Slashdot Mirror
RIAA to Sue You Now
An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC reports that apparently the music industry feels so satisfied with going after file swapping software makers that they want to sue the pants off the file swappers themselves. Of course, you'll need to be a big fish with lots of illegal music to get their attention." This is what they should have done in the first place- go after the people who are actually doing it instead of making P2P seemingly
illegal.
maybe they'll sue themselves out of business, lawyers ain't cheap and even if they bust half of the teens they prosecute they won't recoup their losses
going after users doesn't work, ask the DEA
stupid wars on freedom waste time and money, why not go the way of BMG and at least attempt to make a profit from it insted of trying to slow your demise.. death to teh riaa
their profits will be -$2,000,000,000 and they will claim it's "Due to piracy".
:-)
The funny thing is, they'll be more correct than any of the other times they have made that statement.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Say I own the "rights" to 500 songs. I bought the CD, tape, payed for an individual mp3 download, whatever.
/tunes shared out.
How is offering them over napster servers any more illegal then what a library does? If user X downloads them, and keeps them permanently, or sells them, or otherwise violates HIS local copyright statutes, I don't see how that's my fault for simplying for having
Can they leagally go after the people with legitamate MP3s who happen to make them available on the internet or those who illegally download them?
To better explain: if I leave my doors unlocked and someone steals my CDs I may be a moron for not locking my doors, but I certainly didn't commit a crime (the thief did).
Also, if User A has a Old97s CD and legit MP3 copies of the disc on his machine and I also own the same Old97s CD and download his copies (instead of burning my own) did either of us break a law?
I am sorta hazy over both issues.
It's funny because the suing will only happen in the US. Here is Canada the artists supposedly get money from CDR's and other recordable media meaning they still get rich from doing very little.
RIAA really can't pull that off because what do they do with Minors, sue the parents? What about other people who have their machines hacked? You could play stupid. It's worked with so many companes in the past (@home). Uh, I'm running a server thats doing something illegal, how do I fix it.
For those of you who aren't going to read the article, the RIAA is not going to try to sue everyone. They have 2 goals in mind, I suspect:
1) Find someone who is sharing 100,000 files with a T-3 connection and use this person to demonize everyone who shares music over p2p. The RIAA is suffering from a bit of an image problem, and I think they want to try to make it good guys vs. bad guys, so they have to find a bad enough guy.
2) Scare anyone who considers sharing files into wondering if they are above the magic threshold that will bring a suit.
I suppose the theory is that if you stop the people who are sharing the music, then there will be nothing for anyone to download. Kinda like the drug war -- bust all the dealers, then the users will have nowhere to go.
I don't think this will work, as my guess is that most people who download music also share it. It isn't centralized enough that you can take out a few super-sharers and suddenly everything dries up.
go after the people who are actually doing it instead of making P2P seemingly illegal.
While it could be argued that RIAA is just taking an expedient course of action, this is the one thing that they should have done.
Go after the burglars - don't penalize the manufacturers of crowbars.
I'd just as soon live in a free society where I have my choice of combining Napster with crowbars as long as I don't infringe on someone else's rights.
However, I will admit that trading an MP3 from a CD of mine that I've ripped to someone I don't know for a song which I don't have constitutes a commercial transaction (albeit cashless) and, while copyright exists, the possessors of the it should have the exclusive right to charge for distribution. Exactly and only that.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
But many music executives, watching revenue sag as home compact-disc copying has soared, feel that they have little choice if they are to save their business. World-wide music sales dropped 5% last year, while global sales of compact-disc albums declined for the first time since CDs were launched in 1983. So far this year, U.S. music sales are down steeply from a sluggish 2001.
/., but I have to say it again. If they would just realize that people WANT digital music that they can download and throw onto a custom CD/MP3 player/etc, then they could give this up now! Yes, there'd still be copying of CDs, and all that, but it would drop. If they have lost revenue because of filesharing, not their own lack of quality, then setting up a system where we can buy ONE song would do wonders for their revenues. They are, bluntly, idiots.
Or could it be because people are getting fed up with the latest crap from Britnay Spears and N'sync? I have bought 5 albums in as many years. They were all albums that I knew I would enjoy, start to finish (w/ maybe 1 or 2 songs as exceptions). I didn't buy the same album over, and over, and over again.
Hell, I download a few songs that I want to hear, but there's no way I'm paying for an album for one song. I know that argument has long been shouted loudly and proudly from our ranks here on
On a side note, RE: the article, I don't see how they can get someone beyond reasonable doubt. It's a simple matter to give the HD a complete wipe (7 times over, 1s and 0s) and users can just claim that they downloaded a song from Kazaa to hear it before they bought an album. The only way they could truly "get" someone is if the user had perpetually downloaded copies of the same song.
Anyway, that's my $.02
Later.
That suing your customers is NOT good marketing...
Anyone care to speculate how hard it'd be to graft some sort of encryption into Gnutella? Stuff that deliberately obfuscates IP addresses, etc, at least enough to make it hard to identify users?
BTW, wouldn't breaking such encryption be a DMCA violation?
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
IANAL, but wouldn't a shared warning file protect you?
Have it say something like, "By downloading files from my computer, the recipient agrees not to press charges resulting from the contents of the file."
Hell, it's about as legal as a EULA.
Not wanting to get into a moral debate on this issue, I can say I do understand where the RIAA is coming from with this way of thinking. I recently read somewhere that it's believed that 90% of all files that flow through a p2p program come from the same 50 or so individuals. I wish I could remember the link but apparently they found some guy using kazaa that had roughly 600 gigs of divx quality bootleg movies on his computer.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
World-wide music sales dropped 5% last year, while global sales of compact-disc albums declined for the first time since CDs were launched in 1983. So far this year, U.S. music sales are down steeply from a sluggish 2001.
Name one GOOD album that was released this year (Mainstream please)! I cant think of ONE MP3 that I have downloaded that was released in the last two years...
put out a quality producat and people WILL buy it, music today is like the "K-car" or the 80s... no soul...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
They sued Napster, it pushed people to true P2P networks like Gnutella. Now they go after the people on the networks, won't this just push people to something like Freenet? (Freenet masks users and files so it'd be more difficult to target specific people for trading specific things)
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
I think the issue is that they're sharing the music, not whether they legally own it in the first place. Although if the user sharing the music also doesn't own it originally, that compounds things.
I wonder if that would give the RIAA a legal footing to get a search warrant to find out if the user does in fact own the original CDs?
I wish I have your assurance on this one. Remember not long time ago a article (news.com methinks) about woman fired over having some mp3 on her comp at work? This is where they gonna start, effectively forcing companies to ban fileswappin and mp3-listening @ work (lets not talk about company resources, working comp for work and all other related issues)
This (I expect) will kill effectevely about 30 to 50% of possible users. Then, on much clean ground, they will sue couple ISPs and get them involved somehow. AND THIS IS IT. ISPs will fight rest of swappers to the end of contract. If file swapping will be reduced to 5-10% of current, It would be effectively "RIP Swapping -- 2006". And then, as you can imagine, they will come with "new, cost effective, legal" way to sell music over internet.
Screw us ?
On the basis that the RIAA has been found guilty by the FTC of price fixing, AGAIN... It would at the very least make things a little less black and white...
And might sway a jury.
Remember, in the USA, jurors have the right of "jury nullification", to judge that the criminal is the LAW in question, not the accused...
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Whenever you purchase (legally) a CD, DVD, VHS, etc., you have a right to make one copy for backup purposes. What happens if your original gets stolen (as one of my CDs was) or gets destroyed in fire, etc.? The backup copy that you have is yours to own legally.
Now not too many people keep receipts for small purchases for long after the purchase. At that point, armed only with a copy of a music CD, DVD, etc. and your word, you'll have to battle a mega corporation which will insist that you are a thief and stole the music. Guess who will win?
How can the little person ever win? Anyone care to extrapolate on this a little.
Change the EULA on all P2P software to state that Employees, Agents, or Representatives of the RIAA, MPAA, BSA are not allowed to use this software.
The software is for the use of an individual person, not corporations, or their representatives.
The use of the software, or reverse engineering of the software or the P2P network to obtain IP addresses or other personal and private information of other users is a violation of this EULA.
Parties violating these sections of the EULA agree to pay the persons or parties (users) whose information and privacy was compromised $1,000,000,000.00 per instance where the user's IP address was logged.
Then rewrite the software to mask IP addresses.
Make it anonymous..
Rather than use P2P networks, yours truly uses his local library system to get most of his music. The selection may be a little less varied, but they have a lot of good stuff, nonetheless.
For instance, they have Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix, and even stuff released in 2001, like the Vanilla Sky soundtrack.
All I have to do is reserve the CD on their website, wait until it's available to check out, and then convert it onto my computer! And since the CD's are returned, no clutter! As of now, I have about 50 CD's on reserve, and I've checked out about 80 since I started.
I don't know if other library systems have as many CD's as the one I use (Sno-Isle in Washington State), but it's worth giving a shot.
I just hope I'm not giving my local library system the kiss of death.
*crosses fingers*
And for those of you who may have forgotten about this... here's a great little speech made by Courtney Love about the RIAA.
Interesting to reflect back at what was said two years ago, and how it still continues to be true.
-Alex
And everyone who has ever downloaded an mp3 you've put in to a file-sharing system has been your personal friend? Someone you have met/spoken with frequently/some other activity generally shared among friends? Or are they strangers from around the world and you have no idea who they really are?
You are stretching the definition of "friend" just a bit.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
Limewire, as well as some other clients, have a "ignore 'obvious' searches" feature in which they refuse to return results for overly broad categories-- for example, if you start a search for "e", these clients will just ignore that.
I *IMAGINE* that they would treat "mp3" similarly, but maybe that didn't just occur to them.
Not always true. I have frequently dunpster dive in the L.A. Area and you can find all sorts of things, like music, that moron studio slaves just throw away. I have personally found DAT masters of artists like Prince that are perfectly good. I even use them to make loops for Acid.
What the hell are you mad about? You say you do not swap music files, and all your music is legally obtained. The RIAA is after those that steal music, and you proudly brag that you are NOT a crook. I always thought that Napster was as crooked as the CEO and board of directors at Enron. They claimed their service was not about stealing music, yet their logo was a cat with earphones! Right! Napster was about only one thing, they should have put the jolly roger on their logo as well.
The ONLY area where I disageee with the RIAA (and MPAA) is where my rights to store and use legally purchased music software are trampled on. I should have every right to rip my CD's to make MP3's FOR MY OWN EXCLUSIVE USE. Also to make custom compilations of music on a single CD from others I have purchased. In other words every thing I used to do with LP's and cassette tapes.
(except swapping tapes with friends, just another form of crime).
I tried to add to the RIAA's pot-of-cash by signing up for the two services listed in the article. One is just selling their service to AOL and RealONE. The other will not subscribe anyone but Americans. I tried, they don't have an alternative. I'm going back to downloading files.
Well, I've been observing piracy for a long time now, and my take on it is this: In the earlier days, piracy tended to be more private, more underground. There were private BBSes where you had to have referals to be able to get an account (after all, the sysop was risking his ass). Some people I know were also part of clubs that would get together and trade disks full of software. Computer software piracy was the most widespread. Console piracy was a bit of a niche, and you didn't see it everywhere, this was partly because Nintendo and Sega were very serious about going after console pirates.
Then piracy started moving over to the Internet. There were probably many private FTP's like the private BBSes, where people put up files on there own space at risk. But something else happened - there were pirate FTP sites placed in locations that were not connected to the person who set up the site. This was done by exploiting misconfigured FTP sites that for example had an incoming directory that could be wrote to and then read from (as well as FTP servers that were just cracked). Thus, the risk became smaller for maintaining pirate sites, and it became more public. You started seeing warez web sites that just linked to the warez.
With things like Hotline and ICQ (as well as IRC file trading), the innevitable happened - file sharing networks were born with the creation of Napster (and the others that followed). Piracy was no longer underground, it was public, out in the open. You can search for something, download it, and log the person's IP address while you're at it. Civil disobedience right out in the open.
And its very easy to get caught. You expose your IP address to everyone, including the ones who want to bust you. If people start getting busted left and right, do you think people are going to sit around sharing their files waitng around to get busted? No. Their going to go back underground. They'll have to use means which don't display their IP address for the world to see, or at least are well hidden and not in the public's eye. For music, people will go back to copying music among friends like its always been done.
Of course I'm thinking of more than music here. But in any case, piracy is a risk, it's always been. If you're going to do it, you have to be careful and take the necessary precautions. Don't do it out in the open. Otherwise, you will get busted.
Zoot!
...so, with all this stuff going on, how come Americans aren't questioning why copyright expiration takes over 100 years?
In fact, I can't help but wonder why the publishing industry has the nerve to target public libraries, even though the publishers already have the national legislature in their pockets. Already, they make scads of money on garbage paperbacks, magazines, and other landfill that never even makes it into public libraries, oftentimes, and now they want to outlaw used book and CD sales as well?
So, when do we, the people, get our part of that deal; i.e., a 25-year copyright period, non-renewable, after which the work goes into the public domain?
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
Tell me, who gets hurt when I download that new Britney Spears song?
You do. Ugh.
All kidding aside, you're just wrong, for reasons that I guess I won't be able to explain to you. Taking something without paying for it is wrong. In this case, it also happens to be illegal. If you would acknowledge that it's wrong, and that you shouldn't do it, but that you do it anyway, then you and I could see eye-to-eye. I have no problem at all with hypocrites. I'm a huge hypocrite myself in a lot of ways.* But I do have a problem with people who can't seem to understand basic issues of right and wrong. That saddens and disturbs me.
* Not with respect to downloading MP3s, though. I was on an MP3 kick for a while about three years ago, but I quickly got bored with it. The music was all of absurdly low quality, and it was more trouble than it was worth to find and download stuff I liked. So I ditched all of the pirated stuff and ripped my collection of 300+ CDs at high bit rate instead, and ran cables to wire my server (upstairs) into my stereo (downstairs). It's about nine days of music on continuous random shuffle. Much better than the crap I got off of Napster. Ugh.