Slashdot Mirror
Record Industry Sues 532 More U.S. File-Sharers
Patik writes "The RIAA today issued 532 new subpoenas for music file swapping, many of them college students using their campus networks. They will not say which ISPs or colleges were involved, but that the users were sharing "substantial amounts" of music files. This brings the total number of subpoenas to 1,977. The RIAA has been averaging $3,000 per settlement so far." Readers Digitus1337 and Warpedcow point to stories respectively at Wired and Reuters.
Didn't a judge tell them they couldn't do this before?
C'mon guys !! use Kazaa Lite, not the full version!! At least give yourselves a chance. And the best place to get Kazaa Lite these days is... yep, Kazaa !!!
If you want music, buy it! If it's not valuable to you, don't.
The RIAA ought to keep on doing this until the public gets either so fed up with these antics or simply doesn't have enough money to buy the CDs altogether.
Though they've made around 6M dollars, this is a losing strategy in the long run.
I have been pwned because my
Thank goodness I only share and download pornography!
Seriously though, they need to make sure the
punishment isn't worse than the crime. Ruining
a college student's record/life may not fit that
description.
Can't blame them for trying...I just hope they have the good sense to back off if they find someone using p2p for legal uses...
bastards.
It must cost the RIAA more than $3,000 per case to file against file swappers. Lawyers don't come cheap...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
1977 people still only represents a tiny fraction of p2p users. ~.049% of the p2p users (I assumed the low amount of 4million at any one time). Take the number of user to a resonable 15million and we get .013%. I guess free is still greater than cheap to many people.
"The RIAA has been averaging $3,000 per settlement so far."
...so are they giving all the money they've received to the authors/performers of the music? How do they decide who gets what and what's the money used for.
I remember when they first started sueing, the file trading slowed down for a while. I think it went back up though. Do you think most people think they won't get caught? After all, when there are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people on a p2p network, sueing 532 people is only a fraction of the overall filesharers.
--
Smack your momma good deals!
$3000 per settlement?!?! Uh oh I think the RIAA just found a profitable new business model.
Still, only close to 2000 lawsuits is only a fraction of the entire music-swapping community.
It is a weak terrorist-like tactic. Even though they only get a tiny fraction of the population, they hope that this will scare everyone individually.
Well, good luck to them.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I mean, come on. This isn't going to work. They can't sue everyone in the country, and sampling has proven itself ineffective at best. They need a new strategy, if they ever hope to stem the tide. Legal alternatives may be doing well too, but sometimes you just can't be free. They should just give up and find some other way to increase sales. Perhaps they could make better albums.
SAILING MISHAP
Troll me if you will, but realize that the
RIAA do have some claim to the money.
I mean, artists make it, people want it, and they
buy it. But guess who makes the people want it:
the RIAA folk.
That's right. Somebody has to pay for the promotion,
the studio time, the slot on MTV and ClearChannel
so that the general population knows what to like.
I find it amusing how we pay them to tell us what
to like, but somebody has to.
No no no. The money goes to pay the lawyers to help protect the artists from these thieves!
"Lawyers don't come cheap..."
Indian lawyers do.
I've seen numbers that claim 50,000,000 people in the US use P2P applications. Let's do the math:
In approximately 8 months the industry has sued 1,977 people. That's 1 in every 25,290.84 people. Now we get into speculation. Assume:
they keep up their current trend of filing that many lawsuits every 8 months.
the number of P2P users in the U.S. stays static
you were born today, will live for 74 years and are precocious enough to use P2P software today, the day of your birth.
That's 195,064 file sharers they'll sue in your lifetime. Heck, you have a 1 in 256.33 chance of being sued over your entire life, you lucky newborn!
Oh, there's one assumption I forgot to mention:
Assume: The RIAA racketeers are still in business your whole life.
NB: My math may be off, I've had a few cold ones.
Trolling is a art,
Now it seems that all the music downloading news is about the pay per download sites, the music piracy issues have taken a back seat in the headlines. I'd say this round of lawsuits gets little coverage because the shock and awe factor is gone. Time for the RIAA to move on to a new tactic to grab the attention of all those harmful pirates.
The list of colleges was included in the RIAA press release:
The individuals included in today's legal action were on the networks of the following universities (listed in alphabetical order of state or name): University of Arizona; University of California, Berkeley; California State University -- Northridge; University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; Drexel University; George Mason University; George Washington University; Georgetown University; Indiana University; University of Indianapolis; Loyola Marymount University; Marquette University; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; New York University; University of Northern Colorado; University of Pennsylvania; University of Southern California; Stanford University; Vanderbilt University; and Villanova University.
http://www.cpwire.com/archive/2004/3/23/1540.asp
Remember: spread the word, but don't sound like a fanatic.
I'm reminded of why I quit buying their stuff and started buying better music instead.
Rank Presidents by th
The suits need to ramp up and continue [even faster] at all costs; I'm in great favor of the industry pursuing people as quickly as possible and winning the suits whereever appropriate.
Not because I'm some sort of RIAA nazi, but rather because it is neccessary in order to drive forward new methods of distribution, as well as innovation for smaller, non-mega-supra-corp bands. Once the RIAA/MPAA has shot themselves in the collective feet enough through negative press and marketing, consumers will demand alternative bands, distribution, technology, etc. The mega-bands might even make enough fuss due to lost sales from their mad-as-hell fans.
Me, I'm just sitting back enjoying the ride waiting for that day.
I recently received five different cease 'n' deceist letters from five different film companys for five different movies. That bit-torrent will get you.
I wonder if the RIAA is gonna gun for me next.
[Just Shut Up and Do What I say]
from the wired article:
"This is a group that does not appreciate as much as the general population that it is illegal to share copyright music on a peer-to-peer network," said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America. "More education is necessary. One form of education is lawsuits."
you know, i bet he goes to bed all fuzzy inside.
london is drowning and i live by river
I am above the law!
Anyone else find it interesting that the RIAA has sued more people than Americans have died in the Iraqi war? According to Yahoo! News, "584 U.S. troops have died -- 396 from hostile action." Compare this with the 1997 file sharers sued by the RIAA. The RIAA has sued over 3 times as many Americans as have died in the war. Looks like this really is a war on file sharers. Too bad that we can't shoot back as we can (and do) in Iraq.
Note to the mods: I'm not trying to be flamebait here, I just want to point out something that I find iteresting.
Waaah, the big bad RIAA is big and bad and mean and they won't let me have their music for free. Waaah! I just summed up all the posts on this topic.
Mute has been making some substantial gains. Even if it's not 100% bulletproof, it's still small enough that the RIAA doesn't bother with it when there are bigger fish to fry such as Kazaa and Mp2p.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
First point: Don't use Kazaa. Get your music from somewhere else like a bittorrent site or something.
A person could always gather up an old machine with two network cards and run all your traffic through it like a proxy server (I think, I'm not an expert) and then when they try to access your machine to check your public shares they wouldn't find anything because they would be scanning the proxy server.
No quoting me on this though, because I'm not an expert on it.
" If they'd actually put all of these lawyer's fees into a better way of selling music they'd be making far more money."
iTunes.
And in other news, Water still feels wet, the sky hasn't fallen, and SCO still hasn't had all their cases dismissed with prejudice.
C'mon people, this doesn't even count as news anymore. People violate copyrights, people get sued. Let it go.
Now, what I consider the bigger "news" from this involves the experiment the RIAA has run on the level of stupidity in the general population. 1977 suits so far, and people still keep using Kazaa to download this crap. Get a clue, Kazaa users! At the very least, switch to a different P2P app. Perferable one with at least a tad bit of privacy, like FreeNet.
Or better yet, just go back to the way that has worked for the past 30-40 years, from the days before P2P - Swap music and movies privately, offline, with your friends. You can get the same stuff, with absolutely no chance of an RIAA nastygram as a resuly. You can even do so as a sort of buying pool, where you and a dozen friends agree not to overlap in your purchases, thus maximizing your available music library. "Need" to find something really obscure, possibly out-of-press (print? Whatever you call music that you can no longer buy new, for any price)? Hook up with a fan group, where you can get material far more obscure than even Kazaa's bottom-20 list.
Or, best option of all, just buy from indie labels. Hey, we all have a favorite band, and I'll admit even I will buy whatever a handful of RIAA-signed groups puts out. But for the rest of the "fluffy listening" music, look into companies like Magnatune, or go direct to the artists' websites. The musician gets a FAR bigger cut, you pay less ($5/cd on average, in my experience, for buying direct from the artist), and best of all, the RIAA gets nothing.
Ill be selling licenses to indemnify any persons guilty of illegally downloading mp3s. Of course, I dont own the rights to any of said mp3s, but from what i can tell, that doesnt seem to matter
oh yea.
4)Profit!!!
1. Install Kazaa Lite. 2. Disable sharing of your files with other users. 3. Download as much free music as you want without worrying about getting sued.
"..This brings the total number of subpoenas to 1,977.."
In 1977:
February 11 - A 20.2-kg lobster is caught off Nova Scotia (heaviest known crustacean).
Coincidence?!? YOU Decide
www.allofmp3.com
The road between democracy and tyranny is paved with secrecy in the name of security.
I got an email from the RIAA stating:
All your MP3's are belong to us!
So the RIAA has no names, just IP addresses. Given very few people have their own permanent IP, are we assuming that the RIAA would puzzle out logs from DHCP servers?
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
what does that have to do with prawn?
Why is it that no one uses the most obvious defense of plausible deniability:
THERE. DONE.
Even if they only have to prove a preponderence of the evidence, they would STILL have to deal with all of those items AND in the end you would still have a hard disk with no songs to beat them over the head with. It seems to me they could NEVER win one of these cases.
I don't know about anyone else, but that's much cheaper than settling for several thousand dollars. And that's if you don't hire a lawyer and contest that the RIAA don't have the right to get your personal info and the ISP don't have the right to hand it over as at least one person has done successfully.
I mean FFS, if people can get away with the "a virus hacked into my computer and did it" defense for criminal cases...
Liberty.
Produce a product that anyone else can copy and you'll soon go bankrupt. That's capitalism. What you describe is a system of government backed monopoly.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Please?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
riaa.com was down the past couple days. Now they released news of the lawsuits just as their website came back up online.
..as if they haven't gotten enough (ddos) traffic already.
Use a lab computer. ;)
- free up bandwidth for us non copyright infringers
- result in fewer infringers on p2p networks, thus substantiating the slashdot choruses of "go after the users, leave technology alone" and "p2p apps such as kazaa have many important non-infringing uses."
- drive people to the newest pay-per-download service of the week. after all, a two years ago you couldn't log on to slashdot without seeing a "if they only charged 99c per song download there would be no need for things like kazaa" and "I'd gladly pay 99c per song so that i dont have to buy 'filler'")
- by going after college students, the RIAA (or whoever) can't be after money, since they ain't got none. The riaa will doubtlessly lose more money in lawyer fees than they will collect in judgements. they MUST be about sending a message, therefore. this is a good thing, because that is the right message to send--copyrights (such as the ones that form the basis of the GPL, Britney's music, and the bulk of work done by software developers who visit slashdot) should be respected, completely anti-copyright idiot/zealots notwithstanding (bring on the flames).
but, of course, instead of responses consistent with the old slashdot argument of "leave the technology alone, go after the infringers", expect to see the regular carping and whining here about the RIAA.IIRC they were sued for writing a program that crawled the student network and indexed everything, making the sharing of files somewhat(it was windows file sharing, already simple, shoulda sued microsoft, not the kids)easier.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Everyone bitched about how piracy was the only option since the RIAA didn't want to allow tracks to be sold online. You've been able to buy individual tracks music online now. It's not like you have to buy albums full of filler tracks anymore. Either stop listening to major label music or pay the $0.99 per track. If this was a story about GPL violations, my how the tables would be turned.
Also, everyone bitched how the RIAA was attacking the P2P networks themselves instead of the users participating in the unauthorized distribution of the copyrighted materials. The RIAA is doing exactly what everyone suggested - going after the pirates.
As for the argument that your chances of getting caught are pretty slim - yea, it's just like speeding on the highway when you're keeping up with traffic. You're still breaking the law. Just don't be surprised if in the future there's cameras along the highway that take a picture of your licence plate, and later in the mail each and every one of you get a ticket. That's what happens when you pay more attention to the methods of enforcement than the laws. Likewise, if you keep ignoring the copyright laws, eventually there will be better ways for the RIAA to catch more people and it won't be a matter of enforcement anymore.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
1) They will have less of a chance to avoid suing younger people (or, really, their parents -- the likely name on the ISP account). Now that they must sue anonymously, they can't pick (or avoid) targets.
2) The days of the $3000 settlements are over. $3000 is actually cheap, given that these people typically have many thousands of tracks, and tracks sell for about $1 each anyway (ie. iTunes).
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I'm an editor at the my college's newspaper. I received this in my inbox today from The Collegiate Presswire:
Looks like the new lawsuits are just a part of a well-planned campaign to strike fear into us immoral college students. I guess this "conference" will consist mostly of the RIAA spewing propaganda with the hope that the editors and reporters in the chat will carry it back to their publications.
This news is very depressing. Shame on the RIAA for suing students! They could at least go after people who can afford the court fees.
I've found this site to be a good source of free downloadable MP3s. Gotta go grab more in light of this recent news ;)
Are any of these guys sued fighting back or are they just making the $3000 settlements?
Would'nt it make sense if they got together and fought the RIAA? I know it seems easy to say n not to do when your sued by a giant but wouldnt they just keep suing people if no one fights back.
Lord of the Binges.
Which "public"? The one's file trading? Or the one's not?
The one's who have enough interest in music to go to the trouble of searching out and downloading new music in order to determine which CD's to buy.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Actually, I like to try on a jacket in a store and walk out without paying. Clothes are overpriced to begin with. Besides, one day when I'm rich I will buy lots of stuff from these stores.
Oh, and don't forget the positive karma when I wear the stolen clothes!! I should get paid!! It's like free advertizing for me to wear my stolen Gap clothes!
Yeah!!
That guilt was predetermined. If we know that someone is guilty before a court proceeding, why have courts at all? I mean if someone's accused they MUST be guilty, right?
Give me a break.
You have no idea if these people are liable (this is civil court, it's liability, not guilt). For one, there is no gaurentee that those files were actually copyrighted files. There are TONS of misnamed files (either delibratly or accidentally) on any given P2P network, and no the RIAA doesn't bother to download and check. Even assuming they are actually the songs they claim to be, there is no way to know that the files were on the computer you think they are. Kaazaa particularly is not known for it's accuracy in pulling lists from computers, it gets it wrong sometimes. Even supposing it is the right list, you have no idea if the person who is associated with the IP is actually the right person. Maybe they have wireless and someone used it (seriously, it's easy to break in, even if they use WEP). Even if it ends up being their computer, you have no idea that they were the one responsible. Virsues, worms and hacks are RAMPANT, and it wouldn't be out of the question for someone to use a hacked box for P2P to shield themselves.
So basically they are saying "Well this IP, which might or might not be for this computer, which might or might not have been under this person's control, might or might not have had this list of files which might or might not be what they claim to be is infringing on our copyright." What? You mean you think you can predetermine guilt from that? Give me a break.
The actual value isn't derived in the courtroom, but rather in the marketplace. Well, this is at least "their" reasoning.
Every lawsuit represents scores of people fearing them, which in turn (again, they hope) will be returned in record sales, far outweighing losses in what basically amounts to the minimal cost of instilling this fear.
It's one way to do it (gain more power, money), I suppose. It's just a shame that the reason they are even attempting this tactic is because they believe it will work.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
You must be the bastion of editorial integrity with your pre-judgement of the RIAA statements as "propaganda." Here's to hoping you never work for a real media outlet.
Kyle: "Oh my god, you sued Kenny."
Stan: "You bastards!"
"I'll be honest you with man... I think the Internet is the greatest invention the world has ever seen. If a kid can't be at a Slipknot show, he could be with you intimately at home, regardless of where he is around the world. MP3's I think are fine, but it's very dangerous when certain people get a hold of an album before it is released and leak it out to the public. Then people download it and distribute it... You have to understand; if you're a musician, you learn how to, and I'm gonna quote something from Henry Rollins here: "You learn how to starve creatively". This is our livelihood, and MP3's can be very dangerous. I'm a great supporter of the Internet. Our Slipknot1.com page got over 230,000 [Actually over a million] hits last month, and it's a great way of reaching out." Quoted from a slipknot article. Disturbed(www.disturbed1.com) also supports p2p and people downloading their music, as long as they support the band in some way(cd's merchandise concert tickets etc) I lost the article though..
http://nng.audiodragon.net
And here the public forget that the RIAA was a big evil group of people. I guess we all need a reminder occasionally. Whether they right or wrong, suing doesn't solve anything.
I wish I had moderator points so I could mod this WAY up. I could not agree more--this topic, to me, is so pointless I can't believe it's still discussed. Our law is that people have IP rights to what they create; in this case, the "artists" create works that are "made-for-hire" (the term used in copyright law) and thus the labels are the legal owners of that property. No one is forcing the musicians to sign with label. That may be the predominant path to success, but so what. All the other arguments are, to me, so much endless ranting. It is stealing, plain and simple, and whether someone, or a large corp., lost money over it or not, is not the point. If you don't like the copyright and related laws, why don't you try to change them? Are you the same people who just decide to shoot someone because you don't like them, as opposed to taking them to court? I cannot believe this shit! Respectfully, Jacques.
Hopefully, with this batch of 500+ people being sued, we'll less extortion on RIAA's part...
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
When the music industry starts paying back all the musicians that they have ripped off, then and only then will I consider the piracy being perpetrated against them wrong.
These are the people who caused many of the founders of jazz, blues and rock and roll to die in poverty. What is happing now is not piracy, it is devine justice.
I would say listening to it first is a pretty good way to decide whether something is valuable to you.
Slashdotters love to say this...as though the majority of the people on Kazaa are "sampling" all those albums in order to run to the store and purchase them to re-get them.
I don't get this incessant need to avoid stating the OBVIOUS TRUTH, which is that p2p is used for a shitload of outright piracy and avoiding paying for stuff. I'd say over 90%. You're being foolish and purposely stoic if you pretend otherwise.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the RIAA suing people who are illegally distributing their product. I don't get the opposition to that either.
If you love the music industry executives, thier spouses and mistresses AND thier nosetrails... buy the overpriced shit they sell you.
When translated to reality, reads:
"I'm justifying stealing some artist's music because I don't like that an exec who heads the label makes money in a capitalist system. I'll ignore that the artist willingly signed their contract and that distributing intellectual property without the copyright holder's permission is illegal.
Instead, I'll sidestep the issue of ripping off artists and say, "Here, look at this, it's a rich RIAA exec and his wife!" Thereby completely distracting the issue with something irrelevant that the anti-social, anti-capitalist, generally-broke Slashdotters can rally against.
And we'll pretend it's actually WRONG for the RIAA to be suing people still illegally distributing their product--even after all the awareness of its immorality and illegality. Never mind that when Napster was being sued, Slashdotters were saying the RIAA should be suing individual downloaders instead because they're the ones breaking the law!
Now they're doing exactly what Slashdotters said they should do, and suddenly it's wrong. Because I'm really trying to justify the piracy I participate in daily on my DSL connection. I'm going to pretend it's not illegal, not immoral, and I'm going to rid myself of the guilt of downloading by trying to remove the image of me being a criminal and instead paint the RIAA as the bad guy."
Yeah, that sounds about right.
AC comments get piped to
There's a working version of Kazaa Lite over at www.blacksails.net
I'm sure no one would mind if I stole both cars so I could try them each out. I'll buy them if I like them. I swear.
the RIAA has made a cool 59 million $$$ just by intimidating end users. Ouch.
-Vendal Thornheart
Here's my problem statement:
1. File sharers like the p2p model as a way of finding new music. They like it partly because it's free, but my suspicion is that there's more to it than that. They like the model. Radio is dead, and the RIAA killed it, via ClearChannel. I'm going to suggest that, given a workable model that preserves file sharing, but allows musicians and their promoters to earn revenues, file sharers will move to a legal model. But it has to preserve the basics of the current open file sharing model.
2. File sharers want to use whatever client they feel like. Any "legalized" file sharing method which forces users into using a specific locked, closed source client is likely to fail.
3. A flat fee system, with built in means to prevent cheating (leaking to uncontrolled distribution) and gaming the system (permitting individuals to artificially inflate download numbers for a particular song) would generate sufficient revenues and a method for divvying up those revenues that would be acceptable to the music industry and musicians.
That's a tall order, but I think it can be done. Consider this:
If you pay a flat fee into my proposed system, you have the rights to:
a. download content with copyrights held by participating contributors freely, by any method.
b. upload that participating content, but only to those that have also paid the fee.
I believe this can be done. To meet my criterion 2, it has to be done by defining a protocol, not a specific client. Criterion 3 can be met by making it trivial to police, to ensure that subscribers aren't cheating. So here's my protocol, at least in a cartoon-back-of-the-envelope form:
Subscribers use a client which authenticates with the license administrator's server. This authentication may be long term, results in a symmetric key shared with the server and bound to a subscriber's identity, and which is your proof that you are a participant. The protocol requires that, prior to actually sharing any content (but not necessarily advertizing it) you perform a 3-way authentication with the party that wishes to share your content and the administration server farm. This can be done using a Needham-Schroeder protocol, by which the administration server pushes, on request, a symmetric key to the two parties. By using this protocol, you have fulfilled your obligation to only upload content to participating subscribers. Your proof is provided by the administration server in distributing the key. Note that you don't need to know the identity of the other party; you only know that they are a subscriber. The symmetric key you share with them is then used to encrypt the content you send them.
Data gathering in this scheme is trivial; the administrators take a sample of the content which has been distributed by scanning the upload directories of subscribers. What is measured is the relative distribution of content, not the number of uploads, and because you don't know the identity of the scanning party, it's very difficult to game the system.
Policing is also simple. The administrative server can ping authenticated subscribers to verify that they aren't using any other file sharing protocol.
So, there may be some things in here you find objectionable. But is this a fair compromise? Could this work?
Comments?
Krill
Classic what, I don't know. But lemme file this away.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Lets say the average teenager/youg adult (who downloads music) spends $200 a year on CDs. That's give or take 10 to 15 CDs a year.
A $3000 suit would be about 15 years' worth of CD buying. This doesn't take into account revenue from advertising on MTV, posters, fan clubs, concerts etc.
In the long run, I think its in the record companie's interests to settle other ways or find new ways to distribute music. Ticking off you fan base for 15 years is not worth it.
So they can't shove music down our throats and extort us anymore, now they sue us, ha. Averaging 3k per lawsuit is more than most albums make, way to go music industry.
And don't be surprised if the low-tech solution to that, when it becomes annoying enough, is a simple can of spray paint and too much time on your hands.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It's kinda like the lottery except in reverse... and no powerball.
What happens when the FCC finally makes it to music, and forbids artists from singing/rapping about anything indecent? I know I wouldn't want to buy a 50 Cent CD that sounds like this: So then I that all over the and she was like "I like it when you me, baby" It's like the modern day Smurfs!
P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
It's a falacy that the law equals right and breaking the law equals wrong. There are rules that should never be enforced at all.
I understand you're playing devil's advocate, but history has shown that breaking the law is not neccesarily a criminal act. The laws of government are supposed to represent the will of the people. When they fail to do that, people will feel free to break them.
On the highway, any improvements in traffic monitoring technology should go towards detecting dangerous & DUI drivers. The people who cause accidents and make driving dangerous for everyone else. Speed doesn't kill, reckless driving kills.
And, similarly, improvements in copyright tracking technology should be focused on cracking down on professional pirates. The people who are actually leeching off the copyright holders (a category that strangely includes most of RIAA's members).
P2P file sharing is nothing more duplicitous than burning CDs for friends or taping off of a radio. And it has just about as serious an effect on the music industry.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
What would happen if U.S. users were to download via a proxy of some sort in a foreign country that does not honor the demands of the RIAA with their statements of copyright violation. I know that a lot of servers of questionable content have been moving "overseas" and I am curious as to how effective such a tactic would be in practicality for p2p users.
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
Will 15 more kids get their 30 seconds of Super Bowl fame next year?
Slashdot won't allow links to URLs containing the word "ads," so here's the text link:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/pepsi/ads/
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
Hopefully you are trolling. If you go to actually purchase a very high end sports car like a lamborgini or a ferrari they will give you a test drive and they will sometimes even let you take it home(after they run a credit check)
If you had ever actually been somewhere that sells the cars you may know that. Of course they wouldnt let me take one home, but you can still hop in the drivers seat.
Well God knows, time was you could actually hear good music for free on the radio. But the RIAA took care of that already.
But that's beside the point. I'm assuming you know the difference between MP3 and PCM. How can you say that one is "re-getting" something when the two codecs are so dissimilar? Is one "re-getting" something when you buy a CD of something you taped off the radio? No, because you are buying it in a different and superior format. And yes, I now own *dozens* of CD's that I wouldn't were it not for P2P. I can't speak for anybody but myself.
You know what I wonder? I wonder how many of you "stealing-is-stealing" people have had dual cassette decks.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
Sure.
As long as you return the one you don't want.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
My iTunes "purchased music" folder shows 43 songs. My Limewire Shared folder has 21 songs in it. I've been using iTunes for about 5 months now.
:O
What your point misses, at least as far as iTunes goes is: a) there are still tons of songs I want to download and can't find on iTunes--these are not super hip songs that the artists are keeping "exclusive", they're mid 80's pop songs that were popular enough in their day, b) though the AAC quality is pretty good relatively speaking, its only 128, and I'm usually able to find someone that has the song I want at 256+, and I CAN hear the difference definitely, c) 30 seconds of intro is often not enough for me to decide whether I want the whole song.
Until Apple fixes these things, I'll keep sharing to get around these shortcomings.
Of course, if someone hadn't so royally screwed up copyright laws in the first place, most of the stuff I'd be downloading would have expired be now.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
You're not supposed to be "interested in music". You're supposed to be a passive consumer of it. If you were interested, they'd have to keep producing novel, innovative stuff to meet your interest. If you just eat up any old drivel, the cost of producing that drivel is much lower. This can in turn drive the price down and everyone's better off and music more available, in a sort of trickle-down economics. Picky "music lovers" are frankly just spoiling it for everyone by raising the barrier to success and keeping prices high.
Once all of the "interested" types are properly behind bars, the music industry can really get rolling.
(seriously, there's no "creative industry" that's fond of its aesthete fans, whether it's music, film, software, or industrial design - the people you cater to are the teeming masses who don't really care too much about what they're being sold.)
..that the lawyers for the RIAA are using file-sharing to draft their subpeonas? Oh, the irony...
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
I wonder how many of those IP's are from minors (kids under 18), since under California law (I think there's also a federal one), it is strictly forbidden to "stalk" (or log the IP and activity) of minors without permission from the legal guardian (it's to help prevent internet predators).
I'm also hoping that more ppl sue the RIAA for using the justice system as a means to extort money out of those who don't have an army of lawyers at their disposal.
Moreover, I'd like to see ppl stand up against the RIAA (with EFF, EPIC, etc. assistance of course) and argue the point that downloading and sharing music files for no-charge is no more illegal than if one were to put up a listening booth on their lawns and people listened and recorded it. Or even pick at any of the numerous fallacies like "it may stifle future creative works." Alot of independent musicians use P2P or some other form of free distribution to get noticed and to get people to buy tickets and other stuff. I think there was a group that isn't independent (they were interviewed on TV and talked about it) and they have more ticket sales now thanks to downloading.
Another fallacy? How about the fact that they "lose $X billions"? It's just not true. If they don't make it nor not necessarily likely they would have otherwise, how can they lose it? Not all people would actually buy a crappy overpriced album for just one or two good songs if they couldn't just download the one they want.
Another? How about the point about "sales are down due to downloading"? Err....isn't the economy down? And I mean down? Not only that, have they actually sit down and think, why ain't our crappy, overpriced products moving like they use to? Bad economy, crappy product, overpriced product, etc.
O well, I'd like to see them (RIAA) and the other company that people love to hate, SCO (well, Rambus too), get eviscerated in the courts.
Must... not... make... obscene... joke... about... lawyers'... sexual... proclivities!
You're probably right. I'm sure if they go to hookers to celebrate their latest settlement, they probably go top-shelf. There; I did it, and now I'm ashamed.
The CB App. What's your 20?
That is an awesome link - it makes me feel better about the last few albums I bought from KMFDM. Only one is listed as possibly contaminated by the RIAA. I think I will email the guys and find out.
Hey, if there are any KMFDM fans out there, start *BUYING* their albums. These guys deserve our support.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Well, in all honesty this is much like the '60's. The people wanted freedom, no more war, free love baby. So they finally brought about change and yadda yadda, etc.
But look at what happened to those people. Those are the people that are now in charge of the country, controlling the cash flow. (Yeah, yeah I know conspiracy theorist..)
They've been through that, and they've got an idea about how to attack the opposition. With money. They have it, college students don't. How do you stop anything in today's society? Litigate, sue, etc. One good example is Environmentalist movements in California. They've made it so they can't build any power plants anywhere. California is only dependent on other states for two things, water and electricity. They could solve the latter problem by building power plants, but every time they have a design some environmental group steps in with some obscure item that halts the whole process and makes them go through the courts. As far as water goes, they've got nothing to really complain about. They've got miles of waterfront property. (I live in a desert so they have no real right to complain there!)
Anyway, back to the point. They know where to hit and who to hit. If they were to go after people with money, then they'd have to spend more money to prove that they were wrong, because these people would fight back and would use their power (money) to get things changed. Why do that when you can settle with the poor and defenseless? This will scare other poor, defenseless people and thus solidify their "reign".
The only problem with this strategy is that sooner or later it will backfire and they will lose all support and be ousted. I'm praying that it is sooner.
"We keep losing customers! I don't understand! We sue the fuckers, and they still won't buy our products!"
-Valiss
I was just considering a variation on this - you make a bunch of white noise mp3's, say a few thousand, and name them to resemble popular songs. Let the RIAA sue you. Let them fall flat on their face.
And then let the countersuits begin. Malicious prosecution, defamation, mental anguish...
They will never stop until somebody makes the
It would be interesting to see how much file-sharing has gone down as a result of the law suits. The RIAA's recent actions have nothing to do what the law suits are ostensibly about, ie getting back money that was lost due to file-sharing, it's more of a way to scare people into less file-sharing in the future. Even if they are losing money in the short run with these tactics, they may very well be making up for that in the long run. Smart business move? I don't know, I guess we'll see.
"Produce a product that anyone else can copy and you'll soon go bankrupt. That's capitalism."
Amen to that. The music industry opened up this pandora's box in the first place when they got greedy and decided to make us all buy our record collections again on CD. Be careful what you wish for.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
You can also check out my not-quite-ready-for-prime-time website Pirates Or Heroes.
Test 1 2 3 4
do you have any friends in kazakhstan?
or, er, i mean kazaakhstan?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You mean like, oh, a patent?
I wonder what would happen if these 532 file swappers make put up $1000 each and get domeone to represent them for $532000.
I am aware that these are multiple cases, most likely scattered, but still, would something like this be poossible?
ok, so what I am tring to figure out is that with the growing number of viruses and worms that are being put out every day, people deside to go after microsoft.... Ok now, I wonder wy there has not been a attack yet on the recording industry. The odds of them sueing a pissed off cracker is much higher then not sueing one. Sooner of later there is going to be a revolt against them, and then what will they do? Also going after the colleges has to be the dumbest idea. I graduated from one of the colleges on there list, and I know from experiounce that the computers are used by at least 20 people a day and are goasted every week, so what are they going to do wait for class to start and hand whom ever is at the computer a suit? Get real...
No problem.
Nearly 2000 people "caught", out of probably at least 2 million. Not a very good ratio. I would never divulge a users identity to anyone, we don't even keep logs, it's nice to own your own ISP.
I'm sure no one would mind if I stole both cars so I could try them each out. I'll buy them if I like them. I swear.
I think the question is, would they mind if you instantaneously made an exact duplicate of each car (with your own duplicating machine, of course) and took the duplicate out for a test drive. The manufacturer wouldn't like it, the dealer probably wouldn't much like it, but what about the owner of the original, and the original designer of the car? Would either of them care? It's something to ponder.
Ok lets make a dir of 100000 files of everysone possible. Faked.
Make an app that generates these files then shares them.
If 100000 people run it, (well not only will we get 'bad' fake files, but RIAA might start sueing) then you can sue them for wrongfull sue.
At least it would use up all their resources if suddendly 50000 people have 100000 files each.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
with 1,977 subpoenas, averaging $3,000 per, they've raked in about $5,931,000. Is anyone aware of a single dime of that money going to the artists? Last I checked, back when the suits were at about two or three hundred, that answer was no. How am I supposed to feel guilty about downloading music with numbers like that?
Hey sexy mama, wanna kill all humans?
As far I as know, the RIAA represents a select group of record labels. Are they suing people sharing music that's not under these labels? I know a good portion of users who deal in the underground electronica and hiphop scenes which are dominated by tiny American and European labels that most likely aren't affiliated with the RIAA. Just curious...
This sounds like a great opportunity to go there and ask them some hard questions. Then the college newspaper editors will have something interesting to report on, not just propaganda. Some questions you could ask them:
1) If you are protecting artists like you claim you are, then how come million-selling performers like TLC and Toni Braxton had to file for bankruptcy in order to get out the financial troubles your loans put them in? (source: Courtney Love's speech in salon.com)
2) How much money does an artist get from each sold CD (tip: 8-12 percent) and what does a breakdown look like (manufacturing costs, band cut, transportation and distribution...)
3) How many CDs does an average artist have to sell to BREAK EVEN on an average RIAA contract (hint: 250 000)
4) If I were to spend 45$ on three CDs of my favourite artist (15$ per CD), how much money would he/she get (about 4.5$). If I downloaded those albums on Kazaa and went instead to a concert (30$) and bought a T-Shirt (15$), how much money would the artist get (my guess is over 20$ cash).
5) If file-swapping is hurting the industry, then how come CD sales are up this year in some parts of the world? What does RIAA do for promotion of 95% of the artists who don't hit MTV anyway?
I'm sure you can come up with some other good ones. Moses Avalon Calculator is a great resource for some more facts. Remember, don't be an ass, ask your questions politely, and wait until he's babbled some bullshit for best impact. Good luck.
Exactly. I don't understand why so many people will counter an argument concerning non-tangible items ( like a file, its just a bunch of bits ) with tangible ones ( like a car ). Yes, at some level, say the storage of a file, its "tangible" as the pit s a laser a burns into a CD, but I believe my meaning is clear.
Copyright violation != theft, and people will be able to argue their points for or again P2P file sharing once they get that through their heads.
It is violating the owners copyright in many cases, but not all ( take sharing Opensource applications, for example ). And then one realizes that that is what the real issue is, they can start building a credible argument for or against ( music ) file sharing.
I can't afford a sig!
Anyone who gets sued by the RIAA through their use of Kazaa, can in very sound theory sue Kazaa for damages. Because Kazaa has failed to protect the privacy of each of these users in each and every case. Again because they are not cooperating with the authorities directly this theory can not be contradicted by the EULA of Kazaa. Kazaa doesn't suddenly release the idents of certain users to whett the RIAA's mouth. They have failed to protect their users from identification and the only way that the RIAA has been able to figure out who is who is through their use of Kazaa and the "criminal's" use of Kazaa.
I do understand how totally useless it is to Sue Kazaa given their past legal/logistical history
I hereby disown myself, and remove myself from any comments I may or may not have made above... have fun with that.
Cry me a fucking river, they knew it was a Faustian deal and they still signed up for it. Probably most of the RIAA star artist's wouldn't have ever become star artists, if they didn't have the RIAA's promotional machine behind them - I can't imagine Courtney Love getting so big without Geffen Records, for instance. And there's plenty of non-RIAA alternatives for artists who think they can make it big without the RIAA label's promotional machines.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
when my music turns up on iTunes, i'll *consider* buying in. P2P is not evil, or wrong. It is the solution.
We need someone to find random RIAA execs, and execute them.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
don't believe everything you read, either d:
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Why are you proposing "solutions" here? Aren't you and the *AA supposed to work it out yourselves? I am suspecting you're an *AA supporter, or a wannabe.
.mp3 or other more free formats and distribute them in current P2P? You want DRM in your songs and BigBro to watch you? The stupid suggestions only work, if the customers cooperate. If you have customer cooperation, you wouldn't have people uploading and downloading stuff they didn't pay for - this is only a problem for most, if not all, *AA style businesses.
This is for the moderators on crack:
What's to stop someone from ripping songs to
The whole point of the *AA's monopoly is to rip off musicians, to solely use their distribution systems, and to use DRM file formats for pay-per-play, if possible. If they change, they no longer have a monopoly.
These lawsuits are perfect. The only effective way to defeat the *AA is to boycott them permanently en masse, and support the alternatives simultaneously.
Isn't this why Open Source is thriving today? It started with people boycotting closed source, and developed Open Source. If you can't write a half-assed song, look for Free alternatives; and stop proposing solutions, even stupid ones, for the *AA.
Now ask yourself. How well would this work for those who don't want to play by someone elses rules? Part of the mess the worlds is in, is exactly because there are those who think that societies rules don't apply to them. You not only need to come up with something that functions, but also know how people will try to avoid it. Now you know why our laws read like a phone book, instead of a pamplet.
They're using the law against us, why not use it to fight them? They're soon going to stop suing people if they know they can get their cases beaten in the courts.
I'm pretty sure this is the fastest way to beat them, or at least slow them down a bunch.
> The RIAA has been averaging $3,000 per settlement so far.
How much have they lost in negative sentiment? I don't buy many CD's in comparison to some people, but I estimate that I have chosen NOT to buy at least 20 or more CD's in the last year or so as a backlash to the Labels. My consumption of CD's has fallen by about 20%. Tough Titties, RIAA and ARIA!
If you're looking for American music, iTunes is great. I like mainstream music, and I have bought a bunch of it through iTunes. It's way better then the record store or the CD clubs that I used to belong to to get my 10 CDs then quit.
.99 a song, you bet your sweet arse I will.
BUT
iTunes does not have American Indian music.
iTunes does not have a lot of Italian music.
iTunes does not have a lot of Folk music.
iTunes is missing a lot of non mainstream stuff, despite their commitment to independant bands. I'm sorry, but if I can't buy my music online, or at the store, I still want to listen to it, so I'm going to swap it. If you offer me the opportunity to buy it for
what about the owner of the original, and the original designer of the car? Would either of them care? It's something to ponder.
Yes, of course they would. A Ferrari duplicator would immediately make the real cars worthless. The manufacturer would then go out of business and have to lay off the designer. The owner would be left with something for which he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and no resale value.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
And music doesn't require money to produce?
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Ask the RIAA if you can listen (test) some of there music and they scream pirate. Also as a musician I have put some of my music onto P2P networks to try and gain some interest in what I do RIAA members are afraid that more musicians will do this and skip the middle man, please take your ignorance elsewhere.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Let's see... I paid $4000 or the computer and a hefty monthly fee for the highspeed aDSL connection - and I'm sued for stealing.
Stealing something off the Internet.
Hmm.
Anyone see the logic break?
Does the riaa sue people for just downloading and using music, or is the riaa out for people who re-sell the music they download?
Why are college students targeted? Are they the worst offenders, or are they just easier to catch? Do the colleges help the RIAA here?
Does it really matter which P2P client is used? Can using a no-spyware p2p client prevent the riaa from detecting a user?
What if somebody doesn't have a static IP? Is the riaa going to supeona the ISP for somebody who was using a specific IP for a particular time, on a particular day? Do ISPs normally keep all that information? What about users who are behind home routers? Or behind routers at companies that don't wish to cooperate with the riaa? Aren't there way to hide your IP address?
Let's start RIAA lawsuit insurance!
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
That assumes that the duplicator costs nothing to operate (which, given that it's a large, expensive, physical object we're talking about, is unlikely). Of course, that highlights the limits of the analogy - a car is not like a cd, both in cost and nature.
Of course, you also assume everyone would use the duplicator rather than buy an original. If the cost (in the full sense of finance, time, etc.) isn't significantly less than the cost of buying an original, then I'd say anyone who wants one and can afford one will still get an original. And if the cost of using the duplicator is significantly cheaper, then that would imply that the original is over-priced. All of which leads to the really interesting question of: what are the implications of someone who couldn't afford an original using the duplicator to get one?
The new ticker at I think CNN or MSNBC headlined this story this morning however that stated that it was for "downloading" music. The downloader aren't doing anything illegal. The people that share the files are the only ones that could be charge with copyright violation.
I never download music anymore. When I want the latest CD I go right to my local library and rip it with CDex. No P2P software required!
Next thing you know SCO will be suing the RIAA for theft of their "intellectual property" ..
From what I've seen of the logs, certain companies make sweeps of p2p networks at semi-regular intervals; if you do not block some of these connections then you are going on a list, somewhere. Kazaa Lite will not mask you (think packet sniffers here). If a 'vigilante' connects to your machine and downloads part of an illegal file, you are potentially Busted with hard evidence. So wisen up, protect yourself, and let the unlucky stupid get caught.
===---===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Lol this is slashdot, why aren't the kazaa clients for linux getting pushed. Use apollon or mldonkey, then get the fastrack plugins for them.
I worked many more years ago than I care to admit in a record store and I got a very handsome discount on music (OK, it was pre-CD and we did actually have some 8-tracks. Yeah, that long ago). Know what? I bought loads of music out of my wages and I didn't care that much if some of it was cack. Now I can afford to buy some music but as I see such a load of rubbish on sale (Dido? Am I the only one who thinks she's mooing?) I don't buy much at all. And I don't download. You've got to really want to hear something before you'll bother with the faffing around in p2p to find a decent copy.
Music is overpriced. People know that the price of a CD is too high for its value in terms of entertainment.
As purchasers listen to their new CD they realise that they've got 2 or 3 decent tracks and a load of filler. How much did I pay for this junk? As resentment builds and they see the tracks they want to hear available on p2p networks, they choose to get the music they want, rather than the music the industry wants them to have.
The industry is pricing singles at too high a proportion of the price of a full album. Result: death of the CD single.
The price of a CD album is set at an artificial point to seem more valuable than the nearest rounded-down price point (example: $18.99 rather than $14.99). Result: resentment by buyers, who seek out cheaper sources for their CD's until the industry says Whoa there! WE can offshore production to save money and increase profits, but you suckers can still pay our price in your home territory rather than buy offshore.
Unless the price of CDs and DVDs falls to a lower price point the industry will face continuing efforts to circumvent copyright. Let's face it, if a CD cost half of what it does today, would you bother to download it? To rip it? The industry is NOT giving artists big royalties and they're not investing heavily in A&R. They are just coining it, and getting scared that the public have rumbled their cosy little game.
When a commodity is overpriced in the martketplace, the price must fall or the market will collapse.
At $3,000 per settlement, it takes only 200 full CDs at $15 per CD to make this worth it. Considering your average CD has about 15 songs on it, that would be about 3,000 songs...very close to the 99 cent price given out by the various online music stores.
:)
More than 3,000 songs - and you're making money
-JT
Shame on the RIAA for suing students! They could at least go after people who can afford the court fees.
This is kind of a catch-22. Those who can afford court fees typically can afford to pay for their music, and thus, don't tend to steal (oops, I mean "infringe") their music off of the Internet. Also, people with jobs that pay well enough to allow them to afford lawyers usually tend to be better educated, and more upstanding citizens, and know it's wrong to steal (oops, there I go again) stuff you didn't pay for.
So the reason it seems like the RIAA is only suing poor, young students is because those tend to be the people with morals loose enough to allow them to justify taking things without paying for them, and whose income is too low for them to actually legitimately acquire all the bling (oops, I mean posessions) that MTV says they should have, to get women.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
People don't have the right to distribute material covered under copyright laws without the holders' permission.
Copyright holders have to allow certain uses for the distribution of their works (educational, etc.)
Why is that when copyright holders and their supporters (e.g the MPAA/RIAA) ask us to "respect copyright", they conveniently neglect their own imposition of copyright protections that can be easily dismantled by anyone but those willing to follow the law, and thus designed only to remove copyright-enabled privileges from those who do follow the law? Respect works two ways - yet for the RIAA, respect for copyright law is only reasonable when it benefits them.
Copyright infringement won't improve the artists' share of their own revenues (though P2P and legal downloading of songs may do that), nor will it halt the erosion of the rights of the people over copyrighted works. However, without copyright infringement, these issues would have been considered by very few, and probably ignored by most. Would song downloads (outside of the album format) have come about without the threat of copyright infringement? Since there was no competition with the RIAA, there was no alternative to choose that offered these until copyright infringement made it clear that a lot of people wanted songs, not albums. The RIAA is the limiting case - they have both colluded to maintain prices and selection and have also helped to erode the rights of the people over copyrighted works. By colluding, they negated legal ways for individuals to choose other ways to get music, and circumvented the ability of the market to control their behavior. This didn't leave much alternative for lots of people, and feeling screwed, they did what in other circumstances their consciences would have inhibited - they infringed the copyrights of others.
I don't disagree with your premise - there are good reasons why copyright infringement is a crime and why those who engage in it should be pursued. The problem for me is that copyright law is supposed to guarantee both my rights in using their works (but not distributing them) and the rights of the copyright holders to sell and distribute their works - at this moment, copyright law seems to be applied selectively to those who infringe the rights of the holders of copyright and not for those who infringe the rights of the people to use the copyrighted works. The RIAA in particular has short-circuited the ability of the market to enforce the rights of the users of copyrighted works, and the gov't has followed the money to the copyright holders' pockets. I am frustrated with the situation - I won't copy, but I don't know how else my rights as a user of copyrighted works will be taken seriously.
Shame on the RIAA for suing students! They could at least go after people who can afford the court fees.
Shame on the police for arresting poor people who commit crimes! They could at least go after people who can afford to pay bail.
Your a naughty slashdot user, you didn't read this article from 4 days ago!
I guess you accept Slashdot as fact?
CD sales go up in Australia, and magically that means file-sharing contributed?
If piracy has nothing to do with decreased CD sales (as Slashdot constantly claims), why does it suddenly have a connection when sales go up in another country?
You must know there are people on this earth with different mores, values, laws, beliefs, etc. in which there would be *at least* something wrong with the current antics of the riaa.
What antics? Suing people breaking the law who are illegally distributing their product? This is extremely simple. People are violating their copyright. So the RIAA sues them. There really isn't that much of a story to it.
How can Slashdot expect people to follow the GPL, but avert its eyes when it comes to violating copyright?
Not to mention the sueing of a 10 year old girl who thought what she was doing was legal and moral, and an 80 year old grandpa who didn't even own a computer. But that's besides the point.
Right. Because the RIAA was somehow able to know when they filed suit against the list of usernames that one of them was a 10-year-old girl ("who thought what she was doing was legal and moral"...give me a break, now she knows better) and an 80 year old guy.
Both were dropped or settled. They're irrelevant.
Artists sign their contracts. The only people you're ripping off is copyright holders. You do NOT have the right to pirate the hell out of their works just because you have a grudge against capitalism. That's the bottom line.
What they would most likely do is try to lisence the duplicating machine from you, lay off all the factory workers and sell all the cars they produce at the same price to increase profit.
Car manufacturers would still need designers and engineers to design new cars, they just wouldnt need the manufacturing plants. Then whatever this duplicating machine costs, they would simply price their cars slightly lower so most people wouldnt bother with the hassle.
Is what would happen if you went out and bought all the CD's that you were accused of downloading? Couldn't you then say that you were simply downloading digital backups to listen to on your computer?
Everyone bitched about how piracy was the only option since the RIAA didn't want to allow tracks to be sold online.
And the RIAA is STILL refusing to serve the demand for MP3s.
The entire P2P explosion is the RIAA's own creation. When Napster smacked them over the head with the fact that there was a demand for music downloads and the fact that it was possible to serve that demand, the RIAA intentionally left a complete VACUUM for about 5 years by refusing to serve that market at all. Nature abhors a vacuum, and markets abhor a vacuum. Naturally a "black market" exploded to fill that vacuum. The RIAA created their own worst enemy. And for the last year or two the RIAA has STILL refused serve consumer demand for NON-CRIPPLED files. I'm supprized they get as many customers as they do for their DRM crippled crap.
Based on your sig I conclude you probably agree.
$0.99 per track
Which works out to nearly the same as the retail price to buy the full CD. A download is a VASTLY cheaper product. No disks to press. No packaging. No inventory. No shipping. No retail outlets and sales personel. Not to mention the fact that the RIAA has been nailed on multiple occations for illegally inflating the price of CDs.
The cost of bandwith to send an MP3 download is maybe a penny. With suitable volume of sales (which they could get if they offered a non-crippled product and lowered prices) the server room and most other costs would amount to about a penny per download as well. They should have a $19.95 subscription for at least one or two HUNDRED downloads.
After years of cartel conspiracy to quash the online market, we are supposed to be grateful that they finally deigned to permit us to buy an overpriced and crippled product? And they only offer a limited selection from their catalog at that.
everyone bitched how the RIAA was attacking the P2P networks themselves
Yeah, exactly the same stupidity as when the MPAA had VCR's ruled illegal. That idiot state court had to be reversed by the Supreme Court.
For the last several years our copyright laws have literally be written by lawyers employed by the publishing industry. In fact the publishing industry's desires have almost zero legitimacy in formulating copyright law. Copyright law exists for the public's benefit. It produces that benefit by giving authors and artists an incentive to create. The public's interests override all else, and author/artists interests are vital in service of that public interest. It doesn't matter what the RIAA wants so long as creators are given motivation to create (generally through money), and so long as those creations reach the public.
It is challenging but not impossible to serve both the public interest and the interests of creators, but not while groups like the RIAA are actively sabotaging that process. The RIAA does NOT represent the artists, they merely claim to. The RIAA selectively uses those claims and arguments to further their own interests, often at the expense of the artists. We won't be able to beneficially resolve the copyright crisis until congress realizes there is no need to negotiate or compromise with the RIAA at all.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
> you also assume everyone would use the duplicator rather than buy an original
I'm not arguing either way here, but if the second is of exactly the same quality as the original, then yes, everyone would use a duplicator. Well, a few extremely rich people might buy hand-built ones just to say they did...
Not necessarily! Quality isn't the only factor. There's also relative convenience, relative cost (a duplicate will always cost something, if not necessarily up-front cash), not to mention morality. People will be more likely to pay for something if they have to, or if it's easier, or if they think they should. People will be less likely to pay for something if they don't think it's worth it, or if they can't afford it.
As an aside, in this specific car example, if a duplicate was indeed exactly the same quality and was much cheaper to produce than the original, then the manufacturer would use duplication as part of the production process, thus bringing down the cost difference. Which is another point where the analogy maybe falls over a bit. But hey, it wasn't my analogy. :-)
I feel that there is a slight problem with your proxy setup. If RIAA can't get your public shares, the other users won't be able to do it as well. That is exactly what RIAA wants.
If nobody is sharing, nobody is going to be able to download and share the information further. That kills the whole point of P2P and assists RIAA in its battle.
"Remember you kick the tires with someone elses permission. You don't go onto the lot, jump into a car, and then drive it around town. In fact some dealers have the salesperson ride around with you. So NO the two aren't equivalent."
:-)
Pick a product then and compare then. I used cars as an example.
"You have all the buy it, copy it, return it, to thank for that. See how the few spoil it for the many. Hope you remembered to scold them. BTW if it's defective they will exchange it."
So I can exchange my pre August 2002 version of XP for a newer one? Service Pack 1 was supposed to allow me to use hard drives greater than 137Gb. Didn't work and no I can't return it for one that does. I ended up returning the 160Gb drive and bought two 120Gb drives. Microsoft said it's my problem (I didn't code it guys.. geez).
"No other industry has a product that can be copied by a ten year old. If cars were they same way, then you'd see the same thing happening."
Literature + Xerox = 10 year old pirate
No I don't mean to sound like I'm defending/pounding here but the point is yes, there are other examples and I just pointed a couple more above. I'm sure if I spent a few minutes I could come up with some more. There is still the fact that these industries could push out defective products or simply not meet expectations. You have no recourse (like my Windows XP situation). If there is a problem with the product then I should be able to get it returned/replaced with a copy that meets expectations.
I understand your point, consider my point also.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com