Fraud implies deception in criminal law no? I don't see where the deception lies here.

So, what happens if they've not actually got an account, and thus no encryption keys?

Are they guilty by virtue of not being able to answer the question?

Seems a touch harsh.

...if music industry people will ever get the idea of certain things. For example:

"It focused on high quality files and featured trackers for pre-release material, "

Maybe they should not enforce release dates on albums (which exist because of the vagaries of physical releases, which don't affect digital), and maybe encourage retailers to deal in FLAC/320Kbps, non-DRMed files.

OiNK was set up to satisfy a hole in the existing market. If the industry would satisfy the demand themselves, thereby removing the market for these sites, many of them would not exist. At least, those that did exist would not be held in higher regard than the industry itself, as OiNK was.

If the local police have anything more serious, and of greater concern to the local populace of Cleveland than file sharers and running a 7 month enquiry the raid with 6 plods, well then it must be a great place to live. Safe to walk in the park at night and no troubles outside the pubs at closing time.

If there is still problems like that then why are these wankers wasting PUBLIC money on this for?

How about an inquiry into how the Cleveland police set their resource priorities.

They have to be able to prove that you have one, if they cannot prove that you have an account they cannot prove the criminal case against you that the sentence would require.

However for you to be arrested they must have fairly solid grounds....

"Fraud implies deception, No?"

No precise legal definition of fraud exists; many of the offences referred to as fraud are covered by the Theft Acts of 1968 and 1978. Generally, the term is used to describe such acts as deception, bribery, forgery, extortion, corruption, theft, conspiracy, embezzlement, misappropriation, false representation, concealment of material facts and collusion. For practical purposes fraud may be defined as the use of deception with the intention of obtaining an advantage, avoiding an obligation or causing loss to another party.

>>>> "If there is still problems like that then why are these wankers wasting PUBLIC money on this for?

How about an inquiry into how the Cleveland police set their resource priorities."

This is because somebody has reported the offence and the police are "duty bound" to investigate / take action or they will suffer the wrath of the IPCC. Normally stuff like this isnt amongst the "league tables" (sorry, key performance indicators) so wouldnt get a second look at, but unfortunately the music industry employs lawyers etc who target their letters / complaints to the upper echelons of the force, and as we all know sh*t only runs downhill !!

The police are not there to protect the people but to protect the multi-national conglomerates which is where the politicians get jobs when they leave office. Does anyone else see any issue with this type of setup in government.

If they can prove they had an account but refuse to cough up the password, yes.

If it is unclear whether you had an account, then I think you're fine.

I wouldn't cough it up. I would just cite my right not to incriminate myself. I'd leave it up to them to prove that I owned and used the account to break the law - then leave it up to court to decide whether their logs of internet traffic actually tell them who was sat in front of the computer at the time.

I honestly do not know a single person that would BUY music because it is illegal to download it. People BUY music because they want to pay money for it or have the original cd / box. Saying that, I buy music from iTunes because it is CONVENIENT. I think the recording industry should follow that business model up. The internet has taken the impetus away from the corporations and put it into the hands of majority public - which is where it should be. The public is basically telling the record company what their music is worth and they don't like it.

If cars ran on water, you wouldn't take it to the garage and pay £1.35 a litre, you'd fill it up from your sink, illegal or not.

Yes, because the police can only do one crime at once, someone was murdered in Glasgow the other week that means we should be free to commit any crime we wish there until they've caught the murderer.

You're quite right, the police should only ever look at the most serious crime in their area. Duh.

@Kevin King

I think you're after the Fraud Act 2006:-

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060035_en_1

Specifically:-

Fraud by false representation

(1) A person is in breach of this section if he—

(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and

(b) intends, by making the representation—

(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or

(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

You'll note that the gain doesn't have to be his own and the loss only a "risk of loss". The gain or loss have to be money or property though.

Oh wait, 500 convicted criminals are being released... and this will be a high profile case because the record industry are paying for it to be. So jail time will be pushed for.

Still music of that quality sounds better than half the crap I buy on CD. Wish I had heard of it earlier.

This is absolutely ridiculous and a complete waste of public money in one of the most crime infested areas of the UK. This smacks of political (content mafia ?) pressure.

I wonder if any of the police involved may have a nice job with one of the " Big Four "

after the investigation a la Sweden and the Pirate Bay ?

If they want to go after anyone for fraud it should be the Content Mafia for screwing Joe Public for years

"However for you to be arrested they must have fairly solid grounds...."

That depends on what kind of mood they are in.

<QUOTE>If there is still problems like that then why are these wankers wasting PUBLIC money on this for?</QUOTE>

I see the problem here. You think that the law exists to protect the public. It doesn't. It should, but ultimately it exists to protect those who can afford to pay for it. So the BPI is rich, and therefore can pay for a little law and the filesharers ( who may be in the right or maybe in the wrong, I'm sitting on the fence), who can't afford a flashy car or decent legal protection, get to be shat on from a great height. And since the executives who pay for all this lovely law have bodyguards and bulletproof cars, why waste money on patrolling pubs or streets.

There is a way out. Vote for a centrist government, or even (fingers down throat, because I can't believe I'm going to say this) a left leaning government. The Tories are so right wing that they'll make the problem worse. The Labour party is right wing too, now, I'm afraid. That only leaves the Liberals.

hmm. Maybe now is the right time to move to New Zealand.

there's a Cleveland in the UK?

Why are the police involved so heavily with what should surely be a civil case and not a criminal case?

If I wore a tin hat I'd say they were either just trying to scare people or were using the database to compare with their lists of people that they're interested in for 'other reasons' .

And can people really respect an artist if they are just lifting their works?

Yes, the handling of this is far too draconian, and will probably cause more problems than it solves.

But, why if people don't want to buy music, do they setup sites to pirate the music, why not just make music?

Rosegarden is a great opensource midi sequencer and music composition tool, get cracking there and offer the fruits of your labour for nothing to the rest of the world if you so desire.

And artists need to a grow a pair, and hire tech people directly to build up a band's image and distribution channels. It really is not that hard, they just need to ask people to build them a system so they can sell their music directly to the consumer. If the sales price is reasonable they will do well, people want to buy off bands directly. This is the whole ludicrous thing about all of this, people want to support the bands they like, the bands have to let them, and let the fans put the shame on those who try to get this work without paying gratuity.

<Q>there's a Cleveland in the UK?</Q>

I guess you're from the US? Spend time with a map of the US and UK and you will spot MANY of the town names are the same. If the name wasn't nicked from the UK, then it probally came from Europe somewhere.

When us Europeans were busy colonising your country way back in the past... there wasn't exactly much originality in the town names. :) I guessed it reminded us of home.... well, why else call it "New York"?

So they have to investigate the crime as the BPI said some crimes had been commited.

What about the 1000's who were snooped on by BT in 2006/2007 during the phorm / webwise trials.

Individuals have gone to the police to reoprt this crime and they are nottaking any action against BT.

That's nothing. There's a Moscow.

1) Fraud and theft (how else do they get pre release material) are criminal activities.

2) People involved in one type of crime are often involved in other types. The cops don't much care what they get the crooks for as long as they do.

Is this where Anne of Cleves was from?

I wonder if the people who've been arrested have been informed of what they've been charged with yet?

I Wonder if I downloaded of OiNK.cd and I then bought the CD's when they came out would it be illegal. Sure I would have downloaded something but only because it was available and I intended to buy the CD anyway.

The problem I see is people what their music ASAP by what ever means possible, if its out in one country and not another then people will download it, people want top quality of audio. If the music biz did global releases (at the same time) and allowed customers to have this quality of music how many of those lost sales would they get back.

In other words, the CV of every US politician everywhere (and especially in Illinois)....

"A coordinated move by Dutch police also seized the invitation-only website's servers, which were later returned wiped."

Dear old plod's time and resources being bought and abused by the corporate powers that now seem to own the UK justice system, just like our friends in our "special international relationship". Welcome to the 51st state!

Is this the same RIPA that the Met are refusing to investigate PHORM under because there's no proof only accusations, bit like OINK.cd & the Music Industry then.

I was under the impression that, "force suspects to disclose encryption keys." only applied if you were suspected of terrorist activities?

When a little old lady gets her pension stolen inside her local bank all she gets is a reference number (I know this from experience). I would dare to she was affected far more than any one individual in this case, but there you go...

Well, it might seem harsh and a waste of public money to some people, but does not the record industry have the right to release music when it sees fit, so if someone "obtains" and distributes the unreleased music for free, have they not got a case to answer as it would arguably reduce the value of the unreleased music to the record companies AND artists as when the music is released, less people actually buy it because they already have it from downloading causing loss of revenue to both artist and record label. Surely it is a case of theft so the record companies have a case?

Flame as no doubt people will flame me for daring to support the record industry... or perhaps I should have chosen Steve Jobs for "think different"

I'm puzzled nobody came up with the obvious question yet.

What happens if you forget the keyphrase? I dont think i'm the only one who has already forgotten passwords for seldom used accounts and had to have them reset.

What then, do they start with brain surgery then? Inject drugs? Send you to Guantanamo?

Paris Hilton, because she is an obvious example for a person who would never forget a pass phrase.

@JonB,others - "(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and " - I still don't see where the false representation lies.

Someone seeds an unreleased album they got off their mate. They're not claiming to be EMI/The Artist /Their agent etc - where's the deceit?

@Uncle Peter - I thought so too - but I think we all know how it goes from here on in.

So, the RIP Act gets used for this now does it? Another great example of exactly why we shouldn't allow our idiot politicians to give the authorities ever more powers, because just like the Walter Wolfgang incident in 2005 proved the establishment will simply use those powers to keep us from protesting against them.

Police State anyone?

Tux, because pretty soon the only decent place to live will be with penguins at the South Pole.

RIPA trials are closed court, the penalty for talking about the case is I think 5-10 years in jail. So we wouldn't hear about it , if someone was charged for failing to provide account details, which they didn't have.

"The BPI and IFPI worked with the police in order to close down the OiNK tracker site last October. The illegal online distribution of music, particularly pre-release, is hugely damaging, and as OiNK was the biggest source for pre-releases at the time we moved to shut it down".

If OiNK was "hugely damaging", then closing it down must have had a measurable (positive) impact on industry numbers, right?

Anyone want to bet that there is absolutely no evidence of any improvement in the "Music Industries" health since OiNK was shut down? Because OiNK wasn't causing any damage in the first place.

Hollywood and lots of Californias...

7 words for you: "You have the right to remain silent"

Bite me Plod

First, it wasn't the Dutch police, it was an arm of the Dutch tax agency.

Second, i think that ,were it really a deep investigation into the pre-release music, they'd find it came from the very people they claim this is hurting - some of the 'thuosands of workers'. Perhaps they weren't happy about the industry activites either.

3) I have had dealings with the BPI myself, many years ago. even in the late 90s, they were avid practitioners of auto-cranial-proctology.

4) the website was removed from the BPI's control only after myself, and a few others sent strongly worded letters to the Cleveland Chief Constable that such actions were a clear disregard for presumption of innocence. The day after we sent them (and after Torrentfreak wrote about it) control was returned.

Things like this are why Alex hanff's Phorm protest are important to get behind. It is, however, time we british stood up, and showed the fighting spirit that was in evidence in the early 40's, rathre than mimic the moaning and gossiping creations Les Dawson and Julie Walters - that complain bitterly about everything, ut never do anything about it.

@Brock Linahan

No, Anne of Cleves was from another area cloven by geographic feature; specifically the Duchy of Cleves, which straddles the Dutch-German border in North Rhine-Westphalia. Being American, you probably have relatives from there, but you'd rather have relatives from Scotland and wear somebody else's tartan ("plaid" in America).

See, European geographic names were usually given for their features; whereas in America, we generally just pull them out of our collective bum ("donkey" in America). Hence "Cleve"land Ohoho isn't cloven.

But back to the flippin' topic, eh? Too much time on their hands. The plods and the twoccers.

@Luke Barton: "I wouldn't cough it up. I would just cite my right not to incriminate myself."

<ironic laughter> I do hope you live in the US, not the UK. Then again, you quoted a price in GBP. Here's a tip - remember that the 'right' you are quoting is "the fifth amendment to the American constitution". In other word, it doesn't apply to UK law.

At least it's better than French-law, where the simple fact you're in front of the court means you're guilty and must now prove your innocence. After all, the Police wouldn't have arrested you unless you *were* guilty, right?

Just wondering if these 'pre-release' torrents weren't planted by Mediadefender, who have actually admitted to actively do this sort of thing to 'illegal' trackers.

I will continue to support the acts that I like in the ways that see the most money going to them: merchandise and live performances.

I've always wondered about this scenario:

"Yes, I had an account. No I don't have the password any more. It was 32 random characters that I had written down, but I've lost it since."

How exactly are you supposed to disclose something you don't know?

"I do hope you live in the US, not the UK. Then again, you quoted a price in GBP. Here's a tip - remember that the 'right' you are quoting is "the fifth amendment to the American constitution". In other word, it doesn't apply to UK law."

Are you really naive enough to think that the USA has a monopoly on the right not to incriminate yourself? Anyone would think that you're trying to suggest some kind of moral superiority here. I have news for you - the rest of the world is less than convinced, and they're getting pretty tired of the USA attempting to enforce its laws on or in other sovereign countries.

Regarding defendants in criminal trials, the right to silence was codified in the Judges' Rules in 1912 in England and Wales.

There is also no general duty to assist police with their inquiries.

Could that be because the avrage little old lady that complains about people not being caught gives a discription of "it was two men...i think"?

I have been in the same position. Two people tryed to mug me. I was able to give full description of the two, the car they were driving and which way they went. They were caught within an hour.

I have heard and seen this befor. People complaining about the police not doing anything when they dont tell the Police anything.

A friend of mine workes on the desk at a Police station and often recives complaints that the Police are not doing anything when all they have had is "two men stole my money, around this time at this place. I don't remeber what they look like. Why dont you arrest them?".

Wan't the decision to invoke the right of silence changed to "assume guilt" in law by Blanket and Nu Lab sometime this century. Around the time when many IT activities were criminalised as opposed to civilised, just so that the police could be involved. As demonstrated in the BT Phorm fiasco, not by the likes of you and me but by the likes of BSA and the Music Industry. Bliars front door always seemed open to his new showbiz pals which may have had something to do with it at the time.

is the law on passwords in conflite with the law givving us right ot remain silent?

The music in question does not belong to the people who wrote it and recorded it.

"I was under the impression that, "force suspects to disclose encryption keys." only applied if you were suspected of terrorist activities?"

Nope, any crime. It was written in 1999-2000 (ie pre-WTC attacks) so terrorism wasn't used as the excuse to remove our rights. It's now basically comes down to that if the police find something they can't read and they have reason to believe you can decrypt/decode it but are refusing to, you go to jail for two years. Guilty until you prove yourself innocent.

"I wonder if the people who've been arrested have been informed of what they've been charged with yet?"

No need. They'll be in Guantanamo, because piracy funds terrorism ya know :s

It doesnt exist in the case of passwords and encryption keys. To take the arguement further however you can put forward an arguement that you dont know the key/password by virtue of the account not belonging to you. By this method you can circumvent the requirement since you would have to have it put to you in court that the accuont was yours, lie about it, be charged with perjury and convicted of it ( not likely if the contents of the account cannot be verified with out the key ). At this point if you are found guilty then it becomes fact that you do own the account and you are then required to give the keys/password. Before this however you can only be forced into giving up the key:password if you admit to owning the account. Its like a law making it illegal to not give the name of your unicorn, I must first prove the fact that the unicorn exists and then have a court give the verdict that the unicorn is in fact yours.

Its a very annoying defence, but if its the case that the encryption in use is strong enough or that the account can be destroyed in the mean time then it is a defence that could easily be employed. Of course the destruction of evidence is wrong but in todays world that evidence could easily be in another country .. hence the urgency in recovering the key.

what did they release that was so good that it gets to the point that they're being charged?

*getting the cattleprod out of my jacket as someone knocks on the door*

There's not enough info in the article to say what the suspected fraud is, but I expect it's associated with pre-release works. Lying to obtain them perhaps?

Surely the caution kicks off with "You do not have to say anything..." but you do don't you? In quite a few offences as well now, there's the driver of your car thing for instance.

Altho The Boro, if memory serves, is awash with filthy drugs and criminal gangs which must of greater concern to the police and public, the record companies, no matter how large they are, are entitled to have their intellectual rights defended. I cannot see how anyone can justify bittorrents etc as they are overwhelmingly used for the unauthorised distribution of someone else's property.

So does anyone know the arrested parties and what their operation consisted of?

Oddly enough, when I asked the police, they couldn't say what constituted fraud.

'course I don't have wodges of cash or connections to their Super, so they don't want to do the work.

Used to be called "New Amsterdam". So it wasn't named after York in the UK.

Why it got changed to New York from New Amsterdam I don't know.

...the 2 most useful words in the legal vocabulary.

They have to *prove* you did something wrong. The less they know about what you did, the harder it is for them to find something illegal in what you did.

Quick example:

"tell us your password"

"I can't remember the password"

"Aha! So this IS your account and not that other guy's..."

" :( "

when I was young it took me a while to figer out that the washingtion in the news was not the one near newcastle

I can;t remember what I downloaded last week, never mind what I grabbed from the pink palace. I don't rock a tin foil hat but one system rebuild later...

"Sorry officer, I have absolutely no recollection of anything to do with any mp3 site relating to pigs."

New York was named after the Duke of York (Later James II) who was titled from York in the UK, New York, Cleveland, Lancaster, Dartmouth, Boston, Birmingham, and half the towns in New England and Pennsylvania are named after British towns. Then there is Paris, Strasbourg and other European loan names.

Sigh. Yes it was called New Amsterdam originally.

It was renamed New York after the Duke of York, whose name came from... wait for it... the city of York, in England.

So it gets it's name from York, in the UK.

While not necessarily agreeing with methods and laws used by the record industry I don't see that they are wrong to try to stop people copying their property (and with current artist/record company deals it is theirs, rightly or wrongly)

Similarly with the police, are they wrong to investigate a crime? Yes, murder may be worse, but by that token they should be spending all their resources inventing a time machine to go back and stop Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot (insert favorite genocidal maniac). Part of the reason for the "breakdown of society" is that low level anti-social/anti-societal behaviour is no long nipped in the bud before it turns into murder.

And thats speaking as someone who has fileshared.

Because when Sony "stole" IP from the Open Source project LAME, the police didn't bat an eyelid.

Because such infraction is, where monetary renumeration is not the point, there's no criminal problem, only civil one.

Because the losses (as someone else pointed out) must be fabricated, else the revenue figures once Oink was taken down should have gone up measurably but it hasn't.

I've used filesharing (mirroring Linux). My sisters have (WoW updates).

"Nieuw Amsterdam" (New Amsterdam), was a Dutch Fur trading colony on the southern tip of Manhattan, founded in 1614. The rest of Manhattan was bought by the Dutch from the Lenape for 60 gilders in 1624.

Conquered by the English in 1664, the city was renamed to "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany.

Here endeth the history lesson.

> OiNK was set up to satisfy a hole in the existing market.

Right. The market for getting stuff without paying for it.

One that's unbelievably gone untapped by the entrepreneurs.

Although if you search for "ISPs that failed miserably, went out of business or into chapter 11" I'm sure you'll find some examples of businesses that decided you could give away internet connections for nothing when everyone else had the audacity to charge.

"Free beer tomorrow" at my local pub apparently if you're interested.

Anyway, let's focus on the positives - it's nice to put names and faces to the mugs dumb enough to break the law so we could all get free music and stuff.

Thanks guys. D'oh.

And don't sweat it, while you're inside doing time or cleaning chewing gum of the streets for community service and paying off the fine there'll be plenty of other mugs appearing to create another website so we'll be OK, don't worry. Just one word of advice, leave the soap on the floor, it's a trick.

However, insofar as copyright is a quid-pro-quo exchanging the rights of the public (that makes the product worth anything) to the rights of the author, why don't we, the public, get our intellectual rights defended?

Such rights expire well beyond our deaths, even for things that we heard soon after birth. Each extension of copyright steals more rights from the public and the public get nothing in exchange. Are we not being robbed?

We had the right to works for Fair Dealing/Fair Use. We had the right to make a turning copy (how many paytards knew that?). We had the right to own the music or videos we bought. We used to have the right to refuse a contract and not have to pay a penalty.

All these intellectual rights we had have not been defended.

Who will defend them? The government should, but won't. The ruling elite do not listen to the plebian masses. At least not until it's too late for a meeting of minds.

Virtually everyday the news reports another stabbing or shooting of a child in our cities. The criminal elements are running riot in these lawless city centres, anarchy and the gun/knife/drugs rule. REAL CRIME WITH REAL VICTIMS.

The government appears to be doing nothing, when any simpleton could come up with the anwers to what is needed. In the mean time children are being STABBED and SHOT virtually everyday.

So why are the police wasting their resources on file sharers? Are they the REAL CRIMINALS? Are they stabbing children, mugging old ladies? No. Copyright theft (if it even exists as such?) is a civil NOT a criminal issue. The record companies should fight their own battles, NOT AT THE TAX PAYERS EXPENSE.

Police should be on the streets, where they belong, putting away the yobs, murderers, drug dealers, gang members etc etc. not messing about cherry picking easy targets.

Like car drivers, torrenters and p2p'ers will be easy pickings, ideal for a bit of extra revenue and meeting government crime rate targets. In the mean time many people fear leaving their own homes because of the threat of violent crime in our society.

I am sure it was once all new and shiny, but as it is now many hundreds of years old, I think they should drop that whole 'New' bit from 'New York' as it no longer applies.

It should now be called Newer York, Younger York, Son of York, Not Quite As Old As The Other One York, York Jnr. or York 2.0

"So why are the police wasting their resources on ".. burglars/arsonists/shoplifters/vandals?

"Are they the REAL CRIMINALS? Are they stabbing children, mugging old ladies?"

Since there are murderers out there who haven't been caught they shouldn't even bother with the old lady muggers either should they?

That must be the most utterly stupid argument I've ever seen on here and it gets repeated over and over when the tiniest bit of thought shows the total glaring stupidity of it.

Ok, I've taken the pill now.

Voted worse place to live in the uk.

One of the highest density of drug dealers in the uk.

Police unable to prosecute someone caught by them trying to remove my car stereo because it wasn't worth their time (it wasn't worth my time replacing the window in my car either).

Waiting 4 hours for a response after an attempted mugging.

And inability to actually send police officers to an incident that was in progress.

Although Grange road there is a pretty dodgy area so I'm not surprised he was arrested.

Skull and bones because the place is a toxic wasteland.

In the broader sense of forcing "suspects" to hand over the encryption keys and passwords, what would happen if you had the following setup for logging into your accounts.

On creating your password, you type a password into it then get somebody else (girfriend, wife, sibling etc) to type a password directly after yours. On logging in, you can only get in if both of you type your passwords in the same way, but not disclosing each others passwords.

Surely the authorities demanding the password would be stumped, as the other person wouldn't be a suspect, and therefore you have duly given them your password, but that doesn't make the complete string. They still can't get in, and can't make the other person a suspect without proof...

Anybody know if this would be sufficient? It would be a hassle, granted, but would be a good way of securing against this preposterous ruling.

Of course you could just tell them that was the situation and get the other person to agree to saying they have the other password :)

When they decide to move to a new planet they'll set up a new new york new new england,.....could be a real ass to figure out where someone means if they have a stammer.

How about "The York Strikes Back"?

@JonB

"Yes, because the police can only do one crime at once, someone was murdered in Glasgow the other week that means we should be free to commit any crime we wish there until they've caught the murderer."

Don't be a prat. Some plods will work on one task exclusively, others work on many tasks concurrently. My comments don't touch that subject at all. Why aren't the Cleveland plods working on task that are of greater importance to the locals? Because, as has been mentioned here, the locals don't have as much political clout as the lawyers bought by the music industry. I cannot equate a small loss of revenue for the music companies to the mugging of a pensioner. can you?

@horsesintransit

Yes the music companies have the should have the same rights as any other property owner. According to need. The mugging of a pensioner _inside a bank_ will affect that person, and their family far more than OiNK hosting torrents. The police forces should remember who THEY work for, not who have the address of the Chief Constable.

@Dex

"7 words for you: "You have the right to remain silent""

not any more you don't. That was taken away some time ago. remember - "You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

@AC

"Why is prosecuting someone who is accused of breaking the law wrong?"

It is not wrong. The problem here is who is doing the investigation and the relative merits of spending 7 months on an investigation into FILESHARING when those resources could have been spent on activities which could have benefited the people of Cleveland more directly. This investigation _may_ benefit the music companies and their shareholders (though how I do not know.) Taking a drug gang off the streets, or locking up a couple of muggers WOULD have benefited the local community.

Police would ask other party, other party either complies or refuses, if they refuse they are then acting suspiciously, or worse concealing evidence.

Now, what if the password were biometric and the police shot off the hand that held the fingerprint while you were getting on the tube?

Copyright. There was a time when there wasn't any. So it's not exactly a human right, is it? It's a convenience, which we all agree to so that people are encouraged to invent things, or write things (although its absence didn't stop Dryden, Sheridan, or Dr Johnson, did it?)

Instead we have the law of copyright being extended every time a music industry figure breaks wind. It benefits them; it doesn't benefit anyone else.

The last copyright review drew attention to the way in which this was causing problems. How do we fix these greedy scumbags?

Don't support the music industry that bollockses about with my society (government, economy, law, and the soul-destroying messages children get from their lyrics and videos), releases crap noises and some decent tunes that arrive at the pressing plant as crappy noise thanks to over-loud volume levelling that muffles the bass and overdrives everything else.

Remember Keane? Brilliant. Checked out some mp3s, couldnt stand them. Listened to a kosher CD, just to make sure, still unlistenable. Two words: "Dynamic range". Furthermore, 44.1Khz 16 bit stereo does NOT pass muster in 2008. What ever happened to DVD Audio?

I'd stop buying music because of all the above, but I already did. 5 years ago. I'm proud to say that little if any of my money is funding the industry's behaviour.

Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act can be used by police to force suspects to disclose encryption keys and passwords. Failure to comply with with a section 49 order carries a prison sentence of up to five years.

I presume this is section 49 of Terrorism act - and from what I can see regardless of actual crime all are treated under terrorism act

This place is doomed i tell ya

Well, since it's America, surely it should be York II. Pronounced "York the second".

>Why aren't the Cleveland plods working on task that are of greater importance to the locals?

Some are working on some tasks exclusively, some will be working on many tasks concurrently. Your insistence, is that actually they should work on the old lady being mugged totally ignoring the other offence that you don't feel people should be prosecuted for.

So rather than some bullshit about "why aren't the police working on x instead of y".

Why don't you just say "I don't think y should be illegal."?

It's a crap argument, stop using it.

To answer your moronic arguments about what the police should be up to, the police should be investigating crimes - as many of them as they are able.

BTW I suspect your accusation that the Chief Constable of Cleveland is corrupt are probably libellous.

"<i>Your insistence, is that actually they should work on the old lady being mugged totally ignoring the other offence that you don't feel people should be prosecuted for.</i>"

The point is, if you were to ask the ratepayers of Cleveland to fill out a referendum of preferred police priorities, then harassing filesharers would be pretty close to the bottom. Since they're the ones who fund the Cleveland rozzers, their wishes should be taken into account.

Conversely, City of London Police invest a great deal of money and resource into tackling corporate crime, because it is important to their constituents (as companies don't want their rivals to get away with cheating). If anyone is going to bother with this investigation, it should be them...

"I have heard and seen this befor. People complaining about the police not doing anything when they dont tell the Police anything."

So why do we have all this CCTV?

Or are you saying that the police are only interested when jo public hand over all the evidence required so they just have to turn up, take someone away and fill in a couple of forms?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Julian, find a different tune to sing.

Nigh on everyone ever taken into a police station or stopped by the police tells them they should "go and catch real criminals"

e.g During a rather infamous TV documentary on paedophiles, a guy that had raped children for decades said exactly the same, "There are people who circumcise girls...why don't you catch them?...all I did was have sex! You should catch real criminals" Blah blah blah.

I think the way it works is, in the main, firstly, the CPS decide which charges [which won't be "stabbing people" for these guys, don't worry] and whether it's worth bothering with - precisely so the police don't bring over zealous charges. Then one [or possibly more] courts will give them a chance to try your "well guv, we did it but we fink the police shud catch some REAL criminals innit like because we're kids and the papers say kids are all getted stabbed and shit" defence [personally I'd try something else though]...and then, if and only if they are found guilty [assuming they don't plead that way] the judge will pass a sentence. This sentence will, along with the charges levied in part one, reflect the nature of what they did and thus separate them from, if you like "REAL criminals"

That's the way it works, E&OE, more or less. It's not perfect, but nevertheless a lot better than your fantasy police force that would only look for "REAL criminals"

But the Police SHOULD know the difference between civil law and criminal law.

Leave civil law matters to private prosecutions, and pursue criminals under . . . guess what? . . . criminal law.

> But the Police SHOULD know the difference between civil law and criminal law.

"Copyright infringement can result in civil or criminal penalties."

..and I'm sure they do.

e.g If you run your copyright breaching activities "in the course of a business" then you'll find the criminal law applies aiui.

But, if your first reaction is "but they were doing it for free / weren't making money / aren't a business " then you need to go and read the legislation more closely to see what "in the course of a business" is defined as.

[That said, you or they perhaps would probably have been better reading it / getting advice and so on /before/ getting arrested and possibly charged...]

No, I'm talking about BT: British Telecom.

They have been taking the content you asked for from a site and replaced adverts for charity sites or products for ads that generate revenue for BT.

That there is a copyright offense, unless they've got the agreement from the site to change their pages...

At least Google add their crud around the page and don't kid on it's the original.

(Eagerly awaiting SOCA accessing Phorm and BT....)

Music companies create too much law and have too much power.

A good idea would be to remove the power in the first place by not giving money to artists who use the main distributers and buying direct from the source instead. That way the distributers wouldn't get wealthy and monopolistic enough to have this much power. Simple as that. If we can't buy from the source, then we don't buy.

Anyone know of any sites that offer a "buy direct from the artist" with an option to listen to the music beforehand? Might be nice to see what else is out there that isn't mainstream.

In this digital age I really don't see the point in some environmentally unfriendly piece of plastic that can only hold 20 songs on it anyway.

named after Duke of York ,James Stuart (the second son of Charles I); which funny enough is a title usually given to the second son of the British monarch so not really after the town.