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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.
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.
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
... 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 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.
I agree. If they start deleting files, we could respond with finding ways to track the IP or MAC address of the host which originally sent the request and launch our own program which would remotely delete the system files required by the computer to remotely delete our files.
Another idea if you have a high-end firewall would be to find out where the hosts launching the attacks are located, and place deny entries into the ACL on the firewall, blocking access to all ports from that host or network. Let's hope they do not resort to address spoofing or using multiple network addresses.
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
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.)
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
I have my doubts that they could even get these attacks to work on my computer. 1.) It's Linux, 2.) I'm paranoid about my security, and 3.) I'm a programmer and will just write a detection script to locate and remove these trojans. If I can defend against this bullshit than I'm sure other geeks will do the same. All the RIAA seems to be doing is creating a market for secure P2P software and quite possibly giving Linux a good chance for a killer app.
Now the DoS attack might be effective but that game goes both ways. If they start attacking individuals how long will it be until P2P clients come with the ability to detect DoS's and trigger the whole P2P network to do a DDos on the source of those attacks? They'd be hard pressed to handle such a DDoS with legal threats if they did it first and I can just imagine the negative public relations off an Internet war that'd no doubt disrupt large portions of the Net at once.
Why don't these morons figure out that the only way to beat P2P is to offer cheaper cd prices and affordable (non DRM) downloads of songs themselves. Legal or technical attacks aren't going to be very functional and have dangerous tailspins off their customer base.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
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,
As an example, I have a Web server; but it is not permitted to write (especially into HTML files, and into its own executable), runs chrooted, and gets automatically restarted after so many client connections. Also, it is custom compiled to have only few modules that I need; the rest, like mod_dir, is not even there. So how much can be done with it?
% find /data1/mp3 -name '*mp3' | wc -l
2586
Out of those 2586 MP3s, I ripped them all from my personal CD except for Laundry Service as I got the crippled version without realising it. Unfortunately, this was bought in a supermarket 500 miles from my home, so returning it wasn't easy, particularly as I broke my ankle between purchase and realising it was crippled and I had other things on my mind...
Turns out that the enhanced CD is rippable, so I ripped my flatmate's version.
The point of this? Well, I have over 2500 valid MP3 tracks and if any of those get removed by the RIAA or their minions, I am not going to be amused...
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
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!
The real question is... if the RIAA can have people DoS somebodies system or a network and that group or person in turn retaliates are they doing something illegal? Can they get in trouble even though the RIAA is technically doing illegal stuff as well.
those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. -isaac asimov
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].
I am sure there are already many in the hacker community, and probably quite a few in the public who are willing to band together and take measures against the RIAA once they break the law and start DoSing. I believe I am not alone in relishing the prospect of no-holds-barred RIAA vs. WORLD conflict >-D . Just let me in on it, and you've got another cable modem on your side...
;)
P.S. To the l33t h4x0rs/script kiddies, PLEASE don't forget to use your proxies... The last thing we need to do is give RIAA scapegoats. (Route all packets through www.goarmy.com)
Hmmm....
PING riaa.org (65.244.101.224): 56 data bytes
--- riaa.org ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
Looks like someone beat me to it...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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...
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
Don't worry about that, I'm sure the RIAA have lobbyists standing by at the ready to amend that situation.
Yes, but they're just about to step on someone with bigger, tougher lobbyists -- and that someone is rather pissed off and defensive right now from crummy earnings, layoffs and overwork: the telcom industry.
Implementing DoS as a means of targeting abusers is comperable to bulldozing an electric company's transmission lines as a way of getting back at an individual who's done something wrong. It's another illegal act and definitely constitutes theft and abuse of nearly every telco or major ISP's policies. I'm sure some of those recent terrorism acts passed which we all have harped about have some interesting things to say about coordinated, widespread infrastructure denial-of-service = terrorism. Even the announcement of the intent to damage American telecommunications infrastructure should put RIAA execs in the holding tank with the shoe bomber.
We've notified our upstreams that should any RIAA DoS services originate on their networks, we will hold themn legally and financially responsible for the impact to our network. Likewise, we will block (via BGP) any external networks and blackhole them that originate RIAA DoS, and expect our upstreams to do so as well.
You may see some Internet fragmentation, but I'd suggest people identify which providers permit and encourage DoS abuse, and which oppose it (and vote with your wallets). Just as you probably wouldn't want service from AT&T if they crammed hundreds of spam messages at you daily, will you want them if they burn all your bandwidth due to illegal RIAA hacking? And how will this set with customers who have burstable service? Will you permit your service provider to engage in a racket that intentionally fills up your circuit, allowing them to overbill you?
Sounds like the RIAA's walking into a nice RICO trap and potentially some interesting domestic terrorism issues, and any tier one network provider that permits this may also be implicated. My attorneys are ready, are yours?
*scoove*
This has the potential to be worse than a /.ing, in that they would almost need to have computers dedicated to DoSing someone. That kind of systematic attack would surely strike terror into the heart of any sysadmin.
Therefore, the RIAA member companies are engaging in state supported terrorism!
I wonder what would happen if someone DoSed the DoSers.
How about this? Every song on my hard drive is perfectly legal. I have the vinyl LP, cassette, or 8-track for every one of them here in my home. I'm 50 years old; I own a LOT of LP's, cassettes, and a few old 8-tracks.
What's the easiest way for me to get them onto my hard drive? Yes, I could go through them one by one, clean up the sound quality, and them save them as MP3's. BUT WHY???? Somebody else has already done the hard work. So I download them instead. Then I share with others who I assume are doing the exact same thing I'm doing.
I would stop music sharing altogether IF the music industry would let me take my old scratchy LP's, barely audible cassettes, and unplayable 8-tracks to a record store and buy a COPY on CD for a reasonable price. I think the cost of the media would be just about right; I've already paid the musicians, studios, and record label their fair share.
If the RIAA deletes anything off of my system, they'd better be sure it is illegal. I also have a lawyer and will sue in a heartbeat.
I'm NOT stealing a damned thing and I get really pissed off when clowns accuse me of it!
...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
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
And add to that the people (like myself) who often download music to get a good, digital copy of something I've long since bought and paid for.
If own an album in LP form and collect all the tracks off Kazaa in order to get it on my iPod without going through the hassle of ripping the vinyl (and thus getting a pretty lousy sounding bunch of mp3's) then I'm pretty much well within my rights but the RIAA is counting that as just more money they've lost to those pesky music pirates.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I'd say it may not be a criminal conspiracy at this point. While it appears to be clearly illegal, there may be legal loopholes, and an easy defense would be pointing out the lawyers assigned to look up all relevant laws to find such a loophole...
"But your Honor, part of these activities was determining the legality of these ideas. We certainly would not do anything illegal, so we had our legal research team investigate laws and past decisions to determine if this was legal while our technicians tested the feasibility on systems wholly under our control."
"Case dismissed."
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.
"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?"
No, actually it's more like your neighbor is missing his wallet. He decides that *YOU* probably have it in your house so while you are not looking, he breaks into your house and digs through your drawers, cabinets, closets, under your couch cushions, in your fridge, etc. He even opens your desk drawers and reads through your personal papers, diaries and mail, all because he *THINKS* you stole his wallet..
If I caught someone digging around in my *house* like that they would get shot. It's illegal for people to do that (B&E your home) no matter what they *think* you may or may have not done.
The law requires the accuser to seek legal relief, they must contact the police, file a complaint, convince a judge to issue a search warrant and the warrant may only cover the item(s) in question. In other words they can not search in your desk drawers for stolen car tires or under your bed for a stolen volkswagen.
Your computer is a private place, or at least it SHOULD BE. If someone breaks into your computer then they have broken into your private property. No different than breaking into your home.
If you are afraid of RIAA police breaking into your PC then you should implement some security, just as you would put locks on your door and big dogs with big teeth inside your house, secure your computers..
Vigilante Justice will NOT be tolerated. They do not want the wrath of the Telecom industy and ISPs, who will gladly turn over reams of data detailing these illegal denial of service attacks.
They also do not want computer scientists angry at them. They have no right to go into my computer and erase MP3s of some CDs that I owned and ripped.
The RIAA does not have the power to do that. They are a trade organization, period. They are not judge, jury and executioner. They will be well advised not to start a war with us.
I have a better idea: The RIAA should ignore the fact that the internet exists. It will save them and us a lot of grief.
P.S. -- I apologize if anyone has to click again to see all of this
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Clearly nothing is going to be bulletproof. While there are countermeasures that can be taken, some more viable than others, the idea is two fold:
A) Force the masses of piraters to be constantly applying updates, installing new software, joining new networks, and learning how to use their interfaces.
B) Make any search or (good) download much harder and time consuming.
So yeah, with RIAA's assault on download queues, you could work around it by either expanding the queue, thereby decreasing the quality/rate of the downloads on average, or by kicking slow users off (though this technique could be expanded and modified to download more files, faster, repeatedly, etc...more patches).
Likewise, if the industry were to engage in SYN flooding (presuming it were legalized in such circumstances), you may have users screw with their registeries or update their OSes so their ports may acknowledge actual attempts, but there's no clean solution to it. Yet more user effort (especially where the user recieves no benefit).
The systematic corruption of swarmed files would actually be highly effective and would be very hard to effectively work-around without exposing the network to many more problems.
What you don't seem to fully grasp is that P2P is unlike all prior forms of piracy. What sets it apart is that it makes it much easier than any prior method for most users to obtain high quality pirated music. This is why P2P is so popular amongst people that have broadband and an inkling of computer skills. Trading tapes, using IRC, and the other numerous methods all demanded either a special set of skills or a large investment of time for few results/low quality results so relatively few people engaged in it. P2P, even with less than 20% of the country being on broadband, is a huge problem. When broadband becomes more accessible and faster...when mp3 audio devices become cheaper and better..the problem will only grow. The reason for its existence is low barriers to entry and expedience. If the industry can make it significantly harder to sign on and take, say, 10x as long to find and actually download the song you want, they they can ef
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
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?
They don't have the right to -- they have the Power to do so. Your countries only legal remedy is to ban or add a 100% (or greater) tarrif on RIAA imported CDs.
Do you really think a government that would give the RIAA the legal right to delete files on constituents computers would turn those people over to foriegn courts?
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html