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Music Publishers Sue Cox Communications Over Piracy
wabrandsma (2551008) writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica:
BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music have sued Cox Communications for copyright infringement, arguing that the Internet service provider doesn't do enough to punish those who download music illegally.
Both BMG and Round Hill are clients of Rightscorp, a copyright enforcement agent whose business is based on threatening ISPs with a high-stakes lawsuit if they don't forward settlement notices to users that Rightscorp believes are "repeat infringers" of copyright. In their complaint (PDF), the music publishers also decided to publicly post IP addresses.
What do you suppose they think would be "enough" to punish copyright violaters? (Maybe they could start by using proper terminology?)
Copyright is supposed to be a first-party concern and rightsholders seem uniformly determined to make other people do their dirty work (without even getting paid).
They're doing this because Rightscorp's current "threaten to pay with no proof" business model has become too risky - they've heard the rumblings about class action suits. Of course, since Cox isn't hosting the files in question, their liability is the same as the phone company's when someone calls someone else to make a death threat. Common Carrier.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Take your extortion game and suck it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Rightscorp can't claim the subscriber is actually infringing their customers copyright, as their software tool can simply see if the information is available from the host in question but it cannot tell anything else about it. They have no way to know that anyone other than their self has actually downloaded the information in question. They can only guess and I hate to say it but you can't sue over speculation.
54,000 claimed infringements over 64 days sounds like a lot, but it's basically just under once per second, and claiming each time is another incident of infringement. So basically their software is constantly checking the ip, and this could be argued constitutes theft of service since both Cox and the customer in question pays for the bandwidth.
As for them downloading the information themselves, since the tool and the company that runs it is authorized by the copyright holder to search for and access their copyrighted files one could easily argue that no actual infringement taking place.
I also think Cox should establish a reasonable handling charge for investigating and dealing with these automated complaints, I think 10$ per complaint sounds about right. So 54,000 x $10 = $540,000. Plus attorney fees and costs for this frivolous lawsuit.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Then how about you fire your lawyers and hire some TALENT instead of just T and A?
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
I'm seeding torrents of the latest releases of a couple of Linux distros right now. Not piracy. KFGY.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Rightscorp is arguably afraid ISPs will refuse to cut off people under the DMCA unless a judge has ruled in a legitimate court proceeding that the person has infringed multiple times. They now propose to saddle ISPs with massive, expensive and interminable legal proceedings unless the ISP agrees to cut people off on mere accusation.
davecb@spamcop.net
it's high time you fucked off, bittorrent like any other tool is vulnerable to abuse, that doesn't mean it should be outlawed. Might as well outlaw cars, screwdrivers and hammers while you're at it since they've actually been used as offensive weapons to lethal effect on many occasions.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
People still download music?
Wrong. It's purpose is to distribute content. That it's alleged main purpose being is to facilitate piracy is only accurate to the extent that the content that people seem to actually want to distribute happens to be pirated. Before bitorrent, people were using ftp. Before that, they were downloading from dial-up bulletin boards. Before that, they were photocopying books and before that they were manually copying stuff by hand.
Piracy has been around for as long as copyright itself... it is not driven by the availability of tools that might accomplish it, it is driven by much more fundamental aspects of human nature.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The #1 piracy tool
Does AOL exists today? Would you tell me the truth?
Neither of the NetBSD 6.1.5 torrents I'm seeding (for the last several days) is "pirated". Torrents are an accepted distribution practice for a wide range of software.
Problem is any actor with money who wants it is able to extract a more or less complete picture of activity occurring on bit torrent.
The system as it exists today is simply too open and too transparent creating a lightning rod from intelligence being wielded to justify all manner of legislative unpleasantries.
If exposure issues are not fixed in bit torrent eventually we will see legislative reality that harms everyone more than any illegal activity.
Hey, what's wrong with T & A?
Cox Communications shouldn't be doing anything about people who download copyrighted material without permission. They are an ISP, they provide internet connections.
Does banks tell car companies to police the people that buy their cars because cars are used as get away vehicles? No.
Does stores tell clothing manufactures to police the people that buy their clothes because you can hide stuff you shoplift in clothes? No.
You get my point?
It's not Cox's job. The Copyright Cartels need to police their own shit, since they own the copyright, it's their problem, no one elses.
Be seeing you...
Torrents are an accepted distribution practice
Not only that, torrents are the technically superior distribution method for large files.
.: Semper Absurda
Until courts will stop rewarding RIAA for suing every backwater bar, video game streamer, internet provider, or anyone who plays their music at a party, they'll keep suing everyone. Hey, the music industry isn't as profitable as it was before the free transmission of information, so lets sue anyone who allows free transmission of information. If those buggy whip makers only were as sue happy then as the RIAA is now, maybe some people would still be using horse drawn carriages because cars could have been sued away before they gained ground.
God spoke to me
Actually, "alla sudden" there were a bunch of new distribution methods which destroyed the artificial scarcity model of business in the entertainment industry. Things are heading back to the way they were before the 1920's in a lot of ways...
.: Semper Absurda
Well, if it's because it's designed to transfer files, then you'd better kill FTP, HTTP, and all other protocols for transfering files. In case you didn't know, before bittorrent, that's what pirates used. Before the internet they used others that you've probably never even heard of. The violators of copyrights will tend to use the most efficient methods of transfering the files. Heck, at one time that was sneakernet. (AKA putting it on a disk or tape, and having someone run it over to the recipient, often literally.)
If you've looked at some of the files Rightscorp has claimed were their copyrighted files in some of their claims, you'd know they don't actually download and verify very often if at all, and are probably just using simple keyword scripts for finding potential victims.
In the early days, they had almost total control over the entire industry from the radio playlists to the record store. (Research Payola.)
What changed is the internet and people suddenly discovering that there was another way to obtain, share, or sell their music.
Riaa wants to go back to the old days where everyone was their bitch, and that's not going to ever happen.
Technically nothing, but it's not music. Oh, and Miley Cyrus definitely doesn't have either.
Sue the Highway Maintenance Department because truckers filled up in Mexico. Right?
Did you forget the first rule of usenet?
"A 'person' is smart. 'People' are dumb, panicky animals and you know that."
Trite Auto-tune
Yes I know it wasn't a good joke ...
Agreed, except - this isn't even about people who download copyrighted material without permission. This is about allegations that people are downloading copyrighted material without permission. That's all - allegations. There was nothing proven in a court of law - just some scum bag outfit like John Steele & Co. called "Rightscorp" pointing their fingers at IP addresses that may or may not connect with people they are accusing of downloading.
The DMCA contains no language calling for ISPs to "terminate" their subscribers over copyright claims. It's a lie.
I don't know if you're reading the same DMCA I'm reading, but 17 USC 512(i)(1)(A) applies the safe harbor only to service providers with "a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers".
Many authors choose to transfer or exclusively license copyright in their respective works to "rightsholders" who represent these authors in the market. So how are these suits at least in theory not on these authors' behalf?
How do they even know it was "Cox subscriber having IP address 24.252.149.211", as opposed to his neighbour who tapped into his WiFi?
Lest someone think this is a lame excuse, let me tell you my own experience...
The first month after I got the internet connection set up in my new place, my ISP noted my 64 gb data cap was exceeded, and they made a courtesy call to see if they could up sell me on more bandwidth. I was totally shocked, because I know my normal data usage would never come close to that limit. Somebody obviously cracked my relatively simple password and hacked into my modem. I immediately changed that to the longest password it would accept, and there has been no more data overages since. What do you suppose my WiFi was being used for? Could well have been for downloading copyrighted material, which certainly I hadn't been doing. What if the copyright police came after me for this? I would be pretty pissed off!
I'm seeding torrents of the latest releases of a couple of Linux distros right now. Not piracy.
Almost. Some popular packages included in Linux distributions might infringe, though in practice you're unlikely to get busted for these.
If Rightscorp has "overwhelming evidence" of repeat infringers (or really, any infringers), they need to sue the offender directly or f**k off. If they don't actually have evidence, then they need to f**k off, then die in a fire, then go f**k off again.
It's not Cox's job to enforce Rightscorp's allegations as if they were court orders.
Judging from the complaint, Cox must feel like it has staked out a secure legal position:
Sounds like Rightscorp didn't like getting the finger, and now they've asked for a *jury* trial. LOL good luck with that, assholes.
"How do they even know it was "Cox subscriber having IP address 24.252.149.211", as opposed to his neighbour who tapped into his WiFi?"
Why do they should?
Probably there's a contract provision for the customer to take apropiate care of the service is provided.
Given that this is a civil issue, it'd make total sense for that to be the case.
"Somebody obviously cracked my relatively simple password and hacked into my modem."
Therefore you failed in protecting your conection with due dilligence.
Most normal people don't know how to properly secure their networks. Any law that doesn't account for that simple fact is just insane. Good luck with that.
so mabey as a worker under capitalism, he just supports the working class, and against exploitment from ownership. His views seem pretty consistant without you mangling the debate by adding terms when it suits you.
Embrace(early MTV), Expand(grunge scene, MTV, music videos, etc..), Extinguish(every generation sounds more like pop music, destroying and confusing labels like punk and metal into pop music, negative portrayal of rock musicians and their fans, newsmedia witch hunts, etc...).
sound familiar?
"Most normal people don't know how to properly secure their networks. Any law that doesn't account for that simple fact is just insane. Good luck with that."
Good luck trying to repel a law on the basis that it's insane.
Well to be fair before digital there was actual scarcity since it cost serious $$$ to have a record master cut, have a mold made from that cut, and then have it printed, same with 8-tracks and cassettes.
What digital has done is free both the artists AND the consumer from these high costs, because i have heard bands with CDs they paid at most $3k for at a local studio that frankly sound better than *.A.A CDs (no loudness war pumping) and because these bands aren't getting screwed by getting a 50K loan up front and then having to pay 5000% interest to the record company they can sell their CDs cheap and still make a decent profit. My last band we sold our for $10 a pop, $15 if you wanted 'em signed and we we making roughly double what they cost. Of course we didn't care about P2P either because hey, that is why we also had shirts and keyrings.
But we found that if you sell at a low price most will just buy instead of pirate, something the *.A.As might want to consider.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yeah, the music industry and record stores were run by hip, visionary geniuses from 1925 to 1998, then alla sudden everyone got stoopid.
There are bands from the 60s and 70s that still get airplay today. Meanwhile, just about everyone from ten years ago is now yesterday's news. Is there even one singer or band today who will still be relevant in 2054?
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Rightscorp would have to overcome the wide open ""in appropriate circumstances" clause in the DMCA
Due to the "case or controversy" limit in the Constitution, U.S. federal courts do not issue advisory opinions. This means you can't just ask a judge what "appropriate" or "reasonable" means under a hypothetical set of facts; you have to sue someone. Perhaps getting a definition of "appropriate circumstances" on the case law books is Rightscorp's strategy with this lawsuit so that it can build a set of best practices for its publisher clients. Righthaven already got "Copyright owner must be named as a plaintiff", and though failure to do so caused Righthaven's downfall, Rightscorp is benefiting from that clarification.
Cox has actually gone the opposite way of what the RIAA want. About 10 years ago, we got a temporary shut-off from someone (not me!) downloading a movie (ok, yeah, it was me) but as soon as we said "it's gone" the net came back up. Then again about 3 years ago (different account, still Cox), "someone" was downloading The Colbert Report BUT all Cox did is send a letter, saying something about "you have a business account so yes you can legally share your wifi BUT someone downloaded this" but nothing happened, I called them and they told me their "current" policy towards business accounts basically puts my business in the "common carrier" class or such. So Cox has actively moved AWAY from cutting off the net.
that's why it's FAR better for all geeks to spend up and get a "business account". No caps, not much monitoring, 24x7 support, hour-based refunds during outages, etc.
That'd be true normally. However, copyright law doesn't have any provision for holding you liable for someone else's infringement unless you actually contributed directly to the infringement. Cox may have grounds for terminating your service for breach of terms of service, but a third party like a copyright holder can't avail themselves of that (they're not a party to the contract) and if they try pressuring Cox then you might well have a case against them for tortious interference with contract if Cox agrees with them and terminates your service.
That doesn't mean the copyright holder isn't without recourse. Discovery plays by a completely different set of rules, and they'd be entirely within their rights if they subpoenaed Cox for the subscriber's identity for the purposes of calling the subscriber in for a deposition to answer questions about who was using their connection when for the purposes of identifying the actual infringer. It's just that the copyright holders don't want to go through this on an individual basis because it'd cost more than they could hope to recover. However, as more than one court has pointed out, that's not the court's problem. Every plaintiff and every defendant has to make that same decision as to whether it's worthwhile pursuing or fighting a case, copyright holders aren't an exception to that.
Its main purpose is to facilitate piracy.
That's not only wrong, pirates would also not give a fuck about it. Piracy was alive and prosper well before Bittorrent was invented and *any* fast content delivery system can (and will, if needed) be used for piracy. People pirated video games on floppy disks and tapes.
If you want to stop piracy, you need to close the Internet (i.e., prohibit TCP/IP connections except those by content providers) and strictly prohibit all mass storage media like hard disks, USB sticks, CDs and DVDs, and Blueray. But if you really want to make sure, it's probably best to also prohibit computers because people will always look for a way to transfer files.
As long as the majority of the world population does not have enough money to buy the content anyway, piracy will always exist.
"To terminate" and "termination" are forms of the same verb: one an infinitive and the other one a derived noun. A sentence using one form can be reworded to use the other without changing the meaning. If a policy "provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances", then it calls for the provider "to terminate" service if "appropriate circumstances" have been met. OCILLA requires ISPs "to terminate" by requiring them to have "a policy that provides for [such] termination" and to follow this policy. The disagreement between the publishers and the ISPs is over what constitutes "appropriate circumstances" in such a policy.
I think it's time to play the [citation needed] card. See, raise, or fold--up to you, mate.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
STOP BUYING THEIR MUSIC!
Stop downloading their music.
Ignore their entire existence.
I don't care if you /like/ it. If you buy it or download it, you are giving them monetary and mindshare resources to continue to punish their customers and act improperly.
When they are penniless, perhaps they will see the error of their ways. Probably not, but then no one will give a fuck about them any more, and they can do no more harm.
In short, STOP feeding the monster.
INSTEAD, buy/download music from GOOD actors in the market. Support them in spite of the BAD actors. Support the artists directly. Never support any labels unless they eschew being part of organizations like RIAA and ASCAP.
I have done this for over twenty years. I am very happy with the music that is available to me, and also very happy that I don't support the bad actors in any way, shape or form. Indeed, I do all I can to put them out of business.
You can do it, too. ALL of you.
Take a stand. Make a difference.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
And if the US Supreme Court has its head so far up its arse that it can't see that allowing copyright/exclusivity of APIs is a death sentence for the US software industry, so be it. I live in Europe.
But how many expats from the US can the European software industry absorb?
people got together and downloaded only what they already own, to tie-up courts with those cases, and try and get judgments against these firms ?
Personally, if Cox and other ISPs continue to say they aren't "common carriers", then I say this lawsuit should go through and Cox should be held responsible for everything that LOOKS like an MP3 or AVI that traversed their network and be charged with a separate count of criminal copyright infringement for each file. They are facilitating piracy after all, they even directly control the speeds at which it flows through their network.
Unfortunately rightsholders (rather than copyright holders) have this mental defect in their brains that prevent them to understand anything regarding lowering the price of their products.
Don't know what you've seen, but I pay less for a music album now (either a physical CD or itunes/amazon full album download) than I did in the 90s, far less if you account for inflation. Same for DVDs, same for video games. Video games in particular are far cheaper than they've ever been.
If they simple CAN'T secure their networks, maybe they shouldn't have those networks.
It's not just copyright infringement, they could be part of a botnet, they could be enabling child porn downloads, they could easily be the victims of identity theft.
The whole insecure network being abused issue is basically identity theft, since these are all actions done under the name of the person owning the network.
That scarcity was for commercial production. Most people borrowed a friend's LP and copied it on their stereo's cassette deck. Or they sat there all night listening to the radio and pressed play and record on their tape recorder when their song came on, hoping the DJ wouldn't talk over it.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
No. No. No.
How many times do we need to repeat these facts?
* Copyright Infringements are not theft !!!
* ISPs are not a police department despite their three-letter acronym 'ISP' !!!
Hopefully some court will slap those stupid publishers with a massive fine for contempt in wasting the courts time and for harassment of random people using evil blackmail tactics.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
I haven't really engaged in heavy duty copyright violation. A little bit but I never shared it out. That said I'm happy that Cox essentially told Rightsorp to go get fucked.