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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...
I wonder if certain organizations will have web site access problems this week...
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
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?
The trouble with freedom and liberty is - you never know what people are going to do with it
like
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
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
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!
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
Let's just hope some of those CEOs are the ones spearheading all the file swapping.
I am a filthy pirate.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
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
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?
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'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
In the same way that rewards are offered to disgruntled employees for information on illegal software installations.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Bzzzzzt! You lose ;-)
Freedom: "I won't!"
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.
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
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
These crap stories should be under RIAA/MPAA topic so I can easily eliminate them !
kthx
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
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..
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.
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
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
But maybe that's another one of those pesky laws that only apply to citizens. Because when we have examples like:
...it sure seems difficult to convince most rational people that these aren't instances of blackmail.
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
~Philly
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
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.
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.
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
Get an iPod.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
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$1,800 per year on CDs, DVDs, and cinema tickets. But since the content oligarchy has gone over the edge with a multitude of misbehaviors, my cash outlay to support them has gone to ZERO. The content oligarchy dinosaurs survive only because too many continue to support them, their lawyers, and their bribery of the politicians. Boycott now, and soon you will be with me watching these reptiles sink into the tar pit that they oh so richly deserve.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
If you work at some big dumb company, your CEO will now keep you from sharing those songs, regardless of the artist's intent. Duh, Big Dumb CEO is going to be convinced that music is not something for the coporate intranet if he is not already. The policy will be made and the violators shit canned. Thank the RIAA both for threatening lawsuits and raising FUD over bandwith.
In the end, you will be lucky to have music at all in that kind of company. Just a little more FUD about company IP walking off in iPods and USB keyfobs, evil backdoored music software that's not MS Media Player and real info on the Media Player's licensing that makes it a backdoor and poof, you are without music.
There are two things to remember as you are expected to put in more of your personal time for work and are alowed to do less of what you need to get done there. First, enjoying your job is like stealing from the company. Second, get back to work, you are not being paid for the power of your dreams.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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 ~$10.00 a month.
Thank you for your time,
Adam Carrington
Independent artists and small niche labels warn record buyers of semipornographic, run-of-the-mill crap released by RIAA labels.
Nah.
Bzzzt! I lose ;-)
Freedom: "I won't!"
I agree with you.
What seems to be happening more and more, amidst the corporate axe-swingings, is that managers are inheriting "other people's' employees. And yes, during the feel-good-foosball-mania of the past decade, an awful lot of non-professionals started collecting paychecks just as if they were genuine professionals.
I don't think the lack of trust should be there, but a re-examination of goals, past mere punching of time-clocks, is prolly in order in most shops.
People are not robots, they enjoy music and so should the company. If you try to treat your people like robots they will be miserable, get less done, make mistakes, and rue the day they joined your company. Music is something that can be enjoyed while increasing productivity. A sla^H^H^H employee with a set of earphones is less easily distracted from the task at hand and is less likely to get bored. Employees who can take care of bithday gifts and other stuff like that from their desk is less likely to realize how much of their personal life their job costs them.
Music swapping programs that operate on the coporate intranet should be encouraged. They create a sense of participation, belonging and comradship. The music posted there is generally worlds better than the barren static the RIAA fills the sky with and so, your employees will come to think of their place of work as special and enjoyable. Copyrighted works can be removed when found so the RIAA won't be able to steal your pension fund, but corporate america really should make a stand for music sharing. It's in their best interests and the RIAA would bo broke fast if everyone in the world told them to shove it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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!
Next thing you know, people'll be typing out the full name of V****mort.
c-hack.com |
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.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
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.
May we never see th
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.
May we never see th
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.