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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.
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
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
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
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.
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?
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.
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."
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...
Unfortunately, the RIAA has too much politcal sway. As it is, they've been scanning hard drives for music files, etc., yet I am not aware of any legal actions against them for this (I may be wrong). As much as I'd love to see them get sued... it won't happen. They'll have enough support (read: bought enough support) to get away with any actions. As it is right now, they've gone too far. No one, not the government, not the RIAA, should have access to your personal property, like your computer. They want to check something, get a warrent. But, it's happening already.
But hell, I could be wrong. Maybe the RIAA will go down in flames, and I'd be happy to see that happen. But if things continue as they are right now, I doubt it will. Remember though, the people do have some power... we elect officials to represent us. Use that power, and things just might change.
take off every sig for great justice
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.
Have they figured out what the internet is yet ? Obviously not, or they'd be trying to make money.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
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!
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 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.
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?
I think what BitTorrent really needs most is for the .torrents to be available on some truly decentralised p2p program, like giFT or something. Then there would be no webserver to DDoS to kill the torrents.
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?
They have sued college students for $90 billion and settled for $17 thousand which is still way too much.
Based on what? If the college students held up a bank, hacked the RIAA servers, or stole from a local artist, they'd still be liable for damages.
They count 50 cd burners at faster speeds to be 420 burners for statistic purposes.
Ever been sued / looked at the inital claim in a lawsuit? Any plausible method of counting or claiming gets used to be in the claimant's best interest.
My wife had an auto accident some years back. The moron driver, who IMO caused the accident by driving recklessly (and wasn't ticketed due to a quirk in NYS's traffic code) sued us, and the inital claim read as if my wife had followed the lady for a mile, sped up to 60, and slamned right into her when she was just driving along, happy as can be.
The suit was settled out of court with our insurance company, btw. We didn't pay a single dime.
They have been proven guilty of illegal cd price fixing and screwing the consumer.
Which makes them somehow unable to defend their interest now? Just because someone's a child molester doesn't deprive them of their freedom of speech. (Freedom of anonymnity, sure, but not speech.)
Copyright infringement and Spam are the 'net's biggest problems. Thankfull, good filtering, new laws, and simple poor PR is killing the later, and a good model and proper enforcement are slowly killing the former.
Once Apple has its music service avalible for windows sans iPod--or it's emulated--the justification for current P2P gets smaller and smaller and smaller.
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...
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.
Why do you automatically assume that I support piracy because I question the ethics of the RIAA and their cronies? All the mp3's on my computer are ripped from my personal CD collection, and there isn't a single warezed application. I respect IP, but I don't think that you should use unethical tactics to protect it.
Unless the RIAA has proof enough to get a warrant to search my computer, their right to protect their IP stops at the edge of my network as far as I am concerned. The minute they do something in the name of fighting piracy that would normally be considered illegally, they can kiss my ass as they deserve the criticism I gave them. And yes, what they are proposing would be totally illegal.
Some of the methods you describe are legal and pretty good ideas in my opinion. If someone has a P2P client running and the port open, that implies that they are allowing data to be shared. Leech the hell out of their bandwidth so that no pirates can get any. File up all their download slots. However, the RIAA plans to do more than this.
If you want to get a job helping them, so be it. I wish you or anyone else the worst at such a job. Help them write the trojan they want, but just remember that you are innocent until proven guilty.
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
I agree, why mess about with a cyberwar when all you need is a bunch of pissed of geeks with a 6KW microwave gun in the back of their pickup to drive past the RIAA's servers?
They can always restore from backups if we launch a cyberwar, they can't just pop down to the local shop and pick up a replacement for everything with a microchip in it for their entire building.....
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
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.
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.
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... "pandora," on them. Just don't forget that at the end of the day, you are a lowly computer scientist munching on your microwave burrito and making idle threats on Slashdot, while they a small army of lawyers backed by the full faith and credit of five, billion dollar multinationals. This battle will be played out in the legal arena, and status quo being what it is, it's theirs to lose.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
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
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'd hope they were doing something more sophisticated than that!!! If they were just scanning for music in this way, then I'd have to agree that it's pretty inappropriate. Personally, I'd try to find the most common/popular versions of the files doing the rounds, get the MD5 hashes and find a way of destroying anything on the computer with that hash. At least that's the start of an idea.
Salocin.com
And more important, what about legal music? If I own a CD and make an MP3 of that content, it is 100% legal. How do they get a list of all the CDs I own legally to ensure that they only delete illegal music?
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
What I'd like to know is if the RIAA plans on attacking Americans only. I have a funny feeling the answer is "no"...
My first thought is that the article clearly stated, twice, that nobody in this setup intended to do anything illegal. The RIAA claims that it is "exploring technological options", but "has no intention o breaking the law in any way". So let's wait for them to state the intention before jumping down their throats on this one, as otherwise it just makes the pro-filesharing community look like a bunch of hypocritical whiners.
I thought "making it available" was sufficient to break the law. "Nobody had downloaded it yet" seems like a bit of a lame defence when it's clear that you were making it available for download by others.
Second, as a previous poster wrote, sarcastically, "Oh My God! The RIAA might actually be breaking the law, how terrible!" (or words to that effect). Every time a song is shared or downloaded for free off a filesharing service, the law has been broken and the "victim" (legally speaking, please control your emotional arguments) is a music producer and related people. It strikes me as hypocritical in the extreme that these people might seek to use the law to prevent countermeasures against their own lawbreaking. A bit like the guy who tried to steal your wallet in the street sueing you for punching him in your defence. (note, slashdot pedants, that I said a bit and am not saying the two are exactly or legally equivalent). I agree that much of what the RIAA might try to do is dodgy from an invasion of privacy and unauthorized access/damage to property standpoint. But it isn't nearly as black and white as the filesharing=theft argument that has already been tried in court and has been upheld. I think the courts would have little sympathy, and might well ask for proof. What would then ensue would be that the court asks the RIAA or whoever for reparations to cover the cost of the damage they did.
I would think that the RIAA would do whatever it does carefully, would weigh the risks and potential pitfalls of their IT strategy and would take appropriate precautions: we've already seen them test the idea by floating it in front of lawmakers. My guess is that when they do it, they'll have the law and the ISPs on their side. There's an assumption on here that we're dealing with idiots, and I think that's a bit naive.
Also: You think that you could lure the RIAA in by making it look (deliberately) like you're doing something they should be concerned about, have a piece of code that redirects their subsequent attack to a military website, thus bringing the department of defense into the affair, and you would somehow not be found to have done something wrong? I'll tell you what, you do it, I'll watch, because regardless of whether it's called Entrapment or not, I'd rather be in the audience.
Salocin.com