Slashdot Mirror
The RIAA Hit List - A Pattern Emerges?
Desus writes "Slyck News seems to have found a pattern in just what files the RIAA is searching on to find offenders. It seems the RIAA is targeting a wide reach of music, including Hip Hop, R&B, Rap, Rock, Pop and Country songs. Artists such as Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq were very common throughout the subpoenas. They've even created a helpful chart showing exactly what artists and songs seem to get one flagged." Update: 07/31 13:12 GMT by H : Here's another source for the chart.
So the message I am getting is
'Listen to good music, and the RIAA will leave you alone'.
I don't have a problem with that.
Legal action is justified and actually desirable if it stops someone listening to 'Destiny's Child'.
I rest my case, M'lud
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
Surprise!
Everyone should listen to AFI. Are they in the chart? (i dont have excel)
So the big surprise is that the RIAA is going after people who illicitly share a wide selection of their songs. As opposed to only targeting those people who illicitly share Eminem and Madonna. How shocking.
Really, what is the point to this article?
http://perljam.net/misc/p2p/
Most popular:
Busta Rhymes Pass the Courvoisier (12)
Avril Lavigne Losing Grip (8)
Avril Lavigne Complicated (6)
Incubus Nice to Know You (6)
Marvin Gaye Lets Get It On (6)
Musiq Halfcrazy (6)
Tracy Chapman Fast Car (6)
-ted
Because I don't listen to them. Instead I steal music from unknown bands who don't make money off their music.
I'm so glad the RIAA is protecting the millionares and not the people who really suffer from piracy.
No Commodores
No L.T.D.
No McFadden and Whitehead
No Ashford and Simpson
No Gap Band
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Someone want to convert the chart into a format the rest of us can read?
:)
I'm interested, but I'm not a ms office whore
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
I have a surprising number of those songs on my machine. Thankfully none of them are shared :)
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
Shove CDs down my underpants.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Well, obviously they're just going to go for the most shared, mainstream songs and bands they can find, which turns out to be shiznat.
I only listen to stuff from the 80s... so I'm screwed?
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
Hint: put only one type of data in each cell. When you mix data in a single cell, it makes it very hard to sort or analyze. For instance, this spreadsheet has two colums: "Artist" and "Song title (times appearing)".
Would it have been that hard to break out time appearing into another column, so interested people could actually *use* the data for something? No. In fact, it would have been *less* work.
Sorry to bitch and moan, but spreadsheet abuse is one of my pet peeves.
Cheers
-b
I really find it amusing that they are targeting Rap/hip-hop/r&b more so than anything else. when typically the urban areas that generate that music have less money than the people who generate punk/emo/rock.
.....
I also love the fact that they aren't targeting the lesser known bands. in which case I'll crop the nirvana, NIN, and QOTSA out of my collection and continue to share the small time stuff
Works for me.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
No Brittney? Now Cristau Aguilera?
Once those songs are less populated, they'll go after other ones.
What would be more interesting is the percentage of subpoenas there are for each ISP. I've heard rumors of how AOL users are more immune, simply because of their Time Warner affiliation.
While I have no sympathy for those that choose to distributed copyrighted works on P2P networks without the copyright owner's permission, I don't understand why customers not using an ISP owned by the same holding company as the record companies should get in trouble first.
On the other hand, maybe AOL can leverage this to attract more subscribers. It's no longer "823451 hours for free", it's "music and movies for free"! Heh.
Of course, if the scare tactic doesn't pan out, eventually AOL users won't be safe either.
"You've got jail!"
This rocks, my favorite band Slayer didn't make the list.
No matter anyway.. as a loyal fan I own all their cds anyway.
What I get from this list is that as long as you don't listen to (c)rap you're all set.
Reading the RIAA hit list... your ip has been logged, don't move the police are on their way.
THe article claims that from 50 total subpoenas being checked, they can deduce overall proportions of artist representation in the subpoenas, which is, frankly, a load of crock; with a sample size that small, margin of error would be enormous. Oh, and by the way, it's not like the RIAA needs to limit itself to these artists of these songs, they just happen to be what they were searching for to trigger some results, and with the huge body of work protected by the RIAA, I imagine that if it were not for simple lack of motivation, they could easily cycle through an enormous number of searches to perform... Perhaps they'll do exactly this each time someone tries to analyze their "pattern"...
I guess it won't be long before Jesse Jackson is accusing the RIAA of racism.
-R
I download different songs
as a different nick
onto a different folder
on different days
using different computers
running different OSes
wearing different clothes
under a different IP via dhcp.
Come find me ~
Lets see....
Most of the targets seem to have been into top 40 stuff, thats a funny coinicidence. Or maybe file sharers have the same poor taste in music as everybody else?
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Holy SH*T its as if they have a "plan" or some sort of reason / logic for doing what they are doing?
Who do they think they are!!...
thinking and everything??
If you don't like Excel, you can grab the files in HTML format (25.2 KB) or in OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet format (10.4 KB).
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
The one pattern I see is that the overwhelming number of the artists seem to be those that appeal to under 25's. Obviously the RIAA have decided to go for those who can least afford to offer legal resistance (school kids and college students).
Come on RIAA, dare you to pick on us Lou Reed fans!
OWNED
hmm, out of a miniscule sample size of 50, we found that a wide variety of types of music were being shared. Many popular songs were shared by many people, while some songs where only shared by a few. This roughly fits a bell curve distribution as would nomally be found in a random sample of shared files.
Therefore we conclude that the RIAA is targetting people with specific music sharring patterns.
yeah.
Everyone start download Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice !!! NOW !! Or we will Die!
No Dimmu Borgir, Mayhem, Dark Funeral, Deicide or Cannibal Corpse?
:)
On second thoughts, I dont blame them for not attempting to sue us that listen to such music
---
Always standing, I am a tree awaiting the lightning. -Samael, Crown
I have hundreds, possibly thousands, of songs stored in my memory, some at better quality than others. I'm able to play them repeatedly, and even share them with others using my voice. What's worse is that when I'm exposed to a new song, it somehow is automatically stored there, too. It seems to gets worse each year as I hear more music. I hope the RIAA doesn't find out about this, because if they do... I'm afraid they'll have to kill me to stop this.
The most popular artists listened to by the younger demographic of RIAA's customers will be the ones RIAA flags most often - that's news? I thought that'd be obvious. But hey, if they really were going for the younger, "high-probability of file-sharing" audience, they'd be worried about my Slayer, Monstrosity, and Vader stuff (Metal Blade is a RIAA label).
So the 'pattern' is that the RIAA is targetting a random selection of music? Ummm.
And, moreover, it looks like they're targetting users with popular songs (e.g. Sk8ter boi). Like, umm, people are offending in proportion to how popular a song is and not downloading things they don't like.
The obvious exception being the people that downloaded Ms. Houston's songs in an obvious attempt to thwart the RIAAs 'selection criteria'. Boy, imagine the humiliation. At a job interview, admitting you served time for listening to 'How will I know?'. You'll never work again.
- Peter
Linux VPS Hosting. Come on someone wants to try hosting with a 2.6 kernel...
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Ha
What a stupid chart. If you're going to go through all the trouble of making an Excel spreadsheet why not create a proper spreadsheet and put the number of times a song was mentioned in its own column? See, now it's even more useful because I can sort by the number of times a song was mentioned to see what the most popular one was instead of having to scan the whole list manually. Simple, no?
And then you don't have to figure out if the number in brackets is actually the number of times it was mentioned or maybe makes up part of the title. If I was being pedantic and took the "Title (Times song appears)" column header to be gospel, then the Jay-Z song "I Just Wanna Love U" has been mentioned "Give It 2 Me" times, and the Ludacris song "Cry Babies" has been mentioned "Oh No" times. What is this? How many is "Oh No"?
chill out and we won't tell anyone about all those "take that" mp3s on your C drive
You'd think the RIAA would target people sharing the good music.
Or is it that the RIAA is being pestered by the bad artists to go chase down the people sharing their "art"? I guess not.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
If the job is to locate illegal file sharing, then I guess the RIAA is going about it in a fairly predictable manner. They're basically using a bunch of leading mainstream artists from different genres. I suppose the good thing here is that if somebody needs to get mauled in court, it might as well be the people who feel a need to listen to Whitney Houston, Destiny's Child, and J. Lo (all of whom are well represented on the spreadsheet.) It's hardly surprising that the RIAA would seek out listeners of crap artists, given that's most of what the recording industry pushes. The take home message is that if you are downloading cool, interesting stuff, you're may be safe for the foreseeable future; since that's not constituting the bulk of what's getting shared. As an aside, but also touching on piracy issues, it was nice to see my OpenOffice.org pop open that friggin' Excel spreadsheet.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Here is a not-so-slashdotted copy of the spreadsheet. Enjoy!
smashing pumpkins REPREZENT
AVA ADORE 4 EVAH
A few people complaining about the fact that the person put the numbers in the same column as the Song Title, here's an easy way to fix if you have a word processor that can do find/replace:
1. Get a plaintext version.
2. Replace all instances of " (" (thats a space and open parantheses) with a Tab.
3. Replace all instances of ")" with nothing.
4. Import into a spreadsheet program (practically every single one will do tab-delimeted fields).
Annoying to have to do it but dead simple.
Lawrence Welk isn't on the list. I'm all clear. Whew!
I thought for sure sharing Metallica songs was a sure fire way to get yourself on the hit list. Maybe if Napster were still around things would be different.
There's no Metallica on it!
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Anyone,who listens to MIchael Jackson,should get busted,and lobotomized.
want to go download some of these songs to see what all the hubbub is about.
They've even created a helpful chart
And please tell me what is helpful about a chart written for a product I do not own? This is the internet people! What is so hard about creating a simple table using um....tables? You can view them for free!
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
It's been discovered who the RIAA is targetting-- they are cracking down on people who illegally distribute their music. The entire slashdot readership is shocked. More details to follow.
I think we all feel like we need to fight back, right? Unfortunately, I can't really see how we can convince the gov't (or the RIAA for that matter) to agree to a business model built on P2P. So how bout we start a little smaller? How about we demand that the "open CDs cannot be returned" policy gets permanently lifted?
Think about the ramifications of this for a sec. You can go to a store, buy an Album, and return it if it sucks. It's not as cool as P2P, but at least the RIAA will suddenly have a fire lit under them to produce more of what people want. If they want to avoid returns, then they'll HAVE to consider selling singles and custom mixes. Heck, take it to an extreme, and they may develop a decent On-line service.
You all should think about that. I think the return policy would be an easier goal to attain than P2P. It's in the consumers' best interests anyway. I mean, how can an oligopoly legally use the "open your mouth and close your eyes" business model?
It seems the RIAA is targeting a wide reach of music, including Hip Hop, R&B, Rap, Rock, Pop and Country songs. Artists such as Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq
Basically the RIAA targets people who enjoy crap. Sounds like they are inviting people to rediscover Rachmaninoff, Sati, Vierne, Bach, Ligeti, Vivaldi and all the other real composers, which would be go a long way to raise today's music standards.
I never thought I'd say this : for once, thanks RIAA!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'm holding my breath until this is provided in ogg format.
Seriously, how much money is being lost by people trading some of these songs?
"Grand Funk Railroad - Some Kind of Wonderful"???
I mean, come on... Half this crap is only found on 2 dollar compilation CDs at WalMart.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
I'm sure glad they aren't going after sensible folks who listen to good music.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
funny.
I realized the second they told the public they were going to sue. So what I did was I decreased the amount of shared files I have by making copies of songs that are uncommon, and whos artists probably are not good friends of the RIAA. I share these songs only now, so if you want some good ol' Final Fantasy 7 theme music, just run a quick search! ;-)
;-)
What the RIAA is accomplishing, is simply seriously decreasing the amount of shares on P2P networks, leaving only pr0n and unknown artists.
Me, I'm set with my Russian servers.... Good ol' Mother Russia, land of the oppressed hackers
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
Judging from the .xls reception here, this should work fine.
Nothing is so smiple that it can't get screwed up.
There was a big mix, pop music that only teenagers would be caught dead with, some 90's better music, and then some older stuff like GFA and Fleetwood Mac.
I have to say that the most surprising song on there was My Iron Lung by Radiohead. Radiohead is hugely popular. Kid A sold tons (and granted they went after one song from it). Their next, Amnesiac was good. Their live album which followed was good as well. Their brand new album is great. The RIAA passed up these 3 albums entirely and went after a non-single on an album 8 years old.
They did the same thing with Release by Pearl Jam. I actually want to meet that person. They must own the album. Who downloads Release who doesn't own Ten?
Mudvayne, one of my favorite bands, isn't on the list. In fact, none of my favorite bands seem to be on the list. Interestingly enough, while on tour with Metallica, "[Mudvayne] Lead singer Chad Gray encouraged those who did not have The End of All Things to Come to get it by any means, including CD burning and MP3s" according to MTV news. Looks like some bands are figuring out how to become more popular at least.
Given the songs they're scanning for, then I'm all for their current methodology. The fewer people that listen to that garbage, the better.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
In the last five years or so, the Internet has gone from being fairly calm and safe, to more and more of a virtual reality war zone. Viruses and worms are one front, security holes and exploits are another, intellectual property "theft" and counter-tactics... and counter-counter-tactics are another, spam and filters and anti-spam are yet another. Those early books by William Gibson aren't too far off the mark anymore!
It is interesting that the Internet was viewed as a kind of egalitarian utopia not too long ago. Some people still hold this view, but in reality, it is becoming a constant war zone.
I wonder if all this could have been avoided if the internet was not commercialized? Is all this conflict going to destroy the Internet's potential fertility?
I think that there is no policy, no law, no technology which can create peace on the Internet. I personally think that the Internet is rather a microcosm of what is happening at a slower pace in the "real" world. And that can only be fixed by a fundamental change in the way that people (everyone in the whole world) think. It's like the cold war's arms race. At some point, everyone is going to have to realize that it is getting ridiculous and everyone is losing out because of that.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
He was a tr8der boy
RIAA hater boy
Downloaded his music off of Kazaa
He had "Complicated"
Up on his supernode
Now he gotta subpoena from Silberberg & Knupp
someone post a mirror of the story
Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq
/. makes it needlessly difficult to add footnotes to my posts.
Black musicians, eh? Nothing new here. Led Zepplin, Elvis, and the Stones stole music from black musicians for years, making the RIAA companies plenty of money. Now the RIAA is mad that people are stealing music from the black musicians owned by the RIAA slavemasters (1). Turnabout is fair play, baby. Too bad, RIAA.
GF.
1. It is admittedly hard to characterize Jacko as oppressed (2), but the artists come and go weekly, and the fat cats (in the industry) seem to just keep getting fatter (3) (4) (5).
2. Despite his hilarious attempt to do so himself.
3. SNZ.
4. Until file sharing started raping their profits.
5. I feel obligated to use this space to bitch about the fact that, like Open Office (6),
6. http://www.openoffice.org/
Lots of petrified grits
Only on slashdot will you see people complaining about *anything*.
Those guys rummaged through the 911 subpoenas to compile a list on a spreadsheet, they let you download it for FREE, and not only did you show a token of appreciation, but you bitched about the formatting?
Would it have been that hard to break out time appearing into another column, so interested people could actually *use* the data for something? No. In fact, it would have been *less* work.
Interested people can compile their own list if they want.
Next thing you know, they'll have a version with actually splits that column into two, and we're gonna see people say stuff like "Why the FUCK would these idiots use a Sans Serif font? Everybody knows that a Serif font looks better on the monitor! Those insensitive CLODS!"
Yes it's mashed in the same column. Yes they used Arial. Yes they used a proprietary format by Big Bad Microsoft. Yes they weren't thoughtful enough to put in plain text so I can run your Perl scripts on it. Yes it's not encoded in ogg vorbis. Yes it won't play on your iPod or microwave. Yes they deserve to burn in hell for not making 2 million different versions catered for each person that downloads it.
No they don't! Thank them for spending the time to sift through all the subpoenas!
Ludacris, Michael Jackson, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat
This is obviously a plot my whitey trying to put down the black man. Fuck you cracker*!!!
*cracker refering to person of white color, not someone who breaks into systems or defeats software copy protection
Hip Hop, R&B, Rap, Rock, Pop and Country songs.
Cool, stuff I generally don't listen to. Now I can go back to downloading folk and barbershop. Umkay?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Using Excell, yes. Their parsing is pathetic and would have required lots of manual editing.
spreadsheet abuse is one of my pet peeves
Data is a terrible thing to put into Microsoft.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Like many people, you are mis-informed. The users the RIAA hunts down are being served civil papers. Meaning, they will be sued. As much as the RIAA would like to be, they are not a sanctioned governmental agency. Therefore, while you may have to pay the RIAA part of your paycheck until the day you die, you won't be going to prison. It's sort of like GM deciding to sue people for buying car-parts at a small shop and fixing their GM cars themselves, instead of paying inflating prices at a dealership. Granted, the RIAA has at least an iota of legal basis to sue, while GM has none.
I'm happy they are targeting Keith Sweat listeners. He is a menace.
100% Insightful
900+ people and the most popular download only kicked over 12 times? The RIAA lost how many $ on that? The aritsts lost how many 1/10000th of a cent over this? Am I reading this wrong, or is this who thing adding up to a big ZERO?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
However, it's still funny ;)
but it's still work they did for everyone else.
And then you don't have to figure out if the number in brackets is actually the number of times it was mentioned or maybe makes up part of the title.
Pattern matching saves you there. Given knowledge of your favorite text processing language's regular expression syntax, it's trivial to make a regexp that matches only lines containing a positive integer in parentheses (that is, ([1-9][0-9]*)), and it's also trivial to extract and sort on that number.
Will I retire or break 10K?
No much of anything, was there? Someone is claiming the most popular download had a big 12 people. Call out the National Gaurd, we've got pirates, 12 of them who are responsible for the decline and fall of CD sales! Pathetic.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There's Bonnie Raitt "I can't make you love me", and Eagles "Hotel California", two excellent pop songs that only appeal to you if you're over 40.
Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq
Bling Bling Yo. Dis b good newz 4 us gangsta rappers. We gotz deez niggas on our side.
c
Let this be a lesson to all of you: Listen to shitty music, get sent to prison.
Well, off to listen to my new CD, "Yoshimi vs. the Pink Robots."
I grabbed a mirror before it went down
Try this link "file:///c:/My%20Music"
Odd how many of those same file I have..
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Why dont we setup fake servers serving files with names that match the file.
or setup p2p clients that will respond to all requests for these files with a spoofed address.
If we flood the network with false positives, when it comes to the lawsuit it comes out that some people accused were not actualy shareing any files, they would have to prove that they verified each and every one of their victims.
we could easily create blank files with the same time and size as the "real" files
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
Reading some of the posts here, it's clear that people are falling prey to RIAA fud.
Better not share those files, the big bad RIAA might get you!
Once a critical mass of fud is achieved, p2p will die and the great mass of people will return to the music stores like cattle to an abattoir.
It's ok, I use kazaa to download subtitled sailor moon episodes. I don't think RIAA is gonna sue me over that.
I've downloaded all the tracks that don't suck on the list already ;) What I don't get is why they are going after people who are sharing some of the 80's music that really only appears on compilations (like Nu Shooz). Another poster said it looked like they are going after those with the least cash (those under 25)... aside from that I can't see any other reason.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
The people who share the most files are most likely to have the most popular music. Suprise suprise.
Rosco, I'm surprised not to see Waylon Jennings in your list :-)
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
They can't really go after users sharing songs whose copyrights aren't owned by RIAA members.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm pretty sure jimmy dean was the only one to do big bad john, and almost positive that charlie daniels never did that song...
So this is like, the end of the world?
Just chatted with my investigator friend at the RIAA again. He told me they've got this whole operation outsourced to online investigators (not sure exactly what that means) and law firms. They're budgeting the effort as a simple cost of doing business. They do in fact have patterns, schedules, etc. This is just going to keep going until a group finds a common defense and can start making this more costly for them. Otherwise he said that internally it's clear they're following this road as long as they can.
He also mentioned that they're now paying for staff at ISP's. Basically with the Verizon case everyone is ready to roll and RIAA finishes them off by offering to pay for the staff increases needed to fullfil the subpeonas.
Personally I haven't bothered downloading music since shortly after the Napster demise, but this stuff is bullshit. I really hope the folks getting targeted can band together with some sort of tenable defense and start making this more expensive for them. During the Napster case I was told by this same guy that RIAA was getting short on funding and the labels weren't willing to cough up extra cash for the case. It sounds crazy, but maybe enough individuals could eventually team up, get all cases into a single jurisdiction, and try to start bleeding them again. They're big, but there funds are not limited. Certainly a long shot, though, and expensive for everyone involved.
ROFL^30
Artists such as Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq were very common throughout the subpoenas.
;P
Sounds to me like they're doing a Good Thing by cracking down on people who listen to that kind of music
John Kerry is a Joke!
but if they persist, how about someone writing a personal radio recorder that only records music and can pick the selections you want. They would have a tough time tracking radio downloaders! Connect it to satelite radio or internet radio and you can get as good quality a file as you would like. Satelite radio would work particularly well as they broadcast a text i.d. of what they are playing.
Thanks for the list RIAA. I found a couple holes in my collection.
by the way your post makes no sense.
c
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Why not? It's quick and easy - only thee simple steps!
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If you have any mod points, mod both this and the parent down.
So what's the bottom line here- am I getting sued, or not? What about users who used filesharing apps with no username- how're they going to ID those people?
But I guess what I'm really asking here is this: are they suing everyone? Are they settling, or taking everyone into court? Should I even borrow money for grad school, if I'm just going to end up giving it to the RIAA? Who gets the money here, if they do win, the RIAA or the artists who were 'robbed'? I assumed that this was a scare tactic, and I admit that I'm a little scared, but come on! You can't sue every file trader! There must be millions! How much of this sh!t are we going to put up with before people start throwing around the 'b' word? That's right, I said it. BOYCOTT. Any takers?
Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Does anyone have a script to do a mass download of songs from a text file?
Slashdot readers are fantastic.
Most interesting stories are mirrored in the comments. Which is great, especially when it concerns a story at NYT (which there should be less of), due to the registration requirements, I don't go to the site anymore.
But the thing that really hit me with this riaa story is that someone who provided information in excel format was good enough to share the info, but not everyone uses excel, or any microsoft products, myself included. So what do some of the slashdot readers do? They adapt, and provide a service to other readers. The excel format document was changed to html, and even OpenOffice.org format, and made available on alternate sites. Both of the formats work for me. And I haven't even read all the comments yet. It may be available in additional formats.
I had to stop and write this comment because of the greatness of the slashdot readers. I tip my hat to each of you who help make slashdot better for all of us.
Thank you.
I am baffled as to why i have yet to see this mentioned (maybe I have not looked around enough).
The only way to be able to say in court that a given user actually was making a certain file available to the public is for the RIAA to have downloaded the file themselves. (unless of course they were sniffing the traffic, but that would be illegal as well)
If they used kazaa to download from users to find out that they had an "illegal" file they would violate kazaa licence terms
"2 What You Can't Do Under This Licence" sub sections:
"2.11 Monitor traffic or make search requests in order to accumulate information about individual users;",
"2.12 "Stalk" or otherwise harass another;" and
"2.14 Collect or store personal data about other users."
If they somehow reverse engineered kazaa to make their own client and avoid the above licence stipulations they would have run afoul of:
"3.2 Except as expressly permitted in this Licence, you agree not to reverse engineer, de-compile, disassemble, alter, duplicate, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, make copies, create derivative works from, distribute or provide others with the Software in whole or part, transmit or communicate the application over a network."
I knew ripping MC Hammer's Greatest Hits would come back to haunt me.
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Next!
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, loser.
No Paul Oakenfold, No Sasha, No Paul Van Dyk, No John Digweed.
Hey, I'm the guy that posted (#6577123).
:)
Funny shit eh? Posting the same thing at the same time?
It's not an entirely altruistic act. Judging by that list they're no longer only worried by just the technologically savvy leeching their tunes - they're spreading their nets wider and trying to target more people with... how can I put this... "eclectic" tastes.
Ferchrissakes: MC Hammer - 2 Legit 2 Quit? STOP! Hammer Time! And on second thoughts: no - please just stop.
...of adding up* what's cool and adding up what sucks, I have arrived at these personal final results.
Cool: 48
Sucks: 181
Therefore, the Cool to Sucks ratio is almost 4:1.
Note: this ratio only works for me, not for all tastes. It's all highly subjective.
BTW I arrived at this information using Open Office Calc. Which is cool.
* Yeah, I know Beavis and Butt-Head are too stupid to add and have blown up computers in previous episodes just by banging on them.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I'm going to start downloading all sorts of music that I already own on CD, not share it, and hope they catch me. Then I can say, "but I already own that song and I wasn't sharing it with anyone! What was I doing wrong!?"
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Everybody knows it's only white boys with baggy trousers who listen to rap, and it's only white men with expensive wardrobes who listen to R&B.
Is this a random thing, CD's most likely to generate actual sales in a retail (brrr, scary though), or perhaps the artists that bitch the most about piracy cutting their own profits?
It's one thing if you want to bash Microsoft. This is slashdot, most everyone does.
Saying Excel is a bad program, or that it's incapable of manipulating data efficiently, is idiotic. If you think Gnumeric or any of the other Linux spreadsheets are any better, you're fooling yourself.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Hi!
One of the reasons the RIAA is targeting a specific group of files (in addition to target market, etc.) is that the RIAA is acting, legally, as the agent of the copyright owner. The RIAA doesn't own the copyrights to the music--generally, neither do the record labels. The "artists" (using the term very broadly in a few cases) own the copyrights, and the RIAA is acting on their behalf. They're looking for U2 files because U2 has given them permission to haul kids into court on a trumped-up infringement action.
Which might give you pause, next time you're in the record store looking to buy a CD.
Which brings me to an interesting idea:
If you see the name of an artist you admire--and perhaps support with your hard-earned dollar--why not drop an email to the artist asking why he or she is supporting the draconian actions of the RIAA? As always, it pays to be polite--screamers just get ignored (or reinforce the "they're all crooks" attitudes). But a few hundred polite, irenic notes might just change a few attitudes.
And a few hundred thousand polite irenic notes might just drum some sense into the musicians.
Yet again with with apologies to Paul Graham, I wrote it before: implement colaborative bayesian filters in all major P2P clients. Train the filters to reject RIAA known search strings, RIAA known IP numbers, RIAA known nicknames. Iterate this across all participants. Let the filters learn while RIAA try to beat themt. Go back to step 1.
It is a good start, but the analysis is sorely lacking. What would be interesting to do is determine which set(s) of songs have at least one occurence for each subpoena. In other words, Song "A" is on computers 1-20. song "B" is on 21-32, song "C" is on 33-37 and song "D" is on computers 38-50. If you can find a small subset of ~10 songs (or 3-4 artists), that may strongly indicate which songs are being targeted.
Well, your profile shows that it's not a pattern -- but your whoring here is pretty obvious. Converted articles + a login to NYT?
It's just karma, dude.
Or did you flunk out of law school?
Lawyer wannabee?
It's kazaa's move if they are violating kazaa's license if that's your belief. And if that ended up in court just about any judge would throw it out in a second.
They aren't downloading the songs. Or sniffing traffic. They are taking screenshots of what you are sharing in your shared folder.
The technical jargon is that you are making the files available for download. Not that they downloaded files and here's the file for proof. Or that they sniffed traffic.
Personally, I've been thinking of putting files in a shared folder, and waiting for them to pull the trigger. Because my box is behind a firewall, so all attempts to download even a single packet fail. So I have proof, which I would back up with screenshots, showing that nothing has been transferred. And I would show up in court. And I have no assets to lose, and can afford losing a judgement. My credit is shot to hell already. And I'm undefeated in court.
But apparently, it doesn't work that way (actual upload/download). Whether this will work in court or not, we'll have to wait and see. But the whole point of the subpoenas is to scare, and pry some money loose. Simply look at what DirecTV has been doing.
And btw, the bills they are now trying to shove through in congress state that if you make a file available in your shared folder, you are guilty, regardless of whether the file was uploaded/downloaded to someone else.
Let's consider whether this pattern reflects the searching
and investigative habits of the RIAA, or merely reflects
the types of materials that are available online.
I suspect that it's the latter. It would be helpful if
anyone could point to any statistics about the relative
availability of these songs on a network. Thus, if
Busta Rhyme is on the list, but his songs are widely
available, does this mean they are "targetting"
anything, as the story suggests.
A two-tailed t-score test will give us a measure as
to whether the two populations (the RIAA list, and
what's available online) are drawn from
a common source.
I thought of something to discuss, but instead I'd just like to add Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt to that list.
I'd be happier than the flies in a shit house if somehow all the great composers became hugely popular.
Some of us just don't dig Office.
And in the wise words of my own father 20 or so years ago, what a load of crap kids listen to this days...
You know, that was actually a very interesting list. You have to wonder how they arrived at it. Any one of us can probably have about 10 of these songs in our collection, but if you think about the type of person who would carry over 95% of the songs on that list, and you'll have someone who probably is creating a library of mp3's.
Is to make a mp3 that contains word that say "I think the RIAA sucks cook". "I think Hillary thakes it in the ass:" etc. You know what I mean. Then rename the file to the names of track by Matallica, Britney Spears, etc and post them on Kazaa. Seems kind wate of time and childish but ehhh, why not.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Damn, I've only ever had 3 songs on that list (Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer, G&R's Sweet Child O Mine, and Van Halen's Hot For Teacher). They're not even on my computer right now. Hell I'm safe.
Eeeeekk.... I happen to be a huge U2 fan and have almost all their songs.... I gotta take those out of the trading MP3s.... :-(
People don't listen to pop music because it's good music. It's because the singers are sexy or cool, and because it's marketed well.
Pop music, like pop movies, are primarily a marketing phenomenon. Very few pop movies induce me to say "Wow, that was really impressive acting."
Why do you think so few resources go into producing the music, and so much into marketing it?
May we never see th
I have not allowed this shit on my computer for years. The big motha f'rs watching you..... watchin' your every move...
But with XP I can fly....but then again it is entirely possible that you are flyin' blind!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Jesus Christ ! If I didn't know a few of the 80's artists (Cure, U2), I'd then totally misunderstand what this article is about ?!
Does this mean that most 20-year old quality stuff is available for free ???
Trolling using another account since 2005.
... The only way I'll find a pattern to any of this is if I spend the rest of the night playing rounds of 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Frankly I'm disappointed (but not surprised) that the RIAA is more immediately interested in these newer performers than in first "protecting" those artists that made RIAA rich in the first place. I'm in the Lou Reed camp!
And to anyone who downloaded The Clash... just cough up the $20 to buy Sandinista , and support the only rock band that mattered!
For those not already boycotting all RIAA labels, or at least the top 5, it looks like a good list of artists to boycott. No CDs, no shirts, no concerts, etc....
I'd be unhappy if I were an artist, and my sales went down because the RIAA used me to persecute citizens.
Open Standards Portal
Paging Dr Freud...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
a) I downloaded them before the RIAA started with the crackdown (2 years ago)
b) I own the albums on audio casette and can claim that I'm backing up my collection, just in case the tape wears out.
and c) They're not on my hard drive anymore because I burned the songs to CD and then deleated them from the hard drive.
As for the ones not on the list... well... I'll doubt I'll see any Anime songs or songs by Horslips on there anytime soon.
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
Personally, I valued your bamboo bike comment. As a proud owner of a Springer Softail, adults on bicycles (bamboo or not) already look like clowns on flaming unicycles to me!
;)
And hey, looks like I'm winning the "Moderation Game"
I'd bet this would slow them down, and think of the negative publicity.
As a matter of background, my first Pro Se case was defending myself against the State. I won.
-cp-
My solution to this debacle has been simple; I don't share music released on labels represented by the RIAA. Of course, I guess I can count myself lucky that 95% of that music doesn't appeal in the slightest to me (as do many others, having read the comments), but I still find myself downloading it at times; it's just not in my shared folder.
At the same time, I have no qualms about sharing nearly 10 gb of drum n' bass on Direct Connect. The copyright infringement is the same, but the fact that the music I share is released mostly by independent labels, many of whom only release their music on vinyl, makes a whole world of difference.
The way I see it, the RIAA's purpose is not to destroy file-sharing completely. It's just to stop the sharing of content produced by the labels they represent. However you may view it, they are protecting their property; you and I may not agree with their tactics (I am of the firm belief that sharing mp3s is an extension of one's fair-use rights, but I digress) but their aim is clear: get RIAA music off p2p networks, not destroy p2p networks entirely.
I will probably be accused of being an RIAA astroturfer (which could not be farther from the truth; I'm just your average college student who likes to get something for nothing) but at least try to put yourself in their shoes and realize the motivation behind what they're doing.
Music sharing has been going on for much longer than p2p networks and the RIAA never raised a peep; what networks like Napster, and then AudioGalaxy, and then Kazaa and others did is bring music downloading to the masses; the reason 60 million US citizens use peer-to-peer networks is because the technology is so accessible, and when your average Joe, Bill and Henry are all downloading tunes, you must admit that the labels' profits will be affected.
If the RIAA doesn't succeed in stopping sharing of tunes released by labels they represent, but instead causes file sharing to once again become the domain of the more technically-inclined music-lovers and collectors who have the will and expertise to use secure systems (Waste and Freenet come to mind) or private servers (ftp, DC hubs, Carracho, etc.), the effect will be similar. Gross infringement of their copyrights will be significantly reduced, and myself and many others who dislike the lowest-common-denominator element that has been introduced to file sharing will be satisfied.
UM, not on my RH8 box..Kspread bolloxed it, while OO/Staroffice Calc did fine.
BSA: "Would you like a free Software Audit"? me: "No, thanks. My software is all Free".
Woah, creepy. Are you my long-lost twin brother?
(Not that I have a long-lost twin brother, but I guess it never hurts to ask.)
somehow I don't think suing thier customers would be good buisness. Perhaps we can go help them and find all AOL users copying songs and the like. Perhaps we can undermine the beast.
From the article:
After looking at 50 or so subpoenas, the suspicion of a pattern grew more confident. While an individual wouldn't necessarily get subpoenaed for just having a Busta Rhymes song, it was the combination of Busta and additional artists that triggered the bot. Slyck hopes to obtain the entire database to more conclusively examine and reveal this potential pattern.
This is exactly how the Joker killed people in Batman part 1!. If you used a combinatin of cosmetics THAT would kill you, e.g. lipstick with eye liner. I guess these hollywood guys use stuff from the scripts in real life!
As I would never listen to any of the music on that list, much less download it.
I don't own a copy of Excel either, but I've got at least three different applications handy which are free (as in speech and as in beer) and can read the file . . .
I'm surprised that Dave Matthews Band shows up on the list. Sure, they have the right to protect their studio recordings as much as the next guy, but if the data being pulled is based on song title, the number of legally taped live performances is going to throw a false positive more times than not.
This sig intentionally left justified.
I was just going to say "thanks" for the conversion when I saw this:
It's just karma, dude.
The post is a way for me to read the files (in fact the only reason I clicked on the comments was to find a converted copy). Though after doing so I'm not sure why a spreadsheet was used at all.
To everyone: Be a whore or don't. I don't care so long as I can still get plain data on the net.
- Chad
"This is just going to keep going until a group finds a common defense and can start making this more costly for them."
I know EXACTLY how to do it: Cut off their funding.
Everybody STOP posting and downloading music from P2P networks, and pledge not to buy a single CD from RIAA artists.
The RIAA will still have to pay the lawyers, the media, the outsourcing detectors, the ISP staffs, the cost of making MTVs, Chrystal Channels, etc. And we will not buy a single CD to fund it.
Then we sit back to watch the big 5 bleed to a painful death in a year or two. RIAA will run out of funding - remember, WE the customers funded the RIAA. In the end, whichever record labels that takes over will remember the lesson - that the customers are buying entertainment, not lawsuits.
As im lost in this confusing RIAA war, just a quickie clarifcation question: The RIAA is going after file-sharers correct? Not file-leechers? File leechers being those that take and don't share. I see no way the RIAA having a valid case against a file-leecher (since a file-leecher can easily argue they they are trying to get their fair-use due to the corrupted CDs out there). if thats the case... bleh leecher will be the only ones that survive...
problem is, to win big awards and shut them down we need to remain anonymous.
Here's what I'm doing: I'm sharing 15 of these popular "songs". The first 14 seconds are the appropriate tune, which is accepted length of fair use in the USA. The music is followed by me speaking on the sins of the music industry and a long rant on how they must be stopped, with an exhortation to vote (Statesider), write (UK and AU) and complain (EU). I change the rants monthly.
Yes, i'm poluting the datastream, but I'm half hoping the RIAA shuts me down, because believe you me: I will sue and sue big for abbrogating my freedom of speech.
-John (from ZD-Net)
Good songs on that list:
Eagles Hotel California
Guns N Roses It's So Easy
Guns N Roses Mr. Brownstone (2)
Guns N Roses Paradise City (3)
Guns N Roses Sweet Child O' Mine
Guns N Roses Welcome to the Jungle
Queen Another One Bites the Dust
I am happy to present my results in the form of a new spreadsheet, a CSV file and a GIF formatted graph. I am too hungover, and too rotten a statistician, to draw any conclusions. Enjoy.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
If they're depending on contracted companies then I say we stay within the rules of fair use - quote 14 seconds of the song, and then fill the rest with a rant of why the RIAA must die? Exhort listeners not to buy CDs and so on. Yes, it pollutes the datastream, but it also tempts a contractor to pre-emptively sue us.
Can you imagine presenting to a judge a statement of anti-RIAA disguised as music? Want to bet you won't have a presumptive judement in your favour? Give 1000 of those and the RIAA is history.
It's time to play dirty and I am, whose with me?
what if you own the song(songs?) they happen to be sueing your for? I think that would be prety fair use to have mp3s of stuff you own, even if you didn't rip them yoursel...... what a bunch of a** holes
Granted, I don't make my money selling my music, but I can't help but imagine that if I did, I'd be trying to opt out of having my songs used as bait for prosecution. Of course I'd want my fans to actually buy my CDs, but I can't imagine I'd be very comfortable knowing some 14 year old kids's life was being ruined because he wanted to hear my music and didn't want to or couldn't pay for it. If I'd have to end up having a day job because of it, then tough shit for me. At least I'd be able to sleep at night. I'm really kinda surprised at least a couple artists haven't come out against this draconian nonsense. I know a million other comments have brought up the point that you're better off shoplifting CDs than downloading them nowadays, but seriously... that's just not right. I'm totally for artists rights, but I'm sure even some of their stomachs are turning at these recent events.
I'm under 25 and all the crap on that list doesn't appeal to me!
A relative is a lawyer in the RIAA's legal firm and he told me that according to RIAA's extensive marketing database a demographic that is lower income/young & ethnic) was targeted because they are least likely to have the ability to defend themselves. The RIAA is still smarting somewhat after the chewplastic guy put his search engine back online after they signed the agreement. They don't want any long court battles or rich/middle class white kids that might embarass them somehow. Just victories that make you never want to contemplate messing with the 'raging bull berzerker attack' from RIAA lawyers.
Didn't Michael Jackson just say he was against the RIAA filing these lawsuits? Seems like the RIAA isn't listening to him, 'cause 8 songs of his are on the list...
They sure as hell care about the artists, don't they?
Look at a music CD you have. Any CD. Look for the copyright notice in fine print (usually on the bottom part of the back of the disc jewel case). I hold in my hands a copy of U2's Best of 1980-1990 CD, and it says the copyright is held by "Polygram Records". No mention of U2 or any of the band members anywhere in the copyright notice! The record label always owns the copyright! I have a lot of CD's, and none, I repeat none of them has a copyright notice that includes the name of the band or the artist as copyright holder (not even joint copyrights). The record companies always hold the rights to everything. If you want to know how these artists are actually treated by the RIAA, here's a small article that may enlighten you as to how the system really works.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Popular music sucks anyway.
- IP
Do you really think that Kazza's EULA will be used against the RIAA? Would their EULA be valid if it said it was ok to trade others copy-righted works without the owners permission?
Maybe they should update it to allow them to do what every they want to your computer, like keylog and take any credit card numbers that they happen to find.
I really doubt the "company" that tries to hid themselves from legal action and profits from illegal file trading can actually do or will do anything about this.
The Onion comes to the rescue again here.
When you are facing a foe with superior assets, you don't face them head on or you get crushed. You conduct hit and fade attacks against their weak points, which are usually the supply lines feeding the front line.
Iraq was a case in point - there was no way the Iraqi army could defeat the US head on. Where they did succeed (and continue to do so) is to hit the soft targets such as the logistics supply lines (as in the platoon Jessica Lynch was part of etc).
So, how does this relate to the RIAA? Simple. There is little point in trying to fight them in court, because they are using the advantage of million dollar coffers to "buy" their way to winning cases.
The solution is to simply starve them of funds by cutting off their cash (fuel) supply:
Don't buy CDs.
It really is that simple. If you can convince the teen demographic to stop buying CDs you will win the war even though a few tactical battles may be lost along the way.
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
So we all go and install a p2p client and download all the songs on the list ?
Just to make "their" live easier ?
A quick check revealed that I own 15 of the albums listed. And I'd never even get close to one of the others.
Download finished, now I can remove the songs again from my disk....
On the other side of the screen it all looked so easy.
I think its funny how radiohead is on this hitlist after I saw an interview of them supporting p2p because of the lack of new artists and material.
where music.taste 'Good'
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
Slyck seems a little slashdotted - mirrored the chart here (it's an Excel spreadsheet)
coldcity
code, life, art
you can buy them at the photography shop
stops them nasty old radio waves from finding the rf tag
best thing is that artist still gets the money from the sale, just the shop loses
And if you go somewhere owned by EMI such as HMV then you are stealing blood money from the world's biggest armaments group.
"I shot a man and in his hand was a weapon that was made in Birmingham"
I used to have a situation where both the local record and book stores were EMI Group owned.
Luckily, stealing from them was pretty easy. I used to lift CDs from HMV just for the sake of it and give them away when I got home.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Karma: Bad, and going downhill.
Those guys rummaged through the 911 subpoenas to compile a list on a spreadsheet, they let you download it for FREE, and not only did you show a token of appreciation, but you bitched about the formatting?
It is exactly what whe can do for them. Teach them how to do their statistical analyzis better. Next time they would take our comments into account, and do something, which they would able to sell.
>The acoustic versions of Four Horsemen and Motorbreath are well worth getting
I am now depressed that I've lived long enough to here that said sincerely.
How much longer until the headbangers of my childhood/teen years end up in a Moody Blues light-show extravagenza or does a Who-like jump into theater.
The good die young for a reason. They don't have the rest of their lives to screw up what made them good in the first place.
...pronouncing "excel" with emphasis on the first syllable, ala "Excel Saga?" Just curious. I haven't used the word "excel" in any sense of the word recently, so that context sticks out in my mind...
Now that the RIAA has a list, I don't need to listen to the radio to find out the popular songs to download, I can just go to this list that has them all in one place!
how the hell you got an insightful I have no idea.
Small bands THRIVE on p2p sharing of their music.. Hell Every one of them that I ask give me permission to use their music in movies or ad's without anything but a copy of what we used it in.
they know that the only way to make it is to get people listening to their music, the radio stations are owned by the record companies and therefore wont play them (Don't even try to tell me they are not... I watched the payola go down for 2 years when I was in radio and friends today tell me it's worse now..) and they make their real money on venues and shows. EVERY one of them tell me they sell their CD's at the shows only... because they can't get them sold anywhere else as the stores don't want them.... even the small record shops won't let them put a small amount on their shelves at cost.
P2P sharing of music is the best thing to ever happen to a small band.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I would love to see what you've got there, but I haven't managed to install Excel on my Linux desktop yet.
Please resubmit this story in a format that is suitable for public viewing
Is it just me or does this just seem too selective? I wonder how many other songs those people have that the RIAA doesn't care about
"If it's lost, it'll turn up. Things always do" "I love it when a plan comes together"
Maybe they figured the rather unique words/spellings of the titles and/or artists of a lot of these songs would present the lowest possibility of tripping on another embarrassing false positive while still being popular enough to net plenty of "examples."
Just a thought.
Game... blouses.
I agree here... The little guy is getting hurt more then the big artists...I highly doubt we are draining Avril's bank account... Hell she probably gets more interest off it then the combined total of illegal songs downloaded.
There's only ONE song on that list (by Queen) that I might have been interrested in downloading, and I already have it on a their 'greatest hits' CD.
Does that say anything about my taste in music, or my age?
before they start getting subpoenas for those people who are downloading MP3s? I mean, it can't be that hard to set up a honeypot with 'modified' (read:damaged) MP3s and just log the IP addresses.
On another note: If I own the music on casette, where can I *legally* download a digital copy of the songs? Seriously.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
The list clearly shows the pattern the RIAA is following, I can't help but agree. Those people with such awful tastes in music SHOULD be in prison!!!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Of these people, how many are broadband/dialup users that are downloading music from their homes? Are these people at risk or is it mostly gov/edu people targetted?
by the way your post makes no sense.
Did you read the Sllort article?
This is fairly meaningless. Look at it from the perspective of someone trying to find music out there for which you own the copyrights. You don't want to look for just any old mp3s, because you'll waste time going through music that you don't own the rights to. You obviously don't want to search for every damn thing you own the rights to. So instead, you just pick 5-10 things that you own the rights to, at random, and search for those. Once you find those, you then look for other songs you own the rights to from the same user.
That's almost certainly what's happened here. The high frequency songs are either completely random, or perhaps chosen to find a spread of users. Either way, the particular songs chosen mean little.
The cake is a pie
And hey, looks like I'm winning the "Moderation Game" ;)
Thanks, and have fun with it. Seriously. For me, it was simply a matter of figuring out when it wasn't fun anymore. I'm tired of stepping on hidden land mines and breaking rules nobody has the balls to write down anywhere.
Put the hit numbers in another column so you could - oh idunno - see the pattern?
Plus whoever put this list together has questionable taste - just another thing the RIAA can be disnmissed for.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Make what? Getting signed by a major record label is what they're most likely after. Every artist out there would probably die for a chance to be the next big thing making millions of dollars from this exact same set of corporations we're bitching about. Sure, there are exceptions, but wave a million dollars in front of anyone's face and you'll catch their attention. What's the point of being a popular band if you're not rich too?
The list of kazza users flagged as most wanted on the tech tv site has the default kazza lite username... www.k_lite.tk_Kazaa_Lite@Kazaa So they must be going after several thousands of people all using the same name then cause i doubt they are changing the name...
If that's the list they're searching on, it's a complete crock. One quick look for my favorite band, Pearl Jam revealed a song on the list. Too bad they promote music trading and as far as I'm concerned if the band promotes it, I don't give two $#!+$ what the RIAA has to say about it. Why? Because it's the artists mouths I'm supposedly taking food out of and they tell me it's ok to trade their music.
Isn't it pretty funny the RIAA and MPAA have taken different stands on the same issue? The MPAA wants us to now believe that movie trading (I refuse to ever believe it's Piracy unless someone is using their free copy to turn a profit) takes the food out of the mouths of the families of the crew off camera and nothing to do with the artist (the actor)? What about in the recording industry, why aren't they talking about the lonely man that minds over the CD printers or the mixers? No, the RIAA wants us to believe it's the artist we're starving. The only point I find that the MPAA making in their new ad campaign is that they're now showing that they're
afraid the people behind the camera are losing money, namely the big suits who turn the profits the most. Face it, a lighting guy and a prop guy get paid for their jobs, not in royalties. And until I see a theatre not packed on opening day for a movie that should be a blockbuster, I won't care about my movie trading habits either.
File traders are the draft card burners of this generation. Civil Disobedience, jump on the bandwagon with us. Write to your senator, to your representative, to the justices in your area. A cultural revolution has begun and we can not lay down peacefully for the fight.
Looks like I and the other person who loves REO Speedwagon can breath easy now!
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
If I was a stockholder in one of the record labels, I'd be pretty angry by now. I don't know what they're smoking, because there is no way this can hope to save their revenue stream. About the only effect I can see is to make *millions* of their core customers resolve not to spend any money on their products again.
During Prohibition, demand *increased*. People didn't say, "Oh, well, alcohol is illegal again, I guess the Christian Temperance Movement was right. I'll switch to tea." People started bringing alcohol across the Canadian border any way they could, *because most people still wanted alcohol*. If anything, their desire for it was even more keenly felt once it was harder to acquire.
While it makes me sad that everyone is so obviouslly addicted to this (awful) music, I have no doubt the same phenomenon will apply here. Instead of the present situation, I think trading will fragment into several areas:
- Encrypted, anonymous trading. It has some technical challenges and will involve a long development cycle, but experiments like Freenet demonstrate that it is certainly possible.
- LAN trading.
- "Sneakernet" trading (you can move a lot of MP3's with a 20GB MP3 player).
- Waste-like private encrypted networks (and God help the person who breaks into one to look for file trading if there is none actually taking place--it's clearly a Federal offense).
I'm sure there are other methods I haven't thought of. The point is, there's a lot of technology out there now, and I have bo doubt that people angered by the music industry's actions will turn to that technology before spending another dime at the music store ("not one penny in tribute" and such). Like I said, if I was a stockholder I'd probably dump it right quick, because this looks to me like winning the battle but losing the war.
Now that its published i would imagine they would change what stuff they are looking for.
Good thing they arent too worried about live concets. Cant buy them for the most part.. so you are forced to trade.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Pink Floyd is still free and clear...
There's some good music
Its THEIR stuff, the can do what ever they want with it.. even give it away...in this case they really DO own the music...
Now perhaps an AUP violation might stick, but its hard to make one stick if its found the main reason for the AUP is to evade the law.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The problem with any type of Bayesian filter is the false positive. That's why the ISP I work at hasn't implemented bayesian spam filters on the server side --- in the event of a false positive, the customers would get REALLY pissed, no matter how infrequently it happened. If we made bayesian filters in P2P clients... Well, how would you feel if the next time you searched for "Pink Floyd," it came back saying "Go away, RIAA pig-dog!"
cndrr
Drunk Stuntmen, Iron Hip
Just got it this week. Not "pretty good", but awesome.
I got it at http://www.milesofmusic.com.
The only stuff my son has downloaded is about 40 GB of Black Metal bands.
Hey I agree with you like 99%. Where I disagree is in the part about stores not carrying the CDs.
;-)
I have seen with my own eyes, in Lexington, KY, a section in a music store (a big chain store, no less, but I forget which) labeled "Local Artists." In that section you will find CDs from Catawampus Universe, Taildragger, Ten Foot Pole, and other bands that practically no one outside of the Bluegrass Area and a club or two in Tokyo has even heard of. Not all stores are against selling CDs by local artists. It really depends on the management at the store. If they really enjoy the local music club scene, and they're in it 'cause they enjoy music, then you're more likely to see smaller bands in the store.
Now, that gives me an idea for an online music service..... Better call my patent attorney.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
El Guapo, Enon, Freezepop, The Stereo Total. If you like electronic pop at all and at least one of these bands does not blow you away, I will be very surprised. Those other artists you mentioned would be destined for what we at WMBC term "the ass bin".
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Look at artists like Ani Difranco. She is a fantastic artist who was sick of the system and started her own label. She makes enough, but the money is not what she was in it for. She and many other artists out there do it because they love what they do. The "artists" you are referring to (the term used very loosely...its more like advertising pawns) are dependant on pop culture, media, and trends for their success. They're not artists, they're salesmen.
The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.
Ah, I'm saved. I didn't see any Digital Underground either.
I was surprised to see some of the music on there. Erasure? I have not listened to them in years. Many of the artists (?) that had the largest list of songs were ones that I have not even heard of, must less heard their music. The notable exception here is Michael Jackson, but he doesn't really count anymore anyway.
No Not Again! Its whats for dinner.
One: It's old, but it's popular, which means their likely to get hits easier.
Two: the song may be found on a two dollar compilation CD at WalMart but it's a several thousand dollar lawsuit award.
1+2 = a bigger chunk of change made than even the original pulled in.
Have you ever sat down with a good pair of headphones and listened to "Independent Women (Pt. 1)" by Destiny's Child?
Obviously not. If so, you would have heard (1) insane production, and (2) an incredibly creative song.
And yes, Beyonce is hot hot hot. But that song, at least, kicks ass.
Mindy: "Well...desserts aren't always right." Homer: "But they're so sweet!"
First they came for the people who shared Busta Rhymes
and I did not speak out
because Busta Rhymes sucks.
Then they came for the people who shared Avril Lavigne
and I did not speak out
because Avril Lavigne sucks.
Then they came for the people who shared Incubus
and I did not speak out
because Incubus sucks.
Then they came for me
and I laughed because The Free Software Song
doesn't belong to the RIAA.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Not to be an asshole, but:
Has anyone here even considered the fact that viewing this list requires Excel to be installed? There could be worms or VBScript or any sort of malicious code inside of that waiting to execute and no would would be the wiser. Although (hopefully) most of the people here have secured their Excel installations from things like that, the fact remains that it seems like a stupidly good way for people to distribute worms -- post on slashdot, millions of geeks will click and some are _bound_ to have holes.
Don't put up links to this kind of stuff anymore, please. It's irresponsible.
-- K
The RIAA is posturing to focus all attention on P2P methods, and while they are perhaps winning the tactical battle, they will not win the longterm strategic war, because I really can't see the RIAA being able to challenge ISP's over the stuff thats going out over USENET - and as someone who administers a large 'fleet' of USENET news servers, I am VERY aware of the huge ongoing increase in multipart RAR-split binaries. In my traffic analysis, the MP3 binary groups consistently come out on top, and the number is only going up - and will continue to go up as the RIAA's slimy lawyers do their work...
People have already tried to sue ISP's over the content of their USENET data streams, and failed - perhaps in the end, one of the oldest technologies/protocols on the internet will bring these bastards to their knees - I sincerely hope so...
Frankly, I don't care about karma. It's at "Excellent", that's the max. Anything I post is purely for it's own merit.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
wonder why no Eminem on that list
I own vinyl and cd's of Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles. Are they going to target me because I have the freakin mp3's?
I cannot believe Keith Sweat is listed. "Make It Last Forever" should be exempt because I think that album is out of print.
Mary J. Blige's "Everything" is by far not her best song.
Those ones listed under Nas? WTF? There are 10 better Nas songs then those... it is call the "Illmatic" LP.
The one they have listed for Mobb Deep is the snip-snap-snip.
Anyways, sorry for the dumb post.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Would it not save you money if you got a subpeona to run out to your records store, pay the 15 or 20 bucks for a cd for every song you are being snagged for, then go to court and say 'see here are my copies, i put it there for personnal use, i am a idiot for not securing my drive'. Case closed, you can live down stupidity of not securing drive, cheaper than the payoff.
Dave Mathews Band allows live taping, so one could easily be sharing LEGAL bootleg recordings...me for example...and be brought in for illegal sharing?! Blah
A lot of rap celebrates criminal behavior as it is.
Creative rap artists should seize this opportunity to create a new sub-category of gangta, 'file shara'.
HighHat's Law:
'Any significantly advanced pop music video is indistinguishable from pr0n.'
It's really true. I happen to know him. Fucking bastard.
Have you bothered to get any upgrade RPMs in the past year?
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
So, this is kinda off topic but if I have 30 gigs of mp3 and I legitimately own all the albums that theses songs come from, and I share them out, can I get into trouble with the RIAA?
Anybody care to correlate this chart with the amount of money the RIAA members have spent promoting this music? Basically, if you spend $30 million trying to shove an album down the public's throat, you probably should get upset about people downloading it for free; you run the risk of not recouping your advertising costs. Of course, the fault must be in those freeloaders, and not in their whole business model...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Finally, even if it is true that a given artist would benefit by giving away his recordings for free, it should still be his choice to make. No one else has any moral or legal right to make that decision for him.
"Small bands THRIVE on p2p sharing of their music"
How exactly does this work? When you use a p2p network, aren't you usually searching for something fairly specific? IOW, you're not likely to see a small band in your search results unless you were already looking for them. And if they do happen to show up in a search, you were probably searching for something else, so why would you even download it? I don't see how p2p is likely to expose the band to any NEW ears, unless they lie and name it "whoops i did it again.mp3" or something.
Seriously, this argument gets thrown about so often that it's taken as a given. But I haven't seen any evidence that it works, and I can't even figure out how it *would* work. Giving away music for free in a movie or ad is different... There, the band is getting heard by a lot of new people who aren't already familiar with their music. But on p2p, virtually everyone downloading the music is someone who already knows about the band. So what's the point?
I think more resources go into marketing than into production for two reasons; spending money on marketing usually works, and record company executives can justifiably claim credit when the marketing works.
:-), can explain some of the actions that the media companies have taken lately. Piracy is a big problem if you have only a short window of popularity to exploit for making money. People passing around bootleg copies of Pink Floyd albums are not really a problem since there are plenty of other albums they might buy if they become interested in the music. Bootleg copies of American Idols' music are a big problem because it is quite possible that after 6 months there will be no market for the CD's.
The mainstream market for CD's (and movies) thrives on novelty. If you want to sell a lot of CD's you'll have to first get the artist noticed, then convince the public that there is something new and different about it. Think "American Idol" where previously unknown artists with no track record are suddenly selling boatloads of CD's. It is too early to tell whether there is any long-term market for the Idols' music, but I'll bet the record companies have already earned a profit on the music.
Marketing will usually result in a profit, but there is even more incentive for taking this approach because the record executives that decided how to market it can claim part of the credit for the success of the artist. If too many artists succeed without any marketing, how will the executives justify their huge salaries and bonuses if they can't claim to be responsible for the success?
Movies are the same thing. If a heavily hyped movie makes a lot of money, executives can claim part of the credit, so they look for movies that are easy to hype (like sequels).
Now all of this, assuming it isn't entirely a product of my cynical mind
Since media companies think that successful sales only occur as a result of hype, they will keep pushing for laws that ensure they will be the only ones that profit from the hype. Disney got the copyright term extended to protect their investment in hyping Mickey Mouse, not to repay the original production costs or to ensure that more Mickeys will be created. The original creators have been paid, the work exists; the only ongoing expense is marketing.
Now all of this works against my interests as a consumer. I am not all that interested in most of the music that is currently being hyped; but that is all you hear on the radio or can buy in the stores. The music companies are pulling every trick they can to ensure that people are exposed only to the latest hype. I am finding it harder to find the music I like, and when I do it costs more because it is rare (why is it that the popular music that everyone wants costs less and the obscure music that no one likes costs more? Shouldn't it be the opposite?).
The record companies have pretty much lost me as a customer, and I own more than 1000 CD's. When I recently found a CD at a price I was willing to pay, I had to return it when I discovered that it was copy-protected. I want to be able to listen to something I buy for the next 10 years or more; what guarantee do I have that a copy-protected CD will even play in the next CD player I buy?
The record companies are doing everything they can to ensure they make back their marketing investments, but unfortunately that is making the music business much less relevant to me. I hope the companies wake up and realize that they could be selling 100+ CD's a year to me again; but I have my doubts, and in the meantime, my lost sales will be attributed to piracy.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
that fileswapping *did*, in fact, increase sales. This would explain them not going after new music.
That would explain going after older music since they know noone will buy it, just burn it.
I wasn't talking about Word, though. I think Word sucks pretty bad, as does most of the Office suite.
Really, I don't understand word processing at all. If I want to convey the message, text works fine. If I want to make it look nice, I'll use a full blown desktop publishing app.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
False positives happen, but from my recent experience (I've migrated to Mozilla Mail some months ago) they are very rare and far between. I haven't had any yet - many false negatives though, I believe Mozilla filters are configured well on the safe side.
But the problem at hand is not email. In a P2P network you can not only setup filters, you can let peers vote on filters conclusions. A client wouldn't make a blocking decisons based upon its solitary experience, it would have all other clients experiences to tap from.
Obviously this is not without obstacles. The target (RIAA servers, for instance) can setup its own "wall of confidence", a number of clients voting together. This can be countered (besides increasing their "price to play"). A number of clients setup for protecting a single client will usually have a negative fingerprint (they will not search or download anything, just vote for their "friend"). Filters see that. Active clients protecting each other will all search for known RIAA strings, marking them up for blocking. And the vote of confidence itself is information. A wall of confidence fall apart when only one or two of its bricks comes down. Eventually the number of different active clients with original searches needed to protect each other rises to a number too large to be practical.
I believe it would be at least a nice developemnt trip...
Ahem, every single one of them mentioned that it's faster to get the song over Kazaa than from iuma.org because of better bandwidth.
and yes, my sampling of 50 country wide small bands IS a good example of what they believe... the only bands that are pissy about it are usually the no-talent hacks that have crappy music to begin with, or are in it for the wrong reasons...
I was judging Excel's parse tool, which always blew and still does. Lotus had much better parse tool that did a good job of recognizing paterns, seperated strings from numerical values, and did all this with a semigraphical fexible user interface. Excel's little parse wizards are inflexible and feature poor by compairison.
The only thing I've ever heard of that was sweet and sour was pork. You must be a pig.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Amazing! They pick one Blue Oyster Cult song and it's NOT "(Don't Fear) The Reaper"!!
One way to get your stuff noticed is to embed some information in the file names, such as the genre or bands you may sound similar to.
With electronic music, there are so many sub-genres that people will search for 'techno' or 'idm', causing your stuff to pop up and get noticed.
Listen to my music.
With the spread of data, I doubt anything would have made much more. That's the beauty of online music sharing, you get to learn people's real tastes as opposed to what the RIAA would shove down their throats. When you are free to pick from everyhting, your tastes tend to drift from top 40 cruft. That's the real dread of the RIAA, their business model depends on being able to make "super stars" by supressing all other music. There you have it - their model is obsolete. It can never work to make them any money, though the artists can make a living. The big music publishers are going to collapse and be bought for the song they were worth all along.
I gave up moderating this thing to post this? Of course, my points couldn't have countered the retards who modded this "Insightful"...
I doubt this too. Only trolls with their bots have mod points these days. Quit whining, jackass.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If I was one of these people being sued, could I in theory be immune if I already owned these songs I've supposedly pirated from p2p on CD? Could I even buy the CDs after the fact (no way to really prove how long I've owned them) and then be immune?..
I mean it all comes down to 'stealing' music, but what if I've already paid for it?
--mike
It seems every moron and his brother uses Excel as a table generation tool, when HTML and/or ASCII would work just as well and not cost hundreds of dollars and waste KB of space.
Stupid LCD humans!
Let's all put the "pee" in "pee 2 pee networks".
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
maybe bands that are poorly informed about the nature of the music industry want to "get signed" but as the previous poster stated, they just want to get some recognition. The problem is in the nature of the business itself. If you signed, the odss are something like 999 to 1 that you will get screwed.
see this article from someone who would know
I can't believe it's not lard!
when I used to file trade (too busy these days), if a friend mentioned a band that was good, I'd check em out on napster. If I liked it, I'd find the band's website and purchase it. I actually ended up purchasing a few things that I never would have even risked if not for the free sample.
I can't believe it's not lard!
Hey all.. I'm the news writer for Slyck.com The excel spreadsheet was just temporary and what I was working with at the time, never expected to be Slash-dotted!... Anyway, you've been heard loud and clear, and the list is available in an HTML format. Hope this make some people happy ;)
http://www.slyck.com/misc/songlist.html
If they go only after people who listen to Ludacris and other such crap...errr...rap... i'm cheering the RIAA. Anyone liking gangsta rap is on my personal list of societal enemies.
-DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
Hey all.. I'm the news writer for Slyck.com The excel spreadsheet was just temporary and what I was working with at the time - never expected to be Slash-dotted!... Anyway, you've been heard loud and clear, and the list is available in an HTML format. Hope this makes some people happy ;) get it here
"...even the small record shops won't let them put a small amount on their shelves at cost."
sadly, that is probably for practical reasons.
As soon as it gets out that you will do that, your going to get 1000's of CDs.
Thats means
A)you just put everyting on the shelves. thats pretty risky.
b)you pay people to judge which one are good and fit the type of music you sell
c)you disallow all bands that are explicitly invited.
I wonder if they gave the people at the local record shop free ticks to there shows, and they were good, if that might make a difference?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
well then its official. The riaa doesn't care about all its artists thats "losing" money because of p2p networks, or so they say. Rather they're just making sure the artists that make them the most money are looked after.
If I have to spend $200+ to get the program that would be my only option to open the document (I don't but only because there are people who violated the EULA and reverse engineered it), then I and the parent have every right to bitch.
Here's the strange thing.
After the RIAA announced it would sue uploaders, I downloaded Kazaa Lite to 'stick it to the man' and upload indie music. (www.fairforshare.com for a big batch to get you started) Anyway, I did a quick search for "RIAA" in Kazaa - seeing if that would bring up anything.
It did. I remember one guy had a bunch of songs on his server that has "screw the RIAA" in the comments field. - alot of them, I think, and his name was "indepunk77" - I remember that because it's an easy name to remember.
"indepunk77" is one of the names that's coming up on the list of people to be sued.
I don't have access to Kazaa now, but I was wondering if anyone else wonders if the media-guys set the bots to *look* for "RIAA"
This is completely anecdotal evidence combined with conjecture. Take it with all the salt you want.
-- Funksaw
Until they add Saetia, Hot Cross, or any other band worth a damn, I'm not worried about being sued...except for maybe my extensive collection of "Wake me up before you go-go" remix tracks...
Yeah, there's a pattern. It's extortion, restraint of trade, false testimony to Congress, paying off politicians (Sensenbrenner, in particular), antitrust and blatant terrorism on U.S. citizens by foreign-owned record labels, all designed to reinstate complete control of the market for recorded music -- like they used to have before the CD-Rs, the Internet and mp3s gave the independent artists the access to free global marketing and promotion.
We don't need the record labels any longer. They've never done anything for the benefit of the artists, which is why you'll always hear them refer to protecting the interests of the copyright owners -- which are the record labels, NOT the artists.
Today, we begin the protests around the country and around the world and websites will have black front pages, mourning the loss of our civil liberties, right to privacy and protesting the fact that our government has been bought out by the British (EMI), the French (Vivendi), the Germans (BMG and the Japanese (Sony).
Tower Records in Los Angeles may be the most-publicized example of a physical protest, but Austin. Cleveland, Washington D.C. and other major cities across the country will hold protests for the next two days.
I have written to each and every US Senator concerning this shredding of our Constitutional rights. If you give a rat's ass about your rights, you should write your congressmen and warn them that those who support the foreign terrorists will face certain defeat in the next elections.
We're pissed off and we're registering to vote the bastards out of office if they support the RIAA terrorists.
IF you have "file" on you rmachine labeled as these songs are labeled, but in actuality the "file" contains a word document, are you now on the RIAA hit list...
and
we could all blissfully share files called "living on a prayer.doc" right?
also,
How do they know just form these filnames that the file has in its entirty the notes that compose the supposedly copyrighted material. Someone would have to be listening to every fricking instance of the "file" in question. The possession of a "file" named with the name of a song doe not a copyright violation make.
If your going to do something, do it right thats all I ask. A few people did in fact bitch about the formating, and they should because the data was presented in a very sloppy manner. Are we all thankful for this nugget of wisdom dispensed upon us? Sure. Does that mean we should felate the authors just because they were being nice? No.
Shaking your fist at Slashdot's readership is about as clever as a dog in a sweater. There is a fine line between esprit and hubris my friend, please mind which side your on.
Now please go and click on the "YES" button for all the "Was this review helpfull to you".
(Yes, I know it will permanently tarnish my music taste in the eyes of the Amazon 'bots, but it *did* help me laugh harder than I have done in years...)
Avril looks to have the most mentions on the list. Since her fanbase is mostly teens, looks like there will be some surprised high schoolers once subpoenas are delivered in August!