Slashdot Mirror
EFF Warns Against RIAA Amnesty Program
kpogoda writes "Check out the latest warnings from the Electronic Frontier Foundation regarding the recent actions from the RIAA. If you or anyone you know was contemplating handing over information to the RIAA, you may think twice."
ummm...the EFF does QUITE a bit, considering the responsibilty it has to do anything at all (none). Just what are you suggesting?
If you're not anonymous while trading songs online, how come they need to get someone to figure out who the hell you are?
that the action by the RIAA isn't really defensive, it's offensive. Chances are, you're going to keep sharing after you file the forms. Now, if you violated a written agreement, they have a far more solid basis upon which to prosecute. It turns into a black and white case. Otherwise, the RIAA seems to me to be a police force of sorts now, prosecuting people left and right. Karma whore help me out - there is a law against the abuse of the legal system in overusing lawsuits, isn't there? The RIAA is practically using form letters to send them out.
webpage
That's pretty much the sum of it. That, and the fact that they're not promising to
Amnesty International?
Last time I checked, they were doing some decent things.
You sign a document where you admit you illegally shared Metallica songs, under the condition that the RIAA not ever sue you.
Then Metallica sues you.
It's a sucker deal. Not to mention that you're also agreeing to refrain from engaging in lawful behavior as well!
Like Amnesty International? It sure has some ugly pictures on it, like of human rights abuses. So I guess it does deserve a warning.
Karma: Excellent^(-t/Tau), Tau=Wittiness/Trollishness
While this really is a "Thank you Captain Obvious!" statement, it is nice to know where the EFF stands. While so many other lawyers are out there drooling over the opportunity to scrape up wads of cash at the RIAA's biding, these guys come right out and tell people that the RIAA is full of crap.
Only thing is I wish more non-techy people even know the EFF existed. I told my mom about this as she had heard all about the RIAA and this new amesty thing from the local news, she had no idea who the EFF was. Apparently the news is only running the RIAA's side of the story. No great suprise here but it kind of limits the impact of their statment now doesnt it?
I'm really trying to figure out why the EFF is spending so much time on this. There are a lot of really scary things out there (the DMCA for one), that don't involve helping defend bigtime copyright infringers. (Note: copyright infringer here is defined as someone who willfully shares copyrighted works, not fair use copiers, or even downloaders. The indicted today are, AFAIK, bigtime distributers of music to many people they probably don't know) I understand that some of the previous cases have been indirect infringers, but these seem to be more appropriate. If I remember, the /. community was advocating this when they were taking down Napster (via the legal system).
The public reaction to the lawsuits needs to be loud and clear--
Boycott.
And it needs to be directed not just towards the RIAA, which is a lobbying industry group meant to be considered separately in the mind of the public from the actual companies.
I think maybe a targetted boycott campaign against not the RIAA blanket company, but a particular member (chosen randomly) would wake them all up. Put some direct pressure on one pillar, somethign that will hurt, and maybe they'll start to get the message.
A month-long focused boycott of a single RIAA member company-- recording division only-- Internet-wide. Think of the media attention that would get! Then the next month, a new company...
Just a thought. Anyone wanna pick up the ball?
I guess this is slightly offtopic; but with all this talk going on not only about the RIAA but also the software patents now in europe and DMCA etc etc etc, it's becomes hard not to notice the big pile of dung that copyrights et al seem to be causing. And for what? There's so many cool things one could do with a more relaxed information environment but instead, copyrights not only prevent this, but often, one of the original motivations behind copyright (namely that things get published at all) is rather side stepped. You can't learn anything from a compiled binary; yet nevertheless it enjoys copyright protection (effectively does in any case).
:-).
I don't think the right to exchange information is holy or somehow a human right which you're suggesting here. Consider slander, spam, or malicious information. Malicious information is for instance a virus, or even something as simple as telling a very gullible person that to cure his headache he merely needs to jump off that tower there...
Given the obvious advantages of free information flow (it is for instance the underpinning of a free market, and necessary also for a "democratic" society), I'ld say information should not be needlessly restricted unless there is a very good reason for it.
Supposedly, copyrights/patents are a required to encourage the production of new knowledge.
I would say it's clear that they do encourage some creation of knowledge. By their very nature, however, they also limit it's applicability and extension, therefore also discouraging the creation of such knowledge. Furthermore, I think a better system could be instituted.
Given that copyrights use market dynamics to encourage creation, whilst those dynamics work only in situations of scarcity, and that information itself (not the distribution thereof!) is not scarce, we can conclude that a system that tries to encourage new knowledge without enforcing scarcity would be optimal, as doing so would bring encouragement without destroying the actual point of the knowledge in the first place.
People regularly comment on the fact that communism (specifically in Russia) collapsed because it (it being the abstract administrative process that is communism) is a fundamentally bad match in the real world (in which resources are scarce). Generally it's not so widely noted that the same could be said of our current Intellectual Property mess.
Fortunately, we already have a mechanism to support non-scarce goods (aka social goods) in our society! Subsidizing knowledge production is a far superior solution... and we already do it to some extent with schools, art grants, universities, etc etc etc.
The question then becomes: how to divide such grants? I don't have an easy answer to that but a model ala de references by academic papers (or for that matter hyperlinks in the net) comes to mind.
To draw an analogy: in our current situation, knowledge is exclusively controlled by it's creator, which is comparable to how a completely "closed" internet portal would control its content and display information and news depending mostly on how much it can pay to create or buy that information from some news service or equivalent. The subsidized model which supports knowledge creation is more like the net at large with hyperlinks forming the votes for who's cool and who's not. Even without a framework specifically designed to support it, google seems capable to extract useful information from those votes
What about that last quote, where they said that because they weren't a legal organization, they weren't bound by the limits of search?
I'd be dubious of giving anything to anyone who said they didn't have to honor the law.
That's exactly the problem here. You're handing over a notarized confession complete with your home address as verified by ID to the RIAA, while it's the individual members of the RIAA whose content you've stolen. The RIAA doesn't have the authority to legal agreements binding upon each individual label... so even though the RIAA forgives you, Sony, AOL Time-Warner, et al. can still go after you, and they can use that "shamnesty" confession as all the proof they need.
Of course they're confusing distributing music online with copyright violations. They want to paint a picture where P2P applications are evil and all their users are "stealing" music. If it becomes generally acknowledged that P2P apps have perfectly legitimate use, then the RIAA loses some credibility and some leverage against file-sharers.
#include <sig.h>
if they can't protect their stuff in the first place, why are they suing people?
Why would a drowning man clutch at a straw?
The RIAA is fighting a losing battle and they know it. They are desparate, stabbing around in the dark, hoping to find something, anything, that will stick. Why else would they attempt to link P2P to child pornography?
You'd almost think the RIAA and Gray Davis have the same advisors.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Let's say Dubya signs a release on behalf of all of us, kinda like Jesus did for all our sins. Should take 10 seconds tops. No sense doing this piecemeal.
Nope. Dubya can only sign such stuff for criminal cases, not civil.
And if he DID do something like that, the RIAA could then bill the GOVERNMENT, claiming they "took private property for a public purpose". Fifth Amendment.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Protecting their stuff is not the issue. People would share mp3s on Kazaa even if CDs weren't so easy to rip to mp3 and share. And the RIAA is under no obligation to try and protect their stuff (although there's nothing preventing them from doing so if they wish).
And as far as why they're suing people, that's simple. People are illegally downloading music, and as the copyright holders, the RIAA (or specifically, the labels represented by the RIAA) have the right to sue them for it. I'll leave the discussion of their attitude and tactics regarding the whole file-sharing phenomenon for another discussion.
#include <sig.h>
"Addressing the issue recently, Matt Oppenheim, senior vice president of business and legal affairs at the RIAA, said that courts have already ruled that individuals are not anonymous when they publicly distribute music online.
Gee, it sure is nice to know that the individuals behind the recent destruction of our privacy rights at least understand the issue. Matt clearly point out here why privacy is not an issue: the RIAA has already decided that these individuals are indeed sharing files. No evidence, no due process, just hand over the personal information so we can slap them with a lawsuit they can't possibly afford to defend themselves against. Thank God for the DMCA.
I think that's really the heart of their worries. The RIAA does not want you distributing music period. They only want members of the RIAA to have the right to create distribution channels. The P2P cases have nothing to do with copyrights and everything to do with distribution and content control.
Where would we be if Wheel had hid her round rock in a cave instead of showing everyone how it rolls?
Hmm, are you saying that Amnesty International is evil or something?
No their not evil, just misguided and shortsighted.
On their homepage, for example, is a call to sign a petition to "Stop The Slaughter Now!" in the Congo. But rest assured if some western democracy decided to take the bull by the horns and do exactly that by sending in troops they would accuse that democracy of interfering with the locals right of self determination.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Uh, the confession has to be notarized. If your local notary public signs off on your confession without you proving you are indeed the honorable Senator Fritz Hollings' son Billy Bob without providing him any proof, please let me know.
It's good advice, period. Illegal or not.
Ever been in a car accident? Doesn't matter if it's your fault or not, what's the last thing you say to the cop?
"It was my fault."
Because if you do, you've just thrown out any hopes of a successful defense. You WILL be reamed to the full extent of the law. NEVER admit to anything if the law is involved. Your fault or not. Illegal or not. Let the prosecuting attorney earn his keep.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
What kind of a world do you live in? Do you run to the police station after speeding on the highway or doing a rolling stop at a stop-sign? The fact is people casually break the law all the time, and even when the authorities witness it they often don't react (again, the car example; people generally don't get speeding tickets for going 110km/h on a 100km/h highway). Even when you get stopped, it doesn't mean you'll get a ticket - it's a judgement call by the officer. The idea is that the system is fuzzy, with some give here or there, which makes the world livable. Even so, there are plenty of abuses by the authorities.
Now we have RIAA flexing its hugely wealthy legal muscle, forcing ISPs to cough up their customers information, suing people a gazillion dollars per IP-infringing song and trampling fair-use in the process, and you're suggesting that an organization like the EFF, generally concerned with watching out for the little guy, tell people to hand themselves over? Would you go running to them?
Hmpf, you're either extremely right-wing or, well, I don't want to get modded into obscurity for being needlessly rude.
And now that I've previewed my glorious write-up, I noticed that you've been moderated into obscurity yourself. Good for you. I didn't want to waste my last point as a moderator on this, and it felt good to rant.
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
it's the individual members of the RIAA whose content you've stolen
Christ. IT'S COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, NOT THEFT!
What about that last quote, where they said that because they weren't a legal organization, they weren't bound by the limits of search?
Wouldn't that tend to imply that they have no right to conduct a search in the first place?
I have signed no contracts granting the RIAA the right to conduct a search of myself, my property, my history, or even for my car keys that I keep misplacing.
Baring some official status, or a contract... Why should it matter that normal proceedural limitations do not apply to them? My neighbors don't need to observe due process in considering me annoying, but if they decide to search my house to prove it, the police will get a call right after the use of deadly force in self defense.
It's not 100% clear that's true. The Fourth Amendment says:
It doesn't say that the right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated by the government, but that it shall not be violated. That at least suggests that private entities shouldn't be able engage in unreasonable searches and seizures, either.
Even if it applies only the government, you have to remember that the courts are also part of the government. That means that private entities should not be able to use government power in the form of court orders to perform searches that would be rejected were a government agency to try them. That may leave it open for private agencies to snoop in ways that the government isn't allowed to, so long as they don't use court orders to do so and they obey relevant laws against trespass, unauthorized computer access, etc.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
It may have been tampered with, falsified etc. I was under the impression that there were rules of evidence, or is that strictly criminal cases?
I may be watching too many crime dramas.
To quote Top Dollar:
Because you've had some bad experience with a (perhaps) misguided person who is part of the institution does not make the institution as a whole worthless. Nor does it make the ideas behind that institution bad. Because you disagree with their ideas that killing murderers is barbaric doesn't make either viewpoint invalid. See, there's this fun thing about philosophy, where two completely opposed opinions can be right at the same time! Life isn't boolean, true or false, black or white.
The fact is that Amnesty International's goal is to help others, and to improve living conditions for the human race. The success and steps to make that happen, you can disagree with, but to discredit the whole thing based on one bad experience with a teacher (hey, I got news for you: 90% of Humanities teachers are fucking assholes who'll flunk you if you don't act like a good brainwashed idiot) isn't very nice of you.
But then again, I guess forgiveness and giving second chances aren't your strong points, seeing as how you're pro death penalty and all.
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
It's not hard to become a notary public. Couldn't you just do it yourself? In California, all you have to do is pass a test that, from the looks of it, is no harder than the drivers license test.
So tell me this. What kind of a nutbar bases his opinion of an entire international organization on the basis of one unpleasant individual's actions?
Where's the logic? The murderer whose execution you were celebrating was male. Does that mean that all men are murdering animals? Why not?
You might want to entertain the notion that judging a large group of people by the actions of one is pretty much the definition of brainless bigotry.
No wonder the world is so screwed up.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Sorry, but with DVD's priced at about $5(Wal-Mart)-$15(Kroger) currently, I'd say the MPAA is learning from the RIAA's mistakes. I can buy movies where I buy groceries. I'd say the MPAA is leaning towards an impulse buy model more than a sue your customer model.
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
Only an Amerikan would think using deadly force is an appropriate response to a simple trespass. It this attitude, not the just the fact that there are so many guns floting around, that makes guns so dangerous in the USA.
Anarchists never rule
I realise that in a civil case you don't have to prove "guilt" beyond a reasonable doubt. But it seems to me that the only evidence that RIAA can hold up in court is a piece of paper with your Kazaa nickname, your IP address and a list of files that you supposedly made available.
How admissible is this kind of evidence? Could you successfully argue that while you acknowledge that the nick and IP belong to you, you've never seen that list of files before? It would be different if they had your hard drive. Any legal types care to comment?
Not that you'll care, but basing an opinion of an organization on the actions of the head of a local chapter is a good idea. If the organization has megalomaniac assholes for chapter heads, what does that say for the Regional and National leaders? If the Regional and National leadership doesn't keep their local leaders in line, then it seems they condone the activity.
Does Amnesty International believe that giving lower college marks to people who hold differing viewpoints is a fair system? If not, then they should replace the officer of their organization that is violating people's right of free speech. Since they most likely haven't, they should be judged accordingly.
As for judging men by the actions of the executed murder/rapist -- did we elect him or appoint him to the position of Representative Of All Males? No. Rather than give him a position of honor, he was punished for his actions.