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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!
You want them to know about Usenet???
but leave IRC for the rest of us
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
Preferably on a small, non-US influenced island someplace warm?
Want to let a room?
Sounds like they took a page from DirectTV's playbook. And why not? It appears to be working. But how are they going to stop international users?
Is it okay to download mp3's of songs that I legitimately own on CD? Can I claim fair use if I own the CD? Can I counter sue?
-B
I'm sure they already know about Usenet and IRC and (insert other less prominent distribution methods here). It seems they are more concerned about scaring away the average person (who doesn't even know what Usenet is, or how to operate an IRC client) but just runs Kazaa or another easy to use Windows p2p client.
It's clear that all piracy can not be stopped - the intent few will always pirate through more obscure networks regardless of the level of litigation, this is just a question of going after the most prominent network with the least tech savvy users.
You know, I've been reading all morning the other threads over here about citizen's rights to bear arms.
A pretty good argument is that armed citizens could defend themselves against a tiranny. How is that compatible with the current situation where corporations seem to have totalitarian powers over the US citizens? Granted, these corporations are not the US goverment, but the inaction of said goverment, either speaks of a very high degree of inefficiency or a very ingrained corruption.
Doesn't this permanent attack of personal rights, erosion of privacy and draconian regulations equate a tiranny?
But from the RIAA's point of view, this is probably the best tactics they could adopt (assuming all PR efforts have gone out of the window.) They will always be one step behind trying to compete on technology, and if they stick to the biggest offenders then this gives the smaller guy the idea that they are safe. As P2P networks are constituted of many smaller traders, worrying those seems to be the most efficient way of making a big impact.
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
Then you had better have a hell of a lot of receipts.
And a good lawyer.
If you're going to act like that, see if I ever pirate your music again.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
For all you guys saying IRC is where you'll make your trades, you should know it won't scale and they do monitor it. My buddy received a warning from his ISP that someone had asked he be tracked down due to file sharing on an IRC channel. The kicker is he was sharing and didn't know it, someone had taken over his win 2k box and was running a bot on it to share movies. It's been almost a year so I don't remember the name of the kit but It took about 10 seconds of hunting on google to get info about it once we located it.
On a related note, I've been running Freenet for awhile, and the new version is pretty good. Although the flood of new people thanks to the slashdot post did slow things down for awhile, it's faster then ever now.
Many of the subpoenas reviewed by the AP identified songs from the same few artists, including Avril Lavigne, Snoop Dogg and Michael Jackson.
:-)
Well, if they're going to go after people sharing that kind of crap, they can do it all they want for all I care.
Ifor the last eyar I've read countless time on slashdot that they should go after the people and not the technology, now that they do, you still complain.
871 down, ~40 000 000 to go...
Please direct all bug reports to
Yes! Finally those famous warez bastardz will be sued and brought down!
I can't wait for the RIAA to go after all the trading on Usenet. Next thing the RIAA will know is that they are broke, and the lawyers will be demanding their next payment.
Not when you just send a letter and demand $3500 to walk away. It's called legalized extortion.
I think we're going to have a lot more anonymous cowards in these types of discussions now, so please set your threshold lower... :^(
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
This is probably true. But if RIAA can trot enough "criminals" through a legal mill, then they'll be able to justify a bigger surcharge on recordings, blank media, or even internet access. Like the "recording surcharge" already on blank tapes & CDRs, it would go straight to the RIAA coffers.
And all these surcharges are exactly why folks are downloading instead of buying. Or to quote my 16 yr old daughter, "If new CDs cost five bucks, I'd buy them."
As for me, if Columbia Records (to use a specific sig-related example) would let me purchase an annual subscription to download Bob Dylan concert recordings on a next day basis, I'd be sending 'em my money today!
The real problem that the recording industry faces today isn't downloading, it's lack of imagination.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Dear god I hope that somebody indicted will be a congresman's son or daughter off at college. That's exactly what it'll take for these senators and representatives to call for an "Inquiry" into the legality of filing all these lawsuits and hopefully get some of them overturned.
My prediction for the future of file swapping? It'll still be big, perhaps even bigger than now. If a company wants to make money then the first step is NOT to piss off people who are already appreciating the fruits of their labor. All people do then is get an even more renegade attitude about it and keep swapping away, anonomously this time
are sure going to wish they had secured that wireless.
Dont' buy their music and don't download their music. This is the point of no return for the music mafia. If they start going after the small time file swappers they will very quickly begin to alienate themselves from their customers as a whole. As soon as you get Joe Teenager and his mom on the evening news more than a few times a month because they are being sued for having 20 or 30 songs on their box, the real backlash will begin. The vast majority of people out there see file swappers as "those bad, bad other people" because that is the only way you see them portrayed by the mafia and the news. Now, with lawsuits apparently going after the small fish, they will finally begin enfuriating the mainstream public who of course see themselves as law-abiding and virtuous.
Let the mahem begin!!!
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
"Second, isn't it legal for me to download music if I already own it? For example, I have quite a few record albums. Let's say I get a hankering for ELO's Time. I have it on vinyl but I don't have a record player. Can't I seek out and download cuts from that album legally?"
To be honest, I'd take it back and ask for the vinyl copy to be replaced with a CD pressing for no extra charge. Why? Because by sueing people who download MP3s, they're essentially admitting that medium doesn't matter when it comes to copyright.
You bought the copyright to listen to those songs and a straight vinyl/CD swap isn't really going to hurt them is it? I mean, they sue all these people for downloading stuff, so the value can't possibly be in the plastic they come on... the value is in the artists work...
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)
This does affect you even if you use an IRC server that masks ip addresses. A direct connection will give out your ip address and they can get that by requesting anything from fserve be it the file list, an mp3 or even a dcc chat session.
If a direct connection is not used then you can be protected by a foreign server more. The only way to be truly safe on irc is not to send files and be on a server that masks ip's.
The RIAA is trying to cling to its old business model, when it clearly does not apply to today's technological/economical reality.
They don't want to stop file-sharing to protect artists. Bullshit! They don't give a rat's ass for the artists. All they want is to protect their business model and, of course, some well paid and obsolete corporate tycoons.
If they really want to stop piracy, or at least reduce it immensely, here's a recipe: Drop the price of a CD to $3.00. I bet you MP3 file sharing will go down the next day. But then... Ah, how's poor RIAA exec going to pay for his BMW? It's Easier to sue everybody.
I almost pity the poor bastards. They're dinosaurs fighting against two formidable foes: Time and Technology...
Justice is a vending machine that only takes $10,000 coins, usually a lot of them. And sometimes the chocolate bar still gets stuck.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Even if you normally defend the right of the RIAA to try to prevent copywritten music from being stolen, this should seriously scare you if you care anything about your privacy. Just in case there is still anyone who isn't fully aware of this, the RIAA, under the DMCA, is able to file informational subpoenas without the signature of a judge. This particular provision of the DMCA has been unsuccessfully challenged by Verizon in US District Court.
So, even if you have never downloaded a copywritten mp3, the RIAA (if they wake up one morning and decide that they feel like it) can legally demand information about you from your ISP. Your real name, your address, your phone number, and who knows what else. This, my US citizen friends, is unacceptable. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for the enforcement of the law, but when my privacy can be violated for the sake of finding who the person is that stole the latest Justin Timberlake single so that the RIAA can fine them for between $750 to $150,000, then things have gotten out of hand.
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
The problem is twofold:
/dev/null. Regardless of how you feel about information freedom, copyrights are the teeth in many of the licenses that we hold dear that enable our intellectual and informational freedom. Copyrights are the law, and these companies are doing what they should do, have every right to do, and what most rational beings have been asking them to: going after law breakers.
1. Going after downloaders on P2P is not really easy (or possible, for that matter) without large scale tapping.
2. Your possession of those MP3's might be arguably legal. Assuming the copies were from vinyl, there would be little that could be argued against it. But if they were CDs, an argument could be made that the CD is a distinct work. You might not buy that argument, but it is an argument.
However, the unchecked distribution is essentially complicitory infringement. Similar to not checking ID's on liquor/porn sales - you can't assume that the person can be legally given the goods.* The onus can be legally on the distributor as well.
* note: I do not consider these crimes to be morally equivalent, don't insert usual argument about theft != infringement, or point out differences in the analogy in an intellectually dishonest way to discredit the argument. It is an analogy and will, by its very nature, be incomplete. Idiotic, rhetorical picking of nits will be sent to
So if a spammer uses some copyrighted information in the contents of his spam, can the copyright holder use the DMCA "subpeona cause I feel like it" clause to find the spammer?
Also, there's a section in the DMCA (section 1309.c) which says that if you didn't realize it was copy protected, it's not you're fault. Maybe a loophole?
Ben in DC
"It's the mark of an educated mind to be moved by statistics" Oscar Wilde
Pay EFF
These are your options. Pick one.
RIAA
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You mean like WASTE?
No wonder AOL was so worried.
There are now more file swappers than people who voted in the last presidential election so use p2p to construct a campaign advertising that any presidential candidate who will give a publicly sworn or even better, written guarantee to tame the RIAA will get the entire vote of the file swapping community thus guaranteeing them a win in return.
OK so copying music is illegal but the RIAA should stop behaving like a bunch of spoilt 4 year old fuckwits and adapt to the new marketplace in the same way that the British coal miners had to adapt to changes in the coal industry when Maggie "the mad phsyco bitch queen from hell" Thatcher killed it off in the 80's.
C'mon you lot over the pond, you keep going on about democracy, give a demonstration 'cos we've forgotten what it is in the UK!
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
The deftones recently released 49 bootlegs so fans didn't have to buy them off e-bay.
think for yourself. question authority.
I knew this would happen months ago. :P The great shakedown starts. If they want to stop P2P, they should destroy particular users. But no, since it's not about the P2P, but about the shakedown, they'll stick to a few thousand bucks per year. Increasing as people refuse to stop P2P.
If it pisses you off. Never give them money again.This is not a "boycott" which has the overtones of people who are willing to go back to buying once the companies clean up their acts. This is a "lifestyle change" where you realize that they will lie and fuck you over so you never give them money ever again. No matter how much they protest that they've "cleaned up" down the road.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
"Write your congressperson and tell him or her it's time to turn copyright protections back into what they were designed to be"
This is America . . . Money walks, right? Almost all politicians get their money from rich, influential groups. Letters might make the politicians aware of the problem but only money will win their support. Howard Dean is the only politician I am aware to receive most of his $ support from regular individuals (if there are others, please post here). We should support these types of politicians and ignore the rest. Remember, the best way to kill a politician is to ignore them.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Which do you prefer? Corperate Welfare? Freenet?
http://freenetproject.org/
Options are limited, you are a slave to the RIAA, or you support freenet.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
First they came for the spammers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a 419er;
Then they came for linking to the DeCSS, and I did not speak out--
because I was not 2600;
Then they came for reverse engineering, and I did not speak out--
because I was not Dmitry Sklyarov;
Then they came for the file traders, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a K-Lite user;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to Slashdot for me.
- tim.movementarian.com
Stop stealing the RIAA's profits and pay their damn tax!
You arent from Boston like me, so you dont get a teaparty.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's largest Internet provider and also parent company of Warner Music Group."
Ridiculous. The largest ISP doesn't get a single notice, while Verizon, the only ISP with enough backbone to fight for their customers, gets over 100. The RIAA is selectively punishing those who don't use AOL, because members of AOL put money in the pockets of RIAA members.
-R
Of course, this also brings up an interesting corollary to the Patriot Act. With Librarians destroying logs of what people checked out immediately after those books are returned to keep the government from scanning those logs without people's knowledge, how long is it until logrotated has its cycles tweaked to delete traffic information early? Or maybe just file-sharing traffic? Even a compliant ISP can't give the RIAA data it doesn't have.
As near as can be determined from the article, all subpoena's are related to sites that are publically offering songs for download. There is nothing about targeting those who download, or intercepting of private file transfers between two people sharing.
This is about people who are re-distributing works that they do not have rights to. The number of distinct titles is irrelevant to the legality, moralilty and actual damages of the act.
These actions are not "sharing". They are about publishing material without permission of the owner. If you want to defend that practice, fine. You have the right to do so. But the wording strikes me as deliberately trying to confuse this act with minor infringements.
I generally assume that those that need to confuse the issue have a weak case.
My read of the story shows no signs of snaring legal behavior and/or truly minor infringements in some sort of rabid enforcement move. I only wish the Federal Government showed this much restraint and targeting when going after "terrorists".
Now the RIAA is targeting copyright infringers and not the tools themselves. What's the problem? Isn't that what they're supposed to do? Does this somehow prevent you from sharing non-copyrighted files over P2P (which, as we all know, is the "primary" use of P2P)?
I mean, I just don't understand this mentality. Why do you feel like you're entitled to redistribute the copyrighted works of others? Why? When did this become a right? I can kind of understand downloading an MP3 of something you already own IF you can be sure it came from the copy of the album you own (i.e., none of this, "I bought the vinyl, now I'm entitled to the higher quality CD version" crap), but sharing the file to millions of people? I don't remember that being part of "Fair use".
Simple solution: stop sharing copyrighted materials over P2P. If P2P really is this wonderful tool for sharing Redhat ISOs and MP3s of lame garage bands, then put your money where you mouth is. Don't share anything copyrighted, don't download anything copyrighted, and fully support the RIAA and MPAA when they go after people that do either. No one has gone to jail or ever will for sharing non-copyrighted materials. There might be cases here and there of people getting hassled over misunderstandings (that professor who had "Usher" in his MP3 filenames), but no one is going to get charged with anything if they really are on the up and up.
We're not stealing... We try it... We like it = we buy it! Now that iw what RIAA fail to comprehend. I have bought many cds which I wouldn't have even heard of, if it wasn't for the illegal distribution of music. Because the radio won't let me listen to alternative music, I can only find out about it on the internet (Or rarely on special shows in the middle of the night). But I have no doubt, that I will be sued and condemned by RIAA if they should ever catch me doing something nasty, because they can't fathom why on earth I would want to buy the CD if I already had the music on my computer.
------- I fumbled my registration and I now must suffer
Sure, and there are legitimate reasons for P2P that don't involve illegally trading material subject to copyright. But everyone knows (and I defy anyone to claim otherwise) that the vast, vast majority of P2P use if for this purpose. Contrary to what many here may believe, the courts aren't stupid or naive. If a technology is being abused by 99.99% of its users, they're not going to accept "But it has legitimate uses!" as a black and white defence without something a bit more convincing to back it up.
I would strongly suggest that you don't ask for legal advice on Slashdot. As I've just noted in another post, plenty of people will give you their "informed" opinion, probably modded up to +5 by those who agree with it. Unfortunately, as the EULA fiasco shows, "informed" Slashdot opinion frequently disagrees with the opinion of a court, and guess who wins in that case. :-/
My personal take, from a common sense perspective rather than a legal one, is that if both the source and the sink know damn well that they're involved in making an illegal copy of material, they should both be liable to penalties for copyright infringement. If only one party knows, and the other is innocent, then only the guilty party should be subject to penalties, though the other might be legally compelled to erase any copies they made without knowing. To my mind, fair reasons a party might be innocent include:
I'd like to think the current legal system reflected that, and I suspect that sooner or later case law will come down to something along these lines. But I certainly wouldn't claim that this is how the law is today, because I don't know, and neither do most other people posting here.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I'm wondering why such a fuss is being made about this. If you illegally distribute copyrighted material you are liable for damages. The damages are real. They aren't as big as the RIAA makes them out to be, but they are real nevertheless. Privacy and grandiose interpretations of the First Amendment have nothing to do with it. Nobody is entitled to do stuff that is not legal.
All the people who think the RIAA is trying to protect an outdated business model and should just fall over and die need to take a good look at their own morals. Just because their business model is outdated (is it?) doesn't mean you can take the law into your own hands. What's more, the model isn't outdated at all. The musical horizons of most of you would not extend beyond playing the banjo if it wasn't for the RIAA.
The people who think technology will solve this problem need to think again. There will always be ways to illegally exchange copyrighted materials. But there won't be some kind of Uber-P2P app that destroys the RIAA in one fell swoop, with kissing and credits. Reliable, Cheap, Mass-appeal: pick one-and-a-half.
Some people seem to think it's more of a social dynamic. The cat's out of the bag, can't put the genie back into the bottle, so much for Pandora's box. They think nothing of sharing music. It's just a natural thing to do, and since so many people are doing it, everybody else will just have to adapt. It's the mob mentality: democracy at its very worst. These people talk about freedom and individuality, but they seek cover behind the anonymity provided by the mob. Even if that anonymity is just an illusion, like it is on the Internet.
What the RIAA is doing now is exactly what they should be doing. They are not demonizing any particular technology. They are not pushing for overly broad and vague laws. They are simply tracking copyright violations. If you don't like that idea, then stop violating copyright. It's really simple.
Personally, I couldn't care less. Sometimes I'll grab a few tunes off Gnutella or Usenet, or post a few albums. But I've stopped telling myself that file sharing will dramatically change the way the music industry works. If anything, it is the other way around: the music industry will do more to change the computing industry than vice versa.
Besides, I like to go outside and browse in the record store. It's not so bad.
You simply don't get it. Your time is OVER. People like me now boycott buying CDs altogether because we see that YOU are the biggest crooks in this picture.
The ONLY people we care about are the artists, and while your endless speeches talk about how music pirates are hurting artists, we KNOW that the only people we are hurting are the labels.
You, the labels, are the fucking hypocrite here. You shamelessly abuse the people we actually DO care about (the artists) and then sue US for hurting the artists??? Maybe you have forgotten, but WE ARE YOUR ONLY SOURCE OF INCOME.
Enjoy your BMWs and Mercedes while you have them, because the second there's a way to cut you and your friends out of this picture, we will do it, and I will then start buying music again because I, unlike you, actually DO care about the artists.
Rot in hell in the meantime.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
You are robbing millions of musicians who wouldnt make a penny before you started stealing music.
You are robbing rich CEOs who desperately need your money to buy their new set of houses and car collection
You are robbing millions of tax payers who will be forced to bailout the RIAA when the RIAA forces Bush to give them 20-30 billion dollars of your tax dollars.
Just give them the money. Or do you want them to steal it?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
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...
From the article :
The RIAA's subpoenas are so prolific that the U.S. District Court in Washington, already suffering staff shortages, has been forced to reassign employees from elsewhere in the clerk's office to help process paperwork, said Angela Caesar-Mobley, the clerk's operations manager.
So, I guess this means that the court is so busy that they can't go after other types of criminals, such as Enron executives and terrorists...
From this AP article at the Washington Post:
Verizon, which has fought the RIAA over the subpoenas with continued legal appeals, said it received at least 150 subpoenas during the last two weeks. There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's largest Internet provider and also parent company of Warner Music Group. Earthlink Inc., another of the largest Internet providers, said it has received three new subpoenas.
So, I'm wondering if users of RoadRunner, owned by Time Warner Cable, are somehow being granted a "pardon" as well by our associates at the RIAA for using TW's services.
Michael C. Hollinger
Regardless of weather the RIAA is right or wrong in their ethical practices using Kazaa et al. is being just as unethical. If we want to sink the RIAA (and believe me I would) I would feel a whole lot better with boycotts and legaslation.
I can't believe that there aren't enough people who care on /. alone that we can't fight this fight standing rather than just pirating the music. Doing that says that you don't care that the RIAA is a megalomaniacal organization, but rather that you 'just hafta hear' the latest JLo song.
Sending the wrong message is worse than sending no message. (Well I said it. So much for my excellent Karma)
100% Crunchier
Since RIAA is going to file basically identical lawsuits, lawsuits that they are almost guaranteed to win, someone with a good knowledge of the law should come up with a HOW-TO that will explain how to:
- defend yourself without having to hire a lawyer
- give a solid, standardized argument that will minimize the damages you might have to pay
RIAA's tactics are based off the aversion people have to the legal system. But a collaboratively developed, standard defence can reduce the pain. And letting people know they are not alone will reduce the intimidation factor
I download some tunes from the Net but I purchase the CD's I like and the music I don't like gets deleted - and inevitably I'm glad I listened to it first since it was most disappointing. I've found a lot of artists I never knew about and liked the songs enough to buy the CD.
The music industry should try and promote new artists a bit more. I'm not suggesting it might curb all piracy but playing different tracks, promoting other artists people haven't heard might just tempt them to buy CDs. Makes sense doesn't it?
My suggestions to promote other artists (which might curb the downloading music trend):
1. Rotation on the radio stations blows. Stop hourly regualar rotation of the same 5 songs.
2. Some music stores have demo CD's that you can listen to in the stores. It would be nice if some were more open to sampling to more CDs.
3. Better promotion on labels' websites.
4. Finally, albums more than 2 years tend to jump by %25. Lower the premium, which has stopped me from buying some CDs - and people might not download older albums either.
Just remember to login onto Kazaa with a descriptive user name instead of Joe Bloggs or hi45y45 try the following:
"File Sharing is legal in my country"
"It is my legal right to share files"
"File sharing is not piracy"
"Know your rights visit www.eff.com"
"RIAA represents companies convicted of operating illegal cartels"
"IANAL but I have access to one"
"You cannot prosecute me I am underage"
"P2P helps music grow"
"CD prices equals extortion"
"Music is an addiction sue the pusher"
or my current favorite:
"Who watches the watchers"
Remember to use an underscore instead of spaces,
Enjoy.
OK, so Kazaa usage trickles down to near zero. Now what? No more downloading Three Dog Night's unreleased studio sessions? No swapping of the full catalog of Fishbone? In other words, no more impulse downloading of dozens of old, obscure songs you'd never actually pay for anyway, even at 25 cents a song. How's this supposed to help CD sales, again?
Do they really think people are going to go back to buying the latest hits at $17.99 a pop when it's still so easy, even without major filesharing programs, to burn a copy of the lastet CD from someone else in your dorm, or to swap mp3s over IM with trusted friends only?
I don't begrudge their attempts to pursue legal remedies but at this point the barn door is wide open and the horse is halfway to the next county.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Two items in this article worried me a little: "The RIAA's subpoenas are so prolific that the U.S. District Court in Washington, already suffering staff shortages, has been forced to reassign employees from elsewhere in the clerk's office to help process paperwork, said Angela Caesar-Mobley, the clerk's operations manager." and: "A spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the clerk's office here was "functioning more like a clearing house, issuing subpoenas for all over the country." Any civil lawsuits would likely be transferred to a different jurisdiction, spokeswoman Karen Redmond said." Here the RIAA is overloading the D.C. District Court to the point they need to transfer people, which leaves other staffs shorthanded, which slows down other (more important) aspects of the Clerk's office - Such as dealing with REAL criminal cases. Oh, and not to mention these clerks are likely working more than normal. So the RIAA has already stuck it to us all by even filing for subpoenas. Our tax dollars pay for those clerks who are doing the RIAA's bidding. Isn't it nice to know even when we dont want to help the RIAA, we are?
what do you mean "NO GIRLS" ??? we will be able to access those jpegs through the sat link as we do now. I don't see the difference *puzzled*
"Be careful or be roadkill" - Calvin
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.
Putting the "is MP3 trading really hurting anyone" argument aside, as a DePaul student I'm very concerned over my privacy rights. DePaul is fully working with the RIAA and not even put up a legal defense to maintain the privacy of its students.
This is simply unacceptable. Will all our traffic be sniffed by various copyright holders in the future? I don't like carry around thousand page books so I just scan them. If the publishers of america jumped on the RIAA bandwagon would I be a criminal and my ISP/University would fold instantly when asked for information? I'm afraid the answer is yes. Then I have to goto court and try to defend myself in front of a world of technophobes and vs. some lawyers that know all the tricks.
To me it looks like ALL format shifting has come under question, regardless of the legality of the use. Imagine if I gave someone a copy of one of my scanned books for academic use so we can work together on a project. Again, the "format-shift police" and the lack of privacy means that I'll probably be forced to defend my fair use rights at lawyerpoint.
When will it end? Will sigs in emails be checked to see if anyone owns them too?
A wholesale destruction of privacy rights and the destruction of fair use is not good for anyone, even the dreaded RIAA. Let's not forget the flaps their artists are always going through regarding illegal sampling, stealing obvious musical progressions, etc.
This whole MP3 thing is eroding our civil liberties faster than we'll be able to get them back. This will all lead to the day of the DRM enabled browser that won't let you copy and paste or link to copyright articles. This will put a massive chill on speech.
Laugh at the above all you like, but the web works mostly because of fair use and privacy. We've successfully fought off the "hyperlinking without permission is illegal" crowd and the "you must tell me who is anon39595 is" crowd. The RIAA is only helping those people. We are living in a time where copyright holders are more or less simply calling ISPs, giving an IP address and a time and getting back info like name, address, phone number, etc.
I really hope the RIAA doesn't have their stuff together and someone can build a defense on barratry. As I see no other way out of this problem. The file traders won't quit and neither will the RIAA.
The priacy people who copy music and sell for profit outside the US including terrorists in Iraq are stil not charged by RIAA..
and yet still no listening to music lovers request fo downloadable song tracks which we are willing to pay $0.99 per track..
and yet RIAA business model burns..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Out of the 800 some subpoenas filed. Someone in that ever growing group is bound to have enough money or know someone famous that will assist and help them stand up for themselves. Unfortunately most of the people are probably high school or college kids or people just trying to get by in life. If I were in the group and forced to settle, part of the settlement agreement would have to be that I'm allowed to talk about what happened to me in public. Embarrass the hell out of the RIAA. Go on as many talk shows and radio shows as possible. If they can't fight them in the courts then use the media.
Use meetup.com (or an equivalent) to host local CD-ripping parties on a monthly basis. Let's see the RIAA stop that.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
In case you did not hear, there is a P2P way to trade anonymously called freenet:
n load
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=dow
There isn't much content because it's fairly new, but with a little help a few uploads it could be come a very good trading network.
As most people currently acknowledge (if only grudgingly), wanton copying of songs is, whilst not immoral, certainly illegal in the eyes of the law. The answer to this phenomenon of music downloading isn't encrypted filetrading etc, but MAKING IT LEGAL.
As a recent example that comes to mind, look at the overturning of the sodomy laws in a few US states that still had them on the books. On the day prior to the overturn you could have been arrested for having sex with your gay significant other, however one day later and you were LEGALLY able to do so without fear of arrest.
Did the morality of the situation magically change overnight? No, of course not. What changed was that society at large recognised that the legality didn't gel with the morality, and therefore overturned the law itself because it was not considered to be of "benefit" to society any more (it never was IMHO).
So should it be for copyright law in the digital age, where information can be easily copied for near zero cost (other than buying hard drives etc).
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?
If it is accurate that most (>50%) people download music then we should overturn the whole concept of copyright, move with the times, get rid of outdated business models (distribution monopoly through artificial scarcity) and start over. Society should base laws on accepted morality, not corporate buyoffs of laws paid to politicians.
Finally I just want to say this:
Listening to a song on the radio is legal. Time-shifting a recording for viewing or listening later is legal. But if I download that same recording from P2P to time-shift my listening to when I want to listen to it instead of when some DJ decided it was time to listen it, suddenly I'm a criminal. What the fsck???
(The answer of course, is that by stripping out the ads the radio station can't sell their advertisers the audience. Yes, YOU are the PRODUCT being sold BY radio stations TO advertisers. It destroys yet another outdated business model. Middle-man based industries are the ones dying off, and it is these industries that are now paying off the politicians to keep themselves in control that little bit longer until they can cash out.)
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
I don't think that the U.S. would ruin a nation's economy just because of little old me.
They'd probably just stick me in Guantanamo for musical terrorism.
honestly, this is exactly what the RIAA should have been doing all along. going after the networks themselves was futile - with the demise of Napster came the advent of AudioGalaxy, then Gnutella, then Kazaa (with a couple of others omitted out of laziness on my part). most have fallen like dominoes, only to be replaced by progressively less centralized networks.
shutting down the networks is akin to closing a road just because people speed and suing the contractor that built the road. cities, though, have to bitchslap those who are actually breaking the law. siren, lights, ticket, court date.
and that's just what the RIAA is learning now. they can go after the networks all they want, but as long as the end users feel immune from harm for their trafficking, another network will spring up in its place. by going after the actual swappers, the RIAA is finally going to make a dent in its little problem here.
argue about the inequality of the music industry, its uneven balance away from the artists themselves, the unfairness of the current copyright schema, and all that jazz... but that's the way the world turns today. the consumers are not going to instigate change in the music industry - the balance will favor the artists only when the artists start standing up for themselves. and truly, if the balance were that unfair you'd see that happening.
laws are another matter, but the same necessity. just like the musicians need to stand up and wrestle back some control over their art, the American people need to stand up and wrestle their government back from corporate interests.
the whining that goes on in here and around the net is disappointing. we know what the current regime is. we know what the consequences are. unfair or not, we shouldn't act surprised when you get caught.
woof!
You own the physical objects -- the negatives, the paper photographs themselves. You are granted the right, for a limited time, to grant licenses to copy those images.
BUT -- you do not own the images. The images are not property. A copy of the image is not theft, for you do not own the image.
IF someone steals your physical property, theft is committed. If someone copies the photos, it is a copyright violation, which is a civil offense which should carry no criminal penalties, only monetary ones as determinted by a court.
I know it is common for artists and corporations to think that ideas or words or images are their property. But those things are not property.
Copyright was instituted to insure that, for a limited time, creators of new art could receive money for their work, *in order to increase the body of art and knowledge for all*. The idea was not to create a new body of property. Copyright exists to reward effort, for a limited time, and then, *the ideas or art are released for the good of all*.
The U.S. for most of its history refused to honor the copyrights of any other nation, much less consider such as property. Only in the 20th century did the idea of "intellectual property" arise. It is a new idea, a meme that could eventually retard science, medicine, art, politics, teaching, the list is endless.
One of the first proponents of "IP" on the net was Scientology, who initiated the first IP lawsuits against netizens back in the early '90's. The cult wanted to stop ex-members from talking about what they had been told, what they had read, based on the idea that the cult "owned" all that information as a trade secret. They've been the major backer of the DMCA and the new copyright police state.
You can't own patterns of information, which is what content actually is. But a new regime in the U.S. wants to create this new law, and they are getting away with it by selling the idea that they are protecting artists.
They aren't. Artists have historically been robbed, in payments for books, TV, music, movies, you name it. Artists who want to view their work as property are actually selling their souls to immortal corporations which will actually own the works in perpetuity.
Viewing artistic works as property will ruin the artists themselves. Keep copyright laws as they should be: don't give the major corportate powers the ability to acquire ownership of all the works of man -- for all eternity.
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?
LIke the old days, only share with people you know.
Too bad the RIAA lost my business due to this crap. If i cant sample something, im not going to fork out 20 bucks 'just to see'. I have purcahsed over 500 CD's, and even more vinyl recordings over the years. And many beacuse i was able to hear them in their entirety FIRST.
Screw them. No more $ from me. That ends today.
Oh, and before you say im stealing, first look up the true definition, and also note i send cash direct to artists of stuff i keep... the ones who CREATED the stuff in the first place.
Every buck i send them is more then they got from the industry...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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 ----
"These are your options. Pick one"
Here's another one. Don't break the law. The courts don't give a damn what you think about music or the RIAA. You can think music should be free all you want. That isn't going to change the fact that someone else has the copyright to it, not you. And despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth here, last time I checked, there was no right to copyright infringement of any kind. Just because it's cheap, and easy, and it's music doesn't get you an exemption in the eyes of the law. And don't scream fair use at me either. Distributing a song to 100,000 of your closest friends on KaZaa isn't fair use.
Oh, and I seem to recall most of Slashdot's posters saying "Go after the infringers, not the technology!"
Well, looks like they called the bluff. Now that they're actualy suing individuals, the tune around here seems to have changed.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Oh, I fully agree. I'm very upset with the state of copyrights. I mean, what is it now, like 70 years after the life of the original author? Essentially, nothing recorded in the 20th century will ever see the light of day again.
Like I said, I'm a photographer. I do a lot of weddings, and one of the services I like to offer my brides is to put their wedding photos in a slideshow on a DVD, set to music. Makes it really easy to show all their friends and family their photos, because you can just drop the disc in the player, and show it to everybody on the big screen.
Well, at first I thought I would like to put big-name songs on the DVD to go along with their photos. So I call up ASCAP, who manages the copyrights for just about every artist out there, and asked how much it would be to sync some big-name songs to my photos. I wanted to make about three copies of the DVD (one for the couple, and one for each set of parents). Try $50/song. Right...I'm only charging like $300 for the service as it is, and it takes a couple hours to set up one of these DVDs.
Wouldn't it be great if copyrights were still 17 years? Then I would access to everything produced before 1985. That would be an enormous library of music in the public domain to choose from. Now, though, thanks to Disney, I can't get my hands on anything after like 1920. The real crime is that most anything that old isn't making money anymore these days anyway. They've locked out all the music from the 30s, the 40s, the 50s...even though probably less than 2% of music from those eras is still making any money these days.
Disney got rich off the public domain in the first place. Snow White was a Brothers Grimm tale, wasn't it? Cinderella was a Chinese fairy tale (with magic fish instead of a fairy god mother). Tarzan? Public domain. The Hunchback of Notre Dame? I doubt they paid Victor Hugo anything. Little Mermaid? Thanks Hans! Disney raided the public domain gold mine of the 19th century, but they'll be damned if you can do the same for their creations of the 20th.
Sorry for the rant...just pisses me off that I have to use crappy public domain music, or compose it myself...which actually isn't that bad with Apple's Soundtrack that comes with Final Cut Pro 4.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's largest Internet provider and also parent company of Warner Music Group. Earthlink Inc., another of the largest Internet providers, said it has received only three new subpoenas.
Doesn't it strike anyone else as *amazing* that the LARGEST Internet Service Provider in the nation does not have ANY subscribers being sued?????
HOW are they deciding which filesharers to sue? Surely there must be several thousand AOL'ers sharing mp3 files. Are they overlooked because they share through IM or what???
My paranoia is telling me the RIAA is being used an an underhanded strongarm technique to consolidate ISP's. Chase away one ISP's customers by suing them, and likely they will change ISP's as well.....
*mumbles* gotta stop watching too much TV....
blue
128K MP3s are promotional goods of NO commercial value outside their use in getting people to buy the real products, which are CDs and better than broadcast quality digital tracks. no moral or ethical issues here, other than the question of "why are people giving the record labels free bandwidth and promotional exposure?" Only RIAA propaganda says their is some. You can't believe everything coming out of your TV set.
Piracy has NOTHING to do with this, otherwise the RIAA would be spending their lobbying bucks on getting Congress to pressure foriegn governments into closing down bootleg CD PRESSING PLANTS pumping out bogus RIAA member content by the millions of copies.
This is about control. It isn't that the record companies mind us paying to distribute their content. It's that you and I have the same access to P2P channels to distribute our own material that they do, and they fear that they can't play on a level playing field even with billions in budgets and exclusive control over radio and major venue concert distribution.
Illegal? Certainly. But only because they bought and paid for politicians to make it so. The law said "swap audio on analog tape = legal, swap audio as broadcast-quality digital files - go to jail."
Your parents swapped audio tapes with ultimately, the blessing of the RIAA. Tape swapping got the word out and ultimately turned the Grateful Dead and ironically, Metallica into successes.
The record industry doesn't want it to be possible for musicians to succeed outside their system.
Not that it's a bad idea to stop uploading RIAA member tracks to P2P. They don't deserve distribution help. They deserve oblivion.
You really want to hurt the RIAA member labels?
If you just stop buying, they'll blame piracy and buy worse laws. Want Palladium made compulsory?
Just take every dollar you spend on entertainment and spend it on independent musicians. Go to their gigs, buy their records.
When the CEOs of the multinationals that own the RIAA labels find that the only record labels that are increasing profits are ones not affiliated with the RIAA or their lobbyists, the whines about piracy from label CEOs will cease to be accepted as excuses.
Their next logical move is to dump the brands the major CEOs have irretreveably tainted in the public eye. Their new investors will be buying catalogues and artists contracts, why would they be picking up the contracts of the management that destroyed their own companies?
Perhaps the new "Big 5" will be Apple, HP, Microsoft, Dell, and IBM.
Does this mean that music won't be run by fuckheads? No, but at least the fuckheads running the new music industry will live in the same world the rest of us do.
Tech Public Policy stuff
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 was thinking, you share on KaZaa (over cable like rr), you get a subpoena in the mail saying the RIAA is suing you.
So you go to the store and buy a wireless router and a wireless card for your PC. Oh yeah, remember to delete all your *illegal* MP3s. Move your PC to the other side of your house to give it some distance between it and the wireless router. Now, you tell the RIAA that you've been using wireless for the last 6 months and that it wasn't you but probably somebody else using your wireless network that you keep open. Since the burden of proof is on them to prove that you *personally* downloaded it and they can't prove it, you get off free. Well, with the cost of a wireless router and hopefully just a small amount of lawyers fees.
The Members of the RIAA (lables) are the for-profit companies. The members are who really own the copyrights, IP and Artists.
Suing the RIAA for anti-trust would be like suing NORML for being the only real marijuana activist group or suing the American Medical Association (AMA) for being the primary association for doctors.
Professional and Trade Associations have become an intregal and pervasive part of our political landscape. It's a shame that most people don't even realize that they exist. Assocaitions are so pervasive that there's even a California Christmas Tree Association.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
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
Doesn't matter...you can get sued into oblivion if they catch you. It's not worth losing my entire business because I just HAD to have "Time of Your Life" or something. If we're talking about my personal vacation photos, that's fine, I wouldn't care...but here we're talking about selling something for profit. I'd rather not take the risk, thanks...I need to eat.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
When a dog barks at me, I don't bark back.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
It certainly isn't killing my business...I'm doing just fine. It's just a shame that so much music will never heard again. There's plenty of blame to go around, but certainly Disney deserves a large portion of it.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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
"File swapping on P2P is simply distributing the same tracks that the record labels PAY radio stations to broadcast to the public on the dime of the public itself. "
You're confusing performance of the song -- playing it over a radio with very strict rules as to how the listeners can control what they're hearing -- and distribution -- getting a copy of the recording of the specific song you want.
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.
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". 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.
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?
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.
---
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.
I do think mp3 spreading is helping the popularity of many artists. I do believe that the RIAA's claims of lost money from file sharing are *very* exaggerated, if not completely fabricated.
But I think your assumption that free mp3 sharing is ONLY acting as a promotional tool is a very over-simplified standpoint. Certainly not worth the amount of bold and all-caps text you used on it.
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
1. Hit them where it hurts. Don't buy anymore of their precious copyrighted material. boycott-riaa.com has a RIAA membership list. Don't let them see a penny of your money.
2. Get educated and vote. Vote politicians out of office that support these morons. These ignorant assholes are going to ruin our country. Standing up and voting will send a message that we are sick of these friggin lobbyists.
If we want the system to change, maybe we need to REALLY work at changing it, and that means bankrupting the record labels. You can help. Share everything you have. Turn other people on to file sharing. Rip everythig you come across, even if you don't like it, then find someone who DOES like it and will share it for a while, and give it to them. Use newsgroups and Xnews, BT, Waste, kazaalite ---EVERYTHING, and share it up. Start putting shares on public computers at libraries and universities and internet cafes. They want to kill you? Fine, but you should be doing your best to try to kill them to. Also, support free music during this time. If three is a local band that allows you to download their music for free, go see them, and tell them you're there BECAUSE you dig their music. If we all put an hour a week into really promoting p2p by redistributing quality content, this war would be over in 6 months.
It's only feasible for them to sue while there is still something there for them to protect. Let's try to really start hurting their profits, rather than passively doing so by just file-sharing.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Maybe, but you're on really shaky ground. If it turns out you're wrong, and they find out, and they sue you (and their lawyers cost a lot more than anybody you can afford), then you're screwed. I know several videographers, and they're in the same boat. So, nobody's willing to take the chance.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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
Another 20 years go by.
When, instead of portable (read, pocket-sized) 20Gb music players, we have 20Tb players, with CPU speeds to match.
When the faster CPUs allow use of far superior sound compression algorithms that better model the sources of sound...
When transfer speeds make USB 2.0 look like RS232...
When said handheld players will be able to contain not your entire present music collection, but nigh all music in recorded history.
When all you might ever lack on any given day is the newest music, and that's assuming you even like it (since you're 20 years older), or even have the time to listen to it (since you'll have so much already).
While P2P is a terrible thing in the eyes of the RIAA, I can't help but think back to the '80's and two things of the past:
- recordable audio cassettes
- recordable videotape
Both involve magnetic tape that holds practically nothing compared to recordable media today, and it takes *forever* to record onto them. Yet, they scared the record and movie industries to death, to such a degree that the movie industry tried to kill VCRs.
The implications for the future are staggering by comparison. Not only is it *digital* media, its size and ease of recording will, IMHO, be the *real* nail in the RIAA's coffin, *not* the Internet. When you can get in your car, head ofer to your buddy's house, and transfer all music in human history, that will be the true death knell for any company seeking to profit from an artist's efforts. Organizations like the RIAA consume far more in funds and resources than are necessary to support individual artists; when those funds start drying up, there must eventually come a breaking point where being affiliated with the RIAA is a financial liability. After all, who here still pays someone to deliver ice--or milk? The RIAA *will* go the way of the dodo, but I don't think P2P will be their killer asteroid, it will be the slow, steady march of technology.
Will they pay exhorbitant sums to our legislators to close the "analog hole"? They may try, but I doubt such an effort can succeed. Unless they can ban general-purpose programmable computers and resistors, anyone can digitize sound and put it into an open format. I don't care how much clout the RIAA has with Congress, the tech industry is ten times their size and will not suffer being downgraded to the era of Timex-Sinclair ZX-80's and TI-99/4A's. May as well tell everyone to turn in all their cars and TV's and go back to radio with vacuum tubes.
Slightly OT late-night idea ahead...
As I type this, one way to speed the process might be to create a slick-as-butter, easy-to-use way for beginning artists to get some airtime. How about something simple where websites could run some Java or Javascript that let users listen to a minute of an indie artist's song? Indie artists could sign up at some central site, and any website running this Java or Javascript would go out to the site, pick an artist at random, and pull a minute of music that it can play if the user clicks the play button...
Disregarding the usual legal vs. legitimate discussion that always takes place after these kinds of posts for a second, let's focus on the technical hurdles the RIAA has to take.
... and use a different client for your real downloading needs. If 40M people would try this the RIAA would have to stop soon enough.
There are plenty of options out there to cover your tracks if your dealing with illegal content, e.g. the new Kazaalite and Freenet. What about doing it the other way around?
Do a massive rename of legal songs into Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, etc. The songs are legal, yet the RIAA will try to sue you. If enough people do it they won't know where to begin. You don't think they actually listen to the songs, right? It's the same they where trying to do on the Kazaa network a year or so ago, themselves.
To make sure these servers don't bring the networks down a few precautions have to be made. Don't actually share your content: throttle down the upload transfer maximum. Then, open up your listing to everyone. You will be spotted soon enough.