Something's Not Right: German User Has To Use Chinese Proxy To See New Music Video
from the ah,-gema dept
We’ve been writing about German music collection society GEMA’s bizarre fight against YouTube for a few years now, in which all major music videos are blocked from YouTube in Germany because GEMA is suing YouTube and refuses to even discuss a potential license until the lawsuit is over. As we noted recently, this is even frustrating the labels who feel that GEMA is costing them serious money in not just doing a deal to make videos available. While researching something else on Twitter, I came across this telling tweet, from an individual in Germany talking about how they had to use a Chinese web proxy just to watch a new Sting video, and properly notes just how screwed up the world is when people in Germany are relying on Chinese web proxies just to watch music videos. I’m still trying to figure out what good this does anyone… other than GEMA.
Filed Under: china, germany, licensing, music, proxy, sting, videos
Companies: gema
Comments on “Something's Not Right: German User Has To Use Chinese Proxy To See New Music Video”
It does a lot of good, those people who learn how to bypass blocks will be educated and will never look back and because of inertia they will start to use more resilient and robust means(aka: encrypted anonymous ways), which means they will be looking for things on the black market, which means pirates will be laughing their way to the video and copyrights die a little every time, which is a good thing, since forced monopolies should all die.
I just read that Retroshare saw a boom in dowloads this year, Tribler is also booming and for some reason the Ares Galaxy has 8 million downloads straight for a month now ever since Megaupload went down.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/aresgalaxy/files/stats/timeline?dates=2012-01-01+to+2012-03-03
Most of the people adopting Ares seems to be from Latin countries, that aren’t so rigid about copyrights.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/aresgalaxy/files/stats/map?dates=2012-01-01%20to%202012-03-03
For the countries where copyrights is and issue darknets like Retroshare also are seeing an influx of people mostly coming from France(so long Hadopi).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/retroshare/files/stats/timeline?dates=2012-01-01+to+2012-03-03
They went roughly from less than a thousand downloads to 6 thousand.
Ares Galaxy appears to be the preferred one since it has a build in player and people seem to like that a lot.
35 million new Bittorrent users.
Even GNUNet saw a spike in downloads.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnunet.mirror/files/stats/timeline?dates=2012-01-01+to+2012-03-03
Mostly from the US.
For years now German and many other people around the world have been wondering
Are we in Narnia? Because it sure feels like it.
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3 Top countries downloading Retroshare.
1. France 13,700
2. Germany 4,122
3. United States 2,944
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That is also in part because the anon tools site went viral in many countries.
So why do they keep these jokers around? Sounds like they are both completely worthless and problematic for everyone involved.
For years now German and many other people around the world have been wondering
No, cause if this was Narnia we wouldn’t be having those problems, the videos would just work.
Sad to think that such simplicity is beginning to feel like a fantasy these days.
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The more you tighten your grip the more consumers will slip through your fingers??
For years now German and many other people around the world have been wondering
You think Aslan would allow Animal Planet to be shown in Narnia? That channel’s just a bunch of anti-state propaganda.
For years now German and many other people around the world have been wondering
See, thats the problem. They have to break everything just to keep the illusion of scarce goods.
I wonder when someone will implement a Shamir’s Secret Sharing Scheme in a P2P on top of a Cryptographers Dilema Scheme.
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35 million new bittorrent users…
Let’s assume that only 10% of those are in the US.
3.5 million new torrent connections, times $2,900 settlement offers…
A potential profit of up to $10,150,000,000! John Steele must be experiencing ecstasy bordering on Stigmata right about now.
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Nah, the more they learn to “avoid” the blocks, the more those avoidances become too public, and the faster they get shut down.
Basically, it’s putting more and more people using fewer and fewer ways to break the law, and sooner or later, the effort required to be legal is much less than what it takes to break the law.
Perhaps Youtube and GEMA will one day come to a settlement. Perhaps the users would be better off spending their time bitch and protesting rather than just bypassing, which creates more need to regulation that they don’t want.
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Yeah, whack-a-mole has worked so well.
Nina Nailed It
GEMA = German Entitlement Music Authoritarians
And a new slogan for them:
GEMA — taking music collection societies to a whole new level of crazy!
Other countries
I live in Sweden and i too have to use proxies/Piratebay to view videos. Lot of videos on YouTube are not licensed outside the USA. It’s very common for American companies to block access. I can not use Netflix och Amazon Video without a proxy. I’m getting “Sorry, Netflix is not available in your country… yet”.
You may not notice it where you live, but the rest of the world does.
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Cause if you dont have an organisation demanding royalities from artists for performing their own songs, how are the artist going to make money?
Think of the artist!!
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> Perhaps the users would be better off spending their time
> bitch and protesting rather than just bypassing, which creates
> more need to regulation that they don’t want.
If the people don’t want regulation, why is it that they get it anyway? Aren’t the governments in these Western societies supposed to be doing the will of the people?
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he more they learn to “avoid” the blocks, the more those avoidances become too public,and the faster they get shut down.
Basically, it’s putting more and more people using fewer and fewer ways to break the law, and sooner or later, the effort required to be legal is much less than what it takes to break the law.
Err – no. That’s not how it works. The effort required to avoid the blocks goes down whilst the effort to “shut down” the avoidances goes up – you don’t have a clue do you?
What you have to remember is that the ongoing war between cryptography and cryptanalysis was won finally by cryptography in the 1970s.
“this is even frustrating the labels who feel that GEMA is costing them serious money in not just doing a deal to make videos available.”
Then why don’t they just tell them they can’t represent them anymore? Seems simple to me. GEMA, you do good work, but you no longer have the right to represent me where youtbe is concerned. Done.
Evolution: Adapting .. Retroshare/Tribler ... Wimax
“It does a lot of good, those people who learn how to bypass blocks will be educated and will never look back”
“I just read that Retroshare saw a boom in dowloads this year, Tribler is also booming and for some reason the Ares Galaxy has 8 million downloads straight for a month now ever since Megaupload went down.”
Added to those two, I would add Wimax as I see the potential for increasingly savvy peeps setting up their own local Darknets to share town-wide with Wimax & Retroshare/Tribber.
Even some TV stations can't get licence restrictions right
A private German TV station with several channels offers online viewing of some stuff. One would assume that they check the viewer’s IP address to make sure the viewer is located in Germany to please the licence agreements of the movies/series they broadcast. Wrong! They check the language of the web browser. If you got a dynamic IP address of a German ISP and a Non-German web-browser you’ll get a “sorry, you’re not supposed to see that movie”. WTF!
I don’t understand even what good it does GEMA, since no one’s paying the absurd fees. it seems like cutting off a hand to spite the arm.
lawlawlawlawl
I hope GEMA keeps beating their asses. I want the music industry to make arguments in German court that us US citizens may use for quotes.
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Quote:
Source: http://sourceforge.net/projects/aresgalaxy/files/stats/map?dates=2012-01-01%20to%202012-03-03
SourceForge gives you access to the download statistics of all its projects.
If you click on the “Top Country” it shows you which countries are downloading what or more specifically, which IP’s from which countries are being used to download something. You can also choose the date range by simply changing the date on the box and hitting ENTER.
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Quote:
You can only believe that if you are ignorant dude.
Increasing the power of a monopoly or any exclusionary tool eventually will face fierce opposition from those being excluded, since in a forced monopoly everybody is excluded you can bet that sooner or later enforcement will go to far and it will be dialed down to almost nothing, it happens all the time.
Lets also remember that this has been going on ever since the first data storage device was ever made, it was a fact for wax cylinders that anyone could copy those and it is a fact now that anybody can copy anything.
Further you can’t believe that an influx of 24 million people in 3 weeks is people really finding difficult to migrate to other alternatives?
They just found another way and with the click of a mouse they changed venues rendering again the actions of some people mute.
Napster -> Grokster -> Limewire -> Megaupload all got broken and each time the industry claimed victory, but in each time sharing grew more in absolute size and this has been going on for more than ten years you can’t be that naive to believe that things are going to change.
You need more ten years? a hundred? a thousands?
When you can’t see no sharing and can’t see the size of it, is when you will claim victory even though it happens behind your back in a massive scale and everybody knows it?
Even before filesharing there was massive copying going around, people old enough to remember the old vans coming to the neighborhoods and seeing people sell for a buck or two a lot of bootlegs can attest to that, vans have even more data storage capacity than the best fiber today.
Well I think people are better off by flaunting the law into memory lane, this is a fight that they can and will win so why stop?
Not once in history a forced monopoly endured not once, simple because the excluded always find a way to ignore the law and do it anyways even when people were faced with death they still did it, what makes you believe it will be any different now are you trying to ignore tens of thousands of years of history and magically change the core instincts of human beings?
The law doesn’t matter in this case and people know it.
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Yep is getting didficult to find software to share by the day I mean look at SourceForge numbers, it sure seams it is getting difficult to share things.
Also nobody is coming up with new ways to share anything.
Giver – Easy File Sharing – Novell Hack Week
Evolution: Adapting .. Retroshare/Tribler ... Wimax
Giver – Easy File Sharing – Novell Hack Week
Use Giver there 🙂
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/me makes popcorn and waits for Techdirt to get sued because of posting links to sites that have links to potentially infringing materials.
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Source; ProxTube
All of the music industries efforts in regards to copyright, distribution etc, are based upon the assumption that they will be the gatekeepers.
This is what happens when they cant decide between themselves who is the gatekeeper.
Take the next step.
At what point did they decide to ignore the possibility that someone else, outside of the current music industry, may become the gatekeeper, and all their efforts to protect their business ends up being used against them to lock them out.
hardly surprising
Just try to watch any country music video from Europe. Legally that’s pretty near impossible because CMT/MTV doesn’t think you should and they constantly police youtube.
Its not racist to put down Germans so here goes. You know the Germans! They still think they are better than anyone else! They make better cars (more expensive) better everything (more VAT) to the point that we are forbidden to buy anything from the EU, RUSSIA or CHINA directly. Their fees for the transactions are ridiculous and we don’t do business with them period. Design in the USA. Create in the USA, Make in the USA and Buy USA. Come on. Time to take over again.
It's not racist to ....
“Its not racist to put down Germans …”
It is racial discrimination, as per the UN definition, I have highlighted the part important for you to understand:
“The United Nations use the definition of racial discrimination laid out in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted in 1966:
? any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.(Part 1 of Article 1 of the U.N. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination)[42]“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Declarations_and_international_law_against_racial_discrimination
So when you write:
“…so here goes. You know the Germans! They still think they are better than anyone else! They make better cars (more expensive) better everything (more VAT) to the point that we are forbidden to buy anything from the EU, RUSSIA or CHINA directly. Their fees for the transactions are ridiculous and we don’t do business with them period. Design in the USA. Create in the USA, Make in the USA and Buy USA. Come on. Time to take over again.“
.. you are being racially discriminatory towards German nationals.
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Like playdoh
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Well, the principle of GEMA is a good one: A radio station, a village fair stage runner, the school playing music at the prom – all of them won’t have to pay royalties to the seperate music companies. They simply pay a fee to GEMA, and GEMA uses a certain formula to give the money to companies and artists.
That’s the theory. Practically, GEMA has become not much more than self-service for the GEMA runners. A big part of the cake just stays at GEMA and is distributed to the management. Another big part goes to the publishers. Labels and artists are least in line, with not much more than crumbs. And when things like agreements with YouTube are on the agenda, it’s just about the sway. Nothing more.
That’s what’s sick with GEMA.
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That doesnt work cause the contract with the gema doesnt allow this. They do not even allow to share your music on your own! website for free.
(Sorry for my broken english)
Even some TV stations can't get licence restrictions right
wtf?
welcher sender ist das?
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Simple. All music in Germany is by law expected to be represented by the GEMA. “Gema-Vermutung”. If you play a song YOU have to prove that this is not respresented by GEMA, which means telling the Gema real names, and actual adress of the artist, and something written from the artist, that this song isn’t represented by GEMA. Other way is to tell and pay every song, and let the GEMA decide, if you paid to much or for the wrong songs, and then maybe the calculate correct. Its pain not to work with GEMA – as it is a pain to do so.
Proxy howto
Here’s a howto which shows how to bypass the censoring with a proxy but still being able to load the entire video over the main connection.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SzmTYPqlDc&
Or just use ProxTube plugin for Firefox which uses a similar technic, but which sometimes is overloaded.
Racist?
Sorry, but I don’t understand your opinion. As I know are the germans (we) are not a race, so try to read books. And don’t mix the goverment of G. not with the people. We don’t do that also not on your country.
And please take a detail look on products that made in U.S.A. – maybe they do with chinese parts(?)
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This doesn’t work, because of some special laws in Germany. The GEMA is like a former communistic organisation.
Not only music-videos
AS german I need to add that this does not only affect some music-videos.
This days they use software to scan all videos and match all the sounds, melodies, etc. in there against a db. A match means the whole videos is blocked.
That has the effect that just any video that contains some kind of melody that matches to a certain degree with a song they have in there db is removed. There is no control of that. Remove first, control later if at all. There are a lot of videos removed by mistake just like recently where those Software detected in the background of an amateur video singing birds as protected content and just removed the whole clip.
For those not aware. Even the bands themself need to pay the GEMA if they play there very music e.g. at a concert. All the billions GEMA makes every year is also not moved on to the bands and musicers in a logical way. They have very own rules who gets how much. It’s not related to sales, fans, how much your music is played or something like that. No, not even close to. That results in only a certain group represented in GEMA very well makes lot of money out of this.
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>Aren’t the governments in these Western societies supposed to be doing the will of the people?
AHAHAHAHAHAHA
No. Not anymore, if ever.
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as said before, yes it is racist. BMW and Mercedes think they build the best cars in the world and yes they do have a high quality standard, but they are not the best. High fuel consumption, no hybrid cars, not the best crash test results. The VAT level in Germany is about average in the EU, a lot of countries here have a higher VAT. We can travel and buy things freely in the EU and since the Euro that is even easier now.
So put your redneck ass back in your trailer and think the US is the best country in the world and be happy about it, while the rest of the world laughs about you.
And we laugh about the GEMA and one of the most common browser addons is Proxtube.
Those labels are just hypocrites. You may not know, but GEMA is just a private organization which managed to monopolize the market. All labels are members of GEMA, and they made a willing choice to be. No one forces them to be member of GEMA and they could leave GEMA any day. They could even leave all at once and create their own GEMA-like organization and if they assemble more than 50% of the market, they could even remove some of the rights GEMA is claiming to have atm from GEMA. So they are basically trash-talking here.
Can’t believe I just defended GEMA on a copy-right matter o.O
Wrong information!
I am diowlix member of the Pirate Party in Germany. I’m writing that just to make clear, that I am no member of the content-industry, and an opponent instead. But keep in mind, that I don’t talk _for_ the Pirate Party, these words are my own personal opinion.
In our fight against the “Content Mafia”, that’s how we call the f*#king content-industry, we have to be careful. We are David, they are Goliath. We have to argument wisely and most importantly: correct.
You are writing: “…because GEMA is suing YouTube and refuses to even discuss a potential license until the lawsuit is over.”
This is pretty good, but not sharp enough for me. It is a very important fact, which isn’t told most often, that the GEMA is not allowed to not give a license by law. The GEMA must give licenses, if someone wants one.
To put it in a nutshell: YouTube respectively Google doesn’t want to pay the fees for the licenses they could get by the GEMA.
They just try to get cheaper licenes, but they are fighting intransparently by writing: “This video isn’t available in your country, because the GEMA didn’t sell as a license.” That is a lie. The GEMA must sell the license. The sentence should be: “This video isn’t available in your country, because we (Google) don’t want to pay the (too high) prices for the license.”
So please stay smart and sharp, communicate absolutely correctly, because arguments are our most powerful ammunition.
Regards
Btw: diowlix means Democratic Input Output (Wesen=Lifeform) Felix ;o)
Funfact
Due to copyrights the chinese web has censored access from outside of china. you need a proxy to gain mainland access to unlimited media and services locked for non chinese.
Even some TV stations can't get licence restrictions right
That’s a common problem, but it dates back to the days of AOL Germany, where IPs of German users showed up as US-based because the IP range belonged to the US parent company
GEMA raises fees for clubs
GEMA also raises the fees for music in clubs etc. to 500 – 2600%. This will probably destroy the german club scene. It is really sad to live in Germany in terms of music.
GEMA sucks
I?m from Germany and I?m really pissed off because of this GEMA shit we have here. This is a very big step into CENSORSHIP people! I can`t even get on YouTube without a VPN anymore. BTW, I`m using http://www.sunvpn.com/ to bypass these ridiculous restrictions we have here, and with ACTA just around the corner I`m seriously thinking about using a VPN all the time I`m online…
I don?t like the one day trail accounts. This will be abused so much and will hurt the paying users quality of service. Also all the IP?s will get banned on popular sites because of idiots using one day accounts to spam and what ever else. http://www.sunvpn.net/ is a very good site. It is cery cheap and affordable. Its very easy to handle and is useful in various purposes.