How to Tell if the RIAA Wants You

codewolf writes "Wired News has an article on how file sharers can check a new online database to see if they are wanted by the recording industry. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a site where users can plug in their file-sharing user names. That name is checked against the list of those subpoenas filed in the Washington, D.C. district court. The EFF also has an article on how to avoid a lawsuit from the RIAA."

Comments

Don't waste your breath, pal

[DesScorp]

You're not going to convince anyone in THIS place.

I'll add one thing. I'm getting tired of /., the EFF, et. al. calling it "sharing" or "swapping". It's neither. It's only sharing or swapping if you have the rights to it. Otherwise, it's illegal (with certain small exceptions).

This is, of course, part and parcel of the language war, as both sides manuever to put the debate in terms that will win the public over. And both sides know it. The EFF is going to make this whole business sound as friendly and wholesome as possible ("It's SHARING! How can you be against SHARING, you greedy pig???").

And while people here keep screaming "It's not stealing! It's not THEFT!"....yes it is. When you take something that's not yours, when you don't have the legal right to it, that's stealing. I do wish people would have the balls to just admit that's what they're doing. Some do. Some will tell you they just don't give a fuck. Ironically, I think that makes them better people than the ones trying to justify what they're doing by putting it into a political or economic context ( usually either "music wants to be free or it's a human right, etc, or I'm too poor or the record companies charge too much and music is a human right, etc). At least the "I don't give a fuck crowd are just stealing. The excusers are liars AND thieves.

Oh well, I had too much Karma anyway. Sheilds up!

Mirror of article on how to avoid a RIAA lawsuit

[Snaller]

"Don't do it!"

I'll never donate to the EFF

[geekee]

"The recording industry continues its futile crusade to sue thousands of the over 60 million people who use file-sharing software in the U.S.," Fred Von Lohmann, senior attorney with the EFF, said in a statement. "We hope that the EFF's subpoena database will give people some peace of mind and the information they need to challenge the subpoenas and protect their privacy." "

Statements like this show the EFF has no regard for copyright. Most of these people are guilty, but the EFF somehow thinks the RIAA is wrong for prosecuting them. What does privacy hae to do with anything. These people made public copyrighted works and now the EFF is defending their right to do so anonymously by hiding behind their ISPs? What next? Is the EFF going to defend the right to prank callers to be able to harrass people anonymously? And before you start complaining that a judge should have to sign each subpoena, that's just hiding behind beuracracy. In reality if a judge decides the method of collecting IPs is sufficient evidence to warrant a subpoena, the RIAA should be able to "batch" submit as many as they want using this method. The EFF isn't interested in justice, but instead they're trying to give people rights they don't have under the constitution.