IFPI Turning To Lawsuits 85
Sherman's doppleganger writes "The IFPI (the "European RIAA") has made a lot of noise about filtering this year, but it looks as though 2008 is instead becoming the year of the lawsuit. The IFPI has now sued an Irish ISP in an attempt to keep copyrighted content off of its network. 'The lawsuit accuses Eircom of abetting illegal downloading by allowing copyrighted material to traverse its network unimpeded. The IFPI... wants the ISP to start filtering traffic to scrub all illicitly uploaded and downloaded copyrighted material on its network.' The lawsuit comes less than a week after an Israeli court forced the nation's three biggest ISPs to block access to HttpShare.com."
These people need to crawl in a hole somwhere. (Score:5, Insightful)
Abbetting (Score:2, Insightful)
I Still Don't Understand (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:common carrier? (Score:5, Insightful)
Should a toll road's owner be fined if someone transports illegal goods on it? Or required to search all cars that pass?
Should Disneyland be fined if someone manages to smuggle in 'shrooms and consume them waiting in line for Pirates Of The Carribean? Or conduct drug searches and tests on all patrons?
Should a taxi driver be fined if a passenger sneaks trash out the window? Or required to maintain all windows and doors to be sealed at all times?
Re:Legal filesharing should be kept legal (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is one of the reasons it must be stopped.
You are the real enemy.
Re:common carrier? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So all traffic should be banned (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you know what is illicit and what is allowed?
Is the content of the website you are downloaded owned by (for instance) perfect 10?
Have I given permission to YOU to download a css stylesheet I designed for use on my website?
Is the Code in the software update you are getting copyrighted to the person you are getting it from?
Did the original rights owner give you permission to distribute that mp3 file to your IM friend?
the list is endless.
Without knowledge of what is illicit and what is allowed you might as well block the whole lot.
Unclear on the concept (Score:4, Insightful)
People here are unclear on what the RIAA and their European cousins are trying to do. They are not dummies, and they know perfectly well that personal sharing ("piracy") actually helps their sales. They also know perfectly well that these lawsuits will not stop real piracy ("Psssst. Honorable Sir! Look here! 5 CDs for one dollar!"). They are willing to forgo those lost sales in pursuit of their real purpose. The purpose of the lawsuits is to create a climate of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) surrounding *legal* downloads. That is because what they *really* hate is not "piracy", but independent musicians. By stifling music sharing, they stifle independents, and keep the music distribution monopoly to themselves. They don't especially hate FOSS, but they don't feel especially guilty about innocent bystanders getting nailed either.