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Telcos Stand Against RIAA
john82 writes "In an interesting and insightful article, NetworkWorld Fusion discusses how lawyers for SBC and Verizon are fighting the RIAA's attempts to monitor their customers. As we've heard before, RIAA wants the telcos to report when users download any copyrighted material. Lawyers for SBC and Verizon are fighting back. They also claim that the RIAA is trying to grant themselves powers that are outside of even the Patriot Act. Now where have heard that before? NWFusion also points out that RIAAs handwaving, threats, tantrums have less to do with protecting the rights of musicians, than with protecting the revenue stream created by an out-of-date distribution system." In other RIAA news, taped2thedesk writes "According to the Washington Post and Ars Technica, the RIAA will now contact P2P users before suing them." The RIAA's not so bad, they'll settle out of court over the phone, if you don't mind paying up instead of getting a lawyer.
Bleh,
Though I havent bought a cd in a while (ive just been listenening to classic rock on the radio), ive decided recently that its time for some new music. I bought a few cds off cdbaby.com and have been very pleased. The music rocks and the service rocks! I hope their prices and all else stays the same.
The crap that the RIAA is pushing these days isnt even worth my time.
All works are copyrighted from the moment they are fixed in a tangible medium, that is in this case, written to the server's hard disk.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Hopefully if the RIAA directly contacts people it'll come to light all the quicker how random their contacts have been. So far they've claimed to be taking legal action against 300+ people for file trading. Their record at the moment stands at suing four children under 12, almost 10 people who don't have machines to run the software they claim they used, or even accounts with the ISPs they claim they used to download software from, and six people who don't own a PC or have internet access to begin with. By my reasoning 4+9+6 makes for 19 out of that 300 who obviously aren't file trading how the RIAA says, AT LEAST
There are certainly people who will have the software able to trade, the machines to run it, on ISPs the RIAA claims, but who DON'T trade. Whats their error rate hitting then? somewhere up around 10% of people they're taking legal action against
It's shotgun tactics.
I used to do work for a telco (cable), and about the only thing they're CAPABLE of monitoring is usage. We had problems auditing for signal piracy, more less software piracy.
No doubt the phone companies are more on the ball, but even then I'd be surprised if they could tell what exactly was coming down the pipe without copying it and reassembling it themselves. Probably the most they could do (economically) is flag high use addresses for the RIAA to check.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Nope. You have more chance to be struck by lightning... And if by any chances you are not American, your chances drop to almost zero.
There is already scam artists calling numbers out of the phone books. Using names within sounding official and asking for credit card numbers to settle file copyright infringment.
Do not settle with anyone over the phone be very careful you will want to see documents.
Let me introduce you to this little letter I got from Verizon. See, Verizon is the only local service game around because they have a monopoly on the service in the area. Others have tried, Verizon has cheated, bought, and legislated them right out of the area.
So, I use Verizon for my Internet access. Apparently, I wasn't paying them enough on my local-only $21.00 a month plan for unlimited calling. So, they sent me a letter informing me of a "great new benefit!" The great new "benefit" was an extra $3 charge on my phone bill each month for 30 minutes of regional long distance. I get extorted out of this money whether or not I use my 30 minutes each month - which I don't.
And, guess what? I'm STILL using Verizon because I'm totally fucked. They've also pissed around on broadband - they're the only game in town, so they see no rush to roll it out to those of us who happen to be a mere 1/4 of a mile outside of their range.
So, I pay an extra $3 a month for long distance service that I specifically didn't want when I signed up, and there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it. Can I just not pay it and get away with it? Yea - I don't HAVE to pay the $3 bill and they can't disconnect my local service - but it won't look good on my part if anyone looks up my bill-paying habits and sees that I have $150 in delinquent, unpaid billing from Verizon (buying a house, anyone).
People hate telcos because they suck and they're not now and never have been interested in providing quality service at a good price in a manner consistent with your needs. Like most other big corps, they're interested in maximizing their profits in any way possible, which is usually accomplished in the easiest way by stomping on (willing or unwilling, as the case may be) customers' faces and stealing their wallets.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!