Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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?"
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
Their business is based on the distribution of music and charging money for it. If someone else distributes music that is covered by the exclusive right the law has granted them (copyright), it weakens their business. It's not "one illegal download = one lost sale" as they like to think, but it's also deceptive to say "illegal downloads = no impact on business".
Illegal distribution of copyrighted material hurts the business of the corporations the RIAA presents. I don't really care of their business and I'd rather want to legalize this currently illegal distribution but that's different from saying it wouldn't hurt them.
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.
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
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.