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RIAA Sues Nearly 500 New Swappers
Digitus1337 writes "Wired has the story. " U.S. music industry group says it has sued 493 more people for copyright infringement as part of its campaign to stop consumers from copying music over the Internet.
The Recording Industry Association of America has now sued nearly 3,000 individuals since last September in an attempt to discourage people from copying songs through peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa and LimeWire." "
The trade group, which represents the five largest recording companies, has settled more than 400 of those cases for around $3,000 each.
I know that file sharing of unlicensed copyrighted works is illegal, but the practice of threatening lawsuits left and right still bothers me. As many of you are aware, a number of the people already sued did not have the financial ability to fund a lawyer even if they wanted to. The question is, what happens if a company (like DirecTV mentioned here) starts blanket suing for something that is not necessarily illegal? These corporations have deep pockets, and they could threaten to sue the crap out of you for looking at them cock-eyed, to which many people would have to settle out of court (I'm not being literal). If you can't afford a lawyer then what do you do? 'Admit' to wrong-doing you didn't committ? Again, I realize that a lot of file sharing IS illegal, but the whole blanket lawsuit thing does raise some interesting (or scary?) questions.
I don't like "John Doe" lawsuits. Today it's your IP address, what is it tomorrow? Your street address? Your DNA? Is there going to be a story on the news about shopkeepers who are suing a set of fingerprints for theft damages?
I know that this is a civil case, not a criminal case, but I think you should still know who you are suing before you can do it. If the RIAA can't figure out who say, 66.35.250.150 is, they can go pound sand as far as I'm concerned. Figure it out and come back, or don't, and drop it. And while you're at it, don't use our criminal justice system to go fishing for you.
Sorry for being pedantic, but LimeWire is not a network. It's the name of a Gnutella client. Since Gnutella is an open protocol, there are numerous clients for it.
I think 95% of us are wondering, day and night, when the RIAA is going to come after me next. But I'll breathe a small sigh of relief for now, and single a little diddy to the tune of "Another One Bites the Dust." It's called, "Another One Makes the Cut".
Incidentally, if I worked for the RIAA, the original song would suffice.
5,997,000 to go. Or thereabouts....
Quick math tells us that the last user will be sued in January 3335.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
So neurologists often compare the brain to a hard disk, storing data, etc. So how long until you think we get sued for listening to music and remembering it (illegal copying to another media). God forbid we try and hum a bit of it to a friend, or playing a song for a friend, because then we're guilty of transferring an unlicensed copy to another party. "Dude, you gotta listen to this song." "Sorry, my brain uses Media Player 9... damn DRM!"
I'm interested to see what happens when the RIAA sues a downloader who happens to have already purchased the CDs of the songs he is downloading -- which, in my opinion, would give him a right to those songs since he's already purchased them.
For me personally, I've sometimes downloaded songs from CDs I because 1) it's sometimes faster than ripping it myself, 2) the CD is scratched or broken, or 3) I still have the case but the CD itself was stolen. Would downloading an MP3 of a song from a CD I rightfully purchased make me a pirate?
Who is the RIAA trying to represent? They say that they are representing the five major music labels. And in turn the music labels say that they are representing the artists themselves. But even the artists don't agree with the RIAA's methodologies.
"According to the study, 60 percent of those surveyed do not believe the RIAA's efforts to halt file sharing through lawsuits will benefit musicians and songwriters.
Additionally, 35 percent believe free downloading has helped their careers, 37 percent believe it has not had any effect and only 5 percent believe it has exclusively hurt their careers. Of those interviewed, 83 percent have provided free samples of their music online."
The IFPI/RIAA is fighting a lost cause. And I think they know it.
First off all, I have difficulties with their acclaimed 'stealing' of music. As far as I know, stealing implies that the one that has been stolen has been derived of something. When you take a copy, you do not take the original away, thus they have not 'lost' anything. They might claim that they loose money when ppl d/l music, but even that is far from certain. Not only is it not shown statistically to have had that effect (they didn't even show a correlation thusfar - see aussie music-news - let alone a causality). Furthermore, in an individual case, they would have to show they actually lost revenue. Which is far from said, because I sure know some guys who d/l music, but would NEVER have bought that music if they were unable to d/l it. So, how did the RIAA/IFPI loose revenue, exactly? And if they didn't lose anything, how can the term 'stealing' apply?
It would still be copyright-infringement, ofcourse, but that's another matter. I think maybe it's time we went beyond our current system of copyrights and walk into the era of cyberspace. With the industrial revolution, patents and copyrights knew a high flight, maybe it's time to let it leave and try something new? Maybe something in the lines of this: fairshare.
And don't worry, contrary to what the RIAA claims, musicians will not starve to death, and music-making will not stop. We had music long before we had copyrights, and we will have music long after copyrights have vanished from the scene.
And lastly, it's something that *can not* be stopped. P2P progs and their development act as organisms that follow the darwinian rules of survival. When Napster was 'killed' by the RIAA, immediately others (like kazaa) took over, being more resistent to attacks from the RIAA&co. Whenever kazaa will be shut down, others again will take over. When endusers are targeted, systems that protect the user will become dominant (like FreeNet).
It really is a lost cause. But then again, they are not truelly battling for the survival of musicians (as I said; they will survive, just as they used to do), it's for their OWN survival they are fighting. There is no way in hell they are going to keep the giant profits that they have been gathering for the last decades.
But ultimately, they will have to do what P2P systems are already doing: adapt to the new circumstances (and forget about the former levels of profit), or whither and die.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
SO hear is my harebrained scheme. I want to catalog every CD I legally own. With reciepts in hand, I will download every song on them from every user I can. I will not share any files. Waiting for the RIAA to attempt to sue me, even though I never downloaded an MP3 illegally (the quality pains my ears, cd's are bad enough).
I make them look like an ass when they ATTEMPT to sue me, and they lose.
Now IANAL, but any of you lawyers out there wanna tell me if this is worth attempting. I would consult a lawyer first, but do you think I have a case for any kind of damages? I have money to front for a lawsuit if it means a good chance of decent return.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
This has obviously just become another cash cow for the recording industry.
The days of them being able to sell people 9 tracks of crap because they're bundled up with the 2 good tracks on the album are coming to an end. A different economic model is taking shapem and the pigopolists are just trying to skim as much money off the current system as they can.
It's not about performer's rights to be fairly paid for their work - it's about producer's rights to snort finest peruvian coaine off the breasts of supermodels.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
the riaa tends to be trying to kill a swarm by swatting at individual bees. for every one they swat, a new one is bred. they'll have to sue for a long time for them to get their desired results, and by that time people will have moved on to better distribution channels. ...one of which is right here:
www.allofmp3.com completely thwarts the RIAA while still paying the artists a modest sum (probably comparable to what the RIAA pays them).
$0.01 / megabyte download (pennies per song, less than $0.50 per album), perfectly legal (all RIAA propoganda and misinformation aside), and none of the money goes to fund these lawsuits. Even better, a portion goes to the actual artists directly -- a requirement of Russian copyright law.
Legal, so cheap it is almost free, and it absolutely thwarts the RIAA's ability to even think about suing anyone.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Regards,
John
Falling You - beautiful
This use to be a big IRS tactic. Go after the guys without the funding to take you on. If the recording industry sued someone with the money and the inclination (sp?) to take them on through a significant series of appeals, then I think that the laws would be changed.
Also, Congress needs to hold hearings on this. The General Accounting Office [GAO], the investigative brance of the Congress, helped get the IRS inline. Now, my personnal feeling about anything being done is that it would be unlikely. (I mean, come on, we call them Congress instead of Progress.) But, just maybe, someone will get a clue.
The RIAA is trying civil court because they know that they can use the 'perponderance of the evidence' to thier own advantage. If they think they are right, let see some criminal charges. Gutless wonders
In God we trust, all others require data.
The problem with lawyers is that 99% of them give the rest a bad name.
The trade group, which represents the five largest recording companies, has settled more than 400 of those cases for around $3,000 each.
I cannot imagine that the cost to figure out your name, hire a lawyer to write you a letter and serve you with papers then settle the case is less than $3000. Seems to me that the RIAA is letting people off for the cost of being told they did something wrong. I can't really see a problem with this.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Rather, the intent is to minimize new bees joining the hive, while at the same time through intimidation reduce the members of the hive contributing productively.
In the end they hope the hive will starve off from lack of contributors (sharers).
I Pre-Apologize for the extended use of a bad analogy, but I just couldn't resist :-p
I
Brilliant! These folks know that the RIAA doesn't want to actually take anyone to trial, just scare the bejeezus out of Mommy and Daddy so they don't let their kids use Kazaa. The risks are much too high for the RIAA if they should lose, and IMHO it's too much for them to prove, particularly in a college dorm-type setting, that the person they sued was actually the one doing the infringement. What about the wide-open Wi-Fi defense, or the zillion other instances where you just can't prove who was using a specific IP at any given time?
First off, this is hardly news. They're going to keep doing this. If the RIAA gets lucky with lobbying the price of swapping will increase and they're hoping to make it less worth it. The RIAA will continue to defend its member companies. Whether or not its good business practice is a question, but people are giving away their members stuff for free (Yeah I know copywrite is only temporary.. look up ASCAP for the artists/composers lobby)
//e games from friends (I'm not to proud of this looking back). But back then it wasn't swapping/sharing/trading it was pirating because you got to keep your copy. I don't see how this is different, except for instead of doing it privately with your friends you let anyone anywhere copy off you.
Its the terminology is what gets me. When I was in middle school I used to copy apple
I wish people would stop publicising the fact that the RIAA are suing people. It is the media who are now responsible for stopping file sharers, not the RIAA. The RIAA can only catch a small handful of people to set an example, if the media outlets just ignored the cases then they would most likely have to stop these heavy handed scare tactics.
Okay, so the people being sued can't afford the legal fees. However, they wouldn't be sued if they weren't performing illegal file sharing. The people they are going after aren't sharing private files, they are distributing, for free, the hard work of others. This is the risk that one takes when using file-sharing, and those users accepted that when they began the swapping. The companies are probably not going after Joe User who downloads a couple of tracks to see if he likes the music on an album before buying it. They are more likely going after large-scale file distributers. People who have hundreds of songs, movies, games, and other copywrited works. They left their server on too long, and got caught. I'd feel no more sympathy than I would for a pawn shop that got busted for fencing stolen goods.
Now before the hate replies come in, I should mention that I'm all for file-sharing. I think RIAA are a bunch of corrupt bastages who overcharge for their products and services, and underpay the real talent--the entertainers.
I think game design companies charge way too much for a product, which is not neccesarily a corruption, but a misunderstanding of market forces. They feel they have to correct for piracy by charging $50/game, when in fact, there would be a lot more copies sold if they offered the same product for half. But then, that's been said for years.
I think the movie industry...is still quite fair. They churn out movies, $5-8 is a reasonable price to pay for a couple of hours of entertainment. If one does not like what they watch, then at most, an hour's minimum wage is lost. If it happens repeatedly, then they should take advantage of the local library.
Does this mean I'm anti-piracy? No. If you got something for free, and you enjoyed it, then you should then pay for it. Because in America, votes are determined by dollars, not by voices. If you vote (aka "buy") a legit copy of that game/CD/movie that you loved, then you have just voted for more of the same genre/artist/director to be produced. Same goes for everything. Feel free to sample, if you feel you need to. But if you like it, and continue to use it, you have an ethical obligation to buy.
That said, free sampling aside, piracy and distribution of copywrited material is still illegal, and those who participate in it take that risk willingly. The piper may be a total arsehead (read: RIAA), but that doesn't mean they don't have legal right in this matter.
-The Libra
"You've got no kids, no wife, no job, and you're not in The Tigger Movie!!!"
- my best friend's son, Gabe, at 5 years old.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
I believe it was Maxim that printed a breakdown of where the money from a $20 CD goes. According to the blurb, about 50% goes to the retailer with another big chunk going to the executives/producers/management and something like 5% actually goes to the artist. Courtney Love, in one of her rare coherent moments, said something along the same lines. DMX is leaving the music business because he hates the fact that the recording companies own his music and he can't so much as use his music without their permission (even DMX would be guilty of piracy for downloading his own MP3s).
If you ask me, the biggest pirates are the executives. Litigating consumers is just a way of deflecting attention from the fact that consumers are tired of getting ripped off for buying $20 CDs worth only $2 and that the studio executives are worried about losing their profits. The real victims in the litigation are the artists.
There are plenty of independent labels around that care to every thinkable (and unthinkable) type of music, except perhaps for Britney-type teenybopper acts.
The RIAA radar can be a good place to start looking.
So neurologists often compare the brain to a hard disk, storing data, etc. So how long until you think we get sued for listening to music and remembering it (illegal copying to another media). God forbid we try and hum a bit of it to a friend, or playing a song for a friend, because then we're guilty of transferring an unlicensed copy to another party.
... never mind that the radio station has not only paid for the CD, they've also paid for the right to "broadcast" it -- that's twice the RIAA has now been paid for the legacy work, now the restaurant gets to pay then a third time for the same medium, and the restaurant down the road a fourth time, etc. ad nauseum!
Copyright law is completely out of touch with physical reality, technology, and our culture (and indeed it actively stifles the latter two).
An example of how rediculous copyright law is, and how artists as well as the industry have grown used to double dipping. It isn't enough to cell the CD, they want to get paid every time it is played in a restaraunt or bar. It is even illegal to play the radio in a restaurant or bar
But, what is often unremarked about these absurd laws, is that a person humming a copyrighted tune as they walk down the street is technically breaking the same law, giving a "public performance" without a license. As is the busker on the corner, the teenage garage band when they perform at their local high school, etc.
It really is past the time when we as a society should have repudiated the very notion that one can "own" ideas (patents) or their expressions (copyright). A far less draconian mechanism for reimbursing artists for their work needs to be devised, something that insures them a portion of the profits made without imposing restrictions on how the work may be incorporated into other aspects of our culture, but most of all, unlike copyright a mechanism that favors artists and culture rather than publishers and middlemen.
A quick example of one of the many such alternatives that have been proposed: a tax on works sold, with a set percentage (say 50%) going directly to the original artist. Anyone can publish your book (and you can't stop them) but you get half the proceeds. As an artist or author you have no control, but you are generously compensated financially.
It really is time we as a society started thinking outside the box on this issue, if we wish to have any kind of viable, free society left in the information age, and wish to do so in a manner that benefits artists and fans, rather than consortia of parasitical middlemen such as the RIAA (and more to the point, their attorneys).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The RIAA has lost a multitude of 3000 paying customers FOREVER.
Would you *ever* *consider* buying another Britney Spears (RIAA-represented) cd if a member of your family, a friend, or a neighbour was sued?
I for one welcome our new free music overlords and only listen to alternative music: trance, rock, whatever. It's there, just as good (even better!) and ready to be explored. I have over 30 GB (!) of mp3's in my shared folder, and run 30+ radio webcast stations, with solely music not represented by the RIAA. I'm still waiting for the subpoena so I can countersue for battery or slander!
Every article that I read on the subject seems to have it wrong. They aren't suing downloaders. They're suing uploaders. You're only committing copyright infringement if you distribute something. If you're not sharing or "distributing," you're not infringing. Downloading is not a crime... yet.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
"I got sued by RIAA, and all I got was some low-quality NSync tunes."
LimeWire is spyware/bundled software free.
LimeWire has always been a supporter of an open protocol and open source (limewire.org). Bad Kazaa. Good LimeWire.
There seems to be nothing open and shut about this sort of thing, especially since most people infected by the bagel virus have no idea that they are spammers, will they be prosecuted under the CANSPAM Act?
~ there are 10 types of people in this world, those that can read binary and those that can't
Limewire does not have any spyware and is Open Source (GPL). (yes I do work for them)
Don't go silently into that peaceful night
This whole internet song-swapping debacle reminds me of the old pirate radio stations of Britain, like Radio Caroline, Radio London and Radio City.
Whilst publicly denouncing the broadcasters as pirates, stealing money from the musician's union by playing songs and not paying the needletime; the industry were actually sending free copies of their latest releases in order to benefit from the coverage. Eventually, the marine offences bill was drafted and although some stations like Radio City opted to keep paying the ever-increasing fines, and continue broadcasting, they all eventually shut down. It did make way for modern commercial radio stations, and saw the launch of Radio One (which is the UK's 8-24yrs radio station), playing 'popular' music. I think a similar thing is going to happen in the end with file-sharing. The industry will have to acknowledge that they do, in fact benefit from having people able to easily download music, but they will want some sort of payment. Start buying shares in Napster-type services now. As ever, it'll take the music industry a while to figure out what's going on and to stop making fools of themselves, but they'll get there eventually and yesterday's truth will no longer exist. Double-plus good, I say.
Why can I check out an album or movie at the library and watch/listen without paying, but not download it off the internet?
I just want an answer to that. With the state of todays copyright, why are libraries still legal?
Last time I went the local library had a movie selection rivaling Blockbuster and an audio section larger than Tower records.
Will video games, or other pieces of software ever be legal to borrow from the local library?
What gives? Are libaries legal only if run by the government? Are only non-profit libraries legal? Could I open my OWN library and let people borrow my CDs and books?
Please no IANAL responses, I want to know the distinction.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Aw-crud... sorry about that... I got interrupted mid-sentance and neglected to proofread my comment enough before posting.
It should have read "However, they wouldn't be sued if there wasn't an IP address performing illegal file sharing linked to them."
My apologies for the mistake.
-The Libra
"You've got no kids, no wife, no job, and you're not in The Tigger Movie!!!"
- my best friend's son, Gabe, at 5 years old.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
If i take a song, represent it in binary (create a file out of it), and then just call it a number, can't i tell the court that all i was doing was sending a number to my friend? It's not my fault if the number can be decoded into sound. An artist can't possibly own all the numbers his song could be digitized into!
I can't seems to figure out what is considered an artist's property and what is not. If i walk down the street and sing a tune to myself, can i be sued? Is it different if someone else hears me sing the tune, and then starts singing it themselves?
If i get a song stuck in my head can they do a brain scan and sue me over and over again?
All along the watchtower contains the chord progression Am, G, F, G, Am, and so does Stairway to Heaven (and many other tunes), so what's the deal with this?
Of all the justification attempts for copyright infringement, this one grates on me the worst.
If you want to listen to a certain song, you currently have several LEGAL options:
A. Buy the album (or single if available) on CD.
B. Purchase the song from an online distributor like iTunes.
C. Listen to it on the radio.
Having no intention to buy the music is NOT a valid defense for copyright infringement. There are lots of people who ARE willing to pay for it, and do so. What makes you so fucking special that you shouldn't have to?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Nobody likes lawsuits (except, perhaps lawyers). But in all likelyhood, they will remain part of the response to unauthorized file-sharing.
Even the EFF acknowledges this. Not so long ago the EFF suggested that the RIAA should be suing infringers and in the EFF's more recent file-sharing solution "white paper" they continue to suggest the same. (under "What about file sharers who won't pay?" you'll see "Copyright holders (and perhaps the collecting society itself) would continue to be entitled to enforce their rights against 'free-loaders.'"
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
The companies are probably not going after Joe User who downloads a couple of tracks to see if he likes the music on an album before buying it.
You are assuming too much here
Perhaps you are right, and they are only suing people that are doing something illegal. I'm not trying to bash you here, or discount what you are saying, but I have not seen any of the evidence in any of these cases (and I'm not talking about the press info, I'm talking about evidence admissable in court)
Cases are brought, and settled everyday because one party or the other feels it would cost less to settle than to pay legal fees. It may very well be that all of these people are doing something illegal & probably most are, but what about the couple that might not be. Only a court can determine legality, and if someone settles solely due to their financial situation, there is no way to know.
I was always under the impression that if you do something in numbers, that was the safety mechanism. This is a huge concept in nature for survival. 3000 out of millions! My chances of winning the lottery are only slightly worse than my chances of getting sued by the RIAA!
How can the RIAA expect to thwart something that is so widely accepted, and internationally practiced? This is the equivalent of a strike or a boycott. Obviously these lawsuits aren't working very well, and even so, the sharing networks will just end up switching to a closed system like Friendster where 'known parties' will use strong encryption to transmit data.
However, in both these cases - the producers downloading, and the CD-owning user downloading - the person uploading is guilty of copyright infringement, since they do not have distribution rights. Thus, the uploader, provided they aren't the distribution house or the artist, is committing a crime, and it's the uploaders that the RIAA is going after.
Now, it so happens that to prevent leeching, Kazaa, Gnutella, Limewire, etc. all put your downloads into a "shared" folder for uploading... so if you download something, you're uploading it too. The RIAA uses this to publicize that they're going after "downloaders" rather than "uploaders", but the truth is that they can only find uploaders.
To be safe, leech. It's not nice to the rest of the community, but 'no honor among thieves' and whatnot.
Not that I do either.
-T
Great way to kill your business, between directly ending a relationship with a customer, and bringing bad press to your company.
Morons.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In order to protect myself from the lawsuits, I have deleted my swap partit [CARRIER LOST]
Unknown host pong.
Does that mean that they actually sued 50 people with high-speed CD burners?
Be an elitist - read Slashdot at +4.
Well this is the crux of the problem. The people that you're accusing of *cheering the thieves on* are of the opinion that exchanging information non-commericially is not thieving. Your opinion is value laden and you can choose not to see that, but you can't prevent others from pointing that out.
I heard a great thing on the radio today. They had a writer that contributes to Rolling Stone and has been on VH-1 quite a bit. He was talking about how the recording industry just doesn't get it and how every download does not equal a lost sale. His analogy was how when you go to a supermarket and they have the free cheese samples. When someone takes a piece of cheese, that doesn't mean there is a lost sale of cheese.
I thought it was a great analogy. I wonder if/when the RIAA will ever get it.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
If every person utilizing these networks were to voluntarily pay a $5 per month fee towards a special account to fund these settlements then we would never have to worry. I personally would welcome the opportunity to buy the little bit of extra security that the $5 would bring.
How many people are using these networks?
493 people X $3,000 = $1,479,000
$1,479,000 = $5 X 295,800
My guess is that 295,800 is but a tiny fraction of the number of sharers who would be willing to pay $5 per month.
Any extra proceeds raised by the fund could be used to purchase better search/index nodes.
In general, filing a John Doe lawsuit doesn't expose the unknown defendnat to any adittional harm or danger compared to not filing a lawsuit until you know the person's identify. The defendant is still protected by statue of limtitations, and the plainitff still needs to investigate the identify of the defendnat and amend his complaint prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations in order to keep the unnamed defendnat in the case.
In general, a plainitff is allowed to amend a complaint for errors in the complaint, and have those amendmends reach back to the orignal filing date for SOL purpose. Courts (at least in my Circuit), however, have ruled that the practice of naming John Does for unknown defendnats is not an "error", and therefore, ameneding the complaint with the person's name does track back to the filing date for the SOL--See Aslandis v. US Lines Inc or Barrow v. Wehtersfieddl Polic department. (I just had to research this -IANAL, IAA paralegal on his way to law school)
So, you break the law, either by trading copyriighted files or rapig someone. You are i danger of a lawsuit until your SOL expires. Wether they figure out who you are first and sue you, or sue forst and then figure it out, you still have the same exposure to litigation. In these RIAA cases, I'm guessing the RIAA goes ahead and files anyways to make it easier to obtain subpoenas, plus they get publiciity.
and every.damn.one. of them was used!
SWING OUT SISTER -- Kaleidoscope World
White Zombie -- Astro-Creep 2000
Alice Cooper -- the eyes of...
GRAVITY KILLS -- Gravity Kills
SNAKEFARM -- Songs From My Funeral
AMANDA GHOST -- Ghost Stories
EVERCLEAR -- Songs From An American Movie
RICKIE LEE JONES -- FLYING COWBOYS
ELECTRIC SWING -- Big Band Crazy
NO DOUBT -- Return Of Saturn
Various Artists -- HOUSE OF BLUES SWINGS
BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY -- This Beautiful Life
CHICAGO -- Night And Day (Big Band)
DUKES AND GANNON -- SIX SHOOTER
PHIL COLLINS -- NO JACKET REQUIRED
DUKE HEITGER AND HIS SWING BAND -- RHYTHM IS OUR BUSINESS
VARIOUS ARTISTS -- THE UNPLUGGED COLLECTION
DON HENLEY -- THE END OF THE INNOCENCE
ANGEL CITY -- Face To Face
XFILES SOUNDTRACK
VARIOUS ARTISTS -- SKA WARS
take that RIAA!!!!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Someone needs to take them to court. I share copywrited music (about 400 songs), and i really hope that they get around to suing me. Why you may ask? Because i have the means (well my parents do) for a lawyer, my dad, working in the music industry understands the issue, and lastly i'm not sharing their music. This is why i hope i get sued. Every single one of the bands whos music i share is local and in fact a few have given me the OK. Most of the MP3s i got from the old MP3.com and some ripped from cds that i've double checked to make sure the label isn't a subsidiary or connected to the RIAA in any way. Hell, the bass player from one band messaged me after he saw i was sharing their music and offered to put me on the guest list of their show that night. Lets see the RIAA make the misstake of fighting for something they dont have the rights too. Besides, i need something to do this summer...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This just hit me. Suppose we put our music files up, but then we either encrypt the files or encrypt the connection or something, and use a really shitty "encryption" algorithm like ROT13 or something. This should have two effects. Number one, one could claim that he had his files up for his own personal use and he had them encrypted so that nobody else could access them. Number two, if the RIAA broke the encryption to see that you are sharing files, then *BAM* sue them under the DMCA for circumventing encryption.
Now there is a lot of stuff to be worked out with this method. And it would make a criminal out of everyone(for breaking encryption) but the kind of people who download music for free don't seem to care about that sort of thing(though I'm not saying downloading music is a criminal act).
The worst was when the RIAA sued a girl using Kazaa who was about 12 years old - she even paid for it monthly, too.
1. OK, here's really what we need - a system like MusicBrainz that can go thru and automagically tag everysong on your disc.
2. And then interface with the RIAA Radar to identify specifically the RIAA stuff vs. which isn't.
3. Then MOVE that stuff out of my shared folder - I don't *want* to share it. Better yet MOVE it to the TRASH...
I like electronica and sometimes underground hiphop anyway- I can live without FSOL and Jay-Z and certainly would much rather share out people more deserving of my disk space and bandwidth...
It's not exactly cheap for them to do this. They'd probably be lucky to recover their legal expenses in the cases that they settle (and of course they don't get anything in the cases that they drop or lose).
Lawsuits against individuals (who may have little financial resources) is not a very effective game -- lawsuits are only a good income source if you sue someone who has some money (e.g. a big corporation)
You missed again, motherfsckers!
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
Two things constantly strikes me when I read about RIAA suing a group or doing this to discourage me .... or any action from RIAA really.
:
1. Instead of discouraging me from sharing my music, why don't they encourage me to buy. It comes down to the same end result and this way, I don't feel attacked.
2. Its all about evolution.
History is a good teacher to prove us that if a company does not evolve, it will die. if you cannot understand / satisfy your clients, you will perish or be bought.
RIAA's model hasn't evolved from when RIAA was created at all. Back then, there was no internet, thus, the market was different.
Today, RIAA hasn't evolved one bit, they're still acting as though there was no internet, as though they had no opponent.
But they do have one opponent : Evolution. They need to update their business model so that they stop losing money when we share music.
As sad as it is for them, today, I can find most of the music I want on the internet, so why would I buy a CD ?
for two reasons
1. I really like the band and I think they deserve some money
2. The CD offers me something I cannot get on the internet.
For instance, a local artist (Francois Pérusse - http://www.zeromusic.com/perusse/) includes a small membership card with every CD, that membership gives access to a protected section where you can listen to stuff not available on the market such as unreleased material
That's one reason why I would buy his CD..and I do.
Sadly, many companies today refuse to evolve, they refuse because it'll cost them money, they'll need to change.
What they do not seem to realize is that everyday they remain as they are is another day where they lose even more money trying to stop us...and in the end, they never do.
Just my 2c.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
It may be wrong of me to pirate, but IMHO what they're doing is more wrong than what I'm doing.
"It may be wrong of me to sodomize these prisoners with a glow stick, but IMHO what they did to us on 9/11 is more wrong than what I'm doing."
I admit, my analogy isn't perfect -- for one thing, in my version both acts are illegal, whereas you're undertaking an illegal act to respond to something that's entirely legal.
If you don't want to give your money to RIAA-member companies anymore, don't consume their product anymore! Stop being a jackass.
A few weeks back on slashdot there was an article on how the RIAA was deliquent in paying royalities to many music artists.
It would be a boon to cutting the RIAA down to size if these artists sued the RIAA.
It would be hilarious to read about the RIAA suing people for stealing music while they would be under litigation for doing the same.
It might just embarrass them enough to stop, but even if they continued in their historical stupidity it would definately poison their public image enough to reduce their influence.
Steve
Bittorrent allows you to download in a P2P network. While downloading you are also at the same time uploading portions/fragments -- this distributed uploading works well to make the network robust. However, what if it was hacked into the code of bittorrent that you could only upload say a _specific_ 1/10th of the song? And that each user uploads a different 1/10th of the song so that any new downloader comes in can still download the song in its entirety, s/he just gets a 1/10th of it at a time from different sharers. And all the while, although you are uploading ad nauseum, you are only uploading a specific 1/10th of the song, never its entirety.
Why am I bringing this up? Well, say if you broke down the size to even smaller amounts, like 1/1000000th (Dr. Evil pinky to mouth)? Digital data is nothing more than a series of zero's and one's. If you break it down small enough, the series of zero and one's become so common that it cannot be considered a unique segment. In other words, the 1/1000000th digital piece that I'm uploading could be part of Britney Spears' new song or it could be part of Jules Verne's novel in the public domain, the onus is up to the RIAA to prove otherwise. I'm sure my logic is erroneous somewhere, someone prove me wrong.
Linux at home
But I think it needs some reworking to more accurately reflect the role that the RIAA is playing now-a-days...
Let's say that the car companies got together to form the APIA (Auto Producers Industry Association) and used their considerable lobbying clout to influence Congress to pass new legislation that outlaws the selling of or owning of used cars.
Say then that the automakers decide to not sell cars in the tradional way anymore, but only lease them with extensive "appropriate-use" regulations attached and extensive monitoring equipment to ensure that you comply.
Additionally, after a couple of years when the car makers release a new model they refuse to offer any of the older models for lease and instead recall them and refuse to make these models available for any purpose.
That is closer to the situation that the RIAA is trying to bring into existence.
....want a serious, across the board fundamental change in the US. The government is corrupt, broken, out of control. Think about what we do. Millions trudge to the polls and allegedly "elect" a mostly priveleged millionaire class of people to a professional and pensioned "career" of outright "rule" over us. they DO NOT in fact, represent us, you and me, they represent and work for some fairly wealthy and exalted inteerests qwho have nothing in common with 99% of the US population. Nothing. And MOST of them are lawyers, and/or are connected financially to international conglomerates, in a big way. This is just an OBVIOUS conflict of interest. WHAT ELSE are you going to get but more complex and weird laws when it PROFITS the very people who "pass" them all the time? Then, while congress is in session, they spend all their time passing new laws,by the thousands, never ending, with little effort made to even have a modicum of constitutional review, common sense review, or to see if perhaps some of the older laws they have passed need to just be removed, a law-code review if you will. It doesn't happen, there's NO incentive for them to do so, because they control the system, they control the mass media, they control the social engineering brainwashing facilities called "public schools", and they PROFIT from it to extreme and obscene levels.
It's NUTS. It's getting worse, there's no end to the amount of laws passed, no top end limit, we are over 3 million laws on the books now, and these people in washington are SO FAR REMOVED from what it really is like in the US outside of the completely artifically maintained washington DC/NYC/LA axis of profits area, they really have no clue what they are doing other than maximising profits for themselves and their rich buds. No clue and they DON'T WANT a clue. They are trained actors and script readers, they "campaign" by 15-30 second sound bite, directly or indirectly, and by the acceptance of out and out bribes called "campaign contributions", but these public uttered "sound bite" words have little meaning, they just parrot what their focus groups tell them that will result in the same people "voting" for them over and over again, no matter what really happens.
The system is broken, terribly. It needs to change. Change at the federal level is just way to hard, SO, we need to elect some governor some place who can be the executive branch leader that at least can get ONE state back to what we are supposed to have,set a clear example of what it really was designed as, an independent state with loose ties to the federal government in a "union", BUT NO MORE, *full, default and complete* constitutional rights, and he has got to be unafraid of serious confrontation. That's the highest level we can hope for to look for any significant change for the better, IMO.
The Libertarian Party Free State Project is one example, Mack for Governor in Utah is another (He has a decent credible chance, too). There might be more, those are the two I am aware of right now where this sort of effort is being undertaken.
A success in these matters will go a long way to re establishing the court system like it is supposed to be, especially with jury nullification, speedy trials, and always having a jury trial if the matter in question is over 20$. You get some honest working class people on juries, and STOP the mostly completely criminal DAs and judges intimidating and instructiong them illegally, you'll see nonsense like in this article struck down, because people can see it's absurd. BUT, it HAS to be done at some decent level, local it doesn't matter, federal is impossible, that leaves the state level.
I see little difference between someone giving away (say) Madonna's recorded music without her permission, and someone giving away her car without her permission
You may see little difference, but a little difference is still a difference.
The publisher offers a certain deal on a recording, and if I take that deal and then try to behave as though it were a different deal, I'm going back on my word and that's wrong.
It may be wrong, but that doesn't make it stealing.
A performance is not property. It happens and then it's over. A recording of a performance can be copyrighted, but it's still not property. If I take your only copy (say, the only tape containing that performance), then I've stolen from you. But if I copy it, I haven't stolen anything.
Copying your recording may mean that you don't have the money I might have paid you for a copy had I been unable to copy it myself for free, but perhaps I wouldn't have paid you for it. In any case, that's still not theft. Perhaps "theft of opportunity"?
But you can't just say "there's little difference" and therefore behave as if there's no difference at all. That, too, is wrong. "Intellectual property" is a misnomer. It's the reason the idea of copyright exists in the first place.
On the topic of the recording industry, PBS is airing a Frontline episode: "The Way the Music Died," on 2004-05-27, Thursday at 21:00. It may be of interest to some of you.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/musi c/