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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.
Why did they have to wait so long? 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? All in all, I'm glad they finally got their act together, but I worry that the only reason they're doing this is because the RIAA has something else planned.. Apparently, you only have rights if you belong to a group big enough to actually influence politics.
though, i support file sharing, i agree with him on the fact that the punishment fits the crime. since there is no crime, no punishment. end of story.
I write code.
The only right good ole Mericans have is the right to pay for the new Metallica.. and if they don't like it then let the fury of RIAA rain upon them!!!
oh sorry was channelling Hilary Rosen for a minute... ewww.. I feel dirty now.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
He believes the RIAA's tactics may not be taking into consideration the damage they do to innocent people
I'd be more intrested in questioning the legality of the RIAA's 'tactics'.
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
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.
"
to answer the first post - it took this long because now is the perfect opportunity for a politician to finally speak out and garner some public support for their election given the latest round of subpoena's has indicted innocent victims or third party individuals who were a matter of circumstance. It's best summed up in this paragraph:
>>> "The industry seems to have adopted a 'shotgun' approach that could potentially cause injury and harm to innocent people who may simply have been victims of circumstance, or possessed a lack of knowledge of the rules related to digital sharing of files," Coleman wrote. >>>
Before it was students etc they were filiong against and the claims were pretty justified - there wasn't much leeway for a politician to step up - now there is a distinct case to be made and popular support to be garnered from it.
Fear Breeds Knowledge
..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.
class-action lawsuit against the RIAA by the innocent people caught in their massive web.
Fight fire with fire.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
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.
1. Record/buy copyrights to a song which would otherwise sell a couple of thousand copies at most.
2. leak it out somehow, wait for those few thousand people to download it.
3. Sue these guys and recover $15,000 from them each.
4. Profit???
Much better than actually selling good songs, isnt it? Maybe this is why Britney & gang were promoted endlessly...:)
The Dirty Work Group
I've decided to stop swapping music files and go back to stabbing hookers.
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.
Isn't this the guy ... Who, after his political opponent Paul Wellstone was killed in an airplane crash, gave his first televised interview posing against a small private plane in a hangar?
Dunno; would that be relevant, somehow? Is nobody allowed to have private planes after their political opponents die in plane crashes?
And so on. Interesting opinion. Unfortunately, it's incorrect.
Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun back, Dowling v. the United States: 'It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner," that is, anyone who trespasses into his exclusive domain by using or authorizing the use of the copyrighted work in one of the five ways set forth in the statute, "is an infringer of the copyright."'
I know that this is playing to the gallery, but if we're simply going to redefine terms to suit ourselves, how about try a bit of it ourselves. For example:
Then we get a go:
Not perhaps technically accurate, but hey, they started it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
...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.
Send you ideas, thanks, whatever to Norm here:
m
http://www.senate.gov/~coleman/contact/index.cf
This is what I sent, short and simple:
Thank you for taking a stand against the ridiculously strong-armed tactics that the RIAA is taking against innocent people. $15K to $250K per song is "Cruel and Unusual"
moo
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.
Why not write to your elected representatives and propose a bill to limit the term of copyright to five years from the receipt of the first royalty payment, or five years from the date of publication if no royalty payments are rceived within that time, after which the work enters the public domain. This term should not be extensible under any circumstances and, if any technological measures are used to prevent copying, at least one unprotected copy should be placed in escrow with the relevant authorities in order that the work can actually be placed in the public domain. Circumvention of protection on a work which has, or should have, already entered into the public domain should be explicitly permitted.
The whole idea of copyright is to provide a limited term of exclusivity so you can make money from your work, in return for the promise that one day, your work will enter the public domain. Frankly, five years should be enough time for anyone to make a fair profit {which is why I think it should be counted from the receipt of the first royalty payment}; and, if you haven't made any money out of it in that time, you're never going to, so you should cut your losses.
I'll maybe rewrite this in more bill-like terms and repost it, if anyone else thinks it's a good idea.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"any idiot could walk into a courthouse, lodge a form with a court clerk and the process is started."
Wait a minute. Could *I* do this? Could I perhaps inadvertantly target, say, certain industry associations, because my spidering software had mistakenly identified them as distributors of my IP? Could I then hold them to the same standards of proof that they are holding random Kazaa users, and force their lawyers to establish a precident, as the defendants, for just what you have to show in court before you can win such a case?
Seriously, it seems that there's a nice legal hack to be had in creatively abusing the ability to send subpeonas without a judge. Could someone who IAL suggest some possibilities?
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
While I respect your relatively low user id #, your views are somewhat mislead. Understand that here in America (don't know if you're american or not) we have a rule by majority. Concentrate on that word..majority. It takes a larger group of people to get hurt or angry before something will be done about what is hurting them. Until now the RIAA had both the loudest and the most numerous voice, thankfully the right number of people have spoken up for some action to finally be taken.
I will conceed that some corruption happens on the hill on a daily basis, it's gonna happen because some people feed on that. However, I will not conceed the point of view that all people who make a living running this country are corrupt. They do what is either in the best interest of their constituants, or they listen to those people when they change their minds (as a majority). He still needs to get votes to keep his job.
On a side note, yes attorneys have a large voice in DC, but that's because they hire a ton of folks to do lobbying for them. It's not what you say, it's how many voices you say it with.
Whatever man, I spelled it write!
Especially if those voices are tens or hundreds of thousands of little green George Washingtons!
Yes, we do have majority rule, but the entire point of a democracy is to allow majority rule while still protecting minority rights. Ever heard of the civil rights acts? Think the majority really felt strongly about that?
Besides, we haven't had a true majority rule in anything other than congress in years. Presidential elections nowadays are rarely won by a true majority. Closer to the truth would be that a plurality rules in America, but even this is stretching it a bit considering that we have a representative form of government, so in reality we have a very small minority making most of our decisions (Congress, the President, etc.). Sure, we elect them, but only once every few years, and even then, no one pays attention to everything their congressmen do, so they're free to give lip service to the big issues and then do whatever they want. Therein lies one of the problems of a representative government.
Bush got more votes, so Gore lost. Simple as that. Get over it, quit whining and move on.
How soon they all forget.
Gore won the popular vote - he had more ballots with his name on them.
Bush won the electoral college - he won more states.
'Sheep, thought I.' - Anthony Burgess
-72
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.