Studios crushed: ISP can't be forced to play copyright

[Lee]

For those of you who like to fellow the news as to what is happening in the world of pirating music and movies you just might find this finding of an Australian Judge quite interesting to say the least

Article from ARSTechnica quite interesting.

It would appear that the Movie Industry has received its first lost, and it would appear to be a major blow.

What say you the members of the "Seven Forums."

Truly an interesting read.

 

[Guntmeister]

"To use the rather colourful imagery that internet piracy conjures up in a highly imperfect analogy, the file being shared in the swarm is the treasure, the BitTorrent client is the ship, the .torrent file is the treasure map, The Pirate Bay provides treasure maps free of charge and the tracker is the wise old man that needs to be consulted to understand the treasure map."

I loved that part.

 

[RST101]

It would be like making royal mail(uk) responsible for parcel bombs so the judge was correct in dismissing the case. It seems not everyone can be bought though.

Perhaps ploughing the money into something more constructive would reduce the piracy problem but so long as they(corporate) keep ignoring the issue then it will never get any better. It's actually not the artists who pursue these claims but the fat corporate pigs who want to have it their way or their way. They lose more money fighting it instead of embracing the digital age. This is the second major loss for the "middlemen" because only last week they lost to the former admin of oink.

I say good on the independent artist who cuts the middle men out. There are even members of the house of lords who are labelling their conduct as a scam and blackmail.


This has actually been discussed at great length and with intense passion on these forums before now, do you know what you could have possibly started here?

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Seems pretty obvious to me -- after all if you have an accident in a BMW and kill someone it's YOUR fault not BMW's.

If the "Facilitator" was guilty of a crime rather than the "Perpetrator" then who knows where the Law would end up --- If someone robs a bank and makes a getaway on the subway - is the Subway guilty - without the Subway you could argue that the robbery wouldn't have been possible and so IT'S RESPONSIBLE.

Same with the ISP's --what a load of Tosh.

If the Movie moguls did the following

1) Release movies on DVD etc at the same time as in Cinemas

2) Release also in decent "DRM FREE" downloadable content at a SENSIBLE price

3) Get rid of stupid regional encoding and other "player restrictions" so you could play content whenever and wherever you please

then a HUGE amount of piracy would disappear -- not all as there will always be some copiers. But you'd solve most of the problem.

It's the Movie studios etc who have got THEMSELVES into this whole mess - and it's no good trying to sort this out by attempting to use facilities only available under some countries "Anti Terrorist" legislation.

Funny how they bought the case in Australia -- the UK is usually the first country to buckle under such totally Bovine and restrictive laws - in fact unless an Election comes fairly soon there is a "Digital Copyright" law on its way through the process now -- which will be dropped as soon as the election is called. (In the UK uncompleted legislation is killed whenever an election takes place - or technically when the outgoing parliament is dissolved - from what I remember years and years ago about "British Constitution").

Most of the "Aussies" I know usually don't take lightly to their Country's fine tradition of independence and freedom being tampered with.

It's often quite entertaining to watch the 'OZ parliament when there are contentious debates - members from different parties have been known to cross the chamber floor and start FIGHTING.

There was a bit on Youtube but unfortunately I've lost the link -- anybody from down under who can find it -- makes great viewing and restores faith in "democracy".

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Lee]

I posted the article not to start something good or bad, only to point out that things are changing in the world of technical advancement, and if the large corporate media companies do not jump onto the tech bandwagon they will be left behind.

You can only depend on the law working for you if you have the ability to make people believe what you are putting forward warrants the support of laws already in place. We have to remember you can only "Call Wolf" just so many times before the people no longer believe you, hence this appears to be what is happening.

IP's cannot and should not be held responsible for what their customers do within the confines of their own homes. Only the person doing the illegal downloads should be held accountable. If you are unable to prove illegal activities then step away and rethink your approach, albeit do not blame it on the IP, they only provide a gateway to the internet it is the user who does the illegal downloading.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
It's true what you say about "Digital Management" - but unfortunately its usually far more than that -- it's total 100% CORPORATE GREED.

We all know that things like regional encoding and delayed releases are only done so these guys can "Hype things up" and ramp up ever and ever bigger profits -- not the artists, musicians. authors etc themseleves but the grey "Corporate Suits".

What however is coming back to bite them is that these techniques simply DON'T work any more -- you can't release something in place A and NOT expect it to be all overr the internet in seconds. -- Whatever the law says this is and always will be FACT.

In any case by judicious use of Proxies, Online storage and encrypted email / FTP servers how are they in practice going to catch the SERIOUS players -- it's not the odd guy downloading stuff from a Torrent that's the problem.

The movie / music industry needs to get REAL - they still have some great products and could make proper money out of it with a sensible distribution service.


Even Internet Radio has problems at times -- when I'm home or outside the UK I have to go through all sorts of "Rings and Hoops" to get Live Football Premier league transmissions on BBC R5 Live -- outside the UK you usually get "Due to rights restrictions we cannot braodcast this program on-line).

UK Premiership football has a WORLD WIDE audience -- why not embrace it without all these stupid restrictions which even a child of around 6 can get round.

(In fact it was a young kid - over 6 BTW who TOLD me about proxies etc etc. and I've been using computers for years).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[RST101]

Yeah totally agree jimbo that is all cooperate greed. They blame piracy for loss of earnings etc etc but year after year they better than the one before. They say they make cleaners, wardrobe people etc redundant yet they are able to pay the "stars" millions, doesn't make sense really.

It's really sad that they(mpaa) want to force usa laws on to other countries and so far seem to be getting away with it, although there are several top dogs who are onto what they are trying to do and are determined to stop their bandwagon from free wheeling.

 

[Lordbob75]

The band that skipped the mogul companies and just released their work free to download and on P2P sites, would make the most.

A lot of people pirate music, but most do it because they don't want to pay. (A lot of my friends have 1000s of songs.... That means 1000s of dollars. My neighborhood may be well off, but we are not that rich)

Were a band to release their music free (especially if they were good), millions would download it. However, I know a lot of people like buying hard CDs, so they could still sell those, as well as selling merchandise and concert tickets. That is a band I would like.

Speaking of that, I should talk to my friend about that, he might like that idea. (He sings for Dying Regret, whose song was in the new movie Legion)

~Lordbob

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
there's still Loads of people who like CD's -- not so much for the medium but these can be ripped WITHOUT LOSS to FLAC, OGG etc etc.

The CD can always be used again if you need to re-rip, lose the digital ripped copy, copy the CD etc etc.

Downloaded music in general usually is lossy compressed mp3 or other compressed lossy format and often has play restrictions on it (DRM).

Once you start playing a lot of this on high end gear (using better than normally used "bud earphones" ) you'll soon hear the limitations of compressed lossy music recorded at lowish bit rates -- and if you transcode these again you lose even more data and it will sound HORRIBLE.

CD's won't die yet until some high quality downloads appear at decent prices.

In any case people have always shared music - whether it's on a CD or downloaded from the Internet.

Taping copies of Vinyl or CD's was always endemic in the "old days too" so this is nothing new.

The whole business model needs to be changed -- you are NEVER EVER going to kill this activity dead unless you shut down the entire Internet -- and even if you did manage to close the entire Internet people could still "Exchange and copy" music again like they did in the "old days" via "Snail Mail" (enclosing their USB sticks or whatever) or simply by physically lending their media to work / other colleagues.

It's the same old problem -- The Suits are scared of losing their very lucrative income -- attempting to use some type of "Anti Terroist" legislation just shows how desperate these people have become.

Now I don't have an answer to a business model for these people -- I'm not the CEO of a music company but they need to EMBRACE modern technology rather than attempt to stop people using it.

As far as Classical Music is concerned I still like going to "expensive" Classical concerts and the Opera even though I've ripped literally HUNDREDS of CD's.

Musicians still get paid via these sorts of incomes -- and what's also nice to see again is the revival of a lot of smaller Bands doing often quite successful gigs in Bars etc to say nothing of more well known names going on tour. So its not always about Musicians not getting paid either.

Maybe a possible solution would be for say all Internet ISP's to charge an extra 3 USD per month and then allow people access to whatever music they want. The 3 USD fee would go to some "reasonably independent" body who could pass this on to the musicians - bypassing "The Greedy Suits" of course.

(A small 3 USD fee levied on all ISP connections would raise FAR MORE money than is lost by alledged Piracy committed by individuals).

Then people could concentrate on the REAL problem -- Large scale ILLEGAL COMMERCIAL Piracy. -- You aren't going to get anywhere by chasing a few individuals downloading stuff from Torrents - but you WILL be able to concentrate on Commercial Piracy emanating from Pakistan , Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, etc etc etc.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[RST101]

The band that skipped the mogul companies and just released their work free to download and on P2P sites, would make the most.

A lot of people pirate music, but most do it because they don't want to pay. (A lot of my friends have 1000s of songs.... That means 1000s of dollars. My neighborhood may be well off, but we are not that rich)

Were a band to release their music free (especially if they were good), millions would download it. However, I know a lot of people like buying hard CDs, so they could still sell those, as well as selling merchandise and concert tickets. That is a band I would like.

Speaking of that, I should talk to my friend about that, he might like that idea. (He sings for Dying Regret, whose song was in the new movie Legion)

~Lordbob

One download doesn't equal one lost sale although that's what they claim.

There are millions of people who use torrents who actually go out an buy the music/movie/game.

Then there are those who wouldn't buy the stuff in the first place so it can't be presented as a loss because potentially it wasn't a sale in the first place.

As jimbo points out many people want to retain the hard copy(cd) just to have it in their collection.

Piracy should be aimed at those large organisations who profit from it and not the average joe who tapes the top 40 off the radio.

 

[raydabruce]

RST101 makes a very good point. Many music (and movie) downloaders would not buy the content under any circumstances and therefore they represent no loss to the copyright holders. They download it because they can. And they can because someone UPloaded it. Torrent trackers and indexers do not house content. They only connect users who wish to share content. ISPs are even further removed... they only provide access to the Internet and would lose customers if they were thought to be spying on them.

If I owned a liquor store, would I be liable for everything my customers did while drunk? Should the booze merchant be monitoring my drinking habits?

 

[omegatron]

If I owned a liquor store, would I be liable for everything my customers did while drunk? Should the booze merchant be monitoring my drinking habits?

In my opinion, there is no comparison.

You can't kill someone downloading content off the web. Where as a drunk leaves the liquor store, then gets behind the wheel...

 

[Tarka Dal]

The problem is as soon as the studios are able to prevent you from downloading illegal content, the majority of the people downloading films and music at the moment, will just go out and buy pirated copies again. Thus money goes to terrorists and the like!
Not recommended!

 

[eXc450]

Without debating what is right or wrong in morals...


One of the things I have seen over the years is manufacturers "Prices are high due to piracy" but then CDs come out and you couldn't copy cds (at least unless you had a LOT of money for a burner) but games stayed the same price...they claimed the same thing when DVDs came out, and there were no burners...yet they stayed the same...

they claimed the same for the game consoles...they couldnt be copied for a period of time until a mod chip was released etc...

fact is they will price it however they want, whenever they want and piracy is the excuse, not the reason.

Personally, with the exception of Movies I am a HUGE fan of, I won't buy the dvd until it's less than $15. Fact is there are LOTS of DVDs around for $10, and they are big movies, but they just aren't the newest...obviously people still buy them or they wouldn't be at that price.... same deal as the above with Games...

If all games and DVDs were released at $10, how many piraters would stop? Most people I know would happily pay $10 for an original over a pirated. I understand the costs to a small company to do such a thing - but nowadays you can download it easy enough - so do that instead. Sure you will always have people copying stuff, but the majority would pay a reasonable price.

An example of this was WinPatrol - last week(?) it was on sale for $1. I hadn't used it, but it was recomended here, and for $1 - I bought it...great little app and would recomened to others... but I wouldn't have paid the $30 they ask for at normal price... I would have just found a different app that was free to do the same thing.

It would be inresting to see how many sales he made at $1 compared to $30, and see how close it was to breaking even (ie. 100 sales at $30 vs 3000 sales at $1...same income...different price) Not saying this will be the case, nor will it for all products. I would be interested to see if a company was willing to do this.

Just my thoughts

 

[dmex]

The Government here is now considering if the law should be changed for allowing third partys like ISPs to become responsible for the actions of their users or if a three-strikes policy should be implemented like NZ and the EU. During the trial, AFACT made the argument that iiNet was not blocking access to sites like thepiratebay and thus was permitting its users to commit copyright, They are now petitioning the Government to have torrent sites blocked using our Internet filter.

 

[Lordbob75]

The Government here is now considering if the law should be changed for allowing third partys like ISPs to become responsible for the actions of their users or if a three-strikes policy should be implemented like NZ and the EU. During the trial, AFACT made the argument that iiNet was not blocking access to sites like thepiratebay and thus was permitting its users to commit copyright, They are now petitioning the Government to have torrent sites blocked using our Internet filter.

So will they also try to ban CD drives because you can pirate CDs with them?

~Lordbob

 

[dmex]

The Government here is now considering if the law should be changed for allowing third partys like ISPs to become responsible for the actions of their users or if a three-strikes policy should be implemented like NZ and the EU. During the trial, AFACT made the argument that iiNet was not blocking access to sites like thepiratebay and thus was permitting its users to commit copyright, They are now petitioning the Government to have torrent sites blocked using our Internet filter.

So will they also try to ban CD drives because you can pirate CDs with them?

~Lordbob

I bet they would if they could, would be a little hard since every machine in the last 10 years has more or less come with one

It was bad enough they wanted iiNet and other ISPs to disconnect users without court orders, based solely on their evidence but now wanting search websites like Isohunt and Mininova filtered when they dont break Australian law is just frighting.

 

[Lordbob75]

The Government here is now considering if the law should be changed for allowing third partys like ISPs to become responsible for the actions of their users or if a three-strikes policy should be implemented like NZ and the EU. During the trial, AFACT made the argument that iiNet was not blocking access to sites like thepiratebay and thus was permitting its users to commit copyright, They are now petitioning the Government to have torrent sites blocked using our Internet filter.

So will they also try to ban CD drives because you can pirate CDs with them?

~Lordbob

I bet they would if they could, would be a little hard since every machine in the last 10 years has more or less come with one

It was bad enough they wanted iiNet and other ISPs to disconnect users without court orders, based solely on their evidence but now wanting search websites like Isohunt and Mininova filtered when they dont break Australian law is just frighting.

Indeed. It's really pathetic actually.

~Lordbob

 

[madtownidiot]

How is downloading a song that everyone also hears on the radio the equivalent of this:

Main Entry: pi·ra·cy
Pronunciation: \ˈpī-rə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural pi·ra·cies
Etymology: Medieval Latin piratia, from Late Greek peirateia, from Greek peiratēs pirate
Date: 1537
1 : an act of robbery on the high seas; also : an act resembling such robbery
2 : robbery on the high seas

 

[omegatron]

They are now petitioning the Government to have torrent sites blocked using our Internet filter.

Allowing a government the option to filter websites, and\or make decisions on what content a citizen has access to, is the first step towards communism or a dictatorship...