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Post by obsessive24 on Jan 19, 2012 17:38:59 GMT -5
Are you feeling more exposed than before? Do you plan to take any specific action to try and protect yourself in respect of your own vidding hosting/archiving/streaming practices?
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Post by jackiek on Jan 19, 2012 17:59:14 GMT -5
Carol and I are going to try to figure out streaming from our website.
Hopefully, this will mean a website makeover.
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Post by legoline on Jan 19, 2012 18:11:12 GMT -5
I've been thinking about trying to get a website up and to have streams on it, but in my country all websites must have full contact information including address and everything, and that's just too risky for me. I've been using my domain for storage and direct links, mostly. I'll continue to stream from Vimeo and if that falls through I don't know...  |
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Post by jackiek on Jan 19, 2012 18:37:14 GMT -5
I'm not really feeling more exposed as an individual than I have before but, that could just be the anti-anxiety meds talking.
I don't know if the legal risks to vidders are worse than they have been. I mean will this make it easier for the RIAA to take my house? (Not a very likely consequence but, it is out there.)
It does seem, however, that some of the venues that allow us to use them will be less friendly if they don't go away entirely. I would not be happy about that but, it would not make me feel more exposed personally. I am content with aa small audience.
I think it's a larger risk to the sense of community we have as vidders because it will lead to splintering off into smaller, more isolated groups and a greater difficulty in keeping track of each other. That would be sad and would make me very angry.
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Post by obsessive24 on Jan 19, 2012 18:45:04 GMT -5
My worry is not so much that the legal risk is any higher, but whether the execution part of it would result in higher incidences of vidders being called out. If you have your own hosting, for example, is your host more likely to (a) shut you down or worse (b) report you?
I wasn't all that worried about SOPA/PIPA because it's ultimately an enforceability issue, but the MU case has really chilled me to the bone. Just the fact that they've been building this case on the quiet for years, only to reveal it to the public the day after the internet-wide protest. It feels too ironic not to have been planned that way. And if MU's been successfully pulled, how long before the other file-sharing sites go? They're all operating on exactly the same business model.
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Post by giandujakiss on Jan 19, 2012 19:11:19 GMT -5
For what it's worth, I don't know if other file sharing services are as vulnerable as MU. I mean, the indictment describes really, really deliberate copyright infringement - paying people to upload movies? Intentionally creating multiple links so that a DMCA takedown notice could only eliminate one link? I don't think other file sharing services necessarily operate that way.
That said, my fear is that despite the differences, other services will crack down in order to be extra careful.
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Post by obsessive24 on Jan 19, 2012 19:24:08 GMT -5
Do you have a link to the specific documents/charges giandujakiss? I would love to read over them instead of just relying on news summaries, but haven't been able to find anything. I feel better after reading what you said.
The other thing that concerned me was that the MU people are all getting arrested in New Zealand by NZ authorities. What does that mean, that they're being extradited? (Less concerning.) Or that the New Zealand copyright authority is also involved in some capacity? (More concerning for me.) A few years ago NZ had a copyright law passed with very wide discretionary powers, which has been largely ignored in practice because of its sheer unenforcability, but at the end of the day, it's still there in the statutes as far as I know. My biggest fear is that bunches of other countries are gonna jump on the crackdown bandwagon, because IMO the fallback option was always just to abandon the US and move ISPs and servers and whatever else en masse offshore. But that only works if those other countries don't also head the same way.
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Post by giandujakiss on Jan 19, 2012 19:35:45 GMT -5
The indictment is online here: www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-IndictmentI don't know much about the international aspects; there are international treaties for copyright; I'd assume that has something to do with it, but I don't know. |
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Post by lillythekid on Jan 19, 2012 20:12:02 GMT -5
I definitely feel more exposed, though I realize this feeling has a lot to do with the copyright trouble and subsequent freakout I already had this year. (This year is not even three weeks old yet!) My vids were on MU, now I'm freaking out even more.  |
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Post by littleheaven on Jan 19, 2012 20:56:11 GMT -5
Hmm, I think how uneasy I feel about this hinges on the allegations mentioned above of deliberate copyright infringement by MU. If that's not the case, they are taking down the site just because of the behaviour of some of the users. Which would be the same as holding Toyota liable because someone who bought one used it in a ram-raid on an ATM, or something. I find that very disturbing.
As a vidder... I've always felt exposed, hence why I've not uploaded any of my vids to YouTube. I have my own site which can stream media, and I'm hoping the fact that it's such a teeny tiny blip on the radar means it's not going to draw any unwanted attention.
I'll be interested to see what happens to, say, Usenet, as a result of this.
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Post by genusshrike on Jan 20, 2012 1:36:14 GMT -5
What does that mean, that they're being extradited? (Less concerning.) Or that the New Zealand copyright authority is also involved in some capacity? (More concerning for me.) According to Stuff, they're being extradited. Still pretty scary though |
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Post by rokikurama on Jan 20, 2012 1:37:03 GMT -5
I'm glad you started this thread. I'd just found out about it via checking my friends list (and the poor festividders) and am very, very weirded out by it. Less than as a vidder, specifically it concerns me as a US person (that feels weird to say for some reason) since announcing this today is pretty clearly a response to the internet black-out protest that happened yesterday.
On the NZ front, I read a Washington Post article that suggested they'd be extradited to the US, a process they guessed would take about a year. Still, the international aspect of this is really concerning when Dutch nationals can be arrested by NZ authorities over supposed US copyright infringement.
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Post by obsessive24 on Jan 20, 2012 5:03:18 GMT -5
Thank you! I'm printing this out and reading it surreptitiously at work. ;D lilly - knowing about your situation on top of all this definitely made everything worse. Don't know if you want your vids online at the moment, but if you do and are looking for an alternative to MU, I'll be happy to offer you hosting. (Until such time my site gets taken down, anyway.  ) Littleheaven - I'm just printing the indictment now and it'll be interesting to read exactly what's being allegated. What's Usenet? I personally feel more exposed for having a website that's being hosted, rather than just having my vids on YT or MU or wherever. genusshrike - I read that Stuff article after the post. It's quite good that the NZ press sort of has a slightly different way of presenting the facts. I mean, nothing's materially different, but just the way they focus on NZ authorities' involvement, and residency of the defendants, things like that, it's quite interesting. Roki - not to sound totally anti-America or anything, but yeah, it does really feel like things are fucking up over there especially bad right now. Not sure if it's just me feeling this way.  Extradition worries me less, because it's still about one country (US) applying its laws domestically and only asking that other countries co-operate under international agreements to hand over the suspects to be tried under US law, not apply that law themselves. My impression is that this can happen because the operations of MU (say, the servers? The staff activity?) were physically in US jurisdiction. It doesn't seem to suggest that anyone anywhere can just get pinged under US copyright law no matter their residency and where they're hosting their work. But I am just completely talking out of my arse at this point. ;D *goes to pick up printing* |
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Post by giandujakiss on Jan 20, 2012 5:35:13 GMT -5
what's usenet
*dies*
(sorry, i just feel ... really really old right now)
To be fair - does Usenet even really exist anymore?
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Post by lillythekid on Jan 20, 2012 6:24:12 GMT -5
obsessive24 - Thank you so much for your generous offer! I'll think about it  (And to think I had been contemplating deleting my MU account, but didn't... *sigh*) Right now I feel like I have to climb to hurdle after hurdle to get to festivids, well, we all do, of course
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