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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.
And what about these studios? Didn't Lucasfilm say something about studios eventually becoming unprofitable? You'd think...
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.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
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.
"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
This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
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.
-- 7 string electric violin + live loop samplers
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.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
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.
Disco Stu was talkin' to you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
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.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
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.
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.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
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.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
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.
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.
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?
Interesting they are talking to CEO's and not CTO's. Would seem more appropriate to talk to someone in charge of technology.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
RIAA's intent is not to kill on-line music distribution, but to control it (and use it as a cash cow).
The Raven
The Raven