Uni Students Slammed For Music Swapping 437
jomaree writes "The SMH Online reports that Sony, EMI and Universal will be in the Federal Court today, in an attempt to stop students using uni computers to swap music files. Michael Speck, the director of Music Industry Piracy Investigations, is quoted as follows: 'And we're not talking about one track here, one track there,' he said. 'We're talking piracy, significant examples of piracy.' By contrast, Sydney Uni says it knows of one student with a handful of files on a website, which does actually sound quite a bit like one track here, one track there."
The article talks about shutting down (Score:2, Interesting)
"The focus of these organisations should be on people who are running or pirating music for clear commercial benefit,"
How does sharing a few singles on a website pose a pirate threat or count as pirating music as a clear commercial benefit. Granted I don't know the full situation but it doesn't sound like anything more than "Hey here are some songs I like from [Fill In the Blank] band! Check em out!"
Re:This is just wrong-RTFA (Score:1, Interesting)
Who's computers and network?
Blech, universities are completely inept... (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in residence at my university, and I don't download much. Basically, I have a year-long track record of going easy on university bandwidth (less than 5MBs/day, on average, I'd say).
Then one day, I downloaded about 1.3 GBs of public domain movies from the Prelinger Archives [archive.org], and the university blocked my connection (I had to go and bitch to some guy in some office to get it turned back on).
Contrast this with the other guys on my floor who download at least 1 GB of illegal music, movies, and software every day without incident.
Oh yeah, and I'm now on some kind of "bandwidth probation", if I ever download too much again, I'll get banned for life from the university's bandwidth, and I could face being kicked out of university, too.
Where's the justice?!?!
I guess they're just after communists, not thieves...
Re:The article talks about shutting down (Score:3, Interesting)
How does sharing a few singles on a website pose a pirate threat or count as pirating music as a clear commercial benefit. Granted I don't know the full situation but it doesn't sound like anything more than "Hey here are some songs I like from [Fill In the Blank] band! Check em out!"
You didn't read the article closely, that's the defence here, saying that these students aren't getting commercial benefit.
Either not thinking, or this is short term (Score:3, Interesting)
So Sony et al are either not thinking of the possible longer term consequences, or this is a short-term measure because they suspect in the longer run they will lose this war.
In the 60s and 70s, students demonstrated against bad governments (South Africa, Greece, US involvement in Vietnam, Chile and Cambodia). Perhaps the time is coming when they will demonstrate against overbearing corporations.
Re:Absolutely not! (Score:1, Interesting)
Most of the stuff I look for on MP3 is old music that isnt deemed 'popular' enough to stock in stores or even be produced any more. If it is, it is VERY hard to find.
As for all the other stuff I download, its stuff I WOULDNT go out & buy anyway. Its just nice to have the music there for a bit of variety as its free, I certainly wouldnt go out and buy it for money. However, the music I do like and I can buy, I DO buy.
I get the hunch feeling that a lot of people who 'collect' music are also just getting it cos they can, not getting it instead of buying it. I dont see how people like me are hitting the industry. I think there are a lot of people out there that 'collect' in this way.
Though I do see that there are a lot of people that download INSTEAD of buying something they want and I can see how that can be a hit.
Anon...
Re:cooperation is mandatory (Score:1, Interesting)
First one down: porn music of the 70's.
First complaint: MY f#&@ING THESIS IS GONE!!!
This "removal process" just got a whole lot more complicated.. umm.. WHY are _WE_ doing this again?
Re:not just about money (Score:3, Interesting)
Like I've said before, it's not fair for the vast majority of people to pirate things, and then piss and moan when the people they are ripping off push back.
Universities are a haven for piracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Universities (and higher education in general) are havens for piracy. File/application swapping among stundents is the norm, but that's been going on for years and I don't think it's what anti-piracy groups have a problem with. They fear one thing: bandwidth.
The concern is two-pronged:
1. Students come to school and suddenly get hooked up to a fat pipe. Megabit-speed internet connectivity in dorms and computer labs. Little Johnny freshman sets up a couple of movies to download on edonkey and leaves for the weekend. During that weekend his 1mbps/1mbps pipe is almost saturated uploading. Johnny gets his movies and, before watching and deleting them, manages to share them with 200 other users.
Home users are usually much more aware of what's going on, maybe even more ignorant of their options. It's hard to stay ignorant when your dorm buddy's always finding new ways to download stuff.
2. Students working in computer science deparments setting up pirate sites. While P2P piracy is huge, traditional 'warez scene' piracy - while reaching less people directly - is probably just as big. It's hard to run a warez site from a private company, people are going to wonder where all the bandwidth is going. But slip that site into a university network, with it's goverment subisidized pipes and it's terabyte-class monthly transfers and it's just a pebble in a pond. With full access to the equipment, students can reroute traffic, shape other traffic to give their 'users' maximum transfers. They can make systems disapear to all faculty computers, or even all on-campus computers, just to cover their tracks.
Almost all of the top warez distribution sites I know (I'm talking WHQ and regional HQs for major groups) are run on university pipes. The rest are hidden among other major bandwidth hogs. (VoIP companies and the like)
Or, maybe the anti-piracy posse is just paranoid.
Protect yourself... (Score:1, Interesting)
PS This plan not guaranteed to work.
Re:I love the psuedo-intellectuals.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I love the psuedo-intellectuals.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Speaking as a musician, I have gained far more from people copying and sharing my music than I have lost. I've had any number of people contact me as a result of finding my music and asking if they can buy it on CD. I've sold many CDs and other merchandise at gigs to people who say 'I came to this gig because a friend sent me a copy of one of your tracks'. The only people who are losing by file sharing are the fat cats at the record companies who exploit musicians, and the very small number of major 'stars' who are hyped by the aforesaid record companies.
At UTAS today... (Score:2, Interesting)
wrong target (Score:3, Interesting)
But that would require them to actually do some work or even, gasp, spend some money.
Re:Shooting flies with an elephant gun... (Score:2, Interesting)
Tim O'Reilly says a lot to support P2P, but he also says:
"At O'Reilly, we publish many of our books in online form. There are people who take advantage of that fact to redistribute unpaid copies. (The biggest problem, incidentally, is not on file sharing networks, but from copies of our CD Bookshelf product line being put up on public Web servers, or copied wholesale and offered for sale on eBay.) While these pirated copies are annoying, they hardly destroy our business. We've found little or no abatement of sales of printed books that are also available for sale online.
What's more, many of those who do infringe respond to little more than a polite letter asking them to take the materials down. Those servers that ignore our requests are typically in countries where the books are not available for sale or are far too expensive for local consumers to buy."
So they do ask people to stop doing it. Would most people who share mp3s and other media respond to these polite requests?
Re:Forgotten economics (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah. Ofcourse all college students are rich people with rich parents with rich abilities when it comes to giving wealthy funding. This should without any further evidence prove to be true without expections.
Except that I got $600 a month to live for. And I pay $275 in rent a month... Yeah, we be spoiled brats. Or maybe friggin' not. I guess people in the third world are having harder times than me, though. But Im not complaining. Im simply telling you that... you're wrong.
Re:not just about money (Score:2, Interesting)
Old 50s, 60s jazz, Old 30s blues, Old propaganda movies (Those are like so cool!). Stuff like that.
And if it isn't outside that "limitied" copyright, its corporations infridging on the public domain. Its OLD dammit. The authors are long dead!
And yes, I do copy copyrighted material over p2p-networks. But then I listen to it, delete the mp3s, and buy it if I want it. Now thats theft or what, guys?
dumb artists... (Score:3, Interesting)
You're somewhat on, but you're also somewhat off
The artists who sign bad contracts *do* share the responsibility for their resulting misfortune. However, when a person goes to a used car dealer and plunks down hard-earned cash for a shiny lemon car, that person is about as responsible for the car as the artist is for what the record companies do with the music.
So it goes that we have laws. There's a grey area between legitimately "bundled" goods and services and violating the Sherman Act by leveraging dominance in one service market to exert pressures on other services.
It is getting *CHEAP* to produce your own CD. Then you have to promote and distribute it. The Internet is making that cheaper too. Before the Internet, the only way to reach a wide audience with your music was through the big labels and their payola networks. Best Buy hasn't made things any better. Soon, people will re-learn how to reach the record boutiques. This time it won't take a big label to do it.
Which brings me to my point: labels control access to the artists and the audiences. If they lose control of access to either, then their price-controlling ability goes *poof*, and so goes their business. Only small labels will survive (or big ones that begin to behave like small ones).
In the mean time, I still talk to people who think that *the* music business *could* make them filthy stinking rich. People are amused by the idea of a comfortable (but not obscenely rich) life working and releasing new material, and playing to audiences, and building up a catalog, and slowly building residual income from older releases. I always get raised eyebrows from musicians when I tell them to stick to it because they are lucky to pay the rent without needing a "day job."
Now whose fault is it that they think they need to sign that contract? Why does it seem like the choice is between bad contract and floundering between music and a crappy day-job? You simply cannot assume that the "mutually beneficial" crap is a given condition. Really ask yourself where the image of selling one's soul to the devil by signing a record contract would come from.