In New Zealand there is a law thats possibly going to go through that if you download a file thats either illegal or your ISP provider doesn't allow it or its to big your ISP provider could cut all internet access for you and there decision would be finals so your not allowed to go to court because their would be no point as your ISP provider is final. So as a little petition you could say put your avatars either all black or like mine just darken them. You'd only have to keep them black until the 29th i think. and the reason you put them black is a way to block the law or something as i don't exactly know.

My bro told me about this very briefly so either a new Zealand person could better describe it Its been done on another forum so thats how my bro found out.

We dont live in newseeland dude.

:wtf2:

Oh man, I just got my new avatar, and I <3 this... car!

And btw i dont think my foto would be illegal anyway xD
(No, it's not porn, that IS my face, not my rear end^^)

Quote from Stefani24 :

And btw i dont think my foto would be illegal anyway xD
(No, it's not porn, that IS my face, not my rear end^^)

a. You don't have to live in New Zealand but you could support them cause it is a st*p*d law and b. I never said anything about your photo but what i mean is the ISP may not allow you to download files that are bigger than 1GB or something and then cut all internet from you and your stuck.

Quote from swisscosmo :

In New Zealand there is a law thats possibly going to go through that if you download a file thats either illegal or your ISP provider doesn't allow it or its to big your ISP provider could cut all internet access for you and there decision would be finals so your not allowed to go to court because their would be no point as your ISP provider is final. So as a little petition you could say put your avatars either all black or like mine just darken them. You'd only have to keep them black until the 29th i think. and the reason you put them black is a way to block the law or something as i don't exactly know.

My bro told me about this very briefly so either a new Zealand person could better describe it Its been done on another forum so thats how my bro found out.

Yes, that's a good reason to do what someone else says.

So you're hacked off because they're trying to stop people stealing and freeloading?

As harmless as illegally downloading things like music seems, it is breaking the law, you wouldn't go into HMV and grab an album and run (well I assume most of you wouldn't!), downloading stuff off the internets is the same thing, just from the comfort of your chair at home.

And then if you shoplifted in real life and the fuzz caught up with you, you wouldn't exactly complain to them as they cart you off to the waiting cop car that stealing isn't bad would you?

So although I'm not too keen on govts interferring and cracking down on illegal file downloading on the net, I know that doing it is naughty and that there's no way I can justify it as acceptable. So if you do it and they throw the book at you for it, you really can't complain. The message is simple, don't break the law, and we wont kill your internet connection, which I think is a fair deal.

People have got too accustomed to breaking the law over the internet because for years, the internet has been almost lawless. Its got to the point where people think of stealing as completely harmless and not offensive, and now they're complaining just because the law is finally being enforced just like it is in real life.

Quote from 5haz :

So you're hacked off because they're trying to stop people stealing and freeloading?

As harmless as illegally downloading things like music seems, it is breaking the law, you wouldn't go into HMV and grab an album and run (well I assume most of you wouldn't!), downloading stuff off the internets is the same thing, just from the comfort of your chair at home.

So although I'm not too keen on govts interferring and cracking down on illegal file downloading on the net, I know that doing it is naughty and that there's no way I can justify it as acceptable. So if you do it and they throw the book at you for it, you really can't complain.

People have got too accustomed to breaking the law over the internet because for years, the internet has been almost lawless. Its got to the point where people think of stealing as completely harmless and not offensive, and now they're complaining just because the law is finally being enforced just like it is in real life.

But downloading over 1GB isn't always illegal activity, just a paranoid ISP trying to look good infront of the government. Go on a long LFS race, do some fierce youtubing, download many pictures, they could all use GB's.

I seem to recall a recent 24H race replay being well over 1 gig, but it wasn't illegal, was it?

many legal games are above 1 gb ... stupid

Quote from piggy501 :

But downloading over 1GB isn't always illegal activity

I thought they would do that as a punishment for downloading illegal stuff, aka 'throtling' your connection?

But that aside, you still cant justify illegal downloading as legal, and so if they take your internets away if they find you downloading music for free. I have no problem with that.

Of course a GB limit is a bit daft yes.

How about if I made a 1 Gb avatar?

Quote from spankmeyer :

How about if I made a 1 Gb avatar?

I think that would be an animated gif with like a day duration or someth

Or a mile long picture. And a mile tall.

It wouldn't even be allowed on this forum

Quote from 5haz :

As harmless as illegally downloading things like music seems, it is breaking the law, you wouldn't go into HMV and grab an album and run (well I assume most of you wouldn't!), downloading stuff off the internets is the same thing, just from the comfort of your chair at home.

I agree with your sentiment but this part isn't exactly true. If you nick something off a shelf then you are preventing the shop from selling it, whereas if you take a copy of something, the original is still there.

Downloading music and films is undoubtedly here to stay one way or another. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the record and film industries since they spectacularly failed to recognise the potential of the internet 10-15 years ago. If they'd put some effort into looking at ways of marketing, distributing and selling over the net rather than focussing only on protecting their profits, they might have come up with a system now which could work for everyone.

As it is, they're only just figuring it out. It's such a new technology that somebody will come up with a system which works, but this New Zealand law is not it. I don't recall people using forum communities for this sort of thing so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

And if Stephen Fry is against it, it must be bad

Well our national ISP has taken it up the arse by the RIAA and IRMA. Eircom are blocking filesharing websites like The Pirate Bay.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2 ... k_access_to_piracy_sites/

Although I suppose there are hundreds of other websites..

Well, if albums weren't stupidly overpriced I'd buy them!

As said by others, I don't really care about the record companies, most of them take all the money and give very little to the artist anyway.

Is this NZ law even true? Define a file that's "too big". You may be downloading the last 20 years of family photographs your relatives in Europe sent you, which is unfortunatly some 8gb.. You pay your money and should be allowed free-roam on the internet. Next thing they'll be blocking porn sites for some crap reason.

It really is a nanny-state we're living in.

Besides, for £14.99 you buy a DVD you'll only really watch once or twice, and for an hour and a half of piss-poor acting, I'd rather not pay for the pleasure thankyou!

people aren't mentioning the untold benefits of music download sites, specifically music blogs. People download the music, and from being part of a music forum myself with a discussion about music downloading it was seen to actually increase the sales of said artist as people went out looking for more stuff by them.

Sure it may be illegal, but it's not a wholly bad thing, and if it's there for the taking, they can't really stop it!

Found it appropriate.

When a music label rips off an artist and acquires the rights to reproduce their music they produce it on CDs to sell in shops. If I dont buy that CD, and I dont own that CD, just what exactly have I stolen when I download songs by that artist?

Downloading of music is not a crime and anyone who says otherwise is quoting force fed rhetoric.

Copyright of artistic expression is an affront to social progress and the free exchange of ideas, concepts and values which our generation has pioneered to a far greater degree than any before it courtesy of the internet.

The Real Criminal is the artist for selling distribution rights for all mediums/distribution channels of their music (except live performance) to a music barron whilst it is not technically possible for them to exclude their work from all channels (such as bit torrent / soul seek). Oh did they not do that? Then how come it's illegal to distribute their work on a p2p medium when the rights for that where not sold?

The Real Criminal is the music barron for lobbying government and bringing into law restrictions on creative expression in order to propogate a dead industry to further fleece money from it.

The Real Criminal is the government for making p2p illegal. In some countries it is not, why is it illegal here? Because politicians accepted bribes. Any government that stands behind the current copyright law is receiving back handers to do so, it is unjust, it is against creative freedom.

Creative Freedom > Profit

Bands create music, they make their money from performing it. P2P is a distribution channel for marketting aids.

Legitimising P2P via iTunes with DRM is not the answer, I was spending £60 a month on music that I then had to put aside a day each month to strip the damned protection off so I could use it. What's the point of paying for that privelege, it's easier to just download it.

P2P is not a crime, what is criminal is the manner in which the industry has reacted to so slowly to making use of it, as some artists are now doing. The music barrons lost control of the industry the moment they tried to fight progress rather than embrace it.

Don't feel sorry for them and stand firm in defending them, they are stood in the way of progress for their own personal financial gain and no other reason. It's not for the benefit of the bands, and it's not for the benefit of creative expression. It's for their own personal wealth. They made the wrong business decision a decade ago when they fought Napster instead of embracing it and directing the technology, they should be allowed to face the consequences of their poor business acumen. Bribing politicians does not justify their continued income.

Death to the music industry.

I have professional musicians in my family, and I say, burn the industry to the ground and let's start over.

Say the music industry as we know died, I wonder what would happen then, like if it would start again but with new people and fresh, young talent... Maybe we'd get away from the terrible music that's played on mainstream radio.. stupid sad songs and women moaning into the microphone..

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Say the music industry as we know died, I wonder what would happen then, like if it would start again but with new people and fresh, young talent... Maybe we'd get away from the terrible music that's played on mainstream radio.. stupid sad songs and women moaning into the microphone..

The thing is, there's already loads of fresh and yount talent out there, doing their thing, making the music they wanna make and not doing whatever some label is telling them to do. You just don't usually hear them on the mainstream radio But they do produce albums, without the support of a record label. It costs them blood, sweat and tears to do so. In a lot of cases they don't even break even, let alone make profit from it. They merely do it because they are passionate about what they do, and that shows in their music.

It's a real shame that many of those people/bands will never get the recognition they deserve because no label will sign them. There's some insane talent out there

Quote from Becky Rose :

When a music label rips off an artist and acquires the rights to reproduce their music they produce it on CDs to sell in shops. If I dont buy that CD, and I dont own that CD, just what exactly have I stolen when I download songs by that artist?

Hah, this conjures up images of the boss of EMI bursting into some talented young musician's house, putting a gun to their head and demanding they give them all the rights to their creations, musicians don't sell to record barons because they are forced to, they do because they want to, because theres a chance it will get them much richer, selling-out, in other words.

By downloading music you're getting something for nothing, free loading in other words.

And I'm against a Stalin style purge of the internet, blocking people based on suspicion alone, but you can never ever say downloading music you should be paying for is legal, there just is no way to justify it, don't try and kid yourself.

Sorry, but the artist decided to sell out to the big mean capitalist record baron, and in the eyes of the law, the Baron now owns the commercial rights to the music and theres nothing you can do about it.

Perhaps if it bothered people so much, they should think twice about wether they really like the artist, if they're supporting and handing their music to these supposed evil capitalist pigs known as record companies.

klick me

Quote from Becky Rose :

Copyright of artistic expression is an affront to social progress and the free exchange of ideas, concepts and values which our generation has pioneered to a far greater degree than any before it courtesy of the internet.

I think there is a need for some form of copyright law but it's currently a hugely complicated solution to a problem that barely exists. The laws are also desparately out of date nowadays and need reviewing.

Quote from Becky Rose :

The Real Criminal is the artist for selling distribution rights for all mediums/distribution channels of their music (except live performance) to a music barron whilst it is not technically possible for them to exclude their work from all channels (such as bit torrent / soul seek). Oh did they not do that? Then how come it's illegal to distribute their work on a p2p medium when the rights for that where not sold?

In John-Lennon-Imagine-World that might work fine, but the reality is that some musicians would actually like to buy food and pay bills. Record companies allow them to do this and make a good living out of it. What you're saying is there should be no professional musicians which seems somewhat contrary to your sentiment.

Quote from Becky Rose :

The Real Criminal is the government for making p2p illegal. In some countries it is not, why is it illegal here? Because politicians accepted bribes. Any government that stands behind the current copyright law is receiving back handers to do so, it is unjust, it is against creative freedom.

They didn't make it illegal, it already was illegal. Copyright law has been around for a lot longer than the Internet and so it needs a massive overhaul to bring it into the 21st Century.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Bands create music, they make their money from performing it. P2P is a distribution channel for marketting aids.

Not all music can be performed live

Quote from Becky Rose :

Legitimising P2P via iTunes with DRM is not the answer, I was spending £60 a month on music that I then had to put aside a day each month to strip the damned protection off so I could use it. What's the point of paying for that privelege, it's easier to just download it.

Totally agree, it was a stupid idea and showed whose side Apple are on. I think Apple have announced they're dropping the DRM system though.

Quote from Becky Rose :

P2P is not a crime, what is criminal is the manner in which the industry has reacted to so slowly to making use of it, as some artists are now doing. The music barrons lost control of the industry the moment they tried to fight progress rather than embrace it.

Yep. We've basically lost ten years of progress with this whole issue because the music and film industries couldn't see the future through their bank balances. It's frankly astonishing to believe they thought they could fight it.

There's no question they are in it to make money, of course. They are a business just like any other, so I see no problem with that. If an artist signs a crappy contract and gets bled dry then that's their own fault; it's not exclusive to the creative arts industry.