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RIAA Co-Opts More Universities
southpolesammy writes "The Register reports that six more US Universities and colleges have agreed to enter into protection schemes with the RIAA. In short, several institutions have signed deals with the RIAA's lapdog, the Napster music service, to 'goad these schools toward becoming music brokers'. The underlying threat of being sued by the RIAA if they don't pay them off is almost certainly the driving force behind their acceptance of this scheme. And of course, there's the ever-present gag order they'll probably enforce on these new universities as well. Great business model guys. Way to engender yourselves to your biggest customer base."
I'll do many things, but engendering myself with the RIAA is not one of them.
But I thought nobody would pay for something that they can get for free? How can they be a customer base?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
en*gen*der ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-jndr)
v. en*gen*dered, en*gen*der*ing, en*gen*ders
v. tr.
To bring into existence; give rise to: "Every cloud engenders not a storm" (Shakespeare).
To procreate; propagate.
v. intr.
To come into existence; originate.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
For fun trivia, Which "slash-and-burn" Sherman was more agressive... (A) --or-- (B)?
Sigs cause cancer.
Call me a troll if you want, but it's at least good to see the RIAA trying to have dealings with a college or university that aren't purely legal! Yes, I know that some will say that the institutions were pressured on pain of lawsuits, but has that been confirmed?
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
First off, let me make something crystal clear up-front. I in no way condone the way that the RIAA
has tried to unethically shape our legal landscape, much less the shadier tactics they've employed.
They're scum, no question about it.
However, the other side of the equation is almost pathological. While you have many honest people who simply want to defend their Fair Use rights, you also have a loud, vocal "I want I want I want" community who simply believes that it is eeeee-vil that they should ever have to pay for goods (cds) or services.
there has to be some sort of compromise between the two, and I honestly think this is a first, halting step in the right direction. I don't think much of napster, but I believe that if a university sponsored the use of a service such as Real's Rhapsody service which allowed unlimited streaming (as opposed to a mandatory $X a song) of music, it would be a good compromise between the two posistions. People would have access to a large library of music, and the artists would be recieving compensation.
Hell, if nothing else, the sponsorship of such a program may well help to diminish any credible claims that the RIAA has to push through bizarre and draconian laws.
Sounds like mafia tactics to me.
"Pay up, and we'll make sure no unfortunate accidents happen to you..."
Perhaps the university officials received threats of being SNIPPED and GUNNED down...
Shades of Grayden
Oh Canada!
Six more US Universities and colleges have announced another round of tuition increases. Hope you're saving for your child's education, ....even if you don't have a child yet.
From the article: "If Napster would be more forthcoming, we'd all know exactly how much this "service" is going to affect university prices.
Great, tuition at places like Cornell wasn't high enough. Now they're going to charge MORE because I'll get to download music without being sued? Sign me up twice!
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
I never realised that university bureaucracy was their biggest customer base -- if you're arguing that it's bad from the average student's perspective, it isn't really such a bad thing.
From the perspective of anyone in the CS/Engineering/Communications/Law departments of course, it is. But then, because of the gag order, the universities can't discuss it, which kind of makes it hard to argue with them.
..Can't the RIAA, MPAA, and everyone else just realize that there is an efficient medium for distributing music, movies, and any other digital/converted to digital media, and WORK WITH IT? They're barking up a dying tree here. People will find better, more secure ways to transfer music/movies over the net, these associations need to embrace these technological advances and come up with an updated business model for them to profit off of.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I remember another university that tried to have students pay a mandatory "MP3 Fee" with their tuition for access to Napster because they figured that they'd download music anyway. Needless to say, that wasn't very popular with the students there.
I sure hope these universities don't follow suit.
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
is if the RIAA would give students a choice in the matter, instead of forcing Napster down their throats(who knows, maybe someone up there really loves irony) ie you could give me:
a) a reduced Napster subscription price
b) a reduced price on iTunes songs or
c) a free "I None of these would have to be paid for from univerisity funds(I'm from Penn State, I still wonder where our mysterious funding comes from), it would give the users a choice, and the RIAA could still make boatloads of money.
Gah, people who think they have some sort of inate right to music piss me off, but not nearly as much as the RIAA....
Sure would hate to see anything happen to it!
RIAA just hit their highest sales, despite these mobster tactics.
lying bastards.
Why on earth would universities would never be doing this, were it not for that they are being blackmailed. Supplying their students with music is not supposed to be what their money goes to. Blackmail is illegal, is it not? Seems to be what the RIAA is doing here.
Everyone needs to stop bending over to the RIAA. Honestly, I think a vast majority of the people that download music do it for convienence. Even at the ridicoulus prices they charge, if they had simply adopted a scheme of using the internet to sell their product instead of trying to stop the internet from being involved, they would be doing well. DRM isn't really neccesary either, the people who are going to get it for free, are going to get it for free, one way or another. People have been swapping copies of music in real life forever, yet the industry still exists.
It's unfortunate that the current services, such as Apples music store, arent that great. They've got DRM, which is breakable, and doesnt bother me tooo much because the only place i want to play music is on my PC or perhaps in my car which currently requires burning it anyways, but also because they just don't have a great selection of music! Why can't they have stuff from the 60s, 70s and 80s, thats what really popular amongst me and my friends anyhow.
Take a hint, a business model based on lawsuits and blackmail is not a good one.
Students: What happen?
Universities: Somebody set up us the RIAA contract.
Universities: We just watch you.
Students: What!
Universities: Main screen turn on.
Students: It's You!!
RIAA: How are you thieving punks!!
RIAA: All your schools are belong to us.
RIAA: Your rights are on the way to destruction.
Students: What you say!!
RIAA: Your rights have no chance to survive make your time.
RIAA: HA HA HA HA!
RIAA: Your ass is mine
Students: You know what you doing.
RIAA: Landsharks, engage
Students: For great justice.
(Wonders how many time the same joke can be milked for.)
And while he'll be paying the costs of this, he certainly won't be getting any benefits from it, since he has a mac... which means, no napster...
I wonder exactly how much student outrage would have to happen before the universities break down and withdraw from the napstery thing...
I certainly would have thought more of CORNELL, of all places, at least...
The RIAA is preying on the lawsuit fears of universities in an attempt to gain a captive market of students that are forced to have Napster whether they want it or not.
Personally, I love streaming music. My stereo at home is connected to my PC, which is always connected to the net. On Rhapsody I can play nearly every album I've ever owned or wanted to listen to, for a flat monthly fee.
The best thing about unlimited streaming is that I can listen to albums which I would probably never buy, or even take the time to borrow or copy. When someone says 'hey, listen to this band' I can check them out right away, for no extra money.
In the beginning, the Napster fee was paid for by surplus at PSU IIRC (which I guess has to come from somewhere though), but at the rate these schools are signing on, it's only a matter of time before the Napster fee will be included in the tuition. As a recent grad, I would have been pissed if I had been forced to pay for Napster. However, while in college I worked for the Network and Telecom Services dept and as long as Universities show an attempt at regulating themselves (responding in a timely fashion to copyright violation requests) and have a policy that warns students of the illegality of downloading music, the RIAA has no room to sue. They can't sue your ISP if you DL music unless they are encouraging it, which I doubt any universities do.
Other music services should sue for anticompetitive behaviour, probably the source of the gag order on each contract.
your URL link to Sporks-R-Us is a dead giveaway. I suggest you change that to, say, Kuro5hin.org.
jesus christ, off topic but lmao
BURNED!
:)
Are you joking? Real? they are just as horrible! They got spyware in their players and they are just as bad as the RIAA.
Dealing with either Real (other than taking their shitty rm into something like mpg) or RIAA is just not cool.
The best thing to do when someone wants to blackmail you into an agreement, is to either:
A. Kill them (no more blackmail)
or B. Set them up for being taken down. Legal or otherwise.
This is starting to sound like the Microsoft model!
. . . that state universities and private, but tax-exempt, schools are able to keep these contracts secret?
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
"Great business model guys. Way to engender yourselves to your biggest customer base."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA it is actually a GREAT business model when NO ONE in the country other than a few liberal-do-nothing-singers and power-posting-high-karma-slashdotters are the only ones who seem to give a rats ass.
That may be a bit of a troll statement there, but honestly, I aksed my cousin (18) who just bought a Britney Spears Album what she thought - and she shrugged and said she didn't care. I asked my coworker who just bought an OutKast album (33) and she replied that she buys CD's all the time and thinks downloading music should be citationable. I asked my friend (24) who just downloaded Modest Mouse's album and he said "yeah that's fucked up shit man - want a hit?"
As a society we are allowing a select few old ass neophytes decide on the laws of our country and VERY FEW are actually doing ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
So unless YOU are gonna get OFF YOUR ASS, and do something other than POST on slashdot about how you hate the RIAA then STFU and STOP COMPLAINING.
Maybe the answer should be solved using that amendment we almost have taken away...you know...the RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS!
Ave Molech Setting
It's a terrific business model, what are you talking about? You think they don't understand that it's an implied threat? Why else would a university bite? Of course they know it's a threat, and they don't care if you think it's sleazy, what they do care about is how much of a threat the universities think it is. Damn right it's a threat, do you think anyone would pay them otherwise? It's a fine business model in a world where "business ethics" is not about "ethics" but what you can legally get away with.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
If a consortion of universities got together and fought this RIAA pressure would they be able to win? Remember the RIAA has never successfully prosecuted someone for offering music or providing network bandwidth unless this party had a commercial interest in the activity e.g. selling copies rather than sharing with friends (this is to the best of my knowledge). The black and white of the copyright laws say that the person making the copies is the one liable . . . wouldn't this be individual students? And not the university.
For example a public library is not liable for copyright infringement if someone photocopies a whole book on their photocopy machine. The person making the copies is the legally responsible party. This is exactly why photocopiers are now mostly self service in libraries (and even Kinkos). Because then the owner of the machine is not liable . . . wouldn't this work for universities? The owner of the machine (in this case the network) would not be liable for the actions of the people that used the machine (the individuals that are copying the music). Thus individual students would have to be prosecuted, not the university.
Assuming all this is true, I would hope that some university would stand up and fight the RIAA rather than rolling over and becoming the RIAA's B****.
2004-06-11 01:49:15 RIAA subpoenas Georgia Tech for student names
According to Georgia Tech's college paper, the Technique, nine Tech students are among the victims of the RIAA's last round of lawsuits. The RIAA has subpoenaed the Office of Information Technology (OIT) to release the identities of individuals who were using computers at specific network addresses identified as being the sources of large amounts of file sharing. Tech has indicated they intend to comply with the subpoenas. According to Randy Nordin, Tech's chief legal advisor, the RIAA has asked that he tell the students to contact their attorney to see if an out of court settlement can be reached. The deadline to comply was June 2. In the past, violation of the school's Computer and Network Usage Policy, would've resulted in disabling the student's Internet access until the student matter was sorted out with the OIT or the Dean of Student's office.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
" It's lucky for Napster that the RIAA picked it as a henchman. Students can now download as many songs as they like while enrolled at a university. This is a nice service if holding onto to your tunes is not important. Once their four years at school are over, the students are cut off from Napster and lose all the music they've download. That is unless they pay 99 cents per song or $10 per album to own a permanent download that can be burned onto CDs or MP3 players."
It seems to me that a lot of people won't settle for any thing less than free-as-in-beer music downloads. The article goes out of its way to vilify the RIIA and Napster.
Students get to download all they want and if they like a song enough to want to keep it permanently they pay less than a buck! I don't like the RIIA any better than anyone else but that's a good deal!
It seems to me that we keep talking about changing the way music is distributed but when a way is provided it just isn't good enough. Let's be fair. If this what the RIIA should do then what?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Can we please dub the new "Napster" as something else? This isn't the original / real napster, this is big biz cashing in on an old popular (and more respectable) name. At least call them "Napster II" or something. Let's not let them tarnish a once noble name.
This sig intentionally left blank.
I found the article blurb to be obnoxious as hell. How about just showing us the link, briefly saying (in a non-biased way) what it says, and then letting _us_ make the decision on how to view it?
Don't editorialize in the blurb. If you have a fucking editorial, submit it to your local paper. I care about the news, not your political views.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
You forgot the side that endlessly whines about the music industry. Folks, if you don't like the music industry, don't support it, but for fuck's sake, STOP WHINING ABOUT IT. This isn't "News for Music Buyers", and RIAA shit certainly is not "my rights online", or anyone else's.
I care about the fact that I'm unemployed, that my taxes are sky-high(I made below the poverty line a year or two ago, but because I was self-employed, the government wanted HALF of that) and currently funding a war I don't support. To be honest, I don't give a fucking rat's ass about the music industry, and I don't think anyone else here really does either, save the people who post "but if they just did THIS..." Like the rest of the media industry, slashdot greatly overstates the importance of the music industry. If some colleges are too stupid to sue the shit out of the RIAA for racketeering, I couldn't care less. Nevermind it's pure conjecture on both the part of the slash submitter and the register- which is why there hasn't been a lawsuit. Duh.
I had to double-check to see if the article wasn't really posted by Timothy, because it smacked of his boy-who-cried-wolf-about-our-rights-but-it-was-jus t-the-music-industry bullshit. Wake me up when there's a legitimate threat to my rights, or real technology news. Not teenage "I wanna swap music" teenage angst.
Please help metamoderate.
I find it ridiculous that the universities themselves are paying anything to the scumbags. How can anyone even consider the possibility that random schools have anything to do with their students actions, much less have legal responsibility for those actions? Even more amazing is the fact that the universities are making any kinds of contracts for the students. Back here in Europe, their purpose is to provide education, but I guess it's pretty much different in the US, where they are more of a kindergarten than a place of research and study.
Way to engender yourselves to your biggest customer base.
Appalling ignorance of the English language aside, what good are customers who steal your product? Forget them and market to their parents.
No doubt some latter day Robin Hood will soon explain that it isn't stealing, it is just taking without asking.
I wonder if they paid their fees to ASCAP and/or the copyright holders of the Doors' work.
Well, I'll have to look at it this way: Schools that I will never apply to or allow my kids to. Schools shouldn't be entering into such rediculous agreements, what does this teach the students...
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
So how long until someone writes a program to just save all the streamed music for burnination to CD or use in portables and laptops? Congratulations RIAA! That CD in Sally Student's SUV just net'ed you....I mean the artist....less than 1 cent!
Many universities have 50% student foreigners who have very little interest in american music offered by riaa. why should they pay tax.
Also what about non-riaa labels? now that students will feel it is their rights to download anything (not just napster), they will download songs from non-napster sites too (to play on iPod etc). this will open up university to more potential lawsuits.
The RIAA are no better than the Mafia.
Unfortunately, due to corrupt US senators, RIAA bullying tatics won't end soon - there will only be more laws to support the recording criminals.. especially when RIAA buy them.
Thank God I can download music for free... being in Canada (It is *legal* to download music here).
I'm an alumnus of one of the universities mentioned, and I'm writing up a letter to be sent to the President and Board of Trustees. It will express my disappointment in their capitulation to RIAA pressure and negligent misuse of funds, and let them know that as long as this deal is in place, the university will no longer be getting any alumni support from myself, and I will encourage my fellow alumni to do the same.
Napster has no legitimate educational purpose. They can go ahead and waste someone else's money (read: the current student body's) on this worthless and unjustifiable service, but I can make sure they will not be wasting my money on it.
One of the leaders before Fahrenheit 9-11 was for the Metallica moive. You know, the guys who sued their own fan base for music sharing.
I wonder if anyone else appreciated the wonderful irony of that.
I won't call you a troll, but you probably don't go to one of these schools.
:(
I do.
I don't want to have to pay ANOTHER fee in my tuition, just so that other students can be coerced into buying music. I don't listen to RIAA produced crap. I don't want to pay for it. But it sounds like I will have to.
I hear a lot of complaints about the tactics the RIAA is using (yes, they are very shady), but $3 isn't bad if that's what it really comes down to.
I know it is probably a violation of their TOS, but if $3 gets me access to a decent catalog, I am more than willing to do what it takes to convert the tracks I download into mp3 or whatever.
I can't imagine it will take that long for the community to figure out how to do that. I mean $36 is the cost of between 2 and 3 CDs.
-- yawn. --
As we all know, finding employment these days doesn't have anything to do with how smart you are or how much you like what you do, it all boils down to the interview, and how much bullshit you can dish out. It also has to do with how much cock you can take 'back there', and this is where an anopractor can help you.
What is an anopractor?
In 1897, BJ Buttfuck discovered that by stretching his anus before an interview, he was able to take three cocks more than before. Since this is a "man do man" world we live in, this immediately led to a promotion and a new horseless carriage. Modern anopractic was born.
The anopractor is a highly skilled professional that can take any anus and make it into an 'employment grade' anus. By manipulating the anus with his hands, the anopractor can make your anus fit a #4 Del Monte pineapple sideways, with the leaves still on!
Nothing beats a stretched anus for any interview situation. When your future employer sees your anus and thinks "What a cum bucket! He's hired!", you'll know that anopractic has helped YOU.
Anybody who has an inkling of interest in tinkering with the possibilities of alternative distribution of media should be thrilled like this. In a few months I'll be launching my first experiment in home-brew DIY music downloading and I'm so thrilled the RIAA will continue to give me regular opportunities to market it by reminding everyone just how stupid and corrupt the current "market" is.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Nice, our Universities are volunteering to become kiosks for dealing in shitty music.
So I guess the next step is to have class presentations be preceeded by an RIAA commercial?
Maybe a pre-requisite to any degree will be "Music Consumer 101". The class lab fee could be $18.99 and their pick of a CD by any artist the RIAA couldn't dump on Washington State libraries as payment for the price-fixing scam.
It's funny when people say the RIAA is insulting their "customer base." People who illegally pirate copyrighted materials aren't customers.
And it's silly that the article summary tries to paint this as evil. It's supposed to be bad that the RIAA is trying to offer a legal alternative (you know, the "new business model" we hear being postulated here all the time) and give the university a way out of being sued for illegal activities. If the RIAA went ahead and sued, they'd also be criticized. Obviously the only thing that would make the submitter happy is if the RIAA sat by and did nothing while college students illegally downloaded their materials. Pirating music without paying for it is bad, right? I guess I was raised with a different set of morals--one that lacked a neverending sense of entitlement.
If you threaten to ' not protect ' someone if they don't pay up, there is no question its illegal.
If you threaten to sue for an illegal act you believe the other party is committing against you unless they agree to get a contract that makes the act legal, I doubt you can legally call that racketeering.. or protection money. It would be called 'giving them a chance to legalize' and would look good in court.. ' see we tried '...
Not that I'm a lawyer or a judge, but logically this is how I would view it being a jury member..
They are still slime however....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
..Can't the RIAA, MPAA, and everyone else just realize that there is an efficient medium for distributing music, movies, and any other digital/converted to digital media, and WORK WITH IT?
You mean P2P? Like Napster?
People will find better, more secure ways to transfer music/movies over the net, these associations need to embrace these technological advances and come up with an updated business model for them to profit off of.
Ah, the "new business model" argument. Isn't that what Napster's pay-for-P2P service is? Isn't that what iTunes is? The days of claiming the record labels aren't embracing these technologies is over. They are. It's the pirates who aren't embracing these technologies.
im trying to get a strike and you keep interupting!!, didnt you know school was a theme park
I am a student at Wright State and saw a large Napster banner at one of the printing stations today. Since I am paying for this, I am torn between free music, and how morally wrong it is.
But my question is can I just download from Napster then convert into Ogg's or mp3's? I know Microsoft has their nifty DRM and I know I can burn to cd then rip off the cd, but then I waste a cd.
Get real. They have the right to protect the copyrighted materials that they own. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who understands this. They're even offering a legal alternative to avoid suing the university. That sounds like a good deal to me.
But what do I know. I don't have blind, unending hatred for companies that end in *AA simply because they dare go after individual pirates--which is exactly what people here on Slashdot were saying the *AA companies should do during the Napster lawsuit. It's funny how viewpoints can suddenly change when it comes to protecting a free ride that freeloaders get used to and get bitter over when it's taken away.
I wish the article revealed the source of the funds. Many campuses collect a "technology fee" in addition the more general tuition and whatnot. A subset of those univerities actually put a student committee in charge of spending that money.
I suspect that many of those committees would be inclined to spend some of the money to make unlimited music a supported technology. After all, the campus has already collected it. Imagine a handful of 20-year-olds sitting on a pot of a few hundred thousand dollars and deciding between a bulk purchase of Microsoft licenses and unlimited music. Who thinks they are going to go for unlimited copies of Office?
I read in Variety that music recording sales are up 7% from last summer. Hurray for them.
But take into consideration that the target demographic for music sales is growing at more than that rate. Music sales is a young person's game: most buyers of music recordings are between 15 and 25 years old. This is the fastest growing segment of the world's population. Plus incomes are growing in formerly poor and desperate areas of the world. This means that even if the RIAA companies did nothing or completely goofed up their marketing, they would still have the 7% sales growth at least. There are 7% more people in the demographic band than last year.
The fact that record sales are not growing as fast as the demographic band proves that the record company executives are totally incompetent and undeserving of their seven figure compensation packages. Most of the young people who buy CDs live in the third world where they have a choice of paying $25 US for an official CD or $2-3 for a 'pirate' version.
Now the CD industry has NO marginal costs (blank CDs cost $0.05 each in bulk) per additional unit of product sold. That means that the RIAA companies are giving away their most profitable market sector to the pirates by not charging $2-3 per CD disk in the developing countries where the young people of the emerging middle-class don't have a lot of disposable income for music recordings.
The record company executives should all be fired for being too stupid to figure this out or too greedly and inflexible to adjust their business plan to maximize their revenues.
Sueing people in the 'finished development' world (the USA, EU, Japan, Canada, Aus...) is just a side-show to hide the incompetence of the Music dept execs from the head media corporate execs.
The population figures say that global music record industry should be booming with profits in 2004. If it's not, it's not because of file swappers.
They want reward for their efforts? They can charge for shows, t-shirts, etc. The music just becomes advertisement, which SHOULD be given away for free.
It CAN work that way, just fine, and won't require weird laws that aim at preventing people from making use of some of the most basic and important features of their computers.
There is plenty of money to be made in a free world.
Youse better pay da protection money. You wouldn't want somethin to *happen* to ya little school, would you? Now, that's betta...
I don't know if these deals are such a bad idea. Yes I hate DRM, yes I hate the RIAA in general but I see this as a service for students along the lines of computer labs or exercise facilities. I do dislike that students are required to pay for something even if they don't use it but I pay almost $1000 for groups and services I could give a shit about (computer labs, MASSIVE exercise facilities that have every gizmo and game you can think of to get buff). I don't mind because I think that we need a diversity of groups and services so everyone can find something for them. Let's be honest too, napster is about $100 for a year subscription I believe. When I spend $14K a year $100 is a drop in the bucket. I am not saying that the cost is fair and that artists get their fair share or that I like the RIAA's tactics but I really don't see why some of you people are complaining so much. Fix the real problems (DRM, artists getting fucked over, gag orders and DCMA) and just ignore this one.
as a Cornell student very much involved with the universities two unofficial direct connect servers, i can say that most students who are interested in getting mp3s get them from itunes for a fee. a small number share with each other and most either buy the cds or dont care. i think this service will actually be used. itunes was a huge hit due to the fact that you could share your neighbors music. i dont anticipate this changing piracy however. the students who demand full divx movies and full album mp3s will continue to trade them, but this will serve as a new diversion for those students who previously purchased cds and those who listened to the radio
"southpolesammy writes "The Register reports that six more US Universities and colleges have agreed to enter into protection schemes with the RIAA. In short, several institutions have signed deals with the RIAA's lapdog, the Napster music service, to 'goad these schools toward becoming music brokers'. The underlying threat of being sued by the RIAA if they don't pay them off is almost certainly the driving force behind their acceptance of this scheme. And of course, there's the ever-present gag order they'll probably enforce on these new universities as well. Great business model guys. Way to engender yourselves to your biggest customer base.""
You know what? I'm glad the YRO is completely bias-free. I think I'll surf over to Kuroshin for some heavely biased political commentary
To say the RIAA is no better than a criminal organization that trafficks drugs, runs prostitution rings, and murders people with impunity is just childish. Yes, the RIAA is not a very friendly or honest organization. No, they are not thugs in the same sense as mafioso.
Going to a private institution myself I know full well that college tuition is way out of control and reaching the point where it is unaffordable. When I started 4 years ago tuition was $5600 a quarter ie you paid $16,800 in tuition a year because generally you don't attend during the summer unless you want to. Tuition is now $7,350 per quarter which equates out to $22,050 for a year or 3 quarters of school. That doesn't include health, computer, activities fees nor have you even accounted for housing and living expenses which I would say are at least $7000 a year if you do not live in on campus housing. Now they want to tack on some more fees and get some additional money out of you for a music service which you may or may not use. Heck alot of students are barely affording college and can't afford the computers, portable music players and the like that you need to listen to this. In addition last time I checked most private schools are listed as non profit I know the one I go to is. I think it is unethical for a non-profit organization to be making a profit for a corporation at the expense of the people that it was granted the not for profit liscence for. I think these collegs need a wakeup call and have their not-for-profit liscences revoked and someone needs to sue the RIAA or something for unethical business practices or some facimile. That is my rant.
Haven't these schools ever heard of Packeteer? Or Allot?
There's no reason they can't just BLOCK all the P2P apps, and be done with it. Hell, it'd even be cheap, and have the added benefit of freeing up GOBS of their bandwidth.
I just don't get it. Is there some "right to P2P" access that I'm unaware of?
Who's goading these people into getting in with the RIAA? I mean specifically. This sounds a lot like those "strongarm insurance" guys.
This sig no verb.
I was a student at UC Berkeley a few years ago and the chancellor sent out an e-mail about music sharing. It said, essentially, that the UC values the privacy of its students and would never voluntarily monitor what the students were doing with their bandwidth. But the UC had to do something to stop illegal music sharing or they would be forced to do just that.
Berkeley's solution was to limit the amount of bandwidth used for any reason. This wasn't very popular, but I'm glad we got that instead of being forced to pay for some lame service.
"Preceded by itself yields falsehood" preceded by itself yields falsehood.
Can't we just flag the RIAA as damage and route around them?
/. musicians, submit your work under a Creative Commons licence and sell it somewhere like here or that other one whose name escapes me.
Come on,
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Its the universities bandwidth and network resources. A case could be raised that they didn't try hard enough to police the actions on their private network. Thus they are liable.
Yes I realize the difficulty in that and still have a useful network, but that wouldn't stop them from using that in a suit..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
link \Ex*tor"tion\, n. [F. extorsion.] 1. The act of extorting; the act or practice of wresting anything from a person by force, by threats, or by any undue exercise of power; undue exaction; overcharge. hmmmm.............. And wikipedia: link "...Extortion is distinguished from robbery. In robbery, the offender steals goods from the victim whilst threatening him with force. In extortion, the victim willingly turns the goods over to avoid a threatened violence or other harm. ..."
hmmmm...........
Ok, a little rant here.
I was reading a while ago a comment that started to make me think. I don't remember who and when,. but it went something like this:
"Let's say we invent a car replicator that could replicate cars at the cost of raw materials. Car manufacturer would go bankrupt. It would throw of the economy as resources aren't as scarce now, and that's the basis of economy(along with unlimited needs)"
Then a reply:
"But they[car manufacturers] would fight to the death to make this not happend, have it outlawed and destroyed in it's infancy."
Then I started thinking...
Let's go back to the basics. Things cost money because of 2 things:
1) It costs money to produce/sell/ship/etc.
2) Supply and Demands
The economy is based on the fact that a near 0 cost is impossible and that supplies are limited.
However, with the net we see a radical shift about Information(data). Demand is very high and supplies unlimited(you can copy bits at [virtually] no costs.) Any commodity that can be turned into pure data is at 'risk' of this new paradigm. It throws off economy completely.
Is it bad?
Take the car example above... would it be a bad thing for people, us? It sure would be bad for corpos, but us? (ok, bad example, car pollutes and all, more traffic jams, etc...)
Let's say we have machine that replicates food instead, at virtually no cost. It would make all companies producing food to go out of business, so it's going to be really bad for the economy, same as cars. However, is it going to be bad for us, humans? for humanity? Heck, we'd be able to feed everyone at virtually no cost.
Building replicators? Energy replicators/cold fusion? Hell, we'd solve all our problems.
Sure, it's science fiction... unless we're talking about data. With internet and all, costs to replicate and share data is near to nil. We have those sci-fi things in our hands right now, but its restricted to data and information. Is it bad? It's throwing economy off for sure, but in the end, isn't it better this way?
Sure, RIAA and all are in a uproar, and they should be. Since music, movies, games, etc. can all be conveyed using only data and have no material worth, this throws their market off.
I believe we'll have to adapt to this new economy. 'The Information Economy'(TIE, that makes us TIE Fighters... ok, bad pun, couldn't resist =). RIAA and all needs to revise their market and all, they'll need major changes if they want to survive. Market based on information and data will be obselete soon(tm). They'll have to start making actual products to make money.
I don't advocate filesharing of copyrighted materials and all per se, but we won't be able to stop it... and I don't think we should try to stop it. Information wants to be free. It sucks that music, movies, games, etc. are *all* data, but it's not humanity's fault, and certainly not OUR fault. why should we pay for people who based their revenu on information that can now be copied at virtually no cost?
Information is free because it doesn't fit in the whole 'economy' we created. What should we do, fight it? Embrace it? Makes you think, doesn't it?
I say, let's do what's best for us, humans, in the long run, and not corpos that will come and go.
Then again, that's my somewhat socialist view of the whole thing, so YMMV =)
OK. Tuition is OUTRAGEOUS!. I agree. I'm told by all the best sources that by the time my son reaches college age, he's 5 going on 6, the average private college will cost $250K. But folks, here's the real problem as it exists at this very moment. 1) University IS groups are finding that they need to protect themselves from the Internet in general. 2) Universities are following IS recommendations to deploy tools that give IS access to all of their user's systems for verification and validation of the state of all user systems connected to the University networks. Windows virus updated/patch requirements mostly. (Patchlink.com and LanDesk.com to name two) 3) These tools, which install agents on the user's systems, send information back to the IS folks about EVERYTHING installed on their user systems. Faculty, staff and student systems, personal and university owned, are thereby OUTED. 4) The RIAA and MPAA simply ask for this information. Universities CAN'T LEGALLY REFUSE! 5) GAME OVER, as they say.
Has a college been granted this? I know most businesses have not ( unless they ARE an isp of course, or a phone company, etc )...
A school is a business that isn't in the business of providing data connectivity as a main product, so I sort of doubt it.
But if they have been declared a CC, then yes, all bets are off.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd like to just point out that the whole issue - the RIAA, the intellectual property jazz, and whatnot - is nearly moot.
:-/
It's not illegal (yet!) to learn to SING. Go find
an old guitar and teach yourself some chords!
Why does everybody assume music has to be made by mere paid troubadors?!
Okay, I'm semi serious. I'm a brass player
Cheers!
Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him. * -** *-** --- *-- - **** * *-*
That's a grand total of eight schools in the last nine months that have agreed to become music vendors and pay an RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) tax to avoid lawsuits against their students.
So what they're saying is: We, the all knowing and clairvoyant, RIAA know ahead of time some of your students will be guilty. We can't catch them all, but if you pay in advance, we won't sue you?
I thought organized crime was illegal? How is this any differenct from making sure some "guys" won't come along and burn down your house as long as you pay a "protection fee"?
I just had a thought - it would probably be much more effective for you to send your letter additionally to the school newspaper(s). You could do it by writing a second letter which didn't mention the one to the powers that be, or maybe you could do it as an open letter to the school or something. It would probably be most effective to call up the editor and speak to him/her - you can even give your name and number to be interviewed if you are willing to appear in any article. I write for my school newspaper and even got to interview the university's general counsel about their policies on the RIAA (about a year ago). An article on Napster would be a nice followup.
My second request is that you post a copy of your letter before sending it - with any names deleted if you prefer - so that others have a basis to build on. So many times I read about things which get my interest, but then I fail to act as I don't have the time to write a good letter, research the background of the issue, verify that all citations are correct, etc.
I remember not too long ago someone posted a comment about there only being no cracks for WMA because there are alternative file formats, and that once WMA had no better alternatives, a crack would soon be developed.
Well, we still have OGG, MP3, and their brethren, but...maybe it's high time someone developed a crack for WMA DRM, considering it's being rammed down these kids' throats? Hell, it'd even make for a great senior project for these students. Remember what one enterprising college-student-slash-nobody did just for kicks that turned into a worldwide phenomenon? That's right, Linux. A crack for WMA DRM wouldn't be as revolutionary, but it'd certainly ruin a few RIAA execs' day, and all things considered, I'd say those execs would be getting their just desserts.
RIAA-lackey uni official: "Here, now that you've paid your fee, download all the DRM-chained music you want."
Student: "I dunno...can't do much with it..."
Programmer down the hall: "Psst, see me later for a solution to that..."
Student: "Rock."
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
What exactly is IS?
"Because it makes the problem go-away for a what amounts to a 'small' fee that they'll pass onto the students."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
If I were still brainwashing myself by listening to over-hyped, over-produced crap then I might actually care. I, however, listen to Free music or music from publishers who are not evil.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
I thought extortion was against the law?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
My guess would be: Information Services
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
How is this different from racketeering? Seriously; is it just that the forces involved have accountants that seperates them from the mob, or is it more that the mob will *only* break your knees, so that you can at least pay them back for services rendered...
Not a troll. I'm just curious about how this "protection money" and such is not being jumped all over. I'm sure that I'm just seeing one side of this, but it - to me - appears to be an execution of a more strong-arm agenda.
As a University of Southern California student, I am pretty outraged that I am forced to pay for a service that I don't support. I think if they offered it as an option to the student for the reduced rate, that is fine, but the fact that I am giving napster and the RIAA between 50 and 200 dollars of my own money is a travesty.
Disgusting.
when on a university network, just about everyone's itunes playlists are online. who would need to download illegally if everyone else had already done it for you?
----
http://www.hellection.com
It would make all companies producing food to go out of business, so it's going to be really bad for the economy
:D
I would just like to point out that we already have what almost amounts to "food replicators" - industrial scale farming.
Farming used to account for approximately 100% of employment. The advent of modern industrial scale farming has resulted in the eliminated of about 98% of all agricultural employment. 98%! That's a staggering figure! We have all seen just how "bad for the economy" that turned out
But back to the music industry...
The advent of the internet makes the publishing industry obsolete. Anyone who uses P2P essentiale becomes a publisher/distributor. It eliminates the wasteful need to pay some middleman/publisher for doing something that no longer needs to be done. P2P however has no effect on the need to create such works in the first place. To put things into perspective, once you trim off the 90% fat leeched off by the RIAA, it would only take about $4 per person per year to fully fund the actual artists making the music and to pay them just as much as they get now. $4 per year, a trivial sum. However the publishing industry will fight tooth and nail to sabotage any attempt to get money to the artists while bypassing the publishing industry.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
1. protect themselves from the internet? You are talking about viruses and other malicious code? Doesn't everyone have to? So does that mean everyone has to cough up all of their information?
2. I've been to alot of large univ's and I work for a large one 15,000 students and I can tell you that this is not true 99% of the time. You register your computers MAC address with the dhcp server and some run a util from MS that verifies what patches you have installed on your system but that is the extent of what information they collect. There are no agents installed on computers not personal computers anyways. On staff and lab computers yes there could be but generally there isn't in fact the policy is that you get canned if you violate someones privacy no questions.
3. again there are no agents you have been watching too many tv shows. Personal information is treated like gold anything that we can do to secure it is done. That includes securing it from the IT staff if possible.
4. The RIAA or the MPAA cannot subpeana this information with out cause or justification and even if they do or can the colleges do not invade the privacy of their students or staff as a rule. You wouldn't have much of a university if you were employing gestapo tactics on your students and employees.
5. the game has just begun
Read Karl Marx's Kapital -- specifically "The Labor Theory of Value". He architects beautifully the argument you just made.
downhill battle - music activism
Free Culture.org
n/t
My other car is first.
I have been absolutely unable to access the Register website for well over two weeks now. Whether I use my home or work computer (broadband) or a dialup connection, whether I use IE or Mozilla, whether I use XP, 2000 or Windows 98, whether I try morning, afternoon, evening, or in the dead of night, the site hangs after getting loaded partway and simply refuses to load, time after time after time.
I've noticed The Register is a major opponent of the RIAA. Could they possibly be somehow blocking this site? I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.
Starting in September, I will be yet one more student facing a slim budget without wiggle room for all the extras like entertainment.
As a human, it really is a psychological need.
So I have a choice: Blow my tuition money on a few unavailable CDs. Oh, and what get's me going: A dvd compliant OS to go along with my purchased DVDs and DVD-ROM drive. Or, keep going to school and enjoy the entertainment for free. For me, the choice is obvious. (Maybe I should patent this!)
Oh, and there has existed something on SourceForge for a long time concerning the conversion of streaming audio into WAV/MP3/OGG.
What all us "Enlightened" students should do is demand a refund of the tariff, because since we use the "hobbled" Linux OS, we can't interpret the spew as music anyways.
But if you want to be illogical.. Erm, I mean legal. Give www.epitonic.com a rip; they've got ton's of free (beer) music under plenty of genres.
How much work could a network work if a network could net work?
instead of the university fighting for a liberalization of licensing schemes, making them sensible and workable, they volunteer to reenforce the RIAA's outdated market-practices.
dont stand up and say "the empreror has no clothes", cower in the corner and sign deals that make your golf-club buddies happy.
The corruption of american culture is complete, even the universities are afraid of the plutocracy.
There's a Penny-Arcade strip which points out how retarded you look when you refer to Microsoft as M$. Penny-Arcade isn't exactly the mainstream; these guys are fellow geeks.
When you refer to Napster as "the RIAA's lapdog", rational people quickly tag you as some sort of fringe moron, and most will stop listening to the rest of what you have to say.
Napster started this war. Music sharing and mp3's were confined to the geek niche, then Napster came along and all of a sudden Metallica's ranting and Shawn Fanning were headline news, and jokes about them were on SNL and MTV. Now they provide a legal service, but it's not like they're the ones suing hundreds of their users.
If you ever wonder why it is that you're having trouble convincing the average Joe that RIAA and MPAA are awful, and that DRM is crippling, not enabling their devices, it's because when the RIAA and MPAA representatives talk, they sound like intelligent, (albeit not all that technically knowledgable or charismatic) rational businessmen, whereas you sound like a paranoid 14-year-old revolutionary with a 70 IQ.
"You see... bad things happen to good people.
but, ah, pay Lenny here a modest fee and
we can promise you no bad things will happen to you, understand?"
I think I have heard this 'Marketing Plan' before...
I for one hope that they succeed with this tack. Why? Because if they succeed it will be relatively easy to apply the Sherman Anti-Trust provisions against RIAA itself and take it down for good. Don't believe me? Read it for yourself. History of the AntiTrust Movement
It is my belief that they are running headlong into a direct challenge with the very foundation of these and subsequent acts, "the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). Its first two provisions made illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce...". How can anyone say that forcing the Universities to sign up for Napster under the threat of lawsuits is not a violation of this act?
How were artists compensated in ancient times?
They weren't, at least not by what people consider so important today: money. People sang songs and told their stories to share their ideas and what was in their heart. Those feelings and ideas were powerful enough to be spread across the world without the recording industry, without napster, without kazza. How can a music industry survive if it does not care that this quality, the very soul of music, has all but completely diminished? If you suppress creativity and create music the same way you create a product in a factory, how can you hope to stir up emotions and feelings? The more you say music is worth in money, the more you take away from it's true value. Yet people will still sing songs that no money could ever buy and their voices will find a way to be heard.
The same thing goes for music and movies, and to a lesser extent, even food (GM crops, recipes, etc.)
Musicians might survive, in a limited way, by virtue of the fact that a recording can serve as an advertisement for live performances (although that's a pretty bleak alternative). But designers of movies, cars, food, etc. would not be able to survive in this way. Effectively, every new design will instantly be infinite in supply, giving it a value of zero, and giving the designer little or no compensation, and little incentive to create anything else.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/21/wright_wro ng_napster/
Basically all students are getting charged for this service even if they never use it!