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Lock up your iPods, politicians on the loose

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Lock up your iPods, politicians on the loose pcps3xbox360wii

Posted 03:35pm 30/07/08 by:
51 Comments | 0 Faves

So the war on terror didn't go exactly to plan. Osama's still canyoning around somewhere, the V8 is rusting in the backyard due to petrol prices, and we're back to paying the dole for David Hicks. The good news is a slow burning conflict is getting ready to leap into fully fledged war status - the war on copyright infringement.

Tell me more about this war on copyright infringing scum, then!
The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement seems a bit innocuous - a bit of paper helping curb knock off golf clubs or fake rolexes, maybe. As this wikileaks entry indicates the enforcement and "border measures" elements look decidedly more broad in scope. So broad in fact that even the Murdoch press have gotten their teeth into it:

MUSIC fans might soon have their iPods searched by Customs officers at airport checks - and face jail if pirated music is found on them.

Looking through the wikileaked document reveals some scary stuff. Recommendations to "significantly increase inspections...to find shipments of counterfeit or pirated goods" (as well as refer to the relevant authorities for prosecution). Not to mention recommendations for civil action in addition, including suing for damages and access to personal information of infringers.

What paragons of decency are putting this forward?
Californian Democrat Howard Berman (aka "the Representative from Hollywood") is heavily involved in the ACTA action. Famed for his strong support of aggressive countermeasures to protect copyright (including spoofing and decoys) he's also a family man, having paid his own brother's consulting firm around $200K out of his campaign funds... a reasonable amount of which has come from the likes of Sony, Time Warner, Walt Disney and News Corp. Hey - multinationals need congress support as well, you know!

Driving your lobbyist's dollar further: Howard Berman

What's really scary is the fact that the negotiations - currently underway - are being conducted in secret. As far as can be figured out, there's no advocates for civil rights in this discussion, just politicians acting at the behest of industry (Australia's along for the ride as well - in fact the indications are we helped put it all together).

Why should I care?
We don't condone piracy here obviously; other parts of BigPond sell broadband/games/music/film after all. But the scope of this type of agreement impacts heavily on the rights of the individual to privacy. The increased border security measures put in place to protect citizens from terrorist action would doubtless come in handy for copyright holders to scour your belongings at entry into certain ports. And given that just about any device nowadays has the capacity to hold information, your mobile phone, laptop, PlayStation Portable, MP3 player, camera, or the like all are fair game for a legal peek and inspection by customs.

So: international agreements drafted in secrecy, big brother checking out your devices, and everyone slowly slotted into the big database in the sky. And why are governments (plural) doing the heavy (and expensive) lifting involved in getting copyright protection schemes off the ground? Don't they have enough work cut out for them protecting individuals from recessions, angry fundamentalists, broken-down hospitals and prehistoric transport systems? Worth worrying about, or just business as usual? Thoughts?

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Comments on this Article

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:20pm

netherhed
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:20pm

that bloke needs to be infringed for copyright.. he's trying to look like a god damn egg with glasses on!!

also i don't agree with his crap

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:24pm

WaLLy3K
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:24pm

See this is where I win. People are going to look at my Creative Zen Vision M and say "HAY WTF DIS AINT AN IPOD WE CANT SURCH IT".

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:27pm

Badomen
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:27pm

Can we light the Molotov cocktails yet?

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:30pm

amckern
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:30pm

You can always roam around with linux in bash, and baffle them :)

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:31pm

4play
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:31pm

See this is where I win. People are going to look at my Creative Zen Vision M and say "HAY WTF DIS AINT AN IPOD WE CANT SURCH IT".

Win.
I bought a Zen over an ipod due to the fact itunes is horrible.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:32pm

Chavistah
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:32pm

This isn't just about privacy...

It's about my right to be a pirate! A right I claim as any decent person would.

Sony, Time Warner, Walt Disney and News Corp.

Shoot them all.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:38pm

greendoor
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:38pm

The Americans already try to scan the hard drives of any one entering from down mexico way copyright and piracy are flavour of the month in reality you can copy anything from shoes to pushbikes it is the proprietory label that is copyrighted stealing property for finacial gain or without the owners permission causes hardship but that has never gotten in the way of any government raiding ,pillaging and spying, their all so old thier panicking in the face of the unknown the youth have technology they dont know how to use so they apply a sledge hammer to crack a walnut.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:39pm

Farmy
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:39pm

News Corp can suck big fat dong.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:40pm

imtoast
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:40pm

Wont be flying any time soon.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:59pm

Badomen
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 3:59pm

Buy a 1tB external HDD, put whatever you want on it, the daft bastards will never figure to look. Yet my MP3 player is a threat to corporate giants.

And if they do wisen up to the external HDD, get creative with casemods.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:02pm

Swollen
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:02pm

This isn't just about privacy... It's about my right to be a pirate! A right I claim as any decent person would.
Sony, Time Warner, Walt Disney and News Corp.
Shoot them all.

Then you wont have anything left to pirate

Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:36pm

hotcakes
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:36pm

if this goes through, i will never fly again. the implications of this are very scary indeed.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:46pm

Burnouts
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:46pm

how can they tell its been downloaded?

Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:46pm

Tanka
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:46pm

It's bullshit.. I doubt it will ever be passed though.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:47pm

imtoast
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:47pm

What do you think the fines/jail will be. I know it would be determined by the amount "someone" has. Also does this just say international airports or domestic as well?

Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:53pm

Dalienx
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 4:53pm

how exactly will an untrained moron at a customs check point tell wich (if any) of the 500+ songs in your play list are pirated?

Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:02pm

Wraith
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:02pm

Yeah this is what I'm wondering. How could they tell? Hell, I can't even remember anymore, being an aspiring musician I try not to copy music, but chances are something is lying around everybody's house that's pirated.

AFAIK, the only way they could tell would be to get you to show receipts for each one of the 1500 songs you're carrying around. That, I wouldn't be prepared for.

If the external HDD fails, buy one of these:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/99f1/
The impenetrable fortress of USB thumb drives.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:03pm

netherhed
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:03pm

what about if the player lists a bunch of metallica and madonna songs in format, but they're actually mp3's of me playing the banjo..

Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:04pm

xX5pr1gunXx
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:04pm

he can go **** him self, i iTouch has password on it. i f u say thats its ur sister's they not gona bother hacking it just to see what music u got. and how are they going to know if you got it from iTunes or Piratebay??

Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:13pm

Adam
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:13pm

Lol silly yanks you cant jail people over a civil offence here!

Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:13pm

MrMongoose
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:13pm

Hey, he looks like the emperor pre-self-induced-lightning. I think I see more similarities, if you consider music players the rebellion :P

Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:20pm

Allighieri
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:20pm

Hey, he looks like the emperor pre-self-induced-lightning. I think I see more similarities, if you consider music players the rebellion :P

My god you're right. It's only a short step from Californian Democrat to Supreme Chancellor, and once he has control of the senate...

Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:24pm

kreese
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 5:24pm

Holy cow - now that I come to think of it, I have NEVER seen Howard Berman and Senator Palpatine in the same room at the same time.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:07pm

deius
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:07pm

I object to the laws for piracy which are far too harsh. The punishment is up for debate, but if you have stolen content and they find it, what defense do you have? Movies and music on an MP3 player aren't private. That is not a civil liberty being infringed, that is customs searching a storage device for stolen goods. Customs can break open your luggage anyway. Customs can search your portable HD for CP if they want. No fundamental right is being infringed here.

This debate really brings out my most hated enemies, extreme civil libertarians and piraters (the ones who always have to justify it by ranting about record companies), both rolled into one. Fight the man!

Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:10pm

Allighieri
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:10pm

I object to the laws for piracy which are far too harsh. The punishment is up for debate, but if you have stolen content and they find it, what defense do you have? Movies and music on an MP3 player aren't private. That is not a civil liberty being infringed, that is customs searching a storage device for stolen goods. Customs can break open your luggage anyway. Customs can search your portable HD for CP if they want. No fundamental right is being infringed here.

This debate really brings out my most hated enemies, extreme civil libertarians and piraters (the ones who always have to justify it by ranting about record companies), both rolled into one. Fight the man!

I believe the term is pirates.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:11pm

Hawky
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:11pm

Fear not, a large majority of underpaid security officers at airports will probably own their own ipod, filled with illegal music, and when told of these new "procedures" will simply ignore them just to keep the flow of people.

I can imagine the backlash now when a 18 year old's personal photos she kept on her ipod appear on the web after being taken for evidence.

Then we simply sit back and let the combined volume of civil rights campaigners across the world snap the new laws in half. Realistically i see no reason to believe that people will search my mp3 player when they would then have to prove that i did not have those albums at home. And who really gives that much of a **** that they will hold up someone for 15 minutes in an airport to fill out a 3 page form about their mp3 player.

i'm filing this information in the "sounds good, will never happen" folder along with free renewable energy in the next 10 years and fibre speed broadband at my unit in 5

Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:26pm

Burnouts
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:26pm

Fear not, a large majority of underpaid security officers at airports will probably own their own ipod, filled with illegal music, and when told of these new "procedures" will simply ignore them just to keep the flow of people.

I can imagine the backlash now when a 18 year old's personal photos she kept on her ipod appear on the web after being taken for evidence.

Then we simply sit back and let the combined volume of civil rights campaigners across the world snap the new laws in half. Realistically i see no reason to believe that people will search my mp3 player when they would then have to prove that i did not have those albums at home. And who really gives that much of a **** that they will hold up someone for 15 minutes in an airport to fill out a 3 page form about their mp3 player.

i'm filing this information in the "sounds good, will never happen" folder along with free renewable energy in the next 10 years and fibre speed broadband at my unit in 5

Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:34pm

Midnight
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:34pm

What was the parable about the perfect society with the perfect legal system which failed when it became apparent that everyone - including the law makers and enforcers - was a criminal?

I was under the impression that customs were on the lookout for illegal goods, items in saleable quantities, security risks and flora and fauna entering and leaving the country. I don't see why they'd bother searching individual mp3 players when movies and mp3's cross international borders more easily as pure data. I mean you don't go to Singapore to load up your iPod with downloaded music to sell in Australia.

I'm all for loading an iPod video with 10 hours of tranny porn and one downloaded song.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:42pm

CruSaDeR
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:42pm

how can they tell its been downloaded?

hax

Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:52pm

Shoe_
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:52pm

Customs already can search and confiscate your electronic devices under the pretence of "Protecting the children."

Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:59pm

kreese
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 6:59pm

Never bet against the power of red tape IMO. And never think the inconvenience factor will deter an official - maybe they randomly pick out people for a spot check (like they do for explosives), who knows.

Anyone whose gone through US customs can probably testify to that. If the rules are there and able to be enacted they usually will be. Just ask Molly Meldrum/Sue Smethurst/Dan Kaufman for example - all aussie media peeps who went over to the US to do pretty innocuous things (interviewing US celebs/write stories) only to be held for 12-24 hrs, cuffed and deported back to AU because they tried going in on the standard visa waiver - not the special journalist visa that media need to have to enter the US.

The point some people are making about this issue is that all it can ever do is repress people's liberties, not address the issue that the current paid content model is screwball. The most obvious use of such an agreement is to crack down on the bigger fish making money off piracy - but it's also a high-impact tool potentially used to track/monitor individuals as well.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 7:03pm

eMONKe
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 7:03pm

put your music on a external HD and use this http://www.truecrypt.org/

Wed 30 Jul 08, 7:13pm

Midnight
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 7:13pm

Just reading through it - at no point does it explicitly mention searching any sort of storage devices for music and videos. They are talking about extending greater authority and effective powers to local customs and enforcement authorities. That's nothing revolutionary - they're always after more power. The document doesn't go anywhere near as far as mentioning specifics of exactly how this power is to be wielded, and doesn't ever mention targeting our iPods etc.

Ususally when they talk about piracy in this context they are talking about people who buy 'genuine' DVD's for 50 cents each, and 'legitimate' software (loading instructions: double-click of the file "install.exe". When running has stopped, copy file of "crack.exe" to the directory of install) hmmmm.

Usually customs just throw out the more dodgy looking versions and wave you through with a warning - if your trip to the country looks to be a one-off. If your passport is full of stamps from that country you are deemed to be a 'frequent traveller' and may cop a fine or worse.

A bit of media sensationalism I think.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 7:39pm

Kael2
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 7:39pm

someone please murder these people

Wed 30 Jul 08, 8:53pm

Tsurani
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 8:53pm

its really quite simple people.... encrypt the information on your external HDD or laptop BEFORE getting on a plane. when they ask what the key is say you really dont know it was just some garbage file from the internet and you dont know the password. a bootable USB drive and password combination is the best way to protect your system since even the O/S and MBR ae encrypted along with all your data (the whole drive is encrypted and needs the USB key and password to initilize it)

And then the idiot customs officer will tell you that the onsite IT guy will break your 256 bit blowfish algorithim with his new acer laptop and send your ass to jail! LOL

Wed 30 Jul 08, 9:19pm

tele-fragd
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 9:19pm

put your music on a external HD and use this http://www.truecrypt.org/

Hypothetically speaking (and presuming we're living in a '1984' type of society), couldn't you just get charged for obstruction? ie. The same thing that'd apply to pirates who get caught and refuse to hand over keys for encrypted documents involved in prosecuting them?

The news reports on this all reek of scare mongering.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 9:30pm

eMONKe
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 9:30pm

its really quite simple people.... encrypt the information on your external HDD or laptop BEFORE getting on a plane. when they ask what the key is say you really dont know it was just some garbage file from the internet and you dont know the password. a bootable USB drive and password combination is the best way to protect your system since even the O/S and MBR ae encrypted along with all your data (the whole drive is encrypted and needs the USB key and password to initilize it)

And then the idiot customs officer will tell you that the onsite IT guy will break your 256 bit blowfish algorithim with his new acer laptop and send your ass to jail! LOL

You're pretty much repeating my post.

Hypothetically speaking (and presuming we're living in a '1984' type of society), couldn't you just get charged for obstruction? ie. The same thing that'd apply to pirates who get caught and refuse to hand over keys for encrypted documents involved in prosecuting them?

The news reports on this all reek of scare mongering.

They can't legally ask you for the passkey, you need only say it's sensitive corporate data. If you are really paranoid though, the software I linked to can hide entire partitions.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 10:14pm

Wraith
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 10:14pm

You're pretty much repeating my post.

Yeah, but you were pretty much only repeating my link - embellishing further, but the same idea :P

They can't legally ask you for the passkey, you need only say it's sensitive corporate data. If you are really paranoid though, the software I linked to can hide entire partitions.

Smooth.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 10:22pm

Mencius
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 10:22pm

The MX article, insofar as it mentions ipod searches, is just sensationalist journalism. How could an airport customs officer possibly tell whether the mp3 of never gonna give you up on my ipod is from a CD I own or pirated, afaik it's impossible.

As far as the broader issues of privacy and civil liberties are concerned I agree that trends in the US, backed by the big studios, are very worrying. However, this is just an international agreement, Australia hasn't signed or ratified it. Even if we were to agree to this in the international sphere it would still require domestic legislation in order to implement the treaty and I at least hope that there would be vigorous debate on the home front about any such legislation.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 11:15pm

Gordonov
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 11:15pm

i'm filing this information in the "sounds good, will never happen" folder

Except this doesn't even sound good.

It doesn't worry me, because I know that unless they have some revolutionary new scanning device that can quickly and accurately read an MP3 player and determine the origins of each song on it, this will never actually be done at any security checkpoints. As far as I'm aware, no such device exists.

The fact that these cockgobbling suits even thought such a notion up though, only further cements my belief that these companies, along with defence contractors, are the scourge of the earth.

Wed 30 Jul 08, 11:22pm

thraSK
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 11:22pm

Luckily I hacked my iPod so if I press a certain sequence on the keypad it will wipe all the songs from its hard drive and disintegrate the platters, thereby rendering it unusable

Wed 30 Jul 08, 11:40pm

Godis
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 08, 11:40pm

lol ^+1, show me how.

Thu 31 Jul 08, 9:50am

baumaxx1
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 9:50am

Are Zen: Vision Ms Exempt if its about ipods?
And how do they tell if its pirated anyway? I don't put licences on my ripped CDs... It has to keep activating them, some don't play... and it's not an option with .wav.
Any news on that free music site paid for by advertising?

Thu 31 Jul 08, 10:12am

Flotsky
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 10:12am

Are Zen: Vision Ms Exempt if its about ipods?And how do they tell if its pirated anyway? I don't put licences on my ripped CDs... It has to keep activating them, some don't play... and it's not an option with .wav.Any news on that free music site paid for by advertising?

Exactly what i was thinking. On my iPod i keep everything named properly, and i can't see any different between legal and non legal music. Politicians need to get a clue imo

Thu 31 Jul 08, 10:22am

Soldant
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 10:22am

What a load of crap, obviously a fail plan created by idiots. But it's so amusing to watch how the movie/music industry goes about things compared to the software industry. The entertainment industry seems so hell-bent on prosecuting end uers, while the software industry just penalises those who didn't pay for the product (well, at least for as long as their copy protection methods hold out) while aiming for the distributors themselves.

Any news on that free music site paid for by advertising?

You mean QTrax? Just go take a look at it to see how that ended up...

Thu 31 Jul 08, 12:29pm

WaLLy3K
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 12:29pm

baumaxx1: Good luck getting them to search your ZVM if you've "misplaced" your dongle. Since it's a hardish (and pretty uncommon) to find MP3 player, having the attachment isn't going to be something that they're going to readily have available.

Thu 31 Jul 08, 6:10pm

Hurracane
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 6:10pm

lol this is complete bs, there is NO way in hell they can search peoples iPods to find copywrited music...

Unless they get about 5000 programmers to make:

iPod Scanner V1.0: Scans for priated meteraial, picks songs at random that arent pirated, and smacking on a pirated lable on it :P

stupid imo...

Thu 31 Jul 08, 8:12pm

Gossy
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 8:12pm

As has been stated, this would be nigh on impossible to police.
A couple of extra points:

iTunes (for ipods) converts the original Tracks to AAC Format, which stores Meta Data differently, So if you converted from mp3 or WMA to AAC, any genuine certification would be lost anyways.

mp3 Format does not have a Authenticity Certificate that I know of that come attached to each individual file.

I would assume that most peoples Windows Media Players wont have the certificate option turned on anyway.

For other programs that copy CD Tracks to computer, such as Nero or Winamp, I'm un-aware of anything they do to prove Authenticity.

So unless they make you physically prove you own each and every CD, which will be fun with the hundreds / thousands of songs a lot of people have...

Thu 31 Jul 08, 8:24pm

Allighieri
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 8:24pm

As has been stated, this would be nigh on impossible to police.
A couple of extra points:

iTunes (for ipods) converts the original Tracks to AAC Format, which stores Meta Data differently, So if you converted from mp3 or WMA to AAC, any genuine certification would be lost anyways.

mp3 Format does not have a Authenticity Certificate that I know of that come attached to each individual file.

I would assume that most peoples Windows Media Players wont have the certificate option turned on anyway.

For other programs that copy CD Tracks to computer, such as Nero or Winamp, I'm un-aware of anything they do to prove Authenticity.

So unless they make you physically prove you own each and every CD, which will be fun with the hundreds / thousands of songs a lot of people have...

Not to mention the number of people who would have an mp3 player or iPod on them in the airport...

Thu 31 Jul 08, 8:59pm

tele-fragd
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 8:59pm

Not to mention the number of people who would have an mp3 player or iPod on them in the airport...

Perth Airport would become even more of a joke than it already is.

Thu 31 Jul 08, 9:24pm

sgt.schultz
Posted: Thu 31 Jul 08, 9:24pm

Does this apply to iPhones?

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