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Rat
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ProgRocker wrote:How much garbage does your P2P app install on your PC?
Yeah, see also: http://forums.cricketmx.com/viewtopic.php?t=1767
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Australian ISP raided for BT link.
Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) just served a warrant on an ISP in Perth, Australia. This one's striking close to home, Battye. I sure hope it's not your ISP.

Cheers.
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Rat said:
ProgRocker wrote:
How much garbage does your P2P app install on your PC?
Yeah, see also: http://forums.cricketmx.com/viewtopic.php?t=1767
Rat, I think you & I are reading the same news sources. :)

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You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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ProgRocker wrote:Australian ISP raided for BT link.
Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) just served a warrant on an ISP in Perth, Australia. This one's striking close to home, Battye. I sure hope it's not your ISP.

Cheers.
Very close to home, thankfully I don't use that ISP. I don't run BitTorrent either (contrary to popular belief from the folks in Canada :lol:)
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French court says downloading may be OK for personal use.
A French appeals court has dismissed charges against a P2P user accused of downloading over 500 movies and sharing them with friends. The court stated that article L-122-5 of the French Intellectual Property Code allows users to make copies for private use. However the court qualified this decision by stating that downloading isn't necessarily legal; rather the defendant has a valid legal defense if the downloading is for personal use. Whether that defense will be persuasive at trial on other pending cases in France remains to be seen.

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the laws are different in different countries, but its all pretty simmilar - i think most countries are fine with you downloading and watching a film or whatever. The main problem is if you start then burning the films to disk and selling them to people
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Grokster case could have unintended consequences.
As the date nears for the U.S. Supreme Court's hearing of arguments in the MGM v. Grokster case, many in the technology industry are worried about it's outcome. A win by The Music cartel could snuff out some technology that is completely unrelated to P2P.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments by both sides on March 29, though it will be a few more months before the court renders its decision.

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You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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Meet John Doe.
An article in the Village Voice decribes what it's like being on the receiving end of a lawsuit by the RIAA - as told by one such defendant. Interestingly, the author stated that many of his friends continue to download, despite his legal troubles. So much for the deterrence factor of RIAA litigation.

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You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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What is the value of the music you download?
I found a good article that discusses some of the calculations used in determining legal damages in infringement cases. A recent case involved a defendant in Arizona allegedly sharing "$50 million" worth of files, a figure I called into question on an earlier post on this thread.

However, the courts don't look at the value of the shared copyrighted work. Instead, courts examine the damages allegedly caused to the work's owner by the defendant's infringing activity. This could amount to many times the purchase value of the songs or movies. The article also discusses the statutory damages set forth under U.S. copyright law, which can be as high as $150,000 per infringed work. This raises the stakes much higher, however, there is no copyright infringement case that I am aware of where the maximum damages were awarded. The guy in Arizona who was recently convicted was fined "only" $5400 for his file-sharing activities, despite the so-called $50 million value. That fine is serious coin nonetheless.

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You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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Some other notable news stories today...

:arrow: Drink or Die members in UK convicted of software piracy.

:arrow: Australian BT sites shutting down to avoid potential legal actions.

:arrow: Beatallica back online, thanks to some help from Lars Ulrich. Lars Ulrich??? Did I hear that correctly? It turns out Metallica's drummer has perhaps turned over a new leaf by coming to the rescue of the parody band Beatallica. Beatallica, a group that gained notoriety recently by recording Metallica-infused covers of Beatles songs, recently found itself in the crosshairs of Sony Music.

:arrow: Fair use bill reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Cheers.
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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Can online posts to user communities draw unwanted attention?
I have thought about this issue a lot recently, especially in light of some of the recent legal activity surrounding weblogs and other online publishing. I asked myself whether certain comments online that point to allegedly infringing activities could put the writer (or the forum) at legal risk?

Now before anyone becomes paranoid, let's put this in proper context. I'm not trying to alarm anyone and want to examine this from a reasonable, cool-headed point of view. I'm not talking about anyone's free speech being chilled or the threat of legal action against the speech itself. I am talking about online discussion that promotes some infringement, or provides evidence of an infringing act. Speech that could be used as evidence to help copyright owners make a case against others (or yourself if you're the one infringing).

Yesterday my curiosity led me to the site for MediaDefender, one of the companies retained by the entertainment industry to try to stem file-sharing activity. This company is believed to be one of the sources of bogus files found on P2P networks (Overpeer being another likely source). In addition to spoofed files, MediaDefender also offers a number of other services to the entertainment industry, including one called "Media Scan," which combs through various websites, chat channels and P2P-related user communities. Select the "Media Scan" link from the little pie-chart thingy. I long suspected that they were sifting through online discussion boards, but never knew for sure until now. It appears that MediaDefender is using the Media Scan service as a measuring tool, but it's not too far-fetched that they may find other uses for the data they collect. Check out their "Media Target" link while you're at their site. (BTW, the link to their site is kind of iffy. The link worked yesterday, but it didn't work today when I tried it again. They're sort of a shadowy company.) Here is a reprinted N.Y. Times article that MediaDefender has posted.

This is a really good reason why we all must be careful what we do online. No doubt these people are tracking many online discussions and are likely compiling huge amounts of data. I don't intend for this warning to suppress free speech; on the contrary, we should continue to freely discuss ideas in chats, blogs and user communities. But be very careful about any communications that directly point to or suggest infringing activity. For example, a request or offer of files, or an open discussion leading to specific sources, hashes, torrents, etc. Any discussion that leads to infringing activity or encourages it could very well be monitored and draw the attention of the wrong people. If you maintain or operate a website, weblog or discussion board, be very vigilant of the material posted there. There may be lurkers combing some of the chat rooms. Of course, encrypted communications are better protected from this monitoring, and the risks there are much lower.

In recent months, a few prominent court cases have had some rather chilling effects on online speech. If you read weblogs, you're probably aware of the fact that many bloggers have been a little uneasy lately. Perhaps the most notorious case is the Apple blogger decision handed down a few days ago. A California court ordered a number of bloggers to turn over their information sources to Apple, stating that any free speech right or journalistic protection of sources is trumped by trade secret law. The First Amendment is not absolute. See:

http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Apple_v_Does/

http://management.silicon.com/governmen ... 658,00.htm

What does this have to do with us? It could mean that, if the RIAA/MPAA and their merry stooges discover some online discussion leading to specific infringing activity, they may be inclined to pursue that information along with the identities of the persons who made the discussion in order to prosecute the infringement. When you contribute to a discussion board, you may wish to reconsider what, if any, personal information you choose to disclose to the board's operators, and to the Internet at large. If the board's operators are served with a subpoena, they may have no choice but to hand over any data relating to the person in question. And if you want to discuss offers or requests for files online, be very careful, as you may have an unexpected audience out there. Something better done through private channels or encrypted networks.

Cheers.
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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Well to any of the parasites out there hear this good and proper, I regularly monitor and document your activity also, as do many others, we dont like nazi,s like yourselves, and we are not going to be scared off by your stupid tricks,threats, implied threats or ineffectual activities.
Luckily the RIAA/MPAA scum dont own the rest of the world.
I will call you what you are on any forum wherever its based, theives, your model of buisiness is no different to to a columbian drug cartel.
If you dispute this, post here how much, of the profits actually go to the artist ... (watch this space)
Apple would also do well to remember we are watching them abuse the UK by overcharging for Itunes, the French dont like that policy either.

This whole text is copyright, and may not be used in commercial or corporate documents, as is the same as any other post on this forum by myself, so dont feel free to steal my material, you,ll go to court for it. :evil:

PS folks Bit torrent sites have never been ruled illegal in any court, as they have other uses besides "alleged " copyright infringement, so linking to a site that offers a free linux download is completely legal, what a shame huh, you pathetic folks at the Riaa/Mpaa :lol:
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quicksilver wrote:PS folks Bit torrent sites have never been ruled illegal in any court, as they have other uses besides "alleged " copyright infringement, so linking to a site that offers a free linux download is completely legal, what a shame huh, you pathetic folks at the Riaa/Mpaa :lol:
Ok. I copied that bit. Gonna sue me Quicks? :lol: Anyhoo... yeah folks, just remember that P2P technology itself is perfectly legal. I regularly download software that is FREE and offered for distribution LEGALLY by P2P means. In this week alone I have downloaded two distributions of Linux (that's GNU distro's only folks!) through use of torrent sites. If I'm accused of any illegal activity with regards to use of BT, it will be fun to see anyone try to prove it.

related: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html
and: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
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Fifty BT hubs shut down in Australia.
After Swiftel was raided by the Australian Music Cartel, it was ordered by a judge to pull down any BT sites it hosted, resulting in 50 of them going dark.

Cheers.
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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We can't seem to get rid of sock-puppet Hatch.
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committe and entertainment industry darling, has been named to head up the newly created subcommitte on intellectual property. (Article may require registration - if so, use http://www.bugmenot.com to side-step the registration process.)

The controversial senator, who was required to give up his post as chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee earlier this year due to term limits, will still play a very active role in copyright and other matters. Hatch is perhaps best known for his one-sided views on copyright and Internet law issues. Hatch once suggested legislation allowing The Cartel to remotely hack and destroy the PCs of file-sharers. Then there was last year's ill-fated Induce Act, which would have provided harsh penalties for the creators of any device or system that can be used for infringing activities. And let's not forget Hatch's sponsorship of the DMCA trainwreck in 1998.

Cheers.
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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