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RIAA Settles Suits Against Students
wo1verin3 writes "Cnet's News.Com has reported that the RIAA has settled the suits with four students accused of sharing songs. The settlements will see each student making payments to the RIAA totaling between $12,000 and $17,000, split into annual installments between 2003 and 2006."
It was not a music-sharing service. It simply indexed the contents of all of the public shares campus. If I typed in RedHat 7 it would return a list of places where I could get the ISO. There was nothing about it that was specifically directed towards infringing.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
A few years back the RIAA made a $100+ million settlement with MP3.com. At the time they claimed that the settlement money would be distributed to artists. Last I heard the money was still sitting in some account somewhere completely undistributed (collecting interest for the labels, but certainly not the artists).
Time to expand my musical tastes.
independent-artists.com
boycott-riaa.com
Why RIAA Keeps Getting Hacked
RIAA Affiliated Labels
Hmmm. Can't seem to get to the RIAA site right now...
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
No...these "kids" wrote samba (windows network share) spidering/indexing programs that made it easier to find files that might be located on open shares on your network.
This is NOT the same as Joe Sixpack hosting gigs of mp3s on his own computer and making them available to everyone else, this is a matter of going after students writing software that has the potential to be used maliciously (sound familiar?)
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
I really doubt there will be tons of other lawsuits filed. With all the employee time and effort involved in these suits and legal falls for both in house and external lawyers the RIAA probably won't even be breaking even on this suits.
The money levels being paid also aren't high enough or realistic enough to work as a deterrant.
--- I do not moderate.
Bankruptcy does not get you out of legal settlements, just like it doesn't get you out of oweing the government money. But there isn't a debtors prison in this country and short of taking every dime you ever make over the table they can't do anything to you for not paying it other than sue you for more money that you won't pay.
The artcle also mentioned that they were sharing copyrighted files from their own machines. This alone, should be enough to get them nailed on copyright infringement. As for their indexing service, it probably shouldn't have been treated as a infringement tool, unless of course, it didn't have significant non-infringing uses. Which, it would seem from the article, that copyright infringment (a.k.a. provinding easy access to copyright items), was its primary purpose.
While I do belive that these guys were doing what was alleged, there is still a part of me that can't help but feel that the RIAA is getting exactly what it deserves when people copy their songs. Oh well, so much for absolute morals.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Personal bankruptcy doesn't get you out of either student loans or court-levied fines.
So you're completely wrong in every way. Be ashamed.
. Believe me, that scenario would have the RIAA shaking in their boots. There would be massive publicity, the RIAA would have been completely trashed before it was over and no one would have cared who won in the end I doubt it. The RIAA stance is an easy one to defend in the eyes of the general populace. Here in the Geek-culture we hate them, but no matter what your stance on the property rights of the recording industry vs the users is, you have to admit, it hardly seems that there is much of a legal leg to stand on when you try and convince a jury that file-swapping isn't stealing. The media, and the general public takes a more or less conservative stand on issues like theft. The RIAA would simply declare that the actions of these 4 is the reason that everyone else has to pay $18 a CD and the public would lap it up the same way they lap up $50 tax cuts and sweat over the $10 of their personal tax contribution that gets speant on welfare and public assistance. The settlement certainly makes it easier for the RIAA, but it also leaves the door open. They haven't lost their case yet, but they haven't won it either. Lets wait for a case that falls more in the gray before we expect a victory.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
The artists sign over the copyright to the record labels in their contracts. The RIAA members own the copyrights to most songs, just like publishers, not authors own the copyrights to most books.
Vote for Pedro
Um, please inform me about this "...only available for Mac OS X..." thing. It sounds cool because then maybe I could "tee" stdout (aka >&1) from /dev/audio (or whatever they use) to filename.mp3 (or whatever format).
In other words, the "streaming only, no save to disk" thing might have a hole in it. After all, if I can "cat" multiple mpeg and avi files into one big mpeg or avi movie, why couldn't I "tee" the audio out from the appropriate /dev into another file on disk?
Not that I've used OS X yet, I'd like to learn it. But I bet it's possible under linux right now.
C|N>K
Napster was also about the stupidest company in the history of companies. They openly promoted that this was being used for copyright violation (as in publishing the screenshots of searches for infringing material on their website). If they could argue that they had no knowledge of specific infringing activities, then they probably would have been cleared, and the RIAA would have to go back to getting users banned.
The US doesn't have loser-pays, although you can sue someone for your legal fees...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Be very careful in setting this up. It is explicitly illegal to rent, lend, or lease any music recording without permission from the copyright owner. You could try to claim that this setup isn't renting or lending, but there's a good chance you'd lose. Software and music are the ONLY two artistic works that are protected this way. Sigh.
However, it is explicitly legal to lend music recordings or software if you are a non-profit library or educational institution. So, if you can get the co-op declared a non-profit library, you might be alright.
Even under the non-profit library exemption, you'll still have to work out whether it's legal to format shift, destroy the original, then sell the new format as you would have sold the original. If it's legal to do that, it would be legal to buy a book, type it into the computer, burn the book, then sell the unprotected digital copy. Hmmm. Reasonable, but possibly not legal in today's insanely paranoid world.
You'll definitely have to destroy the original CD, or they'll get you for keeping a copy after sale. I'd consult a lawyer to find out if lending the format shifted version is going to fly or not.
IANAL. For the details on music rentals, look at section 109 paragraph b here
I used to be a narrator for bad mimes. (wright)
They represent people pro bono all the time. They have been one of the few organizations in this country to stand up for the little guy.
But you do end up profiting when you receive said copy without paying for it.
You get use and enjoyment, without remuneration or recompense to anyone. Especially the creator.
The perfect "something for nothing".
It sounds like it runs perilously close to renting CDs which is illegal. You can normally rent copyrighted materials, but not music or computer games (except for console games). 17 USC 109, IIRC.
Other countries, e.g. Japan do have music rental stores, so it's not like this is a worldwide practice.
I suppose that if you can buy a CD and keep it permanently it could work.... but there is the issue that YOU didn't create the mp3 of it, and the co-op is keeping possession of the mp3 in order to transfer it to you (arguably illegal distribution) which sounds like the mp3.com case that the RIAA won.
-- 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.
True. But these guys weren't sued as end users. They were sued as software developers. If they were sued as end users, that'd be a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
Well... contributory and vicarious infringement are the typical methods one uses to sue someone who didn't directly infringe themselves, but who did have some involvement with someone else infringing.
Napster was sued under these theories. So were these guys. So would be the landlord of a place where illegal CDs were sold.
Thus, as I said, if you don't want to be sued for contributory infringement, don't contribute towards another's direct infringement. If you don't want to be sued for direct (i.e. normal) infringement, don't infringe.
End users would be sued under the latter theory, and even the two third party sorts of action do require that there was direct infringement by SOMEONE which the defendant contributed to in some manner. Though you needn't actually sue that party.
How exactly would you suggest [filtering of infringing files] be done?
No, you're going overboard. If a file has a copyright notice -- presumably a machine-readable one -- don't return it as a hit. If you personally find out, e.g. because you get a nasty letter from the RIAA, that a particular file is likely infringing, don't return it as a hit.
This is more or less how the DMCA operates. If you work to get into the section 512 safe harbor for service providers (easy, but you have to take certain steps) then you have to, e.g. not return hits if the copyright holder sends you a letter indicating that they're infringing copies. If the alleged infringer disagrees, he sends a counter-takedown notice to you and it goes back up, and the various other parties involved go to court or whatever.
You don't especially have to LOOK. But if there is something that passes through your system that should draw your attention, particularly a copyright notice, then that's what you act upon.
And of course, bearing the Netcom case in mind, if there is even a possible fair use defense of the person putting up the data (though remember that fair use is not what most people on the internet seem to claim it is -- for ALL of this stuff, you DEFINATELY should consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction) then you shouldn't filter it.
But I agree with you when you say that computers don't understand the nuance of the legal system.
This is precisely why I hate DRMs with the burning passion of a thousand suns. Or as I like to put it, a kilosol.
Oh yeah... I remember that. If someone created an audio codec that restricted digital copying to one generation (share with friends, but your friends can't share) and allowed burning to CD, wouldn't that fall under the terms of the AHRA? I'd be cool with that... it's a healthy compromise.
Well, as noted above, I'd hate the living daylights out of it. Unless you could selectively make copies with a single device that a) complied with SCMS, but still b) switch that off and make unlimited copies BUT take the chance that it might be illegal.
Machines can't tell that I'm the copyright holder of the music on a consumer DAT; they block me from exercising my own rights. I hate them.
And as for your hypothesized DRM system, it depends. I don't really want to get into the fine details of what DRM falls within the AHRA exception.
The RIAA should not be able to sink any project that transfers bits between computers simply because it does not have DRM technology built in.
Well, it sure seems that way when they can sue search engines.
Well, as I said, most search engines do just a tiny bit of work under 17 USC 512 (which I suggest you read) and gain absolute immunity for everything but actual direct
-- 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.