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.

Comments

questionable?

[feed_me_cereal]

most of those are clearly illegal!

Re:questionable?

[GimmeFuel]

Illegal for us, the peons? Yes.

Illegal for them, the multibillion dollar international corporation? No.

See the "They had a solution to illegality planned." link. The courts already look the other way for them all the time. This bill was just them deciding "We can spend $X bribing a bunch of judges, or we can invest in the long-term solution of spending $Y to get a law that makes it legal for us to do all this."

Re:questionable?

[Exatron]

Tehcnically, billions aren't lost in illegal downloads- the potential for billions is. There is no guarantee that a person who downloaded song X would have purchased it if it weren't available for download.

Re:questionable?

[Mikeytsi]

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.

This is why prople are bent out of shape. What if they delete a file that I depend on for my job by mistake? And let's suppose that ALL of the music files on that system, including the ones that are being shared, are files of music that I created, and am distributing for free to promote my band? What happens when I try to sue them for costing me my job?

Allowing a private company to act as judge, jury, and executioner is a bad idea. They do not have the best interests of the public in mind.

Re:questionable?

[Nogami_Saeko]

Well said, and it brings up an important point:

Just because I download a song, it doesn't make me any more likely to buy it then if I was to hear it on the radio.

Sure I might still have it on my HD, but if I never listen to it again, it's not really lost revenue is it?

Of course, the more that the big companies can complain loudly about "lost revenue", the more they can pressure courts to do whatever they want.

Re:questionable?

[Yorrike]

Further to this, what gives the Recording Industry Association of America the right to delete files on my PC, when I'm not an American or in America?

Do they assume that because a court case is won/loss in the US, that it applies to all countries there after?

Futhermore, DoSing a foreigner could be esculated into an international incident. It is, after all, an attack by a group in one country where the government in that country refuses to do anything about it. Which pretty much lends to the conclusion that it's state endorsed.

Virus Scanners

[yeoua]

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...).

Re:Virus Scanners

[mrpuffypants]

I'd say that the virusscan companies (Symantec, McAffee, etc.) have a vested interest in being impartial; i.e. if one company can pay them off then that means that there is at least one way to circumvent their software through the front door.

If they refuse to detect the RIAA CompuKiller(TM) then within a week there will be compariable free or paid software to do the same thing. They would lose credibility for caving in to the "legal" virus makers and not ship as many units, compounded with having to compete with free software to kill the RIAA/MPAA worms.

What's good for the goose...

[OrbNobz]

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!

Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war...

[Neologic]

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.

two wrongs do not equal a right

[thadeusPawlickiROX]

Now, I understand the stance that the music industry wants to "frustrate pirates" and get them to stop downloading music. But are they serious with some of these methods? Some of them are blatently illegal:

A more malicious program, dubbed "freeze," locks up a computer system for a certain duration -- minutes or possibly even hours -- risking the loss of data that was unsaved if the computer is restarted. It also displays a warning about downloading pirated music. 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.

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...

RIAA

[Karl_Hungus]

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.

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

They will REALLY be in for shit if they try this. It won't just be home users who get hit -- corporate machines and networks will too.

Even in the best case for the RIAA, imagine somone in my firm is downloading mp3s at work. The RIAA robot sends them something that damages their machine, causing loss of productivity, loss of valuable business data, and consumption of IT resources. Unless the RIAA wins some additinal legal immunity, their damage of my corporate property will not be legal and OmniMegaCorp will have the incentive and resources to create major legal trouble if it happens very often.

Now imagine that the employee wasn't actually downloading copyrighted music and gets hit by mistake for whatever reason.

Or, that the RIAA hack attack takes down an important corporate server.

Or, that the RIAAs DoS attack does stop my employee's downloading, but also my whole firm's net connection -- say I'm a brokerage that gets cut off from the market for hours. I do some IT work for Wall St. firms, and I can only imagine the reaction if I had to explain that our day's trades got screwed up because of an RIAA attack, even if some receptionist was guilty of downloading the latest Madonna song. The partners would be quite happy to join the inevitable class action lawsuit the next day.

I can't imagine they'll get immunity from damages even when their attack is an outright error -- and mistakes WILL happen, whether in targeting the wrong people or causing more damage than intended.

I'm sure it'll make corporate america tighten up their "no downloading" policies, but when it comes to actually causing damage to business operations, firms will view it is just another hack/virus attack -- except this time coming from someone with a well known mailing address for the subponeas and criminal complaints.

Just wondering...

[NetDanzr]

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?

Re:Just wondering...

[mrpuffypants]

Exactly.

And what's preventing my band from recording a new album, mixing it down, then encoding it out to mp3 to distribute on the internet...only to have RIAA BuzzKill(TM) delete them first?

And what is an illegal file type anyways? I could take every one of my mp3's, rename them to .txt, then change the mapping around in Windows and just open up the .txt files. (rough example)

Why do they want war?

[NanoGator]

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.

Just need to be a copyright holder eh?

[Enthrash]

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...

Re:but

[Zork the Almighty]

Have they figured out what the internet is yet ? Obviously not, or they'd be trying to make money.

good luck

[f0rtytw0]

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.

I buy the music.

[Openadvocate]

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.

Not so

[Planesdragon]

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?

Re:Not so

[Daniel Dvorkin]

This isn't the equivalent of shooting someone who's breaking into your house. This is more like:

• Getting your house broken into, then,
• Breaking into the house of someone else who you think might have been the guy who broke into your house, then,
• Looking around the place, then,
• Deciding that some of the stuff in his house looks something like stuff that was taken from yours, and then,
• Setting the house on fire in retaliation.

The legality of that sequence of events is not "questionable" at all ...

Re:Not so

[ComputerSlicer23]

Not precisely. The economic value of the song is diminished. That is what was taken away. Even if you wouldn't have purchased it, the economic value is diminised, precisely because a copy was made. So supply is increased, holding demand constant, drops the value. Simple economics. Your simple illegal copy diminishing their value, makes you liable for a lawsuite. Simple legal analysis. Now if your are a clever person, you'll respond that CD's are price fixed. Which is probably true. As a consumer do you know how to make the price move? Stop buying music. That doesnt' involve becoming a copyright infringer to get a copy anyways.

The reason this hasn't been a problem in the past, was that being a copyright infringer wasn't free. Now it is. Doing it to scale, and not getting caught was difficult. The internet and technological advancements have made that possible, and why it's a problem now.

You might not have bought the song either way, but your getting the enjoyment of said song. That has some value to you. If it didn't, you wouldn't have downloaded the song. Or at the very least you wouldn't have put it up on display for others to download. So clearly the song has value to the people whom are putting it up for download, and it has value to some of the people downloading it.

Those songs aren't naturally occuring objects. They don't just grow on trees.

Do you understand the Lockean princepals that are the rational and foundation of our current system of gov't? Know why people can claim they own land? Go read John Locke's "Second Treaties on Government". Very good book, you'll learn a lot about ethics and princepals in it. A lot about the justification for gov't, ownership, and property rights.

They can claim ownership by working the land, and improving it. You can claim ownership because you've put forth the effort to change and create the land from it's natural state. That's how one claims ownership of such things. I think that the individual artist, and the corporations behind them have put in the work to create the objects, and thus have a moral right to their ownership of the music.

Personally, I think that P2P networks should be left alone. They are fine constructions that have legitimate purposes. I think that if the RIAA is going to go after individuals who are copyright infringers, that's great. I think the people they went after recently who created search methods is wrong. I think those people should have been left alone. I think the RIAA should just crucify several copyright infringers in court, and keep doing it, until people realize the risks. It should continue doing so, one after another. It's illegal, it's copyright infringement, it's against the law. That's all there is to it.

Copyright is a *WONDERFUL* thing. It's what makes the GPL tick. It's what makes being a writer, and a programmer a viable proposition. It's what makes so very many occupations work.

Copyright intentionally makes scarcity of non-scarce objects, for the specific purpose of creating economic value. Did you catch that? It was an intentional construction, put forth by the founding fathers, who clearly thought about the matter at length. I think fair use is a good thing. I think making backup copies is a good thing. I think copyright is a good thing (not as currently implemented in the US or internationally by the Berne Convention).

Now, I think that copyright is a screwed up deal. I think they are entirely too long, and that they are fundamentally broken in that respect. However, you should respect copyrights. If you don't, there are innumerable things you enjoy which will disappear, precisely because they are what creates the economic incentive to create. That's why the founding fathers created copyright.

If you've got a problem with the Music business, stop consuming their product, support a different product. The music business doesn't have a right to a business model, so they can't just randomly sue people

Re:Not so

[xigxag]

The economic value of the song is diminished...precisely because a copy was made. So supply is increased, holding demand constant, drops the value. Simple economics.

Not so simple. To prove your point, you have to establish that the demand for the song in fact remains constant. Perhaps spreading the song about makes demand for it go up. Perhaps it goes down. When you hear a song on the radio, does your demand for it go up, down, or remain constant? Also depends on the song, doesn't it?

Your simple illegal copy diminishing their value, makes you liable for a lawsuite.

The key word there is "illegal". The reason the person is liable is because they are committing a tort, not merely because they are making a copy. Not all copies of a song are illegal, even if they diminish the economic value of it. A performance of a song is a copy, but if you perform it on your home keyboard in front of a few friends, you aren't violating any laws. And again, whether that causes demand for the song to increase or decrease will depend on the circumstances at hand.

Re:I could and I would.

[MalleusEBHC]

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.

Backwards Priorities

[cbbyers]

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.

Re:Why just cyberwar?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.....

anyone home?

[Tom]

Please turn on your brains. The RIAA is not stupid. Quite to the contrary, they have a bunch of very smart people.
The game isn't cyberwarfare. The game is psychological warfare. Most of /. 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).
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.

When will they get the point?

[Eskarel]

When are the RIAA, MPAA and all the other annoying groups going to realize what is actually going on in the world.

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.

Re:RIAA...... bring it on

[drix]

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.

Re:Use the law, Luke

[devilspgd]

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?