RIAA Sues Man for Ripping Legally Owned CDs to His Computer

[Lemur]

I kinda knew this was possible (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html), but I didn't think the music labels would ever be stupid enough to do it. They're making good on their threat to sue people for copying their own CDs to their own computers. Gah. Double-gah with filling.


In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

I would like to introduce the record labels to my close personal friends, the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger.

[Banquo's Ghost]

They have to be kidding. :shocked2:

OK, so now I'm a pirate too. Is there now anyone in the world who is not a felon?

[TB666]

Is there now anyone in the world who is not a felon?
New borns ??
Anyway, I'm not surprised.
They lost the war a long time ago and this just shows that the end is near for them.

[FactionHeir]

Does this mean 90% of the ORG gets banned from the forum for being pirates? :inquisitive:

I think what they are doing is ridiculous. Isn't there some clause in the law that allows you to make safe copies of your CDs/DVDs for personal use?

Besides, how did they find out he did so in the first place?

[TB666]

Besides, how did they find out he did so in the first place?
My guess, the copy protection on the cds.

[Lemur]

The man was probably hit with one of their driftnet lawsuits, retained a lawyer to defend himself instead of settling, and has a good line of defense. The RIAA's gambit is to claim that even if all they find on his PC is copies of his owned music, he's still a criminal. They're probably doing this just in case he really isn't a music pirate. (And anybody choosing to take it to court after the Jammie Thomas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammie_Thomas) case is going to be quite aware that you don't take it to the jury unless you really are innocent of file-sharing.)

It's a classic slimy lawyer move, ask for everything, including the ridiculous, just in case the Judge is on PCP when the filings are read. As usual, there's no consideration for just how ridiculous it looks to the public, nor the way it will harden Joe Consumer's opinion about the record labels being corrupt vestiges of a copyright mafia.

It all depends on whether or not they can destroy the concept of Fair Use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use), which has a long legal history in the U.S. The RIAA wants to treat all music as a one-off licensing deal -- in other words, when you purchase any sort of music, you're purchasing the right to play it in that format, and possibly only on a single, authorized device. I'm sure they would also love to limit how often you can listen to it without paying again.

Idiots. Complete, technophobic, slobbering, greedy idiots.

[Bijo]

Yep. I am not surprised.

[Beirut]

Something's going to happen to make this whole situation implode. Some person's action, some judge's ruling, some bit of technology is going to hit the RIAA's house of cards and the whole thing will collapse with them inside.

The situation is too big, too volatile, too widespread, and too stupid to remain as it is.

[Crazed Rabbit]

So the RIAA is saying downloading music illegally is as bad as copying purchased music to your computer?

I've always been of the opinion that hating the way music is sold is no excuse for pirating, but if they call this pirating, well...

CR

[KukriKhan]

Riaa'a just p.o.'d that Bill Gates figured out software licensing protocols before they did, and they wanna retroactively apply his magic scheme to their products, and become as rich as he.

Or so I explain it to myself.

It's gonna take well-written Acts of Congress to make this insanity cease - but I don't think we're gonna see much action in that arena 'til after next November's elections.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Idiots. Complete, technophobic, slobbering, greedy idiots.

They don't see a way to make the current profit scales from the new technology. Until they do, Luddism will dog their thinking.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Sick, disgusting. I hope the layer somehow has an accident.

Sad if of of the major representatives of the struggle against piracy can't recognize friend from foe, and thus undermines this struggle. Piracy is a threat towards not only the companies, but also to our countries. Too bad RIAA tries as hard as they can to lose in the long run by using terror tactics against innocent civilians.

[Papewaio]

Actually with software it acts in the dead opposite. You buy a license for the software, you don't buy the software. The original media it is on is not important. That you only load it on as many as currently licensed is. If you decommission an old machine that frees up one of the licenses.

So by IT standards you would buy a single user license for music. You then load the music to the place of your choice and play it from there. If you license is a single user then you can only load it to one machine at a time. If it is a multi-user license then the number of machines it can be loaded on is governed by that number. Typically it is a multiple of 5 as System admins can't add unless it is binary or multiples of 5. Now must software suppliers allow you to store the original software and a copy of it so that you can reload the media on to the licensed computer as needed.

=][=

Things like DVD regions are restraint of fair trade. They create artificial barriers to free trade and are not used to determine the languages or other special features. It is merely used to stop DVDs that are sold cheaper in some regions being shipped to other ones.

[Husar]

Here I think it's legal except if you circumvent copy protection, which is illegal.
Don't know how it is in the US but it sounds rather stupid. Hey, they can limit their music to one medium, maybe require money for every time you use it, they just shouldn't expect a lot of customers then. :sweatdrop:

[Blodrast]

Hehehe, I'd been waiting for this for a loooong time, dunno what took them this long. :2thumbsup:

Of course it's illegal, why are you all so surprised, this has been the state of things for years now, and they've been claiming this for years... You're not allowed to make backups, and format-shifting and time-shifting are illegal, and you're not allowed to "lend" your stuff to a friend. That's what the RIAA has been claiming aaaaalll these years, was past time they made good on their claims.

Also, as far as laws go, please, don't make me laugh. Perhaps you haven't been paying attention, but all the laws that have been passed so far are FOR the likes of the **AA's. Paid for and bought by them, all legit-like. :yes:
It was only a few weeks back that they pushed a bill to create a Federal branch to take care precisely of this sort of things... it was posted here in the backroom... How do you think that will affect things ?

[Blodrast]

Something's going to happen to make this whole situation implode. Some person's action, some judge's ruling, some bit of technology is going to hit the RIAA's house of cards and the whole thing will collapse with them inside.

The situation is too big, too volatile, too widespread, and too stupid to remain as it is.

Wishful thinking. The situation isn't widespread at all, 99% of the population isn't aware of anything (besides, possibly, some mild annoyance with the unskippable DVD anti-piracy threats). Jammie Thomas's trial should have proven that to you very clearly. It will take maaaany years and maaaany people affected, before the common folk even become vaguely aware of this.

And, Kukri, the Congress ? Who do you think passed the DMCA ? Who passed all these laws ? Who gives the go for creating that Federal branch ?
As for elections - why would that make a difference, since the re-election rate of congress-critters is 90% ? It'll be the same folks. And the remaining 10% will be from the same breed, anyway...

[Blodrast]

Oh, and apparently the WP article is kinda poorly phrased. While the RIAA do call the ripped songs "illegal", that isn't what they are suing for; they are suing for placing the songs in a shared directory.

[Hepcat]

Why do they spend so much money on lawyers against this poor sod? Seems pretty stupid to me. My computer is on a local network and My Documents is shared, which also includes where I keep my music since I rip all my albums to my computer and sort them into folders. Does that mean I'm eligible to be sued too?

[Blodrast]

Why do they spend so much money on lawyers against this poor sod? Seems pretty stupid to me. My computer is on a local network and My Documents is shared, which also includes where I keep my music since I rip all my albums to my computer and sort them into folders. Does that mean I'm eligible to be sued too?

That would depend on NZ law, and the equivalent of the **AA's in NZ.

As to your first question, it's simple: for one thing, if you can get a precedent, then that decision becomes entrenched into law, and you can continue to sue left and right successfully. For another, most people are intimidated by their practice, and settle before going to court (and cough up the 3k). Furthermore, making examples of people/victims has obvious benefits.

[Husar]

Oh, and apparently the WP article is kinda poorly phrased. While the RIAA do call the ripped songs "illegal", that isn't what they are suing for; they are suing for placing the songs in a shared directory.
That changes the situation a little bit, sharing them over the internet or a LAN with other computers used by other persons would be illegal.

Makes me wonder though whether everyone at a party has to own every CD that the host plays?
Here at big commercial or public parties the host pays a certain fee but at small private parties it's fine AFAIK.

[Blodrast]

That changes the situation a little bit, sharing them over the internet or a LAN with other computers used by other persons would be illegal.

Makes me wonder though whether everyone at a party has to own every CD that the host plays?
Here at big commercial or public parties the host pays a certain fee but at small private parties it's fine AFAIK.

No, no, no. So far, RIAA have never actually shown any proof of sharing. Things being in a shared directory, and things being actually shared, are two different situations. Mind you, for the distinguished people of Duluth (some of whom proudly claimed they'd never used the internet before) it doesn't matter.

And one of the finer points is that their lawyers are trying to push two things at the same time: they are suing over things being shared, but they're saying (again) that ripping your own stuff is illegal; if they win, then they'll be able to claim precedent on the illegality of ripping your own (...) stuff, since they'd lumped it with this other claim.


This is really, really cool: this used to be on the RIAA's website, but it has since been removed - but not before it was archived... as I'm sure everybody knows, these days they're claiming slightly different things... The irony...

linky to what the RIAA used to say (http://web.archive.org/web/20070516072606/http://www.riaa.com/issues/ask/default.asp)



If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail.


Slightly different from what their head lawyer says when they claim that ripping your own CDs is illegal, wouldn't you say ?

[sapi]

That changes the situation a little bit, sharing them over the internet or a LAN with other computers used by other persons would be illegal.So the *AA would like all the media streaming devices that have appeared in recent years to be ruled illegal too? :inquisitive:

And they wonder why they're becoming irrelevant :laugh4:



No, no, no. So far, RIAA have never actually shown any proof of sharing. Things being in a shared directory, and things being actually shared, are two different situations.Yep, and if they can get a precedent here that indicates that being shared is enough (rather than having to prove uploads) they'd have a field day :wall:

[HoreTore]

With the Almighty Power of my new senior membership, I rule in favour of the defendant and order RIAA's lawyers to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

This is what I can use the title for, right?

[Banquo's Ghost]

With the Almighty Power of my new senior membership, I rule in favour of the defendant and order RIAA's lawyers to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

This is what I can use the title for, right?

Yes it is.

You just have to read the sub-clause that states no-one will take any notice. :wink3:

[TB666]

Oh, and apparently the WP article is kinda poorly phrased. While the RIAA do call the ripped songs "illegal", that isn't what they are suing for; they are suing for placing the songs in a shared directory.
So, I put all my music in a shared folder so that I can connect to my computer through my Xbox360, thus make me able to listen to my music while playing.
That's illegal then ?? Even tho, I only share with myself ??

[R'as al Ghul]

That's illegal then ?? Even tho, I only share with myself ??
Since the Jammie Thomas case the RIAA tries to establish that ripping a CD to digital format is already a breach of copyright. Putting it in a shared folder makes you a pirate if your PC has an internet connection. If not than they'll just sue you for breaching copyright.

If you choose to take our own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's illegal. It's our music and we only want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail if you continuously pay us for each instance.


Fixed. :bow:

[Husar]

No, no, no. So far, RIAA have never actually shown any proof of sharing. Things being in a shared directory, and things being actually shared, are two different situations.
Didn't say that. ~;)
I just said if he did that, that would be illegal, logically, a shared folder that isn't shared isn't shared since it cannot be shared without being shared except if logical refers to the program structure of the OS but since when does that dictate laws? :inquisitive:


So the *AA would like all the media streaming devices that have appeared in recent years to be ruled illegal too? :inquisitive:
Well, radio stations do pay fees for broadcasting, so should internet radio stations. What I've been wondering about though is the recording from radio and TV, it's offered pretty much everywhere and it's been technically possible for years and noone really pays a thing.

Again here it's legal for private use only AFAIK, you can record anything on TV for private use, as long as you do not take money from your friends when you watch a recorded movie with them, it's perfectly legal.

This sounds a bit like they could also sue you for not locking away your recorded TV programs or your legally bought DVDs claiming that they were lying on a shared shelf. :dizzy2:
If I were American, I'd lock all my music and movies away now. ~;)
Or better yet, lock them away and don't buy any more.

[TB666]

Bastards, plain and simple bastards.
And what is worse is that it doesn't matter if it's illegal or legal in the country that you live, they will demand that you get shipped to the US to stand trial.

[English assassin]

Sick, disgusting. I hope the la[w]yer somehow has an accident.

Yeah, yeah, "first thing we do lets kill all the lawyers", teh old. Unless the lawyers really have initiated this whole sue the customers business strategy all on their own, in which case you have a point.

The case itself really is mind boggling. I hadn't realised that if I copied a CD to a computer I shared with my family, it makes me a pirate. I'd better take all the CDs out of the car, too, because sometimes the whole family listens to those, even though only I bought them. Three of them are young children, but hell, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be sued, does it?

[KukriKhan]

And, Kukri, the Congress ? Who do you think passed the DMCA ? Who passed all these laws ? Who gives the go for creating that Federal branch ?
As for elections - why would that make a difference, since the re-election rate of congress-critters is 90% ? It'll be the same folks. And the remaining 10% will be from the same breed, anyway...


Of course, you're right. My point is: the courts are obliged to enforce by the law(s) currently poorly-written. The only way to fix this problem ("problem" from our point-of-view) is for those law-writers to write better law - law that does not criminalize 65% of the population, for 2 big reasons:

1) it's unfair to a vast swath of the citizenry
2) it breeds contempt for law generally

Congress are the guys with that job assignment; they're 'busy' campaigning for the next 8-9 months.

[R'as al Ghul]

I hadn't realised that if I copied a CD to a computer I shared with my family, it makes me a pirate. I'd better take all the CDs out of the car, too, because sometimes the whole family listens to those, even though only I bought them. Three of them are young children, but hell, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be sued, does it?

No, it does not. But first it's gonna hit you because you're illegally broadcasting intellectual property to a wider audience without paying any royalties to the artists. :stunned: That's like illegally lending out a book for which only you bought the license to read it, to your wife. You wouldn't do that, would you?
What's more, the possibility that someone gets access to those files while your machine is online makes you a pirate. (Iirc the possibility alone was an argument in a prior case) :yes:

[Lemur]

No, it does not. But first it's gonna hit you because you're illegally broadcasting intellectual property to a wider audience without paying any royalties to the artists.
This argument has already been made -- successfully. In the UK, a car mechanic shop was successfully sued because its mechanics were listening to a radio loud enough for customers to hear in the waiting area. This constitutes an "unlicensed performance." I'm not kidding.

Here's the background on the case (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071008-the-next-copycrime-making-hearable-rings-up-200000-copyright-suit.html).

[TB666]

Indeed.
Same with listening to your MP3 player too loud on a bus or what not.
It counts unlicensed performance.

[DukeofSerbia]

This argument has already been made -- successfully. In the UK, a car mechanic shop was successfully sued because its mechanics were listening to a radio loud enough for customers to hear in the waiting area. This constitutes an "unlicensed performance." I'm not kidding.

Here's the background on the case (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071008-the-next-copycrime-making-hearable-rings-up-200000-copyright-suit.html).
OMG, what's the next!? :inquisitive: :wall:

[Blodrast]

OMG, what's the next!? :inquisitive: :wall:

Are you sure you really want to know ? Among other things, probably something along these lines:

(Note that these are all from the last 2-3 days...)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm
Australian gov't announces mandatory internet filters to protect children


Conroy announces mandatory internet filters to protect children

Posted December 31, 2007 14:45:00
Updated December 31, 2007 20:33:00
Senator Conroy says the Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet [File photo].

Senator Conroy says the Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet [File photo]. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy says new measures are being put in place to provide greater protection to children from online pornography and violent websites.

Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.

Online civil libertarians have warned the freedom of the internet is at stake, but Senator Conroy says that is nonsense.

He says the scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites.

"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road," he said.

"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."

Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service.

He says the Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet.

"There are people who are going to make all sorts of statements about the impact on the [internet] speed," he said.

"The internet hasn't ground to a halt in the UK, it hasn't ground to a halt in Scandinavian countries and it's not grinding the internet to a halt in Europe.

"But that is why we are engaged constructively with the sector, engaging in trials to find a way to implement this in the best possible way and to work with the sector."

Tags: community-and-society, pornography, government-and-politics, federal-government, information-and-communication, censorship, internet, australia


Japanese Government to Regulate Online Communication
http://gyaku.jp/en/index.php?cmd=contentview&pid=000320


Regulating the Japanese cyberspace, one step at a time
Thursday, December 27, 2007 Printer friendly version
by shioyama

With little fanfare from local or foreign media, the Japanese government made major moves this month toward legislating extensive regulation over online communication and information exchange within its national borders. In a series of little-publicized meetings attracting minimal mainstream coverage, two distinct government ministries, that of Internal Affairs and Communications (Somusho) and that of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho), pushed ahead with regulation in three major areas of online communication: web content, mobile phone access, and file sharing.
Public comments about Internet content regulation (from blogger tokyodo-2005)
Public comments about Internet content regulation (from blogger tokyodo-2005)

On December 6th, in a final report compiled by a study group under the Somusho following up on an interim report drafted earlier this year, the government set down plans to regulate online content through unification of existing laws such as the Broadcast Law and the Telecommunications Business Law [1,2]. The planned regulation targets all web content, including online variants of traditional media such as newspaper articles and television broadcasting, while additionally going as far as to cover user-generated content such as blogs and webpages under the vaguely-defined category of "open communication" [3,4,5,6].

Only days following the release of the Dec. 6 report, again through the Somusho, the government on Dec. 10th requested that mobile phone companies NTT Docomo, KDDI, Softbank and Willcom commence strictly filtering web content to mobile phones for users under the age of 18 [7,8,9,10]. The move to filter content in this area comes at a time when the Japanese market has become saturated with mobile phones, a growing proportion of which are held by high-school and even grade-school students. The proposed policy, in part responding to fears and anxieties expressed by parents about online dating sites, is broad in scope and reportedly covers all websites with forum, chat, and social networking functionality.

Regulation of a third area of online communication, that of online file sharing, was meanwhile advanced through the Private Music and Video Recording Subcommittee of Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs (under the Mobukagakusho) in a meeting held on December 18th. Authorities and organizations pushed in this case for a ban on the download of copyrighted content for personal use, a category of file transfer previously permitted under Article 30 of Japan's Copyright Law [11,12,13,14].

The final report on Internet regulation released on December 6th, and the meetings about mobile phone regulation and copyright policy held on December 10th and 18th, collectively touch on nearly every aspect of modern network communication in Japan and together indicate a significant shift in government policy vis-a-vis the Japanese cyberspace. While granted little attention in mainstream media, a series of Japanese-language articles, government reports, and blog entries on the topic together sketch basic details of the proposed regulations. The main points of these documents are summarized below, with references to resources offering more in-depth discussion included at the end of the article.
Step 1: Web content

Plans for regulation of web content are summarized in two primary documents drawn up by the “Study group on the legal system for communications and broadcasting” under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Somusho) and headed by Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi University Horibe Masao. The first document is an interim report released on June 19th, setting down basic guidelines for regulating web content through application of the existing Broadcast Law to the sphere of the Internet [1,4]. Incorporating the views of a reported 276 comments from 222 individuals and 56 organizations collected shortly after publication of the interim report, the final report, made public on December 6th, sets down steps to move ahead and submit a bill on the proposed regulations to the regular diet session in 2010 [2,5,6].

One of the key points of both reports is their emphasis on the blurring line between "information transmission" and "broadcasting", a distinction that becomes less and less meaningful as content-transfer shifts from the realm of traditional media to that of ubiquitous digital communication (so-called "all over IP"). The reports deal with this difficult problem in part through the creation of a new category, that of "open communication", broadly described as covering "communication content having openness [kouzensei/公然性] such as homepages and so on" [3].

The term "open communication" may itself be vaguely defined, but implications of the new category are in fact very real. While previously largely excluded from government regulation thanks to the limited scope of existing broadcast legislation, all online content, with the exception only of private messages used only between specific persons (i.e. email, etc.), will henceforth be targeted under the proposed policy. Notably included in this category are hugely popular bulletin board systems such as 2channel as well as personal blogs and webpages.

Online content judged to be "harmful" according to standards set down by an independent body (specifics of which are unclear) will be subject to law-enforced removal and/or correction. While the interim report did not specify whether penal regulations would be enforced against policy violations, the final report, in response to concerns voiced in public comments over the summer, moved toward excluding such regulations for the time being at least. Nonetheless, the final report also notes that, if there is a need for it, the "adequacy of punishment should also be investigated" (page 22 of the final report) [5]. It thus remains an open question as to whether, if eventually enacted, penal regulations will be applied and, if so, what form they will take.
Step 2: Mobile phone access

As the number of elementary and high-school students with mobile phones in Japan has ballooned to over 7.5 million, the push for protecting young users from potentially dangerous content, such as online dating services and so-called "mobile filth", has gained momentum in recent years within Japan. The government responded to such concerns on December 10th by demanding that mobile carriers NTT Docomo, KDDI, Softbank, and Willcom implement filtering on all mobile phones issued to users under the age of 18. While optional filtering currently exists and can be implemented at the request of the mobile phone owner, few users make use of or even know of this service. The proposed regulation would heavily strengthen earlier policy by making filtering on mobile phones the default setting for minors; only in the case of an explicit request by the user's parent or guardian could such filtering be turned off by the carrier [7,8,9].

According to the new policy proposal, sites would be categorized on two lists, a "blacklist" of sites that would be blocked from mobile access by minors and a "whitelist" of sites that would not. The categorization of sites into each list will reportedly be carried out together with carriers through investigations involving each company targeted. The Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) of Japan is indicating that the new policy will be enforced with respect to new users by the end of 2007 and applied to existing users by the summer of 2008 [8].

While it is not yet entirely clear what content will be covered by the new policy, a look at existing filtering services promoted by NTT Docomo reveals the definition of "harmful" content to be very broad indeed. As noted by a number of Japanese bloggers, notably social activist Sakiyama Nobuo, current optional filtering services offered on NTT Docomo phones include categories as sweeping as "lifestyles" (gay, lesbian, etc.), "religion", and "political activity/party", as well as a category termed "communication" covering web forums, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and social networking services. The breadth of this last category in particular threatens to bankrupt youth-oriented services such as "Mobage", a social networking and gaming site for mobile phones, half of whose users are under the age of 18.
Step 3: File sharing

While the cases of Internet regulation and mobile phone filtering primarily revolve on concerns over content, the third government policy proposal advanced this month in the domain of online communication targets the area of content transfer. On December 18th, the Private Music and Video Recording Subcommittee of Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, an advisory body under the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (Monbukagakusho), held a meeting to re-examine Article 30 of Japan's Copyright Law. With respect to online file transfer, the existing law currently bans uploading of copyrighted material onto public websites, while permitting copies for personal use only [12,13,14].

At the December 18th meeting, Kawase Makoto, general manager of the agency's Copyrighted Work Circulation Promotion Department, remarked that revising article 30 was "inevitable" [11]. Kawase's comment came less than a month after the same agency received more than 7500 public comments on the topic of the plans, the majority of which reportedly opposed any change to the current Copyright Law [15,16,17]. Haeno Hidetoshi , senior director of the Recording Industry Association of Japan, meanwhile described the state of the recording industry as "spine-chilling", arguing that if illegal file sharing was not stopped the business would hit a dead end [12].

IT and music journalist Tsuda Daisuke on the other hand argued that he did not see any need for legal revision, observing that if users uploading copyrighted files are controlled, then there should be no need to outlaw illegal downloads or file sharing. In an earlier Nov. 28th meeting, addressing the divide in opions among public comments about the regulation, Tsuda noted that results evidenced a "deep gap" between the views of copyright holders and those of consumers. He further warned that to ignore the views of those opposing revision, and to not attempt to understand their arguments, would be to invite further deepening of this gap [16,17].

One of the key issues raised by opponents of the proposed revisions regards the murky definition of "download" itself. Critics argue that a user cannot determine whether a file is illegal before they actually download it, and even once the file is downloaded, such identification remains difficult. Moreover, it is difficult for users to judge whether, at the time of downloading a file, the site from which the file was downloaded was itself illegal or not. While proponents of the legal revision have argued in favour of a "mark" to identify approved sites, this approach brings with it many new problems; most critically, it would mean that every site not bearing the approved mark would be considered "illegal", a blanket policy many consider extreme [17].

The murkiness of the definition of "illegal" file sharing also manifests itself in the difficulties legislators will potentially face in distinguishing between "downloading" and "streaming", difficulties which some argue may ultimately lead to the regulation of sites such as YouTube and Nico Nico Douga. As there is no fundamental difference between downloaded content and streamed content, given that in both cases content is copied locally before viewing, commenters expressed anxiety about how judges with no specialized knowledge will handle this murky middle ground.
The future of "open"

The various problems evident in the regulation policies described above are compacted by the fact that there is a lack of coordination between branches of government, the first two proposals being handled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications while the last is being handled by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Without a coordinated approach to regulation, legal conflicts inherent in the switch to "all over IP" are guaranteed to arise.

Even with such a coordinated approach, however, policy remains ill-defined and extremely vague. The future of online communication within Japan hinges on attracting attention to these issues and on drawing as wide a range of voices into the debate as possible. While current activism by groups within Japan such as the recently formed Movements for Internet Active Users (MIAU) have made important first steps in this direction, international attention is needed to coordinate support and confront the many pressing issues facing open communication in the Japanese cyberspace.

[Husar]

Bastards, plain and simple bastards.
And what is worse is that it doesn't matter if it's illegal or legal in the country that you live, they will demand that you get shipped to the US to stand trial.
You mean it's a free ticket to the US? :idea2:
*sets up dozens of filesharing programs*

[English assassin]

This argument has already been made -- successfully. In the UK, a car mechanic shop was successfully sued because its mechanics were listening to a radio loud enough for customers to hear in the waiting area. This constitutes an "unlicensed performance." I'm not kidding.

Here's the background on the case (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071008-the-next-copycrime-making-hearable-rings-up-200000-copyright-suit.html).

Hold up. This is BRILLIANT news. So, next time a small penised teenager driving some crappy little hatchback which he has "customised" with 30 lbs of the finest fibreglass drives past me with 200 decibles of hip hop blaring out, the performing rights society is going to sue his pimply backside?

Gentlemen, we have found the silver lining to this cloud.

[TB666]

You mean it's a free ticket to the US? :idea2:
*sets up dozens of filesharing programs*
Do you really wanna spend time in a american prison ?? ~;)

[CrossLOPER]

Gentlemen, we have found the silver lining to this cloud.
Well I'm glad you find this hilarious.

On a side note, does that make iTunes and whatever Zune uses illegal?

[sapi]

Well, radio stations do pay fees for broadcasting, so should internet radio stations. What I've been wondering about though is the recording from radio and TV, it's offered pretty much everywhere and it's been technically possible for years and noone really pays a thing.
Under Australian fair use laws (brought into line with the US after the FTA, so I presume it's the same there), you're supposed to delete a recording after watching it once.

Yeah, right - I'd love to see them enforce that :grin2:



http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...31/2129471.htm
Australian gov't announces mandatory internet filters to protect childrenYeah, I heard about that. I hope they don't notice that the person sending an email to have it immediately disabled if it's ever actually introduced (me) isn't actually the owner of the connection :laugh4:



Bastards, plain and simple bastards.
And what is worse is that it doesn't matter if it's illegal or legal in the country that you live, they will demand that you get shipped to the US to stand trial.I've more faith in my government than that (I hope!!). Allowing extradition for file sharing would cross the line imho - citizens do/should have rights ~:)

...although there is actually a bad precedent in that the leader of a warez ring was extradited to the US to face charges, from Australia, after they'd established a case against him and others ~:(

[Duke of Gloucester]

This argument has already been made -- successfully. In the UK, a car mechanic shop was successfully sued because its mechanics were listening to a radio loud enough for customers to hear in the waiting area. This constitutes an "unlicensed performance." I'm not kidding.

Here's the background on the case (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071008-the-next-copycrime-making-hearable-rings-up-200000-copyright-suit.html).

I can't find anything to tell me that this suit was successful, just that it passed the first legal hurdle in October. Since these things take ages I suspect that the matter is still before the courts. Your link says:

"Kwik-Fit asked the court to dismiss the suit at a procedural hearing last week, citing its official, anti-radio policy. The judge refused to dismiss the £200,000 claim, however, saying that there was at least enough evidence such that the case should be heard. He made clear, however, that his allowance of the suit did not necessarily mean that he felt the PRS would succeed."

In any case, the suit is not about playing music too loud; it is about using music to enhance your customers' experience of the business. If this gives you a competive edge you could argue that those who performed the music should get some of the extra profit. This is not the same as a private individual copying legally purchased CDs on to a computer or an MP3 player.

[Beirut]

And what is worse is that it doesn't matter if it's illegal or legal in the country that you live, they will demand that you get shipped to the US to stand trial.

Try it! :chucks:

[TB666]

Try it! :chucks:
Well watch it, they are armed with the most terrifying weapon of all time.
Artists like Britney Spears. If you don't go peacefully they will sing outside your door.:hide:

[JimBob]

In any case, the suit is not about playing music too loud; it is about using music to enhance your customers' experience of the business. If this gives you a competive edge you could argue that those who performed the music should get some of the extra profit.

Somewhat true. But the way that radio ratings are being counted is changing. The Portable People Meter (PPM) (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118903798218018792.html?mod=blog) reads what frequencies a user encounters. So a store playing it has higher ratings and thus more ad revenue. So they do make more money from it.

[English assassin]

Well watch it, they are armed with the most terrifying weapon of all time.
Artists like Britney Spears. If you don't go peacefully they will sing outside your door.:hide:

You do know Canada has Celine Dion, don't you? Not to mention Bryan Adams. Any attempt to attack Canada by way of buttock clenchingly awful popular music artistes will be met with overwhelming retaliation in kind.


Well I'm glad you find this hilarious.

@crossLOPER: You DON'T find the idea of a copyright association suing car mechanics for listening to the radio in customers earshot a teeny tiny bit hilarious?

[hellenes]

Its so funny how people love and nurture predator dominant capitalism...talk about being brainwashed...
:laugh4:

[Fisherking]

So why has no one ever been sued for lending or reselling books?

Why you could slap a law suet on every government from cities on up couldn’t you.

Why wasn’t the same fuss made about lending vinyl albums or even tapes?

Just what makes the intellectual property of Microsoft or the new media used for recordings more valuable?

Come to think of it why hasn’t Parker Brothers gone into schools to root out all those pirates playing Battleship on scraps of paper?

Wait for the roadblocks to have your I-Pod inspected.

No one wants to injure the Authors and Artists behind the material but you know I am getting pretty sick of the predatory tactics of the big companies pushing the media.

[Ronin]

Why wasn’t the same fuss made about lending vinyl albums or even tapes?


because while tape and vinyl copying has been around for years the second it started being done digitally it became an EVIL :download: on the same level as Hitler or something...

:drama2:

[Blodrast]

So why has no one ever been sued for lending or reselling books?

Why you could slap a law suet on every government from cities on up couldn’t you.

Why wasn’t the same fuss made about lending vinyl albums or even tapes?

Just what makes the intellectual property of Microsoft or the new media used for recordings more valuable?

Come to think of it why hasn’t Parker Brothers gone into schools to root out all those pirates playing Battleship on scraps of paper?

Wait for the roadblocks to have your I-Pod inspected.

No one wants to injure the Authors and Artists behind the material but you know I am getting pretty sick of the predatory tactics of the big companies pushing the media.

Far from me to try and speak in favour of the labels, but I believe some of their reasons are:

- scale of distribution: to how many friends could you lend your vinyl/book/game? 10 ? 20 ? 100 ? And only _one at any given moment_.
Whereas with the advance of the internet, and the increased availability of broadband, I can instantly share ALL my vinyls/books/games with (theoretically) an unlimited number of people.

- they believe they can control/censor the new medium of distribution (the internet) - see the laws they have been, and are, lobbying for.

- finally, it's also a matter of popularity - the "in your face" attitude of TPB doesn't help much... and if everybody sees that you can get away with getting the stuff (music, video, games, you name it) without paying, and if this makes the news every week, well, eventually everybody will be aware that "there's another way" (besides paying unjustifiably high prices anymore) and so many people will do it, that the labels fear extinction...

Of course none of these justify anything they are doing.

[Vladimir]

New borns ??
Anyway, I'm not surprised.
They lost the war a long time ago and this just shows that the end is near for them.

Oops, sorry I'm late.

Newborns are covered under the original sin clause. :baby:

[R'as al Ghul]

This argument has already been made -- successfully. In the UK, a car mechanic shop was successfully sued because its mechanics were listening to a radio loud enough for customers to hear in the waiting area. This constitutes an "unlicensed performance." I'm not kidding.


Yes, I know. I'm not making things up. :beam:
EA is off the hook (for now) though because he only gives a private presentation of his CD's.

BTW, here's the new report about the state of privacy worldwide:
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-559597 (Gah! Already posted in another thread)

[Lemur]

Financial types are starting to notice (http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/01/02/were-all-thieves-to-the-riaa.aspx) the music labels' self-destructive behavior. Maybe if they suffer huge share price drops, they'll get bought out by someone sane? Here's hoping.


A good sign of a dying industry that investors might want to avoid is when it would rather litigate than innovate, signaling a potential destroyer of value. If it starts to pursue paying customers -- which doesn't seem that outlandish at this point -- then I guess we'll all know the extent of the desperation. Investor, beware.

[Don Corleone]

We can all continue to get ourselves worked into a tizzy, or we can stop and ask ourselves what can we really do.

1) Boycott all products by Sony Group, BMG, Time Warner, Viviendi and EMI. That's not going to be easy. Time Warner may mean you have to change your cable subscriber, or switch to Satellite. Viviendi means no more CBS television, and a whole host of other cable channels. And I don't want to hear any whining from people about the RIAA if they own a Playstation 3.

2) Boycott all musicians that are signed by a label owned by one of the big 5 above. Go to their webpage and leave them a note explaining your decision not to listen to their prodcut because they work for a organization bent on your financial and legal ruin.

3) Write to Apple, Microsoft and other MP3 player manufactures. Explain to them that you are very, very hesistant to consider any future purchases of their products, as well as any portable DVD players, etcetera, because of the position of the RIAA that merely transferring a song to your MP3 player from a CD you purchased was copyright violation, and you don't consider I-Store or Amazon ONLY as a suitable investment.

Then..... *crickets chirping*....

Seriously folks, a big part of the problem is lack of feedback in the system. Because they think they've shielded their identity behind their label, which is owned by a corporation and is represented by the RIAA, most so-called artists think that they're immune from the negative publicity. Explain to your favorite performers that because they support and in turn are supported by a legally-questionable and ethically-challenged industrial trade support group, you won't support them. When enough people tell Gwen Stefani that she's a corporate shill and a gold-digger and has lost her 'street-cred', she'll bitch. When the 'talent' stops playing along, the 'middlemen' will have to change their tune. *


*Hard to use term 'talent', and hard to know who exactly is a middle-man these days.

[Vladimir]

Thank God for radio.

[Lemur]

Seems as though the record labels are clueing in to some of what gets their customers angry. Sony/BMG has finally joined the herd, and will be dropping DRM (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2008/tc2008013_398775.htm) from their non-Apple online retailers.

The only thing the labels can agree on: We hates us some Apple, yes we does.


In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sony BMG would become the last of the top four music labels to drop DRM, following Warner Music Group (WMG), which in late December said it would sell DRM-free songs through Amazon.com's (AMZN) digital music store. EMI and Vivendi's Universal Music Group announced their plans for DRM-free downloads earlier in 2007.

[drone]

If Sony is finally doing it, there really must be a change in the air. Drug kicking and screaming into the 21st century, I'm sure. I wonder what this means for Apple's FairPlay scheme. Jobs has said the only reason they have DRM is because the labels force them to have it. Time to see if this is true, or if Apple really is using FairPlay as a lock-in.

It would be nice to get straight AAC files from iTunes (on all music). Got me a iPod Nano for Christmas, and am loading it with mp3s (apparently "pirated" ~:rolleyes: ) ripped from my CD collection. I'm not going to pay for FairPlay, but will buy if they change their rules.

As an aside, Microsoft must be furious. All the effort spent putting DRM and DRM protection into the Zune and Vista, slowly being made obsolete. Defective by design. ~D

[Don Corleone]

I guess I'm not certain what "FairPlay" is. I've bought tunes off of the I-Store, is that what you mean, Drone?

As for dropping DRM on all content providers except Apple, isn't that a bit of an anti-competition violation? I didn't think you could favor some of your distributors over others.

[Lemur]

FairPlay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay_%28DRM%29) is the Apple-only DRM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management) included in most iTunes purchases. It's true, if Apple had not included a DRM scheme, they could never have gotten the labels to sign on, so in this Jobs is not lying. However it has also locked customers into using iPods, a side-effect the labels could have foreseen if they weren't a bunch of technophobic idiots with their heads firmly planted in their hindquarters.

AAC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding) is the audio layer of MPEG-4, where MP3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3) is the audio layer of MPEG-1. Both should play fine on any relatively recent audio player.

Oh, and drone, Apple has been selling high-bitrate DRM-free tracks for months. EMI is the only label that agreed to do it in iTunes. Now that Apple has a dominant market position for handheld audio, I don't think they would mind dropping the golden handcuffs known as FairPlay.

[drone]

I guess I'm not certain what "FairPlay" is. I've bought tunes off of the I-Store, is that what you mean, Drone?FairPlay is the iTunes DRM mechanism. It's kind of a wrapper around the AAC files and keeps track of the restrictions Apple puts on the music it sells. You can get some tracks (EMI?) without it already.


As for dropping DRM on all content providers except Apple, isn't that a bit of an anti-competition violation? I didn't think you could favor some of your distributors over others.
You would think so. Nothing would surprise me in this business though.

Edit->Beaten by the Lemur.

[Husar]

I downloaded an album from EMI yesterday and it consisted entirely of 320kb/s MP3 files. The only weird thing was that it offered me 13 files from what I thought was a 14-song album, will have to check that. :inquisitive:
Was my first online music purchase and only bothered because it was DRM-free. :2thumbsup:

[R'as al Ghul]

Recommended viewing:
www.stealthisfilm.com/Part1/
www.stealthisfilm.com/

From Wikipedia:

Steal This Film is a film series documenting the movement against intellectual property. Part One, shot in Sweden and released in August 2006 only via the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol, combines accounts from prominent players in the Swedish piracy culture (The Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån, and the Pirate Party) with found material, propaganda-like slogans and Vox Pops. The Guardian Newspaper called it 'at heart a traditionally-structured "talking heads" documentary' with 'amusing stylings' from film-makers who 'practice what they preach.'[2]. BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow called it 'an amazing, funny, enraging and inspiring documentary series'. [3]. Screened at the British Film Institute and numerous independent international events, it was a talking point in 2007's British Documentary Film Festival.

[KukriKhan]

A take-off on Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book (http://books.google.com/books?id=VpIY6sDR07QC&dq=steal+this&pg=PP1&ots=3BOlX9xE12&sig=G9T7v2H_08zRjcmQHSbDZmHkjKc&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS220US220&q=steal+this+&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail) classic from the early 70's.

[Yawning Angel]

For a change it seems as though the British government might be sensible about this and are going the other way, with a proposal to explicitly legalise copying to your PC if you own the CD.
Linky to BBC site (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7176538.stm)

[drone]

Back to the Sony story: how could I be so gullible. :no: Of course Sony doesn't have a clue, they would never release DRM-free music. They just have a very unique way of DRMing their files:

Sony BMG to sell DRM-free music downloads through stores (http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/07/Sony-BMG-to-sell-DRM-free-music-downloads-through-stores_1.html)

Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.

The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management), from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada.

The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."

In contrast, online retailer Amazon.com offers 2.9 million DRM-free tracks in MP3 format from the catalogs of EMI Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music and a host of independent record labels. Apple's iTunes Store has around 2 million DRM-free tracks in the AAC format supported by its iPod and many mobile phones. No store visit is necessary to download those tracks, and an album typically sells for $9.99 or less.

About 4,500 retail outlets in the U.S. will sell the Platinum MusicPass cards by the end of the month, including Best Buy, Target, Trans World, Fred's, and Winn-Dixie, according to Sony-BMG. In Canada, the cards will sell through Best Buy, CD Plus, and Wal-Mart, and later through record store HMV.
Typical Sony.

[Oleander Ardens]

„[...] ein Justizcollegium, das Ungerechtigkeiten ausübt, ist gefährlicher und schlimmer, wie eine Diebesbande, vor die kann man sich schützen, aber vor Schelme, die den Mantel der Justiz gebrauchen, um ihre üblen Passionen auszuführen, vor die kann sich kein Mensch hüten. Die sind Ärger wie die größten Spitzbuben, die in der Welt sind und meritiren eine doppelte Bestrafung.“

King Fredrick the Great

"[..]. a group of advocates, which propels unjustice is more perilous and worse than a band of thugs, because one can defend itself against the latter, but against those rascals who use the mantle of justice to prosecute their evil no man is save. They are worse than the greatest thugs and merit double punishment".


„Wir ordnen und befehlen hiermit allen Ernstes, daß die Advocati wollene schwartze Mäntel, welche bis unter das Knie gehen, unserer Verordnung gemäß zu tragen haben, damit man diese Spitzbuben schon von weitem erkennt.“

– Friedrich Wilhelm I., König von Preußen: Cabinettsorder vom 15. Dezember 1726

"We state and order in fullest earnest, that the advocats should wear black mantles, which reach under their knees, on our ruling, so that these thiefs can be recognized from afar"


In this case one got to love the prussians :yes:

[ICantSpellDawg]

„[...] ein Justizcollegium, das Ungerechtigkeiten ausübt, ist gefährlicher und schlimmer, wie eine Diebesbande, vor die kann man sich schützen, aber vor Schelme, die den Mantel der Justiz gebrauchen, um ihre üblen Passionen auszuführen, vor die kann sich kein Mensch hüten. Die sind Ärger wie die größten Spitzbuben, die in der Welt sind und meritiren eine doppelte Bestrafung.“

King Fredrick the Great

"[..]. a group of advocates, which propels unjustice is more perilous and worse than a band of thugs, because one can defend itself against them, but against those rascals who use the mantle of justice to prosecute their evil no man is save. They are worse than the greatest thugs and merit double punishment".


That is a great quote.

[JR-]

Oh, and apparently the WP article is kinda poorly phrased. While the RIAA do call the ripped songs "illegal", that isn't what they are suing for; they are suing for placing the songs in a shared directory.
which answers the question of how they found him, it was obviously quite an open 'share'.

[Lemur]

RIAA may go the way of the dinosaur. (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080111-under-pressure-from-emi-riaa-could-disappear.html) Too good to be true?

Under pressure from EMI, RIAA could disappear

By Nate Anderson | Published: January 11, 2008 - 10:40AM CT

Is the RIAA as we know it about to disappear? As rumors continue to swirl that EMI will pull its funding from music trade groups like the RIAA and IFPI, an IFPI spokesman tells Ars that the group is in the middle of a major internal review of its operations.

That review will include a look at the "structure and operation of the organisation and its relationship with the national groups, with a view to finding greater efficiencies and cutting costs," we're told. That leaves open the possibility that the review could lead to a merger of the IFPI and RIAA, which is the largest (and most expensive) of the "national groups." If that happens, the "RIAA" might disappear even as its work continues.

The comments from the IFPI fit with a new story in Variety which claims that EMI will pull funding from the trade groups by March 31 unless major changes are made. Consolidating the two groups appears to be one of the options on the table.

Losing one of its four pillars would come as a huge blow to both the IFPI and the RIAA, and the review now in progress is an attempt to retool the trade groups' missions to better serve the record labels that fund most of their operations.

Major label music has had a hard time of it the last few years; even as the labels have moved plenty of music (due in large part to the growth of digital downloads), more lucrative CD sales have plummeted. The IFPI admits that its internal review is prompted in large part "by falling industry revenues resulting from the decline in global music sales."

While EMI's threat to pull its funding might seem like a cost-cutting measure, Variety's source claims that isn't the case at all. Rather, "Functions and structure need to make sense to all major labels. Right now, funding them doesn't make sense."

EMI has been unhappy with the trade groups' work for some time. Back in November, we noted that EMI was considering a major cut to its funding of industry trade groups. EMI, the smallest of the four major labels, was recently purchased by a private equity fund that is looking to reinvigorate the label and cut expenses.

EMI was the first of the majors to drop DRM at iTunes and Amazon, moves that have made its digital music a more attractive option. But if EMI can force a restructuring of the IFPI and RIAA, the impact could be just as significant for the industry.

[drone]

In the immortal words of a man with bad teeth, "EMI, goodbye" ~D

I also saw that Sony is joining the Amazon store, so they really are going to have easy to purchase DRM-free music. Sony must reeeeally hate Apple to implement this drastic measure. I stand corrected (and shocked). I hope Satan has cold weather gear.

[Scias]

Well they cant talk much now as it seems RIAA is now being put under review...

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/industry_news/could_riaa_disappear.html

Will this really affect the music industry as much as it already has been?

[TB666]

Doubt it will change anything.
RIAA will never go away, their influence is too great.

[Lemur]

TB666, all I can say is that the British Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_empire) and Standard Oil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_oil) were pretty invincible in their day, and I don't see the RIAA being anywhere close to that level of ascendancy. Change will come. That's the way of things.

[TB666]

Maybe if goverments left them alone they would go away but it seems like the US and even the swedish goverment support them too much.

[Lemur]

Well, this is cute (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/20/congress-moving-forw.html). Congress wants to tie college funding to how well they comply with the RIAA. Lovely. H.R. 4137 is our friend. No, really.

[Blodrast]

They've been pushing that for months (at least)...
Corporatism kinda sucks for the average Joe, doesn't it... I'm looking forward to the loud protests and noise-making against this... oh wait, there won't be any, because most folks don't care, and they don't think it matters.:no: Yeah, it's been repeatedly said before, but apathy is the worst of them, and we'll all pay dearly for it.

Look, I'll show you some silver lining... unfortunately, it's across the pond.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080122-proposed-eu-isp-filtering-and-copyright-extension-shot-down.html


Proposed EU ISP filtering and copyright extension shot down

By Jon Stokes | Published: January 22, 2008 - 12:53PM CT

This past November, EU regulators in the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education began looking in earnest at Europe's cultural products and heritage as an engine for economic growth. The idea behind this investigation, which took its original impetus from a 2006 study on "The economy of culture in Europe" and culminated in a draft report submitted by French socialist MEP Guy Bono entitled "On cultural industries in the context of the Lisbon strategy," is to consider ways that EU regulation might give a boost to the so-called "cultural and creative sector."
Related Stories

* Torrentspy starts filtering copyrighted content
* Big Content Down Under: unplug your "pirate" customers for us, thanks!

The draft report contained language that the caused alarm among European music and movie business trade groups, so Europe's version of Big Content immediately set about lobbying to not only "fix" the offending point (number 9, quoted below), but to convert it into a power grab by proposing alternative language supporting ISP-level copyright filtering (c.f. similar efforts in the US) and the extension of copyright terms.

Here's point 9 from the draft report; see if you can spot the language that made Europe's content industry nervous:

9. [The European Parliament] urges the Commission to rethink the critical issue of intellectual property from the cultural and economic point of view and to invite all those active in the sector to join forces and seek solutions equitable to all, in the interest of a balance between the opportunities for access to cultural events and content and intellectual property; draws Member States' attention on this point to the fact that criminalising consumers so as to combat digital piracy is not the right solution;

All that talk of striking a "balance" between access and intellectual property, and the negative reference to industry tactics that "criminalize" consumers spawned a flurry of lobbying activity, and by the time the dust settled lobbyists had succeeded in getting the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE) to submit an amendment to the draft report urging European ISPs to implement filtering mechanisms for the purpose of copyright enforcement.

The European recording industry followed up this move with another amendment, proposed last week, to extend EU copyright terms to match those of the US (the author's life plus 70 years).

The EFF's Danny O'Brien sent a heads-up to BoingBoing that, as of today, the Culture and Education Committee rejected all of the proposed filtering and copyright extension amendments. Clearly, they're not going to let the ITRE or the European recording industry push them around, which is great news for Europeans. Now if we could only get the US Congress to show as much spine as the French (ouch).

[TB666]

Wow, nice work EU.
Probably the first time they ever did something good.

[Blodrast]

MPAA: Errr, oops! (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j33CBI8sUdc5ni7RlxSj5SIEc2mwD8UB6S0O2)


MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study

By JUSTIN POPE – 15 hours ago

Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong.

In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.

The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so.

But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.

The MPAA says that's still significant, and justifies a major effort by colleges and universities to crack down on illegal file-sharing. But Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says it doesn't account for the fact that more than 80 percent of college students live off campus and aren't necessarily using college networks. He says 3 percent is a more reasonable estimate for the percentage of revenue that might be at stake on campus networks.

"The 44 percent figure was used to show that if college campuses could somehow solve this problem on this campus, then it would make a tremendous difference in the business of the motion picture industry," Luker said. The new figures prove "any solution on campus will have only a small impact on the industry itself."

The original report, by research firm LEK, claims the U.S. motion picture industry lost $6.1 billion to piracy worldwide, with most of the losses overseas. It identified the typical movie pirate as a male aged 16-24. MPAA said in a statement that no errors had been found in the study besides the percentage of revenue losses that could be attributed to college students, but that it would hire a third party to validate the numbers.

"We take this error very seriously and have taken strong and immediate action to both investigate the root cause of this problem as well as substantiate the accuracy of the latest report," the group said in a statement.

Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents higher education in Washington, said the mistakes showed the entertainment industry has unfairly targeted college campuses.

"Illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing is a society-wide problem. Some of it occurs at college s and universities but it is a small portion of the total," he said, adding colleges will continue to take the problem seriously, but more regulation isn't necessary.
On the Net:

* http://www.mpaa.org

[doc_bean]

In my old university server all p2p programs are banned to cut donw on downloading, also stricter download limits have been enforced throught the years (there used to be a system where you got 10GB a month but downloading at night only counted for half, I believe, last year it was 3GB download a month, no special night download). They were necessary to keep everyone surfing at a decent speed.

Of course, it didn't help illegal downloading much, this is the age of portable HDs, so less people download but as much (or more) people can get a copy.

The idea that college students pirate the most seems to be according to my own experiences. I don't think the RIAA missed the ball completely here, for a change.

For the record, I didn't participate in any illegal downloading or trading.

[Vladimir]

Does anyone over 30 actually care about this? Of all the things happening in the world, THIS is something tweens to 20 somethings are up in arms about. I hope you all like working until death.

[Blodrast]

Does anyone over 30 actually care about this? Of all the things happening in the world, THIS is something tweens to 20 somethings are up in arms about. I hope you all like working until death.

I'm over 30, so I guess I'd qualify. Yeah, I guess I do care when they arm-wrestle other countries into passing laws for their own benefits; I do care when they have enough influence to determine the creation of a new gov't agency specifically to deal with copyright, in other words, to enforce the **AA's whims; I do care when they have enough clout to decide that Universities should no longer get federal funding unless they do the content industry's work; I do care that corporations pass their own laws, for all practical purposes. You should, too - or otherwise enjoy when you get a settlement offer for the low, low sum of $3000, because the *AA thought you downloaded and shared their copyrighted crap - regardless of whether you did or not.

I also care when they use lies to justify and promote these things.

If you're ok with being ruled by corporations, by all means, don't worry about any of these.
All the big corporations with their oligopolies and their immunity from the law have your welfare in mind, don't worry about anything.

But yeah, most people, like you, don't see themselves directly affected by this, so they don't care. Monkeysphere and all that. But you're wrong when you think that not everybody is affected...

[Lemur]

Vladimir, you sound like one of those crunchy hippies yelling about how we should drop everything until we solve global hunger. To which I say, dude, you're harshing my mellow.

Abuse of intellectual property is a real problem. Do people over 30 care? Well, I'm over 30, and so is my brother, and so are most of my friends, so there's the answer to your rhetorical question. Most of the serious commentators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow) and litigants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation) on this issue are over 30 as well, so good luck trying to pin this on Gen Y whining.

If you can't see how DRM abuse, lawsuit abuse, ever-extended copyrights and the death of Fair Use affect you, then have a nice day. Good luck getting the next generation of disc player working with your HDCP-enabled TV, by the way.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I'm over 30, so I guess I'd qualify. Yeah, I guess I do care when they arm-wrestle other countries into passing laws for their own benefits; I do care when they have enough influence to determine the creation of a new gov't agency specifically to deal with copyright, in other words, to enforce the **AA's whims; I do care when they have enough clout to decide that Universities should no longer get federal funding unless they do the content industry's work; I do care that corporations pass their own laws, for all practical purposes. You should, too - or otherwise enjoy when you get a settlement offer for the low, low sum of $3000, because the *AA thought you downloaded and shared their copyrighted crap - regardless of whether you did or not.

I also care when they use lies to justify and promote these things.

If you're ok with being ruled by corporations, by all means, don't worry about any of these.
All the big corporations with their oligopolies and their immunity from the law have your welfare in mind, don't worry about anything.

But yeah, most people, like you, don't see themselves directly affected by this, so they don't care. Monkeysphere and all that. But you're wrong when you think that not everybody is affected...

I am utterly worried by these things. I believe that file sharing is a good thing and that copyright law needs to change because, the way it is now, it is no longer sensible in a digital society.

[Vladimir]

Vladimir, you sound like one of those crunchy hippies yelling about how we should drop everything until we solve global hunger. To which I say, dude, you're harshing my mellow.

Abuse of intellectual property is a real problem. Do people over 30 care? Well, I'm over 30, and so is my brother, and so are most of my friends, so there's the answer to your rhetorical question. Most of the serious commentators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow) and litigants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation) on this issue are over 30 as well, so good luck trying to pin this on Gen Y whining.

If you can't see how DRM abuse, lawsuit abuse, ever-extended copyrights and the death of Fair Use affect you, then have a nice day. Good luck getting the next generation of disc player working with your HDCP-enabled TV, by the way.

You mean Yippies, leave the hippies alone man :hippie: .

Sorry, I'm still more concerned about:


Being blowed up
Having friends and others blowed up
Taiwan
Energy policy
And pretty much anything thing that doesn't have to do with entertainment.


Painting this an an effort to stop the evil corporations, man, is also very Yippie.

:thumbsdown:

Yes, and MARS! All though having an IPOD on the trip there would be nice :thinking:

[Lemur]

Sorry, I'm still more concerned about:

Being blowed up
Having friends and others blowed up

Where do you live, that you need to be daily worried about being "blowed up"? If you're in, say, Mombassa, Beirut or Mosul, maybe I could see your point. Avoiding being blown up would be a daily issue. But aren't you in the U.S.A.?


Painting this an an effort to stop the evil corporations, man, is also very Yippie.
Well dip me in electric kool-aid and paint me paisley -- who's worried about evil corporations? Evil I could live with. I'm concerned about stupid corporations.

Let's take a guided tour through Capitalism 101, shall we?

Corporations exist to make money. If they fail at making money, they go bankrupt, or go crying to the government for protection. The IP industries have known for well over a decade that their business model needs to change, and instead of doing what a proper company would do (change with the market), they've been working very hard to legislate the market back into their comfort zone. As a self-described "conservative," you should sneer derisively at this approach. Instead you're concerned with getting blown up in Akron or Portland or wherever you are.

[Vladimir]

Where do you live, that you need to be daily worried about being "blowed up"? If you're in, say, Mombassa, Beirut or Mosul, maybe I could see your point. Avoiding being blown up would be a daily issue. But aren't you in the U.S.A.?


Well dip me in electric kool-aid and paint me paisley -- who's worried about evil corporations? Evil I could live with. I'm concerned about stupid corporations.

Let's take a guided tour through Capitalism 101, shall we?

Corporations exist to make money. If they fail at making money, they go bankrupt, or go crying to the government for protection. The IP industries have known for well over a decade that their business model needs to change, and instead of doing what a proper company would do (change with the market), they've been working very hard to legislate the market back into their comfort zone. As a self-described "conservative," you should sneer derisively at this approach. Instead you're concerned with getting blown up in Akron or Portland or wherever you are.

Clarification:

1. More (relative to) was the key word of the sentence. I'm quite safe, I assure you.

2. Naughty corporations. (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1812266&postcount=80)

Probably should have been clearer.

Don't buy their product, like me, and they'll go out of business. That's capitalism! :2thumbsup: