Piracy fight gets serious

Scruff

Just saw this article on my way out the door form work so i'll post it in full and leave the floor open for discussion

(Taken from BBC Sci\Tech )

Record makers could win the right to carry out hack attacks on music sharing services if a US proposal becomes law.
Californian congressman Howard Berman has drawn up a bill that would legalise the disruption of peer-to-peer networks by companies who are trying to stop people pirating copyrighted materials.

If his idea becomes law, record companies will be able to carry out a variety of attacks on the sharing services to make them unusable or so irritating to use that people abandon them.

Existing legislation makes it an offence for anyone to carry out many of the attacks mooted in the proposal.

Better blockers

So far, music companies have used legal action to stop people spreading pirated pop through net-based peer-to-peer networks, such as Napster, Kazaa and Audiogalaxy.

Their attempts have largely been successful.

Napster has declared itself bankrupt and is trying to relaunch itself as a subscription service; Kazaa has run out of money to pay its mounting legal bills; and Audiogalaxy has agreed to remove copyrighted material from its network that it does not have permission to share.

However, legal action can take a long time to work and now Howard Berman, a democrat congressman for California, has proposed legislation that will let music makers act much more quickly.

Spoof tracks

His proposal would let the record makers carry out hacking-type attacks on sharing networks to protect copyrighted works.

If it became law, record companies would win the right to place spoof tracks on sharing services, block downloads, redirect people to non-existent files and launch attacks that disrupt the smooth running of the networks.

Some record labels have already been known to seed some networks with spoof tracks or adverts to try to stop people getting hold of music they have not paid for.

The law would also allow the record companies to place programs on the machines of peer-to-peer networks to let them trace who is pirating pop.

AudioGalaxy already gone...coupled with lawsuit is this the end of the likes of Morpheus and Kazaa??
:eek:

Hobbes

Record makers could win the right to carry out hack attacks on music sharing services if a US proposal becomes law.

Btw, although not wildly known until after the fact. The RIAA did actually get passed into law the right to hack into other peoples servers and delete files they believed where copyrighted music.

When the USA passed the PATRIOT act it made their previous bill illegal and the RIAA was quite upset I believe.

ykt0di9url7bc3

the public wants free music, if they brought it all back out on vynl we'd still get it out on the net somehow, through special offers on disks like copyrighted video on cds then maybe the hardcore fans will buy the cd, but in saying that, the last time i saw cribs on mtv, ffs can they put their money in proper solutions to piracy, instaed of giveing ja rhule another garage of top end motors