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That is really strange... I am sure Fat was on this list at least last year, and I'm fairly certain Epitaph was on there as well. Anyone know if they recently ended their membership? If so I can only be very happy, for I like a few bands on those labels.

Taco:Yes, of course! The Holy Slashdot of OSDN! 'Tis one of the sacred relics Brother Cowboy Neal carries with him. Brother Neal! Bring up the Holy Slashdot!

AC's chanting: Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.

Brother Neal: Armaments, chapter two, verse nine to twenty one.

Brother Neal: And Saint Stallman raised the Slashdot up high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy Holy Slashdot that, with it, Thou mayest slashdot Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy'. And the Lord did grin, and the AC's did feast upon first posts, trolls, GNAA posts, and...

Taco: Skip it a bit, Brother.

Brother Neal: And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou click on the holy link called Slashdot. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, clickest thou holy Slashdot of OSDN towards thy server, who being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.'

Taco: Amen

Has anyone made an insightful post about the real purpose of the RIAA yet?

If you are paying one of the RIAA's members, then you are assumedly also funding lawsuits.

It depends on how you are measuring which is larger. Are you going by customers, revenue, what? I have a friend who consults on billing issues with both and he recently said that SBC was larger then Verizon.

And I was going off of RIAA's member's sales from 2002. According to table, RIAA shipped a total of $12.6B last year. I know that Sony, TW, et al have massive worth, I was only going on what RIAA was reporting $ amounts. Either way, it doesn't matter because it wouldn't be possible to litigate until one can't afford to since both obviously can afford to forever essentially.

http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp

The concept of the RIAA is brilliant. Alot of people dislike them for their heavy handed litigation, but they have little fear of customer backlash since they actually don't sell anything to anyone.

If, for example, RCA Records were to be pointed out in the media for being a member of a lobbying group that has made a concerted effort to behave like legal vigilantes, restrict technology irregardless of it's use, and act like all around asshats, then I bet their support for the RIAA would drop quickly.

I sent the RIAA a complaint too. The address to send it to is cdreward@riaa.com.
Let's see if they act or of copyright infringement is only an offence that college kids, soccer moms, and grandparents can commit!

First, somehow this article gives me the impression that you're saying it's OK to break the law because the chances of getting caught are slim. Next it's me telling that they're buying into the RIAA's "sue everyone" philosophy. Studio heads and big labels didn't get rich by dreaming up preposterous solutions to non-problems which sound like they shot right out of the MTV mind of your average file sharer. Are P2P networks going to put anyone out of business right now. No. Does digital freedom have the potential to undermine part of the established business flow? Yes. That's why the Industry is taking steps to stop pervasive freedom. Copyright litigation grabs headlines. It's also a red herring. The RIAA is making deals with computer hardware manufacturers, software vendors and tech industry standardizing bodies. They will simply have everyone implement DRM. Do you really think Dell is going to sell computers that will keep the Justice Department at their door? So, you can sit around and read peoples fantasies about how they think P2P's days of reckoning will play out in court, or you can do something only slightly more productive like contact your representative.
One a different note, not all agendas pushed by the RIAA are this bad, DVD-Audio sounds pretty damn good.

...but Here's a link to their explanations of why a CD costs more than feeding a family of four

Me, try to screw the RIAA by bringing down their servers and raising their bandwith costs? NEVER!? ; )

Or, for a more accurate and complete list, try the RIAA's Web site: http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp

According to this press release from the RIAA (Recording Industry Artists of America), there will be some major crackdowns on music piracy on the Internet. The RIAA plans to launch a massive investigation on peer-to-peer networks. Peer-to-peer network is the term for the networks that power such software as BearShare, Limewire, Gnutella, Morpheous, and of course the now-defunct Napster. They will be targeting users that are sharing copyrighted files and collecting evidence. This evidence will be the basis of hundreds of lawsuits they have planned, which are scheduled to start as early as August.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, The River is required to assist the RIAA, MPAA, or anyone else with copyright concerns. We can be subpoenaed for information on our customer's full names, addresses and other information, should the copyright holder prove a valid suspicion that the account in question has been distributing copyrighted materials.

On a related note, a recent statement by the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) espouses destroying computers suspected of illegal behavior remotely. You may read the AP article here.

As always, we will do our best to protect your privacy within the constraints of the law and keep you educated on what you need to know to stay safe.

Other Links:

EFF's response to RIAA lawsuits
The Slashdot discussion thread
Artists Against the RIAA

Using kazza lite. How about using names such as giver@goatse.cx, sherman@riaa.com, valenty@mpaa, president@whitehouse (yes you can with kazza lite). This should throw the RIAA off course.

Or using RIAA members as your name

I hope someone decides to mod this up, because the world should know...just because the music you listen to is not played on commercial radio/MTV, does not mean it's independent music. The above post is very well written, but the fact remains:

Matador Records is a member of the RIAA. You may think you're 'indie' because you listen to Belle & Sebastian TOO, but you're money's heading into the RIAA's pockets.

WTF are you talking about? Do you even know what the RIAA is? Maybe you should check this page to see who makes up the RIAA. It's not just the majors.

Pay EFF

These are your options. Pick one.

RIAA

I thought one of the tenets of American culture was that everybody living in this country was innocent until proven guilty. By the looks of things, members of our congress with vested interests in these companies are launching dragnets based on the assumption that anything uploaded on a P2P network is stealing and we need to lock those people up.

with the RIAA planning to file a reverse class action lawsuit (Press Release), as well as proposed bills to eliminate any anonymity on the internet (Wired Article), it appears that we are being stripped of the very freedoms this country was founded on by the people who have sworn to protect it.

Fine then. Take away our right to privacy. Lock up anybody who uses P2P networks, or distributes any type of material on the internet. Make every internet user out to be a criminal. Then we will be left with people who only use the internet for E-Mail and AIM, led by power-hungry politicians, to drive us into the next century.

As a side note, I'm interested to see the provisions provided in this bill with regards to the actual verification of copyrighted material. We probably already know the answer, throw everybody in court, and let them prove otherwise.

RIAA makes available a list of their members.

According to an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted over a year ago(1), over fifty million people, nearly one quarter of the American population, have used the Internet to download a music file. Even if only 1/2 of these downloads were illegal (which is a staggeringly conservative estimate,) some 30 million Americans have downloaded a piece of copyright-protected music which they have not paid for.

The RIAA has recently announced their intention to pursue individuals who use these filesharing services. Under current law, the RIAA can pursue civil damages as high as $150,000 and criminal damages as high as $250,000/5 years against people who share music they have not purchased(2). The RIAA has demonstrated on repeated occasions that they have no qualms about aggressively pursuing individuals and organizations they believe to be in violation of their copyrights(3).

My question is a simple question; I have no desire to hear about caveats, nuances of the legal system, assertions that the law is the law, or similar responses. I am quite aware that I am not a lawyer, and while I do not doubt you could find a number of nits to pick with my question and assertions, I hope that you can forgive the shortcomings of my legal understanding and address the central issue, as that is what I am most concerned about. I am would very much appreciate an honest, candid response to a very fundamental issue in this matter.

My question is this: is it just that the average American citizen can be charged with up to $150,000 per song in civil damages alone simply by downloading a song they haven't paid for?

(1) http://www.ipsos-reid.com/media/dsp_displaypr_us.c fm?id_to_view=1414
(2) http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/penalties.asp
(3) http://www.riaa.com/news/filings/default.asp

According to an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted over a year ago(1), over fifty million people, nearly one quarter of the American population, have used the Internet to download a music file. Even if only 1/2 of these downloads were illegal (which is a staggeringly conservative estimate,) some 30 million Americans have downloaded a piece of copyright-protected music which they have not paid for.

The RIAA has recently announced their intention to pursue individuals who use these filesharing services. Under current law, the RIAA can pursue civil damages as high as $150,000 and criminal damages as high as $250,000/5 years against people who share music they have not purchased(2). The RIAA has demonstrated on repeated occasions that they have no qualms about aggressively pursuing individuals and organizations they believe to be in violation of their copyrights(3).

My question is a simple question; I have no desire to hear about caveats, nuances of the legal system, assertions that the law is the law, or similar responses. I am quite aware that I am not a lawyer, and while I do not doubt you could find a number of nits to pick with my question and assertions, I hope that you can forgive the shortcomings of my legal understanding and address the central issue, as that is what I am most concerned about. I am would very much appreciate an honest, candid response to a very fundamental issue in this matter.

My question is this: is it just that the average American citizen can be charged with up to $150,000 per song in civil damages alone simply by downloading a song they haven't paid for?

(1) http://www.ipsos-reid.com/media/dsp_displaypr_us.c fm?id_to_view=1414
(2) http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/penalties.asp
(3) http://www.riaa.com/news/filings/default.asp

My bad: V2 is in the RIAA. Missed that one when I was checking the list (and i really was) earlier.

here's me namechecking labels that aren't members of the RIAA (according to their own list:

point is, there's (probably literally) a million indies out there. There's good shit on major labels too--missy, radiohead, nin, sonic youth, white stripes (sorry), eminem--hell there's even good stuff that they play on clear channel stations. But that figure about the RIAA controlling 85% of all recorded music or whatever is irrelevant when the majority of worthwhile music comes from outside the RIAA.

and i still maintain that if your record collection isn't actually records (or in special cases, limited edition CDs, which can be very nicely packaged) it doesn't count!

(Ok. I'm kidding. If you have lots of MP3s, it takes hard work--or at least time--to pick those up--assuming they're hard to find in the first place. But then they're still probably not as hard to track down as the actual LPs they're from, huh?

Funniest Quote:

RIAA's Oppenheim: "How does this have anything to do with corporations? This has to do with artists and creators"

Yeah, Right... Last time I checked, the RIAA web site stated that it "is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry", not the artist community.

Granted _we_ all know the conclusion is obvious, but how many media exec's read Slashdot? We should thank the Frank Rich for the article and hope that it lights some idea bulbs in the massholes (marketing assholes) in the various "industry associatios". If to steal "content" (and I don't care for the word steal, as the cartels put it; they are really stealing from us) or to pay marks a consumer as "discriminating," then so be it. It's about time _someone_ gives _credit_ to "consumers" being "discriminating."

Professors generally do not share their speeches on a P2P network. Kids with book reports do not generally have substantial amounts shared out over a P2P network.

I think RIAA will be targeting those users who leave their computer on all the time sharing out a few gigs (or so) of music. Chances are, there are not that many "live" performances that are OKed by bands that are cool with sharing of their music.

Irregardless, RIAA has already had to apologize to various users for alleging people had copyrighted works - it would appear that they simply used a search engine style query. If someone has more than 3 gigs of MP3s on their share - you can be pretty sure they probably have at least one wrongfully distributed music file.

What bothers me is the seemingly potential unfettered access that the RIAA has in finding out personal and private contact information from service providers. The RIAA simply has to present previous court decisions to service providers threatening to take them to court unless they hand your information over. Most companies would like to stay out court and more than likely hand things over with little discretion (as these types of requests become more common place).

If an individual has to go about tracking someone who accessed their computer and stole information off of it, they must go to the authorities where the investigators (actual law enforcement) in charge pursue finding out the personal information of the alleged perpetrator.

RIAA is not a government entity. According to the RIAA, they are a "trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry." A company that can simply request your personal information to contact you for the purpose of serving you a notice of the intent to be sued is absolutely and fundamentally wrong.

I think supporting such service providers that would hand over information to another for-profit organization without the content of the consumer should be held liable to the extent that the law allows.

RIAA has a press release at:
http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/062503.asp

(grabbed the link from BoingBoing)

From www.riaa.com
RIAA Leadership:

Hilary B. Rosen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Cary Sherman, President

Board of Directors
â Roger Ames, Warner Music Group
â Michele Anthony, Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
â Val Azzoli, The Atlantic Group
â Jose Behar, Univision Music Group
â Bob Cavallo, Buena Vista Music Group
â Ronnie Dashev, Maverick Recording Company
â Clive Davis, RCA Music Group
â Tracey Edmonds, Edmonds Record Group
â Dick Griffey, Solar Records/J.Hines Co.
â Zach Horowitz, Universal Music Group
â Don Ienner, Sony Music U.S.
â David Johnson, Warner Music Group
â Lawrence Kenswil, Universal Music Group
â Mel Lewinter, Universal Music Group
â Alain Levy, EMI Recorded Music
â Roy Lott, Virgin Records
â David Munns, EMI Recorded Music Worldwide
â Antonio Reid, Arista Records Inc.
â Sylvia Rhone, Elektra Entertainment Group
â Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, BMG Entertainment
â Tom Silverman, Tommy Boy Music
â Andy Slater, Capitol Records
â Thomas Stein, BMG Entertainment
â Tom Tyrrell, Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.

http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/report.asp

" For those who want to contribute an ounce of prevention, RIAA is making it easy, and potentially lucrative. In August of 1999, RIAA launched its CD-Reward program that provides monetary awards of up to $10,000 to an individual who provides the association with information regarding CD manufacturers illegally producing RIAA member company sound recordings.

Consumers, retailers and replicators can report any suspected music piracy to the RIAA by dialing a toll-free hotline, 1.888.BAD.BEAT, by faxing this Badbeat Form, by sending email to cdreward@riaa.com, or visiting the website at www.CDReward.com."

So, let's get to it! I see a 1-800 number, an email address, and a fax number(1-202-223-8322). What could we possibly do to tie up resources and cost them money? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........

http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/report.asp

" For those who want to contribute an ounce of prevention, RIAA is making it easy, and potentially lucrative. In August of 1999, RIAA launched its CD-Reward program that provides monetary awards of up to $10,000 to an individual who provides the association with information regarding CD manufacturers illegally producing RIAA member company sound recordings.

Consumers, retailers and replicators can report any suspected music piracy to the RIAA by dialing a toll-free hotline, 1.888.BAD.BEAT, by faxing this Badbeat Form, by sending email to cdreward@riaa.com, or visiting the website at www.CDReward.com."

So, let's get to it! I see a 1-800 number, an email address, and a fax number(1-202-223-8322). What could we possibly do to tie up resources and cost them money? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........

Actually we are both wrong. According to the RIAA website (warning, Slashdotters' eyes may burst into flame upon viewing this site), gold is 500 thousand albums and platinum is 1 million albums.

I agree that touring is usually a big win for artists, many of them do much better off of a tour than off of album sales. I included that when I said "This is not counting other sales such as concerts, commercials, product endorsements, book deals, celebrity freebies, and all the other perks of being a star."

If Hilary Rosen did not make the policy, who did? Which particular people should we know about who are pulling the strings?

President Cary Sherman? The board of directors? Jack Valenti of the MPAA?

If Hilary Rosen did not make the policy, who did? Which particular people should we know about who are pulling the strings?

President Cary Sherman? The board of directors? Jack Valenti of the MPAA?

Well...it would be hard to track that, but here is a list of the labels that ARE members:

RIAA Members

(Yeah, I know, I'm such a karma whore.)

In other news, world-class journalistChristiane Amanpour has announced a new SourceForge project, AmanpourOS. It will include a realtime kernel, POSIX and Win32 compatability, a full suite of GNU tools, and of course a Journalling File System called CNNFS (CNNFS is Not aNother File System).

When asked how much code she had available on her project site presently, she replied "Code? Oh, I haven't written any code, really. All I did was get a sourceforge project up and secured an OSNews interview with Eugenia Loli-Queru. But that's the power of Open Source. These geeks, for whatever reason, seem to be obsessed with me, or any girl who has anything to do with computers, really. If they will slave away for millions of man-hours for Linus, just think what motivation my leadership can provide! Why the benefits in sheer x-ray and slideshow technology alone are simply staggering!"

SCO CEO Darl McBride, however, was clearly upset over the announcement. "What Ms. Amanpour is doing here is clearly wrong, violates contracts, SCO Intellectual Property, the USAPATRIOT Act, and any sense of human decency," McBride snarled as he slammed a playbook lent him by Hillary Rosen of the RIAA down on the table. "This blatantly contradicts prior agreements we feel we had with Ms. Amanpour as set down during dinner da - I mean meetings we may or may not have had as early as ten days before she is going to say she started this project, whenever that is."

Mr. McBride then turned his attention to suing the Netherlands over a violation of SCO's ownership of the idea of windmills. "And we are still looking for this infamous pirate De La Mancha, aka, Don Quixote. I have important leads from an informant named Dulcinea who says he has been stalking her in on the internet for centuries. With her testimony and that of Sancho Panza, we should soon put an end to him." McBride rubbed his hands together with great zeal and droooled at the prospect as we slipped quietly into the night, never to return to the quiet Maryland Mental facility where he now resides.

They've provided this handy contact form. Use It!!!

http://www.riaa.com/Contact.cfm

riaa.org
riaa.com

Disclaimer for you pinko riaa lawyers: this is a cynical joke. In no way do I recommend using the Slashdot effect on purpose. We only use that for sites we care about. :)

Given the 2002 selections (whether your favorite won or not, it was that close) there's a solution we can win with, and you all know it. Remember the old open spectrum stuff posted here several times?

Seems to me, the first candidate to oppose our own axis of evil stands to make it over the top if they have the sense to get their opposition plastered all over the p2p networks, most especially if they can make a quick and good case for the idea that the issues of p2p and open spectrum are one and the same. (I'd use the term "connectivity", since it seems to be the language of the open spectrum folk. Open spectrum is to current tv/radio what p2p sharing is to riaa's website, in more ways than one.) And of course, even if they lose, any dent in the numbers means no future candidate can afford to lose the advantage of a p2p presence, media contributions be ... lost.

The Jihad comment for taking the word of the month (you know, terror, evil people, so on, so forth), and appling it to something that doesn't relate in the least.

Actually the definition of jihad means holy war or spiritual struggle against infidels.

Be careful how you word that. What one considers _FUN_, another can consider patent/trademark/copyright infringement, or illegal, immoral, or downright wrong.

Don't Steal Music

Okay, fair enough. But what about copying, which is all these people are/were doing?

Overloading words like "stealing" at the request of nasty anti-freedom companies is just a tool for them to screw us over even more.

Language is power.

Here's some data. The total cd + cassette sales actually appears almost flat throughout the 90s. However, it drops significantly in 2002 and 2003. Now, the economy was pretty bad in the early nineties, but that seems to have had no effect on music sales overall. So I don't buy the arguement that music sales are down now because of the economy.

• Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla.: enemy in favor of RIAA/MPAA hacking your computer
• Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla.: enemy taking money from Disney

• Go to gigs,
  
• buy T-shirts and CDs there,
  
• support the bands you like directly, cutting out the middleman.
  
• Or buy through independents/small labels and let the artists know you care!
  

Check out The RIAA's Website Unresponsive. Looks like we got the opening salvo.

http://www.riaa.com/PR_story.cfm?id=633

Rosen on Streamcast Networks/Grokster Summary Judgment Decision

4/25/03

Hilary Rosen, Chairman and CEO, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA):

"We are pleased with the Court's affirmation that individual users are accountable for illegally uploading and downloading copyrighted works off of publicly accessible peer-to-peer networks. This is precisely the issue we have been seeking to focus the public's attention on, and yesterday's decision in the Verizon matter makes clear that individual infringers cannot expect to remain anonymous when they engage in this illegal activity.

"We also note that the District Court in the Grokster matter recognized that the Defendants 'may have intentionally structured their businesses to avoid secondary liability for copyright infringement, while benefitting financially from the illicit draw of their wares.'

"Businesses that intentionally facilitate massive piracy should not be able to evade responsibility for their actions. We disagree with the District Court's decision that these services are not liable for the massive illegal piracy that their systems encourage and we will immediately appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals."

Don't forget pirated MP3s

Rounder Records has several artists I like quite a lot, so it dismays me that they are also a member of the RIAA. It doesn't absolutely prevent me from buying their CD's, but I certainly think twice about it. There are probably some I haven't bought just for that reason.

Can't we just buy the RIAA, and be done with? According to this chart:
http://www.riaa.com/pdf/2002yrendshipments.pdf
if I'm reading it right... the various media companies had 12.6 Billion in revenue in 2002. That's revenue, not profit. The $97B still looks pretty silly, eh? Anyone know what the profit amount is? Surely it's much less.

Anyway, for 250M Americans, that's about $48/year/person. How about we just include that amount in our taxes, and we all get all the free music we want? Let the record stores, P2P services, etc... all compete to sell $.50 CDs, all the downloads you can eat, etc..

I'm sure the dollar amount will be much less if we just consider the profit amount, too. Then radio stations dont have to pay licensing fees, and the RIAA can let go all the staff who have to track piracy, thereby increasing their per-employee performance.

We'll still let them exist so they can tell us who the top 40 are, who has gold "records", which record companies and artists get how much of the share, etc.. you know, all that stuff they are supposed to exist for.

Heck, I've got more money and kids than most people.. I'd be happy to pay a proportionally higher amount to help subsidize poor people. Put it on my phone bill, $4/month, like we do to subsidize people in the middle of nowhere and old people.

Please-oh-please Holy Pink Unicorn; give the RIAA their own personal hellmouth.

one bit isn't good enough
here is my proposal:

+1 cracker bit (use when attempting buffer overflow, backdoor, exploit, etc.)
+2 terrorist bit (need I say what countries to put here?)
+4 deceptive business bit (apply to 192.189.271.221 and others
+8 p0rn bit (apply to 90% of gnutella searches)
+16 spam bit (apply to SMTP transfers from domains including, but not limited to, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, and aol.com.. might as well use it if you're reading mail from any of these too)
+32 annoying bit (IRC scripts should use this)
+64 utterly-insecure bit (IIS, IE, Outlook, and practically all other Microsoft programs should apply this bit)
+128 Pinky and the Brain bit (network traffic used to try to take over the world; apply to sites including, but not limited to, 207.46.249.27, 65.244.101.222, Bill Gates' personal T1)

I hold in my hand a 'CD' by Fischerspooner (an odd but entertaining band). Like most wide rlease cds, the back of the jewel case has many logos. Things to note:

The 'Compact Disc' logo we've come to expect is missing.
A 'enhanced CD' logo is present.
Reading the fine print, this Capitol Records release (released on march the 6th) says:

"Enhanced CD" is a certification mark of the RIAA

Need I mention that this CD cannot be burned in any of my machines? Ripping to mp3s is only possible via the line-in jack, and has horrible quality (compared with ripping from my cd-rom, that is).
This is not a santanna album, its from a much smaller, newer act. The RIAA has made more headway with promoting thier agenda then this article seems to imply: These CDs are already on the market, and have been since the begining of the month, at the least.

Please note: The RIAA site has the definition of the 'enchanced CD" 'standard' available here. The standard does not require any form of watermarking of copyright protection. However, as a copy-protected cd is technically NOT compliant with the original philips specifications, I find it very suspect that the RIAA made thier own standard. Especially since this standard serves no purpose other than to replace the ageing 'Compact Disc' logo.