Both the kid uploading and the kid downloading can be charged with possession of kiddie porn.
Thus proving you read nothing of what you reply to, because I already said that. Perhaps before you order someone else to watch "old media TV", you should read the postings you reply to?
But your claim was that the person doing the monitoring could be charged with downloading CP, which is patently absurd.
No. Someone is not guilty of downloading kiddie porn because they monitor what their kids do on the computer. The kid, who is UPloading kiddie porn, can be charged.
How about a sudden outbreak of common sense here.
You must be new here. This is slashdot, proof that "common sense" isn't that common.
I disagree. There is a whole world of "public", and a lot of them don't have access to a University library.
Yes, there is a whole world of public, and just because they don't have access to a library (we are talking about journals, not libraries, btw) doesn't mean they have a burning desire to read scientific journal articles. "The pubic", for the most part, and in a vast majority, just don't care. Otherwise this problem would have been solved a long time ago.
And no, science should not be confined to the cloistered halls of academe.
Why do you think are you disagreeing with me?
Do we WANT to keep the rest of the world in a state of non-participatory ignorance?
Can you please disagree with something I actually said, not what you wanted me to say?
But still, paywalled journals are, IMO, doomed.
I assume you are not intending to limit the discussion to only web-accessible pay journals ("paywalled"), so I disagree with you. The fact that they still exist proves this. People pay for convenience. Professionally published, indexed, and collated journal articles are a convenience. That I can pick up a journal on a certain topic and find articles relevant to that topic is a convenience, compared to grepping a website with all kinds of articles on it. I've found so many interesting things by scanning the table of contents of journals, compared to specific searches for a topic, to ever think that this way of learning will go away.
A good sign that people will pay for the convenience is that many of the professional scientists who have access to library or personal copies of journals still subscribe to things like Nature, which does nothing but collate and summarize journal articles. Were the convenience unwanted, nobody would subscribe, they'd just read the journals directly. In fact, the convenience of finding things in one's field of study is so great that they'll put up with the wind range of irrelevant material that Nature carries.
I don't know, but they'd better find it soon, because the Internet has made old-style journals largely obsolete
Journals are still relevant as repositories for material and easy browsing tools. I've found amazing things just because I decided to browse through a journal, that I'd never spend the time googling, if I even knew what the best search terms would be.
But OpenAccess is already found.
and the public will no longer tolerate not being able to read the research they, after all, ultimately paid for.
This truly is a 1%-er issue. The vast majority of the public has no interest in reading this material, and the vast majority of those wouldn't understand what they were reading even if they did. You are posting in a very select subset of "the public".
How much you want to bet you aren't getting the raw data ?
Well, when I click on the link that is supposed to be a NASA-funded journal article about tsunamis on Mars, I get taken to a Motherboard story instead. Slashdot is still powned by vice, right, and the editors love clicks to get ad revenues.
Torturing you wouldn't accomplish anything because all that would do is make the duress even *more* obvious to a detector that reads your state of mind while you provide a password.
My ten year old child is bleeding to death from a trip through a plate glass window, and I need to call 911. WHY WON'T MY FUCKING PHONE UNLOCK! GOD DAMN IT! UNLOCK YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT! WHY DON'T YOU ACCEPT MY PASSWORD?
Do people need to carry a couple of ludes with them all the time so they can use their phone when they are in an agitated or stressful state? "Keep the pressure on your artery Billy until the ludes kick in and I can call for help... it will only be 15 minutes or so..."
Yes, they are, but you put them in the same class when you say if you are going to experience one of them, you might as well go all the way and get the other. If one of them is more significant than the other then you don't want to say "in for a penny, in for a pound". If you're going to lose it one way or the other, and you think letting border agents look at your phone isn't as serious a loss as being put in prison, AND YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE ANYWAY, then why would you not mitigate the loss by taking the lesser one?
Yeah, Gandhi made great gains by not taking "the lesser one". If you think you're going to have the same results as Gandhi by refusing to let a border agent look at your phone, well, it doesn't seem to be working out that way for anyone who does it.
Whether or not you should buckle under over access to your phone does not necessarily depend on there being anything of value on the phone.
I know. It depends on whether you can win in any way by not buckling under, and whether the cost of not buckling under is more than doing it. If you happen to have a folder full of CP that would put you in prison as a CP offender if a border agent saw it, then of course you choose the lower cost option of refusing.
The point is, the assumption is you are going to lose. You get to choose how much you lose. "You might as well" implies no difference. "As well."
As for someone asking "why Bubba"? It's a well-known meme that gets the point across quickly. That's why. If you want to use a different name, fine.
If you pirate a track or an album, and then later pay for it,
Who do you pay for a pirated copy of an album?
Who is out their money? One customer still equals one sale of one track/album.
I think I covered that under the positive feedback aspect of supporting the original pirate.
I can provide a personal anecdote in this area. Kind of close. Many years ago I asked a company for the API for one of their devices so I could write code for my own use to connect their hardware to my linux system. (There was no linux software available.) They refused. They didn't give out that information as a way of protecting the software vendors they were already working with. So, easy enough, I reverse engineered it and put it on the net for anyone who wanted a copy. I got paid in "thanks".
Now, had that company come back later and said "I'll sell you the info", would I have paid? (Of course not.) And would it have prevented the free version from spreading? (Of course not.) So, in the long run, their software vendors lost sales because I let the secret codes out of the bag, and it is impossible to know how many they lost. It is impossible to know how many sales some other company made based on my code. And it's not an issue of sales only for linux systems so the Windows vendors lost nothing; I wrote the code in a system-agnostic way, and the documentation of the protocol itself would allow Windows implementations anyway.
Pretending that the original poster wasn't looking for that feedback, and wouldn't consider it the next time such an opportunity arises, is naive at best. And assuming that someone who is ripping off an evil capitalist record company that is enslaving the artists and stealing their skills is going to turn around and pay that same record company when a legal copy becomes available is also naive.
But, the point I was making is, the claim that people have to have it on the first day is a juicy rationalization, and not true in the first place. And since this was a "weeks early" situation and not "first day", the rationalization is even less applicable.
If that IP address leads them to contact a person, that IP address did, then, identify that person.
No. It led them to contact someone. It did not identify them as the user of the IP or the poster. We ALL KNOW THAT IP ADDRESSES ARE NOT PERSONAL IDENTIFIERS. Don't argue otherwise, it's unbecoming and hypocritical. That person could be the neighbor, it could be the owner of a stolen cell phone, it could be the administrative contact for a domain the IP address is in. "Someone" is not "the person who posted the link", but that someone could help identify who that really was, using other information in addition to the IP address.
Well, for starters, by your own claim an IP address does not identify an individual, so no, it does not identify the uploader,
Knock it off. I didn't say it proved who the uploader was, it CAN HELP THEM IDENTIFY who it is. "Helps". As in, other information will be necessary. And "CAN", as in might.
Seems the clause does exist.
So I would have won the bet, had it been made. Should I demand that YOU pay up?
But, a violation of that ToS does not absolve Reddit of their responsibilities laid out in theor own Privacy Policy.
But as you helpfully quote for us all, they have a lot of "unless" clauses in that policy, some of which cover the rights of others, and one of which covers TOS violations.
If Atlantic has a case, they should seek one.
Like they have.
You think they want legal liability if the IP address they hand over leads to the prosecution of, or a lawsuit against, the wrong person?
Is there evidence it will? And what legal liability? IP addresses are not personal information. We've already dealt with that canard. You cannot argue both ways. From the Privacy Policy: "We will not share, sell, or give away any of our users' personal information to third parties, unless...".
How about some case law or legal code that backs your position?
You've quoted the TOS and Privacy Policy. I don't need more.
You mean "put your money where your mouth is"?
No, I mean "unless you do something that I know you cannot do I will assume victory."
You don't have to trust me to reimburse you,
Were I stupid enough to take you up on your bet, yes, I would have had to trust that you could perform your side of the bargain when you lose. You wanted me to take an action based on your promise to reimburse me when I was shown to be correct; that empty promise tells me more about your position than anything else.
I notice that you added a word there, as if "cable" and "ISP" are somehow inextricably linked. You can choose any of a number of ISPs; cable television is just one delivery method.
So if my neighbors chose the incumbent, I would be no worse off than today,
No, because they would leave you with NO choice for ISP. You would then truly be stuck with Comcast as your ISP, instead of only being stuck with them because you want the service they can provide.
Competition is good, right?
And letting your neighbors (or landlord) choose the ISP you have to use is not "competition", it is the opposite.
For fans that have to have music the same day, download it illegally,
Nobody HAS to have music "the same day". They want the music first, and when they pirate it they accomplish the goal. They can't go back and pay for it -- they've already pirated it. And paying for another copy doesn't change that.
This wasn't an issue of "the same day", it was weeks before the release. If nobody needs it "the same day", then they certainly cannot need it "weeks before everyone else who gets it legally".
Fans get music ASAP, labels and artists get money.
Maybe, if they remember to go buy a real copy, or they don't decide that the track wasn't that good and decide not to buy it. I've already read someone posting here about how the piracy was justified because 21 Pilots is a crap band and there are others that are much better.
It ignores the fact that pirating the track supports the people who leaked the track and are illegally distributing it, even if it is nothing more than moral support. Hey, if 100,000 people downloaded this track, they must like what I'm doing, so I'm going to keep doing it! People who do this knowing they won't get money for it can only be doing it for the psychological "profit".
Without one, Reddit is at risk of being sued by the user whose information is being sought should they release it;
Sued for what? Releasing an IP address (which is not identifying information as we all know) that was the source of a link that the poster KNEW was not authorized? Because it allows Atlantic to determine who the employee was who broke his contract? Wanna bet that Reddit doesn't have a TOS that prohibits what happened? You think they want legal liability for any illegal use of their system that happens?
Think I'm off base?
Yep. Know it, in fact.
Get yourself a few hundred million dollars, buy Reddit, and release the user's details without a court order requiring you to do so.
That arguing technique is so obsolete and meaningless that it's not even funny. I can't buy Reddit so you must be right. Yeah. And I'd trust you to reimburse me when you find out you are wrong. Yeah.
Didn't say it was. I just pointed out that "domination" is not a requirement, only "profit".
Someone will need to take out a large bond to build the infrastructure, maintain it, and upgrade it.
Yes. For municipal infrastructure, that someone is called the "taxpayer". Everyone who pays taxes in that municipality. That's how municipal bond measures work. The municipality promises money, from the taxpayer, to an investment company in exchange for them selling bonds to investors and the expected payback of that money, with interest, to those investors. At the base of the system is a promise that the taxpayers will cover any costs not otherwise covered. And when you wind up with a large number of people getting free service until they die or move away, there are going to be a lot of costs that won't be covered by the customer.
They will issue bonds corresponding to the portion of the infrastructure consumed to residents.
Bonds are sold to investors. They aren't "issued" to people. But if you mean that your version of bonds will be SOLD to residents in exchange for Internet service, then you've not solved the problem of "to the portion of the infrastructure consumed". Today I don't have Netflix but I "buy" a bond. Tomorrow I get Netflix and my portion goes way up. Good deal for me, not so good for my neighbors. And I hate to say, as an ISP customer, I have no desire to assume a long term bond commitment so I can get my service. I like month-to-month service much better so I can change my provider if I am unhappy with them. Tell me that I need to buy a five-year bond for five years of service, I will not be happy, even if you tell me that my service will be free (and I'll get my money back) after those five years.
In my established neighborhood I would assert it as opt-in for current dwellers,
How is it opt-in? If someone wants service they can't get it from the old system because you've taken that over. It's your way or the no highway.
but require it as a title lien for future sales,
Everyone who buys a house in your perfect community would have to buy a long-term commitment to Internet service? Wow.
The people who are bonded would have different terms.
"People who are bonded"? You mean like "indentured servitude" bondsmen? You seem to be turning the entire municipal bond system on its head, forcing the residents to be the bond owners. They are forced to buy bonds if they want network service, but they can sell them if they can (thus paying effectively nothing for service), and when the bonds reach maturity they get their money back, also effectively paying nothing for service. In fact, you say that once the bonds mature, they get service for life for nothing more. This really is voodoo economics.
You will pay at least what you yourself owe, if not more, debts will be repaid with whatever interest was owed.
Uhhh, I will buy a bond to get Internet service, which will have a maturity date. At that time I get my money back -- with interest, because that's how bonds work -- and who pays the "debts" then? The only ones left putting money into the system are the newbs who you force to buy a bond as part of any home purchase. The money to build the system is gone, along with ongoing maintenance costs, so every penny I get back comes from new "investors". And the money they get back will rely on investors after them. Please look up "Ponzi scheme".
It solves the problem of that large initial investment,
By forcing everyone to buy a bond to cover it, or pay the taxes to service the bonds that aren't sold.
doesn't incur "taxes" which have a bad rap for being abused by governments and rerouted by politicians,
In fact, as the uploader is most likely an employee (read: representative) of the label (which has distribution rights to that song), the link was legitimately provided by the label,
Oh, please. You can't be seriously arguing that every employee of a company is an official public representative of that company able to decide when it is appropriate to release the company's product. That's just lunacy.
from the legal perspective of the link poster
The "link poster" doesn't have the authority to approve the release of a music track for a company he may or may not work for. The link poster had no way of identifying the original leaker as an employee of Atlantic and can therefore make no assumptions based on that knowledge. And where your argument fails is in the title of the link: "LEAK". The link poster knew it wasn't an authorized copy.
I hate to say it (really, I do) but... Reddit is in the right here.
This changes nothing about whether Atlantic is correct in asking for the information as a way of tracking down the employee they need to deal with.
Yup and without a court order it would likely also get Reddit sued by said user.
Sued for what?
So no, they're not doing what he said they should be doing, which was "go after THEIR employee",
Since they have gone after nobody else, and are asking for information that could help them identify the employee involved, yes, that is what they are doing.
From the perspective of the link poster, they got the link from an authorized distributor.
the file was posted to the Twenty One Pilots subreddit with the title "[Leak] New Song -- 'Heathens'. "
and let the homeowner or neighborhood choose the ISP?
What if all your neighbors decided they wanted Comcast as their ISP? Would you think that's a good deal for you? Isn't it better that you can select what ISP you want and let them do what they want?
And would you like your landlord telling you what ISP you must use? Isn't it better if you get to choose, like you can now?
I would expect that a real fan would download the track to get it first, and then pay for it later.
How do you pay for an unauthorized track you've downloaded when you download it, much less "later"? Of what value is a "first" the day after the track is released officially? Do you brag to other fans that you got a free copy the week before they did, and does that get you any credit with them? I know I would not be impressed with someone who thought it was a badge of pride to admit he pirated a copy of something I thought was worth paying for.
I wonder where the other 19 were?
I wonder why you used a question mark on that statement. And I would suggest you don't waste your time going to a Barenaked Ladies concert. You'll be horribly disappointed.
What you are trying to protect is your freedom. If you're going to lose it
That statement and the singular pronoun implies you think "freedom" is an atomic concept. I.e., that any freedom lost is a loss of all freedom.
This is a particularly zealous definition, and that's not a judgement, just a fact. Many people, I think, would consider the loss of "freedom" in having a border agent look at their phone's contents and find nothing to be something significantly different than the loss of "freedom" involved in being incarcerated because they didn't allow them to look.
"If you are going to lose it one way or another" means you put "look at phone messages" in the same loss of freedom category as "you sleep there and you eat what we give you and you live with 20 other people you don't particularly like or even trust, and no, we don't give you HBO. And here's your new roommate, Bubba. Bubba don't like many people. You're lucky, he really likes you".
the Reddit user is, most likely, someone with whom the untrustworthy employee who needs to be prosecuted shared the download link.
Then getting his IP address will help them identify the employee, just like I said. And did I say anything about prosecution? I don't think so.
The point remains, asking for the IP address is not "accusing the Internet", it's an attempt at identifying the source of the leak. Which is what the poster I replied to said Atlantic should be doing. They're doing what he said they should be doing.
AN IP address is not an identifiable to a person. It may not even be legitimate (think TOR or Proxy Service).
I didn't say it was. Please don't put words in my mouth. What I wrote was "EVIDENCE that can help them identify the employee. That could be the IP address". "Help them identify", and "could be the IP address." Not "prove beyond a reasonable doubt".
It is quite possible that the IP address will point right at the employee. Not everyone uses TOR or is smart enough to remove all traces from their uploading activity. It may be a neighbor's access point, which also points to a specific employee. It might be his phone, it might be something else.
they are hoping to catch the right fish.
And the IP address could help them do that. If they're supposed to go after the employee, then why is there a problem with them finding the right one?
These guys will all race to your house if they can be sure of perpetual domination, but are slow if there's competition.
No, they will race to your house if they can be guaranteed of a profit. Domination isn't necessary. Competition eats away at profits. There is lots of competition in the ISP marketplace. Profits aren't so readily available, and only a company run by morons leaps into a market where it cannot make a profit.
And Google is proving that fact. They made a big splash and hoped for a lot of water in their buckets at the end of the day. Now it's clear to them that they can't make as much money as they need to, and they're pulling back.
you can choose your own provider, and once you pay off your bond you never pay another dime as long as you live there, so future upgrades are "free".
These upgrades are installed by unicorns and the fibers are made out of pixie dust. I note the scare quotes around "free" to indicate that you know it won't really be free, but then say "you continue to get upgrades and service until you die or leave." Who is it that is paying for this?
If you don't want this service, then you don't have to take out the bond, and if not enough people are interested then it doesn't happen.
All or none. A good way to get Internet to all.
The bond is non-transferrable (except perhaps to a spouse),
Uhh, what? It appears you are using "bond" in an unusual way in the context of a municipally-owned infrastructure. Such bonds are always transferrable -- they apply to all taxpayers.
so if you sell then someone else takes out a new bond. In this way it is eternally paid for.
Ahh. A Ponzi scheme. Service for existing customers is paid for by new "bondholders", and their service will be paid for by later bondholders.
But it isn't a tax, it is voluntary, the government can't necessarily raid its budget, it breaks the monopoly and pays for itself.
And employs the homeless, keeps litter off the streets, feeds the children, and puts a chicken in every pot.
Of course this is impossible in places where our ancestors sold their souls to AT&T, etc. for eternal monopolies.
Above, you refer to AT&T in the context of cable companies like Comcast and TWC. As such, then, this idea is possible EVERYWHERE, since exclusive franchises have been illegal for so long that none should exist anywhere. Nobody's soul is encumbered by an "eternal monopoly".
Yep so they should go after THEIR employee that THEY HIRED who turned out not to be trustworthy
That's what they're trying to do. They need something called EVIDENCE that can help them identify the employee. That could be the IP address used to post the song.
Reddit claims it is a fishing expedition. Sorry, not. The song was posted, it was pre-release and in violation of copyright. There is no doubt of that. The only part that is relevant to "fishing" is that the music company wants to be allowed to pull up the right line which already has a fish attached.
You cannot blame "the internet" for doing what the internet is doing - making stuff worldwide once it's out there.
The recording industry clearly does want to stop ALL piracy of ALL kinds.
What they would like to happen and what they know they can accomplish are two very different things. You are talking about what they think they can do when you claim they are technologically ignorant. And YOU are wrong. My descriptions of cost/benefit analysis when applying security measures are quite accurate and apply to this situation. They KNOW they won't stop 100% of piracy by making it harder to copy, because they know it is only making it harder, not impossible. They understand the technology a lot better than you do, it seems.
the desire to go that far, or farther, still exists,
Desire and belief that it can be accomplished are two different things. Rant about their desire, but you were wrong when you talk about what they think they can actually accomplish.
See, that's what makes me believe that all these media industry goons are as technologically incompetent as your average politician, government official, or law enforcement:
And people who say that kind of thing are ignoring the simple fact that there is NO perfect security system. All of them are a tradeoff between cost, complexity, and benefit. And the "media industry goons" all know that.
Most people have locks on their front doors that are pickable by anyone who puts in a little effort. Those locks cost about $30 or so. Is the homeowner a technological moron for using such a low cost, easily bypassed security system? Of course not. They've simply done the cost/benefit analysis (either explicitly or implicitly) and realized that a $10,000 security system isn't worth the cost. What they have to protect isn't that expensive, is covered by insurance, and all they really need to do is make their front door hard enough to break into that a burglar will go next door instead.
Many years ago I had a cable box with a built-in descrambler for the premium content. It had a five pin connector between the button box and the decoding electronics. A standard five pin DIN. One of those five wires was pulled low to enable the descrambler. Easy peasy to hack that system. (And made even easier because the cable company would simply throw broken boxes out into their unlocked dumpster, so anyone who wanted to could look at how the system worked.) Were they stupid enough to think that this system would stop all pirating? Of course not.
Some years later I got a Dish Network system. It had a PCMCIA card that was the decryption engine. Potted chips. No easy spot to tack into the control and tell it to decrypt stuff. Did Dish think this system was 100% perfect? Of course not. There were people who posted info online about exactly where to drill into the card to get to the control lines. It just was very much harder than the old five pin DIN connector hack, and it stopped a lot of people. That was the goal.
So, the "bottom line" really is, the content producers aren't trying to stop 100% of the copying, they're only trying to stop the people for whom it isn't worth the effort anymore. Those who go to the effort of ripping and distributing stuff are still going to do so, and they will still be targets for enforcement. It's just that Joe Sixpack won't be doing it to give stuff to his friends.
Slashdot Mirror
Both the kid uploading and the kid downloading can be charged with possession of kiddie porn.
Thus proving you read nothing of what you reply to, because I already said that. Perhaps before you order someone else to watch "old media TV", you should read the postings you reply to?
But your claim was that the person doing the monitoring could be charged with downloading CP, which is patently absurd.
Are the laws really this fucked up?
No. Someone is not guilty of downloading kiddie porn because they monitor what their kids do on the computer. The kid, who is UPloading kiddie porn, can be charged.
How about a sudden outbreak of common sense here.
You must be new here. This is slashdot, proof that "common sense" isn't that common.
I disagree. There is a whole world of "public", and a lot of them don't have access to a University library.
Yes, there is a whole world of public, and just because they don't have access to a library (we are talking about journals, not libraries, btw) doesn't mean they have a burning desire to read scientific journal articles. "The pubic", for the most part, and in a vast majority, just don't care. Otherwise this problem would have been solved a long time ago.
And no, science should not be confined to the cloistered halls of academe.
Why do you think are you disagreeing with me?
Do we WANT to keep the rest of the world in a state of non-participatory ignorance?
Can you please disagree with something I actually said, not what you wanted me to say?
But still, paywalled journals are, IMO, doomed.
I assume you are not intending to limit the discussion to only web-accessible pay journals ("paywalled"), so I disagree with you. The fact that they still exist proves this. People pay for convenience. Professionally published, indexed, and collated journal articles are a convenience. That I can pick up a journal on a certain topic and find articles relevant to that topic is a convenience, compared to grepping a website with all kinds of articles on it. I've found so many interesting things by scanning the table of contents of journals, compared to specific searches for a topic, to ever think that this way of learning will go away.
A good sign that people will pay for the convenience is that many of the professional scientists who have access to library or personal copies of journals still subscribe to things like Nature, which does nothing but collate and summarize journal articles. Were the convenience unwanted, nobody would subscribe, they'd just read the journals directly. In fact, the convenience of finding things in one's field of study is so great that they'll put up with the wind range of irrelevant material that Nature carries.
I don't know, but they'd better find it soon, because the Internet has made old-style journals largely obsolete
Journals are still relevant as repositories for material and easy browsing tools. I've found amazing things just because I decided to browse through a journal, that I'd never spend the time googling, if I even knew what the best search terms would be.
But OpenAccess is already found.
and the public will no longer tolerate not being able to read the research they, after all, ultimately paid for.
This truly is a 1%-er issue. The vast majority of the public has no interest in reading this material, and the vast majority of those wouldn't understand what they were reading even if they did. You are posting in a very select subset of "the public".
How much you want to bet you aren't getting the raw data ?
Well, when I click on the link that is supposed to be a NASA-funded journal article about tsunamis on Mars, I get taken to a Motherboard story instead. Slashdot is still powned by vice, right, and the editors love clicks to get ad revenues.
Torturing you wouldn't accomplish anything because all that would do is make the duress even *more* obvious to a detector that reads your state of mind while you provide a password.
My ten year old child is bleeding to death from a trip through a plate glass window, and I need to call 911. WHY WON'T MY FUCKING PHONE UNLOCK! GOD DAMN IT! UNLOCK YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT! WHY DON'T YOU ACCEPT MY PASSWORD?
Do people need to carry a couple of ludes with them all the time so they can use their phone when they are in an agitated or stressful state? "Keep the pressure on your artery Billy until the ludes kick in and I can call for help ... it will only be 15 minutes or so..."
My point is that they are both losses.
Yes, they are, but you put them in the same class when you say if you are going to experience one of them, you might as well go all the way and get the other. If one of them is more significant than the other then you don't want to say "in for a penny, in for a pound". If you're going to lose it one way or the other, and you think letting border agents look at your phone isn't as serious a loss as being put in prison, AND YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE ANYWAY, then why would you not mitigate the loss by taking the lesser one?
Yeah, Gandhi made great gains by not taking "the lesser one". If you think you're going to have the same results as Gandhi by refusing to let a border agent look at your phone, well, it doesn't seem to be working out that way for anyone who does it.
Whether or not you should buckle under over access to your phone does not necessarily depend on there being anything of value on the phone.
I know. It depends on whether you can win in any way by not buckling under, and whether the cost of not buckling under is more than doing it. If you happen to have a folder full of CP that would put you in prison as a CP offender if a border agent saw it, then of course you choose the lower cost option of refusing.
The point is, the assumption is you are going to lose. You get to choose how much you lose. "You might as well" implies no difference. "As well."
As for someone asking "why Bubba"? It's a well-known meme that gets the point across quickly. That's why. If you want to use a different name, fine.
Is this advertising, or is it piracy?
Neither, but I suspect you know that are are throwing up a deliberate red herring.
If you pirate a track or an album, and then later pay for it,
Who do you pay for a pirated copy of an album?
Who is out their money? One customer still equals one sale of one track/album.
I think I covered that under the positive feedback aspect of supporting the original pirate.
I can provide a personal anecdote in this area. Kind of close. Many years ago I asked a company for the API for one of their devices so I could write code for my own use to connect their hardware to my linux system. (There was no linux software available.) They refused. They didn't give out that information as a way of protecting the software vendors they were already working with. So, easy enough, I reverse engineered it and put it on the net for anyone who wanted a copy. I got paid in "thanks".
Now, had that company come back later and said "I'll sell you the info", would I have paid? (Of course not.) And would it have prevented the free version from spreading? (Of course not.) So, in the long run, their software vendors lost sales because I let the secret codes out of the bag, and it is impossible to know how many they lost. It is impossible to know how many sales some other company made based on my code. And it's not an issue of sales only for linux systems so the Windows vendors lost nothing; I wrote the code in a system-agnostic way, and the documentation of the protocol itself would allow Windows implementations anyway.
Pretending that the original poster wasn't looking for that feedback, and wouldn't consider it the next time such an opportunity arises, is naive at best. And assuming that someone who is ripping off an evil capitalist record company that is enslaving the artists and stealing their skills is going to turn around and pay that same record company when a legal copy becomes available is also naive.
But, the point I was making is, the claim that people have to have it on the first day is a juicy rationalization, and not true in the first place. And since this was a "weeks early" situation and not "first day", the rationalization is even less applicable.
If that IP address leads them to contact a person, that IP address did, then, identify that person.
No. It led them to contact someone. It did not identify them as the user of the IP or the poster. We ALL KNOW THAT IP ADDRESSES ARE NOT PERSONAL IDENTIFIERS. Don't argue otherwise, it's unbecoming and hypocritical. That person could be the neighbor, it could be the owner of a stolen cell phone, it could be the administrative contact for a domain the IP address is in. "Someone" is not "the person who posted the link", but that someone could help identify who that really was, using other information in addition to the IP address.
Well, for starters, by your own claim an IP address does not identify an individual, so no, it does not identify the uploader,
Knock it off. I didn't say it proved who the uploader was, it CAN HELP THEM IDENTIFY who it is. "Helps". As in, other information will be necessary. And "CAN", as in might.
Seems the clause does exist.
So I would have won the bet, had it been made. Should I demand that YOU pay up?
But, a violation of that ToS does not absolve Reddit of their responsibilities laid out in theor own Privacy Policy.
But as you helpfully quote for us all, they have a lot of "unless" clauses in that policy, some of which cover the rights of others, and one of which covers TOS violations.
If Atlantic has a case, they should seek one.
Like they have.
You think they want legal liability if the IP address they hand over leads to the prosecution of, or a lawsuit against, the wrong person?
Is there evidence it will? And what legal liability? IP addresses are not personal information. We've already dealt with that canard. You cannot argue both ways. From the Privacy Policy: "We will not share, sell, or give away any of our users' personal information to third parties, unless ...".
How about some case law or legal code that backs your position?
You've quoted the TOS and Privacy Policy. I don't need more.
You mean "put your money where your mouth is"?
No, I mean "unless you do something that I know you cannot do I will assume victory."
You don't have to trust me to reimburse you,
Were I stupid enough to take you up on your bet, yes, I would have had to trust that you could perform your side of the bargain when you lose. You wanted me to take an action based on your promise to reimburse me when I was shown to be correct; that empty promise tells me more about your position than anything else.
No, I don't get to choose my cable ISP.
I notice that you added a word there, as if "cable" and "ISP" are somehow inextricably linked. You can choose any of a number of ISPs; cable television is just one delivery method.
So if my neighbors chose the incumbent, I would be no worse off than today,
No, because they would leave you with NO choice for ISP. You would then truly be stuck with Comcast as your ISP, instead of only being stuck with them because you want the service they can provide.
Competition is good, right?
And letting your neighbors (or landlord) choose the ISP you have to use is not "competition", it is the opposite.
For fans that have to have music the same day, download it illegally,
Nobody HAS to have music "the same day". They want the music first, and when they pirate it they accomplish the goal. They can't go back and pay for it -- they've already pirated it. And paying for another copy doesn't change that.
This wasn't an issue of "the same day", it was weeks before the release. If nobody needs it "the same day", then they certainly cannot need it "weeks before everyone else who gets it legally".
Fans get music ASAP, labels and artists get money.
Maybe, if they remember to go buy a real copy, or they don't decide that the track wasn't that good and decide not to buy it. I've already read someone posting here about how the piracy was justified because 21 Pilots is a crap band and there are others that are much better.
It ignores the fact that pirating the track supports the people who leaked the track and are illegally distributing it, even if it is nothing more than moral support. Hey, if 100,000 people downloaded this track, they must like what I'm doing, so I'm going to keep doing it! People who do this knowing they won't get money for it can only be doing it for the psychological "profit".
Without one, Reddit is at risk of being sued by the user whose information is being sought should they release it;
Sued for what? Releasing an IP address (which is not identifying information as we all know) that was the source of a link that the poster KNEW was not authorized? Because it allows Atlantic to determine who the employee was who broke his contract? Wanna bet that Reddit doesn't have a TOS that prohibits what happened? You think they want legal liability for any illegal use of their system that happens?
Think I'm off base?
Yep. Know it, in fact.
Get yourself a few hundred million dollars, buy Reddit, and release the user's details without a court order requiring you to do so.
That arguing technique is so obsolete and meaningless that it's not even funny. I can't buy Reddit so you must be right. Yeah. And I'd trust you to reimburse me when you find out you are wrong. Yeah.
Not my problem to solve.
Didn't say it was. I just pointed out that "domination" is not a requirement, only "profit".
Someone will need to take out a large bond to build the infrastructure, maintain it, and upgrade it.
Yes. For municipal infrastructure, that someone is called the "taxpayer". Everyone who pays taxes in that municipality. That's how municipal bond measures work. The municipality promises money, from the taxpayer, to an investment company in exchange for them selling bonds to investors and the expected payback of that money, with interest, to those investors. At the base of the system is a promise that the taxpayers will cover any costs not otherwise covered. And when you wind up with a large number of people getting free service until they die or move away, there are going to be a lot of costs that won't be covered by the customer.
They will issue bonds corresponding to the portion of the infrastructure consumed to residents.
Bonds are sold to investors. They aren't "issued" to people. But if you mean that your version of bonds will be SOLD to residents in exchange for Internet service, then you've not solved the problem of "to the portion of the infrastructure consumed". Today I don't have Netflix but I "buy" a bond. Tomorrow I get Netflix and my portion goes way up. Good deal for me, not so good for my neighbors. And I hate to say, as an ISP customer, I have no desire to assume a long term bond commitment so I can get my service. I like month-to-month service much better so I can change my provider if I am unhappy with them. Tell me that I need to buy a five-year bond for five years of service, I will not be happy, even if you tell me that my service will be free (and I'll get my money back) after those five years.
In my established neighborhood I would assert it as opt-in for current dwellers,
How is it opt-in? If someone wants service they can't get it from the old system because you've taken that over. It's your way or the no highway.
but require it as a title lien for future sales,
Everyone who buys a house in your perfect community would have to buy a long-term commitment to Internet service? Wow.
The people who are bonded would have different terms.
"People who are bonded"? You mean like "indentured servitude" bondsmen? You seem to be turning the entire municipal bond system on its head, forcing the residents to be the bond owners. They are forced to buy bonds if they want network service, but they can sell them if they can (thus paying effectively nothing for service), and when the bonds reach maturity they get their money back, also effectively paying nothing for service. In fact, you say that once the bonds mature, they get service for life for nothing more. This really is voodoo economics.
You will pay at least what you yourself owe, if not more, debts will be repaid with whatever interest was owed.
Uhhh, I will buy a bond to get Internet service, which will have a maturity date. At that time I get my money back -- with interest, because that's how bonds work -- and who pays the "debts" then? The only ones left putting money into the system are the newbs who you force to buy a bond as part of any home purchase. The money to build the system is gone, along with ongoing maintenance costs, so every penny I get back comes from new "investors". And the money they get back will rely on investors after them. Please look up "Ponzi scheme".
It solves the problem of that large initial investment,
By forcing everyone to buy a bond to cover it, or pay the taxes to service the bonds that aren't sold.
doesn't incur "taxes" which have a bad rap for being abused by governments and rerouted by politicians,
Municipal bonds are taxpayer backed investments.
In fact, as the uploader is most likely an employee (read: representative) of the label (which has distribution rights to that song), the link was legitimately provided by the label,
Oh, please. You can't be seriously arguing that every employee of a company is an official public representative of that company able to decide when it is appropriate to release the company's product. That's just lunacy.
from the legal perspective of the link poster
The "link poster" doesn't have the authority to approve the release of a music track for a company he may or may not work for. The link poster had no way of identifying the original leaker as an employee of Atlantic and can therefore make no assumptions based on that knowledge. And where your argument fails is in the title of the link: "LEAK". The link poster knew it wasn't an authorized copy.
I hate to say it (really, I do) but... Reddit is in the right here.
This changes nothing about whether Atlantic is correct in asking for the information as a way of tracking down the employee they need to deal with.
Yup and without a court order it would likely also get Reddit sued by said user.
Sued for what?
So no, they're not doing what he said they should be doing, which was "go after THEIR employee",
Since they have gone after nobody else, and are asking for information that could help them identify the employee involved, yes, that is what they are doing.
From the perspective of the link poster, they got the link from an authorized distributor.
The link poster knew it was a leak. Try again.
and let the homeowner or neighborhood choose the ISP?
What if all your neighbors decided they wanted Comcast as their ISP? Would you think that's a good deal for you? Isn't it better that you can select what ISP you want and let them do what they want? And would you like your landlord telling you what ISP you must use? Isn't it better if you get to choose, like you can now?
I would expect that a real fan would download the track to get it first, and then pay for it later.
How do you pay for an unauthorized track you've downloaded when you download it, much less "later"? Of what value is a "first" the day after the track is released officially? Do you brag to other fans that you got a free copy the week before they did, and does that get you any credit with them? I know I would not be impressed with someone who thought it was a badge of pride to admit he pirated a copy of something I thought was worth paying for.
I wonder where the other 19 were?
I wonder why you used a question mark on that statement. And I would suggest you don't waste your time going to a Barenaked Ladies concert. You'll be horribly disappointed.
What you are trying to protect is your freedom. If you're going to lose it
That statement and the singular pronoun implies you think "freedom" is an atomic concept. I.e., that any freedom lost is a loss of all freedom.
This is a particularly zealous definition, and that's not a judgement, just a fact. Many people, I think, would consider the loss of "freedom" in having a border agent look at their phone's contents and find nothing to be something significantly different than the loss of "freedom" involved in being incarcerated because they didn't allow them to look.
"If you are going to lose it one way or another" means you put "look at phone messages" in the same loss of freedom category as "you sleep there and you eat what we give you and you live with 20 other people you don't particularly like or even trust, and no, we don't give you HBO. And here's your new roommate, Bubba. Bubba don't like many people. You're lucky, he really likes you".
the Reddit user is, most likely, someone with whom the untrustworthy employee who needs to be prosecuted shared the download link.
Then getting his IP address will help them identify the employee, just like I said. And did I say anything about prosecution? I don't think so.
The point remains, asking for the IP address is not "accusing the Internet", it's an attempt at identifying the source of the leak. Which is what the poster I replied to said Atlantic should be doing. They're doing what he said they should be doing.
AN IP address is not an identifiable to a person. It may not even be legitimate (think TOR or Proxy Service).
I didn't say it was. Please don't put words in my mouth. What I wrote was "EVIDENCE that can help them identify the employee. That could be the IP address". "Help them identify", and "could be the IP address." Not "prove beyond a reasonable doubt".
It is quite possible that the IP address will point right at the employee. Not everyone uses TOR or is smart enough to remove all traces from their uploading activity. It may be a neighbor's access point, which also points to a specific employee. It might be his phone, it might be something else.
they are hoping to catch the right fish.
And the IP address could help them do that. If they're supposed to go after the employee, then why is there a problem with them finding the right one?
These guys will all race to your house if they can be sure of perpetual domination, but are slow if there's competition.
No, they will race to your house if they can be guaranteed of a profit. Domination isn't necessary. Competition eats away at profits. There is lots of competition in the ISP marketplace. Profits aren't so readily available, and only a company run by morons leaps into a market where it cannot make a profit.
And Google is proving that fact. They made a big splash and hoped for a lot of water in their buckets at the end of the day. Now it's clear to them that they can't make as much money as they need to, and they're pulling back.
you can choose your own provider, and once you pay off your bond you never pay another dime as long as you live there, so future upgrades are "free".
These upgrades are installed by unicorns and the fibers are made out of pixie dust. I note the scare quotes around "free" to indicate that you know it won't really be free, but then say "you continue to get upgrades and service until you die or leave." Who is it that is paying for this?
If you don't want this service, then you don't have to take out the bond, and if not enough people are interested then it doesn't happen.
All or none. A good way to get Internet to all.
The bond is non-transferrable (except perhaps to a spouse),
Uhh, what? It appears you are using "bond" in an unusual way in the context of a municipally-owned infrastructure. Such bonds are always transferrable -- they apply to all taxpayers.
so if you sell then someone else takes out a new bond. In this way it is eternally paid for.
Ahh. A Ponzi scheme. Service for existing customers is paid for by new "bondholders", and their service will be paid for by later bondholders.
But it isn't a tax, it is voluntary, the government can't necessarily raid its budget, it breaks the monopoly and pays for itself.
And employs the homeless, keeps litter off the streets, feeds the children, and puts a chicken in every pot.
Of course this is impossible in places where our ancestors sold their souls to AT&T, etc. for eternal monopolies.
Above, you refer to AT&T in the context of cable companies like Comcast and TWC. As such, then, this idea is possible EVERYWHERE, since exclusive franchises have been illegal for so long that none should exist anywhere. Nobody's soul is encumbered by an "eternal monopoly".
Yep so they should go after THEIR employee that THEY HIRED who turned out not to be trustworthy
That's what they're trying to do. They need something called EVIDENCE that can help them identify the employee. That could be the IP address used to post the song.
Reddit claims it is a fishing expedition. Sorry, not. The song was posted, it was pre-release and in violation of copyright. There is no doubt of that. The only part that is relevant to "fishing" is that the music company wants to be allowed to pull up the right line which already has a fish attached.
You cannot blame "the internet" for doing what the internet is doing - making stuff worldwide once it's out there.
That's not what is happening.
No, see, I'm sorry but you're wrong,
Hardly.
The recording industry clearly does want to stop ALL piracy of ALL kinds.
What they would like to happen and what they know they can accomplish are two very different things. You are talking about what they think they can do when you claim they are technologically ignorant. And YOU are wrong. My descriptions of cost/benefit analysis when applying security measures are quite accurate and apply to this situation. They KNOW they won't stop 100% of piracy by making it harder to copy, because they know it is only making it harder, not impossible. They understand the technology a lot better than you do, it seems.
the desire to go that far, or farther, still exists,
Desire and belief that it can be accomplished are two different things. Rant about their desire, but you were wrong when you talk about what they think they can actually accomplish.
See, that's what makes me believe that all these media industry goons are as technologically incompetent as your average politician, government official, or law enforcement:
And people who say that kind of thing are ignoring the simple fact that there is NO perfect security system. All of them are a tradeoff between cost, complexity, and benefit. And the "media industry goons" all know that.
Most people have locks on their front doors that are pickable by anyone who puts in a little effort. Those locks cost about $30 or so. Is the homeowner a technological moron for using such a low cost, easily bypassed security system? Of course not. They've simply done the cost/benefit analysis (either explicitly or implicitly) and realized that a $10,000 security system isn't worth the cost. What they have to protect isn't that expensive, is covered by insurance, and all they really need to do is make their front door hard enough to break into that a burglar will go next door instead.
Many years ago I had a cable box with a built-in descrambler for the premium content. It had a five pin connector between the button box and the decoding electronics. A standard five pin DIN. One of those five wires was pulled low to enable the descrambler. Easy peasy to hack that system. (And made even easier because the cable company would simply throw broken boxes out into their unlocked dumpster, so anyone who wanted to could look at how the system worked.) Were they stupid enough to think that this system would stop all pirating? Of course not.
Some years later I got a Dish Network system. It had a PCMCIA card that was the decryption engine. Potted chips. No easy spot to tack into the control and tell it to decrypt stuff. Did Dish think this system was 100% perfect? Of course not. There were people who posted info online about exactly where to drill into the card to get to the control lines. It just was very much harder than the old five pin DIN connector hack, and it stopped a lot of people. That was the goal.
So, the "bottom line" really is, the content producers aren't trying to stop 100% of the copying, they're only trying to stop the people for whom it isn't worth the effort anymore. Those who go to the effort of ripping and distributing stuff are still going to do so, and they will still be targets for enforcement. It's just that Joe Sixpack won't be doing it to give stuff to his friends.