Music, movie lobbyists push to spy on your Net traffic

cnet news ^ | August 18, 2008 3:33 PM PDT | Posted by Declan McCullagh

[weegee]

ASPEN, Colo.--Recording industry and motion picture lobbyists are renewing their push to convince broadband providers to monitor customers and detect copyright infringements, claiming the concept is working abroad and should be adopted in the United States.

A representative of the recording industry said on Monday that her companies would prefer to enter into voluntary "partnerships" with Internet service providers, but pointedly noted that some governments are mandating such surveillance "if you don't work something out."

"Despite our best efforts, we can't do this alone," said Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. "We need the help of ISPs. They have the technical ability to manage the flow over their pipes...The good news is that we're beginning to see some of these solutions emerge, in particular in Europe and Asia." (IFPI is the Recording Industry Association of America's international affiliate.)

During a discussion at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's technology policy conference here, Perlmutter said one filtering solution would involve identifying particular files that are (or are not) permitted to be sent to particular destinations. That would be a "very tailored approach," she said.

The idea isn't exactly new: the Motion Picture Association of America said nearly a year ago that ISPs should police piracy, and one of its member companies asked federal regulators to make this a requirement. AT&T said in January that it's testing technology that would let it become a copyright network cop, and the MPAA subsequently suggested that piracy-prone users should have their accounts terminated because they're "hogging the bandwidth."

In a statement sent to CNET News on Monday, an AT&T spokesman said: "There is nothing inherently wrong with P2P applications, which are legal technologies that are used and welcomed on our network. We have consistently said that AT&T will not become an enforcement agent on the Internet, nor will we inhibit the ability of our customers to access any legal content they want."

Not one of multiple AT&T representatives we contacted responded to our followup question, which was: "Can you confirm that AT&T is not monitoring and has no plans to monitor its customers' traffic or other online activities to detect possible copyright infringements?"

(What's a little odd is that the conference organizers said they couldn't find any broadband provider representatives to participate in the panel discussion--even though Jeff Brueggeman, AT&T's vice president for regulatory planning and policy, was listed as attending the event, and executives from Comcast and Verizon were sitting, silently, in the audience.)

Also at the conference on Monday, IFPI's Perlmutter rattled off a list of countries that have taken at least some steps toward antipiracy filtering, through laws enacted by the legislature or other means: France, South Korea, New Zealand, Belgium, and Australia. In addition, Canada's copyright lobby has pushed for legally-mandated filtering.

In the U.S., she said, referring to broadband providers, "increasingly they will be partnering with us--they will be doing deals with us."

Michael O'Leary, a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America, said the relationship between content companies and broadband providers had become less adversarial than before and both sides had left the "us against them era" behind. (This was probably a reference to the political trench warfare that led Verizon to reject the RIAA's request to identify a subscriber and the fuss over one proposal in Congress to implant anticopying technology into consumer devices.)

O'Leary welcomed what he described as today's "multifaceted approach that involves working effectively with the ISPs and universities."

MovieLabs did conduct tests last year of about a dozen "digital fingerprinting" technologies from companies such as Gracenote, Vobile, and Audible Magic. Certain products worked well in some environments, like on user-generated Web sites and on university networks, MovieLabs' chief executive told us in January. But that's not the same as saying it'll work well for tens of millions of AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon subscribers.

Even if the content industry can sign deals with broadband providers, there are still a slew of unanswered questions--including ones about customers' privacy and how filtering will work in practice. Will piratical transfers be automatically interrupted? Or just slowed? Will piracy-prone users merely find--this is what the IFPI suggests--their accounts suspended? How to detect whether content is licensed, or protected by fair use rights, which vary based on the situation? What if the transfer is encrypted?

Looking ahead a few years from now, the content industry may not be satisfied with voluntary agreements. Let's say that AT&T and some of its larger rivals start to filter pirated material and demonstrate (at least to a first approximation) that it's possible, but one ISP does not. Look for the RIAA and MPAA and their political allies to ask Congress for a law that would transform theretofore "voluntary" agreements into mandatory ones.

CNET News reporter Marguerite Reardon contributed to this report

[rabscuttle385]

**AA gone wild ping.

[snarks_when_bored]

Music, movie lobbyists push to spy on your Net traffic

So the music and movie industries are seeking access to all internet data flow in order to protect their obsolete business models. These guys didn't invent chutzpah, but they're close to cornering the market on it.

[the anti-liberal]

These people must love China and other communist nations.

[Herakles]

I have a neat way to mess with the recording industry; I have a music free environment! Don't buy their stuff! It also gives me money to buy other things, like vacations.

When everyone learns that silence is golden, these people will be on their backs making a living the way God intended them too.

[swain_forkbeard]

Yeah, but I LIKE to listen to music. So I have a good solution too, I think.

I buy used CDs and rip them to a lossless format(flac). Use my PC as a juke box. Very convenient. I could even choose to resell the CDs. I don’t do that because I like having the artifact. But I could.

For live music, there are many bands that authorize free distribution of their live shows. Check it out at the Internet Archives. Great site. Some recordings are good, others are not so good.

Occasionally, I’ll buy a brand new CD or a live show download directly from the artist, if I want to support him or her.

I listen to alot of music, and the record companies get NOTHING from me.

[weegee]

I wonder if some of it is also to “screen” internet traffic to determine what is “popular”. If there is one thing that Big Media always wants to know is, “who has the highest ratings”?

They don’t always want to look at that business model and REPEAT it. Sometimes they just want to do whatever is necessary to take it down.

And Hollywood (MPAA, RIAA, et al) lobbying efforts have BIG power in DC.

If they did not keep retroactively extending copyright expirations, they would’ve been bankrupt from bad business decisions long ago.

Note the discussion of blocking certain content in certain nations. Europe may go ahead and let copyrights lapse after 50 years. Can’t have American consumers getting free downloads of public domain works from another country (like England or Germany).

[bamahead]

Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.

[DJ MacWoW]

You can’t listen in on terrorists conversations but it’s ok to track internet use.

[weegee]

Waiting for Sean Penn and others to speak out against this intrusion by the fourth branch of government.

[DJ MacWoW]

Only if they do enough drugs but they’ll recant when it wears off.

[The Great RJ]

The RIAA and MPAA are idiots as giving the market more ways to see and hear their products in formats the market wants will improve their business not dampen it. The proliferation of new hand held devices that allow you to watch downloaded movies and TV programs as well as listen to music should be embraced by these industries. If you can legally download music in a quality format for 99 cents per song or less there is far less incentive to look for music on PTP networks where the quality of the recording may be wanting and the possibility of filling your computer with malware and viruses is very real.

[NonValueAdded]

Of course they’ll apply for a warrant with the FISA court first, right?

[fr_freak]

I have a neat way to mess with the recording industry; I have a music free environment! Don't buy their stuff! It also gives me money to buy other things, like vacations.

Better yet, learn to play your own music. A one-time investment of a couple hundred dollars on, say, a guitar, can lead to a lifetime of musical enjoyment without having to feed the lefties in the entertainment industry. Plus, I'm convinced that it makes you smarter.

[ShadowAce]

[JerseyHighlander]

This needs to be stopped dead before a casual user friendly I2P client gains popularity. For national security reasons.

IF I2P with key encryption becomes widespread, g-d help the sections of the legitimate Federal investigative units fighting real crime, crime that kills people not just profit margins.

[JerseyHighlander]

The RIAA used mobster tactics to deny the secondary market for resold CDs, and were sued under RICO statutes to stop their blackmailing of stores that sold 2nd hand CD’s.

IMRA vs RIAA and Sony

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:YHvtzyg3te4J:www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1993-06-30/music/used-cds-on-the-hit-list/2+imra+kulak+vs+sony&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-a

[Caramelgal]

When Napster file sharing first came out (when it was free) a friend of mine turned me on to it.

I didn’t download a lot of songs because for one thing, I did want to fill up my hard drive or risk getting an infected file and for another, I did understand that it wasn’t exactly legal and that artists and their recording companies are in business to make money should rightly be compensated for their time and effort and their product if I think it’s good enough to buy.

On the other hand what Napster did for me was to rekindle my interest in music both old and new. Sometimes I’d download an old song I hadn’t heard since HS or something I used to have on 8-track. Sometimes I hear it and say “ugg, that was terrible, I had really bad taste back then” and sometimes I’d say “gosh that was good then and still is” and I’d go out and buy the CD if it had been reissued on CD.

There were also times I’d hear a song by a new artist or an artist new to me on the radio and I’d check Napster to see if it was a fluke or if I liked their other stuff and if I did, I’d go out and buy the CD. Sometimes I’d venture into musical styles other than rock or pop that I wasn’t that familiar with; Jazz, Latin Jazz, World, Reggae, Indie bands (even some County) and added some of those into my CD collection that I might not have otherwise.

I’ve blindly bought a CD because I liked the one song I had heard only to learn that the rest of the songs were complete “doo doo”. On the other hand I’ve bought CD’s and a song, one that never gets played on the radio, ends up being my favorite.

The end result was that I ended up buying more CD’s in the one year I was illegally downloading shared files from Napster for free than I had in probably in the preceding 5 years or more.

You Tube has had a similar effect for me. I’ve bought quite a few CD’s in the last couple of years because I’ve heard a song on the radio then checked You Tube for songs by the same artist and liking them, have purchased the CD.

I’ve also learned about or rediscovered some really great music because of FR:

The Weekend You Tube Music video Thread

[Caramelgal]

Thought you might be interested in this thread ping.