link

Sony learned that a resident of Coshocton, Ohio, downloaded a pirated movie via the town's communal wi-fi network.

When the MPAA couldn't figure out which specific individual in town did the download, they responded by pressuring the ISP provider to deactivate the entire network.

A representative of the city said that for the time being, the 100+ residents of the town who used the wi-fi network will be left out in the cold as the city does not have the money to pay for the type of anti-piracy software that they need to put in place in order to get the MPAA to ease up.



If true, then the 99+ who got stiffed of their internet access because of the one probably have very good grounds to sue Sony and the MPAA for denial of service like that. I'd love to see what the courts have to say once this is all over.

If the courts rule against Sony and the MPAA.....

Ironbite-anti-Piracy enforcement will get a whole lot tougher....UNLESS IT'S DONE BY THE PROPER AUTHORITIES AND NOT COMPANIES WITH AN AX TO GRIND!

Deepest pockets win. Even if the town is in the right, they can't afford to fight the fight. That sucks.

Is the MPAA run by Kefka from Final Fantasy VI or something?

It's like if someone steals a car, so a corporation comes into town and crushes everyone's car. If they want to play the whole "you wouldn't steal a car, would you?" bulljive line, so can we. hug you, Sony, MPAA.

Odd you should mention that. A spontaneous reading of the FF wiki for FFVI got me to warm up FF6Advance on my DS, then Gamecube, today.

Anyway, this is bulljive and corporate corruption in its purest form. I honestly hope someone can manage to step up and take Sony and the MPAA to the bank.

What next, if someone shoplifts a cd, do they raze the town?

All the city has to do is make it commonly known that it holds no responsibility for the actions of the people who use their free service. There, problem solved, and if its good enough for subways, starbucks and any other of a hundred businesses that offer free wifi, then its good enough for the town of podunk nowhere.

A perfect example of modern America- where one person can ruin it for everyone else.

More like one corporation screws over everybody else.

I suspect this same thing is happening at my public library. They have signs up stating that if people continue downloading copyrighted material they'll have to stop offering free wifi.

You're linking to an out-of-date story. Sony requested the city restore the wifi by the end of the week, most likely in response to all the negative press they got about the shutdown.

There was no reason they had to take down the entire network over a copyright complaint. The DMCA has safe harbor provisions for network operators that keep them liable from infringing acts of the end users, they could have remained operational while investigating the complaint.

Even so, it brought a lot of bad press on Sony and the DMCA in general, which is frequently misused as a heavy-handed procedure to force people offline.

Link?

http://www2.nbc4i.com/cmh/news/local/artic...-Back_On/26596/

These people are enemies of free speech. Seriously. If the threat of losing any of their precious money due to copyright violation really is worth being such pricks to so many people, they can go to hell.

That's pretty much my sentiment exactly.


At the very least, Sony needs to shut the hug up about copyright violation, as in the past they've shown themselves entirely irresponsible about protecting what they own. I'm guessing that a lot of the "piracy" of Sony product that's going on is otherwise-honest people trying to get Sony product w/o having to put up with all the jive that Sony's been doing to their CDs and DVDs.

As rare as it is for me to say this, it's gotten to the point that the governments of both US and Japan need to start an investigation into their antics because they've committed far too many crimes and unethical acts of their own while trying to "punish" those who they regard as offenders.

and people ask me what I have against Sony. So cute.

This article is BS editorializing. Everyone is acting like they shut down some huge municipal wifi network. The wifi stretched one block and the MPAA did not force them to take it down. Sony pictures sent a letter to the town's ISP saying someone downloaded something illegally and then the ISP forwarded it to the city and the city decided to shut it down in a panic.

http://www.coshoctontribune.com/article/20...ATES01/91109015
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=...;art_aid=117273


I hate the MPAA as much as the next person, but people on the internet really need to quit sensationalizing every damn story they hear. This is why I hate user submitted news aggregators like digg and Reddit. Users can just skew the article however they want and then everyone believes their skewed story because nobody reads the hugging articles ever.

Yeah, that's why I say they didn't have to shut down. They could have just told Sony they were investigating, while they closed known filesharing ports, throttled traffic, etc.

I work at an ISP and we get DMCA notifications all the time. Each ISP is required to register both an email and physical address for mailing DMCA complaints. Ours is registered of course, and most notices come into the wrong address so they just get roundfiled.

The ones that are legit though, we have to respond to. First in the form of a certified letter to the customer and we just take their word that they've stopped. If there's a second notification on the same customer, we have to shut their Internet service off. For good. And never reconnect them again.

The thing I hate about the process is there's no presumption of innocence. We get an email with an IP address and time stamp and we basically just have to take their word on it. Naturally, most customers deny all knowledge of the act but unfortunately for them we can't just go on their word.

One particular customer swore up and down they had no such filesharing programs installed, they had not downloaded anything, their PC was clean and up-to-date on security, they had no open wifi network, and that they really need their Internet access for work. Unfortunately we got a second complaint and had to shut them off. Then later we get a followup email about the incident saying they (the company studios pay to spy on filesharing networks and send DMCA notifications) were mistaken and please ignore the complaint and restore the customer's account. Well, too late. We just lost their business.

It's a law that's written heavily in favor of the movie studios and those who represent them, giving users hardly any rights or recourse whatsoever. And we have to comply with these rules to keep our safe harbor provision, or risk being named in a lawsuit ourselves. That's something no company wants a part of and I'm sure that's why the city pulled the plug.

I think the whole thing really sucks.

What really needs to happen is outlawing the profession of lobbyist, just as other forms of bribery are outlawed. Without the MPAA and RCAA's lobbyists, it's unlikely any of these anti-free speech digital copyright enforcement laws would have been passed.

These things just make me want to pirate even more stuff, personally.

Exactly. The more the companies throttle content and the like, the more people feel they want to strike back in acts of rebellion.

Ironbite-it's pathetic on both sides if you ask me.

I know that for me, the only instances where I have deliberately sought after bootlegs was when there was no way to get a good copy legally.

For example, when Pioneer released the El Hazard: Wanderers boxed set, the first wave of sets shipped with a bad disk. Rather than fess up and ship replacements, Pioneer decided to be dickish and leave the individual retailers on the hook for refunds and returns. Realizing that there would likely *not* be a single boxed set w/o a defect, I broke down and got a bootleg simply because [i]I wanted to be able to watch something I paid for.[/u]

True. Though I've never actually downloaded a pirated movie or song, I am quite fond of copying DVDs that I rent or get from the library. I'd never start giving them out to people, though; the only time I make exceptions are for a few of my younger cousins, when there's a particular thing they might want to see that I can easily get to copy. Mostly recently, that was Up (though I actually did buy this DVD, as it came as part of the 4-disc Blu-Ray set). It may not be entirely right, but it's not as if they're losing any money off what I'm doing; all it really does is save me the trouble of going to the library or renting something a second time if I want to see it again.

I do have standards, though. I don't pirate the software I use to pirate . In fact, I don't really pirate any software at all. I have valid licenese for pretty much everything installed on my PC. Office 2007 Enterprise, Adobe Master Collection, Sony Vegas Pro and Sound Forge, Cakewalk Sonar, ISO Buster, TMPGEnc Xpress, Accoustica CD/DVD Label Maker, Winzip & the Self-Extractor, Axialis Icon Workshop, PgcEdit, and a few other random applications.

I pirate KNOWLEDGE! Bwahahahahaha!!

I cool the world in an effort to increase the number of pirates.

You have come a long way in the 10 years this board has been around, CD