Music Piracy Unit Raids ISP in BitTorrent Assault

renai42 writes "Australia's music industry piracy investigations unit has raided an Internet service provider in Perth, Australia in what it says is the first Australian assault on the use of BitTorrent technology for copyright infringement. Outgoing Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) general manager, Michael Speck, said the raid was launched this afternoon at the offices of Swiftel Communications."

Arrrr!

[BJZQ8]

Arrr matey! Show me the pirates and I be on me way!

Re:Arrrr!

[Anonymous Coward]

Use the Steve Irwin voice:

I found these HUGE poirates, they grow up to six or seven feet hoigh and have these big computahs. Here's one with foity songs from that BitTawent, isn't she a beauty? Crikey, I gawts ta wank awff on that toight ass...

and this is who it went?

[DenDave]

*radio chirps*

we have 404 in progress

*chirp*

they've taken down the links

*chrip*

I'm goin' in

*chirp*

*crashing sounds*

*screams*

put down the network cable!

put your hands above your head!

Hey, you, in the greatfull dead tshirt and the
"fuck-you" hat! Ya you, drop the Peanut butter
and jelly sandwich right now!!

The tough jobs of tough men in law enforcement and the War on Torrent....

*sob*

Re:and this is who it went?

[Zorilla]

Definitely a George Carlin fan.

The torrent cops will become corrupt...

[sgant]

Oh sure, at first they'll be on the up and up. But after a while, with so many songs just laying around, soon a young cop...not getting paid enough, will start skimming a few songs off the raid for himself. He'll think "hey, there's so many songs here, they won't know I took a few!"

Then after a while, he's a major song peddler himself...and the bittorrent pirates will know they can pay him off with a few dozen songs here and there. Corruption will seep into the ranks of the bittorrent police and soon after that, it makes way for the song cartels.

Company name

[Paska]

It should be noted that the company that got raided, is now called 'People Telecom'. There former name was Swiftel.

Re:Company name

[Gentlewhisper]

Is MIPI a govt agency? Who gave them the rights to conduct random raids as they please?

Re:Company name

[Paska]

I am pretty sure they are civil, and the court order was obtained from a civil court.

This is also not the first time this sort of attack has been carried out, a year or so ago a court order [idg.com.au] was taken out against the largest ISP in Australia, Telstra

For anyone interested there is a lot more information about this People Telecom raid at http://whirlpool.net.au/

Re:Company name

[eln]

No, they are not a government agency, the government gave them a court order authorizing them to do this. Amazing how the government will allow a private corporation to search another private corporation's confidential records, isn't it? I believe similar orders have been executed by various industry groups in the US, like the BSA, and possibly the RIAA.

It's things like this that really give you the impression that government is just a tool of powerful corporations. Whatever happened to government law enforcement agencies enforcing court orders?

Re:Company name

[mankey wanker]

It's The Golden Rule:
"He who has the gold makes the rules."

Democracy, Republic, Due Process, Rights - all catchy marketing phrases to disguise the ugly face of unbridled Capital.

Re:Company name

[HD Webdev]

It's things like this that really give you the impression that government is just a tool of powerful corporations. Whatever happened to government law enforcement agencies enforcing court orders?

This way the Government dodges the 'unreasonable search and seizure' rule.

They often use 3rd parties to keep from violating the Government's consititution.

For example: Let's say the Government and a criminally-minded person type person suspected I was growning marijuana. He could rob my house, steal that marijuana, show it to the Government, and could tell the Government that he that I was growing it. The Government could then easily get an 'official' warrant to search my premesis for that illegal activity.

But, the police could not do that (directly) themselves because with a good attorney, I would walk right away from the case.

The Governments of many countries use a variation of this tactic to do what they are not allowed to do directly.

They give a 3rd party the advice or permission to do something they aren't supposed to do themselves.

Re:Company name

[RodgerDodger]

The evidence isn't admissible, but it is sufficient to obtain a warrant in order to find admissible evidence.

Re:Company name

[HD Webdev]

The evidence isn't admissible, but it is sufficient to obtain a warrant in order to find admissible evidence.

Exactly. It's the 3rd party dodge to get a warrant for something the Government can't get a warrant for directly themselves.

It doesn't matter if the Government can directly prosecute with what they have from the 3rd party...but it is enough for them to get an official warrant to investigate further than they normally would legally be able to do.

Re:Company name

[morleron]

I'm afraid that, for most purposes, government and corporations are indistinguishable. Here in the U.S. the MPAA and RIAA are allowed to serve John Doe warrants themselves. The situation here in the States is such that MPAA and RIAA congresscritters such as Orrin Hatch make little effort to cover up their attachment to corporations. So-called election finance reform has been shown to be a joke; corporations still buy politicians and the politicians stay bought.

The courts here in the U.S. no longer seem to pay any attention to our Constitution. The "justice" system in this country is not quite as corrupt as the legislative and executive branches of government, but that's changing. Given that the courts have not seen fit to declare unconstitutional such legislation as the DMCA, the PATRIOT ACT, and other acts that limit American's civil liberties, I don't see much hope that the situation will change for the better anytime soon.

I wonder if it might be possible to convince enough people to boycott everything produced by members of the RIAA and MPAA that we could starve the monsters that are corrupting our political and judicial systems? I think I'll start by cancelling my memberships in various CD/DVD clubs, etc. Frankly, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a move towards such actions already, at least I'm not aware of any, but would be glad to be proven wrong.

Just my $.02,
Ron

Re:Company name

[killjoe]

The people have been pretty much programmed to buy whatever the television is selling.

It strikes me as ironic that the govt is fighting to put the ten commandments in schools and public places. I wonder what will happen to a generation of students who walk by a sign that says "thou shall not covet" every day. I wonder if it would make a difference in the consumer society?

Probably not, it's not like anybody really pays attention to that crap. If they did the streets would be empty on sunday.

Re:Company name

[stinerman]

You indirectly bring up an interesting point. Namely, what is the "breaking point" of the average US citizen?

I've asked my less politically aware friends questions like "how bad would it have to get for you to 'do something' (write to congress, get politically active, anything semi-subversive)?" Most of them say that nothing they would ever do would matter, so staying put and keeping their mouths shut is the best way to go through life.

But all the same, I wonder what event could create a critical mass o

Re:Company name

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the government did not give them a court order. The court gave them the authorisation to act on the court's behalf. The government is not involved in this in any way (seperation of the court and government and all that). In fact, the gov't does not even have any say in whether or not the courts can do this - it is an inherent right of superiour courts.

Now, imagine other scenarios - such as a tobacco company destroying evidence linking smoking to cancer. It would be in the public's interest for this inf

Re:Country name.

[ozmanjusri]

This Australia we're talking about here. Not the US. They run things their way. We run things our way.

Not any more. With Howard's Liberal government (famously referred to as a conga-line of arselickers) in power, we run things your way as well.

Just look at our government's total lack of response when you lock up our citizens without charge.

Re:Company name

[Atrax]

Who gave them the rights to conduct random raids as they please?

A little-used civil search law, apparently.

The raids were conducted with rarely used search warrants known as Anton Piller orders which are used exclusively in civil proceedings. No police were involved, and the record industry sent its own investigators to carry out the search and seize evidence. From the Sydney Morning Herald.

Re:Company name

[QuantumG]

That's nuts. I found this document on lexisnexis [lexisnexis.com.au] which describes them and related "asset freezing" orders as "the law's two nuclear weapons and the greatest examples of judicial activism in our time. They strike without warning when, as is usual, they are obtained ex parte, secretly and without notice to the respondent."

That's crazy gestapo crap. I mean it's bad enough that official law enforcement agencies can do this crap but regular citizens!? Insanity.

Re:Company name

[Husgaard]

The United States of America actually forced legislation like this on Denmark. They used the WTO (implying the threat "if you don't comply, we start a trade war").

So now anybody with a copyright, patent or trademark can raid my private home without warning if they can show that it is probable that I have infringed on their rights to the "court".

I quote "court" because the "court" that the other part has to show a probable infringement to is lower than the lowest court in Denmark. This "court" has a role somewhat similar to "sherif" in the United States.

If US people have problems understanding why some foreigners don't like the US, please take this as an example. (Personally I dislike the US government because of it, not the US people.)

Re:Company name

[QuantumG]

It's like the worse thing you can imagine.

"Gee, looks like the government isn't selling any criminal copyright laws."
"That's rediculous, we're the corporations of amercia, we have a right to buy any law we want."
"Well sorry, they aint selling em." "Ok, we'll start our own police force! Can you get us laws which give our corporate goons the power of police?"
"Oh, that's already available."
"Excellent".

Re:Company name

[Atrax]

I think it's pretty much the same here in Australia, as we've just signed a similar FTA with the US. There's been a lot of uproar about it, but the Howard government has shoehorned it through anyway.

I'm right in the middle of a book about it, so not fully versed yet, but there are apparently some DMCA-like provisions in there which may do serious damage, quite aside from the economic concerns many sectors hold.

Re:Company name

[cryptoluddite]

Personally I dislike the US government because of it, not the US people.

Americans get to vote on the federal government at least once every two years. Combine that with state referendums and offices and that's a lot of voting. So no, you should not have a problem with individual Americans, but you should a big problem with "the US people." We voted for all these unconstitutional laws and so-called leaders.

As a citizen I can say that you should dislike the American people as a whole. Ultimately the buck stops here and we are the ones responsible for our government (at least for now).

Re:Company name

[wing03]

We voted for all these unconstitutional laws and so-called leaders.

IIRC, wasn't it great rifts between the rich and the poor that caused revolutions and the toppling of the many powers that be in the past?

Bertrand Russell wrote "Religion in any shape or form, is regarded as pernicious and deliberate falsehood, spread and encouraged by rulers and clerics in their own interests, since it is easier to control over the ignorant." which led to Marx's comment about Religion being the opium to the masses.

It

Re:Company name

[sTalking_Goat]

So here's my question? If no Law enformement is invovled, lets say you see the corprate black suits coming up the driveway and iniate the self-destruct script (we all read Cryptonomicon right?). Is it still destroying evidence and obstructing justice?

I keep seeing that scene from Hackers when the SWAT team comes through Phantom Phreak's windows with M4's...

Good!!

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Pirates give legit BitTorrent users a bad name.

Re:Good!!

[essence]

Pirates give legit BitTorrent users a bad name.

Pirates are legit users. People fight this stupid IP/Copyright bullshit by continuing to copy and share information.

Pirate is just a word for "terrorist light".

WTF

[Turn-X Alphonse]

WTF is ANY company doing raiding an ISP? Surely this is something for the police or licenced people with a warrant to do..

Re:WTF

[GigsVT]

Australia doesn't have a bill of rights. The government can do as it pleases.

Re:WTF

[Atrax]

Australia doesn't have a bill of rights.

Correct

The government can do as it pleases.

Not correct. There is plenty of accountability. Australia is not an autocratic state lacking checks and balances by any means. If a government oversteps its mark, there are numerous avenues by which they can be constrained.

Re:WTF

[R.Caley]

Australia doesn't have a bill of rights. The government can do as it pleases.

The USA does have a bill of rights, and the government can do as it pleases.

John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.

-- Andrew Jackson

Re:WTF

[the_proton]

From the Sydney Morning Herald [smh.com.au] article:

The raids were conducted with rarely used search warrants known as Anton Piller orders which are used exclusively in civil proceedings. No police were involved, and the record industry sent its own investigators to carry out the search and seize evidence.

There's a bit of an explanation of an Anton Piller order here:
http://www.mgrewal.com/anton.htm [mgrewal.com] and some information on how the federal court decides if they should make such an order is available here: http://www. [fedcourt.gov.au]

Re:WTF

[mumblestheclown]

and if they do, it's "don't the police have rapists and murderers to catch?"

it's called the slashdot two-step! anybody can dance to it. the idea is just to keep moving with your keyboards in any way you can to justify piracy.

For example, in response to this message, you can ignore the main point, and concentrate on the minor linguisitc point that I used the term "piracy" instead of "copyright infringement." See, you can do it.. it's easy!

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Anton Piller orders still have to be granted by the courts - companies cannot just raid their targets.

Also there has to be some proof provided by the raider to the court that there's a likelihood that evidence would be destroyed were the target to be informed in advance.

Sharman Networks (of Kazaa fame) is currently battling this in the Aussie courts as they were willingly handing documents over in the US court action (hence no risk of destruction). RIAA (or MPAA or whoever it was) may be in real trouble

Re:WTF

[1000StonedMonkeys]

How does that work though? Surely they aren't allowed to use force, and I can't imagine someone is going to open the door for them...

Re:WTF

[Brandybuck]

Aaargh! I'm wrong! In Australia a corporation really can conduct raids. Well roll me in grits and call me cornpone!

Re:WTF

[databyss]

I'll bet two RIAA settlements and half a donut

Starting post with arrogance: Check


this is merely ZDNet's inability to differentiate between journalism and editorializing.

Attack of major corporation: Check


Of course, they are hardly alone in this deficient behavior, and are in the company of many prestigious (and formerly prestigious) media outlets.

Attack of major media: Check


It's obvious to all but the tinhat crowd (and ZDNet)

Attack of /. general public: Check
Second attack of major corporation: BONUS!!


that the police did the raid.

Arrogance of knowledge of another country's legal system: Check

Re:WTF

[Brandybuck]

I've already paid up to everyone who accepted the bet. Where were you?

Time to switch...

[swiltse]

Guess it's time for file-sharing Aussies to switch to AOL.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:MUTE

[Husgaard]

Interesting, but trying to avoid the law is IMHO not a solution.

Trying to change the law is what we need to do.

Re:MUTE

[Capt'n Hector]

"Trying to change the law is what we need to do."

And that would make MUTE moot.

Re:MUTE

[AstrumPreliator]

I think the first law that needs to be changed, at least for the Australians, are these "Anton Piller orders". What kind of moronic branch of the government would give a company/group/individual the ability to independently search another when they have a vested interest in the outcome? That's like letting a murdered person's family be on the jury that convicts the accused.

Re:MUTE

[rhizome]

>Trying to change the law is what we need to do.

No, either the music industry or the copyright offices need to get off their fat, money-soaked asses and come up with a workable licensing scheme that doesn't turn huge chunks of the country's citizens into criminals. But, as noted in another story, the record companies are using these suits for revenue more than abatement, so don't worry about the Anton Pillar orders going away soon.

Re:MUTE

[Husgaard]

Civil disobedience is one way to change the law.

Civil disobedience is when somebody proudly breaks the law and publicly stands up to it, not when somebody tries to break the law and get away with it.

Still you have a point. Laws are meant to maintain and uphold the society. If they criminalize large portions of society, something is wrong with the law.

SMH Article

[Atrax]

here [smh.com.au], which makes some mention of the law this was carried out under.

"The raids were conducted with rarely used search warrants known as Anton Piller orders which are used exclusively in civil proceedings. No police were involved, and the record industry sent its own investigators to carry out the search and seize evidence."

Anton Piller order

[Husgaard]

An Anton Piller order is a court order giving one party in an upcoming civil copyright/patent/trademark case the right to raid the other party without notice to look for evidence.

Here is the Wikipedia explanation [wikipedia.org]

And here is how it is done in Australia [fedcourt.gov.au]

It is considered the "atomic bomb" of IP rights enforcement, and is quite old. Because the defendent is not heard before the raid, it was removed from most laws until the new wave of harsh IP enforcement.

In Denmark this was implemented a few years ago due to pressure from the United States. This is another reason I do not like the US government: Now anybody having copyright, patents or trademarks can raid my private home if they can prove that it is likely that their rights were infringed upon.

Re:Anton Piller order

[Atrax]

Thanks for the expansion.

It's worrying to me that such laws exist in civil cases, but it hardly surprises me that ARIA would employ whatever tactics are available in their ongoing war on file sharing.

The details of the case suggest that the raid was carried out because the domain names of some torrent hubs were registered to swiftel (rather than a user of swiftel) - or at least that's my interpretation - and if this is true then I'd see that as a pretty dumb move on the part of the ISP.

Re:Anton Piller order

[Atrax]

well, that would obviously depend on what you're doing. if you're confident of getting away with it, let the bastards in, and watch them like a hawk for any breech of proprietary information, including subscriber information, confidential business stuff etc.. If you're not confident at all, go the contempt of court and get rid of the evidence.

Not that *I* think like this of course...

Re:SMH Article

[tqft]

Our mate (NOT) John Howard PM, cricket tragic and major wanker, decided after a massacre (Port Arthur) by a nutter to basically restrict gun rights.

Mandatory buybacks of most types of weapons.

Try this http://members.ozemail.com.au/~confiles/buyback.ht ml

Not effective, was cammed - only outlaws now have guns. Unless you are farmer (Howard voter) or a sporting shooter who has access to a major safe

Re:SMH Article

[Atrax]

Fair enough, but I still don't see what the hell a gun buyback has to do with an ISP being raided under a civil warrant in order to gather evidence for an intended civil suit.

I'm no friend of Johnny H myself, but you're just way OT with this one.

AC in there I replied to

[tqft]

Teach me to reply to an AC (now modded troll)

Deja Vu...

[ErikZ]

For some reason I see the scene from Ghostbusters where the EPA barges into their business:

"Turn it off! Turn it all off!"

Re:Deja Vu...

[AliasMoze]

Venkman: No.
Peck: Why not?
Venkman: You didn't use the magic word.
Peck: And what is the magic word?
Venkman: Please.
Peck: May I please see the torrents, Mr. Venkman?
Venkman: Why do you want to see the torrents?

Discussions on Whirlpool

[The Qube]

There are more details [whirlpool.net.au] on the case on Whirlpool [whirlpool.net.au] (Australia's broadband discussion website).

There's also a discussion on Whirlpool's [whirlpool.net.au] and Swiftel/People Telcom's [swiftdsl.com.au] forums.

What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[mark-t]

Bittorent is a tool.

It's sorta like saying that "Before being apprehended, the chainsaw murderer went after the victims with a 2 HorsePower Black-and-Decker Deluxe Model Chainsaw (available at hardware stores near you)"

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[Laivincolmo]

While BitTorrent has great applications for legal file distribution, the vast majority of people do not use it for that. In reality the average person using it is not too interested in downloading the latest liveCD release of Gnome 2.10. My only wish is that somehow peer to peer technology could be adapted to please both parties (eg low price downloads/direct compensation to creators). Perhaps BitTorrent could play some good in this role..

And while the invasion of an ISP by a company may seem like bad

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[Sancho]

The same could be said of the Internet in general. I've heard estimates that 1/3 of all Internet traffic is Bittorrent. If we can then assume that 1/6 + .0001% of all Internet traffic is non-Bittorrent copyright-violating filesharing, then you could s/BitTorrent/the Internet/ in your post and it would remain true. Given the huge piracy outlet on Usenet, I don't think it's that unreasonable an assumption.

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[Sycraft-fu]

I dunno, 3dgamers.com, a popular demos/patch/etc site uses it as their primary distribution method. I really have little intrest in illegally copying games or whatever with it, easier to just go buy them and they aren't that expensive. However I find that plenty of legit free stuff I want is either very slow without bittorrent, or simply won't allow me to have it at all without bittorrent.

For that matter, when a patch for World of Warcraft comes out, their patcher fires up and starts, you guessed it, a bittorrent session. Good thinking too, as patch release days are always brutally slow, but it's hard to justify enough bandwidth full time since you don't need it that often. They'll give you the option to hot use it, but it goes quite slow.

So seems to me that bittorrent has plenty of legit uses. It is just an intelligent extension of HTTP, after all.

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[Stonehand]

Your post is rather irrelevant, considering that this raid was regarding an instance of a /use/ of BitTorrent and not the concept or original system design of BitTorrent in general.

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[mcbridematt]

Yep, just because you can use it to pirate something doesn't mean its illegal, and the recording industry can't grasp that.

In Australia, a pratice used by some ISPs to attract users is to offer free/'unmetered' traffic to certain desintations, in People Telecoms (was known as Swiftel's case), unmetered traffic between users.(there aren't any 'completely unlimited' broadband plans in Australia yet, because the main DSL wholesaler and monopoly Telco, Telstra, charges an arm and leg to transport data over the

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[mark-t]

Why bother threatening to sue when a C&D comes? Wouldn't it just be much more fun to simply tell them you aren't breaking the law in the first place, then carry on? If they still try to take you to court you can't be accused of unnecessarily costing them legal fees because you previously _did_ try to tell them that you weren't breaking the law (keep all records of these communications). So the case would get thrown out of court immediately, and at no cost to yourself. Really, if you want to stick

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[1u3hr]

And was it even Bittorrent? Halfway through TFA they're talking about Direct Connect, which seems to be what was actually being used.

Has "Bitorrent" become a gneric meaning "P2P" in the media now?

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[mark-t]

I think Direct Connect is an end-user P2P app that employs BitTorrent for doing the actual data transfers. Don't quote me on that though... I'm not familiar with Direct Connect at all.

Re:What does bittorrent have to do with this?

[trawg]

I wholeheartedly agree.

This raid happened because the people involved were running some (tiny little) pirate ring. The fact that they were using BitTorrent is practically irrelevant - the MPAA isn't trying to blanket ban p2p.

This headline seems to be unneccessarily, Fox News-esque alarmist :)

For those of you who saw Boiler Room

[CarlinWithers]

I can't wait till file-sharing raids get screentime in a Hollywood movie. Especially considering how technically literate movie directors are.

A raid! Quick hide those torrents!

The actors proceed to furiously bury floppies in desk drawers.

Re:For those of you who saw Boiler Room

[Ohreally_factor]

Nonono! They try to burn print outs with the words IP LOGS clearly emblazoned across the top.

I didn't see Boiler Room, but I've seen enough bookies get busted on TV. =)

Re:For those of you who saw Boiler Room

[Canberra Bob]

Boiler Room had nothing to do with bookies - a boiler room is a dodgy stockbroking firm that tries to push dodgy stocks onto unsuspecting people.

Make no mistake...

[lendude]

This has bugger all to do with catching 'offending' P2P/BitTorrent end users, and everything to do with the MIPI ramping up the FUD so as to create an atmosphere of fear of litigation amongst ISP's, driving a push towards ISP's 'voluntarily' screwing down what end users do on the network. i.e. doing the MIPI's job for them. Fuck using current legislation which is wholly appropriate - too much trouble to tag individuals by due process: might as well scare the shit out of ISP's with litigious fear mongering and close-to-libelous PR (I'd love to see that tested in a court of law).

And Music Industry 'Piracy' Investigations for a title? What about Music Industry Copyright Investigations as a more correct name - oops, too easy to take the MICI out of them.

I miss Bernadette Taylor

[w1r3sp33d]

I guess she was not only our hot spokeswoman, but also the last line of defense when it comes to keeping the Australian government in check.

This happened in Perth to boot, insulting.

The story

[Anonymous Coward]

Many broadband ISP in Australia have uncounted content (does not coun't towards download quota) between users of the same state or where an ISP peers with an internet exchange (eg waix, pipe). This, in combination with often low download limits from ISPs, has lead to a situation where users of this ISP in question had setup bittorrent and direct connect facilities/servers for other users on their own computers (servers and the like are allowed on user connection in this ISP's respective AUP). This way they could exchange files without affecting their quota.

The people who raided the ISP in particular believed that the ISP had setup the P2P facilities for the users (which isn't the case).

Interestingly the hubs and groups who were using these facilities were pretty low key, you would be lucky to find two or three seeders per torrent (for example). I am amazed that they even botherd to do the raids, the people involved number in the dozens only. We aren't talking a Aussie suprnova or anything...

Posting anon for obvious reasons.

So...

[bonch]

So, all those people in the CherryOS "stolen source code" article going on about how evil GPL copyright infringement is and how PearPC's authors should pursue legal action against the infringers will now presumably support this, or am I incorrect that there won't be any hypocrisy in this discussion?

Re:So...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So, all those people in the CherryOS "stolen source code" article going on about how evil GPL copyright infringement is and how PearPC's authors should pursue legal action against the infringers will now presumably support this

Hell, I'm up for personally raiding CherryOS's offices, who's with me?

Re:So...

[rsilvergun]

The PearPC guys are giving their product away for free, and only ask that if you build off their product that you contribute back to the free project. The RIAA (and whatever the fuck the Austrialian equivalent is) are screwing artists out of a good living, overcharging for thier product by maintaining an artifical lock on distribution, and discouraging new/interesting music because having just a few big name bands is more profitable. Your comparison isn't valid.

I don't understand why the 'little people' (us) have to paint everything black and white while the bastards with all the power can come up with any old justification to do what they want. This isn't hypocrisy. If you're not going to show me any decency and respect, I'm under no obligation to do the same for you. I just wish people weren't such a bunch of dumb fucks that they can't see the distinction, and then maybe reform the system for everyone's benefit (except the record producers, my they and their ilk rot in hell).

Re:So...

[gnuman99]

The RIAA (and whatever the fuck the Austrialian equivalent is) are screwing artists out of a good living, overcharging for thier product by maintaining an artifical lock on distribution, and discouraging new/interesting music because having just a few big name bands is more profitable. Your comparison isn't valid.

One question, why do Artists sign contracts with them? If RIAA and others were useless, artists would not use them for distribution.

Re:So...

[Soko]

The PearPC guys are giving their product away for free, and only ask that if you build off their product that you contribute back to the free project. The RIAA (and whatever the fuck the Austrialian equivalent is) are screwing artists out of a good living, overcharging for thier product by maintaining an artifical lock on distribution, and discouraging new/interesting music because having just a few big name bands is more profitable. Your comparison isn't valid.

Lady Justice has a blindfold for a reason. A

Re:So...

[m50d]

Mods, please start modding this argument down as the troll that it is rather than giving free insightfulness to anyone who writes it. THE REASON WE ARE OBBJECTING IS THE CHERRYOS GUY CLAIMED HE WROTE IT. HE *CLAIMED* *AUTHORSHIP* OF IT. WE HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH COPYING CHERRYOS. WE WOULD HAVE A PROBLEM IF THE FILESHARERS WERE CLAIMING THEY WERE SINGING THE SONGS THEY WERE SHARING. BUT THEY'RE NOT. THE TWO CASES ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. SO STOP CRYING HIPOCRISY. Apologies for shouting, but this needs to be p

confused reporting

[mako1138]

...provided the user has BitTorrent software or software or a protocol equivalent to BitTorrent.

Ah, ZDNet.

Better Article

[_Hellfire_]

I submitted this yesterday with the originally reported article [news.com.au]

What scares me the most is that police weren't involved at all. These are corporations barging in and taking stuff with the government's blessing!

Re:Better Article

[fallen1]

Yeah, you know - and I don't want to spread suggestions - I know you probably would get into trouble for shooting a _law enforcement_ person who barged in your nice Australian home because they have a LEGAL authority to do so and would announce themselves (more than likely). But, what happens to the corporate goon squad who barges in my house unannounced and I shoot a couple of them because I feared for my life? Regardless of the fact they were "sanctioned" by the government of Australia to conduct the raid

Re:Better Article

[_Hellfire_]

I said this to my coworker yesterday:

The only thing worse than going to jail for ilegally copying music is going to jail for ilegally copying Britney Spears!

You'd be sitting there going "WHAT was I THINKING??"

It's like

[agendi]

a music inquisition - nobody expected it :)

Perfect quote

[YrWrstNtmr]

...at the bottom of the page.

Bing's Rule: Don't try to stem the tide -- move the beach.

Music/movie industry - start moving.

its nice to see

[drfrog]

full on corporate para militaries having the RIGHT to do this

Very intimidating to freedom

[Quiberon]

Very intimidating to those of us who use BitTorrent for legal purposes.

Free Linux with every Windows http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/knosci.p ng [btconnect.com] !

Torrents here http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/torrents / [btconnect.com]. They all 'autorun'. Share and Enjoy !

Anton Piller order is not a search warrant.

[ZombieEngineer]

If you are served with an Anton Piller order, you are being asked nicely to allow a solicitor for the plantiff to enter and remove documents relating to the order. If you refuse the order you will be held in contempt of court.

The difference is that the bearer of the order needs to ask for permission to access, if there is no-one present then they can't enter.

ZombieEngineer (IANAL)

Here we go again...

[FoboldFKY]

...so they've started doing physical raids of ISPs to get BitTorrent users. Give the OSS community a few months, and there'll be a fully encrypted version of BitTorrent that's all but impossible to trace.

They really don't get it, do they? Every time they try to crack down on P2P, it evolves into something harder to stop.

Great quote

[Anonymous Coward]

http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1457?show=repl ies:

Ryan O'Hare, People Telecom CEO claimed to be unaware of the sites or the technology behind them. O'Hare said, "I've never even heard of this technology."

"I've never even heard of this technology" is the new "I did not have sex with that woman."

Worldwide RIAA boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anybody thougth of organizing a Worldwide RIAA boycott day - when nobody buys any music?

Or even better a week long boycott.

During The Price of Silence event it would be clear how much revenue is generated, so that we could see how well or badly the major labels really do.

I can't forget when the leader of a not-even-that-famous Canadian band "...taking care of business..." said on national radio, that after their first big hit the President of their label invited them for a dinner and promised them th

Re:Worldwide RIAA boycott

[MagicDude]

Won't work, for the simple reason that a one day boycott isn't effective for protesting the makers of material products. It's the same problem that arises when someone suggests a one day boycott of gasoline purchases to protest gas taxes or oil compainies or whatever. Even if people were on board and were willing to do it, all they would do is either gas up the day before or the day after the "boycott". You aren't going to get any results since you're not really costing them anything since you just end u

The same thing happened in Sweden yesterday!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Swedish ISP "Banhof" was raided yesterday as well. The Stockholm "tingsrätt" (regional court) authorized a civil search of the premise, and using this warrant the organisation known as "Antipiratbyrån" ("anti-piracy bureau", like RIAA). Apparently Banhof was a colocation company as well, and one of their customers was serwing 7 terabytes of music and movies from a server in their facilities. As the offending server was located on the premises of Banhof, the anti piracy bureau used the civil search warrant and the local enforcement office to impound all computers at the ISPs main office. The internet connection is still working for the customers of Banhof, but the employees are prevented from working and their computers have been impounded. According to their warrant for a civil search of premisses, they were supposed to audit Banhof, and as the server serving the copyright infringing material, according to a press statement by Banhof, belonged to a customer renting a space in the colocation facility, it would seem that they have trespassed on the property of that customer as a civil warrant would not give them the right to search any computers but those owned by Banhof itself.

Re:"WTF, mate"

[F13]

Of course that is after piracy = terrorism, which isn't far off I imagine...

Yeah not far [news24.com] at all.

War on Music

[Ohreally_factor]

Well, the summary and the article used the word "assault" enough times that I imagined the record labels' auditors storming the beaches whilst lawyers para'd* to the roof of the building, all to the tune of Flight of the Valkyries.

Hey, it could have been worse. It could have been the FBI [waco93.com].

*High Altitude Low Opening (HALO), of course.

You have it backwards

[Chuck Chunder]

This is crazy. The strange thing is that Austrilia is a break off of England, so I didn't think that they would allow such a thing to happen.

Anton Piller [answers.com] orders exist in Australia because the Australian legal system is derived from the British one.

Re:Crazy...

[CrankyFool]

Are you sure? I was pretty sure they were their own continent. I mean, England's just an island -- I'd say it's more correct that England's broken off of Australia.

But realistically, since they're so far away from each other, I have doubts as to whether they were _ever_ connected.

Re:Crazy...

[FidelCatsro]

Um england is not an island mate , its a country
England is on an island with 2 other countrys aka Scotland and Wales ;) sorry back on point

and to the grandparent , no australia is a break off of the UK not of England ,
England is also part of the UK as was the USA and Canada at on point .

Im from Scotland , which is also part of the UK (unless more of vote for the SNP )
Please stop refering to the whole UK as England , ;) although we dont mind when your refering to civil rights abuses etc (joke)

A large port

Re:Australia

[mr i want to go home]

Yes - the really dangerous criminals were shipped to Australia - the ones who performed heinous crimes like stealing a loaf of bread to feed their starving family, or loitering in the nice parts of town.

The guys who only did petty crimes like murder were kept in nice prisons like the Clink in South London.

Although I'm of course being sarcastic, you might have some idea now of why "a fair go" is such a treasured concept in Australia.

Re:RAID my ass!

[Proc6]

Spoken like a true upper class suburban white angst ridden goth male teenager who would likely be covered in tears and feces at the first sight of anyone of authority knocking on their (ahem, their parents) door.

Re:Is this guy clueless or what?

[shark72]

"Oh no, an ISP that allows users to run Bittorrent on its service!?! Kill it quickly Michael!"

They went a bit farther than that; they were running a torrent site exclusively for their subscribers. This wasn't the case of some subscriber running a pirate torrent site unbeknownst to the ISP.