Slashdot Mirror
Filesharing Up 10% After RIAA Threatens Users
Moldy-Rutabaga writes "Technews says filesharing
has gone up 10% on some sites such as Grokster since the Recording Industry
Association of America's announcement on June 25 that it will start tracking down
and suing users of file-sharing programs. Wayne Rosso, president of Grokster,
commented 'even genocidal litigation can't stop
file sharers'."
I was speaking to a lay-person friend of mine last weekend, and he mentioned to me that he had heard about the threat of lawsuits, and decided to quickly install Bearshare, download all the songs he wanted and then uninstall it. Apparently at least some people are spooked.
G=C800:5
I'm just curious..
How exactly do they go about finding these people? It's not like they openly give out their names on things like KaZaa?
What a pointless statistic. I bet you would find a month-on-month increase in P2P usage as more non-techy people out there discover how ridiculously easy it is.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Seriously, if enough people blatanly disobey copyright laws, if there is enough civil disobedience, it almost HAS to force a change in the law. The question, though, is how much is "enough" and do we REALLY need to go through all of the heavy handed law enforcement attempts before this happens? Can't the law makers see for once, that this is what the PEOPLE want and step up to the plate to do their job? Rant over.
And from the "they keep shooting themselves in the head" department, Metallica says no iTunes do to principles. :
.. I have a great idea. Let's tick off our customers. They want this, but let's not give it to them. In fact, let's prosecute them. Works for me.
"Artists hold out on iTunes on principle
Reuters News Service
LOS ANGELES -- The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are refusing to make their music available as individual downloads on Apple Computer's iTunes online music store.
That move comes in response to Apple's decision to allow users to buy single tracks and is intended to protect the future of the long-playing album, said Mark Reiter of Q Prime Management Co., which manages the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and several other artists.
Green Day and Linkin Park, according to a source familiar with the situation, have also refused to make their songs available as individual downloads on the Apple service, which has sold over 5 million songs. "
-- Hey
Idiots.
I believe they already collect a tax on CD burners.
They collect quite a lot of funds in fact, they even collect money for radio play of unsigned acts and these artists receive nothing.
Above info collected from:
Here
I'm mostly curious which network they will bring down first. There are a few major ones. I sure miss audiogalaxy!!!
What do you think: EDonkey or Kazaa?
More than enough BS
This is free market in action. The artificial scarcity created by government regulation (copyright) is way out of touch with the reality so the free market, even when it has to operate as a black market, will take care of the customer demand.
What needs to happen is serious consideration of how the supply can be kept running under these circumstances. One solution would be to allow unlimited music distribution as long as you don't charge any money for it. If the commercial exploitation of copyrighted material would still be an exclusive right of the copyright holder, I believe there is a big market where the copyright holder can make good profit. This would pretty much legalize the current practise where individual people can trade music online freely while the commercial distributors (e.g. CD sales) would have to pay.
"Weiss said the recording industry should lobby for special taxes on CD burners and Internet access as a way to recoup losses incurred from file sharing, an idea that Grokster's Rosso also supports."
Yeah right, so you can't properly secure your own cd's or whatever, so go ahead and put a tax on internet access and cd burner's to make up losses because of your own incompetence. And as we all know, no one uses CD Burners for say....backups, or transferring legitimate files from one person to another. No one uses the internet to do do legitament things like research. So of course everyone should Pay the RIAA and help them. Never mind that if they really want to stop piracy they should be better protecting their own media.
The worst thing is that the RIAA probably has enough influence in Washington to pull something like this off!! What's next, Microsoft builds an internet monitoring meter into windows to send usage statistics to the government so they can bill you monthly. Then Linux is outlawed for not having the US government metering package?
The RIAA does not own the copyrights to anything. According to the DMCA only the owner of the copyright can sue for infringement. The owner first must communicate in writing to the user's ISP, demanding that they take action.
The ISP is bound by law to inform the user, who has the right, under penalty of perjury, to deny that he/she is offering infringing material.
Now it gets interesting.
If the user denies that he/she has been sharing, the ISP must inform the copyright owner, and that copyright owner has a limited amount of time during which it MUST bring suit against the alleged infringer, or the ISP MUST restore access.
So, someone please tell me how the RIAA has the right to sue, since they own no copyrights?
Also, if every person sued denies they are sharing, forcing the actual copyright holder to bring suit, wouldn't the sheer weight of litigation costs make this a really bad strategy?
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
You forgot (or didn't mention) the third beneficial effect, namely, no more waiting three years for an album from your favorite band. They get the sound they want, put out the word, and 24 hours later fans are enjoying the track.
In fact eventually "track" may become a carryover from an earlier time, sort of like "album." Has anyone younger than me ever seen a real album, with half-a-dozen sleeves, each of which contains a 10" 78 RPM record?
Someone you trust is one of us.
While this article is total fluff, It made me wonder what kind of effect this news might have had on anyone. So I did an informal poll of people here at work, only about 15 people of varying tech knowledge and general-informedness but all of whom I knew used filesharing programs. What I found was:
6/15 knew what the RIAA was.
1/15 knew about any RIAA lawsuits.
7/15 became/at least acted concerned when told about the lawsuits, and the potential for themselves to be sued.
The numbers are way too low to really mean anything, but it seems to follow that just MAYBE people don't act like they care because they really don't know. We'll see what happens when the RIAA actually gets a file sharer in court.
If I download a piece of music how am I supposed to know it is copyrighted? Video has a copyright notice at the beginning (FBI warning, etc.). Music does not....... The recording industry should be required to have a spoken copyright notice before each song. Then go after anyone who removes the notice NOT the someone who has no clue that it was copyrighted.
I dunno if somebody knows about e-Mule, but this exellent P2P proggy allows one to leech blocks from different sources, even when a source itself does not have the complete file yet. So these sources are in effect not necessarily sharing media, just parts of it.
The only thing e-Mule now needs is a tedency to distribute complete files over different parts of the network, so that very few access points share the complete file. Once the file is downloaded, e-Mule then just shares parts of it, but never the complete file. Depending on the required parts, the shared parts may even vary over time.
Seems like the perfect nightmare for any DMCA groupie-lawyer to me.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Whoah, cowboy! You're talking about benefits *to the consumer*. When was that ever the issue? If it was then CDs would cost $3.99 and there wouldn't be such an incentive to waste time on KaZaA.
You've got to put in terms of benefit to the recording industry if they're ever going to change their minds.
I'll stop calling it "genocide" when the scumbags at the RIAA quit referring to copyright infringement as "piracy," which involves the robbing and killing of people on the high seas.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
Of course. I was talking about the network, not the client. I use both of the networks above, neither with the "official" clients. The only way to use Kazaa is Kazaa Lite, and for eDonkey I use eMule.
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
Internet2 needs to be finalized.
With IPv6, it would increase RIAA's work 3 fold.
If they did (almost certainly), ask them if they felt guilty and ashamed about stealing FROM ARTISTS?
Tell them that filesharing is simply doing the same thing using your computer to grab them from P2P instead of the radio and your hard drive instead of a tape recorder.
Tell them the only difference between what they did and "filesharing" is that the RIAA bribed a bunch of politicians to declare the digital version is illegal and that the tape version is explicitly legal.
What's important here isn't that this changes the law, but to let them know what you're doing is merely illegal, not wrong.
If your parents can't tell the difference. . . you've got some unpleasant time to do before you leave home, good luck.
Tech Public Policy stuff
A few more downloads will not hurt them.
What it will do is give them more arguments when lobbying Congress. "See, we have done all we could. Our businesses will die unless you pass more laws for us." If you read the Morpheus dismissal order, that is exactly what the judge argued for. He basically complained that his hands were tied and that Congress should pass some laws so he can do something about it.
Why have they never mentioned usenet? Because they can't stop usenet file sharing unless they are allowed to cancel files and the isps are forced to abide.
Similarly, they cannot stop p2p unless they are somehow allowed to filter an isps traffic and put filesharers offline without wasting time on due process (which applies only to government action, not RIAA action).
Expect more assaults on the free flow of information. The question is not whether they will succeed under the current paradigm. (They can't.)
The question is whether they can get Congress to throw the baby out with the bathwater. (Hopefully they can't.)
In the UK case they can go to an ISP to get the information having gathered enough evidence to get a magistrate to ok it (which isnt a huge barrier when you can show the time, the data, the files, a video of the download, the music playing and a signed testimony you own the copyright). Data protection law is not a right to do illegal things anonymously. In fact an ISP is permitted to give such data to the police without them even asking if it has good reason to believe a crime is being committed.
.
I'd expect people in the UK to be dealt with by UK law, just as large scale UK video pirates were. Large scale video piracy was stopped by basically targetting the big pirates and giving them nowhere to advertise their wares either. Now its a hand to hand market or dodgy street market stalls and that keep the volume of piracy under control
As regards file names - given a few downloads that are verified as pirate and the relevant paperwork done and affidavits filed I suspect the rest would be resolved by seizing the equipment in question and seeing what else is on it.
I approve of the RIAA approach this time, its the first sane thing they've done for a long time. Go after the bigger copiers, instead of harassing everyone, screwing up the law and building unusable systems actually go after the criminals for once.
What should be the real limits on "fair use" is another debate, but it will be a lot easier to have when large scale copying of copyright works is under control, and also may actually go back to the old ways - as video has where small scale copying/lending isnt a threat, helps everyone and the law is conveniently ignored by all parties
Use encryption, highest order currently available . .
.
.
.
.
, .
.
.
, .
. .
.
.
.
I think it is 2,048 bit like hushmail uses, upgrade this
and make it a encryption module that can be adapted as
further needed in the future
Disregard the NSA request for Keys, andMake it a dynamic server model . All ppl are servers, but only for a short random while,
and then the duty is passed
The servers start building a dynamic remap, then deliver the
time for remap and reassign after the hand off and receive
servers have negotiated and checked the links for stability
and reliability
Hide the Ip addresses, and use a disassociated means of
node identification . IP address will get you connected to
a Dynamic DNS that is floating on foreign hosted servers
in countries that care not a wit for the RIAA or what it wants
Design it as a many tentacled beast, with polymorphic traits
like a polymorphic virus . Use multi-casting to update server
lists and keep the nodes informed
Use dummy data to send the fox chasing the fake hound
the wild goose chase . Put pieces of the data in certain
packets, and those certain packets change as the network
morphs in the course of the day . Like was preposed for
Dark Angel 2000
Clients will dynamically re-route, and shift their registration
info all encrypted, and IP addresses are masked/encrypted when
used, and are used as little as possible
Idle process similar to what the SETI@home screen saver uses
could determine the best machines, and use them to build
an 'A' list of nodes, but rotate that responsibility as to not
lock it in to certain machines, ie. keep it moving
So with a encrypted structure by a random shifting tree
they would have a "damn" hard time tracing it if all the
packets themselves were coded
A whitelist is possible, but could be compromised by a member
being caught thru other means, ie. vindictive significant other
Then what was a good node could be used to reverse engineer it,
and listen to the network
So it has to be designed so that those on the network themselves
could monitor, but it changes quickly, and changes in ways
that are not straight forward easily understood, A network chameleon of sorts
Only the master chameleon could "hope" to understand the network,
but the very fact of how fast it changed would make it a daunting
if not overwhelming task . If someone who had the idea of
"Dark Angel 2000" could apply it to peer 2 peer it could happen
Well enough day dreaming , hopefully some very bright mind
will see this and help it or a variant there of on its way
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I regularly take informal polls at the start of each semester in my college class just to see where exactly students stand on the copyright issue. Since I teach a computer-oriented course for art students I feel the topic is relevant and, as such, the sampling of results are often interesting.
Over the course of the last 5 semesters, it's been pretty clear that a good deal of those sampled have no real concept of what copyright is. I mean they understand it's there to protect the rights of the artist / creator but that's about the extent of it. Of course, that much is probably no big surprise. What is surprising is that many of these students believe it's perfectly legal to make a copy of your friend's CD/DVD/Video game/Microsoft Office CD as long as you have no intent to sell or distribute it. Of course some of that falls more under breaking your EULA than copyright, but the fact remains, the ethics of copying doesn't even apply here since they think it's perfectly legal to begin with.
At any rate, I think a lot of people are going to be in for a big wakeup call when the RIAA throws down the hammer. A good sampling of their "victims" might not even be aware that they're actually breaking any laws.
DigiSquid Design.
Actualy his mom is right. Case in point. In the USA it is illegal to have sea turtle stuff. They are an endangered species. Beef is not protected. There is no problem finding a steak at the supermarket.
In the Cayman Islands it is legal to have sea turtle products including meat and shells. They also farm sea turtles to both sell the products and preserve the species. By the way turtle stew is delicious. Too bad the US would not permit me to bring a shell back.
If only they would allow the gulf coast to legaly farm and sell sea turtle products, they would be much more common. Possibly as common as a Big Mac (tm).
Making it illegal to own makes raising and selling for a profit impossible. Poaching kills the wild population. So does taking the habitat for legal profitable other uses of the land. (lots of beef is raised for profit) Threatened species becomes more threatened. Over hunting wild populations should be limited. Farming and selling should be legal.
Ever bought farm raised salmon? Could Chillean Sea Bass be profitably farmed with a percentage returned to the wild?
Raising passenger pigeons for the hat industry instead of hunting them could have saved it from extinction.
Obligatory link to the turtle farm. Watch the web cams on this farm here
http://www.turtle.ky/video.htm
Here is a cut and paste with some stats on the release program.
The Farm's captive breeding colony now produces an average of 45,000 eggs per year. Approximately eight thousand hatchlings are needed each year to satisfy current production goals. Excess hatchlings are designated for tagging and release. Over 28,000 hatchlings and yearlings have been released into the waters surrounding the Cayman Islands.
The truth shall set you free!
How much time will the RIAA waste suing people who are trading legal files? All of what I have downloaded over the past few months have been from DJs and artists who want their songs to be swapped. I'm on KaZaA all of the time, and have pretty high rating...when the man comes knocking, he won't like what he's going to find.
You have a moral obligation to use works of art under the reasonable conditions set by the artists.
I find this statement (admittedly taken out of context) quite fascinating. I'm trying to think of any historically relevant philosopher of morality that has ever suggested any sort of moral obligation even remotely like this, and am coming up empty. Yet this is the result of the *AA advertising binge: the people of the world have come to believe that whatever their television tells them is not just the law, but morally imperative.
I'm a Christian, and I'm trying to think, as an example, what Biblical imperatives I am violating when I rip a CD and give it to a friend. "No stealing" is the obvious one, but it is quite difficult for me to equate stealing (depriving another of something) and duplicating (making a copy of something)---they are such different activities on the face of it! I am ripping a CD I paid for, after all: I'm surely not depriving anyone of anything more tangible than "an opportunity to sell to my friend", which is an abstract concept indeed. If I feed my friend lunch, do I not equally deprive someone of this opportunity?
I thought of a few more possible justifications, but at the end of the day I'm afraid I cannot see the moral imperative. As far as I can tell, there is no basis for a moral obligation to use artists' works in the way they direct. I will continue to use them as I like, as folks have done for as long as there has been art.