Why the hell are people upset about this? The reason why Walmart and the 3 others which I can't remember the names of did the stunt of using DMCA against fat wallet was to show how stupid DMCA is. Wal*mart is against DMCA, I think Fat wallet went to court in order to get publicity on the matter, if the general public sees just how idiotic DMCA really is, then something will be done about it.
"And they probably DID download the files from your computer and categloged them neatly with the IP your ISP DHCPed to you along with the records from the ISP where you dialed up from or which IP they gave to what MAC address on who's cable modem or what IP went to what DSL caller. "
No they didn't, because that would be entrapment or what ever thats called, and that aint leagal in denmark unless the possible sentence is abouve 5 years in prison, and sure as hell aint leagal for a privat company (The police has not been in on this)
But you are right on the screenshot thing, but that doesn't prove anything but the fact that you have a file with that name, thats not enough to get you a sentence, thats why they didn't go and grap the users computer, they just don't have enough evidence, they count on the users to pay up and
scare the living crap out of everybody else
plus the publicity aint that bad for them.
Now the comon users know that APG got some magic program that can tell who they are (IP, screenshots are waaaay to advanced for the common donkey) so they don't use p2p for some time.
So all in all, APG actually got something good out of it, broke a few rules on the way, but who cares, no one is daring enough to complain.
The danish law is a bit week on suing, you wouldn't get jack shit in denmark.. Example, you get hit by a drunk driver doing 60 mph, get paralysed from neck down, the amount you would get for suing (this also counts the money from insurance) would be in the neighborhood of $2-300K
But you could quite easy get the case thrown away, make a little program that makes dump files and get it to match the exact same files they claim you had and then say you were on the hub for chatting (the hubs were afaik restricted to minimum amount of shared data) or looking for leagal music then delete all the files you dont have the right for and you are in the green...
BSA being bull shit agency, then yes. APG is something like KODA (also a danish weird thing) which charges for every paper copy you make, these charges get back into the system and distributed to special things (like art promotion etc.) but the likeliness of any of the artists, programmers og whatever who got their stuff ripped getting any of the dough is 0%.. They never see this money which makes it even more stupid...
Well the thing is (have no clue bout the legal terms) the copyright part of the law is no longer under criminal law, but civil law (as said, dont really know what to call it in english), which means theres a whole new set of rules, and afaik they actually have more rights than the police, think its like bounty hunters in US.
Uhm, not killed anyone _yet_. I'll bet somewhere in USA (united stupidity of A, sry folks, I know you got the bomb, but take a look around) RIAA and all their friends are preparing a law to allow them to kill (litteraly:P) any users doing file sharing, or actually, doing anything but sending them money.
I find it rather funny to see this on slashdot being a dane n all.
The reason why the charge is "only" (its sure as hell alot of money from my perspective) is the fact that they are less likely to try it in court.
The way the data is collected violates alot of rights, the way they charge people and presetle it is an indicates the fact they know this. Also danish law actually allow you to copy music from libaries, friends and relatives. Since mp3 aint exactly a bit to bit copy there could be some arguing, but you could get the music back on a cd and thus claim the mp3 is just your way of storeing the data.
Now the reason they try this is they use the argument that the people in question has been distributing the files, that isn't leagal (since the downloader from somewhere in downtown nowhere, most likely aint your pal) so you are distributing. If they go to court APG is bound to lose since they cannot prove that the data is genuine (not some dump file to gain access) since that would involve them downloading it and I think that's called entrapment (aint legal here).
This isn't the first time they did something like this, last time those who challenged APG in court actually never had to meet in court since APG dropped the charges.
Now why do they do this? Simple, they know most of the users are of low income (students and other creatures like that:P) and thus havent got that much money, so they figure, keep the charges low and no one is willing to challenge them and just pays up, the larger fines are sent to people who knows they are in deep shit (they could probably get away with it afaik since the only evidence is a screenshot, had they had anything really good, they would have confiscated the machines), people with the large bills se a easy way out (to go for the "only" 14 grand fine) in stead of risking it in court and thus risking a 28K fine + leagal expenses.
Hope this makes any sence (its 4:30 in the morning)
Some Redneck claimed patent on it afaik, but did you guys try looking at the other nice anti social schemes he got going? I just love people who think they can protect their code by disabling rightclick, maybe someone should point out that even though you can't right click (this goes for IE, my good old mozilla just ignored it) the page source is still in the menu (think its under view, but haven't checked in IE)
Oh, and the anti image stealing is great, when right clicking on it in mozilla it pops up with a java box telling me I can't do it afterwich mozilla gives me the menu and I can choose view image or just save image.. This guy really needs to do better than that...
As said earlier something similar to this exist in Denmark, but the "right" to copy your own material comes at a cost. All media capable of copying digital music movies etc. has now been taxed, you can not obtain a quality cd-r for less then $1 and mostly it's up about $1.5, also the hardware has rissen in price due to this. Now the irony in this is those who copy music etc. for own use arent stealing anything, they already bought the cd dvd or whatever, however the extra taxes are for compensating the loss in music sales (which would happen anyhow), and this money should (at some expenses of course) be given to the artists. (strangely enough none of this money is send to programmers, go figrue)
A friend of mine are running linux at home and use some kind of webbased quing system for his mp3 files (yes yes all legal of course *erhm*), he mentioned that every once in a while the google bot drops by and ques some of the files, so the question is, how did it ever find his site given the fact that probably no one links to his mp3 que list? (and what is the prefered music of the bot?? (seems to go for the dance/techno genre))
Hmm I might be stupid here, but aren't people in the states paying for some specifik bandwith?
Why complain about users hoggin the bandwith, they sold it to them, they should provide it..
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Why the hell are people upset about this? The reason why Walmart and the 3 others which I can't remember the names of did the stunt of using DMCA against fat wallet was to show how stupid DMCA is. Wal*mart is against DMCA, I think Fat wallet went to court in order to get publicity on the matter, if the general public sees just how idiotic DMCA really is, then something will be done about it.
"And they probably DID download the files from your computer and categloged them neatly with the IP your ISP DHCPed to you along with the records from the ISP where you dialed up from or which IP they gave to what MAC address on who's cable modem or what IP went to what DSL caller. " No they didn't, because that would be entrapment or what ever thats called, and that aint leagal in denmark unless the possible sentence is abouve 5 years in prison, and sure as hell aint leagal for a privat company (The police has not been in on this) But you are right on the screenshot thing, but that doesn't prove anything but the fact that you have a file with that name, thats not enough to get you a sentence, thats why they didn't go and grap the users computer, they just don't have enough evidence, they count on the users to pay up and scare the living crap out of everybody else plus the publicity aint that bad for them. Now the comon users know that APG got some magic program that can tell who they are (IP, screenshots are waaaay to advanced for the common donkey) so they don't use p2p for some time. So all in all, APG actually got something good out of it, broke a few rules on the way, but who cares, no one is daring enough to complain.
The danish law is a bit week on suing, you wouldn't get jack shit in denmark.. Example, you get hit by a drunk driver doing 60 mph, get paralysed from neck down, the amount you would get for suing (this also counts the money from insurance) would be in the neighborhood of $2-300K But you could quite easy get the case thrown away, make a little program that makes dump files and get it to match the exact same files they claim you had and then say you were on the hub for chatting (the hubs were afaik restricted to minimum amount of shared data) or looking for leagal music then delete all the files you dont have the right for and you are in the green...
BSA being bull shit agency, then yes. APG is something like KODA (also a danish weird thing) which charges for every paper copy you make, these charges get back into the system and distributed to special things (like art promotion etc.) but the likeliness of any of the artists, programmers og whatever who got their stuff ripped getting any of the dough is 0%.. They never see this money which makes it even more stupid...
Well the thing is (have no clue bout the legal terms) the copyright part of the law is no longer under criminal law, but civil law (as said, dont really know what to call it in english), which means theres a whole new set of rules, and afaik they actually have more rights than the police, think its like bounty hunters in US.
Uhm, not killed anyone _yet_. I'll bet somewhere in USA (united stupidity of A, sry folks, I know you got the bomb, but take a look around) RIAA and all their friends are preparing a law to allow them to kill (litteraly :P) any users doing file sharing, or actually, doing anything but sending them money.
I find it rather funny to see this on slashdot being a dane n all.
:P) and thus havent got that much money, so they figure, keep the charges low and no one is willing to challenge them and just pays up, the larger fines are sent to people who knows they are in deep shit (they could probably get away with it afaik since the only evidence is a screenshot, had they had anything really good, they would have confiscated the machines), people with the large bills se a easy way out (to go for the "only" 14 grand fine) in stead of risking it in court and thus risking a 28K fine + leagal expenses.
The reason why the charge is "only" (its sure as hell alot of money from my perspective) is the fact that they are less likely to try it in court.
The way the data is collected violates alot of rights, the way they charge people and presetle it is an indicates the fact they know this. Also danish law actually allow you to copy music from libaries, friends and relatives. Since mp3 aint exactly a bit to bit copy there could be some arguing, but you could get the music back on a cd and thus claim the mp3 is just your way of storeing the data.
Now the reason they try this is they use the argument that the people in question has been distributing the files, that isn't leagal (since the downloader from somewhere in downtown nowhere, most likely aint your pal) so you are distributing. If they go to court APG is bound to lose since they cannot prove that the data is genuine (not some dump file to gain access) since that would involve them downloading it and I think that's called entrapment (aint legal here).
This isn't the first time they did something like this, last time those who challenged APG in court actually never had to meet in court since APG dropped the charges.
Now why do they do this? Simple, they know most of the users are of low income (students and other creatures like that
Hope this makes any sence (its 4:30 in the morning)
Some Redneck claimed patent on it afaik, but did you guys try looking at the other nice anti social schemes he got going?
I just love people who think they can protect their code by disabling rightclick, maybe someone should point out that even though you can't right click (this goes for IE, my good old mozilla just ignored it) the page source is still in the menu (think its under view, but haven't checked in IE)
Oh, and the anti image stealing is great, when right clicking on it in mozilla it pops up with a java box telling me I can't do it afterwich mozilla gives me the menu and I can choose view image or just save image.. This guy really needs to do better than that...
As said earlier something similar to this exist in Denmark, but the "right" to copy your own material comes at a cost. All media capable of copying digital music movies etc. has now been taxed, you can not obtain a quality cd-r for less then $1 and mostly it's up about $1.5, also the hardware has rissen in price due to this. Now the irony in this is those who copy music etc. for own use arent stealing anything, they already bought the cd dvd or whatever, however the extra taxes are for compensating the loss in music sales (which would happen anyhow), and this money should (at some expenses of course) be given to the artists.
(strangely enough none of this money is send to programmers, go figrue)
I was wondering how you find sites...
A friend of mine are running linux at home and use some kind of webbased quing system for his mp3 files (yes yes all legal of course *erhm*), he mentioned that every once in a while the google bot drops by and ques some of the files, so the question is, how did it ever find his site given the fact that probably no one links to his mp3 que list? (and what is the prefered music of the bot?? (seems to go for the dance/techno genre))
Hmm I might be stupid here, but aren't people in the states paying for some specifik bandwith? Why complain about users hoggin the bandwith, they sold it to them, they should provide it..