Six Strikes is here. FYI

[bannination]

Six Strikes is here.

Beginning today, AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon have all agreed to start spying on their users.

That's right. The US's largest Internet Service Providers are implementing a new "online infringement" plan to identify and punish, with virtually no due process, users suspected of downloading copyrighted content.

Click here to tell the ISPs: no cyber-snooping, no punitive new copyright rules.

After a year of back room dealing with the MPAA and RIAA, the nation's top ISPs have agreed to use the so-called "Copyright Alert System" (or "Six Strikes") to go after customers suspected of file-sharing

Following a series of escalating warnings, the plan would allow ISPs to slow down, or "throttle," the Internet connection of suspected copyright violators.

And if you want to contest the accusation? That will cost you $35.

Click here to put the ISPs on notice: stop overly punitive infringement policies or we'll take our business elsewhere.

The new plan would jeopardize open and public WIFI networks, and lead to widespread wrongful accusations for those who share a network at home, in a WIFI hot spot, or in the workplace.

Six Strikes is designed to safeguard the profits of America's wealthiest industries by tracking, targeting, and punishing internet users. Click here to oppose Six Strikes.


Thanks,

Demand Progress

[Stinger]

How do you propose to stop the stealing? Or do we just ignore it?

[O Really]

I understand the concept of intellectual property, but everybody's going to eventually have to realize that most people aren't ever going to think that the value of an "invisible" computer file is equivalent to something tangible. The industry is lagging behind the reality, trying to protect something that is widely available in distribution. Like the NFL games where they send it out to a billion people and say they'll cut off your knees if you TiVo it to show to a group of your friends. Time for a paradigm shift, not just an attempt to enforce impracticality.

[Stinger]

I understand the concept of intellectual property, but everybody's going to eventually have to realize that most people aren't ever going to think that the value of an "invisible" computer file is equivalent to something tangible. The industry is lagging behind the reality, trying to protect something that is widely available in distribution. Like the NFL games where they send it out to a billion people and say they'll cut off your knees if you TiVo it to show to a group of your friends. Time for a paradigm shift, not just an attempt to enforce impracticality.

So if you write a law text, and someone pirates it and you make little or no money, that's just the industry lagging behind reality? You're cool with that?

[rstrong]

Time for a paradigm shift, not just an attempt to enforce impracticality.

Not a paradigm shift. Just a clarification of what the paradigm actually is.

Copyright isn't so much about the right to copy intellectual property, and it's the right to publish and make money off it.

A little over a decade ago in Canada we got the right to copy music spelled out. We can freely trade music with our friends, family etc. We can't upload it to the internet in any publicly available way however - that would be publishing. In return the music industry gets a tariff on recordable media - blank CDs.

It was the music industry - SOCAN - really a front for the big five American music distributors - that lobbied the government and paid money into the relevant political campaign funds to make it happen.

I expect something similar to happen with video eventually. I'm surprised that the same distributors haven't arranged for the same deal in the US.

[O Really]

Yes, I understand that there are challenges to making sure originators get paid and others don't illegally profit from their work. I just don't think the US has the answer yet. Maybe Canada does. But somebody who understands this stuff explain this to me: If I buy a book in hard copy, the book itself is mine. When I'm finished with it, I can give it away or even sell it. What I can't do is copy it and claim it's my writing. Why is a hard copy book different from a digital file? Once I've paid for it, why can't I do with it what I want as long as I don't claim it's my work?

[rstrong]

But somebody who understands this stuff explain this to me: If I buy a book in hard copy, the book itself is mine. When I'm finished with it, I can give it away or even sell it. What I can't do is copy it and claim it's my writing. Why is a hard copy book different from a digital file? Once I've paid for it, why can't I do with it what I want as long as I don't claim it's my work?

It's real simple: There is no answer to that, that pleases the copyright holders.

This is where the DMCA comes in, and similar laws the US government keeps demanding that Canada pass. Laws that don't enforce the copyright, but instead enforce digitial locks / Digitial Rights Management (DRM).

You're allowed to make backups of your ebook, DVD, Blu-Ray, X-Box game etc. Copyright law allows this. So they put DRM locks on it. It doesn't matter that those locks are easy to break; you have to break those locks to make a working backup, and THAT is illegal. But strictly speaking, you still have the right to make backups.

The other attack on your rights is the claim that you aren't buying the digital book; you're buying a non-transferable license to read it. Should you wonder why they can do this with digital books and not paper ones, well, as some university students will tell you they are indeed doing it with paper books now.

[Stinger]

Yes, I understand that there are challenges to making sure originators get paid and others don't illegally profit from their work. I just don't think the US has the answer yet. Maybe Canada does. But somebody who understands this stuff explain this to me: If I buy a book in hard copy, the book itself is mine. When I'm finished with it, I can give it away or even sell it. What I can't do is copy it and claim it's my writing. Why is a hard copy book different from a digital file? Once I've paid for it, why can't I do with it what I want as long as I don't claim it's my work?

One thing is that if you sell a book/CD/DVD to the used book/CD/DVD store, you don't have a copy anymore. If you give your book/CD/DVD away, you don't have a copy anymore. If you share a digital file, you still have a copy, and the person you share it with has a copy that he or she can copy and give to someone else who can then give it to someone else who can then give it to someone else . . . ad infinitum.

There's a difference between 40 people passing one book around when only one person paid for it and 40 people listening to the same songs every day when only one person paid for it.

[O Really]

One thing is that if you sell a book/CD/DVD to the used book/CD/DVD store, you don't have a copy anymore. ....

Thanks - I did think of that after I had posted. Not soon enough to correct my silly question, though. In passing around digital files, you're constantly creating new copies.

[bannination]

How do you propose to stop the stealing? Or do we just ignore it?

This will not stop it in any way whatsoever. What it will do is make public wifi and open wifi and impossibility or get the wrong people sued. People will be trying to hack private wifi and session steal so that you get sued for pirating even though you had nothing to do with it. It's practically untraceable.

[Stinger]

How do you propose to stop the stealing? Or do we just ignore it?

This will not stop it in any way whatsoever. What it will do is make public wifi and open wifi and impossibility or get the wrong people sued. People will be trying to hack private wifi and session steal so that you get sued for pirating even though you had nothing to do with it. It's practically untraceable.

ISP's kicking people off file-sharing sites won't stop stealing?

If Wi-Fi is your worry, you use WPA2 passwords and monitoring software. You can check your router's device list for the MAC addresses and IP addresses of anyone who's been on your Wi-Fi.

[rstrong]

This will not stop it in any way whatsoever. What it will do is make public wifi and open wifi and impossibility or get the wrong people sued. People will be trying to hack private wifi and session steal so that you get sued for pirating even though you had nothing to do with it. It's practically untraceable.

ISP's kicking people off file-sharing sites won't stop stealing?

If Wi-Fi is your worry, you use WPA2 passwords and monitoring software. You can check your router's device list for the MAC addresses and IP addresses of anyone who's been on your Wi-Fi.

I'm living in an apartment building these days. I have a second, entirely separate DSL line, with an open Wi-Fi access point on it. No password, no MAC address filtering, no logging, and an ID that indicates that it's public.

The one (legal) security measure I DO take is to point the router to an alternate DNS server: Norton ConnectSafe option C. (Protection against Security Issues + Pornography + Non-Family Friendly Sites)

I don't care about the porn and non-family friendly stuff, but option C also blocks a lot of file sharing networks. It's not fool-proof, but I can show that I took reasonable precautions against piracy.

[bannination]

How do you propose to stop the stealing? Or do we just ignore it?

This will not stop it in any way whatsoever. What it will do is make public wifi and open wifi and impossibility or get the wrong people sued. People will be trying to hack private wifi and session steal so that you get sued for pirating even though you had nothing to do with it. It's practically untraceable.

ISP's kicking people off file-sharing sites won't stop stealing?

If Wi-Fi is your worry, you use WPA2 passwords and monitoring software. You can check your router's device list for the MAC addresses and IP addresses of anyone who's been on your Wi-Fi.

Here's the deal though, you can spoof your mac address to match someone that's already on the network, and what if I *like* keeping my wifi open for travelers, or if I have a business? Certain versions of yes, WPA2 I can hijack sessions with as well. You aren't as safe as you think you are.

ISP's will just end up kicking the wrong people off the internet. These days for a lot of jobs can you imagine trying to work without internet? This could totally destroy your career.

IP addresses and Mac addresses are not reasonable ways to track someone committing a copyright violation. It's been thrown out of court several times.