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Grokster Decision Won't Stop RIAA, MPAA Suits
akahige writes "According to this Reuters article, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the operators of Grokster and StreamCast are not liable for copyright infringement. On the other hand the *AA is appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, and has no intention of ceasing litigation against these or other P2P services. Next up, eDonkey. If ever there was a case where voting with your dollar made sense it was this one -- but too many people just can't get enough of Britney." We mentioned the court's decision a few days ago; this article stresses that the industry is gung ho to overturn it, and that this decision covers only part of the case.
Yeah, like that would work. Every boycotted sale is another that is claimed the result of piracy.
According to this Reuters article, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the operators of Grokster and StreamCast are not liable for copyright infringement. On the other hand the *AA is appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, and has no intention of ceasing litigation against these or other P2P services.
These rulings may weaken the case of the MPAA and RIAA if they get to the point of getting to a court, but I suspect their whole idea of litigation is much like the threats against individuals - no matter if they had a solid case against the MPAA/RIAA, just going through those motions would cost more than settling, so they'll push operators into a settlement under *AA terms.
As far as I know, none of the individuals that the RIAA/MPAA have "sued" ended up actually being sued, just settling due to the threats.
Is this what the MPAA/RIAA are doing now, despite the court's decision that p2p operators are not liable for copyright infringement?
You'd almost think these two associations would rather spend money figuring out how to intice people to pay money for something through a new business model instead of futilely throwing it away sueing your customers and not really putting much of a dent in peoples P2P ways. Besides, the question isn't did you break the law today but rather how many laws did you break today?
...just pick one person, in the whole of the usa, let's call him "subject 0".
Wait, let's find the first person sued by the riaa, call him "subject 0" and everyone in the usa give him $$ to buy CDs.
he'll turn around and round-robin the CDs to random participants in a p2p legal country, who will donkify the cds.
then everyone, i mean everyone in the usa, whores the music.
can the *AA sue every single music listener in the usa? have they ever sued downloaders (usually only shares...)
oh well i think it would be funny. one person buying cds, one group of people sharing (out of legal reach) and everyone else paying a buck every couple months and just a-whorin' away.
Nothing to worry! When one P2P goes down, there'll always be another. People get busted for drugs all the time, and yet I am always well supplied with pot. Thats the way the black market works :D
The real path to male liberation
Why not just fund your own shitty record company, then find people that have copies of your artists in unprotected ('shared') folders available via ftp, or http. Then sue Microsoft, because they make Internet Explorer, and the DOS FTP client. You can even produce a lot of data to turn heads, i'm sure 99.9% of all illegal software distributed around the world in the past 10 years was sent via FTP --It must be stopped!!
Or turn it into another suite based on the same principals. Sue Grokster because they are facilitating in the trade of child pornography, or sue M$ because people use IE for the same..
I have no sympathy for companies that are "P2P" but connect back to a single ad server. I also claim bull shit that these companies have no clue as to what is going on on their networks. All you need is to run one Supernode in debug mode and due a traffic/search analysis. "Britney, MP3, metallica...etc"
Sure, **AA is evil. But don't get your hand caught in their pocket stealing their money.
-Electrawn
Chances are that the appeal to SCOTUS has a relatively low probability of success, but you can't fault the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/IDSA/Insert_Copyright_Fascist_Group_ Here from trying. Unlike the average joe, the trade associations are not crippled by throwing another lawyer or two towards their political agenda. And considering the stakes, and that they really have nothing to lose, an appeal to the Supreme Court is practically a certainty.
The INDUCE act is a far larger threat. The very existence of this act, and the fact that it has influential support amongst key senators, shows how true the statement "political representation is isomorphic to money" actually is. The INDUCE act is designed to overturn the Sony Betamax case-- the very case that the Grokster decision was based upon. It would be a big mistake if this major decision was overturned-- Innovation in technology and culture will simply occur outside the United States and its draconian Copyright regime-- if such events have not started to occur already.
It doesn't matter worth a damn if the MPAA / RIAA think they can buy judges on the Supreme Court to rule in their favor (like Judge "non-recusal-though- I -used-to-work-for-the-movie-industry" Kaplan). Every one of the anti-consumer rulings so far has violated the civil rights found in the U.S. Constitution. We, the people, know this. And we aren't going to take it sitting down. Any ruling is not going to be worth the paper it's written on if it continues the ruse of ruling against fair use, free speech, free assembly and free association. I didn't pay $1,000+ for my personal computer to have some white man in a robe* tell me what software I can or cannot run on it, and what networks I can or cannot connect to. (*with few exceptions)
Iam returning it tomorrow to walmart as a vote against RIAA
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Am I the only one who thinks that the subpoena powers granted to the RIAA are too broad? If a crime has been committed, fine. Then let the F.B.I. handle it and let the courts issue subpoenas where necessary. How in hell did private citizens come to be a the mercy of a trade group? I don't download files off Kazaa or anything, but nor do I like the idea of the RIAA being able to spy on people at its leisure. If there's need of an electronic wiretap, then let the Feds get a warrant for it. But this business of them serving subpoenas to whomever they like makes a complete mockery of the right to privacy. We have police agencies to investigate alleged criminal offenses. Since when did we start bypassing them for the convenience of big business?
...try bugging the crap out of your representatives. Work to get copyright law changed. If enough people bug their senators and representatives they'll be forced to take some kind of action lest they be concerned with losing a re-election bid. As for this current situation, the Court has already ruled in the past that items, devices, and systems that have a legitimate use are legal, even if there are illegal uses for them. This is part of why they can't bust someone for drug paraphernelia unless they have actual drugs on them, because scales, paper, and the like all have legitimate uses. VCRs are legal even though they can be used to record copyrighted TV shows and copyrighted movies because they serve to allow consumers to legally view movies and tape shows for later review. The Court has already given its opinion that since Grokster is a filesharing service, not a specific music service, that it is theoretically allowing anyone to share or exchange any kind of content, and that users who abuse the law are the problem, not the existence of the software that technically as a side effect allows them to do this. P2P might be most heavily used by people downloading that which is copyrighted and not licensed for their use, but people do exchange legitimate stuff, therefore it should pass that test.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Anymore, whenever I buy a DVD or CD, I make a point to buy it used, from places like Amazon. So far I'be bought several used movies that way and the quality has been all but indistinguishable from new. Just remember, every penny you put into their pockets is another penny that's available to pay their lawyers on this jihad.
Anymore I think of it this way:
- Tickets to Spider-Man 2: MONEY FOR THEIR LAWYERS.
- DVD of xxxxxxxx movie: MONEY FOR THEIR LAWYERS.
- xxxxxxx music CD: MONEY FOR THEIR LAWYERS.
And what galls me the most is that the bastards are probably laughing to themselves that we're so addicted to this stuff that we can't help but pay them to do this. Well I for one have decided, no more. NOT ONE RED CENT.
Seeing as how most of the commercial P2P software developers' "ad revenue" seems to come from installing spyware and trojans on unwitting folks' machines, I can't say I will be sad to see them go.
Hmmm...
1. *AA sues Grokster and Streamcast.
2. Grokster and Streamcast found not liable for copyright infringement
3. *AA sues eDonkey.
4. eDonkey uses Streamcast/Grokster case as legal precedent.
5. ?????
6. PROFIT!
I think not- but if their lawyer convinced them that this would work then he's going to be earning a lot more well deserved money from the *AA's...
-striker
It seems to be that the RIAA's suing organizations with the hope that eventually one of the suits would stick and an sympathetic judge that they bought would rule in their favor. After all, there's no shortage of P2P protocols and networks to go after, right? And if that doesn't work, they can still blanket-change the legislation by paying Orrin Hatch to be what he is best as, an agent against change.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
"Yeah, like that would work. Every boycotted sale is another that is claimed the result of piracy."
And why wouldn't it work. Have you actually tried it? Did you tell them in a written letter why you were boycotting their products. Or were you doing what legions of Slashdotters do? Simply come here and complain. Then wonder why you're getting no results.
How about using that "other" vote. Or are we going to have to put up with another "I'm weak and defenseless. Will someone be my white knight?"
I thought Justin Frankel would've created some grand anonymous P2P network by now... or someone. What's taking so long, and where are they?
Or is it gonna take something like the INDUCE act getting passed to finally convince developers around the world that it needs to be created?
Once anon p2p is made, say bye bye to lawsuits. Can't sue what you can't find!
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
It's already happening: you buy or download a copy of your sleek new OS and the first step is to configure the downoad manager to connect to some ftp mirror in one of the free countries of the world. Do I care that mp3s or css are "protected technologies?" Fuck no - and neither do the people I've helped free themselves from the redmond overlord.
Let'em sue. Won't make a damn bit of difference either way - you think ho-town is going to ignore a few Billion chinese who adopt different technological platforms than those of us in the "civilized" west? You really think Russia or Ukraine or even Poland are going to change their copyright system because the screaming brat in the west says so? Fucking christ, have none of you ever ordered online from an overseas vendor?
Already these nations are becoming less vocal about their EU intents: they've already seen one empire crumble this last century, it doesn't take a genius to see we're legislating ourselves into global irrelevance.
I know a lot of people agree with this, and many people have started petitions and things like that, but we in the "tech" community really need to organize a continuing and consistant lobbyist group to take on the ridiculous and continuing legislation being pushed by many large corporations and organizations who look out for their own interests over technological innovation. It's time we stand up and make our point realized that it isn't the governments job, to create legislation to protect antiquated business systems such as those in place for some of the parties involved with pushing the induce act. Too many people, not just general consumers but media types fail to understand simple things like fair use with regard to copyrighted materials for example, that would allow even copyrighted material to LEGALLY be transmitted via a peer to peer system for example. Just because something is copyrighted doesn't necessarily make any re-distribution of it criminal or piracy. But the RIAA doesn't want you to know that, and thus most people don't. This link from Groklaw should explain a lot of this. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402050 05057966&query=RIAA+
It's time to take action and start lobbying for ourselves. Let others know the legal truths, and don't allow the rules to be changed around us any longer!
Ugh, the horrible typos on the title line of my other post are just horrendous. I really wish I could edit it, this is what happens when you use a slow laptop that can't keep up with your typing speed and it's 1:00 AM.
Instead of going out and attacking something new and different that you don't understand, like you did with the cassete tape, and how mix tapes off the radio would ruin you, accomodate.
Make a new liscence upon which a file share system can purchace and then share. Make it of a reasonable cost, then hunt down the radicals. Its radio OVER a packet-switched network with a device analagous to the cassete recorder at the end. The entire economy is in a slump, and you are offering what is at times an inferior product. Filesharing may have contributed, but so have you. People might take you seriously if you had more than one reason for the slump, some of which were internal.
Go Mr *AA man and sue to your hearts content. The precedent is there now, and its not in your favor. Find a new way.
freenet??
you would've realized it mentioned nothing about targeting other p2p services like eDonkey. Instead, it says thay are targeting users on these services.
Noble stance. However, buying used still benefits the *AA. Every used copy you buy reduces the supply of used copies and can thus boost *AA profits on new copies--either because there are fewer used ones availible (and thus some people buy new instead), or because the used copies are more expensive and therefore new ones can also be sold at a higher price, etc.
It's basic supply/demand economics. If you want to really want to accelerate the *AA's inevitable demise, stop buying their products altogether.
""Mr. Congressman, here's a briefcase full of campaign contributions. Those Evil Content Pirates(tm) are costing us even MORE money! Please fix it for us.""
<rant>
Oh lovely. The pity plea. Waaa those bullies are picking on me. Someone make em stop.
Just think if most of humanity pulled the copout you just did. We would have never had the olympics to begin with because we would all be sitting around. Telling ourselves waa but I'm all flabby and weak, and that sports stuff is too hard.
We would have never gone to the moon because we would all be back here telling ourselves. Waa but the moons too far, and those russians are better than us.
We would have never dived to the deepest part of the ocean, because we would all be sitting around and. Waa but the oceans too deep and I'm scared of the water.
Quite frankly you and your ilk are your own worst enemy. You don't even try, but just sit around all day telling others and yourself just how damn pitiful you are.
Organizations like NOW, and Greenpeace, and Sierra's Club, and even unions amoung many have all shown that the common man can have an influence if they want to.
They however are most certainly guarenteed to fail if all they do is sit around telling everyone what they can't do.
</rant>
Yeah it's over. Go back to whatever you were doing before.
The problem is that it isn't just Britney. You, presumably, are part of the problem, and your attempt to disavow any personal responsibility by pointing to "Britney" fans, is indicative of the prevailing, pathetic attitude.
It's not just the "lame" artists. All artists who have signed contracts with RIAA member studios are guilty, and financially supporting any of them, implicates you too.
I have not and never will knowingly financially support proprietary music. By proprietary, I mean any music for which it is not granted at least those freedoms guarunteed by the GNU GPL for software.
I will not be the fan of any man. But I will gladly partake amongst any as a fellow.
Don't buy into the fan/artist power structure. The only free society is a horizontal society.
As a thinking point, what would happen if all tech workers went on strike simultaniously?
Please do yourself a favor and pull your head out of your ass. In case you haven't noticed just about every movie and record album available in the US is published by RIAA or MPAA member companies. Sales of Britney Spears records alone aren't filling the coffers of *AA member companies. This meme is a logical fallasy and a completely ludicrous preposition.
Unfortunately I see this meme perpetuated more and more, people want to equate what is in their opinion bad music with the ridiculous actions of the RIAA. The bands that are cool to like are signed with the same labels as the pop favorites. The same is true of cool movies, they're made and published by the same studios that are responsible for films like Gigli and Kazaam.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Yeah! What right does Gandalf have to tell us what software we can and can not use?! Someone should shut that old fogey up!
Oh, wait, that was "white man in a robe", not "man in a white robe". Oops. My bad.
Great. Where do I send my $50?
You mean, you didn't volunteer for the position? You don't even have a Paypal account to accept donations?
No domain name, no website, no mailing address?
Oh, so you posted to slashdot - great and all, but if you really wanted to matter, you'd do something more.
I chose my battle - alternative education. See, I think kids need a good education in order to make wise decisions as adults. And, there are lots of tough decisions coming in the next 100 years. So, I'm part of a company that facilitates alternative education in California. Many thousands of kids benefit, and the company is growing both rapidly and profitably.
If you are serious, start the damn tech group. Get the required membership, get the paypal account working, get a website put together. (Hint: both techrally.org and techinnovation.org are not registered) Otherwise, you're wasting time, and the power used to run your mother's computer.
If you matter, do something. Otherwise, shut up.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Should have went with eMule Plus.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Well, I think it would best to start small, I have no artistic talent in the visual sense whatsoever, and while I have a background in journalism, my legalese is severely lacking to adequetely write up goals and agendas. But I have decided to start a Yahoo group, and if enough people are interested in helping from there we can start a site and move on.
When I was writing that post I was thinking about what I could do, but like many of the other people here, I'm just a poor college student with minimal funds and time to spend, however, if enough people put their free time (myself included) towards organizing something we can start a new trend.
Since your suggestion of the name techrally was taken for a Yahoo! Group, I came up with OpenTechnology meaning opening up technology rather than closing it via legal restrictions (this as opposed to the open in open source).
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OpenTechnology/
The group is completely open to anyone with a Yahoo! account who wants to join. Let's try to get organized and see what we can accomplish.
Reveng of the Nerds?
The majority of the people just don't care much about this issue. They know downloading songs and movies is illegal but will keep doing it as long as they feel they can get away with it. When they no longer can they'll stop or find another way of getting the content. Right or wrong, this issue just isn't that big a deal outside of the libertarian /. crowd. Ask a few people outside of your normal crowd. Most of them will probably yawn.
Next up: RIAA vs. All humans of Sol1 RIAA Claims that afformentioned humans have been using an ancient P2P protocol called the "internet" for some time now to illegally share songs such as: "What its like to be 44 and forgotten" by once famous teen pop idol Brittany Spears. RIAA is suing for imediate cease and desist of all internet usage.
By the way we must find a new form of distribution to promote real culture over the world again. I'm thinking of a non-profit organisation that will help artists to sell their creations (music, video, ...) over Internet P2P sharing or anything similar. If the price for an album were about 5$ or less, there will be a lot more legal listeners. And you know how much an artist earn on an album today ? It's totally crazy and current scheme only promote commercial songs, that are exactly the opposite of culture and art !!! I'm totally bored by the RIAA and their financial investors...
Not sure about the spywae though.. I haven't run IE since installing eMule two years ago :-)
First, IANAL.
In my country (Norway) we have quite good Fair Use laws (y'all will probably remember the "DVD-Jon" case and its positive outcome).
We can:
1. Copy any media (CD, DVD, LP, MC, VHS, whatever) for our own use as much as we want to.
2. Share with family (parents, siblings... maybe 1. cousins but that's it)
3. Share with close friends, and this is interpreted in a strick sense. Your best friend that you grew up with? Sure! Someone from class or a cow-orker? Nope, not close enough.
This complies with my sense of justice pretty well. After all, is it fair use to share your new CD with music with people you meet on the bus?
As a compensation for this, artists get paid from a fund. It's the same fund that was started when MC copying started and is/was funded by sale of empty music cassettes.
I bet that most audio copying today does not go straight to P2P networks. How many of you rip your CDs to a) play them on your DAP (mp3/ogg) player or b) have a copy in your car, but do not put the ripped files on P2P? I bet there are a lot of you out there. Maybe this can be used to make statistics to counter the RIAA drivel.
Any time I rip a CD with CDex, it does a lookup to freecddb.org. There are other services for this, like gracenote and others. We could assume that the total hits to these pages, minus lets say 10%, are legitimate rips of CDs. Then we would have an estimate of the amount of legal (legal as in fair use) ripping out there.
//TheToon
Someone doesn't pay attention when he installs stuff. The only spyware that I've ever seen come with any version of eDonkey *THAT WAS DOWNLOADED FROM THE OFFICIAL SITE* has been an optional component of the installation process - deselect it before you continue, and no spyware.
It's OS, so the chances of it having spyware and no one knowing is slim.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Instead of going out and attacking something new and different that you don't understand, like you did with the cassete tape
What they understand is with a tape, the 3rd copy of a copy is pretty bad, especialy if some of the recorders used automatic recording level control, are mis-aligned, have wow and flutter, have dirty heads, etc. Each generation is a guranteed loss of quality. Soon there are few 1st gen recordings and lots of bad 3rd and 4th gen copies.
What terrifies them is with P-P, the 100th generation copy is the same as the original rip. Tape copies self limit. P-P doesn't have that limit. A sea of 20th generation copies avaliable anywhere for free and just as good as the original is what they understand.
It's not the same as sharing a bad tape copy and saying if you like the music, get the orignal without the hiss, wow & flutter, and AGC compression. The original is awsome, you gotta hear it for yourself. The idea the nth generation copy is good enough to not need to buy the album is what the industry understands.
The truth shall set you free!
Here's a happy medium.
We take the execs and lawyers of the RIAA, Sony and Time Warner and hang them by the neck until dead in a public hanging.
Afterwards, the bodies will be buried in unmarked graves and not be desecrated.
That sounds like a happy medium that should satisfy all parties. The alternative proposal is a bit ugly and there would likely be no corpses left to bury.
One of the goals of the RIAA seems to be to ban music production outside of their studios. Ie: Make anything that can record music illegal unless controlled by the RIAA. This would allow them to control digital and recorded production and in turn the entire industry.
Artists would then have to chose between:
1: Get signed and sell your music
2: Play gigs only
As most people know, alternative 2 isn't possible for all music styles. Number 2 would also be difficult, you'd have to go by word-of-mouth alone.
Why are you using MSIE anyway? Google for "IE + security" to see some of the reasons not to use IE.
Well, then they're pretty much screwed even if they can shut down the peer-to-peer networks, then, unless we're going to have DMCA death squads machine gunning face-to-face traders.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Last time I installed edonkey I think the adware stuff was actually deselected by default, and you only got it if you deliberately selected it. It did ASK you to select it to help finance them, but that seems fair enough.
This was some time ago, and was indeed the impetus for me to move to Firefox on Windows (the other problem is I just don't use Windows much - my main workstation is a dual boot system and I've not booted Windows in 3 months, so I'm not always following the issues with software on Windows).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The idea of GPL music intrigues me, but I find it too limiting for my tastes. Isn't it a good enough tradeoff right now to support non-RIAA music?
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
All of us Americans need to go on a strike on a certain day. THis would reign in the elite and let them know who is boss.
Read this for more info on this technique.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
But will be killed by Congress. Which really sucks because Bittorrent is actually quite useful. I got SP2 off of it when I couldn't get it anywhere else. (Until it was pulled, of course!)
And of course if you're a gamer and don't feel like selling your soul to Fileplanet, bittorrent is great for getting demos, patches, and mods.
As someone so eloquently said in this forums: "As far as I can tell, as an American, I cannot go through my day without breaking the law. My quest is no longer to be a law-biding citizen, but rather not to get caught."
Too bad Canada wasn't like Gmail, where you could get in merely by an invite!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Parent is correct... the Sureme Court (SCOTUS) will not take the case.... SCOTUS likes to let several circuit courts address an issue to see decisions from all sides before it will take a case, and SCOTS rarely takes a case until there is a "split" between circuit courts indicating a disparity of decisions.
But more importantly is the concept called non-mutual collateral estoppel. Once a party litigates a question and loses that question, it is barred from relitigating that question against another party.
For example, if A sues B for copyright infringement, and the court declares A's copyright expired so it loses the case, than A can not go out and sue C to try for another court to consider the copyright valid.
This applies only after a decision is "final" so as long as an appeal is underway, *AA can continue trying elsewhere. But once all appeals are exhausted, all any other defendant is a *AA suit has to do is ask the court to take judicial notice of the finality of the decision in the Grokster case and the *AA loses.
And, really, why should they? MSFT knows that they'll lose a certain percentage of companies audited by BSA, but not all of them. And there will be more new ones to take their place. MSFT losing one customer is meaningless but the BSA action would likely boost licensing from a thousand others who heard about it.
RIAA gets a double bonus from their legal action. Not only does it scare away people sharing copyrighted music, but it also taints all downloaded music, even from legal sources. Can't have muscians getting popular outside the major labels, now can we?
The CD music business is hugely profitable and a collalition of five or six companies pretty much own the lift. The whole pipeline is set up to control prices. So the RIAA lawsuits protect that turf while they figure out how to squeeze even fatter profits out of iTunes and other legal download companies. The lawsuits will likely continue because there is no downside for the big labels. Unless you think our spineless Congress will step in and do something for the average citizen...HAHAHAHA! Don't hold your breath.
The only recourse I think consumers will have is to unionize. Consumer unions. Where groups of people band together to negotiate for something like cell service. I do that for some of my customers. Negotiate big software and service purchases. And, let me tell you, vendors would roll over and bark like dog if I asked them to. My customers get a better deal because they're buying in bulk. Consumer unions could do the same thing.
The downside would be, taking an example like cell service, everyone has different needs and wants different features. That's what fragments the union. Another problem is when the union leadership turns into AARP, which started selling its constituency instead of representing them. I personally get some pretty incredible offers from vendors, as would the leadership of a consumer union.
Still it has potential. A consumer union with enough members could pretty much dictate price and service terms, but it's like trying to herd cats keeping them together.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
By aggressively targeting unencrypted P2P networks, the RIAA's attempt at halting filesharing, specifically of pirated music, will fail miserably. The reason is simple: more and more users will switch to anonymous and encrypted P2P networks such as bittorrent and WASTE, both of which basically nullify the possibility of lawsuits and make it impossible to track offenders / pirates. I have been at LAN parties where some users have connected to 50-100+ Peer WASTE networks. Unless an insider is present, each user is connected to the network through a PGP style 2048 (or higher) bit key. It is almost impossible without a hell of a lot of, literally, undercover spies (tens of thousands), to break a WASTE network. It's also ridiculously illegal to even attempt to find one. WASTE lets you fill your hard drive with whatever you want without basically any fear of big government or big agencies like the RIAA eavesdropping. By suing users using "lighter" P2P networks, the probability of the RIAA succeeding becomes even lower as more users will simply switch to methods to get files that are untraceable. This is a culmination of the effects of the recording industry first attacking Napster, which used a centralized server method; now users have moved to a decenteralized server method (ALL of the current protocols follow a super-node configuration) which basically means it's impossible, unless a LOT of lawsuits are filed, to halt the network. When the RIAA attempts to stop the third level of file sharing, i.e. completely anonymous and/or encrypted file sharing, it will reach a roadblock that it cannot hurdle over with ANY form of legal action. The RIAA has made two giant mistakes: not embracing Napster, and now not embracing supernode style P2P networks; it is nearing the end of its life and further lawsuits demonstrate that it is only capable of acts of desperation. The end is near for the RIAA as a functional part of the music industry.
They will sue everyone and take out the ones that cant afford to fight. Nor can the few that remain standing have enough left to counter-sue for damages...
For the industry its a 'cost of doing business' and they will ( they think ) reduce the options p2p downloaders have.
On a different note, sharing lossy versions of broadcated works IS technically legal... Someone needs to stand up to these people.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
~~~
but too many people just can't get enough of Britney.
Personally, I haven't gotten any out of Britney. She looks pretty hot, and has all her curves in the right places, but do you really think she takes her pants off one leg at a time?? I don't.
But why is it their job to police how their tool is used?
If they are not housing the data, or guaranteeing anything illegal to its users, its not their job.
Just as its not the job of Glock to monitor and be responsible for the end user of their products.. Or Ford Motor, watching car drivers to make sure they don't do something illegal going down the road....
As long as the product can have legal uses, its the USERS problem, not the manufacturer..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Shouldn't it be ??AA rather than *AA?
We could assume that the total hits to these pages, minus lets say 10%, are legitimate rips of CDs. Then we would have an estimate of the amount of legal (legal as in fair use) ripping out there.
Well, let's say you did that, and came up with 1.4 billion per month. Now what?
The numbers are meaningless by themselves; you have to present them as a percentage, but you can't get a figure for the total number of rips -- because the illegal rippers won't own up. (Unless you want to use *AA's lost-sales figure, which is unreliable, because a cause-effect relationship hasn't been established between CD-ripping and lost sales; it might be that sales are decreasing due to global economic trends or what have you).
Also, that "let's say 10%" requires backing -- you can't shoot from the hip like that, that's just what *AA is doing. Statistics is (or rather, should be) a science.
Finally, even if you did get a meaningful figure... who's to say it represents anything that goes on in the US? Maybe it's all the law-abiding Norwegians who are ripping CDs legally, while those scumbags in America rip their CDs and immediately publish them to Kazaa.
If a person buys a shirt/CD/thing at the flea market that happens to be counterfeit or unlicensed, the companies that own the copyright usually won't go after them, but after the seller or distributor, right? Why is it so different now? I've wondered whether a legal defense of "this was available for download, I didn't know it was infringing to get it" would work... Probably not, but it's an interesting thought.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
First, I haven't bought a CD or DVD from any big label for a couple of years. Bear with me, this is just a theory: Let's say that the folks who are boycotting tend to be somewhat more discriminating in their choice of music (I suspect that they are). The folks who buy Britney and similar garbage are probably never going to boycott. Now, this means that the big record companies see the demand shifting towards garbage (okay, more garbage than usual). So they produce more garbage. Maybe this has already been going on, and that's why record companies' profits have been reduced of late. Unfortunately, I don't see this going far enough to threaten record companies' survival. There are plenty of folks who love the garbage.
-- The pinhead celt
machine gunning?
Why? A simple ticket citation and/or arrest for significant violations, will suffice.
But you wanted to be all dramatic and stuff.
resigned
We are pleased, indeed proud of you, for taking a firm stand, mister Anonymous Coward.
Now, if everybody, or even a simple majority of anonymous commenters on web logs, would take the same firm stand....
resigned
eDonkey has had at least one positive result.
-prator
"One of the goals of the RIAA seems to be to ban music production outside of their studios. Ie: Make anything that can record music illegal unless controlled by the RIAA."
What does live performances do to your argument?
Hint: no recording device needed. Also you're being a bit disingenous (imagine that?). The technology in place and coming down the pipeline prevents you from copying copyrighted (read as not yours) material. It however doesn't prevent you from recording your own copyrighted (read as something you made yourself) material.
Also the rest of the music production chain is still intact. So at best your argument is alarmist tripe (demonize and dehumanize your enemy. Makes it easier to do whatever you want to them...like illegally download their music)
They may say what they want but it is still less money to them and it hits their bottom line.
Support independent artists - there are fantastic ones out there, ones whose music speaks to YOU, but you need to get off your butt and seek them out.
One of the main (if not THE main) reasons RIAA wants to kill P2P is that it offers musicians a way around them and their recording companies.
When you download one of the RIAA affiliated songs you are helping them by spreading their artists over independents. Don't give them the mindshare.
"Too many people, not just general consumers but media types fail to understand simple things like fair use with regard to copyrighted materials for example, that would allow even copyrighted material to LEGALLY be transmitted via a peer to peer system for example. Just because something is copyrighted doesn't necessarily make any re-distribution of it criminal or piracy."
Apparently that includes most people on Slashdot.
Getting permission from the copyright holder allows redistribution. That applies REGARDLESS of weither we're talking about a business, or a sole person. If you don't understand copyright then I suggest you visit your local library. Copyright isn't that hard to understand.
Here's one to try:
"Web and Software development: A legal Guide by Attorney Stephen Fishman"
"But the RIAA doesn't want you to know that, and thus most people don't."
It's not the RIAA's or anyone elses responsability to educate YOU. That's YOUR responsability.
"Nothing to worry! When one P2P goes down, there'll always be another. People get busted for drugs all the time, and yet I am always well supplied with pot. Thats the way the black market works :D"
Gee a drug methaphor. Try this on for size skippy.
Illegally Copyed Music==illegal drugs.
Legally Copyed Music==drugs you grew youself.
The point? How about all of you complaining about the situation make your own music. Write your own books, make your own movies, and grow your own pot. By the very laws your complaining about, the fruit of your labours would automatically fall under copyright. And you all being the generous souls you are (with other people's stuff, but I digress) will send it to all who request. P2P, mail out CD's to the third world. Broadcast over radio and TV. Print up a thousand or so free books to send to widows and orphans. Charity starts at home.
And don't forget the pot.
Just a tip :)
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
You're an idiot, use a good client and that shit doesn't happen. I run eMule on a regular basis and there is no adware.
Well, the adware is checked by default, but at least they let you uncheck it. Plus, when you uncheck that stuff, it really won't be installed. As a registered user, the installer won't even bother you with adware, so it's even better.
So, having lost when suing Morpheus, which uses a network on which something like 95% of activity is sharing songs illegally, they're going to try for eDonkey next, a network where 95% of activity is sharing adverts for porn sites. That'll work.
...and somehow, in a giant coincidence, this year saw the return of *good* music to the airwaves. Funny how that happened just as they were losing tons of money at the same time as loudmouth assholes like me were screaming that profit pressure would eventually force the majors to go back to the tried and true business model of releasing product that doesn't suck.
Folks, we already did vote with our wallet. And we've damn near won. The Killers, Black Eyed Peas, Franz Ferdinand, Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World and Yellowcard are all on the charts. Rest assured, if the RIAA thought that they could continue shoveling Brtny and Jstn down our throats with impunity, they would be.
It's nice to be able to turn on the radio and hear the occasional good song. Reminds me of when I was young, and you could hear good songs on the radio as many as four or five times daily!
This episode, whether anybody wants to admit it, is drawing to a close - the RIAA have been the clear losers of the moral and financial high ground. They're not beaten, but they've had their nose bloodied and, like most bullies, once the victim fought back they decided they'd rather play ball fairly than pick it up and go home. And suddenly, good music is back on the radio. Tell your friends.
I went out and bought four CD's this weekend. All of them good, and all of them from people whose good music I had heard on the radio.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
Hi, I use the eDonkey2000, and after a bit of fine tunning I'm downloading ~1,2 Gb. a day, over a 300Kbps connection and with the computer working only 12 hours a day. If I've done the math correctly, that's ~227Kbps. Note that when downloading several higher availability files, the speed increases to almost the full 300Kbps. When using the edonkey network, which used dedicated servers, I was lucky getting half that speed.
:-)
The last versions of edonkey2000 where not, in fact, eDonkey, but a 'hybrid', including clients for both the eDonkey2000 and the overnet network.
The Overnet is fully de-centralized and uses no dedicated servers. It can even communicate with eMule users. The file format is the same for both networks, so you can start a download in 'eDonkey mode' and finish it in 'Overnet mode'. Searches have also improved.
My guess is, you'll forget the Mule soon.
~~~
You might like it.