Big Music attacks in Australia
p2pnet.net News:- Australian p2p hubs are shutting down in the wake of the Big Music cartel’s raid on ISP People Telecom, Swiftel that was, says Brad Peczka on the Whirlpool in Australia.
The cartel’s Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) has said repeatedly it isn’t interested in individual users, but outgoing MIPI chief Michael Speck claims the MIPI has already laid down targets for future raids, “and already, several West Australian hubs have decided to pull the plug,” says Peczka, going on:
“A popular internet radio station and a BitTorrent community both ceased operations last night. The entry page has been removed and now hosts a sombre notice, which says ‘Due to the increasing number of raids on P2P sites which seem to be getting closer and closer to home, we’ve decided to call it a day. This is to protect ourselves, as well as you users.’ Interestingly, other WA-based P2P communities will continue to operate, albeit behind increased security and scrutiny of members.”
Peczka says both services used the WAIX peering network which allows Western Australian ISPs to transfer data between each other at reduced cost.
“Many ISPs added the WAIX network to their free traffic lists, providing users with a way to share large files without impacting upon their quota limits,” says Whirlpool. “A similar network called PIPE exists in much of Eastern Australia. Both networks do not support the use of their services for illegal purposes, and have taken steps to prevent such use, but crafty file sharers constantly manage to evade these measures.
“The raid has had a ripple effect around Australia, with Victorian Torrent site VIXBit stating that ‘We decided it was time for Vixbit to call it a day.’ A similar story was heard in Adelaide, where PeeringSA was shutdown when PIPE staff terminated their accounts and removed their servers from hosting facilities at a PIPE data centre.”
In the US, it’s been proven over and over again that the Big Four record labels count on the noise they make to get mainstream media outlets, a great many of which they either own or control through advertising dollars, to trumpet their ‘successes’ against p2p file sharers.
Close to 10,000 suits have been launched against people in America. But no one has actually appeared in a civil court or been found guilty of anything.
Victims simply don’t have the legal or financial resources to take the cartel on in court. So they always settle, allowing the labels to imply they’ve won thousands of file-sharing cases when the exact opposite is true.
In Australia, the ARIA’s (Australian Recording Industry Association), “has shown that it might win its war on piracy through publicity alone,” says Peczka, adding:
“By doing high profile raids on well known businesses, then making audacious claims to the press about what it has found, it is sending shockwaves throughout the internet community. One user suggested that ‘Australia’s isolation, which has protected it in the past, may no longer be a deterrent to law-enforcement authorities’.”
However, Brad, thanks to the Net, Australia isn’t isolated.
And as you emphasise, not everyone is rolling over to the MIPI.
(Thanks, ‘Oz’)
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See:-
Swiftel – Australia BitTorrent hearing, p2pnet, March 14, 2005
Whirlpool – P2P sites shutdown amid raid rumours, March 14, 2005
March 18th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
We americans dealt with a similarly catastrophic attack on a little service called napster.
It simply led to more furtive p2p communities and eventually led to tremendous expansion.
I expect to see big innovation from australia, and I don’t see their methods doing more than setting p2p back on a very short term in that nation.