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RIAA To Sue Hundreds Of File Swappers
Shackleford writes "The Washington Post has an article saying that the RIAA is preparing hundreds of lawsuits against Internet users who illegally trade copyrighted music files. The lawsuits will target people who share 'substantial' amounts of copyrighted music, but anyone who shares illegal files is at risk, RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a conference call today. The first round of lawsuits will be prepared during the next eight to 10 weeks. They will ask for injunctions and monetary damages against file swappers. It seems that after a federal judge ruled in April that file-sharing services have legal uses and thus should not be shut down, the RIAA has found that it must go after individual users rather than the services that they use." palmech13 points to a similar article on Yahoo News.
This would kill p2p networks; I say this because they are going after only the people that shares. But not after the people that download. Well if no one shares then there will be nothing to download.
/.ed here is the text to the article
I donâ(TM)t think that if one uses p2p networks correctly that there is a major problem. When I used napster I did download some music. After downloading some songs I would either delete them if I did not like them. Or I ended up going out and getting the CD because I like what they had to offer. Now that I do not have napster anymore, I have stopped buying CDs. RIAA you only hurt yourself by trying to kill P2P file sharing networks.
--- and for those of you who see this after the site gets
The chief lobby group of the nation's major recording labels today said it is preparing hundreds of lawsuits against Internet users who illegally trade copyrighted music files.
The lawsuits will target people who share "substantial" amounts of copyrighted music, but anyone who shares illegal files is at risk, RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a conference call today. The first round of lawsuits will be prepared during the next eight to 10 weeks. They will ask for injunctions and monetary damages against file swappers, Sherman said.
"We have no hard and fast rules about how many files you have to be distributing" to be targeted in the RIAA sweep, he said. "Any individual computer user who continues to steal music will face the very real risk of having to face the music."
There are 57 million Americans who use file-sharing services today, according to Boston-based research firm the Yankee Group. Among the most popular are Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster, which became prominent after the pioneering Napster service was shut down under a judicial order in 2001. Kazaa says that its file sharing software has been downloaded more than 200 million times.
The announcement is part of an attempt to rid the Internet of illegitimate versions of copyrighted works as it tries to find a way to encourage legitimate music download services. The RIAA has said that file-sharing services exist for few other reasons.
Record companies say file sharing is to blame for more than a billion dollars in lost CD sales, as well as millions in shrinking profits. The RIAA has focused most of its efforts on shutting down peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, but a federal judge in Los Angeles in April ruled that the sites have legal uses and should not be shut down. The recording industry instead is pursuing individual file traders.
The ruling came a day after another federal judge ruled that the RIAA could force Verizon Communications Inc., to hand over the names of four of its high-speed Internet service customers who were illegally trading large amounts of copyrighted music on the Kazaa network.
The Los Angeles decision helped pave the way for the RIAA's latest legal attack, said Sherman, who confirmed that the RIAA would use its subpoena power to obtain the names of file sharers from Internet providers.
File sharing "is not anonymous. You are engaging in an activity that's every bit as public as setting up a stall at a local flea market," he said.
Sherman said the RIAA is not targeting people who use P2P networks only for downloading, but he warned that the networks often contain technology that allows members to tap other users' hard drives to make copies of music files. That process can make a digital fence out of an unwitting network user, he said.
He pointed people to the Musicunited.org Web site, which contains instructions for uninstalling file-sharing programs and for disabling the functions that open users' music libraries to pirates.
Wayne Rosso, president of the West Indies-based Grokster file-trading service, said the RIAA's tactics are "nothing short of lunacy."
"I can't wait to see what happens when a congressman or senator's child is sued," he said. "They've taken leave of their senses. They lost their [Los Angeles] lawsuit against us and they're pissed about it, so their answer is to sue their customers.
"We know this piracy is wrong and can't go on, but for God's sake, they won't work with us under any circumstances," he added.
SCO sues the RIAA for stealing their business model
Slashdot, the site where everything's made up and the points don't matter
I trade only in oggs. Right now, ogg is off the radar. I only get a few people who download from me, and I'm pretty sure they're not the RIAA.
im not first
I only use file swapping services for new release movies, software and pr0n. I have nothing to fear from the RIAA.
The announcement is part of an attempt to rid the Internet of illegitimate versions of copyrighted works as it tries to find a way to encourage legitimate music download services.
in other news every single mp3 dissapeared today from the internet. Hillary Rosen was heard to scream "Smells....like.....victory...."
They really need to get a clue.
-- SegFault
"One day, some time ago, something important happened."
cat /dev/urandom > Moby_Stars.mp3
Share as much random noise with copyrighted noise as you can. God, I would love to go to court for these guys and have them play my "music" for the jury.
Assholes.
It is illegal to obtain copyrighted material from sources that are not authorized to distribute it - especially knowingly, but knowledge of the illegal act is not neccassary. The buck stops there. Whether or not increased music "sharing" benefits the music industry, or if a lack of good music is to blame for falling profits, or the economy is the cause, etc, is completely irrelevant. Stop stealing.
Oh no! They set us up the bomb!!!
"The Washington Post has an article saying that it is preparing hundreds of lawsuits against Internet users who illegally trade copyrighted music files."
So the Washington Post is suing music file traders??? Since when did they join the RIAA?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I don't understand! We sue the fuckers, and they still won't buy our products!
-- Jack Valenti
I've heard talk that once the RIAA starts suing the general public, that's when there will be a huge public complaint against them. So, what do my fellow Slashdotter's think, will this be another nail in the coffin of the music industry as we know it. Or will they succeed in scaring(sp?) people out of trading files?
These companies do have copyrights on the songs in question and their copyrights are being violated. Going after the people who violate their copyrights seems legitimate to me. This is the way things should work.
What I have always objected to with the RIAA actions is that they have been trying to restrict what I can do even though I'm not trading in copyrighted content. It is the chilling effect on legitimate uses that have made past legal actions and laws like the DMCA so harmful.
What is considered 'Substantial'... I can't say that I've downloaded any music myself, however I do have a friend, with say, a lot downloaded MP3s... I'm just wondering how this 'friend' would be effected by this?
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Hopefully this will backfire and blow up in their face. One more nail in their coffin.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
If they go after enough people, those people will probably organize and be able to put together a decent defense, unlike the lone college students they've been harrassing to date.
At the very least, if this happens, the RIAA could be stuck with a significant legal bill...
Follow the adventures of the new wandering jews
What's wrong with this, supposedly, why does the article make it sound like "Oh no, more evil antics from the RIAA"!
They are doing the _right_ thing. Go after people breaking the law, not the entire service.
Newsbreak! You don't have the right to download free music!
This is ridiculous. If the RIAA wasn't so concerned plummeting sales (hello, it's the economy stupid!) they'd realize that letting things run their course would be far wiser. With Kazaa threatening to go legal, and Apple's iTunes doing so well, it's only a matter of time before users get tired of hunting down songs hidden among garbage tracks on the free p2p networks.
I mean, just the other day, I was trying to download a couple songs from the new Third Eye Blind album because I'd left the CD that I'd already purchased at home, but I downloaded 20 rotten tracks for every one that I was looking for.
Making stupid comments so you don't have to.
Seriously, some legal-eagle has to figure out a strategy that will tie up the RIAA's legal team's CPU cycles. The RIAA assumes these individual's resources are limited, so they will fold. Someone needs to disabuse the RIAA of the notion that they are immune to similar tactics.
This is only a test Sig. If this were a real Sig, it would be witty, pithy, or rude, just like all the other Sigs.
RIAA has a press release at:
http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/062503.asp
(grabbed the link from BoingBoing)
if you see me on the news for holding the RIAA hostage, don't be surprised
bust a cap, son
Why is this "stuff that matters"?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
We knew this was the strategy they have been building towards. Much like Dumbledore we must learn to keep our allies at a distance, lest they become a snake and bite us with their poison music files.
What we must do to survive is to make sure the battle we fight is in front of the ministry of magic so that everyone will see what evils the RIAA has in store for everyone, and to also show the world he-who-must-not-be-named is back.
So gather arms, and start working in secret ways to continue learning new and unique file-trading secrets. We might have to flood the p2p networks with 1kb text files renamed to popular mp3 music files. Something that wouldn't take any time to download or discredit as an mp3, but enough to fool the evil Death Eaters into thinking these files were in fact, the real mp3 files they wanted.
So Fight brave young Potter, fight to live another day!
If we all boycott RIAA members products (yes downloads too), we can hurt them.
There is room for a meeting of the minds. RIAA members basically charge $15.00 for something that costs them $.25 ($.01 for the plastic and $.24 to the artist). No industry that has to mark up raw materials 60 times to cover marketing and distribution can expect to survive.
At the very least a boycott of just a couple of months would defund the RIAA.
Can all of us file a lawsuit claming that the RIAA continues to overcharge for the sale of CD's even after courts found them guilty, rapes its musicians of duly earned money, and for blatent infringement on our rights as a consumer pertaining to free personal use of music purchased? You know only cause its like calling the kettle black to say they are so high and mighty and we are all evil law breakers
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I was holding back, but it's time to start a militia and hit 'em where it hurts: the stomach, elbow, etc.
I can assemble a force of 1,000 drunk North Dakotans with hunting rifles in about a week!
The Political Programmer
This could potentially be a good thing:
Out of the hundreds of users targeted by these lawsuits, all it would take is one to stand his/her ground and fight. Once one rises to the challenge, a following will form. Once the following is formed, more and more attention will be levied on the case. The more attention the case recieves, the more people will become aware of the monopolistic and grossly unconstitutional actions of the RIAA. Once more people become aware, Congress will have to start paying attention to the people again.
Keep in mind, up to this point all the people (or students) the RIAA has sued have settled. What would happen if at least one stands up and goes to court?
The constitutionality of the DMCA and associated laws would undoubtedly be the first things reviewed, and again, given enough attention, could be soundly defeated.
Heres to crossing my fingers.
Well, these clowns have been fighting the wrong battles here for ages. This one is no surprise.
The strength of P2P has nothing to do with the small % of users who share huge amounts of material. It's the combination of thousands of individuals each sharing a small amount of material. Seeing tactics like this is even counterproductive because it sends the message that sharing a few files is okay; the real crime is sharing lots of files.
Even with its size, the RIAA isn't big enough to sue the litte guys who are the engine of P2P. This human-redundancy is why P2P is around to stay.
I'm glad that I only share porn.
How people understand cultural and legal issues is often in terms of analogies; the RIAA is trying to create and focus attention on the analogy between copying music and theft; copy music and youâ(TM)re a common thief.
What are some better analogies? Music as basic human right when available, music as buckets full of water from a communal village stream?
How weâ(TM)ll think of the ownership of ideas is being determined right now. Iâ(TM)d say weâ(TM)ve an obligation not only to ourselves but also to others in our culture and future generations to think critically about what weâ(TM)re making music, the access to music, and the ownership of music, analogous to.
I thought it wasn't the sharing that was illegal, but the downloading of material you don't have rights to. This looks like it's just going to fall under safe harbor...
Nephilium
Enough cases and favorable precedent will be set somewhere. Some of these precedents will make their way up to district courts, and could eventually make their way all the way to the Supreme Court, a risk the **AA's just can't take. We've seen this before from the **AA's where they were afraid of a precedent going against them and dropped the case. They know about this, and don't dare make this as widespread as many people seem to believe they would.
Well, now I'll have to start making bootlegs of the music I download and selling 'em...otherwise I'll never be able to cover my legal bills.
Isn't this pretty much what everyone wants? If someone stabs someone else to death with a knife, you don't go after the knife maker (P2P software) you go after the murderer (copyright violator).
(it's just an analogy, so save your breath... I'm not at all suggesting that copyright violators are equated with murderers and you know it)
My big concern is that I want to make sure the RIAA/MPAA/etc. are VERY careful about who the sue. They need to make VERY SURE that those they are suing are actually making the copyrighted works available for download or or downloading them. No blanket lawsuits that snag people who haven't done anything wrong (we all know the Professor with the with mp3 of his speach or the kid with the Harry Potter book report). And they also need to be very careful about snagging people who are sharing songs that the bands don't mind being shared. There are many bands out there that don't care at all if their live performances are shared amongst fans.
But I really have no problem with people being sued for sharing commercialy available copyrighted works. That's the law, it's how it should be, and it means that there's NO NEED for new laws to cover this.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I might as well start walking to jail now.
peace be with you.
This proves the RIAA is masterminded by the $cientoloi$t$.
Check out this post!
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
And maybe the generous people of the kazaa crowd can set up a small fund for anybody who get's sued after all? If the p2p networks also distribute the costs of the risks involved with a large userbase, then no-one should feel anything heavy at all.
Now here's a business model that work..
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Presumably, internet accounts are maintained in the name(s) of the adults in the house. Thus, irregardless of who is swapping songs over the broadband connect, there will be lots of unsuspecting Moms & Dads getting hit with these lawsuits out of nowhere.
:)
Are we about to see the first "reverse class-action" lawsuit, where all the *defendants* band together to protect themselves against 1 plaintant? I call dibs on the patent
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
So now RIAA are targeting people who are sharing the stuff out, now we're all going to say how evil that is too.
Isn't it great to be fickle! :)
But seriously, what happens if a user doesn't know their stuff is being shared? What if the next windows worm searches out for someone's legal mp3 collection and then connects to a p2p network and shares it out, all unknown to the user? A stretch? Hardly, certainly possible.
Didn't someone just get a case thrown out for having child porn on their computer because they maintained that their computer was hacked and the stuff planted there?
I assume RIAA is doing this in civil courts and hence won't need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but I am still curious how they intend to make a case that each user actually knew they were sharing files.
(I also assume they don't expect anyone to fight it and to just roll over and settle...)
Still, if this kills illegal trading, I think it's a good thing. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe people should pay for this stuff and if it's a load of rubbish -- which most of it is -- don't buy it. At least then maybe they will stop blaming the net for declining sales and maybe, just maybe, produce some better and more diverse talent at a fair price. But I am still concerned about innocents being caught in the collateral damage and hence don't trust RIAA to execute this fairly.
I still fail to see how the RIAA or even the courts can assign some arbitrary value to "monetary damages" caused by people sharing files. How do they know the people downloading the file will ever even listen to it, much less that they would have bought it?
The very thought of them going after individual file sharing users sickens me. The RIAA needs to be more innovative and find ways to make being legal seem more "appealing" rather than just trying to scare the little people and take their money.
KappaStone
. . . nor is it necessarily a bad thing.
So long as RIAA is able to argue to the Congress (who, whether you buy it or not is quite convinced, as are the courts, that unauthorized file sharing with third parties is properly actionable under the copyright Act) that individual actions are impractical and useless, they will be able to agitate for more laws like the DMCA.
Copyright infringement is actionable, and if some particular conduct that involves file sharing is copyright infringement, then it is actionable. But as we all know, the technology admits a kazillion possibilities for non-actionable and socially useful results. It is the latter that I am concerned about protecting.
I *DO NOT WANT* to have RIAA argue that we should circumscribe and turn back fair use and the first sale doctrine. I *DO NOT WANT* to have RIAA argue for more, non-balanced non-IP rights such as the anticircumvention rights under DMCA.
So, if they have to sue a few hundred people who ARE infringing, so be it. This is as it should be. If RIAA can't stand the PR or sell the public on the idea that this is the right thing to do, that's their problem. If promiscuous file-sharers are using modern technology to obtain massive libraries of music that they didn't pay for, that, too, is their problem.
Me, I want fair use, the ability to conveniently have access to the media I purchased or licensed and the ability to share information in the modern age. And if the RIAA and promiscuous sharers don't like it, they can both go to hell.
What about people like me that have several thousand mp3s, all of which are from CDs I own? Having a nice, big list of mp3s is easier than changing cds every five minutes.
I would guess they would have to download each and every song and verify it was infringing, otherwise their claims of copywrite violations are just that "claims"
about file swapping. I would have to say that a large percentage of files swapped are of Pornography. However, I have yet to hear one complaint from the companies who produce these movies. It would seem that they would have the most to lose, since people would probably not buy the original product after downloading. Most people probably see this as a good alternative to buying these materials as it is more anonymous than going to the store, or even ordering over credit card, and having it deliver in "discrete" packaging. I wonder if sales of pornography have been hurt by P2P
Why doesn't the RIAA distribute MP3s that sing "You are so sued! (Copyright 2003 RIAA)" when played? This would save them a lot of paperwork.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I own a cable modem and router, will the RIAA come after me because my roommate downloads bootleg songs without my knowledge? If they can't sue the ISPs then how can they sue people who may share their bandwidth through a cable/DSL router?
Also, Kazza has 240,000,000 downloads. The odds of the RIAA getting you have got to be fairly slim. Sounds like they're going after the guys with 300GB hard drives and T3s.
"I can't wait to see what happens when a congressman or senator's child is sued," he said. "They've taken leave of their senses. They lost their [Los Angeles] lawsuit against us and they're pissed about it, so their answer is to sue their customers. ..." - Wayne Rosso
*sarcasm* This is a sure way to get consumers back on the RIAA's good side. Once they sue a few of us, we'll all stop, and we'll buy lots of CDs from the people who sued us.*end sarcasm*
No really. I cannot think of a single idea that could possibly drive a bigger wedge between the RIAA and its consumers.
Why are they starting with the lawsuits while most college kids are on summer break, and therefore not P2P-ing on the college networks? That's where most of the filesharing occurs...
"For success, it is essential you have Thunderball Fists." "I can have such a thing?" "That's right. Thunderball Fists."
I for one have no problem with this, other than my wanting to side with the little guy and not "The Man." It's illegal, as far as I know, to distribute content that you don't have the right to distribute. Better the RIAA go after actual lawbreakers than they go after services which are used for legitimate purposes as well.
:)
Oh, and for those of you who got freaked out after reading that the RIAA's cracking down, there's always EMusic and the Apple Store. I did notice that it is frequently cheaper to just buy the CD at Cheap CDs.com than it is to pay $9.99 for the AAC-encoded album. Check there first! Just a public service announcement so you don't get screwed like I did.
At the Oregon State Bar CLE Seminar on Intellectual Property, they mentioned a provision of the DMCA that states, as I understand it, that someone can only be sued under the statute if their financial gain from the activity can be shown to be over 1000$ during a period of 180 days. This would imply that people who swap a couple of songs a week would be safe from prosecution. In fact, 1000/180 = 5.55$ a day, which would be five songs (and an NSYNC song) at the Apple rates of 1 song = 1 dollar.
Another interesting fact was that there is a three year statute of limitations for infringement for civil suites, so all those college collections of music you made should be free and clear.
IANAL, but I'd like to be one day, mostly so I don't wind up in jail. Again.
Why?
Why should I not "steal" music which I've already bought, but was delivered in a shit format? Why should I not "steal" music which is not available any longer? Why should I feel bad about taking a miniscule portion of some conglomerate's profits which for years has been selling me inferior music (thanks to ridiculous contractual obligations) on inferior media (originally, to save money; now to fuck me in the ass) for huge profits which go straight into the backpockets of knobs like Jack Valenti and almost none of which end up in the artists' hands?
Please, please please, tell me why I should stop "stealing" again. Please.
What comes around goes around! Cry me a river, indeed.
"No, your honor, I didn't actually share the copyrighted material in question. I shared a stream of 1's and 0's which they then compiled into the copyrighted material on their PC. My 1's and 0's in no way violated anyone's copyright, as without the others, it's nothing but garbage data."
As I've said before, I think the best solution for the RIAA will be to clean up their image and get people on their side. If people saw artists and their organization as people who need to make a living instead of money hungry whores, they may get a bit more sympathy from the market. These lawsuits are probably costing them more than they are making from them, and the bad PR is just driving their customers away instead of bringing them back. I think what the lawsuits will instead cause is that the next big P2P network will be encrypted and anonymous like Freenet is striving for.
I think I'll share a few more albums to help out the poor Americans, I don't think the RIAA is going to launch any international lawsuits.
The thing that bugs me is the term "illegal files". There are no illegal files, even if there are (currently) illegal uses of those files. The benefit of p2p as I see it is that I can download songs from a CD that I own if I happen not to want to spend the hour it takes to rip them myself.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
How precisely is this stupid of them? Seems to me that it's the first thing they've done that was vaguely intelligent. Instead of trying to shut down P2P, which is perfectly legitimate, they are now trying to prosecute people that are actually violating their copyrights. Sounds pretty intelligent to me.
I'm not a fan of the RIAA and it's nice to see them finally getting their head on straight about this. It's going to be tedious and expensive, but it's the only legitimate legal means for them to deal with this. In reality they are better served by the existence of P2P because people still end up buying albums and concert tickets, but regardless, the law is the law. Maybe after these lawsuits go through and their sales are still flagging they'll figure out that it wasn't P2P that was hurting them, it was the quality of their product.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Then is it fair to lump you in with other hard core users?
I only use file swapping services for new release movies, software and pr0n. I have nothing to fear from the RIAA.
Funny that, isn't it? Even though the RIAA and MPAA are claming that p2p sharing is killing their business, you never hear the adult industry complaining about p2p. Perhaps they have modified their business model so that p2p sharing has only limited negative effect (or maybe even a positive effect). Boy, that would be something, wouldn't it? If all the fancy RIAA and MPAA business managers couldn't figure out something that Ron Jeremy did! Man, talk about humiliation!
GMD
watch this
This will make tons of money for lawyers, but I am unaware of any industry which recovered from a slump by suing its own consumers...
Still, dinosaurs thrashing around in death agony can be dangerous.
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
It seems that after a federal judge ruled in April that file-sharing services have legal uses and thus should not be shut down, the RIAA has found that it must go after individual users rather than the services that they use.
Er, isn't this a good thing? Isn't that what we (read: the slashdot hive mind) want? Don't punish the technology, punish the people who use it to break the law, and all...
Of course RIAA doesnt use propaganda, the musicunited.org site is owned by them.
The whois record:
Registrant:
RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOC. OF AMERICA INC (DHKHZKVGED)
1330 Connecticut Ave., NW #300
WASHINGTON, DC 20036
US
Domain Name: MUSICUNITED.ORG
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOC. OF AMERICA INC (RI369-ORG) hmccaffrey@riaa.com
1330 Connecticut Ave., NW #300
WASHINGTON, DC 20036
US
202 775 0101 fax: 202 775 7253
Record expires on 18-Sep-2005.
Record created on 06-Dec-2002.
Database last updated on 25-Jun-2003 14:44:38 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS.TST-US.COM 67.94.110.235
NS1.TST-US.COM 146.82.174.235
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
Why did you buy the inferior music on inferior media?
Why do you want to download music that you obviously feel is crappy?
Just because some one is a major source of mp3s and other files doesn't mean they're intrinsically breaking the law. I get the feeling the RIAA will simply look at the top 1000 file sharers (based on download numbers) and systematically sue them for alleged copyright infringement. Wouldn't it be funny if they sued Project Gutenberg by accident!
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
...since all I share is FLACs and therefore nobody ever downloads from me. Yay for alternative formats!
If you participate in file sharing networks (or have in the very recent past), you better seriously start thinking of hiring a lawyer. I bet the recording industry has been logging p2p activity, and are now ready to pounce on the little guys in an attempt to finally kill the p2p networks.
I would imagine that the large amount of binary groups devoted to copyrighted music would irk them at least a little, yet I have never heard any mention of it in any of their propoganda. Is it just too "technical" for them, or are they biding their time?
i have a strong feeling this will not work. how many people outside of /. learn about these things? as cypher said "ignorance is bliss". Most people haven't heard of the RIAA, and most people won't hear about these cases. and so live would continue as always.
i do fear for my one friend tho, he is quite the warezmonger. I wouldnt be suprised if he was one of the few to be sued.
> "I allege that SCO is full of it" -Linus
You see, they still seem to think that their job is to deliver disks and tapes to consumers. In actuality, their role is to deliver entertainment content to consumers.
This is not an uncommon mistake, many many companies have gone down the road of defending a mistaken view of their business model.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
perhaps it's time to switch to freenet, GNUnet or blocks
RIAA sues one kid for $97 billion, settles for $17,000 or .0000000175% of the orginal total, so if they sue me for say.. 100 million, I'll only have to cough up $1.75 to them, so if that's all I have to pay for unlimited downloads, I'm game.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
I'm suing you for breathing my air!!!
But seriously, this is what it's coming down to, they can't expect to really win too many battles, their days are numbered. If they keep beating their customers, soon everyone will quit buying and go to file sharing because its that much easier.
Oh, that and the prisons are going to start filling with file sharing convicts and some used high capacity hd's are going to start hitting the market... i could use a new one to store some more pr0n on......
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I liked this unintentionally honest quote from the article:
On free P2P services, "You go for Britney Spears, you get porn. You go for Pokemon, you get porn," [Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) President Cary] Sherman said. "When people are presented with a really good user experience at a reasonable price, they're going to use that."
I agree. A really good user experience is one that replaces Britney Spears with anything.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Other industries have successfully used litigation against individuals in similar sorts of cases. Directv has sued hundreds of people who simply bought access cards, for instance. Every case that I saw settled for significant damages.
The RIAA is going to have beaucoup proof that people broke the law, and some people are going to pay extremely heavy prices. Those cases will buy big publicity in newspapers, etc. Publicity that the RIAA cannot get elsewhere. This will come home to roost, and if you have been swapping files, I would not just laugh this off. I know people that had to pay Directv significant amounts of money for buying access cards. The same thing will happen to file swappers, and it will have a significant impact on their financial well-being.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
Two choices on the table. Continued freedom of speech, or the continued existence of copyright law.
If you choose the former, use P2P protocols that provide anonymity (cypherpunk-style packet hop) AND encryption.
If you choose the latter... "may your chains set lightly on you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen..."
This is precisely and exactly what they should be doing. Their attempts to ban useful technologies just because they can be used for copyright infringement can and should fail. Their attempts to mandate technologies of control ("My Computer" indeed!) can and should fail.
If you are caught violating copyright law hundreds of times with a flagrant disregard for that law, you can and should pay for the crime.
The laws we have are adequate. We don't need new IP law (unless it be to roll back terms -- retroactive extension should never have been allowed).
I have tons of MP3 and Ogg files, all cut from CDs I purchased. I've never downloaded a song. Really and truly.
What the "content industry" needs to wake up and realize is that the digital technology has changed the marketplace. People no longer want to pay $20 for a CD that costs $0.35 to make (marginal cost). Peoplw want to download music. They want to use it, convert its format, burn it to disc themselves, store it in SD cards, whatever. The music industry should be doing market research and offering "Napster-like" subscription services ($5/Gig/month, for example). People want to be legal.
Meanwhile, I'm all for suing the actual people violating the law. My gripe has been attacking ISPs, P2P server operators, etc. who are not actually engaged in violation of the law. By the RIAA's logic, there should be no such thing as a copier or a fax machine. They can be used to infringe copyright, therefore they should not be allowed. Mind you, they tried to say that about copiers, and abaout VCRs, and about cassette recorders, and...
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Because we don't encourage copyright violations. We just want our p2p networks staying alive so we can continue sharing Debian ISO images, free pr0n, self-written stories and our photos from grandma's last birthday party, right?
Go RIAA, go!!
Like it or not, duplicating copyrighted information for people you will never meet, and that they will never return to you, is not fair use. IANAL, but even I know that "sharing" music like this (actually, giving copies of it away) is illegal.
Just because it's exceedingly easy to do doesn't make it any more lawful. The RIAA is just protecting their copyrighted works, in the only way that they currently can. Will it have that much of an effect? I doubt it. But, the way the laws currently work, they should do this to protect themselves.
Yeah, I still hate 'em too.
--Mid
Don't tell them about it!
A text list of supposed files from Kazza_light_user@Kazza will not stand up in court. There is nothing that prevents /dev/random from making files with Metallica - Ride The Lightning.mp3. The fact that P2P is distributed makes it even harder to prove that the file was only from YOU. I would suspect they would have to include traceroutes, time stamped logs cross referenced to the ISP's logs, and the actual file downloaded from your computer. Again, a list of file names is not a copyright violation.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Some one needs to write a fake p2p node that generates a list of fake mp3 files and makes them LOOK like that they are sharing thousands of files, but are infact just /dev/random crap. If the riaa goes after all these false positives then surley they will waste a lot of money sending bogus c&ds and fake lawsuits.
We need something like this, real users will use checksums and the fake files won't harm them, but for the riaa bots, it will waste their time and resoucres and stop this noncense in it's tracks!
Maybe watching people get nailed left and right for illicit filesharing will encourage people to share files that they have a legitimate right to. This would encourage the diversity of media on the net overall, which is way better than people swapping around rips over overpriced and overproduced CDs by RIAA artists.
If jack valenti were the drug czar of the US, he would put botanists and horticulturalists in jail and wonder why illegal drugs still proliferated.
I don't buy it, though. The MPAA and RIAA cabal isn't stupid. I believe they've been refraining from visibly targeting 'dealers and users' so as to keep illegal piracy high, to serve as an argument in lobbying efforts for further legislation, which they (mistakenly) believe is the real answer.
However, now that the cabal is facing much greater opposition to legislative 'remedies', they are being forced into the role they should have taken all along ... pursuing pirates. The action against the college students recently (although still against programmers and not pirates) was the first step. They were chosen because the high damanages allowed guaranteed a settlement ... note that usually secret settlement amounts became very public.
This will hopefully turn into a better, friendlier entertainment cabal. Still users of scare tactics, but no longer backward opponents of technology.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Anyone out there with more knowledge than me answer me this? Why don't the P2P programs out there change their user systems? I mean, couldn't they assign multiple random numbered usernames for each user? Make it look like every user on the system is sharing, say, 10 files. Would the RIAA take the time to pick through all of these users and try to match up what belongs to who?
Just wondering.
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
"I can't wait to see what happens when a congressman or senator's child is sued," he said. "They've taken leave of their senses. They lost their [Los Angeles] lawsuit against us and they're pissed about it, so their answer is to sue their customers. Won't happen. The RIAA will make damn sure to not sue a politico's little Johnny/Jenny. "Equal justice before the law." Right..../noend cynicism
What do they expect hundreds of lawsuits will do? Stop file sharing? Last time I checked 40% of internet users use file sharing in some form, and there are millions of people sharing illegal, copyrighted files.
This is bigger than they are, and they need to realize that. Maybe when the whole thing started with FTP (even before Napster), they could have put a significant dent in file swapping, but now it's too late. There is already a kind of critical mass that will surpass even the largest file swappers -- IF they are brought down. The system will quickly replace them, and worse yet (for the RIAA), more may even be encouraged by the significant news media this is sure to attract.
Anyone besides me notice a correlation between file sharing, P2P networks, and the metallica lawsuits? It took off. I personally know people who would never had touched a computer that are now online primarily because of the free music and file sharing.
Attempting to bring down the large few isn't going to do anything but perhaps scare a very few small fish off (primarily the consumers). The people who have multi hard disk RAIDS are most probably technically inclined and won't scare easily or find ways to anonomously distribute their files.
Even so, how can the RIAA blame their users? A lot of the pirated music today is full of lyrics about stealing and "playin'", that is, the same product they are trying to sell and the message they are sending is the same one they're fighting. I'm not saying all or even most music is like that, even for the RIAA's holders, I'm just saying teenage eminem fans aren't going to be scared off -- they'll do it anyway.
In a way, the golden age of profiting crazily from record labeling is at an end. What lies ahead is most probably better music, better distribution, and much better artists. Once again in the history of music -- talent and skill are going to be a deciding factor, not "product creation" by multi-billion dollar grossing labels selling over priced junk.
I can't wait!
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
It never was about money. They're only suing SHARERS, not downloaders. They're deliberately trying to kill P2P. If it was about money, they would sue the DOWNLOADERS. More revenue stream from that, wouldn't you say? It's about power and who determines what music gets to be popular.
And they don't want that who to be *you*. They want it to be THEM. THEY control the media, THEY control the masses. Screw you for picking the music you like. You'll take what we give you and LIKE IT!
My journal has hot
Pirates should work for the RIAA, then they can do what they love best all day long!
The RIAA should not be bashed for encforcing the law, so stop relaying popular opinions of the past, like "it's in to hate the RIAA, so I can't think objectively anymore". My mind is going.
What I fear is that the RIAA misuses its power (money) to "rightfully" claim that: "ALL MP3s ARE COPYRIGHTED TO US", which is simply not right, and on that basis not even look at the songs and even sue on behalf of an artist that isn't even under its wing.
Whatever.
I'll risk stating the unpopular for this forum by saying that this is precisely the right approach for them to take. Rather than unfairly target all computer users with legislative restraints on free trade, they are going after the ones breaking the law.
Now, whether you think copyright infringement through p2p networks should or should not be illegal is immaterial to that statement; just as is the inevitable failure of their business model in an internet-connected world. The simple fact is that they should be, and apparently are now, going after the infringers directly, and rightly leaving their hands off my computer, seeing as I have nothing to do with the perceived problem.
Cheers,
Kyle
[ home ]
One more reason to use anonymous networks like freenet (http://freenet.sf.net/.) if you use freenet these fuckers will only know that you are on the network, but they can't findout which files you are sharing.
Or a judge, lawyer, multi-millionaire, etc. This should be very interesting but knowing the RIAA they are going to pick out people who can't afford to defend themselves. The RIAA will also probably include their terms for a settlement with a copy of the subpeona (like they did in the case of the four college students).
"We know this piracy is wrong and can't go on, but for God's sake, they won't work with us under any circumstances."
Someone else has noticed this too? Good, I'm not the only one. "The RIAA wants everyone else to change but won't think about changing themselves." (seen at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=68800&cid=6290 633)
HAhAHa Come get me you shitards!!
I know how much I charge my clients for forensic/investigative work. I cater to really small companies that have been hacked (usually 10 or less PC's and help them get the evidence they need in a presentable format so they can pursue legal action. I'm sure the RIAA tech's charge a lot more.
My Prices
Initial Consultation/Site survey $100
Onsite time $65@hr (Usually get about 4 hours in)
Evidence prep $40@hr plus $0.05 per printed page
Court Time $90@hr
It ends up costing the client over $1000 if the case makes it to court. Multiply what I do by 1 billion and the RIAA is going to have a lot of legal bills to pay.
RIAA, soon to be owned by lawers.
Someday the RIAA will have to learn a lesson. Let's hope it's sooner than later.
"BEHOLD, CORN!!" - Dr. Weird, ATHF
Because there is a segment of the /. population that thinks if a company tries to make some money, it must be bad, especially if its a soft good.
The could have done this awhile ago with existing laws and spared the public the drama, not to mention the DMCA.
I understand the RIAAs desire to collect on the IP of the artists it "represents".. and although I have mixed emotions in regards to file trading (It's ok for me to listen to the song on the radio ad nauseum till it's the only thing I can hear in my head, but not ok for me to listen to it when I feel like it?) I don't see this as a inherently bad step. The problem as I see it however, is that most likely the people working for the RIAA to track down fileswappers will most likely look for filenames that resemble the names of an artist or artist's song to which the association represents. I'm sure most slashdot readers recall the fiasco with the students who's Harry Potter book report flagged him as an ebook trader. Likewise, many bands have names in common with every day things. "Network Tool".. looks like this guy is trading copies of the band "Tool"'s newest album? Sure, when push comes to shove you can probably show evidence to support the fact that it's a mixup, but that doesn't give you back your lost time in the legal battle, or any out of pocket expenses (without incuring more expenses anyhow) for your legal defense
What they're doing is akin to standing in the middle of a swamp-land, thinking you can swat every mosquito one-by-one until they're all gone.
One word: impossible.
What they're attempting to do is simply medeival. They will clog the courtrooms, treating people who shared files like Al Capone.
Good-bye, America. Sorry to hear about the brain.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
"The first round of lawsuits will be prepared during the next eight to 10 weeks."
It looks like they have to wait for all the rebates on CD-RW's they bought for their kids to clear before they can fund the lawyers needed to do this.
IANAL, but I play one on
Now I would imagine all the Indie bands could sue the RIAA for scaring away their potential customers. Now even someone who wants to use a p2p system to download material that is ok to share may be too afraid.
This is very simple. A song is something tangible. It may be distributed by it's owners in any number of formats and on any number of different media types. The most common is on a CDROM. In any event, in what format the song is encoded in and on what media it is stored on is irrelevant. A pirate obtains this CDROM and then rips the song off it and encodes it in a different format, such as MP3. He then places this MP3 file onto the internet and allows others to freely obtain it.
This is stealing. The theif has not infringed upon copyrights. He didn't use the beat contained in the song to make his own, nor did he steal the lyrics for a different work of art that he claimed was his. No. He STOLE A SONG.
I honestly don't understand why people have such a hard time grasping this simple idea.
1. Heather Sues RIAA for sharing files by downloading webpages..
2. we than take the judgement amount and buy RIAA and SCO..
3. Profit!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
While you are downloading the latest good music we are undermining your "government", strong-arming your bitch-tits leaders into sucking our collective cock, and taking your natural resources...
PS, enjoy the music bitchface...stupid foreign sack of shit....eat my clit.
I've got over 850 songs on one of my boxes.
And not one single one of them is copyrighted by any of the minions of RIAA or their ilk.
The artists that produce the music I listen to HATE the music industry and all involved in it, in whole. These folks are their own industry and NO ONE in the so called "mainstream" has any rights of any kind to these people's music. It's NOT any music that you will EVER hear on a radio or buy in a store, ever.
So RIAA, go ahead and *try* to fsck with me for my music sharing. You scumbags.
Send me some RIAA toilet paper so I can wipe my ass with it and send it back to you..
Plus, if I share 10,000 txt files renamed to 'song-artist.mp3', will I get some papers? Sounds like a good way to countersue.
Or, place a disclaimer on all your shares - "This is for personal use only under the Fair Use Act. Unauthorized use or download is strictly prohibited. Do not download if you are not the owner of these files." - perhaps this could also be a challenge to EULAs...
Last I checked, it's not illegal to have a PC open to the net - if it was, many Windows users would be rubbing sholders with drug offenders in prison.
Is the RIAA downloading these songs to check if they are real, correctly labeled and such? If so, they are breaking the law (IANAL). Do two wrongs make a (copy)right? If not, wouldn't this be considered barratry/harrasment?
By making it so easy to copy the files, you would certainly be in danger of contributory infringement. That means, even though it's others that are doing the copying, you're still liable because you knowingly put them online. Contributory infringement is what got Napster.
...and here's how:
:)
RIAA knows there's no way in hell to stop millions of P2P user's individually, but they realized they don't have to. The RIAA is not going after people who download music, they're going after people who SHARE the music. Sometimes, those are one in the same, but in going after people that have a large amount of files shared, they can potentially bring down all the mainstream P2P systems (Kazaa et. al.).
Think about it, RIAA sues a bunch of file sharers, the message is "share our music, lose your life savings." People get the message, but of course, since most people are lazy, they won't just stop sharing the files they aren't supposed to, they'll simply disable sharing and share zero files (thereby becoming leechers).
Of course, in small numbers this won't have mutch affect, but if everyone disables sharing and starts leeching... well, no more P2P.
Don't know if more distributed systems like gnutella would be affected by this strategy, but I can very much see the mainstream guys getting destroyed by this.
I'll bet that's their strategy... and I'll bet it works.
Time to fire up iTunes and bust out the credit card
How does RIAA determine what is "substantial"? You can download several hundreds of mp3s for just a few hundreds of MB disk space. If you were to download a movie, a decent quality one at that, it would be 700mb each time....
Also, is this only on the Kazaa network? Which p2p network are they going for.. Surely, this won't affect mac users since there is no Kazaa applications....
Just Curious.
I think the biggest proof that people are willing to buy songs if they find it interesting is the success of iTunes. The same people who use their Internet connection to Download by paying could just as well use Limewire or whatever for free. But they don't. And i don't think it's because they don't know how to find free MP3' or they want rare music. It's because they (for some reason) find it interesting.
RIAA Should try an approach where they do not threaten the consumers but provide them with value for their money. They could do it by , lets say, providing Albums that have more the one song that is good. Or they could include extra material (maybe a DVD with video and whatever).
There is one thing sure. If i pay 20-25 Euros for a CD where i can get the exactly same satisfaction downloading from Gnutella, i won't buy it.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
i'm sure there is a big list. I would not put it past them to start
in alphabitical order. most of the time it's good to have a last name that starts with "A". HA HA not this time
Traffic tickets do not stop people from driving badly. Raising traffic ticket rates does not stop people from driving badly.
Similarly, I really don't think this is going to stop p2p. No matter how big a sue-fest they go on, people are going to do it.
If they want to stop p2p they're going to need a new strategy...or is the point of this just to get enough money to formulate said strategy?
Vonal Declosion
Why not a class action suit against the RIAA by computer owners for harassment? Given the history of RIAA claims about file swapping, the indiscriminate taregting of lawsuit recipients, the fact that ISPs and network-sharers are likely to be hit when a user decided to swap a file, it seems to me that every Internet user has a good reason to believe that he or she might be a victim of the RIAA's onslaught. I figure, as long as one can demonstrate that the RIAA's efforts are as likely to hit innocent people as much as guilty ones, there may be a basis for this.
Why shouldn't the RIAA sue people who trade live performances that bands don't mind their fans sharing? It's not the band's music. The bands should have thought about that before they signed a contract with a recording company for a phat advance check.
After that, the record company owns the music, and the record company gets to decide what can and can't be shared.
If you want your fans to be able to swap your music, don't sell your music to a record company. If you want the record company's promotional resources and their cash, don't complain when they won't let your fans swap your songs.
Why doesn't anyone ever blame the bands for selling their music rights for a quick buck in the first place?
paintball
Ok, I've got a couple CDs that have become scratched through no fault of my own (looks minor enough to me, but /shrug), and a couple tracks are unplayable. Since I prefer to listen to the entire album at once, I WAS going to burn a copy of the good tracks to a CD and download the scracted ones.
Is this illegal? Why? If so, how do I go about retrieving the music I bought? Is it any different than restoring them from a personal backup, or is it the principle of the thing?
Now, since I like to listen to my CDs at home, work, and in the car, I was also going to burn a second copy to a CD full of mp3s to leave at work for my own person use only.
Is this illegal? Why? I own the albums. No one else is using them. I'm legally allowed to make a backup for personal uses, aren't I?
I just thought of something else - are you allowed to swap songs you got from the radio? If so, how can the RIAA tell the difference?
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
Actually, Free music is the only kind of music that is legal to download. Free music is what the RIAA is trying to stamp out, Free music is what suffered when Napster died.
What I think you meant to say was that it is illegal to obtain music created by the multinational music cartels in a manner they have not approved and licensed.
And on that point, you are correct.
Question:
What's their geographic jurisdiction? US? North America? The Western World? The world?
Not to be too non-US-centric, but I'd just like to know if non-Americans should be purging mp3's or running to the foothills yet.
Don't put salt in your eyes.
It's about time that they went after the actual lawbreakers, instead of the program makers.
I just fear that they will not take the time to properly determine whether the user has distribution rights or not.
OK, but you have to stop calling it "stealing." It's copyright infringement, not stealing. Stealing is where you take physical property, and then the original owner doesn't have it any more.
...I can't share my porn as BritneySpears_01.mp3 and not worry about a lawsuit?
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
In related news, Adult Film Industry Association (AFIA) President Seymour Butts threatened a lawsuit against RIAA President Cary Sherman for suggesting that people utilize free P2P services to illegally download copywritten pr0n. "Hey, just 'cause your customers are unhappy with you doesn't mean you should attack our service. And speaking of service, you should see what I did to your mom last night."
If I have a closet full of CDs and choose to download mp3s of what I already bought on disc from Kazaa rather than ripping them myself (which is probably foolish, I know), am I breaking the law? Would they have to prove I don't already own the music? This is all hypothetical, of course...
Professors generally do not share their speeches on a P2P network. Kids with book reports do not generally have substantial amounts shared out over a P2P network.
I think RIAA will be targeting those users who leave their computer on all the time sharing out a few gigs (or so) of music. Chances are, there are not that many "live" performances that are OKed by bands that are cool with sharing of their music.
Irregardless, RIAA has already had to apologize to various users for alleging people had copyrighted works - it would appear that they simply used a search engine style query. If someone has more than 3 gigs of MP3s on their share - you can be pretty sure they probably have at least one wrongfully distributed music file.
What bothers me is the seemingly potential unfettered access that the RIAA has in finding out personal and private contact information from service providers. The RIAA simply has to present previous court decisions to service providers threatening to take them to court unless they hand your information over. Most companies would like to stay out court and more than likely hand things over with little discretion (as these types of requests become more common place).
If an individual has to go about tracking someone who accessed their computer and stole information off of it, they must go to the authorities where the investigators (actual law enforcement) in charge pursue finding out the personal information of the alleged perpetrator.
RIAA is not a government entity. According to the RIAA, they are a "trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry." A company that can simply request your personal information to contact you for the purpose of serving you a notice of the intent to be sued is absolutely and fundamentally wrong.
I think supporting such service providers that would hand over information to another for-profit organization without the content of the consumer should be held liable to the extent that the law allows.
Ayup
IANAL and it probably shows, but how does the RIAA distinguish between legal and illegal sharing? If i bought a CD, don't have the knowledge necessary to "rip" it to listen on my computer, am I allowed to download a digital copy? And if so, how does the RIAA prove that I did or didn't purchase the CD in the first place? Doesn't the burden of proof lie on them?
STOP BUYING MAJOR LABEL CDs. Make up your mind what side of the fence you are on. Its only a bit of, usually short-lived, entertainment after all. Buy second hand if you have to and keep the decent independent record shops going. Theres no point complaining if you are directly responsible for funding the RIAA.
Once again, there's no style or flair to your FAIL IT! post.
Seriously, we need a good trolling symposium or something.
What ever happened to trolling pros like 'darth failure' and 'I vomit on failures'?
Some good schtick gone to waste, there.
Let's go through this slowly... Ready?
Because if I wanted to buy the five or so good songs from an album, I also had to buy the five or so shit songs which were recorded not out of artistic integrity, but because it was stipulated in the contract that the artist had to produce X "full-length" albums per Y years. Are you still with me?
Now, since I don't own an MD player, as they were prohibitively expensive until recently, the best quality media I could get was the CD. Unfortunately, the record companies soon figured out that buying from the lowest bidder was putting more money in their pockets, so it wasn't long before the CDs were being burned on cheap media. On top of that, they recently started adding intentional errors to "prevent ripping". Still here?
So I download the music that I like from albums that are not very good as a whole to replace the ones which self-destructed after being left out on a counter one night.
I hope that wasn't too difficult to follow.
They're going after the people breaking the law, not just indiscriminately shutting down p2p services. Also, they'll have to prove in a court of law that people are guilty - they can't just hack into someone's system and kill it because they think that they're downloading copyrighted material, (a la one of the recent idiotic legislative suggestions). Puts control of consequences into the hands of the courts, not the RIAA. That's a good thing!
We should hope they're successful in this. If so, then they won't feel such a pressing need to keep trying to shut down p2p sites nor to push more bad legislation.
I don't think it's strange that the RIAA has been allowed to carry on as long as they have as the general public is not as aware as it should be of this situation or its gravity. I think that events like this, although bad for those involved, can only help to spread the word and raise awareness of it all. It might be a bit optimistic, but it can't hurt to look on the bright side.
uuencode tmpfile0001
/. as a comment
post tmpfile0001 on
This is a legitimate thing for the RIAA to be doing. Going after the file-sharing networks is one thing, and a judge (rightfully) ruled that they can't be shut down because of the actions of individual users. Strict enforcement against guilty individual users is the right way to enforce copyright law.
It is not right and rightfully illegal to acquire copyrighted material without paying for it. The direction that the RIAA is taking now is where they should have gone from the get-go. I cannot, and will not, support people who illegally trade copyrighted files.
Don't get me wrong. I am against DRM, the DMCA, and other such things that erode our fair-use rights, but we, the end users, need to show some responsibility and accountability. The whole reason the RIAA and MPAA (and whatever other *AA exists) want strict DRM controls is because of the rampant illegal transfering of files. And nobody can claim that it's not wide-spread.
Please, people, don't embark in sharing copyrighted files. Whenever you do, you only make the situation worse.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
If you have a beef with the [MP|RI]AA, then demonstrate that beef with your money, boycott music and movie purchases, but DO NOT download illegal copies. It makes for hypocrisy, the same thing you accuse [MP|RI]AA of.
Why should I feel bad about taking a miniscule portion of some restaurant conglomerate's profits which for years has been selling me inferior food in inferior buildings for huge profits which go straight into the back pockets of knobs like Jim Cantalupo and almost none of which end up in the farmers' and ranchers' hands?
Because taking things that have value, whether they are hamburgers or songs, against the wishes of the owner (or copyright owner) is unfair to the owner and is also against the law. It doesn't matter if you don't like the company or its practices, it's still wrong.
Why doesn't the RIAA work out a plan to save their money sueing everyone and cut their bottom line to make the music cheaper?
If I could get music for a reasonable price online ($.99 is a bit pricey for a single song) then I wouldn't even bother wasting my time searching for a decent illegal copy. I understand there are certain costs that go into the production of a CD (recording time, artist royalties, stamping CD's, packaging, shipping, warehouse, etc), but by using the internet as a distribution channel you can cut a lot of the costs out.
I think the music industry needs to find a solution that will make them look better like they are at least thinking about the consumers' interests. Instead they look like jerks going around suing college kids for their life savings. It's no wonder so many people have this "I'm gonna stick it to the man!" attitude about downloading illegal music.
I have purchased only 6 CDs in my entire life. All of them were classical music performed by the very best of this world. Why did I buy it instead of downloading it? Well, I liked having an original that I keep and listen to for many years. Let's face it, Mozart, Chaikovsky and Rahmaninov will remain popular for many years to come and it is worth buying that music. As for the rest of the pop world, give me a fucking break, when was the last time we got something worthwhile from singers like Shakira, Mandy Moore, Brooks & Dunn, etc.?
Brooks & Dunn, multi-Platinum country music artists said, "We want the next Brooks & Dunn to have a chance. Piracy hurts that chance. There are a lot of really talented hardworking people making music. For them it's a job... If music gets stolen, it's hard for them to continue. So help us ensure the future of good music."
The Dixie Chicks, Grammy award winning and two-time Diamond award recipients said, "It may seem innocent enough, but every time you illegally download music a songwriter doesn't get paid. And, every time you swap that music with your friends a new artist doesn't get a chance. Respect the artists you love by not stealing their music. You're in control. Support music, don't steal it."
Ya rednecks, how about many artists that became popular, like Darude & his "Sandstorm", because they shared their music?
Mary J. Blige, multi-Platinum award winning artist: âoeIf you create something and then someone takes it without your permission, that is stealing. It may sound harsh, but it is true.â
My grandmother has a collection of Pushkin's works. I did not pay for any of those books and Pushkin is not alive: I can't ask for his permission. How the fuck am I going to read "Evgenii Onegin"?
John W. Styll, President of the Gospel Music Association (GMA) said, âoeFrom ancient times onward, it has been understood by all people that taking someoneâ(TM)s property without their permission is wrong. The GMA supports the RIAAâ(TM)s efforts to use the court system to enforce the intellectual property rights of the creative community, but also calls upon people of faith to consider that this is not just a legal issue, but also a matter of morality.â
Jesus fucking Christ, there are people who pay to listen to Gospel? Isn't religion about sharing and crap? Didn't Jesus mass produce fish and wine in order to feed the poor? I bet local traders were pissed about him flooding the market.
Frances Preston, President and CEO of BMI: âoeIllegal downloading of music is theft, pure and simple. It robs songwriters, artists and the industry that supports them of their property and their livelihood. Ironically, those who steal music are stealing the future creativity they so passionately crave. We must end this destructive cycle now.â
Creativity? You call people like Eminem, Britney, Justin & Co., and other pop *stars* creative? If so, then every special education kid in this country is a member of MENSA.
Finally I do recommend everybody to read the article published on RIAAs web site. Please do it carefully and note the people who are mentioned there. Most of them are untalented fucks that strive to rip general publi off by producing half-baked hits. If people truly appreciated their work they would buy it, would not they?
Moral issues aside, this will have two effects:
1. Illegal traders will move to Freenet, where your identity can not be traced.
2. The RIAA will have to prove that they files offered were indeed the copyrighted item. File name alone is not sufficient.
They will have to download and verify every song they wish to sue a defendant for, and prove that it is the orginal and who they downloaded it from. That will be an expensive proposition, and soon their IP ranges will be public knowledge and widely blocked.
My conlcusions is that this is mostly a scare tactic, with probably bad unintentional consequences for the RIAA.
Could the RIAA be found on barratry? I mean, they are filing or threatening to file lawsuits to incite action - can't that be counted as barratry, which last I checked was against the law?
This sig no verb.
I don't really see this as a way to stop people from trading. It took a geek to set up the p2p network in the first place. Files traded, it got popular, it went mainstream, it got abused. Now the RIAA will come in and sue individual users. It may deter a few users for a while, but I'm sure another geek will come along and find a way to mask this, circumvent that, etc etc.
And that's just the technological side of things. Then we deal with ethics, business, money, law, and so forth. But I think those are all small insignificant issues (maybe not insignificant, but in terms of stopping the trading or not it is) and it is ultimately the technology that will change and the file swapping will continue, no matter how many people get sued.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
So let's say I've got gnapster going and I find someone has OLe' ELO. I remember I have an 8-Track of this downstairs in a dusty old box. As far as I can tell, I am only space shifting my content by downloading the mp3s. Yet the music is copyrighted. IMHO the RIAA can still take a leap. I OWN a "license" for that music.
Fact is, a lot of great music has never been re-mastered to CD. If I find someone who has done the work of digitizing some old LPs or tapes - try and stop me.
When are people going to get it? Downloading music that is copyrighted is illegal. I can't believe how many people here try to justify their actions through some weak argument about how they are actually supporting music sales, or making the artist more popular, or that all big bad corporations need to be crushed, etc etc. Musicians sign contracts with record labels out of their own free will - they agree to what the contract says, it's their decision to do it. If they let the RIAA/studio/whatever have the rights to their music, distribution, etc than obviously THAT IS WHAT THE ARTIST WANTS!!!!
So the recording companies charge an arm and an ass for CDs. If a car costs 2 billion dollars and you want it, but don't want to pay for it cause it costs 2 billion dollars, should you steal that too? Nope. If a computer program costs way to friggen much but you want it, should you copy/download (steal) that too? No. Why? Cause it's stealing! Damn how stupid can people be?
If something costs too much, don't buy it. If you don't like a certain product, don't use it. You can't say a product costs too much and it really sucks to boot, but then still want it and use it. The concept of not liking something but wanting it anyway is irrational, just like most arguments people have for sharing copyrighted music.
The default in kazaa (and its similar in all other p2p programs I've seen) is to make one folder (empty to begin with) searchable by the other users. You would have to go out of your way to explicitly share your fair use backups. IANAL, but the act of making them available doesn't even seem like it could strictly be illegal, cuz what if someone just did it so they could get to them from another computer (say they don't know about windows file sharing much less setting up ftp servers). And then, what if someone owns a CD, but its not immediately accessable to them and they want their friend to hear a track? Would it be illegal to download someone else's fair use backup?
Personally, I have a new CD that I can't listen to in any of my CD players or on my computer, but plays in older CD players that apparently ignore the data track. Shouldn't I be able to find the songs via some other means so I can listen to them on my portable, at home and at work. I mean right now I'd have to actually go to a friend's house to hear it!
It's all pretty grey to me, but the RIAA only needs off-white to cost you tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and maybe win a judgement for more.
This is just a publicity stunt and nothing more. They are using the same scare tactics that they always use to try and scare people away from P2P networks. I am pretty sure that they WILL sue a couple of people and make Examples out of them, but I really doubt that they will sue hundreds (must be that RIAA math again) of people who have no money. It is just not financially feasible.
BRING IT ON!!! Everyone loves to see big things fall, especially despotic regimes with poor math skills. The only folks y'all are gonna hurt are yourselves and your artists.
To put it in language you can understand, if you want the herpes to go away, stop throwing lawyers at the sore spot! And lower cd prices too!:)
I have encoded all of the CD I own (and bought) and have shared the folder on Kazaa. Because there is a legal purpose for this (you can download tracks from a damaged CD that you bought) am I doing anything wrong? If we all did this, just share, and don't download what are we doing wrong? I will be happy to show the RIAA my copy of the bought CD.
/me looks at a rather substantial collection of mp3's and ripped cd's ....
At first thought, I was a bit worried about how much more out of control fiascos like this can get. And you know, the interesting thing is that my second thought wasn't "gee, I should rm -rf that collection and never trade music again", it was "hrm, I wonder how we are going to beat the bastards this time and trade music anonymously".
These underhanded scare tactics don't drive people back; they fuel innovation for the exact things they are trying to stop.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
God is an Iron
by Spider Robinson
2011 I smelled her before I saw her. Even so, the first sight was shocking.
She was sitting in a tan plastic-surfaced armchair, the kind where the front
comes up as the back goes down. It was back as far as it would go. It was
placed beside the large living room window, whose curtains were drawn. A
plastic block table next to it held a digital clock, a dozen unopened
packages of Peter Jackson cigarettes, an empty ashtray, a full vial of
cocaine, and a lamp with a bulb of at least a hundred and fifty watts. It
illuminated her with brutal clarity.
She was naked. Her skin was the color of vanilla pudding. Her hair was in
rats, her nails unpainted and untended, some overlong and some broken. There
was dust on her. She sat in a ghastly sludge of feces and urine. Dried vomit
was caked on her chin and between her breasts and down her ribs to the chair.
These were only part of what I had smelled. The predominant odor was of
fresh-baked bread. It is the smell of a person who is starving to death. The
combined effluvia had prepared me to find a senior citizen, paralyzed by a
stroke or some such crisis.
I judged her to be about twenty-five years old.
I moved to where she could see me, and she did not see me. That was probably
just as well, because I had just seen the two most horrible things. The first
was the smile. They say that when the bomb went off at Hiroshima, some people
â(TM)s shadows were baked onto walls by it. I think that smile got baked on the
surface of my brain in much the same way. I don't want to talk about that
smile.
The second horrible thing was the one that explained all the rest. From where
I now stood, I could see a triple socket in the wall beneath the window. Into
it were plugged the lamp, the clock, and her. But I had never seen a
wirehead. It is by definition a solitary vice, and all the public usually
gets to see is a sheeted figure being carried out to the wagon.
The transformer lay on the floor beside the chair where it had been dropped.
The switch was on, and the timer had been jiggered so that instead of
providing one five- or ten- or fifteen-second jolts per hour, it allowed
continuous flow. That timer is required by law on all juice rigs sold, and
you need special tools to defeat it, Say, a nail file.The input cord was
long, and fell in crazy coils from the wall socket. The output cord
disappeared beneath the chair, but I knew where it ended. It ended in the
tangled snarl of her hair, at the crown of her head, ended in a miniplug. The
plug was snapped into a jack surgically implanted in her skull, and from the
jack tiny wires snaked their way through the wet jelly to the hypothalamus,
to the specific place in the medial forebrain bundle where the major pleasure
center of her brain was located. She had sat there in total transcendent
ecstasy for at least five days.
I moved finally. I moved closer, which surprised me. She saw me now, and
impossibly the smile became a bit wider. I was marvelous. I was captivating.
I was her perfect lover. I could not look at the smile; a small plastic tube
ran from one corner of the smile and my eyes followed it gratefully. It was
held in place by small bits of surgical tape at her jaw, neck, and shoulder,
and from there it ran in a lazy curve to the big fifty-litre water-cooler
bottle on the floor. She had plainly meant her suicide to last: she had
arranged to die of hunger rather than thirst, which would have been quicker.
She could take a drink when she happened to think of it; and if she forgot,
well, what the hell.
My intention must have shown on my face, and I think she even understood it-
the smile began to fade. That decided me. I moved before she could force her
neglected body to react, whipped the plug out of the wall, and stepped back
warily.
Her body did not go rigid as if galvanized. It had alread
The RIAA is not going after people that copy their CDs for strictly backup purposes. In fact, you can copy your CD to a music CD-R legimitately as their is a government-sponsored "tax" levied on each music CD-R to benefit the recording industry and its artists. For more information click here.
Ayup
There's nothing tricky here -- the responsibility is on you not to distribute copies of things that aren't yours to distribute.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Yes, I know it is the extreme unpopular view, but I too feel it is the right one.
You wannabe hackers had better get off of your asses and start worming the IRS, FBI, CIA, etc. Or just kill yourselves, you fucking syncophants.
Anyway, check my website.
I told u so. I've actually been saying this for years now. these corps need to be encouraged to buy all the legislation they can - because the only way any real barriers are going to be set is through public opinion. And "the public" just isn't gpoing to give a shit about most of this until they are made to realize they have a personal stake in the outcome.
Good luck having them prove I do not own the songs I download. They might get some stupid people to settle but the smart ones will take them to court and countersue.
The RIAA is out of control and needs to be stopped.
Why not use your neighbor's OPEN Access Point. Then the FBI/RIAA will knock on the other door.
This is making me very angry (for a number of reasons). It is disturbing to see how many slashdotters think that this is ok. It's not, and I'll tell you why. 1. The companys in the RIAA should NOT OWN THE COPYRIGHT to every piece of music they put out, THE ARTIST SHOULD!!!!! 2. The average artist gets paid less then 10 cents for each CD sold. not only that, but the entire cost of producing the record come out of the artists share. 3. Hows is the artist hurt by having more people listen to their music? The answer: they're not. This just cuts into the sale of the vapid ClearChannel approved artists. SALES FOR INDEPENDANT ARTISTS ARE HIGHER NOW THEN THEY HAVE EVER BEEN. This is why p2p is such a threat! I think its time for music fans and musicians to unite and put the fascist labels out of business.
You know, I can't fathom why people like the RIAA dares to test the Internet's might. Invariably, idealistic folks like that tend to get crushed by the distributed response of a million tireless souls. Unlike this here steamroller of an Internet, at some point the RIAA will either run out of patience, money or resources. Or all three.
- IP
If you are named in one of these lawsuits, and you didn't do it, call the EFF, now. A few expensive countersuits will keep the RIAA from using this as scare tactics. Extra funding for the EFF from the RIAA would be nice, too.
If you are named in one of these lawsuits, and you did it, but the damages against you are ridiculously high, call the EFF, now. Don't settle out-of-court for your life savings without getting some decent advice first.
If you aren't named in one of these lawsuits, but the idea of an industry group beating up indiscriminantly on thousands of individuals makes you mad, call the EFF, now, and make a donation!
That's the Electronic Freedom Foundation, folks...
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
*SELLING* copyright material has always been considering copyright infringement, but until the NO THEFT ACT and DMCA, non-commercial copies of copyrighted material were considered fair use and legal.
As a matter of fact, the NO THEFT ACT was precisely legislated because the federal courts ruled a BBS owner, who posted software non-commercially was NOT in violation copyright infringement.
So in addition to price fixing, setting up cartels, they're also free to donate generously to our representatives to change the rules when they operate their business withen the existing ones.
My question to you is: Is civil disobedience moral when every other moral option has been exhausted?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Ron jeremy has a masters degree in special education, he is no fool.
So he went from a career coaching retarded people to a career coaching borderline-retarded people? Wow.
First off, if you are still eating McDonald's - let alone contemplating stealing it - then we are already off on the wrong foot, as you are obviously a very different person from me. But to address your post, it is not the same, that's why.
A hamburger is constructed from physical materials which cost energy to produce. The cost of me downloading a song is entirely covered by me. So that kind of invalidates your simplistic comparison, doesn't it?
So why not do society a favor and stop mindlessly repeating some mantra you picked up on your local McNews channel and start using your head. Downloading songs is not stealing insofar as you are downloading that which you have already paid for in some format. What are you, a Republican, for crissakes? And guess what, Jimmy? Not all stealing is wrong either. Consult your local ethics class for details.
Learn to not dichotomize the world. Nothing is ever black and white and this online music-sharing thing is as close to 50% gray as it gets. Please think before you reply.
Not quite. The best analogy I can think of off the top of my head is drugs. You don't target the users, you target the dealers. Once the supply is removed then the users are out as well. It's far easier to go after the one person who supplies 10 or 20.
And that war on drugs is going real well, isn't it? NEWSFLASH: As long as there is demand there will always be supply!
The cost (difficulty) of obtaining the good might rise, but you will always be able to get it (name one street drug that used to be available, and is no longer), FTP or messenger service trading comes to mind, if P2P is killed...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
For the rest of us IANAL's:
r y ;)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=barrat
That KaZaaLiteUser guy. He's a fucking jerk.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I didn't think so.
I would be quite surprised if the major P2P "sharers" are making a lot of money off the files they share.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Dragging the goverment into this is just plain wrong. What the P2P networks really are is the consumer revolting against the overpriced and poor product the recording industry is putting out. This is nothing but a normal set of checks and balances that should be forcing them to improve their product and quit overcharging. By dragging the goverment into this they will not have any reason to improve their product. This is just plain wrong.
Wow! The RIAA is doing what it should have been doing in the first place. Maybe they aren't so evil after all. Unlike the MPAA which is always evil.
So can they do an inverse class action law suit? One plaintiff and thousands of defendants. That would be so cool.
The best way to reduce piracy is to lower the price of what you are trying to sell. Jacking up the price encourages piracy on CD's and DVD's.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
...the Highway Patrol has announced that it will fine hundreds of car drivers that are speeding. These will target the people that are traveling at a 'substantial' amount over the speed limit, but anyone that speeds is at risk. In severe cases, they'll ask for injunctions against car driving by revoking their licence and even possibly jail time.
I mean, that has really killed speeding hasn't it. Oh, wait...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Think about it some more -- you're deliberately making such copies available to the whole world, most of which cannot claim any right to download it. That's public performance.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
One thing's for certain - I will NOT buy another CD again. I'll listen to music on the radio, catch whatever's on MTV, go to concerts. Will NOT buy CDs/tapes/etc. Maybe I'll send donations to the few bands who's music I actually care for. But these fat, greedy bastards will not see another single penny from me.
I said it once, then I said it again, here it is one more for the record: Fuck RIAA !!!
Must-not-watch TV!
... they will sue the child of a congress-critter? I think it is safe to say they are off the list.
----- There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend; those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
about HOW they have obtained this information? without going before a judge, before bringing legal action, they are getting subpoena's for ISP customer's private information.
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
goodbye p2p. Guess it's time for all of us to go back to the ghetto, fire up our favorite IRC Client, and hit the fserves. Or those on broadband, time to fire up the favorite ftpd, dynamic DNS service (i.e no-ip.com), and stay low. Wait a minute, isn't that the way most people originally got into file trading? Might as well stick with the constant. *fires up mIRC, hits #mp3world*
your sins into me, oh my beautiful one.
I fail to understand how this is going to be a winning strategy for the RIAA over the long term. Since they're only going after "substantial" amounts there are still thousands of others who will never even know about the existence of the RIAA.
All this means is that people will just make sure they don't amass a large enough collection to stick out from the masses. There's safety in numbers and I'm willing to bet most people are just going to keep doing what they're doing betting that they can play the odds.
P2P is full of porn, but you never see Jenna Jameson on TV crying about the theft of her (publisher's??) copyrighted material. Maybe she should have a heart to heart with Britney...
Actually, I've been hoping that those two get together but press a different set of organs together...
I sincerely hope that the RIAA is successfull in doing this. I also wished that Microsoft was more diligent and sucessfull in countering piracy of their products. Why? Because only when forced to operate within the legal restrictions that MS and RIAA place on us, will people realize how Draconian these restrictions are, and will begin to look elsewhere. Imagine the boost in users Open Office could get if people could no longer pirate Microsoft Office (I don't know a single person who purchased MS Ofice - either it came with the computer or was copied from a friend).
The more people that the RIAA pisses off potential customers, the more those people will turn to artists that are trying different business models.
Watching you guys come up with lame head-game justifications is hilarious. Imagine trying to read your convoluted slashdot post to a judge without the entire courtroom laughing in your face.
What's wrong with pure hedonism? Steal it because it feels good, so long as you don't get caught.
Why don't we all start boycotting the RIAA and MPAA by not buying CDs, not going to see the movies or buy DVDs. Every dollar that we spent on their products are used against us in the court of law.
Stop stealing
That's kinda funny coming from someone who's sig is:
I pulled a jack move to cop this sig
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
How are they planning to get the users' real information ie. Legal name, Address etc in order to sue them?
[alk]
Look at it this way.
1) I own about two hundred CDs. If I lose twenty of them (due to an error on my part) is it legitimate to download those CDs to replace them?
2) To the same token is it okay to download a CD-key of Windows off the Internet if I misplaced mine?
3) Is it okay to snag a screwdriver to replace the one I left on the intake manifold and lost when I drove down the road?
It's all a matter of ethical interpretation. The answer to all the above is no - to the letter and spirit of the law. However, many people might feel Point 1 is legitimate. Some might lean to Point 2 - but I guarantee that most people would opt that Point 3 would be completely wrong.
Why? People have a real hard time distinguishing things that exist if they are not physically tangible. Software (or raw data) is so easy to trade and exchange because it consumers virtually no space. You can't touch it or feel it.
If it a screwdriver, however, then people can feel it and touch it. Which, for some psychological reason makes it more wrong than right.
Then, take in the fact that the reason most people obtain MP3s off a P2P network is not for honest reasons. It's for the reasons the RIAA fears the most: people don't want to give money for their product, and thus would steal it instead.
I'm not agreeing that the RIAA intentions are pure; I'm merely stating that nothing is wrong with their requests such that they obey and follow the laws as they are writ, instead of requesting the invention of new laws, provisions, and limitations to the consumers.
Ayup
I thought the artists have the copyrights? What that, how does a group representing recording companies get to sue people for copyright violation? I could be wrong, I just always thought that the artist gets the copyright.
Saw this quote on News.com...
"It's one of the few strategies left," Radcliffe said.
The question I have then is, what's the RIAA going to do when this doesn't work? What do they have left? And how long before they realize that this strategy, like all their others, is a massive failure?
And the lunacy of this very valid point is exactly why I do hope (as someone posted below) that they sue "the wrong guy," who decides to pick a fight and stand up for himself.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
...otherwise you'd be getting a royalty check everytime you heard the tune on a car commercial or some such.
You own a license to listen to the content of a given CD.
Warped, but true.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I see. Because they are abusing their position it gives you the right to rip them off. Good show. Well done. What a commendable lack of moral values.
If I feel that you are somehow doing something I don't like does that give me the right to abuse you?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Even though the RIAA and MPAA are claming that p2p sharing is killing their business, you never hear the adult industry complaining about p2p.
It's true that the adult industry can't haul out a soap-box and scream bloody murder the way the RIAA and MPAA can; the adult industry has enough trouble with the wrong sort of reputation already. If the adult industry publicized how easy it was for Little Johnny to download pirated copies of hardcore pornography, it could backfire and trigger a new round of anti-porn legislation, rather than a wave of protect-the-porn-biz sentiment.
In any case, I have read at least one interview with a top adult-industry photographer (Suze Randall, I believe) who has been battling on-line piracy of her material for years, and who claims that the situation is increasingly out-of-control. Adult magazine sales are down - heck, Penthouse very nearly went under about a year ago - in part because all the photos in them are readily available on the internet within a week of publication. SR said that the glory days of her business were over - the fancy sets and high production values of her best stuff were no longer economically viable, because the prices she can charge for her pictures is falling. It's arguable that piracy has had a more dramatic impact on the adult industry than on the record industry.
Of course, it's also true that the internet has made it possible for any yahoo with a camera to start a porn site, and the resulting flood of bad, cheap-or-free porn that results probably has a lot to do with the flagging fortunes of the big names, too.
This is a last-ditch deterrence effort by RIAA and as such should be viewed as a good sign. Clearly in terms of cost-benefit filing individual lawsuits against sharers is about as high as it gets. My eMule client says there are 1.13 million users currently logged onto that network, plus another 4.6M on Kazaa. That's a couple of dozen lawsuits out of at least 6 million, to say nothing of Gnutella, BitTorrent, ad infinitum. My guess is people will realize their chances of getting nailed by RIAA are either a) zero, if they live outside the US and b) less than getting struck by lightning otherwise, and keep about their merry way. Once RIAA sees that it's not having any effect, they're one step closer to releasing their antiquated distributional stranglehold, one step closer to coming to the bargaining table and establishing a useful online music sharing service. I view this as a good sign.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
What morals are those? That theft is perfectly acceptable? I don't like the RIAA any more than anyone else, mainly because they're a bunch of dinosaurs and because they go after people who do little more than establish search engines. This ain't one of those times however.
But calling theft moral simply because they're assholes? I don't think so. Getting even, maybe, and I can understand that. But don't have any illusions of moral high ground.
And this civil disobedience thing is tripe - if you want the moral high ground, go handcuff yourself to Hilary Rosen's car. Or download some Weird Al songs that you have no intention of actually listening to, if you want to screw them with P2P. And be sure to advertise your identity, as civil disobedience has no point without an audience.
However, mp3 d/l'ers don't do that. They mainly want something for nothing. Now, I know we all need a method of trying out songs, so I got nothing against people who buy the albums they like and delete the ones they don't. But calling this movement civil disobedience is a travesty to those, like Ghandi and MLK, who used it in the name of great causes.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
The RIAA's lawsuit tactics are not surprising to me, nor are they particularly new. We've actually seen this whole thing happen at least once already.
Way back in the early days of MP3 swapping, before anyone had ever come up with the idea of peer-to-peer, there used to be a lot of pirate mp3 FTP servers and webpages, there for the taking. I remember using a Windows web spider program called MP3Wolf that scanned the web for mp3 file links and listed them for you to choose from and download. I remember when about a zillion mp3s popped right up in the list, right there for the taking.
But then the RIAA and other powers-that-be started suing folks who ran those websites...and almost overnight, MP3Wolf started turning up zip. The RIAA didn't sue everybody running such a site...but they started suing enough of them that word got around it was distinctly hazardous to one's financial health to run an open mp3 download site...so the mp3s retreated onto IRC channels, leech-ratio FTP sites, and, on the web, behind a maze of warez site lists (of lists of lists of lists of sites, if you were lucky; if not, toss in a few more "lists of" in the middle), pop-up ads, and computer-killing pop-up browser window storms, and it was almost impossible to find a direct link to any mp3 files on the web, because if you could find it, so could the RIAA.
A friend of mine put it that the RIAA and the file swappers had reached a sort of de facto agreement: the swappers made the files nearly impossible to retrieve, and the RIAA pretended not to notice them. A balance was struck, and equilibrium was maintained. Until peer-to-peer came along and knocked the whole thing into a cocked hat.
Well, it's happening again. Granted, it's taking a bit longer than it did back then, as the record companies couldn't directly attack the legality of webpages and FTP sites so they had to cut right to the chase, but I think we're going to see a dramatic decline in the quantity and selection of songs flying around on KaZaa as the chilling effect brought on by the first round of lawsuits hits. Rhetoric of "dammit, we have a right to steal music! And it's not 'stealing' anyway because of (car analogy, furniture analogy)" Slashdotters notwithstanding, most file-sharers out there would rather not be prosecuted, even if they think they aren't doing anything wrong. If you don't know who's going to get slammed with a lawsuit, then you're not going to risk being one of them. And that's what the RIAA is after.
It won't be the end of it, of course; in a couple years or so, folks will come up with the next file-sharing paradigm (perhaps something Freenet-style, where there's almost no way to tell who's sharing what) and do an end-run around these lawsuits. And then the RIAA will try to work out how to counter that. And so it goes. To quote a Shirley Bassey/Propellerheads song that's floating around out there on peer to peer right now, "That's just a little bit of history repeating."
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
What was the question? Seriously.
... this just keeps getting better & better. 57 million Americans i.e 1/5th of the US population.
I'm not worried about myself, I rip my friends CD's for a higher bitrate & don't use p2p for music, but the RIAA is about to commit a very slow suicide. Hopefully they will single out some politicrats relatives or good friends, or how about some senior citizens. Getting the AARP on your bad side is much, much worse than the NRA. Seniors have time to write & lobby congresscritters, and they generally listen to them especially in large groups.
I live in Florida, there are lots of seniors down here, of the ones I know that own a PC, *all* of them use p2p for older music that they can't find in a store or isn't offered online. Please go after them RIAA., I dare you, I double dare you.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Why not create P2P software that goes though a proxy or a few of them. These proxies would obviously be used to mask users IP addresses so that they cannot be traced back? Is it possible to create?
The RIAA is trying to sue "customers", but how much of the collected "alleged damaged" does the RIAA plan to kickback to the artists ? and how is that money divided ? Very, very few artists make significant money off record sales, live performances, ie, touring is the main revenue generator for the artists. This lawsuit has little to no benefit to the artists, but greatly benefits the RIAA
That being said, the RIAA's tactic will ultimately backfire, as record sales, and to a certain extent, radio airplay, determine how much "excitement" a tour will generate (outside of bands like the Stones, who'll sell out performance regardless), which in turn, will boost record slaes. If the RIAA starts angering the consumer, the records will not sell regardless of the tour, radio play, etc.
If you hadn't been such a smug little shit about it, I might have let it go.
"Entrapment" is not simply creating an attraction that might induce people to commit a crime (i.e. the RIAA creating a honeypot). If that were the case, I could mug the lady with the big diamond ring, since she "entrapped" me into wanting to take it.
In the legal sense, "entrapment" occurs when a law enforcement official induces a person to commit a crime when that person would not otherwise have done so. A cop can set up a "sting" in which he accepts your offer to buy drugs, but he cannot walk the streets offering to sell you drugs. In the first instance, you demonstrated an intention to commit the crime by initiating the transaction; in the second instance, the cop has entrapped you by inducing you into committing the crime.
The RIAA offering tunes for download is not "entrapping" anyone. First, they are not law enforcement officials. Second, they are not initiating the file transfer (that is, the offense). If the RIAA tried to push copyrighted downloads onto your system, you'd be right. But you're not.
In closing, AC, may I politlely invite you to shut your badly misinformed piehole.
Say someone (like me) puts a fair amount of personal work and money into compiling a cd of their work and other local artists in hope of selling some cd's to help promote local music (promotion is not free). Not long after you've resigned yourself to the fact you're out that money a few CD's got sold at concerts, you find tracks from said CD on a P2P network. Some tag's and file names have been changed to include the name of popular similar sounding bands (ie. Band-x (like pink floyd) Track 9) being downloaded by people. sure new people are listening to you stuff, maybe even going to your website or searching for you on google because of the download. but you know what they ARN'T doing. Buying the CD or the Compilation CD that you've put together. At the same time you are not seeing any sales (ok maybe the music sucks, i can accept that) but watching that same P2P network you see more and more copies of your stuff out there. From the look of the IP addresses local folk.
I don't think it's that far off to say that happens, in fact, I have personally seen it happen. It can definatly increase your audience, and bring a few more people to live shows, but that doesn't help pay back costs put into the work that now everyone has for free.
Does anybody know any tricks that will keep us from being sued? I doubt using Kazaa-lite is enough, and I know a firewall wont do it, what about NAT or something else? I'm surprised I'm the first to ask this question...
Explain that to me again?
If I put a stack of copied cd's on my front lawn is that public performance? If I turned my cd player up real loud in my house and you happen to hear it is that public performance? If i print out the mp3 in hex and put in on a tshirt and you happen to be real good at reading mp3's in hex is that public performance?
I've read a number of comments over the months saying that users can utilize P2P as a backup mechanism, as well as for making backup copies available remotely.
The problem with this is that if you are putting copyrighted content up on a P2P network, you're making it available to everyone -- not just you, the "end user" or consumer. Sure, some of the files you've got there may be legitimately copylefted, but how many P2P users who are swapping music and/or video are actually doing that as their primary use? Come on, be honest!
If you want a backup or to be able to remotely access the files, put them up on a server somewhere that requires authentication -- webserver, ftp server, ssh, whatever. There are any number of companies that will give you 150MB of space for 9.95/month US. Or, if you're on broadband, utilize some dynamic dns service and operate the servers yourself (put them on non-standard ports if your contract with the ISP doesn't allow you to run services).
But don't go crying foul when the RIAA legitimately claims that you are posting copyrighted material in a public forum for distribution.
As if this is what I said. And this fine gem coming from some dork who won't even use a real username.
Right.
If only they would devote their energies to making music people were willing to pay for!
My other sig is extremely clever...
And the lunacy of this very valid point is exactly why I do hope (as someone posted below) that they sue "the wrong guy," who decides to pick a fight and stand up for himself.
If you're offering someone else's IP for free download, without their consent, you're the 'right guy'. Since sharing is something you choose to do, you've made a conscious decision to break the law.
Ok, lets see: if you heard it on the radio, you can make a digital copy. So how is you downloading someone else's recording different from making your own recording? I don't think the process (had to click [record | download]) really counts here - the end result is the same. So how is the RIAA going to prove these people did not hear these songs on the radio? What if some downloader actually bought a copy; are they taking that into account? While there may be a lot of people who download a song they haven't heard on the radio, it seems to me to be pretty tough to prove. Am I mis-understanding something here?
So if you leave your windows open in your car I can take the CDs out of it and it's your fault? Oh right, that's stealing. Copyright infringement is different since you're just making a copy and there's no actual loss of the original item making it even less of a harmful crime. heh.
What's the average cost of filing each complaint?
What's the average settlement for each complaint?
One way or another they were going to switch to an internet based business model.
It seems to me that even if the RIAA hires "el-cheapo" lawyer to carry this out that it has to hit their pocket book eventually. Especially when they claim that sales are in a slump because of p2p sharing. Hundreds of lawsuits isn't going to stop people from swapping songs; millions of lawsuits might. But if they are getting decreasing funds year after year while having to increase the number of lawsuits to reduce the fileswapping there must come a time when it just isn't financially feasable for them to continue on this course of action.
I agree that the RIAA should go after the people individually but I have issue when it comes to what the copywright entails. Hopefully someone can clear this up for me. In my belief, when I bought an album on vinal in 1980, I bought the right to listen to that album and transfer it to another medium; like audio tape. Now that MP3s have come along, I believe I should be able to download the same songs I have on vinal because I purchased the rights to listen to it a while ago. If I threw away the album, I would throw away my rights to listen to them.
Basically, I do not agree with the RIAA's practice of saying if you bought the album on vinal and you want it on CD, you have to pay us again and a higher price this time for it on the new medium. I should be able to buy the rights to a song and be done with it no matter what medium I want it on. If that means I have to surender one medium for another (say send back the vinal to get a CD) I am ok with that.
So a couple of american shareers lose their life savings and their first borns.
However they cant touch any foreign sharers. The result of the actions is that there will be more foreign 'sharers' than US ones.
So the only thing that will happen is that it will take US ppl longer to download things (as the sharer would be farther away than usual).
So stop saying its the end of the fucking world.
If you do like you say, you're not "the wrong guy", you're "the bad guy". You have to specify what directories are shared in Kazaa and virtually every other P2P software, so why are you sharing your legitmate .mp3s while you're d'loading PD songs?
Eventually the RIAA will find file sharing switching over to private networks. They will need to resort to stealth monitoring.
I look forward to the day we can class action them for wire-tapping.
The RIAA I note is going after people they consider "heavy" traders of files. Given that stats say that 57mm trade files they must be going for some pretty easy targets. Well easy in their interpretation of how a Court of Law would react in their favor. The problem they have is that they are trying to stop the behavior of 57mm+ people. Ever tried to stop that many people? Someone said you can only have Laws which are easily enforceable (or words to that affect). So the RIAA appear to have moved from picking on a few unfortunate little people who coincidentally (how surprising) don't have the money to attempt to fight back so they fold. Now, however, they are going after the easy kill of the big big file traders to the tune of a few hundreds of people. Maybe the RIAA are in the right. That's not the issue for them right now though. These several hundreds of people might well decide to form a group to fight the RIAA in court as a group, rather than individually. And Lawyers being Lawyers someone or some firm somewhere would likely be interested in picking up such a high profite set of clients with all the attendant publicity and media. So will the easy victories work for the RIAA or will they find themselves locked in a monster Court battle? Downloading free music has got to be against the Law? Right? Perhaps, but imagine IF the RIAA somehow lost a major court battle? The ability of music industry to modify 57mm++ people would be even further dimnished. Nope. IMHO this is a blind alley for the RIAA and the music industry. They would far far be better off finding true ways to offer these 57mm people services at great economic value. Rther than trying to sustain their clients activities of gouging consumers who buy CDs at inflated prices. Me? I don't download music (lucky or unlucky me). I used to buy a lot of CDs though, but over time I slowed down my purchases, because I was quite frankly unwilling to pay the exorbitant prices charged by music companies. I wish some Court of Law would turn on the RIAA and ORDER them and their masters to change their restrictive business practises and offer music efficiently and cheapy making illegal mmusic file trading a waste of time. Meantime be careful RIAA, at some moment you might awake the sleeping tiger of little people who might want to bite back. It seems apparent that music buying of CDs is slowing. The RIAA point to this as the reason why muis file trading must be stopped. I think it more likely it's because the music industry is inefficient, full of too many free loaders and needs to get real. And I mean a lot cheaper than Aplle's innovative new service. But at least they are tryng to move in the right direction.
If you set up your file sharing software so that it deletes any song that someone downloads from your hard drive, then you can "accidentally" leave it open as much as you like. That's the equivalent of having your CD's stolen out of your unlocked car.
Informative!
Cost of motion picture destined for DVD: Tens of Millions of dollars, miles of expensive film stock, potentially hundreds of cast and crew members, sets, wardrobes, effects, etc.
Cost of film in theatre: 8 bucks.
Cost of DVD: 20 bucks.
Cost of crummy Britney Spears-grade album: What? A few hundred thousand if you're lucky? Including the snack table. A couple of hard drives or tapes, a week or two in a recording studio with a pair of bored engineers making crummy artist sound better.
Cost of CD: 15 bucks.
The movie industry doesn't seem to be crying like babies. Sure they're after pirates too, as are software makers and even book publishers. But they realize it's part of doing business. It's just the music industry that thinks the end of the world is right around the corner.
Remember when buying a movie on VHS used to cost 79 bucks? There's a reason they're so cheap now. When is the last time you bothered to copy a rental movie? Never? Cause its just not worth it.
I haven't brought a CD in months because a) most of the mainstream artists the RIAA is backing suck anyways b) they're too expensive and c) I'd rather just buy it from the band for 10 bucks when I go to their show and avoid the chain of profit reaping when buying from best buy or amazon. I know the artist sees less profit from that route. And I get to chat with them.
The RIAA has to prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt that the specific copyrighted works were actually shared by the defendant.
That's not as easy as it sounds. Is the file "RIAA band - RIAA band's song.mp3" really that song, or something else entirely? Was the file actually available to be downloaded. Is the user in question really the sharer?
IPs can be spoofed. Files can be misnamed. Computers can be hijacked. It's almost impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a copyright violation actually occurred, and that the person in question was actually responsible.
Now multiply these complexities by the number of filesharers out there. It's an uphill battle for the RIAA.
On another note, stopping hundreds of us means very little face of the fact that we number in the millions. File shares will likely start moving outside of the United States, where it's much harder to effectively litigate against their operators.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Disclaimers have been shot down in courts. For instance, old bulletin boards would contain a standard library disclaimer that this "software" would be available for a twenty-four hour period checkout. After the checkout expired, it was your responsibility to remove the software. It's flawed logic. One - you are not such a service (and as such, would be operating without a contract or license to distribute such a service). Two - such a service would be done knowing damn good and well the type of people who would be downloading software (or music) from your system probably do not own the CD.
It's simple why you cannot provide such a service. You do not own the rights to the software or music nor the content there-in . Therefore it is not up to you how it is distributed.
If you were to provide such a service, the RIAA would charge that you would have to provide a means of verifying the identity of each individual who accessed your service so that they, in turn, could audit the people of "fair use" to see if they were legitimate owners.
The RIAA would not be violating the law to download those files to verify if they are indeed illegally distributed material - they own the rights to most of the music one would listen to. You are simply licensing the rights to listen and enjoy the music that is contained on the CD you purchased. You are not purchasing the copyright or the ability to reproduce such works.
Ayup
Dear Cary Sherman,
You are a complete and total bastard. Although you might think you will win this way, you are mistaken. What you are proposing is tantamount to the prohibition of the 20s. You are only going to make people want their MP3s even more than before and they WILL find other ways to trade files. You can try to kill P2P, but there are numerous other ways to trade these files now. Deal with it you jackass.
Your next step will have to be the illegalization of MP3 players (both hardware and software). Do you think Thompson is going to like that? You will also need to take into account that there is always http. Fine. You close down Kazaa, so people build web based filesharing that the masses can use and install on Windows. Then what? Do you think you'll be able to convince the whole of the internet to shut down port 80?
I certainly hope you think you are on top of the game. The public outcry from this move is going to topple your industry. Prepare to be completely destroyed. Not just by us hackers, but also by "joe average". You already charge way too much for music, you've restricted our selection by cutting down on the availability of many types of music. Be happy with yourself for now. It's not going to last. You are a dead man with a dead business model.
Sincerely,
AC
No, only if the thief makes a copy of the CD's, and then returns them ;-)
Or more seriously: only if you made a backup copy of your own CDs before they were stolen, and failed to destroy said copy after you noticed the theft...
If no copy occured, it is merely theft, not copyright infringment, and you are not at fault.
Newsbreak! You don't have the right to download free music!
Where in the Hell did you get this idea?? You may not have the right to download copyrighted music that is being made available without the copyright holder's permission , but thera are THOUSANDS of sites online offering FREE music for download, with the permission of the copyright holder!
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
and it was the downloading that made it illegal.
From reading this discussion it seems as though only people who share are both doing something illegal and can be caught. People who download content are harder to catch (the RIAA has to make files avalible to take, and that's entrapment. You can't leave a truck on the street doors wide open full of big screen TV's all night and bust people who take them).
So I have a solution:
Someone who writes those annoying self replicating viruses that don't do anything or do bad things should code one that shares all of your content on a peer to peer network. (movies, mp3's). Those of us who want to share simply don't install virus protection software. Those who don't want their stuff shared install virus protection software!
When the RIAA comes after you for sharing copyrighted material, you have a case for ignorance. Woah! I had a virus. They don't bust people that unknowingly have Code Red on their boxen causing network problems. If you did that knowingly you'd be in jail though. What do you think?
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
Been making this analogy myself for awhile. I find it rather apt, and you make a good point with it.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
In my opinion, this is the absolute worst thing that the RIAA could do... In fact, if they do begin to sue song swappers en mass it will mark the end of the RIAA as we know it.
The best way to get a bad law overturned is to overuse it. That is PRECISELY what the RIAA is doing. All they are going to be successful at is pissing off their largest consumer base, spending horrific amounts of money on lawyers fee's, and in the end make NO difference at all.
I don't care how much the RIAA sues American's, they will have little or no impact on file traders the world over... the network with which to download software, music, text, etc will still be in tact. Those in other countries won't give a damn about the RIAA (and never will).
Frankly, I would like to see the RIAA *try* to put an end to file trading, I get off on seeing an outdated organization in it's death throws, slash blindly at those around it as it slowly dies.
My guess is that eventually some compromise will be made with regards to Fair Use and what not..
You know, I am thinking about beginning to rip music off FM/Digital radio, as well as the music channels on the television.. but I guess that would be criminal, and _stealing_ too... Hahahahahaha
What a joke.. Good Luck RIAA, you'll need it.
... looks like it's time to go from the DC/KaZaa fileshare model to the inner circle only FTP fileshare mdoel (a.k.a. private FTP model).
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
So what P2P networks (such as freenet) can be used anonymously?
Are there WiFi P2P clients that exist? This way people can share files at public hotspots without being identified -- there'd be no fixed wire that Verizon could hand over the identification of.
What changes could be made to existing (gnutella, G2) P2P networks to make them anonymous?
If there is a intermediate node between the source and destination of the file, that could prevent the destination from knowing who the source is.
I'm posting this after the big "primetime moderation" window, but I think it's worth saying...
The RIAA's most recent action will motivate p2p programmers to introduce anonymity into their trading system, either by creating a new protocol or (more likely) modifying existing protocols and clients.
It's inevitable.
The veil of anonymity will prompt more people to share their entire music library. This will increase the diversity and wide availability of files.
In a p2p app, diversity and wide availability of files means that users a) find what they want and b) can download it quickly.
P2P trading platforms that a) are easy-to-use, b) offer multi-source downloads (for speed) and c) basic anonymity will thrive like never before because many p2p users will open up those massive libraries that are currently unshared out of fear of lawsuit.
The threat of being tracked down will have been removed by the always-responsive p2p programmers, leading to wide-spread sharing by people currently to scared to share, people with something to lose: adults with incredible collections... and a former fear of the RIAA.
Is the RIAA going to sue people for sharing music recorded my artists who are NOT part of the RIAA?
And if they are, do they have the right to?
I think that this is going to be another way to extort money without litigation, just like that kid that made a search engine, who gave them his life savings without going to court. I wonder how many people are going to be suckered into this...
Is there anything like a class-action suit in reverse? You know where the company can lump all its customers into a class and sue them simultaneously. It sure would help the RIAA save legal costs, and the savings could then be used to help the artists.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
Does the RIAA know what you've downloaded?
Could a "pool" be setup for those sued?
Even if you're paying illegals minimum wage, how could you even budget a quarter?
When they shut down Napster, the complaints were something along the lines of, "they can't shut down a service that could offer legitimate content just because it happens to offer copyrighted content." Which seems quite correct.
Now they are going after those who are actually abusing the services rather than the services themselves, which I think is much better. This way, those of us who think much of the available content that's not spewed out by RIAA is better than the drivel that is, can still use various online services to get to the legitimate content without fear of RIAA shutting those services down because some moron put his Brittney Spears collection on the service. Instead of the service getting sued, said moron gets sued and the rest of us can continue on.
"Any individual computer user who continues to steal music will face the very real risk of having to face the music."
I always knew they were two-faced.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Once upon a time, people tape recorded their records into collections they shared with their friends. This was a great way to learn about good music that never made it onto local radio stations. The practice drove record sales despite industry opposition. Industry opposed the practice because it encouraged demand for all sorts of music and that's less profitable for distributors than artificial mega hits by one or two "artists". The making of such personal coppies was defended in the courts as "fair use". The coppies did NOT constitute republication. Issues of "recording quality" were brought up, but were unimportant to music fans because the tape recordings were as good as they could make on their own and better than FM radio. The RIAA vowed revenge.
The same struggle continues to this day despite technology that removes their reason to exist. The RIAA is doing everything they can to sell you what the think you want. They are taking advantage of new technology to lock up music tighter than ever and will use that technology to keep you from making music that might compete with them. If they have their way, recorded music will be such a scarce comodity that people will once again pay for each play. It's an amazing example of laws being made to encumber new technology. Music recording is now so easy that there really is no reason to have a Recording Industry Association. There's no reason to have centralized recording and music publishing. It is now easier to record music than it is to make it and recording studios should be as common as guitar heros. The RIAA, wants bring us back to the days of Edison's phonograph - poor quality recordings only a select few can make.
Some kind of ground rules for online sharing must be incorporated into "fair use". How many uploads constitutes a republication? Clearly me emailing a song to my mom is not a republication any more than me quoting the first amendment is a republication of the Constitution. Somewhere between that extreem and me setting up an anonymous ftp (not to vilify ftp) site lies fair use. It should be protected if copyright is really to promote the arts rather than a tool for control of popular culture.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
How can the RIAA prove that whoever they shared with did not own the copy themselves? Wont they need proof that the recipient did not have a license also? If I own it cant I download from anyone?
Them: I see you have an extensive collection of vinyl and CD's, but you have a copy of ______ in your mp3's, where is the original?
Me: uh, I let someone borrow that one...
I am happy that the last gasp effort of the RIAA has finally begun. The suing of individual file traders will most certainly result in an even more nasty backlash and even more hostility to the organization and the artists that support them. I read in one of the articles about the 'crackdown' that the effort was analogized to a police officer on a highway and how the police officer is able to successfully stop the speeding of the vast majority of drivers by simply stopping a few of the drivers and writing them tickets for speeding. Well, we all know what really happens. We all slow down when we see the police officer in his patrol car and as soon as he is out of sight then it's back to the speed everyone else is going. The end result for the RIAA and the artists that publically support this is that there will be more hostility and a very noticeable drop in sales for the artists that foolishly get behind this effort. Can anyone say Metallica?
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
"By making it so easy to copy the files, you would certainly be in danger of contributory infringement."
That's just insipid. One word: KINKO's. Publicly accessable copy machines. Guilty of contributory infringement? Nope.
How about a library?
The whole phrase "copy the files" is just a minefield of possible contributory infringement following your logic.
ISP liable? Computer retailor liable? Chip maker liable? OS maker liable? The very nature of computer technology is full of things that by design create copies. Where do you stop?
True. Which is why they should push as their defense that they are NOT distributing anything. They aren't e-mailing files to people. They are simply opening up their network/file system. If a downloader pulls the file off the net, it is the downloader committing the crime. The host did not authorize the download did he? He is at best a passive participant.
Nice to see everyione using their mod points in a fair and unbiased way. The parent is not a troll. The poster has a very legitimate point. Just because you don't agree with the poster does not make the post a troll.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I don't buy this notion that KaZaA is really totally community supported and isn't getting boosted by some well placed and well funded high-bandwidth servers with fat RAID caches of popular content. It's just a hunch and could easily be wrong, but the way it seems so homogenized compared to other P2P apps makes me suspicious that they have some uber super nodes that keep things flowing. Also, in the last K++ release, the developer cryptically noted some odd behaviors in the supernode settings right before announcing he was "tired" of playing with it.
Again, it's just a hunch and perhaps it's wrong and it's just that FastTrack roXors, but if it's true then this approach of bashing home users that share and telling leachers they're good to go isn't going to do shit to slow things down. It's just going to piss off all the nice folks who feel obligated to share and mean nothing to the more cynical types.
And if you think about it, the only people they're going to be able to nab are the small fries with cable modems and what not. There's so many what-if possibilities out there that if the KaZaA people wanted to set caching mega servers up secretly on fast, pricey fiber connections, it's easy to imagine that they would have the skills to configure the security that would make it impossible to say absolutely yes or no that these cache's actually existed. Basically you have to take them on their word and the word is -no.
As usual, the Post says that the RIAA blames p2p for declining sales, but doesn't make any mention of the fact that maybe, just maybe some of the lost sales are a result of a poor economy or the fact that they've been ripping people off so bad they lost a class action suit for CD price fixing.
This would be like Clear Channel blaming NPR for me not listening to the radio stations I used to listen to before Clear Channel sucked them into their void. I stopped listening to commercial radio because I hate Clear Channel (and monopolies). Yes, I listen to NPR instead now, but if there were no NPR, I still wouldn't listen to commercial radio.
Did I buy more CD's before p2p? Yes. I had more discretionary income. Would I buy more CD's if there wasn't p2p? No. The lack of p2p networks would not put more discretionary income in my pocket. And it certainly isn't going to make me forgive them for price fixing.
But, as much as I lothe the RIAA and their tactics, going after the people violating copyrights is probably the first thing they've done right. Suing software and search engine developers is not only wrong, it's stupid. Go after someone who is actually doing something wrong.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
No sense in bemoaning a company using a bad law to their advantage. Sure, nobody likes a bully. And that's all this is. But prolonged moaning about the problem won't help.
What we need to do as consumers is to either:
a) Get a poorly written / overly zealous set of laws changed
or
b) Work on convincing the fools at the RIAA that fan-driven file sharing leads to more people discovering their artists, catalog, similar interests, and generates additional CD sales.
--- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
An issue here is whether the RIAA can go into court claiming to be an injured party when they've been found to be operating an illegal price control system.
Perhaps what is happening is that musics place in the world is changing again? In history past a wandering minstrel would play for food and lodging and perhaps to get their name/songs immortalized. Flash forward to today where most music stars are pampered millionares who pump out worthless drivel (with perhaps ONE good song on a CD) while the engine of the big record companies keep turning. I know people will most likley mod this down...but I really wonder if people (as a whole) are not changing their attitude towards musics place in the world. Perhaps they are seeing that it SHOULD be free once again....at least free to listen. Many artists are now planning on making the bulk of their money from live performances and not recorded medium. Maybe they even see the light?
Shouldn't they be going after the downloaders? After all they are the one's actually making a copy. Whether or not an mp3 should actually be considered to be a copy of a song is another argument that I wont get into. I mean if I take a CD that I own and leave it out on the sidewalk in front of my house and someone comes along and makes a copy of it is that MY fault? (Sure, I'd get fined for littering but that's not the point)
Press Release:
Title: Recording Industry To Sue Music Pirates
Subtitle: RIAA to Gather Evidence of Activity For Thousands of Potential Lawsuits Against Individuals
Story Text: June 2003 (Newstream) -- Even though all the major record labels have made their music available on a number of legal sites, illegal downloading is still rampant on the Internet. To combat the problem, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) announced it will start to gather evidence tomorrow and will begin filing what could amount to thousands of lawsuits against individual computer users.
The creation of legal websites like The Apple Music Store, MusicNet, Pressplay and Rhapsody still haven't deterred some individuals from illegally distributing music. And they're not just sharing with a few friends; in some cases, they're illegally passing copyrighted songs to millions of others. Experts say that illegal file sharing has already cost thousands of jobs in the music industry.
They also warn that while many falsely believe that illegal file sharing is anonymous, it's actually a very public activity. A person's username leads to an IP (Internet Protocol) address, which can then be subpoenaed to locate the individual.
To avoid being sued, the RIAA recommends taking programs that distribute music illegally - like Kazaa and Grokster - off your computer if you have them. At the very least, they advise disabling the software's uploading capacity. This will not only keep strangers out of your hard dive, it will keep you from getting sued.
---------------
Produced for RIAA
Contact:
Tammy Taylor, 310/788-2850
I would love to have someone accuse me illegally possessing those MP3s. I would produce the original CD from which I ripped the track, show that I OWN that source, assert my fair use rights, and promptly counterclaim for substantial damages of my own. Think about this: If I have paid for the content, and can legally rip an MP3 from whatever source for my own use, why can't I get a copy of an MP3 version of content I already paid for from another source? That sounds like a FAIR use of the content to me. In fact, I think that prohibiting such conversions to force consumers to repurchase the same content in a new format is an UNFAIR and deceptive business practice. In court, suing individual file traders has the potential to quickly become a bottomless pit of evdentiary and other legal issues for each file alleged to have been illegally downloaded.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
You expect them ot be reasonable? The last example of this was 4 students being sued for $97,000,000,000.00 for running a search engine. The RIAA settled for their life savings. I expect the next technical countermeasure to be download bots linked to M$ Lawsuit. The RIAA is evil, dummy, and everything they do should be regarded as such until they do something useful.
Hmmmm, I'd better get a patent on a method to discourage music sharing through judicial extortion. That way I'll get my fair share of all your life savings.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Just remember that slavery, at one time in American history, was LEGAL. However, that didn't make it right, in any way, shape or form.
Flip the root concept around and you'll see where I'm going with this.
Now go back and re-read what I said. Let it sink in.
I'm wondering how long it'll be until we have a nice encrypted and anonymous p2p file swapping network. Surely if the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/whoever start sueing people, clever coders will develop something thats untracable. Then again, maybe something already exists and I'm oblivious. :-P
I noticed that the college that I'm going to next fall, has a policy of monitoring up bandwidth, but not down. Supposedly it has to do with the school not wanting to be sued over content distributed. I was wondering if some sort of encryption could be used to overcome this monitoring.
Just think back to the olden days where all we had was anonymous FTP sites (I mean sitez). RIAA can have loads of fun with that. KaZaA, Morpheus, Napster, Gnutella, Waste, whatever...let them all go the way of the dinosaur and the RIAA won't know anything more about it, but the FTP keeps on serving.
Would be easy to send out 5 million letters demanding $3500 & all your hardware or they will sue you for copyright violation.
It's working wonders for DirecTV.
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
Everytime the RIAA ups the stakes, people will simply migrate to a more secure P2P architecture - and it is hard to get more secure, decentralized, and anonymous than Freenet.
I think this whole problems stems from the way copyright law has developed over the last century. Currently, organizations such as the RIAA and the MPAA have a "natural rights" position: We own it, and you'll pay us what we want or else.
Unfortunately, consumers don't think this way. We tend to take a more utilitarian approach. The authors of the U.S. Constitution have a short sentence about this very issue, and that leans towards social compromise: limited exclusive rights for author, use by the general public.
I find it ironic that some take the position of "it's against the law so I won't do it." Problem with this reasoning is the fact that the content industries have been writing the laws for years, pushing them through with donations, and uniting to block any legislation remotely negative.
My last comment is about the punishments faced by those accused. I would hope one of the cases goes all the way to a jury trial and have some high school kid possible "fined" millions of dollars. How "fair and just" would that seem to the average American? Later.
YOU sue the RIAA!
And start buying CDs at CD Baby!
Yeah first of all how do they know that your Metallica.mp3 isn't really some live concert of theirs that you can't buy in the stores anyway. Shouldn't I be able to download the song that I have legally purchased, and have a huge library of all my music cds in MP3 format on my computer so when I'm over staying at my other house I don't have to bring 2 boatloads of cd cases, and I can just DL all of my files off of my user name with my cable internet connection. Actually they haven't lost a cent from me dling music. I dl music that i want to try out and if i like it I support the artist. They get way more money from me now that I fileshare then because I'm introduced to many more artists that I would otherwise have never heard of, and decide to buy their stuff. They just don't get it. Technology scares these people.
Creative Demolition
If the artist (musical or otherwise) can not control the distribution of his/her work in such a way as he/she can make a living making said art, be it music, photographs, video, software, etc... what possible incentive do they have to continue to create their art? Where will new art come from? Who will bother recording new songs, taking new pictures, writing new software, painting new images, etc... if they have to get day jobs to support themselves?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Look it up here, at the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. From their definition:
Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.
Translation -- it's not particularly well respected, but it is a word, at least in American speech, and has been since around 1912.
Maybe we need to find P2P services which share dictionaries instead of MP3s.
That's what gets me. Taking Napster down for "contributory infringement" is like taking down Smith & Wesson for being an accomplice to a murder. A tool is a tool.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
N/T
You certainly can- what you can't do is share them with the public
This whole issue has been going downstream for a while now. RIAA is so desperate now that I would pity them, were them not an evil organisation that in a sane society would already have been extinct.
Come on, people. I read you saying "They are right, sue the infringers", "Good for them", "I don't care about music pirates". Let me tell you something: you are full of it. The "infringers", the "pirates", the "criminals" are you brother, your son and your neighbour. And they are doing exactly what they should, nailing this industry's coffin byte by byte.
The cartels won't change. Like a dying dinossaur, they will try to survive by every possible way, be it buying laws, buying copyright extensions, using the money they steal from the public and the artists to sue everyone in their way, bribe a few and mindwash the rest.
We can,t expect any help from legislators, they are all already bought. We can't expect any help from the media, the media, the music industry and the movie industry are owned by the same corporations.
We can only expect help from ourselves, they can't sue everyone. Thay can' jail everyone and the Courts will eventually notice that an all-out forced money transfer from the consumers to an industry that refuses to advance is not a possibility.
So please, forget this righteous crap some of you keep regurgitating. Screw what the law RIAA bought says. This is war, RIAA is the enemy and it ends when they and their outdated business model are gone. It is as simple as that.
To the RIAA I say: "Produce the evidence."
Furthermore, produce evidence that you can prove is unmodified in any way. Digital signatures aren't legal in a lot of places, why should digital logs be any different?
Furthermore, what are you doing? Querying IP numbers and seeing who's offering what? If that's the case, your argument will hold damned little water -- IANAL, but I don't believe you can sue someone in civil court for intent, and if you downloaded it from the defendent, there was no theft involved, because you already own the music, right? Right.
Move along, please.
blog |
Yeah, yeah:
If you are named in one of these lawsuits, and you did it, and the damages are not completely out to lunch, go pay for your own damn lawyer and negotiate, rather than sucking up EFF time and money. And stop screwing legitimate copyright holders, OK?
The use of this option will be rather rare, granted...
And I'm an idiot: it's the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
If you are hosting files that you don't own the copyright on for others to download, you're breaking the law.
What is there to stand up to? Its illegal to break and enter, and there are millions in jail for doing it but I don't see any protests in the streets trying to get a groundswell of support for the idea that its okay to do that.
It's only theft if you accept the notion that the music belongs to the artists. I do not belive it should.
Damn the RIAA those NAZI BASTARDS!
I think AOL should be sued. Their push to give broadband access to clueless users greatly facilitates copyright infringement.
Who else could be sued?
- 3Com: they produced the network card needed
- Microsoft: They provided the OS needed for running Kazaa. And, they invented the Windows file sharing protocol!
- Maxtor: Dwonloading files would be harmless if it wasn't for the availability of cheap disks to store them on.
- Apache: what idiots to put the power of web serving in the hands of the masses! Making such great software available for free attracks the wrong types of customers.
How do we determine which of these products are necessary enough for other tasks that the manufacturer is not to blame for the way they are used? If Napster was commonly used for legitimate purposes, would it still be around today?Free unix account: freeshell.org
Seriously though, about 5 years ago my machine was invaded one day and setup as a FTP serer full of kiddy porn.
Took me all but 4 hours to find out ( actually about 10 mins once I got home ) and shut it down, removed the porn and notified the people upstream they used as a stepping stone.. , but still.. according to this new attitude id get 'the letter'. where is the proof its MY doing?
What about wireless lans.. you may not even know its happening from your neighbor.. even accidentally by over stepping your signal..
As far as downloading, how am I to know its not a legitimate service, I'm paying of access, for all I know ( Joe user speaking here ) from all the advertisements I got in the mail '' download music 10 times faster " its all ok to do.. I thought they were authorized to let me do this..
Until a cease and deist informational letter comes.. there really isn't much grounds for suits and fines..
Ok, enough, what-if's for one day..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When I was on Kazaa, files were only shared from specific directories (Folders in Windows) - If I didn't want to share something, I didn't put it in the directories.
If you just want to download/share public domain files and not distribute your ripped mp3s, wouldn't you keep them from these directories?
I must be missing something here...
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Which is more difficult:
Copying the latest Harry Potter book in its entirety (several hundred pages)
or
Hopping on a P2P network and downloading several (ie, more than 1) albums in their entirety
The physical constraints of copying a book fully are an effective deterrent from the act. Especially in a library where a librarian is sure to notice that someone has been standing at the copier for hours without changing the source material. I imagine they would approach the individual and ask, "good sir (or madam), what are you doing?" (If Madonna is doing a guest stint in the library this question may be phrased a little differently.)
On the other hand, creating mp3s and then sharing them is a pretty easy thing to do. Even easier would be downloading mp3s and then (re-)sharing them yourself.
Sorry, but your "more appropriate" analogy is not as good as you think it is. The other poster had it right, if you are sharing something which is not yours to share/distribute (read: you have the copyright, or permission from the copyright holder) then it is, in fact, your responsibility.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
to hop on some service like mIRC or pIRCh, and go to #mp3, grab the IPs of the users, and go after them that way? I'm seriously wondering why places like IRC are being ignored - before the Foo Fighters latest CD came out, it was available on IRC but no where else. No p2p (aka KaZaa, WinMX, etc). I'd think it'd be easier to nab the kids directly from IRC, because log files there are in multiple places. Just a thought.
"But I can't get an ocean that's deep enough for my day..." ~The Frames, "Fitzcarraldo"
Back in the late nineties, money was everywhere, so record companies sunk tons of money into artists (videos, appearances, general promotion). Of course, because money was everywhere, people were willing to take the chance on a $15-18 dollar cd based on one single.
Fast forward a couple of years. Now money is tight. People aren't spending as much on luxury items. Now, the record industry still has to promote the artists as they did a few years ago, but it's more costly. Not so much that the production costs more, but fewer artists are doing well.
Why are they not doing as well? The mp3. But before you mod me down as a troll think about why. It's not that everyone is downloading whole albums and not buying cds. Research shows the opposite. Instead, it's that people aren't buying bad cd's. Because they can hear more than one or two singles in an album, they know if it's a good buy and make a purchase accordingly.
Because of the mp3, record companies can't get buy by putting albums with 1 good track and 13 crappy ones. Before it was, get one good song, hype it, produce a good video, fill the cd with enough trash to be over an hour and watch the money come in. Now you have to put out at least three such tracks to have a prayer.
The industry is still selling records in record numbers. Albums are continually breaking sales records. The problem is, they aren't getting money from the one-hit wonders who's albums aren't being bought due to lack of quality material.
The mp3 is reducing the money of the Record Companies. It gave the consumer an out from a practice that had taken their money for years: the one track album.
Slashdot...it's like Fox news, but without the biased sl...or maybe not.
Can we please, please, please beat these *AA people with sticks now?
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
...it seems a new record has been set for posts per minute for a single article on Slashdot. Details at eleven.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I kinda see those shells of gas leaving the star as similar to the millions of people so disgusted and alienated by the actions of the RIAA that they refuse to do any further business with an industry that eats its customers to stay alive. Way to go out with class, RIAA! Ever wonder why we look at the carriage industry or the locomotive industry and remember them with romance and fondness? Because they went out with a modicum of grace. The interesting thing is that it's not possible that anyone at the RIAA is delusional enough to think that these actions will restore the monopoly that the RIAA used to wield. So therefore, at this point these actions are really simply taken out of spite. Just as they killed Napster long after it was anything remotely resembling a threat to them, they are now taking actions purely out of bitterness. At least any doubts as to their willingness to conduct business in good faith is finally being put to rest.
I'll get flamed clear to hell for this but....
It seems about right now, the carrier is allowed to continue running P2P legit service, and pirates are fined. All things in their place. If you are pirating music the owners of that property have a legal and fair right to sue your ass into the stone age. So no, this is not about crushing small artists, as they are not represented by the RIAA and will release their songs on P2P networks as THEY choose to, and those networks remain available. The channel has been saved, this is the good goal, the RIAA is pissed about this, and that's fine. But they are finally having to address the real legal problem and not try to crush a new distribution model. Those of you still offended should re-think why you are so pissed off. Is it because you put up every album you have and allowed everyone to take a copy? That is in fact illegal, mass distribution is prohibited. making a tape for one friend so he can hear some new music is not, but that's not P2P. it's a question of scale on that point. If you were pissed about the little guy getting crushed by having his distribution channel yanked, then you should be cheering everytime the RIAA crushes pirates, they are helping (now) to insure that less pirates are distributing, and the little guy can use this now legal meathod to distribute their music and reach that very large audience. If I were an independent musician, and I wanted to release a song or two over any of the P2P networks, this would make me feel better about doing so. AND I could count on some better purchases of my cd at my website. As I said, all things in their right place.
I'm not sure what you were getting at. It's against the law for a private organization to set people up for a crime. Even official sting operations are questionable. That's probably why they want the FBI involved. That's definitely why their quest to enforce copyright through machine destruction is an abortion.
Laws are for people with no friends.
The RIAA reported that CD sales during the year 2004 have dropped a staggering 75%. Industry critics attribute the fall in sales to the RIAA's aggressive litigious tactics of suing thousands of individual song swappers to the point where victims had no disposable income to make legitimate CD purchases, thus the RIAA had created its own depressed market.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
all this will lead to is the development of a sufficiently untraceable P2P system. Sure, right now you can figure out where the MP3's you are downloading are coming from, but what about when they're being relayed anonymously through other P2P users who aren't directly sharing anything illegal?
The direction where everything is inevitably headed is a distributed, anonymous filesharing system where search results are ordered by popularity to prevent intentional pollution.
The RIAA will have to come to the conclusion that they can only make money from the artists who want to produce free advertisements to get people to come to their show next time they're in town.
It is OK to make a few thousand copies and have them sitting in your office for your own use. If someone steals them, is that your fault?
The case seems sort of like that, or at least they could argue they did not know what they were sharing. But it's pretty shaky. Most likley they will be slammed, since most people know they are sharing.
What I am wondering is how much this will raise awareness in the general populace when teenagers across the country get slammed for this and people start noticing they are under attack. Then perhaps people would start to think a little more carefully about copyright... probably wont happen unless hundreds of thousands are sued though.
The next phase is probably to tack a P2P client onto a virus or spyware (kind of an ironic twist there), so that people just "start sharing" without even knowing!! Now that would be an interesting case, who's at fault there? It's sort of "music mining" by a virus writer, for the good of humanity. A good place to start would be those loosers still infected with CodeRed that are easy to install clients on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
..at least.. if you're in Canada anyway. We pay levies on all our blank media to ensure this.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
You know, the main reason people share MP3s is due to the fact that 99.99999999% of CDs have one or at the most two good songs and the rest is CRAP! The RIAA start a custom CD service where they pop 10-14 songs on a CD and then ship it to you, it would probably drastically reduce the (still to be deterimined if) illegal filesharing. That's my two cents.
...fixes the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance...
I'm gonna go download lots of Aphex Twin and Brian Eno!
c-hack.com |
I recall the infamous Oxford Union debate which included Hillary Rosen who asked, obviously expecting a different answer, how many students had increased their CD spending after using P2P networks. She was, by all accounts, baffled (and probably thinking she was being lied to) when a majority of the students raised their hands.
Kind of funny then how CD sales have been declining in recent years. Are you just plain naive or are you pushing an agenda here?
As a Canadian, I don't bother doing you, americans, CD-R with illegal mp3 downloaded on P2P. You can come to Canada, ask for 10$ CAN (it will cost you about 7$), go to St-Georges (first town north of the border in Québec) strip club and ask for Nathasha. She will bring you to the basement and there, we can exchange money/CD-R.
Seriously, you're also maybe interested to know that in Canada, the prison is not the answer for every possible crime, like stealing mp3, so I'm not that afraid of going to jail. Maybe I'll have to do "community work" but eh, who cares about that. And in Quebec, our governement and cultural "elites" are so against american culture (afraid that we'll all become americans) that they would never let a quebecer go to jail for that.
The lawyers will make vast amounts of money.
But it will have no effect what so ever on sharing.
OTOH, I can imagine that the media companies have been told to either protect their copyrights or risk having material pass into the public domain.
This could be an indication of the weakness of the RIAA rather than an action taken from strength.
I thought tangible meant it was a physical object that could be touched, in which case a song is not tangible. This may be why some people have an objection to calling it stealing. You are not taking some finitely held object for yourself, and depriving others of it. You are making an exact copy of it which, in the world of tangebility, would be making another wholly seperate tangible object.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
They can't sue all of us.
SIGFAULT
Yes they can. They can strangle every distribution channel except their own. If you try to distribute or download music via any channel that doesn't give the lion's share of profits to an obsolete middleman, they can call you thieves and hackers, sue everyone associated with your distribution network, and whine to every media outlet that their profits are being raped by college students who don't respect the artists' right to earn a living. It doesn't matter that you are distributing or downloading independent music. As long as there is infringing content on the networks they can make this argument. This has been the RIAA's goal all along, IMHO -- to maintain their centrality to the distribution of music. Extorting money from businesses like Napster or from college students ranks a distant second on their list of goals. They want to continue to name the next pop stars, and to continue to determine the musical tastes of the overwhelming majority of fans. Making trouble for p2p networks -- by suing them out of existence, by disrupting the networks directly, or by suing their users -- is a means to this end. It's too bad for them that it is destined to fail, but it is too bad for everyone else that many people's lives will be wrecked and many revolutionary technologies will be abandoned to satisfy the greed and ego of a few large copyright holders (most of whom did not create the work they own).
I'm getting really sick of people discussing this RIAA issue on either side who don't use basic common sense and logic. Ah, but you have questions. Q: Don't you think that by using P2P software, you're not supporting the artists that you purport to love? A: Besides that question having bad grammar, it's completely absurd. Buying a CD from a store where most(meaning a GREAT MAJORITY) of the money from the sale ends up in the bank accounts of all the layers of business people inbetween the artist and me DOES NOT make me feel like I'm supporting the artist. Q: Don't you think the RIAA has a right to persecute those who are killing their industry? A: No. In fact, the RIAA's actions are so disgusting, I wouldn't buy a CD anymore, even if you gave me the money in order to buy it. I used to buy CDs...I've spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on them. But no more. They make me HATE the industry. Even if the RIAA won the battle, I would still not buy CDs anymore. I would copy them from friends who are stupid or immoral enough to buy them. Q: Don't you think that copying intangible data can be considered stealing if someone says so? A: Absolutely not. If I go and buy a copy of Live's Throwing Copper from a USED CD store, the money that I pay for that disc *in no way* ends up in the hands of the artist. But I don't hear a bunch of people kvetching about buying used CDs. Why isn't the RIAA going after used CD stores? Because they have no legal grounds to. Because they wouldn't get away with it, and they would piss off even more people than they are now. These problems that society is having come from the fact that we're on the brink of complete technological advancement, and the old is fighting the new. It's the same story every time an industry is forced to change. See radio, TV, motion pictures, web pages, the automobile, electricity, etc. The RIAA is trying to cash in as long as possible. If you want to stop them, buy CDs only from used CD stores.
- I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. [strain #2] Thank you
Itâ(TM)s quite interesting that RIAA had decided to go after individual users. Simply punishing the offenders doesnâ(TM)t necessary means it would make up for the revenue.
Will it stop p2p? Perhaps. Will it make the offenders go to the store and purchase music? Definitely not. Will it make up for lost revenue? No. Will it stop others from music swapping? Perhaps.
Will RIAA go only after US consumers? Since as far as I know, âoepiratedâ copies of music / movie / software runs rampant in Asia, Eastern Europe etc. If my memory serves me right 1 out of 2 copies available on the foreign markets are âoepiratedâ.
Also it sure looks like a double standard.
On one hand RIAA is taking the high road âoep2p cut into our revenuesâ¦â
On the other hand, last year RIAA had to settle with 20 some States for price fixing. And the icing on the cake was the fact that some states didnâ(TM)t not receive monetary compensation, but music CD (if I remember correctly, one state, OR, received something like 60,000 music cd). Would RIAA settle for consumer deleting the files? ïS
And yes, p2p does encourage music swapping, but if the quality of music would not be so crappy (letâ(TM)s face it, most of the times, from a new cd on the market, maybe one or two tracks will worth the time). In no way I advocate for music swapping, but what other alternative a consumer has this days?
Pressplay & Al. services? Why a consumer is not allowed to keep and use the music bought? If a consumer would live inside a computer I would understand the reason, but these days with the proliferation of music devices (car, home, work place etc) itâ(TM)s really something that would make oneâ(TM)s head shake.
Also consumerâ(TM)s taste in music varies considerably. Too have the songs that one consumer would like to hear; he would have to join several sites, and still would not be able to get all the music.
True, if you want the music, âoepay for itâ, artists need to be compensated for their work, but instead of spending revenue and resources on lawsuits why not have a sound business plan. Apple showed that itâ(TM)s possible. Consumers are willing to pay but not to be taken for a free ride and be restricted in how to use the music purchased.
How are they figuring out who to sue? Are ISPs just handing over customer records so they can link up IP addresses with actual people?
Usenet newsgroups. There're better quality shit in there anyways. Nobody SERIOUS uses kazaa anymore. Too slow. Usenet is where it's at. But, the RIAA doesn't care. Kazaa is more well-known, so the media will pick up on it more. And the RIAA is only a marketing engine anyways.
Pardon my bluntness, but have you swallowed ALL of the spin and legal intepretation to come out of the entertainment companies? You are simply, and completely, wrong. They are legally 'infringing on copyright,' not 'stealing.' Although I'm pretty convinced that you think they are stealing in a punishable legal way, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one. Yet you may say "But I know stealing is a moral judgement, and I'm actually leveling a stronger argument against file-sharers than our legal system allows."
Well, here's what I said in my last post, since its still relevant:
The legal concept of copyright has no moral right component in the US. To back up my claim, remember that we do not have a concept of 'moral right' protection on copyrighted works like they do in, say, England. In the US, the Copyright Clause was written to be a grant of temporary monopoly to further science and useful arts, not a defense against theft.
The fact is copyright and morality are diametrically opposed and must be balanced in the eyes of the authors of the Consitution. Here's an obligatory quote from Thomas Jefferson in 1813 if you like:
'If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possess the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lites his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement, or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in-nature, be a subject of property.'"
Amigo, don't confuse people with the facts. This is Slashdot. Refusing to buy is the only legitimate course of action. The labels are not enslaving artists even if their contracts are crap. Children are not starving. People are not dying. If we rely solely on market forces and strive to be on the ethical high ground, the industry will have no excuse. Right now, they have a very good excuse for their actions--people are stealing music. We might not like their price but that doesn't warrant being as criminal as they are. It requires restraint and maturity. There are other things to do besides buy mass produced music.
Laws are for people with no friends.
The other issue with the porn industry, which is not P2P or internet related per say, is simply the matter of oversupply. It is too easy to make a porn movie with inexpensive DV equipment, duplicate it, and distribute it. Because of the lack of any signifigant barriers to market entry, there are just too many DVD's, Video's, and websites out there.
Obviously, John wasn't intending to break into someone elses house, and may not have intended to "break into" anything, but he could get caught by the police anyway. The question isn't how do we protect people like John, it's why would we want to protect people from taking responsibility for their own actions?
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Well, then the drafters of the legal code of every major nation must really bug the hell out of you, as copyright infringement is illegal everywhere. Like it or not, it's a fact. Put whatever tag you want on it, it amounts to the same thing. At a minimum, it's theft of service, which is just as illegal as stealing a physical thing. Just because the right is abstract doesn't make it OK.
Finally, there is a reason that most downloaders do not feel guilty: They have already paid $1000's to record companies for music.
What, so if I buy enough Fords, I get to start stealing them? That doesn't make all that much sense.
On a side note, I agree with the view that industries need to adjust to their changing environment. If an artist can no longer make money doing the same old routine anymore, then do what everyone else does: find a new way. You'd think us in the IT industry would know that better than anyone.
Undoubtedly, but it is their right to remain a dinosaur as long as they like, it doesn't give us the right to start distributing something they have rights to.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Got a little anger problem there?
Because if I wanted to buy the five or so good songs from an album, I also had to buy the five or so shit songs which were recorded not out of artistic integrity, but because it was stipulated in the contract that the artist had to produce X "full-length" albums per Y years. Are you still with me?
Yup. I still don't understand why you feel cheated. You may not know whether the tracks that you've never heard are any good before you buy the CD, but you certainly know that they are unknowns, and you certainly seem to think that the trend is for you to dislike them. If that's the case, you still have the option of not buying the CD. You do realize that you have that option, don't you? You don't have to have any tracks at all, but you apparently felt that that $15+ dollars was worth it for the 5 or so songs you wanted. You showed that you felt it was worth it by plonking down that cash at the register. If it wasn't worth it, why did you buy the CD? Still with me?
CDs were being burned on cheap media
If you bought burned media, it was either pirated or you're buying completely different music than I do. 99.999% of all commercial CDs are pressed, which is a much higher quality process than burning a CD onto even the best CDR media. But that's a nitpick I'll probably get flamed for pointing out.
On top of that, they recently started adding intentional errors to "prevent ripping". Still here?
So if you buy a disc with errors, take it back. Say it was defective. Keep doing this until you have to talk to a manager and actually get your money back (since most cashiers or CSRs don't have the authority to give you your money back on CDs, you have to go through the manager). If you know ahead of time that the disc has these intentional errors and you buy it anyway, you've proven that you don't mind living with those errors, and so once again I ask, why did you buy the CD and then begin complaining about it?
albums that are not very good as a whole to replace the ones which self-destructed after being left out on a counter one night.
Man, you really are getting cheap CDs. I have never had a CD "self-destruct" after being left on a counter. Unless by counter you mean "stove". The closet I've come were when I laid a CD with the data side down and it got scratched up. Frankly, I don't call that self-destruction.
I hope that wasn't too difficult to follow.
Sorry mate, I guess I just don't follow. If you don't think something is worth your money, don't buy it. You don't have to have CDs. As for replacement, I've never had a CD go "bad" that wasn't directly through negligence on my own part. If I accidentally break it, shit, tough luck, I'll have to buy a new one.
They're bound to be checking on filename only (Well... they've only been checking on filename only anyway.) How's about we all set up p2p node honeypots with huge MP3 files from /dev/random and then countersue them for wrongful prosecution and harassment when they file their suits?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
it would have been immeasurably worse if the riaa succeeded in shutting down p2p networks in general. if the riaa has a beef with someone about sharing particular files, they should take them - not the concept of p2p - to court.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
come sue my ass in Canada fuckers
I reserve the right to space and time shift my music in what way I like. If I leave my CD-R copies of my CDs on my carseat in my unlocked automobile and they are stolen, am I liable for copyright infrigement or distribution? Why is that any different from putting cd rips on p2p for *my exclusive* use (such as access from work or a pals house)? A EULA is all I need, right? That is more that what I agree to when I would buy a CD. And click-thru licences and TOS are fully enforcable, aren't they?
Aren't they?
I just saw that a number of high profile musicians are pissed off about Apple's "single-song" pay downloading service. They want to control exactly what the consumer gets. (In this case a whole album of bad songs with one good one)
I've heard of people downloading the latest Harry Potter book off of Kazaa, not because they don't want to pay for it but because they want it in a more compact form (electronic or paperback) and don't want to wait for the publisher to milk the hardcover version. It's not about cost, it's about convenience.
Case in point, Walmart has announced that they're going to try a flat-fee video rental approach. I've been going to a local video store with this policy and it's the best.
Give the consumer what they want at a reasonable price and they will beat a path to your door to get it (cash in hand).
M
I believe that Radiohead actually links to a mirror from their official website that contains their full CD of "Hail to the Theif". I find that funny as Radiohead is pretty much the only(somewhat mainstream) band I consider buying CD's from. I guess thats the problem. Today's mainstream artists just aren't producing music worth buying. I think the RIAA will soon realize this fact.
You can steal something that isn't a physical object. What if I go for a simple haircut and dash on the bill? No consumables were involved in me getting my haircut, but I've still stolen from the barber. Similar with copyright - I have been provided something of value without consent of the owner. Rationalize it how you want, that sounds a lot like theft to me.
The RIAA is going after people for copyright infringement. There are a lot of people that do not agree with copyright infringement rules the way that they are (Fair Use looks like it's been taken away, people are being pressured not to build devices that remove commercials, etc).
That's a different argument - however, this isn't a fair use issue, as distributing to others has never come under the heading of fair use. This isn't a decrypction/DMCA issue either, as the CD's in this case can for argument's purpose all be unencumbered by copy protection.
Remember, theft involves physical property, copyright infringement is duplicating something that someone else built.
Like I said, whatever tags you put on it, what's the ultimate difference that makes one justifiable? Are you arguing that copyright infringement should be legal? Unpunished? Where are you going with this?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
If I choose to set up my computer as an open public space then how is that any different than a library? Lets angle the argument a little, say I don't allow people to "copy" music files. Could I allow them to listen to them? I can invite people into my house to listen to music still can't I?
Besides, you aren't PUSHING any files on anyone.
Anyone else see a new business model here? Go to some country not in bed with the RIAA/MPAA and setup Kazaa/P2P servers and allow subscribers to ftp files for share...
I smell money to be made here...
Alot of the comments I've been reading seem to feel that the RIAA is in the right. The individuals sharing music are breaking the law "stealing" and are getting only what they deserve. The problem is that this is just another example of large corporations gaining the rights to behave like people. How will an innocent person accused be able to defend themselves against the RIAA? How will an artist ripped off by a contract they knew nothing about sue the RIAA? They will not have the financial resources to with stand against the accusation and will lose their case. It seems that everyday private citizens lose thier rights to corporations looking to protect their agenda. Honestly if the RIAA were worried about copyrights they would also pursue old fashioned bootleggers with such fervor and step up thing internationally. What this is about is an entity like the RIAA asserting its rights to do to people as it pleases. Once these people get sued lose and precendents are set the next level will ensue. The RIAA,MPAA,Microsoft,Nike, etc. want the rights of a person but none of the responsibility. In the future business will control everything its already in motion. This is all just a way to consolidate more power.
well thats my rant for the day
10 million leachers and not a single sharer
Except of course, there are 100 of millions of sharers, not 10 million. And A good chunk of them don't live in the USA, (or canada).
Any way you look at it, the RIAA is fighting a lost cause.
...of the united states. greedy bastards will turn the us into a p2p backwater.
First off, most claims that p2p is seriously hurting the industry are arguable. But for the purpose of this argument, let's assume that p2p is making an impact on CD sales. (I contend sales are down because more people are broke and nowadays music is crap)
The big argument is that "artists" won't be able to make a living because of mp3 trade. This is ironic, because most artists make more money through performance royalties than they do mechanicals.
There are basically three types of revenues that artists collect:
Mechanical (aka Publishing) - Royalties from the sale of albums and use of music on other media and in public.
Performance - Revenue from concerts and other performances.
Merchandising - T-shirts and peripheral products.
While mechanical royalties can be exponentially more substantive than all other forms of payment, most artists make more money from performance and merchandising. If p2p has any effect on revenue, at worst it exclusively hurts mechanical revenue, but likely boosts performance and merchandising!
Now here's the clincher: Of all the revenue types generated, artists get the highest percentage for performance and merchandising. Publishing royalties are mostly divided up among big record companies, publishers, lawyers, managers, producers and a big list of tag-along carpetbaggers. This is why we pay $18 for a CD. The artist may be lucky to get $0.25 of that money!
In reality, if you assume p2p affects product sales, the end result of this probably isn't felt by most artists anyway. It actually helps the artist (turns more people on to the music who will go to the concerts), and if anything, just takes a few bucks away from monopolistic media conglamorates who are hell-bent on price-fixing creative media.
If I were just an average out-of-the-box Microsoft Windows user, and say, Charter Pipeline cablemodem internet subscriber, and didn't really know a lot about how networks worked, and stuff like that, shouldn't it be charter's fault for allowing my computer to be online in the same workgroup as a bunch of other users? or Microsoft's fault for having the hard drive shared by default, so programs like kazaa can just hook into whatever content on my computer?
The **AA's were just a little too shortsighted about this whole internet thing, and are trying to put hardcore stops on the whole thing, just so they can get their hands back around it, and regain control of the masses. What happens to other companies who are shortsigthed? They go bankrupt, and disappear. Why the HELL should we pass laws and make legislation to ensure ANY company's continuing survival? If they can't paddle their own boat because they thought they didn't need the oars, they should've stayed on the beach drinking maitais, or else face the Wrath of the Jellyfish. (or something thats supposed to be profound and witty all at the same time....)
If you can read this, you are most likely close enough.
Because people want physical copies of their music. People want album art, lyrics, and a stamped cd to hold in their hands. They don't mind having to rip their own cds. The thing that people do not want is the expensive price. It's all a matter of economics.
For example, if cds were $10, I would probably start buying more of them. If cds were $5 I would probably buy hundreds. I don't think the record companies would realize how much money they could make if they would simply lower prices. To me, I don't like the Apple store because for a couple bucks less I lose the most important part of a cd... the physical copy. Record companies' business models need to be changed to revolve around airtime, concerts and other merchandise. And they need to do this before people truly hate them so much even a low price won't save them.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Seriously, Comcast actually uses the ability to quickly download whatever music you want as a selling point for its cablemodem service?
Well if the RIAA wants to play hardball... I propose that we organize local music sharing groups/clubs. Meet with people who like the same music and trade,lend actually CD's. So it's kinda like letting a friend borrow a CD but on a much larger scale with a bigger group of friends. They can go make a copy if they want and the RIAA stay's the hell out of it. Lets see how much money the RIAA really loses then. This could be really cool. Imagine you could have club dues that go towards purchasing one copy of a CD. That CD then gets passed around the group. Sure this would be very difficult to get off the ground but it would be great to see the RIAA squirm.
If you want to add your support, call RIAA contacts Amy Weiss, Jonathan Lamy and/or Amanda Collins here: 202-775-0101.
calling it this really burns me. theft is really when you take physical property. or, possibly, when you try to pass someone else's writing/novel/music/movie off as your own. or, possibly, when you try to make money by making copies of someone else's work and selling it. no one in p2p is doing any of those. who in the heck would want to download "hard day's night," by bob? who in the heck would pay bob for a download of "hard day's night," by the beatles, when he could get it for free from joe?
i'm real sorry that musicians and record companies feel like they've lost the ability to control your mind and culture, because you can now run about willy nilly sharing ideas and information, but you know what i say to that? tough cookies! again, i say tough cookies! if you come up with a good joke, tell someone, and they like it enough to pass it along, i'm real sorry but it's out there and you ain't takin' it back. and good luck trying to collect royalties on it. you think eddy murphy employs a group of lawyer thugs to punish john q. public everytime he repeats a gag from raw? no, because it's absurd to try.
well, now music and increasingly movies are like that. musicians and artists will have to find another business model to make a living. i'm sorry they have to go through the pain of adjustment. but who among us doesn't have to go through the pain of adjustment? has anyone in the room had to go through painful career adjustments in the last three years? well then, why should musicians be any different?
sharing movies, music, files, and ideas is not illegal. but more than that, it is just not wrong. let me repeat: sharing ideas and culture is not wrong. it is not immoral. it is right, and natural to do so. if it weren't civilization and collective human endeavour simply could not exist.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
The way I see it, when user gets on file sharing network(or internet in general) he/she is sending and requesting bits of data across the wire. These bits of data are meaningless until they are compiled into a file. At this point their only meaning is "this is a collection of bits called x and it is of the type y." The file doesnt actually become the copyrighted "music" until it is decoded and "played" by some program like winamp, mediaplayer etc.
So if I download an mp3 file but never decode/play it have I broken the law here?
If so then they are trying to say that their copyright extends to the series of 1 and 0 that make up that file. This may be true of the digital file on the CD but if I rip that cd, its not the same series of 1 and 0 anymore. Again, the file is meaningless. It seems to me that the act of infringement occurs at the playing of the file when actual sonic recreation occurs. Thus, it seems that the makers of the media players are the ones enabling us here to break the law. Not the file sharing programs.
Just a random thought.
Next you'll be telling me that "inflammable" means "flammable"...
Because they've basically admitted that they can't sue those who write programs that provide file-sharing services, as there are many legit uses of file-sharing.
The other half of the battle is to thwart their effort to steal the life-savings from individuals who work damn hard to make their money. This means waging a publicity war, and doing whatever it takes to hurt the RIAA. That means not buying any of their songs. Likewise with the MPAA. If you must see or hear something, download it.
Never forget that current copyright laws are illegitimate. We, the people, did not vote for them. They were snuck into law behind closed doors, with no public notification taking place. They were illegitimately retroactively extended.
Also remember that file-sharing -- including the sharing of copyrighted files -- is more legitimate than the President. More people voted for Napster than voted for GW Bush and Al Gore combined. Furthermore, the politicians who make these draconian copyright laws are in no position to tell us what is right and wrong. In fact, it is most likely that doing exactly the opposite of what they say is the right thing. These, remember, are the same bastards who accept bribes from every party that wants to pay for certain laws. They are the same bastards who get together every now and then to vote on how much they want to raise their own fucking salary by, as if they deserve a payraise.
Advice to those individuals:
(1) Put as much money as possible in 401(k) or 403(b) plans, IRAs, and RothIRAs, and possibly annuities. These are sheltered from taxes, and are likely more sheltered from lawsuites. Indeed, colleges don't even consider them when determining how much aid you should get.
(2) Transfer money off-shore to countries that don't recognize the US' insane copyright laws.
(3) After discussing the credit implications with a lawyer, and loan implications, consider the possibility of declaring bankruptcy. They don't get shit if you declare bankruptcy.
Why is it that rich greedy execs are able to steal the life-savings away from individuals in a court of law, yet when those same execs (like Gary Wennig) fuck over millions of investors and tank their life-savings by insider trading, nothing can be done against them, and they don't even go to jail?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
the RIAA is a rabid dog, thrashing about very near death, biting ANYTHING that gets near it. The ONLY way to deal with a rabid animal is PUT IT DOWN, for EVERYONES' benefit. They have some points and the horde of users have some points, but there will NEVER be common ground with the music industry as it runs today
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Kazaa is legal, so what difference is there between Right-Click Download on a file listed in kazaa and Right-Click Copy on a local copy of the exact same file? The RIAA says one should cost $1000 per file while the other you can do a billion times for free as long as you 'own' it (bought it on CD).
It's retarded. The other day a co-worker copied over 20 gb of music files from other co-workers with a single right-click. There was no Kazaa involved and the RIAA will never know about it to sue. Even if they stamp out distributed filesharing people will still get huge libraries of music and other files from their friends.
Furthermore, the constitution only grants power to congress to make laws granting artists exclusive right to their inventions and creations. Since the RIAA did not create the songs (the individual songwriters did), contracts and sales granting them 'ownership' of the copyright are unconstitutional.
I'll sell you a right-click for only $10!
OK, file sharing kiddies. Now that the Evil RIAA(TM) has opened up its bad-nasty can of legal whoop-ass, you need to engineer "Plausible Deniability" into your activities. Go out right now and buy a Linksys Wi-Fi Broadband Router (or functional equivalent).
When you install it, install it wide open, no passwords, no encryption. Place all of your other boxen behind some other firewalling device.
When the RIAA hauls you into court with your IP addy as the star piece of incriminating evidence, produce your receipt for the Wi-Fi box and printouts of it's configuration and say "some neighbor must have been using my connection".
Case Dismissed.
Oh, IANAL, but that's a good thing.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
I have seen plenty of C&D letters from the MPAA/RIAA targeting IRC FServes. I think they even have some posted on www.chillingeffects.org
I'd just like to point out that nothing in your post is supported in actual law. Rationalize your theft, or whatever you want to call it, because it amounts to the same thing.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
All this talk of suing has me wondering where I can get a file sharing utility that somehow hides my IP. I had heard about a couple of projects, but haven't heard anything new lately. Does anyone know of anything either in development or available for use?
Probably doesn't matter. Remember, the arists are slaves to the companies; the copyrights aren't theirs to control.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
Good thing I'm just a leech.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Its not an absolute, its about taking 'reasonable' steps to be secure. Considering the current state of ability to break in to a common users pc, ( just look at the news ) taking all available reasonable steps may not be effective ( look at the news again ). This is from people with industry training, they still get broke into. The court wont hold a 'citizen' to the same standards, as long as they did what was deemed acceptable.. ( i.e. they bought antivirus.. etc ).. And actually its the same for the pool, if you take reasonable and accepted steps you are off the hook. ( may still GO to court, but you will be judged not negligent )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It is impossible to listen to a file on a remote server without receiving a copy.
Civil Disobedience is taking your laptop down to the courthouse and sharing/downloading warez with a big sign on your back saying "I'm running Kazaa!"
Here's a good test: If you are openly inviting arrest/prosecution for your activities, it's civil disobedience. If you don't want to be arrested and try to hide your activities, it's just convenience.
Downloading stuff in your living room is not civil disobedience.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
1 - refuse to buy this cra___ and only support artists who sell or vend their own MP3 tunes themselves. after all, they are dealing with us and us are the Internet aware masses
2 - have Slashdot create a donation site where all the nerds here can give a few bucks each ( very doable guys and gals ) and use this as a defense fund to litigate the suits.
Consider this: If these networks are also encrypted, and non-RIAA-signed bands have their files intermixed, the DMCA could actually be used as part of prosecution against the RIAA if they crack the encryption to look for "pirates."
The DMCA is a double-edged blade.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Piracy involves taking value away from someone else's property without compensating them for that loss. Taking something without compensating for it, whether or not the "thing" in question is a physical item, is stealing.
I'm less worried about piracy than about the RIAA and other big organization that think they can just bully people around.
Let's create thousands of copies of those Madonna "What the..." clips (or any other files) and rename them to all sorts of titles that resemble real names, except we add some phrase to it that will make it clear to any human that this is a fake song. It would still fool any machine, since it isn't one particular add-on.
Say:
"Madonna - American Life (no snd).mp3"
or
"Cher - (Fight RIAA) Do you believe.mp3"
Wouldn't that be great?
In fact, I'm going to go do that today. I'll be on with thousands of such fake songs and let them sue me...
Let just Boycott buying CD's in December.
and so it begins...
Just like the law enforcement is more interested in busting drug dealers than drug users.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
How can we take the music industry seriously while they promote shootin' cops and overall a rebel image (most of it, anyway)?
Glock glock bitch! Good little gangstas buy this at the record store!
Posted by yintercept - "...science...[is] the study of the 'divine creation.' "
So if I stole the blueprints for Intel's next chip, photocopied them, put them back, and then put the copies on the web, that wouldn't be illegal right? They're just posting information without taking anything physical and without profiting, right?
I mean seriously, think about this in non-mp3 terms and it just doesn't even make sense. You do realize that stealing confidential or proprietary "information" as you put it is illegal too?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Wouldn't the use of UDP and strong encryption make the job of tracking down P@P users infinitely more difficult?
And before anyone says anything about Eart Station 5... can we get something that doesn't have a GUI written be a 5 year old.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
The distributors will die a terrible death as they hedged the bet by leveraging their control of the music product to make the big hits so massive and succesful that they could support the up and coming artists. Economics assumes "perfect information", unfortunately you can't half-finish a song to gauge its marketability. The product has to be R&D'ed, pre-Produced, Produced and Post-Produced and released on pilot to guess the demand. 99.9% of songs fail. The very few successes paid for the music industry to survive despite this Inefficiency of Capitalism.
Using the Internet as a distribution mechanism decreases the penalty of this inefficiency, but doesn't eliminate it, ah well.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Hi! I'm from New York. I am wondering if anybody can tell me where I can get information on any persons operating in my area in the employ of the RIAA. Thank you!
...until you consider the difference between replacing windows and, uh, selling sharers more music.
And it is impossible to listen to music in any format or medium without receiving a copy. The point is it only becomes illegal when you press record or save a file.
Under the prevailing logic behind this mess if I hear a song and memorize the lyrics then I and guilty of infringing on the copyright of he/she/it who holds the rights to those lyrics.
One thing I like about bittorrent's download model is that aside from the machine serving the root of the torrent, sources for downloads are the downloaders themselves for the duration that they are downloading. So for sources - other than the root - this provides anonymity (no easy way to harvest IP addresses of uploaders) as well as innoculating individual uploader against charges that they uploaded 100s of copies (in all likelihood they uploaded 1 copy).
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Um, why do you think napster was shut down? Do you not believe that contributory infringement is illegal?
In order to be guilty you have to be knowingly and willfully involved in the copying. This, as far as I know, is the main thing that defines contributory infringement, and it's a clear distinction between sharing on a P2P network and selling a photocopier. Copy machines at places like Kinko's and libraries often do have little placards (if just for show) warning you about copyright violation. Similarly, if you brought in a Harry Potter novel and asked them to make a jillion copies of it, they wouldn't.
I don't like copyright law very much, but it *is* law, and it is not as incomprehensibly illogical as you think.
A hamburger is constructed from physical materials which cost energy to produce. The cost of me downloading a song is entirely covered by me. So that kind of invalidates your simplistic comparison, doesn't it?
No, because the point of his "simplistic comparison" was to show the flaw in *your* argument that breaking the law is ok as long as it only affects the profits of a big company. If that's so, then you should have no problem with stealing a burger from McDonalds. Of course you do, and you're implicitly conceding the point by now saying well actually it's not just about them being a big company, it's about the energy it takes to produce the item you're taking. Your energy makes the copy so taking it's ok, McDonalds' energy makes the burger so taking it isn't. If that's so, why all the rubbish about big companies and their profits?
Here's an alternative explanation - you wouldn't steal a burger because you'll probably get caught, and arrested. You'll happily violate copyright using a P2P app because you probably won't. And all the rubbish about corporations and their profits is just after-the-fact justification. Only now the RIAA are trying to make it so maybe you will get caught if you violate copyright, and you and all the other "it's ok because modern music is crap/the RIAA are evil/it's political protest" Slashdot idiots might have to pay if you want other people's music. Cry me a river indeed.
this is all about the inexorable tide of compression in the digital world. anyone who creates will find a ready audience, but the ability of the internet to put both groups together without the intermediaries is astounding.
Think about it. They offer you protection for a price. If you don't want their protection, they lock you up and ruin your livelihood. Sounds like a racket to me. Just because 51% of the population thinks this is ok doesn't make it so.
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The RIAA no doubt is hoping that this will happen, but I think that this will probably have a negative effect on their organization. After all, hundreds of people having to declare bankruptcy because the RIAA took their lifetime earnings doesn't make a favorable human interest story from the Recording Industry standpoint. Furthermore, most people who currently trade files online (who I believe do buy more CD's because of the "preview" service) I predict will become increasingly resentful of the RIAA and will stop buying their CD's.
I am not by any means a rabid anti-RIAA dog, but I do agree with many on /. that their business practices have become increasingly self-detrimental in the past few years.
I know I'm late to this party thread, but hear me out:
I setup eDonkey, Kazaa, YFP2P software on a box outside of the country. I secure login to that box to do my illegal swapping. I secure copy the files back to my box here to enjoy.
Now, the RIAA has had it easy because if your box in your dorm room is sharing illegal files, they can just figure out where you are and bust you. But my guess is that none of the magic 100 are from the UK...or China....or Sealand, since American copyright has a harder time going overseas than it does right here at home amongst the masses with 300 GB of purloined data. They can't sniff my scp legally, so transfer to my box would be safe enough. Basically, if everyone shared their files off shores, it'd be like mp3-laundering.
Just a thought.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Why the hell would anyone bother with such a run-around? Putting them online is distribution. Downloading them is copying. They're both direct infringements. Providing the venue MAY be contributory infringement, but whether it is, and whether it'll work anyway, depends on the details.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
http://blocks.sourceforge.net/
http://www.blubster.com/
XS from Methlab to name a few.
Also Check out:
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
Or for others:
If you want to add your support, call RIAA contacts Amy Weiss, Jonathan Lamy and/or Amanda Collins here: 202- 775 - 0101.
This is foolish?
:: ESPECIALLY :: when you are told not to distribute the songs without consent from the copyright holders.
Are you going to tell me that you are going to knowingly leave your car unlocked so that a person can steal stuff our of it? C'mon - you're stretching the argument beyond reasonable limits in hopes of bringing a point into legitimacy.
If you leave you car unlocked with things in plain sight that got stolen - serves you right for not taking precautions.
If you leave your computer wide open with MP3s in plain sight that get downloaded (stolen) - serves you right for not being responsible when you get busted
No more use for trolls. *sigh*
Ayup
those songs would only be availabe if you shared them. Kazaa doesn't automatically share every song on your computer. it creates a "my shared folder" folder. If you decided to rip your CDs into your kazaa music sharing folder, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that you're not sharing those files with me.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
> How do we determine which of these products are necessary enough for other tasks that the manufacturer is not to blame for
> the way they are used?
We read the law, and where the law is unclear, consult a judge.
> If Napster was commonly used for legitimate purposes, would it still be around today?
Probably. It also would have helped if they didn't have internal memos indicating that they knew about and encouraged piracy for financial benefit.
Personally, I am not a fan of copyright law in general, and would be happy if Napster was still running. I think it's morally defensible to share data with your friends. But the law is filled with grey areas, and outlawing something like Napster does NOT mean that we have to outlaw computers and hard disks in order to be consistent. (It's the same as outlawing machineguns but not archery sets, and PCP but not caffeine.)
OK so I work for an ISP with more than 4800 total customers. If the RIAA came knocking, we would have absolutely jack to give them other than, 'yeah someone was logged into that IP then'. Thats right...we have NO logs of who is on when, and I am sure we are not the only small ISP like that. So who gets sued then? and should I let our customers know that they are safe from the RIAA?
"Can you believe it!" -Homestarrunner
Memorizing the lyrics, hell, memorizing the entire song, isn't a copyright infrigement. It's when you use your memorized song to distribute the song to others that you run into trouble.
Ever wonder why a cool song doesn't have the lyrics in the liner notes when all the other ones do? More than likely, it a cover song from another band, and the band you're listening to didn't purchase the rights to print the cover's lyrics.
What is a troll? Is it merely one that posts in a manner meant to elicit negative or gullible responses? Is a troll rather a person skillfull enough to create controversy within a given discussion without actually adding to the discussion itself? If such is a troll, there are many techniques that a person could utilize in order to accomplish this task: offtopic misinformation, inflammatory messages and comments, and assertions which contain obvious flaws in logic or reasoning.
We are all familiar with the intricities and variations of the most common forms of trolling: vulgar ascii imagery, brutal character attacks, non-sensical charades, highly explicit and disgusting narratives of obscene sexual escapades, et cetera. More complicated trolling involves roleplaying and the clever manipulation of emotion by asserting statements that disconfirm popular notions and/or ideals.
Yes, the most common techniques and favored tactics of trolling are well known. We are famaliar with them, comfortable. The neccassary precautions have been taken and contingency plans have been developed. These famaliar trolls can be easily evaded and repulsed - or even vanquished. We have exhausted our resources to insure our complete defensibility against them.
Why can't they just spend their own money to come up with better and more worthy products that'll sell during this economic downtime as opposed to using taxpayers' money to do what many consider frivolous of frivolous?
You know....following SCO and Amazon's footsteps, I should patent this method of making money during low sales.
Does that include RECORDINGS of live performances?
Seems like an intolerable loophole if a band can just record their concert and sell those recordings without the record company getting a cut.
paintball
The complaintant would have to prove that the user did it on purpose. If he really just installed windows and it started ripping his CDs and putting them online, and he really didn't know that, then he'd probably be ok. (In fact, Napster used to search your whole hard drive by default, right?) But my bet is that most of these people did it on purpose, and that shouldn't be too hard to prove.
"Stop stealing."
One little objection I've always had with the RIAA's arguments is comparing it to walking into a store and taking a CD off the shelves. Except it isn't really like that at all.
Taking a CD directly costs the store. You have taken actual physical goods. They can no longer sell what you have stolen. That is theft. It is different from making a digital copy. The original remains. They simply aren't getting paid for it.
Since digital technology keeps getting more pervasive, it is obvious (to me at least) that the RIAA is doomed unless they drastically change their business model. They can sue all the P2P companies and users they want. As someone else said, the demand won't go away. All they are doing is fostering hostility amongst their customers.
I was going to post something along these lines, but I wanted to check to see if someone else did, too bad you did it anonymously.
The thing that was very bad and dangerous about the RIAA's previous position was that they wanted to shut down a technology because they didn't agree with one particular use. That would punish everyone, even if a user was using it legimately. This is what happened with DAT tapes, which is why I had to pay through the nose for them, even though I was doing my own home-recording of my own music.
I'm very happy to see this change in tactics. I'm not a big fan of the RIAA, but I am a big fan of technology.
Why? Well, I will always own a high volume of music, and having a ton of CD cases takes up a bunch of space in my apartment. Not to mention that it becomes progressively harder to quickly access music from the mass of music.
That's why all of my music makes it to MP3 format, whether I rip it myself or I download it that way. I carried around my Archos jukebox everywhere until it broke (needs a little solder to fix it - gotta get me a soldering iron). I have a hard time justifying buying another CD to add to the pile.
At the same time, I have a hard time justifying paying 99 cents a song for lossy compressed audio. I'm still waiting for more aggressive pricing in digital music, but it's not likely to happen anytime soon. At least not to music I'm very interested in.
In the meantime, I'll still buy CDs of stuff I really want, and download the rest.
Music distribution still has a ways to go.
You should take a break and read the copyright code. (Just search for "17 USC" on google.) There are all sorts of exemptions for "incidental" copies, such as the ones made when you play a CD in a digital player.
Just to pose a question- Say Joe User purchased Album X. Joe User isn't the most advanced user of the computer, but knows enough that he can download music from Kazaa.
Joe User does not know how to "rip" the music from his new shiney CD, but knows how to download from a user on Kazaa who does know how to rip MP3s.
Does this constitute fair use?
Manipulate the concept a little more. Let's say Joe User obtained an Mp3 player, because his friend told him he can take his entire 200+ CD collection with him in his pocket. Again, Joe User does not know how to rip a CD, and he's not computationally inclined enough to figure it out, and it's much easier for him to download. He does legally own all 200 CDs in his collection, and wants to download the songs he listens to most often to put on his MP3 player.
I guess the question is this- if a user is found with a large database of songs, what if they legally own all of that music in physical medium in his/her home, and merely have Kazaa for the aforementioned purpose? Naturally though, if the user isn't inclined to turn off sharing, all music obtained (either if ripped or downloaded) will also be shared.
Explain to me how that's copyright infringement, and how the RIAA can possibly build a case against that.
You are playing a semantics game. The point is (repeat after me):
"Copyright infringement is NOT legal"
"Copyright infringement is NOT legal"
If you break the law, you should be prepared to accept the consequences. I don't know why anyone is surprised about this move since the slashdot masses have been saying that the RIAA should go after the law breakers (as opposed to the technologies) since day one.
"Go in the stores and buy the records."
You'd think after Napster, Kazza and iTunes, the recording industry would get it through their heads that people don't want to "go in the sotres." They want their music online. And as someone who just cancelled his subscription to Pressplay, most of the music isn't online.
Your post is so stupid and dripping in misplaced sarcasm that it's not even making a point.
I don't know about anyone else, but even if there were no MP3's online, I would not buy any more albums. Most albums have 1 or 2 good songs, and the rest is shit.
Right now, I will typically download a song because a friend said it was good. If I really like the song, I'll search for something else they wrote. If I find that the band is someone I like, I will go out and buy the CD.
Without being able to sample their work, I wouldn't think about buying it. I won't pay $15 for something I may or may not like, $15 is a good chunk of change for a student. 30 second clips aren't enough to be able to determine if a song is something you like.
The best move for the RIAA would be to completely embrace pay per download, create one central webpage with every artist's work that is envolved, and stop pissing off their customers by threatening and overcharging them.
So then this is one case when it pays to not give something back to the community?
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Not necessarily, because once again there is nothing removed from the original owner. When the OED references immaterial theft, it is referring to things like -- virginity. If one steals that from another, it is gone, and can no longer be replaced in that person. Speculative income is future tense, it does not exist yet, and thus it cannot be stolen because it may or may not ever exist at all.
V
Boycott!!!!
Wait... You mean I can't boycott and still buy the new radiohead CD? Forget that shit!!! Boycott over!
That creditors will give a damn if you declared bankruptcy, but have many thousands of dollars in a RothIRA (which, btw, you can withdraw before you're 55, without penalties, tax free). The third option (3) may not even be necessary, as retirement plans (403b, 401k, RothIRA) are most likely shielded from lawsuits. Certainly, money in foreign banks is completely immune from any decisions rendered in the US.
Few things could be as useful to society as taking down current copyright laws, patent laws, and trademark laws.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
No happy mediums here -- I hope they set a legal precedent that makes it illegal to attend a concert or listen to the radio.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
If you get sued, whatever happens, admit nothing. Proving that a person is sharing particular copyrighted files would be quite difficult, especially with a good lawyer questioning their methods and sources at every turn. Get a few expert witnesses talking about how hackers can spoof addresses and bsing about where the data actually comes from an goes to and you have good chance. But if you admit you did it, you automatically lose and they don't have to prove anything.
Who is John Galt?
Phredd - "I have found people tend to take you far less seriously once you start waving your genitals at them..."
"It's when you use your memorized song to distribute the song to others that you run into trouble. "
Wasn't there some kind of trouble with the boy scout or girl scout or someone over them _singing_ some camp songs without paying for the rights?
Is it illegal to suggest that it would be a good thing if someone were to burn down the building the RIAA sits in, with Hillary Rosen tied to her chair inside?
Yes, this is a joke, but it's how I feel right now.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
and almost overnight, MP3Wolf started turning up zip.
.zip to .mp3 ??? :)
Maybe you need to go into Tools->Options and change the file extension from
1. Change the protocols to make it impossible to list all the files shared from one "site". This is a pretty minor feature anyhow and would change the target base completely.
2. Come out with a couple hundred new P2P programs every year and they'll need a staff of 1000's just to keep up.
3. Development of more anonymous P2P protocols will just be increased by this move.
Causemos
You can say that again. Both my Dad and Grandma are ripping their CD collections. And my collection dwarfs theirs combined. If there are many nodes like mine you can expect several thousand terrabytes of freshly encoded media. Movie, TV, music video and music collections. PDF files for all your favorite books. Ebooks, books on tape, audio books, text ocr scans, etc. Video like never before. Any movie you ever wanted to watch available anytime you want it. Kinda like www.sharereactor.com, huh? ;)
P2P nets like Freenet are slowly merging with the web and replacing it in some ways. Eventually most communications will be encrypted for the sake of privacy and only the source and destination will know what is being transmitted, and anyone who doesn't have any useful content to share would not have access to your potentially blackmarket goods.
Then we'll just have to watch out for all the warrants issued to search for P2P content because of the logs at the ISP indicating all the bandwidth usage and random IP connections. Is anyone really safe? I just trust I am not going to be the dumbest one that gets sued. Darwinism is still the law of the land.
A lirbary buys a copy of something, and then let's one person at a time borrow the copy. You're proposing setting up an internet radio, which involves paying a fee to broadcast the songs.
Vote for Pedro
The RIAA is driving the development of superior P2P technology.
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. They keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
First Napster, now Kazaa & Co., and so forth and so on, until they encounter Freenet or SneakerNet or some similarly impervious means of securely trading files.
What this really is is the encryption debate all over again. And as was the case with encryption, these people simply need to get over it. Encryption is here to stay! Any fool can create a one-time-pad using nothing more than the toss of a coin or the roll of the dice, OK?
Just deal with it, because we don't have time for this bullshit. There are too many real problems we *can* do something about to be wasting time worrying about those that are forgone conclusions.
Copyright is dead.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
If we were stealing music wouldn't we be taking the artist's music and claiming it was our own and preventing them from using it. This is only a concept but does it really hurt them if someone downloads an mp3? Most people don't even keep most of what they download so that tells me that they wouldn't be buying the CD anyway. I for one downloaded Linkin Park's "Somewhere I Belong", then checked out online reviews of the album "Meteora" and then bought the CD at a local record store. Do i feel bad about that hell no. I don't feel bad that i downloaded the mp3 and i don't feel bad about supporting an artist that i like. I think the RIAA underestimates the loyalty to bands that people really like. Either that or they want to sell you CD's of crap without letting you have a fair chance to preview it (CDNow previews just don't cut it...15 seconds is hardly a worthy preview of a song). Probably the latter. The RIAA doesn't care about the bands they just care about selling CD's no matter if the Content is less than halfway decent. This is an idea.......why don't bands join together and form their own consortium to produce their CD's and stiff the Evil RIAA and keep more of the profits that should be theirs.
Here's some rope. And there's Hillary Rosen over there. You know the drill.
If it wasn't worth it, why did you buy the CD? Still with me?
No. And I fear my reply will do little to change that if you don't see the problem with your logic so far.
So if you buy a disc with errors, take it back. Say it was defective.
So, in other words, the burden of getting a working product is on me. I have to o back to the store and waste my time. That's a great customer service plan ya got there, Chuck. You'd feel right at home in the Ukraine.
I can't even imagine how skewed your world view must be to even think this is the case.
Actually I was just illustrating that I could easily make a copy. I know the lyrics, I could write them down easily enough, could I make copies to teach other people the song?
Dear Seantor:
I am a file sharer and am afraid of getting sued. Please consider this petition from my file-sharing friends as evidence that you should stop the RIAA. You'll definitely lose our votes if we end up in prison.
Yours...$signature...$signature...$signature...
Hm. That must be the wrong way.
Practice Kind Randomness and Beautiful Acts of Nonsense.
So, the RIAA sues you because they think you have illegal songs on your computer. Do you have the funds to support a legal defense? True, your defense would have a pretty easy time saying "I know what they look like, yer honor, but that isn't what they are", but how much is a good lawyer going to bill you for baiting the RIAA?
4) Learn about and use additional tools that may be useful for blocking "enemy" scans of your system.
Something like Peer Guardian
From the site:
PeerGuardian is a simple P2P-enemy blocking program. It was initially just made for a few friends on XS.
It has aggression control so users can control the CPU versus their connection (dial-up users can use it with 20% aggression) and works in conjunction with the PG IP Database, an on-line database of P2P-enemy IP addresses which users can submit to, vote on submissions or add comments on existing ranges. Latest version is compatible with the 'Bulk Update' feature of the WWW-based PG2-IP-DB.
PeerGuardian is freeware.
There is an interesting review of Peer Guardian that also highlights some interesting points regarding blocking "enemy" IP scanning.
From the review:
"PeerGuardian blocks out known IP ranges used by MediaForce, MediaDefender, BayTSP, Ranger, OverPeer, RIAA, MPAA & NetPD by default," says Method on the app page."
Also, the PeerGuardian site also has a listing of "enemy" IP's that is updated periodically (not sure of the frequency).
Yep The new anonymous system will ensure anonymity right up until the point where it doesn't.
Just like releasing copy protected CDs ensure that the CDs will not be copied until the copy protection is broken.
Not saying it's right or wrong, just saying it is.
I just see it now, the RIAA lawyer in his $1000 Armani suit and the defendant, a 12 year old kid in a t-shirt and jeans. What? You're going to sue him for his paper route money?
The judge is going to look at the RIAA and say "High School Bully", and the case will be dumped out of court, with the RIAA having to pay all legal fees, and compensate the court for the waste of time.
The parents will be asked to ground the kid, but let's face it, he's probably spending all his time in his room anyhow.
I know a kid who got in trouble pirating software, and the FBI showed up at his door and everything. But he was 13 years old at the time, and in the end, all that happened was that his computer was taken away and he had zero internet access for 6 months. After that, he was back to his usual tricks.
The RIAA isn't going to make any progress with this tactic, all they are going to do is piss off a lot of people who might have been their customers, or potential artists.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It's illegal for a company to spy on American users if they're an american company.. SO they hire companies outside of the US to hack our networks. All they're doing is training people to break into our systems. This is a potential National Security Risk.
Quick someone go tell Asscroft.
5 Times August Acoustic Reserve Brandon Chandler Dave Widders Matt Wertz Syd Zachary Tree Short list of talented people in my playlist offering at least some of their music for free on mp3.com. Any of which are 5 to 5000 times as talented as the lastest cookie cutter teenie bopper 'musician'.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Rather than get people to buy music, sue them and get much more money out of them.
SCO are doing similar things, rather than create decent products that people want to buy they're just suing people left right and center hoping they'll settle or cough up.
What is this "something" that was taken away?
The intrinsic value of the property was decreased. This is the "something" that was taken. It is not a physical item, but it is real, as it can be measured (though money) and exchanged. And if something can be measured and exchanged, just as a physical item is, then in many cases it can be considered the same as a physical item, especially when speaking in terms of the very units of measurement used to evaluate it in the first place.
For example, suppose you had a stack of US$20 bills, and I took them and replaced them with a physically identical stack of US$1 bills. Now, in strictly physical terms, nothing has been lost, because I have replaced your pile of paper with an equivalent stack of paper. But I'm sure that you would agree that there has been a theft of US$19 per piece of paper, because the value of the paper has changed, even if the physical properties have not (beyond superficial changes in writing on the surface). This is why value matters, even if it is not physically assigned to an item such as a TV.
What's the point of the back up copy then? Just because the physical media is gone, you still have a license to the music.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I can assemble a force of 1,000 drunk North Dakotans with hunting rifles in about a week!
Who here can't?
Perhaps, but music is FAR from being confidential information.
First off I've read previous posts about the RIAA finally getting a clue by going this new route. They haven't got a clue. They are only going this new way because of the case they lost that said p2p programs aren't only for illegal purposes. All they are doing is pursuing the same ideology in a different manner. They haven't become newly enlightened. They were litigated into this and not by choice.
In a post of mine last week I predicted this. Don't believe me? Go read it. This is the time for all of us to make our presence known. No matter what we say or what we do the only thing that makes a difference is money. Everyone who cares about this issue at all should agree on a day to boycott all music sales...maybe even a week. When a few million people decide to not buy a product then their voices are heard loud and clear. Ask Jesse Jackson. He's famous for extorting money out of nothing. Maybe we can "extort" the RIAA off of our backs:)
Instead of rehashing the same topic why not take action? Our words do nothing but not buying their products would change the landscape of things IRL. A true worldwide boycott would cost the RIAA millions and millions of dollars and why fund an entity that's out to sue the average person into bankruptcy? I say JULY 1st and if that goes well we add more dates until they buckle and they will if we can all join together and make a statement of this magnitude.
What do you say? Fuck off won't suffice. Spread the word and make a stand.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
There's a relatively simple solution to turn this into a painful business model for the RIAA. Get legal insurance. It's usually about $20-25/month, and generally includes 75+ hours of trial time per year at no cost to you if you get sued.
If they start suing people who actually have lawyers to defend themselves (as opposed to stealing college kids' life savings in out-of-court settlements), they'll find out that having their lawyers go to trial for every little file sharer gets real expensive, real quick. Especially considering they have little hope of recouping those costs from most of the defendants, even if they do win. I don't know about you - but even if a judge ordered me to pay $1 million in damages, I don't have it - so RIAA couldn't get it.
Fight back. Turn the court system into a money pit for them rather than letting them use it for their scare tactics.
-j
For example you're "dealer" and you're in US, the chance of you getting busted are pretty high. Yet if you sit somewhere like China, Russia, South America. U.S. Laws don't strech that far over the horizon. So most likely it will just force the "dealing" to come from other area of the world.
for which I wouldn't pay a single cent
Actually you did pay costs, in terms of bandwidth costs, hardware depreciation, and most importantly, your time. If you really "wouldn't pay a single cent", you wouldn't have even spent any time downloading it. Don't give yourself credit for being cheaper than you really are.
So what you're really saying is that you downloaded it because it is cheaper to do it that way than by buying it in the store. You should remember that cries of "It was too expensive!" is not a valid excuse for stealing something.
(source)
"It's plain that the dinosaurs of the recording industry have completely lost touch with reality," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF senior staff attorney. "At a time when more Americans are using file-sharing software than voted for President Bush, more lawsuits are simply not the answer. It's time to get artists paid and make file-sharing legal. EFF calls on Congress to hold hearings immediately on alternatives to the RIAA's litigation campaign against the American public."
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
If I can't get my mp3's from P2P networks anymore I'll just hook my Sat Receiver up to my sound card and record MTV for a few hours...they play most of what I want anyway....maybe they shut down MTV and all radio stations after this...or better yet just prevent anyone from broadcasting any music that is above radio quality...I don't have 15 bucks to blow on 1 song I want and 14 I don't about 20 times over...that's not going to change no matter what the RIAA does.
Yeah, I believe this was your quote, dated June 20th.
As soon as the RIAA starts to bear down on users and suing the shit out of them then they'll really start to see a backlash of epic proportion. It will come to that and they're going to be in for the shock of their lives. Fuck the the RIAA/MPAA. They are getting exactly what they deserve and there's not a person I know who feels any amount of guilt over not being ripped off and now having a choice.
about time they sue the individuals, the ones that are truly breaking copyright. (yes i know there are some people that use file sharing within the confines of Fair Use ..i.e., owning the album you've downloaded). i would much rather them go after people then the networks themselves.
"You'll Never Shut Down the REAL Napster!!!"
"I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin"
There turn out to be no lawsuits. Has anyone considered the possibility that this is just a scare tactic? Surely they know suing their customers will bring their sales down.
What do you think?
You haven't answered the question. Am I responsible for copyright violation if I leave CDs in an unlocked car? Can I be sued? If no, then why can't I run an HTTP server with MP3s so that I can listen to music I bought from any Internet-cafe?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Aww... poor baby. I bet calling bank robbers 'thieves' also really burns them.
Maybe now the folks swapping songs online will wake up to the legal options. Why pay RIAA's extortionist prices for the tiny handful of artists that they choose to promote when there are so many others out there posting their work on the 'Net for a fraction of the cost? I suspect that the RIAA is going to be surprised by the unintended results of this move.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
How many people does it take for file sharing to become common law?
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
My remarks were more or less tongue in cheek... to show to what conclusions we can come if we start faulting users for unintentionnally allowing "sharing" to happen.
And (if I may continue to play RIAA's advocate...), the physical media didn't just dissolve in thin air, but found a new "owner". It's not as if the media had been destroyed, or became unreadable due to wear. It's still there, just at a different place.
Thus what started out as a backup copy (held by the same person than the original) has now become a pirate copy (held by a different person that the original)
When is a copy not a copy? MP3s ripped from CDs are not perfect copies of the original material. What exactly does the copyright holder of the CD have rights to? Does the music just have to be deemed "recognizable" or something to be considered a copy, and therefore legally unshareable? Any REAL lawyers out there have the answer?
Not to say that I don't agree with you but it's no difference to me in this day and age.
Money -> Power
Power -> Money.
If you want money it's to attain power.
If you want power it's to attain money.
Irregardless. I don't see the difference.
Think about it.
Try and argue with me but when you get done saying no it's really for this. I would ask you what is at the root of all that energy? To get either power or money in my opinion.
So only the people who partake in copyright violation are getting targeted?
Whats the problem?
No troll. Really wondering what the impact on those of us (there are more than just me, right?) who don't feel the need to rip[-off] and burn.
Now, I am one to rip and burn what I DO own, I just make sure I own it first.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
You should all be using Freenet.. it's slow, but the more people who use and help develop it, the faster it will get. I can't believe the number of people who swap music illegally wide in the open, in the USA, anyhow. Other countries have much more sane laws about -copyright infringement-, not theft.
The negative publicity this is going to generate is not worth any price. You don't go after your customers - while the people who are sharing huge volumes of music aren't, I guess, anyone with half a brain can see what the next logical step might be - going after the downloaders. This is going to make financial martyrs of a lot of intelligent people.
freenet.sourceforge.net
Freenet is free software which lets you publish and obtain information on the Internet without fear of censorship. To achieve this freedom, the network is entirely decentralized and publishers and consumers of information are anonymous. Without anonymity there can never be true freedom of speech, and without decentralization the network will be vulnerable to attack.
..don't panic
How about this definition:
Nonviolent action in which participants refuse to obey certain laws, with the purpose of challenging the fairness of those laws.
Civil Disobedience is only two words making the concept a lot broader than your narrow defintion which limits civil disobedience to one specific type of political tactic.
Going down to the courthouse and making yourself a target is a stupid tactic that will do nothing more than make that Kazaa user look like a nut job. That tactic of protest just doesn't work anymore.
Making the RIAA hunt people down is a much more effective way of getting good publicity.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I thought /. was the bastion of anti-IP sentiment. Strange then, that skimming through the +5 comments, I see a string of self-righteous yahoos hollering about how the RIAA is finally doing the right thing because sharing copyrighted material is just plain stealing.
Nevermind the fact that I find it hard to believe that there could be this many prim and perfect law-abiding citizens. Isn't the whole concept behind the FSF and to a certain degree behind linux that we should be allowed to freely copy the fruits of our ideas? It's downright depressing to see lots of people not only buying into this tyrannical, consensual hallucination of artificial scarcity, but to also get modded up for it! A sad day for slashdot, indeed.
I suppose it's pointless to even open these peoples' eyes. They're like spoiled children having a temper tantrum...
What're ya gonna do? Some people also think that oil will last forever, might makes right, and that they've got the absolute corner on reality for all time.Actually, now that I think about it, there's always been plenty of stupidity on slashdot... at least on the front page stuff. But, I keep coming back, if only once in a while. So, what does that make me?
I figured as much. That's why I didn't dwell on it. But here's another hypothetical just for fun. Suppose I purchased an mp3 through a legitimate service. I then copied the mp3 onto my laptop and it was stolen. Which copy is illegitimate now? Obviously the stolen one right? But this is inconsistant with the case of physical media. Why should the medium make that big of a difference?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Um.
From my original post:
Yes, downloading copyrighted materials is illegal, but it is NOT STEALING.
Notice I didn't say you shouldn't be punished for breaking the law. I even acknowledged that it is against the law. I was mearly pointing out that downloading a copyrighted song is not stealing. You didn't deprive anyone of anything physical, but you did voilate a right given to them by US law, and yes, you should be punished for that.
Umm....you "stole" the blueprints to photocopy them. Thats the illegal part.
That last line isn't true either. If someone found out the secret formula to Coca-Cola without stealing anything physical, it would be all legit as long as no contracts were signed. A tradesecret's only real protection is that it is a secret.
This is not intended to be a troll, just an exploration of the situation. Some mental riffing, if you will.
Is it illegal to take things from a unlocked car? I am not asking if it is easy, dumb of me to leave it open, or expected. I am asking if it is legal.
If it *is* illegal, and my CDRs are taken without my permission, have I unwittingly broken the law by distributing copyrighted works? I, of course, still have the original, but the copies are now 'out there'. Just like my personal p2p network I mentioned in an earier post. Who is liable? Me - for failing to protect the copyrighted material (open server, unlocked door) or the person who grabs my CDR/mp3 file?
Do I have a resonable expectation of my belongings being safe by virtue of being in my car? What about my home? What about my computer? If not, is taking something from an unlocked house legal?
If the RIAA is to be believed, and ideas can be property, what is the difference between a pile of CDRs in a house, and a bunch of files on a server? If you want to view this as a troll, fine. I just want some answers to how the RIAA wants to have its cake and eat it too.
It's there that a software like waste ( from Justin Frankel ) starts to be interesting as it's a more private P2P network ( max 50 users / network ).
Maybe Justin knew what the RIAA was going to do
Ali Baba getting sued by the 40 thieves.
If I were to buy a print of some copyrighted artwork and put it up in my window, so that every joe with a camera can take a snapshot and reproduce the artwork, would I be in danger of contributory infringement, too? Or what if I leave some books lying around close to the copier at work? Anyone could make illegal copies of the book!
Why is there a double standard?
When they sing it, it exists as something imprinted on the air. Whatever you can recall of it, it exists imprinted in your brain. When on your hard drive, it exists there, and on sheet music. Now the air is a litte bit like the park, and your brain definitely isn't theirs. It is a function of human existence for the music to fall outside their control, and what you do not control you do not own.
I share a large number of live recordings. The RIAA is in for a rude surprise if they try to sue me over content that doesn't belong to them.
Is taking back that which was stolen from me really stealing???
Price fixing is stealing. Selling sub-standard products is stelaing...
By that logic, though, anything that isn't physical is ultimately perceived by the brain or re-recorded on your own media. So I'm assuming that you don't believe in any IP of any kind, correct? In other words, no idea, no published work, no patent should ever be protected?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Going by your logic, since it's impossible to "copy" a physical object such as a pencil or a McDonalds Hamburger, it should be Illegal to copy music that I own for My own personal use, because that would be "Stealing" as well, because that's also against the Copyright Holder's wishes.
What morals are those? That theft is perfectly acceptable?
Oh man, I wish it was theft! Then I'd download every eminem mp3 I could find and delete them!
HA HA HA! You can't get eminem music anywhere, I've stolen it ALL!!
I'm willing to bet that they will have researched very carefully the list of people they plan to sue. Just because they ask for the info from the ISPs doesn't mean they have to use it. They'll look at those lists and will research to come up with a very targeted list, with specific reasons for suing each person.
They likely make sure and not target anyone with a high profile, especially people like the senator's kids. They'll also stay away from wealthy people who might actually have the ability to fight back in court. (Includes most senators anyway) They'll go for low to middle income people and students who are unable to do anything but choose to settle. That's been their method so far, and it's likely to continue. They'll target some children or teenagers to catch the parents unaware. This will make sure they are good and scared and thus will be more likely to crackdown on their kids.
They want to target the average American user so that other average American users feel that this is hitting a little to close to home for them and will begin to wonder about their own safety from prosecution.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Since it was LEGAL to steal an election.....
Atleast they're not burning all crops and only shredding the bad apples. I know, RIAA still sucks.
.smell my feet.
Wow that's clever. So since 1960, huh?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Okay the crux of the issue seems to be revenue, or loss thereof from the major record companies which have been attributed to file sharing. But here is the problem. They are assuming that every time I download the newest Britney Spears creation that they have just lost 20 dollars. And this is where we get those astronomical loss numbers. But in actuality there is no way in hell that I would give 20 dollars for that tripe, especially from any of the FOTM bands and one hit wonders that seem to pop up ceaselessly. Legal issues aside, all the record companies would have to do is lower the price point to a more reasonable amount and pass some f_____g savings on to the consumer and I bet we'd see a whole paradigm shift in attitude. If you don't believe me why not start checking out your local WalMart's business model and see what I'm talking about.
I say this. You create a song. FINE. Charge people to come into your house and listen. FINE. Make an album and sell it from your house or distribution center. FINE. But as soon as said song is broadcast on PUBLIC AIRWAVES, I say it then belongs to the public.....and the public can do whatever it wants with it.....Time to take back our airwaves.....WE own it, NOT corporations...
"Fascism is just another name for corporatism".
Benito Mussolini.
That is correct.
Great work, RIAA. Spend hundreds of thousands (closer to millions in the future) on lawsuits only to have the defendants file bankruptcy to discharge the judgments.
Guess what you've done? Instead of "losing a billion dollars in sales" you've now lost a billion and a half in "lost sales" and dead-end lawsuits.
Wait, that's not counting all of the people that will stop buying CDs because you're being pricks... that's another half billion.
So instead of losing a billion dollars and spending money on developing new technology, distribution methods, and business models, you've lost two billion and you're RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU STARTED.
Sometimes the idiocy astounds me. No, all the time.
Three years ago, right after I started boycott-riaa.com. The RIAA called and wanted to "talk." I had a 2 hour conversation with the then Internet Evangelist, Karen Allen about this very thing...
That the technology was there and it had non infringing uses as well as infringing uses. The Professional Photographers Assn. doesn't sue Nikon for making a product that could be used to copy copyrighted photos, but instead goes directly after the infringers.
The RIAA has wasted 3 years, in actually getting artists paid for their work, while pumping hot air up congresscrittwers rears to get more and more control over the internet. They aready have approx. 85% of the physical distrbution, and now they are trying to grab the same thing with the internet..
On a side note the RIAA actually took the time to fill out my contact script on boycott-riaa.com. They called and wanted to "talk." with the press release apprx 1/2 before they released it, which I have to admit surprised he daylights out of me..being as both Hilary Rosen and Amy Weiss (their PR flak) have my email address.
...about the RIAA, that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan. They look bombed out, and depleted.
I promise I'll stop using this joke soon...if you laugh I'll stop sooner.
"But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong" - Dennis Miller
60% of the population gives a rats ass about copyright. if such a large share is a against a law, it's an obvious sign that this law is seriously flawed, outdated or simply rotten. if they don't get it that way, if they contribute to the explosion of the judicial system, they cannot hope for mercy.
someone started a similar thing with stupid overpriced tea forced upon them.
FIGHT THE CONTENT MAFIA. REMOVE THEM FROM EARTH.
Ooh! The RIAA are going to sue some a couple of hundred folks. It's the end of file sharing as we know it, as no-one will ever share a file ever again! P2P IS DOOOOOMED!
Earth to the United States of America: you only represent 5% of the planet's population. You think the RIAA's going to stop Russians or Chinese or Indians or Saudi Arabians (or Iraqis - they gotta get their own back somehow) from sharing files? Or all us effete, decadent European types?
Get a grip. There's a reason it's called the internet and not AOL. Funnily enough, the global communications network does not stop at the US border (although I think I'm the first to make that point in this thread). Stuff happens in the rest of the world (almost all the time!)
Whew! Panic over. Resume stealing from the oligopolists. But first: pull your heads out of your arses.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Hm...OK. At least that is a fully consistent, defensible position, unlike most of the others out there. Have you thought about the ramifications of that, though?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
The point isn't whether music sharing is legal or not (or whether most people know it is legal or not). The point is that most people feel that sharing music is moral. If it's illegal, then the law does not fit with their morals. I don't think you can equate music files with personal data or business secrets. Music is much different. It's broadcast to the public over radio, in stores, on TV, etc. It's meant to be heard by as many people as possible.
If you don't want to support the labels you can download lots of music by independant artists. There are a couple of albums on my site, and a forum thread linking to other sources for indy music. Registration and advertisment free, untouched by the RIAA, and complete with print resolution artwork -- earth2willi.com!
Technically speaking, if I download the file, I am the one making the copy, not the sharer, who is only providing a means to copy.
This isn't true. TECHNICALLY, the sharer is making the copy, because he is the one copying the bits from his hard drive and sending them on the network. He's not magically giving you his file, and you copy it and send the original back....
Its ok for me to record this weeks episode of friends from tv. Its ok for my neighbor to record this weeks episode of friends also. If next week I miss it, and my neighbor lends me his copy, and I copy it, how the HELL is anyone going to know if I recorded it myself or got it from my neighbor, since I am allowed to record it on my own in the first place???
He has always been a open software kinda guy.....
yeah, I have dialup with a small ISP. I doubt they keep logs.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Do it now church of slack moderators. This guys head is on straight.
Simply put, dead-on.
Are shoutcast radio stations illegal? If the p2p networks "updated" their software so that instead of copying these songs to your HD, it would just stream and play it, would it still be considered copyright infringment?
Incidentally, i know of a few programs what will capture streams and save them as a file. How would the RIAA ever know?
Does anyone know how they go after people? Some friends and I started mirroring huge txt file lists with names of copywritten material "madonna - like a virgin.mp3" (1k txt) to throw off RIAA bots. I mean if they just send a letter, then I could delete the text... or show them it was text..
Is this enough information (filenames) for them to break down my door, and take my computer equipment? This would kill my entire business. Not to mention I have proprietary software and art/animation for videogames I have worked on that I cannot allow others to see under my NDA.
. Isn't the whole concept behind the FSF and to a certain degree behind linux that we should be allowed to freely copy the fruits of our ideas?
True true, but calling the "musical" works of Creed, Britney Spears, Metallica, and Eminem fruit of any kind is fighting words.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
If you or anyone else can find attacks Freenet's protection of anonymity that an entity such as the RIAA would be capable of carrying out and that could provide enough evidence for a lawsuit, I'd be much surprised.
Potentiall less progress in the arts, and less content generated, but the access to that content should be greater than currently.
Sure.
But you don't have a reasonable expectation that nobody will access you work if you leave it up on a publicly accessible, non password protected web page.
Sure, if you could show you really DID only use it for yourself, and had no idea that everyone was pirating it, you would have a defence, i suppose...
but it would be fairly easy to show that many thousands of file sharers KNOW what they are doing, and are NOT simply doing something for their own benefit.
Funnyness aside there is no doubt in my mind that if The Founders could come alive and see the US in the half baked shape it is in due to runaway social spending that knows no boundrys they would call for a revolution to put things right.
When government takes over 50% of your combined income, are you still a free person? Or are you a slave by any other name?
"the RIAA has found that it must go after individual users rather than the services that they use."
I imagine a big corporation, say RIAA - I haven't read the article or anithing - and someone in there says:
"Hey! We could be making a LOT more money if it wasn't for file swapping!"
And then some big fish up at the top says:
"What?! Sue someone!"
After some time, where nothing good happens for anyone (but some lawyer firms), a lot of resources are thrown out the window, and the only thing out of all the fuss is a LOT of anoyed people (apart from the shiny happy lawyers), someone at the big corporation says:
"Well, maybe we've been targettig the lawsuits to the wrong people. Let's try those over there, see what happens!"
How far out is that?
OR maybe they just hand out the scenario to them lawyers and say "sue someone, you are the lawyers, you find out who is breaking the law" And a year later comes a lawyer saying "It'll take a while longer, 'cause y'know, we've been suing the wrong people all along... heheh" And no one at RIAA thinks "Geez! How could you be so incredibly STUPID!"
I don't know... Are they just scratching eachother's backs or something?
1. Will only Verizon customers be targeted, since (AFAIK) only they have been subpeonaed by the RIAA to hand over the identities of customers?
2. Presumably the only information associated with a particular incident of file sharing is a particular IP address. How can the RIAA associate this with a particular person, in the case where it's shared by a number of people behind a router?
3. Could the RIAA sue anyone outside of the US?
File sharing provides an increase in the quality of life for so many, at the cost of so few (comparitively). And don't tell me it harms the quality of life for musicians. Their quality of life in our modern world is already shit. Believe me. I am one.
How do they gather evidence? no (saine) court would accept that fact that i downloaded a file with the name "[something riaa owened].mp3" as conclusive evidence would they? surely you need to actually look at the content and make sure each and every song is what it says it is. Then you need to figure out whats legal or not - they could have downloaded it legit, it could be off the radio, it could be a song they own on CD (yes they are backing it up). What if someone buys a CD, backs it up in mp3 form and then something happens to the cd - they still have their back-up but not the CD - would the ria accept that? its possible that their entire collection was on cd but their house burnt down and they still had their backups! Then, you need to know for sure that they (and not someone else) downloaded content onto their computer knowing full well what it was. If there are laws governing how long (ie 24 hours) a song can be kept for before its illigal then they will need to be able to check that. If i destroy all the evidence before they break down the door what do they have? 5GB of mp3 is much easier to get rid of than 5Kg of crack!
In order to be effective (unless the court is sponsored by the riaa) they will need to fully monitor all the data - sent and received by the offender through their isp/network connection and whatever else has come into their computer.
What if they find my collection of Steps, S-Club, Venga-boys and NSYNC? can i plead insanity?!?!
Hows this all gona work?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
From this article Mike Godwin: "I'm sure it's going to freak them out. The free ride is over." Yes, the free ride on consumers has been over years ago. One-hit wonders, price-fixing, pre-packaged artists. We're tired of it. With P2P networks we've learned your tricks, and we've decided to do something about it. Combined with a bad economy, the mystery of lost sales is no more. Well, you haven't been losing money. More like you've been getting money you shouldn't have gotten in the first place. You need to put your sales figures in perspective and learn to give the consumers what they want at a reasonable price in a format they desire. Also, don't screw the hands that feed you (the artists and consumers).
"You have to look at exactly who are your customers," he [Carey Sherman, RIAA President] said. "You could say the same thing about shoplifters -- are you worried about alienating them?" Good going Carey. Equate 57M potential and current customers to criminals. This must be brilliant marketing. "We hate you! Buy the new Britney Spears record!"
--I had a strizzoke in my brizzain!
My ex-girlfriend had a book of proverbs and crap that she gave me (makes for very smug e-mail sigs). I was reminded of this man.
An old man and a young man go out fishing together in seperate boats. After a while, a storm comes along. A large wave appears and grows larger as it approaches the two boats. The young man throws everything he can at the wave, hoping to break it. The old man calmly rows his boat into the wave. The wave capsizes the young man's boat but not the old man's. The old man pulls the young man from the sea. The young man asks why his boat did not capsize.
"If I didn't fight it like an enemy, it wouldn't treat me like one either."
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
One can download music from T-Mobile hotspots at Starbucks. What will RIAA do? Shut down those hotspots? This would actually be good for free WiFi hotspots providers.
A song is constructed from physical materials too: computers, instruments, speakers, CDs. Studio time costs thousands of dollars an hour. So does good musical equipment. CDs, jewel cases, inserts -- all cost money. More importantly, the time of the hundreds of people involved in the process costs money. Not to mention the people putting up the money in the first place on a very risky investment. So just because music isn't made of atoms doesn't mean it's free.
So why not do society a favor and stop mindlessly repeating some mantra you picked up on your local McNews channel and start using your head.
So if I disagree with you, then I'm mindlessly repeating some mantra? It can't be my own opinion?
Please think before you reply.
I did. Seems I got a modded to 3 while you only got modded to 1. Perhaps you should be the one thinking.
(And note how I refrained from trying to put you down or make fun of you or call you names, like you did in your message. You might learn something from that.)
With the advent of the internet and all the impersonality it brings, a new low for personal morals has been achieved. Morally, not many people care, especially when they can see no effect, whether or not they download one or two songs (songs they'd probably hear on the radio over and over again anyways). It seems to me the way to stop a buch of assholes on the internet who get offended by accused of a crime (a crime that most see as just robbing the greedy) isn't to be a bigger asshole (i.e. RIAA), its probably wiser to educate these people on why they should give a shit about downloading [for free] a bunch of CD's they'd otherwise have to pay an increasingly inflated price for. With out people being pushed towards morality this is a loosing battle for the RIAA, and so far they've almost done the opposite.
I'm sharing 1.175 gigs of mp3 files for some friend's bands and for the sktfm show...wonder if they are going to come after me, lmao.
Let em'. I'd love for a judge to see "oh, there are legal uses for p2p file sharing".
Candy-Coated Knowledge
It should be obvious to anyone with even the slightest bit of intelligence that the population DO NOT feel that copyright is a moral or ethical law. If they did, they would not all be ignoring copyright law, now would they?
Theft is easy. It is extremely easy to take stuff from your fellow man. Yet few people do it. Why? Because they think it is wrong.
Copyright infringement is easy. The majority of people do it. Not just the youth, or the poor, or any particular group... everybody.
People talk about it in a fashion that they would never talk about shoplifting or taking tools from their neighbours garage. Why?
Because none of the people they are speaking about it to think badly of them for doing it. Because they don't think copyright laws should be on the books, they have no desire to have their taxes spent on enforcing them, and they finally have the means to make their will known in a fashion that business and government cannot ignore.
You may think I am wrong, or full of shit, or talking out of my ass. But the proof is clear: Everyone is doing it, and there is no desperation driving them to do it, therefore they do not believe in the law.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I'd like to see 'em try it. Last time I checked, the DCMA didn't apply here in Canada, and I'm not sure if copyright offence is covered under extradition treaties. Come on, who's with me? Anybody? There's gotta be someone out there who will listen? Damn, it's just me. Oh well. Hey, you're reading this, you wanna be my friend? No? Ok... (Starts humming "Mr. Lonely" by Bobby Vinton). Wait, the RIAA and their cronies are at the door. "No I swear Mr. Hatch, I didn't download that song, I own the 45!!!" AHHHH!
------ Will of Iron, Knees of Jello.
The RIAA is a dinosaur with a large gun. Its just gonna keep shooting itself in the foot until it bleeds to death.
Now excuse me while I go unshare my files and destroy some evidence.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Time to Start our own private internet...
I could have ran rings around my parents when i was a teenager. As it happened i didn't have much to hide from them, but considering the lengths we went to in school it should be no surprise.
We repartitioned and reformatted one systems hard drive so that it could have a 'games' drive. Then we copied across the original system from a clone using a parallel cable - the powers that be called in all sorts of computer
'experts' but not one ever found what we'd done.... although by the time one of them had found fdisk i'd been in with partition magic and cleared the evidence.
Another system we'd discovered that you could pry the floppy disk lock off (or rather the drive facia) using a flatbladed screwdriver. Then we took advantage of the fact that it had a modem and we had a QNX boot disk (no knoppix in those days).
Uni was a little bit harder until we discovered that they used uniform bios passwords. Cracking the password on a 486 gave us access to reconfigure all the nice sparkly new PII's with a complete separate windows install just so we could get a parallel port zip drive, in turn just so we could download the matrix before the MPAA got round to releasing it here.
I never understand how anyone could rationally dispute this. If I cracked someone's PC and all of the data on their hard drive found its way onto mine, would you really claim I hadn't copied anything? Would you claim that really they made the copy? Would you claim that I wasn't in breach of copyright, and was perfectly entitled to keep the data on my own computer?
Come on, guys. Claiming that really the distributor is making the copy and the downloader isn't, just because the distributor knows what's happening, is just trying to pass the buck, pure and simple. Take a little responsibility for your actions now and then, huh?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
One of the byproducts of our wonderful capitalism is greed. A greed that cannot be quelled by any profit or growth, which I guess has led to the formation of large corporations and lobby groups. I'll try not to sound like a hippy here, but it is these types of corporations that slow progress down in general. Just like the spear makers were put under by the gun makers, and eventually the laser maker, etc...But now it seems like these kind of companies can lobby together and live out the rest of their lives festering under people's skin. Gas companies for a while (and may still be) fought again any kind of non-gas-powered vehical, and won! Maybe the music industry just isn't going to be profitable anymore, just like spears aren't very big anymore, and since people have found a very cheap, effective, and accessible way to make it non-profitable the music industry should look ahead instead of fight to retain their now-dying market.
...Open up your wireless access points, NAT heavily and lower the MTU on machines you don't share from (and make sure you share from machines that are wireless and well hidden).
It's all about resonable doubt.
One other thought: small claims counter suite.
So, how long until everyone is switched over to Freenet or some other anonymous form of P2P?
Well if I only let people download 10% of a song from me, is that "fair use"? Anyway, I only share BIBLES! Imagine the stink if they try to shut down a BIBLE-SHARING NETWORK!
Come on people! Start sharing copies of THE BIBLE! It's UNSTOPPABLE!
Space for rent, inquire within
Randall is not a typical case. He makes quality erotica...
Suze Randall is a she. Suze was a model herself before she became a photographer. Near the end of her modeling career, she shot a self-pictorial for Playboy. Now Suze's daughter Holly is following in her mother's footsteps, at least the porn-photographer part. Bizarre and disturbing, perhaps, but true.
How can it be illegal? Didn't the RIAA successfully get a tax imposed on all blank recording media like CD-Rs, and they collect that tax as payment for people copying their copyrighted songs and giving the copies to their friends?
How can the RIAA collect a tax which allows copying and at the same time claim that people shouldn't be copying?
Surely that's FRAUD.
I personally agree with this action because these people are breaking the law. However, I don't think that file trading is why the industry is losing money. For example, when asked about the possibility of alienating customers with this litigation stratagy, RIAA president Carey Sherman says:
"You have to look at exactly who are your customers," he said. "You could say the same thing about shoplifters â" are you worried about alienating them?
In other words, people who are file trading are people wouldn't buy the music anyway. If this is true, then how exactly are they costing the music industry money?
What if I'm a US citizen, living abroad, and sharing many mp3s? Can the RIAA sue me? My machine, is after all, based in another country, but I'm curious as to how my American citizenship affects this.
So does this mean that the leeches are safe 'cause they're not sharing?
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Even those of us eligable for medicare can see that the RIAA is doing it's best to kill off the music business. Having lived through the "Omigod you can copy those 45s and LPs onto reel to reel tape" and the "Omigod you can copy that movie onto your own VHS tape" flaps it is pretty clear the music industry is about to make yet another major change.
Have bought but one music CD in the past two years, and the reason is not piracy (I don't) but lack of interesting content at an interesting price.
Ok, so everyone create folders on the ISPs and fill them with textfiles named with .MP3 extensions. Make sure to use artist's names & song names for those artists that support this action (Madonna, etc).
When the bots start picking up on a plethora of bogus MP3 files, it'll take more effort to actually find something worth suing over.
Just make sure to make the files a 3-5 MB in size.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
There is no problem in my logic. If you don't think a product is worth your money, don't buy it. That is not a justification for copyright infringement.
Now I agree that the anti-copy techniques that interfere with normal playing of the CD are slimy, but that's not an excuse either.
I download mp3's. I download a lot of mp3's. :)), get a lawyer, and fight them tooth and nail.
I havent bought a CD for the past 6 years.
A CD has no value for me, since every time I reformat I start my mp3 collection over. My tastes are fickle, and sounds I enjoyed when I was 13 dont quite have the same oomph for me. I am willing to pay, but for what. High speed, unlimited downloads at a good quality, for less than the price of a CD for a month. 12*16 > 0. Hopefully the RIAA will do the math, because the market is changing, no one really wants a hard copy to save forever anymore (well until the medium degrades in 15-20 years). We want the latest and greatest sounds to consume and throw away a month later, at college student prices. So I will continue to download, to expand my sonic horizons, and if the RIAA comes a knockin I'll quickly nuke my computer (magnesium is great
Would it be possible to create a P2P network that would mask the users' IP addresses? If that could happen, wouldn't there be no link between the username and the actual person, meaning the RIAA can't find the people responsible. I'm not much of an expert on this sort of thing, so I'd appreciate an answer.
I'm sorry, what's the difference between downloading music and listening to it on the radio? If you like the song, the radio will likely play it again, and you stay tuned to the radio, likewise, you keep the song to listen to later on. If you don't like the song, you change the radio station and listen to another, likewise with the songs on the HD, you delete and move on..? Some of you might say ads, but what does that have to do with the music? Do the radios actually pay the artists so they can play their songs?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Any thoughts on how the RIAA is compiling this master list of file sharers? Seems to me all the best ways to find and identify people would be totally random, and basically independent of how many files each one uploads or downloads. Then again, maybe that's OK for a scare campaign.
The RIAA's most recent action will motivate p2p programmers to introduce anonymity into their trading system, either by creating a new protocol or (more likely) modifying existing protocols and clients. ...and with encryption. In theory, each machine offering files could advertise a public key. Requests could be encrypted with that key - leaving them readable only by the sharing machine. The search requests could also be sent with the public key of the requesting machine - leaving the response readable only by the requester. Passive analysis of what's being searched for or shared would be eliminated.
The only way to solve the problem is on the SUPPLY side. By continuing their embargo on the production of music that listeners want to hear, the major record companies should be able to discourage sharing of their most heavily promoted music products. If the industry has the will to continue this policy, then eventually most decent music will enter the public domain, and will comprise the bulk of music file sharing activity.
The argument that intellectual property "doesn't exist" because it's not in tangible form is a silly distraction from what is little more than simple theft.
There's a whole category of language devoted to such things, called abstract nouns, that are often just as important to quality of life as the lower elements of Maslow's hierarchy.
The fact is that even intellectual property requires tangible resources to create. Even software, which usualy costs nothing more than time, carries tangible costs: the creator of a work must at very least eat and keep a roof over her head long enough to fill your gaping maw.
As the person incurring the cost, the creator of a work is the sole determiner of how it distributed.
To demand that others surrender the fruits of their labor to you with nothing in exchange goes far beyond the worst of capitalist exploitation: at least the capitalist will pay something less than a livable wage, while you demand their labor for free.
Before alot of the RIAA mistreatment of their customers for P2P, I used to use it to check out new music, typically purchasing about 15-30 cd's a month. It was common for me to hit the local best buy on a weekend and pick up those titles that I had checked out and wanted. I found trying to collect whole albums via P2P tedious and felt it was easier to just buy them (since time is in short supply due to work). I also belonged to BMG and usually bought older titles there, to fill out my collection. When the RIAA started this whole mess, I canceled by BMG membership with a letter telling them to let me know when they elected to drop out of the RIAA and I'd rejoin. These recent RIAA measures have caused two actions on my part - first, I stopped using P2P to check out new stuff. I felt that's what they wanted, that's what they'll get. As a result, I almost never buy anything new anymore. I've also decided to just plain boycott them period. I will not buy anything new first hand. I have enough music to last me a lifetime anyway and those cds I do really want, I'll get second hand so the members gain no additional funds from me.
They forgot one KEY item in their greed, this is MUSIC, it is NOT FOOD, AIR, WATER, CLOTHING or SHELTER. If they ever get around to a subscription model that allows umlimited download for a reasonable flat fee, I'll rethink my decision but the path these knuckleheads are on, I'm not holding my breath.
It's not a copy, it's a derivative work! There are indeed laws about what is a copy and what isn't. I think you have to change at least 10% of something for it not to be a copy any more.
How does the RIAA intend to gather evidence to prove that someone is actually illegally sharing copyrighted material? Will they actually seize computers in raids? Or will it be sufficient to simply record names of shared files?
It seems to me that some independent third party would have to actually download the purportedly infringing files in more or less their entirety to prove that the copyright was infringed upon. That seems like a lot of effort. What are the IPs of these detective downloaders???
Physicists do it with a big bang!
and checking it twice
gonna find out who's naughty and nice
R I A A 's coming to town....
They log you when your sleeping
They log when your awake
They know if you use P to P
so be good for goodness sake...
Oh you better watch out
you better not cry
you better log off
I'm telling you why
R I A A's coming
to town.
My rights don't need management.
They are going after hundereds of users. Maybe even a few thousand. Out of the 40% (low estimate) to 80% (highest estimate I've seen published) of all recreational internet users. I fancy my chances frankly. More chance of being kicked to death by camel or something.
I keep seeing posts on Slashdot that say the RIAA is crazy. That sueing their customers is crazy. That this will kill them.
It won't for two reasons. They have money, and they are an established business. Or more precisely put, they are viewed by *Congress* as an established business.
Congress is where this will be decided. Not in the myth of the free market. True free markets don't exist in America any more. Farm subsidies, tariffs, taxes, all of those and similar government intervention make the economy more state-driven than the average American knows.
Congress is going to rule in favor of the RIAA, of the MPAA, and any other well-established organization with deep pockets.
If Slashdot readers ran things, it might be different. But we don't. They do. And they always win.
You have to knowingly and willfully help someone infringe. It's not a double standard--just as you are being facetious about things that would probably never be considered infringement, a judge would probably throw those out. But making files available in a file sharing app is obviously a deliberate act intended to allow people to copy them. And that's probably illegal under current copyright law.
I'm not a fan of the copyright law, but it's really not as vague (ignoring the DMCA ammendments) as you guys seem to make it out to be!
Following its threat of lawsuits, the RIAA is announcing that music sharing on peer to peer file networks has all but disappeared.
In related news, sales of recorded music CDs continues to fall.
Plnety of ok stuff on the radio. Plenty of ok stuff on the TV. But how do I know I'm not going to buy $30AUD worth of 2 hit wonder? Simple, I don't. So I might as well spend that $30 on two tanks of petrol and go ride the motorbike for a day. At least I KNOW I'll get guaranteed entertainment out of that!
In my next incarnation, I hope to come back as a code monkey.
"No! *I* am KazaaliteUser!"
Wrong. Downloading a copyrighted file without permission of the copyright owner is illegal. [...] Whatever your moral or political opinion on this, it is unequivocally illegal, at least in the US, to share copyrighted material without the owner's permission
Unless you live in some strange variation of the English language I haven't heard of before, "share" refers to the act of allowing others to use something that one owns--in other words, the act of giving, not the act of receiving.
As far as facts go, I haven't read Title 17 recently enough to state for certain, but I'm pretty sure that (as others have posted) the act of receiving is perfectly legal; it's giving (i.e. distributing) that's forbidden.
So much of the discussion here about "Who wants to pay US$15 for a Britney Spears CD?" does rather beg the question: Why are you even bothering to download it?
/. If the readers here can't use Google well enough to find quality free music then maybe we've all become too gentrifried and deserve the Stepford we've created for ourselves.
If you consider the RIAA pop-culture greed machine offensive, there is a simple way to destroy them financially while paving the way for better music at the same time:
Download only the cool smaller bands that want to share their work.
There are millions of great unsigned musicians from all over the globe with tens of millions of downloadable MP3s waiting for you to enjoy, fully and legally.
By downloding corporate tripe, all you're doing is evidencing the cultural strabnglehold they have over you.
Free your mind: this is
I think most people here miss the point. The riaa is crying because people are taking back what really belongs to them. How does it belong to us? Well, in the USA copyright is actually an agreement between we the people and the copyright holder. Our part of the bargin is that we agree to give them a limited monopoly on the copyright. Their end is that when that limited monopoly expires, the copyrighted work passes into the public domain. A producer of a work does not have to agree to this. They can license their work however they want and keep if for as long as they want. However, once a producer of a work enters into this agreement, they are expected to be bound by this agreement. Over the last twenty years or so, dirtbag middle men like the riaa/mpaa have bought the congressional prostitutes and gotten the copyrights extended. So we the people are expected to uphold our end of the bargain and give them their limited monopolies while they are able to buy their way out of their end? This just isn't flying with the people and thus we have this huge backlash such as p2p. If the riaa/mpaa and government want this type of reaction to stop, then copyright law would change and go back to how our founding fathers made it with a 14-20 year copyright. However, if greedy politicians continue to sell their sole and their votes while dirtbag middle men like the riaa/mpaa continue to screw us over, then we will continue to strike back. While I am am not into p2p, I don't think there is anything wrong with it since the riaa/mpaa have not upheld their end of the copyright bargain, and IMO, have forfeit the deal.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Why are you posting OFF TOPIC crap about cigarettes to a story about RIAA suing FILE SHARERS? And WHY are you posting it at +1? You have very little respect for slashdot, that is for sure.
Why not July 4th not the first? Let a worldwide boycott go with Independence day and the launch of FairForShare. I'm already boycotting but it sounds good when its official.
Did you even read the link you posted? I quote:
In fact it is clear reading this FAQ that Freenet makes only very weak claims about anonymity protection!
Fundamentally, no P2P network can truly protect your anonymity, because there has to be a gateway which an RIAA official can connect to and download a copyrighted song. That gateway can then be held responsible for contributory infringement. This applies to Freenet or to any other so-called anonymous P2P system.
This article is fairly interesting, due to all of the comments that have been added. There are quite a few articles today, some much more interesting and worthwhile then this, however, this article has gotten the most comments. Why is that you ask? More then likely, this will affect a large portion of us(admit it...you know who you are), a wireless network in Palo Alto will not affect [most of] us. Tells you alot about yourselves, doesn't it? I wonder what that limit is though, a co-worker and I were talking today, and we realized that if we're sharing x amount, others must be sharing hundreds of gigs of MP3's in order to have gotten on "the list".
As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
What is a death throw?
Might you mean death throes?
Why can't some people put up a wireless 802.11g node that is open to everyone within range of a large park or parking lot area? This node could serve as a wireless exchange point. The node has a one day bulletin board cache whose messages are cleared on a daily basis automatically. There is a disclaimer on the site that censorship and editing of posted messages is not done, and that messages are not saved after the expiration period. This would meet the ISP type liability provisions.
With a good antenna, the range of such a point could be pretty far, and the owner of this access point would not be liable for infringement. Similarly, users would certainly be hard to find or spot and they are also mobile.
Some of the wireless community groups could be surveyed to see if they are amenable to such a project. Some of these groups have wireless nodes located on mountaintops that could serve as wireless relay points for truly large metropolitan area networks.
Come on people! Start sharing copies of THE BIBLE! It's UNSTOPPABLE!
The only popular English translation of the Christian Bible that was first published before 1923 is the King James Version, and even this is under a perpetual crown copyright in the UK (which has no monolithic constitution and no "limited times" clause in what it does have).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Alright, I'll say this once, so as to help you out of the little rut your mind seems to have gotten itself into: There is no way to tell that the songs on the album suck or that the media has been altered prior to buying the CD. Also, if I don't buy the album, I won't be able to have the songs I do like.
There. Was that helpful? I hope so, because at this point I must admit that a certain kind of ennui creeps over me at the thought of having to do this again.
Definitely so. Of course, it depends what you call progress, huh? I might be inclined to grant that less commercialization is a good thing.
but the access to that content should be greater than currently.
By definition. Obviously, your position is extreme (not as in bad, but it's impossible to grant *less* IP protection). And the current situation is extreme the other way in the sense that it's virtually infinite protection. Personally, I'd be willing to grant full copyright protection for 5 years, and protection against commercial uses for another 5.
Do you hold patents to the same standard as copyrights?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Will they limit themselves to sue Americans? Can they sue non-american people? How does this shit work?
Go home, kid. You bother me.
Im sure you could find pleanty of lawyers who would jump at the oppertunity to countersue the RIAA for little or no cost to you.
the RIAA can blow me. This is a complete joke.
A show that is no longer available on TV is still illegal: it is still copyrighted.
Copyrighted? Yes. Illegal? Not necessarily. Though the second and third fair use factors weigh in favor of the copyright owner, the first and all-important fourth factors would weigh in favor of a hypothetical non-profit distribution network that allows sharing only of what has definitely fallen out of print.
You might not be able to find a copy of Steamboat Willy ANYWHERE in the real world--but you're still breaking the law
"Steamboat Willie" may not be under copyright at all thanks to a faulty copyright notice that was not corrected in time.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Man I miss that stuff.
It's helpful in understanding your mindset. Let me try that tactic.
You have no inherent right to "own" songs, period. If you don't like the pricing or the risk of buying songs that you don't like, you do not have to buy the CD.
Also, your disdain for the industry and the fact that you feel you have wasted money on music you don't like does not give you the right to infringe on copyrights. How'd I do?
Maybe this will drive more people to seek alternatives. Check out www.garageband.com.
Maybe we should start buying used CDs, copying them, and selling them back to used book stores.
That would be impossible to stop.
I've got 40GB of MP3's... now I'm sure there's someone else out there with more who they'll be after first... right?
So, instead of downloading 200MB a month of music of Kazza, people will start buying 200GB HDs full of music off local Ha8ors.
...
...
Imagine if you could buy an HD with 200GB of music for say 50USD. (In say 2-3 years)
Heck its not legal, but 20,000 songs is quite a lot of music
And yes I am pretty sure this is already happening in Thailand / Mexico, though its possibly not that cheap
Imagine the market for shipping encrypted drives.
- Sam
Indeed. Check this link http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=164y there was no compelling reason to shift from Kazaa over to these packages, particularly because they currently have small communities. Today there is. Oh well. See you all over there.
Yesterda
you don't know what fair-use is, go back to china on the bought you came in on
because its not theft.
If you shared files that appear to be ripoffs
to the slack RIAA software and then are sued
by them, couldn't you sue them for negligent
prosecution?
For instance, as some have suggested,
BritnySpeers1of100000 (deliberately change
the name to avoid trademark problems).
Imagine that a significant number of people
'share' these 'honeypot' files simultaneously
over the next month, wouldn't that generate
so many false positives (and RIAA legal actions)
that the RIAA would create a huge legal liability
for negligent prosecution (or selective
prosecution)?
Finally, to really make it fun, you could
make a MP3 that was copyrighted and
selectively prosecute the RIAA for their
downloading of it (don't share it yourself,
as this could be construed as putting it
into the public domain).
Perhaps we all need to switch to a p2p netlike (or resembles) something like whatt GNUnet is try to accomplish.
http://www.gnu.org/software/GNUnet/
http://www.ovmj.org/GNUnet/
I've yet to test the current versions well, but it seems that (aside from a number of other good features) they are concerned with a good level of anonymity.
Combine this with the approach that Justin was gonna try with waste (i.e. a small (~30) group of "trusted" users). Perhaps with a requirement to share one file to "get in". Have it validated by an existing member to weed out the nosy peepers of the riaa folk. Not a perfect system, but what is?
--
argan0n
Perhaps the reason people are pirating is because the RIAA is indeed charging more than people are willing to pay for their product
So it's win-win; promotion of major label music gets reduced, plenty of people carry through on their promises never to buy major labels again, and the more terror the RIAA uses, the more people get turned off.
Do those fuckheads really think they can frighten people into buying CDs?
It's like Hatch speaking for the RIAA saying he wants them to have the power to destroy computers at random (english translation of his statement... we know that there is NO way to limit damage to "guilty computer users" even if he doesn't and the RIAA doesn't care.
So anybody who wants the major labels to finally retire permanently to the tarpits they've been plainly heading towards for the last 10 years... should greet this news with amusement.
Tech Public Policy stuff
name one street drug that used to be available, and is no longer
Absinthe and other worm-wood derivatives are generally not available, and they used to be street drugs...
Pretty poorly, considering that you're still talking like some child who thinks his dad is proudly listening.
I never claimed to have an "inherent" right (I have a more-than-nagging suspicion you don't understand what that word means) to own anything, other than my own life and liberty. But I inherit (notice the different meaning from the same stem here) a right to listen to that music when I buy a facsimile of it, whether that facsimile is in the form of a CD, a vibrating quantum aggregate or a paper printout of the binary code for an ISO image. What I choose to do with that is my right. So, to counter your facile claim about rights, I reply that I do have them once I buy the product.
So again, Bubba, keep trying with your vacuous holier-than-thou speeches if it makes you feel self-righteous. Just be aware that from this end, it looks like a talking sock-puppet. Regardless of what you and the other media sponges out here (upon whose infallible moderation your ego seems to rely) may pronounce, I and many others like myself will continue to trade our music online. Sorry if that rubs you the wrong way, but you should probably just get used to it.
Peer Guardian will protect you against these these Pesky RIAA bot download it here.
where the kid says when he grows up he wants to be forced into early retirement.
when i grow up i want to be sued for 3 billion dollars
I was thinking July 4th also but went with the first but whatever the community thinks...I'm down with it. It doesn't matter what day but you make a good point and a good slogan to go along with it. Napster also had a good one called buycott:)
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
... Apparently they have a patent on some sort of graphic distribution scheme...
No, they are just bluffing. Novel still owns the patent.
Simply obtain a list of the IP address used by the RIAA/MPAA and set your firewall to drop any incomming requests. I'm sure there are lists of these IP addresses out there, I've seen the odd post on Usenet before.
Downside would be that they would be able to get anonymous IPs themselves, by getting residential lines not directly traceable to them. It would completely blow their operating costs out of the water though!!
By Rilary Hosen
If you're worried that one or other of the other Hollywood fronts is going to scoop you, here's a neat little app that may help you rest a little easier.
From 'Method' in the UK, it's called PeerGuardian and you can get it from here. And if that doesn't work, try here.
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the ... noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
However, the "No Electronic Theft Act" of 1997 redefined "financial gain" to include the receipt of other copyrighted works (see 17 USC 101), which could possibly bleed into the definition of "commercial use".
But the AHRA is still sufficiently new this hasn't been tested in court yet.
Yes it has. Napster Inc lost a case where it tried an AHRA defense.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Fileservers themselves tend to be rooted boxen on .edu connections. Go check out the bots on ZeroLimit or any other network, and they'll all be chewing up some poor university's bandwidth.
Yes, some people do run fileservers off their own machines, but the XDCCs---the main distribution points---are mildly untraceable.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You recalled the fair use guidelines correctly. Compare 17 USC 107, which defines fair use.
However, the corresponding rules in the UK and Australia are more restrictive and generally do not permit reproduction of copyrighted works for private home entertainment purposes without the consent of the copyright owner.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't understand why people have such a hard time understanding why serving up copywrited material to others is ok, legally, ethically, or morally.
Referring to this activity as sharing, trading, or swapping music is not correct! It is simply MAKING COPIES!
Sharing something is giving up a part of something of value to you to someone else for their benefit, and if you do that, you give up some of your benefits. Trading or swapping something means giving something of value to someone else while receiving something of value from them in return. P2P networks do not work this way. When you offer your music on a P2P network, you are sharing nothing, because when someone else downloads the file, you've lost nothing. You still have the original file plus any files you've downloaded. All of this has the effect of devaluing the original material.
Look at it this way... if I make copies of my money and give it to you, am I sharing some of my money with you? Nope. But what I did do is effectively reduce the value of the money I still have, as well as the money that others have. That is why copying money is illegal. If everyone could make perfect copies of money and give it away, the original money wouldn't be worth much would it?
This is why I don't understand why everyone is making such a stink about what the RIAA is doing. They are simply trying to prevent the value of their members products from being reduced to zero by people giving away copies.
When the RIAA went after the operators of the P2P networks they were doing the wrong thing, because P2P has legitimate uses. So do copiers, fax machines, file servers, search engines, etc.
Going after "sharers" is exactly the correct thing to do, because these are the people that are reducing the value of their products.
Now, I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou here. Have I done this? Yep. But a while back I started to think about how much hard-earned money I had spent on records and CD's, and how much value I placed on it, and the fact that copies of it being widely available on the Internet were making it virtually worthless. So I stopped.
The RIAA is a cartel. IMHO, their member record labels are engaged in price fixing, and using their monopoly market position to prevent non-RIAA labels and artists from gaining exposure. They want to maximize profits for their member labels by paying the artists the absolute minimum. And yes, they have their heads soundly up their ass. All of this doesn't matter. Giving away copies of copyrighted material is illegal. They are selling a product and you are expected to pay for it. OPEC is also a cartel which exists for many of the same reasons as the RIAA. But I still have to pay for my gas.
And don't even think about singing HAPPY BIRTHDAY at some party. That is a COPYRIGHTED song
Sure, Warner Bros. has a copyright certificate for "Happy Birthday to You", but is the copyright valid?
Will I retire or break 10K?
independent performance ... may very well infringe on the copyright on the *music*
Heck, independent songwriting infringes the copyright in the music. Given this evidence, which includes this precedent, how is it possible to write a song that meets copyright law's definition of originality?
Will I retire or break 10K?
If you're worried that one or other of the other Hollywood fronts is going to scoop you, here's a neat little app that may help you rest a little easier.
From 'Method' in the UK, it's called PeerGuardian and you can get it from here. And if that doesn't work, try here.
So the Washington Post is suing music file traders???
No, but the people who own the copyrights on recordings of Sousa marches such as "Washington Post March" are suing file traders. (The copyright in the song itself has expired, but any recording thereof is a derivative work and eligible for a 95-year copyright made perpetual by repeated term extensions.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Title 17, chp. 10, sub.D, sec.1008?
I'll quote it here:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings
translation = if it's noncommercial use, you CAN share. I think Congress's intent is pretty damn clear (now that's scary).
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Take a look at the RIAA beating stuff at
slyck's guide!
What's the difference?
The RIAA started buying politicians in the early 1990s to pass the Audio Home Recording Act to make digital downloading illegal.
Does this mean there's a moral difference?
Of course not. The rational response to this would have been to extend mandatory licensing and "fair use" for individuals of the sort that made the RIAA labels into a mulitbillion dollar business into the digital/Internet domain.
Downloading is still illegal. But does the fact that the RIAA can bribe politicians make it wrong?
When the public disagrees with a bad law and the politicians are listening to their 0wN3rz, not the public, the law gets no respect and gets broken at every possible opportunity. This reduces respect for politicians and law in general, which in the current political climate, is probably healthy.
So the RIAA at last is going after end users en masse.
As parents see their kids getting sued and going to jail for doing with a computer what they used to do with a cassette recorder and analog tapes, this will erode public support for RIAA 0wn3d politicians.
As the RIAA attacks more and more of the people who truly love music, people are going to stop buying CDs as a political act.
We all knew that sooner or later, the RIAA would piss off enough people with their tactics so that we'd see successful organized boycotts of major record labels. A lot of us have been waiting for the major labels to go down.
Looks like the RIAA got tired of waiting. Will suing a few hundred people all over the country do it? Who knows? But enough of this will make people start pushing back.
It appears the RIAA is going to keep on pushing until the public stomps them.
Let the games begin.
Tech Public Policy stuff
they probably won't be checking LANs for a while yet, stock up while you still can!
In emule, the ipfilter (similar to an uip filter in a fw) will help avoid those issues. :)
As indicated in Slyck p2p developers are working on this issue.
The new version of emule has some early work on "only allowing talk to secure client" or something of that effect.
There is a really active community out there looking for technical solutions.
This is new war.
This is amazing all the dev work that went into P2P clients the last couple of years because of the RIAA tactics.
First, decentralizing (Kazaa) then hashing, and now well.. we'll see
Clean-Hands Doctrine only applies when conduct in question is related to the suit that is being brought. In this case, the RIAA's shenanigans about fixing CD prices are wholly unrelated to the separate claim over lost profits due to file swapping. So while what the RIAA did previously is reprehensible, because it does not stem from the same transaction or occurance, they can still bring the suit.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
I personally am not a great cd purchaser, not because i download mp3's from the internet - to be honest i havent done so in approximately 7-8 years. The reason being that IMO most of the material that is now being published is crap. If you go to the music store it is just one "skanky" blond haired bimbo after another. So to the RIAA - if you shut down P2P, i still wont buy your music, deliver "decent" music by real artists! not clones dreamt up by your marketing departments. One way i would consider purchasing music though is on a subscription basis eg pay so much per month and it entitles you to so many "downloads" or what would be really cool would be to be able to go to a record store - bring your flash ram stick and select your songs, save them straight on your flash ram - walk out the door plug it into your mp3 player and off you go. Anyway nuff said
..yet here I am blazin' up a fat swisha.
Anyone who tells you they own your ideas is trying to steal your soul. And everything you see, hear, or feel is actually just YOUR IDEA.
p2p thats anonymous and encrypted check out
Earthstation 5.
See their
press release.
We seem to be getting a little off-topic here. As I said before, we can debate the ethics of filesharing until the cows come home. But it's not going to stop. So what's going to happen? Let's talk about that for a moment.
Worst-case scenario 1: The RIAA is suing the users with large file numbers. This is not out of any arbitrary distinction they make between givers and takers, but rather the low-hanging fruit. Give it time--maybe a few weeks--and the lawsuits will be extended, Agent Smith-like, to everybody.
WCS 2: Kazaa, Imesh, and major filesharing programs go down or are emptied of useful content. What happens? The posters who suggested that users will migrate to other forms of trading were right on. Look for an increase in encrypted and anonymous filesharing programs, or in alternative systems such as Mirc or Irc.
WCS 3: The RIAA becomes so efficient at destroying Zion--whoops, filesharing on the internet, that it disappears. What happens? Users might be able to return to non-internet transmission clubs, such as bulletin boards or other systems that conceivably don't involve ISPs.
WCS 4: The RIAA shuts all internet and telephone filesharing options down. What happens? People will trade mp3 CDs with their friends, and underground clubs will spring up. Copy-protected CDs will be transferred in analog. If new computers are built that won't do this--there's a mountain of used computers on the market that will last traders decades.
In short, again, I leave the question of whether filetrading is right or wrong to the theologians and lawyers (never thought I'd put them in the same sentence). The only truly useful tool the record companies had--convincing us that it's bad--won't work well from an industry that pricefixed CDs and sponsored bills to create hardware-destroying viruses. It's going to continue, and change is coming to the record companies whether they embrace it or fight it like dinosaurs sinking into the tarpits. So far, I'm betting on the tarpits.
Ken:> http://keneckert.byus.net/wabbit ---- free mp3s of Ken's band
When will they realize they are not going to ever win, and just find another way to make money. It's like that beast whose head gets cut off (Napster) and then more grow in its place (Kazaa, Morpheus, etc.), then when trying to kill those three didn't work, they go after the cells that make up that beast. They are never going to win.
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
But, Napster was a business and Napster themselves connected the users based on information maintained at the server. There is NO commercial business involved in the distribution of these songs.
Isn't there a business behind KaZaA that runs the servers that tell clients where the supernodes are? Otherwise, how can a client join the network? Random IP scan? Not in IPv6.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Oh, how you LOVE to pick on healthy young rich pretty white girls with millions of fans! Envy is such an ugly thing.
HAHAHAHA, i swear to god, it's like some ppl just don'thave anything better to do. ppl like you are more annoying than an uptight english teacher with a stick up their ass. get a life, i am in the process of getting one myself. mod +2 TRUTH +1 FUNNY Slashdot, yer ma hero
Here's why: They will simply scan the networks, list users, and count the # of files they have, along with a listing of those files that they will use in their law suit.
Ahem.
This is akin to me typing up an imaginary list of expensive and illegally pirated Software, then saying you have this on your hard drive. Then suing you.
Now, their Ivy-law-school-educated lawyers will be able to argue their way around that in some fashion, if not the RIAA will just bribe the judges. But-- here's the kicker.
How are they going to PROVE that the filenames actually correspond to a song? I can easily write a utility that generates random blank files ranging in sizes from 3-8 megabytes in size and giving them randomly spoofed names corresponding to current hits, then serving these empty files on Kazaa. Am I guilty of Copyright Infringement? Nope. No way in hell.
The RIAA is fucked. If anybody uses this defense, they are S-C-R-E-W-E-D. So, I say somebody publicise this, and let everyone win their case against the RIAA. Because we all know it's a massive FUD campaign-- scare everyone into settling instead of going to court, in which they'll never win.
If only the masses were informed.
Hilary Rosen and Me
or
Bowling for Cartels
I can hear his ironicaly booed Academy speech already... "Shame on you music thieves and samplers! Shame on you consumers! Shame on you America for thinking that the end of radio station diversity, the exposure of price fixing schemes, the innovations of well intentioned computer programers, the closed door campaign contribution lobbist politics, the antiquated concepts of "fair use" and culture minded ideals of a public domain, the post 9/11 isolationism and protectionism, the misinterpreted doctrines of privacy, competition marketplace economics, and a culture more and more dominated by greed of every kind, shame on you for thinking these things gave you the right to listen to mass marketed music! Shame on you!"
The recording industry has never been intersted in musical diversity but with profit. The "golden years" of radio were only golden because no one knew how easy it was to homogenize markets. Take a look at the horrible tactics other industries use to target teenagers.
(Check the Frontline program Merchants of Coolfor a fantastic look behind the increasing generational marketeering - sorry, I'm not sure if I made the link work)
I would suggest that the recording industry / radio conglomerates are by far the best at this.
I know that as I grow older, it seems clear that that I am less and less a part of a targeted demographic for the recording industry. Why should they bother when their catelogs are already full of music that I still like and is still produced on relatively volitile media? Marketing (and not just for the recording industry) is a moveable feast; they go where the disposable income is.
That means the incomes and allowances of those most likely to spend it. While I might have grown cynical and hesitant to spend $20 on a CD that may or may not be crap, my teenagers have not.
What the recording industry is really doing here is a little cultural engineering. They don't want millions of technologically minded teens downloading music for free instead of paying for it. It seems very logical to assume that a majority of any legal cases arising from this new tactic will be levied at the unsuspecting parents of teens who spent their allowance on cool anime mouse pads instead of CD's. The lesson being reinforced here is of course for those middle class mom's and dad's to raise law abiding citizens.
The future of the RIAA and the music industry is not as rocky as many would like or love to believe. They DO know what they are doing. They don't need the $12,000 life savings of college kids who shared a few thousand files. What they do need is quite simple. The recording industry needs the perpetualy new members of a marketing demographic to see and believe that the music which marks their generation was chosen by that generation, not marketers. Teens who have free access to thousands of artists and millions of songs or just a little musical maturity are not buying into the Brittney Spears / Justin Timberlake marketing. The assimilation and homogenization is incomplete.
Thus the timely rise of conglomerates in radio, with the earnest support of the recording industry. The fight against P2P is about limiting choice. Please remember that while the RIAA members represent about 90% of all recorded music in this country, that other 10% is nonetheless very valuable. And menwhile, decreasing the number of alternatives in that 90% increases profit just as well.
What needs to happen is that all those adults who use file sharing to pinch the occassional Flock of Seagulls' or Bryan Adams' song, need to explain to our children and one another how we have all been duped by the recording industry into paying for something we all have the power to CREATE for free.
Most importantly we need to supp
Anyone know of an IP scrubber that can alleviate this problem... preferably one that plays well with linux? Obviously one housed outside the US or other countries in the US's legal death grip....
they can go after the p2p programs but they can't go after the big picture. people can buy cds then burn them, and then them to other people. They also can use ftps or other personal clients. Riaa tried once to go after attbi and they failed. so people can ftp or irc anyone with file shares, rename them zip them do whatever. its another stupid move by riaa who just wants to end mp3s, which they will never be able to do. im suprised they don't go after mp3 players. that would be so funny.
My point is that there is no financial gain between one user sharing with another.
Except copyright law defines "financial gain" to include "receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works" (17 USC 101).
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm not here to debate whether falesharing in any capacity is wrong or right, but I do think the record industry is acting very foolishly. By targeting individuals, won't they be bringing down the wrath of the communities to which those individuals belong? It seems to me that if the boycotts (which I hope the American public has enough of a spine to produce) don't kill them, the hacker attacks will. It only seems logical that these companies will be prime targets for those who hates corporate America, specifically any who share files. You reap what you sow, and the record industry sure as hell isn't sowing corn.
Here are some simple instructions to avoid the RIAA and U.S. copyright laws in general: 1.) Pack up your stuff. Everything you own, pack it up. You'll be going for a trip. 2.) Sell your car. It's not like you'll need it here anyway... 3.) Go to the airport, check in your bags and whatnot. 4.) Move to Switzerland.
Someone needs to distinguish between items that can be owned by a few people (cars, radios...) and essentially infinitely reproduceible goods with a small production dollar to consumer ratio (like MP3s). Now, it seems, the word stealing doesn't have the same meaning.
Notwithstanding the artists that don't mind if I have their songs for free (RAGE comes to mind), I don't think downloading music is immoral. I trade music, I may be breaking the law, and I may be stealing, but if I'm doing something immoral then it is only immoral insofar as the artist doesn't want me to have their song (which is tantamount to the immoral itself).
Maybe the consumers are saying that it's not going to work that way anymore. Maybe you can become rich, but not filthy rich as an artist. We want someone make music for music's sake anyways. Maybe the consumer is saying that they're not going to let millions of beautiful, quality of life enhancing songs out there be taken away from them simply because they can't afford them. Now the artist must give their music away, and they get showered with riches if it's good music (303Infinity is almost to a million dollars now via MP3.com).
After all I'm sure someone can conceive of an economic system whereby my downloading an MP3 would not constitute stealing and definitely not immorality.
I remember when there was a time when patrons used to completely support the artist. I miss the Renaissance.
The RIAA's only flaw in this is they believe they rule the world.
If they were unsuccessful in ruling out spammers, which, EVERYBODY hates... what chance do thay have for illegal music, which many love.
You're still not going to stop that old 'move it offshore' problem.
Glad I don't live in the land of the free
and besides that those artists expect to make a profit from their songs. Why not just go to a different artist or record off of the radio?
...and watch as they figure out fun and more creative ways to continue doing what they're doing without getting caught. I can see it now. The new users developed mod for Kazaa - the MASK, or perhaps the SPOOF. Just install this into your Kazaa directory and and change the line in your RIAA can kiss may ass file to "bite me".
Then reboot your computer (unless your running Linux, then type "ldconfig" in the nearest console).
Seriously, this will only garner more hate and angst toward the RIAA, and we all know the bottom line. The RIAA is hopelessly outclassed.
1. Go to Russia. 2. Set up subscription based anonymous proxy server. 3. $$$
Lately It has gotten so that even if youdo buy the CD there is only one or two songs that you will listen to. Are two songs worth $20.00? $10.00? ,But I am NOT willing to pay for the filler trash.
I am willing to buy songs that I like
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
How is open source different? Also in times past artists had patrons that supported them.
Well once they get the shit music off p2p it'll give indy artist more exposure. By the way RIAA and all the labels I wont buy another new cd ever unless it comes straight from the artist and they the full amount from the cd. What about a p2p engine for Indy music only with search by genre etc... Get indy artists to download a p2p software and share their music. Eventually it youd get a huge db of tracks and fresh music.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Personally I think this will backfire on the RIAA. I will not buy any more records soon. The Music industry already exploited already enough people. There are many tools which will hide your IP address preventing it to show up when using a filesharing program.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030425
I dunno, a guy came to my house, gave me a computer and said plug into your broadband.
Being a nice guy I didn't ask questions and did so, fscked if I know what it does....
If the People fears the Government - it is tyranny.
If the Government fears the People - it is liberty.
Ppl left Napster and went elsewhere, ppl are about to .
, .
.
.
.
.
.
.
, .
.
... Good luck .
.
leave kazaa and go elsewhere
DRM won't let you play your CD in ur PC?
You can always buy a MP3 player/recorder with line in
and jack it into your boom box etc
The next flavor of the week for the RIAA will be either
I-mesh, WinMX, etc, etc, etc ad infinitium
What will be the end result ?????
An encrypted network, and or ppl going 0ld sk0ol
on them and using SSH2 dump sites
VPN's also come to mind
PGP mailing lists with atachments come to mind,
like subscribing to a certain "artist"
and when something new comes out the holder
of that mailer-list broadcasts/multi-cast mails it
I am sure there are MUCH brighter ppl than me already
making plans to make it happen as well
All encrypted too
As for the RIAA, necessity is the mother of invention
and out of it will spring stealthier ways to trade
For the unfortunates that get fried, I pity them
I swear its like trying to prosecute ppl for FAXing pages
out of a book to friends
I am not saying copying is right, I am just saying they got
one hell of a battle to beat it , I just don't see it
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
why do i engage in p2p? not necessarily cos i'm interested in the specific mp3 etc, instead because i can . when a law is brought into disrepute, such as copyright statutes here, i believe that the only sensible course of action is to fight to change the status quo - to change the law - rather than to attempt blindly to enforce the disreputable and unenforceable. and i'm not even a marxist.
and don't you forget
All the griping aside, isn't this preferable? When they went after sharing services, the counter-argument was that these services had legitimate use and should not be shut down on account of providing means for illegal activity. I agree with that. Here, they are going after specific individuals they know (and will try to prove in court) are sharing THEIR (the music industry's) copyrighted materials.
No one has argued in this thread that those who share copyrighted files are not guilty of that infringement. What's the issue then?
Granted, I understand that "we don't like the RIAA" and that "information wants to be free" and all such - but in the end of the day, we are arguing that a party with a significant investment in its copyrighted property is "bad" for suing to protect their rights, and I've yet to see a coherent, non-emotional argument that'd convince me this so so.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
How much protection will I have if I use a firewall, or a router with multiple users connected? My ISP assigns 1 address, but there are several users.
If I have a home wireless network, can I claim that it was a drive-by download?
Are they going to sue parents if a 13 year old has a fine collection of pop crap?
Just like piracy is something that goes hand in hand with owning IP. I don't understand why people are up in arms about getting sued, you do the crime, you do the time. The argument about "there isnt any good music worth buying" is silly too... Just don't listen to it or share it period. I've had great animosity toward major record labels since my teenage years. I just plain avoid the crappy top 40 music that theyre suing over and IMHO FM radio is wasteland unless you're on NPR or your local college station. A good way to find out about music is to check websites like www.groovetech.com or Amazon that let you preview music. Either way... if you're gonna play the pirate game you better be prepared to suffer the consequences. Maybe music/software pirates should blame themselves for not being sneaky enough.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
Well, If the RIAA/MPAA/whoever are really adamant about proving the file sharing is causing them to lose money and people are upset with the sky-rocketing costs being charged for those products, why not pick a single day/week/some-other-unit-of-time where as many people as possible stage a protest of some sort by not purchasing any of those products in question AND not downloading/uploading any of those files.
Then, when the associations say they are losing money due to sharing, it can be shown that at the moment of the protest, those associations did not generate any income and sharing was not the cause. Maybe by showing a significant change in demand for any product, people will realize that while statistics can be distorted, solid facts can show otherwise.
Of course, this all depends upon being able to prove how much money/income was not given to the RIAA/MPAA during the time period in question.
I'm not a nerd. I'm a geek. Nerds make more money.
...is a P2P client that has one directory for downloads and another for uploads. Everyone take your favorite freeware audio editor & create MP3s of your dog barking, you cutting the grass, etc & name them similar to current popular songs. Place said creations in your upload directory & invite the RIAA to take a peek.
When they start suing people for having MP3s that aren't actually those that they appear, the courts will lose patience with them, and the RIAA will lose money to court costs, lawyer fees and settlements brought against them by those they've sued.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Wrong, I do have the right, as long as the copyright holder says I can. It is a small nit to pick, but it needs to be stated.
There is plenty of music out there that the copyright owners WANT you to download and listen to. Let's not forget that. The RIAA wants you to believe that *ALL* downloading of music is illegal, it is most absolutely not. I downloaded a ton of songs taped from live shows of the band Clutch. Illegal? Hell no, it was from their site. pro-rock.com
I agree with you, the RIAA has the right to go after the copyright violaters. I just hope they do it correctly, and don't F it up. And "copyright violation" is not the same as "stealing", they are two very distinctly different things.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That's stupid, I already know what I will show to them when they arrive at my house: just put one of my t-shirts or cap just for the time. http://www.cafeshops.com/radtke
The recording industry is floundering, partially because they are upset because they didn't invent the online music services that are now in place, and partially because they're seeing a portion of their otherwise HUGE profits being given away. Sure, there are people out there who hoarde hundreds and thousands of MP3 music files, and first-run movie in MPG format, but I think you'll find that many of the "file traders" out there are like me - Grab the occasional song, or if I have a few hours to kill in front of my computer, perhaps grab a movie (Honestly, I think I've downloaded 3 movies in my whole life). Arrest me. Then question me, ask me how many of those MP3 files I've downloaded have lead me to go out and buy the artist's CD. Ask me if I went to the movies to see the film I downloaded so I could watch it "on the big screen". Better yet, come to my house, take a look at my collection of hundreds of CD's, VHS and DVD movies, all legitimately purchased from retail stores.
The MPAA and the RIAA don't want to take it to this level. Doing so would make them realize that most "file traders" are in fact just as law-abiding as they are, and probably more so. If a recording artist sold their CD's online, I'd buy the songs that I like directly from them, and cut out the recording industry gluttons completely.
The RIAA needs to learn from the movie industry. Any really popular film that's on DVD can be found on Kazza, yet DVD sales are huge. The reason is DVD's contain tons of extras that can't be easily pirated and shared along with the movie.
Even though I downloaded "Weird Al"'s new album "Poodle Hat" even before the release date, I still purchased it. One reason is because the whole CD is great, not just the two singles. However the big reason is it's an Enhanced CD so like a good DVD it has tons of bonus features when you put it in the PC. There's a funny video, a sing-a-long mode for every song and several alternate versions of various songs on the CD.
One reason sales are down is because prices have skyrocketed. Back to the $15-$18 bucks they cost in the late-80s and early 90s. For awhile They where selling most CDs at major media outlets for around $11.99. The CDs themselves cost pennies to produce and the cheaper the price, the more they would sell and ergo the more money they would make. Instead of a 17.99 CD they could sell a $8.99, sell three times as many CD and make 1/3 more profits. Not to mention more sales means more prestige as a good CD goes triple platinum. It's a lesson the videogame industry needs to learn as well.
One other thing... There is a distinct possibility that piracy of movies, music and games actually boost sales since the more popular something becomes the greater the word of mouth there is. Let's say "Joe Blow Big Toe" downloads all the tracks from the new CD by "Jam Master Cheese Whiz" and really digs it, so he tells 20 people how great it is. Out of those 20 people, say 10 go and buy it because they don't know how or don't wish to download MP3s. Then those 20 people tell 20 people each and half of them buy it. So on and so forth.
The same goes for films and videogames. The more people playing or watching it, the greater the word of mouth and great word of mouth always boosts sales. If piracy is stopped altogether then sales of music, movies and games could actually decrease drastically since people who pirate are usually short on cash, while people with a strong cash flow will definitely buy any game worth buying and at least the ones who didn't pay are telling friends who will how great the game is (if it is.)
Bottom line, if it becomes popular, it will sell and the more people praising a product the better it will sell.
Just my $0.02
"The human mind's ability to rationalize its own shortcomings into virtues is unlimited." - Robert A. Heinlein
Easy enough- install a backdoor program like BO2K on your own computer. (Password it so no one else can access it.) Then claim you didn't share those files, it must have been whoever broke into your computer.
RIAA doesn't beleive you? TOO FUCKING BAD. Unless they can prove it was you, they don't have a case.
...Supply or demand?
THE RIAA HAS JUST ATTEMPTED TO COMMIT SUICIDE :)
We knew it was comming, we have been waiting for this, let's hope they
don't chicken out or be stupid and drag the razor blade across the wrist
instead of up and downwise in paralel to the forarm.
If they want to take this drastic action, lets let them! We will be thier
Kevorkian!
YES, use the Home Recording Act as a defense if they come after you!
(The very reason FOR the Home Recording Act is to keep this kind of
oligopolistic bully tactic from taking place!) BY ALL MEANS, if YOU are
a target of the RIAA lawsuits, DO NOT settle! Let it go to the Supreme
Court. Keep appealing! Get better and better lawyers! WE WILL BACK
YOU as best we can! I think Jessie has already gained back
enough from supporters to pay his fine. (I am so tempted to log on and
share everything I can find with the HOPE that RIAA sues me so that I
myself can battle them in court, and more importantly, in the court of
public opinion!)
xaostica said above:
"Well guess what- you will never know the ectasy I feel when I look on a
P2P network and see one of my own songs on other people's computers."
I agree %100. I hope they try to sue me over MY music that I share using
p2p. Just like with the Usher issue, they will be embarrassed if they do.
Downloading or sharing music is NOT THEFT! Making $$$ against the
copyright holders wishes by using that holder's copyright IS THEFT!
It is that simple. The RIAA members are more guilty of this than the
general public. Just look at history! The RIAA claims to be against piracy,
and yes, they do have/should have the right to cause the bust of the guy
selling bootleg cd's on the street corner. But what the hell gave them the
right to spy on the p2p user and bust them? I will tell you... OUR OWN
INATTENTION to govenment. The reps in our own govenments are in the
industry pockets. We need to change this or we will have nothing to fear
unless we have done "something wrong" just as the nazi's said.
When I buy a CD/album/tape (VHS/DVD/etc. for that matter) I am NOT
buying the SONG! The SONG is FREE! I am buying the blank item and
packaging and most importantly the CONVIENIENCE of accsessing the
"content" of the CD or whatever. ALSO, I am rewarding the creator of
the intellectual "content." I already have sampled/heard the SONG and
it is already mine. If Fred gives Barney an apple, then Barney has the
apple, and Fred no longer does. If Fred TELLS Barney about an orange,
they now BOTH know about the orange. Now change the verbs to include
words like "sells" and "takes/steals" and think about it.
We do NOT buy the SONGS, we buy the physical media and the
service that put the SONG on that media. Any artist who thinks otherwise
is being greedy or misunderstands what is happening. A song is an
idea. Ideas are free unless you don't voice that idea and never share it.
If there is such a thing as intellectual "property" then I must let it be known
that I own the patent to oxegen. (I expect your check in the mail any day
now!)
All this silly crap should have ended a long time ago, but it is just getting
started. The public is waking up. Look at the outcry and response to the
FCC's misguided ruling on June 2nd and how the Senate heard our
outcry! (But we can't stop now! Congress is next! Hit em hard with your
e-mails/calls/snailmails!)
The internet is the ONLY media method we have left. TV, Radio, etc. were
all SUPPOSED to be in the public domain, but ask yourself who really
owns those pipelines of communication in practice. (Yep, the oligopolated
corporate conglomerates!) We MUST NOT let the internet be stolen from
us to. We MUST fight for the final hope of human idea exchange. DO NOT
let the bad guys turn the internet into the next TV or radio!
Lawrence Lessig and Creative Commons in general have
60GB hard drive ~ $60
USB 2.0 case ~ $50
For $110, you get a massive drive that you can ship to your friends full of your MP3s. Then, they can erase the drive, copy their library to it and mail it back to you. Repeat ad infinintum. Three such mailings to three good friends during the course of a year nets you 180GB.
Building an MP3 library 60GB at a time, untraceable by anything short of an open-package Post Office inspection (highly unlikely).
Try to stop me, RIAA. You've destroyed your relationship with this one-time customer. I look at my 1000 CDs and 500+ LPs in *disgust*.
...we're looking primarily in your direction.
Will the RIAA pursue people who share songs put out by labels not in their organisation? I have a large collection of Mp3s, but most of them are from labels like Metropolis, Wax Trax, Zoth Ommog, etc that are definitely not in the RIAA. [As a side note, most of the albums in my CD collection were only bought because I could sample the Mp3s first]. So are they pursuing the grand, glorious ideal of saving all the artists from the big bad filesharers, regardless of whether those artists are signed to their labels or not, or are they just concerned about their own profit?
Rhetorical question, I know.
Also, on a rather unrelated note, there will always be a gap between free music and something like the system Apple has going right now, even if the songs are very cheap. There are lots of people who just want to sit there and click away to get their music, without going through all the credit card and PayPal stuff--as well as a lot of teenagers who don't have credit cards and can't buy stuff online without dragging their parents into the room. By the time I was fourteen I had hundreds of Mp3s on my HD--imagine if I'd had to yell for my mom every time I wanted a new one.
The RIAAs member companies have championed an unsustainable business model that overcharges for music product, and skims the profits for the large conglomerates that control the music industry. The Internet and new technologies have made their business model obsolete, but the RIAA refuses to adapt, instead continuing to raise the price of CDs, and to limit the rights of consumers. Now the RIAA has declared war on their customers. I refuse to kowtow to the RIAA and its member companies. To show my contempt for your actions, I refuse to buy music from any of your member companies until August First. I'm voting in the only way that will affect you, with my dollars. I will not even step foot in the music department of my local retailers.
The root of the entire problem is RIAA is clinging to an old business model. I love music and I obtain it though the most convenient means to me; 15 years ago if I wanted to hear/get music I did 2 things listen to the radio and bought CDs because those were the ways you got good quality music. Then Clear Channel and the other radio conglomerates killed FM radio just when MP3 sprung up, then the convenient way to get good quality music was MP3s and just like everyone else, I downloaded a mountain of them. More recently, I went out and bought an XM radio now I donâ(TM)t even bother downloading MP3s anymore. All the good music is right there complied categorized and free of junk I no longer have to spend tons of time downloading, renaming, testing, making compilations, burning and keeping the collection up to date anymore someone else is selling me that service and the music for a month for $10. Seems like XM and other music steaming services have a good model I think the RIAA should embrace those services, advertise, even offer rebates if you buy hardware, its cheaper then the legal battle. Better yet a better model could be to offered access to an entire database of music and you pick what you want when you want it for a monthly fee it beats tacking the time to get MP3s together. If the RIAA gets its self together, they could solve many problems by changing their business model.
The RIAA is overlooking the obvious here. Music can still be traded, "pirated" or whatever WITHOUT the use of p2p nets. Are they going to make tape recorders illegal? After all, you can record a song off the radio and listen to it, or (OH NO) copy it for a friend. Same goes for VCRs and copying movies. If you wanted to, you could still create a digital version from a tape or CD and send it to your buddy via email. Those greedy bastards are just try to milk a dying cow here. They have no respect for the intergrity of the art itself and only care about the almighty dollar. When a song is played, it does not belong to just the artist or record company. It belongs now to everyone that hears it. Before we know it, they'll be suing people for humming or whistling copyrighted tunes at work!
Let's not let the RIAA continue to bully the little guy in their brutish pursuit of the almighty dollar - send them a message by orgainizing a week where no one buys music.
I don't see the RIAA offering to replace my old scratched records or CD's for free, so why can't I download the music I already own?
Force them to evolve!
Granted, the people who invented the concept of civil disobedience used "arrest me" tactics. At the time, the arrests were part of the strategy, as there was no other way to get the necessary publicity. One of the key concepts is that massive civil disobedience can overwhelm the enforcement process that an individual may be subjected to. Consider your "laptops at the courthouse" example. If 2 million people show up at the courthouse with their laptops, you can rest assured that a very low percentage will be arrested.
Quiet downloading is not civil disobedience in the classic sense of the word, however the quiet-but-measurable presence of millions of people accomplishes very much the same thing. This is how to get 2 million people involved without having to figure out how to keep the batteries charged. The basic concept, "They can't possibly arrest all of us", is part of what makes civil disobedience work.
"Open" civil disobedience can be used to draw attention to the enforcement mechanism, whereas "quiet" civil disobedience can draw attention to the "inevitable reality" of normal behavior. Nobody ever said it had to be easy for the enforcers to arrest the protesters.
For the record, I think wide-open P2P is abusive to the rights of the copyright holders -- but the rights of consumers have been abused just as much. Congress has become to the Internet what France is to the UN -- those annoying people who tell us what to do but are unable to impose their will on the unwilling.
26 June 2003 Does the RIAA intend to shut down CD lending at the library too (the Patriot Act probably already allows them to obtain a list of CDs I borrowed). Willowbrook Systems Baltimore
Boycott-RIAA.com
I heard a spokesman claiming that without these companies, we wouldn't have music. As an amateur musician, I find that notion deeply offensive. The RIAA is not the origin of music, rather, it is the origin of overpriced plastic discs. I think it's time to slash and burn. Bring the entire RIAA crashing down, and let the indy labels take over.
Don't think I could possibly say anything relevant that hasn't already been said. I just wanted the 2001st post!
the public information the RIAA is using is only available via the p2p networks themselves right? so what if the developers of the p2p neteworks wrote a clause into the licensing agreement forbidding the use of such information gathering under penalty of (ideally death but) severe monetary damages? could kazaa, grokster, etc. write in such a clause? then the RIAA's use of such information would also fall prey to legal attack.
it would als be neat if the information collected somehow violated rights as the RIAA is doing the collectiing rather than a law enforcement agency? maybe some conflict of interest provision (doubtful) or some due process provision?
I was wondering, do music stores (like HMV) buy CDs in bulk? That is, do they buy, say, 1000 Madonna CDs from the label first and then sell them? If that's the case, I don't understand RIAA's comments comparing downloading mp3s to stealing a CD from a music store. The stolen CD doesn't affect the label as HMV (for example) has already paid for it. am i right?
As science struggles on to try to explain.
Oxytoxins flowing ever in to my brain.
Can we start a thread on the current status of anonymous p2p technology? Whats being done in this area? What's the next tool, or set of tools one will be using?
I mean we dont own our music or programs. Now there is legal battle over us stealing tv shows if we skip ads. Are they going to take our remotes away and force us to watch an ad for every minute of tv we see? I can see it now you watched that first scence of SG-1 so you must watch the adds or you stole it.
Yes, of course I download a number of files that I do not own, but my question is this: If I own a CD, and that CD is destroyed/damaged, do I not have the right to retain a backup copy of the material, and burn another copy? Why does it matter where this material is located - On my PC, on someone else's PC, or hand-written binary code? If a digital copy is identical to the original, then how can you say that a backup stored on someone else's system is any different than a backup on my system? If the RIAA doesn't want me to make copies of my CDs, then perhaps they wouldn't mind replacing all of my original scratched CDs that will no longer play. What is illegal about using P2P and other storage as a repository for material I already own? Where is the licensing agreement for the CD I bought (actully sorry I brought that up - don't want to give them any stupid ideas). As another example, I recently helped a friend compile some songs from CDs he owns to a single disk. He calls me to say "song #3 is wrong, please substitute it with 'blah'". Instead of driving across town to get his original CD, rip the needed song, and add it to the compilation, I simply jump on Kazaa and d/l a copy of the original tune from the original album. Gee, that sure makes me a criminal for using digital transportation instead of physical. The RIAA is making a huge blunder here. This will backfire terribly on them and any of the so-called labels and artists that support them.
a software idea to counter the RIAA:
Benevolent Peer-to-Peer Trojan (BPPT)
Problem: File sharing networks depend on users who choose to share their files with other users. For the past several years the RIAA has been monitoring peer to peer networks and they can track individual users based on their IP address. The courts recently ruled that ISPs must disclose the identity of users suspected of illegal filesharing, and the RIAA has announced that it will begin suing hundreds of individuals. These suits will scare off most casual file sharers and those that remain will be even more exposed to RIAA action. Sharing will drop dramatically leading to much less available material and much slower download times. Many users will start small, encrypted networks with friends using programs like WASTE, but the selection will be limited to friends' record collections. Also, because these programs require trading private keys, they may be too complicated for most users. The RIAA will have won its battle against convenient, Kazaa-style search and download.
The way out: The RIAA's ability to bring lawsuits depends on proving that users knowingly made copyrighted material publicly available. Encryption like WASTE prevents the RIAA from proving that users made files available, but alternatively, software could be created that prevents them from proving that users knowingly made files available. This strategy has several advantages and could preserve and even enhance a widespread sharing community.
The Benevolent Peer-to-Peer Trojan: If a filesharing client existed that could potentially be running without the computer owner's knowledge it would be nearly impossible for the RIAA to prove in individual cases that the user intended to share files. This benevolent peer-to-peer trojan (BPPT) would need to run invisibly, and have the ability to spread itself to other computers. While the majority of users would intentionally install the software, the possibility that the software had installed itself and begun sharing files without the computer owner's knowledge would make cases much harder to prosecute. By giving every file sharer a plausible excuse, the BPPT safeguards the sharing community.
Key BPPT Features:
*Runs invisibly
*Can spread itself to other computers via email or security flaws
*Automatically finds and shares all media files on local disks
*Functions like a normal peer-to-peer file sharing program
*Open source (verifiably non-malicious)
The BPPT program is essentially a Gnutella client wrapped in the "stealth" code used by popular trojans. When the program is installed, either intentionally or through self-spreading, it searches for media files, connects to the Gnutella network whenever the computer is connected to the Internet, and makes all media files available to the network. To remain undetected it would scale its activity according to available bandwidth and system resources. This scaling feature is also desirable for any peer-to-peer sharing client. A file sharing client that can be on all the time without you noticing is the file sharing client you want to have on all the time.
An intentional user would download the software and install it on their computer. The interface for searching and downloading, normally invisible, could be triggered by a particular key stroke or could come as a separate application.
Automatic sharing of all media files would lead to increased sharing. Moreover, it would increase the number of users sharing large numbers of files, so generous sharers would be less exposed to RIAA legal action.
The software does not need a very robust ability to spread itself. It would be sufficient to use simple well-documented exploits because the program's value as an alibi depends on its potential to spread not the extent of self-spreading. Having even a small percentage of users who received the software unintentionally should provide legal cover for all intentional users because sharing activity