Response to UE accusations

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SeuLunga
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Post by SeuLunga »

imslp wrote:I'm not too clear what the parallel is. IMSLP is based in Canada, and do not drive cars on Austrian roads. However, whether or not you choose to import Canadian cars and drive them on Austrian roads ignoring the speed limit is your choice. Or do you mean that the manufacturing of specific types of Canadian cars should be banned altogether, because they can be imported into Austria and are capable of surpassing the speed limit there?
I was watching HBO last night and thought of an interesting paralell: what IMSLP did was exactly the same thing TV channels do regarding to who can watch which programs.
What do they do? They show a warning before the show or film or whatever stating that that program is restricted (PG-13, PG-14, etc.) because they can't implement a technology of looking at the viewer and analysing his/her age to decide wether or not he/she should watch it.
There are even programs that as your discretion (such as 'Prison Break'), but there is no technology to tell if the viewer has removed the kids from the TV in order to watch it.

It's exactly the same thing here. You've been warned and now it's up to you. Should HBO be sued by the parents associatons worldwide for bringing unappropriate material to kids? No. Why? Because you've been warned and should know better.
Richard Black
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Post by Richard Black »

If some data enters a country on leased lines of an international company, then that company is responsible for importing the data into the country in question.
There were some legal findings in relation to Napster and other recording-sharing services that found the opposite - the ISP is held blameless if the data are only temporarily stored on its servers (i.e. as part of the store-and-forward way the internet works) in direct to response to a request originating elsewhere.
samcinty
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Post by samcinty »

There were some legal findings in relation to Napster and other recording-sharing services that found the opposite - the ISP is held blameless if the data are only temporarily stored on its servers (i.e. as part of the store-and-forward way the internet works) in direct to response to a request originating elsewhere.
While I do believe this to be true in the U.S., I do not believe this is necessarily true in other locales. If you have any references to legal cases where this has been asserted outside the U.S., I would appreciate your linking them into the forum here.
johnsonfromwisconsin
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Post by johnsonfromwisconsin »

National carriers have no obligation to data packets, regardless of origin or destination. Go ask China. I'm not saying discrimination is the right thing to do, but sovereignty of national laws means that localities have a right to mangle imported or exported data however they wish.
Except this isn't about nations "mangling" packets. It's about enforcing copyright laws accross borders.
"How the internet works" is purely a function of how national authorities wish it to work for those in their nation.
Only if they want to break the internet in some measure. Generally, I don't see any real interference of note with how the internet works.
Routing behavior is not guaranteed to comply only to client or server directions anywhere, even in the U.S.. See, e.g., AT&T rerouting data to secret data-collecting servers belonging to the NSA inside the U.S.
Except you're quoting exceptions, not generalities. None of that is necessary to transmit packets between the client and server. This is something completely different.
Since you're in the U.S., call in such a threat to someplace where the U.S. doesn't have specific telecommunications treaties in place, say, Mauritius, and let me know when you've been prosecuted on U.S. soil.


I see that statement completely non-sequoter to my example. My example showed how rediculous it would have been to prosecute the message-carrier instead of the perpetrator.

By your own definition, packet shaping looks at port and protocol information in a packet. Thus, the ISP is not 'oblivious' to the data in the packets that passes over its lines as I asserted, no?
I don't like battles of semantics. by 'Data' I obviously meant that which would constitute copyrighted material. ISPs simply have no idea of the true content of what's going accross the network. All they read is what's necessary to route the information. They know the IP address that's requesting the packet and it's destination. They know it's port of transmission and destination and a few other things pertaining to handshaking and transmission. The internet wasn't designed to care what's contained in a packet.
And this, my friend, is entirely the point. Why should IMSLP, operating in Canada, be beholden to copyright restrictions in place in Europe? Imagine the possibility of someone in Toronto being levied a $180,000 Euro fine for delivering another Canadian citizen a music score that is clearly in the public domain in Canada, because some ISP in between happens to route part of their traffic through Ireland because it's cheaper. Is that fine justified in any way?
absolutely no argument.
Great. Consider that many of us here on the IMSLP forums consider UE's claims equally wrong. I assume, then, that you're on IMSLP's side, and are perhaps suggesting that Universal Edition should be going after copyright infringers in the territories covered by their copyright instead of after IMSLP?
Not a lawyer, but I see a lot of difficulty in UE prevailing legally. Morally I think they're in the wrong. I appriciate that they're trying to protect their copyright interest, but given the fact that they know their copyright has enjoyed protection at the internationally agreed duration in Canada, and how heavy-handed they persued this according to the C&D letters, i am a bit dissapointed in their handling of this situation. Given that they knew all of this and decided to lawyer-up instead of applying restraint and amiably negotiating first is upsetting. It's corporate bullying through lawyers.
Vivaldi
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Post by Vivaldi »

Also, I would think UE wouldn't dare to issue the C and D letter in the first place if they haven't consulted their lawyers and what legal actions they can take. Just think, UE's intentions might be good, but due to their lawyers (the letter was also issued by their lawyer), the whole issue has just gone ugly for them. It makes me think that their idea of hiring lawyers just backfired on them.
I was just wondering what UE would do if no lawyers were to represent them. Maybe this whole thing could've been prevented.
samcinty
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Post by samcinty »

Except this isn't about nations "mangling" packets. It's about enforcing copyright laws accross borders.
Attempting to enforce copyright laws across borders equals "mangling" packets between nations. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that Canadian data packets which contain data copyright in the EU is sufficiently mangled to be unreadable in Europe when transmitted outside of Canada? I would argue not IMSLP, since they only distribute data to other servers in Canada.
ISPs simply have no idea of the true content of what's going accross the network. All they read is what's necessary to route the information. They know the IP address that's requesting the packet and it's destination. They know it's port of transmission and destination and a few other things pertaining to handshaking and transmission. The internet wasn't designed to care what's contained in a packet.
I'm sorry, but no. There's this company called Cisco, and their entire business model revolves around selling customers equipment with which they can shape and alter computer network traffic, including filtering by content. Case in point, here's a Slashdot story about a U.S. ISP that is altering network traffic by content as they see fit, against the inclinations of their users:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/04/2014236

I'm glad to see you agree with the other points as regards IMSLP.
johnsonfromwisconsin
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Post by johnsonfromwisconsin »

Attempting to enforce copyright laws across borders equals "mangling" packets between nations.
No. You're arguing like this is common practice. No one does this.
I'm sorry, but no. There's this company called Cisco, and their entire business model revolves around selling customers equipment with which they can shape and alter computer network traffic, including filtering by content. Case in point, here's a Slashdot story about a U.S. ISP that is altering network traffic by content as they see fit, against the inclinations of their users:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/04/2014236
Except Comcast isnt doing content filtering. You grossly missunderstand what that is about. Bittorrent uses ports 6881-6999. Knowing that it becomes quite easy to manage traffic against those ports. Note that Comcast doesn't know while it is sending out false "busy signals" if what it's deylaying is copyrighted music or a legal linux download. It just treats all traffic along those ports identically.
samcinty
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Post by samcinty »

You're arguing like this is common practice. No one does this.
It is common practice in China. Sadly, it is increasingly common elsewhere as well, and it happens often enough to warrant projects like Tor and Freenet. Be glad that it isn't a common practice where you live.
Except Comcast isnt doing content filtering. You grossly missunderstand what that is about.
It's a very small step from filtering based on the content of in an IP header to filtering what is in the content of the payload. Again, be glad that this isn't happening (yet) where you live. And Comcast's heavy-handed tactics extend to more than just Bittorrent use:

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/mai ... _bloc.html
johnsonfromwisconsin
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Post by johnsonfromwisconsin »

It is common practice in China. Sadly, it is increasingly common elsewhere as well, and it happens often enough to warrant projects like Tor and Freenet. Be glad that it isn't a common practice where you live.
Please provide proof of this sort of thing happening in China. I'll probably be able to show you why you're off the mark with this.

Tor is defeated with simple traffic analysis, not content filtering. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/ ... 5torta.pdf
It's a very small step from filtering based on the content of in an IP header to filtering what is in the content of the payload. Again, be glad that this isn't happening (yet) where you live. And Comcast's heavy-handed tactics extend to more than just Bittorrent use:
It's a very huge leap to go from port blocking/throttling to outright content filtering. Absolutely enormous! ISPs have been doing what Comcast has been in the news recently for for years (often with good reason), but perhaps not as heavy handed.
This is still port-based, not content based shaping. There is no way to distinguish copyrighted material by waylaying ports. There is no feasable way to dissasemble packets and discern copyrighted information either.
Theo Delight
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Post by Theo Delight »

imslp wrote:A few more answers to points raised by UE:
UE wrote:2. UE most certainly made repeated polite and direct attempts to discuss in an amiable manner the copyright infringements taking place on the site. IMSLP has deliberately decided not to show you this correspondence, in the (successful) attempt to give the impression that UE was not prepared to enter into a dialogue and to resolve the issue in a friendly manner.
Actually, I thought I was doing U-E a favor by not showing the first cease and desist request, as it acknowledged that the works are legal in Canada, among a few other things (including wanting 3,000 Euro per "infringement"). But since U-E has requested the disclosure (and a few other people too), I have put up both the first Cease and Desist request, and my response in this forum.
One C&D "request" and a further letter from a lawyer does not, by any stretch of the imagination, constitute "repeated polite and direct attempts to discuss in an amiable manner the copyright infringements" allegedly taking place on the site.
imslp wrote: [quote=""UE"]3. The arguments presented to us by IMSLP basically amount to a rejection of existing copyright laws in a number of countries. Discussion of international law is by all means welcome and can be very interesting, but you can’t just tell a traffic cop that you don’t like the speed restrictions on the highway because another country has different rules.
I'm not too clear what the parallel is. IMSLP is based in Canada, and do not drive cars on Austrian roads. However, whether or not you choose to import Canadian cars and drive them on Austrian roads ignoring the speed limit is your choice. Or do you mean that the manufacturing of specific types of Canadian cars should be banned altogether, because they can be imported into Austria and are capable of surpassing the speed limit there?
[/quote]

Though I am not a lawyer, even I can tell irrelevant flim-flam when I see it.
Richard Black
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Post by Richard Black »

One C&D "request" and a further letter from a lawyer does not, by any stretch of the imagination, constitute "repeated polite and direct attempts to discuss in an amiable manner the copyright infringements" allegedly taking place on the site.
I think the UE implication is that there was correspondence _before_ the C&D was sent.
imslp
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Post by imslp »

I assure you, there is absolutely no correspondence between UE and IMSLP prior to the second C&D except for what I had posted, including the first C&D, and my response.
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