The art of spin
p2pnet.net News View:- I hate when mainstream media “journalists” use “television” and “pirates”/”piracy” in the same sentence to criminalize and describe something that IS NOT ILLEGAL.
There is no such thing as “TV piracy” in regards to filesharing. The ONLY way that it (filesharing of tv programs) can be construed as “piracy” is if someone has an illegal cable/satellite hookup. A case of “TV-piracy” could also be made if any of the people/groups who cap (capture/record) and share their programs have received money for their efforts – not including any donations they might receive to keep websites and BitTorrent trackers running. (We won’t mention the LokiTorrent sellout here.)
Downloading is legal.
Recording tv/movies is legal.
Ripping DVD’s is legal. Filesharing is legal.
P2p is legal.
TV is free (even though in the UK and other countries one “must” pay *wink-wink* for a tv “license”).
Also, you can do whatever you want with programs you record from terrestrial broadcasts, or those you pay for from services such as HBO, Showtime, SkyTV, etc.
That’s what the Betamax ruling was about 20 years ago. Fair use rights which hurt no one.
The Big Music/Movie cartels should be concentrating on catching the real criminals – those with highly-organised methods of ripping/capping, duplication and finally, selling bootleg copies. They’re the ones making all the money. And this type of activity is something the majority of filesharers are strongly against, but which casts ordinary people in a negative light.
There is NO piracy involved. It’s all legal. To date, not a single person has ever gone to court for – or “found guilty” of – filesharing what they legally own. The many “successful prosecutions” against private persons reported by the mainstream media were settled out of court – the results of blackmailing, intimidation, and extortion by the MPAA, RIAA, etc., including the LokiTorrent sellout. (But we won’t mention that here.)
It’s all part of the NWO (New World Order) agenda to indoctrinate us into their way of thinking (”filesharing is illegal”), control how we think, and how we obtain our information and entertainment. All major tv networks and news networks are part of this agenda. That’s why in July 2005, we’ll see the introduction of “broadcast flags” encrypted into digital tv shows which will stop you from things like filesharing, or being able to edit out or skip through ads, or even burn programs to discs.
This will affect all PVR’s, DVR’s, TiVos and pc tuner cards IN USA which are manufactured or sold from July 2005. It’s all part of their NWO DRM (Digital Rights Management) agendas.
And if you ARE able to share these through p2p, you can bet the spies will be able to identify the broadcast flags and zero in on you. Apparently, there is software available to them which can already identify the original seeder even if that person is no longer seeding the file.
Although a US court recently ruled the FCC went “too far” in requiring manufacturers and broadcasters to incorporate broadcast flag technology into their products, the “law” has not yet been struck off. So as of this writing, July 1, 2005 will be the start date for them.
More on broadcast flags here.
Extinct/endangered gizmos here.
Do you feel like getting yourself, your family, and pets microchipped for “safety reasons” against “terrorism”?
Do you believe you “need” GPS and Bluetooth in your phone, your car, or your fridge?
Do you think the cracking of the SHA-1 hash codes (used in creating BitTorrent’s .torrent files) this past February was just a college student prank or accidental experiment?
Think again.
Nothing to worry about, sheeple. It’s all part of their plan to control what you think and do.
Business as usual.
– catflap
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
March 16th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
Aren’t we hitting the conspiracy theories a little hard here?
Personally, I don’t think it will be that hard of a problem to crack/bypass altogether. I’m also pretty sure that people will raise hell once their $300 TiVo’s don’t work – Or I could be trusting my ‘peers’ too much again.
March 16th, 2005 at 6:14 pm
Hey p2pnet!
If it’s all completely pain free, why aren’t you in the torrent tracker business? Everyone knows there is quite the shortage recently. You could be the white knight that everyone is looking for.
Open up a torrent site with it’s own trackers, accept anything under the sun and let those evil corporations just try and stop you. After all, according to you, there is nothing they can do.
Oh wait, you just spread this bull, not live by it.
Step up or stop your preaching.
March 16th, 2005 at 6:24 pm
I don’t think this is Jon’s writing.
But I’m not sure whether catflap officially represents P2Pnet or not (it doesn’t say opinion though so who knows)
TT
March 16th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
ah…
those views (as the by-line states) are MY own personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of p2pnet.net, it’s owner or it’s partners. this is not a news story, per se. more like an “Op-Ed” piece which i submitted.
you don’t have to agree with my opinions. i don’t care either way. but i do feel that people/sheeple are being manipulated by the cartels and the mainstream media outlets they own and control.
as an example…when AOL bought Time-Warner a few years ago, they were then known as “AOL Time-Warner”. after a year or so they realised that having the “AOL” in the name was giving them a lot of negative publicity and didn’t help with their image. so they removed it and have since been known only as “Time-Warner” in news articles and on their products, such as CNN, TCM and CartoonNetwork. now although the ordinary person might still have a negative opinion of AOL in general, they do not associate it automatically as the owner of Time-Warner.
they know what they’re doing. all the signs are there, and i feel the need to spread the word and the truth in my own words and opinions.
March 16th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
Speaking of the art of spin…
” Itâs all legal. ”
” Filesharing is legal. ”
I download all of my television, but just because no one has been found guilty of what I do doesn’t mean it’s all legal. I’d be careful making such blanket generalizations. Many of your points are valid, such as the broadcast flag issue, but because you spin them in such an extreme way you hurt the cause.
(Opinion pieces should be more clearly marked as opinion pieces.)
March 16th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
– catflap represents himself. But although I didn’t write the piece, I published it. Lots of food for thought : )
For the record, I’m right behind any and all attempts to nail the true criminals – the counterfeiters, etc. But in my book, file sharers aren’t criminals, as I’ve said often enough.
And Broadcast Flag is a really Evil evil.
TT? Sorry – I forgot to put ‘View’ after ‘News’. Fixed.
Cheers!
March 16th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
hey, I didn’t say I didn’t agree, I thought I was defending the piece more than anything.
TT
March 16th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
sorry about that, TT.
my use of “you” was in a general sense, not you specifically.
anyway, i hope you enjoyed my piece.
March 16th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
Who’s TT and why’s everyone apologising to him?
We need to know – heh
March 16th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
yes, the counterfeiters. they should go after them. afterall, they make a profit from bootleg sales. i don’t know specifically of any BitTorrent/edonkey, or whatever websites or trackers which are making a profit and pocketing it. (But we won’t mention the LokiTorrent sellout here.)
i recently read an article about a British man (i think British) who was copying and selling authentic-looking boxed sets of all the James Bond films, from his expensive apartment in Hong Kong or Japan (i forget where) and selling them through eBay. that was his 2nd mistake.
his first mistake was that there were no official complete boxed sets of the Bond films in existence, as he was claiming his to be. an MGM (or other official copyright owner) rep saw it listed on eBay and bought it. the man was subsequently arrested and is now in prison.
the problem is the MPAA, et al, are concentrating on the little guys who aren’t making any money, and consequently the big fish are getting away. i assume there have been other cases of stings against counterfeiters, but i can’t imagine there have been as many as are being done against law-abiding filesharers. this has to change.
March 17th, 2005 at 12:03 am
Anyone who thinks that people try to break SHA1 because it is used in bittorrent needs a serious reality check. The world doesn’t revolve around your insignificant TV show downloading.
March 17th, 2005 at 4:39 am
P2P is legal!!!!! Just depends on what you share!!!! Maybe in the future DMCA will be repealed!!!!! HMMMMMM I think I’LL go and have a Jack Daniels and Coke NOW!!!!!!!
March 17th, 2005 at 8:09 am
this article is so bias ITS GREAT!! I love it and i support your every word!!!
March 17th, 2005 at 9:56 am
“The Big Music/Movie cartels should be concentrating on catching the real criminals – those with highly-organised methods of ripping/capping, duplication and finally, selling bootleg copies.”
At last some sense on the matter. The bullying b@st@rds at the MPAA, BPI and RIAA et al should concentrate on going after those who make a living out of piracy. Leave us little guys who are just into movies/music/whatever alone. 20 years ago, we used to record and swap cassettes and there was no big deal about it. Everyone knew it went on and it is still going on, just in a different format. We still buy stuff if we want it.
You can’t uninvent the technology so the entertainment industry should stop bitching about the situation and find a new way to make their money. Going after the little guy is going to do nothing except alienate the customer base.
Big Brother is already here – its how we deal with it thats important….
Blagmeister.
March 17th, 2005 at 10:56 am
yeah, i remember when “Cartel” and “Czar” were dirty words. oh wait, that’s only if it’s a “drug cartel”. and a “Drug Czar” is now a good thing.
uncle W has appointed a new ultra-right-wing FCC chairman this week who has big plans to make the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens miserable.
i can’t wait.
PS: i urge people here (those who agree and/or disagree with me) to read jon’s mission statement here: http://p2pnet.net/story/3660
i think it says it all, and very eloquently, too.
March 17th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
The impact is not necessarily important:
“A collision attack also does not present the same kinds of risks that a preimage attack would. Most of the applications that use cryptographic hashes, such as password storage or document signing, are only minimally affected by a collision attack. In the case of document signing, for example, an attacker could not simply fake a signature from an existing document — the attacker would have to fool the private key holder into signing a preselected document. In attacking download verification, the attacker would have to construct a download â with the attacker’s trojan payload â that had the same checksum as the single “good” checksum; the unpublished result does not allow this. Reversing password “encryption” (e.g. to obtain a password to try against a user’s account elsewhere) is likely not possible. Constructing a password that works for a given account requires a preimage attack (and access to the shadow password file, which may or may not be trivial).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1
March 17th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
hello “Anonymous Coward” (as you’re called when you don’t log in).
i beg to differ.
SHA-1 cracked!
http://www.techspot.com/story17011.html
Chinese break SHA-1 encryption
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21355
SHA-1 Broken
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/sha1_broken.html
you can google yourself for more info. i’m not your private encyclopedia or search engine.
March 18th, 2005 at 7:12 am
No? But you do an excellent job already.
March 18th, 2005 at 7:18 am
LOL the Fat Cats would claim that is an oxymoron!
March 18th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
of course.
but until – and unless – filesharing of one’s own legally purchased or recorded media files is made absolutely illegal in every country (or at least those governments who allow themselves to be bullied and threatened with higher import duties or even have sanctions levied upon them) FILESHARING AND P2P IS LEGAL.
March 18th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
oops…hit the enter key by accident. you know i wasn’t finished yet.
no-one has ever been convicted in a court of law for filesharing. they have only settled out of court to avoid going to court. as far as i’m aware, this includes BT tracker owners, websites that provide indexing links to torrents or quicklinks, ISP’s, and ordinary people who use filesharing programs. i have never read about a single person or entity that has been “found guilty” of this.
the Big Music/Movie cartels press releases claim to have “successfully prosecuted” thousands of individuals, but this is absolutely not true. they’re very good at bullying people and governments into submission, but no court cases have ever seen the light of day. if blackmail, intimidation, false arrest, and extortion are considered “prosecutions”, then there is a serious problem in the legal systems of all countries who participate in these activities.
March 18th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
i’ve been called worse things. LOL!
but i don’t think it’s my “job” to do the easy research available to everyone. i’ve done my own, and i’ll definitely read any opposing articles that someone can show me where i made a mistake. my opinion – based on facts i’ve read – is my own and it can’t be labeled as “wrong”. no-one’s opinion can be “wrong” – just maybe different from others’.