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RIAA Wants Taxpayer-Funded IP Police
Sydney Weidman writes "RIAA has given testimony before the House Appropriations Committee asking for more federal money for Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property investigation teams. You can find RIAA's side of the story here and a Cnet story is available as well. Apparently, RIAA is not satisfied with the current deployment of CHIP teams since they have been more involved in anti-hacking activities than in anti-piracy. My favourite Hilary Rosen quote: "Piracy is not a private offense, it hurts everyone by diminishing the incentive to invest in the creation of music." I guess Rosen won't be happy until each and every pirate is charged with crimes against humanity and convicted by the International Court of Justice"
It just seems that there is an awful lot of momentum right now against this kind of "Big Brother" activity from RIAA. Why not keep it up?
It just seems absurd to me that in this day and age where terrorism is such a focal point, that we would divert funds to fight music piracy. I'm quite certian that Al Qaeda is going after the latest Dave song instead of looking for a way to hack financial companies.
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
Yeah, it's because there are no term limits on our congressmen or senators so the lobbyists have a lot of time to dig their claws into these easily corruptable individuals.
I don't think congressmen was ever meant to be a career... I'm sure that's not what the founding fathers had in mind. We need term limits so that we get a constant cycle of new ideas and new people in the legislature... and to make it harder for lobbyists to get their way.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
Piracy is not a private offense, it hurts everyone by diminishing the incentive to invest in the creation of music.
When will she realize that there's more to creating music than money? Artists create because they enjoy doing so. It's one of the profession, IMHO that have a lot of job satisfaction.
Sometimes she'd further her cause by staying quiet.
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
Of course, this is wrong headed.
What is involved in Piracy is a lack of respect for the property rights of others, which is something that the Music industry has failed to provide the proper example for.
Far from arguing from the moral high ground, the only high ground they occupy is a pile of excrement at the bottom of the latrine they have fallen into, and in fact dug for themselves.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Its great, as a government worker a fraction of every cent i make pays me, now another fraction of another cent i make could go towards arresting me!
Yes, the RIAA and the whole notion of intellectual property go against common sense, not to mention the Constitution (Article 2, IIRC).
And yes, the majority (note that word: majority) of IP is indefensible, and a waste of time to deal with (Britney Spears using Windows...wouldn't be surprised if she worked at Micro$oft!).
But we have built this great nation (and, to the extent that other countries have prospered, they have done so emulating the USA in this respect) on the rule of law, and the enforcement of said law by the appropriate Authorities.
Yes, they are funded by taxes, and we all find taxes a "necessary evil." But the right of taxation is firmly granted in the Constitution (Article 4) for the "protection of the Law of the Land."
To suggest that, given the current laws protecting intellectual property, we should then turn around and ignore them when it comes to enforcement, is going about it all wrong.
The result will be not only mass piracy (leading to more stringent laws!), but a complete collapse of all that we hold dear, the Order of Society.
No, until we reach that day when IP laws are stricken down from the books forever (I propose a new Amendment!), we must do our utmost to defend these laws, for they are the very things which make this country good.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
This is utter hogwash. If the record companies had any idea beforehand which CDs would be profitable, they would only publish the profitable ones. But they don't know ahead of time. That's why they publish a broad catalog, so that they have a better chance of publishing a hit and making a profit. To insinuate that the record companies publish unprofitable albums out of the goodness of their hearts is the height of deception.
Let's look at this from the point of view of a fictional touring music act that we'll call "Zit Remedy". If "Megadisc Records", member of the RIAA decides to publish a CD of Zit Remedy's music, it has only a slim chance of being profitable. If Zit Remedy's CD isn't profitable, then Zit Remedy receives no royalty payments. However, the CD still stands as a tool for publicity, possibly increasing concert revenues and sales of merchandise. Except Zit Remedy's self-titled debut release is priced at $20 a copy, so it reaches a very small audience... unless college students start ripping and file sharing. Then the profit potential for Zit Remedy climbs. More buzz = more concert attendees = more revenues. The only loser here is Megadisc.
It's pretty clear that the record companies represented by the RIAA have a flawed business model. I don't think it's up to taxpayers to subsidize bad business models. If it were, I could start a buggy whip factory and retire wealthy. Let Megadisc figure it out for itself.
Actually, that seems very high. For example Michael Jackson got $30 million for Thriller, which sold 40 million copies. That is $0.75 per copy.
He is one of the biggest names under the RIAA banner. Lesser names would get even less.
Since she brought it up, lets discuss crimes "against each of us":
Just my $0.02
>I am also a taxpayer and do not want this.
|Sarcasm on>>
But you are not a PAC, cannot bribe congressmen,
so what you want doesn't mean shit..
|Sarcasm off>>
That is what is wrong with the USA..
Maybe it is time for the 1 million geek march on
capital hill...
He is most certainly not browsing at -1.
Actually royalties paid for playing performances on radio, in stores, etc. are paid to the song writer, not the performer. Part of the DMCA was designed to allow the performer to get a royalty as well, off internet performances, CARP (in my opinion) mistakenly set the royalty payments too high.
I will accept that the label rather than the publisher is getting money from the sale.
-Rusty
You never know...
You're not stealing anything. When you download an MP3, you're transfering electrons from one source to another (and they are eventually recycled). Electrons. Bits. A CD is a thing that you can hold, touch, whatever. It costs money to produce copies of a work on CD, but nothing to send it over the Net (except bandwidth costs).
<SARCASM>I currently have a job opening at my company for a programmer. I would love to hire you since you obviously will be the cheapest employee in the company. Following your logic would give me the ability to pay you exactly $0 since anything you produce would either exist in your brain (pseudo-bits) or on my hard drive (bits again). I can then just make a copy of your work and *poof* its mine. I'm mean they're just bits after all.</SARCASM>
The erosion of people's ethics to limit the concept of theft to apply only to physical items is absurd. Its only a way for people to justify the theft of music, movies, software, satellite TV, etc. to themselves. The further concept that just because the RIAA of a bunch of greedy corporate bastards is just another way to salve people's souls into believing they aren't criminals.
Neither of these arguments changes the fact that it's theft. If you believe that it's anything else you're just deluding yourself. The answer to the greed of the RIAA is simple. Stop buying their product until they smarten up. Within 3 months things will change. Its called a free market system and its works pretty good if you let it. Moving your morals down the evolutionary chain isn't the answer.
-- If it isn't broken, you haven't let my users have a crack at it yet --
Either that or the poster needs to browse at -1 more often, to become cynical and bitter like the rest of us.
Actually I'd see a higher percentage of crap at +3 than I would at 0. This is slashdot; informed opinions dont get moderated up (unless there are posted within 5 minutes of the article). What gets moderated up, for the most part, are rehashes of simple facts, party line proselytizing and people who fake being the "cautious voice of reason" (usually prefaced by "Ill get moderated down for saying this, but"... Oh, and annoying jokes. Some good jokes, too, but not many.