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RIAA To Sue Hundreds Of File Swappers
Shackleford writes "The Washington Post has an article saying that the RIAA is preparing hundreds of lawsuits against Internet users who illegally trade copyrighted music files. The lawsuits will target people who share 'substantial' amounts of copyrighted music, but anyone who shares illegal files is at risk, RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a conference call today. The first round of lawsuits will be prepared during the next eight to 10 weeks. They will ask for injunctions and monetary damages against file swappers. It seems that after a federal judge ruled in April that file-sharing services have legal uses and thus should not be shut down, the RIAA has found that it must go after individual users rather than the services that they use." palmech13 points to a similar article on Yahoo News.
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
These companies do have copyrights on the songs in question and their copyrights are being violated. Going after the people who violate their copyrights seems legitimate to me. This is the way things should work.
What I have always objected to with the RIAA actions is that they have been trying to restrict what I can do even though I'm not trading in copyrighted content. It is the chilling effect on legitimate uses that have made past legal actions and laws like the DMCA so harmful.
What's wrong with this, supposedly, why does the article make it sound like "Oh no, more evil antics from the RIAA"!
They are doing the _right_ thing. Go after people breaking the law, not the entire service.
Newsbreak! You don't have the right to download free music!
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."
> This would kill p2p networks; I say this because they are going after only the people that shares. But not after the people that download. Well if no one shares then there will be nothing to download.
Uh, there would be nothing _ILLEGAL_ to download. There is plenty of material that would still be legal to transfer over P2P networks.
If you want to change the situation, you'll have to convince industry that it's in the wrong. Until then, it's still illegal. "Fair Use" hardly extends to letting hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people on the Internet that you don't know download copyrighted material from your machine.
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.
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?
Presumably, internet accounts are maintained in the name(s) of the adults in the house. Thus, irregardless of who is swapping songs over the broadband connect, there will be lots of unsuspecting Moms & Dads getting hit with these lawsuits out of nowhere.
:)
Are we about to see the first "reverse class-action" lawsuit, where all the *defendants* band together to protect themselves against 1 plaintant? I call dibs on the patent
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
So now RIAA are targeting people who are sharing the stuff out, now we're all going to say how evil that is too.
Isn't it great to be fickle! :)
But seriously, what happens if a user doesn't know their stuff is being shared? What if the next windows worm searches out for someone's legal mp3 collection and then connects to a p2p network and shares it out, all unknown to the user? A stretch? Hardly, certainly possible.
Didn't someone just get a case thrown out for having child porn on their computer because they maintained that their computer was hacked and the stuff planted there?
I assume RIAA is doing this in civil courts and hence won't need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but I am still curious how they intend to make a case that each user actually knew they were sharing files.
(I also assume they don't expect anyone to fight it and to just roll over and settle...)
Still, if this kills illegal trading, I think it's a good thing. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe people should pay for this stuff and if it's a load of rubbish -- which most of it is -- don't buy it. At least then maybe they will stop blaming the net for declining sales and maybe, just maybe, produce some better and more diverse talent at a fair price. But I am still concerned about innocents being caught in the collateral damage and hence don't trust RIAA to execute this fairly.
I for one have no problem with this, other than my wanting to side with the little guy and not "The Man." It's illegal, as far as I know, to distribute content that you don't have the right to distribute. Better the RIAA go after actual lawbreakers than they go after services which are used for legitimate purposes as well.
:)
Oh, and for those of you who got freaked out after reading that the RIAA's cracking down, there's always EMusic and the Apple Store. I did notice that it is frequently cheaper to just buy the CD at Cheap CDs.com than it is to pay $9.99 for the AAC-encoded album. Check there first! Just a public service announcement so you don't get screwed like I did.
This would kill p2p networks; I say this because they are going after only the people that shares. But not after the people that download. Well if no one shares then there will be nothing to download.
Stupid of them? No, not stupid.
Duh! Think about it. Isn't that the point? To kill P2P networks? They're not looking for revenue from lawsuits, all they want is to stop the file sharing. Make it so no one shares, the problem is solved.
It isn't a revenue thing, and it never was. This is a power thing. Only the RIAA will determine what music gets to be popular and what does not. Not the listeners. HEIL, ROSEN! *salutes*
My journal has hot
I recall the infamous Oxford Union debate which included Hillary Rosen who asked, obviously expecting a different answer, how many students had increased their CD spending after using P2P networks. She was, by all accounts, baffled (and probably thinking she was being lied to) when a majority of the students raised their hands.
On a basic moral issue, it really is up to the artists whether their works should be redistributed for free in an environment where that promise of control over their works has been made (and copyright laws constitute that promise.) Most record labels have the ability to provide free downloads themselves should they ever believe that such marketing would help sales. Many artists do provide free downloads of some, most, or all of their catalogs at their own websites.
I think the death of P2P sharing is not, even if its defenders are right about a supposedly positive effect it has on the medium, necessarily going to kill the labels or harm the artists. There are alternatives, but they put the question of what to distribute, how, why, and for how much, in the hands of the artists and publishers, not the "fans".
(Now watch me get modded down faster than it takes to download "Video killed the radio star" from Gnutella)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
As I've said before, I think the best solution for the RIAA will be to clean up their image and get people on their side. If people saw artists and their organization as people who need to make a living instead of money hungry whores, they may get a bit more sympathy from the market. These lawsuits are probably costing them more than they are making from them, and the bad PR is just driving their customers away instead of bringing them back. I think what the lawsuits will instead cause is that the next big P2P network will be encrypted and anonymous like Freenet is striving for.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
If this succeeds to any degree perhaps people will actually start thinking about the consequences of their actions instead of thinking that while it is illegal, the chance of being caught is so small they might as well do whatever they feel like anyway.
Price fixing is also illegal. So are cartels.
Well, then support INDEPENDENT MUSIC. Musicians don't have to sign with a record label that is a member of RIAA. I agree that the RIAA is a cartel, but we've got to expect the musicians to shed the golden shackles and do what's right too.
Breaking copyright laws (see, I didn't call it stealing) isn't the solution, because the RIAA will have the ability to enforce copyright law. But if you spend your money elsewhere, they can't do anything about it.
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein
This is a legitimate thing for the RIAA to be doing. Going after the file-sharing networks is one thing, and a judge (rightfully) ruled that they can't be shut down because of the actions of individual users. Strict enforcement against guilty individual users is the right way to enforce copyright law.
It is not right and rightfully illegal to acquire copyrighted material without paying for it. The direction that the RIAA is taking now is where they should have gone from the get-go. I cannot, and will not, support people who illegally trade copyrighted files.
Don't get me wrong. I am against DRM, the DMCA, and other such things that erode our fair-use rights, but we, the end users, need to show some responsibility and accountability. The whole reason the RIAA and MPAA (and whatever other *AA exists) want strict DRM controls is because of the rampant illegal transfering of files. And nobody can claim that it's not wide-spread.
Please, people, don't embark in sharing copyrighted files. Whenever you do, you only make the situation worse.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
No, you haven't stolen a thing. You have made an illegal copy. A copyright infringement.
Theft:
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
You have deprived noone of their property. You have illegally copied it.
I honestly don't understand why people have such a hard time grasping this simple, factual idea.
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
This is just a publicity stunt and nothing more. They are using the same scare tactics that they always use to try and scare people away from P2P networks. I am pretty sure that they WILL sue a couple of people and make Examples out of them, but I really doubt that they will sue hundreds (must be that RIAA math again) of people who have no money. It is just not financially feasible.
/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
Let's go over this again. Repeat after me:
"Copyright infringement is NOT stealing"
"Copyright infringement is NOT stealing"
Make sure you say NOT really loud. Copyright infringment is only that, copyright infringement.
In fact, if you will search the complete version of the U.S. Copyright Law, you will see, throughout all the chapters, amendments AND appendicies, the words steal nor stealing DO NOT APPEAR A SINGLE TIME.
Yes, downloading copyrighted materials is illegal, but it is NOT STEALING. There is an entirely different law that applies to stealing. If you would like to go over the US Copyright Law, all 290 pages of it are available in PDF and HTML form here
4. Stop being taken in by the RIAA FUD-O-MATIC
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...
Shareware DOES work.
Or maybe you mean unlimited-use shareware. Sure, that's less likely to bring in sales than normal shrink-wrapped software.
But publishers that release limited evaluation/shareware versions of programs and games are allowing everyone to kick the tires before plunking down $50 for a program.
I've bought probably 20-30 shareware programs over the last 4 years. And many of those I wouldn't've purchased if I hadn't been able to evaluate them first.
Same goes for music, except there's no good limited-use version of music.
However, I've purchased more CDs now that I can preview music than I ever did before.
Amazon has the right idea with their track previews, but I want to hear it in decent quality before I commit to it.
If I could somehow preview good-quality music legally from the content producer, then I'd have no use for downloading illegal rips from p2p sources.
'Course, I'm also the guy that bought Photoshop when I graduated from college instead of using the warez version I'd been using up until then... so maybe I'm not the norm.
0x0D 0x0A
Hrm. So if I download a couple dozen songs a day, I'm not going to get sued as long as I move them to a directory that isn't part of the shared list? Interesting...
Exactly right, and if everyone comes to that conclusion then it's bye-bye P2P network because you'll have 10 million leechers and not a single sharer. It's a good strategy they've got.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
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.
They're only suing SHARERS, not downloaders.
That's probably because only sharers are breaking the law. Downloaders are not. Copyright law is about distribution rights.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Not really. As I understand it, copyright law says that you cannot distribute, not that you cannot receive. They are going after those who they are clearly allowed to go after. Before anyone decides to correct me and say that distributers are not profitting and so are not clear targets; the RIAA has already won/settled that lawsuit. They can now go after/sue those people with impunity. I'm not saying that they will win, just that they are not prohibited from sueing.
Downloaders are in a grey zone.
I think what he means is that if shareware "worked", no one would pirate the full version of the software (after all, you got your wish -- try before you buy). However, history has shown us that just about EVERY shareware program has been pirated (excuse me, "shared") heavily. Take Doom, for instance. It was an undeniably great game (so there goes the "most music/movies/software are crap, that's why I download" argument), you got to play 1/3 of it for free (so there goes the "I can't try before I buy" argument), and the price was reasonable ($30? I can't remember). Despite all of this, Doom was pirated. Extensively. You can still find illegitimate copies of this ten year old game floating around. Doom was not an exception in shareware, it was the norm. Despite "try before you buy", reasonable pricing, and great entertainment value, numerous shareware games (and utilities) were/are pirated. From that angle, shareware did/does not work. This also backs up claims that downloaders do it not for "righteous" reasons but rather that they can get something for free that they'd otherwise have to pay for.
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?
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
Shouldn't they outlaw Microsoft then?
The P2P "dealers" aren't getting paid. They're just doing it for the hell of it, so it's not necessarily likely others will step in to fill their shoes. So the analogy with drug dealers is flawed. Which is good.
The rest of this is OT, but I can't help myself:
"You don't target the users, you target the dealers"
That's the conventional wisdom certainly. It's also incredibly stupid. Level of drug use is unaffected; the demand is still there, but supply is down, so dealing becomes more profitable. Dealing is taken over by those with less to lose and/or greater desperation. Haven't had a lot of violent gang wars over alchohol selling turf since the end of prohibition have we? Nor did prohibition put any dent in alchoholism (expansion of treatment programs has).
Well, you touched a nerve justifying anything by analogy with US drug enforcement; you'd want to look to the drug war only if you want a model of how to spend millions of dollars every year, and imprison huge numbers of people, all while making the problem worse.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me they could only successfully go after people who were sharing files they weren't legally authorized to share. Legitimate users of P2P services should have nothing to worry about. Since claims of legitimate use of these services get repeated quite often, I assume there's either a lot of legitimate use going on, or that "legitimate use" is just a loophole people have been clinging to in order to keep the services afloat.
I'm not defending the RIAA and overpriced music, but I do think that refusing to buy is a more appropriate response to the problem than violating copyright law. It seems to me that the former would force a reduction in prices, whereas the latter would ensure widespread adoption of DRM, harsher laws, etc.
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.
An issue here is whether the RIAA can go into court claiming to be an injured party when they've been found to be operating an illegal price control system.
Um, yes, it is about money. It just so happens that someone sharing files contributes to infringement much more than someone who is merely downloading them - hence, a bigger payout for the RIAA. Also, it's much easier to locate people sharing files as opposed to those who occasionally connect, download, and disconnect. After all, they never said that they wouldn't prosecute downloaders, only that they're going after the biggest offenders first.
They're not going to kill P2P. What will happen is that the free ride will be over, and the control over the 'net will return to the geeks who created it - instead of a lot of "pop noize", we'll actually be able to find interesting bands on P2P - you know, the unsigned bands that haven't sold out to the RIAA and their minions.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
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.
What's even funnier is the guy misidentifying something as theft when it is clearly and undeniably affixed in the law as coyright infringment is the only one who got modded up.
:-D
Be completely wrong - get karma. I love Slashdot.
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
This whole issue has been going downstream for a while now. RIAA is so desperate now that I would pity them, were them not an evil organisation that in a sane society would already have been extinct.
Come on, people. I read you saying "They are right, sue the infringers", "Good for them", "I don't care about music pirates". Let me tell you something: you are full of it. The "infringers", the "pirates", the "criminals" are you brother, your son and your neighbour. And they are doing exactly what they should, nailing this industry's coffin byte by byte.
The cartels won't change. Like a dying dinossaur, they will try to survive by every possible way, be it buying laws, buying copyright extensions, using the money they steal from the public and the artists to sue everyone in their way, bribe a few and mindwash the rest.
We can,t expect any help from legislators, they are all already bought. We can't expect any help from the media, the media, the music industry and the movie industry are owned by the same corporations.
We can only expect help from ourselves, they can't sue everyone. Thay can' jail everyone and the Courts will eventually notice that an all-out forced money transfer from the consumers to an industry that refuses to advance is not a possibility.
So please, forget this righteous crap some of you keep regurgitating. Screw what the law RIAA bought says. This is war, RIAA is the enemy and it ends when they and their outdated business model are gone. It is as simple as that.
to hop on some service like mIRC or pIRCh, and go to #mp3, grab the IPs of the users, and go after them that way? I'm seriously wondering why places like IRC are being ignored - before the Foo Fighters latest CD came out, it was available on IRC but no where else. No p2p (aka KaZaa, WinMX, etc). I'd think it'd be easier to nab the kids directly from IRC, because log files there are in multiple places. Just a thought.
"But I can't get an ocean that's deep enough for my day..." ~The Frames, "Fitzcarraldo"
Back in the late nineties, money was everywhere, so record companies sunk tons of money into artists (videos, appearances, general promotion). Of course, because money was everywhere, people were willing to take the chance on a $15-18 dollar cd based on one single.
Fast forward a couple of years. Now money is tight. People aren't spending as much on luxury items. Now, the record industry still has to promote the artists as they did a few years ago, but it's more costly. Not so much that the production costs more, but fewer artists are doing well.
Why are they not doing as well? The mp3. But before you mod me down as a troll think about why. It's not that everyone is downloading whole albums and not buying cds. Research shows the opposite. Instead, it's that people aren't buying bad cd's. Because they can hear more than one or two singles in an album, they know if it's a good buy and make a purchase accordingly.
Because of the mp3, record companies can't get buy by putting albums with 1 good track and 13 crappy ones. Before it was, get one good song, hype it, produce a good video, fill the cd with enough trash to be over an hour and watch the money come in. Now you have to put out at least three such tracks to have a prayer.
The industry is still selling records in record numbers. Albums are continually breaking sales records. The problem is, they aren't getting money from the one-hit wonders who's albums aren't being bought due to lack of quality material.
The mp3 is reducing the money of the Record Companies. It gave the consumer an out from a practice that had taken their money for years: the one track album.
Slashdot...it's like Fox news, but without the biased sl...or maybe not.
They're going to win the battle and lose the war.
Legally, of course, there's no defense for copying music and passing out copies to all and sundry unless explicitly authorized to do so by the copyright holder. RIAA will win this battle, easily.
But look at how recorded music purchases have been driven, historically, and it becomes obvious how the industry is really fighting against itself, and the more effective they are in this battle, the more they lose the war.
Used to be, if you didn't want to buy the whole filler album from One Hit Wonder just to get the one song that was good, you could buy a single. The 45-rpm single was a cheap impulse-buy item, a way you could try out a new band without shelling out for the whole album. Yeah, 45's had lame sound quality, but were small and cheap and available and effective enough. Sound like MP3 anyone?
Oh, and back when vinyl ruled the earth, radio stations weren't as heavily formatted and locked in to tiny top-40 playlists. You had a decent chance of turning on the radio and hearing something you hadn't heard before (heh! Try that now...). Rather than fight the homogenization of radio that cuts off the revenue stream of most of the RIAA's back-catalog and even current material, they instead encouraged it thinking they'd lock down the market that way.
So the industry has by design or inattention locked most of its audience out of ever hearing about most of its product in the media, and abandoned the cheap single-song take-a-chance impulse-buy market. It's little wonder that their sales are down, even leaving the recession out of it.
In the void, P2P has flourished, performing much the same function as 'illegal' British pirate radio did in the '60s (spurring a second British Invasion in the USA selling hudreds of millons of LPs, BTW). Like the BBC did back then, the RIAA's fighting an enemy of its own creation, and rather than listen to the market and meet its demand for more exposure to more different music (and at less than $20/gamble, thanks), it's suing the market instead.
Their solution seems to be to sue anyone who essentially passes a copy of a song to a friend - illegal, probably, but also the last possible way for people to be exposed to new music in the current media market. It's asnine, cutting-off-nose-to-spite-face kind of stuff, and it prevents records from being sold. Idiocy.
Actually it's not really easy, at present, to legally find out who's downloading what. There is so-called packet sniffing, e.g. spying on users' access to the net, then you can see who's downloaded from someone else; or you can make a bunch of fake files and look to see who downloads it, which misses a lot of users.
Or, you can search for something and look at the list of search results: people who have the file (are offering it). You can do this legally.
Once you get a person's IP address, you can contact their ISP, and try to force them to disclose user's names. This only happens rarely, e.g. Verizon, and it is THOSE users being sued by this - not anyone who's using p2p now.
Of course there is a way around all this: using a proxy. Search google for MultiProxy (but the legality of using open proxies is questionable).
Then, they can't go after you too easilly. One alternative is the anonymizer - search google for it - it's a proxy you pay for that claims not to keep logs.
If a proxy is used, the RIAA gets the IP of the proxy serving files - and they can't force the proxy to disclose the user's names with a given IP at a given time, because they (I think) don't keep track of that!
Of course proxies introduce another issue. Proxies know who you are (they know your real IP), _and_ they can spy on you legally, to tell what you do. What if the RIAA bought the anonymizer?
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.
Many of us justifiably dislike the RIAA. But you will notice that the more principled in this dispute, such as Prof. Lessig or the EFF, don't defend piracy, either. The distribution or business models may be screwed up, but when you download music, you are not making a political statement; you are doing it for greed.
Do I download music illegally? No. Do I use p2p? Yes, but I always try to keep it within reason--a show that is no longer available on TV, a song on a CD I just ordered from Amazon, etc. Minor piracy may be a lot like speeding, and I'm not going to get all self-righteous towards those who do pirate. But I found that I wasn't downloading software or music, when I used to do so, because of some flaw in the distribution plans. It was because I was cheap and greedy. Knowing that is not a good feeling.
As well they should (IMO). Cigarette smoking is a huge public health problem, and the costs of that problem are borne by society via the government.
If you want to reduce the level of an economic activity (selling cigarettes or drugs), the effective things you can do are reduce demand (through education and increased prices due to taxation), and introduce artificial inefficiencies (taxation again). Cigarrette smoking is way down, without throwing anyone in jail.
Trying to reduce supply just makes the remaining suppliers more profitable. Making the activity illegal removes your ability to regulate and tax it, and means all the profits go to those willing to break the law (and presumably more willing to break other laws, such as the one about drive by shootings as a competitive strategy).
Because they've basically admitted that they can't sue those who write programs that provide file-sharing services, as there are many legit uses of file-sharing.
The other half of the battle is to thwart their effort to steal the life-savings from individuals who work damn hard to make their money. This means waging a publicity war, and doing whatever it takes to hurt the RIAA. That means not buying any of their songs. Likewise with the MPAA. If you must see or hear something, download it.
Never forget that current copyright laws are illegitimate. We, the people, did not vote for them. They were snuck into law behind closed doors, with no public notification taking place. They were illegitimately retroactively extended.
Also remember that file-sharing -- including the sharing of copyrighted files -- is more legitimate than the President. More people voted for Napster than voted for GW Bush and Al Gore combined. Furthermore, the politicians who make these draconian copyright laws are in no position to tell us what is right and wrong. In fact, it is most likely that doing exactly the opposite of what they say is the right thing. These, remember, are the same bastards who accept bribes from every party that wants to pay for certain laws. They are the same bastards who get together every now and then to vote on how much they want to raise their own fucking salary by, as if they deserve a payraise.
Advice to those individuals:
(1) Put as much money as possible in 401(k) or 403(b) plans, IRAs, and RothIRAs, and possibly annuities. These are sheltered from taxes, and are likely more sheltered from lawsuites. Indeed, colleges don't even consider them when determining how much aid you should get.
(2) Transfer money off-shore to countries that don't recognize the US' insane copyright laws.
(3) After discussing the credit implications with a lawyer, and loan implications, consider the possibility of declaring bankruptcy. They don't get shit if you declare bankruptcy.
Why is it that rich greedy execs are able to steal the life-savings away from individuals in a court of law, yet when those same execs (like Gary Wennig) fuck over millions of investors and tank their life-savings by insider trading, nothing can be done against them, and they don't even go to jail?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Ironically, a good analogy. This is why the war on drugs is such a failure. And why the war on p2p will also be a failure. See, you're attacking the wrong side of the problem. I'll continue your analogy though.. The reason the war on drugs is such a catastrophic failure is because all arresting drug dealers does is make the profits higher. Because there's more risk of being arrested, dealers will charge more, smugglers charge more, and it basically turns the drug trade into the high-stakes game it is today. Thus, the war on drugs actually INCREASES crime, because these guys aren't afraid of knocking off the competition.
P2P will happen pretty much the same way, but for different reasons. All they're going to do is drive the trade underground again. 5 years ago it was one guy who was technologically adept charging his buddies $2 a pop to burn CDs. Now he can do it again, charging say, $5 a pop. They'll start forming private IRC release groups, buying, ripping and sharing MP3s between private groups of people. The RIAA will have a hard time infiltrating these groups. And the RIAA still doesn't see a rise in profits.
What the RIAA needs to do is basically what business logic of the past 2000 years has told us: offer a better product, lower the price, or and *gasp* actually give consumers what they want (like legal, online music downloads.) If you keep selling us the same crap over and over again, guess what? We're not gonna buy it again. Stop clinging to an outdated business model and get with the 21st century. If you refuse to change your ways, you are doomed.