A "decisive moment for the future of a civilised internet"

Ahh yes, the Pirates of... France. :p
 
It makes cops out of private companies... that's reassuring.

Net firms will monitor what their customers are doing and pass on information about persistent pirates to the new independent body. Those identified will get a warning and then be threatened with either being cut off or suspended if they do not stop illegal file-sharing.
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Interesting - stopping computer piracy is about as frustrating and difficult as stopping illegal immigration. If employers are to be made immigration cops, why not make them copyright cops, too? I know I'm mixing the US and France, but piracy is just as bad here.
 
Dumb. I respect intellectual property rights, but deputizing private companies as IP cops (without compensation, by the way) is not a good way to approach the problem.

Part of the problem is that the RIAA and the companies they represent don't want to accept the fact that they are, well, obsolete, for the most part. There have been many, many schemes (most of which they have rejected) that would have kept them in the loop, but by their own greed and obstinacy, they have repeatedly dropped the ball. There will come a time when they're all out of business unless they move into the 21st Century.

I don't share copyrighted music or software. I am a copyright owner, and I respect the rights of other copyright owners. But I frequently use eMule and µTorrent to distribute perfectly legal-to-share, open-source Linux distributions and other open-source software. And without exception, every time I fire up the client, I am barraged by connection attempts from RIAA, MediaDefender, Net2EZ, and other self-appointed anti-piracy cops.

So I've gone ahead and subscribed to an encrypted VPN service and am running my sharing through that connection. Sharing open-source software isn't illegal (in fact, it's encouraged), and I'm tired of wanna-be Internet IP vigilantes barraging my connection every time I do it.

Rich
 
This is a horrible precedent. Just... horrible in every way.

RJM62 said:
Part of the problem is that the RIAA and the companies they represent don't want to accept the fact that they are, well, obsolete, for the most part. There have been many, many schemes (most of which they have rejected) that would have kept them in the loop, but by their own greed and obstinacy, they have repeatedly dropped the ball. There will come a time when they're all out of business unless they move into the 21st Century.
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You're exactly right. The music industry got exactly what it deserved for its pseudo-monopolistic practices and its stodgy unwillingness or aloof unawareness of new technology. They created the environment that made file sharing take off, and they could have avoided it. But they didn't, and now over a decade later, instead of adjusting to the changed market place with product and service offerings that their customers actually want (and for a fair market price), they just sue the grandmothers and college kids that they think might be stealing stuff from them.

RJM62 said:
I don't share copyrighted music or software. I am a copyright owner, and I respect the rights of other copyright owners. But I frequently use eMule and µTorrent to distribute perfectly legal-to-share, open-source Linux distributions and other open-source software. And without exception, every time I fire up the client, I am barraged by connection attempts from RIAA, MediaDefender, Net2EZ, and other self-appointed anti-piracy cops.
Click to expand...

I don't share stuff either, and I understand the importance of IP. But you hit it on the head: Just using that software is enough for the RIAA to believe you're pirating copyrighted material, and there have apparently been more than a few cases of people using BitTorrent or others without trafficking in copyrighted materials getting served with papers. The RIAA, its attorneys, and the firms it represents are, simply put, all a bunch of out-of-touch scumbags.

RJM62 said:
So I've gone ahead and subscribed to an encrypted VPN service and am running my sharing through that connection. Sharing open-source software isn't illegal (in fact, it's encouraged), and I'm tired of wanna-be Internet IP vigilantes barraging my connection every time I do it.

Rich
Click to expand...

What service, if you don't mind my asking?
 
ReverendSlappy said:
What service, if you don't mind my asking?
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FindNot ( http://www.findnot.com/ ). I can't get a High ID on eMule (at least, I haven't been able to yet and I haven't had the time to try all that much), but it seems to work okay with Low ID for what I do with it. I'm still testing it. I'm using it through Open VPN, which seems to work a little better than using the SOCKS 5 proxy. YMMV.

The site is rather vague and they don't seem to have any specific bandwidth quotas, but do ask that users be reasonable about their use.

It's a shame when people in a free country doing something perfectly legal have to hide behind anonymous proxies.

Rich
 
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