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RIAA Loses DMCA Subpoena Case Against Charter
BrynM writes "According to an opinion published today (PDF), the RIAA has lost its case against Charter Communications regarding subpoenas for the cable ISP's users to be identified for copyright infringement in the Eastern District of Missouri. You may remember that Charter Communications filed a motion to block the RIAA's subpoena back in late 2003. Now Charter has prevailed. Here's the blurb from the Court 'Civil case - Digital Millennium Copyright Act. District court erred in issuing subpoenas on internet providers to obtain personal information about the providers' subscribers who were alleged to be transmitting copyrighted works via the internet through peer-to-peer programs; the internet providers' function was limited to acting as a conduit for the allegedly copyrighted material, and Section 512(h) of the Act does not authorize subpoenas in such circumstances; case remanded with directions. Dissent by Judge Murphy. [PUBLISHED] [Bye, Author, with Murphy and Bright, Circuit Judges]'"
"Wooo!"
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Surely if there is the justification for a criminal case, the RIAA can have the federal system give them the information?
I am in St. Louis, MO and use Charter. I have been following this for a while and I am glad that this is over. I won't be getting caught! :D
Friends help you move...
REAL Friends help you move dead bodies... ^_^
Let's just hope we can continue to win against the man like this. Respecting privacy is an important thing to me. Companies that will fight to respect your privacy are nice to have around. Even verizon (whom i can't stand), is good about privacy.
Stick it to the man!
A win for the American Public's Rights.
Hopefully this will start a trend that pushes the laws in a more user friendly direction. Take that RIAA!
...so I guess so.
My other first post is car post.
I'm hoping that this can't be appealed...if so, it's really good news.
If it can, then it's not really news at all, is it?
Regardless of the outcome, kudos to Charter for realizing that they, and their users, actually have rights.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
...welcome our new DMCA overlords...err...wait
I can say, that we might have a corrupt political system and laws drafted by conglomerates, but at least we have Judges that can't be (mostly) bought.
What gets me, though, is that he cited the DCMA on why they CAN'T subpoena.
While this seems like a real win I am quite curious when we'll see the first "voluntary cooperation" from ISPs. Why would the ISPs cooperate when they could lose clients? File sharing, especially those who run servers with large video files are bandwidth hogs. By voluntarily complying not only are they getting a good nod from RIAA/MPAA (which they will need once they all start selling PVRs) but also eliminating their bandwidth hogs.
Now, let's see you really earn my love by policing your network so your fucktard customers with pwned PCs stop hammering my mailserver with attempted spammings.
This about fits with my experience. The only way to prevail against the might of a major corporation is to have another major corporation in your corner.
Play Command HQ online
Why? The Judicial branch is mostly the only form of government that is not corrupted. They don't take bribes like Senators and the Executive branches do. This allows them to speak sense without restriction. This is a rare example of how the United States is supposed to function; it is a little glimpse into our great paste. Savor in this moment people, for it is rare.
It's pretty admirable that all these companies (Charter included) are actually taking the time and cost required to fight against the subpoenas.
I'm sure this trend could have very easily gone the other way.
I'm still moving to India in 2006.
Is this one of the activist judges that George W Bush was talking about?
Those who filed "Amici" on behalf of Charter...in other words, those who were willing to go on record supporting this lawsuit.
Lotta folks on this here fishin' trip:
MPAA
Association of American Publishers
Association for Independent Music
AFM (U.S. and Canada)
AFMA
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
American Society of Media Photographers
The Author's Guild, Inc.
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)
Business Software Alliance (BSA) - (Is there anything these assholes won't stick their noses in?)
The Church Music Publishers Association
Director's Guild of America
Entertainment Artists
Graphic Artists Guild, Inc.
Office of the Commisioner of Baseball (wtf?)
Professional Photographers of America
Recording Artists Coalition
Screen Actors Guild, Inc. (SAG)
SESAC, Inc.
Songwriters Guild of America
Software and Information Industry Association
Writer's Guild of America
West, Inc.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
About Damn Time.
The RIAA/MPAA have already changed to John/Jane Doe lawsuits rather than filing subpoenas.
In fact that very method is suggested in this decision as an alternative.
Charter is owned by Paul Allen, maybe this had something to do with it. Alen has loads of cash to back Charter up, he might of even been the person to say "no"
The advertisers are not on the ball.
> Now I guess they will just be using the USA PATRIOT Act to go after copyright infringers. Labeling them as enemy combatants.
Since when would they need to label them as enemy combatants?
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
We've got Bush getting re-elected (and nutcases putting up webpages about it), biblical-sized disasters occuring, and now someone made a sensible decision in a case involving the RIAA???
Dunno 'bout you, but I'm going to start stockin' up on canned food and shotgun shells.
What is noteworthy here is that Charter is appealing the case (and racking up legal fees) even after it already had to hand over the goods; the battle (not the war, yet) was lost, but Charter is now saying that the court should have stayed the order. If they're fighting on principle, I say good for them. Maybe they just want to set a precedent so that the next request (maybe for 20,000 names) won't go through.
Most of the posts I see right now say that it's great they care about their subscribers' privacy, to which I say bollocks. Charter, like every cable company cares about one thing: money. Think about it: with all the extra digital channels, what do they have? At least 20 channels of pay-per-view and another 10 or so of home-shopping. Most of the rest of the channels are pretty craptastic, too. And no, they won't sell you just the few channels you want to watch; buy a package for an inflated price, or suck eggs.
Anyway, Charter stands to lose money by having to hire people (PLURAL!) full-time to handle all the DMCA subpoenas, and they stand to lose subscribers (money) if they just roll over to the RIAA, as subscribers will opt for DSL in the hopes that the phone company won't roll over so easily.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
I have no hope for any sort of just or fair resolution to this situation.
Well, that and filesharing -is- wrong, IMO. But that isn't really the issue...To me this is more an issue of the inescapable march towards total corporate rule.
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
One for the people.
While this is a great case, there are now P2P technologies that furthur complicate matters for the RIAA. Like the technology that powers MUTE
This method, however, does slow the rate at which files are obtained. But for a lot of users, the extra security is worth the extra couple of hours.
I'm wondering how this is going to effect other industries. If this ruling ends up standing through the other courts, could it have an impact on, say, BitTorrent file sharing sites? I mean, suprnova was just a conduit, too, providing an information passing service somewhat like an ISP does. If an ISP can't be held liable for the packets it sends, and can't be subpoenaed for the names of the people sending and receiving those packets...
- Cloud
The judgement merely states that they can't go on their previous fishing expeditions. It doesn't say they can't submit John Doe subpoenas; as a matter of fact, they've been doing just that for the past 6 months. If you RTFO, you'll see that it even suggests just that. This just protects the ISP...
The Wizard utters the word 'frobnoid!' and cackles gleefully
It's just that you've been brainwashed to think so. The concept of Copyrights is a relatively new one in terms of human history.
I for one dropped that silly concept when Congress sold us out of our inherent right to Fair Use via the DMCA.
The heck with RIAA and the MPAA. Give me back the Fair Use Rights, and I'll reconsider my position.
In the meantime, it is just so trivial to download whatever I want, it's absolutely silly. And this trend is only growing. Plus, there's not a darn thing the MPAA/RIAA can do about it. They might slow it down for a time, but they can't stop it.
Scumbags.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Not wanting to stand out from the crowd, _but_this_is_theft_people_. So what if they chase you for money you owe them, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with their business model.
Doesn't the Patriot Act allow law enforcement to dodge around a subpeona if they wish to anyway?
Since the RIAA and the MPAA want to treat Intellectual property, lets just treatit as such.
Then we can use such concepts as eminent domain and adverse possession.
We're a little ISP "good guy" - have stood up for our customers when DMCA threats come. Often the offending party is a minor in a residential household, or a small business with an infected Windows server that some rogue has converted into a filesharing server without their knowledge or consent.
We receive threats from the law firms of content owners, such as the publisher of the Harry Potter series. Their demands are not only unethical, but are clearly not consistent with the provisions under the DMCA (we have a registered agent, for instance, yet they refuse to go through it).
Here's what the Harry Potter publishers like to do:
1. send you a demand that you shut off the alleged offending party immediately. I stress "alleged" because they provide no evidence other than an IP address.
2. send your upstream provider a threat that if you don't permenantly cut off the alleged party, they will send their attorneys on the upstream as well. Our upstream (a large national NSP) is occasionally competent, but unfortunately has low-level clerical hacks that deal with DMCA complaints. They have no legal training, are unaware of the registered agent process, and make representations regarding the alleged party that an attorney could easily construe as defamation (one must *always* be careful what one accuses another party of; god forbid the other party can afford competent counsel and wants to rub your nose in your errors). Threats of litigation are also in this dangerous category; one must not threaten unless one has the will and means to follow it up, as well as bear the legal and financial consequence of having a big mouth.
We have a polite but legal response to these content owners, reminding them of their responsibilities under DMCA. In most cases they go away, looking for other easy targets. Once they're aware that the recepient ISP is not unaware of the law, they're off to easier hunting. Because people like me rarely mention their unethical and potentially illegal actions, they believe they have no consequence. Harry Potter's publisher certainly has no financial consequence - who is going to boycott them? Heck, they could propose and contribute money to genocide, sacrifice babies and exterminate little old ladies and they'd still have record sales.
Perhaps it's sufficient to patronize competent service providers...
I would love to do my country a favor and send you back to whatever shithole you came from because I don't think it was America.
"Section 512(h) of the Act does not authorize subpoenas in such circumstances"
Don't provoke Congress...they'll just come back with Section 512(h) VERSION 2.0.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
This is one example where capitalism actually works. Just as long as said company actually has competition, that is.
I think Charter is scared of looking like they're customer-unfriendly in the face of possible "future" competition. Future competition could mean a proliferation of companies (like SBC) which offer things like 3mbps DSL service in the same area (in my city) as, say, Comcast (my ISP).
Then again Charter's motivation could be nothing more than corporate sovereignty (or: "How dare they tell us what to do!")...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
...than this simple court decision. Rightfuly so, the court said that Charter is under no obligation to reveal information about "alleged" subscribers. That's not necessarily the best news in the world. Yes, the RIAA cannot go after just anybody, but if they can prove in a court that someone is actually distributing copyrighted material, it should be another story.
I've little time for the RIAA and they way that they function, but the others who signed on represent a number of creative people that I work with. I am still troubled by the amount of copyright infringement that goes on in the world.
It's one thing when you are getting material, it's another altogether when your material is used without permission. On one occasion, I had a school ask if they could make 500 copies of one chapter in a book I wrote for distributiuon to their students. They had no desire, or intent, to compensate me for my work.
The artists are the ones who get screwed in this- they deserve just compensation for their work and should be given such. When you can't pay the bills with your craft, you change to another craft. How many decent artists does that deny us the pleasure of seeing or hearing?
It's always about the money, but in the case of a number of industries, it's about keeping the money coming in for those who did the work. I've paid a bar tab with a royalty check- and I needed the drink. How many of us will pay the tab for artists?
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
You shouldn't have said that, the unethical thieving pirates are going to jump on you for that comment, whine about how it isn't really stealing to get music/movies/games/etc for free without the owners permission or paying the owners, cry about how they shouldn't be called the thieves that they are, will point you to the term "copy right infringement" that they use to help remove their guilt, and will do what every they can to justify their immoral actions with what ever means possible.
the citations in the dissenting opinion.
To prove his point that P2P filesharing is damaging record sales, Murphy cites two NEWSPAPER ARTICLES,
one from the NYT and one from the Wash. Post. He doesn't cite any economic study or any actual data beyond speculative news articles.
Not a very impressive rationalization.
flamebait?
troll?
no one even replies, how can this be either?
MABASPLOOM!
who are capped at a miserable 128Kbps upload. Please. Nice to know this is where our entertainment dollars are going. How about producing/selling something worth watching for a change?!?
Lest we forget, Paul Allen, the major investor in SpaceShipOne, also owns a controlling interest in Charter.
What Paul giveth, Paul taketh away...particularly when that massive cable bill shows up in my box every month.
</rant>
Correct me if I'm wrong, but given that interpretation it's basically impossible to use the subpoena power of the DMCA against anyone other than a web hosting company. Not that I'm complaining, but I doubt that's what was intended in the law, and I can definitely see that either being reversed higher up or ammended if necessary.
On the other hand, it basically leaves the law in a position where it can be used against "commercial" infringement (including someone else's content on your web site. not that all sites are commercial, of course), but leaves "sharing" beyond the reach of the law.
Of course content owners can still send warning letters to some ISP's and get your service canceled (cough
I'd really love to see the whole law ammended out of existance, but anyways...
Too many people rebroadcast baseball games with implied oral consent instead of express written consent.
It's cheaper than a trial.
The way I understand this, people won't pirate nearly as much if the prices of CD's go down.
From what I've learned in economics, the price level should be determined by where supply and demand meet. Therefore, any price should yield similar profits, just from more or fewer people paying it. But the recording industry is attempting to operate as a monopoly (price fixing, etc.), which changes the model. Since it has no competition, it probably bases it's pricing not on where demand and supply meet, but at the most efficient point of the production possibilities curve, which guarantees the most money for the cheapest product. However, the price it fixes at is higher than what most people want to pay, so many people would rather pirate the stuff. The correct decision in a free market economy would just be to lower the price, but the industry is instead trying to take out piracy (using very shady tactics) so it can keep pricing music without regard to supply and demand.
The way I see it, the only way to lower the prices on CD's and reduce piracy and make everybody happy is to keep the music industry from operating as a single entity.
So the only logical answer I can think of to end all this suing and gestapo-like behavior is to get something truly done about the RIAA's monopolistic actions (attacking them for price fixing is good).
Esoteric reference.
All this ruling does is preserve due process in achieving RIAA's legal ends. This is not a victory for the people. The people we are talking about really _ARE_ infringing on copyrights in most cases.
What this ruling does do is make pursuing the actual infringers more expensive and annoying for RIAA and the like. Instead of getting blanket subpoenas en masse from a court a jillion miles away, they have been told to hire local council, file a John Doe lawsuit, and then file a subpoena for the information. Judicial oversite of the process is preserved, and a bunch of local lawyers will make more than the average amount collected from the alleged infringer for each suit filed.
...eS-I-ms1234, while your Friend, the Computer, does appreciate your efforts to apprehend the Treasonous Purple Security Clearance Citizen, Xavior-P-Enguin123, it is worth noting that impersonating a Troubleshooter assigned to security is a Treason Offense.
Please report to the nearest self-incrimination center for summary Trial-And-Execution immediately.
Have a Happy Day and remember that The Computer is your Friend!
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If you are trading files will you use a service that would turn you in or one that won't. For that matter if you are trading something with a filename similar to a work such as an mp3 of bells tolling called for Whom the Bells Toll (it's even better since it isn't a perfect match) would you trade your ahem performance art on an internet service that would turn you in or on one that wouldn't.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The vast majority of the general public doesn not care about the DMCA and Congress has been bought and paid for by the entertainment industry. What will come out of this ruling is that "Section 512(h) of the Act does not authorize subpoenas in such circumstances" will be ammended tout de suite.
But you should note the following:
1) Nowhere in the parent was it stated or implied that this was the case.
2) Nowhere in the Plantiff's complaint did they really, really meet the criteria of identifying a specific infringer (Required by law, both for Copyright and for the obviously Unconstitutional DMCA...)- ergo, a very probable instance of where the DMCA's provisions are at odds with the Fourth Ammendment. If they don't have anything on you specifically, they can't go on a fishing expidition- which is what the RIAA was on.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I am in St. Louis, MO and use Charter. I have been following this for a while and I am glad that this is over. I won't be getting caught! :D
The court decision just requires RIAA to use other process to find your identity. More expensive one, yes. But the losing side - i.e. you - pays all the expenses...
Here: "...organizations such as RIAA can also employ alternatives avenues to seek such information, such as 'John Doe' lawsuits. In such lawsuits many of which are now pending in district courts across the country, organizations such as RIAA can file a John Doe lawsuit, along with a motion for a third-party discovery of the identity of otherwise anonymous 'John Doe' defendant".
Bandwidth hogs are the ones paying for all of it in the first place. The people providing it. The people consuming it. Just because they provide a load on the system, if they weren't there, they'd pretty much have nowhere near the customer base.
If they rat out their customers, they lose Common Carrier status, which is protecting them in the first place. This is an excessively bad idea. Ratting them out now can open them up to future liabilities in the form of not handling future outbreaks- so they end up spending a hell of a lot more on trying (in vain) to lock down the filesharers. Either of the situations due to that wouldn't sit well with their stockholders.
If they rat out their customers, the ones that didn't get ratted out go elsewhere if at all possible. Most of this sort of stuff is going on in Urban areas and therefore more often than not, the customers in question have alternatives at thier disposal and the ones that don't will have them soon. That means you're losing customers disproportionate to the costs of the loading from those "hogs". That sort of thing doesn't sit well with stockholders.
Your math's sound, but only from a single perspective and you failed to factor in tons of other things that place such actions soundly in the negative for a business that knows what it's legal obligations and rights are.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
it's difficult to say which side to join with here (putting aside my personal desire to download free music). Consider this analogy:
A private courier company, FedUPS, carries packages all across the country. It has come to the point where, say, 75% of its packages contain illegal narcotics. Drugs have been identified as harmful to people, and it is a legitimate interest of the government to stop the flow of drugs. Is it not reasonable to require FedUPS to provide the addresses of those packages intercepted and known to contain drugs?
of course, in this RIAA case, it is a civil matter, and this story is about how the DCMA explicity protects ISPs from being targeted for traffic they cannot control. Plus, reasonable people are disagreeing over how illegal/unethical it is to copy pirated music. But the structure of the problem is similar, right? If we decide to make copying copyrighted music illegal and we declare it is a problem, what are we going to do about the conduits of that illegal traffic?
perhaps it's a signal to lawmakers that we have two very different competing interests both attempting to use the laws to advance their ends...
If they can't subpoena the IP lists, a John Doe filing is pretty useless- because it doesn't identify a specific Defendant.
You can't have an action held against you unless they have good reasoning to do so, they can have sanctions handed down to them if they do attempt it without backing, and you can countersue the Hell out of them for trying.
It may protect the ISP, but it makes it pure Hell for them to get at you because they can't identify you specifically. Now, I'm not one that does the fileswapping BS, but I have a BIG problem with the way they're all going about this shite.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Charter does a great job preventing piracy themselves by outsourcing their newsgroups to Supernews and capping it at 2 connections @ 128kbps each.
It's legal due process. DMCA tends to try to do away with most of it in favor of the rightsholders- which is the rights of the few getting in the way of the rights of the many.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Walk up to a lawyer with a pack of breath mints. Ask if s/he wants one. When they say yes, make like you are going to give them one. When they reach out for it, pull the package back and yell "CERT DENIED!"
FU*K riaa
Yes, quite true, but the "flat rates" are still higher monthly charges when you buy faster connections. How many folks do you think would still want to pay out as much as 2x or 3x as much money per month for their "high speed" connection, if they didn't have much of any worthwhile content to download?
The whole "MP3 music player" fad is certainly driving up orders for DSL and cable Inet connections. (And let's be frank here... How many of those people are really just buying it so they can quickly download their legally purchased music from places like the iTunes music store? More likely, it's a *combination* of buying some things, and getting the rest from p2p networks.)
The same can be said for movie downloads, too. The MPAA may scream and rant about it - but folks like the ability to download a "preview copy" of a new movie release, before shelling out the $8.50 or more for a movie ticket to see it in the theater. This ability is worth just enough so people might say "Yeah, I'll pay the extra $10-15 per month for a faster connection so I can get them.", but NOT worth enough for folks to pay some sort of subscription fee on top of the ISP bandwidth fee to do it.
This is more like two butchers fighting over a cow.
I don't think the cow should consider either of them to be on its side, no matter how hard they fight.
it is not theft, it is alledged theft.
And they want everybodies information whether or not the committed a crime.
and it is not theft, it is copyright violation. I believe that distinction is important, and we should not allow the industry to convince people they are the same thing..
Now, if someone knowingly distributes files that don't have the right to, then yes that is illegal. Illegal doesn't not mean immoral.
YOu note, I said "Knowingly distributes". People should never be in the position to prove what someone seels them or gives them was aquired in a legal manner.
If the people who built your hard drive commet a crime in doing so, should you be held responsible? no, of course not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...(not that I'm a lawyer, mind...) that technically, they're supposed to file the John Doe filings seperately anyhow. The large problem with this is, that unwitting people could be offering the material (therefore, they're not guilty of infringement, per se- but the *AA people just filed a subpoena to that effect... Think about it....) and this whole thing infringes on their rights just so they can score control on all of us. Worse, they're not even checking in most cases as to whether the stuff's infringing or not- which makes the whole thing dead wrong in my book.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
@nonymouse is apparently an anonymizing HTTP proxy.
But when you say "copyright" and "mouse" in the same sentence, I think of The Walt Disney Company and its atrocities against the intellectual commons.
If an ISP maintains a directory, or a web page, with links to offending material, that could be contributory infringement.
Link here means relaying information by providing the physical link to the end user - I send a request from my computer destined for a remote computer, the ISP is not liable if they merely forward my request, and/or return the reply.
That's different than "Here's a list of copywritten stuff you can download without the owner's permission!"
paintball
No entry found for priveledge.
Did you mean privilege?
One of the big problems many of us have with these P2P lawsuits is that, at least initally, they were trying to circumvent normal law. They'd just go to a clerk and say "We need the names for these 1000 IPs" and figure they should get them.
No, sorry, not how it goes. You can't just request blanket information because you want it. I'm happy to see that the RIAA has to follow proper procedure just like the rest of us. You shouldn't have special status because you happen to be an IP producer.
Now we need the Supreme Court to decide not to overturn the sensible "Grokster" decision (during their current session), and these copyright profiteers will have to make money by producing new products people want, rather than just extorting money every time the change the format or anything else they control.
--
make install -not war
The only way you lost thousands of dollars is if, in fact, every single individual who obtained your material would have, under other circumstances paid for it, which is a simplistic assumption. When the record company makes such claims sales figures suggest they know they are lying. Can you demonstrate, for example, that an author loses money when a book is checked out of the library?
What the RIAA is doing thru these lawsuits is attempting to maintain an obsolete business model and an obsolete star system. If they had been less stupid, they would have seen this coming and built a new business model years ago instead.
As for residual royalties, you might consider the example of science fiction - fantasy author Mercedes Lackey. A couple of years ago, she agreed to let her publisher make a couple of her works available for free download. Her very next royalty check, from her other publisher, for the oldest series in her backlist, was three times what it had been consistantly for the previous ten years. We're not talking bar tab here, unless you are buying rounds for the house. She used the check to buy a nail gun, an air compressor to power it, and high grade lumber to build a wall of bookshelves - mid to high three figures.
copy priveledge related stuff
and copy priveledges
to be a priveledge
in favor of copy priviledges
Copy priledges would have to
domain of copy privileges
"privileges", "privilege".
You actually spelled it correctly the last time ("domain of copy privileges"). Sorry for accidentally flagging it as a misspelling when it wasn't.
Copyright prevents competition from occurring in the music industry. There's no point in analysing this in market-theoretic terms when the law bars a natural market from operating. The only way to stop them acting like a monopoly is stop granting the monopoly - we've seen more than enough evidence to realise that copyright isn't working, and can't work, no matter how the latest futile, myopic damage-control strategy might try to paper over the cracks. The only people benefitting from this farcical anti-competitive situation are the bootleggers and the distributors, while the artists and their listeners (the two groups for whose benefit the market exists in the first place) get screwed.
If this is true, and it apparently is, than the prior convictions of individuals who were indenfitied by internet providers and turned over to the RIAA to be sued and convicted must be overturned.
BAAALOOOOOOOOBAAAAAAAA!
How would anyone be able to know how many chinese immigrants are members of the ACLU or Amnesty International?
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Well, by calling them 'hogs', you imply these large video-file hosting clients are taking up more than their fair share of bandwidth. Maybe you don't realize that the people that run these servers PAY for the bandwidth. If they didn't use nearly the limit, they would choose another company or service with less limits and is cheaper.
Naturally, everyone chooses the lowest plan that fits their needs, so basically, by your definition, the only customers that really AREN'T hogs are the typical joe-user AOL Top-Speed Technology that only uses it to check his email.
Bottom line: hogs are paying customers. Bigger hogs are bigger paying. And uh, let's not forget that NO ONE that runs questionable servers would likely patronize an ISP that sells them out as little shits. Any questions?
Partial Credit: The Engineer's Best friend
"Well, the bridge didn't fall all the way down!"
More like suprnova is dead so who cares.
More like napster is dead so who cares.
More like morpheus is dead so who cares.
More like kazaa is dead so who cares.
More like gnutella is dead so who cares.
More like edonkey is dead so who cares.
More like (this space for rent) is dead so who cares.
Because of you our music won't sell,
Now God is going to damn you to hell.
Trading our songs has raised our ire,
Now thou shall burn in the Lake of Fire!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
just a theory, but i believe your post was marked as "flamebait" due to the fact that you called slashdot hypocritical. not sure, but believe that's it.
Several people have been saying that the judges aren't corrupt, or dishonest...
Have they forgotten that judges are lawyers that get to wear funny robes?
And that judges are the topdogs in the legal stuff, it's really hard for anyone to 'fire' one of them.
Don't forget the job of Supreme Court Judge is a lifetime position.
Don't get me wrong, there are honest, competent, tech savy, and intelligent judges and other lawyers out there. Too bad they are an under represented minority.
What you're talking about is the social optimum, where all whose value exceeds the marginal cost (MC) recieve the good. Since MC = ~0, the socially optimal price is zero. However, the average cost (AC) is not zero, AC = fixed cost/volume + MC. Since AC is greater than MC, a company could not make a profit and the only way to reach this price would be government subsidies. Piracy operates at a price point that could never be reached by a company. This is the basis of why many countries subsidize public transportation - the social value exceed the commercial value. That doesn't entitle you to sneak on the bus, though.
There is a range of other price points (for various market constellations), but two other are very well-known price points, which are those of perfect competition, and of a monopoly. In perfect competition, sales price = AC, and profits are zero. In a monopoly, you maximize profit (which happens at a smaller market than either of the other).
Price fixing occurs when several companies cooperate to extract monopoly profits from the market instead of competing. Mind you, there can be many legal barriers to competition as well apart from price fixing. But even if you removed all price fixing, all barriers to competition, you could never reach anything better than perfect competition - which is still more expensive than pirating it.
This is why copyright was invented. If there was no copyright, there is no commercial market. Neither companies nor individuals could break even. Unless of course, they existed for the sole purpose of promoting something else like advertising (as is the case with commercial public television). Of course, that could be removed. Let's say for the sole purpose of product placement. That'd be a more realistic and grim future.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The RIAA would have increased its profits if it wasnt spending so much money on its legal battles all over the place. Fair enough that they attempt to bust people that pirate music but more often than not its a witch hunt.
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If you RTFA, you will see that the court actually stated that, to their knowledge, "[the RIAA] has never prevailed in any infringement actions brought against individual downloaders."
Everyone who has "lost" a case so far has settled out of court for a large wad of cash and some propoganda PR work - so there aren't any convictions to overturn or judgements to reverse.
is when they sue college students and claim that they're just trying to "educate" them. Education is expensive enough these days without getting sued too, thank you very much.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
A private courier company, FedUPS, carries packages all across the country. It has come to the point where, say, 75% of its packages contain illegal narcotics. Drugs have been identified as harmful to people, and it is a legitimate interest of the government to stop the flow of drugs. Is it not reasonable to require FedUPS to provide the addresses of those packages intercepted and known to contain drugs?
To whom? Let's say I'm a drug dealer trying to find out where that crackhead who owes me money lives now. So I subpoena his address from deliveries I know is going to him. Ouch. Now, on the other hand if it were the courts...
That is the difference here. The DMCA subpoenas are requesting that you deliver customer information to a private entity, while if they file a john doe-lawsuit, it is the court. That is what they have been doing for several months now, and that is the right way.
With the subpoena, you have no recourse because you were not being accused of anything.... - yet. With a lawsuit, you can give them hell if it is baseless, incorrect, just used to gather personal information or otherwise invalid. Assuming the claim is valid, that a law was broken, of course they can sue over it (even though the law may be stupid). That is how any civilized society works.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, the point of the subpoena is to get your name, which they then bully settling early to claim victory.
The purpose of denying this is to force them to prove in court that you've actually broken the law BEFORE your name gets turned over for bullying.
Never confuse volume with power.
I just started looking at learning Ruby yesterday, so of course your sig caught my eye. Fearing what might happen should I run it, what is it supposed to do? :)
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
The really scary part of all this is that the DMCA really has >= 512 sections with multiple paragraphs contained within each.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In other words, the uneducated masses are the best targets for RIAA.
I'm glad settling out of court doesn't set judicial precedence.
And how many 12-year-olds do you know who aren't immune from prosecution because they have anything of enough value to take? So I don't see how they're going to get the expenses paid beyond a few grand they might be able to wring out of the parents. There is definitely no way they'll do anything but blow their record-setting profits on a bunch of worthless law suits.
The Farewell Tour II
It was about the opening of the cold war, and the very bleak present of the time Orwell wrote. He swapped digits in the year "1948".
The 'future prediction' aspect just allowed him to cast a sharp relief onto the suble qualities of propaganda and oppression in that time and this one. It's worse now - not better!
btw: Ociania has always been at war with East Asia.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I hate to digress off the issue at hand, but you bring up something that should be part of our collective common sense. We should have learned a lesson with Prohibition. We are proving that we learned absolutely NOTHING. You CANNOT tell someone they cannot have something because someone else thinks it is wrong. It will only serve to make that group of people want it even more, use more devisious methods to get it and commit more crimes in other areas to get to that end. We see that history already repeating itself with the 'prohibition' of 'illiciet' drugs, such a marajuana. Stealing is one thing, but in the case of drugs, stealing happens because people want the end product that is illegal and is illegal to fund legally. The whole business of creating, farming and selling drugs had ought to be regulated in the same fashion as alcohol is today. It would decrease the overall usage. Provide help for those who have real problems with it. Enable groups to appoarch the issues surrounding it's use with an air of sanity instead of the 'brain on drugs' mentality. The vast majority of the people who have tried illegal drugs are still alive and functioning well in society today. You tell a kid that they will ruin their ability to think properly, learn, and function in society then they try it and see it is all lies only wonders what other lies they are being told too. That is what leads to great usage. That is what leads to escalation in types of drugs being used. They lied about these things, then they must be lieing about the rest.
Stealing is NOT the same type of offense and I don't see where you can draw a parallel to drugs. I do not see this as an issue about prohibition to 'stealing'. If you don't like the word stealing applied theft of copyrighted songs, then perhaps you should petition the artists themselves to stop copyrighting them to begin with. It isn't a matter of the end result being wrong, it's a matter of the process being broken and people continueing to participate in a broken process. If it's that bad, then perhaps they will justy stop using it. Nothing forces an artist to to work through RIAA to produce music. You can point to money as an issue, but it is you who are supplying the money to RIAA in the first place. Stop buying music from artists associated with RIAA then and the organization will quickly collapse and the artists will stop using them. The solution is simply, it's a matter of getting the majority of the people to start doing it.
If we can manage to have more ISPs grow a backbone, maybe we can once and for all eliminate the witch hunt that the RIAA and MPAA are going on. This is simply uncalled for, and has spurned a response by an anonymous source. http://noriaa1.tripod.com/ There is explicit language used in this, but it makes a good point.
You can embed any ruby in a string using the construction #{some code}. So actually, you could do anything with a "puts ". puts is dangerous, I guess.
My other first post is car post.
So that means I don't have to quiver in front of a RIAA gestapo agent while I agree to pay $5,000 and appear in a "Don't Download Infomercial?"
It's not what you know; It's what you can find out.
Few grands are probably enough to make the whole thing profitable. Civil lawsuit filing fees are a couple of hundred bucks plus a lawyer's salary. The latter tends to be big, but I do not see why it can't be outsourced... How about "pay up or go to an Indian jail"?
Hey, at least you'd have lots of jobs to chose from when you get out. Unless they deport you or leave you on the side of the road without a work permit...
The Farewell Tour II
Ottawa should with extend the same freedom and allow all provinces to have the same level of self-determination, or they should crush Quebec like they have everybody else. The US, by nature, favors much more independant states and delegation of decision making to the state level. Canada only allows this for Quebec.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'