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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tantrums have less to do with protecting the rights of musicians, than with protecting the revenue stream created by an out-of-date distribution system."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.
They ring you up.. "We demand you pay us $ or we'll take you to court"
What choice do most people have? None.
Maybe big business can accomplish what a million screaming geeks can't...
sig?
[sig]darkfus[/sig]
At the risk of my karma, I'd just like to say that this whole thing is getting to the point where I just wish the RIAA would fuck off and die, and take SCO with them. How do companies survive so long after so many people actively loath them?
Every time a story like this is posted, I see a number of posts saying "God bless SBC!" or "I love Verizon!"
Before you assume they're suing the RIAA just to protect your privacy, think again. The main reason is to avoid the costs of looking up someone's info every time the RIAA issues a subpoena.
Yeah, yeah. I know.
But taking your comment seriously for a moment I might point out that offering positive feedback to one's enemy when they behave in a manner you find desirable isn't hypocrisy.
KFG
I'm glad to see the telcos taking this position, and I applaud them for it. But I also think it's worth considering that a love of freedom may not be the only thing that inspires telcos and other ISP's to take a position against the RIAA.
Avoiding any and all responsibility for policing the content that travels over their connections is strongly in the best interest of any ISP. Having the longest history of operating a complex communications network, the telcos probably have the strongest understanding of that concept. In asking the telcos to report file sharing behavior, the RIAA is asking them to take a certain amount of responsibility for content that the telcos cannot control.
If the telcos acquiesced to the RIAA's request, one can only assume that they'd also have to police their corners of the internet for terrorism-related activity, porn, blasphemy, and all manner of content that sufficiently powerful organizations object to.
Uhh... no... the manufacturing crisis in the 80s, 90s and today are caused by offshore relocation not by file sharing. (the same malaise that is now affecting white collar jobs)
As an aside, does anyone know what will it take for the media to understand the *REAL* jobs issue in the United States?
Filing the lawsuit itself changes very little--They are still using the threat of a big and costly lawsuit to extract a comparably insignificant but still sizable amount of money from people. That the RIAA did this (the call-first policy) in response to the Senate hearings is a riot. "No, Mr. Coleman, we aren't using our harsher-than-Patriot Act powers to intimidate people with bankrupcy-inducing lawsuits into settling for $3-4,000! We're calling them and threatening with the prospect of filing the lawsuit!" I don't really see how the RIAA calling and saying "We're gonna sue you unless you hand over $3,000" is any different from "We're gonna proceed with our suit unless you so hand over $3,000"
I mean, if every one of those sued file sharers challenged the RIAA, then it would quickly run out of resources. But since the lawsuits are cheaper to settle and unaffordable any other way, we have the prisoner's dilemma--everyone pleads guilty to the 3 year sentence in order to avoid the 20 year sentence, because nobody knows what their peers are going to do. I can't imagine the RIAA reasoned it any other way either.
The real reason the RIAA is attempting to force telcos to drag their customers into court is to protect the jobs of record executives, not the rights of artists, who benefit from less expensive and more effective distribution mechanisms.
And the real reason SBC/Verizon are fighting the record companies is to protect the jobs of telco executives, not the rights of consumers.
Don't think that the telcos are acting on altruism. They'd screw you just as badly as the RIAA would, if they really felt it'd benefit them.
It's in their best interests to protect your privacy - just be glad that they are smart enough to realize that, and enjoy the little victory.
The RIAA is like an animal trapped in the corner - and just like one, it'll bite anything nearby out of fear. In this case, its busy biting the very hands that feed it.
Stand back, wait for it to calm down, and enjoy the ride.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
If the RIAA starts cracking down on file sharers, the demand for lucrative broadband connections is going to be negatively affected. This is what will truly affect their revenue streams. Whether for good or for bad, at present legally tenuous trading is probably the biggest driver for fast internet connections.
I'd also like to think that it's due to the ISPs overwhelming desire to do the right thing and protect customer's privacy, but I'm having trouble reconciling this view completely with the generally held views of corporate entities and their desire to run profitably.
Just my 2 cents worth.
The Mothership
And who holds the copyright on Voltaire when it is written to my hard disk?
I'm afraid it's beliefs such as you have just expressed that are part of the problem.
There is much that is not "owned," believe it or not, and I may do as I wish with that material and it's "nobody's nevermind," not even to the extent that they have the right to "peer over my shoulder" to make sure.
KFG
The providers of DSL know that they are getting an indirect subsidy from "free" music. There are people out there that are paying $40/month so they can download music. If customers had to pay for the music too, companies like Verizon would have fewer customers.
The telcos are just profiting from other peoples creative works. Of course they don't want this to stop.
What next... they have to help turn-over people involved in other questionable activity done on the phone? ... people who called escort services just because some group wants those names? ...identify people martha stewart connected with just because they might have talked about imclone?
Yeah, they can do that, but the process involves a warant. Just just a request from an industry group.
If they have to start monitoring for questionable activity from any group that requests it, the next step might be for them to be responsible for illegal activity.
How isn't the distribution system horribly out-of-date? The very concept of taking data, sticking it onto physical discs, putting those discs inside plastic wrappers, moving those discs via trucks, holding them inside stores, requiring the consumer to transport themselves several kilometres to buy the disc, then transport it home, simply so the customer can play music? That system makes sense for physical goods; not for pure data.
Internet distribution of music is modern, efficient and convenient. You can argue (though you didn't) that the current systems are broken because the artist isn't compensated, but I don't see how you could possibly argue that the physical distribution system is anything other than antiquated. It's a 100-year old distribution model that hasn't significantly changed despite several generations of telecommunication improvements.
Say I download a song or five, once or twice a week, using Kazaa Lite.
Say I don't post files to share -- I just grab a few files now and then.
What's the risk? Will RIAA really find out?
-kgj
If you have something better than put your money where your mouth is otherwise shut the fuck up.
Ironic.
If you'd snail-mailed me this post it might have made sense. But using the very type of distribution system you claim doesn't exist to propogate your claim it doesn't exist ranks right up there with "This sentence is not in English." (The difference between this post and a music file is merely one of scale, and not much of it.)
As for people actually doing it, it's not my responsibility or anybody else's to show them to you. All I know is I intend to sign up with EMusic soon. And that's just one example.
RIAA is trying to grant themselves powers that are outside of even the Patriot Act
Don't worry, that can surely be fixed. However, not necessarily the way most people here would like it to be.
When men used to be men
RIAA: Pay up or else!
Sounds like extortion to me. Kinda like organized crime. Maybe it's time for some Piracy Insurance. In case you decide to pirate music, so you don't get your legs broken.
That's the whole point - you wouldn't be 'giving it away for free'. Stop and think for a moment. Does the method of distribution have any effect whatsoever on piracy? I would venture that the price of the good drives illegal copying.
As CDs are ridiculously overpriced, it is easy to see why they are pirated - as are certain overpriced operating systems with shoddy security. These items face large-scale piracy issues. The reason? The disparity between the price and the perceived value is so great that a normal person decides to break the law.
Once prices and the actual worth of the product come into closer agreement, the vast majority will opt to follow a legal path - probably out of a natural Machiavellian fear of authority. Refusing to come to grips with the actual value of a product, the industry is reinforcing a community belief that crime is appropriate here, when you're stealing from criminals. It's time to make a better fucking product, and earn money sans rabid lawyer hoard. (Are you listening, Darl?)
What the hell does the premise of #1 have to do with the conclusion? A consumer 100mbps eithernet switch has NOTHING to do with providing high speed data over long distances. I work for network operations for a unviersity, of I have some idea what I'm talking about. It is COMPLETELY different to grab a little switch and have a workgroup than it is to have a large carrier class facility.
For one there is just the switches and routers themselves. Not small, not cheap. We aren't talking $60, $600, or $6000 but tens of thousands of dollars for a single blade (of which one chasse holds many) in some cases. Then there is the fact that copper ethernet won't run over long distances; 100 metres is the spec limit, so we are talking some other kind of technology, never mind your house doesn't have the wiring to it for that. There is then of course the cost of maintaining all this infastucters. Stuff breaks, it needs to be replaced, and in the case of wires to houses, it's not cheap often.
Then there are the two biggest costs: The support staff for customers and the bandwidth. Data doesn't magically get on the Internet, bigass lines to other carries are required and that's not cheap in any fashion.
As for laying fibre to your house, you have NO concept of how expensive that sort of thing is. It wasn't cheap to build our copper network. It took many years and a lot of dough. To upgrade the whole thing to fiber will cost even more and probably take longer. You don't just wave a wand, you have to dig shit up, lay cable and so on. Also fibre requires additonal percaustion since it really can't be spliced if it is going over any sort of distance.
Look, there are a LOT of problem with the phone companies. I'm sure I've dealt with more than you have. However, just because you can buy an 8-port consumer grade, made by Linksys, switch for $60 does NOT mean that the telcos can get a carrier class switch for the same price, much less everything else needed. It's not like they buy a bunch of cheap Linksys gear and hook it together and everything works magically.
See, I don't know why they don't do this already. Encryption is incredibly cheap compared to the bandwidth of a typical user (100Mbps for Rijndael on a typical computer vs about 8Mbps for a fast college dorm connection to the general internet), with a relatively very small startup cost in terms of negotiation/modular exponentiation since the files are so large.
I think it's a waste that any communication short of non-persistent HTTP connections for public, non-incriminating data (e.g., images) is done without encryption. Encryption doesn't solve all problems---e.g., it can't solve the problem of the RIAA becoming one of your "peers" and downloading the latest Britney track---but it does solve the problem of snooping on others' connections.
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The problem isn't "scumbag's" swapping copyrighted material. Well.. wait, yes it is. Quick! Without looking it up, tell me if Drowning Pool's "Tearing Away" can or cannot be legally traded. Never mind - go ahead and try looking it up, I'm sure you still can't tell me with any certainty. I honestly don't know either: I found a full-quality copy of it offered up as a mp3 sample from the album on a highly visible review on a commercial music site that's been around for awhile. Yet, the album says that copies cannot be made and distributed. No terms were attached anywhere that I could find on the site, and I couldn't find any agreement or information that says that the site is legally distributing the files. Can I, or can I not legally own that without buying the CD?
If it were clear to the masses what is and is not "protected" under copyright law, the "scumbag file swapper" argument wouldn't be so laughable - if it's clearly illegal, even if it's not necessarily wrong - DON'T DO IT (just whine about it on Slashdot...). But, if the waters are muddy, who's responsibility is it to clear them? Should the individual be responsible for trying to beat the information out of somebody who knows it, or should the people who know it be making some attempt to deter this sort of behavior by making it clear what is and isn't an acceptable use of their material?
Beyond that, I might point out that, unless you've got a lot of money to burn, you can't afford to fight the RIAA by yourself even if you're innocent (which I realize you mentioned). The RIAA will lose money fighting you, but get a big payoff if they win, whereas you can only lose large amounts of cash by fighting no matter your innocence or guilt. Even if they lose, they can afford it. If their scatter-brained approach is going to hit any innocent people, they shouldn't be doing it - especially given their massive abuses of the legal system (courtesy of our idiot lawmakers) and the fact that they let the whole thing run rampant for so long. Then, there's the fact that they have no evidence that it's even hurting them, much less that it's hurting them as much as they claim. It's kind of hard to go to court in civil litigation and not look like a total jackass when you stand up and say "Well, your honor, we say that this person caused us $750,000 in damages even though file swapping has been loosely correlated to increased sales in recent history, our industry's downturn matches up to what should be expected as a result of the economy, and we have nothing to refute even this weak, merely circumstantial evidence".
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Actually, I attend the University of Maryland, and here they use what they call a Packet Shaper, which somehow manages (aparrantly by port) to grant priority to certain kinds of traffic in such a way (from highest to lowest):
1. All university offices and research facilities
2. FTP traffic
3. Game traffic (woot!)
4. Web surfing (Your pron dls go here unless you get it from an FTP server)
5. Kazaa/P2P crap
Now, realizing that there's a random port checker on the latest version of kazaa, it seems strange that they're able to regulate it's access, but they completely shut it down this past summer as a test, then started allowing it larger and slightly larger amounts of our bandwidth.
It's not impossible to stop Kazaa altogether, but I think if the RIAA wants to take the stance of some legitimacy to P2P, they need to understand that you either need to allow it all, or don't allow any of it, because you can either kill Kazaa via an ISP (and you'll get shit), or you let it go, but limit the bandwidth it takes up (which is now detectable, case in point UMCP).
Sig for GotSpider threatens to invade. France Surrenders.