RIAA to DoS Pirates?

_Chainsaw sent an article running at ZD that talks about the RIAAs latest plan to stop pirates: " We'll smother song swappers " is the quote, but it basically amounts to a Denial of Service. Way to go guys! Brilliant strategy!

Comments

Seems somewhat easy to overcome

[Dimensio]

Doesn't sound like a typical DoS attack. From the article it looks more like the RIAA would have machines set up to look for copyrighted material and make repeated download requests, then download very very slowly to keep servers with connection limits filled up. How hard would it be to require a minimum transfer rate -- that is, for the servers that do not already offer such a setting -- and then code in a setting to allow banning of IPs that engage in suspect behaviour consistently.

The scarier RIAA attempt IMO is their attempt to make themselves exempt from liability if they damage a system while looking for copyright. The wording alone allowing for immunity to any prosecution provided that the break-in was by a copyright holder (in the article) appears so utterly vague as to be used as a carte blanche for anyone to break into a system (Honestly, your honor, I was trying to make sure that they weren't pirating a Star Trek TNG Fanfic that I wrote nine years ago!). What's scarier is the quotes suggesting that not only have they considered it legal in the past, but they have already been engaging in such activity.

So...

[UberOogie]

... in the course of a week, our frinds at the RIAA have advocated cracking systems and DOS attacks?

If this doesn't prove a mentality of being above the laws of "regular people," I have no idea what does.

RIAA - Pursue by any means illegal?

[!Squalus]

Just when did anyone vote for the RIAA?

I wasn't aware that they had dictatorial powers over the Internet. This seems highly illegal, and should be stopped immediately.

I guess it's time to step up and hurt them where it counts. Boycott the music industry.

This is either a) bogus or b) an example of the fascist thinking going on at the RIAA. Somebody really needs to explain the principles of fair use to those people, or maybe we should just stop buying music altogether.

Re:DoS proxy

[knick]

..or even create RIAA Honeypots. Machines that will act like they have all of the hotest songs, and unlimited connections. Bog the RIAA machines down by trying to download 1000's of songs off a Honeypot server, and let the server throttle down the RIAA machine even slower then it's trying to get the songs.

A couple of these could probably eat up the RIAA machine resources. A RIAA tarpit.

--knick

Re:Civil Liberties?

[coats]

It sickens me to see the publishing industry, Congress, the Executive Branch, and the courts ignoring the Constitution's demand that copyright protection must have limited duration.

• From a mathematical point of view, if Congress is free to extend the term of copyright at will, then by definition that copyright term is not "limited".

• From an operational point of view, a copyright term that has been extended so that during my adult entire lifetime, past, present, and future, no work has had nor will have its copyright expire is operationally indistinguishable from an unlimited one (for no experiment I can perform can make the distinction).

• From a human point of view, a copyright term that lasts for multiple human lifetimes is not limited in any meaningful sense.

In the United States, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. I say that the fundamental lawbreakers are the RIAA and their cronies in Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Courts.