Studios, RIAA Warn CEOs On File Trading

pcosta writes "Record companies and movie studios are turning an anti-piracy spotlight on corporate America, sending a letter to top CEOs this week warning of illegal file trading going on at 'a surprising number of companies.' Full story on C|Net." Earlier this month, they also warned schools as well.

Comments

How to spend their money?

[Jucius Maximus]

If the RIAA quit spending their money trying to shoot down file sharing networks, buying senators, and getting the attention of schools, corporate America, etc and instead channelled their resources into building a new business model, they might just come out on top. It seems to me they they are betting the farm on being able to prevent the evolution of the market. If they lose this bet, they will be obsolete and bankrupt.

And what about these studios? Didn't Lucasfilm say something about studios eventually becoming unprofitable? You'd think...

Re:How to spend their money?

[ackthpt]

If the RIAA quit spending their money trying to shoot down ...

Ok, now IANAL, but Hilary Rosen is, I'm not sure of Jack Valenti's status, so I just refer to him as the RIAA Whore. Assuming the industry came to it's senses, these people would be out of work. Don't you think it's silly of them to advise the music industry to put them out of a job?

Re:How to spend their money?

[medscaper]

_WILL BE_ obsolete and bankrupt?

Yeah. Right. And scientists will discover that breathing is important to sustain life.

Re:How to spend their money?

[Richard_at_work]

Why should they? This is probably going to come across as flamebait, and i really dont intend for it to be.

Its their business, they can sell it in whatever manner they want. If their business model doesnt suit you, then dont expect them to change it jsut for you, because they dont have to. There are still plenty of people using the old business model, and to develop a new one would cost them money. I dont go down the local supermarket and bitch because i wander round the shelves, pick what i want and pay for it, rather than someone do it for me.

Re:How to spend their money?

[plus5insightful]

If the RIAA quit spending their money trying to shoot down file sharing networks, buying senators, and getting the attention of schools, corporate America, etc and instead channelled their resources into building a new business model, they might just come out on top

And what, pray tell, will this "new business model" be? So they spend millions cultivating an encouraging the arts at a low level, taking a loss on the vast majority of bands that they underwrite, but they should just suck it up so that you have a right to steal somes on Gnutella? Uh huh. What business are you in? I'd like to make some comments about how theft and illegal acts can deprive you of your ability to make a living, and how you should just change your business model.

It seems to me they they are betting the farm on being able to prevent the evolution of the market. If they lose this bet, they will be obsolete and bankrupt.

Let's imagine for a second that all of the major studios and music companies went out of business tomorrow. What would happen? Would the, as many dreamers imagine, "good music" suddenly flourish as the combined masses of society realize that they really want to hear Jimmy and Garage Monkeys? Will we enter a new golden age of high quality music (usually rated inversely with its popularity by attention seekers. You know: The type that stops liking a band once others start liking it, as it diminishes the "Quality" in their alternate universe)? No, the channels of the P2P networks will be DEAD, because as it is right now an OVERWHELMING majority of songs and movies being traded are the works of...tada...the RIAA/MIAA.

Re:How to spend their money?

[leviramsey]

Jack Valenti's not a lawyer. He's an advsier (or maybe a speechwriter?) from the Johnson Administration.

Re:How to spend their money?

[erpbridge]

That, and Valenti is MPAA, not RIAA

Re:How to spend their money?

[rattydukes]

You make a couple very fair points above; namely that the RIAA does produce a considerable amount of good music, and that the theft of music infringes on their existing business model. However in defense of the previous post I believe you missed the point. The RIAA and the MPAA continue polices in hope of stopping per to per sharing altogether, but have made virtually no effort to incorporate internet sharing technology into their business model. Had the spent their energy here, they may have had a solution already.

Instead, the RIAA missed the boat entirely (the MPAA has a little time to catch up), and cannot win this contest by litigation. This by no means justifies theft of music, but they will not be able to un-invent this technological shift. In the six years they could have addressed this problem, they have spent all their time and money in lawsuits and other misdirected efforts to curb all trading, rather than using this technology to make them more money. This letter to corporations is a mute point as people will trade at home just as well. Ultimately, the RIAA reminds me of the Catholic Church in the 16th century wishing the printing press would just go away.

Re:How to spend their money?

[plus5insightful]

The RIAA and the MPAA continue polices in hope of stopping per to per sharing altogether, but have made virtually no effort to incorporate internet sharing technology into their business model. Had the spent their energy here, they may have had a solution already.

But they have attempted to incorporate modern distribution into their repertoire, including, but not limited to, the upcoming Paladium architecture. Everytime the music industry attempts some new method of distribution to allow us to easily buy and download songs, the same people who are raving about them being antiquated are crying about how hopeless it all is, and encouraging the creation of cracks and exploits. Big music was attempting to use the internet in their business many years back.

What people are really saying in all of this basically seems to be "Bring on Paladium and similar systems". It seems that that wish will come true.

BTW: Defeating music piracy is brutally simple -- active enforcement of the law. If the police went on Gnutella and started kicking in doors and arresting, fining, and imprisoning large traders, I absolutely guarantee you that P2P would dissolve into the ether from which it came virtually instantly. Sure there'd still be the hardcore, but there wouldn't be mom and pop who figure that it's okay just because everyone else is doing it.

Re:How to spend their money?

[twistedcubic]

Let's imagine for a second that all of the major studios and music companies went out of business tomorrow. What would happen? Would the, as many dreamers imagine, "good music" suddenly flourish as the combined masses of society realize that they really want to hear Jimmy and Garage Monkeys?

No, "good music" would suddenly flourish because it won't be as easy to saturate the market with crap.

No, the channels of the P2P networks will be DEAD, because as it is right now an OVERWHELMING majority of songs and movies being traded are the works of...tada...the RIAA/MIAA.

Nonsense. What you're essentially saying is that music will disappear with the RIAA/MIAA. You may not be aware of this, but music existed thousands of years prior to the existence of the RIAA/MIAA, in countries outside of the USA, even.

Re:How to spend their money?

[plus5insightful]

No, "good music" would suddenly flourish because it won't be as easy to saturate the market with crap.

Idealistic. Firstly, it's folly to criticize "pop music": If it makes people happy and it's what they want to listen to, then it's achieved its purpose admirably and represents the ultimate goal of all music. Secondly, my point was that this internet thing allows us to share any free garage band music right now, and has for years, yet still most people; I'd wager greater than 99%; are busy sharing songs ripped off RIAA sponsored labels. Why is that, do you think?

Nonsense. What you're essentially saying is that music will disappear with the RIAA/MIAA. You may not be aware of this, but music existed thousands of years prior to the existence of the RIAA/MIAA, in countries outside of the USA, even.

Of course music has existed since the dawn of time, but the business of the music industry is one that makes a product that people want. Whether it's a combination of the best producers with the best artists, I don't know, but I do know that the signal-to-noise ratio of "amateur" acts is grotesquely low. Again I'll point out the fact that there is lots of unsigned, non-label music out there, but that strangely isn't what you see being traded on the P2P networks.

Re:How to spend their money?

[Beliskner]

And what, pray tell, will this "new business model" be? So they spend millions cultivating an encouraging the arts at a low level, taking a loss on the vast majority of bands that they underwrite, but they should just suck it up so that you have a right to steal somes on Gnutella? Uh huh. What business are you in? I'd like to make some comments about how theft and illegal acts can deprive you of your ability to make a living,

The MBAs and VCs have deprived many of us hAxOrS of our living, why should we give the MBAs in RIAA money?

New business model: Media falls into *the Commons* (Government terminology). Our taxes will pay for media content, thus it will truly be for everybody.

If you don't like taxes, then stop using that road you use everyday that you haven't purchased, and stop calling 911 when someone robs you. I've never called 911 in my life why should I pay for other people that use 911 all the time??? Gotcha.

Re:How to spend their money?

[Mmmrky]

I agree. They have the right to do pursue their business model as they see fit.

But they shouldn't attempt to change laws to keep their business model afloat.

The extreme of people trying to work inefficient or outdated business models is the airline industry. The ticket pricing is absolutely absurd with little rationality, service terrible, and the companies riddled with inefficencies. Have you tried to fly recently? It's atrocious. And yet the government continues to bail out the airline industry. And yes, they were in trouble far before 9/11.

You are welcome to pursue any business model you choose. But there comes a time when companies have to say "Maybe there is a better way of doing this" rather than trying to point a finger and asking for government help.

Re:How to spend their money?

[Anonymous Coward]

A perfect example of how the Internet is filled with people who have horrendous writing skills, stemming in part from a poor basic education. Your logic just doesn't connect, even when I try hard to figure out what you meant to say.

Re:How to spend their money?

[EzInKy]

I own three VCRs and have never dubbed a tape. If I like a movie, I buy it. DVDs and VHS tapes sell like crazy, especially new releases. Why do you think that is when they are so easy to copy? Personally, I believe it is because of the perceived value.

For less than $20 you can get a copy of a 2 hour movie that cost upwards of a $100 million to make. The movie itself is a complete whole. Why steal something that is already a bargain to own legally?

Compare that to an audio CD that costs as much as a movie to buy but only a fraction of the cost to produce. Many people are only interested in one or two songs on the disc. They perceive that are paying $20 for ten minutes of entertainment, the rest is just filler as far as they are concerned.

When new technologies come along people who's livelihood depend on the status quo are always affected. Those who find a way to benefit from the advancements will prosper, those who don't will fall by the wayside. Laws restricting the new technology may prolong the process, but eventually it boils down to adapt or die.

Paladium is going to be as much of an answer to copying music as Macrovision was an answer for copying videos.

What they need is a listen and buy it model which is really not much different than they have now.

Re:How to spend their money?

[Beliskner]

A perfect example of how the Internet is filled with people who have horrendous writing skills

Man, it's 2 in the morning here.

Me is a saying let taxes pay for Hollywood's content.

Re:How to spend their money?

[God! Awful]

If the RIAA quit spending their money trying to shoot down file sharing networks, buying senators, and getting the attention of schools, corporate America, etc and instead channelled their resources into building a new business model, they might just come out on top.

I wish you'd stop complaining about corrupt senators. The honest ones are just using an obsolete business model. Oh yeah, and supermarkets should stop complaining about shoplifting because they're just using an obsolete business model as well. If they really wanted to stop theft, they would add those ink cartriges onto food like they do in clothing stores.

This has honestly got to be the lamest argument that gets consistently modded up to +5 on /.

-a

Re:How to spend their money?

[Anonymous Coward]

the purpose is faulty. music does not exist to make people happey, rather it exists so that artists can express their feelings, emotions, whatever. that's not being done in pop music.

Re:How to spend their money?

[0x0d0a]

How is warning CEOs that there could be illegal trading going on at their company "changing laws"?

Plus, people dicking around at work piss me off. I don't read Slashdot at work, and I sure as hell don't pirate MP3s at work. Nothing's worse than working your ass off and finding that your coworkers are goofing off instead of holding up their end of the project.

If someone's playing with Kazaa at work instead of working, during time they're getting paid and using resources that the company paid for to do work, I sure as heck don't have a problem with them getting canned.

Re:How to spend their money?

[malkavian]

Actually, getting the police to enforce it would be the worst thing they could do. As soon as they started kicking the doors down on average people, those average people would wake up and pay attention to all the laws that enable the music industry to have such a leverage. That would get popular opinion in the opposing camp to the entertainment industry in a big way.. Which is exactly what they can't afford.

Re:How to spend their money?

[nyseal]

First off, the RIAA does not 'sell' or 'market' anything more than hype. They represent the five largest music DISTRIBUTORS (NOT creators) of music on the planet by distributing lies and exemplifying the anti-idea that artists would get no where without them; which is in effect true. I personally have no problem with Sony or BMG trying to justify their costs to the public because they happen to back artists like Brittany Spears or Eminem, however, do you REALLY believe that either of these 'artists' would have made it big WITHOUT big money backing? Again, hype and marketing. To a lesser extent, one could argue your point for MS; will we enter a new golden age of computing with better operating systems because *nix is better? Maybe, but no one is arguing the free liscense rights of its users because there is no unified group 'protecting' its interests; the interests are pure; not mummified by time (yet). So, let's go down the road of time. I mainly d/l music like Dion, Del Vikings and Buddy Holly; are those titles that Sony and BMG want to go after me for? All of those artists got SCREWED by the recording industry and they want to call ME a pirate. Fine, the 'quality' of the music might increase (as you suggest), but it might just stay the same. Either way, I still won't buy Brittany Spears or Eminem's CD's and I certainly still would not d/l them either.

Re:How to spend their money?

[ealar dlanvuli]

The problem is they are a very hard cartel to break up.

It'd be like telling the mafia you decided to start paying your insurance to a competing mafia. They would go kill your new extortioner, and then burn down your house.

Same thing (sort of)

Re:How to spend their money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you somehow claiming there was no good music before music cartells controled the market?

Thats a rather bold claim, you best back it up with more than "today the cartels control all the good music, so all the good music comes from cartels"

Re:How to spend their money?

[muzkfan]

There's a distinction to be made between the RIAA, a trade group, and the labels, the members of the trade group. As a trade group, the RIAA can't just build a new system. That would be in violation of anti-trust laws. All the RIAA can do is represent and defend the rights of its members. The labels are the ones who need to adopt a solution, and even they can't work together on it because that would also be anti-trust. Changes get made in the music industry by one or two labels trying something and being successful at it and the rest jumping on the bandwagon. The labels have tried a few things, like with Bertelsmann buying Napster, licensing subscription service sites, and building their own like pressplay and Musicnet. Those services are getting looser and looser with their restrictions all the time. Labels are also releasing more singles for download. Warner just let 30,000 out for about $1/track, through Liquid Audio (available at most online retailers). The changes are coming. The RIAA's job is to get rid of the infringing sites so that the authorized ones have a fighting chance.

Website Problems

[fire-eyes]

I wonder if certain organizations will have web site access problems this week...

Re:Website Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.

Yes you will.

Re:Website Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Doubt it. They've patched them by now..

I just realized

[fleener]

I haven't gone to the movie theatre in more than six months and it's been over a year since I bought a corporate CD (only local artists now). Who needs 'em?

Re:I just realized

[rirugrat]

Yea! Who needs movie theatres and corporate CDs when you have broadband, KaZaA and Windows Media Player?!?!? :)

Chris

Re:I just realized

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I beat ya! Last time I went was.....hell I don't remember it's been so long. I have bought CD's though. And I have also bought DVD's as well. DVD's and a decent TV is all I ask.

Re:I just realized

[Anonymous Coward]

I've spent over $100 on CDs since January on CDs from non-RIAA labels, but not a single buck went to the music oligopoly. In fact, thanks to a comment on Slashdot, I avoided buying an RIAA CD when I found out the album in question was not really an audio cd, but corrupted in the name of DRM. I can't play those things because I don't own a generic audio CD player, only ones capable of reading multisession CDROMs and I would never want any DRM crippled music in the first place.

Re:I just realized

[mcubed]

I've spent over $100 on CDs since January on CDs from non-RIAA labels,...

Out of curiosity, where did you find a list of RIAA affiliated labels? For the past 1.5 years, I've made every effort not to buy major-label CDs (I've done so twice, not counting used CDs, money from the sale of which doesn't go to the labels). Determining whether a so-called "indie" label is genuinely independent can be difficult enough. Sometimes they are wholly owned or majority-owned subsidiaries of a major label, sometimes they are independent with only a distribution agreement with one of the majors. The packaging can be confusing on this score. But even if the label is genuinely "indie," how do you know it isn't a member of RIAA and/or SoundExchange, which after all is just a trade organization? RIAA's website doesn't have a list of its member labels, that I can find.

Michael

Re:I just realized

[Anonymous Coward]

List of affiliated labels is here.

Freedom ...

[bizitch]

The trouble with freedom and liberty is - you never know what people are going to do with it

like ... trade music

Re:Freedom ...

[Anonymous Coward]

;-) yup, at this point i really advocate people break down into a barter mode.. the only way to do away with undesireables is to tighten the purse strings.. (things i learned in corporate america).. so if these crooked congress critters in their golden houses get their salaries from the corporations and taxes rendered by virtue of using the funny green foldin' money.. then PEOPLE! stop using it whenever possible. Trade for what you need until some discipline and integrity is restored to the system. A controlled implosion is happening anyway

Re:Freedom ...

[Anonymous Coward]

But I thought music is the universal language!

Corporate Spying

[N8F8]

Is it corporate spying to monitor another company's network traffic? Not to mention that the only way they could identify the material as infringing would be to intercept that traffic.

Re:Corporate Spying

[solostring]

Yes it is corporate spying.

However, the laws do not matter if you are responsible for making the laws, and if you have friends (read senators) in high places.

Re:Corporate Spying

[dj28]

It's not spying. You yourself could get on gnutella and log the IPs of the people you are downloading from and the ones downloading from you. The RIAA probably has a lot of bots roaming gnutella and other file sharing protocols logging IPs. After the bots got a sizable list of IPs, they probably ran a whois on the IPs and contacted the corporations that these IP blocks belong to. It's hardly spying. Besides, isn't this what slashdot has been calling them to do; going after the people that violate the law, rather than the protocol? It seems like they can't win, even if they are doing the precise thing slashdot asked them to do.

Re:Corporate Spying

[eric6]

silly man, we were only suggesting that because we assumed it would be too hard to actually do. Now that we can't get music for free, this seems like a really terrible idea.

Re:Corporate Spying

[slugo3]

Only problem is that the bots cant differentiate between illegal and legal files. A friend of my had AT&T threaten to shut off his service for sharing the LOTR movie, only problem was that he was actually sharing the movie trailer. I think they just assume that anyone using a P2P program is a pirate and make it seem like a bigger problem than it really is. kind of like hacking monetary damage figures, ridiculously high.

Re:Corporate Spying

[whereiswaldo]

It seems like they can't win, even if they are doing the precise thing slashdot asked them to do.

And WHO, pray tell, is Slashdot?

Do you think we all have the same opinions here? There would be little discussion if we did.

Re:Corporate Spying

[whereiswaldo]

Rather than log IPs, use WHOIS, etc.. and go through all that trouble, I would be more willing to bet the RIAA is just targetting the Fortune 1000 who are all guaranteed to have high speed Internet access and just _assume_ that everyone is swapping music. What do they have to lose? Sounds like how Microsoft handles their antitrust trial... just throw lie after lie out until it strikes a nerve and people believe them.

Big deal

[DNS-and-BIND]

So, they did reverse DNS on IPs downloading songs, and determined those reverse DNS equaled corporate namespace. This is simply the corporate strategy of "going after the easy ones first". Much like H***er went after the easily-sold-out Czechoslovakia and Poland first; to gain cheap, easy victories for his troops, so goeth the record companies after the easily-thwarted corps.

All this will accomplish is even more restricted access from work for the poor souls destined to work for big corps. The actual pirates who take advantage of the Big Bandwidth availible "from work" will simply shift to a different medium to accomplish their crimes.

Re:Big deal

[leviramsey]

Much like H***er went after the easily-sold-out Czechoslovakia and Poland first; to gain cheap, easy victories for his troops, so goeth the record companies after the easily-thwarted corps.

It's not widely known, but the art of scheduling opponents is very similar in both NCAA football and international affairs.

In Hitler's case, he scheduled a few pansies in the early part of the season. Czechoslovakia and Poland were Division I-AA. The Netherlands and Belgium were lower Division I-A schools, from the weak Benelux conference (so weak, it doesn't even participate in the BCS!). His first test was the mid-October homecoming game against a highly rated French team and their vaunted "Maginot Line" 5 man defensive front. The French defensive coordinators made a further critical error in gameplanning that the Germans would just run the ball up the middle, so they utilized 10 men in the box throughout, letting the Germans use sweep plays and sideline passes to move the ball at will. After Homecoming, though, Germany scheduled a brutal series of games against Russia and Britain. A seemingly endless series of long bombs to test the British secondary failed to do much of anything, but the British couldn't make any headway moving the ball on their own. That game ended in a 0-0 tie. Against Russia, Germany built up a massive first half lead and the game seemed well in hand. With this, they confidently scheduled a December game with major BCS implications, against a very well-rested and deep US squad. The Russians mounted an effective ball control offense with a very effective defense in the second half and, despite devastating injuries, did nothing but push the Germans back and score at will.

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanx, your post was the funniest thing I've read on Slashdot in a long time. I was disapointed when you didn't expand your metaphore to include the American and Japanese divisions. May your cup runneth over with Karma.

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon, why do you use obtuse references like Hitler? Most americans cant even name the countries it fought in WW2.

Use some more recent brave US battles: you know Division 3 teams like Grenada, Panama, Yugoslavia and so on.

The analogy works a lot better since the US IS the RIAA of the world!!

Re:Big deal

[drinkypoo]

So, they did reverse DNS on IPs downloading songs, and determined those reverse DNS equaled corporate namespace. This is simply the corporate strategy of "going after the easy ones first". Much like H***er went after the easily-sold-out Czechoslovakia and Poland first; to gain cheap, easy victories for his troops, so goeth the record companies after the easily-thwarted corps.

You are missing a crucial point. Several, actually. First, Hitler was running around killing people (actually, having them killed) and the RIAA is trying to defend its copyrights. However you feel about copyright law, the law is on their side. Second, the only targets which the RIAA must pursue at this point are the easy ones. I'm betting that if they were actually losing revenue because people are downloading, that going after the corporate sites (Many MANY people still have no broadband or half-assed broadband like Pacific Bell DSL (*spit*) at home) would cut out most of the activity by people who would normally pay for music, as those people obviously have jobs, unlike me. I do my downloading from attbi cable at home, but I'm unemployed. (I'm a student.)

All this will accomplish is even more restricted access from work for the poor souls destined to work for big corps. The actual pirates who take advantage of the Big Bandwidth availible "from work" will simply shift to a different medium to accomplish their crimes.

See my point above about broadband at home. People who can afford CDs frequently aren't the types to do P2P at home. I am making generalizations, but no broader than your own.

As for shifting to a different medium, even though I *do* have broadband at home, the upstream caps on nearly everything (For instance, DOCSIS cable is capable of a peak of about 11mbps shared bandwidth between others on your segment, but attbi caps at 256kbps and most other caps at 128kbps) have driven my friends and I to adopt CD-over-snailmail as our primary distribution method for large media, meaning movies, music, and software. A SVCD is generally two or three discs at good (near-DVD-though-lower-resolution) quality. MP3s are usually still sent via ftp. Entertainment software is anything from one to four discs (usually two or three now) and as such will take a long-ass time to send through these small caps.

I don't dispute the upstream caps, btw; You can have upwards of 10,000 subscribers on a single line card on your cable head end. Even on a Cisco 7246 uBR with four MC16 line cards (each of which has six upstream channels) if everyone were sharing P2P at max speed, which is not an unreasonable view of the future, and you had (say) 2,000 subscribers per line card, then your maximum possible saturation is around 66mbps per line card, and it only takes 264 subscribers to use that up. You will never see 11mbps, probably more like 5 or 6, so we're talking about 600 subscribers broadcasting to completely use up all the available upstream, even with the cap.

Re:Big deal

[leviramsey]

As an addendum, the Germans failed to even qualify for the Stolichnaya-John Deere World Domination Bowl.

Re:Big deal

[lemkebeth]

the RIAA is trying to defend its copyrights. However you feel about copyright law, the law is on their side.

:shakes head:

A lot of what the RIAA is doing is borderline legal at best. Some of it is illegal (like spying on other people).

What the RIAA seems to have forgotten is that they are not law enforcement.

To be truthful, the only reason the RIAA gets away with what they do is friends in high places.

I mean what makes them think they have the right to break into someone's computer?

Re:Big deal

[drinkypoo]

What the RIAA seems to have forgotten is that they are not law enforcement.

Neither am I, but as a citizen of the United States I have the power to arrest someone for a crime. Namely, if I have seen them commit a misdemeanor, or have reason to believe they have commited a felony. In the interest of placing them under arrest I may detain them using reasonable force. Furthermore, any evidence I dig up, even during the commission of a crime, is admissible in court, a right the police don't have.

On the other hand, the police can arrest you if they witness an infraction, or if they have reason to believe you have committed a misdemeanor (or worse crime) and they have the right to follow you into a gated community or your house if they are in "hot pursuit".

And BTW I don't plan to run around arresting people. Unless someone picks a fight with me, then I'll be sure to tell them I'm placing them under citizen's arrest after the first punch (theirs) is thrown. :)

The RIAA is not breaking into anyone's computer. Period. Get that out of your head right now. If they are collecting information via spyware, you agreed to be monitored in the EULA. If they are running their own P2P apps and tracking attempted downloads, then they are recording only information which you willingly sent them.

Even if they WERE breaking into your computer, you could still get busted, though you could perhaps sue them for accessing your computer without permission.

Re:Big deal

[lemkebeth]

They didn't always use spyware. There were cases where they actually broke into computers.

That was in the news a while back.

Re:Big deal

[lemkebeth]

Hate to reply to my own post.

No one has the right to monitor what you aredoing on your computer and then put a little thing in the EULA that makes it look like they have a legal right. They don't. Spyware is a breach of a person's privacy period.

As for your ability to arrest someone I agree with you but, you had better have good evidence if you do it.

Is the company to blame?

[solostring]

Is the company to blame if its employees are using P2P applications to share files? Whilst I can understand the $1m settlement won by the RIAA for the company allowing its employees to use their intranet to share copyrighted material, this letter is clearly aimed towards employees using their internet connection to trade peer to peer across the net.

My limited understanding of the law is that with P2P apps such as gnuttella, it is the end user who is at risk of prosecution, and not the organisation in charge of the network.

If companies are going to be sued for not firewalling P2P apps, then where is it going to end? Will the RIAA set its sights upon the ISP's? The backbone carriers?.... where will it end? *sigh*

Re:Is the company to blame?

[vrmlknight]

"Is the company to blame if its employees are using P2P applications to share files? "

Actually yes the company is to blame for not blocking or stopping otherwise... The company owns (ok rents) the bandwidth and is responsible for how it is used if it is used illegally then they have to stop it

Re:Is the company to blame?

[solostring]

Then the RIAA in theory can sue the Tier3 ISP's... and then the Tier2 ISP's.... in fact anyone who purchases bandwidth from another company?

This will never end....

Re:Is the company to blame?

[Reality Master 101]

Is the company to blame if its employees are using P2P applications to share files?

If they don't know about it, probably not. On the other hand, if they are aware that illegal activities are going on using their resources, and do nothing about it, then damn right they're responsible.

Or to put it another way, if your employees are using a spare room in your business to produce crack, and you're totally aware of it, you're going to be in a heap o' trouble (even if you think drugs should be legalized).

Will the RIAA set its sights upon the ISP's?

The difference is that you are a consumer of the service, not an employee of the ISP. Or to put it another way, AT&T is not responsible for criminals using the telephone, but would be responsible if they know that their employees are engaging in criminal activity.

Re:Is the company to blame?

[Anonymous Coward]

The end user is the instigator, however the organization is an accessory if it's aware of the activities and does nothing to stop them. i.e. If you have a P2P volume hidden away on an encrypted filesystem trapped in an enigma, then they have a fair case. However if a company is full of employees running Gnutella and clogging network drives full of pirate songs, then there is an expectation that the organization should have some control over their systems and network.

The same idea holds with pirate software: If every user is using pirated applications all day at their workplace, and it's widespread, then the organization is really teh pirate.

Re:Is the company to blame?

[drinkypoo]

Or to put it another way, if your employees are using a spare room in your business to produce crack, and you're totally aware of it, you're going to be in a heap o' trouble (even if you think drugs should be legalized).

Drugs are a bad example because they are specially criminalized. If you do something financial which is even vaguely drug-related, the government can seize all property which might have been used in the commission of a crime. That includes your cars which have been seen on the property, your place of residence, any equipment in or near the facility, et cetera.

Even gun-running might be a better example.

As for the RIAA setting its sights on ISPs, I certainly would were I in their position and mindset. (If it were up to me the RIAA would be gone already, but I'm a realist and so totally unfit for the job of running that particular show.) The ISPs *could* block most of these file sharing protocols in one way or another, and in some ways it would even be to their benefit, namely lowering bandwidth costs. Of course subscribers would depart en masse, but never mind that part, I'm talking about the RIAA's potential argument. It would be possible to sniff and analyze some packets to determine if they are being used for P2P and simply drop that user, so it is technically possible. You don't even have to sniff all the packets, just a random sampling, and you can cut out a certain percentage of the users.

So the ISPs do have the technology to determine who is engaging in potentially criminal activity, regardless of their claims to the contrary. Just using P2P isn't illegal, but I frankly do not personally know anyone who uses P2P without using it for illegal purposes. ANYONE. And I know a lot of people using P2P apps of one sort or another.

WILL the RIAA go after ISPs? If all else fails, probably.

Re:Is the company to blame?

[DEBEDb]

As many people are quick to respond
when discussing things like monitoring employees'
activity at work, it is THEIR network, they
monitor it, well, why don't they be responsible
for it as well? Fair is fair...

Re:Is the company to blame?

[Anonymous Coward]

so when students gather on the lawn owned by the university that I work for, am I responsible for the thoughts they have or the words they speak?

I'm tired of people equating media with content. Carriers of content can not efficiently control its use. They are not the content creators or providers. Spending time analyzing or blocking data is the opposite of transmitting it, which is what we're supposed to be doing. If you want monitored and blocked content, get off the internet and install AOL.

Then again...

[blitzoid]

Let's just hope some of those CEOs are the ones spearheading all the file swapping.

This is insane..

[fadeaway]

What's next? Finding ISP's legally resoponsible for the actions of their customers? Telecom companies for allowing people to transmit illegal packets across their lines? IT companies for building networks that people can pirate on? PC makers for manufacturing the equipment that facilitates piracy?

What the hell happened to the individual being responbile for their own actions. This is dirty, dirty business.

Re:This is insane..

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like the cases of people (here in the US at any rate) suing firearms manufacturers because their products did what they were supposed to do, namely, go "bang" when the trigger was pulled.

Ludicrous.

Re:This is insane..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to add to your festering jabber, ultimate responsiblity should be shouldered by the person who carries lunch down to the copper miners who mine the copper that goes into the wire that is used in the magnetic windings of the fans in the enclosures of the ISP's accounting computer which is used to bill people who are doing P2P sharing.

Because a good contrived rant is always nice to heap a bit more drivel onto.

Yeah, this'll work...

[grungebox]

I'm sure CEO's will try and get their employees to stop pirating music and movies. We all know how ethical and moral American CEO's are...

Re:Yeah, this'll work...

[ctxspy]

CEOs tend to be interested in the well-being of their respective companies.

Obviously, being sued because of file-sharing is a bad thing. Also, notification from the RIAA could bring to light slacking off in the workplace that shouldn't be happening anyway.

Re:Yeah, this'll work...

[nounderscores]

slacking off?

what's to prove that the person wasn't downloading in the background while working on the quarterly report?

Re:Yeah, this'll work...

[plus5insightful]

For sure. I mean, given that there was at least a dozen dirty CEOs among tens of thousands, clearly that's enough proof for the Slashdot jury to pronounce them all immoral.

Re:Yeah, this'll work...

[kingkade]

But remember: it's the "American" CEO's that are most immoral.

Re:Yeah, this'll work...

[Safety Cap]

CEO's will try and get their employees to stop pirating music and movies

Although sarcasitc, you raise a good point. Very few (if any) CEOs are techno-literate and even fewer know what is going on in the lowest levels of the company.

When Hillary sends Joe CEO a threatening letter, he'll probably ask his CTO/CIO, "What is this P2P thing?" Then it goes downhill from there.

Net-net, the BOFH continues to run his Warez/MP3 server with the terrabyte SAN, maybe chaning the machine name. "Oh that? That's the bandwidth infratructure terrabyte computer, hosting activated security scans. Sure, it uses all that disk space; we gotta stay compliant, you know. Yeah, for auditing. Last time they wanted to see how much space we were using, and how many active users^h^h^h^h^hscans it was running. Cheers!"

Re:Yeah, this'll work...

[ctxspy]

Did the computer automatically know what file to download?

Or did the employee take time out and
1) search for the file, and then
2) select the desired file, and
3) if we want to be picky, utilize corporate resources for the transmission & storage of the file?

Re:Yeah, this'll work...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're not all immoral, but I'd wager that the recent # that have gotten caught are just the tip of the iceberg, you can only catch so many rats. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush as they say. And what about ceo's that don't break the law? There are some actions that are legal and still immoral at the same time.

what about public networks?

[hikeran]

What about libraries whom allow people to use wireless acces points that allow internet usage with their own machines? Will the library be held responsible for their actions?

Re:what about public networks?

[vrmlknight]

Actually they should be they are the ones who take responsibility for the bandwidth and it is their responsibility to make sure it is used properly otherwise they are the ones to blame

Subtle threats: check!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The use of your digital network to pirate music, movies, and other copyrighted works both interferes with the business purposes your network was built to serve and subjects your employees and your company to significant legal liability."

Why not just send one of these guys to deliver the letter?

Since threatening YOU hasn't worked...

[krinsh]

Now they threaten your teachers and your boss; hoping they'll get better results if they make it look like said lawyers would be happy to sink their teeth into larger fish. How many people are going to lose legitimate business use of their computers and the internet because of this? I already know too many places that make you sign 20 disclaimers before you can actually log on to the local network to get your email.

Whoa, wait a minute...

[krinsh]

How is the RIAA able to tell what is on MY corporate intranet? This reeks of an intrusion into my Business Confidential data in and of itself.

Please, please tell me some of you guys that maintain and monitor large corporate networks will bring this to your boss' attention when they get back from another RIAA sandpaper condo-media relations conference.

Re:Whoa, wait a minute...

[HeghmoH]

They say they've found a certain type of program running on corporate networks. Now one of the more important features of this program is that it attempts to advertise itself to as many people as possible, over the entire internet. It also allows anybody to initiate a file transfer, from anywhere, and in order to transfer a file in this way, each endpoint has to know where the other one is.

Given all that, just how do you think they discovered this? Use some brains, here!

Re:Whoa, wait a minute...

[pod]

How is this so insightful?

First of all, you are not a CEO of a Fortune 1000 corporation. No one's spying on YOUR Intranet.

Second, the RIAA is not saying they KNOW people are trading files on your corporate intranet. It's a form letter. They send it to everyone. Toc over their ass, they even say, if you're already blocking/restricting P2P use, good for you, didn't mean to bother. They just assume. It's reasonable to assume that with the Internet connections these large companies have, and how little oversight there may be considering the number of employees, that SOMEONE is trading files on company time.

Quit your knee-jerk paranoia.

Re:Whoa, wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

"How is the RIAA able to tell what is on MY corporate intranet? This reeks of an intrusion into my Business Confidential data in and of itself.

Don't be silly -- if you're running a Kazaa/Morpheus/Gnutella/etc. server, you've chosen to aggressively broadcast a set of files to the entire internet, with your IP address associated with it, so it's entirely reasonable for the record companies to take a look at those files and contact you if they don't like what they see. Reminding companies that they're responsible for their employee's behavior is entirely reasonable, IMO.

Re:Whoa, wait a minute...

[krinsh]

Muahahahahahh... you're right it was very much a knee-jerk reaction and today I'm onto knee-jerkedness. However, I know I can think of a dozen reasons why I wouldn't want P2P on my network nor would I want any services announced from my network, etc. - on both sides of the discussion I started... I'm just glad the discussion is being had.

Well,

[kingofnopants]

Since you stole their toys (software), their going to tell your mommy(boss) on you. The only thing that is different about this than little kids is that you aren't sopposed to share.

Letter the to CEO of the riaa

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Hilary Rosen,

This is a warning from the Recording Industry Asscociation of america.

Some of your employees may be illegally sharing copyrighted material via P2P networks in your company. If caught, the leagl liabillities will affect your corporation. Please take the nessessary steps to prevent this from happenin

This isn't insane

[Troll Axe Thrower]

The nature of an incorporated business is that that individuals within the business can not be held legally responsible for its actions (I forget which accounting principle this was). If you find out that you're company is using child labor or something, do you expect to go to jail for that? In the same way, if you are using your company network to share copyrighted content then you arn't liable and it would be very difficult to ever convict you.

Re:This isn't insane

[nounderscores]

good point. however if it becomes possible initate a multimillion dollar lawsuit against a company which has just one employee hosting a p2p file sharing service, it would be possible to cripple or sink virtually any company with internet access.

All are sinful and fallen short of the glory of the RIAA's ideal happy little consumers.

do you think the courts would let the RIAA have that kind of power to hold the entire economy ransom?

Re:This isn't insane

[ahfoo]

That's a good point.
Proving intent on the net is very tricky especially when all you have is some IP addresses off a company with dozens of internal networks and proxys and routers and firewalls. Yeah, you have some numbers that might have entered the building. So what does that mean conclusively? Not much.
And if you say no, no it's hardline time. We're going to fuck these bastards. There's a war going on, it's like martial law. They gotta pay and pay and pay. Alright, in that scenario this becomes too easily abused. It's so easy to setup a remote eDonkey server with a little rootkit action. It's all far too ambiguous to make a court case on. Like the previous post suggests --if you prosecute aggressively, how do you prevent abuse; if you don't prosecute aggressively, how do you have a case?
Plainly the RIAA is just goofing around running up billable hours.

Re:This isn't insane

[lmfr]

In the same way What same way?

If ... your company is using child laber... and if you ... share copyright content are two very distinct situations. In the first, your company, without your knowledge, is breaking the law. In the second, you, without your company knowledge, are breaking the law.

Blame where blame is due, please.

F*** this and F*** them

[ToadMan8]

I'm tired of this s**t. They are going to loose this one - everyone in the tech community knows it. It's a matter of when. Songs will be encrypted and transmitted, hey, we could even imbed songs in those jpeg's like from that previous slashdot article where encrypted data is contained in pictures. They could be interlaced into silly stick animation avi's or something. Anynomous servers in Belize won't be touched by the RIAA, they can't even organize they're own business model. There is too much traffic on the i-net backbone for the RIAA to sit and spy on traffic to bust the IP's or customers. And my university is definately not going to let them spy on our infrostructure. Sorry folks, your kind is not allowed here.

Re:F*** this and F*** them

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck

Oh my God! He said FUCK!!!!

Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck

Oh SHIT!!! He said it again!!!

Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit

Oh my eyes hurt!!!!!!

Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck

Re:F*** this and F*** them

[plus5insightful]

They are going to loose this one - everyone in the tech community knows it. It's a matter of when. Songs will be encrypted and transmitted, hey, we could even imbed songs in those jpeg's like from that previous slashdot article where encrypted data is contained in pictures.

Everyone in the tech community knows that? Funny, but there were mavens such as yourself proclaiming the end of commercial software 17 years ago, yet it's still a thriving, successful business (indeed, piracy has plummeted in recent years). Not all of us are anarchists. Not all of us disrespect the idea of intellectual property. The average guy on the street isn't going to bother with encryption just to get an $11 CD.

So many on here can be so obtuse about intellectual property and software/media. If you started robbing old people going to bank machines, should they then "change their business model"? When they complain to your parents will you express outrage because they don't cower in their homes at night while you're out on a rampage? How absurd. No, the police will move in and crack your knees a couple of times and incarcerate you for several years. That's what we as a society dictate -- You have no right over the property of others just because you have the ability to procur it.

Re:F*** this and F*** them

[RobotRunAmok]

Maven? He's a kid at a university! (But then again, when I was 22 years old, I seem to recall that I was the smartest guy in the world. I also must have believed I was immortal, but let's not go there...)

What I don't understand is why there is any kind of discussion at all on this particular thread. OF COURSE companies are going to come down on employees using their resources for file-sharing. Companies are cracking down on their employees for all manner of time-and-resource wasting endeavors, why should music file-sharing, which has the additional stigma of its dubious legality, be condoned, when the foosball table has already been sent to auction?

Legality aside for a minute, an employee's file-sharing on company time is a waste of resources, and just plain un-productive. You want to share files, update your Blog (blogs... ye gods!), tinker with the wallpaper on your iPAQ, whatever, Do It On Your Own Time, on your own computer, across your own wires. Period, Full Stop, End of Story.

An employee who would never dream of sitting at his desk reading a newspaper doesn't think twice about reading an (easily and quickly minimizable) online version of that same newspaper. Someone who would never in a million years think about spreading his record collection out on his desk at work and organizing it by artist and genre has no problem taking the same amount of time out to do so with his MP3s. Why? Because it LOOKS LIKE HE'S WORKING, and the bosses are fooled.

Those damn bosses...

Hey, Corporate Manager, want to increase employee productivity by at least 35% across the board? Ensure that everyone's computer monitor is viewable from the hallway outside his/her office or cube. Sure, you'll get a few, most likely just out of University, who'll exit loudly, babbling something about "employee rights," "corporate Nazis," and "going home to Mommy," but I'll wager that, from a productivity perspective, you won't miss 'em.

Later, on an individual basis, you can start allowing employees to move their monitors back to their customary positions of concealment, once trust has been re-earned.

Re:F*** this and F*** them

[Anonymous Coward]

Intellectual property is an evil and unconstitutional fiction. Patents have been perverted to make knowledge obvious to those skilled in their respective arts into artificially scarce and monopolized profit centers. Copyrights were originally designed to be a contract between society and artists in the form of a temporary grant of monopoly on original creativity. Fast forward to today and you have this faulty legal construct of ideas as a form of real-property; as if an idea can or should be given the same legal status as land, a car, a house, or any other material object. The real thievery going on here is the loss of progress, wealth, and democracy by they who would rob the public domain and destroy wealth through the resulting artificial scarcity.

Re:F*** this and F*** them

[kent_eh]

an employee's file-sharing on company time is a waste of resources,

And for this reason my employer has a written policy forbidding the use of P2P clients and IM clients on company computers.

Thge policy also forbids surfing porn, and web sites promoting illegal activities (hacking pages, etc).

There is some kind of content filter at the gateway which occasionally triggers on keywords, and seems to have a ban list of sites that the admins feel the policy forbids.

Dosen't bother me, as my cable modem at home is faster than the shared bandwidth at work.

Extortion?

[iiioxx]

I don't know, does this sound like extortion to anyone else? They seem to be saying "police your corporate networks for our benefit, or we will sue you."

Now, most companies with intelligently run IT departments are policing their networks anyway. But this kind of thing seems to be saying that if an employee should happen to figure out a way to circumvent a company's firewall or proxy and swap files illegally on corporate bandwidth, that the company is somehow responsible and could be held liable. I think this goes beyond the level of reasonable control that companies should be required to exercise.

It seems to me that the RIAA is going after the people with deep pockets, looking to make an example of a few companies. Why go after Joe User, when you can go after Joe's employer? It's a higher profile target, and there's more to gain.

Re:Extortion?

[drinkypoo]

I don't know, does this sound like extortion to anyone else? They seem to be saying "police your corporate networks for our benefit, or we will sue you."

This seems less like extortion than Microsoft coming along to do an audit, and then telling you you have to pay for all of their software you are using within 30 days or they will raze your crops, sow your ground with salt, poison your wells, rape your livestock, and ride off on your women. Metaphorically speaking.

Interestingly enough, in both cases it's just the holder of copyright protecting their assets, but we get really pissed off at them regardless.

And before someone argues with my above paragraph, as I know you will because *gasp* this is slashdot, I know that there are legitimate uses of P2P music sharing, like if you already own the album. However, I think you could construct an argument that you might be getting a different version of the song (and how would you know without listening to it?) and if you do, you have acquired copyrighted material which does not belong to you. Accidentally download a remix and go to jail? Not today, but the RIAA would probably like to bring it about because any operating P2P system can be seen as a threat to them.

All of this does only serve to support the theory that conventional means of music promotion and distribution are outmoded, and on their way off the stage as a result; or at least that their monopoly on our ears is fading. I don't think life will change much for MTV or Clearchannel or any of the other bastions of homogenized media, but much of the new growth will hopefully be outside of those systems.

Re:Extortion?

[Reziac]

What would be truly entertaining is to expose filesharing at ... oh, say the corp offices of nice deeply-pocketed companies like Sony, WB, Disney, Microsoft ...

I'd really, really like to see how the worm swallows its own tail in that situation.

Send RIAA A Letter

[attobyte]

Lets all send the RIAA a letter warning them the potential lost of business because the are A$$holes. I am sure if we get 10% of slashdot to send a letter we would catch someones attention.

Atto

Re:Send RIAA A Letter

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not buy CD's because of this crap that the RIAA is pulling. MP3's are superior anyways. I can fit thousands in a little hard drive based player.

Omkar

[Omkar]

I hope we'll see a wave of indignation as corps realized they've been spyed on.

We'll probably see a meek apology, new restrictions on employee internet use, and a settlement. This makes me sick. Why do the people who can afford lawyers let the RIAA push them around?

Re:Omkar

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that the music industry was heavily influenced by the mafia when these companies got started. It seems that are just going back to their roots and demanding protection money.

To a CEO...

[ackthpt]

Dear Kenneth Lay,

We have been using all means at our disposal, legal and otherwise, to determine the who and where of the sharing of our music property. We know you wouldn't want to see your name or the name of your company dragged through the gutter. So please cease and desist before matters become unpleasant.

Yours truly,
Hilary Rosen
RIAA Counsel

uphill battle

[dollargonzo]

i can understand teenagers et al sharing stuff online upsetting the RIAA, but these are *supposed* to be respectfull adults, who have plenty of money to buy CDs. if the RIAA only realized that most of the people who share content are not going to buy CDs anyway, and if they DO buy CDs, it has little to do with their sharing. perhaps if the CDs were of reasonable price, ppl would consider buying them.

for example, the company i work for does not have a fancy license manager, and really anyone can steal the software if they want to, no one is stopping them, and we don't hunt them...but very few do. why? it is their ass on the line, and on top of that, they need support and consulting. if we spent a lot of money trying to stop them, for example by writing a license manager or working on protection/registration/activation schemes beyond a serial key, it would hurt the profit. if the RIAA feels that their profit is hurt, then perhaps they should revise their product or its pricing instead of going after people who use the most natural alternative.

Re:uphill battle

[isorox]

Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.

Really? I use linux cause I can rely on it not falling over, yet have support for a large range of programs and an enourmous local user (and hence local support) base.

Re:uphill battle

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is for those who hate BSD

Re:uphill battle

[VB]

Most consumers still do buy CDs and go to movies. It's only the moderately to extremely technocentric who download and rip music wraught from free file-sharing services. Most people don't have 10 Linux/BSD/BeOS computers sitting in the other room. Most people don't have more than the scant 4 - 8 GBytes of filesystem space on their 1 Win9x computer they use to check mail on AOL or MSN. That's the way of life outside Slashdot.

The onslaught of change has begun in how music distribution takes place and the RIAA and MPAA are deploying survival tactics now because their business model demands they prevent these technophiles from establishing that independent music and movie production is viable and forthcoming with near term consumer technologies. They need laws now to prevent the inevitable "Joe's Home Movie (Part III: The Basement)" from taking revenues from their next Hollywood blockbuster by ensuring no ordinary consumer can play it unless it has an industy-approved DRM mechanism on the media. They need to prevent your home-produced CD of your original music recorded on ProTools from being playable in a new Esplanade. They need to maintain that, unless CNN/Time Warner gets ad revenues from industry and society approved advertising messages with sponsored and undercompensated artists, those subversive independent works get silenced.

It is an uphill battle, but you just have to keep hammering it away. Boycott CDs and movies. Go see a band and buy the CD directly from the artist.

BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft. -- Wish I could really disagree with that. But, does it really matter?

Yet Another Exchange Killer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Studios, RIAA Warn CEO's on Water Computing

Record companies and movie studios are turning a vapochilled spotlight on corporate America, sending a letter to top CEOs this week warning of next-generation fans and ghost trailers at 'a surprising number of goverment web sites.' Full story on CNet. Earlier this month, they also wrote a font HOTWO for Linux and Top Ten Mac OS X Tips for Unix Geeks.

Re:Dear Hillary and Jack

[Glanz]

Bravo!!!! I second that and I couldn't have said it better.

RIAA's logic on illegal file trading

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Means of transfering files without walking developed
2) Humans start transfering files without walking
3) Humans start listening to music not made by corporations
4) ????
5) Social armaggedon

Re:RIAA's logic on illegal file trading

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you get this shit? They care if you share music that WAS made by them. No one's ever been threatened to stop sharing their own music. Fucking slashbots.

Re:RIAA's logic on illegal file trading

[Anonymous Coward]

go back to your trollhole you astroturfer

from the devils mouth

[Anonymous Coward]

after reloading a few times to see if anything else showed up on www.riaa.com i found their words for what they're doing http://www.riaa.com/PR_story.cfm?id=580

Re:from the devils mouth

[Anonymous Coward]

"Corporate outreach letter." Is that what they're calling legal threats and intimidation these days?

Hitler, use his name (offtopic, I know)

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like H***er went after the easily-sold-out Czechoslovakia and Poland first; to gain cheap, easy victories for his troops
What is wrong with saying Hitler? Why do you have to type H***er? Are you afraid from all those neo-nazi's? You, everyone should know history. Everone, and you should not be afraid to name those who commited the worst of deeds. It is only by naming that what not should be, that we can prevent it from ever happening again.
It's redicilous to obscure such a name, as it is redicilous to obsure history of freedom of speach.
Do not shield one from the truth. Yes, War is a bitch. But if you do not know the consequences, then why would you want to prevent it. I am certain that there are people out there who marvel at the idea of combat.
For all clearty, I am not pro-war, pro-hitler, pro-violence. I do have an interest in WWII. If only more did so. When you realise what really happened there, then it makes you want to puke. We own a lot to those who fought and died for our freedom, but we could have been in greater debt to Chamberlain. If only...
I am 21 and european.
Not english native, please correct spelling mistakes

Re:Hitler, use his name (offtopic, I know)

[Anonymous Coward]

The invoking of the name of H***er automatically invokes Godwin's Law, and ends the discussion in favor of the disinvokee.

Re:Hitler, use his name (offtopic, I know)

[lemkebeth]

No it doesn't.

As I have said in the past invoking that joke of a statistical law is akin to censorship.

whats next?

[captpiett1]

When will the book publishers start bitching about companies letting employees share books they bought? This is all going to far, and on a side note since when do you have to use stars in Hitlers name? SO he killed people we can't say his name or we are anti semetic, god people have become so PATHETIC!!!!

Stop the f'ing lawsuits and lets all just grow up and realize we are not perfect and move on!!!

Everyone's laid off

[spanky555]

I wonder how effective this will be, since about half the people I know in software development (and myself) are laid off and have been for some time. Maybe they should warn unemployment offices next?

Re:Everyone's laid off

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how effective this will be, since about half the people I know in software development (and myself) are laid off and have been for some time.

Half the people you know in software development (and yourself) are gAYLORDS.

Maybe they should warn unemployment offices next?

Warn them that a small army of faggots are coming.

Re:Everyone's laid off

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep up dreaming, people like you will never get laid.

It's not about money.

[mindstrm]

I sit behind a computer for about 50 hours a week.

Why should I force myself to drive downtown on what little time I have off to go hunting for a cd or two that I like when I can sit at my desk and grab whatever I want whenever I want, on my computer.

It's not because I'm cheap.

It's because the recording industry is NOT offering me anything near this level of convenience.

Re:It's not about money.

[NeoSkandranon]

I love hearing people say things like this. I'm willing to bet that if the RIAA DID offer you this, you'd still get your music free and come up with another excuse.

Re:It's not about money.

[/dev/trash]

This is what Amazon.com and the like are for. Spend 10 minutes online and two days later you have your CD.

Re:It's not about money.

[mindstrm]

Really? 2 days?

If you know how I can ship stuff through customs that fast, please, let me know.

I'm looking at more like 1-2 weeks for a delivery from amazon.

And even if it was 2 days for me... 2 days is a LONG way off of instant gratification from online downloads.

Re:It's not about money.

[mindstrm]

Having never met me, you must know exactly what I do for a living, where I live, and how cheap I am.

I'm not some guy living a block from the virgin megastore where I can get all the music I want, with a good selection. I wish.

I'm also not saying that this is why all people pirate music.. but until the music industry does something to compete on a convenience level, they will be behind no matter what.

Re:It's not about money.

[/dev/trash]

Notice I said "and the like". Amazon was an example, YMMV.

Re:It's not about money.

[mindstrm]

Yeah.. amazon was an example.

I don't live in the US; the point was, it's far form convenient for me to order up music.

Re:It's not about money.

[/dev/trash]

Well stealing it is not an answer.

Re:It's not about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

HAH, i own the cd, and i'm downloading a song off the cd i dont have psyically.

last i heard, downloading a song i OWN is still legal.

suck it biatch.

Re:It's not about money.

[nixterino]

It's not because you're cheap.

It's because you're lazy. That makes it okay.

why the RIAA wins this round

[fermion]

This is probably the most fair thing the RIAA has done. As has been said many times already, if you want to share music, look at porn, or run you own business, buy your own high speed connection. The connection is not all that expensive. By attacking the RIAA on this, we are allowing ourselves to be distracted from the larger fight.

Why I believe this is true. There is much ranting in press and /., ranting that I believe is fair, about executives treating company resources as their personal possessions. So I pose this question. Why is it wrong for an executive to borrow a plane to take his family on a trip and right for an employee to use the broadband connection to share music. Before you answer that questions think of the opportunities cost s in both situations and the relative compensations of the people in question.

In this post dot-com, post Enron world, accountability rules. If half a companies broadband is used for non-business related activity, it is valid to ask why. Music and porn sharing is also raises liability issue of a safe workplace. And, though downloading music on your personal account may not be stealing, downloading music on an account primarily used for profit is much more likely to be stealing.

So, lets not send letter to the RIAA about this. Lets concentrate on the characterizing the RIAA as overgrown script kiddies and general all around mal-contents. Again, if you want to share music, buy the connection. It seems we have much more power when we pit the financial interests of the telcos, who want to sell us broadband, against the financial interests of the music pushers, who want us sell up plastic disks. Both know on which side their bread is buttered.

Re:why the RIAA wins this round

[fat32]

>Why is it wrong for an executive to borrow a plane
>to take his family on a trip and right for an employee
>to use the broadband connection to share music.

Because one is illegal and the other is not?

>though downloading music on your personal account may
>not be stealing, downloading music on an account primarily
>used for profit is much more likely to be stealing

Not really. I probably derive more long-term value from my account at home. Which one is 'stealing' again? I like how you use their term for it.

>Lets concentrate on the characterizing the RIAA
>as overgrown script kiddies

The day anyone at the RIAA gets enough clue to run scripts, they will probably actually start getting some of our respect.

Re:why the RIAA wins this round

[Anonymous Coward]

*plonk*

Re:why the RIAA wins this round

[0x0d0a]

>Why is it wrong for an executive to borrow a plane
>to take his family on a trip and right for an employee
>to use the broadband connection to share music.

Because one is illegal and the other is not?

How is either one of them legal?

Re:why the RIAA wins this round

[deblau]

While I know your heart is in the right place, I have to correct a few things with your post.

This is probably the most fair thing the RIAA has done. As has been said many times already, if you want to share music, look at porn, or run you own business, buy your own high speed connection. The connection is not all that expensive. By attacking the RIAA on this, we are allowing ourselves to be distracted from the larger fight.

Amen, brother. Preach on! Everything except for sharing music, I'll get to that in a minute.

Why is it wrong for an executive to borrow a plane to take his family on a trip and right for an employee to use the broadband connection to share music.

The short answer: they're both wrong, but they're wrong to varying degrees. The cost of borrowing an airplane is worth X amount of hours of, shall we say 'misappropriated', bandwidth. I believe the common feeling is that X is very very high, so the first wrong is much much worse than the second. Note that this is not an excuse: as I said, both activities are wrong.

Music and porn sharing is also raises liability issue of a safe workplace.

If you're talking about all that 'PC' brainwashing crap, then yes. Personally, I think jackhammers and liquid metal at 800 degrees raise much more "safety" issues.

And, though downloading music on your personal account may not be stealing, downloading music on an account primarily used for profit is much more likely to be stealing.

If you mean, downloading music without the author's permission, then they're both stealing, and they're both equally wrong. Just because you're paying to break copyright doesn't make it right.

Again, if you want to share music, buy the connection.

IANAL, but this sounds like advice to commit a felony. Um, no thanks. If you want to share music, get the author's permission first. If the opportunity doesn't present itself, then don't share music. Jeez, you'd think this was a difficult concept.

It seems we have much more power when we pit the financial interests of the telcos, who want to sell us broadband, against the financial interests of the music pushers, who want us sell up plastic disks. Both know on which side their bread is buttered.

Well said. If we have to fight fire with fire, let's make sure we've got lots of firepower on our side. We need more people thinking this way.

Information-Nazi's

[dh003i]

This's why I think the world would be better off if Jack Valentini (movie-nazi) and Hillary Rosen (music-nazi) were dead. When I think of all the good people that died at 9/11, it's really too bad that that building couldn't have been full of crooked lawyers, politicians (i.e., the Kennedy who murdered that young girl), and lobbyists (i.e., Jack Valentini & Hillary Rosen). If 10,000 people were going to die, I'd rather it be 10,000 people who were assholes and crooks. But of course, its always the most crooked people who live the longest.

Jack Valentini & Hillary Rosen can go fuck themselves. Most teenagers and most college students do share copyrighted files, which is a good thing. This means its possible that the future will be filled with people who aren't information-nazi's.

Fuck the RIAA and the MPAA. Firstly, most people who download music weren't going to buy the CD's anyways, especially people who download alot of music. Who the fuck's going to buy a 100 CDs in a few days anyways? Yet people download hundreds (possibly thousands) of CDs. The MPAA and the RIAA aren't righteous; they're just looking out for their own best interests.

That said, perhaps a good business model for them would be to offer people unlimited downloading provided they buy so many CD's a year (i.e., if you buy, for example, 50 CDs a year, you get unlimited downloading). The point is that they'd offer unlimited downloads to people who buy alot of CDs a year. The other thing they can do is stop fucking us over on the price of CDs. New CD's go for 18 dollars, which is almost as much as a DVD -- that's bullshit. Sometimes, the sound-track to a movie will cost more than that movie itself; absolutely outrageous. The other thing they can do is stop pushing for such absurd lengths and scopes of copyrights; 10 years of copyright protection is more than enough to make 99% of the profit to be made from any copyrighted material.

Hint to RIAA and MPAA: you don't make money by pissing off your customers and calling them crooks.

Re:Information-Nazi's

[No Such Agency]

Fuck the RIAA and the MPAA.

Uh yeah. "Fuck them up their stupid asses"... This isn't moviepoopshoot.com ;-)

i.e., if you buy, for example, 50 CDs a year, you get unlimited downloading

50 CD's a year?! That's almost a thousand bucks (plus about another $480 for a fast enough connection)! Geez, for that kind of money I'd expect Hillary Rosen to come to my house and receive a "download" from me.

Re:Information-Nazi's

[dh003i]

Then perhaps 20 CD's a year, which amounts to $360. The point is, this would give people alot of incentive to buy alot of CD's a year, because in exchange for doing that, they'd get unlimited downloads of "copyrighted material".

Re:Information-Nazi's

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy over 150 CDs a year. And 80 books (usually technial). it's not that much money if you like music... i usually download stuff and them buy th artist. most happens not to be RIAA but not because i'm boycotting

Re:Information-Nazi's

[Anonymous Coward]

"...it's really too bad that that building couldn't have been full of crooked lawyers, politicians..."

What makes you think it wasn't?

Re:Information-Nazi's

[Centinel]

50 CD's a year?! That's almost a thousand bucks (plus about another $480 for a fast enough connection)! Geez, for that kind of money I'd expect Hillary Rosen to come to my house and receive a "download" from me.

Not likely....she's a lesbian

Re:Information-Nazi's

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint to RIAA and MPAA: you don't make money by pissing off your customers and calling them crooks.

Ya know, you always hear the RIAA moaning lately about how CD sales are off and they automatically blame it on the Net without any hard evidence to back it up. Nevermind that the economy's in the shitter and people have less disposable income.

Could it be that many former CD buyers also happen to be techies who are sick of their shit and are just boycotting their shallow corporate 'music' altogether?

Personally, I haven't bought a CD from a RIAA label in over a year, and haven't seen an MPAA movie in almost as long, and I have no desire to partake of their shitty content via p2p, let alone pay for it.

Even though Vivendi owns mp3.com now I still use it because it's legit....at least the artists get paid something and I get the satisfaction of chewing up their bandwidth with downloads. Ampcast.com is pretty cool too.

Since I weaned myself off of pop 'culture' I found I have more money in my pocket that I'm not spending on frivilous crap, and not financing the assholes out to ruin the Net. I find I have more time to code and develop. And I find I have more time to read and subscribe to books and alternative media.

The legions of others like myself are RIAA's/MPAA's worst nightmare. What if the whole country suddenly swore off pop culture to spend more time with their families and to be more productive members of society. We don't need them to define us and tell us who to be. We don't need to worship their Tinseltown gods.

Be careful what you wish for, Valenti and Rosen...you just might get it. No more piracy, but no more customers, either.

Since starting your post in the Subject: line

[DNS-and-BIND]

hasn't worked, try putting the subject of your post in the Subject: line, and the body of your idea in the message body.

Sorry, just a crazy idea. Feel free to refute me in replies. Please put the refutation in the message body, as I have a difficult time following a post from Subject to Body with no intermediary.

Re:Since starting your post in the Subject: line

[Anonymous Coward]

conformist

Re:Since starting your post in the Subject: line

[krinsh]

Ooooooh... I'm sorry. I have a tendency to do that in my emails as well. Confuses the heck out of my mother. I guess I'm also not at all good about categorizing the things I comment on very often. Thank you for putting me in my place.

Don't pick on someone with more $ than you

[sleeperservice]

Scenario 1:

RIAA: We have evidence that your employees are trading files on your network.

CIO: What kind of evidence?

RIAA: Well... uh... anonymous accounts?

CIO: Stop wasting my time.

Scenario 2:

RIAA: We have documented proof that your employees are using your network to trade files.

CIO: What, like server logs, network traffic analysis and examples of P2P installs on client computers?

RIAA: Yes.

CIO: All supposedly confidential company documents?

RIAA: Yes, so?

CIO: Meet our team of high-priced lawyers. Oh, and here's a picture of the last person who stole confidential information from our company. His current net worth is -$10 million.

RIAA: Eurgh....

Re:Don't pick on someone with more $ than you

[Mikeydude750]

Somehow, I believe that Scenario 2 will happen.

Eventually, the RIAA will pick a fight with someone much bigger than itself, and they will go down in a fiery ball.

Re:Don't pick on someone with more $ than you

[Tiado]

Eventually, the RIAA will pick a fight with someone much bigger than itself, and they will go down in a fiery ball.

One can only wish...

Re:Don't pick on someone with more $ than you

[sleeperservice]

That's exactly what happened to Senator Joe McCarthy.

As you may/may not remember, McCarthy was the Senator from Wisconsin who, in the 50s, tried to root out Communists in the government and elsewhere. He never had any real proof that people were Communists (in fact, his initial "list" was, IIRC, his grocery list), but he went on anyway.

Eventually, however, he started accusing people in the military of being Communist. And relatively important people. The military had good lawyers, and that was the beginning of the end for old Joe.

So yeah, that's the precedent I'm using in my example. :D

Re:Don't pick on someone with more $ than you

[jwilcox154]

Or Scenario 3:

RIAA: We have documented proof that your employees are using your network to trade files.

CIO: What, like server logs, network traffic analysis and examples of P2P installs on client computers?

RIAA: Yes.

CIO: All supposedly confidential company documents?

RIAA: Yes, so?

CIO: Meet our team of high-priced lawyers. Oh, and here's a picture of the last person who stole confidential information from our company. His current net worth is -$10 million.

RIAA: Oh Yeah, Meet Vivendi-Universal's lawyers, when they're through with you, your corporation will be worth -$100 million.

CIO: Ok, we'll prevent P2P on our computers, Fire the employees involved in trading music, and even keep our employees from listening to their CDs at the office.

RIAA: Too Late, we already filed a lawsuit against your corporation. Oh, and don't even consider trying to Settle Out of Court, this case WILL go to trial.

If CON is the Opposite of Pro, wouldn't That Make
CONgress the opposite of PROgress?

Re:Don't pick on someone with more $ than you

[sleeperservice]

RIAA: Oh Yeah, Meet Vivendi-Universal's lawyers, when they're through with you, your corporation will be worth -$100 million.

A good point. But, again, using the McCarthy precedent, the "intimidation" will only work until people (or in this case, corporations) realize that any of them can be targets, and that's where it'll stop.

Basically, I don't think Corporate America can or will stand for any group telling them how to run their business. After all, they hardly stand for it now! Look at the amount of money they spend making sure Congress doesn't pass laws that are unfavorable to them.

If the RIAA play too heavy-handed with these corporations, and the big ones eventually see the RIAA as a threat, they'll use their clout to get it stopped. You might argue that the RIAA has large corporations (& their expensive lawyers) at their disposal, and they do, but they're really only a subset of the much larger Fortune 500.

Frankly, it would be fun to see an epic battle of these proportions, and one would hope that such a battle would end the RIAA's snooping tactics for good. But even I don't think the RIAA would be stupid enough to pick that fight.

Re:Don't pick on someone with more $ than you

[Tiado]

That's exactly what happened to Senator Joe McCarthy.

Yeah, I know about McCarthy, I thought the only thing that stopped him was that he died in 1957, but I'm most likely wrong.

Eventually, however, he started accusing people in the military of being Communist. And relatively important people. The military had good lawyers, and that was the beginning of the end for old Joe.

So yeah, that's the precedent I'm using in my example. :D

Okay, maybe there is hope after all, but McCarthy was merely a communist-hunting senator, and not the president of a multi-billion dollar organization. The only thing bigger is Microsoft.

Hmmm, two big evil corporations going against each other with their army of lawyers... I'd pay to see that.

rewards

[xixax]

In the same way that rewards are offered to disgruntled employees for information on illegal software installations.

Xix.

Re:quick question.. please

[spanky555]

is it normal if i jerkoff while i'm at work, like in a bathroom stall?

Well, you'll have to come up with a code to enter on the your timesheets. And it might push back the Gantt chart estimates.

Godwin's Law invoked

[No Such Agency]

Bzzzzzt! You lose ;-)

Re:Godwin's Law invoked

[Shelled]

Is there a version of Godwin's Law applicable to the first post invoking Godwin's Law?

Re:Godwin's Law invoked

[Anonymous Coward]

+3, insigntful???? Who's smoking crack today?

American workers, return to your duties!

[Anonymous Coward]

Back to work slaves!
All your memories are the property of the Umited Mega Coroporations of America. Copyright 2003 (Extendable in twenty year increments.)
Return to your wage slavery immediately or you will be docked memory credit allocation.

simpsons jab at RIAA

[evacuate_the_bull]

Milhouse (as Fallout Boy): Movie stardom is just so hollow.
Mickey Rooney: Hollow?! The only thing in show business that's hollow is the music industry.

Re:simpsons jab at RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Lunchlady Doris: At last the world is safe. Eh fallout boy?
Ralph: What's a ghost trailer?

What a surprise...

[Kjella]

You mean company employees breaking copyright laws on company time using company equipment could create liability for the company? What a shocker.

Of course, as an employee I expect a bit of privacy as to what I do during my work, but if the company is clearly aware of me doing something illegal or very obviously avoiding to investigate (like after receieving reports of such), I would expect that. So, I'd consider the company liable only if it failed to respond to it, very much like an ISP could be liable if it fails to take down a homepage carrying illegal material after recieving notification.

The problem is that at most companies and just like in the rest of the world (look at P2P booming), they don't look at it as any real crime. Many companies I've heard of have taken steps to stop various programs and "conventional" downloading of mp3s, but only to save company resources (bandtwidth, employee time) and not to prevent crime or to remove liability. And I hardly think this letter will make much of an impact.

Kjella

This is unfair !

[I'm not a script]

These crap stories should be under RIAA/MPAA topic so I can easily eliminate them !

Corporate Acceptable Usage

[SoSueMe]

Many Corps/Orgs have Acceptable Usage Policies already.

Our operation has had one for several years.

As a network admin, I would receive a monthly report from the regional center (mainframe & network gate) detailing network/internet use.
We only validated the "Top Ten" offenders and reported contraventions we found.
This was probably the most distasteful part of my job but, it was part of my job.

We also did regular server scans for suspect files such as .MP3, .avi, .mpeg, etc.

I haven't been in that job for a couple years, I stepped down to middle management.

Recently, two employees had 'net access removed for six months and were advised a note would remain on their personnel file for two years. They had uploaded a US Military handbook to one of the Unix boxes and this is what got them into trouble. I found it funny that none of the other folks who had e-books, mp3s, pr0n, video files were even questioned.

I guess that in the *buzz word warning* "Post 9-11" times we are in, some things are more serious than others. (BTW We are not a US company)

My point? If your company has an "Acceptable Usage Policy", read it, remember it and if you feel you must save this stuff to the network, be careful!

Aren't they right?

[llamaluvr]

If your company (or group of companies) had a product (or a lot of products), and these products were being stolen in mass quantities, wouldn't your CEO ask them to stop? If I were him, I wouldn't just let them keep doing it!

As unpopular as the DMCA is, it is the law of the land, and under it, IP logs can be subpoenaed (remember Cringley's column on BayTSP?). So, they are allowed, with just cause, to check to see if someone really is distributing copyrighted works. This should be an acceptable part of the DMCA (one of the few)- if I had reason to believe somebody was stealing from me, I should be allowed (or the authorities should be allowed at my urging) to take appropriate measures to stop it (like putting up survailence cameras).

We should really stop all this talk attempting to morally justify using P2P to distribute copyrighted works. The RIAA is not going to cry a river for those who can't afford CDs, and give them a bunch of free MP3s. I can't afford a Porshe (or even a used Taurus, for that matter ;P); that doesn't mean I am justified in stealing it.

Now if the RIAA and their companies were price-gouging basic necessities like food, water, or oxygen, then stealing might be necessary. But having a huge music collection is not a necessity!

Until more people start computing more responsibly, whether it be at work, at school, or at home, then the RIAA has every right to demand that folks stop stealing from them.

Re:Aren't they right?

[hackus]

This has nothing to do with responsible use.

If THAT were the case, such things as VCR's and CD-RW's would have coin deposit slots built into them or they would be outlawed as defined by the RIAA.

What this fight is over is who will control your computer because ALL other forms of information in the future will be computer generated. No more TV's VCR, DVD players, or Radio's...all existing media outlets and distribution channels will become exitinct.

Media giants know this, and they want to control your computer. They want to control:

What you see.
What your opinions are of what you see.
How much you can bear to pay for what you see.
What you do with the information, and if you use it pay additional royalties for the use of that information.

Without this control, thier business models as they exist today won't work.

However, what they don't understand, is that if we as a society permit this sort of control, the internet will cease to exist, for one, and there can be no such thing as free speech, free software.

It will only be speech, and those who have the cash are the only ones that will be heard in this new vision.

Technology enables the individual to make decisions and to be much more indepedant from being tied to distributor resources, like Muscians for example. So all the money you normally pay the RIAA for distribution, is not valuable on the internet since one person can do exactly the same thing the RIAA does, at basically far less cost.

The RIAA wants to repserve the value of thier distribution channels as they exist today, so the muscian won't have a choice and won't get any ideas they can do it themselves, cutting out the RIAA.

THIS is what this whole thing is about, really.

The RIAA could care less about you guys copying music. You have been doing it for decades with tape decks. What has changed is that the internet makes them irrelevant.

The Billions that they make could be going to muscians pockets, and not into price fixing, which they do with thier distributors right now.

They MUST be stopped, or my very busines, and the software I use will become ILLEGAL in this country.

And STOPPED they will, if not by us, 3 Billion raging Chinese Linux users who will.

Hack

Re:Aren't they right?

[llamaluvr]

If THAT were the case, such things as VCR's and CD-RW's would have coin deposit slots built into them or they would be outlawed as defined by the RIAA.

Umm...just copying TV shows/making backups of analog media is quite legal, and they're working on legislation that would make backing up digital media explicitly legal. The issue is not making personal backups- the RIAA is concerned with people who make backups and give them to 5 million of their closest friends.

You're absolutely right that the RIAA is trying to stomp on our rights. Their support of copy protection and DRM, etc. indicates that they don't respect our right to make back up copies for PERSONAL use. However, this is just a response to the fact that we consumers, by and large, haven't respected their right to not have their stuff stolen!

All they are asking the businesses for, however, is to get their employees to stop stealing. I don't see anything wrong with that. Stealing is illegal, and a letter to an offending party is perhaps the nicest (and mildest) way to deal with it.

If people wearn't stealing their stuff en masse, then I think the RIAA would stop bugging us. And if they didn't, the government would turn a deaf ear to them anyway, because they wouldn't have any case against the consumers.

EFF counter-letter to the same corporations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Setting aside, for the moment, the merits of any one particular accusation of copyright infringement, few of us would doubt that the goons at the RIAA would happily (and deliberately) have CEOs believe that there is no such thing as "fair use," and that any employee behavior that the RIAA thinks is illegal certainly must be. In other words, the RIAA will paint infringers and fair users with the same broad brush whenever they can.

So I wonder: why not send out a letter -- to the same CEOs (and universities, for that matter) that received the RIAA "reminders" -- politely arguing the other side, and clearly explaining the idea that not all use is illegal -- no matter what the RIAA would have you believe. I suppose the EFF would probably be in the best position to articulate and circulate such a letter...

I this really a problem anymore???

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Napster was popular. So popular even my non techy friends were aware of it as well as Kazaa, Morpheous and others. But now because Napster is dead and many of the others have had rumors of, or had spyware in them, most of those non techy folks don't use P2P anymore. Even my techy friends don't mess with it because it's more hassle then it's worth and they are tired of going halfway thru a download and it blows up on them or there's nothing out there. Why is thr RIAA still on the warpath with this stuff when hardly anyone uses it anymore (they have all just gone back to using hidden ftp sites! :)).

Re:I this really a problem anymore???

[Anonymous Coward]

WinMX.

Re:I this really a problem anymore???

[scubacuda]

Dude...check the statistics.

Way more people trade music via P2P now than ever did on Napster (even in its hayday!)

I can't remember the exact statistic...but it's at least double the traffic.

Re:I this really a problem anymore???

[Anonymous Coward]

"most of those non techy folks don't use P2P anymore"

That's so not true. Kazaa is everywhere. Soulseek is growing. And there's always IRC.

most people that I know that use the above aren't really techie

Re:I this really a problem anymore???

[Hydro-X]

Uh.. a LOT of non-techie people use P2P. It's the only thing they know. To them, it's:

1. Download and install Kazaa/Morpheus/et al.
2. Search for and double-click the song.
3. Profit!!!

The spyware thing can't possibly be a deterant. Most average people don't know what it is to begin with. And I don't think a lot of your average users know how to browse FTP. Some can barely browse the Web. Of course there are the select few who have run across FTP while uploading their websites to Geocities or whatnot. If anything, your theory would be the other way around. The techies know of the alternatives and are sick of the spyware and the hassle. The non-techies are sick of going halfway through a download and having it die. To them, if this happens, their P2P client is just 'broken'.

Re:I this really a problem anymore???

[fault0]

Just because this is true between you and your friends doesn't mean it's true for everyone.

Kazaa is reaching new popularity heights every day now. It is *way* more popular than Napster was in it's peak.

Anyways, spyware free stuff like Kazaa lite and WinMX exist. I currently use WinMX most because it has tons of 320kbps Mp3's, mostly from former AudioGalaxy users.

Re:I this really a problem anymore???

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't like spyware?

Just run KaZaA Lite instead! Problem solved

Re:I this really a problem anymore???

[0x0d0a]

because Napster is dead

Napster, Inc. no longer exists. Servers using the Napster protocol are alive, large, and well.

most of those non techy folks don't use P2P anymore

I'm a little dubious. I find that more people than ever use P2P.

(they have all just gone back to using hidden ftp sites! :))

A single site (or handfull of sites) can't come close to the sheer amount of content available over the span of a decent-sized P2P network.

Happy employees and productivity..

[Knobby]

Does anyone know if there's been any research done on music and productivity in the workplace? I'm sure the CEO's could be swayed to support file sharing or even a corporate jukebox (music streaming computer), if there was a potential increase in productivity associated with it. CEO's like money. Phrase your arguments for network freedom in the form of an opportunity and they're going to be much more responsive to your pleas..

Corporations should consider a central streaming model. Have employees donate CDs to the repository where they get ripped, cataloged, and streamed to the waiting masses.. It places a load on the network, but the corporation doesn't have oodles of copies of music scattered around the building taking up space on their work stations and they can't really be hit for distributing copies of the music. The corporation is merely playing music over the users work station speakers/headphones rather than the PA system.

I do something similar here but on a much much smaller scale. All my music resides on one machine in my lab. When I'm in my office or at home, my notebook points to the music server. The notebook retains a set of playlists in its library along with a catalog of the songs on the server, but the songs all remain on the remote box. It works pretty well..

Just a thought. . .

[PhxBlue]

Maybe employees who are working for these corporations should be doing their jobs. If they have enough time on their hands to use P2P networks--and waste someone else's money in the process--maybe that's one position the company can do without the next time some cuts have to be made.

My office has a fairly liberal policy on non-business-related web use; but the shit would hit the fan fast if folks started getting busted for using Kazaa, etc., or even for using file-shares to trade music over the office intranet. A certain level of freedom to use the internet at work is good for morale; but that freedom doesn't need to include the "freedom" to violate copyright.

'Course, most corporations with an IT department worth its salt will have the most popular filesharing programs' ports blocked, anyway. But from the sound of this latest RIAA temper tantrum, a lot of corporations' IT departments are asleep at the wheel.

Re:Just a thought. . .

[drinkypoo]

Maybe employees who are working for these corporations should be doing their jobs. If they have enough time on their hands to use P2P networks--and waste someone else's money in the process--maybe that's one position the company can do without the next time some cuts have to be made.

A higher mammal will take only a few seconds, perhaps half a minute, to enter Kazaa, search for a file... Now we suspend the clock on their time-wasting because they will be going off to do something else which may or may not be productive. A few moments later they spend another few seconds going down the list of search hits and clicking on all of them. Then they occasionally peek at the traffic window to see what's downloading, and what's downloaded.

If it's not P2P it'll be bullshitting around the water cooler, or cleaning your fingernails instead of working over the latest budget proposal, or downloading pr0n. People always find ways to waste time because they're too lazy or too unmotivated to throw themselves into their work headlong to the exclusion of all else.

Re:Just a thought. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn kids in my yard. Damn lazy employees. Damn stupid IT departments. Everyone get back to work now. I said NOW.

Re:Just a thought. . .

[PhxBlue]

Right. But bullshitting around the water cooler isn't likely to violate a copyright. That's the difference - who cares if folks want to BS around the water cooler and such, as long as they can still meet their project deadlines? But the cost of file-sharing copyrighted files, in terms of both bandwidth and liability, is simply too high for a company to tolerate.

Corporate firewalls

[iamacat]

That's why real companies have a nice firewall, with internal network being unreachable to RIAA bots. As for audits, well taking those things down beforehand is far cheaper and faster than a paper shredder. Also afterwards RIAA will be getting a nice call from BSA on behalf of that company. They can hardly afford a software audit, with solitary interviews of employees where the EULA is reviewed paragraph by paragraph and their enthusiastic complience is verified. "XP Service Pack 1: Did you send your password and credit card to Microsoft?" Next! "Did you bypass any Windows security mesasures to take down P2P users?" Next...

Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice how any pro-P2P-pirating posting, regardless of any void of actual relevance, gets moderated up. Anything that counters that view gets moderated down. This is a narrow gang-mentality of people thinking that by sticking their heads in the sand and only accepting their own version of reality it'll make it true.

The letter...

[echophase]

Found here> states "using technology to steal music and movies is no different from walking into a store and shoplifting a CD or DVD"

I can note a bunch of differences:

I don't have to be hassled to go to a store, actually find music i like which is there, remove the security device, stuff it into my coat and go home, rip it to mp3/ogg/whatever.
The internet just makes stealing so easy!

Re:The letter...

[echophase]

fscking html.

Re:The letter...

[Anonymous Coward]

haha...forgot to close your tag. :)

pf.conf policy for your CEO

[scubacuda]

#Ruleset to allow your CEO to share all the music she wants

block in quick on $ExtIf all
pass out quick on $ExtIf proto tcp from {her IP/ her mask} to any keep state
pass out quick on $ExtIf proto udp from {her IP/ her mask} to any keep state
pass out quick on $ExtIf proto icmp from {her IP/ her mask} to any keep state

It can be difficult to stop...

[Chicane-UK]

I speak from experience here.

I work as a technician / 'network engineer' at a college... We have spent a LOT of time trying to prevent our fantastic (mutter) students from getting on p2p networks but it is very difficult.

We have tried many different things, including :

* Recent installation of a firewall - it has helped a little, but some p2p apps go out on 'safe' ports like 80.. we haven't quite got to the packet filtering stage though.. this might help.

* Using some of the tools on the quite amazing Trinux security tool kit.. on our switched network, we set up a port span between the router, and a port in our office - we could then run utilites like ntop to identify who was hogging bandwith, or tcpkill all data on, for example, port 1214 (Kazaa). Very cool, very powerful, and of course it is free - I think if they have a donations page though, we should be paying a visit.

* Installing policies and software on client machines to attempt to block students from installing things like Kazaa.. has helped a great deal, but those determined enough seem to be able to circumvent it.

Maybe the RIAA need to be a little more sympathetic.. yes, in some situations companies can be using file sharing apps quite happily breaking the law. But in situations like ours, where we have spent bloody weeks of time trying to find solutions to stop it, they need to be a little more easy going! Our network has 1,500+ client workstations and only 15 or so technicicans to police it.. can be pretty tough to identify those abusing it.

Re:It can be difficult to stop...

[0x0d0a]

Why try to stop them? Just cap their bandwidth (if you *really* want to be snazzy, have a per-week uncapped alotment, which when exceeded, goes down to a capped rate. Only the P2P people suffer, but they can still get work done (abeit a bit slower)).

Trying to stop information flow on the Internet is well-nigh impossible.

Why bother for an 11 dollar CD?

[ToadMan8]

I have a few thousand songs on my 'puter some of which I want to listen to once a year or so. The one hit wonders for example. I won't pay even 11 dollars for the CD (usually 14 - 19 now a days anyway) for one song. I just won't. MP3's or not. I own all my favorite artist's CD's. And encryption technology won't be hard for users to impliment. The programmers of next gen peer to peer software will make it seemless. BTW, I do think intellectual property should be protected. To an extent. Example: I've bought a copy of Trillian because I definately use 25 dollars worth of it. I don't have a legit copy of Photoshop though 'cause I use it to play with and stuff, not for business use (I'm a student) and I definately don't use $700 worth of it. I couldn't afford it at all if I don't get it illegally. And I'm actually helping Adobe as I do that, on a side note - when I graduate and move to a company I'll need to actually buy photoshop then 'cause I'll be using it for profit and that's what I'll know how to use then. The old people ATM robberies is just a bad metaphor - the "old people" in the real world is the RIAA - they're NOT innocent. They are fucking the artists up the ass (look at profit margins! the artists hate the RIAA more than we I do) and they're threatening everyone who dares to defy them like an eight year old with a shotgun sitting on a mountain of toys leasing them to the other children.

Re:Why bother for an 11 dollar CD?

[plus5insightful]

I won't pay even 11 dollars for the CD (usually 14 - 19 now a days anyway) for one song. I just won't. MP3's or not.

Listen to the radio, then. The radio is a nice format where the artists get royalties, and you don't have to shell out for the CD. BTW: I find it surprizing if CDs are really $14-$19 US as I can buy almost all new releases for $15.99 Canadian (about $10 US).

I don't have a legit copy of Photoshop though 'cause I use it to play with and stuff, not for business use (I'm a student) and I definately don't use $700 worth of it.

That is, and has always been, a very weak argument justifying piracy. Firstly as a student you have the ability to purchase Photoshop for $266, as they recognize that there is some value in getting you into Photoshop now. However if you don't think it's worth that then run GIMP, or JASC Paintshop Pro: You don't have some god given right to run Photoshop. Again, there's the irony factor: Instead of Slashdotters using "high" price to justify alternatives, it's more often used to justify piracy.

And encryption technology won't be hard for users to impliment. The programmers of next gen peer to peer software will make it seemless.

If it works for you, then it works for the record industry too. The whole P2P phenomena depends upon a very loose coupling between users, meaning that for all you know that super secure 3DES+AES connection you've made to the other user is actually right to RIAA headquarters.

They are fucking the artists up the ass (look at profit margins! the artists hate the RIAA more than we I do)

Yet strangely artists keep on signing up with them. Those big artists who start crying that they don't get enough royalties, you see, usually bled the music associations for YEARS, but then when they're really raking in the dough they want more. For every Michael Jackson, who apparently owes Sony $200 million dollars, there are countless tiny acts that are subsidized day to day by the music business. That's the whole gamble of the music industry, and it's ironic that it's criticized here given that it's the "support the little guy" mentality that is usually admired on Slashdot.

Re:Why bother for an 11 dollar CD?

[ssstraub]

Listen to the radio, then. The radio is a nice format where the artists get royalties, and you don't have to shell out for the CD.

You can't be serious... Are you not aware of ClearChannel? Does anyone WANT to listen to the stuff that CC force feeds onto the radio soley on the basis of who's the highest bidder? Do you have ANY IDEA what the situation is with radio and the CC monopoly, legalized "payola", and how artists are *indeed* screwed over? Geez...

[They are fucking the artists up the ass]
Yet strangely artists keep on signing up with them. Those big artists who start crying that they don't get enough royalties, you see, usually bled the music associations for YEARS, but then when they're really raking in the dough they want more.

That's because new bands are (usually) just kids who don't know understand the legal jargon, etc. Is it their fault if they don't get a lawyer before signing a contract? Yes. Should the record companies be allowed to "contract them for life" and take all their profits? No. And what are you supposed to do if all the major labels make contracts like this? There isn't much to do except settle to keep playing the bar & grills around your neighborhood, even if your talent deserves better.

Re:Why bother for an 11 dollar CD?

[plus5insightful]

You can't be serious... Are you not aware of ClearChannel? Does anyone WANT to listen to the stuff that CC force feeds onto the radio soley on the basis of who's the highest bidder? Do you have ANY IDEA what the situation is with radio and the CC monopoly, legalized "payola", and how artists are *indeed* screwed over? Geez...

The reply was specifically in regards to a "one hit wonder" comment (namely that CDs are worth it for a "one hit wonder" song). "One hit wonder"s, by their very nature, are songs that achieve wide airplay on the radio and hence are sought out by people on P2P networks.

Should the record companies be allowed to "contract them for life" and take all their profits? No.

Contracts, by their very nature, are a gamble with both sides thinking they'll make out on the winning side. For every super-band that is bitching that they can't get out of a contrat that supported them in their nascent days, there is a dozen bands that the label has carried for years. How about the countless recent instances where labels BOUGHT OUT the multi-record deals of artists who have long since jumped the shark? Do you cry for the record companies in that case?

And what are you supposed to do if all the major labels make contracts like this? There isn't much to do except settle to keep playing the bar & grills around your neighborhood, even if your talent deserves better.

Create a website. Pursue guerilla marketing. Build a fan base. Do performance across the nation. NOTHING is stopping people from doing stuff like this right now. What you seem to be saying, though, is that artists should be able to reep all the benefits that a major label offers, without the major label getting rewarded.

Re:Why bother for an 11 dollar CD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those freaks sure are stacking up.

Re:Why bother for an 11 dollar CD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will you get a life Latent IT? Seriously. You are a bonafide, depressingly pathetic loser. Go kill yourself or something.

It's Only a Matter of Time

[vudujava]

Soon, the RIAA/MPAA will be sending letters to every household in America ordering them to cease and desist. Ever since this war on consumers began, I have been boycotting products (CD's, DVD's and movies) from these organizations. In the past 18 months I have probably saved upwards of $2000. Now, if I could just get a million people to join me for the next couple of years...

oh n0z, teh RIAA, roon!!1

[Anonymous Coward]

They threatened to kill my grandma if she didn't stop pirating music...

I thought blackmail was illegal?

[phillymjs]

But maybe that's another one of those pesky laws that only apply to citizens. Because when we have examples like:

Dear CEO:
That's a pretty nice corporate LAN you've got there. Be a shame if we had to come in and audit your Microsoft licenses because you didn't send us a few more wheelbarrows full of money to make sure you're 100% compliant-- at least, until the next time we need to bolster our balance sheet.
Sincerely,
Microsoft

and now, the latest:

Dear CEO:
Those are some pretty nice profits you've got there. Be a shame if we had to send in the copyright attorneys to take some of it because you didn't do enough to stop copyrighted filesharing on your network to satisfy us.
Sincerely,
Hilary and Jack

...it sure seems difficult to convince most rational people that these aren't instances of blackmail.

~Philly

What If

[Tuffnut]

I buy a buncha songs, and I say, hey you there, I will trade you some of my songs, for some of yours. The guy says, ok let's trade. Or even, trading video games? If I in fact deleted my copy after sending it to the person I'm trading with.
Would that be illegal?

How far will the RIAA go to save its arse?

[Big Mark]

Example:

I am currently playing music very loud, as is everyone else on my corridor. As we can all hear each others music, which could be concieved as sharing it, are we all going to have to pay massive fines for daring to have stereos?

Or would even the RIAA concede that as fair use?

Whoops, I forgot... the RIAA can't reach us here in Britain.

Or... can they?

CEO not CTO

[msheppard]

Interesting they are talking to CEO's and not CTO's. Would seem more appropriate to talk to someone in charge of technology.

M@

Re:CEO not CTO

[Centinel]

Interesting they are talking to CEO's and not CTO's. Would seem more appropriate to talk to someone in charge of technology.

Why? The CEO's will take the heat from the Board when the company loses an out-of-court settlement for $1 million (or more) like those dudes in Arizona sharing mp3's on their LAN.

Re:CEO not CTO

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The matter is a business decision, not a technical one. Speaking as a CTO myself, I'd never get in the middle of a business policy decision like this. I estimate feasibility and costs, present alternatives, point out risks, etc., but it's the CEO that makes the decisions.

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy

[JofCoRe]

People are not as productive if forced to work straight thru an eight hour day. If you allow a certain amount of non-work activity to exist, you will find that the employees are happier, and also probably more productive because of it.

There just needs to be a good balance...

Ready?

[glubbs]

Here's Chuck D's idea (or at least a portion of it), taken from Signal To Noise (Fall 2002, Issue 27):
Chuck has suggested that in the future, artists are going to have to give music away. He's even gone so far as to predict that within two years, 85% of all music will be free. Artists seeking the revenue stream under such a scenario will have to approach a recording as a purely promotional enterprise and make their money by performing. "As far as file sharing is concerned, you're going to have to develop your business model by getting people music. 'Cause people's first goals are to get music, not to buy music. And my whole thing is that, okay, if buying music is out of the equation, maybe I can just develop artists and give people the art and make people just be a fanatic for the artist instead of a fanatic for the art, because when you're a fanatic for the art, then, of course you would just download because the artist don't mean nothing to you; but if I can actually deliver a million songs to a million people online, I can build a fan base somewhere there and develop my business model on the back end. But you can't do it unless you develop an artist that people have a connection to. So it ain't going to be like, 'one, two, three, we're going to be gettin' money by being in the music business.' Them days are over."

The fact is, people can make music in their own homes now. People can make albums in their own homes. In previous years, you couldn't do that, you had to go to a record company for "the big break" (the chance to make an album).
Take a glimpse at what would be possible without the RIAA getting in the way (and yes, with the technology of today, at everyone's fingertips, they are getting in the way):
90.1 FM WRUV Burlington
Bring The Noise! (note Sat. Oct 26th show)
Ninjatune

Anyone else have links to share with this fellow on how unsigned, unbig-business music can work? ((on a side note I just realized how silly it is for people using linux, a fairly (some might say very) non-big-business thing, to say that non-big-business models can't be adapted in other places))

Re:Ready?

[plus5insightful]

I'm totally supportive of the idea of people making music "in their basement", so to speak. There have been bands doing this for quite a few years, along with a burgeoning hobbyist music industry that sell billions of keyboards, multitrack recorders, and computer recording software yearly. Strangely, though, the second the band starts to get exposure is the second that they start petitoining to be picked up by a big label. Although they have the ability to just tour small cities and sell their CDs out of the tailgate of their truck, to most that is just a stepping stone to getting signed.

The home recording market isn't something that's going to explode "soon": It's been a fact of life for at least 7 years. When MP3.com hit the scene several years back it offered any tiny little artist the ability to use their home recordings and achieve worldwide distribution overnight. I can go there and download quite a few free MP3s of a wide variety of artists. Do people, though? Hardly. The overwhelming majority hit Limewire to find the latest Shania Twain song that they heard on the radio. Again, that refutes any idea that it's the little "Free Music" guys that are to gain: They've had the ability to gain for years, but they haven't.

Having said that, many, many artists are musical geniuses on the recording side, but their music is not suited to performances, or they themselves are not of the genre for which public performances are an option. If they could perform, there's already a totally saturated performance market.

Re:Ready?

[glubbs]

I'm totally supportive of the idea of people making music "in their basement", so to speak. There have been bands doing this for quite a few years, along with a burgeoning hobbyist music industry that sell billions of keyboards, multitrack recorders, and computer recording software yearly. Strangely, though, the second the band starts to get exposure is the second that they start petitoining to be picked up by a big label. Although they have the ability to just tour small cities and sell their CDs out of the tailgate of their truck, to most that is just a stepping stone to getting signed.

I think it really depends on who they want to be signed by(or is it to?). If someone "suddenly" petitions to be picked up by a label that wholeheartedly supports the RIAA and everything they're doing right now, then that artist was a sham to begin with. If they're looking to get picked up by people like Ninjatune, or to go along with Chuck D's idea ... well, one of these somebodys is an artist, looking to further and better the art, and the other is looking to make money off of it.

Re:Ready?

[Beliskner]

The overwhelming majority hit Limewire to find the latest Shania Twain song that they heard on the radio. Again, that refutes any idea that it's the little "Free Music" guys that are to gain: They've had the ability to gain for years, but they haven't

Joe sixpack consumes what he wants. The fact is that I've downloaded the music of Mongolian sheep farmers and native American chants which would *NEVER* appear on the shelves. If Kazaa/Limewire were to be removed now, I would class that as censorship and will overthrow the Government as I'm required to under the Constitution.

Re:Ready?

[muzkfan]

The hole in Chuck D's argument is that, except for the advance the label gives them, artists essentially do make all their money from touring and merchandise (and commercials, etc) as it is. But, that doesn't mean it's OK to download music and not buy the record. If the label doesn't make any money back on the sale of the record, then they will not want to make another one. The band will be dropped and have to spend their own millions on making and marketing a record to the extent that the label would have, which is really hard to do. And most bands don't have millions.

You aren't safe at home either

[nomadicGeek]

I've already gotten my cease and desist letter...

The complaining party, the Interactive Digital Software Association ("IDSA"), specifically requests that you immediately cease and desist in the distribution of copyrighted software. In addition, please inform the Abuse Department of (my ISP) in writing, that the alleged activity has ceased.

I think that everyone needs to realize that when you fire up a gnutella client, you are broadcasting what you have on your computer and the files that you are sharing for all to see. It doesn't take much coding to start logging who is sharing content that you own. It also doesn't take long to cross reference the IP address and find out who owns those addresses.

If you are sharing files on a gnutella client you can expect to get a cease and desist email from your ISP eventually. Many ISP's are receiving notifications from contents owners on a weekly basis. Sharing files on gnutella violates virtually every usage agreement that I have ever seen. Although the ISP's don't want to loose customers, they don't want to take the heat for being unresponsive.

I don't think that the Copyright holders are going to change their minds anytime soon. Right now it is probably much cheaper for them to hire a few coders and a few lawyers and start scaring people than it is to try to develop new business models.

I think that things will slowly change. There are already people out there trying out new business models. Some artists are also into it. Eventually someone will figure out a reliable way to make money and artists will eventually follow. I think that it is going to take years though. The establishment has things locked down pretty tight.

We have a legal streaming server. Sue us?

[PsyQ]

At my company, we're running a server were workers can upload their MP3s so all the other (1200+) workers can listen to them as streams via their standard MP3 player.

We asked our local version of the RIAA whether this is legal, and after some debate with our legal department, they concluded that yes, it is. Even though you might argue that those streams could be saved to hard drive and taken home, it still is perfectly fine.

I hope the US also has this much freedom, so you could just stream your MP3s or Oggs instead of putting them on a fileserver somewhere.

Re:We have a legal streaming server. Sue us?

[Arcturax]

You can legally stream here in the US, but only if you now pay the CARP Royalties, which are crippling.

Re:We have a legal streaming server. Sue us?

[cr0sh]

You might want to reconsider asking your legal counsel - because here in the Phoenix area (Tempe, actually, I think) a company got busted hard core by the RIAA for doing the exact same thing (I think they were a software publishing house - not sure) - they were taken to court, and IIRC, they were found guilty...

Re:We have a legal streaming server. Sue us?

[seann]

Info | http://terror.snm-hgkz.ch/

I don't tihnk hes from kansas toto

Re:We have a legal streaming server. Sue us?

[cr0sh]

You got a point there - shoulda looked closer... thx

Excellent. Now we know what they're reading.

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so now we know where they get their game plans (the BSA - they'll probably follow up with shakedown tactics, I guess, which would be amusing to see), and a fairly well put together paper exists on where to go from here (put together by the adversary, yes, but also quite useful - I await with some interest the promised quantitative analyses, as they may help in optimising a few little things).

"2.4.3 Attacks"

"Darknet hosts owned by corporations are typically easily removed. Often, these hosts are set up by individual employees without the knowledge of corporate management. Generally corporations respect intellectual property laws. This together with their reluctance to become targets of lawsuits, and their centralized network of hierarchical management makes it relatively easy to remove darknet hosts in the corporate domain.

"While the structures at universities are typically less hierarchical and strict than those of corporations, ultimately, similar rules apply. If the .com and .edu T1 and T3 lines were pulled from under a darknet, the usefulness of the network would suffer drastically."

-- P. Biddle, P. England, M. Peinado and B. Willman (all of Microsoft Research), "The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution" [MS DOC], to appear at DRM 2002.

Very simple

[vlad_petric]

They're doing this for a very simple reason: corporations have a lot more money than domestic users. A trial against Joe User would not get them much, aside from setting an example. A litigation against Big-Company would get them a lot more in terms of money.

RIAA's intent is not to kill on-line music distribution, but to control it (and use it as a cash cow).

The Raven

Three words:

[tshak]

Get an iPod.

Why do this at work anyway?

[Arcturax]

First off, why should people be downloading music files at work? Given that under current law it is illegal, you should definately not be doing it where you can easily be monitored and fired and possibly prosecuted for it.

Not to mention, you should also be doing something productive, not searching and downloading music you didn't pay for. If you want to do that on your own time, fine, but don't be so dumb as to do it at work. Same thing goes for porn, do it at home, not at work.

While I don't agree with the RIAA's tactics and I know they are simply trying to save their dying buisiness model, I do agree that people should not be doing this kind of thing on company time.

Re:Why do this at work anyway?

[forkboy]

You sound like a very uptight and frustrated middle manager.

Not everyone has loads of work to do while at work. It should be noted as well that computers are now able to multitask. It's true! One can actually download music at the SAME TIME as reading email, sending a memo, and printing!

As far as the legality of the whole thing goes, well, companies do their fair share of robbing their employees' pension funds blind while at the same time laying off thousands...so, they should expect their people to follow the example they set.

A boycott is the useful response

[chessnotation]

The only reason that the content merchants are acting like anal sphincters is because too many of you are supplying them with the cash to do so. I used to spend over US$1,800 per year on CDs, DVDs, and cinema tickets. But since the content oligarchy has gone over the edge with a multitude of misbehaviors, my cash outlay to support them has gone to ZERO. The content oligarchy dinosaurs survive only because too many continue to support them, their lawyers, and their bribery of the politicians. Boycott now, and soon you will be with me watching these reptiles sink into the tar pit that they oh so richly deserve.

Substitute.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzzzzzt! You lose ;-)

I myself have managed to avoid this by using Pol Pot or Stalin in place of Hitler. It gets the point across just as well and G****n Trolls have a much harder time invoking his so-called "law."

Now realize what this means for them and you.

[twitter]

CD (only local artists now)

If you work at some big dumb company, your CEO will now keep you from sharing those songs, regardless of the artist's intent. Duh, Big Dumb CEO is going to be convinced that music is not something for the coporate intranet if he is not already. The policy will be made and the violators shit canned. Thank the RIAA both for threatening lawsuits and raising FUD over bandwith.

In the end, you will be lucky to have music at all in that kind of company. Just a little more FUD about company IP walking off in iPods and USB keyfobs, evil backdoored music software that's not MS Media Player and real info on the Media Player's licensing that makes it a backdoor and poof, you are without music.

There are two things to remember as you are expected to put in more of your personal time for work and are alowed to do less of what you need to get done there. First, enjoying your job is like stealing from the company. Second, get back to work, you are not being paid for the power of your dreams.

Re:Now realize what this means for them and you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should people be fiddling around on the corporate network passing around music when there's work they could be doing?

It's a serious question.

Re:Now realize what this means for them and you.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Man, I'm kindof new to corporate America, but that just doesn't make any sense to me at all. At my place of employment, I listen to MP3s all day long. From my iPod. It's battery powered. I don't even need my company's electricity in order for it to work fine. If my company did something like a "clean desk policy" I'd be furious. That's totally different.

If I were to spend time during my workday actually collecting new mp3s, it'd detract a lot from the amount of work I do. Hell, I spend hours at a time organizing my mp3 collection. I don't see what I have to gain from corporate music sharing, let alone what my company has to gain from it.

My letter to the President of the RIAA

[Cinematique]

To whom it may concern,

There's something mildly hypocritical about your audacity to demand that I stop "pirating?" You stop, first.

Give the artists a better cut, and quit looting and pillaging from their collective talents.

Perhaps you should set a better example yourself, and then maybe, maybe, I'll start buying CDs again.

Better yet, use that collective muscle you like to flex to push all of your member artists' music on to the Internet, through several distribution sites. I wouldn't want to see a monopoly in the Internet music arena, you know.

By the way, leave out that cumbersome and futile Digital Rights Management stuff. I'm only going to pay for 192kbps+ MP3s. Furthermore; I'm not going to pay more than 25 per track. And that's if you're lucky. I would much rather pay ~$10.00 a month.

Thank you for your time,

Adam Carrington

Re:My letter to the President of the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you're bold.

Usually people wait until they have the gun placed at their victim's temple before they start talking like that.

Please make RIAA irrelevant - publish Open Music

[Anonymous Coward]

We propose the Open Music License ... acceptable to artists and to new music publishers like Real.com ....

It will help artists distribute music widely and quickly and to make money.

We must end run the RIAA and make it irrelevant.

In related news...

[toriver]

Independent artists and small niche labels warn record buyers of semipornographic, run-of-the-mill crap released by RIAA labels.

Nah.

well I do, so f**k him and f**k you too

[fermion]

Hey, Corporate Manager, want to increase employee productivity by at least 35% across the board? Ensure that everyone's computer monitor is viewable from the hallway outside his/her office or cube.
Most of the advertisements for employees I have seen lately ask for self-starters who can work without supervision. I suspect hiring managers are asking for these qualifications because they are looking for proffesionals who know how to get work done. Likewise, if I am hired in a position where I am to mostly supervise myself, i expect enough trust to actually allow me to supervise myself. If I fail, fire me, but don't treat me like a child when you hired an adult. BTW, I have been out of college for almost 10 years, and have set up and programmed computer for almost 20.

The point is that if you have employees that, as you say, would increase productivity 35% if everyone could see their monitors, fire them. They are not proffesional. They are children and need to have jobs suitable for children. Hire proffesional that understand the work and can develop efficient methods to complete the work. On the other hand, as i have noticed as late, companies tend to budget for children rather than proffesionals.

The other point is that some people simply cannot work with someone looking over their shoulder. I can work with all sorts of distractions, but not someone staring at me. For instance, I can do write and develop in coffee houses, but often I do better work in a corner. To the point, a professional knows how he or she works best, and should be allowed to do it.

Re:well I do, so f**k him and f**k you too

[RobotRunAmok]

I agree with you.

What seems to be happening more and more, amidst the corporate axe-swingings, is that managers are inheriting "other people's' employees. And yes, during the feel-good-foosball-mania of the past decade, an awful lot of non-professionals started collecting paychecks just as if they were genuine professionals.

I don't think the lack of trust should be there, but a re-examination of goals, past mere punching of time-clocks, is prolly in order in most shops.

Re:well I do, so f**k him and f**k you too

[0x0d0a]

I'm with you on the looking over the shoulder bit. Really disturbing. OTOH, if there were monitoring software on my computer, I probably wouldn't experience the same sensation, though that would undoubtedly be more intrusive.

Meta-Godwin's Law invoked

[No Such Agency]

Bzzzt! I lose ;-)

Re:Is this really a problem anymore???

[llamaluvr]

For the answer to your question, I encourage you to visit an American University. College students are quite the swashbuckling music pirates!

a serious question deserves an answer.

[twitter]

Why should people be fiddling around on the corporate network passing around music when there's work they could be doing?

People are not robots, they enjoy music and so should the company. If you try to treat your people like robots they will be miserable, get less done, make mistakes, and rue the day they joined your company. Music is something that can be enjoyed while increasing productivity. A sla^H^H^H employee with a set of earphones is less easily distracted from the task at hand and is less likely to get bored. Employees who can take care of bithday gifts and other stuff like that from their desk is less likely to realize how much of their personal life their job costs them.

Music swapping programs that operate on the coporate intranet should be encouraged. They create a sense of participation, belonging and comradship. The music posted there is generally worlds better than the barren static the RIAA fills the sky with and so, your employees will come to think of their place of work as special and enjoyable. Copyrighted works can be removed when found so the RIAA won't be able to steal your pension fund, but corporate america really should make a stand for music sharing. It's in their best interests and the RIAA would bo broke fast if everyone in the world told them to shove it.

Re:a serious question deserves an answer.

[0x0d0a]

Fine. Then, since the music is something fun for *you*, and not something that you should be getting paid to do, burn your CDs or whatever at *home* during *your time* and take them in. Don't be dicking around at work swapping music.

It works for Jesse Jackson

[spanky555]

I see people saying that this won't work because companies have more money than RIAA.

I would say that needs some rethinking. It works for Jesse Jackson. Jackson shows up and mumbles something about "grievances" about "race" and companies bend over backwards to give him money. When he first started out, he had little more than the muscle of a street gang and no money, but somehow he made companies tremble.

The secret to his extortion is that companies want to avoid a PR debacle - no one want to be called "racist" and then have to defend themselves from that position. The only thing the common man will remember of the situation is what the headlines scream, even if they are later vindicated. So the companies just pay him off.

I suspect companies might want to avoid the label "software/music pirate", too. I think that's one reason BSA still exists...they have no legal authority, so I can't see what else would explain their continued existence...

And remember

[Anonymous Coward]

to sign yes when your Union organizes you!

There's a legal way to make them shut up!

[Spicerun]

All you have to do is quit buying any Recorded media period (It is perfectly legal to keep your money in your wallet). Don't download or copy or anything else to circumvent -- just Don't buy. I'll bet you that these same idiots doing the threatening from the RIAA/MPAA will be begging within 6 months for anybody to take their wares, and will probably be desperate to give it to the customers they way the customers want it.

Unfortunately, there are too many of you though who seem to think that you can't live without new music or new movies. Until you guys realize that you can live, at least for a while, without RIAA's music, or MPAA's movies, you will continue to get fleeced -- And it will be your fault!

Re:There's a legal way to make them shut up!

[Anonymous Coward]

somebody mod dis up!

Shh!

[jcsehak]

Next thing you know, people'll be typing out the full name of V****mort.

Don't count me in

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, isn't this what slashdot has been calling them to do; going after the people that violate the law, rather than the protocol?

I consider myself a part of slashdot, and I for one do not want the RIAA going after anyone. I want the RIAA to simply go away.

Quite the contrary, the chain does end....

[driehuis]

This would be a good time to turn the RIAA on to VeriSign for aiding and abetting the illegal downloaders by providing name service for the .com domain.

I wonder when employers will be held liable for their adulterous employees. The lights are on but there doesn't seem to be anyone home in the legal system.

Too true

[0x0d0a]

This has honestly got to be the lamest argument that gets consistently modded up to +5 on /.

Yup.

Piracy has nothing to do with "obsolete business models". If you want to complain about distribution methods, that's okay. If the RIAA is attacking an e-retailer of music, I'd be with you. But they're just going against people not doing their work and swiping copies of music at work. I'm with them all the way there.

you have it wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bradband ISPs LOVE p2p. Why? Its the only reason I have fast internet-to download big files FAST. I only download from someone else with a FAST connection. So I am increasing the demand for their product. My uncle was going to stick with dial-up, but once I showed him how to download rare John Denver recordings(ewwwwww) in seconds, he signed up for braodband. Now, I am SURE the ISPs hate someone doing 20+ gigs of sharing a day, but that is the atypical user, and one they will send a letter to. I know at my college, you had unlimited downloads, but could only upload 1 gig a day. Apparently not everyone is sharing 24/7 because I've NEVER seen them shut people down. Now I would imagine even less people on ISPs' networks are filesharing at any given time, so rally, they get a lot of money, a lot of interest in their product, a lot of free advertising (I tell all my friends to get broadband), and there is minimal strain on their network.

Great... another witchhunt, another wasted week...

[Tenebrious1]

Looks like I know how I'll be spending all of next week. I expect to see the email from my boss forwarded from the CTO forwarded from the CEO by 10:30 monday morning.

I'd love to reply and say "tell the RIAA to blow it out their ass", but I doubt that will get me too far. So instead, I'll have to dig up cache server and firewall logs, app managment logs, probably send around a few hunter/killer apps to look for mp3 caches. As far as I know, no one is running P2P on my network, but god help the sap I catch doing it this week...

Dear CEO

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 3:00 am. Do you know what your janitor's downloading?

It costs 20c a megabyte

[myowntrueself]

for typical companies in NZ with high speed internet access.

So no, its no surprise whatsoever that they'd want to avoid employees downloading gigs of movies, music etc.

20c a meg, thats $200NZ per gig.
Of what? Is this chargable to clients?
I doubt it

list of riaa members

[Anonymous Coward]

heres that list

Last Post!

[alpg]

Looks like the channel is back to normal :)
You mean it's not scrolling faster than anyone can read? :)
-- Seen on #Debian after the release of Debian 2.0

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...

Last Post!

[alpg]

What they said:
What they meant:

"I recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever."
(Yes, that about sums it up.)
"The amount of mathematics she knows will surprise you."
(And I recommend not giving that school a dime...)
"I simply can't say enough good things about him."
(What a screw-up.)
"I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine."
(I can't tell you how happy I am that she left our firm.)
"When this person left our employ, we were quite hopeful he would go
a long way with his skills."
(We hoped he'd go as far as possible.)
"You won't find many people like her."
(In fact, most people can't stand being around her.)
"I cannot reccommend him too highly."
(However, to the best of my knowledge, he has never committed a
felony in my presence.)

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...