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

celebrating

[mnemonic_]

Hello.

I am just celebrating the re-acquisition of this account.

Re:questionable?

[nlvp]

They don't need to prove their losses compared to an alternative scenario. There's a fundamental misconception there.

There's two sides to this.

1) You think this is a victimless crime. That by stealing this song, and claiming that you would never have downloaded it had you had to pay for it, nobody has lost any money, and therefore that makes it Ok for you to download this song, listen to it and share it with anyone else who wants to download it.

Well you know what, I'd use Linux if I had to pay for Windows, and since that's true I can go download Windows and use that instead, because since I'm not willing to pay for Windows, I can have it for free.

No court of law, and no rational adult in their right mind would hesitate a second in throwing out that argument. I goes against some of the founding principles of the economy we live in. If you want something someone else has produced, and the benefits that go along with possession of that item/good/service, you pay for it. If you don't pay, you don't get those benefits, because you don't get to own it. Simple as that, enshrined in modern law for centuries, and its going to take some much more radical developments than filesharing to change the underlying reasons for that.

2. Of course there are losses. Every time a song is downloaded, they are owed money, and if that money is not paid, that's a loss. if the song were NOT downloaded, then they would not be owed any money, and there would be no loss. Your possession of the song creates a legal requirement that they be paid for that license on the copyright.

I don't like the way the music industry is set up these days - it doesn't give me the breadth of music I want and it doesn't support the types of artist that I like. I don't have anything against filesharing networks per se either, they're a cool innovative technology. But people obtaining copyrighted works without paying for them undermines some of the most basic principles the economy is based on: principles that promote development, innovation, creativity and design, and that encourage people to create valuable intellectual property in the first place. It's criminal and I think the people that do it should be sued. I also think that new business models that legally undermine the current business model are just around the corner, but the difference will be that they provide a legitimate, economically viable alternative, where both the producer and the consumer have a choice. Filesharing of copyrighted digital property puts the choice of what to pay entirely in the consumers hands, and when you do that, people will pay nothing.