Gridlock and CWOTMAM
p2pnet.net News Opinion:- Late last week, the international mainstream print and electronic media enjoyed another feeding frenzy, thanks once again to the US Department of Justice and its latest cyber-raid, Operation Web Snare.
However, ‘Snare’ was preceeded by the DoJ’s Operation Digital Gridlock which, although it focused only on one small website with a scant few hundred members, generated far more coverage.
Sooner or later it’ll become obvious that Gridlock would have been better named CWOTMAM (Complete Waste Of Time, Money And Manpower) – unless you suspect it to have been a PR exercise, in which case it succeeded brilliantly, religiously following the line the justice department wants Jane and John Doe – and you – to believe >>>
>>> That the Net is riddled with evil file sharers out to rob those innocent, well-meaning multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry folks of what’s rightfully theirs.
Under CWOTMAM, the FBI, the Office of the US Attorney for the District of Columbia and the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section jumped the Underground Network, trumpeting:
“This is the first federal law enforcement action against criminal copyright infringement using peer-to-peer networks and shows that we are committed to combating piracy, regardless of the medium used to commit these illegal acts.”
Then came details of raids on five private homes in Texas, New York, and Wisconsin, and against one ISP.
The case is continuing and we’ll tell the whole story – the real story – when it’s all over.
Wild goose chase
For now, Underground Network‘s GuidoZ told p2pnet, “We’re just regular people with jobs and families and homes, just like everyone else.
“We’re not criminals.”
“It’s unfortunate for everyone that the Federal Govenment decided to do this. It just seems like a waste of man power – a wild goose chase. If users were found sharing things they shouldn’t have been sharing, then the DoJ should be going after THEM! That’s the way we’ve always handled it.
“If we find a user sharing something illegal, we ban them instantly.
“Underground Network is a community, not a network. It’s just a forum … just like all the other hundreds of thousands out there.
“This is an ordeal for us and, obviously, I hope it works out fairly for all those involved.”
GuidoZ posted several comments here. Check them out.
As he says in one of them: “It is time to fight. I’ve seen the news when p2p users have been charged/sued, then pay a fine and slowly creep away limping. That’s not the way to do it. If you have done nothing wrong, then FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS. That’s what it’s all about folks. That’s what we’re preparing to do.
“The Underground Network will live on. The forums will still be there like they always have. (After all, that’s the only thing available to ‘join’ when you talk about the network.) I’m sure there will still be hubs with our name on them. (Hell, we usually find hubs with our name on them even when we know nothing about them.)
“We may not win in the press. Doesn’t matter in the long run – we WILL win in court and that’s where it counts. I’ve read the affidavits that were used to obtain the search warrants. Horrid lies, deception, and misconstrued ‘facts’ as I stated before. I cannot possibly see how it will hold up in court. Of course they had truth in them here and there, but I don’t see how they would of obtained the search warrants without the lies. Such a pity it all happened this way.”
Fairness and honesty
This isn’t about file sharing, or losses, real and imagined.
It’s about control and the entertainment industry, for one, is losing it – in all senses of the phrase. And fast.
Big Music and the major studios are panicking because they know that for the first time in history, the people – the ‘consumers’ – have the power, thanks to the Net and p2p.
No one wants to deprive anyone of anything.
Online music lovers and everyone else would be delighted to be able to pay for what they use – they just don’t want to pay through the nose (anymore) for mass produced junk aimed at the lowest common denominator. And in this century, they don’t have to – thanks to the Net and p2p.
P2p isn’t about getting something for nothing. It’s about communicating and sharing. It’s about fairness and honesty. It’s about integrity – concepts studios and record labels are going to have to come to terms with sooner or later. Because p2p is the future. Its potential not only as a primary communications vehicle but also as the principal sales, marketing and distribution technology for the 21st century, is truly staggering.
This is the Digital Age and whatever happens to the entertainment industry, the software and hardware ‘giants’ and all the rest of them, sites such as the Underground Network and the people who run them will multiply on the Net as we know it —— and elsewhere.
And in the meanwhile, the people being persecuted are customers, as are their mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles – with all that implies for the labels and studios.
For the first time ever, they can talk to each other. Instantly.
Stay tuned.
JN
August 29th, 2004 at 12:35 am
Long Live UDG
what you did was unfair to all of us at UDG
August 29th, 2004 at 12:56 pm
Well I have to admit, thats one of the ‘more polite’ things I’ve heard this travesty called.
I’m still waiting for msn/yahoo/jabber/aim/icq to be sued for the warez sent through their messenger clients. Then of course there’s the files shared on idrive/xdrive/yahoo-briefcase/others/geocities-websites/and the countless others where files are shared where they shouldn’t be…. and most of them have been around long before Direct Connect, and the thousands of Networks that followed.
IRC has been around longer and yet I’m not seeing actions taken on them. Nor do I see the people selling warez in swap meets going away when they should also be long since taken care of with agencies like this using massive budgets – at least they could be targeting the people who are really making an impact..
*sighs* It’s not going to get better for a long time folks. 1st we need to get the clueless Presidential failure out of office and get someone who can appoint better people below him. Perhaps then, we’ll be able to get somewhere legally.
I still get a macabre kick out of our Government telling other Countries how to handle their legal position on ‘fair use’ which back before it was demonized was an accepted thing throughout America. These days I think the p2p’ers are about the only ones who even remember the Betamax case or what it meant before DMCA/US Patriot Act, were forced onto us (I still can’t believe those two passed)…
Everyone I know in DC is ready to stand and fight side by side with our brothers in UDGNET. There has always been lines of competition between the various groups in DC (take that to mean, we all want the most users and argue now and then about little things) but I can tell you this though, the lines have been blurred and we’re all acting like a family for the first time since DC was new – this may be the trial DC sees in the future as the point we all became one again…. We’re all tied together and when one falls, we all fall.
MPAA/RIAA – I do want to say this. You have sued too many of us instead of trying to work a usable relationship out instead. You’ve lost my future sales with no possible way of recovering me in any foreseeable way and – guess what – you’ve lost most of the people I know as well. You see, you cant just sue us and have us as customers later – it doesn’t work that way. Consider every movie dvd and music cd of yours on BOYCOTT. You want to know why your sales are going down still, even though you are taking great effort to sue 14 year old kids and grandparents? Because you lost them as customers and their family members, and their friends. Disagree? Really? Go back and do the numbers again, and this time use the real ones and not the inflated losses where you neglected to count off the returns – nice try though RIAA.
Ok to end back on topic – Underground Network isn’t’ going anywhere – the US does not have the power to take down a Global family of hubs and worst-case the other US hubs will just host in other countries where they have more freedom…. whoa, I guess the US isn’t the land of the free anymore – its the land of sue-everyone-you-cant-get-to-buy-your-stuff-instead-of-changing-marketing.tactics … Sad…. Keep your heads up brothers, we’ll fight for you.
_-Jile-_
August 29th, 2004 at 11:55 pm
hmmm. ok so you promote a system which believes in freedom of uh everything. you fight against a system you voted for (the government always gets voted iin) and you want a clueless president out and one with a clue (who would incarcerate you) instead.
If these people wanted to stop piracy they’d go after usenet.
only it has one source not multiple sources. The sue-everyone ethic is something the USA has dreamed up and can not stop until someone changes the laws. IANAL and neither are you by the tone of the conversation. Change things if you can. At the moment you are working around them to create a global network that allows people who can’t afford digital media access to it. Should the law change ? Should everyone be allowed unfettered access to digital media ? If you believe strongly about an issue, speak to someone who CAN CHANGE the way society dictates our access to media. It’s all good and well voicing off against governments and the good fight and families but at the end of the day it’s pure rhetoric! Change what you believe in. Read up on why laws are passed. Change them and then you have a say. Until then you are pissing in the wind.
Usenet pays taxes. They don’t care. They want headlines.
Usenet is as bad or worse than P2P
August 30th, 2004 at 12:23 am
Amen. It’s time more people woke up and started doing just that. In fact, it’s all I have been doing since last Wed (8/25). Reading this reminds me of a favorite quote:
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”
-Gandhi
It’s time for a change.
~G
August 30th, 2004 at 7:39 pm
Well, as I have YET to receive an e-mail to be able to post in here with my NICK and all, I am stuck with the “AC”.
What is a “hub” anyways. Goto Best Buy and walk into the computer department and ask for a “Hub”. He’She will hand you a box with a device in it, a “Hub”. What is this “Hub” used for you ask him/Her. “A hub is a device that allows multiple access to multiple computers across a network”.
OMG won’t I get arrested for this?
August 31st, 2004 at 11:56 pm
i wrote my legistators a few years ago. said technology had passed the established system and compared to the riverboat pilots of the 1860s. Technology has been implemented and we have to update the laws to accommodate the technologies coming along. The OLD laws do not fit the current tech available.
September 2nd, 2004 at 6:42 am
AS a Proud Dc user and x udgnet hub owner
what the american goveremnt did to them is excalty what they been doing for the last 4 years and what his idiot father did in the early 90′s
the american ppl need to learn who they need to put in to office and who not to elect.
September 2nd, 2004 at 6:42 am
AS a Proud Dc user and x udgnet hub owner
what the american goveremnt did to them is excalty what they been doing for the last 4 years and what his idiot father did in the early 90′s
the american ppl need to learn who they need to put in to office and who not to elect.
September 4th, 2004 at 3:28 pm
As one of the people raided I all I can say is thank the lord for ppl like GuidoZ and all that have posted here. It warms my heart that people are finally getting it. The DoJ didn’t do any homework on this they just jumped in feet first. I would like to thank you all for the support!
Axeman
September 22nd, 2004 at 6:39 pm
Damn good to see you back on a pc bro – I never expected my friends to get hit like this….hope you and the others immediately effected by the raids are doing ok & hopefully your legal team can help to set a precedent with DC being an acceptable application in the chat/p2p world.
_-Jile-_