Major ISPs to turn into copyright police by July says RIAA

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Well then, quite frankly, I can't follow how you converse.

When Party A says "pay for a service, expect to be monitored" and Party B says "not with phone calls, why with internet" and Party C says "oh, sure, you can totes monitor phone calls" while quoting Party B as a response, it looks like Party C is (1) arguing with Party B and (2) implying that such a thing is legal and appropriate.

If that's not what you meant, why did you say what you said in response to Elfwreck and what were you trying to say? If you just wanted to say that someone has the physical ability to record phone calls, that was never in dispute -- Elfwreck was saying that phone companies cannot legally record phone calls, so ISP providers should not legally be able to record all internet traffic. (IIUC)

Not sure what you mean by "oh, sure, you can totes monitor phone calls" but I am sure I never said that. And I never said or implied it was right or legal to monitor phone calls or email or downloads etc. I did want to say that the party has the physical abilty to monitor the calls and whether it is in dispute or not I should be allowed to say it without someone going all haywire at me. And making/stating wild assumptions based on party A-B-C conversations without actually quoting any seems a bit iffy.

Seems I have seriously offended you by disagreeing with some of your posts in the past although many of them I have supported as well.

I have some strong opinions at times and not all are right, but I mean no personal offense usually.

Helen

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Not sure what you mean by "oh, sure, you can totes monitor phone calls" but I am sure I never said that. And I never said or implied it was right or legal to monitor phone calls or email or downloads etc. I did want to say that the party has the physical abilty to monitor the calls and whether it is in dispute or not I should be allowed to say it without someone going all haywire at me. And making/stating wild assumptions based on party A-B-C conversations without actually quoting any seems a bit iffy.

Seems I have seriously offended you by disagreeing with some of your posts in the past although many of them I have supported as well.

I have some strong opinions at times and not all are right, but I mean no personal offense usually.

Helen

Well, first of all, I have not "gone all haywire" at anyone, let alone at you. I made a post expressing astonishment, you asked if it was directed at you, I stated that it was directed at the thread in general but offered an opinion on something you said that apparently was written out of context (about Physical Ability rather than Legality) and which I mistakenly took to be an in-context remark on the subject at hand.

I'm not offended, but I do confess to be confused when people make an out-of-context statement that can be easily taken to be an in-context one (again, the Physical Ability "can" versus the Legality "can").

And I do not quote when I am responding to multiple people or the general thread. Because quoting -- as I pointed out when you quoted Elfwreck -- usually conveys that the remark is both directed at a specific person and is topically related to what they were talking about. As opposed to a general observation.

[speakingtohe]

@Anamardoll
Sorry if I took the following personally if you were just referring to everyone in general even though your next post indicated to me that it was directed at me. Paranoia in action, mea culpa.

I'm astonished at the idea that some people in this thread seem to be taking that people who aren't rich enough to buy their own housing should submit to having their sexual relations with their spouse taped for the enjoyment of their landlord, and that if people aren't rich enough to buy their own internet service provider company, then they can't complain if their ISP records their social security number, credit card information, business records, and anything else they might occasionally have to send over the network.

The privilege in this thread is shocking. I guess poor people should just be grateful we don't pile them into Hunger Games-style death matches to die for our amusement?

Just a good natured message posted without rancor I am sure but like yourself I must confess to having been confused by its intent.

Helen

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Just a good natured message posted without rancor I am sure but like yourself I must confess to having been confused by its intent.

Heh. Communication on the internet is hard. No gestures and very limited facial expressions.



And no vocal inflections either! No way to tell the difference between I AM SPEAKING SLOWLY FOR EMPHASIS and I AM SHOUTING AT YOU IN ANGER. *sigh*

[speakingtohe]

Well your avator the butterfly in your hair is very nice and overall that is how I think of you

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I don't want my mail carrier reading my mail or inspecting my packages, and I don't want my email carrier reading my email or inspecting my data-packets. I don't see a lot of difference.

Might want to start up your own ISP, then.

ISPs are already supervising traffic, and know in both the aggregate and particular how their network is being used. Again, they need this information in order to function properly; if their users switch en masse from watching Youtube to playing World of Warcraft, they need to manage their network differently in order to maintain a level of service.

FYI email is sent in plain text, and has absolutely no security on it whatsoever. A post-card is probably more secure than email. I'm pretty sure at this point that every major messaging service (GMail, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter) analyze messages for their own internal purposes.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

While it's not the same as hiring someone to do a specific task, it is hiring the use of someone else's resources, and that person has some rights to make sure their resources aren't misused. Why couldn't the same principle be applied to landlords who want to make sure their property isn't being damaged?

Generally speaking, the landlord does have the legal right to enter the property without your permission and inspect the premises.

The only limitations are that in many jurisdictions they must give prior notice. Further, they can't let police in without a warrant. However, if a landlord does spot evidence of illegal activity during an inspection, they are allowed to notify the police.

Along the same lines, the ISPs cannot share information about you with 3rd parties without a subpoena or warrant. However, they are perfectly entitled to internally inspect user traffic.

I.e. the ISP's behavior is largely in line with how landlords treat their tenants.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I don't have a problem with ISPs who suspect specific illegal activity seeking a warrant. However, this is requiring that they inspect individual usage without any suspicion....

It's actually very easy to supervise the network without a human being examining any particular information on you.

They just use traffic shapers to figure out how much of their networks are being used for Bittorrent, list the IPs on their network that are the biggest offenders, have the software verify that the traffic is in fact "Twilight.[2008.English].V2.TS.HQ.DivX-LTT" instead of "Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS", and fire off a bunch of automated emails.

They're almost certainly already doing the traffic-shaping part, so the costs probably aren't that big -- and are recouped by reducing their network loads.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Which is the main point--the RIAA and MPAA would like to avoid the necessity of filing charges; they want someone else to take on the expense of enforcing their rights....

And yet, when they actually due sue people for infringing copyright, people froth at the mouth and proclaim it's an injustice.

Again, it's essentially in the ISP's own interest to cut down on infringing traffic. Not only does it reduce their costs, the ISPs are increasingly in the business of providing content. Do you genuinely believe that Verizon got to be Verizon by spending their own money to save a whole other industry on legal costs?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

In that case, the uploader's ISP should go after them. (Funny how the RIAA and MPAA aren't making any noise about monitoring *uploads.* It's almost like they know how ridiculous that would be.)

If they went after the Uploader, they would only get a single (outrageous) fine.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Well your avator the butterfly in your hair is very nice and overall that is how I think of you

Ha, thank you. It's a pretty photo-realistic pic of me, I have to say.

[Indio777]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

They just use traffic shapers to figure out how much of their networks are being used for Bittorrent, list the IPs on their network that are the biggest offenders, have the software verify that the traffic is in fact "Twilight.[2008.English].V2.TS.HQ.DivX-LTT" instead of "Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS", and fire off a bunch of automated emails.

I am a bit confused, lol. What if the file I was downloading was indeed "Twilight" but was named "12345.avi"? Would the ISP be able to tell that I was illegally downloading copyrighted material? What if it was a .rar file that required a password to uncompress the file?

I dunno, I am not not a "wizard" when it come to this stuff, but it seems as if this is more whack a mole type activity. What if I were to use TOR? And isn't there some new protocol that allows people to download files without needing to access torrent sites (I seem to remember something about that from an another post) ? I am assuming this is largely aimed at torrents, since the popular perception seems to be that all torrents are evil.

What I would like to know is how the IPS would always be able to determine that I am downloading bad stuff. Would merely going to Pirate Bay and grabbing a torrent be possible grounds (even if I were downloading a Linux distro)?

The article seems to imply that if ISPs "think" that one "might" have downloaded illegal content that they can send a notice.

[dreams]

You may have noted that some posts have disappeared in this thread. This thread is on the main forum and discussions on politics or religion are inappropriate, unless related to e-books in general.

Please stay on topic and if you feel the need to diverge into politics, you are more than welcome to start a thread in the Politics and Religion forum. You must opt in to view and participate in that forum.

MobileRead Moderation Team

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by theducks

If they went after the Uploader, they would only get a single (outrageous) fine.

They do only go after the uploader. Every case I've seen has always been about uploading files, not downloading them.

This is one area of all of this that the RIAA/MPAA have been hugely successful. They've completely confused the average person when it comes to the difference between uploading/downloading and how copyright law applies to them.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Indio777

I am a bit confused, lol. What if the file I was downloading was indeed "Twilight" but was named "12345.avi"? Would the ISP be able to tell...

That's one of the problems with all of this. The ISP generally has no clue what content is and is not under copyright, and who is and who isn't an authorized distributor. Doing anything close to that automatically is way to hard. That's why these laws and/or volunteer programs are trying to bypass the courts. Gathering real evidence and following due process are much too difficult, as the RIAA has found out with their horrible track record with lawsuits. Much easier to work out programs where all they have to do is provide an accusation/suspicion and the ISP will cut off service. Nobody really cares if you're actually guilty.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

They do only go after the uploader. Every case I've seen has always been about uploading files, not downloading them.

This is one area of all of this that the RIAA/MPAA have been hugely successful. They've completely confused the average person when it comes to the difference between uploading/downloading and how copyright law applies to them.

The trouble is that most torrent softwares do both, unless you want to risk getting banned from the tracker by setting your max upload rate to zero.

Been there, done that, but they never did send me the dang T-shirt. So I don't download stuff anymore.

[Sil_liS]

The author of Ctrl+Alt+Del was inspired by this story to make Wednesday's comic:

[SeaKing]

Heck, I might be called up.