Ganging up on Pirates...

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

The problem is, they do have this. They will hit up their logs and correlate the IP address with the MAC address & account that was linked that that IP at the time of supposed infringment. However, this process isn't perfect (easy to screw up times) and logs can be flawed.

If that's the case, then how come only the IP was mentioned in the letter I received, and not the mac address? If they had corroborating evidence, why not show it?

[Greg Anos]

Re Stone Tools, elf mark and copyright length:

I walk into a card compny and buy a car. I pay the money, I get the car. Would it be fair if 10 years down the road, the car became a collectable, worth 3 times what I paid for it, that the dealer tows the car away until I pay the differential between the original purchase price and the new value?

Of course not.

But if the creators and the public make the same deal, (the creators creates a work, and the public guarantees it for a fixed length), why is it Ok to suddenly change the rules to "take the car back", i.e. extend the copyright length?

In both cases, I paid a creator, whether real or intellectual, what the market said was the proper price - at the time of purchase, whether it was cash on the barrelhead or a guaranteed monopoly for x years. I (the public) held up my end of the bargain, why has my right of contract been abrogated, just because it was I.P. instead of real?

Extending the I.P term is as much stealing as piracy is. I find it particularly annoying when a bunch of thieves keep screaming "help, help, I've been robbed."

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

If that's the case, then how come only the IP was mentioned in the letter I received, and not the mac address? If they had corroborating evidence, why not show it?

All they do is provide the ISP with a list of IP addresses for them to send warnings to and the date/time they claim to have seen the IP address. There are lots of things that can go wrong — mistyped numbers, their clock being wrong, your IP being randomly generated by one of the programs that insert fake IPs into a swarm, someone with a cloned modem, or even just someone parked outside with a laptop and a program to crack wifi passwords. None of that really matters when you have guilt upon accusation.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

All they do is provide the ISP with a list of IP addresses for them to send warnings to and the date/time they claim to have seen the IP address. There are lots of things that can go wrong — mistyped numbers, their clock being wrong, your IP being randomly generated by one of the programs that insert fake IPs into a swarm, someone with a cloned modem, or even just someone parked outside with a laptop and a program to crack wifi passwords. None of that really matters when you have guilt upon accusation.

Good point also.

Originally Posted by Hellmark

If that's the case, then how come only the IP was mentioned in the letter I received, and not the mac address? If they had corroborating evidence, why not show it?

Hellmark, that's how your ISP identified IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx as you and why you got the warning letter.

They probably checked their logs, and believe it was connected to you at the time (you being MAC address xx-xx-xx-xx-xx or whatever).

They don't have IP address = Hellmark. They have IP address at that time = device with this MAC address = activated on Hellmark's account/address.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by stonetools

This is a popular meme on this forum, but the people in the industry, who have access to the actual figures , strongly disagree. Could it be possible that the people in the industry may know more about the true cost of piracy than a bystander without access to inside info? Just sayin'.

Probably not, for reasons indicated below.

First, though, my point about shoplifting is that it cannot be stopped, and that the critical problem is to minimize it, taking into account marginal costs. That the retail industry regards it as a big problem does not mean that the equivalent in the ebook industry must also be costly. The economic costs and marginal efficiencies of preventative action are undoubtedly different. It is the analytical approach in both markets that is the same.

Second, you have moved the subject from ebooks to "content providers," which includes music and movies - and video games, which is a much larger market. They are not the same thing as ebooks.

You see, I am not impressed by what book publishers think about ebook piracy for two reasons: (1) eBook publishing is in its infancy. There is and cannot be any meaningful data on ebook piracy at this point because no one really knows how to measure a market that is still being created. At best, what seems to be out there is epiracy of pbooks, and there would appear to be no data on that, either - at least, I've never seen any cited. (2) Publishers are not engaged in defending their ebooks from piracy; they are engaged in defending their pbooks from what they see as cannibalization by ebooks. Concern over epiracy of ebooks themselves is just being thrown in because of the superficial resemblance to music & movies & games.

It appears to me that Rowling has come to the same conclusions that I have - at least, her move to ebooks without DRM is consistent with them.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

Good point also.



Hellmark, that's how your ISP identified IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx as you and why you got the warning letter.

They probably checked their logs, and believe it was connected to you at the time (you being MAC address xx-xx-xx-xx-xx or whatever).

They don't have IP address = Hellmark. They have IP address at that time = device with this MAC address = activated on Hellmark's account/address.

Yeah, I understand how it works, but I mean, if they are going to accuse someone, currently the accused only sees that X file was supposedly downloaded at Y time on Z IP address. To the accused, that is only circumstantial, with nothing shown that directly references them. If they show the MAC address captured, it would be easier for the accuse to defend themselves, or the accusers to prove the accused as guilty.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Yeah, I understand how it works, but I mean, if they are going to accuse someone, currently the accused only sees that X file was supposedly downloaded at Y time on Z IP address. To the accused, that is only circumstantial, with nothing shown that directly references them. If they show the MAC address captured, it would be easier for the accuse to defend themselves, or the accusers to prove the accused as guilty.

Except as I've mentioned spoofing mac address is how people get into people's WIFI who have set up filters. Exactly what a paranoid pirate would do.

Remember folks WiFi is not secure and all you can hope is you've protected yours better than the people around you so you're not as easy of a target.

[speakingtohe]

I wonder why there isn't some way to prevent accusations of this type without some form of absolute proof.
Even a warning letter can cause emotional distress, and the inconvenience of having to prove your innocence.

Helen

[Fayth]

This won't stop the less casual pirates who pirate through encrypted usenet servers or use VPNs for torrenting.

I could see this deterring casual pirates though.

[rogue_librarian]

Casual torrenting, maybe, but this won't even work for one-click download hosts.

[wodin]

I got an email from Dropbox titled "Updates to Dropbox Terms of Service and Privacy Statement". Part of the TOS was the following:

"Copyright
Dropbox respects others’ intellectual property and asks that you do too. We will respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement if they comply with the law and are properly provided to us. Such notices should be reported using our DMCA Process. We reserve the right to delete or disable content alleged to be infringing and to terminate repeat infringers. Our designated agent for notice of alleged copyright infringement on the Services is:

Copyright Agent
Dropbox Inc.
760 Market Street #1150
San Francisco, CA 94102
copyright@dropbox.com"

[rogue_librarian]

Oh, sure. Files get deleted all the time, and yet ... not really making a dent in the offer as far as I can tell.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I wonder why there isn't some way to prevent accusations of this type without some form of absolute proof.
Even a warning letter can cause emotional distress, and the inconvenience of having to prove your innocence.

Helen

Guilt upon accusation is cheaper than gathering evidence. The whole point of this rash of new laws being passed in various countries is to save money for the entertainment industry.

The cost of implementing them goes to the ISPs, which in turn is passed on to subscribers. That's the main reason these sort of schemes won't increase spending on legitimate digital content. Any spare money people had to spend on such products is sucked up by increased internet fees. And the people who want to get free content will just continue doing so using less snoopable means.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Guilt upon accusation is cheaper than gathering evidence. The whole point of this rash of new laws being passed in various countries is to save money for the entertainment industry.

Exactly. If they actually had evidence, then the current laws would be sufficient. The new laws are so that the entertainment industry can save money and get rid of the annoying thing known as "due process".

Lawyers, judges, due process, evidence... that's just way to hard. It's so much easier if we just let the entertainment industry say "This person is guilty, trust us". What could possibly go wrong?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by DianNC

I don't get it. And, at the risk of sounding uninformed, why don't they go after the websites that are providing the material?

Monitoring a private individual's internet usage seems inordinately intrusive to me. Are the sites that are making these downloads available not also complicit in illegal acts???

You get it more than most people do. Whenever you read news articles (and most posts) about this, they always use the word "download". However, the actual court cases are about uploading. The uploader is the one who is committing direct copyright infringement. I'm not aware of anyone ever being sued specifically for downloading.