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RIAA Plans Cyberwar Effort
Richie Z writes "This article at the New York Times talks about new anti-piracy efforts from the music industry, some of questionable legality. One idea simply redirects users to a website with legal downloads. But two other programs freeze the user's system or delete music files determined to be illegal. Another proposed idea is basically a DoS attack against downloaders. I guess the RIAA believes the law only applies to their enemies." They had a solution to illegality planned.
I thought Christina Aguilera's latest offering was the first volley in the RIAA cyberwar.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
most of those are clearly illegal!
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
So will virus scanners detect these or will they be paid off as well?
If not... there really isn't much use in them if they can be paid off to not detect such things (so the gov can do the same and bill gates can do the same etc...).
I hope they don't mind a few counterattacks!
Opening up this type of warfare could get nasty.
I will relish the challenge.
- OrbNobz
I swear! It's like they're waging a anti-piracy jihad!
Hmmm, the RIAA up against real hackers... Personally, I think this war will be much more entertaining than the Iraq war. I think we should encourage the RIAA to do this, it just might be the I-beam to break the back of public opinion.
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Load up a few of your computers which are located at different locations with as much of your legally owned music as possible. Open a hotline server so you can transfer those files from your machine a to your machine b. Make no effort to hide your server, but clearly indicate it is yours. When they wipe your machine, sue for damages.
are there degrees of legality?
"The ignorant fight to win, the wise win before they fight." -Sun Tzu
So now they are above the law, and can cause a computer to become unstable and crash? Or they can scan your hard drive and delete files at will. I mean, there is a problem with their "silence" program in which it deletes legit music. What's to say it doesn't have the power to delete _any_ files it wants? So now the music industry can have free reign to scan hard drives and delete file they find inappropriate? With that idea in mind, would I be allowed to hack a computer and scan the hard drives, deleting any files I don't like? I think not.
But it's all in the name of stopping pirates, right? It's scary to see such tactics even being considered, and the thoughts of these being used is even worse. Just more steps for Big Brother to have full control. Give them the right to tamper with hard drives, it'll keep snowballing from there...
take off every sig for great justice
If someone wants to try that shit with me, come on in... if you can get past my security.. enjo the encryption etc... trying to stop other methods NO PROBLEM!
all i have to do is
falcon@falcon $: sftp music@downloads1.se
You riaa jerks cant touch me..
and also, you cant stop usenet of TRUE p2p (like decentralized networks) and know what? i dont care about the dmca either, if im having a problem with that, sweden is wonderful this time of year!
DoS attacks etc.. well thats ILLEGAL, unless you riaa jerks have some in to get pardoned... theres no excuse for what you are doing, become reasonable about things (like let off on the piracy thing for once already) and start trying to help to get good music at reasonable prices on the shelves (8 bucks for a CD id spring for, if its GOOD) and the riaa also needs to stop lobbying the government so much, this just makes the riaa fascist
...how they can anymore attempt any Dos attacks against downloaders, if their own systems suddenly become completely Ddos'ed 24h/day.
I thought it was illegal to even create the types of programs, not just use them. I could have sworn hearing about some cases where the people were busted just for creation. Either way, I think it's hilarious these companies are "developing" variants of programs that have existed for decades. My 1 yr old could program these things.
I have a hard time believing someone out there won't retaliate in kind. I remember when it was predicted that the Internet would be Co$'s Vietnam. I think there's a better case to be made that it could turn out to be RIAA's Vietnam instead; many more people have an interest in music and have spent far too much on CDs than have ever forked over even a cent to L. Ron's merry band of psychopaths. I hope they don't know what they're getting into.
--
Freeper Logic
If the RIAA wants to hack me, let them try, so long as I get to hack them back. I think an angry horde of /.ers suddenly destroying the RIAA's servers would cause quite an outcry on their part. It's only fair though.
DALnet is dead, DDoS attacks, and supposedly no one knows who was doing it, strange coincidence that the RIAA is "planning" anti-priracy acts. It isn't to much of a leap to say that they are already doing them.
Bit torrent is gaining popularity and is difficult to directly attack, but relies on various websites to distribute .torrent files for the program to work, so what happens? These web-sites are attacked.
The "war" has already begun...
Oh please let them take these measures. Every one of them violates federal law and would allow the RIAA to be branded as criminals (if not terrorists, considering the way the hacking laws in the US have gone recently).
.technomancer
one day, you'll be walking down the street with a song stuck in your head, and hillary rosen (spitspitspit) will pop out of a car and demand a royalty for the music you're remembering. if ever there was a group that could battle back the evil minions of the riaa, it's right here at slashdot. bring the noise
Don't we have this thing called due process in this country any more? Seems like crap like this just bypasses tenets like that and "innocent until proven guilty", if they can just go after you for thinking you've got pirated music.
... talks about new anti-piracy efforts from the music industry, some of questionable legality.
Come on, what else do you expect from these people? They have stated that they think its alright to break into computers that contain Mp3s (fair use be damned).
They have sued college students for $90 billion and settled for $17 thousand which is still way too much.
They count 50 cd burners at faster speeds to be 420 burners for statistic purposes.
They have been proven guilty of illegal cd price fixing and screwing the consumer.
All in all, anything they do doesn't really surprise me anymore. I think the only actual thing that would shock me would be something like:
"The New York Times is reporting that the RIAA is giving away $5000 worth of free cds to every person in this country who ever purchased a cd. They also are responsible for puppies, ice cream and rainbows."
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
I hope whatever moronic coders are busily trying to pull out script-kiddie tools for the RIAA to use on random people think that this is a morally acceptable way to make money. I also hope that the greater population finds out about this kind of thing, and especially the name of the coders responsible so they can have visits paid.
he was also quick to add that "at the end of the day, my clients are trying to develop relationships with these people."
.....
Way to go RIAA
Whenever I buy a new CD, I immediatelly rip all its songs into mp3 files, so that I can mix them into the music I listen to on a constant loop. By ow, I have over 5GB of such mp3 files. If the RIAA really releases that "silencer" how will it determine whether my files are legal or not?
I hope the RIAA is prepared for the onslaught of distruction about to ensue upon their members networks. It might become rather difficult to produce their overpriced product when all their networks die at once.
DoS attacks against many individuals vs. continual DDoS attack against them: tell me who's gonna win?
And don't tell me massive DDoS would be unfair/illegal play -- we all know (as we've learned from file sharing) that if we're all doing it no one can stop us.
On the Net, might makes right, and might is always defined by number.
delete music files determined to be illegal
I'd sure like to see their algorithm for determining which music files are illegal.
I mean, I know there are a lot of stupid people out there... but each time I hear about the latest thing the RIAA has done, I think that they couldn't get any dumber. They continuously prove me wrong, though.
Congress has to be aware of these things... why don't they do something about it? Do they bet each other on what's coming next and just sit back and laugh at the current blunder?
It's beyond me.
I mean, I would understand it if most people weren't behind firewalls or routers, but it seems like today, most people have some form of protection (or are on NAT'ed addresses). And, AFAIK, you can't encode anything executable in an MP3.
This still seems like scare tactics to me.
Perhaps the complete destruction of coporatized media will bring the music aspect of music and to music. The inability for corporations to profit from a multi-platinum band may kill off all the Britany Spears, N'SYNC, and Back Street boys types...
Does it matter the source of the compressed/uncompressed duplication if I own the cd? -- how can they determine MY cd collection? -- how can they delete the "Illegal" Mp3s/Ogg ?
I think they know to much, or they THINK they know to much.
Just because I have a cd, doesn't mean I got my mp3 from ripping that disc; even if I had, how do they know that its legal?
Apple's most revolutionary form of advertising yet!
... in regards to the right to hack article. How the RIAA plans to prove that the mp3's on my system aren't legal. I don't believe that there's a single mp3 that I have that I didn't rip myself or don't own the album for.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
As opposed to enticing people to buy stuff with lower prices and better products?
I mean seriously, the RIAA created this problem for themselves. Music's expensive. You can't try it out, once the CD's opened you own it. And you can't buy what you want. You can only buy their expensive albums.
I'm not surprised that the customers have leveled the playing field by creating the services the RIAA should have provided. Too bad they choose to fight instead of listen to the people that hand them their money in good faith.
"Derp de derp."
Warner Music Group refered to in the article as one of the music industries five "majors" and "a unit of AOL Time Warner" has already been working on plans to "make downloading pirated music a difficult and frustrating experience". It's called AOL.
- - -
Decrease your popularity today! HellWare T-Shirts
I think turning off autorunning on CD's should be considered necessary for basic system security. It would be too easy for a music CD to run a fast installer and bang you have a anti-pirate virus installed. Even if they don't "delete files", they could (if you didn't have an outbound firewall) scan for music and send lists to the RIAA. Report on installed P2P software. Send any and all usage logs from that software, etc.
Sure they will hold off till they can get laws on their side, but right now I'm not sure congress really is looking after consumers all that much. This "right to hack" nonsense has come up too many times recently.
So let me get this straight. I write some stupid song which you inherently hold the copyright via federal & international laws, and now, according to the RIAA I can now make software for all intents and purposes is a virus?
The RIAA is either being advised by those that excel at incompetence, or they simply have the collective intelligence of a drunken band of chimps.
By this methodology anyone who rights a poem (or anything which can be copyrighted) can create malicious code which makes a "reasonable" effort to only go after those files which it thinks have some relation to the copyrighted files in question.
I'm no lawyer, but I i have a hunch that this won't survive it's first court challenge. This whole notion of what is and isn't "reasonable" opens up far too many loopholes, and no court in the world would rule in their favor should somebody sue them.
From my experience, it would seem that although governments can pass any law they wish, it's only REALLY valid until it survives it's first few court challenges.
L8r...
It makes me wonder... which website gets more DoS attack attempts... the RIAA website... or Kevin Mitnick's site?
I can tell you which one would be more satisfying on oh-so-many levels. I'd compare it to seeing some jackass stranger on the side of the street after a storm... and you just so happen to edge the wheels of your car into the puddle on the edge of the street. But I digress. And I'm offtopic. Sorry... it's just that the RIAA seems to be adept at doing every possible thing to either lose support, lose respect, appear immature... or just simply screw the consumer (and the artist in some cases) out of more money.
Piss off a country where the public is armed.
Wait until some on the edge psycopath gets his manafest wiped of his machine because he had the misfortune to give it a names that could be interpeted as a song title.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If an erroneous RIAA employee decided to hack into my system and delete a file or two, I would become - how shall we say - unhappy.
I wouldn't bother making a counter attack and deleting files on his system, I wouldn't cause a DoS attack on the RIAA servers.
I'd get on a plane, fly across the atlantic and kick his head off his shoulders
Ive really had enough of Corporate America sticking their oar into international affairs (Not to mention the fact that my country (UK) likes to back them up!)
Is Corporate America actually trying to turn the world against the good American public??
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I seriously hope the RIAA does try to go the cyberwar route.
They will get absolutely and utterly bent over and destroyed if they open that Pandora's Box.
Please RIAA... I am begging you... Start a "cyberwar."
-Michael
Threshold RPG
We DO have the power to destroy them legally even and its easy.... Don't do ANYTHING.... just don't buy CDs are you are good :) I have bought 2 cds in my life and that was awhile ago and one was for a girl :)
Try to fake having illegal Mp3's on a box that I buy that has never ever had illegal stuff on it( I will have to buy a new cpu for this!), then wait.... When the RIAA comes, I will keep my log files running, and then afterwards, I will log into the internet fraud complaint center, and give them my log files. Then I will be yelled at for proving the stupidity and greed of a group of corporations. At that point, I will begin to walk into houses to see if they have any of my stuff.
One time when I logged onto my PPPoE DSL provider about a week or two ago, I saw my DSL modem's activity light blink reguarly. At the same time, my firewall started dropping 2-3 packets per second coming from at least a dozen spread out IP addresses, all directed to the same TCP port number on the IP address I currently was given.
Being adventerous, I told netcat to listen to the TCP port in question. It turns out that the clients wanted to send me HTTP-ish Gnutella requests. A variety of clients were used/spoofed (Limewire/Gnutella/etc.). All wanted some random combination of the words "Gay Sex P0rn" and similar.
I tried to get the systems to stop sending me packets by telling my firewall to actively reject any packets sent to the TCP port in question. That did not stop them. I tried spoofing various HTTP-style errors; that also did not work.
I tried to get my ISP to reassign me to an new IP address (by disconnecting my PPPoE client and reconnecting a few minutes later), but it did not work at the time. Giving up, I left my firewall up on my DSL connection on to see if these packets would ever stop.
But they did not.
By the time I shut down this experiment, I had logged over 30,000 connection requests to the TCP port in quesiton in 20 hours. Total data sent in connect requests by the attacker: about 2 MB.
Its a shame I didn't keep the logs for that date. It was amusing at the time.
(Obvious disclaimer: I do not have Gnutella nor any peer2peer shared files on my machines.)
We, the music bootleggers ... are far more numerous than the record companies. WE HAVE THE POWER TO DESTROY THAT INDUSTRY!!!
But the *true* power of an American is in direct proportion to his/her bank balance.
(Please go easy on the moderation; doesn't it seem this way to anyone else?!)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Tactics like this is the reason why its been almost a year since I've bought a cd. Currently I have no plans on buying any new cd's and the way things are going I don't picture myself buying a cd in the foreseable future. You'd be surprised at how easy it is just not buy a new cd. I guess it also helps that there is nothing coming out anytime soon that I'd want to buy anyway.
this is the most important sig ever! In your face 446154!
ahha how are planning to do this if i am running Linux or any BSD system out there? I can just make my files root and run as a normal user. How is their program going to scan and delete my files? Hahahha they are developing software only for windows I bet. LOL. the RIAA has pulled a dumb move agian, good job.
So, let me get this straight: The RIAA scans my computer, deletes all of my (apparently) illegal mp3s or freezes my computer, and I'm supposed to... run out and buy the cd instead? I don't think so. I think when they try it, I'm a bit more likely to start keeping my mp3 collection on cd-rs. Also, what about illegal mp3s from other labels? What will their "silence" do when it comes across music from Universal Warning, Polyvinyl, or Saddle Creek? Think they'll wanna help them out and stop me from pirating their music too? Good old corporate police, policing their own houses, but not the streets, or their neighbors' houses. I mean, if it's wrong, it's wrong, right?
I buy the music that I listen to but I am getting more and more tired of "the music industry", their attitude and methods. It is becoming something I don't want to support and are left with the feeling that maybe I should just drop my interest in music. It's not like I couldn't live without buying CD's, why bother.
All I want is to buy a CD, rip it and place it on my server so that I can play them on my Audiotron. Then comes the copy protection and our(local) laws that it is illegal to bypass their copy protection. It's not worth the trouble.
And it all comes down to what have been discussed here many times. The way people use music. Now we have a generation of people who have learned that the computer can be used for just about everything, even getting the music they like. But instead of trying to make money on this "new" marked like everybody else they first acted like it didn't exist and when it became clear that the people wants it, they try to fight it and the result is that everybody now has learned that music is something that you download for free.
Got me thinking of this quote from Homerpalooza:
I used to be with it, but then they changed what "it" was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me.
my sig
make a "hot target"
;-)
load it up with madonna, justin timberlake, christina aguilera, etc.
get on all the networks: kazaa, gnutella, etc.
snort the traffic, profile the attacks, trace the source
serve, volley: game engaged
bring it on assholes, if it's cyberwar you want, then it is cyberwar you will get
you have no idea how much antisocial time tech-savvy college kids have on their hands
enjoy the rotten fruits of your misstep into the big kids arena
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What about if I had the orginal CD and copied it onto my hard disk. They then accessed my machine (for whatever reason) then deleted that even though I'm withing the law. Also what about accessing machines over sea's?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Much like a dying empire, the RIAA is struggling to remain relevant.
Hopefully this will steer more people to buy music from the artists themselves. CD Baby has been a good source in my experience.
What kind of geek in his right mind would actually take a job like this? Seriously, who in good conscience would take a job where you are supposed to crack computers so Hilary Rosen can have her way?
If the RIAA is allowed to follow through on this, I wish nothing but the worst of geek hell to whoever does their bidding. Yes, I mean the worst: having the maintain someone else's Perl code.
According to this logic, if you own a CD and copy the music to MP3 to, say, prevent skipping of an overused CD.... then that gives them the authority to hack into your system and delete those files that you legally own and copied.
There's no way to tell what's legal and what's not. All that music traders would do it copy the files to another machine, not attached to an internet gateway.
P.S. This has the foul stench of Microsoft all over it. Can anyone say MEDIA PLAYER UPDATE? I'd love to see the text on that one... "Flaw exists in Windows Media Player (all versions) that does not allow a remote attacker to access files on a remote system. Install this patch to correct."
Bring it.
the RIAA ain't done until gentoo won't run.
Don't forget to spite them
that their counterparts have already started.
Anyone recall that huge DOS against BitTorrent trackers for the past several weeks? Considering the nature of the action, I can't help but realize that nobody who would like to call themselves a hacker, and that includes can't hack it script kiddies, would ddos TRACKERS to torrents, which only leaves one party left under suspicion.
Comments?
We have a right to counter any action taken by the RIAA. Let them try to stop file sharing. The script kiddies counterattack, not to mention the real hackers. When it becomes a real DDOS war, the uplink providers will eventually be forced to intervene against the RIAA to keep the internet running. When the RIAA is stormed by DDOS, they can forget selling music on the internet. When everyone finally gets tired of paying outrageous prices for CD's, the RIAA can forget their business.
But two other programs freeze the user's system or delete music files determined to be illegal.
t >= 1)
I have the source code for their trojan! Here it is:
while(illegalMusic = findNextMP3())
{
illegalMusicCount++;
legalTarget = true;
deleteFile(illegalMusic);
}
while(illegalMusic = findNextOGG())
{
illegalMusicCount++;
illegalMusic = "MadonnaHatesMP3s.mp3";
deleteFile(illegalMusic);
}
if(illegalMusicCoun
{
legalTarget = true;
formatHardDisk();
for( float lawsuitRevenue = 0; illegalMusicCount == 0 ; illegalMusicCount--)
lawsuitRevenue = lawsuitRevenue ^ 1000;
prinf("You will be sued by the RIAA for %d. Have a nice day", lawsuitRevenue);
}
The RIAA is just testing the waters to see how the hacker community responds, and what countermeasures we propose. This is just one phase of their strategy. (What the overall strategy is, I don't know. I think its something akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.)
Still, I can't imagine they actually think they'd get away with what they're proposing, or that there wouldn't be reprocussions if they did.
C'mon now, do you seriously think the RIAA isn't reading /. themselves??
Some of these attacks the RIAA is planning are clearly illegal. I'm not a lawyer, but isn't the RIAA engaged in the conspiracy to commit a felony?
Someone should look up the laws. I'm pretty sure that if I were planning the same massive criminal action, the conspiracy itself would be illegal. Isn't it time someone arrested the leaders of the RIAA?
The RIAA never ceases to amaze with their stupid antics. Within a couple of days of the successful iTunes deployment, they leak this bit of lunacy. I can not think of another industry doing so much to alienate its customers, all the more amazing given that a CD is a totally discretionary purchase. How long before they cross the line and get hit with a general boycott?
The idea of launching destructive software is really mind-boggling. IANAL, but it sure seems to me that they could get hit with some massive liability lawsuits if one their destroy bots is a bit more successful than intended. Gotta admit though, it would be sweet irony to see these idiots sued out of existence.
What about Sony? While the record division is trying to impede piracy, the hardware people are abetting it by producing CD-R drives, among other things. What happens if a legit use of a Sony hardware product is impacted by a Sony Music destroy bot?
Maybe something else is going on. Perhaps the real panic in the industry is caused by the notion that a smart artist could put their files on p2p to get exposure w/o signing a record deal. If technology can improve the bargaining position of the artist before signing a deal (of their choice), the extreme reactions of the industry are a bit more understandable. NOT agreeable, however, and as stupid as one can imagine, but understandable if one takes the perspective of those who have been feeding at the music cartel trough for so long.
Dang, I was looking forward to getting an iTunes account, but now I'm conflicted. I'd like to support Apple and the artists, but I hate the idea of any money going to the RIAA overlords who should have been supporting iTunes-like products a long time ago. The pirate networks aren't really free, they just take a lot less time than going to CD store, have better selection in many cases, and allow one to sample. A good pay service with reliable connections, selection and organization, let alone the absence of all the spyware would be much preferable to the "freeware." That's why I think there is something else on the RIAA's mind - Not loss of the customer, but rather loss of the artist...
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
Well, seeing as how the RIAA's moves threaten independent artists, I suggest we coin a new name for the RIAA. We'll just prefix 'Denying Independent Artists' to their existing name.
DIA-RIAA has a nice ring to it.
"Derp de derp."
I've seen people come to blows over 5 bucks, but when there's trillions at stake, and copyrights are pretty much dead and unenforcable, you can bet that option is not off their list. Perhaps they'll do it under the table, perhaps they already are in some way we haven't heard about. Perhaps they'll coax the government to do it for them. I don't know, but I do know that they're bullies and thugs by nature, they are not just going to back off.
BRING IT
It's clearly illegal to shoot someone on the street.
It's of questionable legality to shoot someone who's come into your house in the middle of the night.
Copyright infringement is a crime against someone--a tort. If you can shoot someone who's trying to kill you, beat up someone who attacks you, or respond in kind to someone who's maligning you, why not use a quirk of software to stop someone who's using a quirk of software to "steal" from you?
I'm sure the RIAA wants to get even with 95% of people who run Windoze and think the DMCA is an excercise gym.
as seen in the last few weeks, if your are right, always depends, on which side you play!
Hello.
I am just celebrating the re-acquisition of this account.
Looks like someone's getting things started already...
www.riaa.org is completely inaccesible at the moment, at least from where I am.
Can anyone say, "Class Action Lawsuit"?
I envision an email like this some day soon...
Dear Valued Thi...err...Customer,
It has come to our attention that you have a hard drive full of illeagal MP3's, but are not running the far superior Microsoft Windows operating system. Enclosed please find a certificate good for one eMachines WindowsME based computer, and please proceed to transfer all your MP3s to our platform of choice so we may then use all these great programs we developed then sue the living daylights out of... err.. serve you better.
Have a Nice Day,
The RIAA
*when you buy music, buy it from us, because we CARE*
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
I think you underestimate RIAA and the differences in the "jobs" that each must do. All RIAA needs to do is make it sufficiently hard for the casual downloader to get their files. If RIAA can do things like: corrupt 1/2 the downloads, shut down the fastest of the filesharers (keeping in mind that only 1/10 actually shares--fewer still have the bandwidth to do it effectively), flood the networks with searches so they're ineffective, and so on--they can make it much more time consuming to find and download good files. Although RIAA themselves may lack the technical know-how, they can sure as hell hire it. It's a mistake to assume that just because RIAA is reluctant to, say, allow DRM-free files of their IP, that they're technically incompetent. When the technology itself is not a potential threat to their IP I suspect you'll find them to be much more nimble (or at least their agents will be).
.... what are they going to do? Hack RIAA.org again? WHo cares! Put up more files? What more does RIAA have to lose. Try to make better P2P networks? They probably will, but the delicious irony is that the hackers/developers are now in a much tougher position because of the decentralization of P2P. How do you penalize a client that methodically sets out to corrupt swarmed downloads (each additional download source increases the risk of corruption--since it only takes a few bytes to throw the whole thing off) of RIAA's music? You really can't in a way that can't be tampered with in the other direction--that would create more problems for downloaders. What's more, if you do attempt to defend the piracy of stuff that is explicitly RIAA's IP, you really lack a defensible case. Even if they do find ways to adapt, the constant upgrading of software, switching of networks, and so on will in and of itself be a large barrier to entry for most piraters.
Please note that there's a lot that they can do short of breaking the law or ethnical guidelines. Many of these suggested technologies will probably never be deployed, but that still leaves quite a few interesting avenues open to RIAA. Furtermore, the mere threat of such viruses or trojan horses being on the network can serve as a detterant for a good number of people.
The hackers, on the other hand,
Hmmm.. I wonder what they can do about read-only filesystems...
I doubt any of their software works on [insert OS other than Windows or OSX], so I for one am probably safe against all of the legal mp3 files on my hard drive being erased.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
Not only will they get sued if they use these tactics, they'll be in violation of many federal and local laws in many countries. Thus opening themselves up to criminal prosecution not only in the US, but in every country they use these tactics.
Yeah, it's hard and expensive to "sue" a big concern like the RIAA, but it only takes one small-town prosecutor to nail them to the wall.
And even if the RIAA managed to get US Gov and every locality with similar laws to legalize these tactics, they'll eventually or accidentally infect a bunch of Canadian or European users with these illegal programs. Those countries will have absolutely no compunction in filing criminal complaints against the RIAA and their directors.
And if the RIAA doesn't show up to defend itself, I'd expect those countries to file criminal complaints against the companies that make up the RIAA, the big record companies.. As all those recording companies have a large worldwide presence, it will be impossible for them to duck prosecution. Because if they did, they'd likely lose all assets and import rights to those countries.
I too hope they take this route, because the day they do is the beginning of the end for them.
Windows: Go to start->run If on Windows 9x, type "command" If on Win2k/XP, type "cmd" Enter command: ping -t -w 0 -l 20000 riaa.org Linux: Get root console, ping -fs 20000 riaa.org
Just do what I did to hide my pr0n from my wife -- change all your MP3s to have a different extension (like .f00). Then, right-click on the file and select 'Open With..' then 'Choose Program'. Pick your favorite media player (WinAMP,etc) and check 'Always use the selected program to open this kind of file'
.mp3 or .ogg extensions - that is, providing they can get past anyone's firewalls.
The RIAA won't be smart enough to look for files without
Dunno how you'd do this under Linux or Mac OSX..
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
I wonder how much bandwidth worth of DoS attacks it will take before routers across the net (including major internet backbones) start blocking traffic from passing that originates from the RIAA.
I'm sure that whatever ISP (yes, even big corps go through an ISP of some type!) the RIAA tries to through will eventually get tired of hosting that much DoS traffic and will raise the rates higher than the RIAA is willing to pay... I hope they do at least....
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
One who wants to make a lot of money - they can use your arguement of "unwillingness/concious" as a bargaining chip. Encrytion/security/privacy companies are THRIVING in Silicon Valley right now. It's quite ironic though. The same companies that are pushing these "types" of software to the RIAA are also the same companies producing virus/spam filtering/security software industry wide.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Note to self:
Do NOT name kernel image, "Brittany Spears - Oops, I Did It Again.mp3".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am going to quietly go and download a song that I've been thinking about lately from my favorite music download service :)
But what he meant to say was "at the end of the day, my clients are trying to control every aspect of these people's media consumption."
So our rational attack on your attempt to circumvent rational dialogue by attacking alleged copyright holders prevented the rational dialogue?
My head spins like Linda Blair...
If you think you can hurt me again, you're wrong. I left my heart in my other pants.
Would someone plese tell me how the RIAA can distinguish between a song which I downloaded from Kazaa or some place like that, and the same song RIPped from a CD I own? I think even the RIAA would agree that the latter is legal. But if it looks like I violated the copyright, then I must have done so?
""We do everything we feel is appropriate, within the law, in order to protect our copyrights." A spokeswoman for Universal Music said that the company "is engaging in legal technical measures.""
and if it isn't within the law, then they make it law.
Question everything.
My college just recently put out some new rules regarding mp3's and avi files on the server. It basically came down to if they find it they will delete it. I believe they were planning on just running a script to search for mp3,avi,mpeg and other file formates and just delete them.
This poses one huge problem. What if the mp3 and avi files aren't copyrighted? My friend has a band and he places copies of his music and videos from concerts on the web. What 'bit' in the mp3's or avi's say that its a pirated? Or is this just another reason to build a firewall?
...to do all the BS they talk about, you need a vunerability. I can't wait for the first cracker to "improve" on that vunerability to spread the program uncontrolled like a virus (to any and all machines it can), RIAAs pet program will be known as the next Code Red, and they'll be killed in the entire press, not just the geek crowd.
Also, even if they can buy american laws, they'd better check to see where I am. If they do that to me, they'll be sued into oblivion (here), and while the courts probably can't get to their moneybag, I imagine they'd be classified as a criminal organization, which would mean a sales ban on RIAA-made music. And that would hurt them real bad...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There's no doubt that P2P file sharing has been nothing but a nuisance to the RIAA cartel. So why not establish private/encrypted P2P file sharing networks based on a web of trust? It goes like this for those who aren't familiar: "I trust you, so I will share with you and the people you trust. You trust Rob, so you share with Rob. I trust Rob, because you trust Rob. "
This can be controlled so that I will only trust one degree of separation or two degrees and so on. If someone defies your trust, you pass along your suggestion to cut them off. If that fails, then you cut off that branch entirely.
Just a thought...
I'm just glad I'm using Linux, because I bet they're making these with only Windows boxen in mind. Can you imagine?
*person downloads the trojan in a zip file in Linux*
[p2puser@legitmp3server evil_riaa_program]$ less README[p2puser@legitmp3server p2puser]$ unzip -qq evil_riaa_program.zip
[p2puser@legitmp3server p2puser]$ cd evil_riaa_program
[p2puser@legitmp3server evil_riaa_program]$ ls -lt
Or alternately, maybe it works in tandem with the BSA to delete any Linux partitions it sees...
Smells like FUD.
Another program under development, called "silence," scans a computer's hard drive for pirated music files and attempts to delete them. One of the executives briefed on the silence program said that it did not work properly and was being reworked because it was deleting legitimate music files, too.
:)
Okay, can someone tell me what a qualifies as a legitamite music file? I have a huge ammount of stuff ripped from CDs I own (though I ripp to ogg vorbis so maybe I'm safe there), but I have GIGS of stuff downloaded from emusic.com Besides which , I'm sure I'm not alone in having an ass load of misc "sounds" and such on my computer.
An industry stupid enough to try something like this is truley frightening (and desparate).
Another good reason to back up my files on CDRs
which will probably be illegal in 2-3 years...
Watch the P2P networks add the concept of karma and moderation to the system, so that people can vote (or anti-vote) for a particular contribution. After all, once you are burned by a "what the F*KC are you doing" track you go and mark it.
Hurray for bad karma. New old account, excellent. All hail.
I've also got a drawerful of NICs and cables. So I configure one PC to be a dedicated filesharing box and create an image set for re-install if it gets beat up and copy the uncorrupted files onto my main system after they've been checked out for my use/listening pleasure. That would pretty much negate their silly little hacking game, wouldn't it? In fact, I could do all my web-based stuff on the filesharing box via VNC and never allow my main system to come in contact with the outside world. Offhand I can think of a bunch of different ways to defeat this sort of silliness. It shouldn't have to come to that though, especially as I don't live in an area where the RIAA has any authority.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Now that they have admitted to considering doing something that is clearly illegal, the first time you have an mp3 deleted the lawyers will be lined up around the block to try and represent you. The RIAA has deep pockets and between actual and punative damages, awards could be in the millions. They would be idiots to expose themselves to that kind of liability.
If he really thinks we're the Devil, then let's send him to Hell.
Seems to me that if they have the capability to freeze a system or delete files then something is seriously wrong with the P2P package you're using.
P2P should allow READ ONLY access to shared files, not WRITE and EXECUTE.
And anyone who downloads executables from a p2p network and runs them locally is basically taking the security of their own system and tossing it out the door - they have only themselves to blame if it contained RIAA DoS code.
one can only hope/dream/pray.....
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
first, even Machiavelli would recognise that by no way a legitimate end would justify such an extreme mesaure.
second, and if we look at things straigth, this just looks like spam (only not over SMTP) .
In a time when finnaly all parties involved start to try to kill spam in a global way it is interesting that this kind of *solutions* is not only thinked but openly presented to the public ...
what we, the *society* need to demand is that the big fish do the same to this polluters that does to the average spammer i.e. silence, block and wipe them!
AOL are you listening ? ...
the world can be going nuts, but surely it is fun ...
chrs from Portugal...
PS: where is Ashcroft when we need him ?
You would think that the RIAA would have figured out what would happen, if they engage in a "cyberwar" from what happened to Madonna. Instead of trying to outsmart a group of computer users (which WON'T happen unless they hire hackers), they should concentrate on the reason most people download MP3's anyway. THE HIGH PRICE OF CD'S! I remember when CD's hit the stores in the early 80's. The RIAA said that at 20+ dollars each, yes they more expensive than LP's (records), but the technology was new and expensive, and as more and more hit the shelves, the price would come down to the price of LP's. Well, it's been over 20 years, and the prices are still in the 15-20 dollar range, unless you catch them when they first come out and they have a price reduction. As CDRW's became popular in the 90's and the price of blank CD's came down to less than 50 cents each in bulk, people started asking, hey, how come audio CD's are so expensive? It can't be the CD material. As more and more people saw that: A. The artist aren't really making a lot of money on each CD sold, B: The stores where the CD's are bought aren't making any money, C: Companies like Sony, EMI, EPIC(now sony),etc.....are having lavish parties, etc etc......HEY! We are being ripped off! That's what fueled the explosion in file trading (that and peoples desire to get something for nothing). If the record industry would DO SOMETHING positive about file trading like what Apple is doing, then I think the file trading "problem" would disappear. Just look how many LEGAL songs were downloaded in 18 hours! 275,000! @ 99 cents each! Now, although I think 99 cents per song might be a little high, considering if a CD had 12 songs@ 99 cents, the cd, jacket etc....it's a step in the right direction. Come on RIAA, drop the BS, get on the bandwagon and realize your over zealous activities are history. You've had the gravy train for too long!
Long story short: I would and I could help, without breaking the law or feeling guilty about it. Say whatever you will about RIAA, but this is about more than just RIAA, this is about intellectual property itself. This is about the right of a person and, by extension, business concerns, to control the product of their own mind. Yes, I recognize that there have always been varying degrees of legal limitations of IP rights, but this sort of P2P recognizes no such compromises. IP owners have every right to fight the good fight. I, as an alleged "geek", am particularly sympathetic to their plight since I myself share in their concerns.
If P2P piracy is carried out to its logical extreme, then I wish on you and those that support it a life of struggling to secure development jobs around businesses that are left with no other option then to pursue profitable business around misguided notions such as the GPL. Good luck.
It shouldn't be that hard filtering out the RIAA's app's - using MD5 checksums (for example) you could easily identify an app you know is malicous. Developers could maintain an online database of malicious checksums, and add to it if new apps are released, for example. Nothing RIAA could do against that, as far as I can see, that'd be perfectly legal. It shouldn't be hard to make a network that filters out corrupt files from your searches, either. I believe Overnet already has some sort of file identifying system working this way. Problem might be, there's no network out there that can do that, yet, and unless someone at Kazaa or Morpheus suddenly decides it might be a good idea to release the source code of their apps, it might take a long time, too. Fortunatly of course, it'll be a long time before they discover there are actually other OS's out there then Windows and start compiling for *nix/Linux/etc. ;)
Maybe I'm missing something, but could someone please explain how a .MP3 file, played through my copy of Winamp, is going to execute the RIAA's malicious code?
I understand the problems of playing stuff (or even opening text files) with Microsoft software, which loves to parse through somatic data files looking for VBScript to run. But Winamp knows its not an operating system (except when it installs an AOL bookmark and desktop shortcut, but that's another issue).
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
According to the article the war has already begun:
"When Madonna released "spoofed" versions of songs from her new album on music sharing networks to frustrate pirates, her own Web site was hacked into the next day and real copies of her album were made available by hackers on her site."
Leave it to Madonna to bring a knife to a gun fight.
Any slashdotter will probably be immune to a malicious program from the RIAA. As Any good slashdotter will have all of his collection in Ogg Vorbis, and these programs will probably just scan for/delete *.mp3 files.:p
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The RIAA Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said today:
"There are no hackers on the internet at all, our site is stable and running - i saw it with my very own eyes.
The wicked infidel file traders are downloading nothing but speaches from our holy Hilary and movies of slippers."
truly shocking!
liqbase
Well,
Not so surprisingly the other side is already monitoring the RIAA activities and in this case some of results are already in public. For example, Peer-Guardian tries to protect the P2P-clients from the hostile IP-addresses. There's a quite nice article about the topic in Security Focus.
V.
As the holder of a few copyrights, I have to wonder if any member of the RIAA is violating my license?
Perhaps I should cobble some sort of virus or trojan together to scan their systems and delete anything questionable. After all, fair is fair.
You people just don't understand what they're doing. The RIAA is merely trying to show the citizens of the world that the prevalent system of hierarchy (i.e. government and incorporation) is utter bullshit and can be bought and sold at a whim regardless of whether their intentions benefit said citizens or not. The highlight of their show is obvious injustice.
I'm convinced that Bush and Co. are operating under the same premise by using flamboyant military actions and much of the same obvious injustice mentioned above.
The consciousness of the beast (the id, a.k.a. figureheads) has realized the error in the ways of hierarchy and is making an active attempt to snuff itself. Being sentient and live it shuns the pain of a slow suicide by doping itself heavily with mass quantities of patriotism and religion.
But some members of the beast's unconsciousness (the lower functions a.k.a. you & I) are resilient to the dope and go on feeling the pain regardless. Take comfort in the fact that you who are immune the effects of patriotism, religion, consumerism, et al will be awake and part of the generation that watches civilization fall.
Enjoy the show!
Regards,
Smokin_Juan
Large technology companies say they can't do anything about spam, yet the RIAA thinks they can stop music sharing. If only everyone were this ambitious.
If we could somehow convince the RIAA that spam promotes mp3 sharing, we'd be set.
Brian
Some people that have pirated MP3s are not online all that often or at all. My mother doesn't have a net connection, but has a bunch of MP3s on her drive that my brother got for her of old songs that she can't seem to find anywhere else.
According to Section 2332b of title 18, United States Code as amended by SEC. 808 of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001, it shall be considered an act of terrorism to violate, as the RIAA proposes, title 18, part 1, chapter 47, section 1030, (a) (5) (A) (iii), and thereby causes or intends to cause at least $5,000 in damages (title 18, part 1, chapter 47, section 1030, (5) (c) (i), if such an act involves any transaction across our national boarders (title 18, part 1, chapter 113B, section 2332 b (g) (1).
And their DOS attack strategy may make them liable under Title 18, part 1, chapter 65, section 1362 as well.
That is, if the RIAA accidently or intentionally causes damage or inconvenience costing $5,000 or more, or even if their attempt is thwarted but had it succeeded it would have caused $5,000 loss, they have committed the Federal offense of fraud; and if their actions cross our national border, they are international terrorists.
It may be worth VPN-ing your connections through a Canadian ISP.
As terrorists, the RIAA is liable to life in prison, secret detention, trial by secret tribunal, and secret execution. All of the labels supporting the RIAA are guilty of providing material support for a terrorist organization.(Title 18, Part 1, Chater 113B, Section 2339A)
The law abridged to pertinence reads:
Whoever... knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage... ("damage" means any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information)... without authorization, to a protected computer;...(the term "protected computer" means a computer... which is used in interstate or foreign commerce or communication [do you use ebay? email people in other countries?])... intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly causes damage; or... intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage; and...[by so doing] caused (or, in the case of an attempted offense, would, if completed, have caused)... loss... (the term "loss" means any reasonable cost to any victim, including the cost of responding to an offense, conducting a damage assessment, and restoring the data, program, system, or information to its condition prior to the offense, and any revenue lost, cost incurred, or other consequential damages incurred because of interruption of service)... to 1 or more persons during any 1-year period... aggregating at least $5,000 in value;... [shall be punished by] a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both... [or] a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both [for a second offense].
As of today, I am refusing to purchase any more recorded music. The radio and my CD collection are enough until this blows over.
I say bring it on you fucking biatches!
You saw what happened to madonnas website.
Let's do this.
You think a small cadre of hired mercenaries can out do a people's army of pissed off geeks?
LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!
This is MY PROPERTY! I am NOT a CRIMINAL. And I will NOT have some stupid RIAA telling me otherwise. Oh, and need I mention that due to their tactics, I do NOT buy music recordings any longer? (Except for self published recordings that have nothing to do with the RIAA.) It's not due to piracy either... because I don't download MP3s. I bought a GUITAR and I make my own damn music!
How could they be so dumb? If they even attempted such a thing they would be hit with the hardest DOS attacks on all their servers. Why would they be so dumb?
What I like is that the software companies selling these programs to the RIAA can then turn right around and sell updated protection programs to the public.
Really tho, there's an amazing amount of people out there working to crack encryption, write p2p programs, get this stuff before it's sold, etc, if they were to all focus their energies on destroying the RIAA (and musician's websites, and government networks of organizations that pass these laws, networks of the software companies that write these programs, etc etc), they'd be down within days, if not hours, and would stay down for a very, very long time.
Two wrongs may not equal a right, but three lefts do...
Those mother fucking bastards. The RIAA needs to be taken down.
It's pretty simple.
Let's assume for sake of argument that I have 300 songs in mp3 format on my hard drive, all of which I copied myself from CD's I paid for.
Let's also assume that this program 'silence' will wind up being distributed in the form of an email (and you can bet your house it will).
If I open the file, with nothing illegal on my computer, but the program finds my legal mp3's and deletes them, why should I not sue RIAA for damages?
This type of action a violation of more than one constitutional amendment.
For instance:
It violates my right to be secure in my home from unreasonable searches and seizures.
It violates my right to a fair and speedy trial.
It violates my right to be informed of the charges against me, but of course in this case, there are no charges and no trial, they just skip ahead straight to punishment, which by the way, is not legally theirs to carry out.
What would I sue them for?
The violation of my constitutional rights; for intentional sabotage of property (the files are mine); for intentional and unprovoked abuse of resources (my computer); for gaining unlawful access to my computer; and for intentional infliction of mental anguish.
Not to mention lost time. Will they pay for my hours spent making LEGAL backup copies of my LEGALLY OWNED CDs?
Of course, their answer will be: prove that you own the CD's and we will let you keep the files, which is of course perfectly beside the point. They have no right to be looking in the first place, no matter how open my network is.
These people will stop at nothing to make you pay, even if you already have. Even if their tactics are barbaric and illegal (Sopranos come to mind).
Basically, this is their argument:
"The guy who parks next to me in my parking garage has a lot of antenna balls in the backseat of his convertible. My antenna ball is missing, so I think he must have stolen my antenna ball. Because it's a convertible, and the top is down, I must have every right to assume I can gain access to his vehicle, it's practically open for all to see. So, I'm going to go through everything in his car and destroy all the antenna balls I can find. He must have stolen them from somewhere. I will let him keep those for which he can provide proof of purchase. If I happen to destroy those in the process, that's just too bad... he shouldn't have left those other balls in plain sight.
Hey, look at that... the guy who parks on the other side of me just handed me my antenna ball, his 8 year old daughter found it in the driveway, it must have fallen off. Well, it was still within my rights to destroy that other guy's antenna balls, they looked suspicious to me."
-- This sig for rent.
No fair Slashdotted before I could have any fun. :(
Who needs a bunch of computers to launch DoS attacts just list a bunch of targets and watch them wither and die under ponderous weight that is known as Slashdot.
Osama is rich, what matters is whether or not you can make the polititions rich.
Is there any easy way to find out if a band or a label is part of the RIAA? I'd like to start boycotting RIAA labels/bands/albums. If anyone knows a site, or somethign to look for on the cd/record please let me know. Thanks!
I recall a few years ago, Dave Matthews Band released a new song on Napster (whoa!) before releasing it elsewhere. From that point on I was a further devoted fan, I knew that they embraced music lovers. There have been other instances of this, and I'm sure the end result was positive for the bands. In many cases, local bands release music on P2P networks just so their music will get heard.
Music artists CAN embrace the freedom that these networks provide, and in the end gain more respect from their listeners because WE know they aren't about the bottom dollar.
After Metallica's attack on Napster, I trashed all of their CD's and refuse to spend ANY money on them. This coming from someone who went to numerous shows, and bought every one of their CD's. It sucks to see bands chasing money rather than fanship.
Something that deleted files without permission would probably be illegal under the UK's Computer Misuse Act, and might also constitute Criminal Damage.
I have written a web page named index.html. I will in the future start scanning and deleting all files I find named index.html due to copyright violation.
Thank you for your time.
Ok, let's say the RIAA somehow makes it legal to break into a computer and delete suspicious files. The wording originally posed was any "copyright holder".
So, does that apply to virus code? Let's say I write code for a virus, whose sole purpose is to replicate; no harmful effects whatsoever aside from the extra disk in each infected file. Let's say that I own the copyright for this benign virus. Let's also assume, somehow, it gets out of my nice development environment (without my knowledge), and begins spreading worldwide.
I am the copyright owner. Therefore, EVERY machine that connected to the Net from the time of release is a suspect computer. I would then have the right to inspect every executable, Word file, or infectable data file on the machine, yes? And if I were to enforce my right to remove this infringing material, would I HAVE to remove it cleanly, or would deleting the whole file be fair game? What if I "accidentally" missed one infected file, or the machine gets re-infected later. That sounds like a nice routine for a recurring "monthly checkup".
Putting the part of file deletion aside, would you like someone looking at your data that isn't bound by any sort of confidentiality? Of course, any copyright owner that discovers this information would use it in a "reasonable" manner, right? I'm sure the cleanup attempts for my virus would land me some juicy, sensitive corporate data that one of their competitors would love to see. What's to stop me from selling that information and making a couple million dollars on the side in my new profession: legitimate industrial espionage.
... I'm no US citizen.
This is another example of people who don't know what the fsck they are doing messing with those who do. Remember Madonna's website?
If they keep going like this they are going to piss off the wrong people.
Will their trojaned MP3s have the evil bit set?
;-)
If so, that'll make it easy to know if it's malicious or not.
Just a thought.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
I say if they want to start playing dirty by breaking the law, then its time to pull out all the stops and initiate the first strike.
And start the counter suits for harming our computers for *suspected* activities. Hold them libel for criminal activities, and civil suits for productivity lost.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. Set up a honeypot.
2. Make sure the content looks "illegal" but, in fact, is not
(i.e., MP3 files named for popular songs but containing only commentary on them).
3. Get hit.
4. Sue for damages.
5. Profit!
OK, joking aside, in most countries, even accessing a computer without authorization is illegal.
The Canadian criminal code forbids it (look here for a longer version).
TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 47, Sec. 1030 of the US code also looks applicable (but IANAL so if somebody who IAL reads this, please comment).
So, with the law on your side, you can also sue them in a small claims court. That way, they cannot use their financial advantage to subvert justice.
If its war you want, its war you will get.
But honestly, who gives a shit? Did everyone forget that its actually an artist who writes this stuff in the first place? There are plenty of other options out there to find, IMHO, much more creative music than the 'major labels'. I for one will have no problem with this 'war'. All its accomplished in my case was to drive me away from EVER buying another piece of music from these people. And since this has turned into a nice game of threatening the other side, heres my threat;
feel free to scan my drive with your programs for files that dont exist, since I dont listen to your 'product' and still have thousands of .mp3 files , and the TOS for programs running on my servers states that any program without written authorization by me will be billed at a rate of $120/CPU cycle and by running said program you agree to these terms.
After all for the RIAA to win, they have to SPEND money, for me to win, I have to NOT SPEND money on their 'product'. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that that is a very unstable situation that will quickly come to a state of rest.
If a majority of people get pissed off then they will have no income to draw from to launch these rediculous campaigns. But I fear I am the lone minority, as most people dont even have a clue what the local bands in their area are, much less any music not played on FM radio
So it goes...
Maybe the isps around here have a stupidity filter but i haven't been able to check their site for at least 24 hours from various places. Then again i can still go to plenty of other lame sites :P
riaa site = b0rken ?
or maybe someone got pissed off at them for getting 4 students to pay back a total of 60k$ 'cause they set up a network search for their university network...
100% of statistics are wrong.
what are they going to do if you only have read access to your music folders? ;)
take that and put it in your sunshine
THe RIAA will only be able to have any chance of immunity within the U.S. If they tried such a stunt on a computer based within the UK then they can be prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act. THere is no get out of jail free clause for companies. THe UK Govt don't give a shit about the RIAA either.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
Please turn on your brains. The RIAA is not stupid. Quite to the contrary, they have a bunch of very smart people. /. may call them crazy over such ideas, but somewhere out there a 12 year old has been scared away from copying music (legal or illegal, doesn't matter, neither for the boy nor for the RIAA).
The game isn't cyberwarfare. The game is psychological warfare. Most of
A few homes further down the street, a mother is frightened, and tells her son to remove that gnutella program again, and never use that again or he'll be grounded.
You don't have to actually write or use these programs. Making enough people believe that you do has almost the same effect, with none of the legal dangers or possible repercussions.
Wake up, people. These guys have been at the game for a while longer than any of us have. They aren't playing our game, they're playing their own game. They're not writing code, they're writing press releases, strategy papers, and while they're at it, the next copyright laws.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"Freeze" alone could put the RIAA in so much hot water, if it ever ran on the wrong system, and I'm not even going to touch the "silence" program...
If they were ever dumb enough to deploy these programs into the general public, the amount of lawsuits they'd be up for would bankrupt them in no time. I'm sure plenty of lawyers and law firms would be more than willing to front for a 100000 person plus class action suit, which this would no doubt cause.
They may not be afraid of the little guy, but they SHOULD be afraid of the big law firm that smells a billion dollar settlement.
I'm glad 10Gigs fits on 16CD's ;)
Try and delete phyical write only media, bitches!
The secret to getting modded up is to allways say i've got karma to burn in your sig..
Since Linux is a very small piece of the pie in terms of marketshare on the desktop would they bother porting this virus "Freeze" to it?
or get a tv card in your computer and pretend you dont own a TV.
There is no god
Although they're not unlawfully using force, they are threatening in the interview that they could do something illegal. You don't necessarily have to do anything to get the label of "terrorist"--you just have to threaten too. The US gov't has no problem holding somebody like Jose Padilla (the so-called "dirty bomb suspect") for just being a possible threat.
Second, they have the intention of intimidating users from using P2P software. This is not a tactic to physically stop sharing of copyrighted songs like a lawsuit. The goal is to scare users into thinking their computer or net connection will get screwed up if they don't stop. Similarly, these recent lawsuits against users also seek to intimidate (although in a legal manner).
Finally, it seems less clear that they are doing this for "ideological or political reasons". However, I don't see why this part of defining terrorism would be any different if the motive was economic. If anything, it's perhaps a bit more slimy, because you're not doing it because you feel there's an important underlying cause or belief, but rather to enrich yourself.
So, does anybody else see this as well as other recent developments in the RIAA's tactics as terroristic?
Why won't they acknowledge that slumpy cd sales have more to do with the fact that albums are: a) overpriced b) almost exactly the same as every other album c) of significantly less overall quailty than used to be the case? True some people don't buy albums anymore because they can get them for free, but this isn't the case for the majority of users and I sincerely doubt their losses are anywhere near close to what they claim.
When will they realize that they could destroy the entire internet and it wouldn't make the new Britney Spears sound-alike any more palatable. When you choose artists exclusively based on their physical attractiveness rather than their ability or the content of their songs, formats where that appearance is not part of the package are going to suffer.
When will they realize that if they imprison every single person who has ever pirated music there will be no one left to buy their product?
Why are copyright laws which were designed to protect creators for a limited period of time so that they would have a financial motivation for creating used to provide corporations who for the most part had nothing to do with that creation with huge profits for periods of more than a century?
For that matter, why do multi-billion dollar corparations need to band together to support one another. I think it's about time someone looked at these on the angle of anti-trust issues.
in the first version of the program, they noticed an error when co-workers in the company starting screaming from their cubicles.
Seriously though, if I was a hacker, I'd program some things like the freeze or delete mp3 files programs and blame the RIAA. who would believe the RIAA's denials?
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
If you don't want the RIAA/MPAA/McDisney creeps violating your privacy and deleting files they suspect violate their copyrights, move to free software. If you want to stop the madness all together, tell your friends what you think about copyright laws when you have the chance. It's our job, as knowledgable people, to inform those who don't know what's comming.
I set up a 70 year old retired engineer with Linux and he likes it better than Windows. Free software is more than ready for the desktop.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Keep your mp3's on a read only file system, I'd like to see them delete them then.
Oh dear, you seem to be violating the M$ EULA with that package as it contributes to copyright violation. Your EULA gives M$ the right to inspect your system, delete copyright infringing files and add or remove components. If F-Secure interferes with this process you will be in violation of your EULA. Sorry, that package will be removed at the next Windows update. If your computer fails to reboot you may, at your discresion, purchase a new copy of Microsoft Windows (TM). Thank you for doing business with us.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
And of course, two company names were mentioned in the NY Times article.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Also a DEEP pocket. :)
Ah, to be a classical music listener these days.
They do it to me.... I do it to them. What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander. They might come to wish they had never started this war.
I can up load this crap by telephone, fax, various non-interet networks, fidonet (suitably hidden), rime or any phone only BBS.
They move bits too.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
You lost that when you clicked the submit button on the Windoze EULA. Remember them giving themselves the right to "upgrade" your system at any time and inspect your system and delete infinging files? Not only don't you know what you own today, you have no idea what it will be tomorrow.
If you must run that trash, I recomend keeping it blind to the network. Do not configure the network adaptors or intentionally set them up incorrectly. Windoze networking blows anyway, so dual boot the thing and use the clearly superior tools available under Linux or BSD. Life is easier when you use the right tool for the job.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Sopot says...buy Avril Lavigne.
(Not meant to flame to you NanoGator)
1. They could *gasp* hire P2P people to develop an RIAA-sanctioned music download system. Apple seems to understand this.
2. Not only can they not fight their own battles (read: have to resort to get legislation behind them), but also they have not done their marketing homework. I think the RIAA have got sh*t for business brains.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Umm, hate to break it to you, but RIAA is primarily a meatspace organization consisting of lawyers who sue people. You and all your cybergladiator rockstar hax0r friends, feel free to rake riaa.org and their scant other online assets over the coals. Get real...
...then I might use those accounts again to set up ties with known al-queda terrorists. I would surveil the actual execs and make sure that whatever I set up with the terrorists coicides with thier actual movements during the day...
Well, let's get real, then... If I were really in a cyber war, and not just futzing around, then I think I would hack into the accounts of the top execs and use thier power and access steal whatever financial information they have, especially the things that they don't let the "artists" legally see (like how much they should actually make in royalties).
There are many things a cyber fighter can do to make changes in the meatspace world... Until recently, there just hasn't been a need.
I didn't even get into the child porn ring yet!
More likely you didn't know how to work your computer and delted them yourself.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Can someone please make an anti-RIAA screensaver? It would just have to ping their site a little while your computer wasn't in use...
As of 8:42 PM CT www.riaa.org could not be reached via Cox cable or Sprint's 3G network. I suspect a ddos in progress.
Maybe if I just keep on trying to ping it...
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I recall a few years ago, Dave Matthews Band released a new song on Napster or another sharing network (whoa!) before releasing it elsewhere. From that point on I was a further devoted fan, I knew that they embraced music lovers. There have been other instances of this, and I'm sure the end result was positive for the bands. In many cases, local bands release music on P2P networks just so their music will get heard.
Music artists CAN embrace the freedom that these networks provide, and in the end gain more respect from their listeners because WE know they aren't about the bottom dollar.
After Metallica's attack on Napster, I trashed all of their CD's and refuse to spend ANY money on them. This coming from someone who went to numerous shows, and bought every one of their CD's. It sucks to see bands chasing money rather than fanship.
Adian
...I'm fairly sure some of this is clearly illegal under UK law. What happens when a system in the UK (or elsewhere) is infected with an RIAA trojan or a "freeze"? Surely that's identical to a black-hat taking over your system? Or this "silence" thing - a program that scans your HD? I haven't read up on my law books recently, but that's got to be wrong.
/. for inspiration...
As I said, IANAL, but if I remember correctly, extradition just requires equivalent criminality, so if some RIAA code infects my kit, can I extradite an RIAA exec over here and have them thrown in jail?
Come on, I know there must be some lawyers out there, even if you're just reading
Warning: May contain nuts
WE HAVE THE POWER TO DESTROY THAT INDUSTRY!!!
Let's destroy those fuckers, just to show them that WE ARE MORE POWERFUL IN OUR NUMBERS than them.
(Reposted, account some stuck-up asshole moderating it to "flamebait").
If the average person had their hard drive trashed by the RIAA would they be more likely to spend more money on CDs or would they be more likely to boycot CDs and spend their money elsewhere ?
In my case I've already made the switch. After Audio Galaxy shut down I was so disgusted that I quit buying CDs and switched to anime video. Other people might not be so extreme but its hard to believe they'd increase their spending in the way the RIAA would like.
Another possible side effect might be that more people would discover the greater security of linux or the bsds. Imagine your average high school student suddenly getting interested in unix permission bits and file ownerships...
Its quite easy for the RIAA to separate between legit and illegal files. I remember when Eminem's CD got leaked early, they determined that there were 5-8 different rips floating around. how they figured this out? they looked at the different bit lengths of the files. different programs and different encoders create files that aren't quite the same. all the RIAA needs to do is get a copy of the illegal release and search for 1:1 copies on your boxen. This might not solve the problem of older files, but it sure as hell could stop new releases in their tracks. incidentally this effectively keeps you from renaming or changing the extensions of your music
and if you just happened to rip your files the exact same way as the major release groups, i don't think the RIAA will care very much.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Does the RIAA really think that pirates are really too stupid to recognize that a .mp3.exe suffix isn't actually a music file? And even if they were, my understanding is that software like Kazaa categorizes the shared files, and would label such a thing as an application, and not an audio file, so people searching specifically for music files wouldn't even see it, let alone download it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
you and everyone else assumes the RIAA will be dumb enough to remove anything with the name "eminem" in it. GraceNote/FreeDB tracks not just the most popular songs that people want the titles for, but little things like file lengths. surprise! the RIAA can get a copy and delete files that happen to have similar names and the exact same lengths. so unless you happen to rip your 's cd that isn't out in stores yet EXACTLY the same way as the professional groups you shouldn't have to much to be afraid of.
we need to realize that the goal is to control the release of _new_ music. Eminem's cd got released into the wild waaay before its official release date and was downloaded by millions ---that's what they want to stop.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
As I read the error in the source, I immediately thought, "Someone is going to make a really nerdy comment about the error." As it turns out, I was rewarded with not a nerdy comment, but a nerdy back-and-forth!
:)
I really do love Slashdot for this very reason.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
"But two other programs freeze the user's system or delete music files determined to be illegal"
I'd like to see them try this against *MY* Linux box, or for that matter, against *ANY* Linux box. Not to mention to penetrate my Smoothwall 2.0....
So sorry, but they are just too stupid to accomplish this..
M$ boxen, oh yeah, I can see it. But not here. Ain't gonna happen...
So sorry, try again you friggen IDIOTS...
Until the RIAA offers a free media replacement policy (you know, replacing your outdated casette tapes and vinyl records with brand-spanking-new CD's with of the same album), I think music "piracy" should be legalized. It's not piracy if you've already paid for a right-to-use license to the music by already having bought a record or casette tape and are now just getting a copy of the CD without buying it retail.
Robbery. Sheer robbery.
-- Dossy
Dossy's Blog
these "countermeasures" can only affect people dumb enough to not look at the full file name. No one would download a .mp3.exe file unless they were either retarded or smoking crack. There's no buffer overflow exploit to use in an actual MP3 file.
Repeal the DMCA!
Excellent point, I don't think any old tapes or vinyls came with EULA that you would be ignoring in this.
I guess the question is what are you buying when you buy a cd? the Cd itself with whatever happens to be on it, or the right to listen to the material on the medium. Any legal people able to tell me which it is? Fair use seems to support the later.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Are these people really this moronic? Several people have made great points thus far, but I feel like reiterating and "summing it up" anyhow (mod down for dup if you like). They have fought on the technological "battlefield" repeatedly and lost repeatedly. Each time they seem to scale up on the offensive and entrench themselves more deeply into the the technology battle their level of defeat ratchets up in direct correlation. It would seem that (as they old saying states) they are not learning from their mistakes. The first time one of these morons "accidentally" DOSs the wrong person/a business/a government entity/you pick, they will rue the day they decided to implement such a stupid plan. I am NOT for stealing music, but as many have pointed out, the answer isn't fighting online music, it's embracing it and turning it into THE new transport for delivery of commercial music (a la Apple). Yes, I know there are lots of things to be hashed out, but the powers that be in the music industry have got to be painfully aware that the current market is soon dead and they must find a new way to conduct business.
Here is a time magazine article
1 ,1 101030505-447204,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,917
Ok.. I have various term papers and code I've written myself... my school doesn't have any stupid rule grabbing copyright, so I own the copyright free and clear on all of it. Wouldn't breaking past the routers firewall, circumventing the Windows XP user/permission scheme be a violation of the DMCA? If so, lets hit them with their own stick. It would be hillarious to see the RIAA itself brought down for a DMCA violation.
It is funny to see what is happening with our modern day tower of babel. Its like a star wars movie or something. I can see in the future when the paid hackers are working for the RIAA and the rest are working to sabatage the RIAA. I think that the music industry is due for a screwing. Too many great artist have been ripped off (ex: Tribe called Quest got 250 grand for selling 2 million records, not to mention all the artist that have chosen not to record albums rather than deal with the industry) It all comes down to technology vs. counter-technology. They are not going to stop the downloading so they should try investing what money they have left in textiles or something. www.illmitch.com
First off, for distribution, why not take the file, reverse all the bits, and distribute that? IANAH(acker) so I don't know what reversing all the bits of a song would do, but I'm willing to assume that it changes the song profile a bit. Then, on the client side, you take the bits and reverse the bits back. That changes the distributing of the copyright(what is distributed is not the original song) and leaves the infringement back to the end user, for possessing it.
Rant #2:
Isn't scanning a computer for illegal files exactly like going to somebody's house and looking through the windows? Or opening their front door and looking but not touching? That's intrusion on private property, if I may say so myself(IANAL). And end rant #2.
One thing is still bothering me. How do they plan on getting this software onto violaters machines? Are there vulnerabilities in current P2P software that allow them to execute code on a remote machine, or do they plan on using IE's software installing features (gator, bonzibuddy, etc...), and exploits. If they plan on using IE, will they pay off some high traffic music based site to install their software.
Isnt it possible that they pay off some P2P companies and bundle this new RIAA spyware with the latest download?
AC
Bzzzt, wrong. He's a retired Mechanical Engineer with very little Unix exposure. The bulk of his computing experience was converting a few routine flow calculations to BASIC to run under DOS. He took a Numercial Methods class in the 80's when PCs became affordable. They taught him FORTRAN, but he wrote and debugged all the code in BASIC at home then converted it to FORTRAN on a terminal. He also did a little C work, very little. His use of PCs has been continuous, however, and the other OS on the box I fixed up is windoze 98SE.
His interest in Linux was spurred when his other computer, also windoze, quit talking to the internet and performance issues we are all familiar with. Dual boot set up was a sinch and he now prefers the Linux side.
What's truly scary is that you're using that fact as the basis for your argument that free software is more than ready for the desktop. Muahahaha.
Yeah, M$ and their shills should be scared. Linux on the desktop works for all sorts of people.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...as 'The Matrix', and be done with it.
No Legislator (all of whom possess vast investments in Corporate America, and therefore have plenty to lose...) will try to apply such laws to the wealthy and powerful elite. Such a thought is heresy. Oppressive laws are created to oppress those who can be oppressed, and that's us.
The problem with Cyberwars for the RIAA is that there are always two sides to these wars. My bet is that if they tried any of these attacks, the hacker backlash would destroy them and their computers.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
I used to buy CDs all the time. I'm not into the hole mp3 thing. But all this crap pisses me off. I dont want to support these people.
First they screw over the artist(remember tribe called quest). Then they hackup peoples computers.
I'm never buying another CD. EVER.
You are neglecting the infamous Network Effect (ie why Microsoft more or less allowed everyone pirate DOS and Windows throughout the 80's and 90's - Steven Ballmer even bragged about it once in some print magazine like Fortune, quipping that it was "part of their buisness model").
The Network Effect increases the song's potential number of listeners (ie its global popularity) - for *free* in this case (ie no payola scams)
Popularity in turn increases the potential value of the song as a commodity which can be LEASED TO THE ADVERTISERS (as michael jackson, for instance, well knows) to sell cars, beer, clothing, and other lifestyle products. This is the *real money jackpot* for musicians and artists.
Therefore, the RIAA's economic reasoning is entirely misleading and completely bogus.
--TRR
kinda reminds me of the TRS-80 days when Wayne Green of BYTE was complaining about us coping game tapes. (Yes kiddies we used cassette tapes for storage back in the stone age)He was talking about the millions his software company was losing from copying.(Inflation you know)
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Hey! If they want a "cyberwar" than it has to be gloves off, no holds barred. They can't try to fsck us up, and then go crying to the government after we start going after their systems. I have a feeling that those Recording Industry people wouldn't have 1/2 of a clue on how to hack my Linux box?
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Our buisness model works even if all Internet music is free . . . We are still selling advertising services. What does the RIAA's buisness model look like? Not very good.--TRR
Ah well just will have to stop listening to music completly or at least only music that is free or some such. I don't buy cds for the simple reason that half of the stuff on the cds is complete and utter crap designed to fill a hour of playing time. The easiest way to put a hurting in the RIAAs pocket books is to not buy the cds and also not listen to them in mp3 format otherwise the US is going to be a police state within the next 10 years. Also what if someone with more money than the RIAA ie microsoft gets hacked by one of these worms couldnt they sue RIAA for DMCA violation:)
What I'd like to know is if the RIAA plans on attacking Americans only. I have a funny feeling the answer is "no"...
If anyone from a record company is reading this: Here's the answer.
Embed a 5-10 second audio ad in your pop songs at the beginning, post the MP3 on your site for download for free, and charge advertisers per download. It's just like radio. The vast majority of your user base is too lazy to cut the ad out.
It's like radio with half the distribution costs.
Really, how is downloading a song different from calling the radio station and requesting it? (Besides the instant gratification part).
I could be wrong (sorry if I am..), but didn't the NYT require free reg? What's changed?
Gee. Now how did all those illegal songs end up on SCO's servers? Pity.
Table-ized A.I.
It's the same with movies. I have a modest DVD library of about 65 titles worth at least $CDN1000.
It'll cost a lot of money to re-buy all the movies when the DVD's successor is introduced; like you said, it's robbery.
But back on topic, I can't believe how stupid the music industry is. I can definitely understand their concern about poor CD sales, but what the hell are they thinking? Instead of trying to fix the problem (a good start would be lowering the price of CDs), they're pissing off and alienating their consumers by treating them like criminals and now wanting to damage their computers. They're only making the situation worst.
I can sum up my opinion of the RIAA in two words: fuck you!
I can't believe no one has mentioned this. There is a known MP3/WMA buffer overflow exploit in Windows XP (even SP1). You don't need to open the file to trigger the exploit; simply hovering the mouse pointer over the filename is enough.
After the absolutely sterling job the RIAA has done protecting their website, I am just quaking in my boots.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
This isn't cyber-war, it's cyber terrorism. Attacking individuals machines en masse is no less cyber-terrorism than some 12 year old defacing a website.
And once you learn to use their own terminology against them, you realize that what the music industry wants to do is illegal for the same reasons I can't randomly delete files off their computers or commit resources to DDOSing them.
Personally, I think heads should roll if these measures are finalized and put into use. I think some executives should be held responsible in a criminal court for flagrantly disregarding the law on a massive scale. This goes beyond even corporate vigilanteeism into the realm of lawlessness.
If they follow through with this, they won't have to worry about losing money from *ME* to MP3s anymore(though admittedly, I have 64 files shared on kazaa, and they own exactly 0 -- I know because I wrote all of them myself), because I'll burn my music collection and make it my mission to never listen to an RIAA song again, for fear of lending mindshare to an organization so distasteful.
It's been a long time.
I know of people slightly older then my self.
They bought the vinyl
They bought the 8-track for their car
They bought the cassette cause the 8-track broke
They bought the CD cause their new car only has a CD player
--
How many times do you have to buy it before you own it? I'd say a serious kickback if your old media broke,esp if it was a 8-track!
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
How do we know whome to punish - those who share or those who download or those who fail to protect their products with outdating means of distribution?! RIAA's interests are as corrupt as the whole music-share frenzy. When will we start living up to moral, ethical values again; living up to technological innovations?!
would be better seen as a tabboo art form in which the expansion of meaning without permission of an author, who has not yet developed enough to understand why this has to happen for the better of us all :/ no sidestepping.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
it makes me sick thinking that people tried to put an ecconomic value on something as beautiful as music to begin with...
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
The general reaction seems to be:
;)
* gosh, they will delete my legal MP3s too
* The bastards are resorting to illegal tactics, ill sure
* They will sabotage my pc
But who here really thinks they will succeed? Im just laughing at it. The RIAA of all people who cant even keep their website up, pwning my computer? Doubt it.
Maybe it will get rid of the n00bs who decide to open "Geri Halliwell - Really good - REAL!!!.RIAAFix.EXE", which is a good thing for P2P networks
So supply is increased, holding demand constant, drops the value. Simple economics.
Yeah, but what happens when the MC (marginal cost - i.e. cost of production per unit sold) equals zero? This is the case for the music industry - they don't even have to pay to distribute the songs they produce. This certainly doesn't mean that the TC (total cost) or ATC (total cost divided by units sold) - after all, they do reserve a pittance artists and sound engineers. Either way, that traditional economic curve doesn't apply.
Copyright intentionally makes scarcity of non-scarce objects, for the specific purpose of creating economic value.
You run into a problem, however, when creating economic value for something that has little to no inherent value.
It seems to me there's a relatively simple way to combat trojans/viruses/damaged files sent out onto the network by the RIAA: MD5 sums.
Imagine if you had a client that allowed you to click a "this file is busted" button -- and perhaps let you pick from a list of things like "1. Virus; 2. Corrupt; 3. Kiddie Porn; 4. This Music Just Sucks!", which went off and reported the MD5sum of the file and the reason you gave for reporting it to either a centralized base of servers, or all of your local peers. The recipients of this information would then hang onto it until a critical mass of reports about that particular MD5sum had been reached (the critical mass being necessary to prevent the ??AA from just coming onto the network and spewing out MD5sums of legit files). Once that point came, they'd put it onto a blacklist of sorts, which could be constantly distributed throughout the network.
I know this wouldn't exactly be perfect, but it'd be a good start against this sort of thing, it'd be perfectly legal -- and actually, it would work as a great evidence-gathering tool for a potential case against the ??AA folks. Just imagine going to court, telling a judge that you've got the unique fingerprint of a particularly malicious file showing up all over the network, and then pointing at the RIAA/MPAA. That could have the potential to seriously screw these guys!
How To Get Humans To Mars
I've got a simple argument!
In Canada, everyone who makes a backup copy of their data is taxed for piracy. That means that buying blank recording media is equivalent to pleading "No Contest" to whatever piracy laws are in place and paying your fine.
As a recognized and convicted pirate, who has already paid his fines, I now feel free to copy whatever I want, whenever I want... why should I be an upstanding citizen when I've already been convicted and fined without facing my accusors, having a trial, and other legal nicities?
Everyone who disagrees with the Riaa and Mpaa should simply open a text editor, enter your complaint, do print to your favorite printer, address a copy of said letter to each member company, then sign each copy. Finally place said letter into envalope, place proper postage, add addresses, drop in nearest snail-mail repositroy.
Fill their physical mail boxes with millions of letters.
STOP buying and paying to enjoy their products and elminate their profit base all togther.
Let the artists starve until they resend their contracts with the member companies and sign on with trade friendly companies.
By the way this means that you will have to pay attention to whom produced things like movies at the theater, on DVD, on VHS. Don't go to the local video store and rent any movies, or anything else that would cause a profit! And do not buy any CD's produced by these companies, PEROID!
One last thing Register to Vote, write letters to your state and US Representitives. They will respond to huge piles of letters from millions of potential votes!!!!! SEE NRA.org (National Rifle Association)
We are many, many more than the RIAA could hire. We're the Viet Cong. We know our turf. I almost feel sorry for the RIAA because they don't know the mess they're getting themselves into.
Technological know-how with a passion is on the side of Truth, Justice, and the American way.
Considering that they own both domains and the .com flips people to the .org, your credibility just dropped by at least a little bit.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
First off, you should probably pre-increment/decrement your variables rather than post-incrementing/decrementing them. Pre-incrementing actually increments the varable, rather than creating a new variable, copying the old variable's data over, incrementing it, changing the pointer to the new variable, and then freeing the memory from the old variable.
Second, you used the assignment operator in your while statements rather than the comparison operator. This will cause the loops to run infinitely.
Third, in the for loop, illegalMusicCount may begin with a value greater than zero, in which case the loop would not run. If it did, it would be with a value of zero for illegalMusicCount, thereby not entering the if statement at all. You should probably use the != operator in the for loop instead.
Fourth, the ^ operator is the bitwise XOR operator. Assuming you used a 32-bit integer, you just XORed lawsuitRevenue with 00000000000000000000001111101000 (binary). Unless you initialized lawsuitRevenue to be some non-zero/non-one value, any exponential modification would either take on some unforseeable result (if it was not initialized) or zero or one (if it was initialized to either of those, respectively). You should also check to see how large a value you're getting. Taking something to the thousandth power repeatedly is a good way to overflow whatever you're using to store values with if it can run a large number of times (such as with somebody who is a frequent MP3/OGG downloader/rippper and has tens of thousands of music files).
The RIAA must also be careful not to piss off those sharing files from their music entirely. Not to mention the argument that file sharing may actually promote CD sales.
I'd think that the admitted research by the RIAA into these things would be illegal, as a form of conspiracy or as merely planning to commit theft/property damage/whatever applicable crimes. If I write out a complicated plot to rob a bank, get maps, weapons, write out how I intend to circumvent security and kill guards, but am still considering whether to go forward with it due to legality- I can still be arrested for my plans.
HEY! I still have an under dash 8 track player in my car! (75 model)
I remember when they were hot items, my dad bought one and installed it in our station wagon so he could listen to Johnny Cash and Al Hirt.
At home it was nice because they would play continuos loop and were a little more durable than vinyl. And in your car you could listen to your favorite music rather than the crap on the radio..
When I was a teen the cassette came out and I HAD to have one. Now I am back to 8 track...
( I don't use it, it's just there for looks though it does function..)
Hack the RIAA, the MPAA, and anyone else who deserves it.
To all of you who are defending the RIAA and their ways...
HEY--I heard it on the radio and liked it; so I bought it on 45 (RPM).
Then, I decided to buy the album--and did so.
But then 8-track came out, so I bought the album on 8-track, because my new stereo system had a lousy record player, but a nice 8-track tape system.
But the 8-track version wore out; and I had bought a good cassette system by now. So, I bought it on cassette; the album was scratched, and when I tried recording it at home, that recording I made on cassette sounded poor, anyhow. Perhaps I could have bought superior sound equipment--but at the time, that equipment costed way too much; plus I am not an audio engineer...
But then, CD's came out, and by now I had played my poor store-bought cassette of it to death; plus it had been hot out there in my car. So, I bought the CD version.
But then, these nifty little things that let you listen to music from RAM, called "Rio" came out. So, bought one of those...but I cannot rip from the CD--it cannot be played in my computer!
So now what do I do? And how much have I spent just for the "privilege" of listening to my favorite song?
So, what do I have to do for the RIAA? *Bleed* for them? At least, with music-sharing services, I've been able to listen to today's current music, and realize that I don't have to buy it and waste that money to know that it all SUCKS! It is great, because I just can't stand this garbage that passes for music these days...one thing I do like to do, is to download all that old Blues music...John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, etc. etc. And I don't think that is stealing--Muddy Waters is dead, and Hooker recently died as well [respectful pause of silence to morn our loss]... So I really don't see how it could possibly be considered "stealing"...and if some RIAA person is unable to purchase their fourth yacht because of my downloads, then too bad for them! (So far I've pretty much kept to things that I already have on CD or two other types of paid-for media, anyhow; if I like it, I've already paid for it, so what's the problem? I've been so disgusted with recent artists, that I delete them just as soon as I hear them!)
My heart just *bleeds* for them, thinking about how much they are going to suffer because they are having trouble stealing from a dead man...
--
Life sucks when the flock starts fleecing you back...
Selling or otherwise sharing pirated copies of vinyl records or casette tapes, while it's music piracy, because of its analog nature, meant that there was always incentive for the buyer or acquirer of the pirated music to one day purchase an original if they desired better quality.
..."
I think what really irks the music industry is that they believe CD piracy lacks that side-effect. Analog music piracy was free marketing and promotion for the music labels -- people got their hands on lower quality samples, some of whom would become motivated to purchase originals for the sake of better quality.
What I don't think the music industry is tracking is how many CD sales are happening BECAUSE of CD music pirating. How many people wouldn't have dared shell out $15.99 to buy album XYZ of an artist they'd never heard of if they HADN'T just come across it via a P2P filesharing network, listened to it and said, "Hey, I want to help support this small-time artist and/or band, let me buy a copy and hope they get more than $0.03 in royalties
To answer your question, I think the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA), 17 U.S.C. 1001-1010 would seem to indicate that if you owned the CD and made a digital copy of it, you're allowed to do so. (Link taken from another excellent page: The DAT Controversy by Jocelyn Dabeau and William Fisher.)
I take advantage of this so that I only keep copies of all my CD's in my car, in case my flip-file of CD's gets stolen or my entire car. It also makes CD scratches less annoying, since for $0.35 I just toss the scratched copy and make a new one to keep in the car.
However, is it legal to make a digital copy for non-commercial personal use of someone else's CD for your own use, even though you may legally own a copy of the music in another medium (record, cassette, etc.)? I'm not a lawyer, but I'm guessing it's not legal. IMHO, I think it should be.
-- Dossy
Dossy's Blog
yeah, sec 1030 would work very well in this case, for both a civil and criminal action. (suit would be filed in federal court, no small claims action here as it is a federal statute)You would need the feds to get involved to prosecute, and there could be jail time for said attack on your machine under section (a)(2)(C), (a)(4), (a)(5)(A) thru (C). (your suit would be filed after the criminal trial, for damage or loss over 5k). For that reason, I dont think you'll see this plan implemented any time soon. You would also have a valid trespass to chattels claim, as they are intermeddling with your legally protected interest.. your computer.
As for them suing you.. good luck. "well your honor, yes, I did break the law, but only to show you that they were breaking it too!" It would tantamount to an admission on their part of criminal liability. To win their case (the riaa), they would have to provide sufficient information as to how they got to the files on your computer, and in the process they would be admitting liability under 1030. With regard to trespass to chattels, their only defense to this would be that their trespass did not legally constitute a trespass, that they had a privilege or a valid necessity, but that burden is on them, and it is a weighty one.
would the riaa shoot themselves in the foot to get at some downloaders? maybe.. if they themselves were prosecuted and jailed, or if they thought it was a real possibility, then doubtful. just my thoughts on the matter.
danoatvulaw '04
It seems like everything that's illegal for us to do is legal for big companies...
need to elaborate how copying someone else's art without improvement, attribution, permission, or even commentary can possibly be considered "art."
the subject matter in discussion was art to begin with was it not? improvement is a hard thing to do : ask the local radio stations who play 24/7 classic rock. permission? is what keeps good art from people who would experience it,..commentary, is unnecessary. but not everyone has access to all expressions worth being a part of, or viewing, or _whatever_ : i'm wondering if by the time i can afford a Real Computer that the p2p's will have been shut down, and i'll end up living without exposure to any music at all, except for the aforementioned classic rock...
if i take a poem, written in america, and i use it, claiming it as my own, in canada, and gain thousands of fans and admirers in canada, that poem had an effect it would not have had otherwise : why be so picky ? why do we need to be worshipped for our art? unless we are in some way insecure of it perhaps?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
My recurring nightmare, as a sometimes-user of Kazaa (i.e. MAYBE once/month to look for a specific song), is that somehow or another all of my ORIGINAL .mp3s (to which i own the copyrights) will somehow get whacked in one of these crackpot RIAA revenge schemes.
i always considered shakespear dirty limericks, but mabye that's just me and my unenglish ways.
:P
anyways...if the art is crap - only the author will listen/bear it. and sure enough, eventually after having piles of junk and worthless peices of art created, if there is any talent at all...they will start making better stuff. but either way - if it's junk the popularity of it, as we both know will be effectively 1 - the author
the problem is that art, as with religion is none of the laws damn business - why do we need a government to tell us what we can / cannot say/write/create/listen to? is that what you are implying---that we need the government to approve all art, lest it be junk? or perhaps a simpler solution, especially when we now have the internet, to let people decide for themselves what they figure is great art. even if hypothetically a person lived a good portion of their life with junk-brittainy-spears-quality-dubbed-and-ripped-of f-music...if they ever heard great music, i think they would noice it. but who cares? it's not one work, it's the whole, imho. we don't believe stairway to heaven to be a masterpeice unless we determine harmony, and pattern-based dischord, not to mention sound, beautiful, and so on.
anyways on originality-shakespear is an excellent example : most of his work, as i remember being taught it, wasn't his. it was ripped off from other playrights, almost word-for-word[if not that then definitely plot-for-plot]...and lo! now all of us enjoy the works such as romeo and juliette [including No Effort Online's great interpretation of it!]...which we would not have otherwise been exposed to had shakespear not plagerized the script from some other guy who now never gets the credit which in popular copyright law he should be given credit for. i say, who cares?? he's long dead anyways...but even if he were not... his story has touched billions---mabye it will even touch trillions by the end of its influence. this sort of an effect is what seperates the great from the not-so-great...and oh wait...now we have reasons to make art again and so we don't need copyright...right? obviously you aren't in any way artistic/creative, or you may have figured out at this point that you don't need encouragement from others to be like that --- Trying to create a system of artificially inspired people by filling the successful ones with money should *not* be sought.[with the possible exception of the gangsta rap...i think this is an interesting case...but i digress] let me rephrase:
they should *not* HAve the first chance to profit off of their art. they shouldn't profit from their art...at all! this is what is wrong with the entire system! we are trying to create profit for ourselves instead of trying to create art...and this is sick! i mean if you get money for you art, great. but don't expect it, no matter who you are.
we don't need to reward artistic creations. greatness in art is a reward in itself
i wanted to imply that the artist did NOT want to get the poem to canada - your standard greedy - if your not in my personal circuit you don't deserve to hear my art style which i'v eseen so so many times before..i'm saying canadians just would not have access to this stuff. people who can't afford 40$ / cd or a 3000$ computer[and who are not smart enough to get a cheep 486 working] may not have access to the p2p nets...so what follows? they won't have access to masses of art out there--in a sense a divide between the people who can view art and the people who can not. i am trying to bridge this gap, so the have-nots can be haves in this sense. now obviously th is example isn't quite as important or clear because everyone should be able to get on the internet, but there ARE examples out there where art is restricted to those who can afford it / who have access to it - in a sense this is what is being discussed is it not????
in the meanwhile, if the artist did NOT want thepoem in canada, and i moved
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
we need a government to try to keep us from getting theclubs out whether or not art is involved - why make art a special case? if lying is a problem for you[as it is for me] then why not make anti-lying laws instead of copyright laws? why the abstraction? or is there something other than that needed?
the 'being an artist is expensive' is a good point, i don't think it's necessary any more. remember: and all that could have been was alledgedly done on regular, run of the mill Mac's and handheld cameras...not exactly cheap,..but definitely getting there.
and i'm not sure if i agree even if. some of the best music i've ever heard was at live shows with artists i'll never hear again, or on limewire...but this point is really insignificant because you probably are right...the best may be the full timers
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
n/m