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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.
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'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!
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.
> 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.
Uh, there would be nothing _ILLEGAL_ to download. There is plenty of material that would still be legal to transfer over P2P networks.
If you want to change the situation, you'll have to convince industry that it's in the wrong. Until then, it's still illegal. "Fair Use" hardly extends to letting hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people on the Internet that you don't know download copyrighted material from your machine.
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.
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.
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.
Price fixing is also illegal.
So are cartels.
Welcome to the real world where people break the law, and only the poor or unlucky deal with the consequences.
Life is too short to proofread.
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?
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 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.
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.
Stupid of them? No, not stupid.
Duh! Think about it. Isn't that the point? To kill P2P networks? They're not looking for revenue from lawsuits, all they want is to stop the file sharing. Make it so no one shares, the problem is solved.
It isn't a revenue thing, and it never was. This is a power thing. Only the RIAA will determine what music gets to be popular and what does not. Not the listeners. HEIL, ROSEN! *salutes*
My journal has hot
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.
On a basic moral issue, it really is up to the artists whether their works should be redistributed for free in an environment where that promise of control over their works has been made (and copyright laws constitute that promise.) Most record labels have the ability to provide free downloads themselves should they ever believe that such marketing would help sales. Many artists do provide free downloads of some, most, or all of their catalogs at their own websites.
I think the death of P2P sharing is not, even if its defenders are right about a supposedly positive effect it has on the medium, necessarily going to kill the labels or harm the artists. There are alternatives, but they put the question of what to distribute, how, why, and for how much, in the hands of the artists and publishers, not the "fans".
(Now watch me get modded down faster than it takes to download "Video killed the radio star" from Gnutella)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
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
As if that somehow makes stealing copyrighted music OK? Stop redirecting the argument.
Is stealing from the mafia ok? It's a legitimate moral question.
Maybe it would be easier for you if the world was black-and-white, but that's not the case.
Life is too short to proofread.
Newsflash: The only people calling it stealing are the RIAA, US copyright law _does_NOT_ refer to copyright infringement as stealing. Stop trying to make it something it's not.
As much as I hate to admit it, I think the RIAA is doing the right thing. Going after the people violating copyright instead of trying to pass laws the restrict reverse engineering and cracking copy protection is what they should have done in the FIRST PLACE!
In fact, this is the way it's always been; if someone found someone else violating their copyright, they'd sue them. All this DMCA crap has only served to annoy legitimate users. I'm glad to finally see them suing the real offenders instead of squashing fair use.
Way to go RIAA. Your products still suck and you still use strongarm tactics but you're finally starting to do the right thing.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Like hell it is.
Distributing copyrighted content is illegal, you are guilty of copyright infringement in this case (note, not theft). If you *knowingly* obtain copyrighted content from an unauthorized source, you may be guilty of contributory copyright infringement.
But as far as I know obtaining copyrighted material without knowing that the source is illegal is perfectly OK. If you think otherwise, quote some law.
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
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
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.
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.
Hrm. So if I download a couple dozen songs a day, I'm not going to get sued as long as I move them to a directory that isn't part of the shared list? Interesting...
Of course, most of the stuff I download is music videos. I have yet to find a consistent source outside of p2p networks to get copies of music videos I particularly enjoy watching. (Of course, my room-mate said that if I didn't take Blue Man Group's "Sing Along" off of repeat while I did the dishes he would hurt me.....)
Frankly, they can decide what's popular all they want. I'll still decide what I listen to. Heck, I get more exposure to music I haven't heard before from stuff my co-workers bring to the store then anything on the radio.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Price fixing is also illegal. So are cartels.
Well, then support INDEPENDENT MUSIC. Musicians don't have to sign with a record label that is a member of RIAA. I agree that the RIAA is a cartel, but we've got to expect the musicians to shed the golden shackles and do what's right too.
Breaking copyright laws (see, I didn't call it stealing) isn't the solution, because the RIAA will have the ability to enforce copyright law. But if you spend your money elsewhere, they can't do anything about it.
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein
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.
Tons of P2P porno clips have banners advertising (presumably) the site they originated from. That's because the biggest goal of porno advertising is just awareness and mindshare. The RIAA assumes that you know full well who Eminem is, now they want your money in exchange for his music. From VHS to streaming video, the "adult" industry has always been at the forefront of technology.
-B
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?
No, you haven't stolen a thing. You have made an illegal copy. A copyright infringement.
Theft:
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
You have deprived noone of their property. You have illegally copied it.
I honestly don't understand why people have such a hard time grasping this simple, factual idea.
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
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.
Tell me again, if you will, what the base of the defense will be for the illegal file trader who "stands up" to the RIAA? That they made SURE that all the people who downloaded music from them owned copies of the music?
If you take the criminals out of file trading, then the rest of us who do it for legitimate reasons can quit worrying about having our doors kicked in by the Feds.
/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
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.
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...
I wish I had moderator points left, but I'll reply instead. That's the exact question I have been asking for a while. 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...
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
Hrm. So if I download a couple dozen songs a day, I'm not going to get sued as long as I move them to a directory that isn't part of the shared list? Interesting...
Exactly right, and if everyone comes to that conclusion then it's bye-bye P2P network because you'll have 10 million leechers and not a single sharer. It's a good strategy they've got.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
MPAA is definitely in a better position than RIAA. Watching a Divx on your computer isn't exactly the same as going to the theaters. I probably spend about $400 a year going to the movies and donâ(TM)t plan to stop any time soon.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
I think what he means is that if shareware "worked", no one would pirate the full version of the software (after all, you got your wish -- try before you buy). However, history has shown us that just about EVERY shareware program has been pirated (excuse me, "shared") heavily. Take Doom, for instance. It was an undeniably great game (so there goes the "most music/movies/software are crap, that's why I download" argument), you got to play 1/3 of it for free (so there goes the "I can't try before I buy" argument), and the price was reasonable ($30? I can't remember). Despite all of this, Doom was pirated. Extensively. You can still find illegitimate copies of this ten year old game floating around. Doom was not an exception in shareware, it was the norm. Despite "try before you buy", reasonable pricing, and great entertainment value, numerous shareware games (and utilities) were/are pirated. From that angle, shareware did/does not work. This also backs up claims that downloaders do it not for "righteous" reasons but rather that they can get something for free that they'd otherwise have to pay for.
One other thing to note is that copyright infringement of music is not a new phenomenon by any means. Ten or twenty years ago, you could infringe copyrights by copying and trading music on tape. CD burners, MP3's, and P2P are the same concept made better, cheaper, and faster. The fundament reason large-scale copyright infringement exists is because there is a significant difference in the amount of money people are willing to pay for music and the amount of money the RIAA currently charges for it, and large-scale copyright infringement will not go away until the supply and demand curves meet.
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
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
Exactly. If the RIAA is paying attention, they'll note that they are getting positive responses to this from the mouths of people who previously would have been anti-RIAA. A large contingent of the anti-RIAA crowd are so only because of the RIAA's attempts to put a stranglehold on technology. Drop the technology-control agenda and only go after the actual GGTM violators, and they'll likely find that opposition to their efforts drops substantially.
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
The P2P "dealers" aren't getting paid. They're just doing it for the hell of it, so it's not necessarily likely others will step in to fill their shoes. So the analogy with drug dealers is flawed. Which is good.
The rest of this is OT, but I can't help myself:
"You don't target the users, you target the dealers"
That's the conventional wisdom certainly. It's also incredibly stupid. Level of drug use is unaffected; the demand is still there, but supply is down, so dealing becomes more profitable. Dealing is taken over by those with less to lose and/or greater desperation. Haven't had a lot of violent gang wars over alchohol selling turf since the end of prohibition have we? Nor did prohibition put any dent in alchoholism (expansion of treatment programs has).
Well, you touched a nerve justifying anything by analogy with US drug enforcement; you'd want to look to the drug war only if you want a model of how to spend millions of dollars every year, and imprison huge numbers of people, all while making the problem worse.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me they could only successfully go after people who were sharing files they weren't legally authorized to share. Legitimate users of P2P services should have nothing to worry about. Since claims of legitimate use of these services get repeated quite often, I assume there's either a lot of legitimate use going on, or that "legitimate use" is just a loophole people have been clinging to in order to keep the services afloat.
I'm not defending the RIAA and overpriced music, but I do think that refusing to buy is a more appropriate response to the problem than violating copyright law. It seems to me that the former would force a reduction in prices, whereas the latter would ensure widespread adoption of DRM, harsher laws, etc.
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.
Um, yes, it is about money. It just so happens that someone sharing files contributes to infringement much more than someone who is merely downloading them - hence, a bigger payout for the RIAA. Also, it's much easier to locate people sharing files as opposed to those who occasionally connect, download, and disconnect. After all, they never said that they wouldn't prosecute downloaders, only that they're going after the biggest offenders first.
They're not going to kill P2P. What will happen is that the free ride will be over, and the control over the 'net will return to the geeks who created it - instead of a lot of "pop noize", we'll actually be able to find interesting bands on P2P - you know, the unsigned bands that haven't sold out to the RIAA and their minions.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Ah, yes. That's a good analogy. To continue it, I expect the RIAA's war against P2P networks to be just as successful as the government's war against drugs.
Ah, by that you must mean that the RIAA will imprison millions of otherwise nonviolent offenders, at great expense, turning them into violent criminals through the wonder which is our prison system's "rehabilitiation" program.
MORTAR COMBAT!
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 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.
They're going to win the battle and lose the war.
Legally, of course, there's no defense for copying music and passing out copies to all and sundry unless explicitly authorized to do so by the copyright holder. RIAA will win this battle, easily.
But look at how recorded music purchases have been driven, historically, and it becomes obvious how the industry is really fighting against itself, and the more effective they are in this battle, the more they lose the war.
Used to be, if you didn't want to buy the whole filler album from One Hit Wonder just to get the one song that was good, you could buy a single. The 45-rpm single was a cheap impulse-buy item, a way you could try out a new band without shelling out for the whole album. Yeah, 45's had lame sound quality, but were small and cheap and available and effective enough. Sound like MP3 anyone?
Oh, and back when vinyl ruled the earth, radio stations weren't as heavily formatted and locked in to tiny top-40 playlists. You had a decent chance of turning on the radio and hearing something you hadn't heard before (heh! Try that now...). Rather than fight the homogenization of radio that cuts off the revenue stream of most of the RIAA's back-catalog and even current material, they instead encouraged it thinking they'd lock down the market that way.
So the industry has by design or inattention locked most of its audience out of ever hearing about most of its product in the media, and abandoned the cheap single-song take-a-chance impulse-buy market. It's little wonder that their sales are down, even leaving the recession out of it.
In the void, P2P has flourished, performing much the same function as 'illegal' British pirate radio did in the '60s (spurring a second British Invasion in the USA selling hudreds of millons of LPs, BTW). Like the BBC did back then, the RIAA's fighting an enemy of its own creation, and rather than listen to the market and meet its demand for more exposure to more different music (and at less than $20/gamble, thanks), it's suing the market instead.
Their solution seems to be to sue anyone who essentially passes a copy of a song to a friend - illegal, probably, but also the last possible way for people to be exposed to new music in the current media market. It's asnine, cutting-off-nose-to-spite-face kind of stuff, and it prevents records from being sold. Idiocy.
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.
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?
Many of us justifiably dislike the RIAA. But you will notice that the more principled in this dispute, such as Prof. Lessig or the EFF, don't defend piracy, either. The distribution or business models may be screwed up, but when you download music, you are not making a political statement; you are doing it for greed.
Do I download music illegally? No. Do I use p2p? Yes, but I always try to keep it within reason--a show that is no longer available on TV, a song on a CD I just ordered from Amazon, etc. Minor piracy may be a lot like speeding, and I'm not going to get all self-righteous towards those who do pirate. But I found that I wasn't downloading software or music, when I used to do so, because of some flaw in the distribution plans. It was because I was cheap and greedy. Knowing that is not a good feeling.
As well they should (IMO). Cigarette smoking is a huge public health problem, and the costs of that problem are borne by society via the government.
If you want to reduce the level of an economic activity (selling cigarettes or drugs), the effective things you can do are reduce demand (through education and increased prices due to taxation), and introduce artificial inefficiencies (taxation again). Cigarrette smoking is way down, without throwing anyone in jail.
Trying to reduce supply just makes the remaining suppliers more profitable. Making the activity illegal removes your ability to regulate and tax it, and means all the profits go to those willing to break the law (and presumably more willing to break other laws, such as the one about drive by shootings as a competitive strategy).
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
Ironically, a good analogy. This is why the war on drugs is such a failure. And why the war on p2p will also be a failure. See, you're attacking the wrong side of the problem. I'll continue your analogy though.. The reason the war on drugs is such a catastrophic failure is because all arresting drug dealers does is make the profits higher. Because there's more risk of being arrested, dealers will charge more, smugglers charge more, and it basically turns the drug trade into the high-stakes game it is today. Thus, the war on drugs actually INCREASES crime, because these guys aren't afraid of knocking off the competition.
P2P will happen pretty much the same way, but for different reasons. All they're going to do is drive the trade underground again. 5 years ago it was one guy who was technologically adept charging his buddies $2 a pop to burn CDs. Now he can do it again, charging say, $5 a pop. They'll start forming private IRC release groups, buying, ripping and sharing MP3s between private groups of people. The RIAA will have a hard time infiltrating these groups. And the RIAA still doesn't see a rise in profits.
What the RIAA needs to do is basically what business logic of the past 2000 years has told us: offer a better product, lower the price, or and *gasp* actually give consumers what they want (like legal, online music downloads.) If you keep selling us the same crap over and over again, guess what? We're not gonna buy it again. Stop clinging to an outdated business model and get with the 21st century. If you refuse to change your ways, you are doomed.
So because "copyright violation" is subtly different from "stealing," its OK?
I don't recall anyone saying that just because copyright violations are not the same stealing, that it is "OK".
I believe the poster was just saying "call a spade a spade, rather than the RIAA's bastardization of the definition of a spade".
Manslaughter, by the letter of the law, IS a form a murder (often its called murder in the 3rd degree). Both are felony crimes.
However, by the letter of the law, copyright violation is not a form of theft. Theft is a crime. Copyright violation is a civil tort. That's not a subtle difference.
Please note, however, that I didn't say that copyright violations are "OK".
The
If you want to bring legal charges against the RIAA, consider charging them with being an illegal monopoly. The RIAA is, by every meaning of the words, an illegal monopoly, and the items you listed help to back up that assertion. I think it's a winnable case, but after seeing the pathetic slap on wrist Microsoft got for being found guilty of the same charge, I don't have much faith in our legal system to fix the problem.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
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
What a staggering piece of wishful thinking. How the hell did this get modded up so high?
Ignorance is not usually a defence in law. Incompetence may reduce the level of the offence, but normally won't get you off the hook either. To claim that misunderstanding what "My Shared Folders" means and that you didn't know that others could rip stuff from your machien that you'd ripped yourself does not change the fact that you are breaking the law, and if you were ripping in the first place, I'm kinda lacking in sympathy.
If you think copyright infringement is a purely civil offence, you need to do more homework. Various recent laws, notably the DMCA in the US, seek to change that. Given the wholesale abuse of the system that goes on and the impracticality of waiting while the civil legal process does its thing, I'm inclined to side with the big media companies on this one, too. I don't like them, I detest their business practices, and I think they're stupid not to take advantage of the on-line world, but abusive Internet users have brought this fate upon themselves, and have no-one else to blame.
Very few people the RIAA go after will have clever lawyers, particularly in the US. That's why they use intimidation and threats of legal action to encourage settlements, as has often been reported here. It's a scummy practice that ought to be illegal (and probably is, if you have the effective power to challenge it). However, it makes a mockery of your implication that they are likely to come up against great lawyers defending their targets.
You can stick your server in Zimbabwe and hope, but if too many people start doing that you can bet that draconian restrictions on getting data over the 'net from that country will follow. In the meantime, do be careful never to set foot on US soil, won't you?
Oh, and as for having no legal way to take down these networks and being unwilling to sue the downloaders, um, did you notice what this discussion is all about?
Once again Slashdot proves the world is full of wishful kids who want everything to be free but haven't thought it through. Unfortunately for them, the real world does not work that way. Unfortunately for the rest of us, in their zeal for advocation they ignore the current legal system and motivate big business to bring this sort of crap down on everyone else as well.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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