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RIAA, MPAA Instigate U.S. Naval Academy Raid
LaikaVirgin writes "After receiving a letter from 'four entertainment-based lobbying associations', the U.S. Naval Academy has seized nearly 100 midshipmen's computers that allegedly had pirated media. It's good to see that the armed forces know who's really in charge."
Just put an end to their whole propoganda "we are going to get everyone and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law" shit. If there is one thing on earth you don't fuck with its people with the power to make it very difficult for you to operate. The US Naval Academy (as well as other military institutions) has stronger ties to business, schools and government than the RIAA/MPAA/etc/etc could ever dream of. These are the people that have strong influential power when it comes to basically anything regarding basically anything. Not only that but these institutions harbor great ill-will to anyone threatening the "future of our country" over something they'll see as extremely "trivial".
Also, once you piss one military institution off unless it's a battle between divisions (army vs navy etc) then none of them like you. I can already see alot of top brass talking about these Lobbying institutions especially since Thanksgiving is coming up. The word will spread and friends of friends, families who have made service life a career will hear about this. It will spread to public servants etc and this one action seriously just damaged any pull the RIAA/MPAA/NMPA and the Songwriters Guild had with government. Especially considering the state of affairs on the table now. Not only that but the owners of the equipment that was seized will truly remember this especially if they get article 15's as well as not knowing if you're fucking with the next (insert influential power here) or if one of those young men/women has a father/mother/aunt/uncle who happens to be a congressman or senator or what have you.
The military academies have a very strict code of honor. For a midshipman to be caught with something like pirated music would probably result in summary dismissal from the academy.
Evidence presented by the RIAA that midshipmen were engaging in illegal activites like this would really cause the administration of Annapolis to investigate quite carefully, and be VERY upset if this sort of thing was going on.
I feel sorry for these people - if they are caught with pirated music, their careers at the Naval academy are done.
- As others have noted, the middies had to have been smoking something to put anything on P2P from the Academy.
- The Academy just qualified for the Pearl Harbor Memorial Security Award by actually having an wide-open network.
- The Content Cartel just caused an entire year's worth of middies to get flushed down the tubes. People Who Count won't forget what this particular witch-hunt cost.
In the long run, this cost the Cartel so much good-will that it will take freaking million$ in bribes^Wcampaign contributions to repair the damage.Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
It's not piracy because they're not raping and murdering on the high seas.
It's not theft because there's no missing property.
It is copyright infringement. But some would argue it falls under fair use.
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As soon as someone downloads music that they would have otherwise purchased, there is a theft of the money that would have been paid.
I was going to go see a movie. A friend told me it sucked. I didn't go see it. Was that theft? Meets your definition.
How about if i was going to buy a book, and a friend stopped me on the way to the bookstore to tell me that they already owned the book and could borrow it from them? Again meets your definition.
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