Slashdot Mirror
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 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...."
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
This proves the RIAA is masterminded by the $cientoloi$t$.
Check out this post!
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
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 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"
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 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.
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
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.
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
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.
...since all I share is FLACs and therefore nobody ever downloads from me. Yay for alternative formats!
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.
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?
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
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.
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
It sounds like you're hinting at the fact that since a substantial amount of people are going to get away with doing unlawful things anyway, we just shouldn't have laws against those things?
Sounds like an argument of someone who does unlawful things.
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
what if you shared the files, but no one ever downloaded anything from you.
You mean people that share nsync stuff? They deserve to be sued anyway
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
I got the impression that they were going to go after people sharing substantial amounts of files. Now that I think of it, I haven't see any kind of formal attack on people actually getting the music, maybe because its very possible the people own the CD's of the music they are downloading.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
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.
I think the real criteria is closer to whether you could reasonably believe the distributor can legally distribute it to you.
You can't *reasonably* believe that a random (and/or arbitrary) client on a P2P network has the right to distribute copyrighted songs to you for no fee.
Now where things get interesting is fair use.
I mean, if I own a Metallica CD, I'm pretty certain that format-shifting of it to a collection of MP3s is legal under fair use. Can the *means* of that format shift be downloading them from Kazaa? Or must I rip them myself?
Of course, the DMCA says that fair use ISN'T fair, not if any sort of copy protection is involved, at least...
Bah.
Obviously, the RIAA needs to stop trying to litigate/legislate the problem away (since every attempt seems to invariably infringe on OUR rights under fair use doctrine), and instead work on providing legal alternatives to illegal sharing. There will ALWAYS be infringers, but taking such a hard line will only encourage it, while providing legal and cost-effective alternatives would discourage it.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
/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
No he isn't. Taking is removing, and if you are copying you aren't removing anything. If this really was theft, why doesn't the $IAA sue people for theft rather than copyright violations?
but stealing is stealing
First, I don't think you want to be stealing from the mafia.
Second, piracy is not stealing. Stealing entails depriving a party of use. Piracy is just unauthorized copying. Not stealing.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Well, it's actually not a horrible argument, though. If substantial amounts of people are driven to do something irrespective of laws passed regarding that thing, then is it a good law in the first place?
Keep in mind that there are two generally accepted sources of law, those generated by behavior that is inherently criminal, and those generated for other societal reasons (check here for the definitions of mala in se and mala prohibita) and that we're talking about the second kind when we are talking about copyright law. Clearly, a large chunk (I don't know if it's a majority or not) of society doesn't agree with the law on the books. So, by that reasoning, maybe it should not be a law, Congress just hasn't caught up with society yet.
But I think the reasoning of the person you were replying to is not so much that, but that many of the violators are violators only because they lack the resources to buy legislators. Given a level playing field in monetary terms, the RIAA would lose out in a heartbeat, which does offer a whiff of moral justification to the traders.
No relation to Happy Monkey
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...
U.S. Code, Title 17, Chapter 11, Sec 1101, (a)(1), Distilled:
Anyone who, without the consent of the performer or performers involved fixes the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance in a copy or phonorecord, or reproduces copies or phonorecords of such a performance from an unauthorized fixation shall be subject to the remedies provided in sections 502 through 505, to the same extent as an infringer of copyright.
Because downloading entails making a copy to your local machine, I expect this is the basis of the argument that downloaders may be treated as infringers.
Disclaimers: IANAL, RIAA Sucks, Linux Rocks, etc...
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for 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
Two wrongs make a right, now. Didn't you get the memo?
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
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?
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."
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.
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
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.
How the fuck am I supposed to support indie music WHEN I CAN'T BUY THIER CDS because no store can carry them? When radio cannot play them for fear of RIAA retailation? Break the cartel and these guys won't be indie music, they'll be mainstream.
Ummm...try an independent music store. Screw the big record store chains while you're at it. Or buy directly from the record label. Most smaller indie labels sell direct for less than you'd pay in a store, and some don't even charge shipping. There are also online stores (Cheap CDs comes to mind) that have a very good selection of indie music.
And radio? How many non-independent radio stations aren't owned by a huge media conglomerate anyway? Stick to college radio....
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein
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?
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
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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 |
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 ----
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
More true than you probably realize. Most P2P applications don't make it terribly obvious how to disable sharing (as opposed to how to download files). The result is that it would be entirely plausable that major Sharers are providing files unintentionaly.
Granted, the file they are stored in is "My Shared Files" or whatnot... but does shared there mean files I'm sharing or files that were shared with me? There are ambiguities here that definately prevent criminal charges (to say nothing of the fact that Copyright infringement is, in most (all?) cases a civil violation anyhow).
Point being that some of these people will have clever lawyers. Many of them will get off or have charges dropped. The final point is this.
There is no legal way to kill these networks
You can discourage people from using them through scare tatics (which is what the RIAA is trying to do), but nothing they can do within the United States is going to have much of an effect. As long as I can stick a server in Zimbabwe and serve files off of it there's jack shit the RIAA can do about it. They don't want to run the risk of sueing the actual downloaders because that exposes a lot of their policy to judicial scruteny. How well would the idea that you own the rights only to files ripped from your copy of the CD hold up in court (as opposed to my right to download rips of the content I own)? They don't know, and won't risk it.
Once again the RIAA proves itself little more than a collection of jack booted thugs engaging in terror tactics to frighten its market into compliance with its desires. Unfortuately, much like the undertow of a sinking ship, the death throws of a dieing regime can be dangerous to hapless bystanders.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
I don't think shoplifting a DVD is the same thing. If I rip an MP3 off my own CD, I would hope that fair use would protect me. If someone else ripped the same song with the same software/hardware, wouldn't these files be digitally the same, and indistinguishable? If so, then I think downloading a song that I have already paid for is still fair use, and the RIAA would be hard pressed to prove anything else.
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
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
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
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).
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.
Kind of funny how sales of everything have gone down in recent years...IT's called a RECESSION jackass. I can't download a couch online but sales of couches have gone down to. It must be all those pesky file swappers that have made the entire retail sector decline. Just because your a media whore doesn't mean we are naive. Use a little analytical thought next time before you plant your foot firmly in your mouth.
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.
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.
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.
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...
This scheme is easily broken, and everyone sharing identified. All the RIAA would have to do is get a single paid informant into the web of sharers. The RIAA installs the necessary IP logging software on his machine, downloads a bunch of files, and everyone in this "secret" interconnected in-group is sued by the RIAA.
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.
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.
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.
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
Actually, thanks to Kazaa and Shoutcast, I've discovered lots of new music by independent bands that I really like. A good example is Army Of Me (http://www.armyofmeonline.com/). You can buy their CDs right from their site.
I really do think the RIAA and the companies that back it are going way too far on this one. This is a dangerous area of corporate control of private citizens. History teaches us that such action can lead to all sorts of problems; from widespread civil disobedience to riots and other forms of violence. I mean, they're talking about nailing people for (say a typical user with 1000 files) up to $150 million. This would instantly force anyone save the most wealthy into bankruptcy. At that point, they don't have much to lose.
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
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
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.
1. Go to Russia. 2. Set up subscription based anonymous proxy server. 3. $$$
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"
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.
Do it. Do it NOW. Make sure you've got a Linux and Windows version. So what if the networks temporarily get crap-flooded with bogus stuff? It'll eventually get weeded out.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!