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RIAA PR Efforts Examined
The Importance of writes "Yale's LawMeme has an interesting article pointing out that the RIAA is having some PR success with their anti-file sharing lawsuits. People being sued are not just angry with the RIAA, they are angry with Kazaa. The LawMeme article thinks this is bad news for innovation since Congress might be likely to pass a law making innovative software providers more liable for the copyright infringements of their customers in order to stop the public outcry over the RIAA lawsuits." And in other news, a P2P group is planning to pay off the RIAA for that 12-year-old's settlement, and the BBC has an article about another victim.
...using this logic means that congress should outlaw linux / pre drm microsoft os's as they are os's that allow people to play copyrighted mp3s ?! ...and is this the end of general purpose computers if the RIAA / microsoft can spin it right?
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
You steal, you get fined or put in jail.
Just because it's intangible doesn't make that any less true.
Note for trolls and other knuckle draggers: I hate, with a passion I normally reserve for SCO, the RIAA. I think p2p is a great technology, and I feel that song sharing is the future of the music industry. However, at this time, they do not want their product taken without compensation. Given that it is THEIR product, that is their choice, not ours. A choice I feel will put them and their bussiness partners in the grave faster, but it's their choice none the less.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I think it's great the p2p community can stand with each other and donate to help those who are targeted but that's not what it's going to take in the end.
Given that most of our political leaders will not stand up to any of the privacy issues or heavy handed tactice given that most are bankrolled by entertainment and media companies it comes down to the end user being the empowered one to stop this nonsense. Is copyright infringement illegal? Yes. Does the resolutions need to be carried out this way in a 'I have more money than you so I will squash you over time in a legal system so you may as well just give me your life savings now' method ?? NO.
Unfortunately until consumers cease buying CD's completely to send a message - the RIAA will use file sharing as the cop out everytime for CD sales declining. The reality is if they updated their 10yr old business model they know full and well their usefullness would be at an end in the digital age. they are nothing more than a middle man and a bankroll sometimes and direct distribution would make them cease to exist
Fear Breeds Knowledge
Someone should raise money to buy her a gift certificate to her local music store to buy legal CDs of all the music she had to delete.
Yes, fill the RIAA's war chest some more!
How about showing the girl that there are plenty of great artists that allow some or all of their music to be traded freely? Educate her on how Britney Spears and her cohorts are manufactured by the same music industry that came after her, only to make money. Show her how artists like the ones she was probably downloading and sharing have come and gone, only to be replaced by some newer fad, and all to continue to fill the industry's already deep pockets.
Obviously I don't expect a 12 year old to understand all of that. Arguing over musical tastes with somebody is pointless. But the remedy to problems like this is not to buy more pop garbage, but rather to introduce people to alternatives to RIAA-backed crap.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
Make software creators liable for copyright infringement but not other creators of software liable for damage done by their buggy software? Gotta love it ...
FLR
Of course they're all going to say they didn't know they were doing anything wrong! What did you expect? That is the simplest and most straight forward excuse in the books -- blame someone else. While some are truely confused I find it hard to believe that 4 million people honestly believe a one time $30 payment gets them thousands of dollars of retail music for free.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
If a daft woman who stuck a full cup of coffee between her legs, and drive off, spilling it all over the place, and they *successfully* sue mcDonalds because 'it was too hot', then anyone caught by the RIAAs can sue Kazaa because 'they made it too easy to steal'.
First, the lawsuit was appealed and McDonalds won and then she appealed that decision and it was a big ordeal. I think the final payout to her was several hundred thousand.
Second, you cannot serve beverages over a certain temperature due to this. Unless the customer explicitely asks for it. McDonalds served her a beverage over that temperature, as was evident by the burns sustained from the coffee spilling.
She was asking for way too much money, but it was a valid lawsuit.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Fascinating. Yet so wrong...
The "traditional" model of the Internet is "peer to peer". Your mailserver talks to my mailserver. Mine talks to yours.
POP came *after* sendmail. POP would be the "client server" approach. My computer says "hey, I am only on-line a little bit, so I need a bigger computer to do my mail for me". Mail used to be transferred over UUCP, and even there it was "peer to peer".
As larger companies got into the ISP business, they tried to impose a "client server" model. More like a "push content" model. The internet was NOT compuserve. In fact, compuserve (and their ilk) JOINED the internet. So the "peer to peer" model seemingly won...
But, many ISPs (like mine, rogers.com), have user agreements that read "you won't run servers at home". They would LOVE a push content model. As supported by my bandwidth (1.5mbps TO my computer 128kbps FROM my computer). If I can't run in a peer to peer way, how am I going to run my email domain, etc.? Right, buy that service from someone else -- even though I have purchased a sufficiently fast computer and a sufficiently large pipe.
The client server approach allows for a money grab. The traditional peer to peer approach gives more power to the users. Guess I'm going to be a traditionalist.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Anyway, whether my theory is right or not, I propose that we offer massive amounts of non-RIAA, legal-to-download music on PHP. I mean massive amounts - thousands and thousands of song, gigabytes and gigabytes worth - saturate P2P with it. Not just stuff you like personally but all kinds of stuff that potentially someone might like. And of course it would all be perfectly legal.
If everyone were to donate spare disk and bandwidth they're not using anyway, it might make a difference. Start a movement to swamp out RIAA songs. The independent artists will only benefit from it and thank us in the end.
If you agree with this theory, what are some good sources of freely-downloadable music you would recommend?
The RIAA has some definite legal grounds and concerns that I can sympathize with, and as much as many teenagers and college students feel or wished we lived in a social commune where one can share anything, we don't and music and art does need to be paid for. Also remember the old argument that sharing music is promoting the band, to go see them in concert or buy t-shirts etc... The labels don't get any of that action, which is probably one more reason why they're in a bigger uproar. I am not a big fan of huge corporations but this slices fairly equally between big and small, It may even hurt the smaller labels more.
And when it comes down to it the law says its illegal, so if you want to gripe then go change that particular law.
Yet the RIAA feels it needs to go on a witch-hunt, and as much as I feel bad for the recent 12 year old that got nailed for 2k (many thanks to the P2P United for paying their bill), last I checked the law is supposed to be blind and impartial, and not take any special cases so whether it's a 12 year old girl or a 24 year old college student the law is the law. Though the PR from this latest case has raised some interesting issues.
Much of this is still the fault for the RIAA in its lack of foresight and greed in not jumping on the bandwagon and working with organizations like Napster and KaZaa to create licensing deals, its not like radio has been doing it for years.
The fact that the blame is turning to KaZaa, is in my mind silly, and very dangerous, it sets legal precedence that could be very damaging. Which has been stated in many different ways within these posts so I am not going to go further into it.
What I see here is the real issue; common non-computer savvy people need to be educated on some basic principles. Here at slashdot we can argue about who is right and who is wrong, most of understand the implications of the technology. The people that need the education are the public at large, and not necessarily by big groups like P2P United, or the opposite group the RIAA. What needs to be taught to the public is how the system works, why it is ludicrous to blame KaZaa, because blaming KaZaa is akin to blaming the architect of a house for copyright violations because some person can go into a house and copy cd's without being seen by the public. Hence since the house can hide the identity and be a facilitator for the transaction to take place, the architect that build the house should then bare legal responsibility. Data will always be data and if we can't exchange that of which we own the right to for free in any means we feel appropriate we then have some serious constitutional issues to deal with.
I truly believe if you can tell someone how the system works and make the appropriate analogies so they understand the basic principals they will come to the same conclusion. That if you going to outlaw or put the responsibility of the law on the software developer then you are then going to have to do that across the board for all software. If someone makes a counterfeit bill in Photoshop than adobe is help partially responsible, if some one makes lewd and illegal comments on an instant message then it's the people who wrote the instant messenger responsibility that the action took place.
If we leave it to the newspapers to educate the populace it will simply be yet another political race that is poorly understood by the majority yet the majority will be called to vote on the subject.
Serenity|Chaos