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RIAA Hands out more Lawsuits
Syrae writes "The RIAA has unleashed yet another round of copyright infringement lawsuits against 754 people. Evidently they still had some customers that they had to make an example of. I guess the RIAA never saw the study that says that file sharers spent more money buying music online than those who don't share music at all."
I guess the RIAA never saw the study that says that file sharers spent more money buying music online than those who don't share music at all.
Not to sound harsh, but I guess the submitter never saw why the RIAA should care. They don't want anyone distributing unlicensed copies of music. It's illegal. Even if certain studies suggest a higher likelihood of legitimate purchases, going after individual infringers is well within their rights, and anyone would have to be blind not to understand why they feel this is in their best interest.
As the submitter conceded, they're making an example.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I guess the RIAA never saw the study that says that file sharers spent more money buying music online than those who don't share music at all.
Since when did the RIAA care about the facts? They're not a morality organization, their only purpose is to generate revenue. Just like the SPA, MPAA, etc., these things start up as corporations run by high-powered attorneys. It's a great way to justify the existence of such an organization to the labels. As most people are already aware, the music industry wouldn't be what it is today without online file sharers who spend wads of cash buying legal music they ended up liking. Not trying to flame in the least bit - but why is everyone so surprised that an organization like this is defying all reason to pursue a bottom line?
Below is a translation of the above superficial facts.
I support the idea of doing non-criminal activities as a way to avoid punishment for criminal activities. For example, if I steal a car and, later, donate the car to charity, then the authorities should ignore my original theft. I am Buddha. Therefore, I make the rules.When I go out to get gin, I don't steal it, despite my desire to have both my cash and my gin.
Stop bitching. Stealing and copyright infringement have nothing to do with each other. The first part of your post made a good point, because the submitters last sentence is indeed loaded.
Ranting and karma-whoring won't get you anywhere.
Are you saying that it is alright to pirate music then? Is it also ok to steal cable television? What have they lost? Potential revenue. Yes, I know this is not exact, but I think that it is a start. There does exist a person who asks "Why would I buy a cd that I just downloaded?". I have encountered many who feel that way personally.
Oh yea, if you were actually looking for an answer to your origional question, itunes charges .99, I think that may be a start.
That is a very good point. Another thing I noticed after reading the summary of the study that was linked to in the post was that it was misleading, or at the very least, incomplete. The study said "that those who regularly download or share unlicensed music also spend an average of £5.52 a month on legal downloads through sites such as Apple's iTunes Music Store or Napster. Those who were not illegally filesharing spent just £1.27 a month on digital tracks." I don't think they consider CDs to be digital tracks here.
They don't seem to have included CDs at all in their study! How do we know that those who weren't illegally filesharing weren't spending £8 per month on CDs? Maybe these folks were in fact LARGER consumers than the file sharers.
And consider the guy that's behind a modem. He's not really able to do much downloading of mp3s as it is, so that cuts down on both his filesharing and his legal purchases. I just don't think that this survey is particularly useful. Its method is flawed.
Anybody who does not agree with the RIAA's current actions, should do the same: Vote with your wallet.
Killing the guy who takes your mate is human nature too. What a stupid argument. It's not "human nature" that laws should be aligned with, it's the "will of the people" and on the matter of file sharing the people have spoken: we want to share.
How we know is more important than what we know.
If you liked it, you went out and bought it. Now before you say, "Yeah, but digital lasts forever". Nope, CDs get scratched, p0rn sites unleash system infecting bots to delete, etc.
Did you read the study? Or are you trolling?
Well, this particular one deserves an answer regardless, so here it is.
It doesn't necessarily lead to that. It may lead to a prospective customer discovering an unknown band (whose CD they never would've bought or even considered without being able to download risk-free samples), falling in love, buying that band's CD's, T-shirts, and attending their concerts. A nice windfall for the band, AND for the consumer-neither would've known the other existed but for filesharing.
Of course any system will have freeloaders, that want to get out of paying for anything, ever. These are the same people that were borrowing or copying tapes from their friends nonstop. That's been happening for decades, and the sky hasn't fallen yet.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
My biggest reason for sharing is that it is sharing. It is not stealing. It is not taking something that will deprive another person of ownership. When I share a CD with a friend, you are not loosing anything. The artists are not loosing anything. The only one with a paranoia of loosing money is the Corporate executives. And the only thing the suits are loosing is sleep, hair, and customers who they disfranchise.
In the USA we have the right of free speech. Often, some of the most insightful ideas come from music. What was the history of the 1960's? What happened. What was the mood of the people. You can find out in the music. Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival told you more about the Vietnam war than Nixon did in any speech.
This is the USA, not China. What will the USA do? Tax ideas? If you want to share this piece of music then you must pay $15 for the CD or $30 a month to download something you won't own, a file that will play today but not tomorrow?
If you want it to be different, file sharing copyright content will not make things better, it will just get your ass sued. Start voting with your dollars.
No matter what grass roots campaign you start, or how good of a candidate you find, we the people can NEVER win. The establishment uses money to buy votes. Why does a Senate seat cost 5+ million dollars?? How can Joe Sixpack, everyman, ever get elected to high office? Instead you get Senators that have debts to pay to those who contributed money. And guess where the money comes from? Corporations. So when the head of the RIAA or Sony calls Senator Hatch, guess what Senator Hatch does? He listens and votes. Guess what happens when Joe Sixpack calls Senator Hatch. Not a damn thing.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Very good point, but just FYI, you'll be a lot more credible if you simply point out that "trading music illegally" is, in fact, illegal in the United States. But just because it's illegal doesn't mean it's anything like stealing gin. It's definitely not considered theft under US law. In fact, it's considered a civil (rather than criminal) offense for sufficiently small quantities (whereas if you pilfer even a single bottle of gin, it's likely a criminal offense in whatever country you may hail from).
Just a friendly note to help your real point be heard (namely, that "trading music illegally" is still illegal even if it actually makes the RIAA money). Such a point is a lot harder for the Slashbots to shout down.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
As for that last sentence, I would agree that stealing music is wrong. Nevertheless, I think a lot of this boils down to something Steve Jobs was preaching when the ITMS store launched.
Essentially, Steve has been arguing that downloaders are usually not people who steal for the stake of stealing, they steal because they're music junkies who REALLY like the convenience of downloading music.
This means that if you cater to these people, and you give them convenient / reasonable ways to buy music legally, many of them will gladly do it.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
*sigh* Once more... An IP address is not an identy.
No, an IP address is being sued for uploading. There is no proof that a specific person used an IP address to upload.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
it's not about losing money, it's about losing control.
Yes, I feel sorry for all those who got extorted by the RIAA. They are the few (soon not so few), the proud, the ones who will help change the system! The more lawsuits that come from those baffoons the more people will get pissed off and finally start giving a shit about how they are treated.
Obviously, strong arm business tactics are alive and well. They never really left you know. Every great change in technology brought about decades worth of suffering of the people while the boneheaded ones finally benefitted in the end! Fair? Nope, not in the slightest. Who said life was fair?
Puts a tear in me eye it does. *sniff*
-FlynnMP3
I'm not sure how this analogy applies to the RIAA and MPAA. They are not all-powerful, even among huge corporate interests, and certainly not in our government. Just because things are going their way right now doesn't mean that the slow mechanisms of representative government won't eventually force them to acquiesce.
Once the media company sells something to me then it is mine and I will do with it whatever I darn well please.
I doubt that even the most staunch advocate of fair use rights would say that the intent of copyright is to allow you to do whatever you please with copyrighted material.
I can't make photocopies of books then sell those photocopies, for example.
Based on the Grokster decision, when file sharing services are making money off of other people's copyrighted materials, and are obviously inducing people to use their service expressly to make money off of copyrighted materials, you're on the wrong side of the law.
Situations that fall short of obvious copyright violation and inducement to violate copyright are still open to legal interpretation. Right now the RIAA is suing the crap out of people not because they feel they can win the cases, but because they are trying to frighten people into submission.
The Congress has thus far been acting at the behest of the entertainment industry, but the courts aren't beholden to the legislature or the entertainment industry. They make their decisions in a rather different fashion. As Lessig wrote in his post-mortem of the Eldred case,
Kennedy in good faith wanted to be shown. I, idiotically, corrected his question. Souter in good faith wanted to be shown the First Amendment harms. I, like a math teacher, reframed the question to make the logical point. I had shown them how they could strike down this law of Congress if they wanted to. There were a hundred places where I could have helped them want to, yet my stubbornness, my refusal to give in, stopped me. I have stood before hundreds of audiences trying to persuade; I have used passion in that effort to persuade; but I refused to stand before this audience and try to persuade with the passion I had used elsewhere. It was not the basis on which a court should decide the issue.
The entertainment industry is obviously run by people who are trying to hold on to an outmoded business model, as you pointed out. But I'd argue that having or not having pity for them isn't really the point. The point is that taking music isn't necessarily the most effective way to fight the entertainment industry. Impatience with the slowness of the legislative and judicial systems is a tenuous argument for breaking the law, particularly when we're not exactly talking about stealing a loaf of bread for your starving family.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Way to dodge the issue. If you don't believe that laws should represent the will of the people then you should leave your democratic country right now and go find a nice dictator to live under.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Sadly, the RIAA continues to defy reality and believe that suing its customers will bring them back (damn, how many times you gotta BOMB people to make 'em stop HATING you?) when people are faced with an alternative source of music (illegal or not) that is more convenient, better suited to getting them what they want, and cheaper (either free or $1.00 a song).
Unfortunately, I doubt that even the RIAA is so stupid or stupefyingly myopic that they can't see this, so I conclude that it's not about money. They want to be able to control you. They want control what you can listen to. They want to be able to stop anything new they can't pimp to enrich themselves.
They are scared to death of the internet. They hate the idea that I can could pay $12-14 for 12-14 tracks of music that I know I like, as opposed to 2 good songs and 12 pieces of filler because that would force them to put out the effort to create more good music. They hate the idea of something that can be replicated with no physical effort, because those who make money off pressing CDs will be destroyed by it if they don't adapt. They are scared of change, and intent on pulling as many people down as they can.
There's no question that the RIAA will be destroyed by the Internet. The only question is how many people with will take down with them.
> 30 seconds of previewage isn't at all adequate for prog or trance, but.. whatever... just had to mention that.
I wish I could preview the whole song at reduced quality or something. There are a number of songs that I've bought but wish I could "take back". If I could listen all the way through I would probably buy more music.
My other car is first.
>I don't know how on earth they managed to do that, we have a pretty strict network policy.
What do you mean "I don't know how on earth they managed to do that"? Here is how it all likely went down:
RIAA: Hi, we want to monitor your network for thieves.
DEAN: No.
RIAA: Our pack of wild, hungry, ravenous lawyers says we can or we can sue you.
DEAN: Our network is your network.
Also, a "strict network policy" is only meant to protect the network from its users, not the other way around.
Finally: "being careful by staying within the school's system" is never careful. You should not trust a system you do not *COMPLETELY* control yourself. You might as well just stick a giant neon sign above your door.
It is literally, literally, comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruit, both are sweet, but they look and taste COMPLETLEY different. You wouldn't call them the same thing. Those people who are comparing it to people stealing a car/CD/etc. are the same people who believe that the RIAA is telling the truth when they say they've lost "xxx Billion Dollars in Sales" from those internet pirates.
Ghaasp! WoW
People who trade files illegally are the same ones who would record music off the radio (or XM, or whatever)
The piece of information that the RIAA (as well as the MPAA) have failed to understand, is the fact that those who file-share, are the ones who would lend out CDs, albums, cassettes, VCR tapes, DVDs etc.
They aren't *losing* a penny, as they wouldn't have bought the music / movie in the first place. They'd have just done without.
Now, once they've sampled the goods (granted, by what's considered illegal means) - and no, a 30 second snippet is not a preview, you have to see the whole thing, or listen to the whole song to know whether it's good or not - they may decide that a particular band, or director is worth spending money on.
In the end, they make more money than they ever did prior to the file-sharing.
Now to the "fuck the RIAA/MPAA" segment.
Neither the RIAA nor the MPAA help the artists. They only help themselves. A bunch of fucking suits who sit around doing abso-fucking-lutely nothing all day, every day, while they collect xx% of the purchase price of every main-line DVD/Movie sold so that they can cushion the wallet between their sorry fat asses and their over-cushioned seats. All of this just because somewhere along the line, these do-nothings decided that they would "help" the artists out for a nominal fee. Who knows, maybe at first they actually did help some of them out. Now, however, they (the MPAA and RIAA) are the real problem with the entertainment industry.
Once they've taken their xx% cut, then the artists, directors, gaffers, painters, set-makers, etc get their cut.
Once the RIAA/MPAA are wiped off of the face of the earth, along with their ambulance chasing lawyers, the artists might actually have a chance to earn a decent cut of their products, and prices would actually drop.
The MPAA/RIAA kind of reminds me of the line from space-balls.
Jaba-the-gut accidentally ate himself to death.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
No one's being ripped off.
If the music companies feel like they're being ripped off they're free to screen their customers more carefully. If they sell the product to the customers then they have no legitimate control over what the customers do with the product. This is a well known fact. This is not something that can be solved by suing customers after the fact. Face reality.
Go to some venture capitalists and tell them,"I have a great idea for a new product. There's one problem: the product is easily copied by anyone with a computer."
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
When >95% of the financial resources in this nation are controlled by 5% of the population, it's quite easy to see which minority the government is protecting.
Don't you think?
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
That's ok. The majority of Slashdot seems to think copying a song without permission is no big deal. But when a company copies Linux and releases it without the source, then it's a HUGE deal.
Gotta love the hypocrisy.
(disclaimer: Yes, I know Slashdot has a lot of different folks on it and not all share those same set of views at the same time, but a lot of them seem to.)
dont share music. leech it, sure, just dont be person sharing it.
Of course "they" saw the study. They're a huge association and I'd be shocked if the collective staff from all the member companies hadn't read every study ever written about music piracy. However "they" simply don't care. The RIAA's not concerned that pirates also purchase music because their profits aren't significantly affected by that tiny proportion of buyers. The RIAA's greatest fear is that if they turn a blind eye to the pirates then the practise of copying music will be legitimised in the eyes of the vast majority of their customers, aka normal people, and that the majority of customers will stop buying music.
And that's why the RIAA uses pathetic copy prevention schemes, laughable studies and random lawsuits. They're not trying to convince YOU to stop copying. They know YOU will see through the bullshit and YOU will go to extreme lengths to circumvent the copy prevention. They know YOU are both incredibly smart (techwise) but also so lacking in common sense that you will risk having a criminal record to avoid spending $5 on a pressed CD from the bargain bin. They know YOU will spend countless hours reading websites and installing obscure software to get illegitimate copies of music.
However YOU are not the target of all their efforts. They're trying to convince the other 99% of the population that copying music isn't worth the effort. And they're using several techniques in a "shotgun" approach to do that. They're using scare tactics, "copy and you'll be sued", and appeals to emotion, "copy music and little Jimmy will starve to death", and appeals to decency, "copying is plain immoral", and technical barriers to copying that thwart 99% of people, "don't hold down the shift key", and stomping out networks like Napster so the digital copies that are made by smarter pirates aren't widely circulated.
There will always be criminals. The RIAA knows they can't stop them all. But they can deter the rest of the population from becoming criminals as well.
As a good example of this, I stopped regularly buying CDs in the late 90s, as they neared the $20 mark. Since about 2000, I have purchased a grand total of 3 CDs. One of these CDs was a new release from a band I was (formally) a big fan of, and I own most of their other CDs.
But the other two are the interesting ones - a friend uploaded me a bunch of mp3s during a lan party a few years ago. In this mix were two non-mainstream bands, Opeth and Soilwork. You can't hear them on the radio, and it's only been in the last few years that they have begun to show up in the US. (at Ozzfest)
I now own CDs from both these bands, and am considering more. But I already have the music on my computer - nicely infringed. Why would I buy more of their CDs?
*Audio quality - I can rip at the bitrate I want my music ripped at
*Album art
*To support two kickass bands which aren't trying to sound like all the rest of the music played on mainstream radio stations.
Since I missed the last few Ozzfests, and they don't get radio airtime, would I ever have found these bands otherwise? No. If it wasn't for my infringing friend (who also has started buying their albums) neither of us would have ever heard of these bands, nor dropped any money on their cds.
Infringement can be one kickass tool for exposure, and that's the part I wish the *AAs would get through their thick skulls. Why waste a zillion dollars advertising and paying off DJs, when you can release 1/3 the songs on a P2P network, and let people drive up business through word of mouth&file sharing? Even if you can't do this for your top-tier artists, there are plenty of new artists you could "test out" like this for very little money.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Main difference being that when someone steals alcohol, the physical product is GONE and can no longer be sold. This is not true for downloaded music. Hooray for blatantly incorrect analogies.
The submitter says:
I guess the RIAA never saw the study that says that file sharers spent more money buying music online than those who don't share music at all.
The real point is that it doesn't matter, because copyright infringement is still copyright infringement, and a copyright holder has to defend against it. Also consider that people downloading materials, regardless of whether they end up buying them, also:
1.) Tend to have computers with high-speed connections that are on all the time, which means they probably have more disposable income anyway, and...
2.) These people are distributing copyrighted materials to others just by downloading them, since that is how most P2P apps behave--uploading what you're downloading so others can have it too.
I want to echo the double-standard mentioned elsewhere in that some people defend infringing on copyrighted materials via P2P but get upset when the copyright of the GPL is violated. Just something to think about, that's all.
"Sufferin' succotash."
If we can find out who these people are and put them in contact with that groovy lawyer for the woman who made news last week re: fighting back, plus sent in the cost of a single CD to that lawyer to help offset expenses... why, shit, we might have a revolution at hand.
For a few bucks each, we can help make RIAA's life a living hell.
Good entertainment value there!
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Are you saying that it is alright to enact laws that the majority of people don't want?
I am... Democracy is not mob rule! You logic can be applied to civil rights just as easily... why should minorities have the right to vote if most people don't want them to?
Copyright and drugs laws: the perfect examples of people being ruled instead of represented by their government.
Copyright is a good example of the government defending the rights of the individual against the desire of the masses to simply take. It isn't comparable to the war on drugs.
The huge problem with these crackdowns is that they result in the development of more secure, more anonymous file sharing technology making the sharing of information amongst terrorist groups harder to snoop on. If it wasn't for these trivial attacks on relatively mundane sharing activities, the authorities responsible for monitoring serious criminal activity, that has a true negative impact on society, would have a much easier job.
Back in the day, these people really would get their collective asses kicked.
if they're that hard up for money, they should sell blood, or a kidney.
But to rat out a fellow student? Lowest form of life on earth. I mean, particularly since they're only helping the RIAA. They're not helping the artist, the school, nothing, but the the RIAA.
And they probably did it for $100. Tools.
"Ranting and karma-whoring won't get you anywhere."
Karma-whoring? Do you really think his position is karma-whoring here on slashdot??
And the fact that he used the common man's verbage and called it stealing is playing word games. Both are breaking the law. Maybe you could argue that infringment is breaking cival law whereas stealing is breaking a criminal code. But as wierd as these times are I don't know if that's true anymore, stricktly speaking.
I don't like seeing copyrighted material being shared via P2P but then I also don't like the way the copyright has been extened over and over so that it never runs out.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Actually, although the two are somewhat different, they can be related. What's the difference between piracy and stealing?
Piracy makes unwanted duplicates, but otherwise causes no *damage* to the firm. The copies the users make with their own bandwidth costs the company nothing.
So, let's make this analogy. Let's say you find a way to secretly tunnel all the gin you want, for a discounted price, the Cost of Goods Sold. We'll call this 'pirating' gin. You pay COGS and get your gin. The company loses no money.
Now, from the company's perspective, the two are equal. They obviously would like you to buy instead of pirate, and pay retail instead of COGS, but neither is making them *lose* money.
Unless, of course, you all of a sudden, assume they are pirating instead of buying. However, the surveys suggest this is not an accurate model.
Surveys suggest that users pirate music and buy more music than other people. The analogy now would be, that you 'pirate' your gin, then buy two bottles at retail. Compare that to someone else who only buys one bottle.
Despite the fact that you are 'pirating' gin (or music), the company is still better off having you do both.
Obviously, they would rather have you buy three bottles than buy two and pirate one, but they're still doing just fine.
Company makes money. Customer is drunk. Everyone's happy. Why do we need lawyers for this?
Partial Credit: The Engineer's Best friend
"Well, the bridge didn't fall all the way down!"
As handy as iTunes might be, there is a good quote; "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes"; a truckload of CD's heading to the music store is a more efficent than pumping bits through the internet.
And you think that each customer piloting a gasoline fueled, 3000lb metal monster a couple of miles to the mall to buy a small plastic laminated disk is somehow efficient?
A station wagon full of tapes may be an efficient way of transporting bulk data from point A to point B - but it's not an efficient way of distributing data, especially when downloading only takes a couple of minutes and few watts of power.
The real reason it scares them is because it threatens to make them, the big labels, obslete. You see digital recording has gotten really cheap these days. You can build a home studio good enough to make professional sounding CDs for less than $5000 including computer, software, hardware, mics and room treatment. No, it won't be what you get at a real recording studio, but it'll be enough. That aside, you can buy time at more professional studios for amounts that most bands can afford, if they try.
Well, previously that wasn't the case, but it didn't really even matter because even if you did have a studio, you had no way to sell your wares without them. Retail chains wouldn't deal with little operations so you had to sign with big music if you wanted anything more than local exposure.
No longer, the Internet gives you the capability to reach the world, and cheaply. Now still most people aren't using it that way, the majority still buy music in stores, but that is changing. More and more are realizing that you can get music on the Internet, legally, and they are very excited.
Now if that move continues, and if indy groups and labels continue to unite in things like http://www.cdbaby.com/ well that represents a very real threat. If you start getting musicians that can just bypass big music entirely, then they are fucked no matter what.
That's the real worry the RIAA members have. Is that society as a whole will realise that it doesn't need them. That musicians will be able to produce their works, with no restraint, and that people will be able to instantly try those works, and buy what they want, without a penny ever going to big music, that scares them more than anything.
And it is comming.
Well, it would appear I've been deemed flamebait in my GP post for daring point out a logical error, but I'll continue on anyway.
Main difference being that when someone steals alcohol, the physical product is GONE and can no longer be sold. This is not true for downloaded music. Hooray for blatantly incorrect analogies.
I'm not debating that point at the moment, I'm attacking the claim that music piracy increases record sales because of a correlation between people who pirate music, and the amount of music they buy. The submitter (and many other people) claim that because there is a correlation, there must be causation. However, this isn't the case, and it is a fallacy to claim that it is. It is IMHO far more plausible, and perfectly logical, that both music piracy and purchasing music have a shared, unrelated cause, which is "liking music". People who like music have a higher propensity to pirate music, and a higher propensity to buy music. So when you look at the population of music pirates, it looks like they buy more music (and they do), but it's only because they are more likely to be members of the population of people who like music that they buy more, it's not the piracy itself having any effect on music purchasing.
Musicians want their music heard. Whether or not they get paid, they want their music heard. Some musicians, and bands, PAY OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKET for air time on local radio stations.
Downloading an mp3, even if it's from a known musician is NOT stealing. I don't give a hoot what you think the law says, or what it actually says for that matter. The law in this regard is supposed to reflect the feelings of the composers and performers... now, take this scenerio...
You approach Madonna, and say, "Wow, I've listened to all your songs and I'm a huge fan." Hell will freeze over before Madonna demands proof of purchase, or even ask, "Did you buy my CDs or did you just sit by a radio all day long?" About the ONLY thing we might hear a musician pitch is, "Oh, the T-Shirt stand is over there..."
As a musician myself. I will NEVER accept any notion saying that downloading an mp3 is either wrong, or illegal. I'll tell a judge to his face that he and his court is insignificant and irrelevant, without acute vision of the issue at hand then walk the hell out of the court room.
How many times must this be explained before it sinks in? The GPL is designed to maximize sharing, in fact to require it, while copyright's aim (and this wasn't its original intent but a distortion from literally centuries of special interest corporate lobbying) is to prevent it beyond anyone's reasonable lifetime. There is no contradiction between supporting enforcement of the GPL and non-commercial copying and distribution. In both cases the vision is an open society. Why are so many here and their happy moderators unable to see past the means to this simple goal?
By the same token you can attack the claim the "loss" calculated by the RIAA is based on a fallacy. They proceed from the false assumption that if the person had no access to the music illegally, they would buy the CD. I submit that this is also simply unprovable and therefore should not be used in the calculation of "loss" the labels feel they have as a result of P2P. However, such a logical leap is never questioned when the labels trumpet it in articles and whatnot. No one says "how do you know person X would buy it?" If they wouldn't buy it anyway, it's not a loss and it cannot be calculated as such.
;) Or perhaps $3/gallon gas is cutting into some people's entertainment budgets.... The RIAA is amazingly able to put blinders on.... no matter how many facts get in their way.
:-)
Basically, I'm saying the specious claims are not limited to the P2P defenders in this conflict.
Also, by your line of thinking, you can also make the connection that piracy isn't affecting sales at all for music in general, because those who engage in P2P infringement are among the targeted group who purchase the CDs anyway, and that is the RIAA's most lucrative demographic. So by that assumption, perhaps the quality of releases does have more of an adverse effect on sales, rather than the specter of "piracy" that simply is trumpeted so sell the general public a bill of goods ("it's better if we control your computer, because those evil bastard pirates are going to hack you!") But that's another line of discussion.... I digress.
Besides, I left my tinfoil hat in my car... I can't go into that line of conspiracy thinking without it.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Absolutely right, all of those things are perfectly open to debate. I'm not saying I've proven piracy doesn't help sales (though I very much doubt it does), I'm only saying that the pro-p2p submitter's claims are flawed, being based on incorrect logic.
Personally, I don't really think harm matters, I just think that morally a copyright holder, who has gone to the bother of creating music or other intellectual property (or paid someone else to make it) should have the right to limit the distribution of that work, since were it not for them it wouldn't exist. I don't really see why harm is essential.
If I make an incredibly beautiful painting, and decide that while I'm willing to show it to people, I absolutely can't bear to have photos taken of it (for whatever reason, maybe I'm just an eccentric artist), and I make this wish clear, so everybody knows I don't want photos taken. Given this, is it then okay for someone to take a photo of my paiting? It doesn't hurt me or the painting (it may even publicise it more so I get more viewers, benefiting me), but I just think that morally I, or anyone in a similar position, should be able to place that restriction, and anyone who violates my above wishes is committing a breach of trust, and a wrong against me, regardless of actual harm.
In other words, I don't know if the RIAA are morons or not trying to fight piracy, but I just think they have the right to do so.
A perfectly reasonable argument. But its quite simply unrealistic. Despite whatever theory of rights we have concerning our own identity, there's really not much we can do to prevent all the companies in the world tracking us for all sorts of commercial endeavors. Likewise, when every cell phone is a camera we cannot keep pictures of ourselves off the internet, let alone works of art. Putting that aside, you have to ask yourself whether this right you suggest really applies to the copyright holder or the true creator. When a select few corporations own the majority of music, do we extend to them this same tolerance of excentricity? Do they really deserve artistic control when they've put in no artistic effort? Our society says that ideas and techniques can be bought and sold as a general rule (while finding ways around when it when it suits us), but does that mean so can the respect, loyalty, and consideration that comes with those ideas? And of course, one could go on and on about whether any person truly owns an idea, and whether or not it belongs to society itself...
So who are these copyright holders? First, get it out of your head that these copyright holders are anyone who is protected by the law. Big media companies are like loan sharks. They don't give a damn about the artists and they don't give a damn about the artists rights. The Constitution was written to protect authors, inventors, and creators from entities like big media companies who will use any leverage point, any tactic possible, to wrest control of the original invention or creation from the rightful owner. This is precisely the tactic that the English monarchy used and it is the precise reason for the inclusion of of the intellectual property clause in the Constitution. It was recognized that the legal "copyright holder" very rarely has the best interests of the author, inventor, creator, or even society at heart.
Take into account the sheer perversion that has become our Federal Government, the influence of lobbies, the influence of big business, and attempt to find a single shred of protecting original authors and inventors in our system of copyright law. There isn't any. That employee agreement that you signed is a perfect example. Rather than protecting and securing your rights, as a potential author/inventor/creator of IP, copyright law and the courts ensure that your employer has full right to back you into a corner (employed or unemployed? not a tough decision) and wrest your IP from you.
Now that we've identified that the big business players aren't playing by the rules, and neither are the politicians, on what basis should we citizens be required to participate in their set of rules? If it could be shown that the individual artists, authors, and creators, the rightful owners of the copyright, were involved in this process and were destitute as a result of file-sharing, then I would support the legal actions against them. The reality is, however, that the actions of the RIAA and the big media companies with respect to IP are gestures of unrepentant greed. If these actions were being taken through their own hard work, I'd say more power to them. With the amount of federal money which pours into the media industry directly, and the amount of taxpayer money which is wasted on these lawsuits, though, I demand that they stick to the Constitution. Per the Constitution, if anyone has a lawsuit, the artists have a lawsuit against the media companies for taking their copyrights away. The Constitution, and thus the federal government, serves one thing in the realm of IP: To secure to the authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective creations for a limited time. There is no mention of "copyright holder" (aka kinder, gentler extortionist) in the document--and for good reason.
It's not okay, but it's certainly not something I would want codified into law. Did you search them for cameras before you let them in the studio? If you allowed them to bring a camera in then, well, it's your own fault. Don't waste my tax money running them down.
With their own money, yes. Within a jurisdiction which can support them, yes. In Federal Court? Absolutely not. At taxpayer expense? Absolutely not.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
I'm sure you are a musician and I'm sure you're speaking earnestly, for yourself. Musicians are people, and just like regular people there are ALL types. Idealists, realists, kooks, those driven for success, etc.
I happen to run a free internet radio program so I have the honor of talking to a fairly wide variety of musicians, most of which are happy to do what they can to get their music heard (I'm not doing the site for profit so I ask permission to play the tracks sans royalties, etc; bandwidth already costs me enough).
Anyhow, its not like I don't see where your coming from but I think its over simplifying the issue, I'm sure even Madonna would get pissed after the 100,000th sweaty kid told her he'd downloaded all her music for free and she might have to find a another means to support herself.
What I *am* seeing is the free download (as in encouraged) becoming the new single. But even indie artists can be (and I don't blame them) pretty protective of their music (most seem a bit nervous about being 'featured' with the flash applet I use while their more comfortable with the regular contiguous stream (aka Shoutcast).
$.02
Quack, quack.
This is more the situation in question with music. This "music", mostly of arguably poor quality, drenches the airwaves in a fashion that is free to the consumer. The RIAA doesn't make a penny off of most of this. They get paid by record companies, which unless they are also the publisher of record, do not make royalties on radio airplay. Therefore, applying the same standards, they do not deserve one cent of money obtained from sharing on the net, which one could argue serves the same purpose of being a promotional vehicle for selling the album and/or songs from it.
This, coupled with the strong correlation between people who download music and people who buy lots of music via download services, strongly suggests that these lawsuits are largely without merit. The only reason these suits are continuing is that the RIAA has been careful to pick their battles and not sue people with sufficient resources to actually fight them.
The groups that DO have the right to pursue these suits (but aren't) are ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. The day ASCAP starts suing file sharers is the day I drop my membership, as it sure as hell wouldn't be doing most of its lesser-known composers and publishers any favors, IMHO, and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Guess what file sharing does for independent artists. Guess which major group of artists can't get airplay because the airwaves are controlled by RIAA shills. Guess what the RIAA is really afraid of. I'll give you a hint: lost sales revenue of Britney Spears wannabes isn't it. A free market for music. That's what terrifies them. When such a free market actually arrives, they and the record labels they represent will no longer be necessary or useful. They will no longer be in control.
The RIAA knows that they can't stop the flood... but their lawsuits might at least slow it down while they try to figure out how to exploit the new market that is forming and mold it into an oligopoly.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
are you seriously trying to suggest that copyright infringement is _not_ murder? Communist!
Seriously though, no court in the world will convict you of theft for breaching copyright. Yes, yes, we know, violating copyright is against the law, but the law doesn't call it theft. Neither should we. Really, calling a copyright violator a thief is probably slander, and therefore punishable by law.
We (who don't call it theft) don't need to justify our position. If you are going to call it theft, please reference for us even one legal code that refers to copyright infringement as theft. Or lacking that, perhaps a moral or religious teaching to justify calling copyright violators theives (We may not agree with it, but it would at least provide a reason for you to say it). If you can't find even one reference in law or commonly accepted moral/religious teaching to justify calling copyright infringement theft, then perhaps you ought to stop. Think about it.
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I'm tired of these commercials I see on TV that advertise some DVD. they all say, in that voice, you know the one:
"OWN IT TODAY ON DVD"
It should be illegal for them to say that. It's false advertising. If I could actually "own it on dvd" then I could make as many copies as I please. say what you will about piracy of music and movies, but before you give these fuckers the moral highground how about they start telling the TRUTH and say,
"LICENSE IT TODAY ON DVD"
yeah, doesn't quite have the same ring to it, huh?
I don't care what you call it.
But it takes time and effort - a LOT of time and effort to produce good music, and the only person who has a right to give away someone's time and effort is the person who put in that time and effort in the first place - not some dickhead with a computer (or a tape recorder for that matter).
Music will always be copied and the musician will only rarely be compensated, every sane musician knows and accepts that - and to some extent it can be a good thing. At least copied recordings aren't as bad as someone playing your music and claiming it as their own, and it can help get exposure when done right.
But what really pisses us off is that some people somehow think it's their _right_ for us to make music for them for nothing, and then hide behind "It's not 'Theft'" arguments as if that somehow makes it right. To those people, I say Fuck You.
But if we're going to play word games, I propose an alternative - don't call it "Theft", don't call it "Piracy", and especially don't call it "Copyright Infringement" - instead every time you share a file, I want you to say with pride that you are committing an act of "Freeloading off someone else's hard work without giving them a fucking cent"
"FOSEHWWGTFC", doesn't it just roll off the tongue?
Advanced users are users too!
How about just *not buying* any DVDs or CDs? How about emailing the RIAA, the film producers and the record companies and tell them you're not buying their products because they're overpriced?
It doesn't matter how many times this discussion appears on Slashdot, the RIAA is not going to take a blind bit of notice until people start to hit them where it really hurts - in the wallet.
I personally use music downloading as a "try before I buy scheme" now - if I like it, I buy it because nothing beats having a nice shiny CD in a nice shiny case with some nice music on it; otherwise I delete it because it's just not worth the space on a hard disk or CDR.
With movies, I read reviews and go to the cinema or buy the DVD only when I am sure it's worth the money.
In both cases, rip-off high street stores like HMV or Virgin get *none* of my money unless they have prices that compete with on-line music and movie vendors.
As a result, I spend about 1/3 of what I used to spend on CDs, movies and DVDs and I'm now much happier with what I buy.
Unfortunately, it's the "sheeple" of the world that just sit there blindly consuming everything the music and movie companies churn out that are the problem - if we were all a lot more careful with what we spent our money on, this would send a very powerful message back to these companies and allow us, the consumer, to dictate what are fair prices and what we deem good quality products.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
For Gods sake, file sharing isn't all about stealing the latest Mariah Carey album. If you want to avoid being prosecuted, stop downloading music published by the big multinationals, EMI, RCA, Time-warner, etc. etc. You aren't missing out on anything. 90% of my collection is from artists who aren't signed up to this draconion bullshit, and it's a damn sight better then any of the trash the major labels are trying to spew onto me. With the moving of p2p into the mainstream the RIAA only exists to scare off warez kiddies, who have enough money to buy the albums anyway. If you buy into the corporation, you have to live with it. Same goes for anyone who downloads material from them. Just say no kids. Get it on tape instead
Repeat after me: "Unlicensed copying is not theft."
Really. Unlicensed copying is not theft. Nor is personal downloading piracy. Piracy, in matters of copyright, is when you sell unlicensed copies of a work, thereby denying the authorized publisher and the author revenue from customers who without question would have made a purchase, as they purchased it from you. Congress has never passed a law explicitly criminalizing personal downloading, and if they actually intended for a law which provides for $250,000 fines to apply to copying a $15 CD, once, then that law would certainly fail the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause. This isn't just me talking, you'll see comments to this effect in several judicial rulings related to copyright infringement.
I'm seeing comments in this thread trying to compare the freeloaders to people who actually break into someone's house and steal their stuff. That's not what's going on here at all. The recording industry has engaged in a long term effort to brainwash us all into believing that it is a matter of natural law that we do not have the right to copy information. In fact, the clause in the constitution explicitly permitting copyrights and patents reflect that those who crafted the constitution saw that as a matter of natural law we should be able to do whatever we please with our information, and Congress had to be explicitly authorized to restrict this. Copying can be fair use, or it can be civil or criminal infringement.
So, why are they trying to crack down on the very same downloading that's driving revenue? It's all about power. They want to control everything you do with their content. They want to ram DRM down your throat so far that you can't play any content that they or their allies have not (cryptographically) signed, which implies any content produced by someone they have not contractually signed. Extreme laws are passed only in response to perceived emergencies, so they're creating an emergency.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
IMO the fact that "it takes so much effort" to make a record is part of the whole problem here. The big labels are spending so much money on advertitsing artists they have to run the music through audience tests like if it was a damn commercial. Music has simply grown from something that was integral to every human (I don't think the tribe shaman went around checking that no-one was playing his tunes between the ceremonies) to something that, to the majority of listeners, practically only exists as a refined, produced ooze that's supposed to fit as many people's tastes as possible.
FOSEHWWGTFC seems to be the only way to turn this around and KILL THE MUSIC INDUSTRY so we can have the art of music back from the corporations.
NOTE: this does not apply to marginal artists releasing stuff on small labels.
NOTE2: I also make music, and no, it doesn't take all that much effort. Only when you assume that you have some God given right to live off of your music hobby is when you start drawing conclusions such as the one in the post above.
Once upon a time, the record companies had something that the general public did not: the ability to manufacture records. Thanks to this, it was possible for a few people to get rich selling records -- and some of the people who actually performed on the records even got a tiny cut of the money.
..... as though the record companies weren't the ones who got the lion's share of the price of a CD and made their fortune off the back of other people's talent.
Today, anyone can make their own CDs. The record companies are no longer the only ones with this ability, and they aren't happy about it. And they have the gall to hide behind artists not being compensated
The well has run dry. People in the past put up with paying money for 78s, because that was all there was; and later, LPs, because although by that time there were such things as tape recorders they were either awkward {open reel} or limited fidelity {cassettes} and so LP was still better. When the Compact Disc came out, people not only bought new CDs; they even spent money buying CDs of the exact same material they already owned on LPs. {Of course, the LP replacement market is finite -- and probably has already run its course by now}.
The only certain way to prevent people from copying CDs is for there not to be any CDs to copy. So this is what I'm suggesting: it is time for the music industry to pack its tent away and go home. I am not going to deny for a second that it was good fun while it lasted, but everything has to come to an end sometime. People were making music before there was a recording industry. What reason is there to suppose that they will not continue making it long after the recording industry is gone?
The quantity of music available might decrease {no more manufactured boy bands, yeaay!}, but the quality should improve if all musicians are doing it just for the love of making music. Bands might even do better without the record companies: anyone {at least, anyone who doesn't work for Sony Music} will tell you that touring, not album sales, is the real money earner.
Anyone who makes music today with the expectation and intention of getting compensated for it is a prat. We are all grown ups and we all know exactly what goes on. For crying out loud, it's the exact same instinct that makes you want to get paid, that makes people not want to pay you! So if you, as a musician, really can't stand the idea of people listening to your music without paying you for it then don't make music in the first place. Find another way to feed your family. It's as simple as that.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Isn't that known as perjury?
1. The MPAA and RIAA are NOT ARTISTIC ASSOCIATIONS!
This merits repeating. The MPAA and RIAA are NOT ARTISTIC ASSOCIATIONS!
Admittedly, they are "industry" organizations, but this also implies that they represent industry interests, which are not always the same as artists' interests. In both cases, you've got lawyers and legal staffers, who serve the interests of distribution companies, financiers, studios, you get the idea.
2. The MPAA and RIAA exist in large measure to perpetuate and protect obsolete business models. It's partially driven (obscured?) by goals of being able to exact revenue from each viewing, each session, each "show". In their minds, this was the way it's supposed to work. I'd like to think they're bright enough to realize they can't keep doing business in quite the same way, but they can't even see which way they are going. It isn't only the technology they don't understand, but those "suits" don't understand the nature of offering the sort of entertainment that makes audiences want to see more, but not necessarily more of the same.
3. ...lest we forget, the entertainment industry moved to California first to dodge their creditors in the east, secondly to avoid paying tax debts, but also to avoid paying royalties to Thomas Edison. Edison and company invented the production and post-production equipment on which the American film and sound recording industries modified to their own specifications.
Of course the less polite version alleges that they ripped off Edison outright. ...can't be as morally reprehensible as copyright infringement, right?