The latest genius idea to come out of the music industry/moronic governments coalition. Checks of all iPods/mp3 players at customs locations to ensure that all songs are legitimate.
Yeah. Because that'll work. What happens to the person with the 80gb player with about 20,000 songs? They get delayed for 2 months while the provenance of every song on there is individually checked?
Retarded doesn't begin to cover this.
News.com.au wrote:iPirates face jail time in customs frisk
By Inga Gilchrist July 28, 2008 02:24pm
Copyright ... music fans coming through airport customs with huge iPod song libraries could be hit with jail for commercial piracy, according to a leaked government discussion paper. Technology news
MUSIC fans might soon have their iPods searched by Customs officers at airport checks and face jail if a large amount of pirated music is found on them.
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The push for the unprecedented searches of travellers' laptops and MP3 players has been revealed in a leaked discussion paper relating to a treaty being negotiated by the Federal Government.
It suggests criminal sanctions for infringements on a commercial scale.
That meant innocent pop and rock fans with huge song libraries could unwittingly be hit with jail for commercial piracy, according to Internet Industry Association chief executive Peter Coroneos.
"It talks about (sanctions for) commercial infringements does that mean one, 10, 20 or 1000 songs?
"It could be that people get sent to jail for being in possession of commercial-scale quantities of copied music."
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith's office has confirmed the Government was a part of negotiations for the international agreement, but Australia had not signed nor agreed to any aspect.
Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn said: "Searching into people's iPods is out of order.
"We don't need to suffer draconian regimes to protect intellectual property."US music labels are keen for their government to sign up other countries to the zero-tolerance stance.
Sounds like a fantastic idea. They should work out the projected cost for extra customs agents, training for same, access to all the EPOS systems for every music store in the world to confirm the legitemacy of receipts, etc. and send the bill to the RIAA.
How about I copy my entire CD collection onto an iPod, take all the receipts for every song, then have some of my friends do the same...and then we'll go to an airport, and shut down a boarding gate while customs agents have to check 1000+ completely legitimate receipts.
"Oops...I think you missed that one...wait, I have a receipt here in this gigantic pile of paper...just let me check..."
Yeah, brilliant idea. And I have a suggestion! Let's check if all the clothes every passenger wears is not a bootlegged copy of a real brand! Strip-searches for everyone! And how about laptops? They could search every laptop drive for pirated software! 200 laptops to check per flight!
For some reason, I'm pretty sure we'd have customs agents going postal soon after that
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Because downloading music is a more serious concern than terrorism.
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How would they even know if something is pirated anyway? Just because you don't have a receipt doesn't mean it was gotten through illegitimate means. Many downloads are legal (iTunes, for example, doesn't give you a receipt), and ...
Bah, it isn't even worth thinking about. This is just a massively retarded idea. I kind of hope they do implement it simply so they can shoot themselves in the foot.
I will make a note not to bring my IPod to Australia next time, along with my laptop.
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If that happened here in the Philippines the bribery potential would be enormous. Our custom agents are among the most corrupt in the world and they won't miss an opportunity like this to make money. People I know who frequently fly out of the country always tell stories that they almost always bribe custom agents to avoid any hassle. I'd imagine that if they see a laptop or ipod from a foreigner they'd milk him for most of his cash.
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Never mind if you happen to have a collection of CDs that you have made MP3s out of so you can listen to them on the computer or in a music player, what then? Time for search warrants?
This is nothing more than RIAA bullshit where no doubt the US government is pushing the music industry agenda without any thought for the consequences. I hope that treaty fails, as it deserves to do.
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This says nothing about artists 'self-pirating', such as Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and God knows how many 'garage bands' with access to recording studio software. What happens when the RIAA cops find an ipod stuffed full of real honest to god free as in beer music? They already collect royalties from internet radio stations for independent artists. They [url=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051004-5382.html]already admit they file suit "in order to discourage others from attempting to defend themselves against unwarranted litigation." That's racketeering, then admitting to it in court.
This is obviously a stupid idea, and clearly no thought was put into the logistics of such a plan... Or they decided it would be a good scare tactic just to propose it.
But don't songs from ITunes come in a DRM format, so the person wouldn't need to pull out a receipt? I guess that would speed things up a little bit.
CaptainZoidberg wrote:This is obviously a stupid idea, and clearly no thought was put into the logistics of such a plan... Or they decided it would be a good scare tactic just to propose it.
But don't songs from ITunes come in a DRM format, so the person wouldn't need to pull out a receipt? I guess that would speed things up a little bit.
What about the dozen other types of players that do not require DRM content? It's unworkable in its entirety.
Warwolf Urban Combat Specialist
Why is it so goddamned hard to get little assholes like you to admit it when you fuck up? Is it pride? What gives you the right to have any pride?
–Darth Wong to vivftp
GOP message? Why don't they just come out of the closet: FASCISTS R' US –Patrick Degan
The GOP has a problem with anyone coming out of the closet. –18-till-I-die
CaptainZoidberg wrote:This is obviously a stupid idea, and clearly no thought was put into the logistics of such a plan... Or they decided it would be a good scare tactic just to propose it.
But don't songs from ITunes come in a DRM format, so the person wouldn't need to pull out a receipt? I guess that would speed things up a little bit.
iPods do not require songs to be DRM. I've loaded plenty of songs without protection onto mine without any problem, and there's effectively no way of easily telling whether people downloaded them illegally or just ripped them from their own music CDs. Nothing about enforcing this is feasible.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
How are they going to check the songs? I KNOW I can rename the filenames of MP3s and edit the ID tags.
What the hell, are they going to listen to every song or something?
Definite proof that stupid people still live out there somewhere.
Yeah, what if you change the file names to random alphanumerics and then go through customs with 20,000 songs? They have to go through every single one, and then if it's a copyrighted song, check your receipt. You could hold up the time of two customs agents for, oh, four or five days at the airport.
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You don't even have to manually change them. Just load the files onto an ipod, rip them from it with Windows Explorer, and copy them into an itunes library to put on your player. Bam, you have a bunch of scrambled garbage tracks.
I had a Bill Maher quote here. But fuck him for his white privelegy "joke".
Isn't impossibility of enforcement one of the hallmarks of a draconian law? Digital media seems to render arcane copyright laws draconian; the proper conclusion is to then revisit the laws, not try harder and harder to enforce them.
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Surlethe wrote:Isn't impossibility of enforcement one of the hallmarks of a draconian law? Digital media seems to render arcane copyright laws draconian; the proper conclusion is to then revisit the laws, not try harder and harder to enforce them.
In order to do that you'd have to get the various governments to stop sucking the collective dicks of the recording industry.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
You know what they'll do is simply levy a tax on anybody carrying an iPod, mp3 player, or some other such device.
"Oh, none of your songs are pirated, you say? Well, if you'll simply provide a list of songs on your device and receipts of their purchase, we'll *gladly* refund you this tax. We're *terribly* sorry for this *small* oversight..."
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The only possible way I could see this coming close to working (but still being extremely cumbersome) would be to force people to take out their Mp3 player and connect it to a USB port. A very powerful computer looks for non-DRM music, and then at the end of security the person is given a court date if non-DRM music is found.
Of course that would be making it illegal to own non-DRM music, which is ridiculous. In fact if worse came to worse people could just embed their music in SWF or video files so that the computer couldn't find them.
CaptainZoidberg wrote:The only possible way I could see this coming close to working (but still being extremely cumbersome) would be to force people to take out their Mp3 player and connect it to a USB port. A very powerful computer looks for non-DRM music, and then at the end of security the person is given a court date if non-DRM music is found.
They would still have to have the software and drivers for every single mp3 player in existence for this to be even remotely feasible, and then have specialty software just to do the searching. In other words it's really not workable.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
CaptainZoidberg wrote:The only possible way I could see this coming close to working (but still being extremely cumbersome) would be to force people to take out their Mp3 player and connect it to a USB port. A very powerful computer looks for non-DRM music, and then at the end of security the person is given a court date if non-DRM music is found.
Of course that would be making it illegal to own non-DRM music, which is ridiculous. In fact if worse came to worse people could just embed their music in SWF or video files so that the computer couldn't find them.
Or just put it into an encrypted folder disguised as a family video.
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