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The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings.

Fortunately, American companies don't influence our government.

I give up. I can't tell the litigious bastards without a scorecard anymore.

Okay, someone clue me in. Which litigious bastards are we supposed to be angry at now?

These litigious bastards ...
these other litigious bastards...
now these litigious bastards ...
or perhaps (and oldie but a goodie) these litigious bastards

Man, that's going to be an awful lot of HREFs to compile in my posts to talk about anybody on Slashdot anymore.

http://www.riaa.org/

You don't need to worry about getting sued by the Recording Industry Assocation of America or arrested by the FBI if you download legal music. Many independent and unsigned musicians offer downloads of their music in hopes of attracting more fans. Here's some music from my friends The Divine Maggees, Oliver Brown and Rick Walker's Loop.pooL.

If everyone started downloading legal music instead of violating copyright with the file sharing programs, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs directly from the artists and seeing their shows instead of enriching the major labels by buying CDs from the bands the labels have chosen for us to listen to. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads do not infringe copyright because the artists give you permission to download them.

Please copy and distribute this article. It has a Creative Commons license.

You don't need to worry about getting sued by the Recording Industry Assocation of America or arrested by the FBI if you download legal music. Many independent and unsigned musicians offer downloads of their music in hopes of attracting more fans. Here's some music from my friends The Divine Maggees, Oliver Brown and Rick Walker's Loop.pooL.

If everyone started downloading legal music instead of violating copyright with the file sharing programs, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs directly from the artists and seeing their shows instead of enriching the major labels by buying CDs from the bands the labels have chosen for us to listen to. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads do not infringe copyright because the artists give you permission to download them.

If you're a musician who offers free, legal downloads of your music, I will link your band's website from the article, at no cost to you other than the work it will take you to give the article a reciprocal link from anywhere on your website. To get your link, please follow the instructions in the Links to Individual Artists section carefully.

Thank you for your attention.

D R M only inconveniences those of us who pay for our music. The pirates will go on using uncrippled formats. DRM is precisely as effective for anti-piracy as the Evil Bit is for security.

It's not even about copy protection. It's about keeping us on the "new format treadmill", and locking us in to specific playback hardware/software.

Don't be fooled. Take a stand!

• Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads

It has a Creative Commons license. You are encouraged to copy it.

A Romanian translation will be posted soon, kindly provided by Ciprian Mihet. I am actively seeking translations to other languages.

Here's the introduction:

You don't need to worry about getting sued by the Recording Industry Assocation of America or arrested by the FBI if you download legal music. Many independent and unsigned musicians offer downloads of their music in hopes of attracting more fans. Here's some music from my friends The Divine Maggees, Oliver Brown and Rick Walker's Loop.pooL.

If everyone started downloading legal music instead of violating copyright with the file sharing programs, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs directly from the artists and seeing their shows instead of enriching the major labels by buying CDs from the bands the labels have chosen for us to listen to. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads do not infringe copyright because the artists give you permission to download them.

Speaking of which... anyone else getting nice bizzar results when trying to go to the RIAA website?

Hopefully they will be as impartial through the use of automation, which is where google gets it's impartiality from.

Considering that Google removed Indymedia from its news sources a few months ago, but retains such worthwhile sources as the RIAA, I say that automation does not necessarily lead to impartiality.

From the introduction:

You don't need to worry about getting sued by the Recording Industry Assocation of America or arrested by the FBI if you download legal music. Many independent and unsigned musicians offer downloads of their music in hopes of attracting more fans. Here's some music from my friends The Divine Maggees, Oliver Brown and Rick Walker's Loop.pooL.

If everyone started downloading legal music instead of violating copyright with the file sharing programs, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs directly from the artists and seeing their shows instead of enriching the major labels by buying CDs from the bands the labels have chosen for us to listen to. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads do not infringe copyright because the artists give you permission to download them.

It has been Google's #1 hit for the query legal music downloads for about three months now, and recently has been on the second page of hits recently for the much more popular query music downloads.

Traffic to the article has been climbing steadily, especially since the RIAA lawsuits were filed. It's looking like my copy of the article will get about 19,000 page views this month.

Do you have a citation for this?

Why do I need one? Has the RIAA stated in its press releases that there is legitimate downloading going on? No. Does the RIAA say that you are allowed to copy your CDs for backup? No. Does the RIAA mention that you are allowed to burn tracks to your hard drive? No.

Are you saying they are mentioning these things?

Do you have a citation for this, as well?

Once again, why do I need one? Is the use of the word "piracy" in question? What about the use of the word "theft"?

Piracy is not actually happening. Theft is not actually happening. Piracy is a violent act, not copying something. Theft is taking something, not copying something. Making a copy of an mp3 doesn't destroy or remove the original, so it's not theft. The people downloading have no physical contact with the RIAA members, so it's not a violent act.

The RIAA, to protect a dying monopoly, has engaged in pure manipulation of facts and emotions. The proof is their use of words like "piracy" and "theft".

Is the language of the RIAA the language of your friends and neighbors? Is their language of the RIAA the way people actually talk and think about downloading? Does the position of the RIAA on downloading touch -- even remotely -- the point of view of the millions of people who download? No. The RIAA's language is their propaganda about why control of music distribution needs to remain strictly with them.

The RIAA indicts themselves on this issue. The evidence that the RIAA is distorting the facts comes straight from the RIAA. Do you really need a citation? Here you go: Recording Industry Association of America.

I submitted this earlier today, but was rejected. So here's what I had to say. It contains a bit more information.

After the University of Rochester announced last week in its school newspaper that students there would be offered legal music downloads starting the spring semester, Penn State President Graham B. Spanier announced today that his University has signed an agreement with Napster to launch a program in which Penn State will make Napster's Premium Service available at no cost to its students. This comes from the annual EDUCAUSE meeting of thousands of information technology administrators from universities around the country. Most notably are the panelists who are part of a P2P file sharing disscussion. They include, Cary Sherman of the RIAA, Jack Valenti of the MPAA, the Provost of the University of Rochester, and the President of Penn State. Too bad it's Napster and not iTunes.

The RIAA website was down, couldn't view the website, couldn't ping it or anything. I can't help but wonder if maybe the artical and the RIAA's server problems were somehow connected.

of the evil-doer, and it is the RIAA, who shakes his bony fist and exclaims, "darn you meddling computer scientists!"

I'm not surprised by this release. I would think that there is a massive amount of built-up demand among Windows users for the goodness and convenience that is iPod and iTunes.

Personally, I'd love to be able to scan music online and get what I want. Until now, that usually meant some website or some questionable methods. Both options don't really float my boat 'cause it isn't a service designed for the distribution and enjoyment of music, as in from finding it, obtaining it, listening to it, and storing it for future listenings using a single method.

Now that Apple has show the world that not all online music listerns are 1337 k1dd13z, maybe we can continue with these developments, and we can stop hearing some organizations whine.

"We are shocked and awed these college kids would code something that steals from kabillionaire struggling artists and post them on the sickening little iPee's or iPods. Have you seen the name OGG. Wasn't there a ganster rap song called OGG or something. It's a disgrace." stated an RIAA Spokesdevil.

Officials at Vorbis could not be contacted, however, another company stated they will be filing a countersuit against the suit in response to the suit originally filed.

You don't need to worry about getting sued by the Recording Industry Assocation of America or arrested by the FBI if you download legal music. Many independent and unsigned musicians offer downloads of their music in hopes of attracting more fans. Here's some music from my friends The Divine Maggees, Oliver Brown and Rick Walker's Loop.pooL.

If everyone started downloading legal music instead of violating copyright with the file sharing programs, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs directly from the artists and seeing their shows instead of enriching the major labels by buying CDs from the bands the labels have chosen for us to listen to. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads do not infringe copyright because the artists give you permission to download them.

Thank you for your attention.

You are wrong. The RIAA is not the creator NOR the markerters. They are the people backing up both the creators and marketers. They make sure everyone is getting a "fair deal" (yeah right). They were formed to "business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality." (RIAA About Page) The people we need to fight against are the ones they are backing. Stop supporting these labels, and they will stop fighting us, and start finding a solution to this problem.

One of my favorite bands cd comes out the 16th, but I don't plan on buying it. I plan on either downloading it or copying it from a friend. Sending a letter to the band, with the amount of the CD, and telling them why. I love the music, love the band, hate the record label. If we make enough noise, the bands will hear us. We won't be able to fight the labels or the RIAA directly, and expect to win. Remember the bands are on our side, not theirs.

You don't need to worry about getting sued by the Recording Industry Assocation of America or arrested by the FBI if you download legal music. Many independent and unsigned musicians offer downloads of their music in hopes of attracting more fans. Here's some music from my friends The Divine Maggees, Oliver Brown and Rick Walker's Loop.pooL.

If everyone started downloading legal music instead of violating copyright with the file sharing programs, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs directly from the artists and seeing their shows instead of enriching the major labels by buying CDs from the bands the labels have chosen for us to listen to. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads do not infringe copyright because the artists give you permission to download them.

Speaker for voice-guidance commands, MP3 player, and message playback

So when play this, does it guide you there ?

Keep in mind that the form requests that Minnesotans identify themselves I suppose to let his staff triage and prioritize his email.

And let's just say that my 5 minute cursory review of the RIAA website did not turn up the state in which RIAA is incorporated. I do not think it happens to be Minnesota...

Something tells me that if it really came down to an "unsuspecting grandparent" vs RIAA, Coleman would come down on granny's side. And probably so would the Court.

Perhaps we should hope that RIAA brings these cases to trial a.s.a.p. & that some "angels" fund a good legal defense. I think the outcome might be interesting: in all likelihood, RIAA would win a settlement, but in the process so alienate artists & decent-minded folks everywhere that it would destroy itself.

Dream on...

That is absurd. When you have free and unlicensed access to media, you are less likely to buy it, and thus the owner loses money.

But they don't lose the song. Theres a difference between theft/robbery (where something is taken) and damages which arise from copyright infringement (where nothing is taken, but foggy damages somewhere in a misty future are incurred). Current copyright law greatly overvalues these damages (see the multibillion dollar RIAA lawsuits), resulting in damages that are sometimes far, far more than the infringed item was worth.

Lets look at some numbers. Such as 3 years of jail time (6 for repeat offenders)+$250,000+$150,000 per infringement. If I download a song which I can point to having a "market value" of $1 (see iTunes), how is $400,000 even close to a reasonable punishment for "theft"? And remember, this is per infringement... each song I download would get me another $150,000 charge.

Now, lets take a look at REAL theft. Assuming no criminal history exists, if I steal a $1 candybar, I get AT MOST $4,000 and no more than a year in Jail per incident, and thats if it gets all the way up to a Class C Misdemeanor (thats grabbing a LOT of candybars!) (See This retailer info page for Texas).

So, compare those numbers for a moment and reflect on your "copyright is theft" schtick. Now run back to your RIAA mommy and don't come back until you can explain why this inequality in supposedly "equal" thefts exists.

They're megacorporations. They can do whatever the hell they want.

What's up with theRIAA website? I went to the main site and it downloaded that has some jibberish and says "HTTP/1.0 302 Moved Temporarily ". Same sort of thing happened with other pages within. Strange.

I typed http://www.riaa.org/index.html into my browser and here's what came up:

câoeÃcâoeÃHTTP/1.0 302 Moved Temporarily Location: http://www.riaa.com/in


riaa.com??? I thought they were supposed to be a non-profit organization.

I still buy music, but not from anyone who is a member of the RIAA. Here's the link:
http://www.riaa.org - Their site seems to be down right now (as it always is) but I think you get to the list of members by clicking 'About Us' and then 'Partners'

Click it. If the label you are purchacing from is on there, just download it. The artist wouldn't see any of the money anyway. Let them make up statistics about how it's the 'P2P programs, and the coledge kids fault' that they are going down the tubes. Too fucking bad for them.

Bookmark this address and be sure to click it every hour or so for a deliberate /. effect. We'll teach them about the Internet!

www.riaa.org

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. :)

to the courts.

Remembering that most lawyers and judges are not all that knowledgable about programming, SCO could use 80 lines of plagerism to claim that there is a much deeper pattern of copying and paraphrasing going on (disregarding the fact that the vast majority of kernel contributers have had no access to propietary kernel code of any type). And the courts are influenced by the political environment of the time.

I've begun to view the underlying issue here as not one of SCO's ownership of particular code, but more an issue of ownership in general. There is a school of thought that believes that ownership is a neccessary aspect of all things and that things (objects, ideas, actions) only have value if they are paid for. This philosophy has been touted by such notables as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush and his father. For the user base of GNU/Linux to not see this lawsuit as the beginning of yet another battle in the struggle to curtail the free distribution of ideas (source code are ideas) among men and women would be a mistake. If SCO were to convince the court that the 80 lines of code somehow bestowed upon the Linux kernen a taint (trade secrets) that cannot be removed, then the court may be conned into believing that the kernel is in part owned by SCO and that the distribution of the code and/or binaries should be accompanied by the paying of royalty. In addition, there has been an increasing attitude towards Free Software and Open Sourse that these ideas somehow endanger the economy of the United States (ask around, you'll see what I mean).

The difficulties that Free Software and Open Source Software pose to implementation of manditory DRM (censorship )is interpeted as a threat to not only to the distributers of movies and music but also to the political and law enforcement industries that see media as a way to shape the opinions, ideas and beliefs of the American citizenry. For an example we need only to look at the media coverage of the 2000 presidential election results and the lack of criticism over the courts refusal to mandate a meaningful recount and the subsequent appointment of a George W. Bush by 5 Supreme Court Justices.

An other example would be the casting of the DeCSS code as a "piracy tool" by virtually every news source covering the dispute, when in fact, DVDs can and are pirated without the use of the DeCSS code by software that incorporates licensed code provided by the DVD makers (Expert Guides' DVD Copy. There has been little noise from the MPAA over this tool or software like it, and no mention of such software in media coverage of the DeCSS case.

If the courts are affected by a political stance that views Free Software as somehow being "bad" (for the economy, for national security, etc), then this case is not about 80 lines of code, but about Free Software in general. If the case is decided in favor of SCO, the court may decide on a remedy that is not as simple as removing the offending code.

--ptw

Costs Associated with Implementing Portable Numbers, by percent:

10% Tecnical Implementation
90% Lost Business

In other words, "our business model is threatened by new technology, lets lobby to have our business model mandated by law."

Prior Art:

MPAA
RIAA
Microsoft

"Or maybe we should sue someone."

Prior Art:

SCO

Anyone see a trend in the corporate culture?

The RIAA are also covering this. (very smugly I bet)

What, would you have preferred that it appeared on an obscure malicious cracker's board? It's better that academia finds it before irreponsible people who would only use it to take down web sites.

And speaking of DDOS, it looks like the RIAA's site is down again.

Since the 1960's, the intelligence community> has used private corporate contractors, such as Wackenhut, The Curry Company, Scientologythe Music Corporation of America (The Curry Company's parent corporation), and the Mafia to gather information and diseminate disinformation. The changing nature of the information economy, due to the internet and Free Software, threatens the quite lucrative monopoly on information and populace control (hence the recent activities of the RIAA and the MPAA).

It seems to me that the Intelligence Community and the private contractors, who have seen thier profits dwindle since the end of the cold war, seek more to control IT in order to both increase thier ability to monitor the daily lives of private citizens, and to limit the access to information that may inform us about thier covert activities.

The concern of the CIA over technology is not one of information gathering, but one of information, and populace, control.

"anyone else get the impression this is a proactive anti "piracy" move by the music and movie monopolists?"

Anyone want to write a version which only trashes machines when the local domain is vivendi.com?

In case you don't feel like fishing, here are some of the bigger names you'd be up against:

Warner Music Group
Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
The Atlantic Group
Univision Music Group
Buena Vista Music Group
Maverick Recording Company
RCA Music Group
Epic Records Group
Solar Records/J.Hines Co.
Universal Music Group
Columbia Records Group
EMI, Recorded Music N.A.
Arista Records Inc.
Elektra Entertainment Group
BMG Entertainment
Tommy Boy Music
Capitol Records

I'm sure they'll see they can't win, and back down :)

Yes indeed! Check it out for yourself!

from the horse's mouth: http://www.riaa.org/About-Members-1.cfm looks like they might have been the target of a PREEMPTIVE STRIKE though.

Umm, hate to break it to you, but RIAA is primarily a meatspace organization consisting of lawyers who sue people. You and all your cybergladiator rockstar hax0r friends, feel free to rake riaa.org and their scant other online assets over the coals. Get real... "pandora," on them. Just don't forget that at the end of the day, you are a lowly computer scientist munching on your microwave burrito and making idle threats on Slashdot, while they a small army of lawyers backed by the full faith and credit of five, billion dollar multinationals. This battle will be played out in the legal arena, and status quo being what it is, it's theirs to lose.

Considering their website is riaa.org (and not .com), maybe not.

Looks like someone's getting things started already...

www.riaa.org is completely inaccesible at the moment, at least from where I am.

Hmmm. Can't seem to get to the RIAA site right now...

You mean this site? They've probably been Slashdotted...

Time to expand my musical tastes.

independent-artists.com

boycott-riaa.com

Why RIAA Keeps Getting Hacked

RIAA Affiliated Labels

Hmmm. Can't seem to get to the RIAA site right now...

that last line "vowed appeal" mustve gotten someone mad enough to hack their website but wait... i think this has been happening already

How many people would need to review http://www.riaa.org as porn before they'd rate it as such? Thereafter, one could start asking them to block home pages for legislators who voted for DMCA, Microsoft, whoever we don't like. If there were enough traffic, perhaps the slashdot effect be a powerful lobby for a nice little blacklist.

User IP Information

We identify and record your non-personally identifiable information, such as IP address, to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our website. We do not use your non-personally identifiable information in any other way.

It's tough to argue that judges are all beholden to corporate interests, as judges in the US district courts are appointed for life and don't have to worry about pleasing anybody. And I really don't see why they would be more friendly to the RIAA than to Verizon, another big company. Verizon certainly holds more sway in the mid-Atlantic states John Bates has called home over the years. This isn't Hollywood court.

There is, however, the problem that the RIAA quite possibly simply made a better case, due to better lawyers used to dealing with these issues. John Thorne, though certainly an excellent lawyer, deals with lots of different Verizon issues, whereas the RIAA group has quite a few file-sharing victories under its belt.

I don't think it's too wise to assume that anyone who doesn't believe in the Slashdot status quo must be corrupt. There are people out there (quite a few, actually) who just don't agree with us, you know. There's a quite lengthy decision that has legitimate reasoning, even if I don't agree with the brunt of that reasoning.

Assuming there are such, as it's currently being hit with a DoS. I think it's the first time a website has deserved a /.'ing. I can think of some others

A clean needle suggests allowing them a safe place to get their fix, not preventing them from doing so (making them have to think up more stealthy/ingenius methods of hacking).

I think a clean needle would run more along the lines of the previously mentioned - give them a proper place to hack. Let them hack a home server, or a site intented to be hacked. I can suggest several sites that seem to be in demand for a good hacking

You didn't get the memo? There is no more fair use for anything electronic any more.

The current system, in which companies are trying to protect their digital assets through a combination of legislation such as the DMCA, lawsuits such as the ones posted last week, and copy protection systems that prevent fair use have a net negative impact on society that goes far beyond whether you would personally benefit from being able to download N-sync. I personally have not either purchased or copied music from an RIAA member in at least two years, but that doesn't mean that I'm not impacted by societal impact of current policies.

The solution to the current intellectual property problem is simple. The copyright holders should target abusers and prosecute the hell out of them. If people are faced with the prospect of being prosecuted for distributing copyrighted works illegally then the current problems will clear themselves up.

So you don't care about N-Sync... do you want your kid, or your mom, or your brother thrown in jail for a year and fined $500k? Do you really think that taking these people out of circulation will make the US a safer and better place to live? I hardly know anyone who has never gotten a copy of an album taped by a friend, or more commonly these days, a CD-R. These are regular people you are talking about, not the criminal fringe. I am amazed that you would advocate locking them all up over pulling a couple bucks out of your own pocket so that they could do as they please. You'll pay far more in taxes to imprison half the population than you'd ever pay to give them the liberty to share their music.