File-Sharers IDENTIFIED

[TheShrike]

1/22/03 - Washington Post
"Judge Orders Verizon to Identify Internet Customer Who Used Music-File-Sharing Service"

Ok, aparently here's the situation:
Recently U.S. District judge John Bates ruled that Verizon must hand over the identity of one of it's customers suspected of illegally trading music files to the RIAA (Recording Industry Assosiation of America).

In other words, for the first time, the governement is telling your ISP that they must hand over your identity if you're suspected of using P2P software.

Now, reading further into the article you'd find out that this person is suspected of downloading nearly 600 songs per day using Kazaa. Is it just me, or does this sound fishy to anyone? My take is that yeah, filesharing happens... but 600 files per day?? How large is this guy's hard disk, and where can I buy one?

After reading the article I think the RIAA has a judge in it's back pocket, and decided to set up the whole thing to push a reinterpretation of the 1998 DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) which busted Napster.
Under this law, companies like Napster had to bear the responsibility of what their customers did... ISPs never had to fork over info due to customer privacy. Now, it would seem Lars Ulrich and Dr Dre are coming straight to your house, and they're not happy.

The music industry (whose sales exceed american auto and computer sales) still doesn't seem to understand that file-sharing is good. I know a few albums I wouldn't have bought if not for having heard an mp3... (I actually like Avril Lagvine.. or however you spell it.) and more than a few to steer clear of because of only one decent song on the whole cd.

So.... what does everyone think?

[House-Of-Leaves]

I think it's sad.

I think it's just another step toward taking away our freedoms, slowly but surely. I also think that one of the greatest things in the world is our anonimity, our sense of privacy and protection.

Sure, it may not seem like a huge deal. It's only P2P file sharing, after all. But it's the start of what? Something bigger, maybe?

I know, I sound like a freakin' conspiracy theorist. But it's scary to think about.

Also...the 600 files a day is MORE than fucked up. Seriously? I think the only way a person could honestly do that is if they had more than one machine working at the same time. And a lightning fast connection.

[AlphaFactor]

Man, I don't wanna move to friggin' Canada!! Everyone eats whale blubber there...

[Ted-Easton]

(through a mouth full of whale blubber) Wha..?? ISPs handing over identities?? hmmmm...

What is odd about some of these companies suing Napster/Kazaa, etc. Is that a lot of these companies are making Mp3 players, which is profiting off of it. If napster/kazaa didnt exist, we wouldn't have a market for Mp3 Players.

[Demon-machinE]

What a dumbass thing, they got ridda nap, which i didnt like personally, it sucked for dialup, but now kazaa is in shit?! bulshit if you ask me, i heard a cradle of filth song on tv, then downloaded 3 of their songs, then bought 4 of their albums!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!! they're not profiting from p2p... eliminating kazaa would be stupid, theres still morpheus and stuff like that

one more thing , neone have mIRC? i dont but my friend does, i think that should be the target if anything, he got THE RING off that before it came TO THEATERS! and they target kazaa? mIRC gives child porn and stuff like that out too, hardcore stuff, videos included, that should be the target, not kazaa, kazaa is harmless if you ask me

[TheShrike]

At 1/24/03 03:00 PM, Demon_machinE wrote: one more thing , neone have mIRC? i dont but my friend does, i think that should be the target if anything, he got THE RING off that before it came TO THEATERS! and they target kazaa? mIRC gives child porn and stuff like that out too, hardcore stuff, videos included, that should be the target, not kazaa, kazaa is harmless if you ask me

Idiot.
programs like mIRC are the only reason programs like kazaa/napster/limewire/morpheus/KDX/Gnutella, etc even exist. The whole P2P software idea was totally unoriginal.
And you can find all that fuckd up shit on those programs, too.

The point is this: the government should leave the whole issue alone, they don't need to take away our freedoms, and ordering an ISP to hand over customer data for anything less than absolute evil is beyond fucked up.
the fact that they're ordering that the info be given to the record industry is the worst part.

[TheShrike]

Read The Story Here

Link goes to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24577-2003Jan21.html

[Demon-machinE]

At 1/24/03 03:41 PM, TheShrike wrote:

At 1/24/03 03:00 PM, Demon_machinE wrote: one more thing , neone have mIRC? i dont but my friend does, i think that should be the target if anything, he got THE RING off that before it came TO THEATERS! and they target kazaa? mIRC gives child porn and stuff like that out too, hardcore stuff, videos included, that should be the target, not kazaa, kazaa is harmless if you ask me

Idiot.
programs like mIRC are the only reason programs like kazaa/napster/limewire/morpheus/KDX/Gnutella, etc even exist. The whole P2P software idea was totally unoriginal.
And you can find all that fuckd up shit on those programs, too.

The point is this: the government should leave the whole issue alone, they don't need to take away our freedoms, and ordering an ISP to hand over customer data for anything less than absolute evil is beyond fucked up.
the fact that they're ordering that the info be given to the record industry is the worst part.

u fuckin DIPSHIT! i said IF ANYTHING!!!! IF ANYTHING DUMBASS!!!! i used it as an example becuz it has more stuff than kazaa, WAY more stuff, that program is far worse if you ask me, but hell I USE KAZAA , i dont want it gone, i dont want mIRC gone either, but out of them all, that one is the worst, get my point yet?! dont be an asshole next time u fucker

[Nevah73]

I'm very frightened now.

What if they target me? Or any of the other millions who use KazAa? What if they target you? I can't afford any lawsuits, neither can my family... Of course, I doubt the RIAA would wage a class-action suit against a million people, especially me, who pretty much only downloads classical music and music that one can basically no longer find...

[Kev-Dawg]

At 1/24/03 02:15 AM, House_Of_Leaves wrote: I think it's sad.

I think it's just another step toward taking away our freedoms, slowly but surely. I also think that one of the greatest things in the world is our anonimity, our sense of privacy and protection.

It's true, they are taking away our freedom.

Sure, it may not seem like a huge deal. It's only P2P file sharing, after all. But it's the start of what? Something bigger, maybe?

It is. When Hitler rose to power he didn't suddenly hit people with all sorts of laws and penalties. He sort of 'weened' the people off their freedom and privacy.

I know, I sound like a freakin' conspiracy theorist. But it's scary to think about.

It happens. Big corporations intentionally hinder technological progress so people will continue to need to pay for their product, like energy companies:

see also: oil companies
see also: car manufacturers
see also: insurance providers

Also...the 600 files a day is MORE than fucked up. Seriously? I think the only way a person could honestly do that is if they had more than one machine working at the same time. And a lightning fast connection.

I dunno, maybe he owns a business and happens to have a bunch of computers and a T1 connection.

[porkchop-t]

These greedy record companies just want all the money they can get! We should all rebel!

[Ted-Easton]

The artists and record companies aren't going broke by ANY standards. The fact that they are doing this proves their greed, and the fact that they are only making this music for the money.
They should be making it for the fans, and for themselves. As long as the music gets to the fans, that's all that should matter.
But the fact that tey would HUNT DOWN people who download music, it proves that they are only making it for the money. Pure greed.

[TheShrike]

The real question I hoped to raise (and a few people caught it), is 600 mp3s per day????
think about this....
Say the average filesize of the mp3s he was downloading were 3.5 megs a peice.
600x3.5Mb= 2,100 Mb (2.05 Gb)
or 87.5 Mb/hour...
1.45 Mb/minute...
25.49 Kb/second...
Now, this is totally possible to do in one day, if you knew the names of all the songs and artists, and they were all available on the network, and you had at least cable or DSL, and you were downloading them all at the same steady speed for 24 hrs... If anyone on this board has ever used P2P, they'd know it doesn't always work like that.
So, what this person allegedly did is theoretically possible for home users to do...

But...
Even though hard drives are getting larger, he could've only done this for a maximum of 4 or 5 days on a 100 GIGABYTE hard drive, and that's assuming that all of the above conditions were true. What about larger files? Network slowdown during peak hours, etc....

btw, a 3.5 Mb mp3 running 4 or so minutes is generally gonna have a bitrate of 128.... hardly CD quality.

[JudgeDredd]

At 1/24/03 01:18 AM, TheShrike wrote: 1/22/03 - Washington Post
"Judge Orders Verizon to Identify Internet Customer Who Used Music-File-Sharing Service"..the whole thing based on a reinterpretation of the 1998 DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) which busted Napster.

The music industry (whose sales exceed american auto and computer sales) still doesn't seem to understand that file-sharing is good.

So.... what does everyone think?

I totally agree. Music is creative expression. When companies first "mass produced" records they made a bomb in profits. RCA Records, for example, poured a lot of it's profits into making land mines and shit ..actually from sales of "hippy style" love'n'peace record sales. (..heh! ..go figure that one out!? ;O)_*

America's Founding Fathers wrote a copyright legislation of 25 years into the "declaration of independance" ..to protect the rights of Authors (who's books NEEDED to be mass produced for educational purposes) But 10 RECENT amendments (last one in 1999) bumped this up to 75 years.. (plus another 20 years IF ITS A CORPORATION ..this was to protect Disneys Mickey Mouse character ..(so not surprisingly, it's now dubbed the "mickey mouse law")

Now that digital copying is ubiquitous, it's time to say Remixing is Legal - DJ-ing is Legal - All creative arts based copyrights are Void. 6 billion people shouldn't have to fear endless parades of Coporate Lawyers trying to making millions ...while future creative Artists and Musicians STARVE.

There are limited mixable sounds in the Universe (sound is just a shared "language")..
Photos of mountains shouldn't be copyright.. so ALL this type of shit has to die!!!

[Alakazam]

All of this is rather moot isn't it? The fact is downloading music, videos, or software that you do not orginally own is illegal and companies have every legal right to come after you. You are stealing their product. This is an information based society and people lay claim against information and services rather than an actual product. Although there are still manufacturing aspects left in society.

The problem that I have, is I do not want any mojo who sells a service or information based "product" come after me. That should be left up to the authorities. Verizon is inadventantly aiding a person in theft. But their point is, they are afraid of any mojo who has any little old piece of copyrighted information to make a complaint and they [or for that matter any ISP] to hand over your info. That is what I have beef with.

[TheMDude]

I wish that the RIAA would just get off it and give up. As long as we continue to live in a fast and easy society, there will be fast and easy music.

[TheShrike]

At 1/26/03 08:35 PM, Alakazam wrote: All of this is rather moot isn't it? The fact is downloading music, videos, or software that you do not orginally own is illegal and companies have every legal right to come after you. You are stealing their product.

Stealing? No... it was decided that people could use vhs to record tv, and tape cassettes to record radio.
You couldn't sell what you recorded, but you could share.

Mp3 is no different. Mp3 technology is not CD audio quality, and the average mp3 is 128 kbps. (or roughly FM radio quality)

[JudgeDredd]

At 1/26/03 08:35 PM, Alakazam wrote: All of this is rather moot isn't it? The fact is downloading music, videos, or software that you do not orginally own is illegal and companies have every legal right to come after you. You are stealing their product. This is an information based society and people lay claim against information and services rather than an actual product. Although there are still manufacturing aspects left in society.

Right now i'm on KaZaA DL-ing RedHat 8 (5 CD's on 56k) and that doesn't make sense. For several years we could buy CD distributions in the local paper, but this month there arn't any Linux re-sellers "advertising".

Also i DL a 5th generation remix from a Russian or German composer whos music i would otherwise never come across in CD (manufactured) form - we don't all have the same "pop radio" tastes!

Now any kid with a DVD writer can make Hollywood movies on their home PC, and within 2 or 3 years we will be flooded with DIGITAL CONCEPTS in media form.. WHO IS GONNA SAY THIS OR THAT LITTLE PIECE IS COPIED?!?!

Remember "PIRATE RADIO" ..now we have "PIRATE WAREZ" ..someday it'll be "PIRATE OXYGEN" ..such is the way of the "traditional business model" ..which WAS based on SCARE AND LIMITED RESOURCES (oldskool economics) ..but digital information freely reproduced ... so who gets hurt in this "invisible" theft??

[Ryu-Kage]

Even If RIAA got what they wanted , They can't eliminate piracy entirely.Evey thrick come up with can be countered. Like those so-called "copy-proff" CDs It's so simple to counteract that, I mean who would thougt a magic marker could counter it. and with some minor adjustment with the CD ripping software it makes it useless. But Believe me none this would've happend If RIAA went the other way.
So what, A little competition wouldn't hurt them. But unfortunatly for them,Thier greed has given serval nails in coffin,And not to mention The fact they couldn't give consumers something worth buying. This whole P2P stuff couldn't have come at better time, ie. Boy bands,Britney ruling the airwaves. I should say to the RIAA that Give it up the jeannie's out of the bottle,You brought this on yourselves and pretty soon the fianl nial in your coffin is coming.

[TheShrike]

At 1/28/03 09:03 AM, Ryu_Kage wrote: Even If RIAA got what they wanted , They can't eliminate piracy entirely.Evey thrick come up with can be countered. Like those so-called "copy-proff" CDs It's so simple to counteract that, I mean who would thougt a magic marker could counter it.

I've actually hear that electrical tape is much better, that way you can take the cd back to the store and complain that it won't work, And it crashed my computer... The store clerk looks at a cd in perfect condition, and realizes one of two things:
1) ahhh... it's a defective cd.
2) This idiot put it in the computer. Oh well, no use trying to educate the ignorant and unwilling to learn...

Now that's having your cake and eating it, too