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RIAA Prepares Legal Blitz Against Filesharers
Sayonara writes "The RIAA are now well and truly gathering their forces for a financial onslaught on file sharers in the US, with a "fear and awe" campaign targetting college and high school students in particular. The strategy can be reduced to 'We should really charge you $150,000 per song you have downloaded. Pay us $50,000 now, and we'll say no more about it.' In a related article, the BBC describes how the netizen known as 'nycfashiongirl' is now attempting to delay the RIAA's case against her by claiming their investigation of her online activities was illegal. The RIAA has dismissed these arguments as 'shallow.'"
The RIAA is still at it, huh? It's almost funny to watch how they pursue people, asking these outrageous sums. Then you realize that they really ARE bothering these people and it's not so funny anymore...
I, for one, welcome our new Record Executive Overlords.
Why dont we get SCO to join the RIAA, and anyone using Linux to swap songs, they can just nail them with a double suit.
I think its pretty 'shallow' of them to bring people to court over this issue. How do they know you don't legally own all the MP3s or movies you are downloading?...
I didn't know that Darl had been employed by the RIAA?
When will they send their $50000 invoices?
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I really can't see anything positive coming out of this, people are going to be screwed (pay up because they can't afford the lawyer), the pblic won't care, and the RIAA will just gain more momentum.
The laws that make it possible won't get changed either.
*sigh*
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
"You can go f*ck yourselves."
I believe this is very sound advice. As a matter of fact, they are already following it, aren't they?
Daniel
Carpe Diem
In a related article, the BBC describes how the netizen known as 'nycfashiongirl' is now attempting to delay the RIAA's case against her by claiming their investigation of her online activities was illegal. The RIAA has dismissed these arguments as 'shallow.'"
God, I hope that gets tossed out. Well, actually, I hope it all gets tossed out, or 'nycfashiongirl' gets a small ($1/song shared) damage against her.
Repeat after me: You have no privacy on the internet. Any privacy you think you might have is simply you being too small and insignificant for anyone to bother to look. Consider your activities to be taking place on a sidewalk using postcards and loud voices--and act accordingly.
*sigh*
I'm not affiliated with any law agency, so if he leaves his door unlocked, does that mean I can walk in and search his house. I won't take anything, but since the address would be public knowledge, then hey, it should be just fine. After all, I am not affiliated with anyone that can't do this.
from the article....
Mr Oppenheim also said the RIAA was immume from rules on unreasonable searches on the internet, because it did not have links with law enforcement agencies.
Yep they are immume - everyone needs to work on his/her immumity - the RIAA is immume to everything except perhaps herpes and AIDS - immume - Find more immume here Immumity
Would anyone be interested the creation of a web site/community/forum that specifically focused on non-RIAA member label artists?
Or is there such a thing and I should be contributing reviews to it already?
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
I rarely ever get on kazaa.. I usually get my live music over various bittorrent channels. My roommate said that it's getting very hard to find anything on kazaa and other filesharing programs.
Is this true? I know at one point this summer we saw some stats that the RIAA wasn't really affecting the number of sharers. Is their campaign working?
My sig can beat up your sig.
They're targeting high school and college students... Who tend to not have much money... Will they really be allowed to ruin the lives of hundreds (if not thousands, or tens of thousands) of people, just so some execs can make a little more cash? And also, don't college students have a tendency to rebel against things like this? There's going to be a gigantic uprising...
Except these guys are actually dangerous. Can we stop feeding the SCO trolls, and have more articles about this? Maybe some ask slashdots with actual lawyers about what to do if they sue you, what they can actually legally do, etc.?
Someone's really gotta put a stop to this. Where are they getting this $150,000 number from? If you go into a record store, steal the CD, go outside the store with your laptop, and start burning free copies for people walking in, would you fine be nearly as high?
Why the bias against people who "steal" (or infringe copywrites) with computers?
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
The tactic is broadly to remind those it catches of the truly draconian penalties the law in the United States allows ($150,000 per song - and you don't have to be a Berkeley mathematician to multiply that a few times to get more dollars that any student loan could cover).
...
Then when the poor student has picked himself up from the floor and the blood returns to his face, the lawyers will say broadly: "OK, we'll let you off the fine if you agree to pay, let's say, a mere $15,000".
Furthermore, in one recent case, a college student was told that just by filing an answer in court, the cost of any final settlement would rise by $50,000.
If this isn't extortion, By God, I don't know what is.
Most High Schools use proxies...if the kids are running Kazaa at school and using a proxy, then it would be unethical and highly illegal to divulge their names to a non-law-enforcement-entity such as the RIAA. Anyway, an intelligent administrator would flush their logs every day.
Just send me the address of the artists. They're the ones who deserve the cash. I prefer to avoid funding anymore RIAA-funded "superstars" like N'suck and Hitme Spears.
Machiavelli:
..does the RIAA?
It is good if your subjects love you.
But better if you can make them fear you.
But you do *NOT* want them to hate you..
Tested with time, over the centuries...
I can already see where this is ultimately headed...
Pay us $low_number now, or we'll have to charge you $high_number later!!
I thought we already did the SCO article today?
do() || do_not();
"Mr Oppenheim also said the RIAA was immume from rules on unreasonable searches on the internet, because it did not have links with law enforcement agencies."
By that logic, everyone is open to whatever searches of other people's systems they want. Why is the US gov't going after people for "hacking", if the intent is just to look around then all is fine according to them.
First, when the RIAA went after Napster, and the p2p software makers, you people were crying for them to go after the individual pirates, instead of the technology that facilitates the piracy.
Now that they are actuallly employing this strategy, the cry is noo!! It's wrong, it's bad, or, or something.
What's the deal here? Do you people just don't care about copyright infringement? You people have no idea what it takes to create something and try to make money on it.
How on earth do they think they are going to get $50k out of a student? I certainly don't have $50,000 in the bank, nor will I have it anytime soon. I think this is more of a case of going after those least able to defend themselves.
$50,000 per song. 6,000 songs and 100 full length movies...yeah, excuse me while I pull that money out of my ass. Hasn't the RIAA ever heard the phrase "blood from a turnip"? What are they going to do, rob piggy banks? I'm sure their lawyers will be really satisfied with the $300 most college kids have in savings.
I read over on ars that Penn State was about to start charging its entire campus regardless of who uses the service (ahhh yes, I remember the great pay for what you don't use fees).
This seems to be a regular bait and switch. We will sell this to Universities for next to nothing, hope we get the majority of the students hooked, the n jack up the price a non-student would pay for the service.
I had enough fees added on to my tuition bill when i was at school. I feel sorry for those of you who are just entering or will be entering soon.
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
Because due process is shallow and boring and not really necessary, right? If the RIAA says you're doing something bad, well, that should be all the proof the government needs!
Sheesh. If they're breaking the law to catch people breaking the law, they're still breaking the law.
believe me, I've tried.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
I don't see anything that specifically says you have to pay $150k per DOWNLOAD. It seems more like $150k per file you share. The title is a little misleading about that. Or have the RIAA really started targeting leeches too?
Well done RIAA! You've successfully embedded the "evil recording industry" image into the hearts and minds of the youth of today, your primary consumers. You may prevent some people sharing your music but you've turned millions more from ever buying a RIAA artist's CD ever again. Previously, people might have felt bad about depriving the artist of income but now, they'll just think "screw them". Well done.
They're targetting some of the poorest lots on the planet - high school and college students. How much do you think they're really going to get?
OK, high school students caught will cost their parents those tidy sums, but for the college students, over 18, I don't know how much they'll actually get.
Speaking from experience, my assets totalled much less than what the RIAA is asking for during my college years. I hope it costs them more in lawyers' fees than what they'll actually get from the lawsuits.
The Pigloo
Someday, someone with several thousand songs will call their bluff, and challenge them. Perhaps in court, they'll point out how stupid the RIAA looks demanding more money than the entire record industry is worth in damages. Perhaps.
The thing is, even if a court does rule that you owe the RIAA $100 000 000, what would happen? It's not like they could ever collect. I never expect to own that much money.
That means you're not allowed to look into private data at ALL.
That may or may not apply, I don't know to what lengths they went to to gather evidence against her. But their attitude has always been, "we'll do what we want".
I'm getting kind of scared. Though I'm Canadian, so this can't affect me, right?
Don't they have to use law enforcement (the courts) to bring a case? Would the court not have the power to throw out evidence that wasn't gathered correctly? I hear of this happening all the time -- which is why there are strict procedures covering the handling of evidence. It has to be collected within strict rules (e.g. to search a home a warrant is needed) and then it has to be kept "clean". If it's tainted, the case can be thrown out.
I don't see why everyone's so quick to dismiss the claims. Well, the RIAA is obviously biased, but third parties should technically be not so biased.
i am a soviet space shuttle
[RIAA vice-president] Mr Oppenheim also said the RIAA was immume from rules on unreasonable searches on the internet, because it did not have links with law enforcement agencies.
So if I hack Mr. Oppenheims computer and "unreasonably" search it (i.e. rifle through his private data) I am immune to rules on unreasonable searches because I am a hacker and not a cop? Nice to know.... Now where did I put that SubSeven kit.....
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
RIAA dodgers, where can they go Europe? I don't like Canada, save BC.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
While I applaud nycfashiongirl's stand, it appears to me that it may indeed be "shallow." The RIAA is not a law-enforcement agency, so is not bound to regulations regarding surveillance. And more importantly, she chose to share her many pirated files on a file-sharing service. How could they have violated her privacy when she decided to publicly display the files to the world? They didn't have to violate anything.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
RIAA Strategist #1: Wait! I got it! Let's put our future customers in financial ruin!
RIAA Strategist #2: Brilliant! Then they'll have more money to buy from us!
RIAA Strategist #1: What should we do about the rampant piracy in eastern europe and asia?
RIAA Strategist #2: Sorry, repeat that? I was listening to the satisfying sound of ruining everyone's lives.
But the RIAA isn't invading anyone's house or computer, they're just going through the public directories of shared files that people put up on p2p networks. I'm not a fan of the RIAA, but this is not an invasion of privacy.
I, personally, have never used any P2P file sharing.
I've never shared my music with anyone over the 'net.
I also haven't bought a record (CD, vinyl, etc.) in over 2 years. (Seriously - I know 'cuz I haven't had to reorganize my CD shelf since I moved in 2001)
Thank goodness my honesty has made the RIAA so much money.
Why are they just going after P2P filesharing? Why not vigorously prosecute those who download music off of Usenet? Or those who copy CD's from friends? How about people who make bootlegs?
I'll tell you why. It's because P2P is an alternative distribution model that threatens their business (in the long term) much much more than a little music piracy by college students who wouldn't be able to afford to buy the thousands of songs they steal anyway.
This is, and has always been, about controlling music distribution and not about stopping piracy. Piracy is a side effect of the real problem: Loss of Control.
Does the DMCA prevent the circumvention of encryption schemes that even *might* reveal copyrighted information?
If so, WASTE, simply by virtue of being encrypted, might be a legally impenetrable way of running file sharing.
However, even if that is true, does the law provide any safeguard against people who are privy to copyrighted information who decrypt it and supply it to law enforcement agencies? If it does, well obviously you have to keep things closed off to the public, but on the (extremely unlikely) chance that it doesn't, one could create a program with a deliberately facile encryption feature and the info would be legally protected.
RIAA vice-president Matt Oppenheim...added that the claim about violating the woman's internet address "reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the internet works".
Sorry, pal. You're a VP. I'm an engineer. I've had an email address since 1988, and I was using ed to write homework papers formatted with roff in 3rd grade on an ancient Unix system. You do not know how the Internet works.
I would venture that the number of posts on /. concerning the RIAA is directly driven by the level of stupidity that the RIAA touts to the world. As the stupidity goes up, the amount of posts should go down, as there really isn't much else to do these days other than shake your head with the silent understanding that the RIAA is killing those that they represent.
Don't they understand that college students and high school students download songs because they are broke? Now with the continued slash and burn method; once the college student graduates and finds a job, this new generation of 'pissed off at the RIAA' simply are not going to purchase music legally simply out of hate, spite, etc...
Since they have declared war on us with this scare and awe bullshit, this only will speed up their own demise. There was once a time when the RIAA had a chance to actually take their piece of the pie and keep some market share by selling music to consumers embracing the new technology, but the RIAA has totally fucked it up and ruined their chances of actually surviving this.
So here is what will happen, the RIAA meaning record companies will cease to exist. I dont know how they figure they can sue people into buying music, or scare people into buying music, all this will do is make us boycott. I was not boycotting the RIAA until they started doing this, now I will never buy another RIAA CD. I will buy used CDs from ebay, I will pirate, I will do whatever it takes to keep from ever supporting the big record companies again.
I will support small record companies. I see it like this, why support someone who wants to sue me? Why should I support someone who is damaging the music industry for the musicians as well as the consumer?
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You're thinking of criminal law. When the government is brining a case against you, there are far stricter rules.
When it's a private party, the rules aren't _quite_ as tight.
How are we susposed to take this all serious that ohhh they are loosing so much money when they put shows like cribs on tv... I hardly afford rent yet I go and spent $20 on a CD.. Go over to my parents (cause i cann't afford cable) and see the show cribs... see the artist who's cd i just bought in this big huge house just blowing away all this cash.. Ya sure.. he certainly needed my money.. I understand he only even gets a fraction of what I pay for the record so if he has say 20 million then the record company must have made like 100 million... hard to feel sorry for them when they live much better than I
We have seen lots of other corporations that go for the easy targets. Sure, the folks the RIAA are targetting have no dough. However, this establishes the desired long arm of the RIAA. If they get this to happen (and 'let the students off easy' by lowering the $$ sued for) then they think they can come off in a better position.
Is the RIAA prepared do defend itself against the eventual uprising that's coming its way? Torches and pitchforks aren't quite what they're going to get if they keep this up. They're stupid enough to start persecuting (yes, persecuting) family members of the wrong people and then it's going to get very ugly, very fast.
Stop supporting these extortionists. Stop buying labeled CDs. Stop buying DVDs. All you're doing is giving them more power.
You should check out the site http://downhillbattle.org/ and see what the RIAA is doing. They are only making the revolution more organized and more powerful. The more people they sue, the more who will join the boycott, the more hated the RIAA will become.
And for them to DARE use the "scare and awe" crap, thats like declaring we are all terrorists!
"Buy our music or else you are supporting terrorism!"
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Here's a free and easy tool that will let you know if a cd is from an RIAA affiliated company:
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/
I've neither downloaded nor bought music for years. I don't want to drain my savings on the off chance I'd win the lawsuit lottery, and I don't want to pay the RIAA members any money to fund their racket.
They live in a dream world, thinking that all business problems can be solved by legal force. Bright idea! If they won't buy our stuff, let's sue them to get the money anyway! Whatever happened to studying the consumers and trying to develop a product they will buy?
The problem is this: they don't want to study the consumers. They want to control them. They are terrified that they are losing the ability to make and break artists, and define what is popular and what is not. Their whole business model revolves not around creating a quality product, but creating a slightly different product and brainwashing the consumers to buy it.
...
Just who do these people at the RIAA think they are? Trying to extort money from 60 million people? They want to use laws they've bought to push us around, tag us as criminals, and take our freedom away?
Well, folks, I think it's time to put the fear of god, or rather us 60 million people, into the record execs and heads of the RIAA. If they think it's cute to illegally root through our files and information, then let's see what they think about some payback. Let's put our considerable skills to work and dig up all the dirt (tax evasion, fraud, marital infidelities, etc.) we can on them. Let's expose them for the criminals they really are. Shoot, we could nail them on violating payola laws alone.
On the political front, let's get our acts together and start making the politicians who do their bidding feel the heat. We've seen how the Howard Dean campaign has been able to raise money over the net and sign up armies of volunteers, so let's do likewise. Imagine how quickly the tables would turn if a thousand protesters showed up in a flash mob in front of our representatives' family homes every time the RIAA turned the screws like this.
Enough whining and doublethink on Slashdot. Let's DO something about this.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
They're fining $150k per song downloaded! How can they possibly, morally and legally, justify this? Not only can the song in question be bought on CD for $15 but more than likely now being offered over services such as iTunes for a couple of dollars. Surely, any such fine would have to resemble any such damage caused to the record companies; and, in any case, how do they plan to prove that the person being sued would have actually bought the song in the first place had it not been freely available. IANAL, but I would sure like to here their "reasoning" that would give them a claim to such amounts. And, more importantly, would that actually hold up in court? Why not just let the defendants buy the music, instead?
as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground vinyl caves.
The RIAA wont allow you to make a site that doesnt support their artists. If you get too profitable or if you become too popular they sue you, they will find any excuse to do so.
Ask Mp3.com.
But I like your Idea, you should also allow people to buy used CDs from popular RIAA bands to keep people from buying new CDs.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
They aren't going after people for what they download. They're going after people for what they're sharing.
Technically it's illegal to even make copies for your friends but the RIAA (or anybody for that matter) can't feasibly do anything about it. But when you share your CDs (whether you own a legal copy or not is irrelavent) for millions of your closest "friends" then no duh you're looking to get in trouble.
It's idiotic that people think they can put CDs on the black market for the whole world to see what they're doing and then expect that their ISP is going to act as some kind of security guard to prevent them from being arrested.
Putting copyrighted materials on Kazaa is no different than firing up a burner and setting up at a street corner selling or even giving away copies except that your production costs are practically $0 with Zazaa.
You have no legal grounds to aquire anything you own from an illegal source. It doesn't matter if you own the CD. If you buy (or are given something) from the black market you've just committed a crime. Unless a company gives you a Lifetime Warrenty you haze ZERO expectations that what you bought is going to last forever. And if it becomes unusable then you have no legal recourse but to buy another if you didn't have some form of backup that you made yourself from your legal copy that you originally purchased.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I don't see how she even came up with the idea to claim the RIAA's actions are wrong. If someone shares files, publically, on a public peer2peer network, how can they then go complain when someone sees what they're sharing?
As far as I know, *no one* with any legal sense (including the EFF, Lessig, etc.) thinks that distributing copyrighted files is legal. If you have evidence to the contrary, please post it. The people the RIAA are going after are making hundreds of files available - they're not just downloaders. So I have no sympathy for these people, especially since they were warned. It's like hearing the cops say "we're going to set up a speed trap here" and then complaining when you get pulled over for going 90mph.
I use this so called Kazaa backup software to back up all my mp3s. I just put them in my "to be backed up" directory, also called "My Shared Folder", and automagically they get backed up (sometimes quite a lot!). In fact, it is so secure, there are multiple copies, redundancy as I like call it. There's even stuff I don't remember backing up! Anyway, I don't know what all the commotion is over this peer to peer backup software, I'm SOLD (ok, it didn't cost me a thing...sshhh).
JWall: GUI client for IPTables
Anyway, there's an easy solution: quit downloading RIAA stuff and go for independent music instead. Artist-approved downloads. If you absolutely must have an RIAA tune, buy it, but otherwise ignore their stuff entirely. They'll be bankrupt in no time, with no legal recourse whatsoever.
And the best part is, we don't need any special boycott campaign. The RIAA is taking care of that for us. All we need to do is publicize the alternatives, as vigorously as possible.
Want to do your bit? Link to independent music on your weblog. If the RIAA isn't completely braindead (which is an open question), then this is what they're afraid of more than anything. Piracy is nothing compared to irrelevance.
So for $50,000 I get unlimited downloading of all music past, present and future....
I guess that seems like a fair deal given the price of CDs.
And what is my response to "scare and awe"?
My response is, Boycott and Copy.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"Furthermore, in one recent case, a college student was told that just by filing an answer in court, the cost of any final settlement would rise by $50,000. "
I understand this is a civil case, not a criminal case, right? So-- if this isn't extortion, what is??
Honestly, I want to see one of these go to a jury trial. If 50+ million Americans really are filesharers, then it's going to be DAMNED tough to find a jury that's not chock full of EM!
Seriously, this is such a travesty. People should be liable for the actual damages (ie the cost of the CDs) not the "potential" losses. You can sell a gun to a minor that's used in a murder and only get a year in jail, but if you make a file available, they charge you more than the loss could ever possibly cost them. We need some balance here.
>
> It is good if your subjects love you.
> But better if you can make them fear you.
>
> But you do *NOT* want them to hate you...
I'm a Machiavelli fan, but the Prince and I would part company on that last line about not wanting to be hated.
I believe history sides with Lucius, who was reputedly quoting Caligula when he penned the line "oderint dum metuant". Let them hate, so long as they fear.
well, yeah i would think so too but that's just because i'm european (and really, giving away telecommunications logs to 3rd parties _is_ a big deal).
/iip or another network that allows enough obfuscation on where the date is coming from for it to not stand on court very well.
it seems that they can subpoena(under dmca?) the names(from ip addresses from isps) without even the intention of going to file a court case ultimately, and then just start direct 'negotiations' with the alleged infringer.
-
or something, i don't even care that much.. not that this helps them at all anyways, because if they start going after fileswappers bigtime then they will just move to earthstation5/freenet/waste
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
People you steal from have a right to defend themselves.
Most of that fancy stuff (no, I just can't bring myself to call it "bling-bling") you see on Cribs is bought by artists using the advance money a record company pays them. The artist now owes that money to the record company, and it is taken out of their royalties. Should the cd fail to sell, they still owe the money to the record company. A nice breakdown of how contracts work can be found here http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
Read. Sign up. Send email to your representatives.
With CD's going the way of vinyl according to research by Forrester reported on cnn the RIAA needs to seriously relook at their strategies. Defending a dying business model and product is a sure way to go the way of the Dodo.
"If the trend continues, three years from now digital music sales could account for $1.4 billion of the music industry's $12.8 billion in expected revenues"
They are NOT suing people who have downloaded music, they are going after people who have POSTED music TO BE DOWNLOADED by others. That is if you have downloaded music from others you are probably safe since you have NOT exposed your disk directory on the web via an ftp or web site. BUT IF you have your disk on a PTP network so others may access it, then you ARE a target. 'Course most people that are downloaders also are sharers. But there ARE a lot of .mp3 files on open public FTP sites. Is the RIAA going after them too?
It really doesn't matter how many people they sue, they can never sue enough to have any significant impact on a network of millions of users. They fail to understand that it is totally impossible to enforce copyrights on the internet with any degree of real effectiveness. The reality of a medium of exchange where technical limitations and sheer numbers combine to make copyright inforcment impossible simply hasn't hit them yet. They're just flailing around like a pissed off little kid expecting the legal system to come and save them like an overprotective parent. The trouble is, this time the legal system can't really help them. The only thing it can do make it seem like they are making progress when nothing significant is really happening.
We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
is that's illegal for me to have a cd rack AND people in my house at the same time?
wow
A million people around the world could boycott and the RIAA would barely feel it. And nobody is scaring people into buying music. They're scaring people into not infringing on copyrights. There is a difference. (You have the option of not listening to, and not paying for, the RIAA's music)
More like "Let us make sure that projects like Freenet, gets a lot of support"
Yes they will. The current climate of cold-hearted neo-fascism surrounding corporate "rights" allows large entities (companies or multi-company trusts) to obtain pointlessly harsh judgements against small entities (us), while elected public officials either do nothing or watch with glee. A few college "kids" (really: adults with potential to contribute to society... unless they're financially ruined at the age of 22) will make no difference, especially once the corporate-owned media are through twisting the story around. I say it's time to start the killing.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Has anyone considered the possibility that NYCfashiongirl may really not want to be found out? I mean, suppose NYCfashiongirl was really Madonna or Brittany Spears, or someone else with more to lose from file sharing than they could possibly gain... ...this could be really embarassing. Especially if it was Justin Timberlake.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
You people have no idea what it takes to create something and try to make money on it.
Perhaps you should put more effort into correctly spelling things.
"OMG d00d! 7h1s s0ng 1s g01ng 70 s3ll m1ll10nz 0f 4lbumZ0rZ d00d!"
Call me when you graduate and we'll talk.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Why should the public care?
Kazaa is being used as an on-line black market and companies are now going after the "sellers." Giving away illegal copies on the black market is illegal in itself. Selling illegal copies just carries additional fines.
Bitching that the RIAA is going after people who share their music on-line is as rediculous as bitching about companies that shut down the people who sit on street corners and sell bootleg DVDs or whatever.
Just because it's "on the internet" doesn't make it any less than the same.
Now, shutting down Kazaa because there are people who participate in the black market using it, is another thing. That's as silly as closing down every business on main street because somebody
has an illegal business on the same street.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Dont make it a site thats client/server based, it should be a P2P application I think. Make it distributed so its harder for the RIAA to sue you.
Allow people to purchase music through it, also allow people to sell used RIAA music through amazon.com or ebay.
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At least the last time I checked.
The defendent is claiming their 4th Admendment right was violated (unreasonable search etc...). RIAA is saying that they are not a goverment body so it does not apply to them.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Bravo, I agree, to a point. Myself, the main reason I use Kazaa or something like it is because the majority of albums suck, imo. If I here a song I like, I'm not going to by an album of crap for that one good song. I would, however, purchase or pay to download, a single .mp3 version.
I believe the real reason RIAA is doing this is because they realise that, "if the technology takes off" (re: IT ALREADY HAS STUPID RIAA,) they won't be able to conscience making consumers purchase a $15-20 cd. Instead, it'll be cents per song.
Personally, I'm gravitating toward the independent artists, some of whome produce much better music than the studio monkeys create, and charge a fee to download or even allow free downloading because their reward is appreciation for their music, and hopes that people who enjoy them will attend any events if they are close enough.
I'm an ambient fan, and a lot of the music I listen to is available for free from the get go, just for the recognition factor. And if said artist would have a show, concert or what-have-you close enough to my location, I'd most certainly attend. /ramble
I've always been amused by this sort of thing and a thought that goes with it:
If I already have nothing to lose, what if I just continually refuse to pay? The court can TELL you to pay up, but it can't really MAKE you do it. The worst they can do, IIRC, is ruin your credit and whatnot. Could they actually repo things to try and recover the "damages" the plaintiff was seeking? I got sued for a couple hundred bucks. Ultimately, the nasty little JP upped it to 1200, but from what I was told, it sounded like if I never paid it I could just be reported to collections if the plaintiff so desired. If 15000 RIAA victims all refuse to pay, what are they going to do, send 15000 people to collections? That's a pretty big group of people. Big groups engaged in active civil disobedience can get media attention... but then, I could be wrong about that - maybe they CAN make you pay up somehow.
I used to be one of those people who came on /. and argued that stealing songs was wrong regardless, but as the RIAA abuses got worse, so did my attitude. Frankly, I don't give a fuck anymore. Put all of them, "artists" and all out on the street. If the RIAA wants war, they can have it. And it's time people got off their high horses about 'not going down to their level' and fought it.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
That is the day that the RIAA will be sueing some of the people they subpoena'd. According to this article.
I can't *wait* to see what happens. Of course, this is only because I'm not on the list.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
But not for corperations. People are free to not buy you products. They don't buy your stuff, you don't make money. You don't make money, you go out of bussiness. Companies must be careful about not making their consumers angry enough to start a serious boycott. Thus far, the RIAA has been fine, the geeks boycott and everyone else goes about their merry way. However if they anger the public at large, they'll quickly find they have no market to sell to.
Will this do that? I don't know, but it is somethign they have to consider.
I mean they already blame piracy for the recession, so who cares? Lets actually give them a reason to blame it on piracy! Lets directly take their profits away.
"Either way they'll be portrayed as victims and filesharers online as the ones who killed a benevolent organization. Either way, they win."
They just declared war on us!!! Does it matter? In a war only one side can survive. The side which survives usually writes the history books, not the loser.
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OK, so if I download a CD full of songs, I'll pay the artist directly $15 and I'll give 50c for the production of the CD.
I'm not paying RIAA anything, in fact this has stopped me buying CD's now, even though I don't download MP3s.
I think a few modern-thinking artists should setup an iTunes-like site where 100% of the money goes to them, not 11%, they could totally cut out the record companies.
#include <sig.h>
You cannot scare a person into buying music, you can scare them into not listening to your music anymore, but hey if they dont listen to your music anymore they wont buy your music.
So its a lose lose situation for the RIAA. They wont have any customers left to sell to. In the end their industry will die and be replaced by internet companies like Napster, Kazaa, Mp3.com, etc.
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Wow!
According to RIAA accounting methods, I have almost 2.5 BILLION dollars worth of music on my hard drive!
$2,434,950,000.00 to be exact.
Good thing I haven't shared them, I don't think I could scrape up that kind of coin easily.
This space available.
They could care less how much money they actually get from the student(s) they target. If they destroy a few kids' lives for uploading (not downloading), far more people will turn into leeches on the p2p networks. By increasing the number of leeches and simultaneously flooding the networks with false files, they're in effect causing a massive DOS on the p2p networks, making them far less useful than they had been. Their goal is to make it cost more (in terms of time and frustration) to download the song than it does to buy the album-- if you're making $10 an hour and it takes you more than 2 hours to download an album, then they've won.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
While I don't agree with the punishable amount ($150k for 1 song, come on) no one can tell me that file trading is not stealing. Just because it's easy dosn't make it not wrong.
People, pay for your music. Music is a product, it takes time and energy to create, people deserve to be able to make money at it.
And don't give me any crap about "Well if I like the MP3 I got from Kaaza, I'll go by it". I'm sorry, I don't think so.
You may disagree with how the Record and Movie companies spend the money they take from you, but welcome to capitalizim. People charge what the market will bare. What they do with that money after they have it is there business. If they want to we wastefull, let them. And with a lean mean company comes out and kicks there butt in price, they'll learn.
Everyone wants to be spoon fead there entertainment. You want to hear it on the radio, deside you like it, and then buy the CD. Well theres a price to that, and it's the RIAA. There are tons of independent bands out there selling there CD's for $5 and giving away thier MP3's. But people don't want to put the work in to find them.
You can't have it both ways. Either go find the cheap and (legaly) free music, or put up with what your being spoon fead. Take some responsiblilty on yourself and stop blaming evil corperations that couldn't exisit with out your dollars feeding them.
(no I can't spell, and no, I'm not sorry about it)
"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"
We should really charge you $150,000 per song you have downloaded.
Ok, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think anyone has been charged with a RIAA lawsuit on dowloading alone. Downloading digital music might be a legal activity under so many circumstances (you have a legal CD, the file is not copyrigthed, etc.)
All of the RIAA lawsuits in the US are targeted towards file sharers, not downloaders, but uploaders, if you will.
Why? Simple as it is, the companies belonging to RIAA are the sole entities allowed to distribute and license distribution of their music. The label has indeed a shallow argument if it tries to sue anyone for downloading, but sharing music with others is violation of this exact premise, and the law is clearly on RIAA's side in any country where the property laws are upheld.
Welp, the $150k number is a bit high, but nobody didn't know this was illegal.
Everybody screams when the RIAA goes after the _services_ because "they can be used for legitimate purposes", so now the RIAA goes after individuals that knowingly broke the law, and everyone acts all shocked. Uhhh, sorry, I know you weren't expecting to get caught, let me shed a tear for you.
These guys are not really dangerous. If you don't want to be nabbed, don't share their music. Shoot, don't listen to it. I don't, and I still have a sense of music.
The really dangerous guys are anyone who's involved in financial transfer, without a true, legal, product. Those people are essentially offering no service, and have to do something to keep their racket going. I don't care if it's insurance (such as Prudential, or Lloyd's), banking (BCCI), gambling (Las Vegas), or get-rich-quick spammers (Nigerian spam); those are the people you really want to worry about.
These people make it easy enough to stay out of their way. And if they make a mistake, you can let them know via the media, and they'll even apologize. They might be dangerous, but they're not really dangerous.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
[scroll overlay against dark space to Pink Floyd's "Signs Of Life"]
And so, with the passage of time, we find the landscape changing in the outer worlds. The heyday of digital smuggling began to change as the RIAA overloads rachetted up the penalties for those caught. Eventually, entire square parsecs were left empty, encircled by only the empty hulls of caught offenders. Husks of empty steel that once held a fortune in content formed a warning sign to those entering the fray.
But the rebels of the age were smart. They turned to deeper methods, encrypting their content, running private servers, and WAR driving. The random element of physical contact reduced the smuggler's domain to a fraction of his former, but the overlap of these small circles kept fresh booty flowing. Content was still open to move, simply the transfer couldn't be without extra steps to know the receiver and secure the path.
Meanwhile, the RIAA replaced the existing law enforcement for tracking and penalizing those still foolish to appear on the public channels. No judge, no jury was required as the cost for including them in your defense were too high for all but the wealthiest. Given that smuggling was done on the cheap, for the masses, suffice it to say no one could pay for such accutrements. Although the Creators approved of the tactics, they continued to fight for slimmer traditional channels.
As the Age Of FAIB (Free As In Beer) came to a wane, the inner worlds continued to bustle with mass marketing and pop culture. The outer worlds succumbed to the MPAA/RIAA stormtroopers' patrols. Surprise searches and constant paranoia crept up on those who stayed too long in the toughest zones. Eventually, the smuggling became "wiped out" publicly, and the inner worlds no longer sent the curious making the journey to grab a piece of the action along the rim. But for those who knew the newest tricks, adventure and discovery continued to be the drug that filled their libraries with the Creators' best output...
[fade to black]
If it's not this particular case, it will be one of the other 1300. The DMCA was written by a Congress and approved by an Administration who stated in the press at the time that there was nothing to fear about the elements of the DMCA, in particular the highly questionable subpeona elements coming to the fore at this point, because they would be revised when the courts got ahold of it.
This will go to the Supreme Court in one form of the other because it's well known that the DMCA was not a strong piece of legislation and it was particularly the subpeona parts that were problematic.
If the Supreme Court was to take the surprising and unlikely stance that the subpeona provisions of the DMCA don't violate the right against unreasonable search and seizure then I suspect that broadband adoption in the US will continue to remain far behind that of other countries resulting in a long term competitive disadvantage.
"Mr Oppenheim also said the RIAA was immume from rules on unreasonable searches on the internet, because it did not have links with law enforcement agencies."
Reminds me of a part from the Blues Brothers:
Are you the police?
No ma'am, we're musicians.
As much as I'd like to say that this is bullshit, I fail to see how a search would be illegal when the entire medium is based upon it being searchable. People can't just walk in off the street and look in your refridgerator and see if you have some corona. But this is based on being searchable.
To put it bluntly, she's fucked
Mr Oppenheim also said the RIAA was immume from rules on unreasonable searches on the internet, because it did not have links with law enforcement agencies.
Does this guy know what he said? Because he's not the police he can do illegal things like what is tantamount to a wiretap? What a hoser.
.... for a while now. A couple of years ago the Dansish verson of RIAA set up a sting in the Student village where I lived. They nabbed one of the MP3/FTP site operators and cut him a deal. Then they monitored the traffic on the net for a few months in kahoots with the local net admins whom they also had by the balls. When they were good and ready people got billed. Some of these bills ran into the hundreds of thousands of Danish Krona. Of course it had no real effect on music piracy in Denmark, but it did cause a very sharp sore in the sales of USB hard disk adaptor boxes. Cheap and easily hidden!!
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Well, if some more people actually bother to get up the guts to fight this, it's really possible they could win, partially. If you browse through FindLaw.com on their fourth amendment rights and case examples, it seems, really, the RIAA is in serious breach of everyone's rights. From past case example, on probably cause searches, they are really only allowed to check an IP for illegal matterials if the person comes right out and shows them what they have! Its easy to come to this conclusion, Take a peak at the footnotes and cases on non-telephonic survellience. Passivle watching, or listening, if perfectly allowable, as it allows really stupid people to get caught doing bad things. But the moment you take action to be in a listening position, you violate someone's rights... Wouldnt trying to download a file, without being able to prove they dont legally own the file and have it on display by accident, be the same as drilling a hole in someone's wall and popping in a microphone?
~~ Please keep your arms, legs, and outright stupidity inside the ride at all times. Thank You ~~
look ./ers - there millions of us (not only /.) who disagree with all this bollocks.
Lets stop pissing around, set up a central fund, cough up $10 each and fight the bastards in the law courts - all the way.
Now - whos up for it? Replies below please as to HOW we get started. Not when, not if, but HOW
My school loan just went from $70k to 2.6 million... and that Metallica CD didn't even turn out to be that good. :-(
editfreedom.com has another good article about the RIAA.
Its called Why the RIAA hates Al Gore. I thought it was interesting.
hrrm.
Can someone find out which criminals have tricked the RIAA into trying to overload the legal system?
This exact thing took place in Denmark in November 2002.
Here is what happened:
'Antipiratgruppen' (Danish RIAA organisation) scoured KaZaA for Danish users sharing files and took to court a database of IPs and the contents of shared directories.
Danish court granted them a per-case order forcing ISPs to resolve IPs into real names.
The ISPs coughed up, and the anti-piracy group sued 100 kids for their illegal MP3s.
Each sharer was offered a deal - pay a substantial fine, or be dragged through court and be hit with serious financial ruin.
A few people got nailed pretty hard, and the story got the large amount of press that had been planned. One college dorm settled at $15.000 per user on the network.
(...and one friend of mine stayed up one night, destroying 150 CD-Roms in his possession with a rotary sander *hehe*).
The Anti Piracy Group did NOT get what they have been campaigning for all along - vigilante powers: They still obviously have to go through court every single time they want ISPs to resolve an IP number into a user name.
This ruckus has just had the effect that people turn off sharing and turn to the encrypted P2P clients.
Now is the winter of our disco tent
It's time they stopped using college students as scape goats.
Still, this makes me want to do some detective/conspiracy theorist work, and link the RIAA and Hilary Rosen to Al Quida, then tell the patriot act and watch the fireworks... (Well, I consider evil corporations like the RIAA, GM, Nike, the tobacco industries, and Boeing to be a much larger threat than terrorists...)
Yes, Mr. Rummsfield/Patriot act agent, I saw Bin Laden and Saddam Hussain sitting in a green stationwagen, and driving it was Hilary Rosen!
Also, who says college students don't fight back? I'm just waiting for someone to post Hilary Rosen's personal address, or any of the other RIAA execs addresses on the web, then watch the fireworks. It'll be just like the shit sent to the spammer, but worse hopefully. Seriously, they need to wake up and smell the asphalt: Their little world and the way it works isn't going to work just because they have massive amounts of money... The reason they have money is people support them, but if they actually start suing people, they'll start losing money. (What college student could pay that much? If I were sued like that, I'd take a gun to my head. Plus, after a while, the boycotts would kill them.)
NBC Announces Law and Order: RIAA Series "Another episode features an NYU freshman who rips several tracks from a CD he owns and burns them in a "mix CD" for his girlfriend. Country stars Brooks and Dunn help Detective Smoker, played by Lars Ulrich apprehend the copyright violator." Quality :)
Excessive bail shall not be required, NOR EXCESSIVE FINES IMPOSED, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
How long do you think it will be before some kids parent gets this huge bill and beats his kid silly. Then the kid goes into the RIAA offices with an uzi because he now has no home and this huge legal problem giving him nothing to live for?
Ruled for just 4 years and murdered by two of his closest advisors.
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!
Has anyone else noted that virtually all BBC coverage of this issue is almost completely one-sided (very pro-establishment). Hmm ... I don't suppose they have worries relating to protecting their own content??
the Riaa vs Napster case have "generated" serverless gnutella-like P2P system.
This "war" against filesharers will "generated" anonymous freenet-like filesharing systems.
The new systems will be stronger and stronger.
Great !!!
RIAA is dead (MPAA aswell)
That's not what they're saying and you know it. It's more like putting a kiosk up in a mall with your CD rack with a burner and blank CDs sitting next to it.
there both wrong.
If someone fears you, they will do what you want, for a time. When they have nothing left to loose, they will come after you.
If someone hates you, they will do what they can to get you.
If someone loves you, they will stop at nothing to protect you. That includes looking the other way or making excuses for you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Make a P2P app which hosts indie labels and has reviews
you could make a site but then you have bandwidth issues, why not use P2P technology?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
BOYCOTT MAJOR LABELS Boycott major labels, please please please please please.
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/artists/
PLEASE!
I mean $150,000 for a song? Are you out of your fucking mind? That is completely unreasonable. Here in the US we have a concept taht the punsihment should fit the crime. Well the crime is making a copy of a song (not stealing, theft requires depriving someone of something) which has a value, at most, of $1 when looked at in the context of the album on which it is sold. For that they want $150,000. If that isn't excessive I don't know what is.
I can want the RIAA to go after the file shareres but not want the punishment ot be excessive. Can you imagine if the punsihment for speeding was $150,000 per offence? It wouldn't be hypocritcal to say that is unjust.
And remember thats part of CRIMINAL law.
I could sue you for unlawful access to a website (slash). It's civil then, and bill of rights does not apply.
Well, time to fight back...
... it can also be engineered in a way such that only upon getting sued, we retroactively apply the 'virus' and claim that it did it (tricks with timestamping and all)! This way, the RIAA will not successfully be able to sue you successfully... whatdayaall think? :)
I recall reading somewhere that it is possible to get off the hook legally by claiming that you were not responsible for the music that is found shared or downloaded on your pc, if say, the folder was shared unbeknownst by the program or someone hacked into your pc or some excuse like that.
I propose *someone* write a 'virus' that will mimic the behaviour of a file-sharer by downloading and uploading songs in patterns indistinguishable from a normal user. Then propagate it so that lots of pc gets infected! If RIAA sues us, we can claim the virus did it
I haven't bought any music CDs since they started selling crippled ("copy protected") CDs. Thanks to that campaign, I now P2P all my music.
BOO! TERRO
So let's switch to Communist America, where no one is allowed to start their own business, no one is allowed to innovate, and the government has final say over everything you can legally read, hear and see. That would make sense.
You can't file bankruptcy against a judgement unless a judge specifically releases you from the judgement. Bankruptcy itself usually doesn't cover judgements or secured debt. If you could there would be alot of people filing bankruptcy for to get out of alimony, back child support etc. Creditors have 90 days to respond after the bankruptcy filing and must be notified of your filing. The RIAA would have their bloodsucker with a law degree there to fight it.
On two counts, you can't judge that. Remember Milli Vanilli? They were lip syncing all the time. They had no real skill; they were made by the RIAA.
In such a case, the artist is the advertiser; it is the RIAA themselves. I'd contend the same is true for any of the RIAA artists. If you're going to listen to their trash, therefore, pay your money to them. Shoot, pay double!
If you want to send your money to the artist for their music, then find an artist with whom you can do that, which you like. There are tons of such artists around; if you want to see any such artists, I suggest you go to a few of the New Years' "First Night" events. One that I found, which I loved, was the musical group Trapezoid. Even better, their lead singer's wife was also a master storyteller.
Anyhow, if you want to give your money directly to the artists, please do. Just go find your own. But if you're dealing with RIAA songs, the RIAA *is* the artist. And yes, they do suck, which is why I don't listen to their songs, except when a radio has to be playing (and sometimes it doesn't).
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Think about this. For a minute. The RIAA wants to sue everyone who trades copyrighted songs over the internet. Let's just low-ball that number at 1 million. These are average Joe Blow citizens. They want to sue them for $50,000 on average. Since no one can afford to fight them off, they have to fork up the cash.
How many people can afford to willy nilly give some organization fifty thousand dollars for trading a few songs?
As such, these people have no choice but to pay. Since 99% of people sued can't afford it outright but can't afford to have their paycheck docked either, they declare bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy declared by hundreds of thousands of people.
All at the same time.
How can the government sit by idly when one organization wants to put all of their citizens in the poor house, and more importantly, collapse an already unsturdy at best economy?
the $150,000 number is the fine for piracy, stealing a CD is a different crime, that is larceny. burning free copies would net you the $150,000 fine. different crimes come with different penalties. and Property theft is different than copyright infringement. regardless of what the RIAA says. with stealing the CD you're not hurting the RIAA just the record store. the record store has paid for that cd already, and the crime is against the record store not the RIAA. hence the different crime.
A student's net work is often, oh... somewhere in the negative range (thanks to student loans), and it could be several years before they are making enough that it is viable to garnish their wages. If they aren't living on campus then their internet may not be from the institution that they go to, so there's nothing that even the school that the student goes to would be able to do.
It is interesting to note that most of the people that engage in media piracy are the people with relatively little to lose if they should happen to be caught.
I have yet to hear of a workable solution to this problem that doesn't involve re-legalizing slavery.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So the RIAA, now acting as a self-appointed (though I'm sure soon to be ratified in congress) legal authority is trying to litigate it's way into survival in a slump economy. I'm willing to bet that if all the funds being poored into that litigation and threat of litigation, all the marketing campaigns delivering that "fear and awe" message and so on were counted up they would far out-weigh their income from the effort. But of course, that being the case as well they can claim it's part of the cost of "music piracy."
Worst of all, anything which *does* come in will do so under the labels of "legal costs" and "recouping of damages from lost revenues." Since the music itself was never sold, the artists will never receive a portion of the royalty - thus by charging for the music they're not selling the RIAA gets to keep the lion's share.
@#$* that.
Any spoon would be too big.
Actually, you cannot add student loans in a bankruptcy. Your stuck with them. The govn't won't forgive loans from them.
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
..to get access to information they would otherwise not possess, through the DMCA.
To take the classic car trunk analogy. In this case, the police officer would open the trunk for the RIAA, but not actually look into it himself. Would that be legal? If so, the 4th amendment is basicly worthless.
Then you can simply create a force that is not officially a part of the government, but that would be able to inspect your trunk at whim and report whatever they find to the legal system (or worse). But it's still government force that facilitates this.
There is no doubt in my mind that the 4th Amendment should apply to a DMCA invocation like this. Whether that stamp from a judge's clerk is sufficient to be allowed under 4th amendment is a more complex problem, but the amendment itself applies. IANAL, but that's how I read it at least...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"First, when the RIAA went after Napster, and the p2p software makers, you people were crying for them to go after the individual pirates, instead of the technology that facilitates the piracy." Yeah, go after the pirates. But this is ridiculous. $150,000 a song? For that much, I could buy a whole record store and still have tens of thousands left to spare. I could buy the rights to the song itself for that much! Even the rights to use a song (non ownership) are less than $150,000. This is insane. An equivalent scenario is if the business your working for is paying your insurance out of your paycheck, they become tardy for a month, and you say 'hey, I'll pay that one month of insurance myself' and so the insurance company decides to take your home, your car, and your children as payment. "It's wrong, it's bad, or, or something." It's extortion (pay up now or we'll suee you for more later), its unjust, its a violation of the spirit of the law, it is against just about everything this country is for. When the founding fathers drafted the bill of rights, they wrote an admendment that prohibitted cruel and unusual (and excessive) punishments. That is basically what the RIAA is doing. Going into debt for the rest of your life becuase of something that you did when you were 14 is ludicrous. In ancient Mesopotamia, if you went into debt to a certain degree, the government supported a system that allowed your creditor to make you a slave in compensation for the debt. It would be nice to think we have become more civilized in the last 5,000 years. It seems the RIAA is out to prove that thought wrong. "What's the deal here? Do you people just don't care about copyright infringement? You people have no idea what it takes to create something and try to make money on it." They are picking on the weakest cause they think no one will care. The RIAA in this situation is guilty of a far greater injustice than copyright violations. Copyright was created in the mid-1500's in England becuase it served the public good (actually the 1700's version did, the 1500's version was a form of royal censorship but you get the idea). It was a balance between the good that the private ownership of writing would faciliate and the good of the public as a whole. This balance has been broken and this was never so obvius as it is now with these suits. These suits harm the public far more than it gains from copyright. The government, as all democratic governments are, are obligated to serve the public good over the good of and even at the expense of the indivisual (with the exception of the given rights of the constitution - I could get into a long phisophical argument as to how taking away those rights from one indivisual harms the public good as a whole far more tahn any could possibly gain but I won't. And if you think copyright is a right, you need to go read a book on it - its a policy, not a right.) These suits by far serve the private indivisual at the expense of the public good. The good results that society gains from such authoritarian copyright persacution is far outweighed by the negative effects. A few rich executives can act like fools and live as kings in exchange for 10,000s if not 100,000s living in poverty and in debt for the rest of their lives cause of what they did before they were old enough to vote... can anyone say 'french revolution'? "You people have no idea what it takes to create something and try to make money on it." Put the word 'legally' or 'ethically' or 'fairly' or (my personal favorite) 'honestly' before the word 'make' and the RIAA has no idea either. Persoanlly, I think there needs to be a maximum limit any person can be sued and especially one for the young. They are not adults. they do not have the maturity or the mental faciltiies of an adult. They cannot be expected to make adult decisions. Treating them like adults for any action, especially a legal one, is so positively ridiculous that it boogles the mind how sane adult would allow it to continue. What's next? Being put in debt for multiple generations? M
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Under some circumstances they can dock a big percentage of your pay for the rest of your life.
Seriously. I know a guy that was accused of a hacking type crime by a large company, he will be paying off that $2 million for the rest of his life most likely.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
They are not doing this because P2P is an alternative distribution model that threatens their business. If that were all there were to it, they'd probably quickly change business models, and be done with it.
Rather, our system of law has set up a structure for their sales, and they were following it. Yes, the structure, known as copyright, is flawed, but it is the structure that they, as a legal business entity, have to deal with.
Now, P2P is not following the law. They are breaking the law. (rewind) Bzzewwwpt (Vol up) THEY ARE BREAKING THE LAW (Vol down). So the RIAA is going after them in the only way that they can.
Now, if you want to bring in a better business model, which is legal, then please go ahead and do so.
BTW, I've posted in my journal under "Public Domain", one idea on how to do just that. Since I did PD it, you can use it, without paying me anything.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Crappee and Goode, Attys-at-Law. Specializing in copyright and intellectual property law.
First, when the RIAA went after Napster, and the p2p software makers, you people were crying for them to go after the individual pirates, instead of the technology that facilitates the piracy."
Yeah, go after the pirates. But this is ridiculous. $150,000 a song? For that much, I could buy a whole record store and still have tens of thousands left to spare. I could buy the rights to the song itself for that much! Even the rights to use a song (non ownership) are less than $150,000. This is insane. An equivalent scenario is if the business your working for is paying your insurance out of your paycheck, they become tardy for a month, and you say 'hey, I'll pay that one month of insurance myself' and so the insurance company decides to take your home, your car, and your children as payment.
"It's wrong, it's bad, or, or something."
It's extortion (pay up now or we'll sue you for more later), its unjust, its a violation of the spirit of the law, it is against just about everything this country is for. When the founding fathers drafted the bill of rights, they wrote an admendment that prohibitted cruel and unusual (and excessive) punishments. That is basically what the RIAA is doing. Going into debt for the rest of your life becuase of something that you did when you were 14 is ludicrous. In ancient Mesopotamia, if you went into debt to a certain degree, the government supported a system that allowed your creditor to make you a slave in compensation for the debt. It would be nice to think we have become more civilized in the last 5,000 years. It seems the RIAA is out to prove that thought wrong.
"What's the deal here? Do you people just don't care about copyright infringement? You people have no idea what it takes to create something and try to make money on it."
They are picking on the weakest cause they think no one will care. The RIAA in this situation is guilty of a far greater injustice than copyright violations. Copyright was created in the mid-1500's in England becuase it served the public good (actually the 1700's version did, the 1500's version was a form of royal censorship but you get the idea). It was a balance between the good that the private ownership of writing would faciliate and the good of the public as a whole. This balance has been broken and this was never so obvius as it is now with these suits. These suits harm the public far more than it gains from copyright. The government, as all democratic governments are, are obligated to serve the public good over the good of and even at the expense of the indivisual (with the exception of the given rights of the constitution - I could get into a long phisophical argument as to how taking away those rights from one indivisual harms the public good as a whole far more tahn any could possibly gain but I won't. And if you think copyright is a right, you need to go read a book on it - its a policy, not a right.) These suits by far serve the private indivisual at the expense of the public good. The good results that society gains from such authoritarian copyright persacution is far outweighed by the negative effects. A few rich executives can act like fools and live as kings in exchange for 10,000s if not 100,000s living in poverty and in debt for the rest of their lives cause of what they did before they were old enough to vote... can anyone say 'french revolution'?
"You people have no idea what it takes to create something and try to make money on it."
Put the word 'legally' or 'ethically' or 'fairly' or (my personal favorite) 'honestly' before the word 'make' and the RIAA has no idea either.
Persoanlly, I think there needs to be a maximum limit any person can be sued and especially one for the young. They are not adults. they do not have the maturity or the mental faciltiies of an adult. They cannot be expected to make adult decisions. Treating them like adults for any action, especially a legal one, is so positively ridiculous that it boogles the mind how sane adult would allow it to continue. What's next? Being p
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Again, this is all about the US we are talking here. In many countries, sharing and copying for yourself are just fine.
Just like SCO - all that SCO is going to do is affect the implementation of superior technology here in America, while Germany and other countries that don't create such a wild wild west business atmosphere will move ahead.
Music fans in other countries will build their collections, share music with their online countrymen, and enjoy the music while smoking something pleasant.
Meanwhile, here in the US individuals will be busy incarcerating one another. The real loser in this situation is the United States.
RIAA and SCO are two of the most unpatriotic organizations right now. They could easily defined as terrorists - in fact, they are legal and financial terrorists.
RIAA vice-president Matt Oppenheim called the arguments "surprisingly shallow". ...
Mr Oppenheim also said the RIAA was immume from rules on unreasonable searches on the internet, because it did not have links with law enforcement agencies.
You know, you just can't make this stuff up! This statemtn has got to be the shallowest of the shallow, and they call Jane Doe's defense shallow?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
$150,000 per file is NOT a fair punishment for the crime, espicaly given the non-injury of it. It would be perfectly reasonable to complain if the cops said "we're going to set up a speed trap here" and then had an M60 gunner killing anyone who sped in that zone. When someone infringes on copyright in this manner, it causes no one (the labels included) any serious harm. It is therefore totally unreasonable and unjust to demand fines like this.
We not only have a concpet of fair punishments in the US... IT'S IN THE DAMN CONSTITUTION.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
As there case seems to be based upon their claimed records of you downloading or uploading files, is there any limit on how long they have to file a claim?
Also, would they not need to also prove that the person who uploaded a file from you did not already have a copy of the song on cd? I suppose the fair use thing is tricky, but doesn't it allow for having a coyp for personal use? I'm not sure it says you need to be the one to *make* the copy.
All you File Sharers come to Canada, like the previous generation of Draft Dodgers did during the Vietnam war. In Canada you're safe from the RIAA. You can stand on our side of the border and send them all the nasty "you can't catch me" e-mails you want. Not to mention, that we pay a levy on every CD-R we buy that goes back to the record companies, so it can technically be argued that copying CDs is LEGAL. Plus smoke some pot when we soon make it legal too! Did I mention the other benefits, like free health care, cheap broadband, and a $1.38 exchange rate!
Ok, it gets cold in the winter, but big deal, sit around in front of your computer on Kazaa Lite the entire time, downloading away!!!
So alright, maybe $50 won't make that much difference...but hey its' something.
/. gave 1/10th of that EFF would have a lot more to fight with.
If everyone on
I'm shivering about RIAA finding out about things like eMule..
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Yeah, I know you'll flame me for this but, we ban all PtoP activity here - now more than ever.
:P So, in the general interest of the school and bandwidth, we now block where we can and bandwidth limit the rest. This isn't college mind you, this is a 6-12 boarding school, so we do have a little more control here.
I used to allow it - sorta. Basically, if a girl here could figure out how to get her PtoP app to work through our proxy I let them do it - until last year. Last year, I received a cease and desist order from the RIAA. Apparently one of our girls had left Bearshare on all day... Uh... For two weeks! And had transferred some 2.6 GB of music (mostly Blink 182).
After studying the order I also thought about how slow the net had seemed lately.
But imagine this scenario for a second. Imagine being subpoenaed by the RIAA. I keep logs because I HAVE TO. While we might be able to avoid direct litigation with the RIAA and parents, it would sour relationships - not good for a reputation. The girls hate the ban, and I'm not too happy about it either, but we simply have to play it safe.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
They'll take everything they can, and garnish your paycheque for the rest of your life.
An interesting thing happened on 30 Aug, 2003 at the Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Marysville, California. A band called Ironmaiden's lead vocalist, Bruce Dickenson had some shrewd words of wisdom that he felt the music industry basically isn't friendly to music, and the big bully's in the front can Bring him their Maiden CD's he'd BUY them back, and then told the Bully's never to come to another concert ever again. Then he said that they've got a new album coming out. (something something something Death Something - I forgot the name now) And that if you want to record this song and upload it or download it or send it to all your friends to just start recording right now and go for it.
He was Angry with the idiot's in the Concert, and Angry with the music industry, and stressed quite a bit about freedom and how it's all in OUR hands to get it.
a) read slashdot and have the benefit of all this occasionally thoughtful discussion
b)think about much other than "DAMN!!! Christina Aguilera is HOT!"
(feel free to substitute the pop idol of your choice in b. above...christina does it for me, personally)
That said, there appears to be a market for overpriced CD's. Probably not as much of a market as there once was, but a market nonetheless.
In my personal perfect world, I'd hope for the following: If they knocked, say, $5.00 off the price of the average CD (make 'em an even $10.00 and I'd be happy) and went to a higher-quality, more data-hungry format, they might accomplish something.
They'd make average consumers happy on price, and audiophiles happy on quality, while making it more of a pain in the ass to download your favorite song in all of its nice, high-quality, multichannel, holographic, blah, features, glory.
They're not doing that now, which is irritating a lot of people, but that doesn't mean they're not making plenty of money, just that they're not making as much as they'd like. Don't count on the RIAA going away while there's a commercial radio station in your neighborhood that plays top 40 "hits".
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Since we live in an open democracy we sacrifice a certain amount of privacy. Because these people are sharing files in a public place, and the RIAA tracked their activities on their own they can bring that evidence they have gathered to a court.
A gov't would have been required to get a warrant before tracking your activities.
They RIAA did not break into the person's computer, and broke no laws. The countersuit will hold little weight.
Now if she had her files on a private VPN that required authencation, the RIAA would have had to break into the system to gather the information, in which case I'm not sure how it would be ruled on.
-- taking over the world, we are.
The RIAA are now well and truly gathering their forces for a financial onslaught on file sharers in the US, with a "fear and awe" campaign
I didn't know that Dubya was working for the RIAA... Seriously though, after all the warning, and complaining, and advertising, and threatening they've thrown together, does it make their "Seek & Destroy" effort any more effective? Really all that they're doing is making you worry, they can't try harder to find you because if they pushed just one more inch it would already be crossing the line to invasion of privacy in our "fine" legal system (the parking ticket kind, not the proud type).
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Saying that it's foolish to sue people who don't have any money is like saying it's a waste of time to imprison robbers who have no job or family. The intention, obviously, is to let the news get out and deter other students from doing the same thing.
The flaw in their reasoning, of course, is that high school and college students read newspapers about as often as they read the law.
"Mr Oppenheim also said the RIAA was immume from rules on unreasonable searches on the internet, because it did not have links with law enforcement agencies."
By that logic I too am immune to search and seizure rules, I produce licensed music in MP3 format and have reason to beleive the RIAA is illegally in posession of said music...does that mean I can start searching away at their traffic, site and PC's ? or should I just file a subpoena...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
nycfashiongirl has claimed she was simply using kazaa as an mp3 player, and had ripped the songs herself. Of course the RIAA "CSI" team showed that the files had signatures identical to file that had been traded online going back to the napster days. So now she's trying to claim the RIAA had no right to look at the files on her computer, files that she was sharing with everyone else. Give me a break. What a lame defense. It's not like they broke into her computer. She offered the songs. They copied them. Nothing illegal there. What's your next excuse nycfashiongirl?
Vote for Pedro
Every time I make the mistake of watching a film from Hollywood I'm in awe and fear that they'll release more!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
(burns) *sniff* smithers *sniff* did i kill all those filetraders?
(smithers) errm yes sir, it would appear you did.
(burns) *sniff* excellent *sniff*
/* * pope1 */
Now lets use their tactics against them. Set up websites and get lawyers.
Join support groups, get online advice, demand a trial by jury, and delay... delay... delay.... change venues when you can, demand they appear in court, and play the system for all its worth. If they do finally get a settlement out of you, Take THAT to court, and delay... delay... delay...... then declare bankruptcy.... you're college kids. you'll recover.
thousands of us ought to eat into their money pretty significantly.
Now that they are targetting individuals, we can really hit them hard... Bleed those bastards dry.
Donate money to help pay other peoples lawyers. Millions on defense, not one cent for tribute.
(emphasis mine)
Perhaps the RIAA has pissed off more people who were buying music than they've scared people who were copying it. I sure as hell haven't bought any new CDs from RIAA labels lately. But I have bought a number of second hand and independent label CDs, and will continue to. I have no plans to give any of my money to jackbooted copyright thugs.
I'm quite sure you guy's have heard of this already, but they're pressing for legislation that allows copyright holders to hack into suspicious computers and delete anything with their copyright on it. That's just wrong... 2 wrongs don't make a right. (Maybe in math they do, but not here.)
When you need great justice, take off every zig.
Let's assume that I want to be a nice law-abiding consumer. (quit snickering) When I find a file on Kazaa Lite how do I know whether the copyright holder wants to express their free speech right to be heard or they want to assert some obscure federal statute preventing me from hearing what they have to say?
You can't expect those who wish to use their free speech rights to put up notice. That would chill their rights to free expression in an intollarable way -- especially if what they wish to express is a political condemnation of the notion of IP.
I am put into a legal quandery. Even assuming I wish to do the right thing both morally and legally I cannot do it. Not only I, but the author have a constitutional right to free speech and assocation. The author also has a statutory right to copy. But there is no way I can distingush between the author who is asserting their constitional right and the author who is asserting their statutory right.
If Joe Filesharer needs a lawyer then the words "no law" have become meaningless.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
Is there a way to create a program with a trivial encryption scheme so that all users would need to break that encryption scheme in order to obtain access to shared files? This would mean that all users would be in violation of the DMCA which wouldn't be a problem as regular users wouldn't be sued for that but it would also mean that in order for the the RIAA to investigate these cases, they too would be breaking the encryption unlawfully, violating the DMCA and thus opening themselves up to prosecution.
Is such an idea possible/has it already been done?
I recently received the following letter from my Michigan Senator Carl Levin. It shares his views on this matter. Unfortunately, I was writing to him about the "Public Domain Enhancement Act", which has nothing to do with the RIAA or P2P. Nevertheless, it was at least enlightening to hear a government official respond, so I'm posting it here, even though he is an uncaring dolt.
Dear Friend:
Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) recent decision to issue subpoenas to gather evidence for potential lawsuits against Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing software users. I appreciate hearing your views on this matter.
The P2P exchange, also referred to as swapping, of certain types of files over the internet poses serious questions regarding existing copyrights. Digital media files, such as MP3s, e-books, and digital pictures, often contain copyrighted material. As a result, the free exchange of these files raises concerns among copyright holders. Meanwhile, some consumer rights groups and civil liberties organizations argue that P2P software promotes free expression and is capable of substantial non-infringement uses.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on June 25, 2003, that it will file suit against people who use P2P file-sharing systems to create unauthorized copies of copyrighted materials. Since then, the RIAA is reported to have won hundreds of subpoenas in order to collect information for civil lawsuits that could be filed against individuals who are alleged to have illegally used file sharing programs.
I believe the recording industry has raised legitimate concerns about copyright infringement and, of course, that they have the right to take appropriate steps to protect their legal rights. However, I also believe that the privacy rights of individuals should not be compromised.
I will continue to carefully review this matter as the Courts and Congress further addresses these issues. Thanks again for writing.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin
SACD is not inherently more expensive than CD. DVD-A and SACD also offer features above and beyond what is on an MP3 or CD (high quality sound, multi-channel music, music videos, etc). The only reason that SACD and DVD-A are expensive now, is that they are new. If they take off they soon will be the same price as a CD (not that they aren't over priced). I remember paying $600 for my first DVD player... but no one bought DVD players because they were more expensive than VHS and that format died didn't it.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
As much as I believe the RIAA (and any copyright holder for that matter) has the right to defend their copyrights and the copyrights of the people they represent, they know damn well that these kids don't have $50,000. Hell, that amount of money could well ruin people's lives, especially when in college. At the same time, that doesn't justify such blatant copyright infringement but shit ... send a C&D, or have their internet turned off or something.
Who doesn't like free music?
If you are affiliated with any government, anti-piracy group or any other related group, or were formally a worker of one you CANNOT enter KaZaA, cannot access any of its files and you cannot view any of the media files. If you enter this site you are not agreeing to these terms and you are violating code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1995 and that means that you CANNOT threaten our ISP(s) or any person(s) or company storing these files, and cannot prosecute any person(s) affiliated with this page which includes family, friends or individuals who run or enter KaZaA.
Q: How to Not Get Sued By the RIAA?
A: Don't break the law.
You might have enough opinions to write a book on why copyright infringement is wrong, why DMCA is evil and unconstitutional, why RIAA is literally extorting the filesharers. Copyright infringement won't exactly advance whatever cause you're trying to pursue.
Don't share copyrighted works that you do not have permission to share. And you won't have to pay.
Hey lawyers answer me this:
After 3 months of digging, now where in the US law nor inherited common law does it state that the methods of extortion and racketeering must be illegal. Even if the methods used are perfectly legal the outcome, if it falls under the definitions of extortion and\or racketeering, is not protected.
Extortion is just that, regardless of the methods used.
IF not please feel free to correct me, I couldn't find anything after 3 months.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Enjoying your new anonymizer account yet?
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Let's say you buy an original copy of Back in Black on CD. Then you back it up to MP3 or CD-R, whatever. Now think about the following, assuming backups to be legal of course, is it legal or not?
Scenario #1: Your dog chews up your original CD, but you still have the chewed fragments (as proof of ownership); is your backup legal?
Scenario #2: Someone steals your original CD. Now is your backup legal?
Scenario #3: You sell your CD to someone else. Now is your backup legal?
In all three scenarios (destruction, theft, or sale of original), the RIAA's member companies receive no additional income for the CD, you've already paid for the CD, and you still have a playable copy.
So, as long as you can prove your original purchase, what would be the problem?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
The RIAA found an MP3 on my hard drive from I major recording artist, that is basically SCO source code put to music. I swear I didn't even know I had it, and they won't tell me where on my hard drive it is unless I sign an NDA. All they'll tell me is I'm in "Big Twouble".
Anyone have any idea how much money I'll owe?
By reading this sig, you agree to the terms of my sig license.
...It's copyright infringement. That isn't stealing. Theft is a criminal offense, copyright infringement is a civil offense.
And another thing from your post...
"People, pay for your music. Music is a product, it takes time and energy to create, people deserve to be able to make money at it."
Which people deserve to be able to make money, the artists? Too bad some (most?) recording industry contracts end up barely making the artist anything unless they can put out something like 5 super ultra mega platinum albums in a row.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Two words. Chapter. Seven.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
I think they're trying for too much with $50k. DirecTV is doing it the smart and sleazy way - get $3000 out of each person and they don't fight it. Ask for $50k, and they'll pool resources and fight back. I dunno how it will shake, but if they try this they might have a group of defendents tangle with them.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
lawyer in back,
said everyone attack,
and it turned into a lawsuit blitz.
lawsuit blitz.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'd recommend Overplay - A company which provides online services to unsigned bands. Their charts can be quite interesting...
However, the "punishment" that they are exacting on the infringers is way too excessive.
Assuming that a CD costs from anywhere between $15.00 and $18.00, with typically 10-15 songs per CD, that's between a $1.00 and $1.80 per song that they might be earning. Based on the article's figures that a particular boy was sharing 150 songs, the collection that was shared is worth at most $270. If the court wanted to punish me by providing the RIAA with treble damages, the boy would owe them $810. This is the limit of what I would consider "reasonable."
I'm not sure whether each download of a particular song is considered an infringement, (it's difficult to say how many times each song was downloaded) or if each instance of sharing is an infringement.
Assuming that each download is an infringement, in order for the RIAA's "go away money" to be reasonable, each song would have to be downloaded 18 times. If the song was the average MP3 size of 3.5 megabytes, that's 9.4 gigabytes in uploads that this boy supposedly made.
I strongly doubt that the average user uploads that much, which is why I think this RIAA tactic is excessive, and does not fit the nature of the offense inflicted upon the RIAA. I would go as far to say that by extorting this much, the RIAA is receiving one heck of a windfall, bordering on the inequitable.
SampsonSimpson
People aren't mad about the principle for the RIAA pursuing file-sharers of none-free copyrighted materials. They're mad about the extortionist fear-mongering tactics used and absurd penalties the RIAA is requesting.
Levying the same fine that they impose on commercial copyright violators at these kids whilst at the same time leveraging the fact these children can't afford to defend themselves properly smacks of the kind of bullying that should make the blood rise in any reasonable person.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
You know why nobody gives a damn? Because the government agencies in charge of keeping shit like this from happening don't do a goddam thing when it does.
Remember Enron? There wasn't a person in this country that wasn't calling for Kenneth Lay's severed fucking head on a pole, but did he do any jail time? Fuck no. He had to sell one or two of his 4 mansions to pay some fines.
It's shit like that that is jading us, making us realize that people in high places are going to pretty much remain untouchable no matter what they do or who they fuck over...just because they have some influential friends. You're living in modern feudalism, buddy. Get used to it or start capping these rich arrogant bitches, because there is no in-between anymore.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
This is complete crap. The US does not, and has never had debter's prisons.
All that happens in court is that a judge will enter a judgement against you. This just says that you do indeed owe the money. That's all. It is the debter's problem to collect, and they are fairly restricted under the law.
This may be a good thing in the long haul. The idea that Gnutella provides any amount of real anonymity has always been laughable, but it is a commonly held misconception. In reality, Gnutella provides little more anonymity than putting your files on a web page, except that google doesn't search Gnutella.
Hopefully this will move the p2p community to more hardened anonymity technologies like Freenet et al. The community has gotten complacent in recent years.
It is essential that these privacy-protecting technologies are developed and widely deployed. Not for sharing music, but for protecting the anonymous whistle blower, the political dissident, and the right of assembly and communication without prejudice for oppressed communities everywhere.
-braddock
===========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
From the article,
Many students seem to think, apparently, that the internet is a law free zone.
There seems to be some belief on campus that taking music without paying for it is not quite breaking the law because the big, bad record companies charge high prices - they rip us off so we can rip them off, might be the general tenor of the argument.
It's great to see someone putting forth into the mainstream news services the pathetic argument by many file sharers. Bravo, I say.
Unless they actually downloaded the file from the user, they don't know whether it's downloadable just because it's on a list. Quite a few people on p2p networks have much longer lists than what is actually available -- people freeze the queue to prevent uploads, or block 0.0.0.0/0 from downloading. There's even plugins that do that for you, so you can choose who downloads what even though the LIST is provided to everyone.
Of course, if RIAA downloaded something they thought was illegal to download, they obtained evidence by breaking the law. If they didn't think it was illegal because they own it, why, then there's no crime committed by THEM downloading it.
They need to prove that OTHERS could download the songs they had right to.
Regards,
--
*Art
If you decide not to buy something, you don't have it.
If you decide to get something for free, instead of buying from me, you have it, and I don't have my money.
Radio stations have licenses to distribute their content. They pay royalties to the songs' creators. Filesharers do not.
If the RIAA was even remotely interested in using a carrot, it would say, "Keep using KaZaA and we'll sue you. Stop using KaZaA and switch to our new high-speed online distribution service and'll be able to download low-quality versions of our products for free to sample and also buy individual songs for chump change or get whole albums, complete with cover art, behind-the-scenes documentaries, and interviews with band members for a couple of dollars."
And of course, the article totally misses the point that it's not really possible to track down downloaders, only uploaders.
Dyolf Knip
When you buy the CD you make a legal high quality backup with a unique ID attached to each file. Then you send the physical media to a clearing house for storage and future handling. When you get ready to "sell" you CD you upload the MP'3 and destroy them on your computer.
The CD can now be "sold" and the buyer that takes legal title leaves the physical media at the clearing house and downloads the Uniquely identifiable Mp3.
Rinse and repeat.
It could be a subscription model with say $2 monthly fees and a deposit of $30. The Deposit will be the "money" used for the transactions. Buy a CD at standard price of $10 or whatever and you deposit is now $20 and you have one named CD on your balance sheet.
Help fight continental drift.
So if I hack Mr. Oppenheims computer and "unreasonably" search it (i.e. rifle through his private data) I am immune to rules on unreasonable searches because I am a hacker and not a cop? Nice to know.... Now where did I put that SubSeven kit.....
There was this case, where a hacker posted trojaned applications to kiddie porn newsgroups. He then gathered evidence on those stupid enough to install it, and provided the information to law enforcement agencies. Even after he told them that the information came from hacking, it was not thrown out on the 4th amendment defense. I tried to submit it to slashdot but it was rejected.
So, if you hack Mr. Oppenheims computer (and/or torture him until he provides you with the password for any containers, appearantly), you can submit it to the police, and Mr. Oppenheim can't use the 4th Amendment defense. However, nothing prevents you from being prosecuted under any hacking/torture law though...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
love and hate are two sides of the same coin, a coin less pretty than fear. why is this? fear is deeper: less controllable, less rationalizable, and mostly, extremely personal.
expressions of love and hate are the currency of social discouse, but cognition of fear cannot be shared, cannot be amortized, cannot be assuaged by anyone except the one feeling the fear. thus, fear is more valuable because it cannot be parlayed once planted.
these things everyone knows, some people use, and some some people abuse.
agreed 100%
A friend of mine analogized the RIAA's attempts to stop file sharers to Wile E. Coyote's attempt to catch the Road Runner. It seems like every month they have a new tactic that utterly fails.
I see the RIAA's attempts as trying to stop a speeding freight train by laying on the track.
Either way the RIAA will fail. Peer-to-peer sharing is a fact of life. I'm not saying it's legal. I'm not saying it's moral. I'm just saying it's here to stay for the foreseeable future.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
What is this? Soviet Union? Why should companies be able to live on tax money?!
Thats absolute bullshit, even for Canada.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If you can't afford to buy music, then don't buy it.
Write the software or find a way to do it through amazon. Call it the CD exchange network.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
They way I see it is that the people being accused by the RIAA have no case against unlawful search. The fact is they used a application such as Kazza, or another p2p file sharing client. These applications allow the PUBLIC to veiw any file you share without authourization from you or anyone else. It's the same as someone walking past your dorm room window, glancing in and seeing a big sack of weed on your table. They then have the right, and the duty to report you to the proper authourities. Now, what needs to happen is for people to switch from open p2p services to closed Server/Client sharing programs that require authourization and legal agreements to even VIEW the shared information. Let alone download it. At the moment the community as a whole needs to ban together against entities like the RIAA and SCO, and boycot their products, spread information about their dealings, and put preasure on the governing bodies to halt the actions of these feinds. The only way we will win this "WAR" is to FIGHT. The RIAA had it's chance to suceed in a changing market, instead they chose to stand mute. Now that they are losing profits thanks to their own inaction, they are going after the people who are a product of the digital music revolution rather than the cause. The cause is the fact that there was no alternative to buying their ninteen eighties technology (CDs) at it's original price. Now, they have yet to come up with a viable alternative to music piracy, and they are suffering form their own lack of imagination.
I just remembered - Chilledbeats.org is VERY much like I suggested. But very specific in it's focus. I was thinking more general.
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
Technology just isn't up to the point that they can track that stuff you've mentioned yet. Not as easy as they can P2P. Search for song, browse hosts, log IP for future lawsuit. Hell they could be running bots to do their hunting now. Once encryption gets implemented and the darknet is truly anonymous, they are going to be SOL. Catch em while you can.
The RIAA seem to forget the basic economics "LAW OF DEMAND". As price goes up demand goes down. Their lost sales figures are very imaginative, on par with SCO lawsuit demands.
They are not losing billions or trillions in sales because not everyone would buy the crap they produce at the prices they demand. But toss it in with my existing bandwidth costs and cost of my hard drive space and the song costs me about 3 cents plus download time. I don't even count my time because I work while it downloads. At that price why not download Madonna, NSync and the other crap. Sometimes you need a good laugh.
Snopes is your friend
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
He made a cool movie before he died, right?
Oh, I didn't realize Kazaa made you download a song, one note at a time. Idiot.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Magna Carta, Delirium are not on the list! Woohoo! I'm happy!
I was just looking at the 'who to boycott' list to see if i was helping or not. =) Thanks for the link, very useful indeed. If anyone else know some good progressive rock labels not on that list, please let me know. I'm pretty ashamed to see Elektra in there, specially since Dream Theater signed with those bastards!
TM
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
" If you decide not to buy something, you don't have it.
If you decide to get something for free, instead of buying from me, you have it, and I don't have my money."
Point is, I decide what to do with my money, period. You dont decide what I do with my money, you cannot sue me for deciding not to spend my money on your products, and if I can get your product for free thats your problem not mine.
Look, if someone gives away free food I'm taking it, if someone gives away free clothes I'm taking it, I'm not rich so I take stuff thats free, this should be pure logic here, anything creature or human usually takes whats free.
This does not mean the same person will pay for whats free, or that whats free is valueable. I will take whats free because those are the rules of the game, you take what you can, I dont care about the company, never did, I only care about what value that company has to offer me.
Look, I'd never buy Photoshop, but I will use photoshop if someone lets me sit at their computer and use it.
I will also use gimp the free alternative to photoshop and I will promote gimp the free alternative, simply because its free.
When you are poor, and your friends are poor, you use whats free first, even if it provides less value, because when you dont have a million dollars, sometimes its free or nothing.
In the case of photoshop, if you are an artist, and you can get access to photoshop, TAKE IT, dont be the idiot who decides not to use photoshop and who cant find a job, be the smart person who takes advantage of the situation. Believe me if you dont someone else will, so get yours before they get theirs.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Organize a large-scale six month long boycott against those three labels.
Profit! As in, they don't. Hit them in the wallet and let them know why.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Or until Freenet use is outlawed in the U.S.--or considered prima facie evidence of intent to commit a crime, which would be tantamount to being outlawed.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
nycFASHIONGIRL - shallow ? That's unpossible!
Maybe I'm missing something but...
The RIAA are going after people sharing songs. Surely they'd have to download the entire song to prove that it was a real copy? Well by that point I hope they have an original version of their song, otherwise haven't they broken the law?
As for other people downloading the songs, how do they know they don't own the cd?
With digital radio out, I don't see the service as any different, you can probably record music tracks off of the radio at the same quality. So sure p2p offers the same kind of service for music, albeit possibly copying faster than real time playback.
It seems that they're updating the IPs frequently, and have even created an automatic bad ip updater. Good for them... it's better than nothing!
Berto
The artists do get paid by the recording industry.. Yeah its a raw deal for musicans (some lose money), and the RIAA tatics are not entirely ethical.... but the music pirates aren't paying the artists dollar one.
,not the consumer or the artists..
Ask any artists trying to get publicity what the backing of a major label can do..Actually, even better look at the crap that gets on the radio to see what major label backing can do.
The RIAA looks out for the recording industry
Unfortunetly they (RIAA) kinda have a monopoly, but if you have a better way you should start an indie label!
This is old news - RIAA sending out threats to college students - nothing new. They were doing it last year too.
And, if the editors would read the story, they'd see that it says "Then when the poor student has picked himself up from the floor and the blood returns to his face, the lawyers will say broadly: "OK, we'll let you off the fine if you agree to pay, let's say, a mere $15,000".
Not exactly the $50,000 that it says in the posting. In all fairness, the article does mention one instance of someone having to settle for $50k.
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
The RIAA is suing the same people who buy their music. I'm sure that will drive record sales up, oh yeah, totally. What the fuck?
... It's simple domestic terrorism, purported from an industry association. I wonder if we can get them under the patriot act... some kind of class action lawsuit involving lots of fear and emotional distress...
If you sue the people who buy your products, they're going to stop buying your products. You can't screw somebody over once and expect them to come to you for anything other than getting screwed over.
So after a few thousand lawsuits, I'm sure the RIAA's short-sightedness will continue, and when CD sales drop again they'll say it's because of file sharing. When in reality, they're a bunch of fuckwits who don't know how to run a business, who have totally alienated their entire userbase by SUING THEM.
Seriously, what do they hope to accomplish? Hey, wait a second! This is terrorism! They're using fear as a means to accomplish a goal other than fear itself; they're using these lawsuits to scare people into stopping file trading and buying more records. The said it themselves, "fear and awe"
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Oh wait, that's probably copyrighted or trademarked or something isn't it?
I called this months ago.
Are you still giving them money? Stop doing it and stop downloading ok? And don't listen to the people who say "but if we stop buying they'll assume we're steaing so we'll be screwed anyway so we may as will keep downloading." Those people are wrong. Politicians are not all that stupid, and I'm pretty sure that you know that there's nothing "noble" about not paying for something but using it anyway. There is something noble about wanting something but refusing to buy it because you don't want to support the people who make the product. Do the right thing. Don't do the easy, thing.
Stop buying/renting/downloading and never give them money ever again.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
The act specifically allows you to make a copy of a recording for yourself. I am allowed to borrow a CD from someone and make a copy for myself. The author of the article reasons that
a) Downloading a song is the same as making a copy of the song from a CD you have in your hand.
b) The person sharing the song is simply "loaning" it to you so you can make a copy.
Now I think you might be able to sucessfuly argue A but B is the kind of pushing it. I don't think you'd have much luck with that kind of defence if you ever ended up in court over it. Could be that is why the RIAA's local stooge hasn't tried this in Canada yet however. Tough call.
The CD levy is $.21 btw.
It is COPYRIGHT law afterall. It reserves the rights of distribution to the copyright holder.
It doesn't matter if YOU have the CD and are downloading a copy of the song. What matters is that someone is distributing a copy of a song they do not own the Copyright to.
That's all there is to it. It really is THAT simple. If you do not own the copyright of a work, or if you do not have the express permission of the copyright holder, it is illegal for you to distribute copys of that work.
It would amuse me to see them try to sue every person in the country.
Do your part and visit: zeropaid.com to load up on ammo.
Silence Bossy Meat Creatures!
I'd love to see the RIAA claim that the MP3's of the late Wesley Willis I downloaded the other day are worth $150k per violation. I think they'd [the RIAA] would be laughed out of the courtroom if the Judge allowed me to play "Rock n Roll McDonalds" or some of the artist's other charming ditties...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
There are obviously bands out that allow taping of their shows and release royalty-free music. I'm curious if there are any web sites that specialize in distributing high-quality versions of songs that are free of the copyright issues?
I think a very effective backlash against the RIAA would be to support sites and artists who make their songs available without the restrictions. I firmly believe that free trade of music in many cases is more beneficial to the artists than otherwise. This is especially true in times such as now where big corporations own a lion's share of media.
If you look at a band like the Grateful Dead, who chose not to follow the path of rabid control over their publishing, that looks to be a major contributor to their success.
Most people are sympathetic to the artists, but not the corporate entities which end up getting most of the money and taking advantage of the artists.
If we all rally around sites, companies and artists who abandon the traditional extreme proprietary nature of their material, this would send a clear message to the RIAA that their acts will hurt them more than us, and we could care less about the next major-label-boy-band.
Make it a policy that any songs on an album which has gone platinum are open for free file trading. Likewise any song which has been licensed for enough commercials, TV shows or movies such that it has brought in over $1,000,000 in revenues. Likewise, any song that has achieved over $1,000,000 in radio-play revenues.
You can still charge your licensing fees for commercial use, but at this point, you'll do more for your popularity by letting go, Luke, and letting your fans trade and build up their fan bases.
For example: I have bought Dark Side of the Moon in three different formats, and multiple copies of the CD (gifts, etc). That album has generated so much revenue for Pink Floyd, Inc. that it would not hurt them or their families one bit to give it away for free. Same thing goes for Jewel's "Intuition", which is on a Shick razor commercial. And any Metallica song. And the list goes on...
That's my $0.02
The CB App. What's your 20?
Although I appreciate your poetic manner of expressing yourself, I doubt what you've stated. If fear cannot be shared between people and serve as a form of social discourse then the horror genre would be nowhere near as important as it is. I've heard a similar assertion about pain. Wittgenstein uses it as an example in discussing literacy among other things. But even then there are problems because the division between physical and emotional pain are not clear at all and emotional pain can certainly be shared. Grief is a commonly shared emotional pain. /..
I admire your expressive ability though. We don't get a lot of thoughtful writers on
Actually, you should probably recalculate those numbers assuming a standard connection coming out of a university. I'd imagine their up would blow away a cable modem.
>If you decide not to buy something, you don't have it.
>If you decide to get something for free, instead
>of buying from me, you have it, and I don't have
>my money.
Where I work we give out books of matches to people who want them. Some try to give us 25 cents in return, but most just want them for free. As it is now, less people would want one if we started selling them.
Maybe the number of takers would go up if we had always charged them for matches, but there are some people who still wouldn't pay though they want matches.
There are some people who would only download and listen to something if they can get it for free. Some of those people might then buy or delete the files, but the rest won't. It's illegal, and you say it's immoral, but that doesn't change the fact that one download doesn't mean one lost sale.
Jesus, this isn't difficult. Copyright law reserves ALL rights of distribution for the copyright holder. Period. That's it.
If you are distributing copies of a copyright work, which you do not hold the copyright to, or have not recieved the express permission of the copyright holder, you are illegally distributing a copyrighted work.
IANAL.. but
One of our corporate lawyers, who have won many cases against the dark forces in our companies industry (telecommunications), once read a cease and desist letter that a local bank had their lawyers send me. The bank wanted to seize a domain name I owned, which they said was confusing with their business name.
His response, and obviously the proper form for lawyers, judges and juries, was "I would tell them FUCK YOU VERY MUCH".
I think you're right to be pessimistic about where things are going. The blame is being appportioned incorrectly to the RIAA though.
The RIAA is basically a bunch of amoral (not immoral) lawyers and their hacks, going about their daily business of bleeding the population dry to fill studio coffers. Lawyers are always amoral like this, that's why they can represent the most evil and violent scum of humanity in court.
The scum in this case are the studios, but who can blame them. In many ways, they're mandated to do everything in their power to bring in cash by their obligation to their shareholders. So where does the blame lie?
Simple. If artists did not hand over rights to their music to the studios, this issue would not exist at all. Almost all of them continue to do so though, albeit with some high profile and very worthy exceptions. It's a drop in the ocean though. The rest are not idiots, oblivious to the plight of their fans and the strong-arm tactics of studios and RIAA. They're simple money-grabbing, full stop, or else they'd do something about it, make a noise about not wishing their fans to be persecuted like this, at the very least.
Yes, many artists signed contracts way back and can't get out of them immediately, but most of them aren't even trying, and new bands are still trying to get signed up daily. Blame the artists for the current situation.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Listeners to radio stations pay nothing. File sharers pay nothing. The radio station licensed the music. Somewhere along the line, some of the sharers bought the CD to rip it for sharing. It is fairly parallel from that standpoint, although it could be said that the industry makes more from radio stations.
"I decide what to do with my money, period."
But you don't decide whether your money is enough for me to give you something.
Do you really have the complete misunderstanding of copyright that you seem to?
According to the RIAA, that means you have more valuable assets than their entire industry! Hmm... the average person makes let's say $40,000 a year. That means that if your an average person, it will take you only 60,873 years and 9 months to pay off a suit (assuming you give them 100% of your paycheck.) If you started when modern humans first evolved, you would nearly have payed it off by now. Start today, and in all likelihood humanity will have evolved into a whole new species before you finished. Better pray for hyper inflation ...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
claim of unreasonable search is "shallow".
They looked at her publically available music/movie shares, and determined that she was distributing copyrighted works, which she did not have permissions to do.
"the fact that one download doesn't mean one lost sale."
You're correct, but the opposite extreme isn't true either. Strangely enough, it seems to be bandied about constantly.
Some of the sharers may have indeed bought licenses for personal use, NOT redistribution.
They are already working on shafting us up here. Try the CRIA.
G AM .20030801.gtjack0801/BNPrint/Technology/?mainhub=G
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RT
The CPCC was a nice idea, it was only a short time before they found away around it tho.
Om, nomnomnom...
--People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling a halt to its Burger King boycott, which reached over 800 restaurants across the U.S. and prompted the burger mogul to enforce stricter standards for the handling of its food animals.
--In the UK: Last December, the ExxonMobil Corp., known as Esso in Europe, indicated that an activist boycott is hurting its U.K. sales at the pump.
Hmmm. Not very impressive, huh? I guess you're right.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
I agree.
But the RIAA is committing suicide and will not be killed by any boycott.
The "fear and awe" war will probably kill KaZaA. The users will, in fear, quit KaZaA. Just to start using systems like freenet that hide IP addresses and make filesharers really anonymous.
Chinese cyberdissidents are already using freenet.
Remember the RIAA vs Napster case. Napster was server based. The RIAA killed Napster (shutting down the server(s)) and eventually, gnutella-like, server free systems, (KaZaA and other) emerged.
The RIAA is dead.
The copyright laws on music, that were invented a hundred years ago as a response to a new technology: the gramophone, are dead. The Internet have made these laws obsolete. So the business based on these laws...
Vive la musique !!
Why don't we just use freenet? As far as I understand each person has a segment of the collective on their computer. Sort of like a gigantic RAID 5 array. Think about it, according to copywrite law it's fair use to only have small segments of copywrited material to use. Examples, you can use something like 30 seconds of a second or so many lines from a book. Because each person would only have that part everyone would get of scot free? Or no?
Sock puppets stole my sig.
Errrr, that was supposed to be 'everyone', not 'anyone' above.
Although the namecalling really does make you look smart, coward.
First, I believe that the majority of the cries from the /. crowd were not to go after the individuals (as in teenagers, college students, and grandma) but the guys who do serious harm such as the Chinese/Hong Kong/etc/etc black market who are not only eroding the RIAA profit margin by a significant amount (much more than little Johnny down the street - even all the little Johnnies put together) but are themselves profiting in large amounts. The individual college student is, very likely, making jack shit from his downloading other than getting a college education without having to spend significant portions of his loans to put Mr. RIAA in a Ferrari.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
This sig no verb.
> and you are the first person i've seen actually point it out [Lose v. Loose]
Are you on crack? I've seen that pointed out hundreds of times. What site are YOU reading?
This article makes some good points, but as usual it is permeated with the false notions of copyright as property and copyright infringement as theft. Nobody "owns" copyright; there are only copyright "holders," who have certain temporary rights granted by the government. Infringing those rights is not "stealing" even though it can cause financial loss. Arson, drunk driving, physical assault and a host of other things can cause financial loss, but we don't mislabel them as theft.
This may seem like semantic nitpicking, but equating copyright with property makes it easier for RIAA members and others to miscast themselves as little old ladies chasing down purse snatchers. Purging those images is important if we ever hope to see the copyright system improved. The various arguments for copyright reform will get very little public sympathy if they are equated with legalizing stealing.
Is there a way to "split" MP3 files so that you don't have a "complete" copy of the song in one file?
:)
Then can we have software seamlessly play these "audio clips" by buffering the next file so you don't audibly perceive the "break" between the files?
Could you be sued for having "audio clips" or pieces of a song?
If I only have half of a Britney mp3, does that mean it's only "worth" $75,000?
While the RIAA waste time and effort chasing the little people that the music industry have been overcharging for years, for their illegal music file swapping, we finally have a REAL Step forward. The music industry was already found guilty of overcharging for CDs and had to announce rebate procedures, but it seemed CDs still did not fall in price so their appeared to be no genuine effort to correct the real wrong. Well UMG (Vivendi) just announced they will lower the MSRP on all their music CDs to a max of $12.95 across the board. Finally we will have a price war and a more reasonable source of music as actual Sales prices will fall below the $12.95 especially is other companies are forced to act. And maybe this will help legal CD Sales climb. SO RIAA forget the little people and MAKE you owners join in pricing CDs as more regular prices.... Time for peace and more Sales of legal music.
I you figure song swapping amounts to theft, then all the swappers are liable for is damages. Roughly 1.00 per song.... a far cry from the 150,000 the RIAA is demanding.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Its fair enough for universities to be strict on this afterall it is their network/property. Its a shame though. Where i am in a UK university theres allot of filesharing but its in that stage where no-one really stops anything but at any moment it could all change and people could start making a fuss and id loose my mega-fat bandwidth ;) Im worried the RIAA or someone similar will start their crap in this country too.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
GOOD LUCK
I'm having trouble believing that they'll sue millions of people for using file sharing clients. Just identifying them would be hell. To then track down and bring them to court. Yeah right.
Let's see here, say 5 million U.S. file swappers (probably more but who really knows) and if they all drag it out in court we we see atleast 2 days per person and then say we use 5 judges in each state (is that possible, 250 lawyers each side and then the judges and juries) so that's 175 cases a day and say 5 days a week so... we'll all be dead before this is through.
I didn't really research these numbers so they may not be quite right but still.
-Tim Louden
this sig was brought to you by the letter
My point is that they have not inspected her hard drive and proven the files are on it. They have likely not even downloaded the files themselves. (Can you imagine a P2P user serving up 900 files to the same queue hog?)
All that the RIAA has going for them so far is the contention that, at the other end of this IP address, were copyrighted files being offered for download that belong to our members. We never downloaded them ourselves -- just the hashes. We trust that her client KaZaA program was telling us the truth. (Hah!) We trust that the IP address we have truely identified this user.
Unless they really did hack into her computer not using the information provided by the KaZaA client. Then she does have a case.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The law, in this case, states that damages can be up to $150,000 per song. That is excessive and hence unconstitutional.
I agree.
In addition:
Sure consumer prices have risen, but look around! The products the movie industry is selling are a hell of a lot better than the crap they were producing in 1983! Just about every product in every industry is better! Sure, I'll pay $800 for a computer now. why? Cause it is a hell of a lot better than the $500 1983 model. Cd's haven't gotten better. If anything, Cd's are actually worse. If Cd's improved as much as the other products like movies, we would get not only the songs but the videos to each and every song, a video about the making of the music videos, a behind the scenes interview with the band, the producers, and the guys who actually made the cd, a video of a live performance of each of the songs, and a book written by the band detailing their entire creative process in the making the songs. Instead we are getting the same old crap. Would you pay $800 for a TRS-80 or $300 for an atari 2600? You are doing the equivalent each time you buy a cd.
The music industry for the last two years seems to be trying to raise the prices of cds without anyone noticing. In 2000 I could get the newest cd for 20. By 2002 it costs me 22. Now I routinely see them selling at 24. At this rate, by 2010, cds will cost 36 dollars a piece. And they aren't getting any better. Enhanced cd's? All of em should already be enhanced. In fact, even then cds would still be behind.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Is the RIAA really this stupid? They are now going after high school and college kids for money. ...
Isn't that like trying to bleed water out of stone? Or more importantly pulling matter from a vacuum?
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
their effective method of providing music...
They've effectively inflated prices artificially and then fixed them in place. By having virtually 100% control over CD vendors they force everyone to pay 15-20 bucks for the latest cookie-cutter crap that barely qualifies as music, let alone art.
Real cute. I'm assuming the reverse of that would be the people that are so poor as to not have computers or have any friends with access to computers. You would have this non "tech elite" scrape together their cash in order to pay for albums that are priced at least 10x what they're worth? I call foul. Perhaps you're a bit worried that the "tech elite" could reproduce and burn CD's and maybe sell them to the non-elites for 3 or 4 dollars instead?
The RIAA quite arrogantly presumes that all artists are entitled to insane amounts of money regardless of the artistic or musical value of their work. Do you think Britney Spears truly cares about music as an art form? It's an artificially created market whose only purpose is to rake in cash. A true musician spends as much of their own time as they need to and focuses on music, not on making money.
The fact that we even have a term "music industry" just shows how much we've shifted focus from actually creating innovative new art over to greedily making as much cash as possible. In 50 years what will this have done to our culture?
Yes, destroying the RIAA and the mind-boggling greed that it stands for might actually make the world a better place. Hard to imagine, isn't it? Think about it.
Instead of resorting to terrorism, maybe the RIAA should leave catching criminals to the police, then we can see how much the local law enforcement agencies actually care that some 19 year-old is downloading music. I think you'll find they dont give a shit.
If not then sometime in the future "The Worlds Wildest Police Videos" will have some kid who has taken to his car because the police smashed his door down at 6am to confiscate his computers and arrest him - not for terrorism, child-porn, or drugs but for mp3's. Then he drives off and ends up causing numerous crashes and deaths as the police tail him before the police flip his car, drag him to the ground and beat him into submission (and smash his ipod). I'll be laughing my ass off as that retired sherif presenter Bunel? says with complete seriousness "This young criminal thought he could listen to music without paying... but after crushing 3 kids to death and causing 1000's of dollars worth of damage and millions of dollars worth of record company loss... he is shown, that music pirates, always end up in jail!" and at that moment, i will know that the US has completely lost the plot.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Pre-eairly teens generally have no external income. For a number of reasons it isn't easy to get employment at this age. There are exceptions, but by and large they don't have jobs. So the money comes from mom and dad. Well, if mom and dad decide the RIAA is evil and don't let their kids buy music, that is that.
also don't underestimate the university crowd. they spend plenty on music. A boycott doesn't have to be 100% to be effective. If they loose 50% of their sales, that would probably be enough to drive them out of bussiness.
Pop up a warning on any P-to-P server/client to the effect that "Employees of the RIAA, their servants, contractors and affiliates or former such may only upload or download using this program but on condition of a $250 000 payment for initial use of this program and $150 000 per song title examined prior to download.. to *both* the authors of this program and to the person they are P-to-P ing with. Furthermore, by installation of any such program, the above said RIAA employees, servants, contractors, affiliate or former such may only run this P-to-P software after payment of $1 000 000 to the authors/programmers of said P-to-P software..." This not only solves the previously mentioned "problem" of "authority to search" because "we are not a law enforcement agency", but also provides a significant financial disincentive for the RIAA to go rummaging through the hard drives of others.
So, get in on the best act in town.. fill your hard drive with Peruvian flute players playing tunes with names like "Satisfaction" and "Like a Rolling Stone" and church choirs with names like "Madonna"... then cash in, or watch the RIAA take a step backwards.
Basically, if you are offering to the public anyone can swing by and take a little look to see what you have. This is not intercepting and monitoring her internet activity...this is simply walking into her shop that is open to the public.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
"nycfashiongirl" will be instructed to pay a fine of USD 10000 for having a bloody crap screen name.
Honestly, can you get any more cliched and unoriginal than having BOTH "fashion" AND "girl" in your nickname? Unless you are a bloke, of course.
K
my second one is so scratched up as to be unlistenable.
:)
Have you tried wearing down the scratches with a toothpaste and toothbrush, and then running the whole disc through cdparanoia on full paranoia mode? With a decent drive you'll be absolutely amazed at what it can recover. I bet you'd be able to get full CD quality audio out of it. And then re-burn it of course. Then you won't have to put up with everyone else's crappy 128kbps Xing-encoded rips
Simple - just release more songs (a greater variety) more frequently and for a shorter duration. Who said that "singles" had to have a run of 6 months up and down the Top 40. Put the song in your playlist for a month, and then slowly decrease its availability. Then next month, issue another song from the same album. People then won't have an excuse - if I have heard and like 5 or 6 songs off an album, I'd be far more likely to purchase it, instead of downloading that one single. One of the biggest complaints about the industry today is the lack of variety. Every day, the same 30 songs get repeated over and over on most stations. It's gotten to the point where you can almost set your watch by the time that Linkin Park is going to be on the air.
Music isn't about the money, it should be about the music. The true musicians don't care who downloads, but be happy their music is being listened to. The RIAA is just proving what some "musicians" really care about, the Money. -Seriv
2 simpsons quotes in one post. well done my man.
.sig
for my fealings on the riaa, i'll stick with my
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
The products the movie industry is selling are a hell of a lot better than the crap they were producing in 1983!
Uh, who the hell actually thinks that? I hope you're talking about DVDs or something, and not fabulous new blockbuster innovations like Gigli.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
fear is deeper: less controllable, less rationalizable, and mostly, extremely personal.
I don't believe this. Actually, I think the opposite. Fear is more controllable, and more rational. A person who is afraid if shown why they should not be afraid may be convinced. Show a person who is in love why they should not be in love, and you will get a range of reactions between denial and outright aggression against you.
Fear is fundamentally more rational because fear is nothing but the emotional expression of the survival instinct. When survival is assured, then fear is minimal. When survival is in question, then fear increases. People are afraid of things because they believe those things may damage their ability to survive. It's cause and effect, and if you can prove to someone that the cause they are concerned about won't cause the effect they fear (death), then that fear can be assuaged.
Even fear of the unknown follows this (if you don't know what it is, how do you determine whether it will kill you?) and is the easiest for others to use because maintaining the fear merely requires maintaining the ignorance of the fearful. But educate the ignorant fearful and they might not be afraid anymore.
Fear can be irrational, of course, just as everything humans do can be. But we have a word for irrational fear: Phobia.
Irrational love, however, is redundant. Love is also extremely personal because each person's reasons for loving are different. Most people have a difficult time explaining why they are in love, beyond poetic metaphor.
expressions of love and hate are the currency of social discouse, but cognition of fear cannot be shared, cannot be amortized, cannot be assuaged by anyone except the one feeling the fear. thus, fear is more valuable because it cannot be parlayed once planted.
Fear is the currency of social discourse. When do love and hate even come up? Fear is what drives the news, the issues, and the debates. The economy, unemployment, terrorism, Saddam Hussein's WMDs, Texas redistricting. It's all fear.
Cognition of fear can absolutely be shared, since fear almost always has a "cause" that leads to an undesired "effect" which is what the person fears. These are the real-world foundations of fear that we can discuss and rationalize about. Since everyone has a common basis for our fears (survival instinct) it is a uniquely shareable emotion.
these things everyone knows, some people use, and some some people abuse.
The reason fear is abused is because it is the easiest thing to share, and thus the easiest thing to use on the masses. Causing fear is as easy as convincing someone that something will likely kill/harm them. It has nothing to do with the difficulty in removing fear. In fact, the abusers know how fragile fear can be in the face of knowledge. This is why we hear only vague threats of danger and hints of proof, and why the "Terror Alert" does nothing but provide an abstract "fear level" rather than any specific, useful information.
The enemies of Democracy are
Here is an interesting article on Canadian copyright: Will Canada become THE file sharing nation?
Here is what the Copyright Board's decision stated in regards to "Private copying":
This is something else entirely from distribution of someone elses' protected works. To deal with that angle, the government appears to be engaging in a misguided attempt to go after ISPs.perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
The truth is, both sides are somewhat in the wrong here, trying to stand up and be strident about the right to download and share something that is copyrighted, wether you bought a copy or not is a bit silly, I don't for one instant think I have the "right" to download music, software or anything else that I would normally have to pay a fee for, regardless of the reasons, has the internet made it possible and fairly easy to obtain software, music and movies without actually purchasing it? Obviously, does the fact that untill recently you had to bascially call the owner of the copyright and tell them you downloaded something of theirs without permission in order to get caught make it wrong for the RIAA to say it's wrong of us to do it?? No. The RIAA is not wrong (much as it pains me to say it) when it says that it's illegal to distribute freely copyrighted materials, period, where they are wrong and make themselves look like fools is that they try to tell us that their sagging sales are due to piracy, that is patent nonsense, their sagging sales is due to the immense ammount of peurile crap that they spend money promoting and distributing, net pirates are not the reason that the audio equivallent to an enema that Sony just spend 5 million marketing hasn't sold more than 10,000 copies, the music industry got used to putting whatever they thought was "sellable" on the fast track, print some t-shirts, some posters, put 'em on TRL and send them across the country for different banal and vapid DJ's to fawn over and hey presto, we got a winner, well the music listening public has stopped swallowing the rancid pap that the music industry extrudes and we're forcing people who have no talent or taste or vision to decide what might or might not be good music, that's why their sales are lagging, the fact that their heads are so hideously driven into their own rectums and they are so out of touch with modern tastes and sensibilities. Period, the other reason the RIAA is making themselves look the fool is their draconian scare tactics and bullying techniques, sueing and threatening children who have very little idea what the consequences to their actions are is simply stupid, kids today don't realise that file sharing is a crime and their parents don't have the knowledge to educate them about net ettiquette and laws, this technology was nowhere near as prevalent for people in their late 30's and 40's. As for the folks doing the deed, plain and simple, it IS illegal, it may be convenient and we may have gotten used to the ease of doing it, but that doesn't make it right or legal. Much as I have participated, and most likely will continue to participate, I do not go forward thinking I am blameless or innocent of a crime, I know damned well that I am doing something illegal and if caught well, grab my ankles I suppose. Anyway.. them's my two bits.. like it matters.
Your problems are all solved : http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
Linkin Park SUCKS!!!!!
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
And the RIAA can just do publicity for shows.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
You are right I dont decide if my money is enough to give you something, the problem exists only when what you are giving me is impossible for you to contain or control, meaning its not tangible, such as information.
You do not have complete control of information, its impossible to control it, or contain it.
I understand copyright as it applies to physical objects and it makes since when you have a copyright on something physical, this however stops making sense when we move beyond the printing press to the digital world, where you can make unlimited copies for no cost, with no physical limitation, with no physical limitation to copying, copyright becomes impossible to enforce.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
...which took P2P download numbers, and calculated that the RIAA can sue for more than the total GNP of the world, not only for one year, but the total GNP of the entire world since the beginning of time (since GNP on average grows, adding it up backwards in time it's a converging series and so a finite sum).
The numbers are simply so mind-boggling high it defies all logic.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I mean at that point China will be more free than the USA, when capitalism rules over government theres no democracy left to protect.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Disclaimer: Personally, I don't buy or infringe music because I don't find the medium very entertaining. Many posters here have argued that they share files because the RIAA member's business model is outdated. There have been arguements that one shares files because the money from your CD purchase does not go to the artist. Basically, this hypothetical is for anyone who is arguing they share because it is the right thing to do. Here it is: Imagine a system in which the artist negotiated directly with an online distributor to give them copyright. This distributor then would post the song for sale on their site for a nominal fee. No new rights would be created for the end-user, however. (Yeah, I know this sounds alot like Apple's system and others, but with the important difference in artist direct involvement and no RIAA in the picture at any stage.) This seems to get all the "evil corporation" stuff out of the picture leaving the relationship up to the artist to decide. If this all came to pass, would you stop sharing? If not, is there a viable system to profit the artist that would convince you to cease copyright infringement?
Then again, with Divx there was already a more popular alternative: DVD. What would have happened if the industry had gone straight to Divx, no longer offering movies on laserdisc, VHS, or DVD? What if a Divx wafer had been priced slightly under the cost of a new VHS movie to own at the outset, so that the industry could point at the cost benefit for the consumer to accept this new form of pseudo-ownership? (Historical note: when a Divx movie was purchased, the machine still needed to phone home to prove you had a license to the movie... you couldn't bring a movie you 'owned' to a friend's house and expect to play it and after the whole scheme went under Divx discs were worthless.) How many similar failures could paying customers be expected to put up with should the music industry adopt a similar scheme, as is currently popular with many current legal music download sites?
My point is that while we won't be able to rely on the public for a boycott on altruistic purposes, the selfish ones may very well do.
Its the radio station who profits actually. The RIAA is paying the radio stations to play their music, thats exactly why the radio stations wont play indie label music.
Dont you get it, the RIAA pays for radio and treats it like marketing, because they can control radio, they do the same with TV, the internet and P2p however they cannot control.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Ok, I can go along with that. How much would it cost for a redistribution license instead?
Oh wait we arent even given the option!
We arent even given the option to be legal distributor! Why? Because if we were the RIAA wouldnt be useful anymore.
Wake up, its not about profits its about power.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If Bill gates, or Microsoft for that matter, truly believe in the future of the Internet than they should offer to pay everybody's fines.
With that amount of money, filesharing should last at least another 20 years.
How do they know you dont already own it?
You see this is the exact situation we want to put the RIAA legally. We want it to be he said she said situations where they cannot prove a damn thing.
So yes, this could be illegal but it could also be legal, meaning its legal, just like the VCR.
Yes it could hurt small time artists, and I never said I had the cure for piracy, I do think people would pay for music if it were cheap enough, I'd pay 50 cent per song, maybe $5 per CD, you know
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You know, the ancient technology of music being broadcast FOR FREE over the airwaves?
I can even hook up a recording device and copy 'till my little heart's content, RIAA be damned.
And there's no way they could ever touch me for this!!!
For those interested, I contacted nycfashiongirl's attorney and asked how to help pay her legal fees. He sent this information. I'm going to send $50.
Please note that donations are not tax deductible.
McDonough Client Trust Acct. f/b/a Jane Doe
McDonough Holland PC
555 Capitol Mall
Sacramento, CA 95814.
Only on
Don't copy copyrighted music without paying for it.
If you don't like the RIAA boycott the artists that are under labels that are members of the RIAA. A major boycott could bring these bastards down in just a couple of years.
The RIAA lobbying for unjust laws to do what they are doing really sucks. But so does stealing music. And don't give me any shit for saying stealing instead of "infringing on their copyrights." You know what I mean.
Go ahead mod me down. I've got karma to burn and someone has to say it.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Well in that case all they know is that someone with the nick nycfashiongirl is sharing certain files but... how did they know who this person was?
How did they link the nickname to the real person? I don't think the RIAA has the right to ask a provider for any info regarding their client's logs.
And honestly, how can they ever prove you were sharing files at the time? One could argue that any kind of logs they keep regarding your files on the net is no more than something they wrote themselves. Screenshots can be faked too.
My few thoughts,
Diego Rey
diegoT
Is the crime downloading music, sharing music, or both?
:)
and...
Is the RIAA just going after file-sharers in the USA, or are they trying to target people in Canada, the UK, etc?
I'm thinking countries with more progressive governments, even the ones with friendly extradition policies towards the US, would be a lot more willing to protect their citizens. I mean, what interest does the Canadian gov't have in the RIAA? I don't know, but I hope not much.
in case anyone here doesnt read [H]ardOCP.. this was up on there: http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/story/0,24330,3 511270,00.html
Wouldnt you like to be a pepper too?
Great point about newspapers, they're an industry that has rapidly embraced the digital age. With my new wireless setup, every morning i can sit down at the breakfast table with my laptop, check my e-mail, read the news, read my local news, and even read the comics that would come with the pulp and ink morning roll. I'm sure i'll apreciate this situation even more come winter when i can spare myself going out on the porch in my boxers(i live in WI *shiver*). Newspapers already make most of their money from advertising, the internet just saves them on materials and distribution.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
And even if such an encrypted file were an RIAA controlled music file, is the RIAA guilty of a DMCA violation by decrypting the file to determine whether its contents are RIAA controlled? Even if the key somehow made it on to the p2p network? What is required, wrt the DMCA, for a file to be declared "encrypted"? Would an encrypted zip file with a password qualify?
If you support file-sharing and want to cripple the music industrym the best thing you can do is to not make a big deal out of the RIAA scare tactics. I have a friend who used to work for RIAA and they tell me that this legal blitz has been in the works for several years. It's a last ditch effort, which won't work as long as people don't get scared by the threats. The folks inside the RIAA are of the opinion that they have lost the file-sharing war, but are continuing this fight to please the companies which give money to the RIAA. In fact, it wasn't uncommon to see RIAA employees several years ago wearing Napster t-shirts around the office.
This legal terrorism by the RIAA will only work if people get scared and change their file-sharing activities. I'm a webmaster who has gotten cease and desist letters from companies over alleged intellectual property violations. After consulting with lawyers, I took these stupid legal threats and filed them in the trash.
These people are just going to send out invoices much akin to the IRS and the income tax. They do not have to sue.
Peacecorp was going to change that. Where his business sense would have failed him in the Merchant Marines and his poor physical condition were not up to snuff for the military, he felt Peacecorp would welcome him with open arms and take his student loan burden off his hands.
"Education equals genius. Genius is good for society. I'll show them, I'm going to buck the status quo. I'm going to make a difference, I'll show them what a poor kid from the ghetto is capable of." Dana thought to himself.
Dana had not shaven for five days, but his greasy facial hair never became very thick, even after weeks of neglect. It grew in a thin, spotty Fu Manchu pattern. Best described, his whiskers resembled soot smeared on his greasy jowels. He scratched at his armpit and pulled the tightening fabric of his pajama pants out of his groin and sighed with relief.
"Aaaah."
Dana was glad that the weekend had finally come around. His Computer Repair Fundamentals and Sociology classes were starting to really dig in. He blamed the teacher for sucking, and was utterly convinced that his superior intellect would reward him with first in his graduating class of 40. He was certain that the same outcome would happen if he got into MIT, but that would never happen. The rich bastards would never give him a fair chance on a level playing field. The MIT bastards hate nerds, just like everybody else. That was alright though, Dana already knew he was superior to most of them anyway. Their facilities were only useful to the superficial.
Dana loosened up a bit by putting some music on the 'juke. He got a free MP3 jukebox from his mother and slapped an "RIAA SUCKS" bumper sticker on the side of it. Dana was vehemently opposed to the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, especially music. Dana downloaded all his favourite Pink Floyd tracks off the internet and onto the jukebox, and this brought a small amount of joy to his empty life.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed, raising a fist as his gut flopped out of his oil-stained ThinkGeek t-shirt.
Ice T and Fred Durst alone had practically paved the way to justified downloads of all music ever created and served up on KaZaa. And so, Dana sat in in front of his monitor listening to The Wall, waiting for a reply from Peacecorp.
His mother slipped in to his room briefly to set down a balogna and cheese sandwich in front of him while he fired up a beta version of Transgaming on his Pentium 166 with MMX.
"Mom, why don't you hate the RIAA?"
She shrugged, rolled her eyes and closed the door to his room on the way out.
"She forgot to cut off the crusts." Dana held back the tears and ate the sandwich anyway.
[montemplar] wuzzup hanz0?
A privmsg came up on his IRC client. Dana had adopted the "handle" HanzoSan after his Japanese classmate Ohta nickna
The Library analogy I do understand. However, a radio station does basically the same thing that these filesharers are doing, and likely on a much larger scale. AFAIK, people downloading these shared files are really only doing the same thing as pressing the record button when they listen to the radio. I don't think that many people, (or the RIAA for that matter) would see this as being 'wrong'. If they then turned around and tried to sell those recordings, then there's obviously a problem, but free distribution would act as a form of advertisement in favor of the said station.
As a point of interest, we can all look back to the 1950s of Radio where the payola scandals were going on. Record companies were actually paying the radio stations to play certain songs. Last time I checked, there was still quite a bit of this going on. So, would filesharers stop getting so many threats if they added annoying commercials to the MP3s they're sharing? How is filesharing different than a radio broadcast?
At this point, the best move that I think the RIAA can make would be to create freely available low quality versions of the music and use it as a way of advertising. Most people wouldn't be willing to burn it to a CD if the sound quality was bad, and they could still have the 'try before you buy' bennefits.
Just a thought
~mauthbaux
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
* - According to Citizens for Tax Justice in their article Surge in Corporate Tax Welfare Drives Corporate Tax Payments Down to Near Record Low
1) Tell the RIAA that SCO is downloading music.
2) Tell SCO that the RIAA uses Linux.
3) Stand back and enjoy the show
4) Profit?
It would be nice if we could get enough money together as a group to hire some private investigators to follow Rosen, Valenti, and thier thugs around for a while. Take pictures, document thier lives, go through their garbage. Maybe make it a regular thing. This would be perfectly legal as long as there was no direct harassment.
Let them feel their own privacy violated and their behaviour being put under the microscope for all to see.
Some pictures of Matt Oppenheim with that gay prostitute would be really good for file-sharers morale......
In a court of law the RIAA is presenting the evidence that _they_ collected, to file charges against the general public?? WHAT?!? Stop and think about that. Anyone who's ever had their car towed, and then gotten it back with huge scrapes marked down as "pre-existing damage" knows that this doesn't work. Anyone who's argued to they're blue in the face with a telephone company over ld charges that were wholly unfounded, knows this doesn't work. The whole ordeal is completely unexceptable. I name my file something that looks like one of they're artist's names and I'm charged?? I have to take the henchmen of 5 fortune 500 companies to court to argue the case?? They've downloaded and verified it was they're song-- they promise?? There _has_ to be an unafilliated 3rd party to verify that this company's claims are true with these kinds of fines on the line. I found one of my songs on kazaa, I contacted the isp and the ip.addr was in use by one "R.I.A.A"; I was selling the song for 50mil a pop. I except cash, cc, and american express.
... would gathering evidence then break the DCMA?
Obviously not for wiretapping, but for using the hard disks in court? Just wondering.
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
Then explain why OJ Simpson was found GUILTY after his criminal hearing that concluded (probably badly) that he was "Not Guilty".
That should have been caught under Double Jeopardy clause of the Bill of Rights. Now's the time to go re-read your briefs and summarys from the Supreme Court about civil and criminal court seperation.
I'm so broke, I am currently boycotting all domestic and imported products except food and gasoline to get to work.
Sure it's not organized, and I'm not really sure what the sacrifices of my boycotts are really changing, but hey...I'm broke. Sometimes the weight of circumstances outweigh potential ideals.
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
And by its very definition, you can't expect privacy if you do things in public. But the constitution is a contract between the people and its government - it is basically a guarantee of "privacy" from unreasonable government behaviour. No right is absolute, as politics and law are about compromise. But the default assumption is that you derive a basic right to privacy, and the government needs "probable cause" as a reason to disturb you. And there are no other reasons in the constitution to allow the government to disturb your home (except the billeting of troups, in time of war, with fair recompense).
Outside of government searches and seizures, it is a property matter - and the constitution expects our government to mediate between parties on comercial disputes (regulate trade). Privacy is also ensured here, through the right to use your property - namely you own it, and someone else doesn't.
This applies to the case two fold. The RIAA do not own your machine, and so do not have the right to use it without your permission. Secondly, the RIAA do not own your ISP's infrastructure, and so don't have the right to confidential information held in it, without your ISPs permission. The only justification then, would be to go to the government, and request a warrant issued as per your quotation above.
And of course, if the lady in question publishes the files (that the RIAA represent the rights for) for all to see, then she's guilty of copyright infringement, as per your quote about information in public.
4". Get it right.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Isn't that essentially what the Business Software Alliance does today? They launder "anonymous" tips that woudln't pass muster before a judge. Then the BSA passes that muster as a reputable organization.
Search Warrents are issued and premises are invaded.
Pretty much illegal search and seizure, laundered through the "respecitable source" of the BSA without regard to the legitimacy of the original claims.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press