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RIAA Obtains Subpoenas Against File Swappers
SniperPuppy writes "Fox News is reporting that the RIAA has secured 871 subpoenas against suspected file swappers, with 75 more being approved each day. Between this, and the latest versions of FreeNet and Kazaa Lite being released, will technology be able to keep traders away from court?" Apparently, just suing the "major offenders" wasn't enough of a warning shot, so now they're going after people who share as few as eight songs. Wait until the RIAA discovers all the stuff that gets posted to Usenet!
In Canada it's legal to copy a whole CD into an audio media without actually owning the CD. So that means you can borrow your friends' CDs and copy all of them.
That doesn't mean sharing on P2P networks is legal. The Canadian Copyright Act also says you can legally copy your own CDs so you would be covered by fair use (at least in the books but we all know how much that means now).
This should be a given but I'll say it anyways. I'm not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal advice in any form or shape.
Someone here introduced me to it, and I have dumped Gnutella since (Not that many files yet, but that will change soon . . .).
GNUnet: Encryption (RSA), pulls files together from different parts of the network, and since they have incorporated "GNU" into the name, you don't have to worry about putting a "GNU/" or not.
No, this is strictly forbidden by the RIAA because the mp3 wasn't made from *your* physical copy of the cd.
How they tell the difference, I'll never know, since the cd will be an exact digital copy..
You're also not allowed to obtain mp3's of material you already own on records, tapes, or 8-tracks. They want you to have to buy it *again.*
Inaction? The government is complicit, running a protection racket for the copyright industry. Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, DMCA, and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, are just three of the most obvious bits of tripe to pass the U.S. legislature in the last decade+1, and more legislation is pending now.
If you are a U.S. citizen, get involved. Write your congressperson and tell him or her it's time to turn copyright protections back into what they were designed to be: a temporary grant of monopoly on the right to reproduce creative works in exchange for an ultimate benefit to the public domain, not a welfare program for multi-billion dollar industries and the great grandchildren of creative people.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
The Grateful Dead were/are a good example of this. While they could be vicious pursuing commercial bootleggers, they would happily sell a fan a "taper ticket" that included a place to plug in & a roped-off area near the soundboard to set up the mike stands.
Or for true confusion, visit http://www.bobdylan.com ... the website actually features audience-taped songs from recent shows. Of course, Dylan has gone on record several times decrying commercial bootleggers.
I know there are many other bands & performers that do this kind of thing, but I'm an old mossback & there's about to be a Dylan-Dead tour ;-)
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
But the dcc request goes through the servers. The DCC is just a ctcp DCC SEND which as everyone knows is just another privmsg. I could hack out a shell script to show all dccs going on on my irc server in about a minute. So could your isp. So could your irc servers provider.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
This is the fourth or fifth time I've seen someone make this claim here recently. Is there some US case law I'm not aware of that supports the claim? I certainly wouldn't want to bet my life on it looking at basic US copyright law, and many other countries have less permissive "fair use" rights under copyright law than the US offers.
Or is this just an old wives' tale, like "EULAs aren't enforceable, so you can just ignore them"? Plenty of people here would like to believe that, and plenty do at first after reading someone post it here, no doubt in a (+5, Insightful) post. And yet plenty more case law disagrees with them.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The RIAA knows how to play politics... I'm certain that the lists of people being sued will be groomed with a fine tooth comb to make sure nobody important gets sued.
Quick! go get your last name changed to Hollins!
Oh, wait. I think I heard that the clerks' office is unusually busy right now...
If everyone started downloading legal music instead, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs from indie bands, and seeing their shows, instead of enriching the major labels every time you buy a Britney or New Kids CD. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads are not copyright violations because the artists give you permission to download them.
Probably the best known site for downloading MP3s is of course MP3.com . See especially their genre index . Click the link. You will be quite astounded at how many genres there are.
Unfortunately the website usability of MP3.com is atrocious, and their streaming audio seems to be buggy - I can't get it to work in either Explorer or Mozilla. To get an MP3 file to download to your hard drive, you have to register, which I'm sure will result in merciless spamming. May I suggest registering with a throwaway email address from spamgourmet ?
The Open Directory Project has Bands and Artists and Styles indices. Not all the artists offer downloads, but the site says they list 48,000 artists and I imagine many of them offer downloads.
There are better sites for hosting MP3s than MP3.com. Some of them allow you to buy the band's CD from the same page as the MP3 download. Among them are The Internet Underground Music Archives, CDBaby, Epitonic.com, Lulu, SoundClick, Matador Records and insound .
Monotonik provides BitTorrents with zip files containing 60 to 100 MP3s apiece available here.
If you prefer the higher quality, patent-free Ogg Vorbis files you can find several download sites here . Ogg Vorbis players are available for many platforms - WinAmp will play them on Windows, and I understand iTunes on Mac OS X supports Ogg now. There are open source Linux ogg players and encoders, even an open source fixed-point decoders for embedded applications where the CPU doesn't have floating point hardware.
There are also peer-to-peer applications for distributing legal music. See Furthur Network and konspire[2b] .
Unfortunately, musicians are often not very good website designers, so poor usability is a significant obstacle to getting music directly from artists' websites. If you're a musician, and you'd like to know how you can improve your website so more people will download your music, please read my article If Indie Musicians Wanted Their Music Heard....
Finally, there is the problem of finding the music that's actually worth listening to. The labels do serve the (somewhat) legitimate purpose of picking out the good from the bad. But we can do that ourselves with legal downloads by using collaborative filtering, for example by downloading our music with iRATE, which you'll find at
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Archival copies are allow under US copyright law.
/. users. They MAY be fair use, but fair use fundementally boils down to what is fair, judged by certain criteria, bearing in mind the interests of the copyright holder. As opposed to what you might think is fair. Certainly there is nothing that is DEFINATELY fair use, just as there is nothing that is DEFINATELY not fair use. It all depends on the specific circumstances.
No, not really, at least not that are germane to most
Space shifting -- the argument that it's okay to copy content from one media to another, really for purposes of using the content where the first form of media isn't appropriate (as opposed to archiving copies) -- is likely to, but may not always, work for copies you make yourself of legally owned copies.
It probably WON'T work for downloading copies because you're too lazy to make them yourself. In part because that's unusual and it's not a great burden to have to make your own rips. The mp3.com case involved a discussion along these lines and the record industry won the case.
So I basically stand by what I said.
If you get sued, go out and but the CDs (used, of course) and then contact a lawyer.
DO NOT DO THIS. If you did this, then claimed that it was okay because you owned copies at the time of the alleged infringement, you would be perjuring yourself. ABSOLUTELY do not do that.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
There used to be a service called my.mp3.com that used a tool called Beam-It, to check if a customer had a CD. If so, they could download an MP3 of it. MP3.com claimed their service was a form of time-shifting, and therefore legal and fair use under US law.
Universal took MP3.com to court and won. MP3.com was ordered to pay $250M to Universal. They could have been ordered to pay much more ($150K per CD, on up to 10K CDs, for a total of $1.5B), but the judge felt that MP3.com had acted more responsibly than other web startups.
I heavily reccomend moving to GNUnet or some similar service.
Granted, I am now downloading GNUnet and have not used it before, but here is the big one that GNUnet offers:
Deniability.
Since on GNUnet it is unclear both who has the goods you're looking for and who originated the search, and transfers do not happen directly, just because there is data coming into your box does not mean that you are it's destination. Similarly, data coming out does not implicate you as the source.
Lawyers nightmare, anyone?
I am reminded of another good example, though fictional at this time, of matter replicators as seen on Star Trek et al. If we could download the recipe for a meal and replicate it, should that be deemed illegal, or should we end world hunger virtually overnight?
Careful. The last time I used this analogy on here, I was accused of spouting nonsense. I was told to maintain a grip on reality and that replicator technology was impossible. I believe it was compared to unicorns and leprechans.
Fact is, we'll have it eventually. We already have three diminsional printers, and all a replicator is is a three diminsional molecular (or atomic) printer. Put enough raw elements in on one end, and you should be able to print out anything you want on the other. There's no physical laws that make this impossible. And, the copyright ramifications are going to be HUGE.
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Need to check your 'rights'. When you purchase a album/cd/etc you get a license to listen to that particular music, regardess of 'source'.
.. then its a wash )
Therefore you can download replacement versions as you please ( of the same song ). Until they license and then warrant the 'hard' product, that will hold true.
You are not really commiting any copyright violations.. ( though be prepared to present the alternate media if they come knocking on your door )
Oh, techically vinyl is the higher quality sound, the CD is lower quality but more convienent. Its why its called "sampling' its NOT the same as the orginal. ( though if they used crappy digital recording in the studio.. well
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. The max penalty is $150,000 per song. Had you stolen a CD from a store, would you be charged $2,250,000 . . .
Not the same fact pattern. Offering a CD on a P2P network is a lot more analogous to the optical disc labs in Asia that crank out hundreds of copies for sale in the underground markets of Hong Kong, Thailand, New York... One file shared on a P2P network can be downloaded a number of times, and in the eyes of the law, each download is one "sale" (not necessarily of the CD, but perhaps of an online version through Pressplay, or iTunes, or whathaveyou), or unauthorized distribution, for which the holder of the intellectual property rights will not be compensated. Too, the dollar amount is in some ways somewhat punitive; i.e., it's set high to act as a deterrent.
2. The use of the DMCA outrages me. It's a violation of basic constitutional rights, like due process.
The Constitutional Due Process safeguards apply only to State action (5th, Federal, and 14th, State), and are largely applied only to criminal prosecutions. The DMCA applies to civil litigation, civil penalties, etc., and does not fall within the ambit of Due Process; the courts here are not in a position to deprive you of life (as in, say, capital murder cases), liberty (civil litigation will not result in jail time), nor property (awarding damages is not state seizure, but a civil judgment).
They can subpoena you without a court order. They can force an injunction merely by notifying you -- they don't need to prove you guilty of something, merely suppose it. That's damned dangerous.
The subpoena process is not designed to prove guilt or innocence; it's a discovery mechanism, present in every civil litigation that survives Rule 26 motions, etc. It's not a search warrant for which you need a court order. The only difference here vs. regular (non-DMCA) civil litigation is the expedited process. Have you actually read the Verizon decision?
3. There are legitimate uses for P2P. If, indeed, I've performed "copyright infringement," by downloading music, then that means that I've violated a license to listen to that music. That means that buying a CD isn't buying a specially pressed piece of plastic -- it's buying a license to listen to certain music. That means I'm legally justified in downloading MP3s of the songs I own on CD.
Um, in a word, no. The courts disagree and, though you'll probably not like to admit it, the courts a) know more about this than you seem to, and b) are the controlling authority in this country.
4. A democracy is made up of the general will of the populace. MILLIONS of people in the country share files . . .
So get them to vote. Drive a grassroots effort to get the law changed. Support the EFF. Whatever. Just stop whining about it and spouting pseudo-law.
The government should be responding to how people act en masse. Copyright is a civil granted right -- it's not a natural right.
What definition are you using for 'natural right?' Where do those rights spring forth from? How would you define them? Locke, for instance, might have a different view of what's a natural right than you do.../p
geek. lawyer.
Absolutely. I can't express enough how satisfying it has been for me to discover quality music from artists I've never heard of before. And it isn't until you find an good alternative source of music that you realize how many great artists out there were passed up on by the major labels simply because they showed up at the wrong time. Being indie doesn't mean artists have no talent... it just means the major labels didn't think their style of music would sell in the current market.
I strongly urge anyone who has wide musical interests to check out EMusic. Especially if you like Jazz, Electronica, Blues, Punk, or Classical (all genres that haven't seen much mainstream sales), EMusic is fantastic. Even outside of those genres though, there are many "out of time" artists with great albums. I've found songs via EMusic that I firmly believe could have been "big hits" if they were released years before (or after).
The only drawback to EMusic is that there are soooooo many artists on there and you can expect to recognize very few (since they are indie). Using the EMusic service is like a journey through "Lost Music Land". I find most of my tips on the message boards there... lots of friendly people in the same boat... we're all just looking for great music.
Oh and one last comment about the quality of the MP3s, as that used to be a concern. These days almost all of the music is encoded using VBR (about 192kbps on average) using lame (can't remember the exact setting they use). I too wouldn't go anywhere near 128k CBR, so I waited for them to switch up to the better quality before I signed up.
Simply put, if you're willing to explore for music, EMusic is hands down the best place on the net to legally download unrestricted MP3s. Oh, and the RIAA won't appreciate it either if you're into that sort of thing. :)
I hope someone decides to mod this up, because the world should know...just because the music you listen to is not played on commercial radio/MTV, does not mean it's independent music. The above post is very well written, but the fact remains:
Matador Records is a member of the RIAA. You may think you're 'indie' because you listen to Belle & Sebastian TOO, but you're money's heading into the RIAA's pockets.
First, *YOU DO NOT NEED TO HIRE AN ATTORNEY*, you are entitled to represent yourself. And you should.
Second, the Courts tend to give leniency to pro se parties. This means the laws of evidence aren't quite as strictly enforced and you can get away with a lot of stuff attorneys can't. Believe me, I know.
Third, there are few things attorneys hate more than dealing with pro se litigants. You never know what's going to turn up and whether or not the judge might allow it because he/she feels sorry for the pro se guy.
Fourth, this gives you the opportunity to create a circus atmosphere. Invite the media. Make angry speeches. Just go nuts.
Now, if the RIAA wants 5,000 cases like what I described above, their attorneys will literally tear their hair out. A lot of them will quit, a lot of them will boost their fees, and a lot of them are going to be pissed off at the RIAA for giving them such a headache.
DO NOT ROLL OVER AND SETTLE. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! If enough people respond this way, the RIAA will lose, and it will lose in a very, very ugly way. Don't think you need an expensive legal team to give them a problem. You, yourself, with $15 of copies at Kinko's can literally shove their crap back up the orifice it came from.
If you think I know not of what I speak, check my sig....
IAAL
Actually, just because the data is coming from a certain IP does not mean that's where the actual file is coming from. Freenet essentially builds itself a large private encrypted network, with each node storing data, and routing traffic coming from other places. There's no way to prove the file came from a particular machine because the data in the store is all encrypted, it could have simply been routing it.
You wanna argue that if you route that traffic then you're liable?? Then you'll have to also argue that service providers are liable also since that data is passing through their systems.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
The labels give the music to the radios but bill the artists for it. The artists also foot the bill for the rest of the promotion stuff, like ads in magazines.
This is part of the reason why only a handful of the very successful artists actually make money.
The labels are a sort of specialized bank, giving a lot of money to artists (well, not actually giving it to the artists, but spending it on behalf of the artists, and then billing the artists for it).
A lot of the Freenet tools can be located here:
l s
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=too
Fuqid is hosted on Freenet, if you Freenet installed click the link above.
Another good trick is to use Freenet to add high bandwidth content (like Mp3s) to your websites
I regard this as a distinction without a difference from the point of view of exposing the audience to promotional material.
Yes, artists want their songs to get a lot of radio performance so that people will *buy* the actual distributions of the recordings.
For many many people out there, mp3 sharing over the internet is not the equivalent of promotional performance, but rather the equivalent of getting the distribution.
I regard your second statement as completely unproven, though the claim plays a part in RIAA propaganda. Evidence, please.
You try to write this point off by saying that "128K MP3s are promotional goods of NO commercial value outside their use in getting people to buy the real products." This is simply not true. MP3s are certainly *good enough* for most people as a "real product".
Then why does iTunes make the claim that their format is higher quality than MP3?
A "real product" is something you can get people to pay for. Where is the commercial market for broadcast quality MP3?
While Joe Sixpack may not understand psychoacoustic masking and dynamic range and frequency response and the difference between lossy and lossless compression, he does know that CD audio sounds better on his home or college dorm stereo system. And if the music matters to him, he goes out and buys the CD regardless of whether he got to listen to the MP3 from the radio (128K MP3 is the universal broadcast automation format) or P2P or a drastically degraded Internet Radio stream. If the music doesn't matter to him, he wouldn't have bought it regardless of the medium he heard it on.
Why do you think the online music craze skyrocketed with the mp3 format? I mean, we've had audio compression before then. But it wasn't good enough. Now it is.
For casual listening, certainly. If you're out jogging with a portable MP3 player or driving with a car stereo, you'd better not be concentrating on the music.
And maybe some people don't like the artifacts in a 128K mp3. For many of these people, increasing the bitrate makes it good enough. Where do you draw the line?
128K MP3 is also the universal format used for broadcast automation software packages. I think 128K is a perfectly good place to draw the line between "promotional material" and "digital product", and I believe that 128K MP3 or lower quality should be subject to mandatory licensing for commercial / non-profit use based on the broadcast industry model that has served not only users, but the music industry over the years. If the quality is better than that and no permissions for use have been given, I'll hand the RIAA the book to throw myself.
I work with a musician on getting her material promoted, and that's the line I've advised her to draw. Note that we also have downloadable tracks on our site. In 128K MP3 format.
You're also concentrating on audio quality, and ignoring a very important aspect -- the *on-demand* nature of distribution. Performance of recorded songs, like I said, has strict controls over the listeners' abilities to choose which songs they hear. Too much control, and it can be considered a song distribution medium, not just a performance one.
I regard this as a distinction without a significant difference in this context.
Anyway, I hate the RIAA. They take too much money out of the whole process purely for profit, charge way too much for CDs, and give the artists way too little of a cut. I do think artists should get paid, but I wish I could do it more directly. I do download illegal music, but if I like it enough, I pretty much always go out and buy the actual CD.
Just like everybody else.
And you reinforce the
Tech Public Policy stuff