International Game Of File Sharing Whack-A-Mole Continues

Overhype

from the and-what-good-does-that-do? dept

In what we’re sure will be declared yet another “significant blow” against “piracy,” the IFPI helped shut down a private bittorrent tracker site that was used by many people. Following the arrest of the service’s creator and the taking down of the site, the IFPI has put up one of its typical scary warning notices about how it’s now trying to track down the users of the site — though most people view that as an empty threat. There is little doubt that this particular service was mainly used for unauthorized file sharing. However, you do still have to wonder what the IFPI and others think they’re accomplishing here. It becomes increasingly laughable to have anyone think that bringing these sites down does anything positive for the industry. It’s clearly not in the best interests of musicians who are quickly moving as far away from organizations like the IFPI and the RIAA as possible. At the same time, musicians are recognizing that playing this giant game of whack-a-mole is both counter-productive and stupid. It doesn’t do anything to damper file sharing at all. Once a copy is out there it’s out there, and shutting down one player in the space doesn’t make any difference at all. The users just scatter and show up again elsewhere, further underground. In the meantime, many more are realizing that rather than worrying about these services, it’s time to embrace them, recognizing that they’re incredibly efficient distribution and promotion mechanisms that can be used to help a musician become much more successful. About the only people who it’s hurting are those who think they’re in the business of selling little plastic discs — and we’ve already described why felony interference of a business model isn’t a crime.

Filed Under: bittorrent, file sharing, p2p, takedown
Companies: ifpi, oink, riaa

Grokster Case Lives On… Judge Debates How Best To Kill Streamcast

Legal Issues

from the so-many-choices dept

Many people think that the Grokster lawsuit ended with the Supreme Court ruling over two years ago. However, that’s not the case. The Supreme Court was simply ruling on an aspect of the case (whether software providers were liable for what their users for doing) and then sent the case back to the lower court to then review its original decision. Grokster, whose name the case is most identified with, shut down, but Streamcast was also involved in the case and it decided to fight on, claiming that it did not “induce” infringement, and therefore was not guilty of copyright infringement. Unfortunately, the judge wasn’t convinced and still found the company guilty. Since then, there’s been an ongoing process of determining just what the punishment should be. The judge clearly hoped that Streamcast would make life easy by settling, but the company is nothing if not persistent in standing by its various lawsuits. Ed Felten points out that the judge is now trying to carefully weigh the punishment options for Streamcast, which seems rather odd, because it’s pretty clear that no matter what the punishment, Streamcast is done. There’s basically no way for the company to stay in business after losing this case, so Felten can’t figure out why the company would keep fighting this — though, the longer it stays alive, the more chances the RIAA has to claim yet another victory over the company.

Filed Under: business models, copyright, file sharing, inducement, p2p
Companies: grokster, streamcast

RIAA Sues Usenet.com

Legal Issues

from the no-joke dept

TorrentFreak points us to the news that the RIAA’s latest lawsuit target is Usenet.com, a company that provides private access to Usenet (as you might expect). The RIAA’s argument here is that Usenet.com falls on the wrong side of the Supreme Court’s Grokster rules, which basically said that “inducing” infringement is copyright infringement itself. Whether or not Usenet.com actually induces infringement is an open question — which is what we assume the courts will be deciding. However, if it does get anywhere, it certainly could make for an interesting test case. Part of what clouded the original Grokster ruling was that, while there clearly were non-infringing uses of Grokster, they were harder to show. When it comes to Usenet, it’s quite easy to show that there is a ton of non-infringing uses for Usenet (and have been since its inception decades ago). To completely shut down a Usenet service provider for offering access to all of that may be a tougher sell.

Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, grokster decision, lawsuits, usenet
Companies: riaa, usenet.com

Sony-BMG Exec Tells Two Whoppers In File-Sharing Trial

Say That Again

from the say-what? dept

Wired's Threat Level blog has been doing some excellent work covering the first RIAA file-sharing case to go to trial, in my home state of Minnesota. In the latest post, reporter David Kravets quotes a couple of whoppers in the testimony of Sony BMG exec Jennifer Pariser. First, Pariser claims that "Selling music is the only way a record company makes money." That's just silly. While record sales are certainly a major source of revenue for record labels, there are lots of other revenue streams out there: concert tickets, merchandise, online subscriptions, endorsement deals, advertising revenue, and so forth. Just yesterday we had an excellent example of a band experimenting with offering name-your-own-price downloads coupled with a premium "discbox." And even some of Pariser's fellow record label execs have begun acknowledging that relying so heavily on music sales is a bad business strategy. At least I can see why Pariser might have thought it was a good legal strategy to pretend that record sales are the only conceivable revenue source for the music industry. Her other claim is even more puzzling: when asked if it's legal to make just one copy of a song you've legally purchased, she apparently said that was "a nice way of saying, 'steals just one copy.'" Not only is that flatly untrue as a matter of law, but saying it also seems like a lousy legal strategy, because (as Kravets points out) some of the jurors probably own MP3 players and won't like being accused of stealing. It's also worth mentioning that this is something the industry keeps flip-flopping on. Sometimes (like when they're arguing before the Supreme Court) they say that of course iPods are legal. Other times they call anyone who rips their CD collections for personal use thieves.

Filed Under: business models, copyright, fair use, file sharing, recording industry
Companies: sony bmg

Note To Gloating Copyright Holders: Taking Down A Single Source Of Content Doesn't Stop Unauthorized Sharing

Overhype

from the keep-trying dept

We’ve pointed out in the past how silly it is for the entertainment industry to declare a significant blow against “piracy” every time they take down a single source of unauthorized content. Once some content is available online, it is infinitely available. A single copy quickly is made available everywhere. Shutting down a single source isn’t just less than a significant blow, it’s meaningless. Defenders of the strategy will note two things. They’ll say that, first, the copyright holders have every right to (and should) defend their copyright and, second, that by taking down some of these sites, it acts as some kind of hindrance, since it makes it a little bit harder for others to set up such a site (the so-called “speed bump” analogy). While it is true that the copyright holders have the right to try to shut down anyone making their content available — at some point, as any business should, they should be doing a cost-benefit analysis of the process. If the cost is high and the benefit is nil, it should make you question the business strategy. As for the second point, it’s simply wrong. Every time the industry has shut down a site, a dozen others, often further underground, harder to find and harder to shut down, pop up. And each time that happens, it becomes even more difficult for the copyright holders to work with these sites to create business models that benefit everyone.

It seems like the latest industry to learn this lesson is going to be the porn industry. Despite reports that have shown how the porn industry has used unauthorized file sharing to its advantage, it appears that some in the industry have gotten it into their heads that they need to stop unauthorized downloads. Again, they have every right to do so — but that doesn’t mean it’s good for business. The folks behind this push are now gloating over their first success, shutting down a single site that was apparently popular for sharing unauthorized porn content. Of course, the net result is unlikely to make any difference. The content is all still out there at many other sites, and it won’t take long for all the users of the closed site to move on and find these new sites. Those new sites will be harder to find and harder to shut down and all it will do is waste a lot of time and effort from the folks angry about those sites. Instead of doing all that work for no actual benefit, why not work on better business models where they don’t need to worry about unauthorized use (and, even where unauthorized sharing can be seen as an asset in helping to promote the content)?

Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, porn, significan blow

No Wonder The Feds Hate Limewire; Terrorist Threat Assessment Leaked Via Limewire

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the so-that-explains-it dept

A few months back, we were a bit surprised at the misplaced anger directed by some Congressional representatives towards file sharing software provider Limewire. There were some outrageous claims about how Limewire represented a threat to national security and how it was all Limewire’s fault that stupid government employees had leaked sensitive information. Of course, this was misplaced because it wasn’t Limewire’s fault that gov’t employees were too stupid to configure the software properly. It wasn’t Limewire’s fault that gov’t employees didn’t follow rules that forbid them from installing unapproved apps on their machines — or on transferring sensitive material to personal computers. Instead, it was all blamed on Limewire. It also wasn’t entirely clear what sensitive reports had been leaked… but now we know of at least one. Apparently a national security terrorist threat assessment for the city of Chicago was recently available via Limewire. Though, again, the questions shouldn’t be about Limewire, but what gov’t employee would (a) have Limewire and classified info on the same computer and (b) configure Limewire to allow that classified info to be shared.

Filed Under: congress, file sharing, national security, p2p
Companies: limewire

Why Is P2P Software The Focus In Latest Identity Theft Arrest?

Scams

from the that's-not-the-issue dept

The press has been buzzing about the fact that a Seattle man was arrested for identity theft earlier this week — with most of the focus being on the fact that he used P2P file sharing software to find personal info about people which he then used in his identity theft scam to get credit cards under his victims’ names, order products and then sell them online at half-price. Clearly, if he’s found guilty of doing this, the guy was involved in a pretty massive fraud and deserves to go to jail. However, the P2P angle is an odd one, as one of the charges is “accessing a protected computer without authorization.” The thing is, it wasn’t without authorization. It was just that the individuals incorrectly configured their own file sharing software to expose private details. Just as some politicians want to blame P2P software for gov’t employees misconfiguring it, it seems wrong to blame this guy for accessing documents that people stupidly made available. It sounds like the guy probably did plenty of other things that will get him locked up for a long time — but unauthorized access isn’t necessarily them.

Filed Under: file sharing, identity theft, p2p

Limewire Becomes The Latest P2P Company To Try And Go Legit

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the been-down-this-road-before dept

P2P company Limewire, one of the lucky recipients of an RIAA lawsuit following the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision, has announced that it’s going legit and trying to shed its image as a treasure trove of unauthorized content by opening a DRM-free music store. While it’s nice to see more companies become DRM-free music retailers, it’s hard to see Limewire succeeding where so many other P2P operators have failed. As Om Malik notes, plenty of them have gone down this path, and none of them have really seen any success. Their user bases simply shrug and move on to the next network — and there’s no sign that things will be any different for Limewire.

Filed Under: file sharing, music, music downloads, p2p
Companies: limewire

Mixing Business With Gov't Stupidity: General Clark Tells Congress Why It Should Regulate P2P (And Make Him Richer)

Say That Again

from the all-about-the-money dept

Remember the ridiculous story last month about how some clueless politicians were blaming the fact that some government employees were breaking rules and too stupid to understand how P2P software worked that P2P software needed to be regulated for the good of national security? It turns out that there’s even more to this story. Congress called in a “star witness,” in former presidential candidate General Wesley Clark, who took the position that P2P must be regulated: “If you saw the scope of the risk, I think you’d agree that it’s just totally unacceptable. The American people would be outraged if they were aware of what’s inadvertently shared by government agencies on P2P networks. They would demand solutions.” And what kind of solutions would those be? Apparently, the kind whereby the gov’t regulates P2P providers and requires they build in security. And what kind of security would that be? Why, perhaps the kind of security supplied by a company advised by the very same General Wesley Clark. We won’t even bother to name the company here, because it doesn’t need any additional free publicity, but its website is full of scary statements about how P2P software is threatening national security.

Filed Under: congress, file sharing, national security, p2p, wesley clark
Companies: tiversa

Politicians Blame P2P Software For Not Stopping Gov't Employee Stupidity

Legal Issues

from the no,-seriously dept

Would you elect as your Congressional representative someone who blamed automakers because a bad driver crashed a car through his or her own negligence? Would you elect as your Congressional representative someone who claimed that email was a threat to national security because it can (and has) been used by spies to transmit confidential data? Probably not. Why? Because that’s clearly misplaced blame. However, it appears that we have elected Congressional representatives who have made an almost identical argument and stick by it when it’s pointed out how ridiculous it is. A bunch of our representatives are pushing for laws against file sharing networks claiming that file sharing is a national security threat. Why? Because some idiot government employees, against gov’t regulations and policy, installed file sharing networks on their computers and then screwed up the installation to make confidential files available via P2P. Yes. Because government employees are stupid and disobeying rules, file sharing system providers must be punished. This is based on an equally poorly argued USPTO report from a few months ago that incorrectly blamed P2P networks for gov’t employees stupidity.

In the meantime, while this magical law is being written, (and we can’t wait to see the law that will somehow punish P2P software providers in a way that prevents gov’t employee stupidity), many Congresscritters teamed up to scold the head of file sharing software firm Limewire. Rep. Jim Cooper accused Limewire’s CEO of being naive (amusing, since Cooper doesn’t appear to understand what he’s talking about) and claiming that Limewire provided the “skeleton keys” to accessing material that harms national security. If that’s true, then it’s equally true that any internet provider is providing similar skeleton keys. And any search engine. Plus any computer maker. Or any telephone maker or service provider. They’re all about as equally guilty as any P2P provider. Yet why isn’t Cooper harassing any of their executives? Cooper goes on to demonstrate his complete ignorance of what’s going on by saying: “you seem to lack imagination about how your product can be deliberately misused by evildoers against this country.” That’s laughably wrong. The misuse isn’t by so-called “evildoers.” It’s by gov’t employees who are disobeying policy and stupidly revealing confidential documents by misusing the software. Rep. Darrell Issa then warned Limewire that it may find itself legally liable if someone were stupid enough to share their tax returns via Limewire. Does this mean if I were so stupid to post my tax returns to Blogspot that I could sue Google? Technically, that’s no different than Issa’s argument. This is yet another case where politicians want to regulate a technology they don’t understand.

Filed Under: congress, file sharing, national security, p2p