Google Fiber Sends Automated Piracy ‘Fines’ to Subscribers

Jospeh said:
Do you work for the RIAA? No it is not theft. No it is not theft of labor. Stop calling it things that it isn't.
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The hair is being split! :p

At the end of the day, the effort someone put into the creation of something isn't being rewarded with the intended monetary incentive to cover expenses incurred and offer incentive to continue creating something. This happens to authors as well when their books are duplicated and shared without the purchase costs being paid for by each individual in order to obtain the right to read something.

It doesn't matter what you call it. Arguing that point doesn't make it more legal to do it.
 
Ashbringer said:
There's so much wrong with that I don't even know where to begin.

Firstly this is a profit driven process which Google punishes you when they find out you're pirating. Why? How is this a good idea besides making Google better at catching you pirating?

Secondly we live in a day in age where we encourage you to use Wifi. So a friend or relative comes over and you let them use your awesome Google Fiver. Except they're using their smart phones to torrent that new Avengers movie. Uh oh says Google, time to pay up.

Finally, what right does Google have to fine you for pirating someone else work? Does Google give them the money instead?
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Dude. Read the actual article. :D
 
Ashbringer said:
There's so much wrong with that I don't even know where to begin.

Firstly this is a profit driven process which Google punishes you when they find out you're pirating. Why? How is this a good idea besides making Google better at catching you pirating?

Secondly we live in a day in age where we encourage you to use Wifi. So a friend or relative comes over and you let them use your awesome Google Fiver. Except they're using their smart phones to torrent that new Avengers movie. Uh oh says Google, time to pay up.

Finally, what right does Google have to fine you for pirating someone else work? Does Google give them the money instead?
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I'm not defending Google's actions, but not all of them are entirely indefensible. If I rent out a room in my house to some guy who turns it into a meth lab, I have a responsibility to know what my property is being used for. The whole "I run unsecured wifi and random strangers committed crimes with it" excuse no longer flies. If you dont want to secure your wifi then you are obligated to know what it is being used for.

I can only assume Google is getting so cozy with the AA here due to mounting legal pressures. They're probably just throwing in the towel and realizing they cant continue to deal with this shit. You gotta admit the AA's have been pretty damn diligent in this matter, they are relentless and show no signs of giving up or adapting to the future.

That and the fact that Google probably feels confident most people accused are rightfully so, therefore they have a hard time feeling mercy and defending what they know is most certainly illegal action being committed. Why go through all the hassle and spend billions on legal defenses so cheap fuckwits and continue to pirate movies and games?
 
Jospeh said:
Do you work for the RIAA? No it is not theft. No it is not theft of labor. Stop calling it things that it isn't.
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You paid someone to make a movie, not *for* the movie. Refusal to pay is theft of labor. How would you like it if you didnt receive a paycheck this week and your boss said "I didnt steal anything from you"?
 
McFry said:
So what would you call it if you didnt receive a paycheck this week and your boss just said "i didn't steal anything from you"?
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My boss not being able to make payroll? I would have to file that under 'typical'.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
That's a good set of questions that you'll have to ask the service provider, but since it's Google, I'm pretty sure that they at least have pretty good records of what you've been doing and know if you've made a purchase or not so that the data they analyze in-flight can be correlated to a prior legitimate purchase. But then again, you'd really have to talk with them about that sorta thing. I'd bet they're keeping good tabs on the data flowing across their network and breaking into encryption where necessary.
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How would they have these records? Home router sends all packets over a VPN to a hosted VPN server (TLS 1.2 / AES 256). You don't need any client software on the devices. DNS is done internally on my own BIND servers. All DNS traffic is forwarded to my internal DNS servers regardless of what settings are pushed to client devices. No devices have direct access to my connection - all packets not routed over the VPN are dropped. My ISP never even sees my DNS traffic.
 
canna said:
How would they have these records? Home router sends all packets over a VPN to a hosted VPN server (TLS 1.2 / AES 256). You don't need any client software on the devices. DNS is done internally on my own BIND servers. All DNS traffic is forwarded to my internal DNS servers regardless of what settings are pushed to client devices. No devices have direct access to my connection - all packets not routed over the VPN are dropped. My ISP never even sees my DNS traffic.
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Can't they just subpeona and/or fine your VPN provider, or is it overseas?
 
canna said:
How would they have these records? Home router sends all packets over a VPN to a hosted VPN server (TLS 1.2 / AES 256). You don't need any client software on the devices. DNS is done internally on my own BIND servers. All DNS traffic is forwarded to my internal DNS servers regardless of what settings are pushed to client devices. No devices have direct access to my connection - all packets not routed over the VPN are dropped. My ISP never even sees my DNS traffic.
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In your case I dont think you would ever be getting any letters.
 
To be clear, aren't these notices or whatever Google is forwarding completely meaningless? As in, you can just chuck them in the trash and completely ignore them?

Companies have been doing this for years- send scary letters, get a certain % of gullible people to pay.
 
I'm curious who these people are, are they simply people downloading movies/music? or are they going full retard like when Napster came out and are like "I have teh fiber! Open my collection to the world"
 
DocSavage said:
Can't they just subpeona and/or fine your VPN provider, or is it overseas?
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Spain.

Spanish courts have ruled that file sharing for private use is legal, file sharing and torrent websites were ruled legal in Spain in March 2010. The Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that personal data associated with an IP address may only be disclosed in the course of a criminal investigation or for public safety reasons.

Best luck to them ;)
 
GotNoRice said:
To be clear, aren't these notices or whatever Google is forwarding completely meaningless? As in, you can just chuck them in the trash and completely ignore them?

Companies have been doing this for years- send scary letters, get a certain % of gullible people to pay.
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Probably, but obviously google knows who the infringing party is based on their database of everything they are collecting from you, so maybe it's only a matter of time before google makes the request to an anonymous client not so anonymous by telling the MAFIAA who it is.
 
Mother of god i could only imagine what the hard drive activity looks like with a 1gbs up/down torrent...

Still the one guy said he got 60 of them in a week, and didnt even have the same ip address as the email statement, how do you fight that?
 
nightanole said:
Mother of god i could only imagine what the hard drive activity looks like with a 1gbs up/down torrent...

Still the one guy said he got 60 of them in a week, and didnt even have the same ip address as the email statement, how do you fight that?
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How?

You just /ignore, or do what I outlined above.
 
McFry said:
You paid someone to make a movie, not *for* the movie. Refusal to pay is theft of labor. How would you like it if you didnt receive a paycheck this week and your boss said "I didnt steal anything from you"?
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This is a new one. Since we can't actually redefine "theft" to fit copyright infringement, we make up "theft of labor"?

One, you're applying a criminal charge to something not criminal. In your example, the boss committed the theft of labor because he has previously entered a contract (verbal or otherwise) to pay his employees for work rendered.

The artist enters the labor contract knowing that they may not make a dime on the work they produce. The infringing party does not enter any labor contract with said artist in whole or in part. Therefore the infringing party can not commit " theft of labor " against the artist (et al.) or said artists employees, even in a revenue sharing model. An infringed download does not equal a lost sale.

So let's just call it exactly what it is. Copyright infringement. Like it or not, that's what digital piracy is. People can try and tag it as stealing, but it's INFRINGING, as the only rights granted to produced work is COPYRIGHTS which gives a license to creators to prevent the reproduction of their work without permission.
 
Piracy is not theft, piracy is piracy. This is neither pro nor anti piracy statement. It is simply a fact.

OFF-TOPIC

On a sidenote, could anyone tell me how we can talk about piracy here in the news and yet a while back when I made a post saying how steam is essentially one of the best anti piracy moves a company ever made, I got my topic locked for mentioning piracy?

Being a forumer for several years now, it would be nice to know
 
kirbyrj said:
If you cared to read the article, it isn't so much finding you guilty in a "legal" sense, but just offering you a pre-negotiated settlement to stay out of court.
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Google must have been studying big medicine.
 
Jospeh said:
Piracy isn't theft no matter how loud you scream it is.
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Very true. Concerning the legal definition of theft involves tangible items of sentimental or monetary value. An illegally downloaded song is not only intangible, but being able to make hundreds of identical copies in a few seconds grants it $0 value. That is why this is called copyright infringement. It is not theft
 
McFry said:
It's theft of labor. When you pirate Avatar you arent stealing the 1's and 0's that comprise the film in mp4 format, you are stealing all the hours and effort that went into constructing those 1's and 0's for you to use. No different than if you refused to pay the guy who built your house.
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Theft of labor would be if those involved with the making of a song or movie did not receive a paycheck. This would have a better standing if you were to say that the employer is being deprived of compensation for the money paid to the employees.
 
GotNoRice said:
To be clear, aren't these notices or whatever Google is forwarding completely meaningless? As in, you can just chuck them in the trash and completely ignore them?

Companies have been doing this for years- send scary letters, get a certain % of gullible people to pay.
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It is. Google is just doing what every other ISP in North America is doing and forwarding the notices. I'm not sure what's up with Steve's fear mongering blurbs on the front page, pretty sure its just to drive traffic
 
DeathFromBelow said:
'Piracy' is a legal definition of a kind of theft. Specifically, the unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work.

I wont pretend that the damages claimed by the RIAA/MPAA are not absurd ($75 trillion for Limewire, for example), but given how widespread piracy is I think its ridiculous pretend there's no meaningful harm. Claiming that 'they wouldn't have bought it anyway' is childish and wrong.
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How is it childish and wrong? If someone downloads a song, but never intended to buy that song in the first place, tell me, how much $ did the RIAA lose? Now out of every instance of piracy, how many instances fit that scenario? Does anyone really know? No. All we know for certain is that not every instance of piracy equals a lost sale. Some instances do - but not all.

The point is, there are no concrete facts that support the claim that piracy has any major affect on sales. The entertainment industry is having record-breaking numbers (Avengers 2 box office earnings, GTA V, etc). It is obvious that piracy has little affect if any on sales. Is the entertainment industry making money? Yes, lots of it. So is piracy really an issue? No.

The issue of piracy is overblown by RIAA/MPAA. We all know the real reason the RIAA/MPAA is making a huge deal about piracy: GREED. They want every last cent they can get out of us.
 
Jospeh said:
Do you work for the RIAA? No it is not theft. No it is not theft of labor. Stop calling it things that it isn't.
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Why do people feel entitled to items that they would enjoy. Do you pirate things because "i wasnt going to pay for it" and use that justification? If it isn't worth paying for then why are you downloading in the first place?

This generation of kids are just so entitled to everything thinking that just because they can do something means they should do something.

Piracy is bad, it gives the internet a dirty smear, has caused DRM in many forms to exist. It does cause loss of money, if 5,000 people are watching a movie that only 3 people paid for, that is 4997 people enjoying your work and services for free.

I don't have a clean slate myself but at least I don't pretend I was doing the right thing when I was.
 
Darunion said:
Why do people feel entitled to items that they would enjoy. Do you pirate things because "i wasnt going to pay for it" and use that justification? If it isn't worth paying for then why are you downloading in the first place?

This generation of kids are just so entitled to everything thinking that just because they can do something means they should do something.

Piracy is bad, it gives the internet a dirty smear, has caused DRM in many forms to exist. It does cause loss of money, if 5,000 people are watching a movie that only 3 people paid for, that is 4997 people enjoying your work and services for free.

I don't have a clean slate myself but at least I don't pretend I was doing the right thing when I was.
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DRM is not the answer to piracy. It only punishes paying customers. Driving them away from future sales once they see how limiting and annoying the DRM is. Since all DRM gets cracked anyways, pirates will continue to pirate while paying customers get punished. The sooner publishers realize this, the better - for everyone. Some publishers have already realized this (CDProjekt RED makers of the Witcher series) and don't put DRM in their titles. And look how well the Witcher III is doing sales-wise. In the end, it's all about survival of the fittest. If a publisher/artist/movie studio puts out a good product/service, it will sell well. If not, it won't. Stop blaming piracy.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Yeah, so um, pay for the things that you're downloading and this is totally not a problem. Most of the junk people are using without paying for (yeah, i phrased it that way so you hair-splitters that have an issue with derailing things by arguing about "stealing" can't divert discussion into a debate about what Merriam-Webster uses as a definition for that word) aren't really doing more than avoiding very small amounts of money. Like really, music and movies aren't even a necessity and they're not expensive even for people with like low class incomes that waste their money on booze, tobacco, cable TV, camo clothing, and cell phones while complaining about how poor they are. Yeah, even they can afford to purchase usage rights if they wanted (or had some self control over their spending).
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wow, I actually agree with creepyunclegoogle.
 
gnzblz said:
DRM is not the answer to piracy. It only punishes paying customers. Driving them away from future sales once they see how limiting and annoying the DRM is. Since all DRM gets cracked anyways, pirates will continue to pirate while paying customers get punished. The sooner publishers realize this, the better - for everyone. Some publishers have already realized this (CDProjekt RED makers of the Witcher series) and don't put DRM in their titles. And look how well the Witcher III is doing sales-wise. In the end, it's all about survival of the fittest. If a publisher/artist/movie studio puts out a good product/service, it will sell well. If not, it won't. Stop blaming piracy.
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He never claimed DRM was then answer to solve piracy, but it was certainly a response to it. His point was Piracy has caused many negatives to legitimate consumers, something you admit to in your response.
 
Darunion said:
Why do people feel entitled to items that they would enjoy. Do you pirate things because "i wasnt going to pay for it" and use that justification? If it isn't worth paying for then why are you downloading in the first place?

This generation of kids are just so entitled to everything thinking that just because they can do something means they should do something.

Piracy is bad, it gives the internet a dirty smear, has caused DRM in many forms to exist. It does cause loss of money, if 5,000 people are watching a movie that only 3 people paid for, that is 4997 people enjoying your work and services for free.

I don't have a clean slate myself but at least I don't pretend I was doing the right thing when I was.
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Piracy never caused DRM to exist. DRM was created so that if buyers want to backup their software in case of damage or loss they wouldn't be able to and would have to buy it again. No music/movies/software that has DRM is pirated along with the DRM, it's the first thing to be removed.
It causes no loss of money, that money never existed to begin with. You can forecast a billion dollars in revenue but if no one buys the product or service you're selling then the forecast is meaningless. Assuming that everyone who has seen your movie owes you money is idiotic. There are things such as rentals and inviting friends over for a movie and other forms of sharing which is completely legal which bites into your profit. No one calls that piracy or revenue loss.
If you have a product or service which takes 0 dollars to reproduce, then you'll have to rely on some legal bullshit to protect your business model.
 
gnzblz said:
DRM is not the answer to piracy. It only punishes paying customers. Driving them away from future sales once they see how limiting and annoying the DRM is. Since all DRM gets cracked anyways, pirates will continue to pirate while paying customers get punished. The sooner publishers realize this, the better - for everyone. Some publishers have already realized this (CDProjekt RED makers of the Witcher series) and don't put DRM in their titles. And look how well the Witcher III is doing sales-wise. In the end, it's all about survival of the fittest. If a publisher/artist/movie studio puts out a good product/service, it will sell well. If not, it won't. Stop blaming piracy.
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And what did they get in return? A huge number of illegal downloads. Pirates don't care about anything except getting their games for free in most cases. GoG gave a choice to everyone to pay without any DRM or hassle, and they shit all over that by just pirating anyways.
 
McFry said:
How would you like it if you didnt receive a paycheck this week and your boss said "I didnt steal anything from you"?
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A more fitting question would be

How would you like it if someone made an exact copy of your check and both checks still work?

I'd feel perfectly fine :)
 
Hypergreatthing said:
Piracy never caused DRM to exist. DRM was created so that if buyers want to backup their software in case of damage or loss they wouldn't be able to and would have to buy it again. No music/movies/software that has DRM is pirated along with the DRM, it's the first thing to be removed.
It causes no loss of money, that money never existed to begin with. You can forecast a billion dollars in revenue but if no one buys the product or service you're selling then the forecast is meaningless. Assuming that everyone who has seen your movie owes you money is idiotic. There are things such as rentals and inviting friends over for a movie and other forms of sharing which is completely legal which bites into your profit. No one calls that piracy or revenue loss.
If you have a product or service which takes 0 dollars to reproduce, then you'll have to rely on some legal bullshit to protect your business model.
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Rental stores pay a licensing fee for those movies and it is a bite, it is why the smaller stores never had new releases. The point is you have to pay for things if you want them. Just because it is easy for you to duplicate someone else's work doesn't mean you are not doing anything wrong. So only the cost of replication is a concern to you, not research or development, production, post-production or any of the other costs the company producing the item put into it? Are recipes okay? Schematics? Where is your line drawn for where it becomes bad? Just wondering why so many people actually feel it is okay to enjoy other peoples work for free, how did we get so desensitized to it over time?
 
How could you possibly fully utilize a pipe like that from home for anything other than pirating media anyway?
 
sfsuphysics said:
A more fitting question would be

How would you like it if someone made an exact copy of your check and both checks still work?

I'd feel perfectly fine :)
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I wouldn't on two levels.

One, why should I have to work 40+ hours a week for my check while that person doesn't do anything yet has the same spending power as me?

More importantly, that would directly lessen the value of my earned dollars. If anyone could go about easily duplicating dollars (or checks containing dollars), dollars would become more abundant, and thus each dollar would be worth less - inflation would occur. Inflation = lower spending power for your dollar.
 
Darunion said:
Rental stores pay a licensing fee for those movies and it is a bite, it is why the smaller stores never had new releases. The point is you have to pay for things if you want them. Just because it is easy for you to duplicate someone else's work doesn't mean you are not doing anything wrong. So only the cost of replication is a concern to you, not research or development, production, post-production or any of the other costs the company producing the item put into it? Are recipes okay? Schematics? Where is your line drawn for where it becomes bad? Just wondering why so many people actually feel it is okay to enjoy other peoples work for free, how did we get so desensitized to it over time?
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To be clear, I'm not advocating piracy. The point I'm trying to make is that piracy is not as big a deal as some make it out to be. The proof, look at all the revenue that is being generated in the entertainment industry. People are still paying for stuff. The solution to piracy is to provide great products/services at a good value. If copyright holders can focus on doing that (instead of implementing more DRM), then piracy would be even less of an issue.
 
If you're dumb enough to put your IP out in the open while you're torrenting stuff you shouldn't be you deserve what you get. No logging VPN services are all over the place and not that expensive. Take at least a small degree of responsibility for covering your ass.

Or, you know, don't do it because "you wouldn't steal a car" blah, blah, blah.
 
Dwango said:
If you're dumb enough to put your IP out in the open while you're torrenting stuff you shouldn't be you deserve what you get. No logging VPN services are all over the place and not that expensive. Take at least a small degree of responsibility for covering your ass.

Or, you know, don't do it because "you wouldn't steal a car" blah, blah, blah.
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IP is not a person.

But anyway, there are many services I can't get because they aren't made in the format that I want/can consume them in.

Again, the makers fault. I'd be willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for certain things, but the content "makers" refuse to put it how I want it.

Fuck em.
 
gnzblz said:
How is it childish and wrong? If someone downloads a song, but never intended to buy that song in the first place, tell me, how much $ did the RIAA lose? Now out of every instance of piracy, how many instances fit that scenario? Does anyone really know? No. All we know for certain is that not every instance of piracy equals a lost sale. Some instances do - but not all.

The point is, there are no concrete facts that support the claim that piracy has any major affect on sales. The entertainment industry is having record-breaking numbers (Avengers 2 box office earnings, GTA V, etc). It is obvious that piracy has little affect if any on sales. Is the entertainment industry making money? Yes, lots of it. So is piracy really an issue? No.

The issue of piracy is overblown by RIAA/MPAA. We all know the real reason the RIAA/MPAA is making a huge deal about piracy: GREED. They want every last cent they can get out of us.
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Your arguments are entirely utterly completely totally bogus. Im sorry, sure if someone pirates something it doesnt mean a lost sale. Nor does a damn stolen CD. If someone steals a CD that in NO WAY means they EVER intended to buy it. Maybe they cant buy it because they dont have the money, maybe they only want the 1 song and dont want to pay for the whole bloody cd, bogus argument through and through
 
Darunion said:
Rental stores pay a licensing fee for those movies and it is a bite, it is why the smaller stores never had new releases. The point is you have to pay for things if you want them. Just because it is easy for you to duplicate someone else's work doesn't mean you are not doing anything wrong. So only the cost of replication is a concern to you, not research or development, production, post-production or any of the other costs the company producing the item put into it? Are recipes okay? Schematics? Where is your line drawn for where it becomes bad? Just wondering why so many people actually feel it is okay to enjoy other peoples work for free, how did we get so desensitized to it over time?
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The whole rental fee is absurd. If i lend my car to a friend does ford get a rental fee? If i give my phone to someone to make a call, do they have to pay verizon to use it? The whole business model of licensing physical media so that the person who buys a dvd or game never actually owns it is insane.
If i take a photograph of a famous painting, is that illegal? Even if the museum is selling replicas of it in their shop and it hurts sales? That's the same thing as copying software or music.
And yes, the internal costs to produce something is not a concern to the end user. Why should it ever be? No one but the manufacturer or producer should care about internal costs. It's their job to monetize it correctly so they make a profit.
Recipes are generally free. Lots of schematics are free too. I don't see the point you're making. The whole point of patents exist so that the creator of the product has to submit and display their recipe/schematics/ideas out for everyone to see and they're offered an exclusive right to profit from it for a certain amount of years. Copyright for music and movies/software has gotten to the absurd level with 75 years + protection. That's not how the system was designed to work. They were supposed to go to public domain originally within 28 years. Now it lasts past a person's lifetime. The system is gamed, but why should people bother playing it?
 
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