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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
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!
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
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 would kill p2p networks; I say this because they are going after only the people that shares. But not after the people that download. Well if no one shares then there will be nothing to download.
Stupid of them? No, not stupid.
Duh! Think about it. Isn't that the point? To kill P2P networks? They're not looking for revenue from lawsuits, all they want is to stop the file sharing. Make it so no one shares, the problem is solved.
It isn't a revenue thing, and it never was. This is a power thing. Only the RIAA will determine what music gets to be popular and what does not. Not the listeners. HEIL, ROSEN! *salutes*
My journal has hot
I recall the infamous Oxford Union debate which included Hillary Rosen who asked, obviously expecting a different answer, how many students had increased their CD spending after using P2P networks. She was, by all accounts, baffled (and probably thinking she was being lied to) when a majority of the students raised their hands.
On a basic moral issue, it really is up to the artists whether their works should be redistributed for free in an environment where that promise of control over their works has been made (and copyright laws constitute that promise.) Most record labels have the ability to provide free downloads themselves should they ever believe that such marketing would help sales. Many artists do provide free downloads of some, most, or all of their catalogs at their own websites.
I think the death of P2P sharing is not, even if its defenders are right about a supposedly positive effect it has on the medium, necessarily going to kill the labels or harm the artists. There are alternatives, but they put the question of what to distribute, how, why, and for how much, in the hands of the artists and publishers, not the "fans".
(Now watch me get modded down faster than it takes to download "Video killed the radio star" from Gnutella)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
As I've said before, I think the best solution for the RIAA will be to clean up their image and get people on their side. If people saw artists and their organization as people who need to make a living instead of money hungry whores, they may get a bit more sympathy from the market. These lawsuits are probably costing them more than they are making from them, and the bad PR is just driving their customers away instead of bringing them back. I think what the lawsuits will instead cause is that the next big P2P network will be encrypted and anonymous like Freenet is striving for.
How precisely is this stupid of them? Seems to me that it's the first thing they've done that was vaguely intelligent. Instead of trying to shut down P2P, which is perfectly legitimate, they are now trying to prosecute people that are actually violating their copyrights. Sounds pretty intelligent to me.
I'm not a fan of the RIAA and it's nice to see them finally getting their head on straight about this. It's going to be tedious and expensive, but it's the only legitimate legal means for them to deal with this. In reality they are better served by the existence of P2P because people still end up buying albums and concert tickets, but regardless, the law is the law. Maybe after these lawsuits go through and their sales are still flagging they'll figure out that it wasn't P2P that was hurting them, it was the quality of their product.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
As if that somehow makes stealing copyrighted music OK? Stop redirecting the argument.
Is stealing from the mafia ok? It's a legitimate moral question.
Maybe it would be easier for you if the world was black-and-white, but that's not the case.
Life is too short to proofread.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
Shouldn't they outlaw Microsoft then?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.