Internal Emails of An RIAA Attack Dog Leaked 427
qubezz writes "The company MediaDefender works with the RIAA and MPAA against piracy, setting up fake torrents and trackers and disrupting p2p traffic. Previously, the TorrentFreak site accused them of setting up a fake internet video download site designed to catch and bust users. MediaDefender denied the entrapment charges. Now 700MB of MediaDefender's internal emails from the last 6 months have been leaked onto BitTorrent trackers. The emails detail their entire plan, including how they intended to distance themselves from the fake company they set up and future strategies. Other pieces of company information were included in the emails such as logins and passwords, wage negotiations, and numerous other aspect of their internal business."
Distance? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Distance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally speaking, entrapment only applies to law enforcement and the government. RIAA still isn't there yet, thankfully. OTOH, a good lawyer could probably spin it as morally equivalent in principle for a jury.
Re:Distance? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Distance? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Distance? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Distance? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the civil arena, I believe unclean hands [wikipedia.org] would be more applicable, especially if you can trace Media Defender back to the RIAA via contracts and such.
Re:Distance? (Score:5, Interesting)
A -really- clever lawyer could point out that since the RIAA has been documented as giving their stuff away, that anyone downloading from anywhere might have a reasonable belief that it was coming from the "authorized" source in disguise. I don't know that it would fly, but seems like there'd be a non-zero chance of diluting RIAA's argument in the entire body of cases.
On a side note, seems like this would give the artists cause to sue the RIAA, for distributing their work in a manner that's likely not covered by their contract (though with artist contracts in RIAA member companies, who knows--maybe they have the right to give it all away for free.)
Re:Distance? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad you pointed that out. If this company, acting as an agent for the plaintiff (a movie company, for example), participated in the distribution of this content via P2P, then that constitutes a tacit approval of P2P distribution of the content by the plaintiff, thus making any further P2P distribution of that content potentially authorized by the copyright holder, and thus not a copyright violation.
Further, even if the person did not actually get it directly from an agent of the copyright holder, the rights holder distributing in such a way that causes it to be automatically redistributed by anyone who receives it (P2P) could constitute deliberate abandonment of the copyright (at least for the purposes of personal, noncommercial use) by the copyright holder.
I'm not saying that argument would necessarily hold up in court, but if I were in charge of a media company, I would not be doing anything nearly this stupid and reckless.
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I think you missed the point. The movie company knows that the very act of downloading it causes you to redistribute to other people. Therefore by distributing it in that fashion, they are agreeing to allow the content to be obtained with the knowledge that doing so will cause you to redistribute the content, and therefore they are effectively agreeing to allow you to redistribute the content.
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Well, if you look at iTunes etc. it mostly says Copyright (2006) Universal, Inc. or somesuch. So I figure they sell the copyright outright in return for royalties, though I suppose it could have some limitations on how they sell it and such.
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Yes I can see a prosecution of downloaders might be hampered by how they were caught, if they were handed (corrupted) files by copyright holders themselves (RIAA/MediaDefender or allies). But 2 points you may have missed:
1) On a Windows system I've once seen a URL being opened as a direct result of playing some video file. Maybe there still exist similar leaks on many (unpatched) client systems out there, that allow arbitrary code execution. In that case: install some monitoring software, gather system
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Re:Distance? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, what I see hints of is that their client would contain code to disrupt OTHER P2P networks. Their efforts to disrupt traffic are easily thwarted by blocking their IP ranges. What they might be going for is creating a botnet of sorts,
Re:Distance? (Score:5, Informative)
If they hadn't set up the website, this specific "crime" COULDN'T have happened.
Think about what you said, with respect to, for example, VICE squads:
"Would Joe have been busted for possession of marijuana if the cop didn't sell it to him? In all probability he would have; it would just have happened elsewhere."
This is incorrect. It would NOT have happened; he MIGHT have been busted for possession of OTHER marijuana sold by someone else. On the other hand, he might not.
All of this is moot anyway, as you can't be entrapped in civil court. If they passed federal charges (under the DMCA), then an entrapment suit might possibly be in order if those entrapping were operating "above the law". Otherwise, either THEY were committing a crime by distributing the content, or those downloading weren't committing a crime as they would have been given legal permission to download the data. The worst thing they could be asked to do if those distributing the data didn't have permission to do so would be to remove their copy from their computer by the court. Of course, in most sane countries, possession of copywritten data isn't a crime, infringement, or anything similar; only distribution is. All you can be sued for is breach of contract in civil court (assuming there was some sort of contract).
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Torrent or it didn't happen (Score:5, Informative)
http://thepiratebay.org/search/mediadefender [thepiratebay.org]
http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/3806944/MediaDefender.Mail.200612.200709-MDD.3806944.TPB.torrent [thepiratebay.org]
enjoy !
Re:Torrent or it didn't happen (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Torrent or it didn't happen (Score:5, Funny)
Will we be able to legally tie this to RIAA ? (Score:2)
Or maybe (Score:2)
Let torrent stuff you have copyright on (for example emails that've been stolen from you) and sue for cash yourself...
They seemed to appreciate utorrent (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and the rumors of them being behind the spyware-encrusted ziptorrent were false; that one seems to have been MediaSentry's doing.
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Re:They seemed to appreciate utorrent (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know exactly what interdiction involves (it's a military term so I can make a guess) , but it seems to be an exploit in utorrent that they use to disrupt downloading of utorrent users. The less people use utorrent, the harder it is for MediaDefender to practice this 'interdiction'. MediaDefender seems to be quite worried every time a new version comes out, and they do try to get their customers to use utorrent when checking torrent sites to see that their files are being spoofed properly.
Some of this stuff could conceivably be used by MD's customers to sue MediaDefender for deliberately misleading them as to the effectiveness of their spoofing, like this one, when Amy Winehouse' record company wants to come and see how well they're doing:
Oh, and their emails do show them avidly reading slasdot and Digg and the like whenever a scandal affects them. So hello and welcome, to all you grifters taking the piss out of corporate record executives in ineffective-but-lucrative-peer-to-peer-spoofing land!
Interdiction (Score:5, Informative)
Four main methods
Decoying. This, in a nutshell, is the serving of fake files that are generally empty or contain a trailer. The goal is to make legitimate content a needle in a haystack, so MediaDefender works hard to ensure that its copies of files show up in the top ten spots when certain keywords are searched for. Everything about the file is tailored to look like the work of pirates, from the file size (movies are often compressed enough to fit on a CD) to the naming conventions to the pirate scene tag. With massive bandwidth and plenty of servers, the company has little trouble in getting these decoy files to appear at the top of search results, but decoying has a down side: the bandwidth. Because MediaDefender actually serves these large but bogus files, it incurs a significant bandwidth bill by using this technique.
Spoofing. Spoofing sends searchers down dead ends. MediaDefender coders have written their own software that interacts with the various P2P protocols and sends bogus returns to search requests, usually directing people to nonexistent locations. Because most people only look at the top five search results, MediaDefender tries to frustrate their first attempts to download a file in hopes that they will just give up.
Interdiction. While the first two techniques try to prevent searchers from locating files, interdiction prevents distributors from serving them. The tool is generally used when media is leaked or newly released; the goal is to slow its spread in those crucial first days. MediaDefender servers attempt to create constant connections to the files in question, saturating the provider's upstream bandwidth and preventing anyone else from grabbing the data.
Swarming. Though he acknowledges the BitTorrent networks can be hard to disrupt, Lee points out that MediaDefender can use "swarming" to make life more difficult for users trying to download copyrighted content. BitTorrent works by using a hash file to reassemble a file from many pieces, each of which may have been downloaded from a different user. MediaDefender simply serves up its chunks of these files, but instead of providing the proper data, its chunks contain static or nothing at all. When the file is eventually reassembled by the user, it may contain clicks, silent spaces, or odd skips. This can make the viewing/listening experience less pleasurable, but it's most effective with software downloads since even small errors can prevent programs from running.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Interdiction (Score:2)
I don't have a copy of the emails, but were they very specific about when it allows them to interdict the torrent? It'd be interesting to know, because uTorrent is closed-source and it's now merged with BitTorrent, Inc.
Re:They seemed to appreciate utorrent (Score:5, Informative)
It seems like it's basically a distributed network of clients that feed garbage data, trying to slow down everyone's downloading. Sadly for them it seems that uTorrent defeated [utorrent.com] their work:
Re:They seemed to appreciate utorrent (Score:5, Informative)
So us law abiding can't read these, right? (Score:2)
Oh please DMCA this... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh please DMCA this... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
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I wonder who did it (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
oooor, (Score:2)
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And the password of said account was *drumroll* blahbob.
Whoever did it may be screwed, literally (Score:2)
Well it will for one hour a day when he is taken from his cell to the prison yard for exercise. Intentionally disclosing social security numbers and other personally identifiable information probably violates several statues regarding information security and privacy.
And lets not forget the civil lawsuits that will result against this person. Those RI
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
c.
Oh man it hurts. (Score:5, Funny)
Inflation (Score:5, Funny)
I really hope Warner reads this gold.
Whilst undoubtedly some astronomical value was (Score:2)
"Zero. Should suggest to WB that they pay people to take it."
Re:Inflation (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't normally e-mail you directly about MiiVi stuff, because a lot of what I say about this is total crap (so keep that in mind) and Jay filters the crap from the important stuff for you. Is there a way to add this hash/title to the porn filter explicitly?
hash=30755326A4E4B28E678BFF8CB2AF5FC4A4FBF710&i=3 (the title is Celebrity deathmatch: Korn vs slipknot and the exact URL is http://129.47.9.160/zonie/media.php?hash=30755326A4E4B28E678BFF8CB2AF5FC4A4FBF710&i=3 [129.47.9.160])
I just flagged it as Other Terms of Use violation. It's a warthog (or maybe it's a big bushy dog, I can't tell) having sex with a woman and NOT a Korn vs. Slipknot mash-up video.
If this is a big deal, don't worry about it for now. But eventually this would probably need a tool of some kind for a Super User account to remove files from our indexing system all together.
Re:Inflation (Score:4, Funny)
From: "Ben Grodsky"
To: "Jay Mairs" ; "Dylan Douglas"
Sent: 5/11/07 10:39 AM
Subject: RE: naughty miivi hash for filter
it's the first bestiality vid i've gotten that didn't have any porn or bestiality key words.
i'm not offended by bestiality in the least and actually have seen a few of the horse and dog fucking videos already
cool. no worries though. it just freaks me out when key words couldn't do anything at all.
Torrent Download (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Unclean Hands (Score:3, Informative)
I just had to dig up an old post of mine that needed reposting...
Msg: 35175 of 43019 7/9/2007 4:27:06 AM Recs: 32 Sentiment: Not Disclosed
By: Boyle M. Owl Send PM Profile Ignore Add To Favorites
Legal Crows Come Home To Roost. Media Defender Says "We Didn't Mean It"
Media Defender backtracks on 'entrapment site'
It was all a terrible mistake
By Nick Farrell: Monday 09 July 2007, 07:14
THE MOVIE industry's private dick division has denied that it set up a P2P site designed to catch people pirating.
Media Defender admitted that it set up a site, called MiiVi, which looked exactly like a P2P site but claimed it was never meant to go live and was not designed to entrap pirates.
According to Ars Technica, Media Defender claimed the story has been blown far out of proportion and was started by sites like The Pirate Bay and TorrentFreak. MediaDefender's Randy Saaf told Ars Technica the story was "completely made up".
Well, not completely made up. He said Media Defender was working on an internal project that involved video and didn't realise that people would be trying to go to it and being a security company it didn't password-protect the site.
Saaf said that it was not an entrapment site, and Media Defender was not working with the MPAA on it. He claimed that the MPAA didn't even know about it.
However Ars asked theme why MediaDefender immediately removed all contact information from the whois registry for the domain if the site was so innocent. Saaf said that it was afraid of a hacker attack or people sending it spam.
It is not clear what Saaf was planning to do with all the details of would-be P2P users who might have logged into the site while it was accidently online or if anything was collected.
-------
Not an entrapment site? Walks like a duck...
Yeah, uh, Media Defender (nee Sentry) is in a heap of trouble because it gives the MPAA two things:
An unclean left hand and an unclean right hand. Media Defender's software installed a secret scanner that uploaded data on any "copyrighted files" to MPAA goons that may have resided on the computers of the dupes who went there.
You can't be breaking into people's computers and violating things like RIGL 11-52-3 by installing nefarious software. Many states have similar laws, and some states have laws specifically against spyware. "Evidence" gathered with unclean hands (this is an actual legal term and concept) angers judges to no end. Any "evidence" by the MPAA shown to be gathered by Media Defender now is under a very dark cloud.
That's why Media Defender is in deep shit. They committed felonies _and_ screwed their client. Thus all the "we didn't know people would actually _go_ to our honeypot"
Whoops.
--
BMO
-------
Fast forward to today...
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3806944/MediaDefender.Mail.200612.200709-MDD/ [thepiratebay.org]
And now it's proven that they really _did_ set it up as a honeypot. This weekend has turned out pretty good so far.
Hats off to the leaker. Now the _feds_ might have something to go after MediaDefender and the MPAA with. Oh, what delicious irony, with cream and sugar.
--
BMO
Welcome (Score:2)
pawned by piracy, or should I call, theft of emails?
Torrent Comments (Score:4, Informative)
not an internal leak! (Score:3, Informative)
What's interesting about that (to me) is... (Score:4, Interesting)
However... assume the the group/person releasing this did at least have a gmail e-mail address for this guy, he still wouldn't have the password.
Now, it's not a very strong password - it can certainly be cracked easily by a dictionary or even a brute force attack.
But if either of those methods are what were used - then what's up with Google apparently not stopping this in one way or another? E.g. maximum of N login attempts in a given time, notifying the rightful account holder of the attempts, etc.?
Re:What's interesting about that (to me) is... (Score:5, Informative)
The info on the intertubes is that Mr. Maris, otherwise known as The Putz of the Century, after having forwarded all his corporate mail to his Gmail account, signed up for one of the p2p forums he was "investigating" using that very Gmail address and the same password as his gmail account had.
And he did so from an IP address already known to belong to Media Defenders.
You figure out the rest.
Re:What's interesting about that (to me) is... (Score:4, Funny)
*Wanted* "Noise" Spoofing Files (Score:3, Funny)
TIA!
%20
nice (Score:2, Insightful)
them media companies are the bigger fools for doing business with this crowd, mediadefender's whole business model depend on piracy always being there
Student lawsuits... (Score:5, Funny)
Sent: Wed 11-Apr-07 21:24
To: Jay Mairs; Ben Grodsky; Ty Heath; Ivan Kwok; Ben Ebert
Subject: Fw:
Team
Universal is curiouse if we have any historical data over the last 3 months that show whether
They want to see if their lawsuits are getting students to stop using p2p (take a moment to laugh to yourself).
Let me know if anyone has any ideas.
R
--- Original Message ---
From: Benjamin, David
To: Randy Saaf
Sent: Wed Apr 11 18:11:50 2007
Subject:
How are you doing with this?
Thanks
db
Intentional? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you read thru the emails and get a idea of the potential scale of the operation, it might scare you away from p2p if you dont have any balls.. Perhaps thats the idea, to weed out the 'little people'?
How to open the .mbox file from the torrents? (Score:3, Funny)
It'll never be admissible in court. (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAL, so I'd like to hear from somebody with real law experience either confirming or denying this, but that's my gut feeling.
You get the email from discovery (Score:3, Interesting)
warning: I'm not a lawyer.
Gold Jerry, Gold! (Score:5, Interesting)
HTML Format :) (Score:5, Informative)
http://jrwr.hopto.org/ [hopto.org]
Hahahaha, no. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hahahaha, no. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hahahaha, no. (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure? (Score:4, Interesting)
After all, you may remember how MediaDefender paid someone to hack into TorrentSpy's email. I'd call this turn-about...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are you sure? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I'm in awe of him. I read the deposition he conducted earlier in the year against an RIAA "expert" witness yesterday (yeah, yeah mod me down for violating
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Being crushed to death under a really fat guy
Re:Hahahaha, no. (Score:5, Funny)
Does there have to be a CowboyNeal option in every poll?
Re:Hahahaha, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Their "vigilante" tactics have inspired a vigilante response, for better or for worse. It's the old "well, they started it" defense.
It's almost a little disgusting to see intelligent Slashdot readers encouraging identity theft and other federal crimes because they don't like the work that MD does. Obviously the vast majority of readers aren't doing so, but there have been full names of low-level programmers already posted in this thread and I'm sure far worse on other sites.
Do the ends (stopping MD's work) really justify the means? If this were the internal emails of an abortion provider we would all be disgusted if a pro-life group sent the names, addresses, and social security numbers of clinic secretaries and janitors around. But when it's the low-level functionaries of a hated technology group it's apparently OK and to be commended.
Just because a large number of people disagree with their work it shouldn't be OK to break federal law to discourage them. Yes, they may have broken federal law first, but the answer is not to raise the ante.
this is in the wild now (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Does anybody know how to submit it to them?
Or maybe some tabloids? The Sun, Daily Mail... sounds like a task for Sunday!
Re:this is in the wild now (Score:5, Funny)
You can't submit to them, that's why they're credible :P.
Re:this is in the wild now (Score:5, Insightful)
You assumed that the narcisstic, vain, executive types, having landed in their positions straight from their MBA mutual-adoration "schools", actually have an ounce of a clue. That is a very dangerous assumption. These people are the new artistocracy. Their time is spent in adoring each other's golf swing on exclusive golf courses and a byzantine dance of trying to ingrate themselves with the "right" coctail party crowd, which then, if successful, leads to their occupation of new, ever more obscenely overpaid, musical seats on various boards of directors, finally ending in a massive "golden parachute" payout.
Well being of the companies, competence and the financial gains of shareholders have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any of this.
Returning to the case in point: the overpaid clowns, not having a dimmest idea as to what they are doing (as the leaked emails plainly and painfully show), did what their kind usally does: played and postured at being "rent-a-cops" for their objects of adoration, the much better paid, and even more clueless, executives of various media conglomerates.
It is a little wonder that other buffoons would pay millions (usually comprised of some blue-collar worker's pention fund money) for this glorified circle jerk of "serious businessmen crime fighters".
One of the dimwits, seeing himself so much more competent that mere "techies", then proceeded to bypass all of the security measures of their email system by forwarding all of his mail to Gmail, and then used the very same account, with the very same password of "blahbob" to "investigate" one of the p2p sites.
In short, everything that is happening here is merely a sympthom of the state of total corruption to which the modern corporate world has descended, other indicators being known under the names of Enron, WorldCom, Haliburton etc.
Re:this is in the wild now (Score:5, Interesting)
And you, sir, are a walking, talking, slashdot-posting parody of yourself, who apparently learned everything he knows about the mindset and behavior of corporate officers from Jeep commercials.
Me, I learned it by interacting with them personally and professionally way more than I ever wanted to on a day-to-day basis over the majority of my career, and my experience is that the grandparent is dead-on. The whole system is some screwed-up incompetence engine fueled by narcissism bathed in the infinite oxidizer of a personality almost entirely driven by a super-ego that hasn't matured a day since puberty stopped.
P.S.
They all play golf.
Re:this is in the wild now (Score:5, Insightful)
Real world? Basement? These goofuses are actually my long-time customers and I deal with them daily. That is how my worldview got "warped" as a result of what I know first-hand. And that is how you do not know, apparently. Not only can I place them and name them, I can even name their boats. And that is why I post here under a handle. If they knew that I know many of them for what they are, they would no doubt try to retaliate and that would be rather inconvenient. I can fix the overpaid stuckup buffoons' mistakes for top dollar when they believe all their screwups are the wisest moves ever and only need "little touchups", but it is impossible to do so when they know that I know what those turds of their making really are. It bruises their fragile egos and makes them very uncomfortable. I like to call this: "Customer Relations". The way the world works, kid. Smile and shovel. Your reward is laughing all the way to the bank.
And if you are one of those MBAs - keep in mind that this grinning consultant on whom you offload all your real work and who says "That would be no problem!" or "I can work within the framework of your plan!" and the like, might be someone like me and hold the same opinion of you as I do. You can tell by how skillfully he actually does what he needed to do to make it work, as opposed to what you told him to do, even though he agreed and nodded his head all the way. That and the fact that his bills keep going up the more your fuckups pile up, even though you did your darnest to hide them. But he never stops smiling and being nice to you, does he? It is so fortunate that you cannot read his mind. You would spend the rest of your days under your bed shivering.
Muahahahahahaha! Hahahahaah! Ehrm.
"Adventure sports" would require these farts to actually exert themselves. Although some few do that, there are very good reasons why golf (followed by far distant second: squash) is king, which you do not seem to grasp: 1) one can do this in an exclusive, exorbitantly-priced, invitation memebership only, bar-equipped course right in or very near the city, which also provides an opportunity to flaunt one's wealth to all the peons 2) most execs are lazy farts who talk a storm about "sports" but usually restrict themselves to swinging clubs and copiously drinking and 3) one can discuss business deals in comfort while golfing, which is rather hard when, say, hand-gliding and what not. "Adventure sports" are what most of them would, without batting an ayelid, label a posh trip to, say, Africa or some other poor but picturescue place, where they ride around in well guarded and very luxurious RVs, once every decade or so.
I get cold sweat when I think on my days of youth, when I actually believed the same sanitized, propagandistic crap you seem to believe. But I don't blame you for your naivette. Unless you were born into this rarefied socialite club or are grudgingly admitted to it via marriage or some astronomically unlikely random coincidence (which you will prompty ascribe to your own infallable iron wit of which the mere peons are bereft of, as is the prevailing custom in those circles), you will learn eventually.
Re:this is in the wild now (Score:4, Interesting)
This comment is like the GBU-28 bunker buster of reality. Man I wish you weren't right, but you are.
You should see defense contracting, with its own little circle jerk of mutual admiration with the goal of making lots of bucks while doing as little as possible. And it works! A bunch of ex-flag officers running the show with some so-called "engineers" in the mix performing "software maintenance" (in other words, working on shit that doesn't work, never will, and even if it did it performed a task that was appropriate in the chill of the cold war 70s).
You are taking it the wrong way (Score:2)
whomever leaked those emails was probably someone with a clean conscience. if you do not want to hire people with clean conscience and does whatever is right, i wonder what kind of work your company is doing.
Re: (Score:2)
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That is laughable given what many in the slashdot crowd consider evil. Developing closed source software for example.
Re:You are taking it the wrong way (Score:5, Interesting)
"Evil" is an exaggeration. This dislike of closed-source comes from the fact that many here instinctively realize that information, such as computer programs, some forms of art, thoughts in people heads, large integer numbers etc, do not fall under the simplistic, inane attempts to mis-apply an economic model of a "market" to things which do not have the required attributes to become "private property" and thus are not subject to "trade".
This does not mean that we believe that artists and software developers have to go hungry, but it does mean that the method by which various misguided businessmen (usually the middle-men peddling the art/science and not creating it themselves) expect to make their living is fatally flawed (primarilly because it was constructed by businessmen for businessmen, with no regards to anything else) and, in order to be "successful", demands positively immoral and dangerous to society activities, such as attempts at truly totalitarian measures in efforts to control the flow of information in society.
As more and more people realize this, it is my hope that some time in the future this idiotic "copyright" regime will be replaced with something that actually reflects the nature of the information and the needs of the society.
My personal favourite for art, for example, is a modernized "patronage" system, with direct transfer of donations by patrons of art to artists themselves. Sicence is, as it should, funded by academia and as soon as the for-profit scientific journals are dispised of (efforts in this direction are under way) it will be free from this nonsense. Performance arts have no problem whatsoever since the performers are expecting payment for their labour at the gate. Etc and so on.
It is quite possible however that a better model exists. If so I am sure someone will come up with it. Whatever it is, the notions of "copyrights" and "patents" as they stand are ... well ... patent absurdities! And what we see is simple human reaction to that undeniable fact, particularly among the younger generation whose indoctrination in these mattters is not yet effective.
Re:You are taking it the wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)
Creating music is not a chore. It is something done out of necessity, more often than not. I liken it to an addiction, complete with withdrawal symptoms if neglected. In short, if a system like yours was implemented, music would not cease to exist. On the contrary, the trash would be weeded out and we would all be better off for it.
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As an artist, I knew you would understand.
It kills me everytime when I hear some suit-clad MBA blather about "music industry" and its "products". Art "industry" isn't. The notions of "industry" or "commerce" are the very anathema of art. Art, as I am sure you know very well, is an intrisic desire of an artist to share his vision of the world, his insights and his feelings with others. Artists receive pleasure from satisfying their desire to express themselves and are, if they are indeed artists, pleased i
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What kind of a computer do you work on?
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OH RLY? (Score:5, Interesting)
dev-salaries-18june2007.xls
Sergio A. Alvarez 2,916.67 $70,000.00
Linus Aranha 2,708.33 $65,000.00
Dylan C Douglas 2,916.67 $70,000.00
Benjamin Ebert 3,541.67 $85,000.00
Norman T Heath 4,791.67 $115,000.08
Sujay S. Jaju 2,708.33 $65,000.00
Andrew H. Kim 2,291.67 $55,000.00
Ivan Y Kwok 4,166.67 $100,000.00
Jed Z. Levin 2,291.67 $55,000.00
Gerald E. Rode 2,291.67 $55,000.00
Sheetalkumar Shah 2,708.33 $65,000.00
Nainesh N. Solanki 2,708.33 $65,000.00
Daeyoung Song 2,375.00 $57,000.00
Jeffrey W. Wang 2,375.00 $57,000.00
You were saying?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
LOL.
No, the dollar figures are yearly. I assume the first number is the monthly pay after tax deductions etc.
Re:This is NOT good news (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anyone here is jumping for joy that a gmail account got hacked. Instead I see a bunch of people jumping for joy because a company that is seeming violating the law might actually have to suffer for its actions.
I think what happened here is for the greater good. Sometimes breaking the law draws attention to a problem few realized existed.
Re:Time to get to work boys -- Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
So far, all they really do is make is more annoying for people to share priated movies/music/games.
Hardly worth "link them to child porn and prostitution"
People like you disgust me.