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RIAA Looks To Stop KaZaA, Morpheus & Grokster
John Hampton writes: "The RIAA is going to try to sue KaZaZ, Morpheus and Grokster, according to this story. Internal memos from within the RIAA outline the record label's findings and strategy going ahead. Great story. Hilary Rosen begging executives to talk about the issue and the RIAA issuing the lamest statement ever. From DotcomScoop.com."
The artical says that Grokster, one of the P2P that might be sued by the RIAA, is based in the carribien iland of Nevis (or something like this). Offhand I would say that its based there primarly to avoid law suits of this nature. Any one have any info on how Grokster could be sued if they are not under U.S law?
Oh yah, FP
Sleep is for the weak!
If find it very hard to believe that this organization was allowed to exist. It functions autonomously using other people's money, but claims to do everything "on other's behalves."
SIG: HUP
Kazaa/Morpheus/Grokster JUST broke functionality with giFT by causing the client to HAVE to contact a main server before it will participate in the network. This move makes this new network easily vulnerable to a shutdown since it relies on a few entry points. If they had left it alone the floating network would continue to float, but not now. Oh well.
"I know you want your new businesses to be successful. So do I. Given the overwhelming volume of these alternative services, RIAA can't handle all of the enforcement alone. If they are not controlled more effectively and consumers redirected to legitimate offerings, there won't be new businesses. That's obvious," Rosen continued.
What the RIAA and other big industry orgs fail to understand is that it's not about directing users to "legitimate offerings", it's about not being a dinosaur in a fast paced industry. They are struggling to maintain old ways of distributing music and they don't understand that they have been replaced by a new distribution model. The record industry used to exist because some band, say "Vibrating Sandbox", didn't have the resources to publish and distribute nationally. Duh. Today, ANYBODY can send their music around the world.
I find it so amusing that the RIAA claims it hopes for the success of other music related businesses, then talks about handing enforcement. Enforcement!? RIAA: You are a conduit for music, not the source! Enforcement is up to the artists. If "Vibrating Sandbox" doesn't want its music distributed on *ster, then that's their problem.
The thing with organizations like the RIAA and the MPAA is they don't know when to quit. They need to learn a new way to make money that works with the modern world, or just go away all together.
Of course, not to mention that these "illegitimate" file/music sharing services actually give listeners access to a wide variety of flavors. Try finding the same obscure, yet decent material on an RIAA services as you would find on Napster. It's a shame how something so big, greedy, and ancient can have so much control over the methods of medium they contributed absolutely nothing to.
Why bother.
Let's take a quote from the giFT page:
Can you say "Ooops?"
Free Mac Mini
Filetrading will return to something like BBS only online and via TCP/IP.
I predict people will end up using BBS software over ssh and downloading using zmodem. (as some ppl are doing already)
I'd like to see the RIAA have ssh banned.
The sooner these goons realise that they cannot stop whats happening the better for them and for everyone else. Their business model is obsolete because copyright has outlived its usefulness to society in many areas.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
In a way, they're acting no different from the record companies in trying to stop an alternate method of distribution (of sorts).
It's ironic (did I use the word correctly?) that this protective action has openned them up to lawsuits from the record industry.
The problem is the general trend. Each lawsuit that the RIAA wins strengthens their future lawsuits because they now have case history. I don't know if you read the articles, but when they pointed out the legal misdoings of KaZaA, the legal arguments they cited were all taken from the Napster case.
When KazaA is taken down, there will be even more legal precedence to take these networks down. Strictly speaking, the ability to share files is not and should not be illegal. The users who share copyrighted files are the ones breaking the law.
Rather than trying to screw us out of our fair use rights (backups, ripping, etc), the RIAA and related companies should work on hitting the individual users guilty of infringment. Once a bunch of people get fined for stealing, it won't be so prevalent.
Instead, they are trying to take out the technology that makes stealing possible. This may work in the long run, but does nothing to help the end user. If you think all of your customers are theives, then you should probably be in another business.
Captain_Frisk
Since filesharing networks like KaZaA are technically illegal in most respects, I hardly think this is surprising.
If I claimed that the internet was technically illegal because you could use it to distribute copyrighted music or child porn, you'd think I was an idiot.
And yet you've bought in completely to the "sending files from one computer to another is morally wrong" claim, just under a different name. And all of the implicit assumptions that could justify that claim, "A tool is evil if it can be used to do evil things", "The RIAA owns everything that can be encoded as a sound file", did they manage to convince you of those too?
While you're laughing at the idiocy of the RIAA, does it occur that they're chuckling away to themselves as well? They're not losing money right now, and they see a way to make even more money in the future by demonstrating that we're all thieves.
They don't have to win these suits. Actually, they want to lose them (in court, or de facto as the users switch to a new service) as this just demonstrates how ineffectual individual litigation is. Then they just buy more laws that effect everyone. We will be presumed guilty, and taxed on that basis.
The RIAA will buy laws that let them tax your ISP for carrying copyrighted data. They will have a tax placed on blank media and will then extend it to all hardware. They will buy laws that let them view all of your data traffic, and have your ports blocked or your service throttled or cut off. If they feel like having a show trial to try out their new laws, they will have you thrown in jail for longer than a murderer or a rapist, along with the sysadmins of ISPs and sites, including .govs and .edus, that refuse or fail to comply with their laws. They will control what hardware you can buy, and what operating systems and applications you can run on it. They will control what software you are allowed to write yourself, or to run on your own system. They will control who you can discuss software with.
If you think the RIAA is losing by making it clear how impossible it is to stop or monitor file sharing under the current model of the internet, then I urge you to have a think about how many of the extreme measures that I describe above already exists in the USA or other democracies, and I ask you who you honestly believe will still be laughing in ten years time.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
how do you propose artists make a living in this new world order?
Musicians have been making a living for thousands of years without the RIAA. Today, there are more professional musicians out there who DON'T have recording contracts with the RIAA than DO. Only a select few have the "advantage" of getting an RIAA-sponsored recording contract, and even fewer benefit from it, aside from the promotion that comes with it.
Non-american musicians make livings without the benefit of RIAA. Plus, other types of "Artists" (actors, painters, etc.) make livings without the benefit of the RIAA.
Without the RIAA, there will still be musicians. Musicians will still make money. Without RIAA, choices will increase, and quality will rise. Do not worry yourself about the plight of the "Artist" in a world without the RIAA--worry about the "Artist" in a world where their only option is the RIAA.
"... we have to get our customers back ..."
More like *drag* their customers back, kicking and screaming the whole way. Hello, maybe you should ask yourself why you've lost your customers in the first place?
I am NOT paying $17 for a copy of Eve6's CD.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Please name the countries where copyright infringement is legal (as opposed to illegal but unenforced due to how widespread it is like in most parts of Asia).
Afghanistan. Hell, anything's legal there (except women feeding their families). But I am CERTAIN they don't care if you make a copy of an N*Sync CD.
That was my point about selling a million copies. Artists that go multi-platinum do fairly well while those that don't end up with a few good memories and sometimes in debt. This gamble is still preferable to making no money which is what the P2P services would eventually lead to given enough time.
Other replies to your original post already address this and do it better than I can, so read theirs.
This is very amusing. Why would anyone pay to download a song when they can get it for free on Morpheus, Gnutella, KaaZaa or Grokster?
You're not very observant are you? Look at the real world. Why would anyone buy a CD when they can get it for free on blah blah blah. People STILL buy music in a day and age where music can be got for free. It's reality. It will still be reality.
Wasn't there a recent Slashdot story about They Might Be Giants and how they were pissed at Napster because they had created an online presence only for Napster to render it all irrelvant?
It's not the consumers fault that they jumped on the bandwagon after someone else did. It's call competition. Sometimes other people get to ideas before you do.
BOTTOM LINE: For artists to make money from online music, free music services must disappear.
What a flaming crock of horse shit. You basically deny the existence of companies like RedHat that sell free software! That's right, they sell software that is given away for free everywhere else. The difference is, when you buy it, you get trimmings like actual CD's, manuals, and so forth. This model is very simple, works, seems pretty damn honest, and makes money. It could be very easily applied to the music industry.
Ugh, we need less of corporate bottom feeders like you.
Why bother.
I keep telling myself that, but either the RIAA are really dumb, or really clever. It's comforting to think that it's the former, but I fear that's egotism speaking.
And the DMCA wasn't dumb. It was risible, it might be struck down yet, but it's on the books, and it's hurting real people right now. It's easy for you and I to laugh at it, but I expect the people currently defending themselves against it might not agree. It's hard to get your head round it, but try and remember that DMCA isn't some theoretical bill. It actually exists. Once our legislators let that one through, they signalled that it was open season.
So now we have a proposed bill on mandatory copy control in hardware, with an intimation that OS's that bypass it will be illegal. OK, it's unpopular, it will probably be defeated, but we said that about the DMCA as well. And if it fails, there will be another one next year, and the year after that, until one much like it passes. Then we have to fight it on every point up to the supremes, and then they can just buy another bill.
The one thing that I have no doubt on is that internet traffic will be taxed. Germany and Australia already tax blank media on the basis that it's used overwhelmingly to copy protected material. The same argument applies to residential broadband connections. It's only a matter of time.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Copyright is an 'agreement' - its a fiction. Intellectual property is not 'stuff'. IP is to property as FoolsGold is to Gold.
When the 'mass' accepts the idea that they would rather reclaim their right to copy music, when they realize that it no longer acceptable for them because the other party isnt providing them the benefits to outweigh their detriment, this *DEAL* ceases to exist.
So, instead of addressing the issue at hand: Copyright is no longer an acceptable situation to the citizens who empower the concept. They have ended their compliance to this fiction and are distributing and manufacturing (mail && cp respectively) copies of the music.
We can either
Accept that the RIAA/MPAA will whore our plutocratic government into making law that will protect their asses ($$$). The world has rendered their former function (publish, promote, manufacture, distribute) unnecessary, so they seek an artificial control on technology, personal freedom and the Capitalist Free-Market.
Reduce, Change, Rethink or Abolish copyright altogether.
I vote the latter.
People who refuse to buy DVDs, CDs and VHS and ONLY dload the works of Artists are practicing Civil Disobedience - this is justified, reasonable and unquestionably within the realm of honesty, I also ACTIVELY encourage others to do the same.
I am a citizen of a Democracy, I disagree with the law, as do most citizens, if we all disagree with the law... it should be changed... unless of course we dont live in a Democracy any longer... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm makes you wonder dosnt it. My new favorite word is:
plutocracy (pl-tkr-s) n.
Government by the wealthy.
A wealthy class that controls a government.
A government or state in which the wealthy rule.
The reason buying a recording of a performance was worth money was because average folks couldn't make high-quality recordings easily. But that's no longer the case. I can make a recording of a song in my bedroom now that has the same quality as most studio recordings, and distribute it on CD's or MP3's for next to nothing.
It's not about the copying. It's about the product. The product has lost its value, yet they still charge the same price.
It's like what would happen if we changed from highly-controlled currency to "maple leaves" as currency. Eventually, the value of a "leaf" drops through the floor.
And as for the artists, there is a glut of highly talented performers and songwriters in the world, not a scarcity. That's why it's so hard to "break into" the industry.
So don't blame the handful of people who violate the SR copyrights. Their actions are merely a reflection of an efficient free market. There is a glut of talent and high-quality recording is now available to the masses. The value of the product has dropped, while the cost has stayed high. The result of this in an efficient market is that either fewer people will buy the product, or if demand has not waned, large numbers of people will resort to means of obtaining it at substantially less than it's worth.
The solution for the record companies is very simple. Charge less for CD's. Substantively less. I'm talking about $5-$6 per album, maximum.
What's that you say? You mean, people can't make a profit when the price is so low?
Of course they can't. And that's the point he was making. The technology has eliminated the industry.