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Japanese ISPs To Cut Net Access For File Sharers
Posted by
Zonk
on Sunday March 16, @05:28AM
from the would-be-nice-to-surf-the-net dept.
from the would-be-nice-to-surf-the-net dept.
modemac writes "Four major Japanese telecom organizations, which represent 'about 1,000 major and smaller' domestic ISPs, have agreed to forcibly cut the Internet connection of filesharers. They're specifically targeting users of the 'Winny' program, trading copied gaming software and music. The article states that a new set of ISP guidelines will be drawn up on how to cut off users who 'leak illegally copied material onto the Net.'"
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Filesharers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Filesharers (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets hope this really happens (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets hope this really happens, let hope that ISP's in Japan really are this stupid and the Japanese citizens do the only thing that is logical. Cancel their service since it is no longer of any use to them so that ISP after ISP goes tits up.
At least in holland a lot of ISP's are happy to advertise with 'download music fast' without having any music service whatsoever. Copyright infringement is one major reason to get one of the more expensive subscriptions, if everyone just went with the cheapest most minimal subscription, you know the one that is plenty for email, the web, gaming etc etc, then ISP's will really feel it in their revenue.
On the longer term, lets hope the japanese ISP's learn very quickly that they opened the flood gates. If they can monitor this, expect everyone to come out. Just block winny? Don't count on it, every P2P program will be on it, and why just P2P, why not home run MMORPG servers, why not material that the goverment doesn't want you to host. Why not check every email for illegal material? Congrats, the ISP's in japan just become the enforcer for everyone with a gripe about the internet. There is reason the old telecoms never ever wished to do that with telephone services and they claim they have to keep a line open unless they get an outside complaint even if it is bloody obvious a phone line is only used for criminal activity. You do NOT want to become the police of your customers.
Lets hope that this turns sour for the Japanese ISP's very quickly, because if this doesn't go totally wrong for the ISP's in question, we will get it elsewhere.
Re:Lets hope this really happens (Score:5, Interesting)
Um, yeah. You haven't lived here in Japan have you? People don't push back. They let companies plow them over and say nothing. There are no consumer rights in Japan. If they really do this and I lose my net access, that's it. I just lost my net access.
I'm already really throttled. I DL US TV slower now that I have FTTH than I did on ADSL. I have 83Mbit, but it only seems to work when I downloading something from a website or something.
This is going to do nothing to subscription rates. People get the fast service because it isn't much more expensive than the slow, and because the guys from SMAP are in the commercials. It has nothing to do with the speed, because, honestly, most Japanese people can barely even type.
This is not a good development for me...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In Japan, change often happens in response to customer complaints, which is extremely rare, if not nonexistent in the
Re:That will only work... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't for a second think it's because they are concerned about copyrights. I doubt they'd admit this though.
Re:That will only work... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some ISPs in Eastern Europe solve this problem by setting up a DC++ server for their subscribers. When subscribers can share music and films with people from their own city, there's less burden on the connection to the wider Internet.
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This idea wont work in the west with modern IP laws protecting copyright. The companies will b
Re:Lets hope this really happens (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Lets hope this really happens (Score:4, Insightful)
grow up.
You want money? Sell your art. Want more? Make more art and sell it too.
Not enough money? Get a better job. You don't hear anyone crying over the walmart worker for not making millions due to their career choice.
Copyright specifically says your work of art belongs to the public to further the arts and sciences.
Those works of art belong to us, after a short time. Until that short time is up, we will keep hold of what is owed to us, since we clearly can not trust you to hold up your end of the deal anymore.
DRM, trying to claim and define 'limited' as 70 years after you die, are all proof positive you have no intention of keeping your end of the copyright deal in good faith. Don't bitch when we don't either.
Deal with it
Re:Lets hope this really happens (Score:4, Interesting)
I work in the media. We long since gave up giving a shit what teenagers want from TV. The marketplace is the 30+ viewer who isn't scared of buying the DVD.
It's not that the media doesn't understand the youth. its that the youth get what they pay for, ie: fuck all.
Re:Lets hope this really happens (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I question how someone can be an artist, and yet know so little correct information about the laws that protect your trade.
Either way however, yes, your post is a troll. You were being spiteful, mean, insulting, and injecting no useful information into the conversation, and your statements are factually incorrect (possibly lies, depending)
Where as MY info however is reflected in US law, and also quite insightful as some of these 'artists' clearly are trying to 'steal' from me (DRM serves no other purpose.)
[* Steal used in the same sense you were using the word, not in the legal, moral, or dictionary sense of the word.]
I admit, my 'get a job' comment, while true, was a tad of a flame. But that was about it.
Finally, it is Quite hard to form a perfectly insightful non-flame non-troll reply to someone who is being irrational in their posts. I seriously would love to debate the issue, but I want my words to not fall on deaf ears, and by the tone of your post I don't believe you even care to discuss this rationally, only to push your agenda. If I come off as a troll at all, it is out of my frustration at that fact.
But I will try anyway. Please read this before blowing it off as BS, or hitting reply.
If you still after reading it through disagree with me, then I will leave you to it...
The only reason you or any artist is granted copyright, is NOT just for profit. Profit is a side benefit.
Copyright in its first forms was 100% a control method used by kings and rulers to silence those that would say bad things against them. I'm not claiming you are, but if you were to try to argue for that style of copyright again, you will have no friends here, or in any first world nation for that matter.
Afterwards, copyright became a tool to better man kind with science and art. This was the last version of it before now.
That is to say, if your work of art could not benefit man kind at all, there is no point in offering you a copyright at all. I also highly doubt you are arguing for that, as then you would have no recourse what so ever, nor anything to complain about anyway.
So, clearly, the only reason you get a copyright on your work at all is to benefit man kind. This used to be a deal struck between the people and the artists. The people give up some rights so the artist can gain, and at the same time, the artist loses some rights so the people can gain. This deal was, the people lose for a few years the right to copy that work, so the artist gains a monopoly on distribution to recoup their costs. In exchange, the artist loses the right to 'own' that work for ever, and the people gain the right to do with that work as they please.
Yes, that second part comes after the first, thus the 'limited time' part of copyright.
The problem here is, artists are not paying their end of the deal. They are NOT giving up the full rights to their work to better man kind. When I say 'they' I don't mean ALL of them of course. But they tend to use things like DRM which is effectively (assuming it would work at all) a lock that keeps it from the public once you stop caring about it. It's a little like writing a bad check, post-dated, but knowing it won't be good at that time.
So the reaction happens. Similarly, once you write a person bad checks enough, they will simply stop accepting them. If you try to pay with credit that never gets repaid, they start demanding their stuff back (repo.)
What we are doing now is not accepting your bad check type payments any longer, thus not honoring your copyright.
Granted, there are artists that have NOT screwed the public at all, and yes they are being harmed by the actions of the artists that do. These artists tend to have the same attitude towards copyright and pirating that you project, which is why the same hostility they deserve is being sent to you (deservingly or not.)
We the people are sick of being ripped off. A large percentage of us have stopped honoring the deal struck with you as an artist AT ALL.
If you have a problem with this, take it up with the people at fault. The artists that screw the people, and extend limited to nearly a century after your death, and passing of laws to allow DRM and other unconstitutional things to pervert copyright law to a one sided contract.
You shouldn't be angry at pirates for simply not wanting to get ripped off. You wouldn't get angry at the repo man for towing a car away if you stopped making payments, right? You wouldn't get angry at the bank that repoed the car because of lack of payments, right? Pirates are just those people that handle the repo side personally.
SOME might argue that the banks are in a bad business, for loaning money to people knowing there is a chance they will not get paid back. How bad of a choice that is, is still up to them to make.
In the same vein, how bad of a choice an artist makes for being in a business where most people in their trade rip the people off and have made the people mad at the whole industry, made that choice on their own.
While you are perfectly free to make such poor choices, you will not only find very little sympathy for doing so, but will also get insulted for complaining about the fact you made a poor choice.
Hopefully this explains the pirates position, and hopefully you can at least see the point of view, even if you personally have never screwed over anyone with your intent to honor copyright. And if that is the case, I am sorry you got caught up in the mess, but thats simply the state of things right now. With the bad artists not budging on wanting to screw over the people, and with the people so fed up with being screwed over, I don't see any common ground that either side can compromise on anytime soon.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perso
Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
This is pretty much what companies in the U.S. do too. People that seed a bunch of copyrighted files often get cease and desists from their ISPs and if it keeps happening the ISP will sometimes (not always, as it's beneficial for the ISP to keep them around) cut their service off. TFA seems to claim that the majority of this is going to focus on "leakers" of copyrighted material: this means mass-seeders and probably scene groups. It's doubtful that the ISPs are going to end up cutting off many _downloaders_ of the material, but mostly focus on the _distributors_: which is pretty much precedent for ISPs at least in the U.S. and I would assume globally.
Now according to Wiki, Winny is intrinsically anonymous [wikipedia.org], and the only way the police were able to track those sharing the files was by them boasting on the Winny forums of their upload. So we probably would have heard about this earlier had Winny not been built to be as anonymous as it is now - it seems that the issue has been prompting arrests and controversy for five years or more.
Also, expect 2ch to go bananas over this in the next couple of weeks.
I am not using (Score:3, Interesting)
In US there were reports that customers are cut off just because of the sheer volume of the data they are uploading or downloading. At least Japan is not doing that...
For the unenlightened.. (Score:5, Informative)
The main target for this act is to stop a file sharing program / network called Winny. Winny [wikipedia.org] is one of the top File sharing program / network in Japan.
Many Japanese anime fansub groups get their original copy of the show via this network. I am sure there are tons of other stuff being shared on Winny, judging from the fact that they have a Software Download board where copyrighted materials are shared.
The creator is facing similar claims to that of the Bittorrent creator, where he has created a tool that can be used to share files with the advantage of being anonymous.
Interesting bits from the article (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, aside question: how can a copy be illegal? I get that it can be illegal to create and to posses, but how can the copy itself be illegal? If it's made on a USB stick and then thrown out (ownership of the copy has ceased), the copy by virtue of not having changed is still illegal. Who do you sue, the USB stick?
(I figure they mean illegally possessed copies, but imprecise language like this bugs me a bit.)
However, the provider abandoned the idea after receiving a warning from the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry that such an approach was regarded as Internet snooping and might violate the right to privacy in communications.
According to the new agreement, copyright organizations would notify providers of Internet protocol addresses used by those who repeatedly make copies illegally, using special detection software.
This ensures Japanese cultural isolation (Score:3, Interesting)
Japan has never been a democracy. It has always been a rigid authoritarian culture. When the authorities decide to act, they simply announce their decision and everyone obeys. Japan did close themselves off from the west before for centuries between the late 1600s until the 1850s. This happened after the authorities decided that Western ways were becoming too powerful and were beginning to threaten their power. It may be happening again.
And, of course, it may be a total clusterfuck by a group of totally clueless bullies who have no idea of what they are fooling with. But then again, for young Japanese, what's the difference?
*shrug* (Score:3, Interesting)
Human civilization can and will devour itself trying to bring this sort of thing to a halt. Why? Because it's always gone on, on some level or another, and always will go on, on some level or another.
Prostitution is more illegal than file-sharing is. There are always efforts in most places in the world to stop it, but the best those efforts are ever able to do is slow it down a little. We're talking tens of thousands of YEARS here, people, and it hasn't been stamped out -- and never will be either.
Want to really stop it, and everything else society at large deems "unacceptable"? Then you need the ability to mass-erase an idea from people's minds all at once, along with every material reference to said idea, because you can't kill an idea: You can't stop the signal, Mal. Ah, but there's a problem there, too, isn't there? If any government or individual had that sort of power over people, then we're living in a world that makes 1984 [wikipedia.org] look like amateur night -- and from there the human race would likely last about another two generations, tops, before completely dying out.
Want another example of what I'm talking about? Drugs. The world, for all of recorded human history and beyond, I'm sure, has had a problem with intoxicants of all kinds. Every culture does or has, at one time or another, tried to stamp them out. They all failed, didn't they, and for the most part our own efforts here in the U.S. are largely a waste of time, money, and resources; none of those efforts have or can really do much of anything to affect the idea of intoxicants. Remember Prohibition [wikipedia.org]? Yeah, that worked real well, didn't it?
As I see it we, as a race, have three directions we can go to address this class of issue:
1) We can stop fighting it, accept it, and try to develop ways to work with it so that it doesn't necessarily have to be a zero-sum game all the time.
2) We can fight it tooth and nail to the last, hoping that it's actually possible to erase an idea from human consciousness.
3) We can continue the cat-and-mouse games that this class of things has always been surrounded by and interwoven with, and the people who get caught at them pay the penalty for being careless.
Where we are now is #3. What I WANT to see is #1 -- but I don't think we're evolved enough to get there yet. Where some authorities and most corporations want to go is #2 -- and they're ice-skating uphill if they try.
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Im sure you would also advocate the government regu