
Online Pirates Have No Constitutional Right to Internet Access, BMG Says - mnm1
https://torrentfreak.com/online-pirates-have-no-constitutional-right-to-internet-access-bmg-says-170708/
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LeoPanthera
This is the same BMG that thought installing a rootkit on everyone's computers
was a good idea.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal)

~~~
kakarot
Ah the good old days, when phoning home about your users' listening habits was
considered faux pas.

~~~
ryanmarsh
It wasn't just telemetry. It was a software installation unauthorized by the
user. I shouldn't have to explain this on HN.

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honestoHeminway
Its moment like this you notice how far we have fallen

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techer
Or how far we've bent over. Apologies if this isn't appropriate.

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ruytlm
When you think of this in terms of the internet being a utility, it highlights
how ridiculous this actually is:

"We want you to disconnect the pirates' electricity, because they used that to
power the computers they used to download the content!"

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trafficlight
BMG has no constitutional right to stay in business, either.

~~~
zipwitch
And there you've hit the nail on the head. Too many people running currently
powerful/profitable businesses think they have a right to have their business
model be profitable.

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moonka
Once you decide to pick and choose who gets which constitutional rights, it
makes it a lot easier to strip them away completely.

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X86BSD
This is what blows my mind. If someone can strip you of a "right", then it's
not a right it's a privilege. We have RIGHTS in this country not privileges.

~~~
Powerofmene
It seems to me we are confusing words....rights and privileges are being
confused with entitlements. The Code of Federal Regulations has very few
entitlements, Medicare at the age of 65 and a Free Appropriate Public
Education are two entitlements and there are a few select others. All others
"rights or privileges" as discussed here require meeting specific
criteria.....voting is a privilege afforded to those who register and the
federal law allows states to prohibit Convicted felons or the mentally
incompetent the right to vote. Most states have placed these restrictions on
voting in their state constitution. Life is a privilege that a jury and the
courts can remove in many states just as freedom is a privilege not a right.

An entitlement cannot be taken from you but suffice it to say entitlements are
few in number in the US. As a reformed public servant who spent many many
hours in the CFR, I assure you that you can count on one hand those
entitlements.

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hoodoof
BMG is right of course. The Founding Fathers foresaw exactly this sort of
situation and made sure the constitution was worded to exclude such pirates
from diminishing the profits of BMG.

Further, I'm pretty sure the constitution goes further and is quite explicit
that such pirates really should have their citizenship stripped or be sent to
the electric chair.

Those Founding Fathers - they knew what was what.

~~~
geggam
See there is an underlying issue here that seems to be neglected.

When you transform your work into a mathematical equation and then tell people
they cant solve the equation without giving you money... well...

Your business model is fundamentally broken.

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averagewall
No. When you transform your work into physical objects and leave them on the
side of the street then tell people they can't take them without giving you
money ... Both cases depend on property rights and law enforcement to function
at all. Property rights, both physical and IP are arbitrary human inventions.

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cryptonerd2212
Seems like a good excuse to exclusively pirate BMG content in protest. Some
really popular labels do recording under them.

[http://www.bmg.com/us/recording.html](http://www.bmg.com/us/recording.html)
\- labels [http://www.bmg.com/us/music.html](http://www.bmg.com/us/music.html)
\- artists

~~~
virmundi
Or just give up on them or the entire music industry. That's what I've done.
Pretty much did the same for movies. I don't want to pay their prices with
their rules. Rather than steal, I just don't consume. Most of the music I
listen to is either through a legal streaming service like Amazon or Pandora
(which is probably 10 songs a month total) or legal video playback on Youtube
through Vevo even from smaller labels like
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxLA1NX9gxY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxLA1NX9gxY).

~~~
kakarot
Unfortunately, some of us consider listening to music to be a big part of who
we are, and 10 songs a month is akin to suicide.

With newer labels, it's much easier to stream from bandcamp, etc. but with
older music it can be hard to find what you want, in the quality and quantity
you desire, while staying above piracy.

I find it very hard to tell a poor person that they do not get to listen to as
much music as me, or of the same quality (streaming is still sub-320kbps)
because they were not born into a richer family.

~~~
sokoloff
Where does that end? Do you expect them to have a right to the same high end
speakers/headphones that you have? To the same sound-treated room?

I understand piracy more when it's literally impossible to make a legal
purchase of something; I get it. When it's merely a matter of spending less
money, I have a lot less sympathy for the copyright infringers.

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gorkonsine
>I understand piracy more when it's literally impossible to make a legal
purchase of something; I get it. When it's merely a matter of spending less
money, I have a lot less sympathy for the copyright infringers.

What if the work is old? Do you think it's wrong to make an unauthorized copy
of Shakespeare's works, or Beowulf? So why should I have to pay someone for a
copy of, say, a Hitchcock movie like "The Birds"? That movie is over a half-
century old now, and if the copyright laws hadn't been changed, it'd have been
in the public domain for the last 30 years. So why should I feel guilty if I
download a copy of it? Why should I be obligated to spend money to some
rights-holder who bought out the rights to a work where everyone involved in
its production is now dead?

~~~
sokoloff
I view copyright as a means to permit society to have more creative works
produced. Would Hollywood make a $100MM movie if they couldn't charge for it
or could only charge the first person for it? Would drug companies invest
billions in research to create effective new drugs for society if they knew
they couldn't reap any financial reward for success?

I don't love all the corner cases that result from IP law and in particular
hate software patents, but I also think that society and individuals therein
benefit from there being a commercial payoff for investing in making creative
works. I'm periodically surprised at how little value is placed on that by a
some software engineers, given that most of what we create is more valuable
(or made commercially possible) by virtue of copyright protections.

I understand that other people may feel differently.

~~~
gorkonsine
You're not answering the question. How does it benefit society for the works
of Shakespeare to be protected by copyright now, after hundreds of years?

~~~
sokoloff
The reason you think I'm not answering the question is that I believe you have
a faulty premise (that the works of Shakespeare are under copyright protection
today).

I believe they are not.

~~~
gorkonsine
Now you're either missing the point, or being intentionally obtuse.

No, the works of Shakespeare are not, but works that are 50 or 75 years old
still are, even though everyone who wrote or created them are now dead. How is
this useful to society? It's no different than if Shakespeare's works were
still protected by copyright. And since we have now enacted perpetual
copyright, nothing new will ever fall into the public domain from this point
forward.

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kakarot
"The First Amendment does not guarantee Cox’s subscribers the right to use
Cox’s internet service to steal music any more than it prevents Cox from
terminating subscribers who violate Cox’s policies or fail to pay their bills"

Okay, so where does it guarantee copyright holders the right to dictate my
ability to use a utility that is now widely regarded as a basic human right by
the international community? [0]

[0] [http://gizmodo.com/internet-access-is-now-a-basic-human-
righ...](http://gizmodo.com/internet-access-is-now-a-basic-human-
right-1783081865)

~~~
duncan_bayne
Right here:

[https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?cycle=ALL](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?cycle=ALL)

I think you'll find that's what has been used instead of the Constitution in
the US for some time.

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andreyf
Renaissance Technologies? That's not a list I would have expected them to be
on...

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emodendroket
Great. I was hoping there was some other class of minor crime we could cut
people off from society for committing and it looks like this one fits the
bill.

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anotheryou
And next we ban fare dogers from acessing traffic infrastructure like rails,
roads and sidewalks. And can we ban thiefs from buying or otherwise accessing
food?

Oh and repeated offenders for that music piracy, can we cut off their ears?

