Senate Majority Leader Takes On File Sharing

An anonymous reader writes "Colleges are up in arms — and the entertainment industry is ecstatic — over Sen. Harry Reid's plan to crack down on file sharing by students. Floor votes could be imminent." A commenter on the post said, "Unfortunately we are likely to see neither sense nor principle from the Democrats on this issue, as Hollywood is their biggest cash machine."

Corporate political sponsorship

[The One and Only]

So now it's come to this--the Hollywood Perpetual Copyright Party vs. the Petroleum Industry Party. Except the Petroleum Industry Party also wants perpetual copyrights for Hollywood, both parties want to prop up the farm industry, and for all we know, the Hollywood Perpetual Copyright Party will end up helping out the oil industry as an added bonus (or a bone-us to the common people).

Unsure

[Stevecrox]

I'm from the UK the place with a far less insane record industry but I'm not certain how Universitys think this is unfair. I've just finished a 3 year course at University of Plymouth in order to connect to the network you had to go through a VPN which only allowed HTTP and FTP access. We had a extremely fast network I remember downloading Ubunutu at 1MB/s as well as Myst Online at 1.3MB/s. I could check my email, manage a domain I own and could view every website on the internet without issue including sites like http://www.stage6.com/ [stage6.com] , http://www.youtube.com/ [youtube.com] and at various times I saw other students looking at xxx sites. I did get HL2: Deathmatch and Myst Online working (intially the later required a blocked port) but bittyrant or limewire didn't work.

I can understand that bittyrant does help spread the load of linux distributions but I don't understand why other university's and colleges can't implement this as well. How does it hurt people? I don't know why people are fighting so hard. The university's policy did not stop me from learning nor did it stop me from playing (if I had lived in halls) it just stopped activities which either used high amounts of bandwidth or could land the univeristy in legal trouble.

Then again with iPods, portable usb drives and the messenger share folders most students could share music/video if they wanted to and I did see people moving to these methods in my final year.

Re:Yeah, so I suppose ...

[Swampash]

Here is a story.

It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Congress. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.

Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.

All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.

Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said:"The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.

You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.

With apologies to Clare Gillis [saskndp.com].

When the Democrats swept into power in Congress I listened to all the liberal commentators talking about how it was Good News and how Things Would Be Different Now and how the Bad Guys were out and the Good Guys were in. And I shook my head and thought of Mouseland.

That thing about Hollywood is strictly horseshit

[Get Behind the Mule]

"Hollywood is the main source of cash for Democrats" is just another legend in the rich and bizarre mythology of conservatism, and as such it is typically puerile and easily refuted.

Opensecrets [opensecrets.org] reports that the top industries donating to the DNC [opensecrets.org], based on contributions from PACs, Levin money donors, and individuals who self-identify their employer, are:

1. Retired ($7,389,597)

2. Lawyers/Law Firms ($3,250,708)

3. Securities & Investment ($2,301,530)

4. Real Estate ($1,570,877)

5. Education ($1,429,546)

6. Misc Finance ($1,176,402)

7. Business Services ($1,108,889)

8. Health Professionals ($1,044,045)

9. TV/Movies/Music ($1,042,810)

Thus the "industry" making the largest contributions to the DNC are retired individuals, contributing over $7 million to a total of about $37 million. The entertainment industry, which is presumably what the myth-entranced poster meant by "Hollywood", comes in 9th place with just about one measly million.

For the DCCC, which is responsible for elections in the House, it breaks down like this [opensecrets.org]:

1. Candidate Committees ($28,987,184)

2. Retired ($6,473,164)

3. Securities & Investment ($5,237,572)

4. Lawyers/Law Firms ($4,730,490)

5. Real Estate ($2,846,870)

6. TV/Movies/Music ($2,299,387)

So the top contributors to the general DCCC funds are, by far, the individual campaign committees (who of course must get their own contributors). "Hollywood" comes in sixth place with about $2 million out of a total of over $80 million.

For the DSCC, responsible for Senate campaigns, the picture is about exactly the same [opensecrets.org] as for the DCCC:

1. Candidate Committees ($10,312,550)

2. Lawyers/Law Firms ($9,989,631)

3. Securities & Investment ($7,938,319)

4. Retired ($6,967,505)

5. Real Estate ($4,864,610)

6. Misc Finance ($2,585,026)

7. TV/Movies/Music ($2,286,687)

This time, "Hollywood" comes in 7th place, again with about $2 million out of over $80 million.

However we much we may dislike what Harry Reid is doing, the claim about "Hollywood" and the Democrats is load of peanut butter. We need to get these reality-challenged conservative canards out of our public discussion; they certainly have no business of the front page of Slashdot.

GREAT!!!! Now is the time for us to....

[Anonymous Coward]

prepare all our DOS and civil disobedience techniques.

Colleges require information to flow as freely as possible, so they depend on a fair amount of corner-cutting. No one really waits to get approval or check the copyright position before downloading something from the Wiki, for instance. If they were forced to, a college could not function.

So we need to spam the most righteous Bible Colleges with spurious DMCA takedown notices, and claim obscure copyright privileges over any communication we have with them.

Perhaps we could find encrypted streams passing between government buildings, and 'fake whistle-blow' to the RIAA that films are being passed on these links. Send copyrighted data to prominent supporters of the bill without the copyright message, and then get their systems turned over....

The possibilities are endless!!

Downloading on roommates port

[nukem996]

Last year when I was at college I had a room mate that downloaded 24/7. He got kicked off the Ethernet connection and just continued to use the wireless to download(he had a laptop). I know many people who would steal there room mates connection when something like that happened while there not home. Its impossible to guard against this and the university's policy said that it is your responsibility on what happened to that port. Many people would do it behind there room mates back or just ignore them when they told them to stop. My neighbor even requested a room mate change because of this but the university said it wasn't a significant reason and denied him. But still what happens if the RIAA/MPAA sues some poor kid who has never downloaded and who's room mate was just using the port? They have two options, get flooded with legal fees and maybe if there lucky successfully sue the RIAA/MPAA for legal fees or pay the fine for something they didn't do. If there going to crack down on this there going to have 2 have locks with Ethernet ports. They have no way of knowing whois computer was on that port. And if your going to ask just look up the MAC you can spoof a MAC if you are downloading to someone elses and poof it wasn't you stealing the port, who was it?

Re:that's incrediby retarded

[Mr2001]

What, voting for a third party is somehow going to help? They're just a different color of cat.

The problem is with the system: Duverger's law [wikipedia.org]. We have a two-party system because our voting method pushes us in that direction, and once you're down to two parties, it doesn't really matter who they are. They'll be subject to all the same influences as the Republicans and Democrats are now, because they'll be the only ones in power. An interest group that wants a favor will donate to the majority party; a group that's been slighted by the current government will donate to the opposition. It'll be the same thing we have now, with different letters after the names on TV.

If you really want to do something smart, do two things:

• Figure out which major party you like more (or hate less), join it, and work from within to change it into the kind of party that represents you. This is how you effect change in the short term.
  
• Push for a new voting method. Approval voting, instant runoff, proportional representation... they're all better than what we have now. This is how you effect change in the long term, with an election structure that makes it easy for more than two parties to thrive.
  

Re:No way to combat filesharing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they could simply copy what the University of Florida has done with DHNet's [ufl.edu] system called ICARUS [freeculture.org].

Basically, a student is required to register the MAC Address of his devices with the system and tie it to your student ID. If something is not in their database then it isn't allowed on the network.

Then, port scanners run constantly checking for open ports on people's machines and any outbound traffic that does not appear to be a few specific protocols is noted.

If "unauthorized" traffic is found, it automatically involves a strike, cutting off all internet access outside of the UF website. If this happens three times, students are cut off entirely. This system works. The risks are to great for 99% of students to attempt to break the system so its flaws are extremely hard to find.

Anyway, that's just my experience with how a school network actually can block all P2P traffic effectively.

Disruptive technology for P2P deployment

[Anonymous Coward]

We are not far away from the next generation of P2P. It will be untraceable and unstoppable. No ISP required. It will work better for illegal sharing than legitimate sharing. Every time the congressional morons think they are eliminating P2P, they are simply interfering with the "visible" P2P world. Wait until they discover stealth P2P! I would say more about it and perhaps advocate its development and deployment, but the timing is not quite right. Steath P2P is a WMD (weapon of mass distribution) as far as the copyright industry is concerned. I'm not so sure about the ethics of doing this. But if Congress interferes with my rights to legitimate P2P transfers, the gloves come off.

Re:No way to combat filesharing

[jambarama]

I thought encryption was the answer too. It isn't. Encryption will make it so ISPs can't tell the difference between legit P2P and illegitimate P2P. ISPs will, even with encryption, be able to tell what traffic is normal amazon/gmail SSL, and what is bittorrent, eMule or whatever. If P2P is made illegal, even for good uses, encryption won't help because ISPs will just be able to block all of it.

The packet filters and traffic shapers ISPs have are more and more capable--I was a student at a university that blocked all P2P traffic, including bittorrent. I was trying to get an Ubuntu VMWare image to test out the new version before upgrading. Nothing worked, on a torrent with 1000+ seeds, no client would be able to make connections for more than a second or two, and most bittorrent clients couldn't make any connections at all. I tried Azureus with encryption, uTorrent with encryption, Ktorrent, and Rtorrent. And this was a few years ago.

As much as I wish there was a technical workaround to political ineptitude in this matter, there isn't. Encryption won't hide P2P traffic, it just hides the content of the traffic. Politicians don't even have to ban P2P, if ISPs are held accountable, or harsher penalties, or more strict enforcement ensues, ISPs won't be able to afford misses and they'll just have to block P2P traffic, encrypted or not.

Wait a minute

[sheldon]

Didn't the Democrats put 200,000 Japanese citizens in concentration camps during World War II?

Didn't Michelle Malkin write a book about how the concentration camps were a good thing? By golly, yes she did. [regnery.com] Title is "In Defense of Internment".

So one of the annointed few who is allowed to speak on behalf of the Republican party is running around the airwaves defending the japanese internment... Whereas the Democrats apologize for it whenever it's brought up.

It's examples like this which lead people to the conclusion that the Democratic party is the one with moral superiority.

It's one thing for abuse to occur, but it's quite another to defend abuse.

Re:that's incrediby retarded

[vertinox]

What, voting for a third party is somehow going to help? They're just a different color of cat.

Speaking of which. If you care enough about politics.... Register Republican and vote Ron Paul in the republican primary.

He's the only politician that isn't a cat. He's voted no on everything from the Patriot Act, to the Iraq war, and from little things like giving government grants.

Now to be fair, he may not be the world's most brightest when it comes to technology, but many feel for the sure fact that he believes that the federal government should not interfere with economics beyond the letter of the constitution and the fact he wants to get rid of the department of education and get it into the hands of the local governments again would make this issue a moot point.

If you don't know who Ron Paul is... Look him up on Youtube. He was on the Daily Show.

What ever happened to the library?

[foniksonik]

Isn't the whole point of a library to provide access to media for students interested in various topics who wouldn't be able to afford purchasing their own copies?

Some school needs to get innovative and start up their own online media library which takes advantage of the super fast connections most campuses have and stream the media. They've tried partnering with commercial vendors but that doesn't seem to work as well as they'd hoped.

The music industry and movie industry and whomever else should be giving students access to as much music as they want.... they're only there for 4-5 years on average and after they graduate they are going to want to have the same type of access... but will have jobs and bank accounts to pay for it. Right now all they are doing is training them on how to use P2P and avoid getting caught.

Maybe they should limit internet access bandwidth to web and email ports but provide campusNet access to media servers with very fast connections. Make it really easy for students to access the legal stuff... then they'll only have to deal with the small minority who want to download *alternative* content. Even better, you could let students manage the content and create Channels. Let them create proposals for various formats and apply for budgets to buy the media for distribution to the rest of the campus. This would make the students appreciate the economics and would give them ownership which they will then defend against *pirates*.

Add to this and license Facebook servers and let students hook up their profiles with various channels, etc and build their cultural profile and talk about the latest whatever.

The difference

[grahamsz]

As a graduate of Edinburgh, the clear difference from the US is that transatlantic bandwidth is expensive. The university doesn't want you pulling terabytes from the state because it's damn expensive. I am under the impression that most US universities are so ingrained in the internet backbone that they have excess bandwidth and don't have to protect it.

I found edinburgh didn't care too much about what you did so long as you stayed on JaNET, where they had 20Gb/s of bandwidth. You'd frequently find that your 100mbit ethernet connection or hard drive were the bottleneck on how fast you could share files. Of course most students were busy trying to run Napster or kazaa and leeching files across the atlantic :(

Free Media Downloads

[Vegeta99]

In the article they mention schools giving away free or cheap media downloads.

I go to Penn State. Well, this is good and all - our school used to give away free Napster downloads and now have moved to Ruckus. Well guess what? Every May, after finals, Napster disables your access to your downloads. You can't even stream anymore after the school year ends. And now that they've terminated their contract with Napster, the downloads do nothing at all. Not only that, but good luck getting those downloads to work in anything but Windows Media Player! My MP3s work on anything, including the reason most of it is digitized - to run on my XBox set-top box running XBMC.

So, at least Penn State isn't giving away free or discounted music downloads, they're giving free music rentals. Sorry, but getting a cable modem and using BitTorrent is, and probably always will be more convenient. Sorry, RIAA, you're still fucked.

Re:No way to combat filesharing

[RexRhino]

What you innocuously refer to as "information sharing" ignores the threat that file sharing represents to these industries: why would people pay for music/movies/games/software if they can easily and without risk get them for free?

OK, here is one:

Because it is cheaper (time is money), quicker, easier to pay for it? It is a pain in the ass to look for movies, music, and games pirated online. It can take days to download an obscure movie using bitorrent, and even worse via p2p. Also, there is always a danger if you aren't downloading from a trusted source. Perhaps teenagers have more time than money, but for adults, if the media is priced competitively and it isn't crippled with DRM, it is just easier and simpler to pay.

The big problem is that media companies want to charge the same amount for a digital download as a CD or DVD, and they want to cripple it with DRM. They don't understand that the new media model will be on selling lots of diverse media for very very cheap, instead of selling a few over-hyped pieces of media for high prices.

Re:No way to combat filesharing

[RexRhino]

I especially think there's no market anymore for smaller, more abstract games.

Don't tell that to Popcap!!! They make lots of money on smaller, more abstract games... and many they give away for free and they still sell! And don't tell it to Microsoft, as the only profitable part of their console buisness is Xbox Live Arcade (a download service for smaller, more abstract games).

This is Not Flamebait

[photomonkey]

So let me get this straight. The savior party that promised to end the war in Iraq, fix the clusterfuck that is healthcare, stop the overreaching civil-rights grab at the hands of the Republicans are now so *busy* doing all those things that they have time to worry about protecting the mafIAA?

All I've seen come out of the Hill recently has been meaningless resolutions, pointless infighting and a lot of hot air.

I'm all in favor of recalling every fucking one of them and putting a big dent in the problem by passing a term-limit bill on ALL elected and appointed government officials. I mean, fuck it. If they weren't so worried about having a career in politics, they would focus more on doing the right thing for the good of the people. And the bad ones would probably get out of the game forever.

The goddamned democrats these days are every bit as worthless as the republicans.