I appreciate that this will give copyright infringers the ability to know whether their attempts at masking their identities are proving sufficient without a lot of risk to them.
How many of those people do you think are going to pay for VPN/seedbox access? At the very least it makes pirating cost more and legal options more attractive.
Companies that both search for copyright violators and provide internet service (e.g. Time Warner) will be strongly motivated to send out massive amounts of spurious warnings to their own users. By doing so, they can effectively throttle anyone using large amounts of bandwidth even if it isn't for illegal file sharing. The review fees will also allow providers to "tax" high-bandwidth users unwilling to be throttled. i.e. If a user requests a review their ISP can pocket the fee and simply throw out the warning without wasting any resources actually reviewing it, only to send another warning the following month.
The truly diabolical aspect of this policy is that the copyright owners do the "monitoring". While using spurious warnings to cut bandwidth costs and squeeze more fees out of their own users, they can also issue just as many warnings against users of other ISP's to ensure that there is no benefit to switching providers. It is even possible that some companies may actually send out massive amounts of spurious warnings to users of competing ISP's as a way of pressuring them to switch ISP's.
Solutions? There needs to be a sufficiently strong penalty for issuing warnings that aren't valid.
It's worse, you forgot to add that media companies also get free (and to some degree directed) advertising for each notice. ISP and media company both profit for sending en-mass those notices, and the party who has to bear the costs is the customer.
Obviously the solution needs to be a legal framework that disallows my internet provider from sending me harassing notices or willfully degrading my service. For the latter, that might already be the case.
For one, I would welcome such service in South Africa and pretty much everywhere else outside the US. From the article:
"The note will include information to steer them away from their life of crime, including tips on how they can download content legally."
This is awesome news. I would love to be able to download content legally. So far my experience is "fuck you, you're to small for us to care".
EDIT: Also: "by the way, this show can be bought for $2 here and there" will be both awesome advertisement and might really work. I somehow doubt this is the goal though
I don't pirate, but I still don't like the idea of the content of my traffic being constantly analyzed, getting harassed with false positive notices due to software bugs, or due to legitimate sites accidentally having copy written material, or not honoring fair use correctly, or legitimate downloading of a game from a small studio with little bandwidth using BitTorrent, paying $35 review fees and talking to Comcast customer service any more than I absolutely have to.
Somehow this reminds me of getting carded at a CVS store when buying an extended BIC lighter for lighting BBQs. When I expressed surprise, I was told it's because I could use it to light a cigarette.
> If a customer feels they are being wrongly accused, they can ask for a review, which will cost them $35 according to the Verge.
I can't find any real information on this, but do the fees get refunded if it turns out you are not guilty of the download? If that's the case then I see no problem with any of this and I'm happy it's being done.
I find this quite scary. As with all things like this it starts in degrees. Today it's an annoying warning and "educational materials". A few years from now, when warning aren't enough and people are used to them, it'll be disconnection, back to ham-fisted legal blackmail, or even more creative and ridiculous punishments for pushing electrons.
The worst part is that the ISPs are also in many cases the content creators too. Therefore they have a financial incentive to snoop on their networks, invade people's privacy, and basically be a privatized big brother. Better not write an email about downloading files, because your ISP might read it and disconnect you!
I don't know if having the ISPs in the same bed as content creators is a monopoly or not, but it's certainly not in the public's best interest. Every day where I read an increasingly outrageous story about ISP/government internet snooping and control makes me want to switch gears and dedicate my work to internet privacy and distributedness.
I've always been curious - has anyone ever been prosecuted for downloading content? My understanding is that it's the unauthorized publishing (for example, providing a bit torrent seed) that is illegal.
For example - were any users ever pursued for purchasing discount (and, I'm guessing, not 100% legal) tracks off of mp3.com?
If Bob downloads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of each track - $0.79 per track, plus costs.
If Bob then uploads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of each track, multiplied by the number of people in each swarm, plus costs. This gives the ridiculous many-thousand dollar sums.
Both are illegal.
If Bob burns the content to CD and takes a bunch of them to a car-boot sale it becomes a criminal offence.
(I'm in the UK and legal terminology is a bit confusing when it crosses from the US.)
If Bob then uploads a bunch of tracks the company can sue for the cost of each track, multiplied by the number of people in each swarm, plus costs. This gives the ridiculous many-thousand dollar sums.
That's actual damages, and in practice labels find those too small, so they go after statutory damages instead, which is why the different appeals in the Capitol v. Thomas case have awarded them completely disparate amounts, from $54,000 to $1,920,000, for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa.
There is nothing legal about downloading pirated content (in the US), but the penalties for uploading (distributing) are much higher, which is why those are the people that get sued.
The notion that all private communication between peers is monitored for copyright infringement means that we've reached the police state stage of enforcing copyrights.
I guess everyone encrypting all of their communication is the next inevitable step due to government's involvement in our private dealings.
At least they are trying to create some sort of process instead of just running people into court. But I have a feeling innocent users of bittorrent will receive notices. It's not even clear whether they indicate the name of work infringed when sending notices.
I live in Australia and AFAIK this has been common practice for at least the last 5 years. I know people who have received these notices in the mail. Though with recent precedent set in iiNet vs MPAA I can't imagine anything like this being a problem.
This is just silly. Internet is for data transport. Imagine if cities are responsible that someone is transporting stolen goods on their roads, or Ford has to keep track of what their car owners transport in the car...
Get a VPN. ISP's have not been neutral third-party for a long time, and monitoring has become a revenue source. While political pressure can in the long run fix the problem, vpn's are one of the few options left.
They have clients connected to torrents harvesting IP addresses of everyone in the swarm. They request a few blocks of upload from each peer as evidence that it is sharing copyright content.
This is already routine, what is changing is that they now have a better way to use this information instead of filing legal threats and lawsuits.
'Pirate content' is such an oxymoron. First you created a network with our support so that you can distribute content to us. Then you used that clout to force artists to fall on their knees, 'help' them get their content out.
Now you have a license for such content. So you're forcing us to behave to your definition of 'proper'. Started teaching people some manners, now? The very same people who make you whatever you're.
That's not going to work sir, I am afraid.
You don't own the network of us. You can't make it behave according to your whims and fancies. The artists can connect with us directly. They love to. Stop bothering us.
All services that an artist can use to distribute music yet musicians still choose to sign with labels to this day. Maybe, just maybe labels provide value to artists beyond what you can comprehend?
Would Justin Bieber be worth over $100,000,000 if he had released his music on Bandcamp? Would Lady Gaga be worth $150,000,000 if she had released her music on Myspace? Do you think Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber want people to pirate their music and care only about people hearing their music? If that was the case why don't they release it for free?
Radiohead released an album independently in... 2005? That was a success, if artists only cared about making music and didn't care about making money why hasn't every artist since released independently?
Why can't people that create content be a business? Surely that is the entrepreneurial spirit everyone here is supposed to have... and if so, why can't they be against people that engage in media piracy?
TBH if artists care about money over music, I'm less likely to like their stuff anyway. There isn't a huge amount of music that costs silly money to produce nowadays, is there?
Though there are exceptions - bands like Muse, that need lots of up-front investment to create a huuge amazing stadium show (the costs will probably be recouped from tickets, though).
I base it on the fact that I genuinely like bands as they are small, and then as they make their stuff more "accessible" after signing a big deal, in order to expand their user base, it loses a lot of appeal for me. I prefer music to be pure and not be changed in order to cater for people who aren't prepared to spend time enjoying it. Each to their own, and if you like mass-appeal stuff, but that's not for me. Similarly, TV shows. Stuff like The Wire, which doesn't patronise the viewer and expects you to pay enough attention to draw your own conclusions, I find much more satisfying than stuff that hands things to you on a plate.
Point taken. It's good to see the options coming. Yes, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga are creations using the current technology.
Not by suppressing freedom to download, or by penalizing consumers who download, or by asking them to behave properly. I never said artists should release their music for free. You did not read properly.
> I never said artists should release their music for free. You did not read properly.
Please can you explain what your point is then, I don't quite understand what you're saying if that is the case.
> Not by suppressing freedom to download, or by penalizing consumers who download, or by asking them to behave properly.
You mean the freedom to take a product without doing whatever the person licensed to distribute it wants (eg: pay $10) like we have to do with every other product?
That's not a very progressive spirit. It might seem unfair, but technology has changed the rules of the game. The consumption of many goods has become non-rivalrous.
Whereas taking goods off shelves without paying is covered by other laws, copyright is about forbidding you from sharing what you bought with others who didn't buy it. That's much more debatable.
Reducing this issue to "let's do what we do with every other product" would undo some of the achievements of the technology and hold us back. Copyright has to stand on its own, it can't be justified by analogy to rivalrous goods.
You make good points. The problem is, you're ignoring history by thinking that technology has changed anything. There is nothing new about copyrights, patents, etc. These systems have been in place for centuries, and the debates about their value have been going on for centuries (and apparently, the pro-copyright faction are winning). Technology hasen't changed anything except to make the problem "bigger".
You're right when you say: "copyright is about forbidding you from sharing what you bought with others who didn't buy it. That's much more debatable." But most people who talk about these issues don't realize that all of these things have been debated for a long time. Most people don't add anything new to the discussion, and are woefully ignorant of the thought that's already been put in.
Lots of changes can happen. They just haven't here, in this case. Did you read the article? The arguments they had during the 1800s basically foresee all of the issues people talk about regarding copyright, including foreseeing piracy.
Okay, lots of changes. One example? Can you show me a paradigm shift where the rules actually needed to be updated, and explain what is different from this case?
Yes, I can. But I'm not going to go down this road with you - we'll be stuck all day fighting over definitions of what is an "actual" paradigm shift and where rules "really were" updated.
Instead, feel free to make your point. I pointed to an article and made a very specific case - the issues people talk about today, and think are unique to our time because of technology, are not unique, and have been discussed before our time. As proof, I linked to an article which has excerpts from talks given during the 1800's.
I'm still unsure what case you're trying to make, and whether you agree or not that my statements were correct.
I posted here with the understanding I was providing everyone accessing news.ycombinator.com with access to my post.
A comparable example would be if I posted this on my blog behind a pay wall (which meant it cost $5 to access the post) and then someone copy and pasted my post here and you read my post while understanding it had been taken from behind my pay wall. That would be absolutely unacceptable.
Is it unacceptable to remember something you've read? To tell a friend? To write down and sell it? If you turn a profit? If you don't? If you write by hand, 1 character per second? If you use a machine to do it, 1 million characters per second? Are we allowed to quote? To teach? To paraphrase? To back up?
These are hard questions, and you're reducing them to moral absolutes. Make your case without shouting about how you're right.
Gray areas will always exist, you cannot take something and narrow it down to absolutes and I'm not trying to, there will always be areas where you have to take context into account and analyse that situation independent of another situation that falls under the same "rule".
The general idea is (in my opinion) that if you produce something then you should (to a degree) have the expectation of control over the consumption of whatever it is you produce. This includes the right to sell that production, distribute it for free, license that production out to specific groups or keep that production completely private.
If we stick with the example of me writing a post behind a pay wall then I would personally believe that summarising the post to a friend is acceptable as would be posting a summary of the article on HN, because the value of a blog post is not the general idea it's the way in which that idea is presented and formed.
If you were to take the post and reproduce the content in any form (for profit or not) I would believe that to be unacceptable. However there are gray areas which include people who could read a post and then repeat it perfectly. This is something that can't be included in some big flow chart of right and wrong, but it doesn't need to be if everyone stuck to core principles.
I think it can be reduced to a general idea with ease: Taking something (regardless of deprivation) is wrong.
> Make your case without shouting about how you're right.
Regarding this I apologise, I have very little ability to explain my thoughts coherently (failed highschool etc etc) so while I try to explain myself without letting my frustrations leak in it often happens. I spend a lot of time retroactively editing my comments to try and reduce the amount of that, but I often end up not being able to see my comments problems when looking back -- things like assuming my thoughts are the way everyone thinks etc.
The general idea is (in my opinion) that if you produce something then you should (to a degree) have the expectation of control over the consumption of whatever it is you produce.
Well this is the hard problem. To make it convenient and sensible for people to buy/watch movies officially, make it possible to show it off to their friends (Like I have a paid subscription), may be adopt SAAS or provide rented streaming in such a way that people say "we have an official access to hurt locker" or something.
If it costs $10 a ticket to watch on a big screen, spend gasoline, travel some distance physically, it can surely cost 1/10th (or less) of that amount per movie and yet return similar profits (by volumes) to the artist. People really don't care about the middlemen.
Just a few ideas, but obviously the solution is hard. Yet I believe that teaching manners to people, i.e. annoying the consumers is suicidal.
Does it bother you at all that some of the artists did not want to connect to you for free? That they don't find it okay that The Avengers is streaming to you in 1080p for no cost at all while they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars?
Yes gave it thought: "Some of the artists did not want to connect to you" then why make a commercial flick called Avengers at all? Surely, those artists did mean to connect with us. For a price, not free you meant I think.
Agreed, artists should make money. They should make money, and it CAN be done by embracing technology, by making it better at delivery. That's a different approach in life.
I don't think the ideas to (referring CNN's article) "snoop who is downloading and teach them some manners" is going to work at all.
Its people who incorrectly keep using the word "stealing" who make me want to copy everything I can.
People who confuse borrowing and sharing with stealing must be hard to get on with. Can I borrow that newspaper? No. Can I borrow that book? No. Can I borrow a lawn mower? No. Kids? Do they share, sorry, steal books from each other? Toys? Are newspapers left on the trains when people get off to incite other to "steal" ? If I glance across and read a head line as you read, are you illegally sharing?
Copying and sharing is NOT stealing. Get that in to your head and you might get a sensible debate going. Until people stop using these exaggerated WMD terrorist OTT type claims, the debate cant even start. Oh yeah, I have heard it claimed that sharing funds terrorism. Really.
More than anything, I am sick an tired of this industry, backed by the US gov, continuing to support a failing old industry with bullying and threats. See how nasty and vindictive these people get when their controls on us fail. That infinitely worse than sharing stuff.
And if sharing is wrong, then the USA can stop using our language, English. Or perhaps pay the UK a licence fee for its use. In fact, the US could really help put Spain in that respect. See, it's ridiculous, isn't it?
Anyway, isn't it Christian to share? Isn't it kind and decent to share? That's what I learned as a kid. Has the world really gotten that bad?
Lastly, I want to see a loss proved. I want to see it proved that down-loaders would have purchased had they not down loaded. Or, I want to see a business like Fox go bust due to sharing. If that happens, I will believe their claims. Until then, I will be sure that all they are doing is protecting greed, since despite all the whining, they are still incredibly profitable. I suspect out sourcing costs more US jobs than sharing.
I'm now off to download something I don't want. Never seen Hurt Locker..... I'll leave a comment on the torrent site to explain my motivation.
I'm so glad someone finally posted this on HN. The unique and new viewpoint you bring to this site is invaluable, just like in years gone by when it was pasted almost verbatim all over Digg and Reddit thousands of times.
I hope you and many more people come here armed with the same diatribe about copying != stealing to post on the many future fluff pieces TorrentFreak and TechDirt will write just for your upvotes.
I am genuinely curious - if you were a software developer, and wrote a commercial package, and tried to sell it, but everyone just "shared it" and copied it instead, how would you feel? How would you describe their behavior? What if you were an author, and spent a year writing a book, but instead of buying it from the store, people just made copies of it? Or (in the most relevant example) - you were a production company that invested $50mm into a box-office picture, but everyone decided to share it instead of paying for it?
I'm not sure what word you like to use for "People who make copies of other peoples songs, books, movies and software without their permission", but I'm happy to adjust my vocabulary when discussing that behavior with you.
> Its people who incorrectly keep using the word "stealing" who make me want to copy everything I can.
Words evolve, why can't "to steal" mean "to take something without permission regardless of the expectations of the person licensed to distribute that something"? We need a word for it... the world is becoming more and more digital! Stealing is just a word that so far has only been used to refer to physical goods because only recently have digital goods existed! The word "hacker" has evolved in meaning, why can't "stealing"?
If a car is on sale for $10,000 and I could plausibly take that car without paying for it without depriving the owner of that car I would still not take it. If the person licensed to sell this car wants people to pay $10,000 for it, they should. If that car isn't worth $10,000 to anyone then the car would never sell and they would be forced to adjust pricing if they wanted to make sales. People just taking the car without paying are not incentivising lowering the price (because who would pay $5,000 if the alternative was free if they're happy to just take something when it's $10,000?) they're incentivizing measures to make it a pain in the ass to take without paying, the music / movie equivalent would be DRM -- if we assume DRM was effective.
> And if sharing is wrong, then the USA can stop using our language, English. Or perhaps pay the UK a licence fee for its use. In fact, the US could really help put Spain in that respect. See, it's ridiculous, isn't it?
No, that's a ridiculous example. English wasn't created by one man who wanted to keep it to himself but other people took it and used it anyway. If that was the case then sure, your example works.
> Anyway, isn't it Christian to share? Isn't it kind and decent to share? That's what I learned as a kid. Has the world really gotten that bad?
Now you're just being plain manipulative. If you make something (a song) and you give it to someone that is sharing, if someone makes a song and then you take it without their permission and then give it to someone else that doesn't make it "right" to have taken that in the first place.
How can we live in a world that is moving more and more towards things being digital if people can't accept that there has to be some sort of expectation that people won't take digital things without permission. If songs are just "information" and information "wants to be free" why does anyone give any thought to Facebook telling your girlfriend that you chatted to a hot chick while you were drunk one night? People get enraged about that, but it's just information! information is free! (and for reference I don't believe that is a fair comparison, but I believe it's a fair enough comparison based on what you're trying to say)
When you were a child you were taught that taking things is wrong not because then that person won't have it but because it's not yours to take! Yes, it should absolutely be the case that if someone makes something they should be able to release it for everyone in the world to consume but it should also be the case that if you make a song or I make a TV show or Linus Torvalds makes an operating system we should be able to charge for it and not have to build our expectations around "well 100,000 people are going to use it but only 1 is going to pay".
Sharing as it's taught to children is about taking something of your own and letting other people use it, however it's also your right as a person to refuse that. If a person wants to use a bedsheet that you own to make a halloween costume then you should be open to the idea because that's sharing, however if that person is a member of the KKK and wants to use your bed sheet to use at a rally and you're against what the KKK believe in then you are well within your right to say no.
True sharing is about being a good person, a good neighbour, someone that considers others when you do something, the piracy version of "sharing" is none of that, it's completely disrespectful to the people that create the content.
> Lastly, I want to see a loss proved.
Why can't it be about having some human decency? A large amount of our laws and policies in every country around the world exist because people are assholes, this sort of thing (re: copyright) is just more laws needing to be made because 99% of the human population is made up of assholes that don't have an ounce of human decency and would rather take something against the wishes of the creator than do what the creator wants.
If you want to listen to the latest Britney album and it costs $10 to listen to it then you should pay that $10. If you want a new BMW M5 you should pay the $100,000 it costs. If you want to watch the latest episode of Breaking Bad you should pay the Netflix subscription fee / cost of cable / cost of the DVD / cost of the itunes download. If you do not want to pay then you should not have whatever it is, whether it's physical or digital. Not because you're depriving anyone of anything but because the person that created it (or is licensed to distribute it) doesn't want you to have it.
> Words evolve, why can't "to steal" mean "to take something without permission regardless of the expectations of the person licensed to distribute that something"? We need a word for it... the world is becoming more and more digital! Stealing is just a word that so far has only been used to refer to physical goods because only recently have digital goods existed! The word "hacker" has evolved in meaning, why can't "stealing"?
Here's why. Evolution of a thing is dictated by variations of that thing and its ability to survive and spread in its environment. That applies to the existence and meanings of words too, including the word "hacker". If a new or altered term for "stealing" hasn't taken root in society, then it's unfit. It doesn't matter whether or not "we have a need for it".
If you really want a new word, that's a discussion we can have. New words are indeed needed in a digital world. "Google", the verb, is a good example. Perhaps we should repurpose "burglar?"
How do you feel about choosing a word which does not refer to anything very similar, and which does not carry legal and moral weight? I think that would be easy and intellectually honest.
I don't really care whether you think it is okay or not.
I just care that I can get the stuff on my terms. Not for free, but I don't want to have to see it at a specific time or pay for a bunch of channels I don't want.
But you agree that people were trying to see the movie 'Hurt Locker' or treasure it? And obviously there was no official way of acquiring the content - a place which works nicely and is priced correctly.
We've seen this, argued over and over again for past fifteen years. Justifying stealing is different from putting middlemen to their place. Teaching consumers manners, penalizing them is not the right way.
One can understand this, or wait to understand this the hard way.
Oh, I agree that people were trying to see the movie hurt locker in much the same way that I try to see (and treasure, trust me!) Game of Thrones off the torrents.
I don't have any rationale other than the fact that I don't want to pay the $876 that HBO + Cable will cost me. I also like to have it with me while travelling, and the streaming solutions from HBO, good as they are, just aren't great on an airplane / hotel in some other country.
I'm not "putting middlemen" in their place - I just want cool content in the format that is convenient for me for what I consider to be a reasonable cost to me. I do make it a absolute habit of purchasing the DVDs when they come out, to try and make my conscience a little lighter.
But, I _never_ kid myself that the artists behind GoT wanted to "connect with me directly." They wanted to get paid the same as I do at my job.
I pirate most television shows I can get my grubby little paws on.
But whenever an artist whose works I enjoy tries to connect with me directly, I buy stuff. For instance, I have bought most of Amanda Palmer's albums in her various bands. Especially now that she isn't using a label anymore, but even before that she was putting a lot of work into connecting with fans directly.
I also bought Louis CK's standup show thingy. And I've bought certain indie games that were enjoyable. All because the creators connected with me directly-ish.
But more importantly, they made buying from them reasonable. Never any DRM, downloadable content immediately after purchase (the CD is just for show and dust collecting), ability to buy on every content in every country at the same time and so on.
Conversely, I didn't buy my latest MacOS upgrade even though it was just $25. Why? Because I would have to wait three weeks for it to be available (online) in my country. Fuck that.
