UK Record Industry Starts Suing Filesharers 459
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has the story that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has started a first set of lawsuits against UK file sharers. 23 people paid £50,000 to settle out of court. This is the first time people in the UK have been fined, and probably won't be the last. From the article: "We are determined to find people who illegally distribute music, whichever peer-to-peer network they use, and to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
MPAA is on its way (Score:5, Insightful)
Surefire way to eliminate all piracy! (Score:3, Funny)
of course wave upon wave of lawsuits will probably help to slow down sharing as well.
Re:Surefire way to eliminate all piracy! (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.mediachest.com
Share your collection face-to-face, or through the mail. Meet new people.
This is an attack on the internet also (Score:3, Informative)
Lets also look at new censorship rules being pushed by politicians in the US.
The internet is hated by TV, Music and film companies.
How long will it be before we have boxes installed on all computers checking for anything that might be copyrighted or anything that is deemed 'indecent'.
We might be seeing it alrea
Ouch (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ouch (Score:2)
The penalties are stiff.
Very stiff.
That you and so many others perceive copyright infringement as a "victimless crime" doesn't change that.
Or do you think that doing 140 in a 60 zone at 4AM when there's nobody else on the road anyways should somehow be less of a cause for the police to impound your vehicle when they pull you over?
Re:Ouch (Score:2, Insightful)
So, if he thinks the punishment is not appropriate, he's 100% wrong no questions asked? Nice to see the Sheeple out in force today. Do you agree with every law because it's a law? Are there no laws you think the punishment for is unjust? Dissent is really tiresome to you, isn't it?
That fact that you think copyright infringement is such a terrible thing makes me think you've been living in a box your whole life and have never experienced real crime. If
Re:Ouch (Score:3, Interesting)
I do agree with copyright law as it currently stands (or rather, as it stood before certain ammendments were put into it in recent years, such as the DMCA and the stupid Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act).
And by the way, just because I happen to advocate copyright infringement laws so strongly doesn't mean I'm ignorant to the fact that there are crimes that are orders of magnitude worse. But instead of trying to create a perfect world, let's just deal with the problems we
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ouch (Score:3, Insightful)
I presume by most you didn't mean 51%, let's assume 0.5% shall we? (Too high? well, let's assume that filesharers only compete with online legal downloads (clearly falacious) and that the iTunes store is the only legal download site).
Apple's daily sales are about 1.39m tracks. Which works out at a daily loss of revenue of around $7,000.
That alone is probably worth paying a lawyer for, no? Just to make
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Informative)
The average compensation payment was £2,200 each, with one person paying £4,500.
Re:Ouch (Score:2)
Re:Ouch (Score:3, Informative)
Easy mistake to make - the first paragraph of the article isn't exactly clear that it is not 50,000GBP each.
"The UK music industry has claimed victory in its first battle with illegal file-sharers after 23 people paid £50,000 to settle out of court."
Though I'm also not sure how "50,000 totalled $21,453,716" works out eith
wi fi (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:wi fi (Score:3, Interesting)
At least that's how the court would look at it.
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
What's your defense then?
Re:wi fi (Score:5, Insightful)
Read that again. The **AA is auditing my network. An industry group. Auditing. My. Network.
Not their province. I damn the laws that let INDUSTRY GROUPS conduct audits of MY PROPERTY. I gave them no such permission.
Get off of my property, varmint. Southwestern Bell doesn't get to monitor my phone conversations for defamation, and they bloody own the network. I will not stand for an industry rooting through my logs for possible cash making possiblities.
No (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
Other question: if I leave my car unlocked, so it gets stolen and involved in an accident - am I responsible, too? Cars are dangerous things. Not as much as firearms, but can be devastating nonetheless. Assume it is my responsibility, too.
What about a box cutter on the front porch? Still dangerous and I'm responsible
Uh.. yup.. (Score:2)
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
In most European countries downloading music and movies for private use is allowed; offering music and movies for download is seen as publication and illegal. "Sharing" is illegal in the US too, I am not sure about downloading. You will run some risks when your neighbour is running a file sharing program over your WAP.
If you can proof that your
Re:wi fi (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, since none of the cases have gotten anywhere near a courtroom the stregth of the *AA's cases has not been determined. In several cases it has been shown that the case is actually pretty laughable (suing Mac-using grandmothers, suing the dead, etc.). Truth is that the *AA's can sue with impunity because of the vast difference in resources between the *AA's and a private individual
Re:wi fi (Score:4, Informative)
Downloading copyrighted works without authorization or an applicable exception is illegal in the US per 17 USC 501 and 106(1).
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
Why not try the surefire method of avoiding being sued? Pay for legal music or go without. Remember, you arent entitled to it.
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
You can be held liable and responsable for actions undertaken by others on your property or using your equipment - why do you think businesses in the UK have to limit your access to the net? Its because they can be held liable if you download child porn, or if you download something that offends someone else in your office. I dont se
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
Re:wi fi (Score:5, Insightful)
Making a copy of copyrighted material without permission is what is illegal. Period. Encrypted or not. Protected or not. If it's copyrighted, and you do not have permission to copy it, and you go ahead and copy it, then you've broken the law.
Notwithstanding, there are allowances to make copies, even without explicit permission, under the jurisdictions of personal and fair use.
If the circumstances do not fit within those allowances, however, then the person who made the copy has violated copyright law.
Strictly speaking, this makes anyone who fileshares a work without permission a copyright infringer even before anyone else actually downloads it, since they have made a copy of the work (which exists on their hard disk), but that copy transcends allowable boundaries for personal/fair use, since that copy is being made available for public viewing, use, or copying, and so is in violation of copyright.
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
I don't see how. Fair Use lets me make a copy on my hard drive. Windows, by default, shares out the HD w
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
If you are the one signed up with your name on the agreement/lease/whatever, the onus is upon you to prevent misuse of the service you've agreed to.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
Better analogy (Score:2)
Re:wi fi (Score:2)
Re:IANAL, but... (Score:2)
The industry needs to changes its marketing strat (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has sold approximately 85 million songs in the first two months of 2005, surpassing Piper Jaffray's initial estimates for the entire March quarter. Based on Apple's earlier announcement of 300 million total tracks sold, Senior Research Analyst Gene Munster says that iTunes sales could account for $83.2 million in revenue in the March quarter--or about $35 million more than the firm has been estimating. The firm also believes average daily sales rate has been 1.35 million per day since late January, which very similar to the 1.43 million daily run rate (i.e., sales of songs) in the weeks following the holidays. "We had been anticipating a more significant drop off in iTunes sales from the levels seen in the weeks following the holidays."
In addition to driving iPod sales, the firm says that Apple's iTunes Music Store will also contribute significantly to the company earnings: while it estimtates that the current operating margin on iTunes is in the low single digits, Piper Jaffray says it believes iTunes profitability will begin to increase throughout 2005, with operating margins reaching 5% to 10% in 2006.
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/03/02/itunes.g
Re:The industry needs to changes its marketing str (Score:2)
You do not have the right to just distribute or download it without paying, end of story. There is no "well if they only made it cheaper" because that is not your right to say. If you don't want to pay the price they are asking then you make the decision to not get that
Re:The industry needs to changes its marketing str (Score:3, Insightful)
Now take a look around you and see that not many people care and are doing it anyway.
You want to stop them doing it, considering the moral argument doesn't work?
Ask why they do it.
Then take that reason away from them.
If they continue to share, that wasn't really their reason.
The popularity of iTunes says that people are willing for pay for downloaded music.
I would suggest that the reason for this is that you can get the so
Re:The industry needs to changes its marketing str (Score:2)
Why? Because they are accurate? He isn't saying he does it for that reason, he's saying many people claim that as the reason.
Who cares what they price the music at?
Everyone that buys or wants to buy music, which is pretty close to 100% of the population.
It is not your music, you did not make it, you did not go into contract with them and give them rights to it, you did not spend millions of dollars advertising it.
You are right, I didn't. They put it in the public
Re:The industry needs to changes its marketing str (Score:2)
I don't. That's why I don't buy CDs anymore! Either I download some free stuff on the internet (legatorrents... just google for it) or I listen and donate to Shoutcast radio stations.
They want me to buy something? Maybe they should consider lowering the price of their CDs. CDs are almost twice as expensive as it was ten years ago, is there a reason for it? The price should lower by itself with time but instead it's going up. Now I can buy two DVDs for the price of
Re:The industry needs to changes its marketing str (Score:2)
If a person wants
Re:The industry needs to changes its marketing str (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it is not. It's more like not wanting to pay $5 to rent a movie that you've heard is bad, so you walk over to your friends house and borrow it. You've just screwed the movie company out of money and should be tossed in jail for "stealing" by not paying them every time you watch it.
Re:The industry needs to changes its marketing str (Score:2)
Except you're not borrowing it. You're keeping it permanently. Which is exactly what you would have done had you gone to the store and bought it new or used.
You've just screwed the movie company out of money and should be tossed in jail for "stealing" by not paying them every time you watch it.
Had you actually bought the item you could watch it as often as you wish
Re:The industry needs to changes its marketing str (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Just curious. And no, I haven't RTFA. I'm just not interested in the story enough to bother and besides, I already know everything I need to know about the music/labels/P2P wars already. I read the comments on Slashdot!
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Funny)
Before the whining starts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Before the whining starts (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, FYI (Score:2)
Anyway, the Free Software Foundation (FSF [fsf.org]) doesn't go after GPL violations when they don't own the copyright, and rightly so. All GPL violations the FSF get involved with are ones where the copyright was either theirs to begin with or where it was assigned to them.
Just because they wrote the GPL, it doesn't mean they are its sole enforcers or the ones responsible for dealing with GPL violators. Just like any copyright viol
Re:Before the whining starts (Score:2)
Re:Before the whining starts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Before the whining starts (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, how times have changed... :)
Re:Before the whining starts (Score:5, Interesting)
They do have LEGAL RIGHTS to do this, yes.
Whether they are MORALLY RIGHT is up to your particular morality, and there's a wide variety out there
Yet another question is whether this is a RIGHT THING TO DO from a business viewpoint. Or from a public-good viewpoint. Again, answers vary.
Kids these days (Score:5, Funny)
If that's all your kids have been up to on the internet when you're not watching, you're in OK shape...
Re:Kids these days (Score:5, Funny)
I know! I just found out my boy was posting on some nerd forum where they have some fetish for penguins, grits, apples, and "OSS". (I assume this "OSS" is a spelling of "ass" where the "a" is stretched disproportionately. I've seen some disturbing pictures on that site he visits!)
You try and try and try to raise them right, but....
Re:Kids these days (Score:2)
I think we all know what picture you're talking about there...
Re:Kids these days (Score:2)
whoa... (Score:4, Funny)
You're not the only one (Score:2)
£50,000 to settle
Who the hell has fifty thousand pounds sitting around to settle and still won't buy a freaking CD?
50,000 pounds is almost (US) $100,000. If you can afford a $100,000 settlement, just buy the freaking music.
music prices sure have gone up... (Score:4, Funny)
follow the money (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't most artists make only a pittance on their album sales anyway, even after they have paid back the label for their 'generous' promotional contract?
Call me cynical, but claiming that the settlement money is going to go to artists seems disingenuous. Of course claiming 'lost' profits by the labels on file sharing is moreso.
Re:follow the money (Score:2)
You're missing the key point of the statement. restate it so you can get what they're really trying to say: "...make them compensate the [snip] labels they are stealing from."
There. That's better.
Re:follow the money (Score:2)
I wouldn't be sure of that. If, for example, they make most of their money from concerts due to the pittiance royalty on CD sales, any significant increase in the size of their fanbase would probably be worth it.
Overheard in a squalid housing estate... (Score:5, Funny)
you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:you know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because they are going after people for distributing. If you share a song to 100 people then you are liable for that song getting out there and all the damage to the company it causes.
Re:you know... (Score:2)
Two reasons -- one is to punish (and therefore deter such behavior in the future), the second is to recoup legal fees and other expenses.
If you get caught shoplifting, do you just have to pay for the item you took? No, you have to pay a fine as well (that's the punishment part). I don't know about the UK, but in many U.S. states, a retailer who catches a sho
Re:you know... (Score:2, Funny)
Is this supposed to be bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now they're going after the people who actually break the law, instead of trying to end P2P.
I think that the idea of fair use ought to be extended, but am I supposed to be outraged that this is happening? They're actually going after people who are breaking the law, instead of trying to end technologies with legitimate uses.
Isn't this exactly what we asked for?
Legally, the correct approach, but a foolish one (Score:3, Insightful)
---Isn't this exactly what we asked for?---
Pretty much, and under the law, it's a reasonable approach. But in the long run, it's a futile one, and a foolish one.
First, the massive quantity of US lawsuits has caused no slowdown in p2p filesharing. So it's not an effective means of stopping copyright infringement.
Next, it's bad PR, and is turning off more and more consumers and artists from doing business with the major label cartels. It's also interesting that they continue to sett
Re:Is this supposed to be bad? (Score:2)
I really don't care though. I don't use p2p servies. I use iTunes.
Re:Is this supposed to be bad? (Score:2)
Who's that "we"?
I have no idea what YOU asked for -- if you asked for these lawsuits, well, , you got what you asked for.
For my part, I was asking for RIAA and MPAA to be busted up as corrupt criminal organizations and prosecuted under RICO. I'm still waiting...
Re:Is this supposed to be bad? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I wonder how this will go down... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I wonder how this will go down... (Score:2)
The record companies didn't care then, and didn't really give a shit at all until Napster came along and made it EASY to do so. IRC has a barrier to entry. Finding the genres and tracks you want on IRC requires social engineering or a close friend group that can get it and share it amongst themselves, kind of
Re:I wonder how this will go down... (Score:2)
Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bahahahahahahaha hahahaha hahahahaha hahaha haha whew.
Sorry about that.
I just don't buy any music anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
how much of this goes to artists? (Score:2)
all of it goes to the labels.
artists get nothing except % of sales and residuals, they dont get anything from legal judgements.
Re:how much of this goes to artists? (Score:2)
A dangerous wounded animal (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A dangerous wounded animal (Score:2)
If you had a mechanism for ensuring that 1) only one "friend" borrowed your file at a time, and 2) you yourself are locked out from doing listening to it while they do, I'm not so sure you DON'T have the legal right to do that as of now. The lockout mechanisms are key to get around both piracy abd broadcasting restrictions.
If you can't, I agree, you should be able to.
Only fining uploaders (Score:2, Interesting)
trading actual cds (Score:2)
Why didn't the parents fight? (Score:2, Interesting)
In the UK is this normal practice? - If you cannot crack the bat over the head of a minor, go looking for a parent.
If this had gone to court and the courts sided with the BPI, what sort of punishment would have been dished out, and who would be punished? - the minor, or the parent, or both?
Specifically, if the parent didn't know a crime was going on (meaning they genuinely didn't know their child was do
Incorrect 50k (Score:2)
Lemonade (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not an economist or even a leader in the corporation I work for but that game taught me that people are willing to pay what they feel is a decent price for the product they receive and will not purchase any lemonade that is $5.00 a cup even on a 99degree farenheit day with no clouds in the sky.
I think I speak for many UK residents in asking... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I guarantee all lawsuits would stop within a month once the soul-sucking corporations stopped getting their infinite percent cut.
It's a rant people, don't reply like this was a thesis statement, but seriously, when are we going to make them give up the "for the artists (children)" argument? I think if the court is going to rule in their favor it should also require them to publicly announce their true actions. Which are using the legal systems to prop up an outmoded business model and integrate profit margins that they otherwise would never have earned anyway.
What is the concept of value? What is a patent? (Score:4, Interesting)
hmm scary (Score:5, Informative)
Some questions i'd like answered:
yeah, there's always a quote like this. trying to make it sound so righteous. What about the parents who said "wtf, you're extorting 5 grand out of us for what?" they never get quoted. What attempt. It's pay a huge fine*, or go to court and risk paying a really huge fine. It can't be a deterrent and be fair. So admit it: it's not fair to the people caught, but you're desperate to scare people. I trust the next BPI press release will show how much the artists got from this (yes, sarcasm).What kind of music (artists, genres, labels) were they sharing?
Why were they singled out (uh, awful pun)- sharing >x000 songs on a fixed IP for > x days?
Are the IPs of these british organistions listed in anti-anti-P2P blocking lists? i can bet these people weren't using any blocking, but would it have helped is another question.. proper anonymous music trading networks anyone?
*and admit you've been naughty and promise not to do it again, of course. whatever that means.
interesting, the fact that two people out of such a small pool were caught *twice* suggests they are looking for something very specific, like a particular list of songs (e.g. counting the matches, then taking the IPs of those with the most?). i'm guessing that these were people with dynamic IPs, rather than those sharing e.g. at home and at work.
Well i've been expecting this to happen in the UK - really, i'm amazed its taken until 2005 - and i always said "fuck it, safety in numbers" but i have to admit it is slightly scary to know you could get caught... i guess carrry on with the indie music, people! (and you know, buy some; just don't support the pigopolists, either by buying their music, or getting caught and really funding their lawyers.
btw, do they actually have to listen to your songs to see if they are the material as named? if so, maybe having a max-uploads-per-IP in the client would help you not get into trouble, as well as being fairer, spreading things around?
my solution (Score:4, Insightful)
many iterations of file sharing tools later, i'm on emule, and i have a simple solution to beating the riaa, et al:
i embrace world music, i let my mind wander
currently, i'm into filipino music (i live in new york city)
the thing to do is is to expand your musical interests to things beyond the usual pop crap, and you are also therefore using the new file sharing technology to its greatest benefit: connecting with resources that otherwise would be beyond your grasp in the pre-interent universe
embrace world music, screw the pop crap, and you win two ways:
1. you won't be on the riaa's radar
2. you'll grow new brain cells as you develop an awareness of a world beyond your nation's borders
there really is a lot of good stuff out there that isn't the usual robbie williams or britney spears crap
free your mind and give the bastards who want to market you sugar water the finger in the process
Sue for Misuse of Language (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything, it is the labels / artists who should have to pay fines everytime they rattle off phrases like that. I bet they don't use that sort of language in court. No one is stealing anything from anyone. There is no property that is being exchanged, nor has anyone's actions resulted in someone somehow losing any material item. They make it sound like every d/l song is a lost sale and that a lost sale should be counted as an asset. Maybe at Enron, but that's completely bogus.
What is happening is that people are illegally infringing on the labels / artists right to distribute (ie. copy) said material. That is not stealing. If someone goes into a library and photocopies an entire copyrighted book, they are infringing on the copyright owner's right to issue copies; however, that does not compare to the person who goes into a bookstore and removes from the bookstore, without paying, the same book. THAT is stealing! Both are committing an illegal activity but they are exceptionally different in character.
Besides, copyright is a stupid law to begin with.
Re:BPI (Score:2)
We all did. You're just the first to admit it.....
Re:BPI (Score:2)
Re:OMG OMG (Score:2)
(Unless you're in a country with laws that say otherwise.)