ARIA Threatens To Sue Internet Service Providers 271
tymbow writes "It seems that ARIA (The Australian Record Industry Association, like the RIAA) is threatening to sue ISPs who allow the illegal download of copyrighted music. Could this lead to a situation where Australian ISPs are forced to actively censor websites and P2P protocols? What happens to legitimate P2P content like Linux distributions? It will be interesting to see where this goes."
Punish the act, not the catalyst (Score:5, Insightful)
Users should be responsible for THEIR OWN use of the service. If you're going to punish something (and sorry about agreeing with the RIAA here, if only in theory), punish the act of breaking the law, not the catalyst that allows it.
My code doesn't tell between good and evil, sorry.
Great. (Score:5, Insightful)
Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Or are we talking about something that's essentially unenforceable, but ARIA wants it enforced anyway?
Most people download Linux distros from websites (Score:3, Insightful)
How Nice! (Score:2, Insightful)
And does this "Mr Speck urged ISPs to halt the practice by blocking access to illegal music download sites and programs or "by other arrangements"." mean that all illegal music should have the TCP/IP "evil" bit set? How the fsck are the ISPs going to know if the bloody mp3s contain illegal music or not?
Hopefully the Aus legislators have more sense than those in some other parts of the world.
It seems... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, the ARIA is trying to get them to accept it, and if they don't there'll probably be a PR campaign aimed at the politicians and lawmakers to pressure them to hold the ISPs responsible. If it goes over well for the ARIA, you can be damn sure the RIAA will try the same.
Its uninforcable (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, you can block ports, but ports can be changed.
Sure, you can scan for certain protocols in use, but protocols can be masked by ssh and the like.
I think the main issue being missed here is that P2P is not inherantly illegal. A car could be deemed illegal, because you *can* run over and kill a person. But trying to illegalise all four-wheeled automotive transport is clearly madness. Well, for the moment anyway...
Going for the $$$ (Score:2, Insightful)
It looks like us Americans are not alone in this (Score:2, Insightful)
SSL (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh noes another salvo in the great pirate war! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though. They are only doing this because when they go out of business they wont have any money with which to pay for frivolous lawsuits. Better now than never I guess.
And this lawsuit and ten million more like it, and a thousand clever laws and all the DRM in the world wont change the fact that their business model is fundamentally screwed and nothing is going to bring back the scarcity upon which their profits are based.
You can outlaw camcorders in video theaters in New York, but what if today's pirate is in Hong Kong? I saved 10 bucks by seeing Matrix Revolutions with chinese subtitles. It was barely worth watching for free (as I suspected), so I will definitely not be catching it in the theatere or on DVD.
Fuck you and your shitty sequels hollywood. I only pay for high quality product now. I intend to see return of king in the theaters and also get the trilogy DVD when the boxed set is released. I am an informed customer, only one of a growing group.
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
In an unrelated case, a New York City woman is suing a concrete manufacturer for providing a pavement in which a Manhattan man had grounded himself whil illegally blowing a puff of cigerette smoke in her face.
Re:Answer, more or less. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a win-win situation for them if they get their way.
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, what they're going to end up doing is throttling upload bandwidth on broadband connections to a tiny trickle; just enough to type in URLs or transmit your mouse coordinates in an online game. That would basically be the end of P2P networks: without any fast uplinks, P2P traffic would be starved down to dial-up speeds.
The ISPs would like to do this anyway because they really want you to pay extra for a commercial account to run any kind of server. The small number of high-cost commercial accounts will be easy to police for piracy.
The Internet will devolve back into a model like broadcast radio and television, with a few large publishers broadcasting unidirectionally to the masses. The general public's contribution to the Internet will largely be limited to text posts on blogs complaining about the situation.
Informative My Arse! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the Australian Record Industry Association.
Artists are only part of that. Other parts of it is distributors, record companies, etc.
That includes Australian companies selling music by foreign artists.
Re:Punish the act, not the catalyst (Score:2, Insightful)
No it isn't.
If somebody is doing something illegal, it is their fault - the only exception to this I'm aware of is duress.
The difficulty may come in finding this person, but that's a police matter just like it is for other crimes.
The ISP are providing a service, just like Kelloggs or Uncle Tobys (or whoever) supplied the perp with his breakfast, and Bonds provided the underwear he had on at the time, Telstra provided the comms equipment used, and so forth. Might as well sue all of them too, otherwise justice certainly isn't being done.
Re:Takedown notices (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyways, we had several years with the world's greatest luddite Richard Alston in charge of Australian goverment policy on the internet. His take was that is was a threat to the very fabric of our wonderful society, and needed to be regulated out of existence. It will be interesting to see what his successor does.
Limiting P2P Sharing is not a bad thing to do (Score:3, Insightful)
Sharing music and movies is illegal, ethically wrong etc etc. Please, accept the fact.
Why people on slashdot whine about limiting illegal act, while they certanly want to reveil every valid legal point, which makes SCO case seem unvalid?
And, don't get me wrong: I use Linux and GNU tools on most of my work, and I really hate what SCO is trying to do.
Free software should not be destroyed / harmed by P2P illegalities. Music makers and record industry has copyrights on their stuff. Let them share their stuff the way they want, that's their freedom. As we know, not all freedom means free as in money. Music costs, and we should pay if we want it. If we want free music, then we better do it by ourself, not steel from the others.
Worrying about problems P2P limiting would do to open source is FUD. Linux is not shared by KaZaa and others. Do not spread FUD anymore, accept that music costs and pay if you need it.
Eleknader
Re:Limiting P2P Sharing is not a bad thing to do (Score:3, Insightful)
Sharing music and movies is illegal, ethically wrong etc etc. Please, accept the fact.
I don't accept that as a fact. Sharing music and movies that the copyright holder allows to be shared, or that's in the public domain, is perfectly legal, ethical and right. It's only unauthorized sharing of copyrighted material that's wrong. This is a distinction the various RIAA-type groups want to blur and confuse as much as possible.
Re:Limiting P2P Sharing is not a bad thing to do (Score:2, Insightful)
Nope. It does not.
Show me a P2P network, that is not meant to share 'every fucking thing'.
If you use P2P solely on legal stuff, the first thing to do is to make a nick and stand behind your words.
Legal software (Score:1, Insightful)
Excuse me, but you actualy beleave that theres any legal software out on the P2P networks??
Why should it be? Its always slower to download from P2P then from a university mirror anyhow, that almost always connect directly to thee backbone in your country/state/city.
Re:Punish the act, not the catalyst (Score:1, Insightful)
All these things that we take for granted with our old media are being taken away in the new media, because the companies and governments have somehow convinced the public that this is somehow "different". Well, I got news for you: it's not different and if these people are allowed to do what they want, all our civilrights will be eroded
under the combined flag of copyrights and anti-terrorism.
Famous last words: "You don't have anything to worry about if you've got nothing to hide"
Re:How Nice! (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't be ridicilous. Oil companies have money, power and bought legislation. Of course they aren't going to be sued, even if they choke the entire world in smog.
Well, I guess that means ISPs have to block all mp3-looking material. And if that just happens to block any independent artist's distribution channels, well, I'm sure the music industry's heart just breaks. Or would, if it had any...
I'm sure they have plenty of sense. They can either serve the rich and powerfull music industry, or they can serve the people. Obvious choice, for a politician.
I'm sorry if this comes across as flamebait; it isn't meant to be, really. It's just that I'm so sick and tired of hearing about how we're all going to be put to chains, all of our rights taken away, and the entire Internet reduced to just another mindless mass-entertainment system with all of its potential for anything except money-making rooted out and neutered, while the politicians scamper from the sidelines to help in oppress their subjects, just so some corporate heads could get a few dollars more. And it's frustrating to know that this will happen no matter what, because said corporate heads are rich and powerfull, said politicians care about nothing but their own power and pocketbook, and the majority of people are too used to sit on their buts to do anything about it, even if they cared, which they don't. "Bread and entertainment", indeed.
The internet might have changed all that, made the people producers instead of consumers, and that very fact made it a threat to those in power. It will die, because it has to die. People must stay passive, otherwise they might start participating in things, and we wouldn't want that, would we ?
It's about getting rid of independents... (Score:2, Insightful)
The goal is to hinder independent publishers to distribute their works and convince the public that P2P is always illegal. John/Jane Doe don't care about choice (yet).
What scares the *AAs of this world is the fact that said couple could find out that there are actually non-ex-lawyers in the music business who care about quality. Target #1 independent labels who care about quality and not DRM (Digital Restrictions Management).
my 2 cents
I Call Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Michael Speck said ISPs relied on illegal music downloads for 20 per cent of their revenue
Oh, and I suppose they've got verifiable statistics from the ISPs they're about to sue to back this up? (more on this later)
Well it's not their job to be police here, they provide a service which is mostly legitimately used.
"We understand from employees of Internet companies that up to 20 per cent of their revenue in many cases comes from traffic created by downloading illegal sound recordings.
Oh here it is, the old unnamed source trick. Dubya likes that one too! And how many people really told them this, out of how many ISPs? Somehow, I doubt that's going to be a high ratio.
"There aren't many business that could survive if 20 per cent of their revenue disappeared
Reality check time. I should think quite a lot of companies have seen at least this much reduction in revenue in the last couple of years. They may have laid off a heckuvalot of people, but I think they survived! And, ISPs will all go bust if MP3s are no longer downloaded? Come on! Even assuming this wild 20% number, maybe they'll just adjust their business models, adapt to the changing environment, you know, like they do all the time anyway. The internet has such a fast rate of change that this is perfectly normal for any company based around it.
Mr Speck urged ISPs to halt the practice by blocking access to illegal music download sites and programs or "by other arrangements".
This brings us back all the usual censorship arguments, like who gets to decide which sites are blocked, on what grounds, with what oversigth, what appeals process etc. etc. Like I said before, ISPs are not police, and are certainly not judge/jury/executioner.
music piracy was "a growing market"
And your proof of this is? Your sales have also declined, in the middle of a global depression? Right!
What a load of bull! I know the writer of the article does present both sides, but she could have tried to find some real figures herself, instead of just presenting a series of quotes and counterquotes. Don't these people know what research is? Why should people get away with spouting whatever wild claims they like with no backup?
Punish the act, not the catalyst (Score:3, Insightful)
Without guns, however, people would not be shooting each other. They would have to find another, more difficult way, to kill each other. Pulling a trigger is easy, having to use a knife makes a person think twice.
Without ISPs providing the gateway and the means, copyright violators will have to find other ways to steal.
Clamping down on ISPs won't make the problem go away, but one only needs to compare the homicide rates in Canada and the US to see that gun control works.