Slashdot Mirror
The RIAA Sues 482 More People
An anonymous reader writes "Today the RIAA said they have sued another group of people, 482 to be exact, for copyright infringement. The RIAA used their 'John Doe' litigation process in this round of law suits, because they do not know the names of the copyright infringers. After appeals court ruled that Verizon does not have to provide names of customers to the RIAA, the RIAA started using the 'John Doe' litigation process." (Similar stories at Wired News and CoolTechZone).
I wonder when they'll ever figure out that suing your consumers is not an effective business model?
Help a college student
Lets get those pirates who are stealing Britney Spear's music!
Maybe we can SUE good taste into them...
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Does anyone know the number of people the RIAA has sued thus far? I'd be interested in a comparision between that number and the number of estimated pirates (the more accurate numbers, and the RIAA's numbers). I'm wondering if all of this litigation is a financially sound strategy for the RIAA.
I feel sorry for this John Doe character, he's always getting picked on.
According to here the total is 1595.
How many settled out of court, like, 1300+?!?!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
.... but unless it's an odd case like a 93 year old grandmother we don't here much about the outcome. While I'm sure some have come to settlement, where are the other thousands of cases? Have ANY of them gone to trial?
"the RIAA started using the 'John Doe' litigation process"
For those wanting to know more about 'John Doe' processes etc here is the RIAA's FAQ.
Well, they're not suing me at lest..
Oh wait...
I don't know about anyone else, but these "sue to scare" tactics just don't worry me. They have failed to change my computing in anyway. I still download music; in fact, I may download more, just to site them. IMHO I feel they are just alienating more people with each lawsuit.
Come on, shouldn't it be "John Stag", at least?
Hasn't got jack about the new lawsuits. Can anyone get a list of what IPs are being sued?
And in lesser news, thank god for dynamic IP addresses...
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
What if you already own the CD? Isn't that just fair use?
Before anyone jumps on this and says it's stupid - I recently downloaded a whole bunch of songs to which I had the CDs. Why? Because my CD drive and my secondary hard drive (which housed all my MP3s) both recently went tits up. I blame a bad drive cable. Anyway, my gf was leaving town for a month and I was in the process of putting together a 'mix tape' on a portable mp3 player for her. Since she was leaving soon I didn't have time to run out to the store and buy and install a bunch of new equipment - but I could leave my p2p software running overnight.
Uncommon? Sure. But that alone doesn't make it illegal.
"We keep losing customers! I don't understand! We sue the fuckers, and they still won't buy our products!"
-Valiss
all you Norah Jones fans are NEXT!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
what, you mean people won't buy their music now?
that's why they're suing them in the first place.
Just a quick link I found, pretty informative. http://www.mttlr.org/voleight/RederOBrienver5TYPE_ HTML.htm
http://www.fsckin.com/
Hi
... sometime.
I'm not in the office at the moment. This email has been forwarded to my secretary.
I'll be back from the Bahamas
J. Doe.
I wanna pay for all my downloads retroactively, but I can't remember everything I downloaded. Can I, like, pay anonymous unknown parties for it?
Sorry- I was a little too fast with the Google.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Does slashdot report on every Joe Burglar arrested? No. So why should we have to suffer through another article like this one everytime the RIAA tries to stop people stealing their music?
I'm guessing that the RIAA is only trying to sue IP address that are in the US, since the long grabby hand of the RIAA can't reach across borders. So that means everybody outside the US and any other country that has RIAA type SS stormtroopers is safe.
We keep hearing about another round being sued... But (and I may be wrong) I have yet to hear of a case that's gone to court. Have all of them settled? Has anyone said "fuck you" and torn the lawsuit up? (I would imagine if you're targeting college students, SOMEONE must be idealistic enough to tell them to get lost...)
The number of lawsuits must be in the thousands by now. I really have a hard time believing all of them paid the RIAA settlement... Is it possible the RIAA downplays or lets go the suits when the defendant doesn't play ball? After all, all it would take is for one case to go to court, and for them to lose, to ruin this whole strategy.
3 years ago the economy went to shit...
3 years ago CD sales went down....
Think that's a coincidence.
Also CD sales don't count as much since we got the legal downloading music DRM bullshit now... You have to count those eggs too....
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
It's stupid, and you're a stupid troll.
They aren't suing downloaders. They're suing uploaders. If you download the tracks and then your software automatically shares them and you upload them to someone else, it's not fair use.
But then, I'm sure you already knew that.
I have two questions regarding this: 1- The RIAA is filing "John Doe" lawsuits (they will add the names later after the discovery process or warrants are served or whatever). At this time, they are trying to use the ip addresses to establish the identity of the people they are suing. How come the ip addresses are not posted in the news stories or on the eff page if it is public information and is in the lawsuit? 2- Exactly how is the RIAA obtaining their information? Are they seeding songs with data in the tag so they can then say in court that this song was slightly modified and now has a unique filesize or date in the tag and we alone have put this song out there and let people download it? And if so, can they legally do that? They are not a law enforcement agency, can they say that the laws regarding copyright don't apply to us since we own the copyright? OK, more than 2 questions: 3- Exactly what applications are the people using when they download this stuff? Kaaza? If it is Kaaza, are they then looking int he default shared Kaaza folder for the song they have seeded? I have found NO websites that have this info. Any thoughts?
Does anyone know the cumulative total of all the RIAA lawsuits? These are just being instantiated in order to scare the general populus into thinking they get sued. Sure, go download music as much as you want but if you share it you get sued. It is definitely a one way street.
What I don't understand is that I can have an archive of music on a network and someone can "break in" and steal that music from me and then I can get sued by the RIAA. Where is the logic in that!
Bah Humbug,
Aj
GroupShares Inc. - A Free and Interactive Stock Market Trading Community - Still a startup so check it out please.
-------
artlu.net
Anonymous P2P will likely 'solve' these lawsuits, the technology is coming along nicely.
I think that I2P and Mute need some developers though if you are interested.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
Sounds like a new genre of computer game.
There have been lists of the usernames before but I can't find one for this round of lawsuits.
[insert whining about how information wants to be free, i dont like their business model so that makes stealing (and yes, it IS stealing.) ok, whatever the bullshit excuse of the day happens to be]
Obviously these guys don't read their history books. They're just going to create a black market that they won't be able to control. And I'll figure out how to make money out of it...
I wonder why more people don't realize this, the RIAA are actually balancing on the edge of a knife with this one: They want to stop copyright infringement, but they don't want to draw too much attention to the copyright infringement via P2P issue, because they realize that if too many people start paying attention to it, the masses will realize what the law actually says regarding this.
Downloading isn't the key issue, uploading is. Copyright infringement is traditionally defined by unauthorized distribution - so they really only have the right to go after those who are illegally distributing their content. This means the uploaders. Depending on your P2P client, it is possible to prevent uploading, or at least stop uploading by removing the file from the P2P system as soon as it's downloaded - of course, in some cases this will render individual P2P networks unusable if too many people do it, but some, like Emule/Edonkey, have the ability to upload while downloading... so unless they catch the culprits very quickly, removing the files from the shared directory and thus preventing further uploading will take all of a few minutes, and no charges can (theoretically) be pressed.Brandon Glass's personal site.
Judge:
Bailiff, remand Mr. Doe into custody. Mr. Doe, how do you plead?
Bailiff:
Judge, the defendant has failed to appear.
Judge:
Issue an arrest warrant in Mr. Doe's name.
Case dismissed.
RIAA:
Doh!
As far as I'm concerned, 19 trumps any copyright law.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Songs are information. They may be sought, received and imparted as I see fit. I'll take the buggers to the World Court if they fuck with me.
2. Install it with no encryption, MAC filtering, etc.
3. "Who, little ole me?"
I can't say this isn't stuff that matters, as it matters a great deal to some of us, but it looks like stories like this will be posted every couple of months for the forseeable future.
That being the case, I'd like to see the post itself contain some distinguishing marks, like a mention of what round in the series this is, or a comment on overall trends. This is the 4th round of these suits, right? (or is it the 5th?)
I know, people should read the article, and google for basic questions, and all that. However, this subject is becoming almost like SCO. There are just so many repetitious elements that it is extra easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.
Also, we can't expect the other media to convert data to knowledge. I doubt most press releases on this are going to keep track of whether the numbers per round have increased, decreased, or fluctuated both ways, for example. As another example, would you want to rely on Wired to tell you whether these clusters of suits start comeing closer together? (That's not to criticise Wired in particular, but to say that the press tends to become complacent the umpty-umpth time they are covering what sounds like the same story.).
Who is John Cabal?
im sure the Fine print on the letters Read
"ALL YOUR DRUM & BASS ARE BELONG TO US"
We prefer copyright challenged.
As much as i hate the idea of RIAA and MPAA sueing fileswappers, at least now they have to show a little merrit in the case before they can automajicaly get the realname and personal information of the accused. I think this is a giant step forward in corecting some flaws in the DMCA that allowed anyone to get personal information about anyone else if they insinuate that they have violated thier copyrights.
To me finding that RIAA has to now get some aproval (form a court) before getting the infromation they are seeking is the true news worthy potion of this article. I think most people havn't really had problems with RIAA and the likes going after people breaking the copyright laws, thier problems was with the way they went about doing it. Some will always have issues with others trying to protect thier investments and there will be some that still don't like the lawsuite/extortion ways RIAA is doing it. As i see it now one down and more to go.
Thier extortion tactics, whiel can be viewed with good intentions leaves alot of problems open to come back and haunt people. Maybe there should be a test to what how they actually gather evidence and how that evidence is displayed.. also it would be nice if all the lawsuites could be lumped into some class action deal were people could share the cost of actually defending themselves from it.
will someone please patent the " 'John Doe' litigation process" as a business model, then sue the RIAA for infringement? please?
And your an Ass hole...
But then, I'm sure you already knew that.
I'm not trying to be funny here ... but at what point will it be until they sue 127.0.0.1? They've been suing everyone thus far, at which point will they have sued so many people that people simply won't put up with it anymore?
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
EFF where are you
Put this on a webpage: what a <a href="http://www.riaa.com/">bunch of pricks</a>
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
these lawsuits do nothing more than publicize the fact that you can download music illegally from the internet. It's kinda funny in an ironic way.
That said, Live, Legal P2P and Live, Legal Bittorrent Downloads.
It's simple. Don't share RIAA music. Stop sharing and buying. Music is a luxury, wonder how long it would take to bring those idjits down if sales fell right off the cliff for a few months.
Easy for me to say, though, I have loads of CDs, tapes and LPs of my favorite music, already bought and paid for. I could listen to my collection for a long time before I got really tired of it. Got a lot of MP3 compilations, from music I own.
One advantage of classic rock, I guess.
Oh, and for more anti-dmca fun, don't forget anti-dmca.org for all of your fun "Where's my rights?" headlines.
It's highly unlikely that they're suing downloaders anyway. I believe everyone thus far sued have been sharing files. The media just latches on to "downloading music" for some reason--either as scare tactics, pressure from the RIAA to spin it this way, whatever. And really, it makes sense. Unless the RIAA were hosting files and tracking the IP of people who downloaded them (a shady practice to say the least) they've got no way of knowing who's downloading something. All they can really do is scan the P2P network and see who's offering, get the IP, and sue.
Now it's still alleged if they didn't actually check every file to make sure that it's actually music instead of crap, viruses, etc. But I suspect that unless you re-shared those files that you downloaded, you won't have any need to fear getting sued over your download.
We don't know who you are or anyhting about you, but we know you did something. Now pay us."
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
Now if only someone would setup a P2P server with 100 gig of songs and plug it into SCO's network for the RIAA to find... RIAA sues SCO for copyright infinement, SCO counter sues for copyright infringement because they think RIAA is using Linux. --- Just throwing a little gas on the fire!
When we come across a user who is distributing copyrighted music files, we download copyrighted music files (of our member companies) the user is offering, as well as document the date and time that we downloaded those files.
Do any P2P clients keep a log of files up/downloaded? If so, record your own song and give it a clever name like 'Timberlake's Justified'. Stick it up and wait for the RIAA to come along and snag it. Then sue/countersue them.
Lewis Carroll taught me how to do it:
I find it hard to understand how John Doe can be found guilty, presumably by a court of law, when they can't even be identified. Wonder how they get John Doe to pay the fine?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Second, I believe sharing music is protected under free speech. It is no different than if I have a book and give it to a friend to read. What if I want to make a copy of a CD to give to my wife, so she can listen to it in her car, do I have to buy a second copy of the same CD? It would seem rediculous if the music industry expected us to buy the same product over and over again, at inflated prices.
I also want to add that I am all for supporting the artists. But the music companies treat the artists with the same heavy handed, one sided manner they treat the rest of us. They force new bands to sign contracts which give the bands next to nothing. Only the top singers can force the record companies to pay a fair wage, and that is only if their original contract is set to expire.
What should be done is the music industry should charge a fair fee for CD's and pay artists a fair wage. But until they start showing they want to be fair, I say why should we concede anything to them?
So I ask everyone, what is a fair price for a CD?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Every penny they con out of people with this scam goes to Sen. Hatch and his cronies, for more sub-moronic laws.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
not only that, but if he downloaded them, and then his p2p software shared them to other people who own legitimate copies than it is fair use. I demand that they supoena everyone who downloaded a song from me to prove that they don't own legitimate copies. yeah that's it.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
I don't understand why everyone is annoyed as if the RIAA is doing something incorrect. Maybe it hasn't sunk in to anyone here, but downloading music you havn't purchased IS stealing, no matter what logic you put behind it. "Oh god they're just scared tactics". No shit sherlock, they can't sue millions of people, they have to stop people from stealing SOMEHOW.
-1, Ignores the Point. They aren't suing downloaders, they're suing uploaders. When you make available for copy to the general public a CD that you own, you are infringing on the exclusive right to copy posessed by the RIAA's member labels. That's why it is illegal regardless of whether you have the CD or not. It would be perfectly legal to get mp3s of a CD you own, so long as the person providing those mp3s had a right to give them to you. I have gotten mp3s and aacs from friends of several old, scratched to death CDs that I own and I'm not at all worried about it. Incidentally, some of these records are out of print and the only way TO get copies is from friends. The old Moon Ska catalog is a good example...I have at least 50 moon ska discs and many of them, such as the awesome Skarmageddon, are close to ten years old and dying.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
RIAA Head Lawyer (in the voice of Homer Simpson): "DoH!!"
For those of you that don't know, here is how this works: A company that has a bunch of musician / whores working for them produces a product. This product is sold to you under a contract. That contract has various things that you agree to when you buy it and play it. It does not allow copying 10,000 times to give to all your friends. It does not allow putting it on the Internet for others to download for free.
This is a simple contractual issue. By buying the music you agree to the terms. If you violate those terms, they sue you for damages. It's that simple.
Please do not respond to this post with pseudo-legal or pseudo-Socialist rants. This is a VERY SIMPLE CONTRACTUAL ISSUE. If you don't agree to the contract, don't buy the music.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Well, letting wholesale piracy isn't an effective business model either. Besides, consumers != sales or profits.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
i use kazaa-lite, and what i do is i downoad about 32 songs only, then i turn the program off
while i'm downloading, some dude might start uploading from my temporary download folder
this is the point at which the riaa can sue you
however, i'm protected by the fact that i basically download european trance music for jogging purposes
only through kazaa am i allowed to sample artists i would never be able to explore in any other forum: cds, too expensive; radio, nonexistent play; legal paid downloads, too constrictive on my selection and the rights they grant me
and i believe that international issues, even if both nations involved have fierce copyright laws, leads me to feel comfortable and confident: i'm probably downloading from european kazaa users, and uploading to them too... the riaa does not involve itself in international transfer cases: too complicated
so since i avoid the pop shit, the odds of me getting sued enter the realm of me winning the lottery
the day i win the lottery is the day i'll begin to worry about the riaa
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"We must stay on the path of education, enforcement, and offering great legal services." Sounds more like their try'en to sell their "great legal services". I can see it now comercials for the newest branch of the RIAA: RIAA leagal services.
"The universe is my dwelling place and my house is my only clothes! Why are you entering into my pants?" - Liu Ling
I download sixties songs that I vaguely remember hearing as a child. For a while I bought a lot of records (45 RPM singles with the big hole for $0.79 US each new in the mid 1960's).
When I bought the record, I bought a lifetime right to the music.
An absurd concept back when it was impossible to seperate the content from the medium, but as relevant as all hell today.
The digitization process seperates the content from the medium in ways that are unimaginable when the content was first integrated onto its medium. This concept applies to all media and is the central component of post-McLuhan media theory. Generally wealth is created when old content is combined with new media in ways that were not possible before the digitization process seperates the two. For example seperating the pressing of a piano key and the sound of a piano note. After digitization, pressing a piano key on a synthesizer makes a flute or violin sound from a sample.
Anyway...
I demand the right to download any and all of the songs that I bought as a kid in the mid 1960's. I demand that the RIAA prove that I didn't buy the recording before sueing me for downloading it. "... pretty, pretty, Peggy Sue...". We are innocent until proven guilty.
I demand the right to be able to download any song that has been played on the radio long enough to have had the copyright period expire. In this case I mean the copyright period in legal effect when the recording was originally released and purchased by me.
I demand the right to publish on third world websites the names, addresses, and social security numbers of the members of the legal team that is using vague and legally unsubstantiated copyright to extort money from me.
Fuck these people! Let's cut their heads off instead of those of ordinary technicians who just happen to be working in Allah-land and got kidnapped by religious psychopaths.
It has nothing to do with contracts, actually. There is no contract entered into when purchasing a CD. What prevents someone from being able to distribute RIAA members' songs is copyright.
or, IHBT, IHL.
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
No wait, sorry my mistake. It's just the same thing over and over which takes no effect at all :)
I like muppets.
Yes there is a contract. If you didn't read it, that is YOUR problem.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
in other words, WHO CARES?
You don't get a pop-up window when you put your CD into your car player that asks you to agree to the terms before you can play it.
The grandparent is correct. The great-grandparent and you are wrong. It's a copyright issue, there is no contract.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
This is a VERY SIMPLE CONTRACTUAL ISSUE.
If that were true, then the RIAA could only sue people who had bought the music and were distributing it. But lots of people distribute music they never bought.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
Well, let me first say that I'm glad I'm living in Canada where it for the time being, downloading music is legal.
/., there's a large percentage of people who will use excuses such as "well, the RIAA is stealing from the artists" ... well, maybe there are, but ...
... and everthing doesn't run around the linux business model.
But for you unfortunate ones south of the border, the law is the law, and just because you don't agree with it, doesn't make it legal.
I know that here on
1) These artists signed the contracts, without a gun to their head
2) If the RIAA is "stealing" from the artists, how does stealing from the RIAA make it better? You're basically reducing the little amount of money that the artist should have gotten.
And yes, I personally think that the greatest form of advertisement is word of mouth, and what better way to do so than p2p and filesharing? But once again, for the time being, the law is the law
I don't buy it, I download it for free so I don't agree the contract. =)
OK, I'll bite. Post the text of this contract on U.S.-sold CDs, along with your legal justification of how one comes to be bound by this alleged contract by purchasing an object at retail.
because they use computers running Windows to track the file traders.
Hope that helps!
If they lost ALL their customers, they would go straight to congress with some fabricated numbers and force a way back into our pocket books... somehow. Much as they do with taxes on music CDr's..
Perhaps a national 'pirate tax', beacuse you know, EVERYONE is doing it, right? Bah.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
if it is so simple than why is it such a big problem?
apparently, the issue is not as simple as you think it is
i will leave it to your boundless imagination to suppose why the issue of aggressive ip law hurts the society it was originally intended to protect
nothing pseudo-legal or pseudo-Socialist about it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Since suing people is too slow (not one of these cases has actually gone to court yet), the RIAA and MPAA are now having people murdered.
4 06 19/ap_on_re_us/police_shooting_piracy_3
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/200
What a country!
What about WIFI connections? Could you blame this stuff on a leacher that was accessing your router without your knowledge?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
sign the check as "John Doe" and let them try to cash it.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I would assume that if the RIAA did host their own files that it would be considered entrapment. At least I know I've read cases where the police have left unlocked cars out, waiting for people to steal them, and it's been thrown out for that reason. Then again, is there such a thing as entrapment in a civil suit?
The only contract involved when buying a CD is the contract for sale. There is something called "Fair use" which is guaranteed by US copyright law that allows the holders of a legitimate copy of a work to make backup copies, etc. The same law also prohibits unauthorized distribution of a copyrighted work.
What?
EFF's database of IP addresses and KaZaA usernames being sued by the RIAA
Also renting it is an option.
I don't see people complaining that blockbuster is 'stealing' all kinds of revenue because they rent out copies.
"Some people are not going to stop infringing copyright until it actually affects their lives in a negative fashion."
Governments are not going to change stupid copyright laws until they essentially make every citizen a criminal.
If the law said the speed limit was 10 MPH, would you listen to it? I know I wouldn't.
Not one of the CDs in my collection have my signature on them or of store clerks or legal representatives of any company. (One has Ben Folds... but that's on the case not the CD.) Nor did they even have a "shrinkwrap" license on them. What if I pocket the CD from the store? Or break into some poor sap's car? Is there a "contract" then?
Cant right'ly be held accountable for a contract when none was signed now eh? Your point of view does not make any sense.
If I download the music, there is not even a physical CD they can put fine print on.
By buying the music, I own it. It is however, a civil copyright violation to do certain things with it like make a bunch of copies and pass them out.
According to you its a contractual issue, according to others its "stealing". Bah. Make up your damn minds you dittoheads.
In all what you call it makes little difference to me. I have a small network of friends and pals; we share porn, warez, music via sneakernet or private web sites. Those with specific interests allow others to browse the stuff they have collected. Public P2P is too much of a PITA, when I can make a few emails and get an album I want at the bitrate I want in a day or two it's not worth using anymore.
People are not going to stop buying RIAA-controlled music
People are not going to be driven away en masse by these lawsuits.
If you want to find a solution, you cannot worry about what should be - you need to work with the hand you have been dealt, and come up with workarounds and new ideas to get around problems.
I would equate thinking that one day people will stop buying RIAA music to the idea many people have that as soon as we leave Iraq our problems will be solved...because neither idea is grounded in reality. It is way more complicated, and there is NO easy solution.
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
The link wasn't working(space between 6 and 1), and many people won't read it since it's copy and paste ;)
RIAA Agents Murder Unarmed Man
If you are a poor college student and can't afford to pay for music, you can try pulling off the moment your partner comes.
It seems to me that the best solution for everybody would be if the RIAA companies (and whoever else makes records) created their own P2P network and gave free, anonymous access to their entire colective catalogs at reduced resolution, i.e. good enough to hear what something sounds like, but not so good as to make buying the tracks irrelevant.
Something like 24 bit, 12kHz mono. They could even put a filesize limit on the whole system of 1Mb, or whatever.
You could download, listen to and trade whatever you want, but it would sound like AM radio. If you like it, you'll have a reason to buy, and the whole 'I can't hear it anywhere else' argument disappears.
I'd be satisfied.
What about Direct Connect? Will they go after individual users, or those of us who run hubs? That network's pretty big; maybe they'll just ignore it.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
...for the umpteenth time, when are they going to realize that the music from a CD and the music from an MP3 are *not the same thing*? Why hasn't anybody made this argument in court? For that matter, why don't they just say they taped the songs off the radio (which is perfectly legal) and made MP3's of them? This whole thing is just ludicrous...
They will never stop until somebody makes the
Pimples, zits and blemishes galore. Heres the article. The Sun
That's right. All your base.
Maybe this has been answered before, but nothing in the 3+ modded questions even alludes to it.
What the hell is the point in filing 482 John Doe lawsuits? Or 3000+ for that matter?
I mean, ignoring the usual debate over whether or not they should be filing any lawsuits, and just assuming they're in the right, why the hell are they doing it this way? Isn't there precendent to say that the RIAA can't force ISPs to reveal the name of the person behind a given IP address? How do you extract money from a 32-bit number? How do you instill fear in a 32-bit number? Am I missing something?
Clueless
That's way too intellegent an idea to be put into practice... go back to school until you learn to think like the rest of us.
Well Mr. Marks businesses do bad, you can't always have profit. Usually this brings about a change in strategy, some people might say that the strategy of sueing everyone that buys your product wouldn't be a sucessful strategy.
redvsblue.com
::BANG!::
Sarge: Did you just shoot yourself in the foot?
Simmons: Yeah I do that sometimes now..
This is a VERY SIMPLE CONTRACTUAL ISSUE. If you don't agree to the contract, don't buy the music. Are you sure there is a contract involved? It has been a while since I purchased a cd, but I certainly don't remember signing a contract, or even seeing a EULA. When I purchase things, they become mine to do with as I see fit. If I want to make a copy of some dinner plates that I bought and give them to my mother for instance, is that also illegal in your world? If it's not, then why can't I do the same with music? If you are not selling the copies, I don't see how they have a leg to stand on in court. According to the law as it stands today, copying music is CERTAINLY not stealing, and it's only copyright infringement if you are doing it for profit.
The RIAA suing users who are distributing clearly illegal copies of music, or the RIAA suing p2p services which could be used for legitimate purposes?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Most people who are 'just downloaders' don't realize they're sharing at the same time. Is there any P2P software that doesn't install with this default? And IPs are typically visible in both directions.
This is a simple contractual issue. By buying the music you agree to the terms. If you violate those terms, they sue you for damages. It's that simple.
Please do not respond to this post with pseudo-legal or pseudo-Socialist rants. This is a VERY SIMPLE CONTRACTUAL ISSUE. If you don't agree to the contract, don't buy the music.
If it's a contractual issue, why are they suing for unlicensed distribution? The people they are suing didn't necessarily obtain the song from their personal bought CD. It's not a contractual issue, it's a copyright issue.
Anyway, I quit buying the music a long time ago. Happy?
Ok then, call me stupid, but... Where can this contract be found that I'm agreeing to? Am I not allowed to read it first?
It's not stealing, it's copying. I do not deprive anyone of anything they possess when I make my own copy. I am not using force or fraud on the "copyright owner"; indeed, I am not dealing with that person at all. There cannot be a crime without a victim.
If you claim copying is somehow immoral, then you, sir, are a corporate shill. Please tell me which of the world's great moral codes prohibits copying. Is it in the Bible? No. The Koran? No. The Talmud? The Apocrypha? The Book of Mormon? The Hindu Vedic? The Buddha's teachings? The beliefs of the American Indian tribes? The writings of Zoroaster? You can't find such a prohibition, because it doesn't exist. All culture and science is based on copying. Anyone who tells me I can't copy can go to the devil.
By the way, this argument was paraphrased from a previous Slashdotter's post.
It's illegal because it's illegal. Unless it's legal, in which case it IS justified, right? Right?
Don't want it shoved down your throat, huh? Let me guess which orfice you prefer.
See, the thing is, this isn't about copyrights so much as it is about propping up an out-moded business model and maintaining a stranglehold on the music business. Look at the media landscape. Who is in control? Something like 5 companies?
Be careful wishing legal problems on others. You might be the recepient of some karma of the non-/. variety.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Local TV news says 213 of the suits are against folks here in St Louis, Missouri. Looks like Washington DC file swappers are also a major target of this round.
Read about it here.
Those who can do. Those who can't sue.
What contract? There wasn't a copy of any contract in any of my CDs, or posted in the music store. When I put them in the player there wasn't even a "click here to accept our licensing terms" window. What are the terms of this contract, anyway?
While we're on the subject of VERY SIMPLE CONTRACTUAL ISSUES, there's a very simple contractual legal term for any contract that one of the parties has not read and explicitly agreed to: "null and void".
0 1 - just my two bits
I find it funny that this was modded "-1, Troll", because another user got "2, Interesting" for posting the exact same thing about spammers yesterday.
OK, analogy #2 -- MegaCinemaCorp has you and your friends
/steal/ anything. I wouldn't have paid for a
/sampling/ it. Yeah, that's it, I just
arrested for sneaking into the movies without paying, aka
'theater-sharing'.
"But, but, I was just copying the movie onto my eyeballs.
I didn't
ticket anyway, so it's not like you lost a sale..."
"I was, uhhh,
wanted to see if it was worth it before I paid the
full ticket price."
"Yeah, and I already saw the movie yesterday, so I should
be allowed a couple of 'backup' viewings, in case maybe
I missed any good scenes when I ran to the john."
"And I snuck in for free because you're a big evil greedy
corporation that charge too much for popcorn and exploit
your minimum-wage help! Take that, Capitalist Pigs!"
[ Any other standard pro-theatersharing arguments
I've failed to satirize? ]
>;k
He's already in a coma with no friends or relatives to identify him and now they're gonna sue him??
*DrugCheese rants*
I was reading their (the RIAA) method for finding people to sue, and I thought up something. What would stop a person from taking their own copywritten material and posting it under the name of many, many RIAA artists? That way, when the RIAA downloads your song and sues you for copywrite infringement, you ask them 1) why they copied over a p2p network (bring up something about hypocrosy) and 2) why they have your copywrited material. Then just sue for all its worth. I think that might change their method. Sounds like a get rich plan to me, now... I just need to find the bandwidth...
The media just latches on to "downloading music" for some reason--either as scare tactics, pressure from the RIAA to spin it this way, whatever.
You forgot the simplest of explanations: Plain, utter, boundless stupidity. Do you know why killing a critical investigative journalist is punished much more severly than regular murder? Because they're on the list of endangered species.
I love C++
so it's more risky to use BitTorrent to pirate? and all this time I thought it was the holy grail...
I pwn this comment. "The Fine Print" says so.
With all that money they must be making, I know I'd be downloading if it meant I got to stay in one of their lawsuites!
The Harvard Business Review ran an article recently claiming that illegal downloads aren't hurting the music industry's bottom line. In fact is supposes that it may help, from an economic sense. I submitted as an article but alas rejection :)
Music Downloads: Pirates--or Customers?
Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and co-author Koleman Strumpf floored the disbelieving music industry with their findings that illegal music downloads don't hurt CD sales. Oberholzer discusses what the industry should do next.
Poor Will, always getting fired at...
Here are some ways i thought of getting off of getting in trouble.
1. i read somewhere that if you advertise the song before the song, then it is legal. Such as "this is britney spears with toxic..." or soemthing like that.
2. As stated somewhere else make your own song and rename it to a more popular title, more specifically the song you got caught with uploading. And say that they hacked into your hard drive and stole your personal song.
3. Get a wireless router and backup all the mp3's on your computer to disk when you get the letter in the mail and wipe your HD of mp3's and mp3 programs and say that someone hacked your network and they did it.
4.Say the file were fake files. and you were using the fake mp3's to fake the p2p program to think you had more files to share so that you could use the netowrk to DL legit stuff.
5. I had another one, but i forgot.
It just seems like too many loopholes for them to actully be able to convict someone.
--- Sig test. 1...2...3...
This may seem like a stupid question, but how in the hell do you sue someone who's name you don't even know?
I'm sure they'll be rounding up John Chimpo and Artie the Alligator for questioning in these John Doe cases.
See Sig! See Sig Zig! Zig Sig Zig!!!!!
I may just be tired, but why can't those who are being sued claim that the music they were offering for upload was initially downloaded by them under the assumption that it was available (legally) for free? Why is it presumed that the accused should know that the songs offered for download on their P2P software are being offered illegally?
I would love to see someone argue that they had no idea who Britney Spears was and assumed they wanted their music to spread widely and so had allowed it to be distributed.
Check out my latest "resampling" effort: bradonna.
Test 1 2 3 4
As usual people afraid of the law are screwed by big corps with huge legal dept.
5 .s tm
If I run an open WiFi (as it comes in the box from the store) I am not negligent, nor responsible for what others download over the connection.
Also, if I run a windows PC there are a million ways it can be taken over and turned into a "zombie" -- again, I am neither negligent, nor responsible for what happens.
Here is just one example:
Julian Green, 45, was cleared in court earlier this month of 13 charges after pleading not guilty to making indecent images, claiming a computer virus was responsible.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/311481
If some folks can stand up to the ack acks and hire good lawyers, some precident could be set and make this go away.
Just claim that you had wifi at your house (buy one now if you dont have it) and had it setup OPEN because you found it easier to connect to at home using your laptop or pda. You turned of enc/passwd, and that you are clueless on security, and that someone else in the building/street must have used your connection without knowing. Bingo your free.
phuck em.
They arent above the law, they cant search your home and computer, so fake the logs and stuff, they have no leg to stand on.
(Ohh, and backup all your mp3s on a removable 120gig HD and hide it in your cerial box or bird cage)
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"No, the US policy that each side pays their own court fees is a very nice one that ensures fewer nuisance cases"
What the hell are you talking about. If I have the bucks (or am a lawyer) I can go around suing willy nilly and I know it will cost *you* since loser does not pay. Am I right, am i wrong, is the case worthy? - It doesnt matter you are still $50,000 in the hole.
With loser pays I better be fucking sure its worth it to sue you or i'm going to be paying my fees and *yours*. Lawsuits go *DOWN* in frequency with loser or suer pays.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
Today I was thinking of buying a music CD.
Just changed my mind.
Maybe the industry just needs better music... stuff that people would be PROUD to buy. Perhaps the real crime is liking the crap that's polluting FM frequencies.
you still don't have the right to let others upload it from your shared folder.. That is why it's more valuable to have a wireless ethernet hub: RIAA: "We are suing you because their was piracy at this IP address" Me: "Well, currently 4 known people use that IP address and we have a wireless hub.. so perhaps someone was breaking in, I'm not too good with security so it's quite possible, as this security expert I know will testify to." Jury: "We've been shown that the defense had a reasonable expectation that his network would have been secure yet was in fact not secure. Thus we rule against the lawsuit" RIAA: "D'oh!"
Everyone who got sued by the RIAA took them to trial. You could represent yourself. There would be no way they could take everyone to trial without bankrupting themselves and slowing the entire legal system. I could see courts taking years and years to resolve these suits.
My major problem with all of this litigation is that the one filing is banking on the fact that people do not take them to trial. If that is not the definition of a frivolous lawsuit, my dictionary is wrong.
This wont work on any serious scale because the people who are interested in doing it are just the ones who will have tons of illegal downloads sitting around on their harddrives.
It is much like escaping from prison and then provoking a police officer to arrest you unlawfully.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
No, it's not.
A contract is a specific legal term. It is not a license or an agreement or anything else of the sort that might be slapped on the back of a CD.
If you haven't signed anything, you aren't involved in a contract.
May we never see th
The issue is not free music, it is the method of shopping. For a while I was happily shelling out my monthly fee to e-music. They supported the type of shopping I wanted to do. I want to go, download a bunch of stuff that I could potentially hate and listen to it. Hopefully I will find a few golden eggs. Every month they got my check (credit card actually, but who is counting?). Then they decided to go to a more 'regular' installment where you have to buy x number of songs at x price, completely missing the fucking point as to why people would pick e-music over any other service.
Look, all that I want is to be able to explore new music. I want to do it simply and easily. I don't want to dick around and spend my time searching for it. Nothing under the sun is going to make me buy a horde of CDs hoping that some of them don't suck. Nothing is going to make me go out and research which bands suck and don't suck before I buy them. I honestly don't care enough to waste my time doing this. I'll happily shell out my money for the right to explore someone's database of music. I'll shell it out every single month. Hell, I do it already for movies. I couldn't be happier with NetFlix.com - care free exploration of movies at a flat rate. They get my 20 a month instead of blockbuster now because they realized that I am a different type of shopper. I used to pirate movies all of the time, until I found NetFlix.
Until these idiots listen to the market, it will be NetFlix for movies and my P2P of choice for music. The first company to satisfy my music buying style gets my cash. NetFlix won my movie dollars, now hopefully some idiot will win my music dollars. They can sue their asses off. I break the law all the time; I speed, I smoke the evil herb occasionally, I drank under 21 (when I was still under 21), and I merrily pirate music. It is just another calculated risk. Most people violate the law reguarly knowing a potential risk involved with doing it. The RIAA will never win this game. Only growing the balls to compete in the market is going to win me back.
These manufactured female pop stars are cynical marketting devices designed to exploit male sexuality, just in the same way that boy bands are specifically designed to exploit female sexuality. They do a very good job of parting young people, the hard of thinking and trendies of their money. From a purely business point of view, they are astoundingly successful.
Stick Men
Iam not in US. So i will increase my sharing to make up for the loss of "necessary" music files. RIAA ! Sue me if you can !
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
It's not theft, it's copyright infringement.
They will accidently sue someone who has the money to hire a lawyer to fight them.
It's like a lottery. Now that they can't get the names before they sue, they have no idea who's "lottery number" they are picking.
I suspect that it would be difficult to get a jury to rule against a kid and for a (multiple) convicted monopolistic market price fixer.
There is also question of standing. The RIAA is a nonprofit trade organization (it's actually an illegal monopoly cartel but Congress and the President don't have the stones to take them out).
The RIAA DOES NOT OWN A SINGLE COPYRIGHT, the 5 record labels that make up the RIAA do.
Unless the copyrights are assigned to the RIAA, I wonder if they truly have any legal standing to file these lawsuits. We'll never know, because the RIAA has yet to allow any of them to go to trial.
Thanks to the fact that our Congress has passed penalties into law that makes losing such a suit tantamount to subjecting your next 7 generations to bankruptcy, there is little incentive (or likelyhood) for someone to fight them. This means that bad laws don't get challenged.
Indeed, however, I believe that the RIAA would likely NOT prevail in a jury trial. If someone insisted on one, it's likely they'd drop the suit or use their money to delay delay delay for years.
Corporatism != Free Market
Since the RIAA seems to be willing to settle for pennies on the dollar, perhaps Congress needs to change the per-incident fine for copyright infringement to match.
To keep it this way is to deny individuals access to the courts.
Corporatism != Free Market
"What if you already own the CD? Isn't that just fair use?"
Being in posession of MP3 copies of music you have licensed copies of is covered by fair use, regardless of the source of those copies. So you are not breaking the law in that regard (although since you are not married, which means common property does not apply, and you are not your girlfriend, your girlfriend is not covered by fair use for music YOU own the license for, so technically your girlfriend is breaking the law, not you).
To put it simply, it is illegal to distribute music and illegal to posess copies music for which you do not own licensed, legal copies. So, no, rebuilding your MP3 collection from P2P services is not illegal (for you, but people offering files for download are engaged in unauthorized distribution), but putting them onto a player for your gf probably is (weird, huh?).
The rule of thumb is: For music YOU have bought, YOU are entitled to have copies for YOUR personal use; as soon as someone other than YOU enters the picture, it is no longer personal use. It really is very simple to grasp.
"If you haven't signed anything, you aren't involved in a contract."
Wrong! There are implied contracts, which accompany every retail sale and are the basis of most consumer protection legislation, and verbal contracts which are enforcable, to name but two types of contract that involve no signatures.
If you haven't signed anything, it just changes the rules of proof. But "contract" has a much wider definition than just "agreement on paper accompanied by signatures of involved parties".
...between the RIAA (don't share music with friends & family), shift-key-bypassing DRM (don't rip our CD-ROMs so you can play them on Linux), and SCO (you can't use Linux, it's illegal), what's a tech-oriented consumer audiophile to do?
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I had high hopes, but that CD is a big big disappointment.
"Slither" is okay, but when that's the high point of an album.
I guess ultimately, I found the CD insulting, because it basically says "Hey, STP, G&R!, buy this!", and then it sucks.
No wonder the RIAA members don't want people to download. You listen to that album one time, and you're kinda done with it.
" But, we need to support this legal action. "
Why? What will this get me as a person? How will this make a better society?
INAL, but, it seems to me that they'd have a difficult case proving anything against a BitTorrent client - say a file is in 1000 blocks and they downloaded block 7, 145 and 927 from you... a little difficult to make the case that distributed a copyrighted work. Although this may be reaching a bit, I believe that you can publish excerpts from a copyrighted work under certain conditions.
Bill Cosby spoke recently on the Tavis Smiley show on etv, and he made the insightful comment that the price of a stolen Coke is one life (referring to an incident where a kid apparently got shot by a policeman as he ran off with a stolen soda). Real life's not always about fair. The practical cost of breaking the law is often much higher than what anyone would reasonably apply as a punishment.
...
Here's some content from the link:
Private investigators hired by movie and recording industry groups had helped link a space in the warehouse to an alleged criminal operation pirating DVDs and compact discs. They were there when the officers moved in.
The circumstances of the May 22, 2003, shooting remain murky. According to his lawyer, Conroy told a grand jury that Zongo refused his orders to halt, struggled with him and tried to grab his gun.
These people weren't just grabbing a few files from Limewire nor even serving up huge stashes of copyrighted material from their home box or over IRC, they were making pirated DVDs. Obviously nobody wishes them the harm that came to them (I hope!), but there are practical risks to any illegal behavior.
As I think Cosby was pointing out, don't stop holding the police accountable for their actions (or the XXAA to a reasonable level of fairness), but sure as heck don't practice illegal behavior either. It's simply not worth it.
(The counterpoint, of course, is that if you avoided all potentially dangerous activity, very few of us would leave the house. But I think the point's well-taken and useful. Illegal activities have consequences which are often much greater than what is even arguably fair. Stop making illegal DVDs in your garage, dang it!)
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
alleged until verified, but "as good as" verified by hashes.
I suspect they are using filehashes from verified files to identify genuine files as seen used here in Europe to hunt childporn where the police have a "filehash-database" of pics that alerts their modified p2pclient automagically. The need to verify content from identified hashes is not really needed.
Here's a song by NoFX that I think you guys might enjoy (I highly recommend them if you are looking for a punk band that isn't being run by the RIAA)
Dinosaurs will die - NoFX
Kick back watch it crumble
See the drowning, watch the fall
I feel just terrible about it
That's sarcasm, let it burn
I'm gonna make a toast when it falls apart
I'm gonna raise my glass above my heart
Then someone shouts "That's what they get!"
For all the years of hit and run
For all the piss broke bands on VH1
Where did all, their money go?
Don't we all know
Parasitic music industry
As it destroys itself
We'll show them how it's supposed to be
Music's written from devotion
Not ambition, not for fame
Zero people are exploited
There are no tricks, up our sleeve
Gonna fight against the mass appeal
We're gonna kill the 7 record deal
Make records that have more than one good song
The dinosaurs will slowly die
And I do believe no one will cry
I'm just fucking glad I'm gonna be
There to watch the fall
Prehistoric music industry
Three feet in la brea tar
Extinction never felt so good
If you think anyone would feel badly
You are sadly, mistaken
The time has come for evolution
Fuck collusion, kill the five
Whatever happened to the handshake?
Whatever happened to deals no-one would break?
What happened to integrity?
It's still there it always was
For playing music just because
A million reason why
All dinosaurs will die
All dinosaurs will die
All dinosaurs will die
What if you already own the CD? Isn't that just fair use?
The RIAA is going after file sharers, not file leechers.
Downloading an MP3 of a song you already own on CD may be considered fair use (MAY be; I'm not aware of any court precedent regarding those specific circumstances, and IANAL anyway). Making an MP3 of a song available for replication to an unknown number of unknown people very clearly is NOT fair use.
Not surprisingly, the ratio in Washington DC (where I am currently residing) is much higher. 41K resident (doesn't count commuters, and there are many commuters from VA and MD) lawyers in a population of 571K. That's more like 1 in 14 is a lawyer (but really it's worse than that because of the commuters). And that, my friend, probably explains the level of litigation in this country.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Or does that fuck up your 'analogy' too much?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
The RIAA actually grew a heart and let people download the music unitl their hearts content. I mean sure record sales would probably remain intact, for the most part at least. Sure that over paid record exec whose ass is wider than a Wide Trak Pontiac Grand Prix would have to find another job, but hey even leeches, and vampire bats won't suck a host dry. These record execs need to get some kind of marketable skill. I'm sure that some rich person somewhere needs to hire an overpaod ass kisser. To the RIA I say kiss my ass. I won't stop downloading music. You can sue all the people you want, but you won't catch me! If you by some miracle stop P2P, big deal. You stopped Napster and three other P2P stepped into it's place. You gonna stop FTP servers too? God knows I have grabbed more than one cd title from an FTP server. What about radio? I have an audio tuner in my pc, I can also record from it and burn cd's, you gonna shut down the airwaves? Get a clue guys. Going after users that download music is retarded at best. You should join the wagon and start your own P2P service and charge people a flat fee to download and still charge companies to advertise through your network. This could also boost your record sales. I could see it now, I hop on to grab the latest whatever the hell is out on the radio now, and spot an ad asking me if I want to buy this cd online. You make money from the fee I pay to be able to download legally, you make money from the advertisers, and you make money from online record sales. It's win, win. Get with the program fellas. Stich up those deep pockets to make em a little shallower, and you won't have to spend more money per year sueing John Q. for pennies, when you stand to make more supporting the movement.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
C'mon the RIAA is at it's witt's end trying all the loops, bells, and whistles to nab this mp3-a-holics. How pathetic! F*** YOU RIAA! You should have been with the times and seen this coming. Mp3's (and their exchange over the net) did not drop in your laps overnight, they have been here for quite some time, and you were just not ready for all of this. Now you hope in a last ditch effort that sueing the pants off poor college students will work as a scare tatic. I frankly disagree. Oh yeah, IMHO.
but if the court summons 'john doe' at an address, then if 'john doe' does not appear at court; then the judge can issue a bench warrent for 'john doe'?
if the riaa has 485 such warrents for 'john doe', then the legal system is being flooded with law suits for people that no one knows of. and the issue before the court is that 'john doe' was listening to music.
the riaa says, 'we will sue', and means it.
for me, a lawyer is not a lawyer, but just as guilty as the 'bad guy' when the statement, 'win at any cost' has value.
Please do not respond to this post with pseudo-legal or pseudo-Socialist rants. This is a VERY SIMPLE CONTRACTUAL ISSUE. If you don't agree to the contract, don't buy the music.
The only contract you agree to when buying a CD, is a sales contract with your music store regarding the CD as a physical medium. Maybe you should get a clue about copyright and contractual law before calling other people names?
I love C++
Heil to the music industry! Kill all the jews and all filesharers!
Could this soon be the end of the ligitious RIAA? Probably not, but it's great to know that smart people are taking the issue to heart and producing thought provoking studies.
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
A specific demographic or target audience? What I seem to notice is, the RIAA only seeks to protect big-name artists or other Top 40 pop-garbage. A lot of the fake files are labled as popular artists. Does this mean that others are safe if they don't listen to popular stuff? I think so, at least in the realm of underground artists and electronic music. I mean, just how many artists are covered under the RIAA?
n/t
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I have been a Frank Zappa fan for a long time. On the album liner notes for the CD album "Joe's Garage Acts I, II and III"(1995 Zappa Family Trust) Zappa wrote:
"Eventually it was discovered that God did not want us to be all the same. This was bad news for the Government of the World as it seemed contrary to the doctrine of 'Portion Controlled Servings.'
Mankind must be made more uniformly if The Future was going to work.
Various ways were sought to bind us all together, but alas, sameness was unenforceable.
It was about this time that someone came up with the idea of Total Criminalization.
Based on the principle that if we were ALL crooks we could at least be uniform to some degree in the eyes of the law.
Shrewdly our legislators calculated that most people were too lazy to perform a real crime. So new laws were manufactured making it possible for anyone to violate them any time of the day or night, and once we had all broken some kind of law we'd all be in the same big happy club right up there with the President, the most exalted industrialists and the clerical big shots of your favorite religions.
Total Criminalization was the greatest idea of its time and was vastly popular except with those people who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws.
So, of course, they had to be tricked into it...which is one of the reasons why music was eventually made illegal."
It is wonderful that Frank continues to bother evil people from beyond the grave.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
dose not matter what the parent topic is sooner or latter sco always come up!!