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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."
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 They are struggling to maintain old ways of distributing music and they don't understand that they have been replaced by a new distribution model.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?"
The RIAA will pay many lobbyists to lobby (pay) for votes in Congress. Congress will then pass a declaration of war against the country of Nevis for IP crime. (Congress will however use the word piracy a lot, leading most newscasts to use stock footage of pirates looting ships on the open seas.)
Thousands of troops will be sent storming into Nevis from the air and seas, and after a 15 minute battle, the Island of Nevis will be no more. Grokster will be shut down.
For more information on Nevis, visit CIA Factbook on Nevis or your local library.
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.