5 ms·

Everyone is a publisher. You're in favor of lawsuits against people who run bittorrent clients in a swarm, then, for $22k a song, or even $1000 per song? Any

Everyone is a publisher. You're in favor of lawsuits against people who run bittorrent clients in a swarm, then, for $22k a song, or even $1000 per song? Any amount enough to be worthwhile as a deterrent is punitive and has the potential to wreck someone's life. Or what about blogs or forums with posted links to copyrighted material on filehosting sites?

ghshephard 14y ago
The challenge here is to recognize there is a happy medium. " pursue the worst offenders (those who knowingly publish copyrighted content) " There is a difference between someone who sells indexed warez/books/movies/music on a retail site, and someone running a bit torrent client. Aggressively pursue the first, and educate the second. Simply having the ISP send a warning notice of copyright infringement to the account holder of an IP address, without in any way communicating back to the rightsholder _who_ that IP Address holder was, is a nice medium. Note - just because it's easy to run a bit-torrent client sharing the latest GameOfThrones Books (all available via Kindle, or the library) doesn't mean it's legal (or even ethical). Re: Posted Links to copyrighted material - depends on how organized / indexed those links are. If it's a casual site with a few links pointing out, clearly that falls under fair use. If it has carefully indexed/searchable database of 750,000 songs, and 35,000 movies,, and 250,000 books in such a way that you just have to visit that site, click a link, and download the content - well, perhaps there needs to be a conversation. But reasonable people can come up with reasonable solutions. It doesn't have to be "All Sharing, All the Time" - nor does it have to be "Idiotic Draconian RIAA $22K/Song to some random bit torrent user"
- freshhawk 14y ago
  It's easy to sit on the fence until you have to get specific. Everything you've said here is reasonable. Politician style reasonable. All the hard decisions that would need to be made to do anything in practice are covered by "educate the second" and "perhaps there needs to be a conversation". In my opinion, you are wrong in expecting that these few large index/hosting sites or "worst offenders" will continue to be the bulk of the infringing traffic. We are moving away from that very quickly already.
  - Silhouette 14y ago
    There is, as you seem to realise to some extent, exactly one logical conclusion to the everyone-does-it, distributed-everything world you describe: prohibit the very act of conveying digital information in encrypted form, and require the infrastructure providers to help with identifying and prosecuting those who break the law. Personally, I don't think that would be a very nice world to live in. That means effort has to be put into promoting legitimate alternatives and educating people about why these issues matter. This has been done before, many times, with driving offences for example. Not so long ago, you could go past a pub at lunchtime and find plenty of obviously impaired people cheerfully getting into their cars to drive back to the office. Today, drunk-driving is socially unacceptable, licensed establishments run promotions for designated drivers, and police action is relatively rare because it is mostly unnecessary. This was achieved almost entirely through education, and in particular demonstrating the real consequences of the illegal act that do affect real people rather than allowing the perceptions of a "victimless crime" or "fighting the system" to continue unchallenged. I see no reason a serious, credible campaign could not successfully explain that copyright is there to support the artists who create the works we want to enjoy and isn't just about lining the pockets of big businesses who have been price gouging since forever. If the laws were also changed to bring copyright terms back to sanity and those big businesses suffered a few high profile legal defeats over their track record of anti-competitive behaviour at the same time, a lot of good might result. [Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying that this would completely eliminate all illegal copying. However, as I've just posted separately, I think it leads to a reasonable compromise that gives sensible options to people who just want to enjoy creative works and allows rightsholders to chase down large-scale infringement effectively without having to prohibit personal encrypted communications.]
    - freshhawk 14y ago
      > exactly one logical conclusion to the everyone-does-it, distributed-everything world you describe: prohibit the very act of conveying digital information in encrypted form, and require the infrastructure providers to help with identifying and prosecuting those who break the law There is another logical conclusion: accept that since information is now easily shared that those who made their living by controlling the act of copying will be out of business soon. Just like the canonical example of horse breeders and buggy makers being put out of business by the automobile. Like when the guild system collapsed and you could decide to try to earn a living as a blacksmith or carpenter without having to pay and get permission from the local guild. These transitions aren't pretty, jobs are lost, industries collapse, but historically it has always turned out to be a necessary growing pain while something better has emerged. I certainly have a "the internet is one of great things humanity has done" bias but I still don't believe that this is an unrealistic vision. I actually find it much more likely that artists will find a way to be paid and will adapt to a free exchange of bits than that we will find some good way to protect speech and freedom while still policing copyright. In that case you will always have powerful copyright interests with financial interests aligned against the advancement of an open internet. Combine that with needing to run a large scale education campaign the likes of anti-smoking or anti-drunk driving (that, because of the reputation of the copyright holders and a generation who things music is free, is getting harder every day). I see the sense in your version, and it's not crazy. I just don't think we can pull it off. What we can do, since it's been done many times before, is let artists adapt to new technology and find a new business model. And as 3D printers get better and better this is certainly a problem that's going to keep expanding.

ghshephard 14y ago

The challenge here is to recognize there is a happy medium. " pursue the worst offenders (those who knowingly publish copyrighted content) " There is a difference between someone who sells indexed warez/books/movies/music on a retail site, and someone running a bit torrent client. Aggressively pursue the first, and educate the second. Simply having the ISP send a warning notice of copyright infringement to the account holder of an IP address, without in any way communicating back to the rightsholder _who_ that IP Address holder was, is a nice medium. Note - just because it's easy to run a bit-torrent client sharing the latest GameOfThrones Books (all available via Kindle, or the library) doesn't mean it's legal (or even ethical). Re: Posted Links to copyrighted material - depends on how organized / indexed those links are. If it's a casual site with a few links pointing out, clearly that falls under fair use. If it has carefully indexed/searchable database of 750,000 songs, and 35,000 movies,, and 250,000 books in such a way that you just have to visit that site, click a link, and download the content - well, perhaps there needs to be a conversation. But reasonable people can come up with reasonable solutions. It doesn't have to be "All Sharing, All the Time" - nor does it have to be "Idiotic Draconian RIAA $22K/Song to some random bit torrent user"

freshhawk 14y ago
It's easy to sit on the fence until you have to get specific. Everything you've said here is reasonable. Politician style reasonable. All the hard decisions that would need to be made to do anything in practice are covered by "educate the second" and "perhaps there needs to be a conversation". In my opinion, you are wrong in expecting that these few large index/hosting sites or "worst offenders" will continue to be the bulk of the infringing traffic. We are moving away from that very quickly already.
- Silhouette 14y ago
  There is, as you seem to realise to some extent, exactly one logical conclusion to the everyone-does-it, distributed-everything world you describe: prohibit the very act of conveying digital information in encrypted form, and require the infrastructure providers to help with identifying and prosecuting those who break the law. Personally, I don't think that would be a very nice world to live in. That means effort has to be put into promoting legitimate alternatives and educating people about why these issues matter. This has been done before, many times, with driving offences for example. Not so long ago, you could go past a pub at lunchtime and find plenty of obviously impaired people cheerfully getting into their cars to drive back to the office. Today, drunk-driving is socially unacceptable, licensed establishments run promotions for designated drivers, and police action is relatively rare because it is mostly unnecessary. This was achieved almost entirely through education, and in particular demonstrating the real consequences of the illegal act that do affect real people rather than allowing the perceptions of a "victimless crime" or "fighting the system" to continue unchallenged. I see no reason a serious, credible campaign could not successfully explain that copyright is there to support the artists who create the works we want to enjoy and isn't just about lining the pockets of big businesses who have been price gouging since forever. If the laws were also changed to bring copyright terms back to sanity and those big businesses suffered a few high profile legal defeats over their track record of anti-competitive behaviour at the same time, a lot of good might result. [Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying that this would completely eliminate all illegal copying. However, as I've just posted separately, I think it leads to a reasonable compromise that gives sensible options to people who just want to enjoy creative works and allows rightsholders to chase down large-scale infringement effectively without having to prohibit personal encrypted communications.]
  - freshhawk 14y ago
    > exactly one logical conclusion to the everyone-does-it, distributed-everything world you describe: prohibit the very act of conveying digital information in encrypted form, and require the infrastructure providers to help with identifying and prosecuting those who break the law There is another logical conclusion: accept that since information is now easily shared that those who made their living by controlling the act of copying will be out of business soon. Just like the canonical example of horse breeders and buggy makers being put out of business by the automobile. Like when the guild system collapsed and you could decide to try to earn a living as a blacksmith or carpenter without having to pay and get permission from the local guild. These transitions aren't pretty, jobs are lost, industries collapse, but historically it has always turned out to be a necessary growing pain while something better has emerged. I certainly have a "the internet is one of great things humanity has done" bias but I still don't believe that this is an unrealistic vision. I actually find it much more likely that artists will find a way to be paid and will adapt to a free exchange of bits than that we will find some good way to protect speech and freedom while still policing copyright. In that case you will always have powerful copyright interests with financial interests aligned against the advancement of an open internet. Combine that with needing to run a large scale education campaign the likes of anti-smoking or anti-drunk driving (that, because of the reputation of the copyright holders and a generation who things music is free, is getting harder every day). I see the sense in your version, and it's not crazy. I just don't think we can pull it off. What we can do, since it's been done many times before, is let artists adapt to new technology and find a new business model. And as 3D printers get better and better this is certainly a problem that's going to keep expanding.