Filehsharers on eircom, BT or Irish Broadband - Get ready for court

axer

happy_acid_face wrote:

Dont know if someone already replied to this cause i was lazy and didnt read all of the thread....

What you said is true. When you buy anything on disc etc. you buy the rights to what is on it. As far as i know, i think it is okay for you to copy music from a C.D you bought onto a blank C.D as long as it is for your own personal use. As it stands, you bought the right to listen to the song and the disc is, i suppose, just part of the packaging....

Also what you said about if your C.D gets scratched should they not give you a new one, well ii've got good news, they do! Or at least they should do. It should apply to music C.Ds the same way as it does to games. I know you can send a scratched playstation,comp, etc game back and they give you a new one because you bought the rights to play that game. I dont see why it wouldn't apply to music too....

As for downloading music, lopholes in irish law prevent ISP giving out customer details because they downloaded music/films etc. but if you upload i think it falls under the bracket of "stolen goods" or something. You may not have stolen it yourself but as soon as you give it to someone else for free it becomes a stolen item. You become the dealer. You get done.

Lastly though, i dont think fixed IP addresses have yet come in with Eircom or BT yet, they are coming this year though, so im sure if you reset your modem enough and jump between IP addresses ISP's would find it hard enough to track you.... They aren't going to be quick to rat there customers up straight away anyway. They'd give themselves a bad name. They'd wait till they had big pressure on them first and would probably target the big shots (guys who have dedicated servers uploading music and films constantly) first.
IBB though is fixed so be extra careful with that....

There is no problem matching an IP address to a user even when DHCP is used - there would be logs of who got what IP address at what time.

What I don't understand is if you leave the door of your house open and some one comes into your house finds a CD and makes a duplicate of it - does that mean that the person who left their house door open is responsible for the act of piracy or is in some way an accomplice? Maybe that is an extreme example but you get the point. Wouldn't the act of downloading the song be the illegal part and not the opening of shares on your computer. Also is it legal to download a song from the internet when you have the exact same track at home on CD or whatever that was purchased legally?

HelterSkelter

axer wrote:

What I don't understand is if you leave the door of your house open and some one comes into your house finds a CD and makes a duplicate of it - does that mean that the person who left their house door open is responsible for the act of piracy or is in some way an accomplice?

It is a little different in this case. This is equivalent to leaving your house door open and hanging a sign outside saying "Everyone is welcome to come into my house and make copies of my CD collection".

OfflerCrocGod

HelterSkelter wrote:

It is a little different in this case. This is equivalent to leaving your house door open and hanging a sign outside saying "Everyone is welcome to come into my house and make copies of my CD collection".

Even with an unsecured wireless network you are not inviting anyone in so the anology stands.

axer

have gnutella got t&c's whereby they say - does anyone know does the software bearshare etc have a license agreement that says this software is not to be used for the downloading or distribution of illegal files etc etc?

axer

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Even with an unsecured wireless network you are not inviting anyone in so the anology stands.

but the owner is responsible for their own security.

JPA

Is it it just music sharers they're targeting?

What's the deal with distributing TV programmes. How illegal is this?

Peanut

Peteee wrote:

Thats like saying 'But it's okay to steal the ferrari, I couldnt afford it anyway/never intended buying it'
..

It's clearly not the same - one is a definite material loss and the other is a potential loss of earnings.

axer

Peanut wrote:

It's clearly not the same - one is a definite material loss and the other is a potential loss of earnings.

But they are saying that the downloading (or uploading) of music IS definite material loss

Peanut

axer wrote:

But they are saying that the downloading (or uploading) of music IS definite material loss

AFAIK that would not hold up at all in a criminal case.
But of course that's what they'd want you to believe.

They could still get you on copyright infringement, but it would not be a theft charge - as far as I understand it there has to be a tangible loss suffered by the injured party for that to be the case.

I guess what they are most afraid of is knowledge of and demand being created for a general blanket license for music usage, similar to radio station rights, but for the general public. I think this will happen eventually in some form or another anyway, due to technology rendering exchange of information more trivial, and abstracting out music so that it can't be legally defined as the same version as the original source.

halenger

JPA wrote:

What's the deal with distributing TV programmes. How illegal is this?

The 'main' thing that makes this illegal is the removal of ads. I'm sure they'd still call it illegal. They need numbers of viewers to sell their ads and make their money.

Oh and the MPAA have been after TV torrenting sites. Many were closed down last year - the big ones. I'm not sure if they're actively doing it still. I can't say I've heard of much being shut down by the MPAA recently. Maybe they're building evidence/etc for the next being shutdown/raid.

BigMoose

halenger wrote:

The 'main' thing that makes this illegal is the removal of ads.

So what about the BBC? I used to pay a licence fee when I lived in the UK, now I pay to NTL and I assume the Beeb gets some of that for the distribution of channels - although with FTA satelite you dont need to pay them anything outside of the UK. So can I download programs shown there that I was entitiled to record on my PC based PVR if only I'd bothered to set it?

And then there's the PVR that allows you to start watching time shifted while it's recording and automatically skips the ads. You end up with an mpeg file with no adverts, same diff if I download it?

I'm sure it's not as simple as that though!!

HelterSkelter

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Even with an unsecured wireless network you are not inviting anyone in so the anology stands.

I'm using this anology to explain how sharing the contents of one of your directoried full of music in a file sharing program is illegal. I'm not referring to an unsecured wireless network.

halenger

BigMoose wrote:

So what about the BBC? I used to pay a licence fee when I lived in the UK, now I pay to NTL and I assume the Beeb gets some of that for the distribution of channels - although with FTA satelite you dont need to pay them anything outside of the UK. So can I download programs shown there that I was entitiled to record on my PC based PVR if only I'd bothered to set it?

And then there's the PVR that allows you to start watching time shifted while it's recording and automatically skips the ads. You end up with an mpeg file with no adverts, same diff if I download it?

I'm sure it's not as simple as that though!!

It's complicated enough alright.

From what I know, with analogue TV, a cable company can only guess viewer numbers (someone correct me if this is incorrect) so I'd think that things matter little for us. We pay our licence fee at home and all that. If I was watching a TV I'd never watch the ads - even if it meant constantly flicking through the channels. I can't stand to watch ads most of the time - some are funny and worth a watch or two.

I guess it's less important if you watch the ads or not but more important that you 'might' have done so.

The BBC is a good example though and their doing a great thing of putting all of their shows up for download - still in beta I think? I can't remember if that extends to us, hopefully it does.

gsand

crazy judge is about to get himself in trouble for trying to showboat

Nephew

would they even have a case if they confiscated the pc and there wasn't a single piece of evidence on it? i keep all my stuff on a portable drive.

axer

Nephew wrote:

would they even have a case if they confiscated the pc and there wasn't a single piece of evidence on it? i keep all my stuff on a portable drive.

Their point is that the music was available to download from a computer at that IP address and that IP address was assigned to the person in question at that time which means it must have been the person in question's computer that shared the music.

amp2000

I found this thread after seeing a blocked connection in peerguardian from William Fry solicitors earlier on today. Luckily enough I use torrent for downloads & kill them as soon as the download is finished.

halenger wrote:

The BBC is a good example though and their doing a great thing of putting all of their shows up for download - still in beta I think? I can't remember if that extends to us, hopefully it does.

Now, sorry to get off topic, where can I dl BBC programmes?!? Had a look on the site but can't see anything obvious.

dermot_sheehan

gsand wrote:

crazy judge is about to get himself in trouble for trying to showboat

Just a side note, calling a High Court judge "crazy" for his judgement could be considered contempt of court.

Punishment: Potentially unlimited fine and.or detention, more then likely being brought to court in handcuffs and having to make a grovelling apology.

happy_acid_face

Nick_oliveri wrote:

Htf are you supposed to defend yourself then? It wouldnt really be a "sit there and take it" situation for me, but then again i stray away from all that uploading lark because it throttles my connection.

I doubt that you could have no defence. If you wished make your case before the judgement is given, you have the right to do so.

Heres my case.

Im a student recieving a petty grant of 300 eur per month,
I dont sell or distribute copyrighted material,
I dont pay the bills, me parents do :v:,
Artists dont make squat, the suits do.
I like cake.

Obviously you have never been to court before... I've been called up once or twice for other unrelated things (caught with dope, etc) and litrally what happened was that a court summons was dropped into my house by two gards about two months before i had to apear. In that time you can appeal it. When you get to court you stand there, judge says some stuff, you get fined. You walk out, next person walks in.

Sure i have a friend who was caught with a quarter at witnness a couple years back. When he was brought to court there was about ten other people there for the same reason and the judge gave a blanket judgement. They all got fines depending on how much money they earned and how much they were caught with.

Cerdito

Ok, a few points & questions:

- Are IRMA going after Limewire & Gnutella networks because it is easier to catch people on than Bittorrent?

- If you upload less than 1.0 of a file (say 0.7 or 0.8) could this be construed as offering an entire file for download?

- If you download music sporadically over a long period of time, you will be known by a number of IP addresses. Does the ISP track these? Do Mediasentry only identify a user by a single IP?

- IRMA attempting to quash Irish uploaders will not make any dent in what's available online, as most content is hosted abroad, but it will serve to instill fear about downloading/uploading

- Someone will inevitably try the "unprotected wireless" excuse as a defense in court. In my opinion it would be thrown out on the basis that, if you are savvy enough to configure P2P filesharing, you would know enough to enable wireless security

Oh and:

Originally Posted by gabhain7
Just a side note, calling a High Court judge "crazy" for his judgement could be considered contempt of court.

Come on....this isn't North Korea

happy_acid_face

Cerdito wrote:

Ok, a few points & questions:

- If you upload less than 1.0 of a file (say 0.7 or 0.8) could this be construed as offering an entire file for download?

Good point. I wonder how that would stand...

Duiske

gabhain7 wrote:

For a shop it would be trickier as in a shop during opening hours you are inviting all the world to enter, so they would be invitees (though they would be accepting the invitation under false pretenses, case before, don't have name to hand, guards went into pub without warrant, observed operation of unlicensed gaming machines, pub owner prosecuted, evidence from guards held inadmissable since the invitation was to come into the pub was to buy a drink, guards entered for other reason and were therefore trespassers, publican acquitted).

Thanks for the reply gabhain7. Some interesting points there. Would be interesting to see a ruling challenged.mt do a google later to see if any of the of the issues you mention have been brought up in foreign cases.

As I said in a previous post, it may be better just to turn off uploading on whatever P2P program you use. I know allowing uploading is how these network thrive, but it could save you a trip to court and will save your bandwidth.

DemonOfTheFall

Hmmm, I do hope that they never go after bittorrent...



since last friday I believe.

Borderfox

lol nice stats

halenger

amp2000 wrote:

Now, sorry to get off topic, where can I dl BBC programmes?!? Had a look on the site but can't see anything obvious.

I don't think it has been released yet. http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/

Unfortunately it's still in testing and also says:

13. Will internet users abroad be able to get iMP?
No. The BBC will be using Geo-IP technology to restrict usage to UK users only.

It's possible they'll change this, but perhaps not.

axer

but it does mean that those using UTVinternet can visit it as I believe their IP address are UK IP addresses. You could also use a UK based proxy server.

I doubt that people could be caught using BitTorrent (well except those who post a screenshot of how much they have shared ) from my understanding you could not search a specific sharer to see what else they are sharing, but maybe I am wrong.

DemonOfTheFall

You're right there axer, Bittorrent does make it awfully easy for MPAA/IRMA/whatever to get loads of IPs of different sharers all in one go though. All they gotta do is connect to a tracker and wait for each person to send them a couple of pieces of the file and they have concrete proof that the person is sharing said file.

Makes me want to start using PeerGuardian again, pity the guys who make the blocklists are tossers. I don't know why they have to blacklist Steam/Valve. Makes it really bloody awkward to have steam and peerguardian on the same PC. Sooo many addresses to un-blacklist!

They also have a huge range of eircom addresses on their list i notice. Eircom private or eircom's customers I wonder ? its a whole 123.123.xxx.xxx set. Quite a whack of users being blocked if they are public.

ghost26ie

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

You're right there axer, Bittorrent does make it awfully easy for MPAA/IRMA/whatever to get loads of IPs of different sharers all in one go though. All they gotta do is connect to a tracker and wait for each person to send them a couple of pieces of the file and they have concrete proof that the person is sharing said file.

Makes me want to start using PeerGuardian again, pity the guys who make the blocklists are tossers. I don't know why they have to blacklist Steam/Valve. Makes it really bloody awkward to have steam and peerguardian on the same PC. Sooo many addresses to un-blacklist!

They also have a huge range of eircom addresses on their list i notice. Eircom private or eircom's customers I wonder ? its a whole 123.123.xxx.xxx set. Quite a whack of users being blocked if they are public.

i dont download my music from file sharing site, but i use peerguardian when using bitlord to download tv programs. is a pain in the ass when it comes to blocking steam. i just turn it off when i to play games like cs source and bf2.

HelterSkelter

amp2000 wrote:

I found this thread after seeing a blocked connection in peerguardian from William Fry solicitors earlier on today. Luckily enough I use torrent for downloads & kill them as soon as the download is finished.

Torrents usually upload part of the file you are downloading as you are downloading it, so you are sharing.

HelterSkelter

axer wrote:

I doubt that people could be caught using BitTorrent (well except those who post a screenshot of how much they have shared ) from my understanding you could not search a specific sharer to see what else they are sharing, but maybe I am wrong.

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

You're right there axer, Bittorrent does make it awfully easy for MPAA/IRMA/whatever to get loads of IPs of different sharers all in one go though. All they gotta do is connect to a tracker and wait for each person to send them a couple of pieces of the file and they have concrete proof that the person is sharing said file.

huh??!!