Hacker Stole Unreleased Music and Then Tried To Frame Someone Else (zdnet.com) 41
US authorities charged a Texas man this week for hacking into the cloud accounts of two music companies and the social media account of a high-profile music producer, from where he stole unreleased songs that he later published online for free on public internet forums. From a report: When the man realized he could be caught, he contacted one of the hacked companies and tried to pin the blame on another individual. According to court documents published on Monday by the Department of Justice, the suspect is a 27-year-old named Christian Erazo, from Austin, Texas. US authorities say that Erazo worked with three other co-conspirators on a series of hacks that took place between late 2016 and April 2017. The group's primary targets were two music management companies, one located in New York, and the second in Los Angeles. According to investigators, the four hackers obtained and used employee credentials to access the companies' cloud storage accounts, from where they downloaded more than 100 unreleased songs. Most of the data came from the New York-based music label, from where the Erazo and co-conspirators stole more than 50 GBs of music. Erazo's indictment claims the group accessed the company's cloud storage account more than 2,300 times across several months.
/dev/urandom (Score:3)
Cue in all the /. old-timers telling everyone that they have even larger collection of modern music stored in their `/dev/urandom` and availble for free, too.
Re: /dev/urandom (Score:2)
Stole? (Score:3, Insightful)
I seem to remember some highly-moderated posts from way back, which were explaining, that, since the originals are still securely in place, making copies cannot be called "theft". Indeed, /. itself blamed the victims [slashdot.org] back then, demanding "Metallica be shut down, not Napster", for example, and denounced the judges [slashdot.org] for ruling otherwise.
I sure am glad, we aren't mincing words any more — at least, not on this subject, but back then it was done by the same kind of people — and with the same aplomb — as the global warming, the multitude of sexes, and the evils of Trump are explained today.
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What makes this different is that the music wasn't yet available to the public and a computer crime had to be committed to get the copies. It remains true that copyright violation is a civ
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It is you that needs to find a clue. You know what makes a term a 'legal term'? A law. And do you know what law makes this act illegal? The Artists Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005. And do you know what that same law says about 'infringement' (theft) of unreleased material? That it is a federal crime, punishable by a prison sentence.
Everything you wrote is false.
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Wrong again. Maybe instead of posting stupid shit you could actually read the law https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov] . I'll make it easy for you:
``(a) Criminal Infringement.--
``(1) In general.--Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed--
``(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
``(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of
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So msmash says its theft and it becomes theft? Nobody lost any music, so how is it stealing?
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Ah, and here is a talking example from that time back. Let's check my theory:
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2, unless you are mentally diseased of course.
Hehe
Re: Stole? (Score:2)
5632.7
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Four.
Male, female, hermaphrodite, and androgyn. Not that that has anything to do with msmash.
Re: Stole? (Score:2)
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to infringe the copyright of secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
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Cute, but misleading. Plans to the Death Star would be the equivalent to any design document related to classified military hardware. Mere possession of classified material brings with it all kinds of penalties under the American federal code (unless you are Hillary Clinton, ha ha). One can only imagine what Imperial law would have to say about that. Not that, you know, anyone's supposed to care about Imperial law.
In the case of music, it's entirely different. If someone breaks into your computer and c
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In the "singular" case, there may not seem to be so much difference, but consider an individual "downloading a copy of every song and bit of software in the world" compared the same situation, but taking without leaving a copy in place.
Copying - there is no noticeable effect on the "victims", Stealing (particularly if you include all backups) is a global catastrophe.
That said, as this concept seems unclear to
Re:Stole? (Score:4, Insightful)
Aside from no one needing to purchase the artists' songs, you mean.
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Say someone copies your lungs without your permission. Not too cool? Agreed
Now compare it to someone stealing your lungs.
Back to music - we currently have a rather interesting balance where sharing of music tends to result in more sales of the song and in particular more tickets sold at live concerts. Not too bad for something people didn't need to buy in the first place.
That sa
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There's a great song (and music video) about this! https://archive.org/details/Co... [archive.org]
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"We" considered harmful (Score:3)
True; but... (Score:2)
Until we have a better shorthand way/word to describe this situation the media and people will continue to conflate the two seperate activities.
So unless we can come up with an acceptable alternative shorthand phrase this is just stating the bleeding obvious.
He din't steal it (Score:2)
He made a copy of some data that an idiot actually stored on a social media account.
If the 'producer' had read the sites' small print, he'd know that now the music belongs to the site, to do as they please.
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Theft Free (Score:2, Interesting)
>"Hacker Stole Unreleased Music"
>"Erazo and co-conspirators stole more than 50 GBs of music."
As has been said many times by many people, this isn't "stolen" unless he was also able to delete all copies elsewhere, depriving them of their work/product. It was misappropriation, illegal copying, computer crime, whatever, but not theft. This doesn't make it not wrong and not a crime. The misuse of the word "theft" is only overshadowed by the misuse of the word "free". And in this case, it was theft-fre
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As has been said many times by many people, this isn't "stolen" unless he was also able to delete all copies elsewhere, depriving them of their work/product
That's the case in some countries, in others it is different. For example, in Germany it is legally theft if you take something illegally _to enrich yourself_. Which is clearly the case here.
If you look at the everyday life meaning of the word, it is theft in the USA is well.
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Commerce is the EXCHANGE of one thing for another. Theft is the unidirectional TRANSFER of that thing to another. The fact the original remains doesn't change that there was no exchange, AND that there was a transfer. Having the original doesn't change that the creator isn't receiving compensation for what they've created. At best the creator realizes this is a poor long term strategy much like people working for their boss for free and "at will" realizes the public at large makes for a poor employer and fi
"Stole"? (Score:1)
So the creator doesn't have it anymore?
Did you mean "leaked"? (As in: Secrets.)
I would agree that that was not cool.
Or are you just distorting words again, to hide the imaginariness of your artificial scarcity monopolism crime scheme of actually stealing real actual money from artists and their fans alike?
Why don't you work, instead of snorting cocaine, for a change?
(And yes, I worked in the "industry". It is not an industry! It is a bunch of coke-headed criminals leeching off of artists and causing a secon
Stolen (Score:2)
TFA (Score:2)
It's easy to defend some kid downloading a low-quality MP3 to hear his favorite song, but there's no defending a hacker selling the songs online for $300 per track.
Is the "50GBs" in the article actually relevant? (Score:1)
Last I checked, the size of the data stolen doesn't affect the charge or sentence, only the content. The number of songs is certainly significant, but the size is merely a function of format and compression. Did the journalist actually ask for this information? And an editor approved the article with it in?
tat for tit (Score:2)
Similarly, it won't be some US wanna-be dictator or Chinese actual dictator that takes out North Korea; it will be the DMCA for the hacking of the movie that made fun of Kim Jong Un. The movie company lost a zillion dollars at least (see Hollywood accounting). They can confiscate Kim's nukes and sell them to the highest bidder, get their money back the American way.