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RIAA Sued For Amnesty Offer
wo1verin3 writes "CNET News is reporting that the RIAA is being sued because of 'Clean Slate' filesharing amnesty program that was announced on Monday. 'Clean Slate' allows people to (supposedly) avoid legal action by stepping forward and forfeiting any illegally traded songs. The suit, filed in the Marin Superior Court of California, charges that the RIAA's program is deceptive and fraudulent business practice." The suit claims that the amnesty is "designed to induce members of the general public... to incriminate themselves... while (receiving)... no legally binding release of claims", a statement the EFF also agrees with.
The fact that the RIAA doesn't even own the entire copyright to songs. Songwriters own part, too.
It's easy to be cynical and think that the RIAA's offer was just a trap, but what if it were genuine ?
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
I want Letters of Marque. And a nice frigate so I can go plunder some fat Spanish galleons filled with freshly pressed dubloons.
Yarr.
Gods, I loved Pirates!
Sue Brittany's pants off while you're at it please.
That's all. "Hey! Look at us! We're willing to forgive! We're nice guys! Please buy some music."
Isn't it possible for the RIAA to put all the money they spend on lawsuits in some projects which make music legally available on the 'net? They'll loose the war against (millions of?) p2p swappers in the end
Alan Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing"
It's not against the law to fool people. The RIAA isn't lying. They won't press charges. Ommision of information isn't a crime. In this case they simply don't spell out that other owners of the IP can press charges.
They never claim you're clear from prosecution. Merely free of procescution from the RIAA.
Law enforcment does this type of thing all the time.
It doesn't matter if you don't like it. It's perfectly legal and there's no reason it shouldn't be.
Looks like someone found another straw to tug at. And once again comes up empty handed.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Just read the article. "The RIAA's legal document does not even prevent RIAA members from suing."
If that doesn't flag their intentions clearly, I don't know what will.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Any thing with word "amnesty" in it, should be avoided.
No good can come out of Amnesty, or Thinking about amnesty or Thinking in general about anything.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Dear WCCO,
In your 'RIAA lawsuits' piece this evening, I thought it rather irresponsible of you to suggest that all songs downloaded via P2P were illegal and copyrighted by the RIAA.
Since WCCO is no doubt familiar with Minneapolis and its plethora of musicians, you might have taken a moment to interview a musician who uses P2P to distribute their own works, of which there are many. A trip to mp3.com, for instance, turns up hundreds of thousands of bands and artists that give their music away, with *no* connection to the RIAA.
I thought the suggestion at the end of your piece to 'apply for amnesty from the RIAA' was especially misleading, as this would probably open one up to multiple lawsuits from other sources; giving your personal information to an organization that has already proven itself 'lawsuit happy' and has attacked its own customers as liars and theives is not a good idea.
I am rather disappointed in your treatment of this issue, and I believe that one-sided reporting like this only adds to the misinformation that the RIAA 'owns' all music, that P2P applications are only used for piracy or (child) pornography (this is the next view that the RIAA is pushing), or that P2P is at the root of reduced CD sales.
I suggest either doing some research on this topic in the future and presenting a balanced view, or please mark your broadcast 'Sponsored by the RIAA' in the corner of the screen. You could probably get the MTV logo guys to do that, as MTV is owned by Viacom, your parent company.
Thanks for your time,
surely obtaining money under menances without legal authority is extortion too ?
The RIAA responded to the suit with a maxim: "No good deed goes unpunished, apparently."
Wow what a good deed. They did a good deed by having that 12 year old's mom pay $2,000.00 too...why are they so mis-understood??!
I say we just give them what they want. Stop downloading...stop buying and find other sources of music. I buy CDs from cdbaby.com (I'm not affiliated in any way) from artists that are unsigned and have found a lot of good music. I also listen to a lot of local stuff and some of the smaller record companies that actually promote bootlegs and similar things. Like skunk records.
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
My business faces ruin. CD sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago. Revenue is down and costs are up. My store has survived for years, but I now face the prospect of bankruptcy. Every day I ask myself why this is happening.
I bought the store about 12 years ago. It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
The business strategy worked. People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase records without profanity or violent lyrics. Over the years I expanded the business and took on more clean-cut and friendly employees. It took hard work and long hours but I had achieved my dream - owning a profitable business that I had built with my own hands, from the ground up. But now, this dream is turning into a nightmare.
Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame. The statistics speak for themselves - one in three discs world wide is a pirate. On The Internet, you can find and download hundreds of dollars worth of music in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the music industry, from artists, to record companies to stores like my own. Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike CDs, it's harder to copy books over The Internet.
A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."
I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the record industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
So that's my idea - a national blacklist of pirates. If somebody cannot obey the basic rules of society, then they should be excluded from society. If pirates want to steal from the music industry, then the music industry should exclude them. It's that simple. One strike, and you're out - no reputable record store will allow you to buy another CD. If the pirates can't buy the CDS to begin with, then they won't be able to copy them over The Internet, will they? It's no different to doctors blacklisting drug dealers from buying prescription medicine.
I have just written a letter to the RIAA outlining my proposal. Suing pirates one by one isn't going far enough. Not to mention pirates use the fact that they're being sued to unfairly portray themselves as victims. A national register of pirates would make the problem far easier to deal with. People would be encouraged to give the names of suspected pirates to a hotline, similar to TIPS. Once we know the size of the problem, the police and other law enforcement agencies will be forced to take piracy seriously. They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?
This evening, my daughters a
There is no god
since they didn't put a little disclaimer pictograph of the financial harm believing their amnesty program could inflict, i'm going to sue over the potential damage they could have caused the unwitting public. yanno, like those signs on sun shields for car windshields. "please remove before driving" you know they only place that there because someone didn't.
peace,
-Grokent
That was very very sneaky... and completely forseeable. :( CYA...
They're a little melty, but damn are they exquisite!
http://www.tcnj.edu/~pompeli2/respectmonopolies.or g/
Delete! ...and no one's the wiser. Linux compatible too.
Always fall back on the Bart Simpson way:
;)
I didn't do it.
And even if I did do it, you couldn't prove it.
And even if you could prove it, I wouldn't admit it.
If you never confess, they'll never "know for sure" that you were guilty.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
I wanted to confess and free myself from this evil sin of mp3 trading... here take my 10,000 mp3's on cd and I agree to format my pc....
lmao, I hope the courts eat them alive.
oh please for the love of all that is holy and dusty bunny I hope they lose that case!!!
Now that they have a documented case of someone who was part of the 261 doers of evil against the RIAA paying only 2000 dollars for their crimes, does this hurt their 150k per song price?
:D
Couldn't you just argue that 2k is the going rate?
IANAL, so I don't know, but it sounds funs
The amnesty program does seem like a pile, but does it matter? The only people whom it would truly affect would be the ones doing the illegal filesharing anyways. so why are we trying to protect people who we know 99% of are criminals? It would have no effect on all of us legal upstanding citizens.
I actually do think it matters, but I'm playing devil's advocate because I've been wanting to see the most mind-bogglingly obvious case of monopolistic behavior that RIAA can engage in and the swift and deafeningly unanimous (sp?) court case to follow that kills the RIAA once and for all. This latest amnesty thing is getting close to what I'm looking for, but I don't beleive it is quite as watertight as it could be. And when the RIAA gets what's coming to them, I want it to be painful to watch.
-P
"It's also unfortunate that a lawyer would try to prevent others from getting the assurances they want that they will not be sued,"
This is absolutely laughable. To think for a minute that we can trust the RIAA NOT to sue somebody after they have signed confessions. Notte how they are not offering any sort of documented protection, just an "assurance". What are assurances worth? legally?
It just amazes me that the RIAA acts as though it actually has credibility.
Wait a second, doesn't the RIAA assume everyone is guilty to begin with? I suppose you wouldn't really be incriminating yourself in the RIAA's eyes, just incriminating your self even more than you already were.
Still I agree, it's a bum deal anyway you look at at.
I hate to say this, but this lawsuit does not have the slightest chance of being won.
Although it's quite obvious that RIAA's "offer" is full of shit, remind yourself that the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove their case. The only realistic chance of winning this case would be to come up with someone who did sign on RIAA's dotted line, but then got sued anyway. Has this happen to anyone, yet? Unless this happens, everything is mere speculation and hypothesis.
And what exactly are the plaintiffs' damages in this case anyway, to date? I can't figure this out.
The only way to hit RIAA where it hurts is to do absolutely nothing. They gotta be pulling these kinds of stunts out of desperation. Music sales are falling, and falling, and falling, and you're witnessing the last dying gasps of an obsolete dinosaur. You could argue whether or not the music sales are down because of piracy, or because contemporary mainstream music is shit that nobody wants to listen to, anyway. It doesn't matter. Whatever the reason is, so be it. Don't do anything that you're not doing already. And if you're not doing anything, keep on not doing anything. Whatever. Keep on going, keep on seeing music sales nosediving, until RIAA, and their ilk, are starved into non-existence.
So now these psychopats called RIAA are sued because of some legal technicality. Yes, the RIAA did it because that's their style - to be evil. But this lawsuit doesn't touch on the real issues. It's not about them charging obscene amounts of money for the CDs, it's not about their abuse of copyrights, their abuse of artists, their abuse of their very own customers! Heck, it's not even about them crippling the CD standard (introducing faulty information in the error-correction part of the CD, to make them unplayable on computers, making them also less resistant to scratches)!
Sorry, this for me is just one of the many bullshit lawsuits that get the lawyers a hard-on while it contains nothing of fundamental importance for people.
Sigged!
I mean, we could have had some laughs when it was revealed that a Mr. B Gates had filled out one of these forms confessing to copyright infringement (ahem) from his Redmond ip. but now this guy is looking for his 15 minutes, and is depriving us all of a good laugh at the RIAA's expense. thankyou, whatever your name is.
http://fnord.to/fun/riaa.jpg
If I were beins sued by the RIAA, I would hire an attorney and have him call the president, vice president, CEO, and a number of other RIAA execs into his office for depositions in bumfuck idaho or wherever i lived, plead not guilty and have a jury trial, and then countersue for intentional infliction of emotional distress since these are obviously meant to scare people, but thats just me......
Thank you for your attention.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I am well aware that the RIAA is a U.S. corporation (or organisation, not sure which). However, had they issued their immunity offer in Canada, they would be breaking the law. Section 143, Advertising reward and immunity. Basically, nobody (including police officiers, though the law states 'Every one', not 'every officer') can offer a 'no questions[...] asked' advertisement whereby if you return something that has been stolen (and the RIAA would have to argue that the MP3s have been stolen, by definition), no 'interference with or inquiry about the person' (i.e. charges) will be made.
I am rather surprised that this is allowed in the U.S., assuming the RIAA really isn't committing a criminal act there.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
The only time this supposed amnesty applies to you is if RIAA hasn't already begun investigating you. Assuming this is true, why do you have to sign an amnesty document? Just stop sharing and you'll be in the clear.
I think that just highlights how stupid the whole idea is.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
"The suit ... charges that the RIAA's program is deceptive and fraudulent business practice."
Which brings us one step closer to my idea. If there are any real lawyers here, could you please tell me why no one has bothered to attack the RIAA's charges using the Federal RICO Act? The RIAA and member organizations have engaged in a pattern of corrupt business practices for over 50 years, and are now using the law to intimidate individuals, companies, and universities to further their interests.
From my (admittedly limited) understanding of RICO, you must prove that the organization has engaged in a pattern of criminal activity, and is using illegal means, especially under cover of authority (court actions, copyright law, etc) to further their interests. Now, the ongoing illegal activity is really two-fold. That being, the RIAA's member companies have illegally maintained an effective distribution monopoly by engaging in anti-competitive acts, and have conspired to defraud consumers with a massive price-fixing scheme which caused consumers to be overcharged by more than $480 million (USD) since 1997 alone, according to the former head of the FTC. This scheme was labled "Minimum-Advertised Pricing", or MAP by the Attorneys General who investigated and eventually brought about a settlement. With regard to the anti-competitive acts, the RIAA and member companies have engaged in such practices as "payola", in which radio stations were paid money in order to ensure that music not controlled by the RIAA's members was never played, and therefore never heard by the public at large. Thus, their only competition, the independent artist/label, continues to struggle to get by, while the RIAA monopoly takes in billions each year.
So I ask again, why is it that no one has attacked the RIAA on RICO grounds. A corrupt organization cannot use the legal system to facilitate its illegal activities. The lack of legal online modes of music distribution is but more evidence of the RIAA's desperate struggle to maintain its distribution monopoly with an iron fist. It would seem to me that showing these lawsuits to be nothing more than tactics designed to further the interests of a corrupt organization is a far better defense than, "my client didn't know it was illegal".
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
here
But what about the time your little girls (who have big, dewey, imploring eyes and cute little hair-bows they made themselves out of old gift ribbons) asked you: "Daaaady? How come the pirates hate us so much? We wuuuuv them!"? Don't you remember? You almost cried. Right there in front of them, and God, and everyone. But you didn't. You were strong for them. You kept it in. Then you replied: "I don't know, honey. But don't worry. With the help of the kind, gentle people at the RIAA, we'll turn them around yet. Just you wait." "Key! Thanks, daaaady!" they chirped, and scampered off, unaware of the evil pirates lurking all around them. Some might go to school with them. Some might be in their own classes. Some might -- poor little girls! -- even be friends with them. Oh, the betrayal they'll know in their sweet lives. But that was not for now. And, with any luck, the benevolent leaders at the RIAA, with a little help from plucky "little guys" like you, might -- just might -- change the world before then.
For those of you reading along, check this guy's info. Giant troll. If that's not enough to convince you, look at the home page: "http://slashdot.org/~trollback/".
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Your business model, as well as the RIAA's, has become obsolete.
Doesn't anyone have a sense of humor anymore? This has to be just about the funniest and cleverest parody I have read on here in awhile. Surely it should be modded up, as humor!
Sounds a lot like entrapment, if'n you ask me. Entrapment might not be illegal if a government agent is not involved (at least in Florida), but it's not something I'd consider an act of a honorable group. And I, for one, refuse to deal with dishonorable people... that'll hold true for groups, too.
Society as a whole is just too stupid to care that this lawsuit is legit.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Kudos to the EFF.
If I had even a penny, I'd give it to them, but being a college student and still being a college student, the bum on the streets has more money and is covered with less bullsh!t (I hate bureacracy).
MoFoQ hands the EFF his flaming torch while keeping his trusty pitchfork.
"Amnesty claims that self-incriminate. Daryl, how come we didn't think of this?"
" It's complete and total garbage. The RIAA has the right to do this amnesty program. "
[snip]
Yes, RIAA has the right to do anything they want. They're not above the law; they ARE the law (or rather, owns the law.)
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Total crapo-rama. Stop making up stories, here is the world's smallest violin playing the world's saddest song about some poor poor record store owner who sells music no one wants.
You forgot to add that some music pirates smashed your store window , TPed your house and drowned your puppy.
I know a small percentage of musicians are pro-RIAA, we have seen their disgraceful support. How many of the other musicians really know what's happening? Do they agree, but don't want to risk the PR nightmare of saying it out loud, or are they completely unaware of the war that is being fought? What we need is some prominent artist(s) to come out and openly defy the RIAA, someone with enough oomph in the industry that the RIAA couldn't squash them. Who might be willing?
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Comment removed based on user account deletion
American companies always look for government help to protect their failing business models. The growth of independent labels is phenominal and helped in no small part by the internet and the ability to listen to songs before buying the CDs: cdbaby.com being a prime example. Long ago, the seven single fulfilled this preview purpose - we don't have that anymore. Since the RIAA and its members refuse to accept the new technology, they are losing out - well, good riddence...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it pretty much legally impossible to "sign away" your right to sue someone? I'm sure the RIAA knows this. Hardly anyone else does, though.
Teller was somewhat evil. His gung-ho devotion to nukes and SDI, and, more importantly his conflict with Oppenheimer, show that distinctly.
And here I thought the RIAA was all sweetness and light and Hillary Rosen (Yes, I know she's not associated with them anymore, but this mental image doesn't work with anyone else) would come down in a tight spandex Tinkerbell costume and wash all my sins away! Boy, I almost got taken in, glad you guys were there to save me!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?"..."That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back.""
1. What "...basic rules of society" are you following?
2. What's the name of your record store so I know where NOT to shop for music.
P.S. If this is how you behave in the professional world, I hope your business fails.
"Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space..."
Omission of information may or may not be a "crime" (which is not the issue here, but may be an issue for another day). However, ommission of information (i.e., the willful suppression or failure to disclose a relevant fact) can give rise to civil action for fraud or willful misrepresentation.
California Civil Code sec. 1709 provides:
See Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1709.
Most importantly, section 1710 of the California Civil Code provides:
See Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1710. (emphasis added)
Finally, section 1711 of the California Civil Code provides:
See Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1711
Without reading the compalint (which to my knowledge is not yet available), my guess is the plaintiff alleges that the RIAA amnesty program amounts to a deceptive and fraudulent business practice because it suppresses or fails to disclose certain relevant facts (e.g., that the person seeking amnesty can still be sued by others and is still subject to criminal prosecution) while giving "information of other facts which are likely to mislead for want of communication of that fact." See Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1710(3). The complaint may cite more specific unfair business practices statutes, which are found in the Business and Professions Code, but the basic principal is the same.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
if it is a free sample or just a free public domain content. And I don't have to do any investigation by myself. Instead, I have to be informed about any legal nature of the content at the moment I've tried to download the content.
Exactly. That is why I only shoplift at stores that do not have that pesky 'Shoplifters will be prosecuted' sign.
Um, no. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. Distributing copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright owner, whether you know you are doing it or not, is certainly copyright infringement (civil) and if certain thresholds are met it is also criminal. Ignorance may play a part in penalty or settlement.
The issue with P2P is not whether or not it is legal to download or redistribute the (copyrighted) files. That's simple, it isn't. There's a variety of issues, including the fact that the laws are unjust and counter-productive, the despicable RIAA tactics, the business model of RIAA and member companies, monopolies, and how the RIAA and music industry treat artists and consumers, to name but a few.
But there is a useful point hidden in your message. I've always wondered whether downloading a song is in fact illegal. Certainly making it available (distributing) is illegal, and that's about the only way the RIAA can catch you, by finding copyrighted songs available on your computer. I know the copyright laws talk about distribution, but I'm not clear on what they say about accepting illegally distributed copyrighted materials (consuming). Can they even really catch you downloading?
As far as I know, with P2P you can't see who is downloading unless they are downloading from you. So the only way the RIAA can see you downloading is if you download from one of their computers, which would either be legal (if they have the copyright to distribute the songs) or they'd be breaking the law themselves (distributing the songs without proper copyright authorization).
The plural of Ninja, is Ninja.
You have dishonored yourself.
To regain your honor, you must sing the Ninja song.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"I'm sorry officer you can't arrest me. That stuff I stole wasn't marked as anyones. I thought it was just public domain."
Yeah right... get real they're not going after you for downloading...they're going after you because you have in your possession STOLEN GOODS! Consider downloading P2P music as buying goods out of the back of some guys van. It may very well be stolen property. And let's not kid ourselves. You knew it wasnt kosher to begin with. We're not so naive to think these songs were just free for anyone to take. We all knew we were violating copyright law... but there was just no one watching us. Now, mother has caught us with our hand in the cookie jar. Face facts, downloading music on the web just isnt legal... unless you own the CD right?
Right now. Seek professional help. You are an insignificant owner of a small Christian music store, you probably have a soft middle-aged belly, drive a minivan, and practice voices at yourself when you're alone. And you are married to a frigid wife who finds you repulsive.
And you are not Dirty Harry. Fantasy is OK, just keep the line between fantasy and reality distinct.
So ask yourself this: would Jesus grab a kid by the shirt and talk like Dirty Harry? Well, would he, punk?! I didn't think so...
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
So the only way the RIAA can see you downloading is if you download from one of their computers,...
This conclusion doesn't follow. For example, if they identified a server, they could plop a court order on the ISP to set up observation, and collect all the "downloaders" that way.
C//
Program Details Affidavit Details
They should've waited until AFTER someone was sued due to the fact that that hasn't happend. might not hold well in court as a "could of".
fact: microsoft > linux
Not to mention the fact that going after downloaders in general is illegal and even unconstitutional.
Both of these statements are false. The courts have already ruled that a "downloader" is actually a first party to the generation of any electronic copy. It's actionable. And it's hardly "unconstitutional".
C//
I'm doing my part, I have a chat at http://www.delphiforums.com That talks About
the RIAA and how out of hand they are now. You will see RIAA in the Main Chat for 7 pm Till 9 pm
est... Feel free to drop by. I'm on now, the delphiforums is called The Nut House.
12 year old girls getting sued, give me a break.
It is painfully obvious that the RIAA is in desperate straights and jumping on any idea that involkes fear in their ex-customers.
.99 downloads per song with no protection schemes
What I cannot figure out is how they simply ignore what they are doing to their (ex)customers. Not only are they alienating their long time customers but they are also alienating the next generation of customers. Even if this entire p2p quagmire is eventually solved they will still have to deal with the monkey wrench they threw into their business dealings.
I think it's safe to say that they are past the point of no return. They feel that they are losing too much to give a damn so they are rolling the dice on their scare tactics. The music industry as it was has ceast to exist. It's just an old horse that refuses to die but will eventually meet it's fate whether it wants to or not.
I think the music industry will survive but in another form and in a much smaller way. No longer will they be able to push certain artists on a consistent basis while ignoring the majority. If they actually listened to what their (ex)customers are saying then they would be completely enlightened to what's wanted in this day and age.
1)9.99 and under pricing
2)Under
3)The ability to transfer whatever you download to any device at anytime without fear of being called a criminal and sued to financial ruin
4)The ability to pay a fair fee for unlimited downloads of different music catalogs
5)To have the RIAA and the companies it represents actually listen to consumers and what they want instead of trying to sue them into being customers.
6)A written guarantee and promise to keep cd pricing low with no future collusion/price fixing. Cd's and their future derivatives must stay below $9.99 unless it is independently studied and verified that a newer standard costs more.
7)A Major FUCKING apology to those who were made an example of and possibly some form of restitution to those who's lives were seriously impacted.
That's fair and that's not a mountain to overcome.
To sum it up....
If the RIAA is to stay in business then they can either listen and come to the table and work with the consumer or the RIAA can continue to thumb their nose at all of us and ignore what we want. If they choose to ignore then they will never be able to recoup their loses and we are the ones who can control that.
So RIAA whatcha gonna do?
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Man, if you are for real, it's no wonder you're losing business.
:
First off, the conversation you "overheard"...WTF??? No one, anywhere in the entire history of computing has ever said, "Yeah, dude, that's really lete, you'll get lots of respect." in regards to adding files to a P2P network. To get lots of respect means you have to get people to know something is the result of your actions. There is no IRC channel, or newsgroup where you can go and brag, "hey, respect me! I just uploaded Christian rock songs on the P2P!!" And, I guarantee no one who uses words like "lete" respects some one who uploads Christian rock!
This evening, my daughters asked me. "Why do the other kids laugh at us?" I wanted to tell them the truth - it's because they wear old clothes and have cheap haircuts. I can't afford anything better for them right now. "It's because they are idiots, kids", I told them. "Don't listen to them." When the kids went to bed, my wife asked me, "Will we be able to keep the house, David?" I just shook my head, and tried to hold back the tears. "I don't know, Jenny. I don't know." When my girls ask me questions like that, I feel like my heart is being wrenched out of my chest. But knowing that I'm doing the best I can to save my family and my business is some consolation.
Give me a fucking break! This entire passage sounds almost word for word like some SPAM email that made the rounds a few years ago, trying to get pity donations sent to someone. If this is true, why don't you tell the kids the truth? Maybe they will quit downloading songs off KaZaa while you are at work. Kids CAN handle the truth you know. My dad was a school teacher, and mom didn't work, so I myself had to wear old clothes, and my dad cut my hair. Big deal. No one laughed at me. I even knew why I had to wear old clothes, and to this day, I see no reason to spend $15.00 on a haircut that looks no different than the haircut my wife gives me.
My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
You say this, and you say
People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase records without profanity or violent lyrics.
But, you talk this way to your customers:
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked.
and you think in terms of:
I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
And, you are:...inspired by artists such as Metallica that have taken a stand against the powerful pirate lobby.
Pirate lobby!?! WTF? I've never heard of a lobby of pirates.
Maybe your business is dropping off because your words and actions do not reflect the wares you are peddling.
And finally,
Once we know the size of the problem, the police and other law enforcement agencies will be forced to take piracy seriously. They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?
They have fought the war on drugs with skill, eh? Do you know what the number one cash crop in America is? Marijuana, to the tune of many billions of dollars. As an aside, marijuana is illegal to use, distribute, grow, possess, or any thing to do with it. Now, if they fight the "War on Piracy" with the skill they've fought the "War on Drugs"; downloading your precious Christian rock and family tunes that contain no profanity will be an illegal act, however, it will also be the most popular thing since marijuana use!
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
I hope they sue some indie artist who has his own music up on P2P networks...and get slapped with a malicious prosecution lawsuit, or worse, right back.
Courts don't take kindly to malicious prosecution...
In A.D. 2003 ....
War was beginning
Teenager1: What happen?
Teenager2: Somebody set up us the P2P sniffer.
Teenager3: We get e-mail.
Teenager1: What!
Teenager3: Main mail client turn on.
RIAA: How are you gentlemen!
RIAA: All your MP3 are belong to us.
RIAA: You are on the way to bankruptcy.
Teenager1: What you say!
RIAA: You have no chance to pay us make your time.
RIAA: HA HA HA HA
Teenager1: Take off every share!
Teenager2: You know what you doing.
Teenager1: Move share.
Teenager1: For great lawsuit.
That's the 'deceptive' part of false and deceptive advertising. The question is: what would a normal reasonable person think? If a normal reasonable person would think they were offering a real deal here and they haven't then they are screwed.
I'd like to be on the jury...
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
Don't believe the CRIA friendly 'levy' can actually protect you. It is nothing but an attempt to extort money from people who have nothing to do with copyright violation, and the 'compensations' only feeds the already rich 'content producers' (ie labels) by robbing every artist who do all the hard work, if the dumb contracts didn't already bleeding them dry. BOYCOTT BLANK MEDIA LEVY!!! Don't just write to politicians, start going to the door step and harass every bastard who support the law!
Head of Music Gestapo, Amy Weiss, is giving Fascism a bad name. Using the tools of law as weapons she is hicking down doors (Verison), using terrorism to intimate, and finally extorting monies from innocent-to-fairly-innocent American citizens. Then using entrapment(phony amnesty) to extorting more. Whoa...Goebbels has got to be jealous sitting in his grave.
"The music industry has raised the average price per unit of its recordings by 16% since 1999, but the market has responded by purchasing 26% less units. This has resulted in a net 14% drop of revenue for the industry."
I'm not sure why the blatantly obvious causality of raising prices resulting in fewer units purchased by the market is ignored by the Economist's phrasing. My phrasing puts all of the blame on the price raises, while I expect the truth is that there are other factors... but no one who's taken even an introductory economics course should assume that the amount of a product demanded is independent of the price of the item. This is a particularly bad assumption for a non-necessary good like music recordings.
I have one here, was one of the funniest lifts I did. I was bored, waiting for a bus. Saw the sign (on the inside of the main window) and just had to have it.
In fact it says "All Purchases Must Be Paid For"
Which I thought was stupid. If I stole it then it's not a purchase so therefore it says "steal here for free".
Which is true. I used to take my dinner from there on the way home.
Gotta love it.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75555&cid=6754 802
and it doesn't hardly seem to be the same person.
Busted.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Robert Fripp said it the best "Music and the music industry have nothing to do with each other." This persuasion, featured in RIAA propaganda, and held by some people(guy who ran "family" record store?), that somehow by downloading songs you won't have any music to enjoy is just stupefying. Even if all the major labels went out of business the consumer would not be negatively affected. The internet with all its file-sharing realms would still be there, and no-doubt better then ever. And new music would still fill these realms. Artists make art because that's what they do. It has nothing to do with profit to them. They would be making art no matter what. If anything, it just opens up the average consumer to more artistically inclined music; they're better off.
I want to get a copy of this thing they want you to fill out, but no links so far.
(No, I'm not going to fill it out... I have other plans)
This space available.
You know they have a point ...why should the avarage person be able to just download music they like nooo they must pay 20 bucks for a freaking cd of just 10-18 songs half of which they cant stand...oh wait i mean they are just being asses now i can see suing the people who SELL the music but just TRADING songs is like letting a friend borrow a cd then getting sued for it ugh....moronic
3y3 c4|\| |\|0t u|\|d3rs74nd j00
The RICO statutes were originally created to provide a legal framework for going after organized crime based on a pattern of illegal activities rather than just one single individual illegal action. This was effective because the pattern of crimilality was often obvious and easy to establish based on the money trail, tax code violations, murders and assaults, etc. while the specific individual crimes were difficult to prosecute due to intimidation of witnesses and a general lack of evidence connecting a specific perpetrator to a crime. The most famous example of this was the conviction of Al Capone for income tax violations where the government was able to show that Capone had spent millions of dollars but had never paid a dime of income tax.
What is ironic is that organized crime has been heavily involved in the music business for many years through their control of the associated unions, talent-booking agencies, radio outlets, performance venues, and ticketing. They may even be behind the RIAA.
Like what if you never downloaded anythnig, and sent in the stuff anyway? I can't seem to find the document that you have to sign, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen in this case.
Thats where I live!. Makes me proud! I was just thinking last night when is someone going to fight back. I knew the RIAA had to be doing something wrong in the eyes of the law.
My karma is getting better everyday.
if he/she downloads something of less the CD Quailty ? 35kbs is a far cry then over 400 kbs sample rate or or the mp3 skips , farts or has even been put on the kids system BY the RIAA ? If They Know who you are they can load your system. Anyway I have a chat site to talk about this http://www.delphiforums.com My forum is the nut house, come chat, you can't miss, my site, hope I don't SOUND LIKE A BROKEN RECORD.....
"Exactly. That is why I only shoplift at stores that do not have that pesky 'Shoplifters will be prosecuted' sign."
I really don't like when comments like this are modded up. These oversimplified metaphors are not useful. It's like when Valenti likened having backup copies of music to recieving a replacement lawn mower after it has been run over. Did he make a startling point, or did he give his enemies reason to think "Is this man an idiot? There's nothing similar about..."?
I'd love to hear what Frank Zappa would be saying now. I'm sure it isn't to different to what he has always been saying. Too bad he's gone the the big "Joe's Garage in the Sky." He'd be lighting a nice little fire under some RIAA peoples. If nothing else, he'd be throwing out some great musical commentary. **sigh** I miss him.
To answer your question of who might be willing... I don't know if anyone is willing today. For someone to have the "oomph" required, they would have to be a child of the RIAA and people in the entertainment industry tend not to bite hands that feed of have fed them.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
These oversimplified metaphors are not useful.
Neither is the convulted logic in the original post (which is why it is now at -1) Perhaps the post should be modded as funny, but it makes light of the faulty logic of the parent so maybe it could be considered insightful.
The court was wrong if it was applied to the person who did not know that the file is copyrighted. The court decision was unconstitutional and must be defended.
Less is more !
The accepted political tactic of answering "I do not recall" to any, and all questions.
Actually, there are many companies that let you do something as crazy as Valenti's lawnmower story. You can generally return products to companies like Target, Land's End, or Nordstrom without argument. In the case of Nordstrom I once returned a sportcoat my son wore only once because he outgrew it within three months. I once had a Land's End phone rep encourage me to exchange a briefcase after a year because it was fraying in some areas and "it should have worn better than that."
If you think about it, the cost of good customer service to the recording industry would be almost nothing. Why don't they make an ironclad guarantee that anyone who presented at least 51% of a damaged CD or DVD--no matter how old--would be given a new copy? Wouldn't that help to reduce the need for backup copies?
Warez sites attempted to use a bit of legal mumbo jumbo that basically says "by entering this site you agree not to sue." I don't believe that's ever held up in court. Sites that actually carry warez tend to resort to using technical means to cover their asses and not legally questionable agreements. Kazaa is demonstrating it's value in that area.
However that's telling me I can't sue them. The RIAA is (possibly pretending) to have you sign something so THEY won't sue you. Basically it's a legal document to restrain themselves under specific guidlines. Not for you to restain yourself other than by stopping your illegal activity.
It's perfectly reasonable for me to remove my own right to sue. That's my choice. I can deny myself free speech as well and censor everything I say. I can also deny myself a gun or any other number of things.
There's nothing wrong with the concept of what they're doing as far as "right to sue" but how they've worded their agreement and how they're selling their agreement appear to be the hot issue. And that's far more relavent anyway.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I never said that I, as a downloader, ignore the law. I said that the law must not be applicable to my actions in circumstances I mentioned previously and bellow.
It's like arresting me for possessing the money I found on the street, which was left by rubbers there when they were running away from cops. The court may insist I return money, but they cannot arrest me for the fact I picked them up.
Distributing copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright owner, whether you know you are doing it or not, is certainly copyright infringement (civil)
The content I found on the web has not been marked as copyrighted. Therefore i am not the person who broke the law. Whoever ORIGINALLY published the copyrighted materials is the one who broke the law.
If the court (or even RIAA) will notify me that I poses LEAKED copyrighted materials then of course I agree to remove such materials. But I did not do anything that should be punished.
Another practical point that is yet highlighted is that if RIAA wants me aware about copyrighteness of any content I download from Internet they have to make publicly and freely available some mechanism where I can check the content for legitimateness of being copied.
It can be a web site where I can upload the whole file (well, the bandwidth is not free anyway) or it's checksum.
Without such mechanism RIAA has no way to prove that I downloaded a copyrighted material knowing that it is copyrighted. And it THEIR job to prove it, not mine. Otherwise the whole constitution is just screwed up.
Less is more !
..another company in the news lately. Anyone heard of SCO?
I haven't read this anywhere so maybe one of you "experts" can enlighten me. Are the artists getting all of this money back...and how do they determine which artist gets the money if they are giving it back to the artist. Also what is the cut (if any) that the RIAA is getting.
Back in the old days you could download all the mp3's you could handle from little known artists trying to get a foot in the door. I have not been there in a long time but I see it's now populated by all the big names in the business and it's hard to find unsigned artists at the top of any of the charts. All the big names have done to MP3.com is use it to advertise their songs.
But there's still an MP3 of There's a Girl at the Deli on Oliver Brown's IUMA page. It's one of my favorite pieces of his, actually.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Back in the Old days the Record Companys push little 12 year old girls to screw band members, Now the RIAA/Record Companys want to cut the perk out of that for the artist too and screw 12 year old little girls themselfes....
Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh. That was cool!
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Depending on the state, maybe. Honeypots are becomeing illegal in various parts of the united states.
Does the RIAA really think that anything they've done lately is actually going to BOOST CD sales? Can they really think that?
I have yet to actually see the amnesty agreement. Is it publicly available. If so, where? If not, how did this guy get a copy?
Vote for Pedro
With all these law suits going on, it's becoming financially prohibitive to steal MP3's for free over the P2P networks. In fact, it's cheaper to walk into a store and steal a CD. What's the worst that can happen? You get caught shoplifting, and you have to pay $500 bail? This brings me to another point - If you stole a CD, would the RIAA hunt you down and sue you for $150,000 per song? 18 Tracks of mindless drivel multiplied by $150,000 is $2.7 million. If they're going to sue you for that much, they should at least let you keep the music.
The RIAA is proud of:
1. the decline in perceived value of manufacturing and distribution
2. the decline of musicality
3. the disillusionment of many top-notch artists
4. the pollution of young children
5. the sexual exploitation of young women such as Britney Spears
6. the decline in quality and usefulness of liner notes
7. the decline of cover art
and
8. making thugs into multi-millionaires.
In a just world, their dollar sales would not be slipping.
[Note for readers of English as a second language: Taken literally, the
statements above are nonsense. They are intended to be taken in a
satirical or ironic sense, as a commmentary on the absurd record
industry claim that sales are dropping because of "Internet piracy",
suggesting that there are abundant other reasons, reasons which may
ultimately lead to much worse declines in sales.
]
for that, I wonder? It makes me sick the personal freedom was not respected to an underage 12 year old little girl. They did decide to pay , I guess I was too if the mafia was at my door, Hmm. the bounds of the DMA is too far reaching and because it has no limits , can be found to wide in scope.
It got knocked down to $2,000.
See, I find this part of the law distasteful. If someone is breaking the law, you should be required to minimize your losses. In this case, minimizing the losses would require taking down "illegal" servers. If you allowed an "illegal" server to stay active but instead logged all traffic to and from it, I think that should be considered implict permission for that server to operate.
Similar things apply to the SCO "case". If their IP is valuable and is in the kernel, then they should either publish "their" code (remember, it's copyrighted, so they don't lose any rights by publishing it in a limited manner) or simply take the Linux kernel themselves, remove "their" code, and release a "cleaned" kernel. Failure to take either option should immediately cause their monetary losses to be $0. (Not that they still couldn't go after IBM or SGI et al for contributing the code.)
(And, as always, IANAL.)
And then we nuke Mecca, Medina, and any other target they value. It was, is, and always will be a religious war. It's the 21st Century version of what's been going on for hundreds of years. It's Islam vs. everybody else on the planet. An expanded war will mean the end of Islam.
... was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases..
But then again, I doubt anyone here likes to read beyond the frist sentence for anything that dissagrees with the "Free MP3Z!" mentality.
"Actually, there are many companies that let you do something as crazy as Valenti's lawnmower story. "
When I bought my Nintendo 64, I paid $30 for a warranty like that. They said I could drive over it and still get a replacement heh. In retrospect, the warranty was a waste of money. The motivating factor in getting it was the analog controls, had no idea how long those would last.
The reason I picked on Valenti on this one was because his choice of rebuttals. The main problem with it is that when somebody burns a copy of a CD or downloads Mp3s, the RIAA suffers absolutely no direct expense from it. You're not using their media, you're not using their internet bits, you're not even using their electricity. So, in Mr. Valenti's case, he's saying I'm not allowed to buy a lawn mower and then, using this one as reference, build a duplicate one with my own resources. If it were being asked of the RIAA to make backups available for the consumer, well that'd be a different story.
Which leads to this point:
"Why don't they make an ironclad guarantee that anyone who presented at least 51% of a damaged CD or DVD--no matter how old--would be given a new copy? "
They should be doing that. They absolutely should be doing that. But since they don't do that, it makes one wonder how they're supposed to know they're buying a license to listen to music, not a pretty CD with music on it. Grr.
It seems that the Record Industry has forgotten that sales are dependent on both product and service. Customers'll come buy your stuff, but you still need to treat them good. Soft drink companies come to mind. They produce a consumable. You can get them anywhere, often times without any sort of human interaction what soever. Yet, they still make you glad to be a customer. Sometimes they give away prizes. Sometimes they entertain you with amusing commercials. (well, Coke moreso than Pepsi) Sometimes they even respond to supply and demand. Buy 12 cans of Coke, pay less per oz. than you'd pay for one can of Coke. I don't think softdrink companies could get away with demanding that customers only buy 24 packs at a time. No single can for you.
...and at least somewhat offtopic.
OK. So I download an album from the internet that I Do Not Own. It is horrible and illegal and for this I will burn in hell, etc. etc. etc. Now, the argument behind this, supposedly, is that I have not paid for and asserted ownership over the material, and (presumably) the RIAA/Artist/ASCAP hasn't received any money. And they're not happy. And thus I am infringing and rightly in the Wrong.
Say I acquire the CD. I buy it used, even (heaven forbid) at a garage sale. I pay $1.99 for it.
I realize that now I am "allowed" to have these MP3s, and to do with them whatever I please...perhaps I will rub them all over myself gleefully. But *why* exactly? I understand the first sale doctrine and how it works, but I still haven't enriched anybody. My owning the CD certainly hasn't contributed to the flow of royalties. Presumably the original owner no longer has a copy, so this is all kosher, but it's still an odd way to thing about conferring "rights to have." No royalties have entered the chain, but suddenly I'm immune and (more importantly) an Honest, Moral Being.
As at least 70% of my CD collection is secondhand at this point, it's fascinating to think that while I certainly don't contribute to anybody's revenue flow by downloading albums, I *still* don't tend to profit the artist/record co/etc. if I do indeed deem something worthy of my all-purchasing eye.
Again, just a thought/musing/whathaveya.
Yeah! And UDMA is even worse! I hear those pinko Linux bastards have UDMA5!
:)
I bet even stupid Macs have it!
DoWN WiTH The DMA!!!!
Fellowship 9/11
...and pay IUMA.COM a visit. Plenty of good tunes there...much of which is better than the garbage coming out c/o those bastards at the RIAA in the first place. Many of the independent and underground bands on IUMA offer their own CDs for sale. Let's support the little guy and let those other ass-clowns burn in the hell they've created for themselves!!
Step 1. Get lawyer who will work on contingency. Step 2. Put name on the list with a LOT of songs being distributed. Step 3. Wait until RIAA sues you. Step 4. Countersue for fraud or if that doesn't work some frivolous counterpart. Be sure to include mental and emotional anguish. Easy money
Green Monkey san
Shoplifting is ALWAYS illegal: in EVERY store, EVERY item. Oppositely, 90% of the internet content you can find using Google is LEGALLY free. Try again.
Less is more !
I submitted this as a story, but who knows if it'll get accepted? So I'm posting it here.
;)
I'm just as sick of this RIAA nonsense as the rest of you. Here's what I'm doing about it. I had this idea for a t-shirt, and I decided it would be coolest to just put it up on Cafepress and donate the profits to the EFF. So that's what I did.
The shirt is based on the real pirate Bartholomew Roberts' -- aka Black Bart -- flag (one of them), which originally had the letters ABH (a Barbadian's head) and AMH (a Martinican's head) on it. He didn't like those places much, since he was wanted for piracy there, much more aggressively than anywhere else.
I should make it clear that I'm not affiliated with the EFF in any way. I'll just be donating ALL the profits ($5 per item, except for the stickers and mousepad, which generate $2.50 profit) to the EFF as I get checks from Cafepress (in $50 increments, is what they say). No, there's no accountability -- you'll simply have to trust me. I'm just a geek trying to do something good.
In the case of someone getting sued that I feel really got screwed (like Brianna LaHara), I'll be donating the money directly to their paypal recovery fund (assuming they have one) instead of the EFF. As soon as my Cafepress account shows some sales, I'll post the progress on my website, with full disclosure (# of sales, total profits, where they went).
Feel free to post your opinion if you think I'm being too naive -- I'll get screwed by taxes for not filling out some form or something -- but I trust you'll do that anyway
c-hack.com |
And then we nuke Mecca, Medina, and any other target they value. It was, is, and always will be a religious war. It's the 21st Century version of what's been going on for hundreds of years. It's Islam vs. everybody else on the planet. An expanded war will mean the end of Islam.
Good plan... that should fix everything up real neat and tidy.
The court was wrong if it was applied to the person who did not know that the file is copyrighted.
The ruling of the court wasn't so much regarding cognizance of the event, which is always salient, but rather that in engaging your computer in a "download" you are actually first party to a creation of a copy. IOW, someone who requests a download is a proactive copier, not a passive receiver.
The court decision was unconstitutional...
Citation?
C//
12 year old girls getting sued, give me a break.
Time for a little FUD.
12 year old girl sued for posessing RIAA music. Mom settles for $2000.
Possessing RIAA music is illegal.
The content I found on the web has not been marked as copyrighted. Therefore i am not the person who broke the law. Whoever ORIGINALLY published the copyrighted materials is the one who broke the law.
It doesn't matter.
Distributing copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright owner, whether you know you are doing it or not, is certainly copyright infringement (civil)
It doesn't matter that there was no sign telling you that it was copyrighted, it still is. It doesn't matter that you don't know, you are still infringing on th copyright. Both you and whoever originally copied the work, are infringing on the copyright.
There is no such thing as "leaked" copyrighted materials. There is just plain copyright with no mitigating factors.
Don't believe you have the right to distribute any copyrighted material (i.e., any material that is not trivial) without the consent of the copyright holder, preferably in writing. (Usual disclaimers for fair use)
1. Mirror hard drives
2. Lock away drive with 5000 mpeg's in lockbox
x.x Use when necessary.
You're probably one of those idiots who say stupid things like "Great white bird of the galaxy".
Cripes. Roddenberry was mostly known for screwing every chick on the set of star trek (which is how the women got their jobs on that show).
>sigh<
Okay, class. Say it with me:
"Copyright infringement is not property theft."
"Copyright infringement is not property theft."
"Copyright infringement is not property theft."
Say it enough and maybe it will sink in.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
"I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of."
So you're saying what... that people who listen to christian rock are thieves?
Do you realize how stupid you sound?
Oh, and there's no such thing as christian rock. Do you know what "Rock and Roll" is slang for? S-E-X! It came from an old blues saying. Rock and Roll is really about sex 'n drugs.
So let me get this straight....
You bought a record store that was doing okay, changed it to some sucky format just as an economic boom started, then when we had a recession/depression, nobody was interested is "suck" music, and so its "pirates" to blame?
Let me say a prayer for you:
"Dear Jesus, I know when you made this moron, your hand must've slipped on the magic wand. Please take him back. A bolt of lightening, cancer...I don't care. Just get rid of him. In Thigh name we prey. Ah, men!"
How is one to know whether something is under copyright or not? I couldn't care less about the current offerings of the music industry, but I might be interested in an old recording of Robert Johnson blues or an old but outstanding recording of a Verdi opera. All the composers and performers are certainly dead. I think--but don't really know--that performances themselves are subject to copyright. Is that true? There must be *something* out there that the RIAA has no claim on, but how is one to know?
If you were girl and had a husband 100 pounds overweight, bald, and smelly, would you just love for his to crawl on you with his 4" dick and poke around for 30 seconds until he made a mess? Or would you suddenly become "frigid".
Think it through.
...that the DVDs have content beyond the movie. Companies actually make an effort with the DVD to sell you something you feel like owning. In many cases the 'bonus' material is a significant quantity of work. Lord of the Rings is a good example. The fact that people appreciate this stuff is reflected in the sales.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
And what the RIAA etc want to protect.
Specifically Bowie already has his money.
I am surprised this has not come up before... Downloading kills back catalog bond deals.
http://www.pullmanco.com/article136.htm
"Pullman had helped assemble for David Bowie the first-ever securitization of a music artist's royalties. The sale of those Bowie Bonds in 1997 gave Bowie $55 million upfront; in exchange, the buyer of the bonds had the right to receive the future revenue generated by Bowie's catalog until the principal plus 8% interest was repaid. "
Other bands have done similar deals.
How do you do bond deals ($ for lawyers/bankers/deal makers) if people are downloading the stuff? Specifically would you "lend" money to an artist against a future revenue stream that may be completely demolished? Perhaps but not at an effective interest rate agreeable to the artist/copyright holder.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
At what price does the RIAA put on their IP? Expecially IP that is inferior to the original. If they are claiming the violation is worth full market value, this is ludicrious. This would be akeen to buying a car with parts missing. Just like an MP3 has parts missing.
Sure, one can find music compressed in the lossless .shn format, but not generally "illegal" music.
My point here is the RIAA should not even bother. Sure, many people don't care about prestine CD quality, but a lot of people do (and the better the car stereo, the worse MP3s sound).
This tends to help the augument that P2P services are actually doing the RIAA a free and helpful promotional service.
Village people's YMCA spoof
--- root@127.0.0.1
It is!?? Then WTF am I doing with all these CDs I've bought in the last 10 years?
But it's not like your average kazaa user to say "Yarrr."
Throughout history greedy men have sought power and wealth by bleeding it out of the masses...either in forms of Military conquest (Hitler,Napoleon) or in oppression (King George,Louis XVI, Stalin, Mao Sa Tung)or in forms of collasal business (Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie)This is merely another affront on our liberties...the RIAA is using the ambiguity of the internet and threats of high-priced lawyers to bully us into paying them for nothing. I say those who are sued should fight the suits...drag them out as long as possible and (if enough people do it) we will slowly bleed the tyrants dry. For as history indicates any law that is unpopular is also impossible to enforce (Embargo act of 1806, Fugitive Slave Act, Prohibition) And once again we, the common citizens of the glorious United States of America, are called to arms and instead of muskets and cannon we shall use the power of the dollar and the will of the masses to once again thwart the power of the tyrants. Best of luck to all those in the clutches of the RIAA lawsuits. Godspeed and goodluck.
As Rudyard Kipling so aptly phrased it in _Stalky_&_Co_, "It seems -- and who so astonished as they? -- that they had held back material facts; were guilty both of_suppressio_veri_ and _suggestio_falsi_ (well-known gods against whom they often offended); further, that they were malignant in their dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, pernicious and revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the devils of wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit."
Jeff
6. ???
7. Profit!
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
I say lets pull a theft by deception on the artists. 15-20 dollars for 12-14 tracks on a CD, most of which are filler. See what the RIAA has to say about that
Now would someone please do the same to SCO?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah HeeheehehheheeeeheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeHaaha!
I used to work at Radio Shack and would sell the Extended Service Plan (ESP) on telephones by telling the customer that if they got pissed while talking to their girlfriend and smashed the phone on the wall, we would replace it no sweat. We would too.
S.M.A.C.K.D.O.W.N!!!!![1]
Consider yourself served. Ten yard penalty, automatic first down, universe no longer a grape.
I win because I say so.[2]
[1] Five exclamation marks,"!", are one of the classical signs of a truly deranged mind.
[2] You can argue if you want to, but you'd simply be perpetuating nonsense and silliness, which I simply can't allow myself to get involved with.
-
Because I Can.
why can't everybody see that the whole "intellectual property" is a complete fraud. you just cant sell information or ideas or anything immaterial. it just don't work out. The whole commerce thing evolved from stoneage exchange of goods as in: "i have too much meat, you have to much vegetable, lets exchange a part of it and be done with tose transit troubles." then some chinese goof introduced paper money. the trick is: it just dont work with ideas: "i have a great idea, you are dumb as rock, but hey you've got money: i give you my idea and you give me your money" the catch is: now you have the idea, and i have your money BUT I STILL HAVE THE IDEA AND CAN SELL IT AGAIN BWAHAHAHAHA So, if i buy windows from bill gates, i become the owner of windows, and bill gates better stop making copies of it, since he no longer owns it. It all boil downs to this: IP, licenses, patents, moral rights... its all a fraud.
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
of course it is legal to download.
its illegal to put it up for download or share it further.
you think you can be sued by the books publisher for reading a newspaper that quoted an unreasonably large part of a book?
> It doesn't matter.
/RS
uh ok. thats a well reasoned rebuttal.
>It doesn't matter that there was no sign telling you that it was copyrighted, it still is.
that part is true
>It doesn't matter that you don't know, you are
>still infringing on th copyright.
bs. copyright is the exclusive right to DISTRIBUTE, not read or download or listen to.
>Don't believe you have the right to distribute
>any copyrighted material (i.e., any material that
>is not trivial) without the consent of the
>copyright holder, preferably in writing. (Usual
>disclaimers for fair use)
what does this have to do with downloading?
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-122302 46,00.html
1 9_ robbie.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/news/chartnews/0301
No worries, I usually get mine from suppliers in military labs in various oil countries, I can probably set you up for some too if you want. If you need lots, I'm sure we can find out how you can make your own.
Six sick
see if you can follow my bizarre circular logic: [blah blah blah]
That logic is not circular.
Nor is it rectangular, oblong, or triangular.
It is not ovoid, or spherical, or hypercuboidal.
It is not even logic.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Eek!
That was supposed to be anonymous.
Please ignore the words between "by" and "on" in the parent post.
California Civil Code sec. 1709 provides:
1709. One who willfully deceives another with intent to induce him to alter his position to his injury or risk, is liable for any damage which he thereby suffers.
so this makes Microsoft Products Illegal in California?
Hell it should apply to every EULA I have ever read.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
At the moment of downloading of the contenet I have no phisical way to learn what is the content and what is its copyrightness. But even after I still have no such way. Therefore the decision to treat me as a proactive downloader is forcing me to abandon the use of Internet, except few (very few, perhaps just 1% of a whole internet) sites where the publisher explicitly inform about the copyrights of the content, such decision is treatening my constitutional right of freedom to use 99% of internet. Therefore such decision is unconstitutional.
Less is more !
What you are saying is wrong. And a court decision saying that PASSIVE downloading of unknownly copyrighted content will be treating the constititutional right of using Internet as 99% of freely availble content on Internet is free from copyrights or legal for being downloaded.
The judge who doesn't know what Internet is is not bothering me. People like you, passively slaving RIAA, that what is annoying me too much.
Less is more !
Joseph Stalin once famously said: "Tell a big lie enough times and it becomes the truth."
Well, the trend today is to make someone else responsible for your doings, like in suing the makers of Grand Theft Auto when some nutty kids get hold of loaded guns and shoot at passing drivers.
Music has always been held responsible by certain parts of the society, which we will for simplicities sake call the establishment, for failings in the youth of today.
So, we can just blame P2P filesharing on today`s music and maybe get the RIAA to sue themselves. Problem solved with minimum inconvenience all round.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
I'm sorry for this as it's completely off-topic, and I don't mean to make light of a serious issue.
However, I just have to ask if I'm the only one who when seeing "Black Bart" immediately thought of those "Air Bart" shirts that were around in the early 90's with a black Bart Simpson on them?
I looked for a picture on the net somewhere, but it seems that FOX's lawyers have been pretty dilligent...
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Williams has gone on record as saying that he has no problem with people filesharing his stuff. PR flacks from his label (he recently signed an $80 million deal with EMI) were somewhat tight-lipped in response but didn't upbraid him (publicly at least).
Of course RW hasn't broken the US market so the RIAA probably regard him as some kind of granola throwing hippie independant rather than a proper artist like Lars Ulrich.
Regards
Luke
#include witty_one_liner.h
Hea also mentioned in that interview:
Valenti: I go on Kazaa every week just to see what's happening. And by the way, they were swapping 850 million files. And a lot of it was pornography, some of it was music, but a lot of it was films.
Therefore, if one assumes that Valenti is a conscious citizen and would never download copytirghted music or films, we must conclude that Valenti goes on Kazaa every week just to download porn?
It's about time someone sue them... I can't believe they took 2K from a 12 yo project girl, then they took from an old man... What's next.. I got it.. Lets steal from an unborn child, because you know that it will oneday download a song...
--- RIP WTC/Pent Victims of 9-11-01 ---
We shall never forget..
Technically true. However, people downloading the songs are not technically breaking the law, per sae. It is the person making a copy of the song available that is the criminal. All they have to do is get onto Kazaa or something, search through their list of song names and artists, and when the get hits, record the IP, and issue a cease and desist.
I suppose one could make the case of downloaders having an equal share of activity/collusion with the sharer, but the downloader has little to no way of knowing (beyond the massive storm of lawsuits) whether a song that is out on the internet is legally being distributed or not. The distributor of the song better well know that before making it available.
Typical slashdot, always looking for the loophole. Sorry, if you have a big fat collection of top 40 mp3z on your hard drive, it is obvious to anyone, including yourself, that you are infringing.
You could make an educated guess based on the name of the file that you are downloading. You can whine all you like about how you had "no way to know" that your top 40 collection was legally distributed, but the court are simply not going to believe you when you tell them that you thought that the file top_forty_hit_1.mp3 that you downloaded on Kazaa was actually a Redhat ISO.
However, people downloading the songs are not technically breaking the law, per sae
There's nothing technical about this. downloading music is NOT illegal. Burning a copy of a cd you have purchased is NOT illegal. Distributing copyrighted material without permission IS illegal.
These are important points because "if we repeat these non-truths enough times, people will believe and then accept it."
by the way, IANAL
In this case, the person distributing the software is distributing it under a free license, and they are breaching copyright, because they are not authorised to license the copyrighted material to you. This is NOT the same as illegally downloading something that is stripped of copyright information. If the material does not come with a notice that explicitly authorises you to copy it, then you don't have the right to do so.
No it isn't. You can download it from the website that hosts the content without paying for it, but you can't redistribute it on Kazaa, napster, your own webpage, your own ftp server or whatever unless there is a copyright notice that gives you permission to do so.
Isn't this just what the BSA did, accuse all their customers of piracy and demand you apply for amnesty? (In their case, even if you didn't know of any infringements.)
Face facts, downloading music on the web just isnt legal...
Actually, it is in Canada. You're legally allowed to make a copy of any music, whether you own the original or not, for personal use. To compensate for this, every blank cassette, CD, DVD, etc, has what is essentially a tax that goes to the music industry. So I can download all I want and not worry about it.
Don't know whether this applies to software, too, or just music......
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Imagine what would happen if you could only buy Coke in packs of 12. But each pack has only one Coke Classic and 11 Vanilla Cokes. If you like Classic then you're just going to have to learn to drink a lot of Vanilla.
That seems to be pretty close to what the music industry is doing with their albums.
Personally I am downloading only jazz and classic and only from web and only using google. I am pretty comfortable that many of them are not copyrighted at all as they are downloaded from home sites of school orchestras and small club bands. But formally I have no idea if it's public domain or not. There was no legal explanation on any of them. Some fo them may belong to RIAA as they might be ripped off from some CD, some of them not. I have no idea if any specific record is public domain or ripped illegally from some CD (or vinil or tape). Any advise how should I know?
Less is more !
It's like arresting me for possessing the money I found on the street, which was left by rubbers there when they were running away from cops. The court may insist I return money, but they cannot arrest me for the fact I picked them up.
The Fornicating Bank Robbers struck again today, hitting another bank downtown. A bystander tried to recover some of the money, and some.. uh.. other associated paraphernalia, but was ordered to return it.. them.. nevermind.
We need to stop this somewhere, join me in a boycaut of all CD labels that support the riaa.
Ignorance of the law is not a defense.
But ignorance of what the law is, and not knowing that a particular action breaks a given law, are different things, surely? The former is certainly true, but the latter case (which is what we're talking about here) is less clear.
Now having said that, I would find it hard to believe that someone would think that the latest mainstream albums were allowed to be legally distributed, but one could imagine some cases where one might be led to believe that that was the case. Also consider the recent case of the 12 year old, whose mother said she'd paid for a service which claimed that the songs downloaded on Kazaa would be legal. There is no ignorance of the law here (she may be well aware of copyright laws), but she is ignorant of the fact (and indeed, has been misled) that the songs are in general not legal to distribute.
"We're a monopoly. We don't *have* to care."
-- a phone company executive during the 1970s
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
>The motivating factor in getting it was the >analog controls, had no idea how long those >would last.
:)
.99c now at pawn shops.
Apparently, you never bought mario party
I've probably broken 5 controllers because of that game. Glad there only
Steven V.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
Then you should never use internet again. Your browser has just downloaded several images from this /. page and neither of them has any copyright disclaimer. Again, 99% of the content on the web is legally published but it has no copyright disclaimer whatsoever. Seems to me you advise that the whole web must shutdown or at least collapse to few close-content sites.
Less is more !
OK, then we comes to the conclusion that RIAA can go after people who share files, but it MUST LEAVE DOWNLOADERS ALONE.
Less is more !
I think if the author of the work in question makes it available for download on their website, then they are indeed giving you permission to download.
Now as for copyright -- if a small club band puts their work up on their website without a legal notice, they still do have copyright (unless they signed it away to a record label, in which case the label would probably take action against them and not the downloaders). If they are distributing the material to you, there is no copyright violation, because the copyright holder is allowed to distribute their material to you.
On the other hand, you can't legally redistribute their material (on the web or via p2p) without their permission. If you did want to redistribute their material, the best course of action would be to contact them and request permission. I have done this before with free software authors who didn't attach copyright notices, and in such cases, they are often (but not always) happy to have the work redistributed. But you should ask anyway.
See my followup to your other post. If the copyright holder posts material on a public website, they are redistributing their own material to you, so there is no copyright violation. In your example, where you download music from the bands own website, it is also clear that there is no intentional copyright violation. As for slashdot, read more carefully -- the webpage does indeed have a copyright notice, and a hyperlink to a full legal notice.
Not if they are clearly party to copyright violations. Simply put, I don't think that your usage as stated in your other posts (where you download from an authors website) is analogous to the usage of these other downloaders (who download from anonymous third parties)
You don't sue every person who records a TV show and keeps it, because the precedents you would set (violation of privacy, corporate search and seizure, etc) are greater cost to our society than letting individuals have the "right" to make copies for their own use.
This is the way the court has read things several times, and the way any thinking individual would be likely to read it as well.
Where p2p is "different" is in the peer part. Every download you make from kazaa goes into a folder that defaults to "shared" which means every song you download is made available for someone else to upload. Every reproduction of the file adds to the available bandwidth for "sharing", which technically makes you party to an act of unauthorized distribution.
The thing is, if you're a dialup user that bandwidth is probably never used, because most clients favor the lowest ping times and that ain't gonna be a dialup user who is in the act of downloading. The 12 y/o girl who was sued allegedly had "over 1000 songs" in her "shared" folder. But so what? Is it more of a "crime" if I let you choose which of my 1000 CDs you can take home to copy? Odds are great such nonsense wouldn't stand if tested, because the RIAA is suing people for actions they cannot prove ever happened rather than suing them for participating in a conspiracy to pirate works - which is technically what you are doing when you "share" on kazaa.
The problem is no one has challenged this nonsense in court. There is no "de minimis sharing" precedent (and, thanks to the DMCA, there isn't likely to be one). This is another reason I'm hopeful about the record industry suing its own customers; once they've bullied enough of them, it's a sure bet some lawyers are going to decide a(nother) class action is worth their while.
No citation. Logic... Therefore such decision is unconstitutional.
A piece of advice for you: refrain from throwing around terms like "unconstitutional", all willy-nilly like, as a generic word for something you object to.
C//
When I bought my Nintendo 64, I paid $30 for a warranty like that. They said I could drive over it and still get a replacement heh.
The clerk probably said that but the actual warranty probably did not. When I bought a boom box several years ago the sales guy of course tried to sell me the extended warranty, and said that it covered everything. I asked if I accidentally dropped it from the roof would it be covered, he said yes. Then I looked at the actual warranty, and of course it excluded damage due to negligence on the part of the owner. I would guess that if you tried to return the product that you had dropped off the roof or run over in your car, they'd say that you were negligent and refuse coverage.
There's nothing technical about this. downloading music is NOT illegal.
The courts have already ruled that a "download" makes you first party to distribution. You are, in effect, "distributing" a copy to yourself. The courts think of it this way (and technically, they are correct): electronically, the process of duplication involves two (or more) computers, working in concert. Therefore both ends are first party.
BTW, I suggest you peruse the various sites on the internet dedicated to the discussion of copyright law. For example, your assertion that "downloading music is not illegal" does not fit with someone who understands the law that well (in the US anyway), if what you mean is "downloading copyrighted music without permission of the copyright holder".
C//
The RIAA already charges a tax on blank tape and CD media, along with the hardware it takes to make them, even though there's no real guarantee that people would buy tapes or CD-R/W media every single month. But what every song downloader DOES do, however, is pay (either directly or indirectly) an ISP fee.
So why not charge a simple $2-$5 fee for every customer of any given ISP, or bulk rates for network clients based on the number of users connected? That way the RIAA can make millions of dollars a month without doing a single thing, other than signing the checks?
That way everyone sort of wins, and they can move beyond heavyhanded tactics like suing everyone in existance.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Instead, we should:
1. Make a nice printable list of all record companies in the RIAA.
2. Distribute said list.
3. DON'T BUY ANY RECORDS FROM ANYONE ON THE LIST, EVER.
4. Write the bands we like and tell them as long as they are on an RIAA label that we will not be buying their music.
Let's starve these bastards of dollars so they shut the fuck up.
Michael
I got a free sample of Anthrax on the mail today
There is a web site hosted in russia that allows legal downloads for a fee. The have all kinds of artists, including most of the US ones. If I pay for my membership and download the files off there, can RIAA still put their foot up my ass?!!
http://club.mp3search.ru
Well, I agree with your argument about re-distribution. However, I still think that RIAA must leave DOWNLOADERS alone or face countersuits in the court.
Less is more !
Nope. If you are speeding but your spedometer says you are under the limit (i.e., it's broken), you can still be fined. Though IANAL, what you are refering to are generally called "mitigating circumstances". The speeding ticket might be thrown out or reduced because of sympathy, but you still broke the law and are punishable by it.
Same idea with downloading. The fact that you didn't know it was copyrighted is irrelevant as to whether you violated the copyright and can be sued for it. However, knowledge of it is required for the criminal version of copyright infringement -- not because laws to generally apply in such cases, but because these criminal copyright laws specifically wrote the requirement in. You can still be sued though.
Joseph Stalin once famously said: "Tell a big lie enough times and it becomes the truth."
Repeating the truth does not make it a lie.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
they're buying a license to listen to music, not a pretty CD with music on it
You just fell for the RIAA propaganda. According to US law you are in fact buying a pretty CD with music on it, and there is absolutly no licence involved.
US law defines exactly what rights a copyright holder may licence to someone, and those rights are (1) the right to make copies (2) the right to distribute copies and (3) the right to public performance. If they don't offer you one of those rights there is no licence. And even if they did make such an offer there is still no licence unless you accept their offer. There is no such thing as a licence to "use".
In the absence of a licence you have every right use it and you have every right to make fair use - including making backups. When you buy a disk with software on it you explicitly have the right to install it and run it without a licence.
This is why EULA's are in legal limbo. Copyright law says you don't need to agree to an EULA at all. Those pushing EULA's aren't doing it based on copytright law, they are using extremely questionable legal arguments trying to claim you chose to agree to thier contract. The RIAA has taken the questionable legality of EULA's and and stretched it into the land of pure fiction. The RIAA is presenting pure fiction when they say to have a licence to music on a CD.
To get back to the original point the RIAA doesn't have any reason to give you replacement CD's. They simply sold you a pretty disk that happens to have music on it. It's no different than if you bought a pretty beer mug and you broke it. On the other hand the RIAA has almost no right to control what you do with it after you bought it, such as making a backup.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Nope, unless you meet the conditions required for legally copying (see below). Copyright laws do cover distribution, as you state, but also cover copying (hence the name "copyright"). When you download a song, you are making a copy of it. You only have the legal right to do so if: (a) it is in the public domain (no copyright owner), (b) you have permission from the copyright owner, or (c) you have a "fair use" exception, which are limited to a few uses. (There may be other cases I'm forgetting.) You example of reading the newspaper with a copyright violation is not valid because you are not making a copy. If you photocopied the article in the newspaper, you would indeed be in violation but could get off on the "reasonable expectation" (see discussion below).
Your knowledge of the state of the material (copyrighted or not) is irrelevant as to whether you are violating the copyright or not (except in the criminal case, which explicitely requires knowledge as written in that specific law). It might affect the punishment, but only if it was reasonable for you not to be aware.
For example, if you buy a stolen TV from a van in an alley you cannot get off claiming that you didn't know it was stolen. Omission of asking is not an excuse, the "reasonable expectation" of the circumstances are taken into account. If you download a Britney Spears song (despite the taste crime you are commiting) it is reasonable to expect that it probably is being illegally distributed unless you are downloading it from her record label directly. Claiming you didn't know won't get you off.
I'm not stating the way things should be, but the current state of (my understanding of) the laws. I have a big problem with these laws, and RIAA tactics, but they are what they are at the moment.
A) We've been party to the Berne Convention since 1988 after we made changes to our copyright laws. The Berne Convention has been administered by WIPO since 1967 and has since then been superceded and extended by the TRIPS agreement and the WIPO treaties that the DMCA is an implementation of.
B) The DMCA's alternate title the WIPO Treaty Implementing Legislation. It was passed to fulfill the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treatry which we both pushed for as part of an economic strategy to strengthen IP. It was our diplomats who behind closed doors helped force this upon the world, and it's our diplomats who are continuing to campaign for even stronger treaties as an end-run around the democratic process in our own nation.
C) It wasn't written to "buddy up to Europe." The EU didn't even pass their own implementation of the treaty until 2001 whereas the DMCA was passed via unaccountable voice vote in 1998 (along with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act the next day) to avoid media attention. EU member states are still in the process of ratifying it and implementing their own local versions of it.
D) Finally, tt's the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998, or DMCA, for crying out loud. Spelling it wrong twice is a clear warning flag that you haven't researched it at all and are just regurgitating half-truths and misinformation that you've heard elsewhere.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I believe that here in the UK at least, the legal liability lies with the person making the copy: "The person who puts their finger in the record button" I've heard it put.
What it appears the RIAA are doing is to pursue those who offer files for download, who have them 'shared' in their P2P software. Is there actually anything illegal in that? Surely it's the person downloading from you who is breaking the law?
Another argument might be that these files are unlicenced. But how do they know that? The person sharing the files might actually have all those CDs on their shelves and choose to listen to them via the MP3 medium.
Also, the RIAA are presumably building their case around the filenames of the files being shared. Just because someone shares "Jake Thackray - Isobel Makes Love Upon National Monuments.mp3" doesn't mean that the file contains a representation of that work. Are the RIAA downloading each and every file to check?
Matt...
Save the Bottom Line
There is absolutely NO LAW against downloading. If you doubt that I defy you to show otherwise. Allow me to help: Title 17 US COPYRIGHT LAW. I have read much (but not all) of it myself, including every section relevant to this issue.
Only the person uploading the file can be infringing. If a CD store sells you an infringing materials then they have violated the law and you are in the clear. If a website sends you infringing materials then they have violated the law and you are in the clear. If someone on P2P sends you an infringing file then they have violated the law and you are in the clear.
In each and every case as far you know the person giving it to you is (or should be) doing so perfectly legally. They could be the copyright holder himself. They could be doing so with a valid licence from the copyright holder. They could be doing so under fair use. They could be doing so perfectly legally from a country with different laws. It is in general virtually impossible to check if THEY are complying with the law.
If someone bakes a pizza in a stolen oven using a stolen (trade secret) pizza recipie while not paying taxes and paying his employees below minimum wage and dumping toxic waste out back - it is NOT illegal for you to buy a slice (or even accept it for free). It is not illegal even if you KNOW FOR A FACT that he is violating all of those laws.
If someone chooses to violate the law and offer you free pizza you are free to accept it. If someone chooses to violate the law and give you free music you are free to accept it.
You are free to claim it is immoral to knowingly accept pizza from someone dumping toxic waste, but it isn't illegal.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
at this mirror
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
If I had a legal copy of a piece of literary material (small book, poem, etc) and I left it out somewhere somebody could find/copy it, is that legal? What if somebody copied it but was also licensed to do so (e.g. they had bought a copy, but maybe dropped coffee on it and some of the words were mangled)?
How is this different from having a user with visible files on kazaa? Is it illegal for me to have a piece of paper visible where somebody can copy, or only for somebody who doesn't own rights to copy it? There's a line here somewher, just don't know where it is.
Something that hasn't been brought up to my knowledge. Getting sued is one thing, but if you didn't end up getting a settlement and *were* nailed in court would you end up with a criminal record? Is this penalty a legal *fine*, or simple a civil action?
With a legal charge+fine, this may end netting you not only a nasty legal blil but also a criminal record?
you are correct, copytright infringement is not property theft, but now, repeat after me:
"Copyright infringement is illegal."
"Copyright infringement is illegal."
"Copyright infringement is illegal."
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
which is exactly what they are doing...
Copyright infringement is illegal meh, who cares, I am breaking at least 3 retarded laws right now...
"Copyright infringement is illegal."
I never said otherwise.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
Did you read the whole post? My God, the guy is making a joke of the situation. Next time RTFP before you make such 'insightful' comments.
By downloading it, you are making a copy, possibly without the permission of the copyright holder. If it isn't covered by fair use, then it is unlawful.
If however, you made a copy lawfully (eg you back up your CD to your computer in mp3/ogg format) and happen to store it in your kazaa shared folder, I don't think you are doing anything wrong. They copy you made is covered by fair use and as you are not the one making the unauthorised copies. I can't see what you are doing wrong.
This defence was tried in RIAA v NYCFashionGirl, but it was rejected due to evidence from the RIAA that it they had been downloaded from Napster rather than on lack of legal merit.
You're absolutely correct, except I don't think the "end goal" should have anything to do with "reducing the need for backup copies". The whole problem is, the "Fair Use" provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law should be guaranteeing all of us the legal right to make a backup.
I'd hate to see the record companies start offering "free replacements for damaged physical media", and try to use that as legal leverage to take away our rights.
I do, however, contend that they provide horrible value for one's investment when they refuse to offer replacements of any kind. I've had to throw away quite a few originally purchased cassettes of music because the tape wore out or jammed up. I suppose if I go out on Kaaza and try to download those songs to burn to a CD to replace my damaged cassettes, they'll sue me though. What a crock....
I thought Vanilla (Ice) lipsynced?