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OpenNaps Targeted; Gnutella "Validated"
An Anonymous Coward writes "As early as Wednesday, the RIAA
has sent letters to the ISPs and operators of OpenNap servers in the U.S. which were
listed on Napigator. Here's the
story from ZDNET. The RIAA's letter refers to the U.S. Supreme Court decision against Napster. Given that nearly all the OpenNap servers are run by individuals who are never intending to charge for the service, this is an interesting assertion."
And HyperbolicParabaloid points out
this NYT story
(free reg. req.) in which a lawyer says the decision "validates Gnutella" (ok, whatever, but there's also some interesting discussion about how the Sony VCR time- and space-shifting precedent fails to apply to Napster).
No more of your shit. No more force feeding us the music you think we want to hear. No more of you marketing violent movies to 11 year olds. No more selling a sexual image to pre-teen girls as the model to follow. No more bullshit. I think it's time for the world to stand up and say "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore." MPAA? Fuck you. RIAA? FUCK YOU TOO. Take your cookie-cutter bubblegum rockers and your homoerotic punk metal clown possies and shove them up your ass. Take your idiotic teenie-bopper horror slasher flicks and put them where the sun don't shine. It is time for us to wake up from this crazy capitalist induced nightmare that has resulted in us only having 5 huge mega-corporations being responsible for the sales, marketing, and creation of over 90% of the music, movies, and media in the world! What kind of sick society have we become where we allow this to happen? We exist to feed the fat overbearing media gods. Our only purpose in life is to make them profit so they can turn around and force more garbage down our throats.
Gee, what happens when people get so tired of this nonsense that they just quit going to movies, watching TV, buying music, etc?
Will that ever happen? The cynical say "Never". But, at this rate, such commercial "entertainment" (a term I use loosely, usually preceded by the word 'mindless') will, in the not-too-distant future be affordable only by those who own and control it.
Maybe it's time we revert to the practice of people producing art because they are compelled to, not because they are paid to. When artists are paid only on commission, or for a live performance. That is, they earn their living like the rest of us, based solely on the merit of their work - as judged by others.
And don't anyone spout that tired old line about how no one will create without getting paid to do so. That would mean that no one, anywhere, ever created purely for the joy and satisfaction of seeing their imagination realized - not to mention such a theory invalidating the whole Free Software movement.
Art is not an endeavor in which one should expect to "Earn a living". It is a gift which the artist willingly and lovingly shares with others. His expected reward comes from self-satisfaction, and, hopefully, the appreciation of his audience.
Any artist who would give up his art because no one would pay for it, is most likely a very poor artist.
Or a fool.
~cm.
Isn't this basically the same argument that we get away with all the time at when it comes to software? We're licensing the intellectual property from the vendor, not the fsck'n media. In fact, we've lost/damaged the media to applications and called the vendor (we "registered" the software) and they sent us new media for a nominal fee (like, $10 or something on a $3k license). In fact, when we buy multiple licenses we only get 1 CD and are expected to dupe it or otherwise copy it to other distribution media ourselves.
Why doesn't this apply to music? I can accept the idea that an album originally sold on vinyl that has been put onto CD *AND* that has gone through extra special processing or contains extra material is different than the original. But when it's just a transfer to CD from the *same* masters used to make the album I don't see where it's any different than supplying an application on floppy vs. CD ROM. The intellectual content is otherwise the same, just delivered differently.
Except that the net is IP based and, if found illegal, it would be easy to have the courts demand that ISPs cooperate with turning in the gnutella users. Fine them each $500 a pop and you end up with something a lot like speeding. People do it, but only within reason and only when they have a good chance of not being caught. This is precisly what the RIAA wants. Free advertising, but nothing so pervasive as to cut into profits.
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I don't remember there being a "U.S. Supreme Court decision against Napster" so if the RIAA's letter really did refrence it, there's some interesting legal points to be analyzed.
More likely this guy just confused that Circuit court that made the Napster ruling with the Supreme Court.
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RumorsDaily
It's important to read The Appeals Court decision on Napster
This decision discusses Napster and contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. A key part:
Sig: My Latest Censorware Essay:What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sorry folks, this is a LONG one...
Well, this was nice. Got home from work to find this lovely message in my Inbox. Yep, you guessed it... the RIAA contacted me because of my li'l old opennap server. Actually, they contacted my ISP instead, and they were "kind" enough to forward it to me...
Well, I do have to give them some credit: at least they didn't summarily axe my connection like so many others did. Anyway, what was I to do? I can NOT afford to lose my DSL at this juncture, considering how I use it for EVERYTHING -- receiving email, hosting my website and several others (and some local nonprofits' websites), online gaming (of course :) ), etc. And I didn't really want to piss off my ISP, since decent connectivity is so hard to come by in this two-horse town. So I swallowed my pride and ran "killall -9 opennap" Sent them a nice "yes, I am ceasing and desisting" email, and got a response. End of story... or so I thought!
(Incidnetally, the phrase "unauthorized distribution of sound recordings" caught my eye... UHH, HELLO PEOPLE??! I was *NVER* actually SHARING any MP3's... my server only acts as a "gathering point" to connect everyone else who wants to trade files. This would be like the police raiding and shutting down an ENTIRE Shopping Mall just because some drug dealers happen to hang out there to ply their wares. DUHHHHHH!!!!)
Anyway, "Time passes..."
The time: Later that afternoon. The place: in my Command Center, ice cold can of Coke(tm) by my side. The activity: reading through my webserver logs. Why? Because I am a nosy bastard and like to know what people are doing on my webserver! :P (actually, I had just tweaked around my CGI's and installed some new ones the other day, and wanted to make sure everything was running happily)
Well, what do we have here? Someone at my ISP is happily reading through ALL of the websites that I host!!!
"Hmmmm... what's this? A deliberate and methodical browse through of my website? Someone trying to look for more infractions by me (not that I have any, my websites are all pretty boring and really poorly crafted...) Or maybe it's just someone who saw my URL in my .sig and was curious?" Well, I had my doubts...
(and, before you ask: yes, this is somebody in the ISP's office, not a random dialup user... A traceroute proves that.)
But later that day, my doubts were erased. There I was, happily cavorting around the new UO 3D betatest server (which ROCKS btw...), when all of a sudden my connection goes straight to hell. "Great, more OSI routing trouble, or maybe the beta server is clogged to capacity..." I think. Wrong, try again. Because then the firewall messages start flying:
Yes, boys and girls, a real honest to god portscan!!! Meanwhile, my bandwidth is going to hell in a handbasket with all the probing I'm getting. No, I am NOT happy about this. But is it the same guy? Hmm...
Yep, same guy.
There's some real nasty stuff going down out there...
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Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
To: Piracy@RIAA.com
...
...
Mr. Whitehead,
The OpenNap efforts of many individuals are not about piracy. OpenNap only
indexes and allows easy searching of content already available online.
Instead of wasting your money going after servers and hosts, you should
target the individuals who host content.
Since the servers do not enable or promote piracy which was not already
available to other clients, they only index content, they do not have to
accept any terms given them by you. Of course there are more individuals
than there are servers, which explains your flawed strategy of attacking
OpenNap servers, because servers are not in violation of any legislation
only the clients sharing your files are.
I must question what RIAA has plans to do as more secure, anonymous,
sub-networks are developed that do not rely on single-host entities that
index content. RIAA is throwing money out the window in efforts to stop the
sharing of information.
Things are changing in today's world. Software is becoming free. Large
corporations are being turned upside down by the availability of that
software. Information is being made free, for all to use, not just the
people that have a big wallet. RIAA cannot accept these changes and RIAA's
business model is flawed in that it cannot deal with such changes. RIAA has
attempted to utilize the court systems to stop such changes in society, but
it will only hinder one aspect of it... that hinderance will lead to
stronger weapons against RIAA.... like Freenet. The massive media attention
RIAA has gotten from these series of bull-shit legal battles has lead to
RIAA's own destruction.
You have kicked the chair out from under you and now the rope has
tightened... it will be over in a few seconds.
-
It looks like 90% of the "legitimate" sound recordings in the United States
are being shared... something music was made for. Ohh my.
If I record the sound of my own fart, will it be "legitimate" ? Probably
not... Why don't you write what you mean, instead of trying to scare people
off by saying they do illegitimate things and attempting to scare them with
legal terms and shit. If you want the people to listen, speak their
language. It is okay to cry sometimes and say "We have a failed business
model, we need to find a better way to make money besides sueing everyone
up-the-butt for excessive amounts of money that will never be paid."
Sorry to say this, but
Get a new job, Mr. Whitehead.
--
Your friendly mentor,
x-empt
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