WTF xash, I was asking for a link to court filings.

The BBQ Pit
1

OK, I know some mods have a hard-on for threads about P2P issues. I get it. But why does that make anything and everything related to P2P off-limits?

In this thread I was simply asking for links of which sites the RIAA has named in court filings. Maybe worded a little less than clear, but I still say the question is clear enough to undertand among anyone bright enough to get through the day without shitting in their loafers.

We all know P2P exists. A common line here is “Google is your friend”. It’s not too difficult to find one without asking in GQ where to go. We all know that most, if not all of us here, know enough about the web to get to the SDMB more than once on purpose. We all (maybe) understand that P2P and the legal issues make discussion of using those services verboten. Because of the legal issues.

Which is what I was asking about.

Which you apparently didn’t understand in that thread.

I was looking for links (not P2P sites) about who the RIAA is going after. I was looking, in essence, for cites of legal matters concerning this matter.

Silly me. I thought the Dope was the place to go for help when trying to find references to public knowledge. Sure, I can find it on my own, but it’ll take far longer to find it than to ask a Doper who is more aware of concise reports of legal matters. My bad. I’ll try to limit my GQ’s to areas that can never be associated with anything illegal ever.

The SDMB has forbidden discussion on this matter. A matter the RIAA is prosecuting on. I understand why the boards won’t allow free discussion of what sites to use and which are better/worse. That’s a given and I’ve taken my lumps on the matter. But why the fuck can’t we talk about the RIAA and what steps they’re taking in this whole deal? The RIAA is, in effect, running through tax money tying up PD’s and courts prosecuting this issue, but we can’t awsk for links to what is happening in the courts?!?

If I want to find a P2P site, I can find a new one faster than it takes to open a new Pit thread proving Bush is Satan incarnate. But God forbid I try to get some info on an issue that has gone to the fucking SCOTUS.

Fighting ignorance, indeed.

2

His (her?) reasoning seemed pretty clear to me. In fact I probably would have done the same. YMMV.

3

How much clearer could this possibly be?

4

Not being immediately followed by google ads which link to four P2P sites?

5

On second thought, that sounds kinda rude. I know the moderation has no direct control over the advertisements, just that it was ironic, and seem to be a very bad idea in this instance- for me, the base sites were all ones I recognised from “past mistakes,” followed by long strings of gibberish.

6

The fact that I was looking for links to public filings in courts? I know threads touting/promoting/praising P2P sites aren’t allowed. I was looking for links to legal precedents related to lawsuits that are at the heart of making them illegal. If we can’t ask for cites on major lawsuits, just state it. If we can ask for some legal cites, it would be nice to know which laws are allowed to be asked about.

The suits against the P2P servers brought on by the RIAA are a fact. The P2P servers are a fact. The fact that anyone can easily find a P2P is a fact.

I’m not asking for a link to a fucking P2P. I’m trying to find case cites of who the RIAA is filing against. We’ve all heard of Napster. We’ve all heard of the court ruling. Why the fuck can’t we ask for for court rulings against other sites?

If the mods think I’m corrupting the boards with piracy, I can’t do anything about that. I’m just looking for links to what the fucking lawsuits state.

Anyone here can get access to suits brought upon a corporation or criminal complaints filed on those in charge. Hell, anyone remember the Enron threads? Tons of links to court rulings, names of prosecutors and defense attorneys. And not a small amount of invective. Why the hell can’t I ask about a legal matter that seems so fucking important? An issue that seems to be so sensitive that even the legality argued in the courts is forbidden from discussion? I’d like to request a copy of the rules, because I always fell back on the assumption I could ask for and get a factual answer to a legit question.

7

I’m with the OP on this one. I’ve always thought there was excessive paranoia about this issue on the SDMB.

But of course, combined with that excessive paranoia is also an obsessive desire not to address it, so i fear this thread will be about as productive as previous, similar threads.

8

It’s even funnier (in a kinda sad way) when excessive paranoia combines with the paranoics getting paid for the advertising the thing they are paranoid about.

9

duffer, you’ve been a lot clearer in the Pit than you were in GQ regarding what you were looking for in your GQ OP.

In your GQ OP, I did not see a clear request for “I was looking, in essence, for cites of legal matters concerning this matter.”

I saw instead “Is/are there any site(s) that list the servers that are under pressure?” and “So what all sites are under the gun or just to high up to be under the radar?”, both of which do not make a clear distinction between sites that are liable to be targetted (your GQ OP) vs. references to legal proceedings pertaining to sites that have been subjected to legal action (your Pit OP).

If you read your request in the GQ OP, you will see that:

and

are both essentially a request for a list of p2p websites, and therefore closing the thread is consistent with our board rules. You will see that those questions of yours do not refer to requests for references to legal proceedings already in progress.

If indeed what you were looking for is the latter, I will permit you to start a new OP in GQ with the following constraint: explicitly stating that what you are looking for is references to legal proceedings. I would also request you to clearly state in the new OP that replies should be limited to information on legal proceedings and that replies should not contain direct links or references to p2p websites. I would also request you to mention that you have received prior permission from a mod to start the thread.

The SDMB has very strict guidelines in these matters. Thank you for your understanding.

-xash
General Questions Moderator

10

It’s still hilarious that there are strict guidelines against even discussing the existence of any particular P2P site, but now thanks to the Google ads, you can get links to three or four different ones at the bottom of every page in a thread.

We can’t even talk about them, but the Google ads can link right to 'em. That makes a whole lot of sense.

11

Yeah, and if you think about it, it’s kind of ironic that the google ads link to P2P websites. Surprisingly nobody’s pointed that out yet.

12

I find it amusing that the Reader, which have ads for prostitution (thinly veiled), and is saying that it’s a radical, alternative newspaper, for a young, hip, urban crowd, is so fearful when it comes to P2P. I’ve had a long a-mail discussion with Dex, leading to us agreeing to disagree. I had the nerve to open a thread where I wanted to discuss the morality of filesharing, but that wasn’t allowed either.

13

Well, I suppose we should institute a procedure whereby the moderator who closes a P2P thread also inserts some gratuitous sexual reference, to force the Goggle ads to revert to the default sex thread ad (currently Hurricane Relief).

Example:

We regret to remind you that this type of thread is forbidden by Board Rules. Please do not start threads mentioning P2P again.

Penis, Twat, Cunt and Goat
:smiley:

14

Really?

I thought that theoretical discussions of that nature about the issue were allowed. It appears that the paranoia is even worse than i thought.

15

Yep.
BTW, I’m now seeing all of the Google Ads as being for GQ magazine.

16

Theoretical discussions of file-sharing have been allowed. The thread The Gaspode mentions was not just a theoretical discussion of the morality of file-sharing, however. It opened with a description of downloading television shows while being fully aware that it is illegal to do so, and then asked whether it was moral of him to continue doing so. As Dex said in the followup thread, framing the discussion around a real-life illegal action puts it into a grey area, and when it comes to copyright issues the board has to err on the conservative side. It’s not always an easy call.

17

A description? Give me a break!

He said "I’m just downloading nine episodes of “Desperate Housewives.” He didn’t say what program he was using, how to go about getting the program, whether it was a BitTorrent client or some other form of P2P software, or what format the shows were in. It hardly constitutes a description of the sort that might let some neophyte learn how to undertake this illegal activity.

Wow. The paranoia really is worse than i thought.

That thread, essentially, was a thread asking: What do you think about the morality of file-sharing, especially in the case of people who have no way of getting the programs legally, and who are not depriving the producers or the TV stations of any revenue by doing so?

Gaspode was not telling people how to file-share, he wasn’t recommending that they do it, and he wasn’t proposing that it be legalized. He was simply asking about people’s moral beliefs regarding this issue.

:sigh:

I’m not sure why i bothered typing those paragraphs. The administration of these boards has made clear exactly how far its head is up its ass on this particular issue, and that nothing is going to change. I keep telling myself that i’m not going to enter these debates, because it really is a case of banging one’s head against a brick wall. Sorry to waste the bandwidth.

18

Lemme get a clarification here. If a user just says that s/he got a file via p2p, without even mentioning which network it came from, let alone not giving instructions or links to do so, that’s not permitted?

If I mention that I cheated on my taxes, without saying how or why, is that permitted or not?

19

The War against Terrorism?
Why do you hate America and its freedom?

20

mhendo, I wasn’t trying to defend the Reader’s strict position on copyright issues, I was simply correcting the assertion that theoretical discussions of file-sharing were forbidden.

As for The Gaspode’s thread, I agree that he didn’t in any way instruct anyone how to illegally download copyrighted material. However, he started the thread with an admission of illegal activity, which is problematic. Closing threads referencing illegal activities is not unique to file-sharing. A thread about drug legalization which began with “I just shot up some heroin and it feels awesome! Tell me again why this is illegal?” would probably be closed. A thread about tax law which started out “I just saved $10,000 by making up a bunch of obscure, hard-to-verify deductions on my federal income taxes. Why doesn’t everyone do this?” would probably be closed. We have to close threads which we feel have a strong possibility to promote illegal activity.

Have there been cases where I think it’s sort of stupid and unnecessarily cautious? Absolutely. But that’s life in an overly litigious society.