Ian Clarke wrote:
> From Wired News, available online at:
> http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,40816,00.html
>
> > One service, Copyright Agent, allows content owners to provide ISPs
> > with lists of files to remove and, in many cases, to have Internet
> > access to certain users cut off completely. The systems work by
> > automating the take down and removal policies in the Digital
..
> Further, IANAL but AFAIK an ISP does not have liability for the bits
> communicated over their networks, so I don't see why ISPs would go to the
> trouble of installing this software *and* potentially annoying their
> users, *and* when the software is very unlikely to be effective anyway!
It's even more silly: such a software could be used to delete everything on the
web (of all ISPs that install it) - somebody wanting to censor out something
would just download that file from maybe a competitor company's website,
generate the fingerprint or whatever by that Copyright Agent works, and issue
an automatic, web-wide command to delete it on all servers. Imagine the fun
that could be had: just register yourself as a record company, and then delete
all of Bertelsmann and Sony's web servers, including their for-pay music
download sites. Or the Library of Congress, http://loc.gov . But of course it
wouldn't work on people who run their own webservers, like everyone with a
Linux box. Anti-piracy proves against the laws of nature, doh!
> > "If it's some teenager in New Jersey, it might not be the end of the
> > world to lose your connections, but imagine a person at home with a
> > DSL line, and their livelihood depends on it."
How does the teenager in NJ differ from a person at home with a DSL line, other
than not having a DSL line (last I heard my nearest "teen" in NJ report upon
it) ?
> ...and the livelihood of the ISPs depends on *not* cutting-off their own
> customers!
Uhm, and the High Priest goes on: "...consider that it is expedient for us,
that one man should die for the people,and that the whole nation perish not..."
(John 11, 48-50) - or: rather loose one customer than the whole company.
> 1) *You* might consider it to be infringing - but who cares given that it
> is only infringing as a result of your actions?
Conspiracy to enable or facilitate a crime through negligence .. at least the
US/A should probably have such a law, or a judge may create one by setting a
precendence, or it'll happen some other way.
> 2) Even if the ISP cares (and as pointed out in the article, it is very
> unlikely that they would want to get involved), in the case of a Cable
> user there is no way to reliably match the IP address to a user so that
> they can be disconnected.
They have to "dial" in or login using some user name and password; that
identification can somewhat reliably be matched to the IP address at any given
time, proper log keeping and storing as demanded by law in many countries is
done .. if not, the ISP is liable for breaking logging laws. So either the
whole ISP is banned from further business, or they can cancel their contract
with the specific user.
> > "Then you can go to the ISP and hand them that IP address. The
> > disadvantage to being anonymous is that the only way to stop the
> > infringement, if you're an end user, is to stop using Freenet."
>
> Nope, the only way is for Travis to stop requesting the content from
> Freenet!
There are laws in the making in the European cybercrime convention (see
http://quintessenz.org or .at for details, I forgot the direct link) that would
forbid and threaten with prison and financial punishment the ownership and use
of certain types of software tools .. it would be easy to add "automated
servers" to that list (silly term, but something similar is already illegal in
packet radio in some countries, and has been for decades).
Authorities of all kinds can't stop hardened criminlas, but they can be a major
PITA to a lot of people. :/
> > "The whole issue is that if you are making available something that is
> > infringing, you lose all rights to privacy," Hill said.
Hehe .. it's mostly illegal to own firearms in Germany, but if you kill someone
in self defense with an unlicensed gun, you still can't be punished for owning
that one. Now let'em try to hack away at filesystem encryption .. and then face
a 10'000$ per month bill for blocking my job equipment for finding their 3$
worth of song.
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