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Analysis of RIAA vs Princeton Student

Posted by timothy on from the dan-peng's-empire-of-evil dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "Joe Barillari, a computer science student studying under Prof. Ed Felten, posted an analysis on his blog of the lawsuit filed by the RIAA against a Princeton college student for running "Napster-like" networks. He argues that the case doesn't quite live up to its contributory infringement claim due to limitations in the DMCA. A good read!"

49 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. What!? by HeelToe · · Score: 5, Funny

    The DMCA not infinite-reaching? Time to rewrite it or get a refund - they didn't get what they paid for!

  2. RIAA can collect by archnerd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They can't collect the full 97 billion, obviously, but most of that is punitive damages, which are immune to bankruptcy. So, if the RIAA wins, the defendants will be in debt to them for the rest of their natural lives, unless one of them gets very, very rich.

    fp?

    1. Re:RIAA can collect by abhisarda · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Challenging the legality of this case applies to Joesph Nievelt too. He had 1100 mp3 on his system, unlike the 650,000 that the RIAA stated. While Napster could *only* be used to search for mp3's this search and index tool is used for a lot of files other than mp3's.

      Speaking as a present MTU student, if Joseph is expelled then MTU will be loosing a very talented programmer.

      He was ranked 4th in the nation in the Top Coder competition
      Top Coder MTU News

    2. Re:RIAA can collect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One constant throughout human history has been the struggle between the "haves" and the "have nots." For the purpose of this discussion, I will refer to the "haves" as "the elite" and will call the "have nots" "the rabble." I am doing this to emphasize the fact that the rabble, while comprising most of the population, is almost always pitifully weak and disorganized, thanks to constant manipulation by the elite. "Divide and conquer" has always been the name of the game here; it has always been easy for the elite to manipulate public opinion and keep the rabble squabbling among each other.

      The elite, though comprising only 1% of the population (the exact percentages are arguable, though the figures I am using are in the right ballpark), control most of the wealth. (In modern America, one has to be worth at least $100 million to be a serious player.) The elite don't have to work per se; they spend their time making deals, which, although stressful at times, is much too stimulating to fall into the realm of institutionalized drudgery which people commonly refer to as "work."
      Falling below the elite in status and power are what could be called "elite wannabes," "lackeys of the elite," or "wealthy rabble." These people are very wealthy by rabble standards.

      Power and status are hardwired into human behavior. Before the rise of agriculture, when humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers, it was difficult to accumulate power and status, since possessions were limited by what people could carry with them. There were probably powerful lineages that got passed through the generations, but the gap between the powerful and everybody else was limited due to the nature of their lifestyle.

      All this changed with the rise of agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago. For the first time, people became sedentary, and they produced surpluses of grain which had to be defended. These surpluses meant unprecedented power for whoever was able to control them, and the first elite was born. For the first time, organized war became possible.

      Howard Zinn's "A Peoples' History of America" describes the real dynamics at work behind the American Revolution. Rather than some idealistic "liberty and justice for all," the American Revolution was actually fomented by the American elite, who chafed under the British royalty.

      It has been pointed out that by fighting an enemy, one takes on many of the characteristics of that enemy. Interestingly, it was World War 2 when America became a fascist power. By fascism, I am referring to Mussolini's definition: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

      By 1945, state and corporate power in America had merged into what was later termed the "military-industrial complex," even though it wasn't until 1961 that Dwight Eisenhower gave his famous speech warning America about a system that had already been in place for 15 years.

      Even though America had become fascist by 1945, there remained a vast amount of consolidation to do: there still remained the rabble and their pesky vote (an archaic carryover from the Revolutionary War era). The rabble had recently suffered two major traumas -- the Great Depression and World War Two, and had reached an unprecedented level of solidarity. The rabble had become dangerous, and it was necessary to manipulate them back into their customary position of helplessness, while at the same time enhancing the power of the elite.

      It's important to realize that everything to come was perfectly "legal." (The elite have always defined what is "legal" and what is "illegal.") Further, there was no need for a "hidden conspiracy." Every iota of what the elite did was reported (and is still being reported) in the press every day. There was no need for the elite to get together and form a conspiracy: they already shared the same line of thinking. An analogy is the peace movement: nobody has to tell anybody what to do.

      The elite strategy, which began during WW 2 and was mod

    3. Re:RIAA can collect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, lets compare. In the OJ suit (the civil, not the criminal), he fined less than a hundred million for murder. Four students get fined about a hundred billion for setting up a file sharing network. Another case is Microsoft. For alleged monopoly practices, there were discussions of fining them several billion, not a hundred billion. But maybe the RIAA is correct: four students will start the end of the free world, so it is good to ruin their lives and make an example of them for any other doomsday followers.

    4. Re:RIAA can collect by TiMac · · Score: 3, Insightful
      It could be worse.

      If the RIAA triumphs over these students, and they face punitive damages of such astronomical proportions, I would hope that they'd be put on 24/7 suicide watch.

      Faced with a hopeless existence, that no matter how hard they work, they will still be in dept to a large faceless corporation, is a modern-day form of slavery. These guys would never achieve their dreams (assuming their dreams involved some sort of profit), and therefore, it's not hard to think that they might find such a life not worth leading.

      I hope so very much that this doesn't occur...but if it were to happen, I would be at the head of the line to go and kick the crap out of those greedy RIAA bastards for causing the death of a poor student.

      The parent is correct...legal or not, how can even the RIAA think this is okay? Oh...I forgot, cartels can do whatever they want.

      As a final thought....remember in Austin Powers 2 when Dr. Evil asks the President (in the 60s) for $100B? They laughed him under the table. Yet, that's exactly what these people are facing...and its no laughing matter.

      DOWN with the RIAA.

      --

  3. Does the RIAA even use Windows? by BrynM · · Score: 5, Informative
    36. Without a Napster equivalent system, LAN users cannot effectively search for and transfer song recordings over the network.
    Umm... The OS vendor makes tools to search the network for files and more. Check out the search! I would love to see the RIAA try to take on Microsoft. Squish! No more profiteering music industry the hard but effective way!
    --
    US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
    1. Re:Does the RIAA even use Windows? by Pharmboy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Judging by how well they maintain their web site, the RIAA couldn't care less if the entire Internet and all computers curled up and died tomorrow.

      The RIAA dictionary defines the Internet as:

      Internet n. A pirating device used to transfer illegal intellectual property, trade encryption circumventing devices, and communicate plots against the RIAA. Theoretically capable of email, browsing and other network functions.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  4. Solution by worst_name_ever · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe the student in question could pay the $97 billion using those great credit cards they're always handing out on college campuses!

    --

    In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
  5. Not that it matters... by Anonymous+Struct · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He makes a lot of good points, and the gist of it is that the RIAA's case is pretty poorly made. But that's something that most people already know, maybe even including the RIAA. Thing is, they don't have to win in order to be effective. They could get creamed in court and it still wouldn't matter. All they have to do is scare the living bejezus out of a handful of people and they'll get what they're after. Aiming a multi-billion dollar lawsuit at one student has a pretty sobering effect on anybody that's nearby and watching, and the RIAA has the resources to file suit all day and night, win or lose.

    Of course, based on some of the numbers that have been coming out over the last few years, they might actually stand to gain more by collecting the $96 billion from this one guy than by ending file sharing.

    1. Re:Not that it matters... by jandrese · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually the $97 Billion doesn't matter either. The only thing that matters is that they drive this guy so far in debt with legal bills (by dragging on the proceedings for a few years), that he'll never get out and serve as a warning to any college student who thinks that information wants to be free. All they want is for people to say "I don't want to end up like that guy, starving cold alone and constantly in court defending himself."

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    2. Re:Not that it matters... by MMaestro · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The 'scare tactic' of the RIAA isn't effective against its target though. You're talking about a David and Goliath battle with less than 5% of the Davids looking on as the Goliath sneezes on one of them splattering them in the ground.

      Ok a little too graphic but the point is this; you're targeting millions, if not billions, of people who download illegal MP3s many of whom have not even heard about this case. Even if it succeeds in scaring people, or even distantly succeeds in having a law passed against these programs, whos going to be insane enough to enforce it? (Using China as an example) China has trouble as it is censoring webpages which it deems illegal, so how is China going to start censoring certain search programs without censoring Windows or web browsers such as Google which has a search programs?

      This is the internet, not your hodgepodge hippie group with a bunch of college kids protesting against Vietnam that you can isolate and silence. Unless you want to try and enforce the Internet, which is suicide even if you had a couple trillion dollars and the world smartest programmers working for you, in the long run; this is going to blow over like a hyped up wimpy rain storm.

    3. Re:Not that it matters... by FunkSoulBrother · · Score: 3, Insightful

      you enforce it through things like AOL and MSN clients. The RIAA is a business, not a religious group. Which means it deals not in numbers like 0% and 100%, but in gradients. If they can succesfully shut out AOL/MSN users through their client then they may regain 30% of casual pirates as buyers. Thats a major victory for them.

      If anything, be happy. They know they can't really shut down Usenet and IRC, all the geek haunts shall be fine.

    4. Re:Not that it matters... by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Informative

      Has anyone started a defense fund?

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    5. Re:Not that it matters... by surprise_audit · · Score: 4, Interesting
      On the other hand, if the RIAA is slapped down hard by the court for wasting the court's time, that'll help to power a whole new wave of sharing.

      I only hope that when the student wins, the judge awards his costs to the RIAA, making them pay for harassing him. Can that happen in the US? It sure does happen in the UK, which may be part of the reason that frivilous lawsuits are less common over there.

      I wonder if the student can counter-sue for libel, slander, defamation of character, mental anguish, loss of grades, etc??

  6. figure this will get /.ed so here's the summary by polin8 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Dan Peng, a Princeton sophomore, for direct and contributory infringement of their members' copyrights. This essay analyzes that contributory infringement claim. Peng allegedly operated a computer service called "wake" which cataloged the publicly-shared files on the campus network. The RIAA draws a parallel between "wake" and Napster, and calls upon the court to apply the reasoning from the Napster case. Their analysis falls short in three respects:

    1. "Wake" differs fundamentally from Napster in that it (allegedly) indexed a pre-existing network, just as Web search engines index the pre-existing web. Napster, on the other hand, created the network on which its users traded music.
    2. Napster's software indexed and shared only MP3 audio files. Wake, on the other hand, (allegedly) indexed all public documents on the network, which substantially expands its range of non-infringing uses.
    3. "Wake," as a pure search engine (rather than a search-engine-plus-file-sharing-system, as Napster was), is protected by the DMCA, a fact which the RIAA does not address.

    1. Re:figure this will get /.ed so here's the summary by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wake is NOT, REPEAT NOT protected by the DMCA based on the information in the essay.

      The author didn't read the entire thing. Sure 17 USC 512(d) appears to offer protection -- but you don't get it unless you ALSO comply with 17 USC 512(c)(2), (c)(3), and (i). And I'm seriously doubting that those requirements have been met.

      Here's the lowdown:

      (i) Conditions for Eligibility. -
      (1) Accommodation of technology. -
      The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider -
      (A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers; and
      (B) accommodates and does not interfere with standard technical measures.
      (2) Definition. -
      As used in this subsection, the term ''standard technical measures'' means technical measures that are used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works and -
      (A) have been developed pursuant to a broad consensus of copyright owners and service providers in an open, fair, voluntary, multi-industry standards process;
      (B) are available to any person on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; and
      (C) do not impose substantial costs on service providers or substantial burdens on their systems or networks.

      Unless the student being sued can show that he complied with this, he does NOT get the DMCA safe harbor.

      Additionally, it is claimed that he might fall under the portion of the safe harbor per 17 USC 512(d). Well, that's bad too. Check this out.

      512(d)(3) says:
      upon notification of claimed infringement as described in subsection (c)(3)

      That refers us to 512(c)(3) regarding notification, which in part says:
      3) Elements of notification. -
      (A) To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed infringement must be a written communication provided to the designated agent of a service provider

      Well, what is a designated agent of a service provider? We only find out in 512(c)(2). It's not good:
      (2) Designated agent. -
      The limitations on liability stablished in this subsection apply to a service provider only if the service provider has designated an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement described in paragraph (3), by making available through its service, including on its website in a location accessible to the public, and by providing to the Copyright Office, substantially the following information:
      (A) the name, address, phone number, and electronic mail address of the agent.
      (B) other contact information which the Register of Copyrights may deem appropriate.
      The Register of Copyrights shall maintain a current directory of agents available to the public for inspection, including through the Internet, in both electronic and hard copy formats, and may require payment of a fee by service providers to cover the costs of maintaining the directory.

      So, unless this guy has provided to the USCO contact information, etc. for an agent to receive takedown notices, he again DOES NOT GET THE DMCA SAFE HARBOR.

      Without it, he's got a much harder case ahead of him. I don't envy him.

      --
      -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
  7. Interesting read by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Based on the article the RIAA claims have serious flaws. I dont doubt that the wake system did 'facilitate' illegal sharing of material by making it easier to find if noting else but it does not seem to fit many of the criteria to satisfy the claims. From what I cam make of the article it almost looks as if MS are much much to blame for providing the file transfer infrastructure !!
    Given the way things are going though I think its only a question of time before the network and infrastructure admins are the ones held liable for the software running on their systems. Massive lawsuits against students are ridiculous and will damage public perception. How long before they go after the universities etc who at least will have insurance to cover the financial claims.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  8. Re:For those who are interested... by WetCat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every 142th american is in jail now... You want to increase the number?

  9. My reasoning.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lawsuite like this are why I gave up downloading music and moved onto downloading only porn...

    1. Re:My reasoning.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Dear sir,
      I am writing to you on behalf of the PIAA(Pornographic Industry Association of America). It is known that you have 120Gb of illegally downloaded porn on your system. 1254 movies at $150,000 each and 6,134,563 images at $1000 each. In other words you owe us $6,322,663,000. I look forward to seeing you in court
      Yours
      The PIAAMAN

  10. Re:Did anyone bother to ask... by vegetablespork · · Score: 5, Funny
    Well i think we know how metallica feels already

    Yes, but he wanted to know how artists feel.

    --

    Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.

  11. Re:Did anyone bother to ask... by MP3Chuck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "I'm sure that at least some of the artists being shared are among the 90% or so of musical artists that are in favor of file sharing;"

    BAHAHAHA ... where did you get numbers like that?? Do you honestly think that 90% of musical artists agree with distribution of their music without getting paid for it (regardless of whether they get a lot or a little)? C'mon now...

    --
    Who doesn't like free music?
  12. RIAA preemptive strike against Beowulf clusters... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative


    Wake.princeton.edu was just the beginning. What the RIAA is trying to pre-empt is a university-sponsored effort to lash together 32, then 256 PCs for "testing networking, filing and interpreting research" according to an article in the campus paper, the Daily Princetonian!

    How so? Well the "Prince" reveals that the university has just installed its first brand new Beowulf cluster to do just that!

    Beowulf lurks around every corner, I tell you! ;-)

  13. A few questions... by Nalanthi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ok... so basically what the article is saying is that RIAA hasn't hopw of winning the indirect infrigement charge and if the kid can get a decent legal representative he can eat the direct damage charges a long with those. So I have a few questions/points I want to raise.

    1. Has the RIAA left themselves open to a countersuit for such a poorly founded lawsuit?

    2. How can we inform the public at large at how poorly this (and other) RIAA finding is founded.

    3. The author repeteadly apply's internet conventions and precedents to the lan, this makes sense to me, but will it make sense to the average computer user?

    Thats all folks,
    Nalanthi

    --
    I can't find my .sig file!
  14. Short Version by mdwebster · · Score: 4, Informative

    Looks like the guy wrote an indexing service for Windows SMB file shares on the local LAN. Made it real easy to copy mp3's from everyone elses systems. But that's just it, the same thing could be accomplished with start>search>files & folders, this just simplified that by indexing everything so you wouldn't have to go comp by comp.

    Doesn't look like they have a leg to stand on. They just need to hope for a relatively intelligent judge and/or jury, depending on how far this goes.

  15. Number of songs... by singularity · · Score: 4, Interesting

    On the original Slashdot article, people pointed out that the number of songs was unreasonable - it was more songs than Amazon carrys, by several factors of ten.

    So my question - I suppose that the "list of files" contained multiple duplicates. Can you imagine how many individual copies of a given Eminem song MP3 there would be on a college campus?

    Given that he mantained a list of networked files, and there were bound to be duplicates, how can the RIAA sue for (the number of songs in the list) x $150,000 (the maximum per song)?

    if there were three copies of Dave Matthews Band's "Crash", would that not be suing for $450,000 for one song?

    --
    - (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
  16. The RIAA Has No Case by E-Rock-23 · · Score: 5, Informative

    As a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, I recieved a rather lengthy education in the facets of Copyright Law (which is essential when producing creative works). While my knowledge pales in comparison to Mr. Barillari's, I can safely say that the RIAA has no case against Mr. Peng.

    The basis of Copyright Law is simple: A copyrighted work can not be used to make money by anyone but the copyright holder. If Mr. Peng were "bootlegging" copyrighted music - ie Making CDs and selling them for a personal profit - then yes, he would be in violation of Copyright Law. But this wasn't the case.

    WAKE, the program Mr. Peng used to index publically available files on the campus network, is not a file trading system, like Napster or Kazaa. Like Google, it's just a search engine. All it does is let you know what's out there and where. To download something you find using WAKE, you'ld have to go about it in some other manner.

    Also, the nearly 650,000 files that the RIAA claim's Peng was distributing weren't all his. How can they sue him for something that's not his? It's yet another attempt at a power grab by a bunch of rich folks who only want to get richer. Sad.

    My prediction: While the RIAA might get some considerations, they won't get anywhere near what they want. Peng won't see any jail time, and the RIAA will have a black eye.

    --
    Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
    1. Re:The RIAA Has No Case by ibbey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The basis of Copyright Law is simple: A copyrighted work can not be used to make money by anyone but the copyright holder. If Mr. Peng were "bootlegging" copyrighted music - ie Making CDs and selling them for a personal profit - then yes, he would be in violation of Copyright Law. But this wasn't the case.

      Ummm... I think you need to get your money back on that course... You are violating copyright law whenever you distribute copyrighted material without the copyright owners permission, unless your use falls under the category of fair use. In most cases, even copies given away freely are not allowed. Profit is a factor in determining your liability, but not your guilt.

    2. Re:The RIAA Has No Case by Synn · · Score: 4, Informative

      The basis of Copyright Law is simple: A copyrighted work can not be used to make money by anyone but the copyright holder. If Mr. Peng were "bootlegging" copyrighted music - ie Making CDs and selling them for a personal profit - then yes, he would be in violation of Copyright Law. But this wasn't the case.

      That's not quite right. Even if you distribute the music for free you're still in copyright violation.

      Copyright isn't just that the author is the only one that can make money off it. The copyright owner is the only persion that can distribute the work. Money doesn't factor into the equation.

  17. Michigan Tech President Send Letter to RIAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The president of Michigan Tech sent a letter to the RIAA offering his dissapointment about the whole fiasco -- in a politically correct way of course. Nice to know that although the University does try to uphold the DMCA, they officially disapprove of this newest stunt.

  18. Re:Good Points, however.. by ibbey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    for any of that to matter the Judge and Legal counsel would have to be technologically literate.

    Not really. The case spelled out, even in the executive summary, is quite clear. In addition, the possible repercussions of this case are so significant that I can't imagine that Mr. Peng won't have the best possible legal council.

    Think about it... If wake.princeton.edu is liable for $150,000 dollars for every copyrighted song they liked to, so is Google, Yahoo, Inktomi,... I guarantee that they (knowingly or not) link to more copyrighted material then wake did.

    The DMCA spells out very clearly what a copyright holder needs to do to deal with copyright violations on the web. In this case, the RIAA is trying to be lazy & not have to send out thousands of cease & desists. Unfortunately for them, they have no legal ground to stand on.

  19. Re:For those who are interested... (Bad pun ahead) by trotski · · Score: 4, Funny

    I find it very funny that the official phone number ot the RIAA is 1-800-BAD-BEAT;

    I mean concidering that 95% percent of the new music they release these days is less than stellar; perhaps they really are advertising the fact that they represnt music with some bad beats ;).

    --

    "Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
  20. Slashdot Mentioned by Erris · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The good professor gives us:

    The University grants students a "reasonable expectation of unobstructed use of these tools [telephones, the Internet]," knowing that the former will be used to call both classmates (academic use) and parents (nonacademic use), and the latter will be used both for class research (academic use) and reading Slashdot (nonacademic use). The University does not restrict use of the network for legal, non-academic file-sharing, so long as its bandwidth use is not excessive.

    Bah! Slashdot is a great research tool.

    Other than that, Way to go Princton, that's a great user policy. Please educate my cable and telephone companies.

    --
    DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
  21. Peng has troubles though by LinuxParanoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The analysis points out a number of weaknesses in the RIAA argument.

    But there are two strengths of the RIAA charges that the analysis glosses over:

    1) Peng is charged with a substantial amount of direct copyright infringement on his own system(s). The liability he may have for these issues could easily force him to settle with the RIAA without ever bringing up the more-questionable "contributory infringement" copyright issues to court.

    (That said, the RIAA charges are largely missing details of these charges, focusing instead on the sexier napster-like namecalling. It's not clear whether this implies the direct-infringement evidence is weak, or merely not useful for PR purposes.)

    2) It seems to me that the 3 legal requirements the analysis outlines to declare something as 'contributory copyright infringement' should not be too hard for the RIAA to demonstrate: "that an act of direct infringement took place, that the alleged contributor knew about the act, and that the alleged contributor facilitated the act". If all three of these are demonstrated, the question whether the DMCA safe harbor provision comes into play is at issue, but I don't see that as providing Mr. Peng much protection if he knew about specific infringing incidents and did nothing but continued to facilitate them, particularly if he joined in and participated in them. This would clearly be up to a court to rule upon, but it is not an easy win for Mr. Peng.

    I think the Barillari analysis demonstrates that someone in Mr. Peng's position might conceivably have a good case for operating a Samba indexing service on campus and not being guilty of contributory copyright infringement. I don't find the analysis particularly compelling that Mr. Peng won't get the axe. That said, I wish Mr. Peng the best.

    --LP

    1. Re:Peng has troubles though by Wylfing · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The liability he may have for [direct infringement] could easily force him to settle with the RIAA without ever bringing up the more-questionable "contributory infringement" copyright issues to court.

      Ding, ding, ding! You win the prize. The RIAA does not believe it will collect nearly 100 billion dollars from a college student. They do, however, believe they can threaten this fellow with, let's say, 100,000 dollars in direct infringement liability -- a number they could probably get a judge to buy -- and get him to cave. NDA the settlement and then go tell Congress how this proves they're up against 100-billion-dollar "piracy emporiums" on Uni campuses.

      You know, just like they seized the equivalent of 421 CD burners.

      --
      Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
  22. only $96 'Bil? by chunkwhite86 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's only $96 billion dollars...

    Can't he set up an online donation fund or something? ;-)

    --
    I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
  23. Share C: by Superfreaker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's funny, I was at Princeton as a coach during my grad studies and I was amazed at the network in place on campus. Not only was it blazingly fast, but everyone connected to the network had shared drives.

    Some of the shares were at C:\ level and gave full rights. Others had Gigs upon Gigs of pirated software and movies. It was somewhat of a competition between users and they became popular for having a good loot of files. Not particularly intelligent IMHO.

  24. Search engine == Piracy? by tanveer1979 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "Wake," as a pure search engine (rather than a search-engine-plus-file-sharing-system, as Napster was), is protected by the DMCA, a fact which the RIAA does not address.

    I couldnt agree with you less. The issue is the broad reaching implications of such a case. Wake is a search engine which searches for files. You can use google also to search for files on internet using advanced search. Does this make search engines illegal. I guess this is a chance to take RIAA head on. Give examples of google, Lycos search, Hotbot.... all these are search engines.

    What RIAA says amounts to like, "This guy built the road on which trucks ferry pirated CD's... Arrest him!!"

    Whoa what is it all coming to! I Hope the guy wins, or it will set a very very very bad precident. Meanwhile a stronger public campaign is needed against RIAA.Dont Buy CDs
    --
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  25. google cache by upt1me · · Score: 5, Informative

    here is the google cache of wake.princeton.edu.

    1. Re:google cache by puck71 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wish I had mod points to mod that up. Thanks for pointing that out...I wanted to actually get a look at what we're talking and not just here what the RIAA Information Ministers say about it.

      Unfortunately, he appears to have been pretty stupid about what he was doing. First off, the site shouldn't have been accessible from outside of the network. That was his first mistake. Second, his Search In field could be used against him. Notice they're pretty much all for probably illegal stuff (mp3 avi divx mpg, etc). However, it's the last box that's the worst for him. The filesize filter is a great idea, but why in hell did he put in those descriptions like "music" and "full movies"? Just put the filesizes in and let the user figure it out. Don't lob the RIAA/MPAA such an easy pitch to hit out.

      With all this said, I still don't think they really have a case, because when push comes to shove, it was still just a search engine searching the campus network. But with as much money as they have, you don't really need too great a case. I wish the guy luck, but he did bring it on himself with some key mistakes.

    2. Re:google cache by fuzzybunny · · Score: 3, Insightful


      You have valid points, however I question their relevance to the situation.

      -Is it illegal to make a search engine available off a campus network? No. Unless Princeton network usage policy says otherwise, there is no issue here.

      -Regarding the 'Search In' field, let's be frank. You and I both "know" that he was providing what essentially amounts to a warez crawler. Nudge nudge wink win. However, before the law, "patently obvious to anyone with common sense" is not sufficient evidence to convict someone or to win a case. I'll go out on a ledge and compare this to a 'fair use' scenario, where you may use, say, a certain file format to transfer illegal information, or cryptography to engage in illicit acts, but the mere fact that there are legitimate uses for these technologies, and that they were not designed explicitly with malfeasance in mind, prevents legal action against anyone using them just because they're using them.

      Same with a search engine that explicitly allows qualifying strings such as 'mpg' or 'mp3'. I realize that it's a big leap between allowing me to enter these strings into google and providing a ready-made interface that already enters them for me, but I don't think the legal difference is that big, or relevant. And even if it were, I fall back on my above argument--there are legal mpg/mp3/avi/divx files not covered by restrictive copyrights. Disputes about illegal material should be handled between the copyright holder and the provider of the material--not a completely neutral intermediary.

      Same applies to the filesize filter. He is obviously attempting to qualify searches, and I am positive that he was aware that a lot of these searches would be for pirated material. So what?

      As long as the interface did not differentiate between the legality of content, but rather between file format types, I would be shocked to find that there is a case.

      If the guy was sharing copyrighted material himself, well, my sympathies as I really dislike the RIAA, but that's a different matter entirely.

      --
      Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
  26. This program is just Archie by btempleton · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The older among you will remember Archie, the internet's first search engine, out of McGill, which indexed all known FTP servers and let you search for files.

    Wake is effectively identical.

    Archie was the grandfather of the web. One would hope a court would not declare it retroactively to have been illegal.

    --
    Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
  27. Search engine aids law enforcement by AegisKnight · · Score: 3, Informative

    The campus network here at Iowa State University is indexed by software called strangesearch. There have been a few concerns about the legality of running a network search engine which is used primarily for sharing music, movies, and porn. Recently, four students were arrested for sharing child pornography. The interesting thing is that without StrangeSearch, law enforcement would have never seen material on the students' computers! (Ever try to look at files shared on several thousand individual computers?) For this reason, nobody plans to shut down strangesearch.

    A version of FreeNet for colleges/LAN, however...

  28. Re:"Napster-like" by Are+We+Afraid · · Score: 3, Informative
    Why do you think college radio stations always play obscure music from artists who just want to get noticed? You didn't think they did it to look out for the little guy, did you?

    I suppose that depends on the station, but being a college radio DJ, I'd say that's a big part of it. The DJs listen to obscure stuff and like it. I, at least, like sharing my tastes with the world at large. And if we expose people to the music and they like it too, they might buy a record or go to a show. Which helps the obscure artists and gets us more good obscure music.

    The Music Director at my station told me the other day that our station has a responsibility to expose people to music they've never heard before and wouldn't hear anywhere else. I'd have to agree.

    You are right, though, that Eminem is getting waaaay more in ASCAP royalties from radio play than is Black Heart Procession.

    --
    Rot-13 my address to e-mail me.
    "So I hurry back to little earth / For another life another birth"
  29. 96 what for INDEXING?!? by trezor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You all probably know this, but I didn't until recently.Anyway:

    He is being sued for a pure indexing service! No files supplied, no network established, just searching the (pre-existing) local princeton SMB-network. Which ofcourse is filtered, so it's only useful for Princeton-students.

    If assisting people in finding information that has been put public by others can give you a 96 {insert redicilously large unit here} dollars fine, I'd f*cking flea the country allready!

    This is madness. I'll go and get a criminal record now, to ensure that I'll never ever will get the chance to enter US territory.

    --
    Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
    1. Re:96 what for INDEXING?!? by trezor · · Score: 4, Informative

      Napster did indeed offer indexing, but Napster created the network that was being indexed. So Napster was liable for the damages.

      This network however, was a pre-existing Windows SMB file-sharing network, which could operate (and indeed did) without the WAKE-service he is being sued for.

      See the difference? Its like Google should be held resposible for copyright infridgement, when they merely locate a site that breaks copyright law. The siteowner is the one that should be sued, not Google. And indeed noone sues Google, so why suit for this?

      It's stupid, stupid, stupid and anyone within their right minds should be able to see that.

      Which ofcourse excludes the RIAA completely.

      --
      Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
  30. He'll go down for direct infr.--assuming he did it by moncyb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think you misunderstood the analysis. It said he might get off of the contributory infringement charges, but the analysis specificly avoided the direct infringment charges. Simply because if the facts show the defendant is guily of direct infringement, then he will lose (that part anyway).

    My worry is he may also lose on the contributory infringment (I don't think the paper said he would for certain win it), even in a small way, and the RIAA will use this precident to go after anyone who creates generic technology which may possibly be used for copyright infringement. The RIAA, MPAA, and friends are really the oppressors of the information age. Goodbye internet!

  31. Suicide watch? by Glonoinha · · Score: 4, Interesting

    >If the RIAA triumphs over these students, and they face punitive damages of such astronomical proportions, I would hope that they'd be put on 24/7 suicide watch.

    Oh man has nobody the ability to see the silver lining in these most evil dark clouds? I am glad that this didn't happen to me, but you gotta ask yourself - what is your price? At what price do you say ... ENOUGH! This shit has gotten blown WAY out of proportion and if they want some blown out of proportion shit then I can give them some blown out of proportion shit.

    The Gulf War II is costing, oh I dunno, maybe $1B a day. Ninety seven billion dollars will buy 9,700 days worth of $1M bad days - and for $1M I would do horrific things against humanity (assuming you classify the RIAA guys as human.) That Malvo guy has shown what a loser with no motivation and a gun can do ... imagine just how bad it could get if someone with $97B worth of 'I was wronged' focused at a particular institution (I am not disputing whether or not what he did was wrong, I am merely attempting to empathise with him.)

    Now maybe Princeton college kids are wusses, maybe not, but if this guy was a Texas A&M or UT/Austin student it would really suck to be an RIAA executive after pushing him over the limit. If the guy's life is already ruined, and methinks that may be the case, suicide would be the LAST thing you need to be worrying about. I would be watching for Ryder trucks that smell like nitrates parked out in front of the RIAA building ... until this guy has done what he feels is worth $97B.

    This kid needs a copy of Sun Tzu. And a small bankroll (+/- $10,000.) And an attitude check. If he walks up to the RIAA guys cool as Cool Hand Luke and asks 'Are you really, really sure this is what you want? Reality check fellas, because I can blow shit out of proportion too ...' and gives them the chance to drop it and they don't - he is justified in doing $97B worth of damage.

    Sucks to be him, but if he is going to go down for $97B, he might as well make a statement worth $97B.

    --
    Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer