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."

Comments

How?

[BWJones]

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?

Re:How?

[finkployd]

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?

Wrong, you are publishing them for all the world to see. It is no more illegal for the RIAA to look at what you are publicly sharing than it is for you to look at their website.

I don't think the RIAA remotly scanning all the contents of people's harddrives (if they are, I want to know what horrible OS vulnerability is allowing THAT), just the materials they are making available for download.

Finkployd

Re:How?

[bcolflesh]

RIAA uses a simple technology called webcrawler

It's actually just "a webcrawler" - I can't find any actual name or further info - probably just libwww-perl w/mods.

Re:How?

[SpermanHerman]

I agree -- would it be an illegal search in court? For example, in order to search my house you have to get a court order, does the same apply to my hard drive? Also, does the RIAA have to download a song that I'm sharing to prove that it is an infringement (it could be another song or incomplete...)?

~SpermanHerman

Re:How?

[Petronius]

My guess is that all they need to do is initiate a download off of your IP.

Re:How?

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

That's why I'd like to see any slim encryption put on top of P2P. It would be really easy to brea... sure. But as long as we have that stupid DMCA, the RIAA couldn't scan for stuff like this.

This way we'll either keep the bastards out of our computers... OR... have the RIAA lobby against the DMCA!

Re:How?

[spellraiser]

Well, it's not exactly stated explicitly in the story (although it should be), but it's pretty clear from the context that RIAA is doing this scanning over Kazaa and other p2p networks.

And since users of these networks are voluntarily making this stuff public, I doubt there are any legal ramifications. But it is rather embarassing for the people being taken to court that they allowed themselves to be traced this way.

Trust no one, hide your IP address ... or else 'they' will get you!

Re:How?

[finkployd]

I'm not sure how encryption would change anything. My understand is that the RIAA just has a client like any other on this network and is searching for copyrighted material, not packet sniffing.

Finkployd

Re:How?

[agentZ]

You're getting mixed up here. In the US, the government must have a search warrant if they want to search your personal effects that are not in plain view. The fourth ammendment does not apply to private entities such as the RIAA.

Next, no search authorization is needed for anything on public display (e.g. anything visible outside of your house, things you've published in the newspaper, and IMHO, anything you're publishing on the Internet.)

Re:How?

[mdfst13]

"in order to search my house you have to get a court order"

Not if you invite them in (at least in the US).

Assume you murder someone and set the bloody murder weapon on the coffee table. The police come by and you invite them into the living room to talk. They see the bloody murder weapon in plain sight. They can then take posession of the weapon and later use it as evidence.

If you publish the contents of your hard drive over the internet (e.g. by sharing your files in a P2P network), then they can certainly come by and check them out. They can use that as evidence later. No invasion of privacy at this point, they are just using information that you chose to make publicly available.

Re:How?

[InsaneGeek]

Essentially all they are doing is they've written their own client for Kazaa, etc. Once they find someone running one of these programs they do ask the equivalent "right click, show all files shared by user" question and it then tells them all that they are sharing. Nothing really legally nefarious going on, basically doing what the programs are meant to do. It's not like they are cracking your box and going through the entire system, just whatever you have shared out in the P2P program you are using.

As to your point of having a collection of software/music wide open: how do you think you get to download those songs & programs to begin with? People do leave collections of songs & software completly wide open to the pubilc, that's basically the cornerstone of filesharing. If you aren't sharing then all you are doing is leaching, if everybody's leaching than nobody's downloading at all anymore. Contrary to the "I'm downloading songs from the Internet legally" commercials which make it seem like the download is what get's you. Nobody has been hit for the act of downloading, it's all about the sharing them out.

Re:How?

[mark-t]

That could give us the worst of both worlds though... keeping the DMCA in general, but offering immunity to certain organizations with enough money to buy laws like the DMCA in the first place.

Re:How?

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

I'm just thinking out loud here...

Suppose you implemented an encryption on the network such that all files and filenames were encrypted before being sent. It would be very simple and provide little actual security. Every client would have a "patented" decryption process. It would be the same on every client and not involve actual passwords. Whoever controlled the rights to this encryption/decryption process could controll the network. Kazaa can use the method in it's clients for free for example. RIAA... no, you may not use it.

Now if the RIAA, or anyone else, tries writing a bot to search the network, they either get encrypted data, or they break the encryption... DMCA ALERT

I'm sure some better minds could improve on it. But that's my idea.

Re:How?

[dknj]

Isn't this against Kazaa's Terms of Service and one reason why KazaaLite was forced to be removed?

-dk

Re:How?

[SillyNickName4me]

Well, if you want to make this stick, putting up a banner on the kazaa or whatever port explicitly denying anyone workign for or on behalf of the recording industry or law enforcement, together with a somewhat trivial acess protection might just be enough, provided you also share somethign to which you own the copyright, so you can actually claim a DMCA infringement (they circumvented an access control mechanism in order to access copyrighted material without permission)

Just a bit of encryption won't be enough really.

Re:How?

[spellraiser]

The fourth ammendment does not apply to private entities such as the RIAA.

Uh... OK, so I can go into your house and look through your stuff next time you're away? I'm a private entity, right?

Re:How?

[baudilus]

I don't think the RIAA remotly scanning all the contents of people's harddrives (if they are, I want to know what horrible OS vulnerability is allowing THAT), just the materials they are making available for download.

Do you really have to ask? *ahem*windoze*ahem*

In all seriousness, what they were doing was looking at what people are sharing and based on the filename (and possibly the mp3 tags) they were going after people sharing files that matched certain keywords (i.e. Metallica, etc.)

I seem to remember a case where they sent a cease and desist to a University because someone on their network was sharing some music with 'Usher' in the name. Turns out it was one of their professors whose name actually happened to BE Usher. The RIAA had to send them an apology letter.

What is not known is if they changed that method. Perhaps someone can enlighten us?

Re:How?

[grasshoppa]

Let me ask you this: Is evidence found illegally admissable in court?

Answer: Depends. If you are law enforcement, then no. If you are a private citizen, then again, it depends. In this instance, with judges being as stupid as they are with computer crimes, I would guess they would take a very dim view of anybody doing anything illegal to gain computer evidence.

Re:How?

[Jaysyn]

Sure, but if he catches you inside you'll probably find out if he believes in the 2nd Amendment or not.

Jaysyn

Re:How?

[Eskarel]

This is only vaguely true. It's true in the sense that evidence obtained by a private entity is not barred from courtroom use(under certain strictures as I recall IANAL, but I believe that if the government or one of the lawyers involved etc ask you to do it it can't be even if you're a private citizen).

However should a private entity do this you are fully within your rights to call up your local branch of law enforcement and charge them with breaking and entering or whatever the equivilant crime is for computers(I knew I just forget). Both of which are felonies. So the RIAA could charge you with IP theft, and even send you to jail, but you could do the same thing.

As has been noted however that this does not apply to things which are within plain sight/the public domain. Which is to say that if they log on to kazaa/bittorrent/etc and find you sharing their stuff they can probably do something about it, especially with the somewhat loose strictures on subpoenas for account information these days.

Re:How?

[mazarin5]

(if they are, I want to know what horrible OS vulnerability is allowing THAT)

I didn't know Kazaa was an OS.

Re:How?

[SpermanHerman]

Very good point. My next question: Does the RIAA have to download a song off my system and preserve it as evidence? If you take a bloody knife out of my house, you still have to prove the blood is that of the victim.

Does anyone know what the RIAA does to collect evidence against an offender (if they do)?

~SpermanHerman

Re:How?

[kwandar]

OK - I'll bite ....

..... how exactly does one hide their IP address when using a p2p network like Kazaa?

I keep seeing this suggested, is this actually possible? Enquiring minds need to know ...

Re:How?

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Even if the evidence is admissible in court, they'd have to prove where they got it from - which would be admitting their guilt to a crime. It may or may not get you off the hook. But whoever takes the rap for violating the DMCA themselves would also be hurting. I don't think they'd be able to sustain breaking a law repeatedly.

They take $3000 from you, you take $3000 back.

Re:How?

[wdconinc]

What if I just cat /dev/urandom > Some_famous_Britney_Spears_song.mp3 ? There are many fakes out there anyway... They are not sure of the content untill they downloaded it. And that would take a lot of time. Did they do that, or is there some 'doubt' whether you really have that copyrighted content?

Re:How?

[micromoog]

They take $3000 from you, you take $3000 back.

And the lawyers take $3000 from each of you. Who wins?

Re:How?

[lambent]

Perhaps record a hash of the file you're sharing?

Re:How?

[radish]

So they just use a windows automation program (or bunch of low paid drones in a cubefarm) to spend all day hitting the search button in the real Kazaa client. Wouldn't even slow them down...

Re:How?

[balloonpup]

No, that's tresspassing/breaking and entering. It doesn't violate the 4th, it violates some entirely different regulations.

Re:How?

[xoran99]

Nothing really legally nefarious going on, basically doing what the programs are meant to do.

Actually, it is a tad nefarious, because the FastTrack network is a private network and has terms of acceptable use. I don't have them on me, surprisingly, but I was once curious and found a clause that no one may use the network with any unauthorized third-party software... But that seems to have no teeth.

Re:How?

[Arathrael]

I'd be interested to know how it works too, and whether it breaks any licensing agreements, etc., relating to the technologies involved. And whether they download the files to check whether they actually exist, and/or they are what they say they are.

And if they do download them, how come that's ok? Do they pay the artist? :-)

Re:How?

[agentZ]

In the United States, the equivalent crime for computers is 18 USC 1030 or "access[ing] a computer without authorization or exceed[ing] authorized access."

Re:How?

[swv3752]

Still on behalf the RIAA which is explicitly denied permission to use.

It would only involve sharing any copyrighted work, say a Hiaku written in notepad or MS Sound Recording of you singing "La, la, la, RIAA sucks, la, la, la."

Re:How?

[Bombcar]

Not if you invite them in (at least in the US).

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

Good ol' Edgar!

Re:How?

[the gnat]

Now if the RIAA, or anyone else, tries writing a bot to search the network, they either get encrypted data, or they break the encryption... DMCA ALERT

That's a great idea there, stud. Let's use a crappy law we all hate to enable copyright abuse. The real problem with the RIAA is their heavy-handed tactics and meddling with our government, not their desire to enforce their copyrights. If you think their copyrights are inherently wrong, then you can't back use of the DMCA - unless you're a complete hypocrite. But hey, this is Slashdot.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone sharing files on a P2P network has no reason to expect that these files remain "private". To extend the tired old hacking analogy, it's like putting a sign in front of your house that says "FREE DRUGS INSIDE", leaving the door open, going shopping, and then being shocked that the cops have raided you.

I'm not happy about the subpoena, however, because I used to work for a university IT department and self-enforcement worked just fine, and I'm worried about the constant bullying of service providers.

Re:How?

[the gnat]

"access[ing] a computer without authorization or exceed[ing] authorized access."

I don't think this applies to anything the RIAA is doing. At least in Limewire, I can browse the entire shared directory of a remote computer; does Kazaa work the same way? They're just doing all this in an automated fashion.

Although past experience indicates that many people mistakenly enable sharing (or, rather, don't realize it's on to begin with and never turn it off) and get caught this way, other than that I'd say that running P2P software and sharing files with it is giving explicit consent for people to browse your shared files. . .

Re:How?

[ookabooka]

That just got me thinking. When you use kazaa or somethin like it, you are allowing anyone on the kazaa network to download the files. Couldn't kazaa restrict access from those who work for the RIAA or something? I know it sounds crazy, but there has to be a way of legally restricing the RIAA from a network. At the very least it would slow them down. In the mean time I'm experimenting with designing a network with complete annonymity, though its horribly inneficient. I have to do some research into the bittorrent protocol.

Re:How?

[dustmite]

I wonder if they just look at filenames? So if you are sharing one of their own 'spoiled' files with random junk in it, would that count as infringement? :)

Surely they'd have to prove that the content you shared was copyrighted, they surely can't sue you based only on evidence that you merely had a file called "Brittney - .mp3" or something on your PC .. ?

Re:How?

[goodhell]

"a webcrawler"

...and his name is Peter Parker, and boy are his spidey senses tingling!

Re:How?

[dnoyeb]

I don't think the RIAA remotly scanning all the contents of people's harddrives (if they are, I want to know what horrible OS vulnerability is allowing THAT), just the materials they are making available for download.

Uhh yea! You didn't know? There is an organization out of either California or Washington that does this dirty work for the RIAA. So probably the RIAA claims ignorance on how the info is obtained, but certainly this organization is getting it one way or another. Not saying the info is legit, only that the organization has stated their business in the past.

Personally I'd like to know when the RIAA became capable of issuing subpoenas. I thought those were only issued by courts.

Re:How?

[darkfire5252]

In an earlier story about this, someone made an excellent point: If the RIAA is searching the Kazaa networks for people sharing copyrighted materials, then they ARE breaking the law, AFIAK. The Kazaa EULA states: 2. What You Can't Do Under This Licence ... 2.11 Monitor traffic or make search requests in order to accumulate information about individual users; ... 2.14 Collect or store personal data about other users. Unless I am mistaken, Kazaa is the only legal way to access the Kazaa network. That would lead me to believe that unless Kazaa gave RIAA explicit permission to break the liscense, then the RIAA is accessing the private network of Kazaa without permission, and breaking the law. IANAL or anything, so someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Re:How?

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

If you think their copyrights are inherently wrong, then you can't back use of the DMCA - unless you're a complete hypocrite.

The idea here is to poison the DMCA so that it is no longer desirable to those who forced it through to begin with. It just so happens to be in a situation where either outcome has at least some benefit.

Re:How?

[ryanwright]

And the lawyers take $3000 from each of you. Who wins?

The only people who ever win: The lawyers.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

>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?

Actually, if your information is visible to the world, and you are running a server to make it visible to the world, it's public; you are sharing it. It isn't private information if you share it with the world. No one is hacking your security to see it. If you password protect the shared directory, it is no longer public.

If you make copyrighted materials available to the public, in this manner, you are violating copyright by giving copies of the work away. Only the copyright holder is allowed to do that.

This is like taking a book, going to kinkos, making a zillion copies of the book, then leaving the copies on the sidewalk in front of your house for anyone who wants one to take one. This is also a copyright violation. The guy walking down the street who sees it and takes one is only guilty of curiosity. If this guy takes his copy to kinkos and does the same thing, he is also guilty of copyright violation.

If one doesn't want the RIAA to look at his files, he shouldn't share them! If he does, he's guilty too.

> 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?

Because they are warez/mp3 pirates, or just plain stupid. It's one or the other. In the eyes of the law, ignorance is not a defense. They let people download copies of stuff that they don't have the legal right to distribute. Call it theft, filesharing, piracy, whatever you want, fact is, you aren't allowed to do it. This goes for p2p, ftp, websites, whatever. If you give away copies of what you don't own, or the material isn't public domain, you are guilty of a crime defined by the copyright laws.

The fact that these files aren't solid material, doesn't change the fact that it is illegal distribution.

The RIAA is simply trying to protect it's members from copyright violation. Since the governmen't won't enforce the laws, they have taken civil action, hence the lawsuits. Technically, the FBI could arrest all of these people tomorrow on criminal charges.

l8,
AC

Re:How?

[scorpioX]

Kazaa seems to think so too. They sued the RIAA for breach of this clause in the EULA. Don't know how far they got with the suit though.

Re:How?

[harlows_monkeys]

Now if the RIAA, or anyone else, tries writing a bot to search the network, they either get encrypted data, or they break the encryption... DMCA ALERT

And so all they have to do is replace the bot with a person using the client software. Since the vast majority of stuff on the major file sharing networks is stuff that violates copyrights, this would have a negligible impact on their ability to find violators.

Plus, a simple reward program could be offered to get third parties to turn in violators for them. E.g., turn in someone who is sharing more than 500 songs that violate copyrights of RIAA memebers and you get a free iTMS download.

Re:How?

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

But Kazaa doesn't allow you to look up IP addresses. (I don't think so anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong.) Anyway, it could easily be made so that the client application was not usable as a tracking tool.

You would have to dot your i's and cross your t's. But you could make it illegal to browse your network for tracking purposes using the RIAA's own pet law.

Re:How?

[squidfood]

If you take a bloody knife out of my house, you still have to prove the blood is that of the victim.

Recall that levels of proof for criminal matters and civil matters (e.g., being sued by RIAA) are very different. Mulitple shared files with suspicious names and sizes might come under "preponderance of evidence" even if the aren't "reasonable doubt."

Re:How?

[InsaneGeek]

But I don't have to use the fasttrack network at all. There are multiple ways to do it: use an authorized Kazaa client to do a search and talk to the end user directly, port scan uni ports and find end users, etc. Pretty damn easy to get around.

Re:How?

[Richard_at_work]

No, Kazaa lite was removed because it was a hacked/modified version of the proper kazaa program, and thus was (oh get the irony!) infringing copyright, which is why it was shut down.

Re:How?

[jonfelder]

Why do they have to be sure of the content? They don't have to be sure to sue you...they may not win but they can still sue.

What would doing this accomplish? By filling the network with files filled with random crap, you're hurting the network (i.e. if everyone did this the network would be useless) thus helping the RIAA.

If the RIAA sues you, you are the one inconvenienced, not them. I personally wouldn't want to have to go to court with my computer just to say, "Ha Ha!"

Re:How?

[mog007]

Personally I'd like to know when the RIAA became capable of issuing subpoenas. I thought those were only issued by courts.

A supoena can only be issued by a civil servant, and it has to be done in person. They're probably using the word very losely here, because they're not demanding an appearence in court, just the names of people that matched IP x, at time y.

Re:How?

[mog007]

While you're right, I find it sad that the whole purpose behind the bill of rights is to protect the citizens of the country, if they RIAA is able to circumvent the fourth amendment because they're not a government body, then it seems strange that they can liberate you of life, liberty, or the persuit of happiness without due process. That's the sixth amendment.

If a government entity violates someone's fourth amendement rights, then fines them, the person can challenge the fine because of the violation of the fourth amendment, if the challenge is held up, then the fine is dropped. That doesn't work with the RIAA because they're immune to the fourth amendment.

Re:How?

[mog007]

Nobody has actully gone to court yet from this, everyone is just getting a letter of "pay us or we sue" and people are seeing that the settlement is only a fraction of the costs that could be imposed from a judge.

Re:How?

[ScrewMaster]

No, it's "ill botten gooty".

Re:How?

[uncoveror]

The DMCA basically gives any copyright holder the right to issue subpoenas. That is just one of many things wrong with it. The DMCA is the most glaring example of copyright as a form of censorship ever passed into law.

Re:How?

[Elbow Macaroni]

As if...didn't anyone ever tell the RIAA about the pirate bulletin boards? We don't need the Internet even to file share music or programs. If they had half a brain they would know that.

Re:How?

[localhost00]

Is evidence found illegally admissable in court?

If the movie "The Rainmaker" is accurate, the evidence is inadmissible if it is stolen by the party attempting to use the evidence. However, if the party happens to stumble upon the stolen evidence, it is admissible.

Re:How?

[Pofy]

You still have to download it to get a hash of it (and then have something to compare it too).

Re:How?

[Ayaress]

Last I heard, they actually would download segments of several files from a person, and confirm that they were real (as opposed to all those morons who have fake or mislabled songs up for download).

Re:How?

[Threni]

> Let me ask you this: Is evidence found illegally admissable in court?

So don't disclose it. Grab the file, decrypt it (illegally), discover is copyrighted, then seize their hard drive and have the owner/police decrypt it. No need for anyone to know about the original decryption.

Don't turn off sharing!

[TheSpoom]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... Please don't disable sharing on Kazaa or other networks. It degrades the quality of the network and makes you a leech, and many people will simply refuse to let you download from them because you're not sharing anyway. If enough people refuse to share, the network becomes *useless* because nobody is there from which to download. It kills the point of peer to peer file sharing.

If you're looking to be protected from the RIAA, there are other ways to give you a layer of security. Kazaa Lite K++ (download at OldVersion.com, v2.4.3 is likely the one you want) includes an IP Blocker extension built on the PeerGuardian database of blocked (read: RIAA) IPs, so the RIAA under normal circumstances cannot scan you. Admittedly it's not perfect, but it's better than using the spyware-filled, vulnerable official version.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Cutriss]

The actions of one corrupt lobbyist group in the US won't easily affect the operations of a worldwide filesharing network with many members outside the US.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[turnstyle]

"If you're looking to be protected from the RIAA, there are other ways to give you a layer of security. Kazaa Lite K++ (download at OldVersion.com, v2.4.3 is likely the one you want) includes an IP Blocker extension built..."

Or (gasps!) don't copy unauthorized work, and instead share works by artists who welcome it.

I should also note that most of these "anonymizers" don't actually work, and using them might wind up with consiracy type penalites...

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[jwthompson2]

Or you could not distribute stolen/pirated material that you have no legal right to distribute in the first place. I don't share my personal music collection which I have paid for so that someone else can benefit from my expense. I have no fear of the RIAA because I own every song on my machine not to mention I'm not sharing them in the first place.

Why do we have to discuss how to hide yourself from the prying eyes of those trying to protect their legal property? Privacy is important and if you want to be anonymous that is your own perogative, but to advocate trying to hide one's self instead of advocating simple honesty is dangerous in so many ways to all societies.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[ruiner13]

"If enough people refuse to share, the network becomes *useless* because nobody is there from which to download."

Not to mention you who are lower than pond scum, the ones who put fake files in. Nothing worse than getting an episode of stargate sg-1, and when watching it discover it is really a GWAR concert from an age i'd rather not talk about. Losers.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Petronius]

Turn off Kazaa, turn on SSH and call your friends.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[AKnightCowboy]

If enough people refuse to share, the network becomes *useless* because nobody is there from which to download. It kills the point of peer to peer file sharing.

Well, to be honest, anyone with half a brain in the US that is looking to trade copyrighted material has stopped sharing. It's simply not worth ruining your life over a bunch of crappy songs. There's still plenty to leech from Europe and morons in the US who think they are untouchable though so keep downloading.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[netglen]

>>corrupt lobbyist group

Don't you mean the corrupt and immoral politicians that accept the 'donations' from these sleazy lobbists?

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[glassesmonkey]

so the RIAA under normal circumstances cannot scan you. Admittedly it's not perfect

This is just wrong & irresponsible to say something like this. Most of the datamining (to select your IP address as the next lucky winner) is done by subcontractors or other goons of the RIAA. They all know about the IP block list. How hard is it to gather IP addresses from a new IP address?? How hard is it to order a cable modem?? Hypothetically, if enough people used the PG database, they'd HAVE to find a new IP address in order to look for victems.

First of all, the PeerGuardian method is just plain silly IF you are already running a firewall. Why not just import the list of blocked-IP into ZoneAlarm, etc? Why have this code built into KaZaA? Do you have a special eDonkey version with the same functionality? Trust me, your firewall is much more efficient at doing this.

I'd recommend getting a wireless AP & leaving it wide open & hope that's good enough to say you "didn't know"... better yet, fake a MAC address & record the log of that computer "wirelessly using all your bandwidth"... Maybe, if everyone used bittorrent, it would be too much work for them to gather all the torrents (which are time limited) then sit on all the trackers to record all the IP & then all they get from you is one FILE (or CD)... This is still a few $1000 per song though, but they have claimed not to go after the person who d/l's "just a few songs"

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

Indeed, the lobby group migth be misguided, but they are doign what they are supposed to do. It is politicians not looking beyond the rants of the RIAA and friends that is to blame here, they are the ones that should be looking at the balance of things.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[kaden]

The going theory on Soulseek (where allegedly no one has been sued yet) is that the RIAA legally can't share illegal files, so it's okay to share with other people who share.

I personally got hooked on the Napster days of downloading a hundred totally random songs overnight, picking out what you like, then buying a few CDs. It's sad that the RIAA would prosecute me for this were I still doing it... but there is a lot of good music out there that the artists don't mind sharing.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[pinkUZI]

Agreed.

Why does /. have to be a sanctuary for thieves who argue that their theft is situationally ethical?
My 2cents is that everyone who pulls music or video off kaza without a legal license to have a copy is a "leech".

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[deman1985]

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.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Svet-Am]

I think you're missing a bit of the Big Brother fear factor here. With the RIAA's tactics, their mere accusation that you are sharing is enough for these ISPs to bow down, regardless of whether you're actually sharing or not.

I don't share, but I do have quite a collection of audio and video on my PC. All of it is legit and owned by me, but with this precedent, the RIAA could perform some (illegal) scan of my PC, find the MP3s, and then just insinuate that I was trading or that they are somehow illegal.

That's what I'm afraid of. Letting big business become their own judge, jury, and executioner.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[badzilla]

The actions of one corrupt lobbyist group in the US won't easily affect the operations of a worldwide filesharing network with many members outside the US.

I have a friend here in the UK who got a "takedown" e-mail notice forwarded by his ISP from the *AA. Believe it was about some movie being shared. Don't think anything further was heard after he deleted it.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[netglen]

I wonder what the political landscape would look and act if they outlawed legal bribes from lobby groups. Shouldn't politicians be listening to the individual voters instead of whoring themselves off to deep pocketed corporations?

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

> prying eyes of those trying to protect their legal property

This is a slight misrepresentation, the works are NOT their property, never have been, and never will be. An idea, nor the expression of an idea can ever eb property.

What they do have is exclusive distribution rights. Note that those are RIGHTS, not PROPERTY.

Those rights are granted in behalf of the society by the government.
Now, due to cluelessness of politicians, the music and even more so movie industries have been able to hijack copyright law. Don't be surprised if society no longer supports the grantign of those exclusive rights as a result, the RIAA, MPAA and all their friends only have themselves to blame for that due to:
1. hijacking copyright law as mentioned.
2. refusing to deal with the wishes of their customers
3. trying to get rid of fair use.

The balance tipped completely to the side of the movie and recording industries and that needs a correction before they can go around screaming about how people dont comply.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Slowtreme]

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.

That's the price you pay for wanting to make a buck from playing music using someone else's leverage and power. If an artist really wanted to just freely share thier music, they'd just play live for free or post thier music on P2P tools directly. Pandora's box can't be closed.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Jaysyn]

Umm, no, they are simply using a hacked Kazaa client. If you aren't sharing RIAA music or MPAA movies (to a lesser extent) then you have nothing to worry about.

Jaysyn

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[IWorkForMorons]

Why do we have to discuss how to hide yourself from the prying eyes of those trying to protect their legal property?

This is a really good question, but not for the reason you think. Exactly who's property are they protecting? I thought, once you bought a CD, the music on the CD was yours. Or are you really just buying a licence to the music, and the CD and cover art are just the physical form of that license? Do you really own all that music you say you bought? If you owned a CD, but it was destroyed before the advent of P2P, would you legally be allowed to download those songs again now? You already paid for it once, why should you have to pay for it again? If you listened to part of a song from a new band on the radio, and were interested but not enough to buy the CD yet, would it be alright to download the rest of the song to hear in full? Even if it meant that you were more likely to buy it afterwards?

Really, what is the value of a song? That's what this whole thing is about, isn't it? Are songs a product, or an advertisement for the full package of songs on a CD? I remember a time when I would hear a single on the radio or TV, and be excited to hear the rest of the CD. That was the catch...you'd hear a few songs for free, but would have to pay to hear the rest because they weren't played on the radio. Until recent years when the few singles released from a CD were the only good ones on it. So now what is the difference between downloading a song or listening to it on the radio? They're both being made available for you to hear for free. Why not just allow the songs to be shared, as advertisement for the CDs? Oh, that's right, advertising revenue and royalties. The labels don't get those when you download, as opposed to when you listen to songs on the radio or TV. They don't get to charge you multiple times, in one way or the other, for listening to a song. And they don't get to continuously play the same set of songs, trying to entice you to buy (even though there is no guarentee that you will buy). Instead, you get to listen to a variety of new music, whether or not the artist you're listening belongs to them, and make informed decisions when it comes to buying music. So remember, by downloading music and making informed purchases of music, you're severely affecting the *potential* bottom line of the RIAA. And they just can't let that happen.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[theLOUDroom]

Or (gasps!) don't copy unauthorized work, and instead share works by artists who welcome it.

I think you're confusing "artists" with "owners". I don't think Jimi Hendrix minds if you share his work. The problem is that big nasty corporations have managed to "own" a large part of our cultural history.

While in some cases it's possible to aviod RIAA music, in other cases, you would be missing out on a large part of our musical history and national identity.

I think everyone should listen to "American Woman" at least one, and I don't see a GOOD reason why they should have to pay for it. That money surely isn't going as an incentive for Hendrix to produce new music.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

> My 2cents is that everyone who pulls music or video off kaza without a legal license to have a copy is a "leech".

When I buy a recodable CD, hell, when I buy a harddisk, I pay a levy that gets distributed to the movie/recordign industry and friends as compensation for me making a private copy of copyrighted material.

I pay that levy regardless of how I am going to use the disk or CD (or DVD for that matter)

The day the movie and recording industry stop stealign my money in this way, I'll start considering your point of view. Right now however I feel I have every right to compensate the money that they are stealing from me.
THat said, few interestign artists publish through the companies that the RIAA represents, nasty RIAA, means I cannot even get soem fair compensation from them.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[kryonD]

"This is a slight misrepresentation, the works are NOT their property, never have been, and never will be. An idea, nor the expression of an idea can ever eb property."

Crack Cocaine, right? That's what you're smoking isn't it? I'm going to tell a story and see if you agree with it.

You are a student and just spent two weeks reading through articles and six books for a research paper on the history of the computer. Your room mate is a lazy, dishonest moron who consideres pot to be the secret to graduating. Well..., that and copying your research paper because he has the same assignment from a different professor. He at least has the decency to spend five minutes changing around a few sentences to make himself feel like he made some effort. Now you both have A's. He's still high, and you're still tired from lack of sleep. Tell me that paper wasn't YOUR idea and that he didn't just STEAL it!

I hate to break this to you, but most musicians spend YEARS getting to be as good as they are. The product they produce based on that experience and usually some long hours with a piano and an eraser is nothing more than their IDEA of what sounds good. Note the use of the pronoun THEIR. It's THEIR idea, they made it, and they damn sure do own it and deserve to be compensated for making something that gives you pleasure whan you listen to it.

Why do so many people on this site believe it is their divine right to have anything that makes them happy be given to them free?....unless it has to do with never growing up since as a kid, your concept of property is that everything is given to you for free. Too bad parents aren't there to bend you over and spank you for being a moron.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[turnstyle]

"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."

But do you think that should be your decision to make? I think it's great that you welcome sharing, and that's exactly my point.

It's people like you who should be shared.

But again, do you think that your decision to share should apply to all musicians everywhere?

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we have to discuss how to hide yourself from the prying eyes of those trying to protect their legal property?

Why? Because the problem is people are trying to make fresh fucking air "their property"!!!

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[turnstyle]

"I think you're confusing 'artists' with 'owners'."

Fair enough.

Indeed, there is certainly a distinction between "artists" and "owners" (though certainly not always).

However, in the future that I've long envisioned, more authors would retain ownership over their work, and find new and better ways to make a living from it.

If the RIAA is bad, then let the authors build a new and better market for their work, and perhaps keep a bigger piece of the pie this time.

But file-sharing is taking that pie away, not just from the RIAA, but from the authors as well.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[pinkUZI]

That levy was obtained through our court system and can be fought through our court system. There are ways to take care of these issues within the bounds of our free and open society.

The RIAA isn't on my Christmas list either, however, I reiterate, to say that breaking the law is a valid method of protest is to advocate anarchy and chaos.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[dedeman]

Well said. I usually don't do any trading, but the little that I do is usually Eropean (I'm in America) electro/ambient/retro lounge stuff I hear on streaming radio channels (God bless streaming radio). This is music I would not hear otherwise due to the total lack of diversity/exposure/willingness given by major record labels to bands with a hint of talent, and the refusal of brick and mortar radio stations to play anything aside from limpbizkinpark. I also tell/make other people listen to the stuff that I "pirate", and I imagine much to the delight of the artist who lacks exposure, but not talent. Similarly, most of the music that I would like to "buy", simply cannot be found here in the states. I can't go to (insert chain record store name) to purchase Boards of Canada CD (kick ass music). I'll get a "Uummmmm, did you check the alternative section?" I only dl stuff that I can't find otherwise, which are not the songs the RIAA are seaching for. Also similarly, I imageine that the RIAA are using cetain alogrithyms/searches/magic looking for popular titles/biggest money losers if they are gotten for free. When I dl a song from the Jame's Band or an old Clapton B side, I don't think that they will be beating my door down. Yet another reason I'm glad that I hate current pop.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

The idea or research paper does not have to be my property as such, but I do have the exclusive rights on distribution.

Still means that what he did is wrong.

Then, I don't believe I have to have everything for free, I just object to givign soemthign the wrong name when that results in confusion.

Does that answer your question?

And I really wonder, what makes you think that calling it exclusive rights instead of property makes for me claiming that I want it for free?

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

Well, I do not live in the USA, where I live it was not obtained through the court system, it was obtained in talks between the local version of the RIAA and the government, excluding the consumer from the picture alltogether.

But point taken, if I'd be livign in the USA, I'd consider fighting it in court.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[meringuoid]

Once you've signed with one of the big labels, you've practically signed your soul over to the devil.

So, Hammer... it says here on your application that you have no talent, and yet you wish to be a star?... I think we can make a deal. Suck Satan's cock! Ooohhh.... I will lower the standards of the earth! I will put all the money in the hands of young girls! They will think you are sharp and edgy! Aaahhhhhhhh! Aoooooooggghhhh!

-- Bill Hicks

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[pinkUZI]

Forgive me (don't blame you if you don't) I, like most Americans, have committed one of the most intolerant crimes abroad. I assumed you were an American. But don't blame Americans, their companies, or their lobbying organizations for what your government agreed to.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[gowen]

to say that breaking the law is a valid method of protest is to advocate anarchy and chaos.

Then put me on the side of the anarchists and the advocates of chaos

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[meringuoid]

No, it doesn't... :-( There's a book out now containing full transcripts of some of his classic shows - Relentless in Montreal, Revelations in London - and it's not the same. Without the Man Himself miming and providing sound effects, it just doesn't have the power behind it.

However, the words still ring true: Ball-less, soulless, spiritless little corporate fucking puppets, suckers of Satan's cock each and every one of them!

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[rco3]

I tell ya, one of these days I'll be able to buy a DVD of Bill Hicks' "Revelations", the HBO special, and finally replace the VHS off-air copy some shithead stole because it was in my VCR at the time. That day will be a good day.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[R.Caley]

I think you're confusing "artists" with "owners". I don't think Jimi Hendrix minds if you share his work.

Well, he didn't put it in the public domain, either immediatly or at his death.

So, it looks to me like he minds, or at least he did. I don't see any reason to ignore his decisions just because he was stupid enough to gargle vomit.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[CKW]

Here's another VERY significant tidbit.

The network's usefulness does not depend on people sharing thousands of files. It depends on the aggregate bandwidth being made available.

With 4,000,000 users, if each user only shared one single file but allowed uploading - the bandwidth available and your download speeds would EXPLODE. And yet the RIAA would not be able to do anything other than file 4,000,000 lawsuits against users for sharing "one file".

My example above is extreme, but it *would* work. (Hell, it'd reduce the load on the search-nodes with the reduced duplication of sources to index).

Don't disable file sharing, just share less and leave your bandwidth "moderately on".

If you fly below their radar, you can't be intercepted. ;-)

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[meringuoid]

I tell ya, one of these days I'll be able to buy a DVD of Bill Hicks' "Revelations", the HBO special, and finally replace the VHS off-air copy some shithead stole because it was in my VCR at the time. That day will be a good day.

It's out in the UK, under the title 'Totally Bill Hicks'. If you're multiregion and are prepared to import from Britain with the currencies the way they are right now, then go right ahead :-)

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[knick]

"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."

But do you think that should be your decision to make? I think it's great that you welcome sharing, and that's exactly my point.

EXACTLY! But, unfortunately, the average signed artist DOESN'T have the ability to make that decision, because they are strong-armed by the RIAA. Support file sharing, and you might end up without a contract.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[strike2867]

What if by some Windows flaw your files became available for everybody to download. Who is at fault, you or MS?

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[m.h.2]

As a musician, I strongly dislike the way that the music industry is run and think that anything bad that happens to them is just desserts, however, when it comes down to it, stealing is stealing. The fact that we know that they're ripping us off doesn't give us the right to do the same. Furthermore, if you choose to cross that line and obtain illegal copies of music (or software for that matter), you ought to be smart enough not to advertise that fact by making your illegal wares available to everybody else (including the folks from whom you stole).

Think about this for a second, everybody laughs when they read the newspaper story about the guy who gets pulled over for speeding and ends up with 15 years in prison because he has a trunk full of dope. Sharing illegal music and software is the same thing. So when you get busted by RIAA or the SIIA, why do you expect sympathy rather than laughter?

Now, getting back on topic, the fact that Universities/Corporations are getting dragged into this mess is a serious issue. The real problem here is that the University is being put in a no-win situation. By surrendering the information, they are made to look like bad guys in the eyes of many. Oh, and has anyone considered the expenses that the university will incur because of issues like this? Implementing policies, procedures and technologies to hinder (note that I said "hinder" and not "prevent") illegal file sharing isn't cheap. How about legal costs?

I wonder why the cost of education continues to rise...

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

I forgive you :)

And I don't blame them for what my government agreed to, I blame them for even trying, and I do not feel morally wrong by taking back from them.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[jwthompson2]

Both, MS if they did not fix the flaw in a timely manner from when it was discovered and myself for not taking precautions to guard against such a flaw. I guard against such flaws by not using Windows and implementing multiple layers of security from encrypting individual files to encrypting my home directory to using strong passwords to plugging every hole I don't want or need open on my Macs. Granted I am a bit more proactive than most users, and other than my financial data nothing I have is super sensitive in my estimation, not to mention I have backups of everything I need to make sure I don't lose.

The real issue here though is willingly sharing files that you are not legally permitted to, if this is ocurring then the sharer is solely responsible.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[the gnat]

The Metropolitan art museum also "owns" (or at least is the only place where you can go to see) several pieces of American culture (and others), yet they get to charge admission.

Which pays for the building, the custodians, the security, the art staff, the care of the paintings, and the acquisition of more works from private collections. And I'm fucking thrilled that it costs so little for me to see it, or that it's publically viewable at all. In fact, I'd say that the Met is a perfect example of private custodianship of culture. My only complaint is that they're in New York, and I'm now on the west coast.

The real reason your comparison doesn't hold up, of course, is that the Met is a NON-PROFIT INSTITUTION.

you can even pay $0.99 to download "Flight of the Valkyries" on iTunes if you really want to -- though why you would is beyond me.

Because I like classical music - what's wrong with that? (And God knows that most classicial musicians need all the help they can get.) In fact, I listen almost exclusively to classical, and I buy every bit of it.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[OWJones]

Tell me that paper wasn't YOUR idea and that he didn't just STEAL it!

This is a repost from something else I wrote, addressing the same misleading rant.

A user of the filesharing network downloads the scanned copy of my novel. He too has stolen my right to choose the means and scope of my distribution.

Rights can't be stolen, only infringed. If the government censors you unfairly, they haven't stolen your right to free speech (where'd it go?) they've infringed it. Even Merriam-Webster defines infringement this way:

1 : to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another

It's used as a particularly moronic crutch by some avid P2P fileswappers [...]

It's also used this way by lawyers and the law, particularly 17 USC Section 501, the part of law that defines exactly what is a violation of the exclusive rights of copyright holder.

Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 121 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be.

Copyright. Violation of a right is infringement, not theft. Repeat early and often. It's the law.

-jdm

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[brucmack]

You can't download a live concert experience. Nothing is a substitue for actually BEING THERE.

And, most importantly, the artist gets a good portion of the money.

The thing I've enver understood is why popular artists don't dump the RIAA. Once an artist has made it big, wouldn't they then have the capital to be able to put out the CDs themselves? Think of the possible benefits... As far as the artist is concerned, even if they sell the CD for $5, they're making way more than they did before, and albums would sell like candy at those prices. Thus increasing their popularity further and allowing them to make a killing on concerts as well.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

> still criminal, after all is said and done.

Is it?

They are not calling in the police or law enforcement, they are threatening people with civil law.

Cases of commercial distribution of copyrighted works without permission can indeed be criminal, but that is not what we are talkign about with regards to filesharing.

Then, the symantics are important. Property normally belongs to someone untill the moment the person gives it away. There is implicit expclusiveness in it, and no implicit term of ownership.

The recording industry and friends promote the use of this word for the simple reason that that is also how they want to see the works they publish.

What copyright grants is exclusive initially, but can be granted and regranted (you can give people non exclusive distribution rights on your work for example), and is limited in term (at least, it is supposed to be)

The RIAA is right to fight for their rights (tho I do not think the means they use are proper). That doesn't imply they have a right to corrupt the perception of copyright however.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[pinkUZI]

"But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it." - Henry David Thoreau from Civil Disobedience (the article you posted)

I bid you, take that step. Bring us closer to a better government, not no-government. Suggest an alternative to our government, if you have one.

As Theodore Roosevelt once said, "It is not the critic who counts, not the person who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of the deed could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Noren]

The Met requests a freely given donation for which they strongly suggest an amount. Visiting without paying this amount is allowed but discouraged.

There do exist pieces of artwork which are not accessable to the public, but the Met is not a good example of this.

As to classical music, particular performances are frequently copyrighted even though the sheet music is not. A recording of a given performance of, say, the New York Philharmonic playing "Flight of the Valkyries" may be copyrighted and gain legal protections similar to those of a recording of "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix or of "American Woman" by the Guess Who. Orchestras can and do get money from royalties on sales of their copyrighted recordings of public domain music. (On the other hand, in this example the Philharmonic's rights are only to their particular recording and not the score, unlike additional lyrics and score copyrights allowed to creators of original music.)

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[poofyhairguy82]

Look. If my lazy (I will ignore the pot thing, even though it shows you love faulty stereotypes) roomate copies my paper for his own benefit, then he is stil just COPYING IT. If he takes my copy of the paper and turns it in HE IS STEALING IT. The first example is simple plagerism and second is plagerism and theft. Public goods (goods that are not exhausted when they are used and therefore can be used by as many as the system of distribution will support) cannot be stolen- only copied.

I don't know how moderators can even give points to this sort of drivel since every day nearly there is a slashdot story that clearly explains the difference. My guess is that the points are comming from that minority of readers that are older so they do not have time to enjoy the finer things like determining the difference between theft and copying and smoking weed. These people often seem to be bitter towards those that do enjoy themselves. I just never figured how they got the time to read this site in the first place.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Niteshade]

No ideas are new. Every "idea" that someone has is based on the infinite numbers of ideas that the human race has had before it.

Somebody invented the wheel a while back. That is an idea. Ford makes cars. Cars use wheels. Is this stealing?

Statistically, every four bar phrase in music has been done before (as of a century ago). Does this mean that every new piece of music is stealing?

And what contract exists for me to make everybody sign that makes my ideas only belong to me?

Come on. get real. Ideas aren't property.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[liquidsin]

How long was the term on copyright when Hendrix passed? Maybe he didn't feel the need to put it into the public domain, since he assumed it would go there soon enough...

Well, he didn't put it in the public domain, either immediatly or at his death.

Oh, and I seriously doubt that there has ever been a person, nor will there ever be one, whose dying words are "make sure all of my creative works...(gasp)...become public...domain (gasp, death)"

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[John Courtland]

They ususally can't once the RIAA gets a hold of them. It's like indentured servitude. I think a lot of artists are too naive and allow themselves to be coerced into signing this contract that seems like it will make them rich and famous, which it sometimes does, but at the cost of their intellectual freedom.

Joan Osbourne is one such artist. She signed into a particularly binding contract, IIRC, that states she has to make 5-6 Albums, and any one can be scrapped if the company believes it isn't "good enough", which did happen to her at least once. So those songs belong to the company, but it doesn't count toward her getting out of the contract. Suck ass, doesn't it?

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[liquidsin]

I'll field this one as a musician, so I think my perspective counts. The *instant* that I decide to play MY song for someone - whether it's in my basement, on the stereo in my car, or at a concert - I've *shared* MY idea. Am I supposed to charge them if I catch them whistling the tune a week later? Should I try to magically erase it from their brain? Music gets radio play for one reason only - advertising. Releasing a single into radio play is a way for a musician to share their music (these "ideas" of which you speak) with potential fans. If you don't share your music, you get no fans. Now I know somebody wants to draw a parallel to patents here, so let me nip that one in the bud. Patent system: you disclose the method and hope to sell licensing. So of course, music is the same, and the cd is the license, so downloading is wrong. Problem is, every musician I know would much rather sell cds at a show for five bucks a pop then have them rot on the shelves at HMV marked $19.99. The labels are the ones selling them so ridiculously high, and barely cutting the artists in at all. So before you speak on behalf of all musicians, try asking around, and I guarantee you that almost all of us would rather let the file sharing go (I mean, hey, I can record it off of the radio if I want a free copy) and put some asses in seats at the shows then toil on in obscurity because we're afraid someone might actually like our music enough to download it.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[cens0r]

The thing I've enver understood is why popular artists don't dump the RIAA. Once an artist has made it big, wouldn't they then have the capital to be able to put out the CDs themselves?

Quite a few of them do. Pearl Jam and Public Enemy are two that come right off the top of my head. But more of then not the label bribes them by giving them their own label. The in essence invite them into the club and allow them to rip off others in the same way they may have been ripped off. That how we end up with Shady Records (Eminem), Maverick Records (Madonna), Nothing Records (Nine Inch Nails), etc.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

> love faulty stereotypes ....

> My guess is that the points are comming from that minority of readers that are older so they do not have time to enjoy the finer things like determining the difference between theft and copying and smoking weed.

Now... talk about faulty stereotypes... ;)

Lets see.. I'm 35, which I guess classifies as older for a slashdot reader. I have smoked pot, tho that is a while ago now.. I think I already mentioned the copyright/property and such stuff, I also have worked for the last 15 years, so hrm :)

Ok, I know you were not talkign about me, but I just had to laugh reading it. :)

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[iminplaya]

...yet they get to charge admission.

Yes, but do they prohibit you from taking pictures and putting them on the net?

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Shakrai]

Yes, but do they prohibit you from taking pictures and putting them on the net?

I don't specifically know about the Met because I haven't been there in years but there are Museums that do exactly what you say.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[iminplaya]

I think you're confusing "artists" with "owners".

I prefer the terms "creator" and "publisher". Most of the copyright battles have been between these two groups, and anytime the creators acquired any rights at all, the publishers went nuts. Now the whole publishing business model was made irrelevent by the net and other digital this an' that. They still have a purpose in niche markets, but on the whole, they are no longer necessary. Why should a creator pay a publisher when all he has to do is distribute on the net, and let the customer print his own copy? Well, obviously, the publishers don't like this and are trying to bend the law in their favor in order to sustain their obsolete business. The are using the creators as their posterboy in this battle in the same way a mother sends her kid to the street to do her begging for her in order to get sympathy from the public. The publishers could care less about the creators after the contact is signed. They're trying to protect their business, nothing more. There is nothing honorable in what their doing. Publishers no longer need nor deserve copright protection. If copyright is to exist at all, it should protect the creators. Publishers need to look for another way to make their money.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[iminplaya]

Let me re-word that. If there were copies of works contained in a museum, they couldn't nor would be interested in stopping online sharing of these works? It seems that the museum is charging or "requesting a donation" for you to see the original and probably could care less about all the copies out there in the world. Kind of like the way a band makes its money in concert(the original) and may or may not care about the copies of their music (except to get more copies out to be heard).

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[mog007]

Why do we refuse to buy the over-priced CD and instead decide to download it? Cost. Why would we decide to start buying the over-priced CD if your HDD or CD-Rs were made cheaper? Cost. Why have we not challenged it in court? Cost. Lawsuits are much more expensive than the extra fine imposed on media. Even the settlements made with the RIAA would be cheaper if you were caught stealing. Go easy on the poor people, and we'll be happy to give money to the artists and even the record companies.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[R.Caley]

Oh, and I seriously doubt that there has ever been a person, nor will there ever be one, whose dying words are "make sure all of my creative works...(gasp)...become public...domain (gasp, death)"

This is what wills are for. One could sign over ones work to a record company for your lifetime, and write a will which frees the work.

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[SillyNickName4me]

Put all of them on a state/federal budget for their election campaigns and make all donations to specific parties illegal? ;P

Nice dream :)

Re:Don't turn off sharing!

[Greg W.]

I think everyone should listen to "American Woman" at least one, and I don't see a GOOD reason why they should have to pay for it. That money surely isn't going as an incentive for Hendrix to produce new music.

Jimi did a cover version of "American Woman"? Hold on a second... ssh, ssh, cd blah, fire up giFTcurs... search for American Woman... while that's running, try google... oh wait, am I going to get sued for this?

(The only versions of "American Woman" I've heard are the original by the Guess Who, and the Lenny Kravitz cover. If there's a Jimi cover, I want it, and eventually I'll find it... but so far I'm not seeing any evidence of one.)

I call "BS"

[fair_n_hite_451]

"We want to be fair and reasonable. The intent here is not to make money, nor is the intent to win a lawsuit," Lamy said.

Since when do lawyers file lawsuits they don't intend to win? ..... Oh wait. Never mind...

Re:I call "BS"

[Carnivore24]

"The RIAA, in the past, has successfully reached settlements in the past with individuals in violation of copyrights. Settlements, paid by those accused, can range from $1,000 to $17,000. They focused on college campuses, which tend to be the bedrock for online file-swapping."

More like a bedrock for business.

Virus Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Wasn't UofM the same university who...

[Anonymous Coward]

argued before the Supreme Court that affirmative action is different than a race-biased point system.

I bet they'll do a fine internal review.

Re:Wasn't UofM the same university who...

[senzafine]

I'm not in favor of affirmative action but comments like this show that people don't understand why affirmative action was and is in place. It's in place to make up for the many many years of brutal treatment and enslavement of slaves in the US.

It's aim is to make a wrong right.

Personally I don't believe it works. I believe it's a part of life to count your losses and move on (and I don't mean that in a disrespectful manner at all).

I've been shadowed in stores and have ladies clutch their purses when i sit next to them (presumably because i'm dark skinned and have a shaved head). But that's life. But that's also a part of life that some people don't understand. Until you can do understand that...it's inconsiderate to make generalizations about it.

Re:Wasn't UofM the same university who...

[senzafine]

Never said it wasn't racist. But it's life...either sulk in your tuition fees or overcome whatever injustice you feel you're facing because of that.

Re:Wasn't UofM the same university who...

[biobogonics]

This will not be the first bone headed action taken by the U of M.

a) putting Nike logos on athletic uniforms
b) punishing today's basketball teams for yesterday's scandals
c) supporting a quota based system for admissions
d) adding garish signs above the top row of seats at Michigan Stadium

U of M is a strange school. It has a history of campus unrest and leftist politics on par with UC Berkeley, but at the same time it has to dance to the tune set by the state legislature, its board of regents and the auto industry.

Considering the way the current president has rolled over on the Webber affair, I don't expect the University to put up much of a fight. She already has been willing to indulge in self-flagellation in order to appear politically correct.

#!/bin/bash

[Lord of Ironhand]

for i in All these comments; do
ln -s "$i" .
done

Re:This is going on and on and ......

[goldspider]

"As the terrorism is stepping up worldwide seems that our freedom is in the line of sight from major companies."

I'm afraid you're confusing "wanting free shit" with "essential liberty". Your rhetoric is as inaccurate as it is tiring.

Re:WoooHooo

[the Man in Black]

Please shut the hell up.

Please.

Thank you.

wow...

[Korgrath]

RIAA could possibly come to campus to speak about file-sharing

I can only imagine the volume of students who would attend such and informative and exciting speech!

Re:wow...

[sheemwaza]

RIAA could possibly come to campus to speak about file-sharing

I can only imagine the volume of students who would attend such and informative and exciting speech!

When I was in college, I had to go to all kinds of lectures and speeches that I didn't want to... Usually to get credit for those stupid Adjustment to College Life and Poly Sci classes they required us to take (don't laugh -- this was Georgia Tech). The administration always has a way of making/enticing students to go to things. Or, they could use the old college mainstay of giving away free T-shirts... Damn those credit card companies!

Re:As a sucessful musician

[flea69]

Maybe if you didn't charge ridiclous amounts of money for a CD, people wouldn't steal music. CD's cost between 12-20 bucks which is an absolute ripoff, they should be sub 10 bucks...oh but wait then P. Diddy wouldn't be able to buy that new Escalade with the 24K grill and built in "Hide the gun the police are pulling us over!" compartment.

It's the university they're after

[Chief Technovelgist]

I don't think they care about the 8 students, or the fines - it's the University of Michigan they are after. If they can convince large lawsuit-averse institutions like the UM, with networks serving tens of thousands of students, faculty and staff, to outlaw music-sharing, then they will have achieved their end. More bang for the buck - know what I mean?

Re:It's the university they're after

[MCZapf]

Disclaimer: I'm just an alumnus. I don't speak for the University of Michigan.

The UofM has intelligent people in charge. They haven't blocked file sharing yet (as far as I know) because they believe in running an open, noncrippled network. I don't think they will block anything anytime soon either.

The UofM also believes in the personal responsibility and integrity of its students and staff. For several years now they've required students to agree not to share copyrighted material without permission. (I think it was a click-through deal, I don't quite remember.) So, they won't condone blatent copyright violations.

Re:It's the university they're after

[mrwonton]

I am currently a student at the University of Michigan. I also work for their Engineering Network (not the organization involved in this case).

I think that so far the UofM has handled itself quite well as far as file sharing is concerned. It's true that they have refused to block ports or obtrusive firewalls, and have refused to give up the names of students so far...

Sharing copyrighted material is of course covered in the AUP for the campus network, the main points of which are highlighted when every student registers to use the network.

The current way complaints about file sharing are handled is: 1) for the first offense, student is warned and forwarded the complaint. Student has 24 hours to reply to the University claiming they have stopped their illegal activity. 2) for the second offense, student is temporarily banned from the network for a week and fined $20. 3) third and subsequent requests result in longer bans and larger fines.

Re:It's the university they're after

[the gnat]

I worked for another large (private) university, and their policy was very similar. The head of IT told us very explicitly that the university viewed file sharing abuses as a strictly internal matter. They eventually did adopt blocking and traffic shaping methods because the strain on the network was too high, but as far as I know their treatment of offenders hasn't changed.

Re:It's the university they're after

[dlosey]

Hey! I used to work for CAEN too! PC-Ops baby!

Can you check that list that matches IP addresses to student accounts. I think not. That is a high security access list on the same level as student records. The U is prohibited (by law and UM policy) from distributing student records to ANYONE without your approval. I don't think they can give out your name without your approval. If they did, I would assume you would have the right to press charges against them.

Who knows though, they may weigh the odds and decide a lawsuit against a poor college students would be cheaper than a lawsuit against the RIAA.

Re:It's the university they're after

[awtbfb]

I don't think they care about the 8 students, or the fines - it's the University of Michigan they are after.

Given UM's recent high profile legal successes I think RIAA would have their work cut out for them if they tried to make UM do something they didn't want to do. Speaking from personal experience, UM does not operate like a typical uncoordinated bureaucracy. They are ruthlessly efficient when it comes to money.

Keep in mind that we are talking about an organization with the resources of a small city and top tier law and EE/CS programs. Since they are a public entity they likely have the ability to also utilize government resources and rules/regulations/laws (IANAL).

I agree with other posters that it's more likely that this will pass directly down to the students in question.

Re:It's the university they're after

[Patik]

Who keeps the money from the fine?

Re:It's the university they're after

[GPLDAN]

It's applied directly to the new yacht that Jack Valenti is buying.

Ol Jack is going to sail the high seas and become a real pirate! Argh!

He's like a real life Monty Burns.

Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Here at the University of Virginia, they've also firewalled the dorms so you can't host servers that are accessible from outside the Grounds network.

It blocks legitimate things like students who want to connect to their computers from home and access files and such. Of course, you can still run servers within the dorm networks, so it really doesn't stop the music trading at all.

Re:This is going on and on and ......

[Lovepump]

And what exactly are you going to do? The people here were sharing illegal material and thus are breaking the law.

In a decent, moral society, I expect to see people breaking the law to be punished, fined, locked up, whatever.

Just pay the fine?

[Slowtreme]

If you continue to share files that the RIAA is guarding as thier own copywrited material, then you should be prepared to "fight for your ideals".

RIAA has already demonstrated that they are able to target, sometimes missing, and harrass users of file sharing programs. Then force them to settle for fairly large fees (for a student anyway). They have been able to accomplish this within, but not always with the support of, US law.

I think your are being a bit shortsighted suggesting everyone jump off the same bridge as you.

new approach

[v_1_r_u_5]

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)

Re:new approach

[Nugget]

Congratulations. You've just invented Freenet.

Re:new approach

[WormholeFiend]

this is only going to work until the RIAA starts using the IPIPIPIP detector...
-

Re:new approach

[v_1_r_u_5]

true, but it would be very unlikely given the millions of users that both b and c would belong to the riaa. the system would obviously not let b and c be the same IP, and the chances of the system assigning b and c to two different ip's that the riaa owns are very unlikely. The chain can also be arbitarily long in the event that the RIAA hijacks the protocol.

Re:new approach

[sgeye]

There already is a program out there that uses this concept, Emule http://emuleplus.sourceforge.net/

Re:new approach

[v_1_r_u_5]

Not entirely; freenet is similar, yes, but this approach does not need either temporary storage on a harddrive or encryption.

Re:new approach

[v_1_r_u_5]

The reason is so that other people can't claim copyright/patent and then sue the hell out of anyone who implements this.

Re:new approach

[TheSpoom]

This has been implemented in MUTE, a P2P app based on the psychology of ants.

Re:new approach

[akaina]

This falls under the category "If everyone is guilty of everything then no one is guilty of anything". But I wouldn't expect the RIAA to be stumped by this. They would simply have an open field day suing EVERYONE for aiding in piracy, even if only 2 people were engaged in pirating. Then users would be stuck with the impossible dillema of proving that nobody was pirating anything (a universal negative).

Re:new approach

[v_1_r_u_5]

Close, but not exactly. MUTE relies on a ACO-like (ant colony optimization) routing system, which is pretty inefficient and relies too much on randomness and luck. ACO is fantastic for some domains, such as TSP and shortest path, but it's not ideal for a p2p communication setup. My proposed method can be thought of more as like electricity rather than ants. An electron shares its excitement with the neighboring electron, who shares its excitement with the next electron, etc. until the flow is reversed.

Re:new approach

[v_1_r_u_5]

Again, the chances of the RIAA owning all connections between the source and the sink would be infinitely small as the number of users increases.

Re:new approach

[TheSpoom]

Judge: So let me get this straight... you're suing these one million anonymous identifiers... which are completely untraceable... for the sum amount of piracy going on in this network.

RIAA Lawyer: Yes, $500,000,000,000 each, Your Honour.

Judge: ...We'll recess until tomorrow once I have had enough to drink.

Re:new approach

[leerpm]

Thats what FreeNet does. And its incredibly slow because of it.

Re:new approach

[Chordonblue]

The problem with using direct attraction is that there is always the possibility that a node's transmissions will give its material away - not in de-encrypted form, but in SIZE.

The way Mute works is perhaps the safest method since it even hides the transmission rates of nodes due to its roundabout method of discovery.

Re:new approach

[TheSpoom]

Your proposed method, as cited in the upper-most level post, mentions nothing of how traffic would be routed, other than it being distributed through multiple links. This is exactly what MUTE, Freenet, and several other programs already do. The issue here is that you're trying to claim copyright on an idea which is already out there and being used by several other programs.

Re:new approach

[throwaway18]

No. Waste, mute, winny and freenet use variations of the "proxy the traffic" idea
but emuleplus does not. It is just another client for the edonkey network.
Emule plus transfers data directly between uploaders and downloaders.

Re:new approach

[elementik]

You've just destroyed this mans hopes in one single devastating sentence, you bastard!

Re:The submitter said...

[m.koch]

By replying to this post you agree that you're wrong

You are right.

Legal Services

[Daeyin]

I wonder how many will fight these suits in court? All enrolled students as UM get free access to a law office (Student legal services http://studentlegalservices.dsa.umich.edu/) who have helped me successfully sue two slumlords in Ann Arbor (and got helped resolve a work dispute at my non-U job). I know if I were sued by the RIAA (not that they would have any reason to) I would be totally f*%^ed since I've graduated and cannot afford a major legal battle on my crappy IT wages. But, if I had 4 trained lawyers for free, I might consider fighting for a bit of fun!

Re:Legal Services

[dr_dank]

All enrolled students as UM get free access to a law office

Looking at the link, that looks pretty impressive. My school, like many others, had a lawyer available as well. However, the attorney was only available for legal advice. You would still have to pay him/her or another attorney out of pocket to represent you.

Word to the wise: just because your school has a legal service doesn't necessarily mean that they are full-service.

The real goal

[deman1985]

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"

Re:The real goal

[ThisIsFred]

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.

The answer to this one is simple. They will continue to do so as long as 1) people continue to redistribute without permission mass amounts of copyrighted material, 2) as long as regular consumers continue to buy products that provide the RIAA's legal offense fund coffers. At this point, I think we can all stop complaining about this. There isn't going to be a federal law that outlaws the music industries, or forces them to work for free. There aren't going to be any major overhauls to copyright law (copyright extension isn't a major overhaul). So, just drop it.

When the price of music reaches the cost which a consumer is not willing to play, the problem will take care of itself. Obviously consumers are either unaware of what's going on, don't care what's going on, and think that the price is fair. We can bitch and moan all we want, this issue has had sufficient time to mature, and sufficient news coverage to raise awareness. Obviously it was not important enough for the consumer to remember.

If it still bothers you and you want to do something about it, then stop buying CDs/tapes/whatever, and don't use illegal copies either. If you're still downloading copies, then that tells us you actually want the product. At that point we'll know that you don't oppose the current state of copyright on principle, but are actually just looking for a handout.

Re:The real goal

[deman1985]

If I would rather directly pay artists than go through the industry, I should have the option to do so. It is not the RIAA's work which I am purchasing, but rather the work of the artist. They deserve my compensation if I like and want their music, and I am prepared to offer them appropriate compensation, but not at the rate the industry has arbitrarily set. Hence, people will continue downloading and in order to compensate artists, they go to concerts, where they get their real money. I don't see the problem here.

Re:The real goal

[minus_273]

if you are pirating the music, that doesnt really make you a demographic that they care about. It is not like they are alienating a customer because that person was never a customer. Heck the fact that they were distributing the music for free makes them a rival.

Re:The real goal

[goodhell]

Actually, the RIAA has taken a chapter out of "How to make a buck!" by these people

I hear it's a best seller. And NYTimes claims that it will be the new business model to follow for years to come.

Re:The real goal

[geekee]

" If I would rather directly pay artists than go through the industry, I should have the option to do so. It is not the RIAA's work which I am purchasing, but rather the work of the artist."

If it weren't for record labels, you would have never heard the music you listen too. Claiming the play no role shows you are completely ignorant. These artists have already agreed voluntarily with the terms given by the record labels. Your attitude that stealing music is ok because you go to concerts is absurd. You are hurting the artists by hurting the industry that gets them their start and keeps them out of blue collar jobs. Record labels are the venture captialists of the music industry, and without their support, you are left with a lot of starving artists.

it was a test

[chillax137]

They just wanted to make sure you actually read the story. Anyone who doesn't mention that obviously didn't read the article and shouldn't be modded up.

Re:As a sucessful musician

[Anonymous Coward]

CD prices are determined by the record companies and not the artists... So yes, you are probably getting ripped off _BY THE RECORD COMPANY_ (note that this is not the same thing as the artist) when you buy a CD. Stealing music hurts both the artist and record company when really only the record company is your enemy when it comes to price fixing; perhaps your righteous anger could better be directed towards investigating artist-supported distribution channels, instead of directed towards KaZaa and other lameass warez shite.

Re:This is going on and on and ......

[boisepunk]

ineresting to note, the quote at the bottom of the page reads:
Between grand theft and a legal fee, there only stands a law degree.

when I want to

[WormholeFiend]

when I want to do some serious filesharing, I bring a large spindle of CDRs to a LAN party. :P

(note to RIAA: not really. just kidding.)

Re:when I want to

[WormholeFiend]

my mom's house of last repose?

wow, a necrophile. no wonder you post as an AC.

Re:This is going on and on and ......

[dancingmad]

The American revolution was more about taxes than freedomes too.

P2P could be an important way of distributing information in the future, but if these type of scare tatics continue P2P won't be able to develop into that.

You can't own Data.

[SammysIsland]

"Privacy is important and if you want to be anonymous that is your own perogative, but to advocate trying to hide one's self instead of advocating simple honesty is dangerous in so many ways to all societies."

What about making VOIP companies comply with wire tapping laws. Why won't the government allow people to set up their own private communication links? Seems like a blatant violation of privacy and property to me. My communication with another party is my property just the same as you claim this music 'belongs' to someone. If I or some company can set up a system to communicate privately so be it. Then we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. You can't own data. You can only hide it. We should all come to grips with this reality of the 21st century.

Re:You can't own Data.

[jwthompson2]

I'm an American and speak from that perspective...

That isn't the legality of it though, and as long as these laws are in place to protect IP and digital, or any other form of property for that matter, we have civic obligation to respect those laws or face the penalties associated with violating them. I would say that if VoIP were to ever be adopted as a full replacement for POTS then yes wire-tap laws should be updated to encompass that to maintain law enforcement's ability to conduct investigation. I would not extend such a update to include internal or privately held VoIP systems, but if it used like any other public utility it should be regulated in some manner, that doesn't mean I would advocate allowing the government to have backdoor type access to any encryption methods, and the normal warrant system should still be maintained but unencrypted traffic over a public system should be open to law enforcment, it helps keep honest people honest. Criminals always subvert and attempt to out manuever surveillance, and advocating that sort of behaviour to people who are breaking the law is unethical and immoral, if a person who is doing nothing wrong wishes to maintain their privacy that is one thing, but to advocate that criminals should do the same in the place of advocating that they stop breaking the law is just not a good thing.

Re:You can't own Data.

[kryonD]

"Why won't the government allow people to set up their own private communication links? Seems like a blatant violation of privacy and property to me. My communication with another party is my property just the same as you claim this music 'belongs' to someone. If I or some company can set up a system to communicate privately so be it. Then we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. You can't own data. You can only hide it. We should all come to grips with this reality of the 21st century."

You seriously need to stop playing Illuminati and get a grip on reality. POTS, Cellualar, and VOIP from companies are all SERVICES provided to you that you use VOLUNTARILY. If you want private VOIP, VPN to the person you want to talk to and run netmeeting to each other. Of course, you are also doing this over the INTERNET which is also a SERVICE that you use VOLUNTARILY. If you are really so paranoid about not wanting your conversations viewed by the owners and proprieters of the communication means you use, either meet in public and talk, or send a letter since mail is a legally protected form of communication. You can even encrypt it so NASA won't be able to read it with their gerbil powered X-Ray secret spy labratory located on the dark side of the moon.

Re:You can't own Data.

[SillyNickName4me]

> That isn't the legality of it though, and as long as these laws are in place to protect IP and digital, or any other form of property for that matter, we have civic obligation to respect those laws or face the penalties associated with violating them.

Sorry to say but that is utter and complete bullshit.

You have the civic obligation to protest and fight unfair laws, not respect them. Ever wondered why civil disobedience is a recognized form of protest? Ever wondered why the 2nd amandment to the US constitution actually attempts to counterbalance the government by allowing the creation of armed groups outside government control?

Your 'we must obey the government and law regardless what' is the exact excuse that has been used by many many people in Nazi Germany, want to have more examples of why it is utterly wrong and dangerous to think like that?

Re:You can't own Data.

[SillyNickName4me]

Following that reasoning, I suggest just commiting suicide... You can do somethign abotu beign alive and all those nasty consequences, so you beign alive is obviously voluntarily.

Re:You can't own Data.

[pinkUZI]

...Your 'we must obey the government and law regardless what' is the exact excuse that has been used by many many people in Nazi Germany...

Don't argue with him, jwthompson2, you can't win. He's studied this article on how to argue and win every time.

Re:You can't own Data.

[SillyNickName4me]

*lol*.
Like I care about Godwins law.

But let me tell you something, when you live in a country where peopel indeed used the exact excuse that I mentioned in order to colaborate with an occupying government, you might actually also start to understand why my statement had nothign to do whatsoever with the thing Godwins law is about.

Country: The Netherlands. Example of the excuse used? A politician called Willem Aantjes used it to defend his role in the German SS and his job as a guard for one of their prison camps. He was found out about much later, and used the exact excuse to defend himself.

There are scores of examples to be found in Germany itself as well, usually explicitly refering to the bible also to support that this was a religious belief and not a convenient choice.

Godwins law is nice, and applies in many cases, but it doesn't when the comparison is simply to the point and relevant.

Re:You can't own Data.

[kwandar]

I'm an American and speak from that perspective...

Okay, I'm a Canadian, and I'll speak from that perspective ...

would say that if VoIP were to ever be adopted as a full replacement for POTS then yes wire-tap laws should be updated to encompass that to maintain law enforcement's ability to conduct investigation. I would not extend such a update to include internal or privately held VoIP systems, but if it used like any other public utility it should be regulated in some manner

I personally think the internet has brought about signficant enhancements to free speech in the last decade, and I would respectfully submit that to the extent possible the internet should not be regulated. What do you think couldn't be accomplished with keyloggers and search warrants issued by judges? The only issue, is an issue of convenience for law enforcement, and the only convenience I believe in, is a judge issued search warrant. Frankly, I've had enough stupid US imposed law. We've had many such laws over the years.

I don't launder money or smoke up, but these are prime issues of stupidity, right up there with the war on drugs.

More to the point I'm all for , where justified.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

Re:You can't own Data.

[jwthompson2]

Civil disobedience has never invloved property laws however, at least not that I am aware of. By your reasoning if a group of individuals, say native americans, were to disagree with laws regarding land title and ownership then they should just go an destroy people's homes and take back the land that they claim should not be 'ownable'? Your solution is much more absurd. It is every persons duties to respect the laws that are in place and to work peacfully to change those which they disagree with. NOWHERE are we given the right to outright disobey the law, that right would in fact destroy the law itself. The second amendment is a poor example for this situation since the second amendment is most applicable in the light of the civil war and the american revolution in which armed resistance was the only method available to protest real and percieved tyranny depending on how you decide to interpret those two historical events.

Artists have a right to 'own' their work as much as I have a right to 'own' my car, my home or any physical property, this digital communism that seems to be your ideal for digitized works is appealing in some ways but dangerous to the capitalist system that exists. Why shouldn't people have right to property, regardless of the form, what is needed is less criminal activity in this arena calling itself 'civil disobedience' and more fair discussion over how property law, IP and copyright as well as privacy should be addressed and reformed in this new age of information.

Theft is wrong, regardless of what is stolen and what form the item takes.

Re:You can't own Data.

[jwthompson2]

By not extending law enforcement's power to investigate crimes using the internet you are willing to give criminals who communicate via email, VoIP or other electronic means a pass? I definitely agree that the more government stays out of the internet, and most anything else for that matter, the better off we all are. But I do think law enforcement should have the ability to conduct their investigations over any medium given that proper checks and balances are in place and privacy for law abiding citizens can be maintained. This is a hard balance to strike and requires constant vigilance, but that is the price of freedom.

But to go the other route and thus give unfettered freedom to criminals is far less appealing to me.

Re:You can't own Data.

[kwandar]

The proper checks and balances are in place via a search warant.

To think that criminal communication wouldn't be encrypted, is niave. Given that, why extend law enforcement's powers, other than to allow then to snoop where they clearly don't belong.

If they have a judge's blessing, its simple enough to place a keylogger So if its reasonable to expect that communication to be encryped, and if there are already tools, to perform surveillance on unenrypted communications.

If you look at this and this perhaps you'll consider changing your viewpoint?

Canadians would appreciate it, as we'll undoubtedly be pressured into the same costly (both in dollars and in freedom) legislation up here.

Re:You can't own Data.

[SillyNickName4me]

> Civil disobedience has never invloved property laws however, at least not that I am aware of.

There is a first time for everything. Civil disobedience has involved laws or areas of law for the first time repeatedly, and once it has been applied succesfully there is often little reason to apply it again.

> By your reasoning if a group of individuals, say native americans, were to disagree with laws regarding land title and ownership then they should just go an destroy people's homes and take back the land that they claim should not be 'ownable'?

By copying music you are not destroying anything. Record companies will argue (and if you were going to buy the music if you couldnt copy it, rightfully so) that you deprived them of some proffit.

Civil disobedience also means accepting that you can get punished for it btw, it is as much about pointing out the absurdity of the situation.

If native americans have an issue that has a good chance of broad support in society but were denied other ways to fight the laws to cause those issues, then they could indeed try to take this into their own hand, have a chance to get caught, end up in prison and let society judge the situation.

> Your solution is much more absurd. It is every persons duties to respect the laws that are in place and to work peacfully to change those which they disagree with.

Respect the law? yes, for as long as I have a decent assurance that that law has been created in a fair way.

Violence is definitely a last means to defend such a thing, and peacefull means should be used. Also, the means should be proportional to the goal. Having said that, and on danger of re-invoking Godwins law, the outcome of things like the Neurenburg trials definitely says that you have a responsibility to not just blindly follow the laws of your country, and that in extreme cases it may be a crime to do so. (and fo course copyright is not such an extreme case)

So, respecting the law? yes. Following it in all cases? definitely not. Being critical with regards to the law making process and the outcome of it? A rather healthy idea imho.

Re:You can't own Data.

[jwthompson2]

If a search warrant is granted then law enforcement should be allowed to do whatever is permissable under that warrant to conduct their investigation. Law enforcement has no reason and should not be allowed to snoop, unwarranted, on any type of communication. But to say wiretap laws should in no way be extended to include new communication methods is not pallatable to me as it cripple's law enforcement's powers in this new age. Again, as I have said before I do not think backdoors should be built in to encryption systems to allow for law enforcement convenience but law enforcement should not be blocked from conducting proper and legal investigations over new communication mediums.

Re:You can't own Data.

[kwandar]

In that case I guess, I just don't understand what is blocking them from conducting a proper and leagal investigation now?

Re:You can't own Data.

[jwthompson2]

I doubt there really is anything, so we probably agree more than either of us realize... :-)

Re:You can't own Data.

[zymurgyboy]

You have the civic obligation to protest and fight unfair laws, not respect them. Ever wondered why civil disobedience is a recognized form of protest?

Uh, sorry to say, but that is complete and utter bullshit.

You are correct to hold that there is a civic obligation to protest and fight unfair laws, but you still ultimately have to respect the rule of law, regardless of how you feel about a particular law. Enough people lose site of that and you'll have anarchy.

Civil disobedience may be a "recognized form of protest," as you put it, but that didn't stop Thoreau from getting thrown in the slammer when he practiced it.

Schools really ought to put Civil Disobedience on the reading list after they've covered the idea of the rule of law a bit better in the useless government classes they make everyone take.

Re:You can't own Data.

[SillyNickName4me]

I suggest reading my post answering similar comments in this same thread. basicly, civil disobediance often includes undergoing the punishment and using it to point out the absurdity of it all.

Re:Goverment = Proxy for Big Corps

[BillFarber]

Please stop whining and either move or do something about it. Run for office. Join the Peace Corps. Become a lawyer and fight Ashcroft pro bono. Your choice.

When are we going to learn?

[kryonD]

Sorry folks, I hate the RIAA just as much as everyone else here, but this simply needs to be said.

The whole music stealing thing....they're right. Does anyone seriously think they can stand up in a court of law and convince the judge that they deserve to have music for free. It's not like the musicians or the hundreds of people who somehow touch the music (even the janitor who sweeps the recording studio) are out there working for free. Are the studios charging way too much?...yes, a bit. Can you just record it off the radio?...yes, but royalties were already paid.

I'm a 29 year old has been trombone player (played professionally in the Marines for a bit), but I still pay for every piece of music I have on general principal. I know those musicians put in some long hard work to get as good as they are and I don't mind rewarding them...even if it is being laundered and embezzled by the industry. But I haven't even spent $3000 in my whole lifetime on CD's. Everyone who is out there giving away copies of music they likely never even paid for themselves in the first place are risking a $3000 law suit plus legal fees. And for what? I seriously doubt most people doing this even understand the concept of civil disobedience. And I don't think the judge will accept excuses about being a poor college student, or that the CD's are over-priced. If you want cheap music, sign up for one of those streaming services that let you listen to whatever you want for like $6 a month. If you want free music, either stream your favorite radio station off the internet, or get really nostalgic and actually learn how to work the FM tuner on your stereo system.

Again, I'm not saying the RIAA is this innocent victem of abuse. I'm just saying it's stupid to risk a $3000 law suit when you can likely purchase every CD you will listen to for the next year for less than $500 (that's about 50 CD's for the slow in math...practically a new disc every week), or just listen to the radio for free.

</RANT>

Re:When are we going to learn?

[REBloomfield]

While I agree with you, I don't think it's the law that people are objecting too, it's the way the RIAA go about it. They aren't the police, they have no powers, and yet they are getting away with abuse of the system. The time they stormed an old mexican guys bent CD shop, dressed like storm troppers and maed him sign a pink sheet detailing everything from his height to his shoe size.... it's just not on..

Re:When are we going to learn?

[REBloomfield]

Or the family, or the current copyright holder....

Re:When are we going to learn?

[deman1985]

It probably won't stand up in court, but from a realistic (moral?) standpoint, all that you're really paying for in a CD is the record label. Artists barely see a few percent of the profit from their CDs, so the good ones are not being hurt in any way from filesharing.

As long as the artists aren't being tools about the whole issue, I'm more than happy to buy their CDs if I like them. From an ideal standpoint, I would actually prefer if I could directly pay the artists rather than going through the entire hierarchy.

I'll say it again that the vast majority of even the big artists have no real problem with P2P; it's only the recording industry execs who do and need to come to the realization that their traditional industry stronghold is at an end. Nobody needs them anymore. They've been obsoleted.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[Hinde01]

I don't think that most of these file sharers have ever heard of civil disobedience let alone understand it.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[zx75]

every CD you will listen to for the next year for less than $500 (that's about 50 CD's for the slow in math

Where do you buy your cd's?? And I'm being serious here, I have never seen new (or relatively new) cds being sold for anywhere near 10 bucks a pop. American money or Canadian, cds are selling for 18-19 US here, which is usually about 25 Canadian. If you check your math, that is on the realm of about 26 CDs in american money, or 20 in Canadian.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[Sc00ter]

Huh? It seems to me it's more the the RIAA is walking around the streets looking for people giving away free copies of pirated CDs and then telling the cops. All they are doing is accessing P2P file sharing networks, looking for people sharing music, and then suing them. It's not like they're actually breaking into computers.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[v_1_r_u_5]

I definitely agree that illegally downloading music falls under the category of stealing, although some will play the semantics game. Part of the problem, though, is the lack of anonymity. It's pretty scary when a coorperation or a big organization such as the RIAA can demand the identities of users given a non-criminal reason. (Illegally downloading music a civil matter, not a criminal matter, although I believe it should be a criminal matter).

Re:When are we going to learn?

[humphrm]

What about if:

- I have a legal copy of an album
- That copy is not in a format that can be easily ripped (i.e. cassette tape, records)

Do I not have a fair use right to have an electronic copy of that album? And, should it matter where that electronic copy comes from?

Re:When are we going to learn?

[kryonD]

heheheheh...insert laughter at myself here. CD's average $14 on Amazon and you could probably work some magic with columbia house "buy 10 CD's for $1" scams to work 50 CD's into $500, but my estimate should have been around the $750 range.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[pclminion]

I definitely agree that illegally downloading music falls under the category of stealing, although some will play the semantics game.

For crying out loud, it is not a semantics game! When you steal something, the other person is deprived of it. When you infringe copyright, you have not deprived anyone of anything except a potential sale of that material. The "victim" in that case is neither the person taking the copyrighted material, nor the one giving it. It's the publisher.

Stealing and copyright infringement are covered under completely different sets of laws. They aren't the same, and we're not nitpicking on "semantics" here. If you can't see the extremely clear distinction then you're being purposefully stupid.

Having said that, I think copyright infringement is wrong, and I don't take part in it. But please quit this stupid, ignorant, head-in-sand interpretation of the meaning of copyright infringement. It ain't fucking stealing, it isn't prosecuted that way, it has different sentences, etc.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[radish]

I was in "a large record store" near my apartment in NYC just the other day. The regular price of CDs was indeed in the 18-19 range, but a LOT (and most new releases) were more like 11-14. I ended up getting 2 records, 5 CDs (including 3 doubles) and a DVD for well under $100. Not too bad IMHO, and a lot cheaper than other countries I have purchased in.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[v_1_r_u_5]

It is semantics.

True, illegally downloading music is not a criminal offense. As I mentioned, it's a civil matter, not a criminal matter.

True, illegally downloading content is not stealing for the very reason that you have mentioned- illegally downloading content is not depriving anyone of physical property.

However, it's along the same lines of the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law.

When you illegally download content, you are in effect illegally obtaining something that wasn't yours to obtain, which is pretty much the spirit of stealing; the only difference is that stealing results in the change of possession whereas illegally downloading results in loss of revenue.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[G00F]

I think you are missing something, when he said:
"The time they stormed an old mexican guys bent CD shop, dressed like storm troppers and maed him sign a pink sheet detailing everything from his height to his shoe size"

That was something that actualy happened. They (RIAA) actualy hired a bunch of X cops, dressed them up like cops, and had them run around acting like cops, taking away music, and recording peoples identification and mesurements. And then making the victim sign a sitation, just like a cop.( see "RIAA Takes the Fight to the Streets" for starters.)

That is just one example of them over reaching.

Now what I am tempted to do, sign up with kazaa, and download every CD I own and share only those. I own it all, so what did I do wrong?

Re:When are we going to learn?

[ryanwright]

whereas illegally downloading results in loss of revenue.

No, it doesn't. The fact that I download something does not mean I would have purchased it had it not been available for download.

Consider: I heard a song on the radio awhile back that had a catchy little tune. I liked it, so I looked it up and downloaded it. Turns out it was an old 70s song from an artist who made the type of music that I don't like. Except for this one song.

Had I not been able to download the song, I would have just done without. I sure as hell wouldn't have bought the CD. So tell me again how the download is a loss of revenue for anyone?

Re:When are we going to learn?

[DroopyStonx]

You need to pay attention.

They aren't suing people who download music. They are suing FILE SHARERS. Downloading != Sharing. Now your whole "Why risk a $3000 settlement when you can just buy the CDs" is useless and irrelevant.

...and what's up with that? You people are weak. Just give in, huh? So it's okay for these entities to continuously rip people off, lie, cheat, but when it's done to them it's suddenly wrong? That's not how it works.

You can go on your moral crusade about "They're right, it's wrong to download", but sorry, it doesn't get you anywhere. If it did, we wouldn't have these assholes like the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, SCO, etc shitting all over the very people that they're trying to coerce into buying their products.

Sorry, but if the RIAA ever fuckin sued me, I wouldn't change my tune and go "Wow, I'll start buying CDs." I'd double up on the downloading/sharing to get that $3000 back.. and hell, I'd put more effort in to giving it to more people. It doesn't teach any lessons. It causes dissent and hate for them. Now those college students who are $3000 less have even MORE reason NOT to buy CDs. "Yeah, this company just sued me, so.. I'll buy a CD and give them even more money." Nope!

Companies need to stop treating consumers like shit. Without us, they wouldn't exist.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[v_1_r_u_5]

You claim that you would have never bought the song anyway, so downloading it does not result in a loss of revenue.

The problem with your argument is that it doesn't scale well at all.

For example, suppose a new hapless record store decides to open up shop in your town and you have a device that instantly copies a CD without having to ever open the case. (They're not far off in the future, btw.) You figure, you're not going to buy the CD anyway, so it's not costing the record store any revenue if you use your device on their CDs. Furthermore, suppose that everyone in your town felt the same way as you do: nobody in your town feels as though they were going to buy a CD, so copying CD's isn't costing any revenue. Thus, you and everyone else in your town go to the new shop, never buy a CD, copy every single CD in the store, and then leave. Is the record store going to make any money? No- they've lost all of their venues for revenue to those who feel as though they weren't causing the record store to lose any revenue.

That's pretty much what's happening, except we're talkin millions of people compared to the few thousands that might live in your town. Naturally, there are the exceptions. Some people download songs and then decide to buy an entire album, thus actually generating more revenue, but those are pretty rare.

When you illegally downloaded the catchy little tune instead of purchasing it from a legal means or listening to it via a medium that has paid for or otherwise rightfully obtained the rights to broadcast that catchy little tune, you have obtained the catchy little tune through venues that weren't approved of by the copyright holder, which is illegal and unethical.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[God Takeru]

Does anyone seriously think they can stand up in a court of law and convince the judge that they deserve to have music for free

I seriously believe people can stand up in a court of law and convince a judge that this lawsuit scare tactic is just a way to continue keeping CD prices overly high, and that this sort of intimidation is illegal (sorry, I forget the specific name of what it is she's challenging under, but a woman sued by the RIAA is planning on going in with this defense, it's been covered on Slashdot). We're not demanding free music, we're demaning the right not to be bullied by corporations. I believe I have that right.

I very much understand civil disobedience, thanks, going back to colonists protesting the stamp act and other attempts by their government and the companies of the day to take money from them illegally, to people like Susan B. Anthony casting her ballot at a time when women could not vote, and facing jail for it. Civil disobedience means I think something is an injustice, I am willing to stand up for it, and I am willing to pay the penalties for my actions though they be unjust, should it come to that.

You really think that with your 25 cents on an album sale going to the artist is supporting them, especially for somebody who buys so little music? You want to help out an artist, go to concerts, where they get a fair profit for their work.

You, sir, are no music lover. Now, I'm going to give you that CD's somewhere in magical lala land cost $10, even though I'd say average price around here $17. At this ridiculously low price, I've shelled out more than $5000 to the industry, and that's nothing; I know many people with CD collections into the thousands. Maybe you don't listen to enough music to have it effect your bottom line, but it does mine.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[maximilln]

-----
So it's okay for these entities to continuously rip people off, lie, cheat, but when it's done to them it's suddenly wrong? That's not how it works.
-----
Unfortunately, yes, that _is_ how it works. It's not moral, ethical, or even legally right.

The fact of the matter is that people in powerful position protect each other and look out for each other's interests. The consumer always takes a load on the chin.

-----
Sorry, but if the RIAA ever fuckin sued me, I wouldn't change my tune and go "Wow, I'll start buying CDs."
-----
Obfuscate and blend. Tone the language down and let the energy flow into the posts. Don't explode. As long as the corporate execs and the dirty politicians can get an emotional response from you they can always be able to portray _you_ as the problem. Learn to relax.

You're right. The system is dirty and we are being taken advantage of. You're right. There are many many people even here on /. who will troll you for expressing your outrage at the inequities of those who've been elected to protect your rights. You're right. There is something horribly wrong with our society.

Stay low and wait for opportunity.

Re:When are we going to learn?

[ryanwright]

Some people download songs and then decide to buy an entire album, thus actually generating more revenue, but those are pretty rare.

I disagree. I bought 13 new CDs last week, at least half of which were purchased because I copied a friend's mix CD and was introduced to new artists I liked. According to reports, CD sales are still on the rise. If everyone is just "stealing" the CDs, why are sales still up? Perhaps people like me aren't so rare after all.

you have obtained the catchy little tune through venues that weren't approved of by the copyright holder, which is illegal and unethical.

I'll tell you what's ironic about those 13 new CDs: They were all bought from a record club (BMG), which means the artists received zero royalties. Perfectly legal and entirely unethical. I would, quite frankly, have felt better about it had I simply downloaded them. Problem is, I like the cover art and the high quality music. Which explains why CD sales are still up despite all of these damned peg legged pirates running around.

Re:As a sucessful musician

[biffnix]

...Knee...jerking....must...stop...too LATE!

The argument is more nuanced, and is rarely so cut and dried.

It is not like stealing. Your song on Kazaa is being distributed as surely as it would be on a radio station, except you get no performance payments. THAT'S the real difference.

Record companies did not adjust quickly enough to a new technological model of distribution, and so the marketplace came up with a free alternative. Bummer. That genie is out of the bottle...

Options? Well, suing the crap out of everyone is one way to curb file sharing, but that has the detrimental effect of keeping the music out of the hands of the fans, and pissing off the most ardent enthusiasts of music.

Trying a performance fee such as online radio stations might work, and ISPs would be required to collect the fee from all users, based on the amount of music files shared per ISP.

The really, REALLY difficult part of all this is the fact that the internet is GLOBAL, and radio stations, and even television really isn't! So any payment scheme legislated in the US wouldn't apply overseas without some really serious negotiation. But hey, at least SOME income is better than nothing. Perhaps the US fees would be enough to keep these musicians off the streets...

It's going to take time to adjust to this "new" (cough) phenomenon of the internet, and how it flattens the distriubtion model to just one layer (the producer to the consumer!), with no place in the middle to take a cut of the action.

Other big ideas? I'm sure there's VC out there for someone who can make music pay...

Joe G.
Bishop, CA

Re:This is going on and on and ......

[goldspider]

"P2P could be an important way of distributing information in the future"

Maybe so, but today it's mostly used to engage in illegal distribution of copyrighted works. But then, this isn't about getting rid of P2P either.

The RIAA knows they can't successfully eliminate P2P because of its legitimate uses. However they are well within their right to go after individuals who break the law.

Oh great.

[SillyNickName4me]

So the RIAA is planning to screw the lives of some more students now? You can really tell they are acting in the interest of society as a whole ;P

What a bunch of morons.

Re:Oh great.

[Hinde01]

The RIAA is looking out for itself. They are doing right by them, and I personally can't blame them, depite their absurd tactics that are ultimately alienating the people that listen to music.

Re:Oh great.

[JofCoRe]

RIAA also has no interest in acting in the interest of society as a whole. it's a private entity. it has no obligation or reason to act beyond its own interest

While I agree with the correctness of your statement, is it just me that sees something wrong with this situation? Shouldn't every person be concerned with the interests of society as a whole? Aren't we all a part of society, and therefore should be concerend about it? I think this is a fundamental problem.... in a whole lot of different areas. Everyone's out for themselves, always trying to make that next buck and get "ahead".

meh...

Re:Oh great.

[SillyNickName4me]

Well, my understanding of the founding of the USA is that it follows to quite some extent the model of the Spartan republic instead of direct democracy. My understanding is also that the main argument for this was that that model promoted the idea that every person had to serve society besides him/herself.

I believe that any person, regardles of it being about private or business matters, should keep the interest of society in mind. I think that the USA's founding fathers held similar beliefs and that it was an underlying assumption when the American constitution was written.

Is allofmp3.com A Legal Alternative

[jestill]

I've been a subscriber of Emusic.com for a few months now, but I don't like the limit of 90 songs per month. I am also not willing to pay $0.99 per song from iTunes, or even $0.88 a song from Walmart.

I've recently discovered the Russian website www.allofmp3.com that allows downloads from $0.01 per meg of mustic and it appears on the surface to be legit. You can even pay for content using paypay so you don't need to worry about the Russian mafia hijacking your account number. (Just your regular paypal problems).

A recent interview with the content manager makes it appear that this site is legal, and it looks like RIAA has nothinng to say about the site. A search on the RIAA web site for allofmp3.com returns zero hits, and doing some searching for the RIAA view of all0fmp3.com also gives no results.

Have other slashdotters had experience with this site? What is your opinion of its legality?

Re:Is allofmp3.com A Legal Alternative

[REBloomfield]

I'd say it's only legal if the site is paying royalties....

Re:Is allofmp3.com A Legal Alternative

[YrWrstNtmr]

Dubious legality, IMHO. Depending on where you live.

When the first round of RIAA lawsuits came out, the mother of our poster child, the 12 year old, had evidently 'paid for' legal music. Or so she thought. $29.95 for KazaaPro. Many, many were the comments in here about "How could anyone be so stupid as to think that a mere $30 would give you legal access to ten's of thousands of songs?"

I pose the same question to you, dear allofmp3.com user.
How is it that allofmp3 has negotiated such a better deal than Apple for all that music? On the order of $0.03 per song instead of $0.99 at iTunes? (of course the RIAA is in the mddle of that 99 cents there, skimming off a bunch, but THAT much?)

Of course the allofmp3 content manager is going to say it's legit. Did you expect him to say "naaa...it's all illegal, but we're in Russia, backed by the Russian Mafia, so they can't touch us."

Read the allofmp3 legal bits.

Re:Is allofmp3.com A Legal Alternative

[tigeba]

Since you asked, my opinon is that your post should be modded (+2, Delusional)

Re:Is allofmp3.com A Legal Alternative

[MannyO]

Here is the "Legal Info" from the main page on their site:

All the materials in the MediaServices projects are available for distribution through Internet according to license # LS-3I-03-79 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. Under the license terms, MediaServices pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights". All the materials are available solely for personal use and must not be used for further distribution, resale or broadcasting. Users are held liable for the use and distribution of the MediaServices site information materials according to local legislation.

Re:Is allofmp3.com A Legal Alternative

[hackstraw]

I've done it and its not really worth it. I was drawn to it because it appears to be legal, there were whole albums, and I could pick my encoding. Well, I found that its not significantly different than going the "file sharing" route. I have a number of incomplete tracks (missing a few seconds, they are not incomplete downloads), I got some mislabled tracks, it was (relatively) difficult to download tracks. To download tracks, I got a mail confirming the encoding was complete. I wrote a perl script to parse these mails, and retrieve them with 5 concurrent wgets at a time. Their webserver limits donloads to 5 concurrent downloads at a time. I've also found the system to be really busy and it says to come back later.

Also, I felt really sketchy giving my credit card to a russian, questionably legal, site. And when I hit the "Yes" button to commit my order, my browser (Safari) said that it was about to give insecure data over the line, and asked me if I wanted to continue. I clicked NO, and tried it again with IE just to make sure it was not Safari being anal or somehing. Well, IE did the same thing. The funny part, is that I got billed both times? Aparently, the secure page redirected to an insecure or something, but my order went through (twice).

If the quality was better, I would continue the service. I think the price I paid for what I got is fine by me.

Re:Is allofmp3.com A Legal Alternative

[FrederiCH]

Well the legality has also been confirmed by ROMS, the Russian RIAA. Check this interview I have been using this site for over 6 months now. I can recommend it to anyone, never had a single problem.

Re:Is allofmp3.com A Legal Alternative

[FrederiCH]

In every thread about this service the usual comments appear. Russian mafia, creditcard fraud. Absolute nonsense.

Allofmp3 is one of the internet's best kept secrets.

I have been thorougly investigating the legal issue. Allofmp3 operations are fully within the boundaries of Russian Law.

Allofmp3 is licensed by ROMS, the Russian society on multimedia and to digital networks. Russian law makes it possible that this society may represent all artists when it comes to collecting fees for using copyrighted music. ROMS has confirmed that Allofmp3 operates in full accordance with Russian and international law.
Whether it is legal to use Allofmp3 outside Russia remains vague. There has been no official statement from any other copyright organization on this matter.

Anyhow Allofmp3 sets a standard for any other online music services when it comes to audio quality. This makes this service very tempting. Thousands of users outside of Russia have not been able to resist this temptation.

I have been using this service for over 6 months, and I have downloaded Gigs of music. I have used my credit card several times for adding more money to my balance. Nothing strange has happened. The Cyberplat payment system is safe.

The sound quality of the files is excellent.
Recently Allofmp3 has has even added a new option to their already unique online encoding feature. Music that is part of the Online Encoding Exclusive catalogue can now be downloaded in several lossless audio formats such as Monkey's Audio, FLAC and OptimFrog. Even WAV and lossless WMA are part of this unique feature.

Just think, would you go through all the trouble of setting up such a system if you were running an illegal business?

For those of you who would like to try this service for free. They have a fair collection of albums that are available for free. You can find these albums listed at museekster.com.
Note! Free albums cannot be online encoded and download speeds are far slower.

Lot's of former Emusic users have switched to Allofmp3. I recommend a visit to the Mixtape Forums for more info on thier experiences with Allofmp3 (code word A3).

Re:WoooHooo

[the Man in Black]

Wow! I haven't heard anyone say "12 Mile High" in forEVER. A friend of mine the other day referred to WCCC as "the 13th grade". :) Thanks for giving me a laugh.

I think the people who are whining about not getting in don't deserve to go to U of M anyhow, they should stick with 12 Mile High.

I need you to put this on a t-shirt. We can seel them in front of the Union. That would be the best.

Just a matter of time

[tblease]

It's really too bad that this is becoming more and more frequent. I'm surprised most college campuses haven't taken to blocking most peer-to-peer file sharing apps. The school where I'm at has blocked everything from Kazaa to BitTorrent. Even DCC file transfers over IRC are severely throttled to make file sharing with the outside world a bit tougher (and beyond that the default IRC port 6667 is blocked).

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.

Re:Just a matter of time

[Ledora]

You always trade freedom for security

Re:Just a matter of time

[Desirsar]

I'm actually kind of surprised at my university's policies. The ports for WinMX are throttled, so my best source of anime and Japanese porn is gone, but every other filesharing method works fine, and they have never contacted me once about running an FTP server out of my dorm room.

The RIAA doesn't care

[mdfst13]

The RIAA doesn't care who is downloading. They only prosecute people who are uploading. *Any* of the three involved (supplier or the two proxies) could be prosecuted for uploading. Heck, this would make their job easier. They just sign up as a proxy and watch the network traffic that flows through them.

You act as if their goal were to identify all the players. That's not it. They want people to stop sharing their songs. This gives them an extra set of people to prosecute: those acting as proxies for sharing songs. They don't have to get back to the original uploaders. Eliminating the proxies breaks the system (plus, presumably the proxies will be sharing in other transactions; once they get the proxy evidence, they can get a warrant to look for additional evidence).

Re:The RIAA doesn't care

[v_1_r_u_5]

I don't believe the RIAA can prosecute people for merely being conduits. And since they can't distinguish between those uploading and those merely being conduits, the end users win.

Re:The RIAA doesn't care

[aGeMo]

You could always test this theory by giving the mob your permission to store illegal materials in your garage and then tell the police that you are doing so.

Re:Goverment = Proxy for Big Corps

[abh]

> This is just another example of the slow erosion of the fountain this country was founded on.

Yep, our country was founded on medicare and illegal copyright violation. I sure hope you're either a) joking, or b) seriously have no idea about the history of the USA (in which case you should stop babbling as if you do)

Re:As a sucessful musician

[bigskank]

I get sick of hearing the "stealing" argument. The RIAA is not suing ANY of the downloaders, but only the uploaders. I own my music legitimately (i.e. I paid for the CDs and then ripped my own MP3s). How is me sharing something I own "stealing." Shouldn't they be targeting those who are illegally downloading what they don't own? This problem isn't akin to selling crack on the streets. I am not a dealer, but I do make hella good rips that I think other people who own the cds legitimately might want to listen to.

no psu students

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

That's funny

[mao che minh]

"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."

People that are stealing their property (oh sorry, "infringing on their copyrights") don't strike me as potential customers.

Re:That's funny

[deman1985]

You miss the point. Eventually, most people end up purchasing the albums that they like or they go through services like iTunes to pay their dues. Unlike other goods or services, you can't really return music if you're not satisfied with it, so people should get to test drive it first.

Can you own a number?

[SammysIsland]

Wow, so mature... "near-sighted"? what am I missing in the distance? Maybe it's s time when people make music for the love of it rather than the money. I just happen to have a view that differs from yours. Perhaps it is just socialization that has caused so many to believe that they should be compensated with money or credit for information they claim to be theirs. Music is just sounds or vibrations put together creatively. A person may own their live performance as it has some value and can never be recreated, but once you record that performance and put it on some recording medium, now it is just a number. A long string of ones and zeros. No person can claim ownership of a number.

Re:Can you own a number?

[pinkUZI]

...Maybe it's s time when people make music for the love of it rather than the money...

I knew it! Hippie! Communist! You are the minority and if you don't like it leave. You green party card carying little weasle, take another hit off your water bong and bug out. Leave discussions on this level to people who appreciate their brain cells.

..btw, for the record - the anonymous post was not me. I'm an honest man and the only time I post anonymously is to protect karma not identity, which is a personal preference - a practice that I am recently getting away from as well.

I for one

[jzuska]

I for one will never buy another CD again so long as it's an RIAA label. Extorting poor students for cash they don't have. I'll keep recording of XM thank you very much.

I guess we can look forward to..

[Channard]

.. the prosecution of Hairy Ass McGee and cohorts then.

FERPA

[BJZQ8]

The University is ignoring FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act... Link It protects idle release of such information. In my position in a school district, they can ask all they want...but records of who was doing what on which computer are protected by that statute. I would be waiting for a court order, and not just a "give us the goods!" letter.

Re:FERPA

[Kupek]

The University is going to receive subpoenas, not some "We'd like to see this stuff" letter from the RIAA. A subpoena, as I understand it, is a command from the court to produce the information (or in some cases, a person). If you don't comply, there can be legal consequences.

Re:This is going on and on and ......

[TrollBridge]

"The American revolution was more about taxes than freedomes too."

So you're comparing the purchasing of music to a tax?

I don't know about you, but nobody is threatening to imprison me for not buying music!!

The laws..

[SammysIsland]

I think my main problem is that I never had much respect for the laws. Perhaps just respect for not getting caught breaking them. I agree with some of them, of course, for my own moral reasons, but that is a different topic. I think most people agree that there are laws out there that serve no quality purpose or are just plain ridiculous. So why is this one any better? I have never profited from any downloaded music.

Re:The laws..

[pinkUZI]

...I have never profited from any downloaded music....

A matter of perspective. Think outside your own little head for a moment. Didn't you profit by obtaining the pleasure the music brought you by not having to pay for it?

So far as not respecting laws goes, I concede that we have way too many laws and many are useless, however, we live in a free society where anyone can have a hand in changing the laws. So change the law, don't break the law. To do so would only advocate anarchy and chaos.

Re:The laws..

[marcilr]

"...we live in a free society where anyone can have a hand in changing the laws."

The problem is we don't live in a free society. Our society is ruled by the rich and powerful. A little anarchy and chaos, i.e. fight club style might be exactly what we need.

Re:The laws..

[SammysIsland]

the best way to change the law is to show how futile it is to try to enforce the law. Downloading is my form of free speech and protest....

Re:The laws..

[zymurgyboy]

Good! Your idealism is laudable. However, I don't know about this being the best way to change laws as much as it is a way to bring attention to laws that need changing. And only as a last resort, I would add.

At present, the only way to change law is through a legislative body of some sort, and in a more indirect way, through ruling on existing law by a court.

In fact, the best way to change the law is to use whatever influence you have to influence your congressperson to do your bidding. This means writing, calling, faxing, e-mailing, etc. to make him or her aware of your position. Better yet, pool your influence with people who think like you do, just like the media companies are doing.

Fight fire with fire.

But anyway, I have to know, are you willing to back it up? Will you go to mat for your ideal if you ever find yourself standing tall before the Man?

I, for one, would chip in for your legal defense if you would.

Re:The submitter said...

[glassesmonkey]

I am confused, how is this Unbalanced?! How are you Insightful?!
(bold is submitter and italics for the article)

the RIAA will be
the record industry will soon

subpoenaing the University of Michigan
subpoena the University

for the names of nine students
for the names of students

suspected of
allegedly

file-sharing.
sharing music illegally.

Not only in the US

[ballpoint]

On the national radio today in an European country:

A 60 year old has been brought before justice because he offered 137,328 music files in MP3-format. The man also offered CD cover copies.
The Computer Crime Unit tracked the man after a complaint of IFPI (the local equivalent of the RIAA). The man risks a fine from 100 to 100,000 euro.

Re:Not only in the US

[Ogive17]

So he was trying to profit by offering the CDs as well? I don't feel any sympathy for people who have collections like that. Don't get me wrong, the RIAA is a joke, but in their shoes, I would go after the people who were sharing a lot of files.

Re:Not only in the US

[ballpoint]

Update: this is the biggest catch for the CCU in the last 10 years.

8000 hours of music / 11000 CDs were downloadable from his website.

This happened here too...

[Sim9]

A t my university, we received a subpeona as well. However, later on it turned out the RIAA never followed up... which is odd, considering all the press I've heard...

Re:I propose that you stop stealing

[v_1_r_u_5]

I am an recording artist myself with a few (very small-time and very local) cd's out. The point isn't about music or movies.. it's about all content and privacy. Imagine 10 years from now when the government suddenly takes an interest in those people scouring p2p networks for certain text articles or specific words. They can't come knocking on your door because they won't know who you are.

Re:What right's....

[Oodi]

I agree, but what constitutes a lock? If my mp3 collection is accessible via http on an odd port and via a subdirectoy not advertised anywhere it is at the very least concealed. Unless I am knowingly sharing files to a third party I don't think I am infringing copyrights!

Re:As a sucessful musician

[mark-t]

Right.... just like the "Genie was let out of the bottle" when photocopiers, VCRs, and even tape recorders were invented.

The only difference here is that it's now actually exceptionally convenient to be able to make copies, and to make them en masse at no real further cost in terms of time or dollars, so there is now no incentive to simply not be bothered to break the law when it would otherwise be to your perceived advantage to do so.

The bottom line is that unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work is illegal (and fair use is specifically authorized in the copyright act), so one can hardly blame organizations like the RIAA for wanting restitution. Yes, they charge too much, but just because one can justify to themselves the reasons for breaking the law, does that mean that it is really okay to? Remember, one side in this case is doing something that is completely legal, but not in the other side's best interest. The other side may be doing something in no less for their best interest, but no matter how you try to color it, it's still against the law.

Re:Goverment = Proxy for Big Corps

[cyberlotnet]

Did I say that? No those points where just a couple of the failings of things going on around here.

Yes people are making illegal copies of music, however the RIAA is twisting and abusing the system and laws to suit there own needs.

They do not care about the "realm" of "fair use".

To them the only fair use invovles a direct deposit to there pockets.

The music industry itself is in for a Revolution, more and more artists are standing up for themselves again the RIAA and the like.

In the end they are going to sue themselves out of business.

Sick of univerity harassment

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Sick of univerity harassment

[Lehk228]

It works better if you rip first nd burn as data.... 6-10x more music

Reinvent the Industry

[gregoryb]

I really wish that instead of wasting effort trying to get around the RIAA and legalize the sharing of music copyrighted by RIAA artists, people would change their focus and just abandon the music industry! Then, put the effort and energy into reinventing a new way to create, distribute, and listen to music! One that gives that gives the artists what is due to them for their creativity and provides for the promotion and distribution needs as well.

I mean seriously, how many of the top 40 artists actually put out creative music that isn't just a rehash of the last material that made the record company millions? Very few! (If you answered spears, timberlake, or others of their breed, leave now!) :)

How much do you really care about the music you listen to? Do you search for music you really enjoy? Quality music? original music? Bands that pour themselves into their projects? Or do you just buy the next thing the record companies and MTV shoves in your face?

I really hate the fact that the industry is controlled by the pre-teens who could care less about wether the music they listen to is any good. The drones that buy the next spears look-a-like or the latest Creed cover band.

Ok, enough ranting. :) Unfortunately, I have no idea *how* the industry should be rewritten. But, IMHO, we should completely abandon the current industry and start something new from scratch. A system that would work, that would be fair, and that would not be controlled by the corps.

Re:Reinvent the Industry

[FooAtWFU]

Do you search for music you really enjoy? Quality music? original music?

I favor old whaling songs, a few spiffy movie soundtracks, and stuff like the Carmina Burana. Hmm... Do the likes of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and Howard Shore pony up to the RIAA?

Re:WoooHooo

[mrwonton]

I got in as well, and I'm currently a student there. I still don't condone affirmative action though, as it does in fact descriminate. Sure, it does it with good intentions, but nevertheless...

On the other hand, we have enough idiots here, if a few aren't accepted, no skin off my teeth.

Go RIAA!

[asv108]

I hope the RIAA steps up the subpoenas against file sharing users at universities and elsewhere. While a few people may suffer the injustice of an RIAA settlement in the long term, there could be quite a few benefits.

• P2P Developers start moving towards anonymous encrypted file sharing networks.
• The Legality of the RIAA methods could be struck down.
• Federal and State governments could get fed up with the RIAA attacks and actually do something about it. (unlikely)

Since the original suits last year, we have seen a slight move towards security in file sharing networks with smaller specific projects but the larger players leave users prone to the same harvesting attacks that the RIAA used last year. Really, nothing is going to change until Shaman networks makes Kazaa an anonymous system. From what I have seen, the RIAA has subpoenaed Kazaa users exclusively. That doesn't mean other networks like Gnutella are not harder spider.

One of the easiest ways around the technique the RIAA is using, is to disable the browse host feature in your file sharing app. This doesn't prevent them from suing a file sharing user but it does make it a little bit harder for the RIAA to get a laundry list of all the files a user is sharing. They could only find songs that match specific queries.

Best place for this to happen (for the students)

[kcm]

Jack Bernard is a good guy. The University believes, strongly, in privacy, and I can assure you that their counsel is approaching this from that point of view.

That being said, they aren't out to allow students to do illegal things and misappropriate bandwidth, either. It's RIAA strong-arm tactics that won't fly with the University.

If proper procedures are followed, documented evidence exists, and adequate warning happened (I believe the U still gives violators a warning and a chance to cease and desist), well.. sorry, Mr. Student, you may have to own up here.

On the bright side, I think Student Legal Service is still free. :)

Read it closer

[Ogive17]

The link you provided states: "FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children's education records" I do not think a student's internet usage falls into this category. "However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR 99.31): To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;"

Re:Read it closer

[BJZQ8]

I have read it and have had conversations with our lawyers about it. The RIAA calling us up and saying "Let us have a gander at your logs!" is not a valid judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena. Logs of computer usage are legally similar to attendance records, which fully meet the definition of "education records" and cannot be lightly handed over. The University is caving much too easily.

Re:Read it closer

[Galvatron]

Not anymore. They used to do that, but after losing a court case, they are now filing lawsuits agains "John Doe" defendants, and getting actual subpoenas.

Re:What right's....

[SillyNickName4me]

> If your sharing it out, your giving up your rights...if you don't want someone to break into your house LOCK THE DOOR.

Hmm, it is no breaking in that case, but is usually still illegal entry, and punishable. You just have little chance with your insurance claims since you have been neglectign the protection of your property. Those however are 2 entirely different things.

Similar story at Indiana University

[Pr0Hak]

The Indiana Daily Student is also reporting that Indiana students' names have also been subpoenaed.

The article also mentions that the university has recently revised its' policy for dealing with copyright infringement complaints. Students are required to take delete offending material and 'filesharing quiz' or face losing network access.

The article metions that these subpoenas have gone out to 21 universities.

Music this, music that...

[Uttles]

the problem here is that the RIAA will not admit to what it is they actually sell: control. They control who listens to what music and where. How? Media, such as CDs, or radio broadcasts.

Musicians don't sell music, they make music. Musicians don't make any money off of CD sales. They make their money off of performances, and generally by actually being entertaining. The thing is, the RIAA doesn't want to let us determine who is actually entertaining, and who isn't. Thus, they want to keep control of their distribution and promotion system.

File sharing destroys that distribution and promotion system. People start to be informed about what music they actually like, and so they only purchase the CDs that they actually want, and they only go to the performances that they think will actually be entertaining. File sharing does NOT take any money away from musicians, and it does NOT slow down the sale of CD's. The only thing File Sharing DOES is to remove the RIAA's control.

Re:This is going on and on and ......

[d34thm0nk3y]

In a decent, moral society, I expect to see people breaking the law to be punished

In a decent, moral society, I expect to the the laws coincide with the will of the populace.

What about the DMCA?

[Grym]

Here's my question: What about the DMCA? Doesn't it make reverse engineering a patented process illegal?

The RIAA's "webcrawler" is presumably looking for people hosting material via kazaa, but here's the problem with that--FastTrack, kazaa's protocol is patented. In order for them to see the songs that somebody is hosting, wouldn't they have to reverse-engineer the protocol to make it? IANAL, but isn't this illegal, especially since the RIAA is arguably making a profit from said program?

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like patents and intellictual property is only important or enforced when it profits the big companies best. When people distribute a couple songs, it's theft or "piracy." When the RIAA steals intellectual property, it's justice.

-Grym

Re:What about the DMCA?

[SiliconEntity]

What about the DMCA? Doesn't it make reverse engineering a patented process illegal?

No, you're wrong three ways. First, the DMCA says nothing about patents. Second, the DMCA criminalizes defeating measures that protect copyrights, which file sharing networks do not do. Third, and most surprising, the DMCA has an exemption for reverse engineering! That's right, the DMCA's treatment of reverse engineering is exactly the opposite of what most people think. It specifically says that defeating a copyright protection measure is legal if it is part of a reverse engineering effort aimed at creating a compatible product.

But that part's not even relevant here since KaZaa's technology cannot be reasonably construed as a copyright protection measure.

Er, this is already a work in progress...

[Chordonblue]

See MUTE-Net:

mute-net.sourceforge.net

Not exactly what you would call robust or full-featured but hey, cut them some slack. At this point, it still works better than Freenet and at least you have a CHANCE to download unlike things like DirectConnect (QUEUE: 1400)

DHCP????

[THESuperShawn]

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?

Re:DHCP????

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but most IPs tend to not ever renew the IP numbers and most people don't swap out their NIC cards all the time. When I was on Comcast I had the same MAC address and recived the same IP address for 1.5 years, and yes, that is from leasing via dhcp.

Re:DHCP????

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the University of Michigan typically uses year long DHCP leases that are associated to your MAC address. This happens when you register your computer to get ethernet access in the residence halls, after you sign the IT environment usage policy document, which by the way states that although they don't have a technical barrier to any network protocol, you are not allowed to do anything that breaks the law while on their network.

From: http://rescomp.umich.edu/Residential.Ethernet/NetG uide/Registration/Conditions.of.Use.php

I understand that the security of my computer system is my responsibility, and that I am responsible for all activity originating from my computer system, including but not limited to: a) traffic generated by viruses; b) the sharing of music or other media files; and c) other users who have gained access to my computer.

Re:DHCP????

[THESuperShawn]

BUT- the point is that it is still assigned dynamically. There is no PROOF that person 'A' had address 'B' at a certain point in time. Just becuase the addresses are not released automatically does not mean the addresses were not released. I would think this kills any case the RIAA has.

Re:The submitter said...

[dickiedoodles]

file-sharing.
sharing music illegally.

Yep because that is exactly the same thing legal uses of P2P? Nonsense

you make their case for them..

[glassesmonkey]

This post IS WHAT THE RIAA is trying to convince you of. Heck, this trombone playing marine probably is a subcontractor of RIAA.

Why sue 15 yr olds & grandmothers & college kids?? ? Why keep going to court with supoenas in the 1000s??? They are hoping you think like this self-titled ranter. They are hoping you think, well $3000 just isn't worth it, I'll go to the store & give those bastards who charged me $22 for a CD for two decades even more money.

They all missed the paradigm shift. Digital content & easily available media is a disruptive technology. The shift has already happened and it already is the future of music, tv, movies. You can't sue people into going back to the old ways anymore than getting people to not use walkmans or personal computers or to google instead of using a phonebook.

Cassette tapes & VCRs came along and threatened everything once before. But, YES you were *eventually* (yes, even legally) allowed to RECORD the radio or RECORD the tv broadcast.. Oh, and replay it. And you could do it at your convenience and even fast forward through commercials. Digital just became too good at quality and portability and along with the internet, too easily reproduceable.

Imagine someone listening to an iPod-like device to some streaming digital broadcast who hears a new song they like & presses 'save'... later that same day, they beam the song to their friend to listen to. How is this such a threat? Compare this to your walkmans. This is exactly what took place in the 70s & 80s and they made millions & millions & millions.

Never forget that RIAA & MPAA & Clear Channel & studios are producing crap and have been for at least a decade. Music is really bad now. Go listen to how good indie music is. Go look at the fact that American Idol produces the new top of the billboards. This is why they are seeing massive losses in revenue. The only solution whether you p2p or not, is to NOT buy RIAA products or spend money at Clear Channel venues or listen to their stations.

You do read NYTimes online? Why shouldn't you be able to surf over to your favorite band's website and pay them $1 to download their new single? Ask yourself why you haven't downloaded an ISO's for a music CD? Ask yourself why video game makers have not supoena'ed anyone yet?

Re:you make their case for them..

[kryonD]

You missed the whole point there bud. I was advocating that if you really consider buying from the industry such a rip off that there are cheaper means to hear the music you want to hear. So even your jab that I am a subcontractor of the RIAA has no foundation.

I am actually a software engineer and IF it were as EASY to pirate software as it is to copy music, there would probably be a SDAA out there making lawsuits as well. I will admit that for the technically adept, it's not that hard to find cracked ISO's and such, but that is probably less than 1% of the pupulation that has the technical capabilities to download kazaa. Plus most of the major games right now depend on the unique CD key to work on network enabled games.

Re:you make their case for them..

[merdark]

The only solution whether you p2p or not, is to NOT buy RIAA products or spend money at Clear Channel venues or listen to their stations.

Yes. This is insightful. I've not been purchasing music for the last 2 years. I've not been copying it either. Online radio is sufficient for now. Mind you there are tons of albums I'd like to buy, but I refuse to

A) buy encrypted crap that may or may not work on whatever device I wish to use it with. I've ripped all my old music to really high quality mp3s at home so I don't have to put up with switching discs and the whir of my CD drive.

B) Pay the outrageous prices the RIAA have fixed. And those online stores like itunes are even worse! A full CD bought online is almost the SAME as a real CD. Except, you don't get a real CD, and you lose around 400MB of data thanks to lossy encryption. Talk about a rippoff! Oh, not to mention more DRM crap making it even MORE useless. To make me even consider buying online music, a single track would have to be 10-20 cents CAD, not a $1.

If they dropped all CDs to 1/2 price and stopped penalizing imports, I'm sure their sales would skyrocket. Ohh..and don't get me started on imports. It seems only the "non-RIAA approved" music get's labelled with *import* and has the price hiked 50-100%. Here in Canada, I was looking at a *Canadian founded group* and it was labelled as an import! Their more mainstream album however, was not. Talk about corrupt.

DON'T BUY FROM THE RIAA OR AFFILIATES!

AllOfMp3 work on the basis of compulsory licensing

[blorg]

...or mechanical rights, which is the same system applying to radio stations in many countries. Radio stations do *not* need to negotiate the rights everything they play individually, but simply pay a certain amount per song. Allofmp3 has a radio-station style deal with the copyright organisation in Russia (ROMS) - note that these are generally the author/composer societies (e.g. ASCAP/BMI in the US); permission from the actual record companies associations (e.g. RIAA) is not required.

There is a Spanish site, WebListen, which has been operating freely within the EU for over 6 years, under the same business model - they pay the Spanish author/composer societies. I believe that they have been sued by the Spanish equivalent of the RIAA, but won, suggesting that such an operation is legal in at least one EU state.

Sharing

[Cheo]

I buy a movie at the store, and want to play at my pc. It's my movie, so I can give it, or lend it, to whoever I want. Why is this illegal? If I then choose to "lend" my movie over a network, how is it different than doing it in person?

Re:Sharing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, unless the 'network' is FedEx/UPS/USPS etc., by 'lending' it over a network, you have made a _copy_ of it.

"If I buy a book from the store, and I want to go watch TV, and my friend wants to borrow the book, but I don't want to give the actual book to him, so I photocopy each page and give him that."

Takes longer, more resources, etc. But effectively the same.

Unless you have permissions from the _copyright holder_ (Read carefully - 'Holder of the right to copy'), you have infringed upon the holder's copyright.

That, currently, is illegal.

Morality notwithstanding.

trm

Cant get ISP users, so lets try schools

[nurb432]

Sounds like a desperate attempt to attack another entity that hasn't been granted a judgment on their demands for peoples names at a drop of a hat.

Sort of like a child, when mom says no, go ask dad.

These people need to go away. they are only shooting themselves in their own foot.

See, this is the thing...

[Chordonblue]

There is no middle ground to the RIAA on this issue. These are the same people that prevented DAT from becoming a real standard for music listening and delayed the arrival CD-R's through lawsuit after lawsuit.

Then there is the fact that you are asking kids who listen to 'gangsta' rap to respect the rights of the artists. Right. Talk about mixed messages! 'Yo, I gotz to OWN, yo!'

So then when you LEGALLY want to obtain music, you have to play by their rules. Well, quite frankly, their rules SUCK! I don't like my music encrypted. When I bought CDs years ago, I didn't ask the record company's position on playing them in a car, a computer, or at home. Why is this any different nowadays?

The RIAA in their tactics are making it difficult to reasonably comply with their rules. What it has done is take an organization that few but musicians and those in the industry knew of and shine a huge 'ASSHOLE' spotlight on them.

I completely reject that this is illegal

[Simonetta]

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

Re:I completely reject that this is illegal

[the gnat]

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.

I'm curious. How does the RIAA's "lobbying" to get copyright terms extended invalidate, say, the copyright on the latest Eminem album? Nobody here is getting busted for sharing 1920s ragtime music. (Besides which, the only way that'd be legal anyway is if you ripped it off 78rpm records, not the CD reissue.)

Re:I completely reject that this is illegal

[Simonetta]

I would let the media corps have an exclusive right to sell M&Ms or anyone's latest album in disk form. I would not let them send anyone to jail for file sharing. If you have a recording then you can share it.

In the present situation the global media companys claim the legal right to send anyone to jail for sharing 1920s ragtime music, or any music recorded since the 1920s. This is wrong. After the traditional period of 17 years, music recordings and publishing should revert to public domain for the any use that the public would like. If you want to claim that you wrote it and recorded it; fine. Many young people claim that they have written blues progressions that go back to the turn of the 20th century.

The fact that no one is getting busted 'here' for sharing 1920's music is not the same as having a legal protection from legal harassment for sharing 1920's music. If an overzealous prosecutor is looking for an excuse to bust someone, then sharing 1920s ragtime is as good as reason as any, if it is legally allowable.

It should not be.

Re:I completely reject that this is illegal

[zymurgyboy]

A minor nitpick: it's copyright, not copywrite. As in, "you have exclusive right to works you produce" for a currently ridiculous, disgraceful, and obscene amount of time in the US.

You're not writing copy! Likewise, you do not get works you author copywritten. These are two common mistakes that bother me whenever I see them used and perpetuated. These are rights, not writings. It's commonly confused because the rights at stake often pertain to writings.

Copyright means nothing more than a right to control copies of your work.

Sorry to rant at you. Nothing personal. I totally agree with your argument/position, in fact. It just loses some of its force when this particular word is wrong.

Peace.

How much longer do we have to wait for anon p2p?

[DroopyStonx]

This is getting ridiculous. These lawsuits/threats have been going on for ages, yet no one's developed an anonymous p2p client that would allow everyone to share/download files without compromising their address? Right.

Hurry it up! Once something like this is released, the RIAA is done for. It will be a giant thorn in their side that they will never be able to remove and a victory for the rest.

UM Campus news articles, etc.

[taped2thedesk]

Here is our campus newspaper's coverage on the issue from today and January, when the U first learned about the subpoenas.

Students in the dorms also received this e-mail in January regarding the possible subpoena of file-sharer's identities.

In the past, the Vice-President of Student Affairs sent a notice to any students whose information was released under subpoena, explaining that the U was going to do so, and what the reasons were.

Penn State & Napster

[KimJ721]

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.

Re:Goverment = Proxy for Big Corps

[maximilln]

It's always whining when it's someone else's concern. Either contribute something positive or quit trolling people who are trying to figure it out.

Oops

[taped2thedesk]

Oops, didn't mean to link to the same articles as the original submitter... but the e-mail and other info is still valid. Sorry.

Re:What right's....

[Lehk228]

There are ways of trapping spider bots.... servers can be configured to keep returning additional subdirectories effectively "catching" the particular bot forever (or alternatively setting up a trap directory that, when accessed, autobans that IP address from seeing the infringing material, since the "directory structure" of a server is virtual anyways it would be trivial to add a /a/a/a/ and /z/z/z/ directory to a server, you touch one of those directories and suddenly all the other directories become empty (or filled with an alternative file set that is random garbage) In fact having filesharing apps do somethuing similar (activated by the browse host command) where an alternative set of files would be shown..... rather than let the riaa know you are blocking them make them thing you have nothing to hide /forever directories are great...

Should downloading all music be completely legal?

[walterbyrd]

I think there are legitamite gripes with RIAA.

But should free downloading of copyrighted material be completely unrestrained?

If it's absolutely free to download all you want of whatever you want, how will recording artists, or promoters, get paid? And if they are not paid, what will keep them in business?

Is it possible that part of the reason for music becoming worse is that the best artists are saying "F--k it, why bother" ?

RIAA apologies

[dbc001]

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.

Re:RIAA apologies

[Jim Starx]

It also means the lawsuit can be brought up again at a later date. Kinda a double whammy huh?

Re:RIAA apologies

[flosofl]

Yes, they actually did apologize:

CNET.NEWS.COM:RIAA Apology

Probably because of the last phrase

[roystgnr]

file-sharing.
sharing music illegally.

These aren't the same thing, and the latter phrase is technically accurate, while the former phrase feeds the "They want to stop our P2P networking advances!" anger exhibited by some slashdot posters.

While it's theoretically possible that the RIAA just sued everyone running Kazaa, that would have meant issuing way more than 9 subpoenas per university; it's more likely that they actually queried their targets' computers for a list of the shared files first, then sued the people who offered fifty gigs of pop MP3s for download and ignored the people who just had Linux .isos, game demos, and indie music.

I'm not saying the "they want to stop all file-sharing!" anger is totally unjustified; that's basically what the RIAA did to Napster, after all. But it is probably unjustified on this occasion; this time they're trying to sue actual copyright infringers and not just people who create technology that happens to make infringement possible.

Re:Probably because of the last phrase

[Arathrael]

file-sharing.
sharing music illegally.

These aren't the same thing

I'd say that, in the context of a subpoena being issued for the names of the people doing it, they are the same thing.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Univ. of Michigan not only one

[ionpro]

The Vanderbilt Hustler reports that nine "notifications of intent to subpoena" were submitted there, as well.

Let's follow this through to conclusion then

[mccrew]

the problem here is that the RIAA will not admit to what it is they actually sell: control. They control who listens to what music and where.

Therefore, it is OK to steal music off the Internet.

Musicians don't sell music, they make music. Musicians don't make any money off of CD sales. They make their money off of performances, and generally by actually being entertaining.

Therefore, it is OK to steal music off the Internet.

File sharing destroys that distribution and promotion system. People start to be informed about what music they actually like, and so they only purchase the CDs that they actually want, and they only go to the performances that they think will actually be entertaining. File sharing does NOT take any money away from musicians, and it does NOT slow down the sale of CD's. The only thing File Sharing DOES is to remove the RIAA's control.

Therefore, it is OK to steal music off the Internet.

Re:Let's follow this through to conclusion then

[boobsea]

You cannot steal something that is intangible.

Taking someone's music without paying for it is totally different from taking something that is in phyisical form without paying for it.

One involves the idea that you have a right to what you physically create, and one involves a right to control what ideas and collections of information you create.

To try to blur the lines between the two is an absurd abomination.

Re:Let's follow this through to conclusion then

[Uttles]

You sir, are exactly correct.

Re:Let's follow this through to conclusion then

[mccrew]

Try as you might to jump through rhetorical hoops in an attempt to make diversionary distinctions, at the end of the day if you got it and didn't pay for it, then you stole it.
Period.

You cannot steal something that is intangible.

Now that's absurd. Try telling that to the prosecutor after being caught with an cable TV connection that you have not been paying for.

Re:Let's follow this through to conclusion then

[boobsea]

You again highlight the absurdity of your argument.

Cable TV service is something that has to be hooked up to your house from the physical property of your cable TV company.

Stealing a CD is theft.

Downloading the audio bits off of Kazaa is not theft. It is copyright infringement.

Theft != Copyright Infringment.

Re:Let's follow this through to conclusion then

[mccrew]

You again highlight the absurdity of your argument.

Does not. Does too. Does not. Does too. Tell you what - let's stick to our arguments and let the moderators decide who is absurd and who isn't.

Cable TV service is something that has to be hooked up to your house from the physical property of your cable TV company.

Not exactly. While you are correct that the physical connection is property of the cable company, the actual cable TV service is just a stream of data, not materially different than streams of data available on Kazaa. The physical cabling may be connected to every house in town, but only those houses that are paying for the service (i.e. the data stream, the "intangible" that you contend cannot be stolen) are legally able to access and consume those data streams. It isn't copyright infringement, it's theft. And if they catch you, you will be brought up on felony charges of theft. So your assertion that intangible data streams cannot be stolen falls flat.

Stealing a CD is theft. Downloading the audio bits off of Kazaa is not theft. It is copyright infringement.

Again...
You are just spliting hairs like so many here, trying to equate stealing songs to some noble "fair use", civil disobediance, or "artists don't make money from CDs anyway so who am I hurting" nonsense. It doesn't sound so bad when you call it copyright infringement. You go to great lengths to make the distinction between stealing and copyright infringement, however both are wrong. Both cause harm to the owner and/or copyright holder. Seems reasonable to me that the owner and/or copyright holder is well within their rights to enforce their intellectual property rights to the fullest extent of the law. Seems to me that those who steal, or "infringe" as you would immediately attempt to correct, don't have a leg to stand on either way.

Theft != Copyright Infringment.

So therefore it is OK to steal songs off the Internet.

Or would you be satisfied if I just concluded, "Therefore, it OK to infringe copyrights by downloading songs off the Internet?"

Or alternatively: Is it OK to download songs off the internet without proper compensation to the owner and/or copyright holder? Obviously the answer is no, but I eagerly await the usual rationalizations...

Not me, sombody else on my floor must've done it

[robin147]

sounds like a slam dunk defense.

Be careful of the source

[GPez]

As a University of Michigan student, I always read these articles with a bit of skepticism. The Daily isn't exactly a reputable journal of opinion. After all, they still believe that academic integrity is a problem.

Re:Be careful of the source

[Kiryat Malachi]

I know you're just being pedantic about the article title, but the Daily is... not awful, let's say. They're good at misquoting (hell, I should know, they misquoted the HELL out of me for an article on webcasting restrictions a couple years back) but they do try to get the story right. Most of the time.

The rest of the time they just copy the AP wire like 99% of the papers in this country anyway.

Re:As a sucessful musician

[Bralkein]

How about if I download one of your songs, decide that I like it, then buy the album? There will always be those who don't want to pay, but real fans of music will always want to support the artists they love.

For me, and many people I know, the illegal method of file-sharing is the best way to avoid being forced to eat the rubbish the big record labels try and shove down your throat.

If I cannot find music that I like, I will not buy music. If the big labels try and stop me finding out for myself... well then, their loss!

How? Fairly and justly.

[old-lady-whispering-]

For some reason there seems to be a bunch of people on /. who are unfamilar with how p2p's work. I am not going to go into all the details but I will explain how the RIAA might be acurately identifying songs owned by a member on a student's hard drive without actually downloading anything but the shared list.

Just about every P2P uses hashes to uniquely identify files on the network. So if you rip Nirvana's smells like teen spirit from the orginal cd into mp3 and then put it into your share directory for your P2P client it gets a unique hash assigned by your P2P client. Now lets say a friend of yours does the exact same thing but his mp3 will have a different hash than yours because his P2P client creates a unique hash for his rip. Now a third person has no mp3's on thier computer and does not own any original albums but instead leaches music from P2P's. So this third person searches from the P2P client for smell's like teen spirit and gets a huge list of results. Each song in the list represents a separate rip or some modification of a previous rip. Along comes RIAA or an agent for it. They catalog a list of all the known hashes for the song smell's like teen spirit(downloading a portion of each file to verify that is does represent the original copyrighted work) and put it into thier database. Now the RIAA does not need to download the song from your machine but only needs to download the list of songs shared and the hash id's. End result is you are busted if you have a file with a hash of a known pirated song and will be paying the RIAA some money or going to court to explain to a judge why a file on your machine had a hash that had been previously identified as a pirated song. So how evil is the RIAA? Sounds pretty fair to me.

Re:How? Fairly and justly.

[cens0r]

So, what your saying is since I'm sharing only files that I've ripped myself, I'm in a much better position than most people? Of course all my files are FLAC and I've rarely had anyone attempt to download one. And I use the edonkey network and not Kazaa.

Re:How? Fairly and justly.

[old-lady-whispering-]

You still violatte copyright if you distribute or offer for distribution artistic works for which you are not the copyright holder and do not have the copyright holders permission. If you download music for which you posses a license for then you may be in the clear.

For the record you are more liable if you offer pirated songs for download than those who leach and don't share any files regardless of what format you offer the copyrighted materials. In fact I believe the RIAA would have a very difficult time catching and winning damages against a song downloader who does not share/distribute songs.

Re:How? Fairly and justly.

[cens0r]

I know all that... i just believe I'm safer and I continue to share. First 95% of my music isn't on a RIAA label. Second I'm using the edonkey network which I don't believe they are heavily targetting. Third all my music are my own rips, so they actually have to download from me to prove what it is. And Finally, not once has anyone downloaded one of my FLAC rips.

Re:How? Fairly and justly.

[Greg W.]

Just about every P2P uses hashes to uniquely identify files on the network.

Correct. Except that many of the popular networks only hash the first 300k or so of the file. More mature networks hash the entire file.

So if you rip Nirvana's smells like teen spirit from the orginal cd into mp3 and then put it into your share directory for your P2P client it gets a unique hash assigned by your P2P client.

A hash isn't assigned. It's computed. It's a mathematical function that calculates a "checksum" of the input data. Same input, same hash. Different input, probably a different hash. The goal of a good hash function is to produce a different output for every input, insofar as that is possible. Changing one byte of the input file should produce a wildly different hash value. Hash collisions are to be avoided.

Now lets say a friend of yours does the exact same thing but his mp3 will have a different hash than yours because his P2P client creates a unique hash for his rip.

No. If his rip is byte-for-byte identical to yours, then it will have the same hash as yours. That's how hash functions work. The reason his rip gets a different hash is because it's a different rip. Reading CDDA is nondeterministic; you get single-bit errors in the data. And even if you had precisely the same raw audio data during the rip, you'd probably use a different encoder, or a different version of the encoder, or different encoder settings. Or you'd put different tags on the encoded file (even changing the title inside an ID3v2 or Vorbis tag from "Home By The Sea" to "Home by the Sea" will produce a different hash).

(Insert description of "swarming" here.)

Along comes RIAA or an agent for it. They catalog a list of all the known hashes for the song smell's like teen spirit [...]

I will grant that they may have accumulated a catalog (not a complete one!) of hashes of encodings of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" which happen to be in widespread circulation. The rest of your comment makes sense with that adjustment.

The upshot of this is that if you ripped your own, or even changed the tags on the one you downloaded, you would be safe as long as your copy doesn't become widely circulated and catalogued by the bad guys.

So how evil is the RIAA? Sounds pretty fair to me.

Your ethical code leaves something to be desired (but I'm sure you'd have a negative opinion of mine as well). How is it fair that they have undermined the Constitution of the United States, destroyed the public domain, tricked, manipulated and bankrupted musicians, and lined their own pockets with money extorted from twelve-year-old girls in single-parent homes? How is it fair that they have destroyed their own market position by attacking the very fans that are buying their music? Oh, wait... that part is fair. They deserve their own self-inflicted destruction. I just wish it would come sooner, and without so much collateral damage.

Ex IT worker at University Of Michigan

[Egekrusher2K]

The first thing I'm going to say: they just don't care. They don't want to know. Especially on campuses that rely heavily on grants, IT workers, because their managers tell them to, just ignore illegal files. A good chunk of the people sharing files are actually professors and their assistants.

Other networks

[Unregistered]

Do they scan non-kazaa networks like soulseek as well as kazaa? Just curious because so far the RIAA hasn't poluted Soulseek with crap, so maybe they're ignoring it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...

[dasunt]

I hope the RIAA gets what they want -- the p2p networks free of their music.

Won't it be nice to log onto Kazaa, Gnutella, etc, and find only copyrighted mp3s by artists/owners who give permission to share their work?

Lets let the RIAA bitch and moan about how piracy is killing them -- when we can only share music by small, unknown bands outside of their control, we'll finally see if Brittany & Co. can survive the competition.

And, as always, a manditory iRATE link -- because someone needs to seperate the chaff from the good stuff -- why not let it be you?

Re:Virus Solution - Been done.

[Weaselmancer]

Someone did this just recently. Meet Phatbot.

From the page:

What sets Phatbot apart from its predecessors is the use of P2P to control the botnet instead of IRC. Although Agobot has a rudimentary P2P system, IRC is still the main control vector. The author(s) of Phatbot chose to abandon Agobot's IRC and P2P implementations altogether and replaced them with code from WASTE, a project created by AOL's Nullsoft division (and subsequently canceled by AOL).

Granted, it's not intended to do file swapping per se (the P2P bit is a control vector intended to upload crap like spam relays), but it'd be trivial to point the shared folder to "My Music". Bingo. You're P2P, and it's not your fault.

It's Microsoft's. And wouldn't it be a hoot to watch the RIAA go after them demanding they plug the security holes that make this possible. ;^)

Weaselmancer

Time to buy that shirt...

[eston]

Time to buy the 'NO RIAA' shirt. If the RIAA is going to subpoena people on my (UM) campus, I'll show them some love :p

Re:The submitter said...

[the_mad_poster]

Wait a minute, here. You're insightful because you and the submitter don't know the difference between "file-sharing" and "sharing music illegally" and I'm a troll for pointing out that the submitter is twisting the words in the article into something that wasn't said?

That's it! You're all idiots, and I'm outta here!

Re:Goverment = Proxy for Big Corps

[Galvatron]

Actually, the latter is true. America was infamous in the 18th and 19th centuries for balatantly violating copyrights and patents from Europe.

No, they're wrong.

[incom]

Hey, I'm just a conservative about copyrights. We didn't have them back in the good ole days, they aren't in the bible, thus they don't belong in my country you. Copyrights are for liberals, they aren't natural.

Who is the Infringer?

[Aidtopia]

Who infringes copyright? The downloader, or the person who made it available? Both?

The distinction is important, since the RIAA is probably scanning for people sharing, but I would consider the person who's downloading and making the unauthorized copy is the infringer. The person making a copy available may have a perfectly legitimate paid-for copy.

If I leave a stack of CDs sitting next the sidewalk in front of my house, who breaks the law? Me or the person who walks off with them. What if, instead of walking off with them, the stranger makes copies but leaves my original CDs? Does that make me an infringer? Can the actions of another make your otherwise legal actions illegal? If leaving the CDs out is illegal because I'm encouraging or permitting the infringement, then aren't all vendors of blank media and recording devices breaking the law?

Re:How much longer do we have to wait for anon p2p

[bruhnsemann5]

Frost. It runs on the freenet.
http://freenetproject.org/
http://jtcfr ost.sourceforge.net/

Not just U of M

[jabels]

There are 11 universities in this, including my own. The RIAA doesn't scan your computer... they have a script that randomly tries to download files... if they get a file that turns out to be a valid copyrighted file, they do a search on that computer (through Kazaa/whatever's search function) to see if they are sharing other files as well.

Apparently, they only follow up if the person is sharing a good number of files, and then it seems to be only random in which among those that they file lawsuit against.

RIAA violating my rights

[MicroDV8]

I am worried. I like to wrtie poems and songs etc. I also like to read them and sing them out loud while converting them to MP3's. I have released the copyright to everyone except those who would use it for personal gain or anyone affiliated with the RIAA, MPAA or the DOJ.

Now I have shared these files using P2P software. If the RIAA downloads the file I have created called "metallica.mp3" don't I have a lawsuit against them for breaking copyright law? What would be my proof that they downloaded my copyrighted files? Perhaps when the cable company shuts me down for file sharing I will have a case:)

People are still downloading music

[poofyhairguy82]

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.

Sorry

[modipodio]

" Tell me that paper wasn't YOUR idea and that he didn't just STEAL it!"

He took credit for some one else's work, he didn't steal anything. An Idea is not a tangible object like a chair. Physical objects like a chair have a clear owner, ideas do not. If you tell me your idea for a great new book, I can pass it off as my own. I can take credit for your idea. If you want to claim my chair on the other hand you would have to physically remove it from me or convince me to give it to you.

Society affords people who come up with ideas some protection or guarantee that they will be rewarded for their work through the law. This is a consequence of society and the degree of protection afforded is hence decided by the society in question.

Should every person quoted in the student in your example's paper be entitled to a fee for being quoted or for the student learning something from their works? If the person who the student quotes is dead for 200 years should the estate of that person receive a fee? Should this hold true for all recorded history? Should all relatives of all dead genius be entitled to their pennies worth? Think about the consequences of that. The student in questions "Idea" like all idea's is comprised of many other peoples idea's.

People should be rewarded for doing worthwhile work if they are not rewarded then they will not do the work in the first place. In my opinion many musicians perform worth while work and I have no problem paying to see them and their music or giving them my thanks and praise. I believe file trading will continue for the foreseeable future whether we like it or not. I do not believe that musicians will stop making/playing music as a result of file trading I believe they will adapt and that they are adapting.

Re:How much longer do we have to wait for anon p2p

[DroopyStonx]

Heh, it takes forever downloading standard images from freenet. I don't think it's quite ready for the masses to start sharing files with.

Switch some key terms, and:

[lysium]

Why do so many people on this site believe it is their divine right to have anything that makes them happy be given to them free?....unless it has to do with never growing up since as a kid, your concept of property is that everything is given to you for free. Too bad parents aren't there to bend you over and spank you for being a moron.

Why do so many music distribution companies that have no part in creating music believe it is their divine right to have anything that makes them a profit? Too bad their concept of property is that everything must have a profit margin. Too bad parents aren't there to bend them over and spank them for being greedy, stupid, and bastards.

The parent poster might have had other points, but I lost them amidst the self-righteous whining.

====---====

Your new career is going well, mrwonton

[Chief Technovelgist]

Very good, mrwonton, you've taken your first step to becoming a member of a large organization. You've stated the party line. I've worked at large organizations (including the UM) for most of my life, and I can tell you that you've got what it takes.

However, I live in Ann Arbor, and I spoke with a few (unnamed) students about the general subject of file sharing. They remember a long presentation on file sharing at student orientation (which will figure prominently in any lawsuit, I'm sure - that's what it's really for); most do not remember agreeing to anything or signing anything that limits their use of the network.

That said, they ALL use UM resources to download music files, movie files, you name it. Nobody buys CDs, nobody uses lame pay for tunes sites when you can get everything free! The only people who are seen as extreme sharers are people who actually operate servers out of their dorm rooms. I don't think the U has fined anyone.

Schoolkids Records, the store at which I bought my first vinyl LPs back in the day (1960's) finally went out of business in A2 in 2001 (I think). You can't stay in business when nobody buys what you're selling in a college town.

Re:Your new career is going well, mrwonton

[mrwonton]

The agreement I was referring only to the (relatively) short summary of the AUP you agree to by registering for ethernet access in the dorms. The excerpt I was referring to was:

"I understand that the security of my computer system is my responsibility, and that I am responsible for all activity originating from my computer system, including but not limited to: a) traffic generated by viruses; b) the sharing of music or other media files; and c) other users who have gained access to my computer."

As for your statements about file sharing, you describe an issue not at all unique to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. There is a large change going on in how people aquire their media. People, poor students especially, don't want to pay for their music/movies/tv shows etc., and as long as there is an easy and (again relatively) safe way to do this, they will. We've already seen that the attempted solution of scare tactics and law suits isn't stopping the flow of copyrighted material. Yes, the result is businesses will fail. There is less need for record companies and record stores. Is this the end of the world? No. The media industries will be forced to adapt, and eventually, I have to believe, they begrudgingly will. Thats the way the world works.

I know several people who have been fined (assessed fees on their student accounts) for continuing to transfer copyrighted material (most for the Windows source code debacle), so I can assure you it has indeed happened.

Finally, I don't work in any area that handles intellectual property concerns, and the organization I work for (CAEN) has only around 200 employees, most of which are TEMP students. I was merely giving a perspective of how the university has been taking care of intellectual property concerns thus far.

Re:Your new career is going well, mrwonton

[Chief Technovelgist]

Fair enough. It is true, as you say, that scare tactics and law suits aren't doing much to stop the flow of copyrighted material. It is also true that getting students to sign a statement of responsibility about respect for intellectual property isn't doing much, either.

I was also intrigued by your reference to "poor students." Driving around the UM campus in the present day (as opposed to walking around in the 1960's), I am stunned at the number of students who drive very expensive cars - Lexus SUVs, BMWs, and Audi's. If you did a comparison, you would find that the current crop of UM students are, on average, from far wealthier familes than they were a generation ago.

I think there are a lot of students at the U of M who don't steal music over the Internet primarily because they don't have the money. They do it because it is easy and because it is more cool than buying it, and because you don't need to make a choice - you just take it all.

But, to get back to the topic, what if lawsuits like this one forced the U of M to close access to sites that are primarily used to exchange copyrighted material? or forced the U to institute policies that resulted in immediate fines for every offender? Then, maybe the networks that I support with my tax dollars would be used for some sort of useful educational purpose, rather than rewarding students who make poor moral choices.

I'm just saying that if the University chooses to make an issue of responsibility for intellectual property (essential for any academic institution), they need to enforce it. If the U winks at intellectual property theft in the form of stolen music, how can it penalize students for plagiarism - cutting and pasting material from the Internet and calling it their own work?

Re:Your new career is going well, mrwonton

[mrwonton]

To address your link to plagiarism, the university takes a very hard line against plagiarism, the college of engineering for example requiring an honor pledge for all new students and on all exams and major papers. The LS&A (the largest college at the university) also has an honor board that takes care of all plagiarism cases. Any student convicted of such is subject to very severe penalties, not limited to being kicked out of the school indefinitely. As far as plagiarism in respect to file sharing, the two really have absolutely nothing in common, in respect to network enforcement or even mindsets involved. They are not both instances of intellectual property theft per se, as in the case of plagiarism, the intellectual property is in the public domain, you just cannot claim it as your own without citing it.

Saying your tax dollars are supporting networks used for file sharing is preposterous. The university provides an unrestricted network in the interest of freedom of information, a belief which the internet was founded on. Restricting any facet of the legal use of the network could be seen as diminishing the usefulness of the internet as a tool for education. Thats not to say allowing it to be used illegally is ok, which is why the U bans those who use it as such from the network. Unfortunately you follow the all-to-common mindset that file sharing is innately wrong, when in fact, there are plenty of legitimate uses for it, which is precisely why there should be no restrictions (beyond perhaps packet scheduling and shaping) placed upon it.

Re:Your new career is going well, mrwonton

[Chief Technovelgist]

"Saying your tax dollars are supporting networks used for file sharing is preposterous."

Last time I checked, you don't pay for Comcast cable modems or ATT DSL in campus dorms (or in the many walk-up workstations elsewhere on campus); in fact, the only network available is the one provided by the University of Michigan, which is a publicly-supported institution last time I checked. So yes, my tax dollars certainly go to support illegal file sharing.

"As far as plagiarism in respect to file sharing, the two really have absolutely nothing in common, in respect to network enforcement or even mindsets involved."

Maybe not for lawyers, but I still don't see how you can say that it is okay for students to steal music that does not belong to them, and keep it and use it and transfer it to others, but it is not okay to steal the ideas and words and works of others, and use them and present them as one's own. And not all plagiarized material is in the public domain (just because it is on the Internet).

"Unfortunately you follow the all-to-common mindset that file sharing is innately wrong"

Actually, no. The Gutenberg project is a great example of how the Internet can be used to make the world's great intellectual works available to everyone - which is exactly the purpose of the original copyright acts, which set a limit on the length of copyright protection. Not to mention the legitimate sharing of files between researchers. That's taxpayer money well spent!

I respect your agreement with the U of M's public stance, which protects intellectual property, as it should. However, the way in which U of M workstations and networks are actually used is completely at variance with these policies, and I can't condone it. So let's end this thread and agree to disagree!

Re:Your new career is going well, mrwonton

[Kiryat Malachi]

Students pay a (when I was there, 5 years ago) $50/semester fee for access to the dorm networks.

Is 50 per semester expensive for the service they get? No. But it is something the students must pay for, just as they pay for cable TV in the dorms.

Re:Your new career is going well, mrwonton

[Kiryat Malachi]

SKR went out of business because they weren't a very good record store anymore. Same with Discount (ELib and State). Wherehouse, the entire chain pretty much went broke. Tower got forced out by the University.

Encore Records? Still doing just fine. Just fine. Record Exchange does okay. PJ's even seems to be doing okay, last I talked to Marc, and they have the worst location ever.

And actually, SKR didn't even go out of business. They just couldn't afford their E Liberty space anymore (due mostly to the fact that they were charging 15-20 a CD, and had a mediocre selection). They're in the basement of Bivouac these days.

(I grew up in Ann Arbor, went to school there, the whole 9 yards. I also spent 4 years working for, and 1 year running, WCBN. I know of what I speak.)

Mirror for KLite

[oldosadmin]

Here

Go to Windows 32 bit Downloads....

The fabled two-way street

[God Takeru]

This strikes as a "can't have it both ways" sort of argument. You see, the recording industry claims piracy is the big reason for the decrease in CD sales, not the cost of CD's or anything else. Well, in that case, it sounds like these people ARE their customer base.

If that is the case, it sounds an awful lot like alienating customers to me, since they apparently would have bought all the music the pirated.

On the other hand, if you're right, then CD sales have been dropping all on their precious little own, perhaps indicating that consumers (who apparently according to you aren't the same people as those pirating music) are fed up with the industry's practices regarding pricing and stifling of new talent.

Re:Goverment = Proxy for Big Corps

[God Takeru]

Really, they're so unnecessary, huh? Then why did we put them in place? Could it be that without these things, we never would have recovered from the great depression-- a result of you're godsend of capitalism? People were talking about revolting against the government when 20 and 30 perecent of the population could not find work, and got no assistance, no help. It would have been the end of us without it; you take it away, it'll all fall down again. We need balance between these things.

Re:Troll?

[TheSpoom]

How is the parent a troll? I am in no way trying to insult anyone, nor am I asking to be flamed.

Old joke

[hacksoncode]

Is it time yet to trot out the old joke about the derivation of "subpoena"?

I.e. "From the latin for 'below the penis', the word subpoena indicates that they have you by the balls".

Re:What right's....

[SillyNickName4me]

While the url you gave doesn't work, the site you point at gives interesting and good definitions indeed.

From the site you refered:

burglary n. the crime of breaking and entering into a structure for the purpose of committing a crime. No great force is needed (pushing open a door or slipping through an open window is sufficient) if the entry is unauthorized. Contrary to common belief, a burglary is not necessarily for theft. It can apply to any crime, such as assault or sexual harassment, whether the intended criminal act is committed or not. Originally under English common law burglary was limited to entry in residences at night, but it has been expanded to all criminal entries into any building, or even into a vehicle.

Note how it says: pushing open a door or slipping through an open window is enough. A lock is one way of denoting that access is unauthorized, by far not the only way, and a 'do not enter' sign is sufficient. My personal opinion is that a fenced private property is no entrance unless invited, I do not know if US law agrees with me fully there, but it seems it does say that no lock is required.

Note also how this is a seperate offense, and that you can be charged with burglary and stealing or burglary and rape for example.

Thanks for the reference, and as I mentioned before, for it being criminal a lock won't matter, for your insurance it will.

NPBOT

[gleman]

I figure its NPBot or a variant. This one used to show up in the log files every now and then. Hit the link for the user agent info.

Sorry, it was bad

[oldosadmin]

Sorry the links on my download page were bad *blush*. All bugs have been fixed now.

So pointless

[froschmann]

They really need to realise that filesharing is helping their buissness, not hurting it. I never bought CDs before Kazza. Now I download and listen to a few songs from a band, and go out and buy their CD. A friend can tell me to download a song they really like, and if I like it, I usually buy the CD. Suing your customers is a really bad buissness model.

Re:The submitter said...

[1iar_parad0x]

Actually you can share files legally. They didn't, but you could. Just thought I'd nitpick. It's slashdot you know.

Even the press doesn't think its wrong

[subsonic]

In the article, they clearly state that you can avoid detection from the RIAA if you disable sharing in Kazaa. Just because you aren't sharing your files doesn't mean that you can't download more files (though some people will cut you off).
I've seen this written in other newspapers as well (primarily college newpapers). On the one hand they state that its illegal, but at the same time saying "hey, save yourself the risk and continue your thievery, now you won't get caught!"
The thing that these papers believe is wrong is getting the university in trouble, not file stealing/sharing.

Plagiarism

[zakezuke]

Tell me that paper wasn't YOUR idea and that he didn't just STEAL it!

plagiarism

n 1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own

Source: WordNet (R) 1.6, (C) 1997 Princeton University

You can take someone elses idea, and use it as your own... but you didn't take a piece of their brain.. they still have that idea. It's still their work they submited on their own.

Filesharing it self isn't about plagiarizing other people's works in order to prophet by them. It's about sharing media you may, or may not have license to do so.

The parent is a good rant, but negates the fact that "stealing an idea" is a metaphore. Emotionaly you can feel violated, and i'm sure there are some legal remidies you can pursue with in the university system or civil court if you feel so included. It's not theft in the criminal sense. If they paraphrased the paper, it might not even be considered plagiarism if you didn't site the author as the source.

supply and demand is key

[SammysIsland]

I am not a hippie nor am i a communist. I would classify myself as a logical person who takes no political sides. Politics are for people who can't make decisions on their own, people who can't stand to hear another side to an argument, and people who are weak willed and way too easily offended. There is no way that something with infinite supply can be worth something... give me one good reason why i should pay for something that is not limited in supply. it makes no sense.. who cares if the rest of the world has been fooled into such ridiculous nonsense. obviously the laws were set up by the people who profit from them.

Re:supply and demand is key

[pinkUZI]

The supply is limited by the musicians and their record labels because they want to make money! I say it is their right to do that. You say it is your right to take what you could not create yourself.

So far as the politics, it's probably off topic, but independents (I'm labeling you here, I know) are people who do not understand the political system we have here in America. They get really upset, make a lot of noise in discussions, and they really seem to love internet forums where everybody's voice is heard just as loud as another's. However, our government doesn't work that way. We are not a mob rules democracy and when you try to be an island in a representative democracy, you lose. You might make the internet appear a lot more liberal than it really is because you are really vocal, but what victory is that really? I don't anticipate you'll get your way with the RIAA any time soon. When it comes to legislation, your vote is not among the counted; your representative's vote is among the counted. So unless you find some friends, you're never going to get the guy in there that will support your ideals.

On another point, evidence would suggest it is the independent who "can't make decisions on their own" rather than the party politician as you suggest. Look at every election in recent history? Who do they fight over, target with their commercials, campaigns, and big money?? Not me. I know how I'm going to vote before I even see the candidates, you see, because it is simple to me. One party might promote the ideals I stand for, the other will not, and the rest don't matter. But you, you don't know what to think until you hear a bunch of spin, politicians at their worst - on the stump! And, whether you personally do or not, it is proven year after year that the so-called swing voters make their decisions based on this propaganda. This is their logic that takes no political sides - to be subdued by empty campaign promises and media frenzy!

free music is a viable idea

[melikamp]

I see many people are asking: if we drop the restriction on file sharing, how will artists get paid? Clue train is coming! Just how they were getting paid before sound recording was invented. Those who think that no good music will be writted/played are just spreading the propaganda for the recording industry. No matter how easy it is to share the files, artists will always get paid for the live performances and for endorsing stuff (given they are famous). Actually, I'm not advocating the piracy (I'm not that evil), but I certainly stand for a new legal standard. The biggest problem with the modern copyright law is that it's unenforceable. We could let the industry sue us for sharing what we bought in the store (I stress that pirates have NO commercial interest while sharing), or we could look for ways to set the law straingt: we pay artists for playing live, artists pay RI for recording. Everyone is happy.

With the way that the RIAA is searching........

[localhost00]

I would have a laugh if a judge ordered the RIAA to prove that the "Some Song Name.mp3" file they saw listed really contained the song rather than being a decoy file name with garbage content.

Also, if these P2P networks set limits to severely slow down the RIAA's search for offenders, I believe this may provide a chilling effect on the RIAA's search.

Just think, if the P2P servers monitered behavior and red-flagged "users" who asked for an entire listing of dozens of different users' inventory in a short period of time without actually downloading songs, the servers could mark such "users" as possibly being an RIAA rep. Each user could perhaps have a setting to block a listing to any other user who has requested a disproportionate number of listings, and perhaps blocking downloading. I think if there was a way for these servers to study search behavior, there may be a chance of catching users who are RIAA spies.

But I also like the idea of requiring the RIAA to provide proof that suspected files actually contained copyrighted material.

Re:Clue train on wrong track

[Kiryat Malachi]

It is impossible to enforce the law uniformly.

Thus, the law is effectively unjust and unenforceable.

We're going to have to deal with the fact that an economy based on scarcity CANNOT apply to information, and come up with some way to deal with it.

Re:Clue train on wrong track

[Kiryat Malachi]

Uniformly refers to attempting to prosecute everyone who commits the crime. Universal might have been a better way to refer to it.

It's the same reason that marijuana criminalization is unjust; we can't imprison everyone who (shares files/smokes pot).

As to my second statement: Innovation is not (necessarily) information. I'm speaking economically - the economics of a scarcity based economy CANNOT apply to an economy where valuable goods are fundamentally not scarce. There's nothing unfair about wanting to get paid for your music; there's just the fact that when the cost of duplication becomes zero, classical economics fails, and we have to work out a new system (universal licensing, maybe?) that works with a zero duplication cost. Legally mandated scarcity fails in a global world where the ability to casually violate that law becomes common.

Re:Unjust? Enenforceable? How?

[Kiryat Malachi]

Homicide laws are not impossible to enforce uniformly. The police make a genuine attempt (well, usually) to track down the protagonist of every single murder that occurs. The same cannot be said for file-sharing, and in fact, the same is IMPOSSIBLE for file-sharing, simply due to the volume of the crime. To paraphrase a show I love: Any law that makes 50 million Americans into criminals is probably a bad law.

I find copyright law to be unjust because it runs too long, allows sale of the ultimate control (check French copyright law - you can sell distribution rights to a company, but they can never own the fundamental rights to the song; the artists own that).

(Nice ad hominem, calling me a 'punk'. I'm a musician who makes no money from it because I give away sample songs online, and charge cost-of-distribution to ship someone a CD. I worked for a long time at an independent radio station, working with small artists, many of whom operated the same way. I've given away my time and knowledge to help them record, for free. Most musicians I know would rather have more people listening to their music than make extra money from it. They aren't all Britney.)

I don't have a problem rewarding people for their work, but I have a problem with requiring laws and lawsuits to do it. Fundamentally, economics are different now; we can copy something a near-infinite number of times for an infinitesimally small cost. This HAS to change economics. The cost of providing someone with access to a CD's worth of music and the cost of providing someone with access to ALL CD's worth of music is, spread out over the US population, nearly identical. This suggests that there needs to be a fundamental shift in how we economically regard commodities of an informational base, as opposed to commodities of a 'real' base.

Re:Clue train on wrong track

[melikamp]

It can't? I thought innovation (having a technical lead on your competition) was a cornerstone of the modern industrial economy.

It is not clear to me how much the Copyright law helps the innovation. Take Linux as an example. It was written by the enthusiasts who took no advantage of the Copyright law, and today it competes with the commerical flavours of UNIX.

And then, like you said, it's not even relevant, for what "innovation" are we talking about in music? So, all we have left is this:

If, however, you want someone else to make music for you, then you should expect them to want to be paid for their services. Is there something unfair about that?

I don't like how this question is asked. What I have today is an ocean of music I never asked for, and I'm being told that I'm a criminal, although I pay my own money and produce my own private copies without taking them away from anyone. Imagine just for a second that there's no copyright law, and tell me whose rights and/or freedoms I'm violating. Artists get themselves heard, without paying a dime for the distribution. If they didn't want to be heard, why did they record? I assert that music piracy, as it stands, is illegal, but not unjust, and the law should be changed to reflect that.

As for the earlier comment about no market for live music... I believe this will change when artists start using freely distributable records for promotion and save more content for the live performances. Even if it doesn't work that way, it will just mean that the market for the recorded music disappeared, and market for the live music didn't grow. Big deal. Artists and music will still be around. I don't see any problem with that, and I'm getting tired of people telling me that they should have the right to make money in a way that is convenient to them.

Re:As a sucessful musician

[biffnix]

You make it sound as if the "only" difference is the convenience. It is a HUGE difference! I *still* don't make Xerox copies in my house, because they're not the flexible tool that a computer is. I've had a VCR for decades now, soon to be completely replaced by my computer/DVD player. I've owned tape recorders until they became obsolete a few years ago.

The reason file sharing is so huge is PRECISELY because it is so easy to use! Don't discount that when discussing the phenomenon of file sharing.

Your point is, I think, that file sharing is against the law. That seems to be the case. The question most slashdotters hear, and most want to discuss is, "SHOULD it continue to be against the law, and in the face of rampant lawbreaking, do we need to reevaluate the underlying assumptions of the law that's being broken?"

Whether or not you are partial to judicial review, it's still a good topic for discussion.

Joe G.
Bishop, CA