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BitTorrent To RIAA: You're 'Barking Up the Wrong Tree'
An anonymous reader writes: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sent a letter to BitTorrent last week asking the company to help stop copyright infringement of its members' content. Brad Buckles, RIAA's executive vice president of anti-piracy, asked BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker to "live up to" comments made by former chief content officer Matt Mason. Two quotes by Mason stand out in particular: "We don't endorse piracy," and "If you're using BitTorrent for piracy, then you're doing it wrong." Both of these remain accurate, but the RIAA wants to see BitTorrent do more. VentureBeat contacted BitTorrent to get their stance on the letter, and the company said, "Our position is that they are barking up the wrong tree, as it seems they were with their approach to CBS last week. ... We do not host, promote, or facilitate copyright infringing content and the protocol, which is in the public domain, is a legal technology.".
....now that's funny.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I don't endorse murder...that's my view.
That doesn't mean society or any company can expect me to go vigilante and try catching murderers. In fact if I did that I'd probably be arrested.
It's not within my power to prevent everything *I* find offensive or immoral.
Also, not everything I find morally repugnant is a shared world view. There are no moral absolutes.
Also, who thought going after a file transfer protocol was a good idea? It's a fucking file transfer protocol. It's job is to get files from A to B - it doesn't care if they're MP3s, DOCs or JPGs. It doesn't care if they're MPGs full of donkey porn. It'd be like demanding car manufacturers try to stop cars being used as getaway cars: How the hell do you detect that?? It's all just driving to the car.
If I run Chrome am I a Chrome member? What about Notepad? Can I be a member of that too?
These people are completely clueless.
I wonder if they'll ask Sir Tim Berners-Lee if he can do anything about all the piracy over HTTP? What about FTP? Is any protocol safe?
In other words, our users are doing it just fine. Our protocol (and specifically our software) is widely used to pirate. We see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. The same thing could happen to Microsoft if 4/5ths of the users of "Word" only used their software to write ransom notes and rob banks.
You could write a stupid pointless letter to Microsoft today.
I wonder how incompetent are these people in RIAA. Of they're doing things like this - they can accidentally cause damage to the companies that are not involved in copyright infringements in any way. Someone should fire these guys.
"It feels like I'm at the Zoo when reading this thread - I'm frightened, but it's interesting" (c)
...by being part of the IP industry. No IP, no copyright infringement.
RIAA could deal 100% successfully with the problem of copyright infringement by ensuring that all its members put their music immediately in the public domain. Piracy problem solved! And everyone is happy, because these days the only people who pay for their music are those who want to.
And because this is Slashdot, let's all pretend people use Bittorrent for things besides piracy.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I presume this is a troll post as generally if you come to slashdot you are at least not a complete technical fcuktard but today I will humor your stupidity.
>>Why do we need BitTorrent, the company?
WE don't need them any more than we need RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. The protocol is open, anyone can build a client or tracker. But they do provide products and services based around the protocol and a very good degree of technical knowledge about it.
>>Why does the MAFIAA think they can do anything about piracy by bitching at BitTorrent, the company?
Because they are as stupid and technically illiterate as you.
>>And does anyone really believe "If you're using BitTorrent for piracy, then you're doing it wrong."?
Yes, this isn't a belief, its FACT. Joining a bittorrent swarm makes it easy to identify your point of origin.
I wonder if Sony has gotten a letter from them ?
The companies security practices promote piracy.
The "The Interview" movie sound track albums royalties were seriously hurt.
Dear Sony, Please cease and desist sending email or surfing the internet.
your ip address 127.0.0.1 is being monitored.
Fuck off RIAA, bitorrent is distribution for Linux ISOs, nothing more, nothing less. It's like jacking a bus and using it for a robbery
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A dog with rabies will bark at a lot of things (and foam in the mouth too.)
Brad Buckles, Eric Klinker, Matt Mason... sounds like a BAD superhero comic.
...we should also ban money.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
For once the RIAA actually gets it. They aren't claiming that BitTorrent (the protocol) is illegal or that it doesn't have legitimate uses.
Instead, they very specifically said that of the illegal file sharing happening over BItTorrent, the majority of it is coming from uTorrent, the client published by BItTorrent (the company).
They're clearly looking hoping the company will implement filtering to combat piracy (likely knowing full well that they'll kill the company in the process). This tactic has worked against other companies in the past who published software that was used more for piracy than legitimate uses (MetaMachine and eDonkey anyone?). Don't go after the technology - go after the company supporting the technology.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
The RIAA/MPAA have always tried to blame whoever for their problems. The hospitals don't hold the auto manufacturers responsible for bad drivers killing other drivers. They don't blame distillers, vintners or brewers for intoxicated individuals. They don't blame the computer manufacturers, electricity producers, internet service providers or software companies for "enabling" copyright infringement, yet bittorrent is singled out. Singling out bittorrent is stupid. You can send masses of data across the internet in a short time with bittorrent. That data could be software or weather records or farm crop information or medical records or it could be content created by individuals or corporations. Bittorrent doesn't know or care what the data is. And they aren't responsible for what people do with the software, just like the car manufactures aren't responsible for drunk drivers or bad drivers. I find it assinine that they are targeting bittorrent. That's just stupid. I think their lawyers will think so too.
All they are asking for is for bittorrent to include some filtering software. They just have a short list of names they would like the software to block which would prevent illegal copying. Just a short list. Maybe only a few hundred names. Or perhaps a few thousand: its an easy fix. If the names change then they would have to block those names too, for example RHCP or RedHotChilly or RHCpeppers would all have to be blocked: its an easy fix. Actually anything that begins with a letter or number followd by characters would have to be blocked: its an easy fix, just block everything. We have no problems about whether that completely destroys the software, sincerely, MPAA/RIAA lawer/goonsquad.
...the RIAA, and beta, and Dice. Long live ./ without dice.
I like to think I played a role in Dice's loss in ./. It feels good.
This is like asking the estate of the inventor of bullets to stop gang violence.
I used to torrent Linux ISOs a long time ago. I eventually realized how much of an oddity I was. Out of random people, what percent play around with Linux ISOs? Same for hacking game consoles? The amount of time needed to appreciate the system architecture of a console is quite large. Now piracy of video games and movies, everyone can understand that.
Dear RIAA,
tl;dr: Fuck you!
body of response letter
... any RIAA crap. i use Magnatune.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
because their product contributed to 99% of most car crashes.
If the RIAA wants to do something constructive to their cause, they need to suggest a valid alternative or modification to BitTorrent which supports the useful things that it does. What they are doing is like telling us all to walk so they can ride their buggy safely. It might work, and it might seem like a good idea to them, but that does not make it the right thing to do.
I'll keep on seeding until they're gone from this earth.
Dear Brad Buckles & other RIAA goons,
Please get hit by cars. Please die in housefires. Kill your families and yourselves in grisly murder-suicides.
Warm regards,
Every fan of music on Earth
Shooting the messenger was always easy. I wonder why the RIAA does not drag USPS, UPS, FedEx, or DHL to court. After all, they 'distribute' plenty of copyrighted material.
Their OS allows the storage and playback of these illegal files, not to mention it allows piracy apps like uTorrent to run!
Twinstiq, game news