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RIAA Headway Dwindling
JKnowledge writes "This article points to the fact that Yahoo! and various other ISPs are joining in Verizon's fight for the privacy of thier users. Perhaps this silly debacle in the rights of Anonymous Cowards will soon lose steam and sink into the rot that it rose from."
Don't think that these companies are fighting for the privacy of their users. The companies are fighting so that they don't have to take responsibility for what their users do.
It's in their own best interests to help out the little guy on this one, but don't assume everybody's motivations align so well.
It's about time that these big companies like Yahoo and Verizon stepped up to the plate to bat for us. End users are not going to self-assemble into a class-action lawsuit with high-priced lawyers that can do battle with those of the RIAA. The only entities capable of protecting us in the courts are those able to afford the lawyers- so big ISP's fit the bill perfectly. They have the most to lose, but the most resources to fight against that loss, and by proxy they are fighting for us, the end users.
The battle won't be over until the RIAA is disbanded. Legal setbacks are meaningless other than as delays in pursuit of their goals. They have as much money and time as they need to chip away at consumer rights. Failure in any attempt they make simply means they'll come back again using different tactics.
I don't see the RIAA going away any time soon, so neither will the battle.
Is it strictly off of record sales?
I wouldn't think they'd be hard to put out of business, or at least dent them enough to hurt their lawyers.
I've found that artists listen to their fans. If we can come up with a better solution for the artist I bet it wouldn't be that difficult to get them to hop on.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Good Guys? Do you really think that Verizon et. al. are doing this because it is the right thing to do? No way. They are **really** mad because the RIAA is trying to force the cost of enforcing their copyrights onto everyone but themselves. The point taken by Verizon et. al. is right on the mark, the RIAA is not allowing due process; but they are protecting their shareholders, not intentionally "fighting the good fight". The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.
--- I would prefer a prehensile tail....
Disclaimer: I haven't read the legal brief.
"The music industry pays the RIAA to investigate and prosecute copyright infractions. They don't pay us a penny to do that. They don't pay ISPs a penny to do that. Even if they did, it would be a violation of due process and subscriber privacy."
So what if they did pay? It seems that the anti-RIAA people (telcos, ISPs, civil liberties) are still partly in it for the money. After all, the payment issue shouldn't even arise when the problem at hand is the DMCA's "turbocharged" subpoena clause.
The groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumer Alert, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and National Consumers League, argued the RIAA is relying on a portion of the DMCA that violates Americans' right to be anonymous online
Everyone has certain rights (such as anonymity) until they commit a crime. Pirating music (whethey they're justified or not) is still a violation of copyrights. Why do ISPs have the right to refuse handing over the information when they can be considered criminals?
Is it because they don't provide the actual connections for the P2P network?
(Not a troll, just curious)
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Quote by the RIAA:
"They (the ISP's) are trying to avoid the cost of identifying infringers as provided for in the DMCA by imposing unrealistic and burdensome obligations on copyright owners instead."
What?? You mean they are suggesting the RIAA use the law like everyone else has to? The nerve of those ISP's!
I'm pretty sure that it's the obligation of the copyright owner to preserve their copyright.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Come on, this legal bickering is for weasels. The problem isn't whether or not the DMCA's subpoena rules apply to P2P users, or any other legal technicality. The problem is that the copyright ownership industry is so lucrative, and it's that way because Congress has made it so, by obligingly making copyrights last longer and longer at the whim of the entertainment industry.
The recording industry wouldn't have anywhere near the power they have if their rights only lasted a few years, which was the original intent of copyright. It was meant to encourage creativity and inventiveness, not as a tool to keep anything valuable from ever dropping into public domain. But by extending copyrights again and again, people like Fritz Hollings (D-Disney) have given the copyright-ownership industry a golden goose, which they naturally want to keep alive forever.
If you want to help fix the problem, find out who your congressional reps are and write to them, on clean paper in an actual envelope, asking them to rollback copyright law to a sane level. I'd really like to see people actually exercise their freedom of speech in this matter, instead of lawyers merely using it as body armor.
Is it possible to be sued for having really cheesy taste in music?
even though it's not fun to admit, people DO pirate music.
Well I'm probably risking getting labeled a troll for this, but oh well. Virtually everyone posting on slashdot seems to think that pirating music is their right. However, just because you may believe in open source and the accompanying ideals of free (not as in beer) software does NOT mean that you can force these ideals on the record industry. They (and the artists who choose to sign with them) obviously feel that they own the intellectual property rights to the music. If you want to argue there is no such thing as intellectual property that makes most of this moot, but it also opens up a whole new can of worms that I have never the time nor the desire to delve into.
I certainly think there are a lot of things wrong with the record industry and how it is driven by the dollar and not the music, but like it or not it is their right to sell the music. This is just the same as any developer who sells proprietary hardware; they spent the time to make it and it is their right and their right alone to decide if and how they wish to sell it. If people pirated software as much as they pirated music, there would not be a software industry left standing.
Software developers take measures to make sure their works aren't pirated. Yes there are extreme examples like M$, but what about say game developers who require you to have the CD and/or a CD key to play the game. I know this is not a foolproof method, but it is fairly simple and helps cut down on piracy. No one jumps on these developers for doing this, yet the RIAA can't even be mentioned on slashdot without hordes of people mudslinging. While I don't agree with stuff like the legislation to DoS P2P network users, the RIAA also tries on much more legitimate legal grounds to stunt piracy. Is it really that bad of them to try and protect what is legally theirs in the first?
Yes, in theory it sounds really exciting. People coming together to take on one of the greediest corporate helldemons out there, for the good of the land. But the sad reality is that 99% of people complain and never do anything about it. You would think the average American/European consumer who essentially has the say whether a given product/service is a "keeper" would be a vocal voice when it comes to asinine legislature. But people assimilate.
It could be justifiably compared to the nerdy kid and the schoolyard bully. You let him pick on you without fighting back, and just open the floodgates of abuse. RIAA has tested the waters, and they came to the conclusion that people will put up with their shit.
This just goes to prove the notion that indifference of the users to take any swift action is not an OSS centric problem. People from all walks of life use "portable music", and when the time comes to take a stand and rage against the machine, everyone just thinks they cannot make a difference on a personal level. It multiplies into millions of ignoramuses, and in turn empowers **AA to swing their dick in any preferred direction while knocking civil liberties around.
How long will it take before people realize that just by talking about it, evil will not just vaporize into thin air?
Copy protected CDs --> Idiotic Windows XP Authentication methods --> DRM --> Crippled hardware --> Palladium --> Microchips under your skin... what's next?
Raise your hand. Make a Fist. Fight Back!
Yep, there is, barely. Now, I'm not going to claim this isn't somewhat self-inflicted: the music industry does unquestionably charge absurd amounts for material, it does unquestionably pack albums with a couple of decent tracks that get released as singles and then filler rubbish for the rest, and it does unquestionably produce lots of production line acts that just aren't very good right now. But none of these give you a right to break the law and rip them off.
If you don't like it, make like every other industry in the capitalist world and vote with your wallet: buy good stuff, don't buy anything else. They'll soon enough get the hint at that point. Just don't rip the last three Britney Spears CDs over Kazaa and then claim that the recording industry profits have been hit because they produce cheesy pop that no-one wants to buy.
And by the way, yes, I bought my copy of Windows (not with a new machine), I bought my copies of Baldur's Gate II, Deus Ex, Quake n, and so on, and my office does have legit licences for all the MS software we use (and everyone is very careful not to violate licensing agreements on more expensive software for which we have limited licences available).
Yawn. If you don't like it, take it out on the zillions of people who are ripping off the media industries wholesale and forcing them to go down that path. I don't like it either; I'm a member of a dancing club, and we routinely (and legitimately) shift music (all of which we've bought, and for which we have the appropriate public performance licences and such) onto premixed CDs and such. When we can't do that any more, our lives will be more difficult, and we haven't done anything wrong to deserve it. But lots of people have, and being objective, I find it hard to be upset when the RIAA tries to defend its legal rights, and very easy to laugh at people who use "fair use" as a blanket guard against "I can't rip my Britney CD any more and it's not fair <sob>".
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Yes, people are pirating music, but so what?
People shoplift.
People speed.
People do all sorts of horrible nasty things. But we've managed to stick with due process
What's so different and important about alleged copyright violations that we need to jettison the the Bill of Rights?
Can someone please explain why the RIAA and MPAA members are deserving of a new special status under the law?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
ISPs don't have the right to refuse to hand over subscriber information, as long as the copyright holder or its assignee begins a "John Doe" court proceeding in which the target of the suit is uniquely identified by their actions. The ISP is then handed a subpoena, as in any other civil case, that requests information that is important for the court's decision, such as information that can positively identify the John Doe. The ISP will legally have to comply with this subpoena by providing the subscriber information to the court.
However, the DMCA has a special provision, intended to speed copyright holders' takedowns of infringing material from web sites, which allows the rights holder to expedite the removal of such material by requiring the ISP to remove it within a short period of time of receiving the request and notifying the ISP client. The client can halt the takedown by formally claiming that the material does not infringe, thus leading them to some serious legal problems if they are not telling the truth. This section of law was not written in such a way that it is clear whether it applies equally to material that is stored on the computers of ISP clients rather than on ISP company web servers. (Remember, to anyone over forty, internet = web.) Thus the possibility for the current legal conflict.
So, why are the ISPs bothering to fight this? You are right that it is all about money, of course, but I seriously doubt that it's over the money that the ISPs could otherwise extort from copyright holders for this service. Try reading the sentences
as rhetorical, as in "I don't know why I, as a state warden, have to execute this mafia informant who happens to also be a murderer - the mafia doesn't pay my salary, and even if they did, it would be against my conscience as I don't believe in capital punishment." Instead, the money in question is what the ISPs would lose if they were seen by their customers as ready to interfere in this way with client use of the leased bandwidth, or more likely, the money that it would cost to even try to police copyright infringements that occurred through internet services and were stored on client hard drives. If you don't think it's really that much of a big deal, I'll illegally email you a song to prove the point.A more interesting question, though, is why doesn't the RIAA just follow the standard process and obtain a John Doe subpoena? They must have the evidence to do this. One possibility is that they would rather set a precedent that they can request takedowns of infringing material stored on client hard drives using the easy, no-fuss method as they read Congress as having intended it. Note that this is what they claim as their motive.
However, this rationale doesn't hold very much water, since it makes no sense for the RIAA to try to file a lawsuit against any significant number of file traders in an effort to eradicate infringement. The whole strategy must revolve around suing a small subset of file traders in an effort to remove those nodes which offer the largest set of files and to scare off all of the rest, in effect "firing into the crowd". It would simply be too expensive to police infringement by catching all copyright violators - that's more than half of American teenagers, and even an expedited discovery process is not going to make that cost effective. In the case of a small number of lawsuits, whether the discovery is expedited or not makes little difference and is not worth fighting over, except on principle (which the notoriously mercenary RIAA asserts as a secondary motive, of course.)
A moment of thought indicates that a much more likely reason to wish for the expedited process in this case is so that the RIAA can see who the defendant will be before they actually launch an infringement lawsuit. With the so-called turbocharged subpoena process, the RIAA can make a blanket call for the identity of one hundred infringers, investigate each person on the list, and choose the one who's a baby-beating homeless crack-ho terrorist hacker to hit with a lawsuit. As noted above, with the demographic reality of copyright infringement, they really don't want to follow standard practice and blindly file a John Doe lawsuit - heavens, that person could be the eleven-year-old granddaughter of one of the RIAA executives, or Jenna Bush. Knowing what you're getting into before making public legal filings that could be very embarrassing later is almost mandatory in this situation, and you can expect the copyright holders' organisations to press for this power as strongly as they can.
A final comment: the civil liberties organisations are not in it for the money.
But that actually is fair use, as long as they don't intend to redistribute that Britney CD. At least, it's just as much fair use as your dancing club shifting music onto pre-mixed CDs. It seems ridiculous that you'd complain about other people doing the exactly the same legal thing you are. Just because somebody else has crappy taste doesn't make their position any less legitimate.
And this stoic "I'll be upset when I lose that right, but I'll take it in stride because the record companies are just protecting themselves" attitude is another way of saying "my rights are not important and can be trampled." Whether you're a Britney fan or a professional musicologist doing serious academic research, laws like the DMCA hurt us by taking away rights and extending copyright far beyond what is was meant to cover.
Just curious, but have you? I was at the mall this weekend so I stopped in several stores which have a music section or are purely music stores. The music sections were absolutely dead and of the 2 record stores I saw in the mall, one had 2 people in it. The other was totally empty except for employees standing around looking extremely bored.
Next I went to a second hand music store not far from the mall and it was packed. So even people who are not downloading are buying their music second hand at the least because of CD prices. If the RIAA would lower their prices to reasonable levels people might bome back. Instead they are wasting money on lawsuits and getting everyone so mad at them that they are actively searching out other means of getting the music and even finding legal ways to do so (second hand stores).
So the RIAA's death will be multipronged. First, they are losing money like crazy now. Second, they are pissing off their customers, something you do not do in buisiness which is making the first reason worse for them. Third, artists themselves are starting to see the light and using the internet to cut out the middle man. (See non RIAA label Metropolis Records and their support for internet radio station DigitalGunfire.com). Lastly, they are losing stream with congress as tech companies and ISP's realize that they have a hell of a lot more clout as long as they start using their money the way the RIAA has. I simply don't see the RIAA making it another 3 years, maybe 5 at the most.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
So, if you don't go with the RIAA, you can't play your song on any ClearChannel station and you can't have your concert at any ClearChannel venue. Basically, you'll play local bars and clubs and hopefully get big enough to be invited to a mainstream venue.
Ever wonder why none of Prince's post-WB stuff is on the radio? Hmm...
Yeah, right.
The problem is the methods that the RIAA is using and powers that they are asking for.
Currently there is a perfectly good system for finding and trying copyright infringers. Courts allow John Doe defendants and there is a whole process for requesting subpoenas to get information about ISP users. Additionally, there are already penalties for copyright infringement.
There is no need for additional laws.
The RIAA wants to completely destroy due process (the DMCA's take down provisions are "guilty until proven innocent"). They want to use poorly written laws to gain maximum advantage. Finally, they try to sneak new abilities into laws designed to fight terrorism.
Meanwhile, they're whining and crying poor and "file sharing is evil" when there's no evidence to back up their claims. In fact, to the contrary, file sharing seems to promote sales.
Finally, the member companies have been found guilty numerous times of price fixing and continue to rip off the artists who "work" for them (though with the ol' "work for hire" clause it's anything but).
So, no it's not bad for them to try to protect what is, unfortunately, legally theirs. The problem is why they should need a whole new set of laws to protect their stuff when everyone else has to deal with the legal system as it currently stands.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Remember when MSFT tried to argue the states had no right to to bring it to court with different antitrust charges. Thirty somthing states awoke from their slumber and chalenged it.
Microsoft asked the court to take some of the states power.
Now Congress and President Clinton have tried to take some of the courts power and hand it to law enforcement and a group of wealthy companies!
The DMCA circumvents the judicial branches power approve or deny the when where and how of law enforcment action when criminal charges are brought. The courts can do somthing about it too, they can strike the law down as violating due process as stated in the constitution.
Verizon and friends lawyers just need to present it to the Judge that way and it will be gone in a second.
Judges must face peer review too, how can they face their equals and superiors with, "I took the moral low ground, contridicted the constitution, and made you condierably less powerful.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
You know, everyone just bitches about the RIAA, DMCA, and other such infringements on our freedom. The answer is simple... BOYCOTT!!! If a company supports the RIAA or uses the DMCA to infringe on our rights, dont support their products in any way. If Congressman Dipshit supports a law in favor of these, vote for his opponent. If Sony uses the DMCA do crack down on something that affects your life in such a way that you do not like, buy their competitors products. Spread rumors about how a mother lost a lawsuit when her babys hand was mangled in a DVD player, and Sony won the counter suit. Resist buying that PS2 and buy something else. At what point did we lose control of our lives? Why is it that big corporations can shit on us and tell us what we can and can not do with our products? Fsck them... They can kiss my ass. I wont be bullied by big corporations or their advocate groups. Im sick of these guys hideing behind "policy", something that is on paper. It cant physically prohibit you from doing something, so why are we subject to it. Its simple, dont buy the products of the supporters of the RIAA. Make them lose money. If they lose profit over it, they will discontinue contributions to such an agency, so the RIAA will be disbanned, the Chairman will be out of a job sleeping on the street in a cardboard box, so that we can all laugh at them and urinate on them in their sleep. Get control and do something about it, your the consumer, and your supposed to always be right...