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2) Has anyone ever heard, read or seen of a terrorist network founded by piracy? I mean Osama which according to the US is the real world threat is a multi millionaire...

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Yes. Piracy is a huge chunk of organized crime. Organized crime, including piracy, drugs, especially hard drugs, and human traffiking are largeparts of terrorist funding. The only other source is skimming or fronting charitable donations.

If yoyu have read up on on Osama whom you menton he harderly everusedhis own limited funds, he was a fundraiser among others including settingup charaties and sanctioning organized crime activities for funding..

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Plus if you sell a CD/DVD at £5 then your gonna have to sell 1000000 copies to get £500000, not a very profitable way to fund a network.

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Again....huh? I suggest you check your math you get ten times as much!

I agree with Dela and the ORG ostly on this, BUT there is a big differenc between what most in law enforcement define as piracy as selling of others IP and DRM circumventon by consuemrs. That is where we need to foucs if you rea the several articles on this pefic issue in europe the problem lays int eh definiton of "major crime". Again the entertainment industry is trying trying to confuse actual piracy, which certainly does fund crime syndicates, including terrorist networks, with consuemr breaking drm. file shring by its nature is not piracy as it does not invlve money!

read this,klingon

The real p2p pirates and thieves

p2p news / p2pnet: Sony BMG, one of the four members of the Organized Music crime gang and, hence, also an owner of both the RIAA Recording Industry Association of America) and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), was caught brazenly planting Digital Restrictions Management "protection" spyware in customers' computers without their knowledge or permission.

Now the mainstream media are going where we and other blogs and news sites have gone before.

"Controversial copy-protection software used by music publisher Sony BMG on music CDs appears to have tapped an open source project, raising questions about copyrights, software experts said on Friday," states Reuters.

"Appears" to have? And "tapped?"

There's no doubt about it. Sony BMG's hired help, First4Internet, didn't tap, it lifted, GPL code direct from L.A.M.E. and DVD Jon Lech Johansen. Then Sony BMG deliberately burned it into music CDs which it deliberately sold to the public, knowing full well its DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) spyware would be planted in customers' computers without their knowledge or consent.

Moreover, as Finland's Matti Nikki originally discovered, the uninstall patch (Sony BMG didn't say where that came from) written to 'fix' things was as bad as the spyware, as the Sony BMG DRM software has now been officially named and described.

But we don't hear anyone such as Lamar Smith or Hollywood Howard Berman screaming for Sony to be shut down.


the rest of the article here
http://p2pnet.net/story/7025

@S2K lol yeah my calculations were totally off, feel a bit stupid now :)

Anyways when i think about Organized crime i tend to think of people like the mafia, yakuza or the triads but when i think of terrorism i tend to think of suicide bombers and such groups like those in Iraq, both may do the same thing to get cash but honestly i have never heard of a terrorist network selling copied games/DVDs/Cds to rise cash remember that Afghanistan has a lot of poppy fields that make more money than probably both the DVD/Music industry which to me is a most profitable way rather than selling copies. I still pretty much think this legislation is a crime against the EU and using terrorism is false and out of order.

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read this,klingon

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Yep, I did, Ireland -- the whole thing from top to bottom.

It depresses the hell out of me. I mean, the Internet Community in general already knew how prickish the music cartels were (and are), but I don't think very many people actually realize how criminal they are as well.

Sony/BMG, MCA Records, Vivendi/EMI, Warner Brothers, etc. etc., are all owned and run by powerful, outright thugs. Monetarily, they have collectively reached a critical mass, to the point where even governments and legal authorities are afraid of them. (Hence, "paid politicians and bought-off judges"). I found it very interesting to read that former president Ronald Regan was once "one of MCA's most important clients."

The RIAA is a 'puppet' organization - a sick joke; a farce; a cover-up; a 'front', a big fat f----ng LIE foisted on the world as a "decent" [gag] organization representing the interests of musicians and song-writers.

In my mind, the once-proud and respected Sony Corp., has now plummeted the depths of global corruption. XCP-DRM is merely scratching the surface of a filthy beast, and only the merest first-glimpse of a far more fatal tragedy that lay underneath.

There is a lot I don't know. There is a lot I don't think I want to know.

I hope that others will give a quick look to the link you gave, so that they can see for themselves the intense degree of corporate corruption I am talking about.

Barring any extreme exception, it will be a foggy day in hell before I ever buy another retail music cd.

[Temporary end of Rant].

Haha, I can't actually remember the last time I bought a music CD/DVD/Game. Apart from the fact that I'm only 15 years old, still living with my parents, no job, with an allowance of £10 a week. But I refuse to buy anything riddled with crap such as DRM, CSS, which abuse my rights to make a backup copy of anything I own. Yes of course there are way's to get around it, u but it works both ways. They stuff it with all this B$ and they don't get my money ;)

-Mike

What next Osama Bin Laden selling harry potter dvds at the barras, hehehehe what a joke. The biggest funder f Terrorism is the U.S, wasnt he funded by the U.S to help fight the russians in Afghanastan.Even Saddam himself was financed by the U.S to fight Iran, Hence the visits to the country by Donald Bumsfelt, still sad that they have resorted to calling everyone who has downloaded a song two, or a movie is being labelled the same as the guys who crash planes into tall buildings,its nothing but a disgrace, that is ofensive and slanderous to accuse someone of that sort of thing because he owns a computer.You see everyone regardless of who he is or what they do for a living has at one time or another downloaded something illegal song movie or otherwise so in effect we are all terrorist.Anyway i could rant on but choose not to but will say this ..keep paying your speeding fines and traffic tickets while real criminals sit in offices raking in millions.

Let The Punishment.. Fit The Crime

-Mike

Since the Mafia and other crime figures have been known to be connected to the entertainment industry..[remember Frank Sinatra ?? ]...How long will it be before a "wiseguy" comes knocking on non-music and movie buyer's doors telling them to buy movies and music or "They will make an offer one cannot refuse....."

Well, at least it's nice to see that the entertainment industry really is led by such a giving and caring group of humanitarians. It's so very touching that even now, with all of the hardship and troubles that those poor souls are currently enduring, that corporations like Universal Music, Disney, and especially Sony, are showing that they are truly only concerned with the well-being of the citizens of Europe and obviously the safety of the entire world.
I most definitely owe them all, as well as the RIAA, a tremendous apology as I have totally misjudged them! To think that for all of this time I had been thinking that they were nothing but a gang of greedy arrogant jerks, who, if given the opportunity would take the life savings of their own Grandmother for downloading Amazing Grace. It's such a relief to finally see what kind of people the CMBA and all of the companies listed above truly are.

I beleive this agencies are spinning there wheels with the P2P things. However things that have been posted about are open to Debate. Bin Laden WAS a Saudi millionaire, not anymore. We (US) suppled money to the Pakiistan Intelligence Service, not Laden. Richard Miniter book Disinformation explodes these myths. Terrorist do get funds from piracy. The kind of piracy that makes thousands of Bootleg DVDS, CDs, cassette taped and copeid software. I particaped in a sweep in which search warrants were executed in a major city and pirated material was seized. A further investigation disclosed the money from the stores was going to Hamas & The PFLP.

Someone d/l a single song and backing up a dvd for themselves and supporting terroism is too far of a stretch to be swallowed

Haven't the idiots yet realised that if they were to stop wasting so much of their little earned salaries in using whatever little wrangle they can find to stop people sharing their music, i.e. likening them to terrorists - whatever next! and invested that money into reducing the costs of their products on the market - the general population wouldnt waste their time sharing - they would all be buying. I recently looked a legal download site and who are they kidding - downloading an album from what I have seen is no cheaper than buying it in a shop after all you have to provide the disc to copy it onto, make and print a label is it any wonder most people will take advantage if they can get for free.

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stop people sharing their music, i.e. likening them to terrorists - whatever next! and invested that money into reducing the costs of their products on the market - the general population wouldnt waste their time sharing - they would all be buying.

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I think that kat123 makes a good point here, which brings to my mind a couple of things.

1> If we were speaking in purely economic terms, then without a doubt, the world is currently going through a definite Musical Depression. The creative output as far as new music, in every genre accross the board, has been in a substantial drought for several years running and has led to this depressing time for music lovers. This statement is validated by the folks in the industry themselves as about a month ago, here on AD there was an article that quoted some major record label spokesperson in criticism of i-tunes pricing structure basically saying that they (the record publisher) would like to charge significantly higher prices for new music that becomes popular and a set lesser amount for everything else. As a result of this dearth of good new music people are having to use whatever means they can, including P2P file-sharing, to find anything original that's any good.

2> I used to use limewire, and most often the music that I obtained via P2P were songs that were no longer big sellers, and therefore, were virtually impossible to find in any store. I would have gladly paid for any of these songs had I been given the opportunity to do so.

Agreed so far, especially about p2p sharing not being piracy in the agreed sense....

I have in the past recorded and released music, in my previous life I was a Known..Signed recording artist with a subsidiary of one of the "Majors"..All my music is now unobtainable as the company have decided that it is uneconomic to continue production of the small number they think they will sell..
This leaves me in a no man's land as I hold the writers/artists rights, but not the copyright or publishing..namely that I can perform or record my songs, but I cannot release the original recordings or upload or share them without running the risk of prosecution from companies who think that what I have in the past made is now worthless to them...B*******!!!
Why...Pure greed, they can't be bothered selling it...but I can't give it away..

I remember the great days of Punk, but even those guys and gals ended up being "owned" by these corrupt fat cats..In the end we all suffer from this greed as all we get is commercial pap for the mindless masses......

So it's just Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. However, this time it's stealing from the very very rich and giving to those who believe in dignity.
people like itunes aren't really helping by charging just as much as in the shops for albums.
And then there's the issue of StarForce copy protection. Twice i've had to reformat my hard disk because of that illegal software removing my disk drives from my system. The only time I buy discs is for presents, and that's that. What's the point in giving all this money to people who wreck your computers?

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This leaves me in a no man's land as I hold the writers/artists rights, but not the copyright or publishing..namely that I can perform or record my songs, but I cannot release the original recordings or upload or share them without running the risk of prosecution

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This is an area where, it seems to me that the law is, at the very least, highly inconsistent, if not blatently biased. When the artist signs a contract with a major record label, that artist cedes the rights to their intellectual property over to the record label. This should at least imply that there is a precedent established here that the intellectual property rights go to the buyer. But somehow, when the music is sold to the consumers everything shifts 180 degrees out of phase, and this time, the intellectual property rights go to the seller, who once again just happens to be the megabucks record label. It almost seems as if the record labels are benefitting from some divine birthright to intellectual property. It has to be noted that the record labels are operating within the framework of the current laws. It can be shown that this practice is totally legal. I'm not quite so sure that it can be shown that this practice is totally just.

~ I like your comment, kat123, Pretty much couldn't have said it any better :)

~Lethal

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Yeah, me too but it's not really salaries is it, more like floods?
To be honet zippyd summed it up in his first 3 words - "Money is power"
Too right. And why?

It seems obvious given thier zeal to arrest 13 year old females and thier moms the entertainment industry is completely corrupt and run by mafia organizations. Its just sad to see that these people and not the people control the democratic voting system as peoples opinions are largely being bypassed and judges now being payed off
such as the lobbying scandal. Ill never legaly buy another music or movie again as long as the entertainment
industry supports this. Do we really want a world where 13 year old children are given the electric chair for uploading 30,000 songs. Maybe we should start doing mandatory drug testing for movie and music stars as well if thier going to be this asinine as well as music
industy CEO's, we have to have it for Mcdonalds and Burger King, why not go to where the real problem is.Lets make sure our lawn is clean before trying to patrol everyone elses.

Hmmm, I'm not sure they use the electric chair, just hand out hefty fines to keep their corrupt business afloat. I'm loathed to get legit versions of software if I must due to this, but there are some instances where it is unavoidable (Games protected by starforce, the product not being released in my area, or it being windows)

Since most of the p2p networks seemed mostly ruled out because of the "hit police", I have been doing some further checks in cheap and legal sites as getting music withdrawal symptoms. Have looked at AllofMp3 a legal Russian site for music downloads and the little I have looked at the fees although in us $ seems a hell of a lot cheaper than any of the other well established sites. Can anyone help whether this is really a safe option to use? Comments I found on another unfamiliar site suggested it was fine and legal as it is a legal site in Russia and you were in effect buying over there and importing. Can anyone advise. Thanks

Well, it seems legal enough, but I'm sure if you were to ask the RIAA about it, they'd tell you otherwise.

actually 30,000 dollars may not seem like much, but when your suing people like 13 year olds for 250,000 a dvd for filesharing it, you might as well be giving someone the electric chair. That kind of fining should be unconstitutional, slavery is illegal yet we have a situation where if your the RIAA and suing someone for 2.5 billion or 30,000 its essentially saying the RIAA owns these people, their lifelong salary for most will belong to the RIAA. Its idiotic because our goverement doesnt give heroin and other hard crimes the amount of attention or excessive fining filesharing warrants.Its
showing how idiotic and currupt the entertainment industry is and has made the us goverment. OJ didnt pay the goldman family as much money as some of these colledge students are getting fined for doing something that everyone does, including these people working at the RIAA. You know if they did a sting RIAA computers and employes would have a ton of illegal filesharing downloads.
I think its going to bite them back though in the long run especially with blue-ray when they realize the power of advertising through word of mouth and having people use the products and talk about it generates far more cash than strict anti piracy controls and overpricing. Especially in filmdom, being famous=being popular and being widely distrubted, having the ability to stop distribution through anti piracy products=limiting your own popularity.
They may just hopefully put themselves out of buisness. Sadly as a gamer I see the gaming industry starting to do the same thing with overpriced games and consoles plus having to buy a HDTV to even get good use. Companies dont realize the amount of competition factors in plus the fact that now a month later thiers a better product than the one you just put out rather than having to wait 6 months or a year for it (in the case of programs). In the end it will hopefully just bite the companies in the ass.

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actually 30,000 dollars may not seem like much, but when your suing people like 13 year olds for 250,000 a dvd for filesharing it, you might as well be giving someone the electric chair

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LMAO

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Since most of the p2p networks seemed mostly ruled out because of the "hit police", I have been doing some further checks in cheap and legal sites as getting music withdrawal symptoms. Have looked at AllofMp3 a legal Russian site for music downloads and the little I have looked at the fees although in us $ seems a hell of a lot cheaper than any of the other well established sites. Can anyone help whether this is really a safe option to use?

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I have not tried AllofMp3 but have read nothing negative and many good things about the site. I have heard gossip implying that the site may be a target for legal action sometime in the future, but I don't see anything coming of that any time too soon as I think that the Russian judicial system would have to make a ruling on that one.
Even if they did find that the site was not legal, I don't think that anyone who has downloaded from there would have anything to worry about. Unless I'm mistaken, at this time, the only people that have been targeted for legal action have been folks who alledgedly uploaded files for distribution.
I too, had thoughts of trying this site but I'm really not crazy about the mp3 format. Also, I'm probably a little paranoid, but the thought of sending my credit card number over there, with the Russian Mafia being what it is, made me just a little bit nervous.

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I just had a thought..[that in it's self is strange...] If the MPAA and the RIAA are going into other countries and pushing for laws and suing, can another country or a company from another country come into the USA and do the same thing.. I wonder if the arogence of the US government and large companies would allow such a thing to happen.

I wouldnt be suprised if we dont eventually either get really tense with another country or into a war over it, especially if the us goes after some rich kid with prominate parents living in another country. aparently looking on c-net and elsewhere suing has become the only real comodity the entertainment and electronic industry can regularly generate. the only good thing about having a complete and total rule over all countries is the us cant ever legaly patrol filesharing if every country doesnt adopt its policies. sad people dont remember that most wars start when people have oppressive rich fascist intolerant religious political regimes, its why americans left europe because of the opression of the royalty and the church, its why democracy started in france during the french revolution against the opressive royalty and religious state and now were suddenly back to a fascist anti-intellectual pro suing rich peroson controlled goverment. History
is only repetitive when the rich, wealthy and those with poltical power refuse to learn from it.