Author Topic: RIAA chief: ISPs to start policing copyright by July 12 (Read 16,785 times)

TaoPhoenix · « **on:** March 16, 2012, 01:05 AM »

See, the Tin Foil Hats were RIGHT. Don't we owe them an apology for 20 years of ridicule?

Try this one:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57397452-261/riaa-chief-isps-to-start-policing-copyright-by-july-12/

Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon are among the ISPs preparing to implement a graduated response to piracy by July, says the music industry's chief lobbyist.

"Last July, Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other bandwidth providers announced that they had agreed to adopt policies designed to discourage customers from illegally downloading music, movies and software. Since then, the ISPs have been very quiet about their antipiracy measures. "

LAST JULY. It's now March. See how short the Net's attention span is?

"Supporters say this could become the most effective antipiracy program ever. Since ISPs are the Internet's gatekeepers, the theory is that network providers are in the best position to fight illegal file sharing. CNET broke the news last June that the RIAA and counterparts at the trade group for the big film studios, had managed to get the deal through--with the help of the White House. "

"Participating ISPs can choose from a list of penalties, or what the RIAA calls "mitigation measures," which include throttling down the customer's connection speed and suspending Web access until the subscriber agrees to stop pirating. "

"The partnership with the major bandwidth providers was years in the making."

Renegade · « **Reply #1 on:** March 16, 2012, 01:14 AM »

This will not end well...

40hz · « **Reply #2 on:** March 16, 2012, 03:22 AM »

I still say: "General Strike. Starve the Ogre to death."

What I really want to say:

~~WARNING: Extremely strong language and audible sound file behind spoiler. NOT SUITED FOR WORK - AROUND CHILDREN - or people with more maturity and class than 40hz has whenever this topic comes up.~~

Viewer discretion advised!!!

[attach]

Renegade · « **Reply #3 on:** March 16, 2012, 03:40 AM »

Quote from: 40hz on March 16, 2012, 03:22 AM

I still say: "General Strike. Starve the Ogre to death."

What I really want to say:

~~WARNING: Extremely strong language and audible sound file behind spoiler. NOT SUITED FOR WORK - AROUND CHILDREN - or people with more maturity and class than 40hz has whenever this topic comes up.~~

Well... I didn't find it obscene... Not sure that says much though.

nosh · « **Reply #4 on:** March 16, 2012, 05:31 AM »

Quote

Anybody who wants the link can PM me.

Who recently said something about making people jump through hoops to get some straight info??

j/k 40, you don't need to explain.

Mandatory on-topic statement (in deference to the periodic auto-correct recently invoked):
Oh dear Lord, please have them fail! Whatever the US does, a lot of other countries end up aping eventually.

40hz · « **Reply #5 on:** March 16, 2012, 05:41 AM »

Quote from: Renegade on March 16, 2012, 03:40 AM

Not sure that says much though.

It says this much to me:

<*image removed by original poster*>

Renegade · « **Reply #6 on:** March 16, 2012, 06:42 AM »

Quote from: 40hz on March 16, 2012, 05:41 AM

Quote from: Renegade on March 16, 2012, 03:40 AM
Not sure that says much though.

It says this much to me:
(see attachment in previous post)

BRILLIANT~! I LOVE IT~!

It does sort of remind me of this thread though... Here, I think our diversions are simply a more polite way to express exactly what that graphic does, but about the topic at hand.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #7 on:** March 16, 2012, 12:22 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on March 16, 2012, 03:22 AM

What I really want to say:

...

"You have failed to indicate the license of that graphical work that you copied in its entirety. This is your first warning. A second offense will involve Habanero Pepper Beef Jerky."

40hz · « **Reply #8 on:** March 16, 2012, 01:10 PM »

^Kidding aside, you're quite correct about that even if I did find it via Google.

Removed.

app103 · « **Reply #9 on:** March 16, 2012, 02:31 PM »

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on March 16, 2012, 01:05 AM

"Last July, Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other bandwidth providers announced that they had agreed to adopt policies designed to discourage customers from illegally downloading music, movies and software. Since then, the ISPs have been very quiet about their antipiracy measures. "

It is impossible under current US copyright law to illegally download anything.

The copyright owner has the exclusive right to distribution. Downloading is not distribution. Uploading, giving away, making available would be considered distribution.

At no time has the RIAA or MPAA ever attempted to sue anyone in court for downloading because they would never win. It's not a violation of their rights as spelled out under current US copyright law. They have only sued people for distribution, uploading, making available.

There are many ways to download that do not involve uploading. As long as it doesn't involve uploading, it's never infringement on the part of the downloader.

Additionally, you can not visit a page on any website without downloading copyrighted content unless everything on that page is either CC licensed or the content is so old that it is in the public domain.

When you visit the AP news website to read one of their copyrighted articles or view one of their copyrighted photos, a copy of that copyrighted material is downloaded to your device and then rendered in your browser. You can not view that content without downloading it first. It's impossible. Same goes for streaming content, music, movies, or anything else.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #10 on:** March 16, 2012, 05:21 PM »

Cueing the Not-A-Lawyer acronym, I respectfully believe your post is wrong.

Starting from the common sense side, let's take that picture as an example. RightClick ... wait for it ... *Copy* Image. Right Click your desktop. Paste Image. Boom - a new ... uh... something has appeared.

So I believe downloading is absolutely distribution - you become your own distributor to yourself.

They currently let a lot of downloading slide because it's bigger dollars of gain on the upload side, but given a big enough product under discussion, they'd go after that too.

As for the Stream part, that's where they are playing fast and loose - yes "technically" it's a copy created, but they're treating it like a "one-time performance" and not a copy. They're wink&nodding people's lack of computer skills to extract the streamed copy from its obfuscated temporary folder.

app103 · « **Reply #11 on:** March 17, 2012, 02:28 AM »

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on March 16, 2012, 05:21 PM

So I believe downloading is absolutely distribution - you become your own distributor to yourself.

Nope, the one that offers it to you is distributing. Whether that person is authorized to offer it to you is the issue, not whether or not you have the right to accept the offer. Nothing in copyright law that prevents you from accepting it or requiring you to check if they have the legal right to offer it before doing so.

If that were the case, everyone that bought that copy of Orwell's 1984 that Amazon deleted from Kindle devices would be guilty of infringement.

How could you ever know for sure if everything you buy or acquire is authorized to be sold or given away to you? How can you ever be sure that none of it is counterfeit or unauthorized?

You have to take the word of the merchant. There is no other way. You'd starve to death tracking down and waiting to hear back from all the copyright holders to find out if the images on the food packaging were not infringing on someone's copyrights.

And you can't just assume that everything free is infringement, because it's not. The RIAA labels themselves give away plenty of free stuff and have been for many years. I have stacks of CD's I have collected over the years that were given away for free at music stores, to promote lesser known artists, that were authorized by their labels.

And you can't just assume that all free digital files are infringement. What about sites like Last.fm that allow artists to upload their works and offer them to the public for download, free of charge?

Oh, that's different?

Well what if someone pretending to be the artist uploads it, unauthorized, and you download it? What if the artist sold the copyrights to it and then uploaded it? He would no longer be legally allowed to offer it to you. But how could you ever know that?

This is why the consumer is never punished for someone else's distribution. This is why there is nothing in the US copyright laws that allows punishing the consumer or end user.

There has never been a single case filed against a downloader in the entire history of copyright. They have only been sued for distribution, uploading, making it available to others.

You know whether or not you have the right to distribute something. Nobody else that accepts it from you really ever does.

And yes, you can legally save a copy of every copyrighted work you view online to your hard drive, as long as you don't distribute it to others without the permission of the copyright holder.

Renegade · « **Reply #12 on:** March 17, 2012, 05:53 AM »

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on March 16, 2012, 05:21 PM

Starting from the common sense side, let's take that picture as an example. RightClick ... wait for it ... *Copy* Image. Right Click your desktop. Paste Image. Boom - a new ... uh... something has appeared.

That's not quite accurate. Here's what happens...

Make HTTP request to URL
Fetch the HTML
Fetch assets like JS, CSS, PNG, JPG, and other embedded files
Render page
Right-click, etc.

(Fetch here means download and save in a cache as a local copy.)

The files are all already saved on your computer in a cache. Going from "right-click copy" to "right-click paste" is copying data from your local computer (assuming that we're being efficient and not making extra work for ourselves), and not from the Internet or web site. Well, that is if under the hood the picture is actually copied (i.e. put on the clipboard as image data from the local cached file)... But that's where we're splitting hairs -- does what's happening under the hood matter?

The point is, the data is already on your computer. Whether you know it or not. Copying from the browser to your desktop is merely a convenience. You can dig through the cache to find the same file.

So, having the file in your cache or on the desktop... It's really only about convenience, and actually knowing how the technology works. So claiming that right-clicking to copy an image is copyright infringement is really just nonsense. The file has already been downloaded. It's done. Game over. The debate after the page renders is only one of how to conveniently view/consume the downloaded content.

You cannot sanely dictate terms at a website that would let you control how people consume the content. There are simply too many possibilities. Nobody would read past page 233,465,456,567,724,923, even if they glanced at the first page.

So, you either put up the content and let people consume it however they want, or you keep it and never distribute it.

I was in a restaurant the other day, and saw some people eating in a quite bizarre way. Like, abnormal. Everyone at the table was eating the same way. It was rather amusing to watch. But the waitress didn't chastise them for "eating the wrong way". Why would she? They can eat however they want.

The Internet and restaurants are the same way. You either serve stuff up, or you don't. But you don't get in people's faces when they're consuming.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #13 on:** March 17, 2012, 10:49 AM »

I remember the Cache cases, there's been rumblings about those being required to view a page. However somewhere between you two, and indeed with some illogic, they are indeed trying to make it illegal to create permanent copies of transitory stuff.

We have specialized lawyers winning these kinds of cases in places like East Texas, and the new generation of copyright laws like the now famous SOPA/PIPA/PCFIPA/"Canadian DMCA", ACTA, and your choice of a few more, ARE making/trying to make what are indeed supposed to be common sense actions, illegal.

app103 · « **Reply #14 on:** March 17, 2012, 07:02 PM »

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on March 17, 2012, 10:49 AM

they are indeed trying to make it illegal to create permanent copies of transitory stuff.

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on March 17, 2012, 10:49 AM

ARE making/trying to make what are indeed supposed to be common sense actions, illegal.

Laws that don't exist yet, don't exist. Only the law that currently exists, applies.

The RIAA, MPAA, and ISPs should not get to act like laws they wish existed actually exist, and the ones they don't like, don't exist. It doesn't work like that, or at least it shouldn't.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #15 on:** March 17, 2012, 09:32 PM »

Oh, you're right in concept, they shouldn't get all that, but they do ... there's the whole thing that come July 2012 the ISP's will get a new level of tracking etc...

Renegade · « **Reply #16 on:** March 17, 2012, 10:34 PM »

Quote from: app103 on March 17, 2012, 07:02 PM

Laws that don't exist yet, don't exist. Only the law that currently exists, applies.

The RIAA, MPAA, and ISPs should not get to act like laws they wish existed actually exist, and the ones they don't like, don't exist. It doesn't work like that, or at least it shouldn't.

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on March 17, 2012, 09:32 PM

Oh, you're right in concept, they shouldn't get all that, but they do ...

I'm going to meander a bit, but there is a point here that I'd like to address.

Ever notice how on the news you hear about "corruption" everywhere in the world except for the West? There's a reason for that.

Corruption works differently elsewhere, and is much less sophisticated.

While you constantly hear about some official in Asia being charged with corruption, it's rare in the US because because they have oh, so many ways around it...

What you often see is corporate thug appointments to government departments, e.g. the FDA or USDA. This allows the corporations to plant their people in the bureaucracy and create the laws/regulations that they want.

Conversely, those in federal institutions that play nicely with the corporate thugs get nice cushy appointments as senior executives with big salaries and bonuses.

The corruption is indirect, but everyone gets their pound of flesh, and no charges are ever laid, because "conflict of interest" isn't a crime.

Well, let's pull this back to the media mafia... They don't have any such federal organizations that they can infiltrate like that, so for them, this is very frustrating.

Other sectors get to rape and pillage all they want, but the media mafia is sort of left out in the cold with no real venue to infiltrate, other than bribing politicians, which isn't really all that effective. It's better to have a "man on the inside", like the pharma and bio companies get to do.

So, once this is framed as "frustration due to a lack of possibility for strong corruption", wouldn't it make sense for the media mafia to try and "stretch" any law they can to fit their purposes? Like really... They're not being given a lot to work with here... They've got a tough job compared to some other sectors that get to rape and pillage at will.

Renegade · « **Reply #17 on:** March 20, 2012, 01:27 AM »

Here's a take on the deal from the AP:

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/03/internet-service-providers-to-launch.html

Quote

Internet service providers (ISPs) across the United States are set to voluntarily begin a digital surveillance operation so large that nothing can even come close in the history of espionage.

40hz · « **Reply #18 on:** March 20, 2012, 03:12 AM »

General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
===========STRIKE===========
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.

(Before it's too late.)

nosh · « **Reply #19 on:** March 20, 2012, 03:30 AM »

Star Wars flashback!

Renegade · « **Reply #20 on:** March 20, 2012, 03:36 AM »

Quote from: 40hz on March 20, 2012, 03:12 AM

General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
===========STRIKE===========
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.
General Strike. Starve the media industries to death.

(Before it's too late.)

Awesome! I love it!

IainB · « **Reply #21 on:** March 20, 2012, 04:30 AM »

+1 for what 40hz said.
That's the only way CAMRA in the UK got a change in direction from the big brewing combines. Boycott. Stop buying their beer.
It worked.
The combines unilaterally decided to start shutting down small batch-production breweries that made some beautiful-tasting real (natural and uncarbonated) ales, because they were not profitable like their flow-production units (which produced relatively bland-tasting carbonated beers).
This severely limited consumer choice. British beer-drinkers are fussy about their beers ... and so formed CAMRA (CAMpaign for Real Ale).
Within a year, the combines realised that beer drinkers were systematically boycotting their sales when their turnover and profits fell, and their share prices dropped.
So the small breweries (which had mostly been mothballed) were quickly started up again, and the ales were sold at a higher price to enable a profit.
Result: everybody happy.

Renegade · « **Reply #22 on:** March 20, 2012, 05:01 AM »

Quote from: nosh on March 20, 2012, 03:30 AM

Star Wars flashback!

Had me wondering how it would look like this:

Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
=========STRIKE BACK=========
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.
Strike Back. Starve the media industries to death.