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File-sharing and AOL
Andrew Leonard writes "Farhad Manjoo's cover story in Salon today, on AOL's refusal to take a stand on the RIAA's (so far) successful attempt to get subscriber information from Verizon, is a detailed look at the most important battle in the file-sharing world right now."
Sorry about the spelling, too much free beer.;)
=If life was easy, i would be out of a job=
Warner music is one of the most imortant members of the RIAA
AOL is a part of the AOL-Time-Warner corporation; so is Warner music. Is there therefore a conflict between divisions of the company? Hmmmm... me thinks it's time to sell my ATW stock.... wait, I don't have any anyway.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
The article even points out that MSN and others have refused to comment. Why then is AOL so suspicious just because of their TW relationship?
/.ers have pointed out many times on the media/hardware manufacturer copy protection debates.
If _I_ had an ISP, I wouldn't comment either (I'd just go for another swim in my money....)
These big companies rarely have a unified front, as
Why are industry people there in the first place, to draw up the law? Are they balanced by ten representatives of the public?
In hexadecimal, that address is eight digits. 8D.9E.68.5E
This will get interesting when the RIAA comes crashing into a dorm room that is NATted behind a proxy/firewall.
They have a warrant to search...
IP WW.XX.YY.ZZ, but THAT is the IP of the NAT proxy/firewall. Oops, no music THERE! No warrant for any OTHER IP, such as the PC which is 192.168.0.100...
User "Joe Schmoe", who, by the way, HAS no MP3s. THOSE are all stored on his friend's PC -- who isn't named in the warrant.
OR, "Joe Schmoe" doesn't OWN the PC, he only is paying for the service. The PCs actually belong to someone else -- who is not named in the warrant.
OR, the PC with the goods belongs to a minor, who just happened to be the purchaser of all the CDs that he ripped and shared. A minor who CAN'T ENTER INTO A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT such as a music licensing agreement...
OR... take your pick. The costs for the RIAA to start tracking down and legally pursuing individuals would be astronomical.
Good luck proving successful downloads of songs for copyright infringement. Not to mention proving the downloads were of the SONGS claimed, and not some other file with the same name. Even if the file "baby_one_more_time.mp3" exists on the subject's machine, and the RIAA downloaded it and tracked back to to the subject that is only ONE violation. There is no way they can legally prove other infringements -- maybe the person was sharing a copy of bible reading masquerading as Brittany Who's-Dumping-Me-Today Spears? Maybe the RIAA was the only one that got the real thing?
The sheer expense will deal with this issue.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"The RIAA's Oppenheim rejects such horror stories. He notes that the DMCA requires people filing for 512h subpoenas to attest to their "good faith" intentions under "penalty of perjury" -- which he says is a strong standard and punishment."
IANAL, but it would appear that if i put "Harry Potter Book Report.rtf" or Metallica fan.mp3 or MatrixParody.avi on Kazaa, and the RIAA bot sends a letter to a court demanding my home address, name, etc, that they could get in trouble for violating the "good faith" intentions, which apparently carry quite severe punishments. That would be a good way to screw over the RIAA and MPAA. They would have violated that provision and my right to privacy.
if the subpoena of IP addresses based on pure suspicion as supported by the DMCA holds, then media and/or ISPs will be powerless when p2p networks provide authenticated, encrypted services. freenet is already making strides in this area but i think it can be even better.
as much as they fight it, AOL/RIAA/whatever are only shooting themselves in the foot. embrace digital content as a viable content delivery mechanism or die....
smd4985
I'd like to put emphasis on this part of the article:
"And that's not surprising," says Oppenheim, "because everybody knew 512h allowed that. So you have to ask: Why would Verizon suddenly change their view? And, well, I have my answers. They've got an enormous base of infringers. Their view is there would be an economic hit if they started to allow this."
Isn't it widely held that the DMCA is intended to maintain revenue streams for the prosecutors in this case? So this case is essentially about whose revenue is more important: The RIAA components, or ISPs. Since I'm on Slashdot, you know which one I'd regard as more important.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
If the RIAA wins, wouldn't it cause the downfall of the Internet? Well, I mean, if the RIAA goes after everyone who downloads their music (rather than buying it, or even along with buying it-download to find new and interesting music, then buy), what will they do to them? Have them jailed for their actions? Okay, so the USA becomes a jail country, where 50%+ of its population is held hostage by the RIAA.
Obtaining of media will never be the same! It's been brought up many times in the past; to have video on demand. Well get on with the implementations already. Perhaps do such with audio as well, although this will probably have to be free since it can be obtained freely anyway. Perhaps, in regards to audio, add some quirks and then charge for them. In my opinion, 75%+ of the population of the U.S. ages 12-30 download their music instead of buying. Although, there probably are some accurate statistics already (anyone know where) which would be interesting to see. We need to stop trying to censor our technological advances, but rather develop upon them while allowing them to flourish.
If you're religishitty, KILL YOURSELF!
Salon is having major financial troubles. They make their money by having people view their ads when reading their content. There is no registration required to view their content. If you have a problem with viewing an ad as a requisite for accessing their content, why not try to find a print substitute of Salon's quality that costs money.
1. AOL doesn't want other agencies snooping into its network, because it'd make it easier to find out the other illegal stuff going on in there. Nice, wholesome kiddie pr0n, for example. The fewer eyes that aren't theirs, the better.
2. Yes, TW is in the music business. They don't have a good way, however, of preventing filesharing from happening. As others have poined out, the slow speeds within AOL itself are enough of a deterrant there -- where they ought to be concerned is in the TW broadband area.
So they're gonna cool their jets and see what happnes. Makes sense to me.
This just pop'd in to my mind about the whole filesharing issue...
Ok all they have are a list of filenames.
if a person have say 1000 zero-byte or whatever-byte sized files with filenames of whateversong.mp3.
Does having just a list of filenames provide enough evidence to use DMCA as a legal stance?
Does anyone know with some fair amount of detail what evidence the RIAA provided in court to provide some proof other than the list of filenames?
Maybe the kid had 666 files of porn and he renamed them so his parents wouldn't find out...ha ha ha
---
tkt
Ideally the *AA's would also want to make p2p expensive to condone/tolerate on their networks. Pestering ISPs with subpoenas is one avenue of doing this. Hopefully p2p customers bring in more revenue than it costs to service the RIAA.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
This is very silly of them. I see a couple of problems if they do start attempting mass-enforcement
Try and subpeona someone outside the US.
Try and explain to average, white upper-middle-class parents that their "little angel" is a "criminal" and NOT have a bad publicity stink about it when parents complain of "needless harrassment".
Try and keep the egg off your face as people start to use proxies outside the US to reroute the download to their computer.
Am I missing something here?? I feel like we're being scared by the big, ominous shadow on the wall and missing the little dork casting the shadow with his hand.
blue
AOL not/having a stance IS news because it's AOL Time Warner. It's the largest ISP AND media company. It has a lot to lose on either side of the fence. If users knew their info was being given up on possibly trumped up charges of illegal file-sharing based on a non-judge issued subpeona then they lose most if not all of their customers who really care about their privacy. On the other hand they have to protect the interest of copyright holders they represent (e.g. RIAA and MPAA members. So while I can understand how one might think AOL not stating their position on way or another is just filler news, I also can't understand how one can comment without actually reading the 4 page article.
Personally I think, as a former AOhelL subscriber, that AOL's public non-stance speaks as loudly as if they had taken a stance one way or another on the Verizon case, which is the reason AOL has a non-stance in this article.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Like AOL, I seem to have a conflict of my own. I love freedom, don't want people watching me etc, but as my freedoms diminish, so does my retirement account grow. I think I'd rather die free than rich.
My Blog
People will demand legal change because if there really are more than a handful of prosecutions little Johny or little Suzy is now potentially in the DoJ's legal crosshair. I've met more than a few people who were self-righteous about it until they found out how absurd it was and that their kids and kids they thought were really great kids could sit in a federal prison for 3 years and be literally bankrupt before the age of 18. You see, most people think you're directly ripping off the artists when they hear piracy. They're not thinking their kid with his small mp3 and divx collection.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Most of the maintream news sources claimed that opium was a major source of funding for the Taliban. Usage may have been discouraged, but from what I hear, the Taliban activey encouraged opium poppy cultivation over food production. The poor farmers got about as much per acre for the poppies as they would have from foodstuffs, with the Taliban/warlords gtting the lion's share of the markup.
Of course, there is a good deal of US propaganda in there, but I'd like to hear your sources.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
Personally, I think the burden of proof for the subpoena is the whole bananna. Note that once the RIAA has your name, is still must make its case you broke the rules. They'll maybe get part of that by suckering you into downloading directly from decoy computers.
If they have enough info for a subpoena, then can take your name to the feds to make a little "surprise visit" to your residence, taking your computer (and cd's, and x-box, and stereo, and cordless phone, and anything else remotly related to alleged file sharing) back to their ofice for "further investigation" .
In this case, even if they don't find a single thing to nail you to the wall with, they still made an example out of you and still won.
I am not a sig.
- The health insurance might want to know all about your occasional stomach problems you discussed with your mom yesterday
- Your employer might want to know which bars you frequent in order to know if you hang around known places of vice, gambling and drug abuse.
- Your bank and the IRS might want to know if you plan to go shopping for a new car while owing someone money etc.
- Your wife may want to check on you, so she may call your friend if you are with him or with a woman.
- Spammers want to know the size of your penis. (Granted, few people talk about that in public.)
All information can be misused. And at one point, twenty years from now, Joe Doe, a reformed christian and good father to his children, will most certainly not want someone to post his teenage pr0n habits on the net. Even if it is old stuff, you would wonder if he is still into it...