Slashdot Mirror
Texas ISP Slams Music Industry For Trying To Turn It Into a 'Copyright Cop' (theregister.co.uk)
An ISP based in Texas has complained to a judge that the music industry is trying to turn internet providers into the "copyright police." From a report: "This case is an attempt by the US recording industry to make Internet service providers its de facto copyright enforcement agents," reads the latest filing in an ongoing court case involving ISP Grande Communications. It goes on: "Having given up on actually pursuing direct infringers due to bad publicity, and having decided not to target the software and websites that make online file-sharing possible, the recording industry has shifted its focus to fashioning new forms of copyright liability that would require ISPs to act as the copyright police."
Grande Communications is a high-speed ISP that is the main provider for several university campuses in Texas. It was sued in April 2017 by 18 music companies including Universal, Capitol, Warner and Sony, who accuse it of allowing its users to "engage in more than one million infringements of copyrighted works over BitTorrent systems."
Grande Communications is a high-speed ISP that is the main provider for several university campuses in Texas. It was sued in April 2017 by 18 music companies including Universal, Capitol, Warner and Sony, who accuse it of allowing its users to "engage in more than one million infringements of copyrighted works over BitTorrent systems."
This article isn't even remotely related to that you fucking retard
Ok IANAL, but wouldn't Grande Communications have common carrier status? In that, they just provide the pipeline and aren't responsible for the content?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
for releasing noise, and mislabelling it music.
If all I get, is a mere *copy* of the result (information/data/media/) of somebody’s hard work,
then all they will ever get from me for it, is *also* just a mere copy of the result (money) of my hard work!
And if they don't accept my worthless copies as pay for their worthless copies, then I'm gonna yell at them that "I worked hard for that money, you thieves!". Deliberately confusing the original work and the worthless copy, just like they do to steal our money.
If they aren't even the ones who made the work, but merely a distributor holding the copyprivilege, then they can fuck right off!
I'm giving my hard-earned money for just as hard work.
Musicians make their money from concerts and merchandising anyway, and didn’t ever make any relevant amount from media copies. So I go to their concerts, they take a bit of my money, and we're both good, without the cokeheaded organized crime called Content Mafia leeching off money without doing any value-adding work in return, just so they can snort more cocaine.
(And I worked in the music, TV, art, movie and games industry. They ALL snort cocaine. Well, 2/3rd or them at least.)
Suing has become just another revenue source. The music industry would sue the mothers of college students for giving birth to children who are infringing copyrights, if they think they'd net any money from it. The reality though is that it costs more to sue individual people, so they'll go after large entities first. Next up, they might sue each university for copyright infringements their students may be doing (they won't go after specific examples, they'll sue for average estimated number of infringements".
Come on, /. editors. Your link is broken: "the recording industry has shifted its focus to fashioning new forms of copyright liability that would require ISPs to act as the copyright police" links to "https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/08/21/237246/ahref="
That's it? Why is /. getting lazier and lazier every single year?
ISPs just need to charge the damn studios for tracing and/or tracking vile downloaders (no I am NOT one...I insist!!)
(IAAL. This is how thing work on paper, how they are supposed to work according to the law. In practice, ymmv)
In Brazil, copyright infringement is a crime. Actually, a set of crimes. The smaller one being a simple copyright violation, which carries a penalty of 3 month up to 1 year jail, or a fine. The bigger one carrying a penalty of 2 to 4 years jail.
Once the part if found guilty, the holder of the copyright can sue him in civil court of ACTUAL damages. And although the existence of the damage is already establish in the criminal court, the extent still have to be proven on civil court. And that damage is limited to restitution. There are no punitive damages, since there is already a criminal conviction. Also, in the Brazilian legal system there is a rule that forbids enrichment without a cause. That also helps limit the extent of the civil indemnity.
This limitation on "enrichment without a cause" is quite interesting, actually. It means that punitive damages must never be a source of money for the autor of the suit. In a cause like the famous McDonald's "hot coffee", those $3mil punitive damages would not go do the consumer that got burned. Instead, it would go to a non-profit of some kind, probably one that fights for consumer rights. The consumer herself would only get actual damages (material and moral damages), probably in the order of $50 grand.
This all is to stop "get rich" lawsuits.
morcego
I had Grande service for years, and they were by far the best internet provider I've ever had. Low and consistent price, and rarely any connectivity or speed issues.
I recently moved to an area they don't service and am stuck with Spectrum...which has been a horrible experience all around. This article makes me miss them even more.
Lock him up!
If you get burgled, sue the government because they failed to stop the burglars from using the roads in the robbery process. It's the same thing - stupid logic.
They're welcome to have their '3 strikes and you're out' policies, but naturally each strike has to come from being found to have infringed by a real court of law. This nonsense where the infringed party themselves determine your guilt is absurd. Not only do they have a conflict of interest, their tools that identified you can't be examined and are notoriously unreliable. There's good reasons why we don't allow guilt-on-accusation.
And not only that, there should be a 'repeat offender' termination policy for the *AA and their ilk too. 3 abusive notices like accusing a printer, targeting birdsong/noise/other things clearly not their work, or targeting what's clearly obvious fair use, and they lose their ability to accuse.
Parent links to Goatse.
Don't say you've not been warned.
Is basically what it boils down to.
Why spend your own money on litigation ( lawyers are expensive ) when you can
rent a Congress Critter to draft a law forcing the rest of the world to do it for you ?
Seriously, the MPAA / RIAA have been trying to stop this since the days of cassette
tape and Beta-Max and they have NEVER been successful. It sounds to me they're
just tired of wasting their time and money and want to force everyone else to waste
theirs for a while.
One might think the smarter move would be to put that money to better use so folks
won't have much need to pirate anything. Example they fought tooth and nail against
streaming / digital downloading claiming the end was nigh . . . . .
But here we are and legitimate streaming / downloading is pretty much the de-facto
standard method of delivery now.
I swear I don't think the folks in charge over there look much past tomorrow when it
comes to long term planning.
Let others make your content, the artists.
Let others sell that content, the shops.
Let others be the police for your copyright, the ISP's.
Is there actually anything these lowlifes do themself besides just grabbing the money ?
Lolwut? It is an equally sick animated photo of a dangling hanging McCain from a noose with a countdown timer. Might want to take another look.
This legal conundrum is exactly why common carrier status was created. The previous FCC tried to classify ISPs as common carriers, which would absolve them from policing the content that they carry. But ISPs don't want to be hamstrung by this status... so this is the result. ISPs then *can* be sued and held accountable for what it carries...
Has anyone else noticed how journalists seem to love the words "slammed" and "blasted" when quoting sources. They can't write "said" or "disagreed" or "objected" or phrases "offered a different opinion".
No, "Texas ISP Slams Music Industry".
"Slams" and "Blasts" are now the words for simply speaking against anything!
This World Wrestling Federation style language now seems to permeate all manner of mainstream journalism. What's up with that? Maybe it's simply what sells these days? Or maybe journalists copy each other, without critically thinking how their new affinity for these overly aggressive terms really sounds?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
They fought tooth and nail against every new technology... vhs, audio compression, video streaming ... that's how Netflix has become as valuable as Disney in one tenth of the time! These greedy assholes never learn: You catch more flies with honey. Long term business success is achieved by providing a valuable service to your customers! They only know to profit by treating customers like cattle. A short-sighted money grab never works in the end. RIAA/MPAA is just Kodak with a different name... refusing to change in a changing world like the Amish... at least the Amish aren't trying to keep everyone else in the dark ages!
"the lawyer industry has shifted its focus to fashioning new forms of copyright liability that would require ISPs to act as the copyright police." - here fixed it
Federal, State & Local government aren't fined or charged when someone shoplifts a slice of pizza, then uses ROADS to get away from the scene. Why would the provider of the virtual "road" that infringers use be fined or charged? There's very little difference.
You won't find Grande in the barios, 'hoods, or downtowns. It operates exclusively where the rich are richer than any ISP could dream and expect not to shoot a wad.
Thing2: Makes sense to go after Grande's customers since they have the dosh to pay the big settlements.
If we're going to demand that ISPs just push bits around without throttling or special treatment, then demanding that they monitor all the data for copyright violations, spam, bogus ads, clickbait, fake news...that's a paradox, ain't it?