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RIAA To Subpoena Univ. of Michigan Names
uofmtech writes "This morning's Michigan Daily is reporting that the RIAA will be subpoenaing the University of Michigan for the names of nine students suspected of file-sharing. University General Counsel Jack Bernard has said 'We are waiting to receive them ... (t)hese are very difficult subpoenas to refuse.' The RIAA had previously notified the University they were looking into this, but the University has tended to handle such matters internally."
RIAA uses a simple technology called webcrawler to scan IP addresses for copyrighted material, but if a student is not sharing or uploading files, then RIAA cannot view the material on a person's computer.
:-)
I would actually be curious as to 1) how this technology works and 2) what the legalities of it are.
From the wording, one would guess that the algorithm goes through IP addresses of files shared on common p2p networks, and based upon that, do they assume you are automatically sharing copyrighted material and thus are subject to search? Or is the algorithm simply correlating those copyright material uploaded to shared databases with an IP address and then assuming the offending computer contains "ill gotten booty"? Or is that ill booten gotty?
Regarding the legalities, unless there is some agreement that most folks unknowingly consent to, having the RIAA looking through "material" on someone's computer should be illegal whether or not they are engaging in illegal theft of intellectual property......right? I suppose that if the RIAA were looking for narrowly defined "signatures" of IP or copyright protected data, they would have to scan the entire contents of hard drives and without a subpoena, I have to wonder if this is legal at all? I suppose the software bots could simply be looking for material that is left wide open to the Internet which would obviate many of the legal concerns, but why would someone host any significant (especially illegally obtained) collection of software wide open?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
How soon until someone writes a virus that makes your machine share files? Once a virus like it gets out, any user can deny culpability. Come on virus writers, do some good!
Perhaps this is punishment for not signing a deal with Napster and completely firewalling the campus dorms like SOME universities have done to appease the RIAA.
*cough*Penn State*cough*
RIAA exportion tactics, plain and simple.
I propose a new approach to p2p that might help prevent automatic detection. We'll call it p2p2p2p, or peer 2 peer 2 peer 2 peer. Basically, it's a traffic chain from A to D while going through B and C as proxies. This generates much more traffic, but as more users connect, it doesn't really matter. The pros: user A doesn't know who user D is. User B doesn't know who user D is. User C doesn't know that user D is the end user in the chain. Why not go p2p2p instead? The RIAA could be the middle man. But with p2p2p2p, the RIAA could be a middle man but not know who the end user or who the "instigator" is. This completely anonymizes everyone. There is no solid way to prove that user D is the one holding the information, and there is no solid way to prove that A is the instigator. Everyone is potentially a conduit and there is no way to prove that the user is acting as the source or the sink in the chain. (I retain copyright. I might publish a paper on this later on. 3-24-2004)
I'm really starting to wonder just exactly how long the RIAA intends to keep on their rampage of lawsuits against their own would-be customers. Sure seems to be like these lawsuits haven't really hurt filesharing one bit, aside from scaring away the few people who didn't understand the implications.
If you look at the figure given, a few articles back, that's a significant amount of money that the RIAA is receiving as a result of the settlements-- in the range of a several million, I believe? Is it not so much their goal to boost their CD sales but to make up for it with the settlements from a couple thousand people? Of course, they claim the purpose behind the lawsuits not to be the money, but honestly, what else do they think they are accomplishing?
Since it's obvious P2P is here to stay, maybe this is their way of "adapting". Instead of making money through legitimate business, they've shifted their business model to something of a mobster hierarchy: "pay us not to break your legs"
KappaStone
The thing is, the vast majority of artists really do welcome it, whether they say it explicitly or not. The RIAA just strongarms or bribes them into using their public image as a means to gain sympathy for the "poor recording industry". If more of the big artists really started endorsing filesharing, what do you think would happen to their contracts? I would bet that the industry tries to keep the p2p supporters pretty hush-hush by threatening to pull their music or even filing lawsuits over breach of contract (seeing as how they're already suing their customers).
Once you've signed with one of the big labels, you've practically signed your soul over to the devil. You no longer control your music, and if you don't put out so much music over a certain period, you either lose your contract or you're fined. Yes, there are a few big artists who have come outright and spoken against filesharing, but on an overall scale, how much of the artist pool do they cover?
Now, you may say that I don't know what I'm talking about because it's different when you're in the position of the artist, but guess what? I'm an alternative rock artist, I fully support P2P filesharing, and in fact I allow people to download entire albums for free off of my website. How do I make my money, then? Performances, and I also do other things than just write music.
KappaStone
Initially, I was rather discouraged by the university's policies on this issue, but anymore I'm somewhat glad that they've blocked a good deal of the file sharing applications. I'm sure there are people who tunnel out of the university network to use file sharing, which is completely understandable.
I hate the concept of 'censoring' or 'restricting' the Internet, but when it's a matter of personal security -- I suppose I'll let it go for now.
huzzah
I doubt you will see any Penn State students being sued since Penn State President Spanier worked hand in hand with the RIAA to get the students to subsidize the PSU Napster service from their activity fee. Now, all psu students support the RIAA regardless if they listen to music or not.
Since when is RIAA a section of the federal or State judiciary?????
How can a private organization issue a subpoena???
A township - an actual unit of government, but not judicial branch - in Wyoming tried that a few years ago. The BATF laid siege and imprisoned them.
My university network admins have been harrasing people running p2p for ages it seems. Finally I gave up. We're now running a dorm-wide CD sharing thing using a web site called office-exchange.com. We just swap disks and (shhh) rip them ourselves.
How can they prove this? Most Cable companies, and some DSL providers (using PPPOE) assign addresses dynamically. My cable modem IP changes every three days. Who's to say the IP address 'sued' was used by 'whom' and 'when'? I highly doubt they are keeping year old DHCP logs with MAC addresses (which can be chaged as well) around. I mean, if 20 people had access to the same murder weapon, and there are no fingerprints, you can't just pick one person and call them 'guilty'. How can they sue a dynamically assigned address?
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
First let me state that I completely reject the idea that giant media corporations own music. They don't make it, they don't compensate the people who do make it, and culture is not something that owned by a corporation anyway.
I will conceed their 'right' to an exclusive sales agreement on pre-pressed media for the recordings of 'artists' that sign contracts with their corporation, but only for a period of ten years. Downloads remain no one's 'property'. After the traditional period of seventeen years, the recording becomes public domain for anyone's use and reuse, commercial or private.
But I don't the ability to legally enforce my position.
I suggest that people prepare themselves for the hard and painfull process of removing their cultural consciousness from the global media corporation product. It's painfull because they infect every part of our cultural consciousness from the time that we are born.
I suggest studying music and filmmaking. And then getting inexpensive equipment such as musical instruments and camcorders and making your own personal audio-visual product. The instruments could be MIDI music synthesizers which desperately need new and exciting ways to create sounds and music through creative programming. The whole MIDI scene is stuck in a deep rut. There hasn't been a new programming idea in this field in ten years. The synthesizers cost one tenth of what they did ten years ago and it is possible to get powerful equipment for less than $100US.
The more that you get away from global media corporate product, the more that you begin to find topics like literary crititism, plotting, and writing revelant and important. Study in these subjects is completely wasted on people saturated in global media corporate product and should be dropped from school requirements. No more need for Cliff Notes and Anthology of English Lit books (at $150 a pop). Stupid and worthless.
Please do not concern yourself about the ethical and moral issues of copywrite legalities. There are none. The global media corporations STOLE the public domain by bribing the American legislators to pass laws extending copywrite to infinity minus a day.
No civilized person has any need to respect these copywrite laws. And you should pay attention to them only to the extent that you keep yourself from being imprisoned by them.
Anything that you do to undermine or superceed the copywrite laws is morally and ethically valid. Remember, these people stole the public domain. They have no right to call ANYONE thieves, nor do they have a right to claim any cultural content as their property.
Thank you,
Simonetta
As a Penn Stater, I noted that our student newspaper opined today that the trustees are spending WAY too much time congratulating themselves over the deal with Napster. File sharing may be important (or may not be), but universities are starting to focus on it above other concerns. The RIAA targeting college students through their institutions only helps to give these universities something to focus on other than their real problems.
I think if there was an RIAA apology letter out there someone would probably publish it. From what I understand, in this type of situation they just drop the lawsuit - I doubt that there is any apology involved. Can anyone else comment on this?
On a side note, this is the same thing that Blizzard/Vivendi did to Bnetd - after they fucked everyone, then they just drop the lawsuit. No apology, plaintiffs still have to pay for lawyers up to that point. It's called the "Chilling Effect". The fact that they dropped the lawsuit is irrelevant, because the damage was already done.
Every decent downloader with a fat pipe got everything they wanted illegal music-wise back in the napster days. Come on people! Its 2004! Get opensource programs faster, download independent movies, get dj mixes streamed from the best clubs in the world. Cheap Porn for cring out loud! Or my new favorite- old Playstation games that I bought back in the day but they got eaten by my PS1 before I could finish them! With modern emulators they look better that some PS2 games. I can finally see the ending to Final Fantasy 9. All great stuff- Get all your music and get out. Your connection is better spent in other ways.
Open Source Sushi