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MP3.com Sued for 'viral' Copyright Infringement?
Are We Afraid writes "Apparently the RIAA isn't the only one looking to make money off of MP3.com. They have just been sued by a group of independent artists for, get this, "viral copyright infringement". What does that even mean???" They claim that people who downloaded MP3s from mp3.com contributed them to napster, so MP3.com owes them. It's really bizarre.
mp3.com is going down fast. I'd try to get money out of them too, if I could. I wish the artists the best of luck. The only thing I hope for is an out of court settlement so we don't get a legal precedent on this sort of stupidity.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Nobody listens to them any way.
This is what I like to call "kicking your fellow man" ... why are they not going after Napster which is where the MP3s are being shown? It is not MP3.COM's fault that the end-user shared (sometimes inadvertantly) the MP3 with Napster. I am sick of the RIAA, sick of MP3.com and most of all, I am sick of Napster. Why can't we all just get along?
Anyone with half a brain should comprehend that if you release you music on one site, you can expect it to be posted to some other site.
I guess they should have used SDMI or something, oh wait, that wouldn't work either.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
If people cannot sue gun companies for what people do with guns, then I sincerely believe this lawsuit will be fighting an uphill battle trying to sue mp3.com for what other people did with their downloaded files.
Won't they ever stop ?
This is really disgusting.
Following that logic, shouldn't they be able to also sue the recording industry for releasing their songs on media that allowed, in effect, the same thing (i.e. redistribution via Napster)?
This is like laws that permit gun shops to be sued for selling weapons later used in crimes. Silly. Damn silly. Thank you, DMCA. You've opened up the Bottle of Stupidity and let the genie loose. It's now becoming quite apparent that the only way around this is to scrap every copyright law and develop a new set for today's methods of content distribution.
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
I listen exclusively to mp3.com/Free(dom) music because I can download a copy of the mp3s for my personal use. Screw napster, RIAA & now screw any artist that is bitching about this "infringement" - no artist is good enough to dictate use of bits residing on my drive. If they don't want me to listen to their stuff, I won't. They'll eventually go under & be replaced by the infinite number of musicians which are just as good, ready to take their place, and in it because they love music and are jazzed when someone listens to their stuff, not cuz they want to make a buck.
fuck em.
but it applies equally to the RIAA and non-electronic music distributions. I purchase Britney Spears latest and greatest from Sam Goody's. I rip it onto MP3 and distribute it via LimeWire. Sam Goody's is equally guilty of viral copyright infringement. If you accept this argument (which I don't), you can also trace it back to the RIAA or even through some convuluted logic, the artists themselves.
So, I suppose the next step is for the independent artists to sue themselves for creating music which can be pirated.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
I'm an independent musician on mp3.com, and I want people to download my music and spread it on Napster (well I did, until Napster started to suck. OK, WinMx then.) It's all about exposure. Nobody will hear my music on the radio, mp3.com and Napster et al are my best venues to advertise.
MP3.com made compressed copies of about 900,000 songs, which it placed on its computer servers -- without obtaining the rights to do so.
I wish they gave more details, this makes no sense. mp3.com makes you click-sign an agreement saying that this is all OK.
Back in the glory days, I made a purchase at cheap-cds.com, and the CDs I bought were AUTOMATICALLY made available on my mp3.com account! Unfortunately, I only listened to them about 3 times each at work before mp3.com locked everything up in response to the Universal complaint.
Think about it: mp3.com was everything Napster claimed to be. "I have the right to space shift! I have the right to backup!" Well, mp3.com actually allowed for just those things, with (and admittedly cursory) verification that you actually owned the CD you were listening to. All arranged in neat lists, with high-quality mp3s and decent bandwidth. If, for example, cdnow had the option to charge an extra 50 cents or buck per CD to enable functionality like that, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
A much bigger concern with mp3.com, it seems, and one that's widely ignored, is the way they screw over their own independent artists. They take a big share and charge huge fees for services like "payback for playback," and you have to sign away all kinds of rights to put your stuff up there. But all this about "contributory infringement" (I can only assume that's what they meant by "viral"?) is hogwash. Bring back my online music locker!
Of course, there'll be no money to win from MP3.com's corpse.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
How about major label record contracts that pay artists next to nothing for their hard work and then lock them into indentured service for years, with no way of getting out, and in some cases, can cost you a hell of a lot more than just the rights to your music. Now that's viral.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
This should be interesting.....it'll all boil down to who the judge is and who cluefull/less he is.
Lets recap: the service that mp3.com offered required you to prove that you had the CD. They used their special little app that would then be queried by their servers for a number of random pieces from the CD. If all the pieces lined up, then you 'owned' the CD, and they put it in your locker for you. Even Bruce Scheiner (sic? i can't be bothered to look it up) evaluated their protocol and found it cryptographically secure.
So - You can only get access to the mp3's from mp3.com if you already own (or are at least IN POSESSION of) the CD. Therefore you could rip the mp3's for napster yourself. Getting a streamed version from them gave you nothing - except slowing you down.
But with the typical justice system they'll get reamed........ again..........
"And on a similar note, Arpanet is being sued for inventing the Internet, and creating an atmosphere where piracy can take place."
Lawyers need to be shot.
Same for these dick head so called 'artists'
Sweet! So this means the next time that kid, Timmy, that mows my lawn takes the grass clippings to use in his vegetable garden, I can sue him for millions! Never mind the fact that he has no money, I'm going to be a millionaire! I can hardly wait for the next boy-scout bottle drive!
Now just hope that they win their case and set a precident before someone wakes up and realizes that this is another of the stupidest cases in legal history!!
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
and i'm one of them! bunch of greedy bastards. if there's any industry that would benefit from the total collapse of its infrastructure, it's the music industry. fuck 'em, i swear, all you people out there -- don't feel bad about ripping them off, they're pricks anyway. my band plays 8 times a month, and 90% of the bands are dickwads.
i could live a little longer in this prison
I'm so sick of hearing that word. Information WILL be free, obviously.
What is most amazing is that a judge accepted this case.
... So I own a gun shop, and I get sued couse someone who bought a gun from me kills someone else ? This is really ridicule.
...
Oh, come on
Okey, if they are suing mp3.com on basis that they made copies and put them on its other servers (a stupid complain, in any case), then I can imagine a judge accepting it. But, lemme see if I got this right: they are being sued couse their users posted the musics on Napster ?
But wait, I can see the scenary. Netscape allow users to download its navigator (but not to redistribute it). So, if a use redistribute it, Netscape can sue Netscape for viral copyright infrigement ?
I'm getting dizzy... Or is it simply that our judges are getting more stupid by the second ?
morcego
It's sad to read that this lawsuit is being filed by a representation of over 50 independent artists and labels. Why aren't they fighting the real battle? mp3.com, while not perfect, has paved the path for independent artists to find success on the internet without signing with a large, corrupt record label.
If these artists found their work being passed around Napster, they should be happy, not angry. I bet more people have now heard their names and maybe even some bought an album or went to a live show. If not, well they're probably not very good.
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
The independent musicians released their works to MP3.com in order to increase their own visibility. This is completely different from the RIAA's position of not wanting the music distributed outside their control. The indy artists wanted this external distribution!
Seems like lawyers are looking for a quick settlement. It's cases like this where lawyers drag a net through the mud to drum up business that gives all lawyers a bad name.
After suing mp3.com, it is their patriotic obligation to sue the CD manufacturers for producing the music in a format that was translatable into mp3 format. After that, they must sue themselves as artists, for producing the audio itself that was to be recorded, put in cd format to then be put in mp3 format.
Using their logic, of course.
If you would have been paying attention to the stories you would hvae known that Taco's new Athlon laptop that is running banjo became artificially intelligent after running a demo of the Israeli HAL, and it was so depressed with his crappy MAME Cabinet that it exploited SSH and shut down the database.
i don't understand, wasn't mp3 a huge venue made FOR independent artists, that is, independent artists put their own music up so they could gain exposure?? how can they be sueing mp3.com when they're the ones who've put their own music up??
You shouldnt beable to sue for what someone MAY have done with a product that they got. You can't do it with guns, and you shouldnt beable to do it with MP3's. My guess would be that the vast majority of the people who got the MP3's just downloaded them to their MP3 folder, along with their napster downloads...not knowing that they were being shared. A good deal of these people were probly also on 56k's or less. Meaning that the MP3 didn't go much further then them. In any case, sueing someone for something they [make/sell/give away/etc] because it can be used in a way that is in someone's mind vaguely criminal.
What the hell ever happened to fair-use?
The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
How can they truly demonstrate the MP3.com is responsible for putting these songs up on Napster? Granted, if they did create this "bootleg library" then they're liable for the infringement there, but how can the songs there be linked to the ones that are proliferating "virally"?
I get the feeling that this one will have MP3.com paying a hefty fine over the library they created, but hopefully they can fight off this viral thing, which is pretty absurd. Even if they distributed the songs to people illegally, they didn't force anyone to throw them on Napster, if those versions on Napster even came from them in the first place.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Are they trying to say that if MP3.com ever had a song, all copies of that song on napster are their fault? That's so stupid it's laughable.
I know they're a big company, and you could probably get more money out of them individuals, but I have no idea how they think they're going to prove that the songs were taken from MP3.com vs. any one of the hundreds of thousands of other possibilties.
I know this is flame bait, but you do realize that the "artist" had to allow mp3.com to post their music. So the MP3 creators in this instance are usually the artist themselves.
I'm really not surprised that this is happening, and noone else should be, either. It's just the logical extension of the same sort of attitude that results in lawsuits against tobacco companies for the illnesses suffered by chronic smokers, or attempts to sue gun manufacturers for crimes committed with their products.
From now on, if you do something that leads to someone else doing something wrong, you can probably expect to be sued.
Shoot the lawyers. More skin on HBO. LH Puttgrass signing off and heading for the tub.
Seriously. I hope this gets laughed out of court, if not by the judge, the jury come verdict/damage assessment time.
While we're at it, why doesn't somebody sue MCI Worldcom, Sprint, and any other backbone provider for upkeeping the Internet which allows file sharing to occur in the first place?
This kind of litigation is ridiculous. It's merely an attempt to bleed more money out a dying company, and any judge with half a brain would realize the absolute dangerous precedence this would set. Anyone who merely touches a certain technology could be sued if the tech was used for copyright infraction. "Oh, those CDR manufacturers should be sued, since they're making discs that carry pirated material. They're accessories to infringement."
Once again, I say puuhleeeze. This whole attack on "piracy" is doing nothing but making the recording industry look bad. It pushes people to find better ways to circumvent the process and causes others to completely boycott legitimate music purchases all together.
Industry, find someway to make the customer happy without ramming lawsuits and unethical CD mods down our throats. Customers, support reasonable attempts at legitimate digital music, but let your voice be heard when abuse of the law and standards occurs. Until then, a lot of good people will lose out.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
If cities can sue handgun makers for the costs associated with innercity crime, I suppose this is a valid suit. I'm still waiting for them to sue kitchen knife makers, then charity hospitals for makeing bad people. It's obvious that those people have no other use than murder and mayhem and the cost to us is astounding. Give me all your money. Barf.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...allow me to blatantly plug my own free music
...I'm gonna kick the crap out of them. Sheer stupidity.
C'mon everybody, let's get sue happy. Let's sue the people who created the MP3 rippers so you can rip MP3's from CD's or WAV files that you bought. Hell let's just go ahead and sue Tower Records for selling these CD's that we were able to rip. Naw fsck it, let's just sue the Record labels that created these CD's to sell to Tower to sell to us that we ripped and put on Napster.
(then the circle will be complete)"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Hey, while the Tobacco litigations involved sheep that had no will power and wanted others to pay for their mistakes (often even when they were told or could have read that it was bad for them), I think that end users that had any accounts banned or otherwise suffered any physical or emotional trauma from using MP3's should jump on this bandwagon too! Yeeeeeehaaaaa! Make money the new way... steal it legally!
It's because they released some mp3's under the GPL.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
I know! Lets all sue the media for viral dissemination of sites know to distrubute MP3's of artists music. Since it is quite obivous that if the media had not spent so much time publicizing mp3.com and napster, then less people would hear about it less "damages" of course would have been done
Napster never would have gotten so many users and so much publicity if it had not been created to allow the free distribution of copyrighted material.
...
I know some people argue that "free" music was also exchanged, but this has no or little sense as it could just as well be distributed on a website.
Many websites probably have contributed to mp3's distibuted on the internet. In case this goes through, it would be interesting to see who else goes down the drain.
However, given the difficulty of catching Napster as they pushed the trial further and further away, I would be very surprised if this one got a happier ending
Get a clue what you're talking about, dumbass. This is all about the my.mp3.com crap.
They should sue themselves for making the freaking music. Jeez, don't they know if it can be played it can be recorded.
Since 2600.com is being sued over linking to DeCSS, this tactic is not unexpected. After a few appeals court rules against this sort of non-snese, things may settle down.
Fight Spammers!
I'm a copyright infringment virus. Run me and I'll send copies of all your MP3's to everyone in your address book.
Because mp3's are often "ripped" (crazy hacker lingo for copyright infringement) from CD's made by the corporations represented by the RIAA. The RIAA has decided to sue the RIAA for not protecting their albums, and letting Joe Schmoe distribute them on "internet" "hacker" "sites" like "Napster". Really, these guys have got to be joking.
I've found this odd, since the most popular artists generally do care about their customers. I've read accounts of artists raising hell when a concert was late (Britney Spears can be a foul-mouthed little demon, apparently) and there are plenty of examples of artists who are dedicated to the quality of their work.
Courtney Love (from Hole, also Kurt Kobain's wife) wrote a rather juvenile (in tone, the reasoning was relatively sound) piece on Napster. It had the distinction of being the only one I had found by an artist, and I had read dozens of articles on the subject. I understand that many people would prefer to just do their job and stay out of politics, but for people in the top of their field the economics are different. I suspect the reason for the silence is that many artists don't have a firm grasp of the consequences of inaction.
This is my theory. It is mine, and it goes like this: the brontosaurus is small at the front...
It sucks that entites like the RIAA and now this class-action lunacy always go after the so-called "enablers". The fact is that the law-suits themselves would not be lucrative if they went after actual bone-fide music pirates (god I hate that word). The fscked up part is that when they stop one "enabler" a dozen others pop up in place.
The only way to stop this madness is for the record companies to make a harsh example of anyone they catch pirating music. This would (at least partially) dissuade music pirates from continuing to trade files. I think the reason we don't see this kind of action is that it is not lucrative for the lawyers involved. In order to make a law suit viable, they must: a) target a single entity instead of an unidentifiable group, and b) that target must have lots of money to fork over in a settlement.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
so, does this make any mp3 generating software liable for "viral" infringment? abcde is about as viras as Madona's pap smear. how about more comercial offerings? how about my trusty tape recorder?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
www.copyright.net (who filed the actual suit) is running IIS 4. Heh heh heh.
o py right.net
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.c
Why not actually do something. There are enough people on here to organize a decent movement of some sort. Boycott, write letters, start websites hell send an mp3 to everyone you know, whatever. Just do something. The longer we sit back and just bitch the closer we come to being complete corporate tools.
I myself plan on writing senators and congressman/woman whatever, in my state. It's a small step but its something. I also don't plan on purchasing music in general until this shit is solved. I'll make do with what I have. If everyone else did this and wrote to the RIAA saying why they refuse to purchase the shit they keep trying to feed us, they might finally realize that it's not Napster and its not mp3's its 2 things 1) Most music on major labels today is horrible and 2) that bad business practices will screw you in the long run. We are the consumer , we pay them, we vote for the people passing these idiotic laws and it's about time we reminded them that we call the shots not them
AC because I can't remember my log on etc.. at the moment.
Shouldn't they just be suing Roxio et al. for "allowing" you to (rip CDs and then) distribute copyrighted material on napster? Maybe they should sue ISPs for giving you access to napster in the first place; ISPs are a convenient scapegoat too.
As an indy artist, the p4p thing was going pretty well until they lost the first suit, then it was all down the hopper. Ampcast rocks.
Some people took compact discs and converted them to MP3's, then posted them to the internet. Therefore, the recording companies owe the artists for every MP3 posted on the internet!
I really don't like this trend of everyone and their dog suing MP3.com. I, and many of my friends, depend on MP3.com as a means of distribution for our music. I've also found it a wonderful place to find new music. I don't even go into record stores any more, simply because I appreciate being able to listen to the music I want to buy before I buy it. Even if people just click and download songs to try them out, we get paid.
I'm not going to be rich because of it, but for at least one friend of mine's band (The Brobdingnagian Bards: http://mp3.com/thebards), it's a really good step on the way to being able to make music for a living.
For all its flaws, it's a great service both to music fans and to musicians. I hope that a few bad apples won't ruin it for the rest of us.
Converting from cd to mp3 is legal. Aparently sharing is not legal.. but selling them is.. but then again selling them and then distributing makes the people that converted it and sold it legally be at fault. And therefore sueing them will solve the problem?...
I still like how the RIAA can't just come out and start to sue the american public for distributing music. Better yet, criminally charge 1/2 the population of america and make them serve 5 years in jail each.. that way we can get out of this recession by slave labor in the jails to compete with oversea markets.
Another funny thing?.. who the hell is the riaa to sue anyone anyways?.. what jurisdiction does an organization have to say that they represent a majority of the music industry?.. why not have sony and metallica single handedly sue all mp3 dealing junkies on the net.
The argument goes like this: MP3.com made compressed copies of about 900,000 songs, which it placed on its computer servers -- without obtaining the rights to do so.
Whaaaat?
Don't artists upload files to the service themselves?
Or are they trying to kick MP3.com in the groin for the same thing the RIAA already did? IANALOAA(or an American) but don't you have laws against being tried for the same "crime" twice?
this is just a bunch of no-name artists bitter about how much a successful artist with a real contract makes. luckily in the u.s there's always a way to come into some large amount of money without really working for it or deserving it! napster, mp3.com and the like have probably exposed their music to more people than they could have ever dreamed off, yet more is somehow owed to them?! i'm for mp3.com on this one... 'spend your money quick before everyone rapes you for it!'.
that allow such a stupid law suit to be filed ?
In more civilized countries any judge would laugh at an atempt to suit a 4th party for copyright infringiment.
Some ppl pointed in other comments about ppl suing weapons manufacturers or kitchen knife maker, etc. because their products were used in crimes... for god's sake, anyone can commit a crime with BARE HANDS... who the victim will sue in this case ? G_d ? Or a random religious institution as "G_d's representans on Earth".
Please, ppl. before posting comments on how these kind of suits are outrageous, press your congressmen to reform US's judicial system. The amount of stupid suits like this in US is ridiculous.
What ? Me, worry ?
At least they aren't suing:
* Intel/AMD for providing chips that enable computers to function. Thus making Internet piracy possible.
* U Illinois for creating a means of accessing web sites where said info can be traded (watch out Berners-Lee!)
* The US government for funding the creation of the internet, which has enabled piracy to run rampant.
* My parents. For obviously not teaching me right from wrong.
I'm so sick of law suits I can't even tell if I was kidding....
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
Why? Because I was playing some MP3's that I downloaded from Napster in my car with the windows rolled down as I was driving down the street = unauthorized public performance. Honda should be ashamed. of themselves for robbing hard working artists this way.
RIAA will soon insist that car manufactures locked windows in the upright positions when music is being played unless it comes from a royalty-paying souce.
On a side note...this is why you NEVER EVER settle a case out of court. MP3.Com settled and has been taking up the ass ever since (insert obligatory goatse reference). The newest game in the music industry is to flaggelate the expired equinine. Napster is still fighting. And really, if they do lose, could they possibly any worse off than MP3.Com?
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
You want the answer? Neil Stephenson knows. The only thing to be gained from such a lawsuit is a majority share (read: control) of the company. MP3.com screwed up, and now a consortium of independent artists are going to step up and try to do it better. This makes perfect sense. The RIAA is going to end up owning Napster, so the Indies need a way into the market, too.
main(){char I,l,O[]={'-',1-1,0,(1<<5)-1,0+'-',-10-1,-10,11-0,
MP3.com purchased all of the CDs containing those 900,000 songs. Why shouldn't they have right to compress them and put then in a database (that is what they were sued for in the inital lawsuit, not distributing the music afterwards)? That seems like fair use to me (but not judge Rakoff, I guess). Once you pay for the music, why shouldn't you be able to shift it to another format so that you can use it more easily? Forget for a second about what they wanted to use it for - they got in trouble for the shifting, not for the intended use. The previous ruling would indicate that the shifting would have gotten them in trouble regardless of the intended use.
That created a vast bootleg library, from which MP3.com subscribers could download songs.
What they fail to mention is that users were only allowed to download songs on CDs that they owned. You had to run MP3.com's "beam-it" software on your PC and insert each CD that you wanted to be able to use with their service before you could download any music from that CD. Nothing here was "bootlegged".
The judge in the previous case ruled that the service was not legal, but I still think it should be. Everybody involved had paid for a copy of the music that they came in contact with and my.mp3.com only served to increase the value of owning a CD (I used it all the time because I could listen to my 150+ CDs from anywhere and it encouraged me to buy more CDs).
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Think about it.
You must guarantee that, of all the people you encounter in a day, you do not kill, assault, steal from, or kill 100% of them. You must also guarantee that of everything you say, 100% of it is neither slander nor libel, nor someone else's work.
If you are a previous offender of any of these instances, the government assumes that you *can't* assume this by yourself, and you need to convince them that you can to get them off yoru back
...of all of the artists that are involved. I can't accept that people are that stupid. I want to meet with these so called artists and dissect their brains to find the moron lobe! How can an independant artist try to kill the closest thing they will ever have to major worldwide distribution without the stranglehold of a major label? These people should be singled out and made an example of. I am so enraged by this and I can't fathom anyone viewing this case as legitimate. Can we sue Apple for putting CD/RWs in their iBooks that can be used to make cd's of the music that came in the iTunes audio sampler?
Sound waves should be free!
Rightie, and when will they start to sue the major labels?
After all, it was them who gave me my CD, so that I could MP3 encode it and send it to my friends.
No one in Africa could be reached for comment.
Man... this is this total rubbish. It's probably been mentioned, but I don't know they can tell where individual files came from without fingerprinting. If you can't tell who created the individual files without a doubt, there should be no case. In this case, it seems all theya are saying that MP3 encoded so many files that SOME of them must be made by MP3. That's like suing Kinkos and saying "there are so many pirated novels out there, SOME of them must be your fault."
Another thing, doesn't this show ignorance of the situation. MP3.com never put downloadable copies of work in their service, just streamable copies. For this claim to be true, someone would have to record the stream with some outside software. If that's the case, who is the *Real* culprit?
This case seems like a shot in the dark, but it just might work. When it comes to tech these days, I think judges have become irrational. The courts have proven that huge companies can put stars in the judges eyes and make them follow blindly. Judges aren't listening to outside experts, professors (legal and otherwise), or consumer advocates, they are only listening to big corps.
In a rational world, this wouldn't even go to trial, but if they go and succeed, we'll know this: the corporations have the ability to interpret the law in any way they care to. That's sad...
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
Haven't we learned to expect this? Aside from the fact thay theyre beating a dead horse..... A new lawsuit filed against MP3.com seeks to hold the San Diego music-locker service liable not only for songs it improperly copied and distributed, but also for every bootleg track exchanged through Napster and other underground file-swapping services. Okay, heres what this is saying. The recording industry doesnt care about finding the root of the problem or who really put these mp3s out there, as long as we can get some money and make someone look like the bad guy.
Here's another good one. Dunno if this writer is as stupid as the stuff he writes... . It contends that MP3.com's technology set the stage for widespread music piracy, enabling bootlegged songs to pass from computer to computer faster than you can say ``Oops, I Did It Again.'' Okay, if im not mistaken, file sharing was around before the my mp3 thing? I was already using napster by then......so is this the record companies speaking or the writer? Like i said just placing blame...
So from this story we can gather that all the record companies want is either to A)to place blame B)to take any competition down, and to force independant artists to sign with them or C)make money ........... oh wait.....is it D)all of the above?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&o
...especially when you compare the percentage of money and rights they give to their artists to what the RIAA typically gives its artists.
;)
And for a lot of us, it's a great way to supplement our income from gigs and real album sales.
The $19.95 "Premium Artist" service done right is actually ludicrously easy to break even with. I have yet to have a month where I even came close to going negative, and my only form of advertising is a link at the bottom of my slashdot sig!
Also, just because you put songs up on MP3.com doesn't mean you have to put ALL of them up there. In fact, not doing so is a great way to draw listeners into buying your CD's and attending your gigs.
So I don't think MP3.com is ripping me or anyone else off. I think the people who complain about such things are the people who tend to complain about everything -- the ultra-paranoid who think EVERYONE is out to rip them off.
Or agents of the RIAA. (hehehe...just kidding)
1. The make you put the cd in your computer before you could listen to the songs
2. You could only 'stream' the music files once they were on your list.
granted, someone did come out with software to capture the streams, but then those files would have to be renamed and tagged. In reality, it's the cd rippers that that contibuted to napster files.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
A lot of people are using the analogy of suing a gun shop for a crime committed with a gun, and saying that it's wrong. And, if that is wrong, then so is this lawsuit. The thing that everyone is forgetting is that guns are used by loyal patriots to defend their rights, at least according to their multi-billion dollar lobby, and MP3s are used by even hackers bent on stealing every single piece of intellectual property on the planet and bankrupting honest Americans, according to the multi-billion dollar music industry's lobby. Why do you think that the fact that the mp3/gun analogy is perfectly valid is going to matter? It won't.
Like,
Woe
Today is a good day to die. They all are, though.
You can only get access to the mp3's from mp3.com if you already own (or are at least IN POSESSION of) the CD.
You pointed out a subtle distinction: possession != owning. Yes, the cliche goes "possession counts as nine-tenths of the law," but the other one-tenth comes from contracts. For example, I often borrow CDs from a public library, but they come with a contract that I must return them after 21 days or pay late fees. I certainly do not own them under first sale and most likely may not keep backups in my possession.
Will I retire or break 10K?
After all, they keep putting out music that can easily be ripped and placed on Napster *constantly*, and they're pretty scum-like too...
This sounds a bit like the Napster case. Napster wasn't really responsible for what was being distributed on their service, but the RIAA couldn't sue EVERYBODY who was using it, so they just went after Napster itself.
This is basicly what these independant artists are doing; blaming Mp3.com for these mp3s appearing all over the net, claiming that they "own" them. Since when has been illegal to rip music files and encode them into an mp3? The real criminals here are the people who put them on Napster. Pardon the lame analogy, but its like suing a gun manafacturer for producing a gun that might have eventually ended up in the hands of a criminal, who in turn would use the gun to kill somebody.
So,
If I put "bad" ideas into people's heads, can I get sued? Wouldn't that fall under free speach then?
Bah.
Are lawyers from from EMI?
I'd like to know who you are _really_ talking about.
Maybe there's a chance I could sue MP3.com for allowing me to listen to copyrighted music that was crap??
Had they not made it freely available for my feeble fingers to click on, my ears wouldn't have been subjected to such abuse.
I still suffer mental trauma from accidently listening to Britney Spears!
[Steve]
No one asked me to sign, verbally agree to or otherwise enter into a legal obligation with anyone the lasst time i plunked down 20 bucks for a cd. Librarys are a different story.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
To everyone with half a brain, it's quite clear that this is all about the my.mp3 shit.
That's it. This Internet thing has gotten out of hand. We need to sue Al Gore for enabling all of this MP3 pirating in the first place with his viral Internet.
The only reason that the RIAA is so arrogant is they they have power. Their power, however, comes from us, i.e., from the money they make when we, the public buy their products. They use this power to lord it over us and help enact their fascist laws.
There is only one way to cut them to size and reclaim our liberties. We must hit them where it hurts the most, their pocket book. We must refuse to buy their products. Download it all and copy it all! Then make copies for your friends and neighbors. Let's see them put an entire population in jail.
so, wait, by buying the cd, i am now able do rip the tracks into mp3 format, and distribute them on napster...
does this make anybody who sells cds guilty of "viral copyright infringement"? what about people who sell/distribute cd rippers?
frankly, any competant lawer should point this out, and i doubt the case will actually be won by the recording artists...
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
fuck you cocksucking pieceof shit your mother was a 1 cent crack whore with herpes, AIDS, gonnorhea, and syphilis. You are the scum of the universe. suck my dick.
Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!
Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!!
Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!!!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!!!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!!!!!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!!!!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is weirdly similar to legal arguments about the validity of the GPL.
the validity of the GPL depends on the fact that each person who receives a piece of GPLed code after the second one enters into the same relationship with the licensor as the first person who receives the code (see section 6 of the GPL) -- they can only distribute the code further if they follow the terms of the licence themselves, and by their distribution of it, they in fact signal their compliance with the licence.
in this way, each person who circulates GPLed software is held responsible by the licence, even though they weren't part of the original transaction between the person who GPLed the software and its first recipient (this relationship is called 'privity').
so: the RIAA must be preparing to argue that music, like software, is licenced, not bought outright, and that existing licences hold the distributors of music online in places like Napster to the same terms as the people who first bought the CD.
to turn around and argue that this isn't so -- that we own our music -- could be potentially damaging to arguments about the validity of mass public licences like the GPL. there are some judges who have dismissed the legality of mass licences, arguing that yes, you do own your software ... but if that's true, then the person who buys it isn't subject to the terms of the licence.
this could be very bad indeed, and will be a big legal mess no matter what happens.
----- Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas. --Army of Darkness
so, does this make any mp3 generating software liable for "viral" infringment?
No, but if you don't turn on the "ogg" option in abcde, you commit patent infringement. In the United States of America and several other countries, inventors can patent algorithms by patenting any device running the algorithm, and Fraunhofer owns patents on MP3 in several jurisdictions.
My game freepuzzlearena contains some "viral infringement" of its own, as it includes a clone of the patented game "Dr. Mario" whose object is to remove viruses from a bottle.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This is the exact same BS theory that leads ppl to sue colt for making the gun the someone else used as a murder wepon. Its crap by extension this kinda legal president would make everyone responsible for how there products are used. I think these "artits" while they are at it should sue intel and amd since the made the chips used to power the computers which make the mp3 downloads possible. Hell then we can go after the steel company that sold the metal used by the gun manufaturer to make the gun out of. Yea welcome the new world of infinte culpability!
dad, that's not funny.
...it's digital so it must be bad! The news told me so!
Learn the truth about slashdot censorship here!
230000th post!!!!
Read it and weep!!!
HA HA!!!
I know some people do actually use hammers for building things. But we must realize that for every thousand hammers sold, hundreds of thumbs are smashed, and thousands of tree are killed.
Many hardware stores have sold the hammers used to crush these thumbs. How much pain and misery must be allowed before we do something. By banning the sale of hammers at hardware stores, we can build a better future for our chuildren.
People who need hammers can apply for a license and request the government use it for them. Surely this would create jobs and keep us safe at the same time.
We must all come together to get our Government to pass a law outlawing crime. That way we can all be safe.
F-cking morons... More people die from SUGAR or CARS than tobacco, liquor, guns, drugs and knives put together. You want to ban or control or regulate one substance, music or otherwise, you can't rationally be opposed to banning them all.
Learn the truth about slashdot censorship here!
Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.
Linux' cost consists not only of the frequent updates, which require new cdrom's to be bought if you don't have a high speed Internet connection.
Another factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
The upcoming 'solution' to this, EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
MP3.com was ruled to be liable for #1 and #2. Now it's time for #3.
This article gave me an interesting idea.
Now, according the article, mp3.com encoded 900,000 songs to mp3 without having the authorization to do so. So what's the worst that can happen to the company and the people behind it for doing this? The company goes bankrupt under law suits, and the people, well nothing happens to them because they are immune to what their company does, right?
So, why don't more people set up companies as fronts for piracy? There's already lots of people out there pirating in a big way, why not just set up a company as a firewall to yourself? You still get done what you wanted, but you don't have to take the fall for any of it.
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
mp3.com is being sued because their serice COULD have been used to help distribute files over napster?
unless they have any way to trace files traded on napster back to mp3.com how do they expect to win?
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
Why don't you do us all a favor, and instead of wasting your time posting BS stories like these, make sure /. is up and running and maybe alittle bit stable. However, at this point the "New" /. sucks big time! Ever think about changing over to a real OS rather than Linux? Either that, or test what you do before putting it into production. And I hear you guys complain all the time about Windows reliability and stability. Hey! Look in a mirror guys. You aren't any better so shut up! you're just mad because MS can make a TON more money than you will ever see in your lives.
/. Sucks, I am starting to agree more and more.
To the guy that keeps posting Linux Sucks ans
Thank you,
-1 Troll (AKA: Anonymous Coward)
Intellectual property is an oxymoron.
the music industry for producing the music being encoded into MP3s without their license. They should definitely go for per track damages.
I'm about to email that guy and give him some radio time.
Stuff that in your "Artists are stupid" crackpipe and smoke it.
Where is the parent of the post above? Have the censors erased it?
READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE (this part not in caps to get through the lameness filter)
Outside of being just plain bizarre, mp3.com could use a few legal tricks. For example, they could say the full set of mp3.com users is completely disjoint from the full set of napster users (meaning if someone is a mp3.com user, they're not a napster user and vice versa).
Failing that, they could point out that because you have to own a CD before you can download the corresponding mp3s from mp3.com, why would a someone who uses Napster even bother to buy the CD just to get the mp3 from mp3.com, when all along they could just get the mp3 from Napster, regardless of whether they own the CD.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Um, as I recall mp3.com did *not* let you directly download songs, only let you listen to streamed versions of them. While you can just have winamp write out the stream to a file, there is still a significant difference being overlooked here.
Any non-authorized streaming is then liable (or perhaps the winamp mp3writer function). Seems to me this argument could as easily be applied to all the webcasting stations anywhere.
I think there is a fundamental flaw in that mp3.com streams != napsterfodder.
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Apparently MP3.com is being sued by a company called Copyright.net. Here's another way that this company has dealt with supposed copyright infringment. This was lifted straight from the other article; flame me if you want for my unoriginality.
"Copyright.net has been known to embrace unorthodox methods to protect the rights of its songwriters and publishers. Privacy advocates criticized one initiative earlier this year to crack down on online infringement.
Copyright.net developed software that crawls through popular file-sharing services such as Napster, sniffing for unauthorized copies of songs whose rights it represents, including Roy Orbison's ``Pretty Woman.'' It then notifies the user's Internet service provider to terminate its online connection until the infringed work is removed."
I've noticed that ever since I downloaded those MP3's my eyes have been a little bloodshot. I've had a naging cough and a runny nose. Lately I've developed a rash on my ass....it's hard to read in the mirror, but I swear it reads, "I give you this rash to ask for your advice."
I think I have the MP3 Virus.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
...and the lawers are the only ones that win!
"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam"
the sheer buggy magnificence of 2.2 slashcode scares my grandmother.
This is a common legal strategy. It's no different that it's a .com that's being sued (because it really isn't. It's Vivendi Universal). The won't set any prescident here because Vivendi Universal's team of flesh-eating lawyers will chew them up and spit them out. This won't be setteled. It will go to court, and it will get thrown out.
You can't blame the artists. They're just doing what their lawyers advised them to do and sueing the nearest deep pocket they can find; after all, what kind of settlement could they get from Napster. It's already been bled dry in legal fees (almost).
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I'm sure this has been said before, but do the independent artists not realize that you can turn off the option that lets others download your songs?
Frankly, I want people to download my songs. I thought that was the entire reason behind mp3.com.
Thatll learn me to read the article better.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Hmmm does this post violate the DMCA?
Learn the truth about slashdot censorship here!
Please refrain from using vulgar language on this message board.
Thank you in advance!!!
the recording artists should probably sue themselves. by allowing their music to be recorded by studios and distributed by record labels, they created a vast library of easily swappable material that can be resold or copied without the original artists' consent and without any royalties going to the artists.
this vast repository of recorded music must come to an end, before people find ways to exploit it!
and don't get me started on radios.
fine, i understand that it was easier to swap mp3.com's songs than some other media, and mp3s have a higher quality than most other media, but even Elastic Man would feel odd trying to stretch this far.
"Mister Potato-head --MISTER POTATO-HEAD! Backdoors are not secrets!" (War Games, 1983)
It ain't braggin' if it's true.
While we're at it, let's go after the car companies. After all, there's no way they can deny that every drunk driver needs to have a car to drive while intoxicated. I think it's a reasonable assumption that Ford knows the drunks need vehicles.
all the people that have tried to sue them... for wasting time. We need to focus on building rocket ships so we can get our forsaken populas off this rock!
You can laugh without eating a sandwhich, but you can do both if bring one.
Learn the truth about slashdot censorship here!
FUCK OFF, BITCH!
you idiot
Me, I'm an imposter. The pap smear, with out viruses, comes from the film, "Slackers". A truly ispired exchange has a couple of the characters debating the worth of a small glass container with "Madona's pap smear" in it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Lunix si grate! Dumbshoes like yuo are to sillycakes to no why!!!11!!1!
YUO = DUMBSHOES
that would mean that property is not intelligent.
314-15-9265
gone, gone are the days of artists who saw MP3 distribution as good promotion. oh well.
...for two reasons.
a) for creating a being so stupid;
b) for creating a world where it's so easy to infringe other people's copyright;
I propose to target christian god - chrisitanity is the most widespread religion (and it's representative are the most annoying where i live) - it's gotta be the true one. So let's get court order for catholic church to contact god and if he fails to appear in court sue the church for above things (as they're his representatives here) plus breach of contract.
personally, i think it's possibly a new, inventive style of troll - post something that looks like a reply, with a controversial subject line.
quite a novel approach...
Al Gore for inventing the internet in the first place.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Should be easy enough to prove. No two encoders produce exactly the same output, even before you look at things like bit rate. Even with the same encoder, the internal tags and the filename would not be chosen the same. If an infringing copy downloaded via Napster matches bit-for-bit with the copy in mp3.com's vast library then it most likely originated from mp3.com.
Conversely, if the copy from napster isn't a perfect match then it almost certainly didn't originate from mp3.com.
'Course, if they file in California, they might win even without proving genunine matches. Those California judges are weird that way.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Actually they should sue Xing for creating AudioCatalyst.
All AudioCatalyst does is rip CD's into WAV's or MP3's (love that normalization feature though)
he likes sucking dicks
But, who was responsible for the first format conversion? It was the record company who turned the sound waves to a digital format. They're just as guilty.
You want a compromise? How about this... we hang the RIAA execs, and then I take my bow and arrow, and shoot them free before the suffocate? (BTW, when my arrow hits the exec instead of the rope, I'll just claim it was an accident!)
Free unix account: freeshell.org
You do not need to be so rude in expressing your opinions. We can all read them and it would make a much more pleasant experience to not have read your vulgarities. Are you not aware of exactly how ignorant your constant swearing makes you sound. You people wonder why no one listens to your opinions... Well, maybe if you were able to form a sentence without attempting to use every cuss word you know, people would listen to you.
Hey.. sue the German government again. They are the ones that came up with audio tape and started the road to this mess. We get 'em for gold and everything else... why wouldn't this work?
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
In a case where one party is removed from the offensive act intent becomes needed to prove liability. If you act in good faith in your business dealings well no problem. If a lawyer can prove that Mp3.com had knowledge of the likelyhood of the crime taking place then yes that would be trouble. No way this case is a winner without substantial corporate documentation. Bottomline: Musicians - 0, Mp3.com - 0, lawyers - $250,000.00.
Well, if RIAA hadn't released the music on CD, then the music could not have been ripped to MP3s. Therefore, the artists should sue RIAA for causing this "viral" type of piracy!
I'll be sending my consultation bill to the artists. (IANAL, but I'll bill them anyway.)
That's so hilarious, it reminds me of the time i shat in the bathtub.
``The complaint is hopelessly redundant, argumentative and has much irrelevancy and inflammatory material.''
sulli
RTFJ.
So if I listen your music like nonstop for a month, do you make uber-amounts of cash?
So really the question is: What would make you more money?
One guy-> A hundred streams
OR
10 guys-> 10 streams each?
Record companies provide music via the popular CD format. These digitally encoded music files can easily be 'ripped' to a computer hard drive, facilitating the illegal sharing of copyrighted materials across computer networks.
Of course, CDs were widespread long before internet access, and most judges probably own a CD player, and are thus familiar with the format. But most judges (and politicians) have shown themselves to be clueless about the internet. And most have probably never played an MP3.
So we have law suits like this.
Steve M
here's the deal, all ppl take notice pls:
mp3.com is not to blame because joe and/or jill q. user decided to go and share their licensed copies of mp3's on napster.
this goes along the lines of guns don't kill people, people kill people. I see it as a rather obvious fact in day-to-day life, but it seems that in the lawsuit happy world we live in today that people leave common sense at the door.
very foolish if you ask me, and a total waste of resources.
Really, CD's get their music ripped into MP3 format all the time... the recording companies should sue the music stores too.
BlackNova Traders
A bunch of 14 and 15-year-olds get all their CDs, rip them, and upload them to every free fileservice they can find, post the URLs all over the web, along with their email addresses, names, phone numbers, and home addresses, and wait for the lawyers. Then the lawyers can waste thousands of dollars trying to sue kids for giving away their music. :)
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Hi! How are you? I send you this MP3 in order to have your listening. See you later. Thanks.
On a related note: everyone sued for carrying patented genesequences. (Can you tell I'm depressed?)
If there is hope, it lies in the trolls.
That they are trying to prove that MP3.com is responsible for the actions of their users when their users are not using their service ?
Does this mean mcdonalds can get sued if i eat burger king and get sick as i normally eat mcd's ?
It seems to me that once the user has verified their right to download from MP3.com (their security as has already been said, appears unbreakable) then Mp3.com hands over any legal responsobility for copyright violation to the user - which of course poses a problem to the companies as you cant sue everyone (as much as the RIAA would like too)
I havent seen one artist named yet and i wonder how much of this is one clever lawyer getting artists to buy into this suit on a basis of 'i might get you some money' ? would be interesting to find out if he is getting paud upfront or working on a percentage of money he can get ?
Also wouldnt an independant artist want as much exposure as they can get ? you would think napster would be good news for the struggling guys, you know word of mouth etc etc.
The problme is that the music industry has been hijacked by the likes of Copyright.net who go out and actively seek out violation (how many people actually download Roy Orbison MP3's anyway ? he's been dead over 10 years - wouldnt eminem have more of a problem) which sounds to me like a desperate attempt to screw every last cent out of their copyright property - most of the artists theyt seem to represent are dead or unknown.
Check out their site at www.copyright.net - is it a coincidence that after being involved in lawsuits against P2P services they have one of their own (PeerGenius) - seems to me like someone is making a lot of money off of this issue (and it isnt Mp3.com !)
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
Go-o-lly! Vicarious copyright infringment. Whut'll they thing of next?
Not flamebait. Who the hell is moderating today, anyway, Grandma's knitting club?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I really don't like this trend of everyone and their dog suing MP3.com. I, and many of my friends, depend on MP3.com as a means of distribution for our music.
You might consider contacting MP3.com and offerring to be a witness for them in the lawsuit. Hopefully this will just get thrown out, but if not, they may need all the witnesses they can get. :-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Anyone who links to software which allows you to copy music files is breaking the law.
Anyone who wrote software that allows you to copy music in another country where its legal is also breaking the law
This discussion is probably illegal because it mentions copying music
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I think that's a brilliant (though devious) idea. Everyone has mp3 files, as opposed to PowerPoint files (10's of Mb) or whatever. But then, why send MP3's when you can send random .jpg's from their hard drive? True, the bandwidth would be less but the damage would be much greater. I bet at least a dozen rich and important people would have to retreat from public life because of what was revealed...
Freedom: "I won't!"
I would like to sue the RIAA, the MPAA, the owners of the website Copyright.net, the writers of and voters for the DMCA, as well as the 52 "independent songwriters and music publishers" for "viral" stupidity.
Each of these groups in their own special ways have contributed to the widely-assumed fallacy that all of their efforts are to protect the world from eye-patched, peg-legged, rum-swilling pirates (let's face it, the masses think of visions of Blackbeard at a keyboard when the term piracy is used in conjunction with computers).
Instead, the RIAA sued to become the only legal group to be allowed to steal vast sums of money from musicians. Microsoft only dreams of such power. The MPAA sued to make sure that they weren't forced to expand their potential DVD market to include Linux users (after all, VHS killed the movie theaters so they need to keep on top of these things). Copyright.net's suit will be charged to their advertising budget. The DMCA suits are to make sure that the horrible IBM cloning nightmare never happens again (boy did THAT hurt the industry!). And those independent songwriters and music publishers sued to make sure that they had a plan to fall back on in case the rest of the world never realizes how truly brilliant their musical indeavors are.
For obvious reasons I'm claiming a massive amount of damage has been done to what was left of my beliefs that the justice system works, instead of the justice system "Will Work For Bribe Money". They have taken a corporation-sized DUMP on my First Amendment Rights as a US citizen, and used the laws of foreign countries to wipe their asses as they prosecute individuals from around the world for letting their Tools of Mass Copyright Infringement to flow through THEIR (big business') Internet.
I am seeking their collective disbandment as my compensatory damages to make sure they don't ever attempt shit like this again, and for punitive damages I want their leaders' gene pool drained. It may not keep these things from happening again, but it sure goes a long way towards that dream.
Signed,
John Q. Citizen
EOT
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
(It's not hard to imagine a couple of suits paying off some independent artists to file this suit. They're now set for life; what do they care?)
hot grits?
In related news the independent artists are looking into suing the RIAA for copyright infringement.
One spokesperson of the artists had this to say: "It has come to our attention that people have bought CD:s and contributed them to napster. Obviously the RIAA owes us money for this distribution."
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
It could be argued (and successfully i think) that Napster and services like this have actually contributed to the sales of albums and development of artists.
As evidence look at Eminem - due to his lyrical content the amount of airplay he could and did get was limited - Top40 tends to stay as far away from controversial subjects as possible - yet the eminem album Marshall Mathers quickly rose to be a best seller ? why ?
I posit that the availabilty of the tracks on napster and other file sharing systems help break him as an artist and build his popularity - look at the demographics or his audience - they range mainly in the 14-25 group - co-incidentally the major user base for napster users - the songs were readily available on naspter befoe the artist made it big and were heavily downloaded (based on the huge number of hits a search on his name would return).
Without napster would this artist have had the worldwide success he has ? His lyrics contain mysonginist, racist and viloent overtones so redio play would have been limited in many countries (in Aust it is very very limited except for Stan) who have less liberal views, yet his albums sell, the marketing for the artist started after he became popular - after people were downloading his songs.
And this is not isolated - How many people would have heard of bands like Sigur Ros if it werent for napster, how much success worldwide would 2nd teir artists like Lil Romeo have ? Groove Armada ? etc etc.
Face it RIAA - MP3 has helped you sell albums - it can i think be succesfully argued that in the range of artists on the market, the number of record companies etc that the music industry is at it's most buoyant point in the last 50 years ?
And where would these independant labels be without Napster, MP3.com etc - by being able to get outside the record company dominated retail chains they have been able to cut sosts and use 'viral' marketing to build artist presence and sales.
Something stinks here i suspect - does the term biting the hand that feeds you mean anything to these guys ?
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
Here's the deal, folks: record stores have permission to sell CD's. They bought them from record stores. Once you buy the CD, you have permission to listen to it.
If you read the article, you'll notice MP3.com archived 900k songs WITHOUT obtaining permission. This is why they're being sued. Not because they're like a record store, nor because they're like a gun store, but because they're like the guys who drive around in white vans selling speakers out the back.
BTW, this just goes to show that you don't really care about artists in the first place, you just want free (as in beer) music.
For the record, I was big user of the service before it was stopped. I had roughly 175 albums (my own albums) in my library, my workplace had a nice, fat pipeline to the net (ahhh...research universities), and I played those things all day.
However, they (being mp3.com) streamedthose tracks. If you actually tried downloading the damn things (and I tried) you would get a voice telling you that this file was no longer available and that you should re-load your playlist...
So, the only way I can see this insipid idea of "viral copyright infringement" actually having merit is if someone was streaming the sonds through Real Player Pro and recording the stream. I can't imagine that would be a really good rip because, even with the big fat pipeline at my workplace, I was still running up against net congestion ("Porn Alley" was the problem...).
This is a silly lawsuit...
Firearms, automobile and, hell, just about anyone who manufactures anything is screwed.
In a similar case, the RIAA is citing viral copyright infringement in their suit against all musicians, saying the recording of songs by musicians leads to them being illegally distributed.
By releasing any music at all, they're just opening the opportunity for pirates, thus is the root of all copyright infringements.
The problem with this theory is the assumption that a person has bought the CD and this is the CD being used. What's stopping you from borrowing a friend's CD and popping it in, thus unlocking the CD forever for you when you never paid for it? Or borrowing it from the library? Or even buying it, popping it in, then returning it to the store?
There are many ways to defeat the system, and that becomes a problem to the indies, who need those sales to continue production of their discs. Even if others don't want to support them, that's no reason for people to stomp on their rights.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
This is really sad. I think the artists need to be upset with the RIAA. Get some balls and stand up to them. Stop picking on the little guys.
2) If the mp3's are legal to download for free from MP3.com then is it really aganist the law to share something that is readily and legally already available for free?
3) If it isn't legal to share those files then I believe the test for a lawsuit is this: Would a reasonable person think that this is against the law? I would suggest that a reasonable person who downloads an mp3 file legally and freely from MP3.com would reasonably expect that he could share that file.
Its no surprise. Listen to the crap that this "artist" tries to pass of as music. Very simple because it was made by a simple mind.
No wonder the indies on mp3.com never become famous.
http://www.counter-strike.net
From now on, I will not listen to rock music on the radio. I have not bought a CD, or downloaded an mp3 the last year or so. From now on, only live performances, or talk radio will benefit from my listening.
Since I hardly ever go to concerts, that means the guys who play on street corners and the subway will receive $.25 or so every time they play something I find worthy of listening to.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
it's no more the tobacco company's fault than it is mp3.com's. (of course, it's easy to pick on tobacco companies -- cancer merchants!) they both provide a viable service/product that people want/use. what happens to you or your property isn't the responsibility of the purveyor. the fact that so many lawsuits use this logic is fucking absurd. you're no more forced to buy a pack of smokes than you are to use mp3.com's service. if you do, and something bad happens, especially something as painfully obvious as cancer or the fact that once a file is put up for public distribution, it's gonna be everywhere. if you're aware of neither of these and stumble into said product unaware of the risks, well, you're an uninformed dolt; and ignorance really shouldn't be grounds for a lawsuit.
if that's the case, i'm gonna call my lawyer -- how was *I* supposed to know my thumb would hurt like hell after playing PS2 for 5 hours straight?
Don't forget God. Without him, none of this would be possible. He created man, who created the Internet, who created MP3.com and Napster which facilitated all this piracy.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
There was a study done, and it shows that as people age, their IQ goes down. I'm sure that this applies to our judges as well. Check it out at http://www.tiu.edu/psychologyx/PSY340Spring2001.ht m and scroll down to ED21.
That's wrong. The independent artists have to agree to allow electronic distribution before they can upload their material.
What's probably going on here is that some lunatic wants to have a vegitarian cookoff with the CEO of Vivendi.
Yeah, that's about the right level of insanity.
This is absolutely rediculous
Well, all of these rediculous lawsuits will eventually come to a head
-P
It's about time really.
After all, once any music is in digital form it's essentially pirated. 'Pirated' means criminal.
So, it's time we went after Tower Records. And Virgin. And HMV. After all, they sell music and the next stop is digital encoding - and ending up on a criminal enterprise like Napster. It's about time we put our foot down.
We need to protect the artist by shutting down music distribution wherever we find it!
--
Alastair
The only way to get rid of these frivolous lawsuits is to institute a loser pays system.
Write your congresscritter and let them know you have had enough of this.
I frequently get entangled in debates about copy write. One thing I've noticed is that Britney Spears is used 90% of the time as an example. Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with this. She's hot.
Last year, I wrote to the Australasian Performing Rights Association and explained that I, as an internet user, from time to time download the odd sound file. I also don't spend too much time investigating the copyright conditions of everything I encounter.
With all this in mind it occurred to me that my activities could be depriving artists of their rightly earned royalties. I asked for a new licencing category specifically for the end user. I explained that for a small annual fee, I would feel much better knowing that I could use any content I found on the internet without breaching anyone else's rights, and that I wanted that responsiblity to end with me.
All I recieved as a response was information that APRA was creating a new licence they were going to foist onto website owners (presumably they could only force this onto Australian sites).
Since fair use laws have been watered down to the effect that they virtually down't exist anymore, I felt it was important to mention to the powers that be that I still want access to copyrighted works available in the public domain without having to bend over for it.
Get the Hell off my planet, you slimy mobster Bush!
He started all this when he invented the Internet.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
"Independent publishers and record labels sue the entire computer industry"
:-)
In an unprecedented turn of events, a large group of record labels and publishers decided to sue the computer industry for producing technology which enables digital information to be duplicated, some of which they claim, may be unauthorized copyrighted works. "We believe that digital technology is unfairly disrupting our market," commented the owner of a large publishing house who wished to remain anonymous, "once you digitize information, it is volatile and can be recreated, transferred, stored or destroyed at little or no cost." The group aims to sue the industry for over $658 trillion dollars in compensation for all the free, unprinted information consumers have gained access to over the last 30 years using digital technologies such as diskettes, CD-ROM and the Internet. "Computer technology is a monster," proclaimed the director of a well known publisher's association, "we are aiming to educate the public through this lawsuit what a scourge digital information is on our free market economy." "In fact, using computers is like downloading communism into your home," he later quoted at a press conference, "what we really want is full control of the technology so that royalties can be fairly extracted." Among others who are expected to join the lawsuit are a group of smelly hippies who came out of the woodwork carrying cardboard signs to join the protest against computer technology. "Dude.. technology is like fighting mother nature," said one of their leaders, "all we want is peace and harmony with the earth." The group said it wishes to sue for psychological distress caused by playing digitized music while using illicit drugs. "Digital is so unnatural, man," one protester told reporters, "my trips get like totally funky unless I have the smooth, warm tones of vacuum tubes and records to set my vibe." Analysts say that if this suit fails, the respective groups may turn to patents to stave off further use of digital technologies. "We're working to dig up an old patent covering 'the use of binary mathematics in conjunction with an electrical device,'" quoted a prominent intellectual property lawyer, "it's sorta what they call a 'submarine patent,' but we believe it is perfectly valid and somehow just got misfiled."
(yes, this post is entirely fake and satirical.
A lie and a logical fallacy do not make a rational arguement. Please do try again, though.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
It seems to me that this is like charging a gun store owner with murder after someone who bought a gun at the aforementioned store killed someone with it.....
the one thing about this is that I havent seen game companies suing stuff. I mean they even have a terms of use that you have to click in order to install. cds you just pop in and press play. enough of this riaa and on with the game companies suing. the real problem with this is the DMCA, heh if that never existed would we have all this wasted money on lawyers. I still think we would cause we are only human and humans are stupid so we would find something to sue or cause a big ruckuss. Warning this message was not previewed so Fsck off.
Would you sue Barnes and Noble if I bought a CD there, ripped it, and shared it?
Would you sue a music hall if I bootlegged a performance there?
Insane.
-twb
All I have to say about all of this sueing Napster, and all of these mp3 sites, is this is just bull. Leave it alone. These sites are sending you're music around, advertising you're bands, all for free! All business's say, "Word of mouth, is the best form of advertising" Because people are more plausable to believe their friends and family as apposed to some ad somewhere. So you're getting free advertising, and publicity. So quit trying to just get some money, and negative publicity. Just go and get a life.
The files in mp3.com are for free download. The users could just go get them there. So who gives a fuck about yet another "grandma spilled coffee over herself and sued McDonalds for a kazillion bucks, and won"...! There is no definitely no case here.
What next, will a shop that sold a pencil which is later used to commit a murder be responsible for that murder? Get real!
We have here a proverb that goes something like "don't bite the feeding hand". Mp3.com is a good way to get your band known and start getting some money. Although you could have lost something like 10$ because of copying to Napster etc, that's just plain stupid.. Smash mp3.com and then you have no income, no one gets to know you, .. Sigh.
If somebody violates GPL, is it a "viral" copyright infringement?
¦ ©® ±
Sooner or later, the Supreme Court is going to have to rule in favor of freedom of speech. The congress has eroded our freedom of speech to much, and ironically, we are watching our kids being turned into criminals for trading music and movies? WTF? I wonder what will happen when the law starts being enforced wholesale and those nice men and women in black jumpsuits with FBI on the back start kicking in our doors and dragging our MP3 playing kids off at the request of intellectual squatters?
Don't go off on some "Copyright infringement is stealing" tangent either. If anything, intellectual squatters like the members of RIAA are stealing my right to say what I want, write what I want, and use products I buy. I venture that if this keeps up, copyright, as a concept and as a plurality will go away.My teenage daughter is not a criminal and in reality hurts no one when she downloads an MP3 -- especially given she buys CDs like they are going out of style!
-- $G
If the RIAA can sue mp3.com for what people do with the music after they have downloaded it, they can sue every single store selling CD's.
I mean, where are all the mp3's coming from to start off with if not CD's?
I think that the RIAA has realized that they've lost the fight against mp3's. They are just trying to make as much money as they can right now.
As I understand the MP3.com distribution license, it frees them from the things people do after downloading files, and gives artists the right to remove tracks at will. Furthermore, MP3.com has a feature where a track can be streamed, but not downloaded (not that it doesn't mean someone will have it on their hard drive as a file after streaming it, but at least it's there to keep the little guy straight.) Unless the plaintiffs removed their tracks when they saw the potential of a viral infestation, it's complete crap. $20 says at least one of the tracks listed in the suit is still available for download, so MP3.com can point out that clearly it isn't such a problem if they're still available. I wouldn't sweat it, Michael.
Trev
www.trev.com
The amazing thing about this story is not its practical implications; there are none for the moment, and everything that's left for the future is just out-of-court settlements and rubbish publicity. The amazing thing here is the use of the word 'viral'; it means that everyone out there (the entire industry that's concerned with the protection of copyright as well, that is) has been paying extreme close attention to what Billy Gates said about the GPL just a month ago. (and distorted this distorting worldview completely in the process); Billy Gates is HOT in their eyes and there's nothing that intelligent media have done to correct this. Seriously; 'viral' ?!..
Wouldn't it make sense for the artists to sue themselves for releasing the music in the first place, and thereby allowing other people to make copies of it?
The artists should be filing lawsuits against the people who wrote and recorded their music. If that hadn't happened, MP3.com couldn't have made the artist's music freely available and others couldn't have exploited them on napster.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
I think the RIAA is at fault for recording and selling music. After all, if they didn't record it, it would never have made it to MP3.com, never been downloaded, and never been posted to Napster.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
This sounds like another example of "you have money and i want money, so im going to sue you for it."
I think I'll sue the entire automotive industry because, once a car leaves the dealership and hits the roads, it could potentially be used in any number of crimes and that rasies prices...
Stupdity in action.
RA7
-
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
Caus frankly, I don't believe mp3.com nearly has the amount of popularity of other mp3 search engines out there, and the company certainly isn't very rich (last i checked, their stock was running around 4 or 5 dollars a share - MPPP on the ticker)
Bah, greedy corporations and bloodsucking lawyers. It's sad they can get away with this crap.
Magius_AR
Did anyone consider that they are trying to set a specific precident that will eventually lead to the criminalization of OSS?
They should also sue the ISP, the phone company, and the manufacturers of the dial up modem or cable modem/dsl equipment.
Be sure to sue the people with money. It's a waste of your money to sue poor people.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!