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MPAA Goes After Its Customers
MoviesPosted by michael on Saturday July 13, @09:43AM
from the please-stop-advertising-for-us-kthx dept.
EyesWideOpen writes "The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is issuing 'takedown' notices to ISP's to alert them that customers are using their internet service to transmit or post copyrighted movies. The ISP's in turn send a letter to the customers threatening to disable their internet connection unless the offending material is removed. The MPAA is using software that 'cruises file-swapping networks like Gnutella to find copyrighted materials, hunts down the IP address of the poster, then discovers which Internet service provider is being used.'"

 

 
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MPAA Goes After Its Customers | Log in/Create an Account | Top | 416 comments | Search Discussion
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False Positives (Score:5, Insightful)
by ghostlibrary on Saturday July 13, @09:49AM (#3876732)
(User #450718 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
My first reaction is "so? Sounds fair". I mean, it's going at the source of pirating and illegal sharing, not a problem.

The article raised the issue of false positives. It had this chilling bit on it:

“Of all the letters we have sent out, we only had 2 other people who corresponded back who said we were mistaken,” Jacobsen said. “And we didn’t think we were.”

Oh, wait-- the folks doing the automated search get to decide whether its infringement. This is kinda backwards.

I mean, someone thinks you stole a coke from 7-11, the cops come and listen and maybe a judge makes a verdict-- not the 7-11 clerk.

But here, the person making the allegation gets to decide if it's true or not-- and when has any person ever been really psyched to say "Oh, wait, sorry, I was totally wrong, wasted your time, and opened myself up to legal risk by making a false accusation."

So, neat idea, but the implementation needs some better due process.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Is this something new ? (Score:1)
by Krapangor on Saturday July 13, @09:50AM (#3876742)
(User #533950 Info | http://prrrtttzzzz.wrrrrrttttttzzzzz.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday April 27, @07:33AM)
The RIAA does the same thing with mp3 swappers for some time now.
And well, trading movies is not legal.
You shouldn't be surprised that they do such things.
At least their money is draining etc.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Thats the risk... (Score:3, Insightful)
by Heem (jim@he[ ]org ['em.' in gap]) on Saturday July 13, @09:50AM (#3876743)
(User #448667 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
Well, that's the risk you take I suppose. If someone was distributing something of mine, this is the way i'd handle it. At least this is an up front and honest way to handle this - better than anything like DRM and palladin and all the other back-handed crap that is going on around us. If your going to serve illeagal files from your own machine, you may as well just sign your name and address on the package and invite trouble. Using something more anonymous, like newsgroups, would be much smarter.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Nonsense! by Grendel Drago (Score:3) Saturday July 13, @10:21AM
    • Re:Nonsense! by guibaby (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @10:36AM
    • Re:Nonsense! by joshki (Score:3) Saturday July 13, @10:42AM
        It is a pressure tactic (Score:4, Interesting)
        by Fred Ferrigno (slashdot at spamcheck.bizland.com) on Saturday July 13, @10:59AM (#3877037)
        (User #122319 Info)
        The difference here is that they would never bring a case against an individual on Gnutella to trial. They'd have little hope of winning, and wouldn't get much money anyway.

        Instead, they pressure your ISP to disconnect you, and if your ISP doesn't comply, they sue the ISP, not you, for lots of moolah.

        This is indeed a pressure tactic against people who have committed no crime -- the ISPs. An ISP has no way of validating the MPAA's claims, so they either do what they're told with no proof of wrongdoing, or risk a costly battle in court. The MPAA knows this, and uses it to force their hand. As a customer, you'd like to think that your ISP won't bend over backwards to screw you over for someone with no proof, but sadly this is not the case.
        [ Reply to This | Parent ]
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Nonsense! by moncyb (Score:2) Saturday July 13, @11:00AM
  • Usenet is not anonymous. by moncyb (Score:2) Saturday July 13, @11:07AM
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
And... (Score:1, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 13, @09:51AM (#3876745)
This is exactly what they should be doing to enforce and maintain their property rights. I still oppose any and all attempts at passing new laws that screw the consumer, but I see no problem with this.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
As much as I hate to agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
by Phaid (in_a_coma_dial_999@yahoo.com) on Saturday July 13, @09:51AM (#3876746)
(User #938 Info | http://debecker.tripod.com)
This is what the MPAA and the RIAA should have done all along. Rather than buy blanket laws that ruin digital media for everyone, they should have stuck to going after the actual people violating their copyrights, rather than treating everyone as criminals. Fundamentally, it's still their right to do that, and if ISPs want to cooperate well that's their business.

Of course, the real reasons behind the DMCA and CBTDPTA and such have a lot more to do with maintaining their tight grip on production and distribution of music and movies, than with protecting their products from being ripped off by consumers.

Can't say I'm applauding this, but this is the one thing they've done in all this file sharing mess that I can't get too up in arms about either.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Easier way? (Score:1)
by sher0209 (sher0209&tc,umn,edu) on Saturday July 13, @09:52AM (#3876752)
(User #246366 Info)
Kevin Costner is in Windtalkers?

Wouldn't it be easier to just send letters to EVERYONE with an internet connection? Sure there would be a couple of "false positives", but then you wouldn't have to muck about with all that "Ranger" stuff.

--
dan
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Hit em where it hurts. (Score:1)
by ThePlumber2 on Saturday July 13, @09:53AM (#3876757)
(User #525357 Info | http://users.fixyoursink.net/stephen.russo)
Make it fast easy and painless. Hit em where they will feel it, at the box office.

Don't go see new movies, don't buy new cds.

Bullshite.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Uh, those customers are same as shoplifters... (Score:3)
by Shivetya ([chris_holko] [at] [genpt.com]) on Saturday July 13, @09:53AM (#3876759)
(User #243324 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
that title is really stupid. Sorry, but if you went into Blockbuster and "lifted" titles you too would be being chased.

Your no longer a customer if your not paying for the content.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Disgusting, but within their rights... (Score:1)
by crc32 (colin AT crc32 DOT com) on Saturday July 13, @09:54AM (#3876762)
(User #133399 Info | http://www.crc32.com/)
Unfortunatly, these practices are within their rights. I wonder what will happen when there is a file-swapping system that requires one to break some sort of encryption to determine the IP addresses of hosts. Will the RIAA/MPAA be liable for DMCA violations in that case?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Invasion of Privacy (Score:1, Flamebait)
by Angram on Saturday July 13, @09:54AM (#3876763)
(User #517383 Info | http://www.geocities.com/ironwallcoleman)
I'm getting tired of this. This is called invasion of privacy. If a police officer goes through your room and finds a bomb, without a warrant, he can't do anything with it, until he gets one from a judge. The evidence is inadmissable in court. Get a decent lawyer, and you'll go free undoubtedly.

If your ISP relays the message to you, ask who found it, them or the MPAA. Your ISP probably has the right to (they can check transfer logs, etc). If it was the MPAA, then you're losing your right to privacy, and you can sue your ISP and the MPAA. You didn't authorize their searching your computer, and your ISP shouldn't allow it either. Once again, they can't use the "evidence" if it's found like that.

This is why I'm leaving the US, the whole system is shit. MPAA, lack of government involvement with internet privacy, Constitutional rights that evaporate once you go digital (don't get me started on the pledge.


Ramble On
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
And so continues the war of escalation (Score:1)
by acceleriter on Saturday July 13, @09:58AM (#3876779)
(User #231439 Info)
as servers become better at cloaking the sharers and downloaders of content--in future p2p networks, no one server will have a complete copy of a copyrighted file; downloads will swarm to users from dozens of hosts, through several paths blinded even from their operators by public key cryptography.

And with every article about the crackdown, more people are made aware that movies and music are free for the downloading.

As someone once said here, copyright law in the digital age will be unenforceable without DMCA death squads.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
ARIN? (Score:2)
by |<amikaze (tony.arklesNO@SPAMsk.sympatico.ca) on Saturday July 13, @09:59AM (#3876783)
(User #155975 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
Wow they've learned how do use ARIN [arin.net]. Congratulations!
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:ARIN? by acceleriter (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @10:40AM
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Old news. (Score:2)
by www.sorehands.com on Saturday July 13, @10:00AM (#3876784)
(User #142825 Info | http://www.barbieslapp.com/)
This was written up a while back in a piece called, "Fingered by the Movie Cops" [salon.com]. But in that case, the MPAA was mistaken.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
This will never work (Score:1)
by jander on Saturday July 13, @10:01AM (#3876793)
(User #88775 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
Unless They are paying people to actually download and listen to each file, how can they verify that the metallica file that appears on someones system is a "copyright infringing" mp3? They would have to be very careful, otherwise it will backfire and end up in a class action lawsuit.
If you think about it though, this could work to the advantage of keeping the RIAA expending resources to catch the "little people", and ending up pissing off prominant people because their kids were swapping mp3's....

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
False negatives? (Score:2, Interesting)
by crc32 (colin AT crc32 DOT com) on Saturday July 13, @10:02AM (#3876797)
(User #133399 Info | http://www.crc32.com/)
Since the 'False Positives' section seems to make it clear that all the MPAA is doing is looking at filenames, wouldn't it be trivial to use some sort of '133t' type phonetic coding to mess with the search algorithms that they are running?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
How hard could it be? (Score:2)
by handsomepete on Saturday July 13, @10:03AM (#3876800)
(User #561396 Info)
"Tyler was nabbed by an automated program developed by Ranger Online Inc. The software cruises file-swapping networks like Gnutella to find copyrighted materials, hunts down the IP address of the poster, then discovers which Internet service provider is being used."

I imagine this tracker that they use must identify itself somehow. I've never been heavily in to the whole swapping/p2p thing, but shouldn't it be possible to find a signature of some sort from this thing and tack it on to the front of a swapping program? Honestly asking, I really don't know. Not that I think getting in a pissing match with the MPAA/RIAA is the best solution for the software writers...

Here's the Ranger Online website [rangerinc.com]. This [rangerinc.com] section provides a very lame explanation of how they do the voodoo that they do.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Good idea (Score:1)
by haedesch (<Hadess> <at> <freegates.be>) on Saturday July 13, @10:05AM (#3876812)
(User #247543 Info | http://www.rds-clan.be/)
Movie pirates are doing illegal things. They don't physically hurt people, but that doesn't mean that they can get away with it.
Just because a lot of people here don't believe in copyright, doesn't mean the rest of the world shouldn't believe in it.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
What customers? (Score:5, Insightful)
by man_ls (jkoebel@bellsouth.net) on Saturday July 13, @10:05AM (#3876813)
(User #248470 Info | http://gamanen.tripod.com/)
You're only a customer if you pay for a product, or have a legal license to use the product free of charge. I.e. Windows XP NFR copies...you're a customer even though you didn't pay for it.

People who are involved in trading music/movies on the Internet are, for the most point in time, either fully aware that it is copyright infringement (I hesitate to say stealing because I don't really believe it is, but it is copyright infringement) or are vaguely aware that there's something "grey" about it.

It's within the (RI/MP)AA's right to go after the individuals who are responsible for copyright violations, which they are doing--rather than try to increase prices on movies, institute DRM, etc. If a large-scale sharing user knows that if he gets caught, he'll have his bandwidth taken away, that'll be a decent deterrant. Similar to the Windows XP preview editions and Microsoft IRC spiders-anyone running Windows XP and an fserv at the same time was given a nice little message, courtesy NET SEND, warning them not to share software illegally. (I personally know two people this happened to.)

Besides, the gnutella network isn't all it's talked up to be, anyway. I run a very fast DSL connection (1536/512 up/down) but STILL can't maintain more than 3 Gnutella network connections or pull more than 2kb/sec. I get transfers on IRC over 50kb/sec and direct from web sites in the 150kb/sec range...Gnutella as long since stopped being useful to me.

Besides, everyone knows the REALLY good movies are found in IRC FServs in the distro group channels, or on FTP servers--not on Gnutella. All you'll find on Gnutella are fakes and porn.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Gnutella. by Grendel Drago (Score:2) Saturday July 13, @10:38AM
  • IRC Chans. by Grendel Drago (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @10:53AM
  • Re:What customers? by mark-t (Score:3) Saturday July 13, @12:54PM
  • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
Questionable mapping of inventory control (Score:2)
by geojaz on Saturday July 13, @10:06AM (#3876815)
(User #11691 Info)
In any retail industry there is a certain percentage of profit lost due to "pilferage". The company's objective is to minimize this percentage.

This strategy by the MPAA employs an inventory control system which doesnt control the original products and may be better suited to a physical product/store. These are all derivatives of the movie from the movie theater or the DVD from Blockbuster, but in fact, none are a physical product complete with 100% of the value.
How the American people and the government deal with this will obviously set an interesting precedent for the future of media. These methods need a close reality check to see if this is the way to deal with the lost profits.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Shrinkage. by Grendel Drago (Score:2) Saturday July 13, @10:42AM
Not necessarily a bad thing. (Score:4, Interesting)
by darkonc (stephen_samuel&telus,net) on Saturday July 13, @10:06AM (#3876818)
(User #47285 Info | http://bcgreen.com/~samuel | Last Journal: Friday July 12, @05:20PM)
In terms of the long term fight for the freedom to use P2P networks to distribute Indie works, this may actually be good. I was thinking about the AudioGalaxy takedown, and I think that I came up with a scheme that allowed them to make legit works available by making the people who post the songs responsible for them:

Before submitting a song to AudioGalaxy, a user has to 'appropriately identify' themselves. Once a user is identified, they can submit songs to the AudioGalaxy universe to be authenticated for distribution.
When an identified user submits a song for use, the song is fingerprinted, and identified as 'good'. A properly identified song is the responsibility of it's submitter. AudioGalaxy is simply a tranmission medium. If a copyright holder feels that their song is improperly submitted, then they can go to the person responsible for the song for the 'publishing' of it. If a user is identified as consistently submitting unauthorized copyright material, then their entire set of authentications can be revoked.

user authentication

Users can be authenticated by any of a set of means -- eg:

  • A credit card authorization (should appear on credit card summaries as something obvious like "ID verification audogalaxy-id.com" with the domain (and www.domain) pointing to a page that precisely describs what the ID was for and about and what the associated person would be responsible for [[in case the ID was the result of a credit card theft]]).
  • Thawte (www.thawte.com) allows all sorts of ways to authenticate the identify a person -- including their 'web of trust' system which is free, and various paid methods.
  • Persons who don't have access to (or don't want to use) other methods, could mail in a notarized copy of personal ID,
  • Pick your favorite other method of verification.
Once a user is verified, they would be issued an SSL certificate that would allow them to submit songs (automatedly) for authentication.

SSL certificates allow for repudiation, so if someone's ID was used inappropriately, they would be able to issue repudiation.. It should be possible to issue repudiation starting from a specific date (when the certificate was compromised), generally (e.g. if the identity was issued improperly), or even for specific songs (if a publishing authorization turns out to have been mistaken, or the publisher has second thoughts.).

Sharing would then be checked for authentication of a song, rather than a record company claim (after the fact) of copyright infringement. If a record company claims copyright on a song, they would identify it by fingerprint (or a fingerprint summary) then DMCA procedures for notifying the 'owner' of the impugned song would follow.

The point here is that the users are then explicitly responsible for the songs that they post -- combining this with the fact that the RIAA is now proving themselves capable of going after the individual violators, this means that they should have a much harder time going after distribution services like AudioGalaxy for actions that individual customers are really responsible for. (and able to be held responsible for)

On the other hand, the RIAA's high-handed tactics may backfire on them, and provide a real boost to the indie music industry.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Greedy Bastards (Score:1)
by 0111 1110 on Saturday July 13, @10:06AM (#3876821)
(User #518466 Info)
Looks like its time to start burning my DVD and laserdisc collection to my shared folder. I really hate these guys. They're making a ton of money. Movie tickets are approaching $10. The quality of online movies is certainly no better than VHS tape and probably worse. Pretty soon they'll be going door to door for VCR inspections. There's no way they're losing money over this. Do they have any idea how long it takes to download one of those movies. It can take long enough that the money you have to pay to the power company for leaving your computer running can cost almost as much as renting the real thing. I certainly hope this kind of behavoir is going to come back and bite them in the @ss. Don't they know that most people still only rent movies. Only a small minority actually buy them.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Threat by Form Letter?! (Score:3)
by Grendel Drago on Saturday July 13, @10:07AM (#3876823)
(User #41496 Info | http://grendel.dyndns.org/)
Uh-oh.

Are we now to believe that a form letter generated by Share-O-Stop software can threaten an ISP into cutting off someone's service? Does the MPAA really think they can get away with this?!

See, the thing about P2P was that it was so incredibly distributed that it would be impossible for the MPAA to sue all of us... but now, it looks like they're trying. As we've learned, the threat of legal action can frequently be as effective as actual legal action, at a fraction of the price.

I can't believe they're using bullying tactics like this. What bastards. Maybe there's some kind of threatening form letter we can send to something the MPAA depends on, to cause them a great deal of meaningless trouble? Anyone have any ideas?

--grendel drago
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Vigilante Justice (Score:2, Interesting)
by MarvinMouse on Saturday July 13, @10:09AM (#3876835)
(User #323641 Info | Last Journal: Saturday July 13, @09:56AM)
Interesting form of vigilante justice I see. They go after and punish everyone that they deem as wrong. And perhaps they are right, but the reason for the justice system is not to punish everyone who commits something wrong, but to avoid punishing those who have no committed wrong.

I remember hearing a great man say that "it is better to let 30 men go free, then have one innocent man condemned for life."

Vigilante justice has the problem that while it catches more of the guilty, it punishes more of the innocent, as well if I remember correctly it is illegal in the states (could a lawyer check me on this?)

I understand the need for the MPAA and RIAA to solve these piracy problems, but becoming the prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner is not the way to go. When you are all four, you are guaranteed to false positives and punish those who don't deserve it.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
The moral of the story... (Score:1)
by duckpoopy on Saturday July 13, @10:10AM (#3876841)
(User #585203 Info)
Be a leech. It's just as illegal, but they won't try to catch you. Of course, that is a good way to kill a P2P network. What would be really scary is prosecuting the downloaders. If the ISP won't cooperate they could just go after people buying spindles of 100 CD-Rs. If you're really paranoid, don't fill out that rebate form. It might just be used as evidence.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Usenet (Score:3, Interesting)
by warmcat (andy@warmcat.com) on Saturday July 13, @10:14AM (#3876863)
(User #3545 Info | http://nographer.com/)
There is going to come a moment when the people who get rich off restricting availability of readily copyable content go after Usenet.

If it becomes impossible to post arbitrary content to Usenet, I believe a line will be crossed.

It is already the case that the law, especially in the US, is tilted too far away from the consumer and into the hands of copyright holders who figure that by so perverting the system, they can take shortcuts to profit like DVD region coding that spit in the face of their customers.

As the parasitical feeding frenzy between media owners and our representatives - who fear the disapproval of those media - goes on, at some point there will be a flashover where we realize just how screwed we are.

Remember these prophetic utterances: Usenet is the tiber, the last stand of liberty.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:Usenet by acceleriter (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @10:32AM
    • Re:Usenet by Wesley Felter (Score:2) Saturday July 13, @04:36PM
      • Re:Usenet by acceleriter (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @04:51PM
So when will they be fighting themselves? (Score:2, Interesting)
by tedrek on Saturday July 13, @10:14AM (#3876864)
(User #459924 Info)
I mean if they automatically hunt down offenders.. and also put bogus files on the network..
how long until they are accusing ppl of sharing content they put on the network in the first place?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Think about the numbers.... (Score:1)
by francium de neobie on Saturday July 13, @10:20AM (#3876878)
(User #590783 Info)
There're literally millions of p2p network users, how could MPAA possibly disconnect them all? It's even more laughable that MPAA is asking the ISPs to disconnect their OWN MILLIONS OF USERS. And even if they've sucessfully disconnected and maybe prosecuted that millions of users, what would the people think about this?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Parry/Reposté (Score:1)
by MoogMan on Saturday July 13, @10:23AM (#3876892)
(User #442253 Info | http://moogman.fsnet.co.uk/)
Well unfortunately, the illegal world always come back with something better - viruses, exploits, and P2P thingywatsits. We're gonna see SSL connections, obfuscated searching methods and anonymous downloading from now on. This method of searching out the big warez d00dz will inevitably fall prey to these improved methods. The Internet as a whole always seems to balance out the effects of large organisations that try to swing it one way or another. I think its trying to tell us something...
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
I feel validated (Score:5, Funny)
by Borealis (borealis_meme@yahoo.com) on Saturday July 13, @10:28AM (#3876910)
(User #84417 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
I can't remember how many times I've said or thought "without the fucking customer, my life would be so much easier". I'm so glad to see somebody finally decided to just say "screw them" to all their customers and live the easy life.

I wonder if the MPAA is hiring...
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
They've got their head screwed on backwards. (Score:1)
by gTsiros on Saturday July 13, @10:28AM (#3876915)
(User #205624 Info)
or not at all.

Point is, they should not be going after those who *offer* the media. THey should be going after those who *take* it.

Have you seen many police officers going to the shopping place in your town and arrest all those who have some of their merchandise outside their shop?

(i know that on p2p you don't sell anything, i just wanted to say that it's not the one who offers who is to blame, but one who takes it illegaly. actual story: i had Death - The sounds of Perseverance on CD. Bought, fair and square. Then, one day, i stepped on it and it got ruined...i was very sad. Then i went on p2p to get it from someone else.Both me and the other party are perfectly legal.)

please don't take me wrong
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
The MPAA's lapdog (Score:4, Informative)
by shagoth on Saturday July 13, @10:29AM (#3876916)
(User #100818 Info)
Unless things have changed dramatically, the MPAA is still using software from Ranger Online [rangerinc.com] to perform their searches exclusively. This software isn't all that technically impressive. Anybody with an understanding of protocols and search techniques can make the searches they do in public forums like gnutella and IRC. So then I imagine that they do a simple traceroute to locate the ISP or hosting provider and then a whois for the contact. THis all publicly available and frankly probably requires lots of human intervention. We're not talking banks of computers here, we're talking about a room full of MPAA flunkies doing jack Valenti's bidding.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
We need to modify the P2P clients (Score:1)
by GuNgA-DiN (Zebra-Killer@serengetti.nu) on Saturday July 13, @10:37AM (#3876950)
(User #17556 Info)
The P2P clients need to be modified to detect scans from Ranger Online Inc. [rangerinc.com]. Why not figure out what IP's they are using and systematically block them? Even better -- build this feature into P2P clients so that the user can change the IP's at will (rather than hard-coding it into the binary). That way when Ranger Online changes their IP's in attempt to start scanning again -- we can find out what range they are using and block them again!

So, let's get some packet-sniffers up and going and figure out what range of IP's these "attacks" are coming from. If I find anything I will post it here in this thread. Let's shut these guys down and put them out of business for good!

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Not the first people to do this... (Score:1)
by silverhalide on Saturday July 13, @10:38AM (#3876952)
(User #584408 Info)
MPAA is just the latest group to actively do this on the P2P networks. A few months ago, I got a nice letter from my school's IT office telling me to quit sharing Adobe apps on my PC. Apparently Adobe combed the P2P, made up an IP list, and sent out some angry letters to the ISPs of everyone on there. Of course I removed the offending files, not wanting to get into a hassle over my lifeblood internet connection.

I don't disagree with them, and this is the major disadvantage to a completely open network such as P2P -- ANYONE can get on it, including "the bad guys". It's one of the reasons I like the smaller chatroom oriented programs like Direct Connect, they seem more impervious to such monitoring.

The way I see it, the warez/movies/mp3 movement will return to the underground like it started out, with only the "elite" users having access to most of the material. The small size of the underground is what keeps it around, when only 1% of your customer base has access to the material as opposed to however high it was during the Napster boom, it becomes economically unfeasable to hunt down the individual violaters as the "loss" they are causing is small enough to ignore.

For P2P clients to survive this, they will have to evolve again, implementing some sort of trust/moderation system in where you can limit what types of clients have access to your files. (I'm thinking something sort of eBay like). That way, only "trusted" users or those with good feedback can get to your files.

Either way, this crackdown is a symptom of a larger, more common problem -- when something's good when it's small (whether it be a city, a file sharing program, a movie theatre, or club), if EVERYONE gets involved, it is quickly spoiled. I liked the mp3 community back in the days when I had to scrounge around on IRC and FTP to find the stuff I wanted, because I knew I was only one of a few people involved. Now that my moron friends who have trouble enough getting solitare to work on their PCs have access to such stuff, I can't help but feel like they don't deserve it!

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Making it more anonymous (Score:2)
by erroneus on Saturday July 13, @10:39AM (#3876961)
(User #253617 Info | http://www.d-n-a.cc/)
Someone like bearshare or whoever should create a gnutella extention that will use a proxy service for all the P2P hosts to relay through. It would conceal the sender and could possibly even speed up the network in general.

It's the lack of source anonymity that makes me hold off on hosting the files I've acquired.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Usenet overlooked? (Score:1)
by tomRakewell on Saturday July 13, @10:39AM (#3876965)
(User #412572 Info)
P2P networks always seemed very a very promiscous and un-anonymous way to share legally-dubious files.

The alt.binaries.* heirarchy of the usenet, on the other hand, appears to contain about 99% copyrighted material. The people primarily at risk are those posting the copyrighted material. Most posters take some precautions: when I examine the headers it seems like they go through NNTP servers that offer anonymity and privacy, such as usenetserver.com [usenetserver.com]. (They claim to keep posting logs for 48 hours as a way to controlling spammers... Of course if the MPAA came with a subpoena, they'd certainly have to turn them over to them.)

My perception is that downloaders of Usenet binaries are subject to considerably less risk, as there is no public log of NNTP downloads. While ISPs may log them, I can't imagine a judge granting the MPAA a subpoena for checking an ISPs download logs just to go fishing.

It is really astonishing how many terabytes get posted to alt.binaries.* per day.

By the way, I routinely stress-test my new hardware using alt.binaries.*. I don't really even know what the binaries are, I just pick a few files, and start trying to reassemble the pieces. This seems to crash my potential production servers faster than anything.

Do you think the MPAA will be knocking at my door?

-tomRakewell
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Some thoughts about the law (Score:1)
by Thor Ablestar on Saturday July 13, @10:45AM (#3876987)
(User #321949 Info)
Maybe it's offtopic but:
   
  Some time ago I've placed the Operation Thetan III on my page. Then I was contacted by the legal dept of my ISP and they claimed that according to the letter from Religious Technology Center I violate the copyright. I confessed that I really violate the copyright hoping that I do this under an aegis of "Extreme necessity" article of local criminal code, and we agreed that I will stop the violation if the due Court will sentence me to do so. Of course, RTC was not going to sue in Siberia.
   
  Let's return to MPAA. When somebody places the movie to the 'Net, it's a violation and it can be proven by copyright holder. But when somebody obtains the copyrighted material then he can not prove that the material is copyrighted before he obtains the material. In other words, every receiver may say "Yes, Your Honour, I've obtained the movie from the network. Then I have seen the copyright marks and promptly erased it". I have no idea about your law, but in Russia it's so.
   
  Moreover. If the sender shows the files to everybody including the MPAA, in order to find the receiver you need a sniffer somewhere in the network. The sniffer may be illegal, and I hope that every ISP that wants to keep it's clients will NOT let anybody to sniff without the due court order. At least it's a base for countersuit.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
what about irc and these... (Score:2, Interesting)
by Mark19960 (MarkNO@SPAMjustirc.net) on Saturday July 13, @10:50AM (#3877004)
(User #539856 Info | http://www.justirc.net/)
bots they have going onto networks to look at the traffic in warez channels? I know of some irc networks including ours that have policies against invading the privacy of users, but what legal grounds do we and other irc networks have? we have a notice on connect that if you stay on the network you agree to our policies, and one of them is not being affiliated with any law enforcement or the MPAA or RIAA we are just trying to keep the users privacy on our network, we dont spy on them... and really dont care what they do. it also says in our notice that you agree not to use the network to break any laws, hence you will be disconnected. (which isnt exactly enforced) is there anything that we can legally do to prevent them from coming onto our network and harassing our users that may be breaking the law? I and many others just dont want the network used for hunting people down. thats not what we are about. can anyone shed some light on this issue as well?
our message follows as an example:
"JustIRC.Net is a privately owned and operated network. By connecting to any of JustIRC.Net's servers (including this webserver), you agree to hold JustIRC.Net and its staff harmless from any legal action arising from use of the servers. You agree that you are not using JustIRC.Net's servers for malicious or illegal purposes. You also agree that you are not in any way involved with the RIAA, the MPAA, or any state, federal, or local law enforcement agency. If you fail to meet or disagree with these terms, you must immediately discontinue use of JustIRC.Net's servers. JustIRC.Net and its staff reserve the right to disconnect any user from any of its servers, with or without reason. These terms and conditions are subject to change without notice, and it is your responsibility to maintain a current knowledge of them. Complaints can be mailed to webmaster@justirc.net. "
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
A better way to do file swapping... (Score:1)
by Peeing Calvin on Saturday July 13, @10:55AM (#3877019)
(User #580935 Info)
Get all your geek freinds and their friends, and each of you buy a few DVDs. Then share them amongst one another. Each of you spends, like $50 for a HUGE library of stuff.

Why use the Internet for this?

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Here's the point (Score:1)
by Templar (templar@where.com) on Saturday July 13, @10:55AM (#3877020)
(User #14386 Info | http://where.com/)
Look, many people are saying that the MPAA doesn't have a legal leg to stand on, etc, but that's not the point.

They do not have to prove that you're doing anything for you to lose your account. All they have to do is say, "Hey, Cable Company, this guy is a pirate", and the cable modem gets turned off.

No courts necessary or applicable.

I received one of the letters through Time Warner, as someone in my house allegedly was sharing movies through IRC. I don't particularly care if anyone decides to go to the cops, as it's unprovable, but I damn sure don't want to lose my cable modem... the phone lines near me aren't good enough for DSL, and I can't afford a T1.

Of course I'll make sure that things aren't shared from this location. That's why the method is so completely effective.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Wonderful! (Score:1)
by vadim_t on Saturday July 13, @10:56AM (#3877028)
(User #324782 Info | http://sheelab.homecreatures.com)
Really, this is exactly what is needed. The MPAA is doing the role of an evil and strong predator and will force the migration to better file sharing systems. The more they hunt people who share the faster a switch will be made to Freenet-like systems.

Freenet provides anonymous uploads and anonymous downloads. I'm wondering how will MPAA stop that. At this moment Freenet already has some MP3. So if you want to join, I suggest you check the Freenet [freenetproject.org] and Frost [sourceforge.net] websites.

One thing I think Freenet desperately needs is good content. I don't think it will get very far if people use it only to distribute MP3, warez and other illegal content. It needs lots gaming, news, geek, and those typical "This is me and this is my dog" websites to avoid looking as a system only made to distribute illegal content without being caught.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
by Null_Packet on Saturday July 13, @10:57AM (#3877030)
(User #15946 Info)
Watch out if you are on 192.168.x.x networks! They'll be coming for you next!
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:Oh no... by kyoko21 (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @11:40AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Re:Oh no... by buford_tannen (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @12:21PM
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Cross Border (Score:1)
by nuclearsnake on Saturday July 13, @11:03AM (#3877048)
(User #257605 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
Can the MPAA press charges in other countires? Seeing how most of the movies come from Asia, do they have any jurisdiction in these countries?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Let's see (Score:1)
by dapcook on Saturday July 13, @11:03AM (#3877051)
(User #517006 Info)
54,000 letters have been sent out to try to shut down the IP access of people with copyrighted material. I pay 49.95 a month for DSL 54000 * 49.95 = 2,697,300 2,697,300 * 12 = $32,367,600 dollars a year. How many ISP's can take this hit and stay in business???
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:Let's see by Kierthos (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @02:52PM
So... (Score:1)
by Psx29 on Saturday July 13, @11:09AM (#3877076)
(User #538840 Info)
What if I record something off TV and post it on the internet yet still get bitched at by the MPAA, where do my legal rights stand?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:So... by phulshof (Score:1) Saturday July 13, @04:56PM
Encourages more freeloading (Score:2)
by Peyna (peyna.parlorcity@com) on Saturday July 13, @11:10AM (#3877082)
(User #14792 Info | http://picek.ath.cx/ | Last Journal: Sunday March 24, @10:37PM)
Since they are going after people who are sharing movies, if word gets out, I'm sure most people will learn quickly how to not share anything on the P2P networks, thus making them useless for most people. Then the only ones who will get these notices are those who are too clueless to disable sharing. If no one is sharing, then P2P isn't very fun.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
false positives (Score:1)
by scharkalvin on Saturday July 13, @11:12AM (#3877099)
(User #72228 Info | http://www.qsl.net/wa2mze)
So make a video of your hamsters fucking and post it on a p2p network.. Call the file "Simpsons episode_123" and wait. Sue 'em for false arrest.
They should at least VIEW the material they think is pirated, just to make sure.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Just in case anyone is interested... (Score:1)
by Masato on Saturday July 13, @11:17AM (#3877127)
(User #567927 Info | Last Journal: Thursday March 21, @06:53AM)
The following is a copy of the letter one of the ISP sent out. This topic has been discussed on SecurityFocus' vuln-dev [securityfocus.com] for the past day or so.

Dear Customer,
 
We are writing on behalf of Cox Communications to advise you that we have
received a notification that you are using your Cox High Speed Internet
service to post or transmit material that infringes the copyrights of a
complainant's members. I have enclosed a copy of the complaint letter.
Pursuant to the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"),
which is codified at 17 U.S.C. § 512, upon receiving such notification, Cox
is required to "act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to" the
infringing material in order to avoid liability for any alleged copyright
infringement. Accordingly, Cox will suspend your account and disable your
connection to the Internet within 24 hours of your receipt of this email if
the offending material is not removed.
   
  Please be aware that the DMCA also provides procedures by which a
subscriber accused of copyright violation can respond to the allegations of
infringement and, under certain circumstances, cause his or her account to
be reinstated. To do so, however, the response must meet certain criteria.
Pursuant to section (g) of the DMCA (17 U.S.C. § 512(g)), you have the right
to submit to Cox a counter-notification which, to be effective, must include
the following elements:
   
  (a) a physical or electronic signature of the subscriber;
(b) identification of the material that has been removed or to which
access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared
before it was removed or disabled;
(c) a statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good
faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of
mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled;
(d) the subscriber's name, address, and telephone number and a statement
that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of the Federal District
Court for the judicial district in which the address is located.
   
  In the event that you submit to Cox a counter-notification that includes
these elements, Cox will forward your counter notification to the
complainant and advise them that Cox will cease disabling access to the
allegedly infringing material in ten (10) business days. Unless the
complainant notifies us that it has filed an action seeking a court order to
restrain you from engaging in the allegedly infringing activity prior to the
expiration of those ten (10) business days, Cox will reactivate your
account.
   
  Sincerely,
   
  The Cox Abuse Team

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
this is fine by me (Score:1)
by Metaldsa on Saturday July 13, @11:22AM (#3877152)
(User #162825 Info)
Actually this sort of happened to me. I was running a not so legal server and got my service shut down. I was a stupid high school bandwidth junkie so I totally deserved it.

If someone wants to host Episode II for everyone in the world to download he should face the consequences. It isn't exactly like the people who are downloading the movie are backing up their own copy.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Windows XP (Score:1)
by kyoko21 on Saturday July 13, @11:58AM (#3877351)
(User #198413 Info)
Hmmm I was just thinking, what if all the files under /winnt and /windows were all renamed to file names like any other media names, i.e notepad.exe would be britney_spears_baby_hit_me_one_more_time.mp3 and yet it would still be executable. I guess it would make your entire OS all garbabled up and hard as heck to find where files where. But at least then if you share out your /winnt and /windows directory, you would be injecting so much fake files into the network that it would probablly bring the p2p network to its knees.

Just a thought...
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
e-mail I sent to rangerinc.com (Score:3, Insightful)
by fmaxwell (postmaster@127.0.0.1) on Saturday July 13, @11:59AM (#3877358)
(User #249001 Info | Last Journal: Thursday May 23, @08:32PM)
Disgusted by this whole modus operandi, I sent the following e-mail to several addresses within Ranger Online:

---

Gentlemen,

I have the static IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (via my {ISP Name Here} business Internet service) and am officially notifying you that I will not tolerate your firm snooping around on my computer, using bandwidth that I paid for, in order to conduct your clandestine spying. I suggest that you take whatever steps are necessary to assure that Ranger Online and its affiliates never access that IP address. Any attempts by your firm to access data on my computer will be treated as a "trespass to chattels."

I do not like your self-appointed 'net police' attitude. You are not a law enforcement agency and your searches are being carried out without probable cause or a warrant. The accuracy of the information you produce is suspect and your methods have not been undergone public scrutiny and peer review. You are using huge amounts of bandwidth from consumers, businesses, and institutions that often have limited resources and bandwidth already.

Frankly, you are like spammers. You believe that you have a right to use bandwidth paid for by others for your own financial gain.

Regards,
    {Name and address}


If I do not get a response from them, I will reformat the message into a printed letter and have it delivered with a signature required and a return receipt.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
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