OINK Probs???

Approximately 175,000 of the 180,000 members were industry people.

i'm sure the real stats on industry people on oink would blow some minds.

I can't believe Usenet has never been seriously policed by The Man. It's been the home of free shit for a decade or more, and honestly, it seems as good as ever.

I can't believe people don't know what Usenet is.

The Man and all his fuckwitted lackeys are way too dense to get their heads round binaries.

mind, i've not been anywhere near usenet for years now.

anyone have an invite to usenet ;)

alt.confused.googlers.IRE

Anti file-sharing laws considered

I'm confused by a couple of quotes:

While he said that the government had no interest in "hounding 14-year-olds who shared music", it was intent on tracking down those who made multiple copies for profit.

so they'll be tracking down... no one? "Multiple copies for profit"?

"Where people have registered music as an intellectual property I believe we will be able to match data banks of that music to music going out and being exchanged on the net"

And, what? I can't even begin to guess a meaning for that. Is there a single vague notion about what file-sharing involves amongst people of authority?

I can't believe Usenet has never been seriously policed by The Man.

I believe my ISP doesn't carry binaries groups anymore after being threatened by exactly That Man a couple of years ago - but when they did their retention rates were so crappy it wasn't very useful anyway.

God, all this talk of usenet brings back memories... ("http? It'll never catch on, it's just souped-up ftp with pictures!")

Approximately 175,000 of the 180,000 members were industry people.

This spirit of this is true - It's always really funny to hear the Brave Filesharers of Today imagining that every last label employee wasn't on OiNK. Because in fact they all were.

I can't believe Usenet has never been seriously policed by The Man. It's been the home of free shit for a decade or more, and honestly, it seems as good as ever.

It makes this news story even more hilarious than ever...

RIAA Sues Usenet, Decries it as 'Brazen Outlaw'
By David Kravets 10.16.07 | 4:00 PM

The Recording Industry Association of America's litigation strategy is taking a detour into the internet's Precambrian layer, suing a company that distributes the ancient decentralized message board known as Usenet.

Fargo, North Dakota-based Usenet.com is the target of the lawsuit (.pdf) filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in which 14 recording companies allege the service "enables and encourages its customers to reproduce and distribute millions of infringing copies of Plaintiff's valuable copyrighted sound recordings."

The suit, filed Friday, is something of a throwback in the RIAA's recent litigation strategy. It targets an alleged facilitator of copyright theft instead of an individual pirate.

"They started by going after Napster, Aimster, Grokster, and after that they said, 'We're gonna go after individuals to see if we (can) get into the psyche of people that peer-to-peer file sharing is wrong,'" says Washington, D.C.-based copyright attorney Ross Dannenberg. "Now it has come full circle. Throughout this cycle, (Usenet) newsgroups have been ignored."

In the past four years, the RIAA has sued more than 20,000 people on allegations of copyright infringement. Two weeks ago, the association won a $222,000 judgment in the first such case to go to trial.

But Usenet's decentralized architecture means RIAA gumshoes can't easily trace uploaders, as they can on peer-to-peer services like Kazaa. That may have prompted the RIAA to focus on feed provider Usenet.com, which boasts about the anonymity it provides users.

"Shh ... quiet! We believe it’s no one’s business but your own what you do on the internet or in Usenet! We don’t log your activity. We don’t track your downloads," the company says on its website. It also offers an encrypted tunneling service, for an additional fee, to frustrate any efforts by ISPs or corporate network administrators to police downloads.

The Usenet network is a global, distributed message-board network that was created in the pre-internet days, when it relied on dialup modems for distribution. Now it's carried over the internet. Usenet.com redistributes the full Usenet feed for a subscription fee.

Usenet.com did not immediately return messages for comment.

RIAA goon #1: I hear there's copyright violation on Usenet! OMGWTF
RIAA goon #2: Usenet? Is that a dot com or a dot net?
RIAA goon #1: Just sue whatever comes up

I believe my ISP doesn't carry binaries groups anymore after being threatened by exactly That Man a couple of years ago - but when they did their retention rates were so crappy it wasn't very useful anyway.

All the more reason to spend a couple bucks on dedicated usenet service. ISP usenet almost always blows.

Has an actual economist ever written an article on this issue?

^

The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales An Empirical Analysis

sort of? there have been a handful like that

I'm not really wondering about the effect on record sales so much as an analysis of consumer behavior. Has there ever been in instance where a business sustained itself because its customers were nice people who liked to give money to support the product, not because giving money actually got them something extra? Or a commodity whose scarcity was maintained only through the threat of lawsuits?

Shareware

I'd like to see some nutbar group of nutbars try to prosecute usenet for archiving newsgroup posts for 40 years. Next is house raids for blank CDs.

In the past four years, the RIAA has sued more than 20,000 people

That figure is staggering. What the hell is their plan here, exactly? That from now on major labels have to figure legal carpet bombing of their customers into their business model?

Business model? None of that money they get from those lawsuits goes to artists, I'm not sure if it goes to the labels either.

Record industry pushes ISPs to cut off file sharers

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/25/triesman_isps_music/

and one of the comments:

A couple of things I'd like...
By Anonymous Coward
Posted Thursday 25th October 2007 12:00 GMT

from the record industry...

1) SELL ME THE MUSIC I'M ALREADY WILLING TO PAY FOR

My vinyl collection is on its last legs and YOU have the masters, I just have a knackered Rega Planar 3. YOU have already issued most of the stuff I want on CD, so YOU have already done the necessary work. SO EFFING SELL ME IT, rather than telling me it's "out of print" FFS. If I want to buy a not very obscure 25 year old LP (e.g. Doobie Bros), WHY WON'T YOU SELL ME IT?

YOU, MR RECORD INDUSTRY, are **forcing** me to go the "illegal" route. DO NOT FORCE ME TO GO DOWN A ROUTE YOU TELL OTHERS NOT TO USE. SELL ME MUSIC I AM WILLING TO PAY FOR.

2) DRM benefiting the PUNTER as well as the Pigopolist

If you insist on using DRM, you could at least try to implement some kind of benefit to the punter rather than today's purely one-sided DRM. Have your DRM incorporate some kind of "owner-specific" features so that the paid-for content plays anywhere the user knows the (traceable) user-specific key. More specifically, make it *not* play anywhere other than places I want it to, e.g. if some lowlife nicks my (paid for) music collection, I want it to be useless.

YOU, THE RECORD INDUSTRY, ARE THE ARCHITECTS OF YOUR OWN FUTURE, BUT TODAY YOU ARE ARCHITECTING YOUR OWN DOWNFALL.

There, that feels better, even though it'll do no good. Sorry if it disturbs you. Is there anything else to report from InTheCity yet?

Uh, Amazon.co.uk shows the Doobie Brothers' catalog in print, ah, Mr. Coward.

two interesting pieces

IFPI makes OiNK squeal: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i322308809550e01b9e968080a7f5fac0

Myths and facts of OiNK's takedown: http://www.slyck.com/story1608_Myths_and_Facts_of_OiNKs_Takedown

So the issue they're most concerned about is prerelease music and this is the only solution they can come up with?

http://www.libble.com/ bravely taking up the cause/trying to mark themselves out as early contenders to the vacated throne?

Stupid. The end of OiNK is much more than just the end of one site. What comes next (if anything - it doesn't have to happen, dear music industry. Really! It's going to take a pretty jump in logic to adjust to the changed reality, but you'll have to do it in the end - preferably before the end, because music fans don't want you to die, they want you to be with them and not against them) will not be an Oink clone, but something completely different.

i don't know that you can elevate OiNK to being the beginning and the end of music torrents trackers. the first wave of torrent sites were being shut down when OiNK started, so why shouldn't this just be another phase in the cycle?

will not be an Oink clone, but something completely different.

Where's the new less-incriminating software supporting this drastic change?

when they go for 5l5k then we can worry (and i think users of that are probably less traceable)

Well, 'they' have already tried that in the past: http://torrentfreak.com/mediadefender-emails-leaked-070915/

So it's probable they're still checking out 5l5k.

(search for 5l5k on the page I linked, spelled correctly)

That mediadefender stuff is really interesting, privatized entrapment and privatized soldiers. If you build it, they will come is now if there's a loophole, we will exploit it.

Yeah I know. I was quite baffled when I first read it. This is turning into a whole new 'battle', with the privatisation (private bureaus setting up fake sites, leaking fake torrents, actively trying to bring you to the honeypot) you described.
But somehwat assuring to file-sharers should be that this is a prime example of sheer amateurism. Question is how long it will stay that way.

Ever since the internet and broadband have become so popular:

- releasing movies months apart in different parts of the world,
- releasing dvds months apart in different parts of the world,
- sending out promo copies of cds before the actual release date,
- showing tv series months apart in different parts of the world,
- (...)

= ASKING FOR TROUBLE.

(I hesitated about using the word entrapment.)

If people read discussions about something they're not allowed to see/hear for months because it's not out (in their part of the world) yet and they can't buy it (other region code, for instance), expecting them to wait is maybe just a tiny bit sadistic.

Instead of being glad that people like what you produce and trying to find a way to release/broadcast stuff to your fans/viewers/listeners worldwide at the same time (people would pay to see Lost online at the same time as the series is broadcast in the US, but they don't have the chance to do so. People would pay to get a download copy of a promo they're going to buy physically later on (say, buy the promo mp3s and then just buy the booklet later, or the physical cd at a lower price because they already paid for the promo). People would pay, but they have to wait. While the internet exists. Sadism, I tells ya.

I know, it's not possible to release every movie and tv show worldwide at the same time. TV channels who buy the rights wouldn't pay as much if you've streamed the shows online worldwide earlier - but you would have made money from those streams too! - just brainstorming, trying to show that nothing HAS to be the way it is. Get rid of that first week sales doctrine, THINK about how you can make money from promo cds? Only make promos that have half of every track? I don't know, I don't work in the industry, I'm just typing this and coming up with alternatives that nobody is even considering because they're too busy playing cops & criminals all the time, as if we were still in the pre-internet era.

Note: illegally downloading material that IS commercially available locally, that IS on their local TV, that IS for sale at a reasonable price (and not "there's only this double disc version that costs double of what the single disc you were asking for"), that's the stuff that should be considered evil copyright crime. But everything I read gives the impression that they're going after prerelease material most of all and trading stuff that's in the shops isn't their priority. THIS is why record stores are closing all over: their business isn't the industry's priority.

I've already tried something like this on the Mickey thread. I'm not getting my hopes up. Sigh.

nothing beats free

Pay for the stuff you download then. That way, you're going to remain free.

that's the stuff that should be considered evil copyright crime

wah wah wah

Bah. Pearls before swine (oink!), why am I bothering?

lol as far as i know no one has yet been imprisoned for downloading. i like yr slogan sense tho ;)

x-post
If your over-used, trite arguments are the pearls in your collection... ah, nevermind

why are we all bothering when american gangster just leaked?

i mean get to dling people ffs

If selling movies, music, and other consumables on a per-item basis is to be profitable, then the process to get those things by paying should be just as easy as the illegal ways.

I'd imagine it's the case for a handful of people, but I admittedly used oink in addition to buying albums on bleep, beatport, iTunes (the newer, higher quality stuff), having a monthly emusic subscription, and having bought a couple season passes for television shows on iTunes. I also attended two concert festivals this summer and regularly drive out of state to see musicians perform. Maybe I'm some crazy outlier in the market, but I would like to think no artists are lacking because of my actions.

Oh yeah, and about a third of my oink usage was me downloading albums that I either own on cd but was too lazy to find the album in the other room and rip it, or grabbing mp3s of something I own on vinyl.

Note that in the former case, downloading it took less time and effort than doing it myself.

From the Billboard article:

the real fallout, the IFPI warns, will be felt when the trade body scrutinizes data on the site's estimated 180,000 users, who paid "donations" to access the service.