So much for protesting ACTA, PIPA and SOPA; the MPAA and RIAA have colluded with the ISPs to spy anyway

can't catch a break...

American ISPs to launch massive copyright spying scheme on July 12

If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.

Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 12.

That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.

Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around the world, with similar facilitation by the Obama’s Administration’s State Department.

The July 12 date was revealed by the RIAA’s CEO and top lobbyist, Cary Sherman, during a publishers’ conference on Wednesday in New York, according to technology publication CNet.

The content industries calls this scheme a “graduated response” plan, which will see Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and others spying on users’ Internet activities and watching for potential copyright infringement. Users who are “caught” infringing on a creator’s protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, requiring the user to click through saying they understand the consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.

Participating ISPs have a range of options for dealing with customers who continue to pirate media, at that point: They can require that an alleged repeat offender undergo an educational course before their service is restored. They can utilize multiple warnings, restrict access to only certain major websites like Google, Facebook or a list of the top 200 sites going, reduce someone’s bandwidth to practically nothing and even share information on repeat offenders with competing ISPs, effectively creating a sort of Internet blacklist — although publicly, none of the network operators have agreed to “terminate” a customer’s service.

It is because of those reasons that the content industries believe this program achieves much more than what might have been possible in the realm of public policy, and the ISPs appear to agree. The voluntary scheme will be paid for mostly by the content industries, which will share some costs with the ISPs.

swell... just swell... what the government doesn't do in the way of spying, our isp's will take care of for them...

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European Parliament puts ACTA on hold

note that other nations are treating acta as a "proper treaty," not as the bullshit "executive agreement" signed by obama...

good news but the battle is far from over...

In a major victory for Internet freedom activists, the European parliament on Wednesday placed the ratification of a controversial copyright treaty on hold and asked the European Court of Justice to rule on whether the provisions align with the European Union’s “fundamental rights and freedoms.”

The announcement came following publication of a letter written by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, beseeching E.U. leaders to abandon the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act (ACTA).

Tusk was previously a strong supporter of the treaty, but weeks of demonstrations in Poland and across Europe convinced him to withdraw support. Although Poland has already signed the treaty, Tusk said the nation will not pursue full ratification.

Although ACTA has been ratified by 22 E.U. member states, along with Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, a number of very important nations have begun to question the logic of importing American copyright standards.

Germany, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have emerged as leaders of Europe’s ACTA opposition. The European parliament’s announcement on Wednesday seems to indicate that the E.U.’s trade chief, Karel De Gucht, has now joined them.

Crafted in the U.S., ACTA was signed by President Barack Obama without Congressional approval because the administration deemed it to be an “executive agreement” that exports U.S. copyright law and does not alter current statutes. Other nations are treating ACTA as a proper treaty, meaning the process of adoption is much more complicated.

[...]

While the E.U. may be hedging its bets on ACTA, the pending court ruling will not prevent any additional states from ratifying the treaty on their own, which the U.S. has strongly encouraged them to do through its trade policies. The announcement Wednesday will, however, significantly delay an E.U. parliament vote on the treaty, which was originally scheduled for June.

the effort of our super-rich elites to gain control over the internet isn't going to go away any time soon...

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Anonymous strikes back

good on them...

Anonymous downs government, music industry sites in largest attack ever

Hacktivists with the collective Anonymous are waging an attack on the website for the White House after successfully breaking the sites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.

In response to today’s federal raid on the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers with the online collective Anonymous have broken the websites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA, Motion Picture Association of America and Warner Music Group.

[...]

Only hours before the DoJ and Universal sites went down, news broke that Megaupload, a massive file sharing site with a reported 50 million daily users, was taken down by federal agents. Four people linked to Megaupload were arrested in New Zealand and an international crackdown led agents to serving at least 20 search warrants across the globe.

i like their style...

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RIAA escalation - a post for mettle

oh, golly... i can just hear him now... "I TOLD YOU SO...!"

[I]n an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

here's mettle, commenting on the relatively recent good ol' days when all we had to worry about was the heinous crime of File-Sharing...

The scary specter of Terrorism alone, no longer seems to provide Big Brother enough pretext and cover to smash the heel of the Jackboots down onto most everybody in order to grind the People into so much mash in the earth.

-- mettle

i am in complete agreement... this isn't simply about protecting the music industry... it's absolutely about expanding the controls of an increasingly fascist society...

you realize where this will start hitting immediately, don't you...? for those of us who travel outside the u.s. frequently, this will give just one more pretext for the warrantless search and seizure of laptops and mp3 players at u.s. customs inspection points, and the immediate detention of those who are found in violation... mark my words...

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Stop the Spying

A people that wants to be free must arm itself with a free press."

-- George Seldes

As our free press was largely subsumed into a propaganda arm of the government, the Internet began to serve the original functions of a free press. As such, the Internet became a prime target by governments, to be subjugated the same as governments have thoroughly subjugated other media.

The game works like this: Two steps forward, one step back. Just as a frog will jump out of a pot of boiling water, yet will remain if the water in the pot is brought up slowly to a boil, governments crush our inalienable rights, incrementally.

Now and then, the courts will appear to strike down some insult to our Constitution, but that is largely for show. We are allowed to believe that the system is working, albeit slowly.

The apparent rush to jam through the myriad unconstitutional laws is no mere error. It is done by sheer audacity, before the facts can be made known. While we have a somewhat still free Internet, the totalitarians are vulnerable.

Government wedded to corporations is generally known as fascism, or recently, as the 5th Estate. It involves looting the wealth of nations, under the auspices of "privatization".

A recent case that comes to mind is where Bechtel managed to privatize water in Bolivia. That was quickly recognized as a war on the poor. After bloodshed, Bolivia has regained its resources (including oil) and those resources now serve the people of that country, and do not simply line the pockets of a few with massive wealth.

In the US, the Haves managed to install one of their own into power, who quickly set out to transfer as much of the wealth into the hands of his cronies, as he possibly could. Social Security looked like one of the few remaining massive pools of wealth, so that remains a ripe plum.

And machinations are underway to privatize the Internet. That will insure escalating power for the Haves and curb the free press threat that the Internet currently represents to totalitarianism, at the same time.

While Japan, South Korea and much of Europe have fast Internet connection speeds, America's bandwidth has been held back. While much optic fiber has been laid, much remains unlit, and is accurately termed "dark fiber". The strategy is similar to having parked oil tankers teaming with oil, offshore, while proclaiming an oil shortage in order to jack prices up.

Now as a result, some communications companies are engaging in "Packet shaping". "Packet shaping" is the Internet form of wire tapping. It allows them to examine the contents of what is being sent to their customers and to control that content. Those that want to keep the Internet free from privatization, are pushing "Net Neutrality", which opposes packet shaping. Packet shaping allows companies to throttle down speed of any given content and to speed up traffic that serves the companies' interests first. They then no longer are principally carriers, they have become publishers, as if controlling editorial content. That should make them liable for all content as publishers.

The race is on to grant these companies immunity to engage in such spying and to control all content. Some companies, such as AT&T, have announced their intention to team with RIAA and to detect music files that are passing through their systems. A recent case found a women liable for 10,000 times the value of 24 songs she was found guilty of getting. US President George Bush immediately hailed the case as an example that the system is working. More recently AT&T said its spying was to protect the children, which is another tell that they are engaged in massive spying, not just for a war on terrorism with foreigners.

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Minnesota woman fined $222K for sharing 24 songs online

well, i hope the riaa (recording industry association of america) and our government are happy... they've managed to place another citizen in debt for the rest of her life... after all, if we aren't in debt, we're a lot harder to control...

The recording industry on Thursday won the largest judgment so far against consumers who illegally download music over the Internet when a federal jury ordered a 30-year-old Minnesota woman to pay $222,000 for copyright infringement.

The victory could embolden the industry in its four-year legal campaign against piracy at a time when illegal sharing of music online is exploding and dramatically reducing music sales.

The decision by the jury in a federal district court in Duluth, Minn., against Jammie Thomas, an Indian reservation employee, is the first case of its type to come to trial. The verdict could convince others accused of pirating music to settle their cases.

see if the riaa's tactics remind you of anything...

Tanya J. Andersen, a disabled single mom from Beaverton, Oregon, is turning the tables on the RIAA and suing the organization for illegally spying on her. The suit claims that Andersen, one of 21,000 people who have been sued by the RIAA since 2003 for illegally downloading music, is a victim of abusive legal tactics, threats and, yes, spying. Her filing says the RIAA refused to drop its case against her even after the recording industry’s own expert concluded she was innocent, and after Andersen discovered that the RIAA was attributing an Internet name to her that actually belonged to a young man living in Washington.

Andersen also claims that RIAA representatives threatened to interrogate her 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, if Andersen didn’t pay thousands of dollars in fines, alleging that a woman claiming to be the girl’s grandmother call Kylee’s school to inquire about her attendance.

ya know, the riaa and our government really do have a lot in common... but, just remember, the business of america is business...

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