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Inquiry Into RIAA's Piracy Crackdown Tactics
MongooseCN writes "Sen. Norm Coleman started an inquiry to check the RIAA's tactics on attacking online music swappers. He believes the RIAA's tactics may not be taking into consideration the damage they do to innocent people. It's good to know that someone remembered people in the US have Rights." As a former roadie, Senator Coleman doesn't oppose file sharing penalities, he merely wants to make sure the punishment fits the crime.
Since legally coipyright infringment damage can only me measured in economic terms of lost sales..
How can RIAA claim any loss in salse when the people sharing files do not have the dispoable income to purchase Cds in the firs tplace?
So where is the damage, again RIAA?
Its about like RIAA's position on piracy sales outside the US in that the CDs go for about $5 or less and yet RIAA claims loss at ful price not the actual money exchanged..
to me the actual money that was exchanged is the legal monetary damage of the piracy not invented figures..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Couldn't this have been done _before_ so many people lost their money/got expelled. Do we really need to make so much noise before they make things happen?
[metaphor] Street lines aren't repainted until there are a few major accidents on the road. It's an unfortunate fact of life. [/metaphor]
Vonal Declosion
I'm not from Minnesota, but if I was, I'd suddenly be sparked to start a massive campaigning effort for this guy.
Regardless of what side of the p2p issue you're on, you have to admit that this guy is the first Senator in a LONG time to openly investigate possible infringements on the rights of the common Joe by big business. With so many of our senators and representatives in the pockets of corporations, this man deserves the utmost respect, and if you are from Minnnesota, your vote.
Now, on to my side of the p2p battle, this is just another sign that the RIAA is eventually going to eat it for their practices. Senators hate to be wrong
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
..there are no innocent people. They could give a flying flip who gets crushed under the wheels of their 'machine'.
Also, from the article:
"Theft is theft, but in this country we don't cut off your arm or fingers for stealing," said Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican who was a rock roadie in the 1960s.
And yet, all Coleman wants is to see a copy of the subpoenas & any measures the RIAA is taking to ensure that 'innocent people' aren't getting snagged.
How about doing something useful, Senator? How about imposing a cap on the amount of damages the RIAA can levy against its victims? You're not at all concerned that they're claiming damages upto $15,000 per song? Is 'Oops! I did it again' really fscking worth $15,000 to anyone?
This is just another example of a gubment windbag trying to grab some press for being the 'good guy' while not actually doing shit for his constituents.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
if you think that the RIAA planned to -stop- suing after this first round, you're awfully naive.
notice how every victory emboldens them? this last time they didn't even necessarily want to go to court, they were just looking for 2000 settlement checks, much like DirecTV.
and did the gov't finally get its act together? or did we, their constituents, finally get -our- act together?
if you want to protect your rights, how about you email your representatives and write your check to the EFF?
you can rail against the system, or you can use your power as a voter to get things done.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I think one of the reasons nothing has been done before about the RIAA's ability to walk all over people's rights is because none of the higher ups understand. The main reason why the RIAA has so much power is because the people who pass our laws don't realize they have it. Our congressmen/senators are on average in their 50s, 60, 70s. Not to stereotype too badly, but most of the older folks in the US know the basics of email, word maybe, and quicken. The way the RIAA approached the whole file sharing fiasco is similar to if someone who doesn't know much about cars takes their car to the shop to get fixed, and on top of it the mechanic slaps on $2500 of fony repairs. The way everything is now the RIAA will always be right, and the average person going up against them will lose. Bad situation, but that's the way it is.
Is how the RIAA rolled Verizon. That was where things really started heading down the tubes - any idiot could walk into a courthouse, lodge a form with a court clerk and the process is started.
There should be a higher burden of proof - a judge should be looking over it. Or, you'll clog the court system, as is happening with the RIAA and it's 900+ subpoenas. It would also encourage them to go after the serious people (those making money through piracy) as opposed to the college kids and grandparents (who will normally just roll over instantly due to potential legal costs).
However, I don't think it's going to take them much longer to hit critical mass for "people fucked off". Then it'll start to get interesting again. No more Mickey Mouse Preservation Acts, etc then: they'll blow the goodwill the $$$ in politicians pockets bought them.
-- james
send him a contribution, or just a kind letter thanking him for his efforts. Then explain to him that copyright infringement is not theft; it's just copyright infringement. Then if you get that far, gently suggest that content companies have bastardized the entire concept of copyright law, and that it should be done away with.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Truth is, apart from this one benevolent act, Coleman is kind of a pud and is completely in the pockets of corporations, esp. ADM. He replaced Paul Wellstone who did "investigate possible infringements on the rights of the common Joe by big business." Don't delude yourself.
- File sharing is piracy, and hence, stealing, which does indeed make it illegal.
- The punishment does not fit the crime.
The bottom line is, it is against the law to steal stuff, and pirating anything, be it software, music, or movies, is stealing. That's just the way it is.I am, however, perfectly willing to promote and even perpetuate the robbing blind of the RIAA and the major labels until such a time as they either go out of business, or figure out that they need to start doing something a little more user friendly than the current model of price gouging and sodomy of not only the music buying public, but their artists as well.
My hope is that they just fold, because then perhaps the artists who actually matter will move toward the independent labels, you know, the ones that actually tend to care about the artists for whom they're releasing music? Yeah, I'd prefer the former, but I'll take the latter, also.
Keep in mind that the form requests that Minnesotans identify themselves I suppose to let his staff triage and prioritize his email. However, that's better than a lot of congresspeople's sites, which tend to make a person feel that they don't want to hear from anyone outside of their state or district.
Hardly. The student who wrote a search engine; the hard-up students "cheekily" bootlegging some music, being hit for their lifesavings?
Not what I'd call "justified."
Now say that about people "pirating for profit," and I might agree.
The claims the RIAA made for damages were and are, outrageous and unjust.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Unfortunately with computer technology the very act of playback requires duplication.
The copyright law foreseeing that things are often copied on a small scale by people tossed in a clause for Fair Use. Fair Use was OK when folks copied tracks of the radio, or put together custom casettes. The problem is that people are doing this Fair Use cut and paste en masse.
We ran into the same issue when the Radio was developed. As a solution we developed compulsory licensing. Everyone who owns a radio station (and hence is easily tracked down owing to their FCC license) pays a flat fee to AASCAP or similar organizations. They also track how often the play what songs, and the compulsory licence folks divvy the spoils amoung the folks who got the most air time.
The problem with the Internet is that you don't need a license. Tracking down individual "broadcasters" is a little difficult.
Now the RIAA does have a gripe. But their hands aren't clean either. They have been pushing for exorbinately high fees for internet broadcast rights. They have also been fighting the compulsory licensing scheme for internet file sharing.
The answer has yet to be found. Grabbing congresses' attention is a good sign.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Interesting that his party affiliation didn't make it into the article. If he were a democrat fighting the good fight it would have been mentioned.
No. Napster was innocent until proven guilty by a court of justice. Coleman did the right thing.
Or else, all $BigCorp had to do was spread some fud about questionable legality of its competitor, and everybody would just oblige and roll over? First let's the courts decide, and only then be part of the punishment.
How does the RIAA determine if someone is sharing somesthing 'illegally'? If I rename "foo.txt" to "Britney Spears LOLZ Live hehehekk.mp3" do I suddenly become a copyright violator? Are they making any actual efforts in these cases to be sure that the suspected copyright violations are, in fact, violations? Granted, probably >99% of the people who are sharing mp3s have accurate names, but that doesn't mean you can do a quick search and report the names of every result you find and expect to win a lawsuit.
.mp3 extension. Nevermind the fact that some of those mp3s were not copyrighted, or were the personal works of the people who owned the computer. They just did a blanket sweep on *.mp3. Stupid, yes. Did they get away with it? No (after a lot of hassle).
My school a couple years ago shut down network access for anyone sharing anything with an
I'm afraid that voters really don't seem to have much power, not anymore. Not when politicians have to take legal bribes to afford the advertising they need to get elected.
So if you don't have the money to get them elected, it does them little good to listen to you.
Depressing, but that's how it seems. At leasst from my perspective, not being a US resident and all.
In Australia, it often feels like we may as well be a US state in terms of how strongly US events affect our own laws and politics, but we don't get a vote in the events that largely determine our eventual laws. As if the politicians think we're another US state...
The fact that this is a daily topic on Slashdot, with a wide spectrum of opinions, suggests that this is a grey area. It's therefore asking a bit much to insist that he start following your agenda without doing some research. Or is it a good thing when politicians react in a knee-jerk fashion without looking at the facts?
He may well be a gubment windbag (the fact that he is a senator significantly increases this possibility) but at least, for the time being, on this issue, he's OUR gubment windbag. The pro-file sharing lobby has been screaming that Capitol Hill is in the pockets of the **AAs, so it's nice to see that one of them isn't. And at least calling for information is a warning shot across the bows of the RIAA that they will be expected to conform to the letter of the law. I'm relieved to see this, because the tide had been running firmly in the other direction, what with the DMCA, and the Patriot Act, and all. It's nice to see the elected representatives doing something on behalf of the people that they are representing, even if it isn't exactly what the file sharers would like him to do.
In the Middle Ages, Lord would declare just about anything illegal that vaguely represented a threat to their power. Hell, before the American Revolution, England was so afraid of America becoming self-suffiecient (and thus not needing them anymore) they forbade metal tools from being imported or produced here.
Having been on the recieving end of such treatment, our founding fathers decided that government should only tackle the bleedingly obvious problems. You can't put someone away for what the might do, only what they have done, or were in the process of doing.
Frankly, seeing the mess that "preventative" lawmaking makes versus "reactive" lawmaking, I'd take "reactive" any day. The both have problems. But at least reactive lawmaking eventually fixes them. Preventative lawmaking ends up causing unforseen problems of its own.
It may sound like I have my head in the sand, but look at the track record of the Prohibition and the War on Drugs. Now compare that to the hand off (until it was mature) approach congress took with the Internet. Somewhere in the middle would by Radio and Television, which needed regulation from the start because all parties are competing for limited chunks of the broadcast spectrum.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
...they were able to roll Congress into passing the DMCA. Verizon had no choice but to comply, because the DMCA forces them to give up the addresses of file sharers. (Or was it the Online Child Protection Act - apologies if it was). IIRC, Verizon and other ISPs lobbied against the DMCA, and were unsuccessful. Once it was passed, they had to obey the Act, because they didn't have the option of retreating to Montana and pretending that it didn't exist.
You know, I got karma to burn so mod me down too, but this guy is right. When Ashcroft does something stupid, it's "Ashcroft the Republican is at it again!!", but when a Republican does something that our little gang here tends to agree with, no party affiliation is given. It's not just this article, it's very consistant. And the converse is true as well - if a Democrat does something idiotic, he's spared the idignity of embarrassing his party here on slashdot because it's kindly left out, but if in this case the Senator was a Democrat, he'd put on his pedastool where he belonged. Just be even-handed folks, it's all many of us are asking. If you did that, I'd forget about all the spelling errors and dupes. ;-)
With as much crap that gets modded up, I can't believe this gets the "troll" label - save that for the ascii goatse.cx posts. This never happens when I have mod points! arghhh.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
and ignorance of the law is a crime against civility.
Isn't it funny that you'll recieve a lesser punishment for getting caught shoplifting a cd, then you would for getting caught sharing one song?
Guess we'll just have to get our music old school style. I wanna ask Winona Ryder for some tips.
I'm glad i live in Belgium, but i fear the same thing is coming this way. i know about EFF but is there an European organisation?. about RIAA, P2P makes the old distribution methods, like compact discs useless. P2P is even good for the environment. So with p2p artists & music fans don't need EMI, warner, virgin anymore... let the artists distribute their own music via P2P, result? cheap music, diversity, and a lot of work in upgrading the global network i hope the five big ones go broke soon Keep on sharing peepz... wait & see... they can't keep on sueing the world...
How is it "clearly" not theft? You can't make statements like that without explaining a bit. It's hardly an acknowledged fact, even on slashdot.
Since legally coipyright infringment damage can only me measured in economic terms of lost sales..
How can RIAA claim any loss in salse when the people sharing files do not have the dispoable income to purchase Cds in the first place?
So what you're saying is that if someone doesn't have much cash, then that individual should not feel obligated to live within his or her means. Hence, that nice Jaguar that I'd like to buy but can't afford should be mine for the taking. Yes, I'd be depriving the dealer of their commission and Jaguar of their cut, but we all know that the amount of money making its way into Jaguar's hands is such a tiny profit, compared to the inflated charges from the fascist middlemen, that it's really all irrelevant. Right?
I dislike the RIAA's heavy-handed tactics as much as anyone, but I'm not willing to condone illegal tactics simply because people are not prepared to live within their means. Please feel free to argue coherently against these tactics, but stop using tenuous logic to justify theft. (And despite what the semantic monkeys seem to trot out every time we debate this hoary old topic, it is theft.)
Look - the problem is still 99% piracy and 1% RIAA overreach. it's nice that somebody is looking at the 1%, but don't forget that the major problem still is piracy.
remember the slashdot excuse pre-crackdown: go after the offenders, not the technology. support going after the offenders.
It is clearly not theft because it does not meet the definition of theft.
You have to realize that there are a wide variety of different crimes, and because someone commits Crime A you can't automatically say that they are commiting Crime B just because Crime B sounds more serious and outrageous.
Napster users committed copyright infringement, not theft.
Jeff Dahmer committed murder, not genocide.
The kid who keyed your car last week did not commit Grand Theft Auto.
It won't FIX the problem.
:)
It will improve it, though----You have to remember, sneaky people can get around laws
And politicans are the sneakiest of the bunch. These laws will improve the situation somewhat, until some more corruption is unveiled by the media, and then another iteration of laws will be implemented.
Anyways, I'm hoping for the best
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
That's pretty interesting, considering that the head of RIAA, the group that's been causing all of these problems so far, is a supporter and contributor to the Democrat party:
Check out this link:
right here
And type "Recording Industry" into the link. Guess what? It's Hilary Rosen contributing to Gephart's campaign, Kerry's campaign and the like.
Like it or not, this isn't a one party issue, and the party that the head of RIAA is with right now are the Democrats.
I'm saying that the government should define the problem away. Copyright is a limited monopoly assigned by the government to artists for the purposes of promoting the arts. IMHO, copyright should be 2-3 years. Most P2P copyright infringement would vanish. Me, I'm extreme enough to say that there shouldn't be any copyright past 6 months, but thats not going to happen.
Why is this not a copout? The notion of copyright was established in a different era, because of the costs associated with distribution and creation. Why would an artist produce anything if they couldn't capitalize on their works?
Now, things have changed a bit. I think artists can support themselves on concert performances. Indeed, most artists HAVE too---they don't make much from CD sales. Copyright is not something assigned by god, nor do I consider it some sort of inalienable human right. Recognize copyright for what it is----a limited MONOPOLY on a product assigned by the government.
Given that monopoly is no longer a necessary condition for the production of music, the monopoly only IMPEDES efficent economic distribution. Why? Because P2P, without cost (because distribution costs are borne by the P2P users) to artists, is the MOST efficent means of distribution currently avaliable.
If the Government eliminated copyright on music tomorrow, artists would still make music. And the world would keep spinning.
Indeed, what we would probably see would be extremely similar to what we have now----Where small and mid-level bands made their money on live performances, and large bands would make their money on live performances and sales of memorablia. Heck, if artist X produced a REALLY good album, sold it in a nice case, included a book of lyrics and information, wouldn't you buy it? I would.
Fact is, copyright on music is an outdated notion. So outdated, that technologies like Freenet WILL end it, without truely draconian government legislation. Like mandated palladium on steroids. Like banning all 'old' non-palladium computers. And I just don't see that happening.
Why won't that happen? Go look up the size of the music industry. Then look up the size of the home electronics industry. 'Nuff said
Good riddance, RIAA
Resistance is Futile.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
The crime is copyright infringement, not "stealing."
Stop it.
I hate it when people get pedantic and trot this little line of reasoning out. You're technically correct if you're a lawyer, but if you tell most people that file sharing is copyright infringement, not stealing, then since they don't understand what copyright infringement is, they will assume it's ok.
I think you do this so you can justify getting copies of music without paying for it.If you felt that filesharing was wrong, you would probably try to discourage people from engaging in it, not go around trying to obfuscate the issue. Otherwise, why would you be trotting out a pedantic, misleading argument that can only encourage most people to keep stealing music.Oops, I meant keep engaging in copyright infringement.
Explain what copyright infringment is and why it's bad without using any concept of stealing or theft. I can't do it. I don't think you can, either.You cannot use the concept of paying people for their hard work if you enjoy the fruits of their labor, since not doing that is stealing.
The closest I can come up with is that you're getting to use something without paying for it, when you should pay for it so the person(s) who created the thing will be able to create more of it. Sort of like how if you go into a CD store and steal something, you're getting to use something without having to pay for it. The difference is that in the case of the store, they have to pay money to make another copy of the item, and in the case of copyright infringment, they don't really have to pay money to make another copy.
If you actually understood and accepted that the main costs of creating music and such are in the creation, not the copying, then maybe you wouldn't be so anal about making this one little pathetic point.You would understand that the actual physical copy of the data isn't what's important. It's the work that went into making the data in the first place.
Now, I don't support the **AA's anymore because I can't see how to have copyright and computers, and I think people like you will keep stealing no matter what they do, short of taking away computers. So, I expect people like you will eventually get real computers restricted to a small population of "trusted" people, while the rest of the population has to settle with "content boxes". I won't steal their stuff. I will just refuse to give them money and not use their stuff.
Oh, and BTW. If you support filesharing, you support Microsoft adding whatever they want from Linux into Windows while keeping Windows proprietary. It's the same thing.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
1. Revoking the corporate charters of: a. corps that are blatantly destructive to the environment and b. the members of the RIAA
2. Tar, feather and ride on a rail Bush and all his cronies for their obvious imperialistic and profiteering war mongering
Need I go on? There is no representation in American politics - we are back to the tea party and active resistance is the only way to make our voice heard.
Back on topic:
Do you think that this one senator really represents the consumer? He's just playing us in the hopes of bounding the argument. At the end of the day, it is corporation vs. consumer and our government is failing to do their duty and protect us. The only solution is to pick up your "guns" and fight. Come on all you 1337 hax0r5 - build a better Kazaa that they can't stop - force them out of business. Then you better do the right thing and build a way for the artists to get paid directly.
OK, so we all recognize that obtaining music without renumeration for the various artists that made the music is WRONG. I don't care what you call it, semantics may be useful for shaping public opinion, but the general opinion is that it is just plain WRONG to get something for nothing. The problem I see is that no one can make up their minds and decide if we are going to revolt against the music companies that rob both artists and listeners, or if we are going to be good little sheep and not do ANYTHING. In order to change the way the music business operates, either the existing structure needs to be taken down by less than desirable means, or else we need (somehow) to get our congresscritters out of the pockets of executives. It would certainly help if some high profile artists would endorse and use alternative distribution methods while abondoning the big labels. Otherwise, the only thing that will work is if EVERYONE starts trading songs with complete abandon: swamp the RIAA with massive lists everwhere... hackers writing viral song swapping code so that everyone who logs on to the net is guilty in the RIAA's eyes... I think I'd rather see a change that was initiated by the artists and consumers themselves whereby I could legally (and simply) download my music for a FAIR price while being assured that most of the $$ goes to the artist, but remember, the toothless get ruthless.
So this senator seems interested in the dealing of the RIAA, would anyone else be interested to hear his views on this and other technical things. Perhaps his thoughts on the DMCA, open source, etc. Just a thought since it looks like he may be interested in these type of things.
Let's say a person with zero assets downloads such music. How does this hurt the coprightholders?
Some examples:
here is a very crucial point:
THE RIAA SUING COLLEGE KIDS IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO BECAUSE THE KIDS HAVE NO ASSETS.
It shows that the RIAA is interested in STOPPING THE BEHAVIOR, not collecting damages. Yes, they might sue for 10B, but they'll never collect. What they are clearly doing by going after asset-less individuals and getting outrageous-sounding judgements is SENDING A MESSAGE. It's the RIGHT message - RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE'S COPYRIGHTS. The US produces a hell of a lot of IP in arts and sciences compared to, say, China largely because we have well-structured IP systems.
Are there excesses? Surely. Is the mickey mouse extension, well, mickey mouse? absolutely. but is copyrightholders going after music-infringers in order to send a message that such behavior will not be tolerated wrong? absolutely not.
the music industry is trying damn hard to provide music in digital form now - but what's the problem? the problem is that everybody's running around trying to figure out how to do this while not basically 'giving away the store' given how easy digitial redistribution is. iTunes has been a success, though it is mac only. others have had less success because they are either toe-in-the-water ventures with limited playlists or because the music is overly encumbered with DRM. but why is this so?
BECAUSE OF PIRACY!
if there were no idiots out there like you trying to justify blatant piracy on any number of grounds, that is to say, this whole cloud of pseudo-justifications for widescale copyright infringement and a general climate that tolerates such behaviour, we'd RIGHT NOW have 50c music dowloads as far as the eye could see.
we'd have LESS middlemen, MORE choices of artists, and BETTER digital portability if it wasn't for the fact that every self-styled h4xor seems to think that he is a) smarter and b) better than the law, and even if the law isn't so bad, he isn't going to get caught anyway. THAT is what's keeping a flourishing of online music from happening.. a climate that tolerates or even encourages piracy.
--- END OF RANT ---
[metaphor] Street lines aren't repainted until there are a few major accidents on the road. It's an unfortunate fact of life. [/metaphor]
That is not a "fact of life." Birth, death, and the need to consume food in between are facts of life.
Street lines not being repainted until people are injured or killed, environmental laws being repealed to appease Baby Bush's oil buddies, and draconian laws that don't get fixed until the lives of thousands are ruined or threatened with ruination are NOT "facts of life," they are the actions of an unprecedented period of corruption in high places here in America (worse than even that which followed the civil war), and the fact that nearly everyone on capital hill, democrat and republican alike, is little more than a whore for those who bribe them, legally and on the public record via campaign contributions (what some would erroneously call "above board", as though making a bribe technically legal somehow makes it OK and undoes the terrible harm it cuases our civil institutions).
It is a fact of corruption and politics in a degenerate government of, by, and for attorneys and their corporate masters, not a fact of a properly functioning democratic republic (which, believe it or not, the US had for a brief time), much less a "fact of life" in its more general sense.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The correct analogy would be selling copies of the cd on the street (distribution). The shoplifting analogy would fit if they were suing downloaders, which they aren't.
If you don't wish to send a hand-written letter (such will have more meaning to a senator versus email), send a quick message to Senator Coleman expressing support for his actions and ideas.
He can be contacted at Contact Sen. Coleman
My message follows as a model:
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
I can see "as a former roadie, speakers are heavy, but the groupies make up for it". But the logic of "as a former roadie, I feel qualified to talk about the motivations of a Senator dealing with the legal issues of the music industry" somehow eludes me.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
If each song available for download is worth from $750-150,000, why are the music companies not being charged equivalent amount for each cd they have sold over the years at prices inflated through pricefixing? File sharers profited nothing through sharing, where the music companies reaped HUGE returns through price fixing and that continues today unabated. That is what the government should be looking into. If anyone is stealing, it is the music industry itself.
You're technically correct if you're a lawyer, but if you tell most people that file sharing is copyright infringement, not stealing, then since they don't understand what copyright infringement is, they will assume it's ok.
YOU stop it.
This entire line of reasoning has led to people who are afraid of their computers because they don't understand it, who are afraid of others because they don't understand it, and who are perfectly willing to let their government run amok because they don't understand it.
Maybe, instead of using hyperbole and calling things names they are not, if we actually educated people as to what "copyright" and "copyright infringement" are, people might actually understand. And an understanding populace might want change. I honestly have no idea what a fully informed American populace would want. Maybe they would sympathize with the back street boys and britney spears they've been force-fed, and demand the death penalty for the file-traders. But at least it would be an informed decision, not the result of the RIAA's crying or people telling them what to think.
Explain what copyright infringment is and why it's bad without using any concept of stealing or theft.
Copyright is a government-granted monopoly on the production (usually via copies of an original) and distribution of a creative work of art. Copyright infringement is attempting to compete with that production and distribution. Simple, isn't it? Originally, copyright wasn't about "access control" or "encryption", it was about who had the right to copy a given work. The DMCA (which doesn't protect copyrights at all, it protects encryption and access control methods, and if not repealed, will continue doing so long after the copyrighted work is released into the public domain - in a protected encrypted form) is just the latest in a long line of legislation and standard operating procedures that turned the copyright issue into one of locked-down corporate ownership of individuals' ideas and creations.
If you actually understood and accepted that the main costs of creating music and such are in the creation...
I thought that the major costs (at least in what the RIAA labels charge the bands) were for promotion and such. I know using a professional recording studio is pretty expensive, but I don't see how it can trump the cost of whatever passes for radio payola these days and other forms of advertising.
If you support filesharing, you support Microsoft adding whatever they want from Linux into Windows while keeping Windows proprietary.
Heh heh heh that will blow a few minds. It is the exact same thing. Well almost... the core rules governing it are the same, but the GPL is enforced with a written license, while CDs do not come with explicit instructions indicating that I cannot convert the CD into a format I can put on my ipod. (and yet, with the industry attempting to produce unrippable cd's, that seems to be what they don't want me to do)
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
It's better to burn crack than burn the Bill of Rights. Oh, you probably forgot what that was.
There is no such thing as the 'popular' vote in Presidential elections. They do not matter. Read your Constitution.
BTW, Clinton did not win a majority in 92, yet he won the election. Were you bitching back then? If there had been a run-off election (like most countries in Europe do), most of the votes for Perot would have gone to Bush I, and Clinton would never have been President.
I really wish someone would ask that question. Seriously, the 'crime' is copying data. The punishment is a 150K fine per instance (max). Seems *very* steep for an act that could be done accidentally.
Take this a step further, who made those laws? Content providers, naturally. So, of course it's illegal, they made it that way as well as the steep penalty! Now they attempt to apply this to Joe Consumer and we are seeing the reults.
As far as theft vs. infringement, the distinction is justified. Theft displaces wealth. While P2P may hurt record sales, it does not 'displace' money from the RIAA.
Good works will generate revenue. Crap will not. Unfortunately, there is very little to preview. To watch a movie, you have to pay. The movie might be really bad, and not worth the money. However, you have to pay money just to find that out. Pirate the movie and pay a tremendous fine or go to jail. Talk about a trap.
"Gore won the popular vote - he had more ballots with his name on them."
Oh please. The only way that this situation could have happened is if niether candidate was ideal. Face facts, Gore may have had a handful of more votes, there's still half the country that didn't want him in.
"Derp de derp."
So is the RIAA hoping everyone will get exhausted by their one-step-at-a-time process to get to that point...
And what if people actually do start going to court over this? Lots of people?
There's a rough ride ahead boys.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Bullshit. I think the rules should apply equally to everyone. Exactly what political biases are you attributing to me? I hate the liberal every bit as much as the conservatives. But what I hate most of all is GroupThink.
Yes indeed, I believe we should let everyone speak. What I despise are the megaphones people erect in the form of Political Action Committees.
Any message worth sending resonates from the masses. It does not require an amplifier. Indeed, PACs are an idea seeking an consituancy more than consituants expressing a message. It creates a situation of Ins vs. Outs. PACs represent their interest at the expense of the common good.
To Quote:
Lots of stuff about uniting for a common good. Indeed, it would seem that the Consitution was designed to handle Americans as a whole, not in chunks.
Okay, I can here your response now... "You are only scratching the surface, the Constitution states a lot more."
You are right.
So much for any legal arguments there, the Constitution describes the basic structure of our government. Onto the Admendments.
So, there is a lot to digest, Lets first exclude everything that doesn't have the vaguest parts of what we are discussing: namely the rights for organizations to influence the political process.
That leaves us with the following items to consider:
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I am not an American but I seem to realize what every American should know but refuse to believe.
Nowhere in the bill of Rights, Constitution or any other original documents is the term DEMOCRACY used. This is not afterthought but intentional. Your form of government is not a Democracy - period. It is a Constitution Republic. It may be turning into a democracy but it was never intended to be one. A democracy is 3 wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. A Constitution ensures that the rights of one are not threatened by the majority. In Canada we have a sham constitution that does not even protect our right to own land. Please do not keep spreading this fallacy about the US being a democracy for fear of destroying your constitution.
It bothers me that most Americans are ignorant of their history and how their great country can into being.
Stay tuned for new sig...
A very interesting statement, a very conservative statement...the RIAA knows that the majority of americans and congress are going to think the fines involved are excessive...grossly excessive...especially after the supreme court recently ruled against excessive punitive damages ...apparently they are currently safe from challenge because the law states specific remedies...but they wont be safe for long and they have to know that...congress or (possibly) the courts will trim the penalties down to size...if they're smart they'll settle any tear-jerker cases out of court -- it's the only way they'll profit from their fear campaign without getting burned with backlash and/or ending up mired in red tape whenever they want to subpoena...
i.e. how long do u think a clerk of court is going to be in charge of approving the release of personal information from an isp?
All your preview button are belong to hello kitty.