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UK Record Industry Sues 'Major Filesharers' 477

Posted by michael from the look-out-granny dept.
Joel Rowbottom writes "The British Phonographic Institute has warned that it is about to engage in a round of legal action against file-sharing users, following in the footsteps of the RIAA. Apparently they are 'safeguarding the future of music' - don't you just feel so secure and cuddly knowing that?" Their statement is available.
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UK Record Industry Sues 'Major Filesharers' More

UK Record Industry Sues 'Major Filesharers'

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  • Now might be the time for ANts (Score:5, Informative)

    by ControlFreal ( 661231 ) * <niek AT bergboer DOT net> on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:47AM (#10458476) Journal

    Now might be the time to move to an anonymous P2P network. ANts is a 3rd-generation multi-hop P2P network that uses both point-to-point and end-to-end encryption. A search for material doesn't give you a list of files and IP addresses, like in a normal P2P network, but a list of files and virtual addresses. Nobody knows what virtual addresses belong to which hosts; routing is learned by ant-colony optimization.

    The network is small now, and it needs nodes. Go to the page here (Coralized) [nyud.net] or download the webstart file directly from here (also Coralized) [nyud.net].

    Note that the network is now still very small. It might also take a good while to connect. Java 1.5 is required.

    I feel secure and cuddly again... ;)

    • Rather than say we need to make breaking the law undetectable (and all the problems that can occur with that, ie. illegal porn).

      Lets suppose a band covers a really old rubbish song and turns it into a great song. Suppose they do it without permission and get sued.

      While the band broke laws they released a great song which made people happy. So while strong copyright laws can ensure that artists get revenue for their hard work, they can also limit peoples enjoyment.

      Why not make the laws simpler, basically

  • Dammit (Score:5, Funny)

    by jhdevos ( 56359 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:47AM (#10458480) Homepage
    Anybody else keeps reading 'The British Pornographic Institute'?

    • Re:Dammit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dan dan the dna man ( 461768 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:50AM (#10458495) Homepage Journal
      Speaking of pornography I find it amusing that it's ok to share Gb's worth of hardcore material without harassment - potentially supplying minors with stuff they wouldn't have been able to get hold of say 10 years ago, yet share some mp3's and you're automagically a criminal...

      • Re:Dammit (Score:2, Funny)

        by Linker3000 ( 626634 )
        Spreading anything recorded by a boy or girl band should be criminal! Listening to Girls Aloud makes me feel ashamed.

      • Re:Dammit (Score:3, Informative)

        by pjt33 ( 739471 )
        Non-commercial copyright infringement is a civil offence, not a criminal one.

      • Re:Dammit (Score:2, Interesting)

        by pommiekiwifruit ( 570416 )
        A few years ago I heard of a guy being done for importing some magazines from Amsterdam. He got seriously fined, much more than he would have for e.g. hardcore pr0n.

        They were Disney comics, and hadn't been licensed for distribution in the UK :-)

        And yeah, I heard of people getting done more for selling apples in imperial weights (or something like that) than is standard for selling dope too :-)

  • It obviously doesn't work for the RIAA, so why take the political heat?
    • Once again they (BPI) are taking the easy "sue you" route, instead of going after the masses of scumbags who are pirating, duplicating and selling music at carboot sales, markets, seaside promenades and suchlike DAY IN DAY OUT.

      Surely more money is lost this way than with "filesharing", and I'm sure the taxman would have something to say about the loss of revenue due to music sold and bought by these means.

      How many files must a man share on P2P networks before he is classed a major filesharer? I dont see p

  • According to Pete Waterman (Score:5, Funny)

    by CmdrGravy ( 645153 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:50AM (#10458498) Homepage
    According to Pete Waterman ( Stock, Aitken & Waterman ) it doesn't matter that UK single sales are actually rising, this is just a blip / does not alter the fact that filesharing thieves are damaging the industry. Well actually not the industry because that is doing OK but it is damaging the poorer artists who are now going to get even poorer.

    Filesharing, he says, is illegal. Just like recording songs from the radio is illegal but the bottom line so far as he is concerned is that people are listening to music and he's not getting paid for it. I really don't like Pete Waterman.
    • According to Pete Waterman

      Bear in mind that this is the same man who gave the world Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Bananarama and Rick Astley within the space of a couple of years.

      That kind of involvement in the music industry should really speak for itself.

    • Actually, single sales are falling, it's album sales that are still on the rise;

      "UK singles sales have more than halved since 1999, it says, when downloading took off. Sales of CD albums in the UK have bucked the global trend and continue to rise."

      From the guardian's article [guardian.co.uk] about this

      • This was from Channel 4 news, Krishnan said:

        "But Pete, the industries own figures show an increase in Single sales since the people began to use P2P networks, surely that shows you they are having a positive effect on your market ?"

        Pete replied:

        "No, well yes they are increasing but that is probably just a blip, nothing to do with filesharing. Filesharing is illegal and it's wrong and you shouldn't do it and that's what we all need to remember here."
      • I can't recall my sources, but I remember reading that singles don't generate much revenue for the label and/or artist. The whole purpose of a single is to promote an album or tour; where the real revenues are (for the label or artist, respectively).

        I remember New Order's Blue Monday best-selling maxi single (world record) actually generated a loss. But that's also partly due the fancy packaging they chose.

  • British Phonographic Institute? (Score:4, Funny)

    by X_Caffeine ( 451624 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:54AM (#10458513)
    So this only applies to users who are burning MP3s to LP, right?

    it's friday, cut me some slack :D

  • It will be interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:54AM (#10458518) Homepage Journal
    ...to see how the British public reacts to this, there is something about huge multinational corporations suing kids that I can't see sitting well with the British way of thinking.

    I know a young single mother in the US who got sued and had to use her kid's college fund to pay the RIAA. Sorry, but piracy or no piracy, that simply isn't right, and I am surprised that there hasn't been more public revulsion in the US over this. Hopefully there will in the UK.

    • It will also be interesting to see if this highlights to the british public just how little rights we have when it comes to copyrighted material.

      Who knows, once they've finished with P2P users; they may just start suing iPod owners for illegally copying CD's onto their iPods - which is illegal in the UK.
      • Really? Is it not covered by this:

        Section 28A: Making of temporary copies.

        Copyright in a literary work, other than a computer program or a database, or in a dramatic, musical or artistic work, the typographical arrangement of a published edition, a sound recording or a film, is not infringed by the making of a temporary copy which is transient or incidental, which is an integral and essential part of a technological process and the sole purpose of which is to enable -

        (a) a transmission of the work in a
        • No. The key phrase there is "temporary copy which is transient or incidental". Transferring the music from a CD to another format for storage is not considered temporary, transient or incidental, and is prohibitted by UK law.

          More information is available here [patent.gov.uk]. (see the section "But if I've bought something, can't I use it however I like?").

    • Re:It will be interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:16AM (#10458643)
      I know a young single mother in the US who got sued and had to use her kid's college fund to pay the RIAA.

      Would you be so outraged by this if she had commited some other crime and been fined for that? I'm not trolling, I'm genuinely interested - is it the thing that she's being punished for that's so bad, or the fact that she did something wrong and now her kid is having to pay for it too?

      After all, the alternative way to look at this is that the kid would still have their college fund if only the mother hadn't broken the law. Would you still be so revolted had she been caught shoplifting, or committing fraud or similar? I realise that copyright infringement is not the same as shoplifting, but if it's to be punished (and even if you just have to buy everything you have infringing copies of, that's a fair amount of money if you've downloaded a lot of stuff), how would you punish the woman in a way that doesn't impact her family, as both fines and jail time would?
      • ...I realise that copyright infringement is not the same as shoplifting...

        The two things have absolutely nothing in common. Copyright infringement is not theft. It is merely copyright infringement.

        ...but if it's to be punished...

        Copyright exists for one purpose only---to promote the public good (by encouraging artists to create so that the public domain will in the long run be enriched). It is not a right, and certainly not a property right. It should be enforced only to the extent that it is in th

        • Well, you know, copyright does NOT exist to promote "the public good". It exists to promote the holder's rights while not being abusive to your own rights. That it does. There is no public interest, especially since art or "art" is not a utility. People can live without music or movies - imagine that.

          Also, whether copyright infringement is theft or no is irrelevant. It is a crime, in the same way that rape, kidnapping, burglary and breaking and entering are crimes while, at the same time, not being theft.

          • The only reason for copyrights and patents is to promote the public good. They are privileges---not rights---granted by the state for the benefit of the public.

            In the USA, the Constitution explicitly states this. Elsewhere, it was originally based on the same principle. There's a good review of this in dspeyer's /. journal [slashdot.org].

    • We'll go 'tut' and write a letter to the Daily Mail.
    • I have to agree, I don't think the British will accept tactics like this from big corporate companies. For example, I remember the outcry over Coca Cola marketing Dasani over here (effectively bottled tap water), and the amount of bad press they got from it, forcing them to withdraw it from sale here.

      Because of this, I'm intrigued as to how much the value will be that the BPI will put onto each shared track, I just don't see the British people accepting a figure anywhere near the RIAAs ($150000 per track
      • Even with all the bad press about the source of the water, Coke soldiered on with the launch of Dasani. What forced them to withdraw it were the fears that it may be carcinogenic:

        "Something had gone wrong at the Dasani factory and a bad batch of minerals had contaminated the water production with a potentially carcinogenic bromate. Coke admitted defeat. Immediately they withdrew all 500,000 bottles of Dasani in circulation."

        Coke's Water Bomb [bbc.co.uk]

        It's hard to market something as super-pure water when the pap
    • Come on, the TV license advertisements use that as a selling point! Their message to students is "Watch TV without a license and you will have to beg mum and dad to pay the £1000 fine." and showing all the things you will miss out on. Admittedly these are usually shown as holidays and alcohol rather than tuition and books. The RIAA/BPI/BSA/MPAA/CIA/IRA methods would fit right in.

      Remember that millions of people play the lottery each week. This is just the same but in reverse ;-)

    • Re:It will be interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Inda ( 580031 ) <slash.20.inda@spamgourmet.com> on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:53AM (#10458913) Journal
      We wont care. We dont care about speed cameras, we dont care about CCTV cameras, we dont care about fox hunting or rights for fathers. ONLY THE MEDIA CARES.

      They force feed us with all the shocking stuff like this - it sells as we all know. Tomorrow this will be yesterdays news and we will all go back to worrying about the cracks on Dirty Den's face.

      Ever been fined in the UK? I have.
      Did I ever pay? No.
      Did they lock me up? No.
      What did 'they' do? Apart from a few nasty letters and phone calls. Nothing.

      No one in the UK will care except maybe Trisha.
    • I know a young single mother in the US who got sued and had to use her kid's college fund to pay the RIAA. Sorry, but piracy or no piracy, that simply isn't right

      Strange definition of right and wrong you have there. I'd say it's very much right. If you break the law, expect to pay the consequences. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the RIAA/BPI. But taking something that doesn't belong to you is wrong, no matter which way you look at it. I agree that media shifting should be legal (which it currently isn'

    • I have had 4 or 5 conversations with relatives who really dont understand that this 'great kazaa thing' with the 'free music - just type a name and its there' is actually illegal. They genuinely thought it was just 'an internetty thing I dont understand'.

      This story is EVERYWHERE In the mainstream media yesterday and today - and will be for a while I expect. I would assume a fair number of kids will be having that internet connection to their rooms cut this weekend.

  • safeguarding the future of music? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by radpole ( 39181 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:55AM (#10458520)
    Music, musicians, even paid entertainers existed long, long before the RIAA and other similar entities existed and musicians will be better off when the middle persons are gone! Hopefully.

  • "Major Filesharers" (Score:4, Funny)

    by HoldmyCauls ( 239328 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:55AM (#10458525) Journal
    ...not to mention Private P2P and Lieutenant Limewire

  • Slashdot lies, why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:57AM (#10458534)
    Joel Rowbottom writes Apparently they are 'safeguarding the future of music'.

    I didn't know Slashdot was a propoganda machine. Nowhere on that page linked (where the statement is) is that phrase in the text.

    I don't support the actions of these people, but don't lie to make your case. It makes you no better than the people you decry.

    • Re:Slashdot lies, why? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Joel Rowbottom ( 89350 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:05AM (#10458574) Homepage
      The article has been changed since I first posted that (see Last Updated: Thursday, 7 October, 2004, 12:49 GMT 13:49 UK).

      The original "safeguarding..." comment was made by a spokeman for the BPI.

      As it is, they've updated it to say they're suing 28 people initially.

      HTH.

      jx
    • I didn't know Slashdot was a propoganda machine.

      Obviously the majority of the editors and posters here have similar viewpoints to eachother politically and socially, and so to anyone with an opposing view this place is filled with propoganda.

      I personally think musicians have a right to make money from selling their music, especially small artists, without a bunch of jackasses giving their work away to literally thousands and thousands (and then millions if the work is deemed valuable and gets popular) o

  • There's nothing wrong with this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pomakis ( 323200 ) <pomakis@pobox.com> on Thursday October 07, 2004 @08:59AM (#10458544) Homepage
    Major filesharing of copyrighted material that isn't under a GPL-like license is illegal, damaging to the industry, and should be dealt with accordingly. This is on a different scale than simply sharing a few songs between friends (which is likely to actually improve sales in the long run), so don't confuse the two. If the industry was going after everyone who was making personal backups of their music or making copies for friends, then I would have a big problem with it. But going after "major filesharers"? It's their duty to do that, for the preservation of the industry!
    • This is on a different scale than simply sharing a few songs between friends

      ...which the record companies also tried to suppress. ("Home taping is killing music.")

      • That's a fallacious argument. Just because they've been against some things you support, does not mean that you support anything they're against.
      • I wrote:
        This is on a different scale than simply sharing a few songs between friends.

        a24061 replied:

        ..which the record companies also tried to suppress. ("Home taping is killing music.")

        Yes, and I agree with you that that's going too far. But that's not what the article is about. It's about going after "major filesharers", which IMHO is a perfectly reasonable thing for the industry to do.

    • is Illegal

      Yeah, probably

      damaging the industry

      Music is art; industry is damaging music.

      Should be dealt with accordingly

      For whose benefit? The public? The music lover? The current near-monopoly music industry?

      It's their duty to do that, for the preservation of the industry!

      Sorry, fruit should be preserved, not industries.

  • I distinctly recall readers' comments in a recent /. article (Ballmer on iPod) which proved that no /.ers actually posess any MP3s obtained illegally from peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.

    No, really. It was all stuff ripped from their own personal CD collection and such like. Honest.

  • Good (Score:4, Interesting)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:02AM (#10458564) Journal
    Those 'sharing' the files do not have a right to do what they are doing. They don't own the licenses to the songs nor do they have an agreement with either the artist or record company to distribute the songs. They get what they deserve.

    Now go ahead and be good little mods and mark me as Troll or Flamebait because I dare to express a point of view which runs counter to the whole 'information wants to be free' crap.

    If you're so keen on giving away information then you develop something, pay with it out of your own pocket and give it away. We'll see how long you survive.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Economists call this hoarding behavior a method of preserving a good for later use. If I buy up a million gallons of petrol, driving its price up double what it was last week, and I hold onto it 10 years until its 30 euros a gallon... that's not gouging at all. I just saved a million gallons of petrol for when we *really* needed it.

        Same thing here. They are saving those master tapes for when we really need them. Keep your goddamn grubby paws out of the free market, you communist hippy!

        PS This ruins the tr

    • Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by a24061 ( 703202 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:27AM (#10458709)
      Those 'sharing' the files do not have a right to do what they are doing.

      Why not? Because the media companies say so? Because they have politicians in their pockets.

      Copyright law used to be a good deal for the public because it restricted publishers for the benefit of authors without restricting ordinary people in any practical way (because printing books was difficult).

      Now it has been twisted to restrict the public for the benefit of publishers. It's no longer a good deal for the public and we deserve a total overhaul.

    • Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you're so keen on giving away information then you develop something, pay with it out of your own pocket and give it away. We'll see how long you survive.

      It's probably worht noting that the RIAA hasn't really developed anything here..
  • What is the BPI going to do to stop british music download in other countries where there are no/very primitive piracy laws especially for music download from the net.

    I guess not much. Piracy is not that easy a task to do away with that u sue a few percent and expect the whole to react.

  • Fans vs. customers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DeepDarkSky ( 111382 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:05AM (#10458576)
    It occurred to me when I was reading the article, one of the subheadings was "targeting fans", and it occurred to me the fundamental difference between different roles and relationships that motivates people to download music illegally and the lawsuits by the music industry comes down to differentiating fans vs. customers. The music industry are targeting fans who are not customers. Fans support the artists, but through being a customer, support the artists financially and at the same time pays the commercial "tax" to the music publishers/industry.
    As quite a few articles may have already pointed out, the music industry, after all, isn't suing customers, because if they were customers, they'd have paid and there would be no reason to sue.
    Artists have fans, music publishers/industry have customers. The major problem is, fans generally want to support artists without having to be customers, because they are not customers of the artist, and frequently, most of the money doesn't go to the artist.

  • hello i am an amerikan. just to let you know, we're not the moral compass of the world. do not follow our lead. in fact, many times, you can apply the "costanza method" and do the opposite of what our instinct is. thank you for your time
  • That's well timed - today I coincidentally fried my mp3 collection [h4xx0r.co.uk] (and the rest of my data) anyway. Stupid hdparm...

    Every cloud really does has a silver lining, I guess. It doesn't make me feel any better about it though!

  • Music will continue (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spikexyz ( 403776 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:19AM (#10458664)
    Music has exists about as long as humanity...it doesn't rely on the current model of sales and profit, and music will continue to exists if the commerical system surronding it colapses. So, any arguments about safegaurding the future of music are fatally flawed.

  • THIS TERMINOLOGY NEEDS TO STOP (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gannoc ( 210256 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:25AM (#10458696)
    Notice how they've cleverly begun confusing "file sharing" with "copyright violation".

    This is just moving towards a time where they can pass a law saying that all ISPs must block all ports besides port 80, and all ports registered with the FCC for valid, licensed use, like AOL Messenger and Windows Media.

    • Re:THIS TERMINOLOGY NEEDS TO STOP (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dunstan ( 97493 ) <dvavasour@i e e . o rg> on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:58AM (#10458959) Homepage
      When I was growing up, sharing was a term which described doing something good. Sharing your sweets with other children at school was A Good Thing.

      Now sharing has become a word which describes doing something bad. "Don't you go sharing things now". I think this has made us worse as a society.

    • This is just moving towards a time where they can pass a law saying that all ISPs must block all ports besides port 80, and all ports registered with the FCC for valid, licensed use, like AOL Messenger and Windows Media.

      I honestly don't see any inclination of them doing that.

      My bet is a tax on broadband connections similar to the CDR tax we pay. Out of every 1 GB you download, $X goes to the associations which they'll then distribute to the likely copyright holders (e.i. themselves).

      It will be

  • I think this is great (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mithras the prophet ( 579978 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:29AM (#10458729) Homepage Journal
    When the RIAA tried to shut down Napster, the Slashdot line was, "but people like this! And you're not offering a legal alternative!" And Slashdot was right.

    When the RIAA sued the "second-generation" P2P companies like Kazaa, the Slashdot line was, "But they just write the software! They can't be held responsible for how people use it!" And Slashdot was right.

    Now, with a dozen legal music stores available, the RIAA (and its ilk) are suing the individuals responsible for breaking the law. And now, finally, they are right, and Slashdot is wrong.

    There are easy, affordable, online mechanisms for getting the music you want, in which the artists get paid. And there are ways to get music such that the artists don't get paid. One of them is right, and one of them is wrong. The individuals sharing stuff don't have anyone else to point a finger at; it's not the RIAA's fault, it's not Kazaa's fault, it's their fault if they break the law and deprive artists -- and the companies which support them -- of fair compensation.

    • Now the only thing remaining is that the punishment is totally disproportionate compared to the crime.

    • I would like to have another solution. One that respects the privacy of us damned citizens. Fees on recordable media, computers and/or internet connections etc.
      With an exemption for those who can prove that they don't use their computer for such activities.

      I know, some of you know scream "bloody hell. This is unjust because I do not copy music illegally!". But what is more invasive? The RIAAs right to listen in each and every of your private conversations or the right of the industry to collect "taxes", bu

    • Re:I think this is great (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HolyCoitus ( 658601 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @10:26AM (#10459192)
      You're right, I do enjoy giving dead people money. Perhaps I should go dig them up and stick the money in their casket so that they can at least have it near their rotting corpse? Sounds useful to me. I'm glad that's the way the law works.

      There are more options than the current copyright system. Perpetual copyright is about as useful as treating dead people as normal citizens. In fact, that's exactly what it does. While we're sending someone a dead person's royalty checks, why don't we also have social security be cumulative? Sounds useful.

  • Illegal? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BarryNorton ( 778694 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:33AM (#10458756)
    Says The Guardian [guardian.co.uk]:
    Record labels believe it is essential to establish file-sharing as illegal in the minds of the public [...]

    Yeah? Even if they'd said sharing files of music to which copyright applies, how about establishing such in law before trying this?

    I can't believe that these people were getting away, unchallenged, with such sweeping (not to mention incorrect) generalisations also on (UK) television this morning.

    Have we lost all sense of objectivity?

  • Anyone else read? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sporty ( 27564 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:37AM (#10458790) Homepage
    Did anyone else read that as the "British Phonographic Institute". Oh wait...

  • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • It's the list of comments which bothers me (Score:5, Informative)

    by dunstan ( 97493 ) <dvavasour@i e e . o rg> on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:50AM (#10458890) Homepage
    If the BPI are going to sue people who are illegally copying copyright material that's one thing. But the attributable comments on the end of the press release makes me want to throw:

    "... all that many of those musicians and songwriters are trying to do, is to make the world the rest of us live in, a much more valuable, much brighter place." Feargal Sharkey


    No, Feargal, if all you were trying to do was make the world a brighter place then you wouldn't mind people copying your music. I try to make the world a brighter place by making music, the difference between us is that I'm not trying to make money at it. What you're trying to do is make the world a brighter place and make yourself money - absolutely fine, but there's a difference.

    "Record companies are the biggest investors in new music in the UK ..." Martin Mills, Chairman, Beggars Group


    No, the people who invest time and money in learning to make music are the biggest investors. What the record companies "invest" in is recorded music which you can buy in shops. I hate the way they talk as if the entirety of music is the stuff you buy in shops, it's so dismissive of the people who invest in being able to make music.

    "Piracy is theft - pure and simple ... I hope it will stop in their tracks the habitual offender who uploads to make a quick buck out of other people's talent." Arts Minister, Estelle Morris


    Remember, this is a government minister who shold know better: firstly, the obligatory comments about misuse of the terms "piracy" and "theft". Secondly, does anyone make money out of participating in a P2P network?

    "The serial uploaders who post thousands of music files free of charge onto the Internet are stealing this product in exactly the same way as a shoplifter in a Music store. Theft on this scale cannot be allowed to continue unchecked." Steve Knott, Managing Director, HMV Europe, and Chairman, British Association of Record Dealers


    No they're not. A shoplifter in a Music store is committing property theft while a serial [?] uploader is committing copyright infringement.

    "The internet has changed all our lives. It is revolutionising the way music is consumed. What it doesn't change are the fundamentals of the concept of intellectual property. Unauthorised filesharing is against the law. After several years of seeing it eat into our livelihoods, we reluctantly and finally have to resort to the law to protect our business." Tony Wadsworth, Chairman & CEO, EMI Recorded Music UK & Ireland


    This one is much closer to reality (except the use of the term "Intellectual Property" in place of "copyright law").

    "There is a worrying lack of understanding of the value and meaning and intellectual property. We need to move very swiftly from a climate of ignorance to one in which people understand that illegal uploading is fundamentally no different from shoplifting." Jeremy Lascelles, Chief Executive, Chrysalis Music


    Surely the "worrying lack of understanding" is someone so close to the issue not recognising the difference between property theft and copyright infringement.

    • > Surely the "worrying lack of understanding" is
      > someone so close to the issue not recognising
      > the difference between property theft and
      > copyright infringement.

      They might do better to think about why the Average Joe doesn't think there's anything wrong with copyright infringement.

      The answer is simple: it's because the same industry has constantly devalued the effort of music authors. Shows like Pop Idol have suggested that anyone who looks good and can dance can become a pop star, forget a
    • Anyone know if there are any major difference between UK copyright and IP law and the US that would affect this?

  • Third Generation (I think that's what they're calling it) P2P programs like ANtz and Mute [sourceforge.net] rely on a sort of plausible deniability and waste a lot of bandwidth. They're strictly peer-to-peer and distributed. When you get a request for a file, you don't know whether the originator is the person connecting to you, or someone behind them. There is no request to make a direct connection. So while you could point the finger at them, you may be wrong.

    The problem with this - and I've pointed it out to

  • safeguarding the future of music
    They're looking in the wrong place. They'd be better off helping us forget the dreck that is The Prodigy's latest album.

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Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

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