Sometimes, news reports end up being merely propaganda for anti-piracy efforts. Sometimes, these efforts spread blatantly false information - we look at one of the latest efforts out of Australia.There's a difference (some say social, others say financial and a few say there's no difference at all) between burning and selling DVD's of movies and downloading on BitTorrent for free. In a recently published "report", people downloading content online is being likened to biker gangs involved in things like drug dealing. The report blurs the lines between downloading and physical piracy and quotes anti-piracy operations located in Australia. Blurring these distinctions, if one wants to produce an accurate report, is an extremely risky proposition at best - but it gets worse. The report goes as far as calling BitTorrent "piracy technologies" Perhaps someone missed the memo about BitTorrent Inc. making deals with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to distribute content legitimately or the note that Azureus Inc. produced a content distribution system for legitimate content, or possibly the tidbit about Jamendo assisting artists in distributing their music legitimately for free on BitTorrent, or even the factoid that MiniNova has produced a content distribution system for rights holders to distribute content over BitTorrent for free. This, of course, is just a small list of developments that suggest BitTorrent is not strictly a "piracy technology" In full, the report says this: In the latest crackdown, internet providers are working with the authorities and sending automatic warning messages to people who use piracy technologies such as BitTorrent. While we here at ZeroPaid haven't followed what has been going on in Australia to the point of knowing every single legal move even remotely related to file-sharing, our information on the situation suggests that the first part of this point is completely false as well. As we have reported in the past is that ISPs in Australia have recognized that the technology to discern between legitimate p2p traffic and unauthorized p2p traffic doesn't even exist today. As we have also reported, Australian ISPs aren't even considering acting as copyright police over their own networks. To our knowledge, there is nothing to indicate that anything has changed at this point. What would cause AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) to get an Australian news source to spout misleading information specifically? Perhaps it's the fact that local ISPs in Australia didn't play ball with AFACT when they wanted them to be copyright police. It's possible that this upset them and now they are trying to do things like suggesting that people who are downloading unauthorized copies of movies for free are linked to organized crimes ("bikie gangs" as the report says) While what is being said compared to what is already known borders on being sad, it's unlikely at this point that this move will change anything. Perhaps would could easily be deemed insulting to file-sharers is the prospect of being treated the same as people selling pirated DVD's on the street for profit. |
 
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