Stop Internet Piracy! Network Admins Should Help

then your phone company and cable company are liable for any nuisance phone calls / unwanted content in tv show that you receive / watch

it won't work, which is why legislation making carriers liable hasn't been passed.

every phone company, every cable company, on top of the internat access providers would be fighting that idea.
they only carry signal, they do not control content.

it's been looked at I believe, but was tossed as unworkable.

Music and digital media do hold a signature; it is just more complex than others. That?s why I said not to check every single file, but random files to reduce the burden on network resources. There is software out there that recognises voice and images such as voice, text, face, and image recognition, etc.

As to who pays for it? A combination of ISPs, companies, the music industry (mainly) and government agencies who are interested in the protection of public content.

As far as music, anything I upload or download I will convert to whatever format is needed. If not, I usually have the original CD somewhere and can rip my own.

Graphics, I also do a lot of graphic design, web publishing etc. I transfer large files and promotional materials, electronic press kits etc. on a constant basis, yet through my own private FTP, not a P2P network.

People have always "stolen" music, art, published works etc. and will until the end of time.

You wanna steal my work, have at er, tell your friends. Spread the word, not everyone wants it for free and that's good enough advertising for me.

What I DO object to is someone profiting from my work or passing it off as their own.

To answer everyone?s question about holding ISPs and service providers responsible. That was not my intention. They should be protected but at the same time, just like viruses and spam, they should help anti-piracy advocates with the fight!

The internet is a community body that is screaming out for governance. We should target the bodies who control the internet to fight cyber crime.

Once ANY form of personal liability or responsibility is placed on the ISP lawsuits WILL follow.
Even if the government revokes a licence, this does not mean they wil not also be sued, in fact it enhances any case against them by having a licnce revoked.
The company will simply adjust c-level control positions, change it's name and reopen again, at a FAR higher cost to it's users. This has been happening since the dawn of corporate law, I've seen it first hand with many local company's including larger corporations and manufacturing companies in BC.

You THEN have to find legislation that is global and doesn't infringe on ANY country's laws as file sharing is world wide and often conducted through offshore storage servers.

I just don't see how it could possibly be applied effectively on a global scale nor even a local scale, it would just create an ongoing lawsuit to fall in line with all other file sharing suits that have gine nowhere in all these years.

Nice idea, though not realistic or feasible.

Ok in response to everyone?s opinion about the law not working, I have consulted a government agency and they said this kind of thing has been thought about before, however it has been deemed not feasible.

I guess with the law and police agencies not caring about or taking any vast actions towards thwarting internet piracy, this issue would most probably be better resolved by the people who want to stop it, i.e. the music industry?.

Essentially all they need to do is work with ISPs and network administrators who can charge these industries a fee to set up a filtering or random file selection scanning process (so as to not inhibit on network resources). ISPs could then provide evidence for these industries as to who is infringing on their copyright and this would not infringe on the peoples privacy, as they are the ones who are listing these files publicly (on P2P networks) in the first place. ISPs could also warn people via automated email if they detect pirated content on their public drives on their PCs and warn them to cease otherwise action can be taken.

Essentially this thing requires standardization and co-operation between industry and the ISPs. We can not rely on the government, and essentially communication devices are seen as things that should not require governance. It is the people who are using these devices that need governance.

already do this simply by installing P2P clients and seeing whose sharing what.
There are a bucket load of practical problems with your proposal.
The server program would have to emulate P2P clients in order to find out what was being shared and then request it over P2P.
If they were sharing then they would be as guilty as the people they are trying to police. If they don't share, other P2P clients will identify them as a leech and give them lo/no priority. Your ISP's address ranges are public so it would be easy to ban 'users' in that address range.
With regular updates the P2P clients would play merry hell with any attempt to do this.

Where is the bandwidth and processor time coming from ?

Whose content is it, dad's, mum's little Johnnies, even more pertinent if you have an open wireless lan, it could be the guy three door's up, or some guy outside your house that day with his portable.

This is just like our current security solutions for virus, spam amd malware. A never ending license to print money and a field day for lawyers

Yes I agree with all the technical hurdles that must be overcome. However with standardization and co-operation with industry bodies, such as P2P networks, maybe government agencies should be allowed priority. If P2P networks where really serious about them not advocating piracy on their networks shouldn?t they help out too?

Essentially who will foot the bill? Government agencies, and the people who want to stop their content from being stolen, i.e. the music industry.

What are they supposed to filter? I can encode something (even the name of it), and it would take them centuries to figure out what it is.

I'm sorry, but you're going after the wrong people. If I drive to a store and steal a CD and drive home, should the car manufacturer have prevented it?

P2P software writers simply have a disclaimer for content and point out it is illegal to share copyrighted content.

I just can't see why an ISP should even consider doing something like this or that the music industry will be willing to pay for it.
The technical and legal issues are enormous. The ramifications of an ISP even becoming contractually liable for content would frighten the crap out of them.
If you are a sharer and your isp implements such a scheme, you just switch to one that doesn't. If you aren't but confirming this gives you a reduction in bandwidth and performance you switch ISP.
There's no technical reason why your ISP has to be local. Is say, the RIAA going to pay every ISP ?. Even if they do, as much as they'd like to, they don't own all the copyrighted music on the planet.
This won't cut piracy even it was implemented, I can think of a lot of ways to circumvent it without even trying, is the music industry going to pay for an ineffective solution ?

You'll get taxed more, pay higher prices for your products and your bandwidth and piracy will be affected for about a month if you are lucky.

Piracy is illegal. Piracy isn't ethical. Piracy is bad.

Ok that's out of the way, let's move on...

I don't like the idea of saying ISP and net admins being liable for the piracy of files.

I don't like it for a few reasons.

1) I just don't feel that it should be the responsibility for the carrier provider (after all, like your phone company is your phone service, your ISP is to your 'net service..they provide the signal..the connection)..to have to worry about content issues.

2) ISPs should be held to the flame for security issues, virus infection, QoS issues, bandwidth, reliability, etc. and now you want to add another layer of responsibility -- policing what the content is for piracy issues?

3) As mentioned before the labor, software and any hardware needed for this filtering or whatever system would be used for this -- that all costs money, money that will DEFINITELY be passed on to the consumer. Business rule #1: There is no such thing as absorbing an expense, always pass it on to the customer.

4) Why should I, Joe Cable Modem User, who is minding my own business playing games online and sending emails, have my connection subscription fee go up so some artist would feel warm and fuzzy.

The folks who create and distribute software/graphics..whatever the content should bear the risk and/or responsibility for paying for whatever anti-piracy measure(s) they need to safe guard their works.

After all when you as the author/designer sells your product on line -- are you sending me a cut of your profits since my increased sub fees paid for the piracy protection of your works?

And if they start working on filtering out this, then who should pick up the tab? Not the government.

It isn't the job of the ISP to enforce the laws, it is the job of law enforcement. That is why they get paid to do it.

I used to use napster before this all blew up. I would download songs, check them out and then go buy the CD's of the ones I liked.

I USED to buy several CD's a month.
Now I buy several a year.

They sure have saved a lot of money on me by not letting me check out new music.

And no, I don't waste my time with "samples" that have a portion of the song. And only a LOSER would pay 99 cents PER SONG for a download. And I thought that the price of CD's was way out of wack with reality.

please check out a copy of Janis Ian's article
THE INTERNET DEBACLE ? AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW

on http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm under Prime Palavar #11 where she SLAMMS the the thieves at of the recording industry for the way they treat their talant and PUSHES for p2p sharing of her songs.
The record industry is dying? Why, because every station is programed at a central location based on focus groups who sample sound bites to decide what I will listen to? Pay 15 -18 bucks to see what I want when the artis gets maybe 50 cents. A Dollar to download a song that they pay .07 royalty and nothing to the artist? Pigs

conglomerage's where companies such as Sony are a result of media amalganation. THis was really heavy in the 90's. Sony Japan and Sony America are the same company but differen't entities.

Sony America is a massive conglomerate that includes TriStar Pictures and Columbia as second tier company's which each in turn lead to at least 50 third tier companies that each conduct nearly one billion in sales as daughters of Sony America.

But SONY is not alone, whereas after the first big race to merge took place in the mid 80's, by th elate 90's these nine had pretty much been further merged into only FIVE big players (Time Warner, Disney, Bartelsmann, Viacomm and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation) all in ownership of dozens of smaller billion dollar corporations that enables them complete control and ownership of all media in North America. All those radio stations that play the same crap, all owned by the same company. All those record stores that PROMOTE the same crap, all owned by the same company.

When a movie is released, so is a doll, a soundtrack, a video game etc. This isn't possible or feasible without a VERY tight knit and controlled ownership of the smaller (but still billion dollar) companies that provide these products.

In Europe, the labels have very little control over the industry. In Japan there is a lot more freedom of choice when it comes to music. The radio stations are not all saturated with the flavour of the day, the DJ's actually pick and choose the majority of their playlist, just like the old days.

It is an artists market.

In North America, you have a choice of the Canadian Governments, sponsored Canadan content music channels or moving to the US market and seeking ownership of a label. This is where the term selling out is derived from, except nowadays, there IS no alterntative. NO airplay on any valued channels, NO positioning of your product in the stores a the store and floor space is owned by the same company that is trying to promote their own artists music, no tour support and no warm up possibilities for young bands.

It never USED to be like this but corprate mergers have made it way worse than ever before.

In England Sony UK has different distribution options than in North America, you can actually get distribution and tour support from a label without siging over creative control or intellectual property licence of your works.

Same with Japan, South America etc. EXCEPT North America. Where does most of the noise about file sharing originate? America.

Labels lose pennies because they put out and overpromote GARBAGE. Kids are starting to wake up to this and buy backcatalogues of bands mom and dad listened to instead, the record companies equate this loss of revenue due to file sharing and everyone starts to pity musicians.

Don't pity musicians, if they stay away from label control, they DO get paid and they DO play shows and tour and enjoy performing their art that drove them to where they are now. They also SHARE that music freely.

IF you had an opportunity to email ANY band, not the PR dept at the label, they would HAPPILY send you a CD for free and pay the shipping.

You tell any working artist that you like their music and want t copy, it's yours. Unless owned and controlled by a large conglomerate, even then they'll usually toss you a couple of copies.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

"your new speed is .001 kbps"

Gimme a break. We offer a pipe and that's it. If someone is running a trojan farm, then we block them out. If someone has a severe @mm infection, then we shut them out.

How exactly are we supposed to distinguish between a file sharing program and normal traffic? Eventually, there would be no more available ports. That is not a valid solution at all - not to mention the invasion of privacy factor.

It sounds like this person wants to turn ISP's & Admins into computer police.

PS

I was watching just for laughs and just heard that 'joke' I thought it 'fit' the discussion.........but just in case - I'm having a beer anyway. Bars are way too expensive now.LOL

Not pleasure... nuff said though... see ya later.

Gimme a half hour, and I'm in the same boat as you. What better excuse to skip out on a night of Texas Hold 'Em with the partners of my ISP. Sorry boys... call me whipped if you must... at least I'm getting whipped.

Well they could initially scan the files names and tags for artist and song matches. As this is the first thing people see when they are looking to download illegally distributed content. Even then the song content (i.e. signature) could not match, so a form of sound recognition will be implemented on the server software.

As to your concern of them scanning every single file, do police search every single public place all at once for illegal activity? All they need to implement is a random public file checking process. With this ?policing? presence most people will be thwarted by the fact that they can now get caught.

Well if the file is locked or encoded it would take the average non-technical user a substantial amount of time, if at all, to open the file themselves. So therefore if all pirates start to encode their illegal content this would help to stop piracy in itself as average people cannot use these files and only the most advanced pirates will be able to trade in illegal content.

I don?t know about your ISP but my ISP (Telstra BigPond) has a policy on acceptable use. Most of these policies are enforced by my ISP however internet piracy is something that I doubt is actively enforced. If this were true then piracy would not be a huge issue in Australia and other countries. I refer you to an extract from their current policy dated 18th March 2005.

?2. What you cannot use the Service for

2.1 You must not use the Service, attempt to use the Service or allow the Service to be used in any way:

Breach of law

(a) which results in you or Telstra breaching, or being involved in a breach of a law, order or regulation (including a foreign law, order or regulation), a mandatory code of conduct; or a voluntary code of conduct that you have agreed to comply with;?

This includes the Australian Copyright Act 1968. So therefore internet piracy is prohibited on the Telstra network, however with my experience of research into internet piracy I believe it is hardly enforced by Telstra or by the Australian Federal Police. Although they do not condone such breach of Australian legislation, in my view I believe that they are not doing all they can to solve this enormous problem of worldwide internet piracy, of which many members of the Australian public are participating in.

Below is a link to their full policy that is publicly available.

http://www.bigpond.com/internet-plans/broadband/cable/acceptableuse/

the phone company would be come responsibile for an abusive phone call and the the postal service for an abusive letter.
Would you be in favour of someone randomly listening to your telephone conversations, to see if you were saying anything illegal. Or every now and then recieving an opened letter because someone at the post office was checking to see whether the sender was doing something illegal ?

But as you write the software couldn't you incorporate a policy of allowing anyone to download the programs but only be fully functional after they have paid the money and got a code which activates the product? I would allow some limited amount of use and then just cut off any further applications of the program.

Don't have a time limit on the program as these just do not work but limit the ability of the program to work say it is a data recovery program limit the ability to something like 200 K that it can recover without being paid for. I know it will not entirely fix the problem but it is at the very least a start in the right direction and you will end up receiving a lot more money than you currently are.

Doing it that way you are taking responsibility for your own efforts instead of wanting the Governments to do this for you which they just can not do. Once a site gets closed down they move it off shore to where the downloads are legal and there is nothing illegal in downloading content from places where the Copy rite laws do not apply like China.

By involving the ISP's it will only make life harder for the adverage user and increase costs. If they only do random checks just how random do they have to be 1 in every 100,000 files that is downloaded by their servers or 1 in 10 if it was the latter it would slow down the entire process and make downloads of things like Linux or the various BSD's at the very least harder to get through as these are not only complete programs but entire OS.

Col

but I know what you mean. LOL
There are lots of ways you can do software and get paid without mauling your customers even with copyright, generally though they all mean you find out what you are paying for.
Sure Bill I' like windows, as soon as you fix it I'll pay.

I'm afraid the poster's idea is unworkable on so many fronts, I can't think of any real way to rescue it though, nor do I want to particularly. Piracy would just be the start.

If a CO. is dloading software and making a profit from it, then thats a problem, but if someone downloaded something that they would never buy in the first place.. what does it matter??

personally.. i have to admit, i downloaded windows server 2003.. i just used this for my own personal trial and error type of stuff.. after a while.. i decided i liked it, and bought a licensed version of the software through my school at a discounted price.

I think dloading things compels me to buy them if i like the software.. like Autodesk.. i remember dloading it years ago.. inventor 4..

now i own a legal copy of inventor 8

so really these software co benefited more from downloads than then they realised..

i dont download music, because its called streaming radio :) .. and CD's..

EDIT: just want to make it clear that i DO OWN every peace of software i have now :) its all leagel..

i dont download software anymore, because of the risks.. but if it were not for some old habits, many companies would never get the people interested in there software..

The law says that it is illegal to infringe on copyright, and this is just what internet pirates are doing. The music industry made the mistake of attacking internet users. However this image needs to be turned around and I will fight it till my death. I want to see police agencies working with ISPs and network administrators to capture criminals. I like file share communities and use them all the time but how would you like it if you did not get paid for your work? To see how it feels how about you transfer your pay check into someone else?s bank account but still go to work.

The uneducated politicians in the government made that mistake of trying to ?control? and put restriction on the actual physical internet. This is bad as we need to keep improving efficiency. All we really need is exactly what we have in our current community, a police presence to police the community, just like the internet community. However ISPs and network admins need to allow law enforcement access to their public data, notice how I said public data. File swappers advertise illegal content on file share networks for anyone to download, this is wrong.

As for your comment on self-policing your intellectual property, good luck with that buddy.

What is stopping police agencies from viewing these hyperlinks to encoded files and then investigating your illegal activity? What is stopping them from viewing anything illegal users try to do on the internet and find the original source of the illegal content? All I can say to you is if users can find illegal files on the internet, then so can police.

As for some parts of the world not having this law yet, well that?s my point, we need to create these laws and the UN can help. Laws change all the time. In most parts of the world crime is actually declining, compared to population, and authorities are beginning to make the world a more civilised place.

I don?t care if you think you are an expert thief and can hide all this from the authorities. The average user who thinks they can easily get away with stealing content on the internet are the main targets as once we have a police presence and people know they can get caught and get penalties handed down to them for breaching the copyright act then that will slow internet piracy.

It is people like you who don?t give up and continuously try to find new ways of breaking the law and bringing hardships on decent hard working members of society who are the ones who continue to escalate this problem in the first place. My point is to just give up and go buy a bloody song for 99c and maybe if criminals start buying intellectual property instead of stealing it, then the price will come down to 1c.

The music industry is a business like any other; there are big fish and little fish. It is a fact of life, survival of the fittest. They would not survive if people did not like them. So I must come to the conclusion that people who hate the music industry to the death and try to bring them down any way they can must not like music at all and be like the grandparents next door shouting to turn it down. I don?t want to get into a debate about big companies destroying small business. That is a fact of life and you must accept it.

Please stick to the discussion about stopping people from breaking the law and stealing.

I do appreciate all your questions in aiding my research, however I hate repeating myself over and over, please read some of my other posts on related topics.

You need to grasp the understanding of privacy. You can not just listen in on someone?s phone call, you can not read someone?s letter, and you can not ease drop on someone when they are transmitting files (just like listening in on network communication).

Why internet piracy is a huge issue is because people broadcast their data to many people on the internet, NOT JUST ONE PERSON. This becomes public data. You store your files in a folder and when you log onto a P2P your files are sitting there waiting for someone to view them. Just like a web page. This is also happening on some web pages where you can download illegal content. Police can only investigate issues when they view evidence of criminal activity in public or if someone requests the services of them as they suspect criminal activity. An example would be if someone sent you an email asking you for a song and you sent it back them, they could then get the police to investigate you.

All I want is for ISPs to stop hiding and help out law enforcement. We can not police this problem without the help of the people who control the internet.

Deal with it.

I am attacking the criminals here and not the legitimate users. Society must be balanced and I do not want to see the internet become a static post of human edited material, just like public notice boards, just as I do not want my hard earned work stolen. People work hard to create things and if they do not gain a reward for doing something then they won?t do it. Intellectuals will not bother to invent new things, musicians will cease to exist, and society would go backward. This is why we have laws to balance the power and protect all members of society. We need creative and intelligent people, just like all you IT people out there, who created computers in the first place. The reason these issues are so big and why many people are scared to use the internet is because technology has increased the speed of how we do things exponentially. The law, however, has failed to keep up.

Everyone thinks that I am trying to turn ISPs into computer police. ISPs are already gods of the internet as they can flick a switch and turn off their little section of the internet tomorrow.

The fact is we already have police in the world for the specific reason of enforcing the law!

All I want is for ISPs to shift their enormous amount of egotistical power onto government bodies and the police.

Implying that {A} I was some sought of super thief & {B} I'm in any way into pirated software?

I started out by saying that the comments didn't apply to either music or movies but only to computer applications. Then I also added in the real downloads like any Linux offering Free BSD or anything like that. These are all legal to download and install and are not only encouraged by their makers but actually wanted that way. Just try to buy a "Legal" copy of Debian since there is no company who actually operates it you can not buy it in any form but it is free to download and use as you wish. This can not be in any way impeded.

While I do agree that existing laws are enough to adequately police the current trend the real problem is getting the proper authorities to actually do their job and Police these existing laws. The reality is that unless Kiddy Porn or Terrorist Activities are involved they just are not interested in doing any of the work that they are paid to actually perform. That is the real problem and that does need addressing but I doubt that it ever will be unless a very high ranking Polly gets his/her fingers burnt and looses heaps of money. The guy who writes a "Killer Application" will continue to be at the mercy of those who want to steal from them whenever they wish as it is impossible to get the proper authorities to do their job!

As far as getting some form of International Copy Rite legislation you'll be waiting a very long time for that to happen China is a prime example as they brought one DC3 striped it down copied the bits and started making their own aircraft. No doubt that have done a similar thing to that Spy Plane that made a forced landing on their territory.

Places like Indonesia are incapable of actually Policing these laws either and everything over there involved payments under the counter in Brown Paper Bags. Just go visit there at the airport you will be greeted by customs who will ask you to show them some of the money from your home country and then they will quite politely ask can they keep it. If you do not let them they will give you the full treatment and it will take several hours to clear customs and all of your luggage and effects will be destroyed. In that country if you do not have the 20,000 peso's for any severe hospital treatment that is about $500.00 AU you are quite nicely told to go away and die somewhere no where near the hospital as it is far too messy to clean up after the event.

Incidentally all of those computers that I was working on over there where Government owned so if they are unwilling to buy the real stuff just how do you expect the Government there to get the general population to?

Other than some confusion about just how you came to the conclusion that I some how consider myself a "Super Thief" I tend to agree with most of what you have said but I also understand that you will just not get what you want because of the lack of incentive to actually Police this Legislation in the Developed World and the total inability to police this in the developing world.

How about taking things on your own shoulders and do something like I've suggested further down this page which I notice you have not responded to. This is your property so you should be in the first line of defense in protecting your assets. After all you would hardly leave a large sum of money in your house/unit and then go out leaving everything wide open and expect it to still be there when you returned would you?

Col

We need to develop some ground rules for this forum so I don?t get bombarded with repeat questions.

First off by SOME liability I don?t mean complete liability, maybe even no liability. When people make tools they must also make safeties on them so people don?t get hurt, or at least instructions of use (hence work place health and safety and ISP policies). I just want ISPs to help.

The structure of people, technology, and the law are as follows.

Bottom Layer - People (Just like average little Johnny Howard)
Middle Layer - Technology (communication devices, such as ISPs)
Top Layer - The Government (stuck in a hole as far as technology is concerned)

The government governs technology which people use, people are also governed by the government and people use the government for protection from the use of technology.

Anyone confused? I think I might be, not quite sure yet.

ISPs have the power and the technological knowledge to govern their own little world, called the internet.

Police control the streets and wouldn?t have a clue about how to shoot the s*** out of all the little electrons and waves travelling around that make up the internet signal.

And my solution?

ISPs can help the police and provide them with a road map to the front door of all the cyber geeks out there who think they can intimidate the police officers and the musical hippies with their technical knowledge on how to steal stuff.

Class dismissed.

From a variety of sources like anywhere from their school to the public library and everything in between. They even quite often log in at hot spots and download to their little hearts content.

As for the Music industry there have been numerous exposesiaes on their activities over the last 50 or so years and while they are ripping off the end user with over priced product they are also ripping off the artists as well by pirating their work and selling it on the Black Market. They press it and then don't show it being sold by them. It has been happening since the music industry began and is exactly why most of the older performers and bands have their own labels to promote their product.

The recording industry is considered by those on the inside as nothing more than a license to print money for themselves. Even the movies have only recently brought in residuals for the performers they just got paid for their performance and the movie companies went on making money off their work forever after. Here is a simple question for you, how many copies of Gone With The Wind do you think have been made on DVD? And how much of the money from those DVD sales has gone to the performers and people involved in making the movie since then? The answer to both is first heaps and the second is absolutely none!

You can complain as much as you like about the Public Officials not doing their jobs and enforcing the current laws but until you start taking responsibility for your own products and their security you are just as guilty as those public officials who can not be bothered getting up of their BUMS and doing their jobs.

To me it is a sign of the times where people think that they are free to do as they like and then have Government Officials run around after them cleaning up their own messes. It is your product so you should be responsible for it.

If you make it so easy to freely distribute to every boy and his dog what else can you expect?

Col

In no way am I pointing the finger at you, I am sorry for any discrepancies in communication. Somewhat like how people view the music industries approach to internet piracy, maybe they should apologise to internet users for putting them in the group of criminals. I am a heaving internet user and file sharer, however I do not participate in criminal activity, the music industry are attacking me also.

I am also sorry I did not correctly interpret your argument; I thought you were referring to P2P software. I am well aware that Linux is open source (and other software), the people who use their knowledge in creating open source software choose not to gain money, however the music industry does not choose this approach, neither does Microsoft (some very large and successful organisations).

I still agree with you and many other people?s opinions in this discussion forum that the police are not doing their job and the public should not have to worry or be too frightened (to a certain degree) about their own safety when conducting business.

This forum is not really the appropriate avenue to discuss world political agendas (such as spy activity on countries). However I do believe that China, India, and other such countries are advancing fast in the technological arena and will soon develop their own laws governing the technology. I am sure they must have some kind of protection against intellectual property rights, and the basic rights of people to be able to live without worrying about others who steal their property.

I am trying my best to combat all your valid arguments. However this is exponentially growing out of my control, ironically.

Firstly I will no longer discuss the issues of parental supervision.

As for the next two paragraphs I don?t care about the music industry?s pitfalls, I am more interested in software piracy, and image piracy (like image re-production, child porn, etc). It is just that the music industry have the biggest voice on the issue. The point I am trying to make is that people are stealing their music and that is a FACT that does not require discussion here.

I agree with you that police are not doing their job; the government already has laws on copyright. ISPs have the majority of the power on the internet.

I agree people should be responsible for their own work and take civil actions toward internet piracy, however why should we do the work of the police. We should be more concerned with using the full potential of our creative freedom than worrying about thieves that scare us from publishing our work.

The last comment I should not even dignify with a response, however I will just for the heck of it --- The music industry (and others) did not create the internet.

I sent a message to Microsoft?s team on copy protection as to their opinion on this issue.

Interestingly enough I get an automated response almost immediately. It goes something like this. Thank you for your shared interests in the fight against software piracy, please click on the links below to find out more information on fighting piracy.

*NOTE: this is not an official response from Microsoft. Please email piracy@microsoft.com for the official response.

They seem to not be genuinely interested in new theories other then ones where they control the internet and lock up all their software.

I sent some other emails to various authorities (which I can not legally reproduce here). They gave me some very surprising and interesting responses. However when I asked them if I can publish their comments on my discussion forum they turned on me and would no longer continue correspondence other than refer me to other political figures. I just don?t know why the police do not take responsibility when confronted on issues of policing the people?s law on copyright.