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.
> Because that would be a violation of the sites'
> copyrights, and could get OSDN and Slashdot sued.
>
>Any more brain-busters?
Exactly. This is why google no longer caches pages...err...never mind.
So if google cache is OK, why would this be any different?
A lot of this is from a book called "All You Need to Know About the Music Buisness", which by the way if you're a musician is a GREAT read and point of reference. I think that opening story is actually word for word out the book (I'll have to check my copy at home though to be sure). But Steve Albini, definatly knows a thing or 2 himself.
"So if google cache is OK, why would this be any different?"
a.) Google just provides the link and the info, not the poster's interpretation of it. Not sure if you've noticed, but pretty often the article description is way off from what's posted on the site being linked to.
b.) You have to approach Google to get Indexed. Not the casae with Slashdot. With Slashdot, people run around the web and look for stories.
c.) The point of using Google is to go find the site, cache is intended to be used in case the info's gone or if the server's down. Slashdot, on the other hand, would be causing the server outage. If the target site generates ad-revenue, they're going to have a beef with it, especially if Slashdot's ads appear in the cache. Illegal? No. Sticky issue? Well you don't want to piss off the people hosting the interesting content, right?
Then there's the whole matter of hosting the bandwidth. The reason why Slashdot doesn't get slashdotted is because it's minimal imagery and server load etc. A good chunk of the sites we end up on have lots of graphics etc. Slashdot can either host them and require significantly more bandwidth (more ads as a result?) or not host the images and end up in the trouble mentioned in point 3.
Could it be done? On a technical level yes. Can it be done to everybody's satisfaction? Possibly, but it takes more work than just setting up a mirror server.
I think Slashdot's doing just fine having the users that made it in paste the info.
The tuition price comment was a joke- everyone knows students at Princeton, RPI, etc can afford another few billion added to their debtload
What I'm asking to pay for is a higher quality recording than is available from audio CD or mp3.
The recording industry has high quality masters for practically all recorded songs, and the RIAA has more choices than just (1) Dying from piracy, or (2) turning against its customers.
I'll buy higher quality recordings (yeah, even with DRM) for the same reason you, (or that guy down the street) has an two thousand dollar turntable-- I like the way it sounds.
Oh. Looks like it was a typo ...
From here --
Only 98 billion dollars? Carry on!(I still wonder if they'll take a check. Or how about PayPal?)
I've seen no mention that these students cataloged files that were not on public shares. I'm fully aware that Windows machines have more holes by default than swiss cheese, but there's no need to break in when the doors are wide open, and there's no point confusing the issue with what's possible when all that matters is what actually happened.
Besides that, it still doesn't change the fact that the files were accessable and locatable without these student's spider programs. If the RIAA wants to nail them for the files they actually had and were sharing, that's fine. I hope , however, that the judge will see how rediculous it would be to essentially find directory services illegal.
Any good legal team would know that a countersuit is in order in this case. They can sue and recover all of their legal fees straight from the RIAA. Do to the "in the press" nature of the lawsuits, these students can file suit for harrassment, defamation of character, etc. It should be easy to win this case assuming there are no hitches in the initial RIAA claims.
Besides, I bet there are some lawyers who would do this pro bono since it is a high profile case dealing with students who most certainly can't afford it.
The basis used by the RIAA for calculating damages in all these cases is fundamentally absurd. They take the number of copies, multiply by the highest recent retail they can find, and draw a big red circle around the result.
In order to accurately estimate the true damages, a little flashback to microeconomics class is in order.
Recall that for the combination of any given product and any given consumer, there is a price below which the consumer will buy it (sometimes that price will be zero or lower, but there is a price).
There is also a price below which the seller will not sell it.
The space between these two prices is where purchase transactions are viable.
So, in order to calculate the losses, we need two things:
The second of these is naturally much more complicated. Different buyers have different price thresholds. Across a population, the aggregate of these prices can be approximated with a function (I'll spare the math). This function can be estimated by using price elasticity data that sellers accumulate as part of their normal market analysis. Of course, it differs in different demographics so it's important to use a demographic that matches the arena in which the pirated material is distributed.
Once you have these two things, you can calculate the real losses quite simply. Say there were 1000 copies of something that the seller was willing to discount to $20 and had never sold for more than $30. Say further that the buyer curve for the distribution demographic was nice and simple, ranging from $0 to $50, with 80% below $20. Treating everything higher than $30 as $30 (since that's the highest price the product had been available for), you'd get something like $5000 in actual losses (forgive me, my back-of-the-napkin calculus is not good).
Meanwhile, the RIAA would claim that the loss was $30000, 6 times higher than reality.
The difference is explained by copies in the hands of people who would not have otherwise bought the product for a price at which the manufacturer was willing to sell it, and which therefore do not represent a legitimate market.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Hello RIAA, are you tired of beating up on little boys in college yet? I'm not trying to insinuate that you're bullies, just that there's some serious meat out there for you.
NetIQ has had a product called MP3 checker available for years, which does essentially the same thing as Wake, Phynd, and all the others. It even prints out a pretty list for you so that you don't have to run it over and over again.
Like I said, I know you're not just a bunch of effeminate bullies, so it won't phase you at all that NetIQ is a partner of Microsoft. Go sue!
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
You should let Phish and other bands like them know about that, if they have any free time from counting their money. Touring can be very lucrative if you do it constantly and you are good.
Most bands on major labels end up costing money rather than making it. That's what happens when you spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on every album.
Primus spent five grand on their first album and ten grand on their second; even their third album, which was released on a major label and had a couple of videos, only cost thirty grand (I'm sure the videos cost extra). They didn't need to sell a million records to make money.
Say the name of that site five times fast, in a thick Southern accent.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I suggest to introduce into the legal system the notion that in case the plaintiff loses, he has to pay the defendant exactly the amount he is sueing for.
That would give a natural limit to such amounts.
-Max
Every musician that I know who has been(and are currently) successful, tours. That is where thier monies are made, especially if they don't have a big hit on thier hands. Part of touring will depend on the specifics of thier deal with the label but touring can be very lucritive especially if they are on an indy label.
Nobody makes money if they go all out and rent the most expensive busses, get the high end hotel rooms and chow down highend meals while drinking/smoking/snorting/fucking/spending thier brains out. The guys that do that forget an important thing; being in a band and aspiring to be successful demands that it be treated like a multipartner business venture and governed accordingly.
I know guys that did that and are nowhere for it.
I know guys that were smart and bought a used bus (amazingly it has survived several tours), don't party thier asses off every night and have people who manage thier funds well. All of them live well doing something they enjoy. Its all in the discipline of thier own managment.
Whats scary about Albini's article is that so many people get fucked the way he dscribes because of stupidity. Don't ever sign anything that your lawyer hasn't gone over and said ok. That is the biggest mistake most bands make. They get soooo hungry and want so badly(can't blame them either) to sign with a label that they sign the first thing that comes by. If one label is interested in a band it is likely that others would be interested as well. A contract or retainer doesn't equal babes and Ferrari's. The numbers Albini posted suck but they certainly validate the original posters point: no matter how bad the RIAA sues the shit out of everybody the artists will get nothing...
I fail to see how RIAA claimed damages could total $90 some billion. In fact, I might venture that a monetary value cannot be assigned to losses because of these reasons:
(note: I know there are alternatives to MP3 but the desire for simplicity in my explanations prevailed)
1. The RIAA would have the burdon of proof that all logged transfers of MP3 files in their calculations were copyright violations and not students within fair use (i.e. students owned the CD and didn't want to spend time ripping).
2. The RIAA would have the burdon of proof that each and every copyright violation (see #1) resulted in a lost sale. Many who download MP3 files never would purchase CDs anyway, whether or not MP3 technology existed. In essence, the RIAA has to prove that the customer in each case would have actually bought a CD, had it not been for the search engine.
3. The RIAA would have to demonstrate that the purpose of the software was for music trading. It seems to me that this "spider" indexed everything. From the description of the software, it doesnt seem to be exclusively for media files. Media files are indexed along with all other content, as the software doesn't know whether an MP3 file is for a garage band posting their stuff or a video file is of someone dumping soap into a fountain to make it bubbly. Same goes for software - People may very well want to check out what the Computer Science department is chugging out.
Hopefully whoever presides over this case will throw it out as frivolous. In my opinion, this is similar to somebody suing "Perfect Kitchen Silverware Company", because someone was murdered with a knife manufactured by the company.
Fair call, both realisticly are parasites. Both are competing for the same thing. One leverages money and connections (sociopolitical) the other uses technology and a corrupt spinoff of the Hacker Ethic. 'Information want's to be free' becomes 'Music wants to be free'. Hogwash. The victims are the Artists. Of the two The Record Companies at least provide backing for a vision. The P2P sharing only robs the robbers (RIAA etc) who will gobble up the profits from a Hit Record and claim it was all used for 'Return on Investment' the costs of putting the record out and losses form failures of others. I remember Amiee Mann (Till Tuesday) on NPR a few weeks ago talking about how Her one hit record still hasn't paid Her a dime.
I was in the Music industry for 10 years before I turned Hacker, it's true. The record companies just eat up all the money. Bands that make money do it from touring. A hit album is just free publicity. Don't expect to see a dime from it. Kim Thayil of Soundgarden once told me that he was making more as a Cook then what he got off their record.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23