Software That Flagged HBO.com For Piracy Will Power U.S. 'Six Strikes' System 292
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the raise-your-hand-if-you're-at-all-surprised dept.
from the raise-your-hand-if-you're-at-all-surprised dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A copyright monitoring program called MarkMonitor mistakenly flagged HBO.com for pirating its own shows, and sent automatic DMCA takedown notices to the network. It's a funny story, until you realize that MarkMonitor is the same software that will power the U.S. Copyright Alerts System (a.k.a. "Six Strikes"), due to be rolled out by the five largest U.S. ISPs sometime in the next month."
Of course HBO are pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
That "Game of Thrones" show has been stealing blatantly from the "Song of Ice and Fire" book series for 2 years now.
But if you're going to flag anyone, how about you get those thieves at Fox for pirating music from Jonathan Coulton? I think a fine of $22,500 for everyone who downloaded the Glee version sounds about right [cbsnews.com].
Re:Of course HBO are pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox is a large corporation.
It is therefore immune.
Laws are only for poor peons don't you know?
Re:Of course HBO are pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
You only gets much justice as you can threaten problems for whoever is handling it.
Re:Of course HBO are pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
I've said it a hundred times on Slashdot before... we live in a caste system.
Guess what, if you're reading this, you're in the lower caste.
And yet still, people boggle and question why laws seem to work differently for individuals than they do for the 1% and corporations.
CASTE SYSTEM PEOPLE! LOOK IT UP! If the smart people of Slashdot and elsewhere would actually acknowledge this and finally get around to fucking accepting it (because it's already here, and if you're in the lower caste... and you are... you CANNOT fight it. Get this through your heads), then maybe they can put their heads together and come up with a way to make working WITHIN the lower caste more comfortable.
But just accept it already people. The fight against this has been lost YEARS ago. It's as bad as the USA thinking they didn't lose the war on terror.
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I've said it a hundred times on Slashdot before... we live in a caste system.
Guess what, if you're reading this, you're in the lower caste.
And yet still, people boggle and question why laws seem to work differently for individuals than they do for the 1% and corporations.
CASTE SYSTEM PEOPLE! LOOK IT UP! If the smart people of Slashdot and elsewhere would actually acknowledge this and finally get around to fucking accepting it (because it's already here, and if you're in the lower caste... and you are... you CANNOT fight it. Get this through your heads), then maybe they can put their heads together and come up with a way to make working WITHIN the lower caste more comfortable.
But just accept it already people. The fight against this has been lost YEARS ago. It's as bad as the USA thinking they didn't lose the war on terror.
The fact that you mentioned War on Terror just gave the corporations bait. They will now buy gov't officials off to declare high bandwidth as a tool of terrorism. Thanks a lot. :->
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Re:Of course HBO are pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
The performance is still copyrighted.
If his version was used in a TV show without licensing it, according to the copyright wonks, that's theft.
They can't have it both ways.
Re:Of course HBO are pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't have it both ways.
Oh but they can! They always pick what is best for them, arbitrarily.
Want to make a backup copy of your DVD? It's a license, you can't.
You scratched your DVD? It's an item, you have to buy a new one for a full price!
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And still people vote to help them because their lobbyists cry wolf tears about how the artists aren't getting paid (they still won't) & how you wouldn't steal a car. But still consider this if it's any solace... all it would take to put out of business all the major ISPs is new technology, fiber could put comcast out of business where I live for example.
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"You mean the one that says that they can modify the contract as they see fit anytime they wish?"
No, I don't.
If they can modify it any time they wish, then it isn't a contract! A contract can't be one-sided; it requires approval from all parties involved.
My contract is for delivery of specific services for a certain amount of money. They can't modify that without my consent, or they break the contract... I don't owe them the money. If, for example, they throttled or cut off my service, then they would not be delivering the product they agreed to deliver for the money I was paying them.
Some I
Re:This is all our fault. (Score:4, Insightful)
What are we supposed to be doing? Violently overthrow media conglomerates?
I already vote with my dollars. I no longer buy nor subscribe to (or pirate) music, movies, etc. I stopped buying restrictive DRM games years ago. I've cut the cable cord. I prefer indie authors almost exclusively and get my text in print form whenever possible. These companies don't care, they've got more than enough $ already and the only one really being hurt is me (near zero access to pop culture).
Get off your high horse and be useful. Enlighten me. How else can this battle be fought?
Re:This is all our fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
Get off your high horse and be useful. Enlighten me. How else can this battle be fought?
It can't be. As long as Joe Sixpack has to have his live sports package, as long as Jill Sixpack is fascinated by what moronic Celebrity ofthe Minute is doing today, they will have all the money they need to buy any law they like. You (and I) are forever marginalized. Get used to it. Cost of internet access will go continuously up, not down, as the media conglomerates that own the pipes rent-seek us all into oblivion. Internet access will follow exactly the cable pricing model, and for exactly the same reason—access is controlled by exactly the same people.
And I've lost any hope of Google rolling out fiber any further than Kansas City. They will do it once, discover it's an expensive, thankless job, and stop. I expect tiered internet to be the norm in not less than 5 years, and it's all downhill from there.
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You can always download Jonathan's entire discography
http://kat.ph/jonathan-coulton-discography-t614690.html [kat.ph]
it's not like any of it matters
Re:Of course HBO are pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
then fine Jonathan Coulton for stealing the lyrics from Sir Mix A Lot
a cover of a cover is not theft and never will be...
Sir Mix A Lot wrote the song, and Jonathan Coulton probably paid him writer's royalties. If so, that's no more stealing than getting a candy bar at the store and paying for it.
a cover of a cover is not theft and never will be...
Covering a cover could still be stealing from the original song author if they aren't paid, and I suspect that Glee paid Sir Mix A Lot. But Glee didn't just cover the song, they actually used Coulton's performance itself (i.e. actual music from his recording ended up on the show -- not just notes, but part of his recording) -- which could indeed be stealing. I don't know if it was simply sampling [wikipedia.org] or it went beyond that -- but even if it was just sampling, in general royalties are paid for samples too nowadays.
so cry more.
You're not helping your case here.
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then fine Jonathan Coulton for stealing the lyrics from Sir Mix A Lot
a cover of a cover is not theft and never will be...
so cry more.
"my neckbeard, growin
chinline dragging
Songs don't work
my right palm keeps naggin."
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The Jonathan Coulton version isn't a cover of the song, it's a derivative work. Jonathan Coulton paid the appropriate licensing fees to the owner of Sir-Mix-a-Lot's original work. He made some modifications to the lyrics ("Johnny C's in trouble", instead of the original "Mix-a-Lot's in trouble", for example), and generally changed the entire song. Fox paid a similar licensing fee to the owner of Sir-Mix-a-Lot's original work. They then used Jonathan Coulton's version, with all his changes, including the
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Two facts you seem to have missed:
1) Coulton paid the appropriate licensing/royalty fees to cover Baby Got Back. He did not steal from Sir Mix-a-Lot. To quote what he said [jonathancoulton.com]:
Back when I released it, I bought the statutory license to distribute my version of this song through Harry Fox.
2) While covering a cover may not be a violation of copyright (as he mentioned later in the link that I provided), his recording of the song is an original work of art that is protected under copyright law, meaning that it cannot be used without proper compensation and/or attribution. Fox and the producers of Glee never asked for permissi
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Who cares (Score:5, Funny)
Which ISPs? (Score:5, Insightful)
due to be rolled out by the five largest U.S. ISPs
Which ones? I'd like to know who doesn't want my money.
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Informative)
Which ones? I'd like to know who doesn't want my money.
AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. It's in the article. :)
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Informative)
And Verizon (at least) already has implemented it.
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Was this mandated by some law I've not heard was passed...or, are these companies all signing onto this one service voluntarily? If so...why, what is in the bargain for them, they have immunity anyway over what their users do on the networks...why even bother with this?
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people have noticed the same thing you did. This doesn't make sense for the ISPs unless they are getting financial compensation from the content cartels equal to or greater than the amount of money they're going to lose from lost subscribers AND the cost of implementing the system itself, which is not going to be an insignificant amount of money. So the RIAA/MPAA is footing the bill for the system plus whatever extra the ISPs needed to sweeten the pot and make the whole burdensome hassle actually worthwhile. The other reason they might have for implementing it is that they are involved in both content creation and ISP businesses. This is true for Time Warner at least.You can think of it as a conflict of interest, another bullet point for stronger anti-trust laws.
There will be a period of about a year when notices, "strikes", will be sent at a furious pace and then some other obfuscated, encrypted, file sharing system will replace bittorrent. Mega seems poised to fill that niche, but there's room for an encrypted, anonymous, p2p filesharing protocol. There are a few right now but there's never really been a need for them great enough to overcome BT's momentum. The six strikes plan will be that need.
And once you push p2p filesharing that far underground there'll be no technological solution to stop copyright infringement over that protocol short of breaking the fundamental workings of the internet. File sharers will have won, and the content cartels, having shot their last bolt, will wish they had stopped when they were at least not completely powerless. This is a last desperate power grab of a dying business model. We are witnessing the death rattle of copyright as we know it.
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You touch on a lot of good stuff that can come out of this, but first... ISPs are pretty much datacenters, datacenters handle bandwidth... on a large enough scale bandwidth = power. So they save money by throttling users by saving bandwidth... on a very large scale. They even tried to throttle netflix, but the DOJ told them where to shove it.
They provide the service, not the experience. This whole situation in fact is a huge blow against net neutrality... but it had to happen, here's why:
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, of the ISPs implementing this, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon are all either directly or owned by content creators.
Only AT&T wireless (Previously called Cingular Communications) was/is a pure data network.
Note that it was Cingular that purchased the AT&T Wireless name from AT&T, so AT&T (which is also a content creator) is not involved there.
However you are correct in both of your first points. It is a huge conflict of interest, and they have all stated they are losing more money to piracy than they make in total on their ISP division.
Granted, this is not anywhere close to true, but they all firmly believe so, and more importantly they have made that statement to our government and so now must stick by it.
Think about it, their ISP divisions pull in what, 1-2 digit billions of dollars a year? Maybe 3 digit billions?
That is nothing compared to the 2-4 digit trillions they state they are losing due to piracy.
It's only the fact they are convinced 20% or less of their customer base are pirates, that keeps them from closing down the entire ISP side all together.
There is also the bonus of no lost customers.
Firstly, they will not be disconnecting anyone. Fines yes, many more fines sure, even apparently slowing down service and even blocking some things. But not disconnection.
I mean they "earn" $50-$100 each time they accuse you of piracy, with no evidence required! Who would want to disconnect someone and get rid of all that extra money?
Secondly, very few of the people hit by these strikes are willing to go without Internet service at all (Which is the only other option)
There is no competition, quite literally. Any "resellers" you would switch to are both A) under this same system due to being the same network, and B) still funnel money back to the network owner itself. They still get paid no matter which reseller you go with. It's all the same network and thus the same rules apply.
I believe you are also quite on mark with the future of file sharing. I've been saying the same for some time now, and in fact if anything am only amazed things are taking so long to get there.
The ultimate end game will be two-fold:
- High speed, anonymous, fully encrypted and functional darknets for file sharing.
- ISPs seeing encryption + high speeds as automatically assumed piracy unless vouched for by a business on the safe-list (aka VPN users, which will need to be registered and vouched for)
Anyone pulling encrypted data faster than your average webpage will have their traffic mucked about with, be it slowing down to 1kbps or less, or RST packets stormed to each end, to live-updated firewall blocks.
The EFF will complain that users of their HTTPS anywhere plugin no longer can browse the Internet at all, and no one in charge will care. The content creators will of course exclude their own https servers, since they want you to buy their stuff, but anyone else - it's not like we have legal network neutrality so there's no reason what so ever to even allow https to the Internet, let alone at high speeds.
There is a huge percent of our population too stupid to understand what network neutrality even means, and are strongly opposed to it. Even after these people can't shop at ebay any longer, they will still claim the benefits outweigh the risks, just so they don't have to admit to being wrong or making a mistake.
It's going to get much messier before things get better I'm afraid.
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Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Insightful)
If so...why, what is in the bargain for them, they have immunity anyway over what their users do on the networks...why even bother with this?
Did you notice how all of them are also cable tv providers? It is in their interest to kill any other forms of entertainment distribution, legal or not, so that they can herd customers to their own products.
This is how the utterly stupid reclassification of ISPs as information services [wikipedia.org] (from their previous classification as telecommunications services) has become self-fullfilling.
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All (or almost all) the ISP's also own content companies.
Where's the DOJ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Was this mandated by some law I've not heard was passed...or, are these companies all signing onto this one service voluntarily? If so...why, what is in the bargain for them, they have immunity anyway over what their users do on the networks...why even bother with this?
Collusion is illegal in the United States (and most other places). How come the five largest ISPs in the country all deciding to implement the same tracking system and enforcing the same restrictions on millions of subscribers who have no other alternative to their services is not being investigated by the DOJ?
When the railroads did things like this, the DOJ was quick to step in. When the Unions did things like this the DOJ was quick to step in. Today when big businesses do things like this, the DOJ is nowhere to be found. The DOJ is supposed to protect the 100% of the people, not just 1%. But, that is the price we pay to have the best plutocracy on the planet.
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How come the five largest ISPs in the country all deciding to implement the same tracking system and enforcing the same restrictions on millions of subscribers who have no other alternative to their services is not being investigated by the DOJ?
Because they are not competitors. Seriously. The vast majority of broadband customers have no more than 1 choice for high-speed service. Well, they could move to another town, but that's not really a choice in the way most people use the term.
Thus, since they aren't competing they can't be colluding.
As for why they aren't competing in the first place? Well, the DoJ has already given them a free pass on that bit of collusion. [stopthecap.com]
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Oh.. wait... that would require competition....
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It's in the article. :)
Which perfectly explains why GP couldn't find it.
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Like you have a choice... (or, if you do, you're far luckier than I am. My choices are: do I want cable (which sucks), or would I prefer dsl (which also sucks)? I certainly don't have any choice of *providers* of either of those services.
That said, I just wikipedia'd it, and amazingly enough, Charter is not (currently) on the list. I can't believe Charter is actually doing something better than Verizon. Too bad I went with verizon.
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah... the only service around here is cable (Time Warner) and DSL (AT&T). A selection between a garbage service and another garbage service. Cable vs. DSL. Both providers fucking suck. There is no way out of this fucked up, abusive, non-competitive mess.
Re:Which ISPs? (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon
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You know, that one ISP: AT&VeriCastVisionCable
So, do something (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you could always stand up and demand your leaders repeal this nonsense. Is that not one of the stipulations of the political system in the US, that one must participate? /., but I never hear about anyone actually DO anything. And no, a strongly worded facebook post is not doing something.
I see a LOT of folks complaining on
Say what you want about the French, but they have it right. Their leaders are scared shitless of the population. That is how it must be. When the leaders do the things the US politicians do each day, France burns.
So, I would say, If you don't like it, "man up" and do something.
Re:So, do something (Score:4, Informative)
I see a LOT of folks complaining on /., but I never hear about anyone actually DO anything.
People actually doing something about it don't have time to rant on Slashdot. How exactly do you expect to hear about it? Telepathy?
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Re:So, do something (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes. You are absolutely correct. It is not one of the stipulations.
Re:So, do something (Score:5, Insightful)
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You do realise all Senators and Officials will be on a white list, so will never see a notice, so why would they care.
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The French passed their 3-strikes law in 2009: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law [wikipedia.org]
I'm not sure what you think the French are doing right, but it sure doesn't seem like the population is rising up against privacy and free speech rights violations the way you think they are.
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I don't know where or how you get this crazy idea about how the people put fear in the government...not even in France. I would be willing to bet
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Well, you could always stand up and demand your leaders repeal this nonsense.
You believe they'd actually listen?
Is that not one of the stipulations of the political system in the US, that one must participate?
Only on paper. In reality, participation is an illusion.
Re:So, do something (Score:5, Insightful)
The US also had a top marginal tax rate like that. It was during the great economic boom of the 50s and 60s. Turns out that trickle-down, voodoo economics is and always will be bunk.
And as it turns out, nobody paid it. [economicpo...ournal.com] The effective tax rate, i.e. the tax rate people actually paid was around 30-35% at that time.
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Just so you know, the effective tax rate is not the same as the marginal tax rate. Marginal tax rate is what is paid on the highest level of taxable income. Effective tax rate is amount paid divided by income. So you and your linked post didn't really refute anything. Unless that blog post was trying yo refute someone who was confusing the two as well.
The 85% rate quoted for the French in the GGP post is also a marginal rate not the effective rate.
Re:So, do something (Score:5, Informative)
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however, then i'm reminded of people like the dentist last year who (in an anti-tax interview) said they'd stop working right each year right before they made enough to be pushed into a higher tax bracket because they didn't want their rate going up and costing them a lot more money
I didn't see the interview, so I can't comment on what was actually said, just on your report on it. But that seems entirely probably to me. Obviously, going into the next tax bracket doesn't cost you money overall (you will still have more money than you did before you went over it) but it will increase the cost-per-dollar earned. It's entirely feasible that it would push the cost-per-dollar up to a point where working more just isn't a good deal. Just think - if, at the start of the year, you were earning
Re:So, do something (Score:4, Insightful)
Turns out that trickle-down ... economics is and always will be bunk.
...But I think I am a good person, and I do good things with my money. Why would anyone not want good things to be done? Surely with more money I could do more good things, but that means I need to be sending less to the government. The government politicians just nickel-and-dime their way through the budget pulling money out of good investments for the future and into gift programs for the lazy.
A note to the witless: I'm not being wholly serious, but I'm not trolling, either. Just illustrating a particular perspective.
hey, how do we know if the software is paid for? (Score:2)
I think it should be flagging all the ISPs to prove that all these instances of MarkMonitor are legit.
is Darl McBride involved in this business?
Nope. Still funny. (Score:4, Funny)
Good news (Score:2)
Enough false positives and the system will quickly fade into obscurity.
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I think it calls for a bit more civil disobedience than that. See how many open WiFi networks you can get strikes for. Obviously, don't do anything illegal - only share files that will cause a false positive... not actual copyrighted works, and don't break into anything.
Why are ISPs in bed with big content? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's puzzled me for some time that ISPs are so eager to help with these piracy measures. Can someone explain to my why they are so eager to please when there is no reasonable legal threat against them? (IIUC, the DMCA safe-harbor clauses immunize them.) The same goes for YouTube. Why is Google so eager to go above and beyond the DMCA(*)?
(*) I am aware of Viacom v. Google, but my understanding is the appellate judgment in many ways reaffirms the DMCA safe-harbor provisions.
Re:Why are ISPs in bed with big content? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's puzzled me for some time that ISPs are so eager to help with these piracy measures. Can someone explain to my why they are so eager to please when there is no reasonable legal threat against them? (IIUC, the DMCA safe-harbor clauses immunize them.) The same goes for YouTube. Why is Google so eager to go above and beyond the DMCA(*)?
(*) I am aware of Viacom v. Google, but my understanding is the appellate judgment in many ways reaffirms the DMCA safe-harbor provisions.
Easy: Two of the biggest ISPs are also content owners. Time Warner and Comcast.
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Time Warner Cable actually split from Time Warner recently, so they're not related.
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Time Warner Cable actually split from Time Warner recently, so they're not related.
As corporate entities when it comes to accounting, but should you bother to check who owns both, you'll see something else.
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Right, and nobody sits on both boards, or hold any financial interests in common.
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they also want to get into the content distribution racket and cut their traffic to to one tenth
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Cablevision provides digital television services as above. They also own the Clearview cinema chain.
Comcast is a major content producer of multiple television networks and owns 51% of NBC, also a major content producer.
Time Warner is a major content producer, owning dozens of film and TV studios.
Verizon provides the FiOS digital television servic
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If ISPs refused to implement six strikes, the MPAA probably would have bought a new super-DMCA law that was even worse. Industries generally prefer self-regulation over government regulation because Congress is a bit of a wild card.
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I would hazard a guess that the folks pirating movies on their networks are also the network's heaviest users. Dump those few people, and their infrastructure costs don't go up as fast. It's a win-win for the ISP. (A pirate pays the same monthly fee as a regular user, but they can support hundreds of regular users on a single pirate's monthly transfer)
Encrypted proxy? (Score:4, Informative)
Or is it one of those measures trying to prevent John Doe from using bittorrent? (and expecting he won't learn how to use a proxy)
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I'm not from the US, but if you really wanted to pirate stuff, isn't just renting a proxy or doing ssh -D somewhere else outside the country enough?
Or is it one of those measures trying to prevent John Doe from using bittorrent? (and expecting he won't learn how to use a proxy)
it's to catch the people who aren't smart enough to protect themselves when copywronging.
I myself am using a torrent proxy, BTguard, but it's too slow, thinking of switching to a VPN.
I got me a cloaking device for when I am out on the interweb seas, raping, pillaging and copywronging. Arrr!
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I'm not from the US, but if you really wanted to pirate stuff, isn't just renting a proxy or doing ssh -D somewhere else outside the country enough?
Or is it one of those measures trying to prevent John Doe from using bittorrent? (and expecting he won't learn how to use a proxy)
it's to catch the people who aren't smart enough to protect themselves when copywronging.
I myself am using a torrent proxy, BTguard, but it's too slow, thinking of switching to a VPN.
I got me a cloaking device for when I am out on the interweb seas, raping, pillaging and copywronging. Arrr!
I had BTguard proxy but let my service expire. Too slow and it had problems with UDP trackers. I've been evaluating Ipredator [ipredator.se], which is actually a branch of the Pirate Bay. Speeds are much higher than BTguard. I nearly maxed out my 20mbit connection on a well-seeded torrent (a legal one of course). They might not be the best service out there, but they are good enough for me to stop looking around. Trial accounts are available. Only downside is that when you have a computer on their VPN, everything goe
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Those are the same people that are most likely scared away when they hear about this, or when they get caught the first time. My mother, who knows nothing about computers and does not care to learn, told me to "be careful downloading movies, because they are cracking down on that".
Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
You in the U.S. has your gun laws exactly for cases like this. The original idea was, when government (or its minions) eventually gets too tyrannical . . .
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No, the original idea was so they could form militia and defend themselves without having an expensive military.
Against an oppressive government, with a world class military, DUH!
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You in the U.S. has your gun laws exactly for cases like this. The original idea was, when government (or its minions) eventually gets too tyrannical
No, the original idea was so they could form militia and defend themselves without having an expensive military. The military was explicitly not to be given funding for more than two years at a time precisely for this reason. It's all in the constitution.
Look what happened: we ended up with the - by far - most expensive military in the world, and people buying guns for reasons the founders never intended.
I suggest you read the Federalist papers before spouting this nonsense. The GP had it right. The framers wanted guns in the hands of its citizens as a safeguard against tyranny. The militia aspect always was secondary to that. In their minds the militia was the whole of the populace able to bear arms and still is according to US Law (limited to certain age ranges of course). Even taking your claims at face value. In order for any militia to be effective (well-regulated in the parlance of the 1700's) it must
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You in the U.S. has your gun laws exactly for cases like this. The original idea was, when government (or its minions) eventually gets too tyrannical
No, the original idea was so they could form militia and defend themselves without having an expensive military. The military was explicitly not to be given funding for more than two years at a time precisely for this reason. It's all in the constitution.
Look what happened: we ended up with the - by far - most expensive military in the world, and people buying guns for reasons the founders never intended.
No, the grandparent post is correct. The founding fathers were very weary of a strong central government. This is why the first government based upon the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union [wikipedia.org] was so weak it was unable to leavy taxes and fund an army to suppress the Shay's Rebellion [wikipedia.org] and instead the rebellion was suppressed with a privately funded army.
The second amendment is a compromise in choosing between a weak central government and strong federal government. To quote the second amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The a
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You know, for a bunch of well educated lawyers, the founding fathers sure drafted a terribly ambiguous amendment. It could mean:
Actually, I think the last one should be the way it works: only people who receive proper, thorough, and repeated training in weapons handling should be allowed to have guns. It would cut down tremendously on gun accidents.
Hmm, let me enlighten you with the definition of a militia:
1. a part of the organized armed forces of a country liable to call only in emergency
1. a body of citizens organized for military service
3. the whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military service.
Actually, since the militia during the time of the revolutionary war and the militia used in the suppression of Shay's Rebellion consisted of able-bodied male citizens whom were not professional soldiers or
This is perfect (Score:2)
Hmmm ... (Score:2)
Wouldn't that make these DMCA notices fraudulent?
They're not the copyright holder, and I thought a DMCA notice was the equivalent of a sworn affidavit that you were the owner of it -- and Righthaven [wikipedia.org] already established that if you don't have legal standing, you can get smacked down.
I can't see how this automated service could have any legal standing
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I'm no lawyer, but if the 3rd party monitoring agent doesn't own any of the copyrights to these things, they can't mistakenly believe they owned something there was no chance of them owning in the first place.
I don't know if the individual companies are running their own servers, or if th
So... (Score:2)
So, when someone from one of the media companies decides to pirate a show from another media company, and does so more than six times, what kind of fines are we looking at?
This violates the rights of EU and Canadians (Score:5, Insightful)
The US is the signer of a data treaty with both Canada and the EU that this violates.
As the holder of multiple copyrights in Canada, the US, Australia, and New Zealand, I do not accept this Six Strikes violation of my International Treaty rights, which are superior to any DCMA legislation in the US.
Period.
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US honoring their trade and privacy treaties? are you visiting Colorado and high as fuck??
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Since this is implemented voluntarily by the ISPs instead of being imposed by law, I don't see how this violates any treaty rights. (Though that doesn't change the fact that it's still stupid and wrong.)
What can we do about this? (Score:5, Informative)
You probably already pay for internet service. For a little bit more money/month, you can get away with as much piracy as you want. If you don't understand all the terms/lingo I'm about to use, hit the google. Here's what you can do:
Scenario 1: switch from bit torrent to usenet. Automate the downloading of your favorite shows with sickbeard + hellanzb/sabnzbd/your-favorite-nzb-grabber-here. Download movies with CouchPotato. I have this set up, but due to abuse of DMCA, a lot of the good nzb indexing sites (newzbin, nzbmatrix) are gone. Thinking about getting rid of a usenet provider alltogether because of this unfortunate turn of events.
Scenario 2: get a VPN. I have a VPN thru my usenet provider. I run a Win7 virtual machine for bit-torrent piracy purposes (since the good nzb indexing sites have gotten taken down, i find myself resorting to bit torrent more often now). All torrent traffic goes thru the VPN. Slows it down, but not by much.
Scenario 3: get a seedbox. Seedboxes are for fast bit-torrenting. The downloading/uploading happens on a server that you rent. Get one outside of the US. Since it's not your home connection that gets slammed, you can share more upload bandwidth with the community. When the download is done, transfer your file to your machine with a ssh/sftp client. with a good media player and a good connection, you can probably start watching a video file 10-15 seconds after you start the transfer.
Scenario 4: get a VPS. Can't find many that are bit-torrent friendly. But they're basically little virtual OS instances (typically linux) that you get root on. You can roll your own VPN with a VPS (as opposed to buying a VPN service), so if you are comfortable with Linux, going the VPS route might be your best and cheapest bet (then you can do #2 for cheap). There are plenty that are hosted outside of the US.
It's too bad that hollywood and the media content creation industries in general have been so blinded by greed that they've missed the boat on this whole internet thing. They could have made WAY more money, probably ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE MORE MONEY if they'd embraced the internet as a content delivery tool OVER A DECADE AGO, instead of using political pull to secure legislation that protects their backwards and antiquated business model.
Seriously. There are METRIC FUCKLOADS of money to be made on online advertising. Google is proof positive of this.
Of course, just giving away the content "for free" (in exchange for ad revenue) is such an anathema to the greedy fucks at the top of the totem-pole in the industry that the idea was probably never seriously on the table in the first place.
Such a shame.
I keep saying that I'd pay $100/month for a service that allowed me to watch or listen to whatever movie, tv show, or song I typed into the search box. Instead we have this bullshit like hulu and netflix, with arbitrary restrictions on what you can watch on your TV vs your computer, what you can watch via the net vs get as a disk in the mail, etc. It's bullshit and there's no technological reason for how bad this situation sucks. It sucks because of corporate greed, so I've made it my moral obligation to ensure that none of these fuckwits ever get any of my money.
Go buy a VPN.
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Shhh! (Score:2)
PS - The ISPs are kinda on our side here, as they'd rather not be wet nurses to trogoldytes and their business models.
Workarounds? (Score:2)
I'd guess that they grab tracker information and then gather IP addresses of those sharing but I have never heard of this company or their "product" until today.
Thanks
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http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/09/why-you-need-a-vpn-and-how-to-choose-one/ [lifehacker.com.au]
This sounds like a job for Anonymous (Score:4, Interesting)
Were I Anonymous (and I am most certainly not), I would see this as a great opportunity to engage our fine Congress into taking up action. Since I am NOT Anonymous thus clearly lacking the knowledge I am not sure this could even be done....yet....
Would it not be thoughtful if something could be set up such that all sorts of protected files were downloaded and shared from a congressman's identifiable computer? Were it possible to acquire and spoof the MAC address, the IP address and set up a nice little honey pot for this wondrous program to sense and respond too. Six strikes you say, should happen quick and then we have our dear congress person getting dropped...oh wait you say, they are on the white list, but then Anonymous still does the job for now it can show the preferential treatment which certainly is news unto its self. Or, just bluw skying you know, take the old adage garbage in garbage out and just confuse the poor program. Help it to see everyone as a violator thus rendering its conclusions moot.
Hacking websites is one thing, sticky congress people into a situation where they have to try and explain that (1) it was not them and (2) why they feel this is good for the country would make for more interesting news coverage. Vigilantes that use their power to shine a light on a wrong do more power then just acting out in anger (hacking websites). I don't have the power or the knowledge or the influence to effectively change the mind of greedy SOB in Congress, but maybe there are those that do,,,,I wonder.
Funny, I posted AC because i started to ponder, what if when I get home I find some gentlemen in dark suits waiting for me, just to ask a few questions...Please, come with us.
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A network torrent where all files are renamed to "metalica - (Insert bad song name here).mp3" and transferred unencrypted? Count me in. It needs to be run by a group of lawyers so they can sue the pants off big content providers who claim DMCA takedowns.
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My optimistic side hopes this will eventually lead to a resurgence of independent ISPs.
That's quite a hefty level of optimism you've got there. If you were going to start Forresto Online, and become an ISP, you'd have all kinds of state and local opposition as you tried to lay your fiber cables down or staple them to the poles...but let's hand wave that train wreck away. With the big guys already implementing the six strike rule, anyone new on the radar would be a very easy target - especially since your arrival was heralded by the metric ton of paperwork that had to be filled out to lay your