now they want to warn me cause I might download linux off of a torrent?

fuck you! lets not forget who pays your damned bills, and I am about sick and tired of crapcast as it is.

Re:the customers will be asked

[Dwedit]

They send you the warning by replacing http websites you visit with the warning message.

Re:the customers will be asked

[misexistentialist]

The dude parked outside pirating kiddie porn through my open router will probably see the message first and dismiss it!

Re:the customers will be asked

[zippthorne]

Probably put it on your next bill, and by paying the bill, you acknowledge receipt of the warning....

Re:the customers will be asked

[fnj]

Personally, I'd much prefer any warnings be sent to me via email. Email that is directed to, or forwarded to, an account on my own server which I control fully. First, that gives me plausible deniability that I even received the missive. But that's not the main point.

The main point is that I never even open any piece of snail mail unless it's something I ordered, or it comes from family or a recognized personal friend, or which I have reason to believe may contain a valid bill which I did not deal with electronically, or which looks like something legally important (hint: it better be certified mail that I have to sign for).

Re:the customers will be asked

[tepples]

now they want to warn me cause I might download linux off of a torrent?

I was under the impression that several Linux distributions came with Emacs, which comes with an illegal copy of Tetris.

Bresnan (now optimum)

[ski9826]

They've been doing this for years. Third strike, no more internet.

Re:vpn

[Mitreya]

vpn

How would that stop them from accusing you or charging you fees? An unusual or hidden traffic pattern may be proof enough.

Even more suspicious than downloading files -- because identifying file ownership is not that easy. But people hiding traffic must be doing something bad.

[/sarcasm], just in case.

Come On, Out With It!

[Jane Q. Public]

"I'm using a VPN."

Maybe you could do us all a public service and explain how we can get torrents via some kind of public VPN.

Re:Come On, Out With It!

[fnj]

You're kidding, right? Do we have to explain the elementary theory of networking to you?

Re:Come On, Out With It!

[Jane Q. Public]

"You're kidding, right? Do we have to explain the elementary theory of networking to you?"

You're kidding, right? You misunderstood my question THAT much?

I know how to use a VPN. My question was: how do you use a VPN effectively to download? You sure as hell don't want to use a computer at the office as your endpoint.

Re:Come On, Out With It!

[Slashdot Parent]

I know how to use a VPN. My question was: how do you use a VPN effectively to download? You sure as hell don't want to use a computer at the office as your endpoint.

Normally, you'd pay for VPN provider. Preferably, one that doesn't keep logs of its users' activities.

And this, I think, is the real crux of the content producers' strategy. Right now (or as of a few years ago), copyright infringement is free. You can do it all day and all night long, and maybe you get caught up via one of these John Doe fishing lawsuits, but the probability is low, and the lawsuits don't seem to be holding up well when the defendant enters a defense. You can't compete with free if you want to charge.

So their strategy is to make infringement cost money. Now, you need a VPN provider so your ISP doesn't cut you off. You may need to pay for (sorry, donate to) your torrent site, your filelocker, etc. Eventually, your average Joe is going to say, "It's costing me more than Netflix just to download all this stuff safely. Tell me again why I bother jumping through all of those hoops?"

This

[shentino]

This is exactly why we need competition.

Shithead companies that have nothing to fear will abuse everything they can to make a buck.

In fact, the strongest reason to support competition is probably how much they hate it.

Anything that pisses off the bad guys is probably a good thing.

Tell you what...

[Tastecicles]

...stick your fixed line contract up your arse. I'll find an ISP that DOESN'T do SPI, DOESN'T do traffic shaping, DOESN'T cap, and DOESN'T pander to Mafia interests! Oh, and offers BETTER SERVICE with no wires at ONE THIRD THE PRICE!

Re:Tell you what...

[fnj]

Good luck with THAT, Mr. Quixote.

Re:Tell you what...

[Tastecicles]

I already did it. Virgin Media to Hutchison 3G. Best decision I ever made.

Re:Tell you what...

[tftp]

I have done that also. There are many smaller, business-oriented ISPs that announce out front that they don't do port blocking and they don't do packet inspection. I'm using one such ISP.

In case all small ISPs disappear, being bought by Verizon/Comcast types ... well, that's a nice business to be in. I can imagine that a regular Joe from the street doesn't know how to set up an ISP, but the /. crowd is better educated in this respect. I cannot imagine that Freedom ISP (or whatever name you pick) will find no customers. It doesn't even need to beat the price of Comcast. Freedom is seldom cheap. But you get what you pay for.

Re:Tell you what...

[DigiShaman]

Better start packing and look for a new neighborhood to live in. Of course that new location my not grandfather you into a new contract they offer there too.

You may in fact already be behind the curve in your quest. Soon, everyone in five years could be chasing waterfalls too.

Good luck!

Traffic Court

[Anonymous Coward]

You knew it was coming: everything is mimicking the traffic court precedent.

Cop: Here's your ticket.
You: I didn't do anything.
Cop: Take it up in court.
Court: That will cost you $100.
You: But the ticket is only $80.
Court: U mad?

We did this. It is our fault.

Accuse everyone and profit

[flyingfsck]

1. Accuse all users of infringement
2. Collect $35 from all suckers
3. Profit1

Re:Accuse everyone and profit

[avandesande]

If you look at their perspective, it is a cheap way to keep bandwidth usage capped.

Re:Accuse everyone and profit

[0111 1110]

How? By getting rid of their customers? By convincing their customers to only buy their lowest tier of service? By helping competitors who are not part of this silly agreement?

Re:Accuse everyone and profit

[avandesande]

You are discounting the majority situation, that most users will just stop downloading torrents.

Welp...

[greentshirt]

It was fun while it lasted.

Re:moving over to a different ISP

[arbiter1]

Sadly for most ppl another isp won't be an option. for most its cable or DSL and most DSL is junk slow. lucky for me my isp wasn't on the list of isp's that bent over for this crap

Re:Welcome to America, Land of the Free!!!

[maxwell demon]

Well, the point is that freedom has been redefined. Formerly, it was defined as freedom of the people. Today it's defined as freedom of the market.

Spam and Viruses?

[DarwinSurvivor]

So where are all the "Clean your computer NOW or be disconnected." letters to the customers with computers infected by more viruses than a $2 whore on half-price Thursday?

Re:Spam and Viruses?

[poofmeisterp]

So where are all the "Clean your computer NOW or be disconnected." letters to the customers with computers infected by more viruses than a $2 whore on half-price Thursday?

They tried that and it didn't work, so they stopped..
Ooooh, I see where you're going with this one, you slick person, you. :)

Independent ISPs are not taking part

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

I was curious whether a major regional ISP was taking part in this clusterfuck, and found an interesting interview from August stating that the only ISPs taking part are AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon; independent ISPs are not involved and weren't even asked.

Relatedly, I highly recommend that anyone in the service area for Sonic.net (their CEO/founder was the one interviewed) use them as an ISP -- they're the only one I know of that has been persistently doing what we've all been saying we want ISPs to do when it comes to governmental & *AA demands and investing in fiber connections. No better way to show appreciation than voting with our wallets where we can...

Re:Independent ISPs are not taking part

[Gregory Arenius]

I use Sonic.net and have nothing but good things to say about them. When you call customer support you get actual people who live nearby and speak your language fluently. Reasonable prices and decent speeds. Maybe slightly more expensive than ATT, if you don't value your sanity, but not by much.

Cheers,
Greg

Who actually pays the ISPs

[ruir]

So, let me get this straight...they work for free for the music and film labels, and scam, threaten and extort money from the very own people that supports their business model and pays their salaries...sweet.

Re:vpn

[arth1]

Freenet is based on the false premise that cells are incorruptible and can't be infiltrated. Or that they will have what you want.
Only when you open it up by someone in your cell (trusted peers) connecting to people you don't trust and shouldn't trust do you get access to more than you could by simply opening a common share with your trusted friends.
And then you become traceable.

The old Freenet which worked on different principles was better, but still no panacea. For one thing it was even slower - sometimes by orders of magnitude.

It's all there in the Freenet FAQs.

Re:vpn

[Anonymous Coward]

An unusual or hidden traffic pattern may be proof enough.

Pirating? No, I'm conspiring for a terrorist attack, your honour.

trickle-down justice

[PopeRatzo]

"Pay us $35 to prove you did nothing wrong."

Corporations are the government too, my friend.

Re:Innovative solution

[causality]

How about not overspeed in the first place?

How about not punishing people for such a ridiculous thing in the first place? Expecting people to be perfect is ludicrous and destroys respect for both the law and police officers.

That bird flew away from the nest a long time ago.

Ever since about 1980 there was a movement in law enforcement called "proactive policing". Prior to that, police were much less aggressive in terms of actively trying to find violations themselves. Other than regular patrols, they tended to come only when called. They try much harder now to look for trouble, to nail you for every little technical violation they can write up.

Believe it or not, a couple of generations ago the general attitude was "the police officer is your friend, if you have a problem go find a cop and he will help you". People believed in it, expected it, and it worked. The relationship now is much more adversarial because the police don't see us anymore as a community they are serving, like they once did (believe it or not). They see us as potential tickets and arrests to pad out their performance records. That's what proactive policing has done.

Incidentally, a lot of license plate scanners, GPS trackers, infrared scanners, and other surveillance tools local police are implementing are actually being funded with federal money. Most of the 1984 bullshit is coming from the federal government, not your local elected sheriff. Of course for their part, the local cops are only too happy to get all the new toys...

The customer is always wrong

[dcollins117]

When companies are small, they actually want to attract customers. For example, small banks still give out incentives to open up accounts, something like a toaster or a few bucks in your account if you stick with them for six months. To small companies, "The customer is always right."

Large companies have lost this ethic. That's why you see big banks piling fees on top of fees just for the "service" of giving them your money, which is really in effect just an interest-free loan.

I'm heartened to see many people taking their money out of bigger banks and into their local, smaller banks. Quite soon, I predict, people will start switching away from the large ISPs. It can't happen soon enough, IMO.

Torrenting?

[wisnoskij]

I wonder how they will "know" who is torrenting and who is not.It would take a lot of work to monitor everyone for copyrighted content.

They may just go the easy way and consider everyone who torrents much as pirating.

Re:Torrenting?

[mrbene]

The MarkMonitor company that is referenced has a service called "Brand Protection" which:

Efficiently detects piracy across the Internet by simultaneously monitoring millions of P2P users across all major networks, streaming sites, auction sites, blogs, exchanges, websites and online forums

reference.

Given sufficient demand, someone will do a lot of work.

"Thought to be pirating"

[nurb432]

Nice they wont actually look for evidence before they stick it to you. But this was by design, as the legal cases were not doing so good, where they had to actually prove something to a jury or judge. Here, in the commercial world they have free reign to do whatever they want. At least until ( if ) the ISPs are declared virtual monopolies in their respective coverage ares and/or this is considered collusion. Or if internet service is declared a right. ( dont laugh, some legislature types believe this )

I wonder what will trigger the notices in reality ( not what they say, as i dont buy it ). A simple connection to a 'bad IP', data traveling from a confirmed source, or just bandwidth use over an 'assumed legitimate user' level....

Also, how does one actually prove they didn't do something when they do want to pay the fine, errr fee, to contest. And i assume you get your $ back after you show you are not infringing? Sounds to me like just one hell of a racket they are setting up here.

Re:Innovative solution

[shiftless]

How about not overspeed in the first place?

How about not being an arrogant prick who thinks he is allowed by the Constitution to tell other people how fast they should go? Hint: you're not.

Send the link to your congresscritter...

[rcharbon]

... with a message asking them: " In today's world, where commerce, and a person's ability to apply for jobs, pay bills, get an education, and participate in our democracy depends on their ability to access the Internet, what are you doing to head off these attempts to cut off that access without due process?"

Re:Your sig

[Jaknet]

Off topic I know. Not sure how to pm

In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run..

Unfortunately the UK is a good (bad) example of government appeasing media as in Daily Mail hysteria campaigns. Media is corporation control of the masses

Re:vpn

[SuricouRaven]

More accurately, Freenet is based on the premise that *most* cells are incorruptible without detection. It's designed on the assumption that a potential attacker would be able to control a number of nodes, but that controlling the number required to allow detection would be both cost-prohibitive and noticeable. Tracing an upload on freenet would require the resources of an intelligence organisation. Common pirates simply aren't worth that kind of trouble.

Remember, you don't have to be untraceable. You just have to be more expensive to trace than your capture would be worth.

Re:vpn

[GameboyRMH]

Don't forget torrents over I2P. Good luck tracking that, media cartels.

Don't confuse the issue, troll

[Anonymous Coward]

We can make a moral distinction between copyright and copyleft.

ISPs throwing away money

[0111 1110]

Somehow the content industry has convinced the ISPs to give up a large percentage of their customers. We'll just have to wait and see how effective this is.

This new measure will be effective within the borders of the United States if and only if:
1. The majority of the ISP's customers never torrent or infringe copyright online. It would be funny if some ISPs were willing to actually go out of business to help enforce copyright law.
2. The ISPs are willing to lose at least some amount of money.
3. No other ISPs are willing to cross the picket line by not being part of this.
4. The ISPs are willing to prevent known infringers from just signing up again.
5. People don't simply sign up for a VPN just before their ISP kicks them off.

It just so happens that one of my local choices for broadband ISPs (I have at least 3) is not a part of this agreement. I pay around $1400 per year for my internet service. If my ISP doesn't want me as a customer I'll just switch to the local ISP that is not a part of this ridiculous one sided agreement. It will be interesting to see if ISPs even try to enforce this in areas with competitors who are not part of the agreement.

Re:ISPs throwing away money

[MrEdofCourse]

Actually, I think this extortion plan will have a huge impact. It won't stop torrents, but it will severely set things back a few levels.

I'd expect many free wifi hotspots to shut down, while larger places like Starbucks institute a registration and ban policy.

I also expect that a lot of parents will kid notifications about activity that they will rightfully or wrongfully blame on their children and then lock things down.

I think a lot of fence-sitters will also stop torrenting.

I don't think many will get dropped from ISPs, but look at the warning system. It's something that gets progressively painful. So even someone who is single and in charge of their ISP account will be coerced into changing their behavior.

This is where VPN comes in. I haven't noticed any VPNs raising their rates or marketing based on this new policy, but I'll bet they do see more business soon, as well they should.

VPN for the win.

I've been using Boxpn and it works very well... highly recommended.

"Thought to be pirating" = Open WiFi DIES

[bussdriver]

I have an open WiFi, few people use it but I don't care it doesn't reach that far. So now I can get warnings and kicked off because I'm kind enough to share WiFi.

I could take down neighbors by using their WiFi...and purposely download monitored content.

I remember people being upset at the government illegally monitoring everybody which included internet not just phones. Now we have private industry doing it all on their own and people are not getting upset? They have to wiretap your internet to figure out what you are doing... (well, technically they don't have to but since nobody cares they may as watch all your traffic... as long as the government is not doing it nobody cares I suppose.) We need lawsuits. These blanket agreements everybody forces now saying you wave your rights to sue is total BS, that has to be shot down too.

Freedom to choose within the provided options

[bussdriver]

You are free to consume; therefore, you are free. If you do not consume you do not matter and we can ignore you exist. starve to death for all we care. You are not a person, you are a consumer; people are corporations and humans are consumers.

Most politicians even think about consumers and sometimes say it but most the time they just call consumers "voters" but it is no different; the current business worldview is required to get into office. Remember, they sell themselves to consumers using the same marketing companies and techniques as products and services. The winner sells the most hope not just by votes but also by raising money. The biggest difference is that false advertizing is a CRIME while false political advertizing is the totally legal norm.

Poor people don't consume. So they don't exist. If they voted there would be laws making it extremely difficult...oh wait, we already have those and blame the "lazy" poor people for not voting. Dehumanize them a little bit and nobody minds them being discriminated against.

Class action

[Kernel Kurtz]

Suing them on your own is beyond the financial ability of most people.

However, if they do this to enough people - legion, as it were - it becomes a lot easier to take them on.

Re:vpn

[SuperTechnoNerd]

It's just a matter of time until VPN's and other protocols become "illegal" . If you want privacy you must be doing something bad..

Expansive interpretation of the Copyright Clause

[tepples]

If a law is not within the confines of that grant of power, it is unconstitutional.

Except the Supreme Court has given an expansive interpretation of "the confines of that grant of power". The Supreme Court has deferred to Congress on whether a particular act "promote[s] the Progress of Science and useful Arts". The Supreme Court has ruled that "limited Times" may be extended indefinitely, so long as each extension is finite. The Supreme Court has ruled that "their respective Writings" include nonliteral elements.

$99 per year

[tepples]

What the Shareware Concept and associated licence does in these days of wireless broadband and "What's a CD-ROM?" is reduce the cost of distributing software attached to it, to almost zero. [...] There's no effort involved anymore, and that is what is scaring the SHIT out of the big vendors and the associatives - their business model is COMPLETELY OBSOLETE.

Which is why the big vendors have set up cryptographic locks on their hardware and software platforms that allow them to extract $99 per year or more from each redistributor.

Re:Expansive interpretation of the Copyright Claus

[Stirling Newberry]

"It's Marshall's ruling, let him enforce it."

Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matters

[tepples]

copyright infringement could still rationally be considered stealing, as long as you as you consider resources that may not have any physical component (but assuming are of limited supply, such as network bandwidth, to give just one example) to be something that could reasonably be "stolen".

Network bandwidth has a physical component, namely the space occupied by your packet in the wires at any given time. When you subscribe to an Internet connection, you are renting space in wires, just as someone who rents an apartment rents the space in a building. This makes network bandwidth a bad example of something with no physical component that can be "stolen". I'd be willing to examine other examples as you find them though.

Copyright, however, is not that significantly changed from its inception. Its duration has been changed

In my opinion, which doesn't matter, the change in duration by an order of magnitude changes the character of copyright substantially. Under the original 14-year law, the copyright in a work of authorship was like the patent in an invention today: long enough to give the author the first mover advantage but short enough to allow a counterpart to generic drugs while the work is still relevant. Nowadays, copyrights are handed down from generation to generation as an heirloom, and for a lot of works, nobody knows who owns the copyrights after numerous corporate acquisitions and the like.

The President is on board

[tepples]

That was a quotation attributed to President Andrew Jackson, who disagreed with the Supreme Court on a territory dispute between the State of Georgia and the Cherokee Nation. On the other hand, U.S. presidents appear to be fully on board with the expansion of copyright. President Clinton, for example, signed both the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 instead of sending them back to the House and Senate for a roll-call vote. Sure, the bills would likely have still passed, as they had originally been passed through unanimous consent procedures whose 80 percent assent requirement exceeds the 67 percent needed to override the presidential veto. But in that case, the yeas and nays entered on the journal of each house (U.S. Const. I.7.2) would have given the public a clue as to whom to vote out.

But more generally, how are injunctions against the Attorney General enforced?

Re:The President is on board

[Stirling Newberry]

I'm fully aware of where the quote comes from, you seem not to understand what it means.

Re:The President is on board

[tepples]

you seem not to understand what it means.

Then could you please explain what it means? For example, are you trying to claim that injunctions against the Attorney General cannot be enforced?

Re:The President is on board

[Stirling Newberry]

I have already explained, but I know that you will not understand, because your paycheck depends on your not understanding it.

Song of the South

[tepples]

they won't spend $5 to rent a 2 hour movie from the internet

Where can I rent the film Song of the South through the Internet?

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[mark-t]

Network bandwidth has a physical component, namely the space occupied by your packet in the wires at any given time

Actually, it does not take up any space at all. The electrons take up space, but the electron count is going to be (roughly) the same regardless of the data that is pushed through the wire. The only thing that really changes with the data is the frequency or amplitude of particular EM oscillations which propagate through the wire, which always takes up exactly the same amount of physical space whether you are transmitting nothing at all or flooding your wires with data. The rate at which we can sample those vibrations with a certain reliability from a medium determines the actual digital bandwidth capabilities of the medium, not the physical space that the vibrations take up.

Re:Your sig

[myowntrueself]

Off topic I know. Not sure how to pm

In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run..

Unfortunately the UK is a good (bad) example of government appeasing media as in Daily Mail hysteria campaigns. Media is corporation control of the masses

You will find that this is true in most democracies. In a democracy the people who hold true power are the ones who shape voting behavior. Since advertising works the end result of a democracy is that the people who control the advertising control the government. There is nothing that a democratically elected figure fears more than the media. Therefore the people who are elected are not the ones with real power but are figureheads. Democracy ends up being a cover, a sham, theater.

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[fredprado]

When you buy bandwidth you are buying a service with limited capacity. When you take part of the capacity you actually deprive the seller of this capacity in the same exact proportion. Bandwidth is a physical entity easily measurable and that can actually be stolen. IP can never ever be stolen, no matter how many copies of the idea you make.

Sure by making copies you can undermine the value of the property but in a very indeterminable way and the ownership itself is unaffected no matter how many copies you make. The ownership in this case has nothing to do with the physical possession of copies, unlike your bandwidth example.

The lesson to be learned here is that analogies are always wrong. Try to make arguments without using them and you will see how much clearer the world becomes.

Open Source More Movie Technology

[Baldrson]

The response should be to open source more of the movie magic technologies and put the goddamn studios out of business once and for all.

Still renting a wire

[tepples]

The only thing that really changes with the data is the frequency or amplitude of particular EM oscillations which propagate through the wire

And at any time, each endpoint of a wire is dedicated to one set of oscillations (or at least one set on each EM frequency band). An ISP subscriber rents a set of time slots in which to make such oscillations. Renting a wire is just as rivalrous as renting a car, albeit a lot more divisible.

The rate at which we can sample those vibrations with a certain reliability from a medium determines the actual digital bandwidth capabilities of the medium, not the physical space that the vibrations take up.

Then you're also renting time on the routers and switches to sample the vibrations in which your packets are encoded.

Re:Still renting a wire

[mark-t]

Then you're also renting time

I'd agree with you on this point, and while certainly a limited resource, I'm having a hard time seeing how you'd call it something that has a physical component to it.

How they are probably doing this...

[mindmaster064]

I would speculate that they are not using any type of sniffing/firewall monitoring to do this due to the volume of the traffic (it would just tank modern implementations..) so they are probably using their DNS servers + some sort of transparent proxy to do it (just so they can piece together URL). Basically, I doubt this will work if you use your own DNS server (which I do at home for this reason... generally not good for providers to see your DNS anyway...) since they would have to use selective monitoring such as this to avoid legal problems. If they never see you hit up the pirate bay then they probably aren't monitoring the rest of the communication at all.

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[mark-t]

I wasn't making an analogy... it was an example... An example of something that takes up no space.

We perceive data because that is how we interpret those EM vibrations, but they are there, regardless of how we manipulate them, and they do not take up any more or less space because of it.

If I shine a red light at your face, am I somehow taking up more space with the red photons (which do have a longer wavelength) than I am if I shine a blue light? You can interpret one as 1, and one as 0. They take up the same amount of space, regardless.

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[fredprado]

So it was an example totally unrelated to the subject at hand, which adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. The main difference between theft and copyright infringement is that the in the first you are depriving the victim of a known and measurable property by transferring it to your possession, while in the latter you are subtracting nothing and simply undermining his ability to profit in a very indeterminable way, and the "property" is left untouched.

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[mark-t]

No... the subject at hand was paying for something that doesn't have any physicality to it. Bandwidth is related to the rate at which we can sample the em waves that we receive, and is a limited commodity that is entirely unrelated to the physical space that those EM waves actually occupy, which is what the poster who had responded to me appeared to be asserting.

Welcome to little brother

[sjames]

You get many (but by no means all) of the bad effects of government oppression but none of that PITA democracy or 'Constitutional rights'

The *AA couldn't get a law passed due to strong public opposition so they apply pressure to a few corporations and BAM. The results are indistinguishable from a new law being passed.

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[fredprado]

Bandwidth is a physical entity, as explained to you more than once. You rent part of the physical capacity to transfer data, which is limited, very physical, very concrete and very measurable, but you are just too stubborn to even read it, apparently. Therefore there is absolutely nothing abstract in your example.

Timeshare on a lakefront cottage

[tepples]

A timeshare on a lakefront cottage is physical because the cottage is physical. Likewise, a timeshare on a wire or router is physical because the wire or router is physical.

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[mark-t]

Of course there's physical components involved in data transfer... But my original point was about how data bandwidth is a limited resource, and it is because of limitations on technology to pump more information into a given unit of time that limits that bandwidth, forcing it to be finite, not because of how much physical space the physical components which are involved might take up.

That said, there is a mathematically calculable theoretical maximum bandwidth for any data transmission that is a function of the wavelengths used, but technology isn't anywhere close to being able to make that a factor.

What kind of notice?

[Kazoo the Clown]

Giving notice for pirating is one thing. But when they start giving notice for using TOR, because they THINK you MIGHT be doing something illegal, we have a problem. I'm afraid that will be next.

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[fredprado]

Either way, no matter how much technology advances it will always be a limited physical resource of which appropriation can be measured with precision and represents a denial of exactly the same resources to the owner. And no, your original point was not about limited resources, it was about the possibility to apply the concept of theft to abstract property. The example provided, bandwidth, is inapplicable as an example of this "abstract theft", because it is not abstract in the least.

Truth is, there can be no such thing as abstract theft, period, and your wall of text was basically a lot of nonsense based on false premises.

Re:Bandwidth is a bad example; why duration matter

[mark-t]

What false premises? Be specific.