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MPAA Toolkit Causes Privacy Concerns on Campus
Improvements necessary to make program more secure
by KathrynV Friday 23-Nov-2007 tags: Fileswapping · business · trouble · privacy
As the controversial anti-p2p bill moves forward universities may work on more actively finding solutions to piracy on campus. One of the solutions that was offered by the MPAA was the University Toolkit. This software-based operating system produces an internal report on file-sharing activity. While the MPAA says that no information is transmitted directly to them and therefore the toolkit's use shouldn’t arouse security concerns, an investigation by Security Fix revealed that there was a privacy risk for some schools using this software.

“Unless a school using the tool has firewalls on the borders of its network designed to block unsolicited Internet traffic -- and a great many universities do not -- that Web server is going to be visible and accessible by anyone with a Web browser.”

The toolkit is considered to be in beta phase and the MPAA may make adjustments to it to reduce these issues.

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Romney2012
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Privacy concerns for the paranoid only

“Unless a school using the tool has firewalls on the borders of its network designed to block unsolicited Internet traffic -- and a great many universities do not -- that Web server is going to be visible and accessible by anyone with a Web browser.”
This part was left out of the story summary:
The toolkit allows an administrator to require a username and password for access to the Web server. The problem is that the person responsible for running the toolkit is never prompted create a username and password. What's more, while Apache includes a feature that can record when an outsider views the site, that logging is turned off by default in the MPAA's University Toolkit.
So, unless the admin is dumber than a pet rock, the data can be protected from everyone but the admin. So, where's the problem? Oh, I know - the admin may actually have the info to figure out which students on campus are doing something illegal. God forbid that ever happen.
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hopeflicker
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Re: Privacy concerns for the paranoid only

said by Romney2012:

“Unless a school using the tool has firewalls on the borders of its network designed to block unsolicited Internet traffic -- and a great many universities do not -- that Web server is going to be visible and accessible by anyone with a Web browser.”
This part was left out of the story summary:
The toolkit allows an administrator to require a username and password for access to the Web server. The problem is that the person responsible for running the toolkit is never prompted create a username and password. What's more, while Apache includes a feature that can record when an outsider views the site, that logging is turned off by default in the MPAA's University Toolkit.
So, unless the admin is dumber than a pet rock, the data can be protected from everyone but the admin. So, where's the problem? Oh, I know - the admin may actually have the info to figure out which students on campus are doing something illegal. God forbid that ever happen.
You honestly believe ZERO info goes back to the industry? Better wake up
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Re: Privacy concerns for the paranoid only

I find it hard to believe that the admins running the school networks would need this tool to know know whats going on over their networks.

The real question is why should they have to? No other ISPs that I am aware of are required to police what is going over their networks.

Sounds like a bunch of shit to me.
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Re: Privacy concerns for the paranoid only

ISPs are private businesses and most colleges are public schools and receive state and federal money. They're required by ethics and laws to do whats right. But then again you could always be like EMU in MI and lie and cover up about everything; including murders on your campus but thats another topic.

gaforces
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3 edits
The students and interns pretty much ran the IT dept where I went to school. The prof's were to busy to be bothered with mundane network administration.
They had hired faculty staff working there also (old students.)

Apparently a lot of schools are already blocking p2p, and the students have setup thier own private intranets alongside the regular school networks with a wink/wink nod/nod from the admins.
Or was that only 1 nod? Been so long
madrhino

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said by Romney2012:

So, where's the problem? Oh, I know - the admin may actually have the info to figure out which students on campus are doing something illegal. God forbid that ever happen.
The problem is that the administrations job is not law enforcement for huge,thug corporations.
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Re: Privacy concerns for the paranoid only

said by madrhino:

said by Romney2012:

So, where's the problem? Oh, I know - the admin may actually have the info to figure out which students on campus are doing something illegal. God forbid that ever happen.
The problem is that the administrations job is not law enforcement for huge,thug corporations.
"Law enforcement"... besides the lady that took a screencap of spiderman to show her son... has anyone been CRIMINALLY tried for copyright infringement related to uploading/downloading? It seems to me the majority of the activity is CIVIL LAWSUITS. I can sue you for having blue eyes.. but that's not illegal.
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joako
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Gee isn't it ironic the MPAA disables the logging on their webserver but gets all pissy when other people disables the logging on theirs?
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swhx7
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The "tool" is just a Linux distro with Apache and a packet logger. Any competent network administrator could set up something to accomplish the same purpose, much better, without any help from a ccopyright cartel's enforcement arm.

And contrary to billing, it does *not* detect or measure copyright infringement or illegal traffic. What it does is identify traffic by protocol (if it's not encrypted). There's no way a setup like this can tell even what the content is, much less whether it's authorized or not.

So it would seem it's the MPAA that's "dumber than a pet rock", as their history of coping with p2p shows. But wait, there's caginess in their mania.

Presumably the MPAA will equate all Bittorrent (for example) with infringement, just as they equate infringing copies with lost sales. The purpose seems to be to set up a situation where if the schools install the spyware, the MPAA can spew fantasy-based number-monkeying "piracy" propaganda - and if the schools refuse, the MPAA will depict them as protectors of pirates.

If the buggy-whip makers had been as fanatically devious as this bunch when *they* were going out of business, we'd have been in horse-drawn carriages well into the 20th century.

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Re: Privacy concerns for the paranoid only

said by swhx7:

Well said!
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Kylemaul
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said by swhx7:

...The purpose seems to be to set up a situation where if the schools install the spyware, the MPAA can spew fantasy-based number-monkeying "piracy" propaganda - and if the schools refuse, the MPAA will depict them as protectors of pirates...
What's incredibly laughable about this is that the savvy students (I anticipate there will be many) will regard the acceptance of this as a poorly thought-out reaction on the part of their school's administration. For those students heading to college for their freshman year, this type of 'campus policing' could be a detraction from picking a school to go to in the first place. It would have turned me away, knowing that a school had kow-towed to any entertainment corporation for non-educational purposes. "Protectors of Pirates" indeed--kind of like calling certain forefathers "Tax Pirates".
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Awww...a simpleton with security concerns how cute )

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If zero information goes back to the MPAA

then why did they make a tool?

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Re: If zero information goes back to the MPAA

said by exocet_cm:

If zero information goes back to the MPAA

then why did they make a tool?
Because then the schools might actually do their jobs and TEACH students some morals too and not just business, or chemistry, or liberal arts, etc. And anything that stops music thievery helps the RIAA. College students are the biggest thieves of all.
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Mike
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Re: If zero information goes back to the MPAA

Morals and business?

What century you from?

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said by Romney2012:

said by exocet_cm:

If zero information goes back to the MPAA

then why did they make a tool?
Because then the schools might actually do their jobs and TEACH students some morals too and not just business, or chemistry, or liberal arts, etc. And anything that stops music thievery helps the RIAA. College students are the biggest thieves of all.
Wow, now we expect the schools to teach our kids morals? By the time they get to college it's a bit to late.
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said by Romney2012:

said by exocet_cm:

If zero information goes back to the MPAA

then why did they make a tool?
Because then the schools might actually do their jobs and TEACH students some morals too and not just business, or chemistry, or liberal arts, etc. And anything that stops music thievery helps the RIAA. College students are the biggest thieves of all.
No, Corporations and politicians are the biggest thieves out there. And it is not the schools job to teach kids morals, it is their parents job. I dont want any institution pushing their morality on me or my family.

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Re: If zero information goes back to the MPAA

Well the majority of parents suck at it.

There has to be some fallback system. A little scary in idea but kinda true.

Kindergarten rules are all you really need. Don't take what isn't your, don't die, don't eat the paste, and don't pee everywhere.

SharingOnCampus

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Re: If zero information goes back to the MPAA

And always always share?

nixen
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said by Romney2012:

said by exocet_cm:

If zero information goes back to the MPAA

then why did they make a tool?
Because then the schools might actually do their jobs and TEACH students some morals too
Unless the student is attending a church-affiliated college or university, how do you figure it's a college's or university's "job" to "TEACH students some morals"?

said by Romney2012:

and not just business, or chemistry, or liberal arts, etc.
Sorry, but given the tuition that colleges and universities charge, they better damned well be focusing exclusively on "business, or chemistry, or liberal arts, etc." or whatever the hell I've paid my money for to go there.

said by Romney2012:

And anything that stops music thievery helps the RIAA. College students are the biggest thieves of all.
Last I checked, most colleges' and universities' primary missions were to benefit higher learning, in general, and the institutions' student communities, not the RIAA. In fact, I'm pretty damned sure that if you check the original charters of 99.999999999999999% of all colleges and universities in the U.S., you'll find not a single mention of the RIAA. So, why on earth should colleges and universities do anything to help the RIAA? If it costs them a single penny to do so, that's a penny not spent in the furtherance of their primary missions. In other words, any such colleges or universities that spent effort (money) helping the RIAA would be violating their own reasons for existence.
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4 edits
It is not the college or university place to teach morals or ethics unless it applies to coursework, such as the business, law, and medical sciences for example.

College and university students go to these secular schools for one reason and one reason only, to earn their degrees so that they can better themselves in life. Not to be taught morals. I know I am in college to get an education, not a morals lesson, from my instructors.

The fact of the matter is that you haven't learned any morals by the time you're 18 then there is little hope for you to ever be taught what is right and wrong, period. Which in that case, you'll have a lot more to worry about in life than infringing copyright laws. That fault falls fully on the parents who raised their children without morals, not the colleges and universities. It is the job of the parents to teach their children morals, not the schools.

Expect for maybe kindergarten.
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Re: If zero information goes back to the MPAA

There is no implication to not teaching people morals (other than cruel utilitarian children) the law already makes it illegal to do most horrendously immoral things like infringe on another's liberty. I'd argue that is satisfactory to the function of society. Any other type of morality is corrupt and adaptive to the social conditions of the time. Which is no way to go about morality, much less when you try to legislate an ideal of impermanence into a system that prides itself in permanence (I realize the framer's intended the Constitution to be adaptive, but still...).

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1 edit
said by Romney2012:

said by exocet_cm:

If zero information goes back to the MPAA

then why did they make a tool?
Because then the schools might actually do their jobs and TEACH students some morals too and not just business, or chemistry, or liberal arts, etc. And anything that stops music thievery helps the RIAA. College students are the biggest thieves of all.
Most people fight (through legal or campus hearings) when teachers impose their thoughts on morals if they stray too far from what is accepted by the masses. I recall not to long ago a teacher that was barred for teaching 'his' morality. I forget the specifics but the prof was a liberal nut.
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I Call Bullshit and Then Some

While the MPAA says that no information is transmitted directly to them and therefore the toolkit's use shouldn’t arouse security concerns, an investigation by Security Fix revealed that there was a privacy risk for some schools using this software.


Regardless, this law is a giant, steaming pile. Why are the U.S.'s illustrious federal lawmakers going balls to the wall to all but kill a technology? Doesn't the country have more pressing issues before worrying about making college networks copyright cops?
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Romney2012
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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

said by major marco:

Regardless, this law is a giant, steaming pile. Why are the U.S.'s illustrious federal lawmakers going balls to the wall to all but kill a technology? Doesn't the country have more pressing issues before worrying about making college networks copyright cops?
How about because Intellectual Property is the future of the US economy and to allow it to be open to stealing by anyone will do irreparable harm to the US. The world economy is switching from an economy based on physical goods to one based on intellectual property. According to Alan Greenspan, 47% of world GDP is now intellectual property. To just give it away without a fight is economic suicide. And P2P was designed from the beginning as a tool to facilitate copyright infringement and the theft of intellectual property because of its decentralized distribution model.
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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

said by Romney2012:

...to allow it to be open to stealing by anyone will do irreparable harm to the US.
..you have GOT to be kidding me.

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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

He forgot to mention terrorism and child porn. He loses 10 Demogoguery Points. Must be the tryptophan hangover.

hopeflicker
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said by Romney2012:

said by major marco:

Regardless, this law is a giant, steaming pile. Why are the U.S.'s illustrious federal lawmakers going balls to the wall to all but kill a technology? Doesn't the country have more pressing issues before worrying about making college networks copyright cops?
How about because Intellectual Property is the future of the US economy and to allow it to be open to stealing by anyone will do irreparable harm to the US. The world economy is switching from an economy based on physical goods to one based on intellectual property. According to Alan Greenspan, 47% of world GDP is now intellectual property. To just give it away without a fight is economic suicide. And P2P was designed from the beginning as a tool to facilitate copyright infringement and the theft of intellectual property because of its decentralized distribution model.
I think that %47 is a bit inflated. There is no way that half of the world's economy is IP material. Absolutely no way.
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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

said by hopeflicker:

I think that %47 is a bit inflated.
»motherjones.com/news/exhibit/200···rty.html

U.S. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY is valued at $5.5 trillion, equal to 47% of our GDP and greater than the GDP of any other nation but China.
And I have seen this quoted elsewhere.

»www.federalreserve.gov/BoardDocs···ault.htm
Over the past half-century, the increase in the value of raw materials has accounted for only a fraction of the overall growth of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). The rest of that growth reflects the embodiment of ideas in products and services that consumers value. This shift of emphasis from physical materials to ideas as the core of value creation appears to have accelerated in recent decades.
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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

You originally quoted this "According to Alan Greenspan, 47% of world GDP is now intellectual property"

then Your motherjones link quoted this "U.S. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY is valued at $5.5 trillion, equal to 47% of our GDP and greater than the GDP of any other nation but China"

Your Motherjones seems more accurate.
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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

said by hopeflicker:

You originally quoted this "According to Alan Greenspan, 47% of world GDP is now intellectual property"

then Your motherjones link quoted this "U.S. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY is valued at $5.5 trillion, equal to 47% of our GDP and greater than the GDP of any other nation but China"

Your Motherjones seems more accurate.
Alan Greenspan's book isn't online(those IP & copyright laws ), so I used another source for the number. My recollection of WORLD GDP was from a footnote in the book and I may have remembered it wrong. It may have been US and not world. But I remembered the 47% correctly anyway.
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karlmarx

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Gee, if the world is an 'information' society, AND, we make up only 5% of the world, then logically, it's in our best interest to steal everyone elses IP.

And according to Greenspan, 47% of the world is IP, and the US % of the worlds GDP is only 27%, then the TOTAL US contribution would be about 15% of the IP. Hmm..

So, by YOUR calculations, it's in OUR BEST INTEREST to ENCOURAGE P2P, because if you are right, we get a 5-1 IMPROVEMENT by copying everyone else's stuff! That's the only logical outcome.
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2 edits
said by Romney2012:

How about because Intellectual Property is[...]
Anyone interested can do some informed reading as to how overly broad the current copyright laws are and how every day, the average person infringes literally hundreds of copyrights per day.

karlmarx

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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

Of course I am. They gave me the FACTS. I just restated those facts in a manner he doesn't like. BUT, if the 'facts' are correct, then I'm 100% correct. I personally disagree about how important IP is to the economy, but, if GREENSPAN says it's true, it must be. And if the WORLD BANK is correct, then the US only contributes about 1/4th of the GDP of the world. I can't see a hole in my logic.
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1 edit
The fact that intellectual property is the future is the very reason the United States economy is sinking. I TRIPLE DARE YOU to link me to the usual bullshit Bernanke, US gov news articles about how the US economy is doing fine. The refutation ownage will not be pretty. The bottom line comes from wall street which is an unbiased entity in terms of evaluating the health of the economy. That little side trail was so that you don't try to derail the discussion with shift information on how well the economy is doing. Onto the meat of the matter:

The fact of the matter is US IP law is a joke, a big friggin joke. It is just a form of welfare for the children of big names to live lavishly off their parents work instead of being a useful member to society. If you support this sort of enslavement then you are either a) a direct beneficiary of this system or b) you are a fool. No you are not a beneficiary if you think IP having a good impact on the GDP makes you a beneficiary. Guess what we need EXPORTS. I know this will probably fly right by your neocon way of thinking, but true conservatism attempts a favorable balance of trade. Guess what conservatism was actually enlightenment liberalism in disguise. Now we've gone full circle and conservatism is preenlightenment conservatism again. Bottom line: China and Russia, two major world players, don't give a rats ass about US IP law and never will. Another realization for you: the formerly imperialized country that we pillaged for natural resources no longer have an economy to build in order to buy our overpriced intellectual property. So much for highway robbery in Zimbabwe. HCT I do not have anything against you as a person. On the contrary I believe that all those once met in person are really just normal folks that you'd get along with, BUT I strongly disagree with your flawed lets bend over way of thinking. You are so enthraled in the lets hate on hippies mantra that you blind yourself to the truth.

I can believe that IP is 47% of GDP, but only because America remains the number one technology innovater. The only entities that obey IP law are governments. Why? Because governments can be fought. Trying to fight pirates is simply an unnwinnable assymetric war that only gets harder with time. It is only winnable in a totalitarian regime, which is in itself contradictory to capitalism. So would you like to cut your nose off to smite your face. Or will you live without IP law and let the economy thrive.

captnhook

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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

said by grandpinaple:

......... Trying to fight pirates is simply an unnwinnable assymetric war that only gets harder with time. It is only winnable in a totalitarian regime, which is in itself contradictory to capitalism. So would you like to cut your nose off to smite your face. Or will you live without IP law and let the economy thrive.
Live without IP law!!
Give me liberty and a strong economy.

Twas a beautiful post .. it brought a tear to my eye.
madrhino

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said by Romney2012:

The world economy is switching from an economy based on physical goods to one based on intellectual property. According to Alan Greenspan, 47% of world GDP is now intellectual property. To just give it away without a fight is economic suicide.
It seems to me the smarter countries would be moving towards self sufficiency(ie manufacturing) and let the also rans base their future on pushing paper.
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knightmb
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said by Romney2012:

According to Alan Greenspan, 47% of world GDP is now intellectual property. To just give it away without a fight is economic suicide. And P2P was designed from the beginning as a tool to facilitate copyright infringement and the theft of intellectual property because of its decentralized distribution model.
According to George Strisal, 1% of the world GDP is now intellectual property. He also mentioned that 13% of the 86% of the people that listen to Alan Greenspan are not aware that about 23% of what he said about the 47% GDP was 46% incorrect during the first 87% of the research he did.
grandpinaple

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Re: I Call Bullshit and Then Some

The fed reserve usually loves to fudge with numbers because their main job is to promote stability. Rather I should say they love to fudge the interpretation of numbers in a very conservative way. Oh and Alan Greenspan is responsible for the recession we are about to hit. I don't consider him to be to credible these days.

bear73
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said by Romney2012:

How about because Intellectual Property is the future of the US economy and to allow it to be open to stealing by anyone will do irreparable harm to the US. The world economy is switching from an economy based on physical goods to one based on intellectual property. According to Alan Greenspan, 47% of world GDP is now intellectual property. To just give it away without a fight is economic suicide. And P2P was designed from the beginning as a tool to facilitate copyright infringement and the theft of intellectual property because of its decentralized distribution model.
Somehow I have a hard time believing that IP from entertainment is equatable to the future of the US economy
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said by Romney2012:

the future of the US economy and to allow it to be open to stealing by anyone will do irreparable harm to the US.
Ever see this video, Money As Debt? In easy terms explains the damage we have done to ourselves.

»video.google.com/videoplay?docid···lindex=0

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What Schools teach

There job is to teach ETHICS in business and Society is a course and taught to most students in different forms besides a course titled as such.

It can't be helped that most use it as a source to find out how to violate and ignore ethical standards.
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fordwrench

join:2001-10-30
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You will never stop pirating and p2p!

The Music and Recording industry should concentrate on bringing their products to the public at a lower price. Quit spending money on trying to stop pirates! (you never win)
The average person doesnt even know how to pirate anything. And the ones who do are not going to waste their money on overpriced cds and movies. I buy a cd or movie I really like, just to have the better quality. Most movie and music downloads are less than excellent quality, unless you download the whole dvd rip or lossless music selection. Remember when they promised us that cd would revolutionize the industry and before long production costs would make them cheaper...BS!!!
And movie theaters are simply outrageous with what they charge.

TScheisskopf
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Re: You will never stop pirating and p2p!

Of course you won't. All this is simply a way for the record industry and their lawyers to squeeze the last two femto-cents they can out of an industry that is falling over, largely due to their incompetence.

If they were so concerned about protecting artists' interests, they wouldn't have been screwing them since dirt was in beta testing.

captnhook

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Aye and remember the big 5 record companies back in 2002 agreeing to a settlement in order to avoid going to trial or to admitting guilt in their conspiracy and price fixing case.
That the time I believe they said CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result.
LOL
Gnarlodious

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...the internets...

I find it amusing that 6 years after the RIAA beat up Napster these characters are still griping about the internets.

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It's probably just me but...

But I think they we waste too much time and money
worrying about this shit. It's entertainment for pete's sake who cares!
I think if this much time, money, and effort was put into I don't know say maybe cancer research, aids research, maybe, just maybe we might get somewhere!

If anything I think will sink this country it will be lack of priorities. People are dying of disease, and starvation and all we seem too worry about is how much a dam cd or dvd cost or that someone is downloading it off with some dam p2p app! Ridiculous.
Just plain out disgusting when you think about it!
It is also disgusting when you read some of these articles online saying some company screwed up millions of computers both personal and business and all they got was a slap on the wrist, but some joe schmoe who pirated some songs gets bankrupted.
Again, priorities are all fu***d up!

mech1164
I'll Be Back

join:2001-11-19
Lodi, NJ
Reviews:
·Optimum Online

Re: It's probably just me but...

said by jubangy:

But I think they we waste too much time and money
worrying about this shit. It's entertainment for pete's sake who cares!
I think if this much time, money, and effort was put into I don't know say maybe cancer research, aids research, maybe, just maybe we might get somewhere!

If anything I think will sink this country it will be lack of priorities. People are dying of disease, and starvation and all we seem too worry about is how much a dam cd or dvd cost or that someone is downloading it off with some dam p2p app! Ridiculous.
Just plain out disgusting when you think about it!
It is also disgusting when you read some of these articles online saying some company screwed up millions of computers both personal and business and all they got was a slap on the wrist, but some joe schmoe who pirated some songs gets bankrupted.
Again, priorities are all fu***d up!
It's all about one thing GREED!!!

BigDaddyCF

@swbell.net

so much 2 cover

The base of this problem is of course that the media/content distribution companies can't seem to pull their head out of their arses, and realize that the internet changes everything. They can't hold on to their old business model and expect to survive. The opportunistic part of me would say that maybe just maybe they should realize that the internet actually gives them a wider audience....if..and thats a big if....if the price is right and you don't restrict your users rights(you're not restricting the pirates, your just screwing over your paying customers, the only way to win is make it easier to get the legit stuff than the illegal kind, and hence the importance of price). You should instead increase the rights of yours users say by enabling an on-line backup of any purchased content that allows them to re-acquire that content if they should lose their copy. Of course you would charge only a small bandwidth fee for re-acquirement. I don't know about you guys but I can't think of the number of tapes, CDs, DVDs, and VHS(tapes) I've had to repurchase because the "studio" didn't offer an easily accessible system by which to receive backup media. Makes me wonder how much money those same "studios" have made off of purchases made to require content which was lost, and how much that inflated demand in the retail marketplace. I could say the same thing of big time software companies that price their software very high(adobe, ms, I'm looking in your direction) when they could price it much less and reach a wider audience. There are a lot of people out there who have to consider how every bit of money is spent, me included. Linux is free and it has come a long way. Open source is banging on the door of a lot of companies who will see their business model go down the crapper if they don't seize opportunities instead of holding on to the past. Alan Greenspan? Since when does anyone listen to the ex-mouthpiece of a private bank run for profit which is slowly robbing the American people of their wealth. I say robbing because wealth is never destroyed, merely transferred(usually into the pockets of big companies who then relocate out of the country). The same guy who oversaw the ending of the publishing of the m3, which tells you how much money(both digital and cash) is in circulation. That's important because this bank has the ability to devalue your money since your money is no longer backed up by physical assets. That's what paper money originally was...just a piece of paper saying you had physical assets worth such and such and this had been verified by a bank. America no longer has enough physical insurance to back up its currency and hasn't for some time(all the gold in Ft. Knox...what gold?) The Federal Reserve system is a private banking system set up to in-debt the American people. That the American people paid fully to set this bank up is just a side-note in the pages of history.

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