Don't push the shift key

[gitreel]

I found this is at boycottriaa. It is interesting reading. However the mpaa shut down 321 studios, not the riaa.

Don’t press that Shift key, or the DOJ (and RIAA)
Posted by on August 25, 2004 at 12:19 PM (printer friendly)


http://national.snitch.com/2004/08/24/jackman

Strangely, as multimedia tech becomes more sophisticated, it also becomes easier to rip off. Couple this fact with the freewheeling culture of the Internet, and you have the makings of a migraine for tight-fisted entertainment moguls.

Over the years, the counterfeiting volume has increased like feedback in a cheap recording studio. To dampen it, software geniuses have been hired to program anti-pirating software. Immediately, other software geniuses program anti-anti-pirating software.

Enter the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Its creators hoped to equalize the situation by, among other things, making it illegal for you to circumvent these measures, not to mention invent, sell or simply distribute protection-crackers.

With this bill in the can, overzealous, greedy — I mean, respectable — industry representatives such as the Recording Industry Association of America have been suing everyone and everything they can get their subpoenas on. Thanks to RIAA’s efforts, 321 Studios, a DVD copy software maker, has disbanded. So has the original, infamous peer-to-peer music service Napster (though it’s being remastered as a legal music subscription service as we speak). And as part of a campaign against thousands of individual file downloaders, the parents of hundreds of middle-schoolers are being served thick legal documents, creating yet another panic attack over their kids’ taste in music.

Unfortunately, the DMCA has created a few legal complications. One of these came to light when Velvet Revolver’s CD “Contraband” topped the charts this June. Apparently unaware of the CD’s title, the BMG record label loaded Contraband with MediaMax copy protection software. Faster than you can say “software flaw,” news raced over the Internet that MediaMax copy protection software can be disabled by simply holding down the Shift key when you slap the CD into your computer (you can also circumvent it by disabling the Autorun feature in Windows).

So thanks to the DMCA it may now be illegal to disable Windows’ Autorun, as well as to press your own Shift key.

To further help media giants suck the fun out of entertainment — I mean, protect their legitimate interests — Congress keeps releasing new potential legal flaws. This year has already seen the passage of the Senate’s Pirate Act and the Art Act. The so-called “Induce” bill is in pre-production.

The Pirate Act sharpens the swords of anti-piracy troops by allowing the Department of Justice to pursue civil as well as criminal cases against copyright violators. The ART Act, an acronym for the Artists’ Rights and Theft Protection Act of 2004, sics the DOJ on stealthy counterfeiters. These are the ones who sit in dark movie theaters recording previews on digital camcorders (if you watch the news, you’ve seen them busted by usher-soldiers armed with night-vision goggles), or who get a jump on the new film market by duplicating and selling pre-release tapes and DVDs. ART even allocates $5 million a year for five years to help the Justice Department fight the war on digital terrorism.

The Induce bill aims to create a new chart-topping criminal — one who merely creates an environment that encourages people to violate copyrights, such as by designing a peer-to-peer file-sharing network like ill-starred Napster. If the bill passes, I predict Kinko’s will have to hock all its self-service copy machines.

But it’s doubtful Induce will be a hit with the courts. On Aug. 19, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court upheld a San Francisco court’s ruling in favor of Grokster and StreamCast networks; it found that distributors of peer-to-peer file-sharing software are not aiding copyright infringement.

Not surprisingly, the RIAA and other industry representatives have not trumpeted another piece of new legislation, the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act of 2003, introduced by Rep. Rick Boucher and 19 other sponsors. If passed, Boucher’s bill will remove the restrictions on using and selling software that overrides copy protection for personal copying. (Hint: Write your representative.)

It does so by recognizing that these days multimedia is what IT folks like to call “platform independent.” In the old days, you could only slap vinyl on a turntable, piano rolls in a player piano and Edison wax cylinders on a phonograph. These days, if you pony up the bucks to buy an overpriced CD, you might want to copy it to your personal computer, another CD, a minidisk, cassette or MP3 player, to mention just a few of the ought-to-be-legal personal platforms.

To sum up: It’s important to protect copyrights. But thanks to the DMCA, Pirate, ART, Induce, and pit-bull groups like the RIAA, multimedia file sharers are the new digital millennium’s Cold-War commies. My advice, until Boucher’s legislation passes: Stay away from copy machines and Shift keys. That’s this week’s Technicalities.

[gitreel]

I pushed the shift key.

I guess I am a criminal.

Whaddaya know?

I pushed it again.

[Craig Tucker]

ItS fUn IsNt iT

[yalborap]

pushpushpushpushpush MY GOD SOMETHING CAME UP THEY'RE GONNA COME KILL ME OH GOD HELP MEflkjkjdfoijsdoijsdfionsdfoinsdjsdfiojienfijoslkj sfdkjdsflvjnsfdlkfjdfo;i

[VCDHunter]

iTs bloOdY AdDicTiVe - I cAnT STop nOw

[Invader Bugs]

Ha! OO!! Look at me! im pushing 2 Shifts keys at the same time!!!! oOoOoOoOoOoOo

hahaha, stupid anti-pirate freaks

[The MPAA Police]

you all think this is funny, don't you.


we are watching you. we know where you live. we know what you download. and we know if you did a number one or number two this morning.

we will get you. all of you. especially those of you pressing both shift keys at once.

[gitreel]

mpaa police,

get a grip.

[Craig Tucker]

Well I know who it is. see if you can guess.

[gitreel]

Quack Valenti perhaps.....

I just pressed the shift key again.

[yalborap]

I hit mine twice!

[Capmaster]

Well I know who it is. see if you can guess.

God bless the "IP" button

[The MPAA Police]

you all think you are so smart. but your not. weve been taking money from hollywood blockbusters for years. it funds our enforcement, it makes the movie look like it didnt make a profit, and it ensures that the rich remain rich in hollywood while the theater employees suffer.


we are much smarter than you. we have been and we always will be.

we took the village idiot down. we will take you down next.

[yalborap]

Kind of pointless when I've never paid to see a movie in my life, ain't it?

[The MPAA Police]

no. you cannot hide from your past. we know that you conspired with a theatre employee to sneak in and see divine secrets of the yaya sisterhood without paying. because of your reckless disregard for the law, a hollywood star was forced to eat at a 4star restaurant instead of a 5star restaurant.


and you thought you could hide this from us.

[gitreel]

and they probably killed kittens too.

[yalborap]

Dude, I'm thir-*******-teen. I've never snuck into a movie in my life.

I pirated it instead.

[Capmaster]

Dude, I'm thir-*******-teen. I've never snuck into a movie in my life.

I pirated it instead.

Careful what you say yalbo. .... MPAA Police - stop baiting the noob.

[Capmaster]

Let Indo give him a special, MPAA.

[gitreel]

relax yalbo,

the mpaa police is indo.

[yalborap]

Then relax I shall.

hey, I need some advice: should I stay here at my house all day with my high speed internet connection, or go to my grandma's house for the day, where I can have awesome food for meals that doesn't come out of a paper bag, and possibly learn a bit myself. Internet or food? Which is the path of the chosen one?

[The MPAA Police]

Dude, I'm thir-*******-teen. I've never snuck into a movie in my life.

I pirated it instead.

Careful what you say yalbo. .... MPAA Police - stop baiting the noob.

and speaking of pirates lets talk about your collection of 'time shifted' television recordings sitting in your nice wood cabinet.

[Capmaster]

Dude, I'm thir-*******-teen. I've never snuck into a movie in my life.

I pirated it instead.

Careful what you say yalbo. .... MPAA Police - stop baiting the noob.

and speaking of pirates lets talk about your collection of 'time shifted' television recordings sitting in your nice wood cabinet.

That copy of midget clown porn was public domain. Or was it pubic domain?

[yalborap]

TV recordings? Don't suppose you have some beast wars you'd be willing to somehow get on your computer and send to me...

[The MPAA Police]

im sure he does. just ask him to check on the fourth shelf. right behind the midget clown porn disc volume 2 that is really a shade copy of spiderman 2.

[yalborap]

Really? Cool! Can I pleeeeeeaaaase have some copies of your beast wars recordings, cap?

[Capmaster]

Really? Cool! Can I pleeeeeeaaaase have some copies of your beast wars recordings, cap?

Only if you can send me a copy of Edward Penishands before tomorrow. I already have Edward Scissordick, but that was far easier to get. tgpo had thirty copies of it and Pac had the original cast copy.

I have an order in already and if I can get it today, I can cancel my order

Oh ...and I'm also looking for a copy of "Honey, I Blew the Kid", in good condition.

[yalborap]

Hmm...Those aren't in my library, unfortunately. I specialize in hentai. How about sin sorority instead?

[Doramius]

I'll hit the shift key all I want. I'll disable the Autoplay feature on my computer if I want. It's my computer. And if anybody says different, I'll hold up my receipts. The companies know they are in the wrong. If they weren't, the copyright laws wouldn't be increasing every few years.

[gitreel]

Very good doramius,

I am glad someone understands.