Slashdot Mirror
Investigating the RIAA's Billion-Dollar Claims
zrosener writes "I've put together a site with a lot of information on the cases. I created
diagrams and explanations of the file sharing systems these students created
that the RIAA is suing them for - and how they are functionally and
technically very similar to Microsoft's tools built right into windows,
and how they are dissimilar from Napster's." Good detective work.
Tuition's high enough these days--there's no need for RIAA to go after these kids' with lasers strapped to their lawyers' heads... I wouldn't mind paying for SACD-quality recordings, if only I could buy them easily and efficiently (read: online, one click at a time).
Great bias there. But then again, this is slashdot.
Google seem to get away with it with their cache system ;)
Well, I haven't been able to read your site, as the server of course has been slashdotted, but I gather you have collated a list of similarities between the software in questions, and (legal) software which has already been out for a while.
Given that you made the effort to prepare this work, I suggest that you take it the final step and send it to the lawyers in charge of defending the students against this lawsuit by the RIAA, or if they have none yet, try to get it to their hands.
Oh, one more thing. You might want to send it anonymously; you never know, you might be sued next. (I'm only half-joking).
Pete Wilson, Ex-Gov California claimed a billions for all the Illegal Aliens syphoning off California's wealth before his cronies could get to it. It was tossed, this will be too. However it does tend to make people think twice, while they will win, the RIAA will make them drain their bank accounts for legal fees. Defense funds will form and they too will suffer. The idea is to make everyone in favor of trading suffer somehow. Even if they lose this time the next time there will be fewer willing to donate. The Artists need to understand the the Record companies are not their friends. The make more without the even if they don't have a gold record
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Furthermore, it's not that hard to setup IIS to limit bandwidth or concurrent users so that you don't take the server down. In Apache just install Apache::Throttle and configure as well. Either way, the worst case scenario is that during a spike some users receive a "Try again later", while other users who have already established a connection can keep using the site at a reasonable speed.
Even if you don't have access to your web server, configuring a web application server (such as Tomcat, Cold Fusion, or ASP.NET) to limit connections before it goes into a "low bandwidth" or "static" mode (kind of like CNN did during 9/11). I know a lot of these sites are personal sites, but most seem to be PHP or Perl sites which assumes that a coder of some sorts is involved.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
There are a lot of problems with Albini's article. One is that he lists a fairly good selling band as example, a poor selling band (and there are much much more of them than ones that are in Albini's words "hits") would end up costing their company money (only 10,000 copies sold, still quite a few, and the company is in the hole $700,000), even though the band ends up with their advance and publishing money (they do get publishing money, in Albini's case the song writers get $.07 per song per album sold minus ascap fees, if we assume 10 songs then the writers are getting $150,000). So really the bottom line assuming entire band write all the songs should read $400,000/(number of members in the band). Another thing that Albini's rant quite starkly portrays is that touring looses money, in this case $875.00. Thats right you go on the road (and work very hard) you end up with less money at the end. Thus the idea that the recordings should be free and people should only be paid to perform simply doesn't fly. What Albini was trying to say here is that Big Record Companies (eg Warner, Sony) are a rip off, and Small Artist Run Places (in this case specifically Touch And Go, I think he was pissed about the Butthole Surfers going to Warner) will make the artist more money. Ask Albini what he thinks of Shawn Fanning or the like getting rich on the backs of Slint, Low, Big Black, The Pixies, or even Bush and he will tell you another story.
With Windows File Sharing, you are unintentionally sharing your files with the whole world.
That's bullshit. Nothing is shared by default when you install windows. You have to share it intentionally. The windows search function can search exactly the way these spiders do. All these kids did is cache the index of file shares on the local network to make the searches faster.
Unfortunately, intent cannot be understood just by the actions of people in this matter. Granted many people who put files in globally accessable folders don't mean to, but there are a significant number of "non-stupid" people who do this deliberately. Also, one cannot automatically assume that just because said student wrote a file sharing or searching program that it was written with nefarious intent.
As has been stated numerous times in various places, in many cases, it is not the tool that infracts on the law, it is the use to which people put it.
Civil litigation is not based on real monitary value. What is the value of a "wrongful death" suit?
Basically, the rule of thumb is to sue for about 1/2 of what you can get. And that value is then doubled to be what you can get so the lawyers get their 1/2.
they do get publishing money, in Albini's case the song writers get $.07 per song per album sold minus ascap fees, if we assume 10 songs then the writers are getting $150,000
And they may not even get that. To the best of my knowledte, before a songwriter publishes a song, there is no reliable way to check whether or not that song infringes the copyright in another musical work. George Harrison got burned by this.
How do you solve the problem of accidental infringement?
Ask Albini what he thinks of Shawn Fanning or the like getting rich on the backs of Slint, Low, Big Black, The Pixies, or even Bush and he will tell you another story.
President Bush hasn't really done much about copyright. Or is there another Bush that I don't know about?
Will I retire or break 10K?
What I noticed about the software/services described here is that 1) they could be extremely useful to large organizations (e.g. General Motors) for locating existing resources within the company WAN and 2) they are all to some extent research projects.
I think this is a pretty clear-cut case of the RIAA attempting to hinder technological progress in defence of its business model.
They're not going to win, though. This software is useful for all sorts of things, not just music piracy. It infringes as much as Google does.
This suit is bullying, plain and simple. I just hope the defendants have good lawyers.
And I hope the RIAA gets busted for barratry over this.
That's some interesting stuff. They need to add a link to it on dontbuycds.org, and all the other anti RIAA sites, too.
How ya like dat?