The Copyright Alert System
October 21, 2012 8:15 AM Subscribe
Over the course of the next two months, each participating ISP [*AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon] expects to begin rolling out its version of the [Copyright Alert System] – a system through which ISPs will pass on to their subscribers notices sent by content owners alleging copyright infringement over peer-to-peer networks. Educational alerts will come first, followed by acknowledgement alerts that require the recipients to let their ISP know they have received the notices. For accounts where alleged infringing activity continues, enhanced alerts that contain “mitigation measures” will follow. - Jill Lesser, Executive Director, Center for Copyright Information
... mitigation measures might include temporary reductions of Internet speeds, redirection to a landing page until the subscriber contacts the ISP to discuss the matter or reviews and responds to educational information about copyright, or other measures that the ISP may deem necessary to help resolve the matter.
... mitigation measures might include temporary reductions of Internet speeds, redirection to a landing page until the subscriber contacts the ISP to discuss the matter or reviews and responds to educational information about copyright, or other measures that the ISP may deem necessary to help resolve the matter.
In addition to the ISPs, the founding members of the CCI include the MPAA and the RIAA.
Ms. Lesser is a former lobbyist for AOL Time Warner.
posted by Egg Shen at 8:18 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Ms. Lesser is a former lobbyist for AOL Time Warner.
posted by Egg Shen at 8:18 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
So with some IP spoofing one can knock any disliked person/organisation off the net? Great plan(!).
posted by jaduncan at 8:22 AM on October 21, 2012 [15 favorites]
posted by jaduncan at 8:22 AM on October 21, 2012 [15 favorites]
Before a Mitigation Measure is imposed, a subscriber may request independent review. To request an independent review, there is a $35 filing fee, which is waivable by the independent review body.
...
Under this system, when a subscriber receives an alert which indicates that a Mitigation Measure is pending – but before it is imposed, a subscriber may request independent review to invalidate the alert and avoid any Mitigation if s/he believe s that the alert is not justified.
Well, I guess if you need a template by which to create a system like this, the Catholic church ca. 1500 is as good an example as any.
posted by griphus at 8:24 AM on October 21, 2012 [12 favorites]
...
Under this system, when a subscriber receives an alert which indicates that a Mitigation Measure is pending – but before it is imposed, a subscriber may request independent review to invalidate the alert and avoid any Mitigation if s/he believe s that the alert is not justified.
Well, I guess if you need a template by which to create a system like this, the Catholic church ca. 1500 is as good an example as any.
posted by griphus at 8:24 AM on October 21, 2012 [12 favorites]
Ars Technica: "Six strikes" system goes live this fall, appeals to cost $35 - "Trained professionals and automated processes" will identify illegal downloads.
How A Single DMCA Notice Took Down 1.45 Million Education Blogs
WIRED: Copyright Scofflaws Beware: ISPs to Begin Monitoring Illicit File Sharing
EFF: SOPA Is Dead, Says MPAA's Chris Dodd - What Comes Next?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:24 AM on October 21, 2012 [4 favorites]
How A Single DMCA Notice Took Down 1.45 Million Education Blogs
WIRED: Copyright Scofflaws Beware: ISPs to Begin Monitoring Illicit File Sharing
EFF: SOPA Is Dead, Says MPAA's Chris Dodd - What Comes Next?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:24 AM on October 21, 2012 [4 favorites]
PS: obviously next generation filesharing networks thank you for your help, CCI; I think the level of interest and patch submission rate for secure P2P is about to go way, way up.
posted by jaduncan at 8:24 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by jaduncan at 8:24 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Wow. So the ISPs compete against each other by advertising how fast they are, but if you use that speed that they advertised and you paid for in a way they don't approve of, they can reeducate you? It's the free market in action!
posted by Kevin Street at 8:25 AM on October 21, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by Kevin Street at 8:25 AM on October 21, 2012 [4 favorites]
Well, this will shut down just about every free-but-limited public service open WiFi access point in this town. :/
posted by introp at 8:25 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by introp at 8:25 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Once again I thank god that our ISP, Charter, doesn't seem to hop onto these bullshit ideas.
posted by symbioid at 8:32 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by symbioid at 8:32 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Isn't this easily defeated by a simple $10 per month VPN account?
posted by COD at 8:42 AM on October 21, 2012
posted by COD at 8:42 AM on October 21, 2012
I'm going to put all of my personal songs / recordings from my home studio on a BitTorrent site, label them all "Stairway to Heaven," and wait for the hilarity to ensue.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:43 AM on October 21, 2012 [8 favorites]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:43 AM on October 21, 2012 [8 favorites]
Not to sound like a freemarketeer, but don't ISPs have competition which won't do these things? People who can understand the issues could find ISPs who work for the customer, not the RIAA/MPAA.
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:49 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:49 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
If this system is at least as accurate as Comcast's "We've detected your computer has a bot" security warning system, then I predict a ginormous cluster-fuck of false-positives and stonewalling ISPs.
But, hey, what's $35 every time you need to have your case "reviewed"? This is the market working things out, right? Consumers rejoice!
posted by Thorzdad at 8:49 AM on October 21, 2012
But, hey, what's $35 every time you need to have your case "reviewed"? This is the market working things out, right? Consumers rejoice!
posted by Thorzdad at 8:49 AM on October 21, 2012
Not to sound like a freemarketeer, but don't ISPs have competition which won't do these things?
Nope.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:51 AM on October 21, 2012 [27 favorites]
Nope.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:51 AM on October 21, 2012 [27 favorites]
Not to sound like a freemarketeer, but don't ISPs have competition which won't do these things? People who can understand the issues could find ISPs who work for the customer, not the RIAA/MPAA.
In my area, I can choose between Comcast and AT&T. Period. This is the case for most of the country, unless you want to devolve back to dial-up.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:51 AM on October 21, 2012 [12 favorites]
In my area, I can choose between Comcast and AT&T. Period. This is the case for most of the country, unless you want to devolve back to dial-up.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:51 AM on October 21, 2012 [12 favorites]
//Not to sound like a freemarketeer, but don't ISPs have competition which won't do these things?//
No really. Most people have at best 2 choices for an ISP. The market to provide phone / cable / Internet is highly regulated.
posted by COD at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2012
No really. Most people have at best 2 choices for an ISP. The market to provide phone / cable / Internet is highly regulated.
posted by COD at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2012
but don't ISPs have competition which won't do these things
You can quite often simply cut off this question before "which" and the answer is no.
posted by weston at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
You can quite often simply cut off this question before "which" and the answer is no.
posted by weston at 8:53 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
The market to provide phone / cable / Internet is highly regulated.
To be fair, it isn't "regulation" per-se at work here. The ISP situation is an outgrowth of that time back in the 70's and 80's when cable television was starting to grow. Municipalities were eager to get cable into their communities, while the cable companies were looking at enormous build-out costs. So, the Cableco's demanded exclusive territorial rights from the municipalities, giving them a lock on the market, in order to better cover their costs and ensure profit.
This worked fine during the early days of the internet, when dial-up was the only game in town, and didn't affect cable. But, once broadband became viable, cableco's saw the potential and leveraged their existing monopolies to corner the ISP market.
Cableco's now spend a great deal of money making sure their monopolies stay intact, fighting efforts on the part of cities to open-up the broadband markets.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:03 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
To be fair, it isn't "regulation" per-se at work here. The ISP situation is an outgrowth of that time back in the 70's and 80's when cable television was starting to grow. Municipalities were eager to get cable into their communities, while the cable companies were looking at enormous build-out costs. So, the Cableco's demanded exclusive territorial rights from the municipalities, giving them a lock on the market, in order to better cover their costs and ensure profit.
This worked fine during the early days of the internet, when dial-up was the only game in town, and didn't affect cable. But, once broadband became viable, cableco's saw the potential and leveraged their existing monopolies to corner the ISP market.
Cableco's now spend a great deal of money making sure their monopolies stay intact, fighting efforts on the part of cities to open-up the broadband markets.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:03 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Is regulated really the right term? Given the unfettered capacity to monopolize regional markets it sounds to me like it is highly unregulated.
posted by TwelveTwo at 9:05 AM on October 21, 2012 [10 favorites]
posted by TwelveTwo at 9:05 AM on October 21, 2012 [10 favorites]
In other news, this morning I look a little less dumb for buying DSL through CenturyLink.
posted by Apropos of Something at 9:07 AM on October 21, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by Apropos of Something at 9:07 AM on October 21, 2012 [4 favorites]
I'm not worried, because I get my DSL through Verizon, and I fully expect them to be every bit as competent at this as they are at everything else.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2012 [5 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2012 [5 favorites]
So with some IP spoofing one can knock any disliked person/organisation off the net?
To be fair, you can't usually spoof a full IP connection, you can only spoof the initial source packets. (this is because the answering packet is sent to the spoofee, not to you.) Unless you're directly on the wire between the two machines, so that you can see all the traffic passing back and forth, you can't impersonate enough of an IP connection to incriminate anyone for copyright infringement, and even then the connection will look really funny, because the spoofee will be telling the target machine that it has no idea what's going on, at the same time that you're sending packets that pretend like it does. You'd have to actually control a router between the two machines to successfully and invisibly spoof a full connection, because then you could block the confused 'bug off creepface' packets from your spoofee.
Not impossible, but it's not something your average script kiddie is going to be doing.
posted by Malor at 9:10 AM on October 21, 2012 [7 favorites]
To be fair, you can't usually spoof a full IP connection, you can only spoof the initial source packets. (this is because the answering packet is sent to the spoofee, not to you.) Unless you're directly on the wire between the two machines, so that you can see all the traffic passing back and forth, you can't impersonate enough of an IP connection to incriminate anyone for copyright infringement, and even then the connection will look really funny, because the spoofee will be telling the target machine that it has no idea what's going on, at the same time that you're sending packets that pretend like it does. You'd have to actually control a router between the two machines to successfully and invisibly spoof a full connection, because then you could block the confused 'bug off creepface' packets from your spoofee.
Not impossible, but it's not something your average script kiddie is going to be doing.
posted by Malor at 9:10 AM on October 21, 2012 [7 favorites]
It's going to cost $35 to show some asshole the big Creative Commons stamp on every media file I download? I am extremely far from being AL, but is the idea behind having this be something carried out by private entities a way of circumventing accusations of a "chilling effect" on free speech, or what?
posted by kengraham at 9:10 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by kengraham at 9:10 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
spitbull: Anyone want to trade mix cassettes?
Well, mix USB keys, more likely. :)
Great nick, by the way.
posted by Malor at 9:11 AM on October 21, 2012
Well, mix USB keys, more likely. :)
Great nick, by the way.
posted by Malor at 9:11 AM on October 21, 2012
And, since everyone who does any serious amount of downloading is doing it through some sort of tunnel, this will inconvenience everyone, create false accusations, catch no one meaningful, and bother the technologically sophisticated not at all. Oh! I see, it's like the TSA, just online!
posted by tyllwin at 9:11 AM on October 21, 2012 [17 favorites]
posted by tyllwin at 9:11 AM on October 21, 2012 [17 favorites]
Thorzdad, the cable companies have been uniformly unsuccessful in keeping out competition. The telephone companies have overbuilt competing DSL or fiber bandwidth for the large majority of cable houses passed, and have been able to obtain government franchises to deliver television service over those connections just about as fast as they have been willing to build out the networks fast enough to do so.
The constraint is the cost of building and upgrading networks, and the uncertain returns of the same due to (among other things) the fear that piracy will eventually undermine subscription rates to television service. It should tell you something that Verizon -- which can borrow billions at low single digit interest rates -- has essentially halted the build-out of FiOS, and isn't exactly pouring money into upgrading DSL in the markets where FiOS isn't going to be built out.
posted by MattD at 9:13 AM on October 21, 2012
The constraint is the cost of building and upgrading networks, and the uncertain returns of the same due to (among other things) the fear that piracy will eventually undermine subscription rates to television service. It should tell you something that Verizon -- which can borrow billions at low single digit interest rates -- has essentially halted the build-out of FiOS, and isn't exactly pouring money into upgrading DSL in the markets where FiOS isn't going to be built out.
posted by MattD at 9:13 AM on October 21, 2012
I'm sitting in St Paul, MN. My VPN terminates in Romania. Your move, Comcast.
posted by nathan_teske at 9:13 AM on October 21, 2012 [7 favorites]
posted by nathan_teske at 9:13 AM on October 21, 2012 [7 favorites]
Is regulated really the right term?
Absolutely. The cable companies are regulated by the best laws their money can buy.
posted by Malor at 9:14 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Absolutely. The cable companies are regulated by the best laws their money can buy.
posted by Malor at 9:14 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
In general, the objection that some people can evade the constraints is hardly an invalid one. Retailers don't need to stop every shoplifter -- they just need to make shoplifting too risky and inconvenient for most people.
posted by MattD at 9:15 AM on October 21, 2012
posted by MattD at 9:15 AM on October 21, 2012
Retailers don't need to stop every shoplifter -- they just need to make shoplifting too risky and inconvenient for most people.
Right, but in this case, the 'retailer' can punish you without a court being involved.
posted by Malor at 9:17 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Right, but in this case, the 'retailer' can punish you without a court being involved.
posted by Malor at 9:17 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
So, it is more like going to a country bar where they keep a rifle under the counter and the wild eyed bartender is a prohibitionist?
posted by TwelveTwo at 9:22 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by TwelveTwo at 9:22 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
[The Register]:AT&T's six strikes scheme is similar to that run by the French government under the name Hadopi, although the French system is seems tougher – it only allows for three strikes. So far the Gallic scheme has sent out over a million emails warning internet users who have been suspected of piracy. That country's government has spent around €12m a year since 2010 on the agency, which employs 60 copyright police.
The net result of all that effort is that no one has been prosecuted under the scheme, and peer-to-peer use in France actually went up after it was started. The new French administration is now considering cutting the scheme as a waste of taxpayer money, although Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein loves it.
posted by DreamerFi at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2012 [6 favorites]
The net result of all that effort is that no one has been prosecuted under the scheme, and peer-to-peer use in France actually went up after it was started. The new French administration is now considering cutting the scheme as a waste of taxpayer money, although Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein loves it.
posted by DreamerFi at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2012 [6 favorites]
Anyone doing pirate these days without a trustworthy(*) VPN is crazy.
posted by stbalbach at 9:25 AM on October 21, 2012 [23 favorites]
posted by stbalbach at 9:25 AM on October 21, 2012 [23 favorites]
hm. I just got a fancy new router with dual-band antennas and i've been wondering what to do with the A-band.
I'm going to use my seedbox to torrent as much popular stuff as I can, build a pringles can antennae, and make a network called 'come_get_your_free_shit" that blankets my entire neighborhood. The only way to stop, or even detect it, would be to wardrive my neighborhood. I'm not really too worried about TWC doing that.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:26 AM on October 21, 2012
I'm going to use my seedbox to torrent as much popular stuff as I can, build a pringles can antennae, and make a network called 'come_get_your_free_shit" that blankets my entire neighborhood. The only way to stop, or even detect it, would be to wardrive my neighborhood. I'm not really too worried about TWC doing that.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:26 AM on October 21, 2012
So there'll likely be an uptick in VPN adoption. What'll be the ISP's next move?
posted by arcticseal at 9:31 AM on October 21, 2012
posted by arcticseal at 9:31 AM on October 21, 2012
This is why I host my seedbox on a different continent.
posted by ryanrs at 9:38 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by ryanrs at 9:38 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
OK so now the Skynet is here. When does it become sentient?
(Obviously it will never be physically possible to send terminators backwards in time.)
posted by bukvich at 9:43 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
(Obviously it will never be physically possible to send terminators backwards in time.)
posted by bukvich at 9:43 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
I almost never torrent stuff, but when I do, it's generally things which are out of print or otherwise impossible to find. Explain to me like I'm a five year old what it is the kids today are doing instead of torrent clients.
posted by dejah420 at 10:17 AM on October 21, 2012
posted by dejah420 at 10:17 AM on October 21, 2012
stbalbach : Anyone doing pirate these days without a trustworthy(*) VPN is crazy.
Nah, Malor already nailed it. Most of the piracy nowadays happens entirely offline - And realistically, it always has; the internet just made a certain portion of it much, much more visible.
Once upon a time we had the expression, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes". To see the modern version of that in action, Hand one of your younger friends at work a thumbdrive and ask him to hook you up with some good music - The next day you'll have 32GB of assorted tunes, which comes out to about 400-500 albums at Lame MP3 preset, or around 100 albums if you have an audiophile friend who only uses lossless.
/ Which for those keeping score, carries a MINIMUM fine (at an average of three minutes per song) of 5.7 million dollars (and up to 1.14 BILLION dollars) in the US.
posted by pla at 10:18 AM on October 21, 2012 [15 favorites]
Nah, Malor already nailed it. Most of the piracy nowadays happens entirely offline - And realistically, it always has; the internet just made a certain portion of it much, much more visible.
Once upon a time we had the expression, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes". To see the modern version of that in action, Hand one of your younger friends at work a thumbdrive and ask him to hook you up with some good music - The next day you'll have 32GB of assorted tunes, which comes out to about 400-500 albums at Lame MP3 preset, or around 100 albums if you have an audiophile friend who only uses lossless.
/ Which for those keeping score, carries a MINIMUM fine (at an average of three minutes per song) of 5.7 million dollars (and up to 1.14 BILLION dollars) in the US.
posted by pla at 10:18 AM on October 21, 2012 [15 favorites]
thsmchnekllsfascists: "I'm going to use my seedbox to torrent as much popular stuff as I can, build a pringles can antennae, and make a network called 'come_get_your_free_shit""
The traffic is all going to your router so you will be held accountable for the file sharing, and if you argue that it was other people doing it on your connection you have an item in your TOS that says you will not act as an ISP. Either way you'll potentially be in trouble.
posted by idiopath at 10:19 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
The traffic is all going to your router so you will be held accountable for the file sharing, and if you argue that it was other people doing it on your connection you have an item in your TOS that says you will not act as an ISP. Either way you'll potentially be in trouble.
posted by idiopath at 10:19 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Y'know, for an irrevocable guarantee of perpetual net neutrality, I think we might be able to talk.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 10:21 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 10:21 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
To be fair, you can't usually spoof a full IP connection, you can only spoof the initial source packets.
Sure. You have more faith in the bot writers than I do, clearly.
posted by jaduncan at 10:46 AM on October 21, 2012
Sure. You have more faith in the bot writers than I do, clearly.
posted by jaduncan at 10:46 AM on October 21, 2012
The traffic is all going to your router so you will be held accountable for the file sharing, and if you argue that it was other people doing it on your connection you have an item in your TOS that says you will not act as an ISP. Either way you'll potentially be in trouble.
I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but I assume that the seedbox is on the LAN and that's why the neighbourhood would need to be wardriven. The chances of that are approximately zero.
posted by jaduncan at 10:51 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but I assume that the seedbox is on the LAN and that's why the neighbourhood would need to be wardriven. The chances of that are approximately zero.
posted by jaduncan at 10:51 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Sometimes I get the impression people won't be happy until ISPs hand out free copies of every piece of software or book or TV show ever made.
This hardly seems like some sort of fascist totalitarian imposition to me.
posted by Justinian at 10:56 AM on October 21, 2012
This hardly seems like some sort of fascist totalitarian imposition to me.
posted by Justinian at 10:56 AM on October 21, 2012
Sometimes I get the impression people won't be happy until ISPs hand out free copies of every piece of software or book or TV show ever made.
This hardly seems like some sort of fascist totalitarian imposition to me.
This is a plan under which millions of people will be falsely accused of crimes and the only way to appeal the false accusations (in order to not have your internet throttled and eventually cut off) is to pay the cable company $35 every time they decide you did something, whether or not you did. Also, all of the broadband companies that most people have access to are on board, meaning that your choices are:
a) have dial-up or no internet at all
b) pay the cable company an extra $35 whenever they feel like they want an extra $35
But no, you're right, people must only be upset about this because they're all thieves who want to steal more easily. Brilliant analysis.
posted by IAmUnaware at 11:04 AM on October 21, 2012 [37 favorites]
This hardly seems like some sort of fascist totalitarian imposition to me.
This is a plan under which millions of people will be falsely accused of crimes and the only way to appeal the false accusations (in order to not have your internet throttled and eventually cut off) is to pay the cable company $35 every time they decide you did something, whether or not you did. Also, all of the broadband companies that most people have access to are on board, meaning that your choices are:
a) have dial-up or no internet at all
b) pay the cable company an extra $35 whenever they feel like they want an extra $35
But no, you're right, people must only be upset about this because they're all thieves who want to steal more easily. Brilliant analysis.
posted by IAmUnaware at 11:04 AM on October 21, 2012 [37 favorites]
b) pay the cable company an extra $35 whenever they feel like they want an extra $35
This isn't really accurate (at least as I read the Ars article). The alerts come from, and the $35 goes to, CAS, not the ISP. Given it's CAS who will incur the cost of any review -- a cost they'll have to eat if the review exonerates the accused -- there's at least some incentive for them to not gin up bogus accusations.
posted by multics at 11:22 AM on October 21, 2012
This isn't really accurate (at least as I read the Ars article). The alerts come from, and the $35 goes to, CAS, not the ISP. Given it's CAS who will incur the cost of any review -- a cost they'll have to eat if the review exonerates the accused -- there's at least some incentive for them to not gin up bogus accusations.
posted by multics at 11:22 AM on October 21, 2012
Here's my position. Until those who are providing me with these digital files can show me how my hard earned cash is reaching the actual human beings who created the beauty in the first place, I will continue to infringe ... with extreme prejudice. Because that beauty must be shared (even to people who have no money) and thus every obstacle MUST be contested.
I mean, come on, Service Providers, my insignificant little building alone is sending you guys at least five hundred bucks a month. And there's another half dozen or so such clusters of humanity on this side of the block. That's three grand a month. Where is it all going?
posted by philip-random at 11:26 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
I mean, come on, Service Providers, my insignificant little building alone is sending you guys at least five hundred bucks a month. And there's another half dozen or so such clusters of humanity on this side of the block. That's three grand a month. Where is it all going?
posted by philip-random at 11:26 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
if you argue that it was other people doing it on your connection you have an item in your TOS that says you will not act as an ISP
It's going to be hilarious when people who rent their homes via VRBO or AirBnb start getting these notices describing what kind of porn their renters are downloading.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:26 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
It's going to be hilarious when people who rent their homes via VRBO or AirBnb start getting these notices describing what kind of porn their renters are downloading.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:26 AM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
I really don't see how torrents are piracy central anymore. The people I know that download the popular movies and music are terrified of torrents. "That's how you get caught." Instead they use places like psp forums that upload everything on file servers in japan and russia.
There's always the guy down at the grocery store with his trunk open and boxes of cds and blurays for 5$.
Torrents, for me, are for stuff that the idiot mainstream companies won't release for me to purchase. If I want a hit movie or cd I can wait for it to be 5$ on amazon.
posted by M Edward at 11:27 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
There's always the guy down at the grocery store with his trunk open and boxes of cds and blurays for 5$.
Torrents, for me, are for stuff that the idiot mainstream companies won't release for me to purchase. If I want a hit movie or cd I can wait for it to be 5$ on amazon.
posted by M Edward at 11:27 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
The killer app for the platform that does to Facebook what Facebook did to MySpace might end up being the ability to share arbitrary files with an arbitrary subset of your social graph. Based on the pent-up demand, I suspect you could put fairly large bariers to entry in front of that service- like a modest paywall, say, or a distributed server functionality so your content was only available when your PC was on - and still succeed.
Hmmm. or maybe only some of your content is unavailable. "Here's our server software. Share everything from a text update to that sports video you made with whoever you select, using our nifty identity and authentication system. But you'll only be visible to your friends and acquintances when you're online. Or, for the low price of three bucks a month, we'll cache your status updates and photos - but not that big vid - so folks can catch up on the basics of you're doing at any time. Pick the right ISP and they'll do it themselves with their own servers, and throw us a few cents per each month in licensing.
I shouldn't do tech speculation on Sunday afternoons. I end up half-convincing myself. Just how bad was that Diaspora code supposed to be?
posted by CHoldredge at 11:28 AM on October 21, 2012
Hmmm. or maybe only some of your content is unavailable. "Here's our server software. Share everything from a text update to that sports video you made with whoever you select, using our nifty identity and authentication system. But you'll only be visible to your friends and acquintances when you're online. Or, for the low price of three bucks a month, we'll cache your status updates and photos - but not that big vid - so folks can catch up on the basics of you're doing at any time. Pick the right ISP and they'll do it themselves with their own servers, and throw us a few cents per each month in licensing.
I shouldn't do tech speculation on Sunday afternoons. I end up half-convincing myself. Just how bad was that Diaspora code supposed to be?
posted by CHoldredge at 11:28 AM on October 21, 2012
if the review exonerates the accused
If one is guilty until proven innocent, how does one prove that innocence?
posted by Egg Shen at 11:29 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
If one is guilty until proven innocent, how does one prove that innocence?
posted by Egg Shen at 11:29 AM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Given it's CAS who will incur the cost of any review -- a cost they'll have to eat if the review exonerates the accused -- there's at least some incentive for them to not gin up bogus accusations.
Since they pay their bills, presumably, by not refunding customer money, I suspect getting a fair hearing there may be quite difficult, especially once it's been going a few years, and people aren't paying as much attention to them anymore.
posted by Malor at 11:35 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Since they pay their bills, presumably, by not refunding customer money, I suspect getting a fair hearing there may be quite difficult, especially once it's been going a few years, and people aren't paying as much attention to them anymore.
posted by Malor at 11:35 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
In other words: if you want a fair system, setting it up so the arbiter loses money if it declares someone innocent strikes me as an extraordinarily bad idea.
posted by Malor at 11:38 AM on October 21, 2012 [15 favorites]
posted by Malor at 11:38 AM on October 21, 2012 [15 favorites]
If one is guilty until proven innocent, how does one prove that innocence?
You invite the federales (or maybe they'll be contracting this out to Blackwater) into your home and open all your drawers, closets, crawlspaces, hard drives. And your vacation home, too. And your storage locker. And
and nobody's innocent anyway, right? We learned that much from Orwell's 1984, I hope.
posted by philip-random at 11:39 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
You invite the federales (or maybe they'll be contracting this out to Blackwater) into your home and open all your drawers, closets, crawlspaces, hard drives. And your vacation home, too. And your storage locker. And
and nobody's innocent anyway, right? We learned that much from Orwell's 1984, I hope.
posted by philip-random at 11:39 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Siding a little bit with Justinian... for the content providers owners of yore to get with the program and adapt, they will want to see some mechanism for deterring the open distribution of their copyrighted material... and I guess the CAS is the current flavour of this.
It might be my age, but there's not much thrill anymore in finding and obtaining copyrighted media or cracked software. I guess this is because I just don't consume that much new stuff anymore - I'm not the sort to download and watch an entire season of Breaking Bad over a weekend - and because just about all the software functionality I need is generally available as an opensource project (OpenOffice, GIMP, Inkscape, etc)... or if it's professionally necessary, I buy it and write it off.
Also, I get DSL from a small 3rd-party supplier, and I don't spend a dime for TV... we get 15+ stations with a home-built HDTV antenna. I suspect, by the number of telemarketers who call with offers, that this pisses the cable and fiber people off the most.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:41 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
It might be my age, but there's not much thrill anymore in finding and obtaining copyrighted media or cracked software. I guess this is because I just don't consume that much new stuff anymore - I'm not the sort to download and watch an entire season of Breaking Bad over a weekend - and because just about all the software functionality I need is generally available as an opensource project (OpenOffice, GIMP, Inkscape, etc)... or if it's professionally necessary, I buy it and write it off.
Also, I get DSL from a small 3rd-party supplier, and I don't spend a dime for TV... we get 15+ stations with a home-built HDTV antenna. I suspect, by the number of telemarketers who call with offers, that this pisses the cable and fiber people off the most.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:41 AM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
If one is guilty until proven innocent, how does one prove that innocence?
Well, yeah. I resisted the urge to write "In the unlikely event the review exonerates..." I'm not defending the fee (though I imagine that without it, a winning strategy for infringers would be to bleed CAS to death by appealing every warning). I'm just pointing out that it's inaccurate to suggest the appeal fee is a revenue stream for ISPs.
posted by multics at 11:49 AM on October 21, 2012
Well, yeah. I resisted the urge to write "In the unlikely event the review exonerates..." I'm not defending the fee (though I imagine that without it, a winning strategy for infringers would be to bleed CAS to death by appealing every warning). I'm just pointing out that it's inaccurate to suggest the appeal fee is a revenue stream for ISPs.
posted by multics at 11:49 AM on October 21, 2012
But no, you're right, people must only be upset about this because they're all thieves who want to steal more easily.
How do you suggest they defend copyrights? My guess is your suggestion is "don't."
posted by Justinian at 12:08 PM on October 21, 2012
How do you suggest they defend copyrights? My guess is your suggestion is "don't."
posted by Justinian at 12:08 PM on October 21, 2012
ISPs (or at least, Time Warner) have been cutting off people's internet access over copyright violation claims for quite a while - it happened to a friend of mine back in 2007. What's different now? The fact that there's an explicit appeal process, as silly as it might be?
posted by muddgirl at 12:09 PM on October 21, 2012
posted by muddgirl at 12:09 PM on October 21, 2012
How do you suggest they defend copyrights? My guess is your suggestion is "don't."
I don't really give a shit what they do as long as it's not a system which is designed to generate false accusations against people who can't afford to defend themselves- i.e. every online anti-piracy action so far.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:10 PM on October 21, 2012 [11 favorites]
I don't really give a shit what they do as long as it's not a system which is designed to generate false accusations against people who can't afford to defend themselves- i.e. every online anti-piracy action so far.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:10 PM on October 21, 2012 [11 favorites]
I subscribe to cable so all the TV torrented is being paid for I am simply time shifting to meet my schedule. If you use SSL there is no way to know what you are torrenting so there will be no Production company lawyers sending off letters to you. It is only uploads that matter to the cable company. They offer pay per view and video on demand. The solution is to find a private tracker that accepts donations in lieu of ratio and turn off your uploads. If you are not sharing no infringement. So use a private tracker buy some ratio turn on SSL turn off uploads. Keep monthly upload bandwidth below 300GB should be OK.
posted by pdxpogo at 12:16 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by pdxpogo at 12:16 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
pla: "stbalbach : Anyone doing pirate these days without a trustworthy(*) VPN is crazy.
Nah, Malor already nailed it. Most of the piracy nowadays happens entirely offline - And realistically, it always has; the internet just made a certain portion of it much, much more visible."
I wouldn't say most of the piracy today happens offline. According to this, 25% of all internet traffic is pirated content. I agree that large caches are exchanged offline, but those are serious pirates. The number of pirates who trade offline is probably a small percentage of the overall pirate population, even if they are moving big caches. Music is unique in that one can trade a 1TB drive and be set for life within certain genres, it's possible to be mostly complete and organized without too much effort. This would make sense for off-line trading.
posted by stbalbach at 12:29 PM on October 21, 2012
Nah, Malor already nailed it. Most of the piracy nowadays happens entirely offline - And realistically, it always has; the internet just made a certain portion of it much, much more visible."
I wouldn't say most of the piracy today happens offline. According to this, 25% of all internet traffic is pirated content. I agree that large caches are exchanged offline, but those are serious pirates. The number of pirates who trade offline is probably a small percentage of the overall pirate population, even if they are moving big caches. Music is unique in that one can trade a 1TB drive and be set for life within certain genres, it's possible to be mostly complete and organized without too much effort. This would make sense for off-line trading.
posted by stbalbach at 12:29 PM on October 21, 2012
I'm just pointing out that it's inaccurate to suggest the appeal fee is a revenue stream for ISPs.
It's as much as many monthly Internet bills. I don't see how you could take it as anything else?
posted by Malor at 12:29 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
It's as much as many monthly Internet bills. I don't see how you could take it as anything else?
posted by Malor at 12:29 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Ah man, I am a geezer and a luddite, would someone explain how I get to a private tracker with no proof of ratio but am happy to donate? I am truly trapped with only one provider in my whole area so I have to figure out a way to be getting my BBC cooking shows.
posted by jadepearl at 12:32 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by jadepearl at 12:32 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
The number of pirates who trade offline is probably a small percentage of the overall pirate population, even if they are moving big caches
How would you even know that?
You're just pulling that out of thin air. Totally making it up.
A 64-gig SD card will move an assload of data for the price of a first-class stamp. If you can amortize the $60 cost over a few mailings, well....
posted by Malor at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2012
How would you even know that?
You're just pulling that out of thin air. Totally making it up.
A 64-gig SD card will move an assload of data for the price of a first-class stamp. If you can amortize the $60 cost over a few mailings, well....
posted by Malor at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2012
It's as much as many monthly Internet bills. I don't see how you could take it as anything else?
Again: the ISPs neither generate the warnings nor collect the fees. CAS does. They're not at all the same thing.
posted by multics at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2012
Again: the ISPs neither generate the warnings nor collect the fees. CAS does. They're not at all the same thing.
posted by multics at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2012
According to this..
..industry sponsored study.. but still, there is no question a sizable portion of Internet traffic is pirated content (and porn).
posted by stbalbach at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2012
..industry sponsored study.. but still, there is no question a sizable portion of Internet traffic is pirated content (and porn).
posted by stbalbach at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2012
The board is run by a joint RIAA/MPAA venture. Not part of the ISPs specifically, but laughably far from impartial.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2012
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2012
Justinian: How do you suggest they defend copyrights?
In a way that doesn't directly do more harm than the copyright infringement ever could, for one. You're supposed to show actual harm before you can screw people's lives up.
posted by Malor at 12:38 PM on October 21, 2012 [9 favorites]
In a way that doesn't directly do more harm than the copyright infringement ever could, for one. You're supposed to show actual harm before you can screw people's lives up.
posted by Malor at 12:38 PM on October 21, 2012 [9 favorites]
Again: the ISPs neither generate the warnings nor collect the fees. CAS does. They're not at all the same thing.
But how does CAS pay itself? Through fees. So it's in CAS' financial interest to find everyone guilty, so they can keep the $35, pay big bonuses, and talk to Congress about the incredible piracy rates they're finding.
Everyone wins! Well, except us.
posted by Malor at 12:39 PM on October 21, 2012 [5 favorites]
But how does CAS pay itself? Through fees. So it's in CAS' financial interest to find everyone guilty, so they can keep the $35, pay big bonuses, and talk to Congress about the incredible piracy rates they're finding.
Everyone wins! Well, except us.
posted by Malor at 12:39 PM on October 21, 2012 [5 favorites]
The rise of computing and the internet is fascinating. It started with unlimited freedom and interconnectivity and has evolved into an unprecedented form of control. Not under the control of any goverment (at least in the West) but rather the ad-hoc forces of the so-called "free" market.
An evolution, mind you, that has been packaged to the consumer as the ascension into omnipotent individualism. Look at the things that control us these days - our $600 iPhones. Shackles we pay through the nose for. It's a fascinating sleight of hand - especially when you consider that the success of the first iPod was based in non-DRM music playing - how these days in order to be totally independent you have to without question suck at the teet of a global conglomerate.
posted by phaedon at 12:39 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
An evolution, mind you, that has been packaged to the consumer as the ascension into omnipotent individualism. Look at the things that control us these days - our $600 iPhones. Shackles we pay through the nose for. It's a fascinating sleight of hand - especially when you consider that the success of the first iPod was based in non-DRM music playing - how these days in order to be totally independent you have to without question suck at the teet of a global conglomerate.
posted by phaedon at 12:39 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Even worse, phaedon, people get really pissy when you point out that locked devices like that are shackles.
Their lifestyles, it would appear, include manacles, but screw anyone who tells them so.
posted by Malor at 12:42 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Their lifestyles, it would appear, include manacles, but screw anyone who tells them so.
posted by Malor at 12:42 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
But how does CAS pay itself? Through fees.
What if they changed it so that they get paid by whoever sent the copyright notice in the first place if it is found to have been in error? Then they have no incentive either way.
posted by Justinian at 12:45 PM on October 21, 2012
What if they changed it so that they get paid by whoever sent the copyright notice in the first place if it is found to have been in error? Then they have no incentive either way.
posted by Justinian at 12:45 PM on October 21, 2012
But how does CAS pay itself? Through fees. So it's in CAS' financial interest to find everyone guilty, so they can keep the $35, pay big bonuses, and talk to Congress about the incredible piracy rates they're finding.
Right, that's why I said this, which I imagine you read when you quoted it:
I'm just pointing out that it's inaccurate to suggest the appeal fee is a revenue stream for ISPs.
I don't know how more clearly I can put it: the fee does not appear to be, as was suggested in the comment I was replying to in the first place, a potential revenue stream for the ISPs.
posted by multics at 12:45 PM on October 21, 2012
Right, that's why I said this, which I imagine you read when you quoted it:
I'm just pointing out that it's inaccurate to suggest the appeal fee is a revenue stream for ISPs.
I don't know how more clearly I can put it: the fee does not appear to be, as was suggested in the comment I was replying to in the first place, a potential revenue stream for the ISPs.
posted by multics at 12:45 PM on October 21, 2012
How would you even know that? You're just pulling that out of thin air. Totally making it up.
I don't know it, I said "probably". You on the other hand seem sure that most pirating is done offline, despite a sizable portion of Internet traffic being pirated content. Do have you have any idea how much traffic is moved on the Internet each day? Multiply that by %23 (the reported number in this study) and that's how much offline pirating you'd need each and every day. Find that a credible number? Discuss.
posted by stbalbach at 12:50 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
I don't know it, I said "probably". You on the other hand seem sure that most pirating is done offline, despite a sizable portion of Internet traffic being pirated content. Do have you have any idea how much traffic is moved on the Internet each day? Multiply that by %23 (the reported number in this study) and that's how much offline pirating you'd need each and every day. Find that a credible number? Discuss.
posted by stbalbach at 12:50 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Sooooo...anybody got a good primer on choosing and using a VPN service?
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:54 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:54 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Malor : You're just pulling that out of thin air. Totally making it up.
In fairness, I can't support my suspicion either. I have good reason to believe it based on personal experience, but that and a dime will get me 1/20th of a cup of Joe.
That said, it would take me an awfully long time (at least three months doing nothing else, given my 10GB/month cap) to come even close to matching a 32GB thumbdrive.
Lentrohamsanin : Sooooo...anybody got a good primer on choosing and using a VPN service?
Well, stbalbach already posted that - Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously. Just pick a good one from that list, and have fun.
Hmm... Unless you meant how to actually set one up, in which case... In Windows, it couldn't get any easier; you just fire up the new connection wizard, pick "workplace/VPN", and put in the information your VPN provider gives you. Once you set it up, you don't need to explicitly "do" anything to use it - Whenever you have that connection active, all your traffic will automatically route over it.
posted by pla at 1:05 PM on October 21, 2012 [13 favorites]
In fairness, I can't support my suspicion either. I have good reason to believe it based on personal experience, but that and a dime will get me 1/20th of a cup of Joe.
That said, it would take me an awfully long time (at least three months doing nothing else, given my 10GB/month cap) to come even close to matching a 32GB thumbdrive.
Lentrohamsanin : Sooooo...anybody got a good primer on choosing and using a VPN service?
Well, stbalbach already posted that - Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously. Just pick a good one from that list, and have fun.
Hmm... Unless you meant how to actually set one up, in which case... In Windows, it couldn't get any easier; you just fire up the new connection wizard, pick "workplace/VPN", and put in the information your VPN provider gives you. Once you set it up, you don't need to explicitly "do" anything to use it - Whenever you have that connection active, all your traffic will automatically route over it.
posted by pla at 1:05 PM on October 21, 2012 [13 favorites]
I don't know how more clearly I can put it
You're right, multics. You probably couldn't have gotten clearer; that was my misread. I thought you were contradicting me, when in fact you weren't at all. My apologies.
posted by Malor at 1:09 PM on October 21, 2012
You're right, multics. You probably couldn't have gotten clearer; that was my misread. I thought you were contradicting me, when in fact you weren't at all. My apologies.
posted by Malor at 1:09 PM on October 21, 2012
Hmm... Unless you meant how to actually set one up, in which case... In Windows, it couldn't get any easier
Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks, looks very easy.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:18 PM on October 21, 2012
Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks, looks very easy.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:18 PM on October 21, 2012
The traffic is all going to your router so you will be held accountable for the file sharing, and if you argue that it was other people doing it on your connection you have an item in your TOS that says you will not act as an ISP. Either way you'll potentially be in trouble.
Sorry about that, I wasn't being clear b/c I hadn't had my coffee yet.
I have a 500 GB drive plugged into the router. If I put content on that and make it public, but disconnect that interface from the internet, I don't have anything to worry about w/ regards to my ISP.
If you're ever in Rochester make sure to look for 'come_get_your_free_shit'.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 1:25 PM on October 21, 2012
Sorry about that, I wasn't being clear b/c I hadn't had my coffee yet.
I have a 500 GB drive plugged into the router. If I put content on that and make it public, but disconnect that interface from the internet, I don't have anything to worry about w/ regards to my ISP.
If you're ever in Rochester make sure to look for 'come_get_your_free_shit'.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 1:25 PM on October 21, 2012
I usually avoid FTFY, but I'll make an exception in this case:
Which VPN ProvidersReally Claim To Take Anonymity Seriously
posted by Malor at 1:36 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Which VPN Providers
posted by Malor at 1:36 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Copyright terms are far too long. Does anybody deny that? Downloading free shit does nothing to combat copyright lengths.
It's funny how the moral good of attacking copyright in its current form aligns so perfectly with the completely selfish free stuff impulse. A pure coincidence, no doubt.
posted by Justinian at 2:05 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
It's funny how the moral good of attacking copyright in its current form aligns so perfectly with the completely selfish free stuff impulse. A pure coincidence, no doubt.
posted by Justinian at 2:05 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Sometimes I get the impression people won't be happy until ISPs hand out free copies of every piece of software or book or TV show ever made
While other commenters have mentioned that this is quite an exaggeration of the issue at stake here -- endless false positives and further creeping of a total surveillance state -- you might also want to reflect on what you wrote more thoroughly.
Given what our current bit-copying technology is capable of, and the social wealth embodied in said artifacts, and the costs and benefits associated with (say) unlimited at-cost redistribution, is there much of a utilitarian position against doing just this? Does it just rub you the wrong way in terms of some sense of the propriety of treating bits as private property? Do you really think people would spontaneously cease creating things, or that the world would be worse-off? You're aware of the enormous legal-structural difficulty of even defining (much less maintaining and adapting-to-change) any sort of "intellectual property" system, yes? Have you given this serious thought?
I'm not trying to be a jerk, just get a handle on why this is considered a slam dunk reductio ad absurdum among Serious Thinking People Criticizing The Dirty Pirates.
posted by ead at 2:07 PM on October 21, 2012 [5 favorites]
While other commenters have mentioned that this is quite an exaggeration of the issue at stake here -- endless false positives and further creeping of a total surveillance state -- you might also want to reflect on what you wrote more thoroughly.
Given what our current bit-copying technology is capable of, and the social wealth embodied in said artifacts, and the costs and benefits associated with (say) unlimited at-cost redistribution, is there much of a utilitarian position against doing just this? Does it just rub you the wrong way in terms of some sense of the propriety of treating bits as private property? Do you really think people would spontaneously cease creating things, or that the world would be worse-off? You're aware of the enormous legal-structural difficulty of even defining (much less maintaining and adapting-to-change) any sort of "intellectual property" system, yes? Have you given this serious thought?
I'm not trying to be a jerk, just get a handle on why this is considered a slam dunk reductio ad absurdum among Serious Thinking People Criticizing The Dirty Pirates.
posted by ead at 2:07 PM on October 21, 2012 [5 favorites]
People wouldn't cease creating things. But they would cease creating some things. The more expensive something is to create, the more likely people would be to cease creating it. One can write music with a pencil and some paper. (Recording it is something else, of course). But it takes a lot of cash to make a television show, and without a revenue stream that would not happen.
posted by Justinian at 2:10 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 2:10 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
But they would cease creating some things
I doubt anyone disagrees with this assessment; personally I wouldn't mind at all if such things dried up, but that's me. I don't have much skin in the game being neither a torrent-user nor a movie studio. I certainly wouldn't miss television if it were gone. Good riddance.
Is your bottom-line stance that the continued production of those things-that-would-stop justifies every measure to prop up the existing system? If not, how much of what's proposed to prop it up is acceptable, and why?
posted by ead at 2:15 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
I doubt anyone disagrees with this assessment; personally I wouldn't mind at all if such things dried up, but that's me. I don't have much skin in the game being neither a torrent-user nor a movie studio. I certainly wouldn't miss television if it were gone. Good riddance.
Is your bottom-line stance that the continued production of those things-that-would-stop justifies every measure to prop up the existing system? If not, how much of what's proposed to prop it up is acceptable, and why?
posted by ead at 2:15 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Is it really so difficult to accept that I think we should judge these things on a case by case basis? Some proposals have been content provider overreach, some have some validity to them. I note that the DMCA was going to be the end of the world as we know it, but we mostly feel fine.
posted by Justinian at 2:45 PM on October 21, 2012
posted by Justinian at 2:45 PM on October 21, 2012
"Until those who are providing me with these digital files can show me how my hard earned cash is reaching the actual human beings who created the beauty in the first place, I will continue to infringe."
Would you like me to send you copies of my residual checks?
posted by incessant at 2:47 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Would you like me to send you copies of my residual checks?
posted by incessant at 2:47 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Folks, please do not turn this into an all vs. one debate, thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 3:06 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 3:06 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
That said, it would take me an awfully long time (at least three months doing nothing else, given my 10GB/month cap) to come even close to matching a 32GB thumbdrive.
Well with caps or metered yeah sure to get around that. Forces a sneaker net in that situation. Might even encourage collecting for a rainy day. FYI I can download 32GB in about 8 hours overnight while asleep (assuming the seeders keep up) -- but why, I just use the Internet as a hard drive.
posted by stbalbach at 3:06 PM on October 21, 2012
Well with caps or metered yeah sure to get around that. Forces a sneaker net in that situation. Might even encourage collecting for a rainy day. FYI I can download 32GB in about 8 hours overnight while asleep (assuming the seeders keep up) -- but why, I just use the Internet as a hard drive.
posted by stbalbach at 3:06 PM on October 21, 2012
Is it really so difficult to accept that I think we should judge these things on a case by case basis
Not at all, nor did I say so. Nor have you suggested so, until now, either. You opened your participation in this thread by a generalization of all anti-copyright positions to their logical extreme. Which I don't necessarily object to, but hardly seems like "case by case".
If you want to focus on specific cases, fine: I think this case -- and, let's say, everything legislated from Berne onwards, inclusive -- is an overreach and should be rejected, particularly in light of the balance of social good and technical costs. Which case(s) would you say were acceptable? Presumably Berne and, by your seeming acceptance of DMCA, presumably "all implementations of WCT so far"? Which cases did you think, or do you think, count as overreaches?
posted by ead at 3:07 PM on October 21, 2012
Not at all, nor did I say so. Nor have you suggested so, until now, either. You opened your participation in this thread by a generalization of all anti-copyright positions to their logical extreme. Which I don't necessarily object to, but hardly seems like "case by case".
If you want to focus on specific cases, fine: I think this case -- and, let's say, everything legislated from Berne onwards, inclusive -- is an overreach and should be rejected, particularly in light of the balance of social good and technical costs. Which case(s) would you say were acceptable? Presumably Berne and, by your seeming acceptance of DMCA, presumably "all implementations of WCT so far"? Which cases did you think, or do you think, count as overreaches?
posted by ead at 3:07 PM on October 21, 2012
The Sonny Bono act, for example. I'm for strong copyright protections but I'm also for severely limiting the length of those protections compared to the current regime. There are also extra-legal steps taken by studios and the like which are clearly overreaching. Sony BMG tried to install rootkits. With regards to software, the Starforce copyright scheme was awful and a terrible idea (though I think should be legal since they were relatively upfront about it, unlike Sony BMG). And so on.
posted by Justinian at 3:21 PM on October 21, 2012
posted by Justinian at 3:21 PM on October 21, 2012
alleging copyright infringement over peer-to-peer networks
The MarkMonitor system CAS is using boasts of doing far more than that:
Monitor all major P2P networks
Monitor video linking sites, blogs, cyberlockers, newsgroups
Monitor auction sites, B2B exchanges, websites
Monitor email (especially for software)
posted by Egg Shen at 3:34 PM on October 21, 2012
The MarkMonitor system CAS is using boasts of doing far more than that:
Monitor all major P2P networks
Monitor video linking sites, blogs, cyberlockers, newsgroups
Monitor auction sites, B2B exchanges, websites
Monitor email (especially for software)
posted by Egg Shen at 3:34 PM on October 21, 2012
Are there technical details on how the MarkMonitor system works? Monitoring email does seem a little Orwellian.
posted by Justinian at 3:48 PM on October 21, 2012
posted by Justinian at 3:48 PM on October 21, 2012
How does this work? Do "they" need a warrant of or anysuch legal instrument to first tap into our communications?
posted by asra at 3:48 PM on October 21, 2012
posted by asra at 3:48 PM on October 21, 2012
It's funny how the moral good of attacking copyright in its current form aligns so perfectly with the completely selfish free stuff impulse. A pure coincidence, no doubt.
No coincidence at all. Why would it be? There are countless things that I think are good for society as a whole from which I, as a member, would benefit. Instant and total free access to the sum to date of human knowledge and creativity, free from any rents, among them.
posted by tyllwin at 3:52 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
No coincidence at all. Why would it be? There are countless things that I think are good for society as a whole from which I, as a member, would benefit. Instant and total free access to the sum to date of human knowledge and creativity, free from any rents, among them.
posted by tyllwin at 3:52 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
I'm also for severely limiting the length of those protections
Term limitation, indeed! We may well not disagree much. How about required registration and notice on works? Or communication channels (say, low-bandwidth or point-to-point ones) that are exempt from universal surveillance and data retention? Exemptions for private archivists and educators?
I'm mostly concerned with the fallout of these laws, not the "people ought to pay for new TV shows" part. The police-state aspects, the aspects of attempting to monitor and interrupt all acts of copying preemptively. It's a bit pre-crime, a bit stop-and-frisk, you know?
(Also the aspects by which we lose access to commercially dormant but "revenue-threatening" work, those redistributed educationally or for public enrichment, say orphan works or those that fall out of term, which would dramatically increase under a limited-terms regime.)
posted by ead at 3:52 PM on October 21, 2012
Term limitation, indeed! We may well not disagree much. How about required registration and notice on works? Or communication channels (say, low-bandwidth or point-to-point ones) that are exempt from universal surveillance and data retention? Exemptions for private archivists and educators?
I'm mostly concerned with the fallout of these laws, not the "people ought to pay for new TV shows" part. The police-state aspects, the aspects of attempting to monitor and interrupt all acts of copying preemptively. It's a bit pre-crime, a bit stop-and-frisk, you know?
(Also the aspects by which we lose access to commercially dormant but "revenue-threatening" work, those redistributed educationally or for public enrichment, say orphan works or those that fall out of term, which would dramatically increase under a limited-terms regime.)
posted by ead at 3:52 PM on October 21, 2012
It's funny how the moral good of attacking copyright in its current form aligns so perfectly with the completely selfish free stuff impulse. A pure coincidence, no doubt.
I find this attitude sort of puzzling, because I'm opposed to the copyright system as implemented largely because I do think that people who create/produce art should get paid, without having a greedy and increasingly unimportant cabal skimming money off the top. I also don't think that the death of massive-budget entertainment would be such a bad thing, and that merely large-budget entertainment doesn't need to rely on existing practices in order to exist.
Part of the copyright problem is that, factually speaking, the practice of distributing media through specifically dedicated channels no longer solves much of a real problem. Excusing myself, as someone did upthread, for sounding like a "free marketeer", something other than capitalism is at work when entities try to impose artificial scarcity rather than adapt to the actual environment in which they operate. People involved in creating/producing art should get paid, but it's not a tragedy if nobody involved gets rich, particularly since the vast majority of creators are not getting rich -- indeed, many are barely getting paid, or are actually in debt to various corporations -- as it is.
Why am I personally intimidated by draconian copyright enforcement? I don't do any piracy, because I think that creators who choose to operate within existing structures -- who do not intend to supply me with shit without getting paid -- should get paid according to the norms of the fucked-up system with which they've thrown in their lot. However, I'm not about to participate, so I consume media either by paying certain artists directly, or by finding free (as in speech and, in practice, often as in beer) music, purchasing used books, using libraries, etc. In doing so, I do exactly as much damage (with the exception of the library thing) to certain corporations' revenue as a pirate does, since I certainly don't pay for things I don't consume. The difference between me and a pirate is that I don't consume/possess copyrighted stuff I didn't pay for. However, the pirate's activity didn't contribute to the corporation's cost -- it didn't deplete their resources -- so from, say, a record company's point of view, I'm indistinguishable from the pirate (and we're both different from the shoplifter). I wonder how long it will take for the rent-seekers to come up with rhetoric that attempts to justify holding folks liable simply for not buying their shit, and how successful they'll be in strong-arming legislators or ISPs or whomever into enforcing some type of media-consumption-as-civic-responsibility bullshit. This wouldn't surprise me at all.
Now, since, although I'm not breaking any laws, I'm not behaving in a way that the people who bought the CAS would find optimal, I believe I have reasonable grounds to be intimidated by that system (even on a professional level: I'm now a scientist who has to trust an unaccountable-seeming bureaucracy to have heard of the ArXiv). This is troubling, since it appears that the appeal process is expensive and also time- and emotional-energy-consuming. It's draconian, and it's being done for the benefit of entities who don't really deserve extra protection over and above the large power they already wield.
(Our use of the word "piracy" in this context is, parenthetically, out-and-out propaganda. In addition to depriving a ship owner of revenue by stealing cargo intended for sale, a genuine pirate also deprives the ship owner of the cost of the stolen goods -- they have to buy replacement goods, make a second attempt to ship them, etc. Moreover, historical and modern piracy is generally associated with violence/human rights abuses, etc. I'm not aware of credible accounts of file-sharers requiring innocent bystanders to walk the plank. A file-sharer disrupts the revenue stream, but does not impose additional costs on the producers/distributors of the file, so the word "pirate" is (deliberately) misleading.)
posted by kengraham at 3:55 PM on October 21, 2012 [7 favorites]
I find this attitude sort of puzzling, because I'm opposed to the copyright system as implemented largely because I do think that people who create/produce art should get paid, without having a greedy and increasingly unimportant cabal skimming money off the top. I also don't think that the death of massive-budget entertainment would be such a bad thing, and that merely large-budget entertainment doesn't need to rely on existing practices in order to exist.
Part of the copyright problem is that, factually speaking, the practice of distributing media through specifically dedicated channels no longer solves much of a real problem. Excusing myself, as someone did upthread, for sounding like a "free marketeer", something other than capitalism is at work when entities try to impose artificial scarcity rather than adapt to the actual environment in which they operate. People involved in creating/producing art should get paid, but it's not a tragedy if nobody involved gets rich, particularly since the vast majority of creators are not getting rich -- indeed, many are barely getting paid, or are actually in debt to various corporations -- as it is.
Why am I personally intimidated by draconian copyright enforcement? I don't do any piracy, because I think that creators who choose to operate within existing structures -- who do not intend to supply me with shit without getting paid -- should get paid according to the norms of the fucked-up system with which they've thrown in their lot. However, I'm not about to participate, so I consume media either by paying certain artists directly, or by finding free (as in speech and, in practice, often as in beer) music, purchasing used books, using libraries, etc. In doing so, I do exactly as much damage (with the exception of the library thing) to certain corporations' revenue as a pirate does, since I certainly don't pay for things I don't consume. The difference between me and a pirate is that I don't consume/possess copyrighted stuff I didn't pay for. However, the pirate's activity didn't contribute to the corporation's cost -- it didn't deplete their resources -- so from, say, a record company's point of view, I'm indistinguishable from the pirate (and we're both different from the shoplifter). I wonder how long it will take for the rent-seekers to come up with rhetoric that attempts to justify holding folks liable simply for not buying their shit, and how successful they'll be in strong-arming legislators or ISPs or whomever into enforcing some type of media-consumption-as-civic-responsibility bullshit. This wouldn't surprise me at all.
Now, since, although I'm not breaking any laws, I'm not behaving in a way that the people who bought the CAS would find optimal, I believe I have reasonable grounds to be intimidated by that system (even on a professional level: I'm now a scientist who has to trust an unaccountable-seeming bureaucracy to have heard of the ArXiv). This is troubling, since it appears that the appeal process is expensive and also time- and emotional-energy-consuming. It's draconian, and it's being done for the benefit of entities who don't really deserve extra protection over and above the large power they already wield.
(Our use of the word "piracy" in this context is, parenthetically, out-and-out propaganda. In addition to depriving a ship owner of revenue by stealing cargo intended for sale, a genuine pirate also deprives the ship owner of the cost of the stolen goods -- they have to buy replacement goods, make a second attempt to ship them, etc. Moreover, historical and modern piracy is generally associated with violence/human rights abuses, etc. I'm not aware of credible accounts of file-sharers requiring innocent bystanders to walk the plank. A file-sharer disrupts the revenue stream, but does not impose additional costs on the producers/distributors of the file, so the word "pirate" is (deliberately) misleading.)
posted by kengraham at 3:55 PM on October 21, 2012 [7 favorites]
Monitoring email does seem a little Orwellian.
Email is functionally, if not legally, public. Unless I am encrypting it, I expect anyone and everyone is monitoring my email.
posted by muddgirl at 3:55 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Email is functionally, if not legally, public. Unless I am encrypting it, I expect anyone and everyone is monitoring my email.
posted by muddgirl at 3:55 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Email is functionally, if not legally, public
Functionally, yes. Until recently, it had some quantity of legal protection. That is, if someone did read it, they were breaking a law. Expressed in terms of intent and harm and whatnot, not the "bits are not encrypted" facts of bits on wires.
I believe this protection has recently fallen, sadly.
posted by ead at 4:02 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Functionally, yes. Until recently, it had some quantity of legal protection. That is, if someone did read it, they were breaking a law. Expressed in terms of intent and harm and whatnot, not the "bits are not encrypted" facts of bits on wires.
I believe this protection has recently fallen, sadly.
posted by ead at 4:02 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Term limitation, indeed! We may well not disagree much. How about required registration and notice on works?
Is this referring to how you used to have to put a copyright notice on works or risk losing copyright, but now it is optional and you retain copyright anyway? If so, I'd need a little more understanding of all the issues before a firm commitment either way. I don't see it as very burdensome for commercial works and would prefer it be required, but is drawing such a distinction between commercial and non commercial works all that easy? I'd rather not have to put a © on every comment on Usenet or Metafilter etc etc.
Exemptions for private archivists and educators?
That would be highly dependent on the wording. I'm fine with it in principle but the devil is usually in the details.
posted by Justinian at 4:07 PM on October 21, 2012
Is this referring to how you used to have to put a copyright notice on works or risk losing copyright, but now it is optional and you retain copyright anyway? If so, I'd need a little more understanding of all the issues before a firm commitment either way. I don't see it as very burdensome for commercial works and would prefer it be required, but is drawing such a distinction between commercial and non commercial works all that easy? I'd rather not have to put a © on every comment on Usenet or Metafilter etc etc.
Exemptions for private archivists and educators?
That would be highly dependent on the wording. I'm fine with it in principle but the devil is usually in the details.
posted by Justinian at 4:07 PM on October 21, 2012
Unless I am encrypting it...
This seems like an opportunity to once again mention Kim Dotcom's plan for an encrypted heir to the late, lamented Megaupload.
Fight the laws.
To paraphrase Chinatown: Big Content owns the law.
posted by Egg Shen at 4:11 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
This seems like an opportunity to once again mention Kim Dotcom's plan for an encrypted heir to the late, lamented Megaupload.
Fight the laws.
To paraphrase Chinatown: Big Content owns the law.
posted by Egg Shen at 4:11 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Monitoring email does seem a little Orwellian.
Yup. I guess you either expose yourself to a potential lawsuit from a rightsholder, which is presumably uncontestable without decrypting your attachment, or you have to pay $35 and decrypt that attachment to prove it's not copyright-infringing, establishing your status as Not A Pirate but paving the way for a midnight raid should the attachment happen to contain certain types of protected speech.
posted by kengraham at 4:15 PM on October 21, 2012
Yup. I guess you either expose yourself to a potential lawsuit from a rightsholder, which is presumably uncontestable without decrypting your attachment, or you have to pay $35 and decrypt that attachment to prove it's not copyright-infringing, establishing your status as Not A Pirate but paving the way for a midnight raid should the attachment happen to contain certain types of protected speech.
posted by kengraham at 4:15 PM on October 21, 2012
Is this referring to how you used to have to put a copyright notice on works or risk losing copyright, but now it is optional and you retain copyright anyway
It's referring to how, pre-Berne, you had to register a work to get that rights carried by that little ©, much like you still do in order to get rights associated with ® for trademarks. Nowadays copyright adheres to every nontrivial bitstring the moment it's "created" (if you think that word has a precise meaning), which makes it rather more pervasive a legal regime. Previously, nobody bothered for most works without commercial viability.
posted by ead at 4:28 PM on October 21, 2012
It's referring to how, pre-Berne, you had to register a work to get that rights carried by that little ©, much like you still do in order to get rights associated with ® for trademarks. Nowadays copyright adheres to every nontrivial bitstring the moment it's "created" (if you think that word has a precise meaning), which makes it rather more pervasive a legal regime. Previously, nobody bothered for most works without commercial viability.
posted by ead at 4:28 PM on October 21, 2012
How do you suggest they defend copyrights? My guess is your suggestion is "don't."
By gathering evidence and filing suit under laws that existed before this policy was devised, using the system of courts and judges...and I won't go on, because I live in a state that has had a law against distracted driving for decades but somehow has to have 2 more laws to cover talking on a cell phone and typing text messages on...a cellphone. While driving.
posted by Fibognocchi at 6:01 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
By gathering evidence and filing suit under laws that existed before this policy was devised, using the system of courts and judges...and I won't go on, because I live in a state that has had a law against distracted driving for decades but somehow has to have 2 more laws to cover talking on a cell phone and typing text messages on...a cellphone. While driving.
posted by Fibognocchi at 6:01 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Malor: "To be fair, you can't usually spoof a full IP connection, you can only spoof the initial source packets. (this is because the answering packet is sent to the spoofee, not to you.)"
It's not actually that hard, although exactly how hard depends on how well written the PRNG of the target is. Some friends of mine ahem used to do it all the time on IRC. It was more finicky than forcing a split, though. It became a more involved process once OSes began randomizing TCP sequence numbers, yet weaknesses still persisted at least through the middle of the last decade.
I assume modern versions of Windows are more resistant...
MattD: "Thorzdad, the cable companies have been uniformly unsuccessful in keeping out competition. The telephone companies have overbuilt competing DSL or fiber bandwidth for the large majority of cable houses passed"
a) DSL is uncompetitive with cable for all but the most price sensitive customers.
b) A duopoly is hardly better than a monopoly.
The solution is pretty simple, actually. Government runs/owns the wire, while private enterprise, nonprofits, or other interested groups provide competing (and possibly in some cases, complementary) services on said wire.
Requiring a company to do it and regulating them as the monopoly they were worked for a long time, but it was decided that we shouldn't do that any more. Look how that has turned out. Advancements in technology are rolled out to end users as slowly as they can get away with, despite raking in billions in taxpayer subsidies for just that.
We're being fleeced, and the fact that it's private enterprise doing so doesn't make it even one iota better than the government doing it. At least when we pay government to build something, we eventually pay it off.
posted by wierdo at 6:30 PM on October 21, 2012
It's not actually that hard, although exactly how hard depends on how well written the PRNG of the target is. Some friends of mine ahem used to do it all the time on IRC. It was more finicky than forcing a split, though. It became a more involved process once OSes began randomizing TCP sequence numbers, yet weaknesses still persisted at least through the middle of the last decade.
I assume modern versions of Windows are more resistant...
MattD: "Thorzdad, the cable companies have been uniformly unsuccessful in keeping out competition. The telephone companies have overbuilt competing DSL or fiber bandwidth for the large majority of cable houses passed"
a) DSL is uncompetitive with cable for all but the most price sensitive customers.
b) A duopoly is hardly better than a monopoly.
The solution is pretty simple, actually. Government runs/owns the wire, while private enterprise, nonprofits, or other interested groups provide competing (and possibly in some cases, complementary) services on said wire.
Requiring a company to do it and regulating them as the monopoly they were worked for a long time, but it was decided that we shouldn't do that any more. Look how that has turned out. Advancements in technology are rolled out to end users as slowly as they can get away with, despite raking in billions in taxpayer subsidies for just that.
We're being fleeced, and the fact that it's private enterprise doing so doesn't make it even one iota better than the government doing it. At least when we pay government to build something, we eventually pay it off.
posted by wierdo at 6:30 PM on October 21, 2012
So with some IP spoofing one can knock any disliked person/organisation off the net? Great plan(!).
The Internet does not work that way. (Basically, what Malor said, plus the fact that your ISP probably performs egress and ingress filtering for obviously bogus IP addresses. But if you could get a network connection on the same subnet as your victim it would be a bit harder to detect.)
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 6:41 PM on October 21, 2012
The Internet does not work that way. (Basically, what Malor said, plus the fact that your ISP probably performs egress and ingress filtering for obviously bogus IP addresses. But if you could get a network connection on the same subnet as your victim it would be a bit harder to detect.)
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 6:41 PM on October 21, 2012
I note that the DMCA was going to be the end of the world as we know it, but we mostly feel fine.
It's impossible to take anybody who would post this sentence seriously. Here's but a single example of the pure shit that is the DMCA and every supporter of it. This is not abuse of that wretched law- this is exactly what it was for.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:41 PM on October 21, 2012 [4 favorites]
It's impossible to take anybody who would post this sentence seriously. Here's but a single example of the pure shit that is the DMCA and every supporter of it. This is not abuse of that wretched law- this is exactly what it was for.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:41 PM on October 21, 2012 [4 favorites]
The solution is pretty simple, actually. Government runs/owns the wire.
If Google does a full-scale roll-out of their fiber service, I predict that it becomes so ubiquitous (especially if they use the lack of stuff like CAP as an additional differentiator, not that they need another) that this either the government takes it over or becomes more like the power companies.
posted by VTX at 7:48 PM on October 21, 2012
If Google does a full-scale roll-out of their fiber service, I predict that it becomes so ubiquitous (especially if they use the lack of stuff like CAP as an additional differentiator, not that they need another) that this either the government takes it over or becomes more like the power companies.
posted by VTX at 7:48 PM on October 21, 2012
Copyright terms are far too long. Does anybody deny that?
Yes, people argue for an infinite term, and indeed I'd assume that you've read Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003). The court voted 7-2 that practically infinite terms are entirely acceptable, even though Justice Breyer correctly noted the central fallacy when he asked "How will extension help today’s Noah Webster create new works 50 years after his death" in his dissent.
The term 'intellectual property' itself is clearly designed to shift the concept of copyright (amongst the other concepts it conflates into one) into a property right. Once it is reframed as a property right, the pressure shifts from the question of why a monopoly should be established or maintained to a question of why property is being taken by the government. I would argue that this framing is entirely to set up the argument for effective perpetuity.
posted by jaduncan at 8:03 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Yes, people argue for an infinite term, and indeed I'd assume that you've read Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003). The court voted 7-2 that practically infinite terms are entirely acceptable, even though Justice Breyer correctly noted the central fallacy when he asked "How will extension help today’s Noah Webster create new works 50 years after his death" in his dissent.
The term 'intellectual property' itself is clearly designed to shift the concept of copyright (amongst the other concepts it conflates into one) into a property right. Once it is reframed as a property right, the pressure shifts from the question of why a monopoly should be established or maintained to a question of why property is being taken by the government. I would argue that this framing is entirely to set up the argument for effective perpetuity.
posted by jaduncan at 8:03 PM on October 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Oh noes, Torrentfreak, pope guilty!
The fact that your response is not refutation but ad hominem kind of says it all, doesn't it?
But just to be nice and assume you're not operating entirely in bad faith, here's Techdirt, Ars, and Wired.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:08 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
The fact that your response is not refutation but ad hominem kind of says it all, doesn't it?
But just to be nice and assume you're not operating entirely in bad faith, here's Techdirt, Ars, and Wired.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:08 PM on October 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Mod note: Folks, maybe knock it off with the "This is a topic I like to grind my axe in" routine and talk about the topic of the thread, more or less? Please?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:25 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:25 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
"How do you suggest they defend copyrights? My guess is your suggestion is "don't."
By protecting the liberty of everyone first and foremost above a small cabal of profiteers, of course. It turns out that it is a lot of work to choose this path and it is far from "doing nothing!"
As an example, we may do this by ensuring that there is no class of accusation where a person is guilty by default. Certainly we should not accept this in a public setting and it is even more egregiously wrong in a privatized framework.
The right to copy is no longer something that is granted by an external authority as we have successfully increased human autonomy. I'm not interested in decreasing individual human liberty because of the economic interests of a small group of profiteers. These ISPs have a duty of care and they are willfully violating it in service of ass covering.
I surely love the idea that the protocols involved are all TCP - surely no one has ever shared a file over UDP and surely, no one has found a way to incriminate totally innocent systems. Sure, right, ha!
It is too bad that the CAS will have to exist, be exploited and create as of yet untold pointless misery before... people come to their senses? Oh Christ, who consulted us anyway?
Perhaps the core of the problem is that our agency is being taken by the very companies who we (people, companies, cities, etc) made deals with in the first place. If we invalidate their deals, we'll see how much influence we'll have over the ISP industry. I guess it will be more than the copyright cartels.
posted by ioerror at 8:35 PM on October 21, 2012 [6 favorites]
By protecting the liberty of everyone first and foremost above a small cabal of profiteers, of course. It turns out that it is a lot of work to choose this path and it is far from "doing nothing!"
As an example, we may do this by ensuring that there is no class of accusation where a person is guilty by default. Certainly we should not accept this in a public setting and it is even more egregiously wrong in a privatized framework.
The right to copy is no longer something that is granted by an external authority as we have successfully increased human autonomy. I'm not interested in decreasing individual human liberty because of the economic interests of a small group of profiteers. These ISPs have a duty of care and they are willfully violating it in service of ass covering.
I surely love the idea that the protocols involved are all TCP - surely no one has ever shared a file over UDP and surely, no one has found a way to incriminate totally innocent systems. Sure, right, ha!
It is too bad that the CAS will have to exist, be exploited and create as of yet untold pointless misery before... people come to their senses? Oh Christ, who consulted us anyway?
Perhaps the core of the problem is that our agency is being taken by the very companies who we (people, companies, cities, etc) made deals with in the first place. If we invalidate their deals, we'll see how much influence we'll have over the ISP industry. I guess it will be more than the copyright cartels.
posted by ioerror at 8:35 PM on October 21, 2012 [6 favorites]
Anyone remember when the poets went apeshit after those dudes wrote all their poems down on papyrus?
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:02 PM on October 21, 2012
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:02 PM on October 21, 2012
Lentrohamsanin: "Sooooo...anybody got a good primer on choosing and using a VPN service?"
Anyone have a good primer on finding some way to get someone else to pay for a good VPN service for poor people like me?
posted by Samizdata at 3:21 AM on October 22, 2012
Anyone have a good primer on finding some way to get someone else to pay for a good VPN service for poor people like me?
posted by Samizdata at 3:21 AM on October 22, 2012
Anyone remember when the poets went apeshit after those dudes wrote all their poems down on papyrus?
I can't find it now, but I remember a text, a criticism of writing, from right about when writing was invented. Basically complaining that educated men were lazier now that they didn't have to learn everything by memorization.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:45 AM on October 22, 2012 [2 favorites]
I can't find it now, but I remember a text, a criticism of writing, from right about when writing was invented. Basically complaining that educated men were lazier now that they didn't have to learn everything by memorization.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:45 AM on October 22, 2012 [2 favorites]
plus the fact that your ISP probably performs egress and ingress filtering for obviously bogus IP addresses
technical nit:
If your ISP has a modicum of clue they'll filter bogons, maybe, but you can't really bind addresses to interfaces in the core without breaking interdomain routing. I'm not aware of large scale egress filtering, though the fact that more and more people are connecting with 1918 internal space through operator-provided NAT boxes acts as an egress filter of a sort, I suppose. That's not relevant here, though.
The thing that keeps people from getting you nailed for file sharing you don't do is that you can't spoof a two-way connection unless you own the routers in the middle, and anyone who can do that reliably can just own your machine for way less work, and install a file sharing client on it. Actually, I'm going to guess the CAS will be less than competent at defending its own systems, so an even lower-cost method would just be to own the CAS and stick your address in their database.
posted by Vetinari at 5:18 AM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
technical nit:
If your ISP has a modicum of clue they'll filter bogons, maybe, but you can't really bind addresses to interfaces in the core without breaking interdomain routing. I'm not aware of large scale egress filtering, though the fact that more and more people are connecting with 1918 internal space through operator-provided NAT boxes acts as an egress filter of a sort, I suppose. That's not relevant here, though.
The thing that keeps people from getting you nailed for file sharing you don't do is that you can't spoof a two-way connection unless you own the routers in the middle, and anyone who can do that reliably can just own your machine for way less work, and install a file sharing client on it. Actually, I'm going to guess the CAS will be less than competent at defending its own systems, so an even lower-cost method would just be to own the CAS and stick your address in their database.
posted by Vetinari at 5:18 AM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
though the fact that more and more people are connecting with 1918 internal space through operator-provided NAT boxes acts as an egress filter of a sort, I suppose. That's not relevant here, though.
No machine but the end customer's router ever sees the internal addresses. Conversely, all the ISP knows is that flagged content goes to the end user's modem's IP address.
posted by gjc at 6:42 AM on October 22, 2012
No machine but the end customer's router ever sees the internal addresses. Conversely, all the ISP knows is that flagged content goes to the end user's modem's IP address.
posted by gjc at 6:42 AM on October 22, 2012
but you can't really bind addresses to interfaces in the core
But ISPs are typically not in the core, they're on the edge. It's easily possible to do ingress filtering at the edge. You can't do it on transit links from and to other providers, but that's not the right place to do it, anyway. You want the filtering on the lightly-loaded routers nearest the customers.
posted by Malor at 6:47 AM on October 22, 2012
But ISPs are typically not in the core, they're on the edge. It's easily possible to do ingress filtering at the edge. You can't do it on transit links from and to other providers, but that's not the right place to do it, anyway. You want the filtering on the lightly-loaded routers nearest the customers.
posted by Malor at 6:47 AM on October 22, 2012
I'm not aware of large scale egress filtering
If you're a last-mile ISP, you can pretty safely drop the following:
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 7:59 AM on October 22, 2012
If you're a last-mile ISP, you can pretty safely drop the following:
- packets from the outside with source addresses in your network
- packets from the outside with destination addresses not in your network
- packets from the inside with source addresses not in your network
- any packets to or from RFC 1918 (private) IP addresses
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 7:59 AM on October 22, 2012
Well, this will shut down just about every free-but-limited public service open WiFi access point in this town. :/
I have an open access point with bandwidth throttling for the wireless side. One day, my internet got cut off for copyright reasons. The ISP (Time Warner) said that their were two "warnings" sent out prior to the disconnection as "click-through" pages. I didn't recognize the file that was cited as being infringing and told them as much.
"Do you have roommates?" "Yes, but I don't think they were downloading it." "OK, well check with them to make sure"
"Do you have a wireless router?" "Yes" "Do you have a password on that?" "No" "OK, well you should put a password on that because your neighbors might be using it for downloading things and could have clicked through those warnings" "Oh, ok"
I put a password on it for like a week until I found out where the infringing file came from. That being said, I have considered configuring the open access point to use a VPN connection in the future. I also want to set up a neighborhood network that would require registration and probably use software such as RetroShare to provide file sharing and messaging for people in the area.
I have no idea if this would get use or not, but after I left my last dwelling, one of my neighbors said "Is your wireless called wifizzle?" "Yes" "Oh man, I've been using that for the last year, now I'm going to have to get internet". I generally see around 5 unknown devices connected to the AP, usually cellphones. I like sharing it, but I don't want to risk losing my internet for it. As long as the process stays as it has been, I'm fine with that, but if I have to pay $35 to clear my name, that's a pretty good incentive to just suck it up and pay for a VPN connection.
posted by nTeleKy at 8:30 AM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
I have an open access point with bandwidth throttling for the wireless side. One day, my internet got cut off for copyright reasons. The ISP (Time Warner) said that their were two "warnings" sent out prior to the disconnection as "click-through" pages. I didn't recognize the file that was cited as being infringing and told them as much.
"Do you have roommates?" "Yes, but I don't think they were downloading it." "OK, well check with them to make sure"
"Do you have a wireless router?" "Yes" "Do you have a password on that?" "No" "OK, well you should put a password on that because your neighbors might be using it for downloading things and could have clicked through those warnings" "Oh, ok"
I put a password on it for like a week until I found out where the infringing file came from. That being said, I have considered configuring the open access point to use a VPN connection in the future. I also want to set up a neighborhood network that would require registration and probably use software such as RetroShare to provide file sharing and messaging for people in the area.
I have no idea if this would get use or not, but after I left my last dwelling, one of my neighbors said "Is your wireless called wifizzle?" "Yes" "Oh man, I've been using that for the last year, now I'm going to have to get internet". I generally see around 5 unknown devices connected to the AP, usually cellphones. I like sharing it, but I don't want to risk losing my internet for it. As long as the process stays as it has been, I'm fine with that, but if I have to pay $35 to clear my name, that's a pretty good incentive to just suck it up and pay for a VPN connection.
posted by nTeleKy at 8:30 AM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
Sad: 75 Year Old Explanation For Why Copyrights Are Bad... Locked Up Behind Paywall
posted by homunculus at 9:00 AM on October 22, 2012
posted by homunculus at 9:00 AM on October 22, 2012
Meet the record industry lobbyists who'll be throttling your Internet connection in America's six strikes world
posted by homunculus at 9:00 AM on October 22, 2012
posted by homunculus at 9:00 AM on October 22, 2012
the historic plan calls for these residential internet providers to initiate so-called “mitigation measures” (.pdf) that might include reducing internet speeds and redirecting a subscriber’s service to an “educational” landing page about infringement
Hmm. "reducing internet speeds" ... well, my ISP already does this, almost every night at 9pm. It's called shitty bulk Internet service. Many nights the Internet is unusable. The best thing I can say is that it's not AT&T or Comcast, I guess.
"redirecting a subscriber’s service to an 'educational' landing page about infringement"
How would that work? A friend shares a torrent link with my via email, I open my torrent client to download the file(s) ... how do I get redirected. That torrent itself would spawn a browser window?
Cyberlockers, e-mail attachments, shared Dropbox folders and other ways to infringe are not included in the crackdown.
Oh. Well, that's a lovely indirect subsidy to the Kim Dotcoms of the world.
Anyone doing pirate these days without a trustworthy(*) VPN is crazy.
*raises hand* Can you explain why? I mean what is the risk here? More than $193? If not ... are you talking about overt "pirate" (e.g. TPB, obvious torrents), or covert "pirate" (e.g. file "thgps.rar" on FileFreaky.com, etc.)? Which of those activities requires a VPN or death?
“The goal was to come up with a program that was educational in nature, not with the intention of being punitive,” she said.
They must think Americans are pretty damn stupid if it takes 6 warnings to learn that downloading unauthorized copyrighted material is illegal.
You may be sticking it to the man when you download. Most people are just stealing shit.
Most people are just copying shit .
posted by mrgrimm at 10:11 AM on October 22, 2012
Hmm. "reducing internet speeds" ... well, my ISP already does this, almost every night at 9pm. It's called shitty bulk Internet service. Many nights the Internet is unusable. The best thing I can say is that it's not AT&T or Comcast, I guess.
"redirecting a subscriber’s service to an 'educational' landing page about infringement"
How would that work? A friend shares a torrent link with my via email, I open my torrent client to download the file(s) ... how do I get redirected. That torrent itself would spawn a browser window?
Cyberlockers, e-mail attachments, shared Dropbox folders and other ways to infringe are not included in the crackdown.
Oh. Well, that's a lovely indirect subsidy to the Kim Dotcoms of the world.
Anyone doing pirate these days without a trustworthy(*) VPN is crazy.
*raises hand* Can you explain why? I mean what is the risk here? More than $193? If not ... are you talking about overt "pirate" (e.g. TPB, obvious torrents), or covert "pirate" (e.g. file "thgps.rar" on FileFreaky.com, etc.)? Which of those activities requires a VPN or death?
“The goal was to come up with a program that was educational in nature, not with the intention of being punitive,” she said.
They must think Americans are pretty damn stupid if it takes 6 warnings to learn that downloading unauthorized copyrighted material is illegal.
You may be sticking it to the man when you download. Most people are just stealing shit.
Most people are just copying shit .
posted by mrgrimm at 10:11 AM on October 22, 2012
It is amusing to equate copying and stealing, we've been seeing similar issues in art since mid last century (i'm sure earlier examples can be found but as a prevalent theme it really erupted with pop art and various pomo ideologies).
When is the last time someone was fined 250k for copying a vhs tape? History suggests this will not end well for companies, the actual content creators will scrape by of course (at least the ones who "exist", it is difficult if not impossible to guess how many more or less content creators there would be if life was some other way).
The current crop of games are requiring an always on internet connection to play, and while most reviewers and designers talk about this as a way to ensure the virtual economy isn't hacked, the other explanation is that this ensures one copy / one key, perhaps the game industry is coming around to the fact that they simply cannot stop pirating and are moving to another service model, we'll see if this begins to happen in single player games (perhaps beginning under the guise that social features are an integral component) or more simply making online play "optional" but that option happens to contain half the content or some such.
TV is almost certainly doomed, we'll watch it follow a similar revenue trajectory as movies (ad revenue has already been declining for years, it will crash and settle at some new normal far below its peak) and eventually cable company "bundling" will unravel especially as wifi coverage continues(it is becoming as mandatory as any other utility and eventually it will be regulated as one). It will be interesting to see what, after games, will become the dominant media of consumption. My guess is in-home holographic projects (perhaps we'll see the brief re-emergence of arcades -- plenty of people will pay for a "holo-deck" like experience), add in "streaming" content or "multiplayer" and we've got a new medium that's just another tweak of the old.
posted by Shit Parade at 11:12 AM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
When is the last time someone was fined 250k for copying a vhs tape? History suggests this will not end well for companies, the actual content creators will scrape by of course (at least the ones who "exist", it is difficult if not impossible to guess how many more or less content creators there would be if life was some other way).
The current crop of games are requiring an always on internet connection to play, and while most reviewers and designers talk about this as a way to ensure the virtual economy isn't hacked, the other explanation is that this ensures one copy / one key, perhaps the game industry is coming around to the fact that they simply cannot stop pirating and are moving to another service model, we'll see if this begins to happen in single player games (perhaps beginning under the guise that social features are an integral component) or more simply making online play "optional" but that option happens to contain half the content or some such.
TV is almost certainly doomed, we'll watch it follow a similar revenue trajectory as movies (ad revenue has already been declining for years, it will crash and settle at some new normal far below its peak) and eventually cable company "bundling" will unravel especially as wifi coverage continues(it is becoming as mandatory as any other utility and eventually it will be regulated as one). It will be interesting to see what, after games, will become the dominant media of consumption. My guess is in-home holographic projects (perhaps we'll see the brief re-emergence of arcades -- plenty of people will pay for a "holo-deck" like experience), add in "streaming" content or "multiplayer" and we've got a new medium that's just another tweak of the old.
posted by Shit Parade at 11:12 AM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
A month before the controversial “six strikes” anti-piracy plan goes live in the U.S., the responsible Center of Copyright Information (CCI) is dealing with a small crisis. As it turns out the RIAA failed to mention to its partners that the “impartial and independent” technology expert they retained previously lobbied for the music industry group. In a response to the controversy, CCI is now considering whether it should hire another expert to evaluate the anti-piracy monitoring technology.
posted by Egg Shen at 1:16 PM on October 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Egg Shen at 1:16 PM on October 29, 2012 [1 favorite]
Kim Dotcom: fund free NZ internet by suing Hollywood and US government. Megaupload founder proposes free New Zealand broadband paid for by lawsuits over 'unlawful' destruction of his business
posted by homunculus at 10:13 AM on November 5, 2012
posted by homunculus at 10:13 AM on November 5, 2012
Uh, yeah, good luck with that one.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:23 AM on November 5, 2012
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:23 AM on November 5, 2012
MegaUpload redo is shut down even before debut: The government of Gabon says it plans to suspend the domain name that MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom planned to use to launch a new cloud-storage service.
posted by homunculus at 9:53 PM on November 6, 2012
posted by homunculus at 9:53 PM on November 6, 2012
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posted by outlandishmarxist at 8:17 AM on October 21, 2012 [14 favorites]