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The RIAA and MPAA Target Day-Job Downloaders
BrianUofR points to this USA Today article, which says "the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America are sending a six-page brochure this week to Fortune 1000 corporations with suggested policies -- including a sample memo to workers warning them against using company computers to download songs and movies."
I wouldn't want people I was managing screwing around with p2p software at work.
For managers, this is going to be a no-brainer.
What the fuck does this have to do with my rights online?? My "rights" in the workplace are limited all the time at work.
My company has blocked access to p2p applications, all sorts of website, and limit my access to my PC. Should I be crying about my rights being violated?
Where is it part of my rights that I can illegaly download music at my desk, thereby wasting bandwidth and company time?
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
Companies will take action and institute policies against downloading copywritten materials. This will be their defense against the company being liable for the downloading.
The RIAA/MPAA is doing this to aim at deep pockets that can order lots of people to do, or in this case not do, specific acts.
Fight Spammers!
A manager with any common sense, however, might well note this article with their direct reports - giving them a heads-up (if they already didn't know) that P2P at work is a bad idea...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The admin at my work was way ahead on this one.
Wow, I'd fire him immediately if I were his boss. He just opened up the company to massive litigation. It'd be akin to the phone company saying "we're going to monitor phone traffic and don't want common carrier status anymore". Moronic.
Thats one way to stop this stuff at work.
Stop what stuff? Creating a pleasant environment to do your job? There is nothing illegal about having music on your computer at home or at work.
So I'm happy to have someone giving ammunition to help put these slackers out of business. The company doesn't need them, and they waste the resources for which I am responsible. Whether they are canned because the CEO worries over his company's legitimate potential liability to the evil conglomerates or because these people are being paid to work and are goofing off instead, means nothing to me. They are abusing company property for personal gain and should be fired. A warning letter like this is a valuable policy tool. That I personally do not care for the conglomerates' heavy-handed tactics does nothing to lessen the validity of their fundamental argument, and does nothing to diminish the value of a document issued by Legal telling slackers to knock off the network abuse.
Your use of Kazaa to steal from those who purchased the musicians is for any reasonable person equal to Microsoft including linux/sched.c in the next version of Windows or to that scruffy-looking man outside stealing my car. All three hypothetical offenders are taking from others without permission. A pity they don't hang cattle rustlers any longer.
Any company that doesn't have this in place already as either a copyright-infringement policy or an unnecessary burden on resources is too dumb to read the RIAA's threats anyway.
I happen to be a business owner.
MY bandwidth and My PCs are just that - MINE.
Don't like it. Don't work for me.
Maybe I don't want to be sued just because you are a thief. Personlly I think most of the IP laws are crap but that doesn't mean that I desire(or have the money) to be the fucking test case just because you are NOT adult enough to *gasp* ask my permission before you put MY company at risk.
So after I fire your ass I'll have your ass arrested for theft of MY bandwidth and MY storage space.
Is THAT adult enough? You self-centered little troll.
I sorry that you think that putting the rules down in writting is a "childish" act. It isn't. It is what adults do. Adults don't assume what others should know or expect. They explain out in front what is and isn't expected. Why? Because some people like yourself will assume that employment GIVES them the right to do it. It doesn't. Only if the employer is willing to allow it. And if he is then he should put THAT in writting too.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Wow, I'd fire him immediately if I were his boss. He just opened up the company to massive litigation. It'd be akin to the phone company saying "we're going to monitor phone traffic and don't want common carrier status anymore". Moronic.
This is in no way anything like the telco doing that. I think that is an excellent way to curb the behaviour. If you want the music at work, bring in your CDs or even your own computer (geez, a headless P2-233 with 64M of memory would be more than enough) and leave it off the fucking corporate systems. It's not opening up anything to litigation, as the computers are already property of the companies, and can be used for whatever legal purpose the company wants.
Stop what stuff? Creating a pleasant environment to do your job? There is nothing illegal about having music on your computer at home or at work.
Agreed on the pleasant environment but there is nothing in my employee handbook granting me the ability to use the company systems for anything non-company related, including playing music whose legality is in question. It's not up to the company to prove that you own the CDs, and in fact I bet that given the choice between policing that or outright forbidding mp3s, they will chose the latter every time.
What I don't get is how the RIAA plans to enforce this... Unless they for a RIAA gestapo, or something like it. Or put spyware on corporations, which would get them in even more trouble. So there's really nothing they can do about it. Except spew the same old BS they've been spewing, and of course that type of stuff sells on slashdot, lol...
But Seriously, I agree with most of what The Man
has to say from a purely (owning the network
and having to deal with all the bullshit)
perspective. I'm all for anything that's going
to mean that I don't have to waste a considerable
amount of time writting/revamping scripts to look
for the latest file sharing software. A few places
I've been already have strong stances on this stuff
because it costs a company a SHITLOAD of money for
bandwidth to support the 15 girls in customer
service, 10 guys in tech support, and ALL the guys
in admin that are downloading 30 gigs of movies,
mp3s, and warez a day. My opinion is, what happens
out of work is out of work. Do that shit at home.
Hell, I don't care if you bring a cd you burned
at home to work with your 200 alan jackson songs
on it. Just don't create work and trouble for me.
Stick to playing solitaire and minesweeper and all
the other important things you do on your wintel
machines. Save the bandwidth for important things
like first person shooters.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Since this sounds like something that well-managed corporate networks should be doing already (maybe not individal audits, but blocking p2p), this may just be a symbolic act so that later they can say, "Hey, we even sent out letters to all these companies......blah blah" and make up some case for themselves in court.
Well, you are stealing their shit. And it is shit, least-common denominator teenie-bopper crap.
Maybe if people would get off their asses and explore the net for local bands they can go watch live, 99% of which will give you their mp3's online so you'll come see the shows.
No artist has ever made a cent off record sales, they make it from CONCERTS. So stop feeding the beast, and feed the artists. Go see something local, buy the Tshirt and CD at the concert if you must.
Stop all your damn whining about how people get mad when you steal their shit. You have two options, but you have to vote by spending your money. Stealing or bitching about it are both not voting at all.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
This letter, in my opinion, is simply the calm before the storm. The RIAA and MPAA are really after the home user, specifically the home user with a broadband connection.
But, how do they get at the home user? Instead of targeting them initially, it appears that their strategy is to set the stage with a series of meaningless letters to Fortune 1000 companies.
Why are they meaningless? Simply, most Fortune 1000 companies already have policies in place against downloading files, viewing adult material and even surfing that is not work-related. My company is nowhere close to the Fortune 1000, but we have policies like these in place and have for some time.
What the RIAA and the MPAA are trying to do is to create a climate where it will be viewed as appropriate to target the home user *next*. Once this letter and memo has been distributed to Fortune 1000 companies, the RIAA and MPAA will in effect have created a precedent that logically extends from the workplace into the home.
They are sneaky, and they seem to realize that they need to be careful about targetting home users; after all, the home broadband user is also a key revenue source for both of them. They realize this. I just hope the American public wakes up to the devious nature of these two organizations before the real war against the broadband user begins.
As long as the Freenet project continues distribute its main download in the form of a Java class and not platform specific binaries, it will *never* work well enough to be useful to people in the same manner that Kazaa, or even Gnutella are.
You can whine and kvetch all day long about how wondeful are, but the simple fact of the matter is that the fact that you have to install a virtual machine to run Freenet makes it useful only to people who understand how to install a virtual machine.
There are ways to compile Java to platform-specific binaries that don't require a virtual machine to run. The freenet project should make binaries like this available for download for PC and Macintosh. Doing otherwise is shooting themselves in the foot for the sake of shooting themselves in the foot.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Would you stop the guy outside from taking a picture of your car?
Would you try to stop Microsoft from using GPL'd code in a closed-source product? After all, if someone uses GPL'd code in a closed-source product it's just a copy.
There would be no problem in Microsoft taking GPL code and putting it in their software. The problem would be with Microsoft taking GPL code, putting it in their software, and then suing others for copyright infringement if THEY copy Microsoft's software containing the GPL code.
The point of GPL is to say, yes, you can copy my code, and then others will copy yours as well.
Well first, they have gone after some universities but second, universities can be a much tougher target. The large ones have lots of lawyers and many are state schools, ie the government. Also there is the whole academic freedom thing and teh concept of not putting up general restrictions. The "common carrier" defense would probably work at this point and that is NOT something the RIAA wants tested in court. It would be rather bad for them to have case law backing that ISPs were common carriers just like the telcos. At this point, if they e-mail with a specific violation, that erson will get their access terminated just like someone on an ISP. If they tried this and lost people might just give them the finger on the common carrier grounds and tell them to go prosecute the person responsable.
It's much easier to tell a bussiness they should restrict P2P since they tend to have plenty of restriction on their network anyhow.