BitTorrent: Sysadmins to face the music 373
An anonymous reader writes "Two sysadmins in Australia are set to get sued by the music industry after the federal court ruled that Melissa Ong and Ryan Briggs did ignore calls to remove Web sites that were in breach of copyright. All major music labels in the country have banded together to take action against the duo's employer Swiftel, an ISP which allegedly hosted BitTorrent file-sharing hubs (which contained pirated music etc)."
Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me explain how I buy music:
1/ Look on forums/online music stores,
2/ Randomly choose artists whose music seems interresting 3/ Download the artist(s)' full discography
4/ Listen
5/ Then, if I like 1 song. I just keep it and delete te rest; if I like an Album, I go buy it.
Well, if I can't donwload music freely on the internet will I continue listening to music? Hmm... probably yes. The music I already have on CDs (lots of it) and will buy new CDs maybe one a year instead of one a week.
I *hope* I'm not the onl one to D/L music in order to choose whant I want tu buy... but hell... I *doubt* it. But anyway, too much protection can also have a vicious impact.
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the above is sarcastic. Yes, I know the analogy isn't exact, but it's correct in essence: You want the benefit of something that isn't yours without paying for it, until you decide that it's worth paying for... by which point you've already deriv
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:5, Insightful)
You want the benefit of something that isn't yours without paying for it, until you decide that it's worth paying for... by which point you've already derived the benefit of it, regardless of whether you think it's worth anything or not.
What's the difference between this and borrowing a friend's CD and listening to it a bunch of times before buying it? I used to do that all the time before the advent of p2p. Furthermore, should I feel guilty for listening to a song on the radio without buying the single? Or does that also count as having "derived the benefit of it" without paying? (Of course we do pay by listening to advertising).
You even acknowledged that your analogy isn't accurate - stealing a shirt, a physical object, is not the same as downloading music - especially if it's later deleted. Neither the artist nor the label has actually lost anything. That's not stealing.
Most new music sucks; why should I buy a whole CD for one or two good songs? CDs are overpriced. People can get the music cheaper by downloading it. It may be illegal, but when a large portion of the population is breaking the law, maybe the law needs to be examined.
For the record, I, like the grandparent poster, also spend a good deal on music. I don't bother downloading anymore because I got sick of dealing with spyware and the possibility of RIAA action. Unfortunately for the RIAA and its artists, this also means I haven't listened to as much new music lately as I used to, and I haven't bought as many CDs either. If I'm going to spend $15 on an album, it better have more than one good song on it. The only CDs I've bought lately are ones I already heard because friends had them (I'm now back again to the days before MP3s). I don't see how limiting my selection to what my friends own is helping the RIAA any.
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:4, Insightful)
There are 100's to 1000's of great bands out there but the majority that i've worked with (Which is quite a few) really only care about 2 thing's getting laid and making money.
Until these act's start relizing that money's not everything then we could see a huge industry change.
Why does every single 'small/unknown' band with anyform of a recording want to charge for it? Covering costs? I hardly think so. $10 (AUD) for some local bands EP's is kind of rediculous. If they really wanted to be heard they would either sell it at cost or make it freely available.
But until musician's stop caring about the bottom line free music will probably never become a reality. I hope it does. But we've all got to eat. And unlike the open source world of computers most musicians' would be quite angered if you hacked up one there songs and re-released it on the net.
(Sorry that doesn't make but you get my point even if it is kina offtopic)
------------
As we become simpler; so do our tastes.
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Insightful)
The big money (for most artists) is in performing live, so I think it would be in a musicians interest to release free music. The more people who know your work, the more that will visit your gigs, the more money you'll earn.
The only trouble with releasing free music is the promotion, free music isn`t promoted and will hardly get played on radio or reach a
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
The good record shops play music... and the employees know what's playing, and you can ask for it and buy it.
I'm fond of the idea of bands designating a "radio" track on their CDs. In theory
Um, hi. (Score:3, Informative)
That being said, we do charge more than cost for our cds and eps, and don't feel badly about it.
W
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, you can do this as a hobby, but what if it's something that consumes you, takes over your life in a quest to produce something truly great? Who feeds you? Who pays for your living arrangements?
It's not the greed of musicians that's the problem. It's the attitude that everything based in the digital world must be free when things just don't work li
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Insightful)
On ocremix.org, look up The Ken Song (Street Fighter 2) and maybe some of the FF or Crono Trigger music. Look up anything by Ailsean. Look up Forlorn Dreams by Ryan8Bit on vgmix.com.
There is so much variety on both of these sites, you can't help but find SOMETHING in there that you like. Rap? Rock? Trance? Techno? Orchestral? You want something that sounds weird?
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this possible? Well, the law wants to "protect us" from big labels bullying people into non-paying contracts or giving music away free. Thing is, this is almost a century old law and is fundamentally broken in today's world. It works like this: the musician cannot excercise his own right to declare music public domain, because there is a for-profit organization called Artisjus which steps up, and "demands" money after every musical work. In today's reality this killed the amateur music in Hungary, because of the following:
An amateur musician makes some nice music, and puts it on his homepage for free download. The thing gets noticed, people are downloading it and Artisjus notices it aswell. Artisjus has a legal(!) right to collect around 100HUF ($0.5) after every downloads. That's right, from the artist. Then, Artisjus takes its fees, spins things around, and in the best case, the artist gets back 35-40 HUF as his "profit" from that original 100 he payed to distribute his OWN song he wanted to put into public domain. This is a good example how laws can be f*cked in some countries.
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:4, Interesting)
That sounds even worse then the GEMA in Germany. IIRC from my days as a guitar player in a hardcore band (read: not many sales, not doing it professionaly) I rememeber that you could choose not to become a member of the GEMA if you saw no gain from it. But then, you either had to make your recordings public domain (since else no club had the right to play them) or negotiate with every club/DJ yourself.
This insecure position led to weird situations where we had to fill out forms with the names of all songs we were going to perform on a night for sending them in to the GEMA, because the club wanted to be on the safe side, but we had some checkbox there on the paper that said that all songs were non-GEMA-controlled...
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2, Interesting)
The latest good ne
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Interesting)
Now Creative Commons Poland talks with ZAIKS to solve that problem, but we are making very slow progress.
What is worse - we have a law called "dead hand" which makes all public domain works a subject to another tax. Money collected from "dead hand" in theory
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Interesting)
sometimes things are really fucked up:
imagine radio playing in pub.
OSA collests money like this:
1, from pub owner who has to play legal rights to "broadcast copyrighted material" to his guests
2, shop which sold him radio has to give them part of profit from that piece of equpiment.
3, radio station has of course pay fees again.
4, recording company to pay OSA that it defends it
5, musician himself paying part of profit to osa as membership fe
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Interesting)
Ditto from Belgium (Score:3, Insightful)
An artist who publishes his own music has to register with the SABAM or he won
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to pay for Artisjus for things like:
- Giving a concert in a park
- Putting a TV in a pub
- Handing out cassette tapes
- Setting up a music archive from long forgotten music from 50ies (this is why its not happening here)
Also, there is a fee on every cd/dvd and flash memory card, which doubles their price. Talk about law-supported robbery.Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
I know one hole in the law: you are allowed to bring cds/dvds from abroad (blank ones) without paying the Artisjus tax. Basically this Artisjus tax is killing the raw dvd market in Hungary, because noone buys them in the store, when you can get them illegally at every street for half the price. And i don't mean, that its a different dvd, it is the exact same thing, the only dif
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
Other way around, I'm afraid. You're saying that "fifty's" is correct, but "fifties" isn't.
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:5, Informative)
This being said, www.magnatune.com has a great collection. So pop on over and check it out.
John Buckman has been working pretty ahrd at getting artists onboard and he's done a great job. I am sure he's been covered on
we are not evil
I second Magnatune (Score:2)
Between CD Baby and Magnatune I now get *ALL* of my music from these two sources and couldn't be happier.
Because it's art? (Score:4, Insightful)
Music cannot simply be substituted for other music. A piece means something.
If we stop listening to certain music simply because of the economic situation, then we lose more than just our freedom to share music. We lose the music itself.
Promoting people who happen to make good free music is a good thing. Ignoring good label music is a bad thing.
The inevitable response to this post will mention Britney Spears. If Britney Spears is the only thing you know of that's been released on a label lately, or even if you think similar things make up the majority of what labels release, you're just not keeping an open ear.
Labels release an absolute ton of stuff of all kinds. They generally *promote* crap, but that doesn't mean they don't have their hooks in a lot of wonderful work. What you hear on Clearchannel isn't a thousandth of what the record companies have purchased lately.
Young artists have dreams of grandeur. They think signing with a label is a stroke of luck. Maybe they're wrong, but they do it. Letting that destroy what they've produced is a crime.
Nothing to do but break the law and watch the economy shift in response.
Re:Because it's art? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:5, Informative)
Use iRATE [sourceforge.net].
It's a program that has a collection of links to legal music to download; it starts off with a standard list of tracks, you can rate then, and then it tries to find tracks you might like by comparing your ratings to those of other users. So it's legal, based on what you like, and not recycled radio crap.
It's GPL and works on Linux, MacOS and Windows. Heck, it might even run on OpenBSD.
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
I like the idea that another poster came up with: Downloading music, even the pirated stuff, is like a try-it-before-you-buy-it deal. I hate buying a CD only to find out I got one or two songs for my $17. If I can download the album to see if it's worth the expense before plonking down that $17, I'm more apt to buy it on CD if the music is a
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider the following conversation:
Person 1: "Hey man, you wanna buy some drugs?"
Person 2: "You selling?"
Person 1: "No, but I can tell ya who is"
Should Person 1 not be accountable for their actions as a facilitator?
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd hate to live in a country where that is the law. If I tell you who's selling, what crime has been committed?
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2, Interesting)
Because OpenBSD isn't available in a user friendly (read idiot proof) .iso download?
Personally, I want to try OpenBSD 3.7, I have the files, but no mkisofs means the instructions I've found to make the damn image are not straightforward.
I know you've got your reasons, but if you're going to ask publicly 'why don't people use this lovely secure system?' then you have to ask yourself, 'why don't we make it more accessible to n00bs?'
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in Canada we pay a levy on all blank media which is supposed to compensate copyright holders for their loss with regards to piracy. So if we are already compensating them with this levy then why shouldn't we download music that we have already paid for? I've bought numerous packs of DVDs and CDs with the intent to provide file system images to clients so technically I should be able to download enough songs to
Re:Very true (Score:2)
Re:Very true (Score:2)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
Re:Instead of sharing non-free music (Score:2)
This just in... information is free (Score:5, Interesting)
What do the BitTorrent file-sharing hubs do in response? Buy a little time shuffling across different portnums until the fix is in to support tunneling protocols, that's what. There may be a limited number of port numbers, but there are literally an infinite number of ways of translating one sequence of bytes into another sequence of bytes.
BitTorrent over a gaming port. Why not? You gonna block gaming ports? Have fun at the support desk.
Swiftel, et al, responds by investing massive amounts of resources in detecting the protocol in real-time, so as to differentiate gaming use from BitTorrent goodness, and wins.
For a day.
The response that encrypts the stream, stegonographically, arrives a day later.
By putting up obstacles you only feed innovation. The tunneling protocol is going to consume more bandwidth of course, so now everybody is going to be thinking about how to compress the stream even further than it already has been.
By putting up barriers, the censors only provide the incentive to create new technologies to overcome them. Create distributed systems that allow trusted peers to authenticate with one another. Verify the quality of content being requested. Allow for protocols that defeat sniffing and snooping, possibly by making it so that existing protocols must be scrapped.
Swiftel, China and the MPAA are doomed to fight this war forever, losing all the way, because essentially they are playing the role of adversity while the peers are playing the role of biological organisms.
Adversity fuels life.
Swiftel, China and the MPAA are fueling piracy.
It's a beautiful day. Why? Because this shit is FUN.
Bring it on, and thank you.
Re:This just in... information is free (Score:5, Interesting)
This whole thing comes from way back, its called the Neumann principle, which states that the executed programs are part of the data stored. This simple, but brilliant principle is a good thing for people wanting to excercise full control over their system, and it is probably a bad thing for people working with backup systems or in high profile security areas (think mission critical webservers).
My point is, that the RIAA cannot boo and make this go away with legal measures, it will be always possible to copy data while a Neumann-principle based computer exist, i'd hazard the guess that such computer will exist for a while...
Re:This just in... information is free (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, but you require program code that will actually read those data. What they are trying to create is a world where everything exists only within its own signed keyspace. On a TCPA-machine, the TCPA root is the only real machine. What you believe to be the machine, is just one special "virtual machine".
Essentially, each Trusted Computing-program runs on a Neumann-principle machine, but it will only run code signed by that entity. No/wrong signature = no access. And since you can't sign your code with their key, you don't get to alter it so you can read it. You may exploit flaws in their code, (by making data become code, that's Neumann for you), but in flawless code you're pretty much SOL
Kjella
Common carrier (Score:5, Interesting)
Their actions are just like if the KKK sued a bus company because they "let niggers aboard". Who cares that you hate Blacks? It's not up to the bus driver to decide who can enter and who can not -- in many jurisdiction, the driver is even not allowed to deny service to a customer if that customer isn't disruptive. And in this case, the web sites who used these ISPs didn't even commit any crime themselves -- they merely provided an index for illegal activities.
Following this logic, they may start persecuting bus operators because they don't strip search every passenger. You know, that old lady may be a hidden courier for a dope ring...
Re:Common carrier (Score:2)
Re:This just in... information is free (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Napster lets you download any song you want. You can only download from one person at a time. Downloads frequently died. No resume download feature. Downloading full albums was frustrating.
They kill Napster
2. Kazaa emerges and lets you download any song you want, plus warez movies or anything else. Downloads are spread across many people. Very reliable. Ok speeds. Pausing and resuming is possible. Downloading full albums is still a pain.
They kill Kazaa by flooding it with bogus files.
3. Bittorrent comes out and now instead of downloading a single song you can grab the whole album in the same amount of time.
Each time they kill off a technology the next generation is always much better. I can't wait to see what is after bittorrent.
Re:This just in... information is free (Score:3, Interesting)
BitTorrent is very close to optimal at what it does. It will not die when it comes to legal files.
The next generation is anonymous routing networks, and they come with a considerable speed penalty, and you have *NO* control of the network for better or worse. My experience with freenet is something like 300:1 penalty, but even under theoretical best-case assumptions I've estimated
Re:This just in... information is free (Score:3, Insightful)
Reproduction of information can be essentially free, but the information itself certainly doesn't have to be.
Re:This just in... information is free (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:This just in... information is free (Score:2)
Please don't boil hippies. Hippies should be nicely baked.
It took federal courts to... (Score:2, Funny)
Heavy handed, but it is their right (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is that the law does not support the "right to share" when it becomes massive intellectual property piracy. To believe differently is to be deluded.
You can change the law, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of money. Guess who has that. That's right! YOU and all your filesharing friends. Unfortunately it is the record companies who are going out of their way to influence elected officials and getting the laws that they want passed. Meanwhile, you (the general "you") sit on your ass and bitch and moan about how the RIAA is being a bunch of bastards.
Get organized and get active. The only way you can stop this kind of action is to make it illegal.
Re:Heavy handed, but it is their right (Score:5, Funny)
But wait a moment, these guys weren't sharing, they were just "running" a bittorrent hub, weren't they? Those dastardly pirates, trying to hide between the mask of a third party! Oh wait, hold on a moment, they weren't actually "running" the hub, they are sysadmins for the ISP where the hub is present.
Ah, but surely they must be responsible for content on their servers? Well, barring that pesky common carrier concept for a moment, sure they are, which is why they were informed by legally binding documents. Hang on, what's that you say? Emails? Phone calls? You mean to imply that these two do-no-goods ignored emails from a rightfully authorized agent of the RECORDING INDUSTRY? Why, the blackguards, swing they must.
Whoa, thousands of mails a day to sysadmins, you say? Damn their eyes, they can't shield their guilt behind a spam filter. Sue them! In fact, sue their boss! Sue the accountants who work there! Sue the janitor! Who does he think he is, claiming that he's not party to technical operatoins. I'm _sure_ he overheard one of aforementioned phone calls. For that matter, sue the landlords, they must have known that illegal activity was going on!
Good lord, man...
Re:Heavy handed, but it is their right (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Heavy handed, but it is their right (Score:5, Interesting)
You got it right and used two important words/phrases.
1. "ISP" != sysadmins at the ISP.. ISP = legally authorized representatives of ISP, ISP management, whatever.
2. "legal order". Not emails, not phone calls. In most of the world this takes the form of a subpoena, a court order, visit by a duly authorized officer of the law, notarized & witnessed document, whatever.
The law is not God (Score:2, Insightful)
actually hosted files or a tracker site? (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem isn't piracy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The problem isn't piracy... (Score:3, Informative)
Copyright infringement is a civil offence, It requires court action before it can be acted upon.
The only thing the RIAA IRAA or whatever should be allowed to do is to ask the site owner that they remove the site , failing that then ask the Host , If all else fails then they should take action against the site. Once that action is complete they can ask the host to remove the site and the host will have to comply or face legal action, which would then be a criminal case then (IIRC disobeying a court order is
Re:The problem isn't piracy... (Score:2)
Usally criminal charges are available only if you broke the copywrite law for profit, or you have large amounts and number of items. However this can vary by country, and you have to meet certain requirements to go from civil to criminal.
Re:The problem isn't piracy... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just a taste of what is heading over the horizon. The Internet with anonymizing protocols and encryption has opened up a Pandora's Box, and what's inside is a reflection of human nature itself.
Perhaps it is the evolution of our species to be interconnected and sharing ideas freely, instead of functioning at the same level of design as the laws that try to enforce an imaginary system of credit. This extends beyond the music and movie industry, and raises questions as to how governments are going to control the minds of its citizens in the age of a globally interconnected community.
Bittorrent is only a foreshadow of what is coming around the corner for our species' evolution, with humans interconnected via cybernetic implants, who decides what meme have the most value?
Conversation snippet: It all started like this... (Score:5, Funny)
Sysadmins.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sysadmins.. (Score:5, Insightful)
We throw them away too. Because YOU writing ME that some customer of mine violates your copyright doesn't imply that he really is, you could be lying. Only a judge can rule that something really is an infringement and order us to take action. WE ARE NOT JUDGES, we therefore ARE NOT ALLOWED to make a legal decision whether something is illegal or not. This is the law, and we citizens are not allowed to take it into our own hands and decide that our customer is "guilty".
And in fact, this false allegiations of copyright infringement already happend. Some wanted to have removed works which really were in public domain, others sent complaints according to laws that do not exist in our country, and still others sent complaints because of similar filenames (in one case, some open source package was confused with a movie, just because of the same name).
So we simply don't act on them. You have to write us a letter, on paper, and then we'll forward this to the respective customer alleged of infringing, for him to do what he sees fit. If our customer does not do what the sender wants, he may involve a judge to order us to put the material down, or to disclose the identity of the alleged infringer.
Re:Sysadmins.. (Score:2)
Re:Sysadmins.. (Score:2)
"So why didn't the music industry send them ACTUAL notarized letters in the first place?"
Perhaps they took the Swiftel instructions for reporting copyright infringement in good faith. The instructions [peopletelecom.com.au] list first an email address, and then a phone number, and then a fax, and then finally an address. If Swiftel does not want copyright infringement notices to be reported via email or phone calls, and only wants them via postal mail, they should not list the email and phone numbers first and the postal ad
RE: I'd have about a 10-foot-long penis (Score:2)
Farce (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Farce (Score:3, Insightful)
Then they should not have gone out of their way to list their email address and telephone number first in their To report copyright infringement [peopletelecom.com.au] page. This is really just common sense -- if they only wanted to be notified by mail, and did not wish to receive emails or phone calls with piracy reports, then they should have said so.
Writing a contact page correctly is just one of those basic life skills. You and I can grasp the simple concept of omitting our email or telephone number from our contact page
Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Only
That's the beauty of Bittorrent you see..
Re:Wrong. (Score:4, Interesting)
"That's the beauty of Bittorrent you see.."
Yet tracker sites which specialize in pirated material are constantly taken down. It looks like that excuse just isn't working. The fact that your post is presently "4, Informative" shows that this may take a while to sink in on /.
What will it be tomorrow? Pirates bit-shifting files so they claim that they're not trading the real data, then continuing to watch as sites are taken down? It seems like a better use of effort to trade files provided by artists who want their music to be freely traded -- and then supporting those artists by going to their concerts or whatever. Create a real revolution by showing the world that the traditional "pay me in advance for music" concept isn't the only way. Pretending that the concept of a .torrent file will give you legal protection, while the pirate torrent sites continue to go down, is not the answer.
Re:Wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Taken down by who? The webmasters or their ISPs who fold at receiving a letter with a lawyer's signature? That signifies nothing about the legalities, just how effective intimidation can be.
Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
And since the .torrent file is derived from the files being served (as it contains hashes of the files being served) I would guess that it would be legally considered a derived work, and thus infringing upon the copyright of the files referred to in the .torrent.
IANAL, but - would any of the lawyers on here care to give a more informed (but still not binding as no attorney/client privilege exists) opinion?
Re:Wrong. (Score:2)
you'd have to prove the hubs were set up with the intent to share illegal music. tough.
More like a free noticeboard than accepting money (Score:2)
You don't have any cocaine near yourself, you don't personally know anyone with cocaine, you don't even know if cocaine is mentioned in the notes without checking the thousands of notes regularly. You only own the noticeboard, and are freely allowing people to post there whatever they have to offer.
Is that legal? I wo
Re:Wrong. (Score:2)
at worst, they're guilty of neglect
Terrible Puns! (Score:2)
Anyone else tired of the media's love of terrible puns? If I see another bad pun... I'll do absolutely nothing, partly because I'm lazy.
Also, partly because I live in a country with gun control laws. Editors should be thankful.
Re:Terrible Puns! (Score:2)
You shall never get rid of puns in the news , they are a corner stone of news headlines and have been for centuries . Though i do wish they would use slightly better paronomasia
Re:Terrible Puns! (Score:3, Funny)
damn that wasn't good. I even felt like Charlton Heston....
Y'know, this is about right. (Score:4, Informative)
We recieve copyright complaints all the time, and every single time we contact our user and let them know we received a notice and to cease file sharing. Most of the time it is their kids anyways.
One guy wanted to try to do the whole "I'm entitled to download this movie" speech. We just told him that we were warning him that we received it. In other words we CYA'd. In the case of multiple complaints we would lock the account (multiple being several over a few weeks).
Mainly, reading TFA, these admins not only knew about, but helped set up and maintain the bittorrent hub (considering they had access logs from it). Plus documentation had been requested and not provided, and they had deliberately ignored several notices (for deliberately ignored phone calls have to go unanswered).
I'm not saying they are so guilty as to go to prison, however they kept the site going, and ingnored request by the copyright holder AND court. That does count for something.
How is this going to end? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's how this will pan out:
They will get sued and ordered to pay 50 gadzillion dollars, AND court costs.
The court will look at their income, and the lack of prior convictions, and order them to pay 20 bucks a week for the next 100 gadzillion years.
In the meantime, at least 42 new torrent sites will open to replace each one that has been shut down, and these will be progressively harder to shut down due to being physically hosted in
(a) Russia
(b) China
(c) An Oil platform, and finally,
(d) The moon.
Meanwhile our sysdamins have paid off the 20% of the court costs of the guy that brings in the suitcases for the lawyers. They are now old, but venerated figures in the piracy underground.
Who wins? No-one.
The Records companies have lost heaps of money, our sysadmins have also lost heaps of money, the effect on global piracy was imperceptibly small, and the legal teams of both parties are sitting together on their company yacht, toasting their victory with pina coladas under the stars.
Re:How is this going to end? (Score:2)
Then let's ruin their party by organizing a LAN party RIGHT THERE AND THEN. Hah! That'll teach them.
Re:How is this going to end? (Score:3, Funny)
Bzzzt Wrong; not 'No-one'.
The correct answer was "Lawyers".
Re:How is this going to end? (Score:2)
FTA (Fuck The Australian's) (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that the labels are looking to settle out of court, thier lowest buyoff price might
Hosting music? (Score:2, Interesting)
Were they actually hosting music or were they providing pointers to music. I think the distinction is very important because it feel like the music industry is playing on the lack of technical knowledge in the general (downloading) population.
I, personally, think that hosting music for download is wrong (I think that we should have far more rights regarding what we do with music we have bought though) but wrong with a little w. I can't see any way that providing a pointer to music is wrong though. I admit
Re:Hosting music? (Score:2)
So what happens when (Score:2, Interesting)
C&Ds, the unexpected consequences (Score:3, Informative)
It was a method of 1) encouraging the offending party to see the error of his ways and stop doing the bad thing, and 2) to establish in no uncertain terms that the offending party was aware that their actions were causing offence.
With that, everyone and their brother started sending C&Ds instead of actually suing. It's cheaper and doesn't require any court action, so both sides come out way ahead if the C&D works.
Unfortunately they have become so much like "Final Notice" bills that just seem to keep coming without actually reaching a conclusion. Offenders just toss the C&D in the trash and the Offended just send another C&D. Neither side really wants to take it to court because that would entail actual lawyering.
There ought to be a law that mandates that only one C&D per offence may be sent to any customer. Once that has been ignored for a certain amount of time, the offended party would either have to stop sending it or actually take the offender to court.
I'd love to see some P2P violators squirm in the courtroom. Currently they hide behind their anonymity and the knowledge that despite any C&D they receive, that many others are also receiving them and the odds of actually getting tapped by the RIAA is slim to none.
Reminds me of an old joke (Score:2, Insightful)
Doctor: "Then don't do this"
If the court says folks were breaking the law, then by definition they were breaking the law. End of story. Don't like it? Try to get the laws changed, or buy the god damn CDs, or boycott the music industry by refusing to listen to the music it publishes. Stealing is not the answer.
IANAL but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now they are saying, at least in Australia, that these are legally binding documents? Ya think?! IANAL but I have a real problem with this. The last time I looked legal notices were supposed to be on paper, not in the form of bits down the cable. This doesn't even begin to address the issue of legal liability for the ISP/hosting provider that does take action on one of these e-mails and it turns out that the e-mail was either fraudulent or in error. Sheesh, what a can of worms.
I do know one thing. For simple self-protection I am so not going to host anything other than something I myself create, and even then I'm probably going to end up in software patent hell, knowing my luck. So much for the Internet age. It was sweet while it lasted.
Re:IANAL but... (Score:3, Informative)
It's clear that you're smarter than the folks at Swiftel. Their To report copyright infringement [peopletelecom.com.au] page clearly lists email and telephone numbers first in the instructions for reporting piracy. Their postal address is listed as the last bullet.
You'd think it's common sense: if you're writing a contact page, and you don't want to get certain things via email (because you have a spam filter, because you don't have the time to read email, or whatever reason you chose), then don't list an email address as you
A little silly to get up in arms... (Score:3, Insightful)
"We'll be demonstrating that the company had knowledge of what was happening, and that these two individuals knew of this [piracy] activity," Tony Bannon, counsel for the labels, said.
The plaintiff has promised to demonstrate that they had full knowledge, not just that they had unverified takedown notices. And if they do - It's fair enough. But they'll have their day to prove it.Email is not reliable enough for legal notices. (Score:5, Insightful)
This might have been a reasonable thing to do in 1990, but since then the flood of spam and viruses has increased to the point where it's effectively impossible to accept and read all email that arrives at a well-known address. Assuming that a message has been recieved because you don't receive a bounce message is completely unreasonable.
The labels allege Swiftel's senior systems administrators Melissa Ong and Ryan Briggs ignored calls to remove Web sites that were in breach of copyright, and instead "treated the infringement notices like spam."
Given the way facts get twisted even when all parties are trying to communicate accurately, this quote could well be a distorted version of something like "a spam filter at the ISP inadvertently lost the messages".
slightly off-topic? (Score:3, Insightful)
The slightly off-topic part: More and more online music stores appear on the net, which I consider a good thing. I for one would love to go there and buy a song if I hear one I like.
Problem is: If I would like to buy a random song from the top 40, changes are that with my linux machine, I can't buy it. Or maybe I can... but I can't download it, burn it or whatever. Because I don't have WMP ! I'm not downloading it illegally. If they don't let me buy and download a simple mp3 (or ogg or whatever) with GOOD quality (192kbps), they won't have me as a customer.
The terrible thing is that people that DO have WMP don't even know they are helping the big music companies in restricting everything their customers are allowed to do.
And for complete albums... , CD's are still better value. You get some media with it (CD), a case, a booklet AND the music is of better quality ! And if it is copy protected and does not adhere to the CD audio standards... they lose my business as well. I wish more people would make a statement like that. Then it might make a difference.
If you think music/video is to expensive... don't buy it, but don't copy it either. If you are not willing to pay, you probably don't need it bad enough. Buy buying restricted media, or stealing it, you just are part of the problem, making it worse for everyone.
Re:sue aussies in us? (Score:2)
Re:sue aussies in us? (Score:2)
BTW: If Rummy is reading this to you George, there is no need to send CIA agents on luxury kidnappings to Oz, we can take care of our own file terrorist and insurgent networks. Maybe if Johnny does good, you will reward us by removing your sugar and beef subsidies or should we just keep preying to Santa?
Re:ignoring? (Score:2, Informative)