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Report From RIAA v. Verizon Case
LawGeek writes "Adam Kessel has provided Greplaw with exclusive coverage of today's RIAA v. Verizon hearing, in which the RIAA is attempting to force Verizon to produce information about a user who allegedly shared files using P2P technology. It sounds as though the judge had a good grasp of the technology, and has promised to rule quickly. Slashdot has previously covered Verizon's stance on this and other P2P issues."
Judge permitted amicus Motion Picture Association of America to make a brief argument which for the most part said that the Motion Picture Industry had a large financial stake in DMCA enforcement
Or in other words... DUH!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
As you may know, the RIAA has sued 2600 magazine, and those at 2600 aren't big fans of Verizon, as they had a problem with the domain name verizonsucks.com because of copyright restrictions. Maybe they are hoping that both sides will do some real damage to each other.
... so ambituous. A big company such as Verizon protecting the 'little' man. Joe Schmoe is glad that Verizon will protect him should they be coming after him.
This seriously sounds much like a marketing plot. Yet, if it helps the cause, I am all in favour of Verizon.
So where do I buy Verizon fan articles?
&& aemula C. ab stirpe interiit
He does seem to have a very good grasp on the underlying issues and the technology
Based on what I read in the article I would have to agree. Particularly this sentence towards the end that says, "It sounds as though the judge had a good grasp of the technology."
Best Windows Freeware
Maybe we will get a ground breaking decision FOR P2P technology...naw, I better go back to my dream.
RIAA: Ok, we'll go after users. Verizson, tell us who this guy is.
Geeks: You can't go after the users, they have a right to being anonymous.
Bottom line is you can't have it both ways. The law (good or bad) is being broken. Who should the copywrite holders go after? The tools or the abusers.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
here (or http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2002/10/04/verizon/ print.html for the link afraid).
Verizon by its own admission is protecting the privacy of its subscribers and thats a good thing to do - sounds good and feels good. You would have thousands of companies who would want the names of Internet subscribers if an ISP gave out the name of a subscriber just like that. Verizon would be hoping that the RIAA wouldnt win this case because that would set a bad example and companies who fight for their user's privacy will stand out...so there is more at stake here for both the parties.
I hope Verizon wins.
i have my home pc on verizon dsl. i also run kazaa on it 24/7 against an 80 gig usb drive. the 80 gig drive is 90% full, with one folder on it simply labeled "mp3".
;-P
any way we can get the name of this user the RIAA is after? the chris tresco dod interview is weighing a little heavily on my mind right now (gulp)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The RIAA goes after everyone. The software makers, users, ISPs and everyone in between have the potential of being sued.
Some geeks have a problem with one, some geeks have a problem with another.
And some geeks have a problem with all of it. Is there really any reason why the shouldn't? Sure, the copyright is being violated, but so are user's liberties.
It looks like we are seeing more and more tech saavy judges who are really interested in this issue. Really though more people should be involved as it's a whole new area of law to be researched.
Hopefully with this trend we'll be seeing more fairness in our laws and not have another Dmitry type affair here.
I think things are looking up here.
sri
The gist of their arguement goes like this:
I hate to say it, but this time, the RIAA is right (legally). They got the DMCA passed, and Verizon is pretty much screwed here. Of course, Verizon -- AFAIK -- will not get penalties, except for possibly not providing the required information (name, address, phone) in a timely manner.
Stupid DMCA.
The law already provides provisions for the RIAA member companies to use the courts to seek subpoenas for the information that they want from Verizon. The DMCA put in certain provisions for an expedited subpoena process relating to certain information that ISP's have.
The ISP's are arguing that this exception does not extend to information about users who are merely using Verizon's IP pipes rather than storing an offending file on Verizon's servers (which Verizon has control over). So, Verizon wants the RIAA companies to go through the normal channel to request the subpoena. Why? Well mainly because it's more complicated, time consuming, and expensive for the RIAA companies to go through the normal channels. This means that the number of subpoenas served to Verizon is decreased and keeps them from being swamped. If the RIAA companies don't have to go through that process then they can have crawler-bots spew out subpoena demands and swamp the ISP's with information requests.
It's not a Verizon's defending the small guy or trying to be a scoff law. It's a "there's already a way to do this, follow the rules" thing. It's really a question of who has to bear the brunt of the costs of protecting these copyrights. It would seem quite logical that the ones generating the revenue should bear it.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Similar, although not as well written, article here at bbc new.
Does a 512(a) provider count as the same as a 512(b provider? This clearly conplicates aspects for 512(f) and 512(j) providers, but could come as a reliefe to those 512(b) and 512(q) providers. The 512(k) providers (if there are any of those still in existance) will obviously be covered under any rational ruling that also covers 512(d) and 512(g) unless it also covers 512(c)
I hope this clears things up for you all.
You know, there are always those who argue that when someone like Saddam starts fscking with others, that instead of starting some large military campaign, why not just hire (or send) some commando types in and assasinate them.
/.
For God's sake, when will someone digitally take out the RIAA? DoS, hack 'em, upload trojans, something! If there were ANYONE on earth that could do so without getting caught, they'd be found here on
I realize that I am being awfully generalistic (did I just make up a word?) but seriously, I am sick of these organizations messing with us.
Sure, let's do it the legal way, you say. Just like I can write my congressman with a 10000 signatures and he'll vote the way we want. Bullshit.
Sorry to rant. But someone had to suggest it.
Thank goodness no one can mod me as "raving lunitic"!
"It's criminal," RIAA president Hilary Rosen said. "Anyone at any time can simply turn on a radio and hear a copyrighted song. Making matters worse, these radio stations often play the best, catchiest song off the album over and over until people get sick of it. Where is the incentive for people to go out and buy the album?"
According to Rosen, the radio stations acquire copies of RIAA artists' CDs and then broadcast them using a special transmitter, making it possible for anyone with a compatible radio-wave receiver to listen to the songs.
"These radio stations are extremely popular," Rosen said. "They flagrantly string our songs together in 'uninterrupted music blocks' of up to 70 minutes in length, broadcasting nearly one CD's worth of product without a break, and they actually have the gall to allow businesses to advertise between songs. It's bad enough that they're giving away our music for free, but they're actually making a profit off this scheme."
RIAA attorney Russell Frackman said the lawsuit is intended to protect the artists. "If this radio trend continues, it will severely damage a musician's ability to earn a living off his music," Frackman said. "[Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich stopped in the other day wondering why his last royalty check was so small, and I didn't know what to say. How do you tell a man who's devoted his whole life to his music that someone is able to just give it away for free? That pirates are taking away his right to support himself with his craft?"
For the record companies and the RIAA, one of the most disturbing aspects of the radio-station broadcasts is that anyone with a receiver and an analog tape recorder can record the music and play it back at will. "I've heard reports that children as young as 8 tape radio broadcasts for their own personal use," Rosen said. "They listen to a channel that has a limited rotation of only the most popular songs--commonly called 'Top 40' stations--then hit the 'record' button when they hear the opening strains of the song they want. And how much are they paying for these songs? A big fat zip."
Continued Rosen: "According to our research, there is one of these Top 40 stations in every major city in the country. This has to be stopped before the music industry's entire economic infrastructure collapses."
Especially distressing to the RIAA are radio stations' "all-request hours," when listeners call in to ask radio announcers, or "disc jockeys," to play a certain song.
"What's the point of putting out a new Ja Rule or Sum 41 album if people can just call up and hear any song off the album that they want?" Frackman asked. "In some instances, these stations actually have the nerve to let the caller 'dedicate' his act of thievery to a friend or lover. Could you imagine a bank letting somebody rob its vaults and then allowing the thief to thank his girlfriend Tricia and the whole gang down at Bumpy's?" Defenders of radio-based music distribution insist that the relatively poor sound quality of radio broadcasts negates the record companies' charges.
"Radio doesn't have the same sound quality as a CD," said Paul "Cubby" Bryant, music director of New York radio station Z100, one of the nation's largest distributors of free music and a defendant in the suit. "Real music lovers will still buy CDs. If anything, we're exposing people to music they might not otherwise hear. These record companies should be thanking us, not suing us." Outraged by the RIAA suit, many radio listeners are threatening to boycott the record companies.
"All these companies care about is profits," said Amy Legrand, 21, an avid Jacksonville, FL, radio user who surreptitiously records up to 10 songs a day off the radio. "Top 40 radio is taking the power out of the hands of the Ahmet Erteguns of the world and bringing it back to the people of Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting. It's about time somebody finally stood up to those record-company fascists."
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Enlightened self-interest is not a bad way to run their business.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
...unless, of course, DMCA is found unconstitutional,
but that would have to be determined by a court...go figure.
I don't see what the RIAA is complaining about.
Have you ever called Verizon to try and get a problem with their service resolved?
For heaven's sake, when I pay my phone bill with a check over the phone with this company, I have to talk to a human and give them all the info they need to create a paper check which they then deposit. Who their size doesn't do the electronic check thing now adays?
Don't even get me starting with if one of our T1's at work has a problem...
Sounds to me like the RIAA is just sore they don't get better treatment than everyone else.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
You don't try and fight MPAA and Verizon; you get MPAA and Verizon to fight each other.''
Darn it! I hate both the RIAA as well as Verizon!
Who am I supposed to root for?
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
The funny thing is that the reason the RIAA ends up pissing people off is the same reason an electronic attack would be pointless. They shun computers and they do everything they can to insure that the experience of downloading electronic music is as unplesant as possible.
Hacking them would probably help them overall if you think about it. "Oh our system are down, you see how bad this Internet thing is, go buy CD's, they don't go down like this Internet thing." Not to mention the fact that the hacking would make them look like the victims of the evil computer geeks rather than the other way around.
Don't do anything stupid, for your sake and for all of our sakes.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Dont FSCKING READ IT! Its a lot more interesting that most of the Drivel here and if people keep posting itsobviously because most people have not seen it. Except for losers like you who read every post every hour every day. lighten up and go read the onion, winer boy.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
if the user didn't know they were being targeted, and they were reading about the legal stuff along with the rest of us going "huh, sucks to be that guy!"
If my enemy attacks my enemy, I laugh. Maybe 2600 rigged this collision.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It is interesting to note that Mr. Heinlein penned those words back in 1939.
function history(){
history();
}
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
no you don't! HAHAHAHAHA
;-P
stupid geek person!
i don't have an Internet Post office address!
there is no internet post office, don't you get it!? email isn't like regular mail!
man, you geeks are dumber than i thought
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
... and replace with alternative P2P HDD that does not offer copyrighted materials. Preferably of you pounding out various tunes on your son's xylophone, while singing through a kazoo.
Just be sure and bury it in the middle of a state park, or before too long some bank robber is going to be taken down with your HDD as his weapon of choice...
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
This is almost as good as the Mohammed Al-Fayed VS Neil Hamilton libel case we had here (.uk) a few years ago. General opinion seemed to be "Shame they can't both lose".
That time it was Al-Fayed, who had an interesting past (and the worst decorated shop in central London), even before accusing MI6 and the Royal family of murdering his son (which, oddly enough, cost Harrods one of their royal warrants), and being sued for libel by Neil Hamilton, after Al-Fayed claimed he took bribes to ask questions in Parliment.
Hamilton lost and had to pay a big settlement before going to prison. Al-Fayed won, but I don't think telling a court that he bribed MPs was particularly helpful in his endless quest for British citizenship
So no-one really won
The End of American Civilization has begun.
There. I spelled it out. Now, quit trying to play two games at once, and realize, you live in a single reality. Quit lying to yourself, therefore, and either (1) play by the American Government's rules, or (2) get out. Me, I actually picked both.
Nonetheless, no matter what you pick, I expect that the same thing that takes down most criminals is the fact that they don't think their method (that is, crime) through to its logical conculsion (usually prison, death, or broken relationships). It's a distinct sign of a lack of intelligence.
Even where it results in the criminal ruling the world (Napoleon, Hitler), the net result is (a) butt of jokes about megalomaniac little snits with various tics (b) see previous paragraph: prison, death, broken relationships.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
that way the user can check and be aware that they're after him.
hey man, all change that results in change that is positive is usually a struggle. the american revolution and the civil war turned out alright (american independence, the end of slavery). these were probably all accompanied by lawyers screaming about illegal activities. i think of napster, the riaa, kazaa, etc., as the birthing pains concerning a new understanding of intellectual property, all of which wrought by the introduction of the internet.
;-P see?
look, there are 3 things you can "steal":
1. atoms
2. data about atoms
3. data for its own sake.
1. atoms: you steal a car. a car is a thing. you stole it. end of story. the way it is and the way it should be.
2. data about atoms. amalgamated incorporated's secret formula 51x. if you steal that data and use the information to make your own production for pruchase of formula 51x, then you have stolen. stealing the information itself wasn't bad, because scientists were already using the information freely about formula 51x to research formula 52x. stealing it to make money off your own version is the badness here.
the way it is today is that amalgamated incorporated does try to call just using that information a crime, even though it stops scientific progress. see this slashdot story. the way it should be is that use of formula 51x should be free for research, illegal for capital production of products derived from that information. we have a long way to go to fix this mess.
3. data for its own sake. music, books, etc. we are not in gutenberg's time anymore. we live in a world where information like music and books is as transmuteable as water. in a way, information wants to be free. music is not like formula 51x. it is about nothing specifically, and is enjoyed for it's own sake. this should be free. this is what the promise of the interent is all about! the RIAA guards a world that existed before the internet. they are attempting to reverse history. let them go on with their bad selves, they can't possibly win. pandora's box is already open.
but who will make money off of music! no one will!???
so the future is about the status quo? things change dramatically sometimes because of new discoveries. besides, there are always alternative models for turning a dime. someone will learn how to stand at the portals that tell people what they might want to listen to, and artists or the groups that represent the artists will pay them to put their name on that portal. the artists will make money the old fashioned way, by working for it. live concerts. or they won't make money. they will do it because they love to do it. teen age boys will still try to play guitar even if they know they will never be millionaires... it was always about getting the chicks anyways.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
industry doesn't hold a candle to the revenue or power of the music industry.
I thought I read somewhere that the computer industry was bigger than the entertainment industry. Flexing your muscle in Congress doesn't necessarily mean you are the biggest industry.
The law (good or bad) is being broken. Who should the copywrite holders go after? The tools or the abusers.
You almost got it right; it should be: The law (good or bad) is broken. Who should go after the copyright holders? The tools (artists) or the users.
Hmmmmm... I wonder how the judge came to understand the ins and outs of filesharing so well. It couldn't be the same way the rest of the world learned about it, could it? *cough*
Well, I'm sure the judge won't mind if Jack V. and co. do a little checking around on his hard drive, and maybe take a look at any logs or history files showing where he's been to on the 'net. After all, it is their God-given right to do so, no?
Stop sharing your files on P2P networks Accually make a Peer 2 peer netowrk each person accually buy 1 CD a year, Rip it and share songs with people on the Peer to Peer network, Files can be sent with programs like ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ..... the list goes on,
set up FTP's like we did back in the mid 90's remember??
Or just stop steeling!
I dislike the RIAA as much as the next guy, But If you wrote a book, then one copy was sold and it was then photocopied 1000 times how would you feel?? you spent say 10 months writing it, 500 dollars advertising it locally, then you sell it for 30 bucks,
1 copy is sold, it costs 10 bucks to make you get 20 bucks but are still short 480 bucks.
I don't want to see this guy sharing his files get busted, but I don't like P2P networks, they cause a huge drain on Bandwidth on LANs and ISP's
Going after the users through a different route would probably be a more-or-less median solution. What that route may be is up to debate, but if Verizon (hopefully) wins then it's quite likely the RIAA will simply move on to a plan B (or C, or D).
Despite what many cynics will say, Kazaa is useful for legitimate purposes as well as piracy. Just because the postal service can be used to send illegal material doesn't mean that it in itself is illegal. The same stanza applies to Kazaa. Way back when it was less easy to trade such things online, postal was probably used quite a bit for such purposes, in addition to legal mailings. I seem to remember local BBS's and later internet sites advertising CD's full of warez etc that could be ordered and mailed.
By the same token, Verizon is supplying the medium for perfectly legal communication, which is also being used for piracy.
And in the end, perhaps they'll net a few 15yr-olds with a few hundred MP3's. Will the bad publicity be worth it? - phorm
it's member companies are.
If you completely obliterated RIAA headquarters tomorrow, Sony, Universal, EMI, Warner Brothers and BMG would just create another RIAA type organization.
It works really well for them the RIAA gets all the bad press and the public doesn't even (usually) realize who is behind something like the DMCA.
Life is too short to proofread.
This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law.
I certainly agree with the sentiment expressed by Heinlein, and by sconeu, but how is this relevant? Heinlein wasn't a lawyer, he wrote fiction. Great quote for how you'd like the universe run, but relevant? Don't think so. Get a quote froma real lawyer.
Infuriate left and right
you can change the Ethernet address on some nics with linux
ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:00:01:23:45:67
So, how many Verizon users would have a P2P client? Are they crapping themselves, or what?
Hey, Anonymous Verizon User with a P2P client - are you worried yet? Nothing like watching a game of whack-a-mole and suddenly realising you're one of the moles. *whack*
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
However, I do think there's a difference between mass anonymous downloading of copyrighted materials, and letting a friend play one of your CD's.
That's what my software does - it turns an MP3 collection into a streaming site. Most people use it to remotely access thier collection, and they may (or may not) choose to let a friend listen to something.
Now, I think that's quite a lot different than being able to download just about anything you can think of from people you don't know.
And the reason it's relevant is that the P2P networks provide a target, and that will eventually prove to be thier downfall. The Content Providers have something to shoot at, and eventually, the Bandwidth Providers will be helping them. If people want to be able to continue to access *thier* stuff over the network, they might want to have a few different options.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Legal bs aside, if the the RIAA has sufficient evidence that someone on Verizon is sharing copyrighted material, they should be able to go to a juge, get a subpoena, and get the info from Verizon. This is no different than subponaeing phone records, etc.
Vote for Pedro
Perhaps we should encourage people who create divx, mp3 files which they own the rights to (e.g. some non-professional bands, users who make camcorder videos, etc) to share them on these networks.
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