Comments on: Overpeer’s latest dirty trick

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 10:50:14 +0000

Arrgh matey! Avast ye scallywags and shiver me timbers. Hast ye knowst where ye buccaneers lie? Mine lie beneath me buccanhat!

lmao!

Dude you seem to be in search of a clue! Fair use is not pirating so blow me down and stop using the riaa’s catch phrases as they were gospel! Pirate: Someone who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without having a commission from any sovereign nation. Unless you’re like DUHbya our resident and haven’t a clue as to what sovereign means!

Now go learn something so everyone can stop laughing for a while and catch their breath! http://www.boycott-riaa.com

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 13:43:07 +0000

You sir are the idiot! Listen up sport because I am only going to say this once. The USA is not the entire world! It is not illegal in many countries, Canada as an example, as their courts have ruled in the consumers favor. And as we speak there has not been one case of a lawsuit by the riaa for copyright infringement won against a consumer using p2p in this country. The riaa’s lastest scorched earth policy of suing their own customers has only hastened the riaa’s demise. May the last dinosaur die quick and as painfully as possible. LMAO!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 13:23:11 +0000

LOL! drm = dumb retard music… LMAO!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 23:18:20 +0000

… it should be perfectly legal for private property owners to set up traps such as “spring guns” to deal with trespassers, however, it is not (run a search for “spring gun” on Columbia’s Legal Information Institute website if you doubt my word).

The law on vigilante justice is clear and became so to prevent private wars. A private entity’s recourse for an infringement of property rights lies in the courts, not in private revenge.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 20:20:45 +0000

lmao, I dont use wva/v or DRM as well .. so wtf..

though .. for a technical standpoint .. I do have to applaud the delivery method, exploiting a bug in MS Crap .. so they are actually doing us a favor .. they are tearing down the MS lovers and at the same time freeing up bandwith for the people running Redhat and have a clue what they are doing.. HA

odaley!

crying shame that MPAA and RIAA are combining to drive MS outta the business in a round about way

ignore me I am just talking outta my ass

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 20:19:05 +0000

This was not the RIAA’s doing through Overpeer. It was Kanoodle.com’s project alone.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 07:48:30 +0000

Hmmmm Ok I’d be happy to pay direct royalties to the artist/s for a song or two that came out 20 years ago… but here in Australia, most of the old stuff is not available.. the record companies won’t release it… and they bastards charge nearly $30Au for a CD….

Fuck them.

Greedy Corporate Morons.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 02 Jan 2005 07:02:37 +0000

Simple — don’t use such shitty formats as WMA/V, or DRM in general.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 02 Jan 2005 04:12:11 +0000

If anything you download installs software or adware that you yourself did not actually initiate to open or download and install on your computer should be an invasion or a hack of your computer. and should be deemed illegal. basically on invasion of your privacy. example: Just a little while ago surfing places like
bestdownloads.net initiated a adware component on my computer without my consent. adware blocking programs made me aware of this, it took a while to get rid of. It installed files on my computer and put files into memory. the files kept returning even with me telling the software to be blocked and ending the programs with the taskmanger didn’t help, the programs just kept returning. I had to open add remove programs and low and behold it was installed as an actuall program. I had to initiate an unistall and then restart to get rid of it. Bestdownloads did not offer free programs, they offered the latest shareware and links to popular programs. I have sinced stopped going to the site because of this invasion into my computer. my computer can be basically called my home in the digital world, and although I ask friends to come over, web pages, programs and such, if I don’t ask you to come over then your are not welcome. and by secretly coming into my computer by being installed in the backgroung as i surf is as slipping in thru a window of my house as i’m asleep. either way you entered illegally. With the companies putting files out there to initiate this kinda of action
is and should be illegal. they are just as guilty as anyone who “shares files illegally” in their eyes. so do we combat one crime with another, why not police have been doing it for years, and still we cannot do anything about it because they are buisnesses and we are peon consumers.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 02 Jan 2005 01:13:39 +0000

It looks like there is a number of post here that may be from the MPAA or RIAA ;P

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 02 Jan 2005 00:30:22 +0000

Tell me what person is so stupid that actually download wma/v files and open it in WMP. I’m downloading only mp3’s.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 21:36:19 +0000

Dude, look up “irony”. I wish I was as smart as you.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 21:19:24 +0000

You wrote:
This is hardly a new trick — porn sites have been distributing “promotional” WMV’s that use the same trick to link people to their web sites for years, and nobody complained that it was illegal.

I write:
Hmm, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know too many sticky-fingered porn surfers that would be willing to announce to the world that they are sticky-fingered porn surfers by complaining about it.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 19:27:37 +0000

Just don’t use windows media formats. Nothing wrong with mp3 or ogg.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 18:21:44 +0000

So what are they doing that’s illegal? They’re distributing WMA’s that link to web pages. This is hardly a new trick — porn sites have been distributing “promotional” WMV’s that use the same trick to link people to their web sites for years, and nobody complained that it was illegal. The only “news” here is that Overpeer’s doing it.

OK, here’s how the technique works. When a WMA/V file loads to play, if it’s DRM protected it checks to see if it’s authorized on your computer. If it isn’t, it tells your web browser to open an URL. This is intended to be used to show a web page that can tell you why you can’t play the file, and perhaps to offer to sell you a license.

I don’t know where the speculation of ad-ware and spy-ware comes from. As far as I can tell, the WMA’s just open web pages that show web-based ads. Admittedly, showing ads to people when they play songs is a bit misleading, but since the songs in question are illegal to download in the first place, I don’t think that they’re too worried about annoying the viewer.

In a perverse way it’s kinda clever. They’re taking an expense (running the networks to distribute decoys, etc., has to be expensive) and turning it into a revenue stream.

In any case, the answer is obvious — stick to open formats that can’t be used to do weird things like trigger your web browser to view pages. MP3, OGG, M4A, etc., are all safe formats.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 12:36:05 +0000

You know what you just said? Well, I think I need to tell you that you have made a complete idiot out of yourself, since basicly what you said is “If someone steals my Snickers, I have the right to break his arm”. If you would have ANY brains you’d know that is an absurdly and marginally idiotic thing, since it was no form of self defence, but doing the justice yourself. Do you know that is illegal in every country on the world, or have you been living under a rock?

Stupid.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 06:37:18 +0000

totally right on

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 05:46:43 +0000

The RIAA or its contractors are not the police or courts of law, and have no authority to mete out punishment as the result of the illegal acts of others, even if it affects their bottom line. It is a crime in most civilized places to knowingly damage someone’s computer. For example, in the US, it is illegal to:

(5)(A)(i) knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer;
( http://www.cybercrime.gov/1030NEW.htm )

But, by your reasoning, if I see you run a stop sign, I can beat the crap out of you with a baseball bat. You broke the law, so I can now do anything I’d like to you, legal or not. Seriously, running a stop sign is illegal, so anything that happens to you as a result is fair play.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 05:38:50 +0000

They do not post malicious files hidden as ‘my summer in france.wmv,’

Microsoft doesn’t show any concern here? This is about to turn into a mess. What happens when someone downloads an “infected” file, then renames the file to a popular non-copyrighted or puplic domain title, then pours it back into the p2p network(s). That person is pretty much anonymous again. I would be pissed if I caught spyware, adware, or malware from the Star-Spangled Banner. I feel that is complete disregard for the innocent bystanders.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 05:15:31 +0000

Here’s a simple filter you can apply. Look for the total time of the wma or wmv file. If it has drm on it, then it’ll be blank. If it doesn’t have drm, then it’ll show the actual length of the video or song. Should be simple then to see the real ones from the fakes then.