Australian ISP's To Crack Down On Piracy 108
xav_jones writes "The ABC is reporting that 'Australia's five major ISPs have revealed their plans to crack down on online piracy by sending warning notices to suspected illegal downloaders while assisting rights holders to pursue serial offenders through the courts.' The idea is that '[d]uring an 18-month trial, rights holders would send copyright infringement notices, including evidence of copyright infringement and the IP address involved, to ISPs who would then send "educational notices" to the internet users concerned.' Further action would entail that '[u]sers who are suspected of further copyright breaches would then receive up to three warning notices before rights holders are able to pursue court action.' This seems a gentler approach than other countries. Will it prove more effective and/or cost efficient?"
who is paying? is court precursor to all action? (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) Will nothing happen to the alleged offender (i.e. no throttling/cut-off/etc.) unless and until a court has found against him?
(2) I don't understand how a group of ISPs in cooperation with "rights holders" could get to decide when "rights holders are able to pursue court action" unless there is some legislation behind it - ideas?
(3) Would the "rights holders" be paying for the admin involved in all of this?
Re:who is paying? is court precursor to all action (Score:5, Insightful)
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(2) I don't understand how a group of ISPs in cooperation with "rights holders" could get to decide when "rights holders are able to pursue court action" unless there is some legislation behind it - ideas?
It's called 'negotiation'.
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Just to clarify, that's between ISPs and specific "rights holders" on the fate of users from the PoV of those specific "rights holders"?
Re:who is paying? is court precursor to all action (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep.
I assume the ISPs have seen a downside to handing all their customer's asses over to the MAFIAA so they're negotiated the terms of the deal.
No legislation is needed for this sort of thing. I don't know about you but for most people and corporations, negotiation is part of everyday life.
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Just replying to your question; Not read the article myself.
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As far as I've followed the news about it last week, the answers are:
1) Nothing happens (except for the received notices), though your information will be given out after repeated offences, to allow for court action. Since the evidence is included with the notices, it should be easy to defend against incorrect claims.
2) You can't have court action without a defendant, so the right holders will need to obtain evidence and request the information from the ISP. After that, there can be a normal court case.
3) I
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group of ISPs in cooperation with "rights holders"
in the USA, they are normally one in the same.
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(1) Will nothing happen to the alleged offender (i.e. no throttling/cut-off/etc.) unless and until a court has found against him?
This,
Nothing can happen until there is a court ruling. I highly doubt this will make it to court. They've been sending out "infringement notices" for years but haven't sued anyone. The minute any judge with an once of intelligence (we have them in Oz) sees a US style extortion scheme, it'll be over with a huge payout for the lucky bugger who gets this judge. Also due to our libel laws, they'll be up for the same kind of inflated payments as they demand for every single false accusation.
(2) I don't understand how a group of ISPs in cooperation with "rights holders" could get to decide when "rights holders are able to pursue court action" unless there is some legislation behind it - ideas?
They haven't. Wha
So, what... (Score:5, Informative)
the Aussies are becoming more like the USA, where the corporations have more rights than the citizens?
Didn't we just get the latest round of analysis showing that MafiAA "evidence" isn't worth the tissue paper it's written on?
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Actually, AU gave them corps and cartels even more rights.
In the US, they don't sue you for downloading, but for distribution. I can download anything I want to off of, say, rapidshare - all day long, right in front of the entire RIAA and MPAA's combined legal squad, and they legally can't do a damned thing about it.
Now if I used a torrent or otherwise provably uploaded copyrighted material that I had no rights to, then they'd be able to sue.
Or, maybe the summary and TFA goofed their terminology.
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Of course they could do something, you're still infringing copyright.
It's just not worth their while.
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No, there has to be a commercial motive, or else it would be illegal to read a book at the library, without paying the author royalties.
I can read a book at the book store, or read a friends copy, or read over somebodys shoulder, and I have taken the information without paying for the package it came in (the book). This is completely legal. Even though the guy at 7-11 doesn't like you reading the magazines without paying, you don't have to worry about the publisher coming down on you.
I do this quite often
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Your book examples are substantially different from taking an electronic copy of something and you know it. If you went to the library and started to photocopy entire books, the publishers may then have something to say about it.
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All of those are infringing copies since you had no copyrights for the first copy. This applies if you are an American or in America. Apologies if
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In the US, they don't sue you for downloading, but for distribution. I can download anything I want to off of, say, rapidshare - all day long, right in front of the entire RIAA and MPAA's combined legal squad, and they legally can't do a damned thing about it.
Now if I used a torrent or otherwise provably uploaded copyrighted material that I had no rights to, then they'd be able to sue.
Or, maybe the summary and TFA goofed their terminology.
Actually, this is no longer the case. Back in the 90's, this was the case, but there are a number of laws and court cases on the books in the US that have analyzed "downloading" and found it to be a part of distribution... and therefore copyright infringement for the recipient as well as the distributor. I believe "receiving illegally obtained goods across state lines" has even been used on occasion.
In Canada, it's a mixed bag... in some cases, it's infringement, in other cases it's not. Due to the fact
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Or, maybe the summary and TFA goofed their terminology.
No, TFA wasn't an accident, they use that terminology deliberately to give the impression downloading is illegal. I kno
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Re:I already got a letter (Score:5, Insightful)
although, I am just considering a whole bunch of proxies and Tor.
...and this is where their master plan breaks down.
If they squeeze too hard the piracy networks will just add another layer of obfuscation. Everybody's bandwidth requirements could double because they're all part of a network of proxies and the ISPs will lose out long term. I wonder if anybody's pointed this out to them yet...?
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I'm sure even the "general public" can follow simple instructions.
This also why DRM doesn't need to provide 100% security - as long as it makes things harder for non-geeks.
Who are we talking about here? People that don't know how to use a computer at all? As far as I've seen, installing cracks is very, very easy. They often provide instructions if you seriously don't know how, even.
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Even if they somehow succeeded, we can hope the next protocol is created in a tor like manner when you never even get to find out where the data your sending and receiving is coming and going from.
Re:I already got a letter (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the hardcore pirates. That's not what companies care about, they care about the general public.
Then the general public will just go to the hardcore pirates to get their shit for them, and sneakernet will return as the dominant form of file sharing once again.
Back in the early Napster days, I made a pretty good amount of spending money just downloading music for people and making mix discs for them. When nobody knew how to download music or burn CD's I was able to get $5-10 a piece for them, and with our cable connection (most everyone else was still on dial-up) I was downloading hundreds of songs at a time, they would be finishing faster than I could add new songs to the list. And it wasn't limited to us pesky kids, either; parents and teachers were actually my biggest customers.
It was seriously like the movie Blow [imdb.com], I was pretty much the go-to guy for anyone that didn't want to spend $20 buying a CD at Tower Records. Until the war on Napster started ramping up and people started having to name songs all sorts of weird shit to get around the filters they put on towards the end due to Metallica's lawsuit, I was cleaning up. Once it started becoming more of a pain in the ass to find the right files without digging (greatly increasing the time it took to assemble a mix disc) I stopped doing it, plus I was getting ready to graduate so I just didn't have time for it anymore.
Still, it was pretty lucrative for a while there, and the harder they make it for laypeople to download, the more lucrative they make it for us again. Hell, I'll make even more money, due to not needing to buy spindles of CD's anymore.
Re:I already got a letter (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead of Sneakernet, I can see the possibility of a more regional darknet based file-sharing items take place, using products like MUTE with private networks. Then people will swap from network on a regional basis, perhaps via an international proxy. Eventually a cell system will evolve, where if someone wants content, they can find a way to get a membership (such as like with Demonoid), and then after a while, be let in. If someone rats any IP they have access to out, only that group of people are affected, nobody else.
Of course, this cat and mouse game will evolve, but one thing I look at is the drug "war". Prohibition never works, so the IP issue needs to be addressed by a different means. (I'm partial to the idea of a clearinghouse paid for with tax money, but there are a lot of things that would need to be hammered out before it can be considered a fair system.)
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What would be interesting to see is an distributed rsync utility that uses this type of encrypted P2P architecture. This can be handled in many different ways. From a drive appearing for each public key in the system that is unique, to a decentralized system of permissions combined with deduplication on the backend. This way, if Alice wants to share Bob her PDF collection, it would take a few signed requests to propagate permissions, and then the peers will allow Bob access either by permitting him to ac
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Of course I do, and I haven't done so in over a decade. However, the more the government clamps-down, the more lucrative it becomes. It's hard to justify the risk when there is little reward, but the more they do nonsense like this, the easier it is for people like me to be rewarded for it.
The odds of getting caught are already infinitesimal and that's with all the deep packet inspection bullshit going on. Sneakernet is going to be completely untraceable short of the United States becoming a full on poli
Re:I already got a letter (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, VPNs are being used by this purpose, but when more people get disconnected, VPN use will become more common, just because people will actually start caring who is listening in.
I know I do this if I'm using a local wireless network. This way, someone listening in or using a FireSheep type of utility isn't going to be able to get far. Enabling a VPN means that I don't have to worry about a lot of local attacks, be it DNS poisoning, Phorm-like ad intrusions, or other man in the middle stuff. And none of this is for covering illegal/criminal activity -- it is to keep someone from interfering/eavesdropping with my network connectivity.
What is happening is that this is only going to shoot ISPs in their own foot. People move to VPNs, and now instead of being able to catch the serious criminals (the child pornography guys), all lines will go dark. Of course, governments and ISPs can go after VPNs, but that turns the "game" from passively sniffing traffic into an active cat and mouse play in both the legal and technical aspects.
Of course, the next step from VPNs are offshore VPNs, and this will mean that a routine shakedown for IP violations will turn into an international incident, and there are plenty of countries out there who will be more than happy to give the US the middle finger when it comes to hunting someone who pirated the latest Justin Beiber CD.
ISPs need to be smart and just sit back and only go after users who commit the more heinous crimes. If they go after every Joe who copies a MP3 file, then everyone will start using encryption.
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I already route 'certain protocols' of traffic over a persistent 10Mbit/sec OpenVPN tunnel to an Anonymous service in sweden. It's not terribly difficult to setup for someone with even an associate level understanding of networking.
The most they can hope for is pushing pirating back to the geek underground.
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If you make it hard for non-geeks they will just wait until its on TV for free.
Media industry still doesnt seem understand the time-value of their product.
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Commercial VPN, port 22 is always open because banks and Gov uses it.
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People want to test drive before they buy. The people that download and don't buy were never going to buy in the first place, there is not a single lost sale there.
And on top of that, going this route could save a lot of other people a lot of cash, when you can intelligently inform them that the product is crap and not worth considering for purchase.
Pirate Party Australia not Impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Somehow, I doubt they will be avoiding efforts to regulate. Just look at how copyright has slowly but surely increased over the years. Music and movie cartels will always keep pushing and pushing to get more and more. I'm hoping that government will wake up, realize that this will eventually stagnate their population's creative juices, and slap them down hard but I'm realistic enough to realize that won't happen until enough people are screaming in hordes at their doors.
Re:Pirate Party Australia not Impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
I propose building a network of proxies which transmit encrypted data 24/7. If nobody's downloading then they transmit random data so the ISPs are unable to tell if you're actually downloading anything or not.
The ISPs could collapse, but that's the price they pay for their cooperation.
Sounds mean? It's the logical result of actions like this. The only certainty of the piracy vs. copyright war is that that the piracy won't stop. Ever.
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One of the ISPs can grab all the other four ISP's customers overnight? I wonder if they'll sleep at night thinking about that.
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Hello, Freenet.
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Devil's advocate:
The ISPs can just refuse to let users communicate to the proxies. If someone sues the ISP, the ISP can always state that they are blocking potentially criminal content, which is good enough for a judge or jury.
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Note that the summary says "Australia's five major ISPs" - the only way they can do this is by sticking together.
If just one ISP doesn't do this then they'll have all the other ISPs customers in a couple of months. If the major ISPs do manage to stick together then they open the door for a small ISP to become a big ISP.
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I'm not sure if Australia is like the US in this regard, but here, each ISP has exclusive access to their cable/DSL networks. If the local DSL ISP boots a subscriber, there are no other DSL providers to go to. So, if a cable-based ISP and a DSL based ISP decide to block a range of sites, unless someone gets an upstream connection from somewhere else, those sites will stay blocked.
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Here the vast majority of residential, high speed Internet access is delivered by ADSL/ADSL2. This uses a copper local loop that is owned by Telstra (former govt. monopoly telco and owner of one of the five ISPs) but access must be leased to other parties at regulated rates. Once the DSL service reaches the local telephone exchange other ISPs can opt to install their own DSLAM hardware and backhaul, or lease the same from Telstra. Essentially it works out that there's Telstra Bigpond having its back pref
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The US model defeats the whole purpose of privatising the telecoms system. What's the point of setting up little mini monopolies that can just as effectively abuse their client base as could a single larger one?
In Australia, there are at least three (Optus/Telstra/AGC and maybe more?) wholesale backbone providers that are required to allow all ISPs to lease copper line bandwidth/services/endpoints/etc. Those ISPs then retail their services and DSL connectivity to individual customers. There are also a coupl
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Australians can currently join the Pirate Party of Australia for free. [pirateparty.org.au]
We currently see a massive offensive aimed at the US's strongest allies: the UK, Canada and Australia. Once Big Content gets their agenda settled overseas, they will then try to implement the same thing domestically, pointing at these same allies and then saying US legislation should be brought in line with their allies' legislation.
What Evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
The real issue is what evidence will be deemed acceptable, what proof will be required of uploading content. Nothing automated, who monitored it, what content was uploaded content was downloaded (file names not good enough as no one has copyright on file names). The period over which that IP address was monitored with at least one independent witness (can't have for profit people who get paid per copyright infringement notification).
Problem is this 'creative industry' has a history of being creative with lies, as such any accusation should be corroborated by independent people to ensure validity.
Regardless of the lies and bullshit, the whole industry is still parasitic by nature, it neither feed, clothes, houses or heals. It is a luxury and it's impact upon the necessities of life always needs to be limited.
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In a civil suit, you don't have to prove anything, your argument just has to be more compelling than your opponent's (I believe the term is "plurality of evidence"). MAFIAA's contractors can make some very nice-looking court presentations.
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Amen to that! "Intellectual Property" craze is just about reinventing aristocracy as a form of government - it became obvious as soon as copyright protection started being concerned with authors' offspring, pushing for perpetuation of copyright. IP is latest sanctuary for elite classes against ongoing slow democratization of the world, a floating device to keep minority of controllers above masses. Our duty as free human beings is to resist, and if that fails and we fall into slavery, to rebel. We have to substitute their poisonous gifts (well ... not gifts, not even merchandise, we have to pay just to be allowed limited access and usage to their ... stuff) with truly free culture, and leave the chains they forged for us in the darkness of damnatio memoriae, unwanted and unnoticed, thrown roadside, until the evil spell upon them wears out.
Translated (preachy melodrama stripped out, in other words)
Give the independently produced content (using creative commons, public domain, open source, etc terms) a fair shake. In time, enough alternative content will be discovered of sufficient quality that the more traditional content, encumbered by more and more draconian imaginary property laws, will simply become irrelevant, or at least greatly diminished in relevance.
We have the tools for production, distribution, and easy access available to us now.
this is not reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
Please not that this may sound reasonable but it is not. In the end it just comes down to the ISP giving information on its customers to third parties without a court order.
Re:this is not reasonable (Score:4, Informative)
So, in effect, the customer will get 4 warnings, then the ISP will respond to the rights holder, saying this ID number accessed files 4 times. Only then, may the rights holder start a court process to get the name and details of the account holder. Until the time that the court says so, the ISP will not divulge any of their customer details.
Guilty, until proven innocent??? (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'm guessing it's legal.
Just like it'd be perfectly legal for me to send you a letter accusing you of something.
At that point it'd be just as legal for you to sue me for fraud or extortion if the accusations are untrue (ofcourse if they are true, you might want to avoid that).
If you're ever wondering whether something is legal, think "how would lawyers earn most money?".
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The whole idea relies on the fact that this just doesn't happen often enough (most people just pay up and no challenge - hell, I know someone who paid ACS:Law for a similar accusation that they *swear* they didn't do).
The payoff on such things relies on the fact that it's free to make an accusation but extremely expensive to prove it or disprove it - and even if you can guarantee you're innocent ("The internet hasn't worked for 6 months here because the telecoms cable cut off all the island's Internet"), it
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Actually, the letters could be extortion even if they are true. For example, if I see someone rob a bank, and I send them a letter demanding money or I'll turn them in, that's extortion and I can be criminally prosecuted. But you're right that the guilty probably wouldn't call the police to report the extortion.
Assuming that Australian laws are similar to my admittedly non-lawyerly knowledge of US law, the letters might be construed as extortion. It probably depends a lot on what they say. If they are "
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Actually, the letters could be extortion even if they are true. For example, if I see someone rob a bank, and I send them a letter demanding money or I'll turn them in, that's extortion and I can be criminally prosecuted. But you're right that the guilty probably wouldn't call the police to report the extortion.
In that case, instead of the police, they may very likely go to another agency to deal with you. After all, it is often much less expensive to dispose of a body than it is to fight a big court case.
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Err, Comcast does this now here in the US. They erroneously sent me one a few years ago, at which point I called them up and demanded that they either prove it or issue an apology. I received neither, interestingly enough...
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ISP's (Score:2)
Unfortunately these ISP's will almost certainly be interfering with the sharing of file's which have free license's (e.g. Creative Common's).
When will government's stop serving the interest's of corporation's and start serving the interest's of their citizen's?
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Unfortunately these ISP's will almost certainly be interfering with the sharing of file's which have free license's (e.g. Creative Common's).
Unfortunately these ISP's will almost certainly be interfering with the sharing of file's which have free license's (e.g. Creative Common's).
Exactly. There is such a thing as legal file sharing, and artists just starting out and trying to get their work in front of people, or those less interested in profit (and there are such artists), can and often do use P2P to get exposure and build an audience. Which the major labels don't like, because they used to be the only game in town .. they've been making money off of past generations of new talent and they're not happy at all with the idea of this generation and future ones bypassing their contra
The legal way is the right way (Score:4, Insightful)
If only other countries worried about copyright infringement would adopt this novel concept...
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I recommend a offshore seedbox. Download your files to your seedbox and then obtain them from the box via a secure connection.
Sounds like a good approach - for the file sharer. (Score:5, Insightful)
This approach means that if I read it correctly the file sharer gets four warnings (one "educational letter" and three formal warnings) before anything happens.
That means that smart file sharers will take action after the first letter, to cover their tracks. E.g. starting to use encryption, or other methods that hide to the ISP what you're up to. And after that there are three warning letters that allow fine tuning of their methods. Receiving such a letter basically means "you're doing something wrong, we can still see what you're doing!".
And the end result: the ISP happy as there is not much for them to do; the recording industry happy because they don't see any file sharing taking place any more; and the user happy because they can continue what they've been doing over the last decade but now they're safe.
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The idea of hiding is that the downloads are hidden. So the recording industry can't see it either. Just the ISP sees a lot of traffic coming through.
Bob the angry flower (Score:2)
Bob the angry flower to crack down on ignorant use of apostophes
Hah. (Score:2)
if you totally prevent online piracy, people will copy cds/dvds in between each other and still pirate.
the only solution to piracy/smuggling is how it was ended back in early 18th century - abolition of monopolies and oligopolies, in whatever form they may be - and no, 4 major comp
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if you totally prevent online piracy, people will copy cds/dvds in between each other and still pirate.
Maybe 5 years ago they would use cd and dvd discs. My current PC doesn't even have an optical drive, and I have not missed it much. These days USB solid state and external hard drives are more likely, or carrying a laptop over to their house. Sneakernet is very hard to stop.
Meanwhile, online file transfer will simply go full encryption if they try to squeeze too hard, and move the title and decryption keys off somewhere else than the file itself (a private distribution channel).
Sounds like a good reason to switch providers... (Score:1)
If it were me I would drop any provider participating in this scheme.
Been there, done that, got the legislation (Score:2)
Interestingly, this sort of thing was trialled in the UK by the BPI back in 2008 [paidcontent.co.uk] and it was abandoned quickly. It was completely ineffective, very expensive, and resulting in some bad press due to lots of false accusations. It did lead to some very profitable (at least in t A couple of years later they had it put into law [legislation.gov.uk], making it much easier and cheaper for them (ISPs didn't want to pay) but a couple of years on from that and implementing it is still some way away.
All this sort of scheme does is make mon
Update: Rejected (Score:2)
The plan has been rejected by all the major Australian content organizations. They're still waiting for the iiNet v AFACT High Court judgment, since it will have a significant impact on the playing field.
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/11/29/bugger-off-content-industry-tells-isps-on-piracy/ [delimiter.com.au] (There are some more related articles on the site)
Three Strike Rule (Score:1)
If I am reading this correctly, the offender gets three warning (strikes) before any legitimate action is taken. May that should be extended to where the first to felony offenses are not counted against an individual. Show it be inferred that a burglar has two free attempts to ransack my home before I can call the police? Seriously, what moron conceived this idea?
the apostrophe plague (Score:2)
In this context, there is no possibility of reading ISPs as being anything other than the plural of ISP. Therefore, the apostrophe is unnecessary. What's worse, every superfluous apostrophe such as this re-wires the minds of many of those who see it, permanently ablating the apostrophe regulation regulation of their brains such that they will never again in their life properly use an apostrophe.
Victims of the apostrophe plague, once infected, pluralize with apostrophes, form contractions by joining words
Already Rejected (Score:2)
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Yes it is! Look on the map, it's just to the right of Germany...
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Yes it is! Look on the map, it's just to the right of Germany...
That's Australia! People always get those two countries confused.