Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Lawsuits from a John Doe's Perspective
An anonymous reader writes "Nick Mamatas was sued by and subsequently settled with the RIAA for file sharing. He wrote a piece for the Village Voice describing his experience, and he goes on to briefly discuss the implications of "John Doe" file-sharing lawsuits. He argues that the labels are using these suits as a source of profit; he also claims that when his lawyer contacted the RIAA to discuss the suit, he was put in touch with a regular staffer, not another lawyer. 'It feels like they're doing a volume business,' Mamatas' lawyer notes."
Ugh. Their music sounds enough without too much volume.
The RIAA is to America what GNAA is to Slashdot
Hey, at least they're doing something they're good at.
Just think, if the lawsuits decrease, record execs will suddenly whine, "OH WE ARE STARVING, WE SUED EVERYBODY! HELP US ORRIN!"
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
Perhaps companies need to declare their extraordinary profit in shareholder reports due to pursuing 'legal avenues'.
Your friendly and conveniently located RIAA offices are here to take your extor... settlements. Just stop into one of our many locations.
We are also accepting unsolicited settlements. If you feel guilty about steeling from the table of our hard working label execs just drop by and we'll settle everything.
What could possibly go wrong?
Let's see.. 1700 times a minimum of 3000 dollars... 5.1 MILLION DOLLARS! Not too shabby, HUH? And I'll bet that the artists and performers never see a single cent of it!
Man, that article has opened my eyes. I never would have guessed all these lawsuits were used to generate profit for the cartel.
-----
I'll file this under "duh".
So will society let this one spin horribly out of control until it is a vast, pathetic cataclysm of Brobdingian proportions, that makes strong men weep, strong women faint and baby Jesus cry?
Of course we will. The question was rhetorical.
Copyright infringement is against the law, and I have absolutely _no_ sympathy for people who think that because it's just a "little crime" there should be just a "little penalty". That's nothing more than a bunch of handwaving to rationalize the criminal activity in the first place.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
No, seriously, when will it end? I'd like to know.
By the way, bassist/co-songwriter/co-singer.
Sounds similar to another organisation in the news lately. Only by threatening to shoot people they have shot themselves in the foot. Hopefully this continued assalt on individuals will reward the hyped out, paranoid entertainement industry with the same results.
Is the RIAA a government run establishment? Where do they get their power and athority from? Does the recording industry pay them to do its bidding or what?
Rationalize all you like, but ultimately these people are violating copyrights by sharing music, or getting something they aren't entitled to by downloading. When the RIAA goes after the technologies used to enable P2P sharing, there is an outrage and rightfully so. However, when the RIAA actually goes after the people doing the wrong things, there's also an outrage. But that's just pathetic. All these people that just won't be happy until they can get all the music they want for free need a serious lesson in ethics, economics, and a slap upside the head.
First, is it just me or does that article come across as if part of his settlement entailed him promising to use his public position to author a "scare-em-straight" article?
Second, why aren't people going to court over these lawsuits? I don't see why you would even need a lawyer. Just go to court and say "I didn't do anything illegal. Show me proof beyond a reasonable doubt that I did."
I mean, other than a record company CLAIMING that someone at some IP address was sharing certain songs, what proof is there? If something goes missing from my garage, I can't just point a finger at a neighbor and tell the judge "no, I KNOW he took it - I saw it!". You have to have more proof than that. Something unbiased and irrefutable, preferably from an independant party.
Short of confiscating your computer, finding an installed P2P application ACTUALLY RUNNING AT THE TIME, with a configured shared directory full of copyrighted songs that you are not legally licensed to distribute and your software is actively serving them to active downloaders at the time that it is being viewed by a judge - what proof is there?
its a civil suit judgement, correct? I had one from 1998. I did not pay it, no big deal. It is not the court's responsibility to force you to pay. (at least not where I live). its "on" my credit report, but i have never been turned down for anything since then, (have a very nice credit score actually) and it will get removed soon. I actually called the lawyer representing the person that sued me one day, and asked him about it (thats mostly what he does for a living). He said a good percentage of the judgements he wins never get payed, as there is no way to force the loser to cooperate. Maybe its different in other states? If I lost the case, I would basically be like kiss my ass RIAA.
http://music.x757x.org/ - techno dj mixes for your pleasure
RIAA is making money out of people who break the law and infringe on their copyright (and thus their profits). TRAGEDY! My heart bleeds! ;-p
Note I didn't say 'steal'; I want sane argument here, not arguing semantics with slashbots. I'll probably just get modded down instead
So, what's so evil about this that it merits a YRO mention?
I sit alone and watch the lights, on my PC for several nights. And ev'rything I want to load, I find it on the net, you know
You gave us all those boyband stars. Their CD price -- a total farce. You made 'em sing - which made us cry. We just want all those bands to die
RIAA
You'll just become some background noise, suing groups of girls and boys, who just don't know and just don't care, about your new idea of "fair"
You had your time, you've had the power. You're going to have your final hour
RIAA
All we hear is, RIAA bastards, RIAA sue you, RIAA wankers.
All we hear is, RIAA retards, RIAA blah blah
Peer to peer is new. RIAA no one now needs you!
We taped CDs - we dubbed the stars, off radio for hours and hours. Now we swap files amongst our peers, The tech just changes through the years
Let's hope you leave 'cause you're no friend. Like all good things they come to an end. Don't stick around, as we won't miss you. We're growing tired of all your bullshit
You had your time, you've had the power. You're going to have your final hour
RIAA
All we hear is, RIAA bastards, RIAA screw you, RIAA smacktards.
All we hear is, RIAA wankers, RIAA losers, RIAA ha ha.
All we hear is, RIAA retards, RIAA blah blah
Peer to Peer is new. RIAA, no one now needs you!
RIAA bastards, RIAA bastards, RIAA bastards
RIAA
You had your time you've had the power. You're going to have your final hour
RIAA
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
We sue you so that we can stay alive. Of course, we ignore the billions of profits that we have.
It's called the LIBRARY. I know they don't have all the movies or songs but that could change with a little more funding. If we could also 'UNITE' the libraries through internet networking then we could also download or the library could download hard to find movies or songs.
One point on the Riaa lawsuits . Is it really like breaking into BEST BUY and stealing CDs' and movies ? Aren't these MP3's,Camcorder tapings, Divix, AVI and Mpegs just average to bad copies. If so then how could it be counted as theft ? Shouldn't there be a consideration to quality. Wouldn't you equate this to recording RADIO with tape ?
Now what's this with Martha Stewart and her lemons and donuts? Poor gal, she's suffered so much...
Man, this Michael Jackson guy trial really rocks ass...what'll they think of next.
et al...
[/sarcasm]
Nobody cares for the real news any more.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I still can't understand how "We're losing money" is the same as "We're not making as much money as we think we should".
"Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation." - Richard Feynman
Perhaps (wishful thinking) the RIAA is secretly going bankrupt and this is a last ditch effort at some profit (a la SCO)?
Alright, maybe not, but I can dream, can't I?
Clones are people two.
Really!!! They are after money. Oh my god, never saw that coming. Did you?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
What is his complaint?
Is he upset that he got sued? That it was filed as a John Doe suit? He admits in the article he broke the law, so I don't think he has the right to complain.
Is he upset that his lawyer (whom he did not pay) did not get to speak to lawyer at the RIAA? Doesn't the RIAA have the right to handle their case the way they want do?
Is he upset they sued a lot of people at the same time as him? If it's illegal, say so and fight it. If the other people aren't guilty, let them complain. Otherwise, it sounds like an acceptable legal tactic to me.
Yes, the RIAA has done some things wrong in handling these cases. Originally, they were requesting information without a filing a suit, but they have changed that. Also, they have sued some innocent people, but the writer admits he is not one of those.
He was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and doesn't like it. Well, sorry. If he did not want to be sued and pay up he should have not violated the law. He, like everyone else, must face the consequences of their actions.
I don't like the way the RIAA is reacting to digital music, but that does not give me the right to steal music. If you don't think someone is offering their music fairly, then boycott them. That is a time-honored legal method of protesting.
Calling downloading "civil disobedience" is an insult to those, like the civil rights protesters and the protesters in Tiananmen Square, who have used civil disobedience to try to right the wrongs of society. File sharing is stealing to avoid paying the cost, not civil disobedience--it directly benefits the protester. Civil rights protesters did not directly benefit from their protests. The only thing they got was a change in the laws--the whole point of their protest..
If you steal music, then, as a law breaker, what right do you have to complain about the RIAA?
I remember posting a response to a similar article about sue happy music execs in the past. And here it is:
c id =8405791] ....
[http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=98474&
--- Snippy Snippy ----
New business model? (Score:3, Insightful)
by jobbleberry (608883) on Friday February 27, @01:18AM (#8405791)
Is it just me or are companies starting to use Law Suits as a business model.
For example the Music Industry has got it down to a fine art. Find a consumer, sue them for millions, they can't afford legal costs so they settle for around 3 - 5 grand, move onto the next.
They could potentially make more money this way out of indiduals then by having them buy CD's.
Just my thoughts anyway.
--- Snippy Snippy ----
I actually find it kind of scary that what started out as an attempt at sarcasm turned into possible reality!
Perhaps someone should stand up and refuse to settle. What did your lawyer say about your chances if you went to trial?
The cake is a pie
From what I've read of their contracts with artists, the RIAA is probably charging them for the privilege.
Towards the end, SCO's business model was pretty much:
1) Sue
2) Sue
3) ???
4) Profit!
to the point where they listed court cases among their achievements on their corporate website.
The media indstry seems to be slowly heading in this direction. Maybe the demise of the RIAA labels / MPAA studios is imminent?
he goes on to breifly discuss the implications
;-)
So I should be punnished more for stealing a Farrari than a handa? Or how about killing a homeless guy compared to a rich guy?
If the RIAA comes after me, I'm going to court and tell them that I don't secure my wireless router. I have no idea who leaches off my internet connection and I don't care. Even if they take my pc, I will have wiped the hard drive clean anyway.
Most of the smaller labels out there don't seem to particularly care about file sharing. Century Media, which isn't that small, but isn't RIAA affiliated to the best of my knowledge doesn't do these kinds of suits. I guess it's because they're not so big that most of the people are just swiping free MP3s that they have no intention of buying. I have frequently downloaded metal MP3s and I go out and buy the real CD when I can find it.
I guess it comes down to, what is the average file sharer's excuse other than "I want it, I want it now and I want it for free?" Most of the file sharing I have seen among other college students isn't obscure stuff, but top 40s type stuff. It's stuff that if you go to buy it online you can find a ton of bargains on. Not only that, but the "poor college student" excuse is bullshit. The most prolific abusers of file sharing I have seen were people that could afford to **buy** most of what they downloaded.
I'm glad that the RIAA has cut down on its lobbying and started doing its job. The RIAA is supposed to protect artists and labels, and that's what they are doing now. New laws don't mean a damn thing unless they are so draconian that enforcement is trivial. These lawsuits are not even in the same league, let alone as some of the laws that people like Fritz Hollings have tried to foist on people.
And you know what's amusing? This is precisely the type of copyright defense that was originally intended in America by our founders. So stop your bitching, you could be arrested by the FBI and sent to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. People like Fritz and Orrin Hatch would love to send file sharers to prison, but the RIAA is happy with a few thousand dollars in civil liabilities which sure beats the fines you would pay in criminal court. In fact, these mass lawsuits are a drop in the bucket compared to what you could face.
Btw, if anyone wants to shop for cheap metal, I have found http:///www.theendrecords.com to have a great online store for distributing popular and obscure stuff. It's even got free shipping in the U.S.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
For forging the path to this type of lawsuits. Innocents (and the occasional crook) sued for profit . Welcome to your future America.
Hey listen, the RIAA are scumbags, but that doesn't mean that they don't have a legally sensible and valid case against these people. Would it please people more to have the RIAA take the suits seriously and *really* bust people's balls as bad as they could? If I wasn't as smart as I am I would probably have kept sharing files instead of stopping about a year before the suits started and I can tell you one thing: if I got busted for it I would thank my lucky stars every day that they turned me over to some pimple faced gopher in the customer service department rather than sending the types of lawyers that companies like the RIAA employ after me. That's not a case I would be likely to win.
The RIAA is just making it "not easy" to trade files. People will still get away with it. The hard-core traders will use IRC, Gnutella, etc. These people believe in "Fair Use", and are not the average Joe-Sixpack saying "This napster thing lets me get something for free". I personally buy the CDs that I listen to, however I believe that "Fair Use" allows people to share music, whether it be online, or by letting a friend borrow your CD...
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Average Song Length: 3 min
RIAA fine: $725
For Bill Now
Hours spent by original inventors of consept:
1000 hours (or 1200000 songs)
Apply RIAA fine:$870,000,000
No kidding. I know what I thought when I first saw Napster... and it wasn't "Cool, this is going to work forever!"
Is it just a coincidence that the RIAA President is called Sherman?
You can borrow CDs from the library. But you can bet that the RIAA considers anyone who copies a CD from the library to be doing it unlawfully.
So I should be punnished more for stealing a Farrari than a handa? Or how about killing a homeless guy compared to a rich guy?
Are you stupid?
Obviously you should be punished more, hell, stealing a Honda would probably not even be a felony.
100% profit (after lawyer's fees)!
My Firefox didn't get a popup.
Are you using Firefox 1.0.1?
I am... No popups for me.
-Ares
I didn't see it. Firefox 1.0
There is in many realms a general law of proportion. It's not just that it is a little crime, but that the cost of these lawsuits is extremely out of proportion with what they really should be. As one person pointed out in another RIAA story it is actually less of a penalty to rob a store and take the cd than it is to download a song. Make the punishment fit the crime and I'm sure that there would be far less of an outcry from all involved.
Okay.. how does a 99p song (iTunes UK prices I'm guessing) turn into $750 or near enough £400?
Isn't this like going "You stole a candy bar from my store, I demand you buy me a new car!"?
I mean fuck me I knew the RIAA were dumb but this is some fucked up maths..
I like muppets.
OK, so RIAA is admitting they know exactly which songs each person they are suing has and that they are getting a minimum $750 each for them (via the court proceedings). That's way more than they could ever hope to get through conventional retail sales or download sales: but are any artists seeing any benefit from this?
To me, it sounds like RIAA has just opened-up a new revenue stream and like it so much because they get way more income for less expenditure (ie: no royalties, manufacturing nor distribution costs).
Are there any recording artists reading slashdot? If you get a statement breaking-down your royalties, is anything attributed to P2P litigation?
How would they ever know? For example, it is fully within the normal privileges granted by the library system in my area to check out as much material as I want, as often as I want, and to place transit holds in order to obtain material from other libraries. I enjoy having an ever-changing variety of music in my car to break up the monotony of the daily drive, and I get the added benefit of a lack of commercials. No one would ever know if I burned copies of all the CDs that pass through my hands as long as I didn't try to sell them.
-insert a witty something-
Instead of hosting whole songs, could hosting only fragments of songs over many peers, that can be recombined by the person downloading, reduce the legal burden on a person hosting being sued for copyright infringement?
Once upon a time there was no RIAA, and still the world had music. Someday in the distant future there will be no RIAA and still the world will have music. How is it everyone assumes that if music becomes free it will cease to exist. How much did an album cost in 1850? Did they have music in 1850? Of course they did. Pick up an instrument. Learn to play it. Play all the songs they say you can't because you don't own the rights. Enjoy.
// This is not a sig.
Well then again, I am running AdBlock, and Tabbrowser Preferences. In Tabbrowser Preferences I have it set to make all popups into tabs. However this time Firefox popped up that bar saying it blocked a popup. With AdBlock, I am running the latest filters from this site. I'm also messing around with the experimental AdBlockLearner which also seems to have some success. I'm using FlashBlock to take care of any pesky Flash-based ads. Hope that helps! -Ares
"If the RIAA comes after me, I'm going to court and tell them that I don't secure my wireless router. I have no idea who leaches off my internet connection and I don't care."
Yeah, except that argument just isn't going to fly in court.
Court: RIAA, what's your evidence that AC infringed on your copyrights?
RIAA: We have his IP address showing he downloaded and shared X songs.
Court: AC, what's you defense?
AC: I don't secure my wireless router. I have no idea who leaches off my internet connection and I don't care.
Do you honestly believe that "I didn't do it, and I don't know who did it" is going to fly? You can't just say "it wasn't me" -- you have to have some evidence that it wasn't you -- and evidence that it potentially wasn't you isn't enough, you need real evidence that it wasn't you, because the RIAA has evidence that it WAS you, and the court isn't going to take your word for it that it wasn't you...
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
For every Beetles song you buy, Yoko gets PAID. That's readon enough to download.
"I have this dsl thing? and one of my computers was infected with an, uh, trojan? Well my internet has always been real slow, and now they say I stole 3000 songs!"
Or the technical version(more believable if you're a network admin)
"You see, I have a system that I use for SSH access into my home. It is behind a Linksys router which uses NAT to provide multiple internal IP's for the one external that I have. Well apparently, I used a weak password for one of the accounts on the SSH box, as I recently discovered it had been hacked and was being used to share files! As soon as I was notified of the breach, I disconnected the system and did a complete security check up on it. So while technically, the IP address in question was assigned to my DSL box at the time of the offense, I was not controlling the PC which generated this traffic"
How about we all take to the streets. Stop by your nearest callous rich bastard's home, And you and few thousands of your closest friends tell them that the line was crossed and now the game has changed. We're taking back control of our lives and changing the rules that society plays by. It's not about just frivolous lawsuits, or the Patriot act, or the RIAA, or wage suppression, etc etc.
Fuck the domination of the many by the few.
the court ordered her to pay damages of $750 for each of 30 songs she was found to have downloaded illegally, for a total of $22,500.
If you get sued by the RIAA for downloading, why not buy the CDs and claim downloading was a convenient way to rip. Fair use of your CDs means no copyright broken. $600 is a helluva lot cheaper than $22K.
Anybody want a peanut?
The risk is sharing your files so it can be UPLOADED. Why does no one ever make this clear? People never get busted for downloading. It hasn't happened.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
The guy's guilty. He doesn't even bother to make any excuses. He got what he deserved. Yet most people here say the RIAA is evil for suing a person guilty for breaking the law. Apple sues bloggers, which arguably violates the 1st amendment, and most people here defend Apple saying they have a right to defend their trade secrets, and need to know the source of the leaks. Can't you people see how closely related these two cases are? The RIAA wishes they were like Apple in /.'s eyes.
Vote for Pedro
Just curious.
I forget what 8 was for.
i'm sorry, but i will never buy digital media in my life ever again
i haven't bought a single CD since i fired up Napster in 1999
my formula (using eMule) for not being caught is two-fold:
1. load your shared folder up with porn
2.if you must download linkin park or evanescence, the kind of stuff the riaa is sniffing?:
a. stop all of your downloads except that song you want with the most sources and the best connections
b. suck it down in under a minute
c. immediately get it out of your shared folder
d. if you do it fast enough, all the porn suckers you have cultivated will flood out anyone trying to get that drop of water pop song in your sea of masking porn
remember: the riaa only goes after those who make pop songs available, not those who download it
and speaking of pop songs?
i have the BEST solution for beating the riaa on that subject matter:
i embrace world music, i let my mind wander
currently, i'm into filipino music (i live in new york city)
the thing to do is is to expand your musical interests to things beyond the usual pop crap, and you are also therefore using the new file sharing technology to its greatest benefit: connecting with resources that otherwise would be beyond your grasp in the pre-internet universe
embrace world music, screw the pop crap, and you win two ways:
1. you won't be on the riaa's radar
2. you'll grow new brain cells as you develop an awareness of a world beyond your nation's borders, of music beyond your stupid local pop music industry
there really is a lot of good stuff out there that isn't the usual robbie williams or christina aguilera or kylie minogue crap
free your mind and give the bastards who want to market you sugar water the finger in the process
and for those of you with a holier-than-thou attitude about me ripping off poor third world musicians?
if it weren't for the filesharing networks, I WOULD NEVER BE EXPOSED TO THE ARTIST I AM LISTENING TO IN THE FIRST PLACE
solve that quandry and get back to me with your holier than thou attitude
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The **AA suing people is no different than what DirecTV has been doing for a few years.
The "problem" with these lawsuits is that it will cost you more to defend them than to settle.
Additionally, both the **AA and DirecTV typically sue you civilly where your guilt or innocence is based on a "preponderance of the evidence", not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is, if their heavy-handed attorneys can make some jury full of idiots think it's 51% likely you did it, then you lose. You get no court appointed attorney and you don't get to plead the 5th ammendment without any negative inference. These **AA attorneys have these cases cookie-cuttered/boiler-plated out and don't care whether you are guilty or innocent. They care about billable hours and whether they think there is enough evidence for them to win.
And when you lose under the DMCA, you lose big time. You not only risk hefty fines, but attorney fees that are often in the tens of thousands. Look at the PACER reports of those people who try and fight these corporations in court -- the defendent typically has one attorney while the plaintiff often has four to six attorneys on their side. Is it NO WONDER nearly everyone settles, even if they are innocent?
So learn from the mistakes of those poor slobs, many who were innocent, but settled anyways.
BE ANONYMOUS.
Because if you get sued by one of the above, you always lose.
If you are gonna do anything that even remotely has the risk of you getting targeted for a lawsuit by one of these big corporations that could care less if 10% of the people they sue are innocent, make sure there is NO WAY it can get tracked back to you.
Is it really like breaking into BEST BUY and stealing CDs' and movies ?
Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/ talks about this issue, and does a pretty good job of arguing that the theft of "tangible property" like a music CD, and the theft of (or violation of) "copyright property" are not exactly the same crime:
When you walk into Camelot Music, and take the latest Snoop Dog CD off the shelf, then Camelot Music has one less CD to sell. Camelot then will have to consider the loss of 15 bucks or whatever it is, because they can't replace that CD for free.
This isn't the case when you download an "unpermissioned" copy of the same work. The way digital technology works, copies are perfect and infinitely low in cost. The value assigned to the copy (of the copyright protected content) is determined by the author, or publishing company - because the physical, or "real" world attributes no value to the copy since it is so easy to reproduce... infinitely.
There is the view that, because you downloaded the content for free illegally, then the money you WOULD have paid is what was lost in profit. Well, that begs the question: Is it absolute that the content you acquired for free would be content that you would have paid for had it not been available for free. RIAA rejects that argument, saying "If you want it at all, then the law says you pay, it doesn't matter if you wouldn't have it if it weren't available for free... that's irrelevant." That's a redirection though - the question wasn't "does it violate copyright law", yes it does. The question was "is it the same as the theft of tangibles".
The paradox of copyrighted content having no actual value and instead only the artificial author-determined law-enforced cost is a recent development. It comes with the digital territory. Thank about it: Books - the original copyrighted material, had to be printed and published (which cost money) and on ACTUAL paper (which kills trees AND costs money) - so this is really the first time in history that copyrights have been so trivial to violate. The trivialness is what makes it's tremendous penalization so absurd. Think about this:
A doctor can cut off your left leg - when you really had a problem with your right leg. Penalty for malpractice? $250,000. max. And that act of butchery requires the negligence of a highly trained professional and (probably) a team of highly qualified peeers. Tons of prep go into a surgery like that, and measures are taken to, in theory, ENSURE that you the patient know WHAT is going to be lopped off.
Compare that to the mere act of a teenager (with probaby little to no knowledge of what a copyright is - thanks public school!) downloading all those PHAT TUNES marketed to them nonstop... and they get it for free, and burn it to CD to listen to with their friends. That teen lands their family smack dab in the middle of a multi million dollar law suit.
Someones earlier post mentioned that law is supposed to promote the general welfare. Is it not blindingly obvious that, in Mr. Lessig's terms, the law has been "queered" to benefit the uber rich?
There ought to be a balance between the flow of content into the public domain (so that culture may be promoted and built upon) and the regulation of content ( rights gauranteed to the author for a sufficient amount of time so as to provide the incentive for innovation ). Currently this balance does not exist. And the powerful RIAA and MPAA lobyists have a very extreme view on what role copyrights ought to play in our culture, and by consequence (this is scary) who is ALLOWED to create and distribute content, and who isn't.
Hint: all your base are belong to them.
LBJ
our 36th President
I'd say it is not their "stuff". It is their signal, mabye. It is the seeders hardware that has the stuff on it and it is your stuff if you're uploading it. It's their rights that are being enfringed though.
Secondly copyright enfringment is not theft. Do not equate the two, to do so is in error.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
We have innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
That's kind of the point of the WAP defense.
Unless I monitor the WAP 24x7, or log all connects/disconnects, I do not know the details of anyone connected to it at any given time.
Because it's behind a NAT device, all those connected PCs share the same public IP address, which must by definition be the IP scanned by the ??AA.
IANAL but I am a tech. You can't prove that a connection to port "X" on shared IP "Y" is machine "Z" unless there is a log of that fact. All I suspect would be required would be logs showing more than one IP connected at the time of the ??AA scan; if the device doesn't log, then you might even be able to get away with showing a screenshot of >2 devices connected, when you have only 1 PC.
> Newitz says that "recent reports indicate that
> file sharing is bigger than ever--and so are the
> record industry's profits. As a result, it's hard
> to see the suits as anything other than a
> wrongheaded attempt by the old media industry to
> push upstart innovators out of the marketplace
> rather than working with them."
This is a ridiculous argument.
If the record industry is making bigger and bigger profits, that in no way obliges them to ignore illegal downloads of their product.
Like it or not, it is their product; they *own* it. If someone starts distributing it for free, then they'd be mad not to try to stop it happening.
For the record, I think IP laws, as exist in much of the world, are fundamentally flawed and will be substantially revised within the next several years. Business models that they encourage - companies like Eolas with no employees and no tangible assets, holding patents with ridiculous scope, capable of suing huge corporates and/or stopping development dead - doesn't benefit society at all and won't be acceptable to either individuals or major companies in the long run.
The record companies will die out in their present form, because they can't put the genii back in the bottle now. All they've ever offered as pluses to music creators are marketing and distribution; the Internet already handles distribution better than the record companies could ever do, so all they now bring to the table is marketing.
At this point, many established groups - the ones who generate most of the profit for music companies - think they're now big enough to do their own marketing. If these groups stand up and say "We'll do our own marketing", what does the music business have to offer them?
Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of is underwriting their touring costs; a really big group (think "U2") spends big dollars putting a tour together, and would probably appreciate someone else underwriting the tour and would be happy to share the profit on that basis.
If it is civil, there's nothing that says you can't file a countersuit, no? And the whole preponderance of evidence bit does cut both ways doesn't it? To date, they have sued a dead woman, a Mac using grandmother for downloading hardcore rap on Kazaa, and a college professor for uploading his work on radio-selected quasars to his ftp host. That seems like a pretty good preponderance of evidence that their tracking and logging is sloppy and error prone.
exactly! we all have copies of a bunch of copywrighted material in our BRAINS. our brains are storage media, correct? one day we're gonna have to lease material we want to view/listen since we copy it.
> Calling downloading "civil disobedience" is an
> insult to those, like the civil rights protesters
> and the protesters in Tiananmen Square, who have
> used civil disobedience to try to right the wrongs
> of society. File sharing is stealing to avoid
> paying the cost, not civil disobedience--it
> directly benefits the protester. Civil rights
> protesters did not directly benefit from their
> protests. The only thing they got was a change in
> the laws--the whole point of their protest..
This is absolutely right.
Downloading illegal files as a form of civil disobedience is akin to robbing banks as a protest against government monetary policy.
I offer no opinion on RIAA's actions at-large, however...
I have serious doubts that RIAA is turning a profit on these lawsuits. Yes, it's clear that they're trying to cut the costs of a large-scale litigation. But is that, in and of itself, a bad thing?
These cases are civil suits -- and the defendants usually don't have any significant amount of money (relative to the plantiffs). Let's think for a second about how much it costs to sue someone in a situation like this. First a person needs to be located. RIAA needs to create a division to either manually seek out uploaders, or write software to do so (or both). RIAA then needs to request customer names from IP addresses. That goes to court and gets appealed...and gets appealed again, finally losing in the 8th circuit courts. That costs quite a bit of money. RIAA's legal team learns that they need to file John Doe lawsuits and then subpeona the necessary data. Just filing those suits and subpeonas costs money (at the very least, paralegals/assistants need to be hired by their legal team, and attorneys need to read and sign the paperwork).
At this point, I'm sure that RIAA's legal bill is getting pretty massive -- well into the $millions. Now, if I were the RIAA (and facing millions of dollars in legal fees) and about to introduce another round of John Doe lawsuits, I would probably staff a call center with relatively inexpensive negotiators instead of high-priced lawyers. Regardless of the ethics behind their actions, this act is simply smart business. This is the same reason why we have nurses and PA's -- certain medical procedures do not necessarily require a physician. In that same light, certain legal procedures do not necessarily require a lawyer.
This is all to reward the RIAA with a prize of approximately $3000 per lawsuit (according to TFA, the average high settlement is $3000). After all is said and done, I seriously doubt that there is a net profit for the RIAA from these lawsuits -- remembering everything else that they've been through. You can't get blood from a stone.
I guess I have to put another disclaimer in this post (I'm sure that there will still be those who miss the double disclaimer): I am neither condoning nor condemning the RIAA's tactics at-large. However, if you're gonna sue someone to prove a point (especially someone who probably doesn't have much money), do it on the cheap. I would.
-Turkey
Down/uploading copyrighted works is illegal. Those that do it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Even worse are those that do it in front of their children -- what a great example.
What about the insecure access point defense? It's still astounding how many people leave their APs wide open. One would think this would bring the evidence into question, and might get it all thrown out.
Deal with it...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
No, they aren't. MP3s are basically indistinguishable from the original CD. And hell, nowadays there's even full DVD rips available.
The little girl isn't the target. The target is her parent or guardian.
The RIAA sues uploaders above a certain threshold. That implies a broadband connection, a fairly muscular PC, an experienced user, with a middle class income or higher.
this is abit of a gray area. you could however improve your chances of the court siding with you if you simply use a 802.11b as apposed to 11g, set a wep password (shows you have made an attempt to secure your connection) and then claim you must have been hacked by a war driver with something like airsnort, which you never knew about until you were *hacked* and an additional "the guy at the shop said it was secure" would make it hard for them to prove you had knowledge of the alledged infringement/security hole and attualy have a judge agree that you need a legal kick in the pants. Or you could just bum off your neighbours network :)
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
I agree. We should also make sure that we have enough police officers to arrest and prosecute all jay-walkers. Those smug fuckers think crossing the street against the light is fine because it doesn't hurt anybody and it saves them time... well fuck that bullshit! I say we stick those hippies into a federal pound you in the ass prison untill they can learn to respect the goddamn motherfucking rules!
Isn't there something in the constitution about grossly over the top punishments?
Heck, one day, I even saw a guy ripping the CDs on his laptop right inside the library!!! (Which is also legal, and no law would prevent him from sharing the ripped songs on wifi if the library had wifi)...
I would guess it has something to do with personal information about him being illegally obtained by the RIAA which led directly to him losing thousands of dollars. Would you not complain? Guilt or innocence is moot when the police kick in your door without a warrant. Then again, I RTFA. I guess that's too much to expect of some folks though.
Calling downloading "civil disobedience" is an insult to those
Oh look, it's the thief who steals from the public domain. He's crying a river of crocodile tears... Copyright infringement can't be civil disobedience? What do you call this:
But the point is, once the RIAA proves (more likely than not -- this is civil, so it's preponderance of the evidence standard) that it is more likely than not that you did it, then the burden of proof shifts to you to prove you didn't do it. If all you have is "I didn't do it" I'm not sure I would take that bet...
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
http://www.livejournal.com/users/nihilistic_kid/56 7411.html?thread=5994099#t5994099
It's like I always say, "Slashdot is full of morons."
I don't know who is stupider, the people who read the article and think that I'm "complaining" or those who think that they can just say "I didn't do it" and destroy the evidence and get away with it.
hold on. two different things here. (here in soviet durkadurkanuckistan downloading copyrighted works here is not illegal, but whatever). Sure it's illegal.
But are you saying that because something is illegal that people should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for any transgression against it? You have some pretty strong faith in legislators, man. (not to mention a pretty poor opinion of the people)
"Even worse are those that do it in front of their children -- what a great example."
Perhaps there is a greater lesson in enfringing copyright in front of children; music is more important than legality, and sometimes you need to do things that other people do not necessarily agree with (enfringing copyright) on the path to creating works that benifit everyone(music) in a better way with more magnitude.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
If the RIAA asked, a judge would likely allow them to search your hard drive. If they find evidence the songs there, you are now in contempt of court. . . and pissed off judge will make the RIAA look like pussey-cats.
Let's get rid of the copyright exception. It was a good idea when it restricted few and benefited the majority, but that is no longer the case. Hollywood and the music industry can find some other way to encourage people to fund their projects (like say, charging a reasonable amount and making their product available to everyone on the planet at the same time).
How we know is more important than what we know.
What would happen if someone actually stood up to them and fought the case in court? How would the RIAA prove who actually used the computer to share the files? With a computer that is used by multiple people who live in the home as well as the possibility of visitors to your home, how could they show who it was who actually shared those files? It isn't as though you sign any agreements or anything when you own a computer that makes you liable for any activity the computer is used for. How could they prove a remote user hadn't hacked your sytem and used your hard drive as a depository? They aren't the government. It isn't as though they can hack your computer or get a warrant to search it. The only thing they could prove is what protocols and networks your computer was using to access the file sharing network. Are there any class action law suits going on against the RIAA right now? Perhaps charges of racketeering should be brought against them.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
because they like music
we were beating drums before we invented currency
ask a teenaged boy why he picks up a guitar, and the usual reason is to impress chicks, not become jay-z
people will make music whetehr they make $1,000,000,000 or $0
because it's not about the money, it's about the love
i'm sorry you love money more than music
i'm sorry you've been born in the wrong era
welcome to reality: art is not commerce, as you and the fucking conglomerates are learning
so sorry you won't fulfill your dream of becoming a corporate whore
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There is an error in the article:
It should read "uploaders" because copyright prohibits unauthorized distribution. I doubt the RIAA can even find a way to sue downloaders. It is probably impossible because there is no way to prove where a file comes from.However, they try to make "downloading" appear to be criminal in their ad campaigns. It is interesting how great an effect this advertising has had. Even one of their victims cannot tell the difference.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Not to be a bastard, but I have never been into a single public library which had CDs.
A few have had some VHS tapes with foreign films, documentaries, and indie films, almost nothing mainstream.
One had a few DVDs tucked in with the VHS.
I've never seen a library with CD-Audio for borrowing, available.
I'm not saying they don't exist, just, they're not as common as people make them out to be I don't think.
Its is quite disappointing to see artists becoming enterprising industrial businessmen, where they don't spend time perfecting their art but rather make a business of what they do. There is nothing wrong with this, but demands from creative types for steady flow of income and riches seems to becoming more of a focus for artists.(Notwithstanding mass produced trash).
Your lawyer will tell you that need to consider the credibility of your own defense.
He will ask you to think hard before commiting to litigation that stands little chance of success, may drag on for years, and deplete your savings.
if you're living from paycheck to paycheck and don't have any tangible assets they can attach, you're basically scott-free. As the saying goes, "you can't get blood out of a stone."
However, the moment you OWN something, whether it's a house, car, whatever, you become vulnerable to having a lein placed against it. Those leins MUST be settled if you ever sell the item... or you cannot sell it. They can try to attach your wages, but unless you've got a government job, that can be hard to do.
One of my employees ran into this problem when some lowlife did a hit-and-run on her car... no insurance, no nothing. She filed suit against him, went to court, won, and the judge told her "I've seen this same individual in here for paternity suits... he has 9 different children with nine different mothers... you'll never see a dime." He was right.
Bottom line: if you want to live like a gypsy, or be a drifting-from-one-apartment-to-another and living-from-paycheck-to-paycheck individual, you have little to fear from the tort system. However, the moment you try to live the American Dream, you're caught.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
We the people should gather together and burn down (or otherwise destroy) the offices of the RIAA - end of story. (making sure to evacuate everyone first of course, and not damage non-RIAA property)
No really. Someone do it!
If they insist on abusing the law, perhaps the file sharers should give them a taste of their own medicine.
.02 cents.
By making a user "buy" a song from some provider, the user can lawfully affirm that they purchased the music and they had no reason to believe otherwise. Now the definition of "buy" can vary greatly from site to site, and if some server agreed that a user could download the media in exchange for the promise of payment (a contract). The user wouldn't really be liable, I believe. However, I am not a Lawyer, and I don't portend to be one.
If these top-level servers/providers turned over rapidly enough, the legal system wouldn't really be useful as a quashing system.
Just my
DISCLAIMER: I download all of my music legally from iTunes. However, I enjoy providing out-of-the-box solutions; particularly when they protect peoples' rights.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
We sue you so that we can stay alive. Of course, we ignore the billions and billions and billions of profits that we have. We in the entertainment business (mostly democrats) love our money.
This is the kind of thing that gives lawyers a bad name. You describe a fantastic money machine then spoils everything by saying "Personally, I'd set up in a small town, could get rent for $1000, a receptionist for $8/hr, and a paralegal for under $30k. A pure profit machine."
With this kind of profit, set up in a nice $5k office, pay $20/hr to the girl in the front desk, make the paralegals beg to work for you by paying them $60k-$100k. You'd still be making tons of money and everyone in the office would be happy...
Almost every library I've been to in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area (Hennepin County) has a decent selection of CD's. They will only let you take out 8 at a time though.
Most of it is classical, but there is some mainstream stuff also. Some of those classical CD's are like $90 each if you went out and bought them.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
That's not true at all, the GPL is not in any way a "defense" against copyright - hell, it *realies* on copyright to be enforcable. If we didn't have copyright, then the GPL would be *irrelevant*, not unnecessary. The restrictions the GPL entails would not be enforceable and all code already "GPLed" (or available any other way) would become "Public Domain". For anyone who felt the need, however, would still be quite possible to not disclose source code, create and use proprietry file formats and network protocols, use "GPLed" code without having to disclose modifications and derivatives, etc.
Without copyright there would simply be no way to enforce the GPL (short of written, legally binding contracts) - not no "need" for it.
For those Slashdotters in Austria, here is a student newspaper wherein a lawyer describes (on page 9 of the PDF) a recent case he defended against the RIAA's equivalent in Austria.
The case was based on Kazaa -- the young woman was forced to pay up to 200 Euros per song for future downloads. So this type of craziness is not limited only to USA and Australia -- Central Europe is also under attack.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
I bet the artists whose files were shared won't see one red cent of these millions.
It will all go to the lawyers and the suits.
Grrrrr....
there's a site called magnatune.com - they let you download stuff and split the earnings 50-50 with the artists.
Look, as long as we prop up these evil companies then we are going to lose. Stop buying from them. Why let them choose what music you can listen to anyway?
-ron
You hit the nail on the head.
I was just saying elsewhere in this thread: the arts and sciences don't need "promoting" as per the justification for copyright: they just need allowance to exist. Artists and scientists will do what they do because they love to do it, so long as they can afford to do it and are not too busy just making ends meet. If you want to "promote the arts and sciences", find some way to give the average populace time and wealth enough for their hobbies. Allow the products of those hobbies to be shared freely and we will all reap the benefits.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
...but here at least, that would not work. Fair-use copies must be made from your own copy. Copies of illegitimate works are still illegitimate regardless. And since it is very obvious that your random P2P user does not have distribution rights to offer RIAA music, I very much doubt it'll fly.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
At least the RIAA is diversifying!
IANAL but I am a tech. You can't prove that a connection to port "X" on shared IP "Y" is machine "Z" unless there is a log of that fact. All I suspect would be required would be logs showing more than one IP connected at the time of the ??AA scan; if the device doesn't log, then you might even be able to get away with showing a screenshot of >2 devices connected, when you have only 1 PC.
In a criminal case, that would probably get you off the hook (though if you were aware that people were using your network as a conduit, you'll have a hard time explaining why you didn't stop them). That'll keep your ass out of federal prison, but the maximum penalty in a civilian case is still $150,000/count.
Most cases are civil cases, where the threshold is 50%. More likely or less likely. Your WiFi defense doesn't go far towards 50%. Any evidence would seem constructed to provide you with a plausible defense (e.g. you have no log integrity to speak of, it could be a copy-paste or a photoshop).
Basicly, you need to have 1. A plausible defense as to why logging was on, but you weren't aware of unauthorized access (tech friend helping clueless person might work), logs that indicate that your wifi was being accessed at the time (very dangerous if they search your HDD and find it was you, perjury etc. etc.) and a judge who'll actually understand the tech matters and see you have a valid defense and not automagically assume RIAA vs pirate trying lame defense (which I'm sure there are some of). And it is still a gamble.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
how do you measure wealth?
i would posit that the efforts of groups like the riaa make a few corporations somewhat wealthier financially, at the expense of making all of us much less wealthier culturally
additionally, artists can still make money:
live performances, the old fashioned way
the way you and i make money: go to work
sure, it won't be jay-z money, but jay-z is perhaps the last superwealthy product of a pre-internet paradigm that is gradually dying
that paradigm can no longer be sustained, period: it's a societal shift that no one is forcing on anyone, it's just happening
the new paradigm supplants the old one without any purposeful driving force: no is shouting "kill sony records!" but that is what is happening, just like no one shouted "kill encyclopedia britannica!" but that is what the internet did
unintended and unforseen, but inevitable, consequences
it is only a matter of time before the dinosaur finishes its last death throes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You left out the risk premium.
You do realize that all usury laws do is cap who can get credit right?
Credit Card Rate = Cost of Money + Expected Inflation + Risk Premium
Cost of Money right now is about 2.5% (Fed Rate)
Expected Inflation is about 3% right now
So if you fix the top rate at 10% then the maximum allowable risk premium is 4.5%. This means you can afford to lend to a pool where maximally 4.3% of the people you lend to default.
Last time I pulled my credit report (you do check your credit report, right) that meant people with credit scores over 700 or so. This basically means that 40-50%+ of Americans would be to risky to lend to.
Don't get me wrong. I do support some form of usury laws because I do believe that some people are such large credit risks they shouldn't be allowed to borrow period (letting them do so is a harm to them and society). But you do have to realize that when you set the max interest rate for your usury laws you are not so much limiting the profit of credit card issuers as you are restricting access to credit to millions of Americans.
There are civil and criminal penalties for copyright infringement.
If the RIAA sues you, it's civil.
If a prosecutor indicts you, it's criminal.
Looking deeper into this article, I cannot believe Mamatas has not looked more carefully into his rights and copyrights. He basically takes and supports the RIAA and the news media's standard position: that file sharing is "stealing".
This article needs to be put into the perspective of actual copyright law. I will attempt this below.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
In Denmark, BSA lawyers gets 100% of what they get from all the software pirates. So they are in it for their own pockets, and the software companies gets nothing (apart from scaring some people).
According tot he law, you should pay compensation to the damaged party. If they do not get it, you could argue that there is nothing in the law requiring you to pay a 3rd party like BSA.
If the artist is not getting his normal share of this, I would say he is being cheated.
If you don't have a conscience about what you are doing, it's worth continuing.
themusicgod1@jabberwocky.hn.org
and we can exchange ideas, and perhaps help each other if our skillset union permits.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I have absolutely _no_ sympathy for people who think that because it's just a "little crime" there should be just a "little penalty".
Have you ever heard of the phrase, 'the punishment fitting the crime'? Its the basis for the concept we know of as "justice". For example, a man in Texas was sent to prison for 16 years for stealing a candy bar. Most people consider that unjust and a rather extreme penalty for a "little crime". Do you have any sympathy for him, or is he an evil lawbreaker? Where exactly should we draw the line on how to punish people if we don't try to balance and take into consideration the nature of the crime?
Cecilia Gonzalez didn't settle against the RIAA, and on January 7, she received only a summary judgment in a U.S. District Court ... [T]he court ordered her to pay damages of $750 for each of 30 songs she was found to have downloaded illegally.
$750 PER SONG? That's insane. How the hell is a song (incidentally a metaphor for something cheap, as it "sold it for a song") worth $750 in damages? At a record store, you can pay $20 and get ten of them! I thought these people ran record companies...
Seriously, does anyone know how this is calculated? I know they're trying to factor in the "lost revenue", but what about "gained revenue" from people who just use P2P as a 'try-before-you-buy' thing to sample new music before they buy the CD?
There would be no advantage to keeping your source code secret, so people wouldn't and therefore the only "advantage" of the GPL over the public domain (forcing people to supply source code as well as binaries) would be unnecessary. Why would there be no advantage? The same reason there's no advantage to welding the hood shut on a car. When people are accustomed to paying for maintainence (instead of paying for a "product" which they never maintain) they demand that third parties be available to supply that service (otherwise there is no incentive to create a decent product in the first place).
How we know is more important than what we know.
If it's on filename alone then someone who has the necessary time and resources could create a honeypot experiment. AFAIK this is not illegal but could give the pretext for being tested in court.
I'm no expert but I can see it going something like this:
Create several gigs of files composed of random gibberish
Files should be suitably named & sized to catch the eye of the watchers
Take MD5 sums so the file can be later verified by an expert.
Share on a popular network
Wait
h are_settlements/ has set in here as well.
If suitable documentation was kept it would blow the RIAA evidence out of the water. Prosecution would also become that much more difficult if a computer forensics expert was required for every case.
Note: Personally I don't illegaly download music and don't necessarily approve of those who do, however I disagree even more with the strong-arm tactic of the RIAA.
Also I don't reside in the US, but the rot http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/04/bpi_files
Jaywalking is against the law, and I have absolutely _no_ sympathy for people who think that because it's just a "little crime" there should be just a "little penalty". That's nothing more than a bunch of handwaving to rationalize the criminal activity in the first place.
Wow. I see your point now.
"I have a family member who lives in poverty."
Its okay to say "crack whore" in public these days.
Of course. Before you use this defense, you take out your hard drive, bury it in the backyard, and put in a new hard drive.
Use some common sense here.
The current rate for a mechanical liscense on a song is $.08, eight freakin cents each!
Not 750 dollars!
If I record a song by Richard Marx then I owe the copyright holder $.08 per copy. How the RIAA has convinced people that one song is worth $750 for one copy ids beyond me. If I ever got sued the only thing I would settle for is $.08 / song! Nothing more because that is all they are out.
They are suing people for copyright infringement, but using retail based values to establish dmages. Its like Apples and Oranges.
Move to a country that allows CD rentals (yes, believe it or not, jon doe, there are countries with far more freedom that the USA).
Next, share your music WHOLESALE. That means swapping DVDs chock full of music with your friends, family and random folks you meet on the street. How much does a DVD cost? 50 cents? You spend more on that for your daily news paper. It's good karma to share your toys and make people happy. Don't you want good karma? Sure you do. Everyone does.
Third establish small WASTE networks of trusted friends and encourge them to encourage their trusted friends to do the same. Cross share between these networks and wait for 7 degrees of seperation to do it's thing.
Conclusion: the recording industry is so hopelessly fscked that about the only meaningful thing that they can do is turn the USA into a completely shit place to live (either because you've been bankrupted or because you live in fear of it). Enjoy the downward spirle folks!
Ya know I was looking into buying tickets for a concert, only to find they were sold out, of course. Yet I could find number of places online that were selling anywhere from 10-30 tickets with a 300% mark up. With the latest RIAA file sharing hassles, how is it that they let some random middleman make all this extra cash on concert tickets. I wouldn't mind paying $150 a ticket if I knew it was going directly in the bands pocket, but to pay $150 and know that 100-120 bucks is going in some random middle mans pocket just pisses me off. Maybe fans should start fighting for decent concert ticket pricing!
One thing I enjoy doing is going to the Thrift store to buy old jazz records.. You can't beat 5 entire LPs for $1.00.. Orrin Tucker, Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet, etc..etc.. ya can't beat it..
it just makes me wonder why I can get such great music for so cheap a price, but yet crappy music like Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys requires me to pay $20 for their album..
its the CONSUMERS choice wether or not they want to donate the music to the public that THEY bought in the first place..
record reps should be more concerned with artists ripping other artists off as far as their guitar licks, chord and vocal progressions, etc.. creative artist protection.. oh wait, then they wouldn't be evil, and would be broke..
there's no reason people should be defending the labels in any case.. the people that do are biased in some way, or just plain stupid and inhumane.. quit exploiting my fuckin passion..
- Hi I'm Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Linux, Lih-nix..
By stealing their reproductions you empower them indirectly.
By not taking their reproductions at all you weaken them. It seems pretty damned simple to me.
If you want the wolves out of your neighborhood "STOP FEEDING THEM" is the first step.
I have no problem with a business protecting itself. The shotgun approach in public is unacceptable though and makes them very dirty in my eyes.
Also if they bring a suit against someone and then drop it after they get the "correct" facts, they should have to pay out at the same inflated levels they set for themselves, at a minimum. Just saying "Oops, My Bad" doesn't work for sharers, why is it ok for them. They caused extreme discomfort in some innocent persons life, but somehow thats acceptable.
There would be no advantage to keeping your source code secret
The advantage is that your competitor couldn't take your source code, modify it a little and release it as their own product.
Prick.
So, if it is shitty music in your opinion then it shouldn't be allowed to be produced in the first place? How about a phone number so we can play our music for your approval?
Sure, parents might be liable for the actions of their kids, but complete strangers?
Of course, it's hard to argue that it's a win to convert civil copyright infringment into felony obstruction of justice by carefully deleting all evidence of your up/downloaded files when you get the subpoena...
and you can make it even more error prone using network with proxy servers. And proxy does not always mean low performance - read http://larytet.sourceforge.net/rodiAnonymity.shtml
I think that this is because they can't tell reliably how many songs downloaders have (they'd have to get the downloader IP, then request a file list from that IP, if that feature is supported by the client software). Its easier just to sue those who share.
It would probably be legal for them to sue leaches as well (it would be great if they'd reverse tactics and just sue the leaches).
It doesn't matter who did it. If your name is on the cable/dls/whatever bill, you're the one responsible, and your're the one who's gonna get sued. This is generally in the service contract from your ISP.
While reading TFA, I had a thought.
If you get subpoenaed just submit to the judge that yes you did download but you own a license for every song you downloaded so you didn't break the law.
Then find out what songs they list in their brief against you and go buy it in legit form, like singles, cd, etc...
That way when you have to prove that you have the license for the copyright you will have it and save yourself about $735 per song (since the minimum is a $750 fine per song copyright violation).
Seems a lot beter than giving the bloodsucking RIAA lawyers your money plus tying up their time in court making it futile to continue on suing people en-mass because of the cost of litigation (if everyone who was subpoenaed did this).
Posted this higher up so I might get some feedback..
While reading TFA, I had a thought.
If you get subpoenaed just submit to the judge that yes you did download but you own a license for every song you downloaded so you didn't break the law.
Then find out what songs they list in their brief against you and go buy it in legit form, like singles, cd, etc...
That way when you have to prove that you have the license for the copyright you will have it and save yourself about $735 per song (since the minimum is a $750 fine per song copyright violation).
Seems a lot beter than giving the bloodsucking RIAA lawyers your money plus tying up their time in court making it futile to continue on suing people en-mass because of the cost of litigation (if everyone who was subpoenaed did this).
Uhhh.. you're still thinking about software as a product? Even though we're talking about a world without copyright law? Are you really that short sighted? It really is pointless talking to people like you.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Or, do you envisage essentially a return to the days when artists were sponsored by wealthy patrons, who then release the music to the public without worrying about even covering their own costs?
I envisage a world where people are not caught up in the busy-day-to-day work of just surviving, and have free time to do what they love and share it with others. Our society seems wealthy enough that we're supposedly not concerned strictly with survival anymore, and are making leaps and bounds in the arts and sciences - so why are so many people still working their asses off doing things they hate? Where is all this extra effort going? It seems to me it's either profiting only a few fortunate individuals ("Remember, your time is our money!"), or a lot of it is just wasted effort in an inefficient system. Or both.
Think about it. Naturally, we tend to want to get done what needs to be done, and then have free time to do what we want. A lot of people want to be creative. If they had the time and means to be creative, they would be, simply because they *want to*, for its own sake. Profit does not have to be an incentive to do art, people simple need the economic ability to pursue it.
Are we really still so caught up with survival that we can't afford free time for art? How has civilization progressed at all if we're still spending all day - more than our ancestors used to, even - *just making ends meet*? Where is all this labor going?
If we as a civilization really can't afford to be doing this, then we just shouldn't be doing it. The reason why in ancient times wealthy patrons financed the arts without respect to "intellectual property" was because they wanted beauty in their world, and they were far enough removed from survival problems to be able to afford it. If a given society didn't have any people wealthy enough to afford it, art didn't get done, cause people were too preoccupied with things like food and shelter.
In our supposedly egalitarian society where we (in theory) strive not to have a few wealthy and powerful barons surrounded by masses of grovelling peasants, then if *anyone* is wealthy enough to be able to finance the arts (either their own works or the work of others), then *many* should be afforded the same priviledge. If we as a society aren't that wealthy, then we shouldn't be wasting effort that is better spent keeping people alive. But it seems to me that we as a society are plenty wealthy to keep everybody alive and comfortable and give them enough free time to pursue the arts for their own sake. So why don't we have that time? Where is it all going? What's the problem in this system?
One way or another, "intellectual property" like copyright just doesn't make any sense, and is a broken hack, a kludge, to try to allow equality opportunity to pursue the arts and sciences. Unfortunately like all hacks and kludged it is easily exploitable and is now being turned against its original purpose. It just doesn't work.
The only sensible way is to pay for the arts up front and allow for their free (as in speech) replication. In a ruthless cut-throat barbaric old-world kingdom, the wealthy princes could afford to finance the arts and give them away. In a supposedly advanced and egalitarian civilization like ours, we should all be able to afford it. So why can't we?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Sure there would - the same "advantages" there are now. Others can't "rip off" your code, you can lock in with closed file formats and protocols, etc.
When people are accustomed to paying for maintainence (instead of paying for a "product" which they never maintain) they demand that third parties be available to supply that service (otherwise there is no incentive to create a decent product in the first place).
Except that software vendors can charge for the product *and* the maintenance. All the software vendor has to do is tie continued use of the product to themselves - eg: by hardware dongles or updates that require "valid" registration numbers.
I can assure you, software vendors would go down the "registration" or hardware dongle path *long* before they go down the "open source" path were copyright law to suddenly up and disappear.
Err, there would be all this software out there that would be free to redistribute. It would be impossible to keep selling that software as a "product". It would be free to reverse engineer also which would make it impossible to keep a monopoly on maintenance.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And completely unsupported, thus making it very unattractive to most corporations (and that's assuming it wasn't tied to a hardware dongle of some description).
It would be impossible to keep selling that software as a "product".
Of course it would be possible. As I said, all you need to do it technologically tie it to some piece of hardware or only support "registered" copies.
It would be free to reverse engineer also which would make it impossible to keep a monopoly on maintenance.
It's "free to reverse engineer" now, but things like WINE still suck. What makes you think that would change ?
No. I mean it's free to decompile and redistribute in "source" form. This is not legal today. If it were you would see OpenPhotoshop and OpenWord based on the output of a decompiler.
How we know is more important than what we know.