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."

Comments

Music?

[T-Kir]

Maybe they we're bugged 'cos of all the illegal copies of "In The Navy" by YMCA ;)

Re:Music?

[T-Kir]

Doh! Think before you post! "In The Navy" by The Village People, not YMCA... must be my day for stoopidity.

Re:Music?

[Jucius Maximus]

""`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it.""

Aside from the clear lack of logic in this statement, it is interesting to note that the RIAA has enough sense to not call it 'piracy' when they are talking to the Navy.

In reality, it's 'infringement of copyright' , not theft or piracy.

Re:Music?

[ahfoo]

In reality P2P is neither piracy or theft or copyright infringement.

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it.

Actually, it is. It's like going into the campus library whenever you need to read a book, rather than going to the bookstore. Or borrowing the book from your friend. Or, at worst, borrowing the book from a willing friend and then photocopying the chapters you were interested in.

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

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.

Re:Music?

[gl4ss]

dunno, but lots of people do walk into public libraries, and pay some mandatory fee, and do photocopies of few pages.

Re:Music?

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

It's like going into the campus library whenever you need to read a book, rather than going to the bookstore. Or borrowing the book from your friend.

No, it's like sneaking into the campus movie theatre or the amusement park without paying. Or jumping the turnstiles on the subway, so you can get a free ride without paying. It's about avoiding paying for something that cost someone else money to provide. How is that not theft of service, again?

Re:Music?

[An Onerous Coward]

P2P itself isn't any of these things. It's just a way of moving data about. As to the files being moved about via P2P, the question is a bit hairier.

C'mon, moderators! +3 insightful? For a comment where people have to guess as to what the poster is actually trying to say?

Re:Music?

[sprintkayak]

I think you mean by the 'Village People'. Both 'In the Navy' and 'YMCA' are songs by the 'Village People'.

No, I'm not big into gay disco; I do work as a DJ and so I know a lot of music. People inevitably request such songs when they're drunk.

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

It's like sneaking into the campus movie theatre

No, because you're taking up someone else's seat.

or the amusement park without paying.

No, because you're making the lines longer.

Or jumping the turnstiles on the subway

No, because you're making the subways more crowded and slightly heavier.

Re:Music?

[Reality Master 101]

It's not piracy because they're not raping and murdering on the high seas.

Yes, congratulations, that is one definition. But sorry, not the sole definition. It has been used in the sense of copyright violations for hundreds of years.

It's not theft because there's no missing property.

Yes, there is. As soon as someone downloads music that they would have otherwise purchased, there is a theft of the money that would have been paid. No, not all downloads are theft, but that doesn't mean that all downloads are legitimate.

It is copyright infringement. But some would argue it falls under fair use.

And they would be wrong. Fair use was NEVER intended to apply to mass, anonymous distribution.

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

It's about avoiding paying for something that cost someone else money to provide. How is that not theft of service, again?

The following are all examples of "avoiding paying for something that cost someone else money to provide". Are these theft of service as well?

Borrowing a book from the library

Going to a friend's house to watch a movie on pay per view instead of each of you ordering it yourself

Reading about a sporting event in the paper instead of going to the game yourself

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

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.

Re:Music?

[scsiboy]

Going to a friend's house to watch a movie on pay per view instead of each of you ordering it yourself

The pay-per-view providers license viewings on a single screen, and as long as you don't charge anyone else to watch it, they don't care who sees it. You paid for it, you get to watch it (once), along with whoever sits there with you.

Reading about a sporting event in the paper instead of going to the game yourself

This is just nonsense. Being at the game yourself and reading about it in the paper are such entirely different experiences, comparing them is ludicrous. That's like saying watching 2001 is the same thing as being in space.

Re:Music?

[Reality Master 101]

I didn't go see it. Was that theft? Meets your definition.

No, it does not, because you didn't go see the movie for free from an unlicensed source. Whereas, stealing music means YOU HAVE THE MUSIC.

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.

No, it does not, because that is specifically fair use. It is not anonymous, mass distribution.

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

Being at the game yourself and reading about it in the paper are such entirely different experiences

That's irrelevent. Let's refer to the topic i am arguing against: That enjoying something for free that cost someone money to produce is theft of service. Is it freeloading to read about a sporting event in a paper? You're getting enjoyment without supporting the massive operation needed to stage the event.

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

If you believe that borrowing books from the library is okay but listening to music on the Internet is wrong, where do you draw the line?

Re:Music?

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

The following are all examples of "avoiding paying for something that cost someone else money to provide". Are these theft of service as well?

Borrowing a book from the library

I'd say no, because they paid for that copy, and it can only be used by one borrower at a time. If they started handing out photocopies to everyone (like P2P), that'd be stealing from the author.

Going to a friend's house to watch a movie on pay per view instead of each of you ordering it yourself.

Again, no, because it's limited to his private circle of friends (as many as can fit in his living room). If he retransmitted it to everyone else's house in his city, IMHO it'd be stealing.

Reading about a sporting event in the paper instead of going to the game yourself

No, that's not stealing, because you didn't actually get to see the game. Reading about a Daft Punk album isn't stealing it either, but downloading it for free is.

Re:Music?

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

It's like sneaking into the campus movie theatre without paying

No, because you're taking up someone else's seat.

Suppose the theater was half-empty. Would that make it right to sneak in without paying? (IMHO, this is the essence of the "pirates wouldn't have bought it anyway" argument.)

Re:Music?

[Reality Master 101]

If you believe that borrowing books from the library is okay but listening to music on the Internet is wrong, where do you draw the line?

Because physical books can't be easily, infinitely duplicated on a mass scale.

You'll note that mass duplication of books IS illegal. Turn the question around: if photocopying books onto physical paper and giving them away on mass distribution basis is illegal, then why should mass distribution of music be legal?

Re:Music?

[MarcQuadra]

It's not theft because the costs to make it are fixed. The first CD cost 2 million dollars, every other CD after that cost about $1, and every time somebody who WOULDN'T have BOUGHT it listened to it it cost NOTHING. You can't apply the same rules to information as you do to physical goods, they are too different in nature.

Re:Music?

[shivianzealot]

Or better yet; "Its better to be a pirate than to join the navy" -Steve Jobs

Re:Music?

[The_dev0]

Yeah, who would believe it... Ocean-going pirates! They should change their names to the ARRRR.I.A.A (Sorry, it was too easy)

Re:Music?

[(void*)]

Again, no, because it's limited to his private circle of friends (as many as can fit in his living room). If he retransmitted it to everyone else's house in his city, IMHO it'd be stealing.

How private is private? The guy down the road owns a personal entertainment center. The whole town (200 people - it's a small town) likes to go there for a weekly party to watch his Pay-Per-View. They pay him a little every week for the favor by letting him eat at the local restaurant for free. Illegal?

Re:Music?

[(void*)]

Suppose the movie theatre lets people who choose not to pay into a place to watch the movie. They have to stand for the whole length of the movie. Illegal?

I'm willing to bet with you that lots of people in 3rd world countries do that. Should it be illegal?

Re:Music?

[GMontag]

That is easily an illegal violation of the PPV agreement, a commercial showing (barter counts too). Try a better analogy.

Re:Music?

[pdboddy]

"As soon as someone downloads music that they would have otherwise purchased, there is a theft of the money that would have been paid."

Pure horse-hooie. Following this logic, HMV, and just about any other nation-wide music store would be shut down. I can listen to just about any cd I want in HMV, using one of the little headphone stations. Same thing for Future Shop, I can go in and listen to something before I buy. If I go in and listen to a cd, and think it's pure crap, is it theft because I walk out not having purchased the CD?

It's copyright infringement.

Fair use was never intended to apply to mass distribution, true. But RIAA, MPAA, et al., are putting up a concerted effort to squash fair use. They want it so we cannot make the copies entitled to us under fair use, notice the rise of CDs/DVDs that won't run on computers, but only cd/dvd players. How far would this be allowed to go? "You can only listen to our music on this 36hour cd, on this approved cd player only..."

How many people are tired of paying 20 dollars for a cd which has only a couple of good songs?

The only way RIAA, MPAA, etc. will be able to stop p2p distribution of music or movies is to either drop the prices, or allow people to create their own cds/dvds, with only the stuff they want to see or hear. At a decent price.

Re:Music?

[Guppy06]

"It's about avoiding paying for something that cost someone else money to provide."

Ah, but what if the price being asked for is provided by price-fixing? I'd be more than willing to pay for an album's production costs, but the music companies are asking for a lot more than that.

Jumping subway turnstiles is illegal, but things get pretty fuzzy if you're doing it to avoid paying $100 for a lousy subway token.

Re:Music?

[Minna Kirai]

It has been used in the sense of copyright violations for hundreds of years.

Wasn't it around 125 years ago that William Gilbert started using "pirate" to refer to Americans who could reproduce his works because copyright didn't apply internationally?

Earilier usages of "piracy" for intellectual-property violations may have been based on the fact that the most valuable copyrighted works were nautical charts, and thus often stolen during violent crimes onboard ship. Does anyone have a good reference for the history of the word "pirate"?

As soon as someone downloads music that they would have otherwise purchased, there is a theft of the money that would have been paid.

The situation is very similar to sneaking into a movie theater. The owners are out $9 they might otherwise have been paid, but no one would call it "theft". Especially in a legal setting.

(Would you call bringing grocery-store snacks into a theater theft also?)

By the definitions of the English language, it is possible to "steal" a song or work of art- this means convincing the public that you, and not the author, are entitled to the copyright for it. The canonical usage for "She stole my song" is in response to a radio DJ misattributing your music. That offense would still be prosecuted as a fraud, though.

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

The problem with this analogy is that in the real world, it's impossible to, say, watch a movie without having an effect on the people around you. You may sit in a seat someone else wanted. You may block part of someone's view. You might spill your soda on the floor.

How about this: You have x-ray vision. Is it immoral to sit in your apartment across the street from the movie theater and watch the movie for free? I don't think it is.

Re:Music?

[Mike Schiraldi]

I'd say no, because they paid for that copy, and it can only be used by one borrower at a time. If they started handing out photocopies to everyone (like P2P), that'd be stealing from the author.

Oh, you might like my journal entry.

Re:Music?

[einTier]

A better analogy (because it actually exists) would be the classic "my office looks over the ballpark" situation.

So, is it immoral to sit in your office and watch the game (which is blacked out on local television and radio because it's not sold out) instead of going down to the park and paying $30 for a nosebleed seat?

Now, that doesn't mean that the ballpark can't build a huge, ugly fence so that I can't watch the game, or even build a dome over the whole stadium -- but it may negatively impact sales.

Re:Music?

[maxpublic]

Yes, there is. As soon as someone downloads music that they would have otherwise purchased, there is a theft of the money that would have been paid. No, not all downloads are theft, but that doesn't mean that all downloads are legitimate.

Get a clue, kid. That's called 'copyright infringement', a legal definition quite distinct from theft. You don't get to redefine terms as you please - not unless you want to look like a complete idiot.

But apparently that doesn't bother you.

Max

Re:Music?

[karlm]

The marginal cost to the record label of your downloading an mp3 is identically zero.

It's more like bribing a McDonnalds worker to give you the next burger that's been in the queue too long instead of throwing it out.

When you download an mp3, there is no extra dirt you track into the theater, extra wear and tear on a seat, etc. There is no extra strain on amusement park security staff, restrooms, wear and tear on the tracks, electricity used to hoist you up that first hill, etc. You also don't take up an extra seat anywhere.

My friend worked at a second-run music theater in HS. The managers let employees get in free and take one friend to one free movie per day. He'd convince other employees (that were working concessions or ticket sales at the moment) to let him use thier "free friend"s so he could get a few friend in for free. This was certainly not what the manager had in mind, but it wasn't theft as long as the theater wasn't packed.

Re:Music?

[hesiod]

Yeah, but When P2P'ing, you are taking up bandwidth that someone else is using. Not that I give two craps about other peoples' bandwidth, as long as I get my MP3s

Re:Music?

[jasonisgodzilla]

Your argument has one fundamental flaw. You assume that if we download something that we would have otherwise paid to see it. This is fundamentally wrong. There is a lot of music on my computer that I downloaded because it was free. Would I have ever in a million years gone out and paid for this song otherwise? No. And I think this applies to most of the "pirates" out there. By your definition it is stealing if I download something and watch it and in return don't go and see it at the theatre. You neglect to acknowledge that I would never have paid to see this anywhere. Only when it is free do I actually watch/listen to it. So whether I had downloaded it or not, I would not have given money to consume this item, so no one is losing any money.

Erk

[gt25500]

Well if software/music/movies didn't cost so much I'd buy them... You all know how it is... I mean if I wasn't a money struggling 16 year old it would be different :D

I wonder if Bill Gates uses this excuse still...

Re:Erk

[dacarr]

It's my opinion that if Bill Gates used this as an excuse, he wouldn't be so against Linux.

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[trotski]

The Navy would be raiding RIAA computer ;).

Go ahead, I'll take the karma hit!

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[gt25500]

Haha, that would be some awesome sh*t right there.
"wtf? you have mp3s yourself!" *pistol whip*

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Stephen VanDahm]

"IN SOVIET RUSSIA ... The Navy would be raiding RIAA computer ;)."

I'd pay good money to see that.

"Knife to Variable: SEAL team 6 is in position...."

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[sam_handelman]

This whole affair just goes to prove one of the great truisms of post-soviet russia:
"Everything they said about communism was a lie, but everything they said about capitalism is true."

Re:This is Farging War!

[gt25500]

My buddy who just went to college was so psyched and then they locked the whole network down. No p2p or hosting of anysort... He can't even connect to my web server because it runs on port 81.

so much for looking forward to college. All because of these bastard RIAA heads.

How?

[marshac]

I really wonder how the academy was able to simple seize the computers. It said that the midshipmen were "given" a computer when the entered the academy, but paid back the value over time..... this would indicate that these computers were the property of the midshipmen. So unless they had a search warrant, how were they able to seize and search the computers?

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

"So unless they had a search warrant, how were they able to seize and search the computers?"

That's a very good question. And an even more interesting question will be "what is the limit of damages that can be claimed in a lawsuit against the agency doing this illegal search and seizure?"

Why is the RIAA seemingly unique among enterprises who are generally afraid to take ANY controversial action of ANY kind, for fear of being sued? Abusing police power against Navy Academy cadets? Taking computers which could conceivably contain data that requires clearance to access? Pissing off future military officers? Pissing off their FATHERS, who are CURRENT military officers?

This just isn't the kind of action that I would recommend as "wise", if I were the counsel for the people responsible. Seems quite a risky business.

Re:How?

[EverDense]

So unless they had a search warrant, how were they able to seize and search the computers?

The "midshipmen" may own the computers, but the Navy owns the "midshipmen".

Re:How?

[clark625]

It might surprise you, but folks who have entered the armed services don't have rights. Seriously. I'm sure you've heard that so-and-so signed his life away to the Army? Well, what actually happened was that upon entering the service, the individual gave away his/her own rights to protect the rights of others.

Sure, some people don't like this fact. But it's important that our military have clear understandings that they are not out on a joy-ride and they can't leave whenever they like. They are the property of the govenment and officers do have the authority to use deadly force on a soldier who won't obey orders (at least in time of war). If you're ever drafted, or you sign up for the service, you don't have the right anymore to complain about first ammendment violations and the like (except in protecting others' rights) because frankly, the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to you.

Re:How?

[garcia]

the midshipmen themselves are the property of the government. The school can do as they wish.

Downloading of copyrighted material is usually against a school's TOS anyway. So if they were breaking that, and the school even owned PART of the computers, they had the right to confiscate them.

Re:How?

[lingenfr]

Actually not the same. Since the American people recognized the militarys need to stricter laws and abridged freedoms in order to maintain order and discipline, we have the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It is not the same as any other university.

While possession of the copyrighted material is likely illegal, I imagine that it will be dealt with as an honors violation provided all of the content was for personal use. I doubt that it will be career ending unless there is an express policy that has been emphasized to the midshipmen.

The whole issue of the **AA's heavy-handed tactics makes we want to forbid my kids from purchasing a CD until they turn 18. If we could get direct artist to consumer sales and cut out the middlemen, we could all afford music and musicians could still be rich. A shareware model seems the right way to go.

Re:How?

[TechDock]

Actually, military folks do have rights, just not the same ones as civilians. The military population is subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Given that, I suspect that the argument could be made that the computers don't actually belong to the midshipmen until after they graduate and the systems are fully paid off, and is government property until then. Any veterans out there that could offer more insight?

Re:How?

[Fembot]

Last time i checked army's had naff all todo with protecting other people's rights, and more to do with strengthening contries.

Re:How?

[ealar dlanvuli]

Because they are the cartel of the 21st century.

It kind of scares me to think what it will be like in the 22nd century if we stay on this path.

Re:How?

[CounterZer0]

Naval academy (and the armed forces in general) do not have the same constutional rights while on gov't property / in their facilities as other citizens. They cannot make disparaging remarks about politicians, and other such things we take for granted.

Re:How?

[qwijibrumm]

Look, I am in the Navy. So are these midshipmen. In the Navy you don't have the freedom to privacy or search and seizure without due process. A search warrant can be superseded by a commanding officer, no judge required.

Further, this sharing is on the Navy's computer network. I will almost guarantee they were briefed on the acceptable network uses.

The fact is, as a member of the armed services, your civil rights are waived by simply serving.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I do.

You throw out the UCMJ as if it is somewhat similar to a (US) citizen's rights.

It is not.

In broad terms: A citizen has the right to do anything as long as it does not harm others. Military personnel have the *obligation* to perform certain actions which foster discipline and organization.

For instance: "Conduct unbecoming an officer". This says that you have to conduct yourself in a certain way - it does not say you cannot do x, y and z.

Two different directions: Citizens have rights. Military personnel have responsibilties.

(Disclaimer: I am not, and never was, a JAG)

Re:How?

[Technician]

Be careful passing judgement. The size of the infraction is not mentioned. This could be any infraction. That alone would nail pretty much 100% of anyone that ever browsed the web. Many images are copyrighted (including banner ads) and may contain trademarked images and logo's. Your browser may save images, html, and sound files to a local cache. Simply having a MIDI file that was a background music loop for a webpage or the MSN logo in your cache is enough to be an infraction. Do you have the copyright owners permission for that photo or MIDI file? How about some real facts about the infraction. Going 25.5 MPH in a 25 zone is an infraction also. In most places you don't expect to get busted for it. I would seriously reconsider joining the service if the infractions were small (a couple MP3's for your jukebox software from your own CD's) and the enforcement was draconian. I don't need it. However if they were running open FTP sites with XP Pro and 10 Gig of MP3's, and the latest Harry Potter movie, I could see where this may be considered a blatent violation.

Re:How?

[Noke]

"significant evidence"?!

Yeah right...

Re:How?

[Guppy06]

"I really wonder how the academy was able to simple seize the computers."

Um... dude, it's a federal military academy. When you're there, they practically own you (especially plebes). They tell you where to be, what to wear, what to do (and not do), and even what you can't have in your room (especially plebes). We're not exactly talking about UCLA here. They seize the computers the same way they seize radios in plebe rooms.

"this would indicate that these computers were the property of the midshipmen."

1.) The fact that they're "midshipmen" and not just "students" should clue you in that they don't have the same "rights and privileges" us normal civillians have.

2.) They may "own" the computer, but the Naval Academy owns the room (if not the midshipmen).

Re:How?

[the_2nd_coming]

lets see.....they look at the proxy logs see which cadets have the most activity and tkae there computers to see what they have on them.

your smart....yeah right.

Re:How?

[srmalloy]

Naval academy (and the armed forces in general) do not have the same constutional rights while on gov't property / in their facilities as other citizens. They cannot make disparaging remarks about politicians, and other such things we take for granted.

Small point: Military personnel may not make disparaging remarks about politicians, the government, or superior officers in any situation where those remarks may become public knowledge. Bitching about the crap that's been dumped on you, the idiot ninety-day wonder in command of your unit (who couldn't pour piss out of his boot if the instructions were written on the heel), the circus at Fort Fumble (aka the Pentagon), and the rest of Dreamland-on-the-Potomac is a long-standing tradition in the military. But that's all private, inside the family, and stays outside the performance of your duty; they'll come down on you for letting it out in public, and God help you if you actually address your remarks to a member of the media...

Re:How?

[Coplan]

As in the case of USNA, you officially own nothing until you graduate and do your 5 years of time served. At that point, your "time compensation" pays for all your expenses over the past few years, and in theory, you owe nothing. As is the case of my brother, however, if you're separated before that, you owe quite a bit...and he had to pay for his computer if he wanted to keep it. So realistically, while you're at the academy, they (the Navy) owns the computers. This type of operation, regardless of how symantically wrong it might seem is actually quite legal and quite legit.

Re:How?

[kristjansson]

OK, I see a lot of responses to this post starting off with UCMJ, and I haven't had enough time to read all of them. They're probably going to say something similar...

In any case, when a soldier/sailor/airman/marine receives gov't housing/special pays for housing, they have to basically sign a contract that permits their chain of command to inspect their housing at any time for reasons of health and welfare. On top of that, MP's are legally permitted entry to ANY housing on post, at any time (some restrictions apply, odds to win are posted on our website...). Realistically, neither the chain of command nor the MP's are overly willing to take the heat from abusing these responsibilities (IG complaints from health and welfare inspections at 3 in the morning, 4 days a week WILL get the company CO and 1SG in hot water, just like an MP private deciding to check the post Commanding General's quarters for contraband wouldn't fly too far...)

It all comes down to the basic fact that military personnel give up many rights and live with restrictions on most of the others. About the only right that isn't abridged to some degree or another is the right to vote. As for the other rights that avg. joe citizen takes for granted:

• the right to assemble peacefully: you can do so as long as 1) you are not absent from your place of duty, 2) you are not assembling with a group that advocates things like violent overthrow of the government, supremacy, etc.
• Freedom of Speech: Off duty, out of uniform, and don't say anything that would bring disgrace on yourself, your service, or your government. If you have a clearance, don't talk about anything classified. If there's a criminal investigation going on that you're not directly involved in, don't talk about it unless someone else talks about it first, and don't disclose anything that could impede the investigation. If it's someone from the media, and they want something 'on the record', the best guidance available is to direct them to Civil Affairs and RUN!!!
• Right to bear arms: If it's a firearm, it WILL be registered with the MP garrison. If you're single, ALL weapons will be kept in your unit's arms room.
• 
  
  I could go on, but like I said, military personnel don't have the same rights/privileges as the average citizen (Read "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu if you can't understand why). Give them your respect and support, and if the gov't chooses to start a war for the wrong reasons, take it out (verbally/with votes) on congress and the president. Aside from that, try to learn about the rights that they're attempting to protect with their service.

Re:How?

[P�nkert�n]

Yes, these computers are ours and we did pay for our computers, which i think personally suck. Anyway, we use the governments line to access what need be. In the same respect, when we are on the network, our computers can be searched. Its a little more difficult than that, but that is the basic jist of it.
MIDN Pinkerton =w=

Wide Spread Panic?

[Flamesplash]

Unfortunatly, I doubt this is atypical of those serving under the government. While those actually running the systems are probably smart enough to not do such a thing, those using the systems may not be.

Arrr!

[duckpoopy]

I always knew the Navy was full of pirates.

Question...

[Anonvmous Coward]

... aren't Navy personell in need of entertainment?

I know that I, for one, wouldn't want to play games like that with people who are willing to die so I can maintain my quality of life.

So the RIAA MPAA think they are police

[The Analog Kid]

Now they are doing police work, what next they become the established goverment of the U.S. too.

Having gone to a military academy...

[aluminumcube]

I can't imagine being dumb enough to use a school issued computer, on a school run network to do anything even remotly wrong. That would be in defiance of the #1 rule any military academy cadet should know, the very rule to end all rules: Don't Get Caught.

Think about it; military schools are places where they punish you harshly for dumb shit, like not having the back of your belt buckle shined or having your underwear folded 4" across instead of 6". It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that breaking a real law in such an environment is going to be met with harsh consequences... no matter how dumb that law is.

Re:Having gone to a military academy...

[Shotgun Willy]

and here is it's companion:

If everyone(or a large number of people) does something wrong together, then you're not really wrong.

This can only be taken so far, however, but I think it will end up applying in this case, since piracy, copyrights, and intellectual property are not generally discussed at the acadmies to the degree that they would need to be in order to seriously prosecute these guys(at least the on I went to, which was not USNA, but far, far better ;)

I'd guess they'll get a slap on the wrist for misusing gov't property(the network), and everyone will get lectured about copyrights, etc., and they'll finally lock down the network at Annapolis to the same degree the other service academies networks are.

The Future of Warfare

[Nastard]

How long before we start to see corporate sponsership of our armed forces? Ideas like "Apple Navy", "AOL/Time-Warner Air Force" and "Dell Army" are becoming less outlandish.

On the plus side, the marketing would be interesting.

"...and the F-16 was all like beepbeepbeep..."

Re:The Future of Warfare

[fungus]

Halliburton Air Farce? "This news report on Iraq is brought to you by... Shell! Shell, for a clean and affordable energy source."

Re:The Future of Warfare

[Simon Kongshoj]

EXTRA: First merger of US Armed Forces and private enterprise has shown result as the Navy and Air Force reveal their new Microsoft Cruise Missiles.

In related news, sighs of relief were heard all over Baghdad.

Re:The Future of Warfare

[mikeboone]

Maybe it'll start in the police and fire departments first. Our local newspaper currently has this poll on their website:

Do you favor law enforcement departments selling advertising space on their work vehicles as a means of offsetting costs?

I can see it now: the owner of the local Pizza Hut talking his way out of a ticket because his logo is on the squad car.

Re:The Future of Warfare

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Bawhaw...
"Missile locked! I got a tone! I'm fir... @##$! Freakin popups!"

Or better yet,
"We're sorry, the laser targeting system has detected copywritten material within the seeker's view and is unable to display the desired image. If this problem persists, please contact your System Administrator."

Countermeasures would be easy, then - just put a MickeyMouse logo on your tank. We'd be screwed.

Re:The Future of Warfare

[WetCat]

Microsoft cruise missiles?! May be Disney Cruise missiles?

Re:The Future of Warfare

[_ph1ux_]

Bush to Saddam: "Dude, you're getting a DELL!!"

Re:The Future of Warfare

[Jeff Binder]

US Air Force Base- not affiliated with US Air.

Wow...

[stevezero]

It's nice to know that they did this raid in time for the end of the term (assuming they are on the semester system, the term would end around the middle of December)

Secondly, why the hell did the USNA agree to do this? Where did the orders come from, the commander of the Academy, or someone higher up? Did the RIAA orchestrate the raid, or was it solely the Academy's doing?

Lastly, while I am sure that owning pirated MP3's is against the honor code, why are students found guilty expelled?

It's also important to note that the computers were issued by the USNA to the students, with the cost of the computers withdrawn from their pay. If they don't get the computers back, do they get a refund of what they have already paid?

Re:Wow...

[b0r1s]

Secondly, why the hell did the USNA agree to do this? Where did the orders come from, the commander of the Academy, or someone higher up? Did the RIAA orchestrate the raid, or was it solely the Academy's doing?

Lastly, while I am sure that owning pirated MP3's is against the honor code, why are students found guilty expelled?


The second paragraph is the answer to the first question: a midshipman without honor is of no use to the Navy. Yes, they'll probably be expelled: they broke a law, what else would you expect to happen?

Just because you don't agree with a law does not justify breaking it. If you break the law, and you're at an institution with an honor code, expect to be punished severely.

So which department is stronger?

[PissingInTheWind]

'After receiving a letter from four entertainment-based lobbying associations'...

So does that means that the U.S. Propaganda Department have more power than the U.S. Naval Academy ?

Some might be offensed by such thoughts, but it is in some way a reality: America get as much (or more!) power abroad from Hollywood than from their military.

Re:So which department is stronger?

[sql*kitten]

So does that means that the U.S. Propaganda Department have more power than the U.S. Naval Academy ?

On US soil, probably yes. It's remarkably difficult legally to get the armed forces to do anything within the borders of the US, which is why the National Guard, not the regular Army or Marines are called out to deal with situations like homeland security or disaster relief. It's different in different Western countries (for example in the UK we have the regular Army manning the fire service while the Labour Party have one of their traditional tussles with the unions). If the lobbyists tried to board a US Navy ship in international waters, it would be an entirely different matter :-)

What ever happened

[xmedar]

to "Don't ask don't tell"?

The RIAA and MPAA

[I_redwolf]

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.

Re:The RIAA and MPAA

[elmegil]

Unfortunately, these were just midshipmen, not "The Navy".

Re:The RIAA and MPAA

[I_redwolf]

Doesn't matter, midshipmen aren't midshipmen forever. Also these midshipmen are at risk of being booted out of even having a Naval career. Do you honestly think that top brass will allow that? Where do the majority of these midshipmen go after the USNA? Do you think a commander likes having to raid his own students? If they have to boot 100 students in one fell swoop what do you think the outcry would be? What do you think retention would say? Sure these organizations might have enough power to do something like that to you as a citizen. That's not so with the gov't and even though they'll follow the law; the law will be changed or forged primarily in their own interest.

Answer those questions and then you'll see how bad of a position those organizations just put themselves in. Especially considering these midshipmen might get the boot; World War Vets will probably jump outta their fucking graves.

Re:The RIAA and MPAA

[dissy]

> sounds like your talking about the mob.

But isnt that exactly what any government is?

You pay us (taxes) and we protect you from everyone else (Other mobs/governments)

Food for thought

Re:The RIAA and MPAA

[elmegil]

Yes, I honestly think the brass will let these midshipmen get kicked out, because they were violating the law. Doesn't mean I agree with the law, but I am under no illusions that the brass will want to protect people who have made them look bad.

Re:The RIAA and MPAA

[jedidiah]

Who do you really think the Navy will associate with this "black eye"? In all likelihood, it will be the RIAA that will bear any animosity if the Academy ends up with any remotely bad press on this. They may jettison the cadets overboard with no hesitation. However, the lingering resentment will be directed at the RIAA.

Re:The RIAA and MPAA

[elmegil]

I'm thinking you don't have much experience with organizational politics.

Re:The RIAA and MPAA

[jedidiah]

Why would that be, exactly?

Industry finally sees the light...

[djmurdoch]

Some of the recording industry's biggest stars, such as Madonna, Mick Jagger and Eminem, have joined coalitions to combat the wholesale theft of music. The industry claims this threatens the livelihood of everyone from artists, songwriters and manufacturers to sound engineers and record-store owners and clerks.

Finally the industry realizes that these thuggish tactics are going to hurt their sales :-).

Re:Industry finally sees the light...

[sql*kitten]

Some of the recording industry's biggest stars, such as Madonna, Mick Jagger and Eminem, have joined coalitions to combat the wholesale theft of music.

Eminem who says download the audio on MP3 you mean?

Re:We all know what really happened

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're just a troll but... Quote: Fuck the Canadians, let's take back what should be the property of the US of A. How in the hell can you take back what was never yours? Even your lame ass war back in 1812 I beleive, you guys tried to take us, and couldn't! You think Vietnam was the first war you lost - read your history books! Get your facts straight troll boy! 'Cause you sound like an ignorant American!

Code of Honor

[the eric conspiracy]

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.

Re:Code of Honor

[kscguru]

Reminds me of an article I ran across a little while ago...

The Air Force Academy (I don't know about the others) apparently keeps records of where all the students using their internet connections surf. As in, since they decided that porn was unbecoming of a student, they keep a list of the students "suspected of visiting known porn sites". This made the news because someone accidentally forwarded the list to the entire student body. Oops! If my memory serves (someone can search the Denver Post archives if they're interested), ~150 names were on that list... out of a student body of 4000.

The implications: the fact that they are keeping a list and NOT summarily kicking students out means that the AFA considers porn a problem - but a correctable problem. They would probably treat copyright issues similarly. Having computers seized would be pretty serious... or an over-reaction.

Re:Code of Honor

[oyenstikker]

But remember, the government is master of sweeping things under the carpet and making things go away.

Re:Code of Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

The real implication is that only 150 students are into porn mainstream enough to be on the "known porn sites".

Re:Code of Honor

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Better get yer tin foil hat out dude. Seriously, what makes you think this? Sure, the government can manage to keep some secrets. Something like this isn't going to be a danger to National security if it gets out. They aren't going to necessarily sweep this under the carpet. Now a suspected UFO sighting which was really a Top Secret jet should be swept under the covers!

Re:Code of Honor

[Dolly_Llama]

It's nice to think that the mystique of the service academies still lives.

In my plebe year at USNA 98-99, Napster was HUGE. Not only that, but exchange through the magic of the 'Network Neighborhood' made the accumulation of huge mp3 libraries trivial. Two problems: 1) Plebes arent allowed to listen to music, so we had to do it on the DL. 2) Our computers came with a 6GB HD and on the $50/month I was making, no upgrades. Since CDR was rarer back then, there were guys actually making money by burning CDs for $5 with either CD tracks or chock full of mp3.

Moral of the story: Don't think that the administration is only now learning of p2p and its questionable legality. It's been at USNA as it as been at every other college campus.

Re:Code of Honor

[coyote-san]

There's now a range of penalties (at least at the USMA), with separation reserved for the most serious offenses.

Meanwhile I think there's at least a chance that the RIAA will be the one to get a black eye out of this. How many of these "pirated" tracks are sitting in the student's room at home, left behind to save space and prevent damage? This isn't your average college dorm room, and I would be inclined to reward a creative cadet who found a way to enjoy his music collection despite restrictions on what he can keep in his room than punish him.

Never forget that an RIAA spokeswoman testified before a Congressional commitee that they believe consumers do not have the right to make copies of CDs they own for use in their car or at the office. I'm sure that they consider copies made while a student is in college equally "illegal." That doesn't mean that such copies are actually illegal - everyone outside of the RIAA seems to consider such copies very reasonable and legal.

Well La Dee Da

[blandthrax]

Some of the recording industry's biggest stars, such as Madonna, Mick Jagger and Eminem, have joined coalitions to combat the wholesale theft of music. The industry claims this threatens the livelihood of everyone from artists, songwriters and manufacturers to sound engineers and record-store owners and clerks.

I feel for these people, I really do. I say we set up a Paypal account to help keep Mick, Madonna and Marshall (emineminem?) fed and clothed. Oh sure, take me to task on this but honestly, shouldn't the RIAA present better examples than pampared, multimillionaire recording artists to make their case. I mean c'mon, Mick Jagger could never sell another record in his life and still live like a king, same with Madonna. This RIAA FUD is preposterous. These people can afford to buy their records, I can't and neither can a lot of people I know, that's just the sad reality of things right now. So I'm a thief, well I guess that's just a matter of perspective isn't it?

Re:Well La Dee Da

[jedidiah]

If they can "steal" from me without preventing me from fully utilizing my property, they are free do do so. If they can "steal" from me without lowering the ACTUAL value of my property, they are free to do that as well.

We realize that this so called "theft" you speak of deprives it's "victim" of nothing and devalues nothing that the "victim" owns.

This is especially true if the "thief" is someone who would never be a paying customer to begin with.

I have no need to deprive others just to inflate my own sense of superiority.

Re:This is Farging War!

[Anonymous Coward]

ha ha what a loser - what college is he going to? The University of Amish Mutherfuckers?

Tell your friend to hit them where it really counts - have him get all drunk and protest on the quad! That'll show 'em!

Ohhhhh Whoah, You're An AOL'er...Now...

[Myriad]

Ideas like "Apple Navy", "AOL/Time-Warner Air Force" and "Dell Army" are becoming less outlandish.

DUUUUDE, somebody set us up the bomb!

You know, you maybe onto something... I've often thought AOL confused the concept of subscription with conscription when giving out those damned CDs. Perhaps there is more to it...

Trading of Music, etc

[Wyatt Earp]

Would violate the Code of Conduct for the Cadets.

"Moral and ethical development is a fundamental element of all aspects of the Naval Academy experience. As future officers in the Navy or Marine Corps, midshipmen will someday be responsible for the priceless lives of many men and women and multi-million dollar equipment. From Plebe Summer through graduation, the Naval Academy's Character Development Program is a four-year integrated continuum that focuses on the attributes of integrity, honor, and mutual respect. One of the goals of this program is to develop midshipmen who possess a clearer sense of their own moral beliefs and the ability to articulate them. Honor is emphasized through the Honor Concept of the Brigade of Midshipmen-a system which was originally formulated in 1951 and states "Midshipmen are persons of integrity, they stand for that which is right." These Naval Academy "words to live by" are based on the moral values of respect for human dignity, respect for honesty and respect for the property of others. Brigade Honor Committees composed of elected upperclass midshipmen are responsible for education and training in the Honor Concept. Midshipmen found in violation of the Honor Concept by their peers may be separated from the Naval Academy."

http://www.usna.edu/CharacterDevelopment/other/p ri nciples.html

Re:RIAA sales down. Prices up?

[handsomepete]

If you feel like doing some math, the 2000-2001 numbers seem to be available in this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/new_media /1841768.stm

joke?

[oyenstikker]

I read an article about this yesterday, and was sure it was satire. A joke. Please tell me this was a joke. Please.

The DoD recent;y barred Powerpoint

[gelfling]

In the Pentagon, it became so common for the chart jockies to put together such enormous PPTs that brought down the internal networks at the Pentagon just shipping the PPTs around to the audience that the Brass had to ban/restrict its use. It was common for even the most ordinary presentation to contain movies, sounds sub programs, shooting stars.... Presentations typically ran to the multi-hundred megabytes.

I guess what I'm getting at is the DoD has a culture of extreme presentation and content bloat for no good reason. Seems to me that the upper management tacitly approves of massive media collection and sharing.

Re:The DoD recent;y barred Powerpoint

[HerrKobes]

This is in no way true.

I give a Power Point briefing at least once a month, sometimes more often.

Sometimes I think the Air Force wouldn't exist without Power Point. It is the de-facto standard for all Air Force briefings, and is actually part of the officer training curriculum at ROTC.

Sensationalism

[cascino]

For all (/. included) that are trying to make this a RIAA/MPAA vs. The U.S. Armed Forces battle, it simply is not. This is no different than the seizure of computers, harddrives, etc., by colleges and universities around the country over the last few years. The writeup conjures images of soldiers in enemy waters having their navigational computers seized, when in fact it's merely a case of a bunch of students downloading music/movies on their government issued (owned?) computers.
Sensationalism gets everyone all riled up about what doesn't amount to much.
Of course I'm not happy about what happened; I wish someone would stand up to these multi-billion dollar industries. I do, however, feel that this really isn't that big a deal. Yes, it's technically a part of the government, but then again, don't try to tell me "midshipmen" wasn't purposely used instead of "students" for effect.

This is more serious than you think...

[DavidBrown]

Forget all of the debate here on /. about whether or not copying copyrighted material is theft. For these 100 midshipmen, the real question is whether or not the Naval Academy will consider their acts as "theft" and charge them with violating the Honor Concept.

Naval Academy Midshipmen serve under an Honor Concept, which states:

"A midshipman does not lie, cheat, or steal."

Penalties for violating the Honor Concept include: reprimand, being sent to the fleet for a year (and maybe being allowed to come back), and getting thrown out of the Naval Academy.

Hopefully, the Honor Board won't get involved and these midshipmen will be subjected to only administrative discipline (loss of weekend liberty for a period of time, etc.).

You can count on one thing though - Everyone at the Naval Academy will get lectured on how they can't illegally duplicate copywritten material, and the next midshipmen who get caught won't get off so easily.

IAAUSNAG - I am a United States Naval Academy Graduate

Re:This is more serious than you think...

[Stryker2]

It does not appear to meet the elements specified for the crime of larceny...

Article 121

It would, however, be covered by Article 134, the general article; I used to joke that it read "Anything not expressly prohibited elsewhere is hereby prohibited."

Article 134

Re:This is more serious than you think...

[mlh1996]

An offence under the UCMJ and an offence under USNA'a Honor Concept are two different things.

Here is the proper link.

Vague, isn't it?

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[SHEENmaster]

The RIAA couldn't afford a computer!

(these are the best to arguments for communism that I've ever heard!)

You break the law..

[nlinecomputers]

..you pay the piper. I think that most copyright laws are immoral but it IS THE LAW. Should we not hold Navy Cadets and Goverment personel to a HIGHER standard?

Go ahead. Mod me down. I'm a not a Troll, I am an OGRE and you better say "Sir" when you call me that.

Re:You break the law..

[jedidiah]

The law only claims that it is a crime when the act exceeds a certain threshhold of damage.

That's not a very compelling law from a moral standpoint.

RIAA: Big brother of the Artist

[Gyorg_Lavode]

Remember, only the RIAA is allowed to steal from needy artists. May God help anyone else who tries.

What were they THINKING!

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I mean honestly, they were using what is essentially a government network even if it was their own machine. The midshipmen were stupid. I am surprised that their superiors did not catch it before the RIAA did.

Re:What were they THINKING!

[hoytt]

Given the appearent ease certain people have in accessing US Army servers, I'm sure the sys admin was more worried about his systems' security than monitoring incoming stuff the students used.

My **AA fights...

[rosewood]

Sigh, let me take a page from my journal from this week. The **AA's influence on Universities is fucking sick. Pardon the language, I was absolutely angered.

God fucking damn it. So I was given a fairly simple assignment in my 160G Music Appriciation class. I have to listen to Verdi's Rigoletto and write some shit about it. Well, I fucking love Rigoletto but the only copy I have is at my mom's house on an LP.

So, I figure the internet will help me. So, I fireup ol kazaa lite. I do a search for Rigoletto and find exactly what I want. So, I start to download. I am getting literally HUNDREDS of BYTES per second. Mother FUCKER. So, I let kazaa do its magic and its downloading from 4 people and all at ass speeds. I message one of the people I am downloading from and he says he is on a company T1 line and has great speeds. So, I am being raped by my university.

Well, I call up the communications people. I tell them whats up and they say its illegal for me to download music from kazaa and that if I don't stop they will take away my connection. I told him the hell it is, Verdi's Rigoletto has been in the public domain for hundred + years and that is bullshit. He hung up on me after I said bullshit. I called back and got the same guy. I asked for his supervisor and the supervisor told me using kazaa was against campus policy. I asked him to point it out to me and he told me that I can not download copyrighted materials. I said fine, this is not a copyrighted material, so give me my bandwidth. He told me I was just SOL. They kept asking for my room # but I refused. The last thing I need is them trying to cut my fucking connection off.

God damn bastards.

Re:My **AA fights...

[jdkincad]

You're mistaken, the piece is copyrighted. The score itself isn't, but the recording of whatever ensemble was playing it is copyrighted.

Re:My **AA fights...

[hoytt]

Verdi's Rigoletto may be in the public domain, but you're not downloading that. You're downloading a recording made by an orchestra and choir. And the rights for that recording are still in place.

Bach's Goldberg Variations are also in the public domain, but Murray Perahia's recent recording on a Sony Classics' CD isn't. That one's still 22.50.

You're paying for the orchestra and conductor, not the notes.

Re:My **AA fights...

[ender81b]

I understand your problem with it but you have to look at it from the IS point of view. Here we limit dorm bandwith to something like 60mbit/second which is, in theory, a lot of bandwith. Except when you get 5,000 students all having kazaa on at once. Before they limited it this was sucking up, literally, close to 150-180mbit/second of bandwith. I mean they where taking nearly all of our bandwith just downloading music/pr0n/games/etc.

A rock and a hard place. What can you do.. on one hand you royally piss off the students since they all still have kazaa on but now they just get crap for ping times/bandwith. I'm talking the dorms are barely better than dial-up for web surfing because of the amount of bandwith these guys suck up. And they have a point, paying 175$/credit hour should get you decent internet but.. on the other hand you royally piss off the faculty who want to use the internet to do 'cool' things or actual academic stuff.

I don't know what to tell you. It's a tough decision.

Re:My **AA fights...

[murgee]

No, it's not, at least IMHO. It's always been my opinion (and I'm a student, here) that you're there for academic purposes, not because you can get a fat pipe. Kazaa very rarely counts as "academic purposes", and that's why it gets packet-shaped. We've had problems (I work at the Univ I go to) with Kazaa et. al. that things have been sucking up enough bandwidth that stuff like our public web servers weren't responding to connections. That, IMHO, says to the public "we're a publicly funded university, but we'd rather let all our students download music and movies and stuff". Plus, the people who are actually trying to do academic work get screwed. Primary functions tend to need to go, well, first, and if your institution's primary function is academic, then it only makes sense that you block or shape P2P users.

Granted, I'm sure you can find a few legit uses for Kazaa/Morpheus/et.al. in an academic point of view, which is why I'm more for packetshaping than outright blocking it. (At least on student's personal computers - I wish we could block it completely in the labs.) I don't have much sympathy for the people who bitch that they can't use Kazaa on their university's network - no matter how you try to justify it, it's pretty damn evident that the primary purpose of the program isn't academic.

The gist of my rant is as follows: you may be paying $200/credithour for stuff plus added fees for on-campus residence - but you're there persuing a degree. And you're STILL buying a part of someone else's connection.

Re:My **AA fights...

[Idarubicin]

I imagine that they're just cutting you off because they're jealous of your excellent people skills.

Seriously, Verdi has been dead for quite a while, and the score of Rigoletto is indeed in the public domain. However, the recording that you want to download was recorded much more recently, by an orchestra and vocalists. They (or their label) very likely retains copyright of the work you attempted to download. Consequently, you were indeed participating in an act of copyright violation.

Buy your own copy of Rigoletto, or visit your campus library. Many universities have a music library of some sort, and any self-respecting music library will have the important works of Verdi. (Yes, I know--both options make you get off your ass and go outside. The music library at my school doesn't lend materials; you have to listen there. Life goes on.)

Incidentally, some of us need to use the campus pipe for more than just downloading music. My school hasn't done a very good job of crimping P2P, and in the evenings I can't even run a telnet connection at reasonable speed. (I start and monitor computational chemistry problems on the chem department's big computers as part of a senior thesis. I like to start jobs running in the evening so that I'm not competing for cycles with other researchers.) Be glad they're just shaping traffic at your school; some places have taken more radical steps.

Re:My **AA fights...

[etxjrh]

Yes, in my University (in UK) packets bound for ports assosciated with Gnutella won't pass the first router.

Re:My **AA fights...

[ortholattice]

Recordings (not the underlying musical work) made before 1972 are not copyrighted.

Unfortunately you are wrong. From Music Recordings and Public Domain Music:

Records, cassettes, CD's, and other music recordings come under a general category called Sound Recordings or Phonorecords. Before 1978, sound recordings were not protected by copyright law, but by a hodge-podge tangle of state laws. This problem was fixed with the 1978 copyright act and extended by the 1998 twenty year copyright extension. Different copyright experts have offered very different complicated explanations, but all agree that all sound recordings essentially are under copyright protection until the year 2067. So here is the one sentence you need to remember:

Sound Recording Rule of Thumb: There are NO sound recordings in the Public Domain.

Re:My **AA fights...

[rosewood]

There is a really simple way to handle this imho. There are users that have can legitametly use bandwidth. For example, if I am in a business class and part of it is starting a small business, why can I not use campus bandwidth to host a class related website? What about transfering mp3 audio notes of class, etc?

The simple sollution is to allow more bandwidth for certain ip blocks that have been aproved for high bandwidth usage. On top of that, it drives me crazy that any of my data can be seen by the dorks in resnet much easier then when im on a normal ISP.

For the AC that said get off the dorm connection, I can not. We arent allowed to dial out on our lines for modem access, and I sure cant get DSL or even cable. All I have is university. Why do I live in dorms? Because Im putting myself through college and I have no $$.

They would be raiding the RIAA because...

[myowntrueself]

the RIAA was evading taxes?
Or because they need those downloaded mp3s to stop the reactor going critical?

Damned if you do

[overshoot]

This was so amazingly un-smart for everyone involved that I'm utterly stunned.

• 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.

Re:Damned if you do

[Dolly_Llama]

As others have noted, the middies had to have been smoking something to put anything on P2P from the Academy.

Not as stupid as some mids busted a few years back for selling their issued copies of expensive software on Ebay...

That they were doing it isn't news. The fact that a corporate cartel could exert this kind of pressure on an august government institution IS.

Re:Damned if you do

[hplasm]

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

Up goes the cost of CDs again, then.

Re:This is Farging War!

[bsharitt]

We've had the same thing happen at UAH. They've blocked all the ports used by file sharing. If you're interested, it's the University of Alabama Huntsville. I would encourage anyone to call them and compain even if you don't go the UAH.

Fear-mongering

[RoC MasterMind]

"illegally possessing copyrighted material"

This is an extremely broad term. Also, I have copyrighted material everywher ein my house. My CD's, my books, hell, even my copy of XP-err Linux ;-)

Write your congressmen, senators, Commandant

[HBI]

1. Write your congressmen
2. Write your senators
3. Write the Commandant of the Academy

Stress that the kowtowing to corporate interests is causing unfair reprecussions for the fine cadets at the USNA. The characterization of the offense as 'theft' is an outright lie. In time of war, how can we tolerate this kind of crass commercialism denigrating the contributions of the US Navy?

Use snail mail, they won't pay attention to an email. Don't let the RIAA have this kind of victory. The service academies are tough enough without this shit.

Re:Write your congressmen, senators, Commandant

[HBI]

sorry about the bad format. I suck.

Re:This is Farging War!

[bsharitt]

You can call the network admin, John Stanton at 1-256-824-2616.

But if they weed out *all* the morons

[myowntrueself]

Who will be left to defend us?????
It takes more than a few good men to man an aircraft carrier!

Aha, That's it!

[Phoenix666]

*AA's regularly violate the constitutional rights of us peons with impunity, but let's see how far they get going after the sons and daughters of congressmen and people of power. We should alert the *AA's to the rampant file sharing that goes on at schools like the Latin School in Chicago and Exeter back east. Let the children of the powerful feel the hand of the Man, then go whine to their parents (aka the Man's bosses). Perhaps then Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti would finally receive the long-overdue crushing they deserve.

Burdon of proof?

[3-State Bit]

I have legally bought every one of the full-length CD's, ripped at 196 kbps, sitting on my hard-drive. I'm at college and did not bring with me the physical compact disks on which I originally bought the content.

Am I a pirate? Is it up to me to prove that I'm not? ("Show me the original CDs" -- maybe when you replace scratched ones at production-cost...until then, why should I hang on to broken stuff?)

I dunno', maybe this digital-rights-management stuff isn't so bad -- it lets me prove that what's mine is mine.

Also, with DRM I can by doctrine of first-sale (which says that you can't impose limitations on what I do with a CD once I've bought it, including restrictions on who I resell the whole package to) says that I can buy someone's scratched CD "virtually" at half.com, and then, owning that CD, I have fair-use rights to the content on it.

Conversely, I can virtually sell the CD when I'm done listening to it. The Internet allows for instant transfer of virtual-property, so really there only need to be as many licenses floating around as concurrent listeners. It's like a superfast transfer of the physical compact disk -- if we had teleportation, and CD's that didn't scratch, we could have a communal pile of CD's, which you'd tele-take whenever you want to listen to them and tele-return whenever you're done. Only with "digital" rights and "virtual" property we do have teleportation of property. Interesting, interesting.

Therefore, in conclusion, DRM advocates -- BRING IT ON!!!

The sooner we have ubiquitous digital rights management, the sooner my audio software can play anything that exists in the world, by buying it at $4.04 when I begin to listen to it and selling it at $4.04 +/- 0.04 when I'm done.

I'm sure it would only take a few pennies per hour of listening to finance the logistics of such an operation.

So any reasons why this couldn't work?

Re:Burdon of proof?

[zurab]

I dunno', maybe this digital-rights-management stuff isn't so bad -- it lets me prove that what's mine is mine.

Also, with DRM I can by doctrine of first-sale (which says that you can't impose limitations on what I do with a CD once I've bought it, including restrictions on who I resell the whole package to) says that I can buy someone's scratched CD "virtually" at half.com, and then, owning that CD, I have fair-use rights to the content on it.

I think you are a little bit confused on what the DRM's intents are. They do not intend to sell you the DRMed content. They do intend to sell you any medium on which the content is stored (if any), and give you the license to listen or otherwise enjoy the DRMed content:

- during specific time period, or time(s),
- on designated hardware and software only (w/additional software licensing fees)
- leaving the seller or the licensor the full discretion to either charge you for, or simply and most likely not allow you to do anything else with the content, including but not limited to, litening or enjoying content when you want to, where you want to, sharing the content with friends, changing medium on which content is stored, etc.

The sooner we have ubiquitous digital rights management, the sooner my audio software can play anything that exists in the world, by buying it at $4.04 when I begin to listen to it and selling it at $4.04 +/- 0.04 when I'm done.

I can tell you right now that if such a DRM system would exist, YOU would NOT be the seller, YOU would be the consumer or a licensee. Let's be clear on this one.

Re:Burdon of proof?

[joe_janitor]

I assume we could have some organization or company that held all of these CD's in permanent escrow or something, so that we wouldn't have to transfer the physical CD's. You own them for the time you listen, but agree to let someone else hang on to the actual disk.

How is your iPod going to temporarily "buy" the song you are currently listening to while you are out on a 10 mile run in the country?

Good idea, but it would suck to limit the system to net-connected devices, as it will be some time still before EVERYTHING is easily connected, all the time.

The "biggest stars" ...

[Mindjam]

Some of the recording industry's biggest stars, such as Madonna, Mick Jagger and Eminem, have joined coalitions to combat the wholesale theft of music.

Er... biggest stars? Madonna? Jeezus people, my brain still hurts from having to listen to her "Die Another Day" song, if you could call it that, at the beginning of the movie of the same name that I saw this morning! If she's one of the industry's biggest stars then that shows how sad the industry is these days. Eminem? I won't even go there... Mick Jagger? He's still alive? Maybe if the *AA cartels would cough up some REAL talent then people would have less of a problem paying for content.

A wee bit exaggerated

[overshoot]

According to the news item I saw, it wasn't internal PowerPoint that got banned, it was shipping the stuff worldwide via the DOD secure tactical network. That scrambled-and-encrypted-beyond-belief network hasn't got all that much bandwidth, and it was getting jammed by so much multimedia that real-time command messages were getting delayed or dumped. Thus, the order went out to keep the freaking desk-jockey multimedia slideware off of what is supposed to be a life-and-death real-time network.

Why is Bush wasting all that money?

[NewtonsLaw]

Why is President Bush wasting all that money trying to track down and eliminate Bin Laden when he could simply report him to the RIAA for breaching their copyright.

Clearly the RIAA has far more power at its disposal than the US military and although Bin Laden has managed to evade the united power of the armed services, he wouldn't stand a chance against the recording industry.

Better still -- tell Hillary that Saddam has a huge collection of MP3s and boy-band CDs copied onto CDR. No need for a UN mandate, she'd be in and clean him out in no time!

But what I *really* want to see is the RIAA conduct a raid on the IRS computers to look for copyright breaches.

Now that would be great -- a real clash of the titans eh?

The sad thing is that it's the every-day Joe who's paying for all these power-plays -- either through our CD purchases or our taxes.

Couldn't they find something better to do with all this money?

Re:Why is Bush wasting all that money?

[PhxBlue]

Better still, tell Tipper that Saddam is going to bomb Israel with "2 Live Crew" CDs if the United States invades Iraq. . .

Re:Why is Bush wasting all that money?

[Gooberball]

This quote comes from Stephen Colbert who reacted to a question about the future of the United States:

"This is how I see the next four years playing out:

On inauguration day, George W. Bush will take his oath of office and assume the mantle of the leader of the free world, restoring his father's fallen dynasty. And to ensure his legitimacy, Chief Justice Rehnquist will anoint his brow with chrism. Doves will be released and lambs will be slaughtered. Bush will mount a golden chariot. Then, with his agent squire, Dick Cheney, holding a laurel wreath over his master's furrowed brow, the man who would be boy-king will take his destined throne. And, in a much-needed show of strength, he will drive his enemies before him like leaves before a storm. He'll make whores of our wives and slaves of our children. He will appoint a horse to the Senate! He will have the oceans whipped for daring to turn their tides without his leave. And while gangs of willowy young boys rub his body with perfumes from Persia and the fat rendered from the corpses of the persecuted poor, all about the fevered crowds will stare worshipfully at their unknowing, unseeing, girlishly-giggling idiot emperor's head. End of Day 1..."

No Veterans in the /. community?

[Old.UNIX.Nut]

For those of you who have NEVER served in the Military I will clue you in.

1) Soldiers fall under the UCMJ not the Constitution when it comes to legal rights.

2) These Naval Academy students face being bounced out of there for violating the "code of conduct".

3) Ragging on /. will NOT change the fact that the RIAA has the "current" law on their side.

If you don't like the law, then become politically active and lobby for change instead of wining that you think it is wrong.

"All battles are fought by scared men who'd rather be somewhere else." John Wayne

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with whining? Should the Jews in Nazi Germany became "politically active" and "lobby" to a dictator?

What about the Slaves in the USA?

Sometimes laws are just silly or unjust.

See Ghandi dumbass.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[bigstupid]

They are sailors (and/or midshipmen as the case may be) not soldiers.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Midhsipmen fall under the UCMJ too, of course; I suspect the parent poster was using "soldiers" in the generic sense to mean "people in the military." This may not be strictly correct, but the problem is there's no good one-word description to cover soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

In any case, the parent poster is wrong in one important respect -- the UCMJ doesn't replace the Constitution, because no US law replaces the Constitution; it is the supreme law of the land. Soldiers (etc.) do have Constitutional rights like everyone else. The right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure exists in the military.

So what's the difference? "Unreasonable." That word is interpreted much, much more narrowly in military law than in civilian law. It's very unlikely that the Navy would go into a regular officer's quarters, or even into enlisted barracks (or whatever the Navy calls them) and search people's computers for MP3's. But midshipmen fall under a different set of rules. The service academies are kind of like four-year basic training. While people are at the academy, the military considers it entirely "reasonable" to search their computers, and I doubt any military or civilian judge would disagree.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[Froomkin]

sayth the poster:
Soldiers fall under the UCMJ not the Constitution when it comes to legal rights.

Not so. The UCMJ is subject to the Constituition, including the bill of rights. Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981); Middendorf v. Henry, 425 U.S. 25 (1976). "[M]en and women in the Armed Forces do not leave constitutional safeguards and judicial protection behind when they enter military service." Weiss v. U.S. 510 U.S. 163, 194 (1994) (Justice Ginsburg, concurring). Indeed, many appeals from military courts on constitutional questions have been heard by the Supreme Court.

Rather, the UCMJ arises from the Constitution giving Congress the power to define a military code of justice, U.S. Const. Art. I 8, cl. 14, which it has done. Congress chose to exempt the military from civilian rules of procedure and evidence but NOT basic Constitutional requirements of due process, right against forced self-incrimination etc. Indeed, as those rights are based in the Constitution, Congress lacks the power to write a UCMJ violating those rights.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[joshki]

nope. sorry.
cite all the cases you want, it doesn't change the fact that the UCMJ is not really subject to the constitution. Certain articles of the bill of rights are in the UCMJ, such as the right against self-incrimination at a court-martial.
The problem is that you fail to understand the distinction between a court-martial and an article 15 hearing, which is what these young dumb-asses are going face. Article 15 hearings are not federal court cases, and as such are not subject to the constitution. The only thing that is limited is the punishment that can be handed down -- i.e. your CO can't sentence you to keel-hauling or flogging with a cat-o-nine-tails anymore. He can, however, summarily dismiss you from the military -- which is just as bad as far as these people are concerned. There are no rules -- if you try to request legal representation you will be pushed to rescind that request, as it will only make your punishment worse.

I know -- I've been to an article 15 hearing (coloquially known as Captain's Mast in the Navy). You are guilty from the moment charges are filed -- nothing you say or do will change the outcome. Everything from that point on is based on trying to minimize the punishment you get for whatever you were accused of, guilty or not.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[fenix down]

"Servicemen" is the word you're looking for. I don't think that one works all the time either, but it's closer.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[nemaispuke]

You are partially right, the difference is they are on Shore Duty which means they can hire an attorney to represent them at Mast. When you are on the ship you are screwed, because that option of legal representation is not given to you when you are underway! And I know because I am a 20 year Navy veteran who has been to Mast (as the "main attraction") and has sent his share of people to Mast. It depends on what they are charged with under the UCMJ, because a slick lawyer versed in Military Law could probably get them off very easily. Considering who goes to Annapolis, money will not be an issue. What will be an issue is publicity, which the Navy and eventually the RIAA will want to avoid because the taxpayer "foots the bill" for the military, and with the emphasis on fighting terrorism, Iraq, etc., the last thing the RIAA wants is to be on the front page spouting their half-baked "we have been violated" crap, protecting the rich (namely themselves) and trying to prosecute future military officers who don't make squat until they are actually commissioned. Downloading music is real low on the "radar scope" as compared to selling secrets, in other words real crime!

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[joshki]

Ah... but you still miss the point.
You may always request legal counsel. However, when you do, you are looked at as "trying to get off" in a situation where you are already guilty. Remember what I said about guilt being a forgone conclusion at mast? Requesting a lawyer just makes the punishment worse -- in most cases, a lawyer at mast is simply ignored, never even given a chance to speak. I've been there too -- as the "main attraction" as you so eloquently put it, and as a witness. It is in the best interests of these middies to simply take the article 15 and go on with their lives -- requesting a court-martial (this is where the diff between shore and sea duty comes in -- you may NOT request a court-martial on sea duty), simply puts them at risk of being convicted of a federal crime. At least with an article 1e5 they can get out of th military and try to start a real life somewhere else. At worst they suck up 45/45 and maybe a BCD (probably not -- it would probably be an admin discharge in this case)... As opposed to possible jail time, a dishonorable discharge, and a permanent federal conviction on their record.
Ultimately, I suspect these will simply be handled with a few token dismissals and most of the "minor" offenders will be put on probation for the duration of their remaining time at the academy.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[Froomkin]

I'm afraid that you are wrong as a matter of law: If you are denied due process rights at an Army art. 15 hearing -- e.g. ordered to incriminate yourself -- you have a federal case, and you'll win. What you don't understand is that the "process that is due" is much reduced in the military; which is probably as it should be. Nevertheless, it remains that case that the constitution applies at all times; it just happens that in the circumstances you mention the Constitution doesn't do much for you in a routine case; indeed you may not even have a right to go to court at all to correct routine error. In part this is because the courts have held that art. 15 punishements are "administrative" and not "criminal" in nature. Middendorf v. Henry, 425 U.S. at 31; Dumas v. U. S. 620 F.2d 247 (Ct.Cl. 1980).

What the Constitution does is protect you against non-routine mistreatment: For example, suppose your CO orders you to convert to {fill in religion}, or penalizes you extra for a failure to pray. That's a First Amendment violation, and would be illegal even if military regulations permitted it (I'm sure they don't). Have a look at Weiss v. U.S.. The theory (right or wrong) is that if you wanted the additional constituitional protections that attach even to criminal prosecutions in military trials, you should have exercised your right to reject the art. 15 and demand a full court martial [a right that AFAIK exists for all military personnel except those serving on board ships at sea]. Yes, I understand that in practice the punishments get worse if you are seen to be wasting more people's time.

As for the defendant's perception that all he has left to bargain for is the level of punishment, this isn't actually so different from the civilian system: prosecutors have so many more things they might do than they have time for, they tend to charge the ones they think are most guilty or serious. Unless you have something exculpatory the police missed, you're reduced to plea bargaining: which is just another form of "trying to minimize the punishment you get for whatever you were accused of, guilty or not."

Note, however, that if you are caught red-handed it's ok to punish you more for failing to confess. That's done in the civilian courts (both by higher charges, since you didn't plea bargain, and by higher sentencing for 'failure to take responsibility'). I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's the law, and I can't see why it couldn't be done in the military.

Now you are going to tell me that any idiot who thinks he can win such a federal case and have a military career afterwards has no sense. That's probably true, but that goes to the tendency of all organizations to retaliate against whistle-blowers, not what the rules say.

Here's a (farily) simple rule: The US Constitution applies to everything the US government does, not just court cases. It applies to all three branches of government including the executive (which includes the military). But "due process" is not a one size fits all standard. Rather, it's the start of an inquiry, 'What process is due under these circumstances?'

PS. I'm not a veteran. I'm a law professor.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[vegetablespork]

A CO cannot issue a punitive discharge as a result of an Article 15--that takes at least an SPCM (Special Courts-Martial) and even then, it must be authorized by the convener.

A CO may recommend separation from military service, but that has nothing to do with an Article 15 proceeding and can in fact happen without NJP.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[joshki]

Since Article 15's are not criminal punishments, I'd like to know which other organization has the right to deny me the freedom to come and and go for 45 days, and assign me to humiliating jobs outside my job description for an extra two hours every day, regulate my bed time and the time I get up, muster me for inspection nine times per day (I had to shave before EVERY single inspection). Any ideas? I couldn't think of any. You're a prisoner -- plain and simple. It's just not called jail -- it's called "restriction."

I'm sure your points of law are correct, the problem is that an article 15 is not really subject to those laws. It's much more more far-reaching than most civilians understand.

My point about bargaining for level of punishment was more directed to the simple fact that in the military when you're brought up on charges (to an article 15 hearing) you could have any number of witnesses who say you didn't do it, as long as an officer says you did, you're guilty. Regardless of the evidence (there are no rules of evidence in an article 15 -- anything the JAG wishes to present is accepted), regardless of anything. You're guilty -- it's a very bad feeling to know that nothing you say or do can affect the outcome of the hearing, regardless of your guilt or innocence.

And by the way -- I would have requested a court-martial in a heartbeat. I was a sailor on a ship -- so I'm well aware of that restriction. Soldiers and sailors deployed away from the US for all intents and purposes have no rights that are not specifically granted to them in the UCMJ (the right against self-incrimination is in the UCMJ) -- regardless of what federal law or the Constitution says. There are arguments for and against this -- in the military, the CO has to be assured of complete obedience in all areas to ensure that he can accomplish his mission. At the same time, article 15 hearings can be frequently misused in situations where this concern has no bearing.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[joshki]

Typically I don't respond to AC's... but this is a fair question, so I'll take a stab. The point is that military personnel do not enjoy the protection that is provided to civilians by law. However, they are still subject to federal laws (such as copyright law).

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[joshki]

You may be technically correct, but I've never heard of a CO's recommendation being ignored. Have you? In my experience, when the CO says "get this person out of the military", It's done immediately. Also, I've never heard of a CO recommending separation without an Article 15 -- it may have happened, but the two are so closely intertwined that for all intents and purposes that's the way it works.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[vegetablespork]

This is true--but I think the distinction between a CO recommended ADSEP and the punishment awarded (gotta love that) at NJP is important. Guess I should have been a sea lawyer :).

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[joshki]

restriction on shore duty and restriction on a ship are two completely different worlds.

Re:No Veterans in the /. community?

[paiute]

Exactly which battle was John Wayne in, again?

Not that it's any surprise...

[wandernotlost]

"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."

Not that it's any surprise around here, but this statement is a flat out lie. It would be one thing if the recording industry was engaging in a constructive debate somewhere, or at least sticking to facts, but instead they've chosen to deceive and lie to protect their way of doing business. Why can't our government recognize this and stop catering to this corruption? (I have a few ideas, but that's another story.)

This is very different from "walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it." For one thing, it's not very clandestine - or at least there's no specific effort to make it such. Secondly there is no tangible good being "walked out" with. A closer analogy would be walking into a campus bookstore (better yet, a friend's house), and reading a textbook without paying for it. But, of course, that wouldn't serve their interests. Obviously this isn't a clear-cut issue, but lying to the public to get their way is just disgusting, and displays a remarkable lack of integrity, IMO.

Re:Not that it's any surprise...

[pentalive]

This is very different from "walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it." ... A closer analogy would be walking into a campus bookstore (better yet, a friend's house), and reading a textbook without paying for it.

No, more like walking into your friend's house and photocopying the textbook.

In any case, unless you go buy your own copy, you have somthing you did not pay for.

Re:Not that it's any surprise...

[wandernotlost]

No, more like walking into your friend's house and photocopying the textbook.

Yes, that's probably a better example, although it depends on how you're using that music - and is still a far cry from the RIAA example. Further, some photocopying of that nature is allowed by copyright law. Is copying a track from a CD really much different from photocopying an excerpt from a book? There are certainly legitimate, compelling uses which P2P (uniquely, at the moment) enables. This is to completely ignore the travesty of the intent of the original copyright clause, "to promote the progress of Science and the useful Arts," to essentially a promotion of large businesses' earnings potential.

In any case, unless you go buy your own copy, you have somthing you did not pay for.

This is also the case when I record from the radio, pick up a discarded newspaper in the subway, or am given a CD a friend no longer wants. The most obvious difference is the method of transfer, and the possibility for more than one copy to be made from the first. Again, the issue is not clear-cut. To claim it is (which is what we're talking about here) would be simply fraudulent.

riaa spying on the navy ?

[jacquesm]

So, I think we can now safely conclude that the RIAA has an operation mounted inside the NAVY, how else do they know which computers to point out (I assume the NAVY has a little firewall, or are academy systems directly connected ?)

Re:"theft"?

[drf5n]

Oh, but of course this is a little bit out of context. To appreciate the full piquancy of the "Theft" comment you need the rest:

"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."

If you leave the copy on the shelf, is it pure and simple theft?

If you owned a copy of the textbook before you walked in, is it pure and simple theft?

If the copy in your backpack isn't perfect is it pure and simple theft?

Re:We all know what really happened

[Anonymous Coward]

cuz you Canadians already had your asses owned by the Brits...

Question:

[inode_buddha]

Why is the Navy kowtowing to (possibly) civillian law, when as a federal jurdistiction it is explicitly not subject to those laws?

Re:Question:

[Dun Malg]

Why is the Navy kowtowing to (possibly) civillian law, when as a federal jurdistiction it is explicitly not subject to those laws?

Copyright law is federal law. They are subject to it.

Content Community my ass

[nurb432]

THese people need to be stopped.

I wont argue about the legal issues, but they are NOT a legal enforcement entity.. They are a coporation... One with a bad track-record to boot.

Re:This is Farging War!

[Moonshadow]

ASU has a much better idea. They have all the filesharing ports (1214, anyone?) throttled between 7AM and 12AM on school days so you can only get about 0.2kb/s per connection. That way, the students can get their work done with adequate bandwidth during the week, and then the holds are off for full-speed downloading after midnight.

I kinda have to wonder if some brilliant tech came up with this to appease the administration by showing him that he made it too slow for anyone to practically download, while leaving himself a loophole to download to his heart's content when he got back to his dorm :)

You will not OWN it.

[Kjella]

I'm almost about to consider it a troll, but I'd rather believe you've listened to a little bit too much newspeak.

DRM may prove who owns what, but it will not matter. You will no longer "buy" or own any CD or DVD you have, despite owning the media it's on. It will simply be licenced, under the licence "negotiated" between the CD/DVD and your trusted computer. Most likely you'll get a EULA-clickthrough the first time you put it in your computer, if at all. It's not like you accept or decline the region restrictions on your DVDs either.

And you can no longer ignore it, legal or illegal EULA, as your DRM hardware will enforce it on you with no way of circumventing it without committing a federal crime under the DMCA.

Kjella

As a graduate of Sing-Sing on the Severn...

[smittyoneeach]

The Honor Concept states that Midshipmen are persons of integrity: they do not lie, cheat, or steal.
Legal eagles take note that it's not the letter of the law, it is the discernable motives that count in that fishbowl of a school. And I like that.
For the minute you try to legislate integrity, the situation expands or contracts to mock the legislation.
Legislation works well when there is no immediate threat. But in a lot of military situations, what's in your guts counts far more than your ability to spew sophistries.
So, these mids stand to be crushed. Military officers (and little ones in training) are held to higher standards than the general population, or even elected officials (who didn't inhale or engage in financial gymnastics).
I recommend everyone volunteer a little time on active duty, or some other service-oriented activity. Those who have might agree that you appreciate what you have a little more from
a) having stepped out of the civilian mode and
b) seen some other locations which aren't far off the Monty Pynthon Four Yorkshiremen skit.

In the Navy.....what else is there to do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez....when I was in the Army (saw Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Egypt, etc) when I got to Kosovo in 2000 I found one of the computers in my area had over 10 gigs of MP3s on it!
I defy ANYONE to go to ANY military base and NOT find at least 10 or machines with tons of MP3s on them.
Oh, yeah, and when they do, I want them to PROVE that they were "illegally downloaded".
You see, Uncle Sam is blocking p2p software AT THE BLOODY ROUTERS! YOU CAN'T USE FILE SHARING PROGRAMS AT ALL ON THE MILNET ANYMORE! And MP3s are put on the websense "kill list" so you can't even download them from the web either! They even blocked a anti-terrorism brief from us because the company that made it put it in MP3 format which we couldn't get through websense. Had to go through an unauthorized PROXY server to get it.
Go figure. After the Kosovo 2000 debacle with the MP3s, Uncle Sam is starting to block that crap. At least at the Army level. Air Force and Navy are a whole different kettle of fish.
I even RUN some of the networks the Army in Germany uses, and I can't get past it. The contractors that put the blocks in were pretty damn good at what they do.

Re:This is Farging War!

[borgasm]

No, they are not locking down networks because of the **AA, they are locking them down for the cost of bandwidth.

Most colleges do an excess of 1500GB+ of data each day through their Internet link. Now, imagine you are the guy in charge of handing out this bandwidth....I am friends with mine.

Reducing P2P bandwidth cuts your job time probably by 3/4.

What path would you take?

UCMJ

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

Military personnel are not bound under the same laws as ordinary citizens. They are under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) and as such search and seizure laws are inapplicable. And before you flame, those joining the military agree under oath to accept these different laws upon joining.

Re:UCMJ

[suwain_2]

And before you flame, those joining the military agree under oath to accept these different laws upon joining. I know very little about the Armed Forces, but this leads me to a question: If I'm drafted (forced) into service, does this still apply? Because then they're essentially taking away my rights, and I'm not consenting to it? (Again, not criticizing you, just trying to understand this.)

Re:UCMJ

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

I'm not sure the draft laws, but I do know that joining the military means they basically own you. If you get injured, even, you can be charged with damaging Government property... I would guess that when you take the draft oath (the same one given all enlistees) you agree to the UCMJ for at least as long as your enlistment...

Re:UCMJ

[Registered Coward v2]

And before you flame, those joining the military agree under oath to accept these different laws upon joining. I know very little about the Armed Forces, but this leads me to a question: If I'm drafted (forced) into service, does this still apply? Because then they're essentially taking away my rights, and I'm not consenting to it? (Again, not criticizing you, just trying to understand this.)

Yes, the UCMJ applies equally to all service members, regardless of how they entered into the service. The rules for searchs on military property are different than for civilian - for example, a command can do a health inspection of all living quarters, complete with drug dogs, and prosecute anyone found with illegal drugs. (As a side note, they can even do one on civilian apartmenst *if* the government is the actual lease holder). In addiotn, entrance on a base is considered consent to search - most bases have large signs stating that a condition for entry is consent to search. Also, bases can do random searchs, such as vehicles leaving - but they must truely be random. You can't target a particular vehicle, and then search it.

Where does the corruption stop?

[TyrranzzX]

Alright, fine. College students getting their PC's taken away because someone bribed the cops and they had reasonable suspicion of some sort that they were running a server. I don't like it at all, but this world sometimes works in a crazy, unconstitutional way. But our military? That just hits me over the head with a 9-iron. Does the corruption really go this far? So far to turn the men and women who are willing and able to give and take lives for us into ordinary college students? You'd think these guys' numbers are going to come up faster than ours, and they are willing to do the dirty work: you give them the respect they deserve because of this. I mean, really, if the media companies can pay off an officer or some higher-up guy to confiscate and interrogate without even decent suspicion; just on the magic word and call of some media company and some money on the side then how much money and magic words would it take for them to turn the military into their lap dogs? Or more concurrently, has it already happened? Even more unruly: we don't know if it's illegal yet because there is so much debate going on. Copying us much different than theft, especially mass copying and when you have millions involved. The media companies are not just trying to protect their rights, they are trying to extend them and going this far is really getting me on my nerves.

JAG

[alphaCoward]

I would love to see an episode of JAG about this issue :)

Happening at Hofstra Univ. As well just smaller

[Facekhan]

Similar things happened at Hofstra University earlier in the year. The school recieved a letter from the RIAA and a bunch of people starting getting their connection turned off. I heard one or two supposedly had their computers seized by the fbi for sharing a lot of movies and stuff.
The school is acting as an ISP and because of the DMCA they are immune from liability as long as they investigate when they are notified by copyright holders that users on their network are infringing. Seizing the computers is a drastic measure that is probably not legal for the academy to do anyways. Only law enforcement can seize things.

Re:Happening at Hofstra Univ. As well just smaller

[Hyped01]

The school is acting as an ISP and because of the DMCA they are immune from liability as long as they investigate when they are notified by copyright holders that users on their network are infringing. Seizing the computers is a drastic measure that is probably not legal for the academy to do anyways. Only law enforcement can seize things.

Excellent points all but the last. The US Military branches have their own law enforcement divisions that act outside of standard law enforcement (MPs being one set of them), and if I am correct, any officer or post commander has the power to utilize discretionary policing powers and act in such fashion as well, until MPs or other such personnel can take over.

Rob

Dosn't everyone's computer have pirated content?

[autopr0n]

I mean, the vast majority of people, anyway. I doubt I could find one person's computer on a collage campus that didn't have pirated content.

The trick would be finding people who are distributing huge amounts of the stuff. In fact, I'm not even sure it's technically illegal to have pirated content.

No worries

[takshaka]

We will have an army of one.

Re:No worries

[myowntrueself]

You mean like Goku?

Wonderful News

[Henry V .009]

It's good to hear that the RIAA is harassing our armed forces right before the commencement of hostilities in Iraq. The RIAA should throw the book at these young men and women who will soon be putting their lives at risk for the sake of their country.

Just because you are putting your life on the line for the sake of our freedoms, doesn't mean you have the right to listen to illict tunes!

Keep this up RIAA! I hope you make sure to get lots of media coverage with this campaign.

Remember, it's a Microsoft organisation

[xixax]

New product for fall 2003:

Windows GP - Skirmish, Invasion and Global Theater editions. Featuring:

- IntelliSpend (avoid those pesky budget hassles and let us spend your budget for you)
- ActiveService (see the world! Meet new people!)
- WYSIWILAYBIU (What You See is What Is Left After You Blew It Up)
- Microsoft Paladin, Jihad edition - extract foreign binaries from your /home.
- New incursion wizard
- MS massacre, P2P app lets you keep enemy lists and exchange munitions with them automtically (as used in Yemen).

Call now for special military contractor pricing...

Xix.

Really? That's what it's like?

[Anonymous Coward]

"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."

Because I was thinking it was more like walking into the campus bookstore, reading a book, and leaving, maybe ocassionally coming back to re-read parts of it. I didn't realize that everytime I listen to a song on the Internet, that song disappears from existence.. no wonder music today sucks so bad.. I've been removing all the good stuff... damnit, how could I have been so stupid!

Re:Music?-Accountability?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what they say about people who represents themselves in a court of law? Glad I'm not you guys.

Legal definition of property

Copyright myths dispelled

The actual law

Fair use & copyright resourse at stanford

More resourses pro & con

Intellectual property

I know people don't want to read and understand the above, but they certainly want to voice their opinion of the way it should be when the law comes after them. A little late IMHO.

Brace Up!

[Keebler71]

Bah! "When I was a plebe..." upperclass would come to our rooms to play their games on our spiffy new 386s. And don't even get me started about the internet... about 50 of use knew how to use Procomm to connect to a mainframe that had external IRC and FTP access and that was about it. Of course,... "When I was a firstie..." we would go into the plebes' rooms to check out their spiffy new 486s with CD-ROMS...wow. Oh yeah... back then the academy still had a bowling alley under 3rd wing and pool tables in memorial hall but I digress.

Re:Brace Up!

[Dolly_Llama]

The bowling alley is now a squash court, and a few years back several strategic panels were taken out of the skylight in memoral hall spelling out IHTFP in rays of golden sunshine upon the marble floor..

Re:Brace Up!

[Keebler71]

Now that is classic,... why didn't we think of that... we spend most of our time running around the Ho Chi Minh trail (I sat on a rat trap in a tunnel under Nimitz once) ostracizing the Jimmy Legs (getting them to chase us then locking them out of their cars...you'd think they'd learn). I hear there are burglar alarms now covering the entrances to the trail...shame. We also used to climb to the roof over Memorial hall via the catacombs and the catwalks above them. Excellent view up there.

I actually took bowling for my senior PE class. I have a picture somewhere of me bowling in reg PE gear (USNA bowling shoes and everything).

Re:Brace Up!

[Dolly_Llama]

There is indeed a great view atop Memorial, but I prefer the one from above the Rotunda. I remember the rule against sex IN the hall, but I can't remember the one about sex ON the hall..

Another rooftop escapde: While standing inspection during one of my several long and distinguished periods of restriction, someone dropped a bag of flour from the top of the rotunda landed square in the middle of the ranks. Everyone's SDBs were coated in white...

Re:Brace Up!

[Keebler71]

Perhaps I am mistaken and am thinking of above the Rotunda... It was certainly the highest place on Bancroft. The only place that looked higher was the dome of course and maybe the top of the Mahann clocktower. The place I was thinking of is accessed via a trapdoor is a "rooftop" about 10ft x 5 ft with high walls. There is another just like it accessed from the other side of the rotunda. As for sex "on" the hall, I seem to recall there was a gnarly water-soaked matress up there too. Someone must have been REALLY desperate to lug that thing up those ladders. Now that I think of it, there were some matresses at various places in the Ho Chi Minh trail under Stribling but they were equally nasty.

Re:Brace Up!

[Bluesman]

This does the heart good to read all this stuff again. Hello to you fellow grads!

When I was a midshipman, I ran an online web site that wasn't particularly favorable to USNA. It took the Commandant a year to figure out it was me, but when he did, I was threatened with a Court Martial if I didn't hand the site over to him so that it could become a legimate "Log" again.

The reason it was against the rules for me to create such a site was that I was using the USNA network inappropriately. This of course, is a very broad rule and open to interpretation by the Commandant, and he interpreted in a way not favorable to my cause.

Also having been one of the two midshipmen responsible for the computer systems and their various uses, did not help my argument.

In any event, part of my job was to monitor the networks for mp3's and such, and we had to "crack down" a few times. It was always a slap on the wrist, especially when it was a group of midshipmen.

If I had to guess, the Academy leadership wants to stop this activity once and for all, and this is a good way to make the mids scared of being kicked out.

I was scared enough to give them back The Log, two days before graduation, when they gave me the choice.

-Salty Sam '01

IIRC the below site should still have the rules for the USNA network.

MISLO Web Site

Re:Brace Up!

[Dolly_Llama]

Hey I remember you. What was the deal with the...maxim spoof issue of the log? You still have those pictures?

Re:Brace Up!

[aragornman]

Ahhh, good to hear from Salty Sam '01, says this old 24th Co. member, '02...

All I can really do is read this article about what's going on in Annapolis, and then read the reaction from the rest of the /. folks, and simply chuckle. Sucks to be a mid right now, hahaha.

Re:Brace Up!

[Bluesman]

Nah, actually I've actually only seen that issue in passing. I wasn't part of the Log staff that got canned for that, and even they didn't know who I was.

That gave them plausible deniability when the Dant questioned them a week after the online Log came out. It's the only way it could have worked.

I also don't have the Max 'em issue of the Log because the Dant explicity stated through the '00 MISLO's that if anything from that issue ever appeared on my web site he'd have Ward Hall block it. I didn't want that to happen, since a lot of mids enjoyed it.

Re:Brace Up!

[Dolly_Llama]

Ok, I thought I knew who you were, but I'm not sure now. What company were you in?

Re:Brace Up!

[Bluesman]

I was in 24th Company, one of the Brigade MISLO's, and a member of this band.

You should be able to figure it out from there. :-)

I still have a zip disk with the entire log site on it, maybe since Locklear's not there anymore (is he?) I should put it up on geocities for posterity. It's still pretty funny, and nothing ever changes at that place, so it's probably still relevant too.

Re:Brace Up!

[noahmax]

noah shachtman, with wired news, here. i'd like to hear from any former USNA grads about this. send me e-mail at noahmax@inch.com.

nms

Re:Brace Up!

[Dolly_Llama]

former USNA grads

You might find it hard to find anyone who had at one point graduated from USNA, but no longer..

Re:Brace Up!

[Dolly_Llama]

still have a zip disk with the entire log site on it, maybe since Locklear's not there anymore (is he?) I should put it up on geocities for posterity. It's still pretty funny, and nothing ever changes at that place, so it's probably still relevant too.

I think that's a fine idea. Further, I think The Log should be resurrected away from the meddling admin. We oughta give edodo a run for its money.

Re:Brace Up!

[n2dasun]

Of course I'm making this shameless reply to publicly acknowledge myself as a USNA graduate of the class of 2001. Dont you judge me!

War in Iraq

[KingMeer]

I wonder if they sent a letter to the airforce saying Iraq had been pirating software in the no fly zone!!

RIAA, MPAA

[[cx]]

I think I'm not the only one who would just shoot them take the harddrive and run for the mountains am I?

NEVER SURRENDER your software to them, they are not the police and they cannot do anything to you if you don't open your door. Or if you just shut off your computer take out the harddrive, put it in your pocket and laugh at them.

I'm so glad I live in Canada and our government isn't constantly working to find ways to remove our civil liberties. But hey, whatever the government does is 'Alright'.

Just as long as the USA is still stealing oil and raping foreigners of their land and their way of life through mass media and propaganda not to mention warfare.

Fuck the USA.

[cx]

Re:RIAA, MPAA

[JohnnyBolla]

Isn't it cute when they get all uppity?
Quiet now please, adults are talking here.

All jokes aside...

[Sarcasmooo!]

clickety click

Oh good grief - and cybersecurity at academies

[dawgnut]

Look, I know most /.ers are RIAA-paranoid but this talk about RIAA bribing officials etc. is stupid.

-- The networks at all of the military academies are owned and operated by the Dept of Defense, which (especially these days) has good reason and authorization to monitor any and all traffic over them. Use of the networks for unauthorized purposes = misuse of government assets. Doesn't matter whether that use is "okay" "illegal" or "fair use" content-wise -- every time a cadet / midshipman logs onto the academy network they click on an acknowledgement that it is a DOD site, may be monitored and will be used only for authorized purposes.

-- Cadets/midshipmen can only connect to the Net via their academy's network unless they use a cellular modem and a private account, not my choice for high bandwidth downloading. So any music downloads were pretty likely to have occurred over those DOD networks, against the regulations the cadets/midshipment agreed to follow.

-- Cadets/midshipmen know their use can be monitored. They all take IT / intro comp sci courses -- required. They also all have at least some cybersecurity clubs -- West Point has a student SIGSAC chapter and the academies have an annual cyber security competition, judged by some fairly heavy hitters at NSA.

And yes, I teach at one of the Academies.

"America - love it or give it back!" - Cathy Moomaw, Native American weaver

Other considerations

[PhxBlue]

There's more at stake here than just, "Do these midshipmen posess copyrighted material?" Unless these kids are sharing the music via CD, they're misusing government resources--namely, bandwidth--to support an illegal activity. This may well be against the Honor Code at the Naval Academy; but in addition, one could make a case for it violating the UCMJ's Article 108, "Loss, Damage, Destruction, or Wrongful Disposition of Government Property."

once again

[antonsthlm]

I am forced to say this:
RIAA are terrorists. So bomb them, nuke them and detain them without their rights retained.
Stop being such nazis on arabs and realise who the real terrorists on u.s. soil (and elsewhere) are.

I'm sure it'll show in the end that all the planes of 9-11 really were not AlQaeda but RIAA.

Whine whine whine...

[NeoMagick]

So these people show up to work only to discover Navy officers waiting for them with search-and-seize orders? Can students expect FBI officials to be waiting at the doorsteps of schools? Will we no longer have DEA Enforcement, but RIAA Enforcement? Will LA students not need to worry about metal detectors at the doors, but file sweeps instead? How much longer is the RIAA going to whine to anyone they can write a letter to? More importantly, how long will it be before an organization finally says "No More" and puts their foot down...

In the Military, Ownership != Do As You Wish

[cjsnell]

In the military, just because you own something does not mean that you can do with it as you wish. Here's an analogy. As officers, we have to purchase our own uniforms. However, we are not free to use these uniforms in ways that are not permitted. If I were to take my uniform and wear it in violation of AR 670-1 ("Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia"), I could be subject to punishment under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).

When you enlist (or commission, or contract [ROTC]) in the military, you sign a peice of paper acknowledging your submission to the UCMJ. Once you sign this paper, you must be prepared to follow all military rules and regs or face the consequences. Interestingly, you do not become immune from non-military prosecution, either. These midshipmen could very well be prosecuted by the USNA as well as the federal (or local, depending...) court system.

The important thing to remember here, as others have pointed out, is that cadets/midshipment are future officers and are expected to conform to a much higher standard than regular college students or even enlisted military. We are supposed to set a pristine example to our peers.

I feel sorry for these guys/gals but they're probably going to get screwed on this one. In a military academy, you can get tossed out for the craziest shit. A high school buddy of mine was tossed from the USAFA because his roommate cheated and he did not turn him in. And here is the really crappy thing--if you're a sophomore or above and you are kicked out of the academy (or quit...), you will likely have to re-emburse the federal government for the expense of your education. This expense can easily total $250,000 or more.

How long

[porkface]

How long is Slashdot going to continue discussing the same mundane, less fine points of the issues everytime copyright infringement comes up?

The userbase always degrades into a "It's not theft, it's ______" spat with no new ground broken in these discussions. Why not acknowledge it is what it is and that it's illegal and move on to talking about what happens to sailors who are caught? Compare that with the consequences of your average college kid. Anything besides the usual. There have been enough of these articles and "discussions" here that you'd think things would E-volve.

And how long are the editors of Slashdot going to continue posting these copyright infringement stories with a tone of "these people are victims," or "the RIAA is evil BECAUSE they're telling so and so to crack down on this"? I know the RIAA is evil, but not because they go after people who steal from them. Napster et al are NOT civil disobedience for 99 out of 100 people. I agree the Napster revolution was necessary, but the follow through, and the manner in which it was conducted have been so misguided that they are not having a positive effect. And the Slashdot editors aren't helping to fix the message. If the Napster generation had a clear and earnest message, they would get more done.

Actually...

[cjsnell]

Actually, we are bound to the UCMJ *and* the rest of the laws that you non-military folk are bound to. If I get busted for public intoxication here in downtown San Antonio, I can be prosecuted by the City of San Antonio as well as the United States Army.

Re:Actually...

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

You are correct, generally speaking... I was referring more to the 'rights' that we gave up than the local laws. Also, in the Navy at least, we operated mostly under international law, so perhaps there are some differences depending on location. To be honest, I never faced a situation where application of the UCMJ was tested, so I know more what we had to memorize than anything 'practical' :P

Raid of Military Academy x HR 5211

[Dachannien]

Just think, if HR 5211 hadn't temporarily flopped in House Judiciary this year, the RIAA could have gone in and personally dealt with those midshipmen themselves. And there's not a damn thing that the feds could have done to stop them, what with giving them the ability to do that in the first place.

Re:Also from your journal... RE: Sopranos

[Speed Racer]

So if he was asking for a VHS copy of seasons 1-2, would that be OK?

roll over!

[delstar dotstar]

if the soviets knew that the u.s. navy would roll over so easily, we'd be living in a different world today.

Navy cruiser stops dead in the water...

[Alien Being]

when paladium based ship control systems detect "on-board pirates".

if it's worth pursuing they will get you

[wotevah]

1) select a large enough X (company size)
2) send letters to companies of size X
3) companies make good and pay off
4) if X>1 with money gained repeat from (1) where X=X/2
5) mega PROFIT :)

As soon as they finished all the companies and universities, they will come after individuals, no doubt about it.

Now I understand why we're attacking Iraq...

[Blue Lozenge]

It's because the RIAA got wind of Saddam Hussein's pirated music archive!

Re:Now I understand why we're attacking Iraq...

[SkoZombie]

Thankfully i'm not from the US, but i've heard more than just a few murmourings that many past conflicts (including desert storm) were motivated by $$$ than a genuine concern for peace etc.

I'm not suprised.

[mlh1996]

I'm not going to get into whether sharing mp3s should be either illegal or immoral. It's obvious by some people's standard that it is.

That said, it's amazing that a group of people who live their lives by such a strict code of honor (Read it here if you're interested.) think so little about the issue. Computers weren't up to the task of sharing music when I was at USNA, but software piracy was rampant.

I know that I didn't even see the irony in playing my pirated copy of Doom for a few minutes before heading to Smoke Hall to sit on an Honor Board.

Re:Music?-Accountability?

[shepd]

>Legal definition of property [lectlaw.com]

Again, the non-physical definition refers to the actual right to call the item yours. ie: The right to put your name on a project. It is theft if I download an MP3 by the Beatles and rename it to say "By: shepd". However, I didn't see anything in there that says it's theft if I'm simply in posession of the unmodified MP3.

>Copyright myths dispelled [templetons.com]

Contains no references to "theft".

>The actual law [cornell.edu]

For the US. Outside, this is much more likely to be it. The original Berne convention mentions no references to theft. I don't know about this revision.

Anyways, the last few aren't exactly legal help sites, so I'll say this:

I think it still stands that downloading music from KaZaa is infact copyright violation, and not theft. But IANAL, so YMMV.

>You know what they say about people who represents themselves in a court of law?

An intelligent person? Too bad that technically most all courts in the US are now military courts (look for the gold-fringed flags), and in a military court you really do need help.

eminem shouldn't be worried

[b17bmbr]

eminem's worried about theft of music. good. he has nothing to worry about then.

UCMJ Articles 15, 133 or 134

[gruhnj]

AS they are midshipmen and therfore under the UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE (UCMJ) per article 2 subsection 2, all the naval academy had to do was cite them as being in violation of any of these three articles of the UCMJ. The highlights are my own.

SUBCHAPTER III. NON-JUDICIAL PUNISHMENT
815. ART. 15. COMMANDING OFFICER'S NON-JUDICIAL PUNISHMENT

933. ART. 133. CONDUCT UNBECOMING AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

934. ART. 134. GENERAL ARTICLE
Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces , and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.

Pay particular attention to article 134. This article basicly says that the military can charge you with anything as a crime on the spot. The only differnce between this and article 15 is that an article 15 does not reqiure a court martial. Once accused of being in violation of the UCMJ, the military is allowed to take immediate action. There is no innocent until proven guilty; your CO may take whatever action they see fit as long as it is within regulation ( Note about article 15 -- it is the only one of the articles noted above with set limits on penalties).

You can browse the entire UCMJ here .

PFC Gruhn
U.S. Army, Fort Lewis
I Corps -- America's Corps

IRS could be our good guys now

[Adam9]

Just what the RIAA needs.. a complete audit by the IRS of everything includings its "campaign contributions."

Did you people even read the letter?!?

[A Cheese Danish]

Geez, I hate these knee-jerk responses. If you guys had actually taken the time to read the letter, you'll see that it is not a letter accussing anyone of anything, but merely a "this is happening a lot at other places, so you should check up on it too" letter. And from what I read from the story, the Naval Academy just decided to do a random computer audit, which is entirely standard procedure in the military.

The cause of fighting for digital rights would be a lot easier if we weren't screaming bloody murder everytime the RIAA mails out a form letter!

long term effect

[HealYourChurchWebSit]

I have to wonder if the RIAA isn't shooting themselves in the foot in this case. A number of Naval Acadamy cadets have parents in powerful political places, especially some just an hour or so away down RT.50/95/395.

Moreover, it is not uncommon for a Naval Acadamy graduate to find themselves in polotics after a distinguished military career. One wonders some yeard downline if such acts won't cause some grudges to be paid out to the RIAA in spades.

We can only hope so.

Re:Music?-Accountability?

[superflippy]

That a gold-fringed flag in a courtroom denotes jurisdiction is pure conspiracy-theorist myth. Falls into the same category as anything printed in the Weekly World News.

There are easier to read explanations of the flag myth, but this is the only one I could find on short notice: http://www.militia-watchdog.org/suss4.htm#fringe

Re:Midshipman Honor Code

[jedidiah]

The substance abuse of his children.

The young won't heed a word you say. However, they will follow the example you set.

Re:Music?-Accountability?

[shepd]

While as a non-American I'm certainly not qualified to disagree, why put the fringe there and annoy so many conspiracy theorists? It doesn't make a lot of sense to leave it there if it is to serve no other purpose than to waste government money.

Re:Why feel sorry for theifs...

[jedidiah]

No, we think that steel and stone and dirt are more appropriately called property than words or interesting sounds.

Culture should not be owned, PERIOD. It is simply bad public policy. Any copyrighted work older than 30 years should be in the public domain already.

Any cultural artifact is simply too deriviate to be attributed to any particular entity. The fact that such items are "owned" is the real theft here.

"Intellectual Property" is the real theft. If you want to go on some moral crusade, then at least be equitable about it.

??AA University - Logic 101

[TheConfusedOne]

Course Syllabus - How to recognize theft.
"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."

And yet strangely enough no one has ever been prosecuted for theft in any of these cases. People have been charged with copyright infringement but not charges of THEFT have ever been filed.

Extra credit assignment: Come up with 10 non-sequitor shop lifting examples to equate with P2P downloading.

the Microsoft Navy...

[runlvl0]

An oldie, but a goodie...

Windows NT Cripples US Navy Cruiser
7/28/98

Windows NT Cripples US Navy Cruiser
GOVERNMENT NEWS
GCN July 13, 1998
Software Glitches Leave Navy Smart Ship Dead In The Water
By Gregory Slabodkin, GCN Staff
The Navy's Smart Ship technology may not be as smart as the service contends.
Although PCs have reduced workloads for sailors aboard the Aegis missile cruiser USS Yorktown, software glitches resulted in system failures and crippled ship operations, according to Navy officials.
Navy brass have called the Yorktown Smart Ship pilot a success in reducing manpower, maintenance and costs. The Navy began running shipboard applications under Microsoft Windows NT so that fewer sailors would be needed to control key ship functions.
But the Navy last fall learned a difficult lesson about automation: The very information technology on which the ships depend also makes them vulnerable. The Yorktown last September suffered a systems failure when bad data was fed into its computers during maneuvers off the coast of Cape Charles, Va.
The ship had to be towed into the Naval base at Norfolk, Va., because a database overflow caused its propulsion system to fail, according to Anthony DiGiorgio, a civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk.
"We are putting equipment in the engine room that we cannot maintain and, when it fails, results in a critical failure," DiGiorgio said. It took two days of pierside maintenance to fix the problem.
The Yorktown has been towed into port after other systems failures, he said.

Not officially
Atlantic Fleet officials acknowledged that the Yorktown last September experienced what they termed "an engineering local area network casualty," but denied that the ship's systems failure lasted as long as DiGiorgio said. The Yorktown was dead in the water for about two hours and 45 minutes, fleet officials said, and did not have to be towed in.
"This is the only time this casualty has occurred and the only propulsion casualty involved with the control system since May 2, 1997, when software configuration was frozen," Vice Adm. Henry Giffin, commander of the Atlantic Fleet's Naval Surface Force, reported in an Oct. 24, 1997, memorandum.
Giffin wrote the memo to describe "what really happened in hope of clearing the scuttlebutt" surrounding the incident, he noted.
The Yorktown lost control of its propulsion system because its computers were unable to divide by the number zero, the memo said. The Yorktown's Standard Monitoring Control System administrator entered zero into the data field for the Remote Data Base Manager program. That caused the database to overflow and crash all LAN consoles and miniature remote terminal units, the memo said.
The program administrators are trained to bypass a bad data field and change the value if such a problem occurs again, Atlantic Fleet officials said.
But "the Yorktown's failure in September 1997 was not as simple as reported," DiGiorgio said. If you understand computers, you know that a computer normally is immune to the character of the data it processes," he wrote in the June U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings Magazine. "Your $2.95 calculator, for example, gives you a zero when you try to divide a number by zero, and does not stop executing the next set of instructions. It seems that the computers on the Yorktown were not designed to tolerate such a simple failure."
The Navy reduced the Yorktown crew by 10 percent and saved more than $2.8 million a year using the computers. The ship uses dual 200-MHz Pentium Pros from Intergraph Corp. of Huntsville, Ala. The PCs and server run NT 4.0 over a high-speed, fiber-optic LAN.

Navy prepares to take Smart Ship full steam ahead
Despite the USS Yorktown's setbacks, the Navy plans to use Smart Ship technology on other classes of ships.
The Naval Sea Systems Command in May awarded Litton Integrated Systems Corp. of Woodland Hills, Calif., a $138.6 million contract to build Engineering Control System Equipment and Integrated Bridge Systems for CG-47 Class Aegis cruisers. The Navy also might install the equipment on DDG-51 class destroyers.
Electronic Design Inc. of Metairie, La., filed a protest of the award in late May with the General Accounting Office. The Navy has issued a stop-work order that will last until GAO rules on the protest.
Smart Ship technology is also on the amphibious ship USS Rushmore, Navy officials said.

Blame it on the OS
But according to DiGiorgio, who in an interview said he has serviced automated control systems on Navy ships for the past 26 years, the NT operating system is the source of the Yorktown's computer problems. NT applications aboard the Yorktown provide damage control, run the ship's control center on the bridge, monitor the engines and navigate the ship when under way. "Using Windows NT, which is known to have some failure modes, on a warship is similar to hoping that luck will be in our favor," DiGiorgio said. Pacific and Atlantic fleets in March 1997 selected NT 4.0 as the standard OS for both networks and PCs as part of the Navy's Information Technology for the 21st Century initiative. Current guidance approved by the Navy's chief information officer calls for all new applications to run under NT. Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office, said there have been numerous software failures associated with NT aboard the Yorktown. "Refining that is an ongoing process," Redman said. "Unix is a better system for control of equipment and machinery, whereas NT is a better system for the transfer of information and data. NT has never been fully refined and there are times when we have had shutdowns that resulted from NT." Hauled in The Yorktown has been towed into port several times because of the systems failures, he said. "Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT," Redman said. "If it were up to me I probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application. If we used Unix, we would have a system that has less of a tendency to go down." Although Unix is more reliable, Redman said, NT may become more reliable with time. The Navy is moving the service's command and control applications from Unix to NT as part of IT-21. Under IT-21, the Navy also plans to modernize ships in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets with asynchronous transfer mode LANs. Large ATM networks running NT have already been installed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Essex. But DiGiorgio said the LANs might experience a chain reaction of computer failures like those experienced on the Yorktown. That domino effect is inherent to the system design of shipboard LANs, he said. "There is very little segregation of error when software shares bad data," DiGiorgio said. "Instead of one computer knocking off on the Yorktown, they all did, one after the other. What if this happened in actual combat?" Although the Yorktown did not have backup systems, Redman said that future Smart Ships will have systems redundancy to ensure that ships can continue to operate. But DiGiorgio said that the Smart Ship project needs to do more engineering up front. "Installing a control system on a warship and resolving problems as the project progresses is a costly and naive process," DiGiorgio wrote in the Proceedings article. "Now, with the top people rotated off the Smart Ship Project, it would be wise for the Navy to investigate this fiasco more fully. Redman has a different perspective. "If it were me, I wouldn't say all the things that Tony [DiGiorgio] has said out of discretion and consideration for being a long-term employee," he said. "But I will say this about Tony, he's a very bright engineer." "Everybody plays the obedience role where you cannot criticize the system," said DiGiorgio, a self-described whistle-blower. "I'm not that kind of guy." GOVERNMENT COMPUTER NEWS Copyright © 1998 by Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc. , a division of the Washington Post company. All rights reserved. Infowar.Com & Interpact, Inc. WebWarrior@Info-sec.Com Submit articles to: info-sec@info-sec.com Voice: 813-288-1955 Fax: 813-288-1985

Re:MAX'EM

[aragornman]

Savior of the Log '00:

Do you have that MAX'EM issue on your 'puter by some chance? Proprietary formats aside, I'd like to see it...post here if you do and we can connect.

Re:Music?-Accountability?

[Dannon]

Why put an eagle at the top of a flagpole? Why decorate the walls of a local courthouse with portraits of significant figures in local history?

Pure decoration. Nothing more. For each courthouse, there's generally an official, most likely a judge, with some level of authority over how to decorate the place, within a certain budget. That official gets to decide what portraits to put on the walls, and so on.

So, one judges thinks it's worth the budget money to spring for extra-nice flags (which can be purchased pretty much anywhere you can purchase the ordinary-looking flags). Another judge in another district may think it's more important to repaint the walls this fiscal year.

And if the city taxpayers think that the municipal judge is wasting their money... well, more often than not, local law has a way of dealing with it.

I don't honestly think most judges, in deciding how to make a courtroom look proper and formal, would waste a second thought on the reaction of anyone prone to jumping at conspiracy shadows.

Re:terms

[shepd]

>Surely you've heard of "theft of services"? Such as tapping into cable TV?

Yes. I have heard of that. But, AFAIK, that isn't what the plaintiff is charged with. I can't help it if newspapers use the wrong language. If I was to listen to newspapers, hackers would be people who like to crack into military bases to see how many nukes they can launch at the white house.

>Also, why *are* you so concerned with distinguishing theft from copyright infringment?
>Do you think one is a crime and the other not?

Yes. And so did my country until a few months ago. Technically, 10% of all Canadians are now liable for thousands of dollars of charges and years of jail time, but the RCMP has (intelligently) decided not to raise a public uproar by filling the courts with another 3 million cases overnight.

>Even if you were right, you would have no defense in either civil or criminal court.

No. Well, no until a few months ago. Let me explain something to you, something you'll find very interesting:

Piracy, or copyright violation, or "theft of service" (*ugggh*) of American television in Canada was legal and well supported here in Canada until a few months ago. There were many brick and mortar stores in my city alone selling pirate equiment to anyone who walks in (Police, RCMP, CSIS, CRTC, it didn't matter). If copyright violation were theft these stores would have been shut down before you can say "Oh crap!". But because it ain't, they couldn't. That's the number 1 reason why I have a problem against the misnomer that is "theft of services".

I won't get into the morality of the above unless you choose to bring it up.

>FWIW I *am* a lawyer, and you'd have trouble finding even a first-year law student who'd not agree.

Excellent, a lawyer. In that case you'll enjoy reading the Radio Communications act of Canada, paragraph 9(1)(c). Let me know if you can find the word theft there. I hope our country's case helps clear the air on why copyright violation isn't theft.

Thanks.

And if you're wondering why it's now illegal for Canadians to watch American satellite signals, it's because the Supreme Court re-read the word "authorized" to mean authorized in any country in the world, not just Canada, on the strong impetus of Bell ExpressVu, LLC, who have been losing money on their service since day one not due to piracy, but due to lack of sales caused by piracy of American signals.

I suppose there's a chance you guys have a completely differeny set of copyright laws, infact a totally different set of laws on everything, God knows what they could be after the DMCA, patriot act, and homeland security act.

>Oh, and the gold-fringed flag thing is a hallucination. I worked for one of these alleged military courts, and believe me it ain't so. You'll assume I'm the part of a conspiracy, but I challenge you to find any legal authority for your claim.

Hey man, I said, I'm not American. I trust your courts aren't as the (many) webpages lead me to believe. But, the truth is, it doesn't matter much (to me), since I doubt I'll ever be tried in one (thank God, again).