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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.
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?
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.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
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*
-- 7 string electric violin + live loop samplers
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?
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.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
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.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
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.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
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.
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
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Many Corps/Orgs have Acceptable Usage Policies already.
.MP3, .avi, .mpeg, etc.
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
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!
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!
;P); that doesn't mean I am justified in stealing 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
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.
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
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! :)).
Gorkman
;-) 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
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.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
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...
Word Axis
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.
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.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
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$1,800 per year on CDs, DVDs, and cinema tickets. But since the content oligarchy has gone over the edge with a multitude of misbehaviors, my cash outlay to support them has gone to ZERO. The content oligarchy dinosaurs survive only because too many continue to support them, their lawyers, and their bribery of the politicians. Boycott now, and soon you will be with me watching these reptiles sink into the tar pit that they oh so richly deserve.
If you work at some big dumb company, your CEO will now keep you from sharing those songs, regardless of the artist's intent. Duh, Big Dumb CEO is going to be convinced that music is not something for the coporate intranet if he is not already. The policy will be made and the violators shit canned. Thank the RIAA both for threatening lawsuits and raising FUD over bandwith.
In the end, you will be lucky to have music at all in that kind of company. Just a little more FUD about company IP walking off in iPods and USB keyfobs, evil backdoored music software that's not MS Media Player and real info on the Media Player's licensing that makes it a backdoor and poof, you are without music.
There are two things to remember as you are expected to put in more of your personal time for work and are alowed to do less of what you need to get done there. First, enjoying your job is like stealing from the company. Second, get back to work, you are not being paid for the power of your dreams.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.