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TFA is at the Mercury News web site, and credits Derek Hawkins at the Washington Post. But TFA says its source is a Medium post by the RIAA's Cary Sherman, and sure enough if you go to the RIAA's web site you can find a post with a link to the Medium post as well as to the RIAA's actual report: https://www.riaa.com/riaa-rele...

ProTip for submitters and editors: if TFA has a source, the source may well be on the web too, and may have real actual data.

Another possibility is to treat them the way American justice treats offenders who commit civil offense 'crimes' like copyright infringement when copying a DVD.

Each copy can result in fines up to $250,000 because you copied a DVD instead of buying a movie ticket. The Movie company lost their percentage of a theater ticket sale (say about $10.00), so they need to fine you appropriately. Their math says you should pay $250,000 for each $10.00 they lost. Corporations, the Courts, American politicians all agree this is fair and just.

So we should apply the same standards to equifax. For every $10.00 lost by a member of the public in credit card fraud, higher interest rates because of ruined credit, additional legal fees, lost work and so on, equifax should be fined $250,000.

Clean and simple. What's sauce for the goose, and so on...

Start racking up the fines, and equifax might actually start paying attention to security.

As it is, equifax has very little liability and they are hoping their lobbying efforts will eliminate any liability that does exist.

We'll be lucky if they are ever held accountable. A few executives may be fined for insider trading, but they'll probably send Martha Stewart to jail before they send anyone who is really responsible.

That's not really true in this case. The music industry's U.S. revenue was $7 billion in 2015. The TV and movie industry's revenue was $131 billion in 2014 So about $140 billion total.

U.S. ISP revenue was $97 billion in 2016. The U.S. consumer electronics industry revenue is over $200 billion. The Internet publishing, broadcasting, and search industry's revenue was about $110 billion in 2014. Total is over $400 billion. Nearly 3x bigger than music, movies, and TV. Yet they're made to bend over and comply with the wishes of the studios. The tail is literally wagging the dog.

It already destroyed Sony's audio electronics division. Sony was the top name in audio equipment in the 1970s and 1980s. Then in 1987 they acquired CBS records and renamed it Sony Music Entertainment. SME coexisted with Sony Electronics until 1998, when the MP3 player came to market. Sony Electronics came up with an MP3 player, but SME forced them to add DRM to it. Customers avoided it because it was impossible to take their existing CDs and simply copy the music over to a Sony MP3 player.

Sony's 1998 revenue was 1,128 billion Yen for the audio division (page 14), 660 billion Yen for the music division (page 15).

Their 2000 revenue was 935 billion Yen for the audio division (page 47), 709 billion Yen for the music division (page 498).

By 2003 their audio sales had atrophied to 683 billion Yen (page 20), vs 636 billion Yen in music sales (page 18). Music sales were about the same as 1998, but their audio electronics sales had been cut nearly in half because of SME demanding their products comply with their copyright protection requirements. (In 2004 their music division began a joint venture with BMG, so financials are not comparable from then on.)

By far the majority of digitally distributed music is streamed, not downloaded.

I also believed that, but RIAA report linked from TFA says otherwise: 34% downloads, 34,3% streaming and 28.8% physical.

Slashdot linked to a recode post, which linked to a medium post, which linked to an RIAA blog post which linked the actual report put out by them with the relevant numbers. To save the same minor trouble, here is the actual report that includes the numbers cited above:

http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/RIAAMidyear16.pdf

Why oh why can't bloggers do this simple homework and link to original sources? This used to standard etiquette among the blogosphere, did it not? Anyway, you're welcome.

Slashdot linked to a recode post, which linked to a medium post, which linked to an RIAA blog post which linked the actual report put out by them with the relevant numbers. To save the same minor trouble, here is the actual report that includes the numbers cited above:

http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/RIAAMidyear16.pdf

Why oh why can't bloggers do this simple homework and link to original sources? This used to standard etiquette among the blogosphere, did it not? Anyway, you're welcome.

Looking at https://www.riaa.com/wp-conten..., I see that net "value" of shipped units including both physical and digital went up from 2014 to 2015: $6,950.5 to $7,015.9 (in millions) And according to http://www.billboard.com/artic..., ASCAP generated revenues of $1.014 billion, up 1.14 percent from the $1.003 billion generated in 2014. So, if artists and composers/arrangers are making less, either they're spreading the peanut butter around to more participants, or the industries are keeping more of the pot. OR, the artists bellyaching are being misled by their industry as to the real situation...

This is pretty rich coming from people who count single downloads as multiple lost sales.

Sort of like every time I look at your wife, it means I've banged her six times.

http://www.riaa.com/physicalpi...

They need a new model. Streaming on its own for $10/month is clearly not enough money to go around. Spotify has infrastructure costs and has been bleeding money (I think they had a break-even or profitable quarter just recently?). Meanwhile, they also need to distribute the remainder of the already paltry $10 between a zillion artists. It makes no sense.

This strikes me as highly non-obvious, do you think the average person spends more than $10/month purchasing music?

Annual US music sales are about $7bn

With the US population at 320 million that's only ~$22/year per capita, not counting Spotify's cut (and whatever portion of that already comes from streaming) that's means if no-one bought music any more only 22% of the US population would have to stream to make up the difference.

I doubt there are many people spending $120/year purchasing music long term. $10/month strikes me as a wildly lucrative prospect for the music industry.

https://www.riaa.com/
http://www.mpaa.org/
http://www.foxnews.com/

Humm, well let's see.

1) RIAA and the MPAA spend lots of money lobbying congress. The MPAA for example has a former US Senator as it's current leader, Chris Dodd. Because of lobbying and influence in terms of campaign contributions we have such wonderful legislation like the DMCA.
2) Patent Trolling in the US is a legitimate business, there are examples of this going back nearly 200 years. My favorite example of patent thickets and trolling involves the Sewing Machine wars which started in the 1850s. It's an interesting read.
3) Businesses in this country derive special protection, some business practices while questionable aren't illegal. To make something illegal there has to be some law prohibiting it. If RIAA and the MPAA can go after people with John Doe cases which amount largely to fishing expeditions then that's allowed under our right of due process. Some judges have disagreed with these tactics while some still are proceeding on appeal. reference: https://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-five-years-later
4) The tool that all of these folks use is the DMCA, which is a flawed piece of legislation. Not only is it flawed, it's also being pushed worldwide under the guises of free trade agreements like the "secret" ACTA treaty.
5) Congress really doesn't write anything, they take pieces of put together bullshit from lobbyists, change a couple of things and present it as their own bill. Others attach their bullshit, called a rider onto the Bill that may or may not have anything to do with it but makes it more "passable" because they included a mom + apple pie subsidy along with the big bad legislation. It gets out of dozens of committees and then is voted upon. It's the worst form of legislative process possible run by career politicians and staff people who have no fear of ever losing their jobs. It's no wonder that the approval rating for congress is in the low teens.

So, in simple terms. lobbying + campaign contributions + pre written legislation = DMCA
DMCA + Legal System that allow John Doe suits = (RIAA + MPAA + Big Money Law Firms) + Courts flooded with meaningless cases + defense lawyers + big fees = screwed John Doe who can't defend himself with a fine that exceeds the value of the pilfering many fold.

this is the worst possible outcome and if you download a CD from a file sharing site you could get slapped very heavily. In a word don't do it but in another word, defending yourself in a wrongful prosecution could become extremely costly. That's why John Doe cases need to be abolished, the DMCA needs to be appealed and where pirating has been found, only the value of the property illegally copied * number of copies should be the penalty. If you have kids at home, I suggest you let them know about downloading and its dangers, not just from malware and viruses but because of that knock on the door from a process server saying you're being sued.

I searched for useless twits, thieving bastards and lying motherfuckers and in none of the cases did RIAA appear near the top of the list

FTFY. Oh, for the days before rel=nofollow!

I searched for useless twits, thieving bastards and lying motherfuckers and in none of the cases did RIAA appear near the top of the list

FTFY. Oh, for the days before rel=nofollow!

I searched for useless twits, thieving bastards and lying motherfuckers and in none of the cases did RIAA appear near the top of the list

FTFY. Oh, for the days before rel=nofollow!

Cite your source. I'll cite mine:

https://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law

"Copying CDs

        It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
        It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) – but, again, not for commercial purposes.
        Beyond that, there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:
                The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
                The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
"

Saying you don't have a legal "right" to copy is not the same as saying you cannot legally do something. I believe if it really was not legal to do so, they would say be stating it is illegal. They do say other acts are illegal. The way I read the lawyer-speak (despite there "the is not legal advise" disclaimer) is that they are saying you don't have a license or permission from them to do so. Again, saying it this way is not the same as saying it is illegal. (Reading between the lines, I think it is their way to reserve the right to go after you should a law making it illegal be passed - but until that occurs, they can't do anything because it is not illegal).

Perhaps someone should imform the RIAA that her other website http://www.whenigrowupi.com/index.html has a player with Frank Sinatra's song Somethin' Stupid.

I tried to report it here, but for some reason the form is broken for me.

-

Cary Sherman did have at least one good point. On the RIAA's Music Notes blog, he discussed how he went through and read every one of the 280 some comments on his very poorly received New York Times op-ed.

I was one of the ones who posted a substantive, up-voted comment on his op-ed, and his blog post addressed something I (and several other commenters) pointed out. Just Googling for the text of the bill leaves one with a misleading impression, because important amendments were not included in that text. I took Sherman to task for what I viewed as purposefully misleading people in his op-ed, doing exactly what he was complaining Wikipedia and Google were doing.

On that particular detail, I was wrong, and Sherman was right. So the point is taken that there is a lot of misunderstanding about what precisely this bill will do and not do. That said, what I think he continually fails to understand is that his association (and really, the entire industry) has virtually no credibility in the minds of the tech-savvy, Internet-using public. We know the record companies rip off actual artists with raw contracts. We know the RIAA supported the ridiculous tactic of suing individual file-sharers for astronomical damages in order to bully them into settlement. We know they inflate their losses, that they massage data, and that they lobby hard for what they want. In fact, that last part is to be expected by any industry trade group.

We're Americans. We know that practically everyone in politics is lying to us whenever they open their mouth. That's not news. I'm not sure why Cary Sherman expects a free pass on this issue... you've got the lobbying money, get in there and play hardball like everyone else.

Oh good, you took everything out of context to prove your point. Usage in that sense came from the actual "pirate at sea stealing things" sense.

And in every example you have given except for 1996, these are the "traditional" meanings of piracy. Even the 1996 entry probably relates to selling counterfeit software, which is common in poor parts of Asia. A physical good is either copied mechanically or reproduced on another medium. Of course the 1654 quote is not long enough to tell if it involves ships.

I don't see any evidence that anyone but the BSA / MAFIAA and media printing MAFIAA quotes have brought "unauthorized use" into the common usage of the word "piracy" until the pre-BSA did in the 1970's. The very concept of copying without using a physical medium did not exist until the digital age.

Copying a disc and selling the disc, whether it's music or software, or movie, meets the pre-MAFIAA definition. But it does not meet the "downloading without paying for it" definition from the 1970's, and I draw a clear line between monetary gain and gainless copying.

Piracy is a subset of copyright infringement which downloading is not a part of, and this overloaded usage equates violently storming a ship at see and plundering its booty with clicking a link and having something without paying for it.

I believe in the evolution of language, but this is not an acceptable overload of the word. We should not accept such usage.

In US law, which is what the MAFIAA follow and what we are discussing for SOPA/PIPA, Piracy is almost always either accompanied by "profiteering" in the sense of counterfeit or otherwise copied tangible items, or specifically qualified as in "Cyberpiracy" such as 15 USC 1129.

The RIAA website answers the "Piracy" question with specifics using "copyright infringement" and "unauthorized", not "piracy"

http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law

A report to Congress summarizes the usage of the term "piracy", and software/music/movies are not mentioned.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00009.htm

It has only caught on in sound bites from MAFIAA, therefore I don't accept the redefinition.

Reading Slashdot every day is starting to make me wonder if I'm allowed to do anything besides spend all my money and work (for less) without getting sued or arrested for copyright, patent, counterfeiting, or violating some all encompassing do-what-I-say law.

This is why I only read Slashdot every other day. On my off days, I peruse the MPAA and RIAA news pages because I like reading about how everyone and their mother is stealing billions of dollars from them every day. It's not true, but it makes me feel like the 99% is winning, and it helps balance out all the pessimistic negative news you see here. And sometimes it's just plain funny:

There is a near universal consensus that cracking down on foreign rogue websites is an important priority for the U.S. government. The Senate had an opportunity to have a national conversation about an important and urgent issue: protecting American workers and consumers from foreign criminals. It is a shame that the Senate will not have that debate next week.

This issue is too important, too vital to our economy, to let misleading demagoguery have a veto over meaningful reforms. Everyone, every intermediary in the Internet ecosystem, has a role to play and a responsibility to help. We have been told repeatedly that the tech community agrees that something needs to be done. We take them at their word, and continue to hope that we can sit down with responsible leaders from that community to devise a solution that will address counterfeiting and theft and, yes, bring the rule of law to the Internet.

They didn't even put a date on their news release. Know why? Because it's a timeless classic. They're going to use this for 10 years, and then they'll start charging you money for the next 120 years to go back and read it for the entertainment value. You gotta love these guys! If they pulled their PR people out of their cubicles and put them on stage doing stand-up, I might just pay to watch!

I see a lot of venting and ranting, but not a lot of info about what actually has or has not happened. No one seems to have noticed some of these Web sites are up and running.

copyright.gov is up
DOJ is up
RIAA seems to be down
MPAA is up
UMG is down
BMI is down

OK, now that we've got those facts sorted out, the next question is who cares?

This isn't like a DDOS attack against Amazon or Google. None of these organizations, government or otherwise, depend on their Web sites to transact business. Copyright.gov is an informational resource that contains reference material you can find in many other places. No one cares if it's down. Did you even know it existed before it allegedly went down? Justice.gov exists to inform the people about what the department is doing. That's it. If Anonymous wants to raise awareness about the DOJ's activities, taking their site down has the opposite effect, and does not hurt the DOJ. When was the last time you visited the MPAA or RIAA site? Is that where you're going to look to decide what movie you want to see tomorrow, or what music you're going to buy on iTunes? And UMG and BMI's businesses don't depend on their Web sites... their music is marketed and sold elsewhere.

We've known for about 12 years now that it's really not that hard in the scheme of things to DDOS even the biggest sites on the Web. Remember the shocking 3-hour attack on Yahoo in Feb 2000? The prevailing thought then was, "If they can shut down Yahoo, they can shut down anybody." This was a legitimate concern because with its site down, Yahoo's business does not exist. But these attacks are being directed at sites where it really doesn't matter. All it does it generate a scary-sounding news headline. Some of Anonymous's other antics have some real world implications for their targets... this does not.

Yes, most cases that are brought about in regards to "internet piracy" (and I use that term loosely here) tend to be adjudicated under criminal courts. Hell, even the RIAA has a post about it ON THEIR SITE: http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law

I believe you're slightly confused on the matter in regards to "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" and "Beyond A Shadow Of A Doubt". The first is used in CIVIL cases. In CRIMINAL cases, the burden of proof is much, much higher. In fact, so high, that if so much as one juror disagrees, then the accused is/are automatically found not to be guilty. It's amazing how that works. A layman's explanation of the difference between these two can be found here, although international courts handle things differently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_doubt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_shadow_of_a_doubt

That's the difference between the two. Whether the case is criminal or civil (depending on the severity of the alleged crime), the accuser still assumes burden of proof. The difference between these is that reasonable doubt is only required in a civil suit, which only requires a majority consensus among the jurors involved in the deliberation. Criminal cases are an all-or-none deal. Other countries handle their courts differently, yes, but that's an entirely different topic, since it's pretty obvious that's what you're hinting at. The burden of proof ALWAYS rests with the accuser, not on the accused.

So back to my original statement (which amazingly, still holds true), "The burden of proof lies with the accuser. Until they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you've done what you're being accused of doing, you can sit back and laugh at them."

So piracy losses amount to $12 billion annually in the US alone, but the copyrights to one third of the music out there are worth a measly $2B? Something doesn't compute, here. What am I missing?

How many of them know the leaker? Putting aside the real scene guys that push out 0-day movies, etc., that number is basically nil. And for this to be a concern at all, you have to assume that Apple wants to crater its huge, massively profitable hardware business in order to save an industry that it could buy out using petty cash. Apple has over $60B in cash and liquid securities; the entire RIAA's sales were less than $7B in 2010 (here).

Sony is part of RIAA and MPAA, you stupid git.

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_members&f=s
http://www.mpaa.org/faq

...researchers have created software that gives images an expiration date by tagging them with an encrypted key so that once this date has passed the key stops the images being viewed and copied.

How long shell we wait before some fella creates a tool that copies those photos, backs them up somewhere after removing the so called encryption?

If they doubt this is possible, they need not look very far. The RIAA knows a thing or two about this.

"Stay relevant"?

Dark Side of the Moon, released in 1973, spent over 14 consecutive years on the Billboard 200 chart -- longer than any other album. The Wall, released in 1979, still ranks among the top 5 highest-selling albums of all time in the U.S. See here and here.

So no matter what trends come and go in how popular music is produced and consumed, the idea that Pink Floyd could become irrelevant seems pretty far-fetched.

I decide for myself what is relevant and what isn't. That's another consequence of the Internet and the Long Tail; I no longer have to let other people decide for me what music should matter, and what music shouldn't matter. Of course, you have the same liberty. As far as I'm concerned, Queensryche's 1988 album Operation: Mindcrime is more relevant than anything Pink Floyd has done, since you can still encapsulate most of the social ills of the United States in songs like "Revolution Calling" and "Spreading the Disease".

"Stay relevant"?

Dark Side of the Moon, released in 1973, spent over 14 consecutive years on the Billboard 200 chart -- longer than any other album. The Wall, released in 1979, still ranks among the top 5 highest-selling albums of all time in the U.S. See here and here.

So no matter what trends come and go in how popular music is produced and consumed, the idea that Pink Floyd could become irrelevant seems pretty far-fetched.

According to the RIAA:

Digital revenues have grown from nearly $200 million in '04 to $2.3 billion in '07 (estimates for '08 - $3 billion), accounting for 25 percent of all retail value revenue (upwards of 30 percent at end of '08).

That gives us a 2008 estimate of 12 billion dollars in revenue for retail sale of music. Presumably for the RIAA, who "create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States". So a total of about $14.2 billion in revenue.

Now, obviously we also need to take the MPAA into consideration. Again, using 2008 numbers:
Ticket sales grossed about $10 billion. And since quite a lot of people seem to claim (and no, I have no source handy) that home video sales is about the same as ticket sales, then we're looking at around $20 billion in 2008.

Apple's revenue for 2008 in the Americas was $14.5 billion. Granted, that's a larger geographical area than RIAA's numbers, but then again Apple is a relatively small company in the IT landscape.

How about some of the bigger fish?

IBM reported revenue of $103.6 billion, and pre-tax profit of $16.7 billion.

So, the movie and music industry combined gets up to around $35 billion in 2008 in the US.

IBM (world wide) - $103 billion
Apple (Americas) - $14.5 billion
Google (world wide) - $21.8 billion
Microsoft (world wide?) - $60.4 billion
Oracle (world wide?) - 22.4 billion
Dell (world wide?) - 61 billion

Seriously - why the fuck are the IT giants just turning their back on the complete and utter gang rape on things like the Internet, when most of their products would die off the moment it stops working the way it should.

Just buy out the fuckers, boot the executives, lawyers, assistants etc. from their penthouse offices (literally boot them out over the balcony) and just kill off these massively debilitating parasites.

This is Slashdot. Don't you know? And by the way, remember that only those who value financial property and material things, can be hurt by any disclosure of their turf. I am not one of those.

If they wanted to stop him, he would have disappeared along with the server holding his databases.

You make me laugh! You have what many call the Bush mentality. People like you think that that fella is alone. Get this: He's got many lieutenants beside him. If you want a taste of what I am talking about, ask the RIAA how successful they have been in fighting bit-torrent with billions spent.

I feel sorry for people like you. Seriously.

I don't get it -- RIAA claims to lose 12 billion dollars a year due to piracy. If the Google API helps them recover a tiny fraction of that amount, then it's worth the few million dollars/year they are estimating the API costs would be.

It seems almost as if they think that there is not as much piracy out there as they claim!

I don't think the RIAA represents all that many classical producers.

You couldn't be more wrong. Try Sony, EMI, Decca, RCA, just for a start... full list here.

And your problem is that you make shit up.

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=about_us_exec_bios

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027_3-5056299.html

By the time you discount all the combinations which sound terrible...

Well, that was easy.

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_become_a_member

On that note if you wanted a hit list it wouldn't be just one person it would be these guys. How about doing the diplomatic and proper thing and start a mailing campaign to all these people.

RIAA, MPAA BSA etc.

Disney, Universal, Warner, EMI, Sony, Fox, etc.

"Music theft can take various forms: individuals who illegally upload or download music online, online companies who build businesses based on theft and encourage users to break the law, or criminals manufacturing mass numbers of counterfeit CDs for sale on street corners, in flea markets or at retail stores."

This is their opinion of what the law should be, not what it is. My opinion is that the RIAA is giving legal advice because the RIAA frames what they say as if it were the law. They should be liable for damages to anyone that took their advice.

I knew I'd find it if I looked hard enough...

RIAA ispnotice

Music is protected by copyright. The unauthorized downloading or uploading of music is actionable as copyright infringement, even if not done for profit.

Where in copyright law does it say that downloading is illegal? My friggin' radio downloads music from the air for pete's sake.

That's because the radio transmission was authorized. The quote you posted specifically mentions unauthorized downloading.

I knew I'd find it if I looked hard enough...

RIAA ispnotice

Music is protected by copyright. The unauthorized downloading or uploading of music is actionable as copyright infringement, even if not done for profit.

Where in copyright law does it say that downloading is illegal? My friggin' radio downloads music from the air for pete's sake.

I am no RIAA supporter, but just a brief look on their website doesn't show that sort of propaganda that you speak of. Can you provide some examples? I'm curious if which side of the aisle this propaganda is coming from. Their site refers to "music theft", "piracy", and "illegally upload[ed] or download[ed] music online." I also see stuff like, "[w]e . . . educate fans about . . . the right ways to acquire [music]." The first thing the site says about the law is that "When you make illegal copies of someone’s creative work, you are stealing and breaking the law."

In fact, they give examples of situations where you could be violating the law. Keyword could. Careful reading is important, especially when dealing with the law. The examples refer to "copyrighted songs" (i.e. not in the public domain. Could this be a valid transmission? Sure. It usually isn't, but all they claim was could) and unauthorized copies or distribution.

Source 1, Source 2

You can even see here that they refer to exceptions. My analogy is not invalid except against the strawman position that the RIAA just says "don't download music!" Point that out and I will eat my words so long as it isn't clear to the ordinarily prudent reader that they are referring to unauthorized uses.

I am no RIAA supporter, but just a brief look on their website doesn't show that sort of propaganda that you speak of. Can you provide some examples? I'm curious if which side of the aisle this propaganda is coming from. Their site refers to "music theft", "piracy", and "illegally upload[ed] or download[ed] music online." I also see stuff like, "[w]e . . . educate fans about . . . the right ways to acquire [music]." The first thing the site says about the law is that "When you make illegal copies of someone’s creative work, you are stealing and breaking the law."

In fact, they give examples of situations where you could be violating the law. Keyword could. Careful reading is important, especially when dealing with the law. The examples refer to "copyrighted songs" (i.e. not in the public domain. Could this be a valid transmission? Sure. It usually isn't, but all they claim was could) and unauthorized copies or distribution.

Source 1, Source 2

You can even see here that they refer to exceptions. My analogy is not invalid except against the strawman position that the RIAA just says "don't download music!" Point that out and I will eat my words so long as it isn't clear to the ordinarily prudent reader that they are referring to unauthorized uses.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade organization that supports and promotes the creative and financial vitality of the major music companies..."

The RIAA does not represent the rights of independent artists and I am not sure they ever pretended to. They represent large scale music distributors.

He knows his stuff. In the long run truth will prevail!

Way To Go Ray!

E

A big leap for humanity, a small step back for the thieves of your culture.

I seem to recall quite a few incidents where the RIAA, MPAA and their members and brethren have been caught using unlicensed code on their websites.

Now, if this code is part of the navigation, chances are it'll be included on every single page served. Now, even if say http://www.riaa.com only got 100 visitors per day, and each visitor only visited two pages, that'd be 200 counts of breach of copyright.

At an average $22,500 per copyright violation, that comes up at $4,500,000 ... per day.

Step 1) Write code
Step 2) Find RIAA using that code unlicensed
Step 3) Profit

Even if they somehow get the damages reduced in court, they'll be arguing that their own claims for damages are completely out of proportion.

Plus, as a group who is supposedly on the side of the creators, it'd look really bad if they tried to claim ignorance, unfair damages, that code isn't worth as much as songs etc.

Basically it's a win-win situation.

So, to all you bright people out there, I urge you to get hacking!

But don't go putting code onto their webservers without them knowing it - that defence doesn't fly well in RIAA cases, and it'd be unfair to use it against them ;)

One can find a list of record labels/riaa members here. riaa.com Let your favorite band's label know how you feel. If the labels discontinue their relationship with the RIAA, their revenue will slowly dry.

The basic problem facing corporate content providers is that that the business model of institutions of public mind control is failing.

The market for premium content is insignificant in economic terms, to start with. This is from the Against Monopoly Blog:

According to the RIAA, the value of all CD's, live presentations, music videos, dvds in 1998 (from http://www.riaa.com/pdf/md_riaa10yr.pdf) was 13.72 billion US$.

According to the SOI, in 1998 the business receipts of the computer and electronic product manufacturing including both hardware and software (they do not divide it further) was 560.27 billion US$. This of course excludes the value of all the data stored on computers.

Even if one includes newspaper content, the numbers are economically insignificant, and declining. The numbers for IT were shown for comparison, and they are what economists would consider economically significant.

As long as content providers could profitably continue to set the agenda, filter information, and control the distribution of concerns, there was no problem. But now their business model is failing, as the internet attempts to route around the corporate control of the mind.

Right, so now I am an MS troll

Actually, what I said was "assuming you are not just trolling on behalf of Microsoft" I would like a response. In other words, if you are simply trolling, don't bother. Thanks for giving me one.

What DOES bother me is when either of them are striving to extend their political influence

How is he striving to extend his political influence? By advocating free software? There is a pretty long list of parties who are exerting real influence on politicians. Stallman is simply doing what every company does when they bring a product to market. If you honestly believe that Steve Ballmer wouldn't like every computer to run Windows, and isn't striving to extend his political influence to achieve that goal, then I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

He demands 100% compliance with his growing list of restrictions, or you aren't free

"Growing list of restriction?" A quick glance at the "What is free software?" page covers the same ground it always has, as far as I can tell. I won't recite the four software freedoms, but they are the only "restrictions" I know of that bind developers who license their software under the GPL. What do you mean by a "growing list?" Can you provide more information please?

Freedom is not a list of restrictions

Neither is the GPL. It enumerates the qualities that the FSF believes software (or more accurately its license) must possess for them to consider it "free." It's no different than me saying without self-determination I am not free. If you want to see that as me placing a "restriction on freedom" that's your business, but I don't see how you can define something without identifying the qualities it possesses.

In reality, he wants to remove rights, give you a list of restrictions, and do so to protect the interests of developers, protecting their code from being stolen."

Wow, I don't even know where to begin with that. Let me give you my take:

He wants to extend rights, define the qualities that make software free and do so to protect the interest of users, protecting them from being subjected to the will of developers. At least that's what I get from "the freedom to run the program, to study how it works, to share it with others and to make improvements to it." (sorry, I know I said I wouldn't recite the list, but I felt it was necessary to make my point).

You are most certainly entitled to disagree with Stallman, to think the GPL is BS and to voice your opinion to anyone who will listen. I'm not questioning that. But you haven't done much to convince me Stallman is restricting anyone's rights. If you write code, don't license it under the GPL if it offends you. If you simply use software, then you can happily ignore the GPL altogether, since (unlike every EULA I've ever read) it places no restrictions on the user.

2. Gold and Platinum records - as sales have declined, the number of copies needed to score a gold or platinum has been repeatedly changed so the studios can brag (maybe to their stockholders, since these figures invariably get quoted in the stock prospectus) that they are getting more platinum sales than ever, even though the actual sales numbers are down.

Not sure what you are basing this on, as the only thing that has ever changed about gold and platinum record numbers are they went from value of retail sales sold to number of actual records sold. The number required as of 2009 is still 500,000 for gold and 1,000,000 for platinum - which have been the same since the 60s. (The numbers may be slightly different for other countries, but I am assuming we are talking about the US rules as the RIAA is based in the US.) See here or here for my sources.

They also provide a list of their members on their own website:

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_members

And wow, that list has grown over the years. It used to be able to be printed on both sides of one piece of paper. I'd leave a copy in my car. And when the ocasion hit me to go music shopping, I'd bring it with me and if the label was on the list, I'd only buy the CD if it was available used.

Used CDs have three big advantages. They're cheaper to guy, obviously. The profit margin for the store is higher; and music stores that sell used CDs tend to be locally-owned independent stores, not the big chains. And, best of all, the RIAA doesn' see a penny from used sales. You get to have your cake and eat it too.

These days, I don't even bother with the list. I simply ONLY buy used unless Im buying directly from the band or DJ. That both simplifies and cheapens things.