AfterDawn: News

Australian iPod 'pirates' to face sanctions

According to a leaked discussion paper relating to a secret treaty the Australian government is negotiating, iPod and laptop owners may have their media devices searched randomly and sanctioned if found to have large libraries of "pirated" music.

These searches will be conducted when travelers are leaving the country for vacation or business, with Customs Officials getting full power to search MP3 players and other media devices. Music fans could then be unwittingly hit with large fines.



Internet Industry Association chief executive Peter Coroneos added of the discussion, "It talks about (sanctions for) commercial infringements does that mean one, 10, 20 or 1000 songs?

"It could be that people get sent to jail for being in possession of commercial-scale quantities of copied music."

Although no agreement has been signed, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has confirmed that the Government is indeed in negotiations.

One critic of the proposal, Choice spokesperson Christopher Zinn noted, "Searching into people's iPods is out of order."

"We don't need to suffer draconian regimes to protect intellectual property. US music labels are keen for their government to sign up other countries to the zero-tolerance stance. It should not be tolerated."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Jul 2008 16:15

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• 20 comments

• iluvendo

  Quote:"We don't need to suffer draconian regimes to protect intellectual property. US music labels are keen for their government to sign up other countries to the zero-tolerance stance. It should not be tolerated."
  What more can anyone say ?

  28.7.2008 16:26 #1

• ZippyDSM

  Heil!

  28.7.2008 16:36 #2

• Jondrew

  seriously, how are they going to enforce this? how can you honestly tell what music is pirated or what music isnt just from browsing a mp3 player and or ipod? unless the music is pre-release there would be no feasable way to do this... can you imagine training hundreds of people on how to search what 100 different types of mp3 players and have them memorize the lists of new pre-release music to search for? this is pointless, its not a good law to be passed, but if it happens, it will do nothing but make customs lines that much longer...

  28.7.2008 16:37 #3

• kiaghi7

  There seems to be a Fourth Reich rising already...
  
  Short of having Gestapo stopping by your house (don't worry, I'm sure they are looking up I.P. addresses to send them around) the governments of the world are doing everything in their already excessive and over-reaching power to constrict the "free" people's of the world.
  
  All is not lost, but so long as officials are elected by telling everyone what they want things will not get better but far worse. On top of that rather than the voters growing enough spine to stop pandering to which ever group is whining the most that month, the assumption is that someone will kindly come along and set things right... Don't know how to break this to one and all, but YOU are that person!
  
  Everyone needs to collectively recoil in horror when an official even HINTS at such a belligerent and oppressive policy as that being mulled over in Australia. What ever happened to the good old days when the people would riot over something as small as a 3 pence levy per pound of Tea, sadly today the sheep of the world will happily be sheered for far greater injustices and more personal injuries from their government so long as they are receiving a hand-out.

  28.7.2008 16:47 #4

• ugc

  There is no logical way to enforce this.
  
  on another note...anyone heard of the freeware truecrypt?

  28.7.2008 16:50 #5

• kiaghi7

  Naaaa, don't go on the defensive, after all the best defense is an great offense! All you need to do is just make sure to leave them a pleasant little "present" on your iPod for when they peruse it ^_^
  
  Something that will perhaps format their hard drive(s) and generally "reward" their hard work with a proper digital kick in the pills. And if some how they want to accuse you of having a malicious piece of software on your iPod, you can innocently claim to have just have a virus :D

  28.7.2008 17:00 #6

• bilen

  If people would have gotten together and rioted alot earlier about some stupid law or bill or whatever they want to call it about something of yours that you own that no one "should" be aloud to look at,it never would have gotten this far. Oh oh, someone knocking at my door!! lol

  28.7.2008 17:11 #7

• joe777

  ^^^^ Tell them "you keep on knocking, but you can't come in"
  But hey folks, 1 question. If sharing music is a civil offence, then how do they prove commercial gain as you walk towards the customs desk with your laptop and or mp3 / mobile telephone?
  Any takers????????
  
  And as for you zippy!!!
  I will tell you once and only once its ziek heil.
  How can you expect me to promote you to sergeant when you misbehave with my words. ROFL
  Anyway have to go Mussolini is on line 2 ( shit he's gonna talk all night again) who gave him 2 lines ah mean line 2.

  28.7.2008 17:32 #8

• kiaghi7

  Actually it's Sieg Heil or "Hail Victory"/"Victory Hail"

  28.7.2008 18:09 #9

• joe777

  Thanks for that^^^ Now you can go to the front line against the red army, for showing me up in public!! ROFL

  28.7.2008 18:47 #10

• sssharp

  We could always pull a "V for Vendetta" and kick some azz. This is reminding me of the mentioning of the 7 signs for the end of the world.

  28.7.2008 19:04 #11

• susieqbbb

  I would really like to know how do they intend to prove this is illegal or not..
  
  When if you are traveling and you are hauling your ipod with you and not the original cd's or the computer from which they where transfered from how do you tell..
  
  Answer you cant there is no way in heck you can tell.

  29.7.2008 00:45 #12

• pensfan12

  this will never happen so whatever.
  
  but i was thinking, considering i do this, what if i download music off the net from illegal sources when i own the album and cant be bothered ripping it.
  
  so many flaws to this stupid idea.

  29.7.2008 06:24 #13

• lynchGOP

  How is this fair? How is this NOT bullshizzy??? I have been aware of MANY a loser that has sat all weekend burning copies of his/her compact discs to the HDD. I am aware of many with either 1. enough money to purchase "commercial" quantities of music or 2. enough stupidity to spend that kind of cash. C'mon Australia................you blokes are better than that.
  
  Of all countries out there, I would think that the country that was formed and populated from exiled criminals by the UK (Australia) would be more understanding.

  29.7.2008 11:32 #14

• emugamer

  I guess the couple thousand songs I ripped from my retail CD's to digital form for playing on my iPod could get me jailed.

  29.7.2008 12:40 #15

• SProdigy

  Originally posted by emugamer: I guess the couple thousand songs I ripped from my retail CD's to digital form for playing on my iPod could get me jailed.I was just thinking this. I have a large assortment of songs from stores such as iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody and ripped CD's. Combine that with the P2P crapware out there, and would you be able to tell any apart? How would you? Every application uses different methods of tagging their music, such as CDDB and FreeDB.
  
  And how on Earth can you even tell what music is purchased from iTunes? It's not like my iPod says "PURCHASED" in the track title. If you try to hook up my iPod to another PC it's not synced to, and then unsync my device, there will be hell to pay!

  29.7.2008 16:27 #16

• emugamer

  Quote:Originally posted by emugamer: I guess the couple thousand songs I ripped from my retail CD's to digital form for playing on my iPod could get me jailed.It's not like my iPod says "PURCHASED" in the track title. If you try to hook up my iPod to another PC it's not synced to, and then unsync my device, there will be hell to pay!Lol...don't give Steve-O any ideas :P

  29.7.2008 17:59 #17

• kiaghi7

  This also overlooks situations like those where files that are by default "grandfathered" into being legal simply because the activity of Napster and the like weren't illegal at the time of download, and thus retroactive punishment is denied due to the double jeopardy clause of the 5th amendment for Americans (and similar laws in many other nations). The "catch" is that many copies of those same files that were perfectly legal to trade -at that time- are still roaming around on the internet and of course the prosecution would be going well out of their way make sure such files legally-innocently obtained would be lumped in with those that weren't and of course punished accordingly.

  30.7.2008 16:34 #18

• FreqNasty

  Anyone who voted for Kevin Rudd last year, hang your head in shame. This guy has been an absolute fake, foney and fraud!
  
  No wonder he has earned the nickname KRudd

  6.8.2008 05:31 #19

• Mez

  ATTACK!!!
  
  This bill is obviously a crime against Australia! I suspect it is an unlawful attack on Australians who must fund this attack. It serves no purpose except to take resorces from Australia an send them over seas!
  
  If you can fry those blood suckers involved, politicians will avoid supporting these kinds of bills even if they make more sense. This is an opportunity of a life time. Rarely do you see level of insanity in a bill in in all places Australia. Australia usually defends their own more than the rest of the British commonwelth.
  
  I suggest to the Aussies tuned in to this station to do something before it is too late! I believe this was leaked on purpose so they could gauge voter outrage before anyone actually backs the bill. You will need to spend billoins of dollars to possibly put millions of dollars into the US echonomy. Very little if any will profit Australia. The whole concept is anti-Australian.
  
  You need to discover who the elected officials who got the ball rolling are. Government officials don’t do things like this unless elected officials are involved. Usually, elected officials who manage the funding of the agencies are paid off to start the ball rolling. Lobbiests pay off all the members of the targeted committees.
  
  You have to write those elected officials nasty letters that look like they come from their own constituency. That requires some foot work and research. You need to use real persons’ identities. The letters should be reasonable. I always try to add that if I have to shut down the internet in my house for fear that my kids might do something wrong, their education will suffer. I get real angry when I say that they favor blood suckers over my child’s education. I like to sound a bit uneducated who heard something from a friend that scared me and made me angry. I usually mention I might bring the topic up at the PTA (Parent Teacher Ass in the USA). That is their worst nightmare! A group of moronic uninformed angry voters! I assure you that will scare the crap out of them if done correctly. You can use the same set of letters for each elected official. They get trashed after they are tallied.
  
  How is a parent to know if their kids have pirated tunes? Demand a new government group to help and educate parents how to find out if their kids have pirated tunes. Tell them they had better get that money from the US. How dare they waste precious tax dollars so that the US might profit. Who do they work for? They certainly are not working for the voters. Demand to learn who came up with this stupid idea! If that does not scare the crap out of them nothing will.
  
  I would also send the letters to your own elected officials using your own idenity. Why waste good letters? This is really a huge crock.
  
  It doesn’t even matter if the politician you flame was not part of it (right!) he will tell his buddies.
  
  kiaghi7, in the US you can not be prosacuted for downloading copy righted materials. It is well known the public has recorded rario and TV shows for decades. They can't change their minds after a half century. This is probably true in Australia as well. If that is true the proposal is probably not lawful. This is a great time to make noise.

  6.8.2008 10:02 #20