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Internal MP3 Server? 1 Million Dollars Please
nkruse pointed out that our pals as the RIAA are breaking new ground. According to this Reuters Article, the RIAA has succeeded in collecting 1 million US dollars from Arizona based Integrated Information Systems. IIS apparently had a corporate MP3 repository on it's network. This is the first time I've heard about the RIAA doing this kind of thing. Looks like they're taking a page from the BSA handbook.
I guess these Universities are going to be next...
t m
Quote:
A new file-sharing program called Phynd is burrowing in at a handful of universities...
...Phynd limits its searches and its users to computers on the network on which the program is running.
http://chronicle.com/free/2002/04/2002040402t.h
"""
This sends a clear message that there are
consequences if companies allow their resources
to further copyright infringement,'' said
Matt Oppenheim, RIAA Senior Vice President,
Business and Legal Affairs.
"""
The message I heard:
Large, money-laden industry group can use a
broken legal system to easily take even more
money from others by leveraging antiquated
and ridiculous idea-ownership laws that need
sorely to be changed.
Huh? If I bring my CDs into work, I can play them on a boombox loud enough for the whole office to hear. That's called "fair use". But now if I take those same CDs into work, convert them into MP3s, and let the same people listen to them, now its "pirating"? All these people did was use the corporate network to timeshift the playing of a few CDs; this sort of falls in the grey area between fair use and exploitation, but by no means justifies a million dollar fine.
I can see a company like IBM getting sued for sharing millions of songs amongst it's employees, but a small company (less than 15 people) that I know of used a simple non-published mp3 archive, where people had their own personal folders that they could bring music from home, so they could listen to it at work.
Though not enforced, theoretically, the only use is to allow individual listening to their own music on a storage facility greater than that of their own computer. It was more cost effective to have one big large hard drive then have a dozen large hard drives (not to mention the company was SCSI, so it would have been an administrative nightmare to upgrade all the machines this way).. Not to mention that the individuals worked on several UNIX machines, and could easily mount their drives as necessary in the different labs.
To make this legit, they could have restricted access to each mount, and thus no sharing would occur.. As I said, this wasn't enforced however.
How can a networked computer be allowed to legally space-shift legitamit media without fear of the RIAA / SS?
The real question here is that in a small company, does the RIAA really have jurisdiction. With a company that small, people would ahve lent each other CDs from time to time anyway (often duplicating onto cassette tapes, which has never been really refuted).
Should such a company be worried? Or is the gistapo getting closer to getting it's power stripped?
-Michael
-Michael
Nope, they provide a central point of control for an artistic medium as a "value add" service.
They control the format in which artists may distribute their work, the format in which we (the customer, who is apparently always right) may store the product we purchased. They offer the artist the option of enforcement, seeing to it that life is as inconvenient for the consumer as humanly possible.
Seriously though, I'd like to see a serious list of the services the record companies provide - advertising for music is almost nonexistent (I hardly ever see a poster or TV commercial that is specifically advertising an album or single, unless it's one of those compilation CD's). Face it - the ultimate form of advertising for music is wide distribution. The more times you hear their songs, the more likely you are to buy the CD. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard a song on the radio, at work, or at home in MP3 format and gone out and purchased the entire album.
Sure, you can download the whole thing. But people like actually holding the product.
So since I'm a moron, how 'bout you elaborate on your flame - some details on these services would surely shed some light on this topic for myself (and all the other morons out here).
This happened to a friend of mines company ... This guy *installed* pirate software himself on alot of the machines in the office, when he got fired he called the BSA and reported the software *he* had installed. BSA blackmailed the company for 150,000$, they went bankrupt 6 mos later ... (they were headed for bankrupcy regardless, but the BSA signed their death warrant).
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Just a little interesting part of the article, the RIAA is stepping on some major dollars here by screwing with Hollywood's connections. Maybe they aren't working for the same goal after all....
Actually, this is a textbook example of 'trickle-down' enforcement. Shut down the companies basing their business on swapping, then, shut down companies permitting swapping. When the time comes to prosecute individual people, any incumbent mindset or mechanism for owners' (not consumers) rights will have already been broken down, leaving little momentum or resolve to combat the proceedings.
More than likely, the RIAA et al. are hoping that prosecution of individual people will become unnecessary, save for a couple good example-setters.
It seems to be one of those grey areas. If I play a CD I purchased at home with some friends over, does that constitute a 'public performance'? Should I have to pay (even) more for a CD because my friends didn't technically purchase a license to listen to the music? How many people have to hear it to be considered a 'public performance'? Do we actually have any rights at all?
do not read this line twice.
This would likely be covered under the right of public performance. It's tricky to figure out exactly where to draw the line though. For example, is the guy in the riced-out Civic playing Who Let The Dogs Out at 150 db at a red light giving a public performance? What about the guy who plays the same CD in a restaurant kitchen after closing?
The logic of this event smells as if it has been staged. Some of the owners or investors may have had relations with those of the RIAA. They don't tell us if the RIAA is also contracting them to do some work in a mutual relationship.
For $1,000,000, a great many legal arguments could have been explored and may have helped the restrictive entertainment laws we have. Sounds like someone made a private win-win deal to me.
So, as a result of this, its legal to listen to the radio at work, but illegal to play a rack of CD's. Fine with those laws? Uh huh... They were either without principle and spineless, or accepting a deal. No one caves in like that without taking a kickback.
They facilitate [hell - they exist solely for the purpose of] sharing books, music, magazines, whatever. And I think it is important to note that this company was not selling copyrighted material - it was only allowing its employees to exchange music.
There's a big difference that you're missing. Libraries allow patrons to borrow copyrighted material on the condition that said material will be returned and not illegally copied. If libraries were like MP3 servers as you claim they are, they would have printing presses in them, and you would take whatever books you want to the operator and have them make you a copy of the book. They would also have CD replication stations so that you could make copies of their CD collection at will.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
So who was the employee that got so ticked off at the company that he ratted out his employer to the RIAA? Is there a bounty now on piracy?
Ka-Ching.
now if I take those same CDs into work, convert them into MP3s, and let the same people listen to them, now its "pirating"?
What if you're using your CD in your car, and someone at your work is listening to the same CD's mp3's? You got two people using the same disc, essentially.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Just thought of a way around this.
Let's say we set up an economy within our office. We buy and sell CDs on demand. At the beginning of the month, you bring in whatever CDs you want to sell. You deposit them into the office trust, where they're "converted" to a more economically liquid form, onto a digital hard drive.
Now all we need is some simple software that "trades" CDs. Whenever you want to listen to one of the many volumes in the repository, you buy it on demand. You real-time trade one of the CDs you deposited in exchange for the ownership of the one you want to listen to.
The only hitch is when multiple people want to buy a CD that no one wants to sell, or when no one wants to buy any of the CDs you brought in so that you don't have any purchasing/exchange power to buy any of the others.
Obviously, in a small office, there's not a large enough "economy" to make this work, but for a 1,000 person corporation, it's unlikely that you'd ever have to wait more than a few minutes. Especially if everybody brought in enough CDs. The redundancy along would keep things rolling. Now what if it were multi-corporation?
IANAL, but this seems like a perfectly legal brokerage-type method to share music without breaking the law.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes it would be illegal if you and your spouse were listening to separate copies of the CD.
If the server software limited connections so any particular album could only be played by one client at a time, then IIS may have been able to escape liability. Of course they would have had to buy all those CD's too, I'll assume they did.
Think of the CD as a book, you can buy it and lend it out - thanks to those who fought the publishers earlier - but you can't lend out copies if more than one copy or any copy and the original will be used at the same time. If only one client were able to listen to any particular album at once, the company would have been in the clear. IANAL, but from my reading I believe this to be true.
There are some additional problems I've thought of that arise from this - what if I were to rip a book into chapters, and lend them out individually? Would that be legal? I wouldn't think so. Based on my reasoning above, what if I were to allow different people to listen to different tracks, with no more than one person listening to a track at the same time? This sounds just as legal as ripping a book into chapters and lending those out. But now think of multiple people listening to the same track, but different parts of the track. User #1 could say be "borrowing" offset 0:32 of a track but will have returned it by the time User #2 gets to it. This raises some problems, I haven't seen it discussed so far though. Technically, it seems ok as long as the same part of a song isn't sent to two users at once, it would appear that two people can listen to the same track at once. The server could simply wait a second to begin additional streams, in the unlikely event the same song is called for by separate clients at the same exact time. Can someone clarify on this?
Not everybody here thinks so. I quite like sony, compared to a lot of companies out there. A black lion does not a voltron make, hence sony may be part of the evil-megacorporation-of-doom(tm), but it isn't necessarily one by itself.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Dear RIAA lawyers,
Next time try fucking around with a real company. You'll be laughed at if you ever go after an mp3 server in an engineering department at General Electric, or Chemistry lab at SmithKleinGlaxo. Real companies wouldn't give you the time of day, let alone answer your phone calls or sign for your registered letters. You're pathetic.
Cheers,
JB
Restaurants pay. They pay even if they have only a television. When I owned a bar the ASCAP boys came in and handed me a bill with itemized charges for live performances, the CD player, and the televisions. I felt like I was being shaken down by the mafia.
Whichever is the real story, the RIAA has just handed the fair-use activists the small businesses of America as allies.
Credits to David of Noisebox for pointing out the IISX finance picture.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
that would be considered an illegal rave (more than two people listening to repetitive music) so you could get done under the criminal justice act :-)
Actually yes.. that thought had occured to me.
Not so much that it's a shill but perhaps a
willing conspirator. I doubt very much that
IIS has $1M to give away like this since it is
teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. I actually
went looking on google but the only possible
`connection' i found was a news release about them
http://www.iisweb.com/press_010508.asp
hardly conspiracy level proof, however it does
demonstrate they were activly looking for the
custom of RIAAesque entities so perhaps they
had some success in that area.
Fuck the RIAA. Give money to the EFF.
-cbare