I mean, sure, that laser-printer may not have actually illegally downloaded an Indiana Jones movie, but if you look at all the details, you’d probably find that it had done something wrong.

If a studio is made to pay a household that proves itself innocent (and yes, this system is a guilty until proven innocent one) an amount equal to damages paid by real illegal file-sharers (think $500,000 per accusation), then maybe the studios would not be so trigger-happy.

Intellectual Property is where a huge majority of money is going to be generated in the web ages & they are going to clap down hard with punishments that don’t reflect the crime.

Innocent until proven guilty, is that not the law?

lets not for get who is actually behind the MPAA – RIAA, these are the companies that need to be targeted and boycotted into changing their ways, purchase only 2nd hand media and do not purchase anything branded sony, why allow the fecktards to dictate Orwellian hardware DRM designed to take away rights not to stop piracy anymore.

Name and shame the companies as all the **AA trade group name is for is to protect the f’ing corporate globalist wankers from bad press.

RIAA, CRIA, SOUNDEXCHANGE, BPI, IFPI, Ect:

# Sony BMG Music Entertainment
# Warner Music Group
# Universal Music Group
# EMI

MPAA, MPA, FACT, AFACT, Ect:

# Sony Pictures
# Warner Bros. (Time Warner)
# Universal Studios (NBC Universal)
# The Walt Disney Company
# 20th Century Fox (News Corporation)
# Paramount Pictures Viacom—(DreamWorks owners since February 2006)

=========================================================

If Sony payola (google it) wasn’t bad enough to destroy indie competition you have this:

Is it justified to steal from thieves? READ ON.

RIAA Claims Ownership of All Artist Royalties For Internet Radio
http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/29/0335224.shtml

“With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn’t a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels’ music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA’s affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. ‘SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free … So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.’”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/24/14132

*cue Magic Roundabout theme*

mmm nice.

“magic beans” made me fart with laughter.

Is there not a retail side of the world that has a different view on all this to the entertainment industry? ie I can’t see Amazon, ebay, Google, John Lewis etcetc being happy that their customer base could suffer because some spotty teen downloaded unauthorised copies of some bootylicious babe selling her wares, as instructed to do in the most sexual and demeaning way possible. To maximise sales.

So come on – have some fun with this! Lots of talk, set up a test fund and someone go under the knife in the interests of advancing civilisation!

I agree that the argument is not exactly the strongest one they could have made, and the scenario isn’t the most likely, but it’s a pretty solid argument at least. And that makes it more tangible than for example “I might miss a job opportunity because I got cut off despite being innocent”, I think.

Maybe they don’t care if they’re taking swings at the right people. They just have to sock someone to keep the shareholders off their back until they retire. Let someone else fix the damage it does for all they care.

And that Internet Radio collective royalty collection; sounds like their needs to be a Independent But Just About Free Artist’s Association. Royalty fee: .01 cent/pence/euro. Just enough to accuse the Other Guys of theft of their royalties. Use their own shark teeth against them.

Right now the argument might seem like a strawman but this sort of thing already is fairly easy (I’ve done it myself) and clamping down on other options will make this easy alternative become popular unless a better option is invented and popularized.

1) Find the residences of a few of these industry executives pushing for this nonsense.

2) Crack their wireless security. (Surely they can’t all be using WPA).

3) Download some top 40 crap, plus maybe some child porn just for good measure and to make sure the media get to sink their teeth into something.

4) Alert the relevant authorities and wait for the ISP to cut the scumbags off.

5) …Profit?

Sounds good :)

I don’t know that I trust copyright holders to accurately pinpoint infringing accounts, but I think the unprotected wifi argument is fairly weak & isn’t going to stop the legislation.

I say- let’s ALL join in, give them cannon fodder over tea, and at least see the Norweigan subtitles for that long-dead prOn we’ve been eyeing on Amazon.com and have a good old time waiting for the pitter patter of jackboots on the veranda, no?

Homeland my arse. . . this place is rapidly becoming a prison.

I hate robots.

That’s clearly stupid…