Court Allows Unmasking of P2P Downloaders 244
bricko writes "A federal appeals court says copyright-infringing downloaders can now be outed. If you use or have used P2P, this may interest you. From Wired: 'The RIAA detected what it claimed to be infringing activity on an IP address the university linked to the student. The unidentified student moved to quash a federal judge’s order that the university forward the student’s identity to the RIAA. The student asserted a First Amendment right of privacy on the Internet, in addition to a fair-use right to the six music tracks in question. The appeals court ruled in the RIAA’s favor (PDF) after balancing a constitutional right to remain anonymous against a copyright owner’s right to disclosure of the identity of a possible “trespasser of its intellectual property interest."'"
Title is nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
A better title would be "court upholds right to serve warrant".
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Which can only be done in court. And which can only happen if the person whose account was using that IP address is known. And _that_ will only happen if copyright holders can subpoena ISPs for user identities.
So congrats, you're getting what you want.
Re:Title is nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that in choosing to claim he may have had a fair use right to "share" the songs on the computer, he has admitted he was the person behind the IP address who had the songs on his computer.
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I'm no lawyer, but isn't the defendant allowed a defense in layers, even if those layers contradict each other? (I think there's a legal term for this but I can't seem to find it.) The defense would go something like: "It wasn't me. And if it was me, I had fair use rights to the songs in question."
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He is not saying "I didn't do it, it wasn't me". He is saying "I don't want them to know who I am because I think I have a right to privacy and anonymity" and "I had a valid fair use right to do it anyway."
And, he is not using this as a defense against the suit. He is using it as part of a motion to quash the subpoena.
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One other thing, fair use is a defense and the court gets to decide whether it is a valid defense. It is not, however, a reason to quash the subpoena because whether it falls under fair use is the question the court must decide.
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#include "IANAL.h"
Yes: it's called "pleading in the alternative". In effect, the defense is saying "My client didn't do what the complainant accuses him of. But even if you decide he did, the complainant still has no case because the act is not unlawful."
rj
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#include "IANAL.h"
Dude, I love that! I think I may haveta borrow that... :-)
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Most ISPs have a clause saying that you are responsible for all traffic using your internet connection.
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I'ld love to see them try and enforce that,
-- We can prove you were hacked
-- We can prove that hacker then did something illegal
-- We are suing you for your unwitting participation in this string of crimes.
"THEY" don't have to prove it. (Score:3, Insightful)
The requirement on THEY is much less than you might like to believe
"THEY" have to prove your IP was the connection
then it's your responsibility to mount a defense
"YOU" have to PROVE you were hacked
then YOU must PROVE the hacker did it
Re:Title is nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
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LoL, I think countertrolling's post was an attempt at humor and/or a pun. As such, I found it humorous.
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Of course, once that defense is used commonly, there'll be a law passed that says you can't do that anymore... In fact, didn't I read something on /. about that in the past?
There was a story about the UK government wanting all WiFi owners to keep records/logs of users.
It'll be funny if they ever pass something like this considering how many people in the UK use a
ISP provided router like the BT HomeHub with open wifi and a default password.
Re:Title is nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
The BT Homehub doesn't ship with a default wifi password, or open wifi. Out of the box the first thing you must do before it will even pass wired traffic is change the admin password. It doesn't require you to change the SSID or default WPA key, which is a biggish string of alphanumerics generated by some pseudorandom process. The SSID and WPA card are supplied on a plastic card inside the box, and don't appear to be (trivially) derived from the MAC address or serial number.
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I remembered seeing a few stories about the BT HomeHub being weak.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3258-bt-to-close-remote-assistance-hole-on-home-hub.html [thinkbroadband.com]
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/10/09/bt_home_hub_vuln/ [reghardware.co.uk]
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/201312/bt-home-hub-spits-out-password-to-hackers [pcpro.co.uk]
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The newest article there is two years old, and is talking about a vulnerability in a model of Homehub that was obsolete even then ;-)
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This reminds me of members of the Liberty community who insist they don't have to pay income taxes. They use all kinds of legal arguments such as "my kids are my employees and I pay them, so I deduct that amount" or "I don't have a social security number so I don't need to pay," and so on.
Of course the judge immediately throws these arguments out. And the judge will likely throw out the "Somebody used my Wifi line to steal - it wasn't me" argument too. His goal is to enforce the law, not to let you escap
Re:Title is nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
You are yet another slashdot fool pretending to have more legal smarts than you actually have. You spew idiotic--no I dare say it--dangerous advice to a mostly unsuspecting crowd. Maybe you should sit this one out. I get mighty sick of you arm chair lawyers.
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In fact, I recall that there was a case where the BS open WiFi argument was quashed (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/04/child-porn-case-shows-that-an-open-wifi-network-is-no-defense.ars).
I wonder if you have even read the link you post. They were convicted by the huge stacks of CDs in their room. It had nothing do to with "beyond a reasonable doubt" or even "preponderance of evidence", they tried to use their wifi as reason why the police had no "probable cause" and the warrant is invalid. A wifi network the police of course had no idea existed, so despite illegal material being traced to their IP the police should do nothing on the possibility that there be might an open wifi network that
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I can see it being hard to prove that it was the student only if he had an open WiFi connection running at that time.
Or he was on a NAT device in his dorm room (like I suspect many dorms use), or a block of dorms on his floor were on a NAT device.
Lesson to be learned: if you're going to use P2P, make sure you have an open WiFi connection to throw a monkey wrench into "beyond a reasonable doubt."
That hasn't seemed relevant in any of these cases - possibly due to judges and juries not being familiar with how such things work. What one uneducated person thinks is "beyond reasonable doubt" can seem quite ridiculous to those of us here who are more tech savvy. We've seen that over the years as we've picked apart numerous fallacies in methods and/or proof in RIAA cases. Not t
Yes, well ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The case would never become a case.
These forced IP identifications are going to turn into great big fishing expeditions, where ISPs turn over lists of users data and the RIAA can play whack-a-mole.
Fuck the RIAA, and fuck any federal court asshole judge that would force ISPs to become snitches..
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Fuck the RIAA, and fuck any federal court asshole judge that would force ISPs to become snitches..
Incrementalism. There are a lot of people in government that admire the way the East Germans went about matters, and would like the U.S. to work along similar lines. They can't do it all at once, of course, but they can lay the groundwork.
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Of course, once the RIAA discovers that it has nailed a Federal judge's kid, they'd drop the case like a hot potato.
A cynical, lazy and dangerous assumption that is all too typically geek.
Spend some time talking to a kid whose father is a pastor, a policeman, a federal prosecutor or a strict "law and order" judge. It will help clear your head of such nonsense.
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Of course, once the RIAA discovers that it has nailed a Federal judge's kid, they'd drop the case like a hot potato.
A cynical, lazy and dangerous assumption that is all too typically geek.
Spend some time talking to a kid whose father is a pastor, a policeman, a federal prosecutor or a strict "law and order" judge. It will help clear your head of such nonsense.
Actually I've spoken to lawyers about it, and given the nature of the RIAA's operation, it's a very reasonable assumption, cynical or otherwise. They cherry-pick their cases. Spend some time reading about the RIAA's lawsuit mill: that will help clear your head of some obvious misunderstandings. Start with Ray Beckerman's blog, go from there.
How can he claim a right to privacy? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think we've lost sight of the bare metal workings of what the founding fathers meant them to be.
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Regardless of how you feel about copyright, let's be honest here: The "right to privacy" is a bullshit excuse when you're involved in what is, more or less, a community activity.
I think we've lost sight of the bare metal workings of what the founding fathers meant them to be.
I am not saying I agree with either point, but there is a second point that follows your basis but is contradictory to your conclusion. the "right to privacy" is a valid excuse for all of those outside the community you believe you have an expectation of privacy within. Similar to how if you went to group therapy, you would expect (either legally (therapists) or "morally" (other group participants)) that you should have a right to privacy covering your interactions within that group/community.
Again, I'm
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You fail at your argument because you are using false dichotomy, slippery slope, appeal to emotion, and appeal to fear. It is just one big fallacy.
I have lived a lifetime. You have not. I remember what America WAS. You do not. You think the slippery slope isn't real? Ok, wait.
Re:How can he claim a right to privacy? (Score:4, Interesting)
He does commit great fallacies, but an improper argument does not imply its results are wrong.
The fact is that our online interactions can be as private as husband/wife interactions, doctor/patient interactions, or lawyer/client interactions (which are all protected heavily by law). And if you are snooping a connection, you get it all, and violate that privacy regardless of how little you are searching for. We have the right to peaceful assembly, and last time I checked that didn't come with a clause saying "monitored by the government" after it.
And we do live in a damn police state (USA) whether you want to believe it or not. Children can be sent to prison at the whim of the school principle. Curfews. Drug war. Internet monitoring. Reduction of probable cause to reasonable suspicion to 'he looked funny'. Hell, in middle school I was bullied, and because of 0 tolerance policy they told me for being bullied 5 times I was involved in 5 events and could either go to juvenile detention or anger management. Virtually everything we do is controlled too far.
Have you ever actually tried to walk around and find a place where you could not be seen by cameras? They are incredibly rare. Traffic cams, if you are within 15ft. of a schools property you can easily be seen, any atm, any commercial building. This has been true whether I was in Fascist NY state, hicktown PA, Nowhere OH, Illinois or Missouri. Try just living at home. Want to walk from the shower to the bedroom naked? Don't, someone could be looking in your windows and press charges, and you could be classified as a sexual predator and the rest of your life is ruined. The standards for searches are practically non-existent, illegally obtained evidence is always used, and your local municipality can tell you what brand of toothpaste you are allowed to buy. We are living in this RIGHT NOW. No slippery slope to the future, no appeal to fear, no false dichotomy. I can walk out my door or IM a friend and this is happening. No two ways about it.
Blame the juries (Score:3, Interesting)
You are right about the whole of the western world becoming like police states, but that's mostly due to the ridiculous ease with which any individual person can win a million-dollar litigation against an organization, be it a corporation, government agency, or even a professional such as a doctor.
When juries started to automatically side with the claimant just because the other side appeared to have money, no matter which stupid thing the plaintiff did, the modern nanny state was born. A nanny state is ide
A Constitutional what now? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Implying pornographers are a bad thing.
Many, of course, are not bad 'things', or even bad people, (unless you are morally /religiously against pornography, in which case pornographers are de facto 'bad'. Some, however, are very nasty 'things' indeed, preying on the young, weak, poor, drug-addicted...
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Re:A Constitutional what now? (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymity and political speech have been connected for quite a bit of the US' history, starting even from before independence: many of the messages pushing for independence from the UK were sent around as anonymous pamphlets. So, while it may not be explicitly mentioned the inferred right to privacy and the tradition on anonymous free speech does exist. Whether either of these are applicable to a college kid sharing music is a whole other story, though.
Re:A Constitutional what now? (Score:5, Insightful)
So don't be so quick to toss away your unwritten rights, yes you do have them, and accept that the consitution is not the final paper on where your rights are. Start looking at court cases too.
Re:A Constitutional what now? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, even so privacy and anonymity are not entirely the same. I think it's most obvious if you compare "private letter" with "anonymous letter". Privacy protects the contents, anonymity the sender. Most of the privacy rights come from a reading of the 14th amendment that the state may not restrict your liberty. Some various supreme court quotes:
"While this court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."
"Whatever may be the justifications for other statutes regulating obscenity, we do not think they reach into the privacy of one's own home. If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds."
"These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define ones own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life....The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. 'It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.'
All of those deal with whether the state can regulate your personal life. There aren't really that many cases on whether you have a right to be anonymous while doing it.
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In other words, it does not appear anywhere in the Constitution, and thus is not an absolute right and so this guy's argument about having a "First Amendment right to privacy" is bullshit.
Re:A Constitutional what now? (Score:5, Informative)
This is what the supreme court said in 1995:
Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.
That's not to say that everyone doing anything bad is protected by anonymity. But it should put strong bonds on whether the government can force a company (your ISP) to disclose your personal information to a third party. For example imagine that someone anonymous is coming with scolding political criticism and you file a slander case against them, not with any intent of winning only with the intent of exposing that person. But no, the word "anonymity" is not in the constitution so the question is very much real and on topic. Shame on the moderators.
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Unfortunately, this is not about political discourse. This is about copyright law and civil litigation of same. The right to anonymous speech is not absolute, even in "democratic discourse" and political speech, ex: Someone states he is going to kill the President. In this case, a person is accused of violating the copyrights held by a different "person". That is not "democratic discourse" anymore than threatening or expressing a will to kill a government official.
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Do you think it's right to post "scolding political criticism" anonymously? Maybe what the law should be protecting is the ability to respond to your critics.
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I'm poring over the United States Constitution, as Amended, and I can't find where it grants a right to anonymity, either from the Federal government, or from other citizens. Can any confused hippies^W^W Constitutional scholars help me out here?
How about "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." So where in the Constitution does it give the government the power to invade my privacy?
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Article 1 Section 8 "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
Article 3 Section 1 "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one
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Now, please post the article and section of the Constitution of the United States where it says that you have an absolute right to privacy and anonymity.
It's because of people like you that many writers of the Constitution did not want to include the Bill of Rights.
The Constitution is not an exhaustive or complete list of your rights.
It is only a list of rights the government has.
As a concession to those who did not want the Bill of Rights,
the 9th and 10th Amendments were tacked on to the end.
You should really go back and read them [usconstitution.net].
A more appropriate challenge would be:
"please post the article and section of the Constitution of the United States where it sa
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The Constitution doesn't grant rights to citizens, it restricts the rights the Government has. Of course, there are people who feel differently. Perhaps it's time for a new constitution? That is something for the citizens to decide.
However, whichever point of view you take, the question of constitutional rights doesn't apply to this case, because Government isn't party. It's RIAA vs. some John Doe. Constitutional limits (or Constitutional Rights) are just a smokescreen. Now we are down a rabbit hole and off
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However, whichever point of view you take, the question of constitutional rights doesn't apply to this case, because Government isn't party.
On the contrary, the government is a party to this case, indirectly. The RIAA is basing its complaint on the privilege of copyright which was granted it by the government. If the government doesn't have the Constitutional authority to infringe on free speech, and enforcement of copyright in this manner would infringe on free speech, then the government cannot delegate the privilege of enforcing copyright in this manner to the RIAA.
Promised Land? BS (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:Promised Land? BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Except - I don't see any examples here of any 'loss of freedom'. John Doe was sharing copyrighted material, which has been illegal for a very long time, so being prosecuted for it hardly represents anything new.
We've never had the unlimited right to share what does not belong to us. There's nothing here preventing the defendant(s) from getting a fair trial. The unlimited 'right' to use what bought in whatever way you want has never been a right - it's strictly a creation of pirates to justify their actions. And you've never been able to claim anonymity to avoid prosecution except in the limited case of whistle blowers.
Or, in short, while your statement is essentially the 'perfect storm' of karmawhoring - it bears very little connection with reality.
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Yeah, that and the presence of file sharing software on the computers, and the open admission on the part of the defendant that he was sharing the files 'because he believed it was fair use to do so'.
Everybody except you (because of a deficiency in how you think) knows that I wasn't talking about this particular case, but in general all cases in which Intellectual Property is taken to court; people are persecuted and blackmailed under nothing but IP addresses. Please don't blame me for your inadequate ability to think straight, you can use more word play here to satisfy your ego, but it
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Re:Promised Land? BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Please show where in American history there was a time when people were free to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Remember, if there is N copies of a work in existence authorized by the copyright holder and an action occurs without the copyright holders consent after which there are N+1 copies then copying has taken place and unless it falls under fair use, which is for a court to decide, then it is copyright infringement.
Please explain how this person is not getting a fair trial.
Please explain where in U.S. law it says one has an absolute right to privacy that can not be violate, at all, ever.
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Please show where in American history there was a time when people were free to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted works.
For reference, it was between 1776 (When America was declared independent) and 1790 when America introduced their first copyright laws.
Beyond the basic facts of history, one could easily argue the time period was quite a bit larger than that, as the first copyright bill to appear similar to what we have, though a lot more limited, was not formed until the 1830's.
Since then it has mostly been extended, or expanded by signing treaties with others.
Your other points are right on, even if worded in a needlessly
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No, we aren't losing our rights. We are f-ing handing them to the man on a silver platter.
"losing" implies we put up a fight. :(
Ooooh 'trespassing intellectual property' (Score:5, Interesting)
i wonder how low u.s. judicial system will sink under the weight of the money of riaa.
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But the attorneys will make money.. More people will be ruined financially, and more will be in jail ( don't laugh, this will start happening soon, so the *AAs can transfer the cost of pursuing to the government. )
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Actually, I think this is at least amazingly better than calling it "theft". The analogy of "accessing 'content' without permission of the rightsholder" to "accessing private physical space without permission of the rightsholder" is far more rational than the usual attempt to analogize it with "removing property from the owner by force" ("theft").
As silly as it still sounds, this represents a substantial improvement.
Don't do the crime if you can't the TIME !! (Score:2, Insightful)
Time
Flowing like a river
Time
Beckoning me
Who knows when we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river
To the sea
Goodbye my love
Maybe for forever
Goodbye my love
The tide waits for me
Who knows when we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river (on and on)
To the sea, to the sea
Till it's gone forever
Gone forever
Gone forevermore
Goodbye my friends (goodbye my love, now I must leave)
Maybe for forever
Goodbye my friends (who knows when we shall meet again)
The stars wait for me
Who knows whe
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As funny as it is, I would love to know why this person picked this, of all places to post to over something like deviantart or one of the countless others, whether they come back to c
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Original? (Score:2)
Um, we've got this thing called "Google", you can type words into it and it finds pages with those words on them.
You could try it with those words...see what happens.
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How to erode Copyright+patent law (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How to erode Copyright+patent law (Score:4, Insightful)
I take the other approach. I think we need to work to make things much worse for the average user (and not so average). We need to push for laws that make IP infringement a mandatory capital offense. And then we need to make sure sons of politicians get caught, daughters of RIAA execs get caught, spouses of MPAA execs get caught. Only then will we see some change that isn't awful.
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Well, for the first part we'd just need to make sure we got enough of them. For the second, at least nepotism would be lowered?
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You do that and let me know how that works out for you, m'kay?
Re:How to erode Copyright+patent law (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it specifically you don't like about copyright and patent laws? Is it the whole thing; the whole concept? Or is it just parts (e.g. term lengths, DMCA, no protection of fair use, etc)? I don't know, perhaps it is the whole thing, and perhaps you should be violating every copyright and patent you can see. However, that being the case, good luck finding enough people for a political movement. Sure, they exist, but most people you talk to can see some utility in copyright and patent law, including most judges.
If it's not so much the entire bundle as it is certain parts, try to focus on those parts. Perhaps, if you object to DMCA, restrict yourself to distributing cracks for popular games. Or if you dislike term lengths, perhaps violate only the copyrights that are older than 20-30 years. Try to violate only what you object to.
An even better approach would be to divorce yourself from copyrighted media (or the elements you dislike). Prove to people that you, and they, can live without $BAD_FACTOR_OF_COPYRIGHT and everything that it could possibly bring. Prove that we are better off without it. It's certainly no less harmful to Big Media.
There's a lot of greed in play in the copyright debate. Not just on Big Media's side, but on both sides. It's difficult to differentiate between those who want change and those who want free stuff. Make it unavoidably clear, whatever you do, that you are not in it for the entertainment.
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asserting rights to use all human knowledge as a human right
Do you think that the world would be a better place if the only thing we valued was manual labor? If any public knowledge was worthless (in a financial sense) knowledge?
The world already experimented with the idea that "knowledge is free to all". We ended up with opaque guilds that fiercely protected their trade secrets. The Freemasons and similar groups are a throwback to when skilled labor groups used every means they had to ensure that the skills of their trade never became public knowledge. And while
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I think there's a great difference between worthless and priceless. And as for opaque and secretive medieval guilds, times have changed. Technology is no longer an arcane art known only to a few; the sciences both theoretical and practical are taught in universities and colleges the world over, the internet allows any piece of reverse-engineered information to be widely spread across the planet in moments, and even merely knowing something could be done would allow the creative output of millions of scienti
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Do you think that the world would be a better place if the only thing we valued was manual labor? If any public knowledge was worthless (in a financial sense) knowledge?
Yeah, I do.
The world already experimented with the idea that "knowledge is free to all". We ended up with opaque guilds that fiercely protected their trade secrets./quote>
In an age where dissemination of knowledge was incredibly expensive and relatively easy to trace and the average layman had even less education than a modern 4-years-old kid does. Do you really, honestly believe that 'trade secrets' could ever remain so in a world where WikiLeaks exists and thrives? that mere corporate associations would succeed where entire governments have not?
If secrecy is the worst thing you can think of then fucking bring it, go ahead and throw all this copyright crap out of the window.
Automated Fines/Taxes (Score:3, Insightful)
If *everyone* disobeys, they will just automate the process, strip of us of more rights without due process and end up just adding a RIAA tax.
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As far as I can see, the best way to change this stuff is civil disobedience - breaking the law, asserting rights to use all human knowledge as a human right, and accusing the law of denying the rights to freedom of. . . knowledge and communication. . .
So what you're saying is that Nixon was standing up for our P2P rights with Watergate. He truly was a pioneer!
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So what you're saying is that Nixon was standing up for our P2P rights with Watergate. He truly was a pioneer!
Quite obviously false - he was *destroying* information!
Right to anonymity? I don't think so. (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a right to communicate anonymously. This is protected by the first amendment and anyone who stands in your way of doing so is committing a crime.
You do NOT have the right to force others to act as if you are anonymous after you communicate non-anonymously. This is not protected by anything, and is pretty stupid.
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"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
and the "against unreasonable searches and seizures" part of your digital papers, and effects.
The idea that your home could be raided on some virtual "see
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you do not have the right to break the law (Score:2, Insightful)
All these comments about privacy. My understanding of our basic rights is that we have them as long as they don't infringe upon the rights of others. All of you are blindly trying to say we all have the right to P2P. While true, we do not have the right to hand out our music or games to others for free. It is one thing to burn a friend a cd of some songs, its entirely different to burn 1000 discs and hand them out blindly. You would be infringing upon someone's right to make a living. (yes even the ev
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"While true, we do not have the right to hand out our music or games to others for free."
Oh yes you do. The number given away is irrelevant. When you buy something it is yours, period, to do with what you like and that includes giving it away. It's called the right of ownership and it's a very basic right in this country. Never mind the number of wars fought over that right. Stop beating around the bush, this is what it's really about. Remember that original copyright law states giving a limited monopoly to
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The essential point of piracy is the destruction of revenue from digital goods. If someone can sell it, then it can be redistributed for free making the original seller give up on selling it. You can't compete with free.
This has already happened in China with music - officially there is no more music sold in China. It is very soon to happen in the US. Sure iTunes sells millions of songs a year - but they have maybe 2% of the overall download marketplace with the rest being free and usually pirated. iTu
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That is a bald-faced lie. It is, in fact, limited by law to "70 years after the death of the author. If the work was a work for hire (e.g., those created by a corporation) then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication". That is in no way unlimited.
First Amendment right? (Score:2)
I would think this is more of a 4th amendment thing.
Re:why do people get so riled up protecting thieve (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright infringement is neither Piracy OR Theft, despite what the RIAA/MPAA FUD would have you believe.
It is still illegal though and yes I agree that ISPs should be required to hand over subscriber details but ONLY after the copyright holder has shown proof that was sharing at .
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ISPs should be required to hand over subscriber details but ONLY after the copyright holder has shown proof that was sharing at .
how about after a legally obtained warrant has been given to the ISP by a law enforcement officer
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I am not quite sure about the last bit of your post, but if I am reading it right, you are asking for a catch-22 involving all civil suits and subpoenas.
The purpose of the subpoena is to gather evidence in a case, but you want the case to be proved before the subpoena is served. If the case is proved, then the subpoena is not necessary, but if the case is not proved you don't want them to be able to get a subpoena to gather evidence to prove the case.
This would be a double-edged sword because then if one wi
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Copyright infringement is neither Piracy OR Theft
Unless you speak English. If all you can speak is Legalese, then you may have a point, but I don't think I'd want to have a conversation with you in that case! :)
In plain English, Forbidden Planet stole from Shakespeare, even though no laws at all were broken.
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As simple as that, eh?
What about the law that protects these works for what many would view as an overly long and culturally/intellectually/societally injurious length of time?
Oh, right, change the laws.
What about the legal system that favors the powerful corporations who lobby to have these protections put up in the first place?
Why not boycott the companies and stop buying their products so they fail.
What about the fact that people are, and yet these entities are so large and so entrenched that nothing les
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If you think it's important and it should be changed get up off your ass and do something about it. Is changing laws, culture and government easy? No, but considering in America both women and African Americans managed to change all of those things without the right to vote I don't have much sympathy for the "I want to download Avatar for free" crowd.
Either get off your ass and do something or shut the fuck up. Bitching on the internet that change is hard is LITERALLY the least you can do.
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And really, that's my problem with the pirates and why they get so little sympathy from the general public - their argument ultimately boils down "I don't want to respect anyone's rights and want everyone else to be forced to give up their rights". Then this guy
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I think the vast majority of people realized how corrupt the Supreme Court was after the 2000 Bush vs. Gore decision that essentially gave the presidential election to Bush
If they had decided the other way, wouldn't many people have a legal argument in favor of the proposition that they essentially gave the presidential election to Gore? There were lawyers on both sides of the controversy. If it was an open and shut case, it would never have gone to trial in the first place.
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I think the real issue is that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction, and certainly no precedent, in treading the waters they did. The most insulting aspect of their decision was declaring it a one-time, unique situation that could not be used in the future as precedent.
They used an injunction to prevent the completion of the Florida recount, and after 2 days of "deliberation" declared the recount a failure because it had gone past its original stated deadline. The disingenuity of the SCOTUS's tactics w