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."

Comments

One word...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Freenet.

It is finally starting to work well enough to be useful. It still needs people to create mp3-specific freesites to allow people to find mp3s easily, but this could be the motivation.

Re:One word...

[rsheridan6]

I tried it a few weeks ago, and it was so slow as to be unusable. A normal webpage took 10 minutes or more to download, and I can't imagine how glacially slow it would be to even find mp3s, let alone download them.

Quick!

[$$$$$exyGal]

Somebody post the 6-page brochure to Kazaa so I can see it.

--sex

Re:Quick!

[PovRayMan]

Searching for it, you better read the description or else you might end up getting a guide about man-dolphin relations...

Damn you Kazaa polluters!

Re:Quick!

[dubiousmike]

wow. I wonder if that guy added himself to your friends list.

*snicker*

Re:Quick!

[grub]

who doesn't know that a dolphin's ejaculate comes out with enough force to rip a hole in your colon.

Oh, I know that all too well..

do you wanna bet...

[TheHawke]

That some of the know-nothing managers will forward these boilerplate memos onto their charges without any changes??

ALSO, how many managers will take their threats for real?

Re:do you wanna bet...

[TopShelf]

Remember, this went out to Fortune 1000 companies, presumably to their legal departments, who would then consider what to do with it in-house.

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...

Re:do you wanna bet...

[The Man]

I'm a network admin, not a manager, and I'm happy to have something like this to give my boss to hand out. I'm neither for nor against the "free everything" mentality - I consider each person who produces something to have the right to distribute it under whatever terms he or she sees fit. Personally I distribute my work freely, and encourage others to do the same; not everyone chooses to do so. But regardless of your beliefs about the RIAA (evil) or the MPAA (evil) or whether you should be permitted to steal their property (you shouldn't), using your employer's property for personal purposes is always wrong. Viewing free porn is not illegal, but unless that is your job, doing so with your company's systems and networks almost certainly goes against both professional ethics and your employment agreement or contract. Therefore you should not do that. The same argument goes for downloading or viewing or listening to non-work-related material - if you're using company property to do it, you are in the wrong. Whether the material is legal or illegal, copyrighted or public domain, offensive, harmless, or valuable is irrelevant. Do it at home, not 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.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[Peterus7]

And the RIAA is still up to it's same old empty threats and unjust lawsuits.

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...

Re:do you wanna bet...

[richieb]

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.

While I agree with you on using company network for downloading music, I think this last paragraph is misguided.

The "crime" we are talking about is called "Copyright Violation". It's not stealing. When I make a copy of something I don't deprive anyone of anything. Would you stop the guy outside from taking a picture of your car?

Depriving someone from potential profit is not in the same ballpark as stealing a material object.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[Nugget]

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.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[Simonetta]

Here's what this really means:
1> People who work in Fortune 1000 are usually bored stiffless by institutional dreariness of the large company. Or they have become completely transformed by Dilbert syndrome into robots on the outside and boiling-with-rage just-destroy-it-see-if-I-care attitudes on the inside. Having a 1000-to-1 pay ratio between the top executives and the average Fortune 1000 worker ensures that there is a lot of this kind of feeling. Thousands of employees turn to P2P in the workplace just to get through the meaninglessness of the day. As long as the work continues to get done, it's not really a big deal.
2> Management gets a blanket threatening letter from the RIAA-MPAA. They immediately enact a policy saying that there will 'zero-tolerance' of any P2P or non-work-related computer or internet use by employees. The people who use P2P KNOW that their work is not affected by their listening and downloading and simply ignore this edict. Since everything is illegal in America now it doesn't seem to make any difference anyway, just as much work continues to get done as before.
3> The system administrator reviews the download records of all the employees and finds the people who continue to use P2P.
4> * The system administrator goes to each of these people (possible hundreds) and says that unless they give him $100-$200 a month, their names will be turned over to management for termination.
5> The system administrator gets tens of thousands of dollars a month from shaking down the employees due to management's stupid 'zero-tolerance' policy of something that hundreds of people are doing in the company.
6> The system administrator has an unfortunate accident. Someone deliberately drove their car over him in the company parking lot. Nobody saw anything. Word starts to circulate in and out of the company that there was a very profitable organized shakedown going on. Management refuses to tell the police anything to avoid scandal.
7> The word going around reachs the local Mafia crew. They 'persuade' management to install one of their people as the new system administrator. The shakedown continues... the Mafia gets the money...the employees get to download P2P...and nobody cares about what happens to the company.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[jellybear]

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.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[The Man]

People who work in Fortune 1000 are usually bored stiffless by institutional dreariness of the large company. Or they have become completely transformed by Dilbert syndrome into robots on the outside and boiling-with-rage just-destroy-it-see-if-I-care attitudes on the inside. Having a 1000-to-1 pay ratio between the top executives and the average Fortune 1000 worker ensures that there is a lot of this kind of feeling.

I've worked for an F1000 company, though not as a network admin. Of course the work is boring and uninspiring. That's true of work in a startup too. But this does not justify stealing resources from the company for personal benefit, however greedy the bastards in the big offices might be. I don't have the right to steal from them or shirk the responsibilities I agreed to undertake for them; if their system of operations is intolerable I have the right to quit, and if they have violated the law with respect to my employment I have the right to seek relief in court.

I will be the first to admit that a corporate republic, like any other form of government, may at some point cross the line into tyranny, at which point the responsibility of good men transfers from the Rule of Law to the overthrow of the oppressors. If you believe that your options are so limited that stealing from your employer or the record studios is justified by their behaviour, you are stating that the line has been crossed and you now stand in opposition to the Rule of Law. That is not a position of which you should be ashamed, if you truly believe in it and would willingly dedicate yourself to revolution. But you must stand and declare your belief as opposition to injustice and not hide behind a the cloak of anonymity provided by numbers or technology. Your manifesto must state that the corporate republic has strangled your opportunity to earn a just living from your own efforts and that all cooperative efforts to rectify the injustice have failed. And you must propose an alternative form of government and be willing to die for its establishment.

I do not believe this is the type of opposition to which you have referred. Simply loathing your miserable existence and feeling that it justifies your continuing theft of the work of others is unacceptable. This is the conduct not of great men but of pathetic mice. Obey the Rule of Law or gather the courage to declare it corrupt. You have only those two options and I will never respect the man who refuses to choose between them.

Since everything is illegal in America now it doesn't seem to make any difference anyway, just as much work continues to get done as before.

Respect the Rule of Law or declare it corrupt. Do not hide behind the fact that your work is supposedly unaffected. If you have too little work, request more. If your work is unrewarding, change jobs. If you do not believe you can find a job that makes use of your talents, seek working capital for your own firm. If you believe the capital is being hoarded unjustly to deny you opportunity, declare the system corrupt and work openly for its overthrow. Meekly accepting injustice and hiding your displeasure through subtle theft is disgraceful.

The system administrator goes to each of these people (possible hundreds) and says that unless they give him $100-$200 a month, their names will be turned over to management for termination.

Surely there are those who would do this. They represent the worst of our profession and would be among the worst in any group of people. For my part, I think nothing of forgoing a few thousand ill-gotten dollars and expelling these worthless malcontents from my company. The money they siphon from our profits devalues my share as much as theirs and nothing ever justifies theft, or blackmail.

The system administrator has an unfortunate accident. Someone deliberately drove their car over him in the company parking lot. Nobody saw anything. Word starts to circulate in and out of the company that there was a very profitable organized shakedown going on. Management refuses to tell the police anything to avoid scandal.

Unfortunate ends always come to people like these. Act honorably and you will be remembered so.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[Sycraft-fu]

That's right, it is just a copy and it isn't theft. It's copyright infringment. You inherantly have copyright over any work you create in the U.S. Now, as the copyright holder, you get to dictate terms of distribution. With the GPL you are allowing people to modify and distribute your work, but with some conditions. If they don't agree to those conditions, they don't ahve a right to modify or distribute your work and doing so is copyright infringment.

Copyright infringment is NOT theft by any definition. Lok up theft in a dictornay or the law books sometime.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[PurpleFloyd]

NO, NO, NO. Microsoft would be in deep trouble if they were to include GPL code in a product, then try to sell it without sources easily availabe, or if they tried to restrict the user's right to resale (the user can copy and sell the software). The point of the GPL is to say that users get source and can modify and redistribute a program (as long as they also include sources).

Incidentally, you may wish to check out the FSF's GPL FAQ. It helps to clear up these misconceptions.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[God! Awful 2]

The "crime" we are talking about is called "Copyright Violation". It's not stealing. When I make a copy of something I don't deprive anyone of anything.

You're using an obsolete definition of the word "stealing".

-a

Re:do you wanna bet...

[God! Awful 2]

Hehe... I love the way you turn this into an extortion scenario (complete with the Mafia) when I hear extortion justified on /. every day (If only CDs were cheaper, I'd stop ripping them off).

And I love the way you complain about drone workers looking to find any way to get through the meaninglessness of the day, when the /. campaign against patents, copyright, and proprietary software endangers any job that involves the least bit of creativity.

-a

Re:do you wanna bet...

[arivanov]

Absolutely agree (as a network admin).

I will also add to this:

• BSA, RIAA, MPAA and other A(sses) recently got into the habit to collect IPs from various P2P networks for further persecution so any "slacker" at work may bring you a BSA audit. Even, if your software is 100% legal, the time waste to fish out all licenses, proofs of purchase and prove that we are OK will cost any business a considerable amount of money.
• Besides the BSA, RIAA, MPAA there is also the Script Kidd0tz A. Which also collects IPs from P2P services. Every time someone tries to run such shit at work (and invariably be caught) I notice an increase of 20-30% in the number of port scans we get.
• And on top of all is the level of infestation of P2P networks with Troyans and other such shit.

So overall, anyone caught with P2P on the networks I run is offered an offer of either donating to GreenPeace, planting a tree for every attempted donwload or being referred to the boss for disciplinary measures.

The funniest bit here is that I QoS down all P2P shit to 32Kbit total for everyone with a 5% random drop. And everyone knows it. And there are still people trying from time to time (people apparently never ever learn).

Re:do you wanna bet...

[ichimunki]

Do you realize you're completely full of shit? :)

Re:do you wanna bet...

[MerlynEmrys67]

Would you stop the guy outside from taking a picture of your car?

Many celbrities do this, they fall under various anti-stalking laws. I bet Princess Dianna would have loved to have those people chasing her car at high speed stop... After all they were just wanting to make a copy of her and her boyfriend

Re:do you wanna bet...

[MerlynEmrys67]

Nice scenario. A friend of mine runs a VERY large desktop support organization at a Fortune 1000 company. His view on these things (yes there was a no tolerance policy there 5 years ago) was that as long as I don't HAVE to know about it, I don't (close to the don't ask don't tell policy). That said, there was an employee with a ton of MP3 files on his desktop shared to the network. Said employee compained about slow network access...

Friend looked at top N talkers on the subnet, it was all NFS/SMB traffic to this guys box from ALL over the group. Friend looks at what is being shared and at that point had no choice to report it...

Moral of the story is, if you have a large quantity of files shared, don't bitch about slow network access

Re:do you wanna bet...

[Master of Transhuman]

Yeah, Britney's job is in real danger...

Nitwit...

Re:do you wanna bet...

[God! Awful 2]

Britney's job doesn't require that much creativity anyway. But what about the guy who writes the music that she sings?

-a

Re:do you wanna bet...

[The Man]

I'd love to institute a technical means of preventing this use of network resources. There are two main problems, however - one with which the evil conglomerates can help and one with which they cannot: First, it's difficult to get the attention of management that there is a problem. Letters from lawyers are wonderful for curing management ignorance, and I'm always happy to have one to wave around. Second, it's difficult to prevent people from accessing many types of content, because it can be difficult or impossible to distinguish that which is necessary and germane to work from that which is not. For example, many companies try to prevent their employees from looking for other jobs on company time. A technical solution to this problem might involve programming the proxy server to reject common job-hunting sites. Unfortunately, the folks in HR have a legitimate need to obtain that content. So we either add special cases for HR, block content for everyone, or block it for nobody. When you factor in all the different types of content which might have those types of "redeeming value" to the company, and the variety in people who might need access to them, maintaining the policies becomes extremely costly.

There's little that brochures like the ones presented can do to solve this problem, and it's especially insinuous that the types of content referred to are often undistinguishable from that which employees might legitimately need for business purposes. Nevertheless, this sort of activity does raise management awareness and gives us the possibility of finding and implementing at least partial solutions. Frankly, though, in many cases the problem is best solved by policy rather than technology, and watching the first half-dozen Kazaa addicts get their walking papers will probably be far more effective than the fanciest access control list I could ever devise.

Because it's obvious you've never considered this problem from a real-world perspective - I'd guess from the tone and composition of your commentary that you are no older than 20 and have never worked as a technology professional at a for-profit company - I'm going to ignore your various insults and stick to the facts. The problem as I have presented it is real, and should you find yourself in some years practicing in this line of work, you will face it as well. If you find a solid technical solution, I hope you'll share it with the rest of us at a technical conference; I for one would be grateful. In the meantime I'll be happy enough for the management-level attention the megaliths are trying to raise.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[The Man]

As said before If you steal a car thats a crime and if you steal a song - thats a copyright infrigment.

Let's get one thing straight - at this time in this place the Rule of Law states that copyright infringement is a crime. You may reject the Rule of Law, or you may argue that such infringement should not be considered criminal, but it is wrong to assert that it is not.

If evrybody would pay for evry little pice of IP they need/take/use/etc the worlds economy would colaps.

I'll pardon your dreadful spelling on the assumption that you're using a handheld computer with neither keyboard nor stylus. Nobody is suggesting that you must pay for anything. I am stating that when you take something belonging to another person which he or she deems to be of value you are - morally and legally - required to compensate that person at a mutually agreed upon rate. I shall take several examples immediately visible to me: I obtained this browser from the Mozilla project without paying a cent; the creators tell me I am free to use it so long as I follow certain requirements should I choose to distribute it to others. The monitor in front of me was purchased at auction - at a mutally agreeable cash price. The keyboard I type on was a gift from family; I paid nothing for it. And the music playing in the background is a gift from the local radio station; I am free to listen to it as much or as little as I please. None of this did I steal, yet I may use all of it. Much of it contains a great deal of copyrighted materials: the board layouts in the monitor, the code in Mozilla, the original works playing on the radio. My world has hardly collapsed because of it.

Yes I use P2P apps for downloading movies and music. And you know what I went to the cinema 6 times this year(thats once a week) and bought 4 CD with music - two of them were from an artis I firstly heard off on internet... So don't bull me about that I stell from rightful owners.

All except your last sentence is sensible. But the simple fact is that you do steal from the owners of the works you illegally download and enjoy (I am assuming that these are works to which you have not been granted rights; there is nothing illegal about P2P software nor downloading or uploading music or movies). You have taken something, without permission or compensation, which is of value to its owner - the right to exclusive distribution of those works. That is what a copyright is - the right to make and distribute copies and to set the terms by which one is willing to do so. Your actions are theft, and your refusal to admit it is cowardly. If you believe that the concept of intellectual property is immoral, stand and be counted. Do not hide behind the old defense of "it's not theft because I wish to do it and it hurts nobody." Either cease your actions, admit your wrongdoing, or declare the system corrupt. Other options are for the morally weak.

And don't go to moral about it here, becouse evrybody is a copyright infridger (one way or another (you tape a show, sing a song,...))

This is a moral issue; issues of ethics and law always come back, ultimately, to what is right and what is wrong. Trying to avoid the issue of right and wrong in a policy battle is, again, cowardly. Your examples are especially unfortunate; taping a show to watch at a later time for your own pleasure or information is not copyright infringement. Singing a song to yourself or with friends for entertainment is not copyright infringement. Both of these fall, variably, into either fair use doctrine or nonexclusive grants of right to use by copyright holders. It is impossible to argue that stealing a DVD from the corner store is any different from borrowing and then copying a friend's. In both cases, a property owner has been denied compensation for something of value. Buying a DVD, then making a copy of it for yourself, is a different matter entirely. I hope you can learn to see the distinction, because if your arguments are the best we see advanced before the Supreme Court, our losses as a civilization will be horrendous.

There is a clear and solid line between fair use and theft, and your morally deficient arguments in defense of blatant theft are despicable. It's sad that so many people have difficulty distinguishing you - a cowardly thief lacking moral convictions - from me - a staunch advocate of fair use, research, and journalism rights. You'd like others to think your arguments carry some nobility when it is clear they do not.

The challenge for my kind in the coming years will be not to convince the legislatures and courts that the evil conglomerates are wrong but to convince them that you are and that we are not you. This is not a search for some touchy-feely middle ground between misguided leftists and imperialist corporations, it is a principled stand for justice among thieves of two brands seeking only to steal from one another.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[Master of Transhuman]

What about him? Why can't he make his money off first sale? Why does he need royalties? Because the industry can rip him off by "Hollywood accounting" with royalties, that's why...

Re:do you wanna bet...

[God! Awful 2]

Why can't he make his money off first sale? That's a laugh. Your voodoo economics doesn't work on me.

-a

Re:do you wanna bet...

[MarsBar]

Good to see that your company is paying for you to post to slashdot.

Re:do you wanna bet...

[The Man]

Duh, it's the weekend and I'm at home...on my own time. I don't post from work, for the same reason people shouldn't use Kazaa at work. Work is for work, it's not happy fun time.

And don't forget to....

[Anonymous Coward]

...do your bit to make sure that the RIAA will never stamp out P2P.

at work?

[astrashe]

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.

Re:at work?

[NetJunkie]

Please explain hos this means treating employees like kids? There is no reason for an employee to be using a P2P app at work. I don't care if you own the CD you're downloading, rip your own at home and bring it in.

P2P apps should be banned just for the security problems alone...not even considering legal liability of the company.

Grow up. Get a real job.

Re:at work?

[Sanity]

Wow - then you go and prove my point.

There is no reason for them not to wash their hands either, perhaps you should send a memo about that too?

Re:at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's something to be said for moral. Most techies intermix their day between doing solid 100% and doing solid 100% play and doing a mix of both for part of the day. It's only reasonable that we bring some of our play to work since most of us TAKE OUR WORK HOME.

Fortunately, my employer has me work from my house a couple thousand miles away and I use my own machines and bandwidth in my boxers in my den - so what I do *really* doesn't matter to anyone.

Re:at work?

[hackwrench]

grep world "real job" "real job" not found in world sorry.

Re:at work?

[bryanthompson]

The bottom line is a lot of employees need to be treated like school-children. Not everyone's a happy little drone sitting there working away all 8 hours a day. they'll sit on kazaa all day downloading movies or listening to movies if you let them.
the bottom line is that there's no reason for kazaa being on a network/business system in the first place. it sucks resources and is a security risk. I know, a good network has virus scanners and whatnot, but the bottom line is that if a program can be used to get viruses, it will. We use Eudora and still get viruses all the time.

Re:at work?

[DaveAtFraud]

Not that you need any convincing but take a look at InternalMemo.com. Yeah, some of these are just memos that somebody decided to post but I've seen a few that look like somebody shared the wrong directory (like a lay-off memo that was posted the day before the lay-offs hit).

Re:at work?

[bryanthompson]

omg, i gotta stop writing half a msg then coming back and writing the rest. can you tell i'm at work? yeah, i'm a hypocrit... there goes't my karma.

Re:at work?

[NetJunkie]

The problem is legal liability. If I know my employees download this stuff and don't do anything then the company can be liable. I'm not going to get in trouble and possibly fired so people I manage can warez Britney Spears.

Re:at work?

[DarwinDan]

I agree wholeheartedly! As stated previously, the security risks from (virus-infused) software obtained on P2P services are enough of a reason to block P2P ports at the corporate level.

Oh yeah, I also forgot about those hard drives they have in those computers. What happens when Joe Worker fills up his HDD with 50 gigs of MP3's and nude pictures of Sarah Michelle Geller? Because of Joe's downloading habits, Company X must send an IT person to backup the old HDD, replace it, install a new one, and transfer all 50 gigs of P2P junk to the new HDD. All this while the same IT person could be patching his M$ IIS server (cough cough). Who costs Company X more money? Joe Worker, of course! Who does this cost get passed onto? The everyday consumer! (But I digress...)

Downloading pr0n while the IT department could be sniffing your connection should scare people enough to NOT use P2P at work.

Moral of this story:
GET YOUR OWN CONNECTION!

Re:at work?

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Yeah, managers who think that their employees should be treated like school-children."

Who says it's about treating coworkers like 'school-children'?

I'm a sysadmin for a small company. I used Kazaa at home quite a bit. I'm against the RIAA's stance on P2P. Despite all that, I don't want it used at work, and I will (and have) told people to remove it. Not because I'm an asshole or because I wanted to use my 'power'. I did it to make sure that my company doesn't invent mindless policies as a result of problems that arise from it. If the net connection gets bogged down and it's traced back to P2P usage, then my company will respond with a strict internet policy. That would suck because my company has a "It's only a problem when it's actually a problem" stance on things like that.

The dude you just got shitty with is right. Don't put businensses into a position where they WILL have to create policy. Especially when it is completely unnecessary.

Re:at work?

[jackcolt2]

Your comment is interesting because there are "productivity" software products such as Groove Networks that are designed as Peer2Peer collaboration tools. Are products such as Groove now evil because of an architectual decision? Are the RIAA and MPAA now dictating how software can be architected? This would be a poor choice on their part, I believe the design decisions are best left to the talent. The RIAA and MPAA are now scared and thrashing. They will try any little dirty trick to get their way (millions in sales and royalty). I suggest that we all stop buying music and movies. Why give them more money to attack us with?

Re:at work?

[supabeast!]

" I wouldn't want people I was managing screwing around with p2p software at work."

I totally agree. I get SO pissed when my EFnet chats get lagged because the office warez monkeys are maxing out the T1 just to get mp3s and isos! People need to get cable!

Re:at work?

[fermion]

If one is going to act like a school child, then one needs to be treated as a school child. This principle applies to everyone. If a high school student wants to be treated as an adult, then he or she cannot act like an out of control child. If a middle school child doesn't want to be treated a a elementary school kid, that child must show the ability to work independently.

Likewise one would like to hire adults, but often for the available money that can be difficult. There are poeple who will spend the whole day on the phone. There are people who see the company broadband as a source for free porn and other content. With freedom comes responsibility. Abuse of the freedoms result in thier loss.

Re:at work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, at my job, we need to test a lot of stuff. Sometimes a customer will use something odd at his site and complain that it's doing weird stuff to our software. The amount of time and effort it would take me personally to somehow effect a change in our company to convince them to shell out money to legitimately buy a license for a copy of that third party software that I need to reproduce the problem the customer is having at their site is so enormous that I would be chastised and harpooned for not solving the problem long before the actual resources to solve the problem arrived.

Often, a quick P2P download of a pirated version of the software the customer is using gives me what I need to reproduce the problem for them and fix it in about one five-thousandth of the time it would have taken to go through corporate bullshit.

Not to mention, work is where I get all the cool wares from my employer, co-workers and various other people.

Re:at work?

[evilviper]

P2P apps should be banned just for the security problems alone...

Well, in that case, access to the internet should be banned. A P2P program is no more risky than Web browsing, or e-mail.

Re:at work?

[RollingThunder]

Show me a P2P antivirus/malware filter. I can show you many, many such items for web surfing or email servers.

Re:at work?

[NortWind]

Abuse of the freedoms result in thier loss.

Really? I thought some of them were supposed to be Inalienable Rights.

Re:at work?

[Sfing_ter]

I am the sysadmin for many small companies and some schools, I don't want the stuff used on my networks because I AM AN ASSHOLE, and I like to abuse my power, it is part of the job, it is why I became a sysadmin. Also it bogs my networks, and those are for legitimate business and my Quake servers.

I went through this with Napster, it bogged a T1 down so bad the librarian was dialing up to get his library updates. Because the kids thought it was cool to listen across the network, it brought their fiber backbone to it's knees. I have scripts deleting mp3, mpegs and avis. Users will suck you and your network dry, use a big fat CLUE bat to get their attention and force them to understand what exactly they are doing when they are just downloading some music for relaxation.

Re:at work?

[Gortbusters.org]

It can be even simpler.. you're at work, you're suposed to be working, not downloading for personal benefit. I know people read /. and CNN while at work, purchase things from Amazon, IM their family and make personal calls all day long. Ok, fine those take limited resources, but now you're going to have a community that eats up a lot of your bandwith for personal enjoyment.

Re:at work?

[Arjuna Theban]

$45/mo for some memos that I'll laugh at for about 10 seconds....?

They need to reevaluate their business model..

-bm

Re:at work?

[evilviper]

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. When you download a file, the regular antivirus program takes care of the scanning for "[...]virus/malware".

Re:at work?

[Daengbo]

that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Since all of these can be, and are, taken away by the legal system, your point is, well, pointless. Jefferson agreed with that when he said "I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
This agrees with you parent poster, I'm afraid to say. On another note, do you agree with Jefferson that these rights were given by the Creator?

Re:at work?

[Royster]

I don't think my employees should be treated like schoolchildren. They should be treated like adults and *fired* if they use p2p software at work.

Re:at work?

[Anonvmous Coward]

" don't want the stuff used on my networks because I AM AN ASSHOLE, and I like to abuse my power, it is part of the job, it is why I became a sysadmin."

Well ya might be an asshole, but the reasoning you provided doesn't support it. Sounds to me you did what you needed to.

Re:at work?

[RollingThunder]

Sure, on your PC (if it's running, and updated, and hasn't been trojaned by something). I'm talking about corporate filtering measures, to allow the company to be confident in the usage of the service.

Such gateway/proxy programs exist for HTTP and SMTP - but not P2P.

Re:at work?

[Master of Transhuman]

The one time I got a virus, it was from a file downloaded from P2P.

And my antivirus caught it and cleaned it...

If you don't have antivirus on every desktop in your company, you are an idiot.

Therefore, viruses in P2P are no more and no less relevant than viruses in email...which I would guess are at least as prevalent...

Therefore viruses are not an excuse to ban P2P.

Other excuses may be relevant. Bandwidth is probably the best excuse - that is a scarce resource. Just means you need a way to enforce bandwidth usage. If nobody has the bandwidth needed to download large files (i.e., from the Net, not the intranet), nobody will do it.

Re:at work?

[Master of Transhuman]

I believe Jefferson did not believe in a personal "Creator", but in Nature as the Creator.

He did write the "Jefferson Bible" which espoused Jesus' moral laws and excised the religious ones...

The Founding Fathers were not, in general, Christians of the sort George Bush admires...

Re:at work?

[evilviper]

I can't speak for Kazaa, but Gnutella transfers all it's files over HTTP...

Besides, I don't care what network filtering methods you have, an Admin is borderline negligent if they have Windows systems and don't have a local antivirus program. Just imagine how useful your network filtering will be when someone sticks in a CD or floppy that has an infected program on it. I have never yet found a company that completely disables access to portable storage media, and requires EVERYTHING to be transfered over the network.

Re:at work?

[timmyf2371]

IMO there's a difference:

Downloading a copyrighted song or video from Kazaa or the like is akin to downloading child pornography - it's very much illegal, although filetrading is socially acceptable.

Would you agree in management guidelines banning the viewing of child pornography? Or do you feel that management trying to save the company from legal issues is too much like treating employees like school children?

Tim

Re:at work?

[Daengbo]

What most of the founding father were, and the word to use there, is Deists. They, mostly, believed in a god which created and then left man alone. In short, that he/she has/had no real influence over daily life. Just asking whether beliefs were the same and whether that word (Creator) can still be supported in the US constitution.

They finally figured it out

[Gerrioholic99]

The groups remind corporations that the music industry has begun to identify organizations whose computers are used to download, upload or store music files without authorization.

In the Fortune 1000 I'm pretty sure I can name oh about 1000 companies that have computers doing these "illegal" activities

In the UK

[jaavaaguru]

In the UK, it's not unusual for people to have Internet connections at home that are just as fast as those at work. I have 512mbps broadband at home and am considering upgrading to 1mbps, which will be 4 times faster than I have at work.

If I wanted to download a lot of music, I'd SSH to a machine at home and do it there where it's faster. I guess it's different in the US though where lots of companies have T3 connections.

I'd also have though that a lot of large organisations (e.g. Fortune 1000 companies) would already have "downloading music/video" policies in place, and the smaller companies would be the ones with people doing things like this.

Anyway, if you need to spend time doing stuff like that, you're job must not be interesting enough - you employer should tackle that problem first!

Re:In the UK

[KoolyM]

While my home connection (700 something mbps) is now actually *faster* than my office connection (512), I still use P2P apps a lot at work: we have a server at the office where we store mp3s and it's just so much easier (on your workstation) to get mp3s of CDs you own (honest!) from SoulSeek than it is to bring in the CD and rip it (not to mention that most of the music I own is on vinyl, which is too much of a hassle to rip anyways).

The boss is fine with us doing this, it's not like it takes up a lot of work time to load up a queue of downloads once every few days or so.

Re:In the UK

[gearheadsmp]

Yeah, I'm sure you have a 512 megabit-per-second connection. Nice typo ;)

Re:In the UK

[jaavaaguru]

Oops! I wish!

Re:In the UK

[Zeinfeld]

In the UK, it's not unusual for people to have Internet connections at home that are just as fast as those at work.

Yeah and they don't take a tea break at 11 o'clock or 3:30.

As the signs in London said "Make Tea, Not War".

I'd also have though that a lot of large organisations (e.g. Fortune 1000 companies) would already have "downloading music/video" policies in place,

Not to mention firewalls that are pretty P2P unfriendly.

But the RIAA are basically playing into the corporate policy game. Basically Big 5 consultancy, sorry Big 4, oops make that 3 firms have a racket in which they charge $50K a pop for an 'Employee Navigator' or some such. These are written by fresh out of college grads billing at $2K a day or more. So any proposal is likely to get thrown in.

This is how we are going to get companies to take noptice of spam problems. Make them scared of fired employees claiming that being bombarded by hard core spam created a hostile workplace.

Re:In the UK

[stonedCoder]

I hope you're not using NTL (see this)

Along with the rants, there's some interesting ideas about who and why, with major copyright holders and money for a debt-ridden company being used in the same string ;)

Re:In the UK

[jaavaaguru]

I am with Telewest actually. The service has been really good, and my IP address has only changed once since I signed up. That makes connecting to home from work via SSH very easy.

Re:In the UK

[stevey]

I'd actually argue that the other way around.

In the UK it is extremely common to have people with only dialup access at home, and a better connection at work.

Until very recently this was the case for me, I'd happily schedule the download of ISO's overnight at work, burn them onto cd-rom and take them home with me. (My own cd-roms, and only legal things like Debian ISO's I hasten to add).

Sure things are change now with a much higher availability of broadband, but I know more people on dialup than not..

Re:In the UK

[SoSueMe]

Make them scared of fired employees claiming that being bombarded by hard core spam created a hostile workplace.

14 years away from retirement and the organization I work for going to a total "Microsoft Solution".
It's not the "hard core spam" I'll use, it's the "Going Bald?", "E.D." spam that I'll claim caused the stress which I'll use to get a settlement to ease my pre-retirement years.

Thanks for the idea!

Re:In the UK

[jaavaaguru]

It all depends on whether you live in a city or in the wildernedd I guess. I lived in the Middle Of Nowhere untill September last year, and had to put up with a 56k modem. Most of my friends, whether through univeristy accommodation, or buying the connection themselves, have 512kbps or greater.

Re:In the UK

[stevey]

I'm in Edinburgh, which has just had some of it's exchanges upgraded.

(OT: The email I got contained an advert - is this a new thing? First I remember seeing it)

Re:In the UK

[jaavaaguru]

I've moved from Ayrshire to Edinburgh last September. Was your `last email' an HTML one? I filter those out. I've not seen an advertisement in a Blueyonder/Telewest email yet.

Re:In the UK

[stevey]

Ahh another local person.

Nope it wasn't a HTML email:

From: slashdot@slashdot.org
To: stevey

FREE Apache SSL Guide from Thawte
Are you worried about your web server security?
Click here to get a FREE Thawte Apache SSL Guide
and find the answers to all your Apache SSL security needs.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/blah

jaavaaguru has posted a comment in reply to your comment.
Re:In the UK
*snip*

Spamassin passed it, but it won't pass the Slashdot lameness filter? That's kinda ironic, surely?

Good For Them

[Pave Low]

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?

Re:Good For Them

[koko775]

Right on.
What rights?

They're companies, and as such can impose anything on the employees unless there is a LAW protecting them. Constitutions (US and state) only protect the rights of people from the government.

For example, any sort of club or company can racially discriminate however they want -- unless there is a law prohibiting them from doing so. On the other hand, the GOVERNMENT (US or state) cannot distinguish between race if it is laid out in the CONSTITUTION (US or state).

IANAL, but my dad is.

Re:Good For Them

[Anonymous Coward]

no shiznit

you can't do a lot of things at work. you can't wear what you like, you can't practice your religion in public (unless it involves praying to a certain deity, then you're patriotic), you can't tell a pretty co-worker that you think she's pretty, you can't set your own hours, and you can't use the computer for personal use (though somehow they don't mind the phone used for personal stuff).

I'm self-employed. That means I can wake up at 10, I can work in my undies with my cock hanging out, jerking off to porn, and I can download Britney till my MP3 player deletes itself in protest.

Don't people read their employer agreements?? You're a PIECE OF A MACHINE, and if you don't function correctly you will be adjusted!

Re:Good For Them

[wuice]

Well, for me the question isn't "should you be allowed to download p2p at work" so much as it's "what right does the RIAA and MPAA have to dictate policy to other companies?"

Re:Good For Them

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm self-employed. That means I can wake up at 10, I can work in my undies with my cock hanging out, jerking off to porn, and I can download Britney till my MP3 player deletes itself in protest.

If this is how you work, then I'm gald you don't work for me.

Re:Good For Them

[redhog]

Hm, seems to me just large companies, and mostly just large american companies have such strict rules... I'm working for a small consultant company, accessing the servers from remote, and my boss have next to no control over what I do and then, and don't need to have - I do what he expect me to do, and what I do in addition to that is my buissenes (Ok, this is on my onw hardware, but still). And at none of my previous jobs, no one has had any problems with people listening to mp3s, as long as they didn't _provide_ mp3s with some ort of server software to the outher world... The only thing people here seems to get upset about is porn (and I would say rightly so, as most porn is quite unequal)...

This isn't that bad...

[I'm a racist.]

Honestly, compared to the usual shit these two organizations pull, sending out recommended procedures is really not so bad. Of course, (not having read the memo) I'll assume they made some "threats" against those companies that don't implement said procedures (as per their 'usual shit').

If they kept themselves confined to asking companies to police themselves, and "enlightening" the public to the plight of their failing business model, I wouldn't really hate them. The problem is that they insist on buying laws and bullying other companies into proping up their fading legacy.

Re:This isn't that bad...

[Forgotten]

But the question remains, what the hell business does the RIAA or MPAA have telling me how I should administer *my* business. This isn't for your own good in the sense that it'll improve productivity (in fact, being able to listen to music at work and freely use the net often raises productivity). That's only a question of having good employees with interesting work to do anyway.

This is simply a veiled legal threat. It's "do this or we'll eventually get around to suing your ass off". Never mind that it's largely an empty threat - the intent is to invade another business and, through legal chill, affect the way they *do* business. And that's simply unacceptable.

More terror tactics

[www.sorehands.com]

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.

Re:More terror tactics

[El Pollo Loco]

What I don't understand is the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. Just because they have a log saying an IP from a company was downloading illegalsong.mp3 doesn't mean that the person doesn't actually own that on cd. Why are they guilty until proven innocent. I see how an individual couldn't fight them, or a small business because of the legal costs involved, but a fortune 1000 company should be able to. At least, I'd hope they could fight them, and I'm sure they'd be able to recover legal fees in court.

Re:More terror tactics

[GreatOgre]

Companies will take action and institute policies against downloading copywritten materials. This will be their defense against the company being liable for the downloading.

I agree. It's a shame that none of these companies have the backbone to tell the RIAA and MPAA to back the fuck off!

Re:More terror tactics

[dmaxwell]

The problem is that the mere act of viewing a webpage involves "downloading copyrighted materials". The browser cache even retains copies of some of it for awhile.

Such a policy taken literally means that the organization in question will have to pull their net connection entirely.

A better policy would forbidding downloading of copyrighted material without permission. Normal websites give implicit permission to do the downloading necessary to view them. This also has the advantage of forbidding illegal mp3 downloads while still permitted downloads of legal mp3s and software.

Re:More terror tactics

[droleary]

Companies will take action and institute policies against downloading copywritten materials.

Of course, the only real way to do that is to shut off the Internet connection completely. There are very few things people access online that are actually in the public domain.

Re:More terror tactics

[dirk]

What I don't understand is the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. Just because they have a log saying an IP from a company was downloading illegalsong.mp3 doesn't mean that the person doesn't actually own that on cd. Why are they guilty until proven innocent. I see how an individual couldn't fight them, or a small business because of the legal costs involved, but a fortune 1000 company should be able to. At least, I'd hope they could fight them, and I'm sure they'd be able to recover legal fees in court.

Well, it has been decided that even if you own the CD, you still can't download the songs. You can rip your CD and use those MP3s, but you can't dl the songs, that is still illegal. Whether you agree with this or not, it is stil the law. So if that person did download the song, then they are guilty.

But more importantly, why should a company fight the RIAA for you to have the right to download songs you may or may not own? They could care less if you really like the newest Britney CD, you're at work and should be doing work, not downloading MP3s. Even if it is legal for you to be downloading the song, the company still probably believes you shouldn't be doing it at work (because you should be working), so why should they spend their money to defend your silly, work-avoiding ass?

Re:More terror tactics

[bm_luethke]

Why are they guilty until proven innocent.

Unforunatly this seems to be a trend in our (I am assuming American) society. Accused of sexual harrasment? Not only do our courts assume you are guilty but so does society. Copyright violation? you need to produce a liscense, not them prove you don't have one.

While this may work in civil court (simple preponderance of the evidence - inability to produce liscense *may* constitute this) it is appaling how often this occurs in criminal hearings. It is simply a sign of the decline of our society. We have "protected" classes that can basically do no wrong and "unprotected" classes that can do no right. I am reminded of one of the politcal quotes I once read "The severity of the charge is such that impeachment is relevant" in the case of a senator that HAD NOT DONE WHAT HE WAS CHARGED WITH!!!!!! It was provable that he had not, yet they still wanted impeachment (though they didn't get it).

While I have no particular love for the govt there is no reason to punish any entity (either an individual or group) simply because they were accused of a serious crime (or non-serious crime).

I better stop typing, I can go on for hours about this :)

What I want to know is...

[Visaris]

How much will it cost the RIAA and MPAA to send out all these letters? How much money will they save/make by stopping the "theft"?

Re:What I want to know is...

[Alien Being]

"How much will it cost the RIAA and MPAA to send out all these letters?"

If only there were some type of decentralized distribution system... oh wait.

Here are some of the enclosed brochures

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear fellow workers (and soon to be ex-workers).

We the managment of [INCLUDE COMPANY NAME], have felt it necessary to assert our position in regard to file sharing as dicated by the RIAA and MPAA of America.

You, the much loved workers of [INCLUDE COMPANY NAME], are from this day forth given the notice, that any contraband (aka shared files) ending with the following (but not limited to) extensions are hereby seen as illegal.

Extensions : .avi and .mp3

If for any reason any file ending with these extensions were found on your desktop or backup media, we would be forced to report you to the good companies listed above and further report you to our good government. You will be reported as terrorist file sharers who are affecting our great nations economy by sharing the files ending in the said extensions.

The lawyers representing [INCLUDE COMPANY NAME], RIAA and MPAA could at no point be sued or counter sued for any loss. You withhold the right to class action lawsuite, trial by jury and any sort of criminal charges against the companies that own the said file extensions.

Any tools that you use to create, display or duplicate the said file extensions are from this day forth labeled as tools of terrorists.

Thank you.
[INCLUDE NAME OF COMPANY CEO].

Call the BSA

[girth]

Someone should make sure all the copies of M$ Word the RIAA and MPAA use to create these memos are licensed and accounted for.

My company already did this to us..

[stephenisu]

The admin at my work was way ahead on this one.. not only did he try to scare us by saying it was illegal.. but he used a script to email EACH employee a list of mp3 and ogg files on our comps.. no way did i think he would catch my ogg files.. damn he's good. Thats one way to stop this stuff at work.

Re:My company already did this to us..

[tzanger]

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.

Re:My company already did this to us..

[doormat]

So what? He sent you a list of the MP3s/OGGs you had? And what if you had the legit CDs to prove that you've purchase a license for that content? You own the right to play it, big deal. I'm not risking lost/stolen CDs to appease the RIAA.

Re:My company already did this to us..

[humblepie]

I may be missing something here but if a company admin insists on scanning your computer for .mp2 or .ogg files just change the extension to something like .bin and play your music by selecting the 'open with' option of the popup menue.

Re:My company already did this to us..

[kd5ujz]

assuming you are using windows, change .mp3 or .org to .whatever and make the association for winamp or whatever media player you are useing. When you download a file, just rename it. Admin has to guess your scheme.

Re:My company already did this to us..

[jim3e8]

Do they forbid copied audio CD-Rs as well? How can they tell? What happens if your media player caches data on disk? In memory? Better disable access to the CD-ROM drive completely, remove the USB ports, and cut off the network, so that illegal material can't possibly get anywhere near a company computer. Anything else risks massive litigation.

Re:My company already did this to us..

[Parsa]

I don't do any downloading of mp3's at home or work. Yet I do have an external hard drive with about 2 gigs of music I take to work and listen to throughout the day. Alot more convenient than carting around all those cd's. I agree with the poster here. Just because you have digital music doesn't mean you have downloaded it at work.

J

Re:My company already did this to us..

[SN74S181]

Lots of companies have computers on the desk that don't have sound cards. There are still few business applications where a sound card is necessary.

Just thought you should know.

Re:My company already did this to us..

[The Cydonian]

A friend of mine had a huge porn stash on his comp, but because his dad/mom also uses the same system, he renamed all of them as .java and saved them in random folders. Obviously, he couldn't find all of his files after a while, so (naturally) he turned to me for help.

Let's just say not all CS undergrads have 600+mb .java files.

I know where they got this idea...

[Sanity]

...they have clearly been stealing ideas from the management genius at Wernham-Hogg.

Shame on them.

Well that sucks big, fat, hairy monkey balls

[kfg]

I was just about to take a temp job with a Fortune 1000 company just so I could sit around all day using the company computers to download movies.

NOW they'll probably impliment some sort of official policy of displeasure with such pursuits.

Damn you RIAA.

KFG

Re:Well that sucks big, fat, hairy monkey balls

[paradesign]

i know, its as bad as those pee tests they make you take. damn ATF!

Are you now

[Forgotten]

Does this mean the media campaign has failed?

yow!

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA and MPAA Target Day-Job Downloaders

That's it, I'm switching to the night shift!

Don't worry, it won't cost the RIAA a red cent

[kfg]

The music companies they represent are billing it back against the artists, just like everything else.

KFG

oooh...evil!!!

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

Here's my message to those who would decry this as another RIAA/MPAA evil act:

Just remember, kiddies, that most large workplaces don't even CARE WTF you're doing on their computers, as long as it isn't work related. Using company equipment for non-work-related activities is grounds for dismissal in many firms, so the RIAA really shouldn't have any resistance here. They're lobbying for a different idea, but will have the same result.

Cartoon

[limekiller4]

I swear to god, every time I read something like this I have a flashback of being a kid and watching a cartoon character trying to plug up a leaking dam with his finger, then the other, then a toe, then the other toe...

Valenti does look a lot like Droopy, you have to admit.

Valenti
Droopy

Or if we're going for apropos over strict resemblance...

Most shops will have allready put a stop to this.

[nlinecomputers]

I would bet that many if not most places will have allready put a stop to this not because of the legal risks but because of the virus risks and bandwidth hogging issues that P2P access uses. Many colleges have blocked such nets because of the bandwidth use.

I would think this is a non issue.

Hasn't stop some people I know

[wendigo2002]

Where I work we have several pc's shared by our group. A few weeks ago I came in to find one of our people had put Kazaa on my workstation. Nice! I promptly unistalled it and let them know that if they want to jepordized their job fine, but don't put that on the pc I use.

Re:Hasn't stop some people I know

[wendigo2002]

Well being that I'm a contractor and not fully hired on yet and my company is trimming operations jobs I wanted to minimize shit like this. People have been getting let go for lesser stuff than this.

RIAA is too late

[blair1q]

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.

Liabilities

[BadBlood]

I'm sure that businesses will take this very seriously, unfortunately. It's their computer equipment, technically, and if you have illegal media on it the business could face severe liabilities. Just like if you had pirated software on company computers. Not good. I would guess that most corporations would firewall away access to these networks anyway.

Not children - Adults.

[nlinecomputers]

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.

Re:Not children - Adults.

[wuice]

Actually I'd say you and the parent post you were responding to are equally childish. You act like you're doing a huge favor to the people who do the actual work to keep your company running and keep you in profit by allowing them to beg for your bandwidth.

Re:Not children - Adults.

[nlinecomputers]

Are you going to prosecute people for drinking at YOUR water fountain or using YOUR toilet paper or breathing YOUR air?

No but if they dug a pipe line and taped my water pipe and ran it to their house I would. Or if they stole rolls of toliet paper(which I have had done to me and cases of paper and pens and other office supplies...) I would. When my restroom supply line triples in one month I've either got a employee with a REAL bad colon problem or one who is stealing from me.

There's no place for downloading crap all day and getting nothing done...but if people still get their work done, anything that can be done to make them happy workers (including allowing downloads) is a good thing.
One if your a slacker then you deserve to get axed. As you agree.

Two if your stealing music and using MY network to do it then the music Nazis will sue ME. This isn't about my being "draconian". It's about my protecting myself and my company.

What if one of my workers decided that he would be a "happy worker" if he grew POT in his cubical. Should I allow that? Hey go rob a bank and use the company car. Downloading music is theft. Don't expect me to add "illegal warez music downloading" as one of the company benifits next to the dental plan!

I may be an ass but your an idiot. If you've had managers treat you like your a child it because you behave as such. WAAAH! Bossman won't let me have my music. Grow up.

Re:Not children - Adults.

[phillymjs]

Adults don't assume what others should know or expect. They explain out in front what is and isn't expected. Why?

Because common sense and personal responsibility are lost concepts today. How are people supposed to know that McDonald's coffee is hot, unless it says so on the cup? How else are people supposed to know that the SUV in the commercial really can't drive vertically up the side of a skyscraper, unless a disclaimer on the screen says so?

Not really on topic, but I just like to rant about this once in a while. Forgive me. :-)

~Philly

Re:Not children - Adults.

[nettdata]

Here here!

I, too, am a small business owner, and have much the same policies in place.

We ended up firing a receptionist because she complained that her brand new iMac didn't have any hard drive space left, and she needed a new one.

One of our Sys Admins came into my office with this stupid "you ain't gonna believe this" kind of look on his face, and proceded to explain to me that after looking into her problem/request, found over 11GB (yes that's ELEVEN GIGS!) of space used on her machine to store MP3's. These MP3's were downloaded at work, using software that is NOT allowed on our internal systems (as per the employment agreement and Internet usage terms she'd signed when she was hired).

We "slapped her wrists", and a month later performed a spot check on the system, and she was already back up to 2GB of MP3's.

She didn't even have to take her coat off when she next came to work... she was out the door.

People don't seem to realize that there are financial consequences to doing this, never mind the legal liabilities.

People don't seem to understand that it COSTS MONEY to download, store, and backup that data.

Now, we believe in music (hell, I've been a musician for over 25 years, and have done "high tech" in the music industry for at least half of that), so much so that we hand out iPods when people pass their probationary period, and just about everyone understands the justifications for the policies we have in place.

I'm proud to say that we have extremely awesome employees who actually GET IT. That's quite refreshing in today's society where people have such an over-inflated sense of entitlement.

Re:Not children - Adults.

[CrypticX]

Thank God I don't work for you. p.s. Do you make your employes ask you before they can go to the bathroom?

Finally...

[kien]

I've been waiting for them to empty the other barrel of the shotgun into their foot.

Now I have a reason.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board, thank you for allowing me to speak. I'd like to address this letter and brochure that you have received from the entertainment cartels. What's that, Mr. Chairman? No sir, I did indeed call them cartels. No, please keep the lawyers in the room...they might find this informative. My presentation consists of the following:

• How to spot a failing business model
  • Lessons we can learn from the RIAA/MPAA
• How to avoid alienating customers
  • Where the RIAA went wrong
  • Where the MPAA went wrong
  • How to avoid pissing off your customers
• The concept of Fair Use
• Relevant strategic legal strategies
• Conclusion: Screw 'em.

--K.

It was only a matter of time

[c13v3rm0nk3y]

It's was only a matter of time for this to happen.

Individual companies have already contacted those businesses with a lot of "personal time" being spent on corporate networks. My own company was approached and mildly threatened by Sony because of P2P sharing.

Our IT people blocked the ports, and threatened us with various forms of violence if we shared/downloaded media. No distinction was made between legal or illegal downloads (if there really is such a thing).

Personally, I feel that home is the place to steal music. Work is for stealing software.

That last was a joke. Laugh. It's funny.

Re:It was only a matter of time

[moncyb]

No distinction was made between legal or illegal downloads (if there really is such a thing).

There is a difference. If I download music where the author / license permits it, then it is legal. Very easy. ;-)

Re:It was only a matter of time

[c13v3rm0nk3y]

True enough. I just don't think that Sony, RIAA, et al know the difference. Or care

Re:It was only a matter of time

[moncyb]

Yeah, that's the problem right there. Their real motive seems to be "crush any potential competition and screw the public for as much money as possible."

Re:It was only a matter of time

[cap'n foolsy]

no, work is the place for stealing office supplies, co-worker's belongings, and occasionally computer parts.

if you're really good, you can steal increments of a cent from your company constantly, over the course of several years, and end up with more money than you'll ever actually make working for them; although most likely you'll mess up, and land yourself in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. ;)

Why is The Man trying to keep me down??

[sawilson]

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.

RIAA and MPAA have they become th BSA?

[linuxislandsucks]

Its ironic that the RIAA and MPAA have to resort empty brouche threats like BSA>..

Remember Corps and Ltds have limited liability where actions of their employees are cocnenred..

and remember a MP3 file is not a 100% copy fo a valid cd track...

My money is not RIAA's or MPAA's

You're SUPPOSED to be working...

[crovira]

Using the employer's boxen to have fun has ALWAYS been a nono.

It's just a courtroom tool

[Proneax]

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.

Reception

[NeoMoose]

RIAA and MPAA,
Please see to it that your brochures are delivered to the proper suggestions box. They can be located out behind the offices, just find the B.F.I. logo and throw them in.

Re:Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

[jaavaaguru]

If you're going to be like that...

I've got a dual AMD Athlon MP 1600 on a 512k cable connection. At work I have a Sun Blade with some sort of high-speed connection. I've not that up on the details of it though.

What about universities?

[apple-marc]

Most (if not all) have bradband connections - and students - no money and in the RIAA's usual target audience - probably download much more music.

Re:What about universities?

[isaacwith2as]

I'm writing this from my res and all the people that like to share keep wondering why the P2P apps aren't working. Everythings locked down tight.

Re:What about universities?

[yppiz]

They'll send out letters to universities next. They just want to get a clear headline and publicity so they're doing one group at a time.

--Pat

Re:What about universities?

[devnull17]

Oh, they've already been there. The RIAA and MPAA have taken the liberty of compiling lists of hosts at my university (UMass Amherst) caught sharing files over P2P. People are having their network access privileges revoked left and right. This whole thing is really getting out of hand...

Re:What about universities?

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:What about universities?

[The Cydonian]

I posted about this earlier, but in a very high profile in our university, the RIAA/MPAA tracked a student's downloads from IRC channels before sending out a letter to the university network admin. Poor guy's account got suspended for two weeks.

Not that it's detered some intrepid folks, of course.

Contents of the memo here

[worst_name_ever]

If you're having trouble finding the "suggested memo" on the RIAA's website, here's a mirror.

Yes, and?

[Duncan3]

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.

Re:Yes, and?

[Sycraft-fu]

You aren't stealing, it's not theft. Theft is "the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it". You are not depriving anyone of property, you are makeing a copy. That is known as copyright infringment. Please keep your laws straight.

The next letter

[diabolus_in_america]

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.

Re:The next letter

[danoatvulaw]

While your thought is admirable, I have to go ahead and disagree with you. I understand that the home user is the one who typically downloads more then the office user, and that they pose more of an infringer. But from a cost/benefit analysis standpoint alone, they would never start filing suit against more then a handful of home users. Litigation is expensive as hell, and they would have to sue millions of people to make it worth while. Not to mention that they'd be suing a bunch of judgment proof individuals. The real money they hope to get is from the corps for contributory/vicarious copyright infringement - they have the deep pockets. If they are just doing this as a scare tactic, then it might be an effective way to get the average person to stop trading mp3's for fear of liability, but to actually follow it through on a large scale would be completely cost ineffective in the long run....

audiogalaxy satellite

[vistic]

I wonder how this applies to systems like what Audiogalaxy used to have.

You run the satellite on your PC at home, and then at work you can choose what songs to download via the website.

The satellite/site setup was also cool in that you could be at work and then tell the satellite running on your home PC to start playing a song.
Good for scaring people.

Freenet --

[Bonker]

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.

Re:Freenet --

[jrockway]

Uh, isn't Limewire Java? It sure is on my machine! :)

Re:Freenet --

[Bonker]

Limewire, if I'm not mistaken, is distributed in a binary executable format rather than a java class.

Re:Freenet --

[HerbieStone]

This is really a non-issue. You can packkage your java-classes with runtime environment into a nice setup.exe and then download and install all of it in one go.

Re:Freenet --

[j-pimp]

Such as Microsoft J++? Have I just spotted an astroturfer? Well lets introduce some facts.

• Mac OSX allows java apps to be integrated into the system in such a way that they can have OSX menus and look like native apps. All while being simple .jar files that run on any other platform.
  
• Its easy to install a precompiled java virtual machine on Windows, Mac, Linux, Sun, and with a tiny bit of work FreeBSD. Its getting easier with FreeBSD thanks to new legal agreements
  
• Java allows them to "write once run anywhere." Yes C is portablw in theory, but look at all the #ifdef WIN32, #ifdef __LINUX, #ifdef __MIDDLEENDIAN crap needed to achieve this in reality.
  

Ok, so Bonker bring on the .NET argument. I'm rerady to refure it.

AOL TimeWarner ads say trade songs with RoadRunner

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard on Time Warner cable channel today, in a pitch for AOL/Time Warner's digital cable service/road runner, that you can "download movies on demand" and "trade songs with families and friends" as part of their pitch for selling their service.

Time Warner is part of the MPAA/RIAA. Very interesting to hear that they are pitching "trade songs with families and friends" as part of road runner. What type of applications do you think they are talking about when they mention "trade songs..."? What applications other than p2p are the general public aware of when it comes to "trading songs..."?

Is AOL/Time Warner pitching p2p file sharing as a reason to get their service?

Can someone capture the audio on this commercial and email it to one of the groups that are fighting for fair use rights in Washington?

Re:Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

[jaavaaguru]

I'm drunk enough now to just laugh!
Hehe :-)
yeah, I guess a lot of the UK's internet sucks, but it's not to bad from where I[m sitting.

You missed the point.

[nlinecomputers]

It isn't the bandwidth that is the issue. It is the downloading of illegal music.

Don't break the law and use my network to do it and not expect me to act to protect my company.

I'll fire you and sue you and have you arrested, if need be, to demostrate to the music RIAA lawyers that I wasn't at fault in allowing a P2P server or heavy P2P downloading to run on my network. They would argue that I should know what is happening on my network. And they would be correct.

You act like you're doing a huge favor to the people who do the actual work to keep your company running and keep you in profit by allowing them to beg for your bandwidth.

Well we do each other favors. I pay them well and give them benifits, that includes, for some, unrestricted I-net access, and they provide skills and labor to me and the company. But in the end I am responsable in a large part for what they do. I can be sued just for "allowing" a crime to happen even if I have no active part in it.

As for the begging comment. There is no begging. There is negotiotions. If myself and a new potential employee can't come to an agreement then they don't work here. And after they come to work they break the agreement by violation of the terms then they don't work here. Violation of the law will get you fired at most any place of work last time I checked. And copyright theft is a violation of the law.

Downloading at work

[Nogami_Saeko]

I enjoy the work that I do, I enjoy my nice office, working with my co-workers, relatively flexible work-schedule, etc.

I have no pirated software, Pr0n, or P2P applications on my machine at work. I have no desire to lose the sweet deal that I have by screwing around with stuff like that.

I imagine that people who hate their jobs, coworkers, boss, etc. may view things differently and not care if they land the company they work for in legal trouble - there's always another job to be found. And of course, if they get fired, they'll promptly rat-out their office to the BSA (no matter if they have pirated software or not, an audit is nasty, costly, and uncomfortable for teh company).

The moral is, keep your employees happy and content, and they won't feel the need to put your business in jeaopardy. Treat your employees badly at your own peril.

I think that's right on

[Sycraft-fu]

At the university I work at we are having to put more and more restrictive policies on the dorms because of P2P (Kazaa mainly, as it's a really greedy protocol). Has nothing to do with legality, we are a provider and are not a net cop, we deal with reported violations but don't (and can't) police the network. However the bandwidth usage is just unacceptable. So thye keep getting more and more restrictive bandwidth caps which, unfortunately, hurts people who need bandwidth for other things.

If people had just kept it under control, we wouldn't care.

Can we see the brochure?

[drdanny_orig]

I hope someone can make it available here when it comes out.

Listening to music

[moncyb]

I agree with you on the points where you say employees shouldn't be allowed to do illegal things on company time, waste time at work, or use up company resorces for non-work purposes. But are you seriously saying listening to music wastes company time?

I'm listening to music now. Do you think I took longer to write this post just because I'm listening to music???

/me wishing I could remember where those studies are which said music boosted productivity.

This USA Today article, on CNN.com...

[abhinavnath]

Wow. Good job checking the links and proofreading by everybody involved in posting that article. USA Today really needs to work on branding though. I could have sworn I was reading CNN...

Management causes these problems.

[rice_burners_suck]

The company I work for pays us good money. But management sucks, so nobody in my department ever does any work. All we do is play Yahoo Chess and download all sorts of music, movies, etc. It's kind of fun. In fact, one of my buddies is running his own business out of his cubicle, another guy is writing erotic novels, and another dude just drinks beer and looks at porn all day. Oh yeah, and I'm the manager of our department. They really love me--my subordinates, that is. My superiors think I'm a jackass, and one day they'll pull the plug on our department... But until then, like I said, we're all earning some sizable salaries and basically not doing jack shit to deserve it.

Professional conduct?

[Alioth]

In many cases, downloading MP3s without the copyright holder's consent whilst at work is usually serious professional misconduct. I don't know of many employers who say "You may break the law on company time".

Hah... Amateurs.

[ebbomega]

ssh -X home.box.address
pyslsk

AOL TimeWarner ads say trade songs with RoadRunner

[Anonymous Coward]

I posted the parent. I don't have any sales brochures. It is a commercial that is running on television. I haven't paid enough attention to see if it was a cable channel, or a network channel (tv is running in background, and I never pay attention to commercials). My VCR is dead, or I'd have a vcr running all day to try and capture that commercial.

It would be really helpful if someone could capture that commercial (video and/or audio) in its entirety.

If you can get the audio and make an mp3 or wav out of it, that would be great. For video, use best judgement, but an open source tool would be preferred.

If you are able to capture audio and/or video of the time warner/road runner commercial as described in the parent post, please contact "one name like Cher" at http://www.nylxs.com and you'll be given an email address to send the file to.

You'll be helping the fight for fair use rights.

btw, I don't use road runner. I have a dsl connection that doesn't have any restrictions, I can run servers, vpn, no restrictions on ports, etc.

And one more important point for road runner users: prior to on demand movies, you got decent bandwidth on road runner as long as there weren't many road runner users in your immediate area on line at the same time. If a lot of users were on line and downloading at the same time, your connection crawls. I have relatives who have the service, and I've seen the service (prior to on demand movies) slow down to slower than dial up during certain times of the day and evening. I haven't seen time warner cable running any additional wiring in any nearby neighborhoods. That means you are now competing with on demand movies for bandwidth. You may want to avoid the internet during evening/night hours from now on.

Good luck.

This isnt bad, this is different.

[nurb432]

While its none of their business what I do at home, we are talking corporate computers here, I *DON'T* have the same set of rights at the office.

Actually we have almost zero rights... Its their building, its their systems, we are being paid to work..etc.

This is a different situation. Now should they be bugging corporations? That's a different topic..

Re:do you wanna bet...The god of greed.

[richieb]

Your denying them compensation for the time and effort that went into creating the item in question. The form in which the item in question takes doesn't change that fact.

What if the person who created the work in question is dead? I downloaded a recording by Charlie Parker yesterday. I already own tons of his records (on vinyl and CD), just that particular tune wasn't on any of them.

Now, what did I steal?

Do you listen to the radio? Do you change the stations when commercials come on? If so, according your definition, you are stealing - you are listening to music without paying anything.

Re:Everyone

[billburroughs]

Thing is, though, I would never recommend downloading from work. It puts your employer in too much jeopardy for lawsuits, which is just not fair. That being said, they can pry the mp3s I have brought via external media sources and loaded on my PC from my cold, dead hands. When they start trying to convince my employer that I cannot have mp3s on my hard drive, even totally legal ones, we'll probably have to blow their fucking houses up (metaphorically, I think).

Morons! This Is What Bandwidth Control Is About..

[Master of Transhuman]

Restrict the bandwidth from the the desktop to the Net (not the intranet) and people will stop downloading because it will be too slow.

Don't know how? Better get on it...

Don't write policy - code...

No, you'd rather throw your weight around and prove what a "BMOC" you are...

Morons...

D.A. predicted this in H2G2...

[/Idiot\]

"Time is an illusion, Arthur. Lunch time doubly so."

Re:do you wanna bet...The god of greed.-II

[richieb]

Being an anarchist may make the Slashdot crowd feel better[1], but it does nothing toward solving the problem, and makes the situation worst for both those playing by the rules[3], as well as those who seek to break it. Is that what you want?

You are right. We should be doing more to change the situation, rather than just disregard the current law.

I've done a little - wrote few letters and talked to people explaining the problem. It's suprizing how many people are not aware of the copyright land grab. I lend out my copy of "The Future of Ideas" a lot...

Re:do you wanna bet...The god of greed.

[The Man]

What if the person who created the work in question is dead?

Finally, a decent question. Well, that question has already been settled by the law in most countries, but whether that settlement is just or beneficial to society is another question. Western - and now worldwide - law is based on corporate ownership, which means that the rights associated with copyright can be owned in common. Specifically, they can sold by their original holders to other individuals or corporations, or even to the public, and the rights they confer remain valid even after the original holder's death.

Therefore, by the laws existing in this time and place, the original artist's death has no effect on the legality of stealing his copyrighted works - if he held the rights, his estate now does; if he sold them, the buyers still do. In either case, if your act would have been theft during the artist's life, it is no less so because of his death.

Now then, whether that represents justice to you depends on which you believe the atom of law ought to be - the human, or the corporation. At present, the corporation is the fundamental particle of law, with a living breathing human treated only as a special case of the corporation. In accordance with this principle, the death of an author or musician is meaningless; the rights to his or her works survive because it is the corporate concepts of ownership - ownership that does not depend on any specific person - which matter most. No matter what it is, *some* corporate body always owns everything.

This legal theory is convenient for governments and lawyers in that it generates huge volumes of paper and many disputes - if somebody owns everything, there can be no limit to disputes, and if the records of ownership are always on paper somewhere, there can be no limit to the pay of those assigned to trace them. It also gives ready cover to those persons seeking to shield themselves from the consequences of their own actions - the actions, one argues, were those of the corporation rather than the perpetrator himself. Nevertheless, this form of law also allows tremendous concentration of capital, since rights of ownership transcend the individual both in space and in time. This provides the fundamental ethical question: is the benefit to society brought about by allowing this concentration of captial over space and time greater or less than the smaller but much more numerous benefits which would accrue by turning over to the public domain an individual's lifetime accomplishments upon his or her death? This question merits careful consideration - in ages past, people lived much shorter lives and were usually more concerned about their decendents' fates than their own, and this thought process spurs creators and innovators by ensuring that the proceeds of their works will survive their deaths and provide for generations yet unborn. It allows a more careful and prudent pattern of investment and stabilises the economy by allowing many individuals to share risks together over a span of many years. But it also contributes to a terrifying concentration of power and to the imbalance between then individual born without corporate backing and the one born with it. And in the modern era, with people living 80 years and more and so often showing little concern for family, might it not be possible for a single individual to accomplish enough in one lifetime that the sum of these individual accomplishments returned to society upon death would be greater than the stabilizing advantages offered by the existence of the corporation?

This is the question you must answer for yourself, before you can properly decide whether the copyright extension law or the DMCA are good or ill, and whether you gain or lose by the continuing prohibition against copying Charlie Parker's works. This is not a trivial question and I'm feeling almost silly for bringing it up in this forum; it is a major philosophical problem the world will have to decide. Personally, I am an anticorporatist, believing in the value of the individual. That makes me a gambler, willing to accept risks both to myself by forgoing the protective shield of a corporation in my own business and to my civilization by forgoing a working system in favour of one untested in modern times. Your choice may be different, but it is not one to make lightly.

Re: why also 'and' extension?

[hany]

Extensions : .avi and .mp3

Why also 'and'??? That'll make files like 'My Bozz Iz Ignorand' unconstitutional.

:)