Music Industry Wants BitTorrent Blackout
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: torrents, legal, ISP | Themes: The Internet
Will BitTorrent be blocked by ISPs?
If the forces representing the music industry have their way, that will be the case. In its latest push against P2P, the music industry is demanding that Internet service providers block all torrent-based file sharing sites.
Last month, Irish ISP Eircom announced that it wouldn't block any sites, but it would actively disconnect users it suspected of sharing copyrighted material. This isn't enough, however, as the music reps are demanding that it also block a list of P2P sites. According to TorrentFreak, Eircom and the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA), the ISP will be 100 percent compliant with any P2P website blockage that IRMA requests. IRMA represents the "Big Four" record labels (EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner), who control 90 percent of the music market on the Emerald Isle.
The music industry and IRMA are using Eircom as an example for all other Irish ISPs. “We don’t support illegal activity on our network but this is an unprecedented agreement," said a spokesman for BitBuzz, an Irish Wi-Fi service. “Is the music industry planning to become Ireland’s de facto internet censor?”
First in the crosshairs for IRMA and the music industry? The Pirate Bay. The popular P2P site is currently fighting the good fight in a Swedish court, and has already been blocked in Denmark. If this agreement between IRMA and Eircom stands, then Ireland will be next. If the music industry succeeds across the pond, or even if they don't, you can bet the farm that the same sort of tactics will come stateside.
In other P2P news, the FBI recently tracked down two individuals who are suspected of uploading movie files originally meant to be Oscar screeners. Derek Hawthorne and Owen Moody, who may or may not have uploaded copies of Australia, Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire to various torrent trackers, face up to three years in jail and $250,000 in fines if convicted. The feds have contacted the California residents and asked that they turn themselves in at some point this week.
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Uh Oh, some ones in trouble. I always wondered who put these things on the net, now I know LMAO.
LOL good luck. if they block the sites I will just use a proxy website to get to it
Going after the suppliers (talking about the ones that did the orignal seeding not the pirate bay) of illegal torrents = good
Blocking bittorrent = very very very bad precident
If the music industry gets their way it's bye bye freedom
We might as well outlaw guns, since they could be used to commit a crime, Cars since you can speed or drive drunk, cleaners cause they can be used to make Meth......... I could go on forever using their logic.
I agree with you tenor.
For the last god#$%@ time, torrents are NOT ALL ILLEGAL. The only illegal thing that happens is when someone downloads something they DON'T have a license to own! (or have already bought)
hey this is just like Napster where it was a good tool for indie bands to advertise there band but the majority uploaded copyrighted material on there and got shut down. if the guys from piratebay get a win in court then this may pose a problem for the record industry
How about we just get rid of the IRMA. What they are afraid of has nothing to do with piracy. They are afraid that the artists will develop a medium, a way, and a purpose to bypass them. Everyone knows that the Artists get very little from the actual sale of their music. The majority of their money comes from live performances. Music piracy is simply FREE advertising. I have yet to see any numbers (or studies) that prove piracy is hurting (monetarily) anything. Movies and Video Games are a different story. I can logically deduce that piracy is bad for them... but on the other hand... Video Games are making more money than ever and I believe that movies are too?... What's all the complaining about.
For the last god#$%@ time, torrents are NOT ALL ILLEGAL. The only illegal thing that happens is when someone downloads something they DON'T have a license to own! (or have already bought)
No they aren't and I don't think anyone implied otherwise. It's a great way to distribute content. That said I have a license to own Windows. That license does not give me the right to distribute, so if I uploaded the disk I just broke the law, making that torrent illegal.
Turn around, if I want to distribute my own freeware I do have permission and I give everyone else permission to distribute as long as it's free. This torrent = legal and lets me quickly distribute content without having to pay for servers. Everyone wins. I know you get this point, but you miss the first.
+1 for tennor, No scalpals for surgeons either, way too dangerous, only rusty ones from now on.
No they aren't and I don't think anyone implied otherwise. ... That license does not give me the right to distribute, so if I uploaded the disk I just broke the law, making that torrent illegal.
But the music industry is trying to block ALL torrents, implying that ALL of them are illegal, which is not the case.
And - I'm not really sure on this, so please correct me if I'm wrong - I don't think it's illegal to distribute the content of Windows itself (the data files) but it's definitly illegal to distribute your key. It's like if I download a Windows OEM ISO so that I can restore my computer and use the key that came with it to activate it - that's not illegal. On the upload side though, I'm not sure. You could be right.
Eh everyone likes to stop innovation for profit... i really wonder how many diseases could have been cured already but were bought out by the pharmacy companies who wants to keep selling the temporary expensive treatments drugs just so they can keep people paying for the rest of their lives.
Another example is the Ford EV1, look it up.
were doomed.
How about we just get rid of the IRMA. ... They are afraid that the artists will develop a medium, a way, and a purpose to bypass them.
I agree. The U.S. has laws against cartels, yet somehow the big music company's are allowed to create organizations like the RIAA? I fail to see how the RIAA isn't anti-competitive. You either do what they say or they sue you, sounds monopolistic to me.
Class-action for individuals against corporations is good. Class-action for corporations against individuals is an affront to justice.
Blocking BitTorrents will cost Game companies and HD Movie Sites millions. Its a pretty stupid move for the movie industry since those entities will sue their asses off for anti-compete.
What if arkitects, carpenters and painters did the same stunt the music industry is. Then we'd have to pay entrance fee's for using our own houses. (Please excuse my bad english)
There are legal BitTorrents?
It will take a few months to come up with a better distribution method and some tinkering with existing protocols, and then the new BitTorrent2 will make sure the whole cycle starts anew. First trickling, then developing into a steady flow, and then a tidal wave to wash down the whole system again. The fools don't understand you can't ban technology, sitting there with their outdated business models, waving their fat fingers. Ride the wave, instead of opposing it and going down with the ship.
So that would mean Linux could no longer be distributed via torrent, nor any other legal software.
Tenor77 hit home with his response.
I use bit torrent to get copies of Ubuntu, and other Linux distributions.....to hell with the music industry...i hope they go bankrupt....freedom of speech....yeah right...the charge people to listen...this is the land of the FEE not the free.....I'll be damned if they block my Linux torrents(which are free to the public)
I think Blizzard might have a word or two to say about this. You know that little Blizzard download manager you use to download new patches for WoW? It's BitTorrent tech.
Good! Tired of the thieves and "everything should be free" crowd crying about having their shoplifting being blocked.
What makes these morons think that making piracy more difficult will increase sales? It seems logical, until you look at all the evidence that suggests otherwise. DRM, trying to ban BitTorrent, poisoning P2P, suing people... has any of their tactics worked for them? At all?
These IDIOTS need to get with the times. Look for new ways to generate $$$ from their IPs, because box CD sales aren't going to work as well anymore. Maybe they should be looking into ways to legally distribute music online (besides trying to ruin iTunes). Maybe BITTORRENT can help them do that more effectively.
What they're doing right now doesn't work though. I'm not compelled to go out and buy a cheap piece of plastic, of "meh" quality music, for an unfair price, with no extras, DRM, and no scratch resistance, that'll be worthless after a month of use. Give me the ability to buy lots of high quality music files for a fair price, and download them as many times I so choose after purchase, and maybe I'll buy their crap. But... since the music industry bullies artists into making cookie cutter, lame, thoughtless garbage... I'd still be hard to sell.
jawshoeaw, I don't know where you live, but not everyone lives in downtown or near it. some people live so far a way from central cities that they can't afford to spend 10$ on a bus ticket just to get a CD for the same price. Not to mention that the listening booths are a JOKE! How can you make up your mind about a CD if you can listen to it only for a Half an hour?! Isn't a CD capable of holding 74 minutes of music? So I have to go trough the whole cd in Fast forward?! Or all this sites that offer you a small demos (15-25 seconds sample of a certain song).. do you think that this is the way to do it? I don't.
2 words....Proxy Server. LOL Ways around everything!
I hope they do it...I hope they block every torrent site on the planet!! Then someone will come out with something that works even better, and makes downloading simpler.
Has happened in the past, and will keep happening.
I think they have every right to sue the Pirate Bay and try to get them shut down. It's one thing to shutdown someone providing a tool specifically to break the law, it's another thing to outlaw the tool altogether.
Here's the headline I am waiting for:
International Publishers call for banning of all photocopy machines due to their known use in replicating and distributing copyrighted material - wants all businesses to comply by 2010.
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Although Pirate Bay is contentious and controversial in its actions, what kind of laws do we want? How far do we want to pursue the facilitators of illegal acts versus the illegal actors themselves? For example, do we go after P2P software designers? Torrent sites like Pirate Bay? Software manufacturers who allow MP3s to be ripped from CDs? The internet service providers who provide network access? The hardware manufacturers who create the network cards that allow the access to happen in the first place?
Another example would be to discuss terrorism. Should sites that espouse terrorism be shut down? Should sites that are used by known terrorists be shut down? Should sites that have opinions or political viewpoints posted on them be shut down? Should someone who expresses even the slightest pro-terrorist sentiments have their site shut down, even if they are discussing only the need of political change while not advocating the violence of the organization? What does this mean for news feeds that discuss terrorism, should they be shut down? What if the "terrorist" organization is now a legitimate government party, should their governmental web site be shut down?
I guess what I am getting at is this: how far do we need to curtail rights in order to protect against crime?
Don't get me wrong - there are definitely times we need to do this. I think most of us agree that a web site that is used to facilitate "hitmen" or purchase other human beings definitely crosses the line, but these kind of sites are violating human rights. At most, Pirate Bay facilitates the deprivation of a human's right to make profit off of their activities, which is a very different class of crime.
The only way things are really going to change is if the artists revolt against the recording studios. Yeah, this may be an unfair burden to place on them, but so long as just a few studios control most of the recorded music the public will be at the whim of these studios. It is clear (esp in the US) that the gov't will, if anything, only make things worse in concentrating the power to these folks.
It is only when a significant # of well established stars stop dropping labels, that the studios will consider changing. If this does not occur, what impetus do they have to change? They will simply do everything in their power to maintain their grip on power. Yeah we could hope sales decline or piracy convince them the business model is flawed... but realistically the studio is going to spend more money combating these things rather than trying to fundamentally fix their business model (and we have clearly seen this).
If/when established stars start dropping the major labels (in significant #'s), I would not be surprised to see service based companies cropping up, where artist can determine costs up front and companies that can distribute music efficiently will thrive. Clearly a smart run business can distribute music WHILE lowering the price to the consumer, turning a decent profit, and probably giving the artists a larger piece of the pie.
The question I have is - couldn't an established band hire an advertising firm for CD/tour publicity and then pay a .com/service company to distribute it? I don't really see where the inherent competitive advantage of the music studios comes in, other than the contacts/network (which a good advertising/marketing agency should be able to overcome).
Hmm, i wonder how this would affect buisness for and isp that blocks it when another isp isn't blocking it in the same region...
teno77 nailed it. Good job!
oops, tenor77 nailed it. Good job!