RIAA MediaSentry, Dead In US, Is Alive In Australia 305
newtley writes "Disgraced and discredited 'private investigator' MediaSentry, fired by former patrons Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music, and Sony Music and their RIAA, may be dead and buried in America, but it's alive and well, resurfacing in Australia where it's once again plying its trade, probably under new management. 'I currently (but not for long) reside at a student dormitory... in Brisbane, Australia,' says a p2pnet reader, continuing: 'Yesterday I got called into the Managers office because the network manager had been contacted by MediaSentry and emailed one of the generic copyright infringement emails as a result of me downloading Angels and Demons. Now instead of studying for my exams and working on my final assignments I must take time to find a place to live before the 29th of May (2009).'"
Re:Not that sympathetic (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems he got a damn fast judgement. And a damn fast judgement done by a private company.
Does anyone remember 'Judge Dredd'? 'I am the law!!!'
Re:What's the problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is fascinating. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm going to pretend I have no opinion in this post and instead make a "meta-comment:"
What I find fascinating is that, just a year ago, an overwhelming majority of Slashdot readers would have defended this student, written posts to the effect that it is justifiable to download copyrighted work, made angry statements about the MP/RI-AA, and the like. Now, I see many more posts (and story tags -- currently "righttosteal") like yours. Sure, the old pro-pirate posts are still around -- they are probably even still the majority -- but I think that the percentage is lower. I wonder if this means that attitudes are changing, and whether this is due at all to the RIAA's campaign.
Seriously - losing your housing is appropriate (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you *seriously* contend that losing your housing with like 2 weeks' notice or something ridiculous like that is a fitting response to the activity in question? I totally have sympathy for this guy. I don't see why anyone should lose their housing over copyright infringement. I mean, just disable his ethernet ports for a week or something. I fail to see how kicking someone out of the building with short notice is an appropriate response for minor copyright infringement.
Re:Not that sympathetic (Score:4, Interesting)
While that is true... He really would have got much more sympathy, even on /., if he had the brains to write:
"the network manager had been contacted by MediaSentry and emailed one of the generic copyright infringement emails as a result of me (allegedly) downloading Angels and Demons."
Honestly, students today... what is education coming to? Seems too easy to get into Uni these days. Innocent until proven guilty, but if you are admitting your guilt, then there's a good chance you are. He would have had a reasonable grounds for fighting this if he'd denied any wrong doing and shifted the burden of proof. Not very smart not to.
Re:Not that sympathetic (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, downloading movies should be illegal, but why are the charges so incredibly much more than shoplifting the DVD out of a store? If he'd done that, he'd probably still have his dorm room.
This doesn't sound like MediaSentry's style (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Angels and Demons (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe they shouldn't make $100 Million+ movies. Maybe they shouldn't use shady accounting practices to act like it costs $100M to make a movie. Maybe they should let movie theaters keep part of the money from the tickets they sell so that it doesn't cost $4.50 for a soda there. Maybe they should release movies in theaters and on DVD on the same day so I don't have a bunch of yammering teenagers kicking the seat behind me while the ice monster in Star Trek screams at 110 dB.
I don't think it's necessarily right to "steal" their content. But Hollywood is far from blameless for making it desirable to download movies.
Maybe I'm just bitter.
Re:Angels and Demons (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a terrible but solid analogy. While I find modern copyright extensions unjust, they are trivial in comparison to human rights. Still, both disobeyed what in their eyes was an unjust law. It's certainly not a good analogy, but it's sound.
Re:Angels and Demons (Score:3, Interesting)
So you think that movie studios should spend $100+million on a movie and then give it away?
Good point (I wish all pro-IP arguments made as much sense as this). I will elaborate in hopes of making a bit more sense.
First, there is demand from movie theaters to have movies. If they don't have new and interesting content, they will go out of business. Therefore it's reasonable to assume that even if Hollywood kicked the bucket, movie studios would pool their resources to make movies that people want to watch in theaters. They may not end up costing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, but this may be a good thing for the quality of films (and with computers continually getting faster special effects will get better every year, just within the budgets that people are willing to pay for).
Second, the people making movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars depend on the shared cultural experiences and works of civilization (see: Disney). There is no reason to assume that culture, memes and archtypes that were created hundreds or thousands of years before IP law will not be expanded upon without IP law, nor that they would create such interesting works without that groundwork laid by those before them.
Third, innovation always changes the playing field. Before the invention of the printing press the world of information was largely controlled by the church (at least in the west). After it's invention the works of many people became available to others at a dizzying rate. The monopoly on information was lost to the church and they never regained it. Looking back on it it is obvious that the innovation of the printing press was good for society, but while the revolution was going on it was not clear that it would be a good one.
Finally, I believe that people that create are driven to create. They may not become multimillionaires, but there will always be a demand for people to create content and a willingness for people to create it. When it makes sense for people to do this as full time jobs there will be people willing to pay them for it. And if there is no one willing to pay for content, and no one that is willing to do it for free, then the conclusion I would draw would be that no one really wanted it in the first place.
If you've gotten this far I thank you for your time.
Culturally a little differnt (Score:4, Interesting)
Except, culturally, things work a little differently here. Or, at least they used to.
When you do something wrong, you own up to it. You admit your mistake. To deny you did something that you did actually do is seen as cowardice.
It goes back to the playground rules when you were at school.
But the times, they are a changing. More often, people are choosing to get a lawyer (goon) and hide behind them and make up bullshit lines instead of owning up and admitting what they did was wrong.
The innocent until proven guilty line only works for me when the accused is actually innocent. The guy in the story was just being a non coward.
Re:Angels and Demons (Score:3, Interesting)
Civil disobedience might be vital training for a healthy democracy.
the system is imperfect
More than agreed. It is seriously broken.
you would support cheating the system
Why not? What is wrong with bucking a system that most agree is unjust? Rebellion is a fine American tradition. How else do we get change for the better? Lobbying Congress often doesn't work well. Million man marches make lots of noise but produce little change. Should Vietnam draft dodgers have meekly reported to camp? Should they not have taken any extraordinary measures such as messing up their health immediately before so they would flunk the physicals? Or serving in the National Guard like George W. Bush? Risk death for a war of very dubious merit? If they had, might the war there have gone on for another 10 years, or 20 years, because policy makers thought the public was backing them? If nothing else, that war broke the draft. Dare you think what W. might have done had he the power to draft millions of additional soldiers? Invade and occupy Iran and North Korea, and Syria, and Jordan and Pakistan, and what the heck, Saudi Arabia too, for the security of our oil supplies, you know.
Re:This is fascinating. (Score:3, Interesting)
Although I have to say my opinion in favor of copyright (and against piracy) has gotten a bit stronger for a few reasons:
I agree that copyrights last too long, and they should be shortened, but unless you can think of a better way to compensate artists, I think it's the best way to go.
Re:Angels and Demons (Score:3, Interesting)
This may or may not be true, but what you are basically saying is, "they are going to work hard (to create), and someone else will pay them for it, therefor I should be able to enjoy it freely." You're freeloading off someone else's hard work.
I'm suggesting that supply (stuff, in this case information) and demand (people that want new stuff) existed before IP laws, and that it will exist after IP laws are gone. I believe that IP laws are now obsolete, even if they ever were useful to the progress of mankind.
Shakespeare wrote plays before there was copyright. He was paid to make plays, because people wanted to perform them. Are people that perform his plays today freeloading, and should they pay his descendants for using his IP? The same goes for Motzart, Beethoven, Plato, Aristotle, etc. Do you seriously think that Fox will stop making crappy TV shows because they no longer have a monopoly on distributing the video after it is broadcast? They haven't (de facto) since the invention of the VCR.
Copyright was originally created to prevent people from profiting (i.e. selling) from the works of others without their consent and not designed to prevent people from reading their works in libraries for free. I don't see how it applies in a world where everyone has access to their own personal printing press and a library with the capacity to one day contain the sum total of human knowledge, culture, experience and information.
Social Contract Theory, Souvernty, and Natural Law (Score:3, Interesting)
Social Contract Theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society. REF [utm.edu]
Hobbes argues that we will do ANYTHING to avoid the State of Nature and will always, rationally, pick absolute authority.
I can not be told better, from the same article:
According to Locke, the State of Nature, the natural condition of mankind, is a state of perfect and complete liberty to conduct one's life as one best sees fit, free from the interference of others. This does not mean, however, that it is a state of license: one is not free to do anything at all one pleases, or even anything that one judges to be in oneâ(TM)s interest. The State of Nature, although a state wherein there is no civil authority or government to punish people for transgressions against laws, is not a state without morality. The State of Nature is pre-political, but it is not pre-moral. Persons are assumed to be equal to one another in such a state, and therefore equally capable of discovering and being bound by the Law of Nature. The Law of Nature, which is on Lockeâ(TM)s view the basis of all morality, and given to us by God, commands that we not harm others with regards to their "life, health, liberty, or possessions" (par. 6). Because we all belong equally to God, and because we cannot take away that which is rightfully His, we are prohibited from harming one another. So, the State of Nature is a state of liberty where persons are free to pursue their own interests and plans, free from interference, and, because of the Law of Nature and the restrictions that it imposes upon persons, it is relatively peaceful.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
Humans are essentially free, and were free in the State of Nature, but the âprogress' of civilization has substituted subservience to others for that freedom, through dependence, economic and social inequalities, and the extent to which we judge ourselves through comparisons with others. Since a return to the State of Nature is neither feasible nor desirable, the purpose of politics is to restore freedom to us, thereby reconciling who we truly and essentially are with how we live together. So, this is the fundamental philosophical problem that The Social Contract seeks to address: how can we be free and live together? Or, put another way, how can we live together without succumbing to the force and coercion of others? We can do so, Rousseau maintains, by submitting our individual, particular wills to the collective or general will, created through agreement with other free and equal persons. Like Hobbes and Locke before him, and in contrast to the ancient philosophers, all men are made by nature to be equals, therefore no one has a natural right to govern others, and therefore the only justified authority is the authority that is generated out of agreements or covenants.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Madison on Shay's Rebellion (a violent opposition by ~1200 farmers regarding free trade agreements with Spain on the Mississippi River. Farmers feared the agreement would affirm sovereignty of Spanish traders):
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government. REF [earlyamerica.com]
In another letter criticizing the (not yet ratified) constitution:
I do not like... the omission of a bill of r