Online Pirates Have No Constitutional Right to Internet Access, BMG Says | Hacker News Reader

Online Pirates Have No Constitutional Right to Internet Access, BMG Says

torrentfreak.com

66 pointsmnm160 comments

This is the same BMG that thought installing a rootkit on everyone's computers was a good idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

Ah the good old days, when phoning home about your users' listening habits was considered faux pas.

It wasn't just telemetry. It was a software installation unauthorized by the user. I shouldn't have to explain this on HN.

Its moment like this you notice how far we have fallen

Or how far we've bent over. Apologies if this isn't appropriate.

Good, because you don't have to, as I am very familiar with the entire debacle. I was talking about a single aspect of the rootkit. Try to be less assumptive, friend.

One can't authorize something that one isn't aware of. Users wouldn't install many common apps if they really understood what the systems were doing. For example, most people don't really understand that they are being digitally fingerprinted in multiple ways and tracked without their knowledge.

When you think of this in terms of the internet being a utility, it highlights how ridiculous this actually is:

"We want you to disconnect the pirates' electricity, because they used that to power the computers they used to download the content!"

BMG has no constitutional right to stay in business, either.

And there you've hit the nail on the head. Too many people running currently powerful/profitable businesses think they have a right to have their business model be profitable.

And, in as much as it's my legal sales revenue that's paying for their bullshit, I'm all the more inclined to stop paying and look for other means of access.

Fuck you, BMG.

Once you decide to pick and choose who gets which constitutional rights, it makes it a lot easier to strip them away completely.

This is what blows my mind. If someone can strip you of a "right", then it's not a right it's a privilege. We have RIGHTS in this country not privileges.

Are you saying that being allowed to stay alive is a privilege, not a right because the death penalty is used to take that away from people? I can't think of a more fundamental right than life, so it sounds like your statement contradicts itself - you have no rights in your country.

It seems to me we are confusing words....rights and privileges are being confused with entitlements. The Code of Federal Regulations has very few entitlements, Medicare at the age of 65 and a Free Appropriate Public Education are two entitlements and there are a few select others. All others "rights or privileges" as discussed here require meeting specific criteria.....voting is a privilege afforded to those who register and the federal law allows states to prohibit Convicted felons or the mentally incompetent the right to vote. Most states have placed these restrictions on voting in their state constitution. Life is a privilege that a jury and the courts can remove in many states just as freedom is a privilege not a right.

An entitlement cannot be taken from you but suffice it to say entitlements are few in number in the US. As a reformed public servant who spent many many hours in the CFR, I assure you that you can count on one hand those entitlements.

I'm against BMG here, but don't we do this with criminals?

Sending people to prison is revoking their right to freedom.

If you're convicted of a violent crime, you lose the right to arms.

I think there is a case to be made that some people need to have their rights restricted to prevent them from violating the rights of others. But this is not one of those cases.

I'm not sure where to draw the line, but at what point does revoking rights remove the incentive to comply with society?

BMG is right of course. The Founding Fathers foresaw exactly this sort of situation and made sure the constitution was worded to exclude such pirates from diminishing the profits of BMG.

Further, I'm pretty sure the constitution goes further and is quite explicit that such pirates really should have their citizenship stripped or be sent to the electric chair.

Those Founding Fathers - they knew what was what.

See there is an underlying issue here that seems to be neglected.

When you transform your work into a mathematical equation and then tell people they cant solve the equation without giving you money... well...

Your business model is fundamentally broken.

No. When you transform your work into physical objects and leave them on the side of the street then tell people they can't take them without giving you money ... Both cases depend on property rights and law enforcement to function at all. Property rights, both physical and IP are arbitrary human inventions.

Seems like a good excuse to exclusively pirate BMG content in protest. Some really popular labels do recording under them.

http://www.bmg.com/us/recording.html - labels http://www.bmg.com/us/music.html - artists

Or just give up on them or the entire music industry. That's what I've done. Pretty much did the same for movies. I don't want to pay their prices with their rules. Rather than steal, I just don't consume. Most of the music I listen to is either through a legal streaming service like Amazon or Pandora (which is probably 10 songs a month total) or legal video playback on Youtube through Vevo even from smaller labels like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxLA1NX9gxY.

Unfortunately, some of us consider listening to music to be a big part of who we are, and 10 songs a month is akin to suicide.

With newer labels, it's much easier to stream from bandcamp, etc. but with older music it can be hard to find what you want, in the quality and quantity you desire, while staying above piracy.

I find it very hard to tell a poor person that they do not get to listen to as much music as me, or of the same quality (streaming is still sub-320kbps) because they were not born into a richer family.

Where does that end? Do you expect them to have a right to the same high end speakers/headphones that you have? To the same sound-treated room?

I understand piracy more when it's literally impossible to make a legal purchase of something; I get it. When it's merely a matter of spending less money, I have a lot less sympathy for the copyright infringers.

The only point I concede is nobody should have the right to sell or distribute counterfeit, tampered, malicious items (such as Microsoft Windows) as authentic, genuine, and untampered. We don't need intellectual property for that. We have existing laws outside of intellectual property that covers this use case.

I know this can't happen overnight but our goal should be the end of this madness.

What existing non ip laws cover this case? Are you talking about counterfeit laws? How do you prevent someone from selling a digital copy then?

I anal but there has to be something for misrepresented goods and services. Under my plan, selling unmodified copies is ok. Selling modified versions as long as they are clearly marked as modified is OK as well.

> Do you expect them to have a right to the same high end speakers/headphones that you have? To the same sound-treated room?

If they can make an identical copy of those items, without removing from the marketplace the original that they were never, ever going to buy anyway, sure.

You're comparing physical goods that are expensive to produce well with a piece of encoded information that costs nothing to mass-produce. That's not a good analogy, and you know it.

>I understand piracy more when it's literally impossible to make a legal purchase of something; I get it. When it's merely a matter of spending less money, I have a lot less sympathy for the copyright infringers.

What if the work is old? Do you think it's wrong to make an unauthorized copy of Shakespeare's works, or Beowulf? So why should I have to pay someone for a copy of, say, a Hitchcock movie like "The Birds"? That movie is over a half-century old now, and if the copyright laws hadn't been changed, it'd have been in the public domain for the last 30 years. So why should I feel guilty if I download a copy of it? Why should I be obligated to spend money to some rights-holder who bought out the rights to a work where everyone involved in its production is now dead?

I view copyright as a means to permit society to have more creative works produced. Would Hollywood make a $100MM movie if they couldn't charge for it or could only charge the first person for it? Would drug companies invest billions in research to create effective new drugs for society if they knew they couldn't reap any financial reward for success?

I don't love all the corner cases that result from IP law and in particular hate software patents, but I also think that society and individuals therein benefit from there being a commercial payoff for investing in making creative works. I'm periodically surprised at how little value is placed on that by a some software engineers, given that most of what we create is more valuable (or made commercially possible) by virtue of copyright protections.

I understand that other people may feel differently.

You're not answering the question. How does it benefit society for the works of Shakespeare to be protected by copyright now, after hundreds of years?

The reason you think I'm not answering the question is that I believe you have a faulty premise (that the works of Shakespeare are under copyright protection today).

I believe they are not.

Now you're either missing the point, or being intentionally obtuse.

No, the works of Shakespeare are not, but works that are 50 or 75 years old still are, even though everyone who wrote or created them are now dead. How is this useful to society? It's no different than if Shakespeare's works were still protected by copyright. And since we have now enacted perpetual copyright, nothing new will ever fall into the public domain from this point forward.

Because you are a law avoiding citizen... I think that copyrights are to long, something on the order of 25 years is closer to what they should be. I feel like the current lengths are infinite as far as a living human is concerned and thus unconstitutional. But unless I want to practice civil disobedience, I should still be a civil person and follow the law. Copying something such that no one knows I did it isn't civil disobedience

Yes, the recording industry has been mindblowingly succesful creating need, market, and unwitting consumers over the last two or three generations.

Silence. I highly recommend it.

The RIAA did not "create" the bands and artists that I enjoy. Some of them chose big labels, many didn't. Many of them are/were independent.

Maybe some people find enjoyment in different things than you. What do you think people did before the RIAA and other recording industries? Do you think they sat around in silence? No. Let's be realistic and not conflate the recording industry with a desire for pleasing music that extends as far back as the first musical instrument (the voice).

And you are missing my point, which is that there is a way to still get a chance to appreciate the thousands of absolute musical masterpieces out there without becoming an unwitting consumer.

I use to listen to music often. I use to play guitar, harmonica, drums and bass. Over the past 10 years I stopped caring. The music industry just turned me off. I stopped playing along. Then I stopped listening. I got so tired of the ads and money grabbing that I turned to NPR rather than a local DJ. In the end I found that the music wasn't me. It wasn't necessary.

"The music industry" has nothing to do with artists of previous generations, except that they still try to make money from them. Participating in that scheme in order to appreciate their art is entirely optional.

"The music industry" has nothing to do with independent artists of this generation who promote their own stuff or who sign on to small independent labels. It is just not the same thing and you are limiting yourself by conflating them with "the music industry". Of course, that's entirely your choice but it is healthy to keep in mind this is entirely an artificial limitation.

It's also important to realize that just because you got burned out on music, doesn't mean other people who live and breathe music should also decide to stop listening to it. There are other, more effective ways of protesting the bad parts of the music industry than not listening to its IP.

Isn't that a bit like giving up on reading and writing because you don't like Amazon's eBook DRM?

(By which I mean it's an important aspect of the human experience, a powerful method of communication, and certainly something one can participate in without any sort of corporate intermediary - particularly if you play instruments!)

You can still listen to the radio for free music, can't you? That's what poor people always used to do and somehow CD buyers didn't feel unfairly privileged.

If you really care about what poor people are missing out on, buy it for them. Don't expect someone else to do your charity for you to ease your conscience.

"That's what poor people always used to do"

> I find it very hard to tell a poor person that they do not get to listen to as much music as me

Also, you're implying that the radio is going to provide even a fraction of the great music out there.

"If you really care about what poor people are missing out on, buy it for them. Don't expect someone else to do your charity for you to ease your conscience"

What exactly do you even mean by this? Are you taking a stance on piracy?

It can be tough to curate but there are people making stuff and selling it at reasonable prices, DRM free, and without requiring you to make useless accounts. Louis C.K., Bandcamp ... I guess I don't personally know of any others, but I'm sure they're out there.

Rather than steal, I just don't consume.

Thank you.

I don't understand why this isn't a bigger thing.

But maybe I'm ignorant. I'd love to be disabused of my opinion. Which is:

You have no right to anything produced by content creators who choose to make their content available under terms that you don't agree with.

Instead of bitching about that, you should support content creators who distribute their content under terms that you agree with.

What am I missing?

The issue is that content creators rarely have any choice. If they don't work with labels, their careers are DOA.

The issue is that content creators rarely have any choice. If they don't work with labels, their careers are DOA.

Wait... so our responsibility is to preserve the careers of those people who produce that kind of IP - music, films, whatever counts as "art" -...

and yet we don't have a responsibility to preserve the careers of those who produce a different kind of IP - e.g. software?

If we're rejecting the predominant model of payment == ability to consume, it would seem that that's perfectly fine: we'll establish a new model that works to compensate content creators. Open source / free software models clearly do that, right? I mean, the creation of software is no different than the creation of any other kind of IP...

So why further the causes of content creators who release content under terms we refuse to be party to?

Hollywood, Big TV, Big Music, Big Software... Why consume their content under terms we don't agree with? And Software == IP == everything else I've listed.

Support those NON-SOFTWARE creators who reject terms we don't agree with.

We'll establish a natural balance, no?

I never said we shouldn't respect software creators. All i said is that label companies take a major cut of money with disproportionate value added.

As repetetive as pop-music and movies are today- i dont get it why there is a production industry at large still. How difficult can it be to get a NN to sing through autotune and add some music to that.

1) there is the music mafia -Whereas international trade agreements upon copyright establish what copyright is. Rights holders are the creator, however... -"rights enforcement/payment collection" societies exist in nearly every nation, which are basically private associations of lawyers that have the gall to insist that they represent ALL musical artists, even those who never signed up with them nor wish to.

For example, as a musical artist who has NOT cleared works with ASCAP, BMI, SPA, SUICA, etc, I have literally seen them extort event promoters where I am playing my original music and demand money that ostensibly should go to me, once I sign-up to their racket. They have collected money from cafes, bars, clubs, corner restaurants, and events of all kind ostensibly for works I have made and have the rights to, however, I would have to join their gang to get the money they have collected IN MY NAME and are currently holding. They literally have claimed the exclusive right to represent the entire musical industry with regards to copyright law in the nation they are based in! Shocking. illegal. wrong. incorrect. stoppable.

2)there is music and the people who make it, play it, love it, and wish to pursue a career in music. This entire socio-cultural phenomena should not cease merely due to some corrupt entities currently milking everyones wallet and patience. Support this. Bandcamp, indie musicians personal websites, buying cd's at shows, etc. Amazon and Pandora??? yikes, those are other corporate behemoth coming in to scoop up thin profit margins with volume... why on earth would you support such?

3) there is pop garbage that has no artistic value, precious little entertainment value (who pays WHOM to get radio play? playlist repetition in top-40 music is due to what exactly?) and is currently extolling the virtues of shopping malls, bubblegum, branded products, shagging, cocaine, and generally fueling the mindless vapid consumption certain industrial leaders think we all should enjoy, as it dovetails neatly with their cross-marketing strategies. Jay-Z bought a famous french Champagne maker, for example. In a world where your neighbor could be the next Herbie Hancock, it's a dame shame to pretend that what passes for popular music has anything to do with talent or skill. If you buy it, shame on you. If you steal it, for petes sake, WHY!????? stop feeding the plastic pink pop monster.

>Or just give up on them or the entire music industry.

Well to be fair, that's pretty easy these days since there's no good music being released any more from the big labels.

That's a bad idea. What you should do is don't consume BMG content in any form--legal or illegal. While the effectivity of boycotts is debatable, mass switching from purchase to pirating would merely be fuel for the fire of needing better tools to combat piracy.

Piracy is going to happen - BMG should incentivize people to buy their music rather than chase down the few who obtain it illegally. The same argument has been going on since the Napster days with Metallica.

Much longer than that. But back then policing would have involved putting a policeman in every home. And only "commies" did that...

It won't work. How many other companies are you sabotaging or boycotting based on offences they committed years ago? You'll quickly forget about this when the next shocking news story takes your outrage. So will just about everyone else and it won't affect them at all.

"The First Amendment does not guarantee Cox’s subscribers the right to use Cox’s internet service to steal music any more than it prevents Cox from terminating subscribers who violate Cox’s policies or fail to pay their bills"

Okay, so where does it guarantee copyright holders the right to dictate my ability to use a utility that is now widely regarded as a basic human right by the international community? [0]

[0] http://gizmodo.com/internet-access-is-now-a-basic-human-righ...

Right here:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?cycle=ALL

I think you'll find that's what has been used instead of the Constitution in the US for some time.

Renaissance Technologies? That's not a list I would have expected them to be on...

I'd like to take a moment to point out that the actual Copyright Act which BMG et al. are so freely waving about has a section that explicitly states that after a certain amount of time, these products are supposed to go into the public domain.

I'm not sure I can really respect their claims when it's clear from their behaviour (DRM, perpetually lobbying to extend the time periods, etc) that they themselves have no intention of heeding the Copyright Act.

...because something can't go to the public domain if no one has useable copies of anything .

Great. I was hoping there was some other class of minor crime we could cut people off from society for committing and it looks like this one fits the bill.

And next we ban fare dogers from acessing traffic infrastructure like rails, roads and sidewalks. And can we ban thiefs from buying or otherwise accessing food?

Oh and repeated offenders for that music piracy, can we cut off their ears?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com