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EFF To Defend Music Swapping Service MusicCity
MattW writes "Yahoo is carrying the CNET story that EFF has come to the defense of MusicCity, which produces peer-to-peer software, but does not run central servers as Napster did. EFF has a whitepaper on the Sony Betamax case, and it discusses the implications of various court decisions during the Napster case and their effect on it as a precedent. A MusicCity lawyer, who was responsible for the successful defense of the Rio, is quoted, astutely observing: 'This case shows more clearly (than Napster) that what the plaintiffs are most concerned about is control of technology. This is all about whether they can leverage copyrights into control over software development.' And that's truly what the RIAA's interest in Napster was about: not money, but control."
Isn't the crusade to embed handicaps to file sharing of any kind into the OS more than enough evidence that control is the issue?
Make no mistake, control==money.
They do not want control, they want money.
They need control.
That being said, the software is not at fault. The RIAA may argue that it's an enabling the behaviour, but this bad behaviour can, and does occur through other means. There are entire mailing lists devoted to the trading of copyrighted materials via the USPS. This does not mean that the USPS should be outlawed.
Everybody should write your governmental representatives now, preferably with checks enclosed, to make sure that morpheus and the alike are not wrongly persecuted and prosecuted for behaviour that's beyond the author's control.
I'm not sure how much of a difference this is going to make. The EFF is great and all, but, frankly, they don't have much of a presence in Washington. Not compared to the MPAA, RIAA, and friends.
Still, Napster had one legal target; Peer to peer services have many. How are they going to stop these services? Especially open source ones? Seems to me that even if they "ban" or limit a given service, the legal ramifications are unlikely to extend to forks anyway. Change some comments and, violla! A new port!
The fact that there is no clear person responsible for the content of the services except the users themselves makes it difficult, as I said. They can't prosecute eighty thousand or more individuals. It's impossible.
------
http://cooltech.org
If it ain't cool, it ain't coolt
"This case is about the freedom of technologists to innovate and the public's right to communicate," said Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney for the EFF.
:)
This sounds chillingly like what Bill Gates said a few days ago...
Al.
as a muscian, the only thing i worry about is not getting credit for my music. if people want to share it, go right ahead. if i happen to make some money as an after effect....right on. im just happy that there is someone with some clout speaking out about the fact that it really is control over technology. this sort of thing has to be nipped in the ass now before more legal precedents (ie dmca) are established.
"Alot of people don't know what they are doing...and most are pretty good at it." -George Carlin
I'm not sure why the "shell" company is the target of the suit. Wouldn't it be more productive to attack FastTrack directly? After all, they're the company selling the real technology. I suppose the American company is easier go after.
From a legal standpoint, if a piece of software is composed of many different components from different vendors, who do you hold accountable if they collectively create an "illegal" whole? Would Netscape or MS be held responsible if someone wrote a FastTrack plugin for their browser?
Is considerably at variance with the EFF's description of themselves. I'd say the EFF is closer to the truth. They represent all of us not just a minority that can be Reasonably And inconsequentially Discriminated against.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
That's the problem with this....RIAA is actually correct. MusicCity, by serving up ads, is profiting from the piracy of content.
What we need is someone to drum up some Morpheus-like software, and to release it as open source sans-ads. Then RIAA cannot argue their "they're making money off our copyrighted works" and will have little hope of winning on those grounds.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Keep in mind that a lot of small bands wouldn't be making much money anyway and that several small bands that I've spoken with praise song swapping as a way to distribute their stuff so that someday they can become a "big band" and then they can rest comfortably knowning that since they're brining in revenue the RIAA will protect them by making sure listners sign a form and pay a service fee everytime they listen to one of their new releases.
It's the college radio philosophy, and yes, it does work.
ôó
if MusicCity had a different name like FileShareCountry. Their name says that they are in the business of sharing music and thus making illegal file sharing a likely part of their software business. It would be better if they were about the general business of sharing files.
It's worth remembering in all of this that the US constitution grants congress a limited power to enact copyright law. Any such law must be design for the promotion of "science and the useful arts". The constitution does not grant congress any power of any kind to use copyright law to defend the profitability of corporations, or guarantee them that their business models will remain unchanged by technology.
So, ask yourselves, does file sharing -- the exchange of information on a scale far exceeding anything we have seen in human history -- promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
Does de facto control by coporations of the technology which makes this exchange possible promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
'Illegal' files can be got via HTTP or FTP.. You can find lists of them on webpages, most likely created with MS front page and viewed on Internet Explorer.. I think its time we really got tough on piracy and threw the whole Redmond lot in jail!
air and light and time and space
Gnutella, although it's horribly inefficient, is just what you mentioned: Morpheus-like software that uses no central indexing server that can be shut down. The protocol is freely available and many open source clients exist.
The RIAA's approach to Gnutella thus far has been actively discovering copyright offenders and sending DMCA complaints to their ISP. The problem with Gnutella is that by design, everyone knows your IP.
What we really need, is a distributed storage network such as FreeNet. If I share my songs, the don't come from my computer - various parts of them are propagated to Bill's computer in Texas, Alice's computer in Canada, and Charlie's computer in Norway.. The RIAA is already having nightmares about this technology maturing. If software like this can become as efficient as Morpheus currently is, the RIAA's only hope would be SSSCA-type legislation that bans software such as FreeNet.
in over three months, Ive been getting bootleg concerts from alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.bootlegs, on the same note, I havent purchased a CD from a retail store in over a year, instead I look for used ones at pawnshops.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Let's see, first it was ftp server hiden in machines at work or college, they conviced companies and colleges to shut them down. then came napster, they sued and won. napster is no more.
Now the target is Music City. The may eventually win this too, and they can even win some kind of legal stuff to force ISP to filter Gnutella trafic...
But there's more thing in the oven. Cult Of Dead Cow, the same group tha gave us BackOrifice, is developing what they call "project X" that will be ablle to do peer-to-peer file sharing despite censorwares installed in the midle...
And if RIAA wins over "project X" too ??? smart hackers (in the good sense) will come with aven another tool to share files.
RIAA is just trying to atract free publicity to the copyright issue, because technically speaking, it's a lost war for them, and I think they know this.
What ? Me, worry ?
Why hasn't Morpheus been used to distribute new Linux distributions. The last time that Mandrake and Red Hat were release, I looked on Morpheus and could not find the current release... I had to fight along with everyone else to get to a ftp server that would let me download.
Once I downloaded the ISOs, I put it in my files directory for Morpheus, but didn't notice anyone downloading it...
It could speed up the downloads (and require less bandwidth from their servers) if Redhat/Mandrake would put the files out on Morpheus to get shared.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
and then Kazaa, Morpheus and MusicCity instantly become irrelevant. FastTrack is a small company in it for the money. The record companies could make them happy probably for less money then they would spend in legal fees suing the other companies.
FastTrack will probably announce its new, "rights-protecting" software at about the same time that the record company-sponsored download sites become available, so its large customer base will be in the lurch and vulnerable to being picked up by the record companies.
EFF should save its resources for defending file-sharing based on Open Source software.
It is true that photocopiers are often used to illegally duplicate copyrighted material, but I have yet to hear of any court or government agency outlawing their use. Is this situation really that different?
Yup: giFT. The compatibility with the FastTrack network was broken with a change in the encryption algorithms used by the client.
FastTrack is now entirely susceptible to an attack on the central servers.
Correction:
If a boy band plays and no one hears, does it still suck?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
maybe they'll let the rapists and armed robbers out to make room for the copyright infringers and pot smokers.
oh, wait... they already do that...
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Is it fair use if you lend your friend the CD? Is it fair use if people come to your house and listen to the recording?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I guarantee you that the RIAA and MPAA would like to have noncommercial defined as "you receive nothing of value."
Unfortunately, though Chapter 10 defines many of its terms, it doesn't define "noncommercial." If anyone knows of somewhere else withing the Copyright Act or any other portion of the USC, let me know.
IANAL, but I can read.
Timelapse recording is legal in my book. Swapping movies over the net wouldn't be happening THAT much if the crap they shove at us would be worth seeing in a theatre... I go see movies about every week or 2, so I am a customer, and that gives me the right to complain as well, there will always be pirates, you will never get rid of them, but Movie swapping over the net wouldn't be happening that much if the DVDs would be set at a reasonable price and the movies themselves WORTH SEEING ON A BIGGER SCREEN. I won't repeat What I said in a previous similar post again but for god's sake, put up some better content to protect in the first place!
RIAA, I won't even talk about them, I don't wanna reduce de lifespan of my $9.75 keyboard for that subject :).
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I think their name has a lot to do with the fact that they're based in Nashville(Music City),TN
So is MusicCity Records, which puts copy-protection on new releases such as a certain Charley Pride CD.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I could very easily argue that the tape I make for my friend is for nonprofit educational purposes (namely, to introduce my friend to a musical group or style of music that they were formerly unfamiliar with). This arguement becomes even easier if it's a mix tape.
I could also argue that it is a personal backup which I have loaned to my friend.
Anyway, here is an excellent resource if you're interested in the specifics.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
People just want the music, not to take credit for it. Digitally watermarking is the perfect application for this type of thing. Even if it is possible to mangle or remove the watermark with a lot of effort, there would be no point.
In a sense MusicCity has just written a "browser" to contain the FastTrack "plugin". So why are they the ones that are accountable?
The essential difference between the Mozilla browser and the IE "browser" on the one hand and MusicCity's Morpheus "browser" on the other is that Mozilla and IE are primarily designed and marketed for legitimate purposes such as reading and posting to OSDN Slashdot, OSDN Freshmeat, and ex-OSDN Kuro5hin, and for viewing content with legitimate plugins such as Macromedia's SWF player, whereas MusicCity's browser cannot work with anything other than the FastTrack plugin.
Will I retire or break 10K?
this sounds like a lot of what mojonation implements.
Remember that RIAA threatened Felten over the potential publication of his proof that all of the watermarking schemes proposed for SDMI could be scrubbed out of a file and not degrade quality any more than the watermark did. Watermarking has NOT been proven to really work- it's a nice idea, but so far, the practice thereof has not panned out like people thought it would.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If the artist sold a five million copies or so, they'd almost be able to recoup their costs. Wow. This is a great idea, and must be implemented immediately!
Last I heard, it does have a central server; although not in the same sense that Napster did.
m l
Check here:http://gift.sourceforge.net/press_9_29_01.ht
And as an interesting (and, yes, off-topic) aside: one summer when I was around 12 or 13, my parents sublet the apartment next to his on 7th avenue in Manhattan. This was long before the "We're Not Gonna Take It" song -- more like when they were still paying dues in clubs and wearing their high heels and thick lipstick.
Anyway, two observations about Dee Snider: (1) he was one of the nicest, coolest people a 13 year old could possibly hope to meet and (2) he had the biggest damn stereo system I'd ever seen in my 13 years.
I mentioned that the apartment my parents sublet was next to his? Well, my bed was on the other side of the wall where his stereo was. That stereo put out enough base to shake my titties and whip the snot from my nose even when I was fast asleep -- which was seldom, since the stereo was almost always on, shaking and whipping me into sleep-deprived obvlion.
But Dee's all around coolness more than made up for the noise (which, in the grand scheme of things was no big deal).
Anyway, I thought I'd point this out.
Dee Snider rocks!
You're forgetting that in this scenario that the food IS already being distributed for free. That there are too many of these freebie-vendors to catch and send to jail or fine. So, instead they want to make the carts illegal, which makes no sense.
This guy just suggested that a better solution (than banning carts) is make better carts, more of them, and bigger -- and cash in. It is a good idea. Obviously it's a good idea. It's being done by the "bad guys".
If you say the sentence out loud, it's true that a company shouldn't be FORCED to arbitrarily change the way they do business. But wait, that's what a free capitalistic market is all about. If that is what people want, normal competition would drive any other business into these types of evolutions or perish. That's the problem with this scenario. There is a monopoly in place. Efficiency, listening to consumers, giving consumers what they want, competitive prices, loss in sales, increase in sales, going out of business, and much much more is normal for other businesses. Why not this one?
Rader
Before I get started, here's two of my favorite quotes from the article:
At a speech in Washington, D.C., she told software developers that it was only the specific illegal use of the software that the group is trying to stop, asking them to help develop applications that respected artists' rights to be paid.
Thanks for asking, but when was the last time the music industry spoke out against software piracy?! I just thought their cries for help were funny. Also:
The question is...whether they'll respect what artists create just like we in the recording business respect what the business sponsors and software developers in this audience create.
Great idea! I think what the RIAA needs is a good 'ol fashioned audit. Let's track down the license for every Pro Tools plugin and MIDI utility, make sure every copy of Word is official. I bet they've got Morpheus on their boxes!
Now, here's why the whole thing is an issue. Back in the day (pre 20th century), musicians made their money on performance. When people showed up to watch, they got paid. In order for this to work, there had to be lots of moderately-paid musicians, and only a few starving, or well-paid ones. If you were good actually performing, you became successful. Enter the age of 78s and radio. All of the sudden, musicians could make money without even showing up! Once a master recording was made, it could be duplicated with little effort (relative to cloning the musician and his band), and played over and over, for fans around the globe. In effect, record companies were granted a license to mint currency! This wasn't a big deal at first, since live performances, and the music audience in general, were small. Now with the mega-tour, and packaged crap being pumped into our ears by sleazy record execs, it is time to make a change. If you can't make money by touring, you need to hang it all up. It's time to bring the performance back into music. It's obvious that IP law won't stop 10 million people from listening to your music for free. As an artist, you now have the opportunity to dump the whole distribution channel and still make a decent living actually playing music for a live audience! Think of how much more integrity the business would have. No more gold records, only an artist and his axe (or tuba, or whatever). When that artist dies, we all have the right to enjoy his art forever, without interference. Think about that right there.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
EFF.org does accept donations online, and they send you a nifty bumper sticker when you join up! Everyone who reads YRO on Slashdot should be a member.
Actually, it could very well be considered fair use, or at least that's the way the law seems to read. Fair use matters are extremely tricky to work out and courts constantly differ on how to deal with them. Here's a good excerpt from Terry Carroll's copyright FAQ:
3.7) Can I legally make a cassette copy of a musical CD for my own use, so I can play it in my car?
This issue has been argued back and forth for many years, with consumers groups arguing that this was a fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), and the recording industry arguing that it was not. The issue was finally settled by Congress when the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (P.L. 102-563, 106 Stat. 4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. 1001 - 1010) was passed in October 1992. This Act added ten sections to Title 17, one of which provided an alternative to the fair use analysis for musical recordings.
The new section states:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. 17 U.S.C. 1008.
As the legislative history to this statute noted, "In short, the reported legislation would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use." H.R. Rep. 102-780(I).
Does this mean you can make copies for your family and friends, as long as it's not "commercial?"
A strict reading of the words in the statute
would seem to say that you may. This is not as outrageous as it sounds. Part of the impetus behind the AHRA was the perception that blank tapes were being used mostly to copy commercial musical sound recordings. As a result, the AHRA provided that a royalty payment (referred to as a "DAT tax" by its detractors) be paid for each sale of digital audio tape to compensate authors of musical works and sound recordings for the profits lost due to these copies. See 17 U.S.C. 1003, 1004. Arguably, the AHRA anticipates and allows exactly this type of copying, and a literal reading of section 1008 would tend to support this position. But the AHRA is still sufficiently new this hasn't been tested in court yet.
Note, also, that this section applies only to musical recordings; it clearly does not include spoken word recordings. Of course, it is still
possible that such a use of a spoken word recording might still be considered a section 107 fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), even though
section 1008 does not apply to provide a clear exemption.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Sam the Record Man -A chain of Canadian music stores just filed for bankruptcy after operating for the past 65 years(see story here).
'But the key factors that toppled the retailer that was once Canada's top music merchant were fierce competition from rival chains, such as HMV Canada Inc. and Wal-Mart Canada Inc., and the growing popularity of music downloads from the Internet, they added.' One person in the story was quoted...'And Sams was hurt by people who, like him, downloaded music from the Internet. "My friends don't bring CDs to parties any more -- they bring their computers,' Mr. Broadhead, 31, said.'
Free music is great but it is hurting music sales which has an effect on not just the artists and music companies but lots of small store owners.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Or, hey, put your name in the ID3 tag. Doesn't mess with the music and it automatically comes up when you play it. Sure it's easier to remove, but how many people would want to remove it?
The RIAA's approach to Gnutella thus far has been actively discovering copyright offenders and sending DMCA complaints to their ISP
I was a bit worried about this so I did some research. The only case of someone actually losing access was covered in an article on Salon. News.com reported about pressure on ISPs, but mentioned only one subscriber being cut off.
I checked the dslreports message boards expecting to find howls of protests by those cut off from their monopoly broadband providers. Silence....
I think the RIAA and MPAA are doing a great job at scaring people away from file sharing without actually paying many bounty hunters because the idea of a secret copyright police force is so juicy.
Similarly, there seems to be hysteria about people being denied boarding on aircraft for being dissidents. The Bangor, Maine Green Party member turns out to have been pretty uncooperative. Yes, the guard was an overbearing oaf, but she admits to provoking him in an interview . The Green's press release doesn't mention any of this.
The guy detained in Germany for having "unconventional" views and the guy denied flying for having a copy of Hayduke Lives look like the result of hysterical untrained guards, not a plot to deny everyone's civil rights. More hysteria won't help.
The guy who was harassed for taking pictures of National Guardsmen at a security checkpoint probably should have asked first (it's supposedly not illegal, but photography at customs is so he should have thought a bit), but he was another victim of a freakazoid with a chip on his shoulder.
I don't think we should have to turn into loyal plastic robots, but I'm not going to wear my Circumvention Device t-shirt through airport security. No need to get the wheels of teeny minds spinning.
There's certainly an epidemic of ineptitude (that's not new since Sept. 11), but I don't believe there's an epidemic of harrassment. Likewise of ISPs and their customers.
Read it carefully:
Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries.
Congress has the power to enact copyright law only for the purpose of promoting intellectual progress, not for the purpose of protecting profitability. Companies are free to try to profit through copyright, but congress should not and cannot protect that profitability by extending copyright law. That is my point.
You write: Sharing of copyrighted sound files without the express permission of the copyright holder, even without the DMCA, is certainly illegal...Trying to hide from this fact and claim that Congress doesn't have the power to make that type of infringing illegal is only going to get you ignored by the public, the legislators, and the courts.
You're reading my argument a bit recklessly. I agree that Napster was a party to infringement. And I certainly agree that congress has the power to make some forms of copying illegal. But what we are seeing in these file sharing cases are complaints like: "This software will put us out of business" and "our copyright interests supercede the interest of the advancement of technology".
These arguments are exactly what the constitution does not provide for. The constitution's responses are: "Tough shit!" and "No it doesn't."
The DMCA, whatever it is, is not copyright law under the scope of the constitution.
So, Musiccity are being a little ingenious when they say no central servers. That is how it started, but if their servers were taken away there would be no Morpheus.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC aren't the servers run by a different organization than MusicCity? Somewhere in Europe I believe? (Sweden?). So while the system may suffer from the central servers going down, the loss of MusicCity wouldn't bring that about. Of course the RIAA can always sue the other company, and may be (they seem to be suing everyone these days so I've lost track of who is on the list) but it would probably be a tougher suit in a non-US country.
You had better believe it.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
I fully support the RIAA's right to not have music stolen and distributed for free. Downloading music you haven't paid for is just plain wrong.
I also support the right of services like Morpheus to exist. Internet users should have the absolute right to distribute their files via the Internet, and whether they do it via FTP, HTTP or FastTrack technology is irrelevant. They're all one and the same.
What I don't support is users distributing copyrighted works. You shouldn't do that! Bad copyright infringer!! That said, shouldn't it be the fault of the copyright infringer, not the developer of the technology that allows file sharing? Else, FTP, HTTP, etc. would all be illegal, and we know how stupid an argument that is. While we're at it, why not ban TCP/IP too, because that's how all the data gets passed around. And ISPs and Internet backbones should also be nuked because they are the ones responsible for enabling users to pass around TCP packets.
It seems plain and obvious to me, but unfortunately legal issues rarely end up being simple. I could actually see the RIAA winning a case against Music City. The stupidity of our legal system cannot be underestimated.
It's for that reason that I think the RIAA should go to hell. They would gladly snuff out anything they consider detrimental to business, regardless of how legitimate it is; and they would do so using any underhanded legal method available to them (and even possibly illegal methods, if some of the RIAA memos floating around can be believed). I sympathized with their stance against Napster, mainly because Napster could only work with MP3 files and was plainly designed for stealing music for free. Services like Music City work with any file type, and are so general-purpose that they cannot be faulted. Until the RIAA comes up with a way for file sharing services to determine the copyright ownership of a music file, generic file sharing services should be allowed to list any file they want. Until such capability is made available to them by copyright owners, they should be bound by all the same rules as bind any other file transfer protocol.
In other words, if a user lists illegal files via a web site, FTP site or Morpheus node, it's that user's responsibility and nobody else's. Music City has no way to tell what's legal and what isn't. And frankly, neither does the RIAA, since the technology does not exist to verify music with reasonable accuracy and in a timely fashion. You can't use filenames alone, for obvious reasons.
My internal conflict rages on. Even though I feel the RIAA has a right to not be ripped off, their methods of protecting themselves are beyond evil. We've heard all about their exploits over the years, but the one that really pushed me over the edge is their plan to copy-protect all CDs produced after Q1 2002. That's right, they are planning on releasing only CDs that, in theory, can't be ripped. That effectively stops my ability as an actual paying customer to make personal copies of music I've paid for. The most evil part is that not only are they doing this in a vain attempt to keep people from distributing music illegally, they're also trying to force consumers to buy their music a *second* time if they want a digital copy. And, of course, if you do buy that second copy, it will be protected via some DRM mechanism that makes actually listening to it on your own computer or digital playback device a chore.
It's because of this that I've actually started using Morpheus. I'm sorry to say, but I've caved in. I never used Napster for ethical reasons, but even people of principle sometimes have their limits. I just can't stomach supporting a cause which is so evil, even if the evil springs from a legitimate grievance. Spank me, I'm a copyright infringer.
Which doesn't change the fact that you can choose not to sign that contract if you don't like its terms.
Five record labels control the promotion of music, and they all have the same one-sided contract terms. Therefore, an artist can choose one of these:
- Major label Foo, with a lopsided contract.
- Major label Bar, with a lopsided contract.
- Major label Baz, with a lopsided contract.
- Major label Blah, with a lopsided contract.
- Major label Yadda, with a lopsided contract.
- Any of various independent labels with a contract that provides a fairer share of royalties but no chance of airplay because the major labels control the companies that tell mainstream radio stations what to play and no record sales because
- consumers don't know the artist even exists, and
- the major labels control the companies that tell mainstream music stores what to carry.
- No label, no contract, and no career.
Is that much of a choice?if the majority of artists make the mistake of signing contracts that they don't understand.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I believe the RIAA's position is that they will never fully eliminate copyright infringement, so they should recoup the 'losses' through a royalty on blank CDs. At the same time, you're still not allowed to copy that CD. That's still piracy. I agree with you. You can't have it both ways. This kind of thinking happens elsewhere - Globalscape CuteFTP used to be a good program, until they made it ad-ware AND cripple-ware. If it's showing ads it shouldn't bug me about registering, and it shouldn't expire. If I pay a surcharge on a blank CD, I better be able to put any damn music on it that I choose.
The other problem is that the figures have never shown that 'music piracy' impacts industry profits. This is the fallacy of groups like the RIAA and BSA - you'll hear ridiculous figures, in the billions of dollars, of money that they 'lost' to 'piracy'. Back to reality, there's no way that college student is going out and buying the 800 albums that contain each of the MP3 singles in their Morpheus share. There's no way that company in Hong Kong is buying thousands of copies of Windows.
No, you're copying. stealing involves someone losing something. If I steal my friend's car, my friend doesn't have a car anymore. If I copy my friend's movie, nothing changes for my friend. The official legal term is piracy (well... it is in the Netherlands)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
And if you don't like the details of the contract, don't sign it; you may have to choose a different career
I invest four years of my time and $100,000 in an education, and now do you say that you want me to throw it all away and work at Burger King because before I decided to go to school, nobody told me that the standard practice contracts in the field had such lopsided terms?
If I don't like the types of offers I get for postdoctoral positions in my field, and I sign a contract and take a job anyway, I can't very well complain that the postdoctoral market is "unfair" and that by not signing I will have "no career".
Yes, but if you wisely decide not to sign a contract, you have no job and no way of paying off your $200,000+ loan. Students fresh out of college may have to default on their student loans and screw up their credit for life because a job at McDonald's doesn't pay enough.
Will I retire or break 10K?