File-sharing suffers major defeat

[Mr T.]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4627679.stm

[wreckweasel]

or is that a victory for copywrite??

[ahar]

This is not good

[Darren A]

Originally Posted by ahar

This is not good

Not sure U2, Coldplay etc would agree with you!!

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by Darren A

Not sure U2, Coldplay etc would agree with you!!

Ha , sure Bono misses the few pounds it costs, or is his plan to give all that extra royalty cash to ending world poverty.

[ahar]

Originally Posted by Darren A

Not sure U2, Coldplay etc would agree with you!!

Actually, the loss of revenue for artists has very little to do with this case. It's already been proved that filesharing is illegal and that you can prosecute the filesharers (as they have been doing). It's not even really about companies encouraging filesharing, as they have been sucessfully shut down (Napster, several BitTorrent hubs). It's about control - control of distribution channels and control of technology.

Thanks to this ruling the RIAA will be attempting to control all home computing future technological development - they have already tried (and failed) when they tried to get congress to pass a law mandating computer companies build digital rights technology directly in to hard drives, processors and motherboards. This ruling helps them to control digital distribution channels - how and where we listen to music. They're not looking to change the market by educating consumers, by offering something new or by giving people choice - they're looking to change the market through litigation and legislation.

Their end game is rental music - you have to pay each month to gain access to the music archives and if you stop paying then you lose access. Consumers lose as they lose the freedom to play the music that they bought whenever and wherever they want. There is also no incentive for the record companies to produce good music - they can continue to churn out the usual rubbish (Britney et al) and everyone will still pay the monthly rental as whether there are 10 or 10,000 songs that you think are good you'll pay the same monthly rental to access the archive.

Artists lose as well as there are no identifyable fees for an individual song or performance - artists could become paid employees of record companies - again, where is the incentive for the innovation or excellence? If the RIAA controls the distribution channels (hardware encoded DRM) it will be very difficult for independent artists to get on.

The issues are complex, but one thing is clear - the only people that benefit from this ruling are the oligopolists from the record companies

[Mr T.]

Swedes curb rampant downloading



Swedes can no longer freely download copyrighted material

Sweden has outlawed the downloading of copyrighted movies, games and music in an attempt to curb rampant piracy.

About 10% of Swedes freely swap music, games and films on their computers, one of the highest rates in the world.

With no law banning file-sharing, Sweden had become a hotbed of piracy where films, music and software were readily swapped.

But experts believe the law will change little and that Swedes will remain rampant downloaders.

Pirate haven

Prior to the law coming into force, Sweden was the only European nation that let people download copyrighted material for personal use.

As a result many Swedes, thanks also to the available of cheap high-speed net access, were committed downloaders. It is estimated that about 900,000 Swedes regularly downloaded movies, games and music.

The forces that are fighting to keep this illegal behaviour are incredibly stron


Henrik Ponten, Swedish anti-piracy agency



Global raids target piracy gangs

The law was drawn up to bring Sweden into line with EU directives and is also part of a wider crackdown on net piracy.

It comes a day after the US Attorney General's office announced an 11-nation operation to catch and shut down net piracy groups.

But, say experts, the habit of downloading is likely to be hard to break.

"There is nothing that indicates that (the pirates) would change their behaviour," said Henrik Ponten, a spokesman for Antipiratbyran, a Swedish anti-piracy agency funded by film studios and game makers.

"A law in itself changes nothing," he said.

No fear

Antipiratbyran estimates that one in every 2,000 Swedes has received a letter telling them that they are making pirated material available from their computer. In other nations the ratio is one in every 7,000.

The change in the law was popular with most Swedish politicians. But the nation's Justice Minister said that chasing pirates would only be a priority for the police if files were being downloaded in massive quantities.

Before the new law was passed, it was only illegal to make copyrighted material available to others via the net, whereas downloading the content was allowed.

The older law is set to be tested later this year during the trial of a 27-year-old Swede, charged with illegally making a Swedish movie available from his home computer.

Mr Ponten said if the man were fined it would send a signal to many that they could continue downloading with little fear of the consequences.

Antipiratbyran's letter writing campaign has led it to being reported to Sweden's data protection agency for flouting privacy laws by tracking people down via their net address.

As a result the data protection agency has said Antipiratbyran must stop sending out letters.

"The situation in Sweden is completely unique, with this kind of counter-reaction," said Mr Ponten.

"The forces that are fighting to keep this illegal behaviour are incredibly strong."

[Dominic]

It's already been proved that filesharing is illegal and that you can prosecute the filesharers

Just a minor correction: Filesharing is 100% legal. It's sharing copyrighted files that's illegal. There's plenty of legitimate files getting traded over BitTorrent & others.

The news stories covering the original story were a real "storm in a teacup" - The impression I got was that the news people had two dramtic stories prepared: "Supreme court says MP3 trading is legal" and "Supreme court bans P2P"

And then the actual verdict was "If you supply a P2P product and encourage people to use it illegally, you can be blamed for the illegal activity" - a perfectly reasonable judgement, but left the reporters with no real drama. So they hacked together their prepared work to fit and proclaimed "Oh no, it's a disaster, the supreme court made a sensible decision"

Load of rubbish, it has negligible effect on either the legitimate P2P people or the media corporations. But it filled a few pages, I suppose...

[ahar]

Originally Posted by Dominic

Just a minor correction: Filesharing is 100% legal. It's sharing copyrighted files that's illegal. There's plenty of legitimate files getting traded over BitTorrent & others.

Yes, I should have said filesharing works still in copywrite, but generally everyone knows what you're talking about if you use it shorthand.

Originally Posted by Dominic

The news stories covering the original story were a real "storm in a teacup" - The impression I got was that the news people had two dramtic stories prepared: "Supreme court says MP3 trading is legal" and "Supreme court bans P2P"

Most Journos are very lazy when it comes to technology stories and generally use tech reporting as a step up to something else and do it just well enough to move on

Originally Posted by Dominic

And then the actual verdict was "If you supply a P2P product and encourage people to use it illegally, you can be blamed for the illegal activity" - a perfectly reasonable judgement, but left the reporters with no real drama. So they hacked together their prepared work to fit and proclaimed "Oh no, it's a disaster, the supreme court made a sensible decision"

The verdict was more subtle than that. First, it was kicked back to the lower court for a decision so nothing has changed... yet. The main point was that it can be interpreted that companies should look for infringing uses of their products and do something about it.