Slashdot Mirror
Pirate Bay Cofounder Utterly Bankrupts the Music Industry (torrentfreak.com)
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Peter "brokep" Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay, has built a machine that makes 100 copies per second of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," storing them in /dev/null (which is of course, deleting them even as they're created). The machine, called a "Kopimashin," is cobbled together out of a Raspberry Pi, some hacky python that he doesn't want to show anyone, and an LCD screen that calculates a running tally of the damages he's inflicted upon the record industry through its use. The 8,000,000 copies it makes every day costs the record industry $10m/day in losses. At that rate, they'll be bankrupt in a few weeks at most.
If it will speed up the process and kill them faster.
That's crazy.
You know a song is really bad is when it goes straight to /dev/null without being heard.
a Miley Cyrus track instead. At least make a secondary point as you're doing that.
These are not losses. They are unrealized potential profit. Nobody is actually losing anything.
(Well, other than /dev/null, which is going to go insane very soon after being forced to listen to Gnars Barkley).
He must be stopped!
Think of the children.
Shows the nonsense of basing an economy on signals on a wire. It's time for a revolution.
And put MS out of business. Then I wouldn't have to fix my grandma's Win10 machine every time she decides to punch the monkey.
...but with the Koran. Let's seem 'em come and jihad me!
As an audiophile, I am able to hear music even from /dev/null. So good luck with arguing in court that the copies are useless.
And charge double!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Ok, first of all, this is one of the dumbest "news" stories I've seen here in a while. It's really lame.
Secondly, he had to write python for this stupidity? From any bash shell:
while (true); do cat /path/to/song.mp3 >> /dev/null; echo "Another copy made." ; done
I think I actually lost intelligence by reading and spending 30 seconds thinking about how dumb this whole thing is.
Topher
Clearly it's the same mechanism by which the sun's energy is being sucked up by those solar panels in Woodland, NC.
Now that you mention it, I am noticing a tiny itty-bitty quality loss caused by storing the FLAC bits in /dev/null. Are you able to notice this quality loss?
This implies an 80-cents loss per copy, which probably makes the incorrect assumption that almost every copy prevents a legitimate sell (of roughly $1 per song).
Often people will take something given for free even though they would otherwise NOT purchase it if the free option didn't exist. And often they are just test-listening to a song to see if they like it.
If I'm walking down the hall at work and somebody offers me a free donut, there's a pretty good chance I'd take it even if it's not my favorite kind. But put that very same donut for sale at a typical donut price, then I'd be much less likely to purchase it because likely it's not the flavor I want and/or I don't really feel like a donut at that time, at least not enough to part with cash for it.
I suspect the real lost-sales ratio for songs is more like 10-to-1.
Industry lobbyists often make the 1-for-1 false assumption in loss claims. I don't know whether its ignorance or spin, but suspect the second.
Table-ized A.I.
"Can we subpoena Mr Dev Null?
We should charge and arrest Dev Null. What? It's not a person? Is this terrorism related? We should outlaw it. Usage of dev null aids the enemy. It's unamerican to use dev null."
Relevant to the discussion :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Was it substantial and non-infringing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_Corp._v._Quaid_Software_Ltd.
I'm sure the *IAAs can explain it to you.
That's why I write all my backups to it!
Sure. You can send anything you want to him. I wouldn't count on a reply, however.
The refutation of a proposition by demonstrating the inevitably absurd conclusion to which it would logically lead.
Simple.
1. He has the original track on some kind of non-volatile storage (probably a microUSB card). /dev/null (which is a no-op kernel-side, but there may be another memory copy involved), then frees the buffer, reads it from non-volatile storage again...
2. He has a tight loop where he reads that file out of non-volatile storage into RAM, then writes it to
Because the implementation of /dev/null's "write" method is to return the number of bytes passed in as an argument, all you're really doing is copying it around to different regions of system memory. So, technically, you could just have a tight loop where you have a copy of the song in one buffer, then memcpy() it to the second buffer, free the second buffer, and repeat.
Why this act of civil disobedience not also an act of contempt of the court.?
It is actually very American to use /dev/null. Our economy depends on the destruction of goods.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Shows the nonsense of basing an economy on signals on a wire. It's time for a revolution.
The geek is wholly a creation of an economy based on intangible property and near instantaneous communication and computation. Signals on a wire. Come the revolution who does he think will be first against the wall?
It's about copyright. DUH.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...the British government and the Police believe everybody stores their child pornography and terrorism related materials in /dev/null.
For maximum sarcasm, he needs to send each copy over the Internet, to another RPi -- which will store it in /dev/null. That ought to really frost them.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Editors, in case you never studied journalism, headlines are supposed to give a concise summary of the content and grab the reader's attention. They aren't supposed to blatantly mislead about the content of the story.
We already had that dingbat headline about the guy hacking the celebrities like he was on a murder spree and there was another one a couple days ago.
The Kopimashin is illegal in England:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/17/high-court-quashes-regulations-copy-cds-musicians
It might be illegal in other jurisdictions as well? And that's kind of the point of building it.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
Please forgive us for our transgressions.
www.gaiageek.com
It doesn't cost them anything if no one was going to buy it in the first place. Value doesn't actually exist without a buyer that exists, projections and actual sales are not equivalents. I get what he's doing is symbolic, but not everyone losing out to piracy is a mega corporation, this is pretty sophomoric and infantile.
I guess the RIAA needs to exterminate all primates on the planet for potential copyright infringement, because we can take any million of them and have them poke away randomly at buttons marked '0' and '1', and eventually they'll re-create every song ever recorded, a clear violation of copyright law.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"Nobody is actually losing anything." Wait a minute... You don't think...
I hope at least *some* people see what brokep did there.
That beats Thunderf00t burning 40,000 copies of the Koran on a hard drive.
It's Dave Null, thank you very much.
So is this why "breakage" is still a part of record contracts when selling music online?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
If it's John Cage, maybe?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Or by the New Order's Planet Sun Cannon.
As others have noted, the music industry isn't losing money over this effort. What will actually happen is this:
- The music industry will start lobbying to make the Raspberry Pi, LCD screens, Python, and /dev/null illegal since they are infringing devices. /dev/null. A smaller segment of the economy will be stuck in paper age until programs incorporating Python itself or that are programmed in Python are replaced.
- Governments will pass legislation that reflects the interests of the music industry.
- Huge swaths of economy will be stuck in the paper age until Unix systems can be patched to operate properly without
- School children and electronics hobbyists will fill prisons and, upon release, find themselves unemployable because of their criminal records. The result is that there will be a lack of skilled labor to help the economy to recover in the years to come.
- Microsoft and Apple will declare bankruptcy, as manufacturers find that they cannot produce enough CRTs in a timely manner and GUI-centric operating systems will be unable to adapt to consoles based upon LEDs and toggle switches fast enough.
- On a positive note, the MPAA will collapse due to it's current dependence upon LCD technology to deliver its content to consumers.
- On a negative note, the lack of competition will means the RIAA will take over.
He should be doing this via a network.
Yeah, not that hard to do. Oh, looks like he owes the music lots of money. He can pay me half and I'll settle it with the music industry for him.
by putting the device outside playing each song on a speaker as fast as it's being copied. Then it's more damages as it's also a public performance of the song that requires royalities.
Well, mostly because his trial was a farce to begin with.
It might not actually be possible to have more contempt for that court.
At no stage will this scheme cause the music industry to be unable to pay their debts. He is not bankrupting them.
When he gets sued into oblivion however, that is likely to make him bankrupt.
In America we'd [the police] would just invoke Civil Forfeiture and sue /dev/null for piracy (no, 'copyright infringement' is nowhere near politically charged enough). Then let /dev/null prove his innocence...
$ cp /dev/null/crazy.mp3 /usr/home/jdoe/music/
Our economy depends on the destruction of goods.
Or not.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
cp: cannot stat ‘/dev/null/crazy.mp3’: Not a directory
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
but hey, that's their measurements... bye, guys. sorta sucks having known ya. watching for my favorite artists to sell on their own websites...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"although I'd like it..."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
serve process on it all you want.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Except it's not actually *making* any copies of the content... it is sending them to /dev/null, which means that the content is being ignored. It may be doing this through the invocation of a copy-like command, but that doesn't mean that copies are actually being *made*, because that would require that the copies actually exist after they had allegedly been made.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Where is the mod for '+1, No Sense of Humor'?
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
SUBPOENA DUCES TECUM
You are HEREBY COMMANDED TO APPEAR and bring with you the CONTENTS OF /dev/null
That's the problem with it, just call it terrorism and imprison him. Just hope your never on that side of the fence.
Corruption everywhere.
Maybe I should try this same approach with every Star Wars movie that's been created since the Empire Strikes Back. Maybe they'll quit making them if they are losing that much money
Actually it seems lately that the economy depends on people buying more and more stuff and then renting self-storage lockers to store it in because they don't have enough room at home. I can't believe how many of the self-storage places are being built in my city.
Mind you if people started buying their stuff in wood or bamboo it could be a great way to sequester carbon. Make whatever stuff people are going to buy and then have them store it in the lockers for ages.
That's not what I was referring to, but the fact that value adding only happens when a good is removed from the economy. Only when something is bought for consumption (and consumed, thus "destroyed") you actually generate true revenue. Everything bought for investment is required to 'pull its weight', so to speak, i.e. generate at least as much revenue in return.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My guess is rather that people have to move into smaller places and need some place to stuff their surplus crap because in this economy you can't find anyone to buy it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not THAT'S comedy!
This space unintentionally left blank.
What's the point? The "music industry" bogeyman doesn't even exist anymore in any real sense as the gateway for picking and choosing what music you listen to, and rewarding a handful of musicians and artists, or exploiting, as the case may be.
Thanks. I get you. But as you said, you meant "consumption" rather than "destruction." I was responding to the latter.
Peace out.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Now if we can take the same approach to the sports and political industry we could make some big moves forward:)
Shhhh spoilers!
It's while [ true ]; do cat song.mp3 > /dev/null; done
And an incrementing variable that echoes it to /dev/ttyS0 or wherever the lcd hangs out. No Python necessary, it's pure overkill.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Wasted my time reading this, (and further wasted commenting on it).
I want my time back.
...the creativity of the creator, the machine doesn't really do what it's designed to do. Now if it were to distribute copies of the music to customers who were considering purchasing the music already, he might have something. The problem is that he'd run out of "Crazy" customers in about 3 seconds.
I was just reading this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window .. interesting.
Cause someone posted it below.. and I read it and went away and came back again. Beer is good .. that is all
No because he's fast as hell and web-scale
Consumption IS destruction from a purely economic point of view. It has the same net effect: Something is gone and needs to be replaced. The main difference being that consumption is something the buyer places positive aspects on while replacing something broken has a negative associated aspect.
Consumption also has a positive, non-monetary aspect to the one doing it. Consumption is necessary or enjoyable. Or even both. Replacing something broken is neither. So even though on the pure economic side they represent the same (buyer buys something with the intent to remove it from the economic circuit), the non-monetary aspects are vastly different.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bart: [Looks at tape] Hootie and the Blowfish?
Chief Wiggum: Yeah, it's cheaper than blank tape.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
The Kopimashin is illegal in England: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-...
It might be illegal in other jurisdictions as well? And that's kind of the point of building it.
It's certainly not illegal in the US, which is ironic considering that the music industry he's attacking is based in and uses US laws. 17 USC 117(a) includes a limitation on copyright of computer programs that says that it's not an act of infringement to make temporary copies during execution:
(a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner...
Normally, that provision is used to exempt "copies" from a hard drive into RAM during execution, but "copies" from a drive to /dev/null would also qualify, since they're created as an essential step during execution of the Kopimashin, and are not used in any other manner (since they're immediately deleted).
Plus, the UK probably has a similar exemption in their copyright law.
What this tells me is that the music isn't worth the bits it's printed on. Further, people in the entertainment industry (actors, musicians, pompous directors) are so over paid that they have a severely distorted view of their own importance. They become misinformed after being uninformed. The end result are cases like the anti-vaxers. Here's hoping that bubble bursts sooner rather than later. Never equate popularity with knowledge and wisdom.
I've often wondered this, and I think I even saw something 10-15 years ago, almost a thought experiment of sorts, which suggested something similar (I think it was called "The Big Hack" or something like this)
What if I was to upload a 4MB file called "Definitely Not Song XYZ", a truly random 4MB file. Then another person uploaded a different 4MB file called "Also Definitely Not Song XYZ", also unplayable, un-renderable (as JPG), etc. Yet, magically, when I take the 2 files and XOR them byte-for-byte, I get Song XYZ.
Now I can already see people lining up & talking about intent, etc. but the truth is if we start making it illegal to upload 4MB files that have no playable content, well then everyone who has ever written a 4MB Word Doc, a 4MB blog post (OK, bad example), etc. are in deep shit. You can take any file, and with the right XOR pattern, turn it into something else. Imagine addressing the jury and telling them that they each have potentially hundreds of infringing files. "No seriously, guys, it's true -- your file, by itself something else, is potentially a song, a high-res image, etc., so I'm going to have to declare you guilty (50% at least) of copyright infringement."
And don't try to combat this by saying, "Well, the filenames indicate the real purpose." Because then smart people will say, "Hey file 4837374837483749837.bin and file 828367636346784638764.bin, when XOR'ed together, give you Song XYZ." Try prosecuting that. Maybe the first one is a JPEG, and the second file is "gibberish". Is it a crime to post a JPG of a cat hanging from a tree (file 1), and "this came out of my true random number generator (TRNG)" (file 2)? Slippery slope, recording industries, be careful here... juries aren't famously smart, but put the image of granny's little grandson in jail for posting a photo or a YouTube clip, she'll flip out and hang the jury.
My point is that at a certain point, the Music And Film Industry Associations (MAFIA - aka RIAA & MPA) has to realize the cat is out of the bag, people will pay for good content, some people won't pay for anything anyway, and their safe, highly-profitable monopoly is crumbling. Scary, yes. Reality? Also yes. Bits want to be free.
So when/how is this file-pair uploading scheme going to take off? Just wait, it will happen...
I used to write to D(ave) Evnull on the letters/ help pages of ... one of the early (UK) PC magazines. This was about the time that I was considering whether to buy a copy of Xenix, or of Coherent's SVR4-a-like ... then some crazy Finnish dude came up with a variant on Minix with extensions to use the 80386-DX I'd recently invested 3 months wages in.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
1) He mass produces this and puts it on sale.
2) Everybody buys one.
3) Watch as the RIAA shits themselves.
4) ???
5) PROFIT! (Except for the RIAA)
Oh, wow, lemme think. It was last week at the last ever Spirytus gig. A quid in the donations jar and I am now the proud owner of a signed (Ryan, Danny and Ben, the other Ben skipped the minute the performance was over and Mike was busy packing down the equipment while the rest were busy killing beer) Fundamentals EP.
Best. Unsigned. Band. Ever.
Made all the more satisfying knowing that no major label gets to see a penny. And that's the only difference between being unsigned and being signed. Labels get royalties and they own the rights, not the signed artists, who still have to pay for studio time and production out of their (average) five percent cut on hard sales of current catalogues, and two percent and less on back catalogues. Ask Janis Ian, she'll tell you, labels not only rip off consumers, they rip off artists - royally.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Two reasons for some of the growth is businesses use it because renting a locker is much cheaper than finding a larger place with more storage and, possibly, people are using the storage when a relationship ends and they are transitioning between homes (for example living in an apartment before buying a new home).
However from observations in my city and according to some articles about the a local self-storage company that is growing at an amazing rate the majority of the business at the self-storage business is people putting away stuff that they don't have room for anymore.
If you read the rest of the thread you would have noticed that someone already posted this and I already replied to it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Kopimashin would actually qualify under fair use under the "temporal" clause. Since the "copies" are temporary in nature and not stored in a permanent state similar to cache. Sorry to ruin the parade.
I refurbished an Intel OR840 and for years have had it generating random numbers using the dedicated hardware built into its chipset to deliberately create entropy and hasten the heat death of the universe.