For some time, an Australian Company Perceptric Pty. Ltd., has
been researching the damage to content provider revenues from illegal file
sharing activities.

 

Empirically we can find no conclusive evidence that file
sharing damages the income stream for copyright owners, in fact, quite the
reverse.

 

We have found definitive statistics that show the
distribution of popular music in fact preempts the charts in several countries
and therefore P2P should be considered as a distribution and broadcasting
medium comparable to online radio stations, cable TV channels and popular
entertainment venues.

Essentially, our findings are that P2P is assisting music
distribution in an environment where consumers are disengaging daily from
traditional broadcast promotional media like radio, in favour of personal digital playback devices.

 

Our research into Internet traffic modeling of P2P content
would indicate that there is another aspect to the damage of file sharing
causes that has not yet been addressed by the courts or recognised as an issue
by our legislators.

 

That is, the damage to the usability of the Internet by non-P2P
illegal file sharing (IFS) activities. (Qualified because there are significant
quantities of P2P activities that do not infringe any copyrights.)

 

In some countries, nearly 75% of the network traffic
consists of P2P (IFS) activity.

This clearly interferes with other user’s enjoyment and
benefit that can be obtained from a network that is rather busy serving specific
content.

 

The Content Industry has obviously attempted to avert this
occurrence by instigating various rigorous forms of DRM. To no avail.

 

A real world example of the magnitude of the problem can be
more readily understood by the use of an analogy.

 

The Overturned Chemical Truck.

A truck on a major arterial highway turns a corner sharply
and a tank containing highly corrosive HCL is dislodged from the truck. Its corrosive
and dangerous acidic content is spilt all over the highway. The hydrochloric
acid reacts with the benzoic elements of the bitumen and starts to emit noxious
fumes.

 

Lives are at risk and the highway is closed, traffic is
diverted involving manpower, with alerts distributed via Television and Radio.

.

The only road around the accident is a disused goat-track
that only all terrain vehicles and motorcycles can negotiate.

The only alternative is to drive back 200 kilometers to the
alternative route.

 

The fiscal loss to the community is severe and because of
the negligence of the tanker driver in ensuring his load was secure, the
trucking firm’s insurance company is presented with a bill in the tens of
thousands.

 

The Music Industry Gaff

The music industry by it’s failure to correctly secure their
load (DRM) have allowed all this content to saturate the network and thereby
slow down the rest of us.

 

To add insult to injury, they then ensure that their failure
is magnified several thousand times by adding corrupt files to the network –
thereby ensuring a further slow-down for the rest of us, due to unavailable
resources that are utilized buy illegal file sharers having to download the
file a few times to get the right copy.

 

Additionally, the interdiction companies hired by the
industry then send empty packets at addresses that have Torrent or ED2K clients
active. Whether they are being utilized for illegal file sharing or not.

 

This is referred to as Denial of Service
(DoS)

 

In a recent case in the UK,
the Appeals court found against an individual that was “spamming” his former
employer, apparently maliciously.

 

The judge referred to section 3(1) of the United Kingdom Computer Misuse Act 1990.

 

  The relevant parts of section 3
provide:

“(1) A person is guilty of an offence if—

(a) he does any act which causes an unauthorised
modification of the contents of any computer; and

(b) at the time when he does the act he has the requisite
intent and the requisite knowledge.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the
requisite intent is an intent to cause a modification of the contents of any
computer and by so doing—

(a) to impair the operation of any computer;

(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or
data held in any computer; or

(c) to impair the operation of any such program or the
reliability of any such data.

(3) The intent need not be directed at—

(a) any particular computer;

(b) any particular program or data or a program or data of
any particular kind; or

(c) any particular modification or a modification of any
particular kind.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the
requisite knowledge is knowledge that any modification he intends to cause is
unauthorised.

(5) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section
whether an unauthorised modification or any intended effect of it of a kind
mentioned in subsection (2) above is, or is intended to be, permanent or merely
temporary.”

  It is also necessary to refer
to the interpretation provisions of section 17. Subsections (7) and (8) are
relevant. They provide:

“(7) A modification of the contents of any computer
takes place if, by the operation of any function of the computer concerned or
any other computer—

(a) any program or data held in the computer concerned is
altered or erased; or

(b) any program or data is added to its contents;

and any act which contributes towards causing such a
modification shall be regarded as causing it.

(8) Such a modification is unauthorised if—

(a) the person whose act causes it is not himself entitled
to determine whether the modification should be made; and

(b) he does not have consent to the modification from any
person who is so entitled.”

 

(Bold highlighting my edit)

 

And from the judgement:

 

  It
was submitted before the District Judge on behalf of the prosecution that a
computer owner consents only to the receipt of emails from those wanting to
make a bona fide communication with him. So here D&G did not consent to
receiving emails in the number and in the circumstances which Mr Lennon sent
them. It was secondly submitted that the emails Mr Lennon sent were
unauthorised from the moment that he clicked on the send button. This was to
meet an argument made on behalf of Mr Lennon that, if it was the number which
were sent that made their sending unauthorised, the first emails were
authorised and thereafter it was not possible to draw a line. Thirdly and
alternatively, it was submitted that, as the number of emails built up, a point
would have been reached when their sending became unauthorised. Fourthly, it
was submitted that as all the emails came from a person other than the
purported sender they were unauthorised.

  The
District Judge's opinion stated in the case can be summarised as follows:

(1) section 3 was intended to deal with the sending of
malicious material such as viruses, worms and Trojan horses which corrupt or
change data, but not the sending of emails;

(2) as D&G's servers were configured to receive
emails, each modification occurring on the receipt of an email sent by Mr
Lennon was unauthorised.

  The
issue this court has to consider is whether the addition to the data on
D&G's servers arising from the receipt of emails sent by Mr Lennon was
unauthorised. Section 17(8) is the relevant provision. Mr Lennon was not the
person who was entitled to determine whether the “modification”
arising from such receipt should be made. That refers to the person who
controls the email address, that is the receiving computer, who will normally
be the owner. So section 17(8)(a) is satisfied. The question is then whether Mr
Lennon had “consent to the modification from any person who [was] so
entitled” – section 17(8)(b).

 

In other words, anyone sending any data to your computer
without your permission is guilty of an offence under English law.

 

In Australia,
we have the Computer trespass contrary to section 9A of the Summary Offences
Act 1966.

 

In the USA,
unfortunately the Government appears to condone this activity with previously proposed
legislation, which of course received the pushback
from the Internet community that it deserved.

 

Either way, the actions of the music interdiction policies
are stealing the bandwidth from all users of the internet that utilize certain service
ports for any activity, legal or otherwise.

 

As the bandwidth is shared via the ISP’s router, these same
interdictions are affecting the entire operations of the ISP and in fact, every
user thereto connected.

 

Are You Affected?

Everyone is, if you have a router and it logs all incoming
packets, then it may have entries in it that look like this:

 

TCP Packet-Source:212.68.64.111,3691
Destination:121.44.211.10,8088-[DOS]

 

Which, in the above example come from a company in Germany.

Or perhaps like this:

 

Sat, 2009-06-13 14:50:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,39244

Destination:118.208.132.16,33515 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 14:50:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,33130

Destination:118.208.132.16,33516 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 14:50:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,60518

Destination:118.208.132.16,33517 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 14:50:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,44514

Destination:118.208.132.16,33518 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 14:50:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,59010

Destination:118.208.132.16,33519 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 16:11:25
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,49829

Destination:118.208.132.16,33502 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 16:11:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,54566

Destination:118.208.132.16,33503 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 16:11:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,33646

Destination:118.208.132.16,33504 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 16:11:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,44101

Destination:118.208.132.16,33505 – [DOS]

Sat, 2009-06-13 16:11:26
- UDP Packet – Source:89.166.37.185,46183

Destination:118.208.132.16,33506 – [DOS]

 

Checking ports to see if your computer responds to a request
on a port that some programs use for P2P.

 

Which, originated from an address in Finland.

Click on Gif file to obtain Ripe Results.

 

(That entry comes from the computer of a woman that has
never used file sharing software but is connected via DSL.)

 

Each one of those packets is stealing your bandwidth –
whether you use P2P or not.

There is at this time no easy methodology to collect the
statistics on this global denial of service attack on all internet users by the
Content Industry, but if the few statistics that I have collected from less
than 10 PC’s are accurate, then approximately 8-20% of an individuals bandwidth
is being “stolen” by these denial of service activities.

 

Anecdotally, at $40.00 per month for a 20 GB DSL connection,
that could be as much as $8.00 per month per internet subscriber.

 

Multiplied by 1.8 billion internet users, equals $144,000,000,000
per month. Annually, that comes to $1,728,000,000,000 or about twice the GDP of
Australia.

 

This activity is a severe impediment to the worlds Internet
commerce based economic aspirations and if our Governments approve this
activity, they should at least force a hiatus for the duration of the Global Financial
Crisis.

 

For one industry to cause so much damage on the presumption
of unproven claims about losing a few million dollars (less than a billion per
annum) with the consent of Governments is nothing short of digital and
financial genocide.

 

If any other person attempted a DoS attack on this scale
against USA IP numbers, the US
government would immediately declare it an act of Cyberwar.

 

Regardless. This type of stupidity may be legalised in the USA,
but there is absolutely no corresponding legislation outside of the United
States to permit this kind of deliberate
larceny affecting hundreds of millions of non-file sharing internet users.

 

Someone needs to let our politicians know and/or sue the
industry for breaking the law in Australia
and attempting to destroy the internet for everyone.

 

Caselaw:  Director of
Public Prosecutions v Lennon [2006] EWHC 1201 (Admin) (11 May 2006)

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