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.

Comments

Advantage of Gnutella

[hatter3bdev]

One of the things people have been claiming to be a disadvantage to gnutella is now showing itself as an advantage. People cannot browse your file lists in gnutella and thus cannot see how many illegal files you are swapping. They only learn of what files you have when they do a specific search for them.

Re:Advantage of Gnutella

[MadAhab]

I thought that the protocol allows for getting full listings, but that the clients, in general, do not. Gnutella is now at an advantage in that it really is really distributed. People who run big OpenNap nodes might find themselves getting nastygrams.

On the other hand, Hilary Rosen is a gigantic fucking stupid neanderthal cunt who should be shot into outer space naked.

If I were a label musician, well, first off I'd be completely fucked having sold my career to the mafia, but second, I'd be wondering why an organization that I subsidize "for my protection" is spending my money to stop people from hearing about my music.

I haven't bought a single CD in the past two years unless I previewed songs via mp3. I buy far more CDs than the average person. Copyright infringement has made me spend more money, not less, on the CDs I want to own. It's also completely eliminated purchases I'm not satisfied with and made me a happier customer.

It's also let me buy music I never would have known about otherwise, because the music industry does such a shitty job of letting people know about its artists. Imagine a bookstore that had the best-seller list in display cases, the vast majority of their inventory in a back room where you can't see it or know what's there, and no ability to browse whatsoever (though you can listen to someone read chapters aloud in between endless advertisements). You have just imagined the current operation of the music industry and their partners in crime, the playlist managers. And you've just seen how phenomenally fucking stupidly the music industry is behaving; someone has set up a lending library around the corner and they are trying to shut it down on the theory that one person bought it and others are enjoying it for free (the CARP fees for webcasting are an offer to take $1 from the library each time a book is loaned (for free)). Don't tell me that getting mp3s and burning CDs from it is stealing unless you want to get smacked; it's like going to the library and photocopying a book; you aren't likely to do it to save money, because if you could just buy the damn thing it would be much quicker and easier and possibly even cheaper and definitely better than making a copy. ($20 CDs kinda fuck up that equation, but I don't recall the part of copyright law that says you can raise prices indefinitely without consequence)

If the RIAA really went after individuals, they'd be shooting their best customers and their best new promotional vehicle since radio. Really smart!

Re:Advantage of Gnutella

[alizard]

s. And you've just seen how phenomenally fucking stupidly the music industry is behaving; someone has set up a lending library around the corner and they are trying to shut it down on the theory that one person bought it and others are enjoying it for free

No, the idea is to prevent end users from getting exposed to musicians who don't have contracts with RIAA labels.

That's the reality underlying "concerns about piracy" and artists being enlisted behind industry propaganda and payola, why LP FM radio has been given so much trouble, etc. and why Internet Radio is being shut down in the US.

The RIAA wants a situation where an artist who wants to make a living in music must be signed to an RIAA label. An artist who sells music otherwise isn't contributing towards the lifestyles of the suits at record companies. The RIAA suits consider this immoral and where possible, something to be made illegal.

I'm sure that the record industry knows that the P2P networks can be quite reasonably seen as a group of individuals promoting music for RIAA companies and artists at their own expense. This isn't what they have problems with.

The problem is that since the RIAA has no control over these channels, there's no way to prevent them from presenting the music of musicians not signed to RIAA labels.

Time + Money = Not bloody likely!

[decipher_saint]

"Filing suits against individual users is complicated. Entertainment companies frequently hire services that specialize in tracking copyrighted material online. But to get the name of an individual user, they have to send a subpoena to that person's Internet-service provider. Even for the ISP, linking the Internet address to a name can be complex. Moreover, it's hard to verify which person was logged on to an Internet connection at a given time."

So in other words to find most individual users they will have to invest time+money, yeah this'll fly for an association thats primary concern is profit!!

Commentary is completely off.

[MisterBlister]

The commentary above is completely off. Its not that the RIAA feels smug in their victory against the file sharing companies, its that they realize that none of these victories matter in the long term. Shut down one P2P service and 3 more pop up..

This isn't about an industry that is feeling smug and self-assured...This is a LAST DITCH EFFORT to assert their right to exist. And in the long run, I don't think its going to work.

RIP RIAA -- 2006

Re:Commentary is completely off.

[Scrameustache]

to assert their right to exist

No, no one challenges their right to exist, what they are trying to protect is their "right" to impose an outdated buisness model on the public. They want complete control on the music, they want their oligopoly to be able to set extravagant prices on low quality products so they can keep getting their 8 digit salaries. And above all, they do not want to either 1-get with the times and adapt to new technology nor 2- give the public what they want.

I used to buy a lot more CDs when I could sample them freely on napster. Now that they've shut it down and called me a thief, I'm boycotting them.

I hope they go bankrupt...at least then N'sync will be forced to go back to being regular male strippers.

just imagine the court docket

[Patrick13]

"The United States versus KazaaLite User "SpankyPants27", AKA 64.123.25.14"

Where is this illegal?

[jmd!]

Say I own the "rights" to 500 songs. I bought the CD, tape, payed for an individual mp3 download, whatever.

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 /tunes shared out.

Re:Where is this illegal?

[Tarrek]

In my opinion, it's totally legal, though I'd like to see that stand up in court =P

As per the Home Audio Recording Act of 1992 (If I remember correctly), you are allowed to make infinite copies of a copyrighted material that you own the rights to for personal use, and, in that case, personal use INCLUDED giving copies to friends, as long as it wasn't for profit.

That's no different than Napster, if you ask me. I'm just giving copies to my friends, and I'm sure as hell not profitting from it.

Re:Where is this illegal?

[r_barchetta]

From your comment I can infer that you feel buying the cd/tape/mp3 grants you copyright ownership and, therefore, distribution rights of said contents.

It does not. Fair use and personal use are not the same thing as putting songs into file sharing systems where who knows how many people will access them. Why do you think Diamond won the lawsuit over the RIO mp3 player and Napster lost theirs?

Libraries walk a fine line on this issue. It troubles me greatly that the book publishers and other industries (assuming the rumors are true) are trying to limit libraries' ability to provide materials to the public. More and more the U.S. drifts toward a "if you do not have money you are worthless" attitude toward its own citizens. That's why the health care in this country is so fscked up.

But I'm straying from the topic. I think the difference between a library's CD collection and file sharing is that only one person can have a copy of the cd at a time. Yes, 1000 people might check the CD out over the time it survives in the collection, but 1000 people don't have it all at once. Isn't file-sharing usage somewhere in the millions of people? That's a different scope now isn't it?

More importantly, you only get the CD for a limited time. If you don't return it you are usually charged the cost of replacing it.

Neither of those are true for file-sharing and I think they are significant differences.

-r

Here's where it gets funny.

[wrinkledshirt]

Years from now, law students are going to have to remember the names of groundbreaking cases that formed the latest incarnation of IP law...

RIAA v. l33t d0Wn104d3r
RIAA v. i oWnz j00
RIAA v. cr4pfl00d3r

Can't wait to see how those textbooks handle it...

Re:Here's where it gets funny.

[NeMon'ess]

RIAA v. FUCKRIAAUPTHIERSTUPIDASSES
RIAA v. HILARYROSENISACUNTIMFISTINGUPTOMYELBOW
RIAA v. JACKVALENTITAKESMYCDSUPHISASSHOLE

Fun for the whole court.

This is the endgame

[mikethegeek]

We've now reached the endgame... When the whole music industry comits mass suicide like Metallica did when filing suit against 300,000 of it's own fans.

I've been waiting for this to happen, as this will push things to a final resolution.

BTW, Why can I buy a movie that has been out for 3-4 months for $15-16 on DVD, with extra features, etc, but a 20 year old album costs more than that? I can buy DVD's of older movies for around $10.
Yet, DVD sales boom. The best anti-piracy protection is reasonable prices. So long as the RIAA engages in illegal, anti-competitive practices (the FTC found them guilty of CD price fixing again), I say they deserve whatever happens to them.

It's a Mexican standoff... Pirates will pirate from P2P networks, the RIAA won't obey the law.

If it can be heard, it can be ripped. If it can be ripped, it can be traded. No amount of lawyering can change this, and indeed, the music industry will only become an even greater villian to the average Joe by the attempt.

Sell CD's for $10. Watch the sales rise. Quit wasting $millions bribing stations to play songs they will play anyway. Watch profits rise...

Re:This is the endgame

[JahToasted]

Sell CD's for $10. Watch the sales rise. Quit wasting $millions bribing stations to play songs they will play anyway. Watch profits rise...

Actually its not so simple as that. It's a matter of game theory: if you as a record company stop giving the record companies payola, none of yor songs will get played, and your competitors' will. Kind of like the prisoners dilemma, If all the record companies stopped shelling out payola they would all be better off. But if one does it it has an advantage. If you could all agree not to break the law you'd be better off. Of course such an agreement depends on the record companies being trustworthy...

As for lowering prices, they have no reason to do that. If you really want Britney Spears there is only ONE label selling her "music". so in effect they have a monopoly, so pricing is not dependent on cost but dependent on what the buyer is willing to pay.

To summarize: The RIAA owns the artists and Clearchannel owns the listeners... music-listeners get screwed twice over. P2P is a loophole to this system. A music listener has to choose between getting screwed or breaking copyright law.

FreeNet?

[tbmaddux]

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)

Re:About time

[purpledinoz]

It's a stupid idea, the second one big distributor gets busted, 3 more are going to pop up, it'll take an enourmous amount of resources to even make a dent in the supply of songs. In the meantime, they'll have to raise the prices of CDs, yet again, to finance this legal effort, and people will even buy less CDs and download more music.

They're just digging themselves deeper into their graves. They're approach should be through sound economics, not through evil lawyers (that's another issue all together!).

Give us an incentive to buy your CDs and we'll buy it. Stop blatently rip us off!

libraries are also the targets

[jc42]

> How is offering them over napster servers any more illegal then what a library does?

Here and there in the midst of all this discussion, I've occasionally run across an estimate from the publishing industry that each book sold is read on the average four times. One of their interests is cutting this number down and making people pay for the books they read.

Now, I have very few books that I've ever loaded out to anyone, and I doubt if any of my couple hundred books have been read by three other people. So where could all these extra readers be coming from?

Right. Libraries. The publishing industry doesn't make much of a public fuss of it, but one of the goals that they are starting to consider reachable is using the growing copyright restrictions to shut down public libraries. In the eyes of publishers, libraries are nothing but open copyright violations. All the arguments being made about "piracy" apply directly to libraries.

In the 1800's, the development of the public library system was one of the really significant advances in public education. We are seeing an attempt to end this social experiment, and to restrict education to those who can afford the publishers' price.

Re:Interesting Question...

[Sloppy]

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?

Yes, if the RIAA-vs-mp3.com case is precedent. In that case, mp3.com had a CD, and a challenge-response protocol virtually guaranteed that a user had the CD. But my.mp3.com transmitting a song to the user, was found to be copyright infringement.

Sue me for what???

[starX]

I just graduated from college with a liberal arts degree. If they want massive amounts of money from me, they're just going to have to get in line and wait their turn.

New name for a P2P application

[tcc]

SeeUsueMe