back to article Music industry sites DDoSed after Pirate Bay verdict

Hacktivists have launched denial of service attacks against music industry association ifpi.org and lawyers involved in the prosecution of the four Pirate Bay defendants in the wake of a guilty verdict against the quartet last Friday. The assault has rendered ifpi.org - the main website of the International Federation of the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Eejits

    '"They want to get the message across that the IFPI can not mess with the internet and that the internet is serious business,"'

    Indeed. Which is why TPB got taken to court and done. A business has every right to protect it assets from thieving scum like P2Pers.

    And don't give me the "torrents have legal uses" bullshit. We all know what torrents are used for, and we all know it's illegal.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    ...and this achieves what, precisely?

    Struggling to see what nuking the ifpi's site will achieve for the freetards... What, is this going to reverse the court''s ruling? "Oh, wait, *huge* mistake! Consider yourselves told off and be on your way..." FFS. Script kiddies makes oi larf.

    R.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    No...

    ""This is very much like the Scientology thing started more than a year ago now,"

    Only... It's not. At all.

    This is hackers getting angry that they can't download illegal things. In an illegal way. Against legitimate organisations who protect the bodies they represent.

    "That Scientology thing" was the internet protesting in a, mostly, peaceful and comical way against a dangerous organisation who cause real damage to families and the financies of their members.

    Don't try and hijack a successful internet campaign with this nonsense illegal crap. It does an injustice to the members of anonymous who have to work hard to create a public image. A public image which is naturally now going to be tainted by this balls.

    Anonymous, naturally...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @eejits

    flamebait much?

  5. Adrian Challinor
    Flame

    @Eejits

    Thank you for you wise words and carefully thought through argument. As it happens, yesterday I needed to download a new, perfectly legal, version of Ubuntu. I must have broken some law in Eejits-ville because I used a bit torrent download so I didnt hose a specific server.

    http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors

    Now I now, I should have downloaded the full ISO from a mirror. Silly me.

    </irony>

  6. Nipsirc

    That's a great argument...

    "Even if The Pirate Bay was taken down something else would surely replace it." Hmm, that's true, so might as well let <insert favourite criminal group> act with impunity, because if we take them down, another <insert favourite criminal group> will surely replace it? Apathy rules, but it can't be arsed to do anything about it...

  7. Matt Eagles

    Toys. Cot. Throw.

    So having failed to get their own way (demanding other peoples things free) they throw a tantrum. The Freetards have always seemed pretty much like spoilt toddlers, this only really confirms it.

  8. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Stop

    Grow up kiddies!

    Does seem a little like piddling against the backdoor of the local Police station after you got caught for something! These are simple ad-sites, they are not hosting any content and the record biz will not suffer and financial loss if their sites go down for a few days!

    Stupid little script kiddies with no common sense!

  9. Marc McAllister
    Linux

    Re: Eejits

    "And don't give me the "torrents have legal uses" bullshit. We all know what torrents are used for, and we all know it's illegal." Too scared to post non-AC? I'll have you know I use torrents to download Linux DVD iso's and that it 100% legal. Fedora actually put links to the torrents on their site. Don't tar all torrent users with the same brush, please.

  10. Richard Kay
    Boffin

    Culture wars

    Culture 1:

    Information is property. Giving it away denies a living to those whose only business model is selling information packages on a per package basis. Copying must be made difficult and controlled or impossible.

    Culture 2:

    The purpose of computers, networks and most electronic appliances is to make copying easy. Information can't be controlled and ensuring it is made it available with as few restrictions as possible (GPL) maximises the value of the information.

    Realistically it seems unlikely that either culture will be eliminated entirely by the efforts of the other in the near future. Culture 1 seems likely to continue restricting use of its output over certain DRM-controlled networks using by trusted/treacherous computing. This seems to me more a set top box and games console specialist appliance market though than in connection with anything genuinely intended to be general purpose where the market won't carry the DRM cost and the values of culture 2 are likely to prevail.

    So I don't see the sale of XL net connections, blank media and unrestricted computers going down any time soon.

  11. Yorkshirepudding
    Thumb Down

    teh internet has spoken

    bunch of kids grow the fuck up

  12. Ash

    @Eejits

    Sure, and we all know that cars are for mowing down children, a little pot dealing funds terrorism, and Iraq still has WMDs but the US couldn't find them.

    Charging TPB owners for copyright infringement is analogous to charging Alan Mulally for people breaking the speed limit.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Eejit - oh yes you are!

    Eejits are you insane?

    Music artists typically get 1% of record sales.

    So who is the thief then?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @AC

    You do realise that the BBC use P2P as the backbone of its iPlayer service!

    Also most Linux disros are now shared via p2p to save overall bandwidth when downloading.

    NOT all P2P traffic is illegal!

    stop being a troll!

  15. Jack

    All of this has happend before and will happen again....

    DOS attach on the IFPI's site is pointless. Even more pointless when it is only for 1 day. Its not like a lot of people use the site.

    and torrents do have legal uses, but then so do VCR's. Both can be used legally and illegally (how naughtly of you for recording that episode of Eastenders). This was all decided 30 years ago and now the media companies want another crack at changing the way things are, to get bigger proffit margins and sell more shares, yada yada yada.

    Things don't change much, the names do, but the result is always the same. I sue you.

  16. Craig

    I'm always up for a protest...

    So I refreshed their page twice during lunch!

    It's not the upfront cost I disagree with, it's these media companies continually wanting to get paid over and over for the *same* product. That and the refusal to distribute their wares on something not invented last century.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Re: Eejits

    '"They want to get the message across that the IFPI can not mess with the internet and that the internet is serious business,"'

    Indeed. Which is why the internet got taken to court and done. A business has every right to protect it assets from thieving scum like internetters.

    And don't give me "the internet has legal uses" bullshit. We all know what the internet is used for, and we all know it's illegal.

    (And likewise for telecommunications more generally, for technology more generally, for freedom of speech, for freedom generally...)

  18. Chris

    @ Eejits

    I use torrents to download linux and other large files and distro's quite a lot - perfectly legal and a nice way to download very large files

    Your sweeping comment about torrents only being used for illegal purpose is about the same inane level as me saying "Anybody posting anonymously on TheRegister must be a peado as they obviously have something to hide"

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    "Serious Buisness"

    Doesnt "Serious Buisness" remind you of a load of /b/ tards with script kiddy ddos tools.

    I use ddos in a very limited sense as the tools they use just do tcp floods or get floods from a single machiene. But with a group of people

    But this is just childish

    Torrents of course have legal use. Look at the number of LInux distributions that use torrent p2p networks as a distribution platform minimising cost to the actual website of the distribution.

    We have to remember. Torrents themselves or a torrent tracker is not illegal.Its the files a client downloads using the information loaded onto the torrent that i illegal.

  20. Antonio
    Flame

    Re: ACs

    The Internet is run by geeks and nerds not lawyers or artists. Most people that run the Internet are feed up of paying for a hedonist life of few people that do very little for the good of all.

    TPB lists many copyleft software, of course someone whose technical level is measured by the ability of developing a few Excel macros likes to spread the bullshit that torrents are only used illegally.

    R., you are such a paytard, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and start contributing with money to many of the free software projects. The Internet works thanks to their work.

    I would like to see the lawyers and 'artists' bring a network up after it has been brought down by professional malware writers that long ago grew up from being 'Script kiddies'

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Well...

    Technology has been moving fast over these past 10 years, much faster than the legislation created to regulate and control it.

    Historically the internet has been an true anarchy, limited only by the technology and not arbitrary rules set by an the authorities (online, there are none). For a lot of people, this was an immensely freeing experience, one is not limited by age, status, sex or race. Everybody is welcome, and everybody has their soapbox.

    Now there are some who see this Metaphysical Liberal Utopia as more than just an ethereal concept, they view it as a Virtual Country, a truely free community of people, sharing opinions and media just like in real life.

    Encroach on this at your peril, as there is an huge amount of solidarity and an "us and them" mentality that I fear will only grow stronger as more action is taken.

    As the anonymity of old is slowly taken away, and people find themselves limited by legislation, and not their own intelligence. The die hard "freetards" and hackers of old, will see this as an invasion of their space and perversion of principals. These are the people who built the internet, the ones who wrote the software, and you fuck with them at your peril.

    The internet is a self serving communist state. A state where the occupants ultimatly have control.

  22. Richard Kay
    Boffin

    Culture wars

    Culture 1:

    Information is property. Giving it away denies a living to those whose only business model is selling information packages on a per package basis. From this point of view, copying must be made difficult and controlled or impossible.

    Culture 2:

    The purpose of computers, networks and most electronic appliances is to make copying easy. Information can't be controlled and from this point of view ensuring it is made it available with as few restrictions as possible (GPL) maximises the value of the information.

    Realistically it seems unlikely that either side in this conflict will be eliminated entirely by the efforts of the other in the near future. But we are likely to see legal and other attacks used by either side to try to gain an advantage. Sony were not being strictly legal either when their music business installed rootkits on their CD customer's computers to try to disable copying capabilities either.

  23. Trencher
    Stop

    to the Cowards

    Shame you two don't really know wtf you're talking about. However that's usually the case from people that support the record industry. TPB didn't do any of the stuff you think they did. They are an indexing service much like google, yahoo, and etc. If anyone is guilty it's the users posting the material. Oh course if you had any knowledge of what you were commenting on you would know that. It's obvious from this outcome that the music industry bought their victory. There was too many things against them and too much going for TPB. Am I shocked? Not really, the music industry buy their way through allot of things,and the people are wising up to it.

    This was a pretty strong message they put out, and I'm sure it will effect their sales dramatically. I know I won't be buying anymore cd's or dvd's. I religiously buy 1 dvd and 1 cd a week and I probably have a entertainment collection seconded to none. Most of my purchase picks were based upon tracks/clips I downloaded of unknowns which in turn motivated me to make my purchase. That all stopped as of last Friday. Does that mean I'll be downloading copyrighted material via google, yahoo, or a torrent tracker. No that just means I'll be checking out independent stuff. Where the money doesn't go to the crooks.

    Also there's is nothing illegal about P2P. I use it on a daily basis to sync my work projects with my home projects. So there again you have no idea what you are talking about. I agree that the attacks won't do any good. But it's probably better than what they could have really done. They could have been way more malicious and attacked some sort of critical infrastructure.

  24. Dan Price
    Stop

    @Eejit - oh yes you are!

    Music artists typically get 1% of record sales.

    So who is the thief then?

    The guy who downloads their music without paying for it. I'm sick and tired of idiots going on about how the record industry rips off artists so therefore they can pirate all the music they want.

    So yes, the amount they make per album sale is pretty terrible. Hey, guess what? You download it illegally, they get nothing. It's no excuse.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Best to imprison all criminals

    Best to imprison all pirates and hackers for violation of law. As we've seen with McKinnon, these scum bums are deathly afraid of prison, as it should be.

  26. JimC
    Flame

    > The Internet is run by geeks and nerds

    Dear oh dear, wake up and smell the coffee. There *was* a time when that was true, but long ago...

    The other month I happened to find the email conversation from when I "registered" my employers domain name in 1994. It was just two techies talking to each other. But that was a very long time ago. Now we have domain registries and so in, which is really just the lawyers and accountants getting in between the two techies and incidentally making more money out of than we do.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Umm ...

    I think it's a safe bet the people behind this aren't taking it as seriously as some of the commenters are. Serious business.

  28. Rob

    Kids

    Yeah kiddies, grow up, we all got on usenet years ago

  29. Andy ORourke
    Joke

    calm down, calm down </scouse>

    @ Eejits, here is a correction for you:

    "And don't give me the "torrents have legal uses" bullshit. We all know what torrents are used for, and we all know it's illegal."

    Should read

    "And don't give me the "torrents have legal uses" bullshit. We all know that except for El Reg readers who only ever use it for getting the latest ISO's 99.99999999999% of all torrents are used for, and we all know it's illegal"

    As for those who say Pirate bay didnt do anything wrong, look they set themselves up as THE place on the internet to find links to copyright protected stuff. If you agree or not with copyright LAWS they are nevertheless LAWS. You set yourself up as a website whcih allows people to break the LAW and then put an extra couple of fingers up to the law by calling yourself Pirate Bay then i'm sorry, it's only a matter of time before you end up in court on some charge or other.

    not saying its right or wrong, just a simple matter of fact.

  30. blue
    Pirate

    @ Richard Kay 'Culture Wars'

    I think you hit the nail on the head. The large media cartels want to turn the internet into 'interactive' cable TV. They supply the content, lock it down and allow you upload rights only on stuff they've approved of not infringing the laws they've bought and paid for.

    Copyright is, at its heart an evil: a monopoly granted by the king on culture. The US Founding Fathers tried to ennoble this evil beast by training it to serve more lofty ideals, but its true nature always returns (and how could it not with the powerful and selfishly-motivated copyright corps. throwing their weight at easily lead, principle-less politicians).

    The people making and crafting copyright laws - the cartels - are not democrats, they are sociopaths and they will bend all of society to their will (see the abomination that is ACTA) unless someone stands up to them.

    It will be difficult with the current oligarchy also working against real democracy, though. I predict that the Pirate Party will have similar dirty tricks thrown at it as the Palestinians did when they exercised the 'wrong' democratic choice.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    IFPI Is down again since 16:24 UK Time

    :) Good times?

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    To all the eejits...

    Look, it's really simply. Cars are used MOSTLY to ferry people about. Accidents etc are an unpleasant side-effect. "Bad" or illegal actions with most items in the big bad world are unfortunate side effects, or otherwise only a minority of uses. This is not the case with P2P.

    P2P is MOSTLY used to distribute copyrighted material (i.e. steal). Legal uses (Linux distros, iPlayer) are a vanishingly small side effect.

    The iPlayer system (and others) are closed, they do not use public torrents. It is not comparable.

    Linux distro choose to share their wares over unrestricted torrents. The maker deliberately punts them out. This is not the same as EMI/U2/whoever/whatever.

    I will type slowly so there is a hope of it sinking in: P2P is ***MOSTLY*** used for copyright theft. Any legal use is verging on the statistically insignificant.

    @Dan Price - well said

    @Trencher - supplying the bullets for a gun you *know* will be used in a crime, is a crime in itself. This is what the PB 4 got done for. And they deserved to get done for it. 1% some soemthing is way better than 100% of sweet-f**k-all, which is what the artists get from the PB thieves and their ilk.

    As for your "I religiously buy 1 dvd and 1 cd a week....Most of my purchase picks were based upon tracks/clips I downloaded of unknowns ..." I know BS when I see it. As do most people. Stop salving your conscience with this pathetic reasoning.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    waah

    "Waaahh they didn't do anything wrong waaaahhh"

    Intentional aidding and abetting.

  34. This post has been deleted by its author

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Face it...

    Yes, bittorrent is mostly used for downloading copyrighted stuff. That doesn't mean it doesn't have legal uses.

    What is more important is the fact that the music industry deserves to die for trying to continue its ancient business model long after it should have been abandoned. They failed to predictthe way the wind was going and they are paying the price.

  36. M Gale
    Paris Hilton

    Anonymous has an image?

    I remember some comment somewhere, about large media corps. See, they like to flip flop between "product" and "license" in whatever way they see fit. You want to replace broken/damaged media? Oh no sir, you bought a product. Want to play it at a party? Oh no sir, you bought a license.

    And people bawwing about Anonymous' "image", get yourself to http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Anonymous and feast your eyes upon the biggest BOFH on the Internet. Truly the green-faced tuxedo wearing chaotic-neutral Heath Ledger's Joker Actalike is someone the Bastard can learn from!

    Also, "TPB lists many copyleft software, of course someone whose technical level is measured by the ability of developing a few Excel macros likes to spread the bullshit that torrents are only used illegally." <- quoted for truth.

    And while I'm here, aren't there people experimenting with BitTorrent for apt downloads? Not that I'd expect the 'tard who thinks BitTorrent is illegal to know what Debian's Aptitude is.

    Lastly, the Internet is one huge P2P network. Guess we'd better shut it down then...

    Paris, because she's got more sense than some of these here commenters.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @To all the eejits

    To paraphrase you :

    I will type slowly so there is a hope of it sinking in: Copyright infringement is ***NOT*** copyright theft. Neither is it illegal - it is unlawful.

    If you can't actually grasp the basic legal facts, I can see no reason to listen to your arguments. Until you can make a reasoned argument based on fact and not emotional hyperbole, I and many others will not give a toss what you think.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    SHOUT LOUDER??

    "P2P is ***MOSTLY*** used for copyright theft. Any legal use is verging on the statistically insignificant."

    I also know BS when I see it.

    1. Do not talk about statistics which do not exist.

    2. Do not talk about legal use as insignificant if you do not know much about it in the real world.

    3. Do not compary with guns and bullets as this is an inappropriate comparision. You would be better of comparing with supplying tapes to people with a tape recorder. Or a CD burner, or a LIBRARY. *** OR A RADIO STATION! *** - You "know" people will record the songs of air.

    4. We all know that there are many people around who download material which they do not have the copyright to. However this does not make every downloader a criminal or every use of a copyrighted file an infringement.

    5. Do not confuse control over distribution with copyright infringement, these issues are dealt with differently in different countries and legal contexts. Distribution of copyrighted material is not defined as a crime if it is legal to do so. Neither is the personal copying of copyrighted material illegal under all circumstances in most EU countries and the USA. In the USA the copying for personal usage is not illegal it is the effort required to circumvent any digital copyprotection technology which is illegal (basically analogue copying of copyrighted material for personal use is legally ok and does not represent "copyright infringement").

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Re: To all the eejits...

    "P2P is MOSTLY used to distribute copyrighted material (i.e. steal). Legal uses (Linux distros, iPlayer) are a vanishingly small side effect."

    Well, they do say property is theft.

    Linux distros, and the numerous pieces of software within them, are "copyrighted material". Distribution of copyrighted material does not equal theft. When such distribution is authorised by the copyright holders, as is usually the case with Linux distros, such distribution of such copyrighted material is entirely lawful. You're mistaken to think that Linux distros aren't copyrighted (and very much behind the times to still be labouring under that basic misconception).

    Unauthorised distribution of copyrighted material, in breach of copyright, is copyright infringement, but even then it's not really theft. The copyright holders don't cease to own the copyrights, and they don't cease to possess their own copies (and originals) of the copyrighted material. Copyright infringement is more like trespass than theft. When someone trespasses on your land, it's still your land, you still have it, you can still walk on it and make use of it. Yes, your land property rights are infringed by the trespasser, but you don't cease to have that land yourself. That's what copyright infringement is like. Theft is fundamentally different.

    When the recording industry, etc, liken copyright infringement to theft, they're peddling disgusting propaganda in an effort to deceive people as to the true nature of copyright and copyright infringement. Such propaganda demonstrates that the recording industry, the movie industry, etc, don't believe the truth is really on their side, or that the truth is enough for them. (Otherwise, they could just stick to the truth instead.) People hate that. It's one of the big reasons such industries have come to be so widely despised, and why The Pirate Bay have become popular heroes to so many.

    Whatever the legal rights and wrongs of all this stuff may be, it simply doesn't make any business sense for the RIAA, IFPI, MPAA, etc, to keep painting their own, potential customers as criminal scum. They might stop the illegal copying and distribution, but they're not going to win those people's custom. I don't have the right to steal your car, and neither do you have the right to force me to buy it.

    The IFPI, etc, need to adapt to this changing world. Otherwise, they'll just continue to alienate more and more of their potential customers. That's hardly going to benefit their shareholders, is it?

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The only good pirate is one in prison

    Pirates seem to understand prison sentences. Denial isn't a river in Egypt. You steal, you belong in prison.

  41. Trencher
    Happy

    To the eejit postin as a coward

    "I will type slowly so there is a hope of it sinking in: P2P is ***MOSTLY*** used for copyright theft. Any legal use is verging on the statistically insignificant."

    Maybe in your research you should read a little more slowly; because, you have it backwards. There's quite a few non-illegal uses for P2P and is used by quite a few companies. The media blows up the insignificant illegal use all out proportion. And quite possibly getting kick backs from the record and movie industry to do so. Journalism isn't what it used to be. Nothing from them surprises me anymore. However in fact you probably use P2P on a daily basis and don't even realize it. Allot of game companies use it to distribute game patches. News on demand uses bit-torrent. The previously mentioned open source distribution. I'm sure there's other I don't know about simply because it's so easy to implement it would be hard to see it in use.

    "supplying the bullets for a gun you *know* will be used in a crime, is a crime in itself. This is what the PB 4 got done for. And they deserved to get done for it. 1% some soemthing is way better than 100% of sweet-f**k-all, which is what the artists get from the PB thieves and their ilk."

    There you go. The "Know". I'm not sure how you can make your analogy work simply because it's impossible for them to know everything that they are indexing. Be like knowing every blade of grass in your lawn. There's simply too much data.

    "I know BS when I see it. As do most people. Stop salving your conscience with this pathetic reasoning."

    You evidently don't. Because I was stating a fact. Wtf possible gain do I have for BSing you or anyone else. I could care less if you are too diluted to see the truth. Just doing a google search on me would enlighten you on that. I take an extreme opinion on allot of things. But that's your problem and doesn't really effect me.

    As to my original post. That was directed at the first two posts, as that was all there was when I originally wrote it. So if I offended anyone else I do apologize.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    What DDOS?

    Im sat in Anontalk right now. Watching a load of stupid skiddies trying to DDOS the IFPI website. They are just doing HTTP GET floods on the servers to hog up the bandwith.

    This isnt going to suffice anything

    But the IFPI have rmeoved a lot of big files from their servers

    TPB: A health hazard

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @zero

    Actually, the DDOS is a TCP flood. anyone using HTTP is a newfag who doesn't know how to configure properly.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Paytards and Freetards both get it equally wrong.

    When the bin man who arguably does a far more crucial role for the public good is paid

    the same as Lily Allen then I'll actually think about buying music again, for know it's

    Last FM for me until their sued for some reason or another :/ .

    I mean think about it, Lily Allen's most recent album has already sold 815,000 copies

    worldwide and will go on to at least double that in the next two years. In the UK it

    sold 355,000 copies(1).

    If we estimate that the average price in the UK is £8.99 then the sum total of money

    before deductions is £3,191,450, If we then take the worldwide sales to average around

    £3.99 per CD then that is another £1,835,400 (£5,026,850 in total).

    Now we must consider the current industry cost of production. So what is that we must

    consider, well there are production fees, media fees and of course the percentage cut

    take by managers and record labels. If the artist is a cash cow like Madonna then they

    will receive a bigger cut than usual. Overall costing the rent of a sound studio, a

    producer, DJ and 4 backing musicians over the period of a 100 hours@£1000 x 6 staff &

    rent the cost is £100,000 As the industry does not make it's invoices public this is

    just a poor estimate even so even if you were paying 10000 per hour it's still only

    £1,000,000.

    Obviously the cost of server space and CD imprinting will be minimal if they have made

    1,000,000 physical copies @ 50p per CD and case then we're looking at £2,500,000 which

    sounds a lot, but I am probably over pricing the manufacturing costs (anyone know

    better?).

    So whats left ? A media campaign, managers' fees and the Record Company cut.... factor

    that in at around £1,500,000 and your looking at an overall cost of £5,000,000 leaving

    about £26,850 for the artist, and that to be fair is more than the majority of people in

    the UK get paid for doing arguably more vital jobs. The even funnier pat about this is

    that the Record Company actually "loan" money to the artists in the first place to cover

    the costs of the work and then the artists pays it back with interest. Of course we are

    only looking at the first 8 Weeks of sales as well, so think of all the lovely dosh

    that's wending it's way to her (at least an extra £3,000,000 by the end of the year).

    This is the current system, a system that relies on fleecing the average person to turn

    a profit. It is a centralized system in which the profits garnered are used to promote

    already profitable artists or to promote new artists that are deemed fit for profit by

    company executives. In this system competition, creativity and a fair chance are

    simulated for media affect.

    Shows like Pop Idol/X-Factor in turn are media constructions that perpetuate the myth of

    a democratized music industry that prides itself on inclusivity and and real creative

    freedom for musicians. The majority of musicians who win rarely make it big, not because

    they can't sing but because they don't conform to industry fads/norms. The truth is that

    the system is a fad generating self fulfilling revenue stream that excludes the majority

    of bonafide musicians and exploits the majority of the few who it does promote.

    Because the system is inherently corrupt people are not bound to agree to it's

    stipulations. The music industry is a monopolized system that doesn't offer true choice.

    Many people cite the fact that file sharing is theft, It is true that in Law in many

    countries it is illegal.

    Was the Stamp Act of the 1860's not a legal mandate ? was it not a law ? Of course it

    was and considering that the average American at the time was taxed at 1/25th the amount

    the of the average Englishman there was little reason one would feel to transgress such

    a law. Never the less enough Americans felt the Stamp Act was impinging on their freedom

    to do basic things like write invoices, take writs or make copies of books. The act and

    other legal mandates led to the democratic revolution that was mother to our own system

    of government. In short a Law is only a law if the majority of people believe it to be

    moral, acceptable, or reasonable (also see the folly of prohibition in America).

    Thus the system is wrong and the laws that protect the system are not respected. So a

    change must be made. I would put forward that artists should club together into local

    communities receive lottery funding and other grants to build community studio's,

    produce their own music host it on a government backed but not controlled independent

    music servers, they are then paid through live shows and a national subscription fee,

    all artists are paid according to a basic wage of no more than £30,000 pounds increasing

    with inflation. They make extra money from how many times their music is downloaded from

    the server.

    Any comments ?

    (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Not_Me,_It%27s_You

  45. This post has been deleted by its author

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Historical Correction !

    I meant 1760's :D, Thomas Paine would kill me but he's dead so phew :d

  47. Steve Roper
    Dead Vulture

    For any REAL Reg readers folowing this thread

    It may seem at first glance disheartening to see the extent to which the RIAA shills and paid record/movie company astroturfers have infested the comments threads of any El Reg article dealing with copyright of late. Real Reg readers can take heart from the fact that the anti-P2P views expressed by the paid serfs above do not represent the views of the majority of the population, or even of the genuine El Reg readership. That TPB is still up and running and still receiving millions of visits per day despite the imprisonment of its founders is a testament to this fact. But most real Reg readers realise that we've made our point, the cartels aren't going to listen no matter how solid the arguments for P2P, and we're sick of the pointless charade of arguing and are now simply going about sharing information without needing to do so.

    For all the shills and astroturfers infesting this and similar comments threads, P2P isn't going to go away, no matter how much you paid stooges piss and moan. Most of us human beings out here have embraced the new technology and patiently await the death of the old wax-cylinder cartel whose slow and painful passing you are so desperately whitewashing. Even if TPB gets taken down tomorrow, the day after it will simply pop up again somewhere else - just as Demonoid has, many times, because that's what the majority of people want and support. So feel free to clutter comments threads, forums and blogs with your drivel. Nobody's really listening.

  48. RW

    @ Jack

    Quoth Jack: "now the media companies want another crack at changing the way things are, to get bigger profit margins and sell more shares..."

    Make that "to get more money for their cocaine habits."

    I used to think that was a "base canard" but with time I've concluded that the fervor with which IFPI, RIAA, etc fight p2p can only be explained as that of addicts facing the threat of no more (or not as much) nose candy.

    Withdrawal symptoms, anyone?

  49. JimC
    Flame

    @Steve Roper...

    > which the RIAA shills and paid record/movie company astroturfers

    How on earth do you know... Maybe its just that creative people are finally getting fed up with the torrent of propaganda coming from those who have no talent and wish to rip off those that do... . There's plenty of drivel from both sides, as you so effectively demonstrate.

    I imagine you think I'm one of those shills, but have no connection with the music industry at all - these days I'm just a system admin. There was a time when part of my living came from music, so I have strong feelings that artists (of all kinds, writers and painters, photographers etc as well as music) should be paid, and that ripping them off is throughly immoral as well as illegal.

    The freetards are all depressingly consistent: it all comes down to "I can rip it off so I should be allowed to, and besides you can't stop me". If Pirate Bay and other parasites on the talent of others were sending 50% of their adevrtising revenue to music industry charities instead of keeping it all some of these pathetic sanctimonious arguments about the record companies not passing enough revenue to the artists might have some hazy moral case, bu I haven't heard of anything like that happening...

  50. Sean Bailey

    @AC

    'And don't give me the "torrents have legal uses" bullshit. We all know what torrents are used for, and we all know it's illegal.'

    Damn I never realised so many companies were breaking the law.

    BBC, Warner Bros, NRK, InHolland, Virgin Media (and formerly NTL), Blizzard, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, G4, Kadokawa Pictures, Lionsgate, 3D Realms, CBC, Amazon, Virtually every open source software house.

    That's just a tiny amount of the companies that either use or are rolling out a distribute by BT system. I guess the police will be knocking on their doors anytime soon to seize their servers.

    I know I shouldn't feed the trolls but I have to wonder when they stopped living under bridges and started living in their moms basement.

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Stephen Fry

    ...had the courage to stand up and his opinions public!

    I for one agree!

    Well done that man!

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    dos attack

    the next is due 36 hours from now

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Make Music, Not DDoS

    Rather than DDoSsing (how do you verb that abbreviation?) IFPI etc, it would make a lot more sense for activists to make their own music and flood the internet with it.

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    TCP/HTTP

    *quote*Actually, the DDOS is a TCP flood. anyone using HTTP is a newfag who doesn't know how to configure properly.*/quote*

    True. But have you been in that IRC room? The magority of them are using the http get to grab a image/pdf files from the servers. A TCP flood will only lag out the bandwith tho

  55. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @People

    re: "TPB are an indexing service/host legal stuff too, therefore not doing anything wrong" type comments:

    If TPB responded to requests to delist copyright material then they almost certainly wouldn't be going to prison. The operators of youtube (as the first example I can think of) would have been in the same position if they didn't takedown copyright material. It is the intent to list and refusal to deal with legitimate takedown requests which has got them into trouble. Google/MS/et al respond to takedown requests.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    only

    4 hours to the next attack

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just my opinion

    To some its like arguing who is breaking the law, the guy who grows the pot (uploaders), the one who sells it (trackers) or the one who smokes it (downloaders). They all conspire.Others argue if it should be law. Illegal is not the same as immoral (laws are often bought, which is immoral). Check out the reason that hemp became illegal.

    Some demand that only record manufacturers and Ticketmaster can take greedy advantage of performers. When cassette, and later cd players came out TPTB like Sony screamed and threatened the same thing. Back then they lost in court (fortunately for them Western government has since put a higher price on free speech) so they just joined the crowd providing the same service as Pirate Bay. They showed their moralist opinion of the issue when they began making cassette,CD, and later DVD recorders themselves.The only difference is whether you are required to push a rec button or a keyboard before you copy the material. What would Sony do if an entertainer sued them for providing a means to copy their independent music videos from the TV?

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