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?"
Pirate Party Australia not Impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
Guilty, until proven innocent??? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
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.)
Re:So, what... (Score:3, Interesting)
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. I think it's idiotic to pay 80 dollars for some dense opengl book, when I really only care about the pixel shader listed on page 783. I find in developers reference texts, its particular the case where you have 1 or 2 pages with information, and the rest is filler. Do I need a 2000 page volume on C# 4, just for a two page summary of the new language features?
I'm sure some dickhead accountant or lawyer at O'Reilly publishing would figure I owe them about 50 grand in "stolen intellectual property". I figure they should put more information into their books. If I can take everything of value out over a lunch hour, why wouldn't I put it back on the shelf, and walk out without paying?