Net firms in music pirates deal

[Zak33]

It's great to see Feargal Sharkey getting in on this because a good heart these days is hard to find.

true,,,,,and lets face facts.... if the likely criminals of this appaling crime spree are all under 20....

they'll be getting teenage kickings all through the night, alright, by the ISP's

[dybydx]

Has anyone thought/considered though, that ISPs are basically "fining" you by reducing your braodband speed... so in theory you have paid the price for downloading copyrighted material?

So is this sending out the message its OK to download copyrighted if you are happy your BB speed is dropped to 512Kb/s?

Surely from a networking perspective, if you create an SSH tunnel to a central server/another pier, the ISP cannot see what data is being sent anyway?

All so pointeless.


D.

[neonplanet40]

I dont even argue about this ****e no more. It will NEVER stop. This is just a way to try and get rid of all the casual limewire users at 12 years of age getting their barbie songs.

There is always a way around things. Buy a server from denmark. Ftp it from there etc etc

Its just a scare tactic. ISP's wont want to d/c every illegal file sharer. Or they would go out of buisness. Simple. It helps them make more money.

[kalniel]

Has anyone thought/considered though, that ISPs are basically "fining" you by reducing your braodband speed... so in theory you have paid the price for downloading copyrighted material?

No.. that doesn't make sense at all. If you bought a service that was guaranteed to be above a certain speed and never to have any fair usage policies or caps, and *then* they capped you, you'd have the right for a refund at most. But a) I don't think anyone has ever offered such a thing recently, b) how is it fair on the music industry for you to steal from them because of something someone else has done? That's like me nicking your car just because I got a speeding ticket from the DVLA.

[TheAnimus]

IBM has a valid point, the best way to tacal piracy is to provide a better service of download. P2P sucks, its simple maths, my upstream < downstream.... Much less.

Things like musicovery, last.fm, pandora are all MUCH better. Paying $5 a month for musicovery at a higher bit rate is a bloody bargin, your not only getting the music library which is very convient for work, but also their music genome mappings.

There will always be some Howards in this world, these are the people who when you've just bought peep show series 1 on DVD for &#163;3 at tesco, &#163;3 fricken quid, will ask to copy it, rather than just buy it for &#163;3. Despite been on at the time the better part of a 6 figure sallary. I don't belive in karma but it was a sinful joy I laughed at him applying for a job at my new place, i think he holds the recruitment agencies record for fastest rejection ever (less than 90 seconds between them sending CV, and a HR compatable reason for rejection)

[Lee H]

Regarding usenet, haven't some american ISPs already started blocking it?

That is because of child pornography in some groups within the alt.binaries.* sub-structure and not due to requests from music bigwigs.

Rather than figure a way of blocking or filtering the content, they've just carpet-bombed the whole alt.binaries hierachy to get rid of the child porn problem which is quite like digging holes in your garden and filling them with dynamite as you've got a few pesky moles digging about the place.

No Matter what happens, people are always going to find ways of getting things for free. 1 way of getting stuff always get's taken down, and about 8 replace it so it is an ever-increasing struggle for them to combat piracy, but the music industry on whole has always frowned upon new technology it doesn't understand. Anyone remember the fracas when audio-tapes we're released and we all got told that "home taping is killing the music industry". Then we had the debacle in regards to blank CD's and media prices getting tax added to combat the threat of home recording.

[Saracen]

.... Anyone remember the fracas when audio-tapes we're released and we all got told that "home taping is killing the music industry". Then we had the debacle in regards to blank CD's and media prices getting tax added to combat the threat of home recording.

Sure do remember it.

But the "tax" added to media prices in many countries (though not the UK) wasn't actually a tax - it was a levy. And it was used to compensate copyright owners for home copying. In the US, for example, copyright legislation is somewhat more lax in relation to home copying (for personal use, obviously, not to distribute) and their fair use exemptions to copying prohibitions are less onerous, precisely because of this levy.

In other words, effectively, you're paying for the legal right to make home copies with the levy you pay when you buy blank media.

Of course, people like me won't like that much because I go through large numbers of blank disks (CD, and more recently, DVD) for backing up and archiving MY data, such as photos and scanned images.

The downside to that levy is that you pay for the privilege of copying other people's copyright works, even if you aren't doing so. Why should I pay copyright owners in order to backup my own damn data?

Whatever we do in this, unless we can find a micro-payment method of making a payment for the privilege of home copying that both compensates copyright owners AND if seen as fair and reasonable by users, someone is going to be losing out.

And, as TheAnimus so aptly points out, some people will pirate no matter how small the cost of buying the original. But then, if someone copies something just because they want to build their collection, it's very unlikely they ever would have built a collection of that size and scale if they'd had to pay for it. So, in that case, the copyright owner isn't actually losing aout anyway, other than by not getting revenue he wouldn't have got anyway.

For instance (hypothetically) if I pirate PhotoShop because I can, are Adobe losing out? Only if I otherwise might have bought it. Even if I actually use that pirate copy, they're still not actually losing (and might even, indirectly, gain) unless I'd have bought it.

And, for the record and before someone says it (Lucio ), I have every copy of Photoshop from v3 to CS, and use or have used them, and not one of them is pirate. In fact, they're all legit, licensed, and boxed, copies. Of course, I also have a whole hoard of other image software, ranging from Picture Publisher many, many years ago, to ACDSee ..... and their all legit too.

[Brucelles]

I wonder if Orange France will get in on this. Still at my download speeds it isn't as though I am the king of music thieves.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

correct me if im wrong but when they do find someone who has loads of ilegal music and the miaa or whatever they are called sues the person, the artist DOESNT get any of teh money back

[shaithis]

In other words, effectively, you're paying for the legal right to make home copies with the levy you pay when you buy blank media.

Of course, people like me won't like that much because I go through large numbers of blank disks (CD, and more recently, DVD) for backing up and archiving MY data, such as photos and scanned images.

The downside to that levy is that you pay for the privilege of copying other people's copyright works, even if you aren't doing so. Why should I pay copyright owners in order to backup my own damn data?

The same reason I pay towards schools and the NHS, even though I have no children and private health care.

Some guys with power decided that's how things are.......

[alsenior]

correct me if im wrong but when they do find someone who has loads of ilegal music and the miaa or whatever they are called sues the person, the artist DOESNT get any of teh money back

as far as i know you are correct. in America it was proven that not a single penny made it to artists. it went straight into music industry coffers

[Saracen]

The same reason I pay towards schools and the NHS, even though I have no children and private health care.

Some guys with power decided that's how things are.......

Yes, but that's paying tax, mainly on income, and for the provision of services. Or would you rather there were no schools or hospitals? We have all benefited from state provision of education, or at the very least, had the option to benefit, and either have or most likely will benefit from the NHS.

You, presumably, have visited a GP? Dentist? Went to school? That you choose private health care is your choice. You're still entitled to NHS care, and I defy you to guarantee you'd never, under any circumstances, use the NHS. Because if you do deny it, my next point is going to be to ask what you'd do if you're involved in a car accident, or have a heart attack in the street - are you going to lay there with broken bones or a malfunctioning heart and send the NHS ambulance away while you wait for a private one? Yeah, thought so.

The levy I'm talking about is a levy on consumption of a specific item to compensate commercial interests, whether the user of the item consumes the produce of that commercial interest or not.

It is not at all the same thing.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

as far as i know you are correct. in America it was proven that not a single penny made it to artists. it went straight into music industry coffers

so all in all, this piracy crap is just an excuse to make money and rip off the true artists themselves. if i was an artist and there was a person who illegaly downloaded my stuff and miaa came in and sue the guy and diddnt give me a penny, i would be bloody pissed. more pissed then teh user who illegaly downloaded it! the people who usualy download illegaly dont sell/make a profit from the content they have just downloaded so if i was artists i would not be that mad about piracy so long as they come to my concert/gig

end of the day, if you make a quality product, people will BUY it.

[Saracen]

as far as i know you are correct. in America it was proven that not a single penny made it to artists. it went straight into music industry coffers

But it would, wouldn't it?

I mean, the RIAA is an industry body, and represents it's members. So it will distribute returns to it's members, because it is, after all, acting on their behalf. It's what it's there for, and paid for. And it's members are the companies in the music industry.

Exactly who owns the copyright in a given work varies. If I write, sing and record a number, I own the copyright. If I sign a contract with a record company (who, presumably, are supplying marketing effort, using their contacts, paying for promotions, etc) then it's likely that part of that contract will be an assignment of at least some copyright rights to that company .... who may be an RIAA member.

But if I don't, I still own the rights. And if I do own those rights, the RIAA can't sue over piracy of my material, because they have no legal interest in that material, any more than I could engage lawyers to sue someone that pirates your work .... unless you hire me and instruct me to do so.

So what you said is a circular argument. Of course no damages from these lawsuits went to the artists, because the copyright holders of the tracks being sued over are the RIAA members, and they can't sue over rights owned by someone who isn't. If you aren't an RIAA member, they won't be suing over your work. Individual artists that own their own rights, which they will unless they've assigned them, would have to take their own legal action, if they wish to (and can afford to) do so.

[Saracen]

so all in all, this piracy crap is just an excuse to make money and rip off the true artists themselves. if i was an artist and there was a person who illegaly downloaded my stuff and miaa came in and sue the guy and diddnt give me a penny, i would be bloody pissed. more pissed then teh user who illegaly downloaded it!

If you aren't a member of a body like the RIAA, they won't (and can't) sue on your behalf. If you aren't a member, and want money back from a pirate, sue them yourself .... if you can afford it.

What you're annoyed about is a hypothetical that doesn't and can't happen.

[funke_munke]

I can't help but think that the isp's without vested financial interest in the music industry are just doing this so less people will be mauling their bandwidth. We all know they love to moan when people use their connections to the full.

I think it's time they accepted that the pirates have won, and find a way to work with them rather than against if they are ever to see monetary gain from the internet music biz.

At the risk of sounding like a complete tech noob, how will they know WHAT you are downloading? Or will it just be known that you are using p2p? There are legit things on torrents and other distribution systems aswell!